The guided-missile frigate USS Carr (FFG 52) departed Murmansk, Russia, Sept. 5, after completing its third port visit to Russia since late June.

During their visit, Carr sailors participated in a community service project and hosted a reception on board for local government officials and special guests. Among those guests were veterans of the Polar Convoys. During World War II, the men who ran these convoys supplied much-needed aid, from the Allies, to the Soviet Union in their fight against Germany.

“Most Americans will not have the opportunity to visit Russia once in their lifetime and my Sailors have been fortunate enough to visit three distinct areas of Russia,” said Cmdr. Patrick Kulakowski, Carr’s commanding officer. “Many Sailors state that they joined the Navy to see the world; my crew has most definitely had that opportunity this deployment.”

Carr sailors also visited a local Russian Naval museum and participated in two wreath-laying ceremonies. The first wreath was presented at the Alyosha monument, the Russian memorial to the unknown soldier of World War II. The second wreath was presented at the memorial for the Russian submarine Kursk, which sank in August 2000, losing all 118 crew members aboard.

“It was an honor to visit the memorials,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric Nobriga, hospital corpsman, who attended both wreath-laying ceremonies. “Everyone has repeatedly expressed their gratitude for the assistance that the allies provided during World War II.”

Upon departure from Murmansk, Carr crew members manned the rails and rendered honors as they passed the final resting place of the liberty ship SS Thomas Donaldson, which was sunk in March 1945.

Carr is home ported in Norfolk, Va., and is on a three-month deployment supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility.

By Petty Officer 2nd Class Jeff Troutman
Navy Public Affairs Support Element-East Detachment Europe
DVIDS

Pfc. Chelsea Draper, Forward Support Command, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Advise and Assist Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, prepares to drive her military vehicle to its guard point protecting Camp Garry Owen in Maysan, Iraq. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Plowman

For many years the United States Army has been a melting pot of soldiers from different cultures, races and religions, all joining the Army for reasons as different as their diverse backgrounds.

For Pfc. Chelsea Draper, Forward Support Command, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Advise and Assist Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, joining the military followed in the footsteps of her grandfather.

A member of the Navajo tribe located in Chinle, Ariz., Teddy Draper Sr. served in the U.S. Marine Corp over 60 years ago, utilizing the Navajo language, or Diné Ke’Ji, to transmit coded messages as a code talker.

Code talkers were Native Americans who served in the Marines from World War I to Vietnam. Used to transmit coded messages over radio and telephone, the languages they spoke were unwritten and undecipherable by the enemy.

Draper grew up very close to her grandfather, hearing of his service as a code talker during World War II. Draper Sr., retired as a sergeant major. He received a Purple Heart, the Congressional Gold Medal as a Code Talker and his own personal Congressional Silver Medal, among numerous other honors.

Pfc. Chelsea Draper with her grandfather, Teddy Draper Sr., in Chinle, Ariz. Photo courtesy of Pfc. Chelsea Draper

Draper, a Chinle, Ariz., native said her grandfather is the reason she even thought about joining the Army.

“Even at a young age, I could see the pride my grandfather took in having served his country, and I also understood the sacrifices he made,” Draper said.

Draper has traveled a long way from the beautiful red-rocked mesas of Arizona to the golden sands of Iraq. Growing up on the reservation, she was raised within the native culture of her grandfather.

“I speak and write in our native Navajo language in addition to English, following in a tradition our clan has kept alive as part of their heritage, along with their religion, beliefs, legends and values,” Draper said.

When she was considering carrying on the tradition of military service, Draper’s grandfather didn’t coax her at all. But when she told him she had decided to join, she could see how proud he was of her.

“He gave me his full support, calling me ‘my Soldier,’” she said.

“I miss her, and I worry about her,” Draper Sr. said. “But America needs its defenders, and I support Chelsea.”

From the peaceful wind chimes of Chinle, Ariz., to the swirling heat of Maysan, Iraq, the connection between grandfather and granddaughter remains a strong and vital force in Draper’s life.

DVIDS
By Spc. Jerry Ellis
1st Bn., 8th Inf. Reg. 3rd AAB, 4th Inf. Div.

Col. Stephen Mariano looked down into a foxhole carved atop a rocky hill near El Guettar, where in March 1943, troops from U.S. Army II Corps battled German panzers.

Nearby, retired Army Col. Len Fullenkamp conjured tales of U.S. Army Rangers under Lt. Col. William Darby marching through darkness along a nearby ridge to surprise sleeping enemy infantrymen with fixed bayonets. Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division hacked fighting positions from solid rock as enemy tanks rumbled into the valley. U.S. Army artillery units skimmed shells across the desert at approaching German armor.

Mariano began to wonder, “Had my grandfather dug one of these foxholes? Was his artillery position somewhere nearby? Did he fire on Germans coming through this gap?”

Mariano, 45, of Redlands, Calif., was among several U.S. Army Africa officers who took part in a four-day “staff ride,” – onsite discussions of Tunisia’s World War II battlefields geared toward finding insights into U.S. Army Africa’s present challenge – building cooperative relationships with African land forces to increase security, stability and peace in the region.

In late 1942, U.S. forces landed in North Africa with British troops. Their first fights were with Vichy French units, who later joined the Allied cause. Together, they pushed east into Tunisia, where they clashed with German and Italian troops among craggy, cactus-covered hills and washed out wadis.

