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United States........................................................................................ 232
Third Fleet in Action off French Indo-China—-Japs Believed Losing Grip in China Sea Area—Luzon May Provide Fleet Showdown— British and American Fleets to Carry War to Japan—Nimitz’ Warning Beamed to Japanese People—Subs Sink Jap Carrier—Navy Pleads for Man Power to Refit Ships-—Ship Shortage in Pacific—
New Five-Star Rank-—Believe Most Jap Admirals Died in Battle.
Great Britain........................................................................................ 238
British Pacific Fleet—Sydney’s Preparation For the Fleet—Problems of Fleet Transfer to the Tropics—Coastal Command’s Battle with Enemy Shipping.
Fran ce— Germ any—Japan—S weden—U. S. S. R.
Greatest Air Fleet Hits Nazis—Bombing Tokyo Difficult—Emergency Runways—R.A.F. Master Bombers—Various Notes.
Merchant Marine.................................................................................... 252
Deck Officers Must Pass Navy Test—Russia Getting 60 U. S. Ships—
Ship Repairing in South Africa.
Miscellaneous........................................................................................ 254
Midway-Guam Cable Restored—Seasick Troops.
UNITED STATES
Third Fleet in Action Off French Indochina
Washington Post, January 13.—American carrier airmen sank 25 Japanese ships and heavily damaged 13 more yesterday in the Third Fleet’s bold attack on four enemy convoys off the French Indo-China coast nearly 1,000 miles west of Manila. Fleet Admiral C. W. Nimitz’s communique said the Third Fleet has suffered no damage and is pressing its attack on the Japanese convoys. Nimitz also announced that the destruction of the new superbattleship, the 45,000-ton Musashi, by air attack last October 24 in the second battle of the Philippine Sea, had been confirmed. The Admiral disclosed also that the Musashi’s sister-ship, the Yamalo, was damaged by bombs in the October 24 action. These two vessels were the two most powerful battleships in the Japanese Navy.
The four Japanese convoys intercepted by Admiral William F. Halsey’s audacious thrust across the South China Sea apparently were organizing into an expedition for reinforcement of Luzon from the French Indo-China port of Saigon and Camranh Bay. Halsey’s airmen sank one Kalori class light cruiser and several destroyers and destroyer escorts guarding the convoys. While the convoys were being slashed, Halsey’s fliers also swept inland Indo-China air bases from Saigon 250 miles northeast to Guinhon Harbor. Thirty-nine planes were destroyed. Halsey seemed to have achieved almost complete surprise. Fully 18 Japanese planes were seen in the air over Saigon, Indochina’s first commercial port and a Japanese base since shortly after the fall of France in 1940. American Hellcat and Corsair fighters shot down 10 of the feeble 18-plane force protecting Saigon.
The enemy’s loss of his superbattleship Musashi was one of the gravest blows suffered by the Japanese fleet in the second battle of the Philippine Sea. Four Nipponese carriers also were sunk in that great sea fight. Nimitz’s communique said:
“Conclusive evidence has been obtained” showing that the Musashi “blew up and sank” under air attack by Vice Admiral
Marc A. Mitscher’s carrier fliers. The Musashi and the damaged Yamato presumably were in the powerful force including five battleships and 18 heavy cruisers caught by Mitscher’s planes in San Bernardino Strait.
Armed with nine 16-inch guns and a very heavy secondary battery, the Musashi went under construction in 1937 and joined the imperial fleet in the autumn of 1942. She was 870 feet long and had a beam of 139 feet and could cruise at more than 25 knots. The Yamato joined the Japanese fleet about the time of the December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack. With Halsey’s airmen striking Indo-China airfields simultaneously with carrier plane attacks on the four enemy convoys, it was plain that the Japanese forces were caught almost as they left the great harbor of Camranh Bay east of Saigon. The American fleet probably was little more than 100 miles off the Indo-China coast in carrying out the co-ordinated blow both at sea and on land.
Fifty Japanese planes were found at Chanh Son Nhut air base north of Saigon. Eight of these were destroyed. Twenty flying boats and seaplanes were destroyed in Camranh Harbor and Cat-Lai anchorage near Saigon, and at Guinhon Plarbor, 250 miles northeast of Saigon. Another bomber was intercepted and shot down off the Indo-China coast. Nimitz’s first report of the Third Fleet’s dramatic Indo-China foray strongly suggests that Halsey smashed a major Japanese effort to send aid to Luzon before it was well started.
The communique’s report that Halsey was continuing his attack discloses two likely weaknesses at the heart of Japan’s empire line running from the homeland to Singapore, 675 miles south of Saigon. A light cruiser was the largest Japanese vessel so far reported in the Indo-China convoys’ protecting force. Probably the Japanese fleet, sorely crippled in its October defeats, was not able to muster any capital ships to screen the convoy. In any event, Halsey clearly was trying to knock out all the combatant Japanese ships he could find: The second apparent Nipponese weakness was in land-based planes on its Indo-China fields. Halsey would not be able to continue his attack unless he was sure his carrier fighters could balk an assault by land-based Japanese planes. Now bolding a great superiority over the Japanese, the Third Fleet can cruise wherever it wants to in the Pacific, with always a consideration for “calculated risks” of possible damage by land-based plane attacks.
Japs Believed Losing Grip in China Sea Area
Washington Post, January 13.—The battle under way off the coast of French IndoChina is evidence Japan is rapidly losing her grip on the entire South China Sea area, with its great naval bases and rich land masses. This is the opinion of qualified Washington observers, who yesterday indicated that a new stage had been reached in the sea and air struggle south and west of the Philippines. Obviously, they said, Admiral William F Halsey’s powerful Third Fleet has been operating in the South China Sea for some time, hunting for Jap surface craft and protecting the landing in Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.
The fact that Halsey has been able to get away with such bold action—roaming through hundreds of miles of water presumably under Jap control—indicates to observers here that the enemy just hasn’t the naval or air power to control his vast holdings in this area. Jap-held territory bounds or dominates the South China Sea in every direction with the exception of the Leyte- Luzon area of the Philippines, where America has land-based aircraft in operation. Despite this, Halsey has been able to get into this area and carry the fight right up into the waters where Jap control would be expected to go unchallenged.
To people who have followed the Pacific war closely the situation is surprising in view of the probable disposition of Japan’s fleet. The bulk of it now is believed in the South China Sea or its ports, yet it is unable or unwilling to risk battle with Halsey.
All the warships Japan could get into action were engaged in the Second Battle of the Philippines in October, according to Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. Following their defeat, the cripples as well as the few that escaped damage headed for sheltering harbors, and most of them are known to have turned back into the South China Sea.
As far as is known, no important numbers of these ships have succeeded in making their way northward to Japanese home waters. In addition, other Jap craft not engaged in the October battle remained scattered about the South China Sea, adding to the total enemy power available there.
One widely held explanation is that these ships are dispersed in half a dozen ports, many of them attempting to get repairs, and that while they represent the bulk of Japan’s naval power they can’t be gathered into a force strong enough to challenge Halsey. Observers believe Japan just hasn’t got enough vessels fit to fight to make another all-out naval effort at this time. With all of her large, built-to-order carriers out of the picture, she would have to depend on converted cruisers and liners to tackle Halsey’s carriers. And, according to qualified observers, even the Japs know this would result in another disaster.
Luzon May Provide Fleet Showdown
Washington Post, January 11.—The United States Pacific Fleet is eager, willing, and supremely able to meet Japan’s surviving first-line warships in a showdown engagement, which the Luzon invasion may force on the Japanese. A Tokyo broadcast quoting Lieutenant General Masarharu Homma, Japanese conqueror of the Philippines and former commander there, as saying “immediate countermeasures” by the Nipponese navy “are essential,” expressing the Japanese reaction expected by American fleet commanders. Chiefs of United States Pacific Fleet are not accustomed to indulge in an exchange of propaganda broadsides with Japanese leaders, but Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz recently said that “we hope, in this progress toward Japan, we encounter the remaining units of the (Japanese) surface fleet and dispose of them as we have in the past.”
The Luzon invasion seems particularly designed to impel Nippon’s fleet commanders to chance another sea battle. Japan’s predicament is so serious that General Homma’s statement “it may be taken for granted that the Japanese navy will now go into action” is wholly logical. The enemy’s military and naval commanders know that if they lose
Luzon their Formosa bastion will be exposed to greater and heavier American land-based air attack. The capture of Luzon would endanger Japan’s vital East Indies oil supply and knife into the heart of her greater East Asia coprosperity sphere.
Homma’s statement may indicate Japanese army pressure on Nipponese navy chiefs to make up their minds, but Admiral William F. Halsey’s fleet holds a margin of power over anything the enemy can muster. The Japanese general’s declaration that the “moment for determined action is at hand” sounds a little like the Nipponese army is needling the empire’s navy.
[According to the International News Service, a German DNB agency message from Tokyo, as broadcast from Berlin, quoted the Japanese general as saying:
[“It is to be assumed that the Japanese grand fleet would now abandon its passiveness and would deal the enemy in this battlefield the same blows which have been dealt (Gen. Dwight D.) Eisenhower’s armies in Europe.”—Editor’s note.]
British and American Fleets to Carry War to Japan
New York Herald, Tribune, January 1.— A picture of joint American-British operations against Japan in 1945, with fighting growing more violent as the enemy is squeezed tighter and tighter, was drawn by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz today. “The war to come will consist of obtaining bases closer and closer to the Japanese empire from which we can reach the enemy with all the weapons we have,” Nimitz said at a press conference. “But the war will be far from won even when we cross the Pacific—at that time the war enters its toughest phase for us.” He spoke with obvious pleasure of recent conferences with Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, commander of the British Pacific Fleet.
“The British Fleet is not coming over here for any pacific purpose,” said Nimitz. “They will carry their share of the load and they will be plenty aggressive.
“The British Fleet will operate in the Pacific under the control of the theater commander to which they have been assigned.
