Peleliu is part of the Caroline Island Archipelago, the largest of which is the Island of Palau.

In September of 1944, American military planners settled on Peleliu as the next invasion target as they island hopped towards Japan.   The island had  a functioning runway which gave it some strategic importance, but this invasion has gone down in history as one of the ones that historians often cite as being an avoidable waste of lives.    Measuring just 6 square miles, Peleliu has gone down in history as one of costliest battles of the Pacific with more than 2,000 Americans and 10,000 Japanese soldiers killed in the Battle that lasted 73 days.

The Japanese, changing tactics after studying their previous defeats where they tried to engage the invading Americans on the beaches, decided to allow uncontested beach landings.  Their new plan was to attack from dug-in positions once the Americans had come ashore.     The entire island was turned into a maze of underground bunkers and camouflaged firing positions.   Unfortunately the attacking Americans knew nothing about this and walked into a murderous cross-fire.

In a lesson that might well be remembered by our current government as they discuss the effectiveness of bombing ISIS, the US military launched a massive air attack on Peleliu in the week before September 15.  Firing on this tiny 6 sq. mile island were the battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee and Idaho, heavy cruisers Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minneapolis, and Portland, and light cruisers Cleveland, Denver and Honolulu.   The bombardment from these ships only stopped so that planes from 19 aircraft carriers of various sizes could drop bombs on the island.    In excess of 10,000 tons  of shells and bombs slammed into the island.  The Admiral in charge thought for sure that no Japanese could survive to fight effectively.   The reality was that hardly a single Japanese soldier had been killed because of the depth of the caves in which they had taken refuge.  The Japanese planes at the airfield were destroyed but none of the underground fortifications were knocked out, leaving the Japanese completely ready to ambush the US forces as they landed on the island.

On D-Day, the Marines who piled into their landing craft were in for a nasty surprise.   As the landing craft approached the beaches, the Japanese opened fire from fortified positions from above and at both ends of the beach, catching  the Marines into a murderous crossfire.  In less than 1 hour, more than 60 landing craft  were destroyed.   After the first day, the Marines held 2 miles of beach and little else, at a cost of 1,100 men.   Somehow, the Marine commanders still thought that the Japanese were all but defeated and that they would crumble at any second.

72 days later, the island was declared as having been cleared of Japanese.

One interesting thing happened on Peleliu that was to have great impact on future island invasions and eventually on how battles would be fought in Europe.    The fighting was so difficult on Peleliu and the Marines on the ground became so frustrated with their commanders that they decided to finally take matters into their own hands.   Its hard to believe given today’s technology but in 1944, the men on the ground had no way to communicate directly with the hundreds of aircraft buzzing above their heads.   The pilots in their fighters were sent out to look for Japanese targets on the ground but were often afraid to fire near the front lines for fear of hitting their own troops.   At the time, the only communication from ground to air was accomplished by placing large orange panels, often shaped like an arrow, which would point towards the Japanese position.   No one thought to provide a radio with a direct link from the fighting ground troops directly to the pilots in their planes.   Radio communications went back to the offshore ships, then from Marine radio operators to Naval Aviation radiomen and then back to the planes.    This took about 5 minutes and if the pilot had a question, another 10 minutes to ask his question and then get his answer.

On Peleliu the Marines and Navy Pilots came up with the solution.   Pilots with radios were sent onto the island to act as forward air controllers.   Pilots volunteered for this duty because they first thought that only a pilot could give precise enough instructions to other pilots about where to bomb to avoid friendly fire casualties.   Eventually the job of a forward air controller was devised and training provided so that Army and Marine radiomen could provide the quick instructions.  In retrospect, it seems hard to believe that this was not already standard practice.   This fast communication with the ability to quickly hit targets proved very successful and became common practice as the island hopping campaign continued on to Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

8 Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to the men on Peleliu.   Only 1 lived to receive the medal in person.

The Commanding General of the Marines on Peleliu (General Roy Geiger) was one of America’s great fighting Generals of the War.  He was in command on Guadalcanal in the fall of 1942 and again in charge of the invasion of Guam during July of 1944.   And then again in Peleliu in September of 1944.  Geiger then led the Marines on Okinawa in June of 1945 and assumed command of the Tenth Army when Army General Simon Bolivar Buckner was killed in action.    To this day, Geiger is the only Marine officer to command a US Army in the field.

After D-Day, military planners knew that the Allied armies in France were going to need huge quantities of fuel to power the tremendous number of planes, tanks, trucks, jeeps and every other type of vehicle imaginable as the Allied armies fought their way across France and into Germany.

“Running out of gas” was a bad idea.

Using tankers to carry fuel to the French coast was thought to be too dangerous due to the ever-present U-Boat threat.   Additionally, the US tanker fleet was desperately needed in the Pacific to supply the huge armada of Allied forces spread across great distances in the fight against Japan.

The solution turned out to be “Pluto” or Pipe Lines Under The Ocean.   Today, no one thinks twice about laying a pipeline under the ocean.  But in the 1940’s, no such technology existed and it had never been done before.

So beginning in 1942, the British started a project to see if it was possible.  Involving engineers from both the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Iraq Petroleum Company, several methods were tried.  The final design was to take 1000 meter lengths of a soft steel, welded together and then spool them onto a giant floating 30 ft diameter drum.   The drum would be towed across the English channel slowly unspooling the 3 in diameter steel pipe as it went.

After successfully testing the concept across the River Clyde in Scotland and then again across the Bristol Channel, they were ready to go.   On August 12, 1944, the first pipeline was laid in just 10 hours to Cherbourg in Normandy.   On either end, pump houses were built and camouflaged inside buildings made to look like anything but a pumping station.  Some of the pump houses were made to look like ice cream factories or even small houses so as not to attract the attention of German bombers.

By the end of the war, the Allies had laid down 18 pipelines across the English Channel and managed to pump nearly 200 million gallons of fuel to the advancing armies.   By VE Day, the pipelines had been extended to run all the way across France to the Rhine.

Watch the short youtube video about the project at the link below:

http://bit.ly/1tOtoKh

One of the great dives you can make on Grand Cayman is on the USS Kittiwake.

http://www.dive365cayman.com/kittiwake-cayman



With the top of the wreck just 15 feet below the water’s surface, and the bottom of the wreck at about 60 ft, both divers and snorkelers can safely enjoy the site.    Prior to it’s sinking, large cut outs were made into most of the spaces on board, allowing divers good access to all levels of the ship.   Divers can even swim into a hyperbaric chamber as the doors have been removed.

The USS Kittiwake was launched in July of 1945 as a submarine rescue vessel.   The naval designation ASR stands for (Auxillary Submarine Rescue).  The Kittiwake was the 13th vessel in the series.

On board the ship, you can still see some of the equipment that was used by the Navy to try to recover damaged submarines from the bottom of the ocean.

Any submarine can flood but early submarines were very dangerous to operate and many accidents occurred.   Rescue ships like the Kittiwake saved numerous lives.

One key individual stands out as being a great  contributor to the science of submarine safety and rescue.   His name was Charles “Swede” Momsen and perhaps its a good idea to know something of what he accomplished.    Some of his inventions are still in use today and remain onboard the wreck for you to explore.

Momsen graduated from the Naval Academy in 1919, just at the end of WW1.    He attended submarine school and then served as the commander of several US submarines in the 1920’s.  In 1925, while he was commanding the submarine S-1, another submarine, the S-51 sank after colliding with a surface ship.   Momsen found the S-51 sitting on the bottom in just 130 ft of water.   But because there was no technology available to quickly bring a downed sub to the surface and no way for the men to escape from the downed sub, he sat by helplessly as all but 3 men aboard the S-51 perished.  The 3 that lived had been on the bridge and jumped overboard as the sub flooded and sank.   The entire sub did not flood, just enough to give it negative buoyancy and send it to the bottom.   Men were trapped behind water tight doors and perished from lack of oxygen.

This event inspired Momsen to think of a solution of how to get men off a sunken submarine.     He set about designing a diving bell which could be lowered from a rescue ship.  It would attach itself to a hatch on the submarine with a rubber seal so that the pressure in the bell and the pressure in the sub could be equalized.  This would allow the submariners to transfer into the diving bell and ride up to the surface.    At the time, the Navy rejected his idea as “impractical”.    But Momsen would not be deterred.

After another submarine accident in 1927, with his diving bell idea on hold, Momsen came up with another idea.  He envisioned a device that an escaping submariner could wear as they slowly swam to the surface from a downed sub.  The device contained soda lime which chemically removes C02 from air and replaces it with 02.  The user  wears nose plugs and straps the bag to their chest. They breathe through a mouthpiece that connects to the bag with 2 hoses.  They inhale air from the bag and exhale air with a high C02 level back into the bag.  At that point, the soda lime chemically “scrubs” out the C02 and replaces it with 02.  The soda lime is consumed in the process so it only works for a short period of time.  But this is enough for a submariner to slowly ascend to the surface.     It took a few years to get it right but in 1932 Momsen himself tested what he called the Submarine Escape Lung from a depth of 200 ft.   One day the Navy brought some reporters in to see the device in action.   One of them started calling it the Momsen Lung and the name stuck.   Derivatives of the Momsen Lung are still onboard modern submarines.   I was in Hamburg, Germany some years ago where a Russian submarine has been turned into a museum ship.  Sure enough, even the Russians have their version of the Momsen Lung.

The Momsem Lung

While Momsen was perfecting the device,  on his own time he returned to the concept of his diving bell rescue system.   It took several versions but finally he and his co-worker, Al McCann,  after scrounging parts at the Navy Yard, had a working system.    Once they were able to show that it worked, the Navy placed diving bells on all the submarine rescue ships like the Kittiwake.  You can see the Kittiwake’s diving bell welded to the deck of the ship with a big hole cut into the side.

In May of 1939, the submarine USS Squalus sank with 33 crew in 250 ft of water off New Hampshire.  From an early sister ship of the Kittiwake, USS Falcon (ASR-2), Momsen and McCann made 4 trips down to the Squalus and rescued all 33 men.   For the first time, submariners survived a sinking.   Using huge air tanks, like those you can see today attached in racks near the top of the Kittiwake, the Squalus was eventually raised from the bottom and put back into service.    For this, McCann and Momsen received a letter of commendation from then President Roosevelt.

Momsen’s greatest contribution was yet to come.  With the start of WW2, Momsen was sent to Pearly Harbor where he took command of a squadron of submarines.    After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy’s submarines set about the Pacific filled with a blood lust to sink Japanese ships.   Unfortunately they had all been provided with the new Mark 14 torpedo which had been designed and tested in the 1930’s when military budgets were cut to the bone.   As subs started firing the Mark 14’s at Japanese targets they noted that an alarming number of shots appeared to just bounce off the target and never explode.   Sadly , the Bureau of Ordinance blamed the submarine captains for lousy shooting.   Unbelievably, this debate continued from December of 1941 until the middle of July, 1943.

Eventually a submarine returned from a war partrol to Pearl Harbor with 2 Mark-14’s left over from its original load.   Of all the torpedoes fired during this sub’s war patrol, not a single one exploded.  Taking the initiative, Momsen took these 2 torpedoes and some others and fired them at a sheer cliff on one of the Hawaiian Islands.   It didn’t take long before he had a couple of duds.  On is own, he swam down and tied a rope to the unexploded torpedo knowing that it might explode at the slightest touch.   After hauling it to the surface and disassembling the contact detonator in the nose of the dud, he realized that there was a fundamental design flaw where the detonator pin was sheering before it could hit the detonator.  Armed with irrefutable evidence, the Bureau of Ordinance was forced to agree and subsequently redesign the detonator pin.   In September of 1943, some 20 months after the war started, the Navy was finally firing torpedoes that actually functioned properly.   As you might expect, the effectiveness of the submarine force dramatically improved and by the end of the war, submarines would account for the majority of sinkings of Japanese ships.   (about 1300 out of 2100 Japanese ships sunk)

Momsen made a number of other significant contributions but it was his work on the sister ships of the USS Kittiwake where his diving bell was put to such good use, that really made him famous.