As a U.S. Army Africa’s strategic planner, a look back at the alliance between American, British and French forces offered Mariano a glimpse at an international coalitions’ growing pains and how friction between partners can doom a mission. On a more personal level, the staff ride allowed him to recapture his family’s past.

Henry Mariano, Sr., was a sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 62nd Armored Field Artillery Regiment who survived combat in North Africa, Italy and France before being wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

“This staff ride is a historic event, on a historic event, separated by 67 years,” Mariano said. “To be here, where my grandfather was, is pretty powerful to me.”

The tour began May 27 outside Sidi Bou Zid, where U.S. forces suffered a horrible defeat in mid-February 1943. They stopped for the evening in Gafsa, a city in Central Tunisia that changed hands between Allied and Axis forces several times during the campaign.

The second day, they focused on the Allied defeat at Kasserine Pass, followed by the U.S. Army’s first solid gains against veteran German troops in the counterattack at El Guettar. The next day, U.S. Army Africa Soldiers ventured east to focus on British Gen. Bernard Montgomery’s attempt to punch through Axis defenses at the coastal town of Enfidaville, roughly 40 miles southeast of Tunis.

Perched on a craggy knoll near Takrouna, Col. David Buckingham, U.S. Army Africa’s senior operations officer, bent the spine of Atkinson’s book, deep in thought about how for two days in mid-April 1942, New Zealanders came to death grips with Italian defenders in the limestone foothills outside Enfidaville.

Afterward, they paid respects to French and British Commonwealth troops buried nearby.

“Tying this staff ride together with Memorial Day, taking time to better understanding leadership and feel the sacrifice of our soldiers, has been both poignant and educational,” Buckingham said.

At each stop, officers thumbed through worn copies of Rick Atkinson’s “An Army At Dawn” at their hip as Fullenkamp spoke of the bravery, heroics, ingenuity, lunacy and debacles of the North African campaign. After discussions, they poked through thorn bushes and cacti along the rocky terrain, searching for battlefield remnants.

At El Guettar, Maj. Gen. William B. Garrett III, commander of U.S. Army Africa, found a tin C-ration can and passed it to his senior logistics officer, Col. Mike Balser. Others found shards of shells and bullet casings. Lt. Col. David Konop, the command’s public affairs officer, found a link from a 30-caliber machine gun belt.

It was hard to not be overwhelmed in the presence of such history, to walk this consecrated ground, Fullenkamp said.

Like the 34th Infantry Division, they climbed the hills near Fondouk Pass. They stood in the cold rain below Longstop Hill, just as the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment had when they relieved the 2nd Battalion of the British Coldstream Guards, around Christmas 1942.

The U.S. Army Africa tour wrapped up in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, the prize the Allies had fought seven months to pry away from German control. The Soldeirs took part in a May 31 Memorial Day ceremony at the North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial near Carthage, Tunisia.

All agreed that their experience in Tunisia was unlike walking the U.S. battlefield of Gettysburg, tracing the footsteps of Pickett’s men from Spangler’s Woods to the Emmitsburg Road. Nor was it like stepping from the shores of Normandy onto Omaha beach’s Dog Green sector on D-Day staff rides.

This tour was focused on lessons the U.S. Army learned over the course of a seven-month campaign across North Africa.

“No one’s ever done something like this, in this context, before. We’re using the book “An Army At Dawn” and we are an Army Service Component Command at dawn,” Mariano said. “That’s the connection. It’s brilliant. “

Early on, Garrett challenged his staff to ask tough questions along the way and encouraged them to discuss tactical operations, but also look for insights into overall strategic goals. In North Africa, U.S. Army leaders found innovative ways to grow and succeed against often-insurmountable odds, he said.

“Talking about the past, in the present, that’s what this is about,” Garrett said. “This staff ride is simply a mechanism, a tool for helping us think about the challenges leaders faced in Africa during World War II and applying insights to our present focus.”

U.S. Army Africa
By Rick Scavetta
U.S. Army Africa Public Affairs

Sunday is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. There have been ethnic cleansings throughout human history, some far more thorough than this. What sets the Germans apart is their damn efficiency at the process.

No German living within 20 miles of a camp could have not known of it. The traffic to and from, the guards coming in to town on leave, the odor of the dead and dying. Germans are human, too, and I suspect they were glad it was being done to someone else and not them.

Germany is in the process of erasing the dozens upon dozens of sub-camps that were associated with each of the major camps. For every Dachau, there were a host of smaller camps that were grouped about the main site. The Germans have preserved a select few major camps but are ensuring that the sub-camps will vanish into the maw of history.

Why? With four or five sites preserved, a casual observer could wonder at the truth of the numbers from the Holocaust. The museum sites could not have killed six million. Thus, denial becomes history.

Here is history:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Pause a moment tomorrow and remember.

The PBS series, NOVA, broadcast a show on January 5, 2010 about the mysteries around the Japanese submarine attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. I was able to participate in an interview with the researchers behind the work discussed on the program. While that show was generally accurate, there were some differences in emphasis and timing that did not agree with those of the original research.

Historians have recognized since 1941 that the Japanese augmented their air attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor with a submarine attack. Some twenty submarines were deployed around the Hawaiian Islands, and five mini submarines were launched in an effort to penetrate the harbor and attack.

The public, fed by movies and a brief history lesson in school, believes that the attack on December 7 was by carrier based aircraft. This interview provides a clearer picture of that day and the actions of the Japanese mini submarines. The faux newspaper clipping above illustrates an alternative view of the days events.

Of the five mini subs that the Japanese launched, one was intercepted and sunk by the destroyer Ward well before the aerial attack began. Her reports were ignored in the early hours of December 7.

Pearl Harbor was protected by torpedo nets, but they had been withdrawn because of expected ship traffic. The nets did not extend to the bottom of the channels, and it would have been possible for the mini subs to sail underneath. If necessary, the subs were equipped with net cutting devices.

At about 8:30 a.m. local time, the USS Monaghan was sortieing in response to orders when it observed a submarine being attacked by two moored Navy ships. Monaghan proceeded at flank speed to where the sub had been seen with the intent to ram the sub. It also launched a depth charge attack. The actions of the Monaghan resulted in the sinking of that Japanese mini sub.

In 2004, a team of analysts including Mr. Peter K. Hsu, Mr. Carroll Lucas, Dr. and CAPT. Andrew Biache, USN(Ret) and CAPT. John Rodgaard, USN, published an article in the USNI Navy History magazine describing their work on a captured Japanese photo from the attack. That photo seems to show a Japanese mini sub broaching the surface, a torpedo wake and an explosion at the side of the battleship West Virginia. It also appears to show a second torpedo track aimed at the USS Oklahoma.

Until this point, there had been little reliable evidence that any Japanese mini sub had penetrated the harbor and been successful in conducting an attack. There are numerous accounts of sightings by survivors of the attack and ships reported contacts and conducting several attacks on presumed subs but concrete proof was limited.

Mr. Hsu discussed the evidence. In his expert opinion, the sub in the photo had been forced to the surface due to the cavitation and various pressure waves being generated by both the torpedo explosion as well as the air attack. Within the relatively shallow harbor, these explosions would bounce off vessels, the shore and the bottom and would be capable of lifting the mini sub to where it would surface.

The mini subs were designed to launch their two torpedoes from periscope depth. The torpedoes would have been set to run at sixteen feet.

The sub did not survive its attack but what happened to it remains a mystery. Its remains lie in a Navy dump, underwater. Photos clearly show that it was cut into pieces and the cables used to lift and tow those pieces remain attached. No record exists, however, of the capture or disposal of that submarine.

Here is some information about one of the subs that did not penetrate the harbor.

Japanese 2-man midget submarine grounded on the coral reef off Bellows Field

The Japanese midget submarine at Bellows Field was salvaged by a Navy crew, 1941.

A Japanese 2-man midget submarine grounded on the coral reef off Bellows Field, was commanded by Ens. Kazuo Sakamaki who swam ashore on December 8, 1941 and was captured.

The Japanese Mini submarine was 80-foot long 6-foot diameter, 46 ton displacement, battery operated with 600 hp motor. Launched from mother sub (I-24) arrived off entrance to Pearl Harbor late evening, December 6, 1941. Was grounded off Bellows Field on December 7, 1941.

State of Hawaii

It’s been more than 60 years since the Women Air Force Service Pilots or WASP took the skies by storm as the first women in U.S. history trained to fly American military aircraft, overcoming inequality and changing the face of aviation forever. On July 1, these aviation pioneers were recognized by President Barack Obama, who presented the Congressional Gold Medal as long-overdue recognition of the historical “Fly Girls.”

Here at JBB, a 21st-century “Fly Girl,” Maj. Gina Sabric, an F-16 fighter pilot, couldn’t be more pleased with the recognition.

“I think it is amazing that they were presented [with the Congressional Gold Medal],” said Sabric, currently deployed here as the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing flight safety officer from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. “It is definitely well-deserved and probably a little overdue, but it is amazing that they are finally being recognized for their service to our country.

“They are definitely pioneers in aviation and an inspiration to those of us that fly now,” she continued. “We would not be here if it wasn’t for the work that they did before us. They paved the way and opened up doors for the rest of us.”

The WASP was established during World War II with the primary mission of flying noncombat military missions in the United States, thus freeing their male counterparts for combat missions overseas. They were the first women ever to fly American military aircraft, and they flew almost every type of aircraft operated by the Army Air Force during World War II — logging more than 60 million miles.

Overall, more than 1,000 women joined the WASP and 38 of them were killed during duty. Following World War II, these women were released from duty and returned home. During their time in the WASP, they held civilian status and were not considered members of the military. Their contributions went largely unrecognized and the women weren’t afforded veteran status until 1977.

Today, female fighter pilots continue adding to the proud WASP legacy — engaged around the world and writing aviation history of their own. Although they did not have to face the same type of discrimination, even in the early 90s when Congress authorized women could be fighter pilots and when Sabric joined the Air Force, the rift between the female and male fighter pilot was still evident.

“When I was a lieutenant, there weren’t a lot of females ahead of us,” said Sabric. “I was told a few times that I didn’t belong and it was a ‘boy’s club’ and girls were not welcome, but you would just shrug it off and go on doing your job. You don’t see that anymore; we are all equal. Gender is no longer an issue thanks to these women.

