Subject: WWII-L Digest - 12 Sep 1994 to 13 Sep 1994

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 00:00:19 -0400

There are 62 messages totalling 2041 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Warsaw Ghetto vs. Uprising
  2. Henry S.'s valid point
  3. Computer Problems, here
  4. Japanese Sailor
  5. SHOOTING DOWN BUZZ BOMBS
  6. INF: USN Chronology 09-13-94
  7. BUZZ BOMBS (5)
  8. Name of operation (2)
  9. Buzz Bombs (3)
 10. MEDIA: Peleliu (2)
 11. INF: 50 Years Ago - 13-SEP-1944
 12. Morgenthau Plan (2)
 13. THANKS (2)
 14. More on V-1, V-2
 15. [INF] USAAF 13 Sep 44 (2)
 16. WEAP: V-1's (3)
 17. Japanese sailors (2)
 18. Stalin's culpability vis-a-vis the Warsaw Uprising
 19. Re[4]: Preserved World War II ships book
 20. WEAP: Air-launched V-1s
 21. Question for Ben Frank re:  Peleliu
 22. WEAP: Schwerer Gustav (3)
 23. INF: 50 Years Ago - 14-SEP-1944
 24. WEAP: Essex-class carriers (3)
 25. ROMMEL and/or "The Grief"
 26. NYC TV
 27. Point of information on the Warsaw Ghetto for David Ris
 28. HIST: Female Nazis (2)
 29. Female Nazis
 30. "Holocaust"
 31. Nishizawa's fate
 32. aircraft carrier in Great Lakes?
 33. Meaning of Holocaust and genocide
 34. *Other* Holocausts, Mr. Weber
 35. WEAP:Scwerer Gustav
 36. WEAP: Aircraft carriers in Great Lakes?
 37. [INF] USAAF 14 SEP 44
 38. AZON BOMBS
 39. Mr. Coatney's co...
 40. MEDIA: PELELIU (2)
 41. "HOLOCAUST"
 42. MORGENTHAU PLAN

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 12 Sep 1994 23:11:43 -0500
From:    "Louis R. Coatney" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Warsaw Ghetto vs. Uprising

Thomas,

     Whereas a major effort to help the Jews in the Ghetto --
there were one or two minor ones -- would have ineffectively
sacrificed the Home Army and Warsaw in 1943, the Red Army was in
a position -- positionally and militarily -- to help the Poles
in the early fall of 1944.

     Remember that an entire German army group had been
annihilated in White Russia in June-July 1944.  Indeed, the Red
Army radio was urging the Poles in Warsaw to rise up, before they
actually did.

Lou Coatney
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 12 Sep 1994 23:20:51 -0500
From:    "Louis R. Coatney" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Henry S.'s valid point

Henry,

     You are right about thegenocide already beginning in Russia
in Summer 1941, and one reason for the stiffening *Russian*
resistance in the late fall and winter 1941/42 was the realization
that the USSR had been invaded by something which was *potentially*
worse (for the peoples of the Soviet Union) than Stalinism.

Thomas,

     Again, the magnitude of extermination/devastation by the Nazis
in and their longterm plans for Russia (and the other peoples of the
Soviet Union) should definitionally qualify as "holocaust."

Lou Coatney
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 12 Sep 1994 23:30:52 -0500
From:    "Louis R. Coatney" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Computer Problems, here

Something like this happened about a year ago:

     My msgs are seizing up during typing, and I'm getting
bounced off my lists.  (Thanks, Joe, for you msg clarifying that
I hadn't been "purged."  :-)  )

     If I miss replying to a direct attack on one of my postings/
positions, please don't assume I am stonewalling/ducking you.
Please *do* repost it directly, since I may not have received it
while electronically suspended from the list.

     Thanks, everyone.

Lou Coatney
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 02:18:01 EST
From:    "CARL WERNKE (TCWERNC@VCCSCENT)" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japanese Sailor

 To: Multiple recipients of list WWII-L([email-masked])
 In-Reply-To: Jack McKillop Sun, 11 Sep 1994 20:54:00 EDT

 Jack wrote:
 > What about the Japanese sailor? Was he expected to "Go down with the ship?"
 > Or did he have a life preserver, lifeboats, rafts, etc. and was he expected
 > to try and save himself to fight another day ?

 Many IJN personnel refused to be saved by U.S and allied navy ships.

 A classic example of Japanese BUSHIDO is the final sortie of YAMATO. "Do and
 die for the Emperor and Empire.

 The YAMATO was the pride of the surface Japanese Imperial Navy. No effort had
 been spared to incorporate every component to make her the mightest ship
 afloat, and her survival of the battles of Midway, the Philippine Sea, and
 Leyte Gulf encouraged a belief that she could follow up the kamikaze attacks
 on the Allied naval forces at Okinawa and wipe out the remaining surface
 vessels.

 On 6 April 1945, at 1000 the YAMATO started out to sea, the only ship
 leaving that day. Every man on board was filled with pride and ready to give
 his life for the Emperor and Japan. All personnel had been ordered to gather
 on the deck. Dressed in fighting khakis, 3000 men stood at silent attention
 as Captain Kosaka Ariga, the C.O. of YAMATO explained their mission and
 objective and expressed hope that all would do their best. Then Captain Jiro
 Nomura, the executive officer, shouted---"KAMIKAZE YAMATO, be truly a
 KAMIKAZE!" Then "KIMIGAYO", the national anthem of Japan was played, following
 by martial airs, and finally three cheers for His Imperial Majesty.

 On 6 April 1945, 1600, the last of the once grand Japanese Fleet set sail for
 Task Force 58 (TF 58) operating area, located between Okinawa and the
 southern tip of Kyushu. The YAMOTO, flying the Second Fleet flag, and on the
 bridge were VADM Seiichi Ito,the force commander, his chief of staff, RADM
 Nobuei Morishita, and the ship's C.O. YAMATO was escorted by the YAHAGI (CL),
 and eight destroyers. The Second Fleet strike was to be coordinated with that
 of kamikaze planes against TF58 in the Okinawa area. Counter attacks by
 F6Fs and TBFs from TG 58.1 and 58.3 against clumsy suicide craft, heavily
 overloaded with explosives had been overpowering. Therefore, it was necessary
 to decoy the American planes away so that the "special attack" planes could
 operate more effectively. This project called for something that would attract
 a maximum number of TF58 planes and withstand their attacks for as long as
 possible. The YAMATO was the most likely bait, and the nine escorts were
 intended to prolong her life. The YAMATO was filled to capacity with
 ammunition for every weapon she carried. Her tanks, however, were loaded with
 only enough fuel for a *one-way* passage to Okinawa !  This was not bravery,
 but suicide born of desperation. The YAMATO force was a surface kamikaze
 force to protect the air "special attack" force.

 Four aerial torpedo and bomb attacks by TF58s F6Fs and TBFs had reduced the
 YAMATO to a state of complete confusion. Communications were disrupted beyond
 any hope 0f repair and the chain of command was in utter disorder. The
 YAMATO sank approximately 300 miles north of its destination in Okinawa
 waters.

 According to the YAMATO's chief lookout, Captain Ariga had gone down with his
 ship. Japanese military services and all their personnel would willingly give
 their lives for the Emperor and Japan. No sacrifice is too great to achieve
 this end.

 Material obtained from THE JAPANESE NAVY IN WORLD WAR II, Editor and
 Translator of the Second Edition, Dr. David C. Evans, Naval Institute Press,
 1986.

 Carl Wernke
 [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:21:00 +0100
From:    Fred van Wetten <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SHOOTING DOWN BUZZ BOMBS

> I have read accounts of Allied pilots shooting down V-1s, so you remember
> correctly.  I have also read accounts of another method of downing V-1s,
> used by pilots who were out of ammunition.  The pilot would match speed with
> the rocket and, using the tip of his wing, flip the rocket over.  This
> effectively scrambled its gyroscope causing it to plunge into the ground.

This method was preferred above shooting the V-1. An exploding V-1 in
the air was defenitly dangerous for the persuing aircraft. Many Homede-
fence squadrons used this method and some pilots even became 'experts'
in downing V-1's like this. Most V-1's were intercepted above the Chan-
nel and the Northsee, an ideal place to 'drop' them on their one-way-
course.

Fred van Wetten           Netadress:[email-masked]
CRI, instituut voor telecommunicatie en computerdienstverlening
RijksUniversiteit Leiden, PO BOX 9512, 2300 RA  LEIDEN, HOLLAND
Tel: +31 71 276933        Fax: +31 71 276967

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 01:25:51 PDT
From:    "Keller, Theron P." <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: USN Chronology 09-13-94

UNITED STATES NAVY CHRONOLOGY
from:
//byrd.mu.wvnet.edu/pub/history/military/wwii/naval_chronology/chr4(4,5).txt

1944
09/13 Wed.  United States naval vessels sunk:
             Destroyer WARRINGTON (DD-383), by hurricane, off
              Bahama Islands,
              27 d. 00'N., 73 d. 00'W.
             High-speed minesweeper PERRY (DMS-17), by mine,
              Palau Islands area, Caroline Islands,
              06 d. 53'N., 134 d. 10'E.
            Japanese naval vessel sunk:
             Submarine chaser NO. 55, by carrier-based aircraft,
              Philippine Islands area,
              10 d. 20'N., 124 d. 00'E.

