Subject: WWII-L Digest - 27 Oct 1994 to 28 Oct 1994

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 00:02:32 -0400

There are 44 messages totalling 1910 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. [WEAP] Battleships sunk by torpedos/gunfire (4)
  2. B-25 'kills'
  3. WWII Memoirs (2)
  4. GEN: DO VETERANS WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES? (4)
  5. INF: 50 Years Ago - 29-OCT-1944
  6. WEAP: Carriers Intrepid and Franklin (3)
  7. ME163 (4)
  8. Pearl Harbor
  9. 1944 USAAF pay rates
 10. MEDIA: Germans Sentenced
 11. INF: USN Chronology 10-28-94 (3)
 12. ME163 - contempory problems
 13. Writing a book:-want to see? (2)
 14. REPLY: Enola Gay controversy (fwd)
 15. HYPO"The big what ??"? (2)
 16. BOOK: RocketMan1
 17. [WEAP] Battleships sunk b...
 18. Can I have the posts for 27 and 28 .
 19. WEAP: Sonar
 20. [WEAP] special armor-piercing bombs at Pearl Harbor
 21. Battle of Britain bibliography
 22. INF: Regia Marina, Part 6
 23. <No subject given>
 24. Eight Air Force 93rd Bomber Group (Heavy)
 25. WEAP: CVE-57  USS Anzio
 26. HYPO: The "Big" what-
 27. [INF] USAAF 29 OCT 44
 28. WEAP-planes

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

Date:    Thu, 27 Oct 1994 21:22:17 -1000
From:    Jim Adams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [WEAP] Battleships sunk by torpedos/gunfire

Robert Hohlt,  you asked about the torpedo we have.  No there are no
special numbers that identify it, I don't know if the Japanese had id
numbers on them or not.

The torpedo is not in the glass case anymore, it is back under going
preservation treatment; will take about another year.

In working on it I noticed lots of serial numbers on different parts, and
they do match.  but I don't have anything to compare those numbers too.
I found it amazing that the brass fitings, clamps, and hose couples still
unscrew and screw so easy.

For those not aware, this is a Japanese Model 91 torpedo that was
recovered out of Pearl Harbor in 1991 (May before the 50th Anniversary).
It was still intact/live.  Its intended target was the Oklahoma.  This
particular torpedo plane, was at the tail end of his flight.  When the AA
fire finally opened up on him, he was startled.  The plane was shot up
bad.  The pilot pulled up and jettisoned the torpedo.  Instead of making
its run, it ploughed down into the mud.  During dredging operations in
1991, the crane operator pulled up what he thought was another piling
from the dock they were taking apart.  Before he swung it over to bang on
the side of the barge, he looked again and got suspicious.  Lucky for
him.  For the next 6 hours he held his fooot on the break while EOD
rigged up a special barge and platform to gently lay down the torpedo.

Cooincidently, this was the same day the BB Missouri was coming into port
for her final visit before going to Bremerton for decommisioning.

The torpedo was taken out into deep water and exploded.  The charges were
set in such a way that the war head severed off and exploded, and when
divers went down they found and recovered the back two thirds.  It was
now opened up like a can, which allows you to observe the intact
machinery inside.

It made for a great exhibit, but it needs more preservation work, so
after about a two year display, we took her off for needed longterem
treatment.

At the Memorial we are busy now getting cerimonies and displays ready for
December 7th.

For those that have not been here in the last 2 years, we do have a new
movie and several new exhibits.

****************************************************************************
Jim Adams                       [email-masked]
USS Arizona Memorial, NPS        (808) 423-7300
1 Arizona Memorial Place
Honolulu, Hawaii 96818
****************************************************************************

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

Date:    Thu, 27 Oct 1994 21:37:05 -1000
From:    Jim Adams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: B-25 'kills'

****************************************************************************
Jim Adams                       [email-masked]
USS Arizona Memorial, NPS        (808) 423-7300
1 Arizona Memorial Place
Honolulu, Hawaii 96818
****************************************************************************

On Thu, 27 Oct 1994, GEORGE BAUER wrote:

> It is widely cited that a B-25 of the 25th Bomb Squadron of the 17th
> Bomb Group at McChord Field is credited with sinking the first Japanese
> submarine on 24 December 1941 about 50 miles off the west coast of the U.S.

Before this instance, there were three, presumed four Japanese Type C
(midget) submarines sunk on 7 December 1941, with a fifth one being
captured on the following day.

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

Date:    Thu, 27 Oct 1994 21:43:02 -1000
From:    Jim Adams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WWII Memoirs

We are constantly doing oral histories at the Arizona Memorial and seem
to not have problems getting veterans to tell their story.  Of course
most of those we meet are those that come to us, so a little different.
It is always fascinating to hear what it was like.

We are fortunate to receive many of the Japanese participants who
survived the war.  Yesterday, a Japanese gunner from the Akagi just
happened to visit.  He was assigned to one of the 5 inch AA guns on the
ship.  He did not actually see the attack of course, but told of being on
station and watching the Japanese planes take off, and later return.  He
spoke through an interpretor.  Later he will write his experiences down
for us, in Japanese, and mail back to our historian.

****************************************************************************
Jim Adams                       [email-masked]
USS Arizona Memorial, NPS        (808) 423-7300
1 Arizona Memorial Place
Honolulu, Hawaii 96818
****************************************************************************

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 09:35:25 +0100
From:    JOHN AUSLAND <[email-masked]>
Subject: GEN: DO VETERANS WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES?

  October 28, 1994
  Given the discussion of whether veterans want to talk about their experiences,
perhaps I should add my two cents.  As those of you who have read my LETTERS
HOME know, I carried the letters around the world with me for nearly a half
century before I could bring myself to read them.  When I did, I found them
sufficiently interesting that I decided to share them with others.
  One thing veterans learn early is that, for the most part, people do not want
to hear about combat.  Therefore, I developed a number of anecdotes about the
amusing side of the war and told them over the years.  Hence, I avoided going
into the grim side, both to avoid reawakening unpleasant memories and because
other people did not want to hear about it.
  The problem with talking about the grim side is that it is sometimes difficult
to talk about specific incidents without crying, and big boys don't cry in our
society.  (I should add that writing my book has made it easier, but there are
still some things I find it difficult to talk about.)
  I agree with those who have said that many veterans are glad to talk about
their experiences, if someone asks them.  My brother is a case in point.  Both
my father and I have over the years left records of our experiences.  My
brother, who was a Marine, is not a writer.  Since I knew he would never leave a
record for his children, I decided recently to interview him.  I got equipment
to record phone calls and now have over an hour of his recollections on tape,
which include experiences at Tarawa and on a ship off Okinawa.
  Perhaps I should add that he was happy to talk about his experiences and had
no apparent difficulty doing it.  Probably I am the first person who
ever asked him about them.
  My guess is that his children are not interested in this today, being
preoccupied with their own lives.  However, one day they will be.
  Regards, John Ausland/Oslo Norway

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 04:26:18 -0700
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 29-OCT-1944

On 29-OCT-1944, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - The Canadian II Corps is making good progress in Beveland. The
52nd Division reaches Goes. The I Corps reaches the road between
Bergen-op-Zoom and Tilburg and prepares to head north. The Polish 1st Armoured
Division captures Breda. Units of the US 7th Armoured Division are forced to
evacuate Liessel, after the Germans resume their counter-attack. In the US 3rd
Army sector, the 90th Division captures a large part of Maizieres-les-Metz.

Philippines - Units of the 96th Division capture Catmon Hill, on the coast
north of Dulag. In the center of the island the attack on Dagami continues.
The 32nd Infantry advances south from Burauen without meeting any resistance.
They reach the town of Abuyog.

Pacific - The air attacks around Luzon continue. The carrier Intrepid is
damaged by a kamikaze attack.

Burma - In the north of Burma, the British 36th Division resumes its advance
southwards along the Myitkyina-Mandalay railway. On the Salween river front,
the Chinese forces resume their offensive against Lung-ling, with air support
coming from the US 14th Air Force.

The Homefront
-------------
Pro Football - Philadelphia 24, New York 17; Boston 17, Brooklyn 14; Chicago
Bears 28, Cleveland 21; Green Bay 14, Detroit 0.

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

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 and can
be accessed via the WWW by URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jbd/ww2.html. If you
have difficulty accessing the Netcom FTP server, please keep trying because it
stays very busy.

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

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 04:43:16 -0700
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Carriers Intrepid and Franklin

In writing tommorrow's (posted today) "50 YA" column, my main two sources
were very different regarding damage done to the Intrepid. One source said
the Intrepid was attacked and received serious damage. The other source
said she received slight damage. Does anyone have any idea which is
correct?  In my column, I just said she was damaged because I wasn't sure.
Also, am I correct to assume that this is the same Intrepid that is the
museum in NYC now?

Regarding the Franklin, in the column I will be posting tommorrow it
says that the Franklin is hit once again. Is this the hit that is so
devastating that she finally has to retire and head home? Seems like the
Franklin has been hit several times in recent columns.

