tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88114180383136569802024-02-20T14:49:46.314-06:00Zenith Press...The BlogUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger193125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-32592248001185704152011-12-12T08:33:00.000-06:002011-12-12T08:33:17.024-06:00Firepower Breakdown - AC-130U Spectre<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-nNUaOsddvF6NMGxsCJlHWd-zDmcv9KxAsAeynU0Llm0Yw7nvME22XcZYmmgbpmITC_YhP7d5kNezcE5rffxJCZ0y_g87jfQp1teBYlL3F-Z4f1pIAAbMFSYSQI2Umx33eH-qHuhxYe3/s1600/AC-130U+Spectre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-nNUaOsddvF6NMGxsCJlHWd-zDmcv9KxAsAeynU0Llm0Yw7nvME22XcZYmmgbpmITC_YhP7d5kNezcE5rffxJCZ0y_g87jfQp1teBYlL3F-Z4f1pIAAbMFSYSQI2Umx33eH-qHuhxYe3/s1600/AC-130U+Spectre.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The AC-130U model Spectre. This particular aircraft is in operation with the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Florida.</td></tr>
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The primary mission of the AC-130U Spectre is to deliver precision firepower in support of Close Air Support (CAS) for special operations and conventional ground forces. CAS is defined as air action against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and that require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces. The Spectre can provide accurate fire support with limited collateral damage and can remain on station for extended periods of time. These activities are normally carried out under cover of darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The lethality of this gunship is created by three weapons. As you enter the AC-130U by way of the front crew hatch and turn to your right, you’ll find the GAU-12/U 25mm Gatling cannon that is full traversable and also capable of firing 1,800 rpm ffrom extended altitudes of 12,000 feet. Positions in the rear of the aircraft are the 40mm Bofors gun and the M102 105mm Howitzer cannon. The 40mm is ideal for providing CAS in “danger close” support to friendly forces due to its small fragmentation pattern. Alongside the Bofors is the M102, 105mm Howitzer cannon, a derivative of the U.S. Army M1A1 howitzer. It has been modified to fire from an aircraft, placed in a special mounting and positioned on the port side of the gunship.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGT9xS2nM2nxQNNFPKz7XP_IKKu-4Ab5l889xjoXJHYhWjGer2oG3YM96YMc6OjtEDE__h6RvgNLARML8gxcANi5IK8pqKyIb6af8upJO0PL59-_9JMhdcH0G7pW198uLZLnVC5g3-kkio/s1600/25mm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGT9xS2nM2nxQNNFPKz7XP_IKKu-4Ab5l889xjoXJHYhWjGer2oG3YM96YMc6OjtEDE__h6RvgNLARML8gxcANi5IK8pqKyIb6af8upJO0PL59-_9JMhdcH0G7pW198uLZLnVC5g3-kkio/s1600/25mm.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An up close and personal view of the 25mm cannon.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Unlike the “fast movers,’ that is, F-15s, AQ-10s, and so on, which must have qualified forward air controllers (FAC) for ordnance delivery in close position to friendly forces, the AC-130U can be controlled by fire-support officers, team leaders, or self-FAC. The fire-control officers are located in the Battle Management Center, or BMC. Here they operate state-of-the-art sensors, navigation, and fire-control systems. These systems, coupled with the trained eyes and skilled hands of their officers, enable the crew to deliver the Spectre’s firepower or are saturation with surgical precision—in adverse weather and in total darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><i>Excerpted from </i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Delta-Force-Fred-Pushies/dp/0760338248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323700294&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">Weapons of Delta Force</a></b> <i>by Fred Pushies.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
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</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-26627835757822282872011-12-09T08:40:00.000-06:002011-12-09T08:40:45.171-06:00Bomber Breakdown - Petlyakov Pe-8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPvIr6RWoK413fLuRSNULJBOmsKH557pROmkxayUYe6fVgrrN9OxhESsuMjaay36Fz45FOfhqCdUzrkU6Dg8AnG-ktLUNapsFtxf-AgG5s7XezmtYSHWWHXR2R74D93X_d3KfmTEDJU_X/s1600/Petlyakov+Pe-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPvIr6RWoK413fLuRSNULJBOmsKH557pROmkxayUYe6fVgrrN9OxhESsuMjaay36Fz45FOfhqCdUzrkU6Dg8AnG-ktLUNapsFtxf-AgG5s7XezmtYSHWWHXR2R74D93X_d3KfmTEDJU_X/s1600/Petlyakov+Pe-8.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Petlyakov Pe-8 was a Soviet heavy bomber designed before World War II, and the only four-engine bomber the USSR built during the war. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Originally designated the TB-7, the aircraft was renamed the Pe-8 after its primary designer, Vladimir Petlyakov, died in a plane crash in 1942. Supply problems, inexperienced pilots and crews (compared to the pilots of the <i>Luftwaffe</i>), and persistent engine problems heavily hindered the bomber's effectiveness throughout the war</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Image and specs excerpted from </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145738/9780760334508/Allied-Bombers-1939-45.html">Allied Bombers 1939-1945</a></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> by Chris Chant. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-72332529161633555202011-12-07T08:40:00.000-06:002011-12-07T08:40:27.165-06:00From the Pages - The USS Dale at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1iqR1JgRHpmkF1hzAz-8vFpRjc8hZPbB6rNCFW0M-XRYGs6EVUS6Oz0q6aRalKuHjLQpwfJAQO8jFOPH0SLFYT_xJlDNvf6gAFUmzywiw5_d6KkdBlktKZc0lM5-Dh_o07JthuinJKteL/s1600/9780760338261.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1iqR1JgRHpmkF1hzAz-8vFpRjc8hZPbB6rNCFW0M-XRYGs6EVUS6Oz0q6aRalKuHjLQpwfJAQO8jFOPH0SLFYT_xJlDNvf6gAFUmzywiw5_d6KkdBlktKZc0lM5-Dh_o07JthuinJKteL/s1600/9780760338261.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Michael Keith Olson, author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Tin-Can-Pearl-Harbor/dp/0760338264/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323266420&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20"><b>Tales from a Tin Can: The USS Dale from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay</b></a>.</i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">DECEMBER 7: JAPANESE ATTACK</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pilots aboard Nagumo’s six carriers awoke very early from what surely must have been a nervous sleep. Yet, despite all of the anxiety, Flight Commander Fuchida found Lieutenant Commander Shigeharu Murata, leader of the torpedo bombers who would soon strike Pearl Harbor’s battleship row, hungrily wolfing down a hearty breakfast. Murata called out, “Good morning, Commander Fuchida. Honolulu sleeps!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“How do you know?” Fuchida asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The Honolulu radio plays soft music,” Murata responded. “Everything is fine!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At 0600, Nagumo’s six carriers began launching the first wave of airplanes. At 0630, Commander Fuchida turned south in command of forty Kate torpedo bombers, fifty-one dive-bombers, forty-three fighters, and forty-nine Kate high-level bombers. Months of training were about to culminate in an operation that would commit Japan to a war with the industrial might of the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though most of Honolulu slept, a few were being made aware that something was up. In the early morning darkness, the destroyer USS <i>Ward</i> (DD-139) spotted the periscope of an unidentified submarine near the entrance to Pearl Harbor. The <i>Ward </i>attacked the submarine, sank it, and then reported the incident up the chain of command. Then, at approximately 0700, an alert army radar operator saw the approaching first wave of Japanese airplanes on his scope and called in a report to his superior. Both reports, however, fell on deaf ears and nothing was done to increase Pearl Harbor’s readiness for what was about to come from the sky. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> Some mornings, the waters of Pearl Harbor would be so still the seaplane pilots could not see where to land, and so we’d have to send out the motor whaleboat to stir up the water a bit. On mornings like that, you could always pick up the smells of fuel oil mixed with tropical flowers, and after a week or two at sea those smells were mighty inviting. My Sunday morning ritual at Pearl was to sit out on the fantail with a cup of coffee and a newspaper and enjoy the early sun and those tropical airs. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Cliff Huntley:</i></b> In the peacetime navy, it was customary to give weekend liberty to two-thirds of <i>Dale</i>’s crew when we were in port. Three of us had gone together and purchased a much-used 1935 Chevrolet. The two-thirds rule meant that on any given weekend, two of us owners would have the car. On that weekend, Ensign Vellis and I drove the car into town to spend the night in some nice rooms across the street from the Moana Hotel. It was always great to get off the ship and get into Honolulu, a beautiful place with many small homes and maybe one-third the population of today. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> There were ninety-six ships in Pearl Harbor that morning and no reason to expect any trouble. After all, the <i>Honolulu Advertiser</i> I was reading told how Japanese Ambassador Nomura was going to meet with the Secretary Cordell Hull in Washington that very morning to talk about peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">0700 to 0755 </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the first wave of attacking Japanese airplanes approached the north shore of Oahu, two reconnaissance planes launched earlier reported the U.S. fleet to be asleep at Pearl Harbor. While there was no sign of an alert, there were also no aircraft carriers tied up at the moorings on the north side of Ford Island. This piece of news greatly frustrated Commander Fuchida, as the carriers were his primary objective. But the battleships were lined up like bowling pins along battleship row. Fuchida radioed in code to Nomura, and all of Japan, “To . . . To . . . To . . . [attack, attack, attack] Ra . . . Ra . . . Ra . . . [success, success, success].” At the time, American radio operators translated the two separate syllables as the single word<i> tora</i>, Japanese for “tiger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fuchida’s fighters were the first to arrive in the air over Oahu. They fanned out over the island, established air superiority, and then commenced strafing the American airplanes parked wing to wing on the ramps of various air bases around the island. Next came his dive-bombers, which dove on ships and facilities. Then came the lumbering Kate torpedo bombers, which headed straight for battleship row. Finally, above it all, flew the level bombers with 16-inch armor-piercing naval rounds specially adapted for dropping from on high. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Dellmar Smith:</i></b> I was sitting on a forward torpedo tube with a cup of coffee, talking with Humphrey. We saw a big bunch of airplanes coming in over the mountains and got to wondering which carrier they belonged to. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They could not be coming from the<i> Saratoga</i>, because she was in dry dock in Bremerton; nor the <i>Enterprise,</i> because she was participating in an exercise way down south somewhere. And the <i>Lexington</i> had just gone to sea Saturday, so it was doubtful her planes were flying back already. It just didn’t make any sense. So we watched as they flew in from the mountains. Then, when they got to about a hundred yards away, Humphrey jumped up and said, “Goddamn! They’re Japanese!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Don Schneider:</i></b> I had the messenger duty that night, which meant I didn’t get to sleep until four in the morning. I was working as a mess cook, so my bunk space was down in the mess hall, where there were always a lot of guys coming and going. Mess cooks were at the bottom of the ship’s totem pole, and sleeping mess cooks were fair game for whoever happened to come through. When someone came by yelling that the Japs were attacking, I yelled back, “Go to hell!” and rolled over for more sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Warren Deppe:</i></b> We were eating breakfast down in the mess hall. At the time, we had aboard this chief torpedoman we called “Sailor Boy White,” who was the ship’s practical joker. One of his favorite gags in those days, when everyone’s nerves were on edge, was to sneak into a compartment when nobody was looking and yell, “The Japs are coming! The Japs are coming!” And so, when Sailor Boy White came running into the galley with a terribly frightened look on his face that morning, nobody paid him any attention, even when he started pleading that he was telling the truth. Then we heard the explosions! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> Just then, a plane flew by at about thirty feet. I could see the pilot plain as day. He wore a leather helmet with straps under his chin and a pair of goggles. I could see the whites of his eyes, and he was totally fixed on the old <i>Utah,</i> which was an old battlewagon the navy had stripped down and converted to a target ship. She had a big wooden deck on her, so dive-bombers could practice bombing her with sandbags. She looked a lot like an aircraft carrier and was even anchored in the same berth the <i>Lexington</i> had vacated the previous day!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I did not realize what the plane was until I finally got focused on the big red rising sun painted on the fuselage. And then I saw the torpedo drop and watched as it ran up on the old <i>Utah</i>. The explosion sent a huge fountain of water shooting way up high into the air. I remember dropping my newspaper and yelling, “We’re being attacked!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> I had the radio duty and was sitting at my desk reading the Sunday morning funny papers when I heard some unexplained explosions. Just then one of the fellows came by the radio room yelling, “The Japs are attacking!” I ran outside just as a torpedo plane came across our bow and let go his torpedo at the battleship <i>Utah</i>. I even noticed the smile on the pilot’s face he was so close. Heck! I could have hit him with a rock!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest Schnabel:</i></b> I was absorbed in my Sunday morning crossword puzzle when I heard some aircraft flying real close. I looked up and saw two planes flying by at about masthead height. Then I heard explosions on the light cruiser <i>Raleigh</i> and the old <i>Utah.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>J. E. McIntyre:</i></b> I had just finished breakfast when the GQ alarm went off. To get to my station in number one fire room, I had to go topside. When I did, a Japanese torpedo bomber flew by so close I could have hit it with a potato—if I had one. I then went below to the fire room and didn’t come up again until the next day. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jim Sturgill:</i></b> I was sleeping in when the general quarters alarm clanged away and sailors began throwing gas masks, helmets, and elbows everywhere. I jumped out of bed, got dressed, and ran topside. When I stuck my head out the hatch, I saw explosions throughout the harbor and burning ships. My stomach fell and I knew in an instant that we were at war. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Alvis Harris:</i></b> I was down below, brushing my teeth and getting ready to visit a neighbor from back home who was stationed aboard the battleship <i>West Virginia</i>. There was a huge commotion, so I ran outside to see what was going on. The first thing I saw was a Japanese bomber dropping its torpedo, which then ran right up into the old<i> Utah</i> and exploded. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Mike Callahan:</i></b> I was to have the duty at twelve noon and so went to early mass. While the service was going on, we heard a tremendous amount of gunfire, and I wondered why they were having exercises so early on a Sunday morning. Then someone burst into the church and yelled, “We’re being attacked!” I ran outside and knew in a second it was true. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest “Dutch” Smith:</i></b> I ran up to the OOD, who was a young ensign, and said, “Sir, the Goddamn Japs are attacking!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He said, “Ah, you’re full of baloney!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then I said, “Well, go back and take a look at the <i>Utah</i>, if you don’t believe me.” He went back and looked at the<i> Utah</i>, which had just been hit with a torpedo. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> My general quarters station was at gun two, which was up forward. So, when that torpedo hit the old <i>Utah</i>, I took off as fast as I could. As I was moving along the length of the ship, I passed the ward room, where a frightened-looking ensign was standing in the hatchway. “We’re being attacked, sir,” I said without slowing down.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>John Cruce:</i></b> A young ensign was standing in the hatchway with his jaws wide open. I ran past him yelling, “We’re at war, sir!” I kept right on a-running until I reached the galley, where I pulled the general quarters alarm. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Cliff Huntley:</i></b> We heard the bombing in our rooms across the street from the Moana Hotel, clear up in Honolulu. We dressed as fast as possible, jumped into the Chevrolet, and raced off toward Pearl Harbor, where we abandoned the car at the gate. It was the last any of us ever saw of that old Chevrolet! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZ5yB5SGfMjbP1Mcu1sY1ccSBy1ywG4n2-XhgG-m8aPzmjyMxeAsHUnsHbuIGVb28yakJwHzNy_K8Kg7wgU_Q2BVVgJCcSEhzx3cezosJ9v3o1jyPCWmzxsgY44XhT9ylvXsLDTNVdLq2/s1600/2+Pearl+Harbor+1941.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZ5yB5SGfMjbP1Mcu1sY1ccSBy1ywG4n2-XhgG-m8aPzmjyMxeAsHUnsHbuIGVb28yakJwHzNy_K8Kg7wgU_Q2BVVgJCcSEhzx3cezosJ9v3o1jyPCWmzxsgY44XhT9ylvXsLDTNVdLq2/s1600/2+Pearl+Harbor+1941.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pearl Harbor -- 0600, December 7, 1941.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">0755 to 0820</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With no aircraft carriers to attack, the Japanese pilots focused their attention on battleships, seven of which were tied up along battleship row on the north side of Ford Island. The remaining one, the USS <i>Pennsylvania</i> (BB-38), lay in dry dock across the channel. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Within the first two minutes of the attack, all of the battleships along battleship row had taken hits from dive-bombers. The torpedo attacks took longer, as many pilots took two or three runs before actually launching their torpedoes. The anchored U.S. fleet was at a low state of readiness, and a few of the ships’ machine guns were manned. The <i>Nevada</i> (BB-36), for example, had machine guns manned in her fighting tops, and consequently suffered only one torpedo hit, as compared to the six that hit <i>West Virginia</i> (BB-48), four on the <i>Oklahoma</i> (BB-37), two on the <i>California</i> (BB-44), and one on the <i>Arizona</i> (BB-39). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the attacking planes sent torpedo after torpedo slamming into the battleships, <i>Oklahoma</i> rolled over onto her side and sank into the bay. <i>West Virginia </i>also took on a severe list, but counterflooding by daring seamen prevented her from rolling over and allowed her to settle onto the bottom on an even keel. The <i>California, Maryland</i> (BB-46), and <i>Tennessee</i> (BB-43) also suffered varying degrees of damage in the first half hour of the raid.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite the explosions that filled the harbor area with fire and smoke, the Japanese pilots, well trained from months of practice, maintained discipline. Most of their attack runs were made in coordinated groups of three to five planes. Many of the strafing fighters came in very low, sometimes passing within a few feet of the ground in pursuit of targets, which often included cars or people. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At about 0810, the <i>Arizona</i> was hit by one of the modified 16-inch armor-piercing naval rounds dropped by a level bomber. The round penetrated the <i>Arizona</i>’s deck near turret two and ignited in the ship’s forward ammunition magazine, mortally wounding the ship. The resulting explosion and fire killed 1,177 crewmen. Those serving on ships near the exploding <i>Arizona</i> that day would say, “It rained sailors!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert</i></b>: I got to my general quarters station at gun two before anyone else and even before the GQ klaxon sounded. By then, there were explosions everywhere, and I looked around for what to do next. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Each of our 5-inch guns needed a powderman, shellman, pointer, gun captain, and phone talker. Trouble was, most of our crew was ashore, including the older married guys, who were the ones who knew how to do everything. And that was not the least of it either, because we were tied up at Berth X-14 with three other cans. The order was <i>Aylwin, Farragut, Dale,</i> and <i>Monaghan,</i> which meant we were sandwiched tight between two other cans, and none of our forward guns could bear without shooting up our sister ships! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> I dashed down to the radio shack and started the ball rolling. We came up on every important frequency I could think of. The Harbor frequency was the one on which all the important messages were coming over. The first message I copied was, “Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is no drill!” Next was a message for all ships to get under way. Then the frequency became almost useless due to the Japs causing interference and sending out messages for all to cease fire. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>John Cruce:</i></b> We had no gunnery officer, no firing pins, no powder, no first-class petty officer to install the firing pins—if we could ever find them—and no orders to fire! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Herman Gaddis</i></b>: The Officer of the Deck up on the bridge, Ensign Radell, hadn’t been in the navy more than a year and was shaking like a leaf because he was now the acting captain of a U.S. Navy ship at war. But we also had a thirty-year chief petty officer up there, and he said, “Relax, son. We’ll make it out of here just fine!” So they worked things out together and soon put out orders to set material condition Affirm and light off all the boilers! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>J. E. McIntyre:</i></b> When I got to my GQ station in number one fire room, the only person there was Lead Fireman Schnabel. I asked, “What are we supposed to do now?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Get the hell out of here as fast as possible!” Schnabel answered.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Get out of this fire room, or get out of Pearl Harbor?” I replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Let’s light her off and get her out of Pearl Harbor!” he said. Luckily, we had the ready duty Saturday, and our boilers were still warm. Otherwise, we were cold iron. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then I said, “We can’t fire the boilers because they’re full of water!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You take care of the fire, and I’ll take care of the water,” he ordered, and then opened the drain valves and started to drain the warm water straight into the bilges. Usually we lowered the water levels gradually by pumping the water overboard, but that morning, time was not allowing. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> I looked up and saw a guy climbing way up to the top of the stacks. I watched him for a moment and realized he was trying to cut loose the stack covers. Whenever the burners weren’t lit, the stacks would be covered to keep the rain out. But when the stacks were covered, there was no way to light off the burners because they couldn’t get enough air. The bosun mates that had covered the stacks were all ashore when the Japanese attacked. So someone had to climb up there and cut the stack covers free, and all he had was a small pocket knife! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Herman Gaddis:</i></b> Up on the bridge, things became pretty intense when we found ourselves looking straight down the muzzle of one of the <i>Farragut</i>’s 5-inch guns. Now the <i>Farragut</i> was tied up directly to our port side, and they were shooting wildly about at anything that moved. Ensign Radell ran out on the flying bridge yelling, “Point that damn thing the other way!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest “Dutch” Smith:</i></b> I was the pointer on the forward 5-inch gun. But there was no place to point because the F<i>arragut</i> was tied up to port, the <i>Monaghan</i> was tied up to starboard, and the Japanese torpedo bombers were flying real low. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Herman Gaddis</i></b>: We had this black mess attendant aboard named Dixon who was very popular with the crew. He came running up to the bridge and said, “Our five-inch guns can’t fire because they don’t have firing pins!” We then realized all the firing pins were in the gunner’s mate’s locker, and the gunner’s mate was ashore somewhere. While the rest of us froze with the impossibility of the situation, Dixon ran down to the locker, broke in, grabbed up all the firing pins, and handed them out to the gun crews. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>John Cruce:</i></b> I asked for permission from the bridge to open fire, but no one answered. Since there was nobody up there to say “No,” we went right ahead and blasted away at the next Jap plane to fly by. Our ammo was really bad, and our shots kept going off way behind the targets. I kept yelling down to the fuse cutter, “Cut the fuses! Cut the fuses!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>A. L. Rorschach, Captain’s Log:</i></b> The presence of ships on either side of <i>Dale</i> prevented the use of all forward guns. The forward twenty-four-inch searchlight made it impossible to bring the [gun] director to bear in the direction of the level bombing attacks on the battleships. The 5-inch guns operated in local control with very poor results, the shots bursting well behind and short of the targets, a squadron of level bombers flying at about ten thousand feet above the battleships on alternately northerly and southerly courses. 0815 an enemy dive-bomber attacking the USS <i>Raleigh</i> from westward came under severe machine-gun fire from all the ships in the nest, nosed down, and crashed into the harbor. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jim Sturgill:</i></b> Back aft on gun five, we had enough clearance from the other ships in the nest to aim and shoot, but our ammunition was locked up tight and no one could find a key. So I took a hammer and broke open the locker. The gun captain said, “You’re going to be court-marshaled for this!” I just shrugged him off and started shooting just as a big torpedo bomber came lumbering by. We blasted him and he went down in flames. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Author’s note:</i></b> Two army P-40 fighters managed to take off and shoot down five Japanese planes. One of the pilots, Lieutenant George Welch, was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but was denied the honor because he had taken off without orders.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Alvis Harris:</i></b> In the radio shack we were up on the Air Raid, Harbor, and Channel frequencies. Orders and information came in fast and furious like, “All ships get under way immediately” and “DesDiv Two, establish offshore patrol. Enemy submarines sighted inside and outside Pearl Harbor!” I was running messages back and forth to the bridge and got to see a lot of the action. I saw the <i>Utah, Raleigh</i>, and <i>Detroit</i> being bombed, torpedoed, and machine-gunned. I saw the Raleigh settle down on the bottom, and the <i>Utah</i> turn upside down. The sky was a mass of exploding AA with Japanese bombers flying in and out of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> The next time I dashed up to the bridge I saw a horrible sight. The USS <i>Utah</i> had turned over and was lying with only her bottom showing. I could see the big bomber hanger over on Ford Island alive with flames. The USS <i>Arizona</i> was afire and sinking fast. The <i>West Virginia</i> was hit with six or seven torpedoes and was afire. The USS <i>Nevada</i> was hit by a torpedo and was heading for the beach so she wouldn’t sink. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>J. E. McIntyre:</i></b> While tied up in the nest with the other tin cans, we got all of our steam and power from the <i>Monaghan</i>’s boilers. So when she cast off, we were “cold iron.” Under normal conditions, it took us about a hundred and fifty minutes to fire up our boilers. But there was nothing normal about that Sunday morning! After Schnabel flushed the water, I lit off all four boilers and began pumping the crude oil. Since our boilers were still warm, we were able to get up enough steam to get under way in nineteen minutes! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Don Schneider:</i></b> When I got up to gun one, things were moving real fast. Someone handed me a fire axe and told me to chop the line to the <i>Monaghan,</i> which was tied up to starboard. When I finished chopping, they sent me to the ammunition handling room. Someone was down below in the magazine, and they were sending up powder and 5-inch rounds as fast as they could. Trouble was, we weren’t shooting at anything yet, so the ammunition was piling up and crowding us out of the handling room, and whoever was down there wouldn’t stop. I started stacking some of the rounds out on the deck, but someone running by bumped into my stack and sent a couple of the 5-inch rounds rolling across the deck and over the side. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert</i></b>: The <i>Monaghan</i> had the ready duty that Sunday morning and so was ready to go first. I was happy to help throw off her lines, because it meant that gun two would finally have a clear field of fire to the east. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> The <i>Monaghan</i> backed away from the nest and headed for the channel entrance. A Jap submarine periscope was sticking up out of the water, and the USS<i> Curtis</i> was firing into the water with her guns, trying her best to sink the sub. The <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Monaghan</i> let out a blast on her horn to signal she was making a depth charge attack. She had to have a lot of speed on to clear the area of the explosion or be damaged from her own depth charges, and this caused her to run aground.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest “Dutch” Smith:</i></b> Immediately after the <i>Monaghan</i> cast off, it made a high-speed run on a midget Japanese submarine it had spotted and dropped two 600-pound depth charges. The explosions lifted the rear end of the <i>Monaghan</i> clean out of the water. If I close my eyes, I can still see her screws spinning wildly in the air!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few moments later, we cast off, and as we were backing out, I happened to look up through the open turret of the gun and saw two white torpedo streaks coming straight at us just under the surface of the water. Luckily for us, <i>Dale</i> was due to tie up at the tender on Monday, and so we were low on everything and only drawing about nine feet of water. Those torpedoes streaked right underneath us and blew up on Ford Island. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Don Schneider:</i></b> We figured out later how the miniature Jap submarines managed to sneak past the submarine nets into Pearl Harbor. That Saturday we escorted the <i>Lexington</i> out to sea, picked up the old<i> Utah</i>, and then followed her back into the harbor. There was quite a bit of room between the <i>Utah</i> and the <i>Dale</i> going in. Those little subs must have just jumped in line between the two of us and followed the sound of the <i>Utah</i>’s screws as she worked her way up into the harbor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> One torpedo came whizzing by our bow, but missed us by a few feet. Another came from the stern and went under us, hit the beach, exploded, and tore the beach up for yards around. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> It usually took hours to get under way, but on that Sunday morning, it only took minutes. The interesting thing about being in battle is that you don’t get to see much of it, even when you are in the middle of it! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLXtxBbteo5Y4zs3v3F3zy2-QpwLqm6HP-AvJB6K6DbnHBXEwHcdV0xoXaSyH5OEGz0xDyAAUUMIviRZgedlB-VcpG2sz5ElFk5CwWFGM48GYaRA-v6eAVQLPS_wHAGiz8KgWALezifQt/s1600/Pearl+Harbor+-+Tales+from+Tin+Can.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLXtxBbteo5Y4zs3v3F3zy2-QpwLqm6HP-AvJB6K6DbnHBXEwHcdV0xoXaSyH5OEGz0xDyAAUUMIviRZgedlB-VcpG2sz5ElFk5CwWFGM48GYaRA-v6eAVQLPS_wHAGiz8KgWALezifQt/s1600/Pearl+Harbor+-+Tales+from+Tin+Can.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Captured Japanese photograph of the attack on Pearl Harbor, looking eastward across Ford Island. USS <i>Dale </i>was anchored in the East Loch north of the island, with sister ships <i>Aylwin, Farragut, </i>and <i>Monaghan. U.S. Navy photograph</i></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">0820 to 0855</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By 0830, the first wave of attacking Japanese airplanes had spent themselves and were winging their way north to the carriers. A lull settled in over Pearl Harbor as sailors and soldiers prepared for further attacks. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During this lull in the action, the <i>Nevada,</i> the one battleship capable of getting up steam, got under way and began moving slowly down the channel toward the harbor entrance and open sea. The sight of this towering battleship moving along amid the flames and smoke brought hope to those trapped in the flaming hell of Pearl Harbor. But before the <i>Nevada</i> could move very far, she was jumped by the second wave of Fuchida’s attackers. Pilots of this wave, which consisted of 170 airplanes, found <i>Nevada</i> to be the opportunity for which they had been looking. If they could sink <i>Nevada</i> in the channel, they could bottle up Pearl Harbor for months to come. In a few frenzied moments, the Japanese pilots dropped five armor-piercing bombs onto the lumbering giant. The <i>Nevada,</i> under the command of a junior officer, then received orders from the harbor control tower to stay clear of the channel. This left the young officer with one course of action, and that was to beach the <i>Nevada</i> and thereby prevent her from sinking. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While the <i>Nevada</i> was attempting her sortie, more dive-bombers and fighters appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unlike pilots of the first wave, whose attack had been carefully choreographed by Nagumo’s planners, pilots of the second wave were given free rein to attack targets of opportunity. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Groups of airplanes circled high in the sky looking down through the smoke for good targets, which were quickly found tied up in Pearl Harbor’s dockyards and dry docks. The battleship <i>Pennsylvania</i> (BB-38), sitting high in a dry dock, was hit by an armor-piercing bomb dropped from a level bomber, while destroyers<i> Cassin</i> (DD-372), <i>Downes</i> (DD-375), and <i>Shaw</i> (DD-373) were completely destroyed by bombs and fire. Still, the most important target of all for the attackers would be the one they could catch trying to sneak out of the harbor. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Alvis Harris:</i></b> When we got under way, the first ship we passed was the<i> Monaghan, </i>which was stuck in the mud after making a high-speed depth charge run on a Japanese submarine. She was just moving too fast to avoid running aground, so she got stuck in the mud. Eight Jap planes were attacking her, and she was shooting back at them like mad. We could see her screws backing furiously trying to get her off that mud.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> As we passed the <i>Monaghan,</i> guys on both ships waved a friendly goodbye. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Alvis Harris:</i></b> Then we passed by the old <i>Utah,</i> which was rolling over and going under. She had just tied up at the <i>Lexington</i>’s berth the day before! All this time I was just a-standing there in the hatchway of the radio shack, a-gawkin’ at all this like some old country boy. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest Schnabel:</i></b> As we left our berth and got under way, the deck force was still engaged in getting ready for combat. One young bosun named Fuller had the job of clearing the deck of all the wooden objects that collected in port. And there was a lot of it, because in port we had all these awnings rigged to keep the tropical sun off the decks. You also had to get rid of all the wooden swabs, buckets, and boxes, because if a machine-gun bullet from a Japanese plane were to strike any of it, slivers would fly all over the place just like shrapnel. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So Fuller was making his way aft, just tossing stuff like a madman when he came to the wooden ice cream gedunk. He grabbed it and was just starting to push it over the side when one of the guys said, “Hey, wait a minute!” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in 1941, ice cream was a mighty precious commodity in the destroyer navy. Today you can find ice cream and sugar candy on almost any street corner, but back then, we tin can sailors had to get our ice cream off the bigger ships that had the equipment to make it. They almost always figured out ways to make us pay for it, too! So that young bosun struck a nerve when he made moves to toss all the ship’s ice cream over the side.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a matter of seconds, the lock was broken and the ice cream distributed among the crew. Then Fuller kicked the empty wooden gedunk over the side. So, what you saw was the USS <i>Dale</i> steaming hell-bent out into the channel, while the guys back aft were standing by their guns eating ice cream and watching World War II break out all around them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> Then we passed by the <i>Nevada,</i> which was backing down the other channel. Her crew was pumping water over the side like crazy with portable pumps rigged up with handy-billys. You could tell she was going to try and beach herself on the mud to keep the channel clear. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest “Dutch” Smith:</i></b> The minute we got around the <i>Nevada,</i> all hell broke loose. Before that, we were like spectators at someone else’s fight. The Japs didn’t pay us much attention, attacking the bigger ships instead. But when we rounded the <i>Nevada,</i> they came after us with just about everything they had. We were the first ship to head out of Pearl Harbor, and they wanted to sink us in the channel and bottle up the fleet. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> We were in a select position to be the first ship in the channel, and the high-level bombers were waiting for us. If they could sink us, they would block up the channel and then have a field day with all the ships trapped in the harbor. The bombs they were using were 16-inch armor-piercing battleship rounds with fins welded to them. Being only thirty-four feet wide, the bombs straddled us and sank deep into the mud before they exploded and showered us with mud and rocks. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest “Dutch” Smith:</i></b> There were bombs falling all around. And they were armor-piercing bombs, which buried themselves deep in the mud on the bottom of the channel before blowing up. The explosions sent huge fountains of water and stinking mud up higher than <i>Dale</i>’s radio mast. That’s when we really opened up with every gun we had. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Eugene Brewer:</i></b> On the way out, I was stationed aft at the manual steering hatch cover in case we lost steering on the bridge. An enemy plane dropped two bombs at us. One hit to the starboard, and the other fell into the water right next to the boat davit where I was standing. The explosion sent up a huge fountain of stinking mud that fell all over us. But nobody panicked. It was like being in a movie where everyone was calm even though all hell is breaking loose. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Warren Deppe:</i></b> Our depth charges and torpedoes were locked up in the magazines down below, and our job was to get them all up on deck and ready to use. We had to lift them up to the deck with chain falls, and then get their exploder mechanisms together. The exploders were little tubes about two inches long that contained fulminate of mercury, which was very explosive and could easily blow up in your hands. You had to load that tube of mercury into the torpedoes and depth charges while <i>Dale</i> was steaming full speed up the channel and the Jap planes were dropping bombs on us. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> We saw a plane flying low and slow out in the sugar cane fields and started blasting away at it. Thinking back, I also remember seeing a few civilian cars on the road that were most likely out for a Sunday morning drive. Our ammo and our aim were so erratic I’ll bet we scared the hell out of those drivers! Probably the safest place to be that morning was in that Jap plane! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>J. E. McIntyre:</i></b> We usually steamed out of Pearl Harbor at a very careful five knots. But on Sunday, December 7, 1941, we steamed out at twenty-five knots! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>John Cruce:</i></b> The big question on the way out was the sub net. Was it open or closed? The net was a barricade stretched across the harbor entrance to prevent submarines from sneaking into the harbor. It had a little tender that stretched it back and forth. If the net was closed, we were in big trouble because we’d be penned in and a perfect sitting duck for the Jap planes trying so hard to sink us. So everyone aboard was hoping to see it open. And it was!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Author’s note:</i></b> Japanese submarines played a big part in the attack on Pearl Harbor. In fact, their presence so unnerved the admirals commanding the fleet they allowed only their destroyers to leave, believing the harbor was still the safest place to shelter the capital ships from the hoards of U-boats they believed were lurking outside. Even as the <i>Dale</i> was making its escape, the harbor was being sealed up tight.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Johnny Miller:</i></b> When we passed the submarine nets, we were making thirty knots. Shrapnel was falling like rain around us as a result of all the antiaircraft fire. As we passed the first entrance buoy to the channel, we sighted a formation of silver bombers flying high in the clouds. Next a bomb struck close to the starboard side and blew mud and salt water all over the ship. Another skipper bomb landed close to the port side, barely missing us. Another passed our stern and still another crossed our bow. They were trying their best to sink us and block the channel. The <i>Dale</i> must have been wearing her good luck charm, for nary a thing touched us. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>A. L. Rorschach, Captain’s Log:</i></b> At 0907, cleared the entrance buoys and by stopping the port engine and coming hard left rudder, caused a flight of three enemy dive-bombers to overshoot their mark. As they went by on the starboard side close to the water, machine-gun fire from <i>Dale</i> struck the leading plane causing it to burst into flame and crash into the water on the outer starboard side of the restricted area. The remaining two planes made a half-hearted attempt to attack again but were driven off by machine-gun fire. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>John Cruce:</i></b> We darned near took a bomb running out of the channel. We made a hard turn to port, and the bomb landed exactly where we would have been. The explosion threw mud clean up over the bridge and the entire ship. Though it missed us, the concussion did knock out a circuit breaker on our port lube pump. And nobody noticed it was out. This would cause us big trouble a little later. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Don Schneider:</i></b> When we got out of the harbor, we got orders over the radio to look for the Jap fleet, as nobody knew where it was. We were all afraid the Jap battleships would steam in from over the horizon and finish off what the airplanes had missed. It would have been pretty easy for them to do, as Pearl Harbor was a complete shambles and unable to protect itself. They could have steamed back and forth ten miles off shore and just wiped us clean out with their big guns. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Dellmar Smith:</i></b> My battle station was in the aft fire room, and so I didn’t get to see much of the action. In fact, I was so busy with getting up steam, I figured all the explosions I was hearing were just us depth-charging that two-man sub the <i>Monaghan</i> was after. Later, I got to thinking about all those explosions and wondered if we ever <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">got that sub, so I asked a bosun mate. “Depth charges, hell!” he said. “Those were bombs dropped by the dive-bombers that were trying to sink us and block the harbor!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">0910 to 1930</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fuchida’s second wave of attackers did not escape unscathed, as most of the twenty-nine Japanese airplanes lost that day were shot down during this attack. Nevertheless, the attackers did manage to inflict major damage to ships and facilities, and especially to the Army Air Corps airplanes, most of which had been parked wingtip to wingtip in order to protect them from being sabotaged. By 1030, Fuchida’s last attacker was flying back to Nagumo’s carriers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On board the carrier <i>Akagi</i>, Admiral Nagumo and staff nervously awaited Commander Fuchida’s report on the attack at Pearl Harbor. They had an important decision to make as to whether to launch additional attacks. This decision was certain to be a hotly contested one. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Fuchida’s force returned, his undamaged airplanes were re-armed for possible action against the missing American carriers. The American carriers did not appear. After a brief meeting with his pilots, Fuchida met with Nagumo and recommended additional attacks to destroy the remaining facilities at Pearl Harbor. But the cautious Nagumo had had enough. He quickly dismissed Fuchida and turned his carrier force back toward Japan. There would be no follow-up attack and no attempt to find the missing American carriers. Nagumo’s decision was a great stroke of luck to the Americans, as the tank farms and repair facilities of Pearl Harbor were left largely intact. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>A. L. Rorschach, Captain’s Log:</i></b> 0911, the <i>Dale</i> established offshore patrols in sector one. Due to repeated airplane attacks the ship was forced to make frequent changes of course and to run at high speed, thereby rendering the sound gear inoperative. It may be of interest to note that a great number of the bursts on the water were of the nature of exploding 5-inch shells rather than bombs. It is believed that either the fuses were not cut on many of our 5-inch projectiles, or that they were not operative. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jim Sturgill:</i></b> Outside, we passed some Japanese sampans running for Honolulu. They were flying white flags from their masts. And they were white flags, not rags or pieces of clothing! Without thinking, I grabbed a rifle and took aim. But before I could shoot, someone grabbed the rifle away. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>A. L. Rorschach, Captain’s Log:</i></b> 1114, the USS <i>Worden</i> (Commander Destroyer Squadron One) sortied. The <i>Dale</i> formed on the <i>Worden</i> as the third ship in column. After investigating the falsely reported presence of the three enemy transports off Barbers Point, formed inner anti-submarine screen on the USS <i>Detroit, Phoenix, St. Louis,</i> and <i>Astoria.</i> The <i>Dale</i> was assigned station nine. The Task Force speed was twenty-five knots. At 1410, the L.P. pinion bearings on the reduction gear of the port engine wiped. An attempt was made to stay with the assigned Task Force, but as the maximum speed attainable with one engine was twenty-two knots, the<i> Dale </i>fell steadily behind. The starboard engine began heating excessively, forcing a further reduction of speed to ten knots. Retired to the southward at 1654. Stopped at 1930 and lay to attempting repairs. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> When we lay to, things got real quiet, real fast. There were no other ships. We did not know where the Japs were. We did not know where our task force was. There was just us, stopped dead in the night under complete radio silence. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">1930 to 0500</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nagumo’s fleet was now on its way back to a triumphant reception in Japan. The American sailors and soldiers, however, were in the dark as to the location of the Japanese. Surely, the Yanks thought, the Japanese fleet is out there somewhere, getting ready for another attack. This time they will bring the big guns of their battleships! After all, we don’t have anything left that can stop them! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jim Sturgill:</i></b> There were two crews aboard <i>Dale</i> that night. One crew was made up of all of us trying to fix the burned out pinion bearing. The other crew was made up of those waiting for the bearing to get fixed. I’m glad I was one of the fixers, because the waiters really had it tough that night! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Alvis Harris:</i></b> We were under radio silence all night long, but that didn’t keep us from monitoring the traffic. And there was a lot of it to monitor! All night long, we got plain language broadcasts out of Pearl. Some broadcasts said Pearl was being attacked again. Others said the Jap fleet was steaming in for another attack. It was all panic gossip, but since we were under orders not to use our radio, we just had to sit there and listen all night. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Eugene Brewer:</i></b> We were the perfect target for the Japanese subs that seemed to be just about everywhere that day. Why heck, we had been dropping depth charges on them all day long, and now it was night, and we were dead in the water! But maybe even worse than the Japanese subs were our own ships, which were shooting first and asking questions later. Someone got the bright idea to drape our largest American flag over the torpedo tubes so our own forces wouldn’t shoot us up. But that sure didn’t solve our submarine problem! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>John Cruce:</i></b> <i>Dale</i>’s decks were crowded with crew that night, because nobody wanted to be caught down below if we were going to be torpedoed. The only sailors down below were those trying to fix the bearing. Everyone else stayed topside and watched for submarines. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ernest “Dutch” Smith:</i></b> I had been without sleep for thirty hours and was still too afraid to go below. Sometime, way deep in the early hours, I finally just curled up on the deck and fell asleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Harold Reichert:</i></b> It hit me hard the night we were laying to outside Pearl Harbor. We were at war! And I just knew it was going to be a long, long war. Where would it take me? Would I survive? Would I ever get to see home again? And I knew the war was going to be just like that day, December 7th, had been. We simply would never know what was going to happen to us next! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jim Sturgill:</i></b> We pulled the pinion bearing out, saw that it was scoured pretty badly, and took it up to the machine shop. We had a lot of help up there. Too much help! Nobody liked being dead in the water with all those enemy subs out there, so everyone wanted to help fix the bearing!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We put the bearing, which was about seven feet long with an eight-inch journal, into the machine shop’s twelve-inch lathe. We got it to fit between the centers okay, but couldn’t get the tool arm back far enough to make it turn the bearing’s surface. So we filed down the rough edges of the scoured surface by hand. Then we took emery cloth and wooden blocks and polished it the best we could. It wasn’t the best job, but it was good enough to get us running again, to the relief of everyone on the ship! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Herman Gaddis</i></b>: We caught sight of the task force returning in the pre-dawn light and were very frightened. We had no radar and were under orders to maintain radio silence, so we had no way to signal our position to task force. The chief quartermaster “suggested strongly” to Ensign Radell that we break radio silence and call out our position before the task force blasted us out of the water. Much to the relief of everyone on the bridge, Radell picked up the mike and called us in. We soon formed up on the task force. Boy, was that ever a good feeling after a night of being dead in the water!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjszLuVoGHyo1ddfPATLr1VBEZlfe0-MJ93D9D7-QpmMW23EA5-P3hxE9q9J_IR_5dURMai80HaTl89bS2xY70voAAgXGKaRK9g_tm4VcaPJEJXO3qc9hx_cYnaQPYJVnVZMxleHiuWuLk/s1600/97807603382612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjszLuVoGHyo1ddfPATLr1VBEZlfe0-MJ93D9D7-QpmMW23EA5-P3hxE9q9J_IR_5dURMai80HaTl89bS2xY70voAAgXGKaRK9g_tm4VcaPJEJXO3qc9hx_cYnaQPYJVnVZMxleHiuWuLk/s1600/97807603382612.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Excerpted with permission from <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Tin-Can-Pearl-Harbor/dp/0760338264/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323266420&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">Tales from a Tin Can: The USS Dale from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay</a></i></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Copyright © 2007, 2010 by Michael Keith Olson.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-34199140475094351422011-12-06T08:32:00.000-06:002011-12-06T08:32:48.277-06:00From the Pages - Misdiagnosing the Threat to Pearl Harbor<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvpDYlrQF8cJET7g3ED4uRAtwjkhbrzOdqeH9jPpr7joe97k9Rz00P8Runb1gYzkT3MQE0kTvJjAOCHXHPCyOQ-Q7DwUbDt4Im3IDjmJ9F-R4X-xPIODeoo_X2RCBxL701wTPPxyabO6oF/s1600/9780760339756.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvpDYlrQF8cJET7g3ED4uRAtwjkhbrzOdqeH9jPpr7joe97k9Rz00P8Runb1gYzkT3MQE0kTvJjAOCHXHPCyOQ-Q7DwUbDt4Im3IDjmJ9F-R4X-xPIODeoo_X2RCBxL701wTPPxyabO6oF/s1600/9780760339756.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By William Hopkins, from <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pacific-War-Strategy-Politics-Players/dp/0760339759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323181412&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players That Won the War</a></b></i></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>_ _ _ _ _ _ </b></i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>_ _ _ </b></i><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>_ _ _</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came as a tremendous shock to the American public. Most believed that if war came it would be against Germany and Italy, and most Americans failed to recognize that the United States was unprepared to fight an aggressive war. Most believed the nation was much stronger militarily than was the case and that no nation would dare attack. War became inevitable with the change of command in Tokyo on 16 October 1941. With Emperor Hirohito’s blessing, Gen. Hideki Tojo, the Japanese army’s strongest advocate of war and the main opponent of withdrawal from China, became the prime minister. He relieved Prince Fuminaro Konoe. In his letter of resignation, Konoe pointed out that on four separate occasions he had sought to withdraw troops in order to preserve peace with the United States, while Tojo had opposed both the action and its purpose. “With the China incident unresolved, he, as a loyal subject of the emperor, could not take on the responsibilities of entering into a huge new war whose outcome could not be foreseen.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 16 October, Otto Tolischus, in reporting to the <i>New York Times</i>, said that the director of Japanese naval intelligence had declared that the relations of the United States and Japan were “now approaching the final parting of the ways.” From Shanghai on the same day came a dispatch stating that the Central China <i>Daily News</i>, organ of the Japanese-sponsored regime in Nanking, had asserted that war between Japan and the United States “is inevitable.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As negotiations between the United States and Japan continued to worsen, on 27 November General Marshall warned MacArthur:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated to all practical purposes with only the barest possibilities that the Japanese government might come back and offer to continue. Japanese future action unpredictable <u>but hostile action possible at any moment</u>. If hostilities cannot, repeat cannot, be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act. This policy should not, repeat not, be construed as restricting you to a course of action that might jeopardize your defense. Prior to hostile Japanese action you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary but report measures taken to defend the Philippines. Should hostilities occur you will carry out the tasks assigned in Rainbow 5 so far as they pertain to Japan. Limit dissemination of this highly secret information to minimum essential officers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similar warnings were dispatched to other top commanders in the Pacific, especially those at Pearl Harbor. Shortly after General Marshall’s warning, Admiral Stark sent a dispatch to Admirals Hart and Kimmel. His message said:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This dispatch is to be considered a war warning. Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicate an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai, or Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Execute an appropriate defense deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in War Plan 46 (Rainbow T). Inform District and army authorities. A similar warning is being sent by War Department. SPENAVO [Special Naval Observer in London, Vice Adm. Ghormley] inform British. Continental districts, Guam, Samoa directed to take appropriate measures against sabotage.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both before and after the Pearl Harbor attack, the best information on the whereabouts of the Japanese fleet as well as merchant ships derived from the Fourteenth Naval District’s Combat Intelligence Unit on Oahu, called Station Hypo. Lieutenant Commander Joseph J. Rochefort was the chief cryptanalyst; Lt. Cmdr. Edwin T. Layton, the intelligence chief. On 2 December, Layton informed Adm. Husband Kimmel that, “As there had been no radio traffic from four Japanese carriers for fully fifteen and possibly twenty-five days, their location was unknown.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the night of 3 December, British intelligence in Manila sent an urgent cable to British intelligence in Hawaii, saying:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have received considerable intelligence confirming following developments in Indochina.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Accelerated Japanese preparation of airfields and railways.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Arrival since Nov. 10 of additional 100,000 repeat 100,000 troops and considerable quantities fighters, medium bombers, tanks and guns (75mm).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Estimate of specific quantities have already been telegraphed Washington Nov. 21 by American military intelligence here.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our considered opinion concludes that Japan envisages early hostilities with Britain and U.S. Japan does not repeat not intend to attack Russia at present but will act in South.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You may inform Chiefs of American Military and Naval Intelligence Honolulu.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2yeK7RsSIVU5hu-94lNgbLwskRYssmoeMwSso273GFJwPz3JegKvtMQZobmpEz7s0a33LQnSk6fYt7qiMnbWglFotTCkGnBhHfSrj6mYQbfH0qVodbl99P2qhTiZDnBgEjQr4sDvT_Kl/s1600/The-Pacific-War---Pearl-Har.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2yeK7RsSIVU5hu-94lNgbLwskRYssmoeMwSso273GFJwPz3JegKvtMQZobmpEz7s0a33LQnSk6fYt7qiMnbWglFotTCkGnBhHfSrj6mYQbfH0qVodbl99P2qhTiZDnBgEjQr4sDvT_Kl/s400/The-Pacific-War---Pearl-Har.png" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Again, on 3 December, Admiral Stark sent another dispatch to Hart, Kimmel, and the naval district commandants in Manila and Honolulu. He informed them that Japanese diplomatic and consular posts at Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Washington, and London had been ordered to destroy their codes. Stark thought this urgent order by the Japanese to demolish their codes, ciphers, and secret documents to be “one of the most telling items of information we had received and our dispatch . . . was one of the most important dispatches we ever sent.” War was obviously near.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 6 December, Joseph C. Harsch, the correspondent for the <i>Christian Science Monitor</i>, met with Admiral Kimmel and his staff at fleet headquarters.<i> </i>Those present recall the following exchange:<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harsch: Admiral, now that the Japanese have moved into Indochina . . . what do you think they will do next?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kimmel: I don’t know. What do you think?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harsch: Well, do you think they will attack us?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kimmel: No, young man, I don’t think they’d be such damned fools.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kimmel’s hubris was like that of most Americans at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the night of 6 December, thirteen parts of a fourteen-paragraph message from Tokyo were decrypted and delivered to President Roosevelt. These showed Japan intended to break off diplomatic relations. Roosevelt instinctively knew this meant war. He now knew Japan was going to strike, but he didn’t know where. The fourteenth part of the decrypted message gave the time of delivery to Secretary of State Hull as 1:00 P.M. Washington, D.C., time, which was 7:00 A.M. in Honolulu. Although this information was known in Washington some hours prior to 7:00 A.M. in Hawaii, through a series of errors, the warning did not reach Honolulu in time to prevent disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No American old enough to remember can forget where he was and what he was doing that Sunday, 7 December 1941, when he first heard over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. All knew this meant war and that great damage had been done, the full extent of which was not revealed to the American public until months later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had finished midday dinner at the KA (Kappa Alpha) House in Lexington, Virginia, when I first heard the news. There were eighteen fraternity brothers in my senior year class at Washington and Lee University. A couple had already been drafted. Everyone knew that each would soon be going into some branch of the U.S. armed services. Having completed two platoon leader’s classes in the previous summers, I would soon be called up for marine officer’s training at Indiantown, Pennsylvania. All afternoon, we listened attentively to the radio news in the hope of getting an assessment of the full extent of the damage. Of course, this was not to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Virginia law forbade the Sunday sale of alcoholic beverages in any form, including beer. Someone got the idea of purchasing some white lightnin’ from a bootlegger located a few blocks away. We obtained ice and fruit juices from the kitchen and mixed them in a huge bowl with the whiskey. In a somewhat somber mood, we speculated on our future as we listened to the radio and sipped drinks into the wee hours of the morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although the radio did not report the full damage, eight American battleships had been hit, along with three destroyers and three light cruisers. After the Japanese planes completed their final run, more than 2,400 soldiers, sailors, and civilians had lost their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">President Roosevelt was sitting in his study with Harry Hopkins when Secretary Knox called to say, “It looks like the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.” Hopkins thought the news was a mistake, as the Japanese would never attack Pearl Harbor. All doubt was settled a few minutes later when Admiral Stark called to confirm the attack.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Winston Churchill called the White House. “Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“It’s quite true,” Roosevelt replied. “They have attacked us at Pearl Harbour. We are all in the same boat now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Churchill later wrote, “To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy.” Churchill thought of a remark British politician Sir Edward Grey had made more than thirty years earlier. He said the United States was like “a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At a cabinet meeting at 8:30 P.M. that Sunday night, Roosevelt said, “I’m thankful you all got here,” after which he described the devastation at Pearl Harbor. Twice he turned to Knox, “Find out, for God’s sake, why the ships were tied up in rows.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knox replied, “That’s the way they berth them!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After again describing the damage to the fleet, Roosevelt then said half the planes in Hawaii had been destroyed “on the ground, by God, on the ground.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At 10:00 P.M. congressional leaders joined the gathering. Roosevelt again told what was known of the damage to the U.S. Army and Navy in Honolulu. Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, posed the question that some Americans still ask: “How did it happen that our warships were caught like tame ducks in Pearl Harbor?” Secretary Knox explained to the president that both Gen. Walter Short and Adm. Husband Kimmel felt certain that such an attack would take place nearer Japan’s base of operations—that is, in the Far East. He had not planned on the ingenuity of Admiral Yamamoto.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In February 1941, Yamamoto ordered Cmdr. Genda Minoru, an air staff officer of the Japanese 1st Air Fleet, to make an investigation on the feasibility of the Pearl Harbor attack. Thorough studies and meticulous planning followed. In October, the liner <i>Taiyo Maru </i>sailed the chosen route for the Japanese attack fleet without sighting a single ship.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In November, Yamamoto addressed about a hundred officers on the flight deck of the <i>Akagi</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although we hope to achieve surprise, everyone should be prepared for terrific American resistance to this operation . . . [Kimmel is] no ordinary or average man. . . . We can expect him to put up a courageous fight. . . . Moreover, he is said to be farsighted and cautious, so it is quite possible that he has instituted very close measures to cope with any emergency. Therefore, you must take into careful consideration the possibility that the attack may not be a surprise after all. <i>You may have to fight your way in to the target</i>. [emphasis his]<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 22 November 1941, the Japanese fleet assembled at Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, immediately northeast of Japan proper. This attack force set sail four days later, running slowly eastward through fog and gales while always maintaining radio silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The core of this mobile fleet was based on six carriers in three divisions with a total of more than four hundred planes. A light cruiser led a screen of nine destroyers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, plus a train of eight tankers and supply ships. Three submarines provided reconnaissance together with two extra destroyers to watch out for American planes based on Midway Island. However, the route selected was outside the pattern of America’s patrol planes at Midway. Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi was in overall command.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 3 December the formation reached a point 900 miles north of Midway, then turned south. On 7 December it proceeded due south, after parting company with the tankers. All warships put on speed until the carriers reached the designated point of launch 275 miles due north of Pearl Harbor just before 6:00 A.M. Hawaiian time. Execution of Yamamoto’s well-planned attack on Pearl Harbor then followed. It crippled the U.S. Fleet to the point it could not move west to interdict the Japanese main thrust southward to the Netherlands East Indies. Yamamoto envisioned that his submarine fleet would play a major role as his chief of staff noted that he “expected that more damage would be inflicted by submarine attacks which would be continued over a longer period, than by the air attacks, which would be of comparatively short duration.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The twenty-five Japanese regular submarines plus five midgets in Hawaiian waters did only minimal damage on 7 December and the following few weeks. At 6:30 A.M. Hawaiian time, the net in Oahu opened to admit the USS <i>Antares</i>, an old freighter. Casually watching <i>Antares </i>pass, a helmsman on the nearby destroyer <i>Ward </i>noticed a strange object that appeared to be a buoy. The <i>Ward </i>captain immediately identified the object as the conning tower of a submarine. <i>Ward </i>opened fire with 4-inch guns, followed by depth charges. The midget expired at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Ward </i>sent a message to headquarters of the Fourteenth Naval District: WE HAVE ATTACKED, FIRED UPON AND DROPPED DEPTH CHARGES ON A SUBMARINE OPERATING IN THE DEFENSIVE SEA AREA. Admiral Kimmel was immediately notified, but it was already too late to avert disaster. By 7:30 A.M. Japanese planes roared over Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy put the other four midget submarines out of action without damage to any American ship. On the afternoon of 10 December planes from <i>Enterprise </i>sank the Japanese <i>I-170 </i>with all hands. The Japanese submarine’s failure to live up to expectations greatly disappointed the high command.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In spite of previous warnings, lack of readiness characterized every aspect of the base at Pearl Harbor. On the same day, the Japanese attacked the Philippines, Malaya, Wake Island, Guam, and Hong Kong. On the bright side, all four U.S. aircraft carriers plus five cruisers as well as most destroyers assigned to the Pacific were on missions away from Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attack proved to be a blessing in disguise. For the remainder of the war, U.S. naval planners elevated the aircraft carrier above the battleship as the best offensive weapon for the Pacific Fleet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At noon on 8 December, Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress where he declared that 7 December was a day that would “live in infamy” and that “this form of treachery shall never endanger us again. The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” He was greeted with deafening applause. Both chambers approved a declaration of war against Japan with only one dissenting vote, that of Representative Jeanette Rankin of Montana. Roosevelt did not request, nor did Congress approve, a declaration of war against the other Axis powers. Four days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Japan had succeeded in doing what the president up to this point had been unable to do: it unified the American people as they had never been before or since.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The news media reported Guam as having fallen the first day, and only on Wake Island and the Philippines were American fighting men opposing Japanese invaders. The Japanese added to the Pacific defense perimeter by capturing the cluster of British islands known as the Gilberts on 10 December 1941.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Greek poet Aeschylus observed that “When war begins, truth is the first casualty.” Although he wrote the words 500 years before the time of Christ, they still held true in 1941. In the world of politics there is often a gap between the perception of the public and the reality of events, yet a false perception usually shifts under the examination of the free press. In war, especially World War II, strict censorship under the guise of national security prevented the public from learning the truth in a timely fashion. Nowhere is this better illustrated than the flow of communiqués from the Philippines in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Near Manila, the U.S. Navy at Cavite received the first word that the war had started. Admiral Kimmel had announced to all ships at sea and to all U.S. Navy bases: RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTNxpjxnhobfOb4nRABKWP02uDyd4uVgl3wK2BFGJHdp-D9HeWfy-2pYffPbze6j7pIA8CECpgRNAaigX7-15l9IQIiQw3zxjJI_bQJiTrOAOaz1b2VsYZnGOfDaetpyIepv01b_gwiB1/s1600/The-Pacific-War---Pacific-M.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTNxpjxnhobfOb4nRABKWP02uDyd4uVgl3wK2BFGJHdp-D9HeWfy-2pYffPbze6j7pIA8CECpgRNAaigX7-15l9IQIiQw3zxjJI_bQJiTrOAOaz1b2VsYZnGOfDaetpyIepv01b_gwiB1/s1600/The-Pacific-War---Pacific-M.png" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No one at Cavite bothered to tell the U.S. Army. Major General Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff, had attended a party given for Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commander of U.S. Air Force Far East, at the Manila Hotel. MacArthur and his family occupied a penthouse atop the hotel’s roof. When Sutherland arrived home he learned of the disaster at Pearl Harbor from a radio news broadcast at 3:40 A.M. He contacted MacArthur immediately, but the United States of America had been at war for almost two hours.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, almost eight hours after MacArthur had been informed that the country was at war, disaster struck at Clark Field. Some historians place full blame on MacArthur, while others have him sharing it with Brereton or Sutherland. In the early morning, Brereton had tried to reach MacArthur for a decision but was prevented from doing so by Sutherland. Eighteen of the thirty-five B-17 Flying Fortresses had previously been sent to Del Monte Field in Mindanao, out of range of the Japanese bombers at Formosa. The remaining B-17s plus numerous other aircraft were sitting in the open in neat lines waiting to be serviced. MacArthur appeared to be frozen in thought while Brereton and Sutherland failed to take the initiative in removing the planes from harm’s way. At this point in time, MacArthur had a totally unrealistic view of Japanese air capabilities. On 5 December, just three days before the Japanese attack, he told British Vice Adm. Tom Phillips: “The inability of an enemy to launch his attack on these islands is our greatest security,” which “leaves me with a sense of complete security.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At 12:25 P.M., most airmen had finished lunch and were awaiting orders when the Japanese planes arrived. No American fighters rose to meet them. The anti-aircraft guns were either unattended or silent as fifty-four Japanese bombers and thirty-six Zero fighters moved into the attack. The parked bombers and fighters were easily destroyed. At Iba, forty miles north of Clark Field, Japanese aircraft destroyed all but two of a squadron of P-40s, which had just returned from patrol. By 1:30 P.M., MacArthur’s air force had ceased to exist as an effective element of defense. With eight hours’ warning, the Philippines was even less prepared than Pearl Harbor, which had no warning at all. Twenty-nine enemy planes were shot down at Pearl.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately for MacArthur, the American public and press focused on the debacle at Hawaii. Secretary Frank Knox was immediately sent to Hawaii on a fact-finding mission. There he talked to Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, commander of the U.S. Army, Hawaiian Department. He delivered his report to President Roosevelt on 14 December. In it, he said:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was no attempt by either Admiral Kimmel or General Short to alibi the lack of a state of readiness for the air attack. Both admitted that they did not expect it, and had taken no adequate measures to meet one if it came. Both Kimmel and Short evidently regarded an air attack as extremely unlikely. . . . Both felt that if any surprise attack was attempted it would be made in the Far East.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 16 December, both Kimmel and Short were relieved of their commands.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Pearl Harbor disaster brought into the open the inadequacies of command by mutual cooperation with divided responsibility. It defied the maxim of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who declared “two commanders on the same field are always one too many.” As early as February 1941, General Marshall complained that old army and navy feuds in Hawaii were becoming confused with questions of national defense. Both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy objected violently to being placed under the jurisdiction of the other service. Different training, years of competing for its share of inadequate funds in the defense budget, and the annual Army-Navy football game caused jealousies and rivalries to run deep.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recognizing the dangers of divided command, on 12 December 1941, President Roosevelt ordered his military and naval advisors to establish a unified command in Panama under the U.S. Army, much to the chagrin of high-ranking naval officers. On 17 December the U.S. Navy was given command in Hawaii. Marshall explained to the U.S. Army commander in Hawaii that “the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy were determined there would be no question of future confusion as to responsibility . . . Both Stark and I were struggling to the same end.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although fixing responsibility under one commander at Pearl Harbor for most of the Pacific theater was a giant step forward, inter-service rivalry did not disappear, either there or in Washington, D.C. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRc-AfybdEsHubCa60oNefiKhosf1fvNeSOy2XmUKNDnughqSf3FAXOdBzBm7ipNq8-V2854d54ZFUR4vvz_cgufU5rnYLp9VXZPFChTA_cIOgldMiPL62gAtXGDX7ONEsblJata1vPvb/s1600/9780760339756.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRc-AfybdEsHubCa60oNefiKhosf1fvNeSOy2XmUKNDnughqSf3FAXOdBzBm7ipNq8-V2854d54ZFUR4vvz_cgufU5rnYLp9VXZPFChTA_cIOgldMiPL62gAtXGDX7ONEsblJata1vPvb/s1600/9780760339756.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Excerpted with permission from <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pacific-War-Strategy-Politics-Players/dp/0760339759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323181412&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players That Won the War</a></b></i>.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Copyright © 2008, 2010 by William B. Hopkins.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-92094344685731122472011-12-05T09:06:00.000-06:002011-12-05T09:06:21.720-06:00Military Snapshot - USS Missouri Celebrating Anniversary of Japanese Surrender<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlARydBQeZazmalSm6Yrfut41Hg1IAjegj-eoqC4rYvUkQ-pwoBbgT6nqF9Kl5Uj_2a_CW4QiEAzba-d02yridWVohBwxMyHVqDV_3JxLmamzl2BraRvVOpPXFLZC3leFW7TuFQbCAAai/s1600/USS+Missouri+at+War+-+4th+anniv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlARydBQeZazmalSm6Yrfut41Hg1IAjegj-eoqC4rYvUkQ-pwoBbgT6nqF9Kl5Uj_2a_CW4QiEAzba-d02yridWVohBwxMyHVqDV_3JxLmamzl2BraRvVOpPXFLZC3leFW7TuFQbCAAai/s1600/USS+Missouri+at+War+-+4th+anniv.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last battleship built by the United States, the USS <i>Missouri</i> was the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II. In this photo, the <i>Missouri'</i>s crew celebrates the fourth anniversary of the Japanese surrender on her decks. Turret two is trained as it was on September 2, 1945. <i>Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy, from </i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/USS-Missouri-War-Kit-Bonner/dp/0760332193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323097342&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">USS Missouri at War</a></b><i> by Kit & Carolyn Bonner.</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-60178924480046384852011-12-02T08:00:00.000-06:002011-12-02T08:00:49.147-06:00Warbird Breakdown - Lavochkin La-7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4E-J7_EkXAlbglsMbaD97Mlph9Hb4YhSnXCxsPCtbhf7ZlR5WhEU6TmM9WAiWM2rhN_13fKS4jgHl8LdNSuwPe1wx7FVo_YsGNXJnyOv8mw0BzTxwqgUydcKAKaEIr11-3IKNy5lt57b/s1600/Lavochkin+La-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4E-J7_EkXAlbglsMbaD97Mlph9Hb4YhSnXCxsPCtbhf7ZlR5WhEU6TmM9WAiWM2rhN_13fKS4jgHl8LdNSuwPe1wx7FVo_YsGNXJnyOv8mw0BzTxwqgUydcKAKaEIr11-3IKNy5lt57b/s1600/Lavochkin+La-7.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Lavochkin La-7 was a piston-engined Soviet fighter developed during World War II by the Lavochkin Design Bureau (OKB). It was the final development and refinement of the Lavochkin La-5, and the last in a family of aircraft that had begun with the LaGG-1 in 1938. The La-7 was felt by its pilots to be at least the equal of any German piston-engined fighter and played a significant role as both a bomber and fighter in the Soviet Union’s push west in mid-1944.<i> Image and specs e</i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xcerpted from </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145739/9780760334515/Allied-Fighters-1939-45.html"><b>Allied Fighter 1939-1945</b></a> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-89496659752111739032011-11-30T08:27:00.001-06:002011-11-30T08:29:58.543-06:00From the Pages - Bloody Nose Ridge (Part 2 of 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2aJCh2FKD6ZEJFEfX9_bjhswfP6TmzhgdpWaI9XA8dTtrT1W4oLwL4rocP23B5BEzgN9XCJskEfLTtQq17WZlAB3CBwgiPZ8thKE9e59cBaIdnU5p0VrjSktQOfcLhyphenhyphensYm0iVCApyEA_/s1600/9780760341278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2aJCh2FKD6ZEJFEfX9_bjhswfP6TmzhgdpWaI9XA8dTtrT1W4oLwL4rocP23B5BEzgN9XCJskEfLTtQq17WZlAB3CBwgiPZ8thKE9e59cBaIdnU5p0VrjSktQOfcLhyphenhyphensYm0iVCApyEA_/s200/9780760341278.jpg" width="130" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20;">The following is the second of a two-part excerpt (</span><a href="http://www.zenithpresstheblog.com/2011/11/from-pages-bloody-nose-ridge-part-1-of.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">see Part 1 here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20;">) from Dick Camp's </span><i style="color: #231f20;"><b>Last Man Standing</b> </i><span style="color: #231f20;">in which men from the legendary 1st Marine Regiment detail their</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20;"> desperate -- and deadly -- struggle to take the now-infamous "Bloody Nose Ridge" on Peleliu Island on D + 2, September 17, 1944. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In this excerpt, the 1st Marine Regiment's movement up the West Road is brought to a abrupt halt between Hills 200 and 210, a Japanese defensive point that relied heavily upon withering machine gun crossfire that would result in staggering casualties for American forces. For "Chesty" Puller's Marines, this engagement would represent some of the hairiest combat they would see throughout the entire war in the Pacific.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Spitfire Two (Honsowetz)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Russ Honsowetz’s battalion also ran into a buzz saw. It guided on the narrow, coral-surfaced West Road and made good time, until chaos erupted. A torrent of fire from a two-hundred-foot ridge, known as Hill </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">200, poured into his lead element, quickly knocking out a tank and two amtracs. A deadly Japanese 37mm mountain gun fired point-blank into them from a cleverly hidden cave. Enemy machine gunners and snipers added to the firestorm of lead. Russell Davis was with the assault company as it worked its way “across a clearing littered with stumps and coral and the scrap of war, up and down low hillocks and through a draw, and then onto the foot of the ridge. We got part way up the ridge and then the hills opened and fire poured down on our heads.” Those men not bowled over in the initial burst of fire scrambled to find shelter. Davis and two others were “plastered down into a hole and there we lay while the world heaved up all around us. We could do nothing but huddle together in terror. We couldn’t go ahead . . . we couldn’t go back. We were witless and helpless, with nothing to do but lie and take it.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDmj39eE_aOd1e7iH3T_GfNzd4poBvPJ3noFObPPOxrFRFy70e-Hd9xcoCUGZVgPw4-lUJ4G5aPA_RNJrRHHnyZO6RIc5E-_sxVbItlQLT1CdHERxbKFEcSuc7c6k4yybEFrOZv3lsuwT/s1600/Photo+14-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDmj39eE_aOd1e7iH3T_GfNzd4poBvPJ3noFObPPOxrFRFy70e-Hd9xcoCUGZVgPw4-lUJ4G5aPA_RNJrRHHnyZO6RIc5E-_sxVbItlQLT1CdHERxbKFEcSuc7c6k4yybEFrOZv3lsuwT/s1600/Photo+14-10.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Marine Corsair provides close support by dropping napalm. Note that the aircraft has not even retracted its wheels after taking off from the island's airfield. Many claimed that the missions were the shortest bombing runs of the war. <i>Marine Corps History Division.</i></span></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The attack slowed. But “[t]he slightest concentration of Marines brought heavy fire at once,” Bruce Watkins lamented. Puller, monitoring events at his CP, was incensed at the slow progress and called Honsowetz to demand action. “Look, Honsowetz, I want the son-of-a-bitchin’ ridge before sundown . . . and I mean, goddamnit, I want it!” Honsowetz renewed his efforts to get the battalion moving. He requested additional tank and artillery support. Marine 105mm and 75mm artillery batteries swung into action from their positions south of the airport. Russell Davis crouched beside an artillery forward observer as he called in the target coordinates. “The shell came shrieking over and made a vast flame against a distant hill, beyond a deep draw,” Davis recalled. “The FO shouted corrections into the phone, ‘Right 50, drop 200.’ [Next he shouted,] ‘On the way,’” as a warning that the artillery battery had fired.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Davis hunched even further down behind a large rock as “shells swished by in a steady stream and the hillside flamed and writhed under the barrage.” Yard by yard, the advance continued.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Navy carrier pilots on station over the island flew in to bomb the Japanese positions that were holding up the assault. Bruce Watkins said he<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">heard the whine of a dive bomber coming directly at us. To this day, I believe the pilot mistook us for Japs . . . [H]e released his bomb, probably a 500 pounder, and we all watched as it headed toward us in a slight arc. Sure that we were going to be decimated, we could only hug the ground and pray. Miraculously, the bomb hit dead center on the bunker, collapsing it and killing the Japanese within. The concussion stunned us and covered us with white coral dust. We got shakily to our feet, like so many ghosts, in great wonder at being alive. No one had been hit.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As the assault ground forward, the extreme heat and lack of water put men out of action. “The heat was terrible,” Russell Davis recalled. “One big, redheaded man horribly burned and cracked around the face and lips, suddenly reared out of his hole like a wild horse. ‘I can’t take the heat,’ he bellowed. ‘I can take the war but not the heat!’” O. P. Smith noted, “The thermometer went up to 105 degrees. In the intense fighting over rugged ground the men soon exhausted their canteens. Resupply was difficult. We began to have a good many cases of heat exhaustion.” Water was brought ashore in fifty-five-gallon drums, but distribution to frontline units was almost impossible. Those lucky enough to get the water found that it was almost undrinkable. The oil drums had been improperly steam-cleaned, and as a result, the water was fouled. In addition some of the barrels had rusted in the tropical heat, polluting the water. “Some stupid son-of-a-bitch sure as hell goofed,” an expressive NCO groused bitterly. “God, how I’d like to get my hands on that . . . good for nothing . . . so help me, I’d kill him without a second thought.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Within an hour, two company commanders were wounded in action. Bruce Watkins was close to the “E” Company commander when he was hit. “Captain Joe Gayle dashed up the steep spine of the ridge. Just as he reached the top, a bullet struck him in the neck and he tumbled down the ridge for all the world like a Hollywood movie. Lieutenant Marc Jaffe stopped his fall and tried to hold back the bleeding with a finger on each side of his neck. How much this helped, we would never know, but Joe lived to tell the tale with only temporary paralysis and the most interesting scars—like nickels on either side of his neck.” The “F” Company commander was also wounded, and his leaderless company was badly scattered.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Honsowetz ordered an injured lieutenant to “get all the ‘F’ Company men you are able to find and if you are not too badly wounded stand by with them for orders.” Suddenly the battalion command post was bracketed by artillery fire and several men wounded, including the adjutant. Two amtracs in the CP area were knocked out by artillery fire. Just before noon, “G” Company reported eighty-seven casualties.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The battalion slowly advanced toward its objective, Hill 200. The fighting was often hand-to-hand, close-in, life-and-death struggles with knife and bayonet, the weapon of choice. Bruce Watkins remembered an incident that stuck with him:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 27pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Just to my left was Private First Class Darden . . . As we started up the slope, a Jap officer dashed out of a cave fifty feet in front of us. With his saber raised and coming downhill . . . he headed for the startled Darden, who raised his M-1 rifle and began to fire steadily at the Japanese. I thought he had the situation well in hand and I didn’t fire. The Jap, however, still kept coming, although I could see Darden’s bullets strike him. He finally made one final lunge, just reaching the unbelieving Marine’s boot with the tip of his saber as the clip ejected from the M-1 signaling the last of eight rounds.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">By sheer guts, the exhausted survivors fought their way to the top of the ridge just prior to twilight and tried to build protective shelters. It was impossible to dig foxholes in the granite-like coral, so they took cover in shell holes or piled up rocks. Incredible as it seemed, a communicator managed to string a telephone line to Honsowetz’s CP. One of the first calls was from Puller. “How are things going?” “Not very good,” Honsowetz replied. “I lost a lot of men.” Puller asked, “How many did you lose?” “I don’t have a good count yet, but I think I lost a couple hundred men.” Puller immediately demanded, “How many Japs did you kill?” Taken off balance, Honsowetz responded, “Well, we overran one position that had twenty-five in it. We got ’em all. There were a lot of Jap bodies around, but I don’t know how many. Maybe fifty.” Puller responded angrily, “Jesus Christ, Honsowetz, what the hell are the American people gonna think? Losing 200 fine young Marines and killing only fifty Japs! I’m gonna put you down for 500.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The loss of the hill forced Colonel Nakagawa to move his CP. He reported that, “under the protection of heavy naval gunfire, an enemy unit composed of two tanks and approximately two companies of infantry successfully advanced to a high spot on the east side of Nakagawa.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBsyzSdnJlsONAs1xWe0E3ZswE3vMw2pHSBjL8k_YlB8GzDZLftscXdBNf6wt_02KGyya7Jq2kh66FyWhS98mCwPub05Gt7DUpT3gTA2kMFgpYH54gN4HhKZMh0dhmitk89URnY6W_qiR3/s1600/Photo+14-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBsyzSdnJlsONAs1xWe0E3ZswE3vMw2pHSBjL8k_YlB8GzDZLftscXdBNf6wt_02KGyya7Jq2kh66FyWhS98mCwPub05Gt7DUpT3gTA2kMFgpYH54gN4HhKZMh0dhmitk89URnY6W_qiR3/s320/Photo+14-11.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fighting in the mountains was brutal ... often <br />
more vertical than horizontal. At times the Marines <br />
had to be mountaineers. This Marine struggles to<br />
climb to the top of the ridge. <i>Marine Corps History Division.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Spitfire Six (Puller)</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In his nightly report to division, Puller stated that “Front line units have been decimated.” The regiment had lost 1,236 men. Puller called Col. John T. Selden, the division chief of staff, and asked for replacements.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Johnny, half my regiment is gone. I’ve got to have replacements if I’m to carry out division orders tomorrow morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“You know we have no replacements, Lewie,” Selden responded.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“I told you before we came ashore that we should have at least one regiment in reserve. We’re not fighting a third of the men we brought in . . . all those damn specialists you brought.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Anything wrong with your orders, Lewie?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Give me some of those 17,000 men on the beach,” Puller retorted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“You can’t have them, they’re not trained infantry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Give ’em to me and by nightfall tomorrow they’ll be trained infantry,” Puller replied grimly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A staff officer at division thought that Rupertus, despite the heavy losses, still believed it would be a quick victory. “The overall feeling seemed to be that a breakthrough was imminent. Enemy resistance would collapse, or at worst, disintegrate as had happened on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam after a certain point had passed. The trouble with this reasoning was that on the other islands the collapse had occurred when U.S. troops reached favorable terrain and had been heralded by at least one suicidal <i>banzai </i>charge. But there were no <i>banzais </i>on Peleliu, and the terrain was becoming worse instead of better.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Puller hung up and stumbled through the darkness to pass the word to the battalion commanders. “We press the attack at eight o’clock in the morning. No change. Full speed. Use every man.” He came back limping. His leg was beginning to swell—the old wound from Guadalcanal was acting up. Selden called back: “Puller, you got my orders?” “Yes, you needn’t explain further. I just came back from my battalions. We’re going to take ground tomorrow without replacements. We’re willing to try, but don’t forget we’re just going to add ten or fifteen percent to our casualties.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">O. P. Smith wrote a critical assessment. “The operations of the 1<sup>st</sup> Marines had been heartening. There had been an advance all along the line and, in the face of very stiff opposition and full scale fortifications, some of the commanding ground north of the airfield had been taken. Our hold on Hill 200 was tenuous. The Japanese still held Hill 210, but we were in firm possession of Hills 100, 180, and 150. The cost in casualties in the 1st Marines through September 17th had been 1,236. The 3rd Battalion had only 473 effectives, of whom 200 were headquarters personnel. The excessive heat was becoming an important factor in the fight. Men were beginning to drop from heat exhaustion.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Spitfire Three (Sabol)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The 3rd Battalion report noted that “Our advance continued slowly through difficult terrain against light sniper fire.” At 1700, the battalion brought up supplies and dug in for the night, with all three companies on the line. A swamp kept them from tying in, but the gaps were covered by 60mm and 81mm mortars. Sabol reported losing 59 men and estimated that 344 enemy had been killed in action.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUukffYBF6rONsYAnMojeWPCtlP927cmqy-6OdEEy5PtCfuiF21y_Q6XeTyEzXVOUwpFl3rbwQx6knptT8H__IzkT7ecnhHkagMmflRohI4W7C_nDQqcUgZSNsw-2N5jh5giX_3YIdR7u/s1600/9780760341278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUukffYBF6rONsYAnMojeWPCtlP927cmqy-6OdEEy5PtCfuiF21y_Q6XeTyEzXVOUwpFl3rbwQx6knptT8H__IzkT7ecnhHkagMmflRohI4W7C_nDQqcUgZSNsw-2N5jh5giX_3YIdR7u/s1600/9780760341278.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excerpted with permission from </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Standing-Regiment-September/dp/0760341273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322578262&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu, September 15-21, 1944</a></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Dick Camp</span><br />
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</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-78587372664342233392011-11-29T09:31:00.001-06:002011-11-30T08:28:26.323-06:00From the Pages - Bloody Nose Ridge (Part 1 of 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4vbyMYqMqKgxeh0OvbUJseexa3asa8ZLFfw_DoLFoYsNCotGL1fyACDo2yixNO7cSGD1ybotEMjsZPiEkOZstAZ7vFPyLdy48OQS_P3j85SzrsNYRB8O2qrXR4XNfFrz383PxfPnviEE/s1600/9780760341278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4vbyMYqMqKgxeh0OvbUJseexa3asa8ZLFfw_DoLFoYsNCotGL1fyACDo2yixNO7cSGD1ybotEMjsZPiEkOZstAZ7vFPyLdy48OQS_P3j85SzrsNYRB8O2qrXR4XNfFrz383PxfPnviEE/s200/9780760341278.jpg" width="130" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II, remains one of the most iconic, and controversial, battles in U.S. Marine Corps history. For the Marines of the 1st Marine Regiment, Peleliu would prove especially harrowing. Led into battle by the legendary Col. "Chesty" Puller, the 1st Marine Regiment would suffer unimaginable losses throughout the earliest days of the battle -- losses that would occur on the coral beaches and heavily fortified ridges of an island that resembled Hell on Earth.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The following account from <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Standing-Regiment-September/dp/0760341273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322578262&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">Last Man Standing</a></b> </i>is the first of a two-part excerpt detailing the 1st Marine Regiment's desperate -- and deadly -- struggle to take the now-infamous "Bloody Nose Ridge" on D + 2, September 17, 1944. It was here that Puller would lead his men in numerous bloody assaults, with every attack quickly neutralized by strategically placed Japanese ridge fortifications supporting one another with deadly crossfire.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">— </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A</span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t the end of the second day, Puller’s regiment was in somewhat better tactical shape than after the initial landing, but it had taken heavy casualties, and the toughest fight was yet to come—the jagged hill mass, nicknamed Bloody Nose Ridge. The terrain was described in the Regimental Narrative:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 27pt; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ground of Peleliu’s western peninsula was theworst ever encountered by the regiment in three Pacific campaigns. Along its center, the rocky spine was heaved up in a contorted mass of decayed coral, strewn with rubble, crags, ridges and gulches thrown together in a confusing maze. There were no roads, scarcely any trails. The pock-marked surface offered no secure footing even in the few level places. It was impossible to dig in: the best the men could do was pile a little coral or wood debris around their positions. The jagged rock slashed their shoes and clothes, and tore their bodies every time they hit the deck for safety. Casualties were higher for the simple reason it was impossible to get under the ground away from the Japanese mortar barrages. Each blast hurled chunks of coral in all directions, multiplying many times the fragmentation effect of every shell. Into this the enemy dug and tunneled like moles; and there they stayed to fight to the death.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Blockhouse<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">George McMillan wrote, “The 1st Battalion started out fine, moved with surprising ease for about an hour, but then was brought up sharp by fire from a concrete blockhouse the size of a small office building which stood directly in its path. Its reinforced walls were four feet thick, and as if that were not enough protection it was also supported by twelve pillboxes all connected by a maze of tunnels.” The battalion reported “that a large concrete structure 60 feet by 60 feet and about 20 feet high with 4 feet of reinforced concrete walls lay directly in the center of the battalion’s advance.” E. B. Sledge was glad his battalion did not have the mission. “We pitied the 1st Marines . . . [T]hey were suffering heavy casualties.” Davis reported that “it could be called a fortress because of all the pillboxes surrounding it.” Admiral Oldendorf had been badly mistaken. There were plenty of targets! The bunker and pillboxes were not even scratched.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ray Davis' battalion ran head-on into this huge Japanese blockhouse, which was still in operation despite the navy's assurance that all targets had been destroyed. Davis lost twenty-five men trying to knock it out. <i>Marine Corps History Division.</i></span></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Matthew Stevenson recalled that “Dawn came and with it the fiercest fighting yet, centering around a squat concrete building with three-foot thick walls, impervious to 37mm and 75mm shells firing at point-blank range.” Tom Lea scanned the area. “Looking up at the head of the trail I could see the big Jap blockhouse that commanded the height.” Davis ordered the lead company, now ground down to a reinforced platoon, into the attack. The men crawled forward, using whatever cover they could find to get closer to the Japanese position. The constant crack of small-arms fire and the roar of automatic weapons and exploding grenades were deafening. Here and there a figure writhed in agony, while other crumpled figures lay still in the debris. The attack ground to a halt. Davis pulled the troops back. “I took twenty-five casualties, including three dead,” he recalled sadly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Lieutenant N. R. K. Stanford, a naval gunfire forward observer, worked his way into a position where he could call in fire. “I was lying in the coral rubble of a shattered bunker in front of the blockhouse with the Nambu fire going high to my left and the Jap mortars bursting in the ripped and twisted coconut grove behind me.” The outline of the emplacement was blurred by the haze of coral dust, which hung in the air from muzzle blasts and mortar fire. “I set up my SCR-284 [radio] nearly at the top of an abandoned bunker and crawled through the loose coral to look over a broken timber revetment at the top of the bunker.” His radio operator handed him the handset, and he established contact with “Ironsides,” the call sign of the battleship USS <i>Mississippi</i>. “Ironsides, this is Charlie Nine. Target at . . . reinforced concrete blockhouse . . . AP [armor piercing] one round. Main battery . . . commence firing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 14-inch shell passed low over his head with a heart-stopping crack and landed beyond the target with a huge explosion. Stanford requested an adjustment. “Down 200, one salvo.” It rumbled overhead, smashing into the blockhouse. “I was numbed from the concussion and it took my eyes a few seconds to focus, but I could see that the camouflage had been stripped away and the shape of the blockhouse altered.” Tom Lea described the scene. “There were dead Japs on the ground where they had been hit . . . I saw some of the bodies were nothing more than red raw meat and blood mixed with the gravelly dust of concrete and splintered logs.” The battalion reported, “The nearest body was fully 30 feet away . . . a severed Jap hand lay in the doorway . . . 15 to 20 dead Japs lay inside, not a mark on them, killed by the terrific concussion.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The battalion moved out, but heavy Japanese mortar and artillery fire opened up on the exposed Marines. Casualties mounted. Private First Class George E. Cook was hit but “steadfastly refused to be evacuated and continued to press the attack in the face of continuing fire,” according to his Navy Cross citation. “Wounded again . . . he courageously elected to remain and continue the attack. Observing a wounded comrade lying in a fire-swept area . . . [he] ran forward, picked up the wounded man and carried him back to the lines . . . [W]hile returning he sustained further wounds.” Both men were carried to the captured bunker where the battalion aid station and communication center had been set up. Cook was quickly stabilized by the battalion surgeon, placed in an amtrac and evacuated to a transport that had been turned into a hospital ship. Unfortunately the Marine he tried to save died before reaching the aid station.