Subject: WWII-L Digest - 13 Feb 1995 to 14 Feb 1995

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 00:00:59 -0500

There are 46 messages totalling 1764 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. order of battle
  2. Michael Wittmann [death on Aug 8 44] (2)
  3. The Sullivans
  4. New WWII PC'ism
  5. New WWII PC'ism - Dresden bombing (3)
  6. INF: USN Chronology 02-14-95
  7. The hushed up invasion of England.
  8. 50TH: Dresden (7)
  9. INF: 50 Years Ago - 15-FEB-1945
 10. WHY ENOLA GAY?
 11. Enola Gay Exhibit
 12. Enola Gay (4)
 13. Re[2]: WHY ENOLA GAY?
 14. Michael Wittmann (2)
 15. Re WEAP: "German" look of M24
 16. unit 731 (3)
 17. Dresden, Fire Storms (3)
 18. GEN Re: ? native Americans during WWII
 19. The Invasion of Japan (2)
 20. 3rd Army Chron. M59-->M24 conv.
 21. WEAP: "German" look of M24 (was Re: 3rd Army Chron. M59-->M24 conv)
 22. more Japan stuff
 23. WWII on the Internet?
 24. CBI Theatre
 25. MEDIA:Dresden Remembers
 26. MEDIA:Iwo Jima Vet Remembers
 27. MEDIA:Glenn Miller Secret Weapon
 28. [INF] USAAF 15 FEB 45

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

Date:    Mon, 13 Feb 1995 23:18:39 -0600
From:    Dick Kimberly <[email-masked]>
Subject: order of battle

Is it a safe assumption that the regiments attached to the divisions in
WWII remained attached in the Korean conflict?

If so, should I memorize the attachments in my on-going readings?

Dick

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 06:03:40 +0000
From:    Gudmundur Helgason <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Michael Wittmann [death on Aug 8 44]

>
> >
> >     Question No. 3. His tank was destroyed along with all occupants
> > in the battles in Normandy. Will provide precise info. His tank and
> > his remains weren't discovered until 1983. It is believed that his
> > tank was destroyed from the air by a rocket-firing Typhoon.
> >
> This is interesting. Where was his tank hidden so that it was lost for 39
> years? Is this common on battlefields? I would think that battlefields
> such as Normandy would have had a through going over by historians,
> victors and souviner hunters.-Drew
>
Obersturmfuehrer (oberleutnant) Michael Wittmann belonged to the 2nd
company of Tiger tanks under the 101st sSSPzAbt Waffen SS unit (he
originally belonged to the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler division). At his
arrival to Normandy, June 12th, he had 119 kills in Russia. On June 13th
he fought A Squadron from the 7th Arm. Div. and killed 4 of them on his
own in his Tiger (turret no 200?). Then he went back for ammo and took
his other 4 tanks (3 Tigers and a PzKpfw IV) against the A company again where
they killed 23 tanks without a single loss on their side. Then he went
in Villers Bocage where B company has set up ambush positions and the
German tanks were knocked out at point blank range where their armour
was thinnest (rear). Wittmann survived along with few others and made
his escape on foot.
This little practice battle of Wittmann's had prevented the encirclement
of the elite Panzer Lehr division and the commanding officer, Leut. Gen.
Fritz Bayerlein (Rommel's former Chief of Staff in Africa) recommended
him for the Swords to his Knight Cross with Oakleaves. Wittmann was also
promoted and given a battalion.

Michael Wittmann was killed on Aug 8 at Gaumesnil when his Tiger
(turret no 007! :) was surrounded by 5 British Sherman M4's.

He was buried on a communal grave until in 1983 when his body was
disinterred and given a proper burial in the German military cemetery at
La Cambre.

His final score was 138 tanks killed and lots of other vehicles.

PS: Terry, I am sure you will have something better than this, but I
wanted to help anyway :)

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

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

Date:    Mon, 13 Feb 1995 22:30:57 -0800
From:    Ed Kettler <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: The Sullivans

You wrote:

>
> >Cheryl,
> >
> >Your note at the end of Howard part II mentions "Five brothers named
> >Sullivan, all serving on the same ship, were killed in Hawaii."  I'm
not
> >sure of the name of the act, but it could well have been called by
that
> >name.  The Sullivans, from Waterloo, Iowa, all enlisted after
learning
> >that a friend of theirs had been killed at Pearl Harbor.  They joined
> >the Navy on the stipulation that they be allowed to serve on the same
> >ship.
>
>SNIP    SNIP   SNIP
>
>One little known fact is that the two oldest brothers, George and
>Francis, had both enlisted in the US Navy on 11 May 37 and served
>in USS Hovey (DD-208) until Jun 41.  On 3 Jan 42, George and
>Francis reenlisted along with the three other brothers, Joseph,
>Madison and Albert to avenge a friend who had been killed in USS
>Arizona (BB-39) during the Pearl Harbor attack.
>

All five brothers were serving on the Juneau when she was sunk at the
First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

Hope that helps.  Ed

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 02:41:23 PST
From:    Jim Brady <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: New WWII PC'ism

>At 11:06 AM 2/13/95 -0800,<name deleted in act of mercy> wrote:
>>It appears that there's a new topic of PC'ism on WWII - the bombing of
>>Dresden.

There's nothing new about the controversy in the firebombing of Dresden. And there's certainly
nothing credible about slapping "PC" on any point of view that challenges your own. In fact, that
term is completely worn out, and now is applied far afield from its original application, i.e.  to the
mindset of people who split hairs over whether someone should be called a chairperson or
chairman.
It's not splitting hairs to put forth a minority view. Try laying off the labels. Deal with the issues
addressed, honestly, or step aside. I know nobody asked for my advice, but when I sense the
usually fine character of  the discussion slipping here, I am annoyed to discover
deterioration beginning with a post braying loudly about "PC".

>>
>>As that part of our history moves farther and farther away it appears that
>>the lessons are also. When all the eyewitnesses are gone, there won't be
>>anybody to tell the apologists and revisionists "No - you're spewing B*T".

Here's an example of a very strong opinion based on (from what we can read) a *very*
simplistic and sketchy take on German history:
>
>Actually, I have found another type of PC.  If you look carefully, most
>"popular" reference to things that happened in Germany from 1938 - 1945
>were done by the Nazis. They talk of the evil of Hitler and the Nazis, but
>if you look closely, it seems as if they are talking about a group that is
>entirely seperate from the Germans of the time.
>
>Now I am not going to say that the German people on the whole are evil or
>bad people, but there was an overwhelming majority of people in Germany who
>supported Hitler.  It was not a Nazi army.  It was a German army. The Nazis
>were not a force that came in and invaded Germany, took over for a while
>and then left when they were beaten at the end of World War II.
>
>I find the lack of the term "German" just another way that PC is making
>in-roads.

What is this guy trying to say? "Inroads" to what? That handy "PC" label certainly clarifies
thingsl, doesn't it? I will say this post is unique in that it's the first time I've heard anyone suggest
anybody was trying to leave Germany out of World War II ! ! !

-- Jim

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 03:07:24 PST
From:    Jim Brady <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: New WWII PC'ism - Dresden bombing

>        Hello from Winnipeg Canada.  I am new at this so please excuse
>any blunders in etiquette.
>        I quite frankly am flabbergasted by this problem with politically
>correct people interpreting any history let alone that dealing with war.
>You cannot take an event like WWII and disect it into pieces with regards
>to morality.  I am assuming that most subscribers are American.  They
>live in a country where Japanese exchange students dressed like John
>Travolta in Saturday Night Fever get shot for ringing the wrong
>doorbell.  The justification is that the man who fired was legitimately
>afraid for himself and his family.  How can a country like Britain bombed
>to oblivion be held in contempt for returning the favor in the hopes of
>winning the war and avoiding their own demise at the hands of the Germans?

How about 1) because dropping firebombs onto a city known to be crowded with refugees and
that was a center for art, not industry, wasn't quite the textbook example of military targeting; or
2) it was done in February of 1945, when there was absolutely no possibility remaining that
British motive was to "avoid their own demise at the hands of the Germans."

