War Stories II (82 page)

CORPORAL MEL HECKT
landed in San Francisco on 3 August 1945, completing exactly twenty months of continuous combat in the Pacific. After a few days of celebration, he headed for his hometown in Iowa, getting there in time to celebrate V-J Day and the end of World War II.

COLONEL FRANK SACKTON
, after helping MacArthur with the occupation, returned to Washington after the war, serving as deputy director for national security affairs for the Secretary of Defense, then as deputy director of planning for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and deputy chief for military operations, U.S. Army. After an illustrious military career, he turned to higher education. Today he is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University and said, “I'd like to be remembered as a man who remained in the workforce until I was ninety.” Still active at ASU, Sackton turned ninety-two this year.

 

ENSIGN DONALD (“MAC”) SHOWERS
decided that after World War II he would make a career in the U.S. Navy. He retired as a rear admiral and in 2002 returned to Midway atoll to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of that pivotal battle.

 

ENSIGN WILLIAM (BILL) TANNER
was reassigned to the European theater after he took part in the hunt for midget subs at Pearl Harbor. On 1 August 1943 his plane was attacked by a group of eight German Luftwaffe in air combat and Tanner was shot down with two of his crew. All survived.

Chinese and Japanese troops skirmish in Peking (Beijing). Japan bombs three Chinese cities and “terror bombs” Shanghai in August.

A U.S. gunboat and three other ships evacuating Chinese citizens of Nanking are attacked by Japanese planes. A U.S. sailor on the
Panay
, Charles Ensminger, becomes the first American to die in the Pacific War.

Over the next six weeks 300,000 civilians are brutally killed, mostly elderly, women, and children. The event is captured on newsreels and is dubbed “the rape of Nanking.”

 

The Japanese subdue the eastern third of the nation.

The U.S. War Plan (Plan Orange) transfers part of the American fleet to the Pacific, and uses the 1933 “Trading with the Enemy Act” to develop a plan to freeze Japanese assets in the event of war.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler proclaims his unilateral support for Japan in its war for Asia.

They claim their military aggression is to “free Asia from colonial rule and communism.” Public opinion in the U.S. opposes Japanese aggression and is determined not to permit the kind of appeasement that America had condoned in its dealings with Germany. The U.S. indicates that its citizens will not permit Japan's war efforts to continue unchecked.

This bill is passed, authorizing $1 billion for building a “two ocean” U.S. Navy of sixty-nine new ships and 3,000 airplanes.

The U.S. takes steps to protect its possessions in the Pacific (Midway, Wake, and Guam Islands) by constructing strong defenses. Earlier, U.S. politician William Borak decried the expense of such efforts as “decoration of a useless sand dune.”

Enrico Fermi receives the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics for identifying new elements and discovering nuclear reactions by his method of nuclear irradiation and bombardment. It is one of the precursors to creating the atom bomb.

U.S. retired Army Air Corps general Claire Lee Chennault begins a “secret” air war in China using funds covertly approved by President Roosevelt. He recruits and organizes volunteer pilots, calling his air force the “Flying Tigers.” He uses American P-40 fighters, which perform better in dogfights with the Japanese Zero.

The U.S. Congress introduces a resolution to cut off trade with Japan.

Continuing their run across northern Europe, the Germans storm into Denmark and Norway. They will also take Belgium and Holland, and march into Paris in May.

The Pacific Fleet makes Hawaii its base instead of San Diego, California.

British and other Allied troops send thousands of ships to evacuate the retreating army at Dunkirk, and 350,000 are rescued from the Nazis, although the next day 40,000 are captured by the Germans.

Great Britain continues its policy of Japanese appeasement and Churchill agrees to a Japanese demand to close the Burma Road, a key China army supply route. Churchill acquiesces in order to avoid war with Japan.

German submarines extend their range ever closer to the United States and Canada in their attempt to blockade British shipping.

Winston Churchill becomes the new prime minister after Chamberlain resigned on 10 May. Germans attack British shipping and their
Luftwaffe
begins bombing raids that will later come to be called the “Blitz” by Britons.

