Subject: WWII-L Digest - 28 Apr 1993 to 29 Apr 1993

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 00:00:30 -0400

There are 8 messages totalling 354 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Americans in the Boer War (2)
  2. USAAF 29 APR 43 (2)
  3. INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNE ARTICLE ON HUERTGEN FOREST
  4. Query: Book about Ferry Pilots
  5. "Lonely Eagles" reference.
  6. HUERTGEN FOREST

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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 09:59:35 +0200
From:    Chris Scogings <[email-masked]>
Subject: Americans in the Boer War

Sorry, this has nothing to do with WWII or simulations.  I'm just trying to
reach anyone in the USA who may be interested in obscure military history.

A small service was held here in South Africa, in memory of the 100(?) men
of the American Volunteer Pioneer Regiment (?) who were killed in a Boer
ambush in 1900.

Anyone know anything about this?  What did American Pioneers do - lay rail
lines?  Why did they join the British army in the Boer War in the first
place?  Anyone know of any other Americans in the Boer War?

Thanks
Chris
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Chris Scogings                      Voice: (27) 331 955645
Computer Science Dept                 Fax: (27) 331 955599
University of Natal
Pietermaritzburg                   E-Mail:[email-masked]
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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 08:15:02 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: USAAF 29 APR 43

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
THURSDAY, 29 APRIL 1943
FTP SITES
  1. ftp.rutgers.edu in directory pub/wwii/usaf
  2. byrd.mu.wvnet.edu (129.71.32.152) in pub/history/military/wwii/usaaf

AIRCRAFT MENTIONED IN THIS REPORT:
  A-20, Douglas Havoc
  B-17, Boeing Flying Fortress
  B-24, Consolidated Liberator
  B-25, North American Mitchell
  B-26, Martin Marauder
  P-38, Lockheed Lightning
  P-39, Bell Airacobra
  P-40, Curtiss
  Wellington, Vickers (RAF)

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  BURMA-INDIA (Tenth Air Force)
    In Burma, 9 B-25's attack shipping at Rangoon; 18 others bomb the
Myitnge engine sheds and the oft-attacked Myitnge bridge. Six P-40's bomb
and strafe Tahona.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN (Ninth Air Force)
    In Tunisia, B-25's attack ground installations in the battle area.
P-40's escort bombers and fly bombing and strafing operations against
vessels as far N as Zembra Island.

  WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN (Northwest African Air Force)
    In Tunisia during the night of 28/29 Apr, Northwest African Strategic
Air Force (NASAF) Wellingtons bomb El Aouina Airfield. On the following
morning, P-38's hit shipping S of Marettimo Island, Italy. In the
afternoon, B-26's bomb a landing ground near Protville and P-40's hit
vessels along the NE Tunisian coast. Northwest African Tactical Air Force
(NATAF) fighters, A-20's, and medium bombers attack shipping in the Gulf
of Tunis, positions at Mateur and Derourhi, concentrations SW of
Saint-Cyprien and NE of Ksar Tyr, and landing craft near Tunis.
    The 99th Fighter Squadron, Twelfth Air Force with P-40's transfers
from Casablanca, French Morocco to Oued N'ja, French Morocco.

SOUTH PACIFIC THEATER OF OPERATIONS (Thirteenth Air Force)
  In the Solomons, single B-24's bomb Numa Numa and Vila. Two B-17's hit
Kahili. P-38's, along with Navy and Marine airplanes, pound Gatere and
Pelipelpi Bay. Six B-24's hit Kieta while P-39's join Navy aircraft in
pounding a bivouac area at Vila Airfield.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC THEATER OF OPERATIONS (Fifth Air Force)
  In the Celebes, B-24's hit Halong.
  In New Guinea, individual heavy bombers attack Finschhafen, Madang,
Gumbi, and the Singor area.
  In Timor, B-25's bomb Koepang.

SOURCES:
AIR FORCE COMBAT UNITS OF WORLD WAR II, Office of Air Force History,
  Headquarters USAF, 1961, ISBN 0-912799-02-1
COMBAT SQUADRONS OF THE AIR FORCE, WORLD WAR II, Office of Air Force
  History, Headquarters USAF 1982
THE ARMY AIR FORCES IN WORLD WAR II: COMBAT CHRONOLOGY, 1941-1945 by the
  Office of Air Force History, Headquarters USAF, 1973
THE MIGHTY EIGHTH WAR DIARY by Roger A. Freeman, ISBN 1-85409-071-2

Jack McKillop
USAF (Airways and Air Communications Service)
1955-59

----------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jack McKillop      |  Those who have long enjoyed such privileges |
|  Bellcore           |  as we enjoy forget in time that men have    |
|  Piscataway, NJ     |  died to win them.     FDR                   |
|  USA                |  [email-masked]                        |
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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 17:06:14 +0200
From:    JOHN AUSLAND <[email-masked]>
Subject: INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNE ARTICLE ON HUERTGEN FOREST

