Guam

On This Day, June 19,1944, The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot

The United States awesome industrial might was on full display during the summer of 1944. On June 6th, the U.S. along with British and French vessels attacked the French coast from bases in England with over 5000 vessels of all sizes. Less than two weeks later on the other side of the world, the United States was readying an attack on Saipan with 500 ships, including seven large fleet aircraft carriers and eight light carriers containing 956 aircraft.

Saipan was part of the Marianas Chain and located just east of the Philippines in the Philippine Sea. The fleet arrived on the 15th of June but the Japanese were to use their remaining aircraft carrier strength in the Pacific, (five large fleet carriers and four light carriers) as well as land-based aircraft on Guam to attack the U.S. fleet to try to inflict heavy damage and turn back the invasion. The Japanese could muster 756 aircraft for the attack.

The resultant battle which took place over June 19-20 was a decisive loss for the Japanese and destroyed their last remaining hope for offensive capability in the Pacific. The cream of the Japanese air arm which had carried them to huge victories in the Pacific early in the war was long gone. Losses in the Coral Sea, Midway and the resultant combat had stripped Japan of nearly all of her best-experienced pilots.

The U.S., on the other hand, had a very experienced aircraft force and their planes, the newer F6F Hellcats were bigger, faster, better protected and carried more firepower than anything the Japanese could muster. The Americans also had radar which warned them of any impending attack while the Japanese were still far away, giving them plenty of time to scramble fighter cover.

The Americans also had numerous submarine patrols and they would relay the Japanese fleet locations as well as take their toll on the carriers with torpedos. The American fleet named the 5th Fleet was comprised of Task Force 58, which comprised the fast carrier attack force, Task Group 58.7 which comprised seven fast battleships, and eight heavy cruisers. Task Group 58.4 of one fleet carrier and two light carriers. Just to the east, in a line running north to south, were three groups, each containing two fleet carriers and two light carriers: Task Group 58.1, Task Group 58.2, Task Group 58.3 These ships were supported by 13 light cruisers, 68 destroyers, and 28 submarines.

After the Americans began going ashore in the Marianas, the Japanese were taken by surprise, thinking the attack would be farther south. Realizing that B-29 bombers could reach Japan from the Marianas, they decided to attack with everything they could muster.

Opening Moves: A Japanese search plane found the American fleet at 0550 in the morning. They readied land-based planes on Guam for their first strike. US radars picked them up immediately. The U.S. sortied 30 Hellcats from the USS Belleau Wood. Hellcats began arriving while Japanese planes were taking off. A melee ensued over Guam, where the Americans shot down 35 planes without a loss of their own. By 1000 hrs, the Americans recalled their fighters over Guam back to the ships where a series of Japanese attacks were beginning.

Because of the American radar, there would be no sneak attacks and the Japanese were normally intercepted anywhere between 45-60 miles from the American carriers. The Americans would launch their Hellcats and then send their torpedo and dive bombers out far to the east where if a bomb did hit a carrier, there would be no secondary explosions due to closely parked aircraft with fuel and bombs.

Hellcat fighters decimated the inexperienced Japanese pilots.

The lack of training for the newer Japanese pilots was plain to see, the skies far from the carriers was awash with plumes of smoke and fire as most of the Japanese pilots met their end without ever seeing the targets. Of the first 69 planes launched on the first raid, 42 were shot down by the Hellcats. Not one could break thru the hail of anti-aircraft fire from the support ships.

The next wave of Japanese aircraft, 128 in all were detected and 100 of them were intercepted. Only about 20 were able to break thru to the massed fires of the support ships. Only a few reached the carriers did minor damage to the carriers Bunker Hill and Wasp. By noontime, it was over and only 30 Japanese aircraft limped back to their bases, the inexperienced pilots vastly inflating the damage they did to the American carrier force.

