Admiral Turner All Hands memo re Kamikaze Corps and April 13, 1945, and RKT Statement on Roosevelt’s death: RKT general file, Navy Yard, Washington, DC.
USS Indianapolis kamikaze attack, March 31, 1945: Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1987), 378; William C. Mott oral history; www.ussindianapolis.org.
The ships of the Third Fleet also formed the basis of the Fifth Fleet. When the Pacific Fleet sailed under Admiral Halsey’s flag, the force was named the Third Fleet. The ships were redesignated as the Fifth Fleet when sailing under the command of Admiral Spruance. Halsey and Spruance would alternate command of the fleet for major operations, allowing the other admiral and his executive staff time to prepare for the subsequent campaign. A secondary benefit was that this system (due to the flag changes) confused the Japanese into thinking that they were actually two separate fleets—and that our naval capacity was twice its actual size.
Refrain of hymn, “Eternal Father Strong to Save,” Rev. William Whiting (1825–1878).
“I doubt if the slow, methodical Army approach”: Spruance letter to Carl Moore: Buell, Quiet Warrior, 387.
Exchange between Nimitz and Buckner on bringing in marines behind enemy lines: Costello, Pacific War, 565.
Admiral Turner drinking incident: Transcript and tapes of WCM interviews with John Toland, November 30, 1979; December 6, 1967, and WCM letters to VADM George Dyer during his research for Amphibians Came to Conquer. These letters and memoranda, other personal stories re amphibians, are part of a research cache in papers of VADM Dyer, located in Manuscript and Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Admiral Spruance on Turner’s drinking habits: “I always felt I could handle Kelly and his drinking . . . I never saw him tight during working hours, except once on Guam after he had finished up at Okinawa. His breath would knock you down at fifteen feet. His head was clear as a bell.” Dyer, Amphibians Came to Conquer, vol. 2, 1161; Admiral Turner’s statement on FDR’s death, Ibid., p. 965.
June–July 1945 casualties pouring into US hospitals from all theaters of war: McKitterick Clarence Smith, U.S Army Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation in World War II (Office of the Chief of Military History, USA, 1956), 200–213.
Truman hoped “that there was a possibility of preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to another”: D. M. Giangreco, Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 2009), 60, and footnote, 303.
Likelihood of retributive action against prisoners in Japan: Frank, Downfall, 161.
Okinawa battle and nonbattle casualty estimates: There are a range of Okinawa casualty estimates in military literature. Historian and author Richard Frank’s statistics are widely acknowledged as the most reliable: Richard Frank, “The Pacific War’s Biggest Battle,” USNI Naval History 24, no. 2 (April 2010):
US Army and Marine casualties (killed and wounded) at Okinawa numbered 82,229. For the navy, 1,465 kamikaze sorties sank 36 ships and damaged 368. The carnage among naval personnel was the highest ever suffered in a single naval campaign, mostly from kamikazes. 4,907 sailors died, with a nearly equal number wounded—a ship casualty rate of one in four. Japanese casualties at Okinawa were far greater: 107,539 soldiers were killed—23,764 of them presumed to have died sealed in caves. The highest death toll of all was among Okinawans: 142,058, more than a third of the island’s civilian population.
If Operation Olympic had been launched and carried to completion it would have dwarfed “into insignificance” any other amphibious assault attempted in history. USN (Ret) Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey, MacArthur’s Amphibious Navy: Seventh Amphibious Force Operations 1943–1945 (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 1969), 321.
39: IN THE END, A QUESTION OF CASUALTIES—AND SEA POWER
Admiral Leahy’s June 1945 memo to Joint Chiefs regarding Operation Olympic: Memo SM-2141, US Department of Defense.
Army Surgeon General’s casualty estimates: Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Random House, 1999), 135–36.
Olympic casualty estimates as of June 18, 1945: General HQs, US Army Forces in the Pacific (USAFPAC) Staff Study: Operation Olympic, 32.
Re Truman denied the casualty data he requested: Frank, Downfall, 144–45.
General Marshall’s estimates of MacArthur’s overall battle ratio of 22.6:1 was later revised to 5:1.
Excerpts from Willoughby memos on Kyushu buildup stressed gravity of new intelligence, per his Amendment 1 to G-2 Estimate of the Enemy Situation with Respect to Kyushu:
“The rate and probable continuity of Japanese reinforcements into the Kyushu area are changing that tactical and strategic situation sharply . . . [T]here is a strong likelihood that additional major units will enter the area before target date; we are engaged in a race against time by which the ratio of attack effort vis-à-vis defense capacity is [now] perilously balanced . . . If this deployment is not checked, it may grow to a point where we attack on a ratio of one (1) to one (1), which is not the recipe for victory.”
Autonomy of SWPA’s Central Bureau, MacArthur’s intelligence gathering operation: Edward J. Drea, MacArthur’s ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942–1945 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 28–29.
Additional sources on chronology of Japanese buildup on Kyushu: Douglas A. MacAeachin, Joint Report by CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Harvard University program for Studies of Intelligence and Policy: “The Final Months of the War with Japan: Signals Intelligence, US Invasion Planning, and the A-Bomb Decision”; Giangreco, Hell to Pay; Frank, Downfall.
“suicide weapons being developed on Kyushu”: Ibid., 212.
Ten thousand planes hidden in “mines, railway tunnels”: James Martin Davis, “Operation Olympic: An Invasion Not Found in History Books,” Quan, September 2003.
WCM to Washington, Summer 1945: WCM’s Naval Orders show RKT dispatched him to Washington with latest report on spiking enemy troop strength on Kyushu. Story retold in lengthy WCM interview in Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia’s, main newspaper, on August 6, 1995 (fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima).
A second source is an undated “joint letter of criticism” from both my parents sent to the Daily Progress editor, responding to a previously published editorial dated April 25, 1995, which had suggested the US apologize to Japan for dropping the atomic bombs. The letter was joint because my mother had worked as a data analyst on Project Manhattan at MIT in Boston (though its employees did not know the precise objective of their work until after the fact). The letter objected to “factual misstatements” in a previous LTE in the Daily Progress. After a brief discussion of my mother’s role came the relevant passage from my father:
I, the other half of our household, had been through three costly amphibious assaults on the Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, where casualties grew with each invasion and the coming of the kamikazes. In the final weeks before the bomb was dropped, I was in Manila Bay helping to coordinate the planning for our amphibious invasion of mainland Japan. At that time, the estimate was that we would suffer 600,000 casualties in the invasion.
When that estimate reached the invasion commander, Admiral R. K. Turner, he sent for me and asked whether as a former White House aide to President Roosevelt I might be able to bring this intelligence to the attention of President Truman. When I responded in the affirmative, I was ordered back to Washington on the next plane, and I did get the estimate to the attention of the President.
Bill orally summarized important enemy intercepts to Roosevelt, frequently in his bathroom while (the president) shaved: David Kahn, “Roosevelt Magic and Ultra,” Cryptologia 16, no. 4 (1992).
Communications traffic and Leahy and Truman receipt of documents from Washington at Potsdam: Elsey, Unplanned Life, 86–87.
Official Log of the president’s trip to “Berlin Conference,�
�� July 6–August 7, 1945, www.trumanlibrary.org.
Clark Clifford: James Vardaman hired Clifford for Map Room duty shortly before the conference at Potsdam as a “stand-in” watch officer so that Vardaman could travel to the conference. Matthew Connelly and William Rigdon Oral Histories, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO.
Mott further disclosed in the August 6, 1995, Daily Progress article: “I was having lunch at that exclusive men’s club in San Francisco with former president of the United States Herbert Hoover. A mutual friend had invited both of us to lunch. The bomb had been dropped, and Hoover was drawing formulas on napkins and the tablecloth, which was annoying the hell out of our waiter. Hoover had a scientific background and was trying to figure out the formula for the bomb. At the time, he said he thought that dropping the bomb was a good idea.”
MacArthur was “so prone to exaggerate”: From War Secretary Henry Stimson’s diary, December 27, 1944, per footnote on page 419 in Frank’s Downfall. Frank also noted a March 30, 1945, diary entry by Stimson along similar lines, when MacArthur’s fitness to command the final invasion of Japan was being debated in Washington.
