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GUADALCANAL
Japanese Onslaught
at the Tenaru River
EYEWITNESS AT MIDWAY
USS Yorktown
Last Stand WWII QUARTERLY
AT LEIPZIG
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DIEPPE LANDING
Volume 5, No. 1
Canadian Killing Ground Battle for the
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BATTLE OF THE BULGE
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BATTLEGROUND PLAYSET This 160 plus piece playset is the perfect set to get any toy soldier collector started into the Earopean Theater of WWII. Included in the set are over 45 Germans and 50 Allied troops including GI’s, French and British. You also get 5 German tanks, 1 German 88mm cannon, 2 Sherman tanks, 1 British Churchill tank, 1 US half track, and 1 US 105mm cannon. Additional accessories include barbed wire, heavy weapons, stone walls, trees, mortar pit, matching gun nest, and much more. This set is a tremendous value for the price. CTS 160 piece “Battleground Playset” can be yours for 174.95 plus $25 S&H. You save over $150.00!
THE BATTLE OF KURSK In the spring of 1943 the Germans gambled all their reserves on a massive attack in Russia. If their plan succeeded, they would destroy more than 5 Russian armies. The ensuing Battle of Kursk became the largest tank battle in history and one of the decisive turning points of WWII. You now can recreate this massive engagement with Classic Toy Soldiers 180 piece “BATTLE OF KURSK” playset. The set includes 60 Axis troops with 3 Panzer tanks and 88mm cannon to battle over 75 Russian troops accompanied by 4 T-34 tanks and a 105mm cannon. Include is a large railroad embankment turned into a fortified position, plus stone walls, barbed wire, and lots more. Order your 180 piece “Battle of Kursk Set” for $274.95 plus $30.00 S&H
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TA BLE OF C ONTE NTS
WWII QUARTERLY
Features 16
The “Green Hell” of Guadalcanal
Marine Corps combat veterans relive the dangerous and deadly work in some of the war’s toughest fighting. ADAM MAKOS & MARCUS BROTHERTON
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Last Stand in Leipzig
Decided against advancing on Berlin, American troops captured Germany’s fifth largest city, taking a monument to a 19th-century victory over Napoleon in the process. MICHAEL E. HASKEW
38
Behind Barbed Wire in America
The forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II was a blot on the nation’s moral authority. RICHARD HIGGINS
Page 52
Many lessons in how to invade France were learned during Operation Jubilee, but at a cost to the Canadian and British invaders. JON DIAMOND
Departments 06
Editorial
66
The man behind the name on the memorial. FLINT WHITLOCK
12
Mayhem at Midway
A young sailor aboard the doomed carrier Yorktown recounts the battle that sank the ship and almost cost him his life. CAROL EDGEMON HIPPERSON
WWII Personality
America’s controversial ambassador to Great Britain, and father of a future U.S. president, wanted to keep America out of the war rather than confront the Nazi menace. PETER KROSS
98
52 Disaster at Dieppe
76
Yellow Star vs. Swastika
After escaping from Germany and Austria, a number of Jews joined the Allied armies to take back their former homelands from the Nazis. STEVEN KARRAS
Museums
88 Curtis 07256
The Japanese American National Museum tells of wartime travails. MASON B. WEBB
GUADALCANAL
Japanese Onslaught
at the Tenaru River
When Japan Invaded America
To the Japanese, the Aleutian Islands looked like the perfect stepping stones to America’s West Coast. Neither side expected the difficulties these islands would represent. STEPHEN D. LUTZ
EYEWITNESS AT MIDWAY
USS Yorktown
Last Stand
AT LEIPZIG COVER: An American infantryman on Guadalcanal, photographed on the 1500 foot peak dubbed the “grassy knoll.” Ralph Morse, Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images
DIEPPE LANDING
Canadian Killing Ground Battle for the
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WWII Quarterly (ISSN 2151-3678) is published four times yearly by Sovereign Media, 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite A-100, McLean, VA 221014554. (703) 964-0361. WWII Quarterly, Volume 5, Number 1 © 2013 by Sovereign Media Company, Inc., all rights reserved. Copyrights to stories and illustrations are the property of their creators. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. Subscription services, back issues, and information: (800) 219-1187 or write to WWII Quarterly Circulation, WWII Quarterly, P.O. Box 1644, Williamsport, PA 17703. Hardbound single copies: $19.99, plus $3 for postage. Yearly subscription in U.S.A.: $39.95; Canada and Overseas: $79.95 (U.S.). Editorial Office: Send editorial mail to WWII Quarterly, 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite A-100, McLean, VA 22101-4554. WWII Quarterly welcomes editorial submissions but assumes no responsibility for the loss or damage of unsolicited material. Material to be returned should be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. We suggest that you send a self-addressed, stamped envelope for a copy of our author’s guidelines. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WWII Quarterly, P.O. Box 1644, Williamsport, PA 17703.
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Unforgettable The Biography of Capt.
Thomas J. Flynn By Alice M. Flynn
WWII hero 1st Lt. Tom Flynn of the 28th Infantry Division survived insurmountable odds during the Battle of the Bulge, the Hurtgen Forest and four Nazi POW camps, only to return home to his beautiful, young wife with Unforgettable memories that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Winner of four book awards in 2012 "...it was amazing! My eyes teared up when Tom was freed from the POW camp in Germany! …it captures the heart..." – D. Andersen “…remarkable job of historical inquiry and personal biography… This book is well researched and very engaging, an intimate portrait that stands as an example of how biographies should be written.” – John C. McManus University of Missouri History professor, author of Alamo in the Ardennes
available on
UnforgettableVeteran.com
Q-Fall13 Editorial_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 8/28/13 2:43 PM Page 6
EDITORIAL
FLINT WHITLOCK
The Man Behind the Name on the Memorial
Courtesy Cornell University
ing of eight F6F-5 Hellcats, took off at 13:15 from the deck of the USS Tulagi and were successful in their assigned attack on a fleet of four barges on the Rhône River.” Six Hellcats, including Coyne’s, then WHENEVER I LOOK AT NAMES on a war memorial, I can’t help but headed toward Nimes, France, strafwonder about who those people were, what they looked like, what kinds ing several convoys of German trucks of lives they led, and the circumstances of their deaths. Almost always, along the way. The planes then turned however, the memorial gives me none of that. The fallen are just anonynorth in the direction of Sainte-Anasmous names carved in stone. taise and hit another 100 trucks on Earlier this year, while visiting family in Ithaca, New York, I took the the highways; the attacks snarled the opportunity to visit Cornell University. I had heard that the school has a roads for miles in every direction. breathtaking, Gothic-style memorial in Anabel Taylor Hall dedicated to The history continued, “Northwest the over 500 Cornell students and graduates who died during World War of Nimes they strafed a train and left II. Moreover, I had heard that the Cornell library had all the records perits locomotive disabled with clouds of taining to the creation of the Roll of Honor and information about the steam escaping,” and Coyne’s men people whose names are on the memorial. These records are contained “crowned their achievements of the in several large file boxes, and I obtained permission to go through them. day by downing three Junkers Ju-52 I decided to pull out one file at random and share with you what I learned. transports.” The file I studied was that of John Harding “Jack” Coyne, Class of The weather started to close in and 1942. Born in 1920 in Evanston, Illinois, Jack Coyne was quite the wellCoyne’s wing turned south, toward rounded Cornell student. He majored in hotel administration, played ABOVE: Lt. (j.g.) John H. the Mediterranean and the Tulagi. But junior varsity football, and managed the freshman baseball team, and “Jack” Coyne, Cornell University, Class of 1942. Coyne never made it back. was a member of the Chi Phi fraternity. From his Navy photo, Coyne had RIGHT: Cornell’s World War II At about 2:20 PM, while strafing a broad face with an engaging smile. memorial. Jack Coyne did not wait to graduate. In October 1941 (his senior year), another convoy, Coyne’s Hellcat was he left college and joined the Navy, where, in November 1942, he entered flight trainhit by groundfire and exploded in the air, and he ing and earned his pilot’s wings and ensign’s bars. He was promoted to lieutenant (junior bailed out at about 600 feet above the Panissieres grade) on January 1, 1944, and assigned to the Naval Auxiliary Air Station, Green Cove Woods, near the town of Sainte-Gervasy. His paraSprings, Florida, and later trained in fighter squadron operations at the Norfolk (Virchute opened but he did not survive the fall; his ginia) Naval Air Station. He then became an instructor at the U.S. Naval Air Station in body was found by a French hunter nine days later. Miami, Florida, before being assigned to the escort carrier USS Tulagi operating in the Lt. (j.g.) Jack Coyne was buried with full honors Mediterranean Sea in support of Operation Dragoon––the invasion of southern France. at épinal American Cemetery, in the Vosges region Doing further research about Coyne on the American Veterans Center website, I of northeastern France, Plot A, Row 27, Grave 60. learned that he served with Squadron VOF-1 as a pilot and wing leader. During the (Fifty-six years later, on September 14, 2002, week following the start of Operation Dragoon, VOF-1 flew 68 missions and 276 soranother memorial—this one specifically for Jack ties and inflicted considerable damage on German targets ashore, including gun Coyne—was dedicated in the town square of emplacements and railway facilities. Cabrières, France. Attending the ceremony were The history said that on August 21, 1944, Tulagi’s last day in support of Dragoon, members of his family, an American delegation, a “German forces were in retreat before the Allied thrust. Strafing Flight #63, consistFrench general, and the townfolk of Cabrières. The
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Courtesy Jonathan Hall
family was presented with a part from Coyne’s downed plane, a fragment of his cockpit windshield, and a piece of his parachute cord.) When the idea of creating the memorial began immediately after the war (there is also a memorial to 264 deceased Cornellians from World War I on the West Campus), the school administration sent letters to the families of those who had died, requesting a photo of the deceased and asking for pertinent personal information. On October 15, 1945, Edmund E. Day, Cornell’s president from 1937 to 1949, wrote to Lieutenant (j.g.) Coyne’s father: “It is with a profound sense of gratitude and humility that we realize how much we owe men like him…. “We have not yet decided upon the form that our War Memorial will take, but we shall see to it that the names of Cornellians who gave their lives in the war will be preserved for all time on this campus, in order that future generations of our students may be reminded of the things these men stood for.” May I suggest, dear reader, that if you have the chance to learn more about the identities of the “anonymous” names on war memorials, you avail yourself of that opportunity. It can be an instructive, sobering exercise, one that truly personalizes the cost of war and the measure of heroism. CORRECTION In the article about Percy Hobart in the Summer 2013 issue, Hobart’s place of birth was incorrectly spelled “Taina Tal”; the actual spelling is “Nainital.” We regret the error. WWII QUARTERLY
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P E R S O N A L I T Y PETER KROSS
America’s controversial ambassador to Great Britain, and father of a future U.S. president, wanted to keep America out of the war rather than confront the Nazi menace. IN 1939, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, the scion of the modern-day Kennedy family which included three United States senators, an attorney general, and the 35th president of the United States, was appointed the American ambassador to Great Britain by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Upon his appointment to the Court of St. James’s, Joseph P. Kennedy was flung into a world on the brink of war, a conflict that he opposed and out of which he tried desperately to keep the United States. During his tumultuous time in London, Joseph Kennedy fought bitterly with the State Department, as well as FDR, in his outspoken opposition to the president’s policy of coming to the aid of Britain in the wake of Hitler’s European onslaught. Kennedy ruffled feathers in Washington when he met secretly with German diplomats and made few friends with his anti-Semitic remarks. In the
Both: Library of Congress
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end, his opposition to America’s anti-Nazi policies led to his resignation in disgrace from his coveted ambassadorship and, for all intents and purposes, ended whatever political career he harbored for himself. Joseph P. Kennedy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 6, 1888. His grandparents had come to the United States from Ireland in the 1840s to flee the Irish famine. The political President Franklin D. Rooand social mores in Boston sevelt (seated) congratulates at that time separated the Joseph P. Kennedy on becomIrish from the Protestant ing the new ambassador to Great Britain, January 1938. “blue bloods,” effectively Associate Justice Stanley keeping the Irish from parReed, center, administered ticipating in the worlds of Kennedy’s oath. Because of business and politics. As a intemperate remarks, Kennedy’s ambassadorship young man, Joe delivered lasted less than three years. nrwspapers to make extra money, attended the Boston Latin School, and eventually was accepted to Harvard. At Harvard he was an excellent baseball player but still suffered discrimination because of his Irish heritage. Before graduating, he made a promise to himself that he would become a millionaire by age 30. That he did––and more. Shortly after his graduation from Harvard, Joe was hired as a bank examiner and received a hands-on education in how banks and financial institutions work. His first big break came when he was able to resist the takeover of the Columbia Trust Bank, the only Irishowned bank in Boston. At age 25, Joe was appointed president of Columbia Trust. During World War I, Joe, to avoid military service, obtained a job with Bethlehem Steel’s Forge River shipbuilding plant in Quincy, Massachusetts, an industry that was deemed vital to winning the war. There he was appointed to the position of assistant general manager. His next job was with the brokerage house of Hayden Stone and Company in Boston. Through shrewd business practices, Joe amassed a small fortune, and he bought a home for his family in Brookline,
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John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
a suburb of Boston. In what would be called “insider trading” today, Joe was able to buy and sell stock using information obtained from his colleagues before that information got out to the general public. Joe pulled most of his money out of the stock market before it crashed in October 1929. Between his business successes, in 1914 he married Rose Fitzgerald, the daughter of Boston’s popular and gregarious mayor, John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald. Using his now considerable fortune, Joe branched out and began producing Hollywood movies. Most of the films he produced were not big hits, but he made more contacts with the Hollywood moguls, who would add another layer of legitimacy to his already bourgeoning portfolio. If Joe flopped in Hollywood, he more than made up for it when it came to the distribution of liquor during Prohibition. There are no documents that positively link Joe Kennedy to the illegal distribution of liquor during the time when America was “dry,” but allegations by prominent mob figures of the time tell a different story. In 1922, during Joe’s 10th Harvard reunion, he purportedly brought a large stock of scotch for his guests. According to one person who attended the party, Joe had the scotch brought in by boat right on the beach at Plymouth, saying, “It came ashore the way the Pilgrims did.” According to the late mobster Frank Costello, one of the most prominent members of organized crime during that period, he and Kennedy were in a silent partnership during Prohibition and were visible in keeping bars and saloons overflowing with illegal booze. Costello told author Peter Maas (who was writing a book on Costello’s life––a book that was never completed due to Costello’s death) that Kennedy had a monopoly when it came to the importation of liquor into the United States. Joe Kennedy later ran a legitimate liquor distributorship called Somerset Importers Ltd. In 1933, Kennedy sailed
ABOVE: 26-year-old Joseph P. Kennedy photographed in 1914 while president of the Columbia Trust Company. BELOW: The Kennedy family photographed in 1938. Future president John F. Kennedy is standing behind his father.
in London prior to the end of Prohibition in the U.S. and emerged as the sole American distributor of two brands of scotch, as well as Gordon’s Gin. In 1946, Kennedy would sell Somerset Importers for a hefty $8 million. Besides his business interests, it was politics that drove Joe Kennedy into the public spotlight. He had always harbored ambitions to be the first Catholic president of the United States but despite his increasing fortune the blatant antiCatholic resentment he encountered in Boston remained the ultimate obstacle to his ambitions. His first foray into national politics came in 1918, when he contributed money to his father-in-law’s campaign for Congress. Joe was also an early supporter of another WWII QUARTERLY
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Library of Congress
rising star in the Democratic Party, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Joe traveled with FDR when the New York governor, then campaigning against President Herbert Hoover, was making a swing around New England. Joe relished the sights and sounds of the campaign and believed that his future lay in FDR’s success. After Roosevelt’s election in 1933, he offered Joe the ambassadorship to Ireland, but the latter turned it down. The next July, FDR appointed Joe to head the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission, a body that would oversee Wall Street and stop illegal trading among its members. Joe’s appointment as head of the SEC was an unusual one, to say the least. He was not well liked by the leading members of Wall Street due to his less than honest approach to gaining his fortune––not to mention his alleged ties to mobsters during the Prohibition era. But Joe surprised many of his critics and for the next 14 months did a more than adequate job of keeping unethical business practices from taking over the securities industry. In 1937, Kennedy left the SEC and took a job as chairman of the Maritime Commission. His principal achievement was to break the deadlock between the powerful labor unions and the ship owners. Speaking of this time, Joe said that it was “the toughest thing I ever did in my life.” In 1938, President Roosevelt appointed Joe Kennedy as the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, an extraordinary post that put him in the spotlight of international affairs. For Joe, the appointment was the fulfillment of a lifetime of work in the political realm, a chance to put to rest all the slights he felt as a Catholic outsider in Boston society. But if Joe believed that his nearly twoyear stint as head of the Maritime Commission was tough, the ambassador’s post was to prove far tougher and more demanding than he ever imagined and ruined whatever ambitions he harbored for a political future for himself. What neither Joe Kennedy nor anyone else could predict, as he and his large (nine children) and gregarious family arrived in Britain on March 1, 1938, was that one 10 FALL 2013
ABOVE: The elder Kennedy photographed in 1934 as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. BELOW: Ambassador Kennedy said that, in case of war between Britain and Germany, the U.S. might remain neutral—words that angered Britain. Here he meets with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop at a London reception in 1938.
Mary Evans Picture Library / The Image Works
year later all of Europe would be embroiled in another full-scale war. At 49 years of age, he was now pulled directly into a line of fire that few U.S. ambassadors ever had to endure; much of it was of his own making. For example, he made his first public speech in England at London’s Pilgrim Club, whose attendees were the leading figures in British politics and business. He startled the audience with his comments in which he said that it was in America’s best interests to stay neutral in any coming conflict with Germany and that the U.S. would not see eye to eye with Britain as it had done in the past. Those were strong words for an ambassador to
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say to the citizens of the country in which he was residing. Naturally, Joe’s remarks caused quite a stir in the British press as well as in Washington. In a letter to his friend Bernard Baruch, Kennedy said that he wanted to “reassure my friends and critics alike that I have not yet been taken into the British camp.” In time, Kennedy’s actions would cause more consternation and irritation across both sides of the Atlantic. War clouds were building over Europe. In September 1938, after the Anschluss with Austria, Adolf Hitler annexed the German-speaking portions of Czechoslovakia, and then, a year later, Hitler’s blitzkrieg overran Poland, setting off a major crisis in both London and Paris as to how to respond to Germany’s aggression. A year earlier, Britain had given Poland its assurances that if it were attacked by Germany, Britain would come to her aid. In the days and months after the German invasion, neither France nor Britain took any forceful military action against Germany. This period was known as the Phony War––when the British and French armies stood their ground and let Germany prepare to gobble up the rest of Europe. In time, German forces invaded both Norway and Denmark. By the middle of 1940, Hitler’s troops successfully marched on Belgium and Holland. In June, Hitler rode triumphantly into Paris, the conquered City of Light. With the fall of France, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany’s tyranny. The United States did not enter the war for another year and a half. When Paris fell, the German commander in that city made a courtesy call to the American military and naval attaches at the U.S. embassy, and brought with him the “very best brandy in the Grillon [the Hotel Grillon––the residence of the German military command in Paris].” The FBI, under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, opened a file on Joe Kennedy as it did with many other prominent people. Joe Kennedy’s FBI files are now available to the public and show the extent of the interest the FBI had in him. One unidentified person wrote the following on Ambassador Kennedy: WWII QUARTERLY
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© Bettmann/Corbis
nature of the information he is able to provide, or the facilities he can offer for the Bureau’s use. Every effort should be made to provide him with investigative assignments in keeping with his particular ability and the Bureau should be advised the nature of these assignments, together with the results obtained. “ Despite the work that Ambassador Kennedy did for the Bureau (the records do not reflect exactly what he did), Director Hoover “recommended that the meritorious service award not be awarded to Mr. Joseph P. Kennedy for the reason that he has not affirmatively actually done anything of special value to the Bureau despite his willingness to perform such services.” If there was a course in diplomacy, Joe Kennedy either did not know it existed or forgot to attend. That is really not what happened, but over time the new ambassador’s actions and rather indiscreet remarks would make FDR cringe. Examples of this include Joe Kennedy’s blatant anti-Semitic remarks. For a person who suffered from religious discrimination
Kennedy, center, talks with volunteer drivers of the “American Ambulance Unit of Great Britain” in London, July 1940. Kennedy donated the money to purchase one of the vehicles.
WWII QUARTERLY
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John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
while a young man living in Boston, Kennedy was either too naïve or really didn’t understand what his words meant, especially coming from someone in such a high position. For four months after his arrival in London, the ambassador tried to arrange a meeting with Adolf Hitler through the German ambassador to Great Britain, Herbert von Dirksen. In his meetings with von Dirksen, Kennedy spelled out his personal animosity toward the Jewish people. In reaction to the Germans’ “Final Solution to the Jewish problem,” which was causing such an uproar in Western countries, Kennedy told von Dirksen that in his opinion, “it was not so much the fact that we [i.e., Germany] wanted to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accomplished this purpose.” The ambassador’s remarks were picked up and reproduced in the United States, much to the chagrin of the president. However, if FDR believed that his ambassador was finished making anti-British and anti-Semitic remarks, he was badly mistaken. Kennedy did not endear himself to the British population during German air raids on London. As the Blitz attacks grew stronger, the ambassador moved his family out of London to escape the raids. After touring the destruction in London, he remarked at how much he admired the local citizens for their bravery and fortitude in the face of such horrific German attacks. In time, the papers began calling Kennedy, “Jittery Joe.” Believing that his effectiveness as ambassador was coming to an end, Kennedy, on October 6, 1940, wrote a letter to FDR asking that he be relieved of his duties in London and demanded that he be brought home. If his request was denied, he would come home anyway. The Roosevelt administration accepted Kennedy’s wishes, and he arrived in New York on October 27, arriving at La Guardia Airport. FDR had asked Joe and Rose to come to see him at the White House when they arrived, and they took the train to Washington immediately. After dinner, Joe gave the president a piece of his mind. He told FDR that he 14 FALL 2013
Two of Kennedy’s sons served in World War II: Navy Lt. (jg) John F., and Ensign Joseph Jr., photographed in May 1942. Joe Jr. was killed testing a secret drone aircraft in August 1944.
did not like the way he was treated in London, saying candidly that he was kept out of the loop as far as policy formulation was concerned. He took a direct swipe at the State Department, saying it was directly responsible for his being shut out of policy making. Joe arrived home one month before the 1940 presidential election in which FDR was running for an unprecedented third term. The press was aware of the growing rift between FDR and Kennedy, and speculation was the order of the day when it came to what trouble Kennedy might inflict on the campaign. Joe agreed to make a radio speech endorsing the president, which he paid for himself. It cost $20,000 for a nationwide hookup. He endorsed FDR but said that he still believed it wise for the U.S. to stay out of the European war. Joe officially resigned as U.S. Ambassador in February 1941, one month into FDR’s third term. His final remarks were, “Having finished a rather busy political career this week, I find myself much more interested in what young Joe is going to do than what I am going to do with the rest
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of my life.” As the Roosevelt administration was debating whether or not to grant military aid to Britain (a March 1941 Lend-Lease deal would eventually send 50 obsolete destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for leases from the British of a number of bases in the Caribbean), Kennedy publicly spoke out against any such U.S. action. He chilled both Washington and London with his comments, “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here,” referring to the United States. His remarks were published in the Boston Sunday Globe on November 10, 1940. Kennedy further embellished his remarks on the subject of the future of democracy in the U.S. and Britain with the Boston Globe’s Louis Lyons and Ralph Coglan of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. He said of the situation in Europe, “It’s all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time. As long as she is there, we have to prepare. It isn’t that she’s fighting for democracy. That’s the bunk. She’s fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us. I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it’s up to me to see that the country gets it.” He spent his time planning the political future of his two eldest sons, Joe Jr., and John. But, as fate would have it, his hopes and aspirations for his sons were caught up in the tragedies of war. The war that Joseph P. Kennedy so deeply tried to avoid resulted in the deaths of his eldest son, Joe Jr., who was killed while on a secret mission over Europe, and his son-in-law, William “Billy” Hartington, the Marquess of Hartington, who married his daughter Kathleen. It almost cost John his life in the Solomon Islands after his PT-109 was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. John F. Kennedy later became the 35th president of the United States––a job that Joe once hoped would be his own. Kennedy’s isolationist views and pro-German remarks came at a high personal price. For a man with limitless ambitions, his fall from grace must have been the cruelest cut of all. n
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THE
“GREEN HELL” OF GUADALCANAL
Combat artist Dwight Shepler depicts a patrol crossing through one of the numerous pestilential streams on Guadalcanal in Action on the River.
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On August 6, 1942, the men of Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift’s U.S. 1st Marine Division watched from the railings as their troopship, the USS George F. Elliott, All: Author Collection steamed into the waters north of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands. They had come to seize the island’s semi-completed airfield at Lunga Point from the Japanese before it became operational. With Guadalcanal’s airfield, the Japanese could bomb the shipping lanes to Australia and choke the continent, putting Australia at risk for Japanese invasion. Among the thousands of troops nervous with anticipation about the battle to come were four Marines from H Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment––Jim Young, Sid Phillips, Roy Gerlach, and Art Pendleton––dressed in their steel helmets and green cotton-twill uniform (the Marines’ familiar, mottled-green camouflage uniforms had not yet been issued). This is their story.
Marine Corps combat veterans relive the dangerous and deadly work in some of the war’s toughest fighting. BY ADAM MAKOS & MARCUS BROTHERTON
U.S. Navy
Jim Young: “We were awakened around three in the morning on August 7, 1942, the day we were to fight the Japs. Breakfast was at 5:00 AM. The food was steak and eggs. After eating, which was hard to do, we went up on deck to watch the bombardment of Guadalcanal. It was unbelievable, and the noise was horrendous! Most of us were scared and bewildered. We couldn’t even hear each other without yelling. “We received orders to go below and get everything ready to disembark. The sea was rough and dangerous. Due to the waves, boats were dropping six to 10 Top to bottom: U.S. feet, just as men were ready to get in Marines W.O. Brown them. Or if the boat didn’t drop, it came (left) and buddy Sid roaring up. A man was crushed between Phillips cram themselves into a photo the landing craft and the side of the ship. booth; Jim Young; Lots of guys were hurt that way. Marine Corporal Roy “One of the men from my gun crew, a Gerlach; Art Pendleton, Marine Pfc., had made it into the landing photographed in Australia prior to the craft and had his hand on the craft’s rail Guadalcanal operation. when our wiremen stated to lower metal coils of communication wire from the ship. A line broke and the heavy coil of wire hit his arm and snapped it. They hoisted him back aboard. “It was go time. The engines on the landing craft were all WWII QUARTERLY
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Marines land on Beach Red, Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942, only to find no initial enemy opposition. Most were expecting stiff resistance on the beach.
National Archives
roaring at full throttle. We were on our way in and everyone was nervous.” Sid Phillips: “There was a flag flying on the stern of every landing craft. I looked over the side at the flags, and my friend Carl Ransom was doing the same thing. You could see a whole line of them. It looked like they reached to the end of the world. I got a lump in my throat. Ransom did, too. As he wiped his eyes, he said, ‘That salt spray makes your eyes water, don’t it?’ “We had never had that happen before, never in training, and I never saw it [a U.S. flag on every landing craft] happen again after that. They were too good a target. A big old red, white, and blue thing like that shouts, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ Our Colonel Cates [Clifton B. Cates, CO of the 1st Marine Regiment] was a very patriotic Marine. If there was an order given to fly a flag on every landing craft, I’m sure Cates gave that order. “I noticed that morning how everybody’s cartridge belt was full and bulging. You could see the shiny brass cartridges here and there in the belt. You had two clips of five rounds in each of those pockets. When we had made practice landings in the Fiji Islands, they never issued any live ammunition. We made the landings with empty, flat, cartridge belts. They didn’t want some idiot firing his rifle into someone. Things were different now. This 18
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was the real deal. “When we came ashore at Guadalcanal, we were in that landing craft where the front end would drop down…. We had the front ramp because otherwise we couldn’t get that mortar out of the boat. We were expecting a life-and-death struggle with hand-tohand combat on the beach. When the ramp went down, we found our guys on the beach laughing at us and opening coconuts. We came out of the landing craft ready to fight and they just laughed. They had done the same thing a few minutes before. There were no Japs in our vicinity at all.” Roy Gerlach: “I didn’t go in on the first wave. I was a mortar man assigned to the mortar platoon, but I spent a lot of time as a cook. In the Marine Corps, you were assigned to the job you were supposed to do, and then if you could do something else, you did that, too. Whenever there was action, I was on the mortars. But if they needed a cook, well, I did that, too…. “I don’t remember much about coming in to the beach. There were no Japs there. They’d all taken off to the hills. Right away we found all these coconuts. They fell out of the trees. We took our bayonets, bored holes in the coconuts, and drank the milk. But it made the guys sick. Too much fresh milk, I guess. Sid Phillips: “All the first day we struggled through the jungle to reach a hill called the Grassy Knoll, a mile inland. We had no good maps for Guadalcanal at all. They had some maps drawn up by some Australian people who had been on Guadalcanal. These crude maps were named by the Australians. They even had the names mixed up for the Tenaru and Ilu Rivers. “So the game plan was to go to the Grassy Knoll and get the high ground. The thing that stands out so clear in my memory was the heat, the incredible heat in the jungle, with no breeze. And we had just come from winter in New Zealand, so it was a severe climate change. We just griped and bitched. In that jungle, it’s so hot, and you’re carrying a 60-pound pack when you come ashore. Extra ammunition, packs of food for four days, a change of clothing. You drop your bedding and keep going. The heat was so oppressive. “We were issued one canteen then. We’d been taught water discipline. You were only supposed to take small sips of water and roll the water around in your mouth before you swallowed. You were never supposed to guzzle water. Everybody nearly died of thirst that first day. We ate crackers, cans of hash—there was no water in the food; it
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just dried you out more and made you more thirsty. At the end of the first day, we were exhausted, halfway up the Grassy Knoll. They told us to lie down where we were, dig a foxhole, shut up, and go to sleep. So we did.” Jim Young: “When morning came, we were ordered back to the beach to set up defenses in an effort to repel any Jap attempt to land. One of our lieutenants was bitten in the face by a scorpion during the night. He had swollen up so much that he was completely blind and had to be led by the hand on the long march back to the beach. “As we approached the beach, about 10 Japanese torpedo bombers skimmed the water and headed for the convoy. They were so low we could see the faces of the pilots and the big red meatballs on their wings. They did not care about us on the beach. They went straight for the convoy of ships. One plane headed directly for our ship, the Elliott. It crashed into the water first and bounced up and slammed into the ship.” Roy Gerlach: “We didn’t have no galley for the first three or four weeks because our cooking equipment sunk with the Elliott. I wasn’t on the ship then, but I saw it all. Most of the troops were on shore by then. But the unloading of the ship wasn’t done yet. There was one shipman I knew on the Elliott. He always used to say, ‘I’m gonna be here when you go, and I’ll be here when you get back.’ He wasn’t.” Sid Phillips: “People ask me when we first contacted the enemy. We were strafed by U.S. Marine Corps
ABOVE: This Japanese-built pagoda next to the airfield at Henderson Field served as headquarters for the “Cactus Air Force” throughout the first months of air operations on Guadalcanal. BELOW: Japanese Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bombers skim the water during an attack on American transport ships the day after the Marine landing.
enemy planes almost immediately on Guadalcanal. You dig a foxhole and try to dig it as deep as you can, just try to bury yourself with the earth. The strafing never ended on Guadalcanal. They were always coming in, bombarding us. We considered that contact with the enemy.” Jim Young: “The Jap Zeros would come swooping over us. I could actually see the pilots, the faces in those airplanes. You could see them turn their heads and look down at you. Sometimes they were grinning.” Sid Phillips: “The day after we landed, we captured the airfield. When I first saw the airfield, I was surprised that there weren’t many buildings except for this pagoda-looking thing. That served as the tower. The runway wasn’t very visible unless you were up in the air. There were no wrecked Japanese planes. The place was empty. We went over there and looked at the pagoda. We were some of the first Americans to walk into that building. “The first American planes we saw come in there were the B-17 Flying Fortresses. Sometimes two, sometimes three. They would stop, refuel, and leave. The Flying Fortresses came in before we had any Navy or Marine planes at all.” On August 9, from its bivouac on a hilltop over the beach, H Company witnessed a violent naval battle between the U.S. and Japanese navies. This, the Battle of Savo Island, produced so many sunken ships off the island’s shore that the waters gained the name Iron Bottom Sound. Sid Phillips: “The Savo sea battle was like watching a summer storm from a beach. You would hear this rumble of naval gunfire and see what looked like flashes of lightning. You’ve seen distant lightning where the sky lights up? It was that sort of thing. You couldn’t see any real details of the naval battle, but when a ship would blow up, we cheered. We assumed it was our boys doing the whipping. The next morning we saw one American cruiser creep slowly by, right offshore, with part of its bow blown off. Somebody said it was the Chicago. “We were then told about the disaster. We
U.S. Navy
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lost four cruisers that night. You could maybe see a ship smoking, three miles away. Our supply ships were still in the harbor, but they were pulling out. Leaving us. They hadn’t even unloaded half our supplies. But they had to get the hell out of there. “At that moment we felt that we might be considered ‘expendable.’ It had occurred in the Philippines. It had occurred at Wake Island. It had occurred at Guam. It had occurred at every stage of the war in the Pacific up to Guadalcanal, so yes, we felt expendable.” Jim Young: “Without our ships, we were alone on the island. There was no food except for what we had in our backpacks––K rations. After sending out search parties to look for food, we found stores of Japanese rice and oats which would hold us over until the Navy could return with more supplies. It took a strong stomach to eat this because the rice and oats were crawling with maggots and worms. We found that if we dumped the rice and oats in water then all the bugs would float to the top where we could skim them off. “We bivouacked at the end of a coconut plantation, near a meadow with a patch of trees. The trees were lime trees, and we made limeade. We used warm water and we had no sugar. This stuff was terrible, but it was something different to drink. This meadow had the oddest plants I’ve ever seen. If you took a walk through them, it looked like a well-worn path, but 20 minutes later there was no trace of where you’d walked. “In the days that followed, we still hadn’t seen the Japs up close, but the air raids continued. We had an old gunnery sergeant, 50 years old, real nice guy and a real Marine. We called him Gunny Dixon. Gunny told us to dig foxholes. When we were finished, he took one look at them and started to laugh. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘They don’t look deep enough to me. I bet by the end of the week they will be deep enough to stand in.’ How right he was! Bombers flew over us, and we couldn’t do a thing about it. We had no guns that could reach them, and we had no airplanes. The bombs falling had a whistling 20
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ABOVE: A lone Japanese prisoner, captured during a scouting mission, is photographed with his Marine captors. BELOW: F4F Wildcat planes parked on the fighter strip at Henderson Field. With air superiority, Marines were able to hammer Japanese targets at will.
