Posted on 05/28/2014 5:13:27 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
The News of the Week in Review
The Allied Drive Gains Momentum in Its Push toward Rome (map) – 15
On to Rome – 16-17
Hour XI – 17
Other Fronts – 17-18
“Softening Up” the Western Invasion Coast (photo) – 19
Fifteen News Questions – 19
Japan Feels the Pinch in a War of Attrition (Kluckhohn) – 20-21
Tactical Bombings Pave the Way for Invasion (map) – 22
Tremendous Air Blows ‘Soften Up’ the Enemy (by Drew Middleton) – 23
Report from the Nation (by Lawrence Dame, Virginius Dabney, James E. Crown, Louther S. Horne, Roland M. Jones, and Lawrence E. Davies) – 24-25
“What Price Discord?” (cartoon) – 25
Answers to Fifteen News Questions – 25
The New York Times Magazine
Sure-Fire Gags for the Foxhole (by Bob Hope, first-time contributor) – 26-27
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/may44/28may44.htm#
Germans withdraw to Caesar Line
Sunday, May 28, 1944 www.onwar.com
In Italy... Allied forces continue their offensive. The Canadian 1st Corps captures Ceprano. There is heavy fighting all along the front. However, other than rearguards from the German 14th Panzer Corps and the 51st Mountain Corps, German forces are retiring to the Caesar Line because of the threat to their rear posed by the US 6th Corps at Anzio.
Over Germany... Bombers of the US 8th Air Force attack Leuna and Magdeburg.
In New Guinea... On Biak Island, the US 41st Infantry Division begins to expand its beachhead. There is heavy fighting near the village of Mokmer, where an airfield is located, and the American battalion pulls back.
From Sydney... General MacArthur announces that, strategically, the campaign for New Guinea has been won although there is still some hard fighting to be done.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/28.htm
May 28th, 1944 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: HMCS Algonquin and Sioux departed Scapa Flow to Portsmouth and D-Day Ops.
The USAAF’s Eighth Air Force in England flies two missions.
Mission 376: 1,341 bombers and 697 fighters in five forces are dispatched to hit oil targets in Germany; 32 bombers and 9 fighters are lost; they claim 64-30-31 Luftwaffe aircraft:
1. 610 B-17 Flying Fortresses are dispatched against an oil targets at Ruhland/Schwarz-Heide (38 bomb) and aircraft factory at Dessau (12 bomb); secondary targets are aviation factories at Zwickau (15 bomb) and Leipzig (28 bomb); 14 bomber hit Bohlen, 15 hit Meissen, 19 hit Brandis/Polenz Wusten-Sachsen Airfield, 12 hit Frankfurt marshalling yard, 32 hit Ubigau, 20 hit Dessau, four hit Frankfurt, five hit Camburg and 22 hit targets of opportunity; they claim 20-21-18 Luftwaffe aircraft; 17 B-17s are lost.
2. 255 B-17s are dispatched to an oil dump at Konigsburg/Magdeburg (105 bomb) and oil industry at Magdeburg/Rothensee (55 bomb); 17 hit Dessau and six bomb the marshalling yard at Gera; they claim 16-8-6 Luftwaffe aircraft; nine B-17s are lost.
3. 106 B-24 Liberators are dispatched to Lutzkendorf/Halle (66 bomb); ten hit Wetzlar and six hit a target of opportunity; three B-24s are lost.
4. 311 B-24s are dispatched to oil targets at Merseburg/Leuna (63 bomb) and Zeitz-Troglitz (187 bomb); 10 hit Limburg, eight hit Memmingen, nine hit Saalfeld and ten hit targets of opportunity; they claim 1-0-0 Luftwaffe aircraft; three B-24s are lost.
5. 58 of 59 B-17s hit Cologne/Eifeltor marshalling yard without loss; glide bombs are used but the weapon proves unsuccessful.
