THURSDAY TIDINGS

Dear Naval Historical Foundation Family,


Welcome back to Thursday Tidings.


Japan initiated kamikaze attacks in response to U.S. military forces' invasion of the Philippine Islands in October 1944. Although hints about adopting suicide tactics had been picked up before then, their use on a wide scale came as a surprise. The fanatical resolve of Japanese pilots turned their aircraft into human-guided missiles, which struck or damaged 130 U.S. and Allied combat vessels during the campaign, sinking 20, and killing at least 1,400 Sailors. While these results did not prevent Japan’s defeat in the Philippines, they exceeded considerably what the Japanese achieved with orthodox air tactics alone. This guaranteed the greater use of kamikazes in the future.


Japan’s defeat in the Okinawa campaign and its eventual surrender has somewhat obscured the desperate character of the battle between the Navy and the kamikazes. American and Allied pilots and Sailors met the Japanese challenge with courage and steely determination. The fight boiled down to a contest between the Navy leveraging its skill, material, and technology to locate and destroy suicide attackers and Japanese resourcefulness in getting them close enough to exploit the advantage of terminal human guidance. In the end, the Navy slowed the kamikazes, but could not completely stop them. Despite the sacrifice and damage inflicted, suicide tactics failed to reverse Japan’s fortunes or prevent its ultimate downfall.


Jeff Schultz reviews Naval Battles of the Second World War: The Atlantic and Mediterranean this weekWe have once again included some helpful links on the U.S. Navy's role in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Our next Second Saturday on XXXXXX is listed below in this email. We have also included registration details for the upcoming Knox Awards Reception.


As always, fair winds and following seas shipmates. This email is best viewed as a webpage for your reading convenience and best quality.


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Our Next Second Saturday 

(Taking place on the third Saturday this month)


Nimitz at War: Command Leadership From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay

20 August 2022 | 11 am

Please join us for a discussion with NHF Knox Medal recipient Dr. Craig Symonds as he discusses many of the outstanding leadership qualities that made him the right man to lead the American naval effort across the Central Pacific. Registration details will be available soon.



The event will occur LIVE on our YouTube page on the morning of 20 August 2022. 

SAVE THE DATE 

THURSDAY AUGUST 25, 2022


Commodore Dudley W. Knox Honors --- Donald Bittner and Norman Friedman! 


Registration details soon coming to www.navyhistory.org! 

Watch the Recap


The Balisle Report

Surface Ship Readiness--Why It Was Chartered, What It Said, What Was Done, Is It Still Relevant?

Did you miss our latest Second Saturday on the Balisle Report and Surface Ship Readiness? You can watch the full program on our YouTube page by following the link HERE. This event featured VADM Peter Daly, VADM Phil Balisle, and RADM Brad Hicks.

Oral History Available -- 

Torpedoman Second Class Donald R. Witmer

and the Kamikaze Attack on USS Twiggs

During World War II, millions of young Americans enlisted or were drafted into the United States Navy to man the largest fleet ever created. Hailing from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Donald R. Witmer would take part in this experience. Having a technical background, Witmer was rated as a torpedoman and was eventually assigned to USS Twiggs (DD 591), a Fletcher-class destroyer.


Commissioned on 4 November 1943, Twiggs would join the Pacific Fleet in 1944 to participate in the Leyte, Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa invasions. Off Okinawa, Twiggs would be struck twice by kamikazes. The second strike proved fatal. On 16 June 1945, at 2030, a single, low-flying plane dropped a torpedo, which hit Twiggs on her port side, exploding in her number two magazine. The plane then circled and completed its mission with a suicide crash. Enveloped in flames, the Twiggs would sink an hour later. There were 152 sailors, including the skipper, Commander George Phillip, killed. Injured with burns and a broken leg, Witmer was amongst 188 survivors.


