Posted on 05/29/2015 4:12:31 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
* Your humble facilitator actually served on one of those hospital ships, after a fashion. The U.S.S. Repose was built in 1943 and, converted to a hospital ship, commissioned 26 May 1945. After service in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, she was decommissioned in 1970 and docked at Long Beach Naval Station. With engine rooms sealed she served as an annex to the Long Beach Naval Hospital, where I was stationed as a hospital corpsman. I did frequent duty on the Repose Annex. That was the closest I came to the bounding main – HJS.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/29.htm
May 29th, 1945 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: U-985 (Type VIIC) which had been heavily damaged on 15 Nov, 1944 at Lister by mine, returned to Kristiansand and taken out of service, is on this day in 1945, transferred from Kristiansand-S to Loch Ryan, Scotland for Operation Deadlight
U-4706 (Type XXIII) is on this day in 1945 transferred from Kristiansand Süd, Norway to Loch Ryan, Scotland and given a British pennant number. Subsequently it is transferred to Norway in October 1948, to become the KNM Knerter. Used for storage by the Royal Norwegian Yacht Club from 14 Apr 1950. Stricken in 1954 and broken up. (Alex Gordon)
HMCS Fennel arrived Greenock with her last convoy.
HMCS Annan, Loch Achamalt and Loch Morlich departed Halifax for Sheerness and return to RN.
Repair ship HMS Tarbat Ness launched.
Frigate HMS St Austell Bay commissioned.
BELGIUM: Brussels: Belgian socialists call for the abdication of King Leopold, who agreed to surrender to the Germans in 1940.
GERMANY: During the night PFC Jack A. McHenry, of the 38th Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division, was on guard duty at Post 13, a bridge on the Mulde River in Saxony. On the opposite side of the river were elements of the Red Army. The primary purpose of the guards was to stop German refugees attempting to escape from the Soviet occupied area. At about 0100 hours, his partner went to awaken their relief. When his partner and their relief returned, McHenry was gone. There was no sign of struggle, no blood on the ground, etc. At that point, McHenry’s Platoon LT organized a search party and combed both sides of the river until daybreak, using peep lights and a number of troops.
The next morning, the Battalion C.O. went across the river and met with the Russian C.O., a Major, who agreed to help search for McHenry. No success was had in locating McHenry.
Two days later, a swollen and water-logged body was seen up river from the bridge. Two soldiers went after it in a row boat. It was so heavy that it threatened to swamp the boat when they tried to pull the body aboard, so instead they put a rope around it and towed it to shore. It turned out to be PFC McHenry. An autopsy was performed, and the cause of death was found to be drowning, although a very large lump on McHenry’s head was also noted.
The investigation of McHenry’s death was forwarded up the chain for approval, and at the Division level, the cause of the death was attributed to ‘Werewolf’ partisans said to be active in the area. At the time, the 38th AIB had suffered some vandalism (nails placed under vehicle tires, especially) but no casualties had been incurred. As the report went further up the chain, the ‘Werewolf’ cause was confirmed. (Bill Beigel, Personalized WW2 Historical Research Torrance, California)
However, in interviewing a number of survivors from the 38th, a different story emerges. In spite of orders to the contrary, there was a great deal of trading going on between US and Red Army troops at the bridge over the Mulde (and elsewhere, I’m sure). The consensus of the troops I interviewed was that McHenry was an “operator”, and may have tried to tried to drive a hard bargain with a Russian(s) one time too many. They believed that McHenry was killed, then, by a Red Army soldier, but that in order to avoid an “incident” with the Soviets, “Werewolf” was blamed instead.
As a note, McHenry had no living next of kin, and when the War Dept. began returning the remains of Americans in 1947, no one could be found to determine if he would remain overseas or be returned home (San Francisco, CA). In the end, the Army made an administrative decision, and interred McHenry at Margraten. (William L. Beigel)
NORWAY: The Nobel-prize-winning author Knut Hamsun is arrested for allegedly collaborating with the Nazis.
SYRIA: French forces shell Hama and Damascus, and Syrian gendarmes attack French military posts.
JAPAN: Admiral Ozawa is named to replace Admiral Toyodo as Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet for the Imperial Japanese Navy.
US Superfortress bombers drop incendiaries on Yokohama, burning 85% of the port area.
In the latest raids 16.8 square miles of Tokyo were gutted, making a total of some 50 square miles burnt out. Millions have fled to the countryside, abandoning blitzed war-production factories. Civilian morale has slumped profoundly.
The B-29s are also sowing mines in the Inland Sea and Shimonoseki Strait with startling results; they are sinking more merchant tonnage than the US submarines and helping to cut Japan off totally from imported food and vital materials. In order to intensify the USAAF aerial onslaught to an intolerable level, yet more B-29s have been ordered to the Far East from India.
