To All,
Good Thursday Morning September 19. 2024. .A couple long but entertaining reads this morning. Thanks to Shadow, Billy and Dick and others
Warm Regards and have a great week,
skip
Make it a good Day
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/. Go here to see the director's corner for all 83 H-Grams
Today in Naval and Marine Corps History
September. 19
1777 During the American Revolution, the British cutter HMS Alert captures the brig Lexington.
1862 The side-wheel ram Queen of the West exchanges sharp fire with Confederate infantry and artillery above Bolivar, Miss., while escorting two troop transports.
1864 Confederates seize steamer Philo Parsons, in an attempt to bribe USS Michigan officers and crew for the release of Confederate prisoners. The plot is foiled and the mission aborted.
1942 USS Hughes (DD 410), while serving in Task Force Seventeen (TF 17), rescues the surviving crewmen of a USAAF (B 17) that makes a forced landing in the Coral Sea one week before.
1944 USS Shad (SS 235) torpedoes and sinks Japanese coast defense ship, Ioshima. (ex-Chinese cruiser, Ning Hai) 85 miles off Hachij, Jima.
1952 USS Alfred A. Cunningham (DD 752) takes fire from three guns, estimated 105 to 155 mm in the Wonsan area of Korea. Thirteen personnel casualties, none fatal, were suffered. She expended 75 rounds of 5 inch and 84 of 3 inch in return counter battery fire. After emergency repairs, USS Alfred A. Cunningham was able to continue her combat operations.
1957 Bathyscaphe Trieste, in a dive sponsored by the Office of Naval Research in the Mediterranean, reaches a record depth of two miles. Three years later, Trieste would set a new record of seven miles on Jan. 23, 1960.
1992 USNS Loyal (T-AGOS 22) is christened and launched at McDermott Shipyards, Morgan City, Louisiana. The Military Sealift Command ship conducts surveillance towed array sensory system operations.
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Today in World History September 19
1356 In a landmark battle of the Hundred Years' War, English Prince Edward defeats the French at Poitiers. That English Long Bow was the decisive weapon but this was going to be eclipsed at Agincourt,
1544 Francis, the king of France, and Charles V of Austria sign a peace treaty in Crespy, France, ending a 20-year war.
1692 Giles Corey is pressed to death for standing mute and refusing to answer charges of witchcraft brought against him. He is the only person in America to have suffered this punishment.
1777 American forces under Gen. Horatio Gates meet British troops led by Gen. John Burgoyne at Saratoga Springs, NY.
1783 The first hot-air balloon is sent aloft in Versailles, France with animal passengers including a sheep, rooster and a duck.
1788 Charles de Barentin becomes lord chancellor of France.
1841 The first railway to span a frontier is completed between Strasbourg and Basel, in Europe.
1863 In Georgia, the two-day Battle of Chickamauga begins as Union troops under George Thomas clash with Confederates under Nathan Bedford Forrest.
1893 New Zealand becomes the first nation to grant women the right to vote.
1900 President Emile Loubet of France pardons Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, twice court-martialed and wrongly convicted of spying for Germany.
1918 American troops of the Allied North Russia Expeditionary Force receive their baptism of fire near the town of Seltso against Soviet forces.
1948 Moscow announces it will withdrawal soldiers from Korea by the end of the year.
1955 Argentina's President Juan Peron is overthrown by rebels.
1957 First underground nuclear test takes place in Nevada.
1970 First Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts (originally called the Pilton Festival) is held near Pliton, Somerset, England.
1973 Carl XVI Gustaf invested as King of Sweden, following the death of his grandfather King Gustaf VI Adolf.
1982 The first documented emoticons, :-) and :-(, posted on Carnegie Mellon University Bulletin Board System by Scott Fahlman.
1985 An earthquake kills thousands in Mexico City.
1985 Parents Music Resource Center formed by Tipper Gore (wife of then-Senator Al Gore) and other political wives lobby for Parental Advisory stickers on music packaging.
1991 German hikers near the Austria-Italy border discover the naturally preserved mummy of a man from about 3,300 BC; Europe's oldest natural human mummy, he is dubbed Otzi the Iceman because his lower half was encased in ice.
2006 Military coup in Bangkok, revokes Thailand's constitution and establishes martial law.
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19 Sep 2018, marked 52 years since Lt Tony Nargi , flying an F-8 Charlie, bagged a Mig –21 with an AIM-9 D. VF-111 Det 11, USS Intrepid. Thanks to Rattler
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On September 19, 1957, the United States detonates a 1.7-kiloton nuclear weapon in an underground tunnel at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), a 1,375-square-mile research center located 65 miles north of Las Vegas. The test, known as Rainier, was the first fully contained underground detonation and produced no radioactive fallout. A modified W-25 warhead weighing 218 pounds and measuring 25.7 inches in diameter and 17.4 inches in length was used for the test. Rainier was part of a series of 29 nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons safety tests known as Operation Plumbbob that were conducted at the NTS between May 28, 1957, and October 7, 1957.
In December 1941, the U.S. government committed to building the world's first nuclear weapon when President Franklin Roosevelt authorized $2 billion in funding for what came to be known as the Manhattan Project. The first nuclear weapon test took place on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. A few weeks later, on August 6, 1945, with the U.S. at war against Japan, President Harry Truman authorized the dropping of an atomic bomb named Little Boy over Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on August 9, a nuclear bomb called Fat Man was dropped over Nagasaki. Two hundred thousand people, according to some estimates, were killed in the attacks on the two cities and on August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers.
1957's Operation Plumbbob took place at a time when the U.S. was engaged in a Cold War and nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. In 1963, the U.S. signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, underwater and outer space. A total of 928 tests took place at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1992, when the U.S. conducted its last underground nuclear test. In 1996, the U.S signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear detonations in all environments.
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Thanks to the Bear
Skip… For "The List" for the week of 16 September 2024…. Bear
BEAR SENDS… OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (1968-1972) From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com… This post concludes the inclusion of Rolling Thunder and Commando Hunt reposts in "The List." For the past 44-weeks, I have provided access to archive entries covering Commando Hunt operations for the period November 1968 through mid-September 1969. These posts are permanently available at the following link.
https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/commando-hunt-post-list/
The RTR website is the domain and property of author Dan Heller and reflects his dedication and commitment to extending the site and archive into the future. The Yankee Air Pirates of Rolling Thunder and Commando Hunt and their 1965-1972 fight with North Vietnam will NOT be forgotten, thanks to Dan's assumption of this task. The RTR site is now world class and in great hands…
It has been my honor and duty to create and turnover this journal of our air war in North Vietnam to Dan Heller. It has also been a pleasure to repost the history of both Rolling Thunder and Commando Hunt ops in Skip Leonard's incomparable daily post and history lesson for the last three years. It was Skip's extraordinary commitment of twenty-years to his daily history lesson that inspired me to create Rolling Thunder Remembered in 2016… Skip goes on. I'm done… Glory gained and duty done, I now retire to my cave on Mount Ogden to contemplate my navel… Bear
(Please note the eye-watering ongoing revamp of the RTR website by Webmaster/Author Dan Heller, who has inherited the site from originators RADM Bear Taylor, USN, Retired, and Angie Morse, "Mighty Thunder")…
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and can read what happened each day to the aircraft and its crew. .Micro is the one also that goes into the archives and finds these inputs and sends them to me for incorporation in the List. It is a lot of work and our thanks goes out to him for his effort.
From Vietnam Air Losses site for "for 19 September
19-Sep: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=3013
Vietnam Air Losses
Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info
https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
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Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
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From the archives
Thanks to Micro
An excellent aviation history lesson from WW II,
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Https://CaptainBillyWalker.com
From Skip…Be sure to go to Captain Billy's site…You can get lost for hours there in the history of aviation
Here is a tale from Billy
Larry Duthie KIA '67
November 10 , 2016 By : Billy Walker Category : WAR STORIES Comments : 4
Larry Duthie is a long-time friend from college/fraternity days at Arizona State University in the early 60's. I recently discovered him alive and well after spending the past 40 years believing him shot down and KIA. Fortunately, the KIA part was incorrect!