“Women in aviation has definitely been a stepping-stone progression, one that the WASP started,” said Sabric. “Without them, it would have been a longer, tougher road. They set the stage for the rest of us to be able to continue what they started.”

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest and most distinguished award Congress can award a civilian. Since the American Revolution, Congress has commissioned gold medals as its highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions. In 2000 and 2006, Congress awarded the Gold Medal to the Navajo Code Talkers and the Tuskegee Airmen, respectively.

“As a female pilot, the women of the WASP are our heroes,” said Sabric, from Tobyhanna, Pa. “They are who we look up to. They are the pioneers. Looking back on what these women have accomplished, it’s great to see them recognized. We are forever grateful.”

DVIDS
Story by Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala

On my safari yesterday, I had the pleasant surprise of meeting a World War II vet. My first thoughts were, unfairly, “They don’t allow her kind in the Army.”

She was there at D-Day, in combat. And here she is, over sixty years later, still looking good and serving in her own way. My dad, a vet of the same war, would have been both astonished and pleased to have met her.

This is the first thing I saw. Needless to say, it wasn’t a marking I expected to see. And it wasn’t the wackiest ship in the Army, but a working ship, with an honorable record.

Historic Naval Ships Association

Built to serve during WW II, USAT LT-5 moved military cargo under the Army Transportation Corps. She served in both the Atlantic and Pacific. On February 3, 1944, she sailed for Great Britain to assist in the preparations for Operation Overlord. LT-5 arrived off the Normandy coast on June 7 as part of Operation Mulberry. On June 8th while moored to a sunken LST, LT-5 was subjected to air attacks. Her log book for June 9 records that at 20:30 hours, “planes overhead. Everyone shooting at them. Starboard gunner got an F.W.” (German Luftwaffe fighter, the Focke Wulf.)

While many of the Army’s remaining tugs were decommissioned, sold or scrapped, LT-5 was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers out of Buffalo serving from 1946 until 1989 as a Great Lakes harbor tug. She is the only known essentially unmodified example of the LT-type left in the US. Her heroics during the Normandy invasion led to the awarding of National Historic Landmark status in 1991.

LT-5 is berthed on the West Pier in the Oswego Harbor where she is made available for public viewing through the H. Lee White Museum. The Museum is open seasonally from May through September.

History of the Motor Transport Corps

A major port was required to land all the equipment needed to win the battle for Normandy and the liberation of France.

At the Roosevelt-Churchill conference in Quebec in August 1943, it was decided that an artificial harbor would be built and towed across from England to France.

In the fall of 1943, General Eisenhower’s planners realized the need for the rapid insertion of combat supplies and soldiers to sustain the fighting in France following the Normandy Invasion.

Ships were the only feasible means to transport the enormous quantities of supplies and equipment needed to defeat the Germans. After months of debate, the planners decided to construct two artificial harbors, code named “OPERATION MULBERRY.”

The construction of harbors was a massive undertaking and required the use of 158 tugboats. The Army Transportation Service (ATS) supplied 74 ST small tugs and 6 LT large tugs.

In preparation for the operation, the Army tugs sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to England. This was no easy task for the small ST-type tug, which only measures 86 feet long. The ATS was also instrumental in recruiting and organizing Merchant Marines and civilians to help man the Army tugboats, and sail the blockships, “Gooseberries,” to their scuttling position.

Two stained glass windows in the church in Sainte Mere Eglise, France, that is dedicated to the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division who liberated the town, June 6, 1944, the first town in France to be liberated in World War II. Photo by Sgt. Fay Conroy

It was the middle of the night and the town of Sainte Mere Eglise was on fire. Occupied by the Germans since June 18, 1940, the town had survived several allied air raids.

A stray incendiary bomb from one of those raids had set a building near the town square on fire and it was spreading. The townspeople formed a chain to ferry water from the pump in the town square to the fire.

At about 1:30 a.m. that day — June 6, 1944 — the sky filled with hundreds of American paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. Well lit by the flames beneath them, the paratroopers were easy targets for the startled German soldiers on the ground. One of those paratroopers was Pvt. John Steele of F Company, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Steele was already a combat veteran, with combat jumps into Italy and Sicily under his belt prior to D-Day.

During his landing, Steele’s parachute became caught in the steeple of the church in the middle of the town square. Shot through the foot, Steele hung there for two hours pretending to be dead before the Germans noticed him and cut him down.

“There were some paratroopers who landed nearby, but they didn’t help him because they thought he was dead. The Germans thought he was dead also, but they wanted whatever papers he had on him and that is when they discovered that he was alive,” said Patrick Bunel, a curator at the Airborne Museum here.

The German soldiers took him prisoner, but Steele was able to escape once tanks that had landed at Utah beach arrived. At approximately 4:30 a.m. Sainte Mere Eglise became the first town in France to be liberated. The fighting around the town continued until June 7, when the Germans were finally pushed back. Steele was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart for his actions during the invasion.

An effigy of John Steele is displayed on the front of the church in Sainte Mere Eglise, France. Steele, among the Soldiers of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, who jumped into the town on D-Day, became famous after his chute caught in the tower of the church as he was landing. Photo by Sgt. Fay Conroy

Today a uniformed mannequin hangs from a parachute and rigging on the steeple, in honor of Steele (who actually landed in back of the church), his fateful jump and the liberation of the town below.