READ THE ORAL HISTORY

All 47 Ships Lost to Kamikaze Attacks

(NHHC Info)

*Links provided indicate images or information on the lost ship,

courtesy of the Naval History and Heritage Command

1944


Oct. 25St. Lo (CVE-63) (escort carrier) 


Nov. 1 | Abner Read (DD-526) (destroyer)


Nov. 27 | SC-744 (submarine chaser)


Dec. 5 | LSM-20 (landing ship, medium)


Dec. 7 | Mahan (DD-364) (destroyer)


Dec. 7 | LSM-318 (landing ship, medium)


Dec. 7 | Ward (APD-16) (high-speed transport)


Dec. 10 | William S. Ladd (Liberty cargo ship)


Dec. 10 | PT-323 (motor torpedo boat)


Dec. 11 | Reid (DD-369) (destroyer)


Dec. 15 | LST-472 (landing ship, tank)


Dec. 15 | LST-738 (landing ship, tank)


Dec. 18 | PT-300 (motor torpedo boat)


Dec. 21 | LST-460 (landing ship, tank)


Dec. 21 | LST-749 (landing ship, tank)


Dec. 28 | John Burke (Liberty cargo ship)


Dec. 30 | Porcupine (IX-126) (auxiliary tanker)

USS Porcupine (IX-126), filled with aviation fuel, is struck by a kamikaze plane about 1549, 30 December 1944, off White Beach, Mangarin Bay, Leyte, in the Philippines. (U.S. Navy Photo)



1945


Jan. 4 | Ommaney Bay (CVE-79) (escort carrier)


Jan. 5 | Lewis L. Dyche (Liberty cargo ship)


Jan. 6 | Long (DMS-12) (high-speed minesweeper)


Feb. 21. | Bismarck Sea (CVE-95) (escort carrier)


Apr. 6 | Bush (DD-529) (destroyer)


Apr. 6 | Colhoun (DD-801) (destroyer)


Apr. 6 | Emmons (DMS-22) (high-speed minesweeper)


Apr. 6 | Hobbs Victory (cargo ship)


Apr. 6 | Logan Victory (cargo ship)


Apr. 7 | LST-447 (landing ship, tank) [9]


Apr. 12 | Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) (destroyer)


Apr. 12 | LCS(L)(3)-33 (landing craft, support (large) (Mk. III))


Apr. 16 | Pringle (DD-477) (destroyer)


Apr. 22 | Swallow (AM-65) (minesweeper)


Apr. 22 | LCS(L)(3)-15 (landing craft, support (large) (Mk. III))


Apr. 27 | Canada Victory (cargo ship)


May 3 | Little (DD-803) (destroyer)


May 3 | LSM(R)-195 (landing ship, medium (rocket))


May 4 | Morrison (DD-560) (destroyer)


May 4 | Luce (DD-522) (destroyer)


May 4 | LSM(R)-190 (landing ship, medium (rocket))


May 4 | LSM(R)-194 (landing ship, medium (rocket))


May 25 | Bates (APD-47) (high-speed transport)


May 25 | LSM-135 (landing ship, medium)


May 28  | Drexler (DD-741) (destroyer)


June 10 | William D. Porter (DD-579) (destroyer)


June 16 | Twiggs (DD-591) (destroyer)


June 21 | LSM-59 (landing ship, medium)


June 21 | Barry (APD-29) (high-speed transport)


July 29 | Callaghan (DD-792) (destroyer) 

Kamikazes

This online photograph exhibit displays some of the official U.S. Navy photographs in chronological order of Kamikaze attacks during World War II on U.S. Navy ships and vessels. The photographs begin with the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, through the Battle for Iwo Jima and the Okinawa Campaign, to the summer of 1945.

View Images from NHHC

The Kamikaze Attack on the USS Braine, May 27, 1945

The USS Braine was a twenty-one-ton Fletcher class destroyer that had been built and launched at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine in March of 1943. Following her participation in General Douglas MacArthur's campaign to retake the Philippines, the ship was ordered to serve as a radar picket and support ship as part of task Force 51 for the invasion of Okinawa.

Read More

“The Most Difficult Antiaircraft Problem Yet Faced By the Fleet”: U.S. Navy vs. Kamikazes at Okinawa

(Naval History and Heritage Command)

As U.S. Fifth Fleet naval and amphibious forces, under the command of Admiral Raymond Spruance, prepared to execute Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, in early 1945, the land-based air forces of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJAAF) and Navy (IJNAF) posed the primary threat they faced. The U.S. Navy had decisively defeated Japanese naval airpower and seapower in the battles of the Philippine Sea (June 1944) and Leyte Gulf (October 1944). Despite the precipitous decline of its remaining airpower relative to increasing American aerial advantages in skill, technology, and numbers, however, Japan’s desperate resort to kamikaze (“divine wind”) aerial suicide tactics proved grimly effective.


