Fourth of July Trivia Post
Here are a couple of 4th of July questions for history buffs among you
Q1: Did an Imperial Japanese Army armored division ever engage US tanks in combat and if so where?
Q2: What was HF/DF and what was its role in the Battle of the Atlantic?
HF/DF was a radio receiver which measured the direction of signals, typically U-boats, which were stalking convoys in the Atlantic. The Wolfpacks were coordinated from Germany, where their positions and deployments were determined on a Kriegsmarine map.
When convoys were in the middle of the Atlantic, beyond the range of aircraft which could spot U-boats on the surface, the only way for the convoy escorts to detect the gathering Wolfpacks were either through radar or HF/DF. The U-boats were ordered to signal their position if they spotted a convoy and they had to acknowledge instuctions from Kriegsmarine headquarters.
This operational method was required to coordinate the pack, but it also resulted in the submarines periodically breaking radio silence. These transmissions could be detected by shore-based monitoring stations. However, due to the distances over which the bearings were measured, the locations were imprecise.
When HF/DF was miniaturized to fit on a ship, then the escorts themselves could find the U-boats chattering nearby. They could then attack the U-Boats or stack the defense toward threats from that direction. The Kriegsmarine believed that by resorting to compressed transmissions they would prevent a bearing from being taken on the signal. But advances in electronics allowed the allies to scan in all directions and across frequences quickly enough to detect them anyway.
Very often they found the escorts waiting for them.
A similar system is still in use today — by the BBC. The BBC is authorized to hunt down and fine people for the unauthorized operation of a television set. The principle is the same as HF/DF. The BBC have vans, like the old time Gestapo funker wagons, which can detect the electronic signature of a TV being switched on. The equipment in the BBC detection van then then run a license check keyed to the premises. If they detect a working TV where no license exists, then away go the legal depth charges. And another lawless Briton bites the dust.
Licence fee evasion in Britain continues to fall due to improvements in detection methods, combined with media publicity to ensure that evaders recognise the risk of being caught. Evaders are tracked down with the help of handheld detectors and a fleet of detector vans, using a national database of licence holders.
At BBC R&D we are working on a project to develop new detection methods to supplement those already in use. We have investigated a wide range of methods and chosen for development those which are quickest and most accurate, with a view to minimising the time spent by a detector van at each target site. We have added a satellite-based navigation system which helps minimise the time spent travelling between sites.
The detection results are recorded automatically. The van will be in frequent contact with TV Licensing’s database to check whether the viewer has a current licence.
The Guardian says that the new French government is thinking of licensing computing equipment to help pay for public broadcasting.
President François Hollande’s Socialist government aims to raise an extra €7.5bn (£6bn) this year through tax rises included in an amended budget bill to be unveiled next week.
“Is it necessary to extend the fee to [computer] screens when you do not have a television? It is a question we’re asking ourselves, but obviously it would be a fee per household and you would not have to pay an [additional] fee if you have a computer and a television,” Aurélie Filippetti said on RTL radio.
She said the government would study the new measure in 2013.The licence fee – €125 in mainland France and €80 in its overseas territories – is used to finance public television and radio.
In that way, even if you don’t want to watch public television, you will still have to pay for it. The more things change, the more they stay the same. In the old days convoys were pursued for to deny their valuable cargoes to the allies. Today the computers will be taxed to pay for the TVs. Hunting down electronics signals is bigger than ever. Just ask al-Qaeda. But to see how the old timers did it, watch the video below
The answer to the first question is open to everyone.
Belmont Commenters
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I think they called the set the Huff – Duff
High Frequency Direction Finding, embedded in much more sophisticated electronic countermeasures devices, is still a mainstay of the craft.
Re: Japanese armored division. I think the answer is never.
Date : Jan. to April, 1945
Place : Luzon, The Philippines
Opponent : US Army
2nd Tank Division
http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/history2.htm
With out looking it up, I don’t think the Nips ever created a Division sized armor formation. IIRC they had a regiment they used against the Soviets in 1938. They got stomped pretty bad.
There was a battalion on Okinawa that contested the airfield but it was chopped up by the Marine M4A2′s. And there were Nip tanks in the PI but they were used in dribbles and drops to secure the supply lines I think. The Japanese army was an Infantry Army with Artillery support. Think WW1.
I went ahead and looked it up;
http://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/japanese-tanks/index.html
Here is a nice pic of a tank on guam;
ww.yellowairplane.com/pics/Viewers_Pages/Dan_Collier_9_WW2_type_97_Chi_Ha_Military_Vehicles_Guam_Japanese.html
Correct Chip. The only large scale battle between US and Japanese armor took place to the north of the approaches to the Clark Field complex. The tanks were dug in around San Manuel in revetments, for the most part, and they faced the M4A3s (the Tiger of the Pacific) mostly to the IJA’s detriment.
For an account of this action read M4 Sherman vs Type 97 Chi-Ha.
The reason the tanks were dug into static positions was that the Japanese tankers tried engaging the Shermans in mobile warfare. One Japanese commander ambushed a platoon of Shermans by deploying his tanks to the side of the road. When the Shermans were within 150 meters his men opened fire on the M4A3s, penetrating the side armor multiple times and knocking out the track of the last of the 3 tanks in the US platoon.
