Showing posts with label Okinawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Okinawa. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Sunday, August 12, 1945. War, ripples of war, and impacts of war.

Fr. Karl Leisner died of tuberculosis after having been imprisoned in Dachau.  He was beatified in 1996.


The number of German Catholic Priests that resisted the Nazis is really not appreciated.  They were not alone, of course  Evangelicals (Lutherans) did as well, but nonetheless their numbers are remarkable, and in some instance their resistances to the Nazis is astounding.

The Red Army entered Korea.

Chinese-American headquarters canceled operations against Fort Bayard, Hong Kong and Canton, in light of the imminent Japanese surrender.

American bombing raids over Japan, however, continued.

The USS Pennsylvania was damaged by an attack from a Japanese torpedo bomber off the island of Okinawa. 

A Japanese submarine sank the USS Thomas F. Nickel and the landing craft Oak Hill.

The US released the Smyth Report.


Russian DPs (Displaced Persons) began the trip home to an uncertain future.


"1500 Russian displaced nationals were taken from the D.P. center, Caserne De Cavalerie in Charleroi, Belgium, and sent by train to Russian territory in Germany. 12 August, 1945. They took long strides, singing most of the way, as they turn into the depot at Charleroi. This is the last of the D.P.'s to leave France and Belgium. Photographer: Pfc. Stedman"

The victims of Nazi horrors, they were regarded as suspect by the Soviet Union as the USSR knew that they had been exposed to the West, and hence to the fallacy of the Communist system.  Given a choice, most would likely have refused repatriation.

Their fate, while grim, mirrored the unhappy situation of millions in Europe.  Many were being repatriated to nations that would repress them and to which they did not wish to return.  Many found themselves in countries whose post war political system was foisted upon them by the USSR. Others simply had no home. The war was over, but the impacts of the war far from over.

Only the US was in a really good place, culturally and economically, which would form its economic and political reality into the early 21st Century, forming a sense of entitlement and dissociation from reality whose impact is still yet to be determined.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 11, 1945. The US rejects the Japanese attempt at surrender and the Soviets invade South Sakhalin. And stuff that doesn't neatly fit into accepted history.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Friday, July 20, 1945. Mistakes were made.


Belgian Prime Minister Achille Van Acker asked King Leopold III to abdicate for his "grave and unpardonable mistakes."

This entire controversy, largely forgotten outside of Belgium, where it would simmer for years, is hard to grasp, but it started with the unpopular move of surrendering to Germany, which was not supported by the Belgian people.  He did not cooperate with the Nazis during the war and in fact was imprisoned during the war, but that did not suffice for people to forgive him.  Additionally, he remarried during the war, being a widower, which people also held against him, as the poster above alludes to.

Churchill, Truman and Stalin continued to confer on politics and strategy,

US troops landed and took Balut Island in the Philippines.

Air raids over Japan continued, with P-51s now joining the effort as fighter bombers.


"Temporary location of the Industrial Dept. At the U.S. Naval Repair Base. Okinawa. 20 July, 1945.
Photographer: McGill, 3241 Sig. Photo Dept. Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive."

Last edition:

Friday, July 11, 2025

Wednesday, July 11, 1945. Redeploying.


"Joyous Second Division Marines, about to board ship for home after more than thirty months overseas, were not forgotten by the famed division mascot "Eight Ball", who was on hand to bid them a sorrowful goodbye. Saipan. 11 July, 1945. Photographer: Rohde. Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive."

The first meeting of the Inter-Allied Council for Berlin took place in which the USSR agreed to hand over civilian and military control of West Berlin to the UK and US.

The Japanese destroyer Sakura hit a mine and sank in Osaka Harbor.

The 8th Air Force began to redeploy from Europe to Okinawa, where they were to receive B-29s after initially having a training role.  The redeployment of its aircraft to the continental US also began on this day.

The US used napalm on resistant Japanese targets on Luzon.

Fadil Hoxha became President of the Assembly of Kosovo and Metohija.

Last edition:

Friday, July 10, 1945. Sentimental Journey.

    Wednesday, July 2, 2025

    Monday, July 2, 1945. Advances on Balikpapen.

    Maria Michi in Rome, Open City.  She also played the role of the welcoming Italian turned prostitute in Paisan.  Both films were directed by Roberto Rossellini and filmed immediately after World War Two.  Why am I featuring her? See below.

    Tokyo's population was down to 200,000 people due to evacuations from the bombed city.

    Australian troops took Balikpapan's oil facilities.

    American operations conclude on the Ryukyus.

    The submarine USS Barb fired rockets on Kaihyo Island near Sakhalin,the first instance of a submarine firing such weapons.

    Mountbatten is ordered to launch Operation Zipper, the liberation of Malaya, in August.

    The 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion broke out in Burao and Erigavo in British Somaliland against the British.

    "The American Farmer" was the cover story in Newsweek.


    Louis Till, father of Emmett Till who is remembered for being lynched at age 14 in 1955, was executed by the U.S. Army at Aversa, Italy for two counts of rape and murder.  

