Seventy Years Ago: FDR Aboard USS Iowa Enroute Teheran

We last left the president sailing aboard USS Iowa on November 14th, 1943, on his way to Teheran. To bring readers up to date, here are the daily logs of the president's activities:

November 20th, 1943;
November 21st;
November 22nd;
November 23rd;
November 24th;
November 25th;
November 26th;
November 27th;
November 28th;
November 29th;
November 30th;
December 1st;
December 2d;
December 3rd;
December 4th;
December 5th;
December 6th;
December 7th;
December 8th;
December 9th;
December 10th;
December 11th;
December 12th;
December 13th;
December 14th;
December 15th;
December 16th;
December 17th.

My comments:
FDR's travel to Teheran and participation in tense conferences in Cairo and Teheran was far from a pleasure cruise. This was hard work, and would have challenged even much younger men in better physical condition. A little more than a year after completing the Teheran conference, once again FDR would make another transatlantic voyage through the war zone, this time to Malta and to the war-ravaged Crimea for another conference with Churchill and Stalin. FDR left Washington January 23rd, 1945 and returned February 28th. The following day, March 1st, the president addressed a joint session of Congress, reporting on the Yalta conference. He died six weeks later during a visit to Warm Springs, GA.

Does History Repeat Itself Or Just Rhyme?

Mark Twain is said to have observed that history doesn't repeat itself - but it does rhyme.

Many of us read history not only for entertainment, but also in hopes of learning useful lessons about our own time and place. We seek to uncover history's lessons.

Those purported lessons are brought to our attention by journalists, political figures and academics on major anniversaries of important events.

One such event is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on June 28, 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist in the town of Sarajevo. That was a shot not only heard round the world, but one that has reverberated now for an entire century.

Margaret MacMillan, professor of history at Oxford, University, has contributed an essay for the Brookings Institution examining the lessons of that event and the ensuing war.

I have read many of the diplomatic papers leading up to the war, tramped across the battlefields and pondered the issue of "war guilt" as it was called. After the 1918 armistice and collapse of the German government, the Western Allies insisted on assigning all of the guilt for the war on Germany.

I have concluded that no European power was without guilt. Nor was any power imbued with great resources of wisdom.

But the guilt at the outset plainly belongs to Serbia.

Professor MacMillan makes the case in her essay that the times in 1914 were much like our own.

We should read it as a cautionary tale.

But read it!

Seventy-Two Years Ago: Pearl Harbor And Japanese Politics

Today's New York Times prints an op-ed article by historian Eri Hotta addressing similarities and differences between today's Japan and that of seventy-two years ago. Her article is very much worth reading. I also look forward to reading her book: Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy.

Japan in 1941 was not a military dictatorship or a totalitarian regime, and it never became one. Neither was it a democracy. It was, instead, a society built on strong networks of obligation, with decision making by consensus rather than by majority vote. The persistent belief that Japan in 1941 was a military dictatorship grows out of a deep misunderstanding of the way Japanese society worked. Ruth Benedict's wartime study of Japanese society, The Crysanthemum And The Sword, might have deepened our understanding, but it came out too late and has never informed our retrospective understanding of events leading to war. I look forward to reading Ms. Hotta's two books on the period.

 
 

Seventy Years Ago: Thirty-One Knot Burke

Thanksgiving eve, 1943, Admiral Halsey ordered Captain Arleigh Burke, Commander Destroyer Squadron 23, with five Fletcher class destroyers, to intercept a Japanese squadron of five destroyers near the island of Buka in the Northern Solomons. One of Burke's destroyers had a minor engineering problem, previously reported, which limited speed to 30 knots instead of the normal top speed of 38 knots. Captain Burke reported to Halsey that he was proceeding at 31 knots. Halsey directed him to proceed to point Uncle: “THIRTY-ONE KNOT BURKE GET ATHWART THE BUKA-RABUL EVACUATION LINE ABOUT 35 MILES WEST OF BUKA….”

Thus was Burke's "Little Beaver" squadron dispatched to the Battle of Cape St. George and into US Naval history.

A little more than a year earlier, near Guadalcanal, the night of August 8-9, 1942, Japanese Admiral Mikawa hastily assembled a force of seven cruisers and a destroyer near Buka to counter the US/Australian invasion force of eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers at Guadalcanal. Mikawa's force lacked radar, while the allied cruisers and several of the destroyers had radar. But the Japanese had trained for night combat and they were equipped with the world's best torpedoes. US torpedoes had not been adequately tested and proved unreliable and ineffective.

