Sea Power

Looking For a Binge-Watching Series on Memorial Day? Look No Further

Memorial Day preparations and programs are all going non-stop this weekend. In our small bucolic town in Central Massachusetts, our schools have all put together very nice programs to honor those members of our country who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Our high school put together a nice program where the students researched town members who had been killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Global War on Terror. They then read a brief bio on each to hit home the high cost of our freedoms.

Our vets from the local Veterans Council, VFW, American Legion, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Cub Scouts, as well as local citizens, went into our local cemeteries, placed flags on all of the military graves recently. Then we placed wreaths on all of the monuments around town.

Our local Memorial Day ceremonies will kick off at 8:20 today. Once that is over, we’ll partake in the traditional Memorial Day activities by grilling some food outside while giving thanks to those who made this all possible.

One of the other traditional fares on Memorial Day is the War Film marathons that are always on television. We’ve compiled a list of our favorites in the past, however, this year, we’re going to recommend a mini-series to binge watch and if you can last thru the entire thing, it will take some time.

Ken Burns produced some outstanding mini-series on PBS, his one of the Civil War back in 1990 was a classic. He later did one on Baseball in 1994 that was another must watch. But the one we’re recommending everyone dust off on Netflix is his marathon documentary on World War II, simply called ‘The War’.

Burns made this one in 2007 and it took six years of research to put together. Critics panned it because they said he tried to make it sound like the United States won the war alone. That is hogwash, Burns just eschewed the big picture and focused on the regular small town people of four communities and how the war was seen and felt down in Waterbury, Connecticut, Mobile, Alabama, Luverne, Minnesota, and Sacramento, California.

I was out of the country when it first aired and I missed it. It was put on my list of things to see but I never got around to watching it. Recently we saw it on Netflix and binge-watched the entire 15 or so hours over one weekend. And we were glad we did.

At the end of World War II, Eric Sevareid had reported to the people of the United States what he saw during the war years but after the war was over, he felt like he …and others like him failed to bring the true cost of it home. He wrote:

“Only the soldier really lives the war. The journalist does not — war happens inside a man — and that is why, in a certain sense, you and your sons from the war will be forever strangers. If, by the miracles of art and genius, in later years two or three among them can open their hearts and the right words come, then perhaps we shall all know a little of what it was like — and we shall know then that all the present speakers and writers hardly touched the story.”

What Burns showed in this masterpiece of filmmaking was while we all get to know several small-town Americans during the seven episodes, there is nothing ordinary about any of them. This isn’t a glossed over, sanitized version of World War II but a true first-hand look at the ugliness and cost of sending an entire generation off to war.

Burns often shows the brutality and the gruesome nature of how the war was conducted. With some never seen before footage. Troops being starved and beaten on the Bataan Death March, Japanese troops being burned alive by flamethrowers, the awful scope, and brutality of the Nazi death camps.

The remembrances of Quinten Aanonsen, a farmer’s son from Luverne are particularly poignant. He wanted to learn to fly to escape the family farm. He became a pilot of a P-47 Thunderbolt and as a close ground support squadron member, he saw up close what the awesome firepower of “the Jug” could bring on the enemy. He also watched many of his friends die. The girl he met while in flight school and their letters back and forth kept his sanity.

Two of the people who appear in the film have written books and they give a great look at the war in Europe and the Pacific. Paul Fussell was in the infantry fighting the Germans in France and Germany and his book “Doing Battle” was a definite page-turner. E.B Sledge from Mobile wrote the fantastic book, “With the Old Breed.”

“Something in me died at Peleliu,” Sledge wrote. “Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war’s savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.”

The film also shares the plight of Japanese-Americans who were uprooted from their homes and ordered to internment camps. Then asked to serve the very country that treated them and their families as the enemy.

The treatment of the blacks both in the war factories and in the military gets spared nothing either. One of the more telling moments was that of a black Marine who was wounded and transported to a hospital ship, the only black man on board. And the ship’s barber refused to cut his hair.

“The War” is marvelously filmed with some outstanding action shots, the personal stories are both riveting and at times both funny and sad. And the narration by Keith David, who did the older Navy recruiting films, is first rate.

Take the time to watch “The War” which Burns brilliantly put together and when you see one of those bent-over WWII vets today, shake his hand and wish him well. After all, “The War” is their story.

Photo of US Pilot Quinten Aanonsen: PBS

Remembering Marines Charles McMahon, Darwin Judge Last American KIAs in Vietnam, April 29, 1975

On this day 44 years ago, America’s involvement came to a close when North Vietnamese soldiers completed their invasion of the south and stormed the capital of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.

Those iconic images of Soviet-made tanks crashing thru the gates of the Presidential Palace and U.S. sailors pushing helicopters off the sides of American aircraft carriers to make room for others airlifting the “at-risk” South Vietnamese civilians to safety will burn forever in those of us who lived then.

That final day, 20 years after the United States got firmly embroiled in that war was when the reality and finality of our involvement there hit home. The last two Americans killed in Vietnam were U.S. Marines Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge, they were Embassy Guards assigned to Tan Son Nhut Air Base and were killed in a rocket attack as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) shelled the base as the U.S. was airlifting the last of the aircraft and Vietnamese government and civilians out of harms way.

LCPL Judge was just 19 and from Marshalltown, Iowa. He was a baby-faced, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Eagle Scout. The All-American boy from the Mid-West.

CPL McMahon, then and forever 21, however, was from my hometown of Woburn, Massachusetts, and one of us locals. How in the world could this happen? We all wondered. The Paris Peace Accords had been signed in 1973, more than two years before these events played out. The United States was supposedly out of Vietnam.

After the U.S. pulled out in 1973, the only American personnel left were in the U.S. Embassy. During the airlift, the Marine guards were stationed at the airbase, which was considered a safe spot. But just 11 days after arriving in the country, the post that the two Marines were guarding was blasted by a direct hit of a rocket. Both Judge and McMahon were killed instantly.

Growing up in the blue-collar town of Woburn, the war in Vietnam could have been on the dark side of the moon. We watched it every night on the news and many of our townspeople served there, including several family members. But it seemed very remote as if it could never touch us. Despite that, several town members of Woburn fought in Vietnam and a few died there but those happened earlier in the war and those were before our recollection.

It was a strange time. Our town had a slew of proud World War II and Korean War vets and the feelings toward them was always a huge positive. But the anti-war sentiment that began in the mid-to-late 1960s grew and the Vietnam veterans were unfairly judged as the easy targets for the wrath of the people, who just wanted the war to end. Even in the patriotic suburb of Woburn, Vietnam vets were ignored and no one wanted to hear what they had to say.

McMahon’s death came as a shock. Prior to enlisting in the Marine Corps, McMahon was a fixture at the Woburn Boys Club. He and his boyhood friend George Holland were two of the older guys there and they taught swimming, served as lifeguards and served as mentors for the younger kids in town.

McMahon was the kind of older kid who could get anyone to do anything and always seemed to have a flock of kids around him. Growing up, I can remember seeing him jumping off the bridge in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire as traffic was backed up waiting to get over the bridge there. It was a good-sized drop down to the ocean below. His father and mother both worked at the General Foods Jello factory in town were some of our school bus drivers.

