In 1943 there was a possibility that the Germans just might use poison gas. By that point in the war, the strategic initiative had passed to the Allies, and Germany was on the defensive on all fronts. Adolf Hitler's forces had sustained a major defeat at Stalingrad, and they had lost North Africa as well. The Allies were now on the Continent, slowly inching their way up the Italian peninsula.
JU-88 A4
Hitler, it was said, was not a great advocate of chemical warfare, perhaps because the Führer himself had been gassed during World War I. He was, however, ruthless and might be persuaded to use gas if he believed it would redress the strategic balance in his favor. Intelligence reports suggested that the Germans were stocking chemical weapons, including a new chemical agent called Tabun.
American President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a policy statement condemning the use of gas by any civilized nation, but he pledged that the United States would reply in kind if the enemy dared to use such weapons first. John Harvey was selected to convey a shipment of poison gas to Italy to be held in reserve should such a situation occur.
When the mustard gas bombs were loaded aboard John Harvey, they looked deceptively conventional. Each bomb was 4 feet long, 8 inches in diameter and contained from 60 to 70 pounds of the chemical. Mustard is a blister gas that irritates the respiratory system and produces burns and raw ulcers on the skin. Victims exposed to the gas often suffer an agonizing death.
The poison gas shipment was shrouded in official secrecy. Even Knowles was not formally informed about the lethal cargo. Perceptive members of the crew, however, must have guessed the voyage was out of the ordinary. For one thing, 1st Lt. Howard D. Beckstrom of the 701st Chemical Maintenance Company was on board, along with a detachment of six men. All were expert in handling toxic materials and were obviously there for a purpose.
John Harvey crossed the Atlantic without incident, successfully running the gantlet of German submarines that still infested the ocean. After a stop at Oran, Algeria, the ship sailed to Augusta, Sicily, before proceeding to Bari. Lieutenant Thomas H. Richardson, the ship's cargo security officer, was one of the few people on board who officially knew about the mustard gas. His manifest clearly listed 2,000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs in the hold.
Richardson naturally wanted to unload the deadly cargo as soon as possible, but when the ship reached Bari on November 26, his hopes were dashed. The harbor was crammed with shipping, and another convoy was due shortly. Dozens of vessels were stacked up along the piers and jetties, each waiting its turn to be unloaded. Since the lethal gas was not officially on board, John Harvey was not about to be given special priority.
For the next five nerve-racking days, John Harvey rode peacefully at anchor at Pier 29 while Captain Knowles tried vainly to get British port officials to speed things up. This was difficult, because he was gagged by the secrecy that surrounded the gas shipment. How could he get officials to act when he was not even supposed to know that he was carrying the mustard gas in the first place?
While Knowles fretted, German reconnaissance pilot Hahn had returned to base. His positive report about conditions at Bari set in motion a raid that had been discussed and planned some time before. The Bari attack was the product of a planning session between Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring and his subordinates. The Allied airfields at Foggia were discussed as possible targets, but Luftwaffe resources were stretched too thin to permit the effective bombing of such a large complex of targets.
It was Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of Luftflotte 2, who suggested Bari as an alternative. A cousin of famed World War I ace Manfred von Richthofen, the field marshal was an experienced officer who had served in Poland and the Soviet Union as well as in the Battle of Britain. His advice, Kesselring knew, was sound. Richthofen believed that if the port was crippled, the British Eighth Army's advance might be slowed and the nascent Fifteenth Air Force's bomber offensive delayed. Richthofen told Kesselring that the only planes available for such a task were his Junkers Ju-88 A-4 bombers. With luck, he might scrape together 150 such planes for the raid.
When the strike force was mustered, there were only 105 Ju-88s available for the mission. But the element of surprise, coupled with an attack at dusk, might shift the odds in the Germans' favor. Most of the planes would come from Italy, but Richthofen purposely wanted to obfuscate matters by using a few Ju-88s from Yugoslavia. If the Allies thought the entire mission originated from there, they just might misdirect retaliatory strikes to the Balkans.