I found Chuck Walling on The Wall, but I couldn't find my pal Larry Dutie. ATΩ fratenity brother, Chuck Walling and his backseater were blown out of the skies of North Vietnam by a SAM (surface to air missile). A vibrant warrior one minute nearly vaporized the next. …and for what?
The progeny of my story, another ATΩ named Larry Duthy, was shot down and KIA in '67 flying an A-4 Skyhawk off the carrier Oriskany. In fact, John McCain joined Larry's sister squadron just a week after Larry was shot down. Then, as we know, McCain was shot down and ended up POW.
Duthie and I along with several other ATΩ brothers joined the Navy's short- lived Naviator Program. Larry ended up in Attack Squadron 163 and we lost touch shortly before his deployment. Chuck Walling was an Air Force F-4 "Phantom" pilot. His remains were recently recovered and interred in Arlington.
Just a few years ago I received a interesting e-mail about a Major Glenn York who had flown some very heroic rescue missions in a CH-53 during our SE Asia War Games… York's story was fascinating, but it was the photos at the bottom of the e-mail that were astounding! There was a couple of pictures of my buddy Larry Duthie sitting in York's helicopter all smiles having been rescued.
HOLY SMOKE! Dooth wasn't dead after all! I set to work tying to locate him. There was a Larry Duthie, publisher, in Walla Walla, WA. I called and asked to speak with him. He answered and I asked "are you the Larry Duthie who went to Arizona State University?" He admitted this and asked who I was. I said "Billy Walker and you're dead!"
Ol' Dooth tried to debate my accusation that he was dead. "…then get your sorry ass out here and prove to us otherwise!" He did. Dooth and his lovely wife Roz came out and you can imagine the party! It was a wonderful reunion. Later, Cheryl and I would travel to Walla Walla and do some more catching up which we did last summer.
All but a couple of us had thought Duth had been KIA for over 40 years! ATΩ Frank Conn knew. However, Frank had moved to Atlanta and was off our radar. Of course none of us had tried to contact Duthie and we didn't know his family since he was from California and most of the other's hailed from here in The Salt River Valley.
On that fateful day in 1967, Duthie had been trying to protect his flight lead who had been shot down. The same 37mm gun got Duthie as well. Warning lights and bells along with fire told ol' Dooth he was in trouble.
Screaming thru the skies over North Vietnam Dooth ejected at over 500mph! This caused a big problem as A-4 doesn't have leg restraints. One of Duthie's legs was caught in the violent slip-stream and torn-up badly, but he made it down OK. Hunted by the enemy, he evaded for over 4 hours. Duthie was nearly rescued by a Navy SAR helicopter. Suddenly the helicopter was taking serious damage and door gunner was killed. So, the Navy SAR left the scene. Duthie was all alone. Shortly, he would be as dead as his flight leader (killed by angry enemy civilians) or would become a POW.
Fortunately for Duthie, USAF Maj. York was on channel and he succeeded where the Navy guys didn't. Duthie was then air-lifted to hospital after hospital for a year or so. When he was finally rehab'd to flight status he then tried making contact with some of us. We were all young bachelors then and had blown to the four winds. Life went on and Duthie stayed dead in our minds until the serendipitous e-mail about his rescuer arrived.
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From the archives
Thanks to Shadow
Subject: Some fighter pilot talk for a change
Jim Lucas and myself had an incredible experience one day… wasn't uncommon to have VIP visitors at our hangar… in fact, never knew who would show up. One afternoon… sitting in our office (it was more like a living room)… we had Bud Anderson, Corky Meyer, John Verdi, Big Jim Robinson, Tom Mann and Bob Coats all swapping stories… we were in awe! For those who don't know, Bud was a Double Ace in Europe and Yeager's Flight Leader. After the war he was a Test Pilot at Dayton and Murdock"? Corky was a Test Pilot at Grumman (and my boyhood idol… long story), John Verdi was perhaps the most brilliant man I've ever known… 100 plus missions in Korea, checked out Ted Williams and John Glenn in the Panther. Later flew with CAT in support of the French in Vietnam (early CIA air support group) including missions into Dien bien Phu… then back on active duty, developed the nuke delivery profile for the A-4, took his F-4 Squadron to Vietnam and eventually flew one of the most incredible missions of the war in total secrecy. Big Jim Robinson was a Corsair pilot in the big one, later flew F9F's off the Midway. Both Tom Mann and Bob Coats were Double Aces… Tom was a Marine flying the F4F at Guadalcanal and Bob flew Hellcats, I think off Enterprise?
These men talked for hours until the sun finally went down… as Jim and I walked them out and watched them drive away… Jim turned to me and said… "We need our asses kicked! We should have recorded it… be worth a fortune"!
Fond memory!
Shadow
Roy, thank you! As so often so often so often...IF ONLY there'd been a recorder running.
Robin was like every other P-38 pilot I've known--they loved the Lightning especially from the H onward. But the Mustang took studs where the swastikas grew.
Barrett
Thanks to Shadow
Robin was at our house one night and after dinner and a couple of hooks… we naturally started talking airplanes. At one point I looked at him and asked… "What's the best airplane you ever flew"? He thought for a second and finally said the P-51. I'd set him up and immediately said; "Bullshit"!
I then said… "Robin, I've flown a P-51 and frankly it was disappointing compared to what I'd flown in the military. It wasn't as fast, it wasn't as maneuverable… I could go on and on". He gave me that Robin eye… and said… "When you put it that way, I guess you're right". He then said "What is your favorite airplane"? I told him even though the F-4 was my primary ride… I absolutely loved flying the A-4! Robin then smiled and said, "I've been in love with a lot of different airplanes… and a lot of women… guess it really gets down to the time and circumstance"… and then he smiled!
Gotta love a guy like that! Even the wife stayed up while we swapped stories… usually she went to bed with the first "There I was story" that came out of anybody's mouth.
Shadow
Thanks to Barrett Tillman
Ref. respecting the enemy:
During one of Robin Olds' late-late or early-early discussions the subject of Ours against Theirs arose. Which was better, the P-51 or the FW-190. Robin (correctly of course) said the only way to know was a neutral start with evenly matched pilots. Then he added, "I never fought a 190 pilot who was as good as I was. (one-potato, two-potato). But I fought one who was better once and was lucky to get away!"
He also said ref. the NVAF: "The best flying job was a MiG-21 pilot at Phuc Yen. If I'd been one of them I'd have got 50 of us!"
Barrett
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On Sep 17, 2022, at 2:35 PM, JOHN SOUDERS <jsouderssr@aol.com> wrote:
I have very little time in the F-4 but worked against it and the F-106 (College Dart) while flying the F-8 in the first half of the seventies. One thing I noticed with both was that there was a tendency to overestimate their airplane's capabilities and underestimate the capabilities of their opponent. In this case, the F-8 or when I saw them work against A-4's. A healthy respect for your opponent and a realistic evaluation of your own airplane will work wonders.
Suds.
