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820 B-29’S DROP 6,632 TONS ON FOE; BATTLESHIP, PLANES STRIKE WAKE (8/2/45)
Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 8/2/45 | W.H. Lawrence, George E. Jones, Raymond Daniell, Dana Adams Schmidt, Herbert L. Matthews, more

Posted on 08/02/2015 6:27:56 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson

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TOPICS: Extended News
KEYWORDS: history; korea; milhist; realtime; worldwarii; ww2
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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.
1 posted on 08/02/2015 6:27:56 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
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To: Homer_J_Simpson
Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
China, 1941: Operation Ichigo, 1945 and Final Operations in the War
The Western Pacific: Japanese Homeland Dispositions August 1945 and Allied Plans for the Invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall)
2 posted on 08/02/2015 6:28:30 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
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To: Homer_J_Simpson
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The Nimitz Graybook

3 posted on 08/02/2015 6:29:03 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
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To: r9etb; PzLdr; dfwgator; Paisan; From many - one.; rockinqsranch; 2banana; henkster; meandog; ...
World Peak Blow (Lawrence) – 2-3
Wake is Attacked by Pacific Fleet (Jones) – 3-4
Guard, a Veteran, Kills 3 War Prisoners, Declares They Seemed Ready to Rush Him – 4
War News Summarized – 4
Night Session Last (Daniell) – 6
Laval Lodged in Paris Cell; British Call Him War Plotter (Schmidt) – 7
Leahy’s Letter to Petain – 7
Churchill Cheered in Commons; Laski Tells Social Program (Matthews) * – 8
Zionists Again Ask for Jewish State (by Sydney Gruson) – 9
Jet-Propelled Plane Flies Here from Dayton, 544 Mi., in 62 Min. – 10
Our Newest and Fastest Aircraft (photo) – 10
Latest War Casualties – 11
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 12

*The “Laski Tells Social Program” story was on a part of page 9 I didn’t save – HJS.

4 posted on 08/02/2015 6:30:26 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/7/02.htm

August 2nd, 1945 (THURSDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Plymouth: Truman has lunch with King George VI on board the battleship HMS RENOWN on his way back to the US.

Minesweeper HMS Mystic commissioned.
Submarine HMS Springer commissioned.

GERMANY: The Potsdam Conference ends.
Germany will be disarmed, divided and deprived of the power to make war by the decisions announced here today by the “Big Three” Allied powers. The conference’s report was signed by President Truman, Marshal Stalin and Clement Attlee, who succeeded Winston Churchill as prime minister after the British general election results were announced during the conference.

A council of foreign ministers is to be established to continue three-power co-operation, though much in the deliberations and the atmosphere of the conference suggested that this will be difficult.

The Big Three propose that cartels, as well as war industries, in Germany are to be broken up. Going some way to accept the controversial proposal of the US treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau Jr, the powers propose that the German economy should “give primary emphasis to agriculture” and “domestic industries.”

There is a striking difference between the treatments proposed for Italy and Germany. Italy is to be offered a peace treaty. The Germans are to be convinced “that they cannot escape responsibility for what they have brought upon themselves”. Allied reparations will be paid from German assets and major war criminals will be speedily brought to trial. Germany will lose territory to Poland and Russia.

Franco’s Spain, “having been founded with the support of the Axis powers”, will not be allowed to be a member of the United Nations. The signatories sent a message thanking Mr. Churchill for his contribution not only to the earlier stages of the conference but also to the war itself.

JAPAN: On Shimushu Island in the Kurile Islands, 5 US Eleventh Air Force B-24s visually bomb Kataoka Naval Base and 1 radar-bombs Kokutan Zaki and returns to base (600 miles or 966 km) on 3 engines.

B-29s attack Nagasaki and virtually annihilate Toyama, claiming to have sunk 26 ships.

Okinawa: Bad weather due to a typhoon cancels all Far East Air Forces missions against Japan.

While on routine patrol, the crew of a US Navy PV-1 Ventura of Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Fifty Two (VPB-152), based on Peleliu, spots a large oil slick with 30 survivors in the water. Further examination of the area reveals another group of 150 survivors. An immediate call for assistance is made, with PBY Catalinas and the high speed transport USS Bassett (APD-73) soon enroute to rescue the men. This is the remainder of the crew of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), sunk by the Japanese submarine HIJMS I-58, which had sunk without sending an SOS on 30 July, with the majority of the ship’s crew dying of exposure and shark attacks. The searches continue until 8 August.