Both: National Archives
sound as they came down. “One day the Jap bombers came from a different direction. They had always bombed the airstrip from the takeoff point to the liftoff point, but this day they came straight from the sea toward our tree grove. This time they were after us, and not the airstrip. I was watching them with field glasses, and I could see the pattern of bombs exploding and knew it would surely hit us. I yelled a warning, and we just made it to our foxholes in time. It was impossible to stand in the foxhole. The earth was shaking like an earthquake. Big chunks of earth filled the air, and the smell of cordite was overpowering. It’s hard to believe that no one was killed. “We found a Jap bunker near us that held about 20 of us. It was very dark inside, and while using it during an air raid one day one of the guys let out a loud scream. It scared all of us, and we scrambled for the exit even though the air raid was still in progress. A six-foot-long lizard was up on the roof of the bunker, and its scaly tail had flopped
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down and touched the Marine’s face. He thought it was the guy next to him so he knocked unconscious. But even then, if reached up to brush it away. When he felt the tail, he went ape. We all got a kick out of you saw an unconscious Jap, you’d be very it when it was over. cautious because he might be only pre“At night the Japs sent a lone bomber that kept flying around for hours before he tending. He might try to kill you. decided to drop his bombs. They did this to keep us from getting any rest. We called “Japan soon proved a brutal enemy. him ‘Washing Machine Charley’ because of the sound of his engine. They ignored the Geneva Convention. “The bombing raids never ceased. After a while, we were shelled from Jap cruisers They tortured prisoners of war, then killed and subs as well. What made us mad is that we could see the Japs scurrying around their them. Hell, they would torture a body and decks and manning the guns. But we had nothing that we could reach them with. All mutilate it even after a guy was dead. A of our long-range guns were on the ships that took off when the naval battle took place.” hatred between the Marines and the Sid Phillips: “The rifle platoons, they had daily patrols. Fifteen to 20 men would go Japanese rapidly developed. We never took out with an officer, scouting, trying to find out if there were any Japs in a particular area. a prisoner, never in my battalion, that I In the mortar platoon we seldom went on patrols. know of.” “But we did go out after a Marine patrol had been ambushed and the survivors came On August 20, bad news came to the back to our lines. So they put together a 300-man patrol to go back out there to recover Marines, word that the Japanese were our dead. They wanted one 81mm mortar to come along, so they came to the mortar landing fresh troops to retake the airfield. platoon and said, ‘Number four gun is going.’ That was me. Lieutenant “Benny” Ben- That same day a new armada of planes son, he was the lieutenant for our gun, went with us. was heard in the sky. “The riflemen were on the point, watching for the enemy. In the mortar squad we Sid Phillips: “It was late in the afternoon, trudged along behind them with that damn heavy stuff. We went about five miles out, and we were at our mortar position when carrying that mortar the whole way. You either carry part of the mortar or the ammu- we heard airplanes circling the field. We nition. If you were an ammunition carrier, you carried a cloverleaf of ammunition on ran for cover. They came in from the south your shoulder. over those ridges. The roar of all the air“It was a strenuous march in the tropics. There were no roads. To be on the ground planes was deafening. They were loud by in a dense jungle, you did not even need to see combat to have a miserable time. You themselves, but when you have the sky full might have hiked way out and way back and had to ford several streams National Archives of them—wow! Someone and walked through water waist-deep where your clothes got soaked and screamed that they were our your feet didn’t dry out and your pants chafed your crotch. You just can’t planes. convey that misery in words. “We just went wild. I “When we reached the area where the ambush had occurred, the morlooked up and saw a bluetar platoon stopped 150 yards from the site and set up our mortar. If the gray SBD dive bomber with Japs were gonna ambush this big patrol, we were gonna give our guys the letters ‘USMC’ painted mortar support. You could just look where our guys were, and we would on the underside of the have fired beyond them. But the Japs had vacated the area. wing. We flung our helmets “We never did get up to the actual site of the ambush, but this old way up in the air. We were Marine sergeant came walking back, and Benny knew him real well beating on each other. Some because Benny was an old Marine, too—30 years old was ancient in our of the guys were crying with minds. Benny said, ‘What’s the scoop up there?’ and this sergeant said joy they were so happy. We On August 12, Division Intelligence officer Colonel Frank that all the Marines had been beheaded and had their genitals stuffed in hadn’t had any friendly Goettge was lured into an their mouths. They brought our dead back on canvas stretchers, their bodplanes except those two or ambush along with 25 Marines; ies covered by ponchos. three Flying Fortresses that only three escaped. “Our hatred for the enemy burned from early on. We had heard about came in. We had been the Bataan Death March, where they bayoneted American prisoners who fell exhausted strafed regularly by the Japanese Zeros. by the roadside. We had talked to the 90mm antiaircraft battery that was near our Seeing our planes told us that Uncle Sam bivouac—they were a defense battalion that had been at Pearl Harbor. had decided we were going to fight for this “Then there was the Goettge patrol. A few days after we landed on Guadalcanal, miserable island.” some Jap prisoner told Colonel Frank Goettge that the Jap’s buddies wanted to surrenOn August 21, 1942, the Marines and der five miles west of our lines, where the Matanikau River met the sea. Goettge took the Japanese Army would meet in the first a patrol of 25 men out to take their surrender. But it was an ambush. Goettge and his major battle of Guadalcanal. The Japanese men were butchered. Only three of them escaped by swimming back to our lines. had landed 900 soldiers of the elite Ichiki “Was he an idiot for thinking the Japs would surrender? No, we just didn’t really Detachment, who marched west along the understand the enemy yet. Surrender was out of the question for a Jap unless he was beach, toward the airfield. The Marines of WWII QUARTERLY
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National Archives
It is believed that Colonel Kiyono Ichiki committed suicide on August 21 after his forces failed to break American lines.
H Company waited for the enemy along the west bank of a small river they called “Alligator Creek,” or “the Tenaru.” [Actually, the stream was the Ilu River.] Jim Young: “We took turns manning defense lines at night. It was scary. The jungle was thick in front of us, and the nights were black. We heard all kinds of noises, and some of us would fire a few rounds in front of us just in case Japs were sneaking up on us. The trouble was that everyone got jumpy when someone fired, and the whole line would open up. You would think a hell of a battle was going on. “Well, the general got fed up with all the shooting and nothing to show for it. He issued an order that if any more of that wild firing happened, he wanted to see dead Japs, or that unit would catch all the working parties. Let me tell you, the next night the whole island seemed to be deserted, it was so quiet. The only sound came from ‘Washing Machine Charley.’” Sid Phillips: “The Battle of the Tenaru [River] was the first real fight on the island. Our lines ran north and south from the ocean back to where the airfield began. We did not have a perimeter around the airfield; we didn’t have that many men. “We were stretched out in these holes, every seven yards, two men with rifles, two men with rifles, then maybe six men with 22
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a machine gun, their position covered with logs and dirt, then two men with rifles, and two men with rifles, and so on. The jungle around you was so thick, you didn’t know who was where, or what was where. You would lie there and listen to all those different damn jungle noises. “One of those iguanas, three feet long, could be scurrying around, wrestling and making noise. You would wonder, Is that a damn Jap or is that an iguana? So you stayed awake. You didn’t want to give a false alarm. After a while, you would get used to it, and you began to take pride in the idea that you could tell a land crab from a creeping Jap, you know. “The mosquitoes were eating us alive. There was no repellent or anything. We just lay in those holes and fed those mosquitoes all night long. We’d been living on rice and nothing else for a long time there. Everybody was wore out, exhausted before long. Every two hours you were supposed to switch off on watch with the guy in your foxhole. We were always on edge. “Because things were so spooky, they would take our squad leader, Sergeant Carp from Brooklyn, and put him up on the perimeter. He carried the BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle], and they wanted his firepower up there. Plus, he had been in the Marine Corps about three years and was an old timer that they considered much wiser than us kids. They put him up on the perimeter every night with that BAR.” On the H Company line, a Marine named Art Pendleton led one of 12 machine gun squads. Art Pendleton: “I was a corporal. I had joined the Marine Corps in January 1942 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Before that I was a pretty ordinary guy, a country boy from central Massachusetts—horse-and-buggy country. I enjoyed school. Never had any such thing as an affair with a girl (until I got into the Marine Corps). Never would touch a drop of alcohol. Never even heard of drugs. It was a whole different way of life. Women were also much different. If you ever saw a woman in the barroom in our town, it would be a story to tell. “That all impacts your character, I suppose. When I boarded the train in Boston to go to Parris Island [the Marine Corps’ boot camp and training center in South Carolina], there were lots of other men there from all over New England. One fellow who ended up in H Company with me came from Southborough, Massachusetts, which was just a short distance from where I lived. His name was Whitney Jacobs. “Jacobs was a hairy little guy and powerfully strong but not the kind of person that you would think of being a Marine. The rules and regulations for joining at that time were stringent. You couldn’t be an African American, which was sad. [Not until June 1942 did the Marine Corps accept its first black recruits. By the war’s end, more than 19,000 black Marines would serve with distinction.] “You had to have all of your teeth except for two, you had to be a certain weight, a certain height, you had to have certain education, and the list goes on and on. You wouldn’t think that little Whitney Jacobs would have ever made it, but he did. “The night of our first battle with the Japanese, our machine-gun emplacement was on the beach looking out at the ocean while others were on the riverbank. There was only one likely place that the Japanese could breach our lines—the sandspit. The sandspit was part of the beach that separated the river from the ocean. The sandspit was like a dam. The river trickled over it all the time. The only time the river would run freely over it was when I suppose there was a heavy rain. “Right behind the sandspit the river got deep. We knew the Japanese could walk across that bit of sand if they attacked, so we strung some barbed wire on some poles there. It was like a 90-degree angle. We were about the only gun that was that close to the sandspit. Whitney Jacobs, who was a rifleman, was near the river. Riflemen and the machine
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guns and BARs were right up front. Whitney thought that he heard something out of place in the night. He fired without waiting for orders. That one shot started the battle because the Japanese were there, trying to cross the river.” Jim Young: “Around 1:30 AM on August 21, a few shots were fired up on our defense line at the Tenaru River. The tempos of firing increased with a few machine-gun bursts. Then all hell broke loose.” Sid Phillips: “The Japanese unit had come marching down the beach, moving west, Author Collection
ABOVE: Members of an 81mm mortar crew from H Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, photographed on Guadalcanal. Sid Phillips is second from right. BELOW: American Marines wade through Alligator Creek, not far from the Tenaru River, on the hunt for the enemy.
National Archives
and when they got to the Tenaru River, they spread out and formed a front. Some of them waded through the creek quietly. It was black as dark. When the Japs hit, Sergeant Carp and his foxhole companion, a Marine named Beer, had fallen asleep. They were just so exhausted and so tired. A Jap officer jumped in their hole and hacked them up, killing them both, until someone shot him. When the firing started, the darkness became almost as bright as day. A wall of fire poured from our lines. A real roar. We knew the real enemy was here. They were disciplined and vicious.” Art Pendleton: “The Japanese had landed nearly 1,000 men of the best that they had from the Ichiki Detachment. They tried to come across the sand first but ran into our barbed wire, so they had to cross the river. It was neck deep in spots. The Japanese put themselves to a big disadvantage from the start.” Jim Young: “A screaming horde of Imperial Japanese soldiers tried to cross. They came in waves of 50 and 100 men at a time. We had about 90 men on the defense line. “Japs who could speak English were screaming, ‘Marine, tonight you die!’ and ‘Blood for the emperor!’ We started yelling back at them, ‘F—k your emperor!’ and ‘Go to hell!’––anything we could possibly think of. “The Japs threw coconuts in the river. That way, it was hard to tell if you were shooting at a coconut or a Jap’s head. Then they charged across the water. Some of them got through our line and were bayoneting our men. “On the front lines, one of my close friends, Crotty from New York, was in a two-man foxhole. A Japanese officer had snuck through the line and came at him from the back of the foxhole. The other Marine in the foxhole with Crotty had put a bandolier of ammo across the back of the foxhole and rolled onto his back to reach for it. When he looked up he saw the Jap officer with his saber raised over his head. The Marine drew his knees to his chest to protect himself. The Jap’s saber hit WWII QUARTERLY
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Map © 2013 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN
him in the kneecap and split his knee down through the shinbone. “Crotty heard his buddy scream and turned around. He shot just before the Jap could bring the blade down for the second hit. The bullet went up through the Jap’s rib cage and came out under his armpit. He fell on them. “Our lieutenant, Benson, was yelling for us to prepare to move the mortars into action. We were powerless for the moment. A mortar required light to see where you’re aiming, so we just waited, watching the flashes, praying for the hint of dawn. I thought to myself ...You wanted to see Japs, well, here they are.” Art Pendleton: “My gun was on the beach when the battle started. John Rivers and Al Schmid’s machine-gun emplacement was on the bank of the river. John Rivers was a very nice guy and very tough––a former boxer. He had given up a chance to be a champion lightweight prizefighter to enlist instead. “We had four heavy machine guns in our platoon, and his happened to be right in the spot where the Japanese came across the river. John was right in the middle of it. The Japanese never should have hit us there. They were in water up to their neck getting across the river. Hell, they were fodder for us.” Jim Young: “John [Rivers] was the gunner and Al [Schmid] was his loader. Even though they had boxed one another on the deck of the ship, they worked together well. Their gun was in a sandbagged pit on the riverbank, and the Japs were attacking them like herds of cattle. Johnny was mowing them down until he was shot in the face and killed. “Al took over as gunner and kept fighting until the Japs threw a grenade into his gun pit and wounded him and his ammo bearer. Blinded, Al resumed firing with the ammo bearer shouting in his ear, directing his fire. “A guy from North Carolina named Pfc. Steve Boykin, a very nice gentleman, got hit up there on the line. His one leg, the whole back of it was almost blown out. His men slid him back off the line and set 24
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Once Ichiki’s men moved into position along the coast, they found themselves surrounded with no way out; annihilation was inevitable.
him against a tree. One of the Japs got through and got to him and stuck him with a bayonet but didn’t kill him. The Jap was killed. Somehow Boykin survived.” Art Pendleton: “As the battle raged on, Whitney realized that one of our machine guns had stopped firing, the one that had been devastating the enemy. You can’t fire a machine gun steady because if you do the enemy will zero in on you. But when you’re in that kind of a situation, you don’t use common sense. You’re firing for your life. “Whitney crawled a few feet to the silent gun emplacement. He stayed on his stomach and peered into that emplacement and called out. Inside, John Rivers was dead, and Al Schmid, who was blinded and in bad shape, answered him. Whitney shouted, ‘Don’t shoot—I’ll go get help.’ So he backed off and reported to the officer in charge. Right away our lieutenant called my gun in because I was about 100 feet from that point. “We rushed to move. The gunner carried the gun, and the assistant gunner carried the tripod. When running up to the line to get a look at where we’re going, a hand grenade, I believe, went off between my legs. It lifted me up in the air a little bit, but it didn’t touch me. I thought, Wow! How lucky can you be? “Everything seemed so confusing. We were directed to Rivers’ gun position. No one was in it. I don’t know where Rivers’ body went or where Schmid went. They were destined to get knocked out because they were firing so heavily. Rivers’ gun was totally destroyed, so I just threw it out of the emplacement. That machine gun killed many, many, many Japanese. I put my gun in its place. We were in the middle of it now. “The Jap officers had these fancy sabers and were swinging them in the air trying to scare the hell out of us. Our guys were way beyond being scared. They were there to kill everybody. You forget about being scared when your life is at stake. There’s no such thing as scared. “I started firing as soon as I got the gun set up. If you didn’t, you were going to get killed. Rivers’ position was the focus of the whole Japanese attack. The Japs were all over the place.”
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Sid Phillips: “As the battle raged, our 81mm mortar platoon––all four tubes––was facing the beach in case there was a landing coming in from the ocean. So the attack was coming from our right flank. Our lieutenant moved us toward the battle, up parallel to the river. Our foxholes were all over. Our machine guns were so well dug in you could hardly see them at all in the dim light. As we moved up in the dim light, we kept falling in foxholes. To fall in a foxhole with a mortar tube or base plate can be painful as hell. It could kill a man if it fell on him.” Jim Young: “We set up the mortars in the coconut grove parallel with the river. We had no defensive cover for protection. It was like being in the middle of a football field. We had to work fast because the Japs spotted us and started shelling us. The lieutenant was worried that we may not have enough clearance through the coconut leaves. I told him I thought I could get through. I fired the first round and knocked a palm leaf off a tree, but the shell didn’t explode, so the lieutenant gave the order to ‘fire for effect.’ This means to fire as fast as you can. Sid Phillips: “There was a pile of Japanese dead right out in front of our new mortar position, about 30 yards away. They had killed them before we got up there. We were trying to hit an area about the size of six football fields on the other side of the river.
that thing goes off. You just can’t believe it. If you shot the biggest firecracker ever, it was a thousand times louder than that. We were actually awed by the results of that 15pound shell. At Camp Lejeune we had one day of firing live ammunition, but the range was over 2,000 yards away. We had never had any close-up firing until that battle.” Jim Young: “We saw Japs, their clothes on fire from our mortar bursts, running to the sea and river to put the fire out. Our number-four gun had a misfire and had to be taken out of action; Corporal Mugno’s ramrod for cleaning the mortar tube had a sock wrapped around the end of it that came off and fouled the gun. It was utter chaos.”
National Archives
National Archives
ABOVE: Two tankers pose beside their M5 Stuart light tank used in the Battle of Tenaru, site of one of the Pacific’s fiercest battles. LEFT: Ichiki’s soldiers were slaughtered in a Banzai charge near the coconut grove during the Tenaru River battle.
We just kept blanketing the whole area over there.” Roy Gerlach: “Our front lines kept the Japs backed up in the river. I was with the 81mm mortars; I carried shells to the guns. Our mortar fired a three-inch-wide shell that you dropped down into the tube and it shot up into the air. It reached out over our lines and came down and killed anyone for 30 yards. No, it never bothered me being a Mennonite and being in the war. I guess I was more broadminded.” Art Pendleton: “The thing that impressed me more than anything were the flares. When they would shoot a flare in the air, you could hear it pop when it lit. When they ignited, it was a very bright light. Then the parachute opened, and the flare would very slowly float down to earth. No matter what you were doing, everybody stopped. You didn’t move a hair. If you dared to move, you were going to get shot. We lit flares, and so did they. It was just to check positions and see who was where. Those flares were probably one of the most dangerous things in the battle.” Sid Phillips: “We were firing heavy, 15-pound shells. It is a deafening explosion when
Art Pendleton: “At one point they tried to flank us at the sandspit. My gun wasn’t shooting at the sandspit at all since that was covered by another gun on our left. That was also covered by the 37mm cannon. The 37mm was a lightweight cannon, but they had canister shot for it, the same as you would shoot game birds with. It was not one bullet; it was many pieces of metal flying through the air, like a giant shotgun. It was firing again and again. “I wasn’t worried about the sandspit. I wasn’t even thinking about it. We had our hands full just taking care of what was in WWII QUARTERLY
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front of us. They had to cross the river and climb up the bank in order to get to us. We slaughtered them.” Sid Phillips: “During the battle, Colonel Pollock [Lt. Col. Edwin A. Pollock, CO of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines] came running over to our gun and said, ‘Who is the gunner here?’ I held my hand up and he said, ‘Well, boy, use me as the range stakes.’ He ran out about 40 feet in front of the gun and held his hand up. I put the sights on zero deflection, and we dragged the gun so that we had him lined up. Then I noticed beyond him through the trees was an abandoned American amphibian tank on the enemy side of the river. The Japs had gotten a machine gun into that thing and were firing from inside it. “Pollock said to try 300 yards. Our shot was right on, but it was a little bit beyond the target. We lowered our mortar down, and our third round landed right in the tank. Everybody along the line cheered like a touchdown in a football game.” Art Pendleton: “Near the end of the battle, Colonel Pollock, who was a great man, came to me and said, ‘Stop firing.’ I said, National Archives
As the battle wound down, some Japanese troops tried to escape by heading into the ocean, but many were cut down as they crossed the beach, and others shot in the surf. This photograph was taken the day after the battle.
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‘I’m trying to take out a couple of guys that I’m seeing running there.’ He said, ‘Don’t. We don’t know what’s over there, and we might open up another Rivers situation here.’ He knew the fight was over and didn’t want us getting ourselves killed or the other Marines who were surrounding the enemy from different directions at that time. He was our colonel, and I respected him a lot.” Sid Phillips: “The Japs tried to pick us off with a 75mm howitzer cannon they had wheeled up. It had iron wheels on it, and they drove us away from our mortar once. They also fired those grenade launchers, those knee mortars, at us. When those things went off, it sounded like you had slapped two pieces of two-by-four together. A crack! And if it hit close it would scare the hell out of you.” Jim Young: “The battle wound down, and it grew light. In the end, the Jap dead were piled three to five feet high. There must have been a hundred or more bodies in front of our 37mm cannon that was located on the sandspit, which was the only way the Japs could attack without going through the creek.” Art Pendleton: “I can remember looking at these Japanese soldiers who were caught in the barbed wire, and their heads were blown open and the brains and innards was dripping out of their heads. That scene is still with me nearly every day, 70 years later. “The Japanese soldier was very different from what you would consider the Japanese population. They’re a kind, generous, easygoing nation of people who love nice things and are very delicate in their artistry, music, and everything else. Their soldiers, however, were brainwashed to the point where suicidal attacks were nothing for them, nor were acts of unspeakable brutality. We were a bunch of American kids. Our social system was different, and we were brainwashed, inasmuch as you do what you’re told to do and don’t question orders, but if someone told us to throw our lives away we weren’t ready to give it up. There’s a big difference.” Jim Young: “Two hundred bodies were piled up in front of the gun position of Johnny Rivers and Al Schmid. Schmid survived the battle, although he was blinded. I could
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hardly believe I was seeing so many dead enemy soldiers. Some just looked like they were sleeping. Others were mangled. Some were burnt.” Sid Phillips: “General Vandegrift and his staff came right up behind our guns. Vandegrift was the top dog on Guadalcanal. He was within 10 feet of us. A corporal followed behind General Vandegrift with a 12-gauge pump shotgun, and he kept the shotgun at port arms; I don’t even know if it was on safety, but all he had to do was point that thing and fire it. He stayed right with the general, and that’s when my buddy Ransom said, ‘Phillips, if you want to get your ass kicked, just go over there and stand between the general and that corporal.’ “Our tanks didn’t come up until maybe 10 o’clock in the morning. They passed right down the beach right there. You could have walked over and touched them. When the tanks got through, our whole 1st Battalion, A, B, C, D Companies of infantry, had circled around from the south, and they came around and drove all the Japanese survivors ahead of them out into the ocean. About 30 Japs ran out and jumped in the surf. Everybody kept firing at them until no more heads were visible.” Jim Young: “At about two in the afternoon the next day, the temperature was around 95 degrees. We walked among them [the dead Japanese] looking for ones that were still alive. Several of our men had been shot by Japs who were only playing dead. The colonel issued orders to shoot any one of them that might be alive. The smell of death almost took your breath away. The chaplains were taking the dog tags off the dead Marines. They said we lost 40 men. It was one hell of a night, and we were glad it was over.” Art Pendleton: “I can’t even begin to tell you how many bodies were in the river floating around after this battle. You could hardly see the water. We killed almost 800 of them. They were some of their best men that used to train on Mount Fujiyama. They’d put on full marching gear and run up the mountain and run down the mountain. We never would have won that battle if we didn’t have the advantage of the river. “Their bodies were all over the place for two weeks. The crocodiles were ripping them apart. There were a few of them that survived and escaped back on their fast ships to the other side of the island. These men fought again, but they were all annihilated in the end.” Sid Phillips: “After it was over, Colonel Pollock came over and told us we had done real well and shook hands with everybody. “This Japanese unit that hit us there was half of the Ichiki Detachment, an elite unit. They first went ashore at Guam and captured our Marines there. Evidently they had gone through all the Marines’ personal gear because the Japanese packs were full of snapshots of American people—Marines and their girlfriends. We found about 100 of these snapshots after the battle. “We collected up all the pictures of Americans and decided that the best thing to do was burn them. You wouldn’t want to send them to the families, even if you could identify them. We kept all the Japanese pictures. You’d never burn them. You could trade them to sailors on board ships for almost anything—clothes, chewing tobacco. Money had no value, but you could do a lot by trading souvenirs. I opened one Jap pack that had three Marine globe-and-anchor emblems in it. My friend Deacon Tatum got stuck with Carp’s BAR and had to clean his blood off of it.” Art Pendleton: “I remember two riflemen, who were my friends. A big shell landed beside them and killed them both. It didn’t just kill them, it blew them to pieces. Their names were Barney Sterling and Arthur Atwood. They would both receive the Navy Cross posthumously. Our lieutenant gathered me and a couple of guys, and we got ponchos and picked up their body parts. We carried them up through the coconut grove and dug their graves right near the end of the Henderson Field airstrip. That was the beginning of the Marine cemetery on Guadalcanal. From that time on there were a lot of graves in there. I never cared about going back to Guadalcanal, but a friend told me it’s a big cemetery now.”
Both: National Archives
ABOVE: Marine Al Schmid, left, photographed in the hospital, was blinded when a grenade exploded in his machine gun pit; he continued firing until relieved. For his courage he received the Navy Cross. BELOW: Lt. Col. Edwin A. Pollock, (right), shown with Lt. Col. L.B. Cresswell, commanded the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, in the Battle of the Tenaru River.
The Battle of Guadalcanal went on for another six months and ended in a decisive American victory. The Lunga Point airfield was renamed Henderson Field in honor of Marine aviator Major Lofton Henderson, killed at the earlier Battle of Midway. Today the airfield is known as Honiara International Airport (see WWII Quarterly, Fall 2011). The island was not declared secure until February 9, 1943. By then the American Marines and Army had lost 1,592 men killed and 4,283 wounded, while the Japanese were decimated: over 28,000 killed, missing, or dead from disease. The outcome of the battle also marked the end of Japanese expansion in the Pacific and, from then until August 1945, Japan was on the defensive until its final defeat. This article is excerpted from Voices of the Pacific (Berkley Caliber, 2013). WWII QUARTERLY
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A 3rd Armored Division crewman with a .30-caliber machine gun mounted on an M3 “Stuart” light tank fires on enemy troops in the woods flanking a highway near Leipzig, April 17, 1945. Although the war was nearly over, some Germans stubbornly resisted, preferring death to dishonor. INSET: A key part of the battle for Leipzig centered around the huge Völkerschlachtdenkmal monument, dedicated to the defeat of Napoleon in 1813, shown here in a recent photo.
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AFTER SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
LASTSTAND IN LEIPZIG
BY MICHAEL E. HASKEW National Archives
IN
Wikipedia Commons
DECIDED AGAINST ADVANCING ON BERLIN, AMERICAN TROOPS CAPTURED GERMANY’S FIFTH LARGEST CITY, TAKING A MONUMENT TO A 19TH-CENTURY VICTORY OVER NAPOLEON IN THE PROCESS.
October 1813, the combined allied armies of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Saxony, and Württemberg met and defeated the French Grand Armee under Napoleon Bonaparte at the German city of Leipzig, forcing him to retreat and hastening his eventual abdication and exile to the island of Elba. Some 600,000 soldiers took part in the momentous battle. A century later, the German people commemorated the great victory in the Völkerschlacht, or Battle of the Nations, with the construction of a huge monument, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, that was completed in time for the centennial of the battle. One of the tallest monuments in Europe, the monolith rises 299 feet and occupies a square base 417 feet by 417 feet. Nearly 27,000 granite blocks and tons of concrete and sandstone were used in the construction of the two-story edifice, which includes a crypt and 500 steps to a viewing platform at its top. Adorned with figures mourning the sacrifice of the dead in the Battle of the Nations and celebrating the triumphant will of the German people, the monument was constructed
like a massive, thick-walled fortress. In April 1945, as World War II came to an end, the monument actually became one. How that happened is a story in itself. For months, the Allied rallying cry in the West had been “On to Berlin!” From D-Day through the hedgerows of France, the breakout, and the pursuit across the German frontier, British and American commanders and their troops had looked forward to the day that the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes would be raised in triumph in the capital of a defeated Nazi Germany. Now, in the final days of World War II with the Third Reich in its death throes, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, architect of WWII QUARTERLY
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ABOVE: As the front lines moved closer to Berlin, the fighting became more intense. Here a soldier from the 104th Infantry Division looks for any signs of life in a disabled German tank in the middle of a ruined village. BELOW: GIs from a machine-gun squad move through the rubble of a destroyed German town in early April 1945. National Archives
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Oder River, in some places less than 30 miles from Berlin. On March 19, the supreme commander invited Bradley to accompany him to Cannes, on the French Riviera, for a few days of rest and relaxation. While there, Eisenhower sought the perspective of his old comrade and fellow member of the U.S. Military Academy graduating class of 1915. Eisenhower asked Bradley what he thought about a final, all-out push for Berlin. Bradley responded that the effort would cost 100,000 casualties and added wryly that it was “a pretty stiff price to pay for a prestige objective, especially when we’ve got to fall back and let the other fellow take over.” National Archives
the broad-front strategy, skirted protocol a bit and cabled Soviet Premier Josef Stalin directly. On March 28, 1945, he forwarded a message to Maj. Gen. John R. Deane, the U.S. military liaison in Moscow, and three days later the communiqué was in the Soviet dictator’s hands. It read in part, “My immediate operations are designed to encircle and destroy the enemy forces defending the Ruhr. My next task will be to divide the remaining enemy forces by joining with your forces…. Before deciding firmly on my plans, it is, I think, most important they should be coordinated as closely as possible with yours both as to direction and timing. Could you, therefore, tell me your intentions and let me know how far the proposals outlined in this message conform to your probable action. If we are to complete the destruction of German armies without delay, I regard it as essential that we coordinate our action and make every effort to perfect the liaison between our advancing forces. I am prepared to send officers to you for this purpose.” By the end of March, the Allied XXI Army Group under British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had completed Operation Plunder and was across the Rhine in strength. Monty’s next move, he believed, was to be a massive eastward offensive against the German capital 250 miles away. Meanwhile, the American XII Army Group, commanded by Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, had crossed the Rhine more than two weeks earlier, particularly leveraging a bridgehead across the great river at Remagen. Montgomery’s setpiece victory in the north had been ponderously slow in developing. Despite his March 27 message to Eisenhower, “Today I issued orders to army commanders for operations eastward which are about to begin,” and expressing his intent to cross the Elbe River swiftly and drive “thence by autobahn to Berlin, I hope,” some high-ranking staff officers estimated that he would need several weeks of preparation for a renewal of offensive operations. Early in March, Eisenhower received word that the Soviet Army was across the
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True enough, though symbolic of the Nazi evil, Berlin held little strategic military value. Further, the “Big Three”—U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Stalin—had sealed the deal that designated prescribed Allied occupation zones in Germany after the end of the war. Berlin was 100 miles deep in the Soviet zone. It stood to reason that American and British blood should not be shed for the German capital if it was to be subsequently relinquished to the Soviets. There was also talk of diehard Nazis, many of them battle-hardened men of the SS, moving into the Harz Mountains and establishing a national redoubt from which to carry on a guerrilla war that might last for years. Above all, Eisenhower strove to fulfill his mission to prosecute the war with military rather than political objectives in mind. His communication with Stalin was not altogether improper. He had been authorized to discuss purely military issues with the commanders of Allied troops, and Stalin was the commander in chief of all Red Army forces. Churchill and Montgomery howled disapproval, but Eisenhower prevailed with the solid backing of U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. His mind made up, Eisenhower rankled the British once again by removing Maj. Gen. William Simpson’s Ninth Army from Montgomery’s command and returning it to Bradley and XII Army Group for upcoming operations. It was clear to Montgomery that the focus of Allied offensive efforts was shifting southward to the Americans. Eisenhower had long managed the difficult task of balancing the Anglo-American alliance, a tall order given the often-prickly relations between his lieutenants. This decision, however, was true to form—the right choice given the exigencies of the military situation. Berlin would be left for the Soviets to conquer—and shed blood for. British and American troops would halt at the Elbe River and link up with the Soviets there. Territory seized by Eisenhower’s command and slated for postwar occupation by the Soviets would be vacated at the appropriate time. Not surprisingly, some American field commanders, particularly Simpson, were dismayed that they were not to be allowed to advance on Berlin. Nevertheless, they followed orders. In his response to Eisenhower, Stalin confirmed that American commander’s course of action “coincided entirely with the plan of the Soviet high command.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “In the Soviet high command plans, secondary forces will therefore be allotted to Berlin.” In reality, Stalin mistrusted his Western allies. Red Army forces were already being marshaled for the conquest of the Nazi capital. By the time the fight for Berlin was over, the
National Archives
An M4 “Sherman” medium tank from the 3rd Armored Division rolls cautiously through a shattered German village.