Unfortunately, this allowed the remaining Sherman to pivot around on the remaining good track, presenting the Japanese tanks with the frontal armor. The Japanese then expended 60 rounds on the front of the Sherman, all to no avail, as the remaining M4A3 destroyed every remaining IJA tank, including some which in desperation climbed out of their ambush positions to ram the surviving US tank.
The Tiger of the Pacific.
That experience so traumatized the Japanese tank men that they decided to dig in the remainder of their armor into revetments.
Elements of the Japanese army’s 2nd Tank Division were destroyed in the fighting to retake the Philippines.
The extent to which the IJA would emplace their armor is exemplified by the discovery of this vistor to Saipan, shown here on YouTube, of a Japanese tank inside a cave whose opening to the sea was only a foot high.
It was melted.
Sometime nearly 70 years ago, a very determined band of Japanese tankers had done their level best to defend the homeland from the Pacific onslaught but the application of some tremendous, almost unimaginable amount of violence had defeated them at last.
World War 2 will no longer be in living memory soon. Yesterday my mother called on the occasion of the 4th of July and she had “God Bless America” on her CD player. She is the only one of two people I know now who heard the Shermans crash through the gates of the Sto Tomas POW camp to rescue the inmates there.
That dreadful event will live on in the history books, but the full memory of those years will soon be gone until the last the last trumpet is sounded. And that was the way those who were part of it want it.
I read where a company in California was assembling data on which radio stations people listened to in their cars as they drove by.
I knew right off how they did this. They simply listen and record the frequency of the local oscillators of the car radios as they drive by. Each LO is tuned to a specific frequency in order to listen to a particular radio station.
This fact worked against the German U-Boats. When the Allies began using airborne radar U-boat sinkings rose greatly. The Germans installed French-made Metax receivers on board their subs to detect the aircraft radar. But then the Allies switched to microwave radar, which was far superior to the early VHF radar since its shorter wavelengths could see the U-boats easier. The Germans noted the additional rise in sinkings after they installed the French made Metax sets and concluded that the Allies were tuning in on the local oscillators, rather than using a new radar they could not detect.
Funny thing about TV’s though. Color TVs using CRTs have a 3.579 MHZ oscillator that can be detected at some distance. I have even found that the amateur radio frequency of 14.316 MHZ is unusable at my house because the 3rd harmonic of that oscillator is still strong enough to jam a receiver.
But – LCD TVs do not use that 3.579 MHZ oscillator. No wonder the Brits are looking for new technology – the old reliable indication no longer works with the new sets.
As for the tanks – just think of how hard it would have been to deploy and support German Tiger Tanks in the Pacific. Imagine Tigers or even Panthers trying to wade ashore. The Germans never did a real combat amphibious assault under fire, not once, and never did one at all 4000 miles away from the homeland. By using the Sherman we suboptimized for some situations but optimized for the world war.
World War 2 will no longer be in living memory soon.
Beautiful post today, wretchard, thanks. My parents, including my father and his experiences on Okinawa and then briefly as an occupier in Japan, passed a few years ago now. We boomers were pretty well conditioned by it, though, and most have famliarity with the terms and thoughts, no matter our modest knowledge of the events. And then it will be pretty much for the books, the next generations have more modern fish to fry.
Happy Independence Day!
Celebrate the American holiday and experience, and (as in the silly but still affecting scifi movie by the same name), independence around the world today, and wherever it manages to surface again as needed in the future, and on such other planets, galaxies, and planes of existence as may need the encouragement as well.
The best movie that I saw on submarines warfare
“Das Boot” 1981 (german movie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j3ug4Nflfs&feature=related
Mr. Fernandez
God keep your mother safe and well. My mother is gone now, as is my father for many years. He was in the Philipines in 1945. All those guys hated the jungle and the disease and being so far from home. For the rest of his life my father had to be careful to keep his feet clean and dry, lest the jungle rot return.
But they hated the Japanese even more.
It was worth it, and she is more than welcome.
Happy Independence Day Belmonters.
Happy independence day. A good day to sit back and smile at the sky. Today the Stars and Stripes are flying next to the Maple Leaf out in front of our house. The two flags look good together.
11. Marie Claude:
+1 on Das Boot; get the director’s cut.
Happy 4th of July to all, and may God continue to Bless America.
And here is some film of a Japanese Kyu go tank being given a test run after capture by the British http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLKwq8JKIaw
In addition to other problems of design and doctrine, by the middle of the war the Japanese had a fuel problem, particularly in isolated locations, which described most of the PTO. There would also have been a problem with operations in jungle terain. So there was a tendency for tanks to become pillboxes. Most of the larger armor formations were on the mainland, but by the time of the Soviet August Storm operation in 1945, the fuel situation was even worse.
RWE @ 9: “No wonder the Brits are looking for new technology – the old reliable indication no longer works with the new sets.”
Or are they really looking for new technology? There have long been rumors that the BBC’s TV Detector Vans are actually empty; the BBC simply drive them around neighborhoods to keep Brits in an appropriate state of fear & subjugation.
