"The Battle of Wake Island was Special Sort of" Topic
8 Posts
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Tango01 | 28 Dec 2019 9:47 p.m. PST |
…World War II Hell. "On December 22, Pye, concerned that Japanese carriers might be in the area and worried that he might lose the few remaining ships of the Pacific Fleet, recalled the relief expedition. The recall produced angry outbursts among Marine and Navy personnel aboard the ships at sea, who urged superiors to ignore the order and continue on to rescue their fellow fighters. The language grew so inflammatory on the bridge of the Saratoga that Rear Adm. Aubrey Fitch stormed off so he would not hear possibly mutinous talk and be forced to take action. One Navy officer aboard the carrier Enterprise dejectedly wrote, "It's the war between two yellow races." Even in Japan, propagandist Tokyo Rose ridiculed the Navy by sarcastically asking in a broadcast, "Where, oh where, is the United States Navy?" The order stood, however, and the task force reluctantly turned away from Wake…" Main page link Amicalement Armand
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codiver | 30 Dec 2019 6:46 a.m. PST |
Probably a blessing though, for the U.S. carriers. The Wake Island relief plan, which was Kimmel's not Pye's, was not very good. It had only Saratoga's TF in the actual vicinity of Wake, while Lexington's TF hitting the Marshalls "as a diversion", and Enterprise's TF "in reserve" closer to Midway than Wake. As such, with this lack of concentration, Sara would have been outnumbered 2:1 by Hiryu and Soryu near Wake for at least a day or two, and thus very likely lost if they had pressed on. |
Tango01 | 30 Dec 2019 12:05 p.m. PST |
Thanks!. Amicalement Armand |
Mobius | 30 Dec 2019 7:26 p.m. PST |
My dad said it was scuttlebutt in the Navy that late in the war US prisoners were eaten by the Japanese as they were desperate for food. |
Tango01 | 31 Dec 2019 11:13 a.m. PST |
Never hear about that… thanks!. Amicalement Armand |
Mark 1 | 02 Jan 2020 2:28 p.m. PST |
My dad said it was scuttlebutt in the Navy that late in the war US prisoners were eaten by the Japanese as they were desperate for food. Never hear about that… thanks! Several instances are well documented in the post-war trials. Most notorious (and where warcrimes convictions were achieved) was at Chichijima (the island George Bush the Elder was shot down and almost captured). But in that case it was more a matter of bastardization of Bushido/macho concepts as anything to do with a shortage of food. It was almost ceremonial, focused primarily on internal organs rather than muscles. There were more cases in the South Pacific and Southeast Asian campaigns where acts of cannibalism by Japanese forces seem to have been driven more by stark practicalities of short supplies. There were instances of Japanese garrisons developing and communicating various mechanisms to feed off of British Colonial (primarily Indian) prisoners that were barbaric in the extreme, but driven by practical concerns of foodstock. NOTE: Gruesomeness follows. You have been warned. Meat spoils quickly in tropical heat, so the practice evolved of butchering the legs, one at a time, while keeping the prisoner alive using tourniquets to prevent lethal bloodloss, before finally killing him and then butchering the arms and torso. In this way a single prisoner could provide fresh meat for the garrison over a 3 day period. Yep. Gruesome in the extreme. At least that's what I have read. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Tango01 | 02 Jan 2020 3:50 p.m. PST |
Many thanks!. Amicalement Armand |
4th Cuirassier | 14 Jan 2020 6:53 a.m. PST |
The battle of Wake Island was the one at which Butch Coolidge's grandfather hid his gold watch up his a55, was it not? |
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