This is the orginal text of my article which appeared in the IHT on
April 29, 1993, under the headline CRUEL AND NOW FORGOTTEN, LIKE AN
UNMARKED GRAVE.  (There were minor editorial changes.)
BEGIN TEXT
     Oslo. General George S. Patton described it an "epic of stark infantry
combat."  The US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft.
Leavenworth, Kansas later used it as as an example of how a battle should
not be fought.  These conflicting views refer to a battle which has been
forgotten by all except those of us who got a taste of hell in a patch of
woods near Aachen, Germany in late 1944.
     During a recent tour of the battlefields along the German-Belgian
border, I revisited the Huertgen Forest.  In a matter of minutes, I drove
from one side to the other.  Returning, I stopped and walked into the
woods.  New trees had replaced those which American and German artillery
annihilated.  The earthen bunkers had been smoothed over and the slit
trenches filled.  The barbed wire and mines had been removed.
     There was no way of knowing that anything unusual had ever taken
place there, and this made me angry.  It is bad enough that a purposeless
battle was fought, but to forget it is like leaving a grave unmarked.
     After racing across France and Belgium, the Allied offensive stalled
along the German border in September, 1944.  We had outrun our supply
lines, which still depended on Cherbourg and the beaches in Normandy.
General Eisenhower diverted those supplies which were available largely to
General Bernard L. Montgomery's dash across the Netherlands, in an effort
to seize a bridgehead over the Rhine, an episode later dramatized in A
Bridge Too Far.  This attack not only failed but also delayed the opening
of the port of Antwerp.
     Hitler took advantage of allied logistic difficulties to rush troops
to the west German border, while he quietly gathered the forces which in
December launched what became known as the Battle of the Bulge.
     As a part of his effort to move his Seventh Corps toward the Rhine,
Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins decided in October it would be necessary to
take the the Huertgen Forest.  The German generals were puzzled by this
decision but had orders from Hitler to defend every inch of Germany.
Before the American forces could fight the fourteen miles to the other side,
the Germans had mauled five divisions.  One of these was the Fourth
Infantry Division, in which I was artillery liaison officer to an infantry
battalion.
     During the three weeks we were in the forest, we advanced about
three miles and had over four thousand casualties, over four hundred of
which were killed.  (The division had about fourteen thousand men, but
most casualties were suffered by the rifle companies, which made up about
a third of the division.  Some replacements were wounded or killed by
artillery or mortar fire before they could even reach the front lines.)
     Everyone who went into that forest asked the same question: Why?
It is only recently when doing research on this battle that I have learned
the answer.  It was all a mistake.
     Before he launched the attack, General Collin's intelligence failed to
inform him of the dams on the Roer River, which is to the east of the
forest.  Even if we had got through the woods, we could have gone nowhere
for weeks, because the Germans would have opened the dams and flooded
the flat terrain along the river.  (They did this after the Battle of the Bulge.     In his memoirs, General Collins admitted that his intelligence had let
him down.  He did not explain, however, why he continued the attack after
learning about the dams.
     The leading expert on the Huertgen Forest was the late Charles B.
MacDonald.  In his book The Battle of the Huertgen Forest, he concluded,
"Those in the Huertgen Forest fought a misconceived and basically fruitless
battle that could have, and should have, been avoided."
     Given this history, it is perhaps understandable that the US Army
would just as soon forget the Huertgen Forest and has made no effort to
mark where it took place.
     The only indication I could find that the Germans, most of whom
prefer to forget the war, remember this battle is a cemetery near the town
of Huertgen.  There is a large sign near the entry, in German, giving an
account of the battle.
     Next year will be the fiftieth anniversary of this terrible blood-letting. US military authorities are busy planning to commemorate the landing in
Normandy and other well-known operations.  They have no plans at
present, however, to remember the thousands of men who fell in the
Huertgen Forest.
     This is wrong.  At the very least, they should erect a monument at
a suitable place in the forest, such as in one of the parking areas
in the forest between the towns of Schevenhuette and Dueren.  There
should also be a joint American-German ceremony to dedicate this monument.
     The Germans should also mark the trails to some of the key sites of
the battle, such as the monastery ruins at Schwarzenbroich.
     Then at least those veterans who revisit the Huertgen Forest next year
will know that they and their comrades who fell there are not entirely
forgotten.
END TEXT JOHN C. AUSLAND

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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 11:44:19 EDT
From:    Michael Cotter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Query: Book about Ferry Pilots

Lydia, The answer to your question is probably in Larry Jewell's compilation of
titles from the Government Printing Office.  But since I'm online and don't
have a copy of his compilation at hand -- it's downloaded to disc -- I am
suggesting that it might be this title:

Deborah G. Douglas, United States Women in Aviation, 1940-1985.  Wash.: Smith-
sonian Institution Press, 1990. (Smithsonian Studies in Air and Space, no. 7)
GPO depository item, GPO class no.: SI 1.42:7.

It has a few pages on women pilots of the Ferrying Division of the Air
Transport Command.   The copy in our library is paperback, 8 1/2 x 11, and has
a photo of a woman pilot on the front (and one on the back).

