On this day in 1945 Operation Detachment kicked off. Detachment was the amphibious assault on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima. It was to become one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two.
The island was home to a pair of Japanese airfields. Capture of those two airfields were part of the primary objectives for the invasion. The other objectives were to remove the Japanese garrison that was providing early earning of B-29 Superfortress raids en route to Japan and to establish the island as an emergency landing place for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Capturing Iwo Jima would also protect the right flank for a future American invasion of Okinawa and provide air fields to support long-range fighter escorts for bombing missions over the Japanese home islands.
At 08:59, one minute ahead of schedule, the first wave of Marines landed on the beaches of the southeastern coast of Iwo Jima. For nearly an hour the Marines seemed to be landing unopposed. It wasn’t until just after 10:00 that the Japanese defenders opened fire.
After crossing the beach, the Marines were faced with 15 ft-high slopes of soft black volcanic ash. The ash made for tough going. Marine AMTRACs struggled to move and it wasn’t until the SeaBees of of Naval Construction Battalions 31 and 133 landed with a couple of bulldozers and cut roads through the ash that the Marines started to make progress.
In the left-most sector of the landings, the Americans did manage to achieve one of their objectives for the battle that day. Led by Colonel Harry B. “Harry the Horse” Liversedge, the 28th Marines drove across the island at its narrowest width, around 870 yd, thereby isolating the Japanese dug in on Mount Suribachi.
By the evening of 19 February, 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow. The intense combat would continue for more than a month. The famous photo of the Flag raising on Mt. Suribachi was taken on 23 February 1945. It depicts 6 Marines from E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, raising a U.S. flag.
By the end of the Battle on 26 March 1945, the Marines would suffer 6,821 dead and another 19,217 wounded. The Japanese would suffer between 17,845–18,375 killed and wounded out of a pre-battle strength of about 21,000.
Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on the US Naval facilities at Pearl Harbor Hawaii and the Army Air Corps’ Hickam, Wheeler, and Bellows Fields. FDR declared it was a date that would live in infamy. It also marks a day that changed the world. It was the day that American manufacturing came to the fore and saved civilization.
Prior to the attack, the US was not actively involved in combat in WWII. To that point, the only US contributions were relatively small amounts of material. Before lend-lease was enacted in March of 1941, the US had been supplying the Brits with some arms, food, clothing and medical supplies on a cash-and-carry basis. After the legislation, the US started to supply the Soviets as well. Iosep Vissarionovich Stalin is quoted as saying “Without the machines we received through lend-lease, we would have lost the war“. The US wound up providing the Soviets 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 14,000 aircraft, 8,000 tractors and 13,000 tanks. The US also provided rail equipment, 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the USSR was supplied by Lend-Lease including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars.
Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku
After the Japs bombed Pearl, the US production behemoth was released. Yamamoto Isoroku, the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy understood what the production capabilities of the US could do. He had traveled the US extensively while a student at Harvard in the 1920’s. Before the attack he is quoted as saying “if we have war with the United States, we will have no hope of winning unless the United States fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed.” After, he said “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” And he was right.
US defense spending in 1939 was a meagre – by today’s standard – $980 million, about as much as 3 F-22 fighters cost. And that was a substantial increase from the $69 million in 1938. By 1941 that number had increased to $1.8 billion, although that number included several relief programs and was not strictly spent on defense.
In 1942 however, that number climbed to $9.2 billion and would continue to grow throughout the war, maxing out at $91 billion in 1944. By the end of the war, US defense spending topped $450 billion. But what was that money spent on?
By the end of the war, US industries had churned out more than 27 million rifles and carbines, 2.6 million machine guns, 300,000 planes, 120,000 tanks, 193,000 artillery pieces, 55,000 anti-aircraft guns, more than 2 million trucks, more than 1 billion artillery shells, 41.4 billion rounds of small arms ammunition and 18 million tons – about 5500 ships – of merchant shipping.
Ford Motor Company’s Willow Run assembly plant. During the war it produced 8,685 B-24 bombers. At peak production in late 1944, they produced one complete bomber every hour.
