WWII Trivia

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by Xracer

PS....I believe that the third member of the Yamato-class BBs was the Shinano. She was converted from a BB to a carrier in midbuild. She was sunk exiting Tokyo? harbor on her shakedown cruise by the U.S. sub Archerfish.

Correct in all respects, X. The Japanese tried to move the ship from Tokyo to the Inland Sea because they feared she might be sunk or damaged by the heavy bombing of Tokyo. She sailed before she was entirely complete; i.e., her watertight doors were untested and effectively inoperative. Enter the U.S.S. Archerfish outside Tokyo Bay, and a brace or two of Mark 18 torpedos . . .

I believe Marlin is right on the rationing coupons. Another naval one . . .

What American submarine and submarine captain were responsible for sinking a Japanese troop tansport and then surfacing to machine gun the Japanese troops in the water, a fact not made public until many years after the war?

[Marlin]

In addition to the A, B & C gasoline ration stamps, I beleive, from the greater depths of my cobwebbed memory, there was also a "T" class.

A, B, & C were for three gallons each stamp from the book; T were for either 5 or 6 gallons per stamp.

I still bugs me that there were also S & R stamps. Can't exactly put it together, though.

[polishshooter]

PS, that was the Tang, wasn't it? Either that or the Wahoo, I forget....and we're not supposed to look it up, right??

That is about the same thing that happened in "The Battle of the Bismarck Sea..." The public WAS told about "Day 1," when 6 or 7 of the 8 Jap troopships and 4 or 5 of the escorting (some of them carrying troops too) DDs were sunk, and it was called a "Great Victory." (Which it surely was, the major attempt by the Japs to reinforce new Guinea to stop McA stopped cold...)

But "Day 2" was kept secret for years, when the B25 Gunships, A-20s, and Aussie and Kiwi Beaufighters went back and got all the rest of the troopships, and got most of the rest of the DDs, and THEN spent all the rest of the day, some planes making many multiple sorties, strafing Japanese survivors in the water, on lifeboats and life rafts to make sure few if any would survive to make it to New Guinea...and they did it "well..." Several US pilots recalled puking all over the cockpits as they "murdered" the helpless Japs and turned the water red...but they all understood it must be done, they were too close to New Guinea, and they couldn't be allowed to make it...

ONE of the reasons it didn't make headlines is becasue there was NO outcry about it at all from the Japs....THEY understood, and expected nothing else from an enemy in a war; had it been reversed, they would have done the same thing....


War IS Hell...

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

PS, that was the Tang, wasn't it? Either that or the Wahoo, I forget....and we're not supposed to look it up, right??

Half credit for that one, Polish. It was the U.S.S. Wahoo, commanded by Dudley W. Morton. And I entirely agree with you on the rest of your comments. What was done was necessary albeit a horrible thing to contemplate. By no means was it dishonorable. As you (and William T. Sherman) said, "War is Hell." It is interesting to note, however, that writers since the war who served with Morton (Forest Sterling and Dick O'kane, for example) all comment that Morton seemed to have an almost pathological hatred for the Japanese which extended well beyond the exigencies of war.

[Pistolenschutze]

Another one: What was the nickname of Admiral Willis Augustus Lee, Jr., noted for his decisive battleship action off Guadalcanal in February 1942?

[polishshooter]

The short one or the long one???

"Ching" Lee was the "short" version he had since the Academy, but some reports say when he was taking the Washington and the North Carolina around Cape Esperance at night to get in at the Jap BBs that had bombarded Cactus the night before, and didn't have any call signs or any of the security procedures for identification or radios, and heard US PT Boats on the radio saying to each other "There goes some BIG ones, but I don't know whose!"...

He supposedly (in some reports, in others he supposedly just said "Ching") called over the radio in plain English to anybody that would listen , to "Go tell Archie (Vandergriff, the USMC commander at Cactus, and Lee's classmate at Annapolis) that 'Ching Chong China Lee' is coming through with two Battlewagons so call off your bird-dogs!"

