Monthly Archives: April 2010

Alfred the Great’s defence against the Vikings

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

A reasonable attempt at illustrating the larger sized English ships and therefore their crew’s advantage in battle. Alfred responded to the threat by constructing a fleet of large longboats, each of which could carry a hundred men, to meet and fight off the invaders before they landed. This navy’s first battle was against four Danish ships in the Stour Estuary in 882, but it was his victory over the invading forces in the Thames estuary and off the coast of Essex in 897 that won Alfred the epithet ‘the Great’. King Alfred is now considered to be, in a way, the founder of the Royal Navy.
The treaty with Guthrum gave Alfred the breathing space he needed to fortify and revitalize Wessex. As the last outpost of independent England, it was essential for Wessex to have an efficient military.
Throughout his realm, Alfred built strongholds known in Anglo-Saxon as burhs (the origin of the modern English word “borough”). Each held a garrison of about 160 men, plus an undetermined number of servants to do all the cooking, cleaning, and tending of horses. Traditionally the English army moved on foot, but Alfred realized that given the speed with which the Vikings struck English targets, the English must be able to respond quickly, too. The burh garrisons, therefore, were all cavalrymen. For the same reason, the king established his burhs in close proximity—none was more than 20 miles away from another.
The expense of maintaining the burhs fell upon the local lords, even if that lord was a bishop. (High churchmen had always insisted that they ought to be exempted from such obligations, but in times of crisis English kings compelled the bishops to assume their share of the cost of defending the realm.)
Alfred also reorganized Wessex’s army, keeping half of the men on duty at any given time. And although Alfred is famous as the father of the English Navy, kings before Alfred had used war ships. Nonetheless, recognizing that swift ships were just one more advantage the Vikings held over the English, Alfred brought over from Frisia (modern-day Holland) skilled shipwrights to build his new navy.
Responding to the sad state of religious and intellectual life in England, Alfred refounded ruined abbeys and convents, brought over learned monks from France to reestablish schools, and set the example for the revival of literacy in the land by personally translating religious and secular books from Latin into English.
Guthrum gave Alfred seven years to rebuild his kingdom, but then the double-dealing Viking broke the treaty and invaded Wessex in 885 and laid siege to Rochester. But Alfred’s new military defensive measures worked. Mobilizing his standing army, his burh garrisons, and his navy, he broke the Danish siege easily, then sent his fleet up the River Thames to capture London.
In 886, after seventeen years of occupation under the Vikings, London was in English hands again. Alfred pressed his advantage by requiring, in a new treaty with Guthrum, that English Christians under Viking rule in the Danelaw enjoy the same legal protections as the settlers from Scandinavia; beaten and humiliated, Guthrum agreed. Four years later, Guthrum, apparently without giving Alfred any more trouble, died in Hadleigh.
The Invasions Continue
In spite of Guthrum’s defeat and death, the Vikings continued to mount sporadic raids on Alfred’s territory. But a serious invasion with eighty ships was mounted from France in 892, led by a Viking chief named Hastein who had been terrorizing the inhabitants of the Loire Valley. He ordered part of his force to disembark in Kent, then beached his ships at Benfleet in Essex. Danes from East Anglia and York joined Hastein’s army, but once again Alfred’s military proved its worth. The infantry harried the Vikings, while Alfred’s navy destroyed many of Hastein’s long ships in a battle off the coast of Devon in 893. After several more reverses on land, Hastein and most of his army retreated up the old Roman road, Wading Street, to Chester.
Bad luck pursued Hastein’s army for another three years. The Vikings abandoned Chester in 894 and invaded northern Wales, but the ferocious resistance of the Welshmen and the lack of supplies forced the Vikings to retreat. The next year they attempted to establish a base on the River Lea north of London, no doubt positioning themselves to take the city back from Alfred, but the English hit them so hard that the Vikings had to retreat for safety into the Danelaw, leaving their dragon ships behind. In 896, the Vikings were encamped along the Severn when Alfred attacked again. The Vikings scattered: Some went north to York, and others sailed back to France in hope of easier plunder.
As the sole English king of the old stock, Alfred became an inspiration and arguably even a rallying point for the English, especially for the English in the Danelaw. He had come back strongly from almost certain annihilation, smashed his enemies, reclaimed his kingdom, and made that kingdom so strong it could drive off or defeat every Viking invasion for the rest of his life.
But Alfred also realized that there was more to a nation than military strength. So he revived learning and literature, reformed the English legal code, founded new monasteries to replace the ones destroyed by the Vikings, and brought over monks from the Continent to get the new communities off to a strong start.
Rarely has a country teetered so closely on the brink of destruction than did England in 878. Rarer still has it fallen to one man to bring his nation back from near-disaster. Yet that was the destiny of King Alfred; without him, England as we know it would not exist.

