PzLdr History Facts

[PzLdr]

It was the price Isoroku Yamamoto paid to get the Imperial Japanese Army to sign off on, and participate in the Midway campaign [the Army was to furnish the occupation garrison and the attack troops]. It was a tactical and strategic waste. and it may have indirectly contributed to the catastrophe that occurred at Midway.

By Spring 1942, Yamamoto was seeking a way to draw the United States Navy into the 'decisive battle' that was the bedrock basis of all Japanese naval strategy [saving face from the failure to stop the Doolittle Raid was also involved]. And while the 'decisive battle' had always been planned for in Japanese home waters, Yamamoto assumed the U.S. Navy wouldn't sail there to oblige him. So he picked Midway Island as the strategic point the U.S. would fight for, and planned a trap.

The KIDO BUTAI would strike from the northwest, and destroy any air power on the island, and then lay in wait for the expected response from the Americans [read aircraft carriers], which the Japanese carriers would ambush,and destroy. At that point the fleet of transports coming from the ESE would land troops on the island.

But those troops had to come from the Japanese Army, and there was a price to pay to get them. The Japanese Army wanted Naval support to occupy Attu and Kiska, at the end of the Aleutian island archipelago, believing the Americans were going to use a route over those islands to bomb northern Japan. Their strategic appreciation was as flawed as Yamamoto's [Midway lacked any harbor capable of serving as a Japanese anchorage as Ulithi was for the Americans later in the war]. Additionally, Midway was too far from Hawaii to be a substantial air threat. So its strategic value was mostly in Yamamoto's head.

But the plan went ahead. And like most Japanese plans , it had more moving parts than a Swiss watch. And some of those parts were weaker than they should have been, notably KIDO BUTAI. The First Japanese Air Fleet sailed for Midway minus one third of its strength. SHOKAKU and ZUIKAKU, Carrier Division Five], which were Japan's newest, most modern, and largest carriers, were in Japan. Shokaku had been heavily damaged at the Coral Sea, ZUIKAKU had lost most of her aircraft and pilots, and due to Japanese doctrine, the SHOKAKU air crews would not be transferred to her sister ship. What that presaged was the possibility the Japanese air component might be short in aircraft, particularly Mitsubishi AM 6 'Zero' fighters.

And that's where the expedition to Alaska contributed to the Midway disaster, because two Japanese "light" carriers accompanied the invasion fleet. Those two carriers contained some 30 Zeros between them, Zeros that were unavailable when U.S. dive bombers appeared over the Japanese carrier force and sunk or disabled to the point that the Japanese sunk three of the carriers in five minutes [the fourth was sunk later that afternoon].

The occupation of Attu and Kiska went off without a hitch, with the Japanese occupying two cold, foggy rocks in the ocean. But an inevitable U.S. buildup, commanded by Simon Bolivar Buckner III, moved to retake the islands, with some fighting. But the Japanese Army withdrew, with the help of the Navy before the soldiers would have fought to the death. In sum, the Japanese invasion of Alaska was a waste of troops, material, and thought [the U.S. never flew over the Aleutians o bomb northern Japan]. And it may have cost the Japanese Midway.

 

[PzLdr]

On this date, in Babylonia, Alexander II of Macedon, Alexander the Great, dies at the age of 34. At the time of his death, Alexander ruled an empire that stretched from the Adriatic to Pakistan, including Macedonia and its subject peoples, most of the Greek City States, including Thebes and Athens, the Persian empire, Egypt, modern Afghanistan and parts of India that now comprise parts of Pakistan.

Alexander came to the throne when his father, the true genius of the family, Philip II, was assassinated. It was Philip who had invented and perfected the Macedonian system of war, and the troops [phalanx and heavy cavalry], and equipment [the 18' sarissa, or pike, carried by his phalanx] that Alexander used to deadly effect against the Persians and Indians. It was also Philip who led the Macedonain Army to victory over a combination of Greek states, led by Thebes, at Chaeronea [Alexander commanded the cavalry that destroyed the 'Sacred Band of Thebes' - 150 pairs of highly trained homosexual infantrymen, the elite of the Theban Army].