In 1939, the US Navy had a total of 394 vessels in commission incuding 15 battle ships, 5 aircraft carriers, 36 cruisers, 58 submarines and 120-ish destroyers. The remainder were support vessels and the like. By the end of 1942, there were 1782 in commission with 282 surface combatants and 133 subs. In 1945 that number hits 6768 total in commission with 883 surface combatants and 232 subs. Keep in mind, those numbers are actual in-commission warships and do not include the losses. Total production for naval vessels in the US during the war was nearly 9000 ships and subs of all types. Those numbers do not include landing craft or merchant marine vessels. Nor do they include ships and other vessels produced for the Allied countries.
The Suisun Bay, CA facility packed full of mothballed warships after WWII.
By the end of the war, the US produced about 2/3rds of all the war materiel used by the Allies.
Lend lease also provided food to the Allies, mostly the UK and USSR. Starting in 1941, the US sent more than a million tons of food to the UK by the end of 1942. The US supplied the UK with canned meat and fish, dried beans, evaporated milk, flour, starch, and concentrated orange juice. They also received raw materials like wool and leather. The Soviets got nearly 4.5 million tons of food aid – mostly canned and dried foods – nearly a quarter of the total lend lease tonnage they received.
The US production also helped at the end of the war. US industries kept Europe fed and clothed throughout the reconstruction. More than 26 million tons of supplies were sent to the newly liberated European countries. That includes the 1.7 million tons delivered during the Berlin Airlift.
The US was able to do all of this for several reasons. One of which was the availability of raw materials. Unlike the rest of the belligerents in WWII, the US had ready supplies of timber, iron, coal, oil, bauxite and most of the other raw materials needed for production.
It also had foresighted men. Men like Andrew Jackson Higgins who, seeing war on the horizon, bought the entire 1939 crop of mahogany from the Philippines on spec. Higgins’ company built the LCVP – landing craft, vehicle and personnel – commonly known as the Higgins boat. Higgins Industries built 23,358 of the indispensable craft by the end of the war.
I have to wonder if – God forbid – a major war broke out now if the country would be able to respond in the way it did in 1941. Is it even possible?
Painting of the A Fairey Swordfish dropping a torpedo during the raid. Image courtesy of the Royal Navy
At approximately 20:40 (8:40 PM) local time, November 11, 1940, the first flight of 12 Fairey Swordfish lifted off the deck of HMS Illustrious (followed by a second flight some 90 minutes later) in the final action of a multi tasked operation dubbed, “MB8”.
The planning for MB8 began in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement September 30, 1938. Appeasement to Hitler’s Germany would lead many in the Admiralty to begin the long range planning for British Naval Supremacy in the Mediterranean.
HMS Illustrious in 1940 (RN Photo)
The planning for MB8 came to the fore as Italy declared war in June 1940 and followed up with an invasion of Egypt in September. The conflict for control of the Mediterranean had begun.
With an Italian Army in Libya, a British Army in Egypt, convoys accompanied by war ships crossing and recrossing one another’s course, factor in Italy’s alliance with Germany and conflict was considered a real possibility. Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham was responsible for the orderly and safe operation of the convoys that supplied the British Army.
The Italian Navy followed a “Fleet in being” theory that sortied against the British convoys from their base at Taranto consisting of 5 operational battleships, 7 heavy Cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 8 destroyers. To that end Admiral Cunningham was responsible to see that Operation MB8 denigrate the effectiveness of the Italian Navy in interdicting supply convoys to the population of Malta and the British Army in Egypt.
The British were concerned that should the Italian navy be successful, supply convoys to the British Army in Egypt be forced to round the African continent’s Cape of Good Hope and leave the badly needed British outpost of Malta with no reliable avenue of re-supply.
British WWII Med convoy routes
Planning sessions made the case for the Italian Navy’s “Regia Marina” based at Taranto to be the prime target. The planning sessions also made the case for an obsolete biplane to be the prime asset to perform the attack. Designed in the 1930s as a dive and torpedo bomber with night capabilities made the Swordfish the operational choice.
The Italian navy kept tabs on British movements principally by aerial reconnaissance; this made collecting the necessary assets for the attack on Taranto without alerting the Italians of prime concern. Regular British aerial surveillance of the base at Taranto by British medium bombers (Martin XA-22, named the Maryland by the British) kept tabs on the Italian Navy.