[Pistolenschutze]

Correctamundo, Polish!

Another one: What old German battleship staged a surprise bombardment of Poland's Westerplatte with its 11 inch guns in the early hours of World War II?

[Marlin]

Believe you might be talking about the Schleswig Holstein, a training battleship that had been in the area to honour the sinking and loss of men during WWI.

[polishshooter]

Yeah, the S/H, leave it to the Germans to be treacherous with a "museum piece..."

Back to "Ching" Lee...one of my FAVORITE "Fighting Admirals" right up there with Arleigh "31 Knot" Burke...

He did not survive the war....How did he die?

[Marlin]

He had been assigned as commander to a group to research how to stop or combat the kamikawsi threat. During the later part of August 1945, he died of a massive MI.

I wrote a paper on him at Rutgers about a hundred years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by Marlin

I wrote a paper on him at Rutgers about a hundred years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now Marlin, you know it was only 85, not 100.

You are right, Marlin and Polish. It was indeed the Schleswig Holstein. It caught the Poles completely by surprise, though the attack really served no valid military purpose beyond terror. Many civilians were senselessly killed.

[polishshooter]

Originally Posted by Pistolenschutze

Many civilians were senselessly killed.

Isn't that actually a little redundant when we talk about Germans and warfare?

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

Isn't that actually a little redundant when we talk about Germans and warfare?

Polish, are you trying to start another argument? Yes, the Germans were ruthless, no question about that. But, one must keep in mind that the Russians--and to perhaps a lesser extent--the Americans and Brits as well, were also ruthless in their pursuit of the war. Read about the Russian advance toward and into Germany if you want some really gory stories of rape, pillage, and murder on a vast scale. Carpet bombing and fire bombing of German and Japanese cities might also qualify as ruthless, albeit a necessary tactic. Read Martin Caidan's book, "The Night Hamburg Died" for example.

[polishshooter]

Far be it from me to defend the SOVIETS, BUT...outside of Katyn, which maybe COULD be "explained" by Stalin's need to eliminate the "best and the brightest" of his "colonists" (Heck, he did that to his OWN people and Red Army officers!) and the way he starved even his OWN people, even before the war...and pulling up short of Warsaw to allow the Germans to kill all the "troublesome Jews" in the ghetto so he wouldn't have to...


I think one MAY be able to make the case that the Russians only "gave back" to the Germans what they "gave" in their conquests in THEIR territory...and you HAVE to admit one of the Germans MAIN mistakes of WWII (IS it cultural, the "Superiority thing" that I SO hate??? ) is their SYSTEMATIC and officially SANCTIONED attempt to eliminate the "untermenchen" from the "Leibensraum..."

And MANY "Soviet" citizens, ESPECIALLY the "Peasants" as well as Ukrainians, Belorussians, etc, who were fighting the "collectivization" of the farm land would have FLOCKED to the swastika to fight against Stalin if only they were treated a LITTLE less heavy handedly...

For example, even though they "conquered" Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, and Yugoslavian peoples and territory, you generally do NOT hear of the wild rampant rapes, pillaging and summary executions, and deliberate mistreatment of prisoners and refugees by the Red Army like they did to the Germans, PROBABLY because THEY didn't do it while THEY were in the USSR...yeah, the Reds STARVED everybody, but then they weren't exactly feeding their own army or masses very well either...


I skimmed ahead trying to see if there were any references to the "new" M44, and see in later chapters she does cover the atrocities and raping, so I'll let you know her perspective...

[Pistolenschutze]

Polish, the point of my earlier comment was not to defend German atrocities by any stretch of the imagination. What the Germans did in the name of Herr Hitler and his Nazi goons cannot be defended by any rational person. I do think, however, that the Soviets--and especially Stalin--must also be put into perspective if any coherent assessment of what happened in WWII can be made. It is reliably estimated that the Nazis exterminated some 11 million people in the death camps--some six million Jews and the rest Gypsies, Solvaks, homosexuals, Communists and assorted other "untermenchen." In contrast, Stalin is known to have killed at least twenty million of his own people before and during the war, not to mention whole German armies (or what was left of them) captured at Stalingrad and elsewhere and sent to Siberia never to return. Atrocity begat atrocity in that war. History tends to forget the sins of the winner and focus only on those of the looser. I think that is a mistake.

[polishshooter]

No problem, PS.

But YES both Stalin and Hitler were equally bad, and I agree Uncle Joe was WORSE to his own people...(I'll give you my personal lecture someday on why politics is NOT "linear" with the "Far left" and the 'Far Right" on either side far apart, but actually "circular' with both extremes ending in repressive Socialism, pretty CLOSE to one another...)

And also I'm not talking about the Gestapo, or SS, or NKVD either, the OFFICIALLY sanctioned killer groups...

But I guess I'm talking of soldiers on the personal level...the AVERAGE Russian peasant/worker soldier was NOT likely to rape/murder/pillage without the "extraordinary" stimulus of "revenge" for what they saw with their own eyes happened in the areas they recaptured, plus what the surviving civilians, who reminded most of them of their own families, or in fact WERE their own families, told them. And yes, Stalin used a LOT of "propaganda," but the average Russian was conditioned to "mouth" words of support, but never REALLY believe it, from long before the war....unless they were party members, of which there were really few percentage wise....

But the AVERAGE German soldier, and not just the SS or party menbers, WAS apt to think of the Soviet civilians and prisoner as "animals," and think nothing of "exterminating" them. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me, it just SEEMS that the German people all through history, and not just for Hitler, have been just a little TOO eager to believe and follow any authority figure, singing the "superiority" siren song....and BELIEVE or be willing to accept "for the nation's good" the propaganda on their side...Such as while most of the "sadistic" Russian POW guards WERE NKVD or "special security" troops, the average sadistic GERMAN guard or "eintzengruppen" soldier was "ordinary..."

That's why I'm NOT being facetious when I ask, is it CULTURAL, and will we see it AGAIN someday? As opposed to I'm not sure we EVER had much to fear from, and probably will never again have to fear, the Russian PEOPLE...

And I'm not indicting the ENTIRE German people, in fact, in Southern Ohio and Indiana there is a LARGE population of friendly, God-fearing, hard working German Catholics who came over since the 1800s that I find it hard to believe would have EVER followed Adolf anywhere, but then again, most of THEM were over HERE by then, so maybe that's an explanation in itself...

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

...(I'll give you my personal lecture someday on why politics is NOT "linear" with the "Far left" and the 'Far Right" on either side far apart, but actually "circular' with both extremes ending in repressive Socialism, pretty CLOSE to one another...)

No need for the lecture, Polish. You would be preaching to the choir. You are quite correct in that evaluation.

You raise an interesting point otherwise, and one I have considered myself on several occasions, and indeed argued several times in graduate classes. Unquestioning adherence to the "fuhrer prinzip" does seem to be an archetypal characteristic of the German people at first glance, given their historical record over the last 2000 years or so. I would argue, however, that this characteristic is, in reality, a culturally based one, and not genetic in nature. German culture tends to focus stongly on collective achievement rather than individual achievement. I think this leads naturally to a tendency toward a methodical organization mindset instead of less efficient individualality. It is but a small step from that point to the "fuhrer prinzip." I find it very interesting to read the interviews conducted with former German officers and soldiers who fought for the Nazis during the war. Almost invariably they comment on the fact that the actions they performed "seemed normal and correct at the time," not reprehensible in any way. Whether we realize it or not, we are all products of our culure and our actions, though they may seem to be totally free will, are frequently determined by those cultural biases.

[Xracer]

The only movie that I can remember that involves U.S. Marines and New Zealand women is one entitled "Until They Sail" with Paul Newman.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051141/

Is that the one you're looking for????

[polishshooter]

Popgunner, before it's too late, please thank your mother AGAIN for all that wonderful support we got from the Kiwis in the war...all except the Longshoreman's Union of course!

(And I will personally apologize for MacA treating their army like "second class" soldiers...SOMETIMES. )

But he did that to the Marines at times too...

[polishshooter]

It's about time we got this thing going again...

(1) What was a "Madcat?"

(2) Did any US Submarines make any attacks in the ATLANTIC?

(3) What was the name of the "Father of the Gunships?"

(4) What pre-war British tank was built to a SMALL per unit price mandated in the contract, so that they had to even leave off the fenders to save cost...and YES it saw action on the continent...?

This is much more fun than battling Trolls...

[Pistolenschutze]

You pose some difficult ones, Polish.

Madcat? I have no idea beyond perhaps a reference to the Navy's Tomcat or Hellcat fighter planes.

I seem to remember that one of our subs, built on the Atlantic coast and enroute to the Pacific, fired on a German U-boat. I don't recall the name of the sub.

As for the gunship, I suspect you are referring to the Hueys (UH-1 Iroquois) that were armed as gunships in Viet Nam.

Could you mean the Cruiser Mk-I (2-pounder gun) or the Light Tank Mk IV (machinegun only)?


Here's another couple:

TRUE or FALSE: During the last months of the war, American submarines frequently entered Tokyo Bay for purposes of espionage and attack.

What bolt-action battle rifle of WWII is considered by the vast majority of historians to have been the best design used in WWII? (Trying to start another argument with Polish here )

[Pistolenschutze]

My vote would be for the German Mauser 98, Pop, though I suspect Polishshooter will agree with you about the SMLE, assuming he doesn't argue for the Russian 91/30 or 38.

[polishshooter]

No, I posted a poll a while back on the best BA rifle, and I not only voted for but STAUNCHLY defended the SMLE...

Anyway, on my questions, I kinda cheated. I didn't know we had assigned US subs to the Atlantic until I read it in Morison. We had 5 boats assigned to "interdict" the Bay of Biscay in early 43, and they had several "war patrols" each, which would have been TOUGH duty with a bunch of trigger happy Coatal command and US Army B-24s blasting away at ANY sub at the same time.

They were bothered by the same crappy torpedoes, Shad actually had two premature when shooting at a Uboat, hit a blockade runner with a dud, and had one broach on a German DD before the USN thought better of it and pulled them out and sent them to the Pacific.

'Madcat" likewise was recent Morison. A PBY Patron fitted with experimental "Magnetic Airborne Detectors" (MAD) that were first tried over the Bay of Biscay (it didn't work) but supposedly later when transferred to Africa it DID work in the Med. Made a few attacks on subs, but they called themselves the "Madcats."

Pappy Gunn you SHOULD have got though...the "too old to fly" anymore ex-pilot that volunteered to serve on the groundwith Kinney in Australia, and came up with the idea and actually did the cutting and welding and test flying that turned the B-25s and A-20s into the solid nose Gunships with ALL those .50s...and after the success with them, the factories started turning them out...


And the tank was the worthless Matilda I "Infantry Tank," impervious to ALL AT fire except the 88 AA gun, but only a heavy MG, and two man crew and couldn't hit double digits in speed...made to a STRICT budget, so it didn't even have fenders...(It actually DID see service in France in 1940, and thankfully ALL were left behind at Dunkirque!)

[Pistolenschutze]

OK, another naval one:

What British battleship was oddly designed compared to other battleshps of the time because all of her main turrets (16 inch guns) were located forward of the superstructure? Hint: She was one of those engaged against the Bismarck in May 1941.

[Xracer]

That would be the HMS Rodney. She and the King George V engaged and sank the Bismark in the North Atlantic.

Anybody know the reasoning behind her rather strange design? I believe that it had something to do with getting around the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty....but I'm not sure.