Fremde Heeres Ost (Foreign Armies East)

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

Under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Reinhard Gehlen, Foreign Armies East directed military espionage against the Soviet Union. It became infamous for blunders and contributed to the ultimate defeat of German invasion and occupation forces in the Soviet Union.

Where the Russians really fooled the Germans was in the lead up to Operation Bagration, which destroyed Army Group Center in June-August 1944. The Germans expected the attack against Army Group South, and had strengthened it at the expense of AG Center. The week before the Russian assault, Col. Gehlen predicted a quiet summer in AG Center’s sector. Somehow, he overlooked the incident in his memoirs.

Beyond doubt the greatest achievement of “Maskirovka” on a larger scale was to leave the German intelligence under Gehlen in ignorance that Stalin had moved 9 armies and 1 tank-corps from STAVKA-reserve to strengthen the central push in Poland. This resulted a superiority of 5-7: 1 (Glantz, 1989, 498).

In January 1945 German Intelligence represented Army Group-A in Poland as facing odds of 1:3, whereas the true proportion by January was an altogether overwhelming 1:5 (Gehlen missed the movement of armies from STAVKA reserve, underestimating the number of Russian formations concentrated in and immediately behind the 3 Vistula bridgeheads by wide margin).

Not that Soviet sources were any more accurate. OKH (Army High Command) strength reports show roughly 2.1 million German soldiers on the Eastern Front on 1 November 1944 plus about 200,000 men in Allied forces. The Soviets claim they were opposed by 3.1 million -men. On January 1945 Soviet sources cite German armor strength at 4,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. German records show about 3,500 tanks and self-propelled guns. The Soviets credit the Germans with 28,500 guns and mortars while German records show a figure of 5,700. Similar discrepancies between Soviet and German data exist throughout the war. But this another motive altogether…

Operation DRUMBEAT, (13 January–19 July 1942)

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

German U-boat offensive conducted off the U.S. East Coast, in the Caribbean, in the Gulf of Mexico, and off Brazil.

Commander of German U-boats Vizeadmiral (vice admiral) Karl Dönitz welcomed the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 as an opportunity to widen the U-boat offensive in the Atlantic. In planning Operation PAUKENSCHLAG (DRUMBEAT), Dönitz intended to operate against the United States and into the Caribbean larger Type IX U-boats with greater operational range. He would employ shorter-range Type VII U-boats off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, which were much closer to his U-boat bases. Dönitz requested 12 Type IX boats from the Naval War Command for the operation but was informed on 10 December that he would have only 6. Although submarine construction had accelerated, there were still too few U-boats available. Bad weather in the Baltic had also disrupted U-boat training, and the Naval War Command insisted on maintaining a large number of U-boats in the Mediterranean to assist Axis operations in North Africa. In the end, Type IX vessel U-128 was not ready at the start of the operation, so Dönitz had less than half the force he had requested.

Operation DRUMBEAT began with only five Type IX U-boats from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Seven Type VII U-boats went to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. All were in place by mid-January 1942, and DRUMBEAT never involved more than a dozen German submarines at any one time. To keep the Americans off balance, a month after DRUMBEAT was launched Dönitz switched its focus to the Caribbean, where several Italian submarines joined operations.

The first victim of DRUMBEAT, the British freighter Cyclops, fell victim to U-123, a Type IX boat, on 12 January 1942. Other sinkings quickly followed. The United States was totally unprepared for the U-boat attacks. Coastal cities were ablaze with lights at night, silhouetting the merchant ships plying the coast and making them easy targets. There were also few escort vessels available, and merchant ships sailed independently in the hundreds because Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King refused to institute a convoy system, believing that an inadequately protected convoy system was worse than none. All this meant that through April 1942, German submarines sank 216 vessels aggregating 1.2 million tons in the North Atlantic, the vast majority of these in waters for which the U.S. Navy was responsible.

This so-called “second happy time” or “the American turkey shoot” for German submarines finally came to an end through a mandatory blackout of coastal U.S. cities, the instigation of convoys and antisubmarine training schools, the relocation of air assets to antisubmarine duties, and the addition of antisubmarine warships. Not only did merchant shipping losses drop off, but increasing numbers of U-boats were sunk.

On 19 July 1942, Dönitz withdrew his last two U-boats from the East Coast of the United States, relocating his submarine assets back to the mid-Atlantic and signaling an end to the campaign. American unpreparedness had come at a high price. Operation DRUMBEAT was arguably Germany’s most successful submarine operation of the entire war, resulting in the sinking of some 3 million tons of shipping. Undoubtedly, Dönitz would have enjoyed even greater success had he been able to employ more U-boats at the offset of the campaign.

