Subject: WWII-L Digest - 16 Jan 1995 to 17 Jan 1995

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 00:04:08 -0500

There are 33 messages totalling 932 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Swastika
  2. Faulty Torpedoes (8)
  3. INF: 50 Years Ago - 18-JAN-1945
  4. INF: USN Chronology 01-17-95
  5. Hist: Directory of USN Sources
  6. 50TH: SMITHSONIAN AND
  7. "Barbarossa" (5)
  8. TRV: B-29 Auxiliary Power (fwd)
  9. BOOKS reviews sought
 10. Col. Ferdinand, USMC
 11. INF: 50 Years Ago - 13-JAN-1945
 12. TRIV: Pacific Armor (2)
 13. <No subject given>
 14. Romanian Carriers (2)
 15. REQ  Chemical corps musuim
 16. Inf: 3rd Army Chronology - 18Jan45
 17. AWOL Fliers
 18. HIST: SS
 19. Incendiaries and V-J
 20. INFO

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

Date:    Mon, 16 Jan 1995 22:40:00 PST
From:    John Kula <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Swastika

A.k.a. Gammadion or Fylfot

A mystic sign or emblem known in heraldry as the cross cramponnee, used
(especially in Byzantine architecture and among the North American Indians)
as an ornament of religious import.  It has been found at Hissarlik, on
ancient Etruscan tombs, Celtic monuments, Buddhist inscriptions, Greek
coins, etc.
(excerpted from Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Revised Edition.)
John Kula   [[email-masked] ... [email-masked] ...
[email-masked]]

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

Date:    Mon, 16 Jan 1995 23:17:13 -1000
From:    John DeVirgilio <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

On Fri, 13 Jan 1995, Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal wrote:

>         I'm a soon-to-be doctoral candidate at Marquette looking for any
> unique, obscure, or first-person documentation regarding the Mark XIV
> torpedo and it's less than stellar performance during the early months of
> the Pacific War. I believe I have touched upon the major authors & works
> (Lockwood, Beach, Roscoe, etc.) and read most general submarine histories
> of the campaign. Also, if anyone is aware of a good source for
> photographs of said ordnance, or of any photo histories of the Newport
> Torpedo Station, please let me know. Thanks!
>
>         Doug Shireman
>

Dear Doug,

Check with the Naval Institute for submarine reunions, also check various
naval museums around the country for reunions.  Many of the old
submariners can give you great insight on the reliability of the Mk.14
torpedo.  Bascially, only one of every seven Mk.14 torpedoes fired hit their
targets and exploded during the first 18-24 months of the war.  There is
some evidence mixed with speculation that approx. 10% of our own sumbmarine
losses were due to our own circling torpedoes.  Sorry, I have no citation for
you at this time, perhaps one of the readers here on the net can add to this
story.

Although documents have been moved around, you may find some valuable
documents  at the National Archives (Suitland) and check if they still
have Bureau of Ordnance records.  The Naval Historic Center is another
gold mine for people searching for naval information.  Find the book
"Naval Weapons of World War Two"by John Campbell, ISBN 0 85177 329 X,
this is a superb source book.

A trivia note:  Early in WWII, several American submarine captains found
they could use the slightly longer (and slightly more reliable) Mk. 15
destroyer torpedo in place of the faulty Mk. 14. (source: Adm. Bernard
Clarey... still alive at 84 here in Honolulu).  Check out the oral
history collection at the Naval Institute, there is an eight hundred page
oral history on Adm. Clarey that may interest you.

Good luck,  :-)
John F. De Virgilio

P.S.  There are several Mk.14 torpedoes on display at the Bowfin Museum
here at Pearl Harbor.