You can read more about Momsen’s life in the book, “The Terrible Hours”.

Charles “Swede” Momsen

In March of 1939, the Nazi’s invaded the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia on the eastern side of then Czechoslovakia.      Eventually Reinhard Heydrich was made the Reich Protector of these areas but his authority did not extend into Slovakia.

The day after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, on March 19, 1939, the Slovaks declared their independence.    Slovakia became an ally of Germany under the leadership of Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest.   Slovakia soon adopted all of the Nazi anti-Jewish laws and the situation for Slovakia’s 100,000 Jews went from bad to worse.

By October of 1941, some 80,000 Slovaks were working in Germany.  Tiso came up with an idea that he should negotiate with the Germans to substitute Slovak Jews for non-Jews who could then return to Slovakia.   Shortly after the Wannsee conference in January of 1942 where the Nazis “final solution” was devised, Germany agreed to Tiso’s request as long as Slovakia also paid 500 Reichsmarks for each Jew deported.    Thus it came to be that Slovakia has the dubious distinction of being the one country that actually paid the Nazis to take away their Jewish population.   The agreement also stipulated that the Jews would never be returned to Slovakia (the Nazis didn’t object to this idea for obvious reasons) and that the Germans would make no claims for the property of the Jews left back in Slovakia, thus leaving their homes and contents to the local Slovaks.

As news of what was happening in the Nazi concentration camps started to spread, the Vatican put pressure on Tiso to stop the deportations.   By this time, more than 1/2 of the Slovak’s Jews were already deported.   As a result of the Vatican’s pressure, deportations did stop towards the end of 1943 and only began again after the Slovak Uprising.

Encouraged by the Czechoslovak government in exile in the UK, under Edward Benes, a joint command of the Slovak army and air force was supposed to announce the overthrow of Tiso and the creation of a new provisional government on August 29, 1944.   However things began to unravel very quickly.   At the appointed time, Tiso’s defense minister announced that the Nazi’s were now occupying Slovakia and a signal was sent to all Slovak military units to begin the uprising.   Unfortunately, the very next day, the commander of the Slovak air force took the entire air force into Poland where they joined the Soviet fight in Poland, thus leaving the Slovak Army without any air cover and sowing mass confusion in the ranks.

To “help” bring some organization to the uprising the Amerian OSS under a Lt James Holt Green flew in with a number of B-17’s and P-51’s.     This added to an already confused coordination effort with Soviet aligned partisans, escaped French POW’s and members of England’s SOE under Major John Sehmer.

Tiso refused to resign his position and instead called in the Nazi SS to fight the uprising.    As with the uprising in Warsaw, the Soviets were not really interested in any US or English success in Eastern Europe and Stalin started to refuse the resupply of the forces in Slovakia fighting the SS.    As  with Poland, as far as Stalin was concerned, only a communist uprising owing its allegiance to him was going to be supported and successful.

At the start of October, the Germans launched a major attack out of Hungary with 30,000+ men.   The in-fighting between Stalin, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the OSS and the SOE doomed the uprising when Stalin proclaimed that all his efforts needed to go into fighting his way into Hungary (further south).   By October 28, 1944, it was all over.    Tiso proclaimed victory for his Nazi aligned government and the captured Slovak and Czech soldiers were all deported to slave labor camps.   Almost all would perish.