    The elder Till had married the younger Till's mother when they were 18, over the objections of her parents. The marriage was not a happy one and she divorced him after he physically attacked her.  A conviction from that resulted in his joining the U.S. Army in order to avoid a prison sentence.

    While Tills' conviction and execution are debated, the circumstances of the crime, which involved a home invasion and rape, are vile, and it seems that the trial was well conducted.

    What's this have to do with the younger Till's lynching?  Absolutely nothing.  The junior Till never knew his father as the relationship had disintegrated when he was a mere infant.

    There may be something, however, to take away about the horrors of the postwar world.  Armies are made up of all kinds of people, particularly conscripted armies.  Putting somebody in uniform so they wouldn't go to jail was fairly common.  There was a guy in boot camp with me who was there for that very reason, and I know a very successful person who essentially had the same thing occur to him.

    And wars are a huge violation of the moral order.  Invading armies have always been associated with crime, with rape being a particularly common one.  Occupying armies, and even garrison armies, have a fair amount of moral depredation they bring on as well.

    This certainly doesn't apply to everyone in uniform in these conditions, and not even the majority of those in uniform, in most modern armies, but it's frankly the case that World War Two created a vast amount of prostitution in Europe, some of it of a massively desperate type as portrayed in Rossellini's Paisan, and discussed in Atkinson's The Day of Battle.  Italy was quite frankly particularly hard hit as its infrastructure was far less developed than that of France or Germany, and it's population lived much more primitively and much closer to the poverty line.  Indeed, the vast bulk of the Italian population even before the war lived in what Americans of the same period would have regarded as poverty.

    In these conditions, Italian women became targets.  Many prostituted themselves.  Some entered what might be regarded as a species of concubinage.  A biography of Bill Mauldin notes, for example, that for a period of time both Mauldin and another Stars and Stripes reporter kept girls in their mid teens, something that would have been regarded as a crime in the U.S. given the girls' very young age.  Paisan, as noted, depicts a middle class Italian girl descending into poverty, and then trying to grasp a straw out of it that nearly appears.  The classic The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit depicts a middle class American businessman who was an officer during the war engaging in a secret affair that produces a child while a soldier in Italy.

    Concubinage is one thing.  Rape quite another, but murder is beyond the pale even for most whose morals decay in wartime.  But not for everyone.  And of course, we haven't touched on the Red Army, for whom wholescale rape, and then murder, of the women of the countries they overran was routine.  The percentage of Soviet soldiers that went home as rapist likely isn't known, but it was appreciable, and appreciated apparently by Soviet women, which lead to that generations domestic lives being notoriously turbulent.

    War changes everything, and most of what it changes, isn't for the better.

    Last edition:

    Monday, June 30, 2025

    Saturday, June 30, 1945. Mopping up.

    "These five 96th Div. Texans are considered "aces" by their buddies in Co. I, 383rd Inf. Regt., an ace being anyone who has killed five or more Japs. From bottom to top: S/Sgt. Vernon Z. Wilkins, 101 Chicago St., Delhart; Pfc. Albert Welfel, El Campo; Pfc. Richard S. Groce, 318 Lafitte St., San Antonio; PFC Roy D Clepper, Florey; and Pfc. Russell Linnard, of Pharr, Texas. 30 June, 1945. Company I, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division."  I wonder what their lives were like after the war.
    Today in World War II History—June 30, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 30, 1945: In the Philippines, Luzon is declared secure. Organized Japanese resistance ends on Mindanao in the Philippines.

    Sarah Sundin's blog.

    Indeed, some Japanese troops would hold out on the Philippines on an individual basis for decades. 

    " Jap tankette knocked out in battle for Shuri. Tank is about 10 ft. by four and about five feet in height, and carries two men. Relative size is shown by Lt. M. A. Miller of 94 Parkway Rd., Bronxville, New York. 30 June, 1945. Photographer: Henderson, 3240th Signal Photo Det."  Tankettes were a British concept from between the wars, but had fallen out of favor almost everywhere before World War Two.  Japan, which existed in military isolation, kept them.

    American forces on Okinawa completed a week of mop-up operations in which 8,975 Japanese were reported killed and 2,902 captured, showing how intense operations remained.

    While not apparent to anyone yet, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps had effectively concluded the main part of their ground fighting in the war.  Ground combat, however, carried on for the British and Dominion armies, and the Chinese Army.

    Former U.S. Army Air Force base Liuzhou, China, was recaptured by the Chinese.  They also took Chungchin on the Indochinese border.

    The French the 5e REI, a Foreign Legion regiment which had been stationed in Indochina, was deactivated, having been decimated in their retreat into China.

    Truman appointed James F. Byrnes to be Secretary of State.

    Last edition:

    Friday, June 29, 1945. Downfall.

    Sunday, June 22, 2025

    Friday, June 22, 1945. The Battle of Okinawa ends.

    The Battle of Okinawa ended. It was the last major ground battle of World War Two.

    Today in World War II History—June 22, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 22, 1945: Battle for Okinawa officially ends at a high cost—12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed, plus 42,000 civilians.

    June 22, 1945: The Battle of Okinawa

    Operation Ten-Go, the last major Japanese naval operation, concluded.

