Posted on 05/25/2015 4:18:55 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/25.htm
May 25th, 1945 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Churchill asks all Allied commanders who had received information through “Ultra” to reveal neither the information nor its source.
Submarine HMS Truncheon commissioned.
Frigate HMCS Monnow departed Londonderry for Sheerness.
JAPAN: The USAAF’s Twentieth Air Force in the Mariana Islands flies Mission 183: During the night of 25/26 May, 464 B-29 Superfortresses bomb the urban area of Tokyo immediately south of the Imperial Palace just north of that bombed on 23/24 May, including financial, commercial, and governmental districts as well as factories and homes; six others bomb targets of opportunity; they claim 19 Japanese fighters; 26 B-29s are lost on this mission, the highest single-day loss of B-29s in World War II. A total of 3,262 tons of incendiaries are dropped and the resulting fires destroy 16.8 sq mi (43.5 sq km), the greatest area wiped out in any single Tokyo raid.
Mines previously laid by B-29s off Japan sink a Japanese cargo vessel and a merchant tanker.
Off Okinawa, kamikazes sink two U.S. Navy vessels and damage seven others.
- The high-speed transport USS Bates (APD-47, ex-DE-68) is sunk. The ship is attacked by three aircraft at 1115 hours; the first plane dropped a bomb, scoring a near miss which ruptured the starboard hull of the ship, and then crashed into the starboard side of the fantail. The second plane, almost simultaneously, made a suicide hit on the pilothouse. Shortly thereafter the third plane made a bombing run scoring a near miss amidships, portside, rupturing the hull. Twenty-one of her crew were either dead or missing from the attacks. The crew abandoned ship and at 1923, the still burning Bates capsized and sank.
- The medium landing ship LSM-135 is also sunk.
- During the night, the destroyer USS Guest (DD-472) is attacked by a kamikaze which glanced off her mast and crashed alongside causing minor damage.
- At 0905 hours, the destroyer USS Stormes (DD-780) is struck by a kamikaze which crashes into the aft torpedo mount and its bomb explodes in the magazine under her number three 5-inch mount. By noon, repair parties had extinguished the fires and plugged the holes. Twenty-one members of the crew were killed and 15 injured.
- The destroyer escort USS O’Neill (DE-188) is hit by a kamikaze which kills two and wounds 17.
- The high-speed transport USS Barry (APD-29, ex-DD-248) is struck by a kamikaze below her bridge. Twenty-eight of the crew are wounded by shrapnel. The explosion of the plane’s gasoline tanks and bomb ignited fuel oil escaping from ruptured tanks and the fire threatens the forward magazine which could not be reached to flood. The abandon ship order is given at 1340 hours and all hands take to the boats. By 1500 hours the water had risen until the forward magazine was covered, minimizing the danger of explosion. A skeleton crew, together with parties from two other ships, reboard Barry and the last fires were extinguished at 0630 hours the next day and she is towed to the anchorage at Kerama Retto.
- The high-speed transport USS Roper (APD-20, ex-DD-147) is struck by a kamikaze and is damaged.
- The high-speed minesweeper USS Butler (DMS-29, ex-DD-636) is struck by bombs from a suicide plane which explode under Butler’s keel, killing nine men and blowing out steam lines and flooding the forward fire room causing the loss of all steam and electric power. Power is regained and she proceeds to Kerama Retto tomorrow for temporary repairs.
- The minesweeper USS Spectacle (AM-305) is struck by a diving kamikaze at 0805 hours; the aircraft strikes the ship under her port 40-millimeter gun tub, causing extensive damage and blowing many of her crew overboard. Her rudder is jammed so she drops anchor to avoid running over her men in the water. Spectacle’s losses were: eleven killed outright, four who died of wounds, six wounded, and 14 missing in action. She is towed to Ie Shima for temporary repairs.
A Japanese plane torpedoes a U.S. freighter in Buckner Bay killer six merchant sailors and a stevedore.
NORTH BORNEO: Pte Leslie Thomas Starcevich (1918-89), Australian Military Forces, silenced two machine guns holding up his men, repeating the feat later. (Victoria Cross)
AUSTRALIA: Destroyer HMAS Bataan commissioned.
CANADA: Tug HMCS Glendon commissioned Vancouver, British Columbia.
Light cruiser HMCS Ontario completed refit to trials and work-ups.