(and if you really want to know, it was "student" singular, unless you know of other Japanese
exchange students shot to death while dressed as John Travolta and ringing a doorbell. And if
you really, really want to know, it's fascinating to see someone in so close a foreign country
seize upon that incident as some indication of an American ideal, when most Americans were
quite dismayed about it.)
>        If you want to hold the Allies in a moral light do not pick
>Dresden or the A-bomb as have some others but hold them responsible for
>doing nothing about the holocaust.  Had they committed an almost
>unthinkable act and bombed the camps flat without regards for any of the
>occupents (probably not much more than 10 000 at any one time) they would
>have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.  That something this
>horrendous could have been the saving grace of so many only goes to show
>what horror Germany perpetrated.

....This just descends into flammable discourse... Why did I somehow know this was going to
happen at the Dresden 50th?

    Signing out...

  Jim Brady

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 04:00:11 PST
From:    "Keller, Theron P." <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: USN Chronology 02-14-95

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

1945
02/14 Wed.  United States naval vessel sunk:
             Motor minesweeper YMS-48, by coastal defense gun,
              Philippine Islands area,
              14 d. 24'N., 120 d. 33'E.
            United States naval vessels damaged, Philippine Islands
             area:
             Destroyer FLETCHER (DD-445), by coastal defense gun,
              14 d. 25'N., 120 d. 30'E.
             Destroyers RADFORD (DD-446) and LAVALLETTE (DD-448), by
              mines,
              14 d. 25'N., 120 d. 30'E.
             Destroyer HOPEWELL (DD-681), by coastal defense gun,
              14 d. 24'N., 120 d. 33'E.
            Japanese naval vessels sunk:
             Submarine chasers NOs. 4 and 114, by submarine HAWKBILL
              (SS-366), Java Sea,
              08 d. 20'S., 115 d. 43'E.
             Coast defense vessel NO. 9, by submarine GATO (SS-212),
              Yellow Sea,
              34 d. 48'N., 125 d. 58'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:    Mon, 13 Feb 1995 19:58:04 -0800
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: The hushed up invasion of England.

There never was any german special forces invasion -- "hushed up" or
otherwise.
The story is probably just an acho of various rumours about at the
time (1940).
Though such an event did not ocurr, any such "raid" resulting in
"dead Germans under tarpaulins" would have been far from hushed up
-- as it would have presented a marvellous oportunity for triumphant
propaganda about how invincible Britain's defences were.
(Of course, in fact, Britain's defences at the time far from being
invincible.)
Such stories keep surfacing -- usually attacahed to the dramatic words,
"Hushed up".

--

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

Date:    Mon, 13 Feb 1995 16:46:31 CET
From:    "COL Donnell, Doug" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

Today's Stars and Stripes newspaper has a special article about the bombing
of Dresden which sheds light on a couple of Emery's questions.

[Quoted from S&S from an Associated Press article]

The city had been spared earlier bombings because it was not considered an
important military target.  But the Soviets pressured the Americans and
British to bomb such cities in eastern Germany to wreck railway and
road centers and hinder the movement of Nazi troops to the front in the
east.

The Nazis first said about 70,000 people died but then raised it to
250,000, saying the extras were refugees.  The communists put it at about
320,000.  Both figures are considered propaganda.

A new study by Griebel's museum found the death toll probably was between
25,000 and 35,000.

[The Griebels being referred to is the director of the Dresden City Museum]

                             Doug Donnell

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 07:18:37 EST
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 15-FEB-1945

On 15-FEB-1945, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - The Canadian II Corps begins a period of limited attacks in
the direction of Calcar. The British XXX Corps' main effort is directed
against obstacles before Goch. In the U.S. 3rd Army sector, the 80th
Division continues the consolidation of the northern part of the XII Corps
bridgehead. In the U.S. 7th Army sector, the XV Corps opens a limited
offensive to straighten and shorten the front line.

Eastern Front - Units of the 2nd White Russian Front improves positions
north of Bromberg in northwest Poland. Elements of the 1st Ukraine Front
take Gruenberg, in north Silesia and also enter Brandenburg.

Philippines - Bitter fighting continues in Manila. In the XI Corps area,
the 38th Division completes the mop-up of the Zigzag. After a bombardment,
one regiment of the 38th lands at Mariveles. The Japanese do not oppose the
landing, but during the night launch a counterattack which is the last
action in force by the Japanese on the west coast of the island.

Burma - The Indian 20th Division is beginning to meet strong opposition as
it is expanding and consolidating the Irrawaddy bridgehead.

The Homefront
-------------
Penicillin Administered Orally - The Lederle Laboratories has announced in
New York the perfection of a method for administering penicillin by mouth,
an important advance in medicine. Previously it was necessary for anyone
taking penicillin to become a hospital patient.

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

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                           | [email-masked]
Cary, North Carolina                 | http://www.webcom.com/~jbd/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 08:13:44 -0500
From:    "Steven Pudlo, Dept. Computer Svcs." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WHY ENOLA GAY?

>Does anybody know why the enola gay use that name?
>JORGE BALAM "BALITA"

The pilot's mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.

BTW There is a B-29 at the New ENgland air museum, windsor locks, CT
on display without any controversy.
                                                        Steve

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

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 08:22:07 EST
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Enola Gay Exhibit

On Thu, 9 Feb 1995 16:40:19 -0500 John E. Kollar said:
>Okay, so send me 30 million dollars and I will host a paint-ball invasion
>and we can count up bodies afterwords.  For any responsible historian,
>60,000 is a ludicrusly low number, for that side can you 'prove' to
>me that all the Japanese civilians would not have commited suicide if we
>invaded.

For any "responsible historian", 60,000 is a number like any other:  to
be examined for its assumptions & errors. . . if any.  To state categorically
that it is just *wrong*, as a matter of *fact*, ie, Truth-with-a-capital-T-
and-known-to-all-right-thinking-people is to commit the same sort of error
popularly attributed to those described as "revisionist" or favoring PC.

As for the other, prove that they all would.  They didn't, in the event.

ken koester

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 08:40:08 EST
From:    Roger Coon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Michael Wittmann [death on Aug 8 44]

OK, I guess I have missed some of this, where can I read more about
this guy?
Brad Coon

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 08:30:13 EST
From:    Ken Koester <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Enola Gay

On Thu, 9 Feb 1995 16:55:36 -0500 Henry Sirotin said:
> Re "There is tangible evidence that someone thought there would be high
>casualties. There isn't tangible evidence that casualties would be high."
>
>I think the blood requirement estimates- 395,000 casualties by D+120-
>are tangible.

No, that is still an estimate.  It's a trick, of course:  you can't really
produce tangible evidence, because the event didn't happen.  That is the
point.  Certainly, *someone*--many someones--thought casualties would be
high in advance.  But that does not mean they were or would have been
correct; just 3 or 4 months later, the new estimate was 0, or a close
approximation of it.  If you want to talk about revisionism, it began
right after the event, and in the armed forces.  It has nothing to do
with baby-boomers, Vietnam, or the general decline of Western civilization
as we know it (-:

>As for your other points, I think the burden of proof is with you to
>show why Okinawa in particular should not be regarded as a preview of
>Olympic; you have a valid point concerning the possible duration of
>the fighting, especially regarding Soviet entry, but US planners,
>to the best of my knowledge, had no specific knowledge of Soviet
>plans and certainly could not anticipate the speed and extent of
>their victory;

Eh?  After the Soviets agreeing to enter the war 3 months to the day
after VE day, US planners didn't know they would enter?  I missed something
in translation there (-:  As for the speed of the collapse, I don't know.
Doesn't that argue that intelligence didn't really estimate the *capabilities*
of the forces available to Japan in mid-45 correctly?  Which would then
affect the anticipated fighting and casualties, of course.

>there is considerable evidence that the impact of
>blockade alone (ie.-the pre-Aug 6 situation) produced little more
>than a minority opinion for peace in the Japanese High Council.

Possibly.  But I think there is considerably more evidence that the impact
of the blockade severely affected the *capability* of fighting on,
regardless of the will.

>I believe it is significant that the Emperor did not feel secure
>in intervening until *after* the two bombs and the Soviet attack.

