Anniversary: D-Day Heroes, 70 years later

The full story of Teesside D-Day hero Stan Hollis - Gazette Live

One of the first things Company Sergeant Major Stan Hollis recalled seeing on D-Day as he dashed onto Gold Beach on the Normandy coast was three tiny birds sitting on a roll of barbed wire.

The soldier next to him, looking up at the smoky, propeller-filled sky above, made a joke. ‘No bloody wonder they are there Sergeant Major, there’s no room in the air for them!’.

A few minutes later that same man was torn apart by an exploding mine. He was gone – the birds remained.

It is difficult to know what makes a hero. But the stark violence inflicted on an innocent man must have lit Stan’s touch paper and moments after that sight, Stan Hollis became one.

His heroic actions that day made him the only man among D Day’s 150,000-strong invasion to be awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest military medal given for valour in the face of enemy fire.

Twice he charged at the enemy single-handed, dodging bullets to save his men in what looked liked certain death missions.

Anniversary: D-Day, 70 years

(it helps when we change the post from "draft" to "publish")

Anniversaries: Battle of the Bulge & Sherman's March to the Sea

Most folks who are casually acquainted with military history know that right now is the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Today is actually the 65th anniversary of the famous reply to the German request to surrender - "NUTS!".

But it's also the day that Sherman took control of Savannah, thus ending the infamous "March to the Sea".

Flip the outcome of either of these battles, and describe what comes next in the comments below.

By: Brant

Anniversary: Pearl Harbor

in memoriam
   


By: Brant

Anniversary: D-Day

By: Brant

Anniversaries: NUTS! and "War is Hell"

Most folks who are casually acquainted with military history know that right now is the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Today is actually the 65th anniversary of the famous reply to the German request to surrender - "NUTS!".

But it's also the day that Sherman took control of Savannah, thus ending the infamous "March to the Sea".

Which battle has better wargames? Not more mind you, but better. Sound off below!

By: Brant

Leave No Man Behind: Multiple Conflict Edition

The DoD has announce the identification of a Marine that's been missing in action since the Korean War

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Marine Pfc. Richard S. Gzik, of Toledo, Ohio, will be buried today, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC. On Dec. 2, 1950, Gzik and the other Marines of M Battery, 11th Artillery Regiment, 1st Marine Division, came under attack on the west side of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. It was during this battle that Gzik was killed in action and his remains were buried alongside the road leading to Hagaru-ri. Later that month, the withdrawal of U.N. forces from the Chosin Reservoir region made it impossible to recover Gzik’s remains.
In 1954, United Nations and Communist Forces exchanged the remains of war dead in what came to be called “Operation Glory.” All remains recovered in Operation Glory were turned over to the Army Central Identification Unit for analysis. Those which were unable to be identified, given the technology of that time, were interred as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii -- the “Punchbowl.”
In 2012, analysts from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) re-examined the case records and determined that advances in technology could likely aid in the identification of the unknown remains as Gzik. Once the remains were exhumed, scientists from JPAC used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools, including dental records and radiographs, to validate Gzik’s identification.
Using modern technology, identifications continue to be made from remains that were previously buried as unknown. Today, 7,947 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War.

They've also recovered an Airman missing since WWII

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Samuel E. Lunday, of Marianna, Fla., will be buried today, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC. On April 24, 1943, Lunday and four other U.S. servicemen were flying a C-87 Liberator Express aircraft over the Himalayan Mountains, from Yangkai, China, to their home base in Chabua, India. After losing radio communications following take-off, the crew was never heard from again. Eleven aerial search missions were unable to locate the aircraft or crew due to intense snows on the mountains at high altitudes, and dense jungle growth at lower altitudes.
As part of the war effort against the Japanese, U.S. Army Air Forces cargo planes based in India continually airlifted critical supplies over the high mountain ranges that comprise the Himalayas -- known as “The Hump” -- in support of American airbases in China. The amount of materiel flown over the Himalayas was a logistical achievement unparalleled at the time.
Almost 60 years later, in 2003, an American citizen discovered the wreckage of the C-87 aircraft while trekking in the mountains, approximately 100 miles from Chabua, near the Burmese border. He recovered the aircraft’s identification plate, military equipment and human remains. The artifacts and remains were turned over to U.S. officials for analysis. Attempts to excavate the site are being negotiated with the Indian government.
To determine the identity of the remains, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial evidence and mitochondrial DNA -- which matched that of Lunday’s nephews.
Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died. Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.

By: Brant

Just To Start To Tease You

By: Brant

Revisiting 1942 Dieppe Raid

Was the Dieppe raid a cover to steal an Enigma machine?

New research suggests the real intent of the historic raid on Dieppe in 1942 was to steal a machine that would help crack top-secret German codes.

Military historian David O’Keefe spent 15 years searching through the once-classified and ultra-secret war files and says the real purpose behind the Dieppe operation—which cost hundreds of Canadian soldiers their lives — was to capture advanced coding technology from the German headquarters near the French beach.

“For years, so many veterans, men who stormed the beaches and ended up in prisoners of war camps, had no clue what the reason was that they were there,” O’Keefe tells Global National’s Christina Stevens.

“They had their own missions, but they did not understand what the driving force was behind the raid.”

Historians have assigned many purposes to the disastrous raid: to gather intelligence from prisoners and captured materials, to assess Germany’s response to amphibious raids, to boost Allied morale and to assure the Soviets—locked in a titanic struggle with Germany — that the west was committed to fighting in Europe.

Good article to go along with this map at the link above.

h/t Shelldrake

By: Brant

Anniversary: Hiroshima

(rerunning this, as it's an anniversary article)

Today is the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which is alternately considered both controversial and essential to ending the war.

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to hear a talk at the Mershon Center at Ohio State by Dr. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, discussing the impact of the bomb on Japan's decision to surrender. This article was originally written/published at Wargamer.com back in '06.

A Different Theory on the Japanese Surrender

Introduction

I attend a weekly seminar series at the Mershon Center for Security Studies and Public Policy here at Ohio State University. On some weeks, the seminar coincides with guest speakers. Last week, Dr. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa came to talk, and this is a summary of his narrative. But first, it may be helpful to introduce Dr. Hasegawa by way of his Mershon Center bio:
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is professor of Modern Russian and Soviet History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His current research interests include the political and social history of the Russian Revolution, focusing on crime and police in Petrograd during the Revolution, March 1917 - March 1918, as well as Soviet military history, collecting materials on V.K. Bliukher. Hasegawa is also studying Russian/Soviet-Japanese relations, especially the Soviet-Japanese War of 1945, Soviet policy toward the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, and the Soviet-Japanese Normalization Talks, 1955-56. Hasegawa has published widely on the Russian and Soviet history, his most major publications being The Northern Territories Dispute and Russo-Japanese Relations. Vol. 1: Between War and Peace, 1967-1985. Vol.2: Neither War Nor Peace, 1985-1998 (UC Berkeley, 1998), Russia and Japan: An unresolved Dilemma between Distant Neighbors, edited with Jonathan Haslam and Andrew Kuchins (UC Berkeley, 1993), and Roshia kakumeika petorogurado no shiminseikatsu [Everyday Life of Petrograd during the Russian Revolution] (Chuokoronsha, 1989). His most recent publication is titled Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Belknap, 2005). Dr. Hasegawa received his PhD from Washington University in 1969.

The Presentation

Following the fall of Germany in May of '45, the Allies turned their attention to the three-year old Pacific War. To avoid continued American causalities and bring World War II to a close, Truman ordered the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Conventional American wisdom is that the atomic bomb brought about the fall of Japan, and few American textbooks challenge this idea. However, a Japanese scholar, Dr. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of UC-Santa Barbara, has published an new book, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, that re-examines the end of World War II through a new perspective on international diplomacy, and comes to the conclusion that although the atomic bomb was certainly a very important factor in ending World War II, it was not the most important one. In fact, it might have caused the U.S. to prolong the war longer than necessary.

Dr. Hasegawa's book opens by addressing the inner workings of the Truman administration, a perspective with which Americans are most comfortable. Leading up to the conference in Potsdam, Truman was pulled in several different directions. First, he was fully aware that Soviet entry into the war in the Pacific would ease the burden on the U.S. Tying down Japanese units on mainland China would inhibit their evacuation to assist in the defense of the Japanese homeland. However, Truman was reluctant to encourage Soviet entry into the Pacific theater, wary of the promises made to Stalin by FDR at Yalta, where the Soviets had been promised certain territories, including warm-water ports. These territories would have enlarged the Soviet sphere of influence (and more importantly, introduced Communism) into an ocean thus far dominated by U.S., British, and Dutch interests. Additionally, Truman felt obliged to support FDR's insistence on an unconditional surrender by the Japanese. However, within his own cabinet, there was support for including in the surrender documents a provision to allow the Japanese to maintain a constitutional monarchy, ensuring the continuation of the imperial line. Such language was even included in the original draft of the Potsdam Declaration, but excised before its eventual release. The inclusion of such language was intended to encourage Japanese moderates to push for a surrender before the eventual invasion of Japan.

Shifting gear to Stalin's Moscow, Dr. Hasegawa focuses on an oft-ignored (by American historians) theater of diplomatic shenanigans. The Soviet Union and Japan had a neutrality pact that pre-dated World War II. The pact was due to expire in April of 1946, but would be automatically extended unless one party notified the other of the intent to void the pact. Communication of that intent was required one full year in advance. Stalin notified the Japanese of the intention to void the pact, but it remained in force until April of 1946. This pact had an extraordinary effect on Stalin. Desperate not to be seen as a second Hitler, Stalin was loathe to violate a neutrality pact in the same way that Hitler had when launching Operation Barbarossa. However, if the U.S. were to invite the Soviet Union into the war, then of course Stalin could not abandon his allies. Stalin expected to receive such an invitation at Potsdam.
In Japan, the government was fractured into parties on either side of the war-peace divide. Those supporting a continuation of the war were determined to defend the Japanese homeland to the last man, in the hopes of bleeding the will to fight out of the Americans and their allies and eventually gain favorable terms for their eventual surrender. The peace party thought that national suicide was a bad idea, and that continuing the fight would only further anger the allies and reduce the likelihood that the imperial system would survive.

Under instructions from the Emperor, Japanese diplomats in Moscow approached the Soviet regime to begin discussing potential terms for a surrender. This contact was opened shortly before Potsdam. The Japanese understood the American demand for an "unconditional surrender" as the end of their imperial system; the goal was to work through Stalin to try preserve the emperor after the surrender.

The Americans intercepted these instructions and were well aware of the ongoing diplomacy in Moscow, but did not overtly tip their hand to the Soviets. Furthermore, it remains unknown if Stalin knew that Truman knew of the negotiations.

At Potsdam, Stalin was expecting to receive an invitation to sign the declaration insisting on Japanese capitulation. Once invited, Stalin would have the pretext for over-riding the neutrality pact with the Japanese. However, no invitation was forthcoming. Once the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Truman was well aware that the Allies did not need the Soviets to enter the war in the Pacific. Truman, in fact, seemed determined to keep Stalin out of the war. Moreover, there are interesting details from behind the scenes at (and before) Potsdam that Dr. Hasegawa has interpreted as having much greater significance than previously recognized.
First, it was known before Potsdam that Japanese hesitation over surrender was motivated primarily by the desire to retain the imperial system. Were the Allies to ensure the continuation of the monarchy, Japan might have agreed to terms on a surrender sooner. In spite of this knowledge, Truman insisted on including the term "unconditional surrender" in the Potsdam Declaration, knowing that the Japanese would reject it. Coupled with military communications indicating the preparations for dropping the A-bomb on Japan had begun before Truman departed for Potsdam, Hasegawa believes it is not unreasonable to conclude that Truman intended for, and expected, the rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, to justify the use of the atomic bomb.

