Remembering Tarawa: November 20-23, 1943

The Battle of Tarawa, also known as Operation GALVANIC, was launched on November 20, 1943 in the Gilbert Islands as the United States and our allies began their counteroffensive advance across the Pacific Ocean towards Japan.

We had conducted landings and fought ashore previously - Guadalcanal and New Georgia - but those campaigns in the Solomon Islands and vicinity were more defensive actions designed to protect the sea lanes between the United States and Australia. Up until the beginning of the Bougainville Campaign on November 1, 1943, the Japanese had always placed their defenses inland away from landing areas. The Bougainville landing at Cape Torokina saw our Marines met at the water's edge.

It would be a grim predictor of what landing on Tarawa would be like.

The Gettysburg Address, 150 Years Later

I must begin this post by admitting a failing of my blogging here at Their Finest Hour. I had fully intended to write a spate of posts this past July for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863 - and they didn't happen, mainly because I was otherwise consumed with "day job" and non-blogging personal life concerns. With this post, I hope to make up for one little bit of what I had originally intended to author.

On November 19, 1863, the national military cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated. President Abraham Lincoln was invited to attend and offer some brief remarks, but he wasn't even the featured speaker. That honor was given to a noted orator of the time, Edward Everett, who spoke for over two hours.

When Everett had finished, it was President Lincoln's turn. His brief remarks took only a few minutes to deliver. They so simply, and so eloquently, recounted the heroism and sacrifices that took place upon those grounds that they are the speech that is today remembered as the Gettysburg Address, and are considered to be perhaps the greatest Presidential speech ever given.

The address follows, as does a story of incredible courage from July 2, 1863 that you probably don't know about - and it's a story of a single action by a commander and the men he ordered that may very well have saved the Union.

The Beirut Bombing - 30 Years

The Multinational Force (MNF) in Lebanon was created in August 1982 following a request from the Lebanese government to the United Nations for "peacekeepers" to intervene in the Lebanese Civil War, which had heated up after the Israelis invaded Lebanon on June 6, 1982 with the aim of destroying forces belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization in the south of the country bordering Israel.

The United States' main contribution to to the Multinational Force was a United States Marine Corps "Marine Amphibious Unit" or "MAU", known today as a "Marine Expeditionary Unit" or "MEU". A MAU/MEU is formed around a reinforced infantry battalion known as a "Battalion Landing Team" or "BLT". Both France and Italy also committed large forces to the peacekeeping effort. The MNF was located solely in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

The Marines' headquarters was at, and their positions surrounded, the Beirut International Airport.

The "peacekeeping" situation in Lebanon took a definite turn for the worse on April 18, 1983 when terrorists used a suicide truck bomb to attack the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 including 17 Americans. When the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, including a BLT formed from the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, relieved their sister formation the 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit in May 1983, they faced an almost untenable tactical situation and the undesirable role of interposing themselves between warring factions who really didn't care who was in the way.

Tidal Wave: The Raid on Ploesti

Ploesti, Romania (correctly spelled Ploiești, but I will use the common spelling as found in most World War II histories) is, to this day, a center for petroleum production and refining. The first large oil refinery in the world was opened there in 1856-57. Foreign producers, including John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil built and operated facilities there.

Nazi Germany gained control of most of Romania and the Ploesti oil production facilities in 1941. As Germany had little petroleum production of its own, the strategic significance of the city's resources couldn't be underestimated. By the middle of 1943, Germany was consuming up to 22 million tons of oil, but was only bringing in 14 million tons. If the Ploesti facilities could be severely damaged or destroyed, the war in Europe would assuredly be shortened by months and tens of thousands of lives might be saved.

As the war progressed into the summer of 1943, the United States Army Air Forces - progenitor of today's United States Air Force - prepared to execute the first large scale bombing raid against the Ploesti refineries. Five heavy bomber groups would be used, flying from bases in North Africa.