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lieutenant Robert Fisher took up residence in the shattered structure. He marveled at the number of men the battalion surgeon handled and evacuated from the blockhouse. Fisher saw a Marine severely wounded by a mortar round. “Suddenly a shell landed squarely beside him and mangled his left forearm so badly that it hung to the elbow by only a few tendons,” Fisher recounted. “Despite the severity of the wound, he walked unaided for five hundred yards to the battalion aid station, where the doctor immediately amputated the arm and sent him to the rear. I will never forget the sight of him walking back with his mutilated arm.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A stretcher bearer told of evacuating the wounded. “We ran up the road about 400 yards or so to this blockhouse where there was a lot of wounded. We started out with four of us on a stretcher but on our first trip in, two got hit. I made four trips before I came down with heat prostration.” Tom Lea described a chaplain at an aid station. “He was deeply and visibly moved by the patient suffering and death. He looked very lonely, very close to God, as he bent over the shattered men so far from home. Corpsmen put a poncho, a shirt, a rag, anything handy, over the grey faces of the dead and carried them to a line on the beach, under a tarpaulin, to await the digging of graves.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Casualties among the officers and NCOs forced Davis to halt the attack and reorganize. “A” Company had been hit so hard that two platoons were combined under a surviving lieutenant. As the unit moved through some dense brush, a Japanese officer armed with a pistol and a sword suddenly charged the veteran officer. He casually turned to the BAR man on his left and muttered, “Well, why don’t you shoot him?” The Marine obliged by emptying half a magazine into the enemy officer. If that wasn’t enough, a <i>Rikusentai </i>(Japanese Marine) machine-gun squad tried to set up their gun to shoot them in the back. An alert rifleman spotted the group, and the combined platoon opened fire, killing all but one, who managed to throw a hand grenade that slightly wounded one of their number. Despite the wound, the Marine sharpshooter hit the Japanese soldier in the head with a single rifle shot. The platoon continued to blaze away at the Japanese in the brush. Their heavy fire kept the enemy pinned down, making it impossible for them to escape. At the end of a short firefight, the lieutenant reported “at least 40 dead Japanese were counted along a 300 yard stretch of road.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Davis’ battalion continued the attack toward the Umurbrogol’s outpost hills, with two abbreviated companies on line—“C” Company on the left and “A” Company on the right. At the base of Hill 160, “The Japanese turned their fire on it,” George McMillan recorded, “cutting our exposed front lines to ribbons under perfect observation. The 1<sup>st</sup> was forced to push on, to seek desperately for some of that high ground to storm the Japanese out of their emplacements on the bluff.” The attack was stopped cold by a Japanese 70mm mountain gun, which opened fire at point-blank range from a concrete hardened cave on the slope of Hill 160. The deadly effective howitzer fired for almost forty-five minutes, inflicting terrible casualties on the two assault companies. The battalion reported that “three of ‘A’ Company’s machine gunners were killed and three wounded. One whole machine gun squad and gun from ‘C’ Company was knocked out.” Davis was in awe of “Pfc. T. W. Pattee of the 81mm mortar OP, who was hit by shrapnel which tore a six-inch piece out of his left arm. It left his hand dangling by a small piece of muscle. Although severely wounded, Pattee assisted in carrying a wounded man back to the OP—and then walked another 650 yards to the aid station.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two Sherman tanks joined the assault. Infantry alone could not do the job. “All we did was run up to Bloody Nose Ridge and throw round after round of 75mm shells into all the holes we could see in the cave areas,” Pfc. Larry Kaloian, a loader, described; “[T]he infantry was right alongside us. We were protecting them and they were protecting us from a <i>banzai </i>charge or someone who might throw a Bangalore torpedo at us.” As one tank tried to bring its gun to bear on the cave, an eight-pound anti-tank round slammed into its protective armor, disabling it. The crew escaped but saw “hundreds and hundreds of nicks from bullets.” Minutes later, the second tank spotted the enemy field piece as it pulled back into a tunnel. The gunner declared that “when that baby comes out again, I’m going to take a crack at it.” The tank fired point-blank into the cave mouth as the gun reappeared, destroying it and killing the ten-man crew. “It was like a shootout in one of the western movies,” the tank commander declared. “Thank God our gunner was a crack shot.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Suddenly another position opened fire. This time it was a six-inch naval gun that had remained hidden from the pre-invasion bombardment. Its first shell sent the frontline infantry scrambling for cover behind a three-foot road embankment. The shell passed over them and hit fifty yards behind, directly in the battalion’s support units. Men armed with bazookas worked their way forward and succeeded in knocking it out. The infantrymen continued to claw upward. “The pock-marked surface offered no secure footing even in the few level places,” McMillan noted. O.P. Smith wrote, “Many men were wounded by rock fragments thrown up by the blast of the Japanese mortar and artillery shells.” As the men struggled forward, yard by yard, more and more were hit, and the cry “Corpsman, Corpsman” was almost constant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Davis’ attack was frustrated by the terrain. “We would fight for hours, losing men every step of the way, along one of these ledges, only to find it ended abruptly in a sheer cliff and have to fight our way back. It was terrible!” Stevenson recalled. “All the jungle foliage had long since been blasted away; the landscape seemed like the mountains of the moon.” E. B. Sledge was told by survivors that they “not only received heavy shelling from the enemy caves there but deadly accurate small-arms fire as well . . . The enemy fired on them from mutually supporting positions, pinning them down and inflicting heavy losses.” O. P. Smith remembered, “There were dozens of caves and pillboxes worked into the noses of the ridges and up the ravines. It was very difficult to find blind spots as the caves and pillboxes were mutually supporting. We found out later that some of the caves consisted of galleries of more than one level with several exits.” One of Davis’ NCOs put it another way. “When we hit them on top, they popped out of the bottom; when we hit them in the middle, they popped out of both ends.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the battalion scrambled forward, Stevenson worried about adjacent units:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 27pt; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It became clear to me that there were no friendly troops on the right flank. It was completely open, entirely vulnerable to a Japanese counter-attack which could surge all the way to the beach. I called Colonel Puller to warn him of the peril and the urgent need for reinforcements. When I reached him on the field telephone he was true to form. First, he confused me with Steve Sabol and when this was cleared up, his gruff voice spoke its usual formula, “Just keep pushing, old man.” I stood transfixed, with my runner beside me as we heard Japanese voices and the clink of weapons on the far side of the vital road. Unbelieving, I called again. This time I got lieutenant colonel “Buddy” Ross, who instantly perceived the urgency. “Stay right there, Steve, don’t move; I’m sending up a unit from the Seventh. Tie them into the line as soon as they get there.” Within what seemed like minutes, they appeared an immediately took up firing positions to plug the gap. No sooner was this done when there came wild shouts of “banzai” as the Japanese poured across the road into the devastating but crucially effective fire of the newly arrived Marines.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 27pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Somewhat later, a machine gun section moved through the same area, never suspecting that many Japanese were still lurking in the heavy undergrowth and had set up an ambush. As the lead squad entered the kill zone, the Japanese killed and wounded all five in a shower of grenades. The Marines never had a chance to fire a shot. However, the squad behind heard the firing and immediately assaulted through the ambush knocking down many of the enemy. They didn’t have time to mop up, as they had to keep up with the assault units. As the third squad came through, they learned that “some of the Jap officers had played ‘possum,’” according to Corporal Paul A. Downs, “and gave us the works on one side, while something like fifty Japs jumped us from the other. Loaded down with gear as we were, many of us couldn’t even fire a shot.” Many of the Marines were cut down in the deadly melee. One of the survivors,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pfc. Jack Jean French, emptied his rifle, picked up a carbine and emptied that. Weaponless, he shouted for help. “There’s wounded here! Help me get them.” Sergeant A.E. Crawford, his squad leader, heard the call. “The first thing I knew, there I was on my way back to help that kid.” He picked up a BAR and waded into the Japanese—‘Understand I got ten Japs with it,’—until running out of ammunition. He then picked up a Tommy gun and continued the fight, expending another 250 rounds of ammunition before the Japanese withdrew. Corpsmen came forward to treat the wounded, as the survivors moved forward to support the attack.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Wv1pIIZRuLIrMM4FixsXBYcwHxLMI1FCyYlBFbsQFgPIiqIvNsiGEFgp_4jk6LPwdsakG8UCDR27grjkkhzg9J78pqnT0BX4s-LQlEMgWzEkrd1jJF3NpjOAz8i9QnxAbjJazciPnt76/s1600/Photo+14-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Wv1pIIZRuLIrMM4FixsXBYcwHxLMI1FCyYlBFbsQFgPIiqIvNsiGEFgp_4jk6LPwdsakG8UCDR27grjkkhzg9J78pqnT0BX4s-LQlEMgWzEkrd1jJF3NpjOAz8i9QnxAbjJazciPnt76/s1600/Photo+14-9.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hill 200 (left) stopped Honsowetz's 2nd Battalion in its tracks. Casualties were heavy, and yet Puller ordered him to continue the attack. Japanese on Hill 210 (right) poured a devastating fire into the Marines' flank. The terrain shows the effects of the heavy bombardment by air, artillery, and naval gunfire. <i>Marine Corps History Division.</i></span></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By early afternoon, “A” Company gained the ridge. Its commander reported, “We’re up here, but we’re knee deep in Purple Hearts.” The units on its flanks could not maintain contact, so Davis had to order him back down the hill. The withdrawal was as costly as it was to go up. “They were forced to retire under heavy small arms and grenade fire from their front and machine gun fire from the 2nd Battalion sector,” the battalion reported. “It was decided that possession of Hill 160 would create a gap and stretch the lines too thin.” The men of “A” Company who had struggled all day to take the hill were not comforted by the rationale in the report. Morale among the survivors reached a low point. Davis reported that “ ‘A’ Company depleted itself on the bare ridge on the right as ‘C’ Company became seriously overextended on the left and was faltering. Everything we had was thrown in to fill the gaps. Remnants of ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies, engineer and pioneer units and headquarters personnel were formed into a meager reserve as darkness fell.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At 1700 the battalion dug in, while engineers demolished caves and pillboxes to prevent them from being used by Japanese infiltrators. The battalion tried to soften up the Japanese for the inevitable nighttime attack. Stevenson recalled that “a forward observer, a young ensign from the battleship <i>Mississippi</i>, appeared and declared himself ready to direct fire from its big guns on the enemy positions. For the rest of the night we called in salvo after salvo, hour after hour, on the honeycombed ridges facing the fast dwindling strength of our companies. However, as morning came the fire ceased and the Jap machine guns and mortars resumed their lethal chorus.” Ray Davis and his command group—Jim Rodgers and Nikolai Stevenson—huddled together to plan the attack for the following morning. “Clearly it was to be the battalion’s last throw of the dice,” Stevenson reported. “If Bloody Nose Ridge could be taken, our fire from its height into the enemy-held crevices below would eventually dislodge them and Peleliu [would be] won at last.” His assessment was more wishful than prophetic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The battalion reported that it had captured or destroyed “one large blockhouse, thirty-seven pillboxes, twenty-four caves, two anti-tank 47mm guns, two 70mm mountain guns, one six-inch naval gun and numerous machine guns. Over 300 enemy dead were counted.” A footnote at the end of the report stated: “At the point where the battalion OP was set up, three enemy carrier pigeons were shot and the attached messages were sent to R-2 [regimental intelligence].” Battalion casualties for the day due to enemy action were 14 killed in action, 81 evacuated and 2 missing in action. Many more were victims of the 112-degree heat and combat fatigue. The battalion total strength at this time was 18 officers and 474 enlisted men.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An officer of the battalion tried to explain the term “combat fatigue,” commonly known as “shell-shock”:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 27pt; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To those who have never seen it occur, combat fatigue is hardly understandable. But those who have experienced the constriction of the blood vessels in the stomach and the sudden whirling of the brain that occurs when a large shell bursts nearby or a friend has his eyes or entrails torn out by shrapnel can easily understand the man who cannot control his muscles and who stares wildly. It isn’t fear alone that causes shock to the system. Often it is the knowledge of his impotence, his inability to help his shipmate who is whistling through a hole in his chest, that momentarily snaps a man’s brain. Quite often, under the stress of combat fatigue, a man will perform acts of heroism that a reasoning mind would call foolhardy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ray Davis recalled an instance where one of his most valuable officers succumbed to fatigue. “I noticed Lieutenant Maples was in a state bordering on war-psychosis. He led his men forward into withering fire, exposing himself to assist his men. He was suffering from fatigue and the shock of seeing his men fall—but he never relaxed and kept moving in an entranced way. Finally one day he was shot in the abdomen and died just before reaching the hospital ship. This was his third campaign and he had distinguished himself in each.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.zenithpresstheblog.com/2011/11/from-pages-bloody-nose-ridge-part-2-of.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">To read Part 2 of 2 of the "Bloody Nose Ridge" excerpt, click here</span></a>. </b></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWDd7qBoDeU8ZalUXdk0N3_jEss6FDRqRjhFYNiW20b3mx-eoU1690fUu1l6RBbTTBG_yoCK9D27PpIfWTaCZuNhih08yhl5FXZrhhhNjGU84-EaDQIyoyOUKPnoMNSElnhupiM_n5NHf/s1600/9780760341278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWDd7qBoDeU8ZalUXdk0N3_jEss6FDRqRjhFYNiW20b3mx-eoU1690fUu1l6RBbTTBG_yoCK9D27PpIfWTaCZuNhih08yhl5FXZrhhhNjGU84-EaDQIyoyOUKPnoMNSElnhupiM_n5NHf/s1600/9780760341278.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excerpted with permission from <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Standing-Regiment-September/dp/0760341273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322578262&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu, September 15-21, 1944</a></b></i>, Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Dick Camp</span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-54118468157894009092011-11-28T09:02:00.000-06:002011-11-28T09:02:45.804-06:00Bomber Breakdown - Douglas A-20G Havoc<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8ZMV41EwdNrgQqPvi1t6iDI4uk23ELwZbmPyX-Zpj0jdl-P-O3rNBknHpcbJQPHsMYr372hxkoYMH340XaAtqoASbe1N_v7jbnQ6nv_Y8ZzKoy_pK8IDUV7CMrN4cDnGM65fQZhGmZPe/s1600/Douglas+A-20G+Havoc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8ZMV41EwdNrgQqPvi1t6iDI4uk23ELwZbmPyX-Zpj0jdl-P-O3rNBknHpcbJQPHsMYr372hxkoYMH340XaAtqoASbe1N_v7jbnQ6nv_Y8ZzKoy_pK8IDUV7CMrN4cDnGM65fQZhGmZPe/s1600/Douglas+A-20G+Havoc.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Douglas A-20G Havoc served as a widely used medium bomber in the U.S. Ninth Army Air Force from 1943-45. The Havoc played a significant role in support of U.S. ground forces during and after the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overlord</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> invasion of Normandy. The bomber would also play a role on the Eastern Front (as many A-20Gs were delivered to the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease) and the Pacific Theater of Operations (used on low-level sorties in the New Guinea campaign). Image and specs excerpted from </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145738/9780760334508/Allied-Bombers-1939-45.html">Allied Bombers 1939-1945</a> </i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-56644217449535454522011-11-22T08:55:00.000-06:002011-11-22T08:55:58.123-06:00Nine Principal Missions of Special Operations<div style="text-align: right;"></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-I0GPHsk43sStrx6Zh6I4-i3jfWzhPHIWeukNDXUvOxQZkDsCuxqSdpQTldd89w1OTcAkoxJBoFbA4086bC7KvTt77_1pGnKX43oetOTcM_p2blfAMBnMw3aItn-6aFQYfrmOXJpsn8J/s1600/MARSOC+pie+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-I0GPHsk43sStrx6Zh6I4-i3jfWzhPHIWeukNDXUvOxQZkDsCuxqSdpQTldd89w1OTcAkoxJBoFbA4086bC7KvTt77_1pGnKX43oetOTcM_p2blfAMBnMw3aItn-6aFQYfrmOXJpsn8J/s320/MARSOC+pie+chart.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Current percentage chart of SOCOM service forces.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the post-9/11 world, the need for special operations forces dramatically increased. With the creation of the Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) in 2006, Marines officially became a part of the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). Initially drawn from the ranks of Force Recon companies, these highly skilled and combat-proven Leathernecks joined their spec ops brethren in taking the war to al-Qaeda and the Taliban in American's global war on terrorism. The following is a list of the principal missions assigned to MARSOC and the other special ops forces.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Special Operations Principal Missions</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to the SOCOM posture statement, the nine activities have been designated as special operations principal missions: direct action (DA), combating terrorism (CBT), foreign internal defense (FID), unconventional warfare (UW), special reconnaissance (SR), information operations (IO), civil affairs (CA), counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (CP), and psychological operations (PSYOP). SOF is organized, trained, and equipped specifically to accomplish these nine tasks. These tasks as related by SOCOM are listed below.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Direct Action (DA)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DA operations include short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive operations principally undertaken by SOF to seize, destroy, capture, recover, or inflict damage on designated personnel or matériel. While conducting these operations, SOF may employ raid, ambush, or direct assault tactics; emplace mines and other munitions; conduct stand-off attacks by fire from air, ground, or maritime platforms; provide terminal guidance for precision weapons; and conduct independent sabotage and anti-ship operations.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Combating Terrorism (CBT)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CBT is a highly specialized, resource-intensive mission. Certain SOF units maintain a high state of readiness to conduct CBT operations and possess a full range of CBT capabilities. CBT activities include antiterrorism (AT), counterterrorism (CT), recovery of hostages or sensitive material from terrorist organizations, attacks on terrorist infrastructure, and reduction of vulnerability to terrorism.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Foreign Internal Defense (FID)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FID involves participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government to free and protect societies from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency. SOF’s primary contribution in this interagency activity is to organize, train, advise, and assist host nation military and paramilitary forces. The generic capabilities required for FID include instructional skills; foreign language proficiency; area and cultural orientation; tactical skills; advanced medical skills; rudimentary construction and engineering skills; familiarity with a wide variety of demolitions, weapons, weapon systems, and communications equipment; and basic PSYOP and CA skills.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Unconventional Warfare (UW)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">UW includes guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, intelligence activities, evasion and escape, and other activities of a low visibility, covert, or clandestine nature. When UW is conducted independently during conflict or war, its primary focus is on political and psychological objectives. When UW operations support conventional military operations, the focus shifts to primarily military objectives.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Special Reconnaissance (SR)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SOF conducts a wide variety of information-gathering activities of strategic or operational significance. Collectively, these activities are called SR. SR complements national and theater intelligence collection systems by obtaining specific, well-defined, and time-sensitive information when other systems are constrained by weather, terrain-masking, hostile countermeasures, or conflicting priorities. SR tasks include environmental reconnaissance, armed reconnaissance (locating and attacking targets of opportunity), coastal patrol and interdiction, target and threat assessment, and post-strike reconnaissance.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Information Operations (IO)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IO refers to actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one’s own information and information systems. The following three missions are those of SOCOM and not necessarily MARSOC.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Civil Affairs (CA)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CA facilitates military operations and consolidates operational activities by assisting commanders in establishing, maintaining, influencing, or exploiting relations between military forces and civil authorities, both governmental and nongovernmental, and the civilian population in a friendly, neutral, or hostile area of operation.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Counterproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (CP)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CP refers to the actions taken to seize, destroy, render safe, capture, or recover weapons of mass destruction (WMD). SOF provides unique capabilities to monitor and support compliance with arms control treaties. If directed, SOF can conduct or support SR and DA missions to locate and interdict sea, land, and air shipments of dangerous materials or weapons. SOF is tasked with organizing, training, equipping, and otherwise preparing to conduct operations in support of U.S. government counterproliferation objectives.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Psychological Operations (PSYOP)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PSYOP induces or reinforces foreign attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator’s objectives by conducting planned operations to convey selected information to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Irregular Warfare (IW)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Irregular warfare (IW) is another mission area for SOF. Unconventional warfare, counterterrorism (CT), counterinsurgency (COIN), civil-military operations (CMO), civil affairs (CA), psychological operations (PSYOP), and foreign internal defense (FID) are all traditional IW activities and core tasks for SOF. With IW’s emergence as a focus area for broader participation across the spectrum, it increasingly describes activities that both SOF and general purpose forces will employ in their operational approaches. IW doctrine calls for a suite of capabilities to prevail against those who threaten the United States. IW is a logical, long-term framework that assists in both analyzing and applying many elements of national and international power to achieve mutual security objectives. IW often employs indirect operations to gain asymmetric advantage over adversaries.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwC9PL1W0JxBJ40tXnBvKlkGSPuwVVjkn9ixC7i41fgE7HHikd-mLjUmLYeJhV49-z2cqoPUyJMQD6Hzk2OIg78ZTMR_CLDgpm1ySJrY6OKMtv_D8ryJ2wCpcQGt_SzcRW4L_cOg_dNkXr/s1600/9780760340745.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwC9PL1W0JxBJ40tXnBvKlkGSPuwVVjkn9ixC7i41fgE7HHikd-mLjUmLYeJhV49-z2cqoPUyJMQD6Hzk2OIg78ZTMR_CLDgpm1ySJrY6OKMtv_D8ryJ2wCpcQGt_SzcRW4L_cOg_dNkXr/s1600/9780760340745.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excerpted from </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/MARSOC-Marine-Special-Operations-Command/dp/0760340749/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321973596&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">MARSOC: U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command</a></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> by Fred Pushies. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Copyright © 2011. Reprinted by permission of Zenith Press, an imprint of Quayside Publishing Group.</span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-53877738878008975912011-11-21T08:30:00.003-06:002011-11-21T08:36:06.510-06:00From the Pages - The German Aces Speak<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzApALuIaP8qCSrVWLB0iUOc6wZze3555j2HryDD3d_a33PqlCh0k4_IU2-TbhNYyAla9j03UpS_IBeY21rZ_c8h3sB2u4tR6vFjEcAIPelP7gve3Tzl6vqhlUL_O1l7uLVxSPR6Zcgwuw/s1600/9780760341155.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzApALuIaP8qCSrVWLB0iUOc6wZze3555j2HryDD3d_a33PqlCh0k4_IU2-TbhNYyAla9j03UpS_IBeY21rZ_c8h3sB2u4tR6vFjEcAIPelP7gve3Tzl6vqhlUL_O1l7uLVxSPR6Zcgwuw/s200/9780760341155.jpg" width="130" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Generalleutnant</i> Walter Krupinski was one of those men destined to always tempt fate. His fatherly approach and genuine concern for the welfare of his pilots, as well as his respect for captured enemy pilots, illustrated his humanity in a world where savagery was the order of the day. He became a teacher to many pilots, the most notable being the future “Ace of Aces” Erich Hartmann, who learned well from “Krupi” and other experts in JG.52.</span><br />