Theron P. Keller
Logicon, Inc.
Dahlgren, VA  22448 USA
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 07:24:18 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: BUZZ BOMBS

Hello, Dave!

Will try to answer your questions.

> I remember , (reading it, I wasn't there :) ) that a few V-1's were actually
> shot down by allied aircraft.

    Yes, quite a few were shot down by aircraft even some with the
British jet "Meteor".

 Seems to me that they would've been vulnerable
> to ground fire as well, although "vulnerable" is a relative term here.

    Yes, many were also destroyed by ground fire. The British moved
some heavy AA guns to the coast over which the V-1's flew and many
were destroyed there.

 The
> V-2's, on the other hand, had to be destroyed on the ground if they
> were to be destroyed at all, as their near vertical flight paths rendered
> them inpervious to interception.  Can anyone back me up on this?

    Yes. However, since the V-2 sites were mobile, it was very
difficult to locate and destroy them. The best method was to attack
the centers of production and research, namely Peenemuende.

    Hope this helps.

    Terry
>                         Dave Neil
>                         Systems Analyst
>                         Fort Lewis College
>                         Durango, CO 81301
>                         [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 07:28:39 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Name of operation

Hello, Doug!

The name of the operation to liberate Mussolini from his Italian
"guards" was Eiche or Oak.

Hope this helps.

Terry
> Would someone kindly advise me of the name of the operation let by Otto
> Skorzney to free El Duce in 1944
>
> Thank you
>
> Doug Green
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 07:31:54 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: BUZZ BOMBS

Hello, Tim!

Yes, and it occurred more frequently than you might think.

Terry

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 07:29:29 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Buzz Bombs

Hello, Alan!

I will post to you some very interesting info on the V-1 later on
today.

 More later.

 Terry

> Does anyone have the approx number of weapons launched to put the casualties
> into perspetive? 'Sounds like they numbered in the thousands... -Al
>
> Alan G. Wild
> Admin. Computing
> University of Rhode Island
> Kingston, R.I.  02881
>
> I am the NRA.
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 07:54:45 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Buzz Bombs

Hello, again, Alan!

I am going to go ahead and send this info to you and other interested
parties at this time.

           V-1's

Launch weight: 4,858 pounds including 150 gallons of fuel and 1,870
pounds of high explosive warhead.

Warhead specs: Fuellung 52-A was 17% RDX, 53% Dinitrobenzol and 30%
Ammonium Nitrate forming a matrix of molten explosive into which a
"biscuit" mix of 21% RDX, 48% Ammonium Nitrate and 31% Calcium
Nitrate was mixed, the whole then being allowed to solidify. This
appears to have been an economy explosive. More powerful were the
Trialen-105 fillings which were 15% RDX, 70% TNT and 15% Aluminium
the addition of aluminium giving a greatly increased blast effect.
The warhead was fuzed with three different fuzes, one electrical
impact type, one mechanical "all-ways" impact type and one clockwork
delay fuze, so that, regardless of how the missle landed, detonation
was guaranteed.

Development of the V-1 began on 19 Jun 1942 at Peenemuende and
continued with little setback, the first operational flight took
place on the night of 12-13 June 1942. The first successful launch
having been at Peenemuende on 24 Dec 1942. Mass production began on 1
March 1944 with a planned increase to 8000 missles per month by
October. The combined output of all production sources has been
estimated at 25000 missles for 1944 of which 12,000 were ready for
use when operations began. During 1945, the known production figures
were: January, 2,900; February, 3,200 and March, 3,700. In all 9,251
were fired against England of which 4,261 were destroyed and 6,551
against Antwerp of which 2,455 were destroyed.

Hope this is of interest and helps.

Terry

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 08:56:56 -0400
From:    James E Irwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: MEDIA: Peleliu

>From the DoD Newswire 12 September 1994

:VETERANS REMEMBER PELELIU

   Ray Davis saw his share of war -- he was a veteran of Guadalcanal
and Cape Gloucester in World War II, winner of the Medal of Honor in
the frozen hell of Korea's Chosin Reservoir, commander of a division
in Vietnam.
   But he never saw anything to compare with Peleliu.
   "I have never experienced anything near the ferocity of the
fighting on Peleliu. We were being fired at from all directions at all
times. The casualties were just horrendous," he said.
   On that chunk of volcanic rock and coral, in one of the Pacific
War's bloodiest battles, he took a sliver of a Japanese shell through
his knee and saw his battalion get shot up.
   Fifty years later, this retired four-star assistant commandant of
the Marine Corps is leading a band of veterans back to Bloody Nose
Ridge to rededicate a monument honoring fallen comrades of the 1st
Marine Division.
   The 50th anniversary commemoration of the Sept. 15, 1944, landing
lacks the fanfare of, say, the D-Day anniversary in Normandy.
   But anyone who witnessed Peleliu's horrors will never forget it,
especially since history has proved it was a place best avoided for
the bloody price paid on what was gained -- a victory that did little
to alter the war's outcome.
   The claw-shaped island, measuring just 12 square miles, is one of
the least accessible and least publicized of the Pacific battlefields.
Now reclaimed by a carpet of jungle, it is "hidden away in the
tractless deep like a guilty secret," according to author William
Manchester.
   Originally, Peleliu was targeted because it had an airstrip just
550 miles east of the Philippines, where Douglas MacArthur was
preparing his return.
   But when Japanese defenses on the Philippines were shown to be
softer than expected, Adm. William "Bull" Halsey recommended that
Peleliu be bypassed to wither on the vine.
   His senior officer, Adm. Chester Nimitz, refused to call it off,
however, because the landing force was only two days away.
   Then and now, the decision is open to debate.
   "If military leaders ... were gifted with the same accuracy of
foresight that they are with hindsight, then the assault on Peleliu
should never have been attempted," said Rear Adm. Jesse B. Oldendorf,
who commanded an armada of 27 battleships, cruisers and destroyers off
Peleliu.
   But foresight failed.
   William Rupertus, the 1st Marine Division commander, predicted
Peleliu would fall in three days, maybe two, and advised war
correspondents to go elsewhere for stories. Few reporters ever went
ashore, and at the time, Peleliu was overshadowed by Arnhem in Europe
and MacArthur's pending return.
   Things went wrong from the start. Intelligence failed to detect a
spine of coral ridges that hid 500 coral caves protecting the Japanese
garrison, and naval guns failed to knock out defenses.
   The Japanese, knowing the war was lost as the Americans
island-hopped to their homeland, radically changed tactics. Instead of
exhausting themselves on the beaches, or mounting suicide charges, the
Japanese waged a battle of attrition behind defenses in depth with
interlocking fields of fire designed to inflict maximum casualties.
   From their warren of caves, the Japanese sprung out to blast away
at the rear of Marine formations, then ducked back inside, until the
last position was knocked out with flame throwers and satchel charges.
   The invading Marines fought tenaciously for 30 days -- not three.
And when the appalling casualties rendered the division ineffective as
an assault force, they were relieved by the Army's 81st Division,
which fought on for six more weeks.
   "It should never have been taken," said E.B. Sledge, a Marine
mortarman who wrote about the gore of Peleliu in his acclaimed memoir
"With The Old Breed."
   "The thing that bothered me most was not that I had to go through
it, but that we lost so much that was so good," said Sledge, a biology
professor in Alabama. "I look on it with a great deal of bitterness
and a sense of awful grief. I really lost some fine friends there. We
realized the whole thing was useless."
   Of the 235 men in Sledge's K Company, only 85 left Peleliu unhurt.
The battalion Ray Davis commanded in the first assault on Bloody Nose
Ridge had only 78 men left from three infantry companies.
   The Marines lost more men in 30 days there than in three months of
fighting on Guadalcanal. Casualties exceeded those on Tarawa. And
proportionately, they approximated the rate that would follow on Iwo
Jima and Okinawa.
   The entire division -- awarded a Presidential Unit Citation -- had
6,265 casualties, including 1,241 dead. Its 1st Marine Regiment lost
56 percent of its 3,000 men in six days -- that's every other man and
then some killed or wounded. And the Army suffered 542 dead and 2,736
wounded.
   Conditions were as brutal as the combat. The temperature seemed
stuck at 115 degrees. Warriors battled thirst, hunger, fatique, filth,
the stench of rotting corpses, clouds of flies and jagged coral that
made foxholes impossible to dig.
   To be taken alive was a disgrace, so almost all of the 10,500-man
Japanese garrison died in their caves. Of the 302 who surrendered,
only seven were soldiers; the remainder were laborers.
   Among those who committed ritual suicide was commander Col. Kunio
Nakagawa, who disemboweled himself with a jeweled dagger rather than
be captured.
   And as an example of Japanese tenacity, one band of defenders
actually held out in their caves until April 21, 1947 -- 19 months
after the war was over. They had survived on captured American
rations.
   The men in the invasion boats knew nothing about the high level
thinking until much later. They simply followed orders and got the job
done with audacity and grim determination in the face of appalling
sacrifices.
   "There were a lot of very brave men there," said Benis Frank, a
former private with the 1st Marine Division and now a Marine
historian.
   "Peleliu did not need to have been taken," he said. "It's hard to
tell veterans that. It's hard to tell that to families who suffered
losses. But it's truth."