Working in Blighty some years ago, I decided to do without a TV set. (People outside Britain have an undue admiration for Brit-TV because we see only the exported cream-of-the-cream. In reality, most of the output of the BBC ranks between boring and asinine).
After a short while, I started to receive dunning notices in the mail, ordering me to acquire a TV license. It seems that the BBC simply looks for addresses which do not have a TV license, on the assumption that everyone has a TV. Eventually, I had to go down to the Post Office, stand in line, and register as a ‘non-owner of a TV’. It was a little like having to register as a sex offender, I should imagine.
Trendies tend to laugh at the notion of ‘freedom’, and be snide about Independence Day. But even in our current fallen state, the US government is still less intrusive than Old Europeans have to put up with every day. Let’s offer a toast to those whose sacrifices gave us the 4th of July!
There is not a day that I don’t thank God for having been born an American. God bless America and the Belmonters! Happy 4th of July, everyone!
Even though the 4th of July should legally mean nothing to me, in actual practice my mother’s generation had a much more ambiguous relationship with the US. Just recently I came across a documentary for describing the pre-war radio station KZRH, for which my father once worked. KZRH followed the troops to Bataan and one of their announcers, Norman Reyes read out the final broadcast before it surrendered.
Imagine my surprise to discover that a certain Hal Bowie had been the general manager of KZRH. Hal Bowie was my godfather at that long ago Baptism in the old Malate Church. Here’s a picture of Hal after being rescued at the Los Banos internment camp in 1945.
Hal Bowie was an example of that ambiguity. Back then you didn’t really regard Americans, especially “old timers” like Hal Bowie, as foreigners. They were “uncle” or Hal or something else. The events of 1941-45 were not distant rumor to my family; it was then living hitory
It’s important to understand this to fully comprehend why Bataan fought on so long and why the guerilla resistance was so strong. Much of the population was not only fighting for the Philippines, they were also fighting for the United States. That’s why it was not all unthinkable for Chief Justice Abad Santos to choose death rather than publicly denounce his allegiance to the flag, even for the reward of a puppet Philippine presidency.
Maybe the difference between the erass is summed up in two sentences. The first, which was uttered in irration recently by a famous figure is “all this for a flag?” And the other were the last words of Abad Santos to his son: “not everyone has the chance to die for his country.”
Happy 4th of July.
In the spirit of Independence Day, my first attempt at video was just posted here https://vimeo.com/45163865
Note: either vimeo is very sluggish today or there is a problem with my internet connection. Eventually, the video will load and play, but it may take awhile.
Happy Birthday America!
17 @Kinuachdrach
Now you guys have made me curious. I know a bit of RF engineering and I wouldn’t be surprised by your claim at all, given that the old analog way of tuning a LO to the desired channel frequency is pretty much out the door. Today’s RF receivers are generally System-on-Chip (i.e. black box), meaning that nearly all of the tuning and decoding functions are done on the same piece of cheap silicon.
Here’s an example block diagram of what I’m talking about, for any techs, engineers, or hams who may be able to read it:
http://www.silabs.com/products/audiovideo/HybridTVTuners/Pages/Si21x8.aspx
For the non-initiated, all that is input into this IC is power, antenna, and a master, fixed clock oscillator. That oscillator is the only thing that would be a tell for the Beeb vans, but it’s fixed frequency and all of the tuning is essentially done digitally (software defined radio). So there would be no way of knowing what channel you are tuned to, and no way of really knowing that the signal from the oscillator is connected to a TV tuner IC. Different manufacturers are almost certainly using different clock frequencies, and the same clock frequency being used in your TV tuner might also be used in a totally unrelated piece of electronics in your house!
So if I had to make an educated guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just bluffing. But I know nothing about electronics warfare, so I may be missing something.
Edit:
20 @w
Here I was feeling all down about recent events and you gave me a metaphorical slap in the face with your incredible story and especially that last, chilling paragraph. Thank you, sir.
15 jwarrior
“get the director’s cut”
what do you mean?
Happy 4 th July to all too
Wretchard, years ago I saw a photo from WW II that had an American soldier or two standing next to a couple of Filipino guerrillas: the latter had several jawbones dangling from their belts, trophies from Japs they had killed. They were attired in Sam Brown ammo bandoliers, shorts, and barefooted. Have you heard of such a custom?
Now I can’t find it anywhere, but it seems like a vivid depiction of the savagery of that war.
@22. MC;
Not JWarrior but the director Wolfgang Peterson shot over a million feet of film during production because he wanted to create a 6hour epic for German TV. This enabled him and the editor to make a “Director’s cut” version of the film. Google Das Boot and look for the website (sorry no time to insert a link for you).
As much as we give the French a hard time, our chances in the Revolutionary War would have been a bit lower without French assistance. So I’ll say Happy Independence Day to Marie Claude.
Wretchard, would love to hear more about your mom’s experiences and how she survived the Battle of Manila. Thanks so much for sharing what you have.
