29 May 2021 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Landing boats pouring soldiers and their equipment onto the beach at Massacre Bay, Attu Island, Alaska. This is the southern landing force on May 11, 1943. The American and Canadian troops took control of Attu within two weeks, after fierce fighting with the Japanese occupying forces. Of the allied troops, 549 were killed and 1,148 wounded -- of the Japanese troops, only 29 men survived. U.S. burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead, and presumed hundreds more were unaccounted for.

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[Flying10uk]

WW2 got much closer to the US homeland than many people care to remember.

[Bob Womack]

Yeah, like their firebomb raids on the northwest forests. After the war the Japanese officers said the only thing they misjudged with the firebombing campaign was the vastness of our country.

Bob

[Bill Hollinger]

Yeah, like their firebomb raids on the northwest forests. After the war the Japanese officers said the only thing they misjudged with the firebombing campaign was the vastness of our country.

Bob

The wife and I recently went to the Mitchell Monument just 20 miles east of us. It's pretty secluded but took the lives of five kids and their mother.

Fremont-Winema National Forest - Mitchell Monument Historic Site


When we lived in Brookings, Mt. Emily was another spot we'd visit.

MT. EMILY BOMBSITE | Brookings-Harbor Oregon

[browningautorifle]

When we lived in Brookings, Mt. Emily was another spot we'd visit.

The pilot's sword is still in the Chetco Community Library on Alder Street, very very nice sword. You can visit the pics.

[Bill Hollinger]

The pilot's sword is still in the Chetco Community Library on Alder Street, very very nice sword. You can visit the pics.

Yes it is. Years ago the pilot visited the museum and the site. Nice to see people are aware of this little remembered event in our history. Have you been there? I lived two blocks from the library on Wharf Street.

[matthanne1]

Had to look up the story, but it was worth it. Thanks for this!

[browningautorifle]

I lived two blocks from the library

I had those pics but was afraid to post them for fear of some issue. Glad they're here now. I had a Jap Katana, arsenal sword for a time when I was young. Black lacquer scabbard like that except one hanger ring, black wrapped handle and was plain but beautiful...long gone now. This one of course would be worth thousands...

I've not been there, have known about this for decades. We had our own attack at Estevan lighthouse... Estevan Point Lighthouse, British Columbia Canada at Lighthousefriends.com

Even while I was a young soldier there was a search and demolition of ordnance found at the low water line...several projectiles found in the '70s.

[Bob Womack]

Of course, few remember the U.S. invasion of Japan on July 22, 1945, by a submarine. Take a look at the final battle flag of the U.S.Barb.

That bottom line showed the results of their twelfth patrol, led by Captain Eugene Fluckey. She was the first submarine to execute a ballistic missile attack, one of Fluckey's innovations. But the center icon in that lower row is what concerns us. This from the Navy History and Heritage Command:

On 19 July 1945, Fluckey observed a train travelling on tracks along the Sakhalin coast and hatched one of the most daring operations in the annals of U.S. submarine warfare. For three nights, Fluckey observed the trains in order to determine the schedule. On the night of 22–23 July, a landing party of eight volunteers went ashore to plant explosives on the train tracks. The landing party had difficulty making its way across the terrain, and had to hide in the bushes as the first train passed only a few feet away before the 55-pound charge could be set. As the landing party was paddling back to Barb, the next train came by, detonating the explosives. Pieces of the locomotive flew 200 feet into the air, and 12 freight cars, 2 passenger cars, and a mail car derailed and piled into a twisted mass. Japanese propaganda claimed that civilian passengers were killed, but intelligence indicated that trains traveling at night carried troops. This is claimed as the only ground combat on the Japanese Home Islands during World War II, and though Sakhalin is not now a Japanese island, in 1945, technically it was a “Home Island.”

More HERE.

Bob

[browningautorifle]

the final battle flag of the U.S.Barb.

They had a little of everything, everyone...