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

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 07:03:44 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ME163

Hello, Drew!

Here goes with some more info.

                        Luftwaffe

                        Hardback

Luftwaffe by Patrick de Gmeline (in French and German)
Stukageschwader Immelmann by Holger Nauroth (German)
Luftkrieg by Janusz Piekalkiewicz (German and excellent)
Adler:The Official Nazi Luftwaffe Magazine edited by S. L. Mayer
The German Jets in Combat by Alfred Price
The Luftwaffe at War 1939-1945 by A. Galland and K. Ries
Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe by Col. Ray Toliver
Luftwaffe Fotoreport 1919-1945 by Karl Ries
Die Deutsche Nachtjagd by Werner Held and Holger Nauroth
The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Field-Marshal Erhard
Milch by David Irving
Goering by David Irving
The Reichsmarshal by Leonard Mosley

                     Paperbacks

The Life and Death of the Luftwaffe by Werner Baumbach
The Luftwaffe War Diaries by Cajus Bekker
The Rise of the Luftwaffe by Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr.
Stuka Pilot by Hans Ulrich Rudel
The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering by Willy Frischauer
The First and the Last by Adolf Galland
I was a Nazi Flyer
Das Jagdgeschwader 42 (2 volume set and a very comprehensive history)
JG-26 "Schlageter" by Donald Caldwell

    Will be sending you more on Monday. All the best.

    Terry

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 07:51:29 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: GEN: DO VETERANS WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES?

Hello, John and others!

I wholeheartedly agree with your post and others who have addressed
this topic. I have had the same experience with German veterans. I
have met only one who refused to discuss his experiences, and this
officer was involved in the Stalingrad resupply effort. All other
areas were gladly and openly discussed.

I think it is human nature not to want to discuss unpleasant things,
and I have also run across some vets both here and abroad who only
discussed the less grim aspects of their experiences.

Anyway, I just wanted to second your thoughts on this interesting but
sensitive topic.

Thanks again. Posterity owes you much gratitude for saving your
letters.

    All the best.

    Terry

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 09:09:30 -0400
From:    Ron Babuka <[email-masked]>
Subject: Pearl Harbor

I cannot agree with Jim Adams more, in that the Pearl Harbor is a must see
for anyone who stops at the islands.  I set aside a morning of my honeymoon
this month to pay my respects at the memorial and was very impressed with
the museum, the movie,  the Rangers on duty, and the memorial itself.  The
new movie was beautifully narrated by Stockard Chaning (sp?) and does a
wonderful job of educating and honoring all the men and women involved.
The Rangers at the memorial impressed me with their knowledge of the
incidents leading to, involving, and following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Their was a sincere and touching emphasis that this was not a tourist site
but sacred ground honoring brave men who made the ultimate sacrifice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Babuka
Cornell University
CIT - Information Resources
Ithaca, New York 14850
(607) 254-6492

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 09:27:50 EDT
From:    "Dennis E. Sparks" <[email-masked]>
Subject: 1944 USAAF pay rates

I thought this might be of some interest.  Here are the 1944 base pay
rates for USAAF personnel, as reported in "The Official Guide to the
Army Air Forces".

RANK                Yearly Pay  Rent Allowance/month
                                 (w/wo dependents)
General (2-4 stars)    8000          120/105
Brig. General          6000          120/105
Colonel                4000          120/105
Lt. Colonel            3500          120/105
Major                  3000          105/90
Captain                2400          90/75
1st Lieutenant         2000          75/60
2nd Lieutenant         1800          60/45
Chief Warrant Officer  2100          75/60
Warrant Officer j.g.   1800          60/45
Flight Officer         1800          60/45

All officers with dependents also receive $42 per month subsistence
allowance, single officers receive $21.  Exceptions are married
Lt. Cols. and Majors, who receive $63 per month.

Enlisted ranks:
Master Sgt/ 1st Sgt    1656
Tech Sgt (2nd grade)   1368
Staff Sgt (3rd grade)  1152
Sergeant (4th grade)    936
Corporal (5th grade)    792
PFC (6th grade)         648
Private (7th grade)     600

This pay scale shows the base amount.  This is the lowest amount
paid to each grade. To this may be added other amounts, as follows:

Flight pay:  Flying officers and enlisted men receive an increase of
50% of their base pay when by orders of competent authority they are
required to participate regularly and fequently in aerial flights.
Non-flying officers receive flying pay at the rate of $60/month when
they participate in regular and frequent flights ordered by competent
authority.

Longevity:  Every enlisted man receives an increase of 5% of his base
pay for each three years of service up to 30 years.

Foreign service:  The base pay of officers is increased by 10%
(enlisted men by 20%) for any service outside the continental US
or Alaska.

Allowance for dependents:  Wives of enlisted men receive $50/month,
$80/month with one child, and an additional $20/month for each
additional child.  A mother of an enlisted man will receive $37/mo,
in the case of total dependency, $50.  $22 of these allowances are
deducted from the enlisted man's pay, with the remainder being
contributed by the government.

Dennis E. Sparks
[email-masked]
Lexington, Kentucky

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 08:56:05 -0400
From:    James E Irwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: MEDIA: Germans Sentenced

>From the DoD Newswire 27 October 1994

:GERMANS SENTENCED IN WAR KILLS

   CASERTA, Italy  -- Two former German army officers were
convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison for ordering
the massacre of 22 Italians in World War II.
   Wolfgang Lehnigk-Emden and Karl Shuster were convicted Tuesday. A
German court had freed Lehnigk-Emden in January after ruling that
too much time had passed for him to be indicted.
   Most victims in the Oct. 13, 1943, massacre were women and
children. They were killed with guns, bayonets and grenades in
Caiazzo, a town near Naples, after some residents tried to signal
approaching Allied troops.
   German prosecutors are appealing the dismissal of the indictment
in Germany.

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

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

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 09:27:19 PDT
From:    "Keller, Theron P." <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: USN Chronology 10-28-94

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

1944
10/28 Sat. Aircraft from carrier task group (Rear Adm. R. E.
           Davison) bomb Japanese shipping near Cebu, P. I.
            United States naval vessel sunk:
             Destroyer escort EVERSOLE (DE-404), by submarine
              torpedo, Leyte area, P. I.,
              10 d. 18'N., 127 d. 37'E.
            United States naval vessel damaged:
             Light cruiser DENVER (CL-58), by suicide plane,
              Leyte area P. I.,
              10 d. 57'N., 125 d. 02'E.
            Japanese submarines sunk, Leyte area, P. I.:
             I-45, by destroyer escort WHITEHURST (DE-634),
              10 d. 10'N., 127 d. 28'E.
             I-54, by destroyers GRIDLEY (DD-380) and HELM (DD-
              388),
              10 d. 56'N., 127 d. 13'E.

Information compiled by U.S. Navy Historians.  For more information,
contact the Naval Historical Center at (202) 433-3940.
Archived by: Larry Jewell <[email-masked]>
Posted by:
Theron P. Keller
Logicon, Inc.
Dahlgren, VA  22448 USA
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 09:09:41 EST
From:    Roger Coon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [WEAP] Battleships sunk by torpedos/gunfire

Great post Jim, I always look forward to the info that you provide.
One question though.  I seem to remember having read that the Japanese
used modified AP shells for bombs in the Pearl Harbor attack.  Is
there any truth to that?
Thanks,
************************************************
Roger (Brad) Coon            "Better to have one
[email-masked]          freedom too many,
[email-masked]    than to have one
                              too few."

Politically incorrect and proud of it.
Niquimictitoc inana Bambi.
************************************************

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:00:25 EDT
From:    William Lippert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ME163

On Thu, 27 Oct 1994 15:20:27 -0400 Ron Babuka said:
>>Emmanuel,
>>Didn't they have to be careful that even the fumes of the different fuels
>>didn't come into contact with each other?  Special precautions, such as
>>filling each tank at different times and washing down the equipment before
>>switching to the other fuel?  I thought I had seen that somewhere, but
>>don't recall where.
>>
>>Tim J. Watts
>>Valparaiso University
>
>There was an episode of Wings on the Me-163 and the ole Luftwaffe films
>showed the refuling trucks coming in with one the the fuels and filling the
>tanks.  The truck then had to be driven to a secure site at away from the
>aircraft.  All equipment used was hosed down with water and the aircraft
>was hosed down.  Then a different fuel truck with a different crew
>approached the aircraft and procceded to fuel the aircraft.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Ron Babuka
>Cornell University
>CIT - Information Resources
>Ithaca, New York 14850
>(607) 254-6492

    I can't help but think that this was a lot of trouble and took up more
time, effort, and resources had to spare.  Did the performance of the Me163
at all justify this effort and risk?