When the clash began, it took about a half hour for the Japanese to sink four allied heavy cruisers, damage two destroyers and kill over a thousand allied sailors. Japan escaped with minimal damage and a loss of 58 sailors.

It was the US Navy's worst defeat ever in a sea battle.

Captain Burke's destroyers were all equipped with radar and knew how to use it at night. The problems with American torpedoes had been fixed. By late 1943, the crews were battle-experienced and, more important, the officers knew how to effectively use the new equipment.

Burke's squadron found the Japanese, sank three destroyers and damaged another, pursuing them in a long stern chase. Burke withdrew before daylight, as the squadron was well inside range of Japanese land based aircraft.

When Arleigh Burke later became Chief of Naval Operations, he wrote a personal, characteristically modest, account of the Battle of Cape St. George for Parade magazine here.

Seventy Years Ago: At Sea Off Tarawa - USS Liscome Bay

From initial action until the end of the battle, it took America's forces 76 hours to conquer the tiny but well-fortified island of Betio at Tarawa. Over 4,500 Japanese perished in the assault. 1,696 Americans lost their lives. Forty percent of Americans killed died the morning of November 23, when a Japanese submarine launched a torpedo, striking Liscome Bay near its store of aircraft ordinance. She sank in 20 minutes, carrying 687 officers and men with her.

The war in the Pacific was still very much a naval war.

Seventy Years Ago: 20-22 November 1943 - Marines On Tarawa

The assault on the island of Betio, Tarawa Atoll, began November 20. Betio, in the Gilberts, was to be a stepping stone to the Marianas, from which new B-29 heavy bombers could attack Japan.

Rear Admiral Tomaniri Sichero, an experienced engineer, had nine months to build elaborate defensive works. He was replaced in command by an experienced combat officer, RADM Keiji Shibazaki. The Japanese had over 4,500 troops in carefully prepared positions.

Attacking forces were the largest invasion force yet assembled in the Pacific: 17 aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 8 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, 66 destroyers and 36 transport ships with 35,000 troops.

After a heavy bombardment of the island by aircraft and guns, things began to fall apart when the Higgins boats approached the landing beaches. Tidal predictions were inaccurate and the boats grounded well offshore. Withering Japanese fire killed many marines as they struggled in to the beaches.

It took three days to win the battle for Betio.

Here is an account of the struggle.

The Difficult Is Done At Once; The Impossible Takes A Bit Longer

Some say it was the US Army Corps of Engineers during World War II who adopted the slogan, "the difficult is done at once - the impossible takes a bit longer."

I can't vouch for that, but I can testify that the slogan accurately expresses the attitude of those who went off to that war.

No task is truly impossible.

My father's outfit, the 27th Air Depot Group, was set down in the jungle outside of Port Moresby, New Guinea, with a few bulldozers and a dismantled sawmill. That was in December, 1942. They built their own hangers, barracks, roads, runways, washing machines, and anything else they needed. At the end of the supply line, they dismantled damaged aircraft for spare parts and rebuilt, redesigned and improved the aircraft in their custody.

In October and November of 1943, they mounted sustained air attacks on the main Japanese base at Rabaul. Operation Cartwheel, it was called.

The original goal was to capture the base at Rabaul. By August, the concept changed into a plan to neutralize and bypass Rabaul. By the end of November, General Kenney's 5th Air Force operating from New Guinea and Admiral Halsey's aircraft carriers had neutralized Japanese air forces out of Rabaul.

Seventy Years Ago: November 14, 1943

November 14, 1943  

In a freak accident, President Roosevelt, Generals Marshall and Arnold, Admirals Leahy and King, plus scores of distinguished politicians, and army, naval and air force strategists came under fire while traveling to the the Tehran Conference on board the battleship Iowa. While running a torpedo drill, the US destroyer William D. Porter was targeting the Iowa's #2 magazine, a live torpedo was ejected and headed for the battleship. After maneuvering, the torpedo detonated 1200 feet aft of Iowa in her wake turbulence. When the incident was concluded, Air Force General Hap Arnold leaned over to Fleet Commander Admiral King and asked, "Tell me Ernest, does this happen often in your Navy?"

Seventy Years Ago: November 12, 1943 - USS Iowa (BB-61)

November 12, 1943, President Roosevelt and his senior advisers traveled on the President's yacht Potomac to the Norfolk area to board USS Iowa (BB-61). Destination: Teheran. Purpose: strategic meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

Security measures were elaborate. See the description here.

