All Hands Naval Bulletin - Jul 1944

8/3/2019 All Hands Naval Bulletin - Jul 1944

1/76PASS THIS COPY ALONG


2/76


3/76

!4 .!6!8> I

3636371451

rnaa in13 u u r i n w n uI AFTERYOU HAVE READ IT 1


4/76

it.3 dam-one of

smagedaircraftIcludinEIt night:rminedpear to:hers is

idea aand aI shipsed ou ra t dayand 25 dam-Nimitztorpe-notherito thempt inr fast-closed

1 ~~


5/76


6/76

. ,Yb+.c,,l,rI= & ' y ' YJ W l Y Wer engines of 2,200n t s the size of thene and a half t im e sr ,

1whihad


7/76


8/76

PHIBS HIT FRANCE- 4,000 Ships, Thousands of Smaller CraftLandAlliedTroops on Coastof Normandy

Transported by a record amphibiousarmada and under cover of the great-est sea and air bombardment in thehistory of warfare, thousands ofAmerican, British and Canadiansoldiers swarmed ashore 6 June onthe coast of Normandy. The Nazisimpregnable Atlantic Wall wasbreachea.Two weeks later the beachhead hadbeen consolidated and Allied troopshad famed out inland on a 116-milefront-some of them already 23 milesinside Hitlers European Fortress.Cherbourg peninsula was cut off and25,000 German troops on the lowertip were faced with death o r capture.Already the Allies had taken morethan 15,000 prisoners, some of themmere boys of 14.

All this was not accomplished with-out some very tough fighting. Thebattle to cut off Cherbourg peninsulawas sa\age . And around Caen, espe-cially, the Germans were still puttingup a stout resistance. British forceshad cut two of its five railroads andfour of its eight highways, but theGermans still held the town.In many towns i t was block-by-blockfighting, with snipers operating frombehind thick masonry walls. Opposinggunfire and German demolitions leftsome towns mere patches of blackenedrubble. At Montebourg, Americans ofthe 4th Division fought man-to-manand house-to-house before they evictedthe Germans. At all points the Naziswere making the most of natural orman-made strongpoints.

U. S. Army casualties during thefirst 10 days totaled 3,283 dead and12,600 wounded, it was announced byLt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, commanderof U. S. ground forces, who pro-nounced the beachhead absolutelysecure. Casualties on the cent ralbeachhead were higher than antici-pated, he said, bu t losses on the Cher-bourg peninsula were lighter thanexpectea.An Allied fleet of 4,000 ships andseveral thousand smaller landing crafttransported the invasion a rm y to thebeaches, where warships stood offshore and pounded German coastaldefenses with 640 naval guns beforethe doughboys scrambled ashore. Itwas the Allied navys responsibilityt o get the troops across the Channel


9/76


10/76

Rear Admiral Alan G . Kirlc, USN,commander of the U . S. Naval As-sault Forces, issued the followingstatement to his command on the eveo f the invasion:We of the Western Naval TaskForce are going t o land the Ameri-can Army in France. From battle-ships t o landing craft, ours is in themain, a n American force. Beside uswill be a mainly British force, land-ing the British and Canadian troops.Overhead will fly the Allied Expedi-tionary Air Force. We all have thesame mission-to smash ou r way on-t o the beaches and through thecoastal defenses, into the heart ofthe enemys fortress.In two ways the coming battle dif-fers from any that we have under-taken before: It demands moreseamanship and more fighting. Wemust operate in the waters of theEnglish Channel and the Frenchcoast, in strong currents and 20-foottides. We must destroy an enemy de-fensive system which has been fouryears in the making, and our mis-sion is one against which the enemywill throw his whole remainingstrength.These are not beaches held by anapathetic enemy o r defended byhas ty fortifications. These are pre-

WeAre Getting Into u Fkbtpared positions held by Germans,who have learned from their pastfailures. They have coastal batteries2nd minefields; they have bombersand E-boats and submarines. Theyvi11 t ry to use them all. We are get-ting into a fight.But it is not we who have to fearthe ontcome. As the German haslearned from failure, we havelearned from success. To thi s batt lewe bring our tested methods, withmany new weapons and overwhelm-h g strength. Tides and currentspresents a challenge which, fore-T:-arned, we know how to meet. It isthe enemy who is afraid.In th is force there are battleships,cruisers and destroyers. There arehundreds of landing ships and craft,scores of patrol and escort vessels,dozens of special assault craft.Every man in every ship has his job.And these tens of thousands of men2nd jobs add up to one task only-t o land and support and supply andreinforce the finest army ever sentt o battle by the U. S.In that task we shall not fail. Iawait with confidence the furtherproof, in this, the greatest battle ofthem all, that American sailors andreamen and fighting men are secondto ncne.

Japs sank at Pearl Harbor, opened of the enemys heavy batteries com-up with her ten 14-inchers. She and manding the westernmost landingthe British monitor Erebus, with he r beach.two 15-inch guns, dueled with some Here were the three oldest battle-

ships OS the United States Fleet,pounding out a heroic part in a battlethat could hardly have been conceivedof when they were built.Cruisers stood close inshore and sentG- o r S-inch shells screaming towardtye beach. Among these were the ussAugusta, the uss Tuscaloosa and thenew uss Quincy, tasting battle for t hefirst time.Destroyers moved in almost as closeas the depth of water would permit2nd poured out a hail of fire fromthe ir 5-inchers. The shelling was sointense that a British destroyer, theIIMS Tanatside, had exhausted all herammunition by 0800. It was estimatedthat 2,000 tons of shells were fired bysupporting warships in the first 10 to20 minutes of the attack.

A number of British warships werein the Western Task Force, includingthe famed battleship HM S Warspiter.nd the new British cruiser, HMSBlack Prime.As the invasion armada approachedthe coast of Normandy, three Germandestroyers stuck their noses out of theBay of Biscay with a fleet of mine-sweepers riding ahead, but this didnot divert even one ship from theAllied force. Instead, word was flashedto the KAF Coastal Command and ina few minutes rocket-firing Beau-fighters with a Mosquito escort wereout to handle the situation. Beforelong rockets were seen crashing intohulls and through superstructures. All

WESTERN EUROPEANINVASION COMMAND

II I I


11/76


12/76


13/76


14/76


15/76

ri

a]n

146-43.I'age 13


16/76


17/76

duction in the Navys shore personnel.Our Navy still is expanding at an un-believable rate. Stati stics tell thestory: Three weeks after Pearl Har-bor, on Jan. 1, 1942 we had 913 shipsin commission. Two years later, theNavy had 4167. During 1944 we ar elaunching 12 new ships a day-oneevery two hours. A total of 4,000hard-hitting sea-going vessels will beadded to the fleet this year. Officersand crews are needed to man theseships and more personnel are neededashore to supply and repair these ad-ditions to the fleet. By the end of thisyear, the Navys officer and enlistedpersonnel alone will exceed 3,000,000.The Coast Guard and Marine Corpstogether will add almost three quar-ters of a million to that figure.In this expanding Navy, the shoreestablishments play a vital role.Whenever a Navy task force strikesat a Jap outpost in the Pacific, when-ever the Navy safely convoys men

and material to the fighting fronts,engages an enemy force or providescover for a landing party-the suc-cess of the operation is bolstered byth e efficiency of those who build, re-pai r and supply the fighting ships andof those who select, train and assignthe fighting men. It is with the per-sonnel of the shore establishmentsthat the Manpower Board particu-larly is concerned.At the midpoint in our work wewere surveying the activities of 677,-242 civilians, 100,601 officers and507,424 enlisted personnel in thiscountry, Puerto Rico, Panama, andHawaii, by means of an efficient fieldorganization built up almost over-night. To speed up the survey, dis-trict navy manpower survey commit-tees were set up in each of 15 navaldistricts, These committees, in turn,had t he responsibility of choosing sub-committees to study many individualactivities. The members of thesegroups were naval officers, Civil Ser-vice officials and civilians drawn frombusiness, industry and the professions.All civilian members serve without

Members of the survey groups wereassigned to make physical inspectionsof activities in which they had hadcomparable experience. A minimumuse was made of questionnaires andstatistics; red tape and all unneces-sary time-consuming procedures wereeliminated. General over-all surveyswere substituted for detailed manage-ment surveys on the theory tha t short-time reviews which were 80% effec-tive in accomplishing our purposewould have more practical value thancomprehensive studies which took twoyears o r more to complete. In theconduct of the surveys, labor has beenmost understanding and co-operative.We have had helpful assistance fromthe American Federation of Labor,the Congress of Industrial Organiza-tions and the National Federation ofFederal Employes.

pay.

I

In asking civilians to help, the Navyhas opened the door for landlubbersto aid in the war crisis and thesecivilians, in the judgment of top-flightNavy men, are turning in a good job.One high ranking Navy officer, forinstance, has written: Had I the j o bto do over again, I would press intoservice twice as many civilians. Thei robservations and assistance have beenof inestimable value. We have 25working with us-industrialists, busi-ness and professional men. They havetaken the matter very seriously andthe Navy here will benefit in moreways than one from their participa-tion. I presume I, as well as manyothers, was of the opinion a t the out-set that they would not take off theircoats nor would they, as amateurs(presumably) be able t o help us. Butthey have done so with a vengeanceand have frequently pointed out t ous practices which were not of thebest and indicated what corrective ac-tion should be taken. Whenever thedistrict committee has not concurredwith the recommendation of thegroup, which has happened but in-frequently, they were ready to go tobat to substantiate their conclusion,whether it was for a reduction o r foran increase. Another naval officer,after praising the work of the ci-vilians, commented, They were nothard-boiled enough. This was, in asense, a compliment. It wasnt ou rjob to be hard-boiled but only to getthe facts.On the other side of the picture,scores of successful industrialists, whoserved as volunteers, have expressedtheir admiration of the sincerity andhonesty with which naval personnelapproached the survey, and charac-terized the Navy officials as a finebunch of officers who attacked theproblems with thoroughness.Speaking as a civilian I should liketo state that the naval officers could