Even if it turns out that this is not the book you wanted, it might still
be of interest.

**USE YOUR DEPOSITORY LIBRARY!  YOUR TAXES AT WORK!!**

Michael Cotter
Documents Librarian
Joyner Library
East Carolina University
Greenville NC 27858
919/757-6533

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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 13:07:58 CDT
From:    "Robert J. Granvin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: USAAF 29 APR 43

> COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
> THURSDAY, 29 APRIL 1943
>
>   WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN (Northwest African Air Force)
>     The 99th Fighter Squadron, Twelfth Air Force with P-40's transfers
> from Casablanca, French Morocco to Oued N'ja, French Morocco.

If my memory serves (I hope it is, I'm WORKIMG with these people :-), this
basically marks the beginning of the operations of the 332nd Fighter Group,
aka The Tuskegee Airmen.

After sitting stateside literally for years (because no one wanted to give
the black aviators a realistic chance), they finally got to Casablanca and
finally into combat.

They started with P-40's, but literally only lasted about a month with them.
They were quickly replaced by the P-51C Mustang which served as their backbone
aircraft for the rest of the war even though they later were upgrading to D
models.

The Tuskegee Airmen have a number of notable claims, including never suffering
the loss of even a single bomber when they flew escort and are responsible for
the downing of three of the eight Me-262's shot down -- They downed those three
in the same day.

There are a couple of _good_ books out about them, including one written by
one of the pilots (now a dentist).  "Lonely Eagles" is a fairly small, but
easy read.  Lots of pictures, lots of names and a very good, relatively
non-judgemental description of what occurred, how it occurred and why.  It's
surprisingly good for a book written about a group of people by the same group
of people.  I don't know about it's availability.  My guess is that it's
probably privately published, though I'm sure I can get the information and/or
take orders (later) if there is any interest.

[The Southern Minnesota Wing has one of 4 P-51Cs left in existence and is
restoring it in the colors of the 99th FS/332nd FG once funding is fully
acquired.  Because of the incredibly destructive nature of the previous
owner of the aircraft (decided it was cheaper to chainsaw the wings in
half than hack a hole in the hangar that now had a door too small to
allow the aircraft to get out), the restoration will cost $200,000.  The
Wing hopes to have a full fund-raising program in place within the next
two months to attract foundations, corporate and individual sponsors and
donors -- All donations are made to an account that is locked -- can only be
used for this aircraft -- inaccessible for any other needs.]

Donations accepted :-) [Tax deductible, even! :-)]

--
Robert J. Granvin                                    Southern Minnesota Wing
[email-masked]                                       Confederate Air Force
  You know you've made a gear-up landing when it takes full power to taxi.

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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 13:41:47 EST
From:    Larry Jewell <[email-masked]>
Subject: "Lonely Eagles" reference.

Search Request: T=LONELY EAGLES                   W. Lafayette books, etc.
BOOK - Record 1 of 1 Entry Found                           Long View
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title:          Lonely eagles : the story of America's Black Air Force in
                  World War II / by Robert A. Rose.
Author(s):      Rose, Robert, 1932-
Publisher:      Los Angeles : Tuskegee Airmen, Los Angeles Chapter, c1980.
Description:    160 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Notes:          Bibliography: p. 159.
Subject Headings:
                World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Afro-American.
                Afro-American air pilots.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 LOCATION:              CALL NUMBER:               STATUS:
 Black Cultural Center  940.541273 R72L 1980       Not checked out

-------------------------------------------  Page 1 of 1  ---------------

Larry J

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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 14:30:00 CDT
From:    Bill Kupersmith <[email-masked]>
Subject: Americans in the Boer War

I don't know anything about Americans (as opposed to Canadians) fighting
*against* the Boers, but recently discovered that there were Irish-Americans
fighting *for* them.  Our library recently acquired *Shamrock and Springbok:
The Irish Impact on South African Military, 1689-1914.  Johannesburg:
South African Irish Regimental Ass., 1989.  Mostly the book discusses
Irish regiments of the British Army, but it does have a chapter on Irish
and Irish Americans on the Boer side.
--Bill Kupersmith
Univ. of Iowa

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Date:    Thu, 29 Apr 1993 19:22:47 -0500
From:    "Robert S. Rush" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HUERTGEN FOREST

Dear John Ausland

If I remember correctly, you were a forward observer with the 8th Inf
Rgt.  I just completed my thesis on the 22d Infantry in the Huertgen.
Bloody is not the word for it.  The 22d, beginning with a complement
of 3300, lost in excess of 2800 in its 18 day fight, along with every
battalion and company commander.  This number does include replacements.
I arrived at the conclusion that it was those veteran lieutenants,
sergeants and privates that held the regiment together, and when they
fell the regiment ceased to be effective.  The rifle companies lost
154% of their starting strength counting replacements.

I would be interested in your memoirs.  They would be a welcome edition
to my library.  When will they be available.

Cheers,
Rob Rush
[email-masked]

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End of WWII-L Digest - 28 Apr 1993 to 29 Apr 1993
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