We are pleased to announce that we are officially taking pre-orders for our next book. Harvest of the Grim Reapers, Volume I will finish printing in early January and we will be able to ship out books once they arrive in Colorado. This is the last book project Lawrence J. Hickey personally oversaw before his passing, and we believe it will serve as a fitting tribute to his legacy. Head over to our website to place your pre-order and check out the sample pages.
In 1946, the U.S. War Department released a movie on the bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Along with footage of the destruction, there is also an eyewitness account from priest, who was in a building a few miles away from Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb detonated on August 6, 1945.
Below is the first entry Carl A. Hustad’s wrote about his journey aboard the Queen Mary. Although he didn’t know it at the time, he and the rest of the 43rd Bomb Group were heading to Australia and the Pacific Theater.
February 28, 1942
I have spent pleasanter birthdays before in my 26 years. Today is quite the hottest. If it weren’t for the open porthole, I should probably be much more uncomfortable.
We are at sea somewhere along the South American coast, my guess is North of Cabo de Orange. Maybe I should go back and bring myself to this point, as our journey is already 11 days on.
With a heavy snowfall and a very early hour of morning, we departed our old base at Bangor, Maine, entrained for Foreign War Service. Arriving at Boston, Mass., late that 17th of February, 1942, we were immediately embarked on our transport. It proved to be quite an unusual transport ship, being the Queen Mary of England. The crew are all English and many English customs are preserved. Tea and crumpets every afternoon at four especially. (Not a bad custom after all, when you get used to it.) But anyway, we crowded into our staterooms and tried to assemble and orient ourselves. The thought of leaving and the job ahead made conversation futile.
The next day at noon we left. Where we traveled the next five days, I have no idea, except we really traveled! We must have circled well out to sea to avoid the coastal submarine area. Sunday, February 22, we anchored and to my surprize, just off of Key West, Florida. Key West until Tuesday just before dark. Since then we have been steadily moving eastward along the South American coast.
The ship we are on is fast. In fact, too fast for an escort. We are alone, but our speed seems to be the best protection. But, we are not unarmed. I believe we could make a fair showing for ourselves with any submarine. Of those, we have seen none so far. Reports have come in of other slower ships being torpedoed all along our course. There was even a rumor on board of a radio report saying we were torpedoed and sunk a few days back. And so we go to war.
Life on this Queen Mary transport is quite luxurious in a way. Many of the facilities are cut off for lack of sleeping space and dining rooms. The Officer’s lounge is very nice with its deep chairs and sofas. It is also air conditioned and almost too cool. It is in use constantly for the numerous card games and movies and so forth. A swimming pool has just been made available for us also. Water and fresh food seem to be the problems of any long ocean voyage. We are all trying to conserve the fresh water on board. We have three types of water on ship. The first is fresh drinking water which is not obtainable inside the stateroom. Next is plain water, but not suitable for drinking…..used for shaving, etc. The third is salt water which we use to bathe in. The salt water requires a special type of soap, as the ordinary soap won’t lather.
Read more about the 43rd Bomb Group’s journey aboard the Queen Mary in our book Ken’s Men Against the Empire, Volume I.
When the events of the early days of the U.S. entering World War II are recounted, the most often heard story is that of thousands of Americans who volunteered to fight. What about those men who were already in the military? How did their lives change? Through the diary entries of men from the Fifth Air Force, we can give you some insight into what they experienced before and after Pearl Harbor was attacked.
From Lewis “Tad” Ford of the 33rd Squadron, 22nd Bomb Group
…when December 7th came, I got my first day off in a month., why it was a real boon. Days off were assigned by crew and Disbro had his own plans, so I slept late, floated into town, and went to a show to see Sgt. York in mid-afternoon. I was surprised about halfway through the picture to see my name come up on a caption underneath the movie, saying “Lieutenant Ford, report to the box office.” A driver was waiting for me with a staff car to give me a ride back to Langley field: Pearl Harbor had happened.”
We were first told to move all of our personal goods back to the field into the VOQ. Then we were told, no, don’t. Pack everything you don’t want to take with you and send it home. Then, back in the Squadron we spent three or four hours loading the bomb bays with all sorts of maintenance gear. Then we went to our quarters to get as much sleep as we could.
I lived with four other guys. At about 3:30 I took the first telephone call telling Lancaster to report out to the squadron at 4:15. Five minutes later I got one regarding Robbie, and then another for Hitchcock, and finally my own. So, we all ended up at the squadron at 4:15. At 5:am, 12/8 we were wheels up on the way west as a group, 60 airplanes in all.