Stalin, having been snubbed at Potsdam (but unaware of U.S. progress in deploying the A-bomb), ordered his military to speed up their preparations for entering the Pacific theater, starting with an invasion of Manchuria. The military resisted this pressure, given the massive amounts of men and material they had to move. However, on the 6th of August, they could no longer afford to wait.

Stalin's appointment log shows a full day of meetings on the 6th of August. Following the news that Hiroshima had been leveled, Stalin withdrew into seclusion. His appointment log for the 7th shows not a single meeting. On the 8th, however, he sprung back into action, and Soviet invasion of Manchuria began on the 9th, three days ahead of schedule (and the same day as the Nagasaki bomb). Stalin's eagerness to enter the Pacific theater led the Soviets to break their neutrality pact with Japan, and couch it in terms that left the public believing that the Soviets were invited to join the war. That evening (Moscow time), the American press conference in Washington congratulated the Soviets on entering the war. However, the American (and British) statements were intentionally mute about the "invitation" claimed by the Soviets. Sixty years later, we rarely see this distinction, given that the Allies (U.S., U.S.S.R., U.K.) had made numerous public statements about first defeating Germany and then turning on Japan. Today's school children see the Soviet entry into the Pacific war as a natural extension of World War II. Today's school children are also rarely taught about the Japanese-Soviet neutrality pact or the territorial implications of Soviet entry into the war in the Pacific.

Dr. Hasegawa's conclusion, therefore, is that the threat of Soviet entry into the Pacific theater spurred the Japanese to hasten their surrender more than the atomic bomb did. Japanese fear of territorial loss to the Soviets, and preference for dealing with Truman over Stalin, led to peaceniks in the Japanese government gaining the upper hand. Truman felt obliged to maintain FDR’s staunch position on “unconditional surrender” and expected the A-bomb to force the Japanese to surrender before the Soviets were prepared to enter the war in the Pacific. Therefore, he crafted the Potsdam Declaration such that the Japanese would reject it. The haste with which the Japanese government acted following the Nagasaki bomb was motivated by the Soviet entry into the war - coincidentally on the same day - more than the destruction of another one of their cities.

Asking Questions Today

While this was written 6 years ago, very few of the key issues brought up by Dr Hasegawa have changed since then. What are your opinions on why the Japanese surrendered? Was the atomic bomb the key factor? Or were to Soviets a bigger issue than previously thought? Your commente below...

By: Brant

Monday Video: WWII, Again

Starting your week off with a re-enacted bang.



Nominate your own videos for inclusion in the comments below.

By: Brant

Anniversary: D-Day

By: Brant

World War II in Photos. A LOT of Photos.

The Atlantic has a huge archive of World War II photos online. You'll be busy for a while going through them.

By: Brant

Anniversary: The Doolittle Raid

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Doolittle's Raid

The Army pilots at the controls of the B-25s had practiced short takeoffs from the comfortably dry land of a Florida airstrip but had never once tried it at sea. No one else ever had, either. Landing a B-25 on a carrier was impossible. Flying a B-25 off a carrier was, by comparison, merely insane. But the medium-weight bombers were the only aircraft in the American arsenal with a prayer of completing the daredevil mission. If all went according to plan, they would fly five hundred miles to Japan, drop their load, then continue another eleven hundred miles to a safe landing in unoccupied China.