Iowa was fitted out with a bathtub in the Captain's quarters for the president's comfort. It remains aboard to this day.

This was not a peacetime cruise - German submarines and aircraft still menaced the seas.

USS Iowa - our newest, best armored and most powerful battleship, was the safest platform available for the president.

Seventy Years Ago On The Eastern Front: The Holocaust Is Discovered

Soviet forces advancing against the German Army enter the region of Khazary, a Jewish region, and find all the inhabitants dead.

The eyewitness account here paints a vivid picture of just what that means.

The horror.

Doolittle Raiders Have Last Public Reunion

Every year since 1942, on April 18, the anniversary of the Doolittle raid on Japan by 16 B-25 bombers taking off from the pitching flight deck of USS Hornet, the survivors of the 80 aviators from the raid hold a reunion. They toast those who passed on during the previous year. Among the mementoes possessed by the surviving raiders is a bottle of fine cognac bottled in 1896, the year of General Doolittle's birth. The plan is for the last survivors to open the bottle and toast their departed comrades.

At their annual reunion this year, the four remaining survivors, all in their nineties, decided that this year's reunion was the last public reunion they will hold. Later this year, they will hold a private ceremony at which the 1896 bottle will be opened. Here is the story.

I have written about the Doolittle raid before: here and here and here and here and here. It was one of the most remarkable military operations in history and had an effect far beyond the slight damage it caused to Tokyo. It was, in fact, a game-changer for the entire Pacific war.

The eighty volunteers who pulled it off were no more remarkable than many others in our armed forces at the time of Pearl Harbor, but only trained B-25 crew members had the chance to volunteer.

They did a remarkable thing, but standing behind them were thousands of sailors, engineers, technicians and military planners who made the plan, modified the aircraft, trained the crews to take off from an aircraft carrier, land in China and get back to the US.

The aircrews got the glory, but all these men were in it together. Teamwork. And it was done with airplanes, ships, soldiers and sailors who were already in the service at the time of Pearl Harbor.

Seventy Years Ago: September 11, 1943: USS Savannah

September 11, 1943, USS Savannah (CL-42), a prewar Brooklyn class light cruiser, was hit by a German bomb while supporting our landing at Salerno. The bomb, which was dropped from high altitude, turned out to be a radio-controlled bomb, which hit the top of turret three and caused extensive damage, destroying part of the keel and killing most of the sailors in the forward part of the ship.

Here is a personal account of the event by one of the sailors aboard. Savannah's effective gunfire in support of US troops ashore figures in the movie, "Big Red One."

The photos below show the ship after the bomb hit.

The bomb killed 197 out of Savannah's 868-man crew.

Syria, Ypres And Chemical Warfare

April 22, 1915, 5:00 pm northeast of Ypres in Belgium:

Dusk was falling when from the German trenches in front of the French line rose that strange green cloud of death. The light north-easterly breeze wafted it toward them, and in a moment death had them by the throat. One cannot blame them that they broke and fled. In the gathering dark of that awful night they fought with the terror, running blindly in the gas-cloud, and dropping with breasts heaving in agony and the slow poison of suffocation mantling their dark faces. Hundreds of them fell and died; others lay helpless, froth upon their agonized lips and their racked bodies powerfully sick, with tearing nausea at short intervals. They too would die later – a slow and lingering death of agony unspeakable. The whole air was tainted with the acrid smell of chlorine that caught at the back of men's throats and filled their mouths with its metallic taste.

—Captain Hugh Pollard, The Memoirs of a VC (1932)

The green cloud that rolled down the shallow incline from the German lines was chlorine gas. Chlorine is heavier than air, and it pours like water, seeking lower ground - like protective trenches and fox holes.

German troops had hauled nearly 6,000 cylinders of chlorine gas weighing 90 pounds each to the front lines and uncapped the cylinders by hand. Some German troops died from the gas, but some 6,000 French and colonial troops perished within ten minutes of the attack. The rest fled along a four mile front, leaving the way open for Germans to advance. They did so gingerly, because the Germans themselves lacked effective protection against the gas and German officers had not assigned enough reserves to the line to exploit a breakthrough.

Near midnight, Canadian troops formed up and attacked the Germans, driving them back and halting the German advance.

This was the first effective use of gas in warfare. Three months earlier on the Russian front, Germany had used gas-filled artillery shells, but it was so cold the poisonous gas froze and did not vaporize.