In a seemingly discordant series of mixed convoys, “Operation MB8” began November 4, concluding November 11 with the full on attack (Operation Judgement) of the base at Taranto consisted of 5 convoy elements (Operation Coat, Convoy MW3, ME3, Convoy AN6, Operation Crack) that would allow the assets necessary for the raid to be assembled near the Greek Island of Cephalonia (located approx. 170 miles South-East of The base at Taranto) without unduly raising concerns of the Italian Navy.
Fairey Swordfish (AKA the String bag) dropping a torpedo (RN Photo)
“Operation Judgement” was originally scheduled for October 21st (Trafalgar Day) but delayed by a fire aboard Illustrious that destroyed two of the Swordfish. A second British aircraft carrier, HMS Eagle was to join Illustrious but a fuel system failure eliminated her participation. In order that Illustrious be able to launch the attack alone, she took aboard five Swordfish from HMS Eagle bringing the number of Swordfish available for the attack to 21.
Several incidents contributed to the British success; first the complexity of Operation MB8 confused the Italians into thinking that it consisted of supply convoys not an offensive. Secondly the Italians had placed a number of barrage balloons to protect against low-flying aircraft, but a wind storm on November 6th had reduced the number of balloons to 27. Lastly but of greater importance was the lack of proper anti-torpedo nets for fully one third of the capital ships in harbor.
The first wave of aircraft consisted of six Swordfish armed with torpedoes, two with a combination of bombs and flares and the remaining four armed with bombs made up the first wave. This was inadvertently split into two sections as 4 aircraft strayed from the group while flying through some scattered clouds.
All six of Italy’s battleships at Taranto in 1940.
Eight aircraft approached the harbor at 22:58, one dropped flares, joined by another plane, the two attacked and set fire to a series of oil tanks. Three aircraft led by Lt. Commander Williamson attacked the battleship “Conte di Cavour” with a torpedo that tore a huge hole just below her water line; Williamson’s craft was shot down by the ship’s anti-aircraft batteries. The two remaining aircraft, dodging barrage balloons unsuccessfully attacked the battleship “Andrea Doria”. Three planes attacking from a northerly direction launched torpedoes at the battleships Littoria (hitting it with two torpedoes) while missing the battleship Vittorio Veneto.
The bomber force, led by Marine Captain Patch, although having difficulty identifying targets successfully bombed and scored hits on two cruisers and straddled a group of four destroyers.
Nine Swordfish made up the second wave, but a ship board collision damaged two Swordfish forcing one to abort and the final Swordfish to launch some 20 minutes behind the rest of the flight.
Lt. Commander Hale and his flight approached from a northerly direction with torpedoes, bombs and flares. The battleship Littorio was attacked by planes dropping torpedoes again, one torpedo striking her. One of the flights, despite taking heavy anti-aircraft, aimed its torpedo at the battleship Vittorio Veneto but missed. Another craft would torpedo the battleship Caio Duillo, leaving a huge hole in her hull and her forward magazines flooded. Lt. Bayly was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from the Italian heavy cruiser Gorizia after successfully attacking the battleship Littorio; the only craft downed in the second wave. The late launch by the last of the attacking Swordfish arrived some 15 minutes later and made a dive bomb attack on one of the Italian heavy cruisers but was unsuccessful.
Out of the 20 Swordfish that participated in the attack, only two airplanes were lost. Lt. Commander Williamson and his crewman were taken prisoner, Lt. Hale and his crewman would die in the crash of their craft. The rest of the attacking aircraft returned safely to the Illustrious, the final plane landing on her deck at 02:39, November 12, 1940.
British Admirals Cunningham and Lyster wanted to strike the base again the next night, but bad weather intervened.
RM Conte di Cavour after the raid (RN Photo)
With the loss of half its capital ships, the Italian navy moved its base of operations to Naples. Contrary to British hopes, five days after the raid, the Italians returned to actively sortie against British supply convoys but were constrained by the added steaming times to interdict the British convoys.
The damaged battleships would undergo substantial repairs. The Conte di Cavour was so severely damaged that she never returned to service. The Caio Duillo was run aground in order to save her and seven months later was returned to service. The Littorio required four months of repair before she too was returned to service.
Italian battleship Littorio in Taranto Harbor after the British attack, November 12, 1940.