The 316 survivors of the crew of the USS INDIANAPOLIS have been telling harrowing tales of their sinking. She was torpedoed at midnight three days ago and sank so quickly that many of the crew of 1,196 were trapped below decks and the radio officer could not send an SOS.

The chances of any of the missing 880 men being alive in the shark-infested Philippine Sea are remote.

SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC: Two USN destroyers, USS Charrette (DD-581) and USS Conner (DD-582), make radar contact with a ship which they track through the night, finding in the morning that it was the Japanese hospital ship Tachibana Maru. A search party from USS Charrette boards the ship and finds able-bodied troops and arms and ammunition in boxes marked with red crosses; the troops are made prisoners of war. A prize crew of 80 marines and sailors is placed aboard the Japanese ship and it is taken to Naval Advance Base Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies arriving on 6 August.

Off the Malay Peninsula, the USN submarine USS Bugara (SS-331), on her third war patrol, encounters a Japanese schooner manned by a Chinese crew being attacked by Malay pirates; the pirates fire at the submarine and then attempt to escape. The sub crew takes off the Chinese crew, sinks the schooner with gunfire and then pursues the pirates and disposes of them.

MARIANAS ISLANDS: Lieutenant General Nathan F Twining relieves Lieutenant General Curtis Emerson LeMay as Commanding General, Twentieth Air Force; LeMay is reassigned to the US Army Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific (USASTAF) as Chief of Staff.

CANADA: Destroyer HMCS Hamilton (ex HMS and USS Kalk) sold for scrapping in Baltimore.

U.S.A.: The top pop songs are (1) “The More I See You” by Dick Haymes; (2) “Dream” by The Pied Pipers’ (3) “Sentimental Journey” by Les Brown and his Orchestra with vocal by Doris Day: and (4) “Oklahoma Hills” by Jack Guthrie.


5 posted on 08/02/2015 6:31:34 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Many thanks for taking the time to post these incredible historical documents.


6 posted on 08/02/2015 6:37:22 AM PDT by Iron Munro (We may be paranoid but that doesn't mean they aren't really after us)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

I guess Kokura got lucky when the 509th didn’t visit them.


7 posted on 08/02/2015 6:53:19 AM PDT by Wally_Kalbacken
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

I too thank you for posting this. Excellent read...


8 posted on 08/02/2015 6:56:00 AM PDT by tired&retired (QRT)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

“Privateers” knocked down railroad bridge in Korea.

12rh Army Group dissolved! (Is that painful?)

P-80 Shooting Star makes its debut (not our first jet though)

Guard kills German POW’s... why would they rush him? Wouldn’t they have been going home soon? Their war was pretty much over.

page-8- Britons all want to go on holiday on the same day apparently.

Commies back labour... of course they do.


9 posted on 08/02/2015 7:26:29 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Jet engines look like a fad that will die out soon enough.


10 posted on 08/02/2015 7:28:25 AM PDT by Rebelbase ( NASCAR 2015: "Bootlegger to boot licker"--FReeper Crim)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Note this etherit reference says no SOS which is not true. But we won’t know this till declassification. I wonder what is going through the minds of those that heard it but disregarded?

Search goes on for another 6 days.


While on routine patrol, the crew of a US Navy PV-1 Ventura of Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Fifty Two (VPB-152), based on Peleliu, spots a large oil slick with 30 survivors in the water. Further examination of the area reveals another group of 150 survivors. An immediate call for assistance is made, with PBY Catalinas and the high speed transport USS Bassett (APD-73) soon enroute to rescue the men. This is the remainder of the crew of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), sunk by the Japanese submarine HIJMS I-58, which had sunk without sending an SOS on 30 July, with the majority of the ship’s crew dying of exposure and shark attacks. The searches continue until 8 August.

The 316 survivors of the crew of the USS INDIANAPOLIS have been telling harrowing tales of their sinking. She was torpedoed at midnight three days ago and sank so quickly that many of the crew of 1,196 were trapped below decks and the radio officer could not send an SOS.

The chances of any of the missing 880 men being alive in the shark-infested Philippine Sea are remote.