Japan initiated kamikaze attacks in response to the invasion of the Philippine Islands by U.S. military forces in October 1944. Although hints about adopting suicide tactics had been picked up before then, their use on a wide scale came as a surprise. The fanatical resolve of Japanese pilots turned their aircraft into human-guided missiles, which struck or damaged 130 U.S. and Allied combat vessels during the campaign, sinking 20, and killing at least 1,400 Sailors.[1] While these results did not prevent Japan’s defeat in the Philippines, they exceeded considerably what the Japanese achieved with orthodox air tactics alone. This guaranteed the greater use of kamikazes going forward.


READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Select NHF Book Reviews on the U.S. Navy and the Kamikaze

(NHF Blog)

Kamikaze: Japanese Special Attack Weapons, 1944-45, by Steven J. Zaloga (Reviewed by Rear Admiral Ed Keats, USN (Ret.), 1 November 2012). 


The Japanese Navy in World War II: In the Words of the Former Japanese Naval Officers, by David C. Evans (Reviewed by Michael F. Solecki, 8 June 2017).


Letters from Your Loving Son: Wilson C. Linewaweaver, His Journey Through the CCC and U.S. Navy Until His Death on the USS Bunker Hill in 1945, by Thomas R. Lehman (Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart, 28 December 2017). 


Rain of Steel: Mitscher’s Task Force 58, Ugaki’s Thunder Gods and the Kamikaze War off Okinawa, by Stephen L. Moore (Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D., 7 June 2021)

Glen Osborn, a USS St. Lo (CVE 63) veteran, speaks at a donation event commemorating the Battle off Samar at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, July 14. St. Lo was one of the escort carriers that comprised Task Unit 77.4.3, call sign Taffy 3. During the Battle off Samar, St. Lo was struck by a kamikaze becoming the first major ship sunk by a Japanese suicide attack. Naval History and Heritage Command, located at the Washington Navy Yard, is responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage.


(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Petty Officer 2nd Class Randy Lee Adams II/Released)

Divine Wind: Reflections from Two Kamikaze Veterans

By Kyle Nappi At first glance, "kamikaze veteran" will undoubtedly read as an oxymoron to most Americans. Best parodied in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, producer/actor Larry David muses how one can be a kamikaze pilot and yet still be alive.

Read More

H-Gram 057

Contents 75th Anniversary of World War II: Operation Downfall─The Planned Invasion of Japan 75th Anniversary of World War II: Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night─The Japanese Plan for Biological Warfare 150th Anniversay of the Saginaw Gig 75th Anniversary of the Loss of Flight 19 This H-gram focuses on the U.S.

Read More

Naval Battles of the Second World War: The Atlantic and Mediterranean

By Leo Marriott

Reviewed by Jeff Schultz


Leo Marriott’s Naval Battles of the Second World War: The Atlantic and Mediterranean is a brief monograph that acts as a perfunctory primer highlighting a number of clashes between the Royal Navy and the major European Axis fleets. Although this book does not go into great depth, it should be considered a launching point for learning about the war at sea during World War II but as an attempt to cover nearly twenty battles it can only really scratch the surface for those seeking a deeper assessment.


Continue Reading the Full Review Here

Review Request

If you are interested in World War II history, please consider reviewing Armageddon in the Arctic Ocean: Up the Hawse Pipe from Galley Boy to Third Mate on a Legendary Liberty Ship in the Biggest Convoy Battle of World War II, by Paul Gill Sr.


Guidelines for getting involved in the NHF Book Review program can be found here,

and a list of titles available for review can be found here.


History in the Making: The U.S. Navy and the Ukrainian Crisis -- Select Links and Topics of Interest

We are currently witnessing history in the making with the situation involving the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning last week. How does the U.S. Navy fit in? How are strategists, theorists, and journalists gauging the role of the U.S. Navy in any impending conflict? Here are several articles of note that seek to answer these questions as the situation progresses. Article opinions reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect any stance by the Naval Historical Foundation. 