“I look forward to seeing the British working in close co-ordination with the United States Pacific Fleet.”
Admiral Nimitz, whose strategy in 1944 cost Japan a Pacific Ocean empire in area as large as the United States, received correspondents aboard Admiral William F. Halsey’s flagship. He said he had come to the western Pacific to express to Halsey and the fleet’s officers his pride in their accomplishments.
“They have continued to press westward in the Pacific, defeating and knocking out the Japanese, and they have done a fine job,” Nimitz added.
“I stopped at Guam en route and I was tremendously impressed with the development there since I was last there in August. Then the fighting was still going on and the place was a shambles.
“But Guam now is taking the place it should have had always, and it will be of great value to the United States for all time to come. Whatever may have been its shortcomings before the war, those of us in responsible positions will leave no stone unturned to develop Guam to the ultimate.”
Nimitz’ Warning Beamed to Japanese People
New York Herald Tribune, December 31. -—Admiral Chester W. Nimitz notified the Japanese people Friday that the United States Navy will “carry the fighting to the very vitals of Japan” and inevitably defeat her.
The recorded message of the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet was carried in the first American medium-wave broadcast aimed at the home radio sets of Japanese citizens. It was accompanied by an appeal, also recorded, from Under Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew that the Japanese overthrow military rule and create “a government of free men.”
The program was relayed by a new Psychological Warfare transmitter built by the Office of War Information on Saipan. It originated at a new 100-kilowatt shortwave station KRHO, built at Honolulu and described as the highest-power short-wave station in the Central Pacific.
Completion of both stations was announced Friday by the O.W.I., which said
they constitute an important step in the expanding psychological warfare.
Subs Sink Jap Carrier
Washington Post, December 28—The first definite sinking of a Japanese aircraft carrier by a United States submarine was reported yesterday by the Navy. The announcement came in a Navy communique which disclosed the destruction by the far- ranging submersibles of a total of 27 vessels, including the large carrier and six other combatant ships. The announcement raised the total of Japanese fighting ships which have fallen victim to American submarine warfare to 99, including a carrier, 14 cruisers, 44 destroyers, 3 tenders, and 37 miscellaneous types.
Yesterday’s communique reported the sinking, in addition to the carrier, of a converted light cruiser, a destroyer, two escort vessels, and two destroyer transports. Noncombatant vessels also claimed yesterday were 2 large transports, 10 medium cargo vessels, 3 small cargo vessels, a small transport, 2 medium cargo transports, and 2 medium tankers.
In a separate announcement, the Navy reported the loss of a landing ship, the LSM- 20 off Leyte due to enemy action and disclosed that a destroyer previously announced as sunk in Philippine waters in a night engagement was the U.S.S. Cooper. The LSM- 20 had a crew of 52 and the Cooper a normal complement of 275. There was no announcement as to casualties but the commanders of both vessels, Commander Mell A. Peterson of Algona, Iowa, of the destroyer, and Lieutenant John R. Bradley, Oak Creek, Colorado, of the LSM, were rescued. Lieutenant Bradley was wounded.
In addition to the 99 combatant vessels sunk by submarines since the start of the war, 835 noncombatant enemy ships have
been sent to the bottom by submersibles alone. These total more than 3,500,000 tons, or about one-half of the estimated pre-war merchant fleet.
In releasing the communique at a news conference, Secretary Forrestal expressed “true regret” that considerations of security made it impracticable to detail all the accomplishments of the “silent service,” the submarine fleet. Referring specifically to the carrier sinking, however, he added that was “hitting one of the most painful spots on the Japanese body at the moment.”
While yesterday’s communique marked the first unqualified claim of a Japanese carrier sunk by submarines, two others have been reported previously as “probably sunk.” That record has been hung up with a reported loss to the submarine fleet of 33 ships, including 4 sunk, 27 overdue and presumed lost and 2 destroyed to prevent capture.
Navy Pleads for Man Power to Refit Ships
Washington Post, December 30.—Critical man-power shortages in many Navy shipyards are keeping battle-damaged ships from returning to the Pacific to fight again, the Navy Department disclosed yesterday in an urgent appeal for workers to get the warships back into fighting trim. “At a time when it is absolutely essential that every available Navy vessel be in battle readiness,” the Navy said, “the return of battle- damaged ships to the fleet is being delayed because there is a shortage of workers.
“In addition, many ships long overdue for overhaul are still operating in the Pacific because adequate repair and maintenance facilities are not available.”
The Navy estimated that by December, 1945, about 132,000 more workers will be needed for repair work alone, primarily in west coast shipyards. The Navy made its disclosure in a call to American labor and industry to resolve for 1945 that production of the fleet’s fighting needs will be maintained at full tilt right up to “the last hard lap, to Tokyo itself.”
“Thousands of workers—men and women —are needed immediately,” the Navy declared, “to bring critical Navy production up
to scheduled levels. Production for the Navy must continue at full tilt during the coming year, so that successes made possible by American industrial strength up to the present can be continued.”
United States productive energy was credited by the Navy with giving America the most powerful Navy in the world with 61,045 vessels of all types to fight “the most extended war in history.”
The statement expressed satisfaction also over the 1944 construction total of 39,971 new Navy vessels, of which 420 were combat ships, including 2 battleships, 8 aircraft carriers, 37 escort carriers, 2 battle cruisers,
2 heavy cruisers, 11 light cruisers, 84 destroyers, 197 destroyer escorts, and 77 submarines. Thirty-seven thousand airplanes comprise the present air strength of the fleet and 20,070 of the aircraft were built during the last year to replace quickly'aging, damaged, or lost planes. Illustrative of the Navy’s aim of constantly carrying the war to the enemy is the fact that 54,000 of its vessels are invasion craft, in contrast to a total of 1,168 actual combat ships. Total fleet tonnage is set at 11 million, 707 thousand tons.
“Operational plans for 1945,” the statement said “have been based on estimates of the real production capacity of Navy suppliers. Right now, however, even realistic schedules are not being achieved in a number of critical and essential items, largely because of man-power shortages and a high labor turnover in certain areas.”
Most seriously hit by production lags in a wide sweep of vitally needed items, according to the report, are aircraft carriers and cruisers, delayed by labor shortages in some cases as long as seven to nine months. Also urgently needed are rockets, high capacity ammunition and 40-mm. guns, repair and maintenance parts for the fleet, for planes and advance bases, new types of aircraft, radar, wire and wire rope, if workers can be found. Unless more wire rope makers report for work, the report said, the Navy will be unable to unroll some 25 million feet of wire rope until June or later, although it needs the rope urgently at present.
The Navy has 25 aircraft carriers built since 1941 and 102 carrier escorts built in
the same period but needs more of both, due to losses and lend-lease to the Allies.
Ship Shortage in Pacific
Maritime Activities Reports, December 28. ~7~The Navy is deeply concerned over the tight shipping situation in the Pacific and is fighting efforts to divert merchant ships to transport civilian relief supplies to Europe, it Was learned last week. It has revealed its Policy in strongly phrased communications to interested Federal departments and agencies. The current military situation in Europe has further aggravated the shipping situation. Loss of equipment in the German break-through in Belgium and Luxembourg will have to be made up quickly, and this takes ships, some of which under ordinary circumstances could have been shifted to the Pacific. British Minister of State Richard Law is now in this country to discuss European relief problems, with particular emphasis on shipping. Naval officials have made no secret of the fact that the full American military potential in the Pacific cannot be brought to bear against the Japanese because of the difficult shipping situation. To divert vessels for carrying relief supplies, they fear, would impede operations which must not and cannot be postponed because of the opportunities they present.
New Five-Star Rank
New York Herald Tribune, December 16. —The new ranks of General of the Army and Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy were conferred today on four Army officers and three Navy officers when the Senate confirmed seven nominations made by President Roosevelt to give American service commanders rank comparable to those of foreign officers with whom they serve.
The appointments to the new ranks, which have been referred to as “five star,” made as the result of special legislation signed by Mr. Roosevelt earlier today were, to be Generals of the Army: General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff; General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of forces in the southwest Pacific; General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander in Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, and General H. H. Arnold, Commander of
the Army Air Forces. To be Fleet Admirals: Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the President; Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.
In explanation of the Navy Department’s designation of only three of the four new titles created by the law, Senator David I. Walsh, Democrat, of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, said that the Navy could not decide whether the fourth should go to Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the 3d Fleet under Admiral Nimitz, or Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the 5th Fleet, also under Admiral Nimitz.
“Although both of them are full admirals,” said Senator Walsh, “the Navy Department felt that an officer of the rank of fleet admiral was not required under Admiral Nimitz at this time, and it was undesirable to appoint one of these officers as fleet admiral and not the other, in view of the fact that they were both in command of separate fleets and performing the same type of duty.
“I was also informed that at the present time the Navy Department believes that three officers of the new rank are all that are required, even though the Congress has authorized four. It might be pointed out that the original bill, as approved by the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, actually authorized only two officers in the new rank. The Navy Department stated, however, that it was very probable that at some time in the future it might become necessary or desirable to appoint another officer of the Navy to the rank of fleet admiral.”
The Senate confirmed the nominations unanimously and without referring them to committee. For protocol purposes the designation General of the Army is comparable to that of Field Marshal in the British and other armies; that of Fleet Admiral to Britain’s Admiral of the Fleet title. Promotions of other officers to the previous highest ranks are expected. The new titles carry no increase in base pay, which is $8,000 a year for an admiral or general, but increase personal allowances from $2,200 to $5,000.
General John J. Pershing remains with the unique title bestowed upon him after the
World War. By Act of Congress he is General of the Armies of the United States, and so now will have the right to wear six stars. He has, by choice, never worn more than four.
The new naval title is the first in American naval history. A somewhat similar title, however, was conferred upon Admiral George Dewey after his victory in Manila Bay in the war with Spain. Congress made him Admiral of the Navy in 1899.
