Subject: WWII-L Digest - 3 Oct 1994 to 4 Oct 1994

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 00:01:08 -0400

There are 69 messages totalling 2466 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. german 12th ss panzer division
  2. Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part II (4)
  3. TACT:Downfall (3)
  4. Switzerland
  5. GEN: references/topics
  6. WEAP: F-82 (2)
  7. INF: 50 Years Ago - 05-OCT-1944
  8. WEAP:  Eclectic Stablemates
  9. Switzerland in WWII (2)
 10. POL:Hiroshima (2)
 11. POL:Hiroshima - why implosion, just curious (4)
 12. Invasion of Crete -- Operation Merkur (3)
 13. USAF Feature
 14. Untold Stories f/ABTF, Pt. 2 (2)
 15. Hiroshima et. al.
 16. WEAP: Eric Brown -Reply (2)
 17. SS and SA (6)
 18. WWII-L Digest - 2 Oct 1994 to 3 Oct 1994 (2)
 19. Italy in WW2--Regina Marina (cont.) (4)
 20. Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part III (2)
 21. TRIVIA:Czech Army
 22. WEAP:aircraft comparisons
 23. HIST
 24. HIST -- Armed SS
 25. Egypt
 26. TAC: ?'Could still loose the war?
 27. TACT:Could they have won ? (2)
 28. Gustav Geraet (2)
 29. SS in combat (4)
 30. WEAP: F-82 -Reply (2)
 31. German Military Vehicles
 32. ? WW2 Airplane Crash in CBI
 33. Rumanians in WW2, runners, etc.
 34. [INF] USAAF 2 OCT 44
 35. WEAP: Heinkel He-111Z
 36. [INF] USAAF 5 OCT 44
 37. ITALY IN WW2, MY $
 38. WEAP: Heinkel He-111Z -Reply

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 14:02:47 +0010
From:    Jeff Rixon <[email-masked]>
Subject: german 12th ss panzer division

i am a wargammer and require details of the combat vehicles and heavy weapons used by the 12th ss panzer div from d-day to falaise pocket. thanks for any assistance. please e-mail direct [email-masked]

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

Date:    Mon, 3 Oct 1994 21:59:01 PDT
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part II

Seldom acknowledged these days, if the fact that the Italian Navy in WW2
had a good fighting reputation. Probably because of a long naval tradition
long long before there was any Mussolini...
        For instance, the Italian submarines were notably agressive in the
Mediteranean Sea, especially when attacked by (usually RAF) aircraft. The
German U-Boats, acknowledging their crew's conisderable bravery otherwise,
had a policy of immediately doing a crash-dive when attacked by planes.
However, the Italian Navy had orders to stay and fight on the surface.
Which they always did, causing no end of RAF aircraft casualties.
        Less honorably, perhaps, was the rather nasty reputation of the
Italiam Motor Torpedo Units -- acronym, "MAS.  For sosme reason, MAS was given
the dirtiest jobs of counter-espionage and anti-Resistance. The naval unit
were assiduous torturers and murderers of Italian resistants, or suspected
Partisans.
        By the way, it seems am unpleasant echo of this Italian MAS
activity lives on in present-day Arhentina. Some of the worst atrocities
and murders against "enemies of the state" are committed by an outfit
call\

hiding behind the title, "Naval Mechanics School". The chief torturer of
the Argentine Naval Mechanics School, accused of numerous atrocities in
his own country against enemies of President Galtieri's Junta, was
captured by the BRitish during the Falklands War. Sweden immediately
asked for the guy for trial on charges of murdering a Swedish nun. He
was immune, though, under International Law which forbids a POW being
handed over to a third nation. The British reluctantly had to let the
SOB slip back to Argentina at war's end.

        But I digress.
                        o o
                         "
                         U

Regards -- Sidney Allinson.

--

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

Date:    Mon, 3 Oct 1994 18:35:57 +0200
From:    "A.Bouis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: TACT:Downfall

Thanks for your opinions (and thanks, Cassidy, for your posts on German scientists... I hope you did not have to type it all).

Brad, thanks as well for your reply. I would like to answer your points :

You are right to note that the Germans could hardly have reversed the situation with Russian armies already on their soil. Though most German industry was concentrated in the West, around the Ruhr. Some eastern regions like Silesia were important, but the Russians did not reach them until the Spring of '45. As for the Central European allies, they afforded little help after 1942, except natural resources. But my contention was that the Germans could have done something BEFORE losing the oil.
I agree with you that armies win wars, but even German tank production approached Soviet production in 1944.
With a great increase in quality compared to 1942, all tanks bearing at least the 75mm L48 gun.
Is there reason to think Speer would not have been able to increase tank production even more, had he not been compelled to concentrate on producing hordes of fighters ?

The failures of 1941 were largely due to bad planning and preparation. Those of Stalingrad, to inferior war production. By 1944 Germany had gone to a total war effort, and had mostly adapted to the Russian winter conditions.
Regarding 1941-42, it is often said that Russia defeated alone the entire might of Germany. While I have the highest respect for the courage of the Russian soldier, forced to fight with his back to the Kremlin, I have some doubts about this argument. I would like to have a compiled figure for the tank and aircraft losses caused by England during this period, and would be surprised if it were that small. The fighting in Africa, over French skies and on the Atlantic certainly took a heavy toll on German war production. Now, this is certainly an argument in the air until strongly supported by figures.

Regarding peace overtures, all I have read  (in Alan Clark's "Barbarossa") is negociations is that in 1943 Molotov and Goebbels planned a secret meeting to open negociations. It misfired when Stalin refused to consider German demands for a frontier on the Dnieper river. I had not read about the "Bulgarian embassador", and found your mails very interesting.

I agree very much with George Lippert that though the Ardennes offensive failed completely, it may have been a wise decision of Hitler's to launch it (however little wisdom had to do with the Fuhrer's reasoning). This is supported by Liddell Hart too. All a slowly losing player can do is gamble very high.

Another interesting piece of thought advanced by Alan Clark ("Barbarossa") is that Hitler WANTED the Russians to advance faster than the Western allies. Guderian consistently complains that Hitler failed to give him the resources to stop Stalin. According to Clark Guderian never understood the aims of his master, and the two men worked in divergent directions. Hitler -still according to Clark- hoped that threat of a Russian occupation of Germany would shatter the communist-capitalist alliance, which would save him just as was saved Frederick II. Clearly, Hitler had no concern for the post-war fate of his citizens.

Apres moi le deluge.

Arnaud.

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 07:07:18 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Switzerland

     In defense of the Swiss, they were assiduous in the protection of
     their neutrality from air incursions by either side, to the limit that
     their equipment could manage.

     The Swiss interdicted, and attacked both Axis and Allied aircraft that
     over flew their country, and pilots from both sides ended up being
     interned for the duration.

     The swap of 6 BF-109G's for the destruction of the ME-110 seems to me
     to be a simple national interest decision.  It had little impact on
     their neutral position, but provided the country an increased ability
     to defend its borders.

        Steve L. New                     .............................
        Weapon System Manager            .............................
        Battalion Countermine Set        ............ /\ .............
        U.S. Army TACOM AMSTA-IM-FR1D    ............/  \.............
        DSN: 786-5403  FAX: 786-7788     ............    .............
        EMAIL  [email-masked]   ............    .............

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:41:40 +0200
From:    "A.Bouis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: GEN: references/topics

I have to agree that discussing without quoting sources is regrettable, and detrimental to credibility, and every effort should be done towards giving references.
However, I hope you understand that some of us are not comfortably at home or near a library, and have to quote from memory, or never participate to the list at all.
I write this in reaction to the newly-appended passage in the list code, which states that those not citing references will end up with "an egg on their faces".
Please understand many of us do not have their sources at hand (soon about to change in my case when I can use my modem at home and quote from my books), and refrain from aggressivity.

I personally do not see with a very good eye recent trends towards forbidding subjects.
After all, no one has to participate in a flagged discussion if he finds it not worth of interest. We are in places of freedom where tolerance must exist, as long the "Golden Rule" is respected:  Politeness, courtesy, roughly staying in the WWII era, and not forbidding our flags :-)

Just one opinion,

Cordially,
Arnaud.

Silence is the best part of contempt.

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 07:33:07 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: F-82

     > How was the P-82 managed? What happened, for example when the right
     > pilot wanted to go left, and the left pilot wanted to go right? Was
     > one pilot designated the lead pilot? And what if he got disabled in
     > flight?

     The F-82 was originally designed as a very long range escort fighter
     intended to support B-29, and eventually B-36 bombing missions.

     In this configuration, the portside cockpit had a complete suite of
     instruments, while the starboard cockpit held only rudimentary flight
     controls.  The second pilot was intended as a human autopilot to spell
     the senior pilot during long flights.

     In the event, the capture of islands close enough to the Japanese home
     islands to allow P-51Ds and P47Ns to perform escort duties made the
     long range escort mission obsolete.

     Subsequent roles played by the F-82 included photo-recon and night
     fighting, and the aircraft was certainly modified accordingly, yet I
     believe the starboard cockpit maintained those basic flight controls
     so that the second pilot could spell the first during long missions.

        Steve L. New                     .............................
        Weapon System Manager            .............................
        Battalion Countermine Set        ............ /\ .............
        U.S. Army TACOM AMSTA-IM-FR1D    ............/  \.............
        DSN: 786-5403  FAX: 786-7788     ............    .............
        EMAIL  [email-masked]   ............    .............

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 04:39:34 -0700
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 05-OCT-1944

On 05-OCT-1944, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - Units of the US XIX Corps are advancing towards Geilenkirchen.
Bad weather postpones the attack of the US XII Corps towards Schmidt.

Eastern Front - The 1st Baltic Front opens a powerful offensive towards East
Prussia and the Baltic, with the goal of bottling up the German Army Group
North. The Russians land on Saaremaa Island in the Baltic. The 2nd and 3rd
Baltic Fronts are left to continue the offensive towards Riga. The 2nd Ukraine
Front begins the offensive against southeast Hungary, aiming for Szeged and
Budapest.

Italian Front - The offensive towards La Spezia is resumed.

Peleliu - Operations are temporarily slowed down by the heavy rains as well as
the relief operations of the 7th Marines on Mount Umurbrogol.

Greece - British forces land on the Greek mainland and enter Patras.

The Homefront
-------------
World Series - The Cardinals take the second game of the series beating the
Browns 3-2 in 11 innings.

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

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

Previous articles are archived at ftp.netcom.com in directory /pub/jbd or
through the WWW at URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jbd/ww2.html.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Davis     [email-masked]      WWW: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jbd/ww2.html
Cary, N.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 07:54:22 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP:  Eclectic Stablemates

     >Also for Yugoslavia in April '41 (Me-109s and Hurricanes on the same
     >side)

     >Mike Yaklich

     Mike,

     You're welcome.