The only important thing that happened between there and Muroc Dry Lake [Edwards Air Force Base in California] was that Mark Lewis got killed at El Paso, leaving us with Millard Haskins as the group commander.
Excerpt of a letter from from Gerald C. Cook of the 2nd Squadron, 22nd Bomb Group
“Practice makes perfect.” This seemed to be the goal of the 22nd. We made many practice runs in order to be ready for any eventuality which might occur because of war in Europe. Then on 12/7 Pearl Harbor took place. As soon as the news reached the US, the 22nd BG officers alerted all of its personnel to return to base as soon as possible. We started the mad rush to get every plane ready for a flight to the west coast within 24 hours. This was a tremendous feat for so much to be done in so short a time! We reached the set goal, and within 24 hours the entire 22nd BG took off en mass and headed west.
It was while we were flying over the state of Mississippi that I so vividly remember hearing President Roosevelt address the Congress (as well as the American people) and give his Declaraion of War speech). Because of the limitations of the B-26 we could not fly all the way from the “East to West Coast. We made our first top near Tucson, AZ. That night there was an unusual rainstorm. Some of our planes got stuck in the mud and we had to wait a few days until we could get all the planes airborne again.
From the diary of Lt. Roland Birnn of the 27th and later 3rd Bomb Groups
12 December, 1941 Clark Field, Philippines
Very quiet morning. Low clouds and light rain. No fun living in the open. Talley and I went to enlisted man’s barracks 1/3 mile away for a shower. Now deserted—been bombed several times. Hear air raid warning—ignored it because it was too cloudy for a raid. Heard a second warning as I finished dressing. Went outside and saw nine bombers in a “V” formation. Ran for cover—ran like we had never ran before. Finally had to drop to the ground when the bombers got too close. We hugged the ground. Bombs dropped in train, straddled us. Just lucky. Ground sure shook—so did I.
Got up and moved farther away. Then nine more bombers came over. Clark is right on the edge of a mountain range. The bombers whipped around the mountains, just under the clouds, and were on us before we could do anything. We hit the ground again.
Rather nerve racking to lie in the open and wait for bombs to hit. They get closer and closer. The ground started to shake and the explosions hurt our ears. When attack had passed, we saw nine others off to the side. Walked back to HQ through tank area. Noticed that the bombs hit this area. One bomb hit a gun emplacement—killed everyone. Saw other wounded men being carried away. Bomb hit a B-17 on the field. They seem to know when we have anything on the field. Back in HQ area found a bomb had hit 50 feet away from my bunk. I am moving out. They know this is HQ. Japs strafed when they came over. AA got a couple of ships. We had no pursuit up.
Ordinance setting off duds now. They give no warning—just the explosion. When one goes off nearby, everyone hits the dirt. Gets a little nerve wracking. Japs now have an air base in the norther part of Luzon. Our bunch is getting administrative jobs since all the planes are burned. We’re doing the jobs the pursuit outfit was doing here. They moved into the hills. Shrapnel sure is mean looking—jagged edges are sharp as a knife. Hope I get to finish this diary. [Lt. Birnn was killed on a test flight in 1942.]
For each of our books, we carefully go through our various collections and pick out the best images for publication. For one reason or another, some of them simply don’t fit our criteria, but we want to share them because they’re still very interesting to look at. Recently, we ran across one such image, a map of the Japanese-occupied Salamaua area dated December 1, 1942. We believe the map’s data came from prewar sources as well as scouting commando units, as it appears to have prewar housing and military posts marked. At the time, the majority of the attention was on the brutal fighting in the Buna-Gona area, located south of Salamaua.
For every photo we publish in our books, there are dozens that don’t quite fit the subject matter or don’t have the necessary context information to be used. This is even true for the handful of color photos we publish in our color section. For this post, we figured it would be good to publish a few of those color photos that won’t make it into any of our books. Unfortunately, we don’t have specific information about the people or places depicted, although you might be able to recognize a few elements—for instance, that’s a B-17 coming in to land, probably at Port Moresby, New Guinea, in that last photo. The collection information has also been lost for all of these photos except for the last one, which comes from the C. Lloyd Anderson collection.