Holland was a natural all-around athlete and was a huge mentor to the younger kids. He looked like he was tailor-made for a Marine recruiting poster before he even joined. When the two enlisted in the Marines, it surprised no one. The man who ran our local Boys Club in town was named Charlie Gardner and he was a Marine thru and thru. He looked like a Marine even long after his wartime service in Korea. But he’d regale the older kids with stories of the Corps.

Holland remembers Gardner as being the Marine recruiter’s best friend. “There was a Gunny (Gunnery Sergeant) recruiter in Medford,” he said. “He’d come down to the Boys Club to see Charlie Gardner and ask,’ how many kids you got for me?’” Gardner was such an influence, that even during the anti-war days of the early ‘70s, Gardner convinced many young Woburnites to join the Marine Corps.

For the daredevil-turned-Devil Dog McMahon, the Marines which were supposed to be a stepping stone to the Massachusetts State Police became a calling. Holland remembers, “he loved the Marines as much as anybody I ever saw in the service,” said Holland. ” I think he would have stayed in the Marines a long time.”

The two touched base when Holland was awaiting a clearance to go to a nuclear submarine facility and McMahon was finishing up Embassy Guard School. This was at Henderson Hall in Washington D.C. “Charlie was a Lance Corporal and I was a “Lance Coolie” assigned to the Mess Hall,” Holland said with a laugh. “Oh, how he loved busin’ my chops during that time.”

McMahon (left) and George Holland (center) skiing just days before McMahon shipped out to Saigon.

The two got away for a weekend skiing just before McMahon was reassigned to Saigon. And posed for a picture with friends, not knowing it would be the last time, they’d be photographed together.

They discussed McMahon’s upcoming Saigon assignment. “We didn’t think he’d even leave,” Holland recalls. “Everything was falling apart in South Vietnam, the North had invaded and we thought before he’d even ship out the country would fall.”

But he did go and was only in Saigon for a few days before being killed on a fluke missile strike. Holland spoke with Marines who had survived the final days and they remembered that with the huge influx of Vietnamese civilians trying to get into the US Embassy, the Gunny in charge of the Embassy Guards assigned McMahon and Judge to Tan Son Nhut as it was deemed “safer” for the new guards on the watch.

In their assault on the city, the NVA unleashed a flurry of rockets for South Vietnamese positions. One rocket fell well short of its target and unintentionally landed on the two Marines’ position. They were killed instantly.

The Marines moved their two killed comrades to a local hospital where they were placed in the morgue. During the frenzied pullout of the final American personnel only hours later, the Americans thought they’d airlifted McMahon and Judge’s bodies offshore. But in the final chaos, they’d been inadvertently left behind.

The move was devastating to the Marines’ parents back in the states. “Charlie’s parents were really upset about this,” Holland said. No one could blame them. It took nearly a year but Sen. Ted Kennedy approached the North Vietnamese thru channels and arranged for their bodies to be flown to Thailand and finally home to the states.

“I was stationed at the sub base in Connecticut when my C.O. called me into his office,” Holland said. “You have to get up to Boston and meet CPL McMahon’s casket with his parents.”

The funeral was one of the biggest in Woburn’s history. “It was like a huge parade going thru town,” Holland said. “It seemed like everyone in town was there.”

The survivors formed the Fall of Saigon Marines Association to keep McMahon and Judge’s memories alive. This association, with 65 surviving members, awards $1,000 scholarships each spring to an Eagle Scout in Marshalltown and to the “Top Boy” and “Top Girl” at the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn.

Coincidentally, the first Marine killed in Vietnam was an Air Force Airman Richard Fitzgibbon from Stoneham, Mass. Fitzgibbon and McMahon grew up just three miles apart. Fitzgibbon was killed in 1955, twenty years later, McMahon and Judge were the last. Fitzgibbon’s son was killed in Vietnam as well.

With the enduring conflict in Afghanistan where both fathers and sons are both serving in combat zones, it is fitting that we today honor the first and last from Vietnam. They aren’t forgotten.

“Thanks for remembering Charlie today,” Holland said. “We’ll never forget him.”

Photos: McMahon family, Wikipedia

The Last of the Original Frogmen, Bill Dawson Celebrates 94th Birthday

The very last of the original “frogmen”, the forerunners of the Navy SEAL teams was honored on the date of his 94th birthday amid his family, friends, and family members.

Bill Dawson, who grew up in Washington D.C. was working at the D.C. Shipyard in 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was just 17-years old. Not long after enlisting, he found out about a specialized Navy unit that as he put it, “got to blow things up.” After saying he didn’t quite know how to take that tidbit of information, he and another sailor decided to volunteer. But he almost didn’t even get a chance to attempt the training.

As the two reached the building where the volunteers were assembling, they were told that the class was full, they had 500 volunteers. Undeterred, Dawson and his buddy walked around the back of the building, and climbed thru an open window and took their place in the back of the line. The volunteer class, Class 1 of the famous frogmen was now numbered 502.

Their training whittled down the number of volunteers from over 500 to just 52. And the toughness of the “frogman” course would be every bit as tough as the famed BUDS course for the SEALs is today.

The 3-5 mile runs in the sand, climbing over slippery, barnacle-encrusted rocks in the jetty and the log PT was a tough task for the frogmen as they remain that today. “I can still pick the splinters out of my arms today, Dawson joked in an interview he conducted with the American Veterans Center.

The training was so tough, it reduced the 17-year old to tears at times. “I wanted to quit,” he recalled. But he kept going and persevered, the 94-year old joked again that the sand fleas and mosquitoes, that were so plentiful at the frogmen’s training base kept him going.

But he did graduate and take his place among what the Navy termed, Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), which became commonly known as “frogmen.” They were also called Naval Combat Demolition Units (NCDU) These men were legendary is clearing beach obstacles for the countless amphibious landings the United States conducted in World War II. The casualty rate for the frogmen at Normandy on D-Day was 53 percent.

Dawson took part in several landings in the Pacific helping the military clear landing beaches for infantry troops of the Army and Marines to get ashore and attack enemy installations on the land.

During his birthday celebration last week, Dawson took great pride in being the first group of sailors who became the Navy SEALs of today. “Knowing today what I helped start developed into what it is today. It’s one of the greatest outfits in the world,” he said.

Dawson’s unit cleared the beach for the return of General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines. “We got ashore before he did,” Dawson remembered with a smile.

Dawson wrote and published in 2015 “Before They Were SEALs They Were Frogs,” a book about his time during World War II on the Navy’s first special operations team.

After the war was over, Dawson joined the Washington D.C. Fire Department and served there for 25 years and then retired, now 45 years ago. Dawson was a founding member of the US Navy SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, FL, and contributed many of the key exhibits there. Despite his age, Dawson remains active in supporting Naval Special Warfare history and heritage.

Four years ago, when he was 90 years old, Dawson was honored at the BattleFrog Navy SEALs obstacle course race at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, in Englishtown, NJ.