Believe Most Jap Admirals Died in Battle
Chicago Daily Tribune, December 19.— Heavy losses among Japanese admirals are probably due mostly to the sinking and blasting of their warships by United States forces rather than to suicides, a Navy spokesman said today in commenting upon the announcement of the death of the 79th Japanese admiral since May 17. The spokesman said, however, that the Navy Department has no official theory or explanation for such a high mortality rate among top ranking Japanese fleet officers.
The Navy man asserted it is “logical to presume” that dozens of Japanese admirals have died in recent months simply because of the crushing blows dealt the Japanese Navy by American warships and planes. He called attention to the fact that Jap ships have been sunk and damaged in wholesale quantities in recent engagements, with attendant heavy personnel losses. The Jap Navy is large and is staffed by a large number of admirals, he added, so it is probable that many of them would be killed by American bombings and shellings.
The Navy spokesman said it is not likely that many of the 79 deaths reported among the admirals were suicides occasioned by defeat and Japanese custom. It is improbable that Tokyo is fabricating some of the deaths as a form of propaganda designed to stiffen home front morale, he said.
The latest death, that of Vice Admiral Hiroshi Nakagawa, was reported today by the Japanese Domei News agency. The broadcast dispatch, recorded by the federal communications commission, lacked circumstances and details of Nakagawa’s death, but said it was announced by the Yokosuka naval station. The Yokosuka naval station, largest Japanese home base, last week announced the deaths in action of five admirals. Details of the deaths were not given.
GREAT BRITAIN British Pacific Fleet
The Times (London), December 13.—■ Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, Commander in Chief, British Pacific Fleet, arrived in Canberra today, and is the guest of Sir Winston Dugan, the officer administering the Commonwealth, at Government House. The Cabinet entertained him at a private luncheon. Admiral Fraser said he believed the Japanese Fleet would retire to avoid open engagement, but if it retired too far it would still be dependent on the transport of oil by tankers, and if it left the seas undefended its supply problem would become acute. Japan had still to supply her Army in Burma by sea. Vice Admiral C. S. Daniel, in a statement to the press, said: “Australia will be our base, as Pearl Harbor is America’s, and we shall be making heavy demands for the support of the British Fleet in the Pacific.” He pointed out that Australia’s contribution would fall into two classes—dock and depot facilities and food. Vice Admiral Daniel will work in close touch with Admiral Royle and the Australian Naval Board. Barracks are being prepared for the Royal Navy and a hospital has been taken over. Vice Admiral Daniel said that construction demands for the Pacific Fleet would probably be heavy. Australian labor would be used where stores, depots, ship repair facilities, and similar works were approved. “We shall not be giving orders,” said Vice Admiral Daniel. “We shall ask the R.A.N. to act for us in securing supplies. We know there are great manpower difficulties here, and we shall do our utmost not to add to them wherever it can be avoided.”
For many purposes of maintaining the British Fleet, Vice Admiral Daniel’s staff will be integrated with Admiral Royle’s. Depot planning will be on a scale to accommodate many thousands of Royal Naval ratings. Apart from dockyard and depot facilities, Australia’s chief aid to the Pacific Fleet will be in the supply of food. Three or
four times as much must now be provided for the Royal Navy as was supplied last year. Almost everything required except canned fish will be furnished. The food requirements of the Royal Navy will be 20 tons weekly for every 1,000 men afloat. In addition 10 tons of general stores for every 1,000 men are required, weekly, exclusive of fuel and ammunition. It does not appear that Australia will supply an appreciable quantity of munitions. Important capital works costing about £A10,000,000 will be available for use by the Pacific Fleet, including the largest and most modern graving dock in the southern hemisphere at Sydney—which when it is completed soon will have capacity for accommodating capital ships—and the recently opened Brisbane dock.
Sydney’s Preparation For the Fleet
The Times (London), December 15.—Mr. Makin, Minister for the Navy, today announced that 3,000 artisans have been allotted to help in the servicing, repair, and maintenance of the British Pacific Fleet throughout the engineering establishments and dockyards at Sydney. He added that the
Government had made every possible preparation for the reception of the Fleet. Sydney’s new graving dock, capable of taking the largest ship afloat, would be ready in ample time to service the Fleet. The necessary workshops would be completed in February. The Minister of the Interior, Senator Codings, said that urgent works to be undertaken for the Fleet would involve an immediate and considerable increase in the activities of the Allied Works Council, whose employees had lately been reduced to 30,000 in accordance with the Government’s desire for the utmost economy in the use of man power.
Problems of Fleet Transfer to the Tropics
The Times (London), December 13.—The transfer of British naval strength to the Far East is giving rise to many problems of a non-operational nature very different from those which prevailed in the Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean. The chief problem afloat is that of the terrific temperatures which develop inside ships in the tropics, especially when they are blacked out at night or closed down for action, the latter a period when the men’s efficiency must be at its peak. So many new gadgets, nearly all of them generating heat, have to be fitted into modern warships. So many more men have to be accommodated. Ships as operated in war are very different from ships as originally designed on the drawing table. Ventilation affects not only comfort but, what is more important, efficiency. A constructional problem is that of installing adequate ventilation systems which will not compromise either the armor or the watertight integrity of the ships.
A small group of naval surgeons has been out here investigating and making reports to the Royal Naval Personnel Research Committee in London, a joint body on which sit representatives of the Admiralty and the Medical Research Council. It is an interesting example of the application of medical science to naval problems. Working with the surgeons are a naval constructor and Professor H. G. Bazett, of the University of Pennsylvania, an Englishman who is a world authority on the behavior of the human body at high temperatures. A Royal Naval laboratory will shortly be set up in Bombay under Professor Bazett to study these medical-naval problems still further, but it is hoped that the findings of the laboratory will have more than an exclusively naval application.
The recommendations of these investigators are of several kinds: those which can be carried out by a commander in his own ship with a minimum of equipment and structural alteration; those which must await a refit; and those which can be incorporated into ships now building. An air-conditioning program is under way, and already in some of the larger ships one or two parts that might be described as brain and nerve centers are air-conditioned. In regard to food, commanding officers agree that a slightly different diet might be better for the men under tropical conditions, and in most ships slight changes have in fact been made. But the British rating is notoriously conservative about his diet. If his “figgy duff,”—potatoes and other starchy foods are cut down he feels empty. He is equally conservative in regard to his grog. Although sundown might seem a more
sensible hour in the tropics, he seems to prefer wherever possible to stick to the old- established hour of noon.
Ships’ doctors in the Eastern Fleet have to cope chiefly with a multiplicity of skin troubles, from sweat rash to bad boils. Small abrasions go septic quickly and heal slowly. The health of the men cannot truthfully be described as good, but there has not been as high a sickness rate as was originally anticipated. The chief effect of this climate is lethargy. After a time out here men do not go ashore even when they have the opportunity, and there is no doubt that their resistance becomes lowered more quickly than in temperate climate.
The chief problem here is of Jack ashore rather than of Jack afloat. At this particular base there were until recently few recreational facilities for the men ashore, and certainly no facilities such as exist in ports like Alexandria or Durban. There were no bars, no female company, and no decent cinemas. When the authorities, with few resources, were straining every nerve to provide essential installations for a sudden and increasing influx of men and ships it was understandable that amenities and welfare should temporarily take second place. Only now are they beginning to catch up. Instead of the old canteen, a large palm leaf hut which eventually caught fire and went up in flames, there is now a large concrete building where concerts, films, and Ensa shows are given.
Good, cheap meals are to be had there but the beer, of Australian or South African brew, is unfortunately limited to one bottle a week for each man. This shortage of beer is undoubtedly the chief moan among ratings of the Eastern Fleet, and has been aggravated recently by their reading stories in the newspapers of millions of bottles of beer being shipped across the Channel to the allied forces in France and Belgium. A pleasant officers’ club recently opened fills an equally long-felt need. The mail situation is excellent. Air-mail letters from England average 10 days and sometimes take only 6.
Certain classes of ship in the fleet are more active than others and their problems tend to be simpler. The submarines are continuously operating against the enemy. The destroyers also spend little time in port. When
not taking part in aggressive “strikes” they are busy on escort or patrol work. The careers have very full training routines. Tactics and techniques in the air change almost from week to week. If pilots were not to Practise landing on the deck once or twice a Week they would soon lose their touch. It is °n the larger ships, which may lie in port for months at a time, that the commanding officers have the hardest time in keeping their roen up to the mark. Routines have to be skillfully and imaginatively planned.
The coastal forces, consisting mainly of small launches which do the patrols outside the port, have a peculiarly monotonous and uninspiring job. Then there are the hundreds of men in the depot ships, who work hard day after day, some of them in hot foundries without even the change provided by going to sea. As one of their captains said, “we are no glamour ship.” This particular type of ship is carrying three times its peace-time complement, and conditions are very cramped. Also at this base are several hundred “dockyard maties,” recruited from Government and civilian dockyards at home and enlisted in the Navy as special repair ratings. All skilled men—riveters, shipwrights, caulkers, platerers, electricians, and the like—theirs is not a glamour job either, nor a pleasant one in these conditions, but the Fleet could not operate without them.
The only people who have a good word to say for this base are the Wrens, who are in great demand in an otherwise exclusively male society. Some have been here more than a year and their conditions have improved considerably, although tarantulas and scorpions are still found occasionally in the bathroom and wild pigs stroll into the quarters from a neighboring wood. They are having to work pretty strenuously in a climate that is notoriously hard on white women. Nearly all have lost weight, and they suffer from the same skin and internal troubles as the men.
War-time service in the tropics is a different affair from peace-time, with its easy life and frequent leave. The men out here are having to cope with many things—the enervating climate, the prickly heat, the lack of facilities ashore, and the monotony and lack of privacy which characterize life in the self-contained little world of warships. Improved amenities are tremendously important. But they are palliatives, and the only sovereign remedy to the above ills lies in a vigorous prosecution and speedy termination of this eastern war. Non-operational cannot really be separated from operational problems. In spite of certain steps taken by the authorities there is still considerable ignorance (although a great potential interest) regarding Japan and the Japanese, the problems of Asia, and the progress of the eastern war in other sectors.