Again possibly:  events happened so quickly that it is difficult to
distinguish cause and effect during that week.  What makes me very
hesitant to draw that conclusion is that I know first-hand that the
Japanese culture can lead to a way of thinking quite alien to western
ways.  Even reading Japanese accounts of events does not suffice to
allow one to understand how the Japanese are thinking about *anything*.
For example, for you the fact that a *minority* favored peace is
significant.  But for me, the fact that *anyone* raised an opposing
viewpoint & maintained it is terribly significant:  it implies that
the war-mongers were greatly out of touch.

ken koester

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 08:46:29 CST
From:    "SCHERRER, TIM" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re[2]: WHY ENOLA GAY?

>On Mon, 13 Feb 1995, BALAM V JORGE R wrote:
>
>> Does anybody know why the enola gay use that name?
>> JORGE BALAM "BALITA"
>>
>It was named after the mother of the pilot/commander, Paul Tibbet
>.
Who lived in my hometown of Quincy, IL I beleive.  If that is wrong plea
se let me know--I need to correct a HS history teacher of mine.  TAS

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 00:22:52 +0900
From:    Akira Takiguchi <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Michael Wittmann

     Michael Wittmann's death (not only that!) is a myth.  I am afraid
it is almost impossible to know "the answer".

     The story told by Les 'Spud' Taylor in _After the battle_ No.48,
at a glance seems plausible, has not been accepted by (at least Japanese
and most other, I believe) AFV researchers because his discussion is far
from complete.  Mr Fey (in _Panzerkampf in Bild_) and Mr H. Meyer (in
the history of 12th SS Panzer Division) insist that Wittmann's Tiger was
destroyed by a Typhoon based on a story by Monsieur Samson (a farmer in
Gaumesnil who took the photograph of "007", I believe).  I heard from
one of my friend that Mr Spielberger stated the same a long time ago.

     Mr Agte unveiled many new facts in his recent book.  For example,
to the right of N158 road went Wittmann, Dollinger, Iriohn, Kisters and
Heurich, to the left Hoeflinger and Rolf v. Westernhagen (not the batallion
commander Heinz).  Blase should have been with them but not on the map
drawn by Hoeflinger.  5 Tigers were lost (Wittmann, Dollinger, Iriohn,
Hoeflinger and Kisters).  Wittmann and Iriohn were killed, the other
commanders survived.

     Mr Agte does not give the answer.  In _Panzerheld_ Dr.Jones
describes how Mr Taylor and Lord Boardman are disgusted with "the other
ideas" (I don't see why they stick so much to the "honor" of killing
Wittmann ...).  As Dr.Jones writes: "just in the case of von Richthofen,
there shall never be an absolute answers."

Akira Takiguchi  ATSON Inc./ASAHI Net

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 11:01:29 -0500
From:    Barone <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

COL Donnell, Doug <[email-masked]> writes:
> The city had been spared earlier bombings because it was not considered an
> important military target.  But the Soviets pressured the Americans and
> British to bomb such cities in eastern Germany to wreck railway and
> road centers and hinder the movement of Nazi troops to the front in the
> east.

        This makes more sense but it still doesn't explain the use
of incendiary ordnance.  Railway and road centers would be more
susceptible to high explosives than incendiaries.
--
Joe Barone
[email-masked]
What's he want a yacht for?  There ain't no money in yachts...

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 08:31:24 PST
From:    "Mark H. Walter" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re WEAP: "German" look of M24

>Production
>of the Pzkw III was similarly phased out by 1943, but production of the
>StuG variation (turretless assault gun) continued into well into 1945
>(providing a source of spare parts) so I would imagine that US troops
>would have been more likely to encounter surviving Pzkw III Ausf Ls
>and Ms than Pzkw IIs.
>
>Joe Barone
>[email-masked]

Another variant of the Pzkpfw III that was around to the end of the war
was the Ausf. N.  After the Pzkpfw IV was up gunned with a long barrel 75mm,
Ausf L and M Pzkpfw III's were converted to carry the short barrel 75mm that
the Pzkpfw IV used to carry.  Ausf N's were usually used in the heavy tank
battalions in a support role.

Sources:
??            Pzkpfw III in Action        Squadron/Signal
Spielberger   Panzer III and variants     Schiffler Publications

     Mark Walter  [email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 11:45:06 -0500
From:    Tim McFeely <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: unit 731

Reply To: [email-masked]

To expand on I.S. Berzenczei's post, here is the AP (Tokyo) newswire story in
full as reported by the Providence Urinal (oops) Journal:

        "Fifty years after the end of World War II, six former members of a
biological warfare unit in the Japanese Army have come forward to tell of
atrocities that included live human dissections.
      The new testimony comes in a 74 page book, _The Truth About Unit
731_, published Friday by a small citizens group in Japan's northern state of
Iwate.
 Reseachers say Unit 731, based in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, killed
at least 3,000 people from China, Russia, Korea, and Mongolia in top-secret
experiments.
    The victims were subject to horrid abuse: given shrapnel-induced
gangrene, injected with germs, poisoned with chemicals or operated on -
sometimes without anesthesia - all in the name of medical research.
 In one of the United States s more shameful moments, historians say
U.S.officials agreed not to bring war-crimes charges against Unit 731 leaders
in exchange for information about their experiments.
        Even now, firsthand testimony about the unit remains limited.
  All six men who appear in the book are letting their experiences be
published for the first time, said Ryuji Takahashi, who gathered the
reminiscences from the men in Iwate.
  One 72-year-old man, who refused to have his name published, says in
the book he witnessed unit members conduct many vivisections.
  A former unit member is quoted as saying he heard another unit team
developed a special stimulant that was added to the Japanese rice wine
traditionally downed by kamikaze pilots before their missions.
  The stimulant apparently helped pilots get excited and put aside
their fears."

Fits into some of the recent posts quite nicely, huh.

* Tim McFeely
* Ocean State FreeNet
* [email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 10:58:45 -0600
From:    Bob Rogers <[email-masked]>
Subject: Dresden, Fire Storms

Was the fire storm of Dresden unique and/or anticipated?  What kind
of bombs did the US planes use on the city?

--
Bob Rogers            Internet:  [email-masked]
Instrumental, Inc.    GEnie:     R.C.ROGERS
Minneapolis, MN USA   Phone:     612-920-6188

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 11:56:35 EST
From:    "Cassady B. Craft" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: GEN Re: ? native Americans during WWII

Sidney, your comment about the 45th's usage of Cherokee's as ad hoc code
talkers seems to answer a question that I posed to the list some time ago.
I was curious as to why the Cherokee were used in such a manner when they,
of all the tribes, had the oldest and most refined _written_ language that
Germans or others (say, anthropologists) could have studied.  I felt that
the alphabet of the Cherokee would disqualify them from being used as code
talkers, but if what you say, that it was ad hoc, is true, then obviously
it was not policy but improvisation.  This is an interesting story!  I can
see an article or book or dissertation here.  What were the politics of the
45th so that they chose the Cherokee?  This is the richest and probably most
politically refined of the "five civilized tribes."  Did this political
influence extend into the 45th?  Did the "home front" know of the usage of
Cherokee.  Along a different line, did any tribe object to its language being
used by the U.S. Government?  I guess this would be moot if their young men
were being drafted anyway.

Thanks for the posting, I am going to do some more looking at this.

Cassady Craft
e-mail [email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 13:07:50 -0500
From:    "John E. Kollar" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: The Invasion of Japan

Henry,

I agree with you that Skates does not go very deep into the planning,
but I am unsure how 'deep' one can go, according to him for the
second invasion the only thing that had been done was a preliminary
study that was a couple of pages long, outside of writing fiction or
wargaming it out, I am unsure how much deeper he could go.  (Does anyone
know of a good company level WWII wargame that I could bash for this
purpose?  I have a group here that would be interested in fighting an
invasion out.)  I will keep an eye out for the next book, but my budget
has ended for the semester in buying books after Skates' book and one
'Storm over Iraq'.  I'll have to look up Gars op-ed though.

John E. Kollar

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 11:11:02 -0700
From:    Jim O'Neil <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 3rd Army Chron. M59-->M24 conv.