The American Veterans Center interview was a long one but worth the time to hear the remembrances of a truly unique special warrior. Happy Birthday to the last of the original frogmen, Mr. Dawson

Photo: US Navy

Collusion? Navy Trying to Tie Gallagher Court-Martial To SEAL Team 6

The on-going court-martial of U.S. Navy SEAL Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher for killing an unarmed, wounded prisoner has taken a turn into uncharted waters.

Gallagher, a very decorated SEAL with multiple deployments under his belt, is charged with stabbing to death a wounded prisoner from the Islamic State and then filming a re-enlistment ceremony with the dead prisoner as a focal point in the midst of it.

He has been awarded the Bronze Star with “V” device twice, a Meritorious Unit Commendation, and a trio of Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medals, among his many awards and decorations.

Galagher was also charged with the shooting of countless civilians with no ties to terror or terrorism with his sniper rifle for no reason other than to rack up a body count. He then bragged about the number of kills publicly and then threatened any other SEALs who complained to higher headquarters.

At the time of the incident, Gallagher’s team of SEALs (Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7), was operating with Iraqis from the Emergency Response Division. The Iraqis called airstrikes in on a building where ISIS fighters were holed up in Mosul.

One ISIS fighter, approximately 15-years old was wounded and captured. The Iraqis took the prisoner to the SEALs compound where their medics including Gallagher began to give him treatment.

Then as the medic stabilized the injured ISIS man, Gallagher supposedly began to stab the fighter, which according to testimony in the Article 32 hearing from an NCIS investigator, left the medic, “in complete disbelief.”

Gallagher allegedly then texted photos of him cradling the dead ISIS fighter’s head with the caption, “I got him with my hunting knife,” according to prosecutors. There are supposedly several photos of this reportedly taken from Gallagher’s cell phone.

Gallagher, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, has been held in the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego since Sept. 11 when he was arrested at Camp Pendleton. His lawyers have complained about his treatment since, at the time of his arrest, Gallagher was being treated at the Naval hospital for a traumatic brain injury.

This lack of treatment has attracted the attention of Texas congressman and former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas). Crenshaw and 17 other Republican congressmen have signed a letter and have “requested that (the Navy) review” the brig conditions for Gallagher in their letter, citing allegations from Gallagher’s family that “he has not had sufficient access to his defense counsel” nor “adequate access to proper food and medical care.”

The trial was initially slated to begin on February 19 but has since been moved to May 28, because his lawyers complained that the Navy dropped a bunch of new evidence on them on the eve of the trial before they had a chance to examine it.

The Navy Times reported that someone linked to the case released documents in the form of email messages and search warrants to them that show that the Navy seized a number of cell phones and electronic communications beginning in early February. This evidence allegedly proves that Gallagher urged fellow SEALs at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group — or DEVGRU (also known publicly as SEAL Team 6) — to obstruct justice or retaliate against junior sailors who were testifying against him for war crimes.

NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are implying that Gallagher and other SEALs in both Carolina and Virginia including DEVGRU are in collusion, communicating together for the purpose of retaliating against any younger or junior SEALs who were testifying against Gallagher for his alleged war crimes. Which is why NCIS investigators are doing forensic examinations on cell phones and other communication devices to look for any wrongdoing.

The Navy has charged Gallagher’s former SEAL platoon leader Lt. Jacob X. “Jake” Portier, a for allegedly trying to cover up Gallagher’s crimes. His lawyers are pushing for a speedy trial since they claim that no cover up either by Portier or the SEAL command at Coronado ever existed.

Jeremiah J. Sullivan, III, Portier’s attorney, says the Navy is pushing this collusion angle with DEVGRU since their investigators went up the chain of command and didn’t get the answers or results that they were looking for.

“They’ve expanded the scope of their investigations to try to prove their theory of collusion but the collusion simply doesn’t exist,” he said

The Navy also gave testimonial immunity to seven other SEALs to get them to testify against Gallagher in this case. Therein lies the hidden Catch-22 for the SEALs being granted this immunity.

Testimonial immunity protects any witness testifying on the witness stand from being charged for crimes they admit under oath to committing. However, it doesn’t protect them from any testimony given by others who later testify.

So while a sailor could admit that he broke the law in his testimony, he could still be prosecuted if any other sworn statements of other witnesses or other corroborating evidence that was obtained independently from his words in court.

However, transactional immunity offers a witness blanket protection from future prosecution and it’s routine for attorneys to seek both forms of protection for their clients in similar cases.

Prosecutors for the government have stated that they have several SEALs who will testify against Gallagher for war crimes. But it seems that either the prosecutors were fishing for some kind of collusion in a larger scale investigation or they’ve gotten wind of an effort to stop the SEALs given immunity from testifying. Either way, it isn’t a good look for the Naval Special Warfare Command or USSOCOM which has not had a good year in terms of negative press.

Photos: US Navy

On This Day in 1942, Gen. Douglas MacArthur Gives the “I Shall Return” Speech

In the early, dark days of World War II, the United States military in the Pacific theater was reeling. After the disastrous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Japanese forces began a series of invasions across the Pacific and extended their empire nearly to the edges of Hawaii.

American and Filipino forces were under siege in the Philippines. The Japanese invaded soon after the Pearl Harbor attack. By early March 1942, they had bottled up the U.S. and Filipinos on the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor.

President Roosevelt, fearful of one of America’s most successful and well-known generals being taken captive by the Japanese if Corregidor fell was too bitter a conclusion to contemplate. He ordered MacArthur to escape to Australia to take charge of Allied forces there. He left the Philippines on March 11.

However, contrary to public belief, MacArthur’s statement, “I Shall Return” was not given on the shores of the Philippines, but at an Australian train station, 10 days later.

Early Career:

MacArthur came from a military family, his father Arthur, was a Lieutenant General and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in the Civil War. The younger MacArthur graduated the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1903 at the top of his class.

During his early military career, he served as an aide to his father and to President Theodore Roosevelt. During World War I, he commanded the 84th Brigade of the famous 42nd (Rainbow) Division. He also was the Commandant of Cadets at West Point as well as the Army’s Chief of Staff.

MacArthur retired from active duty in 1937 and was given a commission as a Field Marshall in the Philippine Army, raising the level of training for the Filipino conscripts so that when the U.S. granted them independence, (slated for 1946), they’d be capable of defending their home islands.

He was recalled from retirement in July 1941 to become commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) at 61 and united the Philippine and United States forces under one command.

World War II Starts for the U.S.:

After the Japanese invaded, MacArthur, per pre-planning, declared Manila an open city and moved his forces to the Bataan Peninsula and to the island of Corregidor. His wife Jean and son Arthur IV remained with him on Corregidor.

Most of the surviving navy moved south, MacArthur had at his disposal on a submarine tender and sub rescue ship, three small gunboats, three minesweepers, five tugs and the PT boats of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three under the command of LTJG John D. Bulkeley. With the swift Japanese victories rolling into one another, the men of Bataan and MacArthur resonated with the American public, looking for heroes in those dark days of defeat after defeat for the Allies.

On February 23, Secretary of War Harry Stimson and Chief of Staff George Marshall sent MacArthur a message ordering him to leave the Philippines for Australia.