The plan was called Operation TIDAL WAVE. It was scheduled for a Sunday: August 1, 1943 - seventy years ago today. The men who flew the mission and survived came to know their attack on Ploesti by a much grimmer name:

Black Sunday.

Ashore on Sicily: the main landing of Operation HUSKY

On April 30, 1943, British Intelligence launched one of the boldest military deception operations of all time: Operation MINCEMEAT. Its goal was to convince the Axis enemy that after North Africa, their next target would be anywhere except Sicily. In the pre-dawn hours of July 10, 1943, an Allied fleet transported the Seventh United States Army, Lieutenant General George S. Patton commanding, and the British Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery commanding, to their landing points on Sicily's southern point.

The Sicily attack was the largest amphibious operation ever attempted to that point in time. Seven Allied divisions, of a force totaling 12 divisions plus attached units, were to land on July 10th. The lives of thousands of men hung in the balance. Had the deception plan worked, or were the British and American soldiers about to hit the beach heading into prepared defenses that would chew them up and spit them out?

Operation HUSKY Kicks Off

In the evening hours of July 9, 1943, Allied forces under the overall command of United States' General Dwight D. Eisenhower were crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Africa and elsewhere for Operation HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily.

Around midnight local time, July 10 (about 6:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time, by present standards) British and American parachute and glider-borne forces began the first large-scale airborne operation for the Allies in the war. It turned out that they had a lot to learn about transporting men into combat that way.

TFH 4/30: Major William Martin, RM goes to war

My regular readers know that I've told many stories here of men who gave their lives in battle to save others. Seventy years ago today on April 30, 1943, a man already dead went to war, and undoubtedly saved hundreds if not thousands of American and British soldiers from becoming casualties both in July and August 1943 and beyond.

Glyndwr Michael was born in Aberbargoed, Wales on January 4, 1909. His father, a coal miner, committed suicide in 1924. His mother died in 1940, leaving the Welshman alone, depressed or suffering from additional mental illness, and homeless. His corpse was discovered on January 24, 1943 in a London warehouse. Michael's death was caused by ingesting rat poison, and it's unknown whether he committed suicide or his death was an accident because he was scrounging for food.

Society often looks past the deaths of derelicts, of the unwanted. With no family surviving to claim his remains, Michael's body would become the centerpiece of the greatest wartime deception since the perhaps mythical Trojan Horse, and would ultimately be buried with military honors befitting a man killed in battle.

The Columbia Seven - Ten Years

At approximately 8:59:32AM EST on February 1, 2003 - 15 days, 22:20:32 into her mission - Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was destroyed on reentry due to catastrophic damage suffered during the launch of STS-107 sixteen days before on January 16. All seven members of her crew perished.

Apollo+40: "Hope for all...we can do anything."

For century upon century, to explore the Moon was considered the dream of the addle-brained or the foolhardy. Only divine beings or supermen could withstand the rigors and distance of such a journey. But then, early in the twentieth century, mortal humans went aloft on mechanical wings, defying gravity and redefining the realm of possibility. For ever after, the Moon became a goal within the grasp of those on Earth: for if man could build a machine to make him fly, he would eventually build one to take him to the Moon. When and how and who was only a matter of time. 

From December of 1968 to December of 1972, twenty-four representatives of the human race voyaged to the Moon, and half as many walked upon its surface. In all, nine voyages across the quarter-million mile distance from Earthly safety to Lunar emptiness, each one of them dangerous and expensive. The requirements to make the voyage a reality were the qualities that make humankind unique: our desire to achieve, our wear-with-all and perseverance, our willingness to sacrifice time, energy, and even life in the long labor needed to solve the problems one by one over the course of the endeavor. Most important of all was humankind's tendency to imagine things that are not possible. Imagining that it could be done was the very first step taken in the journey from the Earth to the Moon. 

-- opening narration by Blythe Danner, Episode 12: "Le Voyage Dans La Lune", From the Earth to the Moon (1998)

At 2:24:59PM, Eastern Standard Time, December 19, 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the south Pacific Ocean. Less than an hour later, astronauts Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Jack Schmitt were safe aboard their recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). Their flight - man's final flight to the Moon - had lasted 12 days, 13 hours, 51 minutes, and 59 seconds.

Apollo 17 Commmand Module America with the USS Ticonderoga in the background

Ticonderoga was an appropriate ship for the voyage to end aboard. Six years and eight months before, Ron Evans was flying combat missions over Vietnam from her deck when he found out he had been picked to be an astronaut.

The Apollo Program was over.

Now forty years on, where do we stand as a nation of greatness, and when can we expect the human race to exceed its high point of achievement?

Apollo+40: Seventeen Leaves the Moon

When I last posted on the amazing journeys of Apollo 17, astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt had just left the lunar surface in LM Challenger to rendezvous with Ron Evans and the CSM America. I had intended to write a summary of the lunar and planetary science experiments that the mission executed from lunar orbit, but the events of Friday put me out of the mood.

A good rundown of the lunar science experiments carried aboard America during Apollo 17's time in lunar orbit can be found at the website of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The orbital experiments were predominately contained in the Scientific Instrumentation Module (SIM) contained in the Service Module of the CSM spacecraft. A SIM was also included on both Apollo 15 and Apollo 16.

As Apollo 17 was going to be the last manned mission to the Moon for some time (little was it known then for how long) the astronauts spent more time in lunar orbit - over six days - than any other Apollo mission.

Apollo+40: Last Departure from the Lunar Surface

After three lunar surface EVAs (posts on EVA-1, EVA-2, and EVA-3), it was time for mankind's last two lunar surface explorers to start the process of heading home.

At 188:01:39 Ground Elapsed Time (GET), 5:54PM EST, December 14, 1972, human beings left the Moon's surface for the last time when Apollo 17's Commander (CDR) Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot (LM) Jack Schmitt fired the engine in Lunar Module Challenger's ascent stage to return to lunar orbit and rendezvous with the Command/Service Module (CSM) America waiting in lunar orbit, having spent the last three days being solo flown by Command Module Pilot (CMP) Ron Evans.

Apollo+40: The Third EVA - "As We Shall Return"

For those who haven't read the plaque, we'll read the plaque that's on the front landing gear of this LM. First there's two hemispheres, one showing each of the two hemispheres of the Earth. Underneath it says "Here Men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." It has the crew members' signatures and the signature of the President of the United States. -- Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11, 109:52:40 GET, July 20, 1969 at the Sea of Tranquility

Lunar Module (LM) Eagle's front landing leg carried that plaque to the Moon to commemorate and mark where Man first set foot upon a world that wasn't his. The journey, wonder, exploration, and discovery on the surface of another world experienced by just twelve representatives of all humanity was about to have its coda.

At 163:32:48 Ground Elapsed Time (GET), 5:25PM Eastern Standard Time, December 13, 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt depressurized their LM Challenger, opened her hatch, and began their third and final EVA - to date, Man's last trek out onto the surface of another world.

163:41:29 Cernan: Okay, Bob. I'm going down the ladder. 

163:41:31 Parker: Roger, Geno. (Long Pause) 

163:41:46 Cernan: Yup, still there, Jack. "Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17." 

163:41:52 Schmitt: Good. 

163:41:53 Parker: Amen there, Gene. Amen. 

163:41:58 Cernan: Okay, Bob, I'm on the (foot)pad. And it's about 4:30 [CST, time at Mission Control] (on) a Wednesday afternoon, as I step out on to the plains of Taurus-Littrow. Beautiful valley.

Apollo+40: The Second EVA - It's Orange!!!

Taurus-Littrow was chosen as the landing site for Apollo 17 because it was thought, based on observations by unmanned spacecraft and the astronauts on previous Apollo flights to be a "younger" area of the Moon; an area where volcanism had as much, if not more, an effect on the local geology than the tens of thousands of impact events that are self-evident just from glancing at the surface.

Lunar geology however, was at the bleeding edge of science. Eight months before Apollo 17, John Young and Charlie Duke landed in the Descartes Higlands with Apollo 16, briefed for and expecting to find volcanic rocks...and instead found almost nothing but breccias; rocks formed by impact events. Every discovery made from the Moon was significant, whether it proved an existing theory of the Moon or disproved one. Planetary geologists longed for a truly revolutionary find like the 4 billion year-old piece of anorthosite discovered by Apollo 15's Dave Scott and Jim Irwin, known as the "Genesis Rock".

Who better to look for something amazing on man's last voyage to the Moon than the only geologist astronaut? Jack Schmitt was also only one of two geoscientists in the astronaut corps (the other, geophysicist Tony England, had acted as Apollo 16's mission scientist from Mission Control). For an organization focused on the Moon, one would think NASA would have picked up a few more specialists in that area.

Gene Cernan and Schmitt, well rested after their first EVA the day before, depressurized their Lunar Module (LM) Challenger and began EVA-2 at 140:35:06 Ground Elapsed Time (GET)/6:28PM Eastern Standard Time (EST), December 12, 1972 - forty years ago.

Apollo+40: The First EVA - A Flag Returns

When Apollo 11 Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their LM Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969, they brought three flags with them. One was left there at the landing site, and two were returned to Earth. One of the flags that was returned was displayed in Mission Control in Houston until a short time before the flight of Apollo 17. That particular Stars and Stripes were stowed aboard Challenger for a return voyage to the Moon.

So far, we have met the crew of Apollo 17, launched with them, journeyed to the Moon, and landed. Forty years ago from the time of this post, the first of Man's three final excursions for discovery on the lunar surface began.

Command Module Pilot (CMP) Ron Evans maintained America in lunar orbit and conducted his own scientific program with the instruments onboard her while Commander (CDR) Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Jack Schmitt prepared for their first EVA, just four hours after their landing at Taurus-Littrow.

The A7LB space suit model worn by Cernan and Schmitt on the lunar surface had also been used on the two previous "J" missions: Apollo 15 and Apollo 16. The suit was designed to be more comfortable and capable for the extended lunar stays of the later flights. The astronauts further benefited from being able to take it off inside the LM between EVAs.

At 117:01:49 Ground Elapsed Time (GET)/6:54 PM EST, mankind's last two Moon walkers depressurized Challenger, and began the first of the final three lunar EVAs.

Apollo+40: The Sixth Lunar Landing

The Apollo Lunar Module (LM) was the first true spacecraft - it was only designed for and able to fly in space, in a vacuum. Grumman completed twelve of them. Ten of the twelve flew, and eight made the journey to their intended environment: the Moon.

Apollo 17's LM Challenger was the 12th produced and would be the last craft to carry humans to the surface of Earth's Moon. She was built by hand in Grumman's plant in Bethpage, New York. When LM-12 was delivered to NASA, hundreds of men and women who built the crafts that had delivered ten Americans to the lunar surface - and which had saved the lives of three - had lost their jobs. It's a tribute to them all that Challenger was as ready, and performed as flawlessly, as her predecessors Spider, Snoopy, Eagle, Intrepid, Aquarius, Antares, Falcon, and Orion.

The date was December 11, 1972. Forty years have passed since a human prepared to land their craft and set foot on another world.

Apollo+40: Apollo 17 to Lunar Orbit

When we last left Apollo 17, they had just set off on their long, two and a half day coast to the Moon. Astronauts Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Jack Schmitt - the 6th (Cernan, having previously gone on Apollo 10), 23rd, and 24th men to ever make the voyage - had an uneventful Earth-Moon transit and completed check-outs of their Lunar Module (LM) Challenger, conducted some scientific experiments on board their Command/Service Module (CSM) America, and finally on Flight Day 4 (December 10, 1972) reach the Moon and enter lunar orbit.

Here is a summary of major flight activities, times in Ground Elapsed Time (GET) unless otherwise noted:

Pearl 70: A Reprise

Last year was the 70th Anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, hurtling the United States into World War II.

I invite you today to go back and look at my posts from last year commemorating the event:

• TFH 12/7: On the Darkest Day, Sixteen Shined
• The Attack is Underway
• The Message
• Fifth of Five Bomb Hits...
• Pearl Harbor: What Was Lost
• Pearl Harbor: What Wasn't Lost

Never Forget.

Apollo+40: Godspeed the Crew of Apollo 17 - The Launch

Thousands assembled on December 6, 1972 on Florida's space coast for the launch of Apollo 17. It was sure to be an incredible show as the launch would take place at night due to the launch window required to meet the mission's date with the Taurus-Littrow region of the Moon.

Among the VIPs seated in the bleachers near the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center was Charlie Smith, thought at the time to be the oldest living American and a staggering 130 years old (since debunked). Smith was a doubter, and was quoted as saying about the Saturn V sitting on Pad 39A, bathed in spotlights:

I see that's a rocket, but th' ain't nobody goin' t' no moon. Me, you, or anybody else.

But, go they would, one of the men for the second time, like the eight flights and twenty-two men before them.

Commander (CDR) Gene Cernan, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Ron Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Jack Schmitt boarded their spacecraft, Command/Service Module 112 (CSM-112) named America, atop their Saturn V in the early evening hours. Launch was scheduled for 9:53PM EST.

Apollo+40: Prelude to Man's Last Voyage to the Moon

Back on April 20, 2012, as I was attending BlogCon CLT, I wrote an essay entitled "Where We've Been, and Where We Need to Go Back", as I observed that the date coincided with the 40th anniversary of the fifth manned landing on the Moon by Apollo 16. In it, I lamented my failure to complete my "Apollo+40" series. The United States of America executed the greatest achievement in human history, and we did it six times. I'm not going to let the sixth and final one go unrecognized here at Their Finest Hour.

I hope you come back regularly to join me as we recount the final flight of Apollo - Apollo 17 - over the next two weeks.

At 11:53AM Eastern Standard Time on December 7, 1972 (40 years before the time of this post), the launch countdown resumed at T-minus 9 hours for the final flight of a manned Saturn V launch vehicle the world would ever see. The rocket, also known as SA-512, was made up of S-IC stage #12, S-II stage #12, and S-IVB stage #512.

Atop the Saturn V was Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) 114, Lunar Module (LM) 12, and Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) 3. The assembled hardware stood on Pad A of Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center - an expendable tribute to the thousands of Americans who made Apollo's journeys to the Moon possible, many of whom had already lost their jobs with the end of the program, and many more who would be unemployed with the launch and mission completion.

Apollo 17's crew chose names for their spacecraft that reflected both the Nation that sent them and the enormity of the endeavor. The CSM would be known as America; the LM Challenger.

Three Astronauts would make Man's final journey to the Moon. One of them had been to the Moon before. Two had never been in space. One would be the first non-pilot to fly in space; appropriately, as the first pure scientist to travel in space and to the Moon, he was a geologist. Who were these great Americans?

Bayonets? How About Some Bombers?

As my regular readers know, I'm big about chronicling the exploits of military heroes, particularly on "decade" anniversaries as I did earlier today for Mitchell Paige (Medal of Honor, 70 years, 10/26/1942) and Sherrod Skinner (Medal of Honor, 60 years, 10/26/1952). It turns out that there's a 50th anniversary to note today as well, but it's not one we should be proud of.

On October 26, 1962 - fifty years ago today - the United States Air Force took delivery of a Boeing B-52H Stratofortress bomber from the manufacturer, serial number 61-0040. That was the last B-52 to be manufactured.

That's right. The newest B-52 in our Air Force's inventory - the "H" model is the only left flying, 85 in the active force, 9 in the Air Force Reserve - is fifty years old today. Forget the President of the United States ridiculing bayonets or pooh-poohing cutbacks to the United States Navy; we have defense procurement issues across the board that jeopardize our Nation's defense.