Asia – Page 2 – Great History

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.

A child crying in the aftermath of the Rape on Nanking

The Gallipoli Campaign

As the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, the war against Russia in the Caucuses had reached a stalemate. One thing Russia desperately needed was supplies. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, believed that they needed to secure the land around the Dardanelles Strait, which would then lead into the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea beyond, allowing a secure supply line to Russia. It could also possibly help the Western Front, by opening up a new front to divert the German forces onto 3 fronts.

The first attempt at securing the strait was on March 18th, 1915 via a naval attack through the straight in an attempt to take out the Ottoman artillery guns. However, Ottoman sea mines had been placed in the strait and that, combined with the Ottoman gun fire, sank 3 battleships and the ships eventually had to retreat. On the 25th of April, 75,000 troops, comprising of French, British, Australian and Kiwi troops, commanded by General Ian Hamilton landed on the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Despite not having proper landing craft, instead having to row over, a decent beach head was formed.

The Anzac forces had landed North of their intended target and were now inside a cove. Due to their valiant efforts, the cove was named Anzac Cove.

British Officers in a trench at Gallipoli

However, once the beach head was formed, trench warfare soon began to set in. What made the trench warfare here worse was the glaring sun and the dysentery epidemic. Hamilton ordered another 60,000 men to attack Suvla Bay from the water. However, due to hesitation from Allied high command, the Ottoman’s had managed to dig defences and the bay was eventually recaptured by Mustafa Kemal Pasha on August 10th. The attempt to break the stalemate was a disastrous failure.

As allied and Ottoman casualties began to increase, the stalemate was no closer to breaking. Eventually, on December 7th, an evacuation was ordered, with the last troops leaving Gallipoli on January 6th of the next year.

Despite its significance in Australian, Kiwi and Turkish history, the Gallipoli campaign is still considered to be one of the greatest catastrophe for the allies during the war. One of the main problems with the campaign was that, despite the Allied advantage, no orders were issued and due to the lack of coordination the allies could not advance. They were instead ordered to dig in, which was considered to be highly counterproductive. The campaign ultimately failed to take the pressure off Russia, which many attribute as the reason of the Russian Revolutions of February and October of 1917.

Casualties

Allies – 220,000
Ottoman – 250,000

The Initial Eastern Offensive

The Russian Army had now fully mobilised, a lot earlier than Germany had expected. Now half their army was trapped in trenches in France whilst the other half dealt with the Russians. The Russian troops made an advance into Prussia but were swiftly crushed at Tannenberg, where 90,000 Russian troops were taken prisoner and an entire army was wiped out. Another victory at Masurian Lakes forces the Russians out of the region.

Further south, the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was going bad for Austria-Hungary due to a humiliating loss at the Battle of Cer. An offensive against Russia also fails and the Austro-Hungarians are pushed back, with a siege on Przemysl beginning not long after. The Germans, in an effort to distract the Russian forces, engaged in a series of battles at Lodz in modern day Poland.

Eventually, the Ottoman Empire, a large Middle Eastern Empire spanning Turkey, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and parts of Saudi Arabia, join the fighting on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, by sending some ships into the Black Sea, launching naval bombardments on the naval bases of Odessa and Sevastopol, while engaging with ground units on the Georgian border. Due to the vast length and low density of the line, trench warfare never set in like it did on the western front.

The Battle of Thermopylae

By 480BC, the Persian Empire was the largest on Earth. Persia, modern day Iran, was a shockingly progressive society for the time. Instead of being great conquerors, they were often seen as great liberators. The founder of the empire, Cyrus, famously freed the Jews from the city of Babylon, a city in modern day Iraq. There were no slaves and all labourers were paid a fair wage given their skill and contribution to a structure.

19 years earlier, pro-democracy uprisings in Ionia were backed by Athens, another democratic state. In response, King Darius invaded Greece but was shockingly defeated at the famous Battle of Marathon by the much smaller Athenian Army.

Swearing revenge, the task of invading Greece was passed down from Darius to his son Xerxes, who soon began marching on Greece, with the largest army at the time of over 360,000 men

Leading the Greek defence was King Leonidas of the Greek City State of Sparta. Sparta is one of the most extreme societies in human history, being a eugenics based warrior state. When children were born, elders would inspect if the child was fit to fight. If not they were thrown off a mountain to die. Boys went off to school to be drilled into becoming soldiers. Men always became soldiers and lived in barracks 24/7; academics often lived in Athens rather than Sparta and all manual labour was done by the slaves called Helots. However, despite their brutal upbringing Sparta had one of if not the greatest infantry armies in the ancient world. Athenian leaders decided to stage a battle at Thermopylae to fend off the Persian Army whilst they prevented naval landings. 7,000 men opposed Xerxes massive army, lead by the famous 300 Spartans.

A map of the area

When the two sides met at the narrow strip of land, one side being a cliff and the other half being an ocean, the Persians immediately fired their arrows, making zero progress against the advanced armour of the Greeks. Eventually, Xerxes ordered his men to melee attack. Due to the hot weather, they were only able to fight in minute long bursts before tiring out. The weak Persian shields stood no chance against the longer Spartan Spears and the type of combat the Persians were used to in their conquest of the vast and open Middle East could not be applied in the narrow passage of Thermopylae.

However, their weak number soon dawned on the Greeks who turned and began to flee. Believing a victory, the Persians charged at the Spartans, breaking formation, before the Greeks turned around massacring the unorganised Persians. Some of Persia’s finest lie dead in the passage. However, a whisper came to Xerxes of another way to attack the Greeks.

An unorganised group of soldiers watched a narrow passage in the mountain. Without a Spartan officer, they had broken ranks after 2 days of nothing. Eventually, they are attacked by the elite Persian Royal Guard and run to the rest of the men. The Greeks are now trapped, the ocean to the north, the cliff face to the south, the large Persian Infantry to the West and the Persian Royal Guard to the East. Leonidas makes a very brave decision. He decides to let the rest of his men leave before the Eastern Guard can form up, whilst keeping behind the 300 Spartans to fend off the Persians, allowing them to escape.

In a last stand of gallantry, the 300 Spartans charge head on at the Persians. They fought until their spears broke and they fought with swords until they were blunt, fighting with bear hands and teeth. However, all of them were eventually wiped out including Leonidas, and Xerxes marched on. This last stand allowed the Athenians to deliver a strong naval victory and, fearing that the crossing into Greece may soon be attacked by Athenian Naval Forces, Xerxes returned home, whereupon his forces were defeated at Plataea by the Spartans.

Herodotus wrote about the battle as well as the rest of the war, in one of the first true history books that was not simply the art of myth making but actual fact. His rousing story birthed the Greek identity, portraying the Greeks as a civilised people and the Persians as evil enslaving monsters. The impact of Thermopylae impacted many wars and civilisation for centuries afterwards.