World War II: The Autobiography

by Jon E. Lewis

  Respectfully yours,

  Pvt. Milton Adams

  Post Stockade Camp Livingston, La.

  BATTLE OF MIDWAY: ONE MAN’S DIARY, 4 JUNE 1942

  Robert J Casey, war correspondent

  The naval struggle between Japan and the USA for the Pacific waves culminated at Midway in the Hawaiian archipelago. It was the first sea battle in which the opposing fleets never saw each other: the fighting was done by carrier-based aircraft.

  JUNE 4, Thursday. North of Midway Islands.

  1:00. Just learned that the Army planes from Midway located another part of the Jap invasion force late Wednesday afternoon.

  6:00. I got up for reveille and looked out at a clotted sky, a black sea and odd gray moonlight.

  8:45. I’m beginning to have a great deal of respect for Admiral Spruance who is conducting this expedition. It is getting more and more apparent as we steam toward the west that we haven’t been detected . . . It’s a miracle but that seems to be the way of it.

  We have an inferior force. It’s probably one of the largest the United States ever sent anywhere in a gesture of anger but what of it. About half the Jap navy – and not the worst end of it – is out there ahead.

  9:10. We make a right-angle turn. The wind stiffens, if that were possible, and the SBD’s and STB’s go off.

  It’s much too windy for me to hear what’s being said in sky control so I don’t know whether or not any contact has been made with the Japs. Anyway the haul isn’t too far for these planes if they have to go all the way to Midway. It’s comforting to see them up and something of a relief, too. It won’t be long now one way or the other and if anything’s coming to us we’ll soon know it. If we don’t get the Jap he’ll certainly get us.

  From the signal yards the flags come down and the flags go up – red, yellow, blue, white, crossed, striped, checkered. Lads are running up and down the ladders of the foremast with dispatch blanks in their hands. It’s all spectacular and beginning to be thrilling.

  10:30. We go into a terrific lateral-pass maneuver and the ships start running across each other’s bows. Donald Duck raises his voice: “Antiaircraft stations stand by to repel attack.”

  I go back to my place on the foremast. Then comes the usual wait and study of the sky. You can’t help but think that this fine day which you were finding so useful to our bombers is going to be just as helpful to Hirohito’s bombers.

  10:35. Usual reports of approaching aircraft . . . “Unidentified plane, bearing three-three-eight – forty-eight thousand.” “Unidentified plane bearing two-seven-oh – fifty-two thousand . . .” Everybody is tense of course because sometimes these hysterical shouts turn out to make sense.

  We are now leading the procession abreast of the cans. A cruiser – a floating arsenal of ack-ack – has come over alongside our old carrier.

  10:45. Ten planes show up off the starboard bow. They may be the Yorktown’s SBD’s. As we glower at them we get the answer – the step pyramid of the Yorktown’s bridge structure comes up over the horizon. More planes are reported but the Yorktown claims them for her own and we withdraw from the contest.

  We are still plowing along at top speed. On the lower decks the roar of the engines is so great that you have to shout to be heard a few feet. The cans, if we keep on at this rate, will have to refuel tonight. One lone gooney is sailing along with us easily and hopefully.

  At the moment the carrier nearest us has sent out fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes. If the Yorktown has contributed as many as our old carrier, there ought to be about 180 planes on the way to the attack, 105 of them bombers or torpedo carriers.

  11:15. A report has come in that one of our fortresses has attacked and damaged a carrier, presumably in the reserve group. The attack on Midway has been driven off – eight planes shot down over the island, the Marines claiming a bag of thirty off shore.

  It’s odd how the battle is shaping up to fit the specifications of the story the medical colonel told me when we went into Honolulu after the Coral Sea. The colonel said that the fight had already occurred. I said it hadn’t. Nature as usual is imitating art.

  11:35. We head now into the wind and it’s very chilly. Some fighter planes are coming in, presumably part of our protective patrol. Against the sky they tumble along like a cloud of May flies. We’re making crochet patterns all over the sea again.

  11:40. There is some contact off the starboard quarter. Maybe that’s why the fighters came in. They shoot over the rim of the sea and we continue our cotillion.

  I’m getting sleepy. A gray half-moon hanging belatedly in the thin blue sky reminds me so much of myself.

  11:45. Fighters come back to land on our carrier. Apparently a false alarm.

  12:00. Mickey Reeves signaled me to come down to the bridge for a sandwich. So I was right at headquarters when first reports began to come in from our planes. The first message was brief. The Jap carriers had been located, a little belatedly, and they were virtually without air cover . . . Apparently all their planes had been sent out to make the conquest of Midway quick and easy. However, the squadron commander of the TBD unit reporting, said that his planes were virtually out of fuel.

  “Request permission,” he called, “to withdraw from action and refuel.” The admiral’s answer was terse.

  “Attack at once.”

  So as I sat down in the chartroom to bite into a ham sandwich, the planes had begun to move in on the carriers. Whatever might be the result, we’d never be able to criticize the quality of our opportunity . . .