William Lippert
The American University

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:10:43 EDT
From:    Patrick D Marsden <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ME163 - contempory problems

 >Didn't they have to be careful that even the fumes of the different fuels
 >didn't come into contact with each other?  Special precautions, such as
 >filling each tank at different times and washing down the equipment before
 >switching to the other fuel?  I thought I had seen that somewhere, but
 >don't recall where.
 >
 >Tim J. Watts
 >Valparaiso University

This is a problem that still hasn't been completely solved.  Both
unmanned and manned spacecraft (space shuttle included) and quite a few
extreme high altitude aircraft use hypergolic fuels for attitude control.
Hypergolic fuels such as mono-methyl-hydrazine & nitrogen tetratroxide
have the advantage that a complicated ignition system is not needed and
generally are storable at room temperatures (unlike the liquid oxygen or
liquid hydrogen wich requires cryogenic temperatures).  The problem is that
they are *always* hypergolic and will ignite whenever they come into contact
with each other, whether in the combustion chamber, test tube, fuel hose,
or two puddles that happen to run together.  They are also generally toxic to
humans, like C-Stoff & T-stoff.  Those trucks you see driving after the
space shuttle when it lands are there to "safe" the attitude control system
and dissipate any fuel vapors which are lingering around the shuttle.
This has to be done before the crew can emerge.

If anyone remembers the Apollo-Soyuz test project from 1975, the Apollo half
almost ended in tragedy when the fuel from the attitude control jets
began leaking after splashdown.  I had to spend several hours of my NASA
career standing in the parking lot of my office (which was attached to the
hanger building) when some hydrazine spilled from one of the high
altitude research aircraft and the building was sealed off while the
spill was cleaned-up.  The safety precautions today are similar to
ones the ME-163 crews had simply because the fuel itself is so dangerous.

>From a former classmate who is now with ESA (European Space Agency)- the
worst job in the whole organization is the fueling.  The personnel have to
wear massive black rubber airtight protective suits.  The decontamination
procedure takes so long that it's easier to give the workers diapers rather
than allow them bathroom breaks.  And all this is done in the South American
heat.

I know I'm drifting off the WWII tread but one final note ... the current
theory for the loss of the Mars Observer Spacecraft last year is that during
the eleven month voyage some propellant leaked from the tank into the line.
When the tanks were being pressurized, some oxidizer found the propellant
in the line and, yes, they promptly combusted.  The resulting explosion blew
out the line and sprayed the inside of the spacecraft, including the computer
circuit boards.  The "unburned" hydrazine reacted with the computed boards
before venting into space.  The venting put the spacecraft into a spin and
the decomposing computer chips effective lobotomized it and preventing it from
stopping the spin; a one billion dollar mission lost.

patrick
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:52:38 CCS
From:    Jorge Merino <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Carriers Intrepid and Franklin

I have my sources at home, but I will check them and return later with an
answer about the hits received by USS Intrepid 50 years ago. Maybe Jack
McKillop can give us a more accurate answer about this carrier.

> Also, am I correct to assume that this is the same Intrepid that is the
> museum in NYC now?

Yes, definitely it is the same carrier. She is the only US Navy carrier
named Intrepid (CV-11). She has also fought in Vietnam, and I'm almost
sure she was also recovery ship for some Apollo missions.

FYI, here is an extract from a posting sent by Jack McKillop last year:
....Begin quote....

INTREPID, Aircraft Carrier Number 11 (CV-11)
--------------------------------------------
Intrepid was under construction at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry
Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia.  Her keel had been laid on 1 Dec 41.

Launched 26 Apr 43 and commissioned 16 Aug 43, Intrepid was decommissioned
on 22 Mar 47.  Recommissioned 9 Feb 42, she was reclassified Attack Aircraft
Carrier 11 (CVA-11) on 1 Oct 52 and Antisubmarine Warfare Support Carrier 11
(CVS-11) on 8 Dec 61.  USS Intrepid decommissioned for the last time on 15
Mar 74 and her name was subsequently struck from the Naval Register.
Intrepid is currently a museum in New York City.

....End quote....

> Regarding the Franklin, in the column I will be posting tommorrow it
> says that the Franklin is hit once again. Is this the hit that is so
> devastating that she finally has to retire and head home? Seems like the
> Franklin has been hit several times in recent columns.

The Franklin (CV-13) was maybe hit more often than any other carrier in
WWII. This wasn't the last (devastating) hit. To show this, here is
another extract from a note sent by Jack McKillop some months ago:

FRANKLIN, Aircraft Carrier Number 13 (CV-13)
--------------------------------------------
....Begin quote....
The keel of the Essex Class aircraft carrier FRANKLIN was laid down
on 7 Dec 42, she was launched on 14 Oct 43 and commissioned on 31
Jan 44.  She was severly damaged by bombs off Kyushu on 19 Mar 45
which cost 724 dead and 265 wounded.  She made it back to the
Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York on her own power.  She was repaired
participated in MAGIC CARPET operations in 1946 and decommissioned
on 17 Jan 47.  She was redesignated an Attack Aircraft Carrier
(CVA-13) on 1 Oct 52 and an Antisubmarien Warfare Support Carrier
(CVS-13) on 8 Aug 53.  She was reclassified an Auxiliary Aircraft
Transport (AVT-8) on 15 May 59 and her name was struck from the
Navy List on 1 Oct 64.  FRANKLIN was partially scrapped in 1965,
and her hulk was sold on 27 Jul 66.

....End quote....

As you can see, the devastating attack was done 19 Mar 1945, so, we
have to wait until 19 Mar 1995 to see your highlights on this in your
excellent column :-)

Jorge Merino

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:41:23 -0500
From:    GEORGE BAUER <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: GEN: DO VETERANS WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES?

I should add one point to my previous post.

I suspect that people who are suddenly asked to talk about the war, many
never having been asked before, are understandably a bit curious--maybe
even suspicious--as to the reason for the inquiry.

But when the find that the questioner has a serious and sincere interest
in learning about history--and does not intend to rewrite it--they are
all too willing to discuss it.  I suspect that some reluctance comes from
a "will they understand?" skepticism, partly reinforced by the reception
Viet Nam veterans received when they returned to the U.S.

But who can fail to be receptive to someone who is interested in them and
their lives?

  =========================================================================
  | DR.  GEORGE R. BAUER             | INTERESTS:                         |
  |                                  | Computers in Business & Education. |
  | Recently returned from my second | Education:  Curriculum development.|
  |   extended stay in Prague.       |    International Education, TEFL.  |
  | Working on second book about     | Central Europe:  Post revolution   |
  |   Prague and new Czech Republic  |    economic, social, political     |
  |   and a book about the B-25      |    problems and opportunities.     |
  |   in WWII.                       | B-25 in WWII.                      |
  | E-Mail:                          | Free lance writing and editing.    |
  |   USA:  [email-masked]    | Stamp collecting.                  |
  |         [email-masked] |                                    |
  =========================================================================

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:17:42 -0500
From:    Drew Halevy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: INF: USN Chronology 10-28-94

>              Light cruiser DENVER (CL-58), by suicide plane,
>               Leyte area P. I.,
>               10 d. 57'N., 125 d. 02'E.
I find these postings very interesting each day. For this one, I have a
question. In the postings, the damage of a Kamakize (sp?) is listed as
suicide plane. When did the term Kamakize begin to be used, esp. by the
press?-Drew

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:52:32 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [WEAP] Battleships sunk by torpedos/gunfire

 I'd like to also thank Jim Adams for amplifying and/or correcting the portions
of my previous post regarding battleship sinkings at Pearl.  I was shooting fromthe hip as usual, glad I got the part about the CALIFORNIA right, as that was
my main point (you are right, Jim, I've read at least two different accounts
-- including John Toland's "Rising Sun"-- that mention the OKLAHOMA being hit
by four or five torpedoes-- glad you cleared that up).  I was interested in the
info on the NEVADA...I always assumed it was the bomb damage to the ship after
it got under way which caused its grounding and wondered how the size bombs a
D3A divebomber could carry would have been capable of inflicting sufficient
damage on a ship like the NEVADA to accomplish that with a half-dozen hits or
less.  The fact that it was damage from the lone torpedo hit that did in the BB
makes more sense (it also would have supported the argument I was trying to makehad I known it then)... however, I've got another question or two.  I read
somewhere (again, it might have been Toland, or maybe Prange-- my readings on
Pearl haven't gone beyond the popular history stage) that the Japanese for this
attack were using special armor-piercing bombs which in reality were 14-inch
naval shells with fins welded on-- would these have been the heavier of the
conventional bombs you referred to in your post?? (their size would have made
them too heavy for the D3A, they would have been carried by the B5N's in the
first wave)...

while I'm on this subject, a related question for others on the list, if
anyone knows the answer (I've looked but can't find my copy of Rudel's
"Stuka Pilot" and my local library doesn't have it)...could anyone tell me
what type of bomb (specifically the weight) was used to blow the bow off the
Russian BB MARAT in Leningrad harbor in Sept '41??  My fading memory says
4,000 lbs (1,860 kg or thereabouts), but would't that have been a bit of a
load for a Ju-87 in 1941??

Any input is appreciated

Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:23:12 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ME163

Hello, William!

>     I can't help but think that this was a lot of trouble and took up more
> time, effort, and resources had to spare.  Did the performance of the Me163
> at all justify this effort and risk?