My dad came from a small farm in central Pennsylvania. There is a family story about my dad’s entry into WWII. In the months before war started his dad took him and his brother to the recruitment office in Carlyle PA because he could see war coming. He wanted my dad and his brother to volunteer because as volunteers before the war started–they would have a choice as to what part of the army they joined. My grandpa wanted them to join any section where they had the least chance of getting killed.
So my dad joined the medical service core.
My dad went north from Manilla to Baguio with the 25th division in March 1945. He was an ambulance driver. A story he told from time to time when I was growing up was the time he somehow got out ahead of the infantry and captured a sick Japanese soldier who had been left behind by the retreating Japanese army.
I think that was his proudest moment in the war. I don’t know if its true but I’ve read the 25th had the record for the longest period in combat. After the war they went to Japan. My dad was there with the occupation army for a year. He came away telling sympathetic stories about the Japanese.
He told another story about the crossover years in the early 50′s when his marriage moved out of its bliss years. He said, he’d say in response to mom’s fears–heck if I can do war –I can do marriage.
He married my mother in 1948 between trips across the Atlantic as he was part of the escort crew of ships that took German prisoners home. My folks were married for 56 years
He died in 2004 a couple months before Reagan– surrounded by his family and was buried in a cemetery near his parents in one of the small valleys northwest of Harrisburg PA.
On Sunday the Pastor at my church told all military people past and present in 5 branches of the service to stand. he also invited anyone who had a loved one in service too–who had passed away– to stand in honor of their memory.
I stood up.
As a child, I read a lot of the books on the bookshelf that my maternal grandmother had purchased in WWII (because the proceeds from them went to buy War Bonds, and she worked for the Army Air Force).
The ones I remember most were “Guadacanal Diary” , “They Were Expendable” and “American Guerrilla in the Phillipines”.
That was my father’s war, he was at those places (not a combat soldier, in the Army Corp of Engineers). The awfulness of the war, the cruelty of the Japs, the bravery and decency of the Filipinos, that all came through in the book.
Lest we forget the awful price of freedom and how precious it is. To those people fighting as guerrillas and the Filipinos under the heel of the Japs, “I Shall Return” was not a joke or a punchline, but a solemn hope of redemption and freedom.
The geography of pre-war Manila was dominated by the Pasig river which runs east to west. The built up area of the city, including the modern buildings as well as the government center was on the south side of the river.
In order to take the city, the US commanders launched a two pronged attack. There were amphibious landings to the further south in the Batangas Laguna area augmented by an airborne assault on Tagaytay ridge, high ground bordering an extinct volcano. That’s why if you look at the link to Hal Bowie’s liberation picture, you’ll see him with 11th airborne people.
These southern forces came up against the Nichols field-Fort McKinley complex, the principal Japanese defense line in that area. It was timed to coincide with the breakout from the the north of the First Cavalry. Having pushed past the Japanese defenders around the Clark Airbase complex and past the Olongapo Hills in Zambales they made a dash for Manila.
My mother was living a few blocks away from the Sto. Tomas concentration camp, which was on the north side of the river. All through the day the Japanese had been streaming past, headed south across the Pasig bridges toward the built up area, where they would fight the Battle of Manila, leaving only a rearguard and delaying forces.
Nobody knew for a fact where the First Cav was, except that they were “close” and getting closer. Mom knew the jig was up for the Japanese when an IJA Catholic chaplain, who had been kind to the family, stopped by with a bolt of striped silk cloth. The Japanese Catholic priest, who was in his 20s, gave the cloth to my grandmother with these words. “I was going to present this as a gift to my mother in Japan. But I don’t think I’ll have the chance. Please take this with my compliments.” The Japanese chaplain turned on his heel and was never seen again.
As night fell all there was not a soul in the street. All you could hear, according to grandpa, were the bootheels of Japanese infantrymen running towards where, no one could say. The family had made a shelter in the strongest corner of the house, with the few pieces of furniture they had blocking off the likely path of bullets.
Then full dark fell. In the distance they heard the thud of demolition charges bringing down the Pasig bridges. Then there was eerie silence broken only by barking dogs. After what seemed a very long time a new sound pricked up everybody’s ears.
It was the whining of a jeep followed by the rumble of M4 Shermans. The First Cavalry had come, right down Espana boulevard. Their destination was the concentration camp at Santo Tomas, where American civilian families were being held.
My mom heard a burst of fire and then a crash. We know from historical accounts this was the lead Sherman smashing down the camp gates. And then there came a cheering that made everyone’s hair stand on end. Santo Tomas was liberated.
In the coming days my mom would venture out (she was a teenager then) and saw to her amazement the cogon fields filled with heavy artillery batteries. The siege of the South had started. The man who was to be my father was on the south side, together with the rest of Mom’s cousins and aunts. The real battle of Manila was about to begin.
Here’s a link from the First Cavalry association which captures the drama of the events.
wretchard,
I had some chums by the name of Russell at the old American (now International) School in Manila. Their parents were in Sto Thomas and may have known your mom. They were newly married at the time of the invasion and had left their wedding silver, among other things, for safekeeping with a nice Japanese businessman neighbor. An intel colonel it ends up. At the end of the ws he returned the goods.
