Allied submarines in the Pacific War

Allied submarines were used extensively during the Pacific War and were a key contributor to the defeat of the Empire of Japan.
During the war, submarines of the United States Navy were responsible for 55% of Japan's merchant marine losses; other Allied navies added to the toll. The war against shipping was the single most decisive factor in the collapse of the Japanese economy. Allied submarines also sank a large number of Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) troop transports, killing many thousands of Japanese soldiers and hampering the deployment of IJA reinforcements during the battles on the Pacific islands.
They also conducted reconnaissance patrols, landed special forces and guerrilla troops and performed search and rescue tasks. The majority of the submarines involved were from the U.S. Navy, with the British Royal Navy committing the second largest number of boats and the Royal Netherlands Navy contributing smaller numbers of boats.
The Allied submarine campaign is one of the least-publicized feats in military history, in large part because of the efforts of Allied governments to ensure their own submarines' actions were not reported in the media. The U.S. Navy adopted an official policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, and it appears the policy was executed without the knowledge or prior consent of the government. The London Naval Treaty, to which the U.S. was signatory, required submarines to abide by prize rules (commonly known as "cruiser rules"). It did not prohibit arming merchantmen, but arming them, or having them report contact with submarines (or raiders), made them "de facto" naval auxiliaries and removed the protection of the cruiser rules. This made restrictions on submarines effectively moot. A major reason why the U.S. submarine campaign is very obscure and unknown in the United States is because the defective Mark 14 and Mark 15 torpedoes were mass produced even though there was no adequate testing during development and the faulty engineering of the torpedoes led to four major faults that led to only a 20% success rate from December 1941 to late 1943. For two years U.S. submarines struggled to sink any Japanese warships or merchant ships. For example, during the 1941-42 Philippines campaign the United States Navy's Asiatic Fleet's 23 modern state-of-the-art submarines failed to sink a single Japanese warship even when submarines scored direct hits because the torpedoes all failed to explode for a myriad of reasons.
Background.
The U.S. had the largest and most powerful submarine force of all the Allied countries in the Pacific at the outbreak of war. Pre-war U.S. Navy doctrine—like that of all major navies—specified that the main role of submarines was to support the surface fleet by conducting reconnaissance and attacking large enemy warships. Merchant ships were regarded as secondary targets, and the circumstances in which they could be attacked were greatly limited by prize rules set out in the London Naval Treaty, to which the U.S. was a signatory. The U.S. Navy built large submarines which boasted long range, a relatively fast cruising speed and a heavy armament of torpedoes. United States submarines were better suited for long patrols in the tropics than those of the other major powers due to amenities such as air conditioning (which German U-boats, for instance, lacked) and fresh water distillation units. The submarines' commanders and crewmen were considered elite and enjoyed a strong "esprit de corps". On 7 December 1941, the USN had 55 fleet- and 18 medium-sized submarines (S-boats) in the Pacific, 38 submarines elsewhere, and 73 under construction. (By war's end, the U.S. had completed 228 submarines.)
While Britain stationed a force of submarines in the Far East prior to the outbreak of war, no boats were available in December 1941. The British had 15 modern submarines in the Far East in September 1939. These submarines formed part of the China Station and were organised into the 4th Flotilla. Although the number of British submarines in the Far East increased in early 1940 when the 8th Flotilla arrived at Ceylon, both flotillas and all their submarines were withdrawn in mid-1940 to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet.
The Netherlands also maintained a submarine force in the Far East in order to protect the Netherlands East Indies (NEI). In December 1941, this force comprised 15 boats based at Surabaya, most of which were obsolete.
Strategic implications.
Throughout the war, Japan was dependent on sea transport to provide adequate resources, including food, to the home islands and supply its military at garrisons across the Pacific. Before the war, Japan estimated the nation required of shipping to maintain the domestic economy and military during a major war. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor Japan's shipping capacity was much greater than that, totaling of shipping: the Japanese merchant fleet was capable of , and smaller craft were capable of an additional .
At the start of the war, the U.S. submarine fleet was ineffective, for multiple reasons:
Despite an awareness that shipping was vital, the Japanese military seriously underestimated the (eventual) threat from Allied submarines. This overconfidence was reinforced by the ineffectiveness of Allied submarines in the early part of the war. Anti-submarine warfare was accorded a low priority and few warships and aircraft were allocated to protecting merchant shipping. Japanese destroyers formed the bulk of convoy protection; they had impressive night fighting capabilities, but had deficiencies in sonar and radar compared to equivalents of other navies. Moreover, Japanese Navy doctrine in relation to commerce defense was very bad.
The size and effectiveness of the Allied submarine force increased greatly during the Pacific War. The U.S. increased production of modern submarines from 1942 onward. The efforts of Admiral Charles A. Lockwood were crucial for the rectification of the Mark 14's problems (which were nevertheless not resolved until September 1943). He also selected more aggressive submarine skippers. Signals intelligence broke the ""maru" code" in January 1943, after a gaffe by U.S. Customs pre-war had caused Japan to change it. American aircraft engaged in aerial minelaying in Operation Starvation. As a result of all of these developments, U.S. submarines inflicted devastating losses on Japanese merchant shipping in 1943 and 1944, and by January 1945 had effectively destroyed the Japanese merchant fleet.
Poor torpedoes claimed at least two U.S. submarines out of 48 lost on patrol.
Countering the Japanese offensive.
In a break with pre-war doctrine (which, like Japan's, had presumed a rush across the Pacific and a "decisive battle" between battleships), with the London Naval Treaty, and with long-standing U.S. defense of freedom of the seas, U.S. naval commanders in the Pacific were ordered by the U.S. Navy Chief of Staff to "execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against Japan" on the afternoon of 7 December 1941, six hours after the Japanese attack. This order authorized all U.S. submarines in the Pacific to attack and sink any warship, commercial vessel, or civilian passenger ship flying the Japanese flag, without warning. Thomas C. Hart, commander in chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet, issued the same order at 03:45 Manila time (09:15 in Hawaii, 14:45 in DC) on his own initiative (but knowing U.S. Navy Chief of Operations Harold "Betty" Stark intended to do so).
The Pacific Fleet submarine force had emerged unscathed from the attack on Pearl Harbor and departed on the fleet's first offensive war patrol on 11 December. The Asiatic Fleet's 27 submarines (including more fleet boats than at Pearl Harbor) also went into action on the first day of U.S. involvement in the war, beginning war patrols in the waters around the Philippines and Indochina. Due to inadequate prewar planning, which made no provision for defensive minelaying, nor for placing submarines on station around the Philippines, nor off enemy harbors, the Asiatic Fleet's efforts to counter the Japanese invasion of the Philippines were unsuccessful and the fleet's surviving submarines were forced to withdraw to Surabaya in the Dutch East Indies (DEI).
British, Dutch, and U.S. submarines took part in the unsuccessful defense of British Malaya and the DEI in late 1941 and early 1942. In December 1941, five Dutch submarines attacked the Japanese invasion fleet off Malaya. These submarines sank two Japanese merchant ships and damaged four others, but three of the attackers were sunk. The two surviving Dutch submarines were withdrawn to defend the DEI where they were assisted by two British submarines, which had been transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet, and several U.S. boats. The U.S. Asiatic Fleet's submarine force left Surabaya for Fremantle, Western Australia, on 1 March. (They would remain in Australia, on the most hazardous and unproductive stations for U.S. submarines, for the duration.) By this date, the Asiatic Fleet's 27 submarines had sunk 12 Japanese ships for the loss of four U.S. boats. Following the fall of the DEI, only a handful of British and Dutch submarines were based in the Indian Ocean, and these had little impact on Japanese forces in the area.
War of attrition.
After the Battle of Coral Sea, the U.S. Navy detached eight submarines to finish off the damaged aircraft carrier , but she evaded all of them. At the Battle of Midway, although the attack on the battleship by had been unsuccessful, it drew the destroyer "Arashi" temporarily away from the main fleet to drop depth charges, and the destroyer's return was traced by 's VB-6 to the Japanese task force, where the dive bombers promptly set on fire the fleet carriers "Akagi" and "Kaga" . Overall in 1942, U.S. submarines had managed to sink the heavy cruiser and the light cruiser .
As a result of several key improvements the previous year, U.S. submarines inflicted tremendous losses to the heavy units of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1944. They destroyed the Japanese fleet carriers "Shōkaku" and in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and sank or disabled three "Takao"-class cruisers at the start of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Also sunk that year were the battleship (being the only Japanese battleship lost to a submarine), the escort carriers "Shin'yō", "Taiyō" and "Un'yō", and the fleet carriers "Unryu" and "Shinano", the latter being the largest vessel ever sunk by a submarine.
From 1943, Allied submarines waged an increasingly effective campaign against Japanese merchant shipping and the IJN. By the end of the war in August 1945, the Japanese merchant marine had less than a quarter of the tonnage it had in December 1941. Overall, U.S. Navy submarines sank around 1,300 Japanese merchant ships, as well as roughly 200 warships. Despite the need to maintain sea lanes for its empire, the Japanese never successfully developed a cost-effective destroyer escort better suited for convoy duties, while it also did not have the industrial might to replace the losses of its heavily armed destroyers, nor of its ill-protected merchantmen.
In 1943, U.S. Congressman Andrew J. May revealed the fact that Japanese depth charges were not set deep enough to destroy U.S. submarines. Japanese anti-submarine warfare grew in effectiveness, particularly after the debut of radar in the IJN.
British and Dutch submarine operations.
The British submarine force in the Far East was greatly expanded from August 1943 onward. The British Eastern Fleet was responsible for submarine operations in the Bay of Bengal, Strait of Malacca as far as Singapore, and the western coast of Sumatra to the Equator. Few large Japanese cargo ships operated in this area, and the British submarines' main targets were small craft operating in inshore waters. The submarines were deployed to conduct reconnaissance, interdict Japanese supplies travelling to Burma, and attack U-boats operating from Penang. The Eastern Fleet's submarine force continued to expand during 1944, and by October 1944 had sunk a cruiser, three submarines, six small naval vessels, of merchant ships, and nearly 100 small vessels.
The British submarine force expanded its areas of operation in the last months of the war. In late 1944, the 8th Flotilla—with 11 British and Dutch submarines—was transferred to Fremantle and operated in the Java Sea and surrounding areas under the command of the U.S 7th Fleet. The 4th Flotilla and the newly formed 2nd Flotilla remained at Ceylon.
By March 1945, British boats had gained control of the Strait of Malacca, preventing any supplies from reaching the Japanese forces in Burma by sea. By this time, there were few large Japanese ships in the region, and the submarines mainly operated against small ships which they attacked with their deck guns.
In April the 8th Flotilla moved to Subic Bay in the Philippines and the 4th Flotilla replaced it at Fremantle. At this time, there were 38 British and Dutch submarines in the theater, and an additional five boats on their way from Europe. The submarine torpedoed and sank the heavy cruiser in the Bangka Strait, taking down some 1,200 Japanese army troops.
Three British submarines were sunk by the Japanese during the war: , , and (which was mined).
Merchant shipping losses.
Different sources provide varying figures for the size of the Japanese merchant marine and its wartime losses.
Size of the Japanese merchant fleet during World War II (all figures in tons)
Japanese merchant fleet losses during World War II (all figures in tons, taken from JANAC)
One Japanese reference reports 15,518 civilian ships lost. JANAC reports 2,117 Japanese merchant ships lost with a total tonnage of and 611 IJN ships lost with a total tonnage of .
Attacks on IJA troopships and hell ships.
In addition to taking a heavy toll on Japan's merchant shipping, a large number of troopships were also sunk. This resulted in the loss of thousands of Japanese troops, who were being transported to bolster Japan's already declining manpower on land in the final years of the war. Allied submarines sank an estimated 44 Japanese troopships with greater than 1,000 casualties in 33 of them. The threat of submarine attack seriously hampered the ability of the Japanese Army to move troops.
Unfortunately, Allied submarines also sank a number of hell ships, which were transporting Allied POWs and rōmusha slave labourers. It is estimated that 10,800 POWs died at sea. Most of these deaths were the result of an Allied submarine attack. Donald L. Miller has estimated the loss of life among POWs was twice that, asserting "approximately 21,000 Allied POWs died at sea, about 19,000 of them killed by friendly fire."
Other duties.
Allied submarines served in a range of other duties during the Pacific War. U.S. Navy submarines were often used for surveillance. This included taking photos of areas of interest (such as potential beaches for amphibious landings), and reporting on the movements of IJN warships. U.S. submarines landed and supplied reconnaissance and guerrilla forces and played a role in sustaining the guerrilla movement in the Philippines, at the cost of their diversion from attacks on Japanese commerce.
They also occasionally transported commandos, such as "Nautilus" and landing Marine Raiders for an abortive raid on Makin Atoll.
From early 1944 U.S. submarines were also used to rescue the crews of aircraft which had been forced down over the ocean. By the end of the war, submarines had rescued 504 airmen (including George H. W. Bush, who later became the 41st President of the United States).
British and Dutch submarines also landed and supplied special forces troops, rescued airmen, and shelled shore installations on nine occasions.
Britain also deployed a flotilla of midget submarines to the Far East which were used to conduct sabotage raids. The Fourteenth Flotilla, which was equipped with six "XE"-class submarines, arrived in Australia in April 1945 but was almost disbanded in May as no suitable targets could be found. The Flotilla's fortunes improved in early June, however, when undersea telegraph lines in the South China Sea were identified as being worthwhile targets along with a heavy cruiser at Singapore. On 31 July, "XE4" cut the submerged Singapore-Saigon telegraph cable near Cape St. Jacques in French Indochina and "XE5" cut the Hong Kong-Saigon cable close to Lamma Island, Hong Kong. At the same time, "XE1" and "XE3" penetrated the Straits of Johor where they severely damaged the Japanese heavy cruiser with limpet mines.
Post-war.
Allied actions in the Pacific are believed to have been a mitigating factor in reducing the sentence of "Großadmiral" Karl Dönitz following the Nuremberg Trials, who was accused of similar actions in the Battle of the Atlantic; indeed, Admiral Nimitz provided Dönitz with a statement saying his boats behaved no differently. The official judgment of the International Military Tribunal cited the statement as part of the reason Dönitz's sentence was "not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare."


