Gen. Kenney on the End of 1944
General Kenney, Commander of the Fifth Air Force reported:
“Just before dark on 26 December, a Navy Reconnaissance plane sighted a Jap naval force of 1 heavy cruiser, 1 light cruiser and 6 destroyers about 85 miles NW of Mindoro {Philippines], headed toward San Jose. We had available on out 2 strips there, 12 B-25s from the 71s Recon Squadron, the 58th Fighter Group (P-47s), the 8th Fighter Group (P-38s and the 110 Tactical Recon Squadron (P-40s).
“Every airplane that could fly took off on the attack, which continued until after midnight. The Japs kept on coming and the planes kept shuttling back and forth, emptying their bomb racks and ammunition belts and returning for more. In addition to the difficulty of locating and attacking the Nip vessels in the dark, the enemy made the job still harder by bombing our airdromes at intervals through the night.
“In order to see what they were bombing and strafing, some of our pilots actually turned their landing lights on the Jap naval vessels. With neither time nor information for briefings during the operation, it was every man for himself and probably the wildest scramble the Nip or ourselves had ever been in.
“Ar 11:00 P.M. the enemy fleet started shelling our fields and kept it up for an hour. Fires broke out in our gasoline dumps, airplanes were hit, the runways pitted, but the kids still kept up their attack. The P-47s couldn’t get at their bomb dump because of the fire, so they simply loaded up with ammunition and strafed the decks of every ship in the Jap force. They said it was “like flying over a blast furnace, with all those guns firing at us.”
“Shortly after midnight. the Jap fleet turned around and headed north. They had been hurt. A destroyer had been sunk and a cruiser and 2 destroyers heavily damaged.
“The attack had saved our shipping at San Jose from destruction, but it had cost us something too. Twenty-five fighter pilots and B-25 crew members missing. We had lost 2 B-25s and 29 fighter aircraft. During the next few days we picked up 16 of the kids who were still floating around the China Sea in their life rafts. I got Gen. MacArthur to approve a citation for each of the units that took part in the show.
On the 30th, Lt.Col. Howard S. Ellmore, a likable, happy-go-lucky, little blond boy from Shreveport, LA, leading the 417th Attack Group, the “Sky Lancers” caught a Jap convoy in Lingayen Gulf, off Vigan on the west coast of Luzon. In a whirlwind low-level attack, a destroyer, a destroyer escort, 2 large freighters and one smaller were sunk.
“It was a fitting climax to 1944, which had been an advance from Finschaven to Mindoro, a distance of 2400 miles, equal to that from Washington to San Francisco. During that time, my kids had sunk a half million tons of Jap shipping and destroyed 3000 Jap aircraft. Our losses of aircraft in combat during the year were 818.”
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor –
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Farewell Salutes –
Hazel Bogaard – Sioux Falls, SD; US Army WAC, WWII, CBI, 142nd General Hospital ship, 2nd Lt.
John S. Czyscon – NY Mills, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 711th Ordnance Co./188th parachute Reg./11th Airborne Div.
Norman Fraser Sr. – No. York, CAN; RC Navy, WWII
Raymond Hall – Auckland, NZ; RNZ Air Force # 4213081, WWII, PTO
Virgil Motsinger – Eugene, OR; US Navy, WWII, USS Anzio (CVE-57)
Jack O’Neill – OR & CA; US Navy, WWII, pilot
Robert E. Oxford – Concord, GA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, CBI, “The Hump”, 1st Lt., KIA
Bobby Stubbs – Sedalia, MO; Korea & Vietnam, Captain (Ret.)
Adam West – Walla Walla, WA; US Army, American Forces Network, (beloved actor)
Vincent Vann Higginbotham Sr. – Springer, OK; US Merchant Marine, WWII
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Posted on June 12, 2017, in First-hand Accounts, WWII and tagged 1940's, aviation, family history, History, Military History, Pacific, Pacific War, veterans, WW2, WWII. Bookmark the permalink. 50 Comments.
Love that B-24 photo! Sky Pirates! Thanks for sharing ..
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I try to have something for everyone. Glad I had something for you.
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Thanks GP
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The way these brave men improvised was never covered by any book written.
I salute them
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Oh, you are so right. My dad was a good example, but you can also find a lot of their “inventions” when you read up on the Army engineers and Navy SeaBees.
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Love that B-24 photo! Sky Pirates!
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Isn’t that the truth! You put up some awfully great photos yourself! Always enjoy your posts!
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There were some heavy losses on that mission. Sounds like it was incredibly chaotic.
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That’s the way Kenney described it. Frankly, ‘every man for himself’ doesn’t sound like anything like a situation they were trained for!!
BTW – the Tag problem is finally fixed. WP Support apologized for overlooking my 3 requests for assistance. [what they did notice was my comment on a thread they were in the process of helping].
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Definitely not what they trained for, but that sort of thing happened sometimes during intense missions.
Glad your tag problem is finally fixed! 🙂
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Both cartoons link to the same cartoon~?
The popular (propagated) myth was that the Japs needed those bottle-bottom spectacles ‘cos they were all almost blind. The discovery was that they could all see in the dark … as always, truth lies where we find it.
So many untold tales, GP. Thanks again for bringing these out.
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Thank you for reading here, Argus. And about the cartoons. I thought I had fixed that before publishing – guess I was wrong. Finally got my Tag problem fixed, what glitch is in store for this site now?!!
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Even as much WWII history as I have read, I continue to marvel at what our troops accomplished to end that epic global conflagration … This post is another example of what those men and women mustered themselves to accomplish.
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As I have said so often – the more I learn about that generation, the more truly amazed I am by them. From WWI to the Great Depression and slap into WWII… incredible survivors!!
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Amazing spirit. I love how the General referred to these heroes with the term of endearment, ‘kids.”
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I thought so. It shows the top Brass in human form rather than cold statistics. Those ‘kids’ would follow Kenney anywhere, just as Smitty described to about his Gen. Swing.
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Yup. Hard to find leaders like that. When you do they deserve support.
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Wow! What a scary night! 😦
Thank you for sharing this with us, GP. You take us right into the thick of things and we need to go there…we need to know, and we need to remember. I always think about how many of these MEN were so young…18-20-something.
So many people these days are whiners and complainers and they have never had to step up and do anything of significance. I wish they could read these important stories you share here on your blog.
Wow. Adam West “Batman” was in the army. I had noticed a few days ago that he died at age 88. RIP Mr. West
I hope you have a good week this week!
(((HUGS))) 🙂
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Thank you very much, for reading and for having the attitude that you do. The whiners won’t read stories like this, they know they’re lazy and nothing but moochers, but the truth is hard to look at in the eye. We’ll never see another generation like this one!!
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“my kids”…it’s quite extraordinary how so many men of such tender years stepped up to the plate when their time came. Quite extraordinary!
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On your side of it all too. The numbers are incredible!! Don’t you just love how the general felt about ‘his kids’?!!
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This list of heroes are many aren’t they. Thank God for them.
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I think that’s why Brokaw just labeled them all as The Greatest Generation – from WWI to the Great Depression and right into WWII, survival, stamina, determination and sheer will became ingrained in their nature.
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We need a revival in this area even though there are still so many heroes, military and civilian.
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Children aren’t taught the same values as back then. A whole new scheme of things in the schools and at home. Frankly I’m glad I am not raising a youngster these days.
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Amen to this.
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What a story. We just won’t give up, will we?
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Those “kids”, as Kenney called them, kept their minds on getting the enemy before he got them, racking-up their ‘numbers’ and flight times. Remember at 20 years old – we thought we were invincible too!
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What a hectic battle indeed. Over in Europe, things were also stepping up, as the last year of the war loomed. It was as if they knew, on both sides of the world. That last big push.
Best wishes, Pete.
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So much began happening at once about now and into 1945, I think the writing had to be on the wall, so to speak to the Brass, but I do know that Smitty, even after V-E Day, he was not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel just yet.
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The Pacific theatre was the ‘forgotten war’ after D-Day, that’s for sure.
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It was pretty much forgotten once FDR declared war. So many had relatives overseas, Europe was all they saw!
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Floating around in the ocean, waiting for someone to possibly come by and pick them up, must have left those downed pilots feeling very anxious.
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In a battle like that, I would imagine so. Often when an aircraft goes down, another will fly past it and let them know they were seen and their location recorded, but during this melee, I doubt anyone was even sure where they were!!
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Wow, sounds like one heck of a wild night. 31 planes down, I can see why they talked about flying over a blast furnace.
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It must have felt as though they were kamikaze pilots themselves, eh?!!
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Just saw where Lt Gen. Sam Wilson, AUS, “Merrill’s Marauders” veteran and a pioneer of Special Operations Warfare passed away at age 93. Truly a distinguished soldier and American patriot.
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Thank you for bringing that to my attention, David. He will be remembered in the following post!! I greatly appreciate your contribution.
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GP, I search to see if you have chronicled your experiences and wealth of information in a book but couldn’t find any. That would be a treasure for anyone’s library.
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I found that getting permission to reprint for a non-profit blog is a whole lot easier than to get it for a book for profit. Being as I have a library of approximately 125 publications and counting, I, for one thing, could not afford their fees. But I appreciate you feeling that way, Hollie. It truly means a lot.
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To have all your post between a book cover would amazing 🙂
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Thanks, I really appreciate that!
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So much for the holidays. It must have been hard for men on both sides. Scary to even think about.
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It sure sounds that way!! Another birthday for Smitty [ 30 on the 12th] and another Christmas crossed off. Thanks for visiting, Dan.
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The war was far from over in the latter part of 1944, both in the Pacific and elsewhere.
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So true. I’ll be pausing at this point to have the Intermission stories, but so much starts going on now – everywhere – it really is difficult to get even a snippet about it all!!
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So many unsung heroes…
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All you and I can do, is to keep trying to get them the recognition they deserve.
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Thank you.
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