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 03:32:21 -0800
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 18-JAN-1945

On 18-JAN-1945, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - In the British 2nd Army sector, the 7th Armoured Division
takes Schilberg, opening the highway from there to Sittard, and Heide,
northeast of Susteren. In the U.S. 1st Army sector, the 30th Division takes
Poteau. The 1st Division repels a counterattack near Rohrbusch and
eliminates a pocket of Germans south of the Ambleve River. In the 3rd Army
sector, the XII Corps opens an offensive with the 4th and 5th Divisions
attacking north across the Sauer between Reisdorf and Ettelbruck. The 9th
Division loses Butzdorf during a determined German counterattack but hold
onto Tettingen. In the 7th Army sector, a battalion of the 45th Division is
isolated by a German infiltration in the Bitche salient. Indecisive and
costly fighting continues in the Rittershoffen-Hatten area. The Germans are
increasingly active south of Hatten and overrun positions in Sessenheim and
Bois de Sessenheim.

Eastern Front - The 1st Belorussian Front wipes out the last remaining
Germans in Warsaw. In Hungary, the 2nd Ukraine Front clears that part of
Budapest east of the Danube. The Soviet armies in Poland are rapdily
approaching German Silesia.

Philippines - The XIV Corps is ordered to drive south beyond the Agno in
force. In I Corps area, the 6th Division takes Urdaneta while the 20th
continues to probe into the Cabaruan Hills without making contact with the
main Japanese forces.

Camotes - From Ponson Island, units of the 7th Division move by sea to Poro
Island and establishes a beachead.

Palau Islands - Two special Japanese units land on Peleliu Island and
attempt unsuccessfully to blow up U.S. ammo dumps and aircraft stores. They
do no damage and are wiped out.

The Homefront
-------------
1944 War Costs - The War Production Board reports U.S. war expenditures for
1944 totaled $91,174,000,000, an increase of 7.1% over 1943. This brought
the total since July 1, 1940 to $244,500,000,000.

Roosevelt Dog Case - The White House describes as "a most regrettable
combination of errors" an incident whereby three servicemen wre put off an
Army cargo plane in Memphis, Tenn., on January 11 because a large dog sent
by Col. Elliott Roosevelt to his wife, actress Faye Emerson had a high A
priority. The incident was revealed yesterday by Seaman First Class Leon
LeRoy, one of the men displaced. Secretary of War Henry Stimson says
"somewhere down the line someone made a mistake."

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

Sources: "United States Army in World War II, Chronology 1941-1945" compiled
by Mary H. Williams, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of
the Army, "2194 Days of War" by Cesare Salmaggi and Alfredo Pallavisimi,
"Facts On File Yearbook 1945, Person's Index Of World Events" edited by R.L.
Lapica.

Copyright 1995 by John B Davis, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Previous articles are archived at ftp.webcom.com in directory /pub/jbd/www
and can be accessed via the WWW by URL: http://www.webcom.com/~jbd/ww2.html.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Davis                Cary, North Carolina                 [email-masked]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 04:00:15 PST
From:    "Keller, Theron P." <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: USN Chronology 01-17-95

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

1945
01/17 Wed.  United States naval vessel damaged:
             Escort carrier NEHENTA BAY (CVE-74), by storm,
              Philippine Islands area,
              17 d. 41'N., 117 d. 33'E.
            Japanese naval vessel sunk:
             Transport NO. 15, by submarine TAUTOG (SS-199), off
              Kyushu, Japan,
              31 d. 09'N., 130 d. 29'E.

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

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 07:16:27 -0500
From:    Thoams Wildenberg <[email-masked]>
Subject: Hist: Directory of USN Sources

For those interested: the 43 page Directory of 20th Century U.S. Naval
History Sources in the Washington, DC area has been revised and is now
available.  It consists of the following:

        Section I:  Descriptive listing of 27 repositories
                    in the Washington, DC area

        Section II: Annotated listing of 57 special collections
                    with an overview of their holdings

        Section III: Table identifying 32 Record Groups held by
                     the National Archives having materaials of interest
                     to naval, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard
                     historians.

        Section IV:  Listing of the 200 plus collections of personal
                     papers of naval personalities held in the Library
                     of Congress and the Naval Historical Center.