    No.

  Terry

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:52:23 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Writing a book:-want to see?

I have been working on a book project for young readers, and I
would like to take advantage of this forum for awhile to help me
to get my book written.  The subject is the Messerschmitt 163
Komet rocket fighter, and the larger subject of the european air
war.  I will be showing the history of the Komet, the history of
the Luftwaffe, and the battles between the Luftwaffe and the US
8th Army Air Force.  I've had typical beginner's luck in finding
hard to get books and even a few eyewitnesses who experienced the
Komet from both ends of it's cannons.  My book is being held back
by two problems, which I hope you all may help me solve here.
(1)  My book keeps slipping in and out of a deep coma.  Anyone
who has tried to write a book without contracts, advances,
deadlines or prospects will know what I mean.
(2)  I don't have any feedback.  I would like to show off my
little project piece by piece and receive your critical responses
as to literary content and historical accuracy.  If I get
pompous- I need someone to tell me.  If I get my facts wrong- I
need someone to tell me.  If there are resources I haven't
thought of, I want to know about them.  Also having an audience,
however critical the feedback, may hold my feet to the fire and
get me away from my TV and in front of my word processor.  My
book for young readers has the stirring title:  "Rocket Man!  The
Rocket Fighters of The Luftwaffe"  .  The title page looks like
this:

ROCKET MAN 1:  Alarmstart!
Chapter One:  The Invisible Air Force 1918-1929

ROCKET MAN 2:  Ascent
Chapter Two:  The Rise of the Luftwaffe 1929-1939

ROCKET MAN 3:  First Attack
Chapter Three:  Test Commando 16; Powered Eggs & Rocket Laundries

ROCKET MAN 4:  Second Attack
Chapter Four:  Jadgeswader 400; Like a Flea, But Wow!

ROCKET MAN 5:  Descent
Chapter Five:  The Fall of the Luftwaffe 1945

ROCKET MAN 6:  The "Birthday Party"
Chapter Six:   The End of the Wizard War

There is a mix of fiction and non-fiction.  The ROCKET MAN pieces
are a fictional series of vignettes of a JG400 pilot named
Kramer, who leads a rotte of Komets against a bomber formation.
It is a device to show the reader, through fictional narrative,
how it was done from air raid alert to landing.  The narrative is
built on historical accounts and information given to me by JG400
vets.  The Chapters which follow are non-fiction narratives of
the development of the Komet project and the progress of the air
war.
    I will offer up these vignettes and chapters as they are
completed.  These are rough drafts, so they are VERY much open to
improvement, and I want to hear as much feedback pro and con as
possible.  Public and/or private.  If you have resources, such as
books or addresses of air war vets I would certainly like to hear
about them.  One serious point- friends and neighbors- I consider
this material copyrighted.  (I don't claim any of it is really
worth stealing, but no one stick's their name on any of it
without my permission.  Let's get that straight. :-{ ) In the
next few days I will upload ROCKET MAN 1, and my rough draft of
Chapter One for public scrutiny.  Thank you all very much for
this opportunity.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 14:49:51 -0400
From:    David Rising <[email-masked]>
Subject: REPLY: Enola Gay controversy (fwd)

Not to flog a dead horse, but I got this message off H-Pol, and thought
you all may be interested.
David Rising

*******************
Date:         Thu, 27 Oct 94 12:44:49 EDT
From:         Lowell Dyson <[email-masked]>
Subject:      enola gay

There is an article in the Washington Post today (Oct. 27, p. A34) which has
bearing on the dispute over the Air and Space Museum exhibit of the Enola Gay
which dropped the first A-bomb on Japan, and the original plan of the museum
curators to present it as a case of American vengence (vindictiveness? savagery
?) against a people only involved in defending their culture.  Lay aside if you
wish Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march, etc. and examine the battle of
Manila fifty years ago where 100,000 civilians were killed (compared to 80,000-
140,000 in Hiroshima).  Under written orders, which were recovered by American
troops, Japanese marines wer ordered to round up civilians including women and
children, and, so as not to waste ammunition, put them in buildings and burn t
he buildings, only shooting or bayonetting those who tried to escape.  The wife
and 13-year old daughter of Elpido Quirino, later (1948-53) President of the Re
public were machine-gunned by Japanese, and when a 2-year old daughter still
stirred, she was tossed in the air and speared with a bayonet.

Miguel Perez-Rubio, later chief of protocol for Corazon Aquino, Ambassador to
Spain, etc., lost his entire family to the massacre.  he has requested that
the Smithsonian incorporate mention of the atrocities in Manila at the Air
and Space Museum exhibit.  Want to make odds on whether the pc-curators will
so that?

-------------------------------------------------------------
|LOWELL K. DYSON                                            |
|ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE                                  |
|U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE       202-219-0786          |
|1301 NEW YORK AVENUE, NW 932         202-219-0391 FAX      |
|WASHINGTON, DC 20005-4788            [email-masked]    |
-------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:09:34 -0400
From:    "Rudolph W. Hauschild" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HYPO"The big what ??"?

To consider the German army of WWII a second class outfit strikes me as
inane. They were outnumbered by their enemies from the start to the finish of
the war. At times ridiculously so. They routinely launched attacks on equal
or larger forces and were able to beat or hurt their opponent badly.

I have read many books for decades and I have never heard the WEHRMACHT
considered an easy foe. Read Fighting power by Martin Van Creveld, Overlord
by Max Hastings or Brute Force by John Ellis. Das Heere was beaten by a
complete lack of strategic sense on the part of the OKW(Hitler) and an
overwhelming mass of bodies and equipment generated by the allies. The
standard allied attack was a massive frontal assault destroying everything in
its path with arty, CAS , and naval gunfire. Even Patton , though he was
considered a more dangerous allied general, was called "a very skilled
traffic cop" by a German officer in France. He was willing to take more risks
in advances, but when contact was made, he fought like other allied generals.
Given, they had such a great numbers advantage, they just had to keep coming
until the ammo ran low. The real fighting power of the allied forces was not
their gifted officers, it was the highly intelligent trooper on the ground.
He was the one who had to adapt to the reality of combat at the front as
opposed to the staff officers leading from the rear. As for the German
soldat, he was most impressed with the prodigious amounts of stuff the
Americans had.

France did stop the Italians.
The experienced divisions of Autumn Fog included shot up units with new
replacements and the volks grenadier units. The units of Das Heere in DEC 44
were a shadow of the forces at the start of the war.
As for the brilliance of Patton making a right turn, how about Manstein at
Kharkov or Rommel at Gazala(as an aside, what allied general can you picture
digging up mines with a bayonet).

If the Wehrmacht was so limp, why did it take the rest of the world so long
to beat them? Maybe they wanted to get completely out of the depression
before the war ended.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:29:15 -0400
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: BOOK: RocketMan1

(NOTE:  This is vignette1 from my book-in-process introduced in
message WRITING A BOOK:WANT TO SEE.  Non-fiction Chapter One will
follow soon after this.  German slang and words appear in CAPITAL
letters.  I'll take all the compliments I can get, but I'm
especially interested in critiques and improvements)

         Rocket Man 1: Alarmstart!

     "ALARMSTART!" yells the radio ops man, running from the
radio shack waving a clipboard.  At the same moment a siren
begins to howl at the other end of the airfield.
     Three of the rocket pilots are lounging in deck chairs in
the grass, as they have done at different airfields for the last
four years.
     Feldwebel Reiner Fehrmann has been dozing.  At the sound of
the siren, his eyes snap open, instantly awake.
     Feldwebel Alfred "Bubi" Dufke has been staring into space
for the past half hour, thinking about skis.  His birthday is
coming up, and his parents will want to know what to send him.
Cross country or downhill?  Which should it be?  "ALARMSTART",
the german call to scramble, blows these thoughts away like
powder snow.
     Oberleutnant Hermann Kramer has been browsing through a back
issue of "Der Adler", the Luftwaffe's party magazine, and sipping
at cold coffee from a chunky white Wermacht coffee mug, his lucky
cup.  This magazine is so irritating to him, he can't resist
reading it.  They make it sound like we're winning, he thinks,
when the skies are so full of american VIERMOATS even the birds
are walking.  Here is a photo of the Fuhrer shaking hands with a
man in the hospital.  A JU-88 tail gunner, it says under the
photo.  Kramer was in a hospital in less than two weeks after
graduating from fighter training.  A pair of spitfires had caught
him during a ground attack mission over Dunkirk and given him the
works.  He'd gone over the side of his Messerschmidt 109 with his
left jacket sleeve on fire and had barely gotten his parachute
open before he hit the ground.  He'd rolled around in the sand
trying to get the flames out.  Finally he'd stopped paniking and
just took his jacket off.  The burn ward of the hospital had
shown him the real face of war.  No talk of "chivalry" or
"knights of the air" in the burn ward, which had been filled
almost entirely with pilots and bomber crewmen.   The worst thing
about the burn ward had been the time lying in bed with nothing
to do but think.  Mostly he kept thinking about the ground
attack.  His flight leader had swung down to an altitude of less
than a hundred feet over the ground and opened up on the french
soldiers cowering in a drainage ditch.  They jumped up and ran as
the machine gun bullets caught them.  In the movies he'd seen at
home, dying men sank to the ground, gasping out speeches.  This
had been nothing like that.  As Kramer followed in and squeezed
the gun button, his shells snatched at the men, spun them, cut
them in half, flung them thru the air in a fury of bone and
blood.  It had been horrible.  He firewalled the throttle, pulled
back the stick and rose into the spring sky, shaking all over. He
had felt dirty.  He couldn't stop thinking about them, and as a
result, he didn't see the spitfires coming until they were all
over him.  He had lost his flight leader as well, which was
unforgiveable.
     At the wail of the air raid siren he tosses down the
magazine and jumps from the deck chair.
     "How long?" says Fehrmann.
     "About ten minutes." says the radio ops man.
     "That's all right, then." says Fehrman.
     Kramer examines the sky to the northwest.  That's where they
come from most of the time.  He points at the white trails coming
over the pale horizon.  "There."
     Behind him, the ground crews are yanking off the canvas
tarps from three fat, squat little planes with enormous boomerang
shaped wings.  The armoured nose cones of the rocket planes have
tiny, ridiculous propellers which look as though they were stuck
there as a joke on this, the fastest aircraft in the world.
     Dufke holds his hand above his eyes.  "Ja, that's them.  No
doubt.  Ten reichsmarks says it's Leipzig."
     "They think it's Berlin." says the radio ops man.
     A simple iron ladder is leaning against the open cockpit of
the three planes.  On the nose of each plane is the squadron

