Subject: WWII-L Digest - 21 Feb 1995 to 22 Feb 1995

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 00:03:24 -0500

There are 28 messages totalling 2657 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. REF: Tigers in combat, volume I (2)
  2. INF: USN Chronology 02-22-95
  3. INF: 50 Years Ago - 23-FEB-1945 (2)
  4. Bibliographic notes on Japan
  5. Japanese war crimes trials (part 2)...& etc (2)
  6. Army Division Help!
  7. Why Iwo Jima?  Part 1
  8. (INF) Ques on Iwo Jima (2)
  9. [INF] USAAF 22 FEB 45
 10. Why Iwo Jima? Part 2
 11. HIST: "Mein Kampf" and ga (2)
 12. OSS
 13. [INF] USAAF 23 FEB 45
 14. Unit 731
 15. HIST: "Mein Kampf" and gas
 16. Suribachi Pix
 17. Hitler and the Germans
 18. Hitler and the Jews
 19. Japan esoterica
 20. World War Two "Bloopers"
 21. And furthermore...(Japan, appendix)
 22. USMC Chronology
 23. (INF) QUES ON IWO JIMA

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 14:54:19 +0900
From:    Akira Takiguchi <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: REF: Tigers in combat, volume I

Terry, thank you for your comment.

     As far as I know there was no Luftwaffe-style common "confirmed kill"
document in the Army [I might be wrong so I'm open to suggestion].
So I believe "kill number" depends on private diary or battallion-specific
document/diary.  In the Wittmann's case, I heard that Balthasar Woll (his
able gunner) kept their kills in his private diary, which became the source
for the Knight's Cross recommendation document.

>Yes, it would be very strange for any of those you mentioned such as
>Rondorf and Knispel not having received the KC. It strikes me that
>the figures you quote from the book are inflated. Your thoughts?

     It could be.  But Knight's Cross recommendation policy in the Army
seems to have been different from that of the Luftwaffe fighter pilots
(more kills, higher decorations).
     Knight's Cross seems to have been given to someone who achieved a
great success in one specific operation.  Accumlated kills for a long
time might not have been treated as one would expect.  As a side note,
posthumous KC decoration weren't rare, but only a few.  German Army
considered it important "to survive" - contrary to the Japanese (and
probably British) way of decorating the killed.

>>       I have found a couple of small flaws and a major mistake (on
>> the numbering system of sPzAbt 505).  No one is free from errors! :)
>
>    Yes, but a researcher needs to double-check, triple-check, etc
>his info and sources to avoid error. Makes me wonder about the rest
>of the work. My two cents' worth anyway.

     Agreed.  But most of the contents seems to depend on the information
from the veterans and survived documents, I believe.

Akira Takiguchi  ATSON Inc./ASAHI Net

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 04:00:12 PST
From:    "Keller, Theron P." <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: USN Chronology 02-22-95

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

1945
02/22 Thu.  United States naval vessels damaged:
             Destroyer escort MELVIN R. NAWMAN (DE-416),
              by collision with LST 807, Iwo Jima area,
              24 d. 46'N., 141 d. 19'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:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 07:16:33 EST
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 23-FEB-1945

On 23-FEB-1945, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - Operation Grenade begins in the U.S. 9th Army sector.
Following a heavy artillery bombardment lasting for 45 minutes, the XIII
and XIX Corps attack across the Roer. The Germans are taken completely by
surprise and the assault troops move forward rapidly against light to
moderate resistance. The XVI Corps serves as a diversion for the operation
with elements of the 35th and 79th Divisions moving forward to positions
overlooking the Roer. In the 1st Army sector, the VII Corps after 45
minutes of intense preparatory fire attack across the Roer. Elements of the
10th and 84th Division cross abreast in the vicinity of Dueren. In the 3rd
Army sector, German resistance is becoming increasingly disorganized.

Eastern Front - Moscow announces the collapse of resistance in Arnswalde in
Pomerania and Posen in Poland. In Silesia, the Russians continue fighting
in the suburbs of Bresalu and push into the southern part of the city.

Italian Front - The 10th Mountain Division is still short of the crest of
M. Torraccia. The Brazilian 1st Division takes M. della Casselina and Bella
Vista.

Philippines - The 37th Division begins the assault on Intramuros the final
Japanese stronghold in Manila. Stunned by the preliminary bombardment the
Japanese at first offer light resistance but later rallies. Elements of the
11th Airborne Division capture the Japanese internment camp at Los Bano. In
the I Corps area, elements of the 25th Division take Pantabangan. In XI
Corps area, Rock Force now holds the west part of Corregidor. The 40th
Division renews the attack to clear the final enemy positions in the
Zambales Mountains of Luzon.

Iwo Jima - Surface vessels, aircraft and artillery continue to support the
VAC closely as it attacks towards line O-2, making the main effort in the
center against Airfield 2. Limited progress is made on the flanks. Elements
of the 5th Marine Division continue the assault on Mt. Suribachi and some
elements reach the summit where the American flag is raised.

The Homefront
-------------
Hawaii-Guam Cable Open - The Army has announced the resumption of cable
communications between Hawaii and Guam.

More Men Needed - Under-Secretary of War Robert Patterson says that the
Army and Navy will need 900,000 more men in the first six months of 1945.

Airliner Crashes - Seventeen of 22 people on an American Airlines plane en
route from New York to Los Angeles have been killed when it hit a mountain
near Cedar Springs, Va. Most of the passengers were military personnel.

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

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, 22 Feb 1995 09:01:01 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Bibliographic notes on Japan

        Oops, I'm getting sloppy about listing my sources on the last couple of
posts.  For the last post regarding fighter pilots I mainly used Sakai's
"Samurai" and Ray Tolliver's "Fighter Aces."  Quotations from the post
regarding war crimes and war responsibility were mostly from Ienaga, "The
Pacific War 1931-1945."  I cited Liddel Hart in the post.  I used the
biographical sketches in the appendix of Hayashi, "Kogun," and also as a handy
look-up source "The World Almanac Book of World War 2" (edited by Peter Young).
The biographical details of Lin Piao came from Snow, "Red Star Over China."
        A couple of final comments.  In the 1944 Burma operation I mentioned
yesterday, the British forces lost about 17,000 men compared to 50,000 for the
Japanese.  Just as at Guadalcanal, the Japanese abandoned the infiltration
tactics (which had enabled them to make deep penetrations of the thinly-held
British front in the preliminary stages of the operation) in favor of repeated
head-on attacks against cut-off, outnumbered, but deeply dug in British forces
at Imphal and Kohima.  Allied control of the skies was also key, once the
weather broke, as it allowed not only constant aerial harassment and close
support, but also supply drops to isolated and surrounded garrisons.
        I've also referred to Guadalcanal as a pivotal campaign several times
in the course of these posts, and for that reason focused on the battle in some
detail.  The Japanese, too, became aware of the importance of Guadalcanal in the
Pacific scheme of things as the battle progressed.  A memo from Japanese Army
Imperial General HQ staff (quoted by Spector in "Eagle Against the Sun") read
"we must be aware that the struggle for Guadalcanal in the southeastern area
might be the decisive struggle between America and Japan."  In fact, the Army
sent a delegation headed by the infamous Lt-Col Tsuji to meet with Yamamoto and
make the Navy aware of the Army's concern.  They found Yamamoto doing
calligraphy, one of his hobbies (his other pastime, acquired during his long
time in the United States before the war, was poker, and he was supposedly real
good at it-- helped, he said, by his interest in calligraphy, since Yamamoto
said that if he could remember the hundreds of characters of the Japanese
pictorial alphabet it was child's play to remember 52 cards).  The Admiral was
apparently very moved by Tsuji's presentation, and promised to do everything he
could to supply and support the Army on Guadalcanal, even if it meant bringing
the battleships of Combined Fleet up alongside the island.  As we have seen,
Yamamoto's promise was kept, literally, but this rare instance of harmonious
cooperation between the Army and Navy nonetheless resulted in failure as the
transport fleets proceeding to the island under cover of the fleet's heavy
units in November '42 were almost all sunk by US aircraft before they could be
unloaded.
        I should also mention as a source for some of the information in these
posts my lecture notes from the class I mentioned with Dr. Smethurst (things
like the description of the walls of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo).

        Regards

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 21:04:38 +0700
From:    "Peter E. Beal" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Japanese war crimes trials (part 2)...& etc

I would like to take issue with one minor and tengential point in Mike's
exposition.  The communists through the foreign concessions a safer place
to live and work than the "native" area of Shanghai.  At least in the
former the rule of law pervailed.  We should recall that the first
meeting of the Communist Party of China was held in a house in the French
concession.

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 10:25:47 EST
From:    Mike Oaks <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Japanese war crimes trials (part 2)...& etc

On Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:26:00 -0400,
Mike Yaklich  <[email-masked]> wrote:

SNIP, SNIP SNIP...
>        Now, honestly, I'm going to shut up about Japan for a long while.
>
>        Regards
>
>        Mike Yaklich
>
>
Mike,
   Thanks so much for your "Japan" postings!!! I now have more insight
concerning the "Asian" part of WWII.
    Again,
          Thanks!!
                Mike Oaks

/====================================================================\
|    Michael A. Oaks                                                 |
|    Systems Analyst                  Music: A means to mark times   |
|    [email-masked]              stepping stones through |
|    Tel: (404)423-6049  Fax (404)423-6541   your calendar of life.  |
|    VWAR-L #146                                    ~ ~ ~ ~      MAO |
|    USAF - (AFCS - AFSS - AFDC)                                     |
|    Break, Break...Kadena, Kadena, Clark, Clark, Yokota, Yokota...  |
|    Break, Break...Request you echo the following...                |
|    (Some things you never forget...even after 25+ years...)        |
\====================================================================/

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 10:29:29 -0600
From:    "William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Army Division Help!

> Does anyone know where I could get yearbooks or rosters of the following
> divisions:
>
> 3rd, 4th, 13th Armored Divisions
> 18th Field Artillery Brigade
>
> Derek

Hi Derek,

Have you tried searching the Library of Congress online card catalog?
It will get you an LC call number and other data which you can take to
your public or school library and they will be able to do a search for
you so you can get it through interlibrary loan.  If it exists only at
LOC you can ILL it through them but they like you to get it from other
sources first.

If you need help querying locis (LOC online catalog) back channel me
and I will help.

I'm answering to the list in case anybody else would like to know
about locis that may not already.

Cheers, Bill Huber / [email-masked]

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 12:05:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: Why Iwo Jima?  Part 1

Iwo Jima!  Volcanic island less than 8 square miles (20.7 square km) in the
Volcano Islands of the Pacific at 24-49N 141-20E.  No water on the island but
plenty of black volcanic sand.  Retail value to most Americans, $0.00.
Strategic value to the US Army Air Forces, enormous.  That's why the US
Marines had to invade and pay such a humongous price.   For years I have
heard of the enormous heroism of the Marines and Navy corpsmen on the island
but then I started to ask other questions.  What made this dinky, little
island have such a strategic value; what was the planning behind the
invasion; what mistakes were made; how did other operations interfere with
Iwo Jima; what happened to Iwo Jima after it was secured; etc., etc., etc.?
The bottom line is, "Was it worth it?"  I had learned some of the answers
to these questions years ago but then I read Volume V of the  ARMY AIR FORCES
IN WORLD WAR II, Office of Air Force History, 1983 to obtain the Air Force
view and that is when I learned more.  I have included one chapter from this
volume for your considertion.  Because of it's length (>57,000 bytes), I
have divided it into two parts.  Your comments are appreciated.

CHAPTER 19
IWO JIMA

After V-J Day many Japanese leaders professed to have seen in their loss of
the Mariana Islands a turning point in the war.  They knew of the B-29 and
they correctly surmised that the islands had been seized chiefly to serve as
Boeing B-29 Superfortress bases.  Prince Higashikuni, Commander in Chief of
Home Defense  Headquarters, testified:

"The war was lost when the Mariana's were taken away from Japan and when we
heard the B-29's were coming out. . . . We had nothing in Japan that we could
use against such a weapon.  From the point of view of the Home Defense
Command, we felt that the war was lost and said so.  If the B-29's could come
over Japan, there was nothing that could be done."

This appraisal was to prove accurate enough in the long view, but in February
1945 combat crews might have been surprised to learn that a responsible
Japanese officer had conceded defeat.  Of the ultimate success of the B-29
mission they were confident, but so far bombardment results had been less
than spectacular and losses had been heavy.  Superforts had been destroyed on
their bases by enemy intruders; others, in spite of the prince's rhetoric,
had been shot down from the skies over Honshu; still others, wounded or
bothered by mechanical difficulties, had crashed or ditched during the long
flight over unfriendly waters.  Both Brigadier General Haywood S Hansell Jr
and Major General Curtis E LeMay had worked to insure a better air defense of
their island bases, to improve the defensive tactics of bomber formations
over Japan, to reduce operational losses on missions, and to provide better
rescue services for crews forced down at sea.  [NOTE: LeMay relieved Hansell
as Commanding General XXI Bomber Command on Guam Island on 20 Jan 45.]  There
was no single solution for any of these problems, but the one factor common
to all was Iwo Jima, an ugly bit of volcanic rock directly astride of, and
about midway along, the route from Isley Field, Saipan Island to Tokyo.  In
Japanese hands the island was a menace to B-29's on the ground at Saipan
bases, an obstacle to formations headed for Tokyo, a threat to air-sea rescue
services.  In American hands Iwo would provide a site for navigational aids,
an emergency landing field for B-29's in distress, a staging field for
northbound planes, a base for fighter escorts, a station for rescue
activities.

Iwo Jima was secured on 26 March I945 after a bloody campaign which has been
called by a Marine historian "the classical amphibious assault of recorded
history."  The assault was largely the work of V Amphibious Corps and a Navy
task force, but the operation, like the capture of the Mariana's, was
primarily for the benefit of the B-29's.  Since the XXI Bomber Command took
some part in the campaign and Army Air Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas (AAFPOA)
expended much of its bombardment effort against the island during the autumn
and winter, it is pertinent to describe here the conditions which made the
capture of Iwo Jima seem necessary, the campaign itself, and the development
of the island into a B-29 base.

DEFENSE OF THE MARIANA ISLANDS

With the seizure of the Mariana's, U.S. forces had thrust deep into enemy
territory.  From bases in those islands air power could bring the industrial
cities of Japan under sustained attack and harry the routes by which the
enemy still sustained forces in the outlying islands.  The Mariana's operation
was a product of the decision at Cairo to shorten the war against Japan; like
most short cuts, it involved certain risks which had been deliberately
accepted.

Those risks, as they appeared in the summer of 1944 when Saipan, Tinian, and
Guam Islands had been secured, were from enemy air-it was unthinkable that
the Japanese could retake the islands they had been unable to hold.  If the
Japanese had no bombers which could match the B-29 in range, they still held
island bases from which conventional aircraft could strike at the Mariana's.
Bypassed Truk Atoll lay less than 600 miles (966 km) to the rear.  Farther
back the  Japanese held positions in the Gilbert-Marshall Islands area.
Athwart the great  circle route from Hawaii to Saipan was Wake Island.
Within a radius of less than 400 miles (644 km) were Woleai Atoll, southward,
with a landing field and seaplane base, and Yap Island, southwestward, an
important staging point on the Truk-Philippines route.  Nearby, the lesser
Mariana's were still in enemy hands, and though most of those islets served
only as a refuge for Japanese soldiers escaping from the major islands, two,
Rota and Pagan, boasted airstrips.  Northward was the Nampo Shoto, a long
chain of scattered islands stretching from the 24th parallel to the lower
coast of Honshu Island, with subgroups known to Westerners as the Bonin and
the Volcano islands.  The Bonin's owed their name to a corruption of a
Japanese term meaning "empty of men," but the name was no longer accurate.
Chichi Jima Island had an airstrip and a large harbor; Haha Jima Island had
two good harbors; and Iwo Jima, a comparatively recent addition to the
Volcano group, had two operational airfields with double runways and a third,
with a single strip, under construction.  On occasion, as many as 175 planes
had been counted on these fields, which were only 725 miles (1,167 km) from
Saipan-well within tactical radius of Japanese planes.  Marcus Island, in the
eastern part of the Nampo Shoto, was 825 miles (1,328 km) from Saipan; its
well-developed air base was an important stage along the outer route from
Japan to the Marshalls and Gilberts.