        The Directory is available for $7.50 plus $1.50 P&H, $9.00 Total

        Send to :       Tom Wildenberg
                        8750 Georia Ave., Apt 414B
                        Silver Spring, Md. 20910

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

Date:    Mon, 16 Jan 1995 11:11:09 EST
From:    Mike Fetters <[email-masked]>
Subject: 50TH: SMITHSONIAN AND

Good to hear from you Ben. I'm glad you feel better about the October 26
script than the earlier versions. One thing I want to make clear, "War
in the Pacific" was called an "introductory unit" when it was added to
the exhibit in August and some took this to mean a separate exhibition.
"War in the Pacific" will blend seamlessly into the original first
section of the exhibition "Fight to the Finish." So "The Last Act: The
Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II" exhibition now has six units:
"War in the Pacific," "Fight to the Finish," "The Decision to Drop the
Bomb," "Enola Gay: The B-29 and the Atomic Missions," "Hiroshima and
Nagasaki" and "Japan Surrenders." Mike Fetters

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 10:02:30 EST
From:    "Patrick D. Marsden" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "Barbarossa"

> The problem is that a lot of equipment that came thru Archangel-all the
> trucks, aircraft and tanks- would have had to come up thru Persia.This is a
> much longer supply route and delivers the equipment much further from where
> it is needed. I know the Soviets say that Lend-Lease was "insignificant" in
> their prosecution of the war, but I think Soviet advances would have been
> at "Panji-wagon" speed rather than at Studebaker 2.5 ton rates...330,000
> trucks is a lot to dismiss so lightly.
> Jim O'Neil

Just a side note here:  I seem to remember that, until the mid 1970's,
the majority of the Soviet Army's truck transport was still based on
American made vehicles.  Only about that time did Soviet trucks begin
to make up the majority.

Can anyone confirm this with a source a little more reliable than my
memory?  It's interesting that the 'insignificant' aid was used in
the field for quite some time after the war.

patrick

--
Patrick D. Marsden           |
Computational Physics, Inc.  |
Fairfax, Virginia            |
(703) 204-1301               |
[email-masked]        |

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 08:55:03 -0600
From:    Mark Parillo <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

On Mon, 16 Jan 1995, John DeVirgilio wrote:

> There is
> some evidence mixed with speculation that approx. 10% of our own sumbmarine
> losses were due to our own circling torpedoes.  Sorry, I have no citation for
> you at this time, perhaps one of the readers here on the net can add to this
> story.

   In _United States Submarine Losses, World War II_, by the Naval
History Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and in
Charles Lockwood, _Sink 'Em All_, two submarine sinkings are blamed on
circular runs of our own torpedoes. But the former also lists five
submarines lost to unknown causes and the latter lists four. Some of
these may have been due to faulty torpedoes. In addition, authorities
such as Ned Beach and Richard O'Kane have attributed the loss of the
_Wahoo_ to the same cause. The _Wahoo_ was sunk by Japanese forces while
attempting to exit the Sea of Japan, but had sustained some damage from
unknown causes that restricted its maneuverability. Beach and O'Kane
believe the original damage came from a circling torpedo.

      - Mark Parillo
        Department of History
        Kansas State University

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 16:24:45 +0100
From:    Emmanuel Gustin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TRV: B-29 Auxiliary Power (fwd)

 >          I've been asked to post this by another group. We had a discussion
 >          about the Crosley car (same manufacturer as the radios) and it was
 >          mentioned that the Crosley engine that eventually found its way
 >          into the Crosley car started life as an auxiliary power source for
 >          B-29. The story went that a Crosley engine was in each wing of a B-
 >          29, in case power failed to such things as hydraulic or electrical
 >          systems, this engine would be a backup.

Drawings of the B-29 show a single APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) in the
tail, just in front of the leading edge of the tailplane, with a small
fuel tank in front of it. No idea what type it was.

