Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 99

American Marine Diary 1944

Eugene Sledge

Here are excerpts from the American Marine Eugene Sledge’s diary ( published as With the Old Breed) when Sledge was at the battle of Pelieu in 1944.

Although Sledge wrote a year later at Pelieu, it’s not hard to imagine that this is was what the Japanese soldier Toshihiro Oura (in our last blog post) was facing in New Georgia.

It was hard to sleep that night [before the invasion.] I thought of home, my parents, my friends — and whether I would do my duty, be wounded and disabled, or be killed. I concluded that it was impossible for me to be killed, because God loved me. Then I told myself that God loved us all and that many would die or be ruined physically or mentally or both by the next morning and in the days following. My heart pounded, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Finally, I called myself a damned coward and eventually fell asleep saying the Lord’s prayer to myself.

The world was a nightmare of flashes, violent explosions, snapping bullets. Most of what I saw blurred. My mind was benumbed by the shock of it… Up and down the beach and on the reef, a number of amtracs and DUKWs were burning, Japanese machine gun bursts made long splashes on the water as though flaying it with some giant whip….

Even before the dust had settled I saw a Japanese soldier appear at the blasted opening. He was grim determination personified as he drew back his arm to throw a grenade at us. My carbine was already up. When he appeared, I lined up my sights on his chest and began squeezing off shots. As the first bullet hit him, his face contorted in agony. His knees buckled. The grenade slipped from his grasp. All the men near me…began firing. The soldier collapsed in the fusillade and the grenade went off at his feet…

I had just killed a man at close range. That I had seen clearly the pain on his face when my bullets hit him came as a jolt. It suddenly made the war a very personal affair. The expression on that man’s face filled me with shame and disgust for the war and all the misery it was causing.

 

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Japanese Soldier Diary 1943

Japanese soldiers on New Georgia; Wikimedia Commons

Although prohibited by the U.S. military in WWII, a few servicemen kept secret personal journals – of particular note: U.S. Marine Eugene B. Sledge, author of With the Old Breed, and U.S, Navy sailor James J. Fahey, author of Pacific War Diary, 1942–1945,

The Imperial Japanese military apparently had no such restrictions. Allied forces advancing across the Pacific found many Japanese diaries, which often provided rich intelligence. Here are excerpts from Toshihiro Oura, who was stationed on New Georgia island during the American advance.

 

June 29, 1943 : I wonder if they will come today. Last night it drizzled and there was a breeze, making me feel rather uncomfortable. When I awoke at 4 this morning, rain clouds filled the sky but there was still a breeze. The swell of the sea was higher than usual. However, the clouds seem to be breaking.

I have become used to combat, and I have no fear. In yesterday’s raid our air force suffered no losses, while nine enemy planes were confirmed as having been shot down and three others doubtful. Battle gains are positively in favor of our victory, and our belief in our invincibility is at last high.

Some doughnuts were brought to the officers’ room from the Field Defense HQ… They were awfully small ones, but I think each one of us had 20 or so. Whether they were actually tasty or not didn’t make much difference because of our craving for sweets. Each one was a treasure in itself. While eating the doughnuts, I lay down in the sand, and I pulled out the handbook my father had bought for me and which was now all in pieces from a bomb fragment. As I looked at the map of my homeland, which was dear to me, I thought I would like to go to a hot spring with my parents when I get home…

July 23: …Where have our air forces and battleships gone? Are we to lose? Why don’t they start operations? We are positively fighting to win, but we have no weapons. We stand with rifles and bayonets to meet the enemy’s aircraft, battleships, and medium artillery. To be told we must win is absolutely beyond reason… In the rear, they think that it is all for the benefit of our country. In short, as present conditions are, it is a defeat. However, a Japanese officer will always believe, until the very last, that there will be movements of our air and naval forces. There are signs that I am contracting malaria again.

This was Oura’s last entry. His fate is unknown, but it is unlikely he survived.

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Eastern Front – German Soldier

For the ordinary German soldier, the horrific war on the Eastern Front was unlike its more “civilized” counterpart in the Western campaign. The seeds of anti-semitism, long present among “Aryan” Germans, were germinated and vastly amplified by Nazi propaganda, laws and ultimately direct battlefield orders such as this “Watch-word for the day” issued on November 21, 1941:

German soldier, always consider where Jews still live… Jewish civilians and partisans do not belong in prisoner of war camps, they are to be shot…For Bolshevik subhumans, there is no mercy, not for women and children either.

When (regular army) Wehrmacht troops were ordered to assist the murderous Einsatzgruppen death squads that followed on the heels of their battlefield advances, the scattered protests by Wehrmacht commanders who feared damage to troop morale by unbridled carnage were ignored and the officers disciplined. Hitler himself rebuked one such protest, commenting “…one cannot win a war with Salvation Army tactics.”

On the Eastern Front, German soldiers were exhorted to exterminate the barbaric people (inspired by demonic Jewish-Bolshevik forces) who threatened the very existence of the Fatherland.

What was the response of the average German soldier when ordered to kill civilians, including women and children ? In retrospect, it seems mixed:

A German soldier’s letter 1943

German soldier’s guilt-filled diaries

An SS officer’s diary

A German soldier’s view of the Russians

Although German news reports never mentioned these atrocities, and the general public was somewhat in the dark initially, increasing letters and photographs sent home from the Eastern Front made it unlikely that most German civilians were completely ignorant of the genocide being carried out by their sons far from home. 