The OSS, SOE and leaders of the uprising were all eventually captured.  Some were immediately shot while a number were sent to be tortured and murdered  in Mauthausen.

Thus ending the sad chapter of the Slovak Uprising.

Below is a memorial at Mauthausen that makes reference to the SOE and US (OSS) members murdered there.

Towards the end of 1943, as the US Pacific fleet grew stronger and stronger, the effort to push the Japanese westward back across the Pacific gained momentum.

In early August of 1942, the Americans launched an amphibious landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.  After months of fighting with dozens of ships sunk in the area, the Japanese withdraw their remaining troops from Guadalcanal in February of 1943.

In June of 1943, the Americans land in New Georgia, also in the Solomons.  Shortly after this, in early August, JFK in PT-109 is rammed and sunk.  Luckily he survived by swimming to a nearby atoll.

On November 1, 1943, Bougainville, also in the Solomons was invaded.   This was followed by landings on New Britain on December 15 and Cape Gloucester on December 26.

At the same time, the first invasion of the Gilbert Islands occured on November 20 at Makin and Tarawa.   Although all the landings result in ever increasing numbers of casualties, Tarawa is particularly bad with only 1 Japanese officer and 16 enlisted men surviving out of a garrison of 3600.   Of the 12,000  US Marines who landed, more than 3000 are casualties.   The US has not seen losses like this since Gettysburg.

On January 31, 1944, Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands is invaded.  Casualties are much lighter on Kwajalein which sets up further landings on Ebeye Island on February 3, Engebi on February 18, Eniwetok on February 19 and Parry Island on February 22.

In the midst of these landings, in the Marshalls, the Japanese fleet, anchored in Truk lagoon in the Caroline Islands, is attacked from the air on February 17.   At the time, Truk was the Japanese equivalent to Pearl Harbor.  It was Japan’s  largest naval base outside Japan with aircraft carriers, battleships, and every other type of ship imaginable using the base.   Having some idea that the US was about to attack, the Japanese withdrew their large ships including all the carriers and battleships and heavy cruisers.   The US attack with carrier based aircraft sank 12 warships and 32 merchant ships making Truk lagoon the largest ship graveyard in the world.  There were more than 40,000 Japanese servicemen on Truk.    Thousands died during the attack.   Some would only surrender in October of 1945.

Truk was attacked by a task force that included five aircraft carriers including Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid and Bunker Hill.  Dozens of other ships also took part.  From airfields all over the atoll, the Japanese launched aircraft to try to fight off the attack.  But the overwhelming superiority of the new Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters was no match for the pre-war designed Zero.   Additionally, the US had vastly superior pilots by this time as most of the best trained Japanese pilots were already lost.   Hundreds of Japanese planes were shot down or destroyed on the ground.  Thousands of Japanese were killed either on the ships or on the ground.   US loses were relatively light, only 25 planes and 40 men.

Today a number of these wrecks are reachable by divers with amazing opportunities to view airplanes, tanks and all manner of military equipment.

When diving in Truk, keep in mind of the terrible price paid by those who fought all the way from Pearl Harbor to get there.   And be respectful that many thousands of Japanese also perished defending the atoll.

Everyone knows that America entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

Most know that the Japanese suffered a great naval defeat at the Battle of Midway in early June of 1942.   At Midway, the Japanese lost 4 front line aircraft carriers, all of which had taken part in the Pearl Harbor attack.    In addition to the loss of these carriers, the Japanese also lost hundreds of their best trained aviators which were hard to replace.   But even after the loss of these four carriers, the Japanese were still left with thirteen.

On the US side, America lost the aircraft carrier Yorktown, leaving just the carriers Wasp, Hornet, Enterprise and Saratoga.  The US had suffered the loss of the Lexington a few weeks before the Battle of Midway in the Coral Sea.   So,  of the 6 carriers in the Pacific before the attack on Pearl Harbor, by June of 1942, only four remained.

In the early summer of 1942, the allies took note that Japan was building an air field in the Solomon Islands on Guadalcanal, just Northeast of Australia.