Emmanuel Gustin

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 09:37:27 -0600
From:    Drew Halevy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: BOOKS reviews sought

I just finished reading Tennozan and I found it quite interesting. (I did
a series of questions/postings to the list about three months ago) what I
found (and still find) most interesting is that the sheer scale of the
battle (Operation Iceberg) dwarfed Operation Overlord, and yet there is
little written about Okinawa (or any aspect of the Pacific War) I have
also come to realize that the Pacific war was in many ways a Marine's war
(although not to slight the contribution of the Army to the Pacific War)
and that there was also great tension between Army and Marine's, esp at
Okinawa. In the end, I would reccomend the book, and I would be more
careful around UFO's-Drew

Drew Philip Halevy      | The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock,
Grad Student            | But of wisom: no clock can measure.
Department of History   |
University of Arkansas  | -William Blake
[email-masked]   |

On Mon, 16 Jan 1995, Cassady Craft wrote:

> At lunch today, I was abducted by a UFO, taken to the local bookstore, and
> forced to look and not buy.  Before release, I had to promise to get reviews
> for the following books, and from the list, at that!  So all hands, HELP!
> They WILL come to get me again, and because of the magic of the ether, they
> know where YOU live, too.
>
> Has anyone heard anything about, much less read _Tennozan:  The Battle of
> Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb_ by George Feifer
>
> or
>
> _Soldiers of the Sun:  The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army_ by
> Meirion and Susie Harries
>
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me get these...creatures...off my back!
>
> Cassady Craft
> e-mail [email-masked]
> or
> [email-masked]
>

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 11:59:51 -0500
From:    Lee Windsor u <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "Barbarossa"

> > The problem is that a lot of equipment that came thru Archangel-all the
> > trucks, aircraft and tanks- would have had to come up thru Persia.This is a
> > much longer supply route and delivers the equipment much further from where
> > it is needed. I know the Soviets say that Lend-Lease was "insignificant" in
> > their prosecution of the war, but I think Soviet advances would have been
> > at "Panji-wagon" speed rather than at Studebaker 2.5 ton rates...330,000
> > trucks is a lot to dismiss so lightly.
> > Jim O'Neil
>
Albert Seaton points out in "The Russo-German War" that of the roughly
600 000 trucks in the Soviet army during the war, 427 000 were provided
by lend-lease.  He also argues that this played a key role in allowing
the Soviet industrial expansion to focus on tank production.

Thats alot of trucks for an army facing a largely horse-drawn enemy!

Semper Fi

Lee W.

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 12:39:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: Col. Ferdinand, USMC

The following is from the Monday, January 16, 1995 issue of the
TRENTON (New Jersey) TIMES.

Mansfield Township, New Jersey -- Colonel Thomas S. Ferdinand, USMC
(retired), 75, of the Homestead Section of Mansfield, died Friday
(January 13th) in the Memorial Hospital, Mount Holly (New Jersey).

Born in Newark (New Jersey), he lived in Mansfield Township for
over 10 years.

Colonel Ferdinand enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1941, serving
until his retirement in 1979.  He was a highly decorated fighter
and dive bomber pilot, serving in both World War II and Korea.

A member of the famed "Black Sheep Squadron," Colonel Ferdinand
eared the Distinguished Flying Cross; four Air Medals; four
Presidential Unit Citations; five United Nations Ribbons; and other
decorations.

Requiescat in pace.

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 12:33:43 -0500
From:    Barone <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

        How do torpedoes circle?  I thought that they travel in a
straight line.
--
Joe Barone
[email-masked]
The only way I got to keep them Tigers
interested is to let them shoot holes in me.

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 11:14:37 -0700
From:    Jim O'Neil <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

In "Double-Edged Secrets" US Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific
during WW II; by W.J. Holmes; published by the Naval Institute Press;
-there is a reference to the possibility that the Germans stole our
Magnetic exploder on page 106. The author points out that they then had
many of the same problems we did...an interesting side note!

Jim O'Neil      They don't pay me enough to fight fair!

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:12:12 EST
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: INF: 50 Years Ago - 13-JAN-1945

On Thu, 12 Jan 1995 04:32:44 -0800 John Davis said:
>On 13-JAN-1945, the following occurred -
>The XVIII Corps opens a new offensive with the
>106th Division on the right and the 30th Division on the left.