Regan
FWIW, the HF/DF is a (minor) element in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon where it is used as an explanation to cover for the fact that the Allies had actually broken the Enigma code.
The Japanese used armor during the battle of Saipan.
“Saipan, 1944, Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area. Tanks: The proposed employment of Japanese tanks was to “destroy the enemy at the water’s edge after nightfall”. Their tank strength consisted of the 9th Tank Regiment of about 100 medium tanks. During the entire operation there were only two instances when the Japanese used tanks in comparatively large numbers. The first occurred during the early morning hours of June 17 when medium tanks approached in groups of four or five and upon reaching the U. S. position cruised up and down the front line and then overran the U. S. positions. Individual Marines crouched in their foxholes and slit trenches as the tanks rolled over them. As the tanks passed the Marines leaped from their foxholes and attacked the tanks with bazookas and anti-tank grenades. Incendiary grenades and demolition charges were dropped into disabled tanks. While U. S. 37 mm guns did not penetrate the turrets of the tanks they were effective against the bogie wheels and tracks, stopping them and enabling U. S. troops to destroy them with other weapons.
The second use of tanks occurred during the evening of June 23 and all the next day. During this period seven different tank attacks were made upon U. S. forces with a total of 36 tanks destroyed. The Japanese failed to support their armor attacks with the use of large numbers of infantry. They made too many separate attacks, thereby, enabling U. S. anti-tank weapons to destroy each group individually. In addition, their tanks were not properly deployed. Several times small groups of tanks attacked U. S. positions in a single file down a ravine or road from which no deployment could be made. They were easily destroyed by U. S. forces because they were unable to deploy when the lead tank was hit. In addition the Japanese frequently used tanks as fixed pillboxes.”
http://www.saipanstewart.com/essays/Defense%20of%20Saipan.html
OK, I’ll add in my own trivia question, not that everyone won’t get it immediately.
Name the only 2 father-and-son combinations who were awarded the Medal of Honor. Hint: in one case the father, and in the other case the son, were awarded the medal for their service in WW2…
“Douglas MacArthur were the first father and son ever to each be awarded a Medal of Honor. To date, the only other father and son to be given this honor are former President Theodore Roosevelt and his son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.”
The Allies were sensitive to the enemy DFing their own movements. One answer was the TBS radio system. It operated at 60-80 MHZ, giving it a range much shorter than the HF communications the Germans had to use. If the enemy could pick up TBS they were likely so close that they could see the convoy anyway. TBS was like a giant intercom system for convoy and task force communications; it was not secure but just relatively short ranged.
As for the liberation of the Sto Tomas camp, I was struck how much Wretchard’s previous brief description of his mother’s experiences compared with the stories told by the people in the camp, who related their experiences in a TV special on WWII. It probably took more courage to sit tight and wait for the forces of liberation than it did to try to go out and meet them.
I did HFDF in the Navy. I was a CTR with an NEC of 9112. I spent time at NSGA Adak and NSGA Hanza.
To communicate, Soviet subs used many of the same methods as the Germans. I was amazed at how people in the pre-digital age were able to solve problems that we would simply write a computer program to do. There were analog systems that were still working decades after digital computers could have replaced them because the improvement in performance wasn’t enough to bother with. What finally caused the changeover to digital collection systems wasn’t advanced technology but the cost of running manned stations all over the world. The old system couldn’t be run remotely.
The greatest weakness we have is how hard it is to realize that there are people who do not like America. We can understand jealousy, even rivalry or conflict. What is usually assumed is that the Other, even if attempting to kill you, would jump at the chance to move here join us and live just like us. It is hard to understand people who don’t. It is harder to realize that some may want it or not for themselves but are really motivated to take the blessings of America away from others. Jealousy is an evil spirit.
Happy Fourth of July to all.
The Presbyterian Rebellion [Happy Presbyterian Rebellion Day, everyone!]
http://theaquilareport.com/the-presbyterian-rebellion/
Op-Ed: Is secret USAF robot plane X37B a warrior or a workhorse?
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/326147#ixzz1ziGMN9gn
Philippines downplays US spy plane request
http://www.arabnews.com/philippines-downplays-us-spy-plane-request
The World War 2 generation provided my own generation with myth. Probably the best example I can give was that of Raul Manglapus, with whom I had to honor of working with in the anti-Marcos movement. Raul had been active in the guerillas, played a leading part on the raid on Montalban, Rizal and was in fact invited to attend the surender ceremony on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
But he never mentioned any of that. I found all of that out from other people. He was too modest to speak of it. All I remember of him was the man who had chosen to give up his position, money and safety to stay true to his inner heart and work for the liberty of his country. Thinking back on it, the members of the anti-Marcos generation measured themselves by the standards that the Second World War men had raised.
They set the standard for us.
As child I still remember how on every Bataan Day the siren would sound from Manila City Hall. And people would stop wherever they were and bow their heads in reverence as Norman Reyes’ last broadcast was replayed year after year.
