From: Len Niessen, October 27, 2008

January 12, 1945

Tonite we all had to work.  120 survivors came in from the USS Reid[1] a DD announced lost due to enemy action in the 2^nd Battle of the Philippines.  They were brought back on the USS Nashville and arrived here this morning.  All records were lost, of course, so a card had to be made out on every man.  We also made up a SF form on each man and shore-duty scores on those who rated them.  They came here from small stores where they were given the usual Navy tailoring job (too short or too long).  None of them had contacted their families yet, who probably think they are lost.  They are due to get their survivor’s leave tomorrow so we rushed them through.  The Reid had been through quite a bit of action and some of the men rated 9 stars.  They were a boisterous lot, and it was quite apparent they were all glad to be alive.  106 men were lost with the ship.  They each had a thick packet of letters which they were given a few minutes before coming here and they kept themselves pretty busy reading these while waiting to be interviewed.  They hadn’t heard from their families for a month or more.  While I was filling out the SF form on one man, he was reading letters from his wife.  He showed me a picture of his 2 year old girl.  Attached to a page of the letter was two little candles from her birthday cake. He just smiled from ear to ear while reading the letter. 

One of the fellows I interviewed was 17 years old and had several months of sea duty already, climaxed by his ship being sunk.  I wonder what I’d be like today if that had happened to me when I was 17.

Q. – How was your ship sunk --- torpedoed?

A. – Well – that’s what we were told to say.

Q. – OK

A. – We were suicide-bombed by a Jap plane.

Q. – Well, that’s fairly common nowadays – why the mystery?

A. – They don’t want information to leak out how effective suicide bombing is.  The way I look at it is, it’s not only the damage to ships that is effective, it’s the mental impression that it makes on those it hits.  The sight of a burning, twisting plane diving toward you for what seems like several minutes is rather hard on the nerves.  There must have been 50 ships throwing up stuff at the plane that finally got us.  Ten planes peeled off and each one went for a ship.

Q. – How long were you in the water?

A. – About a half hour – it wasn’t so bad.  Most of the damaged ships in the yard were suicide-bombed. On the Reid two gun mounts were wiped out; most of the men lost were below deck.

A Moment in Time

A view from the other side

            [This letter was written by a young Kamikaze pilot on the eve of his suicide mission in 1944. The pilot's family shared this letter, in gratitude and respect, with a person who, 43 years later, located and returned the pilot's identification tag to them. The translation follows:]

            Dear mother whom I honor and my deceased father, watch over me. Grandparents, younger brothers and sisters, I hope you are all being fine.

             Now I, Masao, am writing this with deep emotion. What more is there to say now, except that I am praying for your health and happiness. In regards to my 19 years of life, why regret it if a blossom falls when it is still only a bud if there be a need?  Nothing further needs to be said.

Just please understand that there are no clouds in Masao's heart; it is clear and content - nothing to reconsider - no regrets. As a member of an honorable force at sea my only hope now is that I may be of good service. It is nothing more but Masao's honor and happiness that I was chosen of the chosen to ride on one of the newest weapons carrying the frantic hopes of all navy personnel and countrymen, and which will contribute decisively to the Great Asian War. I desire that you, mother, and everyone to be proud of me. Please remember Masao's gallant burning red appearance attacking the enemy task force. Masao will not be destroyed until the U.S. and Britain are defeated. Even though my body shall be done away with in the South Seas, surely my spirit will continue. I shall be living forever, day and night, as a spirit fighting for my country; living in your heart, mother, and living in the country land.

             Mother, please watch your health, you may be lonely, but be of good health. Younger brothers and sisters, help your mother and grow up to be a person who is of service to others. Grandparents, take enough rest, live long and see Japan be victorious in the Great Asian War.

             Under a dim lamp I am writing this in a hurry. Only annihilation awaits me tomorrow, that is what I have told my heart to prepare for. Now I am quietly thinking and longing to see the skies over home. Maybe I will be lucky , but I will not overly seek for it.  If I still have life I will write again. I will ask my comrade to mail this letter along with the cigarette the Emperor gave me, because I don't have enough time. Praying for your health and happiness.