Actually, the danger to the Mariana's was more apparent than real.  The heavy
and sustained American attacks had left the enemy in no condition to launch a
serious counteroffensive.  His losses in planes and pilots had been
disastrous, and in the face of the overwhelming superiority of U.S. land- and
carrier-based air forces, he was unable to exploit the bases he still held.
In the Gilberts and Marshalls battered Japanese garrisons did little more
than keep alive.  Truk Atoll, once exaggeratedly rated by Allied intelligence
as the greatest naval base in the west Pacific, had been bombed into
impotence.  At Marcus, Wake, Yap, and Woleai, beleaguered forces labored to
keep airstrips in repair for planes which seldom appeared.  Only the Nampo
Shoto could be counted a serious menace to B-29's operating from the
Mariana's.

However slight the peril from other island bases, Admiral Chester Nimitz,
commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific Ocean Areas, could ill afford to
neglect them.  Neutralization by air and interdiction of the sea lanes had to
be continued until war ended.  Neutralization, deadly dull and without much
in the way of visible results, occasionally fell to Navy or Marine air units,
occasionally to B-29 groups in need of combat training, but the wheel horse
in this task, as in the air defense of the Mariana's, was Major General Willis
H. Hale's diminutive Seventh Air Force, which on 1 August 1944 came under the
control of Lieutenant General Millard F. Harmon's newly activated Army Air
Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas.  Harmon was also deputy commander of the
Twentieth Air Force, charged with coordinating B-29 operations with Nimitz'
headquarters.

The Seventh's few combat units were widely scattered and the command setup
was complicated.  Administrative control was divided between Seventh Air
Force, VII Fighter Command, and 7th Fighter Wing.  For operations, most
combat units were under the commander of Task Force 59 (ComAirForward) and,
later, his successor, the commander of Task Force 93 (StratAirPOA), who after
6 December was identical with Commanding General, AAFPOA.  But there would be
exceptions: the 494th Bombardment Group (Heavy), after its arrival in the
Palau's in October, fought under Far East Air Forces (FEAF) in the Philippines
campaign; at Okinawa the first AAFPOA units to arrive served with Task Group
99.2 (Tenth Army Tactical Air Force); and units of VII Fighter Command were
directed by the commander of Task Force 93 in strikes against the Nampo
Shoto, by the commander of Task Force 94 (ComForwardArea) in island defense,
and by XXI Bomber Command in long-range missions over metropolitan Japan.

Thus, although the Seventh took on additional responsibilities after its
incorporation into AAFPOA, the bulk of its missions, as before, were for
neutralization or interdiction; new targets were added and various units
moved to new bases, but otherwise there was little to break the monotony of
the campaign.  From Kwajalein, some of the Consolidated B-24 Liberators of
the 11th and 30th Bombardment Groups (Heavy) continued to stage through
Eniwetok Atoll to strike at Truk, where the Japanese base, though effectively
reduced during the Mariana's campaign, still needed policing; between 1 August
and 16 October the B-24's went against it twice a week for a total of 499
sorties.  Occasionally the B-24's went out in training flights to bomb Wotje,
Mille, and Jaluit Atolls, and Wake Island.  The North American B-25 Mitchells
of the 41st Bombardment Group (Medium) continued to raid Nauru Island from
Makin Island and Ponape Island from Engebi Island.  Though none of these
islands offered much in the way of a target and enemy reaction was usually
feeble, constant surveillance, if tedious, was a necessary part of the
strategy which had proved so successful to that time.

As AAFPOA units moved into the Mariana's they found a livelier war.  The 318th
Fighter Group and one squadron (the 48th) of the 41st Bombardment Group had
flown in after the assault troops had landed at Saipan and had rendered
valuable close support in the seizure of that island, Tinian, and Guam.  Once
the islands were secured, the 48th went back to Makin Island, and the 318th's
Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, reinforced by Northrop P-61 Black Widows of the
6th Night Fighter Squadron, took over the defense of the newly won bases.
The P-47's were also responsible for neutralizing lesser islands of the
archipelago.  For most of the islets an occasional visit was sufficient, but
on Pagan Island an industrious garrison of perhaps 3,600 men repaired runways
as fast as they were damaged; from August 1944 through March 1945 the P-47's
flew 1,578 sorties against that target.

The B-24's had begun moving into the Mariana's in August 1944, and by the end
of October the 30th Group was at Saipan, the 11th at Guam.  From their new
bases the heavies still visited Truk, but increasingly they found their chief
mission northward to the Nampo Shoto.  On 11 August the 30th Group had sent
18 B-24's against Chichi Jima in the Bonin's and on 10 August had begun the
neutralization campaign against Iwo Jima, previously hit by carrier strikes
during the assault on the Mariana's.  Raids against those Japanese bases, and
Haha Jima, became regular: against Iwo alone the Seventh Air Force dispatched
ten missions in August, twenty-two in September, sixteen in October.  As the
B-29's swung into action, Iwo Jima took on a new significance.

On 2 November 1944, a week after the 73d Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy)'s
first practice mission against Truk, nine Japanese twin-engine planes swooped
down for a low-level attack on Isley and Kohler fields on Saipan.  The
intruders did little damage and three were destroyed.  On the 7th there were
two raids of five planes each and again the enemy lost three aircraft without
doing much harm.  There was then a lull until the B-29's turned against
Honshu.  Early in the morning of 27 November two twin-engine bombers came in
low, caught the Superforts bombing up for the second Tokyo mission, and
destroyed one, damaged eleven.  At noon on the same day, while the 73d's
formations were over Tokyo, ten to fifteen single-engine fighters slipped
through the radar screen for a low-level sweep over Isley and Kohler in which
they destroyed three B-29's and badly damaged two others.  AAF fighters got
four of the raiders; AA gunners shot down six others but also destroyed a
P-47 under circumstances officially described as "inexcusable."  Next night
some six or eight enemy planes bombed from high altitude without inflicting
much damage.  On 7 December, in a combined high-low attack Japanese intruders
destroyed three B-29's and damaged twenty-three.  Using the same tactics, a
force of about twenty-five planes staged a party Christmas night in which
they destroyed one B-29, damaged three beyond repair, and inflicted minor
damage on eleven.

This was the last large attack, though minor raids continued until 2 January,
when the last Japanese bomb was dropped on Saipan, and enemy aircraft were
sighted there as late as 2 February.  In all, the Japanese had put more than
eighty planes over Saipan and Tinian and had lost perhaps thirty-seven.  This
rate of loss spoke well of fighter and AA defense, and in normal operations
would have been prohibitive to the enemy.  But the intruders had destroyed 11
B-29's and had done major damage to 8 and minor damage to 35; trading
fighters and medium bombers for B-29's in that ratio was not a bad exchange
for the enemy, nor were his casualties appreciably higher than the toll of 45
dead and more than 200 wounded which he exacted.

Although the enemy raids did not interfere seriously with the strategic
campaign, they were an expensive nuisance which, if unchecked, could have
become more costly.  Serious or not, the losses were wasteful.  Since the
initial disasters at Wheeler, Hickam, and Clark fields (on 7 Dec 41), AAF
commanders had been very sensitive about having their planes caught on the
ground.  General Henry H "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General AAF, was
particularly touchy on this score, and because each B-29 represented a great
investment, he had early expressed grave concern over defenses being provided
for the B-29 bases on Saipan.  To bolster those defenses, the theater had
been provided with a specially designed microwave early warning (MEW) radar
set, which was supposed to be effective for planes coming in at low or high
altitudes.  Despite Arnold's concern, there seems to have been little
interest in the theater in installing the set on Saipan.  Generals Hansell
and Hale both thought it would be more useful on Iwo Jima when that island
was in U.S. hands and apparently Harmon agreed.  The Navy, with final
authority in the POA, felt that the air defense system was reasonably
adequate and was reluctant to divert manpower from other high-priority
projects.  Accordingly, installation of the MEW drew a low priority.

The early raids quickly dispelled any complacency about defenses,
particularly since the enemy repeatedly slipped in under the radar screen-on
the night of 27 November construction lights at Isley were still on when his
planes struck!  In a frantic effort to detect future intruders, Vice Admiral
John H. Hoover, ComForwardArea, stationed 2 destroyers 100 miles (161 km)
northwest of Saipan to provide early radar warning, and an AN/TPS-3 radar was
rushed to Saipan from Oahu, Hawaii by air.  The destroyers in some instances
gave ample warning, but on other occasions the enemy planes still managed to
come in unannounced.  As B-29'S were smashed on the hardstands and strips at
Saipan, Arnold's choler over the handling of the MEW increased, especially
since he had sent the set to Saipan despite urgent requirements in Europe.
Finally, on 3 December, Nimitz ordered Hoover to give highest priority to
installation of the MEW, but it was not in operation until after the last
Japanese bomb fell on Saipan.

Although this inglorious history of the MEW serves to point up the
difficulties inherent in a divided command, it is not the sole clue to the
damage suffered at Saipan.  The best of radar systems provided only passive
defense, and in an attack resolutely pressed home enough enemy planes could
escape the radar-alerted fighters and flak to menace aircraft on the ground.
Both AAF and Navy commanders favored an aggressive policy-neutralization of
the bases whence the enemy was mounting his raids.

It was commonly, and correctly, assumed that the Japanese planes were staging
down from the homeland through Iwo Jima's two operational fields.  The risk
of air attack had been realized even before the invasion of Saipan, and it
was to prevent such tactics that carrier planes and the B-24's had been sent
against Iwo's strips.  But since the two groups of heavies had also been
policing Truk, the Marshalls, and other islands in the Nampo Shoto, their
efforts were spread too thin.  Navy authorities, concerned with the build-up
of Japanese defenses in the Nampo Shoto, had directed much of the B-24 effort
against shipping in the harbors of Chichi Jima and Haha Jima, evidently
envisioning masthead attacks.  In the heavily defended harbors such tactics
were ill suited for the lumbering heavies, and at normal bombing altitudes
the formations were too small to be effective.  Hale protested this misuse of
his B-24's, but antishipping strikes continued until 25 November-with
continued poor success.

The first Japanese raids against Saipan, however, focused attention on Iwo
Jima.  On 5 and 8 November Hansell sent his B-29's against the island in
training missions and the rate of B-24 attacks was stepped up.  Nimitz
informed Hoover on 24 November that Iwo's installations would become
immediately the primary target for all of Task Force 94's aircraft, thus
putting and end to the antishipping strikes. By the end of the month the
heavies had run thirty missions against the island.  In spite of them,
however, the first Tokyo mission on 24 November provoked more serious raids
from the enemy.  Therefore, Nimitz sent Harmon to Saipan to try an all-out
attack on Iwo's installations by air and surface forces; if successful, such
a coordinated strike might make it possible for the two groups of heavies to
keep the Japanese airfields under control.

Harmon arrived at Saipan on 5 December with plans for using Cruiser Division
5 and all available P-38's, B-24's, and B-29's in a daylight attack.  After a
hurried conference with Hoover, Hansell, and others, Harmon scheduled the
bombardment for noon on the 7th.  Postponed because of weather, the attack
was delivered on the 8th, although the skies had not cleared.  At 0945 hours
twenty-eight P-38's swept over the island, followed at 1100 hours by the
B-29's and at noon by the Liberators.  Hoover's cruisers began seventy
minutes of shelling at 1347 hours.  The bomb load carried by the planes
forcefully illustrated the difference in performance between the B-24 and
B-29 bombers at 745 miles (1,199 km) tactical radius: the 62 B-29's dropped
620 tons, 102 B-24's only 194 tons.  All told, enough metal was thrown to
produce a good concentration on Iwo's eight square miles, but because the
bombers had been forced to loose by radar, results, so far as they could be
judged from photography-handicapped, like the bombing, by adverse weather-
were much less decisive than had been expected.  Even so, the enemy's raids
on Saipan stopped until 25 December.

Arnold, worried about losses at Isley Field, had given his enthusiastic
approval to the diversion of B-29's from their strategic mission in this one
instance, but thereafter the job of neutralization was turned back to the
B-24's- Harmon soon lost his earlier confidence that the bombers-or any other
force-could keep the island completely neutralized.  His pessimism was well
founded.  During December the 11th and 30th Bombardment Groups (H) flew 79
missions against Iwo; between 8 December and 15 February there was no day on
which they were not over the island in at least 1 strike; and from November
through January they flew 1,836 sorties.  Joint attacks with surface ships
were repeated on 24 and 27 December, 5 and 24 January.  Night snooper
missions, designed to impede repair activities, were sent out in the wake of
daylight strikes.  Yet at no time were all of Iwo's strips rendered
inoperational and no single strip was out of service for a whole day: the
destructive Christmas raid on Saipan was run the day after a heavy air-sea
bombardment of Iwo.  The efforts of the Seventh Air Force were not wholly
wasted, however, in spite of the enemy's industry in filling craters day by
day.  Although it may have been their heavy losses over Saipan that induced
the Japanese to discontinue their raids after 2 January, the steady
bombardment by the Seventh's B-24's worked toward this end by discouraging,
if not wholly denying, the use of the staging fields.

Even during the months when Iwo absorbed most of its attention, the Seventh
went on with its routine neutralization of other enemy bases which could
have threatened the Mariana's.  That mission was to continue until the summer
of 1945, and it is useful here to interrupt the Iwo Jima story with a brief
summary of operations elsewhere.

Marcus, through which planes could stage from Japan to Saipan though with
longer flights than via Iwo-was kept under constant surveillance, usually by
armed reconnaissance missions of two or three B-24's.  Between September 1944
and July 1945 such missions totaled 565 sorties.  Using Marcus as a target
for shakedown missions, XXI Bomber Command dispatched eighty-five B-29's
against it during the last month of the war.  Woleai was visited occasionally
by AAFPOA planes, as was Yap, until responsibility for the latter island was
turned over to a Marine air group at Ulithi in November.  Truk, in spite of
its severe mauling earlier, was considered a potential danger spot which
needed more than sporadic armed reconnaissance, and missions were sent
against its installations until the end of the war.  Until 26 June 1945 it
was AAFPOA's B-24's that did most of the work there, flying 1,094 sorties
after 1 August 1944, of which 595 came after the 2 groups had moved from
Kwajalein to the Mariana's.  The halfdozen or so fighters that the Japanese
managed to keep patched up did not offer much resistance, but AAFPOA was
generous with escorts, sending P-38's in 75 sorties, P-47's in 234 escort and
strafing sorties.

Until the assault on Iwo Jima the B-24's continued the antishipping campaign
in the Bonin's.  After 6 November there were no more bombing attacks, but with
technical aid from Navy officers the 42d Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) carried
out a number of mining missions against harbors and anchorages in the islands.
By 12 February the 42d had planted 275 mines, about half of them around
Chichi Jima.  In his official report Harmon said that the squadron had not
been successful in its objective of clearing the area of all ships over
2,000 tons, and the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee credited the B-24's
with sinking only a single ship with its mines.  Nevertheless, there was some
belief in the Mariana's that Harmon had deliberately minimized the
effectiveness of the campaign "because mine-laying was not considered a
proper function for B-24 bombers"

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  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, 22 Feb 1995 10:20:02 -0700
From:    Jim O'Neil <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: (INF) Ques on Iwo Jima

Rob,
>
>Actually to anyone with information.  With the 50th Commemoration
>of the Battle on Iwo Jima ongoing, thought I might ask some questions
>concerning the Marines their organization and casualties during the
>battle.
>
>I know quite a lot about Army regimental organization during WWII,
>but little to nothing about Marine regiments.
>
>Perhaps you could tell us how a Marine regiment was organized, to include
>personnel strengths.
>.
I can't send a PICT file accross the net (I don't think I can anyway), but
if you will give me an S-mail address I will post a TO&E chart to you

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:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 12:39:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: [INF] USAAF 22 FEB 45

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
THURSDAY, 22 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
  P-38, Lockheed Lightning
  P-47, Republic Thunderbolt
  P-51, North American Mustang
  Spitfire, Vickers Supermarine

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, 19 fighter-bombers hit
villages, tanks, and trucks from Hsiangcheng to Hsuchang, attack railroad
traffic around Sinsiang and Linfen, hit river craft, trucks, and troops in
the Chiuchiang area, and claim 1 freighter sunk on the Yangtze River between
Hankow and Nanking; a single B-25 attacks convoys in the Siang-Chiang Valley
near Hengyang.

  INDIA-BURMA THEATER (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 29 P-47s support ground
forces in the Namhsan area; 11 closely support forces in the Mongmit sector;
about 100 fighter-bombers attack troop concentrations, gun positions, supply
points, trucks, and animal transport in the battle areas and behind enemy
lines. Transports complete 600+ sorties to forward areas throughout the day.

EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): Mission 841: 1,428 bombers and 862
fighters commence Operation CLARION, a joint RAF, Eighth, Ninth and Fifteenth
AF operation with the objective of paralyzing the already decimated German
rail and road system; most attacks were made visually; bombing was conducted
from an optimum 10,000 feet (3,048 m) to achieve accuracy at target without
flak defenses; they claim 28-2-43 Luftwaffe aircraft; 7 bombers and 13
fighters are lost:
  1. 522 B-17s are sent to hit marshalling yards at Bamberg (64), Zwickau (2)
and Kitzingen (1); targets of opportunity are Ansbach (143), Donaueschingen
(24), Reutlingen (25), Ulm (77), Freiburg (21), Hafingen (10), the
marshalling yards at Aalen (24), Neustadt (26), Singen (8), Schwenningen
(22), and Villgen (11) and other (42); some attacks are made with H2X radar;
they claim 0-0-1 aircraft; 2 B-17s are lost and 29 damaged; 2 airmen are WIA
and 19 MIA. Escorting are 163 of 168 P-51s; 3 are lost (pilots MIA).
  2. 452 B-24s are dispatched to hit marshalling yards at Halberstadt (51),
Sangerhausen (11), Nordhausen (30), Vienenburg (23), Peine (52), Hildesheim
(55), Kreiensen (48), and Northeim (48); targets of opportunity are
Nordhausen (11), Ottbergen (10), the rail and highway bridge at Lindern (1)
and marshalling yards at Wallhausen (19), Oker (8), Eschwege (30), Gottingen
(29) and Celle (8) and other (1); 4 B-24s are lost and 68 damaged; 2 airmen
are WIA and 38 MIA. 246 P-47s and P-51s escort; they claim 19-0-16 aircraft
on the ground; 4 P-51s are lost (pilots MIA).
  3. 454 B-17s are sent to hit Wittenburg (72), Stendal (73), Salzwedel (59),
Uelzen (73), Wittstock (11), Luneburg (39), and Ludwigslust (48); targets of
opportunity are Grabow (13), Kobbelitz (24), Dannenberg (12) and Klotze (13).
The escort is 268 of 280 P-51s; they claim 4-2-18 aircraft in the air and
3-0-5 on the ground; 5 P-51s are lost (pilots MIA).
  4. 99 of 103 P-51s fly a freelance mission in support of the bombers; they
claim 2-0-0 aircraft in the air; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot MIA).
  5. 28 of 32 P-51s fly a scouting mission; they claim 2-0-3 aircraft on the
ground.
  6. 13 P-51s escort 10 F-5s and 5 Spitfires on photo reconnaissance missions
over Germany.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS
    First Tactical Air Force (Provisional): HQ 27th Fighter Group moves from
Tarquinia, Italy to St Dizier, France.
    Ninth Air Force: In Operation CLARION, 450+ A-20s, A-26s, and B-26s of
the 9th Bombardment Division bomb SW German targets including 46 rail
bridges, 12 marshalling yards, 11 stations, plus junctions, roundhouses, a
viaduct, a crossing, a workshop; this marks the first low-level operations by
B-26s since May 43; 1,000+ fighters of the IX, XIX, and XXIX Tactical Air
Commands escort the bombers, attack several assigned ground targets, fly
armed reconnaissance, and cooperate with the US VIII, XII, and XX Corps along
the Prum River and in the Saar-Mosel Triangle.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Fifteenth Air Force): The Fifteenth's participation
in Operation CLARION includes 350+ B-17s and B-24s bombing 50+ separate
communications targets in Germany, Austria, and Italy, including some 25
marshalling yards and numerous railroad lines and bridges; fighters fly 300+
escort and strafing sorties.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy during the night of 21/22
Feb, A-20s attack an ammunition dump, railroad bridges and lines, and road
lights in the Po Valley; B-25s bomb railroad bridges and marshalling yards at
Lavis, Bressanone, and Ala, cutting the bridge at Lavis and the through
tracks at the Ala marshalling yard; fighters and fighter-bombers continue to
support US Fifth Army forces S and SW of Bologna and hit communications
targets, dumps, vehicles, and guns in and N of the battle area in the
Apennines Mountains and in the Po Valley, and bomb airfields at Ghedi and
Bergamo.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA)

  AAFPOA (Seventh Air Force): 3 B-24s on armed reconnaissance from Guam
Island bomb the airfield on Marcus Island in the N Pacific. During the night
of 22/23 Feb, 6 B-24s fly individual harassment strikes against Susaki
Airfield and the town of Okimura on Haha Jima Island.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: On Luzon Island,
100 B-24s hit troop concentrations NW of Ft Stotsenburg, P-47s pound
Corregidor Island, A-20s hit concentrations at Pugo, SW of Baguio, B-24s bomb
supply areas N and W of Baguio while P-51s hit Angin and Marikina. B-24s bomb
Tarakan and Labuan Airfields in Borneo. Units moving from New Guinea: HQ 42d
Bombardment Group (Medium) Sansapor to Morotai Island [the group's 75th and
100th Bombardment Squadrons (Medium) remain at Sansapor but begins operating
from Morotai with B-25s]; HQ 347th Fighter Group and the 67th and 339th
Fighter Squadrons from Middelburg Island to San Jose, Mindoro Island with
P-38s (the 67th and 339th are operating from Morotai).

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

22/1738Z FEB

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 12:47:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: Why Iwo Jima? Part 2

CAPTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF IWO JIMA

Japanese raids against B-29 bases, though troublesome, were not important
enought alone to have justified the cost of capturing Iwo Jima: the decision
to seize the island was made a month before the raids began and they had
ceased seven weeks before Iwo was assaulted.  Meanwhile, the island had
proved a hindrance to the B-29 campaign in other ways.  Since fighters based
on the rock had attacked B-29's en route to or from Japan, to avoid
interception the bombers had been forced to fly a dogleg course which
complicated navigation and reduced bomb loads; even then, enemy radar at Iwo
gave early warning to Honshu of northbound Superforts.  But the idea of
seizing the island derived less from its menace while in Japanese hands than
from its potential value as an advanced base for the Twentieth Air Force.

The B-29 had been designed in 1940 to operate without escort, depending on
altitude, speed, and firepower for protection.  Later experience in Europe
with the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 had shown the need of fighter
escort in attacks on heavily defended strategic targets, and while no fighter
had been built with true very long range characteristics, the range of
conventional escort planes had been so extended by 1944 that Arnold's
planners had become interested in the possibility of using them with the
B-29's, not from Saipan but from some island nearer to Japan.  On 15 May 1944
Colonel R. C. Lindsay of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Plans in
Washington, had recommended to the Operations Division, War Department
General Staff's Staff Planning Group that islands in the Bonin's and Ryukyus
be seized for this purpose.  The suggestion, though carrying strong AAF
backing, aroused little enthusiasm, which thought that after the capture of
Formosa-then an accepted operation-the Bonin's and Ryukyus would become
metropolitan Japan's last bulwarks and would be defended so desperately that
the cost of their capture would be incommensurate with their value as
offensive bases.  The air planners were not, however, convinced.  On 14 July
Arnold sent a memorandum to the Joint Planning Staff calling attention to the
Nakajima Ki-84 Army Type 4 Fighter, a new and heavily armed fighter with
which the Japanese might be able to inflict prohibitive losses on B-29's over
the home islands; to provide escort for the Superforts, he recommended
seizure of Iwo Jima, within P-51 radius of Tokyo.  The Joint War Plans
Committee, to whom the paper was referred, endorsed the proposal, subject to
the proviso that it not interfere with the Formosa operation.  This was on 21
July 1944; a week later, assuming with his usual optimism that the Joint
Chiefs of Staff would go along, Arnold approved a project for assigning to
XXI Bomber Command as many as 5 fighters groups, to include P-51's and
P-47N's, the latter rated as having a tactical radius of 1,350 miles (2,173
km).  Eventually, it was assumed, those fighters might conduct offensive
sweeps over Japan as well as provide escort.  Iwo Jima's runways, moreover,
if extended to B-29 specifications, could serve as emergency landing fields
or as staging bases for the B-29's.

Harmon presented these arguments to Nimitz at Oahu, and during September the
latter turned against the Formosa operation, favoring instead assaults by
POA forces against the Nampo Shoto and the Ryukyus.  Admiral Ernest King
accepted this view and at his recommendation the Joint Chiefs on 2 October
scratched Formosa and set up the Nampo Shoto invasion for 20 January,
Okinawa in the Ryukyus for 1 March.  Their directive to Nimitz stipulated
that the island selected in the former chain must be capable of supporting
several airfields.  That meant Iwo Jima.  The island, whose name was unknown
to the vast majority of American citizens, was to become associated in most
minds with the U.S. Marines who took it foot by foot with rifle and grenade
and flamethrower; but the sole purpose of the campaign was to provide an
advanced base for the strategic bombardment of Japan.

Planning for the operation (coded DETACHMENT) began at once.  Over-all
control fell to Admiral  Raymond A. Spruance, Commander of the Fifth Fleet.
Under him, strategic control was vested in Vice Admiral Kelly Turner,
Commander, Joint Expeditionary Force, and Lieutenant General Holland M.
Smith, USMC, Commander, Joint Expeditionary Troops.  Tactical commanders
were as follows: of the assault troops, V Amphibious Corps, Major General
Harry Schmidt, USMC; of the Amphibious Support Force, Rear Admiral W. H. P.
Blandy; of the Gunfire and Covering Force, Rear Admiral Bertram J. Rodgers.
The plan to base five groups of long-range fighters in the area led to the
long debate over their control between Harmon and Arnold's staff.  Eventually
this was to be decided in favor of XXI Bomber Command, but Nimitz accepted
the groups subject to their performing tactical and defense duties as well as
well as escort.  Accordingly, long-range fighters as well as Seventh Air
Force B-24's were to participate in the assault phase of DETACHMENT and
control was vested in Harmon when he became commander of the Strategic Air
Force, POA (Task Force 93) on 6 December.

The time factor was crucial.  Sandwiched between two major invasions,
Lingayen Gulf and Okinawa, DETACHMENT had to be pushed through with dispatch.
Its demands for support from carrier and surface forces had to be coordinated
with the requirements of those other campaigns and of a carrier attack
against Honshu in mid February by Mitscher's Task Force 58, a project much
esteemed by the Navy.  Available intelligence indicated that Iwo Jima had a
strong garrison, difficult terrain, and was heavily fortified-and events were
to prove that each of these items was underestimated.  To reduce the hazards
of the invasion fleet-Iwo was only 650 miles (1,046 km) from Japan-the
assault should be completed within a few days of launching.  Marine planners,
wishing to hold down losses in what at best promised to be a bloody struggle,
insisted on a thorough bombardment by aircraft and naval gunfire;
particularly they wanted extensive preliminary fire by battleships, whose
heavy guns they had found more accurate and more effective than aerial bombs
against dug-in defense points.  They asked for ten days' fire.  Navy
planners, viewing Iwo as only one of a number of scheduled operations, scaled
down that request and the debate continued.  In the long run, heavy fighting
in the Philippine seas and the desire for additional antiaircraft guns for
Task Force 58 reduced the battleship support available for DETACHMENT to an
amount far below the estimates of the Marines.  Events in the Philippines
also disrupted the time schedule.  When the Lingayen landing was postponed
from 20 December to 9 January, the original D-day for DETACHMENT was no
longer practicable.  The date was set back, first to 3 February, then to the
19th.  Further delay would have jeopardized Okinawa, which was postponed to
1 April.

The operational plan, changed in detail a number of times, was essentially in
final form by 31 December.  The campaign was to begin on D minus 20, when the
Seventh Air Force would step up its B-24 attacks on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima.
On D minus 3, Admiral Rodgers' force-eight battleships (six of them old), six
cruisers, and 16 destroyers-was to begin preliminary fire, now limited to
three days, and Admiral Blandy's escort carriers were to provide initial air
support.  Admiral Mitscher's task force was ordered to support the launching
at Iwo with its heavy guns and planes after it had made its strike against
Honshu on D minus 3. The actual assault on the island was to be delivered by
the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, with the 3d Marine Division in reserve.

Predicated on a brief but bloody battle (three or four days instead of the
four weeks actually required), plans called for an early development of three
airfields, to be operational by D Plus 7, D plus 10, and D plus 50
respectively.  As soon as possible after the assault the responsibility for
island defense was to pass from the Navy to the Air Defense Command, to be
headed by Brigadier General Ernest Moore of VII Fighter Command.  Moore was
to be given a sizable force: signal air warning and antiaircraft artillery
units; 222 P-51D's of the 15th and 21st Fighter Groups; 24 P-61's of the
548th and 549th Night Fighter Squadrons; and a Marine detachment-18 Grumman
TBF Avenger's of VMTB-242, later to be relieved by 12 North American PBJ
Mitchell's of VMB-612.  Subsequently another fighter group, the 306th, was
to arrive with 111 P-47N's.

The XXI Bomber Command was asked to support DETACHMENT by coordinating its
strategic missions with Task Force 58's strikes and by assigning B-29's to
search and reconnaissance duties.  Although the Twentieth Air Force had
consistently resisted efforts to divert its B-29's from their primary mission
to the support of other Pacific operations, it would have been difficult to
refuse aid for DETACHMENT, which was planned for its own special benefit.
Fortunately, a regular strategic mission was agreed upon to keep Japanese
planes busy at home, so that both at Washington and Guam there was ready
acceptance of Nimitz' proposal to integrate B-29 operations with those of the
Fifth Fleet.  LeMay, however, who was just taking over XXI Bomber Command,
felt that the support originally requested was beyond his capacity and asked
for a conference at Ulithi where he might work out with Spruance and Mitscher
a more reasonable plan.  After the meeting, held on 27 January, LeMay secured
the approval of Nimitz and Harmon for the following supporting operations: 1)
picketboat searches on D minus 8 and D minus 5; 2) weather-strike missions by
three B-29's operating individually against Tokyo on three nights beginning D
minus 4/3 and against Nagoya on three nights beginning D Plus 3/4; 3) major
strikes against a primary target in the Tokyo area on D Plus 4; and 4) a
diversionary raid against Nagoya on D minus 2."

As this agreement was shaping up, DETACHMENT got under way.  On 31 January
Seventh Air Force B-24's, which since August had been working over airfields
and shipping in the Nampo Shoto, began their task of softening up Iwo Jima's
defenses.  During the next 16 days the Liberators flew 283 daylight sorties
(escorted on 3 occasions by some 15 P-38's), dropping 602 tons of bombs and
1,111 drums of napalm; in the same period, B-24's flew 233 night snooper
missions, dropping 504 tons of bombs.  On 12 February twenty-one B-29's of
the 313th Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy) expended eighty-four tons in a
shakedown mission against pinpoint targets on Iwo: gun emplacements on
Suribachi Yama, the formidable rock at the southern tip of the island, AA
positions, and radar and radio installations.

Bombing results were difficult to assess; in general they were considered
disappointing and post-invasion inspection more than verified the pessimism
of the early judgments.  Bombing at moderately high altitudes and frequently
forced by cloudy weather to make radar releases, the Liberator crews simply
could not take out the assigned targets, most of which were cleverly
concealed and deeply dug in.  Napalm was dropped in an effort to burn off the
camouflage, but the experiment failed, partly because of inaccurate drops,
partly because of the nature of the cover.  A Marine intelligence officer
later judged that the chief effect of the long bombardment of Iwo was to
cause the enemy to build more elaborate underground defenses."

On 15 February, as Task Force 58's fast carriers were moving in for the
strike against Tokyo and surface forces were converging on Iwo Jima, LeMay
sent out his B-29's in their first support strike.  Weather was bad over
Tokyo and as a substitute target the planes bombed Mitsubishi's engine works
at Nagoya.  At Chichi Jima, fifteen B-24's bombed the airfield but failed to
do much damage.  On the 16th Mitscher's planes swept in to strike Nakajima's
Ota plant, and the next day they hit Musashi at Tokyo in a heavy attack.
Weather was so bad in the area that a third strike, provisionally scheduled
for the 18th, was canceled and the task force moved down to cover the
landings at Iwo Jima.