=====

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 James E. Irwin (Jim)                  Internet address:
 Defense Personnel Support Center        [email-masked]
 2800 S. 20th Street                   215-737-3678
 Philadelphia PA  19101-8419           Autovon 444-3678

                     "Never in the field of human conflict
                     was so much owed by so many to so few."
                               Winston S. Churchill
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:00:00 +0100
From:    Peter de Lange <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: INF: 50 Years Ago - 13-SEP-1944

> On 13-SEP-1944, the following occurred -
>
> World War II - The Battlefronts
> -------------------------------
> Western Front - The German garrison in Brest refuses to surrender. The US 3rd
> Army continues their offensive along the line of the Moselle from Thionville
> to Epinal.
>
> John Davis  [email-masked]

For more then a week no news from the XXX corps.
(Sorry John, I do'nt blame you for it)
After 50 years it is still unbeleaveble that they just stopped on
one hour by car from us.

The German situation in the first week of September was:
The 15th Army was still along the coast of the Channel and Vlaanderen,
fighting for every harbour, cut off by the British in Antwerpen.
The 7th Army was taken back to the 1940 Siegfried line.
Between these two armies was a 50 mile wide gap in the Brabant area.

There movements were:
The SS Panzer Army ( 9 and 10 SS Panzer div) was taken from the front
and sent to Arnhem for a rest, new equipment and new men.

To fill the gap between the 15th and 7th Army a new formed para-division
under general Student was sent to Brabant.
These were partly para-veterans from Kreta, partly East-front veterans,
partly "old" man and partly "Hitler-jugend" boys.

Fieldmarshall von Rundstedt was back in command.

The Allies stopped in Antwerpen.This gives the Germans the opportunity
to evacuate more then 100.000 men from the 15 Army cut of in Vlaanderen.
These were shipped between Breskens and Vlissingen to cross de Schelde,
walked along a  very long dike across South Beveland to
Bergen-op-Zoom and were spread over Brabant.

The Allies gives the Germans  2 weeks to organise there new positions.

Peter de Lange

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 08:08:47 -0500
From:    Drew Halevy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: BUZZ BOMBS

I remember seeing film from the war where it showed AA crews shooting
down V-1. Since they flew on a strait and level path, it was not that
hard to shoot them down. I have also read (seen?) about being able to fly
up next to a V-1 and tip it into a dive using the wing of the aircraft.
>From what I understand about shooting them down, if you hit them, they
would explode and flying through the debris could be dangerous. -Drew
Drew Halevy
Dept of History
U of Arkansas
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:37:35 EDT
From:    Patrick D Marsden <[email-masked]>
Subject: Morgenthau Plan

> > On a slightly related note, In the book "U-977" the author, whose
> > name I can't seem to remember right now, mentioned how his crew was
> > aware of the "plan" by the allies to de-industrialize Germany and
> > force it back to an agricultural society only.
>
> Such plan did exist. It was named after a US under-secretary of something,
> named Henry Morgenthau. It has later been claimed that it was actually the
> work of a communist agent, White. The plan *was* accepted by the allied
> leadership at first, but later abandoned.
>
> Emmanuel Gustin
>

Thanks,  I spent half the night looking for an allied reference to the
plan.  As soon as you posted the name Morgenthau, I remembered where I
had heard of it.

>From "WWII Super Facts," McCombs and Worth, pg 384 (paperback ed.):
                   ---------------------------------
MORGENTHAU, HENRY Jr.  (1891-1967)
        U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945.  He devised
the Lend-Lease program which gave Britain and other allies the much
needed weaponry to fight the Axis.  Morgenthau also raised the funds
needed to pay for the U.S. war effort.  He drafted what became known
as the Morgenthau Plan.

MORGENTHAU PLAN
        Scheme devised for the destruction of all German industrial
capacity and a return of Germany to a pastoral society, thus destroying
its ability to ever wage war again.  Although, Morgenthau had his name
put on the plan, it was actually authored by Assistant Treasury Secretary
Harry Dexter White, who was a Communist sympathizer.
                   ----------------------------------

It seems to me that if the average German soldier/sailor was aware of the
Morgenthau Plan, the leadership was also.  That would be a big catalyst
to continue the fight and not accept any form of armistice.  Perhaps the
the Nazi leadership itself perpetuated talk of the plan.  Pure speculation
on part...

Patrick,
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 08:09:31 -0400
From:    "Steven Pudlo, Dept. Computer Svcs." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: THANKS

Ben Franks notes;

>Thanks, Alan. The cigar arrived today and I look forward to lighting up after
>dinner. That was some jacket the owner of The Bag Piper wears in that picture.
>The shamrock on his lapel gives him away. Cheers to the new lad. Ben Frank

Alan has my gratitude as well. Sit back Ben, you're in for a treat! That
was one FINE cigar! If the cubans want to end the embargo, they might
consider seeding a few real cigars around. You know, to soften the hardest
of hearth ;-)
                                                                Steve

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven E. Pudlo  - [email-masked] |"Life may be a drag BUT
STC Programmer/Analyst - (203) 885-2343  |  it sure beats the only
Three Rivers Community-Technical College |           known alternative"
574 New London Turnpike                  |                     (S.E.P.)
Norwich, CT. U.S.A. 06360                |No one gets out of it alive..
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:11:09 EDT
From:    Patrick D Marsden <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Name of operation

> > Would someone kindly advise me of the name of the operation let by Otto
> > Skorzney to free El Duce in 1944
> >
>
> The name of the operation to liberate Mussolini from his Italian
> "guards" was Eiche or Oak.
>

After Operation Oak, there was supposed to be an Operation Student,
which was Hilter's plan to occupy Rome and reinstate Mussolini.
It didn't quite work out.

patrick,
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:09:00 EST
From:    "Eliot K. Friedman" <[email-masked]>
Subject: More on V-1, V-2

    Several people have already commented on the V-1 and V-2 weapons.  I'll
    try to fill in some blanks without specifically addressing individual
    questions, as I'm getting WWII-L in digest format.

    Remember, the V-1 was a cruise missile, the V-2 was a ballistic
    missile.  Totally different flight profiles, which define the means of
    combatting each.

    Once the initial shock was over, the V-1 was easy to deal with from an
    air defense point of view.  They weren't especially fast, and had no
    evasive capability whatsoever.  Think of them as wind-up toys.  Point
    them in the right direction and they fly until their spring unwinds.
    Just get them on on radar early enough, direct friendly fighter
    aircraft to them, and shoot them down like ducks in a barrel.

    The V-2 was much tougher.  Faster than any combat aircraft the British
    possesed, I believe it was well over Mach 1 by impact time.  Hence,
    you'd never hear it coming.  Virtually impossible to shoot down without
    antimissile technology, something we still haven't perfected.

    Someone mentioned British attempts to combat the V-2 by disinformation.
    This is essentially correct, although I can't quote a source from at
    work.  Think of the V-2 as exceedingly long range artillery.  If the
    "forward observer" consistently reports the shells as falling well
    behind the target (in this case, NW of London), the gunners will try to
    shorten the range.  I've seen maps of V-2 impacts on SE England over
    time, and the impact center visibly migrates SE of London over time.

    From a cost per bomb load delivered point of view, the V-2 was far more
    expensive than the V-1.  Both were pricier than conventional reusable
    bombers, but the Germans had long since given up on air superiority
    over England.  Arguably, had all V-2 resources been allocated to V-1
    development, saturation V-1 attacks could have been made, overwhelming
    the V-1 defense techniques previously mentioned.  Dr. Werner von Braun,
    head of the V-2 project, claimed after the war that he had realized all
    this at the time, but pushed the V-2 option as his way of combatting
    Nazism, and because he really wanted to build rocket ships, which the
    USA and NASA eventually let him do.

    In any case, the V-1's limited range meant that London was out of range
    once the Allies had occupied coastal France.

    El

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 16:22:01 +0200
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: BUZZ BOMBS

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Dave Neil wrote:

> I remember , (reading it, I wasn't there :) ) that a few V-1's were actually
> shot down by allied aircraft.  Seems to me that they would've been vulnerable
> to ground fire as well, although "vulnerable" is a relative term here.  The
> V-2's, on the other hand, had to be destroyed on the ground if they
> were to be destroyed at all, as their near vertical flight paths rendered
> them inpervious to interception.  Can anyone back me up on this?

The British defense campaign against the V-1 really began on 13 June 1944
at 4.08am, when the first one was spotted by volunteers of the Royal
Observer Corps. The V-1 was officially known as 'Diver', but the terms
'doodlebug', 'buzz bomb' and 'rat' were also used. It lasted until
September 5, when the last V-1s were fired from the coastline. It was
reasonably effective; fighters accounted for 1772 V-1's, guns for 1460 and
barrage balloons for 231.

The original setup of the defence was for fighters to patrol over the
channel, a gun-belt around the coastline, an overland fighter area, and
balloon barrage at the edge of London. This was not very effective. Part
of the problem was that the fighters and the guns interfered with each
other; the situation improved when fighters were forbidden to enter the
gun belt, except when in actual pursuit of a V-1, or at days with very
good weather, when the guns were not used. To make the interception of the
V-1s easier, the command system was rearranged. The traditional method of
passing all data to the central control room, that then directed the
fighters, induced too much time lag; instead, the radar and observer
centers directly controlled the fighters. Also the AA guns were allowed to
fire independently. 'Diver' defences were lead from the control room at
Biggin Hill.