not have been more genuinely co-operative. This has been an open,candid survey. It has not been a self-inspection tour led by naval execu-tives but an honest scrutiny. I haveseen no evidence of an y attempt on thepart of naval officers to give the ci-vilians a brush-off. Fo r the las t sixmonths, officers and civilians, workingtogether, have provided a practicalexample of naval-civilian co-operationin a democratic nation. Each grouphas respected the others contribution.I hope from this experience, whichboth have enjoyed, a new ententecordiale may come into being so t h a t ,civilians and naval personnel in thefuture will be able to work togetheron mutual problems.Repor ts have been received from allparts of the country. A high per-centage of our recommendations tothe Secretary of the Navy alreadyhave been put into effect. In view ofthe changing complexion of the war,we have concluded that it is now safeto abandon some activities o r mergethem with others.Final figures will be incorporated inthe complete report of the ManpowerSurvey Board t o the Secretary of theNavy. As of May 15th, substantiallyover 85,000 officers, enlisted men andcivilians have been recommended fortransfer. Many are now at sea o r ad-vance bases, o r undergoing specialtraining for overseas duty. Surplusesfound at certain shore establishmentshave been o r are being assigned toother duties-many to areas whereshortages were discovered. It is tothe Navys great credit that under-manned stations were operating su-perbly in spite of their manpowershortage.While the immediate dividends fromthe survey come from eliminating themaldi str iht ion of personnel andbreaking up manpower bottlenecks,there ar e intangible results of definiteimportance. The survey ha s produced agreater comprehension of the need foreconomical utilization of manpower,It has re-emphasized to both officersand civilians the complex, non-repeti-tive and unpredictable character ofthe tasks which must be accomplishedby the Navy. It has set up certainstandards, which can be advantage-ously applied now and in the future.In short, many lessons learned fromthe survey will help to shorten thewar and will aid the country inmeet-ing the problems presented by post-war conditions.I have been tremendously impressedwith what I have seen in some of thetraining centers-particularly in thoseconcerned with sub-chaser and airtrain ing. Some of the educationaltechniques developed by the Navy arelikely to revolutionize the whole pro-gram of training in industry and will,no doubt, have a far-reaching effect onscientific and engineering education.Our Navy was a dominant factor in(Colztilzued olz Page 5 3)

.

I

Official U. S. Navy photographVice Admiral Adolphus An d rew

Chairman,Navy Manpower Suravey R o a dPage 15 1


18/76

650 Legal Assistance OfficersNow GivingAdvice to Naval Personnel and Dependents I

O H N SMITH, Slc, lost his wifeJ just after he entered the service.He had two small children. When hewas killed in action In the SouthwestPacific, it was discovered that Smithleft no will and had made no provi-sion for anyone to look after hisproperty o r his children. His rela-tives squabbled over the custody ofthe children and a court finallystepped in and named a guardian.This legal trouble might have beenavoided if Smith had spent a fewminutes with his legal assistance offi-cer before he left the continental lim-its and had drawn up a will.Have you drawn up a will? Do youhave an automobile registered in yourname? Who is going to get the li-cense plates or, if necessary, sell itwhile you are away? Are you afraidyour,family will be evicted from theirhome? Wha t taxes must you paywhile you a re overseas?These, and a thousand other per-sonal legal problems, a re being solvedtoday by 650 legal assistance officersat naval activities throughout theU. S. and overseas. During the firstsix months of the Navys legal assis-tance program, about 89,000 casedwere handled. News of this servicehas spread, and it is estimated that250,000 cases will be handled duringthe second six-month period.Legal assistance offices were au-thorized by then Acting SecretaryPage 16

Forrestal in a letter of 26 June 1943(N.D.B., Cum. ed., 43-1164) to allships and stations. Under its author-ity commandants and COS of navalactivities, including Marine Corps andCoast Guard, assign an officer o r en-listed man as a legal assistanceofficer. Such person mu st be a memberof the bar of a state, territory or theDistrict of Columbia.At smaller activities legal assis-tance is only a part-time job for anofficer, while larger stations sometimesha ve several officers at it full time.It is not mandatory for a CO toappoint a legal assistance officer, butin activities where such offices havebeen established, morale has notice-ably improved.The district legal officer of eachnaval district exercises general super-vision of all legal assistance officerswithin the district, while the generalorganization and direction of theseofficers comes under the jurisdictionof the Judge Advocate General, RearAdmiral Thomas L. Gatch, USN,former CO of the USS South Dakota .Comdr. Richard Bentley, USNR, ischief of legal assistance.

The function of legal assistanceofficers is to advise naval personneland their dependents with regard totheir personal legal problems. How-ever, these officers cannot appear incourt o r advise naval personnel on dis-ciplinary or official matters, o r assist

them in claims agains t th e govern-ment. When a problem arises whichinvolves court proceedings, the case isreferred to a volunteer civilian at-torney, through an arrangement es-tablished last July between the NavyDepartment and the American BarAssociation. Thus there is a minimumof encroachment upon th e functions ofthe civilian bar.

State bar war-work committees havebeen established in every state, andthey stand ready to assist servicemenwith legal advice, which usually isgratuitous. Naturally , ivilian attor-neys may charge fees when theyrepresent a serviceman in extendedcourt proceedings, or in cases wherethe services produce financial returns,but even then their fees ar e lowerthan those ordinarily charged.A large proportion of the caseshandled by naval legal assistance offi-cers deals with domestic problems. Asailor may hea r tha t his wife is step-ping out, and he wants a divorce sohe can stop he r family allowance. Per-haps a mans wife is suing him fordivorce, and he wants t o know whathe should do. Can she obtain custodyof their children?These domestic problems-especiallythose dealing with divorce-are mostdifficult f o r legal assistance officers t ohandle. Every state has its own di-vorce laws, except South Carolina,

which does not issue divorces at all.It is ve ry difficult-almost impossible-for a man overseas to obtain a di-vorce because most states require aplaintiff to be present in cou rt andhave at least one witness. Thegrounds fo r divorce, annulment or


19/76


20/76


21/76

tions Iwas bcAll .the S.I~ ...


22/76


23/76

in the Pacific in a war in which theBritish have not yet been able to par-ticipate fully. Yet there can be nodoubt that the Royal Navy is prepar-ing to throw its maximum strengthagainst Japan once Germany is de-feated. The fusion of tactical andtechnical thought-and even to someextent of routine and customs-al-ready well begun in the Atlantic-maythereby be brought to fruition in thePacific. If i t is, the two navies, forth e first time in their history, may atthe end of t his wa r speak a commontongue. In some sense an Anglo-American Navy may result.This is not to sa y that national hab-its, customs o r traditions are beingabandoned by either party or thateither navy is dominated, o r is likelyto be dominated, by the-other. Thereare too many evidences to the con-trary.Thi s baby flat-top, fo r instance,built to a standard and more or lessmass-production design, happened tobe turned over t o Britain, but, exceptfor its crew and certa in minor changesin its structure and for differences incustom and routine, you might thinkyou were aboard an American escortcarrier. The nava l planes the Britishare using are chiefly American-Grummans and Vought Corsairs. Theguns are standard U. S. equipment.But though this ship is only a fewmonths old she is already wrapped i nan atmosphere of tradition. You feelyourself caught up in the almost cas-ual and unhurried pace of history-something foreign t o the somewhat ex-uberant and youthful atmosphere ofthe American wardroom or forecastle.The difference s t a r t s in t he morningwith the boatswains wakey-wakeypiping, and is evident throughout theday. The day usually begins, on thisship, at 6:30 a. m., and the hands ar epiped to breakfast at 7. The crew isdivided into watches much as they a reon an American ship, but instead ofbeing numbered in four sections, thewatches a re known as port o r star-board, or curiously enough, as red,white and blue.The morning is for working, Withthe ratings busy about their parts ofthe ship, starting at 5 minutes past 8,and with a 10-minute stand easy forsmoking at 10:20. At 11 comes apipe unknown to th e American Navy-Up spirits, when the rum is care-fully measured out, half a gill (impe-ria l measure) fo r each man. Thechiefs and petty officers get theirsneat, or undiluted, with the noonmeal. The enlisted men have the irsmixed with two parts of water t o oneof rum. Eith er way it makes a goodstiff drink. The seamen of the oldnavy still drink their rum ceremoni-ously with a The King, God blesshim, but the hostilities men (dura-tion of the war) know little of thesecustoms.After a noon-day dinner, there are

working hours again in the afternoon,or hands may be ordered t o Makeand Mend-another survival of theold days when sailors made andmended their own clothes. O r theymay have-and usually do have, intheir rar e days in port-the afternoonfree. At 4 p. m., there is anothercall unknown to the American Navy-Hands t o Tea-and at 7 oclock, alate hour for the Yanks, supper isserved. At 9 p. m. the commander, o rexecutive officer (second in command),makes his rounds of inspection, and at1 0 oclock a t sea pipe down issounded.On this ship, because shes Ameri-can built, and on many of t he newones, the crew sleep in bunks, butordinarily the British tar still likeshis hammock and uses it. Whether hewill like it after the war is over isano ther question. The American Navyis even influencing the sleeping habitisof the merry matelot, as the Britishsailor likes t o call himself.

The British also ordinarily haveseparate messes, scattered all aroundthe ship, but again in this and otherrecent ships built in America, thecafete ria system-a quicker and moreeconomical method of serv ing meals,but one out of t une with old customs-is in use.Unlike in American ships, the of-ficers have a wine mess, and part ofthe wardroom is set aside as a sortof club room, where beer, sherry,whisky o r gin can be procured taxfree. The wine mess on this ship hasmade certain concessions to Americancustoms: It serves tomato juice if re-

quested and has a limited stock ofcola, but the drinks, in accordancewith British habit, are never iced.The canteen of this ship, like thecanteens of all large American ships,is equipped with a soda fountain, butin His Majestys Navy no soda hasyet been served, insofar as this ob-server can discover. Some of the menwould like it ; nearly all the shipscompany who have sampled Americanice cream speak highly in its praise.But natural conservatism in changingancient habits, operating difficultiesand the scarcity of milk and cream inBritain have as yet prevented the useof this typically American installa-tion. The large ships laundry, also afeature of American ships to whichthe British a re not accustomed, is usedonly to part capacity, but more famil-iarity with its operation may alterthis.The typical American institution ofthe shower bath is not s o welcome tosome of the officers who yearn for theBritish tub. Captain Utrid James, a41-year-old Welshman, who commandsthis carrier, points with pride to thelittle tin tub he has had constructedbeneath his shower, where he can geta proper bath.The bridge has been altered to con-form to the British liking for an openbridge, and other minor changes havebeen effected about the ship. But itis still American in concept, thoughBritish in atmosphere.The Royal Navy is still true to itsancient traditions and to many of itsold customs, but there is no doubt thatit is changing in the midst of change.

