Jim Kauffman and J.R. Robisch
Jim Kauffman and J.R. Robisch
Mr. Thomas
US History, Period 2
12 May 2006
Annotated Bibliography
Keegan, John. The Second World War. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1989
- Roosevelt sent ships to pearl Harbor just as intimidation
- The US had cut off trade with Japan, leaving them scrounging for supplies in the Pacific
- Japan looked to small islands for support and planned to retaliate for the United States’ action
- On the morning of December 7, 1941, planes and midget submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy began a surprise attack on the US
- This attack brought the United States into World War II
- At 6:00 a.m. on December 7th the six Japanese carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive-bombers, level bombers and fighters
- A total of eighteen U.S. ships were damaged or destroyed, 1,896 men were killed, and 161 airplanes were destroyed
Overy, Richard. Why the Allies Won. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1995
- Japan planned to greatly strengthen their hold on the Solomon Islands
- the invasion forces for the Solomons and Port Moresby
- the Allied ships escaped with few casualties and little damage
- The Lexington had to be abandoned and torpedoed, to prevent her capture.
- Shokaku damaged and Zuikaku short of aircraft
- The U.S. brought in the Yorktown and Lexington air craft carriers to aid the Allies in their fight against the Japanese, and eventually in the first major Allied Forces’ victory in the Pacific at the Battle of Coral Sea
Futrell, Dr. Frank. “Hiroshima.” World War II. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1996. 2748-2755.
- After the Potsdam conference, Japan refused to give up its imperial house
- The United states was determined to take out Japan
- An army invasion on Japan would result in too many casualties
- Instead, the new technology of nuclear weapons would be used
- Hiroshima was the primary target, and Nagasaki was the third
- Nearly 140,000 people were killed, 20,000 of which were school children
- Only 23,745 deaths were inflicted due to Nagasaki’s mountainous terrain
Stone, M. P. W. “A Brief History of the U.S. Army in World War II.” U.S. Army Center for Military History. 18 April 2006. http://www.worldwariihistory.info/WWII/introduction.html
- Germany was to be confronted forst, only defending the Pacific from Japanese advances
- The Pacific was a naval war, and little U.S. offensive naval power was required in the Atlantic besides landing craft
- The British navy was deployed in the Atlanic, so the U.S. Navy could control the Pacific
- the Pacific was divided into area commands. The two most important were MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) and Admiral Chester Nimitz's Pacific Ocean Areas (POA).
- “Both in MacArthur's SWPA and Nimitz's POA, the Pacific war was a seemingly endless series of amphibious landings and island-hopping campaigns where naval power, air power, and shipping, rather than large and heavy ground forces, were of paramount importance.”
- At Iwo Jima in February and March 1945 the marines lost almost 6,000 dead and over 17,000 wounded and fought for five weeks to take an island less than five miles long
- The history of the war in the Pacific falls neatly into three periods
- The first six months of the war, from December 1941 to May 1942, were a time of unbroken Japanese military victory
- The period from mid-1942 to mid-1943 saw Japanese strategic thrusts into the south and central Pacific blunted by the carrier battles of the Coral Sea (May 1942) and Midway (June 1942).
Lloyd, K. “Battle of Midway, 4-7 June 1942.” Naval Historical Center. 19 April 2006
<http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/midway/midway.htm>
S-1/4- The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll. S-top
- After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. S-top
- Japanese Combined Fleet commander Admiral Yamamoto moved on Midway in an effort to draw out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet's aircraft carrier striking forces. S-top
- Yamamoto's intended surprise was thwarted by superior American communications intelligence, which deduced his scheme well before battle was joined. S-top
- On 4 June 1942, in the second of the Pacific War's great carrier battles, the trap was sprung. S-top
- The base at Midway, though damaged by Japanese air attack, remained operational and later became a vital component in the American trans-Pacific offensive. S-top
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Butler, James. Personal Interview. 16 April 2006.