Personal Memory: A glide bomb attack on Cologne. This was largely a failure because we needed 50 mile visibility since we dropped the bombs 18 miles from the city. This was to avoid the heavy flak concentration there. It worked well for the air crews and we considered it a milk run.But we got too close to Brussels on the way to the target and our airplane (”Betty Jane”) got a piece of flak into Number one engine which penetrated the case and destroyed the engine. But it never quit running and we didn’t know about the damage until we got back to Molesworth. The glide bomb was a failure as all our bombs missed the Eifeltor Marshalling yard by over a mile and the rest of the bombs fell straight down or scattered through Cologne, killing 87 civilians and wounding over 15 others. Our 41st Wing dropped 113 of these bombs.
Since we had dropped the bombs 18 miles short of the city the Germans had no warning. The control box on each winged bomb had gyroscopes to guide it and at contact the box exploded scattering the wings and tail while the bomb bounced along for eleven more seconds before exploding. This 2000 pound bomb had an amazing five to one glide ratio.
That night, Lord Haw Haw said that Cologne had been bombed by US bombers from 40,000 feet. We all laughed of course and in three more days they had figured out what had happened. Lord Haw Haw said that it was a terrorist raid and any airman shot down during such a raid would be executed the same day. Not another raid of this type was aver attempted, but not because Lord Haw Haw threatened us, but because the system was a multi million dollar failure. Score:3 Milk Runs: 2 others. (Dick Johnson)
Escort is provided by 182 P-38 Lightnings, 208 P-47 Thunderbolts and 307 P-51 Mustangs; no P-38s are lost; P-47s claim 2-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft in the air and 0-0-1 on the ground with the loss of four P-47s; P-51s claim 25-1-5 Luftwaffe aircraft with the loss of five. 527 Ninth Air Force fighters also fly escort and claim 33-0-10 Luftwaffe aircraft in the air and 5-0-7 on the ground for the loss of fighters.
Mission 377: Five B-17s drop leaflets in Belgium and Norway.
22 B-24s are dispatched on CARPETBAGGER missions; one is lost.
The USAAF’s Ninth Air Force in England dispatches 600+ B-26 Marauders and A-20 Havocs to bomb marshalling and naval yards, railway bridges and V-weapon sites in France and Belgium; eight aircraft are lost. P-47s dive-bomb several targets in the same general area.
GERMANY: The USAAF attacks five synthetic oil targets at Heide, Magdeburg, Rottensee, Leuna and Troglitz. Once more their pattern bombing rips the factories apart.
ITALY: Artena: Davila, Rudolph B., SSgt. (later 2nd Lt.), 7th Infantry, awarded the MOH for his actions today.
The USAAF’s Fifteenth Air Force in Italy dispatches 100+ B-24s to bomb Genoa harbor and Vercelli marshalling yard and troop concentrations at Niksic, Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, P-38s fly fighter sweeps against airfields in the Kurilovec area and vehicles, communications lines and targets of opportunity in the Knin-Bihac-Banjaluka area.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The submarine USS Narwhal (SS-167) lands 23-men and 25 tons of supplies on Samar Island.
NEW GUINEA: On Biak, the US forces extend their perimeter.
The advance of the 162d Infantry Regiment along the coastal track toward the airstrips is slowed by equatorial heat; thick, 12-foot (3.7 m) scrub growth; rugged terrain; and small parties of Japanese entrenched in caves cut into the face of a 200-foot (61 m) high cliff. Patrols advance to within 200 yards (182.9 m) of the airfields when a Japanese counterattack drives them back. The infantry is now under attack from the west and the targets of well-aimed fire from the East Caves which dominate the coastal road. In danger of being cut off, the regiment withdraws late in the afternoon. USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24s and B-25 Mitchells in support of ground forces on Biak Island hit villages, supply areas, troop concentrations and gun positions on Biak, Noemfoor, and Japen Islands
General MacArthur announces that the strategic campaign for New Guinea is complete. He cautions that some hard tactical fighting remains to clean up the remaining Japanese.
CANADA:
HMCS Magog and Stettler arrived in Halifax from builder in Montreal.
HMCS Toronto arrived in Halifax from builder in Levis, Quebec
Frigate HMCS Ste Therese commissioned.
U.S.A.: The motion picture “It Happened Tomorrow” is released in the U.S. This fantasy drama, directed by Rene Clare, stars Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie and Edgar Kennedy. The plot involves an early 20th century reporter (Powell) who meets an old man who gives him the power to predict the news 24-hours in advance. Powell starts scooping the other papers and winning big at the horse races until he learns of his own death and then must try to change the future. The film is nominated for two technical Academy Awards.