The President directs that you make arrangements to leave and proceed to Mindanao. You are directed to make this change as quickly as possible … From Mindanao you will proceed to Australia where you will assume command of all United States troops … Instructions will be given from here at your request for the movement of submarine or plane or both to enable you to carry out the foregoing instructions. You are authorized to take your chief of staff General Sutherland.

The original plan was for MacArthur to depart Corregidor by submarine, but he ended up changing his mind and going by surface ships in PT boats. The small PT boats were in need of an overhaul as they’d been in constant combat operations since the war began, Bulkeley did the best he could with spare parts at a premium since the loss of the Subic Bay naval base. Each PT boat would carry twenty 55-gallon drums of additional fuel on the deck. This would reduce the top speed of the boats to about 30 knots (56 kilometers per hour; 35 miles per hour).

And to make room for MacArthur’s family and staff that he was bringing with him, the so-called “Bataan Gang”, Bulkeley had to leave 32 of his sailors behind. They were turned into infantry troops on Bataan.

There would be four PT boats assigned to get MacArthur, his staff and his family out of Corregidor. PT-41 commanded by Bulkeley, would have MacArthur, Jean MacArthur, Arthur MacArthur IV, Ah Cheu, Major General Richard K. Sutherland, Captain Herbert J. Ray, Lieutenant Colonel Sidney L. Huff, Major Charles H. Morhouse on board.

PT-32 commanded by LT JG Vince Schumacher had Brigadier General Spencer B. Akin, Brigadier General Hugh J. Casey, Brigadier General William F. Marquat, Brigadier General Harold H. George, Lieutenant Colonel Joe R. Sherr, Major Curtis L. Lambert on his boat.

PT-34 commanded by LT Robert B. Kelly, carried Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, Brigadier General Richard J. Marshall, Colonel Charles P. Stivers, Captain Joseph McMicking on board.

PT-35 commanded by Ensign Anthony Akers had Colonel Charles A. Willoughby, Lieutenant Colonel LeGrande A. Diller, Lieutenant Colonel Francis H. Wilson, Master Sergeant Paul P. Rogers on his boat. Rogers was the only enlisted man taken from MacArthur’s command because he was the command’s stenographer. Many of the enlisted men gave Rogers letters to mail for them.

MacArthur left Corregidor on March 11 at 19:45 and rendezvoused with the other three boats which left from Bataan 15 minutes later. During the night, the seas got rough and the four PT boats were separated.

They reached their first point, a cove on Tagauayan Island, the next morning. That night they made their way to Mindanao where MacArthur was hoping to catch air transport. Since PT-32 didn’t have the fuel to reach Mindanao, her passengers were then split on PT-41 and PT-34.

Due to the high seas, the PT boats didn’t make it to Mindanao until broad daylight where they would have been sitting ducks for Japanese aircraft that were known to overfly the area constantly.

The PT boats pulled up the wharf at Mindanao and MacArthur made clear his appreciation at the men who dared the mission to rescue him and his staff. He said to Bulkeley “I’m giving every officer and man here the Silver Star for gallantry. You’ve taken me out of the jaws of death, and I won’t forget it.”

Three hours later PT-35 arrived with her crew and passengers.

After a day on Mindanao while staying at the guest house, MacArthur sent off a message to Gen. Marshall in Washington as Admiral Herbert F. Leary had turned down their request for B-17s to fly them to Australia. Leary heard from Washington and the on March 17, they left in two B-17s at 01:30. Eight hours later they approached Darwin, Australia, but the Japanese were conducting an air raid so the planes were diverted to Batchelor Airfield arriving at 09:30.

There MacArthur boarded a DC-3 which finally took him to Alice Springs. He then boarded a special train. It was at Terowie Train Station where he uttered the famous phrase “I came through and I shall return“.

The reaction from the American and Filipino troops on Bataan was mixed. Some felt like MacArthur had betrayed them. He left LTG Jonathan Wainwright in command and even many officers in the remaining staff felt they’d been abandoned.

Bulkeley remained on Mindanao until he was flown out on April 13, as MacArthur put a high priority on getting the PT boat crews out. He was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt in the White House on August 4, 1942. He retired as a Vice Admiral after 55 years of service. His story was made into a book and a film in 1945, “They Were Expendable” starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, and Donna Reed.

MacArthur’s “Bataan Gang” served as the staff of the GHQ of the Southwest Pacific Area. He and his staff would indeed return to the Philippines and would land on Corregidor three years later on four PT boats.

Photos: US Archives

Dr. Strangelove? Russians Claim to Have “Doomsday” Submarine Weapon

Alex Hollings, on the main NEWSREP site, penned a very intriguing piece about the latest Russian weapon, which they’re calling a “doomsday” submarine. If you’re having flashbacks to Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy masterpiece, “Dr. Strangelove”, then you’re not alone. Read on…

Russia’s struggling economy may not make for a particularly effective military, but the Kremlin’s ability to mold public perceptions remains among the nation’s most comprehensive and powerful skill sets. While some within the United States are still content to dispute the idea that Moscow uses a combination of state-run media outlets and social media outreach campaigns to shape the way the world perceives Russia (and ourselves), there are few better examples of this state-sanctioned chicanery than recent reactions to the “Poseidon” or Status 6 unmanned, submersible nuclear weapon.

Let there be no mistake, Russia’s Poseidon is both well within the nation’s technological capabilities to develop and promises to offer a never-before-seen level of destruction if ever detonated inside an American port. Yet, beyond the headline-grabbing 100-megaton yield and the promise of irradiated tsunamis laying waste to coastal communities for hundreds of miles, the Poseidon offers Russia truly little in terms of strategic value.
That may seem counter-intuitive. After all, with the largest nuclear warhead ever put into service secured inside a stealthy platform that, in all likelihood, could reach American shores undetected, one could be inclined to think the Poseidon poses perhaps the most pressing threat to American security since the Soviet Union first developed the atomic bomb. However, the truth is, the same nuclear deterrence strategies that defanged Russia’s previous “doomsday” weapons remain in effect whether the nuclear threat comes from the sky or beneath the waves.

Russia, in fact, already boasts nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles that are massively more powerful than the platforms housed in America’s ICBM arsenal. Russia also holds the title for most nuclear weapons on hand, making it the clear winner in both categories for most and biggest nukes.
Even with Aegis-equipped destroyers, THAAD missile defense systems, America’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system and a constellation of early warning satellites, there is no debating it: if Russia decided to throw every nuke it had at the U.S. (or even just a large chunk of them), America would have absolutely no chance of stopping them all.

It’s that understanding that led to the development of the nuclear triad: a system based on the ability to offer prompt nuclear retaliation no matter how overwhelming a nuclear attack may be. America’s nuclear triad relies on air-launched platforms (often carried by the B-52), ground-launched ICBMs, and submarine-launched weapons, making it all but impossible to neuter America’s nuclear response and guaranteeing Russia’s destruction in any nuclear exchange. America knows it can’t stop Russia from raining nuclear hellfire down on its people, so it’s settled for the next best thing: guaranteeing the U.S. would respond in kind.

