Friday, July 31, 2015

The Ulithi Armada

 Image
 USS North Carolina at Ulithi (Enlarged)

Hey Brock,

In an email from a friend was a reference to the USS North Carolina which I thought you might find interesting.
        
In 1944 these pictures were not available during the war.  The US kept this place unknown to the citizens of the US. This is quite a story.
          
An Armada of ships and airplanes poised for the invasion of Japan…that never happened…because President Truman authorized the dropping of “A” bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima that resulted in the Japanese surrender. Just think of the American lives that would have been lost had this invasion occurred. Be thankful that we had a President with the courage to make the call. Sadly most Americans today know nothing about this and the sacrifices made by those before us. We are not teaching US history in our schools anymore.

Some great pictures of the US Naval armada deployed for invasion of Japan below. Keep this for posterity.  There will never be another assemblage of naval ships like this again. As an aside, in 1962 my ship (USS Kretchmer DER 329) visited La Caruna Spain where the Spanish armada assembled for the attack on Britain.

The staging area for the invasion of Japan was at an atoll called Ulithi. Check out the carriers on "Murderer's  Row." 

With warm regards,
Ray McKee
Toombs County, GA

8 comments:

  1. Officials at the Pentagon when asked for estimates on casualties for a full scale invasion of the Japs home islands, reflecting on the horrors of Okinawa shuddered deeply and gave Truman numbers that exceeded all the casualties, both dead and wounded, that had been endured up to that point.

    So many Purple Hearts were produced in anticipation of these casualties that new ones were not manufactured until after the Vietnam war.

    My father was an amphibious officer and had already received his orders to ship north from the Philippines to staging areas at Okinawa when news of the bomb arrived. No way of knowing how many of my generation would never have been born if Operation Olympic had gone forward.

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    1. So many Purple Hearts were produced in anticipation of these casualties that new ones were not manufactured until after the Vietnam war.

      That's amazing and didn't know that.

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  2. Liberal jerks who decry the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ignore both these numbers and the estimate that there would have been as many as 2 million Japanese dead. This estimate was validated when occupation forces arrived and discovered massive stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, aircraft and fuel. They were indeed prepared to fight to the last and make Bull Halsey's prediction that when it was over "The only place Japanese will be spoken is in hell" come true.

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    1. They were indeed prepared to fight to the last

      I believe so unless the Emperor had called them off.

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  3. A truly incredible display of logistical prowess and military might. Thanks for sharing.

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