     Oh, yea, the Turks flew FW-190s and Spitfires together.

        Steve L. New                     .............................
        Weapon System Manager            .............................
        Battalion Countermine Set        ............ /\ .............
        U.S. Army TACOM AMSTA-IM-FR1D    ............/  \.............
        DSN: 786-5403  FAX: 786-7788     ............    .............
        EMAIL  [email-masked]   ............    .............

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 08:31:46 EDT
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Switzerland in WWII

On Mon, 3 Oct 1994 14:10:35 GMT-6 Robert T. Moore said:
>The crew was sent back home by train in
>civilian clothes and were returned to flight status. The Swiss were
>still given the 6 Me-109's.

This would appear to be a violation of neutrality during wartime.  Weren't
Allied fliers interned?  If so, weren't the Swiss obliged to intern the
Germans as well?  I ask for informational reasons, ie, what was the
situation & the applicable international rule of law.

ken koester
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 08:31:15 EDT
From:    William Lippert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part II

On Mon, 3 Oct 1994 16:37:45 EDT Henry Sirotin said:
>Did the pre-war SS really have no equal in Europe? Royal Marines? And  what
>do we know of elite Soviet units in this period?
>
>Henry Sirotin

   The pre-war SS was "nothing" but the elite of the party.  The regular
Wermacht heavily resisted the idea that anyone but they were the protectors
of the Reich's security.  Thus, they were the only armed services.  The role
of the SS was to ensure internal security, especially after the SA was
disempowered after the "Night of the Long Knives" in which Ernst Rhoem
and several hundred or so others were purged by Himmler, Goering, and HItler.
   The Waffen SS didn't come into being unitl the offensive in the East -
and even then they were attached to regular army command.  It was not until
matters started to look bleak that Himmler was able to remove the Waffen-SS
from the Werhmacht command structure.  Incidentally, the chief role of the
SS, besides Reich security, was Reich occupation.
   The Waffen SS became a fighting army after Hitler lost faith in the regular
army.  They did not perform particularly brilliantly, but fought well and to
the death, following Hitler's orders.  The regular army units would usually
retreat when hard pressed.
   So to directly answer the question at hand, the pre-war SS probably didn't
have any equal, just as the Nazi organization and regime had no equal.  I
am not positive, but I do not think that there was anyone in particular who
upheld Stalin's power, other than everyone who wanted to survive.  The Royal
Marines are not a valid comparison because they were a dedicated military
combat unit.
   Hope that clears matters up.

William Lippert
The American University

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 08:39:45 EDT
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POL:Hiroshima

On Mon, 3 Oct 1994 15:43:32 EDT William Lippert said:
>    The making of a successful atomic weapon is no easy task.  One has to
>have precise wiring lengths so that the explosive around the U-235 is
>detonated at the same moment to achieve uniform implosion.  These weapons
>were made in an era without the aid of digital measuring devices, remember.
>And then, of course, the explosive itself had to be uniformly distributed.
>It had to be the right quantity, lest it explode rather than implode (I
>think).  In sum, the triggering device was not easy to make.

I believe you are describing the plutonium bomb, not the U-235.  The former
indeed required implosion & extremely precise triggering.  The latter
simply required a reliable & powerful "gun" to smash two sub-critical masses
together.  Enhancements are possible--neutron reflectors & accelerators,
for example--but the U-235 bomb presented comparatively few problems
beyond that of enriching the uranium in the first place.  One remarks that
no one saw a need to test the U-235 bomb, but they did have to test the
plutonium one.

ken koester
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 14:11:39 GMT
From:    Johannes van Vuren <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POL:Hiroshima - why implosion, just curious

Just curious: why does a plutonium bomb need the implosion type detonator?
Why could it not work with the gun-type? Alternatively, I suppose the u235
bomb would have worked with an implosion detonator.
Many thanks,
Johannes van Vuren,
Canterbury, England.

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 07:40:56 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Invasion of Crete -- Operation Merkur

Hello, Derek and Brad!

Here goes with some sources on the Crete invasion.

Nazi Victory: Crete 1941 by David Thomas
German Airborne Troops by Roger Edwards
Hunters from the Sky: The German Parachute Corps, 1940-1945 by Charles
Whiting
Airborne by Charles MacDonald

The first two are hardback with the other 2 being paper.

If you wish, I will be happy to post to you the names of the men with
whom I have corresponded who were there. I have a very good
relationship to Mr. Erich Beine who was with the Fallschirmtruppen
from the beginning to the end. I have visited him every time I have
been to Europe beginning in 1981 and I try to go every two years, and
we have talked at length about the people whom he knew and the
operations he was personally involved with. Mr. Beine reached the
rank of Major and participated in many of the major employment of the
parachute troops during the war.

Hope this has been of interest.

Thanks for the inquiry.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 14:57:17 +0100
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POL:Hiroshima - why implosion, just curious

On Tue, 4 Oct 1994, Johannes van Vuren wrote:

> Just curious: why does a plutonium bomb need the implosion type detonator?
> Why could it not work with the gun-type? Alternatively, I suppose the u235
> bomb would have worked with an implosion detonator.

For a bomb, you have to assemble a critical mass quickly. A critical mass
is one with a growth factor (usually written k) for the neutrons that is
larger than 1. If k is smaller than 1, any chain reaction dies out; for k
larger than 1, the chain reactions increase until the assembly is blown
apart: The numbers of neutrons then increases exponentially, there are
more and more chain reactions, and more and more heat is generated.

During the assembly, there is a point where k=1 is exceeded, and the chain
reaction begins to create heat. However, for a k that is only slightly
larger than 1, the heat generation is too slow --- before any explosive
power is generated, the bomb will melt down or be blown apart: the thing
will fizzle. So you want to reach a large k; the higher, the more
efficient the bomb will be. (I don't know anything about bomb design, but
the theoretical limit in U235 must be over 2). You have to do this in a
very short time.

Plutonium is 'multiplies' neutrons faster than U235, so a faster assembly
of the critical mass is needed. The three-dimensional implosion process is
much more effective than the one-dimensional 'gun' type assembly to
achieve this. Of course is is also technologically more demanding, but
this is outweighed by the easier production of bomb-quality plutonium.

Emmanuel Gustin

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 09:56:00 EDT
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: USAF Feature