A modified drop of the torpedoes allowed the British to successfully use torpedoes in the shallow waters of Taranto harbor. A drum with a roll of wire attached to the nose of the aircraft kept the torpedo from nose diving into the water, keeping the torpedo in a flat trajectory as it entered the water.
Lt. Commander Takeshi Naito of the Imperial Japanese Navy was flown to Taranto to investigate the successful attack; this inspection confirmed for the Japanese that they could successfully attack the American base at Pearl Harbor in spite of the harbor’s shallow depth.
This raid on Taranto confirmed for the British the aircraft carrier was of greater value than the battleship due to its ability to attack from ranges that even the big bore guns of the battleship could not reach.
Just not the one you might be thinking about. Today, 8 May, is V-E day, and marks the end of the war against Germany in 1945.
The official start of WWII was on 1 September when German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident.
On the night of 31 August, a small group of German operatives dressed in Polish uniforms and led by Alfred Naujocks seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish (sources vary on the content of the message). The operation was named “Grossmutter gestorben” (Grandmother died).
Alfred Naujocks after his surrender to American forces
The operation was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of Polish anti-German saboteurs. To make the attack seem more convincing, the Gestapo executed Franciszek Honiok, a 43-year-old unmarried Upper Silesian Catholic farmer, known for sympathising with the Poles. He had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo and dressed to look like a saboteur, then rendered unconscious by an injection of drugs, then killed by gunshot wounds. Honiok was left dead at the scene so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was then presented to the police and press as proof of the attack.
17 days later, the Soviets attacked Poland from the east and by mid October Poland had ceased to exist as a sovereign entity and the world would not know peace for another 6 years.
Col. General Alfred Jodl signing the surrender documents.
The first German surrender was signed on May 7, 1945, when German Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl signed Germany’s surrender on all fronts in Reims, France. A second signing – insisted upon by Soviet Premier Josef Stalin – was by German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel the next day in Berlin.
There are reports coming from Hawaii that the Japanese have attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor and Schofield army barracks.
https://youtu.be/46WdFKSdjZQ
The attack commenced just before 08:00 Hawaii time. Some 350 japanese carrier aircraft, broken up into two waves hit targets at Pearl Harbor, Ford Island and Hickam Army Airfield. Ninety minutes after it began, the attack was over.
2,008 sailors were killed and 710 others wounded; 218 soldiers and airmen were killed and 364 wounded; 109 Marines were killed and 69 wounded; and 68 civilians were killed and 35 wounded. In total, 2,403 Americans were killed, and 1,143 were wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk or run aground, including five battleships. All of the Americans killed or wounded during the attack were legally non-combatants, given that there was no state of war when the attack occurred. Of the American fatalities, nearly half were due to the explosion of Arizona‘s forward magazine after it was hit by a modified 16-inch (410 mm) shell.
August 5, 2020. That is the day 97 year old Chuck Robic of Pinellas Park, FL was admitted to hospital with a COVID-19 viral infection. Some considered his ride to the hospital a Final Voyage – surely his would be a one way trip. Though Chuck Robic’s age did place him in the High Risk category for COVID-19 unhappy endings, he was not going to go down without a fight.
“I probably hesitated for half a second before I just said ‘he’ll beat this’,” said Ken Chatelain, the husband of Robic’s great niece.
Family used the word “tenacity” when asked why they felt so certain he’d be coming home. Modest, helpful, good-natured, respected and hero are some other words that are used to describe Mr. Robic’s character. The U.S. Army seems to agree with those assessments. Early June of 2009, Redstone Arsenal invited PFC Robic and 11 other former soldiers to celebrate the Army’s 234th birthday.
“I just don’t think about it or talk about it much,” Robic said. “That all happened 60 years ago.”
Chuck Robic is a veteran of World War II, an Army scout. The ink on his graduation diploma from Chicago’s Farragut High School – Class of 1943 – had barely dried before he was drafted. After living on Army bases in Little Rock, Arkansas and Florida, Robic asked for a transfer to the U.S. Army Air Force. He wanted to be a pilot. The request was denied and Army shipped him off to the European theater where he became part of the Pennsylvania Keystone Division aka the PA National Guard aka the 28th Infantry Division.