Expeditionary Force

Expeditionary Force may refer to:
Military formations with Expeditionary Force in their name include:


Harbor Boat Building Company

Harbor Boat Building Company was a shipbuilding company on Terminal Island in San Pedro, California. To support the World War II demand for ships General Engineering built: minesweepers, torpedo boats, submarine chasers, and air-sea rescue boats. In 1919 Romolo Rados founded Harbor Boat Building. After the war he renamed the company Harco Shipyard and built and sold a standard design motor boat. In 1959 he sold the company to LTV. The shipyard was closed and the company was sold again in 1971 to Omega-Alpha, Inc. The last ship built was in 1965 for the US Navy. The shipyard was located at 263 Wharf St, San Pedro.
"Adjutant"-class minesweeper.
Harbor Boat Building Company built s, an auxiliary motor minesweepers for the United States Navy and other counties in the 1950s. The "Adjutant" class had a displacement of light, full load, a length of , a beam of and a draft of . Power was from four Packard diesel engines, total with two screws and a top speed of . Armed with two Oerlikon cannons anti-aircraft (AA) guns. Built: , , "Aconite" (M 640), "Azalée" (M 668), "Camélia" (M 671), "Ulvsund" (M 577), "Vilsund" (M 578), "Geumsan"/"Kum San" (MSC 522), "Goheung"/"Ko Hung" (MSC 523), "Geumdok"/"Kum Kok" (MSC 525), "Yeongdong"/"Kyong Dong" (MSC 529) and "Okcheon"/"Ok Cheon" (MSC 530).
"Pipit"-class coastal minesweeper.
Harbor Boat Building Company built "Pipit"-class coastal minesweepers. The ships had a displacement of , a length of , a beam of . Power of a diesel engine with one shaft and a top speed of . Armed with two .30 cal (7.62 mm) machine guns. Built: , .
Yard patrol boat.
Harbor Boat Building Company built built two yard patrol boats, "YP-617" and "YP-618". Finished as reefer ships, small refrigerated cargo vessels to supply fresh food to small islands in the South Pacific. Over 250 tons of refrigerated cargo could be carried in ten wood and four steel refrigerated wells. The ship housed three officers and twenty men. The ships were converted to tuna ships after the war. The boats had a length of , beam of , and a draft of . They were armed with three 20 mm AA gun mounts and propelled by a single propeller creating .
Air-sea rescue boat.
Harbor Boat Building Company built in 1944 US Navy air-sea rescue boats, also called a crash boat (ARB), were: Model 314 at , length of , beam of , draft of . Powered by Hall-Scott Defender V12 petrol engines with a top speed of . They had a crew of 7 or 8 and were armed with two .50 cal. M2 Browning machine guns. The boats had two rigid United States Rubber Company bullet sealing fuel tanks. They were a speed boat used to rescue pilots, crew and passengers from downed aircraft in search and rescue, air-sea rescue missions.
Submarine chaser.
Harbor Boat Building Company built submarine chasers that were of the design. They had a displacement of 94 tons with a length of , a beam of , a draft of , and a top speed of . They had a crew of 28. The sub chasers were powered by two General Motors, Electro-Motive Division, 16-184A diesel engines, and two propellers. They were armed with one Bofors 40 mm gun, two Browning M2 .50 cal. machine guns, two depth charge projector "Y guns", and two depth charge tracks. Some of the submarine chasers were lent to Allies of the United States as part of the Lend-Lease program.
Motor Torpedo Boat.
Harbor Boat Building Company built Motor Torpedo Boats (BPT) in 1943. These had a displacement of 49 tons, a length of , and a top speed of . The BPTs were armed with two torpedoes, one 20 mm gun and two .303 cal Vickers machine guns. Power was from three Packard W-14 M2500 gasoline engines with three shafts. Built for the US Navy as BPT boats, they were reclassified to HM MTB for the use as British Motor Torpedo Boats.