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By the time Krupinski was awarded the <i>Ritterkreuz</i> (Knight’s Cross) on October 29, 1942, he had been credited with shooting down 53 Allied aircraft. His final score of 197 could have been much higher, but he never claimed a probable victory or argued over a disputed claim, always giving the victory to the other man. Krupinski probably gave away more than 30 potential victories in that manner.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">In the following excerpt from <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/German-Aces-Speak-Luftwaffes-Commanders/dp/076034115X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313597172&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20">The German Aces Speak</a></b>, </i>Krupinski recalls meeting, and eventually taking to the skies with, Hartmann.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjreX7tbY_E62-_dCrp40UsyBuKu8hyyDqFWpNmqN4FeZiJ1DcR_vTnCtNRvH8zpZh0JbNh1Dj1_BZeSq7SvMS62mzX_rzin6_Xc-F2ImCAJCYaE26zIvagQifvvTuTOXrRCeFiLUobYtVb/s1600/Krupinski_und_hartmann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjreX7tbY_E62-_dCrp40UsyBuKu8hyyDqFWpNmqN4FeZiJ1DcR_vTnCtNRvH8zpZh0JbNh1Dj1_BZeSq7SvMS62mzX_rzin6_Xc-F2ImCAJCYaE26zIvagQifvvTuTOXrRCeFiLUobYtVb/s1600/Krupinski_und_hartmann.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Walter Krupinski (left) and Erich Hartmann.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: small;">I had just become commanding officer of 7th <i>Staffel </i>of III/JG.52 [7.III/JG.52] when in March 1943, I first met Erich Hartmann. He had been with JG.52 since about October with Paule Rossmann and had been groomed by him and Alfred Grislawski, as well as, later, Dieter Hrabak, who took over from Hubertus von Bonin. He was such a child! So young, and that was when I gave him the nickname of “Bubi,” or boy, and it stuck with him for the rest of his life.<br />
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He remembered me from about six months earlier, when I had a memorable crash landing in a burning Me-109 at Maikop. He had just arrived and was assigned to III/JG.52 under [Hubertus] von Bonin, although we did not formally meet. I was shot all up after a sortie against the Soviets, a very difficult mission, and I was blinded by smoke and slightly wounded.10 Later we heard the early reports that Hartmann had a bad habit of breaking formation, and losing his aircraft with little to show for the efforts. He learned eventually, after being grounded a couple of times.<br />
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Regarding this mission, we had flown eight of our Me-109s to look for a group of [Ilyushin] Il-2 <i>Shturmovik</i> bombers, and we found over a dozen of them with a like number of fighter escorts, mostly Yaks. These fighter pilots were not the usual suspects, and their markings indicated a Red Banner unit. These were the fighter units that contained the best and brightest Soviet pilots, real hot shots who knew how to fly and fight. They looked for a fight, unlike the average enemy pilot.<br />
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The Yak was also a fighter that you could not underestimate. It had great speed, could outdive us, outclimb us, and was just as good, if not better, in a turning fight. Unlike their brothers in the more traditional units, these men wanted to fight. Once you engaged, you had to keep your head. The Red Banner fighters would dogfight with you, and then ram you if they could once they were out of ammunition. I saw this happen on more than one occasion. It happened to me once, while I was flying with Dieter Hrabak as the element leader.<br />
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One of our guys called out “enemy aircraft” at nine o’clock low. We had the altitude advantage, about two thousand meters in fact, so I banked over and told my wingman, who I believe was Heinz Ewald, to follow me. I went into a shallow dive, pulled up and closed in quickly on the trailing Il-2, and when I was perhaps three hundred meters away I fired. I continued firing as I closed the distance, short bursts, cannon only.<br />
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The rear gunner was hit; I knew this as glass flew everywhere, it just exploded. Almost immediately afterward, the engine started smoking, so I continued on. I stepped on the left rudder and drifted into a really good firing position to engage another bomber. I scored some good hits on him and the aircraft’s engine exploded, the range was only one hundred meters, so I kicked more rudder to avoid a collision. The engine fire turned to black smoke and he dropped out of formation.</span><br />
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Ewald called out more “Indians” and we attacked, as they were below us, two Il-2 <i>Shturmoviks</i>. Ewald managed to shoot one down, and another pilot got the second, both using the standard method: close in and hit the oil cooler. This was really the only way to shoot down one of these airplanes. I had once wasted an entire inventory of ammunition, to include all of the ammunition in my 20mm cannon into just one <i>Shturmovik</i> to bring it down. These planes were built like tanks, and could withstand all but the heaviest 88mm and larger AA fire.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdgTqpu_3AuufiDt21saBL1_48jkf6v8bxPAdsC4jw9yZF5kqHPBOvi81G4L_r2mLl5MjwCWVz3oVEwfMB0FQAE90rsgUwugTjL9WZhDrNibqRY54hysnZtITRMdKk1IY4jVUOtl3xLeQ/s1600/Ilyushin_Il_2_Shturmovik.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdgTqpu_3AuufiDt21saBL1_48jkf6v8bxPAdsC4jw9yZF5kqHPBOvi81G4L_r2mLl5MjwCWVz3oVEwfMB0FQAE90rsgUwugTjL9WZhDrNibqRY54hysnZtITRMdKk1IY4jVUOtl3xLeQ/s400/Ilyushin_Il_2_Shturmovik.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An [Ilyushin] Il-2 <i>Shturmovik, </i>the Soviet's preferred ground-attack aircraft.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I was once able to inspect a crash-landed Il-2 and I studied it closely, all of us did. We located the bomber’s Achilles’ heel. The radiator coolant system was centrally located, and if you could come up from below and attack, that was the place to aim for. I taught Hartmann this, as well as many others as I mentioned before.<br />
<br />
I flew into a formation of eight Il-2s, and I followed them right through our flak screen. Now this was not the brightest thing to do, but I really wanted to get a couple of kills. Suddenly, one of the enemy bombers took a direct flak hit, and the entire plane was thrown up about a hundred feet straight up, above the others. It was still flying, streaming smoke. Never one to pass up an opportunity, I pulled the nose up and finished him off. Then I kicked left rudder and fired into the cockpit of the nearest Il-2. He started smoking and went down, both men bailing out.<br />
<br />
I then knew I had enough ammunition for a third pass, when suddenly my fighter was hit by flak. I felt the engine dismount from the brackets forward of the firewall. Shrapnel had torn dozens of holes in the right wing. The canopy was blown off and smoke was coming into the cockpit. I smelled burning oil, and then decided to bail out. I looked up and released my straps to climb out, but when I looked up, I saw the ground. I was upside down and did not know it, so I moved the stick all the way to the left, but the plane would not respond. I looked at the altimeter, which had disappeared, as the instrument panel was gone.<br />
<br />
Well, as I could see soldiers clearly on the ground, bailing out was not an option, and landing upside down was definitely not my first choice. As if by divine intervention, my 109 was rocked again by flak, which luckily righted the plane. I looked ahead, saw an open field, and then decided not to trust the landing gear. I plowed right into a smooth landing, perhaps the smoothest forced landing I ever had. I got out, walked away as my plane started to burn furiously. Three of my friends flew overhead and I waved that I was fine.<br />
<br />
Once I had a similar situation, not too long after this event. We were flying a mission to support a Stuka strike, and the flight in was very uneventful. I had flown perhaps almost a dozen flights with no action at all, so I guess I was becoming complacent. Then we saw a flight of over twenty Il-2s and a like number of escort fighters, which woke me up. I heard Ewald call them out over the radio. We had, I think, seventeen Me-109s, the Gustav models, in this flight. We divided into two sections; the first flight attacked the fighters to keep them busy, while I led the flight to hit the bombers.<br />
<br />
The bomber formation was slightly below us at our two o’clock, while the fighters were about five thousand feet higher. I called the attack, kicked the right rudder, and threw the stick hard right. I rolled over and glanced behind me, and saw my seven comrades following me. I remember that Rall had just returned to flight status again, but he was not on this mission, and neither was Hrabak. Graf was, and he had two kills, I think. I had two new pilots who were on their first war patrol, and that made me a little nervous. I also wished that Hartmann was with us, but he was not up there that day either.<br />
<br />
I began closing on the bombers, and they definitely saw us. They seemed to try and take evasive action, but at the speed we had in closing on them, it was no use. I closed in on one, about the third from the right, and fired into him. I saw the cannon shells strike, but having little effect other than shattering a glass pane where the pilot sat in the cockpit. The plane was not smoking, but it did go straight down. I did not bother to see if it crashed, as I was rather busy. I heard “Horrido!” and knew someone had scored a kill.<br />
<br />
I pulled up and then hauled back hard on the stick, kicked left rudder, and banked left to come around again. I immediately came up on the right rear seven o’clock position on another Il-2 and fired. He started smoking and lost altitude in a shallow dive, and then he started burning, leaving a thick black smoke trail. I knew I had enough ammunition for another attack and I was undamaged. I called out my status and learned that all of my flight were undamaged, and six kills were confirmed.<br />
<br />
After hitting the second bomber, which I knew was a confirmed kill, I flew through the formation, losing altitude to gather airspeed, and then I pulled into a climb again. My wingman, the ever-present Ewald, called in a kill of his own, which I saw. As I pulled the nose up, I banked right in a shallow turn and could see four bombers going down and only three parachutes.<br />
<br />
I also saw a Messerschmitt going down trailing smoke, followed by four Yaks, Red Banner boys that were followed in their dive by a single 109. I saw from the markings that it was Barkhorn firing, and one of the bombers just exploded and then careened into another Il-2, and both fell in flames. Then he pulled up to avoid the falling wreckage and almost collided with another Il-2. He would have clipped it with his wing if he had not rolled over to the right in his climb. His wingman killed that one, and the fourth and last one turned into me. I thought, “Damn, two kills for Gerd, maybe I can get this guy.”<br />
<br />
Then I felt the “whump whump whump” as my fighter was hit. I looked at the instruments, and all seemed fine, although I then noticed a rather large hole in the left side of my canopy. Had I banked left instead of right, the force of banking would have placed my head right where the cannon shell had penetrated. That was the wake-up call I needed. The shell had continued and went through the left corner of my windscreen, so I now had the slipstream pouring in on me.<br />
<br />
My wingman, Ewald, chopped his throttle and slid in behind my enemy, who was trying to kill me. He shot him down, which was his second kill, but then he radioed that he was also hit. Then I saw a Yak flash past me from above, and I tried to pull the nose up to shoot him down, but I was near stalling, so I rolled upside down and pulled the stick back. I decided to dive away and gather speed, allowing me to pull up and then have a better look.<br />
<br />
Well, this one guy stayed with me through the maneuver, which was a reverse split-S by the time I was finished. I rolled upside right and level, gained more altitude, and then saw another Il-2 headed east, so I fire walled the throttle and closed the distance. I looked behind me and I was clear on my tail, and Ewald was smoking.<br />
<br />
Again I had the bumpy aftereffect of enemy rounds hitting my fighter, and my wingman called out the problem: another Yak had caught me while it was in the dive, shooting me up pretty good. I radioed back that I was well aware of the problem, because I had a burning smell in my cockpit, but saw no flames or smoke.<br />
<br />
Then out of nowhere, I heard a call sign, and a “Horrido!” I think it was Heinz Sachsenberg, who was also another outstanding fighter pilot. He joined the battle and made two kills in a row, and the irony of it was that he was not even assigned to fly on that mission. He was in the process of ferrying a repaired 109 from another unit, where the pilot had landed it after a fight a few weeks ago. He just happened to hear the fight over the radio, and decided to join in.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdkCFN4jaCiH1sTeZYVJv6c0U9JumUJuoN8Yhz3ztb5kpQkUfKYNqMvsHrDlX-NjF0zCiVQClv6_HJhW_IUGW2hmNTVJ5FxXcdAI9eJIiMaIqcixKNzHGGMXLrWeLXaPmtEURwCQ6s9o/s1600/Me109s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdkCFN4jaCiH1sTeZYVJv6c0U9JumUJuoN8Yhz3ztb5kpQkUfKYNqMvsHrDlX-NjF0zCiVQClv6_HJhW_IUGW2hmNTVJ5FxXcdAI9eJIiMaIqcixKNzHGGMXLrWeLXaPmtEURwCQ6s9o/s400/Me109s.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In 1943, many Germans on the Eastern Front, including Krupinski and Hartmann, strapped into the cockpits of the Me 109, one of the first true modern fighters of the era.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I decided that it was time to break off and go home. I heard over the radio that my comrades had called out nine kills, one loss to us, which must have been the 109 I saw going down. That was a bad feeling, because we all knew that nothing good could come of being captured by the Soviets. I found out it was one of the new men whose name I cannot remember. The other new pilot claimed a probable, but definitely damaged an Il-2, which was later confirmed as a kill by ground troops.<br />
<br />
Barkhorn had also fired on the same bomber, which was the last one I saw and wanted to get, but when the new pilot fired and then finished it off, Gerd gave him the kill. That was the kind of guy he was. My fuel warning light was on, and I was losing fuel, as Ewald said he saw the vapor trail from my fuselage and wing. That sober reality was probably more influential in keeping me aware of my fuel than anything else. However, these Red Banner boys were not interested in breaking contact.13<br />
<br />
Soon there were only the two of us and eight Yaks, all turning ever tighter to try and get an advantage. I did not see the other German fighters. I later learned that they had climbed for higher altitude, as another fighter group was being vectored in to pick up the very formation we were attacking. Again I felt this “whump whump” and noticed another good-sized hole in my left wing.<br />
<br />
Ewald flew past me, and his fighter was scored with what appeared to be dozens of bullet holes. Then a pain flashed through my leg; an exploding shell had hit the fuselage, and a piece of the hot metal struck me in the thigh. I was bleeding, but it was not life threatening. I called that I was headed home, so I let the <i>Shturmovik</i> go, as I was still at least twenty to thirty minutes flying time from my base and low on fuel. I still had my wingman, and that was always the way I defined a successful mission. Even if you shot down a few airplanes, if you lost your wingman, the mission was a partial failure.<br />
<br />
Well, I noticed that my fuel gauge was still dropping fast, so I assumed I was losing even more fuel. Soon I saw my air field loom into view. We had a standing rule: the aircraft that were the most badly damaged were to land adjacent to the landing strip. This was so that the air field would not be choked with debris, thus preventing undamaged fighters from landing. If the landing gear locked down, you could use the auxiliary strip. If they did not lock down, we were to belly into the field adjacent to the auxiliary airstrip.<br />
<br />
The fighters in good shape would land first, and taxi off if possible. Then we damaged fighters, with solid gear down and locked, would set down. I tried to lower my landing gear, but something was wrong. Ewald told me that the entire undercarriage was shot full of holes, and the smoke I smelled was a small fire, as one of my tires was slowly burning up in the wheel well. Rather than bail out, which I hated, I wanted to save the fighter. I was really too low to safely bail out anyway. The thought of that fire touching off my streaming fuel and blowing me up, or turning me into a flying torch, preyed upon me.<br />
<br />
Without my gear able to come down, I came in to land, engine switched off, fuel off, belly riding across the grass strip, taking two bounces and slamming into a pile of bombs that had been placed at the edge of this field, and I scraped right through all of it. I was lucky that my plane was not on fire and the bombs had no fuses. That event was written about by Raymond Toliver and Trevor Constable in Erich’s biography, <i>The Blond Knight of Germany</i>.<br />
<br />
The reason I mention this is because this was the first day I met Erich Hartmann, which was October 1942. He had just arrived at the unit, and I was assigned as his temporary section leader. So, the first time Hartmann sees me is when I am climbing out of that shot-up fighter, stepping over a scattered collection of bombs, bleeding from a minor leg wound, my flying jacket also with tears in it from the cannon shot through the canopy as the glass shattered.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Excerpt taken from <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/German-Aces-Speak-Luftwaffes-Commanders/dp/076034115X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313597172&sr=8-1/creativepubco-20"><b>The German Aces Speak: World War II Through the Eyes of Four of the Luftwaffe's Most Important Commanders</b></a> </i>by Colin B. Heaton & Anne-Mariel Lewis.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-1924866989341356092011-11-18T09:05:00.000-06:002011-11-18T09:05:17.658-06:00Warbird Breakdown - Bell P-39L Airacobra<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighXam7JKBtk7ETWuuzjC6m7BtEJWUSrvsPeZUCgg9PXyfB0bKc1yGyuSx9ayL6JxajbcVvrPZJWCcfAO2qXv3lPRABxcUo5xxoKr5t9dP8-VHXsyu6BVaox8TiDYZfdmrDJd293IxXIrM/s1600/Bell+P-39L+Airacobra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighXam7JKBtk7ETWuuzjC6m7BtEJWUSrvsPeZUCgg9PXyfB0bKc1yGyuSx9ayL6JxajbcVvrPZJWCcfAO2qXv3lPRABxcUo5xxoKr5t9dP8-VHXsyu6BVaox8TiDYZfdmrDJd293IxXIrM/s1600/Bell+P-39L+Airacobra.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Bell P-39 Airacobra was one of the principal American fighter aircraft in service when the United States entered World War II. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was the first fighter in history with a tricycle undercarriage and the first to have the engine installed in the center fuselage, behind the pilot. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a key fighter aircraft in the US Twelfth Air Force, the P-39 played an instrumental role in the skies above North Africa in 1942-43. <i>Image and specs e</i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xcerpted from </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145739/9780760334515/Allied-Fighters-1939-45.html"><b>Allied Fighter 1939-1945</b></a> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-21951188973261885672011-11-16T11:46:00.000-06:002011-11-16T11:46:24.261-06:00SpaceShipOne - The Ten Phases of Flight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3xXZ3OY6aDC4aqGdsAmMLJ1oehLhMYAFmhmU5NN76aQuUnlmavSPE1uM9Yhy1krGFYxQBMCX0wLUMyh5OFwpETWUxUV1nSwFDnOj1N2ZSdzeEWdyJDkwEAQEjgg3rrYmSBwB_kDC9JUEA/s1600/Document1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3xXZ3OY6aDC4aqGdsAmMLJ1oehLhMYAFmhmU5NN76aQuUnlmavSPE1uM9Yhy1krGFYxQBMCX0wLUMyh5OFwpETWUxUV1nSwFDnOj1N2ZSdzeEWdyJDkwEAQEjgg3rrYmSBwB_kDC9JUEA/s1600/Document1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">In April of 2003, a company called Scaled Composites lifted the veil of secrecy from a longtime research program and introduced </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">SpaceShipOne</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">—the world’s first commercially manned spacecraft. The program included an airborne launcher (the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">White Knight</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">), a space ship (</span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">SpaceShipOne</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">), rocket propulsion, avionics, simulator, and full ground support. </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><i>SpaceShipOne</i>'s suborbital spaceflight could be broken down into ten different phases:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">1. Liftoff of SpaceShipOne mated to White Knight<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">2. Captive-carry to launch altitude<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">3. SpaceShipOne separation from White Knight<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">4. Supersonic boost to space<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">5. Coast to apogee<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">6. Freefall from apogee<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">7. Supersonic reentry into the atmosphere<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">8. Descent with feather still up<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">9. Gliding descent back to runway<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">10. Horizontal landing<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Diagram courtesy of Mojave Aerospace Ventures, LLC and SpaceShipOne, a Paul G. Allen Project, from <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Burt-Rutans-Race-Space-Innovations/dp/0760338159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321465047&sr=8-1">Burt Rutan's Race to Space</a></b> by Dan Linehan.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-21006635946008183902011-11-14T08:57:00.000-06:002011-11-14T08:57:02.990-06:00Bomber Breakdown - Fairey Barracuda Mk II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zzQzL5dv-wrfWW_7NhobtGntrwIVvbBGXN_9k7w5MbNrpI4AqyYQj35DO0sVMAocVShaiRmMWC3_IyJSME3_cd9HmH5J814P3lX6CTnT7gpJaAx4oZbXKc8yDtvkcFyeE8dI87KMgDkU/s1600/Fairey+Barracuda+Mk+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zzQzL5dv-wrfWW_7NhobtGntrwIVvbBGXN_9k7w5MbNrpI4AqyYQj35DO0sVMAocVShaiRmMWC3_IyJSME3_cd9HmH5J814P3lX6CTnT7gpJaAx4oZbXKc8yDtvkcFyeE8dI87KMgDkU/s1600/Fairey+Barracuda+Mk+II.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne torpedo- and dive bomber used during World War II, the first of its type used by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm to be fabricated entirely from metal. It was introduced as a replacement for the Fairey Swordfish, although the Swordfish remained largely preferred by many pilots. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Image and specs e</i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xcerpted from </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145738/9780760334508/Allied-Bombers-1939-45.html">Allied Bombers 1939-1945</a></b> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-8961124392045142762011-11-10T08:54:00.000-06:002011-11-10T08:54:46.885-06:00Military Snapshot - Crossing the Ourthe River One Half-track at a Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipt_-SGl-6hR2UsfM3C7ZB-zxOnpBL8_cZIqPfjm9H4Tj2yBtlnYEgnlCwioSTpS_MLYJxHjBp-XNnqo_CJqVc68pde7V4inEnpNu8SgnmSdpzRxNAD_iPGbb6SAn5dB15tMAEN5SruK9P/s1600/Halftrack+over+the+Ourth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipt_-SGl-6hR2UsfM3C7ZB-zxOnpBL8_cZIqPfjm9H4Tj2yBtlnYEgnlCwioSTpS_MLYJxHjBp-XNnqo_CJqVc68pde7V4inEnpNu8SgnmSdpzRxNAD_iPGbb6SAn5dB15tMAEN5SruK9P/s1600/Halftrack+over+the+Ourth.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the Battle of the Bulge, Houffalize, Belgium proved to be a strategic location. Specifically, Generals Montgomery and Patton met up there, Montgomery coming from the north and Patton from the south, in their counter-attack against the German forces remaining in the area. In this photo, a U.S. Army half-track crosses a temporary bridge over the Ourthe in the war-torn Belgian city of Houffalize, January 1945. <i>Photo courtesy of Associated Press, from </i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Bulge-Untold-Stories-Veterans/dp/0760340331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320936720&sr=8-1">Voices of the Bulge: Untold Stories from Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge</a></b> <i>by Martin King and Michael Collins.</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-15273465461005403792011-11-08T08:45:00.005-06:002011-11-09T11:23:11.873-06:00Beyond the Book - Q & A with Colin D. Heaton, author of "The German Aces Speak"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfreRI3vsj4YSlGUre7umAturUGTGie9BmbtfTIZ2g67N3upfgtQ60aidujY8W1OEdtuIUvDAMt5urr1Naf-huWC_NvsrL2kuedXcxZwckhZeNFsiCS2_SRxD09FSR6qqc-SO8CmreTk2i/s1600/9780760341155.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfreRI3vsj4YSlGUre7umAturUGTGie9BmbtfTIZ2g67N3upfgtQ60aidujY8W1OEdtuIUvDAMt5urr1Naf-huWC_NvsrL2kuedXcxZwckhZeNFsiCS2_SRxD09FSR6qqc-SO8CmreTk2i/s200/9780760341155.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During World War II, the Third Reich’s fighter pilots destroyed some 70,000 enemy aircraft during the war, with approximately 45,000 destroyed on the Eastern Front.