Thinking back on it, I can only conclude that many of my own generation, perhaps unconsciously, bore up until freedom was won partly from the fear that we might not be worthy of our fathers. For mighty men they were. That is the power of myth: it links the living with the dead and thereby makes possible the continuance of hope, in part from shame at failing but mostly from the burden of a love that we have no alternative but to carry.
Under the lash of myth, each generation creates their own legends, which they in turn pass on to posterity. Raul and his generation are gone now, but they had achieved the essential: they passed on the flame. It struck me that my own generation is on the verge of passing into those same clouds of legend. On a smaller scale it’s true. But I knew the figures which will be entered into the history books. Yet how can we be myth, we of the feet of clay?
Perhaps the men of World War 2 had feet of clay as well; they were but ordinary men. In that lay their secret. They were ordinary men who who rose to extraordinary challenges. Thus each country’s heroic age is not really about men that who lived in the past, but about we can yet become.
Looking back on it now, it seems clear that the greatest legacy a generation can leave to another is the proof, by its life, that despite it faults the human spirit is not bound to to the circle of it failings; that it can rise to a level higher than itself.
“All this for a flag?” No, that is to misunderstand things. It is all that we can be.
My father served in a combat engineer element of the U.S. Navy Seabees during the campaigns on the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and Philippines (Mindinao) These were incredibly tough campaigns with no quarter asked or given.
In New Guinea there were often a few Japanese Army holdouts in the hills after the main body had been wiped out. It was the practice of the Seabees to hire the local, stone-age tribes to hunt down and kill the remaining Japanese. They were paid for each Japanese soldier they killed and confirmed their figures by bringing the Japanese heads into the Seabees’ camp. I have a picture of my father posing with a New Guinea tribesman and Japanese head.
We owe much to previous generations. Happy July 4th.
My father was in Encino, California on Dec. 7, 1941. The next day, he went to an army recruiting office and found that the place was mobbed. Teen-age boys were there, begging their mothers to sign for them. Men in their sixties were there, trying to join up. Most of the volunteers had to be sent home, because they could not be processed. You bet, all this for a flag.
Claudette Colbert starred in the 1943 movie “So Proudly We Hail,” about the siege of Corregidor and the Battle of Bataan.
Great movie. Watching it, you see how patriotic we used to be.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036367/
A friend of mine, Isa, from the Dutch East Indies, was a prisoner in a Jap concentration camp as a child. Now she lives by Washington Square in New York City, with a view downtown.
When the jihadists attacked the World Trade Center, she had a direct view downtown of the skyscrapers collapsing in flames and terror and death. She cracked, emotionally: the echo of the old nightmare was too strong, and she left New York for Brazil. Before she left, she told me, “This is horrible, to think that it’s happening here!” She no longer felt safe in the bosom of America.
Rurik (re: your post #16) Isn’t that a “Christie-type” Chassis on the Japanese tank?
…yet another visionary stomped on by his own country…
41. blackdog52
My uncle’s date of enlistment was 12/13/41, the following weekend. He dropped out of college two weeks before finals, despite the begging of his professors and family to at least wait that long.
Became a B-17 mechanic and crew chief, told lots of stories about those days in England. Also married an English girl, a so-called ”war bride”.
Wretchard, hope you had a happy 4th of July – I always do. And I enjoyed your stories of the Philippines during the Second World War. Just out of curiosity (and my apologies if you’ve written on the subject previously and I just missed it), are you familiar with the tale of Lt. Col. James M. Cushing? I first read about him some 50 years ago and have never forgotten his leadership and courage under fire…though most have never heard of him. Just one of the many unsung heroes of this conflict whose exploits would make a great movie.
Q1
The most likely contact between a Japanese armored division and Sherman tanks was in 1945 during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Perhaps a few Lend Lease Shermans had been parked on that quiet front and made the trip south.
“Perhaps the men of World War 2 had feet of clay as well;”
Indeed, the men who won WWII for the side of freedom and decency – which also translates into prosperity – are by the lofty standards of today considered to be racist, sexist, homophobic pollutors of the environment as well as capitalist exploiters of the downtrodden proletariat and of native populations.
But they are also mostly safely in the past.
I think that is why the Left gets so upset over our military today. As I have said before, they must look upon the “bitter clingers” and recognize them to be better than those who judge them now. A single guy in uniform with a gun in the space of one year will do more for the human race than the contents of whole faculty lounges in the U.S. will in their whole lifetimes. Truly a knife must twist in their guts to see that such inferior beings have before and still now do so much more, in spirit and in deed, that they can ever aspire to.
Wretchard, it’s intelligent postings and comments like these from your readers that make your site a “must read” every day.
Thanks again.
As is his right, Wretchard has not specified his age for his fans, but I suspect from his stories that he must have been in his early twenties as Ferdinand Marcos’ health ebbed by about 1980. I remember the coverage of Philippines Protests by the US Press, flushed with their late success in undermining U.S. public support of the Shah of Iran (too bad about how everything turned to shit in Iran and, well, the entire Islamic Arab World as a direct result of that…)
Anyhow, I remember the dread that many supporters of Benigno Aquino expressed when he decided in spite of all the enmity and reported assassination threats, to return to Manila from Boston, when he felt it was time to use his status to challenge Marcos. And the shock and outrage when he was shot dead on the tarmac as he deplaned, probably with the so-called bodyguards provided by the Marcos government either permitting the gunman a point-blank target, or actively participating.