Have I missed something?  How was the 106th reconstituted in such a short
time?  Or is this a division in name only at this point?

Also, were the various airborne divisions beefed up with attached artillery
for their work in the line?  They would appear to be a little short
otherwise. . . .

ken koester
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:45:15 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "Barbarossa"

        In relation to the Soviet claims downplaying the effects of Lend-Lease
on their war effort, it should also be pointed out that this was hardly the
attitude of the leadership during the war.  Whatever they said for public
consumption during and after the war, Stalin and his staff showed through their
actions vis-a-vis the Allies that they attached a great deal of significance to
the Lend-Lease materials (for example, Stalin's virtual ultimatum to Churchill
over the suspension of the Murmansk convoys following PQ-17 and -18).  Golovko,
commander of the Northern Fleet, also considered protection of and provision
for the arctic convoys one of his prime responsibilities as theatre commander.

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 14:00:36 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TRIV: Pacific Armor

        Slim in his book "Defeat Into Victory" makes a short reference to a
battle between British and Japanese tanks in Burma in 1944.  There was a
small-scale Japanese counterattack involving nine or ten tanks on Biak which
was opposed by US armor.  There was also an incident on Pelelieu where a few
Japanese tanks were taken on by some US Marine Shermans.  All three of these
encounters were one-sided affairs in favor of the Allied armor.  One of the few
Japanese armored divisions was stationed on Luzon during the American
reconquest of the Phillipines, so it is possible that tank versus tank
encounters took place on a small scale there, too.  This is also a topic which
interests me, so I'm hoping others will post more info on this subject.
However, from what I've been able to tell, Japanese use of armored forces
tended to be on such a small scale that conventional tank battles in the sense
of the European theatre never came about.  The largest uses of Japanese armor
I've been able to discover outside of China were an attack by about 30 tanks on
British positions in Malaya, another use of about 50 tanks to break down a
strongpoint on Singapore, and a series of attacks on the US Marines outside of
Garapan on Saipan in which 47 tanks were reportedly involved.  Although
Japanese tanks were employed in small numbers in virtually every campaign
(there were even two or three on Tarawa), the overall numbers were not large.
For example, on Guadalcanal the largest attack by Japanese armor was the use of
nine tanks in a diversionary assault along the Matanikau during the second
offensive against Bloody Ridge.  On Corregidor the landing of the first two
vehicles prompted the American surrender.   In the first wave of Japan's great
Pacific offensive, the 14th Army attacking the Phillipines included two tank
regiments, the 15th Army in Burma had one, and there were two tank regiments in
the 25th Army invading southern Thailand, Malaya, and Singapore.  Furthermore,
these units were usually employed piecemeal, for infantry support.  This is all
off the top of my head, given time I can dig up some details on the three
small-scale actions I mentioned above, although I myself have only been able
to locate sketchy references.  Hopefully someone else on the list will have
fuller information.

Regards

Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 14:44:23 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TRIV: Pacific Armor

Hello, Tim!

Iwo Jima, Okinawa to the best of my knowledge saw limited action with
light or medium tanks.

Of course on the Chinese mainland.

Hope this helps.

There is a student from Amarillo attending Valparaiso U to whom I
gave your name. At any rate, I asked her to look you up if she had
the time to say hello from me.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 15:51:19 -0500
From:    "John P. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: <No subject given>

signoff John P Moore

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 16:07:04 EST
From:    Mike Long <[email-masked]>
Subject: Romanian Carriers

Henry,
It was the ROYAL ROMANIAN SIGNAL CORPS that was affected by the
Treaty of MONTREAUX limitations on carriers that caused them to cancel
the order for the additional twenty pigeons......;)
Mike

Michael Long
Programmer Analyst II
University of Connecticut
196 Auditorium Road, U-138    |   Bitnet: [email-masked]
Storrs, Connecticut, USA      | Internet: [email-masked]
                   06269-3138 |    Phone: (203) 486-1352