What strikes the outsider as being the dominant characteristic of the Navy today, composed so overwhelmingly of men who were civilians a short while back, is its extreme professionalism. The attitude of the men towards Japan is like that of Mr. Coolidge’s preacher towards sin—they are against it—without knowing or inquiring too deeply into the whys and wherefores. Perhaps this ignorance does not matter much. They know that there is a job to be done and that there can be no peace for them or their children until it is done. They will do it as the Navy does all its jobs, with supreme efficiency and with a minimum of fuss.
Coastal Command’s Battle with Enemy Shipping
Manchester Guardian, December 14.— German light coastal forces attempting to hamper by mine and torpedo our use of the port of Antwerp are being attacked by Coastal Command units operating from this base—the first that the Command has had on the Continent. Since we freed the Scheldt the Germans have been operating against our shipping off the Dutch coast with between three and four flotillas of E and R boats—a force of between 24 and 32 vessels.
Mostly they have been laying mines in promising waters under the cover of night but there has also been the possibility of torpedo attacks, and to deal with both this force of veteran Albacores and Swordfish airplanes, whose pilots belong to that group of Coastal Command which for the past four years has specialized in attacks on enemy shipping, has been operating.
For this work at night these obsolescent
torpedo-carriers have a lot to recommend them, for their slow speed enables them to turn almost instantly towards an enemy when he is sighted and also makes it possible for them to drop in a very short distance on to their targets. Their disadvantage is, of course, their restricted radius of action, which has made it necessary to move their airfield as near as possible to the principal E-boat base, which at the present time is the Hook of Holland.
This latest phase of the work of the specialized anti-shipping group of Coastal Command is the culmination of a struggle which has been going on between British attacking airplanes and German naval defensive measures since 1940-41. In the early days of the war individual airplanes as cumbrous and slow as Ansons and Hudsons used to be able to make successful attacks on German shipping from masthead height along the coastwise shipping lane from Norway to the Garonne. Then, for the time being, defense got the upper hand, thanks to the heavy flak armament mounted in the German escorting vessels, and it became necessary for our flyers to adopt new methods, most important and most successful of which was that of “wing strikes.” One, two, or three wings would be ordered to attack a certain convoy or even an individual ship if it were judged of sufficient importance. They would come in to attack in flights of three, first of all cannon-firing Beaufighters, each flight of which would be assigned to attack one particular escort vessel. When the escorts were thus busily engaged, torpedo-carrying Beau- forts would come in and in theory at least have a fairly clear run up to the target. This method of concentration had to be carried out with the greatest possible speed, for very little time would usually elapse before the German convoys were sighted off the Frisian coast and their entering the long stretch of “untorpedoable” water. Torpedoes when launched from the air first dive to a consid- able depth before they recover and start off on their run a couple of fathoms below the surface.
The introduction of rocket projectiles has proved of great value in this connection, for rockets can be discharged without regard to the depth of the sea, and although individually they have not the same power as torpedoes, they can damage ships severely and sometimes sink them. The Germans have again tried to meet these new developments with flak of increased power. In addition to the Oerlikon type guns which were the main armament of the boats, they sent along “aperrbrechers,” trawlers equipped with 37mm. guns. Against individual ships of this type it has become our practice to send more than one flight.
The net result of all this has been that Coastal Command, together with light coastal forces of the Royal Navy, have put a stop to German coastwise shipping west and south of Borkum, while communications by sea between the Elbe and the Ems are very desultory, maintained only by night and with small vessels. The importance of this may be seen when it is remembered that one of Germany’s toughest problems at present is that of transport, both in the northwest and in Holland, where Allied air attacks and the courageous strike of the Dutch railway workers make replenishment of the German garrison extremely difficult. Under the circumstances it would be of the utmost advantage to the Germans if they were able to move supplies freely by sea, but that is just what they cannot do.
Thus it is that the principal Coastal Command targets in Dutch waters at present are torpedo and mine carrying E-boats already referred to since convoys of supply ships dare not venture out. These boats, when under way, can be spotted from a height of 3,000 to 4,000 feet at night by their white wakes, but, as they know this, it is their custom as soon as they hear the sound of aero-engines to shut off their own motors and drift.
To deal with this the “Want Willie” system has been introduced with Wellingtons patrolling and dropping flares whilst Alba- cores and Swordfish cruise, waiting to strike, while the code signal “Want Willie” serves to bring up a Wellington to investigate anything suspicious. So the struggle goes on, a struggle in which since D-Day Coastal Command group, carrying out these attacks, has flown over 6,000 sorties.
OTHER COUNTRIES
F ranee
The story of the French Aircraft Industry in this war is a creditable one. Nationalized under the sloppy and often corrupt Administration of prewar France, constructors were inclined to let things slide, for their enthusiasm became damped and progress was retarded. Under the lash of war, however, and particularly after the German invasion and occupation, the leaders of the industry did their utmost, under almost insuperable difficulties, to continue advanced aeronautical research while giving as little help as possible to the enemy.
After the Armistice of 1940, practically the whole of the French Aircraft Industry removed itself to the unoccupied zone and continued work under the Vichy Government. Restrictions imposed by Germany upon the Air Ministry of that Government were naturally severe, but they did not succeed in stopping aeronautical research or the construction of useful prototypes.
When the whole of France came under enemy occupation after the North African landings in 1942, conditions became infinitely more difficult. Direct orders for German war material had, of course, to be carried out, but French constructors adopted a go-easy policy, and, although delays in delivery were enormous and exasperating to the Germans, they could always be fully “justified” on paper.
Meanwhile, work on post-war prototypes of civil aircraft went on steadily. Among these, and one of special interest, is the SE.700, designed and constructed by the Societe Nationale de Construction Aeronautique Sud-Est. This looks like a cross between an autogiro and a helicopter. It has a huge power-driven, three-blade rotor, providing vertical lift take-off and a vertical landing, but is also provided with a small tractional airscrew on the nose. It is designed to take a 220 hp. Renault motor, or an air-cooled Bearn, with 12 cylinders in line. The airplane has a tricycle undercarriage, and an odd feature of the design is that twin rudders are hinged to the rear-wheel fairings. The main rotor of the SE.700 is 41 ft. in diameter, an exceptional size, and the over-all height just over 13 ft.
Maximum estimated speed with the Renault motor is 220 k.p.h., or with the Bearn 12-cylinder, 250 k.p.h. The SE.700 has been designed primarily for postal service, but may have many other applications. The Bearn “60” motor delivers about 400 b.h.p.
When in Paris recently, our War Correspondent visited the Aero Club de France and the offices of the Comite d’Organization de l’lndustrie Aeronautique, who were kind enough to lend us photographs. The six-motor SE.200 has already been fully described at various times in the past. This big flying-boat was originally intended for the French transatlantic service, but, after the complete occupation of France, was taken over while under construction and finished by the Germans as a military transport. The SE.200 was one out of three types of six-motor aircraft under construction in France at the outbreak of war. It had six 1,100 hp. Wright Cyclone motors, although originally designed to mount six Gnome-Rhone motors of 1,650 hp. each. In civil rig, the airplane was arranged to carry 70 day passengers or 40 by night, and required a civil crew of 8.
The Germans made various modifications in the huge flying-boat when they took it over, but all their efforts were in vain, as the SE.200 was shot down into the Mediterranean by the R.A.F. while on a test flight.
Two aero shows have been held in France since the Armistice of 1940, but only one of them under complete enemy domination. In June, 1942, an aeronautical exhibition was held in the hall of the Thermal Establishment at Vichy. This was quite a small show, but the exhibits gave ample proof that, on the technical side, the French industry was still very much alive. The second show, held in Paris just over a year ago, was a very different affair. French industry as a whole was ordered to organize an exhibition at the Grand Palais, scene of so many Salons de l’Aeronautique in the past. The Organization Committee of the French Aircraft Industry were given a corner of the great hall in this Exposition du Commerce et de l’ln- dustrie and told to fill it, these instructions coming from the German Government.
Exhibiting at the pistol point, under enemy orders, French constructors did not produce their best efforts; in fact, they showed nothing new at all. Wind-tunnel models of a number of pre-war prototypes were suspended from the ceiling, while a few aero-motors, accessories, and bits of aircraft equipment were shown on the stand.—The Aeroplane (England), December 1.
Germany
Many older types of aircraft in the Luftwaffe are being “rehashed” by the Germans in an attempt to stem the increasing tide of the Allied air offensive. To combat the high-flying bomber, an interceptor fighter version of the Messerschmitt Me 109G has been evolved. Powered by a 1,350 hp. Mercedes-Benz DB 605 motor, the Messerschmitt 109G-14 has a redesigned fin of increased height and high aspect ratio. Direction-finding
apparatus is placed to the rear of the cockpit, the D/F loop protruding above the fuselage. Other equipment for its specialized duties includes a form of the Lorenz Beam blind-approach system, with the aerial under the fuselage.
Utilizing an externally similar airframe to the Messerschmitt Me 109G-14, the G-16 differs in having a system of methanol-water injection to the motor. These two agents are contained in a jettisonable tank under the center section of the wing, and are fed to the motor in times of emergency. Methanol and water, injected into the cylinders, do not mix with the 87 octane petrol. Because of the vaporization of the water, the amount of combustible mixture per unit volume of the cylinder is increased, the latent heat of vaporization of water being higher than either methanol or petrol. The expansion of the steam thus formed also assists in the general boost of the motor gained by the increase in thermal efficiency.
Only by the temporary boosts in motor horsepower can the Messerschmitt Me 109G have the performance necessary to combat Allied bomber formations and their fighter escorts. Probably the only suitable airplane for interception work is the Me 163.