  I sat there thinking. The Jap air admiral undoubtedly had figured us as permanent fixtures in the southwest Pacific where last he had had word of us. So just about now he’d be looking up at the sky suddenly clouded with SBD’s and asking himself the Japanese equivalent of “Where the hell did those things come from?”

  12:45. Enemy planes reported off port at twelve miles. New alert sounds. The kids drop their food and sidle off to their guns. The Grummans once more leap off our carrier.

  1:00. Still no sign of the visitors. I guess the contact was another of those phonies that breed so rapidly in times like this.

  1:15. Fifteen of the ––––––’s bombers come over. The squadron is intact and in tight formation, its work, whatever it was, finished.

  1:20. The carriers swing around, apparently getting ready to take on returning planes which are now showing up in two’s and three’s. Everything is set to repel an attack, and with good reason. If these planes have failed in their mission or fought a draw or left the Jap carriers usable we may expect a quick and vicious attack in return. If by some remote juju we have put all four carriers out of commission we have just about gained mastery of the Pacific including the Japanese side of the international date line, or so the more educated of my spies tell me.

  I went back to the wardroom and contemplated this phenomenon. Presently the word filtered back to us that the attack had been a complete success. All the carriers had been hit and severely damaged. At least three of them were burning. One, apparently, had been súnk in the first two or three minutes of the engagement.

  One battleship of the north group of the force that we had attacked was afire. A second battleship had been hit. Reports from the Army told of hits on two more battleships and another carrier. Discounting these messages to the fullest extent and recognizing how easy it is for one observer to duplicate the report of another, it was still obvious that we had had something of a field day, still obvious that the bulk of Japan’s attacking planes must presently be going into the drink for want of any other place to land.

  June 6, Saturday. At sea west of Midway. Sunny. Calm. Warmer.

  It is estimated on the basis of today’s reports that between 18,000 and 20,000 men were killed in this brief battle. While we aren’t wasting too much sympathy on our enemy at the moment, we are awed by the catastrophe that overtook him. There is chill in the thought that there, but for the Grace of God, go we. Had we been seen . . . Ha
d the Japs attacked us before making the try for Midway . . .

  MIDWAY: THE DECISIVE FIVE MINUTES, 4 JUNE 1942

  Taisa Mitsuo Fuchida, Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service

  As our fighters ran out of ammunition during the fierce battle they returned to the carriers for replenishment, but few ran low on fuel. Service crews cheered the returning pilots, patted them on the shoulder, and shouted words of encouragement. As soon as a plane was ready again the pilot nodded, pushed forward the throttle, and roared back into the sky. This scene was repeated time and again as the desperate air struggle continued.

  Preparations for a counter-strike against the enemy had continued on board our four carriers throughout the enemy torpedo attacks. One after another, planes were hoisted from the hangar and quickly arranged on the flight deck. There was no time to lose. At 10.20 Admiral Nagumo gave the order to launch when ready. On Akagi’s flight deck all planes were in position with engines warming up. The big ship began turning into the wind. Within five minutes all her planes would be launched.

  Five minutes! Who would have dreamed that the tide of battle would shift completely in that brief interval of time?

  Visibility was good. Clouds were gathering at about 3,000 metres, however, and though there were occasional breaks, they afforded good concealment for approaching enemy planes. At 10.24 the order to start launching came from the bridge by voice-tube. The Air Officer flapped a white flag, and the first Zero fighter gathered speed and whizzed off the deck. At that instant a look-out screamed: “Hell-Divers!” I looked up to see three black enemy planes plummeting towards our ship. Some of our machine-guns managed to fire a few frantic bursts at them, but it was too late. The plump silhouettes of the American Dauntless dive-bombers quickly grew larger, and then a number of black objects suddenly floated eerily from their wings. Bombs! Down they came straight towards me! I fell intuitively to the deck and crawled behind a command post mantelet.

  The terrifying scream of the dive-bombers reached me first, followed by the crashing explosion of a direct hit. There was a blinding flash and then a second explosion, much louder than the first. I was shaken by a weird blast of warm air. There was still another shock, but less severe, apparently a near-miss. Then followed a startling quiet as the barking of guns suddenly ceased. I got up and looked at the sky. The enemy planes were already gone from sight.

  The attackers had got in unimpeded because our fighters, which had engaged the preceding wave of torpedo planes only a few moments earlier, had not yet had time to regain altitude. Consequently, it may be said that the American dive-bombers’ success was made possible by the earlier martyrdom of their torpedo planes. Also, our carriers had no time to evade because clouds hid the enemy’s approach until he dived down to the attack. We had been caught flat-footed in the most vulnerable condition possible – decks loaded with planes armed and fuelled for an attack.

  Looking about, I was horrified at the destruction that had been wrought in a matter of seconds. There was a huge hole in the flight deck just behind the amidship elevator. The elevator itself, twisted like molten glass, was dropping into the hangar. Deck plates reeled upwards in grotesque configurations, planes stood tail up, belching livid flame and jet-black smoke. Reluctant tears streamed down my cheeks as I watched the fires spread, and I was terrified at the prospect of induced explosions which would surely doom the ship. I heard Masuda yelling, “Inside! Get inside! Everybody who isn’t working! Get inside!”