Battle of Blore Heath

The Battle of Blore Heath was a battle in the English Wars of the Roses. It was fought on 23 September 1459, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire. Blore Heath is a sparsely populated area of farmland, two miles east of the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire, and close to the towns of Market Drayton and Loggerheads, Staffordshire.
Background.
After the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, an uneasy peace held in England. Attempts at reconciliation between the houses of Lancaster and York enjoyed but marginal success. However, both sides became increasingly wary of each other and by 1459 were actively recruiting armed supporters. Queen Margaret of Anjou continued to raise support for King Henry VI amongst noblemen, distributing an emblem of a silver swan to knights and squires enlisted by her personally, whilst the Yorkist command under the Duke of York was finding plenty of anti-royal support despite the severe punishment for raising arms against the king.
The Yorkist force based at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire (led by the Earl of Salisbury) needed to link up with the main Yorkist army at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. As Salisbury marched south-west through the Midlands the queen ordered Lord Audley to intercept them.
The battle.
Audley chose the barren heathland of Blore Heath to set up an ambush. On the morning of 23 September 1459 (Saint Thecla's day), a force of some 10,000 men took up a defensive position behind a 'great hedge' on the south-western edge of Blore Heath facing the direction of Newcastle-under-Lyme to the north-east, the direction from which Salisbury was approaching.
Yorkist scouts spotted Lancastrian banners over the top of a hedge and immediately warned Salisbury. As they emerged from the woodland, the Yorkist force of some 5,000 men realized that a much larger enemy force was awaiting their arrival. Salisbury, instead of disbanding or withdrawing his army, immediately arranged his troops into battle order, just out of range of the Lancastrian archers. To secure his right flank, he arranged the supply wagons in a defensive laager, a circular formation to provide cover to the men. Fearing a rout, Yorkist soldiers are reported to have kissed the ground beneath them, supposing that this would be the ground on which they would meet their deaths.
The two armies were separated by about 300 metres on the barren heathland. A steep-sided, wide and fast-flowing brook ran between them. The brook made Audley's position seemingly impenetrable.
Initially, both leaders sought unsuccessfully to parley in an attempt to avoid bloodshed. In keeping with many late medieval battles, the conflict opened with an archery duel between the longbows of both armies. At Blore Heath, this proved inconclusive because of the distance between the two sides.
Salisbury, aware that any attack across the brook would be suicidal, employed a ruse to encourage the enemy to attack him. He withdrew some of his middle-order just far enough that the Lancastrians believed them to be retreating. The Lancastrians launched a cavalry charge. After they had committed themselves, Salisbury ordered his men to turn back and catch the Lancastrians as they attempted to cross the brook. It is possible that the order for this Lancastrian charge was not given by Audley but it had the effect of turning the balance in favour of Salisbury. The charge resulted in heavy casualties for the Lancastrians.
The Lancastrians withdrew, and then made a second assault, possibly attempting to rescue casualties. This second attack was more successful with many Lancastrians crossing the brook. This led to a period of intense fighting in which Audley himself was killed, possibly by Sir Roger Kynaston of Myddle and Hordley.
The Earl of Salisbury, which knew the sleights, strategies and policies of warlike affairs, suddenly returned, and shortly encountered with the Lord Audley and his chief captains, ere the residue of his army could pass the water. The fight was sore and dreadful. The earl desiring the saving of his life, and his adversaries coveting his destruction, fought sore for the obtaining of their purpose, but in conclusion, the earl's army, as men desperate of aid and succour, so eagerly fought, that they slew the Lord Audley, and all his captains, and discomfited all the remnant of his people...
The death of Audley meant that Lancastrian command fell to the second-in-command, Lord Dudley, who ordered an attack on foot with some 4,000 men. As this attack also failed, some 500 Lancastrians joined the enemy and began attacking their own side. At this point, all remaining Lancastrian resistance collapsed and the Yorkists had only to advance to complete the rout.
The rout continued through the night, with the Yorkists pursuing the fleeing enemy for miles across the countryside.
At least 2,000 Lancastrians were killed, with the Yorkists losing nearly 1,000.
Aftermath.
Salisbury was concerned that Lancastrian reinforcements were in the vicinity and was keen to press on southwards towards Ludlow. He made his camp on a hillside by Market Drayton that later took the name Salisbury Hill. According to Gregory's Chronicle, Salisbury employed a local friar to remain on Blore Heath throughout the night and to periodically discharge a cannon in order to deceive any Lancastrians nearby into believing that the fight was continuing.
Audley is buried in Darley Abbey in Derbyshire.
Commemorations.
Audley's Cross was erected at Blore Heath after the battle to mark the spot where Audley was slain. It was replaced with a stone cross in 1765.
The battle was commemorated by a re-enactment each year in September at Blore Heath until 2009.


Operation Fungus

Operation Fungus was one of the two Special Operations Executive (SOE) exploratory missions to Yugoslav Partisans during the World War Two. Both Operation Fungus and the second mission, Operation Hoathley 1, flew out on the night of 20 Apr 1943 from Derna airfield. The missions' objective was to establish who the Partisans were, who was their leader and if and how they could be utilised to further the Allies' military ambitions. They also served as each other's backup, in case one failed to reach the Partisans or fell into enemy's hands.
The mission consisted of an Anglo-Yugoslav British army soldier Alexander Simić-Stevens and two Yugoslav Canadians, Petar Erdeljac and Paul Pavlić, who were recruited by the SOE and trained in clandestine operations at Camp X on the Lake Ontario, near the US border. They carried two radio sets but no written instructions or identifiable uniform or rank. Prior to leaving, they were briefed by William Deakin, of Cairo SOE, who assured them that they would only be sent if the chances of success were realistic.
Background.
During the Second World War, both the SOE and its military counterpart, the SIS, operated in Canada and the United States in order to recruit European immigrants as potential agents for deployment in their native countries. The policy was approved as these were often bi-lingual young men who had escaped economic or political hardship in their homelands. Some had even fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side.
Once selected, they were sent to Camp X for training and then dispatched to their respective regions. Those intended to infiltrate into Yugoslavia were sent to Cairo, in preparation for the parachute drop. Their main task would be the acts of sabotage on German communication lines and transport of oil, raw materials, troops and war materiel.
The drop and the enlargement.
The Fungus group was dropped "blind", without a prearranged rendezvous into Croatian region of Lika, near . The intention was for them to connect with the local population and try and locate the Partisan troops. Previous SOE intelligence suggested that there were resistance fighters in the area. They were lucky, and shortly after landing they established radio contact with SOE Cairo HQ, confirming that they have reached the Partisan Command for Croatia at Brinje. Erdeljac was immediately recognised as an old comrade from Spain by the Croat commander Ivan Rukavina. Simić-Stevens on the other hand was thoroughly questioned by the political commissar, Vladimir Bakarić.
Once the Partisan leader, Tito, was informed via radio that the two British missions had arrived, unexpected and uninvited, he instructed the Partisan commanders to look after them and ensure that they did not "undertake some provocation which would compromise the Partisans in the eyes of the international public". This was in response to a previous mission, Operation Hydra, which resulted in death of two British officers, Maj Terence Atherton and Sgt Patrick O'Donovan, most likely at the hand of a royalist Chetnik in April/May 1942. In fact, Simić-Stevens, had been Atherton's assistant editor on the South Slav Herald for five years in pre-war Belgrade. For the other two members, who claimed Canadian Communist Party membership, Tito consulted the Comintern, who advised caution.
Simić-Stevens was allowed to contact Cairo regularly albeit under supervision from 28 Apr 1943. The HQ had asked if the Partisans would receive a British sabotage team in order to disrupt the railway lines. After a positive response, the first uniformed British mission to the Partisans arrived on 18 May 1943. The group consisted of Maj William Jones a 50-year-old Canadian, a Scots Fusilier Capt Anthony Hunter and Sgt Ronald Jephson, an RAF radio operator. Jones, a First World War veteran, previously wounded and with the use of only one eye quickly became popular with the local troops.
Activities.
Fungus team quickly became a radio-relay station between Tito's HQ in Montenegrin mountains and the SOE's Cairo HQ who were keen to expand the co-operation. On 17 May 1943, Tito agreed to receive a British mission at Partisan Supreme Headquarters (SHQ) and requested the RAF bomb Axis airfields and garrisons surrounding his troops. The mission, led by Deakin, was named Operation Typical and landed at Durmitor mountains on 28 May 1943, just as the Axis troops were tightening the encirclement of the SHQ, prior to the final push of their Operation Schwarz.
Around the same time, Jones went to Slovenia to focus on sabotaging the Ljubljana-Trieste railway, a strategic line of great importance for the Italian front which offered many good targets in shape of bridges and viaducts. Hunter remained in Croatia, commanding a patrol of L.R.D.G. Later, he moved onto Montenegro as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) to Peko Dapčević, the commander of the Second Proletarian Division. He was most likely the "British officer" who witnessed the Italian Venezia Division surrender to Dapčević at Berane in Sep 1943. Sadly, he was killed later in Normandy landings.