Both of the latest Me 109Gs have larger and stronger undercarriages and tail wheels to take the higher loaded weights; in both, also, the armament remains as two belt-fed 13-mm. M.G. 131 caliber machine-guns of Rheinmetall design on the cowling, synchronized to fire through the airscrew, and two 20-mm. M.G. 151/20 Mauser cannon in a “gondola” fairing beneath the wings.
Dimensions.—Span, 32 ft. 9 in.; length, 29 ft. 9 in.
Weights and, performances.—No information available for publication.—The Aeroplane (England), November 24.
German industry is being chased round the Reich by the Allied bomber squadrons, says a correspondent of the Vecke-Journalen. It has been saved from complete destruction by decentralizing it over the entire country, but it is, nevertheless, unprotected, for the Allied bombing spies have for years chased Krupps all over Germany, from Westphalia to the Luneburger Heide, and from there to Silesia, Thuringia, Bavaria, Ca- rinthia, and Styria. In some towns factories have been established in new underground railway tunnels which have never been in use. Armament production is always on the move, particularly those enterprises engaged in the manufacture of optical instruments, etc., for the aircraft industry.
Germans who had just evacuated to small villages in the mountains frequently expressed displeasure when representatives of the Minister of
Armament and War Production came to inspect the countryside, which was in itself enough to make the population uneasy. When afterwards workers arrived to erect the foundations, panic gripped the village.
A single aircraft factory may have about 20 separate workshops, so that production is so decentralized that work can be resumed somewhere else a few days after one workshop has been bombed. Only in this way can German armament production be maintained at all. Naturally, it costs much time and labor to maintain this “underground” production, and once the Allies have air bases near the German frontier the difficulties will increase enormously and, in the long run, the underground battle of production against the Allied bomber squadrons may turn out to be completely useless.
The closer the Allies approach to the heart of Germany the worse will become the communications which play a decisive part in this necessary decentralization. In the last phase of the war bridges and railway lines will be blown up to a large extent and then engineers and workers will have to wait in vain for materials. The German armament industry is not safe anywhere, says the correspondent. “The German armament factories and underground installations only have a breathing space until the enemy discovers them, the type of goods they produce and their production capacity. For some weeks they bomb aircraft, particularly fighter aircraft, factories, then oil refineries and then, perhaps, communications, so that those factories which are left alone can work to full capacity. Moreover, artificial fog is a fairly effective protection, particularly for large factories such as the Leuna works, which have built large dummy works to mislead the bombers.”— Flight (England), November 23.
Japan
Emperor Hirohito of Japan, in an imperial rescript read at the formal opening of the eighty- sixth session of the Japanese Diet yesterday, warned his people that “the war situation is becoming more critical,” but added that the Japanese Army and Navy are “destroying the powerful enemy, wherever he is confronted, with their death-dealing gallant fighting,” according to domestic broadcasts from Tokyo recorded by the Federal Communications Commission.
“While the war situation in greater east Asia progresses daily, the alliances with our friendly nations are also being further solidified,” Hirohito was quoted as saying. “We, the Emperor, feel great joy in this.” But, he added, “now the war situation is becoming more critical, and now is the time for all truly to devote their total effort and to
The Jap battleship Yamashiro and another battleship of the Kongo class circle desperately to avoid the relentless bombs from above.
repel the enemy. We, the Emperor, are emotionally overwhelmed by the loyalty and gallantry of you, the subjects, and expect to see an early accomplishment of the objective of this sacred war.”
Premier General Kuniaki Koiso joined with the Emperor, the broadcasts said, in an appeal for greater public co-operation in the war effort. In a 2| hour meeting with his Cabinet he was quoted as telling his ministers that despite the government’s “efforts to expedite the prosecution of measures to cope with the prevailing situation, we cannot say that we have seen sufficient progress.”
“The spirit of the special attack [suicide] units, which should be manifested also on the home front in response to the fighting front,” he was quoted as saying, “is not yet fully expressed.”— New York Herald Tribune, December 27.
The Tokyo radio worked overtime yesterday making dire statements about the war in the Pacific, ranging from a prediction by the Domei News Agency that “a Japanese-manufactured rocket bomb will make its appearance in the Pacific war soon” to a declaration by Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, former Japanese commander in the Philippines, that “the enemy will stubbornly attempt to carry out landing operations on Luzon.” In a broadcast in Spanish to Latin America, the enemy radio, as recorded by the Federal Communications Commission, quoted Domei as saying: “The day is near when the efforts of our scientists will dominate the skies of the Pacific Ocean”—with reference to the rocket bomb. There was no elaboration.
Devoting several broadcasts to the B-29 Superfortresses, the Japanese domestic radio quoted the Tokyo newspaper Asahi as “estimating” that the United States had “lost approximately 550” of them during the past six months, with a resulting loss of about 4,000 crew members. The Associated Press said the “estimated” figure is about fifty times larger than announced American losses.
General Homma, after insisting that the B-29 raids had failed to disturb Japanese morale, said: “It goes without saying that the mere fact that the enemy has gained a foothold on a part of the Philippines will not immediately become a fatal factor in the whole war situation. The problem is to what extent we can constantly prepare strategy to smash him.”—New York Herald Tribune, January 3.
Broadcasts by the Domei news agency recorded here say that Japanese industrial engineers and machinists, hampered by scarcity of machine tools and iron, “have hit upon the idea of producing wooden boring machines” and have had “amazing success.” Workmen in a Tokyo war plant, emulating soldiers’ and airmen’s suicide attack groups, have organized special units to increase production by 80 per cent. To that end each unit will work from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. for a period of seven days.—The Times (London), December 14.
Sweden
The new Swedish 7,000-ton cruiser, Tre Kronor (Three Crowns) was launched in Gothenburg today at the Eriksberg shipyard. The christening of the vessel which slid down the ways three months ahead of time, was done by Crown Princess Louise. The ship is the most expensive ever built for the Swedish Navy; when finished it will have cost 75,000,000 kroner (about $18,750,000). It is also the longest warship ever laid down in a Swedish yard, measuring 182 meters or about 600 feet. Very little imported material is used in the construction; all armor is of Swedish make, and much vital material from older, scrapped vessels has been utilized. The ordnance comprises seven 15- centimeter guns and a great number of 20 and 40 millimeter anti-aircraft guns. The cruiser is built with special consideration of the Swedish coastal conditions and, like its sister-ship the Giita Lejon, which is now under construction, is intended for offensive operations. The press calls attention to the great artillery power of the new cruiser, and praises the fine accomplishment of the shipyard. —The American-Swedish News Exchange, December 16.
U.S.S.R.
Pravda said today that steady American Pacific victories have “sharply worsened economic, especially food, conditions inside Japan,” and also declared that the frequent Superfortress raids on Tokyo are affecting the general Japanese internal and political situation. Spread over five columns of the foreign news page, the Pravda article was considered the most significant Soviet utterance about Japan since Premier Stalin’s November speech declared her an aggressor nation. Japan, “last and single ally of Hitlerite Germany,” has been suffering “continuous defeat on land, sea and in the air,” said G. Zhukov, Pravda political writer. “The development of Pacific events becomes ever more unfavorable for Japan. Continuous defeat in the war with Britain and the United States has sharply worsened economic, especially food, conditions inside Japan.”
Zhukov’s article said in part: “The Koiso government faces extremely complicated internal and
political problems, while the war makes new demands on the tardy industrial facilities of Japan. Japanese militarists will continue to insist upon increasing severe economic controls.
Pravda declared that tension had increased between Japanese capitalists eager to regain oldtime freedom of action and the militarists determined to enforce even more rigid economic controls.
“The military prospects frighten many Japanese business men,” it said. “The Japanese press recognizes that home manufacturers are extremely reluctant to make investments in the occupied countries of southeast Asia.”—New York Herald Tribune, December 30.
AVIATION
Greatest Air Fleet Hits Nazis
Washington Post, December 25.—Seven thousand Allied planes—the mightiest display of crushing aerial power in the history of armed conflict—were hurled Sunday at the German winter offensive in thousands of sorties that may exceed the 13,000 flown on D-Day.
The German air force lost at least 125 planes trying to protect its ground forces and lifelines from the storm of explosives, running its two-day losses to 308 planes.
The total losses from the 2,000 United States heavy bombers and almost 1,000 fighters which paced the smashing attacks were 39 heavies and 6 escorts.
British night bombers carried the all-out offensive into Christmas Eve, striking rail- yards at Cologne and an enemy airfield at Bonn.
In a single wave, a record force of 2,000 American Flying Fortresses and Liberators, escorted by more than 1,000 fighters, poured down more than 11,000 tons of bombs on German air bases and supply lines feeding Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt’s winter drive in Belgium. This massive armada of U. S. Eighth Air Force planes was the greatest single fleet of bombers ever put into the air. Its escort of Thunderbolts and Mustangs accounted for at least 70 of the fighter kills. .
*
The R.A.F. by daylight dispatched more than 500 heavy Lancaster and Halifax bombers, with as many Spitfires and Mustangs, in an attack on two Nazi air bases in
the Ruhr at Essen and Dusseldorf. Reports from the caninent said fighters and medium bombers based in France, Holland, and Belgium took a terrific toll. The Nineteenth Tactical Air Force destroyed more than 350 Nazi motor vehicles. Fourteen air bases sheltering the hundreds of enemy fighters which have been punishing American front-line troops were dealt smashing blows by United States heavy bombers aiming their explosives from crystal clear skies. At least 116 German tanks were disabled, nearly 800 motor vehicles were wrecked and two bridges were destroyed—only part of the score of the U. S. Ninth Air Force based in Belgium and France.
Medium bombers of the Ninth made 400 separate flights without loss, hitting communications centers and scattering fragmentation bombs on troop concentrations. All Ninth Air Force planes made nearly 1,600 sorties.
German fighters were patrolling the skies. One swarm of jet-propelled ME-262 attacked British Lancasters, but they mainly were ineffective.