The V-1 was a difficult target. It was small, fast, and difficult to see,
except at night or twilight, when the jet flame was conspicuous. They flew
at about 2500 feet. The radars picked it up at no more than 50 miles,
giving the fighters only six minutes to intercept it. The fastest fighters
in the allied inventory only had a very small speed margin over the V-1.
The turbulence of the V-1's exhaust made aiming difficult, but firing at a
closer range than 200 yards was too dangerous; and finally, the bomb was
remarkably sturdy. An alternative to gunfire was 'tipping it over' with a
wingtip under the tip of the V-1's wing; this was a often used technique.
The simple gyroscopic autopilot system of the V-1 was unable to correct
for this. At least one (poor quality)

The V-1 carried 850kg of explosives and was cheap; on the other hand, it
was an inaccurate weapon, hold on course by a compass and a simple
gyroscopic system. The distance was measured by an airstream-driven
propeller, that initiated a steep dive after a set number of turns. The
V-1 was not, as was said, halted when the fuel was expired; in fact the
halting of the engine when the final dive was set in was an unexpected and
undesired effect; the negative accelaration cut the fuel supply.

The Tempest was a very effective V-1 interceptor; top scorer on the
Tempest was J. Berry, who downed 61 1/3. Second was the Belgian R. van
Lierde (40) and third Roland P. 'Bee' Beamont (32). The Gloster Meteor jet
fighter was used almost exclusively against the V-1, seeing no other
combat in WWII.

Gunfire was still the most common method, with the guns harmonised to
converge at 300 yards, despite the risk of the debris. I also recall a
story that it was found out that when fighters flew through the fireball
of an exploding V-1 they often found themselves upside down. The partial
vacuum caused by the explosion allowed the propeller torque to turn the
fighter around...

In June, the defense was further modified. Fighters over the channel were
then directed individually by radar operators, while the fighters over
land were guided by information that was simply broadcast to all available
fighters, each of them intercepting at will. The introduction of proximity
fuses also greatly improved the effectiveness of the AA guns. By the time
the allied armies overran the launching sites, the defence accounted for
70% of the V-1s.

After September 1944, most V-1s fired were air-launched at night by He 111
aircraft. Because the Mosquito nightfighter did not have the performance
required to intercept the V-1 (they still managed to shoot down a
considerable number), a Tempest night fighter unit was created, 501
squadron. Flying at high speed and low altitude was *very* dangerous, and
the results dubious. They were needed however, and the pilots were told
--- instructions from Churchill himself --- to consider themselves
expendable! Under these conditions, the AAA proved more effective than the
fighters. About 1200 V-1s were air-launched.

In March 1945, long-range V-1s were launched from Western Holland. That
seem to have been the last V-1 operations (post-war tests in the USA not
taken into account.)

Emmanuel Gustin

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 16:28:15 +0200
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [INF] USAAF 13 Sep 44

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Tim J. Watts wrote:

> What is an Azon mission?  I'm afraid I came in on the middle of the movie
> and am not familiar with it.

Azon, for 'Azimuth only', was a primitive guided bomb. As the name
indicates, the thing had directional control only; the vertical
trajectory could not be controlled. It hgad a 1000lb warhead.

Emmanuel Gustin

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:35:04 -0500
From:    "Tim J. Watts" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: V-1's

All the stories I recall about V-1's seem to be in daylight.  Does anyone
know if the Germans tried launching at night?  Since the missles didn't
change course or take evasive maneuvers, it seems like the dark would have
made it more difficult to destroy them.  (Maybe the flame trail from the
engine made them more obvious?)
Also, didn't the Germans air-launch some from over the North Sea, after
the launching sites in Belgium & Holland fell to the Allies?  I thought
I remembered seeing pictures of JU-88 (?) missle carriers, but I might
be thinking of something else.
Tim J. Watts
Valparaiso University

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:31:13 -0400
From:    Barone <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: MEDIA: Peleliu

James E Irwin <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> :VETERANS REMEMBER PELELIU
>    "There were a lot of very brave men there," said Benis Frank, a
> former private with the 1st Marine Division and now a Marine
> historian.
>    "Peleliu did not need to have been taken," he said. "It's hard to
> tell veterans that. It's hard to tell that to families who suffered
> losses. But it's truth."

        Is this "our" Ben Frank of the 1st Marines?
--
Joe Barone
[email-masked]
We have our own ammunition -- it's filled with paint.  When we
fire it, it makes pretty pictures -- scares the hell out of people!

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 16:38:04 +0200
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Japanese sailors

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Henry Sirotin wrote:

> on each vessel. As for pilots, is it true that all aircrew were not
> equipped with parachutes? I seem to recall seeing men with chutes climbing
> into Kates in the actual or (Japanese 1942) reenactment footage of Pearl
> Harbor. And what of bomber crews?

Parachutes were issued, and carrying them was in fact obligatory. But
many Japanese flew without them. The fighter aces Nishizawa (sp?) claimed
that he 'felt his aircraft better' without chute...

Emmanuel Gustin

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:38:08 -0400
From:    Barone <[email-masked]>
Subject: Stalin's culpability vis-a-vis the Warsaw Uprising

        The September 1994 issue of "World War II" covers the Warsaw
uprising.  Concerning Stalin's complicity to let the Germans deal with
the "Poland issue", the author, Wilfred Deac, writes:

        "Even if the Soviet main offensive had run out of steam [as the
Soviets claimed after the war; alleging the Poles simply timed their
uprising badly] and encountered heavy opposition, the fact remains that
Stalin manipulated the uprising to his own ends.  Initially, the Soviet
dictator denied the existence of the rebellion, then dismissed it, and
finally attacked it -- dubbing the AK [Armia Krajowa or Home Army] a
'handful of criminals who, to seize power, have unleashed the Warsaw
adventure.'  Having decided upon a Soviet-dominated Poland, he used
the uprising to continue a policy (exemplified by the 1940 murder of
14,472 Polish leaders at Katyn and elsewhere) of eliminating non-
Communist opponents.  So much the better if the Nazis did the job for
him.  By August 4 [1944], Rokossovsky [Marshal commanding the 1st
Belorussian Front attacking into Poland] had stabilized his front and
proposed to launch an assault on Warsaw on August 25.  The proposal was
killed by Moscow's silence.  German records showed 60 Soviet airfields
with 2,400 planes within a short flying time of Warsaw.  Yet, during the
critical first weeks of the uprising, not one red-starred aircraft rose
to the city's assistance.  As part of an apparently mutual agreement of
noninterference, Rokossovsky's forces opposite the capital simply stopped
fighting, which was not the case north and south of Warsaw.  Komorowski's
[leader of the AK] September 7 combat report noted 'sun-bathing by both
(Soviet and German) sides on their front line' only 1,000 feet apart.
... AK reinforcements on their way to Warsaw were disarmed and interned
by Soviet troops... The offer to drop supplies from U.S. aircraft engaged
in Operation Frantic cross-European shuttle bombing raids ... was refused
by the Soviet leader.  A Red Army defector later told of a cable from
Stalin telling Rokossovsky to 'leave the Warsaw people to their own fate.'"
--
Joe Barone
[email-masked]
A Sherman can give you a very nice edge.

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 11:10:10 EDT
From:    Patrick D Marsden <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [INF] USAAF 13 Sep 44

>
> What is an Azon mission?  I'm afraid I came in on the middle of the movie
> and am not familiar with it.
> Tim J. Watts
> Valparaiso University
>

caveat: This may or may not be the right AZON reference

AZON bombs were a type of guided weapons developed by the U.S.
These bombs could be controled by the aircraft bombardier, who
could make corrections left or right of the designated course
- thus the name AZimuth ONly.  It was designated VB-1 and was
used first on a railway bridge in Burma on 27 December, 1944.

patrick
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:23:37 CDT
From:    Tim not Timothy Scherrer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re[4]: Preserved World War II ships book

The USS Inaugrial was located near the arch--and I believe connected to
a Burger King barge.  This is the only one in St. Louis so it had to be
the same ship that you saw back then.  TAS

************************************************************************
*  Tim A. Scherrer          "You'll be fighting WWII for the rest of   *
*  Facilities Supervisor     your life", Ron Scherrer, 1971            *
*  WP:816-785-5253                                                     *
*  HP:816-665-6704                                                     *
*  ID# [email-masked]                             *
************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 11:35:22 CCS
From:    Jorge Merino <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Air-launched V-1s

Tim J. Watts wrote:

> Also, didn't the Germans air-launch some from over the North Sea, after
> the launching sites in Belgium & Holland fell to the Allies?  I thought
> I remembered seeing pictures of JU-88 (?) missle carriers, but I might
> be thinking of something else.

There was some version of the Heinkel He-111 for these purposes (I don't
remember exactly which version). The He-111 carried the V-1 attached to
the belly. The Arado Ar-234C-3 was also intended to carry a V-1 on top,
but I don't know if it was ever used in these missions.

Jorge Merino

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:47:02 -0500
From:    "Louis R. Coatney" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Question for Ben Frank re:  Peleliu

Ben,

1. Did Nimitz ever acknowledge a mistake had been made?

2. Were the Japanese who held out until 1947 repatriated to
  Japan?

Thanks.

