For the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Battle of Santa Cruz was one of those battles that was looked back on with downcast eyes, heavy sighs, and lots of phrases that began with “If only we…” and “It almost…” and “We just about…”. Fought to the northest of the Santa Cruz Islands (several hundred miles east of [...]
Archive for the ‘Pacific’ Category
Japan Wins Big and Loses Bigger at Santa Cruz
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Admiral Nobutake Kondo, Admiral William Halsey, Battle of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands on October 26 | Leave a Comment »
St. Lo Laid Low by Yukio
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Divine Wind, Kamikaze, Leyte Gulf, Lt. Yukio Seki, San Bernardino Strait, Taffy 3 on October 25 | Leave a Comment »
The Battle of Leyte Gulf needs no serious introduction to regular readers of Today’s History Lesson, as we spent several days looking at it a year ago. If you’d like a refresher, here are the three articles from last year, which should give you an above-and-below-water overview of what is considered to be the largest [...]
A Divine Wind Stirs the Balacat Trees
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Divine Wind, East Airfield, Kamikaze, Leyte Gulf, Luzon, Mabalacat, Pampanga Province, Philippines on October 20 | Leave a Comment »
Today, East Airfield is just a field. Every year, a crop of sugar cane is grown there. When the time is right (like it is at some point every year), the sugar cane is harvested and turned into whatever sweet things it becomes. And it’s then, when the sugar cane is removed, that the field [...]
Corporal Andrusko: 1 Bullet, 3 Wounds, 1 Miracle
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Blood Poisoning, Captain Andy Haldane, Corporal Eddy Lee Andrusko, Peleliu, Vicissitude on October 13 | Leave a Comment »
Vicissitudes.
I love that word. The way it rolls off the tongue…it’s smooth. Vicissitudes. The first time I heard that word was, somewhat surprisingly, during an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Mike and the Bots were making fun of the short A Date with Your Family, which preceded the movie Invasion USA (which happens to be [...]
Andy Haldane: Loved and Lost on Peleliu’s Hill 140
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Captain Andy Haldane, Hill 140, Peleliu on October 12 | Leave a Comment »
As I’ve been reading “To the Far Side of Hell“, I’m reminded again that history looks back on the Battle of Peleliu with an extremely critical eye. The garrison there was strong and well-entrenched, but the island’s airfield was useless and its aircraft destroyed. The general principle of “island-hopping” (bypassing Japanese strongholds and letting them [...]
Leaving Pavavu: Out of the Frying Pan…
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, 1st Marine Division, Guadalcanal, Pavavu, Peleliu, Russell Islands on September 4 | Leave a Comment »
When the 1st Marine Division saw their “R and R” destination in the distance, they saw an island paradise. And that was just fine with them. After the tought fighting on New Britain, they needed rest, they needed to recover, and they needed to refill their ranks with new recruits. And there on the horizon, [...]
Ichiki Butai Bitten Hard at Alligator Creek
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Alligator Creek, Battle of the Tenaru River, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands on August 21 | Leave a Comment »
Word drifted back to Colonel Kiyano Ichiki of the encounter some of his men had with Colonel Brush’s patrol. If you recall, Brush’s patrol and a small group of the Ichiki Butai had engaged in a firefight near Alligator Creek. Nearly all the Japanese soldiers had been killed.
Ichiki’s response was probably expected, given the condition [...]
Lunch and a Battle for Brush’s Men
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged Alligator Creek, Captain Charles Brush, Guadalcanal, Ichiki Butai, Solomon Islands on August 19 | Leave a Comment »
The patrol led by Lt. Col. Frank Goettge, tragically lost on August 13th, was just one of several that routinely went out in those early days on Guadalcanal. And while Goettge’s patrol ran into trouble (that quickly became disaster), others had very little contact with their Japanese enemies.
At the same time the last of Goettge’s [...]
Carlson’s Raiders Hit Makin’s Beaches
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Gilbert Islands, Guadalcanal, Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, Makin, U.S. Marine Raiders on August 17 | Leave a Comment »
On August 17, 1942, the Battle of Guadalcanal was 10 days old. The first serious Marine patrol sent out had come to a very bad end, and the first major engagement on this largest of the Solomon Islands was just a couple days away.
But already, the U.S. Navy was looking for ways to distract the [...]
Marines Find Little Pleasure in Guam-Chewing
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Apra Harbor, General Roy Geiger, General Takeshi Takashina, Guam, Marianas Islands on July 21 | Leave a Comment »
In July of 1944, Army and Marine forces completed the capture of Saipan. Though not the largest of the Marianas Islands, it held the largest Japanese garrison, estimated at more than 30,000 soldiers. Taking control of Saipan, an effort which began on June 15, 1944, was originally estimated to require 3 days (I think pretty [...]