On Sep 14, 2022, at 13:41, Richard A Peters <petepeters@cox.net> wrote:
Back to fighter pilot stuff. I believe the tragically heavy early F4 losses in air to air combat over North Vietnam were totally avoidable. In the Fall of 1963, then RADM John Hyland, a CarDiv in the Med, wrote a scathing 2 page message assessment to the Air Board of the lack of carrier aviation's readiness to fight a conventional conflict. The A4 and A3 communities were almost entirely focused on special weapons delivery. The F4's trained air intercept to protect the fleet from enemy bombers. While the F8 community was well prepared for battlefield air superiority, we were totally ignoring our close air support and interdiction capabilities. (We had surface targets assigned in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but made no adjustments to training syllabus afterwards). At the time of his message I was enroute from a tour in VF174 to Cag 1 staff and was just completing about 25 hours fam in the F4 with VF101. The skipper called the Ops O and me into his office, showed us RADM Hyland's message, and asked for our thoughts on how to evaluate fighting the plane and syllabus changes for training. After some discussion, I was given a clean wing F4B at NAS Cecil to work out with VF174. We figured with a clean wing and so much power it should be able to turn with the F8. I lost most, if not every slow speed scissors with Len Kane in an F8. In the debrief we discussed Major Boyd's conservation of energy and decided I should convert speed to altitude vice trying to match turning radius, then drop back inside. Second hop was against TR Swartz and his comment after a few engagements tells the story "I wish the f—k you'd quit doing that to me". We reported back to VF101 that they should not attempt to turn with an aircraft that had lower wing loading, and that the aircraft performed extremely well if you maintained speed and altitude advantage. VF174 also passed on appropriate syllabus materials. Why VF121 leadership never asked those questions is tough for this fighter pilot to comprehend. VF124 was right there and had significant talent to help. The CAG12 Fighter Training Officer could have played a role. It was NOT rocket science! Three young Lieutenants who had read and understood Major Boyd's writings had a solid starting point for fighting the F4 in combat after two hops on a single day.
Toro
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Thanks to Brett
Geopolitical Futures:
Keeping the future in focus
Daily Memo: Armenia Thwarts Alleged Coup, Shoigu Visits Tehran
Armenian authorities said the plot had Russian connections.
By: GPF Staff
Foiled plot. Armenian authorities arrested three people and are searching for four others for conspiring to overthrow the government, Armenia's Investigative Committee announced. Five of the suspects are Armenian citizens and two are former residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, the formerly ethnic Armenian breakaway region of Azerbaijan. The suspects allegedly recruited several Armenian citizens and paid them to travel to Russia to undergo three months of military training before joining the Armenian military upon their return. Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan said his country suspended its membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization because the institution failed to protect Armenia's security and sovereignty. He also said his country was close to a "point of no return" in its relations with the CSTO.
Shoigu in Tehran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu held talks in Tehran on Tuesday. Shoigu also visited Damascus on Monday to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Pyongyang last Friday to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trade growth. Trade turnover between Japan and Russia increased in August by 23.8 percent compared to the same period in 2023, Russia's TASS news agency reported, citing figures from Japan's Finance Ministry. Japanese exports of passenger cars rose by 25.6 percent and of spare parts and components for vehicles by 19.9 percent, while Russian exports of liquefied natural gas jumped by 49 percent. It's the first increase in trade between the two countries since August 2022.
Russian engagement in Africa. Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom is in talks on constructing a nuclear power plant in Rwanda. The Rwandan government is also in negotiations with Rosatom on building a nuclear science and technology center in the country. Elsewhere on the continent, a delegation of Russian officials met with Sudan's minister of mineral resources to discuss strengthening cooperation in the mining sector and expanding bilateral trade and investment.
China and Germany. Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao called on Germany to reject tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles during talks in Berlin on Tuesday with German Economic Minister Robert Habeck. Habeck, meanwhile, said Germany supports free trade and would urge the European Commission to find an appropriate solution with Beijing.
Drills at sea. Russia and China are carrying out military exercises off the coast of Russia's Primorsky region. Three Russian and two Chinese coast guard ships will conduct drills focused on searching for and detaining an intruder vessel.
Moscow meeting. The deputy prime ministers of Azerbaijan and Russia met in Moscow to discuss bilateral trade and economic, scientific and technical cooperation.
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Thanks to History Facts
People used to send their children through the U.S. mail.
U.S. HISTORY
On January 1, 1913, the United States Post Office began offering parcel service. While private freight companies had already existed for quite some time, the program allowed many more people, including folks in rural communities, to get goods shipped to their front doors. Immediately, Americans started shipping pretty much anything they could think of. One of the first packages sent using the service was a brindle bulldog. College kids started mailing their laundry home. More than one Flushing, Queens, resident received an opossum. But the most brazen early parcel customers trusted the Post Office with was the most precious cargo of all: human children.
The first recorded baby delivered via parcel post was James Beagle, an 8-month-old resident of Glen Este, Ohio. His journey wasn't long: A carrier picked up the "well wrapped" infant from his parents on January 25 and, per the address on an attached card, delivered him to his grandmother just a few miles away. The postage cost 15 cents, and his parents insured him for $50.
This practice was never officially authorized, and in February 1914, the second assistant postmaster general announced that babies could not be transported by mail. But this didn't stop postal employees, particularly rural ones, from occasionally breaking the rules. Just a month later, a 14-pound baby was shipped 12 miles from her grandmother in Clear Spring, Maryland, to her mother in Indian Springs. On February 19, 1914, 5-year-old May Pierstorff was mailed about 75 miles from her home in Grangeville, Idaho, to her grandparents' place, which cost 53 cents in postage and was, apparently, cheaper than a train ticket. (In that case, she was chaperoned by a cousin who worked for the mail service.) In 1915, 6-year-old Edna Neff was mailed a whopping 720 miles from Pensacola, Florida, to her father's home in Christiansburg, Virginia.
That same year, on August 31, 1915, 3-year-old Maude Smith — with a shipping label sewn to her dress, appropriate postage affixed, and snacks in hand — was placed by her mail carrier on a train from Caney to Jackson, Kentucky, to visit her sick mother. When she arrived at her destination, she had a note from a postal clerk to a local postmaster pinned to her dress: "I doubt the legality of the sending, but it was put on the train and I must deliver and report." The U.S. Post Office actually investigated that case, and although it's unclear what the outcome was, Smith was one of the last children ever to be mailed.
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From the archives
Thanks to Dr. Rich
Be yourself ...
From Ken .. a good friend !!
Qualifications to be a friend? Some are difficult.
"What is a friend? I will tell you. It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with him. He seems to ask of you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. He does not want you to be better or worse. When you are with him, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, as long it is genuinely you. He understands those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With him you can breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hate and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities and, in opening them up to him, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of his loyalty. He under stands. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse him, neglect him, tolerate him. Best of all, you can be still with him. It makes no matter. He likes you - he is like the fire that purges to the bone. He understands. He understands. You can weep with him, sing with him, laugh with him, pray with him. Through it all - and underneath - he sees, knows and loves you. A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself."
-- C.R. Beran --
Thanks Worm
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From the archives
Thanks to Bill
Reminds me of the commercials in Brussels
: The Italian Auction - Going Once,.....
This is something to see. An Italian Auction - only 44 seconds! You don't have to understand Italian to follow the auctioneer.
A Chinese Ming Vase is up for auction.
The bidding opens at a half-million Euros. Bidding is brisk and each bidder is clearly identified as each raises the bid by 100,000 Euros. (The exchange rate at auction time was 1 Euro =$1.12.) Within seconds, the bid stalls at One million Euros, and the gasp from the crowd identifies the excitement that prevails in the room.
The successful bidder is the last one who bid - one million, and the auctioneer counts down the bid, "Going once, going twice, and sold to the gentleman sitting in front of me for one million Euros."
The pace is fast. This is how an auction should be.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/3e0yZCLjwfU?rel
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This Day in U S Military History
September 19
1862 – Union troops under General William Rosecrans defeat a Confederate force commanded by General Sterling Price at Iuka in northern Mississippi. The Battle of Iuka was part of a Confederate attempt to prevent General Ulysses S. Grant from reinforcing General Don Carlos Buell in central Tennessee. In the fall of 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg had invaded Kentucky to prevent the Rebels from losing any more territory in the West. The Confederates hoped to keep Union forces in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi occupied to prevent any transfer of troops to Buell, who had moved north to stop the invasion of Kentucky. Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn commanded the two small Confederate armies operating in northern Mississippi, while Ulysses S. Grant led the Union forces in the area. In addition to preventing Yankee reinforcements in Kentucky, the Confederates also hoped to invade western Tennessee. Grant effectively thwarted both of these objectives by sending troops under General William Rosecrans to move on Price's army at Iuka from the south. He also dispatched another force under General Edward Ord to approach Iuka from the west. But poor communication and delays prevented a combined attack, and Price launched a preemptive assault on Rosecrans on September 19. Despite the intense fighting, Rosecrans was able to hold Price's force at bay. Repeated Confederate attacks resulted in heavy losses for the Rebels: 1,500 of 14,000 troops engaged. Yankee losses amounted to 790 out of 17,000 present. With Ord's force nearby, Price realized he was in danger of being trapped, and so he abandoned Iuka that evening. Ord may have joined in the battle, but a strange quirk of nature known as an "acoustic shadow" prevented him from hearing the sounds of battle just a few miles away. Acoustic shadows form when sound is unable to reach certain locations due to atmospheric conditions or terrain features. Although he saw smoke, Ord assumed Rosecrans was burning captured supplies
1944 – Operation Market Garden continues. In the morning the British 30th Corps reaches troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division at Grave. The combined force advances toward Nijmegen. At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division continues to hold. Meanwhile, in Brittany, the last German resistance in Brest comes to an end.
1944 – The Battle of Hürtgen Forest (German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) is the name given to the series of fierce battles fought between U.S. and German forces during World War II in the Hürtgen Forest, which became the longest battle on German ground during World War II, and the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought. The battles went on to 16 December 1944, over barely 50 sq mi (130 km2), east of the Belgian–German border. The U.S. commanders' initial goal was to pin down German forces in the area to keep them from reinforcing the front lines further north in the Battle of Aachen, where the Allies were fighting a trench war between a network of fortified towns and villages connected with field fortifications, tank traps and minefields. A secondary objective may have been to outflank the front line. The Americans' initial objectives were to take Schmidt and clear Monschau. In a second phase the Allies wanted to advance to the Rur River as part of Operation Queen. Generalfeldmarshall Walter Model intended to bring the Allied thrust to a standstill. While he interfered less in the day-to-day movements of units than at Arnhem, he still kept himself fully informed on the situation, slowing the Allies' progress, inflicting heavy casualties and taking full advantage of the fortifications the Germans called the Westwall, better known to the Allies as the Siegfried Line. A few days later, the Battle of the Bulge began, leaving the battle of Hürtgen Forest largely forgotten. The Hürtgen Forest cost the U.S. First Army at least 33,000 killed and incapacitated, including both combat and noncombat losses; German casualties were 28,000. Aachen eventually fell on 22 October, again at high cost to the U.S. Ninth Army. The Ninth Army's push to the Rur fared no better, and did not manage to cross the river or wrest control of its dams from the Germans. The Rur triangle was later cleared during Operation Blackcock between 14 and 26 January 1945. Hürtgen was so costly that it has been called an Allied "defeat of the first magnitude", with specific credit being assigned to Model.
1944 – On Peleliu there is heavy fighting around Mount Umurbrogol. Japanese forces are continuing to hold against the US marine attacks. On Angaur, there is intensive fighting between American troops and the small Japanese garrison.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
*COLLIER, JOHN W.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company C, 27th Infantry Regiment. Place and date: Near Chindong-ni, Korea, 19 September 1950. Entered service at: Worthington, Ky. Born: 3 April 1929, Worthington, Ky. G.O. No.: 86, 2 August 1951. Citation: Cpl. Collier, Company C, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. While engaged in an assault on a strategic ridge strongly defended by a fanatical enemy, the leading elements of his company encountered intense automatic weapons and grenade fire. Cpl. Collier and 3 comrades volunteered and moved forward to neutralize an enemy machine gun position which was hampering the company's advance, but they were twice repulsed. On the third attempt, Cpl. Collier, despite heavy enemy fire and grenade barrages, moved to an exposed position ahead of his comrades, assaulted and destroyed the machine gun nest, killing at least 4 enemy soldiers. As he returned down the rocky, fire-swept hill and joined his squad, an enemy grenade landed in their midst. Shouting a warning to his comrades, he, selflessly and unhesitatingly, threw himself upon the grenade and smothered its explosion with his body. This intrepid action saved his comrades from death or injury. Cpl. Collier's supreme, personal bravery, consummate gallantry, and noble self-sacrifice reflect untold glory upon himself and uphold the honored traditions of the military service.
*JECELIN, WILLIAM R.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company C, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Saga, Korea, 19 September 1950. Entered service at: Baltimore, Md. Birth: Baltimore, Md. G.O. No.: 24, 25 April 1951. Citation: Sgt. Jecelin, Company C, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and Intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. His company was ordered to secure a prominent, sawtoothed ridge from a well-entrenched and heavily armed enemy. Unable to capture the objective in the first attempt, a frontal and flanking assault was launched. He led his platoon through heavy enemy fire and bursting shells, across ricefields and rocky terrain, in direct frontal attack on the ridge in order to draw fire away from the flanks. The unit advanced to the base of the cliff, where intense, accurate hostile fire stopped the attack. Realizing that an assault was the only solution, Sgt. Jecelin rose from his position firing his rifle and throwing grenades as he called on his men to follow him. Despite the intense enemy fire this attack carried to the crest of the ridge where the men were forced to take cover. Again he rallied his men and stormed the enemy strongpoint. With fixed bayonets they charged into the face of antitank fire and engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. After clubbing and slashing this force into submission the platoon was forced to take cover from direct frontal fire of a self-propelled gun. Refusing to be stopped he leaped to his feet and through sheer personal courage and fierce determination led his men in a new attack. At this instant a well-camouflaged enemy soldier threw a grenade at the remaining members of the platoon. He immediately lunged and covered the grenade with his body, absorbing the full force of the explosion to save those around him. This incredible courage and willingness to sacrifice himself for his comrades so imbued them with fury that they completely eliminated the enemy force. Sgt. Jecelin's heroic leadership and outstanding gallantry reflect the highest credit upon himself and uphold the esteemed traditions of the military service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for September 19, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
19 September
1918: DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSSES. Lts Arthur F. Seaver and John Y. Stokes, Jr., in a formation with five other bombers, went out on a mission from the 20th Aero Squadron. The other bombers turned back, but Seaver and Stokes went on to the target. Anti-aircraft fire hit their plane, but they still continued. Then their engine quit, but they glided over the target and dropped their bombs before turning back toward allied lines. They were attacked by an enemy fighter, but managed to crash in a forest inside allied lines. Both men later received the DSC. (4)
1928: The first diesel engine to power heavier-than-air craft flight-tested at Utica, Mich. Captain Lionel M. Woolson designed this engine in cooperation with Packard Motor Car Company, the builder. (24)
1937: Roscoe Turner, flying a Laird-Turner racer, set a US speed record of 289.908 MPH for 100 kilometers at Detroit. (24)
1950: KOREAN WAR. FEAF Combat Cargo Command began an airlift to Kimpo Airfield with 32 C-54s carrying equipment and supplies for ground troops to there. Supported by Fifth Air Force close air support missions, the 24th Infantry Division began crossing the Naktong River near Waegwan, and the 1st Cavalry Division broke through communist lines. (28)