For the remainder of World War I, both sides continued to develop new and deadlier gases, new methods of delivery and better defense methods.

The US chemical warfare program began just prior to American entry into the war in 1917. The program was directed out of offices and laboratories at American University in Washington, DC. Just a few years ago, gas warfare shells were found buried in a residential neighborhood near American University.

In 1948, when my family lived in a rural area east of Oklahoma City, our next door neighbor was a man who had been gassed in Europe during World War I. Thirty years later, he was still suffering the effects of that attack.

Outside Ypres, large tracts of former agricultural land remain unusable because of the effects of persistent chemical warfare agents.

Since that time, on only a few occasions have nations used lethal chemical warfare agents: Italy in Ethiopia in 1935, Japan in China, Saddam Hussein against Kurds and against Iran. Most uses have been against insurgents or unprotected civilians (like the alleged Syrian attack), though even that is rare.

The non-use of chemical warfare in Europe during World War II is something of a puzzle. One possibility is that the agents are effective only under very specific weather conditions. It is difficult to find such conditions at the right time, especially with a dynamic battlefield. Then there is this:

Stanley P. Lovell, Deputy Director for Research and Development of the Office of Strategic Services, submitted the queston "Why was nerve gas not used in Normandy?" to be asked of Hermann Goering during his interrogation. Goering answered that the reason gas was not used had to do with horses. The Wehrmacht was dependent upon horse-drawn transport to move supplies to their combat units, and had never been able to devise a gas mask horses could tolerate; the versions they developed would not pass enough pure air to allow the horses to pull a cart. Thus, gas was of no use to the German Army under most conditions.

What About Syria?

The subject of Syria keeps coming up at The Bean. "What do I think?"

I shy away from the subject. The truth is, I know a lot about warfare (it's my profession), but I don't know much about Syria.

I also know a lot about diplomacy, international law and strategic planning. But what I know of these subjects leads me to be cautious. Especially when the action under review is to become involved in someone else's civil war. Danger!

I also don't think much of the idea that we can just bomb a country into submission without some form of "boots on the ground." Or at least the threat of "boots on the ground." * And be sceptical of "regime change" as a goal. We're still suffering the aftereffects of our ill-considered "successful" operation of sixty years ago, where we caused the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected, progressive prime minister of Iran.

We saved Iranian oil for British Petroleum, but at what cost?

Worth thinking about.

 *The only case that comes to mind of a successful military campaign won almost entirely by bombing is that of Kosovo in 1999.

Seventy Years Ago In The Pacific: August 27, 1943 At Nukufetau

Marines (2d Airdrome Battalion) and Seabees (16th Construction Battalion) occupy the atoll at Nukufetau. The purpose is to set up an air base to support offensive operations later in the year against the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Army troops (RCT 172 of 43d Infantry Division) land on Arundel Island, Solomons, for the same purpose. 

Nukufetau (178.375E 8.064S) is an atoll in the Ellice Islands group northwest of Funafuti. It is nine miles (14 km km) long and five miles (8 km) wide. Its reef-enclosed lagoon has just two passes on the northwest, of which the larger is Teafua Pass. Deafatule Pass  to its north is narrow and tortuous. The lagoon is too shallow for large ships. Supplies, therefore, had to be brought in by landing craft from Funafuti. The largest islet, Motolalo, was swampy and heavily vegetated.

Within a month after marines and Seabees came ashore, they had built a 3500' fighter runway (ready 9 October), and later in the month completed a 6100'  bomber runway was completed later in the month.

Seventy Years Ago: Invasion Of Vella Lavella

Third Amphibious Force (Rear Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson) lands Navy, Marine, and Army personnel at Vella Lavella, Solomons, thus by-passing enemy positions on Kolombangara, Solomons.This advanced the Solomons campaign considerably, but many naval battles were to follow.

Meanwhile, to the north, Naval task force under Commander North Pacific Force (Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid) lands U.S. Army and Canadian troops at Kiska, Aleutians. They find Kiska had been evacuated by the Japanese on 28 July 1943. Only casualties in the operation occur because of accidents or friendly fire incidents.

Seventy Years Ago: John F. Kennedy And PT-109 In The Solomons

World War II PT-boats were fast, but little faster than Japanese Destroyers. Their armament was quite limited, and their torpedoes were no match for the Japanese Long Lance. But they were small, highly maneuverable and hard to shoot at.