The Ju-88 pilots were ordered to fly their twin-engine bombers east to the Adriatic, then swing south and west. British anti-aircraft would probably expect an attack--if any--to come from the north, not from the west. The Ju-88s were also supplied with Duppel, thin strips of tinfoil cut to various lengths. The tinfoil registered like aircraft on radar screens, producing scores of phantom targets.
The aim of the German pilots was to arrive over Bari around 7:30 p.m. Parachute flares would be released first to light the way for the attacking aircraft, and the Ju-88s would come in low, trying to get under Allied radar that was already confused by the Duppel.
The Germans arrived at Bari on schedule. First Lieutenant Gustav Teuber, leading the first wave, could hardly believe his eyes. The docks were brilliantly lit; cranes stood out in sharp relief as they unloaded cargo from the ships' gaping holds, and the east jetty was packed with ships.
Scores of Ju-88s descended on Bari like gigantic birds of prey, their attack illuminated by the city's lights and German flares. The first bombs hit the city proper, great geysers of smoke and flame marking each detonation, but soon it was the harbor's turn. Some 30 vessels were riding at anchor that night, and each ship's crew had to respond to the emergency as best they could. Surprise was total, and some ships had to function without a full complement, since many sailors were on shore leave.
The German flares gave sailors the first inkling of the impending attack. Aboard John Bascom, the second officer, William Rudolf, saw the flashes and alerted Captain Heitmann. John Bascom's gun crew sprang into action, joining the barrage that shore batteries were now hurling into the sky. Tracer bullets laced the air, but the anti-aircraft fire was largely ineffective.
There was no time to cut anchor cables and get underway; crews along the east jetty watched helplessly while a creeping barrage of German bombs came ever closer to their vulnerable vessels. Joseph Wheeler took a direct hit and exploded into flames; John Motley took a bomb in its No. 5 hold. John Bascom, anchored next to John Motley, was next in line for punishment.
John Bascom shuddered under a rain of bombs that hit her from stem to stern. One of the explosions lifted Captain Heitmann off his feet and slammed him against the wheelhouse door. Momentarily stunned, his hands and face bloody, Heitmann saw the body of Nicholas Elgin sprawled nearby, blood pumping from a head wound, his clothes torn off by the force of the blast.
The ship's bridge was partly destroyed, the decks were buckled and debris was everywhere. There was nothing left to do but abandon ship. Ignoring his own wounds, Heitmann ordered the crew into the single undamaged lifeboat. By now, the entire harbor was a hell on earth, where yellow-orange flames leaped into the air, producing dense columns of acrid smoke. Ships were in various stages of burning or sinking. When flames reached munitions-laden holds, some exploded. The surface of the water was covered by a viscous scum of oil and fuel, blinding and choking those unlucky enough to be in the water.
Allied shipping burning at Bari, 3 December 1943
Meanwhile, the crew of John Harvey was engaged in a heroic battle to save their ship. The vessel still was intact and had sustained no direct bomb damage. Nevertheless, she had caught fire, and the situation was doubly dangerous with the mustard gas bombs aboard. Captain Knowles, Lieutenant Beckstrom and others on board refused to leave their posts, but their heroism was ultimately in vain.
Without warning, John Harvey blew up, disappearing in a huge, mushroom-shaped fireball that hurled pieces of the ship and her cargo hundreds of feet into the air. Everyone on board was killed instantly, and all over the harbor the force of the concussion knocked men off their feet. The blast sent out multihued fingers of smoke like a Fourth of July fireworks celebration and made the harbor as bright as day.
The men aboard USS Pumper, a tanker carrying aviation fuel, were witnesses to John Harvey's last moments. Air initially rushed into the vortex of the blast, then the concussion radiated out to knock the tanker 35 degrees to port.