Lou Coatney

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:50:55 -0500
From:    "Louis R. Coatney" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Morgenthau Plan

Interesting.  Harry Dexter White seems to have been another
  pro-Soviet "agent of influence" like Alger Hiss.  (Hiss, though,
  is accused by Abarinov of being the State Dept. official who
  trashed Van Vliet's Top Secret May 1945 report on the Katyn
  Massacre, which is being more than just "influential."

Lou Coatney
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 17:00:44 BST
From:    Stephen Baldwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Schwerer Gustav

Whilst visiting the Imperial War Museum, I found an exhibit nearly as big
as the V1 rocket they have there - but this was an artillery shell fired from
the world's largest gun, the Schwerer Gustav. Apparently, it could only be
fired once every 15 minutes, and took several weeks to assemble on
railway tracks. It had an army of ~4000 people (including civil servants
& other "pen pushers") in the support teams. The plaque near the shell
(which was probably at least 10 feet tall and dwarfed me (I am 6 feet
& 1/2 an inch - what's that - ~185cm??? dunno)) said only that it
was used during the siege of Sevastopol.

Would anyone have any furthe details on this? Does the gun still exist,
and was it ever used anywhere else? Would anyone know how many crew
operated the gun "on site"?

thanks

steve baldwin
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:04:14 -0700
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 14-SEP-1944

On 14-SEP-1944, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - The orders for Operation Market Garden are formally issued by
Field-Marshal Montgomery.

Eastern Front - The 1st Belorussian Front, with the support of Polish forces,
captures Praga, a suburb of Warsaw. They make no real attempt however to break
into the city proper in aid of the AK.

Italian Front - The US 5th Army continues to pound the defences of the Gothic
line. Units of the British 8th Army advance towards the river Marano.

Burma/China - The Chinese complete the capture of Teng-chung. With the loss of
Teng-chung and because of increasingly strong Chinese resistance in the
Lung-ling sector, the Japanese break off their counter-offensive on the
Salween front.

The Homefront
-------------
174 Indicted as Nazis - Federal Court indictments have been returned in New
York, Brookyln and Newark, naming 174 men and women charged with concealing
affiliations with the Nazi party when registering as aliens in 1940 and as
enemy aliens in 1942. Most of those accused are internees.

Roosevelt Slumps in Polls - Fortune magazine's weekly presidential poll shows
President Roosevelt favored by 49.3% against 44.4% for Gov. Dewey. This is a
drop of 5.3% for the President from last week.

Hurricane Hits Atlantic Coast - A hurricane swept through the Atlantic coast
from the Carolinas to Canada, causing 40 deaths and property damage estimated
at $100,000,000. It is the worst disaster since the storm of Sept. 21, 1938
which took 680 lives.

=============================================================================

Sources: "2194 Days of War" by Cesare Salmaggi and Alfredo Pallavisimi, "The
World Almanac Book Of WW II" by Peter Young, "United States Naval Chronology,
World War II" by Naval Historical Division - United States Navy, "Facts On
File Yearbook 1944, Person's Index Of World Events" edited by R.L. Lapica.

----------
John Davis  [email-masked]
Cary, N.C.
----------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 11:47:28 CCS
From:    Jorge Merino <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Essex-class carriers

Last night, I was reviewing some old magazines, and I found in a Combat
Weapons magazine (fall 1986) some article about the US Navy plans for the
90s. Apart from the retirement of the Midway-class carriers, the replacement
of them by more Nimitz-class nuclear carriers, and the replacement of the
USS Lexington by the USS Coral Sea as training carrier, the article mentioned
that by that time, there were four Essex-class carriers still in reserve
status. These were the CVS-12 Hornet, CVS-20 Bennington ("S" for the ASW
configuration), CV-31 Bon Homme Richard and CV-34 Oriskany. The article also
said that in the early 80s, plans were afoot to reactivate the Oriskany, as
a stop-gap measure to have more carriers on line, but the idea was finally
abandoned.

One could understand from this article, that by the time it was written,
these four carriers, plus the CV-16 Lexington (AVT-16, trainer designation),
could be reactivated if the need appeared. Of course, the article explains
that due to the lack of enough space and catapults, these carriers couldn't
operate high performance aircraft, and had to be limited to light-attack
squadrons (A-4s and A-7s, as mentioned in the article, or today's F-18s, as
speculated by me if any of these carriers were reactivated). Another point
is that these carriers were very man-power intensive, so, maintenance wouldn't
be so easy.

Of course, nothing if this occured, and we can see that all of these carriers
were finally sent to remain in our memories.

Thanks to John Riegsecker for making his expedition to Bremerton Navy yard,
just to check if these vintage carriers are still there. Sorry to hear that
they will finally dissapear.

Jorge Merino

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 11:19:48 -0500
From:    "William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ROMMEL and/or "The Grief"

> little look at the other sections of my message, hmmm??  I want, nay, need
> all the information that can be given to me on the "Grief" (Griffin in
> English) or the "Adler" (Eagle in English) these were Rommel's command
> vehicle, from what I know of them they were designed to be front line
> vehicles, and to protect the commander during a battle, they also included
> his radio gear.  What became of them, or has anyone seen reproductions of
> them.

Hi Jamie,

Rommel's command vehicle GRIEF was a hanomag 251 model.  There are a
number of good reference books, Oswald comes to mind, that offer lots
of technical data on vehicles.  Is that what you want or do you want
to know the fate of a particular vehicle?  Rommel also used a
captured British vehicle they called the Mammut as his command
vehicle for a while too.  I assume that these vehicles were captured
in North Africa when the DAK surrendered, though I could be wrong.

There exists a museum in Arlon, Luxemburg that has examples of most
every halftrack the Germans used all restored and nicely set up in
diaramas.  I believe there is a 251 setup as Rommel's GRIEF.  I
should have a postcard of it and I know I have it on video if I have
not completely lost my mind (which may well be so).

You could check the numerous biographies of Rommel or failing that,
you could write to the Kamradschaft of the DAK and make inquiries
there.  I can get you an address if you wish to pursue it.

I will try to dig around and see if I have anything on GRIEF.  I am
not familiar with the ADLER.  Was that his Feisler Storch?

> Further I am trying to find a lead on the address for a WWII
> recreation group, near Plattsburgh NY or Montreal Canada.  I would like to
> start working on the gear of a soldier from the Afrika Korps.  As I said
> before if anyone can help me with suggestions for appropriate gear I would
> be obliged.  Thanks for your time in this matter.

Tim, I'll let you field this one.  Its out of my limited sphere of
knowledge.

> Jamison J. Long (AKA Neuromancer, Flag Admiral, Jamie)  [{Founder T.E.R.R.A}]

Cheers, Bill Huber / [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 12:53:00 EDT
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: NYC TV

For those of you in the New York City metro area, there are two
WWII-related TV shows on PBS tonight as follows:

8-9PM on WNET, Channel 13: NOVA.  "Codebreakers."  The WWII codebreaking
  efforts knwon as "Enigma" and "Purple"

10-11 PM on WLIW, Channel 21: MEDAL OF HONOR: TURE STORIES OF AMERICA'S
  GREATEST HEROES.  WWII recipients.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jack McKillop              |  Those who have long enjoyed such |
|  Bellcore                   |  privileges as we enjoy forget in |
|  Piscataway, NJ USA         |  time that men have died to win   |
|  [email-masked]  |  them.                     FDR    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 12:56:06 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Schwerer Gustav

Hello, Steve!

I posted info on this weapon last year. If you want it, I will repost
to the list. Please advise.

This weapon does not exist. It was used in the siege of Leningrad,
in the siege of Sevastopol and in the siege of Warsaw.
 It required a general and 1400 men to set-up, man and fire this gun.

 Please let me know if you want a complete history of this weapon.

 Terry
> Would anyone have any furthe details on this? Does the gun still exist,
> and was it ever used anywhere else? Would anyone know how many crew
> operated the gun "on site"?
>
> thanks
>
> steve baldwin
> [email-masked]
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 13:06:22 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Point of information on the Warsaw Ghetto for David Ris

Hello, Lou!

>      You've got to give the Soviets credit, as brutally crude as
> they may seem, they were uncannily cunning and successful in
> achieving their ends.

    You can attribute that to that "Genius of Humanity" Josef Stalin,
as I am certain that you are aware. Nothing that was of positive
significance for Soviet goals occurred without Stalin's backing or
instigation.

    Will be in touch.

    Terry

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 13:22:28 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HIST: Female Nazis

Hello, Gerry!

> So, why does the name Irma Grise (sp.) come to mind when I think of the Bitch
> of Belsen?

    Irma Griese was certainly as notorious as Ilse Koch, but the
latter was certainly more famous. If I am not mistaken, Ilse Koch
wound up becoming impregnated while in prison.

    Hope this helps.