Leading the attack was an unflappable test pilot, Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle; his was the first of the lumbering bombers to catapult down the heaving deck. Over the next hour fifteen others followed. One pilot hung on the verge of a stall for so long as he struggled to get airborne that, Halsey later recalled, "we nearly catalogued his effects." Thirteen of the planes headed for Tokyo, roared in over the rooftops from different directions, and dropped their four bombs apiece. The three others hit Nagoya and Osaka. Ever since the attack on Pearl Harbor four months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been pressing for just such a morale-boosting coup to bolster some of America's wounded pride. The Doolittle raid had been his pet project, and he was exultant with the news. Asked by reporters where the planes had come from, FDR grinned and said, "Shangri-La."

And they did it all with just 16 aircraft.


Image from Wikimedia



By: Brant

Anniversary: Bataan Death March

Back in 1942, the Bataan Death March started.

My first unit the National Guard was 1-149 Armor, a unit in California that had been one of the units to endure the Bataan Death March.

They served in the Philippines as C/194th Tank Battalion.
Most impressive was that during their captivity, they kept the company guidon hidden from the Japanese and brought it home from the prison camp. The C Company guidon was hanging in the conference room at the old battalion HQs, and whenever we held a Dining In, we had former members of the unit invited to return, and we always had several of the Bataan survivors join us.
The grog* ceremony, with the punch glass set aside for our lost comrades, was always a little more meaningful with those guys in the room, especially in the pre-9/11 era.

By: Brant

* the drink, not the wargamers

Random Friday Wargaming: Airborne In My Pocket

Here's one for the Q&D crowd: it's Airborne In My Pocket. It's a 1-2 player print-and-play game, so give it a try yourownself before you roll it out with a friend.









Yep, it's Carc-a-war with figs!

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Arming Vichy France?

An interesting archival moment uncovered by the BBC...

A British general kept Winston Churchill and Free French leader Charles De Gaulle in the dark about a top secret 1942 plan to arm Vichy France, recently discovered documents reveal.

Both Churchill and De Gaulle had made clear their contempt for Marshall Petain's regime, which controlled a large part of France thanks to a deal struck with Hitler.

Relations between Britain and France had been strained since July 1940, when Churchill, who was determined to stop French ships falling into German hands, ordered the Royal Navy to sink several French war ships off the coast of Algeria - 1,300 French sailors lost their lives in the action.

In retaliation, a furious Vichy not only broke off diplomatic relations with London but also bombed Gibraltar.

In December 1941, Winston Churchill made clear his distaste for the supposedly neutral Vichy regime and its often enthusiastic collaboration with Hitler.


Later, Vichy voluntarily deported Jews to Germany.

Charles De Gaulle was equally contemptuous. Vichy's leaders had accused him of being a traitor when he fled to London after the fall of France. At the time, Marshal Petain, a hero of World War I, was a more popular figure in France - many saw him as having shielded Vichy from the worst excesses of Hitler's forces and saved the region from German occupation.

By: Brant

h/t Rex @ PaxSims

Anniversaries: Battle of the Bulge & Sherman's March to the Sea

Most folks who are casually acquainted with military history know that right now is the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Today is actually the 65th anniversary of the famous reply to the German request to surrender - "NUTS!".

But it's also the day that Sherman took control of Savannah, thus ending the infamous "March to the Sea".

Which one was more historically important? Your thoughts below!

By: Brant

Anniversary: Pearl Harbor

Here in it's entirety, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Infamy Speech

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Infamy Speech

December 8, 1941

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

By: Brant

Kids Holding Up The War

Did a couple of kids defeat General Patton back before WWII?

Brothers Alphonse, Kenneth, and Mayo Prud’homme were playing with a foot-long toy cannon in Natchitoches, La., in September 1941 when they saw a man peering at them through binoculars from the opposite side of the Cane River. “We just fired a shot at him to see what would happen,” Kenneth remembered later. “He bailed out of the tree and went flying back down the road in a cloud of dust.”

It's a short story, but a cute story. Go read it.

h/t Dan

By: Brant