Posted on 05/28/2015 4:45:53 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Major General H.W. Blakeley, USA, Ret., 32d Infantry Division World War II
Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers
Thank you for your minute of March 27 about jet-propelled aircraft.
I note that instead of the sixty Meteor IIIs promised by the end of March only thirty-five have been produced, and that we shall only make fifty Vampires this year, although some 150 of the Goblin engines for these will be available. Can we not get enough jet aircraft to equip a few squadrons to obtain operational experience in the war against Japan?
I hope that the performance of the Rolls-Royce Nene will be equal to its promise. If it is it will be a remarkable engine.
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/28.htm
May 28th, 1945 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The Royal Navy announces the abolition of convoys in the Atlantic, Indian and Arctic Oceans.
GERMANY: Hamburg: William Joyce, nicknamed “Lord Haw-Haw” and well known for his propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis throughout the war, has been captured in a wood between here and the Danish frontier. His voice, was his downfall. He boldly went up to two British officers collecting wood for a fire and started talking to them in German. Then he spoke English and they spotted the upper-class accent made famous by his “Jairmany calling” broadcasts.
When challenged Joyce moved his hand to his pocket, and one of the officers shot him in the thigh. He was later found to be carrying a fake German passport in the name of Hansen.
JAPAN: Okinawa: US forces reportedly occupy two-thirds of Naha.
Off Okinawa, the Japanese wage their last strong air effort and sink one ship and damage five others:
- The destroyer USS Drexler (DD-741) is attacked by two kamikazes at 0700 hours. One aircraft is shot down and the second tries to crash USS Lowry (DD-770) and failing, stumbled into Drexler, cutting off all power and starting large gasoline fires. At 0703 hours, another suicider crashed in flames into Drexler’s superstructure resulting in a tremendous explosion and the destroyer rolled on her starboard side and sank stern first in less than a minute after the second hit. Because of the speed with which she sank, casualties were heavy: 168 dead and 52 wounded.
- While unloading cargo at 0730 hours, the attack transport USS Sandoval (APA-194) is attacked by a kamikaze which crashes into the portside of the wheelhouse. Five men are killed and 29 wounded; three of the latter died later. Flames lit the bridge, central fire control was lost and radar and interior communications were knocked out. The fire on the bridge was extinguished by 0830 and central fire control was regained after 0900 hours.
- The large support landing craft LCS(L)-119 is damaged by a kamikaze.
- The armed U.S. freighter SS Mary A. Livermore is hit by a kamikaze which kills four sailors and seven merchant sailors.
- The armed U.S. freighter SS Brown Victory is hit by a kamikaze off Ie Shima killing three sailors and one merchant sailor.
- The armed U.S. freighter SS Josiah Snelling is also hit by a kamikaze. Gunfire by the Armed Guard deflect the plane from hitting a vital part of the ship and nobody is killed.
The USAAF’s Twentieth Air Force dispatches fighters from Iwo Jima Island to hit Kasumigaura, Japan and its airfield with six planes claimed destroyed and 40+ damaged and P-47s fly heckler strikes against Kyushu during the night of 28/29 May.
Mines previously laid by B-29 Superfortresses sink a Japanese transport and damage a coast defence vessel, two freighters and a fishing boat in Japanese waters.
CANADA: HMCS Beacon Hill departed Greenock for Halifax.
U.S.A.:
Destroyer USS Bausell laid down.
Destroyer USS Henderson launched.
My dad was there, manning an antiaircraft position at the base of the Maryland’s #3 turret, when a Kamikaze penetrated the air defenses and struck the top of that turret.
That was back on April 7, during the battle in which Yamato was sunk. You can read about it on our April 8 post . Maryland would be the "heavy unit" reported as damaged.
Thanks.
I’ve always thought that the Army had the best means of dealing with PTSD at the end of World War 2. Let the combat veterans stay with their units and have a big binge. They can process what they’ve been through together, and when they are done they will be in better shape to return to civilian life.
It’s too bad that public pressure, ignorant and selfish as usual, insists that the combat veterans come home “right away.” If the families of these guys really loved them, they would understand the value of leaving them in theater with their comrades for a while. And under circumstances like this where they can blow off steam and vent.
Even without the A bomb, Japan never had a chance after Germany fell.
The Allies won on a land mass about 1000 times the size of Japan — and all those resource raced to the Pacific, where we were winning already anyway.
The A Bomb kept us from having to destroy Japan one foot and one soldier at a time.
I find a common thread among war veterans: an extreme reluctance to talk about their experiences in later years. No doubt part of that is normal male taciturnity, but I suspect--without knowing, of course--that much or even the bulk of it is the overwhelmingly vivid horror they experienced, which cannot ever be fully processed. That stays with them forever, no matter how much they vent and blow off steam. To talk about it is to relive it, which they naturally recoil from doing.
The 32nd’s offensive up the Vila Verde has been one hell of a fight.
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