Soviets had suffered at least 80,000 dead and nearly 300,000 wounded. Some estimates are higher. On March 25, just two days after the first of Montgomery’s troops set foot on the east bank of the Rhine, seven divisions of the U.S First Army under Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges struck eastward from Remagen, spearheaded by Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose’s 3rd Armored Division. Simpson’s Ninth Army jumped off from positions around the German city of Wesel with Maj. Gen. Isaac White’s 2nd Armored Division in the lead. The two pincers would converge some 70 miles eastward near Lippstadt and Paderborn, trapping German Army Group B in the Ruhr, the industrial heart of the Reich. Completing their lightning run, elements of the two armored divisions met at Lippstadt about 1 PM on Easter Sunday, April 1. Surrounded in the Ruhr Pocket, some 30 miles by 75 miles, were more than 300,000 German soldiers, including the headquarters and support troops of Army Group B, most of the Fifteenth Army, two corps of the First Parachute Army, and all of the Fifth Panzer Army. Eisenhower weighed his options. Bradley allocated 18 divisions to the reduction of the Ruhr Pocket and readied his remaining 30 divisions for the next move. The bulk of the First and Ninth Armies were directed to continue their eastward WWII QUARTERLY
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ullstein bild / The Granger Collection, New York
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virtually all of his senior commanders except Bradley. On April 4, the day Ninth Army was officially returned to XII Army Group command, Bradley maintained that his subordinates were to endeavor to cross the Elbe and even ordered Simpson to “exploit any opportunity for seizing a bridgehead over the Elbe and be prepared to advance on Berlin or to the northeast.” The veteran 2nd Armored Division again led Simpson’s thrust; by April 12, Ninth Army had crossed the Elbe at Magdeburg, only 50 miles from Berlin. As Simpson sought permission to continue toward the ABOVE: The bodies of hundreds of slave laborers are laid out at Nordhausen concentration camp in preparation for German capital, he was taken aback by burial. GIs from the 3rd Armored Division liberated the camp on April 11, 1945. BELOW: An American soldier inspects Bradley’s response. the engine of a V-2 pilotless rocket bomb on the assembly line at the underground factory near Nordhausen. The V-1 rockets were also assembled here by slave laborers from concentration camps. OPPOSITE: An M7 105mm howitzer “My people were keyed up,” Simpson motor carriage (“Priest”) of the 9th Armored Division advances through the streets of a German town, April 1945. remembered. “We’d been the first to the Rhine, and now we were going to be the first to Berlin. All along we thought of just one thing—capturing Berlin, going through and meeting the Russians on the other side.” Bradley telephoned Simpson on April 15: “I’ve got something very important to tell you, and I don’t want to say it on the phone,” the XII Army Group commander said. When the two generals met at Wiesbaden, Simpson was carrying his detailed plan for the advance on Berlin. Then, Bradley stopped him cold. “You must stop on the Elbe,” he said flatly. “You are not to advance any farther than Berlin. I’m sorry, Simp. But there it is.” Hodges’s First Army was tasked with the main American thrust, directly east toward advance across central Germany and to the the cities of Dresden and Leipzig in Saxony. For the offensive, Hodges fielded two Elbe. Montgomery was ordered to corps: to the left was the VII under Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins consisting of the 1st advance in the north, protecting the left and 104th Infantry Divisions and the 3rd Armored Division, and on the right was V flank of the XII Army Group. The U.S. Corps under Maj. Gen. Clarence Huebner and including the 2nd and 69th Infantry and Third Army, under General George S. Pat- 9th Armored Divisions. Eventually, Dresden was occupied by the Red Army following ton, Jr., continued driving southward the German surrender. However, the American advance on Leipzig precipitated an toward the German city of Chemnitz and unusual series of events. the Czech border, while the Sixth Army On April 5, First Army resumed its eastward drive. Huebner’s V Corps was led by the Group attacked farther south and the Sev- 69th and 2nd Divisions, under Maj. Gens. Emil F. Reinhardt and Walter M. Robertson, enth Army thrust toward the Austrian respectively. After two days of fighting against the German LXVII Corps, the best of their frontier, capturing the city of Nuremberg, patchwork Eleventh Army, the 69th Division had advanced from Kassel and crossed the site of Hitler’s massive Nazi Party rallies Werra River. Against lighter opposition, the 2nd Division was across the Weser River of the 1930s, on April 20. in little more than 24 hours. On April 7, troops of the 2nd Division pressed six miles For reasons that were never made per- beyond the Weser. Concerns that the Germans were preparing a substantial defense in fectly clear, perhaps to preserve their fight- the vicinity of the Weser faded. ing spirit, Eisenhower chose to withhold On April 8, both V Corps infantry divisions crossed the Leine River near Göttingen, his decision not to advance on Berlin from and the following day they advanced another 10 miles against only token resistance. FALL 2013
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Troops of the 2nd Division discovered a prison camp at Duderstadt and freed 600 prisoners, including 100 Americans. Meanwhile, the 69th occupied Heiligenstadt. To date, Bradley had been concerned that his combat units maintain a coordinated front as they advanced. However, on April 10, he lifted all restrictions on eastward movement. Huebner shifted the 9th Armored Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. John W. Leonard, to spearhead the V Corps drive. In Collins’s VII Corps, the 3rd Armored Division, under the command of Brig. Gen. Doyle Hickey after the death of General Rose near Paderborn at the end of March, led the way. Both divisions made significant progress as the 3rd Armored Division liberated the Nordhausen concentration camp on April 11, where a corpsman of the 329th Medical Battalion observed, “Rows upon rows of skin-covered skeletons met our eyes…. Their striped coats and prison numbers hung to their frames as a last token or symbol of those who enslaved and killed them.” The tankers waited for fuel, and in the meantime found a slave labor camp with a capacity for 30,000 workers, none of whom appeared to have been left alive, and a large underground manufacturing facility that produced engines for the dreaded V-2 rocket that terrorized London and other cities in the waning months of the war. As the V Corps vanguard approached the Saale River, its northern shoulder came under fire from German antiaircraft weapons, their crews directed to depress their firing angles to hit the American armored formations. The 9th Armored Division lost nine tanks to the accurate fire before the guns were silenced. Apparently, the Germans had concentrated several rings of antiaircraft weapons in the region—not to defend the cities, but to guard synthetic oil refineries and numerous industrial facilities in the vicinity. Reports indicate that 374 heavy flak weapons were in the area, 104 of them around the city of Leuna and 174 around Leipzig.
National Archives
“ROWS UPON ROWS OF SKIN-COVERED SKELETONS MET OUR EYES.... THEIR STRIPED COATS AND PRISON NUMBERS HUNG TO THEIR FRAMES AS A LAST TOKEN OR SYMBOL OF THOSE WHO ENSLAVED AND KILLED THEM.”
Since the spring of 1944, the 14th Flak Division had been headquartered in Leipzig. Grouped in batteries of 12 to 36 guns, they ranged from 75mm to heavy 128mm weapons. Early in the war, the German 88mm antiaircraft gun had proven deadly against ground targets, and the flat terrain surrounding Leipzig offered excellent fields of fire. The area had been known to Allied airmen as “Flak Alley” for some time; however, no one had found it necessary to inform the advancing infantry and armor of the menace that awaited them. General Huebner concluded that the flak guns were the outer band of the defenses of Leipzig. He ordered the 9th Armored Division to move 13 miles southeast, around the city and to the banks of the Mulde River. The 2nd Infantry Division was to continue directly eastward toward Leipzig, while the 69th was ordered to follow the 9th Armored and then enter the city from the south and southwest. General Leonard’s tanks ran into stiff resistance at the Saale River near the town of Weissenfels and rerouted to cross the waterway on an intact bridge to the southwest. That same day, April 13, the tanks neared the town of Zeitz and rolled over the Weisse Elster River. Breaking through the deadly ring of flak guns, Combat Command Reserve (CCR) of the 9th Armored raced to the Mulde River, 20 miles southeast of Leipzig, on April 15. On the 16th, CCR entered Colditz and liberated the 1,800 Allied prisoners of the infamous Oflag IV-C, better known as Colditz Castle, which held a number of famous and high-ranking officers, some of whom had been transferred there because of repeated attempts to escape. With the capture of Halle in the Harz Mountains two days later, Leipzig was effectively cut off. Meanwhile, the 271st Infantry Regiment, 69th Division secured Weissenfels during some spirited fighting on April 1314, killing or capturing many of the 1,500man garrison and then crossing the Saale in small boats. On the 15th, elements of the 2nd Division captured Merseburg and occupied numerous small towns in the WWII QUARTERLY
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area. As one regiment crossed the Saale after dark on a railroad bridge that was damaged though still standing, other infantry units crept close enough to the German antiaircraft guns to radio coordinates to their own artillery and bring accurate fire on the positions, finally destroying many of the enemy weapons. The Allied noose around Leipzig, Germany’s fifth largest city with 750,000 inhabitants, was tightening. Leipzig had long been revered for its historical significance and as a center of German culture, higher education, trade, and industry. Martin Luther had led the congregation of the St. Thomas Church there; composer Johann Sebastian Bach played the organ in the same church for more than 25 years and was buried on the grounds. Composer Richard Wagner was born in the city. And in Leipzig the Völkerschlachtdenkmal was built to commemorate a great victory. It was inevitable that the monument would become the scene of Germany’s last stand. Colonel Hans von Poncet commanded the relative handful of German defenders in Leipzig, which included troops of the 14th Flak Division, some of whom had lost their antiaircraft weapons and were now serving as infantry, 750 men of the 107th Motorized Infantry Regiment, a motorized battalion of about 250 soldiers, some Hitler Youth, and several battalions of the Volkssturm, mostly old men and boys who had been forced into the Army as a home guard when the fortunes of war turned decidedly against Germany. One sizable unit that Poncet did not control was the 3,400-strong Leipzig police force. The policemen, paramilitary in their own right, were firmly under the command of Brig. Gen. of Police Wilhelm von Grolmann. Grolmann decried Poncet’s willingness to employ the Volkssturm and considered it tantamount to murder. He saw nothing to be gained in a futile defense of the city. Hoping to spare Leipzig from destruction, Grolmann was particularly concerned about damage to the city’s electrical and water supplies if the bridges over the Weisse Elster River were destroyed to slow
AS ZWEIBEL’S ARMOR NEARED NAPOLEON PLATZ, THE TANKERS WERE GREETED WITH A HAIL OF SMALL ARMS FIRE AND PANZERFAUST ANTITANK WEAPONS. ONE TANK WAS DISABLED, AND THE SUPPORTING INFANTRY TOOK A NUMBER OF CASUALITES. the Americans. Poncet couldn’t have cared less; he was determined to fight and fortified numerous buildings around the city hall and later withdrew into the Battle of the Nations Monument with about 150 men, some of whom were later described by the Americans as SS troops. While Poncet plotted his own Götterdämmerung, Grolmann was trying his best to surrender the city. Late on the afternoon of April 18, Grolmann miraculously made telephone contact with General Robertson of the 2nd Division and offered to capitulate. As the news was passed up the American chain of command from Huebner to Hodges, Grolmann got Poncet on the telephone and was told curtly, just prior to the click of a hangup, that Poncet had no intention of surrendering. By this time, Hodges had responded that only the complete, unconditional surrender of Leipzig was acceptable. Then, an already strange series of events became even more bizarre. Despite Poncet’s intransigence, Grolmann sent a junior officer to the closest Americans he could find. In the gathering darkness, the emissary was shuffled into the command post of Company G, 23rd Regiment, 2nd Division and the presence of its commander, Captain Charles B. MacDonald. At the tender age of 22, MacDonald was a combat veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, the Hürtgen Forest, and the campaign into the Third Reich. In later years, he became an acclaimed author and deputy chief historian for the U.S. Army, writing and supervising the preparation of several volumes in the official series United States Army in World War II, popularly known as the Green Book Series. Among his other works are the quintessential reminiscences of a young officer in combat, Company Commander, and A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. MacDonald authored The Last Offensive, the volume of the official history containing the story of the fall of Leipzig and downplayed his role in it. In Company Commander, however, he remembered a wild night of cat and mouse, cloak and dagger, and outright comedy. “Now wait a minute,” MacDonald remembered asking the excited soldiers who had brought in the German officer. “Does he know I’m just a captain? Will he surrender to a captain?” “A captain’s good enough,” another soldier said. “The Oberleutnant [first lieutenant] here came along so you’d believe us. He’ll tell you.”
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render demand. The note read that the Germans must surrender if they wanted to avoid a heavy artillery bombardment followed by an all-out assault with tanks, flamethrowers, and a division of infantry; the attack would begin in 20 minutes. Nearly 200 Germans walked out of city hall with their hands up. Inside, the bodies of Mayor Alfred Frieberg and his wife, City Treasurer Kurt Lisso and his wife and daughter, and several others who had committed suicide were found. However, Leipzig was not completely subdued. The drama at the monument remained to be played out. On the morning of April 19, Poncet was still defiant. His small force occupied a nearly impregnable position. Heavy artillery shells did little damage to the sturdy walls of the
Both: National Archives
“He [the other American soldier] spoke to the German officer in German mixed with gestures, mostly gestures, and the Oberleutnant looked at me and smiled widely, shaking his head up and down,” MacDonald recalled, “and saying, ‘Jawohl! Jawohl! Ist gut! Ist gut!’” Only the regimental executive officer was available for any higher direction, and he told MacDonald to give it a try. The young captain went first to see a German major and several other officers, dressed in clean, neatly pressed uniforms, inside the city. When MacDonald was not convinced, the major offered a bottle of cognac. After a drink, MacDonald, another American officer, the German major, and their chauffeur embarked on a wild nocturnal ride in a sleek Mercedes Benz—to see Grolmann. MacDonald was fearful of being shot by German sentries and by his own men. Finally, he arrived at Grolmann’s headquarters. In contrast to MacDonald, dressed in a filthy uniform and with a scruffy beard, Grolmann was “even more immaculately dressed than the others, a long row of military decorations across his chest. His face was round and red and cleanly shaven. A monocle in his right eye gave him an appearance that made me want to congratulate Hollywood on its movie interpretations of high-ranking Nazis.” Grolmann offered to surrender but acknowledged that he had no control over Poncet. Still, he pressed MacDonald for a guarantee that the Americans would not attack. Finally, MacDonald, Grolmann, a staff officer, and the general’s civilian interpreter were on their way in Grolmann’s open-top car to the confused BELOW: Not wishing to live in a American captain’s battalion headquarters. Once they defeated Germany, Leipzig municipal arrived, the situation was out of MacDonald’s hands. As treasurer Kurt Lisson, his wife, and it turned out, the surrender effort was noble but fruitless. daughter committed suicide in the Rathaus (city hall). RIGHT: There was already some fighting in Leipzig. Volkssturm battalion commander Forward elements of the 2nd and 69th Divisions Major Walter Dönicke also took his entered Leipzig on April 18. The 2nd encountered some own life on April 19 in Leipzig city hall resistance along the Weisse Elster River, but the bridges rather than surrender. Someone has remained intact. A few Volkssturm and Wehrmacht sol- propped a torn portrait of Hitler next to his body. OPPOSITE: A knocked-out diers made a stand behind a roadblock of overturned trol- Sherman tank in support of the 2nd ley cars filled with large rocks but were rapidly subdued. Infantry Division burns on a Leipzig Spearheaded by an armored task force of the 777th Tank street corner during the assault on Battalion under the command of Lieutenant David the city, April 18, 1945. The entire crew perished during the fight. Zweibel, troops of the 69th advanced into Leipzig from the south at 5:30 PM and ran into determined resistance at Napoleon Platz, where the monument was located. As Zweibel’s armor neared Napoleon Platz, the tankers were greeted with a hail of small-arms fire and rounds from panzerfaust antitank weapons. One Sherman tank was disabled, and the supporting infantry took a number of casualties. Eager to get out of the line of fire, the tanks picked up speed and rolled at nearly 30 miles per hour down the streets toward the city hall; some infantrymen riding atop the armored vehicles were actually thrown off. Faulty maps caused the attackers to overshoot city hall and placed them in a precarious position, unable to advance or fire on nearby German positions. After dark, the tanks were withdrawn. The following morning, Zweibel again assaulted the center of Leipzig, firing at city hall and the surrounding buildings from a range of only 150 yards. Just after 9 AM, following several frustrating attempts to secure the area, Zweibel sent Leipzig’s fire chief into city hall with a sur-
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monument, and the Germans inside were holding 17 American prisoners. Because there were Americans inside, General Reinhardt decided against using flamethrowers to burn the Germans out. As the standoff wore on, Captain Hans Trefousse, an interrogator of German prisoners with the 273rd Infantry Regiment, persuaded his commanding officer, Colonel C.M. Adams, to allow Trefousse to attempt to persuade Poncet to surrender. Trefousse had been born in Frankfurt, Germany, in RIGHT: Seemingly being watched by displeased Germanic statues, a 69th Infantry Division soldier stands amid the rubble inside the Völkerschlachtdenkmal shortly after Leipzig was taken. BELOW: Their faces full of concern for the unknown future, Leipzig residents emerge from hiding as German resistance ends and American occupation begins. Both: National Archives
RANKIN C HELPED USHER IN THE COLD WAR Almost from the beginning, the fractious alliance that defeated Nazi Germany was in peril. The United States and Great Britain had long distrusted the communist regime of the Soviet Union, and the feeling was strongly mutual. As early as 1943, the Big Three—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Min36
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ister Winston Churchill, and Premier Josef Stalin—had begun to discuss the map of postwar Europe. It was apparent that much hard fighting lay ahead. Nevertheless, the defeat of the Nazis was inevitable. To address the concerns and recognize the spheres of influence that each constituent expected the others to
1921 and emigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of 13. He graduated from City College of New York with a Phi Beta Kappa key and joined the U.S. Army when war broke out. At 3 PM on the 19th, Trefousse, a German prisoner, and the executive officer of the 273rd Regiment, Lt. Col. George Knight, approached the monument under a flag of truce. When Poncet and two other German officers met them, Trefousse pointed out the hopelessness of the situation but Poncet responded that he was under a direct order from Hitler not to surrender. He did, however, agree to a twohour ceasefire to allow at least a dozen American casualties to be removed. Throughout the ceasefire, the two argued in front of the entrance to the monument’s gift shop. At 5 PM, the heated discussion moved inside. While celebrations among the American troops were in full swing elsewhere in Leipzig, the grim exchange at the monument continued past midnight. “If you were a Bolshevik,” Poncet sneered, “I wouldn’t talk to you at all. In four years, you and I will meet in Siberia.” Trefousse retorted, “If that is true, wouldn’t it be a pity to sacrifice all these German soldiers who could help us against the Russians?” As it seemed the impasse would never be resolved, Trefousse extended one last option. If Poncet surrendered and walked out of the monument alone, his men could follow one at a time. At 2 AM on April 20, the diehard Nazi commander strode out of the main entrance. The pockmarked, damaged monument was
respect, a plan for the postwar disarming of Germany, known as “Rankin C,” was first proposed two years before the end of World War II. The British plan called for the Soviets to administer northeast Germany and Austria, the British to occupy northwest Germany, and the Americans southwest Germany and Austria. During the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the occupation zones were again just one topic
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secured, but not before some confusion ensued as to the disposition of the newly acquired prisoners. Word reached Trefousse that only Poncet would be allowed out of the monument and that the rest of the Germans would temporarily remain inside under guard. When Trefousse tried to persuade the captives to accept the change in terms, he offered to try to get them 48 hours’ leave in the city in exchange for a pledge not to escape. One German insisted on the original bargain and was allowed to leave the monument. Trefousse went to Lt. Col. Knight for permission to grant the 48-hour leave. Knight agreed but insisted that the Germans had to be moved without General Reinhardt getting wind of the compromise. As Knight supervised the disarming of the enlisted prisoners, Trefousse guided more than a dozen German officers through the lines to their homes in Leipzig. When it was time for them to return to captivity, only one failed to An American MP escorts three German prisoners of war, who had changed into civilian clothing in hopes of evading capture, to a temporary stockade near the main Leipzig railroad station. Note the other prisoners lying on the ground. appear, although he did leave behind a note of apology. Leipzig was, at long last, completely in American hands. The infantry of the 2nd and the next half century, Leipzig was one of 69th Divisions hurried to catch up with the V Corps armor that was already near the the principal cities of the communist Gerbanks of the Mulde River. Garrison troops began to file into the city to initiate its mil- man Democratic Republic. itary administration. Today, after years of neglect and disreFor most American soldiers, the fighting was over. They were not going to Berlin. pair and the reunification of the German They were simply to wait for the Red Army and extend a tenuous hand to their allies. nation, the Völkerschlachtdenkmal has On April 25, 1945, 1st Lt. Albert Kotzebue of the 69th’s 273rd Infantry Regiment and undergone extensive renovation in obserthree soldiers of an intelligence and reconnaissance unit crossed the Elbe in a small boat vance of the 200th anniversary of the first and met soldiers of a Red Army Guards rifle regiment belonging to the 1st Ukrainian great Battle of Leipzig. It remains an Front. East and West had met amid the ruins of the Third Reich. imposing monument, not only to the vicIn July, the Americans withdrew from Leipzig, retiring westward to the line that tory over Napoleon, but also to one of the marked the designated postwar zones of occupation and the Red Army moved in. For last battles of World War II.
for discussion, debate, and argument among the Big Three. France was given a zone of occupation in the Saar, carved out of the American and British zones. Each major power was also to occupy a section of Berlin, the German capital, 100 miles deep in the Soviet zone. Stalin guaranteed access to the occupation zones in the city by air, land, and rail. The agreement was finally approved by the leaders, with the Soviets taking
in 36 percent of the German population, 33 percent of the nation’s resources, and 40 percent of its land area. Although the divisions of Rankin C were not intended to exist long term, Stalin held a position of strength, and Germany remained a divided country for decades. “Everyone imposes his own systems as far as his army can reach,” he said in the summer of 1945. “It cannot be otherwise.”
By the time the Rankin C agreement was formally signed at Potsdam, on the outskirts of Berlin, in July and August 1945, Roosevelt was dead, and Churchill had been voted out of office. President Harry S. Truman and Prime Minister Clement Attlee represented the United States and Great Britain. The victorious alliance was crumbling. Ahead lay the Berlin Crisis and half a century of Cold War. WWII QUARTERLY
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The forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II was a blot on the nation’s moral authority. “WE WERE STUNNED when we entered the camp,” Yoshio “Yosh” Nakamura said, remembering the day when he and his family, from El Monte, California, were herded through the main gate at the Gila River Relocation Center—a Japanese American internment camp 30 miles southeast of Phoenix, Arizona—carrying only suitcases into which their worldly possessions had been crammed. “There was a wire perimeter, searchlights, armed sentries,” he recalled. “It was demoralizing—traumatic, even.” Rose Tanaka, who, at age 15, was sent to California’s Manzanar War Relocation Center, reflected, “They looked at us as if we had no allegiance to real Americans—it was in our blood; never mind if we were American citizens by birth. All of a sudden, I felt the hatred from other Americans against us.” Like tens of thousands of other Americans of Japanese heritage after December 7, 1941, the Nakamuras and Tanakas suddenly found themselves treated as enemy aliens, spies, potential saboteurs. Worse, they found themselves uprooted from their homes and placed in internment camps far inland.
BEHIND
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BY RICHARD HIGGINS
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In this photo by famed Depressionera photographer Dorothea Lange, Japanese American families in San Francisco, California, watched over by a single armed U.S. solder, wait to register for governmentmandated forced relocation, April 1942. ABOVE: In a scene reminiscent of German concentration camps, Japanese Americans behind barbed wire at their camp at Santa Ana, California, wave farewell to friends on a train (right).
Getty Images
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All: Library of Congress
During the war, 10 major internment camps—officially called “relocation centers”—were established by the U.S. government in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming for the purpose of segregating those who were deemed possible threats to the American homeland. The forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II remains a stain on this nation’s deeply held belief in personal rights and the due process of law. The rounding up of over 120,000 American citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent in the wake of Pearl Harbor and their three-year journey through a process of legal persecution and ABOVE: Displaying a variety of emotions, Japanese Americans wait in line at the Civil Control Station in San Francisco to register as required for relocation, April 1942. LEFT: Architects of relocation: Milton Eisenhower, national head of the evacuation program; Rep. John H. Tolan (D., Cal.) chairman of House Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration; Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, hard-nosed administrator of the relocation program.
forced removal to spartan camps in hostile environments left damaged lives and trampled liberties in its wake. Of course, the fear and anger aroused in America by Japan’s attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet and military installations is not hard to understand. America wanted someone to blame and to punish, and anyone who “looked Japanese” was considered by many to be fair game; internment camps seemed to be the quick and easy solution. But America’s war against fascism lost some of its moral purity due to this event. How did some of the major government participants in the relocation effort later reflect on their actions? While believing in the context of the time that evacuation and internment were a legitimate exercise of the War Powers Act of 1941, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson recognized that, “to loyal citizens this forced evacuation was a personal injustice.” In his autobiography, Francis Biddle, U.S. Attorney General in 1941, reiterated his beliefs at 40
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the time: “The program was ill-advised, unnecessary and unnecessarily cruel.” Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who joined the majority opinion in K orem atsu v. U nited States,which held the evacuation constitutionally permissible, found that the evacuation case “was ever on my conscience.” Milton Eisenhower, brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the official in charge of the relocation program, later described the evacuation to the relocation camps as “an inhuman mistake.” Chief Justice Earl Warren, who, as Attorney General of California had earlier urged evacuation, stated, “I have since deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony advocating it, because it was not in keeping with our American concept of freedom and the rights of citizens.” A commission established by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and issuing its report in 1982, Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which formed the basis for Ronald Reagan’s official apology in 1988 and offer of restitution, observed, “The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan. “A grave injustice was done to American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them, were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II.” How did this happen? Was there any resistance to the decision? Why was there an absence of “political leadership” in what looks like a gross injustice today? Finally, how did the heroic performance of the fighting Nisei contribute not only to the war effort but the future of civil rights in America? To answer these questions and understand the legacy of race prejudice and jealousy that led to the promulgation of “a grave injustice,” we must start at the beginning of the relationship between various Asian ethnicities and the population of the United States in the 19th century.
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The issue began with the original United States Immigration and Naturalization policy, which granted citizenship only to free “white” male immigrants. This was later extended by the 14th Amendment to any child regardless of their parents’ race, citizenship, or place of origin with the exception of untaxed Native Americans. Later, those of African descent were specifically included, and a case in 1870 granted the first citizenship to a Chinese child under the law. However, Asian immigration would remain an issue for decades afterward, especially on the U.S. West Coast. The situation became grave with the first wave of Chinese immigration in the mid-1800s. In just three years, around 1850, the Chinese population in America grew from just over 300 to more than 20,000 and continued to skyrocket. What were they doing here? Unrest in China and the growing American economy attracted men to the United States. The gold and silver mines, railroads, agriculture, and fishing industries all saw huge influxes of Chinese. Prejudice, jealousy—and in some cases violence—forced the populations into the so-called “Chinatowns.” The first Chinese Exclusion Act, which was passed in 1882, forbade Chinese immigration to the United States. Interestingly, this law was not repealed until 1943. This restriction left the growing demands for labor that had been fulfilled by the Chinese in need of another source; Japan developed as that source. This initial clash of ethnicities and economics set the stage for the future conflicts that had a major impact on the next wave of Asian immigrants, the Japanese. The first Japanese began arriving after the 1868 Meiji Restoration of the Emperor in Japan. Society in the primarily feudal ABOVE: Two months after Pearl Harbor, California newsnation was changing and awareness of the papers were already reporting plans to move Issei and outside world growing. The often govern- Nisei away from the West Coast. BELOW: Despite a sign ment-sponsored immigrants headed for proclaiming his loyalty to the U.S., the Japanese AmeriHawaii and the West Coast. This group can owner of this Oakland, California, grocery store was forced by the government to sell his business and move was especially skilled in intensive agricul- to an internment camp farther inland. 1942 photo by ture and became a major factor in agricul- Dorothea Lange. ture on the West Coast. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, demand for their labor soared. The immigrants were called “Issei” and their offspring, the “Nisei,” were American citizens. Additionally, Nisei who studied in Japan were termed “Kibei.” Japanese American productivity astonished other Americans. The Commission’s report on the incarceration states, “The skills of the Issei as intensive farmers were rewarded. In 1917, for example, the average production per acre among all California farmers was less than $42; for the average Issei it was $141.” Within a few years Both: Library of Congress
the Issei were perceived as an economic threat by West Coast farmers, labor unions, and nativist interest groups. The same pattern of isolation as seen with the Chinese began to develop. The program to remove the Japanese from “white” society began with San Francisco schools being segregated in the early 1900s. The success of this action forced President Theodore Roosevelt, concerned with U.S.-Japan governmental relations, to promise restrictions on Japanese immigration if the segregation plans were reversed. This was agreed to, and the first “Gentleman’s Agreement” restricting Japanese immigration to “merchants, ministers, leisure travelers, and students,” was formalized in 1907. However, as with most situations driven by economically fueled racial attacks, this was not enough to satisfy the anti-Japanese lobby. Soon California passed the Alien Land Act, which basically forbade those who could not be citizens from owning land. The isolating and humiliating aspects of this action are not hard to imagine. The resentment against the Japanese American population continued throughout the early 20th century. It culminated in the 1924 National Origins Act, which, through its provisions regarding quotas, virtually ended Japanese immigration. This law and the general treatment of the Japanese in America became a flashpoint between the two governments and was a significant element of the Japanese resentment that would eventually lead to war in 1941. The continuous attacks on the Japanese caused the group, to a large degree, to draw in on itself. There were outward expressions of patriotism for the United Staes, but celebrations of Japanese culture were often common. Viewed from the hostile “white” perspective, this only fed the prejudice against and isolation of the group. However, the Issei and Nisei did view themselves as Americans and generally rejected the racial fascism developing in Japan. They were truly caught between cultures. Accompanying this was the dependency forced on Japanese Americans by the land WWII QUARTERLY
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acts. They could and would protest and try legal means to redress their situation, but only to a certain degree. The “white” landowners needed them to work the land, and the Japanese Americans needed the work. If they forced the issue politically, the backlash might be economically devastating. Therefore, the protest against the status quo was perhaps less than might have been expected. The last factor to consider before 1941 was the size of the Japanese American population in the United States in the 1940 census—approximately 127,000, down from a high of 139,000 in the 1930 census. Interestingly, the negative situation in the United States fed a diaspora of Japanese—not only to their homeland, but to other nations, such as Brazil, which would greatly benefit from their arrival. However, the significant fact is the size of
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the Japanese American population. At 127,000, this was a small percentage of the total population with almost no political influence in the State of California or indeed the nation. Japanese American political power was perhaps the weakest of any major ethnic group in the United States. This is especially true when compared to the size and political power of the millions of immigrants or citizens of Italian and German descent. These two nationalities, along with the Japanese, would move to the center stage of national suspicion after December 7, 1941. As horrified Americans learned of the attack and subsequent destruction at Pearl Harbor, two violent emotions engulfed the nation. The first was a powerful, unifying hatred of the Japanese and their “treacherous” methods used in the attack, fueling an overwhelming desire for revenge. The second emotion was fear. These emotions propelled the country’s military and industrial capability to a point where it waged war on two fronts and still provided vast amount of war supplies to its allies. The incredible response of the nation’s industrial sector ensured the future defeat of Japan, Germany, and Italy. In one moment the country’s divisive, isolationist lobbies were thrown aside in an eruption of anger that was little anticipated. Congress roared its approval of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech declaring war. Only weeks before, a tedious internal wrangle would have met any attempt to even consider such a resolution. This translated into an almost instantaneous mobilization of young men for the armed forces and civilians in industry. The sleeping giant had been rudely awakened and was very, very angry.
