Japan – Great History

The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In 1932, in Cavendish University, J. D. Cockcroft and E. T. S. Walton bombarded lithium with protons from a particle accelerator. The protons caused the lithium atom to split. Many scientists realised that if they continued to split uranium and plutonium atoms, with the protons from one atom splitting another and the process repeating in a process called fission, they could make a new source of energy. However, with this power, the results could also be used for much more sinister means.

August, 1939. About a month before the outbreak of WW2, Albert Einstein, a highly accomplished scientist who discovered the theory of relativity (E=mc²) sent a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, then President of the United States, on a highly serious matter. Einstein believed that the Germans were working on a super weapon, a super weapon that would harness the power of Cockcroft and Walton’s work and make a fission bomb, that could wipe cities off the map. Despite being a pacifist, Einstein believed that such a weapon would be better in the hands of the Americans than the Germans. By October of 1942, two months before American entry into the conflict, the development of an atomic weapon was granted by FDR. A group of hundreds of scientists all were called upon by the US government to assist in the development of the technology.

One of the top scientists on the project, who led the scientific research and design of the bomb, was Dr J Robert Oppenheimer. He graduated in chemistry from Harvard and got a doctorate in physics from the University of Gottingen in Germany. He learned a lot about quantum physics, a field that was not that expanded in the US.

One of the most notable German physicians was Werner Heisenberg, who thought of the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Many believed that Heisenberg was working on the German Nuclear bomb.

Back to Oppenheimer, he joined the faculty of the University of California, where he expanded the field of Quantum Physics in the United States. He even partially discovered a black hole in 1939. He was considered to be one of the greatest minds in Atomic Research, the kind of man that the US was after. Him, as well as many other notable scientists such as Richard Feynman, Edward Teller and Isidor Isaac Rabi, were gathered in Los Alamos, a remote part of the New Mexican Desert where a small town was built in order for the scientists to do their research.

The project, named the Manhattan Project, was worked on for months on end. The first contained chain reaction occurred in a secret lab under a Chicago University football stadium. The theory’s were now fact and the development of the bomb begun. During the time creating the bomb, Italy fell after an allied invasion and a small civil war. The Axis powers were on the ropes and the President, now Harry Truman after the death of FDR on April 12th of 1945, was confident that this bomb would be the final push to end the German War Machine. However, it ended a lot sooner than expected.

On the 21st of April 1945, the Soviet forces entered Berlin. Only 9 days later, Hitler fed cyanide to his wife, Eva Braun, and shot himself in his bunker in Berlin. 2 days later, Germany surrendered. 2 out of the 3 major Axis powers were out of the war as well as the bomb’s target. Truman began to reconsider the target. He had been bombing the Japanese for months on end and he believed that a mainland invasion of Japan would only cost more American lives. With the Soviets beginning to invade Japanese occupied Manchuria, he decided what to do.

On July 16th 1945, in the middle of the New Mexican desert, a fireball erupted. The infamous Trinity Test had been conducted. The bomb worked. Around a month later, in the city of Hiroshima, Japan, the first bomb was dropped.

Buildings were instantly turned to rubble and people were vaporised on the spot, leaving only their shadows on the pavement. Those who weren’t immediately killed suffered from radiation sickness for years afterwards. 3 days later, another bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, another nearby city. Anywhere between 150,000 and 246,000 people were killed in the bombings, the majority of which were civilians. The Japanese issued surrender on August 15th, with the surrender taking effect on September 2nd. World War 2 was over, lasting 6 years and 1 day.

After the bombing, Oppenheimer became and advisor to the United States Atomic Energy Commission, where he strongly advocated for international control of nuclear power in order to prevent a nuclear arms race with the Soviets. After the testing of the first Soviet nuclear bomb in 1949, Oppenheimer was suspected of allowing Russian spies into Los Alamos due to his communist ties. Oppenheimer eventually had his security clearance revoked in 1954 and was shunned from the government until 1963, when Lyndon B Johnson awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award.

Many scholars today still wonder if the use of nuclear bombs on Japan was necessary. Some say that Japan would’ve surrendered regardless and that the bombing was merely Truman showing the power of the United States. No matter what you may think of the ethics of the bombing may be, the impact of the bombing was undeniable, with many people fearing nuclear annihilation due to rising tensions between nuclear powers, a fear that began in the 40s and is still very prevalent to this day.