“When I first saw it [the mannequin], I didn’t know that it had actually happened,” said Pfc. Cory Peppeard of the 230th Military Police Company, 18th Military Police Brigade, one of hundreds of U.S. service members here to support this week’s 65th anniversary commemoration of D-Day. “It’s pretty impressive that he was able to survive that.”

Sainte Mere Eglise secured Steele a place in history as a Soldier in the division that helped to liberate the town, but also as the paratrooper who landed on the church. It was a scene that would be recreated 18 years later in the 1962 movie, “The Longest Day,” in which Steele was portrayed by the actor Red Buttons.

Steele regularly visited here before his death in 1969 from cancer. But he was not the only American the town remembers.

Their actions here have also been captured in two stained glass windows in the church. One was designed in 1945 by a local artist named Paul Renaud, who was 14 years old when the paratroopers landed and 16 years old when he drew the sketch for a window made by Gabriel Loire in the village of Chartres.

It depicts the Virgin Mary and child above a burning Sainte Mere Eglise with paratroopers and planes around her. An inscription below the figures reads: “This stained glass was completed with the participation of Paul Renaud and Sainte Mere, for the memory of those who, with their courage and sacrifice, liberated Sainte Mere Eglise and France.”

“My father worked with the parish to come up with an idea to replace the original window, which had been destroyed,” said Henri Jean Renaud, whose father was the mayor of Saint Mere Eglise at the time. Renaud was 10 years old when the paratroopers landed.

A second window depicts Saint Michael, the patron saint of paratroopers. The 82nd Airborne Division, the lion of Normandy, the Sainte Mere Eglise insignia and symbols for each of the combat jumps made by the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II are also represented in the window.

The idea for the window began at the 25th anniversary of the jump and was donated by the veterans of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, in 1972. The same artist that made the first window also made the second. The inscription at the bottom reads: “To the memory of those who through their sacrifice liberated Sainte Mere Eglise.”

While the mannequin and windows are but inanimate objects, Renaud said, they help keep the memory of very real heroes alive.

“We are really very devoted to the veterans,” said Renaud. “For me, when they landed, they were like heroes in a movie. Now they are brothers.”

DVIDS
Story by Sgt. Fay Conroy

Just as the men who fought World War Two are heading home to God in increasing numbers, so too are the women. The Air Force has done a nice thing by seeing that some of these courageous pioneers are recognized and get to fly at least one more time.

Maj. Jennifer King escorts Kay Gott, an original member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots from World War II, during the WASP’s final flight on a C-130 Hercules Sept. 25 at Irving, Texas. Major King is a C-17 Globemaster III pilot with the 315th Airlift Wing from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Dawn Price)

Capt. Roseanne Teckman escorts an original member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots from World War II during the WASP’s final flight on a C-130 Hercules Sept. 25 at Irving, Texas. Captain Teckman is a flight nurse with the 315th Airlift Wing from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Dawn Price)

Wake Island. We’re still looking, a half century later.

A memorial to prisoners of war is seen Jan. 12 on Wake Island. The “98 Rock” is a memorial for the 98 U.S. civilian contract POWs who were forced by their Japanese captors to rebuild the airstrip as slave labor, then blind-folded and killed by machine gun Oct. 5, 1943. An unidentified prisoner escaped, and chiseled “98 US PW 5-10-43″ on a large coral rock near their mass grave, on Wilkes Island at the edge of the lagoon. The prisoner was recaptured and beheaded by the Japanese admiral, who was later convicted and executed for war crimes. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo)

Greg Berg and Denise To excavate a dig site Jan. 12, 2008 on Wake Island. Mr. Greg and Ms. To, forensic anthropologists, were sent to do a site survey after Wake Island officials notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command of bones located on the island. JPAC officials are charged with achieving the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of past conflicts. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo)

Denise To takes a break from excavating a dig site Jan. 12 on Wake Island. Ms. To, a forensic anthropologist, was sent to do a site survey after Wake Island officials notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command of bones located on the island. JPAC officials are charged with achieving the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of past conflicts. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo)

Don’t even start with me about how tough the modern millitay man or woman has it.

The 10th Armored was to drive on the Saar, take the bridge intact at Merzig and keep going. The Group moved its Command Post to Ritzing, France, and following the attack, advanced to Wehingen, Germany. Here heavy enemy artillery fire resulted in four casualties, two killed, two wounded, one truck destroyed, and the kitchen truck damaged. Upon reaching the river the bridge was found blown and on the 6th of December the 10th was pulled out of the line. The Group Command POL again withdrew from Germany to Launstroff, France, with its mission changed to direct support of the Cavalry which had relieved the Tankers and held a line generally along the dragons teeth between the Saar and Moselle.

Colonel JOHN E. THEIMER replaced Colonel CONDER as Group Commander on the 12th of December. Twice during December the Group was required to transfer 5% of its Table or Organization strength to the Infantry.