             From Masao         October 19. 1944

              I am the keeper of the records, such as they are, of our ship the USS Reid DD 369. The only information we have in our files about Ted Divis is what he sent in to my predecessor about 15 - 20 years ago. His short bio says that he was born in November 1920 in Brainard, Nebraska, enlisted in the Navy in December, 1939 and reported aboard the Reid in March 1940 at San Diego. He was a member of the "black gang," meaning he worked in the engine/fire room of the ship. He transferred from the Reid to shore duty in August, 1944 while the ship was in Pearl Harbor as a Boilermaker first class, and left the Navy at the end of his 6 year enlistment in December, 1945.

During the period he was aboard the Reid, the ship made a good will visit to Australia in the spring of 1941 and I'll bet he had a great time. On the way south, he was initiated into the mysteries of the deep and became a shellback as he crossed the equator.

He was aboard the ship in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. The ship defended the islands and for several months did convoy duty to the west coast and back. We resupplied Midway before the attack there and were involved in the defense of Alaska during the Battle of Midway. While there we sunk a Jap submarine, bombarded Japanese positions in the outer Aleutians and were chased by a Japanese carrier task force.

We returned to Pearl and later escorted Army troops to Guadalcanal, stopping off in Pago Pago in Samoa , Suva in Fiji, Noumea in New Caledonia and the New Hebrides on the way. We operated in the Guadalcanal area for several months bombarding Japanese positions and defending the island during frequent attacks and against reinforcements. We escorted ships to Australia and returned to San Francisco for overhaul in mid 1943.

We returned to the western Pacific as part of McArthur's Navy in his campaign up the coast of New Guinea and neighboring islands on the way to his return to the Philippines. During the landings in Lae, Salamaua, Finschhafen, Arawe, New Britain, Saidor and others along the New Guinea coast we were under frequent attack by Japanese aircraft and had some narrow escapes.

In January, 1944 we sailed to Sydney, Australia for some R & R and then returned to the New Guinea campaign. In July, 1944 the ship returned to Pearl Harbor for some refitting. It was during this period that Ted Divis was transferred.

The ship returned to New Guinea and then on to the Philippines and participated in the battle for Leyte. It was during this campaign, on December 11, 1944, that the Reid went down off the west coast of Leyte with the loss of one third of the crew. Those in the fire room and engine rooms suffered heavy casualties.

The ship was keeling over, and the water on the steps caused me to lose my footing.  I was holding the hand rails, swinging out there, and here came Barber and Ailport, who were down on the lower level. They came up between me and the steps and almost knocked me loose, but I held on. I got up far enough to push down on the top of the hatch and get my shoulders up above. I remember the suction was so strong that it was all I could do to hold on.   If I had not been pressing down, it would have sucked me on down.

Account of Sinking of the USS REID

By Frenchie Perrault

I was in my sack, though not by choice.  I’d been on the sick list due to a badly swollen ulcerated ankle that was healing.  I was to stay off my feet except to use the head.  When the GQ alarm sounded I was not about to stay there.  I went topside where I sat with Damage Control.

After some time I got restless and decided to go below to relieve F2c Grassman, the man on the evaporators.  This was my normal GQ station.  This was the last time I saw him.  There but for the grace of God go I.  I think of this often as I thought I was doing him a good turn.  

Shortly thereafter, the guns began to fire.  There was a flash and explosion at the generators, which were across from the evaps on the upper level of the engine room.  This was CEM Forbes’s GQ station .  He must have been killed instantly.

I could see light in the hatch and men leaving.  When I got there the ship was already listing heavily.  Getting up on the ladder was difficult as the handrail was about all we could get ahold of.  I pushed someone up, and in turn, was pulled and pushed out.  I reached down and pulled someone else out.  After that, I hollered “Is anyone down there?”  Getting no reply, I turned from the hatch.

Water was up to my knees and I was going to go over the side.  But after seeing the after stack starting to take in water, I thought better of it.  I stayed put as the ship was going down under me.  When the water got to my waist, I started swimming away.  I had lost one shoe so I removed the other, which made for better swimming.  I swam until I met Hynard and Schoening, I don’t recall if there was anyone else.  By this time the ship was on its side.  CMM Updegraff and MM2/c Kusta were standing there on the side of the ship.  They had no life jackets and neither could swim.  We yelled for them to jump, we would help them.  They refused and went down with the ship.