It was the night of August 1, 1943 when PT-109 and Japanese destroyers were maneuvering at high speed at "darken ship" (no lights showing).  By 0200 PT-109 had slowed to idling speed, using only its centerline engine in order to minimize its wake so as not to be spotted from the air.

Suddenly the crew became aware of Japanese destroyer Amagiri bearing down on them at high speed. They had only about ten seconds to light off the outboard engines (PT-109 was powered with three twelve-cylinder Packard gasoline engines). It wasn't enough.

Amagiri sliced PT-109 in two, causing it to burst into flames from its high octane AVGAS. The skipper, John Kennedy, managed to get the eleven surviving crew members to a small nearby island. Two crewmen perished in the collision.

Kennedy went for help. On August 5th, Kennedy found native Solomon Islanders, who were able to help. The full story is here.

Seventy Years Ago: Mussolini Falls

July 28, 1943: Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers a fireside chat on the fall of Mussolini. And what a chat it was!

No American who heard FDR speak on that day could fail to note that we were all in this together, and we were winning!

Not many leaders have ever had the skill of FDR at putting events into perspective.

Read the whole, inspiring fireside chat here.

And celebrate with a cup of unrationed coffee.

Seventy Years Ago: Battle Of Kolombangara

The night of July 12/13, 1943, in the Solomons near Kolombangara, three light cruisers and ten destroyers of TG 36.1 (Rear Admiral Walden L. Ainsworth) engage one Japanese light cruiser (Jintsu) and five destroyers (Rear Admiral Izaki Shunji) escorting troop-carrying destroyers. Japanese torpedoes damage U.S. light cruisers Honolulu (CL-48) and St. Louis (CL-49), and New Zealand light cruiser HMNZS Leander (which has replaced the lost Helena (CL-50)). Destroyer Gwin (DD-433), damaged by torpedo, is scuttled by Ralph Talbot (DD-390). Destroyers Woodworth (DD-460) and Buchanan (DD-484) are damaged by collision. Japanese light cruiser Jintsu is sunk by cruiser gunfire and destroyer torpedo; and destroyer Yukikaze is damaged.

At this stage of the conflict, nearly two years into the war with Japan,The US Navy still had no idea about the range, speed and explosive power of the Japanese 24" Long Lance torpedo, carried by all Japanese cruisers and destroyers. US forces continued to close Japanese surface ships to fire their own torpedoes, not realizing they were well within range of the Long Lance.

Cruiser Helena was lost a week earlier in the nearby battle of Kula Gulf.


A single Long Lance torpedo did this damage to the bow of USS Honolulu.

More On Communications Intelligence

I realize my previous post on communications intelligence might have been a bit much for some readers. My excuse is that I was personally fascinated with the case of Stanley Johnston revealing through the Chicago Tribune that the US knew in advance where and when the Japanese would attack Midway. How Johnston may have learned of this remains a bit speculative.

What I find equally interesting is that Johnston, who was embarked as a journalist aboard USS Lexington (CV-2) during the battle of the Coral Sea, seems not to have been aware of the role played by communications intelligence in that battle. How did the US fleet know to be where they were at the time they were in order to engage the Japanese?

Johnston's book, Queen Of The Flattops, about the last days and eventual loss of Lexington remains a masterpiece of war coverage.

Two movies about the war in the Pacific provide some information about the role of communications intelligence: "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "Midway." My favorite is Tora! Tora! Tora!

A recent series on public television, "Bletchley Circle," touches on the special skills of the (mostly women) who worked on breaking German codes during WWII.

Two works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn are of interest. In August, 1914, Solzhenitsyn describes the utter disaster of the Russian army at the Battle of Tannenberg, largely due to administrative incompetence in delivering radio code books to the field in time for the attack. As a result, Russian forces could only communicate with each other in the clear. The Germans knew every Russian move in advance. Whether the code books would have been effective had they been distributed is another question.

During the Winter War of 1939 between Finland and the Soviet Union, it is said that Finnish forces intercepted encrypted Soviet radio communications, transmitted the intercepts to Swedish experts at Uppsala University. The intercepts were decrypted and the information sent back to Finland. This intelligence enabled Finnish ski troops to operate with devastating effectiveness against Soviet units.

The other related book by Solzhenitsyn is First Circle. That book describes the work of Soviet convicts in developing technical means of voice recognition to identify a dissident from a recording.

These efforts were all forerunners of today's cyberwar.