Subject: WWII-L Digest - 14 Feb 1995 to 15 Feb 1995

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 00:03:50 -0500

There are 32 messages totalling 1429 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. INF: USN Chronology 02-15-95
  2. GEN: Berchtesgaden/Obersalzberg facilities
  3. Japan-- tactics
  4. WHY ENOLA GAY?
  5. 50TH: Dresden (2)
  6. Dresden, Fire Storms (3)
  7. Copenhagen Gestapo HQ's
  8. unit 731 (2)
  9. German Superweapon?
 10. Firestorms, excerpt from LeMay book
 11. ACORN unit info
 12. Invasion vs. A-Bomb - Not
 13. Grampas Secrets
 14. Japanese tactics (part 2)
 15. Japanese tactics (part 3)
 16. Spies
 17. INF: 50 Years Ago - 16-FEB-1945
 18. Japanese tactics (part 4)
 19. Iwo Jima (a vet remembers)
 20. Iwo Jima
 21. Michael Wittmann
 22. Bombing the camps
 23. THE INVASION OF JAPAN
 24. INF: Need good sources on PANAY and REUBEN JAMES
 25. Holocaust and Germans
 26. WWII on the Internet?
 27. ACORN UNIT INFO
 28. ENOLA GAY EXHIBIT

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 04:00:08 PST
From:    "Keller, Theron P." <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: USN Chronology 02-15-95

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

1945
02/15 Thu. Army forces are landed in the Mariveles Harbor area of
           Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, P. I., by naval task group (Rear
           Adm. A. D. Struble).
            United States naval vessel sunk:
             Submarine SWORDFISH (SS-193), Pacific Ocean area,
              reported as presumed lost.
            United States naval vessel damaged:
             Motor minesweeper YMS-46, by coastal defense gun,
              14 d. 23'N., 120 d. 36' 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 17:04:17 CET
From:    "COL Donnell, Doug" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: GEN: Berchtesgaden/Obersalzberg facilities

Peter Beal asked what the German gov't plans to do with the Obersalzberg
facilities. . .

According to the latest I've read, they will be turned over to the town
of Berchtesgaden, presumably to be turned into resort hotels/facilities.
I'm not personally convinced that the final chapter has been written on
this book yet, though.  According to a Stars and Stripes newspaper
article last week, no firm date has yet been set for closing the American
recreation area -- they were talking about September -- but nothing firm
yet.  I'll post more info as it becomes available.

I'll also post more info on Obersalzberg/Berchtesgaden during the next several
days.

                            Doug Donnell

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

Date:    Tue, 14 Feb 1995 18:17:49 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japan-- tactics

        I guess my last post was intended to indicate that even men inclined to
peace can find themselves starting a war.  The Emporer Hirohito had chosen as
the name for his reign (bestowed after his death but chosen by the Emporer at
the start of his rule) Showa, meaning "Enlightened Peace."  Rather ironic given
how it all turned out.  Still, if Toland's account is credible (other versions
I've read, such as in Cordell Hull's memoirs, give the Japanese a lot less
credit, but then again, they don't have the inside view presented by Toland,
who with the help of his Japanese wife interviewed an impressive list of
surviving Japanese participants).  Hirohito's fault, again if Toland is
believed, was that he proceeded exactly as the theory of a constitutional
monarchy dictated-- he made his views known, insisted that the peace process be
given a reasonable chance, but in the final analysis bowed to the military
experts and the government.  BTW, while War Minister Tojo, Army Chief-of-Staff
Sugiyama, and Navy Chief-of-Staff Nagano all favored an aggressive policy
vis-a-vis the US and the west, Navy Minister Admiral Oikawa, another of those
Navy moderates, hoped that conflict could be avoided.  Also BTW, one of the
factors which produced Tojo's fit of rage at the October cabinet meeting was
the reluctance of the Navy leadership to give a definitive answer as to whether
they believed they could win if it came to war.  I believe on this question
Admiral Yamamoto hit it right on the money when he said (in a different
context, but essentially answering the same question) something to the effect
that he could raise hell for six months, maybe a year, but that beyond that
there were no guarantees.   As it turned out, Yamamoto's prediction turned out
to be remarkably accurate.
        Tactically speaking, the Japanese armed forces were faced by an almost
insurmountable dilemma.  Their inferior position in regard to industrial and
natural resources made it impossible to contemplate a long war, because in a
prolonged battle of attrition the enemy would almost certainly win.  On the
other hand, the limited nature of Japanese resources also meant that they could
not afford to risk the heavy losses that often accompany daring offensive
ventures, especially when these go wrong, since their losses could not be
effectively replaced (as with the Italians, this latter factor exercized a
powerful influence on the employment of the major units of the Japanese fleet--
it was for example the reason given by Admiral Mikawa for withdrawing his force
after savaging the Allied fleet at Savo Island, when he might have pressed on
and destroyed the entire transport fleet supporting the Guadalcanal landings).
In the book "Re-evaluating the Major Naval Combatants of World War 2" (edited
by James Sadkovich, who also does the chapter on Italy), the author of the
segment on the Japanese Navy (unfortunately I don't recall his name) likens the
Japanese naval forces to a finely-made katana sword of the samurai period-- a
real work of exquisite craftsmanship, but not a suitable weapon for the 20th
Century.  This is, IMHO, a pretty good analogy.  The degree of training in the
Japanese Navy made it certainly one of the world's elite fighting forces.  This
was especially true of the naval aviation.  In Saburo Sakai's 1937 class for
non-com fighter pilots at the navy flying school at Lake Tsuchiura, out of over
1,500 applicants only 70 were accepted for the course, and of these only 25
actually graduated!!  The training they received was amazing.  In addition to
learning the basics of flying, the men were subjected to a wide range of
activities and ordeals designed to develope the many skills needed by a fighter
pilot.  Their endurance was also built up to incredible levels.  They had to do
such things as swim underwater for over a minute (helping to build up lung
capacity for the oxygen-depletion of high altitudes), do diving exercizes which
led up to performing somersaults off a high platform onto solid ground
(teaching the trainee to orient himself at any angle, to prepare for rolls,
etc), stand on their heads for up to ten minutes (got them used to being
upside-down), climb an iron pole and hold on by one arm for ten minutes, etc.
One of the most fascinating exercizes consisted of sitting inside a darkened
box scanning a sector of the sky through tubes until the men could make out the
brightest stars by daylight (increased eyesight).  One of the most vicious,
mainly to instill toughness and an aggressive attitude, was the wrestling
matches where the loser had to remain on the mat (anybody who's tried wrestling
knows how exhausting even a couple of minutes can be-- having to face a fresh
opponent after one such bout greatly increased the chance of losing again).
Anyone who could not win after wrestling the entire chance got a one-day
reprieve, provided they could leave the mat under their own power (if not they
were bounced from the program immediately).  The next day, the loser would have
to be the first on the mat, and if this unfortunate again was beaten by the
entire class he was washed out of the program then and there-- no losers among
Japanese Navy fighter pilots!  To this regimen the cadets often added their own
variations-- in Sakai's class it became the custom to constantly practice
catching flies with the bare hands (the ability to make quick, precise
movements of the hands was very useful in the confined space of a fighter
cockpit).  And those handfull who completed this primary course went on to a
three-month advanced training program, which consisted of two months of
tactical training (with emphasis on mock dogfights) and one month learning how
to take off and land from carriers.
        Furthermore, the graduates of this intense training program often had
actual combat experience in China under their belts before they faced the
Allies in 1941.  Sakai had done two tours of duty there in a Mitsubishi A5M,
and shot down two Russian-made Chinese aircraft, and also got to fly the Zero
in combat conditions during the take-over of French Indochina.  Itaya, who
commanded the fighter planes in the first wave of the Pearl Harbor attack, was
also a China veteran, as was Iida, who led the fighters of the second wave.
Mitsuo Fuchida, a bomber commander who was the in-air commander of the Pearl
attack (he sent the famous "Tora Tora Tora" signal indicating surprise had been
acheived) was another with extensive previous experience in the China theatre.
These men set a high standard, and their experience and expertise was hard for
the Allied pilots to match.  However, such a selective process also made pilots
like Sakai almost impossible to replace once the war started and the inevitable
losses ensued.  In the pre-war years the entire Navy had on the average only
trained about 100 new pilots every year, but by mid-1943 the Japanese had
already lost some 7100 pilots and aircrew!!
        A glaring example is the fate of Lae Wing, the elite fighter unit of
the Japanese Navy.  Formed in April 1942, and based in Lae, New Guinea (hence
the name), this group contained many of Japan's top aces.  Hiroyoshi Nishizawa,
credited with as many as 103 aerial victories, got his first 50 or so with Lae
Wing over New Guinea and later Guadalcanal.  Sakai, the top-scoring Japanese
Navy pilot to survive the war (credited with 64 "kills"), also joined Lae wing
after already rolling up 11 victories over the Phillipines and Indonesia.
Toshio Ota, who shot down 50 Allied aircraft, also fought his whole brief but
spectacular career with this unit.  Wataru Handa, one of the top Japanese aces
of the China theatre with 15 "kills" there, was sent to Lae Wing as a
replacement, but he failed to add to his score before developing tuberculosis
and being sent home.  And later Kenji Okabe, who in August 1943 shot down seven
American planes in one day over Rabaul, also flew with Lae Wing (his score for
the war is also given as 50).  Lae Wing in its heyday established an absolute
dominance over the US and Australian pilots who opposed them over New Guinea
(another pilot, Takatsuka, had 11 victories by May).  On one day in June 1942
Lae Wing pilots, in four separate engagements, claimed 20 P-39 and P-40
fighters without losing a single plane.  At the start of August 1942 the wing
was transferred to Rabaul, where it then flew against the Americans over
Guadalcanal, starting from the very first day, August 7th.  But when the wing
was rotated out at the end of the year, after only eight months of combat, only
ten of its original 80 pilots were still alive (and this number included Sakai,
who was blind in one eye as a result of severe injuries suffered in battle over
Guadalcanal, and Captain Saito, the non-flying wing commander).  Gone was Ota,
killed over the 'Canal in the first month of fighting there.  Nishizawa lived
to fight again over the Phillipines, where he escorted one of the first
kamikaze missions before he too died at the end of October '44, ironically
while piloting an unarmed transport on a run to shuttle replacement pilots
forward from Manila (his c/o thought he needed a rest).  Okabe accomplished his
feat, the best one-day score of the war by a Japanese pilot, in August '43, but
he himself was dead a month later.  Attrition of this sort could not be
supported, and men of this calibre simply could not be replaced.  It should not
be considered a surprise that as the war wore on, the tactics of the Japanese
pilots deteriorated noticeably, till it reached the point, in October 1944,
where US Navy pilot David McCampbell shot down nine single-engined bombers and
damaged two more, while his wingman bagged another five, from a formation of
Japanese planes whose pilots just kept flying without altering course while the
two US Hellcats chopped them to pieces.
        I had intended to turn this into a commentary on Japanese tactics
during the war but I ran out of time, so I'll have to finish later.  Most of
the stuff here is excerpted from Sakai's "Samurai," with back-up from
Ray Tolliver's "Fighter Aces."   I should add that late in the war, in January
1945, the Japanese again tried to form an elite fighter wing, the Matsuyama
Wing, for air defense of the home islands.  By this time few of the elite
pilots were left, but the Matsuyama Wing did include Sakai (who was not however
allowed to actually fly, something he did with one eye over Iwo Jima in '44,
against US Navy raids), as well as Commander Tadashi Nakajima, who had been
deputy commander of Lae Wing, and Shoichi Sugita, who shot down 70 planes over
Truk and the Phillipines in 1944 (Sugita is credited with causing the death of
Capt MacGuire, number two US ace of the war, in January '45-- he did not shoot
him down, but attacked a formation led by the American ace with three other new
pilots, downing the tail aircraft.  Only MacGuire saw this happen, and as he
tried to turn sharply to intercept Sugita before he could attack the next plane
of his group he lost control of his aircraft, still at a relatively low
altitude, and fatally crashed).  The Matsuyama Wing was commanded by Captain
Minoru Genda, one of the Japanese Navy's most brilliant operational
specialists, pioneer of long-range fighter tactics in China, and chief of
operations for Kido Butai, the carrier force, from Pearl Harbor through Midway.
He was instrumental in training the Pearl attack force.  This wing flew the
Shiden, an excellent fighter plane, of which only about 400 were built.  They
had some success-- for example, Sugita got four US aircraft on his first
mission in the Shiden March 19, 1945.  But Sugita was killed while trying to
take off by strafing Corsairs a month later, and the Matsuyama Wing was another
example of too little, too late.  The Japanese could never recover the
qualitative edge they enjoyed at the start of the war.
        I also wanted to throw in a couple of quick corrections.  I referred to
"education for conformity" as a chapter title in Ienaga's book, in fact that
phrase is used in a chapter called "Thought Control and Indoctrination."  Also,
it was "Tooey" Spaatz, not Curtiss LeMay, who launched an 821-plane raid on the
Tokyo area August 14th, 1945, knowing that peace was in the offing, and
commenting he wanted "as big a finale as possible" (Toland).  Finally, it would
be disingenous of me to let it be understood that the creation of Lt-Gen
Yoshida's Mechanized Army of two armored divisions in Manchuria in the summer
of 1942 was entirely for defensive purposes in fear of the Russians.  Actually,
according to Hayashi ("Kogun"), the intent was to mount a rapid advance into
Soviet territory if the Soviet Union collapsed under Hitler's Stalingrad
offensive, or if such a collapse seemed certain.

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 07:32:36 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WHY ENOLA GAY?

Hello, Jorge!

This question may have already been answered, but the name Enola Gay
was the name of Paul Tibbets' mother.

Hope this helps.

Terry

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 08:44:39 EST
From:    Roger Coon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

Patrick Charles asked about my post on the "jets" attacking Dresden.
Yes it was on Morning Edition.  The announcer was a woman if that helps
to pin down the piece any.  There were several spots on the subject
that day but hers was the only one to mention the jets.
Brad Coon

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 08:43:32 -0500
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Dresden, Fire Storms

Steve New wrote ...

>It was most definately not anticipated.  It may have been, my recall is
>sketchy here, the first firestorm experienced in recorded history.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wasn't there also a firestorm earlier at Hamburg?

-- Warren Thompson

[email-masked]

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 07:50:58 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Copenhagen Gestapo HQ's

Hello, All!

Sorry that a post was not made yesterday. Due to computer problems
here as a result of an ice storm

Here goes with another post on the subject, and hope it is of
interest.

Lippmann's message gave Embry the "field determination" he required
and the plans to bomb Shellhus, which had been at the drafting stage,
were brought out for closer scrutiny. Svend Truelsen was again
relieved of most of his duties in order to work closely with
intelligence officers of the Second TAF in preparing detailed plans
for the attack. Truelsen's intelligence organization produced a
wealth of information, including details on Gestapo use of Shellhus
office space and German anti-aircraft defense in the area, as well as
a full description of the target and its surrounding neighborhood.
The Germans, it was learned, had taken pains to camouflage Shellhus
in battle tones of green and brown. but this attempt to make the
building more difficult to detect from the air actually served the
opposite purpose, for the Germans failed to camouflage the
surrounding buildings and Shellhus consequently stood out in sharp
contrast to all other structures nearby. RAF planes considered the
German camouflage attempt an advantage for the attackers, not for the
defenders.