Revolutionary War Era Cannon Cartridge Case

By John L. Morris

Recently, Morphy’s Auctions in PA offered this old wooden cartridge case, (details here)


This was apparently for a three or four-pounder naval gun of the type that would have armed an American privateer or warship of one of the coastal colonies. Around the time of the Revolution, these were known as “cartridge boxes,” terminology used in period documents. Later examples were more often made of leather and called “pass boxes” or “passing boxes.” Their function was to protect fragile “fixed” cannon rounds while being passed from the ship’s below-decks ammunition magazine up to the gun position. Boys known as “powder monkeys” usually did this important job. The boxes were usually marked with the caliber of the gun for which the cartridge was designed, since ships often carried several different calibers and it would be easy to confuse say, three and four-pounder without markings on the box. Here’s a brief video describing a very rare surviving canister projectile without powder bag. This would probably fit in the wooden cartridge box, and is thought to have been made around the same time. https://youtu.be/pKc56AuKVt0


It is interesting to read down the list of items stowed aboard the ship MARS* Ca. 1778 in this advertisement found in Record Group 45 at the National Archives, Washington, DC. Many different types of projectiles are listed in the right-hand column, in substantial quantities.  Cartridge boxes are listed as well. https://flic.kr/p/2nyeiZM


*Regarding ship MARS, NHHC, NAVAL DOCUMENTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, V. 12, 2013, pp. 6, footnote 3. Massachusetts privateer ship Mars, Gilbert Ash, commander, of Boston, mounting 22 carriage guns, a crew of 130 seamen, owned by Isaac Sears, of Boston, and John and Samuel Broome, of Hartford, Conn., was commissioned on 23 May 1778. M-Ar, vol. 139, pp. 184, 233. The copy of her letter of marque and reprisal in the Papers of the Continental Congress refers to her as a Connecticut privateer that was commissioned on 11 May 1778. DNA, PCC, item 196, vol. 10, p. 20

Eerie Abandoned Portsmouth Naval Prison Once Dubbed the ‘Alcatraz of the East’

By Megan Murphy

(WOKQ)

(Naval History and Heritage Command)

Just across the Piscataqua River and Prescott Park sits the eerie abandoned Portsmouth Naval Prison.


The towering structure is castle-like in its architecture and has been vacant for over 45 years, according to boston.com.


It's so desolate that locals might not think to notice its presence at this point, as the almost colorless building has silently stood for decades with no signs of life.


The prison has a rich history. Boston.com explains that the facility sits on an island once home to Fort Sullivan during the American Revolution and Spanish-American War.


According to thevintagenews.com, it was decided that a prison would be built on the property after the subsequent Fort Long was disassembled in 1901. The construction of the Portsmouth Naval Prison would be completed seven years later in 1908.


READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Note from Nimitz: You Need Lots of Ships to Take Risks in War

Niccolò Machiavelli, meet Chester Nimitz. In his Discourses on Roman history the Renaissance Florentine philosopher-statesman claimed that human beings do not relish change. In fact, he verges on saying people can't change as the times and surroundings change around them. They get stuck as events march on.

Read More

Building Carriers: The Navy and Newport News Create a Monopoly, 1949-1960

To get past the new Secretary of Defense's firm opposition to the Navy's proposed supercarrier, USS United States, the Bureau of Ships gave a discrete green light to Newport News Shipbuilding to start work on what was to be the biggest ship in the world in 1949.

Read More

The Proceedings Podcast - Proceedings Podcast Episode 188 - Countering the Kamikaze

Trent Hone discusses how the U.S. Navy innovated to counter the unforeseen and shocking threat of Japanese kamikazes in the final year of World War II in the Pacific Theater.

Read More

Podcasts - The Mike Bates Show - 5/14/2022 The Mike Bates Show

SHOW TOPIC: The Heroism of U.S. Navy Sailors Defending Against Kamikaze Attacks (Interview with Brent E. Jones, author of "Days of Steel Rain: The Epic Story of a WWII Vengeance Ship in the Year of the Kamikaze") 5/14/2022 Full Show 

Read More

Kamikaze Attack Footage

(Smithsonian/YouTube)

Dogfights: Japanese Kamikaze Attacks

(History Channel/YouTube)

Veterans Chronicles - John Hancock, U.S. Navy, World War II

John Hancock grew up in Georgia shooting quail, so becoming a gunner aboard the USS Yorktown in World War II came pretty naturally to him. In 1942, Hancock served in the first carrier battle in world history and later that year fought at the pivotal Battle of Midway, although he was forced to abandon ship as the Japanese sunk the Yorktown.

Read More

This Day in Naval History - 28 July

(Produced by NHHC)

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