With an airfield on Guadalcanal, the Japanese would be able to further threaten an invasion of Australia and require a much longer sea voyage for liberty ships carrying much needed war materials into the Persian Gulf from the US destined for the Russians who were desperately fighting the Germans.

To counter the Japanese threat, a hasty plan was pulled together under Admiral Ghormley who got the job over the objections of the newly appointed Pacific Commander in Chief of the Pacific, Chester Nimitz.   Ghormley was appointed by Nimitz’s boss,  Earnest King and many believe because of a meddling President Roosevelt.

Ghormley’s hasty plan resulted in 11,000 Marines landing on Guadalcanal in early August under a very capable General Vandegrift.  The plan called for a large task force of carriers, cruisers and destroyers to support the landings while the Marines captured  the island.   The Marines quickly took over the air field which became known as Henderson Field, named for a airman who died during the Battle of Midway.   But things went downhill quickly from there as the Japanese naval forces were vastly superior.

And this brings us to August 24, 1942, 72 years ago today, and the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Sea.   The US carriers Saratoga and  Enterprise took on three Japanese carriers.   When it was over, one Japanese carrier was sunk but the Enterprise was heavily damaged and put out of action until October 16.   Worse yet, the USS Saratoga was also damaged and would be out of action until November 19.

In addition to the loss of these carriers, the US Navy suffered several additional disastrous nighttime battles with many ships and men lost.  Ghormley’s response was to withdraw the navy ships from the area.  He thus stranded the 11,000  marines on the island leaving them to suffer an endless Japanese naval bombardment.   The Japanese were also able to easily send more men and supplies to reinforce their positions on the island.    The situation deteriorated to the point where serious consideration was given to pulling out.   

Finally,  on October 18, 1942, Ghormley was removed from command by Nimitz and replaced by Halsey.   Halsey became the  naval version of George Patton and would soon earn the reputation of being America’s greatest fighting Admiral in history.   But not before things would get even worse for the US.

The carrier USS Wasp was sunk off Guadalcanal on September 15.   Then the USS Hornet was sunk just north and west of Guadalcanal at Santa Cruz on October 27 where it was fighting along side the freshly repaired Enterprise .     If you can keep up with the story,  at this point the US was left with just the Enterprise to counter a threat from 12 Japanese carriers.

The war situation was so bad that news of the sinking of the Hornet was kept a secret until January 13, 1943.   Survivors of the Nornet had their mail censored so that no mention of the Hornet’s loss would become public.   Finally in January of 1943, two of the Navy’s new carriers were commissioned and put into service.  Only then did the Navy inform the public about the loss of the Hornet.

Halsey would turn things around on Guadalcanal and with the Navy’s new construction coming into service, the long Pacific advance could begin.

So when someone tells you that the Battle of Midway was the turning point in the war, you can tell them that much worse was yet to come and remind them of the events that occurred on and around August 24, 1942.

During the course of WW2, Churchill came to understand that Hitler hated him with a passion.    Hitler hated looking weak and hated it when someone did not give him the complete respect that he thought he deserved.   Churchill used this knowledge many times to his advantage during the course of the war as part of his efforts to manipulate Hitler into doing things that he might not otherwise have done.  None of these incidents was more significant than what happened on August 24, 1940, 74 years ago today.

After the fall of France, the Battle of Britain began.   In order to invade England by sea, Hitler needed air superiority over the English Channel.   Without air superiority, the Germans could not send an invasion fleet across the channel without fear of it being destroyed by the vastly superior British Navy.   Thus the only way to suppress the British Navy was to beat the RAF and gain air superiority over the channel to protect the invasion fleet.

So in the summer of 1940, a huge air battle raged over England pitting the Luftwaffe against the RAF.    The Luftwaffe had great numeric superiority but the RAF had better planes in the Hurricane and the Spitfire with their Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.    England also benefited from the fact that the battle took place over the English countryside.  Thus, any German planes shot down over England resulted in the loss of the plane and the pilot to Germany.   While many downed British pilots were able to parachute to safety and fight another day and many British planes were able to be rebuilt and put back in service.