In 338 B.C. alexander led a  coalition army of Macedonians, Greeks and mercenaries in an invasion of the Persian empire. In a series of victories that included Issus, Arbela, Gaugamela, the siege of Tyre, and other operations, Alexander defeated the Achmaed ruler, Darius II [who was killed by his own men], and took over his empire.

Alexander then moved into eastern Persia, Bactria and Sogdia [Afghanistan], spending several years conquering them. Not content with those acquisitions, Alexander moved through the Khyber Pass, debauching into northwestern India, where he defeated the King of Porus [who had war elephants, the first the Macedonians had seen].

It was to be Alexander's last conquest, and victory in battle. His army refused to advance any further, almost mutinying. Alexander returned to the west, planning to invade Arabia. But instead he fell ill. Recently married to a Bactrian princess, Roxanne, Alexander had no heir [although she was expecting]. When his generals asked him who he was leaving his kingdom to, he allegedly replied, "the strongest", and then died.

Alexander's empirte was divided by his generals. Antipoer got Macedonia, Ptolemy took Egypt. Antigonus the One Eyed, and Seleucus divided Persia and the eastern Med [Bactria, Sogdia and India were abandoned within 20 years] . But Alexander's wish was eventually carried out. His Empire did fall to the strongest. Rome.

[PzLdr]

Formed on this date in 1775, the Senior Service has been doing the job ever since!

CPT ARMOR
MACV 1971

IMJIN SCOUT
1968 - 1969

[PzLdr]

SS Standartenfuehrer Paul Blobel was an engineer by trade. and a mass murderer by choice. Blobel had commanded one of Einsatgruppe "C's" Einsatzkommandos in 1941. He had, along with SS Gruppenfuehrer Frederick Jaeckeln organized and conducted the massacre of Kiev's Jews at Babui Yar, an 'action' where over 33,000 were murdered over a three day period.

But by June, 1943, the war wasn't going so well for the Fatherland [Operation CITADEL would drive that fact home in less than a month], and the "Faithful" Reichsfuehrer SS, Heinrich Himmler decided to hedge his bets. So Blobel was ordered to form a special SS Commando, 1005, comprised of Jewish prisoners, Eastern European and SS guards and other personnel, travel to the sites of mass shootings all over the Eastern Front, exhume the bodies, burn them, and remove all traces of the SS murders. That meant that Blobel would be traveling from the Baltic states to the Crimea, from Western Ukraine through eastern Ukraine, and through Beylorussia.

Commando 1005 developed a methodolgy for their mission. Bodies were disinterred, placed on pyres using train rails and ties, and burned, using what little fat they contained as fuel. And periodically, the slave laborers used in the operation were murdered and burned as well. And then they were replaced. and this circus of horrors stared on this date in 1943.

[PzLdr]

George Washington, a delegate to the Continental Congress, who attended sessions wearing his militia uniform from Virginia, is chosen to command the gathering Patriot forces surrounding Boston after the battles of Lexington and concord.

Washington's selection has more to do with politics than military prowess. John Adams, a proponent of the appointment, wants to bind the South to what is not only a  [up to that point] largely Northern rising, but a particularly New England one. Since most of the troops facing the British are New Englanders, it was thought a southern Army Commander would help unify the Colonies. It worked. when Washington went north to assume command, Daniel Morgan and his Virginia riflemen, as well as other southern units, went with him.

Years of hard fighting [both with the British AND the Congress] lay ahead, before final victory. But the road to a free America started with Washington's appointment on this day in 1775.

[PzLdr]

It is the one record in baseball that will NEVER BE [IMHO] broken, especially considering the way pitching has changed. On June 15th, 1938, Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds pitched his second, consecutive no-hitter, against the Brooklyn DODGERS at Ebbets Field [the first one had been four days before, against the Boston Braves].

It was the  first night game ever played at Ebbets Field, but the performance by Vander Meer overshadowed that fact. For the first, and last time, a pitcher threw back to back no-hitters. no one had before. And no one has since.

[PzLdr]

See "Two for Jun 17th", 'PzLdr History Facts' Archive, p. 15

[PzLdr]

See "Two for 17 JUN", 'PzLdr History Facts' Archive, p.15

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.2

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p. 15

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.15

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.15

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.3

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.15

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, '1 April:  1865, 1924, 1945, p.25