Target of Opportunity & Other War Stories

© 2011 by Robert F. McKellar. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/30/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1656-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1655-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011910022

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Contents

DEDICATION

Introduction

Japanese Shipbuilding Polices

To Hell with Roy Acuff* Dec. 7, 1941

Russ Hodges’ Story

Mr. Young’s Story

How Much Do I Tip The Executioner?

The General Died Before Dawn

*Sunken Japan World War II Ship Possibly Contains Gold

Land Of the Purple—

The War In Alaska

The Captain Broaddus Story

The Fall Of Attu

Jack Mckellar continues his story

Battle of Tarawa

The Formosa Story

1930 The Benshi Story

CULTURAL DIFFERNCES

*FIELD ORDER 795

On Eternal Patrol The Submarine story

Prison Ships

The Battle of Okinawa

Lt. Cmdr. McKellar’s Story

WORLD WAR II COMFORT CREW REUNITES

The Story Of The Atomic Bomb

The Story Of the ‘White Bettys’

The Harry Van Konynenberg story

The Taiwan Massacre

A Brief History of Misawa Air Base, Japan

Christmas Leave 1981

The Code Name System

A Target Of Opportunity field order 7951

Kiska Campaign 1942-43

Biography for Battle of Tarawa November 1943

DEDICATION

This one is for Yala and the magnificent 8

Introduction

Thursday, February 1, 1945. Ai oh! We forgot the small one! sailed second aunty as the doors to the bomb shelter screeched shut. Gasping for breath, she volunteered, I will go back and get the baby.

A screaming verbal exchange between number two Aunty and the air raid warden shattered the brick faced bunker. Praying to the vaulted ceilings, the Wu family heard the welcomed words from the keeper of the keep, Okay. But hurry.

Wu, Wai Mei McKellar was born Thursday, February 1, 1945 in Takao, Formosa (now called Kaohsiung, Taiwan) two hours before an American air raid. The Wu family sustained over thirty bombings between October 1944 and August 1945.

Eight members of the McKellar family volunteered for military service during World War I, World War II and Korea. Five of the eight were stationed in the Pacific area during the Second World War in the U.S. Navy. The wartime experiences of the Wu and McKellar families led to an inter-racial marriage that has endured the ravages of time for over 37 years.

Many events led to World War II. Three crises in particular jump out of the pages of history: the Japanese battleship building program of 1916; the Battle of Shanghai, July 7, 1937; and the Panay Incident of Dec. 12, 1937.

The name Formosa is used throughout to refer to the island that is now called Taiwan, since all documents and literature use this name as it existed before and during the war. Takao, Formosa is now called Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Taihoku, Formosa is known as Taipei, Taiwan.

Like a feather in the wind, we follow a timeline rather than chapter headings. This book includes facts not generally covered by the standard historical approach to World War II and its aftermath. The incidents related are based on research and oral histories. The historical/ events are true. The book is in all essentials factual.

* When informed of her daughter’s marriage to the author, Wu, Lin Tan, now 104, said, The monkey and the tiger do not cry the same sound.

Japanese Shipbuilding

Polices

The Japanese Imperial Navy attempted to build ships, hoping peace could be maintained throughout the Pacific Rim by intimidation alone.

At the heart of this concept was the legendary YAMADA class and, later, ships that were never built. Responding to the American naval construction plan approved in August 1916, which called for a fleet second to none, the Japanese accelerated the progress of an earlier adopted plan, called 8/8, which was to lead to the construction of eight battleships and eight battle cruisers The Japanese considered this program vital to strengthen their position in the Far East and secure it militarily, and to counter growing opposition from the United States. With the agreements of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, Japan was forced to amend her construction plans. Nine battleships and three battle cruisers were scrapped on the way as a result of this Treaty. Two vessels, a battleship and battle cruiser, were spared and converted into aircraft carriers.