British Official PhotographsIa U, ,- built escort carrier British serimelz get meals cafeteria style.Page 21


24/76

This article is the text of Wa r Departmemt pamphlet N o . 21-6,published for the guidance of Army persommel aboard Army trams-TROQPSHIP! ports . I t i s reprilzied here as a matter of imformatiom.The basic rules contained herein,governing procedure aboard Armytransports, are the result of practicalexperience gained during the conductof this war and collective study byvarious authorities on the subject.They have the primary purpose of ac-quainting you with the fundamentalessentials necessary to make your sta yaboard a transport vessel pleasantand secure and provide for yoursafety in case of attack by the enemy.Your compliance with these rules willinsure that no difficulty will be en-countered in obtaining this objective.These rules are only general in scope;you will be given more detailed in-structions by the transport comman-der after you have been assigned t o

your quarters.Your s a f e p a s s a ge m a y d e p e n d u p o nyou r observance of these regulat ionsgoverning conduct aboard ship!Safety of Ship1. Smoke only at the designatedtime or place, but never on deck atnight. No smoking in troop quartersat any time.2. Throw nothing overboard. Ref-use leaves a trail for submarines. Alighted cigarette may blow back onboard and start a fire.3. Blackout regulations are vitallyimportant for the safety of the shipand will be rigidly enforced duringblackout period.4. On all deck areas, personnel willkeep back from the rails and maintainpassageway for gun and ships crewsduring drills and alerts.5. Do not tamper with the shipslights, ventilators, fire-fighting equip-ment, fire doors, alarm system norelectrical system. Do not remove o rtamper with shower heads. Clothingo r other equipment must not be hungon these units.6. Until the ship is at sea, andwhile in view of populated areas,troops not on duty will remain neartheir bunks and under no circum-stances will they go on deck.

Safety of Troops7. Do not sit o r lean on rails ofship. If you fall overboard, this shipwill not stop to pick you up.8. Fresh water is very preciousaboard ship and the supply is limited.It must not be wasted.9. Learn your abandon-ship stationand the quickest way to reach it.10. Do not stand o r sit under atropical sun without head covering,even though the sky is overcast. Al-ways wear a shirt.11. Do not get into lifeboats u&ilPage 22

ordered to do so by competent author-ity. Do not pu t anything in lifeboats.12. Memorize all signals and actpromptly when you hear them. Yoursafety depends on quick action.Sanitation Rules

13. Newspapers, magazines, ciga-rettes, cotton waste, matches, etc.,WILL NOT be thrown down stools,wash basins or urinals.14. Do not throw anything in theurinals, latrines o r showers. .15. Do not throw anything on deck,but place in the receptacles provided.16. Keep 1 your table and areaaround you in the troop mess clean.17. No food of an y kind will betaken into sleeping quarters nor intounauthorized areas.18. Keep clean, shave and bathe asoften as permitted.19. Keep your area policed at alltimes.20. Keep your quarters, mess hall,all decks and latrines policed at al ltimes. The ship is your home at sea,so keep it clean.Ge ne ral Rules

21. Gambling and intoxicating22. Keep off the bridgeout of crews quarters,

liquors are not permitted OR ship.

crews latrines,engine room,radio room,gun emplacements,store room anda r e a s restricted tounless directed to the contrary by su-perior authority.Do not.wear your shoes whenlying in your bunk. You may sleep inyour clothes without shoes.24. Obey orders and instructionsgiven you. They are for your safety,your health and well-being. Theymust be strictly obeyed.25. Study bulletin boards daily.

troops,

23.

ties for an emergency, but you mustknow when, how, and under whosedirections to make use of them. Incase of a n emergency a t sea, yoursafety will depend to a great extenton YOU.Should you have to abandon ship,the fact that you know certain thingsabout the vessel on which you aretraveling, and are prepared to act inaccordance with instructions whichwill be given you, will go f a r t o insureyour safety.DRES S W A R M L Y AT ALLSERVER AND A FULL CANTEENO F WATER WITH YOU DAY ANDNIGHT.I n ca se of an e m e rge nc y :If orders should be given to aban-don ship-remove your helmet. Yourhelmet may be useful later at sea, socarry it, if convenient, when abandon-ing ship. Be sure you have yourLIFE PRESERVER on and that it isproperly adjusted. Do not carry yourbarracks or duffle bag. Use ladders,

nets and ropes when leaving the ship.DONT JUMP OVERBOARD un-less absolutely necessary. If it be-comes necessary to jump overboard,jump feet first. Clinch your life pre-server to your body with your arms.Pu t your hands under your chin, hold-ing the preserver down to lessen theshock when you hi t the water. Thenswim away from the ship as rapidlyas possible.After the lifeboat enters the water,do your part to keep the boat in bal-ance. Keep your feet on the bottomof a lifeboat. If there is room, getinside of life raft, but if raft isfully occupied, then hang on to life-raft lines. Lines should, if possible,be passed from lifeboats to life rafts,and boats and rafts should be kept to-gether. DONT R O C K T H EBOAT-leave the crew free t o per-form its duties. It is important toget a lifeboat o r a life raf t away fromthe ships side. It may be necessary

TIMES. KE EP YOUR LI FE PRE-

for you to help the crew in doing this,either by rowing or in some otherway. Whatever you are required todo, follow the instructions of the per-son in charge of your boat or raft.The courage and confidence of t he oc-cupants of a lifeboat or ra ft must bemaintained a t all times. D~ your

Abandon Ship!G e nsra l ru l e s :The master is in command of theship. He and his officers have spentYears at 8% are licensed to Serve intheir present rank, and must be givenclose cooperation during an emer-gency. In the event of an emergency share.keep your head. KEE P QUIET ANDOBEY ORDERS. Safety Precautions Explained:It Probably Will never be necessaryfo r YOU to abandon ship. Neverthe-less, when You board a transport, YOUenter a combat area and the possibil-ity of an attack always exists. The

Ships are equipped with watertightcompartments which usually keepthem afloat for hours a fte r torpedoing.Torpedoed ships often do not sink atship is provided with adequate facili- (Comtimued om Page 51)

.. _-., -, II . . .. . . Id .


25/76


26/76

Legislative Matters of Naval InterestPlans for PeacetimeNavy Being Drafted

Legislation to provide for the tran-sition to the peacetime Navy is nowbeing worked out along broad lines,and it is anticipated that such legisla-tion will include an opportunity for alarge number of reserve officers andenlisted personnel t o enter the regularNavy, and temporary officers t o begiven permanent rank.At present there a re no details thatcan be announced. However, navalpersonnel will be advised as rapidlyas plans become definite enough, andthe procedure and requirements foraccomplishing transfer to the regularNavy will be published in the INFOR-MATION BULLETIN s soon as the leg-islation has been enacted and SecNavsets forth necessary rules and regu-lations t o accompany it.Veterams Aid BroadenedBy G.Z. Bill of RightsThe G. I. Bill of Rights, carryinga wide range of governmental benefitsto veterans returning t o private lifefrom the armed forces, became law on22 June.The final version represented a com-promise between the conflicting pro-visions of the House and Senate(INFORMATIONULLETIN, une 1944,p. 66).A summary of the measurk, PublicLaw No. 346; 78th Congress, follows:HOSPITALIZIATIBN: $500.000.000is appropriated to build additionalhospitals for veterans. The Adminis-trator of Veterans Affairs, the Secre-ta ry of W ar and the Secretary of theNavy may enter into agreements formutual use and interchange of exist-ing hospital facilities. Provision ismade for transfer to Veterans Ad-ministration facilities of veterans un-der Army o r Naval Medical care andfo r train ing in use of art ificial limbsfor all veterans entitled to them.REVIEW OF DISCHARGES: TheSecretary of W ar and the Secretaryof the Navy will establish boards forreview of the type and nature of con-tested discharges from the armed ser-vices. The boards will review uponrequest all cases except those involv-ing discharge by sentence of generalcourt-martial; veterans so dischargedwill not be entitled t o a review. Re-view may be requested by the veteransthemselves, by their next of kin o r bythe Government.EDUCATION: BeneFts under thissection are available t o all veteranswho have served 90 days or more inthe armed forces since 16 September1940 and prior to the termination ofthe present w ar (not counting train-Page 24

ing in the Navy College Program o rthe Army Specialized Training Pro-gram) and who were not over 25years of age at the time they enteredservice or who, if older, prove thattheir service impeded, delayed, inter-rupted o r interfered with their edu-cation. Those 25 or younger whenthey entered the service are presumedto have &ad their education inter-rupted.All veterans meeting those require-ments are eligible for education ortraining for one year, o r to a re-fresher o r retraining course of thesame period in any subject, trade orprofession and at any approved insti-tution of their own choice. There-after, additional education will beavailable up to a maximum of fouryears, not t o exceed the length of ser-vice in the armed forces, exclusive ofNavy college o r Army specializedtraining.%I finance this education, the Gov-ernment will pay veterans up to $500a year for tuition and other fees,books and equipment; $50 a monthsubsistence, without dependents; $75a month, with dependents.The Federal Government will haveno supervision whatsoever over stateinstitutions selected by veterans fortheir education, and the Administra-tor of Veterans Affairs may discon-tinue educational aid to studentswhose conduct is unsatisfactory.Any educational training chosen bya veteran must begin not later thantwo years after either the date of hisdischarge o r the end of the presentwar and will not be available beyondseven years a fte r the end of the war.

LOANS fo r purchase o r construc-tion of homes, farms and farm equip-ment and business property: Vet-erans discharged after 90 days ormore of service or by reason of aninjury. o r disability incurred in ser-vice in line of duty may secure loansfrom sources of their own choice.forthose purposes. The Government willguaran tee 50% of the amount of theloan, the guarantee not to exceed$2,000 and the rate of interest not t oexceed 4%, for a period not to exceed20 years. Applications for loans mustbe filed not later than five years afterthe end of the war.EMPLOYMENT: Congress de-clares as its intent and purpose thatthere shall be an effective job coun-seling and employment placement ser-

A comprehensive report on theNavys Civil Readjustment Program,including its operations in connectionwith the G. 1. Bill of Rights, willafipear in the INFORMATION UL-LETIN ltext month.

1 1

vice for veterans, and that to this end,policies shall be promulgated and ad-ministered, so as to provide f o r themthe maximum of job opportunity inthe field of gainful employment.Each state and local branch of theU. S. Employment Service will haveassigned t o it a veterans representa-tive, preferably one who is a veteran,to assist with employment, reemploy-ment and other veterans problems.

UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSA-TION: Veterans with 90 days or moreof service o r disabled in line of dutyare eligible, if unemployed o r unableto secure regular employment, to re-ceive $20 a week for not less than 24nor more than 52 weeks, minus anywages in excess of $3 a week. Thoseveterans with only 90 days servicewill be eligible for 24 weeks compen-sation on a basis of eight weeks foreach month in the service. They willbe credited with f ou r weeks of com-pensation for each month of servicein excess of ninety days. Therefore,a veteran must have had nine monthsof service to be eligible fo r the fu ll 52weeks of unemployment compensation.To protect unemployed men who areclassified as self-employed, such asfarmers, professional men and oper-ators ,of stores and shops, the bill pro-vides the Government will pay thedifference between their own incomeand $100 a month, the total compensa-tion paid in that manner not to ex-ceed $1,040, which is the equivalentof $20 a week f o r 52 weeks.

Claimants will be considered dis-qualified for unemployment compensa-tion if they leave suitable workvoluntarily o r without good cause, ifthey are suspended o r discharged formisconduct in the course of unemploy-ment, if they fail to apply for o r ac-cept suitable work when offered, failto attend an available free. trainingcourse or , under certain conditions,become unemployed due to a stop-page of work which exists because ofa labor dispute.Finally, the new law provides that,in event of fu ture payment of a bonusto servicemen of this war by act of.Congress, the amount of benefits un-der this law will be deducted from thebonus. In case of a guaranteed loanunder this law, the bonus will be ap-plied against the unpaid balance andaccrued interest of the loan.

Also recently enacted into law werebills :To authorize the acquisition andconversion o r construction of 1,000,OOQadditional tons of landing o r districtcraft (Public Law 322).To authorize persons drawing re-tired pay for military or naval ser-

* * *


27/76

th e 11Executseri

:To beMarc- -

lediinte r

Thus the originof t.he term sickw e a di#erent ver-to the editor.)Page 25


28/76


29/76


30/76

They Call It Amphibious Warfare-An Old Idea That Has Some New *Twists and Some

N THE night of 23-24 June 1940 a0 small band of men with black-ened faces gathered along the EnglishChannel. Armed with knives, gren-ades and tommy guns, they steppedinto eight light fast motorboats andset out in the darkness for the Frenchcoast, near Boulogne.These were the first Allied troopsof this war to carry out what isknown as a combined operationagain st the coast of France.Zour years later, t o the month, theAllied invasion armada sailed againstFrance-this time in 4,000 ships andseveral thousand smaller craft.The difference between 8 and 4,000sums up jus t one of the many changesthat have taken place in amphibiouswarfare, and which helped make pos-sible the invasion of Europe.Following the disaster of Dunkirk,with its heavy loss in weapons andequipment, the British found thisraiding w arfa re ideally suited to theirpurpose. It enabled them to carry outoperations which maintained the of-fensive spirit, even if on a small scale,Page 28

Startling Devicesand at the same time to harass theenemy. Meanwhile, they were gain-ing information that would be invalu-able to them and to us when it cametime to launch more sizeable operations.This raiding warfare took manyshapes. There was the reconnaissanceraid, and the raid t o take prisoners.There was the raid to destroy enemyresources o r installations: that atLillebo, Norway, destroyed a minethat provided the Germans with 160,-000 tons a year of iron pyrites. Theraid on the Lofoten Islands off Nor-way not only destroyed factories, butbagged 225 prisoners, 10 of them localquislings, and brought out 315 volun-teers for the Norwegian forces inEngland. And the raid on St. Nazairedestroyed the lock gates of the only drydock on the Atlantic seaboard capableof berthing the German battleshipTiMtx.Each raid had its own specific pur-pose. Bu t over and above these wasa more important strategic aim:harass the enemy. Unnerve him, keephim on edge, strike fear into his

Official U. S . Coast Guard phOtOgraPhA B OV E : As first wave of lalzdilzgbarges hits the Frelzch coast omD Day, U . S. troops plulzge waist-deep im water, race t o flat beachahead ulzder heavy Nazi fire.troops. Make him keep forces alongthe coast when he needs them else-where. Bring hope to the enslavedpeople behind his lines. Tes t his de-fenses, and his alertness.New kinds of boats were needed:snub-nosed assault craft that couldcarry 36 men, armored to protectthem and with a ramp that let downso they could charge swiftly onto thebeach; smaller personnel landingcraft, fast but unarmored, usedmostly under cover of night; infantrylanding ships to carr y smaller craft tothe scene and lower them from davits.

Sometimes the need would be forsmall rubber boats that could be car-ried in submarines, and paddledsilently to shore. But in general, thetrend was toward large r craft, and bythe time of the reconnaissance inforce at Dieppe, the British wereusing tank-landing craft that couldput 40-ton Churchill tanks ashore.Amphibious operations had moved intothe king size division, with a forceof more than.5,000 men attacking inover 200 vessels,

,


31/76


32/76

Official U. S . Coast Guard photographFLAGGING IN an LST: Wi th semaphore signals,the huge Landing Ship, Tank, is directed t o itsbeaching position. Striking shot was taken in earlystages of the successful assault on Sarmi.

Official U. S . Navy photographUNDERWATER OBSTACLES, placed by Nazis toobstruct landings and rip landiwg craft, are revealedat low tide on Normandy coast. In the foregroundare wrecked -4llied uehicles, dead Allied soldiers.first tr uly amphibious fighting weaponof the war-the amtrac, o r am-phibious tractor, equipped to fight onboth land and water.F o r vessels that could get overreefs and come ashore fighting, theNavy turned to the LVT, or LandingVehicle, Tracked-first known as al-ligators, now, in later models, aswater buffaloes. The two main typeswere the LVT (A) (2 ) , an armoredcargo and personnel carrier mountingtwo machine guns, a .50-caliber and a.30 ; and the LVT (A) (1) an armoredamphibious tank, with low lines andturret superstructure, and mounting a37-mm. cannon. A gunboa t on thewater, it becomes a tank when it hitsthe beach, and keeps rig ht on going.

Still another new craft grew out ofthe need for immediate gunfire supportfor assault waves.When landing craft approach shore,the naval barrage has to stop for fea rof hit ting them. The first few min-utes after the lifting of the barrageare dangerous ones in any landingoperation. Now is the time for theenemy to spring out of their prepareddefense positions, man their guns andgo to work on the invading craft.Against this maneuver, amphibiouswarfa re developed two powerful weap-ons. One is the use of the LCS,Landing Craf t, Support. Armed withracks of rockets, waves of these littlecraft scoot in ahead of the assaultboats to give the beaches a pulveriz-in g blast of fire. Hit ting with the im-pact of howitzer shells, the rocketschew up everything in reach and blastor stun opposition.

A rocket, of course, is an uncertainthing to aim with any precision, espe-cially from a fast-moving boat. Youcant draw a fine sight with a rocketand drop it on a target with the ac-curacy of an M1 rifle or a large-cali-ber gun. But what you can do is firePage 30

a lo t of rockets around the target.What happens then was described byone Navy man who witnessed it :They j us t withered that area.The second type of support to coverthat interval between barrage andlanding comes from the air. Planesgo in against the beaches and pill-boxes as flying artillery, bombingand strafing a t low level. This com-bination of planes and rocket boatsprovides almost continuous supportfor landing forces right up to the mo-ment they hit the beach.Beach support, of course, is onlyone of the many functions of air POW-er in an amphibious operation. AtNorth Africa, for instance, the mainpurpose of a ir power was to opposeenemy air power and thus guard theinvading forces again st attack. InSicily, air power took on the job oflanding airborne forces. In the Pa-cific, cakrier planes became the flyingartillery against Jap beach defenses.In the invasion of Europe, a ir powerdid all of these tasks, and others.Coordinating landing craft became amore complicated job as the operationsmoved from a few ships to thousands.

A new craf t created for this task i s thesmall LCC, o r Landing Craft , Control.This craft, which directs other landingcraft, visually has an identifying sig-nal in the mast which is easily dis-tinguishable to other craft. The navalofficer who must shepherd the landingcra ft into proper position and ge t thempast the line of departure on timemoves about in one of these.LSTs have some innovations, too.Fo r instance : No. 1 unloading. Moststuff inside the LSTs just rolls rightout the bow doors. Bu t how about allthe equipment on the top deck? Theyused t o have to bring it below on anelevator, as is done with planes on acarrier. Now LSTs ar e developing aramp, which lowers from t he top deckto the tank deck. Equipment rollsdown the ramp onto the tank deck andoff with the rest of the cargo.NO. 2: pontoons. This has beencalled the neatest trick of the war.There are times, of course, when theLST cant get all the way into a beachto discharge its cargo. The Navys ,Civil Engineers Corps developed hugepontoons that could be slung along theside of an LST. Once these ar e low-

Official U. S . Navy photographZNVASIONS SUNDAY PUNCH: Blasting French coast at closerange, big guns of Arkansas lay down a heavy barrage. Correspodent Ernie Pyle called Navys gunfire support 4errific alzd wonderful.


33/76


34/76

INVASION ARMADAWith Tools Like These, Amphibious WarfareIs Opening Up th e Roads to Berlin and Tokyo

Today, a s in centuries past, sea miles offshore but practically at point-power remains a key fac tor in inva- blank range.sion-but some of the tools which Aircra ft carriers , normally thespell sea power look a little different. spearhead of our invading task forces,Most of the ships and craf t on these were not needed in the nar row Chan-pages did not exist in the first World nel, where heavy air support wasWar. A great many of them did not available from 11,000 land-basedexist t u o years ago. planes. But around on the other sideAs amphibious wa rfar e developed, of the world, the CVs were poundingdifferent types of cra ft had t o be island bases only a few hundred milescreated to do different kinds of jobs, from Jap an. In the Channel, o u r air-until now the vas t armada of landing fields were handy; in the Pacific, wecr af t is itself the most numerous and ca rry them with us.varied fleet in all history. Here ar e pictured a few of theBackbone of the fleet, and the ships ships with which America is bringingtha t put the power in sea power, amphibious war fare closer to theare the battleships, cruisers, destroy- doorsteps of Berlin and Tokyo, anders, carriers. An important facto r in with which, in th e same week, w ethe invasion of Europe was the close- could str ike on both sides of the worldup use of BBs, CAS and DDs in -on the beaches of Normandy andpounding the invasion coast, not from the shores of Saipan.

L(

(

32


35/76


36/76

New Books in ShipsLibrariesThe following books have been pur-fo r distribution to theNot all titl es will be suppliedit is the practicef BuPers to distr ibute different titles

ofA unit is a lways free to requestthe Bureau individual titles of

Frontier d ays in New York sta te andthe struggle between scoundrels andmen of i nteg rity for domination.by Mortimer J. Adler. How to thinkabout war and peace rather than a

O W TO THIN K ABOUTWAR AN D PEACE

AN D DEATHOF LITTLE O by RobertBright. Little Jo , a Mexican-American,moves through a life of hardsh.iptouched with humor until he leaves hisvlllage to flght for Miss Liberty andUncle Sam.E LAUGHTER F MY FATHERy CarlosBulosan. Cock flghts, a marriage feastan d a hilarious law suit are hieh motsin this life of a fabulous Filipino.HE FRIGHTENEDIGEONby RichardBurke. American newspaperman andhis sweetheart become involved withthe French underground in VichyFrance.WITHOUTPEACEy Roger Bur-lingame and Alden Stevens. March ofTime technique applied to the swiftlymoving Washington political scene of1 9 1 8 to 1923.E FRAMEWORKF BATTLEby John G.Burr. Military strategy for the laymanillustrated by cam paigns and battles ofNapoleon. the American Civil Wa r an dWorld Wars I and 11.y Rober t Carse. Adventure anddram a in th is heroic account of ourmerchant marine of today.OUSE y Virginia Chase.Amusing account of the tria ls of run-ning a small town hotel as suffered bythe ladylike wife and young daughtersof th e hotels owner.AN D PEOPLES by GeorgeBabcock Cressey. Geography, back-ground and hu man problem s of th e peo-ples of Asia. TH E BACKLANDSy E U -clydes da Cunha. Rebellion in Brazilalmost flfty years ago.HE LORD s A MA N O F W ARbv StanlevF. Donath. Aneer at the d&th nf hi;fath er shot by- Nazi Storm- -Tr&p&issends Jan Dvorin across the.Atlantic towar-torn Europe to seek his own re-venge.U TEHERANy Foster Rhea Dulles.Russian-American relations from theend of t he Ameri can Revolution to themeeting at Teheran highlighting theparallels i n the histories of th e twocountries.H E NIGHT by Mignon Ebe rhar t.High feeling and family antagonismlead to a series of three murders cen-tering about the innocent figure of theyoung and lovely Serena. Neitherdouble dealing, murder nor politicaldomination prove too much fo r CressBenton the wily cowman, and hisfrie ndDonna Collett.NEST by Bruno Fischer.Mysterious deaths fortune-h unting la-dies and hard-boilGd gangsters dominatethis murder tale. Se-ret mission to Tokyo of a young navalintelligence offlcer aboard a submarine.Fowler. Fr an k yet sympathetic accountof John Barrymore-his rise to fame

RANGEby Will Ermine.

OKY O y Steve Fisher.OOD NIGHT, SWEET PRINCE by Gene

and the tragedy of his later years.q e 34

- .

BEHIND H E STEELWALL by Arvid Fred-borg. Swedish journalists revealingpicture of life and work in Germanybehind the steel wall of t he Nazi re-gime fo r two years after American cor-;-espondents left. OfPinky Harrison, corporal, and his stop-over at Heavenly Bend Junction enroute to heaven and Gods Front Porch.THE D. A. CALLSA TURN by Erle Stan-ley Gardner. Doug Selby again turnsthe trick as he once more disentanglesthe many threads in this new Gardnerbrain-twister.JITTERUN by Robert Germann. Unpre-dictable doings of a crazy family fromthe poker-playing colonel to his Shake-speare-citing. son.Haycox. Kern Shafte r clears his namefrom military dishonor and wins thewoman he loves in this romance of In -dian fighting in the Dakota country.by Konrad Heiden. Revealing biographyof the worlds arch rogue indicts notonly the man but our time as well.MY LOVE MUS; WAIT by Ernesti ne Hill.Vivid, colorful romance of Ma tthewFlinders, 1 8th cen tury explorer of Aus-tralias coast line. whose maps are stillin use today.MAP OF MY COUNTRY y John AlbertHolmes. Fres h in form and seasonedin thought are these verses from one ofour younger poets.LIMIT OF DARKNESS y Howard Hunt.Twenty-four hours with the Navy tor-pedo-bombing sq uadr ons on Guadal-canal.PACIFICARTNERy George H. Johnston.Australia, its country and its peopletold by an Austra lian for Americans.HEART O N HER SLEEVEby Clarence B.Kelland. Murder, romance and double-talk center around red-headed Andreewho plays the scatterbrain to save herfathers factory from sabotage.HAPPYSTORIESJUST O LAUGHAT byStep hen B. Leacock. Leacock at hisbest, undisturbed by the tedium of real-ity.THE ROAD B AC K TO PAR IS by Abbott J.Liebling. New Yorker reporters ami-able, witty and heart-warming accountof the first three years of the warwhichcomes close to the core of the peoplewho flght at home and at the front.TH E HELICOFTERSRE COMING y ClintonB. F. Macauley. From Leonard0 to theworld of tomorrow-the st or y of th ehelicopter and what it may mean in thepostwar world.

GODSFRONTORCHy Ketti Frings.

BUGLES I N TH E APPERNOON y Erne st

DER FUEHRER: ITLERSRISE TO POWER

THE THREE MESQUITEERSy William C.MacDonald. Law an d order a re broughtback to the ranch country as TucsonSmith, Stony Brooke and Lullaby Jos-

tin ferret out th e secrets of a hostltcgang.THE DEATHS F LORAKAREN y RomanMcDougald. Death by poison and black-mail bafile Investigator Cabot as hestruggles to get his man.WHILE STILLWE LIVE by Helen Mac-Innes. Spine-tingling adv entu res of aYoung English girl who joins the Pol-ish underground;HEAVENs Too HIG H bv Mildred M. Mc-Neilly. Exci ting pictuke of Alaska, thatlittle known Russian outpost, at theturn of the eighteenth century.THE WOUNDED ET BACKby Albert Q.Maisel. Miraculous sto ry of the NavalMedical Corps in the South Paciflc.FIREWILL FREEZEy Margaret Millar.Lethal levities involving passengers ofa snowbound bus and -the insane wo-man in whose home they take refuge.GEORGEM. COHAN PRINCEF TH E AMERI-CA N THEATER y Wa rd Morehouse. Realstory of Yankee Doodle Dandy. andAmericas favorite sone writer.AN INCHOF TIME by-J ame s Norman.Paul Cortland. chasing heroin smug-glers in northwest China. joins Chineseguerillas. breaks UP a drug ring and-gets his girl.CARTRIDGEASE LAW by Nelson Nye.Flash Marlott flnds the real killer ofthe murdered miner, but nearly losesthat girl from Texas.by Ro derick. Peatti e. Southern Appa-lachians-their history, forests, folk-lore and customs.HACKBERRYAVALIERy George S. Perry.Tall tales of a Texas knight errantskilled in the rescue of sta rry- eye d dam:sels.HOME s THE HUNTERy Gon tran de Mon-taigne Poncins. Sensitive port raya l ofFrance as seen through recollections ofan old family servant.PIPELINEO BATTLEby Major Peter W.Rainier. Realist ic stor y of how waterwas brought to the flghting men in thedesert of North Africa.SCIENCEYEARBOOKO F 1 9 4 4 by John D.Ratcliff. Scientiflc achieveme nts in theflelds of medicine physics, chemistry,.agriculture and ahation fo r the yearwhich included penicillin and radaramong its triumphs.MARRIAGEs A SERIOUS USINESSby Ran-dolph Ray. Pleas antly informal discus-sion of mar riage particul arly in war -time, by the rectbr of New Yorks Lit-tle Church around the Corner.HOMESWEETHOMICIDEy Craig Rice.Slightly mad detective story resultswhen the three young Carstairs basetheir sleuthing technique on the novelsof their mother, a n irresponsible writ erof mysteries.YOU ONLY HANGONCEby Henry W RO -den. Rac kete ers refo rme rs police an dpoliticians tan& in a fast:movini talef o r the hard-boiled fan.PERSONS AND. PLACES by George San-tayana. Wise and witty autobiographyof the famous Spanish-American philos-opher. ~

THE GREATSMOKIES AN D TH E BLUERIDGE

New Books in the Armed Services EditionThe Bareaa will appreciate comment H-224-Stewart H. Holbrook, BURNINGN

f rom the naval service in regard to the H-225-Richard Dempewolfl, RE-books, on such matters as choice of itles, H-226-Clark McMeekin, RE DRASKALLformat artd distributiom. H-227-Clarence E. Mulford. CORSON F

The following titles are included in thecurrent series of 3 0 paper-bound bookspublished for the armed services :H-211-Corporal Thomas R. St. George. H-2 29-- Gra ce Zar ing Stone (Eth el Vance).H-212-Eugene Manlo ve Rhodes, BEYO ND H-23O-Thorne Smi th. THE , BISHOPSH-213-C. S. Fo re st er , PAYMENTEFER RED H-231-Franklin P. Adams, INNOCENTH-214-Arnold Benn ett, BURIEDALIVE MERRIMENTH-215-Stephen Vincen t Bene t, WEST ERN H-232-Frank H. Spearman. CARMEN FSTAR THE RANCHOH-216-Oliver La Forge, LAUGHING OY H-233-Robert W. Chambers CARDIGANH-217-1. A. Richards, TH E REPUBLIC F H-234-Marjorie Barrows & 6eorg e Eaton.

PLAT0 Box OFFICEH-218-Donald Culro ss Peat tie , FORWARD-235-Felix Riesenb erg, TH E PACIFICTH E NATION OCEANH-219-Carl Glick. THREETIMESI Bow H-236-Manuel Komroff, THE TRAVELSFH-220-Cora Ja rr et t. NIGHT OVERFITCHS MARCO OLOPOND H-237-Edmund Gilligan, TH E RINGEDH-221-Jack London, TH E CRUISE O F TH ESNARK H-238-Charles Nordhoff & James Nor-H-222-Eugene Cunn ingha m, RIDERS OF man Hall, BOTANYBA Y

THE NIGHT H-23 9-Richard Llewel lyn, Ho w GREENH-223-Michael MacDougall, DANGER N WAS MY VALLEYTH E CARDS k-240-Walter D. Edmonds. CHADHANNA

EMPIREArmed Services Edition (pafier-bound) VEILLE

TH E J cTIONH-228-Kenneth Roberts*

C/O POSTMASTER TH E COLD OURNEYTH E DESERT JAEGERS

HORIZON

.----


37/76

fall intward Ilend -le:batt leYou W O lColonelfrom :prankPulitze

LEND-LEI

pendiuiTHEY H

seen irsia.THE NAT.Lawrer,,e +

3te eligi-Nards byor otherGeneralmate loca-2nts par-NreviouslyPage 93r at thege, show-to menie record.ensigns,the rankt submit-hey haveav 31-44,o u r e r sintmentiporary.944, ofactiveVal Re-e dutynts torsonnel.g cloth-


38/76

-~ - ..- ~~~t to th;he breeze.However,

at;If you carof youfWhereverr u


39/76

TH E MONTHS NEWSPERIOD OF 21 MAY THROUGH 20 JUNE

The WarAt both ends, and within two weeks,the Axis last month felt the deadlywallop of Allied might in full of-fensive:0Zn the Pacific the U. S. Navys5th Fleet defeated a major segmentof th e Ja p gran d fleet, brought down

a record number of enemy aircraftand pushed through an invasion of theMarianas. At the same time, the Japmainland was bombed by the Armysnew B-29s, and the Navy added car-rier raids on the Kurils, the Boninand Volcano Islands, Marcus andWake (see page 2) .e In Europe ,the Allies launchedtheir long-planned invasion from thewest, establishing beachheads in Nor-mandy and moving to take Cherbourgharbor (see page 6).Nor was that all:Russia began to put the squeeze onGermany from the east by opening anoffensive designed to take Finland outof the war. The Red Army crashedthrough Finnish defenses on the Kare-lian Isthmus and advanced 15 mileson a 25-mile fro nt the first day. A

swift 60-mile drive up the isthmus re-sulted in the capture of the fortresscity of Viipuri, 135 miles from Hel-sinki. Finns admitted that they couldnot withstand the sledge-hammer So-viet drive for long, without assistancefrom Germany, and this aid appar-ently was not forthcoming.To the south, the offensive by the

5th and 8th Armies in Italy resultedin a union with the Allied forces onthe Anzio beachhead, and the captureof Rome on 4 June, 270 days afte r thest ar t of the Italian campaign. TheNazis surrendered Rome without a

Huge Ofensives OpenedAlmost SimultaneouslyAgainst Nazis a.nd Japsstruggle, and its cultural and religiousmonuments and buildings were un-damaged. General Kesselrings Ger-man 14th Army fled northward sa fastthat General Clarks U. S. 5th Armyhad difficulty keeping in contact. Itwas estimated that the Germans lost70,000 men-about 60% of th eirtroops in Italy-in 24 days.

A French army captured the islandof Elba.Blasting of Rumanian oil refineriesand other targets in eastern Europeby U. S. planes was intensifiedthrough the inauguration of shuttle


40/76

THE MONTHS NEWSI

Official Ti. S. Na vy photographRome: Cheerimg crowds greet Allied tamks rwnblimg through city.

bombing between Russian and Italianbases. It was revealed on 2 June thatFlying Fortresses based in Italy hadbombed Cluj, Rumanian oil center, andthen proceeded to an unidentified Rus-sian base behind the easte rn front. Afew days later the planes returned toItaly, bombing heretofore inaccessibletargets en route.In retaliation f or these many-prongedattacks, Hitler struck back on 15 Junewith his vaunted secret weapon-arobot plane carrying one-ton bombs.Hundreds of these, apparently re-leased from the German-occupiedFrench coast, streaked across theChannel t o fall indiscriminately onsouthern England. While admittingthat the robot planes caused consider-able casualties and damage, the Brit-ish were not especially alarmed at thenew threat after the first surprise atseeing the projectiles zooming alongat 200 to 250 miles per hour with ex-haust flames shooting from their tails.Some of the robots were exploded inmidair by fighter planes and ack-ack,and bombing of the so-called rocketcoast near Calais was intensified.In the Southwest Pacific, Alliedforces continued to nip off isolated Japstrongholds and bomb their bases atTruk and in the Marshalls. An inva-sion fleet under the command of RearAdmiral William M. Fechteler, USN,struck 27 May at Biak Island, only

880 miles from the Philippines. Therethe first tank battle of t he SouthwestPacific was fought and the Jap tanksdestroyed with 75-mm. cannon. Withinthree weeks all three airfields on Riakwere captured and American planeswere operating from the island. AJ ap task force of one cruiser and sixdestroyers was engaged off the coastof Biak on 8 June by Mitchell mediumbombers. When the battle was over,five destroyers were claimed sunk bythe airmen and the cruiser and onedestroyer had fled. A group of fivedestroyers, attempting either to evacu-ate o r reinforce the island, was routeda few days later by ou r naval units.Only in China were the Japanesehaving an y success. A powerfularmy, driving along the Hankow-Can-ton railway, captured Changsha on 18June and threatened to split Chinaand isolate Allied air bases and Chineseguerilla forces nearest Japan.In the India-Burma campaign, Al-lied troops advanced steadily nearKohima. Progress was made towardcapture of Myitkyina. General Stil l-wells Chinese forces took Kamaing.Undersea warfare, both in the At-lantic snd Pacific, was going espe-cially well for the Allies. Our subs inthe Pacific sank an average of morethan two Japanese ships a day for a30-day period, while ship losses in theAtlantic reached an all-time low.

CASUALTY FIGURESCasualties among naval personnel through 20 June totaled 46,927.Totals since 7 December 1941:

Dead Woufided Missing* Prisoners* TotalU. S. Navy.. . . . . 1 5 . 1 8 1 4 , 9 7 6 8 , 2 1 4 2 , 5 1 7 30,888U. S. Marine Corps 4 ,555 7 ,956 868 1 , 9 4 4 1 5 , 3 2 3TJ . S. Coast Guard. 3 3 9 1 4 8 2 2 9 0 7 1 6- - - - -Total . . . . . 2 0 . 0 7 5 13,08.0 9 , 3 1 1 4 , 4 6 1 4 6 , 9 2 7A number of personnel now carried in the mlsslng status undoubtedly areprisoners of war not y et officially reported a s such.

Navy News . \Although Christmas is still somemonths away, the Navy Mail Servicealready is making plans t o handle arecord volume of Chr istmas mail forNavy, Marine and Coast Guard per-sonnel stat ioned overseas. The 30-dayperiod from 15 September to 15 Octo-ber has been designated as ChristmasMail Month for those outside the U . S.

Limitations for gift packages are fivepounds in weight, 15 inches in lengthand 36 inches in length and girth com-bined. Emphasis is being placed onthe necessity of addressing packagesproperly, as several thousand NavyChristmas packages were delayed lastyear because of incorrect addresses.@ O u r submarines are now sinkingfive times as many ships as they didat the beginning of the war, SecNavForrestal announced in a naval reviewand war roundup on the day the Al-lies invaded France. Comparing sink-ings from 7 Dec. 1941 to 7 May 1942with the five-month period from 5Jan. to 5 June 1944, he said our subshave sunk the following ships:Type

7 Dec.- 5 Jan.-7May 5 June1 9 4 2 1 9 4 4Tankers .. . . . . . . . . . 6 2 2Transaorts . . . . . .. 6 17Freighters . . . . .. . 2 1 1 2 9Freighter-transports ... 1 2 2Naval auxiliaries. . . . 3 5Combatant shim ... . . 3 5- _.Total . . . .... . . . . . 4 0 2 0 0Secretary Forrestal also announcedthat a new record in shipbuilding was

established in May, when 400,000 tonsof new naval vessels were completed.The previous peak was 305,000 tons inNovember 1943. Included in the Maytotal were 198,000 tons of landingcraft and 142,000 tons of combatantships. I n the latte r group were a newbattleship of the Iowa class, a newairc raft carrier of the Essex class anda new cruiser of the 10,000-ton Cleve-land class.The largest Naval Academy class inhistory-914-was graduated on 7June at exercises addressed by SecNavJames Forrestal. He compared theU. S. Navy of 1845, the year theAcademy was established, with thepresent fleet of more than 1,000 com-bat ships, and emphasized the Navyspart in the war.In the last analysis, he declared,the defeat of Germany, as well as ofJapan, will be effected by the Armyon land, and the main part of thatburden will be borne, as it always hasbeen, by the queen of battle, by theinfantry, by the men on foot, intrenches, with rifle fire and bayonetexpelling the enemy from his posi-tions. Rut these men and th e supplieswhich sustain them can only get tothe point of attack if we have com-mand of the sea.While the Academy is 99 years old,this was the 104th graduating classin wartime. Normally, this class

Page 38


41/76

Returns from the Navys Indepen-dence Day extra war bond sale (1Ju ly to 8;July) .will boast total salessubstantially. The Navy holds twoextra war bond sales each year-onPearl Harbor day and on the Fourthof July . All cash bond sales madeduring the Independence Day drivewill be credited to the fifth war loantotal. Bo*s bought by Waves will gofor the purchase of two mot& torpedoboats to be launched 30 July, secondanniversary of the signing of the billwhich established the Womens Re-serve.The Navy will save more than $10,-000,000 during 1944 by renovatingissue clothing, BuS&A estimates.Plants at Dutch Harbor and PearlHarbor are cleaning and repairingabout 120,000 pounds of special andprotective clothing each month, whileprivate plants in the U.*S. are reno-vating 100,000 pounds of soiled, wornor salt-sprayed garments shipped infrom cold regions. Clothing whichcannot be repaired is sold for salvage.

Recommended by Secretary For-*estal,.,Mr. Bard may be the Navy%Sepresentative on the War Produc-.ion Board along with other duties.The new Undersecretary was ap->ointed*Assistant Secretary on 24February 1941 and was put in gen-:ral administrative control of alliaval shore establishments and mat-;ers affecting civilian employees.Under his guidance a gigantic pro-gram in modern personnel adminis-tration ,was launched. Nothing inhistory has equaled the Navys tre-mendous expansion ashore since thest ar t of the war. Today, with morethan 700 naval shore establishmentsemploying 725,000 civilians, theNavy is the largest single employerof industr ial labor in the,U. S.In addition t o performing special

duties assigned by the Secretary ofthe Navy, Mr. Bard had immediatelyresponsible t o him, as Assistant Sec-ret ary , the Division of Shore Estab-lishmetlts and Civilian Personnel,the Administrative Office, the Trans-

portation Branch, the Office of thManagement Engineer and the I nspection Division.Duties assigned to Mr. Forrest2when he was Undersecretary irdude : Liaison with departments anindustrial agencies other than t hBudget, Army, Material and Laboilegal matters (routine legislation)Judge Advocate General ; contractstax questions; Compensation BoarcNaval Examining Board; Nav,Retiring Board, and Baard of Medcal Examiners. A reassignment Iduties from the Secretary down W Ibe made soon.

A Chicago businessman, Mr. Baiwas president of his own investmefirm, Ralph A. Bard & Co., aiwas a director of various companibefore he became connected with tlNavy. He has served as vice prerdent of the Chicago Council of BIScouts; was Directof of MilitaRelief, Central Division of tAmerican Red Cross, during WOIWar I , and in 1938 was ChicagcCommunity Fund drive chairman.He and Mrs. Bard, the formMary Hancock Spear, have fochildren. His sons and two sons-law are in the service-2nd 1Ralph A. Bard Jr., U S M C ; 1st ClaMidsliipman George M. BardUSN; Lt. (j g) Martin E. Manu1USNR, and Major Thomas D. JohnsJr., of the Army Air Forces.

Page 39


42/76


43/76


44/76


45/76

rnn-i ofbil-hird

1 asable)led.illinimia:heaiuedday.iced,915!red.719ight

detelliedo allcom-ha dnowis a1 .


46/76

U . S . N a v y CommuniquesT H E W A R AT S EA And Pertinent ExcerptsALL DATES LOCAL TIME UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED Of Other Oficial Reports

---da:COIinattve:d aSaen4salOtInof

lea

Ste). M oderate antiai r- CHUNGK,ING, 4th Ad?-Continuing ac -untered. A11 our planes tivi ty ag aln st enemy shipping, Lib era tor ssearch plane of Fleet on 25 May sank two cargo vessels offI Shimushu before daw n Samah Bay on the southern tip of Hainana s bombed by 7th AAF Island. Direct hi ts were scored on bothships, which totaled 3,900 tons.


47/76

xte). Fourp ed over: aiem scoringthe vessel.earch planevessels. thele ai r stripsnall vesselsPage 45


48/76

Fires were started at Dub!on I sla nd an dEten Island and an ammunition dump ex-ploded. In ketiring the plane wa s pursuedby a single enem; plane which did notmake an attack. Over the target antiair-craft flre was moderate.Two Liber ators of the 11th AAF bombedShimushiru Island in the Kurils beforedawn on 1 June. Fires were started. Noopposition was encountered.Ventur a search planes of F leet Air Wing4 bombed Paramushiru and ShimushuIsland before dawn on 1 June. Fires werestarted . Antiai rcraft Are was light an dinaccurate.4 JUNEPEARLHARBOR acific Fleet announce-ment-Shimushu 'and Param ushiru Islandsin the Kurils were bom,bed ,by Venturasearch planes of Fleet Air Wing 4 beforedawn on 2 June (West Longitude date).Two large Ares were started on Shimushu.Antiaircraft flre was moderate.Matsuwa Island was bombed by Liber-ator s of the 11th AA F before dawn on 2June. No ormosition wa s encountered. Allof ou r planes-return ed.Truk Atoll wa s hombed bv 7th AAF Lib-era tors before dawn on 3 J b e . For ty -o netons of bombs were dropped on storagear ea s and on runways. Several Ares andexplosions were observed. Ant iai rcra ft Arewa s meager. Two enemv flehters attem ptedto attack-our force but'dibn o damage..Nau ru Island wa s bombed by 7th AA FMitchell bombers and search Venturas of

Fleet Air Wing 2 on 2 June. Antiaircraftbatteries were-hit and fires started. Anti-aircraft flre was moderate.Ponape Island was bombed by 7th AAFMitchells on 1 June. An airfield, hang arsand adiac ent buildings were hit. No anti-airc raft flre was encountered.Rnmainine obiectives in the Marshalls

aircraft batteries, coastal defense guns,runways and barracks were strafed andbombed. Ant iai rcra ft Are wa s generallymeager.GrrINEA-Timor-Our mediu m un it s de-stroyed a 1,000-ton enemy ca rgo vessel a nda coastal vessel near Cape Batumerah.. ..N u m f o r : Our escorted medium units at-tacked enemy shore installations and de-stroyed barges. . . . Biak: Naval unitsnhpllerl tnreeta a t Mokmer and Parai and

ADVANCEDLLIEDHEADQUARTERSN NEW

southwe it coast.5 JUNE

Navy Departmemt CommlcaiqlceN o . 522Pacific and Far East

1. U. S. submarines have reported thesinking of 1 6 vessels in operations againstthe enemy in these waters as follows.One large transpo rt, one large cargo ves-sel, seven medium cargo vessels, two sm allcargo vessels, four medium cargo trans-ports, one small cargo transport.These actions have not been reportedin any previous Navy Department com-munique.

2.

Adr ia t i c/TAL Y

See 24 M a y (Allied livaes shownas of that date).

Navy Departmemt CommlclziqlceN o . 5 23Atlantic1. The escort carrier uss Block Islandwa s sunk in the Atlantic during May 1 9 4 4 ,as the result of enemy action.2. Th e next of kin of casu altie s, whichwer e light, ha ve been notified.PEARLARBOR, acific Fleet announce-ment-Several enemy patrol-type vesselswere,sighted west of Truk Atoll on 2 June(West Longitude datc) and attacked bv asingle sear ch plane. 'One was probably

sunk and all were heavily strafed. On 3June another search plane sighted the dis-position and made an attack which re-sulted in t he sink ine of one nf th e niini l i -- _.__I____aries and severe dak ag e to another.Libera tors of the 11th AA F bombedKetoi Island in the Kurils before dawn on1 June. N o opiJositionW HS encountered. Asinulc search plme of Fleet ,\ir V'inp 4bumb&d l'araniushiru Island before daw non 1 June.

. \ I 1 of our planes returned from theseopwitions.C I I U ,V G K I N G .4th AAF con1n7uniqwe-Warhawks shut up river craf t on TungtinxLake. . . . I iberat ors on a river swecp overthe Yanatze from n'uhu to Kirhun bombedand sank thrre large barges. Other E-21sattacked an enemv vessel in the SouthChina SCRwith un;)bservcd results . 1'-4Oson a swcep ovcr th e Gulp of Tonkin strafedjunks off he coast of Frcnch Indo-China.T,ONDtl,V. A An i irnlty coni inu 17 iqite-HisMajestv's suhnl:JI'ines, continuing t ho of-fens ivd np;rinst the t'nrnly ,Ind eneniy-con-tl~olled l i i pp i nc in the hIeclitcrrnnean andAegean, Iiiive sunk ;lnothrr two larac s u p -PIS, vrswlu. two of irwtlium sizc 2 2 smallsupply s h i p s and flve nnval auxi


49/76


50/76


51/76

ExPE-9. $1-in anyde fur-e . . .1 greatof E-n Bou-

EXPE-9. ee -.d fromninsula,1 abat-I- flank,1. whilebatteryn firingies and


52/76


53/76


54/76

Stalin-rs t all-Bizerte.nds inlams..elleria.1

.fter theters werevhich hasbulkheadsdeep.Channel, tags, onand num-report of

ms werethe tankL hall forice LSTsand theuring the

1


55/76

r-


56/76

for tkRULEannualS I R :fo r grstill iiperson


57/76

ten-ribleweart e r -ED.

ain-ttrolOUPn ot


58/76

Amphibious Warfare(Continued from Page 31 )

General Wolfe and Admiral Saunders,who attacked up the St. LawrenceRiver in 1959. IIn those days they were called con-junct expeditions, and notable ex-amples of early ones were the captureof Gibra ltar in Ju ly 1704 by the com-bined forces of the English and Dutchunder Sir George Rooke; and the cap-tu re of Cape Town in September 1795by the forces of Craig, Clarke andElphinstone. The combination of seaand land forces was also used effec-tively against Spain in the 16th Cen-tury, by Drake in the West Indies in1585 and by Essex and Howard atCadiz in 1596.More recent examples from the firstWorld War would include the battleof Gallipoli in 1915, and tha t famousproto type of all commando raids-theattack on Zeebrugge and Ostendwhich blocked the canal leading to theGerman submarine base a t Bruges.This raid, in fact, was carried out byLord Mountbattens predecessor asDirector of Combined Operations inthis war, Britain:s Admiral of theFleet, Lord Keyes.There is one development in thetechnique which is new to this cen-tury, and i t makes the use, of theword amphibious almost outmoded.Th at is the emergence of ai r poweras a member of the modern attackteam. It was Prime Minister Chur-chill who, in speaking of Lord Mount-batten, said, He is truly a triphibian-equa l ly at home on land, sea or air.Amphibious warfare today is reallytriphibious war-a war conducted inthree elements rath er than two. Thiswas so even in the first World War,where certain features of the raid onZeebrugge depended on air support.There is a rough general pattern tothis three-dimensional war evident inthe invasion of Europe.Controlling factors in picking thewhen and where of an invasionare many: terrain, for one. Will theinvasion strike on sandy beaches,rocky shores, flat rolling land? Willyou attack where the terrain is mostfavorable, but where the enemysfortifications and preparedness aretherefore greatest? Or will you trya less favorable spot, hoping t o finda weak spot in his armor?What kind of weather will youneed? How will it affect landing op-erations and ai r support? Will youcome in at the flood of the tide, orget there earlier, so as to spot anddemolish underwater obstacles? Howfar can you hit from home bases andstill have air support (a controllingfactor in the choice of an invasionspot in Italy, for example)? Howgood are the enemys communications,and what are his defenses?Page 56

There are many things about theenemy you need to know. How do youlearn about them? Perhaps by secretagents, ferreting out all those tinydetails which, added up, tel much.Or by photo reconnaissance, sharp de-tailed pictures by the piercing eye ofthe aerial camera. A photo-recon-naissance unit in North Africa made50,000,000 photographs before the in-vasion of Sicily was launched.Other information can be gleanedfrom the enemy press, from reportsof prisoners, from friendly people inoccupied countries, and from raids.Then come the preparations-thetremendous gathering of men, ma-terials, guns, ships and planes; theplans, general and detailed; the time-table of D Day and H Hour. The ob-stacles ahead are many.There will be mines offshore, andshar p underwater obstacles of con-crete and rail, to obstruct and riplanding craft as they try to come in.There may be devices t o launch tor-pedoes into the crowded mass of in-vasion ships. Ashore, there is barbedwire, and a multitude of mines buriedin the sandy beach. There will besteep canals o r ditches (one on theNormandy front was 15 feet deep).There will be high concrete walls toscale o r breach. There will be firefrom shore batteries and machineguns, interlacing belts of fire tha tsweep the beaches from every angle.Inland there will be other canals,walls and antltank traps, as well asareas the enemy can flood to miredown your mechanized advance. Mor-

tars, long zeroed in on their targets,will be dropping their death-dealingexplosives on men huddled on thebeach. Artillery also has the range,dropping big stuff on the beach andamong the boats coming in. Fighte rplanes come in t o strafe and bomb.If the invader gets off the beach, hemust face various zones of fortifiedstrength-bunkers and blockhousesand pillboxes, fortified villages whereevery house is an enemy stronghold.Mobile railroad guns may bring upex tra firepower. Then the enemysreserves are thrown into action. First,the local reserves. Then the tacticalreserves, armored forces held backfrom the coast at centers where theycan move quickly forward to counter-attack. Then the strategic reserves-those divisions the enemy must keepready to move to the danger area-once he is sure which it is.Which brings up the other side ofthe picture. Against these obstaclesthe invader has certain advantages ofhis own. He can pick the two mainelements-time and place. Tha t an-cient seafaring amphibian, Drake,wrote that Time . . . is half a vic-tory, which being lost is irrecover-able. The invader calls th e firstmove. The element of surprise, if any,is his. He can feint , lure the de-fenders elsewhere. And the defendermust guess what the strategy is.Will Normandy be the mainthrust? Or will there be others?Should he counter this blow now, withhis full strength? Or is the invaderseeking t o draw him away from themain target? If he moves now, hemay be off balance for the next thrust.But if he doesnt move, the beachheadis consolidated-and the chance to

Offlcial U. .Navy photographBiak: Lookout scans for enemy pikes through smoke of navalshelling in support of .the landing.

I


59/76

lesssweel:invasreachof d:throulightanybuoyssecticTha

_ _dges;ionsirob-one3 byioast-72.. I

b i i c r tciiic,nd in theintic wall-stopped by


60/76

Medal of Honor Awarded PosthumouslyTo Two Marines for Heroism Against Japs

A Marine lieutenant who destroyedeight pill boxes at Tarawa before hewas killed and a Marine private whosacrificed his life to save a com-rade have been awarded the Medal ofHonor.First Lieut. William D. Hawkins,

USMC, of El Paso, Tex., as command-ing officer of a scout sniper platoon inthe assault on Tarawa, repeatedlyrisked his life t o direct and lead at-tacks on pillboxes and installationswith grenades and demolitions. Onthe second day he personally led anassault on a position fortified with fiveJap machine guns, firing point-blankinto the loopholes and completing thedestructicms with grenades. Althoughseriously wounded in the chest duringthis skirmish, he continued to carrythe fight to the enemy and destroyedthree more pillboxes before he wasmortally wounded.

Pfc. Henry Gurke, USMC, of Neche,N. Dak., and another marine were ina shallow two-man foxhole engagedin the defense of a vital road blocknear the initial landing point at Em-press Augusta Bay when the Japa-nese started throwing hand grenadesin the ir direction. As one grenadedropped squarely in the foxhole,Gurke, mindful that his companioncould provide more effective resistancewith the automatic weapon he wasusing, thrust him roughly aside andflung his own body over the missileto smother the explosion. He sacri-ficed himself that his comrade mightcarry on the fight.

For reasons of security, the deedfor which a man receives a decora-tion very often cannot be fully de-scribed either in this ieclion or inthe actual citation which the manreceives. There may accordinglybe citations reported here whichdo not tell the whole story.

NAVY CROSS* Comdr. (then Lieut.) William hKabler, USN, Bristol, Va.: When 8

JrLieut. Robert T. Johnson, USNR,Fredericktown, Ohio (missing in ac-tion) : When his plane was summonedt o the vicinity of a hostile blockaderunner 2 January 1944 in the SouthAtlantic area, he gallantly fought hisstricken plane, which was h it by with-ering antiaircraft fire almost immedi-ately. He remained on the scene unt ila relief plane arrived, and his courage-ous action resulted in the destructionof a valuable enemy ship even thoughhis own damaged plane plunged intothe sea.*Edward C. Moore, GMZc, USNR,Spokane, Wash.: When the LCI(L) lbroached in the surf during the inva-sion of Sicily, he operated his gunwith such skill and efficiency despiteperilous exposure that he succeeded insilencing at least one and possibly twomachine-gun nests. He contributedimmeasurably to the safe disembarka-tion of troops.* Charles B. Fletcher, Y ~ c , SNR, Al-derson, W. Va.: Attached to theLCZ(L)S during the invasion ofSicily, he determined the denth overU. S. warshir, he commanded was at- I sand bars bv swimming toward thebeach within hazardous range of shorebatteries. He lat er risked his lifeunder a deadly hail of machine-gunfire to bring several exhausted andhelpless soldiers safely through theheavy sur f .

tacked by 15-hostile planes of varioustypes, he fought his ship with suchskill that the crew was able to destroyone plane, damage others and frus-trate the attack.*Lt. Comdr. Hubert M. Hayter ,usN,Abingdon, Va. (posthumously) : ASdamage control officer aboard the USSN e w Orleans in action against theJapanese off Savo Island, he directedthe evacuation of all men when a tor-pedo hit exploded the magazine andgasoline storage. Although rapidlybecoming affected by asphyxiat ing gas,he continued to direct evacuation andgave his own mask to an affected sea-man. Af ter clearing all compartments,he kept at his duties until overcome.

First Lieut. William D. Hawkil tsPage 58

Official U. S. Marine Corps photographsPfc. Hemry Gurke

* ames Dudley Barker, PhMec, USNR,Medical Lake, Wash. (posthumously) :Seriously wounded while disembark-ing on Tarawa, he refused medical aidfor himself and, undaunted by a hailof machine-gun and mor tar fire, stead-fastly administered aid to comradeson the beach. He remained at his posteven when urged to seek protectionin a nearby dugout and was mortallywounded by an enemy sniper.*Earl L. Storms, PhMZc, USN, Gar-dena, Calif.: Serving with the 1stMarine Division on Cape Gloucester14 Jan ua ry 1944, he .constantly ex-posed himself t o heavy fire to min isterto 15 comrades wounded during afierce encounter. His prompt andgallant actions undoubtedly savedmany lives.*Finley A. Gordon, PhM3c, USN,Philadelphia, Pa. (posthumously) :Attached to the 1st Marine Divisionduring the desperate encounter atHill 150, Cape Gloucester, 10 Janu-ary 1944, he constantly exposed him-self to heavy fire while ministeringto six injured marines. He continuedhis work until killed while aiding amortally wounded officer.*James L. Lee Jr., PhM3c, USNR,Round Rock, Tex. (posthumously) :Attached t o a marine battalion duringthe battle of Piva Forks, Bougainville,he disregarded war nings th at he facedcertain death and braved heavy fire


61/76

an(rinair*'maCeiaticancnd

US ?

Norfolk,;he U. S.n of Sa-a t Anzio,lex plansby theoat. Hethe ad-;s behind

IN, Win-; the ussSaleqo,A,.-.".-.-


62/76


63/76

*Marvin L. Berry, PhMZc, USN,Grand Saline, Tex. : Attached to a Ma-rine battalion during the battle ofPiva Forks, Bougainville, he gallantlyremained to care for wounded al-though ordered to evacuate t o a placeof safety. He cared for 19 injuredmen and removed them to protectedpositions despite enemy barrages. Helater voluntarily proceeded beyond thefront lines to minister to and evacuateseven injured men.*Joseph R. Cardin, PhMZc, USN,Springfield, Mass. (posthumously) :With a Marine rifle battalion duringthe attack against Piva Forks, Bou-gainville, he proceeded beyond his ownlines when severe enemy fire killed orwounded many marines. Endeavoringto assist two wounded men lying inthe fire lane of an enemy machine gun,he was struck down when attemptingt o evacuate them.*.Jacques A. Walthall , PhMZc, USNR,Birmingham, Ala.: Serving with aMarine battalion in the battle of PivaForks, Bougainville, he fearlessly ad-vanced beyond the lines t o assist menwounded in battle. Although seriouslywounded himself, he crawled through500 yards of swamp to procure medi-cal aid for his wounded comrades.*John A. Zielinski, SF2c, USNR,Plymouth, Pa., and Robert E. Jansen,SM3c, USNR, Pittsfield, Mass.: Ascrew members in the uss LST 379during the assault on Sicily, they suc-ceeded with their shipmates in check-ng the blaze which swept the shipwhen enemy bombs and bullets punc-tured gasoline tanks. They rushedfirefighting apparatus t o the sceneith courageous disregard of theirown danger from the spreading flames.*Sidney J. Fitzgerald Jr., PhM3c,USN , Palmerdale, Ala. : With nothought for his own life, he bravedintense enemy fire to treat casualtiessuffered by his battalion in actionagainst the Japanese on Guadalcanal13-17 September 1942.*John E. Hardy, PhM3c, USNR, Tuc-son, Ariz. (posthumously) : Attachedt o the 2d Marine Division during the

Official U. S. Navy pho tog

All Hands Naval Bulletin - Jul 1944

Documents