Meanwhile, Heitmann and his surviving crew managed to reach the tip of the east jetty, around a lighthouse that was located at its north end. He had about 50 men. Many were badly wounded, and some were so badly burned that the slightest touch brought agony. At first the lighthouse area seemed a refuge, but it soon became apparent it was more of a deathtrap. A sea of flames cut Heitmann and his men off from following the jetty's long spine into the city, where they might have been relatively safe.
While the sailors waited to be rescued, Ensign K.K. Vesole, commander of John Bascom's armed guard detachment, was having difficulty breathing. Many of the other men were gasping, but it was Vesole who noted something strange about the smoke. "I smell garlic," he said, without realizing the implications of his remark. A garlic odor was a telltale sign of mustard gas. The gas had become liberally intermixed with the oil that floated in the harbor and lurked in the smoke that permeated the area.
Mustard gas-laced oil now coated the bodies of Allied seamen as they struggled in the water, and many swallowed the noxious mixture. Even those not in the water inhaled liberal doses of gas, as did hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Italian civilians. A launch dispatched from Pumper rescued Captain Heitmann and the other John Bascom survivors from the east jetty, but their troubles were just beginning.
The German raid began at 7:30 p.m. and ended 20 minutes later. German losses were very light, and they had succeeded beyond their most sanguine expectations. Seventeen Allied ships were sunk and another eight were damaged, causing Bari to be dubbed the "second Pearl Harbor." The Americans sustained the highest losses, losing the Liberty ships John Bascom, John L. Motley, Joseph Wheeler, Samuel J. Tilden and John Harvey. The British lost four ships, the Italians three, the Norwegians three and the Poles two.
The next morning survivors woke to a scene of utter devastation. Large parts of Bari had been reduced to rubble, particularly the medieval old town. Portions of the city and the harbor were still burning, and a thick pall of black smoke hung in the sky. There were more than 1,000 military and merchant marine casualties; about 800 were admitted to local hospitals. The full extent of civilian casualties may never be known. Conservative estimates hover around 1,000, though there were probably more.
Additional Sources: www.luftarchiv.de
www.garantialisveris.com
www.luftwaffepics.com
www.vnh.org
www.vectorsite.net
www.rsa.org.nz
www.armed-guard.com
www.450thbg.com
www.la-piazza.it
www.daveswarbirds.com
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on September 08:
1157 Richard I [Richard the Lion Hearted], King of England (1189-99)
1207 Sancho II, king of Portugal
1821 Henry Baxter, Bvt Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1873
1828 Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Bvt Major General, Medal of Honor (Union volunteers, 20th Maine), hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg
1829 George Crook, Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1890
1829 Seth Maxwell Barton, Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1900
1841 Antonin Dvorak Nelahozeves, Czech, composer (New World Symphony)
1873 David O McKay Huntsville, Utah, 9th pres of Mormon church
1889 Robert A Taft (Sen-R-Ohio, Taft-Hartley Act)(Mr. Republican)
1897 Jimmie Rodgers Meridian Miss, country singer/singing brakeman (In The Jailhouse, "Blue Yodel No. 8" (Muleskinner Blues), Peach Pickin' Time Down in Georgia)