    Terry

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 14:27:05 -0400
From:    "Benjamin B. Weber" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Female Nazis

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Drew Halevy wrote:

> > > (Furthermore, I think that some reference to Claudia Koonz's "Mothers in
> > > the Fatherland" is in order to establish whether German women were
> > > innocent of all complicity in Nazi crimes.)
>
> I've seem to have lost a thread here. What is the conclusion of this
> book? That only men were responsible for Nazi war crimes? What about all
> the female guards in the concentration camps? What about the Bitch of Belsen?
> -drew
>
Sorry, I should have been more specific.  Koonz's thesis is that women
share responsibility for Nazi crimes.  She describes in detail how they
helped create an atmosphere in which men could live comfortable,
unself-critical lives while engaging in criminal behavior.
        I should also mention that her position has been challenged by
the German historian Gisela Bock in what has become known as the
HistorikerInnenstreit.  Bock's thesis is that women were primarily
victims of Nazism, not accomplices.

Benjamin Weber
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 14:35:54 -0400
From:    "Benjamin B. Weber" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "Holocaust"

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Patrick D Marsden wrote:

> My two cents on this subject...
>
>
> Didn't the Soviets also march huge numbers of captured German
> enlisted personnel into the Russian interior never to be seen again.
> According to Erich Hartmann's biography, "The Blond Knight of Germany",
> enlisted men were sent to the bogs to harvest peat and build swamp
> roads.  They were worked until they died and were replaced by others.
> He made it very clear that it was a one way trip for those men.
>
> On a slightly related note, In the book "U-977" the author, whose
> name I can't seem to remember right now, mentioned how his crew was
> aware of the "plan" by the allies to de-industrialize Germany and
> force it back to an agricultural society only.  This was partially
> responsible for their decision to head for South America instead of
> surrender.  Aparently the German sailors were expecting harsh
> retaliation from their enemies and the dismemberment of Greater Germany.
> What their reasoning was is another question.
>
> Anyway...
>
> Patrick
>
>
> [email-masked]
> Aerospace Engineer & NRA member
>

I suspect that what the author was referring to was the Morgenthau Plan,
the plan to transform Germany into a non-industrial, agrarian country
after the war.  This plan was initially popular but had lost support by
the end of the war.  Nazi propagandists referred to it often in attempts to
motivate the German population.  This would explain the sailors concerns
about surrendering.  I doubt that Goebbels, et al. ever let on that the
plan had fallen out of favor.

Benjamin Weber
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 13:39:41 -0500
From:    "Louis R. Coatney" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Nishizawa's fate

Emmanuel,

     I realize *you* probably know this, but for the sake
of other viewers ...

     N. was considered by Saburo Sakai (SAMURAI) to be the most
brilliant/dangerous Japanese fighter pilot of the Pacific War.
(John Lundstrom, feel free to correct any of this, if I am wrong.)

     Ironically, he was killed when the *transport plane he was
riding in* was jumped by American fighters in/near the Phillipines.

     Ahh, the dividends of aggressive offensive action!

Lou Coatney

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 13:40:52 -0500
From:    Jeff Dingbaum <[email-masked]>
Subject: aircraft carrier in Great Lakes?

Please pardon a landlubber, but I have a rather naive question.  Are the
old carriers small enought to fit through the Great Lakes lock system?
It would be nice to see one in Chicago.  I know that they ran training
carriers on the lakes during the war, but the only ships that I have
heard about were converted from something else, and were already there.

Chicago had a sub, the Silversides, but let it get away to Michigan. At
least the U-505 is all the way across Lake Shore Drive.

As much as I tend to like aircraft, I am also very much saddened by the
loss of these great ships.  Gee, maybe we could tell mayor Daley one
would make a great floating casino... Yeah, I know, perish the thought,
but at least it would keep it off the scrap heap until somewhere down
the road some group would do right by it.

Jeff Dingbaum
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:38:01 -0400
From:    "Benjamin B. Weber" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Meaning of Holocaust and genocide

Let me begin with an apology for opening this debate over the meaning of
the term "genocide."  I have always understood the term to mean something
along the lines of the following: "The systematic and planned
extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group."
(From: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd.  ed.
(1992), s.v. "genocide") Since I was unaware that Stalin ever intended to
kill every last Ukrainian I chose not to define his actions as a
"genocide."  I concede that the issue is open to debate and do not wish to
argue with those who understand the term more broadly.

Let me also clarify why I take issue with the arbitrary designation of all
atrocities as "Holocausts."  My concern has to do with precedents.  I have
seen to many people try to relativize historical atrocities into
insignificance by referring to them all as "Holocausts."  Under no
circumstances do I mean to imply that the crimes of the Stalin regime were
less horrifying or important than the Nazi Holocaust.  Likewise I support
the study of comparative tragedies as long it is done in good faith and
for the benefit of historical understanding.  However, referring to all
atrocities as "Holocausts" risks loosing sight of the uniqueness of each
historical event.  The treatment of Poles by the Nazis may have been
equally horrifying, but it was not "like" the Holocaust.  We, as scholars,
need to understand it as a specific event in history.
        Furthermore, I am confused by Mr. Coatney's assertion that
"deny[ing] the use of the term Holocaust" to other groups of sufferers is
ethnocentric and racist.  I understand this differently.  I see attempts
to define every atrocity as a "Holocaust" as a way of telling Jews to stop
trying to draw attention to themselves.  To imply that there was no
singularity to the HolocaustS (as Mr. Coatney refers to it) is to say that
Jewish scholarship regarding their persecution under the Nazis is
disingenuous.
        I am also not sure that agree that Holocaust scholars do deny the
use of the term Holocaust to other groups arbitrarily.  Scholarship on
Gypsy persecution (1933-1945) really only got underway recently (in the
last ten or so years).  To date I have yet to hear anyone imply that their
suffering was not part of the Holocaust.
        In closing, I would agree that historians do give the victims of
other atrocities short shrift compared to victims of the Holocaust.  To
this end much of my own research focuses on traditionally ignored victims
of Nazism (esp. Gypsies).  I oppose, however, the relativistic bouncing
of one atrocity against the other which the overuse of the term Holocaust
seems to lead to.  We should not need to invoke the horror of the Shoah
(to use a more specific term) to draw attention to other tragedies.

Benjamin Weber
Univ. of Vermont
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 12:41:10 -0800
From:    Ron Skinner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: *Other* Holocausts, Mr. Weber

Sheez, you fellows could give pedantry a bad name! Then again, if Mr.
Webster could make his own dictionary, why not you? :-)

Try this for size:

holocaust n.
1. Great or total destruction, especially by fire.
2.a. Widespread destruction. b. A great disaster.
3.a. Holocaust. The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis
during World War II: "Israel emerged from the Holocaust and is defined in
relation to that catastrophe" (Emanuel Litvinoff). b. A massive slaughter:
"an important document in the so-far sketchy annals of the Cambodian
holocaust" (Rod Nordland).
4. A sacrificial offering that is consumed entirely by flames. [Middle
English, burnt offering, from Old French holocauste, from Latin
holocaustum, from Greek holokauston, from neuter of holokaustos, burnt
whole : holo-, holo- + kaustos, burnt (from kaiein, to burn).]

USAGE NOTE: When referring to the massive destruction of human beings by
other human beings, holocaust has a secure place in the language. Fully 99
percent of the Usage Panel accepts the use of holocaust in the phrase
nuclear holocaust. Sixty percent accepts the sentence As many as two
million people may have died in the holocaust that followed the Khmer Rouge
takeover in Cambodia. But because of its associations with genocide,
extended applications of holocaust may not always be received with
equanimity. When the word is used to refer to death brought about by
natural causes, the percentage of the Panel's acceptance drops sharply.
Only 31 percent of the Panel accepts the sentence In East Africa five years
of drought have brought about a holocaust in which millions have died. Just
11 percent approved the use of holocaust to summarize the effects of the
AIDS epidemic. This suggests that other figurative usages such as the huge
losses in the Savings and Loan holocaust may be viewed as overblown or in
poor taste.

WORD HISTORY: Totality of destruction has been central to the meaning of
holocaust since it first appeared in Middle English in the 14th century and
referred to the biblical sacrifice in which a male animal was wholly burnt
on the altar in worship of God. Holocaust comes from Greek holokauston
("that which is completely burnt"), which was a translation of Hebrew =F4l=
=E2
(literally "that which goes up," that is, in smoke). In this sense of
"burnt sacrifice," holocaust is still used in some versions of the Bible.
In the 17th century the meaning of holocaust broadened to "something
totally consumed by fire," and the word eventually was applied to fires of
extreme destructiveness. In the 20th century holocaust has taken on a
variety of figurative meanings, summarizing the effects of war, rioting,
storms, epidemic diseases, and even economic failures. Most of these usages
arose after World War II, but it is unclear whether they permitted or
resulted from the use of holocaust in reference to the mass murder of
European Jews and others by the Nazis. This application of the word
occurred as early as 1942, but the phrase the Holocaust did not become
established until the late 1950's. Here it parallels and may have been
influenced by another Hebrew word, shoah ("catastrophe"). In the Bible
shoah has a range of meanings including "personal ruin or devastation" and
"a wasteland or desert." Shoah was first used to refer to the Nazi
slaughter of Jews in 1939, but its phrase ha-shoah ("the catastrophe") only
became established after World War II. Holocaust has also been used to
translate hurban ("destruction"), another Hebrew word used to summarize the
genocide of Jews by the Nazis. This sense of holocaust has since broadened
to include the mass slaughter of other peoples, but when capitalized it
refers specifically to the destruction of Jews and other Europeans by the
Nazis and may also encompass the Nazi persecution of Jews that preceded the
outbreak of the war.

Ron Skinner

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 12:41:18 -0800
From:    Ron Skinner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: V-1's

Regarding the discussion of the V-1, here are a few facts:

=46ZG 76

German flying bomb. Popularly known as the V-l, or Buzz-bomb, this was the
first successful guided weapon. It was originally known as the Fieseler Fi
103 and was a midwing monoplane propelled by a Schmidt duct motor or pulse
jet mounted above the rear of the fuselage.

Development of this motor began in 1933, finanical support being given to
the inventor by the German army. In essence, it was a combustion chamber
into which air was rammed by the forward movement of the craft. This air
was compressed in the chamber, fuel oil was injected, and the explosive
mixture then ignited. The resulting explosion forced the forward end
flap-valves closed, so that the gas had to exhaust through the rear end,
thus providing thrust. The expulsion of the gas caused a depression in the
system which thus sucked in more air to begin the cycle over again. Up to
500 explosions a minute generated considerable thrust and allowed the
missile to travel at more than 483 km/h (300 mph)
The missile carried a warhead holding 850 kg (1874 lb) of high explosive
and provided with a multiple fl zing system. On the front end of the
missile was a propeller connected to an adjustable revolution counter. The
number of propeller revolutions for a given distance could be set in, and
when this number of revolutions had taken place the missile's elevators
were deflected and the missile dived to the ground.

Launching was done by. a steam catapult mechanism in a fixed launching
ramp, which threw the missile into the air at sufficient speed to sustain
operation of the duct motor.

Development of the missile itself began on June 19, 1942, at Peenemunde.
under the direction of Luftstabsingenieur (air staff engineer) Bree. The
first successful launch took place on December 24, 1942, and the first
operational launch on the night of June 12, 1944. Mass production began in
March 1944 with a planned output of 8000 missiles per month by October of
that year. The combined output of all production sources had been estimated
at 25 000 missiles during 1944, of which 12000 were ready for use when
operations began. During 1945 another 1 9800 were made.

In all, 9251 were fired against England, of which 4261 were destroyed, and
6551 against Antwewrp, of which 2455 were destroyed. When the advance of
the Allied armies in France placed the prepared launching sites out of
action, launch sites in the Netherlands were taken into use and a technique
of launching the missiles from aircraft was developed. Due to the
requirements of the engine, the V-l was constrained to a specific height,
and flew in a straight line at a constant speed. In spite of this being the
ideal conditions for an antiaircraft gun's target, they were extremely
difficult to counter, since they moved in a belt of sky which was too high
for light guns and too low for heavy guns. Only the arrival of the American
SCR276 radar and supplies of the first proximity fuzes allowed the heavier
guns to compete.

Launch weight: 2200 kg (4850 lb) Wingspan: 5.33 m (17 ft 54 in) Fuselage
length:6.65 m (21 ft 90 in) Overall length: 7.73 m (25 ft 4=A7 in) Warhead:
850 kg (1874 lb) Fuzing: One electrical impact fuze El Az 106*, one
mechanical 'allways' fuze KZ80A, one clockwork delay fuze Z 17B Speed (in
level flight): 480-675 km/h (298419 mph) Cruise height: 1000-1200 m
(3280-3937 ft) Maximum effective range: 200 km (124 miles) Flight
time:20-25 minutes Accuracy: Circle of probable error 12 km (7.4 miles)
radius

Source: The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare, Vol. X,
Columbia House (New York), 1979.

Ron Skinner

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:07:06 EST
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: WEAP: Schwerer Gustav

        It sounds like the shell you saw was for one of the 80cm guns
that the Germans deployed against Sevastopol.  The other was called Dora.
Since the first references I ever saw for these guns referred to their
_remains_, it seems unlikely that they have survived.  If someone doesn't
beat me to it, I will see if I can find stats on ballistics, crews, etc.
*****************************************************
(Roger) Brad Coon             The right to defend
[email-masked]          one's self and one's
[email-masked]    family against harm and
                              injustice is the most
                              basic civil right.

Proud to be a member of America's largest civil rights
group, the National Rifle Association.
******************************************************

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:48:09 -0600
From:    Dave Neil <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP:Scwerer Gustav

I would be interested in recieving your re-post.  Send it back channel
if no one else wants to see it...

Is this list archived?  If not it's a shame!  I've seen a lotta good
history and info pass through here and while I've saved as much as I can,
I can't save it all...I hate to sound corny, but this list is a national
treasure!  Where else can you get a history lesson from the people who
made the history?  While I'm at it, I'd like to thank all the
contributors for sharing their experiences and knowledge - and all the vets
for their courage and bravery...

                        Dave Neil
                        Systems Analyst
                        Fort Lewis College
                        Durango, CO  81301
                        [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 17:27:15 CCS
From:    Jorge Merino <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Aircraft carriers in Great Lakes?

Why not?

> Please pardon a landlubber, but I have a rather naive question.  Are the
> old carriers small enought to fit through the Great Lakes lock system?
> It would be nice to see one in Chicago.  I know that they ran training
> carriers on the lakes during the war, but the only ships that I have
> heard about were converted from something else, and were already there.

Nice idea to put one of these vintage ships there, but I don't think they
are too small at all. If I'm not wrong, they are about 275 meters long,
and have a displacement of about 29000 tons?

Perhaps you would like to rescue the Bennington (CV-20), while she is
still stationed at Bremerton Navy yard. We have just to find the way to
insert her into the lake....
Or would you prefer to intercept the Hornet and the Oriskany before they
reach Harbor Point and rescue them from the hands of the death? (I would
do, if I only could have the powers....)

It is an interesting idea anyway. Perhaps we would have to reduce the ship
into smaller pieces, and re-assemble her into the lake.

> As much as I tend to like aircraft, I am also very much saddened by the
> loss of these great ships.  Gee, maybe we could tell mayor Daley one
> would make a great floating casino... Yeah, I know, perish the thought,
> but at least it would keep it off the scrap heap until somewhere down
> the road some group would do right by it.

I agree with you. I like also aircraft (and carriers), and I think any
effort to save these carriers from the scrap heap should be taken into
consideration. A floating casino in Chicago? Why not?

I would prefer to re-fill one of them with her entire air wing, as she
was during Vietnam war, and exhibit her as a floating museum. (for example,
rescue the Oriskany and fill her with A-4s, F-8s, A-7s, SH-3, etc). It
would be a very beautiful sight.

Jorge Merino

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 19:01:36 -0500
From:    Drew Halevy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: V-1's

The German's also developed an air lauched, radio controled anti-ship
missle.-Drew

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 17:50:54 PDT
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Buzz Bombs

Yes, Jack...
        That"turned" German agent who sent the Abwehr inaccurate
impact plots for V1s is mentioned in several accounts.

--

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 20:44:00 EDT
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: [INF] USAAF 14 SEP 44

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
THURSDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 1944
FTP SITES
  1. ftp.rutgers.edu in directory pub/wwii/usaf
  2. byrd.mu.wvnet.edu (129.71.32.152) in pub/history/military/airforce/
     wwii_chronology

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
  C-47, Douglas Skytrain
  L-5, Stinson Sentinel
  P-40, Curtiss
  P-51, North American Mustang

NOTE: A number in parenthesis after a target name indicates the number of
bombers attacking.

AMERICAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  ALASKA (Eleventh Air Force): During the night of 13/14 Sep 3 B-24s strike
Kurabu Cape shipping and airfield on Paramushiru Island.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA (CBI) THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  BURMA-INDIA (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 4 B-25s drop fragmentation-
boobytrap bombs on Bhamo; large-scale C-47 operations continue to various
points in the CBI.

  CHINA (Fourteenth Air Force): In China, 6 B-25s bomb Tunganhsien; 91 P-40s
and P-51s attack inland shipping, troop compounds, supplies, and numerous
buildings around the Lungling area, throughout the vast expanse of inland SE
China, mainly in Hunan, and other areas S of Tungting Lake; HQ 23d Fighter
Group moves from Liuchow to Luliang; the air echelon of the 118th Tactical
Reconnaissance Squadron, Fourteenth Air Force (attached to 23d Fighter
Group), moves from Kweilin to Liuchow with P-51s (ground echelon is at
Chengkung; and the 373d Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 308th Bombardment Group
(Heavy), moves from Yangkai to Luliang with B-24s.

EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO)

  AIRBORNE OPERATIONS (IX Troop Carrier Command): C-47s continue large-scale
supply and evacuation missions in France.

