Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

1945 : Marines raise the flag on Mt. Suribachi


On this day, during the battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the island of Iwo Jima and a key strategic point. Later, Marine commanders decide to raise a second, larger flag, an event which an Associated Press photographer captured on film. The resulting photograph became a defining image of the war.
The amphibious landings of Marines, after severe and relentless bombing of the island, began the morning of February 19, 1945, as the secretary of the navy, James Forrestal, accompanied by journalists, surveyed the scene from a command ship offshore. As the Marines made their way onto the island, seven Japanese battalions opened fire on the 9,000 Marines headed for them. By that evening, more than 550 Marines were dead and more than 1,800 were wounded.
In the face of such fierce counterattack, the Americans reconciled themselves to the fact that Iwo Jima could be taken only one yard at a time. A key position on the island was Mt. Suribachi, the center of the Japanese defense. The 28th Marine Regiment closed in and around the base of the volcanic mountain at the rate of 400 yards per day, employing flamethrowers, grenades, and demolition charges against the Japanese hidden in caves and pillboxes (low concrete emplacements for machine-gun nests). Approximately 40 Marines finally began a climb up the volcanic ash mountain, which was smoking from the constant bombardment, and at about 10 a.m. on February 23, a half-dozen Marines raised a small American flag on the peak--but not before disposing of a Japanese officer who attempted to prevent them. With Mt. Suribachi claimed, one-third of Iwo Jima was under American control. This first flag-raising was photographed by Marine photographer Sgt. Louis R. Lowery. On Lowery’s way down Mt. Suribachi, he ran into AP photographer Joe Rosenthal and two other Marine photographers, PFC Bob Campbell and PFC Bill Genaust, who was shooting movies, informing them that the flag-raising they were looking for had already occurred, but encouraging them to check out the view from the top of the hill. The three men continued up the volcano.
Once atop Mt. Suribachi, Rosenthal attempted but was unable to find the soldiers involved in the first flag-raising, deciding instead to photograph the second flag-raising, which featured a much bigger and more photogenic Stars and Stripes. Lowery's film was sent back to military headquarters for processing via ordinary army post--and took a month to arrive. Rosenthal’s film was sent by seaplane to Guam, and sent from there via radio-photo to the United States. The photograph so impressed President Roosevelt that he ordered the men pictured in it to return home for a publicity tour. Rosenthal later won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo, but for years was forced to deny erroneous reports that he personally staged the second flag-raising and attempted to pass it off as the original.
Although the famous photograph has long led people to believe that the flag-raising was a turning point in the fight for Iwo Jima, vicious fighting to control the island actually continued for 31 more days.

[Peter Clare]

1944 : "Merrill's Marauders" hit Burma


On this day, Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill's guerrilla force, nicknamed "Merrill's Marauders," begin a campaign in northern Burma.
In August 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to create an American ground unit whose sole purpose would be to engage in a "long-range penetration mission" in Japanese-occupied Burma. This mission would consist of cutting Japanese communications and supply lines and otherwise throwing the enemy's positions into chaos. It was hoped that this commando force could thus prepare the way for Gen. Joseph Stillwell's Chinese American Force to reopen the Burma Road, which was closed in April 1942 by the Japanese invaders, and once again allow supplies and war material into China through this route.
Within the military, a type of "Help Wanted" ad was put up with the president's authority, an appeal for applicants to participate in a "dangerous and hazardous mission." About 3,000 soldiers volunteered from stateside units to create what was officially called the 5307th Composite Unit, code named "Galahad." It would go into history as Merrill's Marauders, after Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill, their commander.
Brigadier General Merrill trained his men in the art of guerrilla warfare in the jungles of India, for secrecy's sake. The commando force was formed into six combat units--Red, White, Blue, Green, Orange, and Khaki--with 400 men in each (the remaining 600 men or so were part of a rear-echelon headquarters that remained in India to coordinate the air-drops of equipment to the men in the field).
The Marauders' mission began with a 1,000-mile walk through dense jungle, without artillery support, into Burma. On February 24, 1944, they began their Burmese campaign, which, when done, consisted of five major and 30 minor engagements with a far more numerous Japanese enemy. They had to carry their supplies on their backs and on pack mules, and were resupplied only with airdrops in the middle of the jungle. Merrill's Marauders succeeded in maneuvering behind Japanese forces to cause the disruptions necessary to throw the enemy into confusion. They were so successful, the Marauders managed even to capture the Myitkyina Airfield in northern Burma.
When their mission was completed, all surviving Merrill's Marauders had to be evacuated to hospitals to be treated for everything from exhaustion and various tropical diseases to malnutrition or A.O.E. ("Accumulation of Everything"). They were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation in July 1944, which was re-designated the Presidential Unit Citation in 1966. Every member of the commando force also received the Bronze Star, a very rare distinction for an entire unit. Merrill remained in the Far East and was made an aide to General Stillwell.