http://www.jimmierodgers.com/home.html
1907 Leon Askin Vienna Austria, actor (Gen. Burkhalter, Hogans Hero's)
1922 Lyndon LaRouche American presidental candidate/worldclass nutcase (1980)
1922 Sid Caesar Yonkers NY, comedian (Your Show of Shows)
1925 Peter Sellers England, actor (not now, Kato, Bobo, Pink Panther, Being There)
1932 Patsy Cline Va, country singer (Walkin' After Midnight)
1937 Virna Lisi Italy, actress (Assault on a Queen, Bluebeard)
1938 Sam Nunn (Sen-D-Ga, Sec. Defence)
1940 Willie Tyler Red Level Ala, ventriloquist (Lester)
1941 Alan Feinstein NYC, actor (Max-Berrengers, Family Tree)
1945 Jose Feliciano, singer/songwriter/guitarist, Lares, Puerto Rico.
1948 Great Kabuki, [Akihisa Yone Yoshi Mera], wrestler (NWA/NJPW/WAR/SWS)
1951 Randy T Odle, Port Arthur Texas, astronaut
1957 Heather Thomas Greenwich Ct, actress (Jody-Fall Guy, Coed Fever)
1964 Steffan Peters, equestrian dressage (Olympics-bronze-96)
1981 Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Bethlehem PA, actor (Randy-Home Improvement)
Deaths which occurred on September 08:
0394 Arbogast, Frankish warleader, commits suicide
0701 Sergius I, Syrian/Italian Pope (687-701), dies
1100 Clement III 1st antipope (1084-1100), dies (birth date unknown)
1654 Peter Claver, Spanish saint (baptized 300,000 slaves), dies
1888 Annie Chapman, second victim of London serial killer "Jack the Ripper."
1895 Adam Opel, German manufacturer (motorcars), dies at 58
1933 Faisal I ibn Hussein ibn Ali, 1st king of Iraq/Syria, dies at 50
1935 Huey P "Kingfisher" Long (Sen-La) assassinated at Baton Rouge Capitol building
1949 Richard Strauss, German composer, dies at 85
1935 Carl Austin Weiss, murderer of Sen Huey Long, shot down
1951 Jurgen Stroop, Nazi exterminator of Warsaw Ghetto, hanged on site of the ghetto
1969 Bud Collyer TV emcee (Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth), dies at 61
1977 Zero [Samuel J] Mostel, US actor (The Producers, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Too The Forum), dies at 62
1979 Jean Seberg actress, dies at 40
1981 Roy Wilkins longtime executive director of NAACP, dies at 80
1991 Alex North music composer (Spartacus), dies at 80 of cancer
1993 Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, Egyptian philosopher/author/diplomat, dies at 88
1995 Olga Ivinskaya, mistress of Boris Pasternak, dies of cancer at 83
1999 Economist Herbert Stein, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Nixon administration, died in Washington DC at age 83. (Ben Stein's father)
Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties
Iraq
08-Sep-2004 4 | US: 4 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Jason L. Sparks Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire
US Specialist Michael A. Martinez Ba’qubah (near) - Diyala Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US Sergeant James Daniel Faulkner Baghdad (eastern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Specialist Lauro G. DeLeon Jr. Balad (near) - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Afghanistan
A GOOD DAY
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://soldiersangels.org/heroes/index.php
On this day...
1380 Russians defeat Tatars at Kulikovo, beginning decline of Tatars
1504 Michelangelo's 13-foot marble statue of David is unveiled in Florence, Italy.
1529 The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman re-enters Buda and establishes John Zapolyai as the puppet king of Hungary.
1553 City of Lichfield, England established
1565 1st permanent settlement in US established Pedro Menendez de Aviles establishes settlement on the site of the Timucuan Indian village of Seloy. (St Augustine Fla.)
1565 Turkish siege of Malta broken by Maltese & Knights of St John
1628 Bay of Matanzas Cuba: Piet Heyn captures Spanish silver fleet
1636 First college founded in America, Harvard College, originally called Cambridge College(Named for Reverend John Harvard)
1755 Battle of Lake George, NY British defeat the French
1760 French surrendered the city of Montreal to British Gen. Jeffrey Amherst
1771 Mission San Gabriel Archangel forms in California
1796 Battle of Bassano-French beat Austrians
1847 US under Gen Scott defeat Mexicans at Battle of Molino del Rey
1858 Lincoln makes a speech about when you can fool people
1863 47 Texas volunteers repel Federal invasion force at Sabine Pass, TX
1863 Federal troops reconquer the Cumberland Gap, Tennessee
1864 George McClellan accepts nomination as Democratic candidate for President
1868 NY Athletic Club formed
1883 Northern Pacific RR's last spike driven at Independence Creek, Mont
1883 NY Giants score 13 runs in an inning against the Phillies
1892 1st appearance of "The Pledge of Allegiance" (Youth's Companion)
1900 6,000 killed when a hurricane & tidal wave destroys Galveston, Texas, most deadly in US history
1903 Between 30,000 and 50,000 Bulgarian men, women and children are massacred in Monastir by Turkish troops seeking to check a threatened Macedonian uprising.