333d Bombardment Group


Kazuo Aoyama

 was a Japanese communist who joined the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Aoyama was on good terms with the Kuomintang, despite openly admitting he was a Communist. While Aoyama was in Chongqing, he successfully sold a printing plant to the Office of War Information (OWI). Aoyama replaced Wataru Kaji as "psychological advisor".


Ie Shima Airfield

 is a training facility, managed by the United States Marine Corps and a former World War II airfield complex on Ie Shima, an island located off the northwest coast of Okinawa Island in the East China Sea. The airfield as such was inactivated after 1946 but part of the former airfield is still used as a training facility for parachute drops and vertical take off and landing aircraft such as the F-35. The facility is referenced as FAC6005 by Okinawa Prefecture.
History.
Invasion and construction.
The airfields on Ie Shima were built by the Japanese prior to the American invasion and subsequent Battle of Okinawa in April 1945. It was seized by elements of the United States Army 77th Infantry Division after intermittent bombardment of the island by the United States Navy Fifth Fleet from 25 March through 16 April when the invasion of the island commenced. The island was not declared secure until 24 April.
Prior to the invasion, the Japanese commander on Okinawa, believing that Ie Shima could not be held for more than a few days, ordered that the airfields on the island be destroyed by the end of March 1945. Thorough demolitions followed. The runways were ditched and blasted and the entire central area sown with mines, as defense against possible airborne attack. The airfields were also mined by unused aerial bombs and mines made from drums of gasoline.
Base development proceeded rapidly once the mopping up was completed. Although initially delayed by the large number of mines, soldiers from the 805th Engineer Aviation Battalion, 1892nd Engineer Aviation Battalion, the 1902nd and the 1903rd Engineer Aviation Battalions, and several other engineering units quickly repaired the enemy airfields and began the construction of new runways, along with a series of interlinking taxiways, revetments, maintenance facilities along with a containment facility for personnel. The coral foundation of the island and the rubble of the town of Ie facilitated the work. There was ample room for dispersal area, and the sloping ground on the sides and ends of the central plateau provided space for housing base personnel. Japanese civilians were evacuated to Tokashiki in the Kerama Islands. Engineers discovered a large limestone basin on the north coast which produced 100,000 gallons of fresh water. Under these conditions work proceeded rapidly and by 10 May one fighter group was based on the island. By the middle of the month three runways were ready for operational use along with taxiways. In addition, radar and air warning facilities installed, although much construction work remained.
Operational units assigned.
By 14 June three fighter groups and one night fighter squadron were operating from the airfield. As expected, Ie Shima proved to be an ideal base for the support of operations on Okinawa and for preparing later attacks on the Japanese homeland.
Japanese Surrender Delegation.
On 19 August 1945, two B-25Js of the 345th Bombardment Group and 80th Fighter Squadron P-38 Lightnings escorted two Japanese Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers. The Japanese aircraft carried a delegation from Tokyo en route to Manila to meet General MacArthur's staff to work out details of the surrender.
The Betty bombers were painted white with green crosses on the wings, fuselage and vertical tail surface and use the call signs Bataan I and Bataan II. After the delegation landed at Ie Shima, they boarded a C-54 Skymaster and were flown to Manila. After the meeting, they returned to Ie Shima. One of the two Bettys crashed on its way back to Japan out of fuel, due to an incorrect conversion of liters to gallons when the bombers were refueled. The crew were helped by a local fisherman, and returned to Tokyo by train.
Postwar use.
With the end of the war, many of the units assigned to Ie Shima were reassigned or inactivated. By the end of 1946, the facility was closed and placed in reserve status. The American military still controlled roughly one third of the island in 2010. As of May 2019, according to the "Ie Island Guide Map" posted at the ferry landing, the American Military controls roughly 15% of the island as the "Ie Shima Training Facility," used primarily by the U.S. Marine Corps.
In the late 1950s the air station was used as a bomb gunnery range.
In March 1955, occurred what has been called the second Invasion of the island by the American military. After the expropriation of their lands and houses at gun-point, many local farmers were injured when trying pick up spent cartridges left by aircraft performing gunnery practice.
There were two Air Force units stationed on the island in the early 1960s. One was Detachment 1, 1962nd Communications Group which operated a radio receiver site. The other was a unit responsible for operating the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing's bomb gunnery range on the island. Although small, the base looked much like a full-fledged base which included barracks, mess hall, fire department, security guards and guard dogs, a small motor pool and even a Non-Commissioned Officers Club. Although the air force station had a usable runway which was occasionally used, transport of personnel and supplies to the island was on the local civilian ferry from Motobu Port on Okinawa.
In 1963 the island experienced a severe drought. For a while all the water wells on the island except for one dried up. That one well was on airfield property controlled by the U.S. Air Force. The officer in charge dispatched his fire department personnel to use the station's pumper truck to pick up water at the well and to distribute the water to several locations on the island. As a result, Air Force officials on Ie Shima and Okinawa received several letters of appreciation from local officials.
Current use.
The three runways that were in use when World War II ended still exist. The United States military maintains the western runway as a small unimproved coral runway. It also has a simulated LHA deck, and a drop zone for parachute training, being part of a military training facility operated by the United States Marine Corps. There is a detachment of usually less than 20 Marines which operates the range. F-35 operations have been conducted at the USMC facility. An admin and housing facility for personnel has been built at the Northern end of the derelict middle airstrip.
The eastern runway is now Iejima Airport and is used by a small civilian air carrier, and the central one is now abandoned and is used as a thoroughfare for residents to get from the north to the south side of the island.
The Simulated LHA deck is used by Marine Wing Support Squadron 172 Marine Aircraft Group 36. The coral runway is also still in use for touch and go operations.
The Iejima Light House is located within the U.S. military fence line at the southwest end of the island. The U.S. Marine Corps, along with the Japan Coast Guard, periodically hosts a memorial ceremony for the light keeper killed during the battle of Ie Shima in WWII.


Battle of Linlithgow Bridge

The Battle of Linlithgow Bridge is a battle that took place on 4 September 1526 in the village of Linlithgow Bridge, outside the Scottish town of Linlithgow. It was fought between a force of 10,000 men led by the Earl of Lennox and a force of 2,500 led by James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran. The battle was part of a power struggle in Scotland for control of the young Scottish king, James V. The battlefield was added to the national Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland prepared by Historic Scotland under the Scottish Historical Environment Policy of 2009.
Background.
The Battle of Linlithgow Bridge was a product of the power vacuum created by the death
of James IV of Scotland in the Battle of Flodden in 1513. His young son, James V, was only a year old when his father was killed, and so Scotland was ruled by regents during his childhood. The first was his mother, Margaret Tudor (sister of King Henry VIII of England), until she remarried in the following year, and was replaced by John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, who was himself next in line for the throne after James and his younger brother, Alexander Stewart, Duke of Ross. In 1525, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, the young king's stepfather, took custody of James and held him as a virtual prisoner for three years, exercising power on his behalf. James’ mother made a number of attempts to free her son from the clutches of Douglas, and one of these resulted in the Battle of Linlithgow Bridge.
The battle.
In 1526, Margaret persuaded the Earl of Lennox and Cardinal Beaton to support her cause. Lennox raised an army over 10,000 and marched on Edinburgh from his base in Stirling. By this time Archibald Douglas had won the support of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran and the latter was sent to try to delay the march by mustering the people of Linlithgow and the surrounding area. Arran arranged his force of 2,500 men on the strategically important Pace Hill overlooking Linlithgow and the River Avon. Lennox, seeing the strength of this defensive position had to rethink his plans.
Lennox intended to outflank and defeat Arran before Douglas could arrive from Edinburgh with reinforcements. Downstream from the town, the river was impassable but his scouts found a ford upstream, at Manuel Convent. Lennox forced a crossing there and advanced on Arran’s flank. However, Arran saw the threat and placed his troops facing south along the ridge of Pace Hill. Lennox’s attack was across the Avon, over boggy ground and finally uphill, but he very nearly succeeded in dislodging Arran’s outnumbered men. However time ran out for Lennox as Douglas reinforcements arrived followed by the reluctant King James.
Many of the Lennox men were killed either on the ridge or along the banks of the river Avon. The Earl of Glencairn was captured and Lennox himself was wounded. It was said that Lennox surrendered to his opponents but was then murdered by James Hamilton of Finnart. The location of Lennox’s murder is commemorated with a cairn that stands at the entrance to the Kettilstoun estate.
The aftermath.
After the battle, James remained under the control of Archibald Douglas until, in 1528, aged sixteen, he escaped from Edinburgh to join his mother in Stirling and assume the reins of government himself. Douglas and his family had their lands confiscated and he was forced to seek refuge in England. James continued to reign until his death in 1542.