- My grandfather, James Butler, currently lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. He grew up in a family with a heavy European background, and was raised in Illinois. In the early 1940’s he graduated high school early and decided to go to college. He attended Notre Dame college from 1939-1943, receiving a major in metallurgy. During his college years, he joined the Navy and put in two years of duty. He was a minesweeper and worked on oil rigs in the Pacific theatre post World War II.
- In this interview, “K” stands for Jim Kauffman and “B” stands for James Butler.
- K: Tell me about your experience in World War II.
- B: I joined the Navy in January of 1943, and got out in the fall of 1945. I was in the Navy-12 program at the university of Notre Dame where we actually got our education and took naval training so that upon completion we got our degree plus a commission in the Navy.
- K: what did you do after college?
- B: when I got my degree and commission I was flown over to Japan to pick up a mine sweep, which began at Sasebo on the lower island and then my ship was is Kobe harbor. This is where I joined my mine sweep. You could still see the war’s effects nearly a year after the war because of ocean mines, destroyed cities, and the United States’ post-war presence
- K: what did you do on a mine sweep?
- B: There were 6 mine sweeps involved in what they called a nest, and what the Japanese did was lay mines protecting their harbors, but didn’t have maps or charts. So the U.S. had to sweep these mines so that ships could come in and out. While I was there we swept Kobe harbor and other harbors. The ship I was on was actually more like a boat. It was 346 foot wooden vessel, which had twin screws. This made it very maneuverable.
- K: What did you do after the mine sweeps?
- B: After that we were transferred down to the Philippines where I was decommissioned. I moved from the mine sweep to a yard oilier, which we would transfer oil to other ships, being their source of energy. When I boarded I had more points than anyone else, so I was on the oilier for about 6 months and then my points were up.
- K: What are these points that you are referring to?
- B: Well what happened…In the service, once u obtained so many points, it qualified you for discharge. S I was given the privilege of coming back to the states. I flew to Great Lakes naval training station, where I was decommissioned and free to become a civilian.
- K: And that was in 1945?
- B: That was in 1945.
- K: How did you disarm the mines you found?
- B: Well what we did was-we had magnetic sweep equipment that would be long-cabled with knives on them and we would cut the magnetic mines from their mooring and pop them up to the surface. And then we would open them up with twin-forties and explode them. Once in while we would have a mine that explodes very close to the fantail of the ship, but we encountered quite a few magnetic mines.
- K: What other types of mines were there?
- B: Well there were three types of mines. There were pressure mines, acoustic mines, and we were strictly in the magnetic field. So the boat we were on was wooden because it didn’t attract the magnetic mines we were searching for. The only thing that was magnetic on the ship was our engine.
- K: Did you encounter any remnants of the war?
- B: Well when I first left for Japan we not only saw Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but we also saw all the other big cities. We couldn’t tell the difference between the b-29 bombs and the atom bomb. That was the amazing thing to us.
- K: How did serving change you as a person?
- B: Well you valued the U.S. because of freedom and the chance to do things and the atmosophere after was was that nobody was owed anything because they were in the service. It was like everyone was proud, and you got to meet people who had gone through similar situations. Everybody had a work ethic afterwards that was just amazing. It absolutely brought the country together.
- K: why did you choose the Navy over other military services?
- B: I was raised in Waukegan, Illinois, which was right next to the great lakes naval training base. So I was familiar with the navy and felt the opportunities for being in the navy were better than those of the army.
Carnes, Mark. The American Nation. New York: Live Right Publishing Company, 2003
- Navy’s carriers escaped destruction at Pearl Harbor
- Carrier-based planes were more effective against warships
- Midway 300 planes destroyed and all four carriers, US lost Yorktown
- Two pronged attack, island hopping campaign
- American pilots were better than Japanese
- Macarthur in south, Nimitz in north
- Atomic bomb dropped to end the war rather than amphibious assault on Japan.
“Pacific War.” Wikipedia. 16 April 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War/.
