Archive for January, 2009

Ghormley

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Glen Boren schrieb:
> Thanks for the info on the Admirals. I wasn’t trying to start a flap,
> I just don’t express myself too well sometimes.
>
> Could someone please E-mail me how to get on the MARHST-List? The
> directions that I got from searching won’t work for me.They are dated 4 Jan
> 1996 and are kicked back each time I try it. Thanks,
>
> Glen Boren

Glen, s
seeing you’ve been there before, on the feedback page at my site is a link and
instructions to get you on the Maritime History list.

Tim

Tim Lanzendoerfer | “I have just taken on a great
Amateur Naval Historian | responsibility. I will do my
Email: BWV_Wiesbaden@t-online.de | utmost to meet it” – Nimitz
—————————————————————–
The United States Navy in the Pacific War 1941 – 1945
http://www.microworks.net/pacific
Last Updated: 7th February 1998
—————————————————————–

Ghormley)

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Glen Boren wrote:

> Could someone please E-mail me how to get on the MARHST-List? The
> directions that I got from searching won’t work for me.They are dated
> 4 Jan
> 1996 and are kicked back each time I try it. Thanks,
>
> Glen Boren
>
>

The list address changed last year. You can subscribe by sending a
request to:
listserv@post.queensu.ca The list address is: marhst-l@post.queensu.ca

Steve Alvin
Dept. of Social Sciences
Illinois Valley Community College

salvin@ocslink.com

“I have snatched my share of joys from the grudging hand of fate
as I have jogged along, but never has life held for me anything
quite so entrancing as baseball.”–Clarence Darrow

Ie Shima … civilians engaged in combat.

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Will,

Look in Hoyt’s JAPAN AT WAR and/or Craig’s THE FALL OF JAPAN. There
may also be something in the new Okinawa books, OPERATION ICEBERG and
TENNOZAN(sp?).

I’ve also read an account of Okinawa by a local Marine veteran. He
too pitied the Okinawans … describing how young girls were found dead
and/or raped by the Japanese and/or suicide victims … since they had
been whipped up with “GI rapist” propaganda.

However, he also describes a “human bullet”/bomb woman … Okinawan
or Japanese … walking out to … and killing along with herself …
some of his buddies. This was happening often enough that Hoyt (or
Craig) describes how many GIs had stopped taking *civilian* prisoners
… too.

It is a jarring book … and that is no pun on jarheads. He is
still unrepentently and blatantly racist in his pathological hatred
of the Japanese. It looks like the thing that really pushed him over
the brink is when they found 3 of his buddies … Marine Scouts …
dead, decapitated, and sexually mutilated … their testicles and
scrota stuffed into their mouths (… like the scene in “Ulzana’s
Raid,” the movie about hunting/fighting renegade Apaches in the
American Southwest) … possibly while they were still alive.

Of course, such atrocities/terrorism were commonplace on the Asian
mainland, but for young Americans it was devastating. (Jonathan Shay
has written about war wounding the human spirit. It depends on the
nature of the war … if it’s something other than a European excursion
in “sport” … I suppose … but this vet’s mind is on his side of the
issue.)

Our vet also wrote about his (enraged-out-of-control) unit soon
thereafter coming upon a Japanese field hospital and massacring anyone
they found.

The book is a profound shock, but now I better understand what
Okinawa was really like, Will … and what an invasion of Japan would
have been like. Stalingrad would (have) look(ed) like child’s play,
by comparison.

Lou Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Louis Gorenfeld wrote:
> Time out Lou!!!
> Active Okinawan citizens–not so fast. Yes, there may have been some
> incidents, but you will find that Okinawan civilians were caught in the
> cross-fire. Simply stated, they did not wish for a major campaign to occur
> on their island and tried to stay out of the way.

Russian Defense Ministry *WEBPAGE*!! :-)

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Believe it or not, the Russian Defense Ministry has a webpage!

Wherever I first read this, it seems there was a BIG debate about
whether or not the Red Army should “go public,” but the progressives
won out.

The address is: rian.ru/mo/mo.htm I have no idea if anyone is
monitoring who is sending them msgs. 🙂

So far, everything is in Russian Cyrillic … which should be nice
for languages people … and looks *very* Russian. There are pages
for Russian military history, including text on Alexandr Nevsky,
Suvorov, Zhukov, and … *Vasilevsky*! ?? 🙂

There are also pages by the various Russian military journals building,
as well as other neat stuff.

I believe this qualifies as an educational resource useful to any level.

You might want to send the webmaster … and General Shakalov(sp?) …
some encouragement/support.

It is hard(er) to go to war against someone who is your friend.

Lou Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

British East Indies Fleet

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Still, they must have “chopped” to the East Indies Fleet to be included
in the list. I got it from a RN publication. No time to post ships
now. More later.

Mark

Ian L. Buxton wrote:

> I guess this would be allocations rather than actual presence.
> On their way to join the fleet, Roberts had got as far as Mombasa and
> Abercrombie Aden when the Japanese surrendered.
>
> Ian Buxton
>
> > Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 15:45:31 -0500
> > From: “Mark J.Perry” > > To: Mahan List
> > Subject: Re: British East Indies Fleet
> > Reply-to: mahan@microworks.net
>
> > Yet another of my infrequent (lately) installments.
> >
> > Destroyers
> >
> > Arunta (Australian) Bicester Blackmore
> > Bleasdale Brecon Calpe
> > Carabiniere (Italian) Carysfort Cassandra
> > Chiddingfold Cowdray Eggesford
> > Eskimo Farndale Le Triomphant (French)
> > Myngs Nubian Paladin Pathfinder
> > Penn Petard Racehorse Raider
> > Rapid Redoubt Relentless Rocket
> > Roebuck Rotherham Saumarez
> > Tartar Tjerk Hiddes (Dutch) Van Galen (Dutch)
> > Venus Verulam Vigilant Virago
> > Volage Zambesi Zealous Zebra
> > Zenith Zephyr Zest Zodiac
> >
> > Destroyer Depot Ship
> >
> > Woolwich
> >
> > Monitors
> >
> > Abercrombie
> > Roberts
> >
> > More later.
> >
> > Mark Perry
> >
> >
> >
>
> **********************************************************
> Dr Ian L Buxton Dept of Marine Technology
> Reader in Marine Transport University of Newcastle
> Phone +44 191 222 6712 Newcastle upon Tyne
> Fax +44 191 222 5491 NE1 7RU U K
> E-mail i.l.buxton@newcastle.ac.uk

ADMs King, Nimitz and Ghormley

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

At Tim’s site under BIO for Nimitz, it says that Nimitz canned Ghormley.

In Eric’s book “Touched With Fire” it says that King canned Ghormley.

Does anyone know what the flap was over and who did what to whom?

Thanks,

Glen Boren

Unsub/Sub

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

How does one unsub and sub to this Mahan List? Am changing e-mail providers.

Tracy Johnson, USNR
tmj@primenet.com

New Guinea

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

>Keith Allen wrote:
>
>>New Guinea has also been neglected, but there are a few books out there in
>>addition to the U.S. Army official histories: Lida Mayo’s “Bloody Buna”; a
>>brand new book by Stephen R. Taaffe, “MacArthur’s Jungle War,” on the New
>>Guinea campaign of 1944; and Edward Drea’s “MacArthur’s Ultra,” about
>>intelligence in the Southwest Pacific. There is also a
Leavenworth monograph
>>by Drea called “Defending the Driniumor.”
>
>I have a book entitled _MacArthur’s New Guinea Campaign_ by Nathan Prefer,
>published 1995 by Combined Books, Inc. I haven’t read it yet, and honestly
>can’t remember where I got it. Is anyone here familiar with it? Is it worth
>my time?
>
>Tom
>
>
>Tom Robison
>Ossian, Indiana
>tcrobi@adamswells.com
> _|_

I looked it over when I proofed Stephen Taafee’s book on the same subject
and it didn’t look like a world beater. Geoffrey Perret’s _Old Soldier’s
Never Die_ is a sound and very well written biography of the old egomaniac.
Just out in paperback too.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

Outrageous, Spurious & Uproarious (was preserved ships) (fwd, FYI)

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Reply-To: Marine History Information Exchange Group

I haven’t seen anyone reply to Frank Young’s query of 27th Feb:

> There were three older British carriers, the COURAGEOUS, FURIOUS,
> and GLORIOUS. The former was known as the , one of the
> other two as , but I’m sorry to say I’ve forgotten which
> one, or what the nickname of the third was. Perhaps some MARHSTer
> would enlighten us?

In “Fisher’s Face” (Jan Morris’s very readable biography of Admiral of
the Fleet Lord Fisher) the nicknames are given (p. 201) as:

COURAGEOUS = Outrageous
FURIOUS = Spurious
GLORIOUS = Uproarius

I have not been able to corroborate these nicknames elsewhere, and I
would guess that there may well have been other versions.

Of course, none of these ships were built as aircraft carriers. All 3
were one of Jacky Fisher’s unconventional projects, being designed as
big-gun light battlecruisers, to carry his new 18 inch guns. Their
rather shallow draft (23′ 4″) was apparently a design to allow them to
enter the Baltic.

Eventually, the sister-ships COURAGEOUS and GLORIOUS were finished
before the new gun was ready, so they were lauched as light
battlecruisers with 4 15″/42 Mk I main armament in 1916. COURAGEOUS
was not converted to carry aircraft until 1924-28, and was the first
RN ship to be sunk at the beginning of WW2. There is a good personal
account of her torpedoing on Sunday 17 Sept 1939, by Cmdr Charles Lamb
in his autobiography: “War in a Stringbag”. The GLORIOUS was converted
to an aircraft carrier in 1924-30, and was sunk by gunfire when caught
by the SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU when returning, under conditions of
some secrecy, from Norway to Britain, on 8 June 1940. Her loss is
still a matter of some controversy: there has been no satisfactory
explanation of why she was in a war zone but not flying any of her
aircraft either in a reconnaisance or defensive role.

The FURIOUS was virtually a sister-ship. She was fitted with one of
the new 18″ guns, but then converted to carry aircraft, with a
flying-off deck built in place of the forward 18″ gun, before being
completed in July 1917. The following month, Sqdn Cmdr Dunning made
the first-ever deck landing, successfully landing a Sopwith Pup on her
flying-off half-deck, but was tragically drowned when trying to do it
again a few days later. FURIOUS was later converted to a full carrier
(December 1917, rebuilt 1924), survived WW2 and was broken up in 1948.
Yet another very historic ship lost to posterity.

Martin
———————————————————————
Martin H Evans e-mail: mhe1000@cam.ac.uk –Mon 98-03-02
111 High Street, Linton, Cambridgeshire CB1 6JT, UK
=====================================================================

Battle of Casablanaca

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

The Battle of Casablanca showed (again) what sitting idle in (a North
African) port does to fleet combat readiness. The U.S. Navy
absolutely *waxed* the spirited Vichy French cruiser/destroyer
(/submarine) riposte.

Incidentally, has anyone seen the movie “Barcelona,” about the young
American naval officer and his cousin? “*Where* are the red ants?!”
🙂

Lou Coatney

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