Bombing of Tokyo

The was a series of firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Forces during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. Operation Meetinghouse, which was conducted on the night of 9–10 March 1945, is the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. Of central Tokyo were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless.
The US first mounted a seaborne, small-scale air raid on Tokyo (the "Doolittle Raid") in April 1942. Strategic bombing and urban area bombing began in 1944 after the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber entered service, first deployed from China and thereafter the Mariana Islands. B-29 raids from those islands began on 17 November 1944, and lasted until 15 August 1945, the day of Japanese surrender.
Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half. Some modern post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.
Doolittle Raid.
The first raid on Tokyo was the Doolittle Raid of 18 April 1942, when sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched from to attack targets including Yokohama and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China. The raid was retaliation against the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid did little damage to Japan's war capability but was a significant propaganda victory for the United States. Launched at longer range than planned when the task force encountered a Japanese picket boat, all of the attacking aircraft either crashed or ditched short of the airfields designated for landing. One aircraft landed in the neutral Soviet Union where the crew was interned, but then smuggled over the border into Iran on 11 May 1943. Two crews were captured by the Japanese in occupied China. Three crewmen from these groups were later executed.
B-29 raids.
The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, which had an operational range of and was capable of attacking at high altitude above , where enemy defenses were very weak. Almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber. Once Allied ground forces had captured islands sufficiently close to Japan, airfields were built on those islands (particularly Saipan and Tinian) and B-29s could reach Japan for bombing missions.
The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command, but these could not reach Tokyo. Operations from the Northern Mariana Islands commenced in November 1944 after the XXI Bomber Command was activated there.
The high-altitude bombing attacks using general-purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders due to high winds—later discovered to be the jet stream—which carried the bombs off target.
Between May and September 1943, bombing trials were conducted on the Japanese Village set-piece target, located at the Dugway Proving Grounds. These trials demonstrated the effectiveness of incendiary bombs against wood-and-paper buildings, and resulted in Curtis LeMay ordering the bombers to change tactics to utilize these munitions against Japan.
The first such raid was against Kobe on 4 February 1945. Tokyo was hit by incendiaries on 25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s flew a high altitude raid during daylight hours and destroyed around (2.6 km2) of the snow-covered city, using 453.7 tons of mostly incendiaries with some fragmentation bombs. After this raid, LeMay ordered the B-29 bombers to attack again but at a relatively low altitude of and at night, because Japan's anti-aircraft artillery defenses were weakest in this altitude range, and the fighter defenses were ineffective at night. LeMay ordered all defensive guns but the tail gun removed from the B-29s so that the aircraft would be lighter and use less fuel.
Operation Meetinghouse.
On the night of 9–10 March 1945, 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of . The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries were also dropped: the M-47 was a jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In the first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city's fire defenses. The first B-29s to arrive dropped bombs in a large X pattern centered in Tokyo's densely populated working class district near the docks in both Koto and Chūō city wards on the water; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration, which would have been classified as a firestorm but for prevailing winds gusting at . Approximately of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died. A grand total of 282 of the 339 B-29s launched for "Meetinghouse" made it to the target, 27 of which were lost due to being shot down by Japanese air defenses, mechanical failure, or being caught in updrafts caused by the fires.
Results.
Damage to Tokyo's heavy industry was slight until firebombing destroyed much of the light industry that was used as an integral source for small machine parts and time-intensive processes. Firebombing also killed or made homeless many workers who had taken part in the war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half. The destruction and damage was especially severe in the eastern areas of the city.
Emperor Hirohito's tour of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945 was the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender six months later.
Casualty estimates.
The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Historian Richard Rhodes put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million. These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in "Japan Focus":
In his 1968 book, reprinted in 1990, historian Gabriel Kolko cited a figure of 125,000 deaths. Elise K. Tipton, professor of Japan studies, arrived at a rough range of 75,000 to 200,000 deaths. Donald L. Miller, citing Knox Burger, stated that there were "at least 100,000" Japanese deaths and "about one million" injured.
The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II, greater than Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.
Postwar recovery.
After the war, Tokyo struggled to rebuild. In 1945 and 1946, the city received a share of the national reconstruction budget roughly proportional to its amount of bombing damage (26.6%), but in successive years Tokyo saw its share dwindle. By 1949, Tokyo was given only 10.9% of the budget; at the same time there was runaway inflation devaluing the money. Occupation authorities such as Joseph Dodge stepped in and drastically cut back on Japanese government rebuilding programs, focusing instead on simply improving roads and transportation. Tokyo did not experience fast economic growth until the 1950s.
Memorials.
Between 1948 and 1951 the ashes of 105,400 people killed in the attacks on Tokyo were interred in Yokoamicho Park in Sumida Ward. A memorial to the raids was opened in the park in March 2001.
After the war, Japanese author Katsumoto Saotome, a survivor of 10 March 1945 firebombing, helped start a library about the raid in Koto Ward called the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage. The library contains documents and literature about the raid plus survivor accounts collected by Saotome and the Association to Record the Tokyo Air Raid.
Postwar Japanese politics.
In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe apologized in print, acknowledging Japan's guilt in the bombing of Chinese cities and civilians beginning in 1938. He wrote that the Japanese government should have surrendered as soon as losing the war was inevitable, an action that would have prevented Tokyo from being firebombed in March 1945, as well as subsequent bombings of other cities. In 2013, during his second term as prime minister, Abe's cabinet stated that the raids were "incompatible with humanitarianism, which is one of the foundations of international law", but also noted that it is difficult to argue that the raids were illegal under the international laws of the time.
In 2007, 112 members of the Association for the Bereaved Families of the Victims of the Tokyo Air Raids brought a class action against the Japanese government, demanding an apology and 1.232 billion yen in compensation. Their suit charged that the Japanese government invited the raid by failing to end the war earlier, and then failed to help the civilian victims of the raids while providing considerable support to former military personnel and their families. The plaintiffs' case was dismissed at the first judgement in December 2009, and their appeal was rejected. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected their case in May 2013.