THIS IS FROM THE AIR FORCE NEWS AGENCY

     This is a special "Looking Back at World War II" features
message published by the Air Force News Agency, 203 Norton St.,
Kelly AFB, TX, 78241-6105.
                            &    &    &
                            &    &    &
                            &    &    &
107.  Coming of Age in WW II
108.  POW memories
109.  Bataan Death March
                             &    &    &
                             &    &    &
                             &    &    &
107.  Coming of age in WW II
by TSgt. David P. Masko
Air Force News Service Features
     In a sidewalk cafe down the street from the Champs-Elysees,
Arnold Franco sits at the same table he sat at 50 years ago, and
orders a 1944 vintage French wine to toast his return to Paris.
     "I got some reception... hugs from pretty girls, spontaneous
applause as I sat down at the Cafe de la Paix," said Franco, who as
an Army Air Corps private first class spent his 21st birthday in
Paris on Sept. 27, 1944.
     "When our unit got into Paris it was a celebration.  I'll never
forget it, bands playing the songs 'Dixie' and 'La Marseillaise' over
and over again.  They were just happy to have Americans in town
again," he said.
     Just one month earlier, on Aug. 26, French General Charles de
Gaulle returned to Paris and joined a ceremonial parade freeing the
capital after a bitter struggle from Nazi occupation.  Also on that
day, American troops, including members of the Eighth and Ninth Air
Forces, marched up the Champs Elysees.
     Lately, Franco has been rewinding the clock in preparation for
his return.  He's been telling his family and friends about it, and
even started wearing his old World War II Eisenhower "Ike" jacket.
The jacket fits, and he likes it so much that he wears it all the time.
     Franco's life during World War II offers a window into the
"coming of age" of thousands of young men who were drafted out
of high school or college and sent off to what has been termed "the
most awesome holocaust in the history of mankind."  When the
six-year war ended, more than 35 million people lay dead.
     "Even though I was from New York City, I and most
Americans at the time were hicks in their own way.  What we got
to see and experience in England, France and the rest of Europe
was a real education.  It was marvelous," Franco said.
     "So, by the time I got to Paris in September 1944, I was already
what you might call worldly.  I had picked up the language and my
buddies would say, 'Hey Franco, tell her I like her.'  I made a lot of
dates for them and me.  We all sort of fell in love."
     Apart from his many war stories, Franco is not shy when it
comes to his amorous adventures.  "Hitting the beach on D-Day,
fighting our way across France and then, finally, Paris, I became a
man, literally and in every other way."
     From the vantage point of someone with a long view, Franco's
50-year quest to return to the place of his youth is not unlike
thousands of other veterans who made the same trek back to
Europe this summer.
     Recalling when one was under a constant hail of fire may sound
more like dreaded memories than happy ones, but for Franco,
World War II was the best of times.
     "In a way I felt my life climaxed at 21, Franco said.  "Even
though I've had an active life, married with four children,
everything else has been an anti-climax.  There's nothing I've done
in my life that's been as exciting and significant as what we did
there."
     The road back for Franco began during 50th anniversary
ceremonies for D-Day, June 4.  "At first, I didn't know if I should
return.  But I owed it to myself.  It was like a 50th college
reunion," recalls Franco, smiling as he stares at the coast of
Normandy from the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2.
     For all the technology and power, the war was won -- and lost --
not by machines but by men, Franco said.  "It was men like those
in my intelligence group called 'the special code-breaking unit."
     After D-Day, Franco and about 80 other "code-breakers" were
assigned to Ninth Air Force Operations at forward locations (known
as Advanced Air Ground Positions) in France.
     Franco said they worked around the clock trying to unscramble
German message.  Enemy war diaries commented eloquently on the effects
of the almost ceaseless interdiction by the Allies' intelligence
sources.
     "Intel was the heart of the operation," he said.  "We wanted to
tell our headquarters where the German were moving.  After D-Day, we
tracked the movement of the Luftwaffe as we pushed them out of France
and up into Holland and Germany."
     In September 1944, the Allied air offensive continued to be very
destructive.  Altogether, 112,400 tons of bombs were dropped by the
heavy bombers, one of the highest one-month total of the war.  The
Luftwaffe, the aerial enemy of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces, was
hobbled by the fall of 1944.
     Thanks to the "code breakers," Army Air Forces fighter and bomber
patrols were able to establish an early "beachhead patrol" after D-Day
and until VE-Day in May 1944, he said.
     "I remember, our commander, Major General (Hoyt S.) Vandenberg
came to see us, and to thank us for helping to stop German paratroop
operations along the coast.  Vandenberg told us without the ability to
replenish supplies for their troops in the fields, we had helped to win
the war in France."
     Franco's "Ike" jacket displays the presidential citation --
authorized by Vandenberg -- for Ninth Air Force intelligence people
who helped spot enemy movements, thus preventing them from becoming a
real threat to the Allies.
     While events such as his unit's drive across France and his
"coming of age" in Paris are interesting.  Franco's most conspicuous
story is like a plot from a movie script.  He claims he predicted the
Battle of the Bulge, the last great battle of the war in Europe; a
fight in which American casualties totaled 81,000.
     "On Dec. 13, 1944, just three days before the Battle of the Bulge
began, we broke a message that the Germans were notifying their
anti-aircraft batteries not to fire at a certain time at night.
Obviously they wanted to move their own aircraft into position during
this time," Franco said.
     "We reported it to headquarters, but they didn't move on it.  I
think we had the first idea that the Germans were up to something."
     In fact, Franco declared, because of a hesitation on the Allies
part, English-speaking German soldiers -- dressed in American uniforms
-- were able to slip through the fog in the forested Ardennes region of
Belgium and infiltrate Allied lines.
     "There is a huge difference between military intelligence now and
the way it was during World War II, he says.  "Back then we had to rely
a little more on our instincts."
     Asked about the difference in a military 50 years hence, Franco
says "viva la difference'... I wouldn't trade my World War II memories
for anything."
                             &    &    &
                             &    &    &
                             &    &    &
108. POW memories
by A1C Deana Silvey
     BARKSDALE AFB, Louisiana (AFNS Features) -- Dates didn't mean
anything.  Why should they?  If you knew what day it was you'd only be
counting them, making passing the time just that much harder.
     That's why former prisoner of war Richard Beadle can't quite
remember the exact date he was captured by the Germans near the
France-German border, or the day he escaped from the POW camp.  He does
remember it was the middle of August 1944 when he was captured and
escaped in March or April of 1945.
     "We were in reserve behind the infantry who were fighting.  A
captain asked for three men who would to try to rescue an injured
lieutenant in the combat zone.  I knew I'd be risking my life, but I
volunteered," said Beadle, then a brave 21-year-old Army soldier.
     The three unarmed men ran right into a German machine gun nest.
One of the men screamed, "Let's run for it."
     "I knew if we ran, we'd be dead.  So I said, 'Let's surrender, it's
our only chance,'" Beadle said.
     So they did.
     The German soldiers put their three captives in a squad car, where
they met more POWs.  They were then transported on a train and made at
least two more stops at temporary camps.  Beadle ended up on the other
side of Berlin at camp 3-C, a camp segregated by rank.  He was an NCO.
     NCOs didn't have to work, only privates.  "I don't know if the
work or the waiting would have been harder," Beadle said.  Instead of
working the NCOs sat around all day, usually playing cards.  The cards
were their only way of battling boredom.
     "We received cigarettes once a month and we used them as money.
We learned later how to trade cigarettes with the Russian (prisoners)
for a loaf of bread.  Someone decided to get smart one time and not
pitch the cigarettes over the fence after receiving the bread.  From
then on it took a half hour to make the trade, battling back and forth
over who would throw their item first."
     The freezing weather hit the men the hardest, according to Beadle.
     "It was a cold winter.  There were 30 men to a one-room shack.
There were shelves on the walls with straw on them for beds.  The only
heat we had was a pot-belly stove burning coal where we would all
gather around."
     The men weren't offered the luxury of showers.  "Showers, you must
be kidding.  We got a shower when it rained."
     Food was also scarce.  "For breakfast we received one slice of
black bread, one cup of imitation coffee made from acorns, and a bowl
of barley soup.  I think the bread had sawdust in it."
     For lunch they received a piece of horse meat that was sometimes
blue.  But that didn't bother Beadle or the others.  "When you're
hungry, everything tastes good," he explained.  And for supper, another
bowl of soup.  "It was a low-calories diet, I would say.  I joined the
service at 160 pounds and came home at 90 pounds."
     "We were lucky, though, we were treated fairly.  We had
Switzerland Red Cross members who came around the camps making sure we
were treated according to the Geneva Conference agreement, and we
were."
     In spring 1945 the Germans tried to move the POWs to keep ahead of
the advancing Russian Army.  But the move came too late.  The Russians
reached the marching column and attacked, then stopped when they saw
who they were shooting.  But many of the prisoners were killed or
wounded, while some of the POWs were able to escape.  Beadle was one of
them.
     He traveled by train, wagon and foot.  He also recalls traveling
with a man from Arkansas, who had had half of his tongue shot off, and
another man who later died from shrapnel wounds in his back.  "I tried
to nurse them the best I could.  But they didn't travel for long, and
it ended up being just me," he said.
     Beadle was picked up by the Red Army in what today is part of
Poland and placed in a detention camp for refugees.  But the urge to be
free was strong, so he didn't say at the camp long.
     "One night one the guards, who were all older feeble men because
they needed all of the young men to fight, got drunk.  I hit him over
the head with a piece of wood and jumped out the window and ran for
it," he said.
     Luckily, while on the run again Beadle ran into an American Army
Air Corps sergeant, in the area after crashing in his B-17.
     "He took me to a hotel were they were staying.  I remember one of
the men, Lieutenant Ball, from Dallas.  The crews, who I think were
from Eighth Air Force, were staying in the hotel after their B-17 had
crash landed after bombing the oil fields in Yugoslavia," he said.
     "Some Russians tracked me down to the hotel and came to get me.
But one the captains pulled out a .45 and the Russians left."
     Beadle lived it up for the next three days.  "They fed me banquet
style," he said.  The party ended when Beadle and the crew left for an
Army Air Corps base in southern Russia, Poltava AB.  From there he
traveled by American C-47 to Teheran, Iran, and Casablanca, Algeria.
His mode of travel was to introduce himself to aircrews who would then
offer him a ride.  He hit Newfoundland and New York before catching a
train home to New Orleans.
     He didn't even think to call his family.  He just wanted to get
home.  And he finally made it to Reserve, Louisiana, his home.  "I
probably should have called.  My parents had no idea whether I was dead
or alive.  But they were happy to see me," he said.
     After a few days, he was on the road again, this time to
Shreveport to see the woman he met and fell in love with while he was
in basic training.  He later married here, and went to trade school
under the G.I. Bill.
     "I loved the Army and I would do it all again," Beadle said.
"Being a POW was hard, but I probably wouldn't have survived throughout
the war if I wasn't captured.  I was one of the lucky ones."
( Silvey is assigned to the 2d Bomb Wing public affairs office,
Barksdale AFB)
                             &    &    &
                             &    &    &
                             &    &    &
109.  Bataan Death March
TSgt. Patrick McKenna
     TRAVIS AFB, California (AFNS Features) -- Retired Chief Master
Sergeant Spencer Dukes isn't the type of man to hold a grudge.  Despite
having spent 36 months in solitary confinement and being brutalized by
his Japanese captors, this World War II ex-POW and survivor of the
Bataan Death March holds no animosity toward his former enemy.
     "I have nothing against the Japanese people," Dukes said. "Hell,
most of them weren't even around back then."
     Dukes as well as other former prisoners of war and the families
of those still missing in action were honored during the recent
National POW/MIA Recognition Day retreat ceremony at Travis AFB.
     The chief, who has worn a military uniform for more than 55 years,
was the ceremony's guest speaker. He told the audience "We (former
POWs) don't want sympathy or pity. We just want to be recognized for
what we did, which was get caught."
     Another serviceman who got caught was the late Lieutenant Ludovico
Beltran, a member of the Philippine Scouts and later the U.S. Army.
     He too survived the Bataan Death March, which killed more than
1,100 Americans and 3,000 Filipinos.
     During the ceremony, Beltran's widow Felisa accepted the
posthumous award of the POW Medal from Brigadier General Howard J.
Ingersoll, 60th Airlift Wing commander.
     Ingersoll said he commended the sacrifices and determination of
all Americans imprisoned during its wars and saluted the families of
MIAs and former POWs.
     Dukes has been participating in these tributes since 1980. He
estimates he travels 9,000 to 11,000 miles (14,484 to 17,702 km)
annually to talk about his experiences; this is his seventh trip so far
this year. "I want people to remember," he said.
     Chief Dukes will never forget. He said about the Bataan Death
March, "I went from a 23-year-old master sergeant to a 40-year-old
in 30 days. You learn or you get killed.
     "The Japanese Army were killing and beheading men just for
falling behind or out of the march. They'd kill you just to be doing
something.  There wasn't any rhyme or reason to it."
     Because Dukes' father was an Army colonel, he was treated as a
political prisoner and bounced from one camp to the next, including the
Philippines, China and Korea, where he spent 36 months in solitary
confinement.
     His last camp was located 27 miles (43 km) northeast of Hiroshima,
and Dukes and 40 other POWs were inside the compound when the Enola Gay
dropped the big one -- the atomic bomb.
     "We had no idea what it was or what was going on," he said.  "When
we got back to the United States, we were isolated from the rest of the
POWs and treated by doctors who had never seen a case of radiation
sickness."
     The chief said he now has cancer in his arm as a result of his
exposure. Once back in the states, Dukes was hospitalized for 8 months
to build weight on his emaciated 89-pound frame.
     "I ate Gerber's baby food, Jello and ice cream for several months.
The first hamburger I had after being released made me sick as a dog. I
shouldn't have gotten the works on it. I also noticed the world had
changed during the time I was imprisoned -- cars had fins and girls had
shorter skirts.
     "I had a lot of time to think while I was a prisoner. Time is the
only thing you do have. I wondered if there was a God and wondered why
I hadn't gone out with certain girls. I vowed that once I got out, I'd
make the most of every day. And that's what I'm doing right now."
(McKenna is assigned to the 60th Airlift Wing public affairs office,
Travis AFB)
--

      //^\\
     /// \\\
    ///   \\\
   ///     \\\                    Air Force News Agency
   |         |              Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, USA
   \\ CMSgt //    ___________________ /____________________________________
   \\ Mike  //
   \\Bergman/
    \\    //
       ~~

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 10:09:03 EDT
From:    Doug McCabe <[email-masked]>
Subject: Untold Stories f/ABTF, Pt. 2

                   Ohio University Electronic Communication

   Date:  04-Oct-1994 09:11am EST

     To:  Remote Addressee                     ( _MX%"[email-masked]" )

   From:  Doug McCabe                                Dept:  Library
          MCCABE                                   Tel No:  (614) 593-2715

Subject:  Untold Stories f/ABTF, Pt. 2

    From Humor to Tragedy:

         "I was saddened by one soldier who, having received a Dear John
    letter, proceeded to commit suicide by volunteering for every hazardous
    detail until a sniper got him.  Also, the European kid who had served
    in the armies of four countries and spoke seven languages.  He was very
    religious and so proud to be an American.  He died with his head in my
    lap at the Nijmegen Bridge.  He prayed and I yelled for a medic, but
    none came - there were too many wounded."
                                       - Sgt. James Steed, 82nd AB Div.

