Posted on 03/23/2015 4:37:03 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
James Bradley, with Ron Powers, Flags of Our Fathers
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/2/23.htm
March 23rd, 1945 (FRIDAY)
GERMANY: The British 2nd Army and Canadian 1st Army begin Operation Plunder to cross the Rhine.
Speyer: An infantry unit of the US 12th Armoured Division is tasked with taking the city. As they approach a bridge over the Rhine they were ambushed by anti-tank rockets and machine gun fire. The rocket fire appeared to be coming from a nearby warehouse. Private Edward A. Carter volunteered to lead a four man squad to take out the warehouse, which was 150 yards of open terrain away. Two of Carter’s men were killed almost immediately; the third was severely injured.
Carter alone got within striking distance, but took five bullets and three pieces of shrapnel before he was able to take cover. Carter waited there for two hours, until the Germans, thinking he was dead, sent out an eight-man patrol to make sure. Carter engaged them single-handedly with his Thompson .45, killing six and capturing two, whom he used as human shields to get back to his company. Carter refused immediate medical treatment, and instead took his commanding officer up to an observation spot where he pointed out several German machine gun nests.
General Vietinghoff takes over in Italy from Field Marshall Albert Kesselring.
FRANCE: Paris: de Gaulle announces a limited form of self-government for Indochina, but insists that Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia remain French colonies or protectorates.
EUROPE: The Allied ground offensive across the Rhine River begins. Supporting the offensive are 2,000 bombers of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces attacking targets in Germany. The Eighth Air Force has 1,206 B -17s and B-24s attacking 14 marshalling yards and other targets. Over 800 Ninth Air Force A-20s, A-26s and B-26s bomb seven communications centers, a factory and targets of opportunity. The Fifteenth Air Force has 658 B-17s and B-24s bombing an oil refinery, three marshalling yards and a tank factory in Austria and a marshalling yard in Czechoslovakia.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-1003 type VIIC/41 is scuttled 8-10 miles north of Inistrahull beacon, Malin Head after ramming with HMCS New Glasgow on the 20th. March. 18 of the U-Boat crew are dead, but 31 of them survive. (Alec Gordon)
FORMOSA: 47 Fifth Air Force B-24s
RYUKYU ISLANDS: A destroyer assigned to Task Group 58.4 rams and sinks a Japanese submarine. Task Force 58 aircraft attack preinvasion targets on Okinawa.
BONIN ISLANDS: Iwo Jima: The USAAF 21st Fighter Group arrives on the island.
ULITHI ATOLL: After much discussion and indecision, Royal Navy aircraft carriers forming Task Force 57 sortie from Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline
Islands to join Task Force 58 supporting the upcoming invasion of Okinawa. The four carriers, HMS Indomitable, HMS Victorious, HMS Illustrious and HMS Indefatigable are formed into Task Group 57.2.
NYT Page 8: Interesting little column about the Churchills discussing the difference between the way the British and Americans wrote their dates in numbers.
I’ve wondered why we do it the way we do, but it occurred to me that the way the date looks when it is written out matches the way we number our dates: (ex. March 23, 2015 is 3/23/2105). Americans have a nasty way of doing things their own way that often actually makes sense.
We declared and won our independence, and that spirit when reinforced by our isolating oceans, enabling constitution, and entrepreneurial economy guaranteed such sensible innovations.
"[O]ften actually makes sense," yes, but often no. For example, our language's use of the adjective preceding the noun it modifies is silly: blue pen versus pen blue, as in Spanish ("pluma azul"), for example. The main fact is the object, while its color is secondary: "oceans isolating, constitution enabling, economy entrepreneurial, innovations sensible."
They don’t call our language “American.” They call it “English.” Illogical sentence structure is not our fault.
True, but the Americans' spirit of innovation so extolled by PapaNew did not extend for some reason unknown to a reworking fundamental of that tongue inherited; if it had, we would have become separated from England by more than our language common.
Nevertheless, English is taking over as the language of the world to an extent unparalleled since Greek or the language of Babel. I'm always astounded at how many around the world speak English difficult so well as their language second. It is perhaps one more sign of the nearing Times End.
True dat.
From Nimitz Graybook
Extensive ice flows encountered forced DesRon 57 to abandon bombardment of SURIBACHI.
My wiki search produced these five references
Suribachi can refer to:
• Suribachi and surikogi, Japanese mortar and pestle
• Mount Suribachi, mountain on Iwo Jima, Japan
• Mount Suribachi (Antarctica), mountain in Antarctica
• USS Suribachi (AE-21), ship of the United States Navy
• Suribachi-class ammunition ship, class of ship of United States Navy
Omitting the three non place references, we can also omit Mount Suribachi (Antarctica), as it dates to 1973.
Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima which is at 24 45 01 North, 141 17 20 West; calculated as about 1623 miles north of the equator and slightly higher than Hawaii.
Was this referring to another place and they got the spelling wrong or was there really icebergs that far south.
Putting the lat/long in exact format screwed up last post.
I’m impressed.
I wondered about that, too. I guess in this case SURIBACHI is code name for an island in the Kuriles. From the site linked below:
Destroyer Squadron 57 was the next-to-last squadron of 2,100-ton Fletcher-class destroyers formed. It was composed of nine square-bridge ships as follows:
Destroyer Division 113: Rowe (DD 564), Smalley (DD 565), Stoddard (DD 566), Watts (DD 567) and Wren (DD 568), all built at Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding and commissioned in March and April 1944;
Destroyer Division 114: Bearss (DD 654) and John Hood (DD 655) from Gulf Shipbuilding and Jarvis (DD 799) and Porter (DD 800) from “Sea-Tac,” all commissioned in June and July 1944.
OPERATIONS
Following shakedown, both divisions sailed for the Aleutian islands for duty with the Ninth Fleet. There they deployed on multiple missions to the Kurile Islands.
While DesDiv 114 remained on station in the Kuriles and patrolling the Sea of Okhotsk for the duration of the war, when they steamed south to Japan, DesDiv 113 was detached from the North Pacific Force on 18 April 1945.
http://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/desron57/#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Rowe_%28DD-564%29
I see. Suribati, not Suribachi. The staff officer who supervised the typing of that report should be transferred to Desron 57 for a while to think about the importance of accuracy in communication. The repercussions of his sloppiness would resonate for 70 years. Chester will need to be more careful in future also.
It will ultimately be used to justify sending American troops into Bavaria rather than advance on Berlin on a narrow front.
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