But Allies preparations for the invasion of Japan are under way. On past experience of Japanese military fanaticism this could result in much bloodshed. Yet air force chiefs believe that with enough bombs and aircraft, Japan could be forced into unconditional surrender without an invasion.
The USAAF’s Twentieth Air Force in the Mariana Islands flies Mission 186: 454 B-29 Superfortresses, escorted by 101 P-51s from the VII Fighter Command for the first time on a fire-bomb raid, bomb Yokohama with incendiaries and destroy the main business district (a third of the city’s area) along the waterfront; the burned out area of Yokohama now amounts to almost 9 square miles (23.3 square km); about 150 Japanese fighters attack the formations; the B-29s claim six fighters and the P-51s claim 26-9-23: seven B-29s and three P-51s are lost.
Headquarters of the USAAF’s 509th Composite Group arrives at North Field, Tinian Island from the US. The 509th is the unit that will drop two atomic bombs on Japan.
Mines previously laid by B-29 Superfortresses sink a Japanese cargo vessel and damage an army cargo vessel and a freighter off Japan.
Off Okinawa, Japanese kamikazes are again active and strike two ships:
- The destroyer USS Shubrick (DD-639) is attacked by two aircraft at 0010 hours; one crashes the ship. The bomb carried by the plane blew a 30-foot (9.1 m) hole in the starboard side, and further damage was done when one of the ship’s depth charges exploded. All wounded and unnecessary personnel were removed in anticipation that the ship would sink but the crew finally controlled the flooding, and Shubrick was towed to Kerama Retto. The ship lost 35 men killed and missing, and 25 wounded in the attack.
- The high-speed transport USS Tatum (APD-81, ex DE-789) is attacked by four aircraft at dusk. One aircraft is shot down but when it strikes the water, its bomb skips off the water and strikes the underside of a gun sponson and pierces the ship’s hull and two of her longitudinal bulkheads. The dud comes to rest with its nose protruding 8-inches (20.3 cm) into a passageway. The gunners on the ship shoot down the second and third aircraft before the fourth attacks. They also shoot down the fourth which crashes 30-feet (9.1 m) off her port bow; the bomb the aircraft was carrying explodes underwater and rocks the ship but causes no damage. Tatum later takes aboard a bomb disposal officer and the bomb is removed and dumped overboard 2 miles (3.2 km) offshore.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The first combat mission by the Consolidated B-32 is carried out by two aircraft of the 312th Bombardment Group, who perform a ground support mission.
U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Minivet commissioned.
Destroyer USS Herbert J Thomas commissioned.
Note the recent successes of the Nationalist Chinese, after we have been told for years that the Nationalists will not fight.
“Marines captures Shuri Castle. Japs were found swimming in the moat.”
Sounds positively Medieval there! It pays to study your historical military tactics thoroughly, as both sides did at the time...some more than others...
Maybe they just need some better bombs.
Something tells me the Japanese were doing more floating than swimming when the Marines found them.
May 13: Americans Enter Naha Suburbs
May 18: Marines Win Foothold in Naha
May 22: Marines at Naha Repel Foe
May 24: Marines in Corner of Naha
Today: Marines Occupy Two-Thirds of Naha
Taking a city from an entrenched, determined enemy is a tricky business.
I had the identical macabre thought.
Yeah. Like some bombs that really, really go BOOM.
As Field Marshal Paulus found out in Stalingrad.
From everything I have read, including later accounts of what the senior Japanese leadership were doing, the only way to accomplish a surrender without an invasion would have been to abandon unconditional surrender and give Japan the terms they were seeking.
That is, unless someone could come up with those "better bombs."
Maybe the people would have risen up to demand surrender, but it doesn't seem to have beeen in their nature in 1945.
They were not going to rise up in open rebellion. It’s not in their nature, although some Japanese and American leaders were concerned that the Japanese were in a similar situation to Russia in 1917 and feared a communist revolution. More likely was a continuation of what was already happening. The Japanese population would not rise up, but they weren’t going to work on the war effort either. It’s certainly not apparent from the fighting on Okinawa right now, and the army would certainly have fought the same way on Kyushu.
But the civilians were quitting. There wasn’t anything meaningful for them to do for the war effort anyway. The cities were burned out, factory work had ceased, and no raw materials were available.
That civilian army armed with obsolete weapons and pitchforks was not gonna happen.
So you don't think the idea of looking at the Iwo Jima and Okinawa casualty rates and extrapolating them to an invasion of the home islands is a realistic exercise?
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