Eighteen Mosquito aircraft were assigned to carry out the raid. As
in the attack against Gestapo Headquarters in Aarhus, they would make
their bombing runs in waves of six planes each. And again, as in the
Aarhus raid, the planes were scheduled to make their attack on a
weekday morning between eleven and twelve. The RAF thereby hoped to
duplicate the success it had scored in its pre-lunch raid at Aarhus.

The Mosquitos, with Mustang fighter escort, reached Fersfield
airfield in Norfolk for pre-flight briefings on March 19. RAF
briefing officers instructed the pilots to aim their bombs at the
base of Shellhus and to avoid bombing the upper floor where the
prisoners were lodged. Little hope was held out that the hostages
could survive the raid, however. Although the Mosquitos were famous
for their bombing accuracy, it did not seem possible that eighteen
planes could deliver their bomb loads with such pin-point precision
that the upper floors would escape damage while the base of the
building was being smashed into dust. Svend Truelsen, who spoke at
the briefings, tried to reassure the pilots about the plight of the
prisoners. He pointed out that the resistance leaders faced the risk
of execution after interrogation. It was, as he said, a question of
dying under an RAF attack or at the hands of a German execution squad.

More tomorrow.

All the best.

Terry

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 07:53:48 GMT-6
From:    "Robert T. Moore" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: unit 731

Hello, Chip!

Post away! Would be most interested to hear more.

All the best.

Terry

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 09:01:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: German Superweapon?

I picked this up from the soc.history.war.world-war-ii USENET
group.  Has anyone else seen it and/or commented on it?

Article 4862 of soc.history.war.world-war-ii:
Path: athos.cc.bellcore.com!walter!att-out!pacbell.com!decwrl!ames!lll-winken.llnl.gov!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!news.erinet.com!ww2
From: Steve Klitzing <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: soc.history.war.world-war-ii
Subject: German superweapon uncovered on Jan Mayern Island
Date: 13 Feb 1995 09:52:22 -0500
Organization: EriNet Online 513 436-9915
Lines: 31
Sender: [email-masked]
Approved: [email-masked] [Brett Kottman - Moderator]
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: eri.erinet.com
Comments: Automated Posting Script V3.2  June 1994
Moderator: [email-masked] [Brett Kottman - Moderator]
X-Receive-Date: 10 Feb 1995 18:16:13 GMT

        [It's not quite April, but what the heck :)--Brett]

The New York Times reported today that paleontologists searching
for fossils discovered the remains of a German superweapon that
the nazis had tested at the end of the Second World War.  The
device was found located on a submarine, which had beached in
1945, and had been subsequently covered with sand after the crew
had abandoned ship.  The superweapon, mounted just forward of
the bridge, replaced the forward 105mm gun that could usually be
found on older U-boats.  The device consisted of a large U-shaped
mount with a huge elastic band connecting the two vertical sides
of the mount.  It could be swiveled in any direction and was
designed to fire projectiles up to five miles.  The elastic band
was cranked back by a diesel-powered winch and released after
placing a huge 1000-lb. ball-bearing in the center of the elastic.
The ball-bearing hurtled through the air at speeds up to 740
m.p.h. and was designed to sink ships as large as 10,000 tons.
Researchers assume the sub became beached when it attempted to
use the superweapon against the British battleship Duke of York,
and the ball-bearing failed to release from the elastic, causing
a whiplash effect that sent the U-boat backwards onto a beach over
2 miles away.  British experts studied the device and the boat
and discovered plans for a ball-bearing which had a RATO
(rocket assisted take-off) pack attached to it with an estimated
launching speed of at least 1530 m.p.h.  Pentagon officials declined
to comment on the discovery, but at least one military official
was quoted as saying "That's not a bad idea."

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 09:13:25 -0500
From:    [email-masked]
Subject: Re: unit 731

>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
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The book in question is,

        Peter Williams. UNIT 731: JAPAN'S SECRET BIOLOGICAL WARFARE
                IN WORLD WAR II. Free Press, 1989.

-- Warren Thompson

[email-masked]

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 09:41:17 EST
From:    Roger Coon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 50TH: Dresden

Patrick Charles also asked if the broadcast was on the 14th.  I believe
it was on the 13th.  Sorry for the omission.
Brad Coon

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 10:28:35 EST
From:    "Dennis E. Sparks" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Firestorms, excerpt from LeMay book

On the subject of the use of incendiaries and whether the extent of
the resulting firestorms were anticipated, here is an excerpt that I
thought might be of interest.  The excerpt is a direct quote from the
book, with a couple of my comments added in parentheses.  Please excuse
any typos.

>From the book, "Superfortress:  The B-29 and American Airpower", by
Curtis E. LeMay and Bill Yenne, pages 121-126.  Published by McGraw Hill,
1988, ISBN # 0-07-037164-4

If there had been any serious planning before the war for the use of
incendiaries, I hadn't heard anything about it, and I don't remember
any mission that our group flew over Germany where we used them.
(My note:  LeMay was the CO of the 305th BG, one of the first of the
8th AF's B-17 groups, from June 1942 until 15 May 1943.)  I'm sure
that General Hansell knew as much about incendiaries as I did, but he
hadn't used them in any of the attacks he made against Japan before
I arrived in the Marianas.  (My note:  Hansell was LeMay's predecessor
as CO of XXI Bomber Command.)  In March 1943, however, the USAAF had
conducted a series of secret tests with incendiaries at the Dugway
Proving Ground in Utah.  Antonin Raymond, a New York architect with
eighteen pre-war years of experience in Japan, had been hired to design
a town that would simulate, in precise detail, a typical Japanese city.
Using materials that were brought in from as far away as Hawaii, the
USAAF constructed a full scale Japanese town.  It was exact down to
the books on the shelves and the matting on the floor.  Even a "fire
brigade" was organized, equipped to simulate its typical counterpart
in Japan.  Attacks on this site, combined with the research efforts
of DuPont, Standard Oil, and the National Research Defense Council,
resulted in the new napalm-based M69 incendiary bomb that became
available at the end of 1944.

In the meanwhile, the only major use of incendiaries against the
Japanese in actual combat had been our December 18, 1944, attack on
Hankow.  All our estimating indicated that we needed about 400
airplanes in order to put down enough bombs to get the concentration
required for a good fire.  We didn't, however, have 400 airplanes.
We didn't have any time either.  We had to go *now*.

The first low-level incendiary attack was put on the schedule for
the night of March 9-10, 1945.  Tokyo would be our target - the
primary target, the secondary target, the *only* target.  Except for
the March 4 mission, in which 179 bombers (of 192 launched) hit
Tokyo, no B-29 raid had ever gone out with more than 150 bombers
earmarked for a single target, but this raid would consist of over
300 Superforts.

(A few paragraphs deleted describing the briefing and takeoffs.)

The M69 incendiaries were set to burst at 2000-feet altitude, each
in turn dividing into 38 separate submunitions covering a swath of
Tokyo 500 feet by 2500 feet with burning gasoline.  Wave upon wave
of the Superforts followed the pathfinders across Tokyo at altitudes
staggered between 5000 and 8000 feet, dropping their M69s to the
pattern set by the fires started by the pathfinders.  With 8 tons
of incendiaries crammed into the bomb bay of every Superfort, it
didn't take long before there were small tongues of flame throughout
the Tokyo urban area.  Quickly these small fires spread and merged
into larger fires, which in turn merged into a firestorm of
incredible proportions.