A military parade in North Korea in present day, showing off North Korea’s nuclear warheads

John F. Kennedy and the PT-109

John F. Kennedy was, in 1941, a young up-and-comer in the political and law world. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was appointed as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom by Franklin Roosevelt. Once World War 2 had begun, Joe spoke on this, saying that “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]” and was forced to resign his position due to the controversy around this statement. Due to his father’s position in government, the young John travelled all across Europe, accompanying his father on diplomatic missions during the lead up to the war. During this time, he wrote his thesis for Harvard, on Neville Chamberlains appeasement methods with Adolf Hitler. The thesis was published and, as one of the first sources of information about these events, quickly became a best-seller. Kennedy was adamant that the US must intervene in the war, opposing his father’s beliefs.

He attempted to join the Officer Candidate School, but wasn’t allowed in due to his physical health, which may have included the chronic back pain that he may have had since he was very young. Eventually, he was assigned to the United States Naval Reserve, commissioned to ensign in October of 1941.

Once Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese, the US was thrust into World War 2. In January of 1942, Kennedy was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence field office in Charleston. Kennedy had wanted to command a Patrol Torpedo Boat but believed that he would be stopped from doing so due to his medical conditions. His father ended up falsifying medical records and convincing PT command that his son’s presence would bring good publicity. He completed his sixth months training and was assigned to the PT-101. Not wanting to be stuck in the Panama canal, Kennedy convinced the Massachusetts Senator to assign him to the South Pacific in order to get some real combat action. By April 1943, he had been assigned to the PT-109.

The PT-109 was a 80 foot (20m) long patrol torpedo boat. It had 3 twelve cylinder, 1,500 horsepower engines, and had a top speed of 41 knots (76 km/h or 47 mph). It was fitted with four 21-inch torpedoes and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun and four .50 calibre machine guns but was not equipped with a radar. At the start of the ship’s deployment, it had a crew of 15:

Lieutenant and Commanding Officer John F. Kennedy
Executive Officer Leonard Jay Thom
Quartermaster, cook and signalman Edgar E. Mauer
Radioman John E. Maguire
Gunners Raymond Albert, Charles A. Harris, Harold W. Marney, Maurice L. Kowal, Edmund T. Drewitch, Leon E. Drawdy and William Johnston
Motor Mechanics Gerald E. Zinser and Patrick Henry McMahon
And Torpedomen Raymond L. Starkey and Andrew Jackson Kirksey

The crew of the PT-109. Top row left to right are Al Webb (friend and not a crew member) Leon E. Drawdy, Edgar E. Mauer, Edmund T. Drewitch, John E. Maguire. Bottom row left to right are Charles A. Harris, Maurice L. Kowal, Andrew J. Kirkesy, Leonard J. Thom, and John F. Kennedy.

In June of 1943, Drewitch had to be discharged after an injury occured when a depth charge was dislodged and landed on his bunk bed. Kowal and Drwady were both injured in July during an attack from Japanese Aircraft.

By the time of the 109’s final mission, there were 13 men aboard, as George H. R. Ross was assigned after his boat was destroyed and was an observer aboard the boat. A 37mm gun was lashed down to the front of the boat in August.

On the night of August 1st, fourteen PT boats, including the 109, were assigned to Kolombangra, an island in the middle of the Solomon islands, where 4 Japanese destroyers were alleged to appear, carrying food supplies and 900 Japanese soldiers to the Japanese Garrison on the island and were set to pass through that night. Their orders were to repel or block the Japanese advance to the island. 24 torpedoes were shot from 8 of the PTs and not one hit the convoy. The entire convoy arrived unscathed at the Naval Base in Kolombangra, due to attacks taking place at night and radio silence being enforced throughout the PTs

The region that the PTs were assigned. The naval base is stationed on the south of the island and was coming south through the Vella Gulf

At around 2:27 am, Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, returning from the base, heading north, straight at them. Kennedy decided to turn the boat to attack the destroyer with a torpedo and the newly mounted 37mm. Ross was assigned to the 37mm but he unfortunately suffered from night blindness, meaning that the could not effectively attack the boat. Within the next ten seconds, the 109 began to turn to the starboard side, with the Amagiri being commanded to match the turn.