The Battle of Kolombangara
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1943, Battle of Kolombangara, Guadalcanal, Kolombangara, New Georgia, Shunji Izaki, Solomon Islands, Walden Ainsworth on July 13 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday’s battle (Prohkorovka) was a tongue-twister, so let’s do it again!
Kolombangara is not the biggest island you’ve never heard of, and it’s certainly not the easiest to pronounce. But it’s one of the roundest. So round, in fact, that I used some of my old geometry equations to roughly compute the area. About 9.3 miles [...]
Marpi Point: Saipan’s Final Act
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Marpi Point, Saipan, Suicide Cliff on July 10 | Leave a Comment »
Privates Alva Perry and Paul Scanelon needed a bath. Badly. Neither had taken one in four weeks, and as members of A Company, 24th Marines, they had been tasked with defeating the Japanese garrison on the island of Saipan. And for the most part, that was done. Now it was time to wash a month’s worth [...]
The Deadly Venom of the Inland Saipan
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 105th Regiment, 1944, Congressional Medal of Honor, Gyokusai, Paradise Valley, Saipan on July 7 | Leave a Comment »
For some reason, this didn’t get published when it was supposed to…I messed up the dates or something…
If you recall, several weeks ago I wrote about the venom of “Coastal Saipan”. Today it’s “Inland Saipan”. You might be wondering at the whole poison connection. Well, I’ve always been fascinated by snakes. I hate them, and [...]
General Stilwell Takes Over on Okinawa
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1945, Burma, Burma Road, Chiang Kai-shek, General Joseph Stilwell, General Roy Geiger, General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands on June 23 | Leave a Comment »
A year ago, we discussed the death of General Simon Bolivar Buckner. In command of the U.S. Tenth Army (comprised of both Army and Marine Divisions), the General had been killed in the closing days of the Battle of Okinawa (on June 18, 1945 to be precise). He had gone out to visit the front and see [...]
The Deadly Venom of the Coastal Saipan
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1944, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, Admiral Kelly Turner, General Holland Smith, General Yoshitsugo Saito, Saipan on June 15 | Leave a Comment »
As we’ve seen, June 5th of 1944 was “get it moving” day for the massive invasion fleet crossing the English Channel to its date with destiny on the French coasts of Normandy. We’ve alluded to how much effort was required to make the landings of Operation Overlord even possible, much less successful. And that was to [...]
USS Yorktown Survives Near-Death Experience
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Midway Island, Pearl Harbor, USS Yorktown on May 30 | Leave a Comment »
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought in early May of 1942, ended with one U.S. carrier (the USS Lexington) permanently water-logged and the USS Yorktown wounded. She had managed to steer clear of nearly all her attackers, but one was able to hit her with a bomb that caused heavy damage below decks.
Experts estimated that [...]
The Emperor’s New Codes
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Encryption, Island AF, JN-25, Midway Island on May 25 | Leave a Comment »
The Japanese Navy in May of 1942 was still largely unbloodied. And it was not because they had simply avoided battle. Rather, they had pretty much stomped any enemy that had dared oppose them. Even the “setback” in the Coral Sea couldn’t really be looked on as a defeat. After all, while the Japanese had [...]
Midway: Into the Crosshairs
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Isoroku Yamamoto, Midway Island, Navy Order No. 18 on May 5 | Leave a Comment »
In the early hours of May 5, 1942, things were still looking pretty good for the Japanese military. New conquests included the Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, Singapore, and the northern coasts of New Guinea. The Philippines was largely occupied as well, and Joe Stilwell and his men were packing their bags in Burma. The Imperial Japanese Navy [...]
Doolittle Raid Does Little, Accomplishes Much
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, General James Doolittle, North American B-25 Mitchell, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, USS Hornet on April 18 | Leave a Comment »
On April 18, 1942, Hideki Tojo was doing what millions of people today do on a regular basis…flying in an airplane. Sitting in a belly of a plane was nothing new to this career military man, but sitting in one while bearing the title of Japanese Prime Minister was. Tojo had been named to the exalted [...]
Laffey II – The Wrath of (Human) Bombs
Posted in Pacific, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1945, Okinawa, Kamikaze, Ryukyu Islands, Floating Chrysanthemum, USS Laffey, Divine Wind on April 16 | Leave a Comment »
Let’s talk for a couple minutes about the experience of the USS Laffey in the battle for Okinawa. As you know, Okinawa turned out to be the last major land battle of the Second World War. It was also one of the roughest, toughest engagements of the entire war.
But it was also a major naval [...]