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 21:15:47 +0000
From:    Gudmundur Helgason <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

>
> In "Double-Edged Secrets" US Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific
> during WW II; by W.J. Holmes; published by the Naval Institute Press;
> -there is a reference to the possibility that the Germans stole our
> Magnetic exploder on page 106. The author points out that they then had
> many of the same problems we did...an interesting side note!
>
> Jim O'Neil      They don't pay me enough to fight fair!
>
Hmm, Dont know about stealing, they had been working on this since
Norway 39 I belive (where boat after boat failed to sink their sitting
ducks due to failed torpedoes). Americans were however quicker to solve
this problem (by a year I think).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gudmundur J. Helgason                              e-mail: [email-masked]
Olduslod 41                                            phone: (354)-1-5655270
220 Hafnarfjordur                                             (354)-1-5652270
ICELAND                                             Maintainer of ICELAND.FAQ
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:27:37 -0800
From:    Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

On Tue, 17 Jan 1995, Jim O'Neil wrote:

> In "Double-Edged Secrets" US Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific
> during WW II; by W.J. Holmes; published by the Naval Institute Press;
> -there is a reference to the possibility that the Germans stole our
> Magnetic exploder on page 106. The author points out that they then had
> many of the same problems we did...an interesting side note!
>
> Jim O'Neil      They don't pay me enough to fight fair!
>

        According to Theodore Roscoe and others, both the Germans and
British had magnetic mines and torpedoes in use by September, 1939.
However, they both also ran into magnetic field variances near the Arctic
Circle and quickly de-activated in favor of their contact
exploders.
In a struggle as paramount as the Atlantic Campaign, neither side could
afford faulty ordnance. The U.S. however, took over a year to officially
decide to abandon the magnetic influence detonator. A year wasted...at
what cost?!
        As far as stealing our secret, the BuOrd keep such a tight lid on
the magnetic exploder until late 1940, that if the Germans did manage to
steal the plans, they should've let the men in the boats in on how they
did it!

Doug Shireman

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 15:29:20 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

Hello, Joe!

This is possible if the torpedo vanes are misset or through a faulty
discharge from the pig boat, can cause errant tracking. This is what
happened to Richard H. O'Kane in the Tang. For this his boat was sunk
and he spent some time in Japanese captivity.

    Hope this has been of help.

    Terry

>         How do torpedoes circle?  I thought that they travel in a
> straight line.

> --
> Joe Barone
> [email-masked]
> The only way I got to keep them Tigers
> interested is to let them shoot holes in me.
>

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 15:38:17 PST
From:    BOB ROY <[email-masked]>
Subject: REQ  Chemical corps musuim

         For a friend who served in the 83rd Chemical Morter Bn. in WWII...
does anyone know where the Chemical Corps musieum, or a  new monument to
this corps is located. I have tried Fort Gordon.  He saw announcment of a
new  monument, and  would like to know the location.

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 16:14:28 EST
From:    Alan Wild <[email-masked]>
Subject: Inf: 3rd Army Chronology - 18Jan45

January 18, 1945
D-Day +226

-III Corps: 26th Inf Div maintains its position
            35th Inf Div enroute to Metz
            90th Inf Div continued patrolling
            6th Armored patrols East of Bourcy-Longyvilly road

-17th Airborne and 11th Armored prepared for the renewal of the attack.

-101st Airborne was reserved at Isle-le-Pry.

-The 76th was assigned to VIII Corps.

-4th Inf Div, 8th Inf Reg clears Bettendorf
 87th Inf Div attacks Wasserbillig
 5th Inf Div, 2nd Reg captures Diekirch, clears Erpeldange
 10th Inf advances north of the Sauer River north and east of Diekirch

-XX Corps, 94 Inf Div expends 12,476 rounds (real trivia)

-XIX TAC is grounded due to weather

-Leon Henderson, Pres. Roosevelt's advisor on foriegn economics meets with
 3rd Army staff.