References Blair, Clay. Hitler’s U-Boat War. Vol. 1, The Hunters, 1939–1942. New York: Random House, 1996. Gannon, Michael. Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany’s First U-Boat Attacks along the American Coast in World War II. New York: Harper and Row, 1990. Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 1, The Battle of the Atlantic, 1941–1943. Boston: Little, Brown, 1949.

William Sholto Douglas, (First Baron Douglas of Kirtleside) (1893–1969

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

British air chief marshal. Born on 23 December 1893 at Headington, Oxfordshire, William Douglas was raised in London. He attended Oxford University but left to join the Royal Field Artillery at the start of World War I. Douglas soon transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, where he qualified as a fighter pilot. By the end of the war he rose to squadron commander.

In 1919, Douglas left the military to become a test pilot with the Handley Page Aircraft Company. He was dissatisfied with civilian life and returned to the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1920 as a squadron commander. He attended the Imperial Defense College. In 1936, Douglas was named director of staff studies at the Air Ministry; he was the only fighter pilot on the senior staff. Advanced to air vice marshal, in 1938 he became assistant chief of the air staff with responsibility for training.

Douglas was a leading critic of the tactics employed by head of Fighter Command Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding. On 25 November 1940, Douglas succeeded Dowding as head of Fighter Command as air marshal. Among his innovations was the Big Wing concept of large formations of fighters employed in massive sweeps. He also encouraged development of night-fighting equipment and techniques. Although his new tactics enjoyed some success, critics complained that they left much of the British homeland unprotected.

In December 1942, Douglas was promoted to air chief marshal and assigned to the Middle East Air Force (MEAF) as deputy to Air Marshal Arthur Tedder. With the reorganization of Allied air forces in April 1943, Douglas assumed command of the MEAF. During the June 1944 Allied landings in Normandy, Douglas was chief of Coastal Command and commander of British Expeditionary Air Force with the mission of securing control of the English Channel.

With the return of peace, Douglas commanded the British Air Forces of Occupation and was knighted. Promoted to marshal of the RAF, in June 1946 he followed Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as commander of British forces in Europe and military governor of the British occupation zone in Germany.

Douglas retired from active duty in 1948 and was awarded a peerage as First Baron Douglas of Kirtleside. He assumed a seat in the House of Lords and served on the boards of the two British state airlines. After completing two autobiographies, William Sholto Douglas died in Northampton on 29 October 1969.

References Douglas, William Sholto, with Robert Wright. Sholto Douglas—Combat and Command: The Story of an Airman in Two World Wars. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966. Oliver, David. RAF Fighter Command. London: Trafalgar Square Publishers, 2000. Richards, Denis, and Hilary St. George Saunders. The Royal Air Force, 1939–1945. Rev. ed. 3 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1974–1975.

Dixie Mission to Yan’an (Yenan) (July 1944–March 1947)

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

The Dixie Mission in Zhongshan suits, a gift from their hosts- no doubt finishing their innocence in the jaundiced eyes of Senator McCarthy.
U.S. Army Observer Group sent to Yan’an (Yenan), China, to establish a liaison with Chinese Communist forces. The Dixie Mission began in July 1944 when a nine-man U.S. Army team flew to the headquarters of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) at Yan’an in Shaanxi (Shensi) Province in north central China. Colonel David D. Barrett, a “China hand” who had studied the language and served as a military attaché to China, headed the mission, which would continue through 1947. It included officer and enlisted personnel from all three services as well as representatives of the U.S. State Department. Barrett’s mission was to collect information about Japanese and their “puppet” Chinese forces order of battle and operations. He was also to determine the extent of the Communist military effort in the war against Japan and to coordinate the search and rescue of downed Allied pilots in Communist-controlled areas.
A U.S. military mission to the Communists had first been suggested in mid-1943. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell’s political adviser, John Paton Davies, believed strongly that U.S. advisers to Mao’s headquarters could make a difference by coordinating with Chinese Communists who were fighting the Japanese. Davies drew parallels to the effort of the Allies to assist the Partisans of Tito (Josip Broz) in Yugoslavia. Fearing that American supplies and equipment would be diverted to the Communists and that U.S. leadership might develop a more favorable view of the Chinese Communist movement and operations in the territories held by them, Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) strongly opposed the mission to Yan’an. For the next year, the United States continued to pressure Jiang to allow this mission to go forward, but not until after the June 1944 visit of U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace could sufficient pressure be exerted on Jiang to allow the liaison mission to begin.
Communist official representative to the national government at Chongqing (Chungking) Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), who saw potential in a future collaboration between the United States and the Red Army in the fight against the Japanese, supported an increase in American presence and the liaison effort. By August 1944, Barrett and a team that eventually numbered more than 20 people, including State Department officials John S. Service and Raymond P. Ludden, began to meet with the most senior political and military leadership of the Communist movement and to gather information about the Japanese and their allies as well as the Chinese Communists. The mission also provided the opportunity in November for Major General Patrick J. Hurley, in his capacity as a special emissary of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to begin an effort to get the two Chinese factions to focus their efforts on fighting the Japanese rather than each other. During the course of the mission, the Dixie group secured the rescue and return of more than 100 American pilots.
The mission served perhaps its most important function after the war as a bridge between the United States and the Chinese Communists. A mission headed by General George C. Marshall brought the two sides to the negotiating table in an effort to secure a solution to the infighting in China that had been going on for decades. The collapse of the Marshall mission in January 1947 led to the end of the observer mission.
References Barrett, David D. Dixie Mission: The United States Army Observer Group in Yenan, 1944. China Research Monograph Number Six. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. Carter, Carolle J. Mission to Yenan: American Liaison to the Chinese Communists, 1944–1947. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997. Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. Stilwell’s Command Problems. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.
LINK

