USS Oklahoma-- Part 3: A Timeline of Her Service

Here is a short timeline of the career of this mighty battleship:

**  AUGUST 13, 1918:  Sailed with her sister ship, the USS Nevada to protect and escort allied convoys  in European waters until World War I was over.

**  DECEMBER 1918:  Participated as an escort to President Woodrow Wilson traveling to France to negotiate the Versailles Treaty.  On June 1919, returned to France to escort the president home.

**  1919-1926:  Part of the Atlantic Fleet for two years and then the Pacific Fleet for six years.  Participated in the Peruvian Centennial and the unveiling of  the San Martin Monument.   

**  The Oklahoma became one of the first warships to have bunks instead of hammocks.

**  1927-1929:  Modernized in Philadelphia, then rejoined the Scouting Fleet.

--GreGen

The USS Oklahoma-- Part 2: Sister Ship of the USS Nevada

Here is the story of the USS Oklahoma.

In 1911, Congress authorized the building of two new battleships -- the Nevada and Oklahoma.  They were to be a modern symbol of U.S. power.  The New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden, New Jersey,  laid the keel of the USS Oklahoma in Otober 1912.

These two battleships were the first to burn  oil as fuel instead of coal.  The Oklahoma was commissioned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 2, 1916.  The commissioning statement stated:  "That it was hoped that the Oklahoma might never become a mere instrument of destruction nor of strife, but a minister of  peace and a guardian of rights and interests of mankind, protecting the weak aganst the strong."

Attending the commissioning was  Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt,   As president, he would ask for a declaration of war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The USS Nevada was also at Pearl Harbor that day and was the only battleship  to get underway.

--GreGen

The USS Oklahoma-- Part 1

From the December 27, 2022, Times-Gazette "Story of the USS Oklahoma  and her lost servicemen."

On December 7, 1941, the USS Oklahoma was sunk during a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor entombing hundreds of servicemen.  In 2015, Project Oklahoma began in an effort  to identify 388 men whose remains were unaccounted for. Since then, 355 have been accounted for by the Defense MIA/POW Accounting Agency.

One of those men, Seaman 1st Class Maurice Spangler, born and raised in Defiance, Ohio, will be reburied  in the National Cemetery of the Pacific, or "Punchbowl" on Hawaii on January 4, 2023.

On December7, 2021,  in a ceremony at that cemetery, the remains of the 33 men who could not be identified by DNA were laid to rest with full military honors.  In attendance were the families of both unidentified and identified sailors and Marines.

--GreGen

Another Illinois Pearl Harbor Unknown Identified: Herbert Jacobson-- Part 2

Their bodies were not recovered until the ship was raised much later.  He was identified in 2019, but reburials were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Jacobson was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery this past September.

McDonald's father was a friend of Jacobson's in boot camp at Great Lakes naval Station north of Chicago.  The father met Jacobson's sister during a visit to Herbert's home in Grayslake and eventually married her.  They've since passed away, never knowing what became of Jacobson's remains.

McDonald, who himself later served as a staff sergeant in the Air Force, said his uncle had considered his assignment to Hawaii like going to paradise.

Before Jacobson's reburial, the family placed a few momentos in the casket-- a USS Oklahoma baseball cap, a handkerchief from Jacobson's mother with the aroma of her perfume and a photo of their home in Grayslake.

"I was overwhelmed," McDonald said.  "We've been waiting a long tme."

--GreGen

Another Illinois Pearl Harbor Unknown Identified: Herbert Jacobson-- Part 1

From the same article as the news about Keith Tipsword.

Tipsword wasn't the only Illinois veteran at Pearl Harbor recently identified through the use of DNA.  The remains of Herbert Jacobson, 21, of northwest suburban Grayslake, were recently identified, and his family, some of them who now live in North Carolina, chose to have him buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The night before the attack, Jacobson had worked running boats from the USS Oklahoma to the dock, according to his nephew, Bradley McDonald.  After his shift, he filed a report, got a meal and retired to sleep in his bunk.

That's where he likely died when the ship was hit by torpedoes, capsized and sank, trapping hundreds of men below decks.

--GreGen

Keith Tipsword Comes Home-- Part 3: The Ceremony

Tipsword's family lived in tiny Moccasin in Effingham County.  Their house was just a mile from the cemetery, but is long gone, with only a silo remaining.  The family still has a salt-and-pepper shaker that Tipsword made aboard his ship and brought home to his mother while visiting.

The Patriot Guard motorcycle group escorted Tipsword's casket from a military base in the East St. Louis to Effingham, with firetrucks on overpasses and bystanders saluting.  Many members of the local veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and Disabled American Veterans attended.  

Sailors folded the American flag on the casket and presnted it to Tipsword's sister.

"It was pretty moving," said Sapp.

--GreGen

Keith Tipsword Comes Home-- Part 2: On the USS West Virginia

When Japan mounted the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, Tipsword's ship, the battleship USS West Virginia, was hit by torpedoes and bombs and sank.  The explosions rendered many of the victins impossible to identify.

They were buried in mass graves and labeled as "unknown" in a cemetery located in a volcano crater known as the Punchbowl in the island of Oahu.

In 2015, the federal government began matching the remains to DNA from family members of service members who were missing or killed in action but unidentified.  The program has identified hundreds of missing service members from around the world who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

--GreGen

Illinois Veterans' Remains Finally Come Home from Pearl Harbor-- Part 1: Keith Tipsword

From the December 7, 2022, Chicago Tribune by Robert McCoppin.

In a cemetery amidst the cornfields of downstate Illinois last month, a military honor guard fired shots in salute before the remains of World War II veteran Keith Tipsword were lowered into the ground.

Tipsword, a machinist's mate, was 22 when he died on the battleship USS West Virginia in the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.  In the wake of the attack, his body was never identified, and he was listed as m missing in action, until the Navy recently identified his remains through DNA.

His sister, who was 5 years old when he died, and is now 86, vaguely remembers a man in uniform who visited their home in tiny Moccasin, Illinois, her son Greg Sapp said.

"My mom said that her mother always had an expectation the door would open  and Keith would be there," Sapp said.  "She never thought he wouldn't come home. "  Well, he finally has."

With his burial in November, Tipsword is among dozens of Pearl Harbor veterans who have been identified and brought home to be reburied with loved ones.  Through new DNA techniques, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has been able to sort through remains that were long considered to be unidentifiable.

--GreGen

Another Unknown USS Oklahoma Sailor Accounted For

From the December 21, 2022,  WTRF (West Virginia)  "West Virginia sailor  in World War II on USS Oklahoma accounted for."

The Defense Department POW/MIA  Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Navy Fire Controlman 2nd Class  Donald R. McCloud, 21, of Monaville, West Virginia, killed during WW II, was accounted for on September 23, 2022.

On December 7, 1941, McCloud was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, moored in Pearl Harbor when the attack came.  The ship sustained multiple torpedo hits which caused her to quickly capsize.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Don McCloud who was listed originally as MIA, but later declared dead.  His remains were found, but could not be identified  until recently.

To identify his remains, dental records and anthropological evidence were used.  Additionally there was DNA analysis.

He will be buried June 24, 2023, in Dingess, West Virginia.

--GreGen

Are There Any Other USS Arizona Survivors Still Living?

While I was reading the article In used for the last several posts about USS Arizona survivor Lou Conter, I got to wonderingif there were any other survivors of the ship still living.  Unfortunately, the article didn't mention any.

I looked it up and there is one other survivor still living, Ken Potts, 101.  He is a member of American Legion Post 13 in Provo, Utah.

Two other USS Arizona survivors died in 2019 and 2020.   They were Lauren Bruner who died September 10, 2019 and Don Stratton who died February 16, 2020.

--GreGen

USS Arizona Survivor Lou Conter is 101-- Part 5

Organizers have set a theme of "Everlasting Legacy" for the ceremony, highlighting how fewer and fewer survivors remain.

"We honestly have to know and be prepared that eventually we won't have the ability to connect with their stories and have them with us anymore," David Kilton of the NPS said.

Conter hasn't forgotten his shipmates.

He said he'd like the military to try to identify USS Arizona sailors whose bodies were found and buried as unknowns in a Honolulu cemetery after the war.

"They should never give up on that issue.  If they're ever identified, I'm sure their families would want to bury them at home or wherever, but they should never give up on trying to identfy them," he said.

--GreGen

USS Arizona Survivor Lou Conter is 101-Years-Old-- Part 4

This year's remembrance ceremony is the first to be open to the public since 2019.  The pandemic forced the adoption of strict public health measures for the last two years.

David Kilton, the National Park Service's chief interpreter for Pearl Harbor, said he's not sure how many people will attend, but he's anticipating 2,000 to 3,000 people.  

It will be held at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial visitors center, which overlooks the water and the white structure built to honor those killed on the Arizona.

--GreGen

USS Arizona Survivor Lou Conter is 101-- Part 3

Lou Conter's autobiography, "The Lou Conter Story" recounts how one of the Japanese bombs penetrated five steel decks on the USS Arizona and ignited over 1 million pounds of gunpowder and thousands of pounds of ammunition.

"The ship was consumed on a giant fireball that looked as it it engulfed everything from the mainmast forward," he wrote.

He joined other survivors in tending to the injured, many of whom were blinded and badly burned.  The sailors only abandoned ship when their senior surviving officer was sure they had rescued all those still alive.

The Arizona's 1,177 dead account for nearly half the servicement killed in the bombing.  The battleship today sits where she sank  81 years ago, with more than 900 of her dead still entombed inside.

Conter wasn't injured at Pearl Harbor, nor during the rest of World War II or the Korean War.

--GreGen

USS Arizona Survivor Lou Conter is 101-- Part 2

On Wednesday, December 7, the U.S. Navy and the National Park service will host a remembrance ceremony at Pearl Harbor in honor of those killed.

Last year about 30 survivors and some 100 other veterans of the war made the pilgrimage to the annual event.  But, they only anticipate one or two survivors will likely attend this year's event in person.  Another  20-30 veterans of World War II are also expected to be there.

Lou Conter won't be among them, however.  He attended for many years, most recently in 2019.  But his doctor has told him the five-hour flight, plus hours of waiting in airports, is too strenuous for him now.

"I'm going to be 102 now.  It's kind of hard to mess around,"  Conter said.

Instead, he plans to watch a video feed of this year's 81st anniversary observance from home.  He's also recorded a message that will be played for those attending.

--GreGen

At 101, USS Arizona Survivor: Honor Heroes Killed in Attack

From the December 7, 2022, Chicago Tribune by Audrey McAvoy and Haven Daley, AP.

Honolulu

USS Arizona sailor Lou Conter lived through the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor even though his battleship exploded and sank after being pierced by aerial bombs.

That makes the now 101-year-old somewhat of a celebrity, especially on the 81st anniversary of the December 7, 1941, assault.  Many call him and the others in the nation's dwindling pool of Pearl Harbor survivors heroes.

Conter, however, rejects this characterization.

"The 2,403 men that died are the heroes.  And we've got to honor them ahead of everybody else.  And I've said that every time, and I think it should be stressed," Conter said in a recent interview at his Grass Valley, California, home north of Sacramento.

--GreGen

81st Anniversary of Pearl Harbor: Herbert Jacobson-- Part 7

This is the final entry in the story of Herbert Jacobson, one of the USS Oklahoma's unknowns who had since been identified and buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  I wrote about this story in seven of my eight blogs today.

Brad McDonald has a half-inch thick booklet containing the massive amount of technology and analysis used to identify his uncle and the other USS Oklahoma unknowns.

Of the 429 crewmen killed on the ship, 22 are still unidentified, likely because DNA samples from relatives weren't available,  Brad McDonald said.  He and other family members are traveling from Wisconin for the burial simply feel fortunate to have closure.

"It's a solemn occasion, but there's a sense of joy involved because we've been waiting a long time for this," he said.  "For me, it's nothing short of a miracle that they can identify someone who died 81 years ago."

A Great Story.

Five Best Battleships of WW II

From the December 5, 2022, 19fortyfive by Peter Suciu.

More than sixty battleships, including 23 from the United States took part in World War II.

These were the five best of the lot.

This did not include these battleships since they were sunk:  Yamato, Musashi, Bismarck, Tirpitz or Prince of Wales.

I am just listing them.  Go to the site to find out the reasoning for their inclusion.

1.  USS Texas  (BB-35)

2.  USS Alabama (BB-60)

3.  USS Iowa  (BB-61)

4.  USS New Jersey  (BB-62)

5.  USS Missouri  (BB-63)

What!   No USS North Carolina?

--GreGen

Medal of Honor Recipient John Basilone

Back on October 11, 2022, I wrote about the christening of a new U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer, the USS Basilone (DDG-122).  It was named after World War II Marine Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone.

From the Arlington National Cemetery site.

JOHN BASILONE

Section 12, Grave 384

Gunnery Sergeant John Basolone (1916-1945) was awarded the Medal of Honor for extraodinary heroism in combat at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands,  in October 1942.  During the brutal fighting with heavy casualties on both sides, he killed at least 38 Japanese soldiers.

He returned home to a hero's welcome, including a parade featured in "Life" magazine.

But, he requested to return to combat, stating that he was "just a plain soldier" who belonged with his unit.

On February 19, 1945,  Basilone was killed in action leading an assault on the beaches of Iwo Jima.  He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the only enlisted Marine to be honored with both the Navy cross and the Medal of Honor..

--GreGen

Keith Tipsword's Death Notice

In the last post I wrote about his burial in Illinois after years of not being identified.  I am very thankful for the DPAA and all their efforts to identify American unknowns.

This death notice from 1942 accompanied the article from yesterday and had a picture of him.

**************************

KILLED IN ACTION

Keith Warren, son of  Mr. and Mrs. Frank Tipsword of Effingham, has been killed in action, his parents were notified by the U.S. Navy department Tuesday.  He was a first-class machinist.

The date of his death and details were not given.    Keith, who was  27 last June, had been in the  navy since 1936.

He was born and reared in Effingham county.

Besides his parents, he leaves two brothers, Dean, in the army, and Hugh, in Idaho, and four sisters, Mrs. Gail  Stanford,   Mrs. Frances  Jean White, Betty Fay and  Dalyne Tipsford, all of  Effingham.

***************************

--GreGen

Illinois Sailor Killed on USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor Laid to Rest: Keith Tipsword

From the November 16, 2022, Stars & Stripes.

Beecher City, Illinois

An Illinois sailor who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has been laid to rest in his home state more than eighty years after his death.

U.S. Navy Machinist's Mate 1st Class Keith Tipswood was buried Thursday alongside his parents and other relatives at Moccasin Cemetery near the rural  Central Illinois village of Beecher City.

Tipsword was 27 years old when he was killed aboard the battleship USS West Virginia.

His remains were buried as unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, but they were identified this year by the defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)

Dalyne  Sapp of Effingham, the last of his siblings surviving attended Tuesday's  funeral sefrvice.  Sapp, 86,  said her brother is now buried near the family farm where he grew up  among the "hills and hollers" of Effingham County's Moccasin Township.

--GreGen

Six Killed in Air Collision of WW II Planes in Dallas

From the November 13, 2022, CBSNews.

Two World War II-era planes collided while doing a flyover at a commemorative event in Texas Saturday, crashing to the ground and erupting into a ball of flames that left onlookers shocked and dismayed.

Six people were aboard the two planes when it happened and all six were killed.

A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell  P-63 Kingcobra were participating in the Air Force's Wings Over Dallas air show when they collided mid-air near the Dallas Executive Airport just before 1:30 p.m. local time.

Neither plane had  flight data recorders (black boxes)  so authorities are  seeking photos and video from the public.

Several videos posted on Twitter showed the  fighter plane appearing to fly into the bomber, causing them to quickly plummet to the ground and setting off a huge ball of fire and smoke.

Air safety, particularly ones where older military aircraft are flying,  have been a concern for years.  In 2011, 11 people were killed inj Reno, Nevada, when a P-51 Mustang crashed into spectators.  In 2019,  a bomber crashed in Hartford, Ct., killing seven people.

The NSTB said back then that they had investigated 21 accidents since 1982, involving WW II bombers, resulting in 23 deaths.

So Sad.   --GreGen

Service for Nevada's Last-Known Pearl Harbor Survivor: Ed Hall

From the November 11, 2022, Las Vegas Review-Journal by Mark Credico.

Dozens of people gathered on Veterans Day at the Las Vegas  Masonic Memorial Temple to pay tribute to Ed Hall who died November 2 at age 99.

In 2017, Mr. Hall received his high school diploma.  He had not gotten it earlier because he enlisted in the Army at age 16.  He was 18 when Pearl Harbor was attacked..

He was cleaning  a frying pan in the mess hall at Hickam Field when the attack came.  After he was pulled to cover and regained his wits, Hall commandeered a pickup truck and drove around the base for hours with a medic to rescue as many wounded as he could find.  At one point, multiple bullets came through  the cab of the truck, missing them, but shattering the windshield.

Hall lost a lot of friends that, something that he never forgot.

Hall's ashes will be interred in the Punchbowl Memorial Cemetery on  Hawaii.

--GreGen

Mount Diablo Beacon Set to Shine Tonight in Honor of Veterans Day-- Part 1

From the November 10, 2022,  Press (California) by Melissa  van Ruiten.

If you look west  after sunset in Friday, November 11, you'll notice a familiar light shining atop Mt. Diablo.

In honor of Veterans Day,  nonprofit land  conservation organization, Save Mount Diablo, will be lighting the summit beacon.   

This follows a joint proclamation that was issued in February of this year stating that  the beacon will be lit on Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Pearl Harbor Day sunset to sunrise, beginning in 2022 and every year thereafter.

Signatories of the proclamation included members of local veterans groups, California State Parks, bational. state and local elected officials and Save Mount Diablo members.

Story continued in my other blogs today.

A Nice Touch.  --GreGen

Trio Killed at Pearl Harbor Recently Identified

From the November 2, 2022, Stars and Stripes "Service members recently identified from past conflicts include trio killed at Pearl Harbor."

At least five service members  were accounted for last month by the Defense Department agency tasked with recovering U.S. troops listed as missing in action or prisoners of war.

Three of those identified by the Hawaii-based Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) were killed at Pearl Harbor in World War II and two fought in Korea.

All three Pearl Harbor men were on Battleship Row on December 7, 1941.  

Edward Conway, an electrician's mate from Auburn, Illinois, was on the USS Oklahoma.  His remains were identified  on October 1.

Floyd Clifford was a machinist mate from Mulvane, Kansas,  who also was killed on the Oklahoma.

Keith Tipsword, a machinist mate from Moccasin, Illinois, was on board the battleship USS West Virginia.

Their remains were identified July 12 and Septrmber 27, respectively.

I will have the two from Korea in my Cooter's History Thing blog today.

--GreGen

USS West Virginia Victim to be Buried in Effingham, Illinois, This Month: Keith Tipsworth

From the November 7, 2022, Effingham (Illinois) Radio "Former Navy machinist mate 1st class and Effingham County native Keith Tipsworth  returning home."

More than  eighty years after his death at Pearl Harbor, Effingham  native Keith Tipsworth is coming home.  He was a Navy Machinsit Mate 1st Class stationed on the battleship USS West Virginia that fateful day and one of 106 crewmen aboard the ship who were killed.

His remains will arrive at St. Louis Lambert Airport on Thursday, November 10 and will make their way to Effingham to Johnson Funeral Home.  Funeral services will  be held Tuesday, November 15 at the funeral home with visitation prior to the service from  10 to 11 am.

Burial will be at Moccasin  Cemetery in rural Beecher City, Illinois.

--GreGen

Remains of USS Oklahoma Sailor Edward E. Casinger to Be Buried

Fron November 4, 2022, KSN, NBC News

Edward C. Casinger was just twenty years old when he lost his life on the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor.  Now, 81 years later, his remains will be buried with full military honors.

He was born in Manhattan, Kansas,  on May 12, 1920, and enlisted in the Navy as an apprentice seaman on July 9, 1940, in St. Louis, Missouri.  He eventually rose to the rank of Fireman 2nd Class by late fall 1941.

He lost his life on the USS Oklahoma.  When the ship was finally uprighted in 1944, only the remains of 35 of the 429 dead could be indentified.  He was among them and buried as an"Unknown."

His remains were accounted for  October 1, 2021, through the work of the DPAA and will be buried on Noevember 19, 2022, at Arlington National Cemetery.

--GreGen

Nevada's Last Pearl Harbor Survivor Dies: Ed Hall, 99

From the November 5, 2022, Daily Mail by Andrea Cavallier.

Ed Hall, 99, died November 2 at the North Las Vegas VA Center.  He was just 18 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

In 2020, he had said he was saddened to know that he was believed too be the last Pearl Harbor survivor in Nevada.

On that fateful day, he was an Army private and on kitchen duty cleaning a frying pan when he heard what he thought to be a malfunctioning  air compressor.  But when he walked outside  the mess hall at Hickam Field he saw a full-blown attack going on.

--GreGen

North Dakota Soldier Identified 80 Years After KIA: Pfc. Robert Alexander

From the November 3, 2022, KFYR TV "World War II soldier from ND identified 80 years after he was killed in action" by Hope Sisk.

Army Pfc.  Robert Alexander was only 27 when he was killed by Japanese forces in a mass suicide attack on his regiment in the Mariana Islands near Guam in July 1944.

The native of Tolley, North Dakota, could not be identified until June 2022 when the Department of Defense 's accounting agency ussed dental and DNA to determine his remains.

He will soon be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, November 14.

--GreGen

Some More on Julius Ellsberry

From Wikipedia.

JULIUS ELLSBERRY  (August22, 1921-December 7, 1941)

He was the first Alabamian killed in World War II.  He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and graduated from Parker High School in 1938.

Enlisted in the Navy in  1940 and was serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB-37) when the attack came.  He and 413 other crewmen died.

The Birmingham World called him the "Crispus Attucks of World War II."  

Birmingham's black community raised over $300,000 in war bond purchases towards the completion of a B-24 Liberator named "The Spirit of Ellsberry."

His body was returned to his family in September 1948 and was laid to rest with full military honors at New Grove Hill Cemetery in Birmingham.

Birmingham's Ellsberry Park was dedicated in his honor in 1979.

A marker to him is also in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham.  The park is named for fellow Navy sailor and Birmingham resident  Kelly Ingram, the first American killed in World War I when his ship the destroyer USS Cassin was sunk by a German U-boat on October 15, 1917.

--GreGen

Five Blacks to Know: Julius Ellsberry

JULIUS ELLSBERRY ( 1921-1941)

Ellsberry, who was from Birmingham, Alabama,  volunteered for the Navy when he turned 18.  During the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, he helped to rescue shipmates before he was killed when the Japanese bombed his ship, the battleship USS Oklahoma.

Just days before, he had written his mother to tell her that he wouldn't be home for Christmas and mailed a money order to buy presents for the family.

--GreGen

Some More on Dovey Johnson Roundtree

The last post didn't have much on her military service so I looked further.

 From VA News "Veteran of the Day."

Dovey was born in 1914 in North Carolina and graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1938 and briefly taught school in South Carolina before enlisting in the U.S. Army.  She was recruited by Dr. Mary Bethune, among with 39 other black women for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), later became just the Women's  Army Corps (WAC).

Dovey achieved the rank of captain and was responsible for the recruitment of other black women into the unit.

****************************

From Wikipedia "Women's Army Corps."

Black women served in the WAAC and WAC.  Black women serving in the WAC experienced segregation in much the same fashion as they had in civilian life.  Some billets accepted WACs of any race, but others didn't..  Black womnen were taught the same specialties as white women and the races were not separated in at specialty training schools.

The U.S. Army goal was to have 10% of all WACs be Blacks, to reflect the U.S. population, but a shortage of recruits brought only 5.1% black women to the WAC.

The first black woman to become a commissioned officer was Charity Adams Earley.

--GreGen

Five Black WW II Veterans: Dovey Johnson Roundtree (1914-2018)

Roundtree was a Women's Army Corps member who used the GI Bill to attend law school at  Howard University School of Law.  Then she started a law firm in Washington, D.C. and won a landmark Civil Rights case, Sarah Keys vs. Carolina Coach Company in 1955, and helped to secure a ban against racial segregation in interstate bus travel.

"Evers and Roundtree are part of a generation of black veterans who use their service as a way to launch their involvement with the Civil Rights Movement," says Delmont.  "They're making sure that the United States is a place where freedom and democracy will be true for all people, and they came back and fight for that."

--GreGen

Five Black WW II Veterans-- Part 3: Medgar Evers (1926-1963)

Evers was just 19 when he joined up with the Red Ball Express, a group of blacktruck drivers who transported supplies all across Europe after D-Day.  They were really essential to the war effort.

Evers World War II military service helped spark a political awakening.

When he returned to the U.S.,  he led black veterans to register to vote in  Decatur, Mississippi,  on 1946.  White townspeople with guns turned them away.  

His experience  really dramatically highlights that double victory campaign, according to Delmont.  This was the way that black Americans  are both fighting to win the war militarily, fighting agaisnt fascism, but alsotrying to fight against racism at home."

He was assassinated by a white supremacist in 1963.

--GreGen

Five Blacks You Should Know-- Part 2: Charity Adams

Chariry Adams (1918-2000)

Adams, a member of the Women's Army Corps, served as the leader of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.  This was an all-Black unit.  These women delivered mail from the home front to troops in the European Theater, processing an average of 65,000 pieces of mail per shift.  Before these women got involved with the mail, it was hopelessly backlogged.

By making sure all the mail got through, she and her command helped keep the morale of American troops up.

The 6888th was also the largest group of black women to serve overseas during the war.  Adams saw her duty as showing white Americans what black women could do.  

"What we had was a large group of adult  Negro women who had been victimized, in one way or the other,  by racial bias,"  Adams said later.  "This was one opportunity for us to stand together for a common cause."

--GreGen

Five Blacks Who Served in WW II That You Should Know: Edward A. Carter (1916-1963)

From the Ocober 18, 2022, Time Magazine, "5 black World War II veterans to know" by Olivia  B. Waxman.

EDWARD A. CARTER

Carter was raised in India and China and was fluent in Hindi, Mandarin and German.  He was one of about eighty Blacks who volunteered  for the Spanish Civil War against fascist General Franco, serving in an integrated unit at a time when U.S. Army units were segregated.  

Despite his language skills and combat experience overseas, the U.S. Army made him a cook in a quartermaster truck company, becoming one of many black Americans who were assigned to roles that really weren't suited to their skills set.

Black Americans were barred from combat roles, but near the end of the war,  the U.S. needed more troops for combat and asked black Americans to volunteer.  Carter did and served in the 12th Armored Division, earning a Medal of Honor, posthumously for fighting in Germany -- one of only seven black Americans to receive the award during World War II.

Of course, you might think he should have received that Medal of Honor back then and not after he died.

But, that was the way it was back then.

--GreGen

What Happened to the Surplus Planes After the War-- Part 3: Why the Drive to Get Rid of Them

Both the American aviation industry and the  postwar Air Force had an interest in seeing  the planes scrapped as soon as possible.

The Air Force especially had an interest as they had seen  the hobbling effect of  WW I surplus planes had on the growth of the Army Air Service.  The next war would not be fought with B-17s or even B-24s.  New airplanes were on the horizon and existing planes would be a roadblock to their acquisition.

Plus, aluminum ingots recovered from scrapped aircraft constituted an alloy not necessarily appropriate to returning to aviation construction.  For example, a B-24 Liberator contained 13,000 pounds of aluminum.  Scrapping and melting was  estimated to recover 65% to 70% of the tonnage.

Navy aircraft scrapping in the fall of 1945 involved the manual separation of differing metals.  At Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida, about five warplanes were salvaged daily.  The costly metal separation task was done largely by prisoners of war in 1945.  With their expected return to their countries expected to happen in 1946,  the profitability of  of te Jacksonville salvage operation  was in question.

--GreGen

What Happened to the Surplus WW II Planes-- Part 2

Kingman, Arizona, became a huge and well-known desert parking lot for a surplus fleet estimated at more than 5,000 aircraft.  But there were many smaller "parking lots."

Most of the planes were scrapped in the postwar 1940s.

Army Air Force depots near Spokane, Washington, and Ogden, Utah,  yielded scrap in an era long before these machines were prized as historical icons.

Meanwhile,bases in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Pyote, Texas,  parked aircraft in the dry sunshine.  Pyote is said to have stored as many as 2,000 warplanes, including many B-29  Superfortresses.

Walnut Ridge, Arknasas, as well as Clinton and  Altus, Oklahoma,  also swelled with surplus aircraft, with Walnut Ridge storing nearly 4,000.  Augusta, Georgia, was another RFC storage center.

The current military aircraft storage and salvage facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson also stored Army Air Force craft  after the war.  Included in this was a number of foreign and domestic artifacts destined for the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

--GreGen

What Happened to All the Surplus WW II Aircraft After the War?

From the October 16, 2022, General Aviation News "The fate of  World War II surplus aircraft" by Frederick Johnsen.

The war ends and there are a lot of aircraft that now have no job. So, what do you do with them?

Aircraft storage areas, typically in Arizona and the southwest became the new homes for  the older and sometines war-weary aircraft.  By early August 1945, with the war still underway,  about 4,000 aircraft were already in these holding areas.

You could find the aircraft at airfields such as Wickenburg, Arizona, Ontario and Blythe, California.

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was in charge of disposal.  Efforts to recoup costs involved selling their engines and accessories, while scrapping the aluminum frames.

In August 1945, Ontario, hosted 1,600 surplus warplanes, Blythe 877,  Hemet, California, logged 27 and Phoenix had 236 and Wickenburg 680.

The Los Angeles RFC office estimated that it cost $8 per month per aircraft for storage and processing., including handling sales.

--GreGen

USS California Unknown Identified: Pete Turk

From the October 14, 2022, 12 WIBW, Topeka, Kansas, "WW II veteran to be laid to rest in Junction City" by Alex Taylor.

The remains of Seaman 2nd Class Pete Turk will return home to Kansas and laid to rest at the Kansas Veterans' Cemetery on Monday October 17 at 10:30 am with full military honors.

Pete Turk was in the U.S. Navy and was killed in action on Sunday, December 7, 1941,  while stationed on the battleship USS California.  He was twenty years old.

In 2018, the DPAA exhumed the twenty-five USS California unknowns from the Punchbowl for  analysis.

Turk is the first USS California sailor to be indentified.

--GreGen

Admiral David W. Bagley

I have been writing about the sinking of the destroyer USS Jacob Jones(DD-61) by a U-boat during World War I in my Cooter's History blog.   It was under the command of David W. Bagley at the time.  There was also a second destoyer USS Jacob Jones (DD-130) that was sunk by a torpedo during WW II as well as a destroyer escort USS Jacob Jones (DE-130) that was in the war, but did not get sunk.

David Bagley continued in the U.S. Navy and rose to the rank of admiral and at the beginning of 1941 he was commander of Battleship Division 2, with his flag on the USS Tennessee (BB-43) and was at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, when the attack damaged his ship.

On April 14, 1942, he assumed command of the 14th  Naval District (Hawaii) and  the Hawaiian Sea Frontier and served there until January 1943, then he commanded the  Western Sea Frontier from February 1, 1943, and also commandant of the 11th Naval District and eventually the 14th District again until the end of the war.

You can read about his earlier service in my Cooter's History Thing blog.  Just click on the site in My Blogs List to the right of this.

Looks like I'll have to do some RoadTripping Through History.

--GreGen

North Carolina's Fort Fisher Not Just a Civil War Fort (It Had a Role in WW II): Living History Program Saturday

From the October 12, 2022, WWAY 3 TV, Wilmington, N.C., "Fort Fisher hosting free WW II living history program."

The Fort Fisher State Historic Site in Kure Beach, N.C.,  will host "Homefront 1942 and Fort Fisher" this Saturday.

The event is a living history program aimed at  highlighting the fort's lesser-known history as a WW II anti-aircraft training base to recognize those who served and supported the military and home front  effort.

The free, family-friendly  program will feature civilian and military re-enactors, educational displays, weapons demonstrations, a headquarters tent, a PX, WACs and Army nurses.  The young at heart can hone their targeting skills with the site's anti-aircraft artillery Nerf  gun and participate in the "Paint the Toy Soldier" workshop (and you canb take those soldiers hone).

To me, the absolute best part of the event will be the appearance of author, historian and retired Navy Captain  Wilbur Jones who will present "Growing Up in Wartime Wilmington:  America's First  World War II Heritage City" at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.  in the Spencer Theater located inside the visitor center.

The event is open to the public and will run from 10 a.m. to 4  p.m..

Nerf Me.   --GreGen

USS Basilone (DDG-122) Christened-- Part 2: Honoring Two Heroes

John Basilone, a New Jersey resident returned home after Guadalcanal to a richly deserved hero's welcome and a parade.  But he asked to rejoin his comrades and died on the opening day of the attack on Iwo Jima in February 1945.

Breaking a bottle on the ship's bow was Ryan Manion, a woman who lost her brother in an ambush in Fallujah, Iraq.  Her brother, Travis Manion, was killed by a sniper when he exposed himself to enemy fire to divert attention from his unit in 2007.

Manion, who is one of the ship's sponsors, is president of the Pennsylvania-based Travis Manion Foundation, which aims to empower veterans and families of fallen heroes.

A Ship Honoring Two Heroes.  --GreGen

USS Basilone (DDG-122) Christened-- Part 1: Named After John Basilone, USMC

From the June 19, 2022, Chicago Tribune "Destroyer christened."

The christening of a Navy destroyer on Saturday at Navy Shipbuilder Bath Iron Works in Maine highlighted the sacrifices of two generations:  the ship's namesake killed in World War II and another Marine who died more than 60 years later.

The future USS Basilone, a 509 foot guided missile destroyer bears the name of  Marine Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone.

Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism while defending Henderson Field against a fierce assault by a 3,000-strong Japanese force during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.

--GreGen

Fannie McClendon, 101, Up for a Gold Medal

From the November 11, 2021, Yahoo News "Honoring Fannie McClendon:  101-year-old Tempe veteran could receive national honor."

At 101 years old, Fannie McClendon still tells stories about her time in the U.S. Army and Air Force.  The Tempe, Arizona, resident occupies a unique place in history.

During World War II, she joined the only Army battalion comprised entirely of black women.  Her service  and the efforts of more than 800 of her fellow soldiers, could earn a Congressional Gold Medal.

It did and, well-deserved.

--GreGen

WW II Unit Receives Long-Overdue Recognition-- Part 3: Fannie McClendon

"All told, I was in the service for 26 1/2 years and never thought about getting any special honors.  I am amazed that I'll be receiving the Congressional Gold Medal for our service during the war.

"Every member of the 6888th will receive one.  I'm only sorry that out of more than 800 battalion members, only a handful of us are still living to see this day.

"I'm grateful to have lived an amazing life, but what matters most is what all those letters represented: staying connected to the ones we hold dear."

She certainly has lived an amazing life and especially with the things she accomplished while being a woman and especially being a black woman.  Talk about obstacles overcome.

A Proud Member of the GreGen, the Greatest Generation.  --GreGen

WW II Unit Receives Long-Overdue Recognition-- Part 2: Fannie McClendon

"Our battalion was determined to bring cheer and hope to our soldiers.  So when we first arrived in Birmingham, England, we worked in round-the-clock shifts, seven days a week, and in only three months we cleared up a backlog of around 17 million pieces of mail.  That was two times faster than the Army thought we could get it done.

"During the war, we also served in France.  After the war, I joined the Air Force.  I was in line to become a squadron commander, but every time I got assigned, they would send me for more training.  But, that's all right.  At training camp in Cheyenne, Wyoming, is where I met my late husband, Roy.  

"And, eventually, I did get that promotion.  I became the first woman to lead an all-male squadron in the Strategic Air Command."

Not to mention that she was a black woman and to rise to that rank and command back then was nothing short of amazing.

Quite a Woman.  --GreGen

A WW II Unit and Woman Receives Long Overdue Recognition, the 6888th-- Part 1: Fannie McClendon

From the August/September, 2022,  AARP Magazine "Woman of Letters" as told to Robin Westen.

Vet Fannie McClendon's World War II unit receives long overdue recognition.

When she was in high school, her favorite subjects were history and geography, so she figured a good way to see the world and get close to history was to enlist in the Army.  The military was still segregated back then (she is a black woman) and she was assigned to the first all-black, all-female United States Army unit to be deployed overseas.

She served in Europe during the war with the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.  (I have written about them before, just click on the label below.)

"We had an important job to do.  Our soldiers in Europe weren't getting their letters and packages delivered -- there was a backlog of two to three years.  And the mail is the thread that keeps our service members connected to their families back home."

--GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Sailor Buried at Arlington National Cemetery: Roman W. Sadlowski

From the September 19, 2022, Charlottesville (Va) CBS 19 News "Sailor who died at Pearl Harbor buried at Arlington" AP.

The remains of a sailor from Massachusetts who died December 7, 1941, on board the battleship USS Oklahoma were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, September 19.

The internment comes 80 years and nearly 4 years after the  Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified his remains.

He was Electrician's Mate 3rd Class Roman W. Sadlowski, 21,  of Pittsfield. Massachusetts.

About fifteen members of his family from Massachusetts,  Texas and Florida attended the ceremony.

--GreGen

Sailor Killed on USS Oklahoma to be Buried with Full Military Honors: Beoin Corzatt

A native of Ohio, Beoin Corzatt enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1939 and received several promotions until reaching his final rank, Fireman 1st Class in May 1941.  

He was only 24 years old when he lost his life on December 7, 1941.  The attack on his ship, the USS Oklahoma, resulted in the deaths of 429 crew men, including him.

His remains were recovered from the ship, but after that length of time, could not be identified.  The were exhumed in 2015 and using advanced forensics were identified on December 20, 2020.  The recovery project has also identified the remains of  354 previous unidentifieds from the Oklahoma.

He will be reburied at the National Cemetery of the Pacific with full military honors.

--GreGen

What Became of the USS Oklahoma Marine Platoon?

From the November, 1942, Marine Corps Recruiter.

In the last post, I wrote about a platoon of Marines referred to as the USS Oklahoma Platoon in honor of the Marine detachment serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma when it capsized during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  This was the only additional information I could find out about it.

Caption to a picture.

"Display  Aids in Recruiting Station.

"In connection with the recruiting drive to enlist the USS Oklahoma Platoon, enlisted in honor of the men of the Marine Detachment of the battleship USS Oklahoma who were killed at Pearl Harbor, and the western premiere of  the film "Wake Island," this display was arranged in a Tulsa, Okla., store window."

This is all I have been able to find on this group.  I'd sure like to know more.

--GreGen

80th Anniversary of Swearing In of the USS Oklahoma Marine Corps Platoon

From the September 15, 2022, Oklahoman "Throwback Thursday:  Platoon  name honors fellow Marines from USS Oklahoma" by Linda Lynn.

From caption of the photograph.

"Eighty-five Oklahomans raise their right hands as they are sworn into the Marine Corps on September 15, 1842, on the south side of the state Capitol.

"The platoon was designated as the USS Oklahoma Platoon in honor of the detachment that had served on the USS Oklahoma battleship, which was hit by multiple torpedoes on December 7, 1941, during the bombing of Pearl Harbor."

And, It Was Formed in Oklahoma.   --GreGen

Herbert 'Bert' Jacobson Buried-- Part 3: A Good Story from It, Though

Brad McDonald is a nephew of Herbert Jacobson and says there is one good story to come of his uncle's death.  For him, seeing the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery was especially poignant.

"When  Bert joined the Navy,  he ran into a fella from South Dakota who was an orphan,"  McDonald said.

"When they got a weekend pass, Bert took him home and the orphan met Bert's younger sister."

Orville McDonald and Norma Jacobson dated and later married, giving McDonald a favorite ending to the story.

"That orphan was my dad, and Bert's  sister was my mon," he said.  "So, I wouldn't be here without Bert."

Both of his parents are buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Orville Charles :Mac" McDonald (1918-1995) and Norma Jacobson McDonald (1923-2007).

That was a Great Story.  --GreGen

Herbert 'Bert' Jacobson, USS Oklahoma Unknown, Laid to Rest-- Part 2

In 2015, the Department of Defense announced they were going to disinter the remains of the Oklahoma Unknowns and use new scientific methods to identify them.  The Jacobson family was ecstatic.  They said their mother cried every December 7 because of his death and especially since his body's location was unknown.

This Project Oklahoma has led to the identification of  355 men, including Herbert.  This leaves 33 sets still to be identified.  To mark the 80th anniversary of the attack, those 33 were reinterred.

As far as Herbert Jacobson's death, all they knew was what shipmates had told them.  He had just come off duty after spending several hours ferrying men to the shore.  A good friend had told them that he was pretty sure that Jacobson was asleep in his bunk and died before he even knew there was a war going on.

The family was notified that Herbert's remains had been identified in 2019 and were hoping the burial could take the following year, but then COVID-19.

--GreGen

Sailor Killed on USS Oklahoma Laid to Rest, Finally: Herbert 'Bert' Jacobson

From September 13, 2022, AP by Don Babwin.

A twenty-one year-old sailor was laid to rest Tuesday after a decades-long effort to identify his remains at Pearl Harbor.

Members of Herbert "Bert"  Jacobson's family waited all their lives to attend a memorial for a  young man they never knew or met.  Jacobson was among the 400 USS Oklahoma Unknowns.

The casket holding his remains was carried Tuesday morning on a horse-drawn caisson led  by a military escort before his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Herbert Jacobson was from the small town of Grayslake in northern Illinois.  His family knew he had died, but there was no body to bury.  The USS Oklahoma lay submerged for two years before it was uprighted and the bodies recovered.  By then there wasn't much to go on for identification.

More.  --GreGen

Facts About 9/11

I was unable to do my annual commemoration of 9/11 yesterday so am doing it today in seven of my eight blogs.

From the Do Something Organization "11 Facts About 9/11."

**  In September 11, 2001, nearly 3000 people were killed, and 400 were police officers and firefighters, in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City.  Attacks also took place at the Pentgon by Washington, D.C. and in a plane crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

**  9/11 was not the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.  A bombing in February of 1993 killed six people.

**  On any given workday,  up to 50,000 emplyees worked at the WTC twin towers and an additional 40,000 passed through the complex.

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 4: More Than 1.1 Million Murdered Here

Today's visitors can also see suitcases, glasses and other items prisoners brought on their journeys there.  Especially haunting are the prostehetic limbs.  Many of the Jews who were murdered had fought for their homelands, including Germany, in World War I.

At some parts of Auschwitz-Birkenau only dozens of brick chimneys remain on a vast field where once the barracks for detainees stood.

More than 1.1 million people were murdered by the Nazis and their henchmen at Auschwitz.  Most of those killed were Jews, but the victims also included Poles, Roma (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war, and others.

In all, about 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust.

When the Soviets liberated the camp, they found about 7,000 survivors.

--GreGen

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 3: 'Arbeit Macht Frei'

Prisoners arrived in cramped, windowless cattle cars.  At the infamous ramp at Auschwitz, the Nazis selected those they could use as forced laborers.  The others -- old people, many women and especially children and babies -- were gassed to death soon after their arrival.

It is Birkenau that shocks more profoundly, a flat, vast space still ringed by the silver birch trees -- Birken in German -- that gave the place its name.  Crematories lie in rubble but still intact are the rail tracks and watch towers and some of the barracks where prisoners slept in cold, cramped conditions.

A photo shows the notorious main gate with the cynical Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- a German phrase meaning "work will set you free."

--GreGen

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 2: There Were Actually Two Auschwitzes

Fromthe January 26, 2020, Chicago Tribune.

The 75th Anniversary of its Liberation

On Monday January 27, 2020-- 75 years after its liberation --  hundreds of survivors from across the world will travel to Auschwitz for official anniversary commemorations.

Auscwitz today is many things at once: an emblem of evil, a site of historical remembrance and a vast cemetery.  It is a place where Jews make pilgrimages to pay tribute to ancestors whose ashes and bones remain part of the earth.

Auscwitz is not one camp, but two:  Auscwitz I, built in an abandoned Polish military base, and Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, a much bigger complex that went up later about two miles away to expedite the Nazis' Final Solution.

Early on, Auschwitz I operated as a camp for for Polish prisoners, including Catholic priests and members of the nation's underground resistance against the German occupation.  Later in the war, Birkenau was created for the mass killing of Jews and others who were transported there from across Europe.

--GreGen

USS Oklahoma Sailor to be Buried at Arlington National Cemetery: Herbert Barney Jacobson

From News 8 ABC Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Savannah Sinclair.

Herbert Barney Jacobson, who died aboard the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, is set to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday, September 13.

He was born  October 9, 1920, in Illinois and served on the Oklahoma as a Fireman 3rd Class.

Navy Firemen were  part of the Engine Roon Force, Artificer Branch.  They were responsible for standing engineering watches and performing mibor maintenance repairs.

He was just 21 years old when he lost his life.

--GreGen

Danube Drought Reveals Parts of Hidden WW II History

From the August 30, 2022, AP News. by Dusan Stojanovic.

The worst drought in Europe in decades has caused German ships sunk in the Danube River near Prahovo, Serbia, to become exposed.  Some of the ships still contain ammunition and war munitions.  At one time, these ships were part of Germany's Black Sea Fleet.

They were deliberatelysunk by the Germans as they retreated from Romania as Soviet forces advanced in September 1944.  The idea for sinking was to slow the Soviet advance.  It didn't work.

Many of the German ships were removed after the war, but others left in place if not directly in the river shipping channel.

One source said that as many as 200 were sunk back then.  It is thought another 40 are still underwater, but 21 are now above it and causing problems with river traffic.

--GreGen

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 1: The 75th Anniversary of Its Liberation

From the January 26, 2020, Chicago Tribune by Markus Schreiber and Kirsten Grieshaber.  "Life after Auschwitz:  Survivors to unite 75 years after liberation to visit horrific symbol of Holocaust."

Oswiecim, Poland.  On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland.  The Germans had already fled westward, leaving behind the bodies of prisoners who had been shot and thousands of sick and starving survivors.

The Soviet troops also found gas chambers and crematoria that the Germans had blown up before fleeing in an attempt to hide evidence of their mass killings.

But the genocide was too massive to hide.

Today, the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau endures as the leading symbol of the terror of the Holocaust.  Its iconic status is such that every year it registers a record number of visitors -- 2.3 million last year alone.

--GreGen

Served on Three Battleships Which Were At Pearl Harbor: William Joseph Gallegos

From the East Bay Times

WILLIAM "BILL" JOSEPH GALLEGO

Passed away peacefully in his sleep on Sunday, June  19 at age 95.

He served in the Pacific during World War II with tours of duty aboad the battleshipps USS Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Nevada.

He became a Radioman 1st Class and was a member of the Navy Band during his time of service.

He was buried at Sacramento National Cemetery.

--GreGen

Not Much AboutThose German Ships Resurfacing in Danube River

I have been doing a lot of searching on the internet for the names, dates and more information about the German ships sunk at some point in 1944 near Prahova, Serbia, but am not finding much.  There are plenty of articles about them resurfacing because of the extended drought and making the river channels much tighter, but as far as the event during the war, not much.

I did come across one  source that said they were sunk to block the Danube River from Soviet ships as well as to prevent their capture.

The Wikipedia sunken ships for September article said that the German subchasers UJ-106 and UJ-110 were sunk at Prahova, Romania, on September 5, 1944.

--GreGen

German Warships Surface in Danube River as It Recedes

From August 19, 2022, ABC News "Severe European drought reveals sunken World War II warships on the Danube River" by Kyla  Guilford.

Europe's scorching  drought has revealed  the hulks of dozens of German warships that sank during WW II near Serbia's river port town of Prahovo.  The ships were part of the German  Black Sea fleet in 1944  that were sunk as Soviet forces advanced.

Now, over 20 vessels have come to the surface as river levels fall.  Many are still loaded with ammunition.  These ships are causing problems with the river traffic.

I am trying to find out more about this story and place it in history, but all I keep getting is what is happening with them right now.  I'll keep looking.

--GreGen

South Texas Hero's Remains Identified After 77 Years: Sgt. Herald R. Boyd, 25

From the August 18, 2022 KIII TV by Haley Williams (Kill).

The remains of a man killed in WW II are coming home to South Texas after 77 years, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).

The remains of Sgt. Herald R. Boyd, a San Patricio County native were positively identified on July 8, 2022.

Boyd was serving as a gunner on a B-17G Flying Fortress bomber of February  3, 1945,  when his aircraft was hit by a ground rocket immediately after dropping its bombs on the Tempelhof marshalling yard in Berlin.

The pilot tried to save his plane, but was unsuccessful and it crashed into a residential ares of Berlin.    Seven of the nine crew members were kiled.  The other two were captured and became prisoners of war.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command began to investigate and recover missing American personnel in Europe.  115 sets of remains were recovered from the Doberitz Cemetery in Berlin near the end of 1946.

By the end of 19556, six of th seven dead on his plane had been identified.  Boyd's remains were thought to be  Unknown X-4804, but could not be proven. and they were buried  at Ardennes-American Cemetery in Belgium in 1957.

They were disinterred in June 2018 and sent to Offutt  Air Force Base, Nebraska, for indentification.  They were positively identified through DNA.

He will now be buried in Corpus Christi on September 12 at the Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery.

Thanks to the DPAA.  --GreGen

Drought in Germany Exposing WW II Munitions-- Part 2: Getting Across the Rhine River at Remagen

The Siegfried Line stretched from the border with France to the Rhine River, which was intended as a natural barrier that would stop the Allied advance in the closing days of the war.  Consequently, a lot of fighting and bombing took place along the Rhine River.  

The Germans tried to blow up every bridge crossing to delay the Allied advance.

However, during the Battle of Remagen, a town south of Bonn, the Allies were able to capture the bridge intact and started crossing over into Germany as they overcome the last natural barrier.  After that, forces from the south and north were able to perform an encircling maneuvre onto the Ruhr Valley, capturing some 317,000 German soldiers between the cities of  Jamm,  Dortmund,  Essen and Duisburg.

The Battle for  the Ruhr Pocket, as it is known, lasted from 7 March to 21 April, when German  Marshal  Walter Model commited suicide instead of surrendering to the Allies.

The war in Europe officially ended  less than three weeks later, on, May 8.

--GreGen

Drought in Europe Exposing World War II Munitions on the Banks of the Rhine-- Part 1

From the August 12, 2022, The Mayor.

This week the City of Bonn, Germany, announced that die to the heat wave and  drought in Germany, that the  water level of the Rhine Rive had dropped significantly and as a result, old WW II munitions and grenades were exposed.  

The city is asking residents not to go walking in the newly exposed areas, nor pick up anything they find.  If they see something suspicious they are to contact authorities.

The City of Bonn was captured by the U.S. 1st Division between 8 and 9 March 1945 during the Battle of Remagen, fought between March 7 and 25. 

--GreGen

U.S. Navy After the War, Nuclear Testing-- Part 6: The Fates of Other Warships

In addition,  the USS Nevada (BB-36), the lead ship of a World War I-era  class of battleships and survivor of Pearl Harbor, had endured both tests and was later towed back to Pearl Harbor for examination. She was later used for gunnery practice and finally was sunk by an aerial torpedo.  Likewise, both the USS New York  (BB-34), the lead of her class, and super-dreadnaught battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) was also at Pearl Harbor and survived the tests and were used for structural testing before finally being sunk.

Most of the other warships used in the tests included many cruisers, including the German Navy's Prinz Eugen, and a destroyer failed to be sunk during the testing.  It became clear that  the atom bomb could level a city easily, but sinking a warship was another matter entirely.

Of course, the radiation would likely have killed the crew, yet contamination  remained a very serious concern.

In fact, a 2016 study found that even after si many years after the nuclear testing, radiation levels in some parts of the Bikini Atoll remain at least six times the maximum safety limit.

Peter Suciu

An Original Tuskegee Airman Dies Back in 2019

From the Jne 25, 2019, Chicago Sun-Times "WW II pilot, original Tuskegee airman, AP.

World War II  pilot Robert Friend, one of the last original members of the famed all-black Tuskegee Airmen, has died at age 99.

He died at a southern California hospital.

Born in South Carolina on 1920's leap day, Mr. Friend flew 142 combat missions in the war as part of an elite group of fighter pilots trained at  at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute.  The program was created after the NAACP began challenging policies barring black people from flying military aircraft.

Mr. Friend's 28-year Air Force career included service in Korea and Vietnam.

He also worked on space launch vehicles and served as foreign technology program director before retiring as a lieutenant colonel and forming his own aerospace company.

Quite a Life.  GreGen

The U.S. Navy After the War, Nuclear Testing-- Part 5: Carriers Saratoga, Independence and Battleships Arkansas and Nagato

Among the warships targeted  in the Bikini Atoll  Nuclear Target Fleet were two aircraft carriers and five battleships.

They included the  Lexington-class carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3),  which survived the first  blast, but was damaged beyond repair in the second one and the light aircraft carrier USS Independence (CVL-22), which survived both tests. Her radioactive hulk was later taken to San Francisco for further tests and was finally scuttled off the coast of  San Francisco, California.

The battle wagons used at the tests included the USS Arkansas (BB-33), a Wyoming-class  dreadnaught battleship that was crushed by the first test, and the Japanese battleship HIJMS Nagato, which was heavily damaged in the July 25 bombing and sank five days later.

--GreGen

The U.S. Navy After the War, Nuclear Testing-- Part 4

The second test  on July 25, 1946, was named "Baker" and the bomb had the code name "Helen of Bikini."  It was  deonated 90 feet underwater, which resulted in radioactive sea spray that caused  considerable  contamination on nearby ships.

According to the Joint  Chiefs of Staff's  Evaluation Board, it was a serious and unexpected problem.  The radioactive water that spewed from the lagoon 'contaminated" the ships, which became "radioactive stoves,  and would have burned  all living things aboard with invisible, painless but deadly radiation."

It also meant that the task force personnel assigned to the salvage work had to deal with contamination.  The original plan was to decontaminate the ships at the site, and that was only halted after military and civilian personnel had been exposed  to radioactive substances.

A third deep-water test that was to have been named "Charlie,"  and scheduled for the summer of 1947, was canceled due to the Navy's inability to decontaminate  the target ships of the "Baker" test.

--GreGen

U.S. Navy After the War, Nuclear Testing-- Part 2: Bikini Atoll Tests

The United States tested its first atom bomb on July 16, 1945,  at a site 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico.  The code name for the test was "Trinity."

Just a year later, a joint Army-Navy task force staged the first atomic explosions since the ones on Japan.  The test was codenamed "Operation Crossroads" and was conducted on the Bikini Atoll, a coral reef in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.  The goal was to find out the effect atomic blasts would have on warships.

A fleet of 95 ships was gathered was assembled in Bikini Lagoon, and the flotilla was hit by two "Fat Man" plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons -- the same type dropped  on the city of Nagasaki.  Each had the yield of 23 kilotons of TNT.

The first test, conducted on July 1, 1946, was dubbed "Able" while the bomb was named "Gilda" -- a reference to Rita Hayworth's character from the 1946 film of the same name.  Gilda  was detonated at  520 feet  above the target fleet.

However, it had missed its target aim point by 2,130, it caused signifucantly less dammage than initially expected.

--GreGen

The U.S. Navy in WW II and Afterwards-- Part 1

From the July 29, 2022, 19fortyfive site  "Why the Navy dropped nuclear  bombs on aircraft carriers and battleships" by PeterSuciu.

At the outbreak of World War II, the British Royal Navy was the strongest  maritime force in the world.  However, by the end of the conflict the United States Navy had ovetaken it for strongest even though it was tasked with fighting a two-front war on the seas.

But the United States proved up to the challenge and produced a massive number of warships.  Even so, the U.S. fleet was a considerable force at  the outbreak of the wat.

In  1939, the U.S. Navy had 15 battleships, 5 aircraft carriers, 18 heavy cruisers and 19 light cruisers.  Even as a new class of battleships entered service during the war, the vaunted Iowa-class, the focus had shiffed to  aircraft carriers, of which 16 super carriers were built along with dozens of smaller carriers.

When the fighting ended in 1945, the United States had more warships than any other power and there was the consideration of what to do with all of the,.

For many of the older ones, they were used as test targets for a new kind of weapon.

Nuclear.

--GreGen

Chief Pharmacist's Mate James Cheshire Died on the USS Oklahoma

From the July 25, 2022, WHSA 11 ABC News "Pearl Harbor sailor from Nelson County laid to rest 80 years later" by Brooke Hasch.

Of the 429 sailors and marines killed on the USS Oklahoma during the attack, 394 had been buried as unknowns.  He was one of them.

James Cheshire joined the U.S. Navy at age of 18 and made a career of it for the next 22 years.  He had just reupped in 1940 so had he chosen not to continue his career, he wouldn't have been on the ship that fateful day.

As a pharmacist's mate, he would have been way down in the ship at his medical station where he rendered aid to the wounded.  Down there, he had almost no odds of escaping as the USS Oklahoma was hit at least five times, capsizing in 12 minutes.

He was buried this last weekend at Arlington National Cemetery.

Two of his cousins were on board the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor that day and both lost their lives.

--GreGen

Family Says Kentucky Sailor Killed on USS Oklahoma Is Finally Getting the Honor He Deserved: James Thomas Cheshire

From the July 18, 2022, WDRB News.

Eighty years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, remains of those killed are still being identified.

James Thomas Cheshire, better known as "Tom," is one of them.  He was on the USS Oklahoma at the time.  His remains were recovered, but identification could not be made.

Captain Robert McMahon is the director of the Naval Casualties unit and has been busy identifying those who lost their lives and were classified as unknowns.

Cheshire was born in New Hope, Kentucky, then moved to Louisville, where he enlisted in the Navy at age 19 in 1919.  He went on to reach the rank of Chief Pharmacist Mate and was serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma.

He was finally identified in 2018, using DNA from family members.  He received a full military honor burial Friday, July 22, at Arlington National Cemetery.

Navy Casualties said that there are still 33 USS Oklahoma sailors who remain unidentified, but work will continue until as many as possible are known.

--GreGen

Where the Remaining Battleships Are Located

From the Complete Pilgrim.

USS TEXAS  (BB-35)  Houston, Texas  (New York-Class launched 1912)

USS NORTH CAROLINA  (BB-55)  Wilmington, North Carolina.  (North Carolina-Class launched 1940)

USS ALABAMA  (BB-60)   Mobile, Alabama    (South Dakota-Class launched 1942)

USS MASSACHUSETTS  (BB-59)  Fall River, Massachusetts  (South Dakota-Class launched 1941)

USS IOWA  (BB-61)  Los Angeles, California  (Iowa-Class launched 1942)

USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62)   Camden, New Jersey  (Iowa-Class launched 1942)  Launched December 7, 1942, on the one year anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

USS WISCONSIN  (BB-64)  Norfolk, Virginia  (Iowa-Class launched December 7, 1943, the second anniversary of Peral Harbor).

USS MISSOURI  (BB-63)   Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  (Iowa-Class launched in 1943)  Located by the wreck of the USS Arizona.

--GreGen

USS Iowa-Class Battleships-- Part 3: Saving One of Those Big Guns

There is yet another reasoon why we won't be seeing these warships returning to active duty again and that is a serious lack of spare parts.  Warships require specialized parts and to maintain the USS New Jersey museum, workers have to travel over to the nearby inactive fleet in Philadelphia Navy Yard to scavenge what they can find.

And, there us also the fact that the Navy continues its policy of getting rid of  equipment it doesn't need.

OVER A BARREL

Storing and maintaining equipment from  retired warships can be  costly, but recently it was reported that a nonprofit group managed to save several battleship barrels (cannons) produced for the U.S. Navy during World War II.  One that had been destined for a scrapyard will now get a new lease on life in Virginia Beach.

The Coast Defense  Study Group was able to acquire a 120-ton barrel, one of nine that had been stored in Chesapeake.  These were capable of firing a  projectile weighing between 1,900 pounds and 2,700 pounds for up to 24 miles.

It was manufactured during the war for the Iowa-class battleships.

--GreGen

USS Iowa-Class Battleships-- Part 2: A Tale of Eight Battleships

Another factor against their coming back is that there is no longer any U.S. Navy facility large enough for such an undertaking.

Today, there are eight  retired U.S. Battleships that have been  maintained as floating mseums.  In addition to the role of service each played, the elements have not been kind to these old warships.

The USS Texas is currently undergoing repairs as her hull is leaking.  (It is also the oldest battleship, havong taken part in World War I.)  Significant restorations were necessary to save the  South Dakota-class USS  Massachusetts.  A special cofferdam had to built to do work on another South Dakota-Class battleship, the USS North Carolina.

The other non-Iowa-class battleship is the USS Alabama.

The four Iowa-class battlewagons, which were the last battleships launched by the U.S., are in better condition, but the USS New Jersey recently underwent its first major replacement of its wooden decks in decades.

--GreGen

Will the USS Iowa-Class Battleships Ever Come Back?-- Part 1

From the July 12, 2022 1945 site "U.S. Navy Iowa-Class battleships broke all the rules (But stop asking for a comeback)" by Peter  Sucio.

The Iowa-class battleships were the best warships of the battleship era.  They were the largest ever built in the United States.  That would be the USS Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Missouri.

There are still some who call for their return.  And for some, including me,  there is just something too much about seeing one or more of our big gun fast battleships in service again.  And, they have all been preserved intact so it is possible for them to return to duty.

But is that possible?

Not likely.  Smaller and more mobile guided-missile destroyers are today able to do shore bombardment better.  These ships would require massive crews and would simply be too inviting of a target  in this era of hypersonic missiles and stealth aircraft.

And, then there would be the huge costs of modernizing them and operating them.

But Still Wishful Thinking.   Those Were Beautiful Warships.  --GreGen

33 Classic World War II Movies-- Part 3: "Flags of Our Fathers'

1998:  "The Thin Red Line"

2001:  "Enemy at the Gates"

2001:  "To End All Wars"

2001:  *"Pearl Harbor"

2004:  "Downfall"

2006:  *"Flags of Our Fathers"

2006:   *"Letters from Iwo Jima"

2008:  *Valkyrie"

2009:  *"Inglorious Basterds"

2014:  *"Fury"

2017:  *"Dunkirk"

--GreGen

33 Classic WW II Movies-- Part 2: 'Saving Private Ryan'

*  Ones I've seen.

1969:  "The Battle of Britain"

1970:  *"Patton"

1970:  *"Kelly's Heroes"

1970:  *"Tora,Tora, Tora"

1977:  "A Bridge Too Far"

1980:  "Big Red One"

1981:  *"Das Boot"

1985:  "Come and See"

1987:  "Empire of the Sun"

1992:  "A Midnight Clear"

1998:  *"Saving Private Ryan"

--GreGen

33 Classic World War II Movies from 'Stalag 17' to 'Dunkirk'

From the November 11, 2021, The Wrap  by Beatrice Verhoevan.

*  Means I've seen it.

1945:  " Walk in the Sun"

1949:  "Battleground"

1953:  "From Here to Eternity"

1953:  "Stalag 17"

1954:  *"The Caine Mutiny:

1957:  *"Bridge on the River Kwai"

1961:  *"The Guns of Navarone"

1962:  *"The Longest Day"

1963:  *"The Great Escape"

1967:  *"The Dirty Dozen"

1968:  *"Where Eagles Dare"

--GreGen

Sailor Killed at Pearl Harbor Coming Home to Mississippi: John Russell Melton

From July 3, 2022 Kicks 96 News.

In 1941, as the holidays approached, a Mississippi sailor from Liberty stationed at Pearl Harbor on the USS West Virginia wrote home to his family that he was looking forward to coming home for Christmas.  But Seaman First Class John Russell Melton never made it.

He was among those killed on the battleship USS West Virginia when it was hit by at least seven Japanese torpedoes and two armor-piercing  bombs on December 7, 1941.

His remains were never identified and were buried along with other unknowns in a grave in Hawaii.  But, they were disinterred in 2017 and sent to a lab for analysis -- and his family contacted for DNA samples which led to his identification.

And, he'll be coming home to Mississippi this Wednesday, July 6.  His remains will be sent to New Orleans and then a motorcade will head to his hometown where flags will be displayed and people will pay their respects.

Saturday there will be a funeral with full military honors.  The family intends to have him buried in a church cemetery along side his parents.

GreGen

Remembering Herschel 'Woody' Williams, Last WW II Medal of Honor Recipient

The Veterans Site Greater Good by Dan Doyle.

Died Wednesday, June 29, 2022.  Known as a Marine's Marine.  Sadly, also, he was the last surviving recipient of the Medal of Honor during World War II.

He was born in 1923 on a dairy farm in Weirton, West Virginia, the youngest of 11 children.  When the war started, he tried to join the military, but  was first denied because he was too short.  That didn't stop him and finally joined the Marine Corps in 1943.

Two years later, he landed in Iwo Jima on February 25, 1945, as a demolitions man with the 1st Battalion, 21st Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.  Two days later he would be in the fight of his life against entrenched Japanese machine gun emplacements that were devastating his unit.

He would go forward to those emplacements armed with a flame thrower and supported by four Marine riflemen, two of whom would be killed in action protecting Woody.  Over the next four hours he would attack the machine gun nests, taking them out one by one.

He would go back to the rear several times to get more demolitions and refill the flame thrower.  On one occasion, he charged a machine gun bunker, got on top of it, stuck the nozzle of the flame thrower through the portal, and silenced the gun.

For his actions that day, he was awarded the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor.

--GreGen

USS Oklahoma Unknowns: Joseph W. Hofman and George Price

From the April 19, 2022, 10 WBNS  Chillicothe, Ohio.

JOSEPH W. HOFFMAN

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)  has announced that the remains of U.S. Navy  Musician 1st Class Joseph W. Hoffman were identified.

He was from Chillicothe and on board the USS Oklahoma that tragic day.

He is scheduled to be buried August 23.

***************************************

From the April 16, 2022, Herald-Whig Dallas City, Illinois.

GEORGE PRICE

Funeral service will be held May 4 in Dallas City, Illinois.

He was on the USS Oklahoma that tragic day.

--GreGen

World War II-era Boat Emerges from Shrinking Lake Mead

From July 1, 2022, OPB.org. by AP.

A sunken boat dating back to World War II is the latest item to emerge from a shrinking reservoir that straddles  Nevada and Arizona.

It is a Higgins landing craft  that was  originally  185 feet below the surface is now nearly half way out of the water at Lake Mead about a mile from the Lake Mead Marina and Hemingway Harbor.  It was used to survey the Colorado River decades ago, sold to the marina and then  sunk.

Higgins Industries in New Orleans built several thousand landing craft between 1942 and 1945.  Around 1,500 "Higgins Boats" were deployed on Normandy on D-Day on June 6, 1944.

The boat is only one of a series of objects appearing because of the declining waters of Lake Mead, the largest human-made reservoir in the U.S. held back by the Hoover Dam.  In May, two sets of human remains were found in the span of one week.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 8: In Summary of the Committee's Report

 The Senate Subcommittee Report

In its report, the subcommittee rejected the most serious charges, including beatings, torture, mock executions and starvation  of the defendants.  In addition, the subcommittee determined that the commutations of the sentences pronounced by General Clay had occurred because of the U.S. Army's recognition that procedral irregularities could have occurred during the trial.

The commission did not exonerate the defendants or absolve them of guilt and it endorsed the conclusions General Clay  issued in the particular case of Lieutenant Christ.  

Clay had written thatn "he was personally  convinced of the culpability of Lieutenant  Christ, and, that for reason his death sentence was fully  justified.  But, to apply  this sentence would be equivalet accepting  a bad adminsitration of justice, which led  [him], not without reserve, to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment."

Approximately sixteen months after the end of the trial, almosy all of the defendants presented affidavits  repudiating their  former confessions  and alleging aggravated duress of all types.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 7: More Accusations

Senators  Raymond Baldwin (R-Ct) and Lester C. Hunt (D-Wy)  were later accused by historian David Oshinsky of  being "determined to exonerate the Army at all costs."  Oshinsky alleged the third member of the three man committee, Senator Estes Kefauver (D-Tn) displayed a lack of interest in the case, attending only two of the first fifteen hearings.

McCarthy sought to denounce Baldwin in front of the whole Senate.  But his efforts were repudiated by the Commission on Armed Forces, which clearly showed its support for Baldwin and eventually adopted the subcommittee's official report.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 6: The Senate Subcommittee and Sen. Joseph McCarthy

It was not yet over, however.  Eventually, the U.S. Senate decided to investigate.  Ultimately the case was entrusted to the Committee on Armed Services.  The investigation was done by a subcommittee of three senators, chaired by  Raymond E. Baldwin (R-Ct)  The subcommittee was set up 29 March 1949 and its members went to Germany and heard from no fewer than 108 witnesses.

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wi) obtained permission to attend the hearings.  McCarthy's state, Wisconsin, had a large number of people of German heritage, and there were allegations that McCarthy was politically motivated to work on behalf of the Malmedy German defendants.  As usual, he used an extremely aggressive questioning style.

McCarthy's actions further inflamed a split  between the American Legion, which took a hardline position and wanted to uphold the death sentences, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars who supported more lenient penalties.

The last clash took place on May 1949, when McCarthy asked  that Lt.  William R. Perl be given a polygraph test.  This had already been objected to by Baldwin, whereupon McCarthy left the session claiming that Baldwin was trying to whitewash the American military.

--GreGen

Okinawa Marks 77th Anniversary-- Part 2

Many in Okinawa are worried about the growing development of Japanese missile defense and amphibious capabilities on outer islands that are close to hotspots like Taiwan.

At a ceremony marking the June 23, 1945, end of the battle, about 300 attendees in Okinawa, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other officials offered as moment of silence and placed chrysanthemums for the war dead.  The number of attendants was scaled down because of coronavirus worries.

At the ceremony in Itoman City on Okinawa's main island, Gov. Denny Tamaki spoke of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying the destruction of tons, buildings and local culture, as well as the Ukrainians constant fear, "remind us of our memory of the ground battle on Okinawa that embroiled citizens 77 years ago."

"We are struck by unspeakable shock," he said.

Tamaki also vowed to continue efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and renounce war "in order to never let Okinawa become abattlefield."

--GreGen

Okinawa Ceremony to Mark 77th Anniversary of End of the Battle There

From the June 24, 2022, Chicago Tribune.

Okinawa marked the 77th anniversary of the end of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, with the governor calling for a further reduction of the U.S. military presence there as local fears grow that the southern Japanese islands will become embroiled in regional military tension.

The Battle of Okinawa killed about 200,000 people, nearly half of them Okinawan residents.  Japan's wartime miitary, in an attempt to delay a U.S. landing on the main islands, essentially sacrificed the local population.

Many inOkinawa are worried about the growing deployment of Japanese missile defense and amphibious capabilities on the outwer islands that are close to geopolitical hotspots like Taiwan.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 5: Peiper and Dietrich Released

Furthermore,an article denouncing the conditions under which the assumed guilt of the Malmedy  defendants and of other questionable cases was going to be published in February 1949 with the assistance of the National Council for Prevention of War.  Van Roden refused to to commute the six remaining death sentences, including Joachim Peiper's, but the executions were postponed.  

By 1951 most of the men were released and the only remaining death sentences, those of Peiper and four others, were commuted.  Peiper's sentence was further reduced in 1954.  Both Sepp Dietrich and Joachim Peiper were released from Landsbberg Prison in 1956.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 4: The Simpson Commission to Review the Hearings

The turmoil raised by this case  caused the Secretary of the Army , Kenneth Royall, to create a commission, chaired by Justice  Gordon Simpson of  the Texas Supreme Court, to investigate.

The commission supported Everett's accusations regarding mock trials and neither disputed  nor denied charges of torture of the defendants.   The commission expressed the opinion that the pre-trial investigation had not been properly  conducted and that the members felt no death sentence should be executed in any instance where such doubts existed.

One member of the commission, Judge Edward L. Van Roden of Pennsylvania, made several  public statements alleging that physical violence had been inflicted on the accused and questioned the validity of the  hearings.  

Anti-Communist author Freda Utley wrote, "All but two of the Germans in the 139 cases we investigated had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair.  This was standard operating procedure with our American investigators."

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 3: Allegations of Torture

But, the verdict was not the end of the trial.  It was more of a new beginning.  

Pursuant to procedure,  an in-house review was  undertaken by the American Occupation Army in Germany; the trial was carefully examined by a deputy judge.  

Colonel Everett, head of the Germans' defense team,  was convinced that a fair trial had not been granted to the defendants: in addition  to alleged mock trials, he claimed that "to extort confessions. U.S. prosecution teams 'had kept  the German defendants in dark, solitary confinement at near  starvation  rations up to six months; had applied various forms of torture, including driving burning matches under the prisoners' fingernails; had administered beatings which resulted in broken jaws and arms and permanently injured testicles.' "

These allegations of torture were later proved to be false.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 2:

In the course of the trial,  six Waffen-SS defendants, including Joachim Peiper, complained to the tribunal that they had been victims of physical violence and threats of violence meant to compel them to confessions of war crimes.  The military tribunal asked the defendants to confirm their sworn  statements; of the nine officers  who testified, three claimed to have been mistreated by U.S. Army jailers.

For the majority of the Nazis on trial, the defense argued that they either had not participated in the massacres, or that superior orders had compelled them to particiopate in the massacres.

On 16 July 1946,  the verdict was delivered on 73 members of the kampfgruppe Peiper.  Forty-three were sentenced to death by hanging, including Peiper.  Peiper's sentence was commuted to 35 years in 1954, and he was released in  December 1956.

--GreGen

Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 1

From Wikipedia.

The Malmedy Massacre Trial  (U.S. vs. Valentin  Bersin, et al.) was held May-July 1946 in the former Dachau Concentration Camp to try the German Waffen-SS accused of the Malmedy Massacre of 17 December 1944.  The highest ranking defendant was  the former Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich.

A tribunal of  U.S. Army officers tried 73 Waffen-SS officers and soldiers, most of whom had beem ,e,bers of  the 1st SS Division Adolf Hitler Bodyguard

The defendants included German officers  Sepp Dietrich,  Fritz Kramer,  Hermann Priess and Jachim Peoper.  SS-Standartenfuhrer Joachim Peiper, commander of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment was the main group who had committed the massacre.

Colonel Willis M. Everett Jr. led the defense team and Colonel Burton Ellis led the prosecution team in the trial of the Waffen-SS war criminals indicted for the massacres of more than 300 U.S. Army POWs in the vicinity of Malmedy and other places, as well as the massacre of 100 Belgian civilians at Stavelot, during the 16 December 1944 to 13 January 1945 period of the Battle of the Bulge.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 8: War Crime Trial

RESPONSIBILITY

In 1948, a U.S. Senate investigation concluded that German soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper murdered between 538 and 749 U.S. POWs.  Other investigations, however claimed the Waffen-SS killed far fewer, putting the number of murdered POWs by them at between 300 and 375 and 111 civilians.

WAR CRIME TRIAL

The Malmedy Massacre Trial, from May to July 1946, established that the commanders in the field bore responsibility for the Waffen-SS killing POWs, specifically  Waffen-SS General Josef Dietrich and Werner Poetschke and Joachim Peiper.

Regarding command responsibility for  the actions of his soldiers and officers, Dietrich said he had received orders from Hitler that no quarter was to be given to enemy soldiers.  Peiper said the same thing and also that no pity was to be shown to Belgium civilians.

Given the American public's demand to avenge the Malmedy Massacre it was decided not to try the German officers and soldiers in the United States.  The Dachau Trials were held in the deactivated Dachau Concentration Camp in occupied Germany from 1945 to 1947.

These trials resulted in imposing 43 death sentences, 22 life imprisonment and 8 for short imprisonment.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 7: Evidence for War Crimes

Until the Allied counterattack, the Baugnez, Belgium, crossroads was behind German lines until 13 January  1945; and on January 14, the U.S. Army reached the killing field where the Waffen-SS had summarily executed  84 U.S. POWs on 17 December 1944.  The military investigators photographed the war-crime scene and the frozen, show-covered corpses where they lay, which were then removed for autopsy and burial.

The foresnsic  investigation documented the gun-shot wounds for the war-crimes prosecutions of the Nazi officers and soldiers who had done the killings. Twenty of the 84 corpses  murdered that day had gunpowder residue on the head, indicating a coup de grace  gun-shot to the head, a wound not sustained in self-defense.

The corpses of another twenty showed evidence of  small-calibre gunshot wounds to the head, without gunpowder residue.  Other corpses had one wound to the head, either in the temple or behind the ear..  Ten others showed evidence of fatal blunt force trauma injuries to the head, from having been hit or repeatedly hit with a rifle butt until breaking the  bones of the skull.

The coup de grace gun shot wounds to the head were in addition to bullet holes made by machine guns.  Most of the POW bodies were recovered from a small area of the farmer's field, indicating that the Germans had grouped them before the massacre took place.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 6: What Happened Next

MASSACRE REVEALED

In the early afternoon of 17 December 1944, 43 US POWs wo survived the massacre emerged from hiding from the Waffen-SS and then sought help and medical aid from the nearby city of Malmedy,which was held by the U.S. Army.  The first of the 43 survivors was  encountered by a patrol from the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion at about 2:30 pm on  17 December, just hours after the masacre.

The inspector general of the First Army learned of the Malmedy Massacre aprroxomately four hours after it happened; by evening time, rumors that the Waffen-SS  were summarily executing POWs had been communicated to the rank and file of U.S. soldiers.  Consequently the  commander of the 328th Infanttry Regiment issued Fragmentary Order 27, that said:  "No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner, but will be shot on sight."

After that, the soldiers of the 11th Armored Division summarily executed 80 Waffen-SS  POWs in the Chenogne Massacre on 1 January 1945.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 5: The Massacre and Responsibility

The prisoners who survived the Malmedy Massacre said said that a group of about 120 U.S. POWs stood in the farmer's field when the Waffen-SS began firing machine guns at them.    Panicked by this, sone of the POWs fled the field, but the Germans  shot and killed most of the Americans in the field.

Some of the GIs dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead.

After the initial fire on the POWs, the Waffen-SS soldiers walked amongst the corpses searching for survivors to kill with a shot to the head.

Some of the Americans who had escaped from the field had hidden in a cafe at the Baugnez crossroads.  The Germans set it afire and killed them as they came running out.

RESPONSIBILITY

There is some dispute over which Waffen-SS officer ordered the summary killing of the American POWs at Malmedy.    Both Peiper, who had already left the crossroads when the massacre occurred and the commander of the 1st Panzer Battalion,  Werner Poetschke, are each considered most likely responsible.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 4: Events Leading Up to the Massacre

On 17 December 1944, between noon and 1 pm, the German strike force Kampfgruppe Peiper  (under Joachim Peiper) approached the  Baugnez crossroads, two miles south of the city of Malmedy, Belgium.  Meanwhile, a U.S. Army convoy of 20 vehicles from B Battery of the 285th Field Artillery Onserbvation Battalion, was negotiating those crossroads, and then turning right , towards Ligneuville and St. Vith, in order to join the  US 7th Armored Division.

Unfortunately, the Germans saw the US force first and the spearhead unit fired upon and destroyed the first and last vehicles, which immobilized the convoy and halted the American advance.  

The American convoy was outnumbered and outgunned and the soldiers of the 285th surrendered.

After the brief battle, the tanks and armored vehicles of the Kampfgruppe Peiper convoy continued west to Ligneuville; while at the Baugnez  crossroads, the Waffen-SS  assembled the just surrendered  U.S. P.O.W.s  in a farmer's field and added in another group of prisoners captured earlier that day.

And, Then.  --GreGen

Remembering D-Day, 78 Years Later-- Part 4: To Not Be Forgotten

Many visitors this year came to see the monuments marking the key moments of the fight and to show their gratitude to the soldiers.  World War II history enthusiasts dressed  in wartime uniforms were seen in jeeps and military vehicles on the small roads of Normandy.

Greg Jensen, 51,  came with his 20-year-old daughter from Dallas.  On Saturday they visited the  Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial overlooking Omaha Beach.

"It took a moment just to hold the sand and you think, gosh, the blood that was spilled to give me that moment and the freedom to hold that sand," he said.  "That was vey emotional for me."

"I hope a lot of this younger generation is watching because we can't forget what happened 78 years ago," Jensen said, especially thinking of the war in Ukraine.

Andy Hamilton, a 57-year-old retired police officer, came on holiday with his family, including his two 8-year-old grandsons, from Shropshire, England.

"We're now showing our respects of the sites here and to give the grandchildren a sense of what  World War II was like .. and the amount of people that had given their lives to sacrifice for the freedom of everyone," he said.

On D-Day,  Allied troops landed  on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Sword, Juno and Gold, carried there by 7,000 boats.  On that single day, 4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives, 2,501 of them were Americans.  More than 5,000 were wounded.  On the German side, several thousand were killed and wounded.

--GreGen

Remembering D-Day, 78 Years Later-- Part 3: Working the Communications

Meanwhile, on the British side of the English Channel, then 17-year-old Mary Scott was working at the communications  center in Portsmouth, listening to the coded messages coming from the front line and passing them on as part of operations in Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold beaches.

"The war was in my ears," she recalled, describing the  radio machine she operated with levers.

"When they (communications officers) had to respond to my messages and they lifted their lever, you heard all the sounds of the men on the beaches:  bombs, machine guns, men shouting, screaming."

Scott who will soon turn 96, said she got very "emotional" when arriving in Normandy Saturday on a trip organized by  the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans.  She was in tears seeing the D-Day beaches.

"Suddenly I thought maybe some of those young men I spoke to... that they had died," she said.

The symbol is even stringer across the Channel.  Queen Elizabeth II, who served in World War II as an army driver and mechanic is celebrating  her 70 years on the throne.

"Women were involved," Scott stressed.  "I mean, I'm enormously  proud to have been a minute part of Operation Overlord.

Her face turned to sadness when she mentioned the war in the Ukraine.

"Why can't we learn from past experiences?   Why can't we do that?  What's wrong with us?" she asked.  "War should teach us something but it never penetrates for very long."

GreGen