         "There were children who played with grenades that exploded.
    Their remains were brought to us at the Moll Garage in pails with the
    message: here are six children.  But when I finished the examination, I
    found out I had 14 little feet."
                        - Medical serviceman Johannes Tempel, Nijmegen

         [The Moll Garage was used as a temporary morgue during and after
    the battle.  Tempel tells other tragic stories of people searching for
    relatives among the rows of dead:  this story was the most difficult to
    read.]

         "The destruction in town is enormous.  Everywhere are blocks of
    burned out houses, gaps in the roads, mountains of rubble and glass,
    uprooted trees, people dragging away the rest of their belongings - in
    one word, desolate.  Compared to this suffering following the February
    bombing was as nothing.  How many years will it be before Nijmegen will
    have rid herself of all traces of battle?"
                   - Orpheus theater director Martijn Deinum, Nijmegen

         [The February bombing referred to was the unintentional attack by
    the 8th AAF on 22 Feb. 1944 where a good bit of the older downtown was
    destroyed and over 880 people were killed.  Three other Dutch cities
    were also hit that day.  The Germans made a great deal of propaganda
    out of the incidents.]

         "German soldiers lay everywhere; they had fallen right where they
    were shot.  On one street, there were small 9' by 12' lawns, with iron
    fences around them and I remember seeing German soldiers slumped
    against them with their rifles sticking out between the bars.  One
    soldier was leaning against the fence with his helmet down over his
    eyes and his finger still on the trigger of his rifle.  Another, a
    young boy who looked no older than 15 or 16, was slumped back against a
    wall of one of the houses.  His helmet had fallen off and he looked
    like he was taking a nap.
         I thought how much, how very, very much I hated this war.  All of
    these soldiers looked so young, so healthy.  I felt sorry for them.
    They did not want this war.  Their relatives did not want it, either.
    'How sickening this is,' I thought.  'In Germany, no one knows they are
    dead. And who is to tell them?'"
                                  - Johanna Mason nee Breman, Nijmegen

         [Johanna met and married an 82nd trooper and moved to the US after
    the war.]

         "Suddenly I saw two soldiers, grown-up men and therefore not
    Hitler Youth, who were carrying on their backs what would be described
    today as insecticide spraying apparatus.  They went from house to
    house, knocking out a window and then what looked like spraying
    something inside.  To my horror, my house was 'treated' also and the
    first flames became visible not long afterward.  I then ran across the
    street, someone screemed something at me in German, but I went on and
    saw my father, mother, and brother emerge from the house, bewildered
    and frightened but otherwise alright."
                                  - Student Willem Bartels, Nijmegen

         [As the Germans were forced to retreat from Nijmegen some of them,
    mostly Hitler Youth, systematically set afire whole city blocks.
    Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands, therefore suffered
    airforce bombing, street fighting, deliberate firings, and shelling.]

         "I saw, for the first time, a German jet and watched it being shot
    down - all in no longer than ten seconds.  Then, not more than an hour
    later, I watched one of our own B-26's losing a wing and, while trying
    to escape, one of the flyer's parachute catch on the plane, thus
    dragging him to the ground.  All of this happened while we were sitting
    quietly beside the Nijmegen bridge at our command station."
                             - Chief WO Robert Stallbories, 82nd AB Div.

         [Once the Allies had taken the Nijmegen railroad and road bridges
    the Germans desperately tried to destroy them.  They used aircraft,
    including the ME-262, floating mines, and even frogmen with special
    submersable explosives.  The latter did manage to drop one span of the
    railroad bridge although all efforts failed to do more than slight
    damage to the road bridge.]

    More in a couple of days.

    Doug

Received:  04-Oct-1994 10:08am

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 10:25:53 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Hiroshima et. al.

     > Just curious: why does a plutonium bomb need the implosion type
     > detonator? Why could it not work with the gun-type? Alternatively, I
     > suppose the u235 bomb would have worked with an implosion detonator.
     > Many thanks,
     > Johannes van Vuren,
     > Canterbury, England.

     There are things man isn't meant to know.

     The answer may violate the Official Secrets Act. ;>)

        Steve L. New                     .............................
        Weapon System Manager            .............................
        Battalion Countermine Set        ............ /\ .............
        U.S. Army TACOM AMSTA-IM-FR1D    ............/  \.............
        DSN: 786-5403  FAX: 786-7788     ............    .............
        EMAIL  [email-masked]   ............    .............

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 10:22:46 EDT
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POL:Hiroshima - why implosion, just curious

On Tue, 4 Oct 1994 14:11:39 GMT Johannes van Vuren said:
>Just curious: why does a plutonium bomb need the implosion type detonator?
>Why could it not work with the gun-type? Alternatively, I suppose the u235
>bomb would have worked with an implosion detonator.

Disclaimer:  I am neither a physicist nor a bomb designer.  So this is
necessarily general & subject to correction (-:  Any bomb designers out
there, please feel free to correct (-:  (I *do* have a somewhat extended
interview with one of the early bomb designers, published in John McFee's
=The Curve of Binding Energy=, at home; it has several pages devoted to
the first bomb(s).)

The problem is how to get the flying neutrons to have a sufficient
probability of striking nuclei & producing other neutrons that will do the
same thing to release great amounts of energy.  If you have a sufficient
quantity of enriched uranium, that will do the job.  If the size is too
small, neutrons will escape the material too quickly to sustain the
reaction.  But of course, if you make the material denser, then the
neutrons are back in the same soup, so to speak:  nuclei are closer together
& the probabilities go back up.  What's a quick way to make something
denser--bearing in mind that it has to be *awfully* quick before the
chain reaction blows itself apart?  Implode it--evenly--from all sides.
Temporarily you get a mass vs. volume in your favor.  Another way is to
keep adding matter until you naturally get mass vs. volume in your favor.
Since you want an explosion instead of a meltdown, you want to add that
mass quickly, and the easiest way to do so is divide a sufficient quantity
in half & then smash it together quickly.  Now, with U-235 you can go
either route, but why make it hard on yourself?  So go with a "gun-bomb".
With plutonium, I'm not sure I remember the answer off-hand, but one
obviously possibility is not having enough of it, and another is that
the energies produced might blow plutonium gun-bombs apart too quickly
for them to ever work well.

Nowadays, we might be able to make either design work with either material.
We also know a good many materials to use to reflect neutrons back into
the building reaction, and we know what to use as an accelerator, to
provide an initial source of free neutrons as the material suddenly
reaches critical mass/volume.  In 1945, I don't think these matters were
understood nearly as well.

Q:  how does the amateur plutonium bomb maker know he's close to reaching
critical?  A:  plastic explosives make good neutron reflectors.  As he
smears the stuff around the plutonium, if it starts getting warm, he'd
better thin it out quick (-:

ken koester
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 10:38:16 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: WEAP: Eric Brown -Reply

> Does anyone know if American-built carrier fighters tangled with Me-109's
> during British airstrikes against the Tirpitz in Norway?

    No. It was strictly a  British  operation.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

American aircraft, flown by British pilots were used against the Tirpitz.

         According the Roskill, the Royal Navy made 7 attacks on the
         Tirpitz that involved American aircraft, viz. Corsairs, Wildcats
         and Hellcats.  The attacks were on Apr 3, Jul 17, Aug 22 (2
         attacks that day), Aug 24, and Aug 29, all in 1944.  Other
         attacks were planned in this general time period, but were called
         off due to bad weather.

         In the sources I used (Roskill, Barnett and Humble), the role of
         the U.S. aircraft was given as fighter cover, although at least
         some carried 500-lb bombs.  Fairy Barracudas carried the main
         weapon on these attacks, 1,600-lb armor piercing bombs.  In
         addition, the fighter aircraft attacked to AA gun positions on
         and around the Tirpitz.

         I can find only one reference to opposition from German fighters
         during these attacks.  Rohwer credits AA defenses and the Me 109s
         of JG 5 for shooting down 11 of the attacking aircraft during the
         first attack on Aug 22.

Sources
 Barnett, Correlli. _Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the
    Second World War_. 1991

 Roskill, Stephen. _The War at Sea: 1939-1945_.  1954-1961

 Humble, Richard.  _Hitler's High Seas Fleet_.  1971

 Rohwer, J. & Hummelchen. _Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-45_.  1974

You may be thinking of the chase and pursuit of the Bismarck, the sister ship of
the Tirpitz. The Bismarck was sighted and located by a patroling
Catalina, at the time the US was still neutral in May 1941. This info was sent to
the Brits which resulted in the sinking of the ship.

        Terry
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

If you are suggesting that the patrolling Catalina was serving as a US Navy
aircraft, I believe you are mistaken.  The aircraft in question, AH545, coded
WQ-Z of No. 209 Squadron, was piloted by an RAF pilot, although his co-pilot
was an American navel officer, "one of seventeen U.S. Navy pilots sent to
England in secret to give British pilots on-the-job training".  The a/c was in
British markings and serving with the Coastal Command.   The communication
of the sighting was entirely within the British command structure.

Among other referencese, see

Roscoe Creed. _PBY: The Catalina Flying Boat_ . 1985

 Andrew Hendrie. _Flying Cats: The Catalina Aircraft of World War II_.  1988

John Meierhoffer                [email-masked]
Albany New York         518 486 2390 (work)   283 4761 (home)

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:32:11 EST
From:    Aldo Hubert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Invasion of Crete -- Operation Merkur

Emery,

Winstion Churchill in The Second World War deals in moderate detail
with the Crete invasion (in the abridged version  the detail is
moderate, I expect the expanded edition would obviously contain far
more detail).

[email-masked]

Aldo M. Hubert
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro NC 27412

OBESA CANTAVIT

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:31:57 EDT
From:    Cassady Craft <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: F-82

Steve, consider the tremendous area of the Pacific, cross reference this
with the exceptional range of the P-51, then use your imagination to hook
two of them together and get twice the range (just about), remember the
limitations of one pilot---then you have the correct rationale for the
P-51.

Cassady Craft
Department of Political Science
University of Georgia
e-mail [email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:22:30 EDT
From:    William Lippert <[email-masked]>
Subject: SS and SA

    There has been a lot of talk about the SS, the SA, and the Fascist
Red Shirts (or some other such color, it escapes me at the moment).
I'd like to clear up a few things because it seems as if people have
been referring to the SS and SA first as combat units and second as
having a hierarchical structure (one progressing from the SA to the SS).
   First, the SA never saw combat (except perhaps in city defense) and was
never a combat unit.  After the 1934 Night of the Long Knives, the SA
became half a joke.  I say half a joke because they were not the place
of high prestige.  The jobs of most SA persons were to attend rallies,
perhaps be block or section leaders.  Not too much more.  The SS, on the
other hand, was the elite organizatin of the Reich.  It, however, was
also politically oriented.  For example, important policemen, governors,
and other beaurocrats were given honorary SS titles and ranks.  It wasn't
until the war in the East, though, that the SS raised its own fighting
units - the Waffen SS.
   This should clear up some of the comparisons between different political/
military groups.