The collision path of the two boats, graphics by Historigraph (YouTube)

After having made a sharp right turn to avoid a potential collision, the PT-109 was rammed by the Amagiri and split in half. A large fireball erupted from the 109, rising to around 100ft (30m) in the air. Some of the oil that had spilled from the boat had ignited the surface of the water. Kirksey and Marney were killed instantly, whilst McMahon was burnt from being thrown into the flaming water.

The 11 survivors clung to the side of the bow, that had not yet gone under water. They drifted south, down the Vella Gulf. Eventually, Kennedy decided that they needed to reach land before another destroyer found them or the bow sunk. The two largest islands wither side of them, Kolombangara and Ghizo were, at the time, occupied by Japanese forces. Kennedy decided to go to the small Plum Pudding Island, about 3.5 miles (5.6km) south west of their position. Unfortunately, McMahon was unable to swim, as well as two others who had been badly injured during the crash. Kennedy decided to make a raft out of a spare piece of drift wood, broken off from the boat. He then loaded two of the injured men onto the raft, whilst he hoisted McMahon onto his back and swam to Plum Pudding Island. They started the swim at 2pm on August 2 and lasted 4 hours.

Eventually, Kennedy with McMahon on his back reached the northern tip of the island, with the other 9 survivors arriving a little behind. The nearby American naval base at Rendova had received word of the 109’s crash but due to the size of the fireball reported believed that there would be no survivors so no rescue attempt was made. However, American coast watchers on Kolombangara had seen the wreckage of the bow drift down the gulf, who sent out the message to look out for any survivors

Both Kennedy and Ross swam out relatively far off the coast of the island on separate occasions. Both times came up fruitless. The crew had now been stranded for 2 days and were beginning to get hungry and thirsty. Kennedy organised the group to swim a mile (1.6km) south to the larger island of Olasana in search of supplies. Upon arrival, there was no fresh water and nothing to eat but unripe coconuts. That night, the weather worsened, meaning that they could not travel to another island in search of supplies

The next day, Kennedy and Ross swam half a mile over to Naru Island, finding an abandoned wreckage of a Japanese Barge upon their arrival, where there was food, water and other various supplies, including a small canoe. Meanwhile, a patrol boat of Solomon Natives, on the orders of the coast watchers, were investigating the barge from the water and saw Kennedy and Ross aboard the island, heavily sunburnt. Believing them to be the survivors of the barge, they decided to turn away from Naru Island, heading north to Olasana for some water. They passed by the beach, spotting the rest of the heavily sunburnt crew, believing them to also be Japanese. However, Thom’s distinct blonde beard made them realise that they were not Japanese.

The scouts informed the coast watch of the survivors, who immediately organised food and provisions to be sent over to the crew. A torpedo boat was then deployed to rescue the crew and brought them back to the base on Rendova. Battered, bruised but breathing, the crew had made it home.

The much more seriously injured crew were treated while the rest were reassigned to other PT boats. Kennedy would later go on to tell this story of survival whilst campaigning for Senator of Massachusetts and President of the United States.

A campaign parade for JFK’s 1960 Presidential Campaign

The Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart, one of, if not the most famous woman in the world. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane, the first time she was accompanied by 2 male pilots who flew the plane however the second time, in 1932, she flew solo and almost died multiple times but managed to make it over the course of just two days, only being the second person to do that trip. Just a reminder only this took place almost 30 years since the invention of flight. She flew from LA to Newark without refuelling, setting a world record for longest distance flown without refuelling once. She was also the first female pilot to complete a nonstop transcontinental flight. She was nicknamed the Babe of the Sky, and rightfully so, there was nothing she couldn’t do. That was until the fateful year of 1937.

On May 21st 1937, Amelia Earhart took off with navigator Fred Noonan, a heavy drinker but very skilled aerial navigator, from Oakland, California in a modified twin engine Lockheed Electra L-10E. This was her second attempt, since her first was short lived after she crashed during her take off at Honolulu in Hawaii. If this mission was accomplished, she would be the first pilot, man or woman to circumnavigate the globe, not only boosting her already incredibly high popularity but also helping the finances of her family.