It took another four or five years to prise the guy out, but the images of the Philippine Army refusing to fire on their own people still reverberate around the world.
I wonder how much hope and encouragement that gave other oppressed people.
Poland and the Soviet Union come to mind.
God Bless the Philippine people.
Fiddler @ 43, not at all, for an example of Christie, see the T-34.
Abdul@46. Absolutely. After the defeat of Germany numerous units were transferred East. These units included the 9 Guards Mechanized Corps which was Sherman-equipped. You might be interested in pursuing the out-of print “Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks” by Dmitry Loza, HSU, translated by James Gebhardt. Loza spent his war in Matilda, Valtentime, and Sherman tanks, and by 1945 commanded the 46 Guards Tank Brigade of the 9th Guards Mech. This and his second volume “Fighting For the Soviet Motherland, Reflections Of the Eastrn Front”, are the sort of book you will not close until you have read it all the way through.
RWE @47 The men of WW II were men like other generations, save that they got better press. B.G. Burkett, in his book “Stolen Valor” compares accomplishments and disciplinary problem rates of WW II and Viet Nam troops, and related measures such as draft dodging and desertion vs enlisting, unsuitability (4F) for service, and finds the much-maligned Boomers come out looking pretty good in comparison. WW II was “A Great Generation”, but not “THE Greatest”; that scoundrel Brokaw evidently knew nothing about the AEF in 1918 either.
@50. Rurik, I was priviledged recently to spend some time with some of our wounded from the War on Terror. I am here to tell you this current generation ain’t so bad either. It is a damn shame that our media is only now giving them their due after 10 years of war because their boy is in charge and like with FDR, they are the “good guys” again.
Rurik #50:
They “got better press” because there was very little doubt in the country, among virtually any element of the country, that the USA faced a real, genuine, existential threat in the Axis. And the Axis, whatever their real nature, were the perfect villains, of superb comic book quality. Nobody had any doubt they were the bad guys.
Our subsequent military, in which I served for 25 years, may not have had it easy, but certainly had it not so hard. There were no set 1 year tours in WWII, no air conditioned jet flights back home, probably no flights home at all. For the most part, not even any way to call for air support even when you had the aircraft around. No dust off choppers if you went down over France or China or your tank got hit in the bocage country. No antibiotics. The list is endless.
Now, the Hollywood image of our Vietnam vets as drug-crazed screw-off killers is a complete fabrication that amounts to a long term libel. But the difference in Korea, Vietnam, the many skirmishes of the Cold War where we lost people, Desert Storm, and the WoT is that far too many people see no linkage between these actions and their own skins getting ventilated at home on Main Street. And some even think the enemy’s way is better – a fact driven by the reality that they will never have to accept it anyway. Thus, our modern vets had it mostly easier in combat and often harder at home.
As we have said here before, our current warriors look like the very best part of our society because they are about the only people who have to get it right every time if they want to get the job done, or even just survive. A politician who sends our troops to Somalia or Afghanistan without proper support or with absurd rules of engagement can just skate on by, refuse to answer the question. The guy in the street does not see a difference in his own life either way. In WWII everyone understood or at least kept their mouth shut.
52. RWE
I think the pendulum is swinging back toward the WW2 side. Or the wheel is turning. I say that because music is the common expression of a civilization. More then any other art music expresses what people are feeling about current events.
During Vietnam, the pop music was mostly anti-war and unpatriotic. Today’s music is vastly different. I wouldn’t call it pro war but pro soldier would be close.
Most of the Media editors, senior bureaucrats, politicians, CEO’s, etc. were teenagers during the 60′s and 70′s. Anti-war protesters for sure. Rabidly anti-military.
A surprising number of modern bands have members whose fathers served during Vietnam. It seems like they learned something from those fathers. Something about duty, service and honor.
I developed this theory while watching Apache (AH-64) porn on youtube. I’m sticking to it until a better one comes along.
In New Guinea there were often a few Japanese Army holdouts in the hills after the main body had been wiped out. It was the practice of the Seabees to hire the local, stone-age tribes to hunt down and kill the remaining Japanese. They were paid for each Japanese soldier they killed and confirmed their figures by bringing the Japanese heads into the Seabees’ camp. I have a picture of my father posing with a New Guinea tribesman and Japanese head.
A friend of the family was a widow, and her husband had been a US Army combat photographer in the Solomans, New Guinea, and Philippines during WWII. I ended up with a few copies of photos he took, including a couple with those same New Guniea tribesmen and the severed Japanese heads. There was also a photo in the Philippines of some GI’s driving in a jeep past a huge sign that said “This was the road the Japanese marched our boys down during the Bataan Death March. Kill the Bastards!!!”
Maybe the difference between generations is that those raw, pointed expressions of emotion are frowned on today. Too, what? Non-ironic?