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his riveting new book <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/German-Aces-Speak-Luftwaffes-Commanders/dp/076034115X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320761923&sr=8-1">The German Aces Speak</a></i></b>, author and historian Colin D. Heaton sheds a fascinating, long-overdue light on four of Germany’s most honorable and skilled fighter pilots from World War II. It is a refreshingly in-depth look at the oft-misunderstood German legends who took to the skies, not for their Führer, but for their country. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heaton recently took a moment to sit down with Zenith Press to discuss his new book, the larger-than-life German aces he was able to interview, and the wealth of first-hand stories that fill his new book's pages. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZENITH PRESS: Countless books have been written on the Allied fighter pilots of World War II, particularly from an American point-of-view. What inspired you to write a book detailing the other side of the coin—Germany’s top Luftwaffe aces?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>COLIN HEATON:</b> I was inspired by meeting a few German aces in the 1970s, and once learning of their exploits, became fascinated. This is actually my second book that details interviews with Luftwaffe aces. All of my books have interviews, or segments of interviews for emphasis from the participants. I think it brings a lot more credibility to a historical project.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: It could be argued quite convincingly that the Germany’s Luftwaffe possessed the most highly skilled collection of fighter pilots of any nation during World War II. What about these four aces (Galland, Neumann, Falck, and Krupinski), in particular, made them such ideal choices for a more detailed study?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> I chose these four for the first book of complete interviews simply because of the diversity of their various careers, theaters of operation, unique experiences and their specific jobs. I also wanted to introduce Krupinski and Neumann, who are not household names in America, into a book that had Galland and Falck, who were better known.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: The victory totals for Walter Krupinski (nearly 200) and Adolf Galland (over 100) are staggering. While their aerials victories paled in comparison, the contributions of Eduard Neumann and Wolfgang Falck extended far beyond the cockpit. Can you briefly explain?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> Falck and Neumann, like Galland, were organizational geniuses. Falck’s career as a combat pilot was cut short by his job commanding the entire night fighter air arm, which was very administrative, seconding him to Goering’s staff basically. Neumann, being a geschwader kommodore, had the same problem. Administration and organization with higher rank often took men out of the cockpit and threw them behind a desk. Galland was the one renegade among the higher ranking officers; he violated direct orders not to fly all the time whenever he could, but he could never get command of a combat outfit until February 1945, when the war was almost over, with the attitude of “what are they going to do about it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: Often glossed over in popular histories of the war is the fact that many Germans serving in the armed forces leading up to and during the war were quite critical of the policies, strategies and philosophies of Adolf Hitler and the upper echelon of the Third Reich’s regime. Did you discover any such attitudes in the men you chose to detail in <i>The German Aces Speak</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> Yes, this was one of the great reasons for the Fighters’ Revolt. These men interviewed in the book were the recipients and eyewitnesses of these bad decisions, such as Galland’s mentioning Field Marshal von Richthofen’s argument with Goering over transport supplies. This event, among others, is the clearest example of rear area commanders being too far removed from the reality at the front to make the proper decisions. The disaffection was also not limited to the Luftwaffe. Three SS generals, two I knew personally, openly disagreed to Hitler and Himmler directly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: Few American veterans of the World War II era have been romanticized to quite the same degree as fighter aces. In researching your book, did you gain insight into how German fighter pilots—particularly the aces featured in <i>The German Aces Speak</i>—were viewed/received by the German public during the war and since?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> The German aces, like the U-boat commanders, became tragic heroes in the classical Greek sense. They lost the war, despite a stellar personal and collective performance, and we in Great Britain and the United States have a great capacity to be able to respect our enemies, if they fought a clean, fair fight. The modern Germans actually learn nothing of their heroes, read nothing in their history books at public school. It is almost as if 1933-1945 was a blip on the historical radar screen. They just ignore it and move on. Same as it was with our nation following Vietnam, only much worse. Anyone who wore a uniform in the Third Reich, Party member or not, is called a Nazi by the general public under age 60. Tragic really.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: Aviation enthusiasts enthralled by the ME 262 will be pleasantly surprised to know that you were able to interview several pilots who flew the ME-262 jet fighter? What role does that iconic aircraft play in the broader story told in The German Aces Speak?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> The Me-262 almost never made it as an operational jet, let alone as the first operational jet fighter bomber, and I am writing a book about that subject now. It was almost never even allowed to be deployed as a pure fighter at all. Galland, above all others, made that happen. His charisma, intellect, and credibility saw him get what he wanted. He made the jet a part of history as much as Willi Messerschmitt and company.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: With several books on the subject to your credit, you are hardly a stranger to aviation and World War II history. Even so, while researching and writing <i>The German Aces Speak</i>, did you stumble upon any stories or facts or stories that took even you by surprise? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> Yes, many of which I can’t put into a book. I will take those stories with me to the grave out of respect for some of the people I have interviewed. However, I never read about, and never knew of much of the turmoil experienced by Galland and Falck with their superiors, and I never had as much insight into the life and character of Hans-Joachim Marseille, as when I interviewed a half dozen men who flew with him, two who wanted to court-martial him and three women who slept with him. The fact that he did all the things he did and was not court-martialed or killed stuns to this day. Neumann actually put me into contact with these people who knew him, and I will be writing a Marseille biography soon. I was also very surprised to learn of how critical a role Heinz Ewald played in Krupinski’s life. I knew Heinz, and despite having the Knight’s Cross, he never told me anything that was as remarkable as what Krupinski did. He was a very humble man in that respect. I also learned about how these men felt about their country, its leadership, and the dilemma they found themselves in, their personal demons. Perhaps the best stories and facts were the untold personal stories regarding Hitler, Goering and others. I am also going to write a book about them, based upon research and interviews with over 40 Germans who knew the upper echelon of the Third Reich quite well. It should be very enlightening.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ZP: At the end of the day, what is the one prevailing message you hope readers come away with after reading <i>The German Aces Speak</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>CH:</b> I hope that people realize that one of the most stupid things we can do as human beings is stereotype persons based upon nationality, race, religion, etc. We need to learn that separating people from the collective is the only way to get the real history, and that is what I try to do. Once they read Brig. Gen. Robin Olds’s foreword, they will get it. I think the fact that I approached these men with an interest and open mind is why I was successful. I had no agenda, they knew it, and they trusted me. However, if not for the late Jimmy Doolittle, Jeff Ethell, and Ray Toliver, who all took a chance on me, this book, and most others, would have never been written. They should get as much credit as the Germans I interviewed. All were good, brave men, and I miss them all.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-87180453791763356372011-11-04T09:54:00.000-05:002011-11-04T09:54:50.117-05:00Bomber Breakdown - Short Sunderland GR. Mk III<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jv3K2VJX6rjPUOb5F-Ketq28MVXxcQTC5YISACgSfYzI14p4sbAET4WEVCxeVp2XauZRJu5KL3qtvyZ96UhDfWGwZZIyK4RMK8ZjD-hoKQuU_L0nj-32I9_6oE8G1dkKV1eX1-24IaAU/s1600/Short+Sunderland+GR+Mk+III.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jv3K2VJX6rjPUOb5F-Ketq28MVXxcQTC5YISACgSfYzI14p4sbAET4WEVCxeVp2XauZRJu5KL3qtvyZ96UhDfWGwZZIyK4RMK8ZjD-hoKQuU_L0nj-32I9_6oE8G1dkKV1eX1-24IaAU/s1600/Short+Sunderland+GR+Mk+III.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Short Sunderland GR. Mk III was a British flying boat patrol bomber developed for the Royal Air Force (RAF) by Short Brothers. It was one of the most powerful and widely used flying boats throughout World War II, and was involved in countering the threat posed by German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. <i>Image and specs e</i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xcerpted from </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145738/9780760334508/Allied-Bombers-1939-45.html">Allied Bombers 1939-1945</a></b> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-87803970416186169982011-11-02T11:26:00.000-05:002011-11-02T11:26:22.208-05:00Military Snapshot - Two Brave Souls, a Bed Sheet and a .30-cal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cvf3IVkr8tkjwkh598t2N871XWmvlDAJzu_m1oqQUk44u2U_m5_XoDpOFxJMzxtdFnGbwOsD8K2MFgzOsox7O8iUKg6dFiIrLyNr6miFGSI5ZcC63_ikNweaN8Xari_MkH-qEnWewxre/s1600/BoB+30+cal+crew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cvf3IVkr8tkjwkh598t2N871XWmvlDAJzu_m1oqQUk44u2U_m5_XoDpOFxJMzxtdFnGbwOsD8K2MFgzOsox7O8iUKg6dFiIrLyNr6miFGSI5ZcC63_ikNweaN8Xari_MkH-qEnWewxre/s1600/BoB+30+cal+crew.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the Battle of the Bulge, details such as personal camouflage and foxhole cover could mean the different between life and death. In this photo, two GIs use bed sheets as camouflage for themselves and their water-cooled .30-caliber machine gun. While Hitler belittled the fighting abilities of the American soldier, the German soldier soon found how tough they could be during the Battle of the Bulge. <i>Photo courtesy of the National Archives, from </i><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/147232/9780760336670/War-Stories-of-the-Battle-of-the-Bulge.html"><b>War Stories of the Battle of the Bulge</b></a> <i>by Michael Green & James D. Brown.</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-26753460686690397842011-10-31T13:14:00.001-05:002011-10-31T13:15:19.231-05:00From the Pages - The Battle of Pineapple Forest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnnL0eL9Xhw-q4Z2_i7JEdxmB61wLmR6G66TiyCV9jaJwEvwORnKDFMQ7Ci_h3OKLBmXINXx4hyphenhyphen9dhyphenhyphenl6Jw141dV8A04jkVnVbgi2d1q5B-L2PnKEfgeIYki3OuE6NW8KIK8j3R6T6ucAJ/s1600/9780760333129.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnnL0eL9Xhw-q4Z2_i7JEdxmB61wLmR6G66TiyCV9jaJwEvwORnKDFMQ7Ci_h3OKLBmXINXx4hyphenhyphen9dhyphenhyphenl6Jw141dV8A04jkVnVbgi2d1q5B-L2PnKEfgeIYki3OuE6NW8KIK8j3R6T6ucAJ/s1600/9780760333129.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excerpted from </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Destroy-Armored-Squadron-1967-1968/dp/0760333122/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top">Search and Destroy: The Story of an Armored Cavalry Squardron in Viet Nam</a></b></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Pineapple Forest</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">November–December 1967<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having moved into the Pineapple Forest on Halloween, Captain Brown and C Troop, as well as the engineers tasked with flattening the area, operated from a base camp on the north edge of the woods. Rolls of concertina wire were staked around the circular patch of raw earth and more than a dozen tents erected inside: troop tents, mess tents, supply tents, a commo tent, and a tent for the command group, too. The engineers pushed up berms behind which the M48s and ACAVs faced outward at night while guarding the perimeter.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Chinook that resupplied the base camp each morning delivered not only fuel and ammunition but enough foodstuffs to run a diner: doughnuts, eggs, and cartons of milk and orange juice for breakfast; sandwiches, apple pie, and Kool-Aid for lunch; and for dinner, beer, soda, and steaks cooked to order on field stoves. In addition, the troops plucked pineapples and wild bananas during patrols and went fishing with hand grenades. It was not a bad war in the Pineapple Forest, all things considered. Charlie Troop’s platoons alternately protected the bulldozers as they felled trees—very boring—and, weather permitting, for the monsoon rains sometimes produced mud so thick and deep that armor could not pass, ran missions in those sections of the forest not yet scraped clean. The local-force VC did little more than snipe at the intruders destroying their sanctuary, armed as they were with old carbines and Thompson submachine guns, and obsolete bolt-action Mosin Nagant rifles from Russia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></o:p></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Specialist Fourth Class Max Pryor sent home a Polaroid in his letter that described Charlie Troop’s first contact in the Pineapple Forest. The photograph showed an ACAV parked in a sandy area. “[T]he two people in black [next to the track] are V.C.s we got today,” explained Pryor. “One man[,] one woman[,] both dead. The woman was their medic. . . . I didn’t kill any of these. I did shoot at one this morning but doubt I got him as I couldn’t get [my driver] calmed down enough to shoot good. He kept moving the track on me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From Pryor’s other Pineapple Forest letters:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Staff Sergeant Coleman G.] Hillman got a V.C. while we were out. Shot him with [an] M16 at about 300 yards. . . . I saw the V.C.[;] he had just one hole in his chest. He lived about an hour. This one had $90 on him [and was, according to papers on the body, a supply sergeant dispatched to buy provisions from a hamlet in the area]. This morning we left the bace [<i>sic</i>] camp at 7:00 A.M. Along about 8:30 or 9:00 A.M. got a call over the raido [<i>sic</i>] [that] some V.C. were spotted just South of us. . . . So we cut out through the boon dock rice fields[,] and what to our su[r]prise[,] up jump 5 VC [armed with carbines, and] running like hell away from us towards the river. We all got on line and start shooting[,] and I do mean shooting[,] all six tracks[,] two guns per track[,] and[,] man[,] the lead was flying. Well[,] when the smoke of the battle lifted[,] one V.C. [was] dead[,] one [was] wounded[, and] one [hiding] in a hole had shed his black cloth[e]s for some fire engin[e] red under wear[,] and tossed his weapon into the hedge row. . . . The wounded one [was] a medic woman[,] had her legs shot up bad. Sent her out on a dust off. Enclosed is a picture of the dead V.C. 35 yrs old[,] hard core. . . . No G.I.s hurt. So far[,] so good[,] but it[’]s hell on your nerves.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a subsequent contact, C Troop and the crack ARVN rangers participating in the operation killed three guerrillas and captured two. Three dragoons were finally wounded the next day when a booby trap made from a dud 155mm artillery shell exploded under their track. In addition to the damaged vehicle, “[a] lot of the [other] tracks are getting in bad shape,” noted Pryor. “Mostly sprockets. I don’t know how some of them keep running.” The troop maintenance section, which miraculously kept these overworked vehicles in action, posted a cocky sign in front of their shop: “We’ve done so much with so little for so long that now we can do damn near anything with nothing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though some of the hamlets in the forest were evacuated and razed at the start of the operation, the ARVN left alone those deemed loyal to the government. Charlie Troop did not make such distinctions: any hootches in the vicinity of a sniper incident were burned down; the fires were started by inserting a lit cigarette into a ball of C-4 and tossing the plastique atop a thatch roof. “We didn’t ask. We just started doing it,” recalls Pryor. “It wasn’t an order. In fact, we were finally ordered to stop burning down the hootches.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Max Pryor’s letters to his wife continued:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[W]e stop at a hutch an[d] look into the tunnel[,] and we’ve got our self [<i>sic</i>] a real live P.O.W. [Prisoner of War]. So I’m asking him a thing or two[,] but he don’t understand me and I dam[n] sure don’t understand him. So I hear Sag Durst say their [<i>sic</i>] they go across the rice [paddy,] and sure enough there goes six of them running like hell[,] to[o] far away to shoot. So we wrap [the] one we have up and start back in. Well about half way back to the bace [<i>sic</i>] camp[,] Sag Durst[’]s track hits [an anti-personnel] mine[,] scares hell out of him. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today we had a V.C. to give himself up. . . . Seems as if things are getting to[o] damn hot for him since we started running around through his woods. I wish every dam[n] one of them would give up and then meby [<i>sic</i>] they would let me come home. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the V.C. don’t get me[,] this boy I got driving . . . is sure as hell going to get the job done by himself. I now have four stitches in the top of my middle fingure [<i>sic</i>] right hand. Just lucky it didn’t break the dam[n] thing. Here’s how it happened. We are about 2,000 meters out of bace [<i>sic</i>] camp. We are crossing a ditch when Sag. Durst calls me and says I better cut a new trail or I may get stuck. So I have [the driver] go right out of the old tracks. . . . Well[,] there is a tree on the other side leaning toward me[,] and this driver hits it like a fool and catches the .50 Cal barrel[,] which swings the gun and mashes my hand against the shield[,] cutting my fingure [<i>sic</i>] to the [bone]. I could have killed him for doing it. I’ll wait until this evening when they get back and eat his ass out real good.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On November 17, Captain Brown was informed that three main-force VC companies had slipped into the Pineapple Forest to overrun C Troop’s base camp. The information came from a VC captured by the ARVN. “This P.O.W. gave the places they were to mass [for the attack],” wrote Pryor; the areas were plastered during the night with artillery fire, after which an ARVN patrol reported “26 dead and blood trails running all over the dam[n] place. So guess they were real[l]y I [<i>sic</i>] after us, but got their minds changed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On November 28, a mortar track was firing the nightly H&Is when one of the rounds landed within the perimeter, wounding Staff Sgt. Gabino Montoya and killing Platoon Sgt. Hillard E. Williams. As the story was later told, Williams only dropped to his hands and knees when the mortar men shouted a warning about the short round; for keeping his head up like an NCO while his troops ate dirt, Williams suffered a sucking chest wound. Pryor wrote home that Williams “sure was a good man[,] to[o,] and I real[l]y liked him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pryor noted that his original platoon leader, reassigned as troop exec, had been replaced by 2nd Lt. Ronald J. Wojtkiewicz, “fresh out of R.O.T.C.[,] green as grass. But he’ll learn[,] I guess.” During the lieutenant’s first patrol, a man walked into the ambush set up by Hillman’s infantry squad along a trail. Hillman leapt upon the man in mock fury, screaming like a madman and knocking him to the ground. Hillman put his knife to the man’s throat: “Are you a VC?!” Not understanding it was all a joke, the new lieutenant pleaded with Hillman not to kill the man. “I just about got sick from laughing,” wrote Pryor, noting that the “VC” turned out to have nothing on him except a wad of piasters: “Said he was going to Tam Kỳ to buy a cow[,] a likely story.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It appeared to the men of Charlie Troop that they had taken control of the Pineapple Forest. “When we first got here[, the villagers] were afraid of us [and] would hide,” noted Pryor. “They [now] tell us where the V.C. are[,] how many of them[,] and what kind of weapons they have.” The village children beamed at the GIs, which “real[l]y makes you feel good,” noted Pryor. Why had the villagers turned against the VC? “The V.C. come into there [<i>sic</i>] homes,” explained Pryor, “and take there [<i>sic</i>] food[,] and we come in and give the[m] food [and] medical care and treat them nice.” The enemy was demoralized: “The wives of the V.C. that live not more than 2,000 meters from this Bace [<i>sic</i>] Camp are trying to get them to quite fighting and give I [<i>sic</i>] up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, the main-force VC scattered by the artillery barrage were still in the area, preparing to complete their mission.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The moon did not rise over the base camp the night the troop exec was in command in the temporary absence of Captain Brown. No stars shone through the low clouds. The troopers on watch, one per vehicle, literally could not see their hands in front of their faces. They also could not see the company’s worth of guerrillas stealing into attack positions north and northwest of the perimeter. Moving with cat-like stealth, the unseen guerrillas went unheard, too, as they wrapped tape around the strikers of trip-flares and snipped paths through the concertina with wire-cutters. The crews of a mortar and recoilless rifle readied their pieces: the instant they opened fire, the assault troops were to dart through the breached wire and overrun the base camp.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The shelling began fifty minutes after midnight on December 3. Specialist Fourth Class Gary L. Henspeter, manning the .50 on C-21, immediately began raking a sunken creek that ran into the base camp from the north, an obvious avenue of enemy approach. Henspeter was alone on his track, which was positioned behind a berm to the right of the creek. Max Pryor’s track on the left side remained silent: the man on watch had just ambled into the platoon’s troop tent, and his replacement had not yet ambled out to the C-20 track.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Startled awake, Pryor “could see flashes of light everywhere,” he wrote, and rolled off his cot “towards the sand bags we have around the tent[,] and lay there for a few seconds[,] trying to figure out what in hell was going on.” Realizing that the mortar fire was probably the prelude to a ground attack, he grabbed his helmet and rifle, then moved to the doorway of the tent. There was a pause in the barrage. “I break for good old 21 track[,] never run so fast in all my life. Opened the back door and get behind the .50-cal. Well[,] about that time[,] the dam[n] V.C. start laying it on our young asses again. I’m looking[,] but I can’t see where the little bastards are at[,] can’t see a thing[,] is blacker than hell out.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Private First Class Michael L. Colicchio was peppered in the buttocks with shrapnel when a mortar round blew down half of one of the tent’s sandbag skirts. Unconcerned about the wound, Colicchio was very concerned that the bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling would attract the enemy like moths to a flame. Indeed, one of the guerrillas who had penetrated the perimeter under the barrage lobbed grenades at the glowing gap in the sandbags.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Colicchio screamed for someone to shoot out the light. Private First Class Michael D. “Duck” Newland, lying on his back, emptied his M16 at the light bulb but succeeded only in ventilating the roof of the tent. Colicchio pointed his .45 at the light bulb as he kept screaming for someone to shoot out the light and then, feeling like a fool, took aim himself and pulled the trigger. The tent went dark, and Colicchio, gathering his wits, counted to five, jumped through the hole in the wall, and sprinted to C-21. Amid the shouts, curses, and commotion in the shrapnel-ripped tent, meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Hillman, who’d caught a fragment in the back, died in the arms of a fellow GI.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Climbing aboard his track, Colicchio handed up four boxes of .50 ammo to Gary Henspeter, who had been wounded himself by then, then manned one of the M60s. By chance, Colicchio’s first burst ignited three trip-flares, suddenly illuminating the perimeter, “and[,] by God[,] there is Charlie himself,” wrote Pryor: the flares revealed a squad’s worth of Việt Cộng in the creek bed between and directly to the front of C-20 and C-21. Caught in the sudden glare, the guerrillas tried to duck, but Henspeter, up high in his command cupola, immediately “had his 50 on them[,]” continued Pryor, “and is shooting there [<i>sic</i>] guts out[.]” Pryor dipped the barrel of his own machine gun toward the enemy, “and we both blaze a path on them. I look to my left and see some I [<i>sic</i>] there[,] so turn the gun on them and shoot the hell out of two of them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pryor continued firing to the front, unaware of the VC to the rear, one of whom trained an RPG on the back hatch of his track. The explosion blew the hatch in half. Regaining his senses, Pryor found himself sprawled inside his track, surrounded by smoke. He thought the vehicle was on fire and meant to evacuate the thing when “two more [mortar] rounds come in so close I think I better risk the fire on two on[e] than the lead out side.” There was no fire, however: instead, shrapnel had ignited a smoke grenade. Pryor reached to turn on his radio, but there was no radio: it had been blown away. “Then it dawns on me that I got some thing running down the back of my legs. Yep[,] it[’]s blood[,] but we are still having a hell of a battle. Well[,] we shoot two more and everything stops coming in. What a releaf [<i>sic</i>][,] I ain’t kidding you one bit. My Mouth is so dray [<i>sic</i>] I can’t spit nothing[.]” As the attack fizzled, Pryor hailed his buddy Newland, who’d been “helping the wounded boys in the tent and getting them out. . . . Duck and I get to shooting some at nothing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tanks blasted the night with canister as the exec requested artillery, gunships, and a flareship. When the radio went dead, 1st Sgt. Richard F. Williams and two men pushed the troop commander’s radio-jeep to the command track so that commo could be reestablished. Caught in his skivvies when the attack began, Williams wore only helmet, flak jacket, pistol belt, and jungle boots as he tightened up the defenses and directed that the wounded be moved to the helipad. However astonishing his appearance, the troops were reassured that Williams had taken control of the situation: their tough but fatherly topkick was a veteran of both Korea and a previous tour in Việt Nam.