Submarines USS Charr and Lagarto launched.
Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-179 was commissioned. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific area. She was decommissioned on 1 October 1945.
Some think we should not have invaded the Philippines at all, thus saving old Manila from being wiped out. I think it would have been impossible for MacArthur to ignore the troops he left behind and had to invade...
What I have often thought was remarkable is that the entire Pacific War was fought to enable Japan to seize the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) which they successfully achieved and yet the US completely ignored those islands and left them to wither on the vine as it made its advances back across the Pacific.
The Japs fought a war against the greatest powers on earth to get the Indies and then when it came down to it the islands were utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things and their troops there and the massive resources they came plunder were a total waste of time and effort.
The Bob Hope article was great. An amazing tribute to the American spirit and our fighting forces.
Moving armor via the Appian Way. The Romans had no clue they built the road for another army to use centuries later.
Bob Hope talking about being old in 1944.
He lived for almost another 50 years.
I was wrong, hope lived almost another 60 years.
For political reasons to establish our post war credibility in the Pacific, we had to liberate the Philippines. And yes, it was a liberation. And from a military standpoint, we were going to find a generally friendly population when we invaded.
The fact that the Japanese fought for Manila isn’t on us, it’s on them. Japanese General Yamashita (the “Tiger of Malaya”) was commanding in the Philippine Islands, and he ordered Manila evacuated and made an open city. The commander of naval infantry on the spot deliberately disobeyed the order, and he was the one who made Manila into a Pacific Stalingrad. Ironically, the destruction of Manila was a formal charge levied against Yamashita in his war crimes trial, and he hanged for it.
Hindsight is 20-20 but at the time, the Philippines had to be taken in order to cutoff the flow of raw materials from SE Asia to Japan and to serve as a staging area for an eventual invasion of Japan.
What FDR knew but neither MacArthur nor Nimitz knew is that a year or two ago, Manhattan Project scientists estimated being ready to test a device in mid 1945.
Originally, the plan was to take Formosa, but they decided with the Philippines secure, Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, could be staged from Okinawa, which would be the next target instead of Formosa.
I've gotten a sense in class recently that the Japanese realized this risk to shipping in the South China Sea and attempted to mitigate it by taking the Beijing-Hankow railroad in hope of creating an inland corridor from SE Asia to Chinese/Korean ports nearest Japan.
Japan's need to occupy the Philippines to open access to NEI and Malaya was the reason they attacked us in the first place.
My understanding is that by holding out on Bataan/Corregidor in 1942, the Japanese were deprived use of Manila Bay which significantly upset their whole timetable for the war.
Originally, the plan was to take Formosa, but they decided with the Philippines secure, Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, could be staged from Okinawa, which would be the next target instead of Formosa.
With P-38, P-47 and P-51s being able to escort bombers from the Philippines to Hong Kong and back, submarines and Luzon based air power would be enough to significantly impair shipping traffic in the South China Sea.
The Formosa plan was pretty much shelved permanently after Saipan. The Americans saw Formosa as being one big Saipan, and it probably would have been.
The Philippines were the sticking point for Japan’s whole southern expansion scheme. They could technically seize Malaya and the NEI without violating Filipino/American sovereignty, and not declare war on the United States. But they also believed that the Americans would go to war over the NEI and Malaya. Their logic went: we must seize the southern regions, the Philippines sits athwart our sea lanes, we cannot run the risk of American interdiction from there, we must seize the Philippines too, so we have to go to war with the United States.
The logic was sound, the result was a catastrophe for Japan.
My sis is the keeper of the records. There are dad's uniform with the Airborne patch, his medals including the Bronze Star, the 2 of them on the telegraphy pole, and a photo of Gen. Mac about to board a plane, and some other photos. Dad is on top he told us. They were both short wiry men. His name and Bates are mentioned in several books on Corregidor battle for this event.
My late husband's uncle served under Merrill's original band for 6 yrs. Boy did he come home messed up in the head. We know he got as far as the Air Field Op. Merrill's Marauders Myitkyina
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