(Two more paragraphs deleted for brevity.)

When the conflagration had finally burned out, 267,171 buildings
had been destroyed and 83,000 people were dead - the highest death
toll of any single day's action of the war, exceeding the number
of deaths caused by the big Allied raids on Hamburg and Dresden,
or the nuclear strike to come in August on Hiroshima.

(More deletions.)

I was not happy, but neither was I particularly concerned, about
civilian casualties on incendiary raids. I didn't let it influence
any of my decisions because we knew how the Japanese had treated
the Americans - both civilian and military - that they'd captured
in places like the Phillipines.

We had dropped some warning leaflets over Japan, which essentially
told the civilian population that we weren't trying to kill them,
but rather that we were trying to destroy their capability to make
war.  We were going to bomb their cities and burn them down.  We
suggested they leave for their own safety.  I didn't think it did
much good, but I did notice that the greatest number of casualties
came on the first Tokyo attack.  From then on, the numbers went
down because of the evacuation of civilians and because the Japanese
got somewhat better fire-fighting capability, although the latter
never improved to a great extent.

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 09:47:18 PST
From:    BOB ROY <[email-masked]>
Subject: ACORN unit info

        I have a question...My father was the medical officer for an  ACORN
unit (U.S. Navy) in the
Solomons  during WWII.   I think I heard that ACORN units where  SEEBEE  or
 PT-BOAT base
units.  Does anyone have any info on  Navy  ACORN  units in the South
Pacific ??.   He stayed
in the Navy and retired  a captain in 1963, and passed away in 1971.

 Another question--  I sent snail mail to the Stars & Stripes people about a
subscription to the U.S.
edition, never received an answer, any ideas on how to get info ??

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 10:04:04 -0600
From:    Bob Rogers <[email-masked]>
Subject: Invasion vs. A-Bomb - Not

John Skates' book "The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb" points
out that use of the bomb was not considered something that would be done
to prevent the invasion, but was one of a series of events (invasion,
continuing blockade, entry of Russia into the war) that US policy makers
hoped would force the Japanese government to accede to US unconditional
surrender demands.  He supports something that I've suspected, that,
despite the current fuss over casuality estimates surrounding the Enola
Gay controversy, there was no decision made to "use the bomb to save
US lives".  Obviously, US planners were quite happy to find that the bomb
ended the war, but it's apparent that, at the time, the invasion planning
and bomb use planning were somewhat seperate tracks (involving mostly
different people) that, at the highest levels, were seen as complementary.

The whole issue of casualies is a red herring that says more about our
feelings about the bomb (and Allied leaders' post-war desire to justify
their actions) than it does about US thinking in 1945.

(By the way, it was me who said "Japan sowed the wind and they reaped
the whirlwind" - something I firmly believe.  It fits nicely with a
statement (on NPR) by a modern-day Dresdener (the mayor?) to the effect
that, "Hitler had started the war, Germany had stared the war, now [at
Dresden] the war had come back to Germany".)

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 10:22:20 -0600
From:    Bob Rogers <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Dresden, Fire Storms

Steve New writes:

        [Dresden] 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.

Do you have a reference that states it was Dresden that inspired Lemay?

(It's not that I doube the statement, I just haven't heard this
before.)

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 12:07:11 EST
From:    "Cassady B. Craft" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Grampas Secrets

I posted a request for information about a British flyer's somewhat secret
job after being taken off ops a week or so ago.  No one has responded.
This is highly unusual for this list, and a little disconcerting since my
buddy has heard endlessly of the selfless nature and infinite depth of
knowledge of the patrons of the list.  Come on, can someone at least b.s.
on this and save my vanity? :)  Just kidding, really.  Did the posting
make it to the lists?  Do I have to start the speculation myself?

I appreciate all help that has been given to me on various topic so far.
Thanks for everything.

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 13:27:17 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japanese tactics (part 2)

        First, my quick apologies if my last couple posts seemed a bit
scatter-brained.  I was typing under a time deadline, something I haven't had
much practice at since a stint as a part-time sportswriter for my small
hometown's local paper about 15 years ago.  I know I was rushed since I made
Maguire into MacGuire (or did I?-- to be honest I haven't had a chance to go
look up which is the correct spelling-- I'm referring to the US Army ace who
rolled up 38 victories in a P-38 over New Guinea and the Phillipines before his
death in Jan '45).  Anyway, my intent was to take a look at the evolution of
Japanese tactics during the war.
        The first thing I want to say is, from how I see it the Japanese were
betting everything on a quick, knock-out victory, probably to an even greater
extent than they themselves even realized.  I know its true of all military
forces that they tend to perform much better in operations they have
specifically trained for, but in the Japanese case this tendency was exagerated
to an extreme degree.  The Japanese preparations for their initial Pacific
offensive were exceedingly thorough.  I've already pointed out the degree of
training acheived for the Navy fighter pilots.  The pilots of the torpedo
planes for the Pearl Harbor attack was just as thorough.  Captain Genda set up
a special training program in an isolated harbor which had many of the physical
characteristics of Pearl, in that the pilots would have to make their approach
over a small mountain, drop rapidly to low level, and then launch their
water-filled practice torpedoes against a reef standing in a spot approximating
Battleship Row.  This realistic practice apparently paid off, as witnessed by
the multiple hits scored by the torpedo planes at Pearl (admittedly against
large, stationary targets-- Jim Adams & co. in Hawaii can provide the actual
statistics on this with more accuracy than I).  The dive-bomber crews of Kido
Butai, the carrier strike force, reached a similar level of proficiency through
constant training.  It was reported that during attacks which sank two British
cruisers during Kido Butai's raid on the Indian Ocean in April '42 the dive
bombers scored hits with four out of five bombs dropped! (if accurate, that
feat against moving targets which are shooting back is little short of
incredible, especially in view of the difficulty which the British, for
example, had against Italian warships at sea in the early part of the
Mediterranean war).  The Pearl assault not only benefitted from
intensively-trained, experienced air personnel, but also from excellent
intelligence systematically gathered over a prolonged period (see Toland and
others for details).  One example of this which sticks in my mind is the use of
postcards showing an aerial view of Pearl Harbor which the Japanese carried
posted up inside their aircraft, the cards overlaid with a grid and with their
specific target areas clearly marked.  Scale models of the harbor were also
employed in fully briefing all concerned on their tasks.
        The entire Japanese military was prepared in this fashion for their
great offensive.  The goal was to finish the war in five months, as even the
most optimistic (at least on the naval side) knew that there would be trouble
if the conflict were prolonged.  Large-scale landing operations were carried
out on the home island of Kyushu in preparation (just like the Allies before
D-Day in Normandy).  Yamashita's 25th Army, with the objective of capturing
Malaya and Singapore, was particularly well-prepared, largely due to the
efforts of its operations officer, Lt-Col Masonobu Tsuji (a controversial
figure in the Japanese Army, but known as "the God of Operations" by his
supporters).  Tsuji and his staff had set up a special jungle warfare institute
on Formosa/Taiwan, where the problems of combat in this terrain were studied in
great detail.  Although there was not time to put all the troops earmarked for
the Malaya invasion through special jungle training courses, the knowledge
gained was distilled into a remarkable pamphlet titled "If You Only Read This,
The War Can Be Won," which was distributed to all the troops to read while on
their transports, and to keep as a handy manual (given the incident I cited
with the Emporer Meiji's Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, one can imagine that
if ordered to read it and memorize it most soldiers did so).  The Japanese
arrangements for logistical support in the Malaya operation, and the subsequent
conquest of Singapore, also are distinguished by their thoroughness and
foresight (in contrast to an often sorry Japanese performance in this sphere),
a factor which can be directly attributed to Tsuji's influence.  Again,
intelligence was also extremely good.  One of Tsuji's staff, Major Asaeda (who
as a combat officer in China had established a reputation for acts of valor
that were considered reckless even by Japanese standards), bicycled the entire
length of the Malay peninsula posing as a tourist.  Asaeda's trip provided
crucial intelligence of the terrain to be encountered, especially the presence
of more than 50 rivers and small streams across the proposed route of
operations, which in turn led to special provision for engineers and bridging
units.  Tsuji himself managed to make a clandestine reconnaisance flight over
the north Malayan airfields (most of this from Masonobu Tsuji, "The Fall Of
Singapore," though Toland also refers to Tsuji's exploits at length).
        The end result of all this was a series of spectacular victories.  The
Japanese in their first offensive were particularly adept at infiltration
tactics.  In both Malaya and Burma the British, who lacked adequate forces to
build up a continuous, solid defensive line, were repeatedly forced out of
strong postions by relatively small Japanese forces which infiltrated around
their flanks through the jungle.  Indeed, in Burma it took the British two or
three years to learn how to effectively counter tactics of this type.