>>        To go back to the original article, did you mean M59 or M5?  The
>>"In Action" book states that the M5 Stuart (not to be confused with the
>>M3 Stuart!) was replaced by the M24.
>>
The M-5 was an M-3A3 Stuart with a different engine/drivetrain, they appear
identical to all but the most experianced observer. The earlier M-3s looked
quite different, with vertical front plates.
>
>C. Province wrote "M59" in his book. There is no other mention to compare for
>typos, and I am not familiar with the models available at the time. If there
>was such a thing as the M59, and it could be converted only with great
>difficulty, I would buy into the M5 idea. But if an M59 existed and could
>be easily converted, perhaps both were converted.
>
The M-59 designation is quite improbable, as the M-26 was a late war issue
tank and the M-41,46,47,48 were all post WW II designs. The only M-59 I can
recall is an APC in use prior to the M-113 series, tho' it is all before my
time in the Army.

Jim O'Neil  From the interrogation of a German General at the end of WW II:

               "The reason the American Army does so well in War, is that War
                is Chaos, and the American Army practices it on a daily basis"

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 13:36:02 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: unit 731

Can't say about drugged Kamikaze pilots, but it seems odd that this
would be related to Unit 731, which was a bacteriological warfare
test and implementation unit that operated in Manchuria and North China.

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 13:41:23 -0500
From:    "John E. Kollar" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Enola Gay

Ken,

I will admit that one can not 'prove' any number, so for that point,
60,000 is still wrong because it never happened.  But then that is not
important, what is important is what the powers that be though casualties
would be like, so they viewed them at around 250 to 500 thousand so that
is important and a line like 'and if an invasion...' should not be
included in a museum exhibit because it has no foundation in truth,
no one knows what it would have been like and drawing any kind of
conclusion from that would be the worst kind of fiction and museums
are not erected to print fiction.  So I give in to one of your
points but still use it to support my original statement that the
line about 60,000 casualties is wrong.

Putting events in a historical perspective is fine, but adding fiction
to the events is wrong.

John E. Kollar

p.s. sorry for the earlier post about $30 million dollars, et al.  But
your posts were a little to acidic for me to understand your reasoning.

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 12:46:49 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Michael Wittmann

Hello, Esaul!

Just an addendum to my post to you from yesterday. Noted with
interest Akira's post to you with additional details on the demise of
Michael Wittmann.

Wittmann was killed on 8 August 1944 on the Invasionfront near
Granesnil south of Caen.

He had destroyed 138 tanks plus 132 other weapons and vehicles.

Campaigns:

Poland, France, Russia, Normandy. Consult any good history of the
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler to determine where they were employed
and you will find Michael Wittmann.

Hope this has been of help. Wittmann was the most successful tank
ace of WWII. Johannes Boelter would be a close second.

All the best.

Terry

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 13:51:00 -0500
From:    David Rising <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: New WWII PC'ism - Dresden bombing

On Mon, 13 Feb 1995, Kelvin Brent Luther wrote:
-deletions-

>         If you want to hold the Allies in a moral light do not pick
> Dresden or the A-bomb as have some others but hold them responsible for
> doing nothing about the holocaust.  Had they committed an almost
> unthinkable act and bombed the camps flat without regards for any of the
> occupents (probably not much more than 10 000 at any one time) they would
> have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.  That something this
> horrendous could have been the saving grace of so many only goes to show
> what horror Germany perpetrated.

Lets suppose that this was a perfect world for you and the Allies bombed
the camps. Lets assume _all_ guards were killed and very few prisoners
were (huge assumption). Where would the prisoners go? They weren't likely
to slip in amongst the rest of the Polish population unnoticed in their
uniforms and emaciated states.
In reality, I don't think the bombing of the camps would have
accomplished anything. The allies would have to have been extremely lucky
to hit the SS barracks without killing many of the prisoners, and even if
they did set the prisoners free, they had nowhere to go (and I don't mean
the allied immigration policy--they would never have been able to get to
a port). Futhermore, bombing the rail tracks was considered, but the
Germans were able to rebuild them overnight. Probably the best thing that
the Allies could have done for the prisoners was to bomb the factories
which kept the German war machine running--precisely what they did.
David Rising

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 11:05:48 -0800
From:    Jim Benn <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

I read recently (in Newsweek?) that Dresden had been declared a sort of
open city during WWII; that there was no military installations and the
Germans didn't even put any AA batteries near the city.
Does anyone know if this was some sort of official, recognized status, or
if it was just an assumption by either side?
Another news account said that the raid was to test out wide area bombing
techniques, and the Allies needed an intact city so they could better
evaluate the results.  Anybody know about this?
Thanks,  Jim Benn.

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 14:09:14 -0500
From:    David Rising <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

On Tue, 14 Feb 1995, Barone wrote:

>         This makes more sense but it still doesn't explain the use
> of incendiary ordnance.  Railway and road centers would be more
> susceptible to high explosives than incendiaries.

Worked though, didn't it?
David Rising

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 14:15:54 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Enola Gay

Dear Ken,

I won't quibble over definitions of tangible- certainly at D-90
preparations were under way based on this statistic, and those
who calculated it had been correct before.

We knew *when* the Russians planned to enter, and we knew the            weakness of Japanese forces in Manchuria. We did not know where
or in what strength the Soviets would attack, or even if they
could meet the timetable they had declared. My understanding is
that US Intell was very surprised when they found the Russians
had moved an entire Army Front over the Trans-Siberian in ninety
days. There is a doctoral dissertation for somebody in US intell
knowledge of Soviet conventional ground strength, 1930-1960.

Re the role of "minority" opinion in Japanese high councils-
You are right about the significance of it having existed,
but I believe you are wrong in the conclusion you draw. Because
the warmongers were out ot touch with reality did not mean they
could not prosecute the war to the bitter end. They were equally
out of touch with reality in the face of even more significant
opposition to starting the war against the US in the first place,
but they acted nonetheless.

Regards,

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 14:23:41 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Dresden, Fire Storms

Dear Bob,

Three nonnuclear raids produced firestorms: Hamburg, in July 1943,
Dresden, and Tokyo, in March 1945. The first two were convection
storms that drew surrounding oxygen into a central core, while
Tokyo was a "sweep conflagration," literally a wall of fire
several miles wide that moved like a line squall similar to a
massive forest fire. Hamburg was not anticipated; I'm not sure
about Tokyo, and I doubt Dresden was.

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 14:30:42 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: The Invasion of Japan

Dear John,

I was thinking mainly of Olympic- there were later Japanese sources
than the MacArthur studies, and even if Skates doesn't have the
language, people at the MinDef in Tokyo could have provided
more thorough estimates of Japanese capability. He also did
not use the actual Olympic staff studies to any great depth,
or, among other things, he would have discovered the casualty
estimates of the medical staff. A good book, and one I intend to
keep, but not a great one.

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 12:47:52 -0700
From:    Jim O'Neil <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP: "German" look of M24 (was Re: 3rd Army Chron. M59-->M24 conv)

>>
>> PzKpfw - II has the large road wheels , not the IIIs.
>
>        Just to clarify, the Chaffee does indeed have similar roadwheels
>and suspension to the Pzkw II, but only certain models, such as the chassis
>of the Wespe or Marder I, and Ausfs A, B, C, and F.  However, other Pzkw II
>variations had no return rollers (Ausf D and E and Marder II) or else
>interleaved roadwheels (Lynx).  Though the Pzkw III did indeed have more
>and smaller roadwheels than the Chaffee (six rather than five), every
>variation of the chassis had the independent return rollers which was
>new for a US tank.  Before then, US armor had return rollers attached
>to the suspension of the roadwheels giving them a distinctly "American"
>look.  Also, the 75mm gun and shape of the turret might be confused more
>with a Pzkw III (such as the late production models Ausf L or M with their
>50mm main gun) than the shorter barrel, smaller caliber gun of the Pzkw II.
>Finally, production of all variations of the Pzkw II had been phased out by
>1943 (well before US troops were in France) and surviving vehicles had been
>relegated to garrison or recon duties or else converted to self-propelled
>artillery which had a tall, boxlike silhouette and no turret.  Production
>of the Pzkw III was similarly phased out by 1943, but production of the
>StuG variation (turretless assault gun) continued into well into 1945
>(providing a source of spare parts) so I would imagine that US troops
>would have been more likely to encounter surviving Pzkw III Ausf Ls
>and Ms than Pzkw IIs.
>
Good points and well taken, I had not considered the over all silhouette as
much as the suspension system, something that is not always very clear due
to "lighting".

