Surprises From a Reader
Howard Fuller
My June article, “From Hampton Roads to Spithead” (pp. 14–23), yielded some unexpected surprises. Shortly after its publication, I was emailed by a reader who identified himself as a distant family namesake of the captain of the double-turreted U.S. monitor Miantonomoh, a beautiful painting of which appeared on the cover of Naval History firing her 15-inch Dahlgren guns for British VIPs at Portsmouth, England. He had inherited some important personal items of the captain, John C. Beaumont, including a cutaway model of the historic ironclad and the 200-page personal log he kept of his voyage across the Atlantic in 1866 and the subsequent diplomatic tour of Europe and Russia. They had never been published. He kindly sent me some digital extracts of this important artifact. A full copy might be donated to the Monitor Center/Mariners’ Museum at Newport News, Virginia, where other researchers can also make use of it.
“Naval history has always been a fascination of mine,” the reader (himself a former Navy carrier pilot for 30 years) shared with me later, and indeed this is a great example of how it helps further our understanding of the past. For one thing, the journal notes the Miantonomoh was privately visited not just once, but twice by British Vice Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, the former surveyor of the Navy who sanctioned all of Britain’s early broadside ironclads, including the famous Warrior (noted in an August “In Contact” letter, p. 9). We also know now that the American monitor fired her demo shots from the aft turret, not the forward one as depicted in the cover painting.
Learning from ‘Chief Mac’
Lieutenant (junior grade) Richard S. Greeley, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Reading “The Enlisted Force’s Scribe” by Dennis L. Noble (August, pp. 48–53) brought back memories of the many watches I shared with Richard McKenna in the engine room on board the USS Van Valkenburgh (DD-656) in 1952 as we returned from active duty in the Korean war zone. When I was being groomed to take over as chief engineer from outgoing Lieutenant Robert Clement, “Chief Mac” taught me everything I needed to know about the engineering department on board the ship. He was a master teacher as well as a wonderful and knowledgeable guide. I was very surprised that he took up writing after leaving the Navy, but after reading The Sand Pebbles, I truly admired his literary skills as well.
Ordnance Still A Threat?
Bruce M. Petty
In reading “Another Alternative—Poison Gas!” (Norman Polmar with Thomas B. Allen, pp. 42–43) in the August issue, I couldn’t help but remember some of the interviews I did for Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War (McFarland, 2009), in which this subject came up. Back in the 1990s, when I was living on Saipan, I interviewed Roland Fronheiser, who served with the 33rd Coast Artillery there during World War II. He noted that after the island had been declared secure, his battery was held there for possible use in the planned invasion of the Home Islands, which never came to pass. He said that during this buildup, chemical shells for 155-mm Long Toms were stored there for when and if they invaded Japan. He had no idea what happened to those shells after the war.
I then asked a friend of mine who was involved in explosive demolition work on the islands for many years. He was retired Navy at the time and working as a civilian contractor. When I asked him what happened to those chemical shells, he became defensive and never answered my question. Some years later I interviewed Gaylord Whitlock, who served as a weatherman during the war. He was then sent to Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah to train as a chemical warfare officer. He told me that they were stockpiling chemical weapons in the Aleutian Islands for possible use against Japan. He also didn’t know what became of those weapons.
Jumping ahead a few years, I met a retired Australian army explosive ordnance disposal specialist on a cruise. He had just attended one of my lectures where I mentioned the stockpiling of chemical weapons in the Pacific. He told me that back in the 1990s, when he was still in the army, his unit discovered a large number of 155-mm chemical shells scattered around one of the Russell Islands. They notified the Americans, who sent out a team from Johnston Island to collect them. The Aussies were told to keep quiet about the find.
Justin Taylan’s website, www.pacificwrecks.com, has more information about chemical weapons he has come across in the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
Motives for Ending the War
Tim Stipp
In regards to “How Many Will Die?” (August, pp. 36–41), it has been documented in numerous books that in the months prior to the initiation of atomic warfare, the Japanese had been communicating through the then-neutral Soviet Union that they wanted to end the war. Their only condition was that Emperor Hirohito remain on the throne. Those were the exact same conditions that were obtained after the atomic bombs were dropped. Japan surrendered after the Soviet Union entered the war because the former feared the Russians would invade the Home Islands and kill the emperor just like they had killed Czar Nicholas II. Japan had already seen cities such as Tokyo destroyed by American bombs, which killed more people than either atomic bomb. It was only the threat to their emperor that compelled the Japanese to keep fighting and then stop fighting.