  Unable to help, I staggered down a ladder and into the ready room. It was already jammed with badly burned victims from the hangar deck. A new explosion was followed quickly by several more, each causing the bridge structure to tremble. Smoke from the burning hangar gushed through passageways and into the bridge and ready room, forcing us to seek other refuge. Climbing back to the bridge, I could see that Kaga and Soryu had also been hit and were giving off heavy columns of black smoke. The scene was horrible to behold.

  Akagi had taken two direct hits, one on the after rim of the amidship elevator, the other on the rear guard on the port side of the flight deck. Normally, neither would have been fatal to the giant carrier, but induced explosions of fuel and munitions devastated whole sections of the ship, shaking the bridge and filling the air with deadly splinters. As fire spread among the planes lined up wing to wing on the after flight deck, their torpedoes began to explode, making it impossible to bring the fires under control. The entire hangar area was a blazing inferno, and the flames moved swiftly towards the bridge.

  Midway cost the Americans the carrier Yorktown and 147planes; the Japanese lost four carriers and a similar number of aircraft. The tide of war in the Pacific was now against the Japanese.

  Part Six

  Resistance & Reconquest

  The War in Western and Southern Europe, November 1940–May 1945

  INTRODUCTION

  The spread of World War II to south-eastern Europe, as with North Africa, was caused by Mussolini’s desire for cheap laurels. In October 1940 Italy capriciously attacked Greece, but once again Italian forces failed to fulfil Il Duce’s dreams of empire. Embarrassment for Mussolini was averted only when Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to Greece in April 1941. The Führer’s invasion of Greece, however, was not solely motivated by a desire to help out his staunchest friend. Frustrated in his desire to invade Britain – a country that he hoped, erroneously, might come to an accommodation with him – Hitler had turned to the ideological task closest to his heart, the conquering of the Bolshevist Soviet Union. As a preface to Barbarossa, Hitler sought German control over the Balkans and south-east Europe, thereby eliminating any potential helpmates to the Soviet Union. In this the Führer was stunningly successful, with the nations of the regions either succumbing to his political bullying (Bulgaria) or his military might (Yugoslavia, Greece).

  As for Britain, its war with Germany and Italy was essentially restricted to bombing raids by air, blockades by sea and attacks by land in the secondary theatre of the Mediterranean region. Even when Hitler dispatched 180 divisions (nearly four million of his five million-strong armed forces) eastwards to invade Russia, there was no realistic chance of Britain alone invading and liberating occupied Western Europe. The British and Canadian commando raid on Dieppe in 1942 was bloody proof of that. To ensure the continued inviolability of his Atlantic border, Hitler turned France – always the likeliest place for a British invasion – into a festung or fortress. Within the occupied countries, France included, resistance to Nazi rule was, the efforts of a brave few aside, scant. Of all the countries occupied by Hitler’s forces only Yugoslavia would free itself.

  Not until December 1941, when Hitler gratuitously declared war on the USA, did a real chance of liberating Europe arise. And even then, it took Britain and the USA – the world’s greatest productive power – more than two years to plan, prepare and equip for D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Any small possibility that the Germans had of repelling the Allied invader was dashed by the Allies’ air power (12,837 aircraft to the Luftwaffe’s 319) which prevented German armour moving en masse to the invasion beaches. Nevertheless the German forces in Western and Southern Europe – where the Allies had been working their way up Italy since July 1943’s Operation Husky – proved extraordinarily difficult to dislodge. The story of the war in Europe in 1944–5 is not why did Germany lose – it had no chance, not when it was also fighting on the Eastern Front as well – but how did it hold out for so long against an enemy greater in men and materiel? As late as September 1944 the Germans were controlling territory far in excess of the Reich’s own borders. The answer lies in the Germans’ battlefield flexibility and the extraordinarily high standard of training given to the NGOs and officers of their armed forces. Only in the very last weeks of the war did the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS lose their military composure and competence. The consequence was that on the road from D-Day to the Rhineland some Allied regiments endured casualty rates in excess of those they suffered in World War I.
>
  SWORDFISH ATTACK THE ITALIAN FLEET, TARANTO, 11 NOVEMBER 1940

  Lieutenant M.R. Maund RN, 824 Squadron

  The attack by Fleet Air Arm Swordfish on the Italian fleet at Taranto changed the balance of ship power in the Mediterranean, and consequently increased the difficulties for the Axis powers in supplying their armies in North Africa.

  The klaxon has gone and the starters are whirring as, stubbing out our cigarettes, we bundle outside into the chill evening air. It is not so dark now, with the moon well up in the sky, so that one can see rather than feel one’s way past the aircraft which, with their wings folded for close packing, look more like four-poster bedsteads than front-line aeroplanes.