Strategic Egypt

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

,

A column of Axis prisoners captured in Libya nearing the massive walls of the Citadel of Cairo, showing the Mohamed Ali Mosque (above) and the Mosque of Sultan Hassan.

Strategically located in northeast Africa, Egypt was vital to the British effort in World War II to protect the Suez Canal and lines of communication to Middle East oil fields. In 1939, Egypt had a population of about 16 million people.
The British had taken control of Egypt in 1882 to secure the Suez Canal. Supposedly, they had intervened to “restore order,” but the British stayed. London ended its protectorate in 1922 and granted Egypt independence as a constitutional monarchy with adult male suffrage, but it did not relinquish authority in key areas. Great Britain retained control over defense, imperial communications (the Suez Canal), protection of foreign interests and minorities, and the Sudan. In August 1936, the same year King Farouk came to the throne, Britain signed a treaty with Egypt whereby it retained the right to defend the Suez Canal until the Egyptian army could do so. The Egyptian government also agreed that, in the event of war, it would grant full use of Egyptian facilities to the British.
Throughout World War II, Port Said and Alexandria remained major British bases for operations in the eastern Mediterranean. As headquarters of the Middle East Supply Center, the Egyptian capital of Cairo was the transit point for half a million British and Commonwealth troops. Cairo was also the headquarters of the Middle East Command, and the city remained a haven for agents and spies. Egyptian nationalists were active, with many Egyptians, including Farouk and Prime Minister Ali Mahir, hoping for an Axis military victory in the war and full independence for Egypt.
Although Farouk was the constitutional monarch, British Ambassador Miles Lampson exercised real power. At the beginning of the war, the British insisted on the imposition of martial law and strict censorship and the arrest of German nationals. The Egyptian government ended diplomatic relations with Germany, but Egypt did not declare war against Germany or, later, Italy. Only reluctantly did Ali Mahir allow the confiscation of Italian property in Egypt. He also refused permission for border guards to fire on Italian troops. In June 1940, the British insisted that Farouk replace Ali Mahir. His replacement was Hasan Sabri, a moderate.
On 17 September 1940, Italian forces invaded Egypt. Despite a pledge that it would declare war if this happened, the Egyptian government merely declared a state of nonbelligerency. In November 1940, Prime Minister Sabri died and was replaced by Husayn Sirry, who headed a coalition government. Axis air attacks on Cairo in June 1941 killed some 600 people, but Egyptian sentiment remained heavily anti- British. That winter, conditions in Egypt worsened with severe shortages of many goods, including food. Bread riots occurred in Cairo in January 1942. With General Erwin Rommel’s forces closing on Cairo, nationalist demonstrations in the capital occurred in favor of an Axis victory, and Sirry resigned in early February. The British then insisted that Farouk appoint as Prime Minister Mustafa Nahas, the pro- British head of the Wafd nationalist party. When Farouk hesitated, British armored cars and troops surrounded the palace, and Lampson demanded his abdication. Farouk then acquiesced, and Nahas formed a government.
Throughout 1942, pro-Axis sentiment remained strong, even among the elites and the Egyptian army. Following the November 1942 Battle of El Alamein, both the Axis threat to Egypt and British authority subsided. Despite Farouk’s repeated efforts to remove him from office, Nahas remained as prime minister until October 1944, when the British allowed Farouk to replace him with Saadist leader Ahmad Mahir. The new prime minister secured Egyptian declarations of war against Germany and Japan, but he was assassinated shortly thereafter, in February 1945. The declarations of war were formally proclaimed on 26 February 1945, allowing Egypt to become a founding member of the United Nations.
As elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East, World War II heightened nationalism and anti-colonialism. Following Farouk’s abdication in 1952, the last British troops departed the country in 1954. Egypt did not gain its full sovereignty, however, until 1956 and the Suez debacle.
References Butt, Gerald. The Lion in the Sand: The British in the Middle East. London: Bloomsbury, 1995. Cooper, Artemis. Cairo in the War, 1939–1945. London: H. Hamilton, 1989. Vatikiotis, E. J. The Modern History of Egypt. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980.