Mr. Polmar responds:
This comment contains a large number of factual errors. The communications between the Japanese and the Soviet government contained five Japanese demands: the retention of Emperor Hirohito as ruler; limited, if any, Allied occupation; Japanese troops to surrender their weapons only to Japanese officers; some areas of the Asian mainland occupied by Japanese troops to be retained by Japan; and if there were trials of war criminals they would be in Japanese courts. None of these conditions was acceptable to the Allies, with some Allied governments wanting to put Hirohito on trial as a war criminal. None would allow him to remain the ruler of the country.
These conditions were fully known to the U.S. and British governments through the “Magic” intercepts of Japanese communications with their embassy in Moscow. These decrypts also demonstrated Japanese military plans to fight on from mountain redoubts even after Tokyo was destroyed or occupied by Allied troops.
With respect to Soviet entry into the war against Japan, the Tokyo government was fully aware for several months that the Soviets would enter the conflict. Japanese couriers, diplomats, and military officers regularly traveled to and from Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway and provided detailed reports describing the Soviet buildup in Siberia. However, the Japanese had no fear of a Soviet invasion of the Home Islands because the Soviets had virtually no amphibious capabilities in the Far East.
A review of Magic decrypts—available to all at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland—and the historical record demonstrate unquestionably that the atomic bombs forced the Japanese surrender.
An Ornery Shipmate
Captain James Ransom, U.S. Navy (Retired)
In regards to August’s “Armaments & Innovations” column, “The Pocket Polaris” (pp. 10–11), I can say with great certainty that Subroc was not my favorite shipmate. We coexisted uncomfortably in two different submarines, and I was always a little wary of it sitting inert in the torpedo room. Even as I patted the solid propellant, I wondered how long the boat’s hull would last if it inexplicably cooked off in the room—or the tube.
We fired an exercise rocket when I was the executive officer on board the Guardfish (SSN-612). The target was a snorkeler, and our aim was offset some 70 degrees as a safety measure. One officer acted as an independent observer whose sole task was to ensure and report that the offset azimuth was indeed cranked in as the final check before launch. The shot was a success.
But the hairiest evolution was the onload. The Subroc was loaded vertically through the torpedo-loading hatch aft of the sail. A pierside crane lifted the weapon from the flatbed trailer. The loading sling was then rotated so the weapon was nose down above the open loading hatch. Deckplates on three levels were removed to allow the “bullet” to be rotated from vertical to horizontal once inside the hull. As the Subroc hovered above the hatch, cables and connectors straining and flexing, I pictured the crane operator losing control and the weapon dropping straight through the bottom of the hull. The weapon was lowered with jerks, stops, and starts; the nose was no more than two inches off the bottom of the boat until the whole rig was manhandled back to horizontal before being pushed, pulled, strapped onto the skid, and safely tucked away.
We all breathed more easily when that evolution was completed.
‘The Big E’ Gets Smaller
Captain John A. Rodgaard, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Thank you for Barrett Tillman’s great article on the USS Enterprise (CV-6) (“‘The Big E’ Leadership Factory,” August, pp. 16–21). When I was growing up in New Jersey in the 1950s and early 1960s, my family would periodically drive into Manhattan to see the visiting U.S. Navy ships. One summer, I saw “the Big E” from my vantage point on the backseat of my father’s Chevy looking down from the Pulaski Skyway as we motored into New York City. I remember how each time we traveled to and from the city, she appeared to get smaller and smaller, until she was no more, her scrapping finally complete.
Last year, I took my grandchildren to visit the National Museum of the U.S. Navy at the Washington Navy Yard and the nearby display ship Barry. When walking about the yard we came across the anchor of the Enterprise, which is on display in front of the building housing the Navy History and Heritage Command.
The Graf Spee Search
Robert S. Kaplan
In “The Royal Navy’s ‘Old Ark’” (June, pp. 42–49) Michael D. Hull recounts the valiant service of a noble ship, HMS Ark Royal. However, I must point out that during the hunt for the German raider Admiral Graf Spee Commodore Henry Harwood’s force only consisted of cruisers. Force K, commanded by Vice Admiral H. V. Wells, included the carrier Ark Royal and battlecruiser HMS Renown. Thanks to the Admiralty, there never was a chance of the Ark Royal’s aircraft coming into action against the Graf Spee.
The Batfish’s Other Heroic Act
Rolfe Hillman
I was rereading the December 2014 issue with particular focus on “Scratch Three Subs” by Lieutenant Richard H. Walker (pp. 34–35). I thought your readers would like to know of another commendable achievement of the USS Batfish (SS-310) and Lieutenant Walker. On 30 July 1945, the Batfish performed a “lifeguard” rescue mission when it picked up three U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 crewmen: First Lieutenant Nathan Mangeno, First Lieutenant James L. Van Epps, and Second Lieutenant Robert L. Bleicher. They were assigned to the 41st Bomb Group, 820th Bomb Squadron, and their plane was shot down during a mission over Kyushu.