    Gen. MacArthur announced that Gen. Joseph Stilwell would replace Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. as commander of the U.S. Tenth Army.

    Emperor Hirohito directed his government to find a way to peace talks.

    Japanese generals Isamu Chō, 50, and Mitsuru Ushijima, 57,  committed suicide on Okinawa.

    The Japanese withdrew from Liuchow.

    Last edition:

    Thursday, June 21, 1945. Fall of Hill 89.

    Saturday, June 21, 2025

    Thursday, June 21, 1945. Fall of Hill 89.

    Today in World War II History—June 21, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 21, 1945: US Rangers link with Filipino guerrillas in Aparri, Luzon. US Tenth Army takes Hill 89, the last Japanese stronghold on Okinawa.

    Sarah Sundin's blog. 

    The USS Barry was sunk off of Okinawa by kamikazes.

    The Battle of Tarakan ended in an Allied victory on Borneo.

    Twelve Polish Home Army officers were convicted of "underground activities" by the USSR.

    Last edition:

    Wednesday, June 20, 1945. Japanese surrenders.


    Friday, June 20, 2025

    Wednesday, June 20, 1945. Japanese surrenders.

    Today in World War II History—June 20, 1940 & 1945: Australians take oil fields at Seria on Borneo.

    Hard fighting continues on Okinawa, but 1,000 Japanese troops surrendered.

    "A Jap prisoner of war and Pfc. John H, Davis, Rt. #1, Whitwell, Tenn, 7th Reconnaissance, 7th Infantry Division, attempt to reach shore on a surf board to coax Japs still entrenched in a cave to surrender and swim to LCI. The attempt was unsuccessful due to the inability of the prisoner of war to swim. 20 June, 1945."

    Australians landed at Lutong in eastern Sarawak, Borneo.

    The Australian 26th Infantry Brigade captured Hill 90 on Tarakan Island, ending organized Japanese resistance.

    The Polish government in exile denies the right of the Soviets to try Polish ministers who had flown to Moscow and were arrested.

    The United Nations agreed to let the General Assembly have the right to discuss "any matters within the scope of the charter".

    Last edition:

    Tuesday, June 19, 1945. Eisenhower's parade.

    Thursday, June 19, 2025

    Tuesday, June 19, 1945. Eisenhower's parade.

    The U.S. Army took IIigan in the Philippines.

    343 Japanese troops surrendered on Okinawa.

    "Pfc. Alden A. Fisher, Morganton, Ga., fires a bazooka. Pfc. William Miller, Oceanside, Long Island, is the loader. They are firing at a Japanese cave on Okinawa. 19 June, 1945. 77th Infantry Division Photographer: LaGrange."

    Troops of the British Commonwealth brought the war back to Thailand, invading it from Burma.

    King Leopold III of Belgium refused to abdicate.

    The United Nations, meeting in San Francisco, denied Francoist Spain admission to the body.

    Gen. Eisenhower received a ticker tape parade in New York City which 4,000,000 people turned out to view.

    French politician Marcel Déat, in hiding in Italy, was sentenced to death in absentia for collaborating with the enemy.  He would not be captured and died in Italy in 1955.

    Last edition:

    Monday, June 18, 1945. The death of Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.

    Wednesday, June 18, 2025

    Monday, June 18, 1945. The death of Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.


    Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. was killed by Japanese artillery on Okinawa.  He was 58 years old, making him one of the older U.S. Generals of the Second World War.

    The artillery projectile was of the flat shooting rifle type, and the projectile had actually ricocheted off of a coral reef, and then hit Buckner.

    Prior to World War Two, Buckner had principally been involved in the education and training of troops.  He had seen overseas duty, however, in the Philippines in 1908.

    His father, the senior Simon Bolivar Buckner, had been an American Army officer during the Mexican War, and a Confederate general during the Civil war.

    Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki informed the Japanese Supreme Council of Emperor Hirohito's intention to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible.

    The USS Bonefish was sunk in Toyama Bay.

    The Chinese Army took Wenchow.

    The Soviets put sixteen officers of the Polish Home Army on trial for fighting the Soviets.


    William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, was put on trial for treason.

    The British Army began demobilizing.

    Last edition:

    Tuesday, June 17, 2025

    Sunday, June 17, 1945. Taking Kuishi Ridge.

    The last Japanese defensive line was broken on Kuishi Ridge, Okinawa.  The US 7th Division completed the capture of Hills 153 and 115.

    "Tec Sgt. Hiroshi Mukaye, Los Angeles, Cal., Japanese Interpreter for the 32nd Infantry Regiment, and S/Sgt. Ralph M. Saito, Ewa, Hawaii, interpreter for the 24th Corps, question this Japanese sailor brought in by the 32nd Infantry Regiment. 17 June. 1945. 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive."  This photograph is remarkable in that S.Sgt  Santo has his rank drawn onto his fatigue cap in the same approximate size that later black subdued rank insignia would have it.  He also has his rank printed on the lapels of his fatigue shirt, which would anticipate the practice of the 1960s, although not in that location.

    The 37th Infantry Division captured Naguilian on Luzon.  

    Last edition: