PEAK OF OKINAWA RIDGE WON; SCORES OF FOE SURRENDER; 520 B-29’S SMASH AT OSAKA (6/15/45)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 6/15/45 | W.H. Lawrence, Warren Moscow, Lindesay Parrott, John MacCormac, Dana Adams Schmidt, Sidney Shalett

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles and the occasional radio broadcast delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Also visit our general discussion thread.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Southern Okinawa: Naha-Shuri-Yonabaru, 1945 – Tenth Army Operations, 10 May-30 June 1945
Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands, 1945: Japanese Thirty Second Army Defensive Dispositions, 1 April 1945
Luzon, P.I., 1941: Final Operations on Luzon, 3 February-20 July 1945
Southeast Asia, 1941: Final Allied Offensives in the Southwest Pacific Area 19 February-1 July 1945
China, 1941: Operation Ichigo, 1945 and Final Operations in the War

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The Nimitz Graybook

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from May 31.

John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The excerpt on the left is continued from June 9. The one on the right is continued from yesterday.

Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy

[Homer_J_Simpson]

This is a long (50:20) recording of a Tokyo Rose broadcast but the sound quality is poor so I won’t give it its own thread.

The Zero Hour

[Homer_J_Simpson]

96th Seizes Hill – 2-3
Wild Oroku Finale Staged by Enemy (Lawrence) – 3
Marines in Graveyard Watch on Okinawa (photo) – 3
Southern Landing Vetoed on Okinawa – 4
3,000-Ton Air Blow at Japan Disclosed by Arnold in Guam (Moscow) – 4-5
War News Summarized – 5
Australians Capture Brunei In Rapid Borneo Advance (Parrott) – 6
British Ask India to Plan Self-Rule in Revised Council (MacCormac) – 6-7
Millions in City to See Eisenhower – 7-8
Eisenhower Gets Top French Honor (Schmidt) – 8-9
Here the General is Just ‘Grandpa’ (photo) – 9
Patton Talks War Tanks and Horses (Shalett) – 10
Churchill Invites Attlee to Parley (by Clifton Daniel) – 10
Industry’s Role in the War Decisive (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 12
The Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 13
The Pacific Army Chief on Borneo (photo) – 13
Books of the Times (by Orville Prescott) – 14

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/5/15.htm

June 15th, 1945 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: London: King George VI officially dissolves a parliament that has lasted for nine and a half years.

Destroyer HMS Armada adopted by the town of Brentwood, Essex.

Frigate HMS St Brides Bay commissioned.

GERMANY: Hamburg: British troops capture the former foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop”>Ribbentrop.
JAPAN: The USAAF’s XXI Bomber Command based in the Mariana Islands flies two missions.

Mission 203: 444 B-29s fly an incendiary mission against the Osaka-Amagasaki urban area, ending a month of concentrated fire raids against large Japanese cities; an additional 1.9 square miles (4.9 square km) of Osaka and 0.59 square miles (1.5 square km) of Amagasaki are burned out; 25 other B-29s hit alternate targets; 2 B-29s are lost. 123 P-51s are dispatched as escort but 380 miles (612 km) from Iwo Jima the fighters are warned by a weather plane of a towering front over Japan and they abort the mission; 1 P-51 is lost.

Mission 204: During the night of 15/16 June, 30 B-29s mine Shimonoseki Strait and waters around Fukuoka, Karatsu, and Fushiki, Japan.

FORMOSA: Two B-32s dropped sixteen 2,000 pound (907 kg) bombs on a sugar mill at Taito, Formosa.

BORNEO: The Australian 9th Division met no opposition when it landed at Brunei Bay and on Labuan and Muara islands, after a heavy air and naval bombardment, five days ago.

Brunei Bay is the best harbour on the north-west coast of Borneo, and the US chiefs of staff proposed it as an advance base for the British Pacific Fleet. The British argued that it was too far from the main theatre of operations and was in any case unlikely to be ready in time. Developing the naval base would be a waste of construction effort, they said, especially as it could not be made ready until the end of the year - and by then Singapore might have been recaptured. The operation has gone ahead nonetheless, using Australian troops supported by the US Seventh Fleet and the Royal Australian First Tactical Air Force.

A brigade of the 9th Division quickly occupied Labuan Island and secured the port on 10 June. By the end of the day it had also occupied the airport. Surviving Japanese withdrew into a pocket. Advancing against slight resistance, the Australians captured Brunei Town on 13 June and today reported the capture of the islands of Labuan and Muara.

CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Buctouche and Cobourg paid off Sorel, Province of Quebec.

803 (Fighter) Sqn reformed with 25 Supermarine Seafire LIII, aircraft, at RNAS Arbroth for HMCS WARRIOR(31).

U.S.A.: The US Navy establishes Experimental Development Squadron Two Hundred (XVF-200) and Experimental Utility Squadron Twenty Five (XVJ-25) at Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine, to provide, under the direct operational control of Commander-In-Chief (COMINCH, flight facilities for evaluating and testing tactics, procedure, and equipment for use in special defence tasks particularly those concerned with defence against the Kamikaze.

Submarine USS Volador laid down.

[Mikey_1962]

It seems that almost every day the NYT had a photo or article about Patton. In this issue both. This has been going on for years.

The constantly call the 3rd Army Patton's 3rd Army.

He was a great leader but so was Doolittle and Omar Bradley.

Were they promoting Patton for political office?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I’m guessing it is because he sold newspapers.

[alfa6]

Regards the B-32 it was ordered as a back up to the B-29. Only 1 squadron saw limited service in the closing days of WW-2.

Wiki entry here...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_B-32_Dominator

You will have to do the copy paste gig as I am forgetting something to make a linkee work :-(

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Mikey_1962]

I’m guessing it is because he sold newspapers.

Maybe. But my Father served in the Third Army and to this day calls it Patton's Third Army.

He said he thought Patton was going to run for President.

[chajin]

I asked a few days ago why there wasn’t a landing on the southern tip of Okinawa to pincer the Japanese into the mountain where they could be bombed. The article on 4 answered my question—which also means it was a question a lot of people were asking at the time.

[henkster]

Hanson Baldwin:

“One major lesson-indeed the major lesson-of this war is plain; yet, so far, it has been overlooked in Washington. It should be stated and restated, emphasized and re-emphasized, so that Americans will never forget.

The war against German was won, the war against Japan is being won, because of the superiority of the industry of he United States. The industrial strength of America has been the dominating and decisive factor in this war.”

America forgot.

[chajin]

Well, here's what happened to those grandsons...

"George Patton Waters, who served in the Navy for five years reaching the rank of Lieutenant. His brother, John K. Waters Jr., served in the Army for 15 years and reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel." A Tradition of Leadership throughout the Patton Family Tree

[Mikey_1962]

I looked that up too!

Every time they write about an Individual act of bravery I google the name.

[Seizethecarp]

I wonder how/if that assembly line was repurposed after the B-32 was cancelled. I hate to see stuff go to waste!

[Hebrews 11:6]

Thanks anyway for the Wiki resource.

For a link refresher, here's the current HTML Sandbox:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3242857/posts

I bookmarked it because I can never remember that "a href" stuff.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Just noticed a curious detail: the top picture you posted, the side-view in-flight, clearly shows a machine gun protruding from the nose along with windows above it. But both the assembly-line plane and the one from below with open bomb-bay doors seem not to have those features. I’m presuming combat aircraft had the full complement of guns.

[colorado tanker]

A Mauldin cartoon apropos to this stage of the war in Europe: