http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/21.htm
May 21st, 1945 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Blackpool: The Labour Party votes to withdraw its support from the coalition government.
Corvette HMCS Stellarton and frigate HMCS Sea Cliff departed Londonderry to join Convoy ON-304.
HMC MTB 727 and 797 paid off.
Minesweeper HMS Michael commissioned.
GERMANY: Belsen: By order of the British, the last remaining hut of the concentration camp is burnt to the ground.
Göring is transferred from Augsburg PoW camp to the Palace Hotel at Mondorf, where he joins other senior Nazis awaiting interrogation.
SOUTH AFRICA: Frigate SAS Transvaal commissioned.
SYRIA: Damascus: Fresh violence in the Middle East seems likely in the wake of decisions today by Syria and Lebanon to break off negotiations with France. Arab nationalists are attempting to assert their claims for independence, but France has so far seemed to determined to maintain its hold on the Levant through indirect rule. In 1941, when the Free French liberated Syria and Lebanon from Vichy, they offered independence. Since then limited self-government, with France controlling defence and external affairs, has been permitted, but attempts to attain full independence have been countered by French imperial troops.
JAPAN: The US III Corps pushes hard on Okinawa. The Japanese begin to pull back from the Shuri Line.
Bonin Islands; Iwo Jima: Three United States’ serviceman are killed and eleven injured when two Japanese bombers raid the island at night. Both aircraft are shot down by flak.
U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Dyess commissioned.
Destroyer USS William C Lawe launched.
Another example of “can’t imagine the N.Y. Times doing this today”: The title over the page 1 photo.
Interesting article on Japanese pilots being easy marks. This has been the case for some time already, but as usual the military has waited for an period of time to publicly admit it.
The decline in Japanese pilot skill was an inevitable result of how they went to war. When war began with the United States, Japanese pilots were highly trained and more skilled and experienced and had better planes than their American opponents. But the Japanese assumed their pilots were so good they would live forever, and didn’t factor in a prolonged war of attrition. They were short of replacement pilots and replacement aircraft, both on land and on carrier flight decks.
The Japanese attempt to create a replacement pilot program suffered from a number shortcomings. First, it was created too late, while the war was in progress, and the air groups at the front needed pilots NOW, not later. Second, because of the need to keep force levels up, they dipped into the replacement pool before the pilots had completed their training. Third, the numbers of training planes was low because the limited Japanese production had to go to the front (same issue as with pilots). Fourth, the long shipping distances for oil products from the NEI to Japan to Rabaul used up so much limited tanker space that the Japanese weren’t able to keep up stocks of aviation fuel in the home islands to train the pilots.
The result was American pilots came into battle better trained and more experienced, with better aircraft, and lived longer than their Japanese counterparts, who were getting less and less proficient.
The noticeable decline in quality began in the Solomons, where the campaign of continuous air attrition began. As their pilots were killed off, the Japanese had to scramble to replace them. At one point, for Yamamoto’s Operation “I-Go,” they emptied the carriers, and sent the pilots and planes to Rabaul to fight off the airfields there. After the planes were shot down and the pilots lost, they had carriers with no planes. That was still the situation months later when the Americans began operations in the Gilberts, Marshall and Caroline Islands. The invasions of Kwajalein and the destruction of Truk were unopposed by the IJN, because the carriers were impotent without planes and pilots.
The vicious downward cycle of pilot quality was never resolved, and by the invasion of Leyte in October 1944, the Japanese accepted their reality; any pilot going up against the Americans was on a suicide mission. So the Japanese with a rare dose of realism accepted their reality, and the kamikaze was born.
Regards the short article on page 5 on improvised armor for Sherman tanks.
The Marines had been adding 2 x 12 oak planks to the side of their Sherman’s since the Mariannas campaigns. The planks were attached to angle iron that had been welded to the side of the tank. The oak planks served to defeat the Japanese magnetic anti tanks and by being attached to the angle iron a dead space was created to help defeat any satchel type charges that might be placed or held against the planks.
Some of M4s had large spikes or cages welded around the driver hatches to help defeat anti armor charges that might be thrown up onto the Sherman. The armor around the hatches tended to be thinner than normal and these countermeasures served to help defeat the anti armor charges.
Of course sections of track, bogie wheels, oak planks and anything else that could be scrounged were often welded or attached to the front of the Sherman to help protect against Jap anti-tank fire.
One other comment on Okinawa the Marine had mostly M4A3 Shermans (gasoline) with the sloped glacis plate along with a few of the M4A2(diesel) version. The Army tank battalions were equipped with the cast composite hulls. The Marine tanks would usually shrug off the Japanese anti tank rounds. The Army tanks on the other hand were consistently penetrated by the Jap anti tank guns.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/US/M4_Sherman.php scroll down about half way to find illustrations of Marine tanks King Kong and Jungle Jim with the oak planks.
I have an interesting book entitled “Marine Tank Battles of World War II. Who knew,eh? Short version of the book the Marines used the tanks as mobile pillboxes in the infantry support role mainly. There were a few encounters with Japanese armor and the Japanese always fared very badly when taking on Shermans. The best of the Jap tanks was roughly equivalent to early versions of the M3 Stuart.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
“San Francisco Outlook (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 11”
You look at the text and want to scream, “Don’t do it! PLEASE! DON’T DO IT!!!!!” ;)