Jim O'Neil  From the interrogation of a German General at the end of WW II:

               "The reason the American Army does so well in War, is that War
                is Chaos, and the American Army practices it on a daily basis"

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 15:08:01 -0600
From:    Mark J Weber <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

AA and firefighting units had been moved to Ploesti the previous fall. I
don't know whether Dresden had been formally declared and open city, but
it certainly was one.
Mark

--
Dr. Mark J. Weber                       [email-masked]
Department of Management and Economics  tel (w) 612-641-2431
Hamline University                      fax (w) 612-641-2956
1536 Hewitt Ave.                        tel (h) 612-475-2960
St. Paul, MN 55104                      fax (h) 612-476-8309

On Tue, 14 Feb 1995, Jim Benn wrote:

> I read recently (in Newsweek?) that Dresden had been declared a sort of
> open city during WWII; that there was no military installations and the
> Germans didn't even put any AA batteries near the city.
> Does anyone know if this was some sort of official, recognized status, or
> if it was just an assumption by either side?
> Another news account said that the raid was to test out wide area bombing
> techniques, and the Allies needed an intact city so they could better
> evaluate the results.  Anybody know about this?
> Thanks,  Jim Benn.
>

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 16:24:40 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: more Japan stuff

        Not wishing to attempt to perpetuate the Enola Gay etc discussion line,
but my scatterbrained posts on Japan have taken on a life of their own.  Since
I've been surprised to get a lot of good feedback, I may just clutter up the
bandwidth with one or two more before my fingers fall asleep.
        I've always been intrigued by the role of the Emporer Hirohito in all
of this.  The long-reigning Sumo wrestling fanatic and marine biologist seemed
content for most of his lengthy tenure "to reign rather than rule"
(paraphrasing Toland)-- i.e., to remain in a figurehead and advisory role,
somewhat akin to the modern English monarchs in a parliamentary government.
However, there were a few notable exceptions where Hirohito decided to step in
and make his will unequivocably known for the good of the nation.  Anyone who's
struggled through my previous ramblings on this subject will recall that the
Emporer's displeasure at the Army assassination of Manchurian warlord Chang
Tso-lin in 1928 led to the downfall both of Prime Minister Giichi Tanaka's
government and (for a time) Tanaka's Seiyukai party.  And of course the final
decision to surrender in 1945 was put through primarily by the will of the
Emporer (who had given his consent to Prime Minister Suzuki as early as the
morning of August 9th, prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki).
In between those two dates there was one other important intervention by
Hirohito in the affairs of his government.  The "2/26 Incident" of 1936 was
definitively ended when the Emporer himself denounced the uprising.  I had
mentioned that in this incident the rebels had taken control of most of Tokyo
and had also surrounded the Imperial Palace.  The palace itself was encircled
by a moat, forming a circle about three miles in circumference.  The moat was
up to 100 feet wide at points, and inside it was a stone wall 100 feet high.
Seven bridges crossed this moat, each with its gate in the wall.  When the
rebels arrived loyal police managed to retain control of two of the bridges
(the police force showed exemplary loyalty to the forces of order throughout
this incident-- it was also a policeman who, while pretending to help the
would-be assassins, actually hid Prime Minister Okeda, helping to save his
life).  At any rate, with the navy opposing the rebels and the country poised
on the brink of potential civil war, on February 28th the Emporer himself spoke
out against the dissidents.  This action rallied the Army leadership, who
brought in troops to quell the uprising.
        There was one other important moment when Hirohito let his will be
known, although the result was not so decisive.  I mentioned earlier that the
Navy leadership tended to be more moderate than the Army in pre-war Japan, but
this was not uniformly so.  It was the Navy which pushed for the occupation of
French Indochina, coveting the bases in Vietnam especially.  This was the move,
particularly as it brought the Japanese forces perilously close to the
Phillipines, Malaya/Singapore, and oil-rich Indonesia, which led directly to
the stiffening of western resolve to thwart further Japanese expansion.  In
July 1941 the Dutch first cut their oil shipments to Japan (in response to a
strongly-worded Japanese request to increase them), then the US, Great Britain,
and the Dutch acting in concert froze Japanese assets at the end of the month.
This action essentially paralyzed any Japanese attempts to buy the precious oil
abroad (even with Manchuria and northern China the Japanese produced only about
12% of their requirements, according to Liddel Hart's history of the Second
World War), rendering the official US proclamation of an oil embargo on August
1st rather superfluous.  From this point the leadership in both the Army and
the Navy began preparing for war, even though the Prime Minister, Prince
Fumimaro Konoye, was considered a liberal despite a strong nationalist streak,
and as far as can be discerned sincerely hoped for a negotiated settlement.
Not all the Navy leadership were moderate. Naval Chief-of-Staff Admiral
Osami Nagano believed that there was no way to overcome the American trump card
of superior industrial resources in the long run, and that Japan's only hope
was for a quick knock-out victory.  He thought that Japan's position would only
grow weaker the longer the country waited to act.  Nagano's arguments so
impressed the Army leadership that Army Chief-of-Staff General Gen Sugiyama (a
notorious "hawk" who as Army Minister had been a big supporter of the war with
China) insisted that a deadline be established for negotiations.  It was agreed
that if no results ensued by October 10th Japan would strike.
        It was at this point that Hirohito intervened.  In a meeting with the
military leaders he angrily demanded if they could assure victory, which
neither Nagano nor Sugiyama could guarantee, although both expressed
confidence.  At a meeting of the Privy Council on September 6th, 1941, Hirohito
listened to the discussion.  Then, after criticizing the military leaders for
failing to speak, he read out a poem written by his grandfather, the great
Emporer Meiji;
        "All the seas, everywhere, are brothers to each other
         Why then do the winds and waves of strife
         Rage so violently through the world?"
        The Emporer explained that he often read this poem to remind himself of
his great ancestor's love of peace.  He pressed the military leadership to
essentially give peace a chance, and only agreed to support the government's
action when all concerned assured him that they would resort to war only as a
last resort (one of the officers, I don't recall who offhand, told the Emporer
that they were seeking not a patched-up compromise that would bring them back
to the point of war within a few years, but a true peace that would last 20 or
even 50 years).  It was with this understanding that Hirohito allowed his
government to lead the nation into war.
        In an interesting sequel, the government of Prince Konoye was forced
from office after a cabinet meeting in which General Tojo, the War Minister,
echoed the Army's hard-line approach (i.e., no withdrawal from China, no
humiliating loss of face which would only lead to more "high-handed" attitudes
from Washington) with such forcefulness that it became obvious to all that the
personality differences between Tojo and Konoye were too great for the two to
remain in the same government.  Konoye's subsequent resignation led to the
appointment of Tojo as new Prime Minister (October 1941).  Oddly enough, once
the full responsibility for government was in Tojo's hands, to his credit he
made what appeared to be a sincere effort to give the negotiations a chance.
He even extended the deadline for negotiations until midnight November 30th,
over the objections of many military leaders.  Tojo also guaranteed that there
would be no repitition of the 2/26 Incident in the event of a peace accord (his
very presence in the government was largely predicated on the presumption that
only Tojo, as clear-cut leader of the expansionist faction, could control the
hot-headed junior Army officers).

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 16:45:54 -0500
From:    Dan Ford <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

There is a bitter essay about Dresden in today's (Feb 14's) WALL ST
JOURNAL, on the editorial page no less, damning Bomber Harris and taking
a few pokes at the Yanks as well. The author is British. "The attack,"
says the headline-excerpt, "was morally identical to an infantry
massacre of civilians on the ground. There was no rational argument that
such terrorism would undermine Hitler."

The author says Churchill approved the raid because Stalin wanted it, and
was afterward upset at what was done. He (the author) thinks Britain
should apologize.

                 - Dan
                   email: [email-masked]
                   website: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~df

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 15:01:03 -0600
From:    Chip Merton <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: unit 731

>To expand on I.S. Berzenczei's post, here is the AP (Tokyo) newswire story in
>full as reported by the Providence Urinal (oops) Journal:
>
>        "Fifty years after the end of World War II, six former members of a
>biological warfare unit in the Japanese Army have come forward to tell of
>atrocities that included live human dissections.
>      The new testimony comes in a 74 page book, _The Truth About Unit
>731_, published Friday by a small citizens group in Japan's northern state of
>Iwate.
> Reseachers say Unit 731, based in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, killed
>at least 3,000 people from China, Russia, Korea, and Mongolia in top-secret
>experiments.
>    The victims were subject to horrid abuse: given shrapnel-induced
>gangrene, injected with germs, poisoned with chemicals or operated on -
>sometimes without anesthesia - all in the name of medical research.
> In one of the United States s more shameful moments, historians say
>U.S.officials agreed not to bring war-crimes charges against Unit 731 leaders
>in exchange for information about their experiments.
>        Even now, firsthand testimony about the unit remains limited.
>  All six men who appear in the book are letting their experiences be
>published for the first time, said Ryuji Takahashi, who gathered the
>reminiscences from the men in Iwate.
>  One 72-year-old man, who refused to have his name published, says in
>the book he witnessed unit members conduct many vivisections.
>  A former unit member is quoted as saying he heard another unit team
>developed a special stimulant that was added to the Japanese rice wine
>traditionally downed by kamikaze pilots before their missions.
>  The stimulant apparently helped pilots get excited and put aside
>their fears."
>
>Fits into some of the recent posts quite nicely, huh.
>
>* Tim McFeely
>* Ocean State FreeNet
>* [email-masked]

There was a book published a few years back called _Unit 731_ dealing with
the unit and it's "activities" (quotes mine). Of course it is packed away at
my parent's house 100 miles away so I don't have authors and publisher. But
will be there this weekend and will post more info if any are interested.
Thanks

--Chip
Chip Merton
IN%"[email-masked]"

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:11:39 -0600
From:    "C.K. Bryant" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WWII on the Internet?

Today a colleague of mine posted a help wanted sign in the Mail Room and
I jumped at the idea of helping with his research.  He is going to be
doing some research into a number of different WWII areas in which his
father was involved.  He plans to use the information in writing a
story.

At this point he is starting with some very simple questions that I can
answer without any real help or hard research, however I would be
interested in finding out any and all WWII information sources available
on the Net.

Also, is this groups' posts archived anywhere?  One of the questions
deals with the purple heart and I know we discussed this in the past
three months, but I no longer have the posts on the subject.

Thanx in advance,

C.K. Bryant

*******************************************************************
"The Riskier the road, the greater the profit."    / C.K. Bryant
        The 62nd Rule of Acquisition               / W.I.U. English
*******************************************************************

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:12:36 -0600
From:    Kelvin Brent Luther <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: New WWII PC'ism - Dresden bombing

On Tue, 14 Feb 1995, Jim Brady wrote:

> >        Hello from Winnipeg Canada.  I am new at this so please excuse
> >any blunders in etiquette.
> >        I quite frankly am flabbergasted by this problem with politically
> >correct people interpreting any history let alone that dealing with war.
> >You cannot take an event like WWII and disect it into pieces with regards
> >to morality.  I am assuming that most subscribers are American.  They
> >live in a country where Japanese exchange students dressed like John
> >Travolta in Saturday Night Fever get shot for ringing the wrong
> >doorbell.  The justification is that the man who fired was legitimately
> >afraid for himself and his family.  How can a country like Britain bombed
> >to oblivion be held in contempt for returning the favor in the hopes of
> >winning the war and avoiding their own demise at the hands of the Germans?
>
> How about 1) because dropping firebombs onto a city known to be crowded with ref
> ugees and
> that was a center for art, not industry, wasn't quite the textbook example of mi
> litary targeting; or
> 2) it was done in February of 1945, when there was absolutely no possibility rem
> aining that
> British motive was to "avoid their own demise at the hands of the Germans."
>
> (and if you really want to know, it was "student" singular, unless you know of o
> ther Japanese
> exchange students shot to death while dressed as John Travolta and ringing a doo
> rbell. And if
> you really, really want to know, it's fascinating to see someone in so close a f
> oreign country
> seize upon that incident as some indication of an American ideal, when most Amer
> icans were
> quite dismayed about it.)
> >        If you want to hold the Allies in a moral light do not pick
> >Dresden or the A-bomb as have some others but hold them responsible for
> >doing nothing about the holocaust.  Had they committed an almost
> >unthinkable act and bombed the camps flat without regards for any of the
> >occupents (probably not much more than 10 000 at any one time) they would
> >have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.  That something this
> >horrendous could have been the saving grace of so many only goes to show
> >what horror Germany perpetrated.
>
> ....This just descends into flammable discourse... Why did I somehow know this
> was going to
> happen at the Dresden 50th?
>
>     Signing out...
>
>   Jim Brady
>
        When I first began writing I actually stopped to consider
mentioning the holocaust as I assumed it would evoke the reaction you
just issued.  I think this proves part of my point, why should anyone
involved in a discussion about morality in WW II be dismayed by inclusion
of the holocaust in the discussion?  How could it not be included?  I
also half expected someone to make the point that it was allied knowledge
of the holocaust that allowed them to bomb Dresden (was Hamburg not also
firebombed?).
        As for other Japanese exchange students shot there was one other
shortly afterward (no Halloween costume) and there was a repo man in
Texas shot by the delinquent owner of an unpaid for truck.  Supposedly
this man was afraid for his life too yet he never once considered calling
the police either before or after he shot his rifle in a residential
area.  He turned himself in the next day when he learned he had killed
the man and was found not guilty because of a law written in the 19th
century allowing people to shoot horse thieves.  The amazing thing is
that the politicians and therefore presumably the people supported this
outcome.
        One other thought, the Germans were willing to accept blame for
the holocaust immediately after the war but the guilt has faded, more so
in the generation that committed the crimes than in those that came
afterward.  On CNN last night they talked of Dresden, said most have
trouble deciding if it was a war crime and then interview a 70 year old
German adament that it was.  He claims like you that the war was already
over at this point yet the allies were still sending soldiers to die.  Do
you suppose he was as vocal about ending the war where-ever he was in
Feb. 1945?  Do you think that he ever made an attempt to prevent the
violence against the Jews either before or during the war?  This man is
the last one to be making judgements and the same goes for the vast
majority of Germans who were alive at that time as well as for
collaborationist France which only recently saw the conviction of its
first war criminal with regards to the holocaust, too little too late.
                                        K. Luther

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:25:33 -0600
From:    Kelvin Brent Luther <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Enola Gay

        Just a few small points.  Civilian Japanese had made peace
overtures in July through the Soviets with the consent and support of
Hirohito.  A blockade would likely have given them the impetus they
needed to take back control of Japans course.  Despite this the allies
had already ruled out the blockade option and settled on invasion.
Despite cold war retoric to the contrary any invasion of Japan was based
on simultaneous Soviet action on the continent and this was understood by
the Soviets and had been agreed to at Quebec.
                                        K. Luther

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:49:52 -0600
From:    Kelvin Brent Luther <[email-masked]>
Subject: CBI Theatre

        I am interested in the CBI Theatre and specifically with Stilwell
and his mission to China.  Does anyone out there share this interest?
Perhaps a discussion on FDR's inept handling of CKS (granted he had a lot
on his mind) as well as the immense drain on resources lend lease aid to
China was without the slightest hope of a payoff, especiall in late 1944
early 1945 when the Allies were bogging down in Europe for lack of air
transport.
                                Kelvin Luther

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:05:05 -0800
From:    Steve New <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Dresden, Fire Storms

You wrote:

>
>Was the fire storm of Dresden unique and/or anticipated?  What kind
>of bombs did the US planes use on the city?
>
>
>--
>Bob Rogers            Internet:  [email-masked]
>Instrumental, Inc.    GEnie:     R.C.ROGERS
>Minneapolis, MN USA   Phone:     612-920-6188
>
>
It was most definately not anticipated.  It may have been, my recall is
sketchy here, the first firestorm experienced in recorded history.  The
captured German film of the event is just awesome, flames shooting
sideways along the streets for a hundred feet due to the intense winds
created by the fire.