When the enemy made his attack in the Ardennes the 274th and 695th Armored Field Artillery Battalions were taken from the Group and for the night 21-22 December the defense of the line between the rivers depended on the Cavalry, one medium artillery battalion (689th) and the 5th Field Artillery Group Headquarters, and Headquarters Battery. However on the 22nd the 284th Field Artillery Battalion (105mm howitzer, truck drawn), the 558th Field Artillery Battalion (155 gun, self-propelled) were attached to the Group, infantry of the 90th Division took over approximately half of the Cavalry sector, and the forces were echeloned in depth to make a formidable defensive system. The Group retained its mission with the Cavalry and so moved its Command Post to Kirsch, where it remained until the 3rd of February 1945. While here the mission was changed to general support in the zone of the 94th Infantry Division when that Division relieved the 90th and took over in the zone of the Cavalry, the Cavalry being shifted to the right flank, on the 8th of January. An elaborate defensive plan was made with two delaying positions and the final defensive position in the Maginot Line. Routes were reconnoitered, Observation Posts selected and surveyed in, and positions prepared.

On the 27th of December P47 fighters committed hostile acts. and dropped bombs on the battery position of B Battery 733rd Field Artillery Battalion. They were engaged by our ground defenses and one was shot down. The pilot, an American Major, read his map incorrectly for the front lines had not changed in that sector in over a month.

After the Hun lost his initiative in the north, the 94th engaged in limited objective attacks. To prevent a major breakthrough the Germans brought the 11th Panzer Division into the line. Attrition on the material of this division was very high. All the air sections of the Group cooperated in an original patrol from the first faint light of dawn until the last sometimes later glimmer at dusk, so effectively that approximately forty of the sixty-five tanks originally brought in by the Germans were known to have been destroyed. The weapons primarily used by the air observers for these tank missions was the 155mm howitzer of the 689th Field Artillery Battalion.

From the unit history of my father’s unit, the 5th Field Artillery Group.

Thanksgiving 1942

The 5th Armored Artillery Group was activated at Camp Young, California on the 5th of September 1942. The Division Artillery Command of the 5th Armored Division had been taken from the Division and redesignated 5th Armored Artillery Group, consisting of Colonel JOHN M. WILLEMS commanding, a staff of two officers, and an enlisted strength of seventeen. Since it was the first unit of its kind, it was an experiment by the War Department in the face of many difficulties not immediately apparent, which, however, began to appear very shortly after activation.

Thanksgiving 1943

Beginning the first part of November all equipment, except organizational, was turned in. This included the dismantling of “The Palace”, our Command Post truck, which with continuous improvement, had become quite a modern office. On the l4th and l5th the Group moved to a staging area near Palermo, boarded the AORANGI on the l7th, and sailed for the United Kingdom on the l8th. The 5th Field Artillery Group docked and disembarked at Glasgow, Scotland, on the 9th of December and arrived by train in the Banbury / Bloxham area on the 10th. The luxury that confronted the men upon arrival at their billets was quite unexpected. Straw mattresses on beds in heated houses and huts with running water and showers readily available was a long step from living in the field in the mud, rain, and muck to which they were accustomed with no shelter other than pyramidal or pup tents. Malaria, jaundice, and the periodic epidemics of dysentery had taken their toll on the health and welfare of the men.

Thanksgiving 1944

On the 31st of October the Group moved to an assembly area at Pierrepont in preparation for the crossing of the Moselle at Thionville by the 90th and the flanking of Metz by the 10th Armored. From the 8th to the l5th of November, the Group supported the 90th in establishing a bridgehead across the flooded Moselle and on the 15th crossed the Thionville bridge with Task Force CHAMBERLAIN of the 10th Armored. The Group supported the 10th, slashing through fanatical resistance until the last escape route out of the fortress city had been cut and the Division was relieved by the 90th lnfantry Division. The direction of attack of the 10th Armored was to be northeast with Saarburg as the objective. The Group Headquarters entered Germany for the first time on the 22nd of November 1944 with its Command Post in the village of Eft. On this date our forces were stopped by the dragons teeth and pillboxes of the Siegfried Switch Line between the Saar and Moselle Rivers. The 3rd Cavalry Group relieved Combat Command A on the 28th and the Group received the additional mission of supporting the Cavalry.

Thanksgiving 1945 – HOME!

Baghdad 2007

“The Thanksgiving Day dinner is the meal of meals for the Army,” said Philadelphia native, Chief Warrant Officer Shawn M. Malinowski, the food service advisor with Multi-National Division – Baghdad. “There is no money, no effort, nothing wasted on this day.”

While dining facilities feed a lot of mouths at every meal they serve, they can expect to see a significant increase in that number on Thanksgiving Day.

The Pegasus Dining Facility, near the MND-B headquarters, served approximately 2,500 people Thanksgiving dinner last year, when only 1,500 people were served at an average meal. This year the dining facility is serving approximately 2,500 people at an average meal, so it can be expected to serve anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people for the holiday meal, Malinowski said.

Middle East 2007

“Historically, Thanksgiving dinner is one of the most family-oriented meals that there is,” said Ray Miller, director of subsistence for DSCP, the agency that supplies meals to the military worldwide. “When you are deployed and you’re not with (family), … it’s a taste of home wherever you are.”

Hundreds of thousands of troops will dine on turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, assorted pies and more. While this all sounds very “Norman Rockwell” normal, there’s nothing normal about the amount of food needed to feed that many troops.

The employees sent 342,382 pounds of turkey alone. More than 15,000 containers of stuffing mix and about 13,000 containers of white potatoes will join nearly 120,000 pounds of shrimp and a combined total of 249,357 pounds of ham and beef, as well.

“It would be like 100 tractor-trailers pulling up outside your house to deliver Thanksgiving dinner,” Miller said, describing just how much food was sent to the Middle East for the dinner.

And at the back of the very last tractor-trailer would be the one thing needed to finish the meal in fine holiday tradition: nearly 163,500 pies.

As for those with no access to a dining hall, they’re not destined to eat the same old everyday field rations. They, too, will get a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day.

“We … have provided a special ration meal called an URG-E (unitized group ration – express),” Miller said. “It won’t be the turkey, but it’ll be a turkey meal. It’s our attempt to at least try to get something to the folks that are on the far end of the supply chain.”

Medal of Honor – Posthumous Award

Sometimes you need to read about a real hero.

Citation:

*LUMMUS, JACK

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: 22 October 1915, Ennie, Tex. Appointed from: Texas.

Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as leader of a Rifle Platoon attached to the 2d Battalion, 27th Marines, 5th Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands, 8 March 1945.

Resuming his assault tactics with bold decision after fighting without respite for 2 days and nights, 1st Lt. Lummus slowly advanced his platoon against an enemy deeply entrenched in a network of mutually supporting positions. Suddenly halted by a terrific concentration of hostile fire, he unhesitatingly moved forward of his front lines in an effort to neutralize the Japanese position. Although knocked to the ground when an enemy grenade exploded close by, he immediately recovered himself and, again moving forward despite the intensified barrage, quickly located, attacked, and destroyed the occupied emplacement. Instantly taken under fire by the garrison of a supporting pillbox and further assailed by the slashing fury of hostile rifle fire, he fell under the impact of a second enemy grenade but, courageously disregarding painful shoulder wounds, staunchly continued his heroic 1-man assault and charged the second pillbox, annihilating all the occupants.

Subsequently returning to his platoon position, he fearlessly traversed his lines under fire, encouraging his men to advance and directing the fire of supporting tanks against other stubbornly holding Japanese emplacements. Held up again by a devastating barrage, he again moved into the open, rushed a third heavily fortified installation and killed the defending troops. Determined to crush all resistance, he led his men indomitably, personally attacking foxholes and spider traps with his carbine and systematically reducing the fanatic opposition until, stepping on a land mine, he sustained fatal wounds.

By his outstanding valor, skilled tactics, and tenacious perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds, 1st Lt. Lummus had inspired his stouthearted marines to continue the relentless drive northward, thereby contributing materially to the success of his regimental mission. His dauntless leadership and unwavering devotion to duty throughout sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country.

W. Thomas Smith, Jr

Then in a final effort to crush all resistance in the battalion’s front, he ordered a platoon assault against an enemy emplacement. As the Marines charged, Lummus stepped on a landmine. The enormous blast that followed could be heard across the entire island.

Numbed and with ears ringing, Lummus’ Marines could still make out the familiar Texas drawl of their platoon commander shouting, “Forward! Keep moving!” They could hear him, but they couldn’t see him. Not until the blast’s smoke and dust cleared. Then they saw the blackened figure of a man bent over and trying to push himself up on one of his elbows.

The Marines initially thought their lieutenant was standing in a hole. Then there was the horror of what they were looking at: Lummus was upright on two bloody stumps: His legs had been blown off, and much of his lower trunk was missing.

Several of the younger Marines, weeping like children, ran to his side. Some of the older Marines briefly considered a mercy shooting. But Lummus kept urging them forward: “Dammit, keep moving!,” he uttered. “You can’t stop now!”

According to the official report. “Their tears turned to rage. They swept an incredible 300 yards over impossible ground… There was no question that the dirty, tired men, cursing and crying and fighting, had done it for Jack Lummus.”

Hours later on a stretcher bound for the operating table, an ashen-faced Lummus managed a smile for the Navy surgeon and quipped, “Well, Doc, I guess the New York Giants have lost the services of a damned good end.”

Smith has received word that Lt. Lummus will be honored by the New York Giants on Veterans Day at Giants Stadium, for the Dallas game.

Wow! This leaves me speechless. Chris writes another great story you won’t see in the media. Too bad for them.

DVIDS
By Spc. Chris McCann, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division Public Affairs

The 10th Mountain Division’s song recalls the unit’s “glorious history” in World War II.

Fort Drum, N.Y., the division’s home, has streets named Lake Garda, Riva Ridge and Mount Belvedere, after major battles in the Italian campaign. But all of that can seem distant to today’s Soldiers.

Maj. Joshua Sparling, surgeon for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), is a 10th Mountain “legacy” whose grandfather fought on Riva Ridge and Belvedere.

Sparling, a native of Raymond, Maine, has been with the 10th Mtn. Div. twice. He first joined the Army for four years in 1996 as a reservist during medical school. In September 2001, while serving as a general medical officer at the Pentagon, he was attached to part of the division during a rotation to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th, the deployment schedule changed, and Sparling went back to the Pentagon.

After his dermatology residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which ended in July 2006, he came to Fort Drum, where he worked at Guthrie Clinic. He volunteered for a deployment, and was chosen to join the 2nd BCT.

Sparling’s grandfather, Herbert Colburn, was an avid skier. When the 10th Mountain Division was founded and the Army needed ski troops, Colburn, then 25, volunteered for duty. He left in 1943, spending more than a year in training at Camp Hale, Colo., and then deploying to Italy until the division ended its operations in the European theater. His wife, Marion, was pregnant when he left, and their first daughter was 18 months old when he returned home and saw her for the first time.

Colburn, a private first class, was assigned to the 10th Anti-Tank Battalion and was awarded a Bronze Star Medal with “V” for valor during the Mount Belvedere campaign. Under enemy fire, he placed barbed wire to keep the Germans from crossing a ravine. He was discharged after the war ended.

After his discharge, he put his service behind him and became an insurance salesman for the next 40 years until he retired.

“I never got to take him up to Fort Drum,” Sparling said. “Of course, when he was in the 10th Mountain, they were based in Colorado. But I did get to take him to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

“It was a moving experience; my idea was to get him to see it, but I didn’t anticipate the people coming up to him to shake his hand and thank him for his service,” he said.

Colburn began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in his 80s, which sapped many of his memories.

“When we went to the memorial, I know he understood what it was and the significance of it, but that might be about it,” Sparling said.

Sparling said he grew up very close to his grandfather.

“He was my surrogate father,” he said. “I was much closer to him than to my father. I would say he was the major male role model in my life. But he didn’t talk about it much; most of those guys didn’t. I was too young to understand the real meaning of it – war was a distant idea. And the last five years of his life, when I was interested, he had a lot of memory problems.”

In a way, however, the disease gave Sparling a chance to spend more time with his grandfather.

“They lived in the same house in Holyoke, Mass., and went to the same church for almost 60 years,” Sparling said. “But when my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s got bad, he couldn’t take care of her because he had his own memory problems, so they went to Olny, Md., about 20 minutes away from where I lived while I was working at Walter Reed. My wife and I would take him on outings and walks, and took lots of photos.”

Sparling said he remains impressed by his grandfather’s stoicism.

“Those people had an attitude that it was a terrible thing that happened, but they were back and moving on,” Sparling said. “We lost a lot of historical data because of that, I think, although there’s been an effort in the last decade to rectify that. But mostly it’s too late.

“Seven years or so ago, my brother videotaped my grandfather and asked him about the war, and he was very open about it. It may have been the Alzheimer’s, but he told us things that no one in the family had known before, like that he’d shot at someone and thought he saw them get hit, and that that had weighed on him.”

Colburn also revealed a side of the war that Sparling finds similar to the conflict in which he currently serves.

“He said the worst part on Riva Ridge was that the enemy would shoot mortars every night at exactly the same time, and it was a powerful psychological weapon. The Americans would sit there, knowing that in 15 minutes the mortars would start and someone would die, and who it would be was just a roll of the dice. I think the corollary is improvised explosive devices in Iraq; it has the same psychological effect, having no control over the environment. If it blows up, it could do nothing, or it could kill you.”

Another rough part for his grandparents, he said, was the mail.

“Here, I can e-mail my wife and call her almost every day. My grandmother would go weeks or months without hearing from her husband, no word at all, and she wouldn’t know whether it was just because the mail was slow or if something had happened to him. And then she would get eight letters all at once, because the mail would build up before they sent it out.”

Sparling and his grandfather are the only two in their extended family to join the Army, and Sparling said it’s very strange that he is now in the same division.

“The odds are so slim,” he said. “I’m a dermatologist, and Fort Drum only got a position for a dermatologist five years ago. If I’d joined earlier, or if my predecessor had not finished his assignment there, it wouldn’t have happened. And there are very few dermatologists that are deployed.”

Sparling said he still has his grandfather’s army jacket with the patches and rank insignia.

“The unit patch is exactly the same as the one I have on,” Sparling said with a smile.

He said he plans to go to the veterans’ ceremony on Whiteface Mountain, near Fort Drum, when he returns from deployment.

An interesting story.

DoD

The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a small team of Japanese and U.S. specialists is visiting Attu Island, Alaska, in search of information which may lead them to remains of missing Japanese soldiers.

With support from the Department of Defense, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the team of five Japanese and three Americans arrived Thursday for a four day mission. The team is investigating potential loss or burial sites where the remains of Japanese soldiers may be found. The team’s findings will be evaluated by the U.S. and Japanese governments to determine if follow-on excavations are called for.

Primary airlift for the team was provided by the U.S. Coast Guard on a regularly-scheduled C-130 airlift mission from Kodiak to Attu Island. While visiting the island, the team is being housed at the long range navigation station where some Coast Guardsmen have volunteered to assist in the investigations. Attu Island is under the management and protection of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which administers the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. At the end of Alaska’s Aleutian island chain, Attu is the westernmost point of land of the United States.

In June 1942, a unit of the Japanese Army occupied Attu, capturing and imprisoning many of its inhabitants. U.S. forces began action to recapture the small island in May 1943, where fierce hand-to-hand battles led to about 540 American and 2,300 Japanese deaths. It was the site of the only land battle in WWII in North America.

Shortly after the war, 235 sets of Japanese remains were recovered on Attu by U.S. forces and reburied at Ft. Richardson, near Anchorage, Alaska. The Japanese later disinterred those remains, cremated them as part of a religious ceremony and reburied them at the same location.

The Japanese government assisted U.S. investigators last month in a visit to Iwo Jima in search of information related to American WWII MIAs.