Worse for the Japanese, two of their carriers had been hit by torpedoes from submarines. The Taiho was hit by the USS Albacore early in the day, and while the torpedo’s impact should have been overcome, mistakes made by the crew would doom the ship. The fuel system had been ruptured. And with fumes gathering, the order was given to turn on the ventilation system. That spread fumes everywhere. Not long afterward, those fumes ignited into a huge explosion which tore open the hull and the ship was a lost cause.

Only 500 of the crew of over 2100 had been evacuated when another explosion rocked Taiho. She quickly capsized and sank to the bottom.

At 1220, the Shokaku was staggered with three torpedo hits by the USS Cavalla who reported the movings of the Japanese fleet and followed. When Shokaku turned into the wind to recover her aircraft, she struck.

Japanese destroyers dropped 105 depth charges on Cavalla, and she survived, meanwhile fires raged on Shokaku, And any attempts to put the fires out were dashed when fuel fumes, which permeated the ship, caught fire and exploded.

The other Japanese air attacks fared badly as well, one group was sent too far north with most of the aircraft, finding nothing and returning. Of the 47 aircraft, a few carried out ineffective bombing attacks, seven were shot down.

A force of 89 aircraft from the Zuikaku and a few of the light carriers were sent too far south to find the Americans. Less than half also made an ineffective raid on the American carriers. The remaining 49 made for Guam. There they were set upon by Hellcats and 30 of them were smoked into either the sea or the airfield.

Back on board the USS Lexington, as the pilots were being debriefed before their next mission, one pilot remarked, “Hell, this is like an old-time turkey shoot!” One American pilot, Lt. Alexander Vraciu downed six Japanese dive bombers in a single mission, he ended up with a career 19 enemy aircraft shot down and another 21 destroyed on the ground.

Lt. Alexander Vraciu downed six Japanese dive bombers in a single mission,

By nightfall, the sky above America’s carriers had been swept clear of Japanese aircraft. Of the 430 aircraft that were available to the Japanese carriers, only 102 could answer the call. Another 50 planes from land bases in Guam were shot down. The losses were crippling. Never again would the Japanese navy have the planes to equip and man an effective carrier force. American losses were 23 aircraft with another six damaged beyond repair.

As the day was turning into night, Admiral Spruance wanted to close the distance between him and the Japanese fleet and they turned west at 24 knots. An American scout plane found the Japanese fleet the next day at 1615. The attacking raid force could still hit the Japanese in the fading daylight but would have to return in the dark. American pilots had not been trained in night landings.

The risked it all, sending a force of 54 torpedo bombers, 77 dive bombers and 85 Hellcats flying escort in a hunt for the Japanese. They first came across six tankers and a section of dive bombers attacked, the remaining aircraft bore in on the Japanese fleet, spread in an arc, was arrayed beneath them.

The overhead cover of Zeros was not nearly enough and they were quickly swept aside. The torpedo and dive bombers aligned to attack the Japanese carriers. After 20 minutes of hellacious combat, 14 American planes had been shot down. But they did terrible damage to the Japanese fleet. The carrier Hiyo had been torpedoed and was sinking. Several bombs had struck Zuikaku and fires were blazing all over her. The carrier Chiyoda was also ablaze and her flight deck was a mess of mangled steel. Also damaged was the battleship Haruna and the cruiser Moya.

Of the 102 planes available to the Japanese on the morning of the 20th, only 35 remained. Admiral Ozawa knew his defeat had been total and during the night, the fleet hightailed it for Okinawa.

The Americans broke every rule during the night. With the planes flying in on fumes and untrained in night landings, the Americans disregarded all risk from Japanese bombers or submarines and turned on every conceivable illumination to get the flight crews back safely on board ships.

Despite this, 80 aircraft either crashed on the deck or ditched in the sea as their fuel ran out. But rescue efforts were outstanding. Only 16 pilots and 33 aircrews were missing after the air raid on the Japanese fleet.

The battle was over and it was a complete American victory. Officially the battle was known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The Japanese still had several carriers left, but the inexperienced pilots were decimated and now there was no one left to fill the void. The value of the carrier is for the aircraft and aircrews that operate on them. The Japanese Navy, just a two and half years before, the most powerful force in the Pacific was reduced to a shell of its former self.