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ABOVE: Nisei gather at an assembly area established at the Santa Anita Race Track in Arcadia prior to being shipped against their wishes to relocation centers. Efforts were made, however, to keep families—and even neighbors— together. OPPOSITE: Japanese Americans scramble to load all the personal possessions they can carry into a train leaving for the war-relocation camp at Manzanar, California.
Perhaps one statistic can highlight what this meant in fighting the war in the Pacific, which the Japanese had so aggressively unleashed. By 1945, the U.S. Navy, then the largest in the world, would be 8.5 times larger than it was it 1941. Conversely, Japan’s navy littered the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Fear gripped America’s West Coast in 1941. With the damage inflicted on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, no longer did the public look out at the Pacific and see a wall of steel between the mainland and the rampaging Japanese. Now many saw a highway wide open to these new enemies. In America, these fears reached a fever pitch as the Japanese recorded one victory after another. December 1941 was dark indeed. Pearl Harbor was attacked, and Wake Island, Guam, and Hong Kong all fell. In January and February 1942, it got worse. The battle for the Philippines raged with little hope—and no relief for the American and Philippine forces. Numerous British and Dutch colonies fell, including the major British base at Singapore. Japanese atrocities against both uniformed forces and civilians were reported. Darwin, Australia, was attacked from the air. The combined Allied navies were ignominiously defeated at the Battle of the Java Sea. The crescendo of Allied defeat and Japanese success was a roar in the minds of Americans. To add to this, newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times trumpeted headlines further escalating the fear factor, such as: “SUICIDE REVEALS SPY RING HERE: Japanese Doctor Who Killed Self After Arrest Called Espionage Chief” (December 19, 1941); “WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF POISON GAS ATTACKS” (December 19, 1941); “JAP SUBS RAID CALIFORNIA SHIPS: Two Steamers Under Fire” (December 21, 1941); “JAPAN PICTURED AS A NATION OF SPIES: Veteran Far Eastern Correspondent Tells About Mentality of Our Enemies in Orient” (December 23, 1941); “[U.S.] REPRESENTATIVE FORD WANTS ALL COAST JAPS IN CAMPS” (January 22, 1942); “NEW WEST COAST RAIDS FEARED: Unidentified Flares and Blinker Lights Ashore Worry Naval Officials” (January 25, 1942); “OLSEN SAYS WAR MAY HIT STATE: Shift of Combat to California Possible, Governor Declares” (January 26, 1942); “EVIC-
TION OF JAP ALIENS SOUGHT: Immediate Removal of Nipponese Near Harbor and Defense Areas Urged by Southland Officials” (January 28, 1942). Note the linkage in the press between questionable events and the need to do something about the local Japanese. By February 1942, this hysteria led directly to Draconian measures against Japanese Americans. With the signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, by President Roosevelt, Issei, as registered aliens, and Nisei, who were citizens, were forced to relocate to some of the harshest and most remote areas of the American West. Some authors have attempted to portray the Pacific War as a purely racial one. This author disagrees with that conclusion, but there is no question that racial prejudice, fed by ignorance on both sides, was an important underlying element in the feelings expressed by either population. Given the fear levels on the West Coast, the ability of U.S. whites to visually isolate Japanese Americans was a significant factor. The drive for the removal of the Japanese Americans on the West Coast was led by General John L. DeWitt—a career Army officer characterized by the Carter Commission as “not an analyst or careful thinker who sought balanced judgments of the risks before him.” DeWitt wanted the Japanese out of his region, the Western Defense Command, as soon as possible. His declared motive was a concern over the sabotage and espionage potential of this ethnically Japanese population. As early as January 1942, he was petitioning the War Department and other government agencies for permission to do this. DeWitt envisioned a system of assembly areas where the impacted individuals would be collected and sent to guarded relocation camps. There was some discussion of simply dispersing the population inland, but the receiving states would have none of that; they feared that these “dangerous” persons would sabotage their sensitive defense areas. All of this structure would shortly be in place. However, the executive order makWWII QUARTERLY
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ing it possible had to be signed, and a fairly significant internal argument developed within the government over the validity of the process and proposed subsequent actions. Because of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, most civilian government agencies were willing to defer to the military in such matters. However, the Justice Department under Attorney General Francis Biddle became a significant stumbling block for DeWitt and others interested in wholesale removal. Additionally, the War Department itself remained neutral until pushed. President Roosevelt seemed supportive of the concept of removal but disinterested, conceivably with more important matters on his mind. The primary justification for the removal of registered aliens and citizens without any establishment of their individual potential threat was deemed a “military necessity” by DeWitt and others. One can only speculate if the Pearl Harbor investigative committee’s severe handling of the Pearl Harbor commanders, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short, had any bearing on his attitude. However, DeWitt’s attitude was openly hostile to Japanese Americans. Indeed, it is questionable whether he even recognized the Nisei as citizens. When DeWitt was questioned in 1943 by Representative George J. Bates of Massachusetts, the following exchange ensued: “Gen. DeWitt: I have the mission of defending this coast and securing vital installations. The danger of the Japanese was, and is now—if they are permitted to come back—espionage and sabotage. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen; he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty. “Mr. Bates: You draw a distinction, then, between Japanese and Italians and Germans? We have a great number of Italians and Germans and we think they are fine citizens. There may be exceptions. “Gen. DeWitt: You needn’t worry about the Italians at all, except in certain cases. Also, the same for the Germans, except in individual cases. But we must worry about 44
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the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map. Sabotage and espionage will make problems as long as he is allowed in this area—problems which I don’t want to have to worry about.” Clearly DeWitt was predisposed to judge the Japanese Americans en masse and not as individuals. This was directly opposed to the Justice Department’s view. Surprisingly, the intelligence services employed on the issue at the time agreed with the Justice Department. Both the Office of Naval Intelligence and the FBI conducted extensive investigations and found no reason for either worry about the population or evidence of actual espionage and sabotage. It was clear that Hawaii had experienced Japanese espionage before the attack, but this was deemed to be centered on professional agents rather than the general population. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover repeatedly reported that the Japanese American population should not be regarded as a mass or major threat. In fact, the FBI had compiled lists of those to be either questioned or arrested in the event of war—lists that included approximately 2,200 Japanese, 1,400 Germans, and 300 Italians. They had all been rounded up by February 1942, and the agencies were satisfied that they had eliminated the majority of the potential problems. It must be reiterated and understood that there was not a single example of sabotage or espionage from the Japanese American population during the entire war. However, the facts were not permitted to interfere with actions THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE desired by strong lobbies primarily in California and the other West Coast states and in some parts EXAMPLE OF SABOTAGE of the federal government. Besides DeWitt and the California press, two OR ESPIONAGE FROM THE other sources surfaced that had major influence JAPANESE AMERICAN on public opinion and which would directly POPULATION DURING THE impact the signing of the executive order. One of the most destructive forces to a reasoned ENTIRE WAR. HOWEVER, approach to this issue came from Secretary of the Navy Henry Knox. Upon returning from a tour of THE FACTS WERE NOT Pearl Harbor after the attack, he started agitating PERMITTED TO INTERFERE about Japanese espionage and sabotage. As quoted in the Commission’s study, he declared, “I think WITH ACTIONS DESIRED the most effective Fifth Column [subversive] work BY STRONG LOBBIES of the entire war was done in Hawaii, with the posPRIMARILY IN CALIFORNIA sible exception of Norway.” With the words “Fifth Column,” he put the AND THE OTHER WEST Japanese American community in the sights of groups ready to see it removed and influenced all COAST STATES. Americans to support this concept. Of course, there were no such events occurring during the attack and none were mentioned in his later official report on the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, the damage was done. This was a high government official openly talking of a substantive threat to the United States from its own citizens and legally residing aliens. Groups such as the American Legion and the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West pushed for removal. Those with economic interests hid behind patriotism or the racist stereotyping of the day. They were, in turn, supported by various California politicians and Congressional representatives. The furor in the press, too, was unabated, and no amount of rational discussion could stop the hysterical cry for removal. Attorney General Biddle was fighting a valiant fight but was slowly losing to the proponents of relocation. Secretary of War Stimson was still neutral, but eventually the political pressure was too much. The pressure increased as the whole West Coast Con-
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Internees arrive at the Manzanar War Relocation Camp with only the belongings they could carry. One of 10 major camps in the U.S., Manzanar was located over 225 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the high desert area of California.
gressional delegation sent a letter authored by their senior member to Roosevelt demanding removal of all ethnic Japanese. Roosevelt could not be bothered to meet with Stimson on the subject, although he did lunch with Biddle to discuss the issue. The silence from Washington, D.C., could not continue. Indeed, such national figures as political commentator Walter Lippman and, believe it or not, Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) came out with opinions and, in Seuss’s case, a cartoon depicting Japanese Americans as a threat. Finally, a phone call between Stimson and the president left the decision in Stimson’s hands. His leanings became a pronounced preference for removal, even though he feared “this will make a tremendous hole in our constitutional system....” Following his discussion with the president, Stimson and Biddle began drafting the order as Biddle deferred to the senior cabinet member and, in essence, the military. There were some major staff dissensions from both agencies, but the logjam had been broken and events moved quickly. On February 19, 1942, the order was signed. Amazingly, the order does not mention any ethnicity, but it was well understood that it applied only to Japanese in the United States. The important and operational phrase was “direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders ... to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.” A Congressional investigative committee—the Tolan Committee, headed by John Tolan, a representative from California—traveled in February 1942 to the West Coast just after the release of the executive order to hear evidence that was largely damning of the Japanese American population and supportive of removal and incarceration. This “official” report released in May 1942 only added to the furor. The die was cast, and events took on an avalanche-like quality and would certainly
be received as an avalanche of woe by the Japanese American community. Before looking at the expulsion of the Japanese American population and establishment and life in the camps, there are several concurrent events that should be discussed. The first is why equal action was not taken against German or Italian Americans or those of Japanese descent residing in Hawaii. Each case was different, but the first and most direct answer is that there were too many of them. There were over one million Axis nationals living in the United States. There were also millions of citizens of German and Italian descent, and the unfair treatment of Germans in the United States during World War I was fresh in the minds of many government officials and the public. Additionally, the political and economic clout of these groups was immense. One need only envision the reaction of citizens of Italian or German heritage, such as New York mayor and decorated WWI flier Fiorello LaGuardia or perhaps baseball’s famed DiMaggio brothers, whose parents were immigrants, to see the point. Of course, there were fascist sympathizWWII QUARTERLY
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ers, both American and foreign nationals, among the population, and the more dangerous ones were likely on the FBI’s list. Besides arrests, some individuals were excluded from sensitive military areas. After war was declared, organizations like the pro-Nazi Bund and pro-Mussolini FLNA simply disappeared. The Hawaiian situation was different again. After Pearl Harbor it could be argued that Hawaii was the most controlled area in the United States. Martial law had been imposed soon after the attack with habeas corpus suspended and under much stricter conditions than anything imposed on the mainland. There were consequent restrictions on all Japanese, German, and Italian aliens there and on the mainland. There were also spot restrictions on any ethnic Japanese from portions of the islands. Also, limits on travel, curfews, ownership of weapons or radios, and other measures were imposed. Gradually, other Japanese Americans came under increasing isolation. Japanese Americans were forced out of the Hawaiian Territorial Guard, despite the fact that they had performed well on December 7. The 2,000 or so Nisei in Army regiments were isolated into one unit. Ironically, this later formed the core of the first Nisei combat unit, the 100th Infantry Battalion. Secretary Knox was vehement on the issue of removal of Japanese Americans from Hawaii to the mainland. He obtained Roosevelt’s support, and immense pressure was put on Lt. Gen. Delos C. Emmons, the military governor of Hawaii, to comply. Emmons saw no need for evacuation and dragged his feet as long as he could, but by spring 1942 he was ordered to take action. Approximately 2,000 Hawaiians of Japanese ancestry (from a population of 158,000) were sent to the mainland, but by the following year the program was largely suspended; the first evacuees returned in 1945. Once again, sheer numbers had triumphed, with those of Japanese descent comprising over a third of Hawaii’s pop46
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ulation. This was too large an economic force to disrupt, and the logistics of moving them across the Pacific would have been extremely complex. There were also positive factors such as the military’s rational view of the situation starting with General Emmons and the much more positive race relations in the diverse island community. The other forced removal in the United States was of the native Aleuts from the Aleutian Islands. The islands became an active war zone in June 1942, and the population of approximately 900 was removed for its own safety. However, the results were devastating to the Aleut people and culture. The mortality rate among the island elders was extremely high, a factor that led to an erosion of this unique culture. Also, the property they left behind was either purposefully destroyed to prevent use by the enemy, vandalized, or “borrowed” by both armies (the Japanese invaded the islands of Attu and Kiska; U.S. forces retook the islands in 1943), leaving destruction of their meager physical plant in its wake. Although allowed to return in 1944, little was done to assist the natives and no reparations were paid until the 1980s, and then only at a very low level. The destruction of this proud and unique group of people was a sad result of saving the only occupied U.S. territory of the war located in the Western Hemisphere. Finally, in addition to the United States, other countries forcibly removed ethnic Japanese, among them Australia, New Zealand, and Peru, along with other Latin American nations. Perhaps the example closest to home for Americans was their neighbor to the north, Canada. Initially, the Canadian government tried removing just males, but this solution would not satisfy those pushing for complete removal; many of the same forces of racism and economic interest found in the United States were present in Canada. Another reason more prominent in Canada, although a minor concern in the United States, was the A wartime aerial color photo shows the sprawling relocation camp at Tule Lake, at Newell, close to the CaliforniaOregon border. The largest of the camps, Tule Lake became a heavily guarded “maximum security segregation center” for Nisei troublemakers, malcontents, and draft resisters. It was also the site of several violent protests.
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possibility of the white population turning against the Japanese. Whether real or imagined, this factor led to expulsion of all ethnic Japanese from a band extending inland 100 miles from the West Coast. Over 20,000 Japanese Canadians were removed from their homes and placed in camps similar to those in the United States. However, unlike in the United States, they were dispossessed of their property, which was sold to offset the costs of the removal. Additionally, they were stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. To add salt to the wound, they were faced with a choice of either emigrating to a demolished Japan or moving to eastern Canada. Under international and internal pressure, the expulsions were halted— but not until 1947; their civil rights and citizenship were returned in 1949. When the United States approved compensation in 1988 for the victims of the removal, Canada did the same. With the order signed, implementation was the next action. On March 18, 1942, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) was established to handle the removal. Headed by Milton Eisenhower, the WRA was designated as part of the Executive Branch. General DeWitt, meanwhile, established the military areas called for in the executive order. Military Area 1 ran from the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington inland to approximately half the width of each of these states and was to be emptied of all enemy aliens, Japanese, German, and Italian, in that order. However, while the term “alien” was correctly applied to those of European descent, in DeWitt’s view all Japanese, whether Issei or Nisei, were aliens. Military Area 2 was the rest of the area of the three states. Aliens could settle in this area, but with restrictions. Initially, the Japanese community was encouraged to voluntarily relocate, and some small groups did so to avoid the camps, but the economics of such a move were punishing. They had to leave everything behind and had no prospect of home or employment in the areas they chose for relocation. Almost unbelievably, “Asian-appearing” children of some Anglo parents were separated from their parents and sent into the camps alone.
Some persons decidedly hostile toward Japanese Americans welcomed their removal, some going so far as to publicly hang signs and banners on their homes and businesses expressing their antipathy toward those citizens and telling them they were not welcome in their communities. On March 31, 1942, the movement began. Eventually, 15 assembly areas and 10 relocation camps were established. Three of the assembly areas were located in Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. All the rest were in California, while the relocation camps were scattered from California to Arkansas. The first camp to open was Manzanar in California about 90 miles east of Fresno, and the others followed apace. The camps were administered by the WRA. Additionally, there were four Justice Department Internment Camps intended for those suspected of being enemy agents and two Citizen Isolation Camps for troublemakers. The “INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY LIVING IN THE FOLLOWING AREA” issued by DeWitt must have been harrowing in their starkness. An excerpt regarding what to bring and the disposition of the balance of personal property reads: “2. Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Assembly Center, the following property: (a) Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family; (b) Toilet articles for each member of the family; (c) Extra clothing for each member of the family; (d) Sufficient knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups for each member of the family; (e) Essential personal effects for each member of the family. “All items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner and numbered in accordance with instructions obtained at the Civil Control Station. The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group. “3. No pets of any kind will be permitted. “4. No personal items and no household goods will be shipped to the Assembly Center. WWII QUARTERLY
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out tools, it was green around the camp with vegetation, flowers, and also with artificial lakes, and that’s how we left it.” All of the statements that follow and more are found in the Commission’s report. A U.S. Army guard assigned to Santa Anita, California, reported, “We were put on full alert one day, issued full belts of live ammunition, and went to Santa Anita Race Track…. There we formed part of a cordon of troops leading into the grounds; buses kept on arriving and many people walked along … many weeping or simply dazed, or bewildered by our formidable ranks.” One detainee, Monica Sone, said, “[W]e were given a rousing welcome by a dust storm…. We felt as if we were standing in a gigantic sand-mixing machine as the 60mile gale lifted the loose earth up into the sky, obliterating everything. Sand filled our mouths and nostrils and stung our faces and hands like a thousand darting needles. Henry and Father pushed on ahead while Mother, Sumi and I followed, hanging onto their jackets, banging suitcases into each other. At last “WHEN A HUMAN we staggered into our room, gasping and blinded.” Another said, “Camp life was highly regimented BEING IS PLACED IN and it was rushing to the wash basin to beat the other CAPTIVITY, SURVIVAL groups, rushing to the mess hall for breakfast, lunch, IS THE KEY. WE and dinner. When a human being is placed in captivity, survival is the key. We developed a very negaDEVELOPED A VERY tive attitude toward authority. We spent countless NEGATIVE ATTITUDE hours to defy or beat the system. Our minds started TOWARD AUTHORITY. to function like any POW or convicted criminal.” Another detainee reported, “To a friend who WE SPENT COUNTLESS became engaged, we gave nails—many of them HOURS TO DEFY OR bent—precious nails preserved in fruit wrappings, BEAT THE SYSTEM. OUR snitched from our fathers’ meager supply or found by sifting through the sand in the windbreak where MINDS STARTED TO scrap lumber was piled.” FUNCTION LIKE ANY The WRA itself reported, “With no exceptions, POW OR CONVICTED schools at the centers opened in unpartitioned barracks meant for other purposes and generally bare of furniCRIMINAL.”
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“5. The United States Government through its agencies will provide for the storage at the sole risk of the owner of the more substantial household items, such as iceboxes, washing machines, pianos and other heavy furniture. Cooking utensils and other small items will be accepted for storage if crated, packed and plainly marked with the name and address of the owner. Only one name and address will be used by a given family.” The assembly areas were chaotic and primitive, the process haphazard at best, and subject to the whim of the local WRA administrators. Many in the assembly areas looked forward to their assignment to a relocation camp where, conceivably, conditions would be better. They were usually disappointed. Whether located in a swampy portion of Arkansas or a high western desert, the locations were terrible, with extremes of cold and heat. Severe winds bringing dust were a common factor in the western camps, isolated and ringed with barbed-wire fences and armed guards—not unlike Nazi concentration camps in appearance. The experience was crushing in spirit for the vast majority of detainees, who saw themselves as proud Americans being unfairly treated. A typical camp featured poorly constructed wooden barracks approximately 20 by 120 feet, which were generally not insulated; as the exterior wood dried, gaps appeared in the walls. Evacuees would try desperately to seal these against dust or cold with newspaper; some barracks were covered by black tar paper, giving them an even more dreary appearance. The barracks were divided into four or six family units, and there was water only in the communal areas. The sanitary facilities were also communal and segregated by sex. Food was provided, as was health care, but with a war on both left a lot to be desired. However, through all of this many held onto their positive spirit and would improve the facilities, providing their own high standard of dignity. In the words of one detainee, “When we entered camp, it was a barren desert. When we left camp, it was a garden that had been built up with-
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In another Ansel Adams photo, harsh winter conditions have spread over Manzanar. OPPOSITE: Renowned photographer Ansel Adams documented life at Manzanar. Here, Sumiko Shigematsu (left) supervises a hut full of “power sewing machine girls” making clothes for the internees.
ture. Sometimes the teacher had a desk and chair; more often she had only a chair. In the first few weeks many of the children had no desks or chairs and for the most part were obliged to sit on the floor—or stand up all day. Linoleum laying and additional wall insulation were accomplished in these makeshift schoolrooms some time after the opening of school. At some centers cold waves struck before winterization could be started.” The physical and psychological hardships from this treatment were immense. However, one significant hardship would form the basis for some redress of these injustices. The economic losses of the group were significant and very deep. This occurred because of their unique, isolated cultural situation. It must not be forgotten that the whole population was removed. In a community such as the Japanese American one, this generally meant everyone a family knew. Either through racist and economic isolation by whites or their own turning inward against this treatment, the results of this isolation were appalling, magnifying the human cost of removal. Given as little as four days—or the lucky ones given two weeks to dispose of all of their property except what they could carry or store—the results were a boon for those preying on the group. The U.S. government would take into storage their furniture, appliances, etc., but in many cases these goods went missing or were vandalized during the war. Vehicles were sold at rock bottom prices as there were only days to sell them. When all of one’s friends and family were in the same situation, there were few to turn to for a fair deal. The worst happened in the case of their homes or land, sold for pennies on the dollar. Tenant farmers lost their rights and income when sent inland, and entire generations of a family were financially wiped out. In his detailed and extremely well researched A Tragedy of Democracy, Greg Robinson cited the damage done as between “67 and 116 million dollars [1945 dollars].” These conditions existed in all three states impacted by the evacuation order. Only in 1948 would the government begin to address this issue, however insufficiently and slowly. The evacuees who had not had any hearings or other means of establishing their loyalty were now faced with one more terribly divisive test of their spirits. However, this same test would see the formation of Japanese American combat units that would for-
ever end discussion of their loyalty or absolute value as Americans. The camps had become hotbeds of the very feelings against the government they had been established to remedy. Morale in the camps was poor at best. To try and improve the situation regarding the lack of legal process impacting the detainees and indeed provide for a means of “leave” from the camps, the government instituted a loyalty questionnaire in February 1943. This would provide the basis for enlistment in the armed forces or work in a defense plant, agriculture, or other pursuit, but it was poorly conceived and executed. Forced on the detainees with little explanation and no real thought as to the consequences, the loyalty questionnaire would, in general, make a bad situation worse. Some detainees were afraid of being turned out with no possessions. Others wondered how this would impact the ability to be compensated for the relocation. Much doubt and confusion ensued. Frank Kageta, an internee quoted in the Commission report, described his experience at Tule Lake, California, the largest and possibly most troubled of the camps: “The most tragic, as well as traumatic, event that happened during my stay in Tule WWII QUARTERLY
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Lake that still remains with me is the questionnaire with the loyalty oath that was required of all of us to answer. I have never even mentioned this to my children.” The specific questions that would radically split the community were numbers 27 and 28. The questions basically asked, “Are you willing to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces and swear ‘unqualified’ allegiance to the U.S.?” The answers to these questions would be radically impacted by camp experience. The mood in the camps was angry and getting worse. At Tule Lake and Manzanar there were violent incidents. Now insult was added to the injustice of confinement and, especially for the Nisei, American citizens, this was the final straw. Those who responded “no” to the questions became known as the “no-no boys” and were treated as hostile to the United States. In many cases they were only hostile to the treatment they had received. A group detained at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, urged draft resistance based on their feelings about incarceration. Their sentiments go a long way toward explaining the rise of the “no-no boys” and more violent protests in the camps. Quoted in Greg Robinson’s book, their feelings are simple and clear: “We, the members of the FPC (Fair Play Committee) are not afraid to go to war—we are not afraid to risk our lives for our country. We would gladly sacrifice our lives to protect and uphold the principles and ideals of our country as set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, for on its inviolability depends the freedom, liberty, justice and protection of all people including Japanese Americans and all other minority groups. But have we been given such freedom, such liberty, such justice, such protection? NO!!” Protests by both Japanese Americans and concerned white Americans continued to grow during 1942. They were met by strong opposition. The country was clearly divided and generally supported the exclusion. Initially, the Japanese American response from their organized groups was confused between loyalty to the United States and a strong sense that something was wrong. However, some groups and
ABOVE: This family at Manzanar, photographed by Ansel Admas, tried to make their cramped, drafty quarters as comfortable and “homelike” as possible, but there was no disguising the physical and mental hardships the internees suffered. OPPOSITE: Estelle Ishigo, a European American, accompanied her Nisei husband to the Heart Mountain Camp in Wyoming, where she painted this scene depicting “home” in one of the Spartan barracks.
individuals eventually began calls for justice that could not be ignored. Other non-Japanese groups began siding with the evacuees, such as The Friends and the Socialist Party. Interestingly, the Communist Party dismissed its Nisei members, and the national American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) surprisingly supported the government. The tone of support ranged from harsh condemnation of the lack of due process to equally harsh condemnation of the camps’ conditions. The Red Cross began making inspections, which helped to some degree. The only governor to invite evacuees to his state, Ralph Lawrence Carr of Colorado, would suffer in the next election for his humane stance. However, Camp Amache at Granada, in dry, dusty southeast Colorado, remained one of the better run camps for its term of occupation. Politically, members of the U.S. administration began to side with those incarcerated, questioning the motive and supposed needs that drove the treatment. These included Attorney General Biddle, wading back into the fray during late 1943, and Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, along with other influential military men and politicians. This support from outside their community brought to national attention both the legal and human elements of the evacuee story. Of course, opinion in the Anglo community on the West Coast was generally still virulently in favor of removal. Earl Warren, then Attorney General of California, did not distinguish himself with his testimony to the Tolan Committee when he stated, after a review of where the Japanese American population lived in California, “Such a distribution of the Japanese population appears to manifest something more than coincidence. But, in any case, it is certainly evident that the Japanese population of California is, as a whole, ideally situated, with reference to points of strategic importance, to carry into execution a tremendous program of sabotage on a mass scale should any considerable number of them be inclined to do so.” However, legal assaults on this mass conviction without due process began to gain ground. Four cases were extremely important in questioning the policy of Executive Order 9066 and were appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court did not cover itself with glory. In fact, it waited until after the 1944 elections and the subsequent withdrawal
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of the evacuation order to rule on the case most positive for the Japanese Americans. The first three cases involved Japanese American citizens who had resisted incarceration or violated curfew laws. These were Hirabayashi v. United States, Yasui v. United States, and Korematsu v. United States. Interestingly, they were test cases inspired by local or individual ACLU attorneys while the national leadership of the organization would still not challenge the evacuation. The JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) opposed the cases as questioning the government in time of war, so the individuals were basically on their own and showed great courage in proceeding. In all cases there was evidence of government tampering with documentation and making misstatements that were not significantly questioned by the court. Like the early push for removal and incarceration, the civil government was deferring to the military. In these cases, the court ruled on minor matters while sidestepping the major issues. In Yasuiand H irabayashi,the process of exclusion based on race was supported. In K orem atsu,the general tone supported the executive order. There was strong division in the court in all cases, with significant dissenting opinions. However, in Ex Parte Endo, a fourth case pursued by an especially valiant woman, the court found that, “The War Relocation Authority, whose power over persons evacuated from military areas derives from Executive Order No. 9066, which was ratified and confirmed by the Act of March 21, 1942, was without authority, express or implied, to subject to its leave procedure a concededly loyal and law-abiding citizen of the United States.” However, as in K orem atsu,this ruling was made after the 1944 election and the subsequent decision to end the exclusion. The year 1943 saw extreme unrest and political action in the camps. The Fair Play
Committee valiantly opposed the draft in pursuit of its civil rights. At Tule Lake and Poston War Relocation Camp, Arizona, on the California border there were further violent incidents against the camp administration and, in some cases, against loyal detainees by those with Japanese sympathies. Over 5,700 Japanese Americans eventually renounced their citizenship to protest their incarceration, and 95 percent of these were located at Tule Lake. At the same time, the government realized it had to find an orderly way to return these citizens to normal life but was wrestling with the image of the military, legal issues, and fear of racial violence if the Japanese Americans were settled in hostile areas. Traditional family structure was breaking down in the camps, and morale was almost below any possible measure. Several inmates had been shot by guards under suspicious circumstances. The times were bleak. n
Estelle Ishigo, a European American, accompanied her Nisei husband to the Heart Mountain Camp in Wyoming, where she painted this scene depicting “home” in one of the Spartan barracks.
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MANY LESSONS IN HOW TO INVADE FRANCE WERE LEARNED DURING OPERATION JUBILEE, BUT AT A FRIGHTFUL COST TO THE CANADIAN AND BRITISH INVADERS.
on’t worry men—it’ll be a piece of cake!” So declared Maj. Gen. John Hamilton “Ham” Roberts while briefing the officers of his 2nd Canadian Infantry Division on the eve of the large-scale Allied raid at Dieppe—a small port city on the northern French coast between Le Havre and Boulogne—scheduled for August 19, 1942. Not everyone involved in the large-scale raid was so sanguine. Leslie Ellis, a corporal in the Royal Regiment of Canada, was one of the fortunate few who made it back to England alive. “Some say it was a dress rehearsal for the invasion [of Normandy],” recalled Ellis, “and some say it was a whim of the top echelon. History says the Germans were waiting for us and we didn’t have a chance after that. We were all well-trained…. We were proud to have done it; we were soldiers.... We did what we were expected to do.”
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BY JON DIAMOND
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BY JON DIAMOND While receiving a commemorative medallion awarded to Dieppe survivors in 2003, Ellis chose to focus on the courage of his fellow Canadians and not on what many still bitterly criticize as a poorly planned, needless waste of fine soldiers: “They were a great bunch of people. I was fortunate that I got over the [beach] wall and got back with a few injuries, and the Good Lord spared me. It all happened so fast.” After his unit crossed the beach, it quickly came under devastating German fire, and Ellis, like many of the other troops who were pinned down and facing certain death or capture, attempted to make a hasty retreat. Dodging bullets and exploding shells, Ellis reached a landing craft at the edge of the surf, but it was already crammed with wounded soldiers awaiting evacuation. “There was no sense for me to get on that boat,” he said, “so I took off my clothes and swam. I was heading for England!” After Ellis swam for more than three hours, men
in a rowboat plucked him out of the cold, choppy water and took him to safety on a larger vessel. He was one of the lucky ones. In British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill’s The Hinge of Fate, the Dieppe raid—Operation Jubilee—spans only three pages; however, it is one of the most widely examined offensive raids against German-held territory on the European continent during the interval of the commando-style attacks by Dead Canadians and burning vehicles litter rocky “Blue Beach” at Dieppe, France, August 17, 1942. Essentially a large-scale commando raid with limited objectives, Operation Jubilee stood little chance of success against a well-entrenched enemy, and the “glorious failure” angered many in Canada who thought their boys were needlessly wasted.