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:29:21 -0400
From:    "Rudolph W. Hauschild" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [WEAP] Battleships sunk b...

According to Stuka Pilot by Gunther Just, the JU87 was fitted with a 1000 Kg
bomb.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 14:37:53 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [WEAP] Battleships sunk by torpedos/gunfire

Hello, Mike!

Will look into this, if someone hasn't already, and will let you know
more on Monday.

There is some question that Rudel's bomb actually sank the Marat or
in fact that it was done as a concerted attack but he was given the
credit.

More later.

Terry

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 21:46:41 +0300
From:    Ozgur Altinyay <[email-masked]>
Subject: Can I have the posts for 27 and 28 .

I erased the contents of my mail box for the 27 and 28th of this month. Can I have the posting from the arcgive if possible Mr. List maintainer ?

Ozgur Altinyay

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 14:49:56 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Writing a book:-want to see?

Hello to whomever!

> I have been working on a book project for young readers, and I
> would like to take advantage of this forum for awhile to help me
> to get my book written.  The subject is the Messerschmitt 163
> Komet rocket fighter, and the larger subject of the european air
> war.

    My advice would be to attempt to contact Mr.Wolfgang Spaete, who
1) personally test flew this aircraft and 2) has himself written a
book about his experiences flying this plane. I think it has been
translated into English.

    There are several books out on this subject, and will compile a
reading list for you. Will get it to you on Monday.

    Others who flew this aircraft are : Robert Olejnik, Rudolf "Pitz"
Opitz, Hanna Reitsch to name a few. There are others, but their names
don't come to mind right now.

   I will be showing the history of the Komet, the history of
> the Luftwaffe, and the battles between the Luftwaffe and the US
> 8th Army Air Force.  I've had typical beginner's luck in finding
> hard to get books and even a few eyewitnesses who experienced the
> Komet from both ends of it's cannons.

    Have you received a reading list on this topic that I posted this
morning to the list and Drew Halevy? Those will answer your questions
about sources.

My book is being held back
> by two problems, which I hope you all may help me solve here.
> (1)  My book keeps slipping in and out of a deep coma.  Anyone
> who has tried to write a book without contracts, advances,
> deadlines or prospects will know what I mean.
> (2)  I don't have any feedback.  I would like to show off my
> little project piece by piece and receive your critical responses
> as to literary content and historical accuracy.  If I get
> pompous- I need someone to tell me.  If I get my facts wrong- I
> need someone to tell me.

    I am certain that if you misstate your facts, you will be
corrected. There are some very knowledgeable people on this list.

 If there are resources I haven't
> thought of, I want to know about them.

    This is certainly the place for that.

Also having an audience,
> however critical the feedback, may hold my feet to the fire and
> get me away from my TV and in front of my word processor.  My
> book for young readers has the stirring title:  "Rocket Man!  The
> Rocket Fighters of The Luftwaffe"  .  The title page looks like
> this:

> There is a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

    My advice to you is to stick to the facts, and forget fiction.
Facts surrounding this aircraft are far more interesting than that
which can be manufactured or imagined. There are enough eye-witness
accounts in existence to supply any concept you want to portray.

 The ROCKET MAN
pieces > are a fictional series of vignettes of a JG400 pilot named
> Kramer, who leads a rotte of Komets against a bomber formation.
> It is a device to show the reader, through fictional narrative,
> how it was done from air raid alert to landing.  The narrative is
> built on historical accounts and information given to me by JG400
> vets.  The Chapters which follow are non-fiction narratives of
> the development of the Komet project and the progress of the air
> war.

    >     I will offer up these vignettes and chapters as they are
> completed.

    Interesting.

These are rough drafts, so they are VERY much open to
> improvement, and I want to hear as much feedback pro and con as
> possible.  Public and/or private.  If you have resources, such as
> books or addresses of air war vets I would certainly like to hear
> about them.

    Do you have the names? If you do, I may have their address. If
you don't have any names, I can supply them, in most cases along with
addresses.

        Terry

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 14:55:13 CCS
From:    Jorge Merino <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: INF: USN Chronology 10-28-94

Drew Halevy wrote:

> I find these postings very interesting each day. For this one, I have a
> question. In the postings, the damage of a Kamakize (sp?) is listed as
> suicide plane. When did the term Kamakize begin to be used, esp. by the
> press?-Drew

The word Kamikaze (Divine wind) was "officially" used when the japanese
started to organize the suicide attack groups as such (aircraft specially
destinated to crash into the allied ships).

This term has an old origin. I don't remember the date, but some centuries
ago, the chinese were trying to invade the japanese islands, and sent
about 3500 (??) ships. Suddenly, a violent tornado sunk most of the chinese
fleet, so, the japanese called it Kamikaze (the divine wind which saved
their glorious empire).

Altough the japanese had performed suicide attacks as early as during the
Pearl Harbor attack, these early attacks were more casual. Originated by
the situation (plane badly damaged, pilot wounded, best choice: crash
into the enemy and die with honor instead of bailing out and being captured).

When the first "official" suicide attack squadrons were organized, they
adopted the work Kamikaze, as they considered themselves an equivalent to
the divine wind, which had now to stop the "invading" allied forces.

I don't know when the press started using the work Kamikaze, but I think
it was at the same time (by 1944??).

Jorge Merino

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 14:52:40 CDT
From:    Robert Hohlt <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Sonar

Tim J. Watts Mon, 24 Oct 1994 wrote:

>Also, I believe destroyers in WW II used hydrophones, which were basically
>passive listening devices.  I assume that they had 360 degree listening
>capability.  Sonar was something different, because it sent out a signal
>and the operator listened for echoes.  (I think they may have used the
>hydrophone headgear to listen for sonar returns.)  It is my understanding
>that sonar in WW II had a very narrow beam and had to be pointed.  When
>a destroyer was looking for a submarine,......

Where have I read that the U-Boats really started to get hammered
when the allies started using a new and much improved surface radar?

This 'improved' surface radar enabled hunter-killer groups to locate
surfaced submarines at a much greater distance than before.

Or was this in the Pacific?

Regards,

Robert Hohlt, Jr.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:06:11 CDT
From:    Robert Hohlt <[email-masked]>
Subject: [WEAP] special armor-piercing bombs at Pearl Harbor

Jim Adams,

As Roger Coon, and Mike asked about before I have always heard or
read in the popular history that these special bombs were AP
shells from NAGATOs guns.  Is that still the belief?

Thanks in advance.

Robert Hohlt, Jr.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:11:45 -0400
From:    Ron Babuka <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ME163

>>     I can't help but think that this was a lot of trouble and took up more
>> time, effort, and resources had to spare.  Did the performance of the Me163
>> at all justify this effort and risk?

The Luftwaffe thought that the Me-163 would be "worth the effort" in
maximizing the efficiency of their remaining defensive forces.  The belief
was that instead of commiting a large number of your conventional forces at
possible diversionary raids or commiting them before you knew what the
possible target was (due to the time that it took for aircraft to climb to
an attack height), you could place a number of Me-163's at known strategic
sites and only launch them when you sure of what the target was.  At least
the logic seemed sound.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Babuka
Cornell University
CIT - Information Resources
Ithaca, New York 14850
(607) 254-6492

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 14:27:31 MDT
From:    Eric Pass <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Battle of Britain bibliography

I didn't see Derek Wood's "The Narrow Margin" in that list.  Although
published in 1968, I believe it still holds up.  Particularly
interesting is the day-by-day description of events.  Rivetting
reading even for the layman (such as myself).

Eric ([email-masked])

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:41:10 -0400
From:    Barone <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: Regia Marina, Part 6

        Malta continued to hold out but the supply situation continued to
worsen.  Meanwhile, the Italian lack of fuel grew steadily more serious as
only intermittent supplies from Germany were being received.  At times, oil
was pumped from the major warships to supply escorts for convoys to Africa.

        In August 1942, the British ran a massive convoy operation, code-
named Pedestal, to Malta.  This was a key battle of the campaign.  The
Italian heavy units were unable to intercept, though, because of the lack
of fuel.  The "Doria", "Duilio", and "Cesare" were now all in reserve.
Despite heavy attacks by aircraft, submarines, and torpedo boats, some
ships got through.  British losses were significant with the loss of an
aircraft carrier and two cruisers.  Malta was now resupplied and once
again began to launch offensive strikes against Axis convoys.  The failure
to take Malta was now being felt.

        On October 23, the British 8th Army launched its offensive in North
Africa and on November 8 Allied forces landed in Algeria and Morocco.  Axis
forces in North Africa were quickly squeezed from the west and east into
Tunisia.  Italian light forces and mercantile units suffered great losses
to supply these units, which finally surrendered in May 1943.

        On June 10, 1943, Allied landings were made in Sicily.  At this
time "Veneto" was under repair for damage suffered in a U.S. air attack
on June 5.  "Roma" and "Littorio" were available and "Dorio" and "Duilio",
which been been reactivated, began being refitted which would take two
months.  "Cesare" was attached to the naval school at Pola.  Nine light
cruisers and a few destroyers also remained in service.  It was decided
to preserve the remaining units, if possible, as bargaining chips for an
armistice, which most Italians favored.  If this was not possible, the
ships would seek one final battle.

        On July 25, 1943, Mussolini's government fell and a new government
was installed headed by Marshal Pietro Badoglio.  Badoglio played a dangerous
game of conducting secret negotiations with the Allies while appeasing his
German allies' fears that Italy would drop out of the Axis.  Because Badoglio
indicated that Italian forces would not support an Allied airborne assault
around Rome, Eisenhower announced Italy's surrender on September 8, a day
before the agreed upon date.  Badoglio's government was caught completely
flat-footed as were the armed services.  As a result, Italian contingency
plans were ruined and the attendant German response were swift.

        At this time, the Italian Navy's main battle force was stationed
in ports of the northern Tyrrhenian, including La Spezia and Genoa.  Instead
of receiving the anticipated order to intervene against an Allied invasion,
the ships were ordered to sail south to ports under Allied control.  In
conformity with the armistice agreement, the ships were to be disarmed,
but would retain their crews and remain under the Italian flag.  The order
to sail applied to all units except those under repair or otherwise
incapacitated.  If threatened with capture by the Germans, these ships
were to be sabotaged, scuttled, or abandoned.

        The main battle force, at this time, was made up of "Roma", which
had recently become flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini, the fleet commander,
"Vittorio Veneto", and "Italia" (this was the "Littorio" which had been
renamed with the fall of Mussolini's government).  These three ships made
up the 9th Division.  Leaving La Spezia on the night of September 8-9,
accompanied by the other ships in port capable of sailing, they were joined
by the light cruisers, "Avoia", "D'Acosta", "Abruzzi", "Garibaldi", "Regolo",
and "Montecuccoi" and a destroyer escort from Genoa.  The total force
included three battleships, six light cruisers, eight destroyers, and six
destroyer escorts.  Because of the secret nature of the move, neither the
Italian nor Allied air forces had been asked to provide air cover.

        At 3:37 PM on September 9, the force was off the island of Asinara,
near the La Maddalena Naval Base in Sardinia.  German Dornier Do-217 bombers
of Kampfgeschwader 100, based out of Marseilles, France, began attacking.
These aircraft were equipped with a new type of radio-controlled, anti-ship
bomb, the FX-1400 (Fritz-X).  This missile had a mass of over 1,800 kg,
including the 350 kg warhead, and was designed for use against armored
warships.  Each plane carried two such missiles.

        Without protective air cover, the Luftwaffe pilots were able to fly
what was little more than a training exercise.  To make matters easier for
the Germans, the Italians mistakingly thought that the approaching aircraft
were British.  When they realized their error, they began evasive maneuvers
and raised anti-aircraft fire which proved to be less-than-effective.
Shortly after their attack began, the Germans started registering hits.
At 3:42PM, the "Roma" was hit amidships on the starboard side.  After
penetrating the hull, the bomb exploded, opening a large gash in the
ship's side, forcing the after engines to shut down.  A second bomb hit
a few minutes later, on the port side, between the number two main turret
and the forward secondary turret, near the forward magazine.  The ensuing
explosion caused the remaining engines to shut down.  The ship was
immobilized and a furious fire broke out between the bow and the midship
section.  The forward magazine caught fire and the powder charges within
ignited, causing a massive explosion, blowing turret number two into the
sea.  She took on large amounts of water, listed, and at 4:11 PM broke in
two, forward of the bridge, and sank.  She took 1,167 crewmen and 86
officers with her, including Admiral Bergamini and his staff.  Only 622
crew members were rescued by the escorts.  Most were burned or wounded
and they were landed in the Balaeric Islands (Spanish territory) for
treatment.  The "Italia" was hit once, causing minor damage.  She took
on 800 tons of water, but her performance was unhindered.

        The fleet came under the command of Admiral R. Oliva, the senior
officer present, on the cruiser "Eugenio Di Savoia".  The ships continued
south and reached Malta on the morning of September 11.  Awaiting them were
other units, including the 5th Division with "Doria" and "Duilio".  They
had arrived the previous day from Taranto; on their voyage they were also
attacked but suffered no damage.  The "Cesare" was also attached to the
5th Division but for some months prior to the armistice, she had been
assigned to the naval school in Pola with a reduced crew.  She successfully
sailed to Malta after a brief stop in Taranto.  Her trip was marred when,
on September 9, some of the crew, wishing to scuttle the ship, mutinied.
This uprising was quickly controlled by the officers, who convinced those
involved that they had to carry out the provisions of the armistice.

        Command of the units in Malta was assumed by Admiral A. Da Zara,
commander of the 5th Division.  Because of the large number of ships in
the anchorage, the "Italia" and "Veneto" were sent to Alexandria, Egypt,
along with some cruisers and destroyers.  The other capital ships remained
in Malta.
--
Joe Barone
[email-masked]
Did you ever hear enthusiasm like that in all your life?  They even
have the damn grave diggers in there!  Now that's fighting spirit!

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:53:25 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: <No subject given>

From:   IN%"[email-masked]"  "PMDF Mail Server" 28-OCT-1994 16:51:04.51
To:     IN%"[email-masked]"
CC:
Subj:   Undeliverable mail: SMTP delivery failure

Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:50:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: PMDF Mail Server <[email-masked]>
Subject: Undeliverable mail: SMTP delivery failure
To: [email-masked]

--Boundary (ID 6SK5cMDv4OsKRd0s2Fitcw)
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

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MIME-version: 1.0
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Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:50:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: questions, questions
To: [email-masked]

About six months ago, when I first joined this list, there was considerable
discussion surrounding the compilation of a list of all airborne operations
during the Second World War (all nationalities).  In recent readings (C.A.
MacCartney's "October 15: A History of Hungary 1929-45") I came across a
reference to Hungarian (yes, Hungarian) airborne ops to take some bridges
behind the Yugoslav lines during the invasion of that country by the Axis in
April 1941.  Needless to say, this one was not on the list as finally compiled.
Anybody out there have any idea where I can find any further info (or even a
confirming reference) regarding the admittedly obscure topic of possible
Hungarian airborne operations (or even the documented existence of Hungarian
airborne forces) ???  I'm not holding my breath on this one, but the breadth
of knowledge and sources on this list often amazes me....

Thanks for any help

Mike Yaklich

--Boundary (ID 6SK5cMDv4OsKRd0s2Fitcw)--

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:02:53 PDT
From:    Jim Brady <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Eight Air Force 93rd Bomber Group (Heavy)

Tony,

  Excellent info on the Flying Circus. I am trying to find anything on Val
Wilkie, a bomber crew member (gunner, I believe), who went down over Germany
in either 43 or 44. Any ideas about checking on an individual crew member?

Thanks,

 Jim Brady

>From:
>The Mighty Eight: A history of the Units, Men and Machines of the US 8th
>Air Force, by Roger A. Freeman Motorbooks International, c1991.
>
>Could not find any info on Louis Mazure.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Tony Schuler
>[email-masked]
>

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 21:22:36 GMT+1
From:    SYSTEM 0PERATOR <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: GEN: DO VETERANS WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES?

"Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hello, John and others!
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with your post and others who have addressed
> this topic. I have had the same experience with German veterans. I
> have met only one who refused to discuss his experiences, and this
> officer was involved in the Stalingrad resupply effort. All other
> areas were gladly and openly discussed.