1920 US Air Mail service begins (NYC to SF)
1921 1st Miss America crowned (Margaret Gorman of Washington DC)
1924 Alexandra Kollontai of Russia becomes 1st woman ambassador
1930 Richard Drew creates Scotch tape
1930 1st appearance of the comic strip "Blondie"
1930 NYC public schools begin teaching Hebrew
1939 FDR declares "limited national emergency" due to war in Europe
1939 Yanks beat Red Sox 4-1 in 7, game called because of lightning
1939 Gen Von Reichenaus pantzer division reaches suburbs of Warsaw
1941 Entire Jewish community of Meretsch, Lithuania is exterminated
1941 Siege of Leningrad (St Petersburg) by Germany begins
1943 Italy surrenders to the allies in WW II
1944 1st V-2 rockets land in London and Antwerp
1944 Russians march into Bulgaria; Bulgaria declares war on Germany
1945 US invades Japanese-held Korea
1945 Korea is partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States.
1948 British De Havilland 08-fighter flies faster than sound
1951 Japan signs treaty of peace with 48 countries (SF)
1952 Ernest Hemingway's "Old Man & the Sea" published
1954 SE Asia Treaty Org (SEATO) formed to stop communist spread in SE Asia
1954 With a 3-2 count, Phillies Richie Ashburn fouls next 14 pitches, then walks (never give up)
1955 Earliest clinching of an NL pennant (Brooklyn Dodgers)
1956 Harry Belafonte's album "Calypso," goes to #1 & stays #1 for 31 weeks
1957 Pope Pius XII encyclical On motion pictures, radio, TV
1960 NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
1960 Penguin Books in Britain is charged with obscenity for trying to publish the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly's Lover.
1963 Ines Cuervo de Priete, 34, gives birth to quintuplets, all boys
1965 Hurricane Betsy kills 75 in Louisiana & Florida
1965 KC A's Bert Campaneris plays all 9 positions in a game
1966 "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas premiers on ABC-TV
1967 Surveyor 5 launched; makes soft landing on Moon Sept 10
1967 Uganda abolishes traditional tribal kingdoms, becomes a republic
1971 John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opens in Washington DC
1972 Chic Cub Ferguson Jenkins wins his 20th game for 6th straight year
1973 1st all Australian women's US Open final, (Court beats Goolagong)
1973 Billy Martin named manager of the Texas Rangers
1973 Hank Aaron sets record of most HRs in 1 league (709)
1974 President Gerald Ford pardons former President Nixon of all federal crimes
1974 Evel Knievel attempts to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho on his rocket-powered motorcycle. He failed and parachuted down
1975 Boston begins court ordered busing of public schools
1977 Interpol sends a resolution concerning video piracy
1978 2nd game of the Boston Massacre; Yanks beat Red Sox 13-2
1983 NASA launches RCA-6
1984 Challenger moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS 41G mission
1985 "USA Weekend's" 1st issue, appears in 255 newspapers
1985 Alayson Gibbons sets 24 hr women swim record of 42.05 mi in 25 m pool
1985 Pete Rose ties Ty Cobb with 4,191 hits
1988 Javier Sotomayer of Cuba high jumps world record 2.43 m (7' 11")
1989 Mausoleum of Beatrice of Brabant (1288) discovered in Kortrijk Belgium
1990 Ellis Island Historical Site opens on Eliis Island, NYC
1991 Buffalo Bill Jim Kelly passes for 6 touchdowns vs Pitts (52-34)
1994 Last US, British and French troops leave West-Berlin
1997 America Online Inc. (AOL) takes over Compuserve
1998 Mark McGwire hits his 62nd home run off Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel in St. Louis and brakes the 1961 record set by Roger Maris
2000 US Bureau of Indian Affairs markes its 175th birthday and Kevin Grover, head of the bureau, offeres a formal apology to American Indians for the misdeeds of the agency that included massacres, forced relocations of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian cultures.
2000 The UN Millennium Summit ends in NYC with the adoption of an 8-page plan, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to cure the world’s direst problems. Pledges were made to halve the proportion of people in poverty, to reverse the spread of AIDS, and to strengthen the UN’s ability to keep peace.
(Now don't you feel better? I know I sure do. It gives me a warm feeling all over just to know that the UN is on the job!)
2001 UN World Conference on Racism ended and agreed to condemn the “barbarism” of the slave trade, proposed an aid package for Africa, recognized Palestinian rights and Israeli security concerns, opposed bias against ethnic minorities, refugees, indigenous peoples and women.
(I have nothing too say)
2004 Terrorist kidnap the family of an Iraqi National Guard officer and set fire to his home northeast of the capital
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
Andorra : National Day
Guinea-Bissau : Independence Day (1974)
Lichfield, England : Sheriff's Ride Ceremony (1533)
Malta : Commemoration of Regatta Day/Commemoration of 2 Sieges (1565)
North Korea : National Day (Established Govt) (1948)
South Korea : Thanksgiving Day
Uganda : Republic Day (1967)
Fall TV Series Flop Prediction Day
Kiss a Bald Head Week (Day 5)
National Boss Day/Employee Exchange Day
National Papaya Month
Religious Observances
RC-Vatican City : Mary's Nativity, birthday of Blessed Virgin Mary
Feast of St. Gorgonius, martyr.
Feast of Saint Peter Claver
Religious History
0070 Following a six-month siege, Jerusalem surrendered to the 60,000 troops of Titus' Roman army. Over a million Jewish citizens perished in the siege and, following the city's capture, another 97,000 were sold into slavery.
1565 The parish of St. Augustine, Florida, was founded by Father Don Martin Francisco Lopez de Mendozo Grajales, chaplain to the conquering Spanish forces. It became the first and oldest Roman Catholic parish established in America.
1636 Harvard College (later University) was founded by the Massachusetts Puritans at New Towne. It was the first institution of higher learning established in North America, and was originally founded to train future ministers.
1845 Oxford Movement leader, John Henry Newman, 44, resigned from the Church of England -- convinced that it had severed itself from its ancient episcopal moorings and true apostolic succession -- and became a Roman Catholic.
1928 Pius XI issued the encyclical "Rerum Orientalium," promoting study of the history, doctrine and liturgy of Eastern Orthodoxy. He recommended that priests apply themselves to special studies at the Oriental Institute in Rome, founded in 1917 by Benedict XV.
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Police Recruit Has Hand in His Own Arrest
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A New Zealand police recruit has had a hand in his own arrest for an unsolved assault. As part of a training exercise in fingerprinting at the Royal New Zealand Police College, the recruit gave his prints - and they matched him to an arrest warrant for a serious assault, Wellington's Dominion Post newspaper reported Wednesday.
He was arrested late last week and will appear in court later this week, the paper reported.
Training commander, Superintendent Alistair Beckett, said the recruit, whose name was not reported, had managed to slip through rigorous screening of potential recruits.
"By and large, the people we get are top of the line, top drawer. They normally don't have things from the past they want to hide," he was quoted saying.
But the police are not taking any chances that others might try to fool the system. Starting from October, all recruit applicants will be fingerprinted before they are given training, Beckett said.
Thought for the day :
"The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, -he- was a genius."
Sid Caesar
