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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles and the occasional radio broadcast delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Also visit our general discussion thread.

B29s Drop Supplies. Note the number of planes and crewmen lost hin this operation. It was a long process. Worth reading.

http://user.xmission.com/~tmathews/b29/56years/56years-4508b.html

27 August 1945 (pg 702)

MARIANAS:
XX AF B-29’s begin supplying prisoner-of-war and internee camps in Japan, China, and Korea with medical supplies, food, and clothing. The first supply drop (to Weihsien Camp near Peking, China) is followed by a concentrated effort of 900 sorties in a period of less than a month. 4,470 tons of supplies are dropped to about 63,500 prisoners in 154 camps through the end of September. (Eight B-29’s were lost along with 77 crewmen during this operation. In addition, one B-29 was attacked by Soviet fighters while flying over North Korea and was forced to land).

(This message exchange tells a lot about the POW missions:)

A message from Jack Blevins on 16 May 2000 to the e-mail list:

“My crew flew on two of these. The only one of these that I can remember was the one in which the wooden crates or pallets and the packages were wrapped and placed on in the bomb bays. The wooden pallets ... were attached to parachutes. The prisoners painted POW on top of their barracks and that was our aiming point. The reason I remember this mission was that one of the wooden pallets we released crashed thru the roof of one of the P.O.W. barracks. As far as I remember we never knew what all was in the packages.”

Jack Blevins

A response from Bob Goldsworthy:

“I can tell you what was part of the delivery (POW drop) that went through the barracks roof. Especially if the drop was over Omori POW Camp. It was Cashmere Bouquet soap. At least a case of it crashed through the roof of my barracks about three feet from my head.

“I thought, what a hell of a thing to live through prison life only to get killed by a case of soap. But the food that was dropped saved lives.”

Bob Goldsworthy

I had to chuckle when I read that the USS Missouri meeting took place "twenty miles south of O Island." It's a bit odd that about half the time an island name is untranslated, like Ie Shima or Iwo Jima, and the other half it is translated, like O Island. I have been to Oshima, whose name simply means "Big Island" (there are perhaps a hundred Oshimas all around Japan), and which is at the entrance of Sagami Bay. I was part of a newly-formed Explorer Post when we went there in the late 60s on the Miss FAY (pictured here), which was touted as having been Gen. MacArthur's yacht, presumably under another name ("FAY" stood for Fleet Activities Yokosuka).

The same article says that the Marines will inhabit "three islets of Yokosuka." I only know of one island near the base, Sarushima (Monkey Island); a CNN Travel article about it is here. There are two artificial islands on the Chiba side of the bay that were built in the 1800s for protecting the entrance to Tokyo Bay, and that may be what the article is referring to.

Also, the "airdrome" would have been on Natsushima (Summer Island), which is technically an island, though it is connected to the mainland by short causeways. Natsushima is just north of the Yokosuka naval base and east of Oppama, though I don't remember an airfield ever being there; the page here says it was used until the 1950s. The airfield seems to have had its own patch, however, here.