Bombing Tokyo Difficult
New York Herald Tribune, January 8, by Vern Haugland.—Superfortress crews who have been bombing Tokyo, Nagoya, and other Japanese cities believe the Saipan-to- Japan sky trail is the world’s No. 1 navigation run involving the most difficult bombing problems. Two veterans of B-29 flights from the Saipan base to Honshu, main island of Japan on which Tokyo is situated, described their problems in an interview. They are Captain Ernest Bartley, of Lincoln, Nebraska, who usually flies in daylight raids, and Lieutenant Fillmore Avdevich, of Norwich, Connecticut, who has participated in numerous one- or two-plane nocturnal strikes.
Bartley and Avdevich have been assigned to school work at Guam, teaching newly arrived bombardiers and navigators new techniques of exceptionally long-range overwater navigation and extreme high altitude bombing. Each has a dual rating as navigator and bombardier. Their experiences offer contrasts in the difficulties of daylight visual and night-time instrument attacks. “Bombing Japan from Saipan involves really only one particular navigational problem, but the one is tremendous—the determination of the wind,” said Bartley.
“On a flight to Honshu the navigator runs the show until the plane reaches Japan, contending all the way with problems of high altitude like no others in the world.
“At landfall the bombardier takes over and he then has the world’s most difficult problem—how to hit the target more than 5 miles below, often an invisible target— traveling sometimes at ground speeds of 500 or 600 miles an hour. This speed is almost impossible for a layman to comprehend.
“The navigator takes over again on leaving Japan. The flight involves all possible conditions of weather, altitude, and winds. If a man can navigate on this run he can fly anywhere in the world.” Avdevich said on the first few missions “we couldn’t believe we were actually bucking such high winds.
“The winds were bad enough in the day time—155 to 160 knots—but at night they reach velocities up to 230 knots, which is 265 miles an hour.
“Our disbelief of and inexperience with these high winds was one of the major factors in the unsatisfactory results obtained in our first few night missions.”
“None of us had been bombing that high until the Tokyo raids,” Bartley said. “Thus, the attacks on Japan were still in the experimental and training stage.
“From a navigational standpoint, the most difficult raid I’ve ever been on was the second Tokyo mission last November 27.
“A couple of hundred miles from Japan we encountered a complete undercast and from then on for 2J to 3 hours we didn’t see a thing. Yet in that time we found our way in, bombed Tokyo so accurately that the Japanese radio complained bitterly and then made our way out to clear weather again.”
The Superforts, after taking off from their Marianas bases, fly low for a couple of hours, then begin the long fuel-consuming climb. Just over 20,000 feet there is a rapid increase in velocity, Bartley and Avdevich said, and another at 25,000 feet which approaches 90 knots.
“Near 30,000 feet the old plane begins to get mushy and wabbles like a fluttering duck,” Bartley said. “Temperatures outside drop to about 30 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, and those planes that are pressurized have trouble with their astrodome and drift meter frosting up.
“In the States we used to figure 500 miles was all we could get away with flying on basic dead reckoning. But flying to Tokyo 1,500 miles, you rely almost entirely on basic dead reckoning—something we had to learn by experience because it’s never been told in books.”
“My ambition was to bomb Tokyo, but the novelty wore off fast and after three or four missions it wasn’t a thrill any more,” Avdevich said.
“Our high altitude missions are something new in aviation. The 20th bomber command in China flies at lower altitudes, encountering winds of only 70 to 80 knots. Our meteorologists deserve plenty of credit, too.”
Emergency Runways
Flight (England), December 21.-—In war flying there is always a number of aircraft which have suffered somewhat at the hands of the enemy or have had some mechanical failure occur to them. Apart from'structural damage the most frequent troubles result in no brakes, no flaps, or the hydraulic system becoming unserviceable. Any of these troubles are likely to make it impossible for the aircraft to get down on the standard 2,000 yd. X80 yd. runway usually found on an R.A.F. airfield. Furthermore, if one of these lame ducks happens to “prang” in the middle of a runway, it may put that airfield out of use for the time being and all the other aircraft returning to that station would then have to be diverted.
To obviate this trouble Bomber Command has built three specially designed and staffed airfields where shot-up aircraft can land under the supervision of controllers who are experienced in such matters. On these three airfields, only one of which has been in use for more than a year, no fewer than 4,870 aircraft have already made emergency landings—more than the complete bomber force of the Luftwaffe. Although the original idea was conceived by Bomber Command, these special runways are, of course, open to all types of Allied aircraft operating from Brit-
ain. The first emergency landing ground to be built has to date dealt with 1,179 R.A.F. aircraft, a further 1,227 of the U.S.A.A.F.
These special runways are impressive to see. The one we visited is a metalled strip, 3,000 yd. long by 250 yd. wide, and there is a grass undershoot of 500 yd. and a grass overshoot of 1,000 yd. As one of the controllers put it, “There is enough room for even a brakeless Mosquito to change its mind.” All three of these landing grounds are close to the coast, and observers are stationed at the appropriate places to warn the controllers of aircraft arriving in case the radio has been shot up and ceased to function.
The runways are divided into three lanes, and one lane is left clear for the use of machines which are in such distress as to be unable to warn the station of their arrival. It might be termed an emergency-emergency landing strip. Control officers all have air experience, and it is part of their work to suggest to the aircrews the best manner to handle damaged aircraft. In other words, a pilot bringing in a Lancaster with fin and rudder shot away would, via the controller, be given the experience of all the other pilots who had landed Lancasters minus fin and rudder.
If a bomber crashes on the runway the wreckage can be cleared in 15 minutes, and there are special arrangements to fight fires. Three crash tenders are always in attendance, and if there is a big operation being made against a well-defended target, then the National Fire Service is warned and they send along a special detachment. It is a proud boast they have that no one has ever been lost by fire alone.
Another side which is carefully watched is the welfare of the aircrews when they step out of wrecks. After sympathetic interrogation they are fed and put to bed. The station doctor looks on to watch for anyone requiring more than just ordinary care. Not only damaged aircraft land here, but also those that may be functioning perfectly well but which have members of the crew wounded. These land, hand over the casualties for immediate attention, and then proceed to base.
As would be expected, the spectacular is
Halifax was near the runway the controller began to instruct him hurriedly in how to handle the flaps and the undercarriage.
While this was going on an experienced pilot of another Halifax belonging to the station offered to go up and lead the aircraft down on to the runway. He took off, found the aircraft, and began telling the navigator, who was still at the controls, what to do. Everything went well until the navigator was told to lower the flaps. But instead of approaching the runway at landing speed, the aircraft suddenly shot up into the clouds and was lost. The second Halifax followed, and after some minutes found the first and the instruction began all over again.
The two Halifaxes flew in somewhat erratic formation, so erratic that at one point the navigator was warned that he was 5 miles out to sea and only 20 feet above the water. But eventually the pilot of the second aircraft managed to get the navigator into a normal circuit and talked him on to the ground.
One afternoon during the airborne landings at Arnhem the airfield was very busy. Early in the afternoon two gliders had their towropes broken and they both crash-landed on the runway. They were followed at intervals by five Dakotas, a Stirling, and four Liberators, all damaged while flying over Holland. Then a minute before six o’clock a Liberator came in with the nose wheel retracted. When the aircraft touched down, the nose scraped along the runway and the Liberator burst into flames.
While three fire tenders were fighting the blaze, four more Liberators landed within a few minutes, and a fifth one, with his port tire flat, swung away across the runway. The pilot of yet another Liberator called up the station to say that he could not lower the nose wheel, but he managed to land safely on the grass overshoot. Soon afterwards another Liberator reached the camp with the left leg of the undercarriage unlocked. It ran past the blazing Liberator and eventually came to rest with smoke pouring from the fuselage. A fire had broken out, but this was quickly put out, although not before another Liberator, with a doubtful undercarriage and no brake pressure, had been given leave to land. The pilot told his crew to bale out just
ordinary at these emergency landing grounds. Here are just a few incidents representative of hundreds of others. A Mustang had sustained a direct hit in the wing, leaving a hole 6 ft. in diameter, and the pilot was not sure whether the undercarriage was sound. He put the legs down and then bumped them on the runway to test them. Finding them all right he tried to land, but each time he slowed down the wing with the hole stalled first. Without more ado he flew the Mustang right down on to the deck and held it there until it stopped.
The most extraordinary “landing” of all took place last September. Shortly before eleven o’clock in the morning the pilot of a Liberator called up Flying Control to say that his rudder was out of action, the starboard undercarriage unlocked, and the aircraft generally very unstable. For nearly two hours the airfield kept in contact with the pilot, giving him advice as to the best way to handle the aircraft. But by that time the aircraft was in a worse state than before, and it was agreed that the pilot and his crew should bale out.
The aircraft was then some 20 miles from the runway. The pilot was told to bring it back towards the airfield, drop the crew near the runway, and then head the aircraft towards the sea before he baled out himself. No sooner had he jumped than instead of setting quietly off in the safe direction of the sea the aircraft began a series of aerobatics, including violent stalled turns over the runway, with the engines flat out. It was only 2,000 feet over the runway, and after coming down to 1,500 feet, it went round and round the camp. This went on for nearly 10 minutes. At last the tail fell off—it fell conveniently into the salvage dump—and the aircraft “landed” itself in a heap on the runway.
Hardly less dramatic was the landing of a Halifax on September 27. At half-past ten in the morning the airfield learnt that the aircraft was making for the runway and that the captain was seriously injured. For 20 minutes nothing more was heard, and then the crew called up the controller on the R/T.
It appeared that the pilot had fainted through loss of blood and that the aircraft was being flown by the navigator. When the
before the aircraft reached the camp and got his aircraft down safely. It landed on the grass overshoot, where it was joined by another Liberator which had no brake pressure. During this extraordinary afternoon the airfield dealt with nineteen aircraft, all of them damaged, and two gliders.
Another busy day was the one on which, between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., no fewer than 85 emergency landings were made on account of fog. The station has special arrangements for combating this evil.