It did give the USAAF some idea of what could later be done against
Japan, when Curtis Lemay stopped the high altitude strategic bombing
campaign and changed to low level incindiary attacks.

--

Steve L. New
[email-masked]
Just an armadillo on the shoulder of the information superhighway.

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:45:34 -0500
From:    James E Irwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: MEDIA:Dresden Remembers

>From the DoD Newswire 14 February 1995

:GERMANS REMEMBER DRESDEN

   DRESDEN, Germany  -- Flying 19,000 feet over Dresden, the
British navigator saw his plane's firebombs spin through the night
sky. Colin Campbell was aboard one of 772 Lancaster bombers that set
the city on fire 50 years ago.
   "We were told during the briefing Dresden was an important
railway and communications center," said Campbell.
   No mention was made that Dresden was a city of palaces and other
architectural treasures.
   Two British air raids on Feb. 13, 1945, and one by the Americans
the next day left the city in ruins. An estimated 35,000 people died
in the bombings and resulting firestorm.
   On Monday, hundreds of Americans, Britons and Germans gathered to
remember the dead and try to heal the lingering wounds.
   The military chiefs of the three countries -- U.S. Gen. John
Shalikashvili, British Field Marshal Peter Inge and German military
chief Gen. Klaus Naumann -- laid wreaths at a cemetery where the
unidentified remains of thousands were buried in mass graves.
   Several hundred Germans, many of them elderly survivors of the
firebombing, walked quietly to the wooded Heidehof cemetery, where
they placed flowers at a marble monument with the inscription, "How
many died, no one knows for sure."
   German President Roman Herzog reminded those present that it was
a time of "remembering and mourning, not of revenge and hate," and
said the bombardment could not be morally weighed against other acts
of war.
   "One life can't be tallied up against another, pain can't be
tallied against pain, exile against exile, horror against horror,"
he said. "Human suffering can not be balanced on a scale."
   A later ceremony in the Dresden Cultural Palace was delayed about
five minutes when three demonstrators pushed into the auditorium and
hollered from the balcony: "Never again, Germany." Security guards
took them out.
   Members of the same group -- which claims marking the anniversary
treats Germans as victims and trivializes the Holocaust -- disrupted
a memorial service in Dresden Cathedral on Sunday.
   Dresdeners see themselves as victims because of the firebombing,
which some call their Hiroshima. But they are constantly reminded
that their country started World War II and murdered 6 million Jews.
Joachim Aris, the leader of Dresden's 90 Jews, was one of those at
the hilltop cemetery overlooking Dresden.
   Aris owes his life to the Dresden firebombing.
   He and his family had been ordered by the Nazis to go to the
train station on the night of Feb. 16, 1945, for deportation to a
concentration camp.
   The bombers destroyed the train station, halting the Nazis'
deportation of Jews from Dresdent. The war, and Nazi power, ended
three months later.
   "I have mixed emotions about the firebombing," Aris said. "It
saved my life. But I was saddened by my city's destruction."
   Campbell, the wartime British navigator, loves classical
architecture and loves Dresden. During the anniversary
commemorations, he walked around the city and admired its restored
buildings.
   He has donated money for the reconstruction of the 18th century
Church of Our Lady, which has been a ruin and symbol of Dresden's
destruction since the firebombing.

====

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

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

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 14:38:16 -0800
From:    Patrick Charles <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

        Today someone posted a message stating that NPR did a piece on
the Dresden bombing and they said that British and American "jets" filled
the skies.  Was this on Morning Edition?  Was it this morning (2/14)?
Thank you for the information.

Patrick Charles
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:47:43 -0500
From:    James E Irwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: MEDIA:Iwo Jima Vet Remembers

>From the DoD Newswire 13 February 1995

:VET PUTS IWO JIMA IN CONTEXT

   STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga.  -- He was running for his life. But
during those slow-motion seconds scrambling across the dark
pumice-sand of Iwo Jima, Bill Bryan also was thinking.
   He was measuring in his mind as he ran: Could he could make it to
that shell hole up ahead before being hit by the Japanese
machine-gunner's bullets tearing up the ground between his feet?
Visualizing his dive into the hole, he reasoned it couldn't be a
straight plunge or the bullets would "stitch me all the way up."
   So he tried throwing himself sideways as if vaulting a fence, his
right arm flying outward. A 25-caliber bullet found the arm,
shattering the bone just before he hit the floor of the crater.
   And for Marine Pfc. William Jennings Bryan Jr., age 19, that was
the end of the Battle of Iwo Jima.
   Eleven days before, on Feb. 19, 1945, he had landed on the beach
during the first morning's assault. Japanese gun emplacements that
studded the eight-square-mile island opened up.
   "We piled out, and mortars were falling and the machine guns were
coming down the beach," Bryan says. "The whole world was being blown
apart."
   He was in D Company -- Dog Company -- 2nd Battalion, 28th
Regiment, 5th Marine Division. Three days into it, their
alphabetical neighbors in Easy Company raised the famous flag on
Mount Suribachi.
   "Morale went up tremendously," Bryan recalls. "But that was when
the killing really started."
   He saw buddies become gruesome casualties -- one already-wounded
man hit in the groin while waiting to be evacuated, another friend
with half his face torn away.
   Americans suffered 26,000 casualties in their yard-by-yard
assault against Iwo Jima's dug-in Japanese, an official Pentagon
history states. "Throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete"
was one apt description, it says.
   Bryan, who will turn 70 this year, retains much of the bearing of
a Marine: trim, boots shined, even the teeth-gritting smile from his
wartime photos. His jacket bears the patch of a disabled veterans
group.
   Friends died on Iwo Jima -- among them a kid in the landing craft
with white "flash-burn powder" on his face whom Bryan would have
kidded afterward "but he got killed," and another friend with an
Irish name and a wild spark, suddenly extinguished.
   With the mention of each, he moves on determinedly to another
topic.
   "We were taught to move forward, move forward, move forward.
That's what we were supposed to do. And I think that's probably what
--" he stops and starts again. "We could have become pretty well
demoralized."
   Bryan fired at least one fatal shot himself. "I know," he recalls
50 years later, his voice going flat at the thought of the dead
Japanese soldier, "'cause he was there the next day."
   Later, as he himself was evacuated for treatment of his wounds,
complex emotions arose, mixing the natural question "Why was I
spared?" with the Marine code of faithfulness, Semper Fidelis. "You
can't let your buddies down," Bryan says.
   At the same time, he says, "I felt extremely lucky to be alive";
2 1/2 years after enlisting at age 17, he was en route home to a
U.S. military hospital.
   After his discharge, Bryan drifted for awhile, but "somebody was
watching over me," he says -- he met his wife, Bobby, and his life
gained direction.
   The G.I. Bill paid for a college education, something Bryan says
he wouldn't otherwise have pursued, and he then worked for the U.S.
Forest Service in his native Colorado and around the South for 32
years.
   "My perspective is family," he says, looking over a shelf lined
with photos of several generations, from his Western pioneer
great-grandparents to his four sons and his grandchildren.
   His father was his strongest influence and his wife saved him, he
says, but a battle half a world away -- the ducking and then going
forward, forward, forward; the grudging respect for an enemy; the
closeness and loss of friends -- did as much as anything else to
shape his perspective on a puzzling world.
   "I see a lot of grays," he says, summing up. "There's nothing
really black-and-white to me."
   Bryan's Purple Heart, the medal for combat wounds, is packed
away. But he keeps handy a small library of books and articles about
Iwo Jima. Photos show the barren plateaus and cliffs, and the faces
of young Marines, including himself.
   One group photo he has marked with stick-on stars, their
different colors denoting those killed, wounded or decorated. Almost
every face has at least one.
   Among the special keepsakes is a signed copy of "Iwo Jima: Why
and How," by a poet in the ranks, Frank Gardner. The poem begins
with a young student's question: "Why take so small an island,
isolated, far at sea?"
   It explains the crucial value of its military airfields, deemed
worth the tremendous casualties, "one for every minute."
   Marines fought, Gardner writes, for four weeks, "some places more
like five; and we survivors, boarding ship; thanked God to be
alive."
   Lives to live, that's what the lucky ones had. That and a
permanent bond.
   Pulling another page from his trove, Bryan displays a letter from
a buddy he'd lost track of since the war. The man quickly retold his
two-year recovery from a wound that left him walking with a cane. He
told of a career, start to retirement. He told of a son living in
Alaska.
   "That's my life," the friend wrote. "Semper Fi."