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Map © 2013 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN
Combined Operations prior to the Normandy invasion. This article is not intended to refight the battle in detail, but to examine the limited successes and overwhelming failures of the raid as it contributed to larger strategic and tactical implications for future actions by the Allies in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). An endless debate has raged over whether Dieppe was unnecessary carnage or the seminal event to devise tactical and strategic efforts that led to success at Normandy in June 1944. August 1942 truly was a “hinge” in the war’s chronology. After the debacle in the Far East and the seesaw struggle of Britain’s Eighth Army combating Rommel’s Afrika Korps in North Africa, crucial battles were in progress on the Volga at Stalingrad, in the Solomon Islands on Guadalcanal, and in the North Atlantic, where Germany’s U-boats were attempting to strangle the British Isles. Stalin had galvanized international support for his call for a “second front” to relieve pressure on his armed forces fighting the Wehrmacht’s second-year offensive. 54
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The Allies were well aware that if the Soviets were to negotiate a settlement with Hitler, German forces would be shifted to the West in a replication of 1918, which would likely extend the war indefinitely. Also in 1942, the Canadian government was exerting pressure on the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) to utilize its troops in an offensive against the Germans because more than 200,000 troops had been training in England since the original arrival of the Canadian Division in 1939. So, unable to mount a major landing in 1942, the Allies moved from a true second front to aid the Soviet Union to a divisionsized raid to gain operational and tactical landing experience in seizing a port on the coast of France. Much of the zeal for Combined Operations’ plans for assaulting Dieppe arose from the daring raid on German naval facilities at St. Nazaire, France, on March 27, 1942. During that attack, just over 600 British sailors and commandos sailed for the St. Nazaire harbor with the intent of ramming The Dieppe raid, August 19, 1942, sent the bulk of the the large drydock there with an obsolete invading force directly against the city itself. American Lend-Lease destroyer rechristened HMS Campbeltown. The vessel was laden with more than five tons of high explosives and, once detonated, would destroy the locks that controlled water flow into the drydock area. In addition to the destroyer’s explosion, British commandos would attack the port’s pumping facilities and obliterate them. If successful, the raid (Operation Chariot) would essentially put the U-boat pens there out of commission and deny the German Navy use of St. Nazaire’s port facilities for the battleship Tirpitz, which was then holed up in a Norweigian fjord near Tromso waiting to embark on surface raiding missions in the North Atlantic. The objectives of this mission were achieved with the Campbeltown’s time fuse detonating the following day, killing approximately 400 Germans, among them 60 officers. Unfortunately, casualties among the assault team were high, with one-third of the 300 commandos who landed being captured and another third wounded. However, according to historian Terence Robertson, “The ability of the Germans to maintain any capital ship in the Atlantic was destroyed, and with it came an end to surface raids on the convoy routes.” The Allies surmised that future raids on a different French port might provide the logistical lodgment needed for an even larger amphibious assault on the Nazi-controlled Continent. Lord Louis Mountbatten, who replaced Admiral Sir Roger Keyes as head of Combined Operations in October 1941, became a member of the CCS in March 1942 and, with his appointment, obtained considerable military status for both himself and his organization. Mountbatten’s chief staff officer, planner, and naval adviser to Combined Operations was Royal Navy Captain John Hughes-Hallett, who conceived both the St. Nazaire and forthcoming Dieppe raids. Churchill, in need of a major offensive action on the mainland, badgered the CCS for a plan. Thus, early in 1942, the CCS proposed a raid against a port within the range of
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Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter protection. For a variety of reasons, Dieppe was selected, principally because it was within 75 miles of embarkation ports in Britain and, because of its proximity, had a port that could be attacked under the cover of darkness. In early April 1942, Mountbatten ordered his subordinates at Combined Operations to generate a plan for such an attack. Mountbatten then presented two plans to the CCS that represented a “reconnaissance in force” as opposed to the usual type of commando-style raids previously employed at St. Nazaire and in Norway. The initial Dieppe plan envisioned tanks with infantry landing on either side of the town and then converging on the port in an envelopment. The alternative battle design called for a beach landing with frontal assault against Dieppe. The eastern and western flanks (called headlands) of the assault beach, as well as heavy shore batteries at nearby Berneval and Varengeville, were to be captured by British paratroopers and had to be neutralized for the main assault against Dieppe town to succeed. As the commander of the forces that would be used for the raid, Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery reviewed both plans for his recommendation and support. Since Combined Operations headquarters had favored Both: Imperial War Museum the assault to last approximately 15 hours, Montgomery supported the frontal assault, An A-29 Hudson RAF bomber releases its bomb load or second plan. His decision was based on over Dieppe during the raid his analysis that an envelopment of Dieppe while, below, naval craft lay a from the flanks would be slow and comsmoke screen. The British Air plex—two factors to be avoided in a raid of Commander decided against high-level bombing of the such short duration. landing beaches and German Furthermore, planners had highlighted defenses the night before for Montgomery that an enveloping attack the raid. ABOVE: Two Royal (i.e., the first plan), utilizing new Mark IV Navy landing craft filled with men and Bren carriers phoChurchill tanks, would need to seize tographed from a destroyer bridges over the Scie and Saane Rivers; no prepare the for assault. one knew if these bridges would support the heavy (42 tons) tank. By mid-April, CCS selected the direct frontal assault plan across Dieppe’s beach, while securing the flanks. This plan was code-named Rutter and was set—because of weather issues—for early July 1942. The scope of this operation was simply too expansive for the commandos alone, so it would employ 10,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen, including 6,000 Canadian troops already training on the Isle of Wight. The Royal Navy was to play a prominent role, not only in landing the invasion force but also in evacuating it once the objectives had been obtained. Churchill believed that Dieppe “was held by German low-category troops amounting to one battalion with supporting units making no more than fourteen hundred men.” This is at odds with news that Montgomery had received on July 5 that the 10th Panzer Division had been transferred from the Eastern Front to Amiens, only 40 miles from Dieppe. Alas, as usual with the fog of war, the British assault convoy was spotted at anchorage and bombed by Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw-190 fighters on July 7, 1942, at Yarmouth Roads, Isle of Wight, where the assault craft and troops were ready for
embarkation. This setback, along with worsening weather conditions, caused Rutter to be cancelled. According to Churchill, “General Montgomery who, as Commander-in-Chief, Southeastern Command, and instrumental in the supervision of the assault plans for Rutter, was strongly of opinion that it should not be remounted, as the troops concerned had all been briefed and were now dispersed ashore.” However, Mountbatten saw things differently and forged ahead with a rejuvenated plan to remount the raid. This suited the prime minister as well. Churchill wrote after Rutter’s cancellation, “I was politically at my weakest and without a glimmer of military success.” The British leader, who had recently faced a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, could not easily afford the development of
a stalemate in the war against Germany on the Continent for the remainder of 1942. It remains controversial whether formal approval for Jubilee was given to Mountbatten by either Churchill or the CCS. According to a historian of the battle, Brereton Greenhous, on July 10, 1942, “only three days after Rutter’s cancellation ... Mountbatten agreed that ‘an alternative Rutter should be examined’ … at a meeting attended by Mountbatten, Leigh-MalWWII QUARTERLY
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lory, Hughes-Hallett, and Roberts, it was decided to remount the Dieppe raid with slight modifications to the plan, and carry it out on or about August 18…. Nothing was put in writing, but General [Hastings] Ismay informed the British Chiefs of Staff and the Prime Minister who gave their verbal approval.” Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory (see WWII Quarterly, Summer 2012) would be the air commander for the Dieppe raid and be chiefly responsible for air cover and aerial bombardment. He
assault across the beaches into the town of Dieppe. Montgomery said, “To assault and capture a port quickly, both troops and tanks would have to go in over the main beaches confronting the town, relying on heavy bombardment and surprise to neutralize the defenses.” Mountbatten, Hughes-Hallett, and Leigh-Mallory did not vigorously argue with Montgomery on both the grounds that his proposed tactics for Rutter were the province of the British Army and that his reputation for training and implementation of soldiers had been growing under Churchill and his mentor, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) General Sir Alan Brooke. However, once Rutter was scrapped, Montgomery’s requirement for heavy bombardment for a future Dieppe raid was also to be altered. The official British Naval Staff History of the Dieppe raid identified two planning pitfalls that had been decided upon by the Combined Operations executive and the force commanders. First was to abandon the high-level bombing of the assault beaches and German defenses. Leigh-Mallory believed No. 4 Commando hits the beach running at Vasterival on the right flank of the main Dieppe assault that bombing Dieppe the night before the area, August 19, 1942. BELOW: A U.S. Army Ranger, one of 50 who took part in Jubilee, lights a raid would serve to only alert the German British commando’s cigarette during training. defenders of an imminent attack from the sea. Also, rubble created by “indiscriminate” nighttime bombing would seriously hamper the movement of British tanks through Dieppe’s streets and roads. As an alternative, the air commander proposed that close support aerial bombing and strafing runs occur just before the landings and that high-altitude aerial bombing instead focus on attacking diversionary targets to the east of Dieppe. Second, the attack would have to rely on the Both: National Archives eight escorting destroyers’ 4-inch guns viewed the Dieppe assault as a chance to along with 250-pound bombs from the lure the Luftwaffe into a large-scale fighter RAF’s Hawker Hurricane fighter-bombers. engagement with the RAF, which was conThis decision was made when First Sea sistent with his “Big Wings” theory of Lord Sir Dudley Pound refused to allow his fighter deployment. battleships to enter the English Channel per The military commander was Maj. Gen. Mountbatten’s request and have their 15John Roberts, who had commanded the inch guns augment the raiding force with Canadian 2nd Division since the winter of heavy naval gunfire. The Royal Navy was 1941-1942. He had overseen vigorous still bristling from the sinking of the battletraining of the division as well as replacing ship HMS Prince of Wales and battle many of the division’s older officers with cruiser HMS Repulse off Singapore by the younger ones. Roberts would select the six Japanese, although, for this operation there battalions of the 4th Brigade (Royal Regiwould be air cover for the capital ships, ment of Canada, Royal Hamilton Light whereas off Malaya there was none. Infantry, and Essex Scottish Regiment) and Nonetheless, Pound was adamant in his 6th Brigade (Fusiliers Mont-Royal, refusal: “A battleship in the Channel! Cameron Highlanders of Canada, and Dicky, you must be mad.” From a propaSouth Saskatchewan Regiment) from his ganda standpoint, the Dieppe operation could not have been presented to the public as division to carry out the raid. a success if a battleship, whether new or of World War I vintage, were to be sunk by However, since Montgomery had been either a mine or Luftwaffe attack. involved in the planning aspect of Rutter, Despite obvious concerns that Dieppe was no longer a secret, Mountbatten’s combined he was responsible for one of its key deci- Operations, with the prime minister’s and CCS verbal approval, outlined Operation sions, namely the utilization of a frontal Jubilee, which was reinstated on July 22, 1942. 56
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National Archives
Royal Navy landing Five days later, CCS directed Mountbatcraft on the approach ten to resume planning for Jubilee. No subto the beaches dodge stantial changes were made between the intense German coastal two operations apart from substituting artillery barrage. Commandos to reduce the heavy flanking coastal batteries of Dieppe. A previously conceived airborne drop to silence the guns was cancelled when two additional infantry landing ships were procured for the assault force. By omitting the airborne component of the plan, the chance of bad weather, which would curtail an airdrop, would no longer be an issue for the overall, now entirely amphibious, attack. After the war, Churchill rationalized “that a large-scale operation should take place this summer, and military opinion seemed unanimous that until an operation on that scale was undertaken, no responsible general would take the responsibility of planning for the main invasion [Overlord].” Suitable tides would enable the invasion force to embark from five ports along the southern English coast during the middle of August. Also, the dispersal of forces was for security and would mitigate German aerial observation and attack as had happened in July. Unfortunately for the Allied assault force, the Germans took special precautions against invasion between August 10-18, 1942, when the moon and tides favored an amphibious landing. The Dieppe sector’s defenses were intensified with a division-strength garrison on alert at the time of the “reconnaissance in force” for early dawn August 19. The port of Dieppe is situated astride the estuary of the River Arques. The town and port of Dieppe are located between the high, white-chalk cliffs of the Eastern and Western Headlands with a steep shingle beach emerging from the shoreline. The main overall objectives of Jubilee were to destroy German defense, air and supply installations, radar and power stations, dock and rail facilities; remove the invasion barges for Allied use; capture prisoners for interrogation; and retrieve any secret documents from the Dieppe garrison’s headquarters. Additionally, Leigh-Mallory believed that a raid on Dieppe would allow his RAF fighters to engage the Luftwaffe’s fighter arm on a large scale at a time and place of Fighter Command’s choosing. For this aim, Leigh-Mallory had the largest RAF fighter force ever committed at any time, namely 67 squadrons. Two brigades of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division were chosen to participate in the assault. Two battalions would attack in the middle, with three battalions attacking the flanking headlands and a battalion held in reserve. Of the 6,100 ground troops, 4,900 were Canadian and 1,075 British. Numbers 3 and 4 British Commando and 50 U.S. Army Rangers who had trained under commando supervision would replace the airborne component to silence the heavy batteries on the far flanks of the landing beaches 30 minutes before the main assault. The German garrison at Dieppe, commanded by Maj. Gen. Konrad Haase, was the 571st Infantry Regiment of the 302nd Infantry Division, comprised of three battalions of infantry and one of artillery, plus engineer companies and Luftwaffe units controlling the antiaircraft guns. Haase’s artillery ranged from batteries of 5.9-inch coastal guns to 155mm guns on the flanks.
JUBILEE STARTED WITH MISFORTUNE AS SIX SMALL WOODEN CRAFT, CALLED “EUREKAS,” WERE IMMEDIATELY SUNK AND SEVERAL OTHERS DISPERSED OR DAMAGED, FORCING THEM TO HEAD BACK TO ENGLAND AND OUT OF THE ENSUING BATTLE. The Dieppe garrison also had French 75mm guns as well as a variety of antitank weapons at its disposal in the immediate vicinity of the beaches. The German artillery would be able to provide mutually supporting fire on Green, Red, White, and Blue Beaches, which were all assigned to the Canadian battalions for frontal assault. WWII QUARTERLY
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Bundesarchiv Bild 1001I-291-1226-36A; Photo: Kurth
The German guns in the headlands, on either flank of the main beaches of Dieppe, were well-camouflaged and located in cliffsides and caves, making them undetectable by aerial photography and impervious to fighter-bomber attack. These guns would provide a brutal enfilade of artillery fire on the assaulting Canadians. The assault convoy for Jubilee arrived at its destination in the predawn hours of August 19, 1942. Unfortunately, Number 3 Commando, under overall command of Lt. Col. John Durnford-Slater, heading for the far right of the assault at Berneval (Yellow Beach), ran into a German convoy off Dieppe at 3:43 AM. The German ships were five small coasters and three escort vessels sailing from Boulogne. Thus, Jubilee started with misfortune as six small wooden landing craft, called “Eurekas,” were immediately sunk and several others either dispersed or damaged, forcing them to head back to England and out of the ensuing battle.
The German shore defenders were thus alerted to the commandos presence by the naval attack on the landing craft earlier and were waiting with guns at the ready. At 4:30 AM, 20 minutes before they were due to land, the seven remaining craft split into two groups. The larger group of four boats was commanded by Lt. Col. The Lord Lovat (Simon Fraser) and headed for 58
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Orange Beach II. The other three assault craft, under the command of Major Derek Mills-Roberts, drove for Orange Beach I. Another boat, designated Landing Craft Personnel (LCP) 15, commanded by Lieutenant Henry Buckee, approached with 20 men of Number 3 Commando under command of Captain Peter Young. LCP 15 managed to land on Yellow Beach II at 4:45, five minutes ahead of schedule. Clambering ashore, this other half of the Number 3 Commando circled behind the cliffs to engage the “Goebbels” Battery from the rear with only small arms and submachine guns. Three hours after landing, Young’s remaining commandos withdrew to the beach to board landing craft back to England, having had a partial success by preventing the battery from firing on the beaches or convoy. At the far left flank, the 252 men of Number 4 Commando landed at Orange I and II Beaches at 4:50 AM to assault the “Hess” Battery at Varengeville, which represented the far western point of the Jubilee assault area. At 5:15 AM, six more landing craft from Number 3 Commando, accompanied by Motor Launch (ML) 346, commanded by Lieutenant Alexander Fear, landed at Yellow Beach I but met with disaster. All the commandos in this force (about 120 men), under Captain Dick Wills, were either killed or taken prisoner. This half of the commando contingent, which included a handful of U.S. Rangers, landed below the cliffs on Yellow Beach I and had nowhere to go except to be decimated by German gunfire. Among the dead was Lieutenant Edward Loustalot, one of the U.S. Rangers accompanying the commandos. He was the first American soldier to be killed in Europe in World War II. At 5:23 AM, the Essex Scottish landed on the eastern half of the beach at Dieppe (Red While his shirtless comrades improve their coastal defense Beach) while the Royal Hamilton Light position, a German soldier Infantry (RHLI) landed on the western half manning an obsolescent Frenchin front of the town (White Beach). The made Hotchkiss M1914 8mm shoreline at Dieppe is roughly a mile long machine gun has a commanding view of the beach near Dieppe. with the harbor entrance just to the east of Red Beach. The shoreline’s composition was loose pebble shingle with a sea wall rising about five feet above this base. Behind the sea wall was an esplanade of parks and gardens extending toward the town for about 200 yards. The town’s buildings, houses, and factories were situated just inland from the esplanade. Blocking all roads exiting from the esplanade into the town were seven-foot-high concrete walls, which were five feet thick and bearing barbed wire atop them. Thus, the beach was effectively isolated from the town by this concrete wall fortified with machine guns as well as 37mm and 75mm guns in some places, which would take their toll on the Canadian 14th Tank Battalion (Calgary Tanks). Underneath the Western Headland, at the far right end of White Beach, was a casino that had been converted into a formidable defensive work with adjacent pillboxes covering the beach. Naval gunfire from four destroyers preceded the assault of the Essex Scottish and RHLI from 5:10 to 5:20 AM, along with strafing runs by the RAF from 5:15 to 5:25. These supporting attacks were on time and provided some protection for the landing craft on their runs to the beach.
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© SZ Photo / The Image Works
It was intended that these two attacks on the main beaches of Dieppe begin 30 minutes after the other beaches were assaulted to silence enfilading batteries at Berneval and Varengeville and neutralize the Western and Eastern Headlands (Green and Blue Beaches, respectively). Unfortunately, the troops were assaulting the beach with neither of the headlands having been secured, despite the bloody cost of 300 soldiers killed and over 500 captured at Blue and Green Beaches. However, the Germans, unbeknownst to Allied planners, had placed machine guns and light artillery into caves and embrasures on the Eastern Headland. These weapons had the beach in front of Dieppe Knocked-out British and Canadian vehicles zeroed in, but more dangerous for the litter the “White” Canadians were almost impervious to naval and “Red” landing or aerial bombardment. beaches in this photo Canadians of the Essex Scottish Regitaken the day after the raid from the ment were tasked, after landing simultaneWestern Headland. ously with the Calgary Tanks, to advance The large building at rapidly into Dieppe and secure the harbor right is the Dieppe area for engineer demolitions. After achievcasino, with the town in the background. ing this, the Essex Scottish was to link up with the Royal Regiment of Canada from Blue Beach. The RHLI was then to seize the western part of Dieppe beach, followed by an attack, after linking up with the South Saskatchewans from Green Beach, against the Western Headland. An additional target was the heavy “Göring” Battery behind Dieppe. Unfortunately for the initial infantry assaults, the first troop of nine Churchill tanks of the Calgary Tanks landed 20 minutes late, thus depriving the infantry of their critical fire support. The tanks were an essential component for the raid’s success since there was to be no massed aerial bombardment—only the fighter-bomber attacks by Hurricanes and naval bombardment by the four destroyers’ 4-inch guns for 10 minutes preceding the landings at Red and White Beaches. Once the aerial and naval attacks ceased, the only direct-fire support for the assault waves was to come from the tanks ashore. This armor support was the vital bridge between the cessation of air and naval attacks and the Essex Scottish and RHLI advancing onto Dieppe’s beaches. Because the first wave of tanks was late, the Germans in their concrete bunkers quickly recovered from the naval and aerial bombardment and unleashed a disastrous fire on two Canadian infantry battalions on Red and White Beaches. Of the 58 tanks that were planned to land on White and Red Beaches, only 29 did. Another reason that this armored assault faltered was because of the terrain (i.e., loose shingle), which created traction problems for the heavy Churchills. Twelve Churchill tanks lost their treads on the stone, which was not recognized in pre-mission intelligence, or were disabled by accurate antitank fire. The concrete barriers, which barred all exits from the beach, were also not recognized by Intelligence before the raid. Thus, within 30 minutes, the initial three waves of Churchill tanks were either disabled by enemy fire or immobilized. Although 15 tanks eventually made it across the sea wall and onto the esplanade, no Churchill tank made it into the town of Dieppe. The mission assigned to the RHLI—to move off the beach
with the Calgary Tanks and proceed through the town to secure exits for other tanks to proceed inland where they would join the Camerons to assault the airfield at St. Aubin—had turned into a shambles. The heroic sappers were mowed down in their attempt to breach wire obstacles and create holes in the sea walls for the tanks to get through. These engineers suffered over 90 percent casualties, more than any other participating unit on that fateful morning. Some troops of the Essex Scottish and RHLI at Red and White Beaches did manage to get into the casino in front of the town or into some of the houses in the town proper, but ultimately they were either killed or forced to withdraw. Again, German fire was withering and pinned these assault troops to the beach with the situation made worse by the late and only partial landing of the Churchill tanks. Because actions at Green and Blue Beaches did not neutralize German heavy guns in the headlands, the Germans poured lethal firepower onto Red and White Beaches. WWII QUARTERLY
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Almost an hour into Number 4 Commando’s assault at Orange I and II Beaches, unable to wait any longer for a coordinated attack with Lord Lovat since the Hess Battery had just started firing on the convoy in support of the assault on Red and White Beaches, Mills-Roberts’s commandos fired at the German position with rifles, Bren guns, and an antitank rifle. Commando snipers, among them U.S. Army Ranger Corporal Franklin Koons, also took their toll on the German gun crews. However, it was a 2-inch mortar crew—Troop Sergeant-Major Jimmy Dunning and Privates Dale and Horne—who fired a lone 2-inch mortar bomb (their sec-
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-291-1229-22; Photo: Wiltberger Meyer
German antitank gunners engage British tanks near the beach, August 19, 1945.
ond fired round), which detonated a pile of cordite and created a tremendous explosion of the ammunition at the Hess Battery and resulted in the guns’ complete destruction. At 6:30 AM, after a fighter sweep by the RAF against the Hess Battery, Lovat’s Commandos stormed the position and killed the rest of the battery’s garrison. With their mission accomplished by 6:50, Lovat’s troops left Orange Beach for an orderly evacuation to England at 7:30. These actions were the most successful of the entire Dieppe operation. Of this contingent, 46 were killed, wounded, or missing, which, although over an 18 percent casualty rate, was far lower than 60
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those of the other assaulting Canadian battalions and Number 3 Commando. Blue Beach, a mile east of Dieppe and situated near the village of Puys, was narrow, just over 200 yards long, and backed by a 10-foot-high sea wall just to the west of the Berneval Battery at Yellow Beach. To lend the element of surprise to the assault by the Royal Regiment of Canada and a company of the Black Watch, no prior bombardment was planned. The landing was 15 minutes late, commencing at 5:06 AM, thereby negating the smoke screens and darkness that were to provide concealment, and thus removing the vital element of synchronized flank attacks. The invaders’ objective was to move through the village and advance onto the Eastern Headland. This assault force was to capture the German field gun battery, named “Rommel,” overlooking Dieppe harbor and destroy antiaircraft installations behind Puys. Finally, it was to meet up with the Essex Scottish attack force, which was to land on Red Beach closer to the port of Dieppe. This attack turned into a disaster as two platoons of German defenders were on full alert after hearing the offshore encounter between the German convoy and commando landing craft. Several German pillboxes covered the entire beach and sea wall with interlocking fields of fire, and the gunners mowed down the Canadians as the ramps of their landing craft dropped. The following waves, seeing the death and destruction before them, needed to be coaxed from the landing craft by the accompanying naval officers with pistols pointed menacingly at those who refused. Additionally, the sea wall had multiple layers of barbed wire, which further impaired the assaulting force from getting off the beach. The heavy and extremely accurate German fire trapped the Royal Regiment on Blue Beach and almost annihilated this force except for a few men. The ferocity of gunfire at Blue Beach was unmatched on any of the other assault beaches. Within seconds, chaos on the beach prevailed, with the survivors of the battalion individually seeking shelter from the shells and bullets. Only 21 Canadian soldiers from this assault force made it onto the headlands, and these men were quickly killed or captured. Of the Royal Regiment’s 554 men who landed at Blue Beach, only 65 of them—half of them wounded—came back, yielding a casualty rate of 94.5 percent in a little over three hours of combat. The inability of the Royal Regiment of Canada to take control of the Eastern Headlands overlooking the port of Dieppe would ultimately leave the Essex Scottish at Red Beach exposed to enfilading fire as their assault commenced. In synchrony with the Number 4 Commando landing, the South Saskatchewans successfully landed on time on Green Beach astride the River Scie, taking the village of Pourville by surprise. The plan was for these troops to form a perimeter around Green Beach, expand the bridgehead to support the planned (30 minutes later) landing of the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada (Camerons), and enable them to pass through the South Saskatchewans. The plan called for the Camerons, after penetrating deeply inland, to join with the tanks of the Canadian 14th Tank Battalion exiting from Red and White Beaches in front of Dieppe for the assault on the St. Aubin airfield. The South Saskatchewan Regiment
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was also tasked with securing the Western Headlands and, in the process, silencing the gun pits on the tops, which had an enfilading field of fire to the main Dieppe beaches. Additionally, some technicians attached to the South Saskatchewan Regiment were to capture a radar site and bring important components back to England. Unknown to the Germans, British Flight Sergeant Jack Nissenthall, who accompanied the raiders, did reach the nearby German radar station and managed to take crucial pieces and information back to England for subsequent British jamming and deception. This was one of the few successes at Green Beach that horrific morning. Although the South Saskatchewans did make a good landing at Green Beach, the regiment found itself entirely on the western side of the River Scie and, thus, had to cross a bridge to the east in order to secure the Western Headland. Heavy German resistance at the bridge initially impeded their eastward advance toward Dieppe; however, the rallying effect of their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Charles Cecil Merritt, earned him a Victoria Cross and gradually enabled some men to cross. Clearly, the absence of naval gunfire or the direct fire from tanks contributed to the stalled South Saskatchewan attack against the well-prepared German defenses that, once again, possessed overlapping fields of fire for their mortars and artillery; 355 men out of the attacking force of 523 who landed that morning returned to England; however, over 50 percent of the evacuated men were wounded. At 5:50 AM, the Camerons landed on Green Beach. Like the South Saskatchewans, this attack arrived at the wrong place—with the River Scie bisecting the battalion and thereby reducing its combat firepower. The landing was also 60 minutes rather than 30 behind the South Saskatchewans. The attack quickly deteriorated as the Camerons’ first casualty was the commanding officer, Lt. Col. Alfred Gosling. The tardiness of the Camerons’ landing again caused asynchrony in the assault and
allowed the enemy to recover from the South Saskatchewans’ landing. Elements of the Camerons’ battalion east of the river tried to link up with the South Saskatchewans that had earlier crossed the bridge over the Scie, while the remainder on the western bank set out for their primary mission—attacking the airfield at St. Aubin after their planned link up with the Calgary Tanks, which was never to materialize. This force, under Major Tony Low, managed to advance inland from Green Beach up the western side of the River Scie, and arrived at Appeville, approximately two miles inland, but could not cross an inland bridge over the Scie, which was heavily defended by the infantry and light artillery of the advancing German 571st Regiment’s reserve moving north. None of the Churchill tanks that were supposed to support the attack on the airfield made it off either Red or White Beaches for the planned rendezvous. The Canadian assault component that made it A German soldier, carrying stick grenades, surveys the carnage on the beach shortly after the battle. Few of the 24 British tanks that landed made it off the beach, and all were lost.
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ullstein bild / The Granger Collection
the farthest inland from any of the beaches, the Camerons abandoned their planned seizure of the St. Aubin airfield; they fell back at 9:30 AM to reinforce the South Saskatchewans in their attempt to take the Western Headland. But these two battalions could not secure the headland nor push eastward to assist the main landings on Red and White Beaches since German reinforcements had been pouring into the high ground, which was to soon make the Canadians’ situation on Green Beach untenable. Thus, there was a complete breakdown in timing among the assaults at the Western Headland (Green Beach) and the main frontal assault before Dieppe (Red and White Beaches). On their retreat to Green Beach, the Camerons received word that the evacuation from all the beaches would
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commence at 10:30 AM. It seemed unlikely that anyone would survive until 10:30. Awaiting evacuation from Green Beach, about 100 South Saskatchewans, acting as a rear guard under Lt. Col. Merritt, were killed by German fire zeroing in on the beach, and soon thereafter an additional 89 were captured. Of the two battalions’ 1,026 men, 138 were killed, 256 taken prisoner, and 269 wounded. Around 7 AM, Maj. Gen. Roberts, the military force commander, sent in his floating reserve, Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal, to Red Beach. This decision was made, in part, by faulty communications. Roberts had received a partial transmission (in fact, a miscommunication) that troops from White Beach had taken the casino and were moving farther inland (“Essex Scottish across the Beaches & in houses,” it read). Roberts wanted to reinforce the supposed success and committed Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal at this juncture to assist the Essex Scottish. It is ironic that these troops were always intended to land later than the other Canadian battalions and occupy the perimeter of Dieppe that was to be captured by the Essex Scottish and RHLI. Then, after the objective had been met, all Canadian units were to withdraw across the main Dieppe beaches BELOW: Many of the troops were killed before they through the Fusiliers Mont-Royal, which made it to the beach, including these Canadians phowould be acting as the rear guard. Actually, tographed in their burned-out landing craft. OPPOSITE: Wounded Canadians are carried off a Polish destroyer the Fusiliers’ attack became futile as they after returning from Dieppe. only piled onto the previous battalions already pinned down on the beach by the hail of German fire and suffered 50 percent casualties. Seemingly unaware of the looming disaster at Red and White Beaches in front of the town of Dieppe due to a near total breakdown in communications after the landing had begun, Roberts also decided to commit his Royal Marine A Commando. After having observed the carnage on the beaches, the Marine Commando commanding officer, Lt. Col. Joseph PictonPhillips, ordered his attack force to abort its landing attempt; two of the eight Marine assault craft completed their runs to the beaches only to have the men become casualties or prisoners. By 9 AM, Roberts realized that the attack had failed, with the majority of objectives having not been achieved. He ordered that preparations get under way to evacuate as many of the assault troops as possible from the beaches and issued the code word “Vanquish” at 9:40 AM. At 10:45, the evacuation of Red, Green, and White Beaches began in earnest by landing craft, which withdrew survivors of the assault under fire and with casualties incurred by the rescuers. The naval officers commanding the landing craft, under devastating fire, attempted to bring the men of
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Wounded Canadians are carried off a Polish destroyer after returning from Dieppe.
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the Canadian 2nd Division offshore and exhibited tremendous courage. Throughout the evacuation, the rescuing landing craft were blasted from the Eastern and Western Headlands, which had not been neutralized. It was fortunate that the RAF continued its fighter-bomber support during this phase, along with smoke screens, which enabled the landing craft to pick up survivors off the beach and then to exit. Despite these efforts, many landing craft were sunk by accurate German artillery fire from the headlands. Two hours later, Maj. Gen. Roberts and Captain Hughes-Hallett, aboard the destroyer HMS Calpe, came close to shore to inspect the beaches for any sign of Canadian soldiers alive. Many dead were observed but none left to save. The assault had officially ended. At 1 PM, another code word, “Vancouver,” was issued by the military and naval commanders to signal the entire naval force’s withdrawal. Eight minutes later, the last message was received from troops still ashore informing the convoy that the remaining surviving troops had surrendered. There were a number of obvious reasons for the failure of the Dieppe assault: awareness by the Germans, thereby negating surprise; faulty intelligence estimates of enemy strength and recent reinforcements; and the use of the inexperienced Canadian division as the landing force. However, a number of deeper deficiencies are more likely explanations for the catastrophic failure of the mission. One major flaw in the planning of Jubilee was its thorough lack of coordination among the three services. In fact, what transpired were three disparate operations. The plan was, according to one observer, “overly scripted and impossible to execute.” Once war’s fog entered, the script could no longer be followed. Further, the infantry component was a tightly choreographed frontal assault on a defended harbor. Surprise and rigid adherence to a time table were paramount for success here. Neither occurred. The 252-ship convoy had to release the landing craft at exactly the correct moment while the Goebbels and Hess Batteries had to be neutralized on time by the commandos at Berneval and Varengeville-sur-Mey. In the end, the main frontal attack on Dieppe town and port needed the Eastern and Western Headlands to be secure and, thus, free of enfilading fire, as well as the simultaneous arrival of tanks to support the infantry and engineers to exit the beach and enter the town. Unfortunately, Allied intelligence seriously underestimated the size of the enemy force and effectiveness of the weapons concealed in the caves and bunkers in the headlands, many of which were impervious to the 4-inch batteries on the escorting destroyers or the light weaponry possessed by the assaulting infantry. Apart from the commando actions, none of the other operational pieces to the attack were achieved. Leigh-Mallory was entirely fixated on a massive fighter engagement with the Luftwaffe rather than solely on tactical support of the landing and neutralization of observed enemy targets. It was left to the RAF to shatter the enemy defenses with a heavy aerial bombardment prior to the landings, but this aspect of the plan was omitted in favor of fighter-bomber sweeps and engaging the Luftwaffe’s fighters. As stated by historian Ken Ford, “The great pre-assault bombardment guaranteed to flatten German defenses had now been reduced to fighter-bomber raids by Hurricanes and light selected gunfire from destroyers.” The naval aspect of the raid was to support the infantry during the landing and evacuation, but the few 4-inch guns of the eight destroyers lacked sufficient firepower to accomplish the task; the guns could do little damage to the heavily protected defensive emplacements. From a tactical perspective, excluding the flank commando operations at Berneval and Varengeville and the timeliness of the initial destroyer naval bombardment and fighterbomber sweeps over the assault beaches, Dieppe was a complete failure.