1952: KOREAN WAR. In the first daylight medium bomber raid in 11 months, 32 B-29s with F-86 escorts attacked an enemy barracks and two supply areas southwest of Hamhung. An RB-45 preceded the B-29 formation, and an RB-29 orbited the area to provide weather information. (28)
1958: The RAF received its first Thor missile at Feltwell, England. (6)
1960: For the second time in four months, the USAF flew an Atlas ICBM over a 9,000-mile course from Cape Canaveral to a predetermined landing area in the Indian Ocean. (24)
1961: NASA announced that the future Manned Spacecraft Center would be located near Houston, Tex. (16) (24) The USAF SAGE Center at Gunter AFS, Ala., controlled the flight of a BOMARC-B missile from its launch at Eglin AFB to its interception of a Regulus II supersonic drone seven miles up and 250 miles away off the Florida coast. In the flight, the BOMARC successfully made a U-turn. (16) (24)
1969: An F-4E flying near Edwards AFB successfully air launched the first Maverick air-to-ground missile. (3)
1972: A Minuteman III completed its first operational test launch from a regular launch facility at Vandenberg AFB. (6)
1974: The 165th Military Airlift Group (MAG) at Savannah, Georgia, flew last C–124 (tail number 30044) in MAC's Reserve Forces to storage at Davis-Monthan AFB. (18) 1975: Maj George W. Larson of the 4200th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Edwards AFB became the first SAC pilot to fly the B-1 bomber. Charles C. Bock and Richard Abrams from Rockwell also handled the controls during the flight. (1)
1984: Through 21 September, a C-141 flew to Kinshasa, Zaire, to support of an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) research project conducted by the US National Institute of Health. It carried three passengers and nine tons of medical supplies and equipment. (18)
1989: HURRICANE HUGO. Through 15 November, 128 aircraft from MAC and SAC provided relief to Hugo's victims in the Lesser Antilles and South Carolina. The aircraft carried over 3,300 people and 8,200 tons of supplies. (16) (18) Operation HAWKEYE. After Hugo struck the Virgin Islands, MAC transported military police to the island to recover prisoners who had escaped during the storm. (18)
2001: The USAF awarded a low-rate production contract for 10 F-22s to Lockheed-Martin. (21)
2005: At Francis E. Warren AFB, Wyo., the 90th Space Wing held a deactivation ceremony to signal the phase out of the Peacekeeper weapon system from the Air Force inventory. (Aimpoints, 90th Space Wing, "Peacekeeper Missile Mission Ends During Ceremony, 21 Sep 05) HURRICANE RITA. Air National Guardsmen began flying disaster response air support missions to prepare for Hurricane Rita's expected landfall on the Texas coast. (32)
2006: A B-52H flew a sortie using a blend of synthetic kerosene and JP-8 fuel in two engines and the conventional JP-8 in the other six engines. The test fuel was a 50-50 mix of traditional crude-oil and synthetic kerosene derived from natural gas. Air Force Undersecretary Ronald Sega flew aboard the flight to highlight the importance of the new fuel, which promised to reduce costs and greatly enhance deployability throughout the USAF. The sortie ended early when the left wingtip landing gear failed to retract properly. (3) A combined AFFTC and Boeing test team flew the first flight of a MC-130 modified with a "glass cockpit" under the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) at the Kelly Field Annex, Texas. An AFFTC C-12 Huron flew safety chase for the sortie. (3)
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My diving history: Bob Scoles was my mentor & friend; I taught the USC Scuba class when he 'retired'
From Skip….An entertaining and long read from an old fraternity brother…Thanks Dick
U.S. MARINE CORPS
• DispatchesPremium
The Beach Rats
How a roguish crew of California lifeguards became World War II heroes.
BY ANDREW DUBBINSPUBLISHED: JUL 1, 2022
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Santa Monica lifeguard Arthur Garrett swam through the black heaving ocean toward the fishing boat Patsy Jane. She was disabled, dead in the water, pitching and rolling on a 25-foot swell. There were two aboard on that stormy night of December 5, 1945: Chester Gannon, 30, and Dee Sharbono, 32. Garrett would have known nothing about them—just that they needed rescue.
Garrett was naked to the waist in the cold Pacific and equipped with only a pair of yellow rescue tubes. Back then in the 1940s, the inflatable life-saving devices were still experimental, sometimes deflating during rescues, but they were easier to haul on long swims than the heavier steel rescue cans that lifeguards dubbed Rescue Torpedoes.
Garrett's training was to never take his eyes off the victim, in this case the wallowing fishing boat. But to get past the break, as each huge mountain of water rose up out of the ocean, he'd have to dive underneath. Plunging into the murky, roiling darkness, the ocean turning colder as he neared the bottom, Garrett would have felt the power of each wave as it passed overhead, briefly sucking him backward. Diving under large waves, lifeguards learn to claw their fingers into the sandy sea bottom to hold themselves steady. The first rule of ocean safety is to respect the sea, and you learn it quickly, swimming under a wave four times your height.
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Behind Garrett, the waves thundered ashore onto Santa Monica Beach, kicking up a salty mist in the darkness. The swells had spilled over the heavy rocks of the Santa Monica breakwater as if they were pebbles and had beached seven small vessels on the sand. Farther south, in Redondo Beach, the waves had washed out the sand beneath a theater, forcing work crews to hurriedly prop it up with heavy beams of timber. The Hermosa Beach pier had been shut down after the surging waves broke off the end section, then washed it ashore like driftwood.
The wind screamed around Garrett as he moved through the Santa Monica Bay, with the sky dark above him and the sea dark below. At last, after a 500-yard swim, he reached the Patsy Jane, rearing and groaning under the fury of the wind and the brutal blows of the sea.
Garrett fitted the two fishermen with the rescue tubes and dragged them through the storm-tossed waters to a rescue boat. The task required a level of stamina, ocean savvy, and courage that would seem superhuman to most, but Garrett was particularly well suited for the mission. He'd just returned home from the Pacific Theater, where he'd served in an elite, pioneering unit of maritime warriors.
CIA
William "Wild Bill" Donovan, founder of the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA.
On July 11, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order appointing William "Wild Bill" Donovan to create America's first spy agency, which would come to be called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). A precursor to the CIA, the agency was divided into branches including Counterintelligence, Special Operations, Research and Analysis, and Morale Operations. Donovan, a World War I Medal of Honor winner turned Wall Street lawyer, also envisioned a Maritime Unit, filled with expert swimmers who could carry out reconnaissance and sabotage missions by sea.
One of Donovan's first recruits into the Maritime Unit was a 34-year-old Hollywood dentist named Dr. Jack Taylor. With bright blue eyes and sun-streaked brown hair, the handsome Santa Monica native was renowned for his dental expertise but saw the work merely as a means to finance his passion for adventure. Eager to escape the tedium of dental work, the licensed pilot would take exotic holidays such as mining for gold in the Yukon Territory, where he once narrowly escaped being buried alive inside a gold mine. A consummate thrill seeker, Taylor was particularly fond of sailboat racing. He was a founder of the Santa Monica Yacht Club and had piloted his own boat solo across large stretches of the Pacific Ocean.
SOME CALLED THIS BUNCH BEACH RATS, BUT THEY REFERRED TO THEMSELVES AS WATERMEN.
The globe-trotting dentist was a perfect fit for Donovan's daring unit of swim saboteurs. In addition to being a world-class sailor, Taylor had served as a Santa Monica Beach lifeguard in his teens and had broken numerous swim records in high school. Into his 30s, he remained an avid skin diver and counted many of Santa Monica's lifeguards, divers, spear fishermen, and surfers as friends.
They rode the waves of Malibu on longboards and dove for big bull lobsters at the Venice Breakwater. They used locally made rubber swim fins and dive masks, which most of the world had still never heard of. They devised their own wet suits before the term was even invented, wearing woolen underwear in the winter months. They went fishing for sharks (which were targeted for their liver oil) and chased the barracuda that swarmed L.A.'s waters in those days. The royalty of the watermen were the Santa Monica Bay lifeguards, who got to do it all on a government salary.
Some called this bunch beach rats, but they referred to themselves as watermen. They were exactly the sort of men Wild Bill was looking for.
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
Dentist turned Lieutenant Jack Taylor combed Santa Monica's beaches to find the best recruits.
After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Los Angeles and its beaches quickly moved onto a wartime footing. Air raid sirens blared, and searchlights scanned the night sky. Blackouts and anti-aircraft guns became common along the coast. In February 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced off Santa Barbara and shelled an oil installation. Los Angeles too had regular reports of Japanese subs offshore. Local beaches were fenced off and converted into military encampments to prepare for a potential Japanese invasion. Malibu became a fortress, its wooden pier used as a lookout post. The Coast Guard moved its headquarters into the pool house of the Adamson estate, military convoys rumbled through town, and barbed wire surrounded Surfrider beach. Most surfers found new spots, but it is said that one diehard continued to paddle out to the point break by moonlight.