        I'm being bumped from this terminal, will pick up the thread as soon as
I find another one free....

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:03:14 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japanese tactics (part 3)

        As I was saying, the Japanese use of infiltration tactics, aided by the
jungle terrain, not only maneuvered the British out of position after position
in Malaya and Burma (beginning with Jitra in northern Malaya), but continued to
confuse the British and commonwealth forces (in Malaya many "British" troops
were actually Indian or Australian, and a few were Scottish) in Burma right up
until 1944.  Compared to the British, the Japanese seemed to be much more at
home in jungle terrain for most of the war, and also quicker to react in
small-scale combats (I remember seeing an interview with a British officer,
might have been on "World At War," where he said that in Burma almost as soon
as contact was made they would be on the receiving end of Japanese 50-mm "knee
mortars."  NOTE: the 50-mm mortar was actually a kind of predecessor to the US
M79 grenade launcher of the Vietnam era, although it was fired with its concave
baseplate braced on the ground.  The standard model weighed only 12 pounds, and
usually each Japanese platoon had one in each of its three rifle squads, and
another in the platoon HQ.  Though of limited destructive potential it was also
useful for signals, firing colored flares.  The term "knee mortar" was a
botched translation of "leg mortar," as the weapon was often strapped to the
soldier's leg when marching-- Ian Hogg's encyclopedia of WW2 infantry weapons).
I should also mention that the best Japanese units employed small-unit tactics
similar to those in the German army of the same time, i.e., emphasis on
infiltration (although more use of the bayonet once this was acheived).  Like
the Germans, they also tended to push their light machineguns right up to the
front so as to have the maximum firepower at the point of attack-- the standard
Nambu Type 96 lmg was even fitted to take a bayonet (the Type 96 could also
take a scope sight and, with its single-shot capability, be used for
sniping--Hogg, WHB Smith "Small Arms of the World").  At any rate, tactics of
this type, and the excellent training and operational preparations, allowed the
Japanese to overrun the jungle-covered, 400-mile long Malay peninsula in less
than two months, without fully motorized units, and to make similar rapid gains
in Burma, routing the British and Chinese forces there (the 5th and 18th
Divisions which spearheaded the Malaya operation-- both veteran formations from
China-- were given much more motor transport for this mission than was usual
for infantry divisions in the Japanese Army-- about 400 trucks per division,
making them partly-motorized, and the rest of the men were provided with
bicycles.  Another example of thorough preparations).  At Bataan in the
Phillipines, where, once the US/Phillipino forces had reached their main
defense line, opportunities for infiltration and flanking attacks were much
more limited (the Japanese did try it via small-scale amphibious assaults), the
Japanese were forced, after several futile frontal assaults, to break through
by main force in a conventional battle, aided by air strikes and an artillery
barrage from 150 guns on a two-and-a-half mile front.  However, the Japanese
Army ground forces were very much fighting a poor man's war, and could not
usually acheive such concentrations.  The hop across the narrow Johore Strait to
Singapore took place under cover of over 400 guns, but this too was an
exception.  In the border clashes with the Soviets in 1939 one of the big
advantages possessed by the Red Army was its significantly heavier weight of
artillery.  On Guadalcanal the biggest Japanese barrage I've read about
involved 25 guns (and that was only done as a diversion).  The Japanese needed
to fight smart to win, and initially, when they had thoroughly rehearsed their
operations, they did so.  As we'll see, however, when they had to improvise
operations, as at Guadalcanal, the results tended to be quite different.  But
as time is again short that will have to be the subject of a future post.  I
should mention in passing that the repeated delays experienced in the conquest
of the main island of Luzon in the Phillipines (for which the 14th Army
commander, Homma, was severely criticized by his superiors) demonstrated the
problems the resource- and material-poor Japanese Army had in launching
conventional frontal assaults against prepared positions.  Even in the final
act of the Luzon operation, the taking of Corregidor, Sato's assault troops
suffered severe losses whenever they attempted to come ashore where the
defenses were still intact (in many places they had been knocked out by the
prolonged bombardment from 116 guns, including 25 150-mm long-barrelled guns
and ten 240-mm howitzers, the latter the biggest mobile artillery pieces in the
entire Japanese Army-- James Belote, "Corregidor, Saga of a Fortress").
        Well, gotta go, work beckons.  Hopefully, having dumped all this
background data, will get to the point in the next post.

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

                "But Comrade Trotsky, not everyone can be a genius."

                Molotov, then a young official in Stalin's Party Secretariat,
                defending himself from charges of bureaucratic boondoggling.

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 15:53:57 -0500
From:    James Vaughan <[email-masked]>
Subject: Spies

Mike,

>        I get the feeling I've been away from certain subject areas too long
>and may have missed important developments.  Can anyone on the list answer
>the
following??
>        There was a Soviet spy ring known as "Werther," controlled from
>Switzerland by German expatriot Communist Rudolf Rossler, code name "Lucy,"

A fairly good ( and easily read ) treatment of espionage is "The Secret War"
volume of the "Time-Life History of World War II".

In this one the author, Francis Russell, describes 'Werther' as being the
code
name of one of Rossler's 4 high-placed German sources. The other three were
code-named Teddy, Olga and Anna. This volume also says that according to a
French account, Rossler had been the 'spiritual conscience' of a number of
disaffected German generals. Supposedly Rossler never disclosed his sources.

However he did it, apparently the Russians had word of High Command decisions

within 24 hours after they were made.

One British intelligence source said that " Rossler must be ranked among the
great spies of all time. "

Thats all for now. Hope I have been of some little help.

Jim Vaughan
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 17:33:19 EST
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 16-FEB-1945

On 16-FEB-1945, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - The British XXX Corps takes Asperberg, Asperden and
Afferden. In the U.S. 3rd Army sector, the XII Corps concentrates on
further strengthening its positions beyond the Siegfried Line. The 26th
Division continues with the consolidation of the Saarlautern Bridgheads.

Eastern Front - The Red Army completes the encirclement of Breslau in
Silesia.

Philippines - The I Corps patrols aggressively to determine the routes of
advance on Baguio and Balete Pass. In XI Corps area, after intensive
preparatory bombardment, Rock Force starts landing on Corregidor. Rock
Force is composed of elements of the 24th Division. The Japanese are shaken
by the preparatory bombardment and are taken completely by surprise.

Iwo Jima - An intensive pre-invasion bombardment begins. TF's 52 and 54
arrive off the island and start naval and air bombardment and mine
sweeping. Aircraft from escort carriers coordinate with Marianas based
bombers in pounding Iwo Jima while planes of TF 58 deliver simultaneous
attacks on Japan in general support of the Iwo operation.

Marianas - Joint Expeditionary Force (TF 51) leaves Saipan for Iwo Jima.

Burma - Units of the Indian 25th Division lands on the Arakan coast near
Ru-ywa. The Indian 29th Division consolidates the Irrawaddy bridgehead.

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

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:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 18:06:14 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japanese tactics (part 4)

        I guess my working theory here (for the first part of the war, at
least) is pretty simple.  Namely, that when the Japanese military was able to
meticulously prepare for weeks or months for campaigns in which they held the
initiative, their performance was often spectacular.  However, when they were
forced to improvise, especially to react to unexpected enemy initiatives, and
to fight on ground not of their own choosing, their commanders and staffs at
all levels showed a singular lack of ability to adapt to the circumstances
thrust upon them.  Nowhere do I see the improvisational abilities, at a grand
tactical or strategic level, of a Manstein or of the many ad hoc German battle
groups which extinguished fire after fire, especially on the eastern front.
Given the lack of resources which already impaired the Japanese, this inability
to effectively fight an unexpected battle on short notice was fatal.  Nowhere
was this failing more evident than at Guadalcanal, which can truly be called a
turning point of the Pacific war.
        I should say here that strategy also failed the Japanese.  They
acheived virtually everything they tried for in the first five months.  But
although they won virtually every battle, they did not land the knock-out punch
they anticipated.  They did not force the negotiated peace or the
time-consuming build-up of enemy forces that would have allowed them to develop
their "Southern Resource Area" and integrate it into their economy sufficiently
to prepare them for a long war of material.  This left the leadership in a
serious quandary, to which the chief remedies were as follows:
        either, 1.) expand the defensive perimeter around their newly-gained
resources sufficiently to remove the enemy's most convenient bases, and force
them to attempt their counter-offensive across wide expanses of ocean (i.e.,
neutralize both Australia in the south and Midway in the east as enemy bases)
        or, 2.) attempt to lure the enemy into the "decisive battle" that had
been the centerpiece of Japanese naval strategy since the defeat of the Russian
fleet at Tsushima in 1905 (this had been the pet project of Japan's naval "gun
club," as the Americans termed their version, i.e., the battleship proponents;
Yamamoto even subscribed to the basic premise, except that he tried to fight
the decisive battle at the very start of the war, and used air power instead of
gun power as the weapon of choice-- however, Pearl Harbor turned out to be a
victory, but not the decisive one).
        In the end, a combination of both was tried (the Japanese success in
the opening phase seemed to engender a gross overconfidence at almost all
levels, which was particularly marked among the second-line units which had not
yet seen much combat against the US, British, et al, and wanted to share the
glory).  The Australia gambit led to the New Guinea campaign, the Battle of the
Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal, while the attempt by Yamamoto to combine the two
approaches led to Midway.
        At any rate, the Guadalcanal campaign crystallizes most of the tactical
failings of the Japanese, and especially of their Army.  Let's begin with
intelligence.  We've seen how effective the intelligence efforts were at Pearl
Harbor and Malaya.  By comparison, when the US Marines landed on Guadalcanal in
August 1942 and the Japanese Navy, which had only a marine battalion and some
construction units on the island, asked the Army for help, the Army was not
even aware there were Japanese forces on Guadalcanal.  It had little
information about the island, did not realize the Navy was building an airfield
there as part of its plan to cut the supply lines between the US and Australia,
and had no idea about the size, composition, etc, of the enemy forces (in Japan
the inter-service rivalry and often animosity between Army and Navy was even
worse than in the US-- at least Roosevelt didn't have to promote Ernie King to
keep some Army captain from blowing his brains out, like the Japanese did with
Yamamoto).  Japanese intelligence remained poor, with the fatal result that the
size of the American forces on the island were consistently underestimated.
This led to severe tactical disadvantages, since the Japanese did not really
make sufficient forces available for the campaign until it had already been
largely decided.  They never really had the mass of men and firepower available
for the relatively crude tactics they employed on land to have a realistic
chance of success.  For the Japanese tactical approach was extremely primitive
and poorly-executed.  The Marines had one initial advantage in that, having
captured the nearly-finished airfield on their first day ashore, for the next
two months their main mission was simply to defend a horseshoe-shaped perimeter
around it and the beach.  This gave them the advantage of interior lines, and
forced the Japanese to try and co-ordinate operations around the outside
through difficult jungle terrain.  They did this very poorly-- all of their
attacks suffered from severe problems of co-ordination and timing, and thus
their troops, already insufficient in numbers for the tasks to which they were
assigned (due to faulty intelligence), were not even able to properly support
each other.  The worst example of this was in the October battles, when the
diversionary assault went off a day ahead of schedule, its commander unaware
the main effort had been postponed due to difficulty in reaching deployment
areas due to the difficult terrain.  Even the main attack's two components
jumped off at different times.  But even worse were the actual attack tactics,
which the Japanese themselves later criticized as "bamboo spear tactics."
        There were three main Japanese attacks on the Marine perimeter.  The
first, in August, was by a detachment of 915 men under Col. Ichiki, along the
Ilu river (mistakenly identified by the Marines as the Tenaru).  Ichiki's group
had been slated for the assault landing on Midway, which had to be cancelled
due to the disastrous outcome of the naval battle.  Ichiki was apparently eager
to have his men get some action, and, given the unbroken string of great
victories in the previous months (on land), rather contemptuous of the fighting
powers of the enemy.  His attack, by about 800 men of his force, was a simple
frontal assault, across a river, against Marines dug in behind barbed wire (the
existence of which came as a great shock to the Japanese in their night
attack).  Hung up in the middle of the river, they were mown down by
machineguns, rifle fire, and some 37-mm antitank guns firing canister.  The
next morning the survivors were counterattacked and wiped out by Marines
supported by some Stuart light tanks.  Ichiki (who then committed suicide) lost
almost 800 men, the Marines suffered 110 casualties, of whom 35 were killed.
        The second Japanese assault, the famed "Battle of Bloody Ridge" in
September, was made by a force of less than brigade strength under General
Kawaguchi.  This time it was a frontal assault against Marines dug in on top of
a hill, behind barbed wire, and now supported by artillery.  Again the cover of
darkness was the only aid the Japanese possessed besides their courage, and
again the attack was a miserable failure with disproportionately high
casualties.  The third and final attempt, in October,  came over almost the
same ground as the September "Bloody Ridge" assaults.  This time General
Maruyama's entire 2nd Division made the attack, along with survivors of the
earlier fighting.  The plan was a little more complex.  There would be a
diversionary effort along the Matanikau river on the (Japanese) left flank,
supported by an artillery barrage and all ten of the tanks the Japanese managed
to bring ashore during the campaign.  Once the Americans were tied down
fighting this, a two-pronged assault would carry the high ground overlooking
the airfield.  As mentioned above, the diversionary attack went off early and
was a complete bust, leaving the main assault in pretty much the same position
as its predecessor-- moving frontally across open ground, without artillery
support, to attack Marines dug
in on hills behind barbed wire, supported by artillery (and, after dawn, by
air strikes, specifically Airacobras strafing with their 37-mm cannon).  The
Japanese appear to have been a least a bit victimized by their own propaganda
regarding their invincibility, the enemy's cowardice, and particularly their
supposed superiority in night fighting.   How else to explain such crude and
even suicidal tactics?
        In the air, too, the Japanese were being outdone tactically.  The US
Navy and Marine tactic of "double-teaming" using pairs of wingmen (the Japanese
fought in three-plane "v's" in which the role of the leader was much more
important) proved very hard for them to counter, and as experienced pilots went
down in droves (to refer to the previous example, Lae Wing lost Sakai on the
first day, and then lost Ota, both of Sakai's experienced wingmen, and Sakai's
immediate commander Lt. Sasai within the following month) the newer pilots were
more prone to make rookie mistakes, and often found themselves "jumped" by
Grumman Wildcats diving in on them unexpectedly.  That was how most of the men
I just mentioned were killed, and they were experienced.  Technological factors
also came to play, for instance the oversize fuel tanks which gave the Navy's
Mitsubishi two-engined bombers their exceptional range also proved very
susceptible to enemy fire-- the Marine pilots on Guadalcanal dubbed the G4M the
"one-shot lighter" (after an ad for a cigarette lighter).
        Only on the sea did the Japanese more or less hold their own.  But that
and the rest of the story will have to wait for tomorrow.

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 18:24:45 EST
From:    Charles Mattocks <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Iwo Jima (a vet remembers)

Jim Irwin,

Thanks for that post about Iwo Jima, got me remembers another vet, Capt. Jack
Groves.  He fought as an enlisted man in Guadalcanal (spelling?), and the was
sent to OCS, and made it back in time for Iwo Jima.  Another Iwo vet, and I
can't remember his name, but he was knowen as Deputy Dawg worked for the
Dougherty County S.O. fighting against drugs by talking with young people.  He
was in the artillery.  He made a lasting impression on me.  That's been 20
something years ago, he's still alive and carrying on, seen him several months
ago.

Thanks again,

Semper fi!
Chip M.

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 18:33:30 -0500
From:    Tim McFeely <[email-masked]>
Subject: Iwo Jima

Reply To: [email-masked], [email-masked]

Sorry to those of you on both lists.

The following is an article which appeared in the Providence Journal on
February 15th, 1994. All typos are mine!!!

Start of article
-----------------

AT IWO JIMA, WE WERE TRULY TESTED

by Theodore L. Gatchel

     This Sunday, Feb. 19., marks the 50th anniversary of D-Day at Iwo
Jima, one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps,
an outfit with along record of hard fought battles. At nine o'clock on the
morning of D-Day, the first waves of a landing force that comprised three
Marine divisions touched down on Iwo's black volcanic beaches.
     Iwo Jima represented one more step in the central Pacific amphibious
drive that had begun in 1943 at an obscure atoll in the Gilbert Islands named
Tarawa. The American victory at Tarawa settled a dispute that had existed in
military circles since the abortive British campaign at Gallipoli during
World War I. Based on the experience at Gallipoli, many military thinkers
concluded that daylight landing against a heavily defended shore was
impossible in modern warfare.
       Defying the conventional wisdom, the 2nd Marine Division took Tarawa
in 72 hours, but the cost was high. The division suffered more than 3,000
causalities. All but a handful of Tarawa's defenders chose to die rather than
surrender. Commenting on what remained to be done in the Pacific, The New
York times noted with chilling prescience that Tarawa was "a warning of the
immensity of the task, and great sacrifices it will demand." The newspaper s
prediction was right on both counts.
  As American forces fought their way through Japan's island outposts
into the Western Pacific, they refined the techniques of amphibious warfare
to an unprecedented degree. The lessons of Tarawa, Kwajalein, Peleliu and
numerous other island battles were learned and applied to training, tactics
and the development of equipment.
 Unfortunately, the Japanese were also learning from their defeats. By
the time the American advance reached Iwo Jima, the island's commander, Lt.
General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had already decided that he could not defeat
an American landing. The power of an amphibious assault with naval gunfire
and air support had become to great to resist. Instead of trying to stop the
landing at waters edge, General Kuribayashi turned Iwo Jima into one giant
fortified position by honeycombing the islands with miles of underground
tunnels and gun positions. Rather than wasting his men on suicidal banzai
attacks, he ordered them to hold their ground and fight to the death for
every in of Iwo's soil.
   In doing so, General Kuribayashi intended to delay the Americans as
long as possible to give Japanese troops in Okinawa and Japan proper time to
build up their defenses for the coming assault. Some Japanese also hoped that
if the Americans could be forced to pay a high enough price for Iwo Jima they
might abandon their demand for unconditional surrender and negotiate an end
to the war.
   General Kuribayashi achieved his goal of delaying the American
advance toward Japan. Japanese tactics at Iwo forced the Marines to take
almost a month to secure the island. The cost was terrible for both side.
Almost all of Iwo's 20,000 defenders, including General Kuribayashi, died in
battle. The Marines and their attached Navy medical personnel suffered almost
24,000 causalities, of whom more than 6,000 were killed. These severe
causalities, however, did not deter the United States from continuing to
prosecute the war. On Easter Sunday, 1945 U.S. soldiers and Marines landed on
Okinawa for another costly campaign that would have led to the invasion of
Japan proper had the Japanese not surrendered first.
        American determination to continue defied the conventional Japanese
view of the United States. Propaganda had convinced many in Japan that their
enemy was physically powerful, but spiritually weak. Vast differences between
the two opposing societies also caused the Japanese to underestimate American
determination. One Japanese officer who fought in the Philippines wrote of
his sadness at finding American gum wrappers by the side of the road. He
could not understand how an army of samurai was being defeated by men who
regarded the war so casually that they would go into battle chewing gum.
Misreading their enemy badly, many Japanese military leaders believed that
fanatical devotion to their cause, as manifested by the kamikaze pilot s
willingness to die in the name of duty, would somehow prevail over America s
material superiority.
  American fighting men exposed the fallacy of that line of reasoning
repeatedly during the war, but nowhere more clearly than at Iwo Jima.
       During recent commemorations of other World War II battles, the
question has arisen whether Americans of today could have stood up to the
challenges of World War II the way their counterparts of that generation did.
The 50th anniversary of Iwo Jima will undoubtedly rekindle this debate.
   The question is not an idle one. America is being tested again today.
Our airliners are being blown out of the sky and our cities are being
threatened by people who regard America in much the same way the Japanese
military did in World War II. These modern antagonists are betting that
America has no stomach for a real fight with a ruthless enemy. Unfortunately,
the surest way to bring about another Iwo Jima is to give our potential
enemies the impression that Americans would never again be willing to fight
such a battle the way the U.S. Marines did 50 years ago.

End of article
----------------

Col. Theodore L. Gatchel (U.S.M.C. ret.) is the former head of the Operations
Department at the U.S. Naval War College, a military historian and an
occasional contributor to the Providence Journal. He is presently writing a
history of 20th Century amphibious warfare.

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 19:07:22 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Michael Wittmann

Michael Wittman was the most successful *German* tank ace of WW II.
How much do we know about Soviet tankers?

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 19:22:42 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Bombing the camps

Hitting the rail lines would have been useless- hitting the gas chambers
and the crematoria was another story. These took months to build, and had
they been hit in early 1944 they probably could not have been redone at
all- the German economy had more pressing requirements at that point.
More than half a million Hungarian Jews died in these facilities between
April and July 1944. It is conceivable the Germans could simply have shot
them all, as at Babi Yar, but perhaps not likely. By mid-1944 the outcome
of the war was clear, and the consequences of a such an action, which is
manpower and thus witness and guilt intensive, would have been in the back      of a lot more minds than in the heady days of 1941.

Henry Sirotin

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 20:00:06 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: THE INVASION OF JAPAN

Dear Ben,

Please keep us informed re Alperovitz in San Antonio- it's going to be
interesting for his crowd over the next year or two, as nearly all the
scholarship I'm aware of will give them little if any comfort. I just
hope the Russian military archives don't close down- they have been
pretty open the last two years, and much exciting stuff is between
the note taking stage and the publishers. The complete archives of
the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee is also now available
on microfilm in the west, I believe (first segment, 1700+ reels!),
and Robert Newman is about to show us what can still be done out
of our own files, not all of which have been declassified yet.
It will be interesting to see if Alperovitz' new book and Bernstein's
are simply polemical rehashes, or if they have found anything new.
I suspect the former.

Regards,

Henry

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 20:28:47 EST
From:    "Larry W. Jewell" <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: Need good sources on PANAY and REUBEN JAMES

Hi, I'm doing a paper on the sinkings of the PANAY and REUBEN JAMES asnd
was wondering if anyone had recommendations for sources?  I have "The
Panay Incident" by Perry and "The Panay Incident: prelude to war." by
Koginos, as well as "Hitler vs. Roosevelt" by Bailey and Ryan.  Anything
more recent would be appreciated (or anything older, for that matter).
Send your thoughts to me and I'll post a bibliography on the topics
when available.

TIA,
Larry J

PS, Anyone going to the Military History Society Conference at
Gettysburg, May 11-14?

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

Date:    Thu, 16 Feb 1995 08:52:22 +0700
From:    "Peter E. Beal" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Holocaust and Germans

The following appeared as a letter to the editor in the International
Herald Tribune on February 15th.  It echos another posting I recall about
the Nazis being "extraterrestrial" beings who disappeared after May,
1945.  I also recall that in Ron Chernow's book on the Warburgs that
even after that date there were many in Germany who thought that Hitler
was right about German racial superiority, in general, and the Jews, in
particular.  But enough from me.  Let a man who was there speak:

Hitler  and  his  lieutenants  were  clever  enough  to  dispatch
Europe's  Jews mostly to camp and gas chambers located in  Poland
to  achieve their purpose of keeping Germany "cleansed" of Jews.

Perhaps   unwittingly,  this  has  allowed   Germany  to   emerge
relatively  unsoiled  by  the  monstrous  affair.   The  articles
written  about the 50th anniversary of the  Auschwitz  liberation
focus on differences and animosities between Poles and Jews only.
References  to the  camps, their  guards and the authorities  are
mostly to "Nazis", not the Germans or the German nation.

It  is  my  belief and Germany is getting off  too  easy.   I  am
concerned that years from now, other generations will only  learn
and  remember  that  Jews  were exterminated  in  Poland  by  the
"Nazis".   The Nazis having disappeared, it will be assumed  that
they  were extraterrestrial creatures who appeared  from  nowhere
and disappeared after 1945.

As  Jew born in Belgium, I spent nearly five years under  Germany
occupation  and 27 months hiding from the Germans in  a  Brussels
basement.   It was the German army that invaded Belgium.  It  was
the German troops who occupied Belgium.  It was the German troops
who  terrorized the population.  I was hiding from  the  Germans.
When  the Germans were defeated and driven out of Belgium by  the
Allies  we were liberated from the German occupation.   We  never
referred  to  the  "Nazis";  I never saw  one.   The  people  who
occupied  Belgium wore German uniforms of various  colors-  blue,
green, navy, brown and black- and we feared them all.

It  was only upon arriving in the United states in 1949   that  I
began  to hear the word "Nazi" used continuously and  exclusively
with reference to the Holocaust.  Germany was somehow exonerated.
The  Nazis  took  the   blame.   It  is  time  to  put  a  proper
prospective on the Holocaust and to remember that without Germany
there  would have been no Nazis and no Holocaust.  To  focus  the
Holocaust  on Poland and the "Nazis" is a perversion  of  history
that should be corrected.

Rudy Rosenberg
Williston Park, New York

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 18:41:19 -0800
From:    Steve New <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Dresden, Fire Storms

You wrote:

>
>Steve New writes:
>
>        [Dresden] did give the USAAF some idea of what could later be
done again
>st
>        Japan, when Curtis Lemay stopped the high altitude strategic
bombing
>        campaign and changed to low level incindiary attacks.
>
>Do you have a reference that states it was Dresden that inspired Lemay?
>
>(It's not that I doube the statement, I just haven't heard this
>before.)
>
>--
>Bob Rogers            Internet:  [email-masked]
>Instrumental, Inc.    GEnie:     R.C.ROGERS
>Minneapolis, MN USA   Phone:     612-920-6188
>
>
Sorry, it's just conjecture on my part, and I should have labeled it so.
But read the Lemay excerpt that Dennis Sparks just posted to the list.
With no record of firebombing to speak of in Europe, something must have
triggered his decision to take that route against Japan.  I can't help
but believe the effects of Hamburg and Dresden were inthe back, if not
front, of his mind.

--

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 22:17:12 -0500
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WWII on the Internet?

You might wish to check out my 50 YA archives. Access info is below -

Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago Archives

The January 1945 "50 Years Ago" articles are now available for downloading
from my "50 Years Ago" archives. In addition to past "50 Years Ago"
articles, these archives also include a number of additional WW II related
articles and files that I've found to be especially interesting. I am
constantly adding new files to my archives so you may want to check back
on a regular basis.

The best way to access the "50 Years Ago" archives is through the World Wide
Web. The WWW URL is "http://www.webcom.com/~jbd/ww2.html".  You may also
download the files by anonymous FTP. I have included instructions for doing
this below.

Instructions for downloading files by FTP -

The 50 YA articles are stored by month. To retrieve the articles by FTP, open
host "ftp.webcom.com", enter "anonymous" when prompted for login ID, enter
your Internet mail address when prompted for password. To change to the
directory where the articles are stored enter "cd /pub/jbd/www". Enter
command "ls" to get a listing of all the files available. The file name
identifies the month for 50 YA articles (example - sep1944.txt, contains the
September 1944 articles).

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

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 23:17:51 -0500
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: ACORN UNIT INFO

an acorn was a naval unit designed to construct, operate, and maintain an
advanced landplane and seaplane base and to provide facilities for operations.
Ben Frank

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

Date:    Wed, 15 Feb 1995 23:19:46 -0500
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: ENOLA GAY EXHIBIT

I think that I would like to add my two cents here for what it is worth. The
criticism of the exhibit for the most part seems to be directed at the position
of the Smithsonian making a value judgement on the basis for dropping the bomb.
At least it seems so to me, reading the various postings on the subject on this
list. I will repeat what I think I said once before some time aagoon this list.
When I finished reading the earlier scripts, I wondered who had won the war and
why it appeared that we should feel ashamed because we waged a racist war, and
that we were intruding into Japan's special culture (the Bataan Death March,
the POW camps and treatments, and the rest). Nothing that the so-called
revisionists said reflected any awareness on their part of the heavy casualties
we took from Tarawa to Okinawa, and the refusal of the Japanese to do anything
other than to fight to the death, theirs and ours, if they could work it that
way. The threat of heavy casualties in an invasion of Japan was real. We had
just ended the battle for Okinawa in which we took very heavy casualties,
especially in the fleet offshore which was heavily attacked by the kamikazes.
How certain were any of the planners that this was not to be repeated at
Japan's very doorstep. I promised some time ago to post the defenses the
Japanese had on Kyushu. I have the documents and have to collate and otherwise
list the weapons, forces, and locations. Bear with me and I promise to get this
posted within a week or so. Ben Frank

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

End of WWII-L Digest - 14 Feb 1995 to 15 Feb 1995
*************************************************