Posted on 05/27/2022 8:12:14 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Where our Sailors Rest.
“If you ever want to sleep with a blonde again, you had better shoot down these bastards as soon as they come up” – a destroyer captain motivates his exhausted crew shortly before a kamikaze attack. The sea-battle toll for Okinawa that ended on June 21st 1945 was 36 U.S. warships sunk and 368 damaged. Almost 5,000 sailors were killed in action and another 5,000 wounded.
War naturally conjures images of courageous infantrymen. Gettysburg, Flanders Fields and not the Coral Sea or Leyte Gulf.
Too often forgotten are the heroic Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine sailors felled at sea. It’s understandable; there are no battlefield memorials, no marked graves, no poppies, no flags. Presidents and dignitaries visit Normandy and not Midway or Iron Bottom Sound. Few are the photo memoirs of engineering room slaughter-by-steam, of those who inhaled fire, of those blown overboard, of those who survived the battle only to die of burns, thirst, or sharks.
Hoses washed the remains of many off their ships. Some had proper burials. Did boot camp recruits know their Navy-issue hammocks did double duty as burial shrouds? I don’t know, but should your Memorial Day weekend find you on an Atlantic, Pacific, or Gulf of Mexico beach, you are graveside. Take time to say a few words of thanks.
Amen, Brother!
Submarine service had the highest death rate of any distinct military unit during WWII.
The dangers faced by submariners during World War II are apparent in the high attrition rates. According to one estimate, 1,280 submarines were lost in action or by accident during the Second World War.8 In the U.S. submarine service, about 16,000 officers and enlisted men made war patrols; from among these 3,406 died in action. This amounted to 22% of the force, the highest death rate of any branch of the American armed services.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0843871420904529
I love that hymn.
In Boot Camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in 1961, I was assigned to lead my company in that song each evening after taps.
Thank you for your service.
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