With America at war, the OSS Maritime Unit ramped up its recruiting efforts. Merely competent swimmers wouldn't do; the unit's recruiters wanted the finest in the country, including Olympic-caliber swimmers and university champions. The OSS combed the navy and Coast Guard for top swimmers, and—almost certainly due to Dr. Jack Taylor's influence—began scouring the beaches of Los Angeles for ocean lifeguards and watermen.
IMAGINE THE DIRTY DOZEN, EXCEPT INSTEAD OF CONVICTS, THE RECRUITS WERE MUSCULAR, SUNTANNED BEACH RATS.
Imagine The Dirty Dozen, except instead of convicts, the recruits were muscular, suntanned beach rats, with sand in their hair, salt water in their ears, and surfboards under their arms. They were the unlikeliest secret weapon in the war against the Axis, a group of hardy young swimmers more comfortable in the ocean than on land.
Arthur Garrett joined the Coast Guard, long referred to as the guardians of the sea, before being recruited into the OSS. As an ocean lifeguard, Garrett was a magnificent swimmer, in top shape, and knowledgeable about the Pacific, its powerful waves, swift currents, stinging jellyfish, and deadly great white sharks. He was also a leader. Lifeguards carried themselves with dignity and pride as trained professionals and city representatives. Garrett's fellow lifeguard John Tabor, who in 1942 became the county's first African American lifeguard, recalls being taught to be a "role model" for his "fellow citizens." Recognizing Garrett's leadership potential, the OSS made him an officer, assigning him to prepare his men for an audacious form of maritime warfare that had never been tried.
Twenty-one-year-old Robert Scoles was part of Hermosa Beach's crack lifeguard squad, which was credited with hundreds of rescues and recognized as one of California's most efficient crews. He surfed at Hermosa Beach in his free time and swam laps in the pool. "He was beautiful to watch in the water," a friend would later say. He was poised to compete in the 1942 Olympics. "But the war put an end to that," Scoles would recall. His father had volunteered in France in the early days of World War I, and Scoles felt a similar patriotic duty. Like Garrett, he joined the Coast Guard, where he was approached by a recruiter for the OSS.
"You think you could swim to Catalina?" the recruiter asked.
Scoles's long-distance swim record was 22 miles, and Catalina Island is about 20 from the tip of Palos Verdes. "Yes," the young lifeguard answered.
Fellow Hermosa Beach lifeguard Jim Eubank grew up in Inglewood and started working at a young age after his father abandoned the family. To help put food on the table during the Depression, he rode his bike to the ocean to teach himself to swim and became a lifeguard. He won a few rough-water swim meets and was soon competing against the world's best, like Buster Crabbe, who won gold in the 1932 Olympics and starred in the film Tarzan. Eubank joined the Coast Guard in 1942, while his sweetheart Vera—a music student—volunteered to provide music therapy for wounded servicemen returning from the war. Eubank spent a few boring months on the Coast Guard base as a swim instructor, when he heard a loudspeaker announcement requesting volunteers for a new special outfit called the OSS Maritime Unit. He was warned the work would be hazardous and that members had a 10 percent chance of survival. Vera couldn't fathom why he'd volunteer, but she agreed to marry him when he got home.
Twenty-four-year-old lifeguard Frank Donahue had grown up in Santa Monica and spent his teen years surfing next to the Santa Monica Pier, skin-diving for lobster and abalone and fishing off the coast on one of the many commercial trawlers that used to crowd the Santa Monica Bay. Donahue had an interest in the film business, and his job as a Santa Monica lifeguard provided some exposure to Hollywood. Stars like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Cary Grant frequented the beaches stretching from Santa Monica Canyon to Venice, often attending costume parties at the enormous Santa Monica Beach mansion of silent film star Marion Davies. Off-duty lifeguards sometimes made a little extra cash as Hollywood stuntmen, diving off cliffs or the masts of sailboats, or fighting sea monsters in the movie Reap the Wild Wind. The Malibu lifeguard squad hosted big moonlight bonfires at Burnt Pants Beach, named after a lifeguard who walked over hot coals trying to impress the revelers but fell on his backside. One bonfire regular was an aspiring actress named Marilyn Monroe, whose boyfriend was a lifeguard. Despite the allure of the silver screen, Donahue opted for the safer route of law school. He was in his first year when World War II broke out, and the OSS came calling.
Joe Stepner was a natural fit for the OSS, one of the city's few lifeguards who'd been shot at. Years earlier, Los Angeles had bought the water rights to the Owens Valley, diverting water from local farms and pumping it to Angelenos. The city dispatched lifeguards to patrol the area's reservoir, Crowley Lake, where angry locals were shooting at the lifeguard boats. The lifeguard chief sent Stepner, who was six foot four, and another lifeguard, who was a former heavyweight wrestling champion, to the lake. Both had worked Venice Beach, where a big part of the job was controlling the large beach crowds. (Lifeguards prided themselves on handling unruly beachgoers themselves, never calling in law enforcement.) Through a mix of diplomacy and brawling, the two put an end to the Owens Valley shootings.
Although not a Los Angeles native, Hank Weldon was a pool lifeguard during high school in Oklahoma. He had just enlisted in a navy officer's training program when "Wild Bill" Donovan arrived at the base looking for swimmers. Weldon decided to take the OSS test, which involved diving to the bottom of a pool, fetching a manhole cover, and placing it in a canoe on the surface without tipping it over. Weldon, who'd also played college football at Villanova, passed the test and soon found himself a member of the OSS.
In total, about a dozen Los Angeles–area lifeguards were recruited into the 226-member OSS Maritime Unit, contributing their ocean knowledge and skills to the elite group of swim commandos. Once known as watermen, they would soon acquire a new wartime nickname: frogmen.
CATALINA ISLAND MUSEUM
An OSS Maritime Unit swimmer using an early scuba device and flexible fins.
The mission of the OSS frogmen was to insert into enemy territory by sea for the purposes of espionage and reconnaissance, to transport and supply resistance fighters, to sabotage enemy shipping and coastal defenses using underwater demolition, and to develop special maritime equipment and tactics that could be used by other U.S. military units.
The men trained at several top-secret facilities. One, called Area D, was in a bug-infested swamp a few miles south of Quantico, Virginia, on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. There, trainees learned to handle small boats, including kayaks and canoes. They studied navigation, currents, tides, nautical charts, and the art of explosives. Taylor served as the school's chief instructor. The expert yachtsman taught recruits how to crew and sail an antique sailboat moored on the Potomac, and he organized night drills, requiring trainees to sneak out of the water past armed sentries. Training was rigorous and dangerous. Two trainees drowned when their boat capsized in the Potomac.
Another OSS training facility was located on Treasure Island in the Bahamas, where the recruits practiced blowing up replicas of enemy obstacles above the colorful coral reef and attached limpet mines to a sunken shipwreck. Whenever sharks approached the swimmers, the men cleverly emptied a sack containing dark blue powder to simulate the ink spray of a squid. The trainees also encountered an aggressive four-foot barracuda, which so often followed the swimmers, they gave him a name: Horace.
OSS recruits also had to complete the grueling Marine Raider Training Course at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, which emphasized beach infiltration and small boat operations in the high surf.
Underwater training was held at a secret OSS base on the leeward side of Catalina Island, dubbed Area WA. The men slept on the grounds of a former all-boys boarding school located at Toyon Bay. Two and a half miles by water from the port of Avalon, the hidden cove was chosen for its seclusion, hemmed in by steep cliffs with no road in or out of the area. Even Catalina residents and other service members stationed on the island knew nothing of the base's existence.
In the clear blue waters off Catalina, the OSS frogmen practiced underwater demolition and experimented with state-of-the-art equipment such as one-man submersibles, collapsible kayaks, a two-man surfboard equipped with a quiet electric motor that could be launched from submarines, watches with luminous dials, M-3 submachine guns in watertight covers, waterproof flashlights, compasses, depth gauges, and ordnance. Catalina was like a weapons laboratory for the frogmen, lifeguard Robert Scoles recalls: "Most of our OSS new weapons were in the experimental stage, and we were able to learn as we used them."