She, along with Noonan, were useless when it came to wireless code. This made her throw her CW Transmitter, a telegraph code key, off the flight, saying it would be “dead weight.” with just her and Noonan on board. They flew for 42 days, 2 days over their ETA for when they would finish. That date was July 2nd of 1937, at 10 am local time, when they prepped to leave Lae in New Guinea with full tanks of fuel, modified to carry 119.8 gallons instead of the usual 24 gallons, with only 7,000 miles until her final destination of California and a planned stop on Pacific Island of Howland, taking about 18 hours.

The Radio Operator at Lae, Harry Balfour, planned for him and Earhart to send transmissions to each other every hour, later noting that headwinds were stronger than thought to be that day, sending 3 transmissions of his findings, none of which appeared to be received. For those non aerial enthusiasts, like myself, high headwinds effect plane speed, gas consumption and length of flight.

Earhart’s previously blocked transmissions reported her speed, 140 knots or 161.1 miles per hour, and her altitude, 7,000 feet and that everything was fine. Her next transmission stated she had climbed 3,000 feet to 10,000 feet, believed to be to avoid cloud cover or mountains, but would also use up fuel. These transmissions, as I said earlier, were delayed but by this point, an experienced pilot such as Earhart would’ve noticed the headwinds by this point. As they neared the island, it is possible the plane was only on 97 gallons of fuel, which would get you about 1200 kilometres.

A ship next to Howland Island, called the Itasca, transmitted communications with Earhart. 14 hours and 15 minutes into the flight, Earhart sent a message to the Itasca about “cloudy weather” They were very close, so Earhart, in one of her last transmissions with the ship, said “We must be on you but cannot see you.” She then later said, “Gas is running low.” The final words heard from Amelia Earhart at 8:43 am are as follows “We are on the line 157, 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait.” The line 157, 337 is past Howland Island. She was also described as frantic in her final words.

As you probably guessed, Earhart never landed on Howland Island. As such, the Itasca search the waters northwest of the island. Soon, USS Colorado joined the search in the south and USS Lexington in the northeast. The ships search finished on July 18th. To this day, the Electra, Noonan and, most importantly, Earhart have never been found. Now, it’s time to get the tin foil hats, because it’s time to look into some theories as to what happened.

Theory #1

The first is the most widely accepted and simple one, that the Electra ran out of fuel and crashed in the waters around Howland Island. Sceptics of this theory say that with that amount of fuel, the plane should’ve flown for 24 hours instead of Earhart’s recorded 20, but due to headwinds, it caused more fuel consumption and according to the Jet Propulsion Centre said her plane was out of fuel when she vanished. This was caused by the aforementioned headwinds and the 3,000 foot climb. The waters around Howland Island are 18,000 feet deep and in 2002, when Nauticos launched an investigation, searching a 2,000 square nautical mile radius, in 15 years, they found nothing, using sonar mapping to search the seabed floor.

Theory #2

The second theory is that she became a castaway at Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, which is only 350 nautical miles south from Howland. The island is along the 157, 337 line. Two years later, a British Colonial Officer, Gerald Gallagher, found campsite remains on Nikumaroro. He also found a sextant, a tool used to determine latitude and longitude on aircraft, and the remains of a skeleton of a human, which were analysed by physician, D.W. Hoodless, who determined they belonged to a man who was short, stocky and a of European background, which could be neither of the 2. Unfortunately, after this, the bones were disposed of, preventing DNA analysis in the future.

But, The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery, or Tighar for short, determined that it could belong to a just above average height woman of European descent. Amelia was 5’7”. The director of Tighar said that the reason that only partial bones were found there was because of the coconut crabs that live on the island, which have special claws designed for cracking, you guessed it, coconuts. They can also grow up to 3 feet long and are the largest anthropoids on land.

He also saw a photo taken in 1937 from a British ship at Nikumaroro of, what appears to be, landing gear from Earhart’s plane. Several transmissions believed to be that of Earhart’s. we heard in the week following the incident and all of them coincided with low tide. Teenage Radio operator, Betty Klenck, heard on her shortwave radio, “This is Amelia Earhart. Help me!”, a female voice arguing with a male voice and “Water’s knee deep! Let me out!” She listened for 3 hours and recorded everything. Her father reported it to the coast guard, who didn’t pay attention to it, since this was happening all over the world in the days following the vanishing.