Battle of Leyte

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

General Douglas MacArthur, supreme Allied commander in the Pacific, was eager to begin the campaign to retake the Philippines, which he had been forced to abandon at the beginning of the war. His forces had captured Morotai, between New Guinea and Mindanao, even as the III Marine Corps had conquered Peleliu and Angaur in the central Pacific. This put U.S. land forces in a position to begin the reconquest of the Philippines. However, after Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, in command of the Third U.S. Fleet, encountered little Japanese opposition at the Battle of Mindanao during September 9–10, 1944, MacArthur resolved to bypass the southern Philippines and make a direct assault on Leyte, in the center of the Philippine island group. Supporting the invasion was the spectacular naval Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The invasion was to be carried out by the Sixth U.S. Army under Walter Krueger with XXIV Corps (John Hodge) and X Corps (Franklin Sibert). Opposing Krueger was the Thirty-fifth Japanese Army (Suzuki Sosaku). The U.S. landings were carried out by the U.S. Seventh Fleet (Thomas Kinkaid) with air defense supplied by naval aviators as well as the Southwest Pacific Air Forces (George Kenney).

On October 17–18, army Rangers took the small islands guarding the eastern entrance to Leyte Gulf. The navy launched a two-hour bombardment on October 20, after which four infantry divisions landed on the east coast of Leyte between Tacloban and Dulag, 17 miles to the south. Two divisions of X Corps on the right and two divisions of XXIV Corps on the left fought inland from the beachheads in a four-day battle that secured operational airfields. It was November 2 before Sixth Army gained control of the Leyte Valley, from Carigara on the north coast to Abuyog in the southeast. After this, on the left, the 7th Infantry crossed the island to Baybay on the west coast.

Progress had been slow but substantial. However, torrential rains and increased resistance from consolidated Japanese forces in the mountainous interior brought the American advance to a crawl. Determined to prevent the Americans from taking the Philippines, Yamashita Tomoyuki, the Japanese commander in charge of the islands, funneled reinforcements to Leyte from surrounding islands. Between October 23 and December 11, about 45,000 Japanese troops landed at Ormoc on the island’s west coast—even though the U.S. Navy had decimated Japanese sea forces.

Recognizing the urgent necessity of stopping the Japanese buildup, General Krueger launched a two-pronged offensive into the Ormoc Valley beginning in November. On the right, X Corps, reinforced by the 32nd Infantry Division, attacked the village of Limon, which was the northern entryway into the valley. Limon did not fall until December 10. On the left, the 11th Airborne Division joined XXIV Corps, as the 7th Infantry made a thrust across the island, at Balogo, on November 22. Two weeks after this, the main assault on Ormoc got under way when the 77th Infantry landed at Ipil. Ormoc was secured by December 10, and the 77th made contact with the 7th Division. The two units now advanced up both ends of the Ormoc Valley and converged at Libungao on December 20. Six days later, on Christmas Day, Palompon, the last Japanese-held port on Leyte, fell. On December 26, the Eighth U.S. Army (Robert Eichelberger) assumed command on the island (as XXIV Corps left for the Okinawa Campaign) and spent the next four months in difficult mop-up operations.

Victory on Leyte cost the Americans 15,584 casualties, including 3,584 killed; Japanese losses totaled more than 70,000 men.

Further reading: Cutler, Thomas J. The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23–26 October 1944. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2001; Vego, Milan N. Battle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2005; Willmott, H. P. The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

LINK


The Battle of Leyte Gulf

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was fought during October 23–26, 1944, in response to the attempt of Japanese naval forces to disrupt and destroy U.S. landings on the Philippine island of Leyte. The Battle of Leyte Gulf developed into the largest naval battle of any war and was also distinguished by the first kamikaze attacks.

Learning where the American landings on Leyte were to take place, Admiral Toyoda Soemu, commander in charge of the Japanese Combined Fleet, launched Operation Sho-Go (Victory), by which he intended to draw the Third U.S. Fleet (under Admiral William “Bull” Halsey) into battle north of Leyte Gulf so that the Japanese naval forces could catch the landing forces as well as the smaller Seventh U.S. Fleet (under Vice Admiral Thomas Kinkaid), which was covering the landing, in a massive double envelopment, or pincers. Whereas in previous battles, U.S. Navy commanders had enjoyed the advantage of Ultra decrypts, which gave them extensive knowledge of Japanese radio communications, the Japanese changed codes before Leyte Gulf and maintained a high degree of radio silence. Toyoda’s trap very nearly succeeded.

Toyoda assigned Vice Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo, commander in charge of the Mobile Force, tactical command of Operation Sho-Go. Ozawa divided his ships, including the two largest battleships ever built, Yamato and Masashi, five conventional battleships, and 16 cruisers, into two striking forces, under Vice Admirals Kurita Takeo and Kiyohicle Shima. Ozawa himself led a decoy fleet, including four aircraft carriers, to lure Halsey to the north while Kurita and Shima closed the pincers. A portion of Shima’s force, in company with a number of Kurita’s ships (under Vice Admiral Shejo Nishimura), were detailed to sail into the Leyte Gulf via Surigao Strait, while Kurita approached the gulf by way of the San Bernardino Strait. The rest of Shima’s force escorted Japanese troop reinforcements to Leyte Island.

On October 24, Task Force 38, under Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, launched air strikes against Kurita as his ships crossed the Sibuyan Sea, sinking one battleship, damaging others, and prompting Kurita to reverse course for a time. Kurita’s excess of caution put him behind schedule, but Halsey overestimated the damage that had been done to him and discounted Kurita as a threat. This played into the Sho-Go plan. With Kurita apparently out of the way, Halsey pursued Ozawa’s decoy fleet.

The trap was set, but U.S. PT boats (followed by destroyers, then battleships and cruisers) attacked Nishimura as he entered Surigao Strait on the night of October 24. Nishimura was killed and all ships but a single destroyer of his force were sunk. Shima, who had been following Nishimura, withdrew without joining the fight. Thus one arm of the Japanese pincer was destroyed. Nevertheless, the other arm, Kurita’s force, was still intact; Kurita sailed into the gulf via the San Bernardino Strait on the morning of October 25. A U.S. escort carrier group under Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague sighted the force off Samar Island. Both the American and the Japanese commanders were taken by surprise, but Kurita assumed that Sprague’s ships were part of a much larger force and therefore ordered his ships to attack independently rather than risk committing his entire force. Had he used all that was available to him, he could easily have destroyed Sprague’s outnumbered, outgunned escort carriers. As it turned out, however, in independent action Sprague’s aircraft sunk two Japanese cruisers, and torpedo fire from a U.S. destroyer damaged a third cruiser. Sprague lost two of his escort carriers, one of them to a kamikaze attack. Two of his destroyers and a destroyer escort were also sunk, while a number of other ships sustained serious damage. It was perhaps the most desperate naval engagement of the Pacific war, but Kurita, presumably short on fuel—and doubtless still fearing the presence of a larger force—suddenly broke off the engagement and withdrew.

In the meantime, Admiral Kinkaid had radioed Halsey, who was in fighting pursuit of Ozawa, for aid. Halsey responded by sending one of Mitscher’s task groups south to engage Kurita. Yet he apparently did not fully realize the desperate nature of the situation in Leyte Gulf and therefore retained some ships under Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee to continue the fight against Ozawa (who had already lost four carriers to Mitscher), rather than send them south to cut off Kurita’s escape. Only after Lee was within range of what remained of Ozawa did Halsey, at last waking to the full danger to the Leyte landings and the U.S. Seventh Fleet, order Lee to break off and steam south as well. A smaller force continued to pursue Ozawa, and two more ships were sunk, but Ozawa nevertheless managed to escape complete annihilation. As for Lee, the delay imposed by Halsey meant that he arrived in the gulf too late to intercept Kurita.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was a great American victory, albeit flawed by Halsey’s misjudgment. The Japanese lost three battleships, four aircraft carriers, 10 cruisers, and nine destroyers as well as many aircraft. Most important, the Japanese failed to disrupt the Leyte landings, thereby virtually ensuring that the Americans would retake the Philippines.

Further reading: Cutler, Thomas J. The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23–26 October 1944. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2001; Willmott, H. P. The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Battle of Luzon

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

Victory on land at the Battle of Leyte, in concert with the naval victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, was the opening act in Douglas MacArthur’s promised return to the Philippines. These two battles allowed MacArthur to launch an amphibious invasion of Luzon, the principal island of the vast Philippine archipelago.