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

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

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 17:50:19 -0500
From:    James E Irwin <[email-masked]>
Subject: MEDIA:Glenn Miller Secret Weapon

>From the DoD Newswire 13 February 1995

:GLENN MILLER SECRET WEAPON IS OUT AFTER 50 YEARS

     LONDON, Feb 12  - Twenty Glenn Miller jazz recordings --
so powerful they were an Allied secret weapon in World War Two -- will
be released for the first time on Monday, 50 years after they were
made.
     The recordings, broadcast to German troops on a U.S. wartime
propaganda radio station as "Music for the Wehrmacht" (German armed
forces), were finished at the HMV Abbey Road studios in London just
weeks before Miller's plane vanished over the Channel in December
1944.
     The copyright has now expired and the music will be released in
compact disc and cassette on the Conifer label under the title "Glenn
Miller: The Lost Recordings."
     Miller's musical offensive included some of the band's best-loved
tunes such as "In the Mood," "Moonlight Serenade" and "String of
Pearls" and had the bandleader addressing German soldiers in German
while extolling the virtues of American life.
     Jazz, swing and dance band music were banned in Nazi Germany and
depicted as a decadent art form from an inferior race. But a vibrant
subculture existed in Hamburg and Munich, and many top Nazis are known
to have been closet jazz fans.
     One chief officer at Auschwitz concentration camp was such an
avid jazz afficionado that he set up a prisoner band and smuggled the
players jazz music scores, said Les Back, lecturer in sociology at
Goldsmith's College in London.
     In the transmissions on American Broadcasting Station in Europe
(ABSIE), Miller spoke to German soldiers in a sympathetic tone,
plugging the Allies as saviours from the promised land.

=======

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

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

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 20:58:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: [INF] USAAF 15 FEB 45

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
THURSDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 1945
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
  A-26, Douglas Invader
  B-17, Boeing Flying Fortress
  B-24, Consolidated Liberator
  B-25, North American Mitchell
  B-26, Martin Marauder
  B-29, Boeing Superfortress
  C-46, Curtiss Commando
  C-47, Douglas Skytrain
  P-47, Republic Thunderbolt
  P-51, North American Mustang

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

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATER

  CHINA THEATER (Fourteenth Air Force): In China, 15 fighter-bombers attack
railroad targets at Saiping, in the Hankow area, N of Sinantien, between
Hsuchang and Loyang, and along the Yangtze River from Wuhu to Hankow; the
27th Troop Carrier Squadron, 443d Troop Carrier Group, moves from Yunnani to
Chengkung with C-47s; the 528th Fighter Squadron, 311th Fighter Group, based
at Shwangliu with P-51s, sends a detachment to operate from Hsian.

  INDIA-BURMA THEATER (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 12 B-25s hit buildings,
troops, and other targets of opportunity during a sweep from Lashio to
Loilem and along the road E and W from Loilem; 20 P-47s fly close support
strikes in the Mongmit-Myitson area; a bridge at Hay-ti is knocked out by 6
P-47s; 56 P-47s attack troops, town areas, and supplies at Paukmyaing,
Nam-hpuktok, Namtoi, and Namhu-tau and 8 P-47s hit the Li-lu ferry area.
Large-scale transport operations continue; 511 sorties are flown to forward
areas.

EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): Mission 832: 1,131 bombers and 510
fighters are dispatched to hit oil targets in Germany; with some exceptions,
all attacks are made using H2X radar; they claim 2-0-0 Luftwaffe aircraft; 2
bombers and 1 P-51 are lost
  1. 459 B-17s are sent to hit oil targets at Bohlen; 435 hit the secondary,
the marshalling yard at Cottbus; targets of opportunity are Dresden (1),
Quackenbruck (1) and other (2); 1 B-17 is lost, 1 damaged beyond repair and
34 damaged; 3 airmen are WIA and 9 MIA. 153 of 173 P-51s escort; they claim
2-0-0 aircraft; 3 P-51s are damaged beyond repair.
  2. 224 B-17s are dispatched to hit oil targets at Ruhland; 210 hit the
secondary, Dresden; targets of opportunity are Lingen (1) and the Ems-Weser
Canal (1); 4 B-17s are damaged beyond repair and 8 damaged; 7 airmen are KIA
and 8 WIA. Escorting are 141 of 158 P-51s; 1 is lost (pilot MIA).
  3. 353 of 372 B-24s hit the Magdeburg synthetic oil plant; 1 B-24 is lost,
3 damaged beyond repair and 32 damaged; 2 airmen are KIA and 3 MIA. The
escort is 110 of 120 P-51s.
  4. 58 of 76 B-17s hit a target of last resort, the Rheine marshalling yard;
13 others hit Munster, a target of opportunity. Escorting are 27 P-47s.
  5. 4 P-51s escort photo reconnaissance aircraft over Germany.
  6. 25 of 28 P-51s fly a scouting mission.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Ninth Air Force): In Germany, around 90 B-26s bomb
Sinzig and Mayen rail bridges and 4 targets of opportunity in the area;
fighters patrol points along the battlefront, attack railroads and other
special targets, fly armed reconnaissance and support the US VII, VIII, XII,
and XX Corps along the Roer and Prum Rivers and in the Saar River bridgehead
area. In France, HQ 371st Fighter Group and the 404th and 406th Fighter
Squadrons move from Tantonville to Metz with P-47s; and the 671st Bombardment
Squadron (Light), 416th Bombardment Group (Light), moves from Melun to Athies
Airfield, Laon with A-26s.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Fifteenth Air Force): In Austria, 650+ B-24s and
B-17s bomb 5 station freight yards, SE goods depot, Korneuburg oil refinery,
and Vienna/Floridsdorf, Matzleinsdorf, and Penzing marshalling yards all in
the Vienna area, plus marshalling yards at Klagenfurt, Wiener-Neustadt and
Graz, the Graz ordnance depot, shipyards in Fiume, Italy and scattered
targets of opportunity are also hit; fighters escort the bombers and fly
reconnaissance and reconnaissance escort missions.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy, medium bombers bomb the
Spilimbergo ammunition dumps through an overcast, but are forced by the bad
weather to cancel all other operations; fighter-bombers, limited by weather,
concentrate on railway targets in NE and W Po Valley.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA)

  AAFPOA
    VI Air Service Area Command: The 311th Troop Carrier Squadron, VI Air
Service Area Command, moves from Kahuku to Bellows Field, Hawaii with C-47s.
    Seventh Air Force: 24 B-24s from Saipan Island, in two separate strikes,
bomb Iwo Jima Island airfields and AA defenses; 12 others hit the airfield on
Chichi Jima Island; 4 B-24s from Guam Island, escorting photo aircraft over
Truk Atoll, bomb airfields on Param and Moen Islands; 5 B-24s fly night
harassment raids against Iwo and Chichi Jima.

  HQ AAF (Twentieth Air Force): Mission 34: 117 B-29s from the Mariana
Islands are dispatched to hit the Mitsubishi aircraft engine works at Nagoya,
Japan; 33 hit the primary; 68 hit targets of last resort and targets of
opportunity, 54 of them bombing Hamamatsu; they claim 7-8-23 Japanese
aircraft; 1 B-29 is lost.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: B-25s attack
bridges in the S part of Formosa. B-24s again blast Corregidor Island in
Manila Bay with A-20s and fighter-bombers bombing and strafing its few
remaining gun positions; fighter-bombers hit Caballo Island and fighter-
bombers, B-25s, and A-20s hit Bataan Peninsula all day; also hit are troops
and gun positions in the Ft William McKinley area and airfields at Tuguegarao
and Echague. The 68th Troop Carrier Squadron, 433d Troop Carrier Group, moves
from Biak Island, New Guinea to Tanauan, Leyte Island with C-46s.

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

15/0156Z FEB

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

End of WWII-L Digest - 13 Feb 1995 to 14 Feb 1995
*************************************************