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the silence that followed the enemy attack, the first round of supporting artillery could be heard rushing through the night air: shockingly, the 155mm shell exploded in the center of the base camp. The exec called for a check-fire. Gunships circled the base camp instead, machine guns blazing. Pryor told Newland, meanwhile, he thought he’d been hit in the ass. Newland struck a match to confirm the injury: it looked like Pryor had taken a blast of birdshot to his hindquarters and the back of his legs. Shaken, Pryor asked for a cigarette. Newland ripped open a carton of C-rations for the pack of Kents inside, then sent Pryor to the helipad. “I get there,” wrote Pryor, “and[,] boy[,] it’s a mess.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Specialist Fourth Class John A. Davis and Charles L. Motin, two of the medics patching up the wounded at the helipad, had themselves been wounded. Total casualties for Charlie Troop: two dead, thirty wounded. Max Pryor saw that the crotch of his driver’s pants had been cut away and a big white field dressing secured around his genitals: half the head of the man’s penis had been removed by a chunk of shrapnel. The medevacs landed by flare light. Pryor ended up on his stomach on a gurney in an evac hospital at Chu Lai as a doctor whose white tennis shoes had turned black with dried blood plucked the shrapnel from his buttocks and legs, flicking it to the floor. The casualties would have been worse had the attackers not been throwing the homemade potato-mashers known as Chicoms, modeled as they were after the grenades produced by the Chinese communists: twenty-five dud grenades were found by morning’s light, along with four bangalore torpedoes, an RPG launcher, and five AK-47s.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The body count from the sweep of the perimeter: twelve.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of probable kills claimed by Charlie Troop: twenty.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not one to take things lying down, First Sergeant Williams had words with a one-star general who helicoptered into the base camp at first light. The general allegedly pointed to the battle junk littered across the area and demanded to know why there had not yet been a police call. Another version of the tale has the general raising hell about a tank whose engine, or pack, had been pulled for repairs before the attack. The two-ton deck plate had not been replaced, as it should have been, and, as a result, an incoming mortar round had exploded inside the empty engine compartment, damaging the interior of the M48.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Sergeant Williams was transferred out of the unit within days of his confrontation with the general. It happened that the dragoons had begun an infusion program at that time in which a certain number of troopers were sent to different units across Việt Nam. Those units, in return, sent the same number of their own GIs to the 1-1 Cavalry. Such a mixing of personnel, required of all units new to the war zone, ensured that an outfit was no longer made up entirely of men who would rotate home at the same time, to be substituted en masse by green replacements. The program was universally despised: no soldier wants to be torn from those men alongside whom he has trained and undergone his baptism of fire. Officers argued that the program was not only bad for morale but unnecessary: the normal replacement of casualties would have been enough to stagger rotation dates, especially for those units fighting in I Corps.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Williams might have fallen victim to the infusion program. The timing of his transfer, however, told the men of Charlie Troop that their beloved topkick was being punished for standing up to a general in their behalf.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As it happened, the reassignment was to have fatal results.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The executive officer received the Silver Star, as did Gary Henspeter, whose fire was credited with breaking up the attack. First Sergeant Williams, Mike Colicchio, and Max Pryor were awarded Bronze Stars, along with the medics and those dragoons who’d manned their vehicles despite wounds. To serve the needs of career officers, the number of kills recorded in the squadron log more than doubled in subsequent reports, and the quick, sharp firefight was transformed on paper into a four-hour battle in which C Troop fended off a battalion of VC and NVA marching on Tam Kỳ.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The troop lost one more man during the Pineapple Forest operation: Pvt. 1st Class Michael J. Saunders, driver of C-10, which ran over a mine while pursuing a group of unidentified Vietnamese. The explosion flipped the track over; an acetylene torch was used to cut a hole in the armor so Saunders’ body could be recovered. “Losing a man to a mine, that makes you bitter,” recalls a former Charlie Trooper. “That makes you want to encounter the enemy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Max Pryor spent three weeks at the 67th Evac Hospital in Qui Nhơn, during which he underwent additional surgery to remove a piece of shrapnel in his heel. “I wish the people back home could see some of the boys that come in here,” he wrote his wife. “Some are so dam[n] shot up you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. And not a one of them I’ve seen ever complains. Last night they brought in two V.C. shot all to hell,” he continued. “They get the same treatment that the rest of us get. I guess it[’s] only [the] right thing to do[,] but still[,] you get to wondering about it.” In another letter, Pryor commented on another badly wounded prisoner in the hospital: “Meby [<i>sic</i>] he’ll die[,] I hope.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though Pryor enjoyed trading war stories with Platoon Sergeant Boyd, also recuperating at Qui Nhơn, he was otherwise miserable—pricked with too many needles and wracked with fever and diarrhea, as well as homesick, unable to sleep, and anxious about returning to the field. Pryor kept his concerns from his wife, who was worried enough with both a husband and a kid brother in Việt Nam. Instead, he opened up to his own brother. “I keep telling myself that you were over here and you made [it] okay,” Pryor wrote to the ex-Seabee. “But[,] you know[,] there ain’t a dam[n] thing a man can do about getting killed. I’ve seen several people over here get smoked and die. It don’t look like there is anything to it. They just quit breathing for good. I keep thinking about all them good times I had back home and how much I’d like to get to do it again. What I real[l]y want you to know is that if I do get it over here[,] it was for nothing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The war was futile, thought Pryor, because the politicians in Washington didn’t have the guts to wage total war against Hà Nội: “I think any country that fights ought to either shit or get off the pot. . . . [W]e are the best there is[,] I’ve no doubt about it. But your [<i>sic</i>] held back in dam[n] near everything you do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pryor cautioned his brother that “I’d just as soon you’d burn this up after you read it[,] no one needs to know how I feel. I just wanted you to.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-8366447063592702222011-10-28T10:43:00.000-05:002011-10-28T10:43:53.476-05:00Warbird Breakdown - Blackburn Skua Mk II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjldPtyU7joqdy-SvVLtyYdsxsslj3dq7OXA-mp-nRO2wwQM7RBdsq-uTzMxxlQzaMZh2Pq_49xGpq45NPvT6zG57F1hdjURDweFsvPLMym5poZsKnvjBejz__10Qt_WryKoKfaQtAPC4LU/s1600/Blackburn+Skua+Mk+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjldPtyU7joqdy-SvVLtyYdsxsslj3dq7OXA-mp-nRO2wwQM7RBdsq-uTzMxxlQzaMZh2Pq_49xGpq45NPvT6zG57F1hdjURDweFsvPLMym5poZsKnvjBejz__10Qt_WryKoKfaQtAPC4LU/s1600/Blackburn+Skua+Mk+II.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Blackburn Skua Mk II was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft operated by the British Fleet Air Arm which combined the functions of a dive bomber and fighter. It was designed in the mid-1930s, and saw service in the early part of World War II.<i> Image and specs e</i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xcerpted from </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145739/9780760334515/Allied-Fighters-1939-45.html"><b>Allied Fighters 1939-1945</b></a> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-80855575683592589362011-10-27T10:00:00.000-05:002011-10-27T10:00:07.906-05:00Aviation Snapshot - Avengers Over Bairoko Harbor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr6RMG8l1bn96C5zzKiV8gqeR51YZQlRRzWkoYWwh7I9n5emsA4lzJ_P7nxUyM-mSNafxcQKF-xcei2VPClAUE1xQFSgpBaNcK2qAw6p6CbG37zhRsHhYfh4kBlZhGpXCIm62V37iQqzAn/s1600/Sol+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr6RMG8l1bn96C5zzKiV8gqeR51YZQlRRzWkoYWwh7I9n5emsA4lzJ_P7nxUyM-mSNafxcQKF-xcei2VPClAUE1xQFSgpBaNcK2qAw6p6CbG37zhRsHhYfh4kBlZhGpXCIm62V37iQqzAn/s1600/Sol+3.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During World War II, Japan used Bairoko Harbor to resupply its forces at Munda Point, an airstrip situated along the south coast of New Georgia. Allied forces deemed Munda critical for control of this section of the Solomon Islands and necessary for the continued progress northward toward Japan. In this photo, Marine TBF Avengers, stacked through the clouds in defensive formation, carry bombs to soften the Bairoko defenses on July 9, 1943. <i>Official USMC photo, from </i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Georgia-Bougainville-Cape-Gloucester/dp/B003JTHSV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319727306&sr=8-1">New Georgia, Bougainville, and Cape Gloucester: The U.S. Marines in World War II</a></b><i> by Eric Hammel.</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-52504102104479371872011-10-25T08:25:00.000-05:002011-10-25T08:25:21.294-05:00World War II Tactics 101<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUWTcswgLCFeybXByh1wkhXIU9gqPYh3vlpk8_AWCZ0Bk7mgiQJzkogoiV-dyVXH7juMtY4JmdHKZsnHb7XqQsPi2nlVtF1Ey7kIbR0wGb67TriQ_uBgEkACXDSjJi-STZIoQ3zi3BBJ5r/s1600/SB8-1-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUWTcswgLCFeybXByh1wkhXIU9gqPYh3vlpk8_AWCZ0Bk7mgiQJzkogoiV-dyVXH7juMtY4JmdHKZsnHb7XqQsPi2nlVtF1Ey7kIbR0wGb67TriQ_uBgEkACXDSjJi-STZIoQ3zi3BBJ5r/s1600/SB8-1-1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ubisoft/Gearbox Software</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Entering Buildings</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One of our frontline leaders felt that it was better to enter the lower floors of buildings so that, if necessary, the building could be burned from the bottom; he was doubtless bearing in mind that the enemy could do the same if our troops were above. This platoon leader found also that after the ground floor was captured, a few AP shots (from an Ml or BAR) upward through the floors would usually bring remaining enemy down with hands in the air. “When the enemy held out in a basement, a well-tamped charge of TNT on the floor above usually proved effective.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><u></u></span></b></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><u>THE FOUR Fs</u><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To win combat in World War II, squad leaders learned to distill tactics down to its basic elements. These basic elements are the four Fs: find, fix, flank, and finish the enemy. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><b>Find the enemy first:</b> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Finding the enemy first gives a squad a tremendous tactical advantage while blundering into an enemy is certain destruction. To find the enemy first, the squad leader must scout, or send, a team to check the ground before moving into potentially unsafe territory. A cardinal rule of squad tactics is to always engage the enemy on your terms, not his.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><b>Fix the enemy with fire:</b></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><b> </b>Once the squad leader has found the enemy, he must quickly decide what to do next. In combat, a squad leader must use his understanding of the terrain, the team leaders’ reports, and his knowledge of the enemy to make a tactical decision. The object is to deny the enemy freedom of maneuver by placing heavy and accurate fire on the enemy to pin him down. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Flank </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">the enemy:</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><b> </b>Finding, forcing, and hitting the enemy’s most vulnerable flank provides the squad with a battle-winning advantage. While a fire team suppresses the enemy, the squad leader leads an assault team to hit the enemy’s flank. If the enemy appears to be too strong, the squad leader can withdraw the assault team and try another tactical approach. If the enemy seems weak, the squad leader might hold the assault team in position to suppress the enemy, fixing him with the team’s fire, while he maneuvers his fire team to a position of advantage. Once you’ve hit the enemy’s flank, he is “placed on the horns of a dilemma” because he is now receiving deadly fire from two separate directions. Finding a flank, or creating one, is the essence of World War II tactics and the central art to winning in combat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Finish </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">the enemy:</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><b> </b>The battle is not won until the enemy is finished off. As the fire team continues to suppress the enemy, the assault team maneuvers to destroy or capture the foe. Grenades, submachine guns, and carbines are the weapons of choice for the assault. As the assault team closes with the enemy, the fire team should shift fire to stop the enemy from moving away.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">- - - - - - - - - - - </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><i>"Combat Lessons, Number 6: Street Fighting", from</i> <b><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145495/9780760333488/Hells-Highway.html">Hell's Highway: The True Story of the 101st Airborne Division During Operation Market Garden, September 17-25, 1944</a></b><i> by John Antal.</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-66472576229344998252011-10-21T15:30:00.000-05:002011-10-21T15:30:16.149-05:00Warbird Breakdown - Lockheed P-38L-5-LO Lightning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYg0j7ZnNJURkZY5qEiptw2SBQBRyT9o0fifgXVNHeOpEdGskha-yoYLJ6WdPxHkt5FHUbanDggLw-yxF2Xu2DE5smzT5SEbsaOEAFzertDepvNOdShcwHwYpUiS3NoDeetNF2voY76-_-/s1600/Lockheed+P-38L-5-LO+Lightning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYg0j7ZnNJURkZY5qEiptw2SBQBRyT9o0fifgXVNHeOpEdGskha-yoYLJ6WdPxHkt5FHUbanDggLw-yxF2Xu2DE5smzT5SEbsaOEAFzertDepvNOdShcwHwYpUiS3NoDeetNF2voY76-_-/s1600/Lockheed+P-38L-5-LO+Lightning.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Americans initially believed that the Boeing B-17 heavy bomber's high performance and defensive armament would permit daylight precision bombing with the need for fighter escort. Events proved them wrong. The Lockheed P-38L-5-LO Lightning was one of a number of U.S. fighter aircraft tasked with protecting the all-too-valuable Flying Fortresses as they attempted to destroy German industrial facilities between 1943-45. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Image and specs e</i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xcerpted from </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.qbookshop.com/products/145739/9780760334515/Allied-Fighters-1939-45.html"><b>Allied Fighter 1939-1945</b></a> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Chris Chant.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-20482753497510524472011-10-19T15:12:00.000-05:002011-10-19T15:12:14.284-05:00Military Snapshot - Cemetery Wall Firing Line<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dkk7w4SZ695jS76CqpJGv9O23brdgZUz2UgPfRNtMwby8iodHlt01WI7Y6ysqV3CAS2vpApXvLVsvvs2_m63IhyphenhyphenaBB_SO4RibsRTIYDRPQWPxAD_oF-ui8sTpCNXXCyx27Pw3Pjf0YOb/s1600/Photo+8-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dkk7w4SZ695jS76CqpJGv9O23brdgZUz2UgPfRNtMwby8iodHlt01WI7Y6ysqV3CAS2vpApXvLVsvvs2_m63IhyphenhyphenaBB_SO4RibsRTIYDRPQWPxAD_oF-ui8sTpCNXXCyx27Pw3Pjf0YOb/s1600/Photo+8-11.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During the Battle of Najaf in August 2004, U.S. Marines use the wall around the Wadi Al-Salam Cemetery as convenient protection and a useful firing line position. The Marine in the foreground is firing an M-60 machine gun. </span><i style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Photo courtesy of Maj. Michael S. Wilbur, USMC, from </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Battle-City-Dead-Shadow-Golden/dp/0760340064/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319054796&sr=8-1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Battle for the City of the Dead</b></a><i> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">by Dick Camp.</span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8811418038313656980.post-85654021333236825452011-10-18T09:02:00.000-05:002011-10-18T09:02:22.565-05:00Behind the Gates at Nellis Air Force Base<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXVubmLBpmL5mpIbJZdVGFVnQOA_uLH12kDgWovXSKrsAZldsTvkU-VH3LyK9N-keDYsML2JWeBw4Wlg3c7RB1S5OSlA45tUpmaVlI9oHruMjDl6MCbjSlFx3C8rP-nkWJHeSxqr0K4e-/s1600/Nellis+AFB+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXVubmLBpmL5mpIbJZdVGFVnQOA_uLH12kDgWovXSKrsAZldsTvkU-VH3LyK9N-keDYsML2JWeBw4Wlg3c7RB1S5OSlA45tUpmaVlI9oHruMjDl6MCbjSlFx3C8rP-nkWJHeSxqr0K4e-/s1600/Nellis+AFB+photo.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Home of the fighter pilot, Nellis AFB is one of the busiest bases in the world. </span><i style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tyson Rininger</i></td></tr>
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</div><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nellis Range Complex</span></b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What makes Nellis AFB so valuable and the Red Flag exercise so successful is the Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR) or Nellis Range Complex (NRC). The range contains the largest area of land and controlled military airspace in the continental United States with weather that is reasonably predictable and suitable for year-round flying. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This enormous amount of land encompassed nearly 3,560,000 acres when established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. Originally referred to as the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range, Executive Order 9019 returned approximately 937,730 acres to the authority of the Department of the Interior (DOI) in 1942. Five years later, the Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range turned over an additional 154,584 acres to the DOI. After a few more instances of trading back and forth with the DOI and the Bureau of Land Management, the Nellis Air Force Range, more formally known as the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), currently consists of approximately 2.9 million acres of land. The airspace over an additional five million acres is shared with commercial aircraft encompassing the Nellis Range Complex.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Operating and maintaining the twelve thousand square miles of airspace and land that make up the complex is the job of the 98th Range Wing and the 99th Mission Support Group.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The 98th Range Wing (RANW) operates, maintains, and develops the Nevada Test and Training Range including two local airfields, Creech AFB and the Tonopah Test Range, as well as the instrumentation for Air Warrior at the National Training Center (NTC) and Leach Lake Range. The 98th also works closely with the Department of Defense in support of advanced composite force training tactics development and electronic combat testing. Together with the DOD and the Department of Energy, the 98th further pursues testing requirements and research and development procedures.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Part of the 99th Air Base Wing, the Mission Support Group consists of six different squadrons: 99th Communications Squadron, 99th Civil Engineer Squadron, 99th Mission Support Squadron, 99th Contracting Squadron, 99th Services Squadron, and 99th Logistics Readiness Squadron. Detachment One of the 99th Range Group provides support to the southern portion of the Nellis Range Complex as well as Creech AFB. Detachment Two directs all ACC activities at the Tonopah Test Range Airfield and the Northern Ranges. Both detachments provide support for recovery of emergency or diverted military aircraft during the various exercises.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With direct relation to Red Flag exercises, the 99th is responsible for scoring sites at Belle Fourche, South Dakota; La Junta, Colorado; Dugway, Utah; and Harrison, Arkansas, as well as an instrumentation-support facility located at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. The Nellis Range Complex maintains instrument support facilities and two emergency-divert airfields and they work closely with the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, and, of course, the Department of Defense to meet a broad spectrum of range user requirements.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Nellis Range Complex (NRC) is the largest area of land and controlled military airspace in the lower forty-eight states.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Since the NRC had been designated a major range and test facility by the Department of Defense, the 99th Range Group now acts as the Air Combat Command lead range advocate to provide centralized expertise for the development of ACC test and training ranges. The Range Group operates with the assistance of approximately 600 contractors and nearly 300 military and civil service personnel. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Nellis Range Complex supports numerous Red Flag and Green Flag exercises along with multiple USAF Weapons School exercises each year. The NRC also hosts the Gunsmoke competition every two years. Operational testing and evaluation missions by the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron on the NRC are supported by upgraded television ordnance scoring systems (TOSS) and state-of-the-art Kineto tracking mount documentation and time-space position information (TSPI) data. Additional capabilities include support for operational flight programs (OFP), qualification operational test and evaluation (QOT&E), tactics development and evaluation (TD&E), and follow-on test and evaluation (FOT&E).</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The training range maintains some of the most realistic integrated threat simulator technology in the world. In addition to the assortment of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), antiaircraft artillery (AAA), and acquisition radars operated by personnel from 39th Intelligence Squadron, they also maintain and operate a variety of radar and communications jamming equipment. Coupled with the Nellis Red Flag measurement and debriefing system (RFMDS), these assets provide superior year-round training to U.S. and allied aircrews in both competition and training exercises.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Should real-world circumstances require additional realistic configurations for training, targets can be built or modified quickly. In one example, range contractors transformed a runway configuration from a typical former Warsaw Pact country’s layout to one based on what allied aircrews would see in Iraq using data gathered from intelligence reports and photo reconnaissance missions.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Nellis Range Complex is one of the most versatile and hazardous ranges in the United States, the perfect environment for honing search-and-rescue skills. Although providing rescue support for air operations over the range is the 66th Rescue Squadron’s secondary mission, its importance is none the less vital to range exercises.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The NRC is located between Las Vegas and Tonopah in southwestern Nevada and consists of five adjacent geographical areas. Those areas include the restricted areas R-4806, primarily used for testing and munitions training; R-4807, used for electronic combat and munitions training; R-4808, used by the Nevada Test Site; R-4809, used primarily as an electronic combat range; and the Desert Military Operating Area, used for air-to-air combat training. The land throughout the complex is mostly barren, consisting of dry washes and lakebeds along with rugged, mountainous terrain and typical desert vegetation.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Much of the complex is comprised of land withdrawn from the Bureau of Land Management, and it’s off-limits to the general public. However, portions of the range are set aside for livestock grazing and the Nevada horse range. Located directly in the center of NRC is the controversial and highly secretive Groom Lake/Area 51 complex which is even off-limits to those using NRC for combat training scenarios.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Excerpted from </span></i><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Red Flag: Air Combat for the 21st Century</span></b><i style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </i><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">by Tyson V. Rininger.</span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0