The 28ID has lineage tracing back to Benjamin Franklin’s 1747 Associators. Old and storyed, the Division holds a hellacious reputation, well-earned. During World War I, General Pershing began calling members of the division “Men of Iron”, referring to the 28ID as “my Iron Division.” In World War II, the 28th Infantry Division landed on Omaha Beach, were the first U.S. Division to parade through Paris, breached the German Westwall and fought through the Huertgen Forest. The Pennsylvania Keystone Division got a new nick from the Germans during the second World War, the “Bloody Bucket” Division. In part because of the red, keystone shaped patches worn by these warriors. In much larger part because of destruction the division wrought on their enemies. Warriors assigned to the 28ID carry the reputations of their brothers who served before them, with pride and honor.
Chuck Robic, former Army scout for the Pennsylvania Keystone Division, was not going to be an easy takedown. He’d bested many other foes, in far more grim environments. Not even the enemy waiting for him on a Normandy beach, June 1944, found stealing his life an easy feat.
Operation Overlord is the official name of what we generally refer to as the Normandy Invasion – a horrific space and time in human history. U.S., Belgian, Canadian, English, Polish and other national troops stormed – from air and sea – beaches codenamed Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Utah. During this intense fighting, Robic was shot in the leg. The British spoiled him in one of their military hospitals for 45 days before he was released and sent back into battle.
The next major altercation our tenacious fella found himself amidst was the Ardennes Offensive, generally referred to as The Battle of the Bulge. Far from a skirmish, this contest lasted more than a month – December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945. Icy cold, snowy weather piled atop war’s attendant miseries. The United States lost over 19,000 soldiers in that one battle, the bloodiest for the nation. When the dust had settled, Chuck Robic emerged from the forest, miraculously unscathed.
At war’s end, Private First Class Chuck Robic was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army and returned to Chicago. Alcoa Steel snatched him up when he applied for employment with them. After 37 years as a heavy equipment mechanic, Robic retired from Alcoa and started a horse training venture in his beloved Michigan. It took years of his sisters cajoling, urging Chuck to wave goodbye to Michigan winters and move on down to sunshiney Florida where she lived, before he decided her logic was sound. Shuttering his business, he relocated to the Pinellas Park area of Florida. Family members, including a retired Air Force Colonel nephew, became neighbors. He enjoyed Florida, going fishing and puttering about, helping people wherever they needed a hand he was able to provide. Then, he caught COVID-19.
A month and a half after he was admitted to hospital with a rough draft death sentence, 97 year old World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient Chuck Robic was released from care. He is 100% clear of COVID-19 and has been enjoying being back home with friends and family this past two weeks or so. Like many other combat veterans, he’d rather not talk about his U.S. asset days.
“I let bygones be bygones,” he said. “I don’t like to live in the past.”
75 years ago today, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare. The target, the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
In this Aug. 6, 1945, photo, smoke rises 20,000 feet above Hiroshima, western Japan, after the first atomic bomb was dropped during warfare.
Hiroshima was a major Japanese military hub with factories, military bases and ammunition facilities. The United States picked it as a target because of its size and landscape, and carefully avoided fire bombing the city ahead of time so American officials could accurately assess the impact of the atomic attack. The bombings hastened Japan’s surrender and prevented the need for a U.S. invasion of Japan, which planners suggested would cost a million lives.
Aug. 6, 1945 the “Enola Gay” Boeing B-29 Superfortress lands at Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, after the U.S. atomic bombing mission against the Japanese city of Hiroshima
At 8:15 a.m., the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped a 4-ton “Little Boy” uranium bomb from a height of 31,500 feet targeting the Aioi Bridge. The bomb exploded 43 seconds later, at 2,000 feet above the ground. Seconds after the detonation, the estimated temperature was 5400-7,200 degrees Fahrenheit at ground zero. Almost everything within 1.2 miles of ground zero was destroyed by the blast. Within one hour, a “black rain” of highly radioactive particles started falling on the city, causing additional radiation exposure.
an unidentified man stands next to a tiled fireplace where a house once stood in Hiroshima, western Japan.
An estimated 140,000 people, including those with radiation-related injuries and illnesses, died through Dec. 31, 1945. Everyone within a radius of 500 meters (1,600 feet) from ground zero died that day.