Four-engined bombers have been seen to do complete cartwheels and yet the crew of seven sustain nothing more severe than scraped knuckles and a few bruises. Other cases have been more tragic, but of the thousands of landings made at the E.L.G. which we visited, only a very few aircraft had been taken off the runway in a irreparable condition.
R.A.F. Master Bombers
Flight (England), December 7.—When R.A.F. bomber crews selected for the famous attack on the Mohne and Eder dams were undergoing their special training, it was found that this difficult “mining” operation would have to be controlled by a single mind if the pre-arranged plan was to be carried through without risk of mistakes. But the idea of employing this technique in a normal bombing attack was not conceived until, late in 1943, Bomber Command was given the task of attacking the German “V” weapon experimental center at Peenemunde, in the Baltic. This was the first bombing attack on a single, small group of buildings to be attempted after the main bombing offensive had begun, and since its complete success was so important to the defense of Britain, it was proposed to concentrate no less than 1,500 tons on this small area—as great a weight of bombs as was normally being used at that time for a major attack on an industrial city.
As in the case of mining the dams, there had to be no risk of mistakes, and so the “single mind” method of controlling the attack was again decided upon, and to make quite sure, a “rehearsal” of the system as applied to normal bombing was carried out in a raid on Turin, which was a compara-
tively undefended target. Nowadays a “master bomber” controls and directs most of the R.A.F.’s attacks on targets in Germany, from incendiary attacks on large industrial towns to 12,000-lb. bomb precision attacks on canal embankments.
To ensure accuracy of aim, the master bomber, always one of the most experienced pilots in Bomber Command, guides the main force in daylight or night attacks, and in all weathers. He has the responsibility, in attacks made in close support of the Army, of seeing that all bombs fall ahead of the bombing line, and of ensuring such dense concentration of attacks as obliterated tactical targets like the strongly fortified towns of Duren and Julich.
The master bomber’s first task is to check the position of the target indicators dropped by the Pathfinder Force, going down low over the target to do so. If the markers are in the right place, he then calls in the main force to bomb. But if the markers have overshot or undershot, he does not allow bombing to begin until the error has been corrected. But target indicators have often to be relaid during an attack, in which case the master bomber must repeat his work, and go down low again to make a further check of the new target indicator’s position.
The main bombing force is as much under his control as warships in a naval engagement are under the control of the flagship, and his responsibility is as great as that of a commander in the field.
If necessary, as in attacks on targets in France when the weather deteriorates and civilian lives might be endangered by inaccurate bombing, the master bomber calls off the attack. He also observes the weather carefully, paying particular attention to the height of the cloud base, so that he may decide from what height the main attack is to be made. A deputy master bomber is always ready to take the master bomber’s place at a second’s notice.
The new tactics greatly improved as time went on, and there is little doubt that but for these new tactics and the courage and skill of the master bombers—Wing Commander G. L. Cheshire, V.C., D.S.O., and , two bars, D.F.C., was one of them—the tactical bombing which prepared the way
for the invasion would have been a much longer and more uncertain business.
As the campaign developed, master bombers began to operate over German targets. They also controlled and directed area attacks on German industrial cities. They ensured that the loads of incendiaries were evenly distributed over the whole area, and so caused the maximum destruction, for such area attacks require at least as much accuracy and calculation as precision attacks on single factories.
To secure the even distribution of attack is a comparatively new task for the master bomber, and one which taxes all his skill and judgment. But it is mainly due to this new method that forces of about 250 heavy bombers have been able this summer and autumn to devastate as large areas as were destroyed last year by much bigger forces.
It was the Pathfinder Group commanded by Air Vice-Marshal D. C. T. Bennett which devised and perfected this “master bomber” technique. It was they who worked out the plans for the Peenemunde attack, when the master bomber was Group Capt. J. H. Sear- by, D.S.O., D.F.C., and his deputy master bomber Air Comdre. J. E. Fauquier, D.S.O. and bar, D.F.C., who was later chosen as master bomber for an attack on Berlin.
There is now a special school for master bombers run by the Pathfinder Force, and each candidate is severely tested before he is allowed to control an attack over an enemy target, taking part in a great many “rehearsals” by night as well as in daylight. Complete attacks, with the dropping of target indicators, are staged for instructional purposes, and the pupils are drawn from the most experienced pilots in the Pathfinder force.
Some months ago a large force of Lancasters and Halifaxes were attacking a marshaling yard near Paris when a voice on the radio telephone said, “Close bomb doors and return home.” Nobody paid any attention.
It was an ingenious but not very imaginative attempt by the enemy to interfere by posing as a master bomber, but such a move had been anticipated and the “ghost voice” went unheeded.
Various Notes
Looking very much like a fat-bellied bomber with an extra shell on its back, the Army Air Forces new Boeing cargo carrier was under inspection at Washington National Airport yesterday following a record transcontinental flight. Carrying a test crew of five and eight civilian and military observers, the big airplane was flown from Seattle to Washington, 2,323 miles, in 6 hours, 3 minutes and 50 seconds, according to Carl M. Cleveland, Boeing official, who was one of the observers. The flight was made at an altitude of 30,000 feet and averaged 383 miles an hour.
The plane was flown by A. Elliott Merrill, Boeing test pilot. Immediately after take-off at Seattle, he climbed to high altitude to get the help of favorable wind. For security reasons the Weather Bureau declined to state what the wind velocity was at the altitude flown. But it is well known that the wind over the route during the month of January is nearly always northwesterly and blows more than 100 miles an hour above 25,000 feet. With its pressurized cabin and four highly supercharged engines, the plane was designed to take advantage of such conditions. Pressurizing the interior of the plane was reported to give passengers the effect of flying at about 8,000 feet.
Ranking Army observer on board was Colonel William R. Lovelace, chief of the Air Forces’ Laboratory of air medicine, who is making a study of the plane for use as an air ambulance. It is estimated that it will carry approximately 80 persons on litters. The present interior arrangement, however, provides for carrying either combat vehicles or troops—By James V. Piersol, Washington Post, January 11.
New fighter planes projected by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation will far surpass the performance records of the P-38 Lightning and embody many new features, Robert E. Gross, president of the corporation, said yesterday. Gross gave no details of the new plane but his statement was especially interesting in view of the fact that the early model of the P-38 came near being a failure. Further, only day before yesterday, Major Richard I. Bong, top ranking American fighter pilot, said the enemy in the Pacific had not put up anything to equal the current model of the P-38. The newer model probably will be jet-propelled and approach a speed of 500 miles an hour.
Lockheed production, centered chiefly in Burbank, California, is now divided between the new version of the P-38 and the B-17 bombers. Of the two types, Lockheed produced a total of 5,858 planes during 1944. Plans for 1945 contemplate 6,632.
Besides design improvements Gross said manufacturing technique had improved to the point where the man-hours per plane have been reduced 38 per cent. He said his corporation has a backlog of military orders amounting to a billion dollars, which is about one twentieth of the total war plane production contemplated this year. In addition to the Army bombers and fighters under production Lockheed is building troop and cargo transports and is starting a new navy project.—By James V. Piersol, Washington Post, January 5.
The world’s largest experimental bomber, the Army’s XB-19-A, has been equipped with new engines giving it a 30 per cent increase in power, it has been revealed today with Army approval by the General Motors Corporation. The plane, larger than the B-29 Superfortress, has a 212-foot wingspread and is built to carry an 18-ton bomb load or 124 fully armed men. The B-29 has a 141- foot wingspan. The XB-19-A has been under flight-testing development for a year.
The bomber now is equipped with four liquid- cooled engines, produced by the Allison Division of General Motors. The engines, rated at 2,600 hp. make possible high altitude operation and increased speed, range and capacity.
New nacelle design provides for use of reversible pitch propellers, making possible a shorter landing run by providing additional braking power, new turbo-superchargers which, with new intercoolers enable the big ship to operate at high altitudes, and an automatic fire extinguishing system in each engine nacelle.
Basic work in the XB-19 modification program was completed by Fisher Body at Romulus Field. The plane has been used by the Army as a flying laboratory to provide a testing ground for improvements to equipment of the AAF bombers now in active combat throughout the world.— Washington Post, January 10.
MERCHANT MARINE Deck Officers Must Pass Navy Test
Maritime Activity Reports, December 21.— Although the shortage of Merchant Marine officers has become so great that the War Shipping Administration is threatening to cut holiday leaves and even to remove some private upgrading schools for the next month, the Navy Department has no intention of deviating in any way from its requirement that all Merchant Marine officers qualify for Navy certificates of proficiency by January 1 or face the prospect of being beached until they do, it was learned last week.
The Navy’s insistence that every one of the 20,000-odd deck officers now serving in the United States Merchant Marine qualify for these certificates has been prompted in part, at least, by indications that American merchant ships are currently suffering greater damage from collisions with each other than from enemy action. Navy officials believe these marine casualties can be greatly decreased if every deck officer in the fleet is made thoroughly acquainted with its convoy rules and regulations as set forth in a remarkable manual known as WIMS, which means “Wartime Instructions for Merchant Ships.”
The Navy is insisting that deck officers learn how to use this manual, which comes in three volumes, and that those who cannot prove that they do when given a test at any one of 52 ports where the necessary machinery has been set up must settle down to a refresher course ashore until they can qualify for a certificate of proficiency in this respect.
Navy officials in New York do not believe this requirement, nor the January 1 deadline which falls in the midst of the holiday season, will further shorten the already short supply of deck officers at this or other near-by ports. The average course, they say, takes only five days, and ships are generally in port that long anyway.
The need, Navy officials say, is not for deck officers to learn standard peacetime regulations, but precisely how to use WIMS while at sea or in convoy under wartime conditions.
This manual, they point out, is familiar as a household word on the bridge of every United Nations vessel. The volumes were compiled from the combined thinking of all United Nations mariners and were issued by the United States and British Navies under the signatures of Sir Henry Markham, Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and Artemus L. Gates, Acting Secretary of the Navy at the time he signed for the Navy.