11 posted on 08/02/2015 7:34:39 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Bombing Korea


We don’t think about Korea much when we think of WWII. Note we landed troops there in Aug of 45.

http://ww2db.com/country/korea

Korea was declared a Japanese protectorate per the Eulsa Treaty of 1905, and on 22 Aug 1910 it was annexed into Japanese borders with the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty.

76 aristocratic Koreans were given Japanese peerage titles (all of whom were charged with treason after the war), while several princes of the Korean royal family married Japanese princesses.

During the final chapters of WW2, Russian troops crossed into Korean territory after overrunning northeastern China. After Japan surrendered on 15 Aug 1945, American troops landed in southern Korea to limit Soviet influence.


12 posted on 08/02/2015 7:41:03 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

And more on Korea:

http://countrystudies.us/south-korea/8.htm

The landing of Soviet forces, however, compelled the United States government to improvise a formula for Korea. Unless an agreement were reached, the Soviets could very well occupy the entire peninsula and place Korea under their control. Thus, on August 15, 1945, President Harry S Truman proposed to Stalin the division of Korea at the thirty-eighth parallel.

on December 7, 1945, and decided to establish a trusteeship for a five-year period, during which a Korean provisional government would prepare for full independence; they also agreed to form a joint United States-Soviet commission to assist in organizing a single “provisional Korean democratic government.” The trusteeship proposal was immediately opposed by nearly all Koreans,

The Soviet insistence that only those “democratic” parties and social organizations upholding the trusteeship plan be allowed to participate in the formation of an all-Korean government was unacceptable to the United States. The United States argued that the Soviet formula, if accepted, would put the communists in controlling positions throughout Korea.


13 posted on 08/02/2015 7:46:12 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

And one perspective on how this situation in Korea “ends” in 1953:

http://www.ldnews.com/opinion/ci_28550401/eisenhowers-wwii-experience-ends-korean-war

But Eisenhower, a lifelong military man with an ever-growing understanding of civilian politics, wasn’t so easily cowed. He quickly sized Rhee up as a despot, and he thought Clark’s plan was a gamble not worth taking, so he said no, and the war ended in a stalemate.


14 posted on 08/02/2015 7:50:28 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Pierre Laval


In review this, there is good and bad. He had to choose between Hitler or Russia. In some ways Germany may have been a better choice than communism. Hitler was not without support. He was a politician that tried to appease everybody and ended up appeasing nobody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval

Laval began his career as a socialist, but over time drifted far to the right.

........

In a speech broadcast on the Normandy landings’ D-day, he appealed to the nation:

You are not in the war. You must not take part in the fighting. If you do not observe this rule, if you show proof of indiscipline, you will provoke reprisals the harshness of which the government would be powerless to moderate. You would suffer, both physically and materially, and you would add to your country’s misfortunes. You will refuse to heed the insidious appeals, which will be addressed to you. Those who ask you to stop work or invite you to revolt are the enemies of our country. You will refuse to aggravate the foreign war on our soil with the horror of civil war.... At this moment fraught with drama, when the war has been carried on to our territory, show by your worthy and disciplined attitude that you are thinking of France and only of her.”[41]

A few months later, he was arrested by the Germans and transported to Belfort.

..............................

Laval’s trial began at 1:30 pm on Thursday, 4 October 1945. He was charged with plotting against the security of the State and intelligence (collaboration) with the enemy. He had three defence lawyers (Jaques Baraduc, Albert Naud, and Yves-Frédéric Jaffré). None of his lawyers had ever met him before. He saw most of Jaffré, who sat with him, talked, listened and took down notes that he wanted to dictate. Baraduc, who quickly became convinced of Laval’s innocence, kept contact with the Chambruns and at first shared their conviction that Laval would be acquitted or at most receive a sentence of temporary exile. Naud, who had been a member of the Resistance, believed Laval to be guilty and urged him to plead that he had made grave errors but had acted under constraint. Laval would not listen to him; he was convinced that he was innocent and could prove it. “He acted”, said Naud, “as if his career, not his life, was at stake.”[48]

All three of his lawyers declined to be in court to hear the reading of the formal charges, saying “We fear that the haste which has been employed to open the hearings is inspired, not by judicial preoccupations, but motivated by political considerations.” In lieu of attending the hearing, they sent letters stating the shortcomings and asked to be discharged from the task of defending Laval.[49]