In 1934, Japanese League of Nations delegates were angered by sanctions imposed on their country by that organization over the Manchurian Affair and Japan withdrew from that august body and renounced all naval treaty obligations. Long-term plans were considered along with the possible actions and reactions of foreign nations, particularly potential adversaries such as the United States. Along with the preliminary design of the future YAMADA class, plans were drawn up to allow Japan’s pace for expansion to remain unhindered without triggering a war with America until the fleet was ready. The cornerstone of this belief were the battleships armed with the highly secret 18-inch guns. Specific minimum requirements were drawn up dealing with future capital ships. These included:

According to these long-term plans, battleship superiority was to begin in 1936, with the construction of 7 YAMATO class ships, each with nine 18-inch guns, which would enter service in 1941. During this time period, it was believed the United States would begin to build an unknown number of new battleships armed with 16-inch guns. As the YAMATOS entered service, construction would start on four SUPER YAMATO battleships, armed with six 20-inch guns, two of which became designs 798 and 799; with completion estimated for 1946.

Again, during this time period America, it was believed, would probably begin service with her new 16-inch gunned battleships and start constructing the first ships armed with the 18-inch weapon.

The Battle of Shanghai

The Japanese badly misunderstood the ability of the Chinese to resist Japanese aggression after 1937. The Chinese were labeled as basically apathetic. That may explain the acts of violence which Japanese soldiers committed against Chinese civilians. In Formosa the Chinese were, after the white colonial, the target of the severest Japanese treatment. The Japanese made it crystal clear that the only system they were satisfied with in dealing with other Asian nations was that of puppeteer to puppet.

On July 7, 1937, while the Imperial Japanese Army was on maneuvers in Manchuria, shots were fired from the Chinese lines. The Japanese returned fire, and one soldier went missing. A Japanese staff officer, escorted by two companies, met a Chinese representative as more shots were fired, and the Japanese counterattacked. The Sino-Japanese War the Marco Polo Bridge, and both agreed that it was just an unfortunate accident. That missing soldier later returned to his unit, and, to this day, no one knows who fired at the Japanese. It could have been Japanese militarists trying to provoke a war, so their country could seize more of China, or Maoist agitators trying to start a war between their enemies, the Nationalist Chinese, and the Japanese. All attempts at a ceasefire failed, and, by July 25,the fighting in Northern China was in full swing.

In 1937, Shanghai was a major financial and industrial center and was divided into two separate and unequal parts, the International Settlement, consisting of the Settlement proper and the French Concession, which was under foreign rule, and the rest of Shanghai, which was ruled by the Chinese.

The foreigners who lived in the Settlement had little understanding of the Chinese and had their own rigid hierarchy. The British and the Americans were at the top, the acceptable. Europeans like the French and Germans were just below, the less acceptable Italians and Greeks were lower, and the Chinese took the bottom. These foreigners, who despised the Chinese and ostracized pro-Chinese journalists like Edgar Snow, put their faith in the British Empire and, when the fighting began, gathered on roof tops to see the Orientals slaughter each other—which they did.

The Japanese marines in Shanghai were already on alert, and, with the number of Chinese troops, another incident was bound to happen. That took place at the Hungjao, just outside the city. A Japanese officer and a sailor tried to drive their truck into the Chinese airfield. The sentries ordered them to halt, and, when they kept going, they were shot and killed. A few days later, a Japanese plane was shot down, killing one pilot and wounding the other. Both sides now prepared for battle. The Japanese sent a fleet to drop anchors in the Whangpoo River by the city, while tanks and construction equipment were put ashore along with more troops. The Chinese already had the German trained 36th, 87th, and 88th Divisions, joined by three others and one brigade, all of whom began digging in.

While the foreigners had tea parties and watched from the top floors of posh hotels or elegantly designed rooftops, served hand and foot by polite and hard-working locals, the Chinese civilians panicked. Tens of thousands fled the area of prospective fighting to take refuge in and around the International Settlement. And not too soon, because, on August 12, 1937, the fighting began. The foreigners got their first taste of war, as shells began falling on the International Settlement.

On August 14, a Chinese plane, on its way to bomb the enemy warships, dropped a bomb on a hotel in the International Settlement, killing several hundred people.

One of those foreigners was Robert Reischauer, brother of esteemed scholar and noted U.S. ambassador to Japan. Robert was leading a study tour of Asia and had just arrived at his hotel when a bomb dropped from a Chinese plane. The explosion threw out shrapnel, which amputated his leg. He was sent to a hospital, but he had lost so much blood that he went into shock and never recovered.

In November, 1937, Shanghai was a collection of stinking corpses strewn among blackened rubble. For the Chinese and the Japanese, it was a portent of things to come.

The Sinking of the U.S.S. Panay

November 21, 1937, the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs at Nanking asked the American Ambassador to inform his colleagues of the Minister’s imminent departure from Nanking. He desired that the foreign Chiefs of Mission leave Nanking when possible. The American Ambassador communicated this information and it was agreed by the Chiefs of Mission that they would leave together for Hanker, where the Chinese Foreign Office would be established.

On November 22, the various foreign Ambassadors and Ministers, together with some of their nationals, boarded vessels to depart for Hanker, the American Ambassador with part of his staff boarding the U.S.S. Luzon, flagship of the Yangtze Patrol of the United States Asiatic Fleet. Part of the staff of the American Embassy was left in Nanking to keep the Embassy functioning because of the expected Japanese attack upon Nanking and to render assistance to Americans who did not wish to leave on the Luzon. The U.S.S. Panay was instructed to remain at Nanking to maintain communications between the Embassy and other American diplomatic and consular officers and the Department of State. They were to take remaining Americans aboard when that action should appear necessary.

Upon departure from Nanking, the American Ambassador sent to the Japanese Ambassador at Shanghai by naval radio through the American Consulate General at Shanghai a message to the effect that, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Government had announced its removal to Hanker, the American Ambassador had likewise left Nanking for that city to perform his appropriate duties; that he had taken with him part of the Embassy staff, but the Embassy office at Nanking continued to function; and that the Embassy requested that the Japanese military and civil authorities take note of the circumstances described above and should necessity arise accord full recognition to the diplomatic status of the Embassy personnel and premises and give them appropriate facilities and full protection.

[For an account from this time forward, see dispatch dated Shanghai, December 21, 1937, from the Second Secretary of Embassy in China to the Secretary of State, PAGE 532.] 304.115 Panay/20.]

DEAD: ENSMINGER, Charles Lee, Storekeeper 1st class, U.S. Navy. Died December 13, 1937 at Hohsien, China, as result of gunshot wounds. Surviving relatives: Widow, Mrs. Lucile C. Ensminger; Father, Mr. Thomas C. Ensminger.

HULSBUS, Edgar William George, Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Died December 19, 1937 at County Hospital, Shanghai, China, as a result of gunshot wounds, sixth dorsal vertebrae. Mother, Mrs. Katherine Hulsebus; Father, Mr. Peter William Hulsebus, Canton, Missouri.

Notes on the Sinking of the

U.S.S. Panay

Japanese Army Colonel Kingrod Hashimoto was a leader of the attempted coup by the military in 1936 to take over the Japanese government. To get him out of Japan, Hashimoto was sent to China, where he ordered the attack on the Panay in December 1937. At the end of the war he was sentenced to life in prison for promoting a war of aggression, only to be freed after ten years (1955). Hashimoto died of cancer in 1957.

[While attached to Misawa Air Base Japan, 1980-82, 1987-90 as a teacher/ counselor, Wai Mei and I took our leave at the Old Sanno Hotel in Tokyo on many occasion. It was used for billeting by the U.S. military. The Hotel was built by a Japanese businessman in 1922. In 1936 it was briefly taken over by members of a military coup, including Col. Hashimoto. Several participants were executed on the spot by the government according to a French diplomat who was under house arrest in the hotel during World War II.