Meanwhile, Blandy's support force (Task Force 52) had moved into position off
Iwo, and at 0800 hours on 16 February, an hour behind schedule, the big guns
on the battleships and cruisers opened up.  Mist had delayed the bombardment
and low visibility and intermittent rain made it difficult for spotter planes
to observe results.  The escort carriers managed to put up 239 sorties during
the day, but when 42 B-24's came up from the Marianas to hit at targets on
Suribachi, Blandy canceled the mission because of unfavorable weather.  On 17
February (D minus 2), however, visibility was excellent, and the surface
ships moved in to begin a complex schedule of round-the-island firing which
had to be coordinated with the work of under-water demolition teams.  The
escort carriers put in a busy day, launching 336 sorties, which included
strikes at defensive positions and antisubmarine and combat air patrols.  The
Liberators had better luck than on the 16th.  Again 42 got up to Iwo, and
going in at altitudes lower than usual-4,900 to 5,700 feet (1,494 to 1,737 m)
-they dropped 832 X 260-pound (118 kg) frag clusters on defense installations
just north of Suribachl's crater.  Results were rated "good."

Low clouds and occasional rain hampered air operations on the 18th.  The
escort carriers were able to send up 318 sorties, but when the B-24's
appeared the target was so completely covered with cloud that the strike was
canceled.  Nevertheless, it was a big day for Rodgers supporting ships.
Weakened by a last-minute diversion to Task Force 58 of two 16-inch gun
battleships and a cruiser, his force included only five old battleships and
six cruisers.  In spite of difficulties in observing results of their fire,
these ships did an excellent job in destroying defense positions,
concentrating especially on the landing beach areas.  Their force was too
light, though, and the period of preparatory fire too short so that a great
majority of the defense installations remained intact.

D-day, 19 February, dawned clear.  Task Force 58, its Tokyo strikes
completed, had come on for the assault and two of its battleships and
thirteen cruisers joined in the neutralization fire as Marines shifted from
transports into the landing craft.  Between H minus 1 and H-hour (0800 to
0900), while the amphibious tractors maneuvered into position, the warships
laid down a barrage, and aircraft from the escorts and Mitscher's fast
carriers swept in.  A strike by 44 B-24's had been scheduled, but when over
half of them aborted, only 15 arrived to drop 19 tons of 100-pound (45 kg)
GP's on the island's eastern defenses.

The first assault wave hit the beaches northeast of Suribachi at 0900 hours,
and under the Navy's barrage moved inland about 200 yards (183 m) on a
1,500-yard (1,372 m) front.  By evening 30,000 Marines were ashore: the 5th
Division had pushed almost across the island at its narrowest point-just
north of Suribachi-but the 4th, against very heavy opposition, had been
stopped at the edge of Montoyama Airfield No. 1.

The story of Iwo Jima thereafter is largely that of the Marines, a story of
heroic fighting on the ground and under it.  The Japanese commander,
Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had organized his defenses with
great skill, and with no room for maneuver the Marines had to pry the
stubborn enemy troops out of their intricate cave strongholds.  The island
was not declared secure until 16 March, and isolated pockets held out even
longer.  Air played its part in the battle but it was not a leading role:
B-29's continued to attack Japanese cities; on 25 February Mitscher's
carriers launched another strike against the Tokyo area; carrier planes and
the B-24's kept hitting other islands in the Nampo Shoto; and a constant air
patrol was maintained over Iwo Jima.  Throughout the operation the Americans
were thus able to maintain overwhelming air superiority.  There was no enemy
air action on 16 February, by which time U.S. intentions had become quite
clear.  The only serious air opposition came during the uncertain light of
dusk on the 21st, when about a dozen Japanese planes made a low-level attack
on a carrier unit.  Apparently all the intruders were shot down, but they
scored heavily, sinking USS Bismarck Sea (CVE-95) and damaging USS Saratoga
(CV-3), USS Lunga Point (CVE-94) and an LST.

>From the first day of ground fighting the Marines called for and received
close air support against enemy strongpoints.  Between 10 August and D minus
4, U.S, forces had dumped 9,616 tons of high explosives on the small island:
B-24's, 5,582 tons, B-29's, 1,223; Navy surface ships, 2,405, Navy planes,
406.  After the preliminary fire began on 16 February, Navy guns expended
9,907 tons of shells.  Thus, the total weight of explosives rained on Iwo
Jima amounted to about 2,300 tons per square mile (2.6 square km).  Yet many
of the well-constructed and cleverly concealed positions were untouched and
had to be captured or sealed up by tank-infantry demolition teams with such
direct air support as could be had.  During the early days of the battle this
service was rendered by carrier-based planes; ground commanders rated the
pilots from Task Force 58-some of whom were from Marine squadrons-as better
than those from Blandy's escort carriers and felt the loss of the former when
the fast carriers departed on 22 February.  On three occasions small
formations of B-24's were called up from the Marianas to bomb defensive
positions, but the Seventh's most important contribution to the ground
fighting was through its fighters.  The P-51's of the 15th Fighter Group
began to arrive at Iwo's South Field on 6 March and flew their first mission
on the 8th.  Beginning on the 10th, the day before the escort carriers left,
the P-51's were on station from 0700 to 1830 hours in flights of eight planes.
At the request of ground commanders they strafed and bombed enemy pillboxes,
cave entrances, gun emplacements, slit trenches, troops, and stores, flying
altogether 125 sorties.  Although pilots were inexperienced in close support,
they were daring and skillful and learned rapidly under Marine tutelage,
pressing their strikes home to minimum altitudes.  The aid thus given the
ground troops was adjudged "material and timely assistance."

The 15th Fighter Group also furnished daylight combat air patrol: the group
put up dawn and dusk flights of twelve P-51's each from 7 to 11 March, after
which the patrols were reduced to eight planes.  At night two P-61's of the
548th Night Fighter Squadron took over.  This routine remained virtually
unchanged until the end of the war although the chore was more widely
distributed as new units arrived: the 549th Night Fighter Squadron on 2O
March, the 21st Fighter Group on 23 March, and the 306th Fighter Group on 11
May.

The dawn and dusk patrols were apt to be uneventful; no planes on combat air
patrol were lost to enemy action. Iwo's spotty weather during April and May
often kept the patrols grounded and on 20 April was responsible for the loss
of five P-61's and three Marine PBJ's which crashed in a heavy ground fog.
Night work was more exciting, for the enemy occasionally attempted to bomb
the island after dark-his last effort coming as late as 4 August.  Japanese
planes were able to get past the Black Widows on only three occasions: on 21
May when two bombers killed three men and wounded eleven before being shot
down by flak; on 1 June when a single plane dropped a string of small bombs
that killed five men and wounded seventeen; and on 24 June when two Betty's
(Mitsubishi G4M Navy Type 1 Attack Bomber) caused some small damage before
being destroyed."

The fighters also took over the job of neutralizing Chichi Jima and Haha
Jima, previously targets for the B-24's and carrier planes.  The first strike
was made on 11 March when the hard pressed 15th Fighter Group, its airfield
still under occasional enemy artillery fire, sent out sixteen P-51's.  With
General Moore flying as an observer, the formation divided eight tons of
bombs between Susaki airfield and Futami Ko on Chichi Jima.  Throughout March
the planes went back in daily strikes that differed little from the maiden
attempt.  Priority targets were operational aircraft, shipping, Susaki
Airfield, and other military installations, but since enemy planes or
shipping were seldom found, the main weight of attack was on the airfield.
When Chichi was weathered in, the fighters hit Haha Jima; occasionally they
visited the minor islands of the group.  These visits continued until the end
of the war.  Day missions were run on an average of about one every other
day, and from 29 March to 20 April P-61's flew nightly harassing raids.
Altogether, there were 1,638 sorties.  Only two planes were lost to enemy
action as opposed to eight lost from operational causes.  Inadequate photo
coverage made target selection difficult, and in truth there was little on
the islands to hit.  But the constant pecking away at the islands denied the
enemy effective use of the airfield or harbors, and for fighter pilots the
missions provided an invaluable transition between stateside training and the
difficult very long range combat missions to Japan.

These operations of the P-51's and P-61's had been made possible by the early
development of the airfields for which the battle of Iwo Jima had been fought.
Along the central plateau of Iwo the Japanese had laid out three airfields,
sometimes called, from the neighboring village, Montoyama No. 1, No. 2, and No-
3 or simply South, Central, and North fields.  The first had two strips,
5,025 and 3,965 feet (1,532 and 1,209 m) long.  Central Field had two
runways, 5,225 and 4,425 feet (1,593 and 1,349 m), built in the form of an X.
The third, with a single strip, never became operational.  The basic plan
(WORKMAN) for the development of Iwo into an air base, drawn up in October,
contemplated the use where possible of existing Japanese facilities, and
although the whole complex was to serve primarily as a very long range base,
the most pressing job was the rehabilitation of some strips for local fighter
use.  The WORKMAN schedule, a Navy responsibility, was as follows: at No. 1,
one 5,000-foot (1,524 m) runway was to be rehabilitated for fighter
operations by D Plus 7; at No. 2, the northeast-southwest runway was to be
repaired for fighter use by D plus 10 and the east-west runway extended into
a 6,000-foot (1,829 m) fighter strip by D Plus 50; later, by D plus 110, the
northeast-southwest runway was to be extended to 8,500 feet (2,591 m) for
B-29's and a second 8,500-foot runway was to be built parallel to the first;
at No. 3, one 5,000-foot runway was to be ready for fighters by D plus 50.
All runways were to be 200 feet (61 m) wide.  Construction was assigned to
Commodore R. C. Johnson's 9th Naval Construction Brigade, made up of the 8th
and 41st Naval Construction Regiments and one AAF unit, the 811th Engineer
Aviation Battalion.  The 8th Regiment was assigned to general construction,
the other units to work on the airfields.

Three Seabee units went in with the assault troops on D-day to serve as shore
parties and to begin work on the airfields as they were overrun.  Determined
enemy opposition upset the construction schedule but as the fields were
captured, runways were rapidly made serviceable for minimum operations.  One
strip on South Field was being used by observation planes as early as 26
February (D Plus 7), and by 2 March the other strip was graded to 4,000 feet
(1,219 m).  On the 4th, DETACHMENT paid its first dividend when a B-29 in
distress came in for an emergency landing.  Two days later the P-51's came up
from Saipan, and from then on, South Field was in constant use while
construction was continued.  Although work at Central Field was held up by
the protracted land battle, on 16 March it too was operational, with one
strip graded to 5,200 feet (1,585 m), the other to 4,800 (1,463 m).

On that day, Colonel William E. Robinson, staff engineer for XXI Bomber
Command, landed at Iwo Jima to survey the possibilities of B-29 base
development.  From the point of view of B-29 crews, Iwo's chief importance
was that it would make fighter escort possible and serve as a haven for
bombers in distress.  But the planners had been interested also in its use as
a staging base by which the tactical radius of the B-29 could be lengthened
or its bomb load increased.  It was for combat-loaded Superforts that the
8,500-foot runways had been designed, and the WORKMAN plan had provided
facilities for 60 to 90 of the bombers.  Robinson was convinced that North
and Central Fields could be built to serve as many as 150 B-29's, and after
his return to Guam, he gave LeMay an amended base development plan.  LeMay
approved it on the day it was submitted, 26 March, as did Major General
Willis H. Hale, who since Harmon's death had been serving as deputy commander
of the Twentieth.  Major General James E. Chaney, Saipan's island commander,
and Admiral Hoover readily concurred, so that by 4 April Robinson had carried
the plan to Oahu where Admiral Nimitz gave his final approval.  In Robinson's
plan, North and Central fields were to be combined into one huge airdrome
covering over 4 square miles (10.4 square km) (half the surface of the
island), with 2 B-29 runways, 9,400 and 9,800 feet (2,865 and 2,987 m) long,
and a 5,200-foot fighter strip.

The engineers found the task of building airfields on Iwo Jima complex and
often exasperating.  Iwo, which had risen from the sea within the memory of
living men, was still a semiactive volcano, and in many places sulphur-laden
steam issued from crevices.  Some areas that were honeycombed with steam
pockets had to be avoided when runways or subsurface gasoline lines were laid
out.  Although the volcanic ash which covered the island's surface worked
more easily than the coral to which Pacific engineers were accustomed and
could be readily compacted to sustain B-29 loads, when wet it eroded easily
if compacted, and asphalt could be laid on an ash base only when dry.
Unfortunately, heavy rains in the spring months delayed construction by
keeping the surfaces wet for as much as a week at a time.  Even in good
weather progress on the B-29 runways lagged, until in April the Seabees began
working two ten-hour shifts a day and reduced drastically the effort devoted
to construction of their own housing and other secondary facilities.  In June
the program suffered a setback when an asphalt area of approximately 80,000
square feet (7,432 square m) at Central Field was ruined by water penetrating
the subbase; on another occasion it was necessary to remove the crushed stone
and subgrade from some 1,500 feet (457 m) of asphalt runway.

In spite of these difficulties, the first B-29 runway had been paved to 8,500
feet by 7 July and was in operation; by the 12th it had been paved to its
full length of 9,800 feet.  The second strip had been graded to 9,400 feet by
V-J Day but was never surfaced.  The old east-west runway became a 6,000-foot
fueling strip.  The fighter strip at South Field, in use by fighters since 6
March, was paved to 6,000 feet by July and had 7,940 feet of taxiways and 258
hardstands.  At North Field, which in the revised plan as supposed to be
incorporated with Central, the job involved new construction in rough
terrain.  By the end of the war the fighter strip had been paved to 5,500
feet and some 10,000 feet of taxiway had been graded.  Fuel was supplied
through 2 tank farms-one with a capacity of 80,000 barrels of aviation
gasoline, the other storing 160,000 barrels of avgas, 50,000 barrels of motor
gasoline, and 20,000 barrels of diesel oil-and through small installations at
each field.  There was at Iwo Jima practically no harbor development and all
unloading was across the beaches.

In this fashion Iwo Jima, once a threat to the B-29 campaign against Japan,
was transformed into a base whose chief purpose was to support that campaign.
The work had not been finished by V-J Day, but during the six months between
the landing of the first Superfortress on Iwo and the formal surrender in
Tokyo Bay, the island was in constant use by very long range forces.
Inevitably the question arose, "Was Iwo's capture worth the cost?"
Responsible leaders, using the impersonal calculus of high strategy, have
agreed that it was.  Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, whose point of
view was that of the Marines, was emphatic on that score:

"Yet my answer to the question, tremendous as was the price of victory, is
definitely in the affirmative.  In fighting a war to win, you cannot evaluate
the attainment of an objective in terms of lives, or money, or material lost.
I said 'Yes' to this question before we laid plans to take Iwo Jima, and I
say 'Yes' today."

The cost in human lives was heavy.  U.S. losses, excluding Navy personnel,
were estimated by the US Strategic Bombing Survey at 4,590 killed, 301
missing, and 15,954 wounded, a total Of 20,845.  In return, the Americans
killed an estimated 21,304 Japanese and captured 212.  In a war of attrition
this would have been an acceptable exchange, but the battle of Iwo Jima was
for a small piece of valuable real estate, not primarily to inflict
casualties upon the enemy.

Initial planning had stressed Iwo's value as a base for very long range
fighter escorts, and B-29 losses at the time of the battle for the island
were serious enough to make these escorts seem necessary.  Yet by late spring
and summer Japanese air strength in the home islands deteriorated so rapidly
that bomber formations again went out unescorted; the unexpectedly frequent
use of the B-29's in night missions also detracted from the importance of
escorts.  In all, the fighters were to fly some 1,700 escort sorties, a
figure much lower, one would suppose, than had been anticipated.  Nor did the
B-29's make much use of Iwo's fields as a staging point where B-29's could
top off their fuel loads.  The chief use made of the island was as an
intermediate landing point, particularly for B-29's in distress, and in this
respect there can be no doubt as to the great value of Iwo Jima.  By the end
of the war about 2,400 Superforts had made emergency landings on its runways;
with 11-man crews, this involved some 25,000 airmen.  Estimates of AAF lives
saved because of Iwo's strips have run as high as 20,000, but this seems a
gross exaggeration.  Certainly not all the 2,400 planes would have gone down
at sea-indeed, possession of Iwo offered a constant temptation for B-29 crews
in difficulty to use the midway point when there was a reasonable chance of
making the home base.  Furthermore, about half of the B-29 crewmen who went
down at sea were rescued.  Perhaps the estimate cited by Admiral King that
the lives saved "exceeded lives lost in the capture of the island itself" is
the most accurate and just one."