15 posted on 08/02/2015 8:17:50 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC: Two USN destroyers, USS Charrette (DD-581) and USS Conner (DD-582), make radar contact with a ship which they track through the night, finding in the morning that it was the Japanese hospital ship Tachibana Maru. A search party from USS Charrette boards the ship and finds able-bodied troops and arms and ammunition in boxes marked with red crosses; the troops are made prisoners of war. A prize crew of 80 marines and sailors is placed aboard the Japanese ship and it is taken to Naval Advance Base Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies arriving on 6 August.


http://donmooreswartales.com/2012/01/02/harry-allcroft/

“We didn’t’ start opening the boxes aboard the Tachibana Maru until the prisoners were disposed of ashore. We didn’t know what was in those boxes and neither did the prisoners who were sleeping on them.”

Why didn’t their Japanese prisoners examine the contents of the boxes before they made port and make a bid to recapture the ship?


16 posted on 08/02/2015 8:30:00 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Medical Report on the Tachibana Maru:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/danfs/DD/dd581-mo-report.html

All patients lay with eyes closed while the inspecting party was passing thru the wards, no doubt previously instructed to look as sick as possible. No objections were voiced when the inspection party pried into several large boxes marked with red crosses and labeled medical supplies. These were found to contain thousands of ampoules of vitamin preparations. As the inspection progressed the Japanese medical officer became noticeably nervous and it was with relief that our party climbed out of the holds and up to the relative security of the bridge.
........
A total of thirty-three (33) medical corpsmen were aboard. Hardly an impressive staff to care for over 1500 patients.
.......
While approaching and still several hundred yards away, the stench from the TACHIBANA MARU was very much in evidence. Urine and feces from cats and monkeys, of which there were numbers aboard, as well as excrement from the patients and crew were noted in the scuppers. There were two large heads on the port side of the ship aft, one on the main deck and one on the first platform deck. Many of the toilets were inoperable and the urinals had no flushing systems. Evidently they had not been cleaned for months and their odor was overpowering.
..........................
2. Conditions in the galley were in keeping with the rest of the ship. The only cooking facilities were large kettles heated by steam from the engine room. Roaches two inches long swarmed over everything and no attempt was made to curb them. Rats nested in the raw rice bins and monkeys and cats played in them.
....................
4. By our standards the TACHIBANA MARU resembled a hospital ship only in the respect that she was marked as one.


17 posted on 08/02/2015 8:38:09 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

A video of the Tachibana Maru capture:

http://www.spoilsofwar.talkingrelics.com/

At 5:58 the US Flag is raised above the Japanese Flag. I would have assumed the Jap flag would have been removed but it is a statement with it above.

at 10:30 the boxes are opened. Another report says 30 tons of ammo and weapons.


18 posted on 08/02/2015 8:45:08 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Wow, this story has quite a few characters:

Off the Malay Peninsula, the USN submarine USS Bugara (SS-331), on her third war patrol, encounters a Japanese schooner manned by a Chinese crew being attacked by Malay pirates; the pirates fire at the submarine and then attempt to escape. The sub crew takes off the Chinese crew, sinks the schooner with gunfire and then pursues the pirates and disposes of them.

http://www.bugara.net/history.htm

Bugara began life as a “thick-skinned” Balao Class submarine. That is, her pressure hull was 3/16-inch thicker than her predecessor, the Gato. That extra thickness allowed Bugara to dive 100 feet deeper than Gato.

Summer 1947

Bugara, in company with USS Bergall (SS-320) and USS Brill (SS-330) made a coordinated training attack on USS Iowa (BB-61). The submarines intercepted the battleship as she made a high-speed run through the Alenuihaha Channel between the islands of Maui and Hawaii. Although the battleship enjoyed land-based air cover and made several radical course changes in an attempt to throw off the pursuers, the submarines still achieved four “successful” attacks.


19 posted on 08/02/2015 8:57:08 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Let’s see..... only 5 more days.

For weeks now Japan has been burning, but they have no clue. There is no hint of the coming obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Meanwhile in New York, summer dresses are all on sale for $15 and there is a picture of a P-80 jet.

I didn’t know of such an air plane’s existence in 1945


20 posted on 08/02/2015 9:00:15 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12, 73, ..... No peace? then no peace!)
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