Quite the same things with French veterans. Those of the Algerian and
Indochina wars obviously have bad memories they do not like to recall
(these were wars of car bombings and ambushes and friends found throat-
slitted).
It is altogether different for WWII veterans (most of those I know have
fought mainly with the Free French and 1945 Army - one was at Bir Hacheim,
then Alamein and up to Alsace, a true odyssey). Those are prouder of their
achievements.
However, I have always found it very hard to interview WWII veterans, maybe
because of the age difference (they communicate more easily with those of
similar generations). It also seems to be a very tactful exercise, where
for example it is not always wise to remind a 1945 veteran that he is
mistaken when he says he fought the Das Reich Division in Alsace or was
opposed by Tiger tanks. It is often better to nod an listen.
I have found them not always reliable for getting a fair military view (after all
many were troopers and did not have access to information), but
invaluable for their everyday experience of the time.

just my two centimes,

Arnaud.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 18:56:31 -0400
From:    "John E. Kollar" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WWII Memoirs

In addition to the Oral History Library, the United States Naval Institute
has a large library of recorded interviews, I will try and get a reach
address, not only do they have the Admirals, but they also have the people
who actually did work :-).

John E. Kollar

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 19:05:28 -0400
From:    "John E. Kollar" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: Carriers Intrepid and Franklin

Can't say anything about the Franklin, but yes the Interpid is
the same one as the one in good ole' New York harbour.
Not New Jersey (although they want it all, got the Giants, Jets, why......
        :-)

John E. Kollar

Ardent New Yawker

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 19:29:46 -0400
From:    "John E. Kollar" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HYPO"The big what ??"?

The talk of the German soldier being impressed by the amount of ordinance
that teh allies threw at him makes me reply with a story, from Ike's
Crusade in Europe.

During the movement up the boot, an American force came upon a big
concrete bulding that occupied the center of a town, and the Germans
were set up in it as a command post.  The americans tried to take
the building by assault, it failed, they tried with grenades, satchel
charges, bazookas, but nothing worked, then the commander called
over to a near-by artillery post.  A 208mm gun(howitzer? the big guy on
wheels) was rolled over to a blind spot (where German gunners couldn't
shoot them) and from 50yds away fired.  The third round went completely
through the building and the Germans surrendered, the officer in charge
was reported to have said 'When the Americans begin to use heavy artillery
as a sniper rifle, it is time to give up'

John E. Kollar

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 20:54:35 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: CVE-57  USS Anzio

ANZIO (CVE-57)

dp. 9,570 (tl.);
l. 512' 3";
b. 65' 2";
ew. 108' 1";
dr. 20';
s. 19.3 k.;
cpl. 860;
a. 1 5", 16 40-mm., 20 20-mm.;
cl. CASABLANCA; T. S4-S2-BB3

Auxiliary aircraft carrier ACV-57 was laid down on 12 December 1942
by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Co., Vancouver, Wash. under a Maritime
Commission contract (MC hull 1094); named ALIKULA BAY on 22 January
1943; renamed CORAL SEA on 3 April 1943; launched on 1 May 1943;
sponsored by Mrs. Frank J. Fletcher, wife of Vice Admiral Fletcher;
redesignated CVE-57 on 15 July 1943; and commissioned at Astoria, Oreg.,
on 27 August 1943, Capt. Herbert W. Taylor in command.

On 24 September, CORAL SEA got underway for shakedown in Puget
Sound. She arrived at San Diego, Calif., on 8 October to load
aircraft and hold flight operations off the California coast. The
carrier sailed for Hawaii on 25 October and, upon arrival at Pearl
Harbor, joined sister ship LISCOME BAY (CVE-56) for exercises off
Oahu. On 10 November, CORAL SEA steamed southwest to join the
American forces about to invade the Gilbert Islands. She launched
strikes on Makin Island from 20 through 28 November. When Tarawa
had been captured, CORAL SEA headed for Pearl Harbor and arrived
there on 5 December. She paused to embark passengers and load
aircraft for transport to the United States and departed on 8
December. The carrier arrived at Alameda, Calif., on 14 December to
take on new planes. She put to sea on 22 December and steamed back
to Hawaii. On 28 December, CORAL SEA anchored at Pearl Harbor and
began preparations for the impending assault on Kwajalein.

The escort carrier was underway on 3 January 1944 for a series of
exercises in Hawaiian waters. After final fitting out, she sailed on 22
January in Task Group (TG) 52.9 and arrived in the vicinity of Kwajalein
on 31 January, two days after planes of the Fast Carrier Task Force
began pounding airfields on the atoll. CORAL SEA provided direct and
indirect air support for the amphibious landings. On 24 February, the
ship set course for Eniwetok, but was recalled to Hawaii and arrived at
Pearl Harbor on 3 March.

After a brief respite, CORAL SEA got underway again on 11 March and
proceeded to the Solomon Islands. She anchored at Tulagi on 21 March,
topped off with fuel, and loaded stores. Sailing again on 30 March, the
escort carrier headed for Emirau Island. From 1 to 11 April she launched
planes in support of forces occupying Emirau and returned to Port
Purvis on 15 April.

The next day, CORAL SEA left Tulagi to assist in the reconquest of
New Guinea. On the 19th, she joined TG 78.2, which was formed to
support Allied footholds at Hollandia and Aitape. Her planes joined
in strikes on the 22d of April, and, on 26 April, the escort
carrier sailed to Seeadler Harbor for replenishment and on 7 May,
headed for Espiritu Santo for availability.

Her repair period completed, the ship got underway on 8 June for
Kwajalein, the staging point for the invasion of the Marianas. The
American forces sortied on 10 June, and CORAL SEA helped to provide air
support for landings by the 2d Marine Division on Saipan. She endured
numerous Japanese air attacks during the next few days but received only
minor damage. The carrier had moved south to Guam on 17 June to begin
softening-up operations against that island but returned to Saipan the
next day to assist the bogged-down American forces. CORAL SEA and her
escorts retired to Eniwetok on 28 June but returned to Saipan on 4 July.
Her planes made further air strikes before she put into Eniwetok on 15
July for repairs to her engines.  Ultimately, CORAL SEA was ordered back
to the United States for a much needed overhaul, and the carrier sailed
on 23 July.  Two days later, she paused at Kwajalein to unload most of
her aircraft and ammunition and then continued via Pearl Harbor for the
naval base at San Diego.  CORAL SEA received word that her name had been
changed to ANZIO as of 15 September.

ANZIO held sea trials off the California coast and was ready to sail for
the western Pacific on 16 September and entered the Pearl Harbor Navy
Yard for a tender availability.  On 8 October, the carrier began a
series of training exercises; and, on the 16th, she set out for
Eniwetok.  There, ANZIO joined a hunter/killer group and carried out an
antisubmarine warfare (ASW) mission while she was en route to Ulithi.
ON 4 November, she was ordered to assist RENO (CL-96) which had been
torpedoed in the Philippine Sea.  When ANZIO was relieved by EXTRACTOR
(ARS-15), she resumed her ASW patrols and worked at that task through
mid-February 1945, when she steamed to Iwo Jima.

ANZIO resumed combat support operations on 16 February.  Three days
later, she launched a strike to the north on Chichi Jima in the Bonin
Islands.  From 19 February through 4 March, ANZIO followed a schedule of
launching her first flight just before sunset and recovering her last
just before dawn.  During these nocturnal operations, she completed 106
sorties without a single accident.  ANZIO departed the Iwo Jima area on
8 March and entered San Pedro Bay at Leyte on 12 March.  After 10 days
of upkeep, she sailed to join the invasion of Okinawa.  After providing
air cover for an Okinawa-bound amphibious group, the escort carrier
joined other forces in the vicinity of Kerama Retto in seizing that
island group to provide an advanced base for the Fleet.  The Okinawa
attack began on 1 April, and ANZIO remained on line until she retired to
Ulithi on 30 April for repairs to her rudder bearings.  On 21 May, the
carrier resumed ASW operations in the Okinawa area.  This role ended 17
June, when ANZIO sailed to San Pedro Bay, Leyte, for upkeep.

ANZIO left the Philippines on 6 July to begin what proved to be her last
stint of combat duty.  She joined TG 30.8 and positioned herself about
600 miles east of Tokyo. ANZIO made ASW patrols in support of Admiral
Halsey's attacks on the Japanese home islands.  She received word of the
Japanese capitulation on 15 August and sailed for Guam on 19 August.
After refitting and training new flight crews, the escort carrier headed
for Okinawa.  From that point, she was to provide air cover and ASW
patrol services for transports carrying occupation troops to Korea.  On
8 September, ANZIO anchored at Jinsen, Korea, whence she provided air
support for the landings of the occupation force.  The escort carrier
left Korea on 13 September and returned to Okinawa.  On 19 September,
she broke her homeward-bound pennant, became a member of a "Magic-
Carpet" group, and reached San Francisco on 30 September.