The OSS men integrated the gear pioneered by the Santa Monica Bay lifeguards and watermen, including skin-diving masks with a circular glass window and black rubber swim fins designed by one of Jack Taylor's fellow yachtsmen in L.A., an Olympic swimmer named Owen Churchill. On a visit to the island of Tahiti, Churchill had watched local boys swimming with rubber fins reinforced with metal bands. He tracked down a French inventor who'd designed his own pair and negotiated a license to make them in the U.S., originally using tire rubber. (To this day, Churchill's fins remain a favorite among body surfers and boarders.) If a lost fin was to wash ashore on an enemy beach, the Germans or Japanese could find the name of the odd webfoot contraption stamped on the rubber—"Churchills"—along with Churchill's address in Los Angeles: 3215 West Fifth Street.
THE MEN ALSO TRAINED IN MARTIAL ARTS, CRYPTOGRAPHY, MAP READING, AND RADIO COMMUNICATIONS. A NUMBER OF THE TRAINEES WERE JAPANESE AMERICANS AND KOREAN POWS, WHO'D VOLUNTEERED TO SERVE AS LINGUISTS.
On Catalina, the OSS frogmen went on long runs into the mountains to build their endurance and participated in a five-day survival course. Supplied with only a knife and fishing wire, they hunted Catalina's wild boar, skinned its wild goats, and fished with their bare hands, all while dodging the buffalo that roamed the island. The men also trained in martial arts, cryptography, map reading, and radio communications. A number of the trainees were Japanese Americans and Korean POWs, who'd volunteered to serve as linguists and fighters behind enemy lines in order to drive the Japanese out of East Asia.
To practice infiltrating enemy beaches undetected, the frogmen conducted stealthy mock raids on Avalon, Two Harbors, and other locations on Catalina Island. (Eighty years later, scuba divers still find bullet casings around Avalon's old casino.) Approaching by sea, the frogmen used the breaststroke and sidestroke, which minimize splash, and they camouflaged themselves under the piles of brown-green seaweed that thrive in Catalina's nutrient-rich salt water. Lifeguard Hank Weldon would recall an exercise designed to test the men's stealth. "They gave us a bunch of dummy TNT at high tide, dropped us off about a half mile offshore, and told us to plant it all along the coast while our commanding officers kept watch. One of the commanding officers said he thought he saw something, but they didn't see us. When daylight came, the tide went out and all you could see was the dummy TNT all along the shore."
Meanwhile, Taylor was investigating a newfangled device that promised to reshape clandestine operations. On the night of November 18, 1942, at the stately art deco Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., a small group of military servicemen gathered around the hotel's large indoor pool as Taylor slipped on a face mask, inserted a tube into his mouth, then buckled on the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU). A primitive version of scuba, the device had been invented by Christian Lambertsen, who stood poolside among the spectators at Taylor's demonstration. The 25-year-old University of Pennsylvania medical student had built the contraption in his garage using a bicycle pump and an old World War I gas mask. He had tested the device in a chamber filled with anesthetic gas and brought a canary and a dog inside. First the canary fell off its perch, then the dog fell over. When he bent over to check on the dog, he too passed out and collapsed. Lambertsen determined that the anesthetic gas that filled the chamber had seeped into the LARU's breathing bag, and he'd been fine-tuning the device ever since. Taylor submerged into the pool and began swimming laps, without once lifting his head above water.
A swimming pool was one thing, but Taylor knew that the underwater equipment would need to hold up against the ocean's rough waves and corrosive salt water. While visiting home on personal leave, he rode a boat out to sea with lifeguard George Peterson and anchored off the shore of Santa Monica. Taylor peered over the side as Peterson donned another scuba-like contraption called Browne's Lung, then swam around the boat underwater for 20 minutes. (He could have gone longer, but the water was too cold.) Soon, OSS Maritime Unit trainees were testing the LARU and other underwater breathing devices off Catalina and in the Bahamas. They were making history—among the first to use scuba equipment in the ocean.
USASOC
A Maritime Unit swimmer navigating anti-submarine nets.
After their training, most of the OSS frogmen were dispatched to the Pacific, where they were integrated into the navy's Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT). The UDT had been created after America's disastrous assault on Tarawa in November 1943, when U.S. landing craft became stuck on the island's shallow coral reef, forcing the Marines to wade a half mile to shore under withering Japanese fire. Determined to prevent further loss of life during island assaults, the navy resolved to deploy swimmers ahead of Allied forces to scout enemy beaches and blow up coastal defenses and natural barriers as needed.
When the OSS men reached the UDT training base on Maui, most of their navy counterparts were still swimming barefoot or in athletic shoes. The OSS men helped introduce swim fins, demonstrating how the fins increased speed and maneuverability in the water, especially over coral reefs. Although the OSS men had trained in the LARU breathing device on Catalina, the navy decided that the equipment would slow down the swimmers and loaded the primitive scuba gear into storage in Honolulu. Thus, the OSS men's new uniform became streamlined: swim trunks, fins, and dive masks.
The OSS swimmers saw action in the Central Pacific, Burma, Indonesia, and the South China Sea. Swimming into heavily fortified Japanese beaches, they often encountered fierce enemy gunfire. Fortunately, their bobbing heads made for difficult targets. They also discovered that bullets slowed down a few feet below the ocean surface, allowing them to dive underneath the sinking ordnance. (Some swimmers caught the bullets and kept them as souvenirs. Others would later drill a hole in the sniper bullets, lace string through them, and wear them as necklaces.)
Lifeguards Garrett, Scoles, and Weldon were all deployed to the Palau islands, where America had its sights on the enemy stronghold of Peleliu, gateway to the Philippines.
Weldon's platoon was assigned to mark Japanese anti-boat mines for the navy's soon-to-arrive landing craft. He'd never forget the eerie experience of moving through the water above the enormous mines, which were anchored to the sea bottom and floated underwater like balloons. "A partner and I ended up treading water for a couple of hours over a live mine," he'd later recount. "We finally got relief, and another minesweeper found the mine and blew it up."
NATIONAL NAVY SEAL MUSEUM
A frogman attaching underwater demolition.
During an afternoon mission off Peleliu, Garrett stood on the bridge of the World War I–era destroyer Rathburne as his team of swimmers scouted the island's beaches in broad daylight. Garrett's role as an ensign was to monitor the swim mission and direct the American covering fire. High-caliber shells from a line of navy warships slammed into Peleliu's shoreline to keep the Japanese pinned down while the frogmen were in the water.
A message crackled over the radio from a fellow officer in a landing craft close to shore, who reported seeing Japanese troops dragging something out of a cave. Garrett told the gunnery officer, who scanned the area with his binoculars but didn't see any enemy soldiers. Then the officer in the landing craft exclaimed, "It's a howitzer—a big one!"
Spouts of water erupted as if from fire hydrants all around the Rathburne. The captain gunned the destroyer's engines and steered her out of the area at flank speed. Garrett asked about his officer aboard the landing craft. The captain—focused on the lives of his own crew—dryly replied, "Let him catch up." Fortunately, spotters aboard a nearby destroyer pinpointed the howitzer, and the navy gunners blew it off the cliff.
Scoles was supposed to join a historic operation off Peleliu—the first-ever deployment of U.S. combat swimmers from a submarine. But his commander yanked him at the last minute because he wanted only navy men, and Scoles had come from the Coast Guard. On the night of August 11, 1944, the OSS commandos painted their faces black, climbed onto the deck of the U.S. submarine Burrfish, and paddled ashore in a rubber raft. Dodging Japanese shore patrols, they measured and scouted the enemy beach. When they were finished, a team member tapped his Ka-Bar knife on a coral head as a signal to the submarine's sonar operator, then the group swam across the water back to the sub. Off the island of Yap in Micronesia, the same five OSS men again deployed from the Burrfish, but this time only two returned. The others were captured by the Japanese, interrogated, tortured, and never seen again.