The volumes have been translated into virtually every United Nations language—Russian, Portuguese, etc.—to standardize wartime signaling, radio procedure, and operational maneuvers. With a knowledge of WIMS any deck officer can safely handle a ship whether proceeding independently or in convoy, where speedy interpretations of signals means the difference between safety and possible disaster.
Russia Getting 60 U. S. Ships
New York Herald Tribune, January 10, by Bert Andrews.—President Roosevelt revealed today that new efforts are being made to find sufficient shipping to increase supplies to Italy to a point great enough to give the Italian people the 300 grams of food a day that were first promised to them in October. His statement came in reply to a reporter who observed that Harold McMillan, acting president of the Allied commission in Italy, was reported to have said in Rome that the United States and Great Britain were working on a new plan for giving Italy more help.
The President said that the authorities concerned were having a bit of a time getting supplies over there in ships. He acknowledged that a good many people were disappointed that the October promise hadn’t been carried out, but added that we—meaning the United States and Great Britain— were working on the problem.
Meanwhile, at a time when the world shipping demands on the Allies are unprecedented, it was learned that sixty Liberty ships, each costing $1,000,000 without cargo, are to be lend-leased to Russia within the next three months. Deliveries have started this month and will be completed at the rate of twenty a month.
The commitment of so many ships to Russia at this time came as something of a surprise, even in certain branches of the War and Navy Departments, because of the shortage that has made it impossible to get adequate supplies to the occupied countries of Europe.
However, it was learned that the decision was dictated by the combined chiefs of staff, that the ships will merely be under bareboat charter for the duration of the war, that title will not be transferred and that the ships will be subject to recapture after the war.
Under this arrangement, the ships will be loaded with supplies badly needed by Russia and will fly the Russian flag after they leave the United States. One source familiar with the shipping situation explained that the sixty ships would not give Russia shipping for use in excess of its needs as determined by the combined Shipping Adjustment Board. This source said the problem could be simply stated in the following way:
Russia states that it needs, say, 1,000 tons of supplies, that it has shipping to carry 200 tons and that it requires shipping to carry 800 tons. If the combined chiefs grant the request, the problem is whether to send the 800 tons in War Shipping Administration ships under the American flag with American crews, or to transfer the necessary shipping under lend-lease to the Russians. If the lend- lease system is decided on and the procedure finds Russia with a surplus of American flag shipping previously allocated by the War Shipping Administration, then these surplus ships are recalled.
Ship Repairing in South Africa
The Shipbuilder and Marine Engine- Builder (England), December.—A correspondent in South Africa reports that the Government of the Union has decided that, after the defeat of Germany, the country’s ship-repairing activities must be considerably increased. This decision, together with the fact that the problem of man power in the marine-engineering industry has recently become more acute, has made necessary a revision of the policy outlined in a statement issued in July last, and the Controller of Industrial man power has now stated that no further applications to enlist for full-time military service will be entertained from apprentices in marine engineering and other controlled industries.
At a recent conference held in Johannesburg, Field Marshal Smuts said that South Africa would play her part in “stage two” of the war, largely in the provision of facilities for the repairing of ships for the United Nations, together with certain other services. The Union, said the South African Prime Minister, would be called upon in still greater measure for ship repairs, and the country’s program in this aspect of its work for the next 12 months would have to be dovetailed into that of the United Nations. The demand for ship repairs had not been so pressing during the past few months, as the opening of
the Mediterranean had lessened the volume of traffic via the Cape; nevertheless, the demand for ship repairs had been such that man-power resources had been strained to the utmost.
As the war developed in the Far East, the problem of ship-repairing in South Africa would become one of the country’s greatest difficulties, said the Prime Minister. During the past 12 months, these activities had grown, and they would continue to do so. Skilled effort and skilled artisans were required, and it might yet be necessary for the United Nations to provide a considerable number of skilled craftsmen to work with South African marine engineers in this great task. The country would be asked to undertake much more repairing work than ever before, and, even two years ago, local resources were heavily strained.
In “stage two” of the war, demands for munitions production in South Africa would be nothing like so great as they had been in the “stage one” period, which would end with the defeat of Germany. It might therefore be possible to divert some of the country’s engineering potential to marine work, as the ship-repairing program would undoubtedly be intensified. These matters were under consideration, and it might be that the engineering industry in the Union would be so reorganized that a considerable amount of work in connection with ship-repairing work could be undertaken in engineering workshops in Johannesburg and adjoining Reef towns.
Though the end of the war in Europe would make possible a transition to peacetime production in certain industries, the time would not be opportune to consider the future of the large marine engineering industry which has been built up in the Union in recent years.
MISCELLANEOUS Midway-Guam Cable Restored
New York Herald Tribune, January 7, by Leo Cullinane.—The 2,670-mile underwater cable between Midway and Guam, severed by the Navy as a security measure two and a half years ago, was restored to service on December 21, in time for Major General
Henry L. Larsen, island commander at Guam, to send Christmas greetings to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, it was learned today.
General Larsen’s historic message reopened the second longest cable line in the world, the longest stretching 3,445 miles from Vancouver, B. C., to Fanning Island, relay point to Sydney, Australia.
It was one week before the famous Battle of Midway in June, 1942, that the Navy, fearful that the Japanese might take that mid-Pacific island as they had previously captured Wake and Guam, ordered technicians to cut the cable. At the other terminal in Guam the cable had also been severed.
Although the severed ends of the long cable line had been marked miles out to sea and tied to buoys, it was no small task finding and reassembling them. Here the Army stepped in with its cable repair ship Restorer which really lived up to its name.
Only vessel of its type in the Pacific and one of the few in the world, the Restorer, with Army and Navy technicians aboard, grappled along the ocean floor, laid new lines of cable and repaired split lines. During this work the Restorer has right of way in the sea over every other type of vessel, including combat ships, and when it flies a pennant with a red ball on a white triangle, called “the rich Indian,” other ships give it a wide berth. The Restorer’s job was complicated by the fact that the Navy, in order to clear mines out of the harbor of Guam after the Japanese were defeated there in July, again cut the cable not only to Midway, but other lines that went to the Bonin Islands and Manila before the war. Thus, at one time, the Army’s repair ship was reeling in two separate cables at a time.
Most of the damage was done at the Guam end of the cable, much of it from the rough coral that the line scraped against and with which it became heavily encrusted. However, at Midway a bad accident occurred just when one severed end of the cable was being lifted into the ship. It fell back into the sea, taking .some essential gear along with it and forced a temporary postponement of the operation.
Substitute equipment was rushed to the
scene, however, and work was resumed, with the slogan being “Let’s get it done before Christmas.” The line was laid in 1901-04 by the Commercial Pacific Cable Company, under direction of the late Clarence Mackay, then president of the company. Officials of the company said today that it was a “remarkable achievement” to repair the line and get it into operation in such a short time, all things considered—including operations in hostile waters.
The Guam-to-Midway cable is part of the only cable linking the United States to the Far East. Before the war it carried from 500,000 to 750,000 messages annually to Asia or key Pacific points. After two years of construction and cable-laying by the Commercial Pacific Cable Company, an associate of the International Telephone and Telegraph Company since a merger in 1928, the first message was sent on January 1, 1903, from San Francisco to Honolulu, a distance of 2,276 miles. The laying of the cable continued and on July 4, 1903, the first message was sent from San Francisco to Midway, an additional 1,300 miles from Honolulu. Later it was linked to Guam, Manila, and points in Japan, China, and the Malay Peninsula. It never suffered military interruptions until the Japanese attacked the United States, although the vagaries of the Pacific weather have caused occasional, brief interruptions.
Twelve employees of Commercial Pacific are now Japanese prisoners. The entire staff of five men on Guam, including Sydney Mc- Michael, a 60-year-old bachelor who has been with the company for 40 years and was superintendent there, was taken prisoner.
Four men from the Manila office, and the wives of two of them, were interned. They include Louis de Coito, 50-year-old superintendent, and his wife. An American in the Shanghai office is also a Japanese prisoner.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, cited five Commercial Pacific employees at the Midway Island station for remaining at their posts during the three-day Battle of Midway from June 4 to 6, 1942. They were Lewis D. Stroup, acting superintendent, and his four cable operators, Frederick A. Lewis, Walter D. Jensen, Charles Bonine, and Charles W. Soule. Two native Chamorro operators on Guam were killed by the Japanese. Both were veteran expert employees.
Seasick Troops
The Nautical Magazine (England), December.—The question of guarding the invasion forces against that great handicap, seasickness, was one which had, of course, to be fully investigated, and experiments of many kinds were carried out in an effort to find that which had never been known before—an infallible cure for mat de mare. Whether such investigations succeeded in procuring the desired results is not fully known, but that huge numbers of our men were prevented from feeling the effects of seasickness has been proved. The medical journal Lancet mentioned that elaborate trials, in rough weather, with boatloads of 70 landlubbers were carried out to try the effectiveness of various preventatives when it was found that the most successful drug was hyoscine, one of the belladona group derived from the leaves of henbane. An average of 73 men out of 100 who would otherwise have been seasick were saved this discomfort by the drug. Whenever there was a prospect of bad weather, about 70 soldiers were embarked in two motor minesweepers, and an hour before each man had received either a dummy tablet or one of the various drugs on test. These included four proprietary remedies which, incidentally were found to have virtually no effect. The men ate ordinary rations immediately on going aboard, and the trips lasted until about 40 per cent of them were affected. Hyoscine was easily the most effective of the drugs administered. Some of the men, however, believed firmly in the efficiency of the dummy tablets. A further test of hyoscine on men undergoing strenuous military exercise showed that the drug had no deleterious effect. It is, indeed, unlikely to have any such effect unless given to men on the borderline of a heat-stroke. A very interesting comment made in the report was that although complete immunity was not achieved, there was little sickness unless the sea was at least moderately rough. It would be interesting to hear from any readers of the N.M. on this point.