U.S.A.: The motion picture “The Body Snatcher” is released in the U.S. Based on a Robert Louis Stevenson short story, the film is directed by Robert Wise and stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The plot involves a renowned surgeon and teacher of anatomy in Edinburgh who pays a cabman, to clandestinely bring him exhumed bodies of the recently deceased for classroom demonstration purposes. With cemeteries being increasingly guarded, the cabman resorts to murder to provide the doctor with fresh bodies. This was the last film in which Karloff and Lugosi appeared in together.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, after extensive deliberation, issued to General MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Army Air Force General Henry Arnold, the top secret directive to proceed with the invasion of Kyushu. The target date was after the typhoon season.
Submarine USS Chopper commissioned.
Red Cross knitting for war effort
CLEARWATER, FLORIDA - Despite a shortage of wool, the knitting department of the upper Pinellas Red Cross completed a large number of garments last year.
These garments included 296 pairs of walking toe cast socks, 33 turtleneck sweaters, 11 afghans, 60 V-neck sweaters, 113 pairs olive drab socks, 109 pair gray socks for hospital use and 560 washcloths, according to Mrs. William Kuntz, chairman.
The knitting department at the production center in City Park will remain open all summer if the wool supply warrants.
(North Pinellas History is compiled by Times staff writer Theresa Blackwell. She can be reached at tblackwell@sptimes.com )
“The knitting department at the production center in City Park will remain open all summer if the wool supply warrants.”
We need more sheep! Pass the Pedro’s Rum, Please! :)
These are fun to look at. Thanks for posting!
The site of the Otake oil refinery, is today called Shunan, a merger of towns inclufing Tokuyama (something common in the last generation in Japan); the spot is about 20 miles SW of MCAS Iwakuni, or about 40 miles SW of Hiroshima.
His speech as reported here is interesting because it presages the lines the left would take in opposing opposition to communism, hindering in every way possible the Marshall plan, opposing Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, apologizing for of the Soviet Union's rendering Eastern Europe into a police state, etc. Wallace himself was probably a Communist and there is allegedly evidence in Soviet archives to that effect.
The damage to the country if he had become president at that time is incalculable, we might actually have lost the Cold War.
I like the article on the need for dogs. I cannot imagine giving up my GSD for the war effort.
And, I thought the part about giving them back after the war was especially creepy. “here’s your dog sir, he’s been crawling around the dead and dying of Okinawa for four months. But he’s fine now.”
Oliver Stone considered it a tragedy that Wallace didn’t become President.
I believe the refinery was subsequently rebuilt and is still a major employer in the town of Shunan. It should be noted that the Shinkansen station in that town still uses the old city name, Tokuyama.
Sort of like if Hillary won in 2016..
I was looking at the Google Earth picture of the mini-peninsula, and from above it looked like something having to do with oil was going on there--plus a bit further inland the map said there was a liquid hydrogen depot.
Current estimates put German losses as five million military plus three million civilians, about eight million total.
Total war deaths are put at 25 million military, plus 50 million civilians, about 75 million total.
You've shone more light, Homer, into the dark regions of my ignorance. I had just assumed Patton's gas all arrived at France's shore by tanker.
The PLUTO project had it’s share of troubles. Right after it was installed the pipeline was punctured by a ships anchor.
Shortly after that it was dredged up by a trawler. Atkinson in “The Guns at Last Light” commented that PLUTO was more trouble than it was worth and tankers continued to play a big part in getting POL to the continent.
Here is the wiki on PLUTO... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pluto
Personally I think it was pretty cool and I imagine that the ability to coil the pipline was pretty helpful once on land.. Made laying pipeline from the harbor terminals inland much easier.
Regards
alfa6 :>}
Some initial observations:
* I think it may have been henkster, but perhaps it was you, who recently cited 11 million Russian soldiers dying in action. Seeing it this way makes that staggering number seem more real.
* 13 million Russian civilian deaths, but also nearly 16 million Chinese civilians, thanks presumably to the Japs. I had no idea.
* Nearly one-fifth of all Poles died.
* 4 million Indonesian civilian deaths, again presumably thanks to the Japs.
* With most of the western European war occurring in France, the total French casualties, as bad as they were, seems surprisingly modest.
* British and American deaths are certainly put in perspective.
* One in eight Lithuanians and Latvians died. Should have anticipated that.
* With our intense bombing campaigns, even including Dresden, Tokyo fire-bombing, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, it seems surprising that only two million German civilians died and fewer than one million Japanese.
Finally, how disheartening and infuriating that 83% of all deaths were Allied, versus just 17% Axis. I guess I knew that intuitively, but to see it spelled out runs my blood cold. We certainly let them off easily enough afterward. Satan had his field day, but a certain fate awaits him.
Thanks
Good to see you posting today, Homer!
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