“ONLY A FOOLHARDY COMMANDER LAUNCHES A FRONTAL ATTACK WITH UNTRIED TROOPS, UNSUPPORTED IN DAYLIGHT AGAINST VETERANS ... DUG IN AND PREPARED BEHIND CONCRETE, WIRED AND MINED APPROACHES—AN ENEMY WITH EVERY PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE.” According to the plan, the Calgary Tanks were not tasked to support the infantry on the beaches or in Dieppe town, but were supposed to rush through the town and link up at Arques with the Camerons coming from Pourville to secure the airfield at St. Aubin. In actuality, only a few tanks got off the beach, and only then did they try to help the infantry. One lesson sorely learned was that tanks on the beaches landing simultaneously and at the shoreline to provide direct fire support for the infantry would WWII QUARTERLY
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be required for any future successful frontal amphibious assault. Strategically, Churchill needed an offensive operation on the Continent to placate both the United States, as long as U.S. Army Ranger involvement was included, as well as satisfy the Soviet Union’s clamor for a second front. The failure at Dieppe provided ample evidence that a premature, larger scale invasion of France (e.g., Oper-
Canadians return to England with a German (wearing glasses), one of four taken prisoner during the raid.
ation Sledgehammer in 1943) would have been a devastating failure, perhaps retarding Overlord by many months or longer. Another unexpected gain from the failed Dieppe raid was that Hitler ordered 10 additional first-rate divisions to be transferred from the Eastern Front to the West Wall. Temporally, this may have assisted the change in fortune that was about to come to the Red Army in its savage battle at Stalingrad. Another strategic outcome of the failed raid was the incorrect lesson gleaned by Hitler and his high command. Historian 64
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Terence Robertson asserts that the Germans “assumed that whereas the Allies would not be so foolish as to attempt another frontal assault, they would land on either flank of a port and then encircle it. From Dieppe onwards their defenses were reorganized and concentrated to cover likely invasion ports, thus weakening the defenses along open beaches where [Overlord’s] landings actually took place.” The successful defense of the Dieppe beaches by the Wehrmacht convinced Hitler and Rommel, who was soon to be in charge of defending the Atlantic Wall, that an assault could be destroyed at the moment of the beach landing. Thus, both men would sacrifice defense in depth along the coastline for a reinforced Atlantic Wall at the water’s edge. This decision convinced the Allies to rely on massive preparatory bombardment, including battleships and cruisers rather than solely destroyers, at the time of Overlord. Also, it would push the Allied air commanders toward Eisenhower’s goal of isolating the landing zone by destroying bridges and rail yards remote from the battlefield, which Hitler needed to bring up his distant reinforcements to counter any invasion. There were, indeed, many lessons garnered from Jubilee’s blatant failure, and in this manner may need to be noted as a relatively positive element of the outcome. First, the Allies learned that overwhelming preparatory and landing naval and air bombardment was necessary for an amphibious frontal assault to succeed across an open beachhead, as Overlord would be. Second, for tanks to successfully complete their amphibious task of direct-fire support for the infantry, Churchill called upon a relatively new corporal in the Home Guard, retired Maj. Gen. Sir Percy Hobart, to design specialty tanks (“Hobart’s Funnies,” such as the duplex drive or swimming Sherman tank) to clear beach obstacles and minefields—tanks that could crack the fortified Atlantic Wall and assist the infantry on the beach in overcoming withering fire from concrete pillboxes. Lord Lovat commented after the war, “Only a foolhardy commander launches a frontal attack with untried troops, unsupported in daylight against veterans … dug in and prepared behind concrete, wired and mined approaches—an enemy with every psychological advantage…. It was a bad plan and it had no chance of success.” General Konrad Hasse, the German garrison commander, commented later, “The main reason that the Canadians did not gain any ground on the beaches was not due to any lack of courage, but because of the concentrated defensive fire.” Hasse found it incomprehensible that the Canadians were ordered to attack head-on against a German infantry regiment supported by artillery, without sufficient naval and air cooperation to suppress the defenses. All in all he found the plan “mediocre.” The common theme of the participants is that the plan was poor, and this reflects badly on the overall commander and his chief plan designer, Lord Mountbatten and Captain Hughes-Hallett, respectively. Canadian historian Brian Loring Villa has argued that
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Trying to put a good face on the disastrous outcome, Winston Churchill grandiloquently referred to Dieppe as “a costly but not unfruitful reconnaissance-in-force…. Tactically it was a mine of experience … revealing many shortcomings in our outlook.… We learnt the value of heavy naval guns in an opposed landing.” Mountbatten told the British War Cabinet on the day following the evacuations that the lessons learned from the Dieppe raid “gave the Allies the priceless secret of victory.” Perhaps so, but the secret came at a very high price, with approximately one-fifth of the 5,000 men in the Canadian 2nd Division dying on Dieppe’s beaches, with another 2,000 becoming prisoners (1,874 Canadian and the rest British Commandos or Royal Navy seamen and officers). Additionally, 106 of 650 RAF aircraft were destroyed, along with 33 of 179 landing craft lost at sea or on the beaches, and one of eight destroyers sunk in addition to the deaths of 500 Royal Navy personnel. Among the Germans, there were 345 men killed, while four were captured and brought back to England. As “Lord Haw Haw,” the English-born German propagandist, commented, Dieppe was “too large to be a symbol, too small to be a success.” n
National Archives
“the British government, and the Chiefs of Staff in particular, had been convinced for more than a year that this sort of operation made little sense: it was extremely hazardous and was unlikely, even if it were to succeed, to be worth the cost.” Hughes-Hallett became interested in seeing how a heavily defended port might be taken by an attacking force, and he was impatient. Mountbatten, on the other hand, was eager to exert some of the authority he had been given by his appointment to command Combined Operations and to sit in on the CCS. In regard to the raid, Mountbatten claimed that he obtained his authority—verbal authority—from both the CCS and the prime minister to launch Jubilee once Rutter was cancelled. As Robin Neillands has concluded, “Historians have been searching for written authorization for six decades and failed to find any paper that gives the appropriate high-level authority for launching Jubilee. The Dieppe Raid was relaunched because the cancellation of Rutter was a great disappointment to all concerned and left COHQ with no operations in hand. However, the possibility of reinstating the Raid remained on the table and when Mountbatten and Hughes-Hallett … declared that it could be done, they found plenty of people willing to listen and no one violently opposed.” In a convicting claim, Neillands added, “The first requirement of any military commander is simple: he must know his job. It is painfully evident that many of the commanders and planners involved in the Dieppe Raid did not know their jobs and failed to appreciate the problems and requirements of amphibious operations—or even, as with Mountbatten and Hughes-Hallett, of military operations of any kind. Ignorance of amphibious operations was very common in 1942 but that is no excuse for senior officers ‘learning on the job’ at the expense of soldiers. “If common sense had ruled the day rather than hubris, the Raid would either have been cancelled or the plans drastically revised. It was not one of those many operations that begin well and then deteriorate. It failed from the very moments the troops stepped ashore and got worse thereafter.” Other historians have been understand- Captured Canadians march past their dead and wounded comrades in this drawing by a German combat artist. Of ingly scathing in their postwar assessments the 5,000 Canadian troops who took part, almost 1,000 of Dieppe. Brian Loring Villa wrote, were killed and nearly another 2,000 captured. “[Dieppe] was described as the largest raid ever attempted in history, and so it was, but the resulting casualties were appalling…. The overall casualty rate averaged more than 40 per cent, the highest in the war for any major offensive involving the three services. Many units were decimated beyond their ability to function as recognizable entities.” According to Sir Max Hastings, “The invaders bungled the amphibious assault in every possible way, while the Germans responded with their accustomed speed and efficiency…. Mountbatten was successful in evading responsibility, much of which properly belonged to him.” Sir John Keegan stated, “In retrospect [Dieppe] looks so recklessly hare-brained an enterprise that it is difficult to reconstruct the official state of mind which gave it birth and drove it forward.”
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BACKSTORY:
After working in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Idaho, Ray Daves enlisted in the Navy in the spring of 1938 and reported for basic training the following year. He was at Pearl Harbor, serving at Pacific Fleet Headquarters as a radioman, when the Japanese attacked; he was wounded in the hand. Afterward, he requested sea duty on a warship and was assigned to the submarine Dolphin (SS-169), on which he served one war patrol before being reassigned as
a radioman second class aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV-5). After the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 7-8, 1942), in which the Yorktown was heavily engaged and damaged, the carrier returned to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for a promised three months in port to make necessary repairs; due to the urgency of the war, the three months was cut to three days. This is Ray Daves’s story, as told by Carol Edgemon Hipperson in Radioman. (Copyright © 2008 by the author and reprinted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, LLC.) The Battle of Midway––May 27-June 4, 1942: Everybody on the Yorktown was looking forward to liberty in Honolulu. After nearly four months at sea, even three days ashore sounded pretty good. I was still out on the flight deck with the rest of the crew
MAYHEM
AT MIDWAY
Antiaircraft bursts fill the sky as the USS Yorktown (CV-5) is struck on the port side, amidships, by the second of two Japanese Type 91 aerial torpedos launched by planes from the Hiryu, June 4, 1942.
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when Captain [Elliott] Buckmaster came over the loudspeaker and told us he was sorry. No liberty cards for anybody. All hands were needed to get our ship repaired and resupplied and ready to sail in time. In time for what, he couldn’t tell us yet, but he said it was important. Of course the captain was sorry. Everybody was sorry. And, yes, there was plenty of grousing. I did my share of that, too. But I never once heard anyone blame the captain. We just cursed the war. There was a regular mob of workers waiting for us. Hundreds of guys with toolboxes came swarming aboard the minute we pulled into dry dock. They hammered and sawed around the clock for the next three days and nights, and so did the crew. My job was hauling supplies. I bet I carried a hundred crates full of pineapples and oranges down to the galley. The cardboard boxes were heavier yet. Canned goods, I suppose. The
Navy bought a lot of pork and beans. It was during one of those trips between the supply trucks and the ship when I noticed the other two carriers. They were on the far side of Ford Island, so I never got a close look at them. Somebody said Enterprise was one; the other was Hornet. This was the first time I’d ever heard of the Hornet. It was also the first time I could remember seeing three carriers inside Pearl Harbor at once. That hardly ever happened before the war. They were both gone the
A YOUNG SAILOR ABOARD THE DOOMED CARRIER YORKTOWN RECOUNTS THE BATTLE THAT SANK THE SHIP AND ALMOST COST HIM HIS LIFE. By Carol Edgemon Hipperson
National Archives
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next time I checked. I hope their crews got more rest between missions than we did. The 30th of May was our deadline to get back out to sea, and we met it. I still didn’t know where we were going or why we were in such a hurry to get there. And I couldn’t imagine why Admiral Chester Nimitz himself came aboard to see us off. He was the top dog at Pearl Harbor, Commander in Chief of the whole Pacific Fleet. In the radio shack, we referred to him as CinCPac. For him to take such a personal interest in our next mission, it had to be important. Somewhere in the South Pacific, probably. All the radiomen thought so, until the Yorktown cleared the channel. The cruisers and destroyers were just getting into formation around us when the whole task force turned north. That was our first clue. The captain hadn’t said anything yet, but it seemed obvious to us. We guessed we were going to Midway! I was still waiting for the mission announcement when I felt the ship’s speed increasing, and we were turning into the wind. That meant the air group was flying out from Ford Island. The pilots needed a headwind to help slow the planes when they touched down. I hustled up to the bridge catwalk to watch. Siwash Nagombi [a Chicago-born sailor of Indian heritage] wanted to come with me, but he couldn’t leave the chart room just then. The admiral was on his way down. This was the same admiral that was with us in the Coral Sea, so I’m sure my friend was used to him. I still couldn’t get over it myself. I mean, Siwash was senior to most of the other quartermasters—probably the smartest, too—but he was not an officer. He was an enlisted man—a petty officer, second class––the same as me. I saw nothing unusual when the first fighter plane came in. The airdales [sailors on an aircraft carrier whose job involves working with aircraft] towed it forward; the pilot was still in the cockpit when the next plane approached the stern. Landing accidents were not unusual, either. About once a week, a plane would veer off the runway and bump into the island. [An aircraft carrier’s “island” is the 68
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command center for flight-deck operations, as well as for the ship as a whole.] They were never going very fast by the time they got that far. The pilots were just embarrassed. Until that day, the worst accident I ever saw on the Yorktown was during a storm in the Solomon Islands. A wave lifted the stern just as a plane was touching down, and it caught a piece of the landing gear. The plane flipped over backward and landed upside down in the water behind the ship. That was nothing. The pilot got wet––he was still cussing when we fished him out––but they just gave him another plane, and he was back in the air the very next day. So I wasn’t all that worried this day when the second fighter plane came in “hot”––too fast. I could tell by the sound of the engines. The LSO tried to wave him off. He was jumping up and down like a crazy man. I laughed when he dropped his paddles and scrambled out of the way. I don’t know why that pilot didn’t pull up and try again. Maybe he didn’t see the LSO’s signal to abort; maybe he thought it was too late. Either way, I knew he was going to get grounded for a day or two. That was the worst thing that could happen to any pilot, or so I thought, until that plane touched down.
Both: National Archives
ABOVE: USS Yorktown photographed underway at Hampton Roads, Virginia, not long after she was launched in 1937. BELOW: TBD-1 Devastators of Squadron VT-3 photographed during a training exercise before the war. During the Battle of Midway, Squadron VT-3 launched from Yorktown and attacked the Japanese carrier fleet. Of the 24 pilots and crewmen who took part, only three survived.
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It came in so fast, the tailhook bounced over every cable across the stern, didn’t catch a single one. After that, it plowed through the last barrier, which was a rope net below the island. I braced myself for the impact, but there was none. This plane crashed into the one that had landed a minute before, with the pilot still in the cockpit. I saw the propeller blades cut through the canopy of that parked plane, and I watched them chop that pilot’s body into little pieces. There was blood spattered all over both planes, all across the flight deck, and all over me. That was the last time I ever watched a plane land on the Yorktown. It wasn’t entertaining anymore. I did not know the pilot who died in that accident or the one who was in the plane that killed him. They were both new to the Yorktown, as were all the other pilots and gunners that landed afterward. I heard that in the radio shack, right before the captain told us where we were going. Midway was one of few islands in the Pacific I’d ever heard of before the war. I copied a lot of messages from there while I was in the radio shack at the submarine base. As far as I knew, Midway was just a Naval Air Station and that’s all that was there, except for the Marines that guarded the place. I pictured it as being just like Ford Island, except that it was way out there in the middle of the ocean, all by itself. If the captain knew how many Japanese Navy ships were expected to attack Midway, he didn’t say. It’s just as well he didn’t. After what I saw in the Coral Sea, even one Japanese aircraft carrier sounded pretty scary to me. I didn’t know what to make of it when the captain said this could be the Yorktown’s most important battle of the war. It wasn’t like him to exaggerate, so that sure got my attention, along with the note he read over the loudspeakers. He said it was a personal message to all of us from Admiral Nimitz. I wish I’d thought to write it down. I just remember that it went something like this: “I’m sorry you didn’t get the liberty you deserved after your victory in the Coral Sea. When the Yorktown returns from Midway, I promise all of you a long vacation on the West Coast. And, furthermore, the Navy’s going to throw a party for the whole crew, and it won’t be peanuts.” I was still tired; my arms were sore from carrying all those crates and boxes. But, all of a sudden, I felt better. Thanks to Admiral Nimitz, I had something to look forward to again. The Yorktown was more than halfway to Midway on the first of June. I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday––I was 22—but it was still a good day because I spent all my free time with Mike Brazier. He was one of the new aviation radiomen that hung out with us in the radio shack. I’m not sure how we got to be such good buddies in such a short time. Maybe that’s just the way it is when you’re stuck together on a ship, especially in wartime, but I think Brazier and I would have been friends anywhere. If we’d been ashore, we’d have gone for beer at the Tin Roof and played some pool. At sea, it was just coffee, black, and acey-deucey. Brazier was even more like me than Siwash, because he had a girlfriend back home. He showed me her picture. I lied and said she was as pretty as Adeline. But he was in love with her, and they were going to get married the next time he got leave. Assuming he survived this mission, which we both knew was not a given for any of us on the Yorktown. I was more afraid for him than I was for myself, because Brazier was the gunner for the pilot of a torpedo plane. By this time, everybody knew those Devastators weren’t really devastating at all. They were too slow. When they had a 1,000-pound torpedo under their bellies, they could barely make 100 miles an hour. If a Japanese fighter plane––a Zero––got on his tail, the gunner was even less likely to survive than his pilot, because he was in the rear seat. Brazier never said he was afraid on the way to Midway. We never even talked about it. But I know that he wasn’t concentrating very well when we played acey-deucey that
Authorʼs Collection
ABOVE: Yorktown’s skipper, Captain Elliott Buckmaster, left; Radioman Ray Daves, right. BELOW: Yorktown crewmen pass the time playing “acey-deucey,” a variant of backgammon, on the fateful morning of June 4, 1942.
U.S. Navy Historical Foundation
day. I beat him two games out of three. On the second of June, Siwash told me we were getting close to Midway. I never saw the island, but I saw a lot of ships in the distance. It didn’t take long for word to get around that we were about to join task forces with the Hornet and the Enterprise. Counting all the cruisers and destroyers around the three carriers, there must have been at least 20 warships altogether. I would have liked to talk to the other radio gangs, but that was not allowed. Under radio silence, the only way we could communicate was through the signalmen, the guys that ran up the flags or flashed the lanterns. We couldn’t even talk to our own pilots on the radio for fear of giving away our location to the enemy. Everyone had an opinion on how CinCPac knew that a Japanese carrier task force was on the way. Some said Admiral Nimitz had a spy inside their government. Personally, I thought it had to be somebody WWII QUARTERLY
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really high up in the Imperial Japanese Navy. I was more interested in discussing the enemy’s strategy. In the radio shack, we thought Japan wanted Midway as a base for their next attack on Pearl Harbor. If they could get Pearl Harbor, too––well, that was the ball game. There would be nothing left to keep the enemy carriers away from the West Coast. I could just see the bombs falling on San Diego and Los Angeles. I remember the night of June 3, too. That was when I heard we were looking for at least four Japanese carriers. Maybe five. They were expected to attack Midway in the morning, but we still didn’t know where they were. It was the same kind of tension as in the Coral Sea, only 10 times worse, because I had a better idea of what was going to happen. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and I sure as heck couldn’t preA Yorktown fire-fighting crew pours water on burning debris, mid-afternoon, June 4, after taking hits from Japanese dive bombers. Sailors quickly began repairing the damage but the ship was already crippled.
U.S. Navy
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tend I wasn’t scared. So I went down to the hangar deck by myself and just walked around. It looked like they’d added more antiaircraft guns than we had before. There were all different sizes of guns, every 10 or 12 feet around the hangar deck. I wasn’t sure it was enough. Those Japanese carrier pilots were so skillful, and all it took was one to plant another bomb on our flight deck. I didn’t want to see any more burials at sea. That was the worst outcome I could imagine at the time. The klaxon went off on the morning of June 4. When I got to my battle station on the bridge, I heard the officers say that Midway was under attack. That was actually a relief to me. It meant that the enemy carriers had no idea we were there. They never would have sent their planes to bomb Midway if they’d known three American carriers were near enough to strike back. I heard the captain say Hornet and Enterprise had already launched their torpedo planes. The Yorktown’s took off a while later. When Brazier’s squadron was in the air, I tried tuning into their frequency. All I got was static. It was over an hour before any of the Yorktown pilots broke radio silence. The first pilot’s voice I heard was from a dive-bomber squadron. He said they had just sighted a Japanese carrier, and, oh, boy, was that guy mad. He’d accidentally lost his bomb somewhere over the ocean, shortly after takeoff. I guess there was something wrong with the release lever. But he was going to dive on the enemy carrier anyway, unarmed. That was just crazy. I think there was an awful lot of that kind of courage at Midway, on both sides. I put the dive-bomber frequency on the loudspeaker; all the officers on the bridge of the Yorktown were listening. I heard the lead pilot say, “That carrier is getting ready to launch!” and “Let’s go get it!” and “Okay, then, follow me!” The next five or 10 minutes were awful. We didn’t know what was happening until
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U.S. Navy
LEFT: Ray Daves saw this Japanese aircraft, probably a Nakajima Type 97 “Kate,” shot down while attempting to attack the Yorktown during the afternoon of June 4. BELOW: Damaged and low on fuel, a Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless scout bomber from USS Enterprise lands on Yorktown’s flight deck. It was lost when the carrier went down on June 7.
the dive-bombers spoke again. I could hardly believe it when they said nobody was shot down. They also said that the enemy carrier was in flames. They didn’t have enough fuel to stay and watch it sink, but they all agreed it was done for. The pilots also told us they saw two other Japanese carriers, and they were burning, too. We didn’t know who was responsible for that. I hoped it was Brazier’s torpedo squadron. I still had nothing but static from them. The communications officer had an urgent message for the captain: The Yorktown’s radar had just picked up a group of planes. They were less than 40 miles away, and everybody knew they weren’t ours. Apparently, the enemy had caught on to the idea of flying low when they approached the ship. They came in under the radar. Captain Buckmaster grabbed the mike and told the fighter pilots to intercept the Japanese planes. I also heard him reminding all the senior officers on the bridge to be careful when they spoke on the radio. They were not allowed to refer to us as the Yorktown; they were supposed to use our code name, which was “Scarlet.” That made no sense to me. I thought they should have just told the Japanese pilots who we were. If they listened to Tokyo Rose as much as we did, maybe they would believe they were bombing a ghost ship. If that wasn’t enough to make them nervous, maybe they would at least wonder what else their leaders got wrong. Anything to mess up their aim. The Yorktown’s fighter planes were about 20 miles out when they engaged the approaching enemy planes. I heard one of our pilots say, “Where’s my wingman?” and another was shouting, “Get that Zero off my tail!” The first plane I saw shot down was a Japanese dive-bomber. There was a trail of fire and smoke behind it and a huge splash when it hit the water. I heard the antiaircraft guns on the cruisers and destroyers booming in the distance. They shot down several more. But I know at least a few enemy planes got through all that, because there was one coming right at us on the bridge. For a second or two, that was all I could see. I thought it was going to crash into the island and kill us all, until that plane disintegrated into a million pieces. Somebody shot it down before it hit us, but the plane had already released its bomb. So then I watched the bomb, and the bomb filled the window, and it was like in slow motion, the way the thing tumbled end over end. I couldn’t take my eyes off it until it exploded, and then I
hit the deck. When I looked up, I saw a huge cloud of black smoke and shrapnel outside the bridge, and the captain was not standing in front of the window anymore. He was inside the radio room with me. I wanted him to stay there, but he didn’t. He stepped out again, because the helmsman couldn’t hear his turning orders, and another plane was coming toward the bridge, and there was another big explosion, and I fell down again. The dials on the radios were flickering, and I didn’t believe this was how I was going to die because I’d just turned 22. I heard men shouting––no, screaming–– somewhere outside the bridge, but there was no sound at all from the ship’s engines. The Yorktown was dead. I’m not sure how long I was out. I came to dizzy and disoriented. My ears were still ringing from the explosions. It hurt to breathe because of all the smoke on the bridge. Worst of all, I was alone in the dark. I have no memory of when the captain closed the door to the emergency radio room. I wasn’t even sure the enemy planes were gone until I heard his voice. He was not shouting anymore; he was talking to someone on the ship’s phone. At least that still worked. It sounded like he was taking damage reports from the engine room. He WWII QUARTERLY
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was so cool and steady, you’d have thought he was inquiring about his dry cleaning or the price of fish. The Yorktown was not moving when I opened the door. I honestly believed the captain was about to give the “abandon ship” order. Which was a scary thought, because I didn’t know how. The Navy didn’t teach us that in basic training. Then again, maybe they did. I missed a lot of stuff while I was in the pool. You don’t know how glad I was when I heard the captain say the engines were going to restart. I even heard him tell the XO that we could start launching and recovering planes as soon as the flight deck was repaired. I thought that was a pretty big if. There was only one hole in the flight deck, but it was huge––10 or 12 feet wide––and it was less than 30 feet from the island. If that bomb was intended to kill the captain and all the senior officers on the bridge, I would call it a near miss. I knew I was lucky to be alive. There was no reason for me to stay inside my battle station at that time, so I volunteered to help repair the hole in the flight deck. Not being a carpenter, there wasn’t much I could do there either, but I figured they could use another hand for the grunt work. I don’t know if I would have done that if I’d known that the hole was really the least of the bomb damage. I didn’t see the bodies until I climbed down from the bridge. I don’t know how many––20, 30, maybe more. They were hard to look at and hard to count, because most of those men were just blown to pieces. The guys in the ship’s band––I remember the harp insignias on their sleeves––were helping the corpsmen lay out all the body bags. I was having flashbacks from the smell. There is nothing close to the odor of cooked human flesh. I smelled it at Pearl Harbor, I smelled it in the Coral Sea, and somebody must have burned to death on the flight deck at Midway, because I smelled it there, too. The ship’s carpenters were calling for more lumber and sheet metal to repair the hole. I turned and ran with the guys who 72
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ABOVE: Medical corpsmen treat casualties (right) on board Yorktown, after the carrier’s flight deck had been hit by a Japanese bomb. The dead and wounded were members of the crew of 1.1” machine gun mount # 4 visible, in the center background. BELOW: Yorktown lies smoldering and dead in the water shortly after the first attack on June 4 knocked out her boilers.
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were going down to the hangar deck to get it for them. There were a lot of casualties on that level, too. I saw the assistant chaplain on his knees next to a row of about 15 body bags. I thought he was praying for those men, which he probably was, but then I saw his hands groping around inside the bags. He was searching for their dog tags, and he would not allow the corpsmen to pull the drawstring until he found them. There really was no other way to identify those poor guys. Their faces were just gone. The chaplain himself was already doing burials at sea, or I should say, he was trying to. He had five or six sailors to help him set up the board with the flag draped over it, but they weren’t doing very well. I saw one guy slip and fall down in the blood, another was passed out, and two of them were hanging over the rails vomiting. They were just teenagers, probably fresh out of boot camp when they joined us at Pearl Harbor.
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I felt sorry for them. They hadn’t even been to sea for a week, and now they’re in combat, picking up parts of bodies and putting them in bags and hosing the blood off the deck and tipping the board. There was no time for a proper funeral for anyone at Midway. Everyone knew there were at least one or two more Japanese aircraft carriers out there, and it was still early in the day. Their search planes had plenty of daylight to find the Yorktown and hit us again if they wanted to. I assumed they would. And I’m not going to lie and say I was any less afraid of the next attack than those guys that were fainting and puking on the hangar deck. But I guess I’d finally got to the point where I could let go of the fear and do my job. I don’t know why I never got sick to my stomach. It never affected me that way. It just made me more angry, made me want to fight harder. I dropped my load of lumber on the flight deck and went back for more. The ship’s carpenters worked up more of a sweat than I did. They had that hole patched in less than an hour. I was inside the radio shack when I heard the engines come back on line. A few minutes later, I felt the ship begin to move. The radio gang was cheering. We cheered some more when the radios stopped shorting out, but I still couldn’t get anything but static from Brazier’s torpedo squadron. The other radiomen were worried, too. We were all friends with the gunners, and they were long overdue. I didn’t want to discuss what could have happened to the torpedo planes. I just wanted to keep listening to that frequency, and that’s what I was doing when we got the next radar warning: Another large group of planes was approaching the Yorktown. We couldn’t tell how many or what kind; we just knew they were Japanese. I didn’t think it was a social call. I was halfway up the ladder to my battle station when the klaxon went off for the second time that day. U.S. Navy Historical Foundation
Crewmen work to repair the 12-foot hole caused by a 250 kilogram bomb that hit the flight deck. The explosion killed and wounded many men, but the flight deck was quickly repaired with timbers and steel plating, and flight-deck activities resumed.