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): Mission 632: 2 B-17 control
aircraft and 2 B-17 CASTOR drones fly an APHRODITE mission to the oil
refinery at Hemmingstedt, Germany; the target is missed.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Ninth Air Force): In France, HQ XXIX Tactical Air
Command (Provisional) is activated at Vermand, in anticipation of operating
with the US Ninth Army, shortly to join the Twelfth Army Group; Brigadier
General Richard E Nugent is Commanding General; about 140 B-26s and A-20s
bomb gun emplacements and strongpoints in the Brest area; fighters fly armed
reconnaissance in various battle areas; HQ 358th Fighter Group moves from
Pontorson to Vitry-le-Francois; HQ 405th Fighter Group and the 511th Fighter
Squadron move from Picauville to St-Dizier with P-47s; the 14th Liaison
Squadron, XIX Tactical Air Command (attached to Third Army), moves from
Marson to Gussainville with L-5s; the 387th Fighter Squadron, 365th Fighter
Group, moves from Bretigny to Juvincourt with P-47s.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy, medium bombers attack
defensive positions in the E and C parts of the Gothic Line as the enemy
fiercely resists, especially at Il Giogo Pass and on Monte Altuzzo; fighter-
bombers continue strikes against communications and movement in the Po
Valley. In France, bad weather limits fighters to a few sweeps in the S; and
HQ 17th Bombardment Group (Medium) moves from Sardinia to Corsica.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA)

  AAFPOA (Seventh Air Force): B-24s from Saipan Island bomb Iwo Jima Island.
P-47s make strafing and rocket attacks on warehouses and shelters on Pagan
Island. B-24s on armed reconnaissance bomb Marcus Island; others from
Eniwetok Atoll bomb Truk Island while Gilbert Islands-based B-25s hit Ponape
Island.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: On Celebes Island,
B-25s pound Mapanget airstrip and the Menado area. B-24s hit 4 airfields on
Halmahera Island. In New Guinea, A-20s and B-25s bomb Babo Airfield while
fighter-bombers make scattered small raids on AA positions, airfields, and
targets of opportunity on the Vogelkop Peninsula; the 69th Bombardment
Squadron (Medium), 42d Bombardment Group (Medium), moves from Hollandia to
Sansapor; and the 100th Bombardment Squadron (Medium), Thirteenth Air Force
[attached to 42d Bombardment Group (Medium)], ceases operating from Hollandia
with B-25s and returns to base at Sansapor.

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      |
|  Bellcore              |  privileges as we enjoy forget in      |
|  Piscataway, NJ USA    |  time that men have died to win them.  |
|  [email-masked]  |                       FDR              |
-------------------------------------------------------------------

14/0047Z SEP

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:08:26 PDT
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: BUZZ BOMBS

Dave...
        More than a "few" buzz-bombs were shot down by fighter aircraft.
        Designated fighter squadrons, mostly RAF, but some USAAF as well,
shot down well over 1000 V1s over southern england and the Channel.
        Principal RAF planes used were:
        Tempest
        Spitfire
        Mosquito
        Mustang.

--

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:13:22 PDT
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HIST: Female Nazis

The Bitch Of Belsen" -- Irma Greise.

--

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 21:06:00 EDT
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: AZON BOMBS

The Azon (azimuth only) bomb was a standard 1,000-pound (454 kg) M-65 bomb
with a special tail containing a radio receiver which activated a servo
motor connected to the rudders in the fins that enabled it to be steered
to the left or right on receipt of radio signals from the aircraft that
dropped the bomb (normally a B-24).  A gyro and solenoids were also
contained in the tail which changed the pitch of small ailerons in the fins
to prevent rolling of the bomb while in flight.  Range could not be
controlled; varying the azimuth in flight caused the bomb to lose range so
it was best employed on long, narrow targets, e.g., bridges and rail
lines.

A transmitter and control box, weighing 100 pounds (45 kg) was located in
the dropping aircraft.  Six frequencies were available in the transmitter
so six bombs could be controlled.  From an altitude of 15,000-feet (4572 m)
an Azon bomb could be steered 2,000 to 3,000 feet (610 to 914 m) left or
right.

To drop the Azon bomb, the bombadier used the normal Norden bombsight and
dropped as if it were a "normal" bomb.  A 1-million candlepower flare on
the tail of the bomb was automatically ignited 8-10 seconds after release
and by following the flare visually, an experienced bombadier could detect
azimuth errors as small as 5 to 10 feet (1.5 to 3.5 m) at an altitude of
15,000 feet.  The bombadier controlled the azimuth of the bomb by pushing a
handle on the control box left or right.  In the event of a flare failure,
early Azon bombs were painted with yellow or orange stripes and this
permitted the bombadier to follow the bomb for 5,000 to 7,000 feet (1,524
to 2,134 m) after dropping.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jack McKillop              |  Those who have long enjoyed such |
|  Bellcore                   |  privileges as we enjoy forget in |
|  Piscataway, NJ USA         |  time that men have died to win   |
|  [email-masked]  |  them.                     FDR    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:18:36 PDT
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Mr. Coatney's co...

Right, Thomas...
        The Russian soldiers were also getting even for the more than
20 million Soviet citizens killed during the Second World War. A
halocaust, indeed.

--

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 17:52:07 -0700
From:    Ed Kettler <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Japanese sailors

According to Saburo Sakai, one of the top Japanese aces, most of the
fighter pilots prefered NOT to wear parachutes because it restricted
their movements and scanning in the cockpit.  They were later ordered to
wear parachutes after tehy started to receive heavy losses (after Midway).

Ed Kettler                                       [email-masked]

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Henry Sirotin wrote:

> The Yamato carried rafts- I believe I have on-deck pictures of her with them.
> The Japanese would have saved their sailors to fight again; why the assumption
> that only the enemy could pick them up? Numerous men were taken off the
> burning carriers at Midway by small boats, as were the Emperor's pictures
> on each vessel. As for pilots, is it true that all aircrew were not
> equipped with parachutes? I seem to recall seeing men with chutes climbing
> into Kates in the actual or (Japanese 1942) reenactment footage of Pearl
> Harbor. And what of bomber crews?
>
> Henry Sirotin
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 21:36:27 -0400
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: THANKS

As I peruse the net tonight, Alan and Steve, I am thoroughly enjoying my Zino,
and pity the poor fools who want to do away with cigars and pipes, and another
round of cheers to the wee one. Ben Frank

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 21:42:52 -0400
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: MEDIA: PELELIU

Thanks for posting this release, Jim. It is entirely accurate, including my
quote. As I write this on the evening of 13 September, I recall 50 years ago it
was D minus 2. I do not believe that anybody in that invasion fleet exactly
knew what to expect. We had veterans of the Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester
landings in the division. Many did not make the third "blitz," as we called
them. They did not survive the battle. Neither did many of the new people. My
good friend, Gene Sledge, has written tellingly of the battle, and of Okinawa
in "With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa." I have no hesitancy in
recommending it to members of the list if they want to know what the enlisted
Marine experienced in these two major engagements. I can readily imagine that
many of my fellow Peleliu veterans are growing quieter and more introspective
at 15 September approaches. We marvel at the fact that we were able to survive
that horrible experience and very grateful that we did. Ben Frank

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:45:54 -0700
From:    Ed Kettler <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Essex-class carriers

CV-59  Forrestal has been redesignated AVT 59 to replace Lexington (AVT 16)
as the training carrier.  CV 41 Midway decommed on 11 Apr 92 for
retention as possiblew mobilization asset.

Info from Combat Fleets of the World, 1993.

Ed Kettler                                       [email-masked]

On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, John Riegsecker wrote:

> Jorge Merino wrote:
>
> >Isn't CV-41 Midway scheduled to become Training carrier, I think, after
> >CV-43 Coral Sea has completed her turn?
>
> Pure speculation on my part, but from the ground looking up at Midway, I
> don't see how she will ever move again on her own power, at least not soon.
>
>
> John Riegsecker                                 (206) 756-3566
> Dept of Math and Computer Science               [email-masked]
> University of Puget Sound
>

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 22:31:36 -0400
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: MEDIA: PELELIU

Yes, Joe, 'tis Ibut I wasn't with the 1st Marines, an infantry regiment, but
with the 1st Marine Division headquarters battalion. We provided the defense
for the division CP, which was located on the beach, just behind a sand berm,
which provided slight protection from incoming mortars and artillery. Ben Frank

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 22:42:37 -0400
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "HOLOCAUST"

Henry Morgenthau was Secretary of the Treasury in FDR's cabinet and he did
indeed recommend a deindustrialization of Germany, and had he known about it
and had it been available, I have no doubt but that he would have recommended
that the atomic bomb be used on Germany. I have no documentary evidence of
this, just an estimate of the man, the times. Ben Frank

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 22:44:26 -0400
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: MORGENTHAU PLAN

I think that if you check your facts, although Harry Dexter White was accused
of being a communist, it was never proved and he was just another innocent
victim of the McCarthy period. Ben Frank

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 13 Sep 1994 20:26:42 -0700
From:    John Riegsecker <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Essex-class carriers

>From:         Ed Kettler <[email-masked]>
>Subject:      Re: WEAP: Essex-class carriers

Ed,

>CV-59  Forrestal has been redesignated AVT 59 to replace Lexington (AVT 16)
>as the training carrier.  CV 41 Midway decommed on 11 Apr 92 for
>retention as possiblew mobilization asset.
>
>Info from Combat Fleets of the World, 1993.
>
>Ed Kettler                                       [email-masked]

Pardon a dumb question, but precisely what does mobilization asset mean
in civilian?  I want to get some more information from the Bremerton
Naval Museum for Jorge Merino, so perhaps I can find out from them if
they have more recent information on the planned fate of CV41.  In some sense,
it is very frustrating to be so close to these old ships, but not really
able to do more than look at them from the outside.  If CV41 becomes a
trainng ship, they have some sprucing up to do.

John Riegsecker
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
University of Puget Sound

[email-masked]

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End of WWII-L Digest - 12 Sep 1994 to 13 Sep 1994
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