- Yamamoto mistakenly assumed that Nimitz had only one or two carriers not three, and thus Japan had numerical superiority in the air. He also assumed he had the advantage of surprise. To trick the Yankees Yamamoto split his fleet, with a large force sent north to attack the Aleutian Islands off Alaska
- A few hours later Hiryu followed, but it had already launched planes which sank the Yorktown. Yamamoto's four extra carriers never got into action. He still had enormous superiority in terms of heavy guns, but that was irrelevant because the Americans now had air superiority (from land-based planes on Midway and from the two surviving carriers) and could refuse a surface gunfight.
- Japanese land forces continued to advance. A few Australian Militia (reserve) battalions, many of them very young and untrained, fought a stubborn rearguard action in New Guinea, against a Japanese advance
- In Japan, August 14 is considered to be the day that the Pacific War ended. However, Imperial Japan actually surrendered on August 15 and this day became known in the English-speaking countries as "V-J Day" (Victory in Japan).
Robisch, Robert. Personal Interview. 9 April 2006.
- My grandfather, Robert Robisch, currently lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the early 1940’s he graduated high school from Cincinnati Elder and decided to join the navy before college. He was sent to boot camp at Great Lakes naval base in 1945. During his last weeks of boot camp the peace treaty was signed. He was a surgery technician in the hospital corps.
- In this interview, “J” stands for J.R. Robisch and “R” stands for Robert Robisch.
- J: Tell me about your experience in World War II.
- R: I signed up for the navy before I was drafted into the army. My father had a client who told him to put me in the hospital corps because I would receive my training even if the war ended.
- J: When did you enter the war?
- R: Well in my last week of boot camp they told us that the war had ended in the Pacific.
- J: What did you do then?
- R: Well since I was enlisted in the hospital corps I was able to still receive my technical training. I was then assigned to Oakland on the new hospital ship. We spent two weeks getting ready to head out to sea and I held sick call everyday.
- J: What did you do during sick call?
- R: Every morning if a sailor was sick and I checked him out and he was I would write pass giving him release from his duties for the day.
- J: When did you leave the country?
- R: Well instead of going and picking up injured soldiers from the islands the navy decided to use this ship as the vessel to have all the admirals and generals to watch the testing of the new hydrogen or atomic bomb. Because this was the newest and nicest ship in the navy so they decided to use it.
- J: So you gave sick call to all these top officials?
- R: No, I decided to transfer, because I asked a guy if I should stay because the testing was history. But he told me that he would leave as soon as he could because I would have to salute an officer around every officer and I couldn’t relax or screw up and everyone was going to be on edge.
- J: So where did you go after that?
- R: Well I was reassigned to basic duty and I went over to the Oakland base and started painting ships but about 20 minutes into my painting the officer came up to me and told me I was reassigned to the USS Hanna which was leaving the next day to pick up soldiers on a three month trip.
- J: So what happened?
- R: Well he had a sailor drive me over to the base to get my things and I got on the ship and held sick call everyday like I did on the hospital ship.
- J: Where did you go?
- R: Well we stopped off at Pearl, and then went to Guam, picked up some soldiers and then picked up some more at Okinawa and Japan. We stopped off in Shanghai and let the soldiers out for some free time and to have some fun.
- J: So you just held sick call everyday?
- R: Yeah, except the captain wanted the boys from Okinawa to be able to go on shore-leave in China. So we had to inoculate a couple thousand of soldiers in 3 days. So we did it all-day and around the clock and got them all good to go.
- J: When did you leave the navy?
- R: After our three month travel across the Pacific and back my time was up and I was able to go home.
Palmer, Michael. “The Navy: The Oceanic Period, 1890-1945.” Department of Navy Historical Center. 19 April 2006. < http://www.history.navy.mil/history/history3.htm>.
- the United States fought what was primarily a naval conflict
- No single battle or campaign proved decisive, but a series of carrier battles fought in 1942 in the Coral Sea, at Midway, and in support of operations in the Solomon Islands turned the seemingly inexorable tide of the Japanese advance.
- amphibious operations, part of an island-hopping strategy, supported by carrier-borne aviation, carried the Americans back across the Pacific.
- Strikes from U.S. Navy carriers, ranging along the eastern coast of Honshu, added to the destruction