-700 tons of winter clothing arrives in Longy: shoe packs, socks, ponchos,
 mittens, and mufflers. Other arrangements are made with ComZ for recoil
 mechanisms, artillery parts, traversing gear, etc..

***********

Alan Wild, Sr. Prog/Analyst
ACC - Lippitt - URI
Kingston, RI  02881

I am the NRA.

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:31:54 -0800
From:    Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Faulty Torpedoes

On Tue, 17 Jan 1995, Barone wrote:

>         How do torpedoes circle?  I thought that they travel in a
> straight line.
> --
> Joe Barone
> [email-masked]
> The only way I got to keep them Tigers
> interested is to let them shoot holes in me.
>

        Torpedoes will circle if they encounter debris, or rough seas
while en route to the target. More common however, would be internal
failure with the gyroscope or rudders, either through equipment failure,
poor maintenance or incorrect settings. As our luck in 1941-42 would have
it, the torpedoes that did circle or porpoise usually detonated...the
ones striking marus amidships usually did not.

Doug Shireman

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Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 18:39:54 EST
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "Barbarossa"

Dear Lee,

The Wehrmacht had 600,000 trucks in the Ostheer in June 1941.
And 625,000 horses. That truck total does, however, include
half the bakery vans in occupied Europe. Not quite up to Dodge
2.5t standards. But that's what you get when you haven't got a
clue as to what you're really attempting to do.

Henry Sirotin

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Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 18:58:23 EST
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: "Barbarossa"

Dear Jim,

Off the top of my head, I think 50% of Lend Lease to the Soviets went
across the Pacific, either by air via Alaska or from Seattle, Vancouver         and San Francisco, on Soviet-flagged vessels the Japanese wouldn't attack.      The Persian Gulf routes accounted for the great majority of the remainder.      The Murmansk routes were heroic efforts, but strategically not that             significant.

Henry Sirotin

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Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 19:02:23 EST
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: AWOL Fliers

Dear Terry,

Thanks for the update.

Regards,

Henry

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Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 20:15:49 EST
From:    Charles Mattocks <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HIST: SS

Mr. Thompson wrote (something to the effect):

> Another title that might help you with the history of the SS:

I'd recommend: Foriegn Legions of the Third Reich (Vol. 1-4), David Littlejohn,
R.James Bender Publishing; Liebstandarte (Vol. I-IV), Rudolf Lehmann, J.J.
Fedorowicz Publishing; Das Reich (Vol. 1), Otto Weidinger, Fedorowicz
Publishing; European Volunteers, Peter Strassner, Fedorowicz Publishing;
Uniforms, Organization and History of the Waffen SS (Vol. 1-5), Roger J. Bender
and Hugh Page Taylor, Bender Publishing; Blood and Honor, Craig W.H. Luther,
Bender Publishing; Latvian Legion, Arthur Sigailis, Bender Publishing; The Order
of the SS, How did it happen?, Frederic Reider, Aztec Corp.; The Liebstandarte
Adolf Hitler 1933-35, James J. Weingartner Jr., University of Wisconsin; The
Waffen-SS, Hitler's Elite Guard at War 1939-45, George H. Stein, Cornell Univ.
Press;  Hitler's Guard, The Story of the Liedstandarte SS Adolf Hitler 1933-45,
James J. Weingartner, Jr., Southern Illinois Univ. Press; The Allgemeine-SS,
Robin Lumsden & Paul Hannon, Men-at-Arms (266); The SA 1921-45, Hitler's Sturm
Troops, Men-at-Arms (220).

The last may give you some beginning history of the SS.

Chip
[email-masked]

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Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 19:30:58 EST
From:    Paul Gregor <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Incendiaries and V-J

Ben:
I'm not sure but I think you had asked for my sources on Friday last con-
cerning a general statement I made on incendiary raiding on Japan.  Sorry
I wasn't able to respond before now.  I see some others have also helped out
already. Hopefully I'll provide some satisfactory ones and widen the general
thread of discussion a bit concerning the way the war "Really was" in the
Pacific.

1. Journey of the Giants by Gene Gurney
   Tells the story of the B-29 superfort.  Among the illustrative material
is a map of incendiary raids on the main island of Japan, along with a
comparison of their size to contemporary cities in the U.S. at the time.
It also contains a fantastic photo of a "Nick" attack on a B-29.

2. Superfortress: the B-29 and American Air Power by Curtis E. LeMay and
   Bill Yenne  Appendix table 12  "B-29 Combat Milestones" Lists the Single
   Combat Mission Resulting in the Greatest Damage to Target: March 9/10
   1945 (night mission) incendiary attack on Tokyo resulting in 267,000
   buildings destroyed.  LeMay also writes about Operation Olympic- He
   claims he was already preparing forces for secondary targets due to the
   damage done thus far.

3. Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb  by George Feifer
   p.574  makes generalized statement on the condition of the country,
   merchant marine, etc: "relentless saturation bombing had levelled Japans
   major cities".

Now it isn't my contention that the A-bomb was an ineffectual weapon,
although Gwynne Dyer in his book WAR (from the series) also points out there
wasn't much new in the a-bomb when compared to the similar fate of cities
like Dresden. The innovation was in the fact that it now only took one
plane to vaporize a city when before it had taken hundreds.

Feifer supports the contention that it was the shock of such a weapon that
galvanized the peace faction surrounding the emperor into open opposition
of a continued war effort, the point I was trying to make.

Finally I'll throw this last one in just for those of you who are interested
in the whole question of what the Pacific was really like and how easy it is
(and how soon people forget) from an avoidance of unpleasant facts.

4. Thank God For the Atom Bomb and Other Essays by Paul Fussell.
In this essay (I'll never do it justice) Fussell talks about the varying
opinions of people at varying distances from the battlefield. It also
includes "postscript on Japanese skulls" fussells response to another
veteran who doubted his testimony on attrocities committed by both sides;
-the doubter an ex-marine who claimed to have served on Guadalcanal is
refuted with photographic as well as testimonial evidence.  Along with
this are the often overlooked or understated atrocities committed by the
Japanese. Fussell writes about the BEHEADING of U S airmen and the plan to
execute all allied P O W s once the invasion reached the home islands.
(Tennozan says Okinawa was as close to Japan as we'd seen as far as
terrain is concerned - therefore staggering casualties would have continued)
Fussell also projects the "normal" casualty rates we could have expected had
the war been allowed to run its course for a few weeks longer while negotiating
He notes its o.k. if you aren't one of the so called normal casualties.

In short I'd recommend this one to everyone on the net- it isnt about gore
as much as it is about facing the truth- on both sides, from a master
essayist.

                                  Hope you find the reading helpful
                                        Paul Gregor
                                        kent State

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

Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 20:40:04 EST
From:    Cassady Craft <[email-masked]>
Subject: INFO

Thanks, people.  You saved me (and yourselves) from UFOs.  Hope my making fun
of that doesn't offend anyone.  I wouldn't have tried it on the AIRCRAFT list,
they've been talking about "black aircraft."  Hehehe, hate to tell them what
they REALLY are.  do-do do do, do-do do do.....

Sinceriously, since I received such good responses on the book, I will test the
metal of the list again with another request.  I am looking for any
information on the subject of Operations Analysis (sometimes called Oper.
Research) during WW II, and particularly in the Pacific.  I have seen
reference to it being done but have not been able to get a good source or
locate any primary sources holdings.  I would appreciate any help that any-
one could give.

Thanks in advance,
Cassady Craft
e-mail [email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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Date:    Tue, 17 Jan 1995 22:08:34 EST
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Romanian Carriers

Dear Michael,

Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

>Henry,
>It was the ROYAL ROMANIAN SIGNAL CORPS that was affected by the
>Treaty of MONTREAUX limitations on carriers that caused them to cancel
>the order for the additional twenty pigeons......;)
>Mike

I've spent nine years trying to figure this out. It never dawned on me
that "carriers" meant....

HS

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End of WWII-L Digest - 16 Jan 1995 to 17 Jan 1995
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