Namsos campaign

The Namsos campaign, in Namsos, Norway, and its surrounding area involved heavy fighting between Anglo-French and Norwegian naval and military forces on the one hand, and German military, naval and air forces on the other in April and early May 1940. It was one of the first significant occasions during the Second World War when British and French land forces fought the German Army.
Background.
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Norway followed a policy of neutrality, as it had successfully done during the First World War, hoping to stay out of the war once again engulfing Europe. So Norway was at peace in April 1940 when it was suddenly attacked by naval, air and military forces from Nazi Germany. Unlike in the First World War, the Norwegian military was only partially mobilised, with the Royal Norwegian Navy and the coastal artillery being set up with skeleton crews. The Norwegian Army activated only a few battalions in North Norway (amongst others the Alta Battalion) as a precaution in connection with the Soviet Winter War invasion of Finland. Although the Norwegian Government had carried out a hurried modernisation of the military in the second half of the 1930s, the armed forces were still in a shambles. Effects of the wide-ranging budget reductions carried out during the pacifist policies of the late 1920s and early 1930s were still apparent. In 1940, the Norwegian armed forces were among the weakest in Europe.
There were several reasons for the German attack. Not least was a desire to secure the flow of iron ore from mines at Kiruna in the north of Sweden to Germany's war industries. The northern part of the Baltic Sea, called the Gulf of Bothnia, had a principal Swedish port called Luleå from where in the summer a quantity of ore was shipped. It was frozen in winter, so for several months each year the Swedes shipped most of their iron ore by rail through the ice-free port of Narvik in the far north of Norway. In a normal year, 80% of the iron ore was exported through Narvik. The only alternative in winter was a long rail journey to Oxelösund on the Baltic, south of Stockholm, which was not obstructed by ice. But, British information suggested that Oxelösund could ship only one fifth the amount Germany required. Without the Swedish steel shipments through Narvik, the German war industry could not have produced as many tanks, guns, submarines and other weapons.
The British Admiralty was investigating the possibility of introducing a Royal Navy fleet into the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1940 (Operation Catherine) to interdict German seaborne trade during the summer months in that inland sea. This, however, would have been ineffective if the Narvik route remained open. But events overtook the Baltic scheme.
The Germans rightly suspected that the British were planning to mine the Norwegian coastal waters used by German ore ships. British plans were well under way, spearheaded by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, but the Germans got to Norway first.
Allied counter-attack plans.
Narvik, Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen and other major Norwegian towns were seized on the first day of the campaign in a surprise attack. Elements of the Norwegian army were fighting the Germans north of Oslo. Both the British and French prime ministers and their military advisers were of one mind in deciding to retake Trondheim, link up with the Norwegians and block a German advance north. This would enable the Allies to interdict much of Germany's iron ore supplies. A bonus would be air and naval bases in northern Norway.
It is at Trondheim that Norway becomes narrow, making it easier to block the Germans than further south. To turn the position, Germany would have to attack through Sweden, bringing that nation into the war on the Allied side.
Retired Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, MP, repeatedly urged Churchill to seize Trondheim from the Germans, using obsolete battleships if necessary, and offered to lead the attack.
It was planned to force the entrance to Trondheimsfjord with battleships knocking out the Norwegian coastal artillery forts at the entrance, recently captured by the Germans. Then an amphibious landing would take the city. It was also decided to land forces north and south of the fjord for a pincer attack on the city. The military officers responsible for these decisions were the chiefs of staff of the armed forces, Sir Dudley Pound of the Royal Navy, General Sir Edmund Ironside of the British Army and Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall of the Royal Air Force.
But the chiefs of staff of the British armed forces got cold feet. The forcing of the narrows was reduced to a demonstration, with the main thrust being the two pincers. This eliminated the immediate use of the Trondheim airfields by the RAF. It also meant that the military forces would face German naval units in the fjord as well as Luftwaffe units in the air. Churchill was very disappointed, but faced the combined opposition of his naval advisers as well as the heads of the army and air force. He had to back down. Keyes was apoplectic, and this event, more than any, convinced him to join in an attack on the Government at the end of the Norwegian campaign. See the Norway Debate for particulars.
Namsos, then a town of 3,615 people, was felt to be the logical spot to land the troops assigned to the northern pincer, because of its location and facilities. The harbour and approaches to Namsos are ice free all year. Because of the trade in lumber, by 1940 Namsos port was furnished with three good wharves (one of stone) with a depth alongside of 18 to 30 feet and lengths from 320 to 770 feet. This made it suitable for smaller warships and transports to dock and to land troops and supplies for the recapture of Trondheim. In addition, Namsos was on a branch line connecting to the Nordland Line. A gravel road led some 130 miles south to Trondheim.
Screening force.
Captain Frank Pegram of the cruiser , accompanied by the cruiser and ten destroyers, landed a small party of Royal Marines in Namsos on 14 April 1940. The landing party was under the command of Captain Edds and took up blocking positions in the hills outside town. They soon attracted German aircraft. Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, V.C., designated force commander, flew in the next day and had a foretaste of what was to come when his Short Sunderland flying boat was machine-gunned by German aircraft as it landed. His aide was wounded and had to return to the United Kingdom. De Wiart was an energetic and competent commander who inspired his troops by his bravery during air attacks. But no Allied aircraft were available over Namsos to provide protection against the Luftwaffe.
De Wiart made the decision, because of unopposed enemy air activity, to divert his large, slow and vulnerable troopships 100 miles northwards to Lillesjona in Nesna, where they would be offloaded to destroyers for a fast run into Namsos. He himself arrived there on 16 April to supervise the trans-shipment. Less than an hour into the process, German bombers arrived, and the British naval commander ordered the destroyers to sail with the troops and equipment they had on board. , "Nubian", "Matabele", "Mashona" and "Sikh" got under way for Namsos carrying De Wiart with 36 officers and 1,208 other ranks. Though repeatedly attacked during their voyage, they arrived unscathed, if not rested, and got into Namsos about 9 pm on 16 April.
Ashore and south.
Carton De Wiart showed considerable vigour in managing the landing and dispersal of troops and supplies in such a way as to get them off the ships and into the hills during the five hours of darkness prevailing in Namsos in late April. On several occasions, German reconnaissance aircraft were unaware that landings had occurred the previous night. He wasted no time in setting up a headquarters in Namsos and sent out guards to the long bridge over Namsosfjord, essential to one of the two roads south, and moved others to occupy the village of Bangsund further south. He also sent 300 troops due east along the second, less direct, route south to Grong, where they linked up with small numbers of Norwegian troops under Colonel Ole Getz. Smaller groups were sent south of Bangsund in an attempt to reach Beitstadfjorden, at the head of Trondheimsfjord.
De Wiart realised that the quicker he got his forces south, the better were his chances of taking Trondheim from the Germans. The first priority, he felt, was to reach Steinkjer, where the two roads south met, before the Germans got there from Trondheim.
In the meantime, the naval commander, Admiral Layton, decided that taking his destroyers into Namsos was too risky. He would send troops and supplies in on the Polish transport MS "Chrobry". Since most of the remaining troops at Lillesjona were aboard the "Empress of Australia", much time was wasted with further trans-shipping, and the "Chrobry", accompanied by got into Namsos just before sunrise on 17 April. In the mad hurry to get away before the German bombers arrived, the soldiers landed without much of their kit. But De Wiart succeeded in getting the troops dispersed before a reconnaissance aircraft arrived.
At this time, Carton De Wiart was not aware that the attack directly into Trondheimsfjord had been called off. Throughout his time at Namsos, he was left completely uninformed of what was happening elsewhere in Norway.
French arrival.
Two battalions of French Alpine troops landed on 19 April under heavy air attack. One of the transports conveying the French was too long to enter the harbour and returned to the United Kingdom without landing many of the French supplies, leaving the troops without straps for their skis or the mules they used for transport. The French stayed put in Namsos, enduring air bombardment against which they had little protection. The French cruiser "Emile Bertin" was damaged by bombing during the disembarkation (no casualties) and was replaced by the "Montcalm". In total, some 6,000 Allied troops were put ashore.
The French troops, for the most part, were not used in the short campaign because of a lack of supplies. Towards the end, they were engaged somewhat as the Allied troops fell back on Namsos, preparatory to evacuation.
Clash in the south.
By 21 April, British forces had advanced quickly as far south as the hamlet of Verdal, where both road and railway bridges crossed the River Inna, a few miles inland from Trondheimsfjord. This was about halfway between Trondheim and Namsos, some miles down the fjord. They spotted a German gunboat, two armed trawlers and a destroyer in the fjord, on their flanks, well able to land troops behind them and direct fire at them, to which they lacked the means to respond.
When De Wiart landed at Namsos on 15 April, the Germans had about 1,800 troops in the Trondheim area, some in the city and some along the railway to Sweden. Their possession of the Værnes airfield enabled them to fly extra troops in daily, and by 18 April, they had 3,500 men in the area, the next day 5,000. They were generally well equipped, but lacking in field artillery. Some German troops were diverted to Hegra, where an improvised force of 251 Norwegians was holding out in an old border fort. They began pushing up the fjord, and forward patrols reached Verdal on 16 April.
The Verdal bridge was defended by some 80 Norwegian soldiers, armed with Krag-Jørgensen rifles and Colt M/29 heavy machine guns. When the Germans attacked on the morning of 21 April, the Norwegians were supported by a section of Royal Engineers who happened to be in the area. For an hour and a half, this force held the German attack off. The majority of the British forces were a little further back. But the Germans landed forces at several points behind them in an attempt to outflank them, drawing the attention of the main British forces. Fearing being cut off, the Norwegians and Royal Engineers withdrew.
A battle developed. The advantage was with the Germans, who were equipped with snowshoes and skis, sledge-mounted heavy mortars, and light field guns. They possessed air support from an airfield 35 miles away and had supporting naval gunfire.
There was no panic among the British and Norwegian forces, and they succeeded in countering the first moves of the Germans. Heavy fighting occurred around the small village of Vist. The initial attacks were repelled, but the Germans outflanked the British positions by going around them on skis through the deep snow.
The Luftwaffe attacked and destroyed the British forward base at Steinkjer on 21 April, causing the loss of much of their supplies and destroying 242 houses, leaving over 1,800 Norwegian civilians homeless. Although 80% of the town was destroyed in the attack, no lives were lost in the bombing.
Air attacks.
German bombers destroyed much of the wood-constructed town of Namsos on 20 April. Attacks lasted throughout the day, and most of the wood houses, as well as the railway terminal, a church, the French headquarters and the two wooden wharves were burned. The stone wharf was damaged. The Norwegians paid dearly for the help the Allies had brought. Only one Allied ship was present in the harbour when the attack occurred. Fourteen German bombers went after the tiny anti-submarine trawler HMT "Rutlandshire" and badly damaged it just down the bay from Namsos. The ship was beached, and the survivors machine-gunned in the water. None were killed and only two injured. They were later rescued by the destroyer , sister ship of HMS "Afridi".
Air attacks on Namsos continued throughout the campaign.
The British felt the need to provide protection from submarine attack for their ships entering and leaving Namsos. Lacking air cover, the small, slow anti-submarine sloops and trawlers used were very vulnerable to air attack. On 30 April, the sloop was sunk by Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers off Namsos. On 1 May, three British anti-submarine trawlers at the entrance to the Namsfjord, HMS "Gaul", HMS "St. Goran" and HMS "Aston Villa" were destroyed by aircraft, the latter managing to make it back to Namsos, where she burned. HMT "Arab" evacuated the crew of "St. Goran". From 28 April to 2 May, "Arab" endured 31 air attacks; her captain, Richard Been Stannard, Royal Naval Reserve, received the Victoria Cross for his actions during those five days.
The Norwegian Army Air Service and Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service had no units in the vicinity. The only Allied air presence to counter the Luftwaffe was during the first British landings. A brief patrol was mounted well offshore by several obsolete biplane fighters, Gloster Gladiators, operating from the aircraft carrier . They claimed three German planes shot down. Some eighteen Gladiators were flown off the "Glorious" and briefly operated from the frozen Lake Lesjaskogsvatnet at Lesjaskog, but these were too far south to help Namsos.
Evacuation.
General De Wiart received orders on 28 April to evacuate Namsos, and on 29 April, an evacuation convoy of destroyers, three British and one French, left Scapa Flow in Scotland under the command of Lord Louis Mountbatten. A larger naval force followed at a distance to protect them against attack by German battle cruisers. They were bombed on 1 May as they crossed the North Sea. That evening, they encountered thick fog 40 miles short of their rendezvous point at Kya Lighthouse, which was 40 miles by sea from Namsos. Plans to evacuate that night had to be cancelled. Meanwhile, German troops were closing in on the rearguard in the hills outside Namsos, and the convoy ships were vulnerable to air attack if the fog lifted in daylight.
Rather than wait for the evening, Mountbatten took his ships in on 2 May, moving from fog bank to fog bank. This was a very dangerous enterprise on a rocky coast. Despite the fog, the ships were bombed. The ships' masts were sticking out above the fog, giving the German bombers an approximate target. When they reached Namsos, the fog lifted, revealing a burning town and swarms of German bombers. Since it would have been suicidal to enter in these conditions, the British ships ducked back into the fog and returned down the bay.
The next day, 3 May, the last possible for evacuation, dawned as foggy as before. Admiral John H. D. Cunningham, in overall command of naval forces in the area, screened the evacuation convoy with two cruisers and four destroyers at Kya Light and sent the cruiser, , five destroyers and three transports in. Mountbatten led in HMS "Kelly" at 26 knots as the sun was going down. When they rounded the last bend of the fjord, they saw Namsos on fire. Mountbatten at this point did not know if the Germans were in possession of the town. A burning anti-submarine trawler, HMS "Aston Villa", lay just ahead. As he closed the wharves, Mountbatten could see that everything was ablaze. But Carton De Wiart was there with 5,500 troops lined up in good order, waiting to get off.
Evacuation began at 10:30 pm. Two of the transports were able to get alongside the damaged quay and embark troops. The destroyers took off the other men and ferried them to the "York" and the third transport, before taking a last load themselves. Meanwhile, the rearguard was engaging the Germans to cover the evacuation. A tricky disengagement followed and a rush for the last ship, . There was no time to destroy supplies left on the wharves, so the "Afridi" shelled the equipment as she pulled away from Namsos. It was 2:20 am, 4 May.
They knew to expect trouble when day broke and the German bombers sought them out. At 4:30 am the rear of the British convoy was sighted by German reconnaissance aircraft and bombers soon followed. The force was attacked continuously until late afternoon.
During the third attack of the day, the French destroyer was hit in the forward magazine and exploded with 136 killed. The other destroyers turned back to pick up survivors who were being machine-gunned in the water. After the "Afridi" had picked up some of the French sailors and Allied soldiers, she was hit by two heavy bombs and capsized with the loss of a hundred men, including some of the rearguard and the wounded from the "Bison".
British anti-aircraft fire destroyed a number of German aircraft. The convoy reached Scapa Flow on 5 May, Carton De Wiart's 60th birthday.


