A Man Without Empathy
Tido H. Holtcamp
Alan Rems’ discussion of Admiral Karl Dönitz at Nuremberg (December, “Götterdämmerung: German Admirals on Trial,” pp. 38–45) took me back to 1944, when I served on board the sail training ship Horst Wessel (today’s U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle) with about 200 other German cadets. That March we had to listen to an address given by Grand Admiral Dönitz to naval officer candidates at Germany’s naval academy. The next day each cadet had to copy the whole speech into his personal logbook, study it, and write down the lessons he had learned.
The speech made me shudder. Dönitz had no feelings: At one point he had said, “I have no understanding for a soldier who has in battle a thought for himself such as ‘What can happen to me? Is it possible that I should die?’” Dönitz not only gave no doubt that he stood completely with Adolf Hitler, but he made it clear that he expected every officer in the Kriegsmarine to develop the same unconditional love for the madman. From the speech’s contents, I concluded to myself and trusted friends that Herr Grossadmiral Dönitz would offer any 10,000 men to his idol at any time. Sure enough, at the end of the war I found myself with many other naval officer candidates in the trenches of Berlin without weapons and without one day of infantry training.
Over time it became clear that Herr Grossadmiral Dönitz had indeed offered thousands of us to the Führer for his personal protection. The death toll was terrible.
Years later, when Dönitz was a free man, a friend from the Kriegsmarine invited me to his house for an afternoon with Herr Grossadmiral. I declined. I knew that many people admired and adored him, but I had had enough of him.
Remembering the Jean Bart
Robert F. Abbott
I read with great interest the excerpts of Ensign Richard W. Belt Jr.’s journal recalling Operation Torch (October 2015, “On Board the ‘Augie’ at Casablanca,” pp. 32–37). I was in the crew of the Benham-class destroyer USS Rowan (DD-405) at the time, and our ship was inboard of the Augusta on her port side. We were firing at the French naval ships getting under way. The Rowan went to flank speed up to 37 knots. We were straddled by 15-inch yellow-dye shells, one over and one under, from the French battleship Jean Bart, which was moored in the harbor at Casablanca. Many smaller red and green dye shells fell around the Rowan.
On the way back to the transport area after the assault, we passed a small fishing vessel as well as a landing craft that had broken down. Its crew waved frantically as we steamed by them. Later when we turned into the harbor at Casablanca, we saw that ships had been sunk at their moorings; they lay on their sides with shell holes in their hulls.
We went to Gibraltar for repairs, but the British could not help us. We moored overnight in the harbor, where the British dropped small depth charges all night to discourage Italian frogmen from damaging the other ships. We went back to the United States on one engine for dry-dock repairs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The next time we were in Casablanca and had liberty, we walked by the Jean Bart to get into town. The Jean Bart’s portside near her gun turret was opened up, the foredeck was raised up, the starboard side was bulging, and her turret face appeared to be peeled back. At that time, there was some controversy over whether a SBD Dauntless dive bomber from the USS Ranger (CV-4) or 16-inch shells fired from the Massachusetts (BB-59) had caused the damage.
Stories Untold of Vietnam
Captain Jim Mottern, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Thank you for the December issue’s Vietnam War stories and photos about naval air strikes, brown-water operations, and the U.S. Coast Guard. As a destroyer junior officer during the war, I would have appreciated an article about the surface fleet’s role in supporting the 120 to 130 pilots on each Yankee Station carrier. Assuming there were three carriers on station (sometimes there were two bird farms), the 360 to 400 pilots were supported by about 21,000 officers and men (three air wings with 7,400 men and 13,600 to 14,000 “black shoe” sailors). The 14,000 black shoes were in the ships and stations that included:
• Three carrier crews: 9,450
• Yankee Station carrier escorts (five or six destroyers): 1,700 to 2,100
• PIRAZ (1 DLG and 1 destroyer): 800
• SAR (1 DDG and 1 destroyer): 700
• Oiler: 325
• Stores ship: 640.
In the future I hope that you will document the different roles of surface units supporting Yankee Station air operations. I look forward to this article and the many others you will publish.
Editor’s Note: We received several similar letters from readers suggesting other good topics for future Vietnam War articles, including U.S. Navy destroyers and cruisers, EC-121 Warning Star aircraft, and Seabees in Southeast Asia. We hope to follow up on these, but please consider submitting your own articles. Most Naval History features are unsolicited contributions from our readers.
Commander Edward Saxey II, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn’s article, “Navy Air Strike: North Vietnam” (December, pp. 16–24), and I share his wish that “politicians and leadership of the future do better” than was done in Vietnam. However, I do have comments on what appear to be two errors. First, on page 22 the picture on the left label describes the aircraft as A-6As with A-4Cs, but the airplanes shown are A-6As and F-4Bs. Second, the last paragraph on page 23 states that Operation Linebacker I started in 1969. I was a young lieutenant (junior grade) radar intercept officer in VF-92 on the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) during the first half of 1969, and we were still operating under the bombing halt called by President Lyndon Johnson in response to the 1968 Tet Offensive. That bombing halt was still in effect when VF-92 spent most of 1970 “on the line” on board the USS America (CV-66). In late 1971, while I was at VX-4, my old squadron was deployed on the USS Constellation (CV-64), and I believe that is when operations over North Vietnam resumed.
Editor’s note: Operation Linebacker I actually began on 10 May and continued until 23 October 1972.
More Info on the Ford Bomber
Norman Polmar
As a follow-up to my “Historic Aircraft” column “There’s a Ford in Your Future” (December, pp. 14–15), the Ford corporation produced 11 Navy and 13 Army cargo-passenger aircraft. The firm also built one tri-motor “bomber,” which it designated XB-906 with commercial registration X9652. Carrying a crew of five, that aircraft could lift some 2,000 pounds of bombs; two dorsal machine-gun positions and a flexible nose gun were provided. The plane flew trials for the Army Air Corps in 1931, but was rejected for service use. This lone Ford bomber subsequently crashed on 19 September 1931, terminating the program.