Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 121

American “Liberty Ships”

 

Liberty ship construction; Wikimedia Commons

2,710 American cargo ships, popularly named liberty ships were built from 1941-1945. Of simple pre-fabricated design, relatively inexpensive and rapidly-produced, they became a symbol of American wartime industrial output.

To counteract initial public disdain regarding the ships’ quality,  President Roosevelt referred to Patrick Henry‘s famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech of  1775 at the launching of the SS Patrick Henry in September 1941.

While the first ships took 230 days to build,  the average eventually dropped to 42 days.  In 1943, three Liberty ships were completed daily. The record was set by the SS Robert E. Peary which was launched 4 days and 15½ hours after the keel was laid.

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December 7, 1941 – Day of Infamy

via Real Clear History

 

This film produced shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor probably reflects the bellicose, revengeful attitude of most Americans after Imperial Japan’s surprise attack.

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR! – The powerful emotion evoked served to unite many Americans who had been previously divided over any participation in another global war.

It is likely that the Japanese underestimated this potential response when they planned a strike to cripple the American Pacific fleet and hoped that the USA would agree to a peace proposal that allowed them to keep their newly-acquired territories.

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Breaking the Enigma Code

 

Enigma machine 1943; Wikimedia Commons

The operator of the German Enigma machine  (invented by a Dutchman in 1919 and adapted by Germany for military use) typed a message that was scrambled by three to five rotors that displayed different letters of the alphabet. With exact knowledge of the transmitter’s rotor settings, the receiver could reconstitute the original text. Throughout the war, the Enigma machine became more complicated, as Germans introduced various quirks and new electronic circuits.

Germany considered the continually changing code produced by the typewriter-like Enigma machine to be virtually unbreakable. But, unbeknownst to Germany, British cryptologists at Bletchley Park first broke the code during the German invasion of Poland in 1939.  In July 1941 the Enigma code used in ground-to-air operations on the Eastern front was also deciphered and the messages were shared with Russia.

In 1941, U-boat  attacks on ship convoys in the North Atlantic posed the greatest threat to the Allied war effort. On December 8, 1941 the more complex Enigma code used by the German Abwehr (secret service) was successfully broken allowing the interception of messages pertaining to the control and  location of submarines in the Atlantic, information about bombing raids, troop movements, and the location of military supply ships.

In February 1942 Germany introduced a new fourth wheel into their Naval Enigma machine. During the year it took Bletchley Park to break the new code, Allied losses in the Atlantic sharply increased. It was not until until August  1943 that German Naval Enigma was reliably decoded again.

 

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Japanese WWII Mega Submarine Found Off Hawaii

 

The IJN イ-400 submarine was found off the southwest coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu in August 2013 at a depth of 700 m (2,300 ft).

It was one of four huge Imperial Japanese Navy submarine aircraft carriers (the largest built in WWII) that were captured at the end of the war and sailed to Hawaii.

After U.S. inspection, they were scuttled in deep water to prevent examination by the USSR.

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Chatanooga Choo Choo #1 Song – December 1941

Glenn Miller‘s big-band/swing song Chattanooga Choo Choo was the #1 American hit in December 1941. The 78-rpm recording of the song on RCA Victor’s Bluebird label became the first certified gold disc on February 10, 1942 with for sales of 1,200,000.

In December 1944, traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France in bad weather, Glenn Miller’s airplane disappeared over the English Channel.

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Hong Kong Falls – Christmas 1941

 

Surrender of Hong Kong; Wikimedia Commons

 

On Christmas Day 1941 (“Black Christmas”) the Governor General of Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese.

In the 18-day battle, the British suffered 11,848 casualties and Japan suffered 2,754.

Following the surrender, Imperial Japanese troops committed many atrocities against both men and women including bayonetting patients in hospital beds, forcing victims to dig their own graves before being murdered and rape.

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Imperial Japanese Soldiers’ Remains Cremated on Biak Island

Asahi Shimbun November 2013

After their remains were recently uncovered on Biak Island, Indonesia, a cremation ceremony was held for nearly 300 Imperial Japanese Army troops who died there in ferocious fighting during the Pacific War. The cremated remains will be brought back to Japan and interred at Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.

My late father-in-law Jim Evans fought with the 41st Infantry Sunset Division in the 1944 battle of Biak Island.

The battle is fictionalized in my book Enemy in the Mirror: Love and Fury in the Pacific War.

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Wake Island Lost – Dec. 23, 1941

Wake is Lost – NY Times Dec. 23, 1941

 

In the 15-day siege of Wake Island, U.S. losses included: 47 Marines killed with two MIA , three  U.S. Navy personnel and at least ten U.S. civilians killed, ten Chamorro civilians killed, and twelve civilians wounded. Japanese losses were estimated  700 –  900 killed with at least 300 more wounded. Two Japanese destroyers at least 28 land-based and carrier aircraft were shot down or damaged during two attacks on the island. The Japanese captured all men remaining on the island most of whom were civilian contractors.

Rather than assault the island, the U.S. Navy established a submarine blockade and bombed the island periodically until the end of the war in 1945.

In October 1943, U.S. naval aircraft from Yorktown raided Wake. Two days later, fearing an imminent invasion, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98 captured American civilian forced laborers remaining on the island. One of the prisoners escaped the massacre and carved: 98 US PW 5-10-43 on a large coral rock near where the victims had been hastily buried in a mass grave. The unknown American was recaptured and beheaded.

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Jäger Report – December 1941

Execution of 56 Polish citizens; Wikimedia Commons

In December 1941  Karl Jäger,  SS-Standartenführer of  Einsatzkommando 3, chronicled a Nazi killing unit’s activities from July to November 1941.  The Jäger Report  meticulously documents the murder of 137,346 people. The vast majority were Jews, but communists, criminals, gypsies and others deemed undesirable were included in over 100 executions in 71 different locations.

 

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Japan Rules the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea – December 1941

 

On December 10, 1941,  with the loss of Guam, the Philippine Islands  and sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill exclaimed  ”We have lost control of the sea.”

Imperial Japan now ruled the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea.

 

 

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