With America knocking on the door, there was no time to train replacement aircrews to defend the homeland. There remained one final option. The kamikaze or suicide attack planes. As an offensive fighting force, the Japanese Navy ceased to exist after June 19-20, 1944.

Photos: US Archives

November 24, 1944, Tokyo Is Bombed for the 1st Time Since the Doolittle Raid

In 1944, the US knew what awaited them when facing the Japanese forces as they got closer and closer to the homeland of Japan. The prospects of a Japanese surrender were practically non-existent and the ferocity and bloodshed for tiny specks of islands as the Allies hopped from chain to island chain were much higher than envisioned.

As they prepared to bring the war to the Japanese homeland, the bombing campaign from China was not sustainable. The B-29 bombers had too long of a flight and all of the supplies and equipment to sustain the Super Fortresses had to be flown over the Himalaya Mountains.

However once the US began to edge closer in the Pacific, their calls were answered. After taking the Mariana Islands, the US built bomber bases on the islands of Tinian and Guam. There, the B-29s had a flight of only 1500 miles to Japan, easily within their range. However, they’d be without fighter escort until they could get closer.

General Curtis LeMay’s plan of strategic bombing was to attack any Japanese city where war materials for the Empire of Japan were being produced. Now that they had bases close enough, he could bring the war to the Japanese Empire on their own home front.

He started with a reconnaissance mission. The B-29 “Tokyo Rose” piloted by Capt. Ralph D. Steakley, who grabbed over 700 photographs of potential bombing targets in just 35 minutes.

Now LeMay was ready to carry out his bombing campaign. It began with the heavy bombing of the Japanese troops on Iwo Jima. The US would be invading there in just a few short months. The bombing would keep them from reinforcing the troops and weaken their defenses.

The Japanese homeland hadn’t been bombed since the Doolittle Raid. And that was more of a morale boost for the American people than a true strategic raid. The actual damage done was very slight to the Japanese war machine, but it did shock the population from believing that they were inviolate.

LeMay planned to change that in a big way. On the 24th of November, 111 B-29s took off for Tokyo. They were under the command of Gen. Emmett O’Donnell. The raid came in at 30,000 feet. There the Super Fortresses were much safer from Japanese anti-aircraft fire. The target was the Nakajima Aircraft Factory. But a combination of bad weather and high winds scattered the bomb drops, something that would hamper the bombing effort for the next few months. Only 24 bombs hit their targets and they didn’t do a significant amount of damage to the factory.

But the Japanese people were put on notice. This wasn’t the pin-prick of the Doolittle Raid that was essentially a one-way trip. This was a massive effort using the biggest and most sophisticated bomber the world had ever seen. And in tremendous numbers.

Due to the jet stream at high altitude, LeMay switched up his tactics in early 1945. He decided that he wanted to change from standard high explosive bombs to incendiary bombs to target much of Japan’s infrastructure which was made of wood and paper.

The incendiary weapons were called M-69s. Weighing about six pounds each, they were dropped in a cluster of thirty-eight within every single container. Each B-29 typically carried about 37 containers, which means that every plane carried around 1,400 of these tiny bomblets

Once the bombs were away from the plane, a time fuse released them from their containers. That typically happened around 5,000 feet. When the bombs hit the ground, they exploded. After they exploded, they released a type of highly flammable compound.A few of the bombers carried the M-47 incendiary bombs. The M-47 was a 100-pound jellied-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact.

On March 10, 1945, the US carried out the first of the terrible and terrifying fire-bombing raids over Tokyo with 300 aircraft. That would equal nearly 11,100 of the containers and an astounding 520,000 of the tiny flammable bomblets.