That staring contest has been dubbed “mutually assured destruction,” and the concept is really about as simple as geopolitics can get: American and Russian leaders both know that launching even one nuke in the other nation’s direction will lead to a large-scale exchange that would likely end the world. If everyone is dead, it’s tough to pick a winner.
And that brings us back to Russia’s latest headline-grabbing Bond-villain-esque Poseidon. At 100 megatons (sometimes reported in Russian media as 200 megatons), the Poseidon carries a warhead that’s twice as large as the largest nuclear detonation ever recorded, making it a formidable weapon. Still, in terms of mutually assured destruction, it truly offers nothing of particular note. While a single Poseidon detonation could indeed cause an unprecedented level of destruction, headlines the following day (if there were any) would likely be focused on the hundreds of nuclear strikes that followed and the collapse of the modern world. Nothing would be different than if Russia had opted to launch an ICBM strike, rather than a sneaky, submersible one.

To read the entire article click here:

Photo; Russian Ministry of Defense

Green Beret/Delta Force Operator on Submarine Op with SEALs

If any of our readers of SpecialOperations.com, don’t know who George Hand is or read him on the pages of NEWSREP, you are definitely missing out. George, or Geo as he’s known to the rest of us mere mortals is a badass of epic proportions. How badass is Geo? He’s so badass that he doesn’t feel the need to tell you how badass he is.

Geo will be the first to tell you he isn’t but the people that send HIM Christmas cards every year gives it away. Geo is a natural storyteller whose tales of Delta Selection are outstanding. He has a knack with making the reader feel like he’s right there along with him in all of the deployments that he’s shared with us.

His latest take is a great story of when Geo was in one of the Special Forces groups before going to Delta and getting the opportunity to do a submarine lockout with the Navy SEALs. Always done with a lot of humor, mostly the self-deprecating kind, this is a story not to be missed…Enjoy.

How does a man who is not a Navy SEAL manage to tag along with a SEAL team for a week of submarine operations? Mostly dumb luck is my sterling response. I was a combat diver assigned to a Green Beret A-Team when my boss caught me in his crosshairs with an invitation from West Coast SEAL Team Five to join them for a week of submarine underway operations.

At that point my Green Beret team had only ever done extensive dry dock-side trunk operations—that is, we practiced submarine escape trunk operations but only on boats moored in port. None of us had ever been truly underway at sea. This, as I look back on my career, was the opportunity of a lifetime, and when opportunity knocked I always opened the door. “Never turn anything down but your shirt collar” was a personal policy of mine.

I reported to the SEAL team at NAB Coronado, California. I was there a day early and elected to hang out with them for a full day of their typical shore duty, to include their morning physical training session. I would have to invent a new language to describe how brutal that workout was, for I can’t find words in English to suit it. (Although the German words unglaublich schrecklichkeit fit nicely.)

The ground calisthenics was a real punishment, but the run in the sand of Coronado’s beaches was a great thrill in spite of the constant, ear-splitting sonic booms rendered by the speed of the pace. Much to my personal pride, I managed to remain firmly in the center of the pack—by no means up front where the gazelles lock horns.

After breakfast, lockers filled with Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns and SIG Sauer P-226 semi-auto pistols were brought out for cleaning. They had all been exposed to seawater and sand the night before. I was horrified that the weapons had been left for so many hours exposed to salt water, but I was in Rome, so I shut my big fat Roman pie hole and began cleaning.

“Dude, you like, totally don’t have to do this, dude,” one of the SEALs offered in a dude sandwich.

“Dude, I’m like, totally fine with it, dude,” I returned as I broke down a gat. The salty brethren of ST-5 seemed to take a liking to me for helping with weapons cleaning, a detested task in special operations once you have done it 5,000 times.

They even chatted with me. Granted, most of it I didn’t understand, though I did nod often with enthusiasm, throwing in my own occasional “dude.” We cleaned and duded the rest of the afternoon, the scurvy bilge rats “cleaning” on average two to three weapons for everyone I cleaned. I was wearing my non-Roman on my sleeve.

We chugged for a day and a night to get to our rendezvous with our boat, the venerable Sturgeon-class Fast-Attack USS Hawkbill (SSN-666). The number 666 was ominous enough, coupled with the fact that the night before we left I had watched “Das Boot,” a movie about the perils of a Nazi U-Boat during WWII. Yep, I could kick myself in the balls with the best of them.

Onboard the Hawkbill we schlepped metric tons of gear to the torpedo room where we slept and operated for the next week. It was crowded…my God, it was so crowded. It was so crowded in there you had to step outside of the torpedo room just to say, “It’s crowded in there!” And nudity—I have never seen such nudity in my life. The two pasty-faced torpedo room hands from the boat didn’t help, either, sharing their torpedo room humor as I passed by:

“Wow, Chucky…these SEAL fellows got some nice asses,” one of them began with a wry grin.

“I’m not a SEAL; I’m an Army Green Beret!” I protested, “But…thanks…man….”

The climb up to the escape trunk was nuts. We had to stepladder our way up three levels of bunk beds with sailors sleeping in them to get to the escape hatch. There are only enough bunks for roughly half of the crew on a submarine, so half of the crew works while the other half sleeps, a practice called hot-bunking. We pipe-hitters slept on torpedoes under the pining gaze of the pasty-faced torpedo hands.

The trunk was crowded…my God, it was so crowded. At least I thought ahead enough to say, “It’s crowded” before I got in there. Thankfully, everyone was fully-clothed, which was of personal comfort to me. I mean, I appreciate a nice physique as much as the next person, just not from less than two millimeters away.

The trunk was flooded with seawater to just below the level of our noses. One by one we took deep breaths, submerged to pass through the escape hatch, and ascended to the sea surface. At the surface was a small inflatable boat tethered to the submarine. We floated in the water, clinging to the inflatable. I reveled in the glory of the view of the massive boat some 50 feet below us. It was majestic and imposing; I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of it.

Suddenly an object came into view. One of the divers’ weight belts had come loose and it sank toward the boat. It was a wide nylon strap with a quick-release buckle and lead weights attached. “Bummer,” I thought for the man; it would be difficult for him to sink back to the escape hatch.

I shook my head at the glaring fact that the diver’s dive knife and emergency smoke/flare was attached to the belt. That was a safety violation, as nothing is allowed to be attached to the weight belt: It is the first piece of gear that is to be jettisoned in the event of an emergency. Now the diver had lost his most important emergency equipment to boot—his dive knife and signaling device.

The ensemble struck the hull of the boat. Oh, the captain of the ship was not happy about that and might scrub our dive operations for the day. Ship captains already hated this sort of lock-in/lock-out maneuver because a procedural error could, no shit, sink a boat. The belt scraped along as it slowly slipped down the curved contour of the sub until it fell away to Davy Jone’s Locker.

I knew the poor brother would get a double helping of grief because he had committed a grand blunder and because he had done it in front of an Army puke. I took it with a grain of salt because, even though the team was driven by seasoned leadership, it was jammed with fresh recruits from the most recent graduation of the Navy SEAL’s BUD/S class—junior operators. That element would manifest itself again in mere moments.