Part of the Hong Kong territory is seized by the Japanese and they blockade the British colony. The governor general of Hong Kong issues an evacuation order for women and children to be moved to the Philippines.

The Nazis are committed to invading Great Britain and extinguishing the opposition to German conquest. The plan, Operation Sea Lion, is unveiled on the third, and the “Blitz” begins on the seventh. In October Hitler decides to postpone Operation Sea Lion until spring 1941.

Military conscription starts in the U.S.

French Indochina (present-day Vietnam) is taken by Japanese troops crossing the border. The Axis-controlled French Vichy government accedes to their action.

The Japanese seek a way to improve the security of their signals. Their solution to the security problem is radical: They decide to abandon using codebooks and began instead to encrypt their most confidential and secret messages on a machine. Ironically, this decision eventually enables the U.S. to read Japanese diplomatic messages with great ease once the Americans break their new code.

Japan, Germany, and Italy announce the Tripartite Pact and become known as the Axis Powers.

China's leader, Chiang Kai-shek, gets a $100 million loan from President Roosevelt to purchase fifty more war planes for Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers.

British and Australian troops capture Bardia, take 48,000 German prisoners, then take Tobruk and another 25,000 Germans.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto outlines his war plans, and suggests that an air attack of Pearl Harbor and other American bases, along with raids against British colonies and bases in the Pacific, will convince the Americans and British to abandon their interests in the Pacific and concentrate on the war in Europe.

Ambassador Joseph Grew warns his government that the Japanese intend to attack Pearl Harbor, but U.S. naval intelligence believe that the threat is not credible.

General Erwin Rommel, Hitler's brilliant tactician for desert warfare, arrives in North Africa to oppose the British and Australians.

Eugene Dooman delivers FDR's ultimatum to Foreign Minister Ohashi in Tokyo that if Japan attacks Singapore, it would mean war with the United States.

“Magic” (the nickname for American code-breakers' ability to read Japanese signals communications) intercepts a “shopping list” for spies in Hawaii, but Pearl Harbor is not informed.

Admiral Harold Stark, chief of naval operations, orders three battleships, one carrier (
Yorktown
), and four cruisers transferred from the Pacific to the Atlantic due to emerging “Europe-first” strategy and the need to send war matériel to Britain as part of the Lend-Lease convoys.

Admiral Yamamoto creates the Japanese First Air Fleet, with four aircraft carriers and 200 carrier-based aircraft. Starting with Pearl Harbor, carrier-based aircraft will play an increasing role and ultimately end traditional ship-to-ship warfare.

The USSR and Japan sign a five-year neutrality pact, allowing the Soviet Union to concentrate on imminent war with the Nazis.

Hitler breaks his neutrality pact with the Soviets and declares war. Nazis invade Russia and destroy Stalin's air force.

William Donovan is named as the “coordinator of information” for President Roosevelt. This service is the forerunner of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a U.S. government agency, which in World War II eventually evolves into the CIA.

President Roosevelt appoints General MacArthur as commander of the Philippine Islands; he officially commits Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers as the “Chinese Air Force” using 100 pilots of the American Volunteer Group; he freezes Japanese assets in the U.S.; and he offers Japan a proposal for a neutral Indochina.

Hitler issues an order for a “final solution” to deal with “Jews, gypsies, communists, and homosexuals” but which is primarily aimed at eliminating the Jewish race. A little more than a month later, the gas chambers at Auschwitz are used for the first time.

President Roosevelt closes the Panama Canal to all Japanese shipping.

The U.S. Navy is given orders to “shoot on sight” any U-Boats close to U.S. coasts or ships.

Picked up this day, but not translated until 9 October, the message reveals ship berths, location of torpedo nets, and the harbor layout for an air attack on Pearl Harbor—but the warning is ignored by Washington.

Extremist Japanese army commander Hideki Tojo takes over as prime minister when former prime minister Fumimaro Konoye is dumped. Described as a dictator, Tojo becomes principal director of Japanese war operations.