Atlantic Patrol Tasking North


Operation Tan No. 2

Operation Tan No. 2 (, "Dainiji Tan Sakusen") was a long-range "kamikaze" mission directed at the main Allied naval fleet anchorage at Ulithi Atoll in the western Pacific on March 11, 1945 during the Pacific campaign of World War II. The Japanese hoped to take the U.S. Pacific fleet by surprise and sink or damage a significant number of the fleet's aircraft carriers or other large ships.
The attack.
The Azusa Special Attack Unit (), to which were allocated twenty-four "Yokosuka P1Y1" twin-engine bombers took off from the Kanoya Air Field on Kyushu, the southernmost of the main Japanese islands. The aircraft were bound for the US naval base at Ulithi on a one way trip at the limits of their range in an attempt to destroy the Fifth Fleet carriers at anchor there. Each of the planes carried an 800 kg (1,700-pound) bomb, which they intended to deliver by crashing onto the American flight decks. A number of support aircraft and submarines were used to help guide the attackers over their long flight.
Some six of the P1Y1s suffered mechanical difficulties and had to turn back to their home base at Kanoya. Others landed at Yap island. Still others had to ditch at sea. Two of the twenty-four aircraft reached Ulithi, arriving after nightfall and achieving complete surprise. One aircraft hit the Essex class aircraft carrier USS "Randolph" in the stern just below the flight deck, killing 26 men and wounding 105, many of whom were watching a movie in the ship's hangar deck. The second aircraft crashed onto an access road on the small island of Sorlen, apparently mistaking the road with its nearby signal tower for a ship. There were no deaths in the attack beyond the aircraft's crew, though several U.S. servicemen were injured from debris and ignited fuel.
Aftermath.
"Randolph" was repaired at the port facilities available at Ulithi and rejoined the U.S. fleet in April, 1945. She then took part in the Battle of Okinawa, where Admiral Mitscher shifted his flag to her after Kamikaze attacks successively knocked both USS "Bunker Hill" and USS "Enterprise" out of the battle.


Patrol torpedo boat PT-337

PT-337 was a PT-103-class motor torpedo boat that was sunk in action during the Pacific Theater of World War II in Hansa Bay, New Guinea, on March 7, 1944.
Events at Hansa Bay.
PTs 337 and 338 headed out to a known enemy stronghold on March 7, 1944. Picking up a radar target close to shore and closing to , they encountered two heavily camouflaged luggers moored together. Heavy machine gun fire opened from the beach, and as the boats turned and started to strafe the beach, more machine guns opened up, along with a heavy caliber battery from Awar Point, along the northwestern entrance to the bay.
One shell had hit so close to PT 337 that fragments went whizzing by and water some of the crew. Three or four more shells dropped near the 337, then one hit the tank compartment, just below the port gun turret, going through the engine room. All three engines were knocked out and the tanks burst into flames. Motor Machinist First Class (MoMM1c) William Daley Jr. was badly wounded in the neck and jaw. The order was given to launch the lifeboat and abandon the boat.
The crew paddled and swam trying to pull away from the exploding 337. The currents were against them and after two hours, they were only from the boat. Outside the bay, PT 338 was also under fire from shore batteries. Just prior to the 337 being hit, PT 338 had laid smoke and ordered a high speed retirement. When PT 337 did not come through the screen, 338 tried to re-enter the Bay, but each time the boat came under heavy fire and had to retreat.
Daley died before dawn, which left three officers and eight enlisted men on the raft. At dawn on March 7, the raft had drifted and was less than a mile off the entrance to Hansa Bay. During the morning the current carried it toward Manam island, about six miles (10 km) from the shore. The current was working against the men.
That night, Ensigns Bruce Bales and Henry Cutter tried to paddle ashore on logs. After three hours the current swept the two exhausted men and the raft back together. While they were away, Ensign Robert Hyde and Quartermaster Second Class (QM2c) Allen Gregory set out to swim to shore. By dawn on March 8, the raft had drifted no more than a mile from the beach. Soon after dawn, Bales, Fucili, and Francis Joseph Schmidt set out for shore. Most of the men had thought the three had reached the Island, but Watson, who said he saw Bales walking on the beach, is the only one who claimed to have seen any of them ashore. Soon afterwards Japanese personnel were seen on the beach.
After dark a small boat came out from shore and at 200 yards (200 m) circled the raft. Two men were in the boat, but made no attempt to bother the raft. After a squall blew up 6–8 ft (2–3 m) waves for a while, the boat was nowhere to be seen after things calmed down. On the morning of March 9, the remaining men in the raft saw an overturned Japanese collapsible boat, floating a few yards away. They righted the boat, bailed it, and boarded it. Many of the men were suffering from exposure and were covered with salt water sores.
Around noon on the March 10, a B-25 flew over, and circled the boat. Cutter waved his arms to signal the plane, and they dropped supplies of water, food, cigarettes and medicine. The next morning a PBY Catalina, from US Navy Patrol Squadron VP 34, picked up the five survivors and took them to Dreger Harbour.
Little is known of the PT-337 crew members who attempted to reach the shore. A captured Japanese document indicates that one officer and two enlisted men were captured, although none of them was ever officially reported to be prisoners of war.