With exhortations from their commanders, it appears that many German soldiers on the Eastern Front began acting on their own initiative, killing Jews and shooting Russian prisoners.

However, after perusing examples of their diaries and letters home, my impression is that the average German soldier on the Eastern Front was initially shocked, but soon became inured to much of the atrocity. A common attitude may have been: given the serious threat by these barbarians, it was unfortunately necessary to exterminate them. To protest was not only futile, but dangerous – the prospect of a noble death in battle was better than court-martial or execution. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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U.S. Submarines – Pacific WWII

Although the U. S. Navy had 68 submarines in the Pacific at the start of the Pacific War, they sank only 93,300 tons of Japanese shipping. This was < 10% of what 100 operational German U-boats sank in the same period.

Initially, U.S. submarine operations were hindered by the loss of bases in the Philippines and a doctrine that concentrated on  heavy enemy warships rather than merchant ships.

In 1943, smaller U.S. submarine were gradually replaced by the larger Gato, Balao, and Tench classes.  Additionally, SJ surface search radar installation further enhanced U.S. submarine effectiveness. SJ radar provided information regarding direction, distance, surface contacts and low-flying aircraft.

Because the Japanese navy failed to organize transports and cargo vessels into convoys, Japan’s merchant shipping losses totaled 1,668,000 tons in 1943 (1.34 million by U.S. submarines).

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Bombing of Rome – 1943

Bombing Rome, the “Eternal City” and capitol of Catholicism, was a controversial WWII act for many Americans. Although both Allied and Axis bombers made an effort to avoid attacking the Vatican, Vatican City was bombed once by the British and once by the Germans.

In July 1943, despite Pope Pius XII plea to have Rome declared an open city, 500 American bombers dropped 1,168 tons of bombs in the first air raid on the city. With few military targets, ~3,000 Italian civilians were killed in the raids over five residential/railway districts. In 110,000 subsequent sorties over Rome, 600 Allied aircraft were lost and 3,600 air crew members died.

From 1940-45, ~60,00 Italian civilians died in Allied air raids.

 

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Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair

Adolf Hitler spent over half of  WWII (~800 days) in Der Wolfsschanze (wolf’s lair), his bunker in Ketrzyn, Poland (East Prussia).

 

Hitler’s nickname Wolf was used in titles of  Nazi headquarters throughout occupied Europe – e.g.  Wolfsschlucht I and II in Belgium and Werwolf in Ukraine. Although often translated in English as “lair,”  Schanze in German alludes to a “sconce” or “redoubt.”

Within >80 buildings (including massive bunkers for Hitler and high-ranking German Officials like Hermann Göring and Martin Bormann) many decisions such as the construction of death camps and the fate of European nations were made in the Wolfsschanze.

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U.S. Retakes Attu – May 1943

In June 1942, Japan seized Attu and its neighbor Kiska, establishing garrisons on these remote U.S.-controlled Aleutian Islands. Barren, and mountainous with extreme weather, the islands may have been taken to divert U.S. forces away from the planned attack on Midway Island in the central Pacific. A toehold on these islands also prevented a possible U.S. force buildup closer to mainland Japan. 

The Battle of Attu from 11–30 May 1943 was the only WWII land battle fought on incorporated U.S. territory. The battle ended with the death of most Japanese defenders in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines.

BANZAI CHARGE ON ATTU  – from History.com

Before dawn on May 29, 1943, Yamasaki and his remaining troops charged the American position in one of the largest banzai charges (an all-out, often desperate attack) of the Pacific War. Their sudden frontal assault on the Americans cut through U.S. combat posts and penetrated all the way to surprised support troops in the rear of the American camp. Brutal hand-to-hand combat followed until Yamasaki and his men were finally routed by overwhelming firepower. Most of the Japanese who were not killed in the ferocious charge committed suicide, in many cases by detonating hand grenades near their stomachs. Afterward, American soldiers counted more than 2,000 Japanese dead. Of the approximately 2,500 Japanese troops on Attu when the Americans landed, fewer than 30 survived to be taken prisoner. Some 1,000 U.S. troops died in the retaking of Attu.

A subsequent Allied landing on Kiska turned out to be a no show for the Japanese.  When the initial Allied invasion units reached the beaches on August 15, 1943, they found just four dogs and the corpse of a Japanese soldier. Deciding there was little value in hanging on to the Aleutians, Japan had evacuated the 5,000-man garrison three weeks earlier.

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Allies Invade Sicily – July 1943

In July 1943, the Allied amphibious and airborne Operation Husky captured the island of Sicily from German and Italian forces. With Axis forces removed from the island, sea lanes in the Mediterranean were opened for Allied merchant ships for the first time since 1941.

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Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage

In April 1940 Nazi Germany invaded Norway and, after a brief period of resistance, began an occupation that lasted until the end of the war. Norway subsequently became the most heavily fortified Axis-occupied country during the war with a ratio of one German soldier for every eight Norwegian citizens.

Civil rule by a pro-German collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling  was effectively dictated by the Reichskommissariat Norwegen (Reich Commissariat of Norway), while the Norwegian King Haakon VII and his prewar government escaped to London where they acted as a government in exile.

As depicted in this trailer for the excellent TV series The Heavy Water War, Norwegian saboteurs carried out several operations to prevent Nazi Germany from acquiring heavy water (deuterium oxide) which was needed to produce nuclear weapons.

 

 

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Batman 1943

This  1943 movie featured the first screen appearance of Batman played by Lewis Wilson. With J. Carrol Naish playing the evil Japanese agent, the film is almost laughably crude and racist.

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