President Hoover had provided the Roosevelt Administration with casualty estimates for a final assault on Japan: D. M. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections for the US Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946; Planning and Policy,” Journal of Military History 61 (July 1997): 521–82.
Admiral Nimitz opinion on importance of sea power to Pacific victory: Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 453–54.
Processing freed prisoners via Manila: Reports of General MacArthur: MacArthur in Japan: The Occupation Military Phase, vol. 1, supp., 1966, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-60006.
Admiral Turner and flag staff at Tojo Shrine, Tokyo, September 2, 1945: Dyer, Amphibians Came to Conquer, 1114–15.
40: NO PEACE AT LILAC HEDGES
Excerpt from “Cruise of Death,” by George Weller, Chicago Daily News, December 8, 1945.
41: FINAL HOURS
“The march was about two miles”: Wright, Captured on Corregidor, 111.
“With our bony frames”: Lawton, Some Survived, 180.
Torpedo explosions that missed Enoura Maru at Lingayen Gulf: David Nash later confirmed that the torpedoes that missed their ship were fired by the USS Blenny, commanded by Lieutenant Commander William Hazzard, who—along with Air Group Commander Robert Riera—was a 1935 Annapolis classmate of Nash’s.
“We were dirty, bearded”: Unpublished memoir, E. Carl Engelhart, 162.
“Only survival mattered”: Lawton, Some Survived, 186.
Sugar theft incident: Wheeler, “For My Children,” 93–94.
Bombing of Enoura Maru and removal of the dead: Wright, Captured on Corregidor, 122–24.
Colonel Olson’s bravery and Father Cummings’s prayers aboard Enoura Maru: Sidney Stewart, Give Us This Day (New York: W. W. Norton, 1956), 211–13.
Barton Cross and Robert Granston aboard Brazil Maru: Two-day SMF interview with Granston in Palm Coast, Florida, and Granston’s November 1945 letter to Helen Cross.
More than 126,000 Allied prisoners were transported in 156 voyages on 134 Japanese merchant ships. More than 21,000 Americans were killed or injured from “friendly fire from American submarines or planes”: Gregory F. Michno, Death on the Hellships: Prisoners at Sea in the Pacific War (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 2001), Appendix, 317.
Select Bibliography
MAJOR INTERVIEWS BY AUTHOR
Barney Barnhill (USS Enterprise), by telephone, January 2006.
Warren Elder, former POW, Luzon, Philippines, January 2005.
George Elsey, Irvine, CA, March 2007.
Robert Granston, Palm Coast, FL, February 2006 and several later interviews by phone.
Dee Grashio, widow of Davao escapee Samuel Grashio, by telephone, Spring 2005.
Jack Hawkins (USMC, retired), Quantico, VA, 2010.
Judith Heisinger, widow of Duane Heisinger (son of former POW Samuel Laurence Heisinger, USN and author of Father Found), Northern VA, 2008 and 2010.
Al Leonard, childhood friend of Bill and Benny Mott, by telephone, March 2006.
Roger Mansell, Center for Japanese Prisoner of War Research, Palo Alto, CA, January 2005.
Senator John McCain, US Senate, Washington, DC, 2006.
Bernard Peterson (USS Enterprise), by telephone, January 2006.
Sandra Kahn Rosenquist, daughter of Harold A. Rosenquist, by telephone, May 2007 and October 2008.
Mac Showers (Naval Intelligence), by telephone, June 2007.
Robert Wolfensky, former POW, Luzon, Philippines, January 2005.
RESEARCH VENUES
Ateneo University, Manila, Philippines.
Cabanatuan, Bilibid, O’Donnell, and Pasay prison camps, Santa Scholastica Womens College, Philippines.
Center for Research, POWs Under the Japanese, Palo Alto, CA.
Churchill Map and War Rooms, London, England.
Citadel, Charleston, SC.
Citadel, Le Château Frontenac, Quebec, Canada.
Embassy of the Philippines, Washington, DC.
Library of Congress Manuscript Div., Washington, DC.
MacArthur Memorial Archives, Norfolk, VA.
National Archives (NARA), College Park, MD, and Washington, DC.
National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO.
Naval Historical Library, Navy Yard, Washington, DC.
Prisoner of War Museum and Library, Andersonville, GA.
Roosevelt Presidential Library and Archives, Hyde Park, NY.
Rutgers University Library and Archives, New Brunswick, NJ.
US Naval Academy (USNA) Archives and Library, Annapolis, MD.
US Naval Institute (USNI), Annapolis, MD.
US Navy (USN) Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED), Washington, DC.
USS Hornet, San Francisco, CA.
USS Yorktown, Charleston, SC.
PARTIAL LIST OF REFERENCES
Andrew, Christopher. For the President’s Eyes Only. New York: Harper Perennial, 1996.
Andrews, Robert. Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.
Arnold-Forester, Mark. The World at War. New York: Stein and Day, 1973.
Banning, Kendall. Annapolis Today. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1938.
Barbey, Daniel E. MacArthur’s Amphibious Navy, Seventh Amphibious Force Operations 1943–1945. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 1969.
Barnhill, James C. The Galloping Ghost. Self-published, March 1987.
Bartsch, William H. December 8, 1941: MacArthur’s Pearl Harbor. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003.
Bishop, Gordon. Gems of New Jersey, Written for the Star-Ledger. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985.
Bliven, Bruce, Jr. From Pearl Harbor to Okinawa: The War in the Pacific, 1941–1945. New York: Random House, 1960.
Bocksel, Arnold A. Rice, Men and Barbed Wire: A True Epic of Americans as Japanese POWs. Hempstead, NY: Michael B. Glass, 1991.
Bond, Larry. Crash Dive: True Stories of Submarine Combat. New York: Tom Doherty, 2010.
Borneman, Walter R. The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea. New York: Little, Brown, 2012.
Brands, H. W. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Anchor Books, 2008.
Breuer, William B. MacArthur’s Undercover War: Spies, Saboteurs, Guerrillas, and Secret Missions. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1995.
Brinkley, David. Washington Goes to War. Thorndike, ME: Thorndike Press, 1988.
Buell, Thomas B. The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1987.
Bureau of Naval Personnel. The Gunnery Officer. Navpers, 1955.
Camus,
José S. Rice in the Philippines. Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1921.
Caraccilo, Dominic J., ed. Surviving Bataan and Beyond: Colonel Irvin Alexander’s Odyssey as a Japanese Prisoner of War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999.
Childress, Clyde (USA, retired). A Critical Review of They Fought Alone.” Bulletin of the American Historical Collection 31, no. 1 (January 2003). AHC consists of some thousands of books, articles, and photographs related to the American experience in the Philippines and to the relationship of the two countries.
Churchill, Winston S. The Grand Alliance: The Second World War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Connaughton, Richard. MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines. New York: Overlook Press, 2001.
Costello, John. The Pacific War: 1941–1945. New York: HarperCollins, 1981.
Cross, Helen Chamberlain. Wartime diaries and letters, 1940–1946.
Davis, R. G., Captain, MC, USN, MOIC. Canacao Journal: A Report and a Journal, 1941–1945, PI (Hospital Corps Archives, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, June 1946.
Daws, Gavan. Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. New York: William Morrow, 1994.
Difford, Floramund Fellmeth. An Angel’s Illustrated Journal: It Has Taken Sixty Years to Explain Why She Was on the Mactan and Not a Prisoner. Toledo, WA: Chapters of Life, 2005.
Dissette, Edward, and H. C. Adamson. Guerrilla Submarines. New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.
Dyer, George C. The Amphibians Came to Conquer: The Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. 2 vols. Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1991.
Dyess, William E. The Dyess Story. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1944.
Elsey, George M. An Unplanned Life: A Memoir. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005.
Erickson, Commander George E., Jr., JAGC, USNR. Transcript of Oral History Interview of Rear Admiral William C. Mott, USN, retired. Charlottesville, VA, 1991.
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