All the men were taken back down to the escape trunk one at a time by a safety diver with a twin breathing hose (regulator) attached to SCUBA tanks. He could breathe from one and his passenger could breathe from the other. Our procedure called for each man entering the trunk to hold a regulator outside of the trunk for the next diver to transition to before he crowded into the trunk.

The safety diver passed me the regulator, which I clenched in my teeth. I saw that a hook had come undone on my life vest and struggled to redo it. Without giving a signal to submerge, the safety diver dove down toward the trunk. As both my hands were busy hooking my vest, I was dragged to the trunk by the regulator clasped in my teeth, my ears threatening to explode from the inability to equalize sinus pressure.

Again, without a signal, the diver pulled the regulator from my mouth and left. I was beginning to drift a little south of pleased by now, and furthermore, the last diver had failed to hold out a regulator of the ship’s air for me to breathe. I peered into the hatch to see a forest of thrashing legs. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and bulldozed my way into the trunk.

When I broke into the air bubble there was loud panicked screaming from the men. The water line had risen too high and the trunk operator’s attempt to blow the water level back down revealed that the air blow pipe was submerged and creating a hurricane of wind, noise, and water spray in the small air space that remained.

To read the complete article, click here:

Photo of SEAL Team 5: US Navy

Operation Archery, Brit Commandos Raid Vaagso, Norway Dec. 27, 1941

After the forces of Hitler’s Nazi Germany overran most of Europe in the summer of 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered that the military create a force that could carry out raids against Nazi-occupied Europe. “Enterprises must be prepared, with specially-trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down these coasts, first of all on the “butcher and bolt” policy…” Thus the Commandos were born.

The Commandos were an all-volunteer outfit that would eventually encompass all services of the British military as well as foreign volunteers from the occupied countries. Their training was hard and nearly always was conducted with live ammunition. Eventually, they would consist of 30 individual units and four assault brigades.

Although they would serve with distinction in every theater it was in Norway where the Commandos would first earn their fame by conducting various raids on German installations and try to get the Germans to divert more troops to defending Norway that may have been used on the Eastern Front.

The raid on the Norwegian islands of Vaagso and Maaloy, codenamed Operation Archery, was conducted to destroy the German fish-oil production facilities there as well as the glycerine production which was used in the manufacture of explosives.

This operation also broke new ground for combined operations. It was the first time air support was integrated into the raiding plans from the outset. So this was a true Special Operations Forces combined organization using air, land, and sea forces.

In overall charge of the operation was Brigadier Charles Haydon, while the raid on the ground was led by John Durnford-Slater and conducted by his troops of No. 3 Commando, two troops of No.2 Commando, a medical detachment of No.4 Commando, a demolition party from 101 Troop (canoe) of No. 6 Commando and a dozen Norwegians from Norwegian Independent Company 1. His raiding force would number 570 officers and men.

The Royal Navy provided offshore gunfire, by the light cruiser HMS Kenya, and the destroyers HMS Onslow, Oribi, Offa, and Chiddingfold. The submarine HMS Tuna was in support as the force navigational check. HMS Prince Charles and Prince Leopold were used to ferry troops into and out of the area. The Royal Air Force (RAF) provided bombers and fighter-bombers for close air support.

Durnford-Slater trained his troops hard. Every morning, they would rehearse 25-30 landings until 30 men could sprint from their landing craft with all of their weapons and equipment, 25 meters to cover and do it within 10 seconds. His second-in-command or 2IC in Brit parlance was Major J.M.T.F. Churchill, MC. Known to his close friends as Jack, Churchill was both a character and a fantastic, fearless leader. He would go into combat with his Scottish Claymore broadsword and play his own bagpipes.

Preparations for the Raid:

At the end of October 1941, Lord Louis Mountbatten took over the British Combined Operations and he alerted Durnford-Slater that they had the most daring plan yet in Norway. Their target was the small port of South Vaagso, about 350 miles north of Norway’s southern coast and about halfway between Bergen and Trondheim. And similarly to earlier raids, the port produced substantial quantities of fish oil that was vital for the German war machine.

Intelligence specialists in London had in a painstakingly detailed effort in building an exact model of the town. Durnford-Slater carried it back to Scotland with him in a suitcase. His officers made briefings to the troops off of this model although only the senior officers knew of the exact location.

They carried out successful rehearsals at the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow. They set sail in heavy seas on Christmas Eve. The men from 12 Commando would make a diversionary raid on the Lofotens (site of an earlier Commando raid) to distract the Germans. 12 Commando during the diversion stayed ashore for two days destroying German installations without suffering a single casualty and returned with 29 prisoners and about 200 new recruits for the forces of Free Norway.

The raiding force arrived perfectly on time and exactly where they were supposed to be. The troops were on the landing craft at precisely 0700, having been fed at 0500 and checked their weapons and equipment for the final time before the raid.

The Germans, unaware of what was close to their shore, were yawning thru lectures on military courtesy, no differently than soldiers of every army do. That was about to change quickly.

One alert German soldier in South Vaagso spotted the British ships sailing into the fjord and called it in. His superiors told him that it was probably German ships. When he persisted, he was told he probably celebrated Christmas a bit too much. He should have been rewarded. The German at the other end of the phone, however, decided to alert the German naval commander and took a rowboat to alert him, neglecting to alert the Army units in town.

The Battle Begins:

It was then, that the German troops first became aware of the Commandos presence was when the HMS Kenya’s dozen 6-inch guns began shelling the nearby German coastal batteries at Maaloy. With the destroyers, Offa and Onslow’s 4-inch guns joining in, the Germans were ducking into defensive positions having 400-450 shells rain down on them in less than 10 minutes. The Commandos, in US-made Higgins assault boats, were racing toward shore.

RAF medium twin-engine Hampden bombers flew over the landing sites and dropped smoke bombs to cover the assault troops. At Maaloy Island, Jack Churchill played his bagpipes as they approached shore and led his 105 men, 5 and 6 Troops, against the German defenders. Their objective was the big herring oil factory, the shore batteries, an antiaircraft position, and any other German troops.

R. Clement’s Group 1 had the mission to clear the village of Hollevik, then reform and become the onshore reserve. Durnford-Slater would lead Group 2’s, 200 men of 1, 2, 3, and 4 Troops, into Vaagso, while CPT. D. Birney’s 30 men of Group 5 would deploy into blocking positions on the road south into Vaagso from Rodberg. Group 4, CPT. R.H. Hooper’s 65 troops, would remain as a floating reserve on HMS Kenya.

Tragedy and Disaster:

One of the Hampden bombers was flying toward the shore when it was hit by German flak guns onboard the armed trawler Foehn. The bomber was hit and reeling when one of its phosphorous bombs inadvertently hit one of the landing craft. Nearly half of the troop were either killed or badly burned by the unfortunate accident. After offloading whatever ammunition and equipment that they could salvage, the surviving Commandos pushed the craft out into the water to sink.