The director of Tighar found, in 1991, a partial rubber soul of a shoe, branded “CAT’S PAW RUBBER COMPANY USA”, the same type of shoe Earhart was wearing at the time of the flight and in a photo taken in Indonesia shortly before her disappearance. But the sole was a size 9, too big for Earhart’s 7.5. He also found a 19 inch by 23 inch plate of aluminium, believed to be from the tail of Earhart’s plane. However, veteran pilot, Elgen Long says otherwise, saying there is no chance of it being as such, and so did a Lockheed employee who made the Electra. Planes flew over Nikumaroro in search of Earhart and saw nothing on the island.

Theory #3

Another theory is from retired US Air Force Colonel, Rollin C. Reineck, that Earhart was in cahoots with the US Secret service. He states that Amelia had a plan B, that if she couldn’t find Howland Island, she was to land at the then Japanese occupied Marshall Islands, only being 800 miles away from Howland Island. This would let the US Air force scout the Marshall Islands under the guise of searching for Earhart. The citizens of the Marshall Islands say that they saw the Electra crash off the coast of their island. But the plan went south when they were found out by the Japanese and taken as POWs but released after the war. They then took on assumed names, Amelia’s was Irene Craigmile but married to become Irene Bolam. This is thought to be inconclusive, as the real Irene Bolam sued Rollin for the book he wrote on it and the resemblance between Bolam and Earhart is very weak.

An alternate timeline to this theory is that Noonan and Earhart we executed in the POW camps. A general met a group of US Marines in 1944, who were guarding a hangar with Earhart’s Electra inside on the formerly Japanese Island of Saipan. They then subsequently destroyed the plane. At the National Archives, an obscured image of Earhart and Noonan was found, but was proven to be taken in 1935 by two bloggers. Also, given the dire fuel situation, she wouldn’t be able to make it to the Marshalls.

Theory #4

This brings us to our final theory, that Earhart was abducted by aliens. There is basically 0 evidence and the tinfoil hat I mentioned early is very tight on this one but an episode of Star Trek adapted the idea.

All this being said, until her Electra, Noonan’s and Earhart’s bodies or any conclusive evidence to where famous Aviator, Amelia Earhart, might be is found we will never truly know the answer.

Hitler Building Alliances

During this time, Hitler formed a pact with Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Dictator of Italy. His march on Rome inspired Hitler’s Munich Putsch in 1933.

Mussolini (left) and Hitler (right) surrounded by an adoring crowd

They also wanted Spain to join the pact but were currently in the middle of a civil war, between Manuel Anzaña’s Republicans and Francisco Franco’s Nationalists, the latter of which piqued Hitler’s interest. He sent multiple bombing raids and armoured troops to Franco to help with the war effort. One of the most famous raids was that of Guernica.

Guernica was an old town in North Spain with, at the time, a population of 7,000 people. At around 4:30 in the afternoon on the 26th of April 1936, a Luftwaffe Dornier Do 17 flew above the quaint town and dropped 50 kg worth of bombs onto the town. For an hour and a half, Italian and German planes flew over and bombed the town, killing between 170 and 300 people. This event was painted by Pablo Picasso in one of his most well-known works, simply titled Guernica. Picasso was in Paris at the time of the German Occupation of France. When a German Officer came into his apartment, he spotted a photograph of Guernica. The officer asked Pablo, “Did you do that?” to which Pablo replied, “No, you did.”

*Guernica,* Pablo Picasso’s painting inspired by the bombing

Hitler’s attempts to get Spain into his pocket failed, although the Nationalists won, so he decided to turn his eyes to the east.

By 1938, Japan had colonised Korea, multiple islands in the Pacific, Manchuria, a puppet state of China controlled by the Soviet Union, other parts of China and Taiwan. They had control over most of eastern Asia and started the rape of Nanking, in which 40,000 to 300,000 people were killed and 20,000 to 80,000 peopled raped. Hitler formed an alliance with the Japanese Empire.