One of the most difficult issues in researching & writing about electronic warfare in WW2’s Pacific Theater is it’s systematic exclusion from the USN’s official histories. This exclusion was as systematic was it was intentional.

1/
The war diaries of the US Navy are both digitized and available on the Fold3.com service.

A simple search on the radar decoy code name “Window” in the WW2 War Diaries gets thousands of hits.
2/
fold3.com
Window was one of the names for radar dipole decoys dropped from A/C, rockets, bombs and artillery.

The Japanese were both technically skilled and increasingly proficient in its use by 1945.

And, like those thousands of Fold3.com war diary hits, their efforts
3/
...using window didn't make USN WW2 institutional history.

My trail of Japanese window use started with a spread sheet from MacArthur’s Sec. 22 files that detailed 53 locations and 54 specific instances of Japanese window use.

These occurred between 31 Aug. 1943 & Jan. 1945. 4/
The first window use against a SWPA radar was at Hammond Island, Queenland, Australia.

This Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) radar site worked with No. 3 Fighter Sector (3FS) in covering the Torres Strait facing New Guinea, which operated between 1942 and 1943.
5/
The Japanese plane that did it was likely a IJN flying boat operating from Salamaua.

6/
The last Section 22 tactical window reference was from Jan 1945 to a cache of window captured from a belly landed Jill bomber found in Caguray River Bed (Philippines).
7/
Lt. Commander Sudo Hajime’s gima-shi “deceiving paper" was 1st used a Guadalcanal in May 1943.

In addition to pre-dating the Hammond Island drop, this was well before the Operation Gomora firebombing raid on Hamburg.

8/
quora.com/Did-the-Japane…
The USMC 10th Defense Battalion March 1944 war diary while on Kwajalein shows successful Japanese air raids on 8 March 1944 were aided by the use of gima-shi radar countermeasures vs it's 2-meter band SCR-268 GFC radars.

9/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Anti…
SSgt Jacob Marty from USMC Air Warning Squadron-1 was killed in that March 1944 attack.

Subsequently the 10th's SCR-268's were replaced by US Army SCR-584 to support 90mm gun while USN Mark 20 radars were adapted to ground based searchlight work.

10/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Ai…
The Digital collection of the WW2 National Museum has a nice interview with Thomas Kolesa, a US Marine Mk 20 radar operator at Okinawa.

11/

ww2online.org/view/thomas-ko…
Thomas Kolesa modified his Mk 20 at Okinawa to extend it's range from 25,000 to 30,000 yards when the Japanese figured out it's range based on when their planes were being illuminated.

/12
Returning to 1944, the 1st US Navy mention of a warship seeing Japanese window in FOLD3.com was 12 Feb 1944 at ~0200 in the morning by USS Mustin (DD413).

She was escorting CVE's off Roi Island.
13/
Pretty much every USMC amphibious landing from Eniwetok to Okinawa saw Japanese use of window.

The USMC early warning teams attached to IIIMAC & US Army XXIVth Corps at Okinawa recorded 43 separate window drops the nights of 12-19 April 1945.

14/
Yet how many naval histories of the Pacific War mention that even once?

There are a lot of history PhD's awaiting the ambitious willing to run this down.

/End
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More from @TrentTelenko

8 Jul
For those of you interested in WW2 electronic warfare, there are Paul Woodage's (@WW2TV) earlier presentations with Matt Bone's radar hunting Typhoons here:

The Radar War Before D-Day ()

1/
And Paul's presentation with Thomas Withington's presentation with RAF 100 Group here: ()

2/
Plus a 7 July 2021 one just posted by the History Indoor channel titled

The Darkest Moonlit Night: RAF Bomber Command's raid on Nuremberg 30/31 March 1944 here:

()

3/
Read 4 tweets
7 Jul
Paul Woodage - @WW2TV - just streamed the latest social media presentation of the Section 22 Special Interest Group on his Youtube channel.

This thread is going to include the 36 slides that were presented so people can read them at their leisure


1/
Slide #1

2/
Slide #2

3/
Read 38 tweets
6 Jul
The Section 22 Special Interest Group's presentation on Gen MacArthur's secret radar hunters will be on WW2TV tomorrow, July 7, 2021.

Check it out.
Section 22 was a secret WW2 radar intelligence unit in the S.W. Pacific.

This tweet thread hosts an 82 slide information packet that was released over the six days prior to the Feb 2021 CIMSEC Bilgepumps podcast on Section 22.

These are the published articles of the Section 22 special Interest Group between Mar 2015 and Feb 2020.

Read 4 tweets
18 Jun
@idreesali114 General Mark Milley is deluding himself.

A UH-60M Blackhawk has a radius of action of 368 miles. The PLA Z-20 Blackhawk variant has improved 5-blade rotor system and more powerful engines.

It is 130 km from the Mainland to Northern Taiwan. ImageImage
@idreesali114 The capability of Mainland China to effect "bolt from the blue" coup de main vs. Taiwan grows with it's Z-20 fleet.

One hundred Z-20's isn't decisive.

Somewhere north of 300 Z-20's and things get dicey for Taiwan. Image
@idreesali114 At 1,000(+) Z-20, PLA can air lift a light infantry division (11,000 troops) to Taiwan every six hours.

And some portion of those Z-20's will be stealth helicopters.

The PLA will have 1,000 Z-20 no later than 2025.
thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4… ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
16 Jun
@Drachinifel
@AC_NavalHistory
@ArmouredCarrier

So...individual human vertical envelopment in the maritime, amphibious, & urban combat environment is a near term thing.

What can a section of Marines debarking a Merlin onto 200kg hoverboards below the radar horizon at 20km do?
Nor are squadies the only payload these multicopter "lift rings" can move around.

The Ukrainian “Thunder” loitering drone recce-ammunition uses the lift ring staging concept to lift it's munition and then acts as a radio relay
naturasigorta.com/ukrainian-loit…
Conceptually, staged drones are a partially disposable form of air to air refueling.

This reusable multi-copter staged munition drone concept certainly makes a USS Unicorn style VTOL aircraft & drone carrier a while lot more interesting.
Read 11 tweets
15 Jun
@GreenSpike5 @RALee85 While the idea of doing something like this to an Iron Dome is attractive. It falls apart on financial grounds.

The US Army's 227mm GMLRS runs $110,000 a round after 50,000 have been built and production lines are running at 9,000 units a year.

@GreenSpike5 @RALee85 The US Army likes to keep upgrading the GMLRS baseline over time. So their whole mass production cost reduction curve gets d*cked to h-ll and gone.

Yet even if the US Army accepted 100m versus 10m CEP, you are still in the $25,000-to-$40,000 per rocket range.
@GreenSpike5 @RALee85 Twelve Grad launchers with 40 rockets each is 480 rockets.

At $25K to $40K per rocket, you are talking about $12 million to $19.2 million for a saturation guided rocket attack.

That amounts to a virtual kill on your rocket ammo supply.
Read 4 tweets

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