While at San Francisco, ANZIO was modified to provide maximum passenger
accommodations.  The carrier made two trips to the western Pacific and
back, one to Pearl Harbor and one to Shanghai, China, to shuttle
American troops home.  ANZIO arrived at Seattle, Wash., on 23 December
and ended the year at that port.

On 18 January 1946, ANZIO sailed for Norfolk, Va.  She paused at San
Francisco then continued southward to transit the Panama Canal before
finally reaching the east coast.  ANZIO was placed out of commission on
5 August 1946 and became a unit of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet berthed at
Norfolk.  The ship was redesignated CVHE-57 on 15 June 1955.  ANZIO was
struck from the Navy list on 1 March 1959 and sold to the Master Metals
Co. on 24 November 1959.

ANZIO received six battle stars for service in World War II.

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 21:08:48 EDT
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HYPO: The "Big" what-

Dear Tim and RWulf (Sorry, but its otherwise unsigned),

First, Tim. I fully agree. Armor, and air-mobile force coordination,
were the key elements in the German doctrinal superiority I noted.
Question: was the "dreadful" state of British armor as measured
against prewar standards in all armies, or against the new standard
as created by the Wehrmacht.

RWulf. Prior to June 1941 I seriously doubt a case can be made that
Germany was outnumbered in any real sense. The British Empire and         the French had global commitments that drew off large elements of
their forces, and political division among Germany's opponents
prevented any concentration against her. It took the Red Army
about eighteen months to recover fully from the initial collapse
of June-Dec 1941, which I would argue was at least as much, if not
predominantly, the fault of Stalin's policies as anything the
Germans did. Only then, with the Russians prepared to seize the
strategic initiative and the Americans and British ashore in
Italy, would I accept that the Germans were seriously outnumbered
on the ground. And when, after the summer of 1942, did they
"routinely" launch large scale attacks, much less "beat or hurt
their opponent badly." Zitadelle? Horstnebel?

I have never said the German common soldier and his immediate
superiors were not tenacious fighters, who could adapt, sometimes         brilliantly, to disastrous situations. But modern militaries are          national organizations, and they must be judged in their totality.
I would think that by now the myth of "it was Hitler's fault" is
a dead horse. True, he micromanaged where he shouldn't have,
but he had a far better sense of what could be done in 1939-1940
than many of his staff-trained Generals, and he probably saved
the Ostheer with his "stand-or-die" orders after the battle of
Moscow, again in opposition to his generals. It was not Hitler's
fault that no one made provision for cold weather gear or lubricants
before Barbarossa, and I do not accept that this was not done out
of fear of being accused of treason by planning for failure in
the initial campaign. It would have been easy enough to argue
those provisions were necessary for the occupation that would
follow victory. The list of logistics failures in the Wehrmacht
is immense: their artillery was barely an improvement on WWI models,
their tanks were generally inferior to their opponents up to 1943,
and then barely held their own against the Russians, and, until the
introduction of jets, their aircraft were effectively a generation        behind those of the western allies. One reason the allies were able       to establish logistic superiorities was that no one thought to            rationalize the entire German war effort until 1944. Is it true           that one reason Zitadelle was delayed until it became a death trap        was that shipping Jews had priority over eastern front resupply?

The standard allied attack in the west was not a massive frontal
assault destroying everything in its path, any more than the Wehrmacht
blitzkrieg of 1939-41 had been. Both the British and Americans shied
away from taking casualties. Cobra may have been an obliteration of
two divisions, but everything that followed was maneuver. Count the
encirclements and prisoner totals from Tunisia to the Ruhr. And what
is wrong with reliance on firepower? As Patton may or may not have
said: The object is not to die for your country, it is to make the
other poor bastard die for his. War is a political tool, and phyrric
victories stressing battlefield valor solely for the sake of valor,
of the kind Britain won in WWI, are for fools.

We are just beginning to understand what happened on the eastern front.
One thing seems clear, however. While the Russians did use obliterating
artillery, they were able to achieve local "steamroller" concentrations
by outsmarting the Germans. I have not checked the latest figures,
but there may have been a rough parity in German and Russian troop
strengths as late as 1944. What the Russians did do was use the
600,000 American trucks they received intelligently, together with
extremely effective deception operations, to shift forces back and
force, always maintaining the initiative. There were no "Mongol Hordes."
And if the Wehrmacht had planned its war effort intelligently,
by 1944 they might have had 600,000 trucks too. And interior lines.

You are right about the Franco-Italian front. Sorry.

I don't believe either Manstein or Rommel were facing the pressure
Patton was, and unless I'm mistaken, Patton's force was larger than
Manstein's and the movement more complex. As for the bayonet story,
Stilwell and Bradley, for two, if the need arose. I can think of
others.

The Wehrmacht wasn't limp, and, overall, it wasn't second-rate. But it    wasn't the mythic fighting force swamped by enemy numbers and production
and the daffy orders of the "carpetchewer" that the German generals
portrayed in their post-war accounts. In fact, one of the things that     was second rate was a lot of their generalstaffship. The rest of the
world didn't take that long to beat them, either. If you date the
beginning of the comeback to November 1942 (Torch, Stalingrad),
it was thirty months. From Poland to the Volga took 36, against
weaker opposition.

Call it personal preference, but I find the German performance in
WWI much more impressive.

Sorry about the bandwidth, but if I'm going to take on fifty years
of mythological encumbrance, I'll ask for a little leeway.

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 21:24:00 EDT
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: [INF] USAAF 29 OCT 44

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
SUNDAY, 29 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-24, Consolidated Liberator
  B-25, North American Mitchell
  B-26, Martin Marauder
  C-47, Douglas Skytrain
  F-6, North American Mustang
  P-38, Lockheed Lightning

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

AMERICAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  ALASKA (Eleventh Air Force): On Paramushiru Island, 4 B-25s on
reconnaissance hit Tomari Cape buildings and a freighter which is left
listing.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATER

  CHINA THEATER (Fourteenth Air Force): In China, fighters in support of
Chinese ground forces blast hill positions in the Lungling and Mangshih
areas; others damage a bridge at Sinshih, bomb Kweiyi and Paoching, hit
railroad targets between Siaokan and Sinyang, and strafe airfields at
Chingmen, Tangyang, and Ichang.

  INDIA-BURMA THEATER (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 80+ fighter-bombers again
attack a wide variety of targets including troop concentrations, bridges,
supply dumps, and numerous targets of opportunity at Kawlin, Wingnang,
Hsenwi, Bhamo, Shwegu, Kyungon, Tugyaung, Yebyangale, Henu, and Kayin.

EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO)

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Ninth Air Force): About 170 B-26s and A-20s bomb rail
bridges at Mayen, Konz-Karthaus, and Euskirchen, Germany and Ellern and
Moerdijke, the Netherlands; fighters fly escort to bombers, sweeps, defensive
patrols, armed reconnaissance over wide areas of E France, the Netherlands,
and Germany, bomb rail targets and bridges, and fly cover for the US XIX
Corps in Belgium. In Belgium, HQ 363d Tactical Reconnaissance Group and the
160th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron move from Luxembourg, Luxembourg to Le
Culot with F-6s.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Fifteenth Air Force): In Germany, 35 of over 155+
B-24s dispatched with fighter escort, bomb Munich W marshalling yard; the
remainder and 670 other bombers, dispatched against targets in S Germany,
abort the mission due to bad weather. In Austria, 30 P-38s, after escort
duty, strafe communications lines from Wels to Kienberg destroying 17
locomotives and several other road and rail transportation targets.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy, weather again restricts
operations; XXII Tactical Air Command fighter-bombers fly 15 sorties against
railroad targets in the Po Valley.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA)

  AAFPOA (Seventh Air Force): 19 B-24s from Saipan Island bomb Chichi Jima
Island. 2 B-24s from Guam Island strike Yap Island.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: Fighter-bombers and
B-25s, operating in small forces, are active against airfields, AA positions,
and targets of opportunity on Halmahera Island. In New Guinea, fighter-
bombers also hit Ransiki while fighter-bombers, A-20s, and B-25s bomb Urarom
and Soeli and strafe targets of opportunity throughout the Urarom-Kaimana
area. HQ Thirteenth AF moves from Noemfoor Island, New Guinea to Morotai
Island. The 63d and 64th Troop Carrier Squadrons, 403d Troop Carrier Group,
based on Biak Island,,,,,,,, begin operating from Wakde and Noemfoor Islands
respectively with C-47s.

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

29/0118Z OCT

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

Date:    Fri, 28 Oct 1994 20:29:31 -0500
From:    Drew Halevy <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP-planes

Given the discussion of various WINGS episodes, there is a new WINGS
series on every friday night called Sea Wings. Tonights episode is on the
Avenger and the Hellcat. Very interesting.-Drew

Drew  Philip Halevy      |  Forward he cried, from the rear,
Graduate Student         |  and the front ranks died.
Department of History    |  General sat, and the lines on the map,
University of Arkansas   |  moved from side to side.
[email-masked]    |  Us and Them-Pink Floyd

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

End of WWII-L Digest - 27 Oct 1994 to 28 Oct 1994
*************************************************