Garrett, Scoles, and Weldon next shipped to the Philippines, where they were assigned to reconnoiter the beaches for army troops led by General Douglas MacArthur. Weldon helped destroy Japanese artillery markers and detonated boat lanes for invasion ships using a paddle board to haul the explosives. Scoles was dragging explosives through the water to blow up beach obstructions on the island of Leyte when a Japanese mortar splashed down beside him. The underwater pulse launched him upward and pushed another nearby swimmer 10 feet underwater before he surfaced, spitting blood. "When you get hit by an explosion like that," Scoles's partner later said, "water goes in every orifice: the ears, nose, rectum, and tears things up a little bit." Miraculously, both men survived the powerful blast.
A MAJOR STORMED OVER TO THE FROGMEN. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SALUTE?" HE BARKED. IT WASN'T UNTIL A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER THAT WELDON LEARNED THAT THE MAN IN WET KHAKIS WAS PERHAPS THE MOST FAMOUS ARMY COMMANDER OF ALL TIME.
Santa Monica Bay lifeguard Arthur Garrett joined the scouting mission at Leyte and was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. His commendation read: "In the face of enemy rifle, machine gun and mortar fire Ensign Garrett bravely prepared the way for the operations of combat troops contributing greatly to the success of this mission."
On October 20, 1944, Weldon and a handful of UDT men were walking on the beach at Leyte, carrying their sacks, when they passed a man wading to shore in his khaki uniform, surrounded by photographers. The young frogmen had no idea who the person was or the reason he was being photographed, and they walked on.
A major stormed over to the frogmen. "Why didn't you salute?" he barked.
"What for?" Weldon replied.
The man being photographed was General Douglas MacArthur, who'd fled the Philippines two years earlier and was now part of a carefully choreographed publicity stunt to accompany his famous message to the world: "I have returned."
WIKIPEDIA
General Douglas MacArthur's carefully choreographed landing at Leyte, Philippines.
It wasn't until a couple of days later that Weldon learned that the man in wet khakis was perhaps the most famous army commander of all time.
The frogmen were developing a reputation as roguish and irreverent, the problem children of the navy. During operations on Guam, one team had planted a sign on the beach to remind the Marines who had reached the island first. "Marines Welcome!" it said. "Courtesy UDT."
Santa Monica Bay lifeguard Frank Donahue was serving as a training officer when he overheard a navy admiral insulting the frogmen and their abilities. Donahue just smiled. Then, later that night, he and some fellow frogmen swam out and placed blasting caps around the admiral's boat. When the admiral set sail the next morning, it was to a chorus of thunderous booms. When questioned about the incident, Donahue said he'd just wanted to expose the vulnerability of the admiral's vessel.
Although the swimmers were rebellious at times, their wartime contributions soon became regarded as essential. Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, who commanded amphibious forces in the Pacific, would later write: "Their efforts always reduced losses to troops and boats' crews and greatly facilitated the landing of men and cargo. Their value to the Amphibious forces was immense."
So valuable were the swimmers, they were often borrowed by other Allied nations. In February 1945, Hermosa lifeguard Jim Eubank found himself in Burma conducting recon for British landing forces. His team hitched rides on PT boats before switching to kayaks, then swam the last leg through Japanese waters. On one beach, Eubank spotted 20-foot-long saltwater crocodiles in the shallows and felt something brush against him in the water. He was utterly terrified, until realizing it was just a school of fish. At night, the OSS men rode patrol boats upriver deep behind enemy lines, silently drifting past Japanese camps, observing soldiers gathered around their fires.
On one risky mission, Eubank and his partner, John Booth, had to transport Burmese agents ashore. They gave the Burmese men opium in exchange for intel on Japanese positions. "We weren't dope dealers," Eubank later clarified. "This was war."
The intel proved unnecessary. As they paddled in a raft toward the drop-off point, Japanese soldiers leapt from the trees and opened fire. Fortunately, the OSS men made it back to the ship, where they heard a radio report that Japanese forces had repelled an American invasion. "But actually it was just me and Booth," Eubank later said.
Taylor so resented being stuck in the U.S. as an instructor that he threatened to transfer to the navy unless the OSS gave him an overseas assignment. The request was granted, and the former Hollywood dentist was deployed to Cairo in the summer of 1943, where he worked with archaeologist spies to assemble a watercraft flotilla for missions in the Aegean Sea. Next, he teamed with actor Sterling Hayden, who was a fellow OSS commando, to establish a Maritime Unit branch in southern Italy to supply Josip Tito's anti-fascist guerrillas. While in Italy, Taylor also led a series of daring covert operations, including rescuing a plane of American medics and nurses that had crashed in the Albanian mountains.
In October 1944, Taylor was part of a four-man OSS team that parachuted into Austria to spy on the Nazis. Captured by the Gestapo in November 1944, Taylor was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, the former adventurer experienced horrors that shook him to the core. Suffering starvation and dysentery, he was forced to build a crematorium that would incinerate fellow inmates. Taylor was scheduled for execution on four occasions, but other prisoners took his place, wanting the American to survive the war and report on the Nazis' atrocities. Taylor was on the verge of death in May 1945 when at last a U.S. armored division liberated the camp.
Meanwhile in the Pacific, after Okinawa's capture in June 1945, the OSS frogmen began training for the invasion of Japan, where they expected a gargantuan battle in the coldest seas they'd ever experienced. But the U.S. deployment of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan's subsequent surrender, meant that the swimmers could finally return home.
USASOC
The OSS Maritime Unit from the base at Galle, Ceylon.
President Harry Truman dissolved the OSS and its Maritime Unit at the end of the war, but their legacy lives on. The early scuba experiments, swim reconnaissance, and underwater demolition tactics were codified into manuals. Eventually, the frogmen's specialized techniques were passed down to their most famous successor: the Navy SEALs.
As for the unit's Santa Monica Bay lifeguards, most returned to civilian life after the war.
Jack Taylor retired from the military in 1945 but was briefly reactivated a year later to serve as a primary witness in the trial of the Waffen-SS guards who ran the concentration camp where he'd been imprisoned. Taylor's testimony was crucial to their conviction, a tribute to the inmates who'd sacrificed their lives to save him. He suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from his wartime experiences and died in 1959, crashing a private plane near his home in Southern California.
Frank Donahue, the maverick who'd nearly blown up an admiral, transitioned seamlessly into the film industry, first trapping sharks for Hollywood productions, then screenwriting and acting. He was a technical adviser and actor in the 1951 film The Frogmen, which introduced Americans to the daring exploits of the World War II combat swimmers.
Jim Eubank married Vera and became a successful real estate developer. Hank Weldon joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he worked during the Watts Rebellion. Reportedly the last surviving member of the OSS Maritime Unit, Weldon passed away in 2018 at age 95.
Arthur Garrett and Robert Scoles returned to ocean lifeguarding. Scoles later became a schoolteacher and scuba instructor. (Many frogmen got involved in diving after the war, helping shape the sport's development.) Pulling from some old navy diving manuals and his memories of OSS training, Scoles launched L.A. County's first-of-its-kind scuba diving certification program. He also cofounded a program called Junior Lifeguards. Its original mission was to help the latchkey kids who hung around Scoles's guard station and loitered under the pier, but it would eventually evolve into an organized summer camp.
I participated in the camp as a kid, running in the soft sand to the Santa Monica Pier, swimming to a buoy 200 yards out in the Pacific, learning how to plunge under waves, paddle a surfboard, and navigate rip currents. I never got to meet Scoles or any of the lifeguard frogmen, but I admire them. Theirs is a legacy of helping strangers: first as young lifeguards rescuing distressed swimmers, then as frogmen, swimming ashore to protect thousands of infantrymen they'd never meet, and, in Scoles's case, as teachers, leading kids like me into the Pacific, where we can still swim as a free people.•
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