But the rest of Durnford-Slater’s men surged ashore and immediately set about clearing the town which was long and narrow. The fighting was vicious and house-to-house. The Germans were reinforced by 50 men of a Gebirgsjäger (Alpine, mountain) troops on leave from the Russian front. They barricaded themselves in one large building to use as a strongpoint. The Commandos had to clear each room with hand grenades. CPT Johnny Giles was shot down at the door of the strongpoint but his men took it and his younger brother, Lt. Bruce Giles assumed command.

The Germans had also barricaded themselves in the Ulvesund hotel and they flung back the first two attempts to take it. CPT Algy Forester was killed and then so was Norwegian CPT Martin Linge was also killed trying to assault the front door.

As the Brits were readying for a third assault under the command now of a CPL ‘Knocker’ White, another Captain appeared with a 3-inch mortar, which was unauthorized by had been appropriated. They expertly dropped the first shells straight down the chimney of the hotel, setting fire to it and causing a large number of German casualties. The third assault carried the hotel. White would earn a Distinguished Service Medal for his actions later.

There was chaos in the narrow streets. The Germans used to the no-quarter-given in Russia refused to move out of the buildings they were defending and had to be burned out using hand grenades. Norwegian civilians were streaming down the street heading for the landing craft, anxious to get away from their occupiers.

The British committed their floating reserves and then Durnford-Slater was also reinforced by Churchill’s men who had quickly overrun the guns on Maaloy Island and captured several prisoners, including two “comfort” women who the Germans held there for their troops. Churchill, broadsword in hand, led his men ashore.

As they cleared the town house-by-house, the Commandos encountered several snipers. So they’d just burn them out one-by-one. Durnford-Slater observed two such Commandos who set about their task with a vengeance. He wrote that the men “appeared to be enjoying themselves.” One sniper wounded CPT O’Flaherty thru the eye. He would eventually return to duty with a black eye patch and finish the war as a Brigadier.

CPT O’Flaherty is led to the rear after being wounded in the eye by a German sniper

After the British battered the armed trawler Foehn, the ship ran aground and the crew deserted it. An armed British party found the captain’s codebooks when it was discovered he’d been killed by shellfire. The codebooks contained a wealth of signs, countersigns, and code words, and the radio call-signs of every German vessel in northern Europe. It was a huge intelligence boon for the raiding party.

By noon the town had been secured, the troops, however, continued in town until 1400 when Durnford-Slater ordered his men back to the boats. By 1500 all of the Commandos had been safely transported back to the ships.

The result of the raid was a tremendous success for the Commandos. They sank 10 vessels, 18,000 tons of shipping, and the Commandos had burned or blown up four oil factories and a number of warehouses, fuel tanks, vehicles, the Seternes lighthouse, the telephone exchanges, the steamship wharf, and the German barracks inside of town.

The Maaloy coastal artillery batteries were destroyed along with a tank, while much of the garrison had been killed, wounded, or captured. About 130 Germans were killed, without counting the crews of the eight ships destroyed. Another 98 were captured. The two “comfort” women were guarded by two sailors on board ship. But later reports read that on checking later, one British officer found the hallway empty and “the rifles leaning on the wall outside the doors.” Of the Norwegian population, one was killed and five wounded; 70 more returned to England with the Commandos to volunteer for the forces of Free Norway.

British casualties among the Commandos were 20 dead (which included three Norwegians) and 53 wounded. The RAF lost eight aircraft along with their crews.

The Germans assumed the British would make a major push to retake Norway and thus threaten the German hold on Finland and Sweden. They moved their battleships into Norwegian waters and put additional troops there while beefing up their coastal defenses. By the time of D-Day, there were 400,000 German troops in Norway that weren’t fighting in either Normandy or Russia.

Photos: Imperial War Museum

Trapped at Pearl Harbor: Escape from the Battleship Oklahoma

Book Review: On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands was a quiet place as the sun came up. Many of the sailors along Battleship Row were feeling the effects of being on liberty ashore drinking which ended at midnight.

At dawn, there was a sleepy, Sunday feel to the morning, not much was moving other than the sailors who had the morning duty. The rest were sleeping off the festivities from Saturday night. The battleship USS Oklahoma BB-37 had been preparing for an inspection, which was to take place on the morning of Monday, December 8. As a result, many doors and hatches were wide open on that fateful day.

The Japanese had planned on giving a declaration of war intentions 30 minutes before the attack began but due to the slowness of their code machines and the typists, the message didn’t get to Washington until the attack was over. The Japanese attack force, led by the first wave swept over Pearl Harbor at 7:48 a.m. and achieved complete surprise. Not only were the battleships parked in a row along Ford Island, but the American fighters on Hickam Field were parked wingtip to wingtip.

As the first wave (183 planes) led by the slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers searched out battleships at anchor, dive-bombers hit Hickam and Wheeler Airfields. The second wave (170 planes) attacked American facilities on Ford Island and Bellows Field.

Oklahoma was berthed at Fox 5 on Battleship Row next to the USS Maryland. The officers of the watch called the crew to battle stations having witnessed the attacks beginning elsewhere in the harbor. Ensign Herb Rommel the 4th Division officer, called the crew to General Quarters. Rommel saw the cruiser Helena get slammed with a torpedo and jumped onto the General Announcing System. “This is no shit, God damn it! They’re real bombs, Now get Going!” As another officer fumbled with the keys to the ammunition lockers, the call went out that would live forever. “Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This is no drill!”

At 7:56 a.m. the Oklahoma was hit simultaneously with 2 torpedos, 20 below the waterline between the smokestack and mainmast. She was hit with a third torpedo at 8:00 a.m. which penetrated the hull. Her boilers punctured, she began to list heavily, then two more torpedos slammed into her and she began to capsize. In less than 11 minutes the USS Oklahoma would roll over and sink. But her masts touched bottom in the harbor and her hull was still above water. Of the crew 429 would be killed or missing and many others trapped alive under the water.

Stephen Bower Young was one of those trapped below the decks. He was just 19, from Methuen, Massachusetts and had joined the Navy in the summer of 1940, hoping to go to the Naval Academy.

When the attack began, he was ordered as per SOP to go to his battle station below deck. Young and 10 of his shipmates were at their station inside the No. 4 gun turret, which in the space of fewer than five minutes was now inverted, and beneath the water.

Young authored his book and describes their own terrifying experiences in horrendous detail. His battle wasn’t about the carnage that was taking place all around them in Pearl Harbor. But in a very small, confined space, where he was virtually unaware of anything else other than the Japanese had sunk his ship. The realism and horror at the feeling of his ship being capsized is clearly felt by the reader.

His easy to read but riveting story reads almost like a work of fiction. The reader can feel the cold water slowly but with incredible realism, inescapably rise, the fuel oil taste which would turn stomachs and the nasty fetid air that would soon envelop the men. The young sailors would try to force wisecracks but others would succumb to despair and then finally the men in total darkness would go quietly as a church in an effort to save air.

The men decided to try another room called the Lucky Bag to see if they could stay dry and breathe long enough to be rescued. The room had only one entrance and exit but it was at least dry. The room on the opposite side of the wall held sailors still alive in the #4 radio compartment.

The Japanese attack was over in ninety minutes and immediately Navy personnel and civilian dock workers began the task of trying to rescue men trapped below decks. However, it wasn’t until around 1:00 a.m on December 8, that the rescue crews would be able to get enough air compressors, pumps, chipping tools and torches alongside the hull to begin their work in earnest.

As the men dozed, they were woken to the sound of air hammers in the distance, trying to cut thru the hull to reach trapped sailors. The men began tapping out SOS code to alert the rescuers. Soon the hammering was much closer. Then they’d pause to listen if the trapped sailors were close by.

The men in #4 radio compartment, yelled thru the steel bulkhead that the rescuers were cutting thru to them. Young yelled them to alert them that they were just on the other side of the wall. “Okay!, don’t worry, if they can get to us, we’ll tell ‘em”.

Twenty-five hours after the Oklahoma had capsized, Yard worker Joe Bulgo cut through to sailors in the No. 4 radio compartment. “There are some guys trapped in there,” one sailor said, pointing to the wall behind him. “We’ll get ’em out,” said DeCastro.

Young yelled to the rescue team on the other side. DeCastro’s calm voice came back, promising he would get them out. But as they began cutting through the bulkhead, it was releasing air from the Lucky Bag compartment, and water began rising. There was momentary panic but as DeCastro’s men began their work, the men inside tried in vain to seal the hatch to the Lucky Bag.

It was the longest 60 minutes of Young’s life. The water level had reached their knees but finally, they had three cuts in the bulkhead. And the sweetest words Young had ever heard were Bulgo saying, “Look out for your hands, boys,” he yelled. With a sledgehammer, he pounded in the section of the wall. The sailors scrambled through and were guided up and out by DeCastro’s men. They made it out by 9:00 a.m. and Young recalled the sun was bright and the air smelled fresh. The eleven men in the #4 gun turret had survived.

The sailors on-board the USS Maryland watched it unfold and began cheering as they clambered out of their doomed ship. In all, 32 men would be rescued from the crippled Oklahoma, which would never sail again.

Despite the fact that you obviously know that the author survived the sinking and capsizing of his ship, the account of the author and his shipmates was impossible to put down and very tense. This isn’t a big picture kind of overall look at the disaster at Pearl Harbor but a very narrow view of the author’s quest to survive in a sunken ship. This book was an excellent read and gives the reader the feeling of what it was like to be there in the #4 gun turret as the ship sinks and rolls over and the incredible stress of waiting to be rescued.

Photos: US Navy/author

Both Sides Got it Right, The SNL Apology Was Well Done

Former Navy SEAL Crenshaw And Davidson Take High Road

By now as everyone is well aware, last week on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, one of the actors during the “Weekend Update” portion of the show, made a particularly tasteless joke at the expense of Congressman-elect Pete Crenshaw.

Crenshaw a former Navy SEAL lost an eye in combat and was shown in a campaign photo as he was running for office. Davidson poked fun at his appearance with an eye patch in the skit, and said that “viewers might be surprised he’s not a hitman in a porno movie.”

As is poking fun at a man’s appearance because he suffered war wounds wasn’t enough, Davidson then mentioned that he was a war veteran and finished with a dismissive …”whatever”. The outcry, especially from the veteran community was huge and the weekend before Veterans Day was especially bad timing. SNL producer Lorne Michaels is famous for saying that they don’t apologize for their jokes but they have in the past and did again.

Because the outrage wasn’t just confined to the Republicans…which Crenshaw is from the state of Texas. Crenshaw stated that he didn’t think that SNL didn’t need to apologize but made a video where he removed his eyepatch and showed a glass eye with a Navy SEAL Trident, stating that the terrorists can’t take this from me. And the perception for him and wrongdoing did to him grew.

SNL stepped over the line…way over the line and rather than sweep it under the rug or issue some-kind of inane apology where they double down on the bad joke, (which has been done before), they did it right.

The show opened with Davidson, apologizing while poking fun at himself.

“In what must be a huge shock for people who know me, I made a poor choice last week,” Davidson said. “I made a joke about Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw and on behalf of myself and the show, I apologize… I mean this from the bottom of my heart, it was a poor choice of words. The man is a war hero and he deserves all the respect in the world. ”

Davidson added, “If any good came of this, maybe… it was for one day, the left and the right finally came together to agree on something: That I’m a dick.”

From off-camera, a voice was heard to say…”Ya think?” It was Crenshaw, who was invited on the show and in typical SNL fashion, he had to slam Davidson including his appearance very similar to what Davidson did to Crenshaw on the episode the week before. “This is Pete Davidson,” Crenshaw said of the blue-haired Davidson. “He looks like if the meth from Breaking Bad was a person.”

Davidson then again apologized for his jokes the week before, which Crenshaw shot back, “Thanks for making a Republican look good. And SNL added a touch of irony as they played what was supposed to be Crenshaw’s cellphone ringtone, which was an Ariana Grande song, “Breathin,’” in a slam at Davidson’s high-profile breakup with the singer. “Do you know her?”, Crenshaw cracked.

Crenshaw closed out his appearance with a heartfelt speech about remembering both military heroes and those who died on September 11th – like Davidson’s firefighter father – on Veteran’s Day today.

“There’s a lot of lessons to learn here. Not just that the left and right can agree on some things, but also this: Americans can forgive one another,” Crenshaw said. “We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in each other.”

Crenshaw stated that it was Veterans Day weekend and encouraged people to say “never forget” to veterans, in lieu of “thank you for your service.”

“When you say ‘never forget’ to a veteran, you’re implying that as an American, you are in it with them,” Crenshaw said. “Not separated by some imaginary barrier between civilians and veterans, but connected together as grateful, fellow Americans. We’ll never forget the sacrifices made by veterans past and present, and never forget those we lost on 9/11 — heroes like Pete’s father,” Scott Davidson, a New York firefighter who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“So I’ll just say, Pete, never forget,” with that the two shook hands and Davidson could be heard whispering in Crenshaw’s ear, that he was a good man.

So, the aftermath of the entire episode was that both parties got it right. SNL and Davidson realized they made a huge mistake, and they owned it and made the attempt to extend an olive branch. Crenshaw could have reacted much differently to the entire episode but he didn’t. He took the high road and perhaps this is just a very small beginning on bringing this country back together.

On Monday morning, Crenshaw appeared on the “Today” show and spoke about how he was at first hesitant but decided to appear and how it all came to be.

“But in the end we decided to do it because what better platform to give a united platform for the country, talk about forgiveness and talk about veterans? And they let me do that last part, and we got a little serious and I was able to give the message about what I think it means to connect with veterans and how to bridge that gap between civilians and military.”

Comics and shows like SNL always are pushing boundaries. Sometimes they’re going to cross them. But recognizing that and acting the way both parties in this did is encouraging. Crenshaw was right, we have to have the ability to forgive one another as well as listen to each other when we do.

This country is as divided as we’ve ever been lately. Neither side of the aisle has a monopoly on the good or the bad. Crenshaw’s message is let’s remember what made this country great and get back to doing those things…together.

Photo/Video: Saturday Night Live