Possession of Iwo added flexibility to B-29 operations.  Missions could be
dispatched during, periods of uncertain weather in the Marianans with the
understanding that returning aircraft would be diverted to Iwo if adverse
landing conditions developed at their home bases.  The B-29's which had once
avoided Iwo were now routed over the island, which served conveniently as an
assembly and navigational checkpoint, making it possible to schedule missions
with a take-off after midnight and a daylight return and landing.  After this
pattern was adopted, the rate of open-sea landings declined sharply and the
rate of successful ditchings increased.  The gains in combat effectiveness
which resulted from improved morale cannot be measured but they were
considerable.  Changes in the tactical situation perhaps lessened the
importance of Iwo Jima, but in sum XXI Bomber Command had great reason to be
grateful for the sacrifice the Marines had made in seizing the island.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  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, 22 Feb 1995 12:59:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: INF: 50 Years Ago - 23-FEB-1945

John Davis writes  that on 23 Feb 45 the following occurred:
 >The Homefront
 >-------------
 >Hawaii-Guam Cable Open - The Army has announced the resumption of cable
 >communications between Hawaii and Guam.
 >
 >More Men Needed - Under-Secretary of War Robert Patterson says that the
 >Army and Navy will need 900,000 more men in the first six months of 1945.

There was a trans Pacific telegraph cable that ran from
Hawaii-Midway-Wake-Guam.  In the latter stages of the war when
Midway and Wake were backwaters, the Americans on Midway and the
Japanese on Wake would trade insults over the telegraph line when
they got bored.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  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, 22 Feb 1995 07:03:00 -0500
From:    Frank Scheidt <[email-masked]>
Subject: HIST: "Mein Kampf" and ga

 WWID> WID> Message-ID: <[email-masked]>

 WWID> For what it's worth, per THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HOLOCAUST under the
 WWID> entry for MEIN KAMPF, Eberhard Jaeckel says,

 WWID> "Hitler complains that at the beginning of World War I the
 WWID> German government had missed the opportunity of 'mercilessly
 WWID> exterminating' the Jews, and that Germany would not have lost
 WWID> the war if it had 'used poison gas' on twelve thousand to
 WWID> fifteen thousand Jews (chapters 14 and 15 [of MEIN KAMPF] of
 WWID> vol.2)."

"Mein Kampf" is a single volume.  There *is* no "vol.2" ... this is
not to say that the statement attributed to it is false (I read
Mein Kampf over fifty years ago and don't recall much of it) but
it was a *single* book ...

... Hobbies are hobbies and are their own reward.
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 13:38:16 -0600
From:    "William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: REF: Tigers in combat, volume I

Hi Akira and Terry,

>      As far as I know there was no Luftwaffe-style common "confirmed kill"
> document in the Army [I might be wrong so I'm open to suggestion].
> So I believe "kill number" depends on private diary or battallion-specific
> document/diary....                                                   (his
>
> Akira Takiguchi  ATSON Inc./ASAHI Net

I don't know how formalized it was but I do know that participation in
combat assaults was documented.  Each entry was recorded on a specific
form and included the dates of engagement and location and was signed
by one's superior officer.  That was a requirement for award of
numbered Panzer or General Assaults badges.  Also the sniper badge was
documented with confirmation of kills by someone of higher grade.  So,
in some sense it was kept track of by the Army other than strictly
diaries.  Single handed destruction of armored vehicle and low flying
aircraft awards would similarly have to be formalized.

Terry, did Mattias Hetzenaur win his Knights Cross for efforts in a
single action or was it for his "career" total as a sniper?  He would
be the best example I can think of in determining how KCs were
awarded (career vs single action criteria).

Cheers, Bill Huber / [email-masked]

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 14:52:55 EST
From:    Roger Coon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HIST: "Mein Kampf" and ga

Mein Kampf is indeed printed as a single bound volume, but it is divided
into parts,usually labeled volumes 1 and 2.  Another work by Hitler,
published in the 60s as Hitler's Secret Book is occasionally described
incorrectly as v.2 of Mein Kampf.
Brad Coon

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:30:30 EST
From:    Mary Hricko <[email-masked]>
Subject: OSS

Hello everyone!
       In my English research, I came across some information that
 Hemingway's oldest son John Hadley Nicanor "Bumby" Hemingway (what
 a name) was an OSS officer. Has anyone ever heard of this? I find
 this somewhat interesting since Ernest was a war correspondent.
 I located this info in the Dictionary Literary of Biography and seem
 somewhat suspicious since I have never come across Hemingway Jr. as
 an OSS man. Any comments?

                          Regards,
                                  Mary

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:50:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: [INF] USAAF 23 FEB 45

COMBAT CHRONOLOGY OF THE US ARMY AIR FORCES
FRIDAY, 23 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
  B-17, Boeing Flying Fortress
  B-24, Consolidated Liberator
  B-25, North American Mitchell
  F-7, Consolidated Liberator
  P-38, Lockheed Lightning
  P-40, Curtiss
  P-47, Republic Thunderbolt
  P-51, North American Mustang

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

AMERICAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS

  ZONE OF INTERIOR (Fourth Air Force): In California, a P-38 from Santa Rosa
AAFld shoots down a Japanese balloon over Calistoga.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATER
  CHINA THEATER (Fourteenth Air Force): In China, 29 B-24s and 22 fighters
scheduled to attack Shihkiachwang abort because of bad weather; 8 P-51s hit
railroad targets of opportunity near Siaokan and attack river traffic from
Nanking to Hankow; 5 B-24s sweep the Gulf of Tonkin and S China Sea, damaging
1 vessel; 4 P-40s attack targets of opportunity in the Kaifeng area.

  INDIA-BURMA THEATER (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 20+ P-47s support ground
forces in the Mongmit sector and near Lashio, hitting a Japanese
concentration; 12 B-25s and 120+ fighter-bombers continue pounding troop
concentrations, supply areas, road traffic, and ammunition dumps in the
frontline areas and behind enemy lines. A large transport effort completes
655 sorties.

EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): 2 missions are flown.
  Mission 843: As a follow-up to the yesterday's attacks on transportation
facilities as part of Operation CLARION, 1,274 bombers and 705 fighters are
dispatched to hit marshalling yards in Germany; they claim 15-0-16 Luftwaffe
aircraft; 1 B-24 and 6 P-51s are lost:
  1. 446 B-17s are dispatched to hit marshalling yards at Treuchtlingen (61),
Crailsheim (52), Neumarkt (74), Ansbach (109) and Kitzingen (95); targets of
opportunity are Nordlingen (2), Schwabisch Hall (24), Winterhausen (7) and
other (2); 1 B-17 is damaged beyond repair and 34 damaged; 1 airman is WIA.
Escorting are 194 of 203 P-51s; they claim 5-0-2 aircraft on the ground;
2 P-51s are lost (pilots MIA).
  2. 460 B-17s are sent to hit the marshalling yard at Plauen (110); targets
of opportunity are Meiningen (49), Adelsberg (12), Hildburghausen (12),
Kitzingen (88), Lichtenfels (13), Schweinfurt (12), Ellingen (25), Ottingen
(48), Wurzburg (37), Crailsheim (38), and Zwolle (1); 1 B-17 is damaged
beyond repair and 16 damaged; 3 airmen are WIA. 193 of 208 P-51s escort and
claim 1-0-0 aircraft in the air; 3 P-51s are lost; 1 pilot is KIA and 3 MIA.
  3. 368 B-24s are dispatched to hit marshalling yards at Weimar (57), Fulda
(10) and Gera (46); targets of opportunity are Paderborn (104), Osnabruck
(50), Jena (25), Schluchtern (20), Fritzlar (9), Reichenbach (9), Steinau
(9), and other (1); 1 B-24 is lost, 4 damaged beyond repair and 6 damaged; 21
airmen are KIA and 4 WIA. The escort is 105 of 110 P-51s.
  4. 141 P-47s and P-51s make a sweep of Neuburg, Landsberg and Leipheim
Airfields claiming 9-0-14 aircraft on the ground; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot MIA).
  5. 4 P-51s escort 10 F-5s on a photo reconnaissance mission over Germany.
  6. 30 P-51s fly a scouting mission.
  Mission 844: 24 of 27 B-24s make a PFF attack on the Neuss marshalling yard
during the night without loss.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS
    First Tactical Air Force (Provisional): The 527th Fighter Squadron, 86th
Fighter Group moves from Pisa, Italy to Tantonville, France with P-47s.
    Ninth Air Force: In Germany, the 9th Bombardment Division hits
communications centers E of the Roer River as the US Ninth Army crosses the
river and begins an assault (Operation GRENADE) toward the Rhine River;
fighters fly armed reconnaissance, patrols, and alerts and support the US
104th and 8th Infantry Divisions near Duren, the XIII and XIX Corps' attack
across the Roer at Linnich and Rurdorf, and the VIII, XII, and XX Corps at
the Prum River, E of the Our River, and E of the Saar River.

MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (MTO)

  STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Fifteenth Air Force): About 380 B-17s and B-24s hit
the marshalling yards at Villach, Worgl, Knittelfeld, and Klagenfurt, Austria
and Udine, Italy, plus Kitzbuhel, Austria railroad junction; 140+ P-38s and
P-51s provide escort; some of the fighters strafe areas NW of Linz, Austria
and N of Munich, Germany; 35 other P-38s dive-bomb the Worgl marshalling yard
and afterwards 30 of them strafe the rail line from Rosenheim, Germany-
Innsbruck, Austria-Landeck, Austria; other P-38s and P-51s fly reconnaissance
and escort missions.

  TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Twelfth Air Force): In Italy, A-20s on intruder
missions during the night of 22/23 Feb, hit marshalling yards and airfields
throughout N Italy; medium bombers concentrate on the N end of the Brenner
Pass, damaging bridges at Campo San Pietro and a railroad fill at San Felice
del Benaco and hitting bridges at Dogna; fighter-bombers pound airfields, and
enemy movement in the C and N Po Valley, and damage 5 bridges and cut rail
lines at numerous points.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA)

  AAFPOA (Seventh Air Force): 26 B-24s from Angaur Island bomb San Roque
Airfield on Mindanao Island. 2 P-47s from Saipan Island on armed
reconnaissance strafe Pagan Island. On the night of 23/24 Feb, 7 B-24s from
Guam Island fly snooper raids against the airfield on Chichi Jima and the
town of Okimura on Haha Jima. US Marines raise the US flag on the summit of
Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima Island.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: Strikes supporting
ground forces continue throughout the battle zones on Luzon Island. In
Borneo, P-47s hit Jesselton Airfield while B-24s bomb Sandakan, Lahat Datu,
and Miri Airfields. In French Indochina, B-25s on shipping sweeps bomb
vessels in Phan Rang harbor and hit a small convoy SW of Camranh Bay. The
20th Combat Mapping Squadron, 6th Photographic Reconnaissance Group, based at
Dulag, Leyte Island, ceases operating from Tacloban, Leyte with F-7s. The
68th Fighter Squadron, 347th Fighter Group, moves from Middelburg Island to
San Jose Mindoro Island with P-38s. The 69th Bombardment Squadron (Medium),
42d Bombardment Group (Medium), based at Sansapor, New Guinea, begins
operating from Morotai Island with B-25s.

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

22/2048Z FEB

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 14:35:53 -0600
From:    Chip Merton <[email-masked]>
Subject: Unit 731

As promised here is some information on the book Unit 731 by Peter Williams
and David Wallace.

"For nearly half a century, the truth about the Japanese Army's Unit 731 has
been shrouded in mystery. It was set up in 1935 by brilliant bacteriologist
Shiro Ishii in s remote village in Japanese occupied Manchuria. There, for
the next decade, Japanese soldier-scientists carried out freezing,
ballistics and vivisection experiments on "enemies"-Russian, Chinese,
American, British, and Australian prisoners of war. But unlike Mengele,
Ishii was never prosecuted for war crimes."

Williams and Wallace also trace the "willingness of the Americans to grant
immunity to those involved in exchange for research data" and implicate
MacArthur in the cover-up of Unit 731.

All quotes from the dustjacket of the book.

I have not had the time to finish this rather interesting book which is
written in what I call 'BBC Documentary' Somewhat dry and lifeless (just a
joke). I do recomend this work as a look at a NON-American view on the War
(Something we in the States are lacking IMHO) and a look inside the
collective mind and activities of Unit 731.

Thanks

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

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 21:24:39 +0000
From:    Nechama Cox <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HIST: "Mein Kampf" and gas

> WWID> "Hitler complains that at the beginning of World War I the
> WWID> German government had missed the opportunity of 'mercilessly
> WWID> exterminating' the Jews, and that Germany would not have lost
> WWID> the war if it had 'used poison gas' on twelve thousand to
> WWID> fifteen thousand Jews (chapters 14 and 15 [of MEIN KAMPF] of
> WWID> vol.2)."
>
>"Mein Kampf" is a single volume.  There *is* no "vol.2" ... this is
>not to say that the statement attributed to it is false (I read
>Mein Kampf over fifty years ago and don't recall much of it) but
>it was a *single* book ...

Yes, but it is broken into two volumes -- One is "A Reckoning" and Two is
"The National Socialist Movement" (at least in my version).

Since my interest was piqued, I went and looked it up, and on page 679 of
the edition published by Houghton Miffling Co. in 1971 it says --

"If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen
thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under
poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German
workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have
been in vain. On the contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in
time might have saved the lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the
future."

So my vote is that the statement is true :)

Nechama Cox
[email-masked]

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 16:39:00 EST
From:    mc killop <[email-masked]>
Subject: Suribachi Pix

Today, February 23, 1995, one of, if not the, most famous pictures of World
War II was taken on Iwo Jima Island at the height of the battle.  Joe
Rosenthal's photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the flag on
Mount Suribachi has been seen by millions all over the world.  But there is
also controversy about the photograph.  The following copyrighted Associated
Press article appeared in the Woodbridge (New Jersey) NEWS TRIBUNE on Sunday
February 12, 1995.  It is reprinted without permission for academic purposes
only.

LIFETIME OF EXPLAINING LUCKY SHOT
Split second to snap famous war photo

By Mitchell Landsberg
The Associated Press

  SAN FRANCISCO - Fifty years ago this month, a young Associated Press
photographer named Joe Rosenthal shot the most memorable photograph of World
War II, a simple, stirring image of five Marines and one Navy corpsman
raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
  It took but a sliver of time: one 400th of a second.
  It has consumed the past halfcentury of Joe Rosenthal's life.
  He has been called a genius, a fraud, a hero, a phony.  He has been labeled
and relabeled, adored and abused, forced to live and relive, explain and
defend that day atop Mount Suribachi on each and every day that has followed,
more than 18,000 and counting.  "I don't think it is in me to do much more of
this sort of thing," he said during an interview - his umpteen-thousandth -
about Iwo Jima.  "I don't know how to get across to anybody what 50 years of
constant repetition means."
  Rosenthal is 83 now, nearly blind, a pudgy man with a dapper white mustache
and a horseshoe of white hair curving around the back of a largely bald head.
He lives alone in San Francisco.
  In 1945, he was 33, too. nearsighted for military service, short and
athletic, with a brushy brown mustache and a head full of tight brown curls.
  As an AP photographer assigned to the Pacific theater of the war, he had
already distinguished himself - and shown a streak of bravado - in battles at
New Guinea, Hollandia, Guam, Peleliu and Angaur.
  No one remembers Rosenthal for those pictures now.
  There is only Iwo.  Bloody Iwo.  It is the battle that Joe Rosenthal will
fight until he dies.
  We remember Iwo Jima for two good reasons.
  One is that it was the costliest battle in Marine Corps history.  Its toll
of 6,821 Americans dead, 5,931 of them Marines, accounted for nearly one-
third of all Marine Corps losses in all of World War 11.
  The other is Joe Rosenthal's picture.
  It has been called the greatest photograph of all time.  It may well be the
most widely reproduced.  It served as the symbol for the Seventh War Loan
Drive, for which it was plastered on 3.5 million posters.  It was used on a
postage stamp and on the cover of countless magazines and newspapers.  It
served as the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia,
a symbol forever of the valor and sacrifices of the U.S. Marines.
  As a photograph, it derives its composition, a sense of momentum and the
kinetic energy of six men straining toward a common goal, which for one man
has slipped just out of grasp.
  "It has every element.... It has everything," marveled Eddie Adams, a
former AP photographer who took another picture that helped sum up a war -
one of a South Vietnamese police chief executing a suspect.
  Of Rosenthal's picture, he added: "It's perfect: The position, the body
language. ... You couldn't set anything up like this - it's just so perfect."
  And therein lies the problem.  Some people think Rosenthal's picture is too
perfect.
  For 50 years now, Rosenthal has battled a perception that he somehow staged
the flag-raising picture, or covered up the fact that it was actually not the
first flag-raising at Iwo Jima.
  All the available evidence backs up Rosenthal.  The man responsible for
spreading the story that the picture was staged, the late Time-Life
correspondent Robert Sherrod, long ago admitted he was wrong.  But still the
rumor persists.
  In 1991, a New York Times book reviewer, misquoting a murky treatise on the
flag-raising called "Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories and the American Hero,"
went so far as to suggest that the Pulitzer Prize committee consider revoking
Rosenthal's 1945 award for photography.
  And just a year ago, columnist Jack Anderson promised readers "the real
story" of the Iwo Jima photo: that Rosenthal had "accompanied a handpicked
group of men for a staged flag-raising hours after the original event."
  Anderson later retracted his story.  But the damage, once again, had been
done.
  Rosenthal's story, told again and again with virtually no variation over
the years, is this:
  On Feb. 23, 1945, four days after D-Day at Iwo Jima, he was making his
daily trek to the island on a Marine landing craft when he heard that a flag
was being raised atop Mount Suribachi, a volcano at the southern tip of the
island.
  Marines had been battling for the high ground of Suribachi since their
initial landing on Iwo Jima, and now, after suffering terrible losses on the
beaches below it, they appeared to be taking it.
  Upon landing, Rosenthal hurried toward Suribachi, lugging along his bulky
Speed Graphic camera, the standard for press photographers at the time.
Along the way, he came across two Marine photographers, Private First Class
Bob Campbell, shooting still pictures, and Staff Sergeant Bill Genaust,
shooting movies.  The three men proceeded up the mountain together.
  About halfway up, they met four Marines coming down.  Among them was
Sergeant Lou Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine, who said the
flag had already been raised on the summit.  He added that it was worth the
climb anyway for the view.  Rosenthal and the others decided to continue.
  The first flag, he would later learn, was raised at 1037 hours.  Shortly
thereafter, Marine commanders decided, for reasons still clouded in
controversy, to replace it with a larger flag.
  At the top, Rosenthal tried to find the Marines who had raised the first
flag, figuring he could get a group picture of them beside it.  When no one
seemed willing or able to tell him where they were, he turned his attention
to a group of Marines preparing the second flag to be raised.
  Here, with the rest of the story, is Rosenthal writing in Collier's
magazine in 1955:
  "I thought of trying to get a shot of the two flags, one coming down and
the other going up, but although this turned out to be a picture Bob Campbell
got, I couldn't line it up.  Then I decided to get just the one flag going
up, and I backed off about 35 feet (10.7 m).
  "Here the ground sloped down toward the center of the volcanic crater, and
I found that the ground line was in my way.  I put my Speed Graphic down and
quickly piled up some stones and a Jap sandbag to raise me about 2 feet (60
cm) [I am only 5 feet 5 inches tall (165 cm)] and I picked up the camera and
climbed up on the pile.  I decided on a lens setting between f-8 and f-11,
and set the speed at one-400th of a second.
  "At this point, First Lieutenant Harold G. Shrier ... stepped between me
and the men getting ready to raise the flag.  When he moved away, Genaust
came across in front of me with his movie camera and then took a position
about 3 feet (91 cm) to my right.  'I'm not in your way, Joe?"' he called.
  "'No,' I shouted, 'and there it goes.'
  "Out of the corner of my eye, as I had turned toward Genaust, I had seen
the men start the flag up.  I swung my camera, and shot the scene."
  Rosenthal didn't know what he had taken.  He certainly had no inkling he
had just taken the best photograph of his career.  To make sure he had
something worth printing, he gathered all the Marines on the summit together
for a jubilant shot under the flag that became known as his "gung-ho" picture.
  Rosenthal hurried back to the command ship, where he wrote captions for all
the pictures he had sent that day, and shipped the film off to the military
press center in Guam.
  On the caption, Rosenthal had written: "Atop 550-foot Suribachi Yama, the
volcano at the southwest tip of Iwo Jima, Marines of the Second Battalion,
28th Regiment, Fifth Division, hoist the Stars and Stripes, signaling the
capture of this key position."
  At the same time, he told an AP correspondent, Hamilton Feron, that he had
shot the second of two flag-raisings that day.  Feron wrote a story
mentioning the two flags.
  The flag-raising picture was an immediate sensation back in the States.  It
arrived in time to be on the front pages of Sunday newspapers across the
country on Feb. 25.  Rosenthal was quickly wired a congratulatory note from
AP headquarters in New York.  But he had no idea which picture they were
congratulating him for.
  A few days later, back in Guam, someone asked him if he posed the picture.
Assuming this was a reference to the "gung-ho shot," he said, "Sure."
  Not long after, Sherrod, the Time-Life correspondent, sent 'a cable to his
editors in New York reporting that Rosenthal had staged the flag-raising
photo.  Time magazine's radio show, "Time Views the News," broadcast a report
charging that "Rosenthal climbed Suribachi after the flag had already been
planted.... Like most photographers [he] could not resist reposing his
characters in historic fashion."
  Time was to retract the story within days and issue an apology to Rosenthal.
He accepted it, but was never able to entirely shake the taint Time had cast
on his story.
  A new book, "Shadow of Suribachi: Raising the Flags on Iwo Jima," offers
the fullest defense yet of Rosenthal and his picture.
  In it, Sherrod is quoted as saying he'd been told the erroneous story of
the restaging by Lowery, the Marine photographer who captured the first
flag-raising.
  "It was Lowery who led me into the error on the Rosenthal photo," Sherrod
told the authors, Parker Albee Jr. and Keller Freeman.  "I should have been
more careful.',
  Rosenthal, who was to become close friends with Lowery in the years after
Iwo Jima, rejeicts this explanation.  "I think that is a twist that has been
put on by Sheffod," Rosenthal said.  He believes the source of the
misunderstanding was his response to the question about his picture being
posed.
  It is probably moot.  Rosenthal is the only party to the dispute who is
still alive.  His attitude now is mostly one of forgiveness and acceptance.
So many years, after all, have passed.
  There is still, of course, the issue of whether the second flag-raising was
noteworthy enough to have been enshrined as a historical icon.  Here, the
facts are of little use; all that matters is interpretation.
  To be sure, it didn't help that the Marine Corps and most of the wartime
press conveniently glossed over the fact of the first flag-raising.  This
helped foster a public notion of cover-up.
  But whether or not there was a cover-up [Albee and Freeman are persuasive
in arguing that the Marine brass decided to put a lid on the first flag-
raising], was the second flag-raising worthy of Rosenthal's picture?
  Some vehemently argue no.
  "They call that the Iwo Jima flag-raising, which it ain't," declared
Charles Lindberg, a retired electrician in Richfield, Minnesota, who is the
last surviving member of either flag-raising - in his case, the first.
  "It's a good picture," Lindberg conceded.  "I even told Joe Rosenthal that
it was a good picture.  But me and him get into a few arguments."
  That is because Lindberg, like others in the first-flag raising, believed
that all the glory was showered on the second flagraisers, who were less
deserving.
  Rosenthal doesn't argue that one group was more deserving than another.
"In my own opinion, any one of those troops who had their feet on Iwo Jima is
a hero."

Amen to that - JEM

-------------------------------------------------------------------
|  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, 22 Feb 1995 16:24:04 EST
From:    William Lippert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Hitler and the Germans

Hello All,
   Recently, what with the Anniversary of Dresden and other events, there
has been a discussion of who was responsible for both the war and/or the
crimes: Hitler or the Germans.  The author of "Foundations of the Nazi
Police State", George C. Browder, highlights this debate as it has
been pursued in academia.
   There are two paradigms of analysis: the "Hitlercentrist" which stresses
the role of Hitler and, to a lesser extent, his main followers as the
center of Nazi Germany and its history; and the "revisionist" or "polycentrist"
theory, which don't deny the importance of Hitler but believe that 1) Hitler's
leadership style was chaotic and resulted in an administrative mess and that
2) Hitler rarely made decisions, was indecisive, and was subject to the
control of other social, economic, and political centers.   Please note that
the term "revisionist" does not reflect a political field of thought (i.e.
PC), but that it is a revision of the past paradigm of Hitlercentrism.
    This is an important debate in many ways because it indirectly addresses
the issue of German guilt.  It also indirectly addresses the issue of "what
if there was no Hitler?"  The Hitlercentrist view, as some have mentioned
here, removes the Germans from guilt.  "When the Nazi experience becomes a
product of the will of the Fuehrer - an aberration of German history, a unique
phenomenon in Western history - the result is both an alibi that deflects
further probing and a smokesccreen that obscures insights into how similar"
events might occur.
   If one accepts the polycentrist idea, that the Reich was the result of
not only Hitler and Himmler et al. but the workings of individuals and
ideas involved in the evolution and maintenance of the Reich, then the
Germans bear a much greater amount of guilt.
   I won't give my opinion here, yet, but I'm interested to see what other
people think?  Is it just an ambiguous question to begin with?

William Lippert
The American University

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 16:42:07 EST
From:    William Lippert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Hitler and the Jews

Regarding Mein Kampf and the Final Solution:
     I am not inclined to believe that Hitler intended and pursued with
a great vigor the extermination of the Jews while writing Mein Kampf.
At most, I believe it was a fantasy or a possibility, in his mind, should
those conditions ever arise.  It is difficult to accept that Hitler planned
the Final Solution while he was in prison; not so much because of his
incarceration but because the tools (a police state, an accepting population,
a war, etc.) were not available or, indeed, imaginable at this time period.
     I am inclined to believe that the Final Solution was not the result of
a "master plan", at least until the late 1930's, but that the plan fell
into place to fit the conditions in which it was implemented.  Mein Kampf
is a useful tool to look into Hitler's psyche and, to a lesser extent his
ideology and plans for the future, but I have difficulty accepting that
he was consciously, throughout the twenty year period, working towards
the fulfillment of each and every goal.  It was to a certain extent luck
that enabled him to carry out the Final Solution.

William Lippert
The American Lippert

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:15:54 EST
From:    "SGM Robert S. Rush" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: (INF) Ques on Iwo Jima

Jim,

I would really appreciate it.  s-mail address
Rob Rush
2592 Washington Ave
Ft Meade, MD 20755

Thanks a million.
Rob

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 19:18:44 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: Japan esoterica