The B-29s came in much lower than normal, about 7000 feet and dropped their bombs with much more precision than the normal 30,000 feet altitude where high winds in the jet stream scattered their bombs and made them highly inaccurate. The devastation was horrific. Over 17 square miles of Tokyo were incinerated, and everything in its path destroyed, which was nearly 25 percent of the city. Not only factories and military targets but neighborhoods and civilians as well. Over 100,000 died in the bombing and another 100,000 were injured. Almost a million people were left homeless. The turbulence from the fires burning below was so bad, that it tore the wings off of one B-29. The firestorm and the resultant updraft actually launched parts of homes, like doors and windows up to the 7000-foot altitude as the planes passed by.

An eyewitness, Fusako Sasaki, on the WWII documentary “Battle Front” described the carnage: Stacked-up corpses were being hauled away on lorries. Everywhere there was the stench of the dead and of smoke. I saw the places on the pavement where people had been roasted to death. At last, I comprehended first-hand what an air-raid meant. I turned back, sick and scared. Later I learned that 40% of Tokyo was burned that night, that there had been 100,000 casualties and 375,000 left homeless.

A month after the March raid, while I was on a visit to Honjo on a particularly beautiful cherry-blossom day, I saw bloated and charred corpses surfacing in the Sumida River. I felt nauseated and even more scared than before.

We ourselves were burned out in the fire raid of May 25th, 1945. As I ran I kept my eyes on the sky. It was like a fireworks display as the incendiaries exploded. People were aflame, rolling and writhing in agony, screaming piteously for help, but beyond all mortal assistance.

After the firebombing of the Japanese cities thru the spring and summer of 1945, the US dropped the first atomic device off of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August of 1945. And the Japanese finally capitulated and surrendered to the Allies.

Photos: US Army

Guam Reacts to North Korea Missile Threat with Faith in the US

The North Koreans were rattling their saber again and upped the ante this time, threatening a ballistic missile strike on the U.S. territory of Guam. While some residents expressed concern, others said that their trust in the US military will keep them safe.

North Korea’s military said it is considering a missile launch aimed near the U.S. strategic military installations in Guam, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. And they’re reporting that they now have a nuclear capability.

The government of Kim Jong Un has liked to threaten and act like the unhinged dictator who will fire off a nuclear weapon at the drop of a hat. But in reality, much of what has been portrayed in the media is a well-acted façade. Every time Jong rattles his saber, he gets concessions, either political or economic from previous US administrations. Not so much this time with the administration of Donald Trump. He makes threats as serious as the Koreans do. So how do Guamanians feel?

“The threat is pretty scary,” said Graceful Fiden, 28, of Tumon, Guam. “It’s going on further, so we should worry about it.”
But, he said, “I believe in the military on Guam, together with the U.S.”
Yonhap reported that the North’s strategic force in charge of the country’s ballistic missiles issued a statement that it is seriously reviewing measures to send a strong message that it can neutralize the U.S. military bases in Guam that house nuclear bombers and other key assets, with its Hwasong-12 missiles.
In comments made Tuesday at the clubhouse of his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., President Trump warned North Korea that it “best not make any more threats to the United States.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” Trump said.

To read the entire article from The USA Today click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

U.S.S. Indianapolis, A Terrible and Needless Tragedy

On July 30, 1945, in the closing days of World War II, the cruiser Indianapolis (CA-35), unescorted in the Pacific Ocean, was steaming for Leyte, having left Guam after just delivering the components for the atomic bomb to Tinian.

The Indianapolis’ orders were to rendezvous with the battleship U.S.S. Idaho (BB-42), in the Leyte Gulf and prepare for the upcoming invasion of Japan. She was steaming west on a course of 262 degrees and making 17 knots. She would never arrive.

She was struck by a Japanese submarine (I-58), who fired six torpedoes, of which two struck the cruiser and blew away the bow, the second struck near midship on the starboard side next to a fuel tank and a powder magazine. The resulting explosion split the ship in two to the keel, knocking out all electric power. The ship went down by the bow and then rolled over to starboard in just 12 minutes on July 30. Not enough time for the ship’s captain to radio a distress call.