Our ship was going down stern first, and the bow was rising out of the water.  When it was almost straight up, Hynard said, “Let’s salute.”  She was gone in seconds.  Then in her final death blow, the depth charges exploded.

Later I was picked up by LCI 661, the same one that picked up Haviland.

Some Shipmate recollections of December 7, 1941

 "Someone was running through the compartment hollering: 'They are sinking our battleships!"

 "Gordon Seastrom was standing next to me poking me in the ribs, saying, 'What are they doing?" In those days Gordon was a long skinny kid with sharp elbows.”

 "Our boilers were down, valves, gauges, fire control and navigation instruments were over on the tender for calibration or whatever and the fresh water was turned off."

 "We had a valve from the fireroom over on the Whitney for repair. It seems like it took three guys to carry it over to the Whitney, but John Barber ran over and carried it back by himself."

 "No ship was ever put back together so fast."

 "That was the only time in my 20 year tour of duty that I ever saw a ship underway and standing out of a harbor with zero inches of vacuum on the main plant."

 'The bridge kept telling us to knock off the smoke."

 "Pullen called for flank speed - 30 knots – although usually any destroyer in Pearl Harbor held speed down to 10 knots.  'Boy, I bet I catch hell for this, ' he reflected.”

 "As we passed Battleship Row, they were all down and burning. I'll remember the USS Arizona forever."

 "The devastation was horrible. God Bless the sailors who didn't make it."

 "As we headed out, we saw a 50 foot motor launch with a depth charge tied to its stem looking for the midget sub thought to be in the harbor."

 " We got underway to hunt Japs. Fortunately we didn't find them."

 "I thought once we rounded Barber's Point, the Jap  fleet will pick us off and that would be the end. – Then I had a terrible thought: I had over 60 days leave and $300 on the books. If the ship was sunk and I survived, who would believe me?"

 “I was asleep on this morning, at the home of friends in Pearl City, Oahu.  I was awakened by the lady of the house and told the Japs were attacking Pearl Harbor.  I dressed quickly and went out the back door, just in time to see a Jap plane (red marking balls and fixed landing gear) level out over the house.

“I remember saying to her, “Yep, they sure are Japs.”  She worked at an office in the Navy Yard and had a pass, so she drove me back to the liberty landing near the Sub Base.  Driving back home her car was hit by shrapnel through the motor hood, but didn’t hit the engine or her.

            “A 50 foot motor launch crew was taking crew members back to all their ships. . . I rode . .  past battleship row, they were all down and burning.  As we rounded Ford Island, I remember a Jap plane, which had just hit something on the island, leveled out over the 50 footer so darn close you could see the expression on the pilot’s face.” 

The Battle Not Fought

Len Gardner

[This month, August, is the 64^th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs that brought an end of the war in the Pacific in 1945. ]

Those of us who survived the war in the Pacific, friend and foe alike, plus all of our succeeding generations, can be thankful this battle was not fought.

Operation Downfall, a battle plan approved in mid 1945, called for two massive military invasions in succession aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire. In the first invasion, code named “Operation Olympic,” 14 combat divisions of soldiers and marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, on November 1, 1945.

 The second invasion on March 1, 1946, code named "Operation Coronet," would send at least 22 divisions to land on the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain.

The Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled. Over 3000 ships of all types would be involved. The plan called for using the entire Marine Corps, most of the Air Force and more than 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support. More than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults.

American casualties were expected to be extremely heavy - up to one million men by the fall of 1946, and some called this conservative.

Responsibility for planning Operation Downfall  fell to the top commanders: Chester Nimitz, Douglas MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Ernest King, William Leahy, George Marshall and Hap Arnold.   At the time, the development of the atomic bomb was a very closely guarded secret known only to a few top officials outside the Manhattan Project.  Planning for the invasion of Japan did not take its existence into consideration.

Throughout the Pacific War, unlike the European theater, the Allies were unable to agree on a single Commander-in-Chief. Inter-service squabbling over who it should be - the U. S. Navy wanted Nimitz, while the U. S. Army wanted MacArthur - was so serious that it threatened to derail planning. Ultimately, the Navy partially conceded, and MacArthur was to have total command of all forces, if circumstances made it necessary.