William Lippert
The American University

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:30:49 EDT
From:    Kendall Miles <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WWII-L Digest - 2 Oct 1994 to 3 Oct 1994

Re:  Tim Watts and Ford plant in Germany?

    I don't know about DURING the war, but we have discussed in a
diplomatic history seminar how in the period 1933-1935  U.S. owned
companies built a large part, if not the majority, of German tanks.
I know this is briefly touched on in LaFeber's "American Age."

  Kendall Miles
  [email-masked]            Motto:"Don't ask me!  I don't
  Graduate Student--History               know nothin!"   :)

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:57:07 EDT
From:    Cassady Craft <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TACT:Downfall

Arnaud, I wonder if Hitler's strategem of "letting the Russians advance" was
a very shrewd calculation.  Never underestimate the man--he was at once
brilliant and stupid.  The worst fears of the German soldier and the German
people were Russian occupation.  If they were "allowed" to advance, then he
could count on very skillful and tough resistance--even to the last man
(he hoped, but most of the Wehrmacht preferred to fight another day).  On the
western front, however, the situation was vastly different.  While Hitler
did not want to lose to the West, the Germans did not really fear Western
occupation, even after their experience from the First World War (they
resented the reparations and occupation, but I don't think they ever, ever
feared the French and British).  Because of the nature of the latter half
of the war politically, Hitler may have very well feared the advance of the
Western allies in a political sense.  It would be much easier for the Army's
leadership to surrender there than on the Eastern front, where they could
expect to be shot.  Also, why would you fight so hard in the West as a
soldier?  You would have heard about the "lush" prison camps in the West,
likewise the Russian habit of taking no prisoners.

It sounds to me that Hitler's reasoning, as you have depicted it, was very
logical.  Most political leaders, anywhere in the world and whatever type
of political system, are self-interested seekers after the propetuation of
their own power.

Thanks for the good posting.  As for the German scientists, the devil is in
the details, and within 8 days after the first bomb, working from newspaper
accounts, they had most of the theoretic stuff done.

Cassady Craft
Department of Political Science
University of Georgia
e-mail [email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 10:56:52 -0500
From:    Greg Kelley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2--Regina Marina (cont.)

A very good analysis of the Italian Navy's performance during the war
appears in REEVALUATING MAJOR NAVAL COMBATANTS OF WORLD WAR II (Greenwood
Press, 1989), discussing the hopes, plans, strengths, & inherent
weaknesses of the Italian Fleet (problems with gunnery, no air recon,
etc).  Since the Italians had for years seen the French as their most
likely contender, they should best be judged as compared to them;
obviously, the Royal Navy was way out of their league.

True, Italian subs stayed on the surface & duked it out, often
successfully, with enemy aircraft, but this policy also reflected the
problem of having designed subs with a much slower submerging time than
your typical U-Boat.  The shallower & I'm told clearer waters of the Med
also made underwater concealment much less effective.

MAS and other naval assault units were very effective-- THE SEA DEVILS is
a good book describing their activities (remember the chariots at
Alexandria?).  Of course, they also served in the Black Sea, where they
had opportunity to rub shoulders with the Royal Rumanian Navy off the
Crimea, but then I intentionally digress.....

                                          Glad To Be Of Service!

                                          Greg Kelley
                                          St. Paul Public Library
                                          [email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:12:31 EDT
From:    Cassady Craft <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Invasion of Crete -- Operation Merkur

Terry, by all means recount whatever Herr Beine has told you that would be of
interest here.  I think we all enjoy first hand accounts (even if they be
second hand).

Thanks,
Cassady Craft
Department of Political Science
University of Georgia
e-mail [email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:14:58 EDT
From:    Cassady Craft <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POL:Hiroshima - why implosion, just curious

Emmanuel is exactly right (again) on the bomb mechanics.  U235 is 3.1 average
neutrons per atom split, while U239 is about 3.9.

Cassady Craft
Department of Political Science
University of Georgia
e-mail [email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:27:13 -0500
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part III

The author of "The Hollow Legions" is Mario Cervi.  Its an excellent account
of the Italian war against Greece, with many quotations from letters home
from the participants, etc.  I'd recommend it.

Regards

Mike Yaklich

PS: I haven't read through all my msgs yet to see if anyone else answered this
one, but the Italians did indeed downsize their divisions from three infantry
regts to two (resulting in the "divizione binario") during the late 'thirties.
The idea was to increase the number of divisions, but also field experience in
Ethiopia revealed that generals had trouble handling formations as large as
their old style divisions.  Despite all his posturing for history, as well as
many other (IMHO)unsavory characteristics, Marshal Badoglio deserves a little
credit for being unequivocably opposed to this change.

Regards

Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:53:21 -0500
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TACT:Downfall

        In 1941-42 the Germans had two panzer divisions in Africa (they started
    Barbarossa with 19 in the first wave!).  Likewise, there were only two
fighter geschwaders active in France (JG2 and JG26).  I don't know the exact
figures for German losses in the west but with such a scant allocation o
of resources to that theatre (another fighter wing, JG27, in Africa) they
couldn't (IMHO) have been that great percentage-wise.  Just my $.02

MIke Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:55:12 -0500
From:    "William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TRIVIA:Czech Army

>     I have never felt that the Italian people and armed forces as
> well really had the heart to fight a protracted war, and only did so
> at the bidding of a popular head of state.
>
>     Terry
>

I have to agree with Terry.  From my experiences in Italy 1990-92 they
are a peace loving bunch for the most part.  For example their taste
in video games is very telling.  They prefer PAC MAN and Qbert rather
than the mindless blasting games so popular in the US.  For what its
worth....

Cheers Bill Huber / whuber@sadis01/kelly.af.mil

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 11:50:39 -0500
From:    Greg Kelley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS and SA

help?  I've a question regarding the Waffen-SS......

                                          Glad To Be Of Service!

                                          Greg Kelley
                                          St. Paul Public Library
                                          [email-masked]

On Tue, 4 Oct 1994, William Lippert wrote:

>     There has been a lot of talk about the SS, the SA, and the Fascist
> Red Shirts (or some other such color, it escapes me at the moment).

(just can't resist-- the Green Shirts a.k.a. Legion of the Archangel
Michael were in Rumania.)

  It wasn't
> until the war in the East, though, that the SS raised its own fighting
> units - the Waffen SS.

Now I'm confused.  Weren't there SS units involved in the capture of
Danzig in 1939?  Also, I recall a barnload of British POWs in northern
France being shot by members of an SS unit during the 1940 campaign.
Could someone clarify the date of first Waffen-SS troop deployment?

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:01:42 -0500
From:    Greg Kelley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP:aircraft comparisons

On Sat, 1 Oct 1994, Henry Sirotin wrote:

> Re odd fighter groupings, Bf109s and Hawker Hurricanes fighting side
> by side for the Rumanians in 1941, if I recall correctly.
>
Yes, they did-- alongside Polish PZL P.24s and French Morane MS.406s.  In
fact if memory serves (can't get to William Green's AIR FORCES OF THE
WORLD from where I'm sitting) they even looked at some Fiat G.50s which I
don't beleive were delivered.  Still, they could always use their
assorted fighters (including some Heinkel He 112s) to escort their
squadrons of Savoia Marchetti S.M. 79 bombers.  Talk about your global
village of air forces.....

                                               Glad To Be Service!

                                               Greg Kelley
                                               St. Paul Public Library

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:34:34 -0400
From:    Barone <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part III

        Well, since we're drifting into the Regia Marina, I will send out
my installments on the history of the Italian battleships if there's enough
interest.  I sent them out last May and they haven't changed significantly
since then.  My source is "Regia Marina: Italian Battleships of World War
Two" by Erminio Bagnasco and Mark Grossman.  I would imagine that there
are many new subscribers who haven't seen them but I don't want to annoy
"old-timers" with repetitive messages.  Let me know via personal email if
you're interested or opposed.  Thanks.

PS: Sunday afternoon, my site started dropping email on the floor.  This
situation lasted about 24 hours.  If anyone had sent me email during that
period, please resend it.  I'm not ignoring you, I just couldn't hear you!
--
Joe Barone
[email-masked]
I cut you on everyt'ing; I don't need you!  Sixty
feet of bridge I can pick up almost anywhere!

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:36:21 -0400
From:    Warren Thompson <[email-masked]>
Subject: HIST

Opel (GMC owned) made trucks for the German military, as did Ford. Some
models of the latter even had the characteristic chevron-shaped grill.

-- Warren Thompson
LEBANON VALLEY COLLEGE
Annville PA 17003

[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:39:24 -0400
From:    Warren Thompson <[email-masked]>
Subject: HIST -- Armed SS

Armed SS, in units of less than division strength, fought in Poland and the
Western campaign.

-- Warren Thompson

campaign in the West

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:57:30 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part II

Hello, Henry!

> Did the pre-war SS really have no equal in Europe? Royal Marines? And  what
> do we know of elite Soviet units in this period?

   I know of none that could and did compare to the discipline those
fellows had. Again, I am speaking of the pre-war selection process
associated with anyone who joined or wanted to join the Waffen-SS.
The training of those fellows took as much as two years, and it was
strenuous to say the least. Anyone, before the conflict began, who
wanted to join the Waffen-SS had to show pure German ancestry back to
1750, possess the necessary physical characteristics, i.e. blond,
blue-eyed, 6 feet tall, no glasses, etc. I have heard the statement
made by a former member of the Waffen-SS that "if a candidate had so
much as a filling in his teeth, he could be rejected". I can't
personally verify this, but the selection process was strict and
adhered to, at least before the war.

> Whatever the opinion of WW II Rumanian troops may be, they were hardly
> cowards. Those committed to Barbarossa prior to Nov 1941 took some of
> the highest casualty rates in the European war.

    I quoted to you what I myself was told by some Rumanian
nationals, I had a chance to meet. I tend to agree with you but,
if you consider the Stalingrad operation, it was no accident that
Stavka chose to let the blow fall on the Rumanians to start their
counteroffensive and create panic in the German ranks.

    Thanks, again for your post.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:57:04 -0500
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2--Regina Marina (cont.)

        In addition to the book cited by Greg Kelley re: the Regina Marina
(which is an excellent source for rethinking the roles of most of the major
navies) anyone interested in Italian naval efforts during WW2 should pick up
Marc'Antonio Bragadin's "The Italian Navy In World War 2."  This might be the
classic source on the topic (Bragadin, for instance, also wrote entire passages
on the naval war for Emilio Faldella's "Italia nella Secondo Guerra
Mondiale."), written by an officer whose job for much of the war was verifying
Italian and Allied ship losses for Supermarina staff.