Some of the sailors were able to don life jackets, whose buoyancy faded after about 48 hours and would begin to slip down a sailor’s body which increased his exhaustion. Few men were able to make it onto life rafts or debris from the sinking. Those who didn’t have either life jackets or make it onto a raft, however, were forced to tread water until another sailor drowned, died from exposure or was eaten by sharks.

No alarm had been raised by the Navy in Leyte, the ship wasn’t reported overdue and the men would have all died if not for blind luck. The men were at the limits of their endurance when a Navy reconnaissance plane noticed a large oil slick in the water. Upon a closer look, he saw survivors bobbing in the water. All available ships were sent to the area.

PBY Catalina’s dropped freshwater, life jackets and life rafts to the survivors. One PBY made a dangerous open water landing, to pick up single survivors and those in most need of medical attention. Loading 56 men onboard he whisked them onboard to safety. He stayed on station with his search light on during the night so that other Navy ships could find them. The next morning, August 3rd the U.S.S. Cecil Doyle arrived and picked up the remainder of the survivors.

Of the over 1200 sailors onboard the cruiser, more than 300 died in the initial attack. More than 800 sailors were dumped into the Pacific Ocean where after five days of suffering burns, drowning, dehydration, exhaustion and shark attacks, only 316 were rescued.

The story of the Indianapolis’ crew and the horror suffered was first made famous by Robert Shaw in the 1975 thriller “Jaws” where Shaw as Quint, described the shark attacks. “Sometimes the shark’d go away… sometimes he wouldn’t go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y’know the thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then… oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin’, the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they… rip you to pieces.”

The Indianapolis’ captain, Charles McVay III was court-martialed for the sinking. He was exonerated on one charge but was found negligent of putting his men in danger by not zig-zagging in the Philippine waters. This was despite testimony from the Japanese sub commander that zigzagging would have made no difference in the action. He was made the scapegoat for the entire affair.

The sinking sent shock waves thru the Navy and they delayed even releasing the information about its sinking until August 15 when the US announced that Japan had surrendered. But many of the facts surrounding the court-martial were quashed, which would have exonerated Captain McVay completely.

US Naval intelligence was aware of two Japanese submarines (I-58 and another) operating in the area, due to the ULTRA secret organization that had broken the Japanese codes.

McVay’s request for destroyer escorts was denied, despite the fact that his ship lacked the proper anti-submarine detection equipment. He was also not made aware that a Japanese sub had attacked and sunk a destroyer escort in the same area.

Shortly after the Indianapolis was sunk, the Navy decoded a Japanese message claiming that the I-58 had sunk an American battleship. That message was ignored.

There were also reports of the Indianapolis’ radiomen who claimed that they did, in fact, send off a distress call. The Navy claims to have never received any call from the stricken cruiser. However, unsubstantiated reports surfaced later that these too were ignored as a Japanese ruse to lure American rescue ships into the area.

At his court-martial, his defense lawyer didn’t contend two key parts of the prosecution. One that McVay’s orders were to zig-zag, “at his discretion. And the other was that the Navy contended that visibility was clear on the night of the sinking. McVay ordered the cessation of zig-zagging when visibility was so poor that crewmen couldn’t see each other only yards apart on deck. Even the Japanese sub commander who testified at the court-martial on December 3, 1945, after the end of the war, believed the charges were contrived.

The Indianapolis’ tragedy did, however, bring some major change on how the Navy’s reporting procedures for ships arrival and non-arrival. During World War II, these reports were not required.

The Indianapolis was steaming alone. Now any Navy ship with a crew of 500 or more sailors must have an escort. Lifesaving equipment, life rafts, life jackets have been vastly improved since then.

The men of the U.S.S. Indianapolis suffered and died needlessly on that day 72 years ago. Had they been given a proper destroyer escort which was needed and requested, perhaps no sailor would have lost his life. The fact that Captain McVay was made a scapegoat for the entire affair is wrong and was a blight on the fine history of the Navy during the Second World War.

Photo Courtesy: US Navy