Day and night, the Luftwaffe was attacking England with fighters to knock out the Spitfires and Hurricanes and with bombers to attack and destroy the British airfields.     After several months of this, the British were starting to feel the effects as more and more airfields were put out of service and more and more planes were being destroyed.  Churchill knew that to lose the Battle of Britain in the air meant a German land invasion was soon to follow.     And Churchill  knew  that Hitler’s path to complete European victory required that Germany invade and defeat England on land, thus making it vital that Britain prevail in the air war.

Thus on August 24, 1940, during a nighttime raid on the London docks targeting nearby fuel storage tanks, a number of bombs missed the target and hit the civilian populated areas of London.    Seeing an opportunity, Churchill immediately ordered a “retaliatory” raid by the RAF against Berlin itself.   So on the nights of August 25 and again on the night of August 29 the RAF bombed Berlin, sending Berliner’s scrambling for the bomb shelters and leaving a furious Hitler to explain to his populace how it came to pass that England was now bombing the center of The Third Reich.

To further inflame Hitler, Churchill went on the BBC at around that time to taunt Hitler, referring to him as “Herr Hitler” with derision.  He said,

“It is quite plain that Herr Hitler could not admit defeat in his air attack on Great Britain without sustaining most serious injury. If after all his boastings and bloodcurdling threats and lurid accounts trumpeted round the world of the damage he has inflicted, of the vast numbers of our Air Force he has shot down, so he says, with so little loss to himself; if after tales of the panic-stricken British crushed in their holes cursing the plutocratic Parliament which has led them to such a plight-if after all this his whole air onslaught were forced after a while tamely to peter out, the Fuhrer’s reputation for veracity of statement might be seriously impugned.”

Churchill cleverly inserted a mocking reference to “panic-stricken British (people)”, hoping that Hitler would take the bait.   Which he did.   Hitler  responded by canceling the attacks against British airfields and sending his bombers to terrorize the City of London and other civilian targets around England.       As a result, the RAF was able to recover, repair its airfields and infrastructure and continue the fight.

And the rest, as they say, is history.   All set off because of a well-timed schoolyard taunt.

On this date in 1944, while on a check-out flight, a brand new B-24 with 3 crew aboard, and in bad weather, crashed into the town Freckleton in the UK.

Freckleton is near Blackpool on the west coast of England, NW of Manchester and North of Liverpool.   Allied ships by the thousands carrying war materials from North America were unloaded at the Blackpool docks including B-24’s destined for the Allied bombing campaign over Europe.  One of these B-24’s was being checked-out at a local RAF base.   Due to bad weather and pilot error, the plane crashed into the town.

The 25 ton bomber hit a restaurant and then slammed into the Holy Trinity School just before 11:00 am where it exploded in a huge fireball.  By the time the fires were out 38 kids and 6 adults were killed.   14 more US and British servicemen were killed who were sitting in the little restaurant.  Counting the 3 crew, the total killed from this terrible accident was 61.   Dozens more were wounded.

Around 18,500 B-24’s were built during WW2 in San Diego, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie (TX) , Tulsa and Detroit (by Ford).  At just the Ford plant alone, in 1944, they were making 650 of them / month.

But on August 23, 1944, 61 people lost their lives when things went very, very wrong.

For the first time in WW1, on August 23, 1914, at Mons, Belgium, the British Expeditionary Forces fought a major battle agains the Germans.

The day ended with a British retreat and 1600 casualties.  Due to poor communication between the British and the French who were fighting on the British left, the French started to withdraw.  When this happened, fearing that the Germans might encircle the BEF, Sir John French, the British commander ordered a retreat.