[Peter Clare]

SS STRUMA (February 24, 1942)
The Romanian ship Struma sailed from Constansa under the command of a Bulgarian captain, G.T. Gorbatenkoin, and flying the Panamanian flag. There were 769 Romanian Jews on board, including 269 women and children, many from the town of Barland, their hope was to reach Palestine. After three days at sea, the Struma anchored off the outer harbour at Instanbul, with engine trouble. Here she awaited British permission to proceed to Palestine, permission which the British refused (a mistake they were to regret) one reason given was 'It will encourage a flood of refugees'. Turkey, for some unknown reason, likewise refused them to disembark although the local Jewish community, who were already running a camp for Displaced Persons, were quite willing to take the Struma's passengers and were in the meantime supplying them with food and water. One of the passengers, Medeea Marcovici, suffered an embolism and was transferred to the Jewish hospital in Instanbul. She was granted a visa for Palestine and died there in 1996.
After two months at Istanbul with engines that were damaged beyond repair, conditions on board became appalling, many of the passengers now suffering from dysentery and malnutrition. Eventually the Turkish police arrived to tow the Struma out into the Black Sea. The British had exerted strong pressure on Turkey to pursue this course. The enraged passengers fought then off but a second attempt, where force was used, succeeded and the Struma was towed out and cast adrift outside Turkish territorial waters. This inhuman decision by the Turkish and British governments was to destroy the special relationship between Britain and the Zionist Jews. On the water for 74 days since leaving Conatansa, the Struma, hopelessly overcrowded, and with no country willing to accept them, was suddenly torpedoed and sunk by the Russian submarine SHCH-213 commanded by Lt. Col. Isaev, just ten miles from Istanbul. All on board, a total of 769 persons, perished except one, nineteen year old Romanian Jew David Stoljar who today (1999) lives in Oregon, USA. The British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, stated: "The fate of these people was tragic, but the fact remains that they were nationals of a country at war with Britain, proceeding direct from enemy territory. Palestine was under no obligations towards them".

[Peter Clare]

1945 : Corregidor's last gasp


On this day, an ammunition dump on the Philippine island of Corregidor is blown up by a remnant of the Japanese garrison, causing more American casualties on the eve of U.S. victory there.
In May 1942, Corregidor, a small rock island at the mouth of Manila Bay, remained one of the last Allied strongholds in the Philippines after the Japanese victory at Bataan. Constant artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks ate away at the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could not hold the invader off any longer. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, commander of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender Corregidor to Japanese Gen. Masaharu Homma, but Homma wanted the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him and the poor physical condition of his troops--he had already lost 800 men. He surrendered at midnight. All 11,500 surviving Allied troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila.
But the Americans returned to the Philippines in full strength in October 1944, beginning with the recapture of Leyte, the Philippines' central island. It took 67 days to subdue, with the loss of more than 55,000 Japanese soldiers during the two months of battle, and approximately another 25,000 mopping up pockets of resistance in early 1945. The U.S. forces lost about 3,500.
Following the American victory of Leyte was the return of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the struggle for Luzon and the race for Manila, the Philippine capital. One week into the Allied battle for Luzon, U.S. airborne troops parachuted onto Corregidor to take out the Japanese garrison there, which was believed to be 1,000 strong, but was actually closer to 5,000. Fierce fighting resulted in the deaths of most of the Japanese soldiers, with the survivors left huddling in the Malinta Tunnel for safety. Ironically, the tunnel, 1,400 feet long and dug deep in the heart of Corregidor, had served as MacArthur's headquarters and a U.S. supply depot before the American defeat there. MacArthur feared the Japanese soldiers could sit there for months. The garrison had no such intention, though, and ignited a nearby ammunition dump--an act of defiance, and possibly of mass suicide. Most of the Japanese were killed in the explosion, along with 52 Americans. Those Japanese who survived the bl!
ast were forced out into the open and decimated by the Americans. Corregidor was officially in American hands by early March.

[Peter Clare]

1942 : U.S. aircraft carrier Langley is sunk


On this day, the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, the Langley, is sunk by Japanese warplanes (with a little help from U.S. destroyers), and all of its 32 aircraft are lost.
The Langley was launched in 1912 as the naval collier (coal transport ship) Jupiter. After World War I, the Jupiter was converted into the Navy's first aircraft carrier and rechristened the Langley, after aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpoint Langley. It was also the Navy's first electrically propelled ship, capable of speeds of 15 knots. On October 17, 1922, Lt. Virgil C. Griffin piloted the first plane, a VE-7-SF, launched from the Langley's decks. Although planes had taken off from ships before, it was nevertheless a historic moment. After 1937, the Langley lost the forward 40 percent of her flight deck as part of a conversion to seaplane tender, a mobile base for squadrons of patrol bombers.
On December 8, 1941, the Langley was part of the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked. She immediately set sail for Australia, arriving on New Year's Day, 1942. On February 22, commanded by Robert P. McConnell, the Langley, carrying 32 Warhawk fighters, left as part of a convoy to aid the Allies in their battle against the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies.
On February 27, the Langley parted company from the convoy and headed straight for the port at Tjilatjap, Java. About 74 miles south of Java, the carrier met up with two U.S. escort destroyers when nine Japanese twin-engine bombers attacked. Although the Langley had requested a fighter escort from Java for cover, none could be spared. The first two Japanese bomber runs missed their target, as they were flying too high, but the Langley's luck ran out the third time around and it was hit three times, setting the planes on her flight deck aflame. The carrier began to list. Commander McConnell lost his ability to navigate the ship. McConnell ordered the Langley abandoned, and the escort destroyers were able to take his crew to safety. Of the 300 crewmen, only 16 were lost. The destroyers then to sank the Langley before the Japanese were able to capture it.

[Peter Clare]

DE RUYTER (February 27, 1942)
Dutch light cruiser (7,548 tons) sunk during the seven hour Battle of the Java Sea. Flagship of the Allied Force Commander, Rear Admiral Karel Doorman RNN, the ship was hit by a torpedo from the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro at 23.32pm and sank taking the lives of 366 men including Admiral Doorman. There were 70 survivors. Also sunk in this battle were the Dutch light cruiser Java (7,205 tons) and the destroyer Kortenaer 1,640 tons) The Java was struck by a torpedo from the Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi (14,980 tons, commanded by Rear Admiral Takagi) and sank in fifteen minutes taking 530 crewmembers to their deaths. There were 35 survivors. This was the greatest loss of life on any Dutch warship. The destroyer Kortenaer (Lt. Cmdr. Kroese) hit amidships at 17:13pm by a torpedo from the Haguro, broke in two and sank almost immediately, losing 59 men from her crew of 171. The destroyer HMS Encounter rescued 113 from the stricken vessel but one survivor died on board. During the battle, 152 torpedoes were fired from the Japanese warships, but only three found their targets. In this, the saddest of days for the Royal Netherlands Navy, a total of 955 brave men gave their lives. (The Battle of the Java Sea, the greatest surface engagement since Jutland, took the lives of 6,339 sailors from both sides and the loss of many Allied warships. Only four ships were sunk on the Japanese side).

[Peter Clare]

1944 : Test pilot Reitsch pitches suicide squad to Hitler


Hannah Reitsch, the first female test pilot in the world, suggests the creation of the Nazi equivalent of a kamikaze squad of suicide bombers while visiting Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. Hitler was less than enthusiastic about the idea.
Reitsch was born in 1912 in Hirschberg, Germany. She left medical school (she had wanted to be a missionary doctor) to take up flying full time, and became an expert glider pilot--gliders were motorless planes that the Germans developed to evade strict rules about building "war planes" after WWI. In addition to gaining experience with gliders, Reitsch also did stunt flying for the movies. In 1934, she broke the world's altitude record for women (9,184 feet). An ardent Nazi and admirer of Hitler, she was made an honorary flight captain by the Fuhrer, the first woman to receive such an honor. In 1937, the Luftwaffe, the German air force, put her to work as a test pilot. Reitsch embraced this opportunity to fly as part of what she called Germany's "guardians of the portals of peace." Among her signal achievements was the testing of a proto-helicopter in 1939.
Reitsch came closer than any other woman to seeing actual combat during World War II, depositing German troops along the Maginot Line in France during the Germans' 1940 invasion by glider plane. She won an Iron Cross, Second Class, for risking her life trying to cut British barrage-balloon cables (the balloons were unmanned blimps, tethered in one place, from which steel cables dangled so as to foul the wings and propellers of enemy aircraft). Among the warplanes she tested was the Messerschmitt 163, a rocket-power interceptor that she flew 500 mph. While testing the ME 163 a fifth time, she spun out of control and crash-landed (even though she was injured during the crash, she nevertheless managed to write down exactly what happened before she passed out from her injuries). For this, Hitler awarded her an Iron Cross, First Class.
It was while receiving this second Iron Cross from Hitler in Berchtesgaden in 1944 that she pitched the idea of a Luftwaffe suicide squad of pilots who would fly specially designed versions of the V-1. Hitler was initially put off by the idea, only because he did not think it an effective or efficient use of resources. But Reitsch's commitment persuaded him to investigate the prospect of designing such planes, at which point she put together a Suicide Group and was the first to take the following pledge: "I hereby...voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death." The squad was never deployed.
Reitsch was one of the last people to see Hitler alive. On April 26, 1945, she flew to Berlin with Gen. Ritter von Greim, who was to be given command of the Luftwaffe. Greim was wounded when Reitsch's plane was hit by Soviet antiaircraft fire. After saying farewell to the Fuhrer, tucked away in his bunker, she flew Greim back out of Berlin.
After the war, Reitsch was captured and interned by the U.S. Army. She testified to the "disintegration" of Hitler's personality that she claimed to have witnessed during the last days of the war. When released, Reitsch continued to set records, including becoming the first woman to fly a glider over the Alps. In 1951, she published her autobiography, Flying Is My Life, and from 1962 to 1966 she was director of the national school of gliding in Ghana. She died in 1979, at 65 years old, only one year after setting a new women's glider distance record. In her career, she set more than 40 world records for flying powered and motorless planes.

[Peter Clare]

USS JACOB JONES (DD-130) (February 28, 1942)
This old four stack 1,340 ton destroyer (Lt. Cmdr. Hugh Black) left New York to take up anti-submarine patrol duties off the coast of New Jersey. At 5am on the 28th, disaster struck. Two torpedoes fired from the U-578 streaked towards the unsuspecting destroyer and struck with a shattering roar the port side of the ship. It took only a few seconds for the ship to break up, the forward section plunging to the bottom. All the occupants of her living quarters were killed when one of the torpedoes struck the stern.
By now, only 35 crew members of her complement of 149, were left alive on the mid section but managed to lower life rafts and abandon the sinking vessel. No sooner had the ship disappeared than her depth charges exploded killing many of the men on the rafts. Hours later one of the rafts was sighted but only twelve men in it were alive and one died on the way to shore. The survivors on the other rafts were never found. From the Jacob Jones, 138 crewmembers had died.
The destroyer USS Black (DD-666) was later named in honour of the Jacob Jones' commander.

[Peter Clare]

1941 : Bulgaria joins the Axis


On this day, the southeastern European nation of Bulgaria joins the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact.
When the Second World War broke out, Bulgaria declared its neutrality. But Bulgaria's King Boris was eager to expand his country's borders, and Germany had already coerced Romania to restore south Dobruja--which had been lost in World War I--to Bulgaria. Bulgaria had chosen the wrong side in World War I, deciding that its territorial needs then would best be met by joining the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary and the German Empire). They were wrong, and King Boris was determined not to make the same mistake again.
Believing Hitler's boasts that he had already won the war, King Boris chose to pitch his country's tent on the Axis side of the war. Hitler needed a compliant Bulgaria through which to march his troops en route to offensives against both Yugoslavia and Greece. If the Germans were victorious in Greece, Bulgaria hoped, as a new war partner, to gain access itself to the Aegean by claiming Greek territory to its south. On March 1, the Germans came marching through the Balkans, as the Bulgarian king signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna with Hitler looking on.
Bulgaria benefited in the short term from the alliance; it made territorial gains in both Greece and Yugoslavia. But Hitler was not through exploiting its "partner"-the Fuhrer wanted Bulgaria's help in its war with the Soviet Union. While King Boris prepared Bulgarian troops for the Eastern Front in 1943, communists and agrarian reformers mounted a vigorous resistance campaign, assassinating more than 100 pro-Nazi officials. King Boris also died at this time-from a heart attack. A Regency Council was formed, which remained loyal to Germany. Successive governments rose and fell until the Soviet Union's invasion of Bulgaria in September 1944 resulted in an armistice and a postwar, pro-Soviet Bulgaria.

[Peter Clare]

HMAS PERTH (March 1, 1942)
Australian cruiser of 6,830 tons launched in 1934 under the name HMS Amphion. Transferred to the Australian Navy in 1939 and renamed HMAS Perth. During the Battle of the Java Sea the Perth's commander, Captain Hector Waller, pulled his ship out of line when the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter was hit and placed it between the Japanese warships and the Exeter to save it from further damage (the Exeter later sank). The Perth, accompanied by the American cruiser Houston, was later sunk in the Sunda Strait half an hour after midnight about four miles from St. Nicholas Point in Java as the two ships attempted to escape southwards from the battle area and into the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately they ran straight into a Japanese invasion fleet of destroyers and troop transports in Banteng Bay and after a long running battle during which all ammunition was expended, both ships were sunk by torpedoes. On board the Perth were 45 officers, 631 ratings, 4 civilian canteen staff and six Royal Australian Air Force personnel, a total of 686 men. Casualties were 23 officers and 329 ratings killed. There were 334 survivors who were taken prisoners of war. Of these, around 106 died in captivity. Not one of the Perth's officers died while a prisoner of war, due no doubt to the privileges granted to men of officer rank. For this heroic act, Captain Waller never received the equivalent of the British VC as did the captain of the Houston. The Dutch government offered its highest award, the Militare Willems-Orde posthumously to Captain Waller, but to its everlasting shame, the Australian government turned it down. In World War II, twelve Victoria Crosses were awarded to members of the Australian forces engaged in operations against Japan but not a single VC was awarded to the Royal Australian Navy.

The Australian cruiser HMAS Perth in the Mediterranean, 1941

USS HOUSTON (March 1, 1942)
Sunk in the Sunda Strait by torpedoes from the same warships that sunk HMAS Perth The Houston went down just twenty minutes later about a mile from the Perth, taking 643 men to their deaths. The 368 survivors made their way to Bantam Bay on the western shores of Java, only to be captured by the Japanese who had already occupied the area some hours before. Of the survivors, seventy-seven died while in Japanese captivity. Both captains of the Perth and Houston went down with their ships. Captain Robert Rooks, the commander of the Houston , was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously. The Houston lies in approximately 107 feet of water just north of Panjang Island.