Wretchard mentions “Thinking back on it, I can only conclude that many of my own generation, perhaps unconsciously, bore up until freedom was won partly from the fear that we might not be worthy of our fathers. “ I am distinctly aware of the acute lack of historical standards in the US today. Nobody is measured against the standards of any previous generation. The myth and the legends weren’t passed on. Not sure why. Perhaps the prosperity and lack of challenges made myths seem superfluous? Members of “the anti-Marcos generation” had something real to fight for, a challenge that set it’s own bar as impervious to fantasy as the one set by the IJA in the early 40′s. Wretchard had a definite pass-fail test to see if he was worthy of his father’s generation. Marcos I think provided a certain amount of immediate clarity that the Cold War seemed to lack.
On a completely unrelated note, I was prowling a Hobby Store today (I’m building a model rocket with my son and we needed some engines) and in the plastic model section I saw the USS Pine Island. She was a seaplane tender, and my dad’s squadron was assigned to her for a while in the South Pacific in WWII. He has several photos of her in his scrapbook. And there on the box, taxiing through the water next to the Pine Island was a PBM Marin Mariner, just like his old plane. I had to buy the kit.
He’s been gone two years now.
“Our subsequent military, in which I served for 25 years, may not have had it easy, but certainly had it not so hard.”
I am not taking this personally RWE, I know you didn’t mean it that way. But I would like to point out that in my own 22 years, I racked up quite a few names of dead people in my flight log book. And we never even got shot at. The kid I was next to in Landstuhl was 19 and had his leg blown off from an IED from one of our non-existential enemies. While dustoff and antibiotics and C-17 medevac to a world class hospital made the outcome different from what it would have been in 1944, it will still change his life. Yet, he was an inspiration to me. Still wisecracking, irreverent, humble about his own exploits. That is what I am referring to when I praised this generation. If you served, I know you understand that. My point was, our partisan media has by and large not served and so their portrayal of these folks and their mission is based entirely on whether or not they like and ideologically agree with the Commander in Chief. I will get off here with one case in point. In the rehearsal for D-Day, we lost 700 GI’s. Can you imagine how that would have been portrayed if the press of the day would have been like our current media and had not liked the CinC at the time. Hell they had a 2 month wedgie about Abu Graib and nobody even got hurt.
Sorry for being so late. Been in woods over Independence Day. Saw my first bear!
Wishing Y’All a very good belated Independence Day!
“……but the application of some tremendous, almost unimaginable amount of violence had defeated them at last.”
That is the definition of a real war. We don’t fight real wars anymore. The quasi-police/social work/court-supervised actions in Afghanistan and Iraq – where the “criminals” are “detained” and given a “trial – are mercifully drawing to an inglorious close after 10 inconclusive years.
The continuing bloodshed in both places is the result of not following the above example.
My anger continues from the 60′s when our govt refuse to declare war as required by the USC. It changed the way we treated our vet and it’s a shame I and our leaders can never be forgiven. If we ask our best to die for us the least we can do is require our Govt to declared our nation is in full support by declaring we are at war.
Thanks for a great blog W.
I rarely post but I would like to correct a previous post by me here. My dad was also involved in the battle of Atlantic but as a naval armed guard, not a merchant marine. Like many others he went straight to the recruiting office after 7 Dec 1941. He spent the early part of the war aboard cargo ships delivering to the Africa/Italy area. Eventually he went on the infamous Murmansk run. The convoy was being circled by destroyer escorts or such so the wolfpack surfaced right in the middle of the convoy. He was below decks when the merchant ship next to him was struck. He said the sound of that torpedo hit was as if he was stuffed in a 55 gallon drum and someone whacked it with a baseball bat. He scurried above deck initially sure it was his ship that was hit. Even 40 years after the war when he told me this story, he could clearly still hear the men screaming in the icy water. Sadly, he too has recently passed. But happy Independence Day everyone! I live way out in the woods and Connecticut has outlawed all fireworks beyond sprinklers. So since M80’s and other large boomers are illegal, for about 3 hrs Wednesday night, I guess I was hearing the sound of liberty in all directions. (snicker)
The Philippines saw the first US tank engagement of WWII as well. On December 22, 1941, a tank platoon of the 192nd Tank Battalion engaged tanks from the IJA Fourth Tank Regiment. The 192nd was equipped with Stuarts and faced the Type 95 light tank that day. The Japanese scored the first hit, knocking out the lead tank and damaging the remaining 4 as they retreated away from the engagement.
Regarding the detectability of radio receivers…I used to have a few German field R-Ts. I was told by experts that German radios could not be detected in ‘receive’ mode since they did not have BFOs and superheterodyne circuitry, found on most Allied radios. The Allied design, as has been pointed out, broadcasts a small signal as part of the detection process. The German radios only used passive regenerative amplification, enabled by their entirely-ceramic circuit-board/chassis, which was thermally so stable it never drifted off-station. I am surprised that German Naval radios were detectable. You’d think they would all use the same technology.
Regarding the French fee for TV use, if you saw the normal prime-time offerings on France 1 through 5, you would be happy to pay, particularly if you had been subjected to USA commercial TV. I have not looked at USA TV for several years, though I reside here most of the time.