In a sign of just how pathetic this war was fought, the first British casualty of the war, John Henry Parr, died in the opening rounds of this fight.   He is buried in St. Symphorien cemetery just outside Mons.   4 years later and with 1 Million British dead, the battle lines in 1918 were in exactly the same place.   And just before the 11th hour of the 11 day of the 11th month of 1918, the last Commonwealth casualty of the war also lost his life fighting nearly at the same exact spot.

George Lawrence Price, from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan was killed just 2 minutes before the Armistice went into effect.   He too is buried in St. Symphorien Cemetery.

Rest in Peace.

Today is the 70 Anniversary of the final closing of the Falaise Pocket and thus the final chapter of the Normandy Invasion. Once the Allies broke out of the Normandy hedge row country, the Germans were being pushing back by the Americans who were attacking under Patton from St. Lo (often attacking in 4 directions at one time) and by the Canadians and the British from Caen (on the Eastern end of the Normandy Bridgehead).

South of Caen was a small French town of Falaise and it was through this town that the Germans were being forced to retreat. Thus the idea became to surround the town and try to capture the remaining 200,000 Germans who were still in the area.

The First Canadian Army (under Crerar) which included the 1st Polish Armored Division was given the job to encircle Falaise from the east while the American 3rd Army (under Patton) was driving from the other direction.

Only the Poles actually reached their objectives on time which left the Poles sitting on a hill above Falaise and directly blocking the German retreat. But since their resupply and reinforcement from either the Canadians or from the US 3rd Army was late, a large number of Germans managed to fight their way out, perhaps as many as 50-80,000. But in the final analysis of the Normandy Battle, the German loses were still staggering. Of 450,000 Germans who fought in Normandy, 240,000 were either killed or wounded. Contrasted with this, the Allies lost about 70,000 killed roughly 25,000 American and the rest split between British, Canadian, Polish and French forces. Sadly, the 80,000 Germans who managed to escape would mostly end up on Holland and the Canadian Army was forced to fight them again as the Canadians moved up the coast to free Antwerp in Belgium and towards Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

An equally important and interesting piece of this history surrounds what was going on with the German Officer Corps during this same time period.

When the Allies invaded Normandy, they faced Erwin Rommel who reported to Von Rundstedt. In early July of 1944, von Rundstedt went to Hitler and told him that Germany had all but lost the war and that Hitler should immediately negotiate peace with Britain and America. For this, Hitler dismissed von Rundstedt immediately and replaced him with Gunther von Kluge. 2 weeks later Rommel was injured when his car was shot up by a Allied plane thus leaving von Kluge completely in charge. Von Kluge was a most capable and experience general but unknown to Hitler, he and many on his General staff, had been trying to assassinate Hitler for several years. Of the many failed attempts to kill Hitler during the war, von Kluge and his staff (who were in charge of the largest of the 3 Army Groups that were operating inside Russia) were involved in most of them. Von Kluge’s Chief of Staff was Henning von Tresckow (a guy with a funny sounding name but one of the most courageous members of the resistance to Hitler). Von Tresckow was involved in at least 4 or 5 different attempts to knock off Hitler and he was directly involved in the July 20th plot to kill Hitler. Tresckow committed suicide on July 21 and von Kluge was relieved of command on August 17 (just as the Falaise pocket was closing). Von Kluge committed suicide later that day while he was driving to Berlin as he knew what fate was in store for him.

Unfortunately for the allies, von Kluge was replaced by Walter Model. Model was a fanatical Nazi who would be responsible for much of German defense during Operation Market-Garden (the attempt to enter Germany over the Rein at Arnhem in Holland) and was the main planner behind the Battle of the Bulge. Model too would commit suicide but not until early May of 1945 when he was faced with surrendering to the Allies and faced with what he knew was going to be his trial for war crimes he had committed mostly while in Russia.

Keep in mind that all of this chaos in the German ranks was going during the Battle of Normany. Just imagine how much worse the Allied loses might have been had the German Officer Corps actually been completely focused on winning rather than on killing Hitler.