        I guess I should just admit the subject is too big and give up.  Every
time I try to wind things up or type something to the list I think of three or
four other related matters.  So in the interest of giving peoples' terminals a
break, I will post here every additional comment I can think of and then give
it a rest (honest).  Be forewarned that the following has no particular order
or organization and so will be even more chaotic than my previous posts.  I
blame all the positive feedback for only encouraging me more...
        First of all, I want to thank Jack McKillop for picking up the gauntlet
on Iwo Jima with his excellent posts on the strategic background to the Iwo
operation.  I was interested to see the name of Prince Higashikuni mentioned,
as claiming that he knew the war was lost when the Americans took Saipan and
the other Marianas, because that would bring the B-29's within range of the
homeland.  Two comments here-- one was that Higashikuni had more confidence
(later justified by events) in the power and invulnerability of the B-29 than
was shared even by some US Army Air Force generals in mid-1944.  Second, I
wanted to mention that after the surrender it was Higashikuni who was the
Prime Minister of the first post-war Japanese government (amazingly, some of
the military still pressed for the apointment of Kenji Dohihara, later executed
as a war criminal, for the post of Army Minister in Higashikuni's cabinet).
Higashikuni, BTW, was considered a man of rare independence in the Japanese
heirarchy, especially in the royal family.  He had once refused an invitation
to dinner from the great Emporer Meiji, had quarreled with his son, later to
become Emporer Taisho, and had at one point even tried to resign his membership
in the royal family and attain the status of a private citizen (Toland).
Knowing all this, it is not difficult to imagine such an independent thinker
believing Japan's defeat inevitable in July 1944, but it is hard to say how
many agreed with him.  Of course, the fall of Tojo's government that same month
was a sure sign that things had gone seriously wrong.
        Speaking of Tojo, I found this interesting post-war comment in Toland:
"We should have risen above the system we inherited, but we did not.  It was
the men who were to blame [note-- in other words, not the system itself]
...especially myself."  Spoken after his trial--a complex man indeed.
        On the subject of atonement, I should mention that another prominent
suicide was Admiral Onishi, founder of the kamikazes.  He committed hara-kiri
in the traditional manner, and rendered a further service to the nation by
leaving behind a message to the naval officers and aviators advising them to
refrain from acts of insurrection and do their part in the difficult peace to
follow.  I also wanted to note that General Gen Sugiyama's wife committed
suicide along with him.
        On related war crime matters, I should explain that Col Kingoro
Hashimoto's inflammatory actions at the time of the Panay affair (Dec '37)
consisted of inciting a similar incident a few days later, when artillery under
his command shelled the British gunboat LADYBIRD, which was then boarded and
captured.
        On the tactical end, can't think of much more to say except that my
reference to the relative success of Japanese defensive tactics in the final
year of the war, demonstrated especially on Iwo and Okinawa, was just that--
relative.  The US forces retained the strategic and tactical initiative, and
developed their own effective methods of isolating and attacking fortified
caves and strongpoints.  These tended to be gritty actions involving
flamethrowers and satchel charges, a time-consuming and sometimes costly
proposition.  A variation was to pour gasoline or similarly combustible liquids
into the cave or bunker and set it afire (used with spectacular results in the
retaking of Fort Drum, the "concrete battleship" in Manila harbor).  The use
of the flamethrower version of the Sherman tank helped reduce casualties in
operations of this type, especially on Okinawa (although tank losses to
antitank guns, artillery pieces firing over open sights, land mines, or suicidal
footsoldiers with demolition charges were sometimes fairly heavy, as in the
fighting around Sugarloaf on Okinawa).  Still, the effectiveness of the
Japanese tactics in this final phase of the ground war still boiled down to
simply being able to cause larger numbers of casualties to the invading forces,
and to delay (rather than prevent) their opponents' inevitable success.  The
slogan of killing ten enemy before dying was seldom if ever realized in reality
(except for the more successful kamikaze pilots).  On Iwo Jima, General
Kuribayashi had 21,000 men (his own 109th Division of 14,000 men and an
additional 7,000 naval personnel), virtually every one of whom died in the
battle (as against 26,000 Marines killed or wounded).  Incidentally,
Kuribayashi's own subordinates, and especially the naval commanders working
with him, opposed his tactical plan to let the enemy land unopposed and make
the battle on ground of their own choosing inshore.  Some of the naval officers
were still unaware of the extent of the defeats the Navy had suffered in the
first half of 1944, and expected a major fleet that in many respects no longer
existed to steam to their aid.  On Okinawa about 10,000 Japanese surrendered, a
figure which gave some hope that Japanese morale and resistance were about to
collapse, but still another 110,000 died fighting (inflicting over 49,000
casualties on the invaders, if one includes the losses suffered to supporting
naval units, primarily at the hands of the ten huge co-ordinated kamikaze
assaults).  An estimated 75,000 civilians died also.
        Speaking of civilian casualties, I gave a figure of over 100,000 dead
in the March 1945 Tokyo fire raids.  There are varied loss figures for this
event, ranging from 72,000 (by the Japanese Army command) to 130,000 (an
estimate by Tokyo city officials).  Probably the figure quoted by Steve New
from LeMay's "Superfortress" of 84,000 is the closest to correct (hope I didn't
mistakenly attribute something to you again, Steve), I just picked a figure in
the middle.  Whatever the numbers, the raids were devastating (surpassing the
immediate deaths from either the Hiroshima or the Nagasaki atomic bombs), and
these visits by B-29's with napalm bombs were repeated not only on Tokyo but on
many other Japanese cities (Nagoya was hit by 313 planes the night following
the first Tokyo raid, and Kobe and Osaka suffered the attentions of the
Superfortresses before the week was out).
        One other tactical tie-in.  I mentioned some tank-vs-tank combats
earlier, but omitted several of the earliest ones, on the island of Luzon in
the Phillipines in December 1941, because that information had been the
subject of a previous posting (again by Steve New, from the Squadron/Signal
book on the Stuart).  MacArthur had 108 of the light M3 Stuarts to defend the
island, and they got in a few scrapes with Japanese armor, starting when a
group of Japanese Ha-Go light tanks ambushed five Stuarts 12/12/41, destroying
one and scoring hits on the other four.  Most of these battles also went in
favor of the Americans, however, including a counterattack by the US armor on
12/31 in which eight Japanese tanks were destroyed without loss.  In the last
such encounter, 4/1/42, the remaining Stuarts knocked out two more Japanese
vehicles.  These American tanks were an effective rear-guard during the
withdrawal to Bataan (as the British Grants were in the final stages of the
retreat in Burma in spring '42), on one occasion ambushing and devastating a
Japanese spearhead battalion on bicycles near a key bridge (Manchester,
"American Caesar"), although many of the tanks had to be abandoned for various
reasons before reaching the Bataan defense lines.  Hope you won't mind if I
summarized Steve's previous post for those who missed it (the same post also
mentioned that some M5 version Stuarts helped oppose that big Japanese tank
attack I mentioned on Saipan, and claimed several Chi-Ha and Shinhoto Chi-Ha
tanks destroyed among the 31 vehicles the Japanese lost in the action).  As for
Greg Kelley's post regarding some actions between Japanese armor and Soviet
tanks in the final days of the war (the Soviet vehicles including Stalin tanks
with 122-mm guns and armor 160-200mm thick), those can hardly even be
considered battles, so outclassed were the few Japanese tanks remaining in
Manchuria.
        In terms of naval tactics, I should at least mention the last great
sortie of the Combined Fleet, resulting in its virtual destruction at Leyte
Gulf.  The plan itself was ambitious and complicated, composed essentially of
three great arms designed to encircle and crush the US invasion fleet.  As I
mentioned, Admiral Ozawa's carrier force was to be used as bait (a common
Japanese ploy in their attempts to force a "decisive battle"), approaching from
the northeast of the islands while the main force and supporting forces steamed
in from the west.  Ozawa had four carriers plus the two old battleships HYUGA
and ISE, which had been converted to hybrid seaplane carriers by removing their
rear 14-inch gun turrets and installing a short flight deck.  However, Ozawa's
six ships had on board a total of only 116 aircraft, so could do little harm.
Ozawa even deliberately broke radio silence to facilitate his detection by the
US forces.  The main body under Admiral Kurita, with the biggest Japanese
battleships under command, was to force the San Bernardino Strait in the west,
while a supporting force with two older battleships was to create a pincer by
moving through the Surigao Strait in the southwest.  I won't recount the battle
in detail-- Kurita's main force, after losing two heavy cruisers sunk and one
damaged by US submarines on its approach, suffered heavily under US air
attacks, which among other things sank the 68,000-ton superbattleship MUSASHI
(this massive vessel, with armor 16 inches thick in its main belt, took 19
torpedoes and 17 bomb hits before going under).  In the confusion that followed
on both sides, Kurita turned back under relentless air attacks (and with his
own promised land-based air support not in evidence), but then reversed course
again after dark, and headed back into the San Bernardino Strait under cover of
darkness.  This move almost gave the Japanese the victory, because the US
battle fleets had separated, with near-fatal results.  Halsey's 3rd Fleet in
the north, having belatedly spotted Ozawa's carriers, took the bait and
pursued, leaving the San Bernardino Strait uncovered (both US fleet commanders
thought the other was in place guarding it).  Meanwhile, further south, Admiral
Nishimura's forces were hammered by the six battleships of Admiral Ohlendorf's
squadron, who got their enemy into the classic "crossing the T" maneuver made
famous, ironically, by the Japanese Admiral Togo in his victory over the
Russians at Tsushima Strait in 1905.  One of Nishimura's battleships was sunk
by destroyer torpedoes, the second by battleship guns, and the heavy cruiser
MOGAMI, badly damaged, was finished off by US aircraft the next day.  But
Kurita's force further north was able to steam through the undefended San
Bernardino Strait, covered only by a force of six very small escort carriers
(the Americans called them "jeep carriers") and their three accompanying
destroyers.  The classic encounter of these ships against the battleships and
cruisers of Kurita's fleet was previously recounted on this list in such superb
detail that I will only say that Kurita, confused, no doubt tired, and probably
unaware of his crushing superiority, instead of pushing through this brave
little American force to get at the helpless invasion shipping, after sinking
one of the escort carriers and two of the destroyers (and having three cruisers
damaged in return) turned back once again, ending the Japanese hopes of a
decisive naval battle once and for all.  The sinking of all four Japanese
carriers from Ozawa's force (including the ZUIKAKU, last of the six big
Japanese fleet carriers that had raided Pearl Harbor) by carrier air attacks
was a mere sequel.  The Japanese lost four carriers, the battleships MUSASHI,
FUSO, and YAMASHIRO, six heavy and three light cruisers, and ten destroyers,
along with many other vessels damaged (including battleship NAGATO, which lost
a turret to air attacks).  The first large-scale kamikaze attacks (in the first
use two escort carriers were hit) could not redress the balance.  This was, in
essence, the end of the Japanese high seas fleet (only a few weeks later an
American sub sank the battleship KONGO in the south China sea, and in April
1945 the last superbattleship YAMATO was sacrificed in a suicidal attempt to
aid the defense of Okinawa, the light cruiser YAHAGI being sunk by US air units
in the same action).
        I guess that about does it...let's see.  I wanted to mention, for those
not aware of it, that Admiral Yamamoto was educated in America (Harvard), and
also served as Japanese naval attache in Washington.  On a train trip across
the country, he was impressed by the immense size and resources of the nation,
and realized Japan could never win a protracted war against us. Thus, having
opposed the war until it was obvious he could not prevent it, he insisted on
attempting a knock-out blow at the very beginning, to at the very least
paralyze American naval might while the Japanese offensive operations were
completed.  Both Yamamoto and his initial chief-of-staff, Admiral Fukodome,
were air warfare advocates in a navy that, like the USN, had a prominent "gun
club" that believed in the continued supremacy of battleships.  In fact, one of
Yamamoto's first announcements on taking over as commander of Combined Fleet in
1939 was that "priority would henceforth be given to air training."
        Finally, regarding China, I don't want it to be thought that only the
Communist guerilla forces were capable of fighting the Japanese.  Although Lin
Piao's troops won the first victory after the Marco Polo Bridge incident of
1937, that was a small-scale affair of a Chinese division against a Japanese
brigade.  The first real set-back to the Japanese came when two of Chiang's
warlord armies managed to co-operate and nearly encircle a large Japanese force
in Shantung province (this battle convinced the Japanese they might be in for
an unexpectedly long war).  Chiang's best, German-trained and -equipped
divisions also fought a very tough positional battle against the Japanese
outside Shanghai in the first year of the war, but were in the end virtually
destroyed after much heavy combat.  After that, however, Chiang withdrew as far
as he could, and for most of the rest of the war contented himself with
fighting as little as possible while hoarding Allied aid for his inevitable
later reckoning with the Communists, who he still regarded as his biggest
problem (he figured the Allies would defeat the Japanese eventually with or
without him, and was also wary of letting his subordinate commanders get too
much equipment or too much fame, fearing they might rebel against him).
Chinese troops under Stilwell in the Burma theatre also fought pretty well, and
eventually formed part of the spearhead for reopening the Burma Road.

        If there's more to be said on this topic, someone else can say it.

        Regards (and thanks for all the nice comments)

        Mike Yaklich

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

Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 20:37:35 -0600
From:    JEFF ROBERTS <[email-masked]>
Subject: World War Two "Bloopers"

     "Undergraduate Revisionism: A Case Study of the Second World
War" is a collection of student "bloopers" which I have assembled
over the past seven years.  First while a graduate student, later
as an instructor, and now as assistan professor I have graded over
one thousand midterm and final exams in courses on World War Two.
Most of them demonstrated considerable knowledge of the war, but
there were others which somehow, in someway, simply missed the boat.
>From those I saved several "gems" and melded them into this essay.
Though it will at times seem hard to believe, every sentence in the
following actually appeared on a student exam.

     I have presented earlier versions of this paper at a variety
of forums, ranging from scholarly conferences to honors society
luncheons to Rotary clubs, and every time it has been a howling
success (some Rotarians literally fell out of their chairs).  I
hope that the readers of this list would also find it refreshing.

     I would appreciate any comments.  I would also like to ask the
list for help in one regard.  I would like get this published someday.
Unfortunately, the scholarly journals which I have sent earlier drafts
to have all proven unwilling to print such a thing.  Do any of you have
suggestions as to another medium which might be sufficiently less stuffy
to give it a go?  Surely there are a lot of people out there who would
enjoy reading this, as well as publications looking for something special
as the fiftieth anniversary celebrations wind down.  Thanks for any input,
and enjoy.

Jeff Roberts
[email-masked]

                   UNDERGRADUATE REVISIONISM:

              A CASE STUDY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

         complied by and copyright by Jeffery J. Roberts

     Germany was beated in World War One.  After the Versai treaty,
the German people had no goals in life other than giving themselves
enough food to eat and shelter to keep warm.  Germany was very
depressed.  Hitler was their Masia.  He picked his people up,
dusted their backsides, told them they were great and gave them
bread to eat.  Hitler wanted his people to spread out and breathe.
He brought the German people out of the gutter.
     Ludwig Beck, a British officer, wrote the Hosenback
Memorandum, which said that Germany must move if it was to achieve
the needed Liebaumstraum.  Imperialism was the "in thing" in the
30's and 40's, so Hitler annexed Australia, and just like Reagan,
Germany was back.  Romania was taken for oil, and Albania for
rubber and iron or.  The Germans wanted to smash Rhineland to get
back at Russia for World War One.  Rhineland was the location of
Russia's major oil fields.  "Blitzkrieg" describes the effective
defense of the Rhineland.  Germany and Austria sort of got
together.  This was called the Anslush.  Much fighting took place
in the Sudetenland between the Germans and British.  90% of the
Germans lived in Sudetenland.
     Chamberlain was a wimp.  He let the Nazis take over the
Ardennes, and ravage Europe at no cost.  The Germans landed in
Kursk, and proceeded to overrun Poland before anyone knew what was
going on.  The Poles tried to use their horses as tanks, and lost.
Then they tried to hold the Maginot Line.  Britain declared war
because it stated in the treaty of Versaille that Poland was a
British protectorate.  The British people were tired of not doing
anything and forced the signing of the Warsaw Pact.  Chamberlain
held negotiations with the Germans in Muncie during the invasion.
Sedan was given to the USSR in accordance with the non-aggression
pact.
     Hitler was megalomacic.  After Poland he went on and on and
on.  Hitler fired Fritz and Blomberg because he thought they were
both faggots.  The German army trained 24 hours a day, seven days
a week, while the Allies just sat.  Hitler conquered Europe because
he didn't take a defeat until after Europe was conquered.  In the
beginning the Germans did well because they basically fought no one
tough.  Denmark was cake.  So was Sweden.  In the invasion of
Norway, however, the "Blucher" was sunk near the Norwegian capital
of Dunkirk.  France, Bulgaria and Belgim were next on Hitler's hit
parade.  "Eagle Day" was named for the invasion of Bulgaria.
     The Germans were blessed with great strateegists like Rommell,
Bach, Runckstedt and Von Arm.  In the 1941 campaign for France, the
Germans were going to use the Von Schwin plan, but General Gugarian
developed a new plan.  The Germans used special "Aunschluss"
divisions to aid in the capture of small towns.  The German air
force helped by dropping bombs.  Stukas were very effective with
their 75mm cannon.  After Germany broke the Maginot Line, Panzer
Leader Einsatzgruppen crossed the river in France instead of
holding the line like he was supposed to.  The Germans found the
going through the Ardennes impossible, so they plowed through the
Meuse River and reached the English Coast in about two weeks.  The
French were just too weak, and the British were non-existent.
English and French troops were pushed to Tobruk, an important
harbor in Finland.
     Winston Church Kill said England wouldn't surrender even if
their island sinks.  Churchill was commander of the English air
forces, and therefore a pseudo-democrat.  Brition was in sad shape.
They cut down trees and put them on beaches hoping they looked like
guns.  They were fighting World War Two with World War One methods.
This caused great problems until they realized which war they were
in.  The British did have good leaders like Montgooney and Bradley
and a whole host of others.  George Dowding was Foreign Minister
for Defense.  He stressed the role of the mighty RAF in ground
attack.  His radar helped Britain immensely because it broke German
Siper codes.
     Dien Bien Phu was a French base.  When the Germans attacked
the French held up there until they were forced to surrender to the
Germans.  Many French naval men were killed.  Dien Bien Phu was
none of Hitler's business, he should be worrying about Russia
rather that the area east of it.  Churchill was a peaceful leader
who did not believe in conflict.  Churchill tried to prevent Dien
Bien Phu from occuring.
     Hitler gamboled on evasion.  The Germans launched operation
Sealion into the Coral Sea, but the British knew the German plan
before they went into action.  During operation Olympic, the
British landed in Germany, quickly pushed the Germans out and
forestalled the invasion of Russia.  The British also landed at
Kiev, routing German and Italian defenders.
     On June 22, 1941, Italy stabbed France in the back.  Italy got
in it for the fun of it.  Their army wasn't worth a shit.  The
Italians didn't exist in overall strategy.  There were no military
minds in the Italian High Command.  Officers bought their
commissions so they could eat pasta, meet beautiful women, and have
a nice uniform to wear to local cocktail parties.  They had many
cowardly and incompetent officers, i.e. Beppo Smchidt, Grazziano,
and Frtichz Bloomberg.  Bologilo was unable to lead a squad, let
alone an army.  They were the worst band of bunglers in the war.
     Mussolini was Hitler's chubby little clone.  He invaded
Greece, Ethiopia and several other low African countries.  The
Italian operations were characterized by retreat.  General
Manstein, the great Italian war leader, captured, or tried to, the
town of Cyrilia.  The British accidentally pushed the Italians from
East Africa, while a topedo run sunk over four Italian battleships
in Toronto.  An air rade got Ben Ghazio, and the Greeks would not
lay down and die.  Soon the Italians attached themselves to Hitler.
He sent the Africa Core to the Dessert War.  This turned out to be
a sea saw battle of attraction.
     After the Fall of France, Hitler got drunk for six months,
after catching a nasty victory disease.  The Nazis needed more
Leibersraum, so they attritted as much land as possible.  Hitler
invaded Hungary, Bulgaria and Yougoslava.  To get at Yougoslava,
the Germans had to go through Finland.
     Greed for Cacus oil prompted Hitler to invade Russia.  Hitler
launched operation "Market-Garden," the coded name for the invasion
on September 22, 1940.  The Germans thought the sub-humans would
simply fall down and shout "Hail Hitler."  Stalin was as much of a
slime as Hitler.  When Stalin took over power he made all of the
peasants work in combines.  He shot all his generals except
Zhakarov.  He killed everyone in the Ukraine.  Stalin had his pants
down when the Germans came into battle.  He was worried about
letting all that Lenin had built slide down the toilet.  He wasn't
in the mood to defend his borders, so he sat around until December
5th.  Bearacaucrats saved the Russian Bare.
     For the first six days, the invasion went well.  General
Manstein overran Crete and the Yukrain, but the Germans went too
far in capturing land and killing people.  It rained and snowed for
the next two days.  Russia became a massive pool of quicksand, so
the tanks got stuck and run down in the logistical department.
Soon the Germans were just too far east, with long linguistic lines
and broad fronts, to adequately supply.  So they attacked again
when the weather cleared, and captured Moscow, which is why the
Russians have a German government today.
     It didn't hurt the Russians to lose a few million men here and
there.  If it wasn't for General Zuche, though, the Russians would
have become Hitler's personal farm workers.  Zuche sicked his
troops on the Nazis, with orders to take Vyuzmuk.  The Germans lost
the battle for Moscow because they had no clothes.  The high
command had wanted to bring up clothing and supplies, but Hitler
said no, Germany must drive on and prosper.  The Germans drove to
Moscow and froze their asses off. This really stiffened the German
advance.
     The three Axis nations may have been Allies, but they were
hardly alike.  Japan was ruled by the Rising Sun.  Internal unrest
hampered Japan as her leaders played "musical chairs."  The feudal,
divine-god people of Japan were loyal to Emperor Hirshita.  The
Japanese military were young and hateful of Allied taxes.  All the
Japanese wanted to do was kill Americans.
     The Japanese were very strategically oriented, that is, they
fought when it was least expected.  The British were drinking tea
in Malaysia when the Japs sank the Repulse and some other British
ship.  The Chinese were getting supplies from Britain down a long
road from Malta.  The Japanese demanded Great Britain close the
road.  Montgomery set up bases in the Phillipines.  The Japanese
threw the British out and used Singapore as a base for the invasion
of China.  After the attack the Chinese decided to boycott Japanese
goods.  Rommel used Singapore in his overtaking of North Africa.
Eventually the Japanese defeated the Germans in the Phillipines in
1942.
     The Japanese moved against the Americans, and put a dark glow
around the world.  The Americans were taking Sunday off when the
Japanese attacked, using Zero fighters equipped with Rolls-Royce
automobile engines.  They sent a few thousand of these planes to
bomb Pearl Harbor.  The "Saratoga" was tourapart.  All our
destroyers were destroyed.
     By 1942, the war was going well, Germany was winning and all
was right with the world.  General Donitz was Chief of the U-boats.
He use the "Wolf Pact" against Great Britain.  He led subs to New
Orleans and Venezuela to blow away oil tankers.  With no submarine
force at all, his Wolf-packing techniques sunk allied ships right
and left until the end of the war.  Then 30,000 out of 40,000 U-
boat crews died.
     Even though they were militarily strategic, the Germans were
often outsmarted, and they sucked at logistics.  This is because if
you weaken all the services of your armed forces you take out all
of their strength.  In the militarial sense, Germany was very
operational.  The overtaking of Poland, for example, was due to
specific operational tactics.  Germany's military-industrial
complex was non-existent.  As Allies, the Axis has to import most
of its aloys, some steal, and raw matreiral.
     In Africa, Rommel's tactics were great, but his strategical
stunk.  Rommel won at Trobuck, but the Allies finally won at El
Alein.  The British and the English captured Tobruk during a
different phrase of the battle.  The Germans took it back to
prevent Great Britain from shutting down the railroad to Narvik.
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met at Malta.  Roosevelt was a
master politician, which meant that he was cautious and would never
commit fully.  He decided on Africa, which had no strategic
significance, but was just a good place to train troops.  One
landing was at Casablanca and the other at Caen.  The British and
Americans commanded each other.
     Allied tank power out did the dessert fox and it retreated
towards Berlin.  The Germans gave a last stand at Malta before
going to Italy.  Malta was very important, because it was part of
Sicily.  Malta's radar could pick up German convoys.  The Germans
thought there was a leak in one of their men.  The Allies played a
trick on Hitler and landed in Sissily instead of Sardinia.  The
Germans lost their entire reserve unit in this battle, but
Izenhower was wounded in a Tunisian port.  German morale began to
slip as more and more men got killed.
     Russia soon went on the offensive and destroyed German
resistance at such places as Stalingrad, Krusk, and Antwerp.
Britain lend-leased lots of tractors to Russia, which were
transmuted into tanks.  At Stalingrad, the Russians used tanks for
the first time.  They destroyed the German 6th Army under Palers.
Every German politician was killed.  Rumania was surrounded.  This
turned the Eastern Front around.  After the tide changed, the
Germans started letting Italians become commanders.
     The use of combined operations in the air resulted in a
complete turn around.  The British were "into" night bombing.  The
Americans flew in the daylight so they could see who they were
fighting with.  Area bombing was the number one style, though the
bombs mostly hit Farmer Brown's cows.  The British used P-31's to
escort their obsolete "Sperling" bombers.  Our bombers trained in
Arizonia so they didn't need escorts.  The British bolted pieces of
metal on the bottoms of their planes, thus throwing radar off.
They dropped windows, which were nothing more than glass, which
really confused the Germans.
     Dresden was a city in Britain destroyed by strategic bombing.
It was bombed until their were no targets left, except the
railroads and factories.  There was no sense in bombing Dresden, it
was just full of Japanese citizens.  The British, United States,
and the Soviets all raided Hamburg.  The first bomb hit a lumber
mill, which caught fire, and caused a lot of havoc, not to mention
deaths.  Even though Hamburg was reduced to ashes the cathedrals
and other important landmarks were avoided during the bombing.
Hamburg was a success, but Numberg was a blunder.  American B-52's
missed the ball bearing plant where tank engines were made at
Shwerfurt.  Afterward, Ira Acher and Albert Speer assumed command
of American air combat.
     The pilots were able to fly through adverse conditions with
the aid of freighter support.  The allies were never really able to
inflict any sustained damage to the major factories by air.  The
damage to these came by special field agents or by rebels that
happened to sabotage some of the plants.  We ultimately won the
most important battle, the Battle of Attrition.  In this battle we
surprised the Nazis, who thought we were coming a day later.  We
could send in hundreds of bombers per day, and if they were all
lost, big deal, we could always send more.  We sent a million
bombers against Cologne.  This massive attrition, however, did make
the stratosphere dangerous to pilots.
     America's plan for the Pacific War was called "Clockwork
Orange."  MacArthur believed that he could bring Japan to its feet
by cutting off its materials.  He set up headquarters in New
Zealand, because that was the only place in the South Pacific not
occupied by the Japs.  We were in the basement operationally until
Savo island made us realize that the Japs weren't Coke bottle kids.
The Japanese fleet broke down at Midway, and was aniahilated.  The
battle prevented the Japs from invading the Australates' coast.
Big Mac began his campaign of "island humping."  Because of some
brilliant strategies, and a lot of luck and magic, we were able to
produce some major battles, such as Qualacanal.  Tarwarwa was a
real butt-kicking.  They shot the shit out of them.
     The weather, diseases, and volcanoes proved troublesome to the
Americans.  When shells were sent in the Jungle, many parrots died,
but few Japs.  We had to build small islands for supply purposes.
The Japs had the right idea, but lacked the equipment to back them
up.  Admiral Yamoto, a great general, believed in massive infantry
movements with little rest in between.  The US produced tanks and
planes like candy, while American subs taxed Japan's dindling
trade.  The Jap Navel was now confined to harber in Burma for lack
of feul.  Nonetheless, the Japanese did not roll over and play
dead.  They gradually became more phantomical.  They retreated into
caves, and other subterranean defensive positions.  The Japanese
like to hole up like ants in mountanous regions.  They were dug in
very deeply into every nook and cranny of every island.  We
bulldozed our way into Japanese forts, clearing out about 120,000
dead Japanese per island.  The foot by foot fighting had a great
cost in American lives, because the hand to hand combat nullified
the use of artillery.
     During Operation Overlord, Hitler was on some train ride and
couldn't be reached.  The Germans made one of their last offensives
at Pas de Calais.  The Americans were able to drive the Germans out
of the city and take it back.  The Allies landed in South France so
they could capture the port of Naples.  They had good leaders, like
Bradley, who was an able general, but always let the Germans
escape.  Eisenhower got ashore but lost 80% of his men.  They had
to put a leash on Patton.  He was supposed to go to Falaise, but
wound up in Metz.  Patton shot at will into Europe and continued to
raise hell even when the Germans weren't there anymore.
     "Market-Garden" was Montgomery's blackest of black eyes.  The
Allies had 30 Armed Corps for this trapse through Holland.  The
101st dropped at Eichorn, the 82nd at Nijemejen, and the British
1st at Antwerp, all trying to capture bridges with tact.  Then the
Home Guard tried to march down the road from Edinburgh to Arnhem.
The plan called for the Allies to destroy bridges as they went
along.  The major problem was that there were too many bridges that
needed destroying.  Another problem was that once the bridges were
destroyed, the Allies couldn't cross the rivers.  Many pieces of
equipment couldn't cross the rivers so numerous logistical problems
resulted.  The entire operation was something of a miserable
failure.
     On July 20th, Von Schliffenberg tried to have assissinated
Hitler.  He took a bomb into the Wolf's Lair.  It blew Hitler's arm
off, but didn't kill him.  All this infuriated Hitler and made him
even more megalomacic, because when your industry is doing badly,
your linguistics suffers, too.  He put Al Speer, a military mystic,
in charge of production of Germans.  Speer increased production of
Leopard tanks by 50%.  Hitler abolished court martials and reverted
to military law.  Some medical students were beheaded and then
tortured.
     General Zushuh pushed on in the East, relying on armored units
and bad winters.  The Russians would spurt at 150 miles a clip.
Vlasov seemed to be in on every successful campaign that the Red
Army staged.  The Germans took terrendous casualties.  After the
battle of Antwerp, the USSR pushed the Nazis out of the Ardennes
and into the Dieppe River.  The Russians made a dash for the
Balkins, because Russia always needed a warm water port.  On the
last day of the war, the underground came up.  The Poles uprose,
but they were flattened by Russian artillery and German engineers.
Stalin pulled out of the war and declares all POW's were traders.
Tito, by the way, was the leader of Communist China, as well as
Dorothy's dog from the Wizard of Oz.
     As the final push into Germany was going on, Rommel was
finally defeated in the desert by the British.  The Americans
eventually just let their armies on the loose and attacked whatever
and whoever possible.  Hitler shot his load in the Battle of the
Bulge.  He ordered another counterattack, but there were only five
panzer divisions left and they had no feul or ammunition, so the
Germans just chewed themselves up.  The Allies raced through
Belgium, and Warsaw was about the extent of our drive.  Once
Germany lost all their submarines, tanks, air force and men, they
finally surrendered, which was just as well, because if Germany had
lasted longer, she would have been atomically bombed.
     To beat the Japanses, Admiral Nemits had to get his big boats
to beat their big boats.  He destroyed all of Japan's land and
carrier-based aircraft at the "Great Mary Anne Turkey Shoot."
General McCarthy bypassed Truck, and moved into Malya, though he
begged to be sent to the Pillipine islands.  Eastern China was full
of war, and the Japs ran low on Raw Matterreal.  The 7th fleet was
seriously endangered at Leyte Gulf, a battle in the South Pacific
near New Zealand.  The Japanese attacked in three separate coloms.
When the Americans saw the Japanese fleet, Admiral "Bull" Haizley
panicked, and started bombing and fighting crazily, never realizing
what was going on.  Admiral Nimmits escaped to the north.  For some
reason, the Japs went home.
     There was many battlefield casualties in World War One because
kamikaze planes were flown to kill pilots in the air.  Kamakaze
pilots were stupid, they ran right into American ships, but they
still tended to unnerve the Americans a bit.  The Japanese sent
Kamaikazes into battleships, crusiers, or whatever else they felt
like blowing up.  This was not, however, an efficient use of
pilots.  Iwo Jima was diastoruous.  They put 100,000 suicidal
troops on Okinawa and the Japanese suffered a stoic loss there.
The troops were reduced to eating each other to stay alive.
     Finally the US launched Operation Olymic and landed troops on
Kirayushu.  The landings went pretty good, but once the troops got
ashore the Japs started firing.  We were badly mauled by everything
that could kill a soldier by a half-million Japs.  The scrapping of
Olympic led President Turman to drop the H-bomb.  After the second
H-bomb was dropped on Naskinska, Japan was willing to stop the
fight.  Prime Minister Hirohito surrendered.  Thank God for the
bomb!
     If I had been running the war, I would have given the Russians
three months to pull out of Western Europe, or I would have let
Patton go ahead and stomp them.  But if Hitler had concentrated a
little more on the war, I might be writing this in German.

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

Date:    Thu, 23 Feb 1995 15:29:34 +10
From:    David Murnain <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: And furthermore...(Japan, appendix)

>        6. Darwin (Australia), May 2, 1943: Three Australian Spitfire
>squadrons, led by top Australian ace Clive "Killer" Caldwell, intercept
a
>large-scale Japanese air raid on the port.  The Australians lose eight
fighters
>shot down and another seven Spitfires shot up so badly they had to
crash-land,
>while five Zeros are shot down.
>

I'd check your sources on this one. The May 2 raid consisted of 18
bombers escorted by 27 Zeros. Interception was by 33 Spitfires.

The Spitfires claimed 6 destroyed, 4 probable, 8 damaged. 5 Spitfires
were shot down, 5 ran out of fuel and emergency landed, 3 emergency
landed from engine failure ( reduction gearbox failure - not due to
battle damage.) Only two of these 8 were write-offs.

As a side note (BTW I found the posts interesting, but didn't necessarily
agree with everything written, but exchange of views is the point of the
list.) - the comments about the superiority of the Japanese in jungle fighting
I believe is one of those things believed at the time, but was not so in
reality. If you look at the actual fighting in Malaya and New Guinea, the
jungle fighting skills of the Australian troops were equal to and increasingly
better than those of the Japanese. I think the myth of the superiority of the
Japanese in jungle fighting was accepted as an easy way to explain some of
the early defeats.

Also, too support the suggestion that the Japanese tended to fail when their
planning and intelligence failed them, I would suggest using the fighting at
Milne Bay (New Guinea) as an example.

-------------------------------------------------------
David Murnain                           |"What is good, and what
[email-masked]|is not good, Phaedrus.?
BHP Information Technology       |Need we ask others to tell us
Newcastle, Australia                  |these things."

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Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 23:47:34 -0500
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: USMC Chronology

Because John Davis is doing such a fine job in listing the action on Iwo Jima
in his WWII chronology postings, I see no reason to duplicate his efforts, and
will only chime in if there is something I feel should be amplified. Ben Frank

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Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 1995 23:58:06 -0500
From:    Ben Frank <[email-masked]>
Subject: (INF) QUES ON IWO JIMA

Rob, Iwo Jima was assaulted by the Marine V Amphibious Corps consisting of the
3d, 4th, and 5th Marine Division, as well as by Corps troops. In the 3d
Division were the 3d, 9th, and 21st Marines (we call our regiments "Marines"),
all infantry regiments, and the 12th Marines, an artillery regiment. The 4th
Division had 23d, 24th and 25th Marines, and the 14th Marines, artillery. In
the 5th Division were the 26th, 27th, and 28th Marines, and the 13th Marines,
artillery. Each division had its own tank and engineer and shore party
battalions. Each division numbered about 19,00To repeat, uninterrupted by
incoming messages, each division numbered about 19,000, but was generally
reinforced. Each infantry regiment numbered about 3,500, and each battalion had
about 1,000 men. Each rifle company was about 242 Marines. Throughout World War
II, Marine divisions were triangular formations--three infantry regiments
consisting of three battalions, each having three companies, and so on. About
midpoint in the war we went to 13-man squads consisting of a squad leader and
three fire teams of four men each. Incidentally, on Iwo, of those infantry
battalion commanders who landed on D-day, only 7  out of 27 remained unwounded
and in command of their units at the end of the battle. We had 24,000
casualties, Marines and Navy corpsmen, of which over 6,100 were KIA. Iwo was a
bloody battle, but I contend that you cannot compare one battle with another
vis a vis casualties, or compare Belleau Wood to Antietam. They were different
places with different terrains. The number of troops in each was different as
well as the length of the battle. Tarawa was 76 hours, and it was bloody. Iwo
was 36 days of hard, bloody, frontal attacks, and it resulted in a butcher's
bill. And Okinawa was 82 days, and had heavy casualties, but how can you
compare it with Iwo, Peleliu, and the like? I was not on Iwo, but have studied
it and have interviewed a number of Iwo veterans, officers for the most part,
about the battle. I would say about the Iwo Marines as I would about Peleliu
and Tarawa troops that they were very brave, courageous men. You have to ask
what would compel a man to charge off the Higgins boat or out the rear of an
LVT in the assault wave right into the face of certain death and a heavy rain
of steel. In answer to that question, I was told that first of all, the Marine
was well trained, trained as a unit, had faith in his commanders down at the
small unit level all the way up the line, and knew that some of his buddies
were going to be wounded or killed, but didn't think that it would happen to
him. Above all, he wasn't going to let the unit down. In time for the
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Iwo Jima, which certainly was observed
here in Washington, we put out a commemorative history. If you email me your
snail mail address, Rob, I'll send you a copy. And by the way, I, in no
fashion, could equal the job you did in describing Huertgen. Cheers, Ben Frank

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End of WWII-L Digest - 21 Feb 1995 to 22 Feb 1995
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