The goal was unconditional surrender.   The advocates for invasion agreed that while a naval blockade chokes, it does not kill; and though strategic bombing might destroy cities, it leaves whole armies intact.  So on May 25, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after extensive deliberation and some reservations, issued to General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and General Arnold, the top secret directive to proceed with plans for the invasion of Kyushu.

While this was going on, the Japanese were making plans of their own. They knew they could not win the war, but they hoped to drag it out so that a negotiated peace might be possible, rather than unconditional surrender. An invasion was anticipated.  Japanese geography limited the likely invasion landing areas and the Japanese were able to accurately deduce the Allied invasion plans and adjust their defense plans accordingly.

Suicide attack was to be Japan’s main weapon. All of their aircraft of whatever type were committed to the kamikaze mission, and measures were taken to conserve them until the invasion. Allied estimates of available Japanese planes initially were estimated at 2,500, of which only 300 would be available for suicide missions.  The estimates increased by the month.  By August 1945 it was over 10,000.  The actual count (post-war) turned out to have been nearly 13,000 aircraft available for suicide missions.

At Okinawa with fewer than 2000 planes, Kamikaze success ratio was one hit in nine attacks. In the close-in waters off the coast of Japan itself, they expected to do much better. By overwhelming the US defenses with large numbers of Kamikaze attacks in a period of hours, the Japanese estimated that the planes would sink hundreds of ships. Since they were training the pilots to target transports rather than carriers and destroyers, the casualties would be disproportionately greater than at Okinawa. The Japanese planned to sustain the attack with wave after wave of Kamikazes continuously over many days. One staff study estimated that the Kamikazes could destroy a third to a half of the invasion force before the landings.

In addition, Japan had 350 midget submarines, 1000 manned torpedoes and 800 suicide boats ready for deployment.

The Army also was getting some uncomfortable news.  During the spring of 1945, Allied intelligence was aware that Japan had transferred five divisions to Kyushu, but still projected that by November the total defending force would be about 350,000. That changed in July, with the discovery of four new divisions and indications of more to come.  By late July, the count was up to 600,000 and rising.   These new estimates transmitted powerful shock waves both in the Pacific and in Washington. On 29 July, MacArthur's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Willoughby advised that this buildup, if not checked, threatened "to grow to [the] point where we attack on a ratio of one (1) to one (1) which is not the recipe for victory. "

In fact, by August, Japan had fourteen divisions and various smaller formations, including three tank brigades, for a total of 900,000 men on Kyushu. This would give the defenders a 3 to 2 advantage in manpower.

Elsewhere, the Soviets were preparing to follow up their invasion of Sakhalin with an invasion of the weakly defended, northern home island of Hokkaido by the end of August. With American forces locked in combat in the south of Japan, little could have prevented the Soviet Union from marching into the northern half of the Japanese home islands. In the post- war world, Japan might have been divided much like Korea and Germany.

President Truman approved plans for the invasions July 24, but required a final review before giving the green light. Two days later, the United Nations issued the Potsdam Proclamation, which called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face total destruction. Three days later, the Japanese governmental news agency broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender.

During this same period it was learned -- via monitoring Japanese radio broadcasts -- that Japan had closed all schools and mobilized its school children, was arming its civilian population and was fortifying caves and building underground defenses. Every foot of Japanese soil would have been paid for by Japanese and American lives.

Truman was keenly aware that with the end of the war in Europe and troops coming home, pressure to conclude the war in the Pacific would build rapidly. Public opinion might not support another year of war, particularly one with the high casualty rates that were projected and being continually revised upward. Without doubt, this was a factor in his decision to use the atomic bomb.

In retrospect, the 1 million American men and the several million Japanese who were to be the casualties of the invasion, were instead lucky enough to survive the war. Intelligence studies and military estimates clearly indicate that the battle for Japan might well have resulted in the biggest blood-bath in the history of modern warfare.

Far worse would be what might have happened to Japan as a nation and as a culture. When the invasion came, it would have come after several months of fire bombing of all the remaining Japanese cities. The cost in human life that resulted from the two atomic blasts was small in comparison to the total number of Japanese lives that would have been lost by this aerial devastation alone. One can only guess at how many civilians would have committed suicide in their homes or in futile mass military attacks.

[ This article was assembled from declassified material now on the internet.  There is much more to this story and it is well documented.  Read about it under “Operation Downfall.”]