Preliminary to the invasion of Luzon was the landing by U.S. Eighth Army units under Robert Eichelberger on Mindoro, south of Luzon, on December 15, 1945. At San José, the infantry secured a large beachhead and immediately scratched out two airfields to accommodate air support for the Luzon operation.

On Luzon, Japanese general Yamashita Tomoyuki prepared his defenses by dividing the Fourteenth Japanese Army into three defensive groups: Shobu (140,000 men) in the north, Kembu (30,000) in the center, and Shimbu (80,000) in the south. The Japanese also unleashed a massive kamikaze campaign against the ships of the Third Fleet (under William Halsey), which furnished carrier-launched air support, and the Seventh Fleet (Thomas Kinkaid), which provided principal transport for the U.S. Sixth Army invaders under Walter Krueger. Kamikaze attacks sank 20 U.S. ships and severely damaged another 24.

Krueger landed at Lingayen Gulf on January 9, 1945—68,000 men in that first day—and immediately began a drive inland, penetrating 40 miles by January 20. I Corps, which pushed eastward, encountered the heaviest initial opposition from Yamashita’s Shobu Group. Eichelberger kept pouring in reinforcements, including the 158th Regiment, the 25th Infantry Division, and the 32nd Infantry Division. (Notably, during this titanic battle, a detachment of army Rangers staged a raid behind Japanese lines to liberate several hundred Allied prisoners at Cabanatuan.)

While I Corps and its reinforcements slugged it out with Shobu group, XIV Corps, to the right of I Corps, advanced rapidly southward across the Central Plain of Luzon. It reached Clark Field—held by the Japanese since the beginning of the war—on January 23 and, within a week, secured this major base installation while also penetrating 25 miles farther south to Calumpit.

To the right of XIV Corps, XI Corps landed at San Antonio on January 29 and squared off against Kembu group. Fighting in concert with Filipino guerrillas, the 38th and 24th Infantry divisions of XI Corps sealed off the Bataan Peninsula after Bataan and Corregidor had been liberated. On February 2, Krueger sent XIV Corps on a rapid advance to Manila, the 1st Cavalry Division reaching the outskirts of the Filipino capital on the night of February 3–4, liberating 3,500 Allied prisoners held at Santo Tomas University. On the following night, the 37th Infantry advanced into northwestern Manila and liberated another 1,300 prisoners from Bilibid Prison.

The Japanese withdrew behind the Pasig River, where they mounted a desperate resistance, holding off the U.S. advance for a month and, in the process, razing most of Manila. In this combat of attrition, 16,000 Japanese defenders died before Manila fell to U.S. forces on March 4.

During the fight for Manila, I Corps, to the north, struggled against the Shobu group defenses in rugged mountainous terrain. The 6th Infantry broke through Bongabon to the east coast on February 14, 1945, then moved to the Manila front. Baguio, the Philippine summer capital, fell on April 27, followed by Santa Fe, a major Japanese communications center, on May 27. These two cities taken, the 37th Division advanced down Cagayan Valley, by June 26 splitting the Shobu group in two, rendering both fragments incapable of mounting any significant counterattack.

In the meantime, to the south—east of Manila—XI Corps confronted the Shimbu group’s defensive line. The 6th and 43rd Infantry and the 1st Cavalry became all but stalled in the Sierra Madre, pushing back Japanese defenders by inches. Elements of XIV Corps also drove southeast toward and down the Bicol Peninsula, where resistance was not ended until June 1.

On July 1 the Eighth Army took over the campaign on Luzon, freeing up the Sixth Army for the planned invasion of Japan scheduled to begin in the fall. On July 4, General MacArthur declared Luzon secure.

Further reading: Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: The Liberation of the Philippines—Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944–1945. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Pyawbwe 1945

23 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

 Though the Allied force had advanced successfully into central Burma, it was vital to capture of the port of Rangoon before the monsoon rains began. The temporarily upgraded overland routes from India would disintegrate under heavy rain, which would also curtail flying and reduce the amount of supplies which could be delivered by air. Furthermore, South East Asia Command had been notified that many of the American transport aircraft allocated to the theatre would be withdrawn in June at the latest. The use of Rangoon would be necessary to meet the needs of the large army force and (as importantly) the food needs of the civilian population in the areas liberated.
The British 2nd Division and British 36th Division were withdrawn to India to reduce the demand for supplies. The Indian XXXIII Corps, consisting of the Indian 7th Division and Indian 20th Division, mounted Fourteenth Army’s secondary drive down the Irrawaddy River valley, against stiff resistance from the Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army. Indian IV Corps made the main attack, down the “Railway Valley”, which was also followed by the Sittang River.
  
British Army Patrol at the Battle of the Sittang Bend.
The Indian 17th Division and 255th Armoured Brigade began IV Corps’ advance on 6 April by striking from all sides at the delaying position held by the remnants of Japanese Thirty-Third Army under Lieutenant General Honda at Pyawbwe, while a flanking column (nicknamed “Claudcol”) of tanks and mechanized infantry cut the main road behind them and attacked their rear. This column was initially delayed by the remnants of the Japanese 49th Division defending a village, but bypassed them to defeat the remnants of the Japanese 53rd Division and destroy the last tanks remaining to the Japanese 14th Tank regiment. As they then turned north against the town of Pyawbwe itself, they attacked Honda’s headquarters but were not aware of the presence of an army headquarters and broke off the attack, to capture the town instead.
The 9th Battalion The Border Regiment at Pyawbwe
By January 1945 the Battalion was at full strength again and on its way back at Imphal, this time no longer in its Light role, but as Motorised Infantry working with Probyn`s Horse of 255 Tank Brigade.
The objective was Meiktila, some 550 miles further South, and in February 1945 it crossed the Irrawaddy near Pagan and swept on to Meiktila, where, after some severe fighting with the remainder of the 17th Division it established itself and cut off the Japanese`s main communication with Mandalay.
General Cowan was not the man to sit tight and let the enemy attack him. Instead he sought to destroy the enemy before they were ready to attack, and this he achieved by attacking them in their forming up places , with combined Infantry and Tank Battle Groups.
The 9th Battalion The Border Regiment took part in several such actions, notably at Wetlet, Yindaw, Kinde and Pywabwe. It was after the last battle that the enemy finally broke and made for the Sittang River, abandoning its hold on Rangoon. The Battalion pursued the enemy some 200 miles to Pegu when it gave up the chase with the onset of the monsoon and the consequent flooding of the Pegu River. It then returned northwards to Penwegon to prevent some 15,000 of the enemy, who were cut off by our rapid advance, from crossing the main Meikila/Pegu road, and from reaching safety on the east bank of the Sittang River.
Sittang Breakout
28 Army had retreated into the Pegu Yomas, a range of low jungle-covered hills between the Irrawaddy and Sittang rivers, after withdrawing from Arakan and resisting XXXIII Corps. It planned to break out and rejoin Burma Area Army. To cover this breakout, Kimura ordered Honda’s 33 Army to mount a diversionary offensive across the Sittang although the entire army could muster the strength of barely a regiment. On July 3, Honda’s troops attacked British positions in the “Sittang Bent.” After a battle for country which was almost entirely under chest-high water, both the Japanese and Indian 89th Brigade withdrew on July 10.
Honda had attacked too early. Sakurai’s 28 Army was not ready to start the breakout until July 17. The breakout was a disaster. The British had captured the Japanese plans from an officer killed making a final reconnaissance and had placed ambushes or artillery concentrations on the routes they were to use. Hundreds of men drowned trying to cross the swollen Sittang on improvised bamboo floats and rafts. Burma National Army under General Aung San already had rebelled against Japan in March. So Burmese guerillas also killed stragglers east of the river. The breakout cost the Japanese nearly 10,000 men, half the strength of 28 Army. And after this, many of those survivors had to keep straggling without knowing the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945.
#
By the beginning of August 1945 the Battalion was stationed at Waw, just west of the Sittang River, where it received the welcome, but to them the unbelievable news of the Japanese Surrender. By then a further 5 Officers and 69 Other Ranks had lost their lives, and 9 Officers and 122 Other Ranks had been wounded.
In September the Battalion began the task of disarming some 2,000 Japanese and controlling the activity of dacoits on the Mokpalin and Bilin areas. On the 1st December 1945 the Battalion amalgamated with the 4th Battalion, taking on the name of the latter.
Thus after five and a half years the Battalion ceased to exist.
During its short life the Battalion contributed to the adding of 6 Battle Honours to the Regiments List.
Lt Col John Petty was awarded the M.C. when Major of “B” Company 9 Border at PYAWBWE.
His citation said,
During the whole engagement Major Petty`s tactical skill, flexibility in planning, and personal example were outstanding. He seemed to be having the time of his life and all ranks in his Company were imbued with the highest confidence in themselves and in their Company Commander.
The casualty figures for “B” Company for the day were 92 Japs killed for 10 wounded in the Company, six of them in the shelling before “H” hour.
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 118 other followers