XXXXXX

Albert Einstein

Old Grove Rd.

Nassau Point

Peconic, Long Island

F. D. Roosevelt

President of the United States

White House

Washington, D.C.

Sir;

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations.

During the last four months it has been made probable through the work of Loiot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America. It may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated.

It appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air. The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is the Belgian Congo.

Because of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence, who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:

Approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for government actions, giving particular attention to the problems of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States, to speed up the experimental work, which at present is carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories; by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.

I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such an early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under Secretary of State, von Weizacker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.

Yours very truly,

Albert Einstein

XXXXXXX

An Opinion of FDR Letter to Hirohito

FDR said nothing whatsoever about a Japanese withdrawal from China. The concern is entirely on Japanese intentions as indicated by the military occupation and operations being conducted in southern Indochina. And the concerns about Japan’s intentions which FDR refers to were in fact valid. At the time FDR was drafting and sending this letter to the Japanese Emperor, Japanese military forces had already begun to set in motion a calculated, coordinated, well-planned military assault on the United States, Britain, and the NEI.) Those attacks would be delivered without warning on the morning of December 7/8, 1941.

Are these the words of a man who wants to go to war? The glove is thrown down! We have hoped for a termination of the present conflict between Japan and China. We have hoped that a peace of the Pacific could be consummated in such a way that nationalities of many diverse peoples could exist side by side without fear of invasion; that unbearable burdens of armaments could be lifted for them all and that all peoples would resume commerce without discrimination against or in favor of any nation.

(Is he serious? Who drafted this letter for Roosevelt… a Harvard liberal intellectual? These are the Japanese we are talking to!! What drugs are they on in the White House?)

I am certain that it will be clear to Your Majesty, as it is to me, that in seeking these great objectives both Japan and the United States should agree to eliminate any form of military threat.(As the Japanese diplomats scratch their heads in wonder… trying to decipher the underlying message…)

During the past few weeks it has become clear to the world that Japanese military, naval and air forces have been sent to Southern Indo-China in such large numbers as to create a reasonable doubt on the part of other nations that this continuing concentration in Indochina is not defensive in its character.

(No kidding… the Japanese diplomats smirk…)

Because these continuing concentrations in Indo-China have reached such large proportions and because they extend now to the southeast and the southwest corners of the Peninsula, it is only reasonable that the people of the Philippines, of the hundreds of Islands of the East Indies, of Malaya and of Thailand itself, are asking themselves whether these forces of Japan are preparing or intending to make attack in one or more of these many directions.

(Now we are getting to the crux of the matter… they lean forward…)

"Clearly a continuance of such a situation is unthinkable. None of the peoples whom I have spoken of above can sit either indefinitely or permanently on a keg of dynamite.

(THIS IS A DECLARATION OF WAR!!!! It is backed by specific heat…)

There is absolutely no thought that the United States will invade Indo-China =IF= every Japanese soldier or sailor were to be withdrawn there from. (This is an ultimatum!) Thus a withdrawal of the Japanese forces from Indo-China would result in the assurance of peace throughout the whole of the South Pacific area.

(After reading this, I must conclude that the United States did, in fact, declare war on the Japanese people BEFORE the Pearl Harbor and Philippine attacks. This also reflects that yes, indeed, Roosevelt was doing everything in his power to PROVOKE the Japanese to attack, to hurry our entry into WWII, and to sacrifice the US Army in the Philippines to the alter of leaping the fence to the assistance of Great Britain. How can it be interpreted otherwise?)

FDR’S letter to the Emperor of Japan was transmitted in telegram 818, Dec. 6, 1941, 9 p.m. to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew), under instructions to communicate the President’s message to the Japanese Emperor in such manner as deemed most appropriate by the Ambassador and at the earliest possible moment, addressed to His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan

XXXXXXX

Notes on the Pearl Harbor Attack

On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese government approved a document which stated, "It should be made absolutely