Regards

Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:07:54 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS and SA

Hello, William!

I thank you for your post and agree with everything except that below.

> and other beaurocrats were given honorary SS titles and ranks.  It wasn't
> until the war in the East, though, that the SS raised its own fighting
> units - the Waffen SS.

    The Waffen-SS was created in 1935 by later SS-Obergruppenfuehrer
und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser. The Waffen-SS took part
in operations in Poland, in the campaign of 1940 and in France.

    Hope this has been of interest and wanted to clear up any
misunderstanding about this.

    Thank you.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:19:01 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Egypt

Hello, Steve!

Here goes with a reading list of the war in the desert:

                      Hardbacks

Panzer Commander by Colonel Hans von Luck
The Trail of the Fox by David Irving
The Desert Generals by Correli Barnett (Excellent)
Rommel by Charles Douglas-Home
The Battle for North Africa by Brigadier John Strawson
El Alamein to the River Sangro and Normandy to the Baltic by Field-
Marshal the Vicount Mongomery of Alamein
Montgomery of Alamein by Alun Chalfont
Kasserine Pass by Martin Blumenson

                    Paperbacks

Rommel by Ronald Lewin
With Rommel in the Desert by H.W. Schmidt
Alamein and the Desert War by Derek Jewell
Foxhole in Cairo by Leonard Mosley
Popski's Private Army by Lt.Col. Vladimir Peniakov
The Foxes of the Desert by Paul Carrell
The Battle of El Alamein by Fred Majdalany
The March to Tunis by Alan Moorehead
The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery by Bernard Law Montgomery
Brazen Chariots by Major Robert Crisp
Kasserine by Ward Rutherford
Beda Fomm by Kenneth Macksey
Africa Corps by Kenneth Macksey
The Raiders by Anthony Sievers
Operation Torch by Vincent Jones
Rommel by Roger Sibley and Michael Fry
Montgomery by B. W. Thompson
Panzer Division by Kenneth Macksey
The Desert Warriors by David Jablonski

There are others but these are the ones to which I have access and I
hope that they have been of interest and of assistance for you. If
you need anything else, please don't hesitate to ask.

All the best.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:21:37 -0500
From:    "Tim J. Watts" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS and SA

I know there were 3 SS motorized infantry regiments in the Battle of France
(Der Fuhrer, Deutschland, and Germania).  They provided flank guard for
XLI Panzer Corps during the drive to the English Channel in May 1940 and
were involved in the Battle of Aire against French armored counterattacks.
Apparently they were organized into the SS V Division and at least some
had participated in the Polish Campaign.  (From B. H. Friesen, "The Battle
of Aire", in ARMOR, Jan-Feb 1994, pp. 22-28)
Tim J. Watts
Valparaiso University

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:04:15 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Eric Brown -Reply

Hello, John!

Thank you for the info below. It is much appreciated.

>          According the Roskill, the Royal Navy made 7 attacks on the
>          Tirpitz that involved American aircraft, viz. Corsairs, Wildcats
>          and Hellcats.  The attacks were on Apr 3, Jul 17, Aug 22 (2
>          attacks that day), Aug 24, and Aug 29, all in 1944.  Other
>          attacks were planned in this general time period, but were called
>          off due to bad weather.
>
>          In the sources I used (Roskill, Barnett and Humble), the role of
>          the U.S. aircraft was given as fighter cover, although at least
>          some carried 500-lb bombs.  Fairy Barracudas carried the main
>          weapon on these attacks, 1,600-lb armor piercing bombs.  In
>          addition, the fighter aircraft attacked to AA gun positions on
>          and around the Tirpitz.
>
>          I can find only one reference to opposition from German fighters
>          during these attacks.  Rohwer credits AA defenses and the Me 109s
>          of JG 5 for shooting down 11 of the attacking aircraft during the
>          first attack on Aug 22.

    The sources you cite are more up to date than mine. I might add
one thing, though. The commander of that fighter squadron, Major
Heinrich Ehrler was later court-martialed for not doing more to
prevent the sinking of the Tirpitz. He was the only Knight's Cross
holder to be so tried by courts-martial during the war.

 >
> Sources
>  Barnett, Correlli. _Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the
>     Second World War_. 1991
>
>  Roskill, Stephen. _The War at Sea: 1939-1945_.  1954-1961
>
Hello, John!

Thanks for the note and info.

> If you are suggesting that the patrolling Catalina was serving as a US Navy
> aircraft, I believe you are mistaken.  The aircraft in question, AH545, coded
> WQ-Z of No. 209 Squadron, was piloted by an RAF pilot, although his co-pilot
> was an American navel officer, "one of seventeen U.S. Navy pilots sent to
> England in secret to give British pilots on-the-job training".  The a/c was in
> British markings and serving with the Coastal Command.   The communication
> of the sighting was entirely within the British command structure.

    I am thinking of Ludovic Kennedy's account of the chase and
sinking of the Bismarck that mentioned that. Your account certainly
differs with what I have read, and apparently is more up-to-date. I
hadn't heard or read that.

 > Among other referencese, see
>
> Roscoe Creed. _PBY: The Catalina Flying Boat_ . 1985
>
>  Andrew Hendrie. _Flying Cats: The Catalina Aircraft of World War II_.  1988
>

    Thanks for the references.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:25:58 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TAC: ?'Could still loose the war?

Hello, Al!

Thanks for the question.

> Would he have acted so contrary to common sense in the face of potential
> assassins?

     I think he would have acted differently, if he personally felt
that the threat was real and that there were definitely problems with
security. This, of course, was not the case.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:35:59 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TACT:Could they have won ?

Hello, Brad!

Thanks for the note.

\>         Always glad to hear another opinion.  I had not heard that
> Stalin was ever considering throwing in the towel.  Now thats an
> interesting what-if :)   Seriously, do you have a reference for the
> Stalin/Bulgarian emissary episode.  This sounds like very interesting
> stuff.

    I hadn't either. My comment to you about Stalin was derived from
a well-made documentary that dealt with JS based on more info
unearthed or discovered in the Moscow or KGB archives. At the time,
and I still think this way, it was an extraordinary statement to
make. I can only state what was said in this documentary and it was
well-done and based on documentation recently found. At some point, I
am thinking that all or most that we know about the war on the
Eastern Front may have to be reinterpreted based on what is available
in Moscow.

    I know of one research project in the making that will go into
this.

    Hope this has been of interest.

    Thank you, Brad.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:41:02 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Gustav Geraet

Hello, again, Jim!

>    Amazing. Were there any actual reports of what the performance was like?
> Any anecdotal accounts? What kind of damage did this do? (gulp)

    What I posted on this is all that I have. I have some documentary
footage of this weapon as it was used at Sevastopol and it is
something to see, to say the least.

    I never saw or have ever seen the receiving end of those firings,
but I can only imagine that whatever that shell hit, would be
completely destroyed. After all, it took only one shell to penetrate
100 feet of earth and 5 meters of concrete to destroy that Soviet
ammunition dump. It must have been a sight to behold.

    Wish I could send you more.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:54:35 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS and SA

Hello, Greg!

> Now I'm confused.  Weren't there SS units involved in the capture of
> Danzig in 1939?  Also, I recall a barnload of British POWs in northern
> France being shot by members of an SS unit during the 1940 campaign.
> Could someone clarify the date of first Waffen-SS troop
deployment?

To answer your question. Yes. There was a unit that took part in the
capture of Danzig and there was also a unit there called "Heimwehr
Danzig". The Waffen-SS took part in every military operation that
involved the Army during the war. The Waffen-SS was formed in 1935
under the command of Paul Hausser.

Hope this has been of help.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 14:02:58 -0500
From:    Mark Parillo <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2--Regina Marina (cont.)

   I recently acquired a copy of _The Italian Navy in World War II_, by
James J. Sadkovich. It is a new release from Greenwood Press. I confess I
haven't had time to look it over yet, but I have worked with Jim
Sadkovich before and can attest to his skills as historian and editor. My
guess is that this will certainly become a key contribution to the
literature on this subject.
       - Mark Parillo
         Department of History
         Kansas State University

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:17:07 -0400
From:    Warren Thompson <[email-masked]>
Subject: SS in combat

Greg Kelley is correct. In the battle for Danzig in the opening hours of the
German invasion of Poland, "Heimwehr Danzig," composed in part of SS men
(I'm not certain if they were Allgemeine SS or otherwise), saw action under
fire. There exists a photo of an SS man wearing black peaked cap, brown shirt,
black breeches, armed with a rifle, advancing down a street in back of one
of the special 4-axle armored cars favored by German police forces.

-- Warren Thompson

[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:25:48 -0500
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2, my $0.02--part II

If we're talking about strictly military organizations, how about the pre-war
Japanese naval air force for high standards in personnel.  According to Saburo
Sakai's "Samurai," his class (1937) at Lake Tsuchiura (sp?) naval fighter pilot's school had 1,500 applicants (all naval enlisted men or officer cadets with
spotless service records) of which 70 were selected, and only 25 graduated!
As many list members know, the courses there included such exercizes as
climbing up a ten-foot-high iron pole and hanging there by one arm for ten
minutes, swimming a minute and a half underwater, doing somersaults off a
platform onto hard ground (taught the recruit to keep oriented at any angle,
which I guess came in handy while doing rolls and such in combat), etc.  My
favorite one was the wrestling matches where the LOSER stayed on the mat until
he won one (or wrestled the whole class twice without winning, after which he
was bounced from the program--no losers tolerated!-- this latter to teach the
aggressiveness thought necessary in fighter pilots).  Also the famous box where
trainees stared at the sky through tubes until they could make out the brighteststars by daylight.  A match even for the Waffen SS "endurance squad" routines,
IMHO

Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:16:27 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: WEAP: F-82 -Reply

....

Maybe I'm confused, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why such a craft
was designed outside of a barroom...

(I know I show my ignorance, there HAD to be a reason!)

Steven E. Pudlo  - [email-masked] |

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:26:50 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: WEAP: F-82 -Reply

[questions re the North American F-82]

Maybe I'm confused, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why such a craft
was designed outside of a barroom...

(
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven E. Pudlo  - [email-masked]

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The marrying of two conventional aircraft in the manner of the NA F-82 was
not exclusively a American idea.  This concept was also used by Germans,
who termed  the idea _zwilling_ (meaning _twin_).

Two aircraft had this configuration:

He 111Z -

This involved the marrying of two He 111 into a plane intended to tow gliders.
Its development was prompted by the need to have an aircraft that could
handle the mega-gliders Ju 322 and Me 321.  The aircraft was the relatively
simple linking of two standard He 111s at the wing.  The horizontal stabilizers
were left untouched.  A fifth engine was mounted in the middle of the linking
wing section.

Work on prototypes began in early 1941 and  operational use began in early
summer 1942.  Eventually 12 would be built.

Their use was envisioned in the planning for Operation _Herkules_ (the
airborne invasion of Malta) and other unexecuted plans to attack sites in
eastern Russia.  They were going to be used to supply troops surrounded at
Stalingrad but got there too late.  A more clearly successful use was in
supplying the Kuban beachhead in early 1943.  after landing, they would ferry
out casualties.

The He 111Z units were disbanded in the summer of 1944.  Only 4 aircraft were
still operational.  Bomber and reconnaissance version were considered but
never built.

Bf 109Z -

The success of the He 111Z led the Messerschmidt design staff to apply that
concept to a fighter.  The intent was to produce a high performance
_Zestoerer_ type aircraft (that is the role of the initial Bf 110s) while avoiding
the production disruptions inherent in producing an entirely new design.
Prototype work began in late 1942 and was completed in 1943.  A 3-view
drawing in Green's book shows the cockpit of the starboard a/c covered by a
fairing, that is, it was conceived as a single pilot a/c..

The prototype was heavily damaged and flight trails were never started.  The
project was abandoned in summer 1944.

Source:

William Green _Warplanes of the Third Reich_  1972

Does anyone know of other examples of this idea being used?

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:12:48 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Untold Stories f/ABTF, Pt. 2

Hello, Doug!

Great post!! Your posts really bring home the horror of war and how
it must never happen again.

Thanks.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:28:20 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Switzerland in WWII

Hello, Ken!

Thanks for the note and will be glad to answer your question,

> This would appear to be a violation of neutrality during wartime.

    Yes, it was, but it was kept extremely quiet.

  Weren't
> Allied fliers interned?

    Yes. And some were also recruited by Allen Dulles to process
intelligence info.

 If so, weren't the Swiss obliged to intern the
> Germans as well?

    Yes, but in this instance, the pressure from Goering and the
German air ministry was so intense, out of fear that the Me-110 would
fall into Allied hands, particularly the radar equipment on board,
that it all resulted in a compromise situation for the Swiss. My
source is Janusz Piekalkiewicz' book "Luftkrieg: 1939-1945" in German
which goes into much detail on this episode.

 I ask for informational reasons, ie, what was the
> situation & the applicable international rule of law.

    To my knowledge, international law was circumvented. This whole
issue brings to mind the question of just how neutral was
Switzerland really.

    Your thoughts?

    Thanks for your note.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:36:39 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WWII-L Digest - 2 Oct 1994 to 3 Oct 1994

Hello, Kendall,

Thanks for the post and I am curious about your comments.

>     I don't know about DURING the war, but we have discussed in a
> diplomatic history seminar how in the period 1933-1935  U.S. owned
> companies built a large part, if not the majority, of German tanks.

    Any idea of the source of this? There was much cooperation
between Germany and Russia to develope tank tactics, with the Germans
being able to use the facilities at Lipetsk for this purpose. In
return, the Germans allowed or invited selected Russians to attend
the Kriegsakademie in Berlin. The Treaty of Rapollo allowed this
exchange, although it was kept secret.

    I know of no American attempt to help build German tanks at a
time when the Germans themselves were severely limited in what they
could produce.

    I would appreciate your source on that besides what the teacher
may have said.

 > I know this is briefly touched on in LaFeber's "American
Age." >

    I will look into this one.

    Thanks for the post.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:42:08 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POL:Hiroshima

Hello, Ron!

Thanks for your note!

> For the record, had I been responsible for making the decision concerning
> the atomic bombings, I would have bombed Hiroshima for the simple reason
> that doing so left the enemy with no doubt as to the power of the weapon
> and my resolve to use it. Immoral? Perhaps. But how less immoral would have
> been a president's decision to invade Japan at the undoubted cost of tens
> of thousands of American lives when he had so effective an alternative to
> their sacrifice at hand?

    I can only second what you say here. To have had a weapon in hand
that could end the horrible carnage, and not to use it, would have
been tantamount to a crime.

    Thanks.

    Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:43:30 -0500
From:    "Tim J. Watts" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Gustav Geraet

Hello, Terry.
I enjoyed your postings about the railroad gun and its performance against
Sevastapol.  Although this may be on the fringes of the list, do you have
any idea how it compared to the WW I Paris gun?  Was it manufactured by the
same people or draw in any way on the earlier gun?  TIA
Tim J. Watts
Valparaiso University

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 16:22:18 -0500
From:    Greg Kelley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Italy in WW2--Regina Marina (cont.)

Refresh my memory, but isn't Bragadin's book the one with the appendix in
the back that lists all Allied naval losses in the Mediterranean during
the war (including BARHAM, ARK ROYAL, and a mess of cruisers off Crete),
and kinda implies these losses were all due to Italian action?  Also the
same book that suggests the French naval attack on Genoa in 1940 was
beaten off by the valiant efforts of a couple coast defense batteries and
an old torpedo boat?  Other than that, it's a nice book....

                                          Glad To Be Of Service!

                                          Greg Kelley
                                          St. Paul Public Library
                                          [email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 16:25:58 -0500
From:    Greg Kelley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS in combat

Thanks.  For a moment there I was afraid my copy of George Stein's
WAFFEN-SS: HITLER'S ELITE GUARD AT WAR had suddenly lost all validity....

(and I'll refrain from mentioning the SS-Regiment raised from Rumanians)

                                          Glad To Be Of Service!

                                          Greg Kelley
                                          St. Paul Public Library
                                          [email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 17:00:44 -0500
From:    "William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: German Military Vehicles

> ..... I was on the phone to the Tank Museum in
> Bovington, Hamphire UK today - think I'll drop down there and take a
> look. They have ~100 vehicles on display but own in total ~300
> AFVs.

Hi Steve,

That must be the one I was thinking of.  Is it not an IWM affiliate?
I have never been to Britain so anything I say about museums there
should be taken with copious amounts of salt.  I am sure that most
museums comprise far more than can be displayed as you mention above.
Adequate storage becomes a problem like at Aberdeen where the
collection is stored outside exposed to the elements.  Their budget
is such that all they can do is keep a coat of paint on them.

I spoke with the staff when I was there in 1989 and they wish they
could do more but short of offering tank rides to raise funds their
hands are tied. :-/  Until a value is placed on them by the US Govt.
and funds set aside for proper storage and restoration they will
continue to deteriorate despite the staff's best efforts.  Rust is
ever vigilant and always funded. :-(

Cheers, Bill Huber / [email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 17:21:12 -0500
From:    "William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ? WW2 Airplane Crash in CBI

> Does anyone out there have either access to an index to STARS & STRIPES
> or some other source that might describe this crash?  We've exhausted our
> sources here.
>
>                                           Greg Kelley

Hi Greg,

Sorry if you already got this but I am way behind on my list
reading.... but, you might check the Library of Congress.  I believe
they have all those issues on microfilm if not hard copy.  You can
search their holdings online through a telnet connection to LOCIS.
Its at locis.loc.gov I think.  If you need further data contact me
back channel and I'll give you more help.

Cheers, Bill Huber / whuber@sadis01/kelly.af.mil

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 17:12:41 -0500
From:    Greg Kelley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Rumanians in WW2, runners, etc.

By any chance was one of the individuals you spoke with Hans-Ulrich
Rudel?  He says much the same thing in his book STUKA PILOT, though he
also told Allied interrogators that Nazi treatment of Jews was not unlike
US treatment of Negroes or American Indians, which to me only goes to
show that Rudel was a really GREAT Stuka pilot, not necessarily a really
smart individual.

Since neither Heinz Schroter nor Paul Carell report any inherent
cowardice for Rumanian soldiers in their books on the battle of
Stalingrad, I would question such a statement.  Sure, even Corneliu
Bogdan, Rumania's ambassador to the UN in the 1970's thought his
country's performance was no great shakes, but then very few countries at
that time & place were proud of their role in the war.

They may not have performed well, but when you consider what they had to
work with, well, hey.

A few titles you may wish to consult:

Gerhart Mueller-Hillbrand, GERMANY & ITS ALLIES IN WORLD WAR II

J. Lee Ready, THE FORGOTTEN AXIS: GERMANY'S PARTNERS & FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS
IN WORLD WAR II

Heinz Schroter, STALINGRAD  (who figures the Soviet breakthru at
Stalingrad of three guard tank corps & three guard cavalry corps against
a single understrength Rumanian infantry division was no big surprise)

Peter Gosztony, HITLER'S FREMDE HEERE: DAS SCHICKSAL DER NICHTDEUTSCHEN
ARMEEN IN OSTFELDZUG

Peter Gosztony, DEUTSCHLANDS WAFFENGEFAHRTEN AN DER OSTFRONT, 1941-1945

Paul Carell, STALINGRAD

                                          Glad To Be Of Service!

                                          Greg Kelley
                                          St. Paul Public Library
                                          [email-masked]

On Mon, 3 Oct 1994, Robert T. Moore wrote:

> Hello, Greg!
>
>
>
> > Hey, don't mind me.  I'm still trying to find anyone to agree with my
> > contention that the Rumanians were good troops.
>
>     Not even the Rumanians I have spoken with have a high opinion of
> their own troops in WWII. They say that the Rumanian soldier in WWII
> was a "coward, and would run at the first opportunity."
>
>     Hope this helps.
>
>     Terry
>

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 16:05:23 -0700
From:    Jim Curry <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [INF] USAAF 2 OCT 44

American-owned factories were not uncommon in prewar Europe.  One of the
major oil refineries at Ploesti was a subsidiary, I think, of Standard Oil.
It was utterly destroyed by US bombers.  When the Soviets occupied Ploesti
in 1944, they were astounded to find that American capitalists had bombed
their own property.
Jim Curry

On Mon, 3 Oct 1994, Tim J. Watts wrote:

> Jack McKillop noted B-17 bombing a FORD (!) motor vehicle plant in Cologne
> Germany on this date.  Does anyone know if there were many American-owned
> manufacturing plants in Europe, contributing to the Nazi war effort?  I
> always thought American-owned plants in foreign countries were a
> phenomenon of the post-war era.
> Tim J. Watts
> Valparaiso University
>

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 19:00:18 EDT
From:    "SGM Robert S. Rush" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS and SA

There was mention in an earlier post of the SA never seeing combat
except possibly in defense of cities.

The 60th Infantry division was made up of the S.A. Brigade Eberhardt-a
combat force smuggled into Danzig the Westerplatte, and surrounding areas
of Poland in 1939.  Fought in Poland,rance, and Russia.  Surrounded
and destroyed at Stalingrad.  Rebuilt around the 272d Regiment (Feldherrnhalle)
made up primarily of SA soldiers.  Destroyed at Budepest, remnants of
Felhernhalli still fighting on Eastern front when war ended.

>From German Order of Battle 1944 and tcham Hitler's Legions

Hope this helps

Rob Rush

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 19:25:25 CCS
From:    Jorge Merino <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Heinkel He-111Z

Talking about the Heinkel He-111Z "Zwilling", I wonder if both fuselages
retained the flight control yoke for the pilots. I know the pilot was
in the left cockpit, but did the right cockpit have also kept the yoke?
(I mean, for emergencies, etc)? What was the role of the right cockpit
"pilot"?

Jorge Merino

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 19:51:37 -0400
From:    David Rising <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS in combat

If I'm not mistaken, it was a group of SS men who dressed up like Polish
soldiers and attacked the radio station which was used as an excuse to
invade Poland. That would make them the _first_ soldiers to fight in the
war wouldn't it?
David Rising

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 20:38:00 EDT
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: [INF] USAAF 5 OCT 44

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
THURSDAY, 5 OCTOBER 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
  F-5, Lockheed Lightning
  P-40, Curtiss
  P-47, Republic Thunderbolt
  P-51, North American Mustang
  P-61, Northrop Black Widow

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

AMERICAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  ALASKA (Eleventh Air Force): At dawn on Paramushiru Island, 2 B-24s bomb
Kashiwabara and Kurabu Cape.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA (CBI) THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  BURMA-INDIA (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 11 P-47s hit Mawlu and attack
locomotives and targets of opportunity in the Naha area; 8 B-25s attack
bridges at Namhkai, damaging the main bridge. Troop carriers fly 250+ sorties
to various locations in the CBI. The 493d Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 7th
Bombardment Group (Heavy), moves from Tezgaon to Pandaveswar, India with
B-24s.

  CHINA (Fourteenth Air Force): In China, 12 B-25s and 22 fighter-bombers
attack Samshui, Koyiu and Takhing; 8 hit targets of opportunity in the
Canton-Wuchou area, and 3 bomb a storage area at Mangshih; 50+ P-40s and
P-51s over wide areas of S China attack rivercraft, road traffic, bridges,
town areas, and troops.

EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO)

  AIRBORNE OPERATIONS (IX Troop Carrier Command): HQ 442d Troop Carrier Group
and the 303d and 304th Troop Carrier Squadrons move from Weston Zoyland,
England to Bonnetable and Peray, France respectfully, with C-47s.

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): General Order 507 implements the
decision of 15 Sep to assign staff officers of HQ VIII Fighter Command to HQ
Eighth AF to represent units in administrative functions, thus eliminating
the administrative and operational control from HQ VIII Fighter Command and
placing it under HQ Eighth AF; this is necessitated by the transfer of
fighter groups to Bombardment Divisions. 2 missions are flown:
  Mission 665: 1,090 bombers and 733 fighters are dispatched to hit
industrial targets, airfields and railways in W Germany; 9 bombers and 5
fighters are lost:
  1. 348 B-17s dispatched hit targets of opportunity at Cologne (248),
Brechten (27), Dortmund (14) and Coblenz (11) using GH and H2X; 3 B-17s are
lost, 2 damaged beyond repair and 156 damaged; 1 airman is KIA and 16 MIA.
Escort is provided by 181 of 193 P-51s; 3 P-51s are lost (pilots MIA).
  2. 360 B-24s are dispatched to hit Lippstadt Airfield (175), Rheine
marshalling yard (107) and Paderborn Airfield (28) visually; targets of
opportunity hit are Herford marshalling yard (8) and Lipperode Airfield (2);
1 B-24 is damaged beyond repair and 7 damaged. Escort is provided by 260
P-47s and P-51s; they claim 1-0-0 aircraft in the air and 15-0-7 on the
ground; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot MIA) and 3 P-47s and 1 P-51 damaged.
  3. 382 B-17s are dispatched to hit Munster/Loddenheide Airfield (235) and
Munster/Handorf Airfield (68) using PFF means; targets of opportunity hit are
the Rheine marshalling yard (10) and other (2); 6 B-17s are lost, 1 damaged
beyond repair and 190 damaged; 6 airmen are WIA and 55 MIA. Escort is
provided by 234 P-47s and P-51s without loss.
  Mission 666: 8 of 10 bombers drop leaflets in France, the Netherlands and
Germany during the night.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Ninth Air Force): 330+ B-26s and A-20s dispatched
against targets in Arnhem, the Netherlands and Aldenhoven and Duren, Germany
are recalled; fighters hit pillboxes along the Westwall, support ground
forces of the XV Corps in France, fly armed reconnaissance in the Prum, Bonn,
Koblenz, Trier and Landau, Germany areas, hit targets along the Rhine-Marne
Canal, and during the night of 5/6 Oct fly patrol in Belgium, E France, and W
Germany. In Belgium, the 493d Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Group, moves
from Cambrai/Niergnies, France to St Trond with P-47s. In France, the 22d
Fighter Squadron, 36th Fighter Group, moves from Athis to Juvincourt with
P-47s.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Fifteenth Air Force): Bad weather causes the recall
of heavy bombers.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy during the night of 4/5
Oct A-20s bomb targets of opportunity in the battle area in the mountains S
of Bologna and N of the Arno River Valley; during the day weather grounds
medium bomber wings and the XII Fighter Command; the 8th Troop Carrier
Squadron, 62d Troop Carrier Group, moves from Galera Airfield to Malignano
Airfield with C-47s; the 85th Fighter Squadron, 79th Fighter Group, moves
from Southern France to Iesi with P-47s.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA)

  AAFPOA (Seventh Air Force): Saipan Island-based P-47s hit Pagan Island with
rockets and bombs; a B-24 bombs gun positions on the island.  B-25s from the
Gilbert Islands bomb runways and gun positions on Nauru Island while B-24s
from the Marshall Islands bomb an airfield at Moen Island, Truk Atoll and
during the night of 5/6 Oct strike Wake Island. The 28th Photographic
Reconnaissance Squadron, Seventh Air Force, based at Kipapa Airfield, Hawaii,
sends a detachment to Peleliu Island, Palau Islands with F-5s.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: B-24s bomb
airfields in the Kendari area on Celebes Island.  B-25s and P-38s hit
Kairatoe Airfield on Celebes Island, the town of Amboina on Ambon Island and
numerous coastal and shipping targets of opportunity in the Ambon-Ceram
Islands area. In New Guinea, A-20s, B-25s, and fighter-bombers attack Urarom,
the Simora Point area, Doom Island, Babo, Efman and Samate Airfields and
disposal areas; A-20s blast Japanese bivouacs and supply areas near Sarmi; HQ
54th Troop Carrier Wing moves from Nadzab to Biak Island. In the Moluccas
Islands, the 418th Night Fighter Squadron, V Fighter Command [attached to HQ
310th Bombardment Wing (Medium)], moves from Owi, Schouten Islands to Morotai
Island with P-61s.

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              |
-------------------------------------------------------------------

05/0040Z OCT

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 21:10:16 -0400
From:    Emery Ford <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TACT:Could they have won ?

Hi everone,

On Tue, 04 Oct 94, Terry Moore wrote:

>I hadn't either. My comment to you about Stalin was derived from
>a well-made documentary that dealt with JS based on more info
>unearthed or discovered in the Moscow or KGB archives. At the time,
>and I still think this way, it was an extraordinary statement to
>make. I can only state what was said in this documentary and it was
>well-done and based on documentation recently found. At some point, I
>am thinking that all or most that we know about the war on the
>Eastern Front may have to be reinterpreted based on what is available
>in Moscow.

Wasn't this the show STALIN: PORTRAIT OF A BLOOD TYRANT?  It
occcasionally airs on the Discovery Channel as a multi-segmented
documentary.  It's a good program.

Emery

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 22:42:02 -0400
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ITALY IN WW2, MY $

I think that this may be the beginning of an interesting thread to discuss:
just really how good were the so-called "elites" of a country or a country's
armed services. In the case of the Marine Corps, we had Carlson's 2d Raider
Battalion on the west coast, comprised of volunteers who went through an
interview by Carlson or one of his officers. They were equipped with "unique"
equipment and adopted for their motto, "Gung Ho," work together, a motto
Carlson picked up when he was an observer with Mao Tse-tung's Eighth Route Army
on the Great March north in China. On the other hand, "Red Mike" Edson's 1st
Raider Battalion was just redesignated from his 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.
Many senior officers in the Corps didn
t (sorry) didn't think that there should be an elite within an elite, which
they thought, believed, and felt the Corps already was, and they didn't think
that Carlson's men could do anything that a regular infantry unit could already
do, or to put it differently, they thought that regular Marine infantry units
could be trained to do any of the raiding techniques, etc., that Carlson's
Raiders could do. While both battalions fought bravely in their individual
combat actions, it was in the New Georgia campaign, in heavy fighting under
difficult conditions, that it wa seen that the Raiders did not heavy enough
weapons to fight for sustained periods of time against well entrenched enemy,
and of course, the Raiders were now ground troops instead of raiders, the
raison d'etre (I threw that in for you, Sidney) for their existence was
nullified, and not long after they were reorganized into the new 4th Marines,
replacing that regiment which was forced to surrender on Corregidor. Troops
which have flashy gear, flashy uniforms, and all the rest in garrison, often
aren't worth the powder to blow them up in combat. Ben Frank

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:02:01 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: WEAP: Heinkel He-111Z -Reply

Talking about the Heinkel He-111Z "Zwilling", I wonder if both fuselages
retained the flight control yoke for the pilots. I know the pilot was in the left
cockpit, but did the right cockpit have also kept the yoke?
(I mean, for emergencies, etc)? What was the role of the right cockpit
"pilot"?

Jorge Merino

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Quoting from Green _Warplanes of the Third Reich:

...
The pilot was situated in the portside fuselage with five throttles, full
instrumentation, and controls for the port undercarriage members and the
radiator flaps for the portside pair of engines.  The second pilot, situated in the
starboard fuselage, was provided with dual flying controls but no throttles, and
operated the starboard undercarriage members and the radiator flaps of the
centre engine and starboard pair of engines.  A mechanic, radio-operator and
gunner were accommodated in the port fuselage, and a mechanic an gunner
in the starboard fuselage, the second pilot acting as navigator.

John Meierhoffer                [email-masked]
Albany New York         518 486 2390 (work)   283 4761 (home)

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

Date:    Tue, 4 Oct 1994 20:41:00 PDT
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: SS in combat

David Rising...
        Well, you're close, when you say there were SS involved in the
Polish border incident, which was a pretext for Germany's attack on Poland.
        The facts, however, are that a squad of SS/Gestapo took a group
of political prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp to a border
point close to Gleiwitz. The prisoners were forced to put on Polish uniforms,
then shot dead -- a bizarred faked "Polish attack" on the local radio
station. The following morning, Sept 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland,
while Herr Hitler announced that it was in retaliation for "the attack by
Polish troops on the [German] Gleiwitz transmitter..."
        Regards -- Sidney Allinson.

--

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

End of WWII-L Digest - 3 Oct 1994 to 4 Oct 1994
***********************************************