2nd Marine Regiment

The 2nd Marine Regiment is an infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps. They are based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and fall under the command of the 2nd Marine Division and the II Marine Expeditionary Force.
Current units.
The Regiment comprises three infantry battalions and one headquarters company:
History.
Early years.
The first "2nd Regiment" of Marines came into existence in 1901 when unsettled conditions in the Far East required the presence of a Marine expeditionary force to protect American lives and property. The regiment was formed at Cavite, Philippines, on 1 January, by utilizing personnel for units recently returned to the Philippines from service in the Boxer Rebellion in China, namely, the 1st Regiment and the 4th and 5th Independent Battalions. The 2nd Regiment became part of the 1st Brigade of Marines stationed in the Philippines as a ready force to be committed wherever needed in Far Eastern waters. Following the collapse of Philippine resistance in the Philippine–American War, the 2nd was given an additional mission of helping carry out United States Navy responsibilities for the military government of Cavite Peninsula and the Subic Bay area. The Marines of the regiment established garrisons and outposts and continually patrolled their assigned areas to round up the remaining insurgents and to maintain law and order. In order to execute the regiment's military government responsibilities, officers were appointed to varied special duties such as captains of the ports, district commanders, inspectors of customs, internal revenue collectors, and provost judges and marshals. As the political situation in the Philippines returned to normalcy, drill, practice marches, and general field training. were emphasized to a greater degree. In January 1914, the regiment reassigned most of its units to ships and other stations of the Far East. With the transfer of the Field and Staff (Headquarters) to the Provisional Regiment, Guam, on 20 January, the 2nd Regiment was formally disbanded.
At the same time, a "2nd Regiment" served in the Far East, the 2nd Regiment, 1st Provisional Brigade consisting of a Field and Staff, and Companies A, B, C, F was organized at League Island, Pennsylvania on 26 December 1903. The regiment embarked and sailed this same date to Panama, arriving there on 3 January 1904. The primary mission of this force in Panama was the enforcement of provisions of the Hay–Herrán Treaty made with Panama on 18 November 1903 which provided for the construction of a cross-isthmus canal.
A revolution broke out in Cuba in late 1906, and a Marine expeditionary force was dispatched to the island to establish and maintain law and order. As part of this force, the 4th Expeditionary Battalion was formed at League Island, Pennsylvania, on 27 September 1906. The battalion sailed for Cuba, arriving at Camp Columbia on 8 October. Here, it was reorganized and redesignated 2nd Regiment, 1st Expeditionary Brigade. Order was soon restored, and upon the arrival of United States Army troops as occupation forces on 31 October, the 2nd Regiment was disbanded.
The final one of these temporary "2nd Regiment" organizations to be formed was designated as the 2nd Regiment, 2nd Provisional Brigade on 19 February 1913 at Philadelphia. The regiment was originally intended for duty in Mexico as part of an expeditionary brigade. Instead, it was sent to Guantanamo Bay and held in readiness for emergency duties, while undergoing intensive training. On 1 May, this unit was redesignated 2nd Regiment, Expeditionary Force, USMC.
Banana Wars.
The lineage of the modern 2nd Marine Regiment traces from its activation as the 1st Advance Base Regiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 19 June 1913. The following year that designation was changed to 1st Regiment, Advanced Base Force. That unit landed as part of a joint force to secure and occupy the Mexican port of Veracruz in 1914. That brief encounter resulted in two Medal of Honor (MOH) awards to members of the regiment, Wendell C. Neville and Smedley D. Butler. The following year, the regiment was posted to Cap Hatien, Haiti, to safeguard American lives and property. This turned into a long occupation during which the regiment carried put extensive patrolling, engaged in numerous sharp firefights, and trained a native constabulary. The most notable single action was the reduction of Fort Riviere, the most notorious rebel stronghold. Smedley Butler and Daniel Daly were both awarded their second Medals of Honor for valorous actions in Haiti. In 1916, the unit was redesignated 2nd Regiment, 1st Brigade. In 1933, the 2nd Regiment was redesignated the "2nd Marines." The following year, the 2nd Marines departed Haiti then was disestablished on 15 August 1934.
World War II.
The 2nd Marines were reactivated in February 1941 in San Diego, California. This time the regiment was part of the newly formed 2nd Marine Division. The regiment, with the acting division commander and headquarters embarked in and remaining elements embarked aboard , , and , was placed on twenty-four hours alert for sailing effective 24 June with ultimate destination Guadalcanal. The ships sailed combat-loaded and ready for landing operations on arrival from San Diego on 1 July to the South Pacific in July 1942, to reinforce the 1st Marine Division during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942–43. On 7 August 1942 and in support of assaults onto Tulagi Island plus the islets of Gavutu and Tanambogo, the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines landed in two locations onto Florida Island. Finding no Japanese troops, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines shifted during day to support the 1st Marine Parachute Battalion on Gavutu and Tanambogo. Gavutu and Tanambogo connected to each other via a causeway. An attempted landing by Co. B, 2nd Marines onto the north coast of Tanambogo was unsuccessful. On 8 August 1942, Third Battalion, 2nd Marines plus two tanks of Co. C, 2nd Marine Tank Battalion were landed onto southeast Tanambogo. After hard fighting, Tanambogo secured by nightfall. Gavutu Island also secured on 8 August 1942. Other elements of 2nd Marines secure islets of Makambo, Mbangai and Kokomtambu (all near Tulagi Island) over 7 and 8 August 1942. On 9 August 1942, 2nd Marines headquarters plus attached companies of 2nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 2nd Service Battalion and portion of 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines (an artillery unit) taken by retiring naval forces to Espiritu Santo. Via cargo ship USS Alhena, headquarters of 2nd Marines, including Col. J. M. Arthur, landed on Tulagi during 22 August 1942. 2nd Marines later moved to Guadalcanal with elements of 2nd Marines engaged in combat on Guadalcanal from 7 October 1942.
The regiment was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation (PUC) for its actions during the final stages of the battle. This was its first such award.
Following Guadalcanal, the regiment moved to New Zealand for rest and recuperation. The regiment then took part in the bloody assault on Tarawa in November 1943. Commanding officer Colonel David M. Shoup, a future Commandant of the Marine Corps, received the Medal of Honor for his stalwart leadership at Tarawa. This was the only Medal of Honor awarded to a member of the regiment during World War II. The regiment's motto is derived from this battle. The regiment received a second PUC for its demonstrated valor there.
Following Tarawa, the regiment participated in the Battle of Saipan and the Battle of Tinian in 1944. The 2nd Marines acted as a pre-landing deception force at both places before coming ashore to join the main attacks. Once again, the regiment was used as a demonstration force during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
After the Surrender of Japan, the regiment took up occupation duties in Nagasaki, Japan that lasted for nine months. The 2nd Marines returned to take up residence at MCB Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and have remained there as part of the 2nd Marine Division since 1946.
Cold War.
At Camp Lejeune the 2nd Marines' primary mission was to act as a force in readiness. This entailed daily training, participation in annual training exercises, and overseas deployments. Among the continuing contingencies were making annual "Med Cruises" as the Sixth Fleet landing force and intermittent forays into the Caribbean. Elements of the 2nd Marines landed at Beirut in 1958, participated in quarantine operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and stability operations in the Dominican Republic in 1965. The regiment remained stateside throughout the Vietnam War, but was called out when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Regimental Landing Team 2 (RLT 2) comprised the ground combat element of the Marine Forces Afloat in the Persian Gulf during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. A rescue team including regimental assets was formed on the spur of the moment to save Americans and other foreign nationals besieged by rebels in Mogadishu, Somalia. As it had during World War II, RLT 2 acted as a diversion force tying Iraqi forces to the coast while the main attack struck inland during the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. One battalion (2/2) was attached to the 6th Marines to breach the infamous Saddam Line then drive north to seal off Kuwait City. 2nd Marines was awarded a Navy Unit Commendation for its actions in Southwest Asia.
1990s.
The regiment returned home in 1991, then participated in military operations other than war. These included Haitian relief operations at Camp Lejeune in 1992, humanitarian relief and security operations in Somalia (Operation Restore Hope) in 1993, security operations in Bosnia (Operation Provide Promise and Operation Deny Flight) in 1994, humanitarian interventions in Haiti (Operation Support Democracy and Operation Uphold Democracy) in 1994, humanitarian relief for Cuban refugees (Operation Sea Signal) in 1995, and non-combatant evacuation/security operations in Liberia (Operation Assured Response) in 1996.
Global War on Terrorism.
Regimental Combat Team 2 comprised the nucleus of Task Force Tarawa during the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the initial stage of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Its most notable action was the Battle of Nasiriyah to secure a pair of key bridges across the Euphrates River. The fighting there was later dubbed "Ambush Alley" and was the most intense urban warfare seen by the Marine Corps since the Battle of Huế in 1968. Elements of the 2nd Marines also supported the rescue of Army prisoner of war (POW) Jessica Lynch.
Individual battalions of the 2nd Marines have participated in stability and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on a seven-month rotating basis. The most notable actions in Iraq occurred in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province during the battles for Fallujah during which the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines was attached to the 1st Marine Regiment in 2004 to participate in Operation Vigilant Resolve and Operation Phantom Fury. These intense urban fights were reminiscent of the house-to-house fighting required during the Battle of Seoul during the Korean War in 1950 and the Battle of Hue.
The 2nd Marine Regiment deployed to Iraq in January 2005 as part of the 2nd Marine Division in the Al Anbar Province in western Iraq and returned home in March 2006.
2nd Marine Regiment deployed again to Iraq, Al Anbar province, from December 2006 - January 2008. They were mainly stationed at Al Asad but from March - September 2007 sent a majority of its regiment to Camp Korean Village to assume control there as well.
2nd Marine Regiment deployed to Afghanistan to FOB Delaram II, Nimroz Province from February 2010 to February 2011 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. 2nd Marine Regiment returned to Afghanistan from June 2013 to February 2014, serving as the command element at Camp Leatherneck for RC Southwest.