God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
Chester W. Nimitz
ping
Thanks to all that served and are now gone.
Just wondering. Would we be better off today if the Japanese had managed to shell San Francisco?
Below is part of a Memorial salute I begain to write for my Dad while he was in hospice care waiting to die. I finished it in time to be read at his funeral. I sure miss him.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, 15 year old Clarence was eager to join the military as soon as he was old enough to do so. Clarence joined the Navy in 1944 and served on the battleship USS Mississippi (BB 41) with 2,000 other men. With her twelve 14 inch guns Mississippi supported the Marine landings on the Island of Peleliu. She then assisted in the liberations of the Philippines, shelling the east coast of Leyte supporting the landings of General Macarthur’s troops.
On the night of October 24th the Army on Leyte passed the word that a powerful Japanese naval task force was approaching from the south, and with The U.S. main battle fleet and the carriers away in the opposite direction chasing a decoy, the soldiers knew the Japanese were about to spring a trap. They would be doomed if the Japanese ships opened up on them. They waited in the dark in stunned silence and quite desperation. But lying in wait for the Japanese were six of America’s oldest battleships including the Mississippi that waited at the mouth of the Surigao Strait. This line of old battleships accompanied by 7th Fleet destroyers and cruisers, opened fire with an enormous coordinated salvo at the approaching line of Japanese warships, immediately sinking the first of the two Japanese battleships they would sink that night, along with three destroyers and a heavy cruiser. Naval historians would later call this “The greatest Naval Battle in History”, but for the Army ashore who could see the ships burning in the night sky, they had no words to explain what they saw, for they knew their worst nightmare was stopped dead in it’s tracks by Admiral Oldendorf’s old battleships. The men ashore have eternal gratitude to those Sailors and to the 1,100 of them that died out there that night.
The Mississippi supported the landing forces in the Philippines until February, despite receiving heavy damage near her waterline from a kamikaze during the bombardment of Lingayen Gulf Luzon.
One of the more memorable moments for Clarence came while supporting landing forces on Okinawa. Clarence would often tell the story of how the Japanese stalled our offensive from their position in Shuri Castle, which the enemy claimed was indestructible, and our Marines were beginning to have doubts it could be taken. Clarence said. “We opened up with our 14 inch guns and with 56 direct hits destroyed the castle.” The Marines were finally able to capture the castle but only after the Navy laid waste of it.
Clarence recalls the ship remained off Okinawa for two months never shutting down it’s engines so they would always be ready for a fight and for the constant threat from the kamikazes. Even after being hit by a kamikaze once again, this time on her starboard 5 inch gun mounts, which caused heavy damage and many casualties the Mississippi refused to leave. The soldiers ashore were grateful that Ole Miss stayed on post even with her heavy damage. Her steadfast presence saved many lives on Okinawa.
After the announced surrender of Japan, the USS Mississippi anchored in Tokyo Bay while Clarence and his shipmates witnessed the signing of the surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri on September 2nd 1945.
The ship was sold for scrap in 1956, but the men to which she was so good haven’t forgotten her. It is recalled by his children that the first word he taught them to spell was M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i., and there is no doubt why.
“Before we’re through with ‘em, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell.”
Bill Halsey.
One of the truly decisive battles of world history, and one of only two, possibly three, in World War II.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was present, flying his flag in the superbattleship Yamato with the surface forces following behind the carrier divisions commanded by Adm. Chuichi Nagumo. Nagumo was flying his flag, as he had done at Pearl Harbor, in the carrier Akagi. During the battle, after Akagi was fatally damaged, Adm. Nagumo transferred his flag and the Emperor's portrait, as was the Japanese custom, to the light cruiser Nagara.
The U.S. Navy had battleships available (a few), but the new, fast battleships North Carolina and Washington were in Atlantic waters delivering on President Roosevelt's commitment to Winston Churchill to help defend North Atlantic convoys against the threat of the German battleship Tirpitz and other powerful surface elements forward deployed in Norwegian waters and at Brest. The USS Massachusetts was brand-new and still shaking down on the East Coast. The other battleships were left on the West Coast out of harm's way, since they were not fast enough to keep up with the carriers.
WW2 was fought at a time when most Americans loved their country. It was fought by men who did not have to be more afraid of lawyers than the enemy. It was fought by men who had studied Sun Tzu and had a keen understanding that you fight to win and you do not offer appeasement instead of the point of a sword. It was fought through the will of the commanders in the field and not the politicians sitting in the safety of a debating hall.
Just a little nitpicking...the draft was instituted in 1940 and was well underway prior to Pearl Harbor.
I had an uncle who entered the Army via the draft in January 1941 and landed in North Africa in 1942,the first of four amphibious landings he made and received the first of his three Purple Hearts when he was injured as his troopship was torpedoed and a destroyer had to tow his landing craft many miles to the beach.
Uncle Lud also landed in Sicily,Italy and the south of France.He was a forward artillery observer and soldiered on until he couldn't anymore somewhere into Germany.
He told me many of his experiences while he would visit with us during the holidays when he would be allowed to take a leave from the VA Hospital where he spent the last 23 years of his life. Mom would tell me not to slam doors,make any sudden noises or movements and above all not to ask him about the war whenever we had him at Christmas or Thanksgiving.
I took him for a walk in the park one time when I was about 15,and a Cessna flew over at low altitude.Uncle Lud dove under a picnic bench,and apologized profusely saying he didn't like low flying airplanes.I broke the rules and asked him about the war.
He wanted to talk about it and I spent the next hour and a half talking with him about his experiences.
My uncle endured almost two and a half years of combat,was wounded three times.The wounds were relatively minor so he was never pulled much further back than a battalion aid ststion. He was the only survivor of a forward spotting team on two occasions and was a T-5 Corporal with a Bronze Star and his three Purple Hearts.
As far as I'm concerned he was a casualty of WW2 because he never came home to stay...he married and had a child after the war but couldn't shake the bad dreams and his nerves were shot...so in 1947 he entered a VA hospital for treatment where he remained after his wife divorced him,reluctantly,but he wanted her to get on with her life.He died in 1970,having never recovered a normal life.
I think of him often,but particularly on Memorial Day.He,and the others like him gave all they could and I treasure his memory.
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Not to disparage in the least the victors at Midway, a recent book by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully gives the battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective. Titled “Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway” it clearly lays out the blunders the Japanese made in planning and organization and naval doctrine leading up to the battle. Reading that and the question isn’t so much why the U.S. won - because their better training, leadership, and organization gave them an advantage to begin with - but how the Japanese managed to do as well as they did in the 6 months prior.