Sydney Harbour Bridge (Unknown Collection)
Feeding a kangaroo (Unknown Collection)
Relaxing at the beach (Unknown Collection)
Enjoying some watermelon (Unknown Collection)
B-17 landing (C. Lloyd Anderson Collection)
This week, we’re listing our most popular posts published this year as determined by the number of views. Did your favorite post make the list?
Thank you for your continued support by subscribing, reading and sharing our work, and buying our books. If there’s anything you’d like to see more of, let us know in the comments. We’ll be back next year with more great content. And now, without further ado, our most popular posts published in 2019.
1. The Disappearance of Capt. Kizzire’s Crew Captain William L. Kizzire’s B-25 is shot down over Boram. The crew survived and disappeared before a rescue could be made.
2. Medium Bombardment Attack and Aviation A film to introduce the Pacific Theater to men being transferred from Europe.
3. Flight map: Aerodromes and Landing Grounds February 1943 Take a look at the flight distances between Port Moresby and important locations in February 1943.
4. When Plans Go Awry: A Mission to Palau Captain John N. Barley’s B-24 is shot down after an encounter with several Japanese Zeros.
5. Shot Down at Kokas The story behind a fatal mission that took the lives of two men and produced one of the most dramatic photo series taken from a combat camera.
6. Surviving in a Japanese POW Camp Shot down by Japanese fighter pilot SFPO Shigetoshi Kudo, this B-17 crewmember was turned over to the Japanese after he escaped certain death by jumping out of his plane over New Britain.
7. Ken’s Men, Vol. II Announcement We were so excited to share the news of this new release with you!
Some humor out of the Pacific Theater. The following poem was included with a diary from Robert Pickard of the 71st Squadron, 38th Bomb Group.
Letter From New Guinea (Australian author unknown)
Dear Joe, – – You ought to see me
In my shanty on the rise,
With the great mosquitoes buzzing
And the hordes of ants and flies.
You should see the snakes and scorpions,
And the centipedes and bugs,
And they’re not brought on by drinking
From old black quart pot mugs.
We’ve seen these things in Aussie
In the good old droving days,
And they often looked much bigger
Gazing through a drunken haze.
All these monsters in New Guinea
Were a curse and pest at first.
They’re now commercialised by Army,
So the Jap can do his worst.
You couldn’t kill these mossies
If you used a bullock yoke.
So they use them now as bombers
When they’re properly tamed and broke.
The ants are much more docile,
Rather sluggish for a hack,
But they used a mob as pack mules
On the Owen Stanley Track.
The flies are rather flighty
And they take some breaking in,
But send them after Zeros, and
The flies will always win.
The snakes are used by sappers
On the flooded river ground:
They use them there as bridges
For the soldiers northward-bound.
The scorpions, Joe, are streamlined,
They’re bullet-proof as well;
They carry eighteen-pounders
And they blow the Japs to hell.
How to get stores over the mountains
Had the ‘Big Shots’ at a loss
‘Till they used the mighty centipede
To tow the stores across.
The bug’s a handy scout car
And he very seldom jibs,
But be careful when you touch him
Or he’ll kick you in the ribs.
The rats are wild and snorty
Like that blooming mare you sold,
But the ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzies’ ride ’em
To deliver ‘Guinea Gold.’
One of the indirect consequences of World War II was the rapid expansion of Australian infrastructure. American, British and Australian war plans all assumed that the defensive line would be held at Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, and that the bulk of the fighting would occur in the Central and North Pacific regions. When the line was broken, thousands of troops and millions of pounds of war material had to be rerouted through Australia, which did not have the capacity to handle the sudden growth. Construction was soon underway and formerly quiet Australian cities expanded to accommodate Allied soldiers training for war. This undated map shows the extent of the projects.
(Lex McAulay Collection)
Today, we thought we’d take a step back from specific mission stories for a bigger picture of the Southwest Pacific region. Specifically, a map of the region as it was in the thick of the air war in February 1943. Many of the places involved have changed names, shifted locations or been abandoned entirely (especially emergency airfields), so a contemporary war map can be a more valuable resource than even the full extent of today’s technological mapping tools. This map shows the distance in a straight-line flight between the more important locations in the region, which was essential information for fuel conservation. Combat aircraft always had a reserve buffer of fuel, but that could be eaten away by flying through storms, flying in combat, damage to a fuel tank or engine or a broken component—so an aircrew needed to know all their options for landing short of their home base. In order for you to fully explore this map, we uploaded the full size on Flickr. Click on the map to see the larger version.
IHRA 