The ship was still not up to full speed, but it must have been something close to 20 knots because I saw fighter planes taking off from the flight deck. Captain Buckmaster was already talking to the pilots in the air when I got to the bridge. He always told them, “Protect the fleet,” but this time he also said. “Don’t start chasing tails.” I’m sure they knew what he meant. Everybody knew the Japanese fighter planes were faster than ours. It was useless to try to get behind a Zero. As my friend Brazier explained it to me, our pilots were just beginning to learn some new maneuver where they flew in pairs. The object was to let the Zero get behind you, and then lead him in front of your wingman’s guns. It was just funny to hear the captain put it that way. “Chasing tails” was something we did on liberty. It’s what sailors called it when we were trying to get the attention of the girls ahead of us on sidewalks and beaches in Honolulu. In any other situation I would have laughed. But not at Midway. Those fighter pilots were the Yorktown’s first line of defense, and they were willing to die to protect her. I don’t know how many enemy planes our fighters shot down. I’m sure they did their best, and so did the cruisers and destroyers around the Yorktown; I could hear their antiaircraft guns going off in the distance. But I still didn’t know what kind of planes were attacking us until the XO hollered, “Torpedoes!” I did not see the wakes––the captain was blocking my view––but I knew what was coming. I braced myself. I did not fall down when the ship swerved out of the way. Captain Buckmaster was so good at that, I’m sure he would have avoided them all if the engines had been at full speed. But then I saw the plane approaching low from the port side. It was only 700 or 800 yards away when it dropped the torpedo. I heard the captain call out another turning order, but the Yorktown wasn’t fast enough. There was nothing anybody could do but stare at the wake of that torpedo and wait for the hit. I wanted the captain to take shelter inside the radio room with me, but he did WWII QUARTERLY
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not. He was just holding on to the door when the torpedo exploded. It felt like some giant hand reached down and grabbed the Yorktown like it was a toy, lifted us out of the water and shook us for a few seconds before it let go. There was another big jolt after that, and then the lights went out, and the engines stopped again. It was worse than before, because this time the ship was listing––turning over on its side––and if it didn’t stop, we were going to be upside down in the water. For a couple of minutes, I thought I knew what it must have been like for all those sailors on the Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. The Yorktown was sitting at about a 20degree angle when the captain gave the order to abandon ship. I still didn’t know the procedure, but, one way or the other, I knew I had to get off. Right now. I already had my life jacket on. I wore it like a vest all the time––never rook it off except when I was in bed. I just had to make sure the fasteners were good and tight, which gave me all the time I needed to remember the stories that went around after the Lexington sank in the Coral Sea. As far as I know, most of those guys got off okay, but there were all kinds of whatifs. Like, what if the enemy pilots had come back and strafed them while they were bobbing in the water close to the ship. And sharks. But the one that really got to me was the meaning of the term “displacement.” As I understood it, anything that floats displaces a certain amount of water, which is like saying it makes a hole in the ocean. Whenever a ship sinks, the ocean comes rushing in to fill that hole, and it creates a whirlpool––the same as water going down the drain in a bathtub. The bigger the ship, the bigger the hole, the bigger the whirlpool. Well, they didn’t come much bigger than the Yorktown. I was trying to calculate the physics in my head. I didn’t know if I could swim fast enough to escape getting sucked into the whirlpool when the ship went down. I followed the quartermasters down the ladder from the bridge. Siwash was not 74
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ABOVE: The stricken Yorktown lists heavily as the carrier’s “island” burns following the second attack of the day. OPPOSITE: As Yorktown’s list increases, sailors and air crewmen prepare to abandon ship. Ray Daves was one of those who jumped off the fantail and was later rescued.
with them. I ran back up to see if he was still in the chart room. He was not. I didn’t see him on the flight deck, either. That’s where everybody was gathering, waiting in lines for a turn to climb down the ropes they had thrown over the side. There was some confusion, but no great pandemonium. I even heard a few guys joking about what a nice day it was to go for a swim, but it was that false, nervous kind of laughter, so I know I wasn’t the only one that was scared. I saw several sailors refuse to wait their turn. They stepped out of the rope lines and ran up to the edge of the flight deck and jumped. Well, the ship was tilting closer to the water on the port side, but it was still a good 30-foot drop. I wasn’t about to do that. But there were at least 200 guys ahead of me in every line. I didn’t know if we had that much time. I was trying to think of a faster way to get off the ship myself when I saw a couple of radiomen going down the ladder to the hangar deck. They called out to me; I ran and joined them. There were ropes thrown over the side of the hangar deck level, too, and hundreds of guys in the lines for those. We ran past them, and we didn’t stop until we got to the fantail. I don’t know why nobody else had thought of jumping off the ship from there. It was only about 12 feet above the water at that time. Maybe they thought the screws––the ship’s propellers––were still turning. I knew they weren’t. It was perfectly safe to jump off the fantail as long as the ship was dead in the water, which it most definitely was, but I didn’t want to leave without Siwash. I was about to go back and look for him in the rope lines when somebody said he was probably with the admiral. That made sense to me. The admiral left us right after the first attack, and I hadn’t seen my friend since I volunteered for the work party on the flight deck. I wouldn’t be surprised if the admiral did take Siwash with him when he got off the Yorktown. I was just sorry I never got to say goodbye. So I stayed where I was, along with about 50 other sailors. There was an officer on the fantail, dividing us into groups of about 15. When the first group stepped up to the edge, I heard him shout: “Stay together! Swim as far away from the ship as you can!” I don’t know what time that was. It must have been midafternoon, because when it was my group’s turn, I looked down at the ocean and saw rainbows. The sun was shining on the water, making rainbows on the oil leaking from the stern. The men on either side of me were jumping, and the officer was yelling at me, “Go! Go now!” I could feel
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the next group of guys crowding behind me, pressing against my back. It was too late to change my mind. I took a deep breath and jumped into the rainbows. I swam until I was out of breath, and then I turned over on my back and paddled some more that way. When I took my first look back at the Yorktown, I was nearly a hundred yards away. I thought the ship was lower in the water than before, and I was sure it would sink in the next few minutes. I was not at all sure that I was far enough away to escape the whirlpool, but I was too tired to swim another stroke. There were dozens of men floating in the water around me. I don’t think any of us believed we were going to live another day until we saw the destroyers approaching. The destroyers’ lifeboats were not rubber rafts with oars or paddles, like on the planes. These were regular metal boats with motors, more like the liberty boats at Pearl Harbor, only not as big. It looked like they were picking up maybe 15 men at a time. Well, there were more than a thousand of us in the water by then, so I knew it might be hours National Archives before they got around to me. I heard a few guys holler “Taxi!” at the lifeboats; some whistled and waved. I was saving my breath in case I had to make another mad dash. I just floated on my back and watched the sky for enemy planes and tried not to think about sharks. The water wasn’t all that cold; the wind just made it seem so. In about 30 minutes, I was numb all over. I couldn’t even talk when the lifeboat finally came. There were 12 or 13 of us in that lifeboat when it pulled alongside one of the destroyers. We had to climb a Jacob’s ladder to get aboard. I’d never done that before either. It was like crawling up the side of a big ship on a spiderweb made out of ropes. I was not very graceful at it. The destroyer crew was lined up on the main deck, cheering for me, telling me where to put my feet so I wouldn’t fall off. I was still a couple of ropes away from the top railing when somebody reached down, grabbed me by the armpits, and yanked me the rest of the way. I landed in a wet heap; somebody threw a blanket around me. After that, it was all hot coffee and “Welcome to the Hughes.” I believe every man on that ship came by to shake my hand or pat me on the back. In less than an hour, they had me warmed up and showered and walking around in somebody else’s clothes. I don’t know what they did with mine. Probably threw them away. They were covered with oil. The other ships must have rescued hundreds from the Yorktown that day, but there were only about 25 of us on the Hughes. Maybe that’s why we got so much special attention from the crew. The cooks gave us extra-big helpings of meat and potatoes and gravy; we had all the ice cream we could stand. Even the officers stepped aside for us on the ladders, like we were some kind of heroes. I didn’t think that was right. I knew I was not a hero. I was just a survivor.
EPILOGUE: After being rescued at sea by the destroyer Hughes on June 4, Daves and the other survivors watched in helpless horror two days later as a lone Japanese submarine evaded the destroyer screen and fired four torpedoes at the dead-in-the-water Yorktown and a destroyer, the Hammann. The Hammann was sunk immediately and the carrier went under the next day. Daves and the remaining crew returned to Pearl Harbor, where new assignments in the long war awaited them. After surviving the war and moving to
Spokane, Washington, Ray Daves married his girlfriend, Adeline Bentz. He became an air traffic controller in 1946––a job he held until retiring in 1974. Ray and Adeline had two daughters, Rayma and Janet (who provided them with five grandchildren and five greatgrandchildren). Ray passed away on June 3, 2011––two days after his 91st birthday. (Following publication of the book Radioman, an Act of Congress, signed by President Obama in 2010, named the air traffic control tower at Spokane International Airport for Ray Daves.) n WWII QUARTERLY
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American troops first crossed the Rhine over this bridge at Remagen, March 7-8, 1945. Jack Hochwald, a German-born Jewish soldier in the U.S. Army, recalled the crossing under fire as being especially harrowing. RIGHT: Siegmund Spiegel, 1st Infantry Division, photographed in North Africa, came to the U.S. in 1938; his parents were deported from Germany to Poland and never heard from again.
Yellow Star Swastika VS. BY ST E VE N K AR R AS
Prologue: Once they escaped from Nazi-dominated Europe, hundreds of German and Austrian Jews joined the American and British military to help bring an end to the Nazis’ reign of terror. Each had faced the shock of the Holocaust, knowing full well that, had they not left in time, they likely would have ended up in concentration or extermination camps. It was also with considerable courage 76
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that they returned to fight the Nazis, for they knew they faced great danger if they were to be captured. By 1940, approximately 280,000 Jews had left Germany and another 117,000 had left Austria. Of the 95,000 German and Austrian Jews who had immigrated to the United States, it is estimated that 9,500 served in the U.S. armed forces, many in combat units. Nearly 13,000 Jewish refugees—men and women—served in the British armed forces. These refugees had a firsthand knowledge of the enemy, a nuanced understanding of the psyche of the German people, detailed knowledge of the country, and, of course, skills as native speakers of German. The Allies used the refugees’ skills and knowledge to gather military intelligence, and many were entrusted with important roles in the occupation of Germany and Austria.
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SIEGMUND SPIEGEL 1st Infantry Division, SHAEF Headquarters, Gera, Germany “Early in August 1944 the breakout of Normandy occurred. After the fall of St. Lô, a city that, for all intents and purposes, was totally destroyed, the lines became fluid. It was then when, on August 7, 1944, having learned that German Army headquarters near Mayenne had been overrun, our team was to proceed to the Third Army G-2 (Intelligence) Section. By the time we reached there, the front line had again changed, and instead, we were to head toward Falaise. “We made our way down into a valley on a one-lane farm road when the ‘burp’ noises of German sub-machine guns became nearer and nearer. It was there I told to my captain, Curts, my observation that the valley was ‘too still.’ Even with the noises from small-arms fire, it gave this whole scene a feeling of eeriness. I even recall using the German word unheimlich then. “Just then all hell broke loose. Maybe seconds, maybe minutes, had elapsed when I found myself raising my head and looking around. Our jeep stood mangled across the road with me 20 yards distant from it. Captain Curts was lying on the road, his
AFTER ESCAPING FROM GERMANY AND AUSTRIA, A NUMBER OF JEWS JOINED THE ALLIED ARMIES TO TAKE BACK THEIR FORMER HOMELANDS FROM THE NAZIS.
Their prominent and fitting roles in frontline prisoner interrogation units questioning the very Nazis who had once persecuted them were essential to the Allied victory. The extraordinary, if not unprecedented, turn of events and circumstances that led to the impressive number of Allied refugee soldiers during that period was best summed up by historian Arnold Pauker, a former German refugee and soldier in the British Army: “It is terrible to have to say this but in one respect we German Jews were quite lucky that Hitler came for us first. This meant that the majority was able to flee or immigrate in time, and among this number the younger generation was heavily represented. When the war broke out, there were many of military age, who had been waiting for an opportunity to fight against Nazi Germany.” Here is their story, in their own words. Courtesy Siegmund Spiegel
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legs inside his combat boots swelling, seeming to burst the leather. The corporal, Trombley, was crouching in a ditch and bleeding profusely from his right hand where shrapnel had penetrated it. “At first impulse I thought we had a direct hit from an artillery shell. I crouched over the captain, trying to administer first aid to whatever extent possible, while Trombley was tying a tourniquet around his arm. I knew then that we had hit a Teller Mine [13 pounds of explosives]. I turned quickly, even certain of hearing German voices near me, and made my way back. “I was sent to the field hospital where I was admitted with multiple contusions and injuries to my left knee and ribs, blast burns, and shock. The captain’s legs were both shattered. There I was on a cot in a tent when the German counterattack was underway (capturing one of our field hospitals). Convoys of ambulances brought heavily wounded GIs in, and they remained on their stretchers set on the barren floor. When I saw this happening, I called the hospital administration officer and asked to be discharged, since my condition was not anywhere as serious as the men who didn’t have a cot. “That morning, an orderly came with a batch of Stars and Stripes that had just arrived from England. In it I saw a brief item that got me very excited: the Russian Army had liberated Lwów, a city in Poland where I knew my parents had last lived. Of course, I was not aware then of what had happened in the interim to Jews, including my poor parents. “Just then a Red Cross girl entered our tent asking us whether we needed writing paper, razor blades, or whatever else she had on hand to distribute. I asked her, ‘You are with the American Red Cross, right? You have contact with the International Red Cross?’ When she nodded her response, I showed her the article in the paper, gave her my parents’ names and last known address in Lwów, and asked her to immediately initiate steps to locate them through the International Red Cross. “She looked at me as if I were shell 78
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ABOVE: Civilians barter openly with Soviet soldiers in the summer of 1945 in hopes of obtaining food, cigarettes, alcohol, and other scarce commodities. As Henry Kissinger notes, with German society having broken down completely, an illegal post-war black market thrived. BELOW: Henry Kissinger (right) with fellow GIs and happy German children. Kissinger, born in Fürth, Germany, later became U.S. Secretary of State.
shocked, not having expected that a wounded soldier would worry about something happening on a front far removed from current combat in Western Europe. I assured her that I had all my senses and got her assurance that I would hear from the Red Cross. Sixty-nine years later and I am still waiting.” Courtesy Henry Kissinger
HENRY KISSINGER 335th Infantry Regiment, 84th Infantry Division, Division Headquarters, G-2, Fürth, Germany “I went overseas with the 84th Infantry Division, first to England and then to France, where we landed at Omaha Beach in early September, after the breakout of Normandy. We then went to the front on the border of Germany and Belgium in November, and our regiment was assigned to the 30th Infantry Division for combat experience. “Combat is usually an ordinary experience of extreme boredom, followed by moments of intense danger, but the period of intense danger is very short. I initially came to the front as a rifleman. Then one day, while I was on latrine duty, an encounter happened that changed things. The man in charge of latrine duty had to keep the situation map––which was in the dayroom––of where the front was. “Our general came by for inspection and said, ‘Soldier, come over here and explain this map to me.’ I translated it and he said, ‘What are you doing in a rifle company?’ I
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must have said, ‘I don’t know. I was assigned here.’ So, while we were still on the front lines, he gave an order to pull me back to his headquarters, but this wasn’t executed for a while, so I remained at the front. “After we had left the 30th Division, I reported to division headquarters for the G-2 Section, which was Intelligence. My job was to capture documents and help interrogate prisoners, though my primary task was to look after security, catch spies, and prevent our documents from falling into enemy hands. “Once I was more or less assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), I was then sent down from division headquarters to regimental headquarters, which was even closer to the front, and I worked on counterintelligence there. “After that combat phase was over, I was assigned to regional Germany, a county in the American zone of occupation near Frankfurt with a population of about two thousand. My job was to maintain the security of that area and arrest all Nazis above a certain level. I had the right to arrest anybody I wanted for security reasons, which was a strange reversal of roles. Of course, no German ever claimed to have been a Nazi. “Everything had broken down in Germany; there was no postal service, there was no telephone, there was no communication—a total catastrophe. We in the military had our own telephones to other military posts, but no one could call a German on the telephone. There was a food shortage and a terrible black market. It’s hard to imagine today how a society could break down that completely. At that time, if anyone had shown me a picture of what German cities look like today, I would have said, ‘You’re insane. It would take 30 years just to clear away the rubble.’ “At some level, being back in Germany as a conquering soldier gave me some degree of satisfaction when I saw the people who had been so swaggering now on the other side. But on the whole, I felt that I had a job to do, which, incidentally, I found very interesting. I had always been interested in foreign policy, but I tried to keep my own personal experiences as much out of it as I could. “After the surrender, the first thing I did was look for members of my family to see National Archives
Once his unit reached Dachau, Jack Hochwald was shocked by the sight of thousands of dead bodies found in train cars abandoned outside the concentration camp. The train had come from Buchenwald and was part of an effort to keep inmates from being liberated.
whether any of them had survived, but they hadn’t. I went back to my hometown, the place where my grandparents had lived, and that was somewhat of an emotional experience. Having lost many members of my family to the Nazis, I had considerable animosity toward them, but even with this, arresting people and seeing crying wives and children, was no fun. At least it wasn’t fun for me. It gave me some abstract sense of satisfaction but no personal satisfaction. “For us German refugees, going to war was something that we felt needed to be done, but that we might not particularly enjoy once it happened. For me, however, I now think that it was the most important experience of my life.” [Henry Kissinger became Secretary of State in the Richard Nixon administration and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Vietnam War.]
JACK HOCHWALD 6860 HQ Detachment Assault Force, Seventh U.S. Army, Vienna, Austria “In the second week of March, all of our teams crossed the Rhine—thanks to the courage of an entire infantry company—at a place called Remagen, with one of the last remaining bridges still intact. Also, under heavy fire, Army engineers had constructed pontoon bridges in several other places on the Rhine, which would make for a swift advance into Germany. “In the second week of March, we were on the way to our first major intelligence target inside Germany. This was the I.G. Farben complex in the twin cities of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. We would find out that the Farben factory had been deeply involved in Germany’s war effort and had also participated in the manufacture of Zyklon B gas used in concentration camps, but supposedly had not been aware of the great extent and usage in gas chambers operated by the Nazis. When we stormed into the administration building, we surprised the directors, who were having a board meeting. “We became overwhelmed with targets— anything of intelligence-related business— WWII QUARTERLY
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but we were moving so fast and being attached to units advancing quickly, this made it difficult to stay in one place for more than a day. We found ourselves with the 45th Division, which was closing in on Munich. Along with the 42nd Division, the 45th was on its way in and entered the Dachau concentration camp. As it happens, I was fortunate to be assigned to a Lieutenant Salzman, another refugee, who suggested we go to the camp and offer our help. “By the late afternoon, we saw the barbed-wire fences and watchtowers, stopping at the main gate with its slogan above that said, ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work will make you free). An officer came toward us as we were trying to get in, saying that there was a real danger of a typhus epidemic and most Army personnel were prohibited from coming in. So, we decided to ride along the fence for a while, where we now saw inmates in striped clothing standing around and waving to us. “Upon seeing them, we left our jeep and walked toward a group of men huddled around a fire. We tried to speak to the group we had come upon; we had difficulty since they were Serbs and Croats. It wasn’t very long before several other inmates joined in and, speaking in German and Yiddish, we were able to communicate. “One of them, wearing the Star of David, asked us when the rabbis were coming, since he wanted to say Kaddish [Hebrew prayer for the dead]. From him, we learned that the day before the first American troops had arrived, blasting their way in and mowing down with machine guns and rifles any of the German guards they encountered. “He then pointed to several boxcars standing on a rail siding, a couple of hundred yards away, so we walked slowly over there. Soon the stench overcame us, but we managed to see in half-opened boxcars the remains of bodies, reduced to skeletons and bones. We were told that these were only part of a shipment of new arrivals from another camp [Buchenwald] who had not survived the trip due to disease and starvation. “As we were leaving, one of the Jewish 80
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inmates came over to us and, in a low voice, asked us who the Asiatic and Mexican looking soldiers were, whom he encountered the day before. We told him that all of them were good Americans and that among us, too, were former Nazi refugees who only a few years ago had escaped Germany. “He looked dumbfounded but then understood who we were; he confided in us that he and a few others from his barrack had taken revenge on some of the kapos [block wardens and inmates acting as overseers], especially those who had been cruel. We assured him that he and his fellow prisoners did the right thing, and we would have done the same had we gotten there earlier. “When the war ended, we again joined the main body of the Seventh Army in Heidelberg. With pressure from the American public and the press, General Eisenhower ordered an operation called Tally-Ho—the code name for surprise raids of supposed hideouts, where we found SS men hiding in attics and barns in Bavaria. “It may be of interest to note that most of those interviewed and asked where they were on November 9, 1938, on Kristallnacht, when many Jewish homes and shops were looted, synagogues burned, and thousands of Jews arrested and sent to concentration camps, all of them invariably replied that they had been ‘zu haus,’ which meant ‘at home.’ What bullshit.”
HAROLD BAUM 97th Infantry Division, Berlin, Germany “I saw my first real action near Düsseldorf and participated in the Ruhr Pocket campaign in April 1945.” The 97th crossed the Rhine near Bonn. “Our first action was in Nois, where my company was selected to send a patrol with assault boats over to Düsseldorf. There were six GIs to a boat, and we were in a permanent state of diarrhea and fright during the entire attack. I kept my head low, trying to reconnoiter the area while under fire, and I made it back. “We were coming from the west bank of the Rhine, and Germans were on the east National Archives
Baum’s unit fought against fanatical Germans as young as 14 and 15 during combat in the Ruhr Pocket. One of the last photos taken of the German dictator, the Führer rewards members of the Hitler Youth for their courageous stand in the defense of Berlin, March 1945.
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Courtesy Manfred Steinfeld
bank viciously firing at us. That, of course, was followed by a frenzied attempt to identify from where the shells were coming and direct mortar fire in that direction. The most frightening thing during combat, in which I spent 60 consecutive days, was the uncertainty of where they were shelling us from. “Fortunately, in our company we had a light machine gun section, a heavy machine gun section, and a mortar section. These people did a marvelous job once we identified a target. Once, we overran a flak position of German 88s; our scout spotted them at dawn and called in mortar rounds on their position. They were slaughtered. The 88s were terrifying weapons because they were used point-blank on us instead of on airplanes. Seeing a kid next to you fall, wounded or killed, was a terrifying experience. I cannot begin to explain the rage I had when seeing German soldiers come out with white flags after an ambush. Needless to say, there were times when we did not take prisoners. “We encountered fanatical German resistance in the Ruhr Pocket, primarily from the young boys who were 14 and 15 years old and willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. At times we saw people dangling from trees, strung up by the SS, with signs around their necks reading, “Ich bin ein feigling” [I am a coward]. That only intensified things for me. “I had a unique experience in Solingen where a German lady came to our command post and told us that a German general was hiding out. The captain said, ‘Lieutenant Winsam, Sergeant Miller, Baum, go and get him.’ We surrounded the house. There was this middle-aged man, and I started questioning him. In an almost defiant, arrogant manner, without getting up, he said, “Ich bin Gustav-Adolf von Zangen.” “Without undue delay I told him, ‘Hände hoch’ [hands up], pointed my rifle at the son of a bitch, and he turned ashen white. Then I told him, ‘Ich bin ein Deutcher Jude’ [I’m a German Jew], and this man was in an absolute state of terror. He could not believe that one little yid should get him out of five million GIs. A rifle pointed at an arrogant
Courtesy Harold Baum
ABOVE: Manfred Steinfeld (right) shakes hands with a female Soviet soldier as East and West meet at the Elbe River, May 2, 1945. RIGHT: Berlin-born Harold Baum came to the U.S. via Portugal in 1940, served with the 97th Infantry Division.
officer becomes a powerful persuader. It was a good feeling. “Gustav Adolph Von Zangen was a lieutenant general, commander of the Fifteenth Army Group. His last command was in the Ruhr Pocket. I escorted him with the lieutenant to division headquarters where he surrendered in a customary procedure, like a soldier, which nauseated me—to me he was a Nazi, not a soldier. General [Milton B.] Halsey, commander of the 97th Division, interrogated him while I was the interpreter. “After we occupied Solingen, there were Russian forced laborers who, after being liberated, went after the Germans, and the Germans wanted protection from the Russians. As you can imagine, we refused and justice was swift. “After completion of the Ruhr campaign, we were sent to southern Germany and started moving in the direction of Czechoslovakia. On the western border of Czechoslovakia and Germany, we encountered a concentration camp called Flossenbürg and liberated one of the smaller camps of that facility. We saw scores of dying, starving prisoners. It was terrible, and the stench and odor of death I will never forget. “There were also well-fed prisoners who had on the same inmate uniforms. I unsuccessfully tried to communicate with them in German; one kid in my company spoke Russian and Polish to them and they did not understand that, either. We could not figure it out. “My captain decided to strip them down and discovered that they had their blood type tattooed under their arm, which was customary practice among SS troops. They went into the mass graves and helped to dispose of all the corpses, but they did not last to face a war criminal trial. The justification for their demise was that they switched uniforms, which under the Geneva Convention is a punishable offense. They remained in the pits with the corpses.” WWII QUARTERLY
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Courtesy Manfred Steinfeld
bury them in the nearby town square. I made the funeral arrangements and the American chaplain gave the eulogies. “The Germans, of course, felt that we were doing an injustice to them by accusing them of these crimes, even though they lived only three miles away. They swore they had no knowledge of the atrocities. ‘We didn’t know’ was the typical German excuse. “In June, when I was military governor of a town called Busenberg, a woman came up to me in a concentration camp-striped dress. She informed me that a man walking across the street was a criminal, and we arrested and interrogated him. It turned out that his name was Ludwig Ramdohr and he was the assistant commander of the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, where this woman was an inmate. “We took him out for target practice and threatened him with our pistols before turning him over to the British military tribunal on June 10. He had a military trial and was hanged by the British three years later.”
ERIC BOEHM
Born in Josbach, Germany, Manfred Steinfeld joined the 82nd Airborne Division and participated in the liberation of his former homeland.
MANFRED STEINFELD 82nd Airborne Division, Headquarters Company, Josbach, Germany “After the German counteroffensive stopped, we were sent back to base camp in France. In the middle of March, we were assigned to the newly formed U.S. Ninth Army, then holding the west bank of the Rhine in the vicinity of Cologne. We were there until the middle of April, when the 82nd Airborne established the last bridgehead along the Elbe River. “On May 2, 1945, I was on the reconnaissance patrol that contacted the Russians. At the same time, I was involved in translating the unconditional surrender document; the 82nd Airborne Division accepted the surrender of about 400,000 Germans facing our sector on May 3, 1945. “We also came across the Wöbbelin labor camp, a sub-camp of a larger Neuengamme concentration camp system. I was certainly emotionally distraught in the camp, because there was always the possibility of seeing my mother and sister among the dead or halfdead. That was one fear I had. When we found the bodies in the camp, we decided to 82
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Courtesy Eric Boehm
U.S. Army Air Force, Hof, Germany “Since there was a shortage of Germanspeaking officers, I was loaned to the Army side as the interpreting officer for the arrest of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. General Rooks, Eisenhower’s representative, called Field Marshal Keitel to the ship in which we were operating to tell him to pack and be ready to be flown away from Flensburg several hours later. “About 2 PM that afternoon, a Lt. Col. Boehm-Tettelbach and the aide de camp, or adjutant, on Keitel’s staff came to the gang plank of the ship and picked me up so that we could drive to OKL headquarters––the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe [High Command of the Air Force]. We talked very briefly about the coincidence in name; I ABOVE: U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Eric Boehm, originally found out subsequently from my father that from Hof, Germany, was "loaned" to the Army to act as an interpreter following the capture of Field Marshal the family is from Upper Franconia, the Wilhelm Keitel. RIGHT: Lieutenant Boehm interpreted area of Bavaria where I was born. I was during the interrogation of Field Marshal Keitel. Here rather disinclined to make small talk in any Keitel signs the ratified terms of surrender in Berlin, case, because I had some strong feelings, May 8, 1945. particularly about Field Marshal Keitel. “He was known as the lackey of Hitler, but I did not know at the time that he was being arrested in anticipation of being held for the Nuremberg Trials, where he would be sentenced to be hanged—deserving this fate—because he was one of the most evil types serving Hitler. “Keitel was allowed a fairly large number of accompanying generals to see him off at the airport, and our General Rooks had provided four staff cars. I was surprised at the amount of baggage that Keitel took with him––a weapons carrier full of at least half a dozen suitcases, some of them quite large in size. I remember one box that approached the size of a steamer trunk. “When we arrived at the airport, it turned out that the plane, which was to take Keitel to his destination, had landed and then took off to do some sightseeing of Copenhagen from the air; it was uncertain when it would be back. “Since it was an unusually warm day, I arranged that the whole group be taken to one
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of the barracks. Keitel was visibly taken aback by the fact that he had to wait. Since he lacked good understanding as to his new position, he was stupid enough to say to me something to the effect that he had to rush to pack and now he had to wait. I ignored him and certainly did not apologize, but wished in retrospect that I had said something to him to the effect that we had been waiting six years for him, so he could certainly wait a few hours for us. “Eventually, the American C-47 crew came back and they were ready to transfer Keitel. He was wisely removed to take away the top authority from the OKW. He became a prisoner of war and was placed in one of the holding fortresses, which we honored by such names as ‘the Dustbin.’ I again saw Keitel at the Nuremberg Trials when I was in the audience. Keitel, whom I would estimate to have been 6 foot 4 inches, and weighing 250 pounds, looked visibly diminished both in size and importance in the court of war criminals.”
JOHN BRUNSWICK XV Corps, Third Army, Bocholt, Germany “Due to heavy German resistance that slowed our advance, we stayed for about two weeks in a little town in France named Gerbéviller, but we were kept very busy at times with the German prisoners brought to our HQ for interrogation. Then one day something strange happened. I sat on one side of a table together with one of our men and a prisoner was brought into the room. “Before interrogating him, he had to empty his pockets and show his German Army papers, which gave his name and serial number. This man was Martin Look, who said he was born in Bocholt. I had gone to school with Martin Look for four years, from age six to 10, and had even been in his parents’ house. “Now I met him again, about 25 years later, and didn’t recognize him. I doubted that he recognized me, and he was certainly not in a position to ask an American officer any questions, but for half a minute I was tempted to ask him if he still had the wood-burning stove in his family’s kitchen. “Then I decided that not only did I not know whether or not he’d been a Nazi Party
member, but that I also did not want any gossip among other POWs, so I sent him on his way, just like everyone else. I later found out from my old neighbors in Bocholt that Martin Look had told somebody that ‘Hans Braunschweig was the American officer who interrogated me.’ I still regret not having revealed myself during the interrogation. “Another interrogation that I remember vividly took place under more quiet conditions sometime earlier in the fall of 1944. The man I interrogated seemed intelligent and reliable. He was with what might be best translated as a punishment company. After he gave me all the information I wanted, like armaments, officers, and opposing regiments, I asked him why he was in a punishment outfit. “He said, ‘I was on the Eastern Front near Riga, Latvia, where the SS rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women, and children. They made the Jews dig ditches, undress, and stand so that, when they were shot, they would fall into the ditches. This went on every day. There were so many that the SS needed help and requested regular army troops to help kill the Jews. I refused and that is why I’m in the punishment battalion.’ “While I had heard rumors of concentration camps, being cut off from all current news, mass murders surpassed anything I had imagined. I forwarded my interrogation report immediately to the division and also directly to Corps Headquarters, where I hoped it would be going up to higher headquarters. I have a copy of this interrogation still in my files because I was so shocked, even though this was against all Army orders. “We captured Julius Streicher. He had been a particularly sadistic anti-Semite. His newspaper Der Stürmer showed the most vicious caricatures of Jews, said the most outrageous lies about Jews, and incited the people to violence against them. The paper was read all over Germany and Austria. The man himself used to strut around with a horse whip in his hand. At any rate, he was jailed and I interrogated him in his cell before he was shipped back for more WWII QUARTERLY
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detailed questioning over many days. “I was amazed to hear that he was actually a friend of the Jews and, like the Zionists, just wanted them to go to Palestine. I questioned, listened to his answers in amazement, and took notes. He sounded so ridiculous and pathetic that I could not even hate him. He was sentenced to death as a war criminal during the Nuremberg Trials and eventually hanged. “I received orders to report early on May 5 to headquarters of the XV Corps, right outside Munich. Subsequently, I found out that I had been selected to be the official interpreter at the surrender of all the southern German armies. The German General Friedrich Foertsch was the chief of staff of General Albert Kesselring, who was the commander of all German armies that had been in Italy, Austria, and southern Germany. There were six American generals, including General Jake Devers, who was the commander of the two American armies in the southern part of France and Germany. Then there was also one lowly 1st Lt. Brunswick. “There were long negotiations with the Germans—the officers wanted to stay in charge of the troops, they wanted to keep their side arms, and so on—all to no avail. Finally, this Jewish refugee who, eight years earlier had to leave his homeland, asked this high-ranking German general: ‘Do you understand that this means unconditional surrender?’ To this, with utmost reluctance, the general eventually spat out, ‘Yes, I understand.’ In any case, it was a moment in my life that I will relish as long as I live.”
Marburg on the River Lahn. I also went to Battenberg, my mother’s birthplace, and Gilserberg, where my parents lived before moving to Frankfurt. “In Gilserberg, I met some of my earlier acquaintances who went to school with me before 1933 and it was interesting because quite a few people welcomed me. My grandfather’s name was Gutkind—they used to call me Gutkind’s Hans. “It was clear that they were astounded that I was an American soldier and back there. Some woman said, ‘You never looked like a Jew. You were always so nice.’ All of the others were stoic. They thought we were going to take all of their property back. Courtesy John Brunswick
ABOVE: 1st Lt. John Brunswick (formerly Hans Braunschweig of Bochum, Germany), XV Corps, Third U.S. Army, translates as General Friedrich Foertsch, chief of staff for General Albert Kesselring, commander of all German armies in Italy, Austria, and southern Germany, signs surrender documents. BELOW: Police stand guard in front of a Jewishowned store destroyed during Kristallnacht violence, November 1938. The Nazis assaults against the Jews were a primary factor in Karl Goldsmith's decision to leave Germany.
JOHN STERN 397th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry Division, Gilserberg, Germany “The 397th Infantry became part of the army of occupation in the Stuttgart and surrounding area for several months. We had been on the line 192 days, with small breaks in between. “While in the Stuttgart area, I was able to requisition a jeep, and a Polish lieutenant from the labor supervision company [a Polish company] went with me for protection while I visited my birthplace, 84
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Courtesy Manfred Gans
“I looked for family in Marburg. Nobody wanted to tell me anything. We know an uncle, aunt, cousin, and a baby cousin were transported to Theresienstadt and ultimately perished there. During the Holocaust, the Stern family lost 26 close and distant relatives. This, in itself, dampened my spirit at homecoming. “The captain and lieutenant of our unit had arranged that I act as an interpreter when questioning of German officials, such as mayors of towns, police chiefs, and German military people, took place. I interpreted for several months. “Whenever the burgermeisters [mayors] were pulled into the headquarters and asked a lot of questions, I was involved. In most places, the Germans had innumerable requests for cigarettes and cigars, but I wouldn’t give them any.” Courtesy Karl Goldsmith
KARL GOLDSMITH 142nd IPW Team, U.S. Army, Eschweige, Germany “When the war finished, I immediately put in a request to be involved with the de-Nazification of my hometown. I wanted to do that so badly. They kicked the shit out of me so much as a kid. “I had earned some brownie points with a whole bunch of big-shot officers because I had done them favors in my team’s capacity as interpreters and interrogators. I got the transfer, and as far as I know, I was the only one of the interrogators who ever succeeded doing that. “The first thing I was concerned about was getting the damned Nazi teachers out of the schools. I worked bitterly hard to get things straightened out. “This was my town, Eschweige—the gardens, woods, trails, hills, friends, enemies, Bar Mitzvahs, parties, frightful beatings, Nazi torch parades, Kristallnacht, and the end of the town’s Jewish Staff Sgt. Karl Goldsmith, 142nd IPW (Interrogation of Prisoners of War) Team, was born Karl Goldschmidt in population in 1942 after more than 600 Eschweige, Germany, and came to the U.S. in 1938. years of settlement. “As the military governor, I really think I was a pragmatist. I believed in law and order, and I was a presence in that town. Yes, I found the Nazi perpetrators and they wound up in jail. Aside from that, we cleaned the town up. Everyone knew me, and naturally people came and asked me for this and that—and I did nothing. I wasn’t going to treat this one better than that one. Old acquaintances would come to me and say things like, ‘Oh, you remember Analee?’ Of course, I remembered Analee––she lived four houses away from us. ‘Well, she’s expecting a baby anytime and she is in a third floor walkup. Can you help us?’ “My answer was always: ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do anything about it.’ What was I supposed to do, inconvenience one miserable German for another miserable German? I was flabbergasted that these people had the temerity to face me and say these things to me, when they knew what they themselves had done to me and my family. Forget about all the other people who got burnt up in concentration camps. “One of the old neighbors called me Der Ungerkronte König, the ‘uncrowned king.’ I lived well and had a great social life. I doubt if my father would have approved, but I
Manfred Gans, who served with a British commando unit, searched for his parents who had been imprisoned for years in concentration camps.
did not compromise or bring dishonor on my adopted country or family. “About two years later, after I’d come back to America, my mother had gone to Eschwege to take care of our properties there. When she came back, she said, ‘Karl, you can never go back to Eschwege; they’ll kill you.’”
MANFRED GANS 3 Troop, 10 Commando, British Army, Borken, Germany “I was absolutely set on seeing the war through and making sure that I was there to see Germany liberated from the Nazi government. Very often, I thought about what might have happened to my parents and occasionally I got very depressed. “In the fall of 1944, I heard from my uncle in New York that he had received word from a family friend in Switzerland who had heard that my parents were rumored to be alive in Theresienstadt concentration camp. Well, as far as I was concerned, the war was over on May 7, and I persuaded my unit to let me go, give me a jeep and a driver, and go find my parents. “Being in Germany, I tried to go through territory that was known to me. EssenWWII QUARTERLY
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tially, I tried to hit the eastward autobahn as soon as I could. I wasn’t really scared; I was more worried about the brakes on the jeep than about getting behind enemy lines. When my driver and I reached Aue, the town was undamaged and had not been looted. German police and thousands of German soldiers were on the street. Two and half German divisions had yet to surrender and were still intact. We passed a lot of positions that were still completely manned. There were roadblocks with perfectly good antitank guns guarding them, but no one went behind their guns or put their finger on their triggers. They actually let us through. Nobody had expected us. National Archives
The burning desire of many German-born Jewish soldiers like Gans who served with the Allies was to end Nazi rule and save Jews in the concentration camps. Jewish children at Theresienstadt, where Gans later found his parents, wait to be transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
“Soon I picked up a wounded German soldier and his girlfriend because I felt safer having people like them in the jeep. All of the Germans who I encountered broached the subject of whether they could surrender to me and I said, ‘No, you can’t. You are fighting the Russians and you’ll surrender to them.’ 86
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“A German woman said, ‘You know, the Russians will rape everybody, they’re so cruel. How can you do this to us?’ “In a snappy reply, I said, ‘This is what you people did in Russia and Poland, too. You were very cruel.’ “Their reaction to that was, ‘There are bad people among all nations.’ “I remember thinking, ‘What the hell am I saying here amongst the last two divisions of the German Army who have yet to officially surrender?’ Imagine me accusing them of being cruel to Eastern Europe! “When we got down from the mountains into Czech territory, we ran into the Russian Army. That was a great experience. They were so happy to see us! You would not believe their enthusiasm—they had seen American and British liberated prisoners, but they had never met an officer in a vehicle who had weapons before, and they were beside themselves with joy. Most of the MPs directing the traffic were women, and they all embraced us. In fact, they practically raped us. “When we reached the Russians, I still had another hundred miles to go, but we were making good time. The Russian Army was coming in the opposite direction, but there was no heavy traffic. We continued to make good time, driving about a hundred miles in two and a half hours. Toward evening, we managed to get to Theresienstadt. “The camp was behind heavy barbed wire, with Russian guards outside. I walked up to the Russian guards at the gate, and once again everybody was delighted to see us. After all of the handshaking, congratulating, slapping each other on the back, and saying how happy we were to meet each other, I told him what I wanted. The beam went up and we drove into the camp. There were a massive number of people in there, all terribly crowded; most were too weak to get out of the way. People were practically crawling through our legs. “I did not know where to start looking. Somebody drew my attention to the fact that there was a central register, so I made my way there. The camp, having just been in German hands, was of course very organized as far as lists and things like that went. “There was a girl there who spoke English, and I told her that I was looking for my parents, Moritz and Else Gans. There was an endless list. After a few moments, she looked up and said, ‘You’re lucky, they’re still here. They are alive.’ “I said to her, ‘Well, there’s no two ways about it. You’re going to show me, and you’re going to take me to them now.’ “She came with us on the jeep and took us to the house where my parents were registered to live. My parents were living on the second floor of a house in the Dutch section of the ghetto. I told the girl to go upstairs and tell them that their son was there, but to prepare them a little bit for it first. I just waited outside. “She went inside and told them, ‘I have a very joyous message for you.’ “My mother asked, ‘Are we getting some extra food?’ “The girl said, ‘No, your son is here.’ “I stood outside in the dark and, after maybe a minute, my parents came out. Of
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After the concentration camps, such as Buchenwald shown here, were liberated, many of the inmates were required to wait for several weeks before being sent to displaced-persons camps, where their final destinations were determined; many no longer had a home to which they could return.
course, they were in an unbelievable state. My father was so decimated, if I had met him on the street, I would not have recognized him.”
KURT KLEIN 5th Infantry Division, Walldorf, Germany “Once we reached the border of Germany and Czechoslovakia, I happened to have what I call my ‘rendezvous with destiny.’ We came across a group of what had been slave laborers, young Jewish women from Poland and Hungary. They had been abandoned by their SS guards in the town whose surrender we had taken just days before the end of the war. We had heard about them and knew we had to go there reinforced by our medical battalion and render some aid. “Once I walked into the factory where the SS had locked them up, I met a young woman who was standing at the entrance and who took me inside when I asked her. She left quite an impression on me. She was at the end of her strength and collapsed once. Our medics took them all to the field hospital that we found in town. Out of that encounter evolved a friendship with a person of rare caliber, which developed further and one year later we were married in Paris. “Now this makes me reflect on the fact that I had gone to Europe to fight the Nazis with hatred in my heart for all they had inflicted so gratuitously on Jews and the world. I had to witness the results of what they had done to my people. Also, I was 95 percent sure that my parents could not have survived the war. While all of that was true, for me personally it was the key to my own future.”
Most of the refugees who went back to fight against the Nazis and liberate the lands of their birth did so with courage and conviction, some even dying in the process. After the war, many built new and successful lives in America, becoming physicians, architects, chief executives of international corporations, small business owners, Wall Street scions, economists, attorneys, educators, inventors, entertainers, writers, public servants, and simply productive and hardworking citizens. Kurt Klein spoke for many of the others: “I felt proud that I could serve the United States in the capacity that I did. Nothing made me happier than being of some use to America after what it had given me, which was the idea that I could live in freedom. I live with the regret that my parents could not make it out, otherwise my happiness could have been complete.” This article is adapted from Steven Karras’s book, The Enemy I Knew (Zenith, 2009). 87
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With Japanese aircraft attacking their positions and Fort Mears at Dutch Harbor on the island of Unalaska, men of the Arkansas National Guard’s 206th Coast Artillery Regiment defend themselves, June 3, 1942. Painting by Dominic D’Andrea.
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To the Japanese, the Aleutian Islands looked like the perfect stepping stones to America’s West Coast. Neither side expected the difficulties these islands would represent.
ALASKA’S ALEUTIAN ISLAND chain consists of 69 measurable islands. Just as many more exist, too small to measure as an island. For Japan in World War II, they made the perfect island-hopping path toward America’s West Coast, and apparently that was Japan’s intent in capturing two of those islands in June 1942. They held residency on Attu and Kiska for 14 months. What stymied Japanese success in the Aleutian campaign were the sea battle of Midway, June 4-7, 1942, then the prolonged ordeal of Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942-February 9, 1943. These two battlefronts overshadowed occurrences along the boundary separating the North Pacific from the Bering Sea. Many believe Japan’s thrust into Alaska’s extended island chain was a diversion connected to Midway. A deeper analysis shows a more complicated desire to lay claim to that sea highway leading to America’s West Coast.
WHEN JAPAN
Invaded America BY STEPHEN D. LUTZ
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Purchased from the Russians by Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867, Alaska was long seen as a frozen, forbidding outpost with little value, military or otherwise. In the era before statehood in 1959, Alaska was officially a United States territory. The Aleutians are barren, volcanic rock islands nearly void of any vegetation or human population. From the southwest tip of Alaska, they stretch 1,200 miles west, arching toward Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. West to east, the islands of importance are Attu and Kiska. Closer to mainland Alaska are Amchitka, Adak, Umnak, and Unalaska, with its port of Dutch Harbor. America had been slow beefing up its farthest northern border defenses including Dutch Harbor. In 1923, Dutch Harbor was merely a 23-acre coal station catering to shipping from Russia and North America across the Bering Sea. By January 1941, it became a full-scale, functioning naval station. On May 8, 1941, the U.S. Army made Fort Mears home for its 7th Infantry
Division. The Navy-Marine populace numbered 640; the GIs added another 5,425. Dutch Harbor came to host a 5,000-foot runway, 200-bed hospital, water processing plant, an aerologic station for atmospheric reporting, and a set of 6,666-barrel fuel-oil tanks. The Navy’s air wing accounted for eight radar-equipped Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats. In due time the Army established an air base at Fort Randall at Dutch Harbor, starting with six medium bombers and 16 fighters. Newer strips would come later at Fort Glenn on Umnak, with one heavy bomber, six medium bombers, and 17 fighters. As events heated up, those numbers increased as two air groups of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 111th Fighter Squadron arrived. Mixing with their American counterparts, they became the 343rd Fighter Group. Dutch Harbor was no Pacific pleasure post. At some points in the Aleutians, craggy mountain ridges reach 4,000 feet. They are littered with gullies, ridges, and rocky outcrops. Caves created by ancient volcanic activity exist in abundance. The only predictable weather pattern is its unpredictability. Rain, drizzle, snow, and hurricane-force winds dominate the environment. Rain can measure up to 50 inches or more per year, while winter snow piles up deeper than 10 feet. At any given time, five out of seven days are miserable at best, with fog thick enough to be blinding. Ships can pass one another within a few hundred yards in the fog and not see one another. The terrain is largely frozen or partially thawing tundra muskeg. Why would any army or navy want to fight for such a forsaken, inhospitable landscape? The military significance to Japan was that aircraft based on the farthest western island lay within range of Japan’s Kurile Islands. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had developed bases in those islands for reaching across the North Pacific. Aircraft based in the Aleutians could also reach Japanese-held Kamchatka Peninsula, another vital launching point for North Pacific naval activities.
National Archives
Buildings burn at Fort Mears following the June 3rd hit-and-run attack on Dutch Harbor. Twenty-five defenders were killed during the 20-minute attack.
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tralized. With those three points under Japanese control, America would be on the verge of collapse. Many Japanese leaders also believed that a renewal of hostilities with the Soviet Union was inevitable. The capture of Attu and Kiska might impede the delivery of any Lend-Lease matériel from the United States to the Soviets. By the late summer of 1942, the first of 8,000 U.S.-built aircraft were being flown to the Soviet Union from Dutch Harbor. Yamamoto’s Aleutian thrust has been described as a diversionary tactic to lure American naval forces away from Midway; however, some historians debate this assumption and point to the reasons that the Aleutians would have been a primary target. Yamamoto sent 34 ships north, creating the Northern Area Fleet under Vice Admiral Boshiro Hosogaya. He assigned two small aircraft carriers, Junyo and Ryujo, to the Aleutian operation. National Archives
ABOVE: U.S. Marines man their sand-bagged trenches in anticipation of another enemy attack on Dutch Harbor while smoke rises in the background from burning fuel tanks, set afire by a dive bomber. RIGHT: Streaming smoke from a damaged engine, a Japanese plane appears headed for trouble. At least one Japanese Zero was downed during the attack on Dutch Harbor.
The need to occupy or neutralize any threat from the Aleutians became apparent on April 18, 1942, when Colonel James Doolittle’s 16 North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers struck Tokyo from an unknown locale. The strike drove Japan’s high command mad trying to determine their point of origin. One of the leading suspected sites was the Aleutians––in particular the island of Attu. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, saw even more reason for conquering those islands. Having once lived in America, Japan’s most respected admiral knew facets of American life his superiors did not comprehend until too late. Yamamoto believed that war with America would lead to disaster for Japan. America, he knew, could go far beyond manufacturing just cars and refrigerators. Once America was pushed into war, Yamamoto saw only one way for Japan to win: destroy America’s industrial and manufacturing infrastructure long before it could convert to war production. Yamamoto’s solution was to take out America’s “Pacific Ocean Triangle Defense System.” The three points of this imagined triangle—the Panama Canal, Pearl Harbor, and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians—formed America’s Pacific Ocean defense perimeter. Whatever America produced on the East Coast traveled via the Panama Canal to the West Coast, and the West Coast fed Pearl Harbor and other U.S. bases in the Pacific. Yamamoto’s premise for the attack on Pearl Harbor was to eliminate America’s Pacific Fleet and lay open the width and breadth of the Pacific Ocean for Japan’s navy. From there an advance upon the Aleutians could be made. On the West Coast, areas such as Seattle and Southern California, where most of America’s aircraft-manufacturing plants were located, would be vulnerable. Then, in due time, the Panama Canal would be neu-
Yamamoto added in five cruisers, 12 destroyers, six submarines, four troop transports, and various auxiliary supporting vessels. It could be argued that the absence of these ships made the difference at Midway. Those few ships, in particular the two carriers, could have turned the tide of battle at Midway. While the bulk of American naval forces confronted the Japanese at Midway, Task WWII QUARTERLY
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Force 8 under Rear Admiral Robert A. “Fuzzy” Theobald moved toward the Aleutians with two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and four destroyers. Hosogaya sailed north expecting far more resistance then he found. Dutch Harbor was on high alert. Since mid-May, Army personnel had been rising by 4:30 AM to man their weapons: two eight-inch coastal artillery guns, two 90mm antiaircraft gun emplacements, one three-inch antiaircraft site, and four 155mm howitzers. On June 2, 1942, a Navy PBY located Hosogaya’s fleet 800 miles southwest of Dutch Harbor. The Japanese fleet then disappeared in the inclement weather and shrouding fog. By 4 AM on June 3, Hosogaya was 180 miles southwest of Unalaska and Dutch Harbor. The Ryujo launched 11 bombers and six fighters; one bomber plunged into the water at takeoff. Junyo sent off 15 bombers and 13 fighters, all for naught. The weather became so foul it obscured the pilots’ visibility. The Japanese pilots from Junyo abandoned their quest and returned to the carrier. Expecting the Japanese, Dutch Harbor picked up the in-bound flight from Ryujo before it arrived. There was enough time for ships to cut loose and head for open sea but not enough time to clear the harbor entirely. By 6 AM, 14 bombs had been dropped on Fort Mears, destroying two wooden barracks and three Quonset huts. But the attackers were thrown for a loop when a thick curtain of antiaircraft fire rose up at them; they had not expected such a coordinated defense. The Japanese pilots hurried over other selected targets, missing them. Some bombs splashed into the water. One attacker was shot down and a second attacker was visibly damaged but flew on. A second attack achieved nothing, but a third wave of three planes claimed credit for taking out Dutch Harbor’s radio station and damaging a stationary barrack ship, the USS Northwestern. One antiaircraft gun was taken out with the loss of two soldiers. 92
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By the time Fort Randall, some 200 miles distant, got word of the attack and scrambled a flight of Curtiss P-40 fighters, the attackers had long departed. At 9 AM, Hosogaya formed a final air assault. This time it targeted five destroyers exposed side by side at anchor. That proved unproductive as well. By the time the planes arrived within sight of their goal, low-hanging fog settled in, obscuring the destroyers from view. In the final count, 50 Americans were killed on the ground with just as many wounded. The attackers lost two fighters, one medium bomber, and one floatplane. The Army’s 1Eleventh Air Force lost two fighters and one medium and one heavy bomber. That was the extent of war visited upon Dutch Harbor. Hosogaya’s fleet escaped undetected under a blanket of fog. Attention for the upcoming year would focus on the islands Attu and Kiska. Off Attu on June 7, 1942, Hosogaya put Rear Admiral Sentaro Omori in charge of one cruiser, two destroyers, one transport, and one minelayer. Leading the charge ashore was Major Matsutoshi Hozumi, who spoke excellent English and kept his 1,200 soldiers in a strict military order. The Japanese invaders found little resistance with Attu having barely 50 residents centered on the village of Chichagof––45 or so were native Aleuts. The two American residents were the married couple Foster C. Jones and his wife Etta. Foster worked for the U.S. Weather Bureau while Etta, a nurse turned schoolteacher, taught there. The Aleuts were rounded up. One woman was wounded in the foot by a bullet, and one Japanese soldier was accidentally wounded by a comrade. At first the Japanese conquerors played nice. They attempted to play with the children and tried fishing with the adults. But soon Etta Jones and the Aleuts were packed off to Yokohama and detention until war’s end. Etta survived to return, but 16 Aleuts would not. Foster Jones died by means and whereabouts unknown. It has been assumed he was shot evading capture and his body never recovered. With all that drama, Japan conquered Attu to hold it for the next year. National Archives
A bomb explodes near a Japanese warship off Kiska Island during raid by U.S. Army Air Force bombers, October 9, 1942.
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Clad in waterproof clothing to ward off the wet chill of the Aleutians, American troops take cover and scan for enemy snipers located in the mountains above Massacre Bay on Attu Island.
National Archives
At 1:15 on the morning of June 7, 1942, about 480 miles southeast of Attu, 500 Japanese Marines of the Maizuru Third Special Land Force crept ashore on Kiska. Kiska was of greater importance due to its deeper harbor and potential for an improved air strip. Captain Tekeji Ono led his Marines up to a three-shack, U.S. Navy-operated weather station. Expecting the enemy arrival, the 10 American sailors burned as many documents and destroyed much equipment as they could before fleeing the premises. Within two days, nine were caught. They also were forced to abandon their mascot, a dog named Explosion. For 50 days, the missing sailor, William C. House, remained at large, hiding in a cave and living on a diet of moss, grass, worms, and insects until he had lost so much weight he was forced to surrender or starve to death. The treatment of the American prisoners was acceptable until they were shipped off to Japan for internment in labor camps. All 10 survived the war to come home. In no time, 1,000 more Japanese were ashore at Attu, while three times that number occupied Kiska. A fair share were engineers and construction workers, proving Japan had long-term plans. By June 11, 1942, the Americans at Dutch Harbor realized they had not heard from their 10-man weather team on Kiska. A Navy PBY flew over Kiska and confirmed that the enemy was in control. By the end of July, the Japanese were working on various installations. Even those of the 301st and 302nd Infantry Battalions became worker ants––whether heavy machinery was available or not. Complex underground bunkers were tunneled out. Underground machine shops were put in. A launch site for three mini-subs was readied for use. Barracks, below and above ground, were put into operation, and a hospital was established. One doctor there, Nebsi Tatsuqochi, had received his medical education and
license in California in 1938. Nothing was more important than the airstrip, and work continued on that almost around the clock. Japanese engineers faced never-ending challenges working in the mucky tundra, too soggy to handle aircraft. Japanese seaplanes were moored in the harbor. As work progressed, Hosogaya renamed Kiska “IJN 51st Naval Base.” But then the admiral was dealt a devastating blow. After the Midway debacle in which Japan lost four carriers, two heavy cruisers, and 332 planes, Yamamoto wanted to recoup as many carriers and planes as possible for another day’s sea battle. Prior to returning to Japan, Yamamoto called back Hosogaya’s two carriers, Ryujo and Junyo. For a while, the Japanese occupying Attu and Kiska received supplies via surface ships, but in time too many became targets. Submarines took their place for resupply operations. Never knowing how vulnerable their Navy code had become, the Japanese submarines also became easy targets. Life on Attu and Kiska quickly WWII QUARTERLY
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Both Maps © 2013 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN
became deadly for the Japanese. The U.S. Navy’s first response to the invasions came via their fleet of PBYs. Serviced by the tender USS Gillis, the PBYs were armed with bombs. This became necessary because of the planes’ long-range flying capabilities. The PBY pilots flew nonstop on 20-hour missions until the Gillis could no longer provide fuel and bombs. For their part, the U.S. Army’s first attempts at bombing proved less than successful. The Army’s first flight consisted of B-24 Liberators over Attu at 15,000 feet. As one B-24 opened its bomb bay doors, a Japanese 75mm antiaircraft round found the open door, ignited the plane’s bomb load, and literally blew the bomber in two. So much shrapnel flew that two adjoining B-24s were damaged. A B-17 Flying Fortress raid targeted anchored ships in the bay. Not a single ship was hit. By late October, the U.S. Eleventh Air ABOVE: After the Japanese initially seized Attu Island, U.S. forces of the 7th Infantry Division landed to the north and south on May 11, 1943, to squeeze them out. LEFT: Spanning the northern Pacific gap between Japan and Alaska, the Aleutians were an inhospitablebut-strategic prize for whichever side could hold it.
Force took to bombing both islands daily as weather permitted. Among the ordnance dropped were improvised incendiary bombs––rubber bags full of gasoline. Other innovations came with bombs made of empty glass bottles, their shards becoming shrapnel. In March 1943, America got serious about retaking Attu and Kiska, the main target being the latter’s still unfinished airstrip. The U.S. Navy kept an ever-tightening noose around Attu, instilling fear in the hearts of inbound Japanese sailors trying to land relief supplies ashore. As Japan94
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ese surface ships begged off, the hopes went more and more to the ISeries submarines. While the U.S. Navy kept track of their coming and going, Japanese submarine losses mounted. On March 9, 1943, in heavy fog, the last sizable Japanese surface resupply ship reached Attu. A month later, one sub did get through with a special passenger: Colonel Yasugo Yamasaki. He was saddled with the unenviable task of commanding the deteriorating state of affairs on Attu. His wisest move was to consolidate his remaining 2,600 solders on the high ground above Massacre and Holtz Valleys. Later that month an American command prepared for a large amphibious landing, targeting the 35-by-20-mile island of Attu. The assault was assigned to the 15,000-man 7th Infantry Division. March was a big month for the U.S. Navy as well. On the 26th, a U.S. task force led by the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City stumbled upon a Japanese relief convoy bound for the Aleutians. In a rare classic naval shootout between surface ships, the outnumbered U.S. warships turned away Japan’s last-ditch surface attempt to reach its distant outpost. This battle became known as the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. Although Hosogaya’s force was on the verge of victory, the admiral, fearing American warplanes would soon be arriving, broke off contact and sailed for home waters. The U.S. Army’s plan to retake Attu was a classic pincer movement to be implemented May 4, 1943. There was a one-week delay due to customary foul weather but on May 11 the American force departed from Cold Bay, nearly 1,000 miles east of Attu.
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ABOVE: An American combat patrol goes in search of Japanese holed up in dugouts on Attu, May 1943. BELOW: A U.S. mortar crew on Attu lobs its ordnance against a Japanese position.
National Archives
A strike force of 210 scouts from the 7th Division, led by Captain William H. Wiloughby, came off the U.S. submarines Narwhal and Nautilus before daylight on the 11th. Landing north of Holtz Bay, the ground troops proceeded northeast. Expecting a short stay, each man carried only two days’ rations. The main force of 15,000 men landed at Massacre Bay shortly after the scouts came ashore, with the battleships Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Nevada providing fire support; none of the ground troops met significant resistance. Yamasaki had removed his garrison to higher ground above the two-milelong Massacre Valley, a movement achieved with the aid of fog shrouding the relocation. Conquering Attu proved far more challenging than expected. It would take five days for the Americans to clear the valley. The terrain was so difficult that supplies had to be carried in on foot since no vehicle could maneuver across the soft ground. While daylight temperatures hit a balmy 45 degrees, at night they dipped to below freezing, and the 7th found itself slogging through either water-soaked or frozen ground. Unfortunately, the GIs wore standard issue leather boots not conducive to cold, wet operations. Weather-related injuries––water-soaked foot emersion and frostbite––took a greater toll than enemy gunfire. On the other side, Yamasaki resigned himself to his fate; neither his air force nor navy were coming to save him. The U.S. Eleventh Air Force dominated the sky, with the Japanese having nothing to match them. For over two weeks the cat-and-mouse game continued across the higher ground of Attu. By then Yamasaki found himself cornered in the Chichagof Valley with no way out. The Japanese determination to fight or die had been seen by the GIs; only two prisoners were taken up to that point. The message was clear: Yamasaki’s command would never willingly surrender. On May 15, after the Japanese holding a ridge overlooking the bay slipped away, American troops were moving to occupy WWII QUARTERLY
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the position when U.S. fighter pilots, seeing movement down below and thinking it was the enemy, accidentally bombed and strafed them. Then, once the battered American infantry reached the top, a platoon of Japanese rushed them, only to be slaughtered. The top brass became unhappy with the 7th Infantry Division’s slow progress, and Maj. Gen. Albert Brown was relieved of command; Maj. Gen. Eugene Landrum was installed in his place. Landrum immediately threw in the 14th Infantry Regiment to boost the drive onward. The end of Attu’s fighting came on May 29, 1943, when Yamasaki personally led National Archives
ABOVE: Unable to dislodge the Americans on Attu, the Japanese attempted a do-or-die final banzai charge on May 29, 1943. Mass casualties were the result. LEFT: The cruiser USS Salt Lake City blasts enemy positions on Kiska in support of 35,000 U.S. and Canadian troops who stormed the beaches, August 1943.
800 followers in a banzai charge. That was only after they killed 600 of their own who were ill or injured and could not participate in the charge. Some of the wounded Japanese soldiers killed themselves. Yamasaki’s maddened wave of blood lust carried farther than he thought it would. Although he died leading his troops, his rush reached Fishhook and Buffalo Ridges and plunged into the rear ech96
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elon of the 7th Division. There the invaders rushed a tented field hospital, killing scores of patients confined to beds. Only by rousting cooks, medics, clerks, and engineers did the Americans stem the tidal wave of death. The final body count was 2,600 Japanese killed in action (or murdered by their comrades); only 29 were collected as prisoners. For the Americans, 549 were killed in action, with 3,200 wounded or injured by weather exposure. By June 8, 1943, American planes were flying from the airstrip on Attu. Taking Attu was tough, and Kiska was known to have possibly three times the enemy force seen on Attu. What would it take to reclaim Kiska? By American estimates, Kiska could have no fewer than 8,000 enemy soldiers upon it, so the U.S. Eleventh Air Force, aided by Canadian airmen, kept pushing attacks upon Kiska to soften the defenses. Admiral Theobald made a mid-July 1942 decision to give Kiska one massive shellacking by naval bombardment. But when attempting to do so on July 18, fog rolled in so thick that his gunners could not fire accurately. Four of his nine destroyers collided with one another. Theobold called off the bombardment and withdrew his ships. On August 3, 1943, it was a man-made fog that got in the way of Allied planes. Japanese defenders on Kiska placed such a large concentration of antiaircraft weaponry in such a confined space that smoke covered the intended targets, causing the air attack to be called off. Then came developments from the other end of the Pacific: Guadalcanal was grabbing news coverage and badly needed supplies. The Aleutians ordeal had to be settled promptly. During the summer of 1943, the Eleventh Air Force hit Kiska daily whenever the weather allowed. American bombers dropped 300,000 bombs on Kiska on August 4. The U.S. Navy took up its own schedule of shelling with battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. By then an Allied plan code-named “Cottage” was finalized, dictating the assault on Kiska. Much of the plan came from the lessons learned from Attu’s mistakes. A landing force twice the size of the one that hit Attu, reached nearly 35,000.
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Back in Japan, the warlords were giving up on conquering the Aleutians. For them, the 5,000 men in the Aleutians would be better utilized and have a more significant impact in other locales across the Pacific. It was imperative to extract their soldiers from Kiska rather than see them wasted as on Attu. In so doing, a plan was put together to send 11 destroyers into Kiska Bay and out again, evacuating the entire garrison. That would be a magical feat considering the tight Allied grip around Kiska. Incredibly, that magic was there when needed. On July 28, 1943, at about noon, nine Japanese destroyers entered Kiska Bay under the shroud of fog they had hoped for. That fog caused two of the ships to collide and resulted in their being removed from the evacuation process, but the rest of the ships carried on. Personal weapons and lightweight crew-served weapons were thrown into the bay before boarding. All 5,300 Japanese solders were sequestered aboard the seven destroyers and evacuated from the hell that Kiska had become. All they had to do was get through the U.S. Navy net surrounding Kiska. Luckily for the Japanese, at that moment there was no net around the island. A U.S. Navy ship picked up a radar ping identifying a distant target. Then a second honed in on the same sound. A third picked up on the pip of a radar reverberation. At that time the entire fleet surrounding Kiska sailed in the direction of the pips, thinking they had located the inbound Japanese rescue fleet. The fog remained so thick, the U.S. Navy gunners had no idea what they would be shooting at, but they started shooting anyway. Their target was a weather anomaly bouncing back the radar emissions. The great shootout became known as the Battle of the Pips. While that was taking place, 5,300 Japanese soldiers got off Kiska unchallenged. Flyovers from July 29-August 14 showed no signs of life on Kiska, but nobody knew whether the Japanese had left or were hiding. On August 14, 1943, some 35,000 Canadian and American soldiers stormed Kiska. This force included 15,000 from the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division, 5,000 from the
87th Mountain Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 10th Mountain Division, 5,300 from Canada’s 13th Infantry Brigade, and 2,000 from the combined Canadian-American 1st Special Service Force. The ground troops were not sure what they would find. They did discover one survivor, the dog Explosion, the abandoned mascot of the 10-man Navy weather station. The Japanese kept Explosion as their pet but ultimately left the dog behind. The Japanese also left behind a collection of booby traps. Before declaring the island free of the enemy, 99 men would die––24 from friendly fire by their comrades mainly due to the heavy fog. Fifty more were wounded in the same manner, and four were killed by booby traps. The highest number of fatalities occurred when the American destroyer USS Abner Read hit a Japanese mine; 71 sailors died. Before war’s end, the entire Aleutian chain returned to American control. From those far-flung islands, American bombers were able to reach the Japanese Kurile Islands. The threat to America’s West Coast from the north had evaporated. n
National Archives
Unbeknownst to the large U.S.-Canada invasion fleet at anchor in Kiska Harbor, the Japanese defenders had slipped away. But mines, booby-traps, and friendly fire incidents still took a toll on the invaders.
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M U S E U M S MASON B. WEBB Author photo
Entrance of the Japanese American National Museum in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles.
The Japanese American National Museum tells of wartime travails. SHORTLY AFTER THE JAPANESE attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Japanese Americans, especially those living on the West Coast, were suspected of being possible spies, saboteurs, and disloyal Americans. Because of rampant anti-Japanese hysteria following Pearl Harbor, over 100,000 citizens of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast were forced to give up their homes and businesses and were moved by the government to relocation centers throughout the United States. Much of the Japanese American Museum, in the heart of L.A.’s “Little Tokyo” district, chronicles the forced relocation (under the aegis of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s brother Milton) of Japanese Americans, known as “Issei” and “Nisei.” Included in the permanent exhibit is a partial barracks (from the camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming) that gives an idea of the squalor in which relocated families lived. An extensive collection of photographs, A reconstructed barracks from the Heart Mountain documents, artifacts (a “wall” of suitcases internment camp in Wyoming. once owned by relocated families is eerily similar to the piles of shoes on display at Auschwitz), and other items recall one of the most shameful periods in American history. The museum also dedicates considerable space to recounting the combat exploits of the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. To prove their loyalty to America, over 10,000 Nisei from Hawai’i alone volunteered for military service. The Army formed the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) from the first wave of Nisei 98 FALL 2013
and then, to accommodate the increasing numbers of volunteers, created the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which performed with such courage and aggressiveness in combat in Europe that it became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. Army history (as well as suffering one of the highest casualty rates). Other Nisei soldiers served in the Pacific as translators and POW interrogators. Near the museum is a granite monument bearing the names of the Japanese-American veterans who served in the segregated military units. In addition to the wartime memorabilia, the museum offers much more to see and learn about Japanese American contributions to the fabric of U.S. society.
JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM Location: 100 N. Central Avenue, Los Angeles Hours: Open Wednesday through Sunday from 11:00 AM-3:00 PM, Thursday noon-8:00 PM (closed Mondays, Tuesdays, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day) Admission: Admission fee charged Phone: (213) 625-0414 Website: www. janm.org
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