In 1943 the Harlem Hellfighters 369th regiment was broken up and organized into the 369th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion and the 870th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion.
The African American 870th AAA AW Btn was shipped to Okinawa, Lt. Col. W. F. Lucas commanding.
The 870th was to guard one of the airfields to be built in Southern Okinawa after the island was over run at the end of Apr 1945.
The IJA & May rains put an end to that plan. 3/
870th AAA AW Btn was armed with 16 each 40m autocannons and M-51 quad-Maxon mount .50 caliber machine guns in four batteries with four of each weapons. 4/
When the 870th Harlem Hellfighters arrived at Okinawa. Their 40mm and .50 caliber weapons were taken away from them. They were issued rifles, carbines, machine guns, bazookas and mortars and sent to Kerama Retto.
The group of islands was a major Naval base with a problem. 5/
The problem was that the islands in the group had not been properly cleared of Japanese resistance by the assault troops.
While more than 350 IJA suicide boats were captured or destroyed at Kerama Retto. When the 77th Division infantry battalion was withdrawn. The garrison 6/
...crewing them came out to contest American control of Kerama Retto.
On 11 May a landing party lead by USN Cmdr Drexler, the C.O. of LST Flotilla 47 went to Aka Shima and was ambushed by hold out Japanese soldiers.
Drexler's bayonetted body was recovered the next day. 7/
Midnight 11/12 May a Japanese infantry force assaulted Tokashiki town with rifles, Bangalore torpedo's and satchel charges
On the 16 May 1945 at Zamami Shima a USMC SCR-270 radar fuel was set on fire by infiltrators.
The ensuing fire badly burned 3 officers and 31 enlisted.
8/
With all of this going on, the 870th was converted to infantry to mop up the Japanese the 77th Infantry Division left behind.
This is a short description of their work from the late 1945 report Antiaircraft Activities of the Pacific War. 9/
This is the Tenth Army After Action report Anti-aircraft Staff Section describing the 870th's infantry work in Kerama Retto.
10/
And this is the description of the 870th's infantry work in the article "Activities of the Tenth Army AAA," Anti-Aircraft Journal July-Aug 1949. See the passage from Pages 9 - 10 below.
11/
This map of the US Navy seaplane sectors searched from Kerama Retto gives you an idea of how vital the work of "Harlem's Hellfighters" was in securing the island group was in WW2...and how little recognized.
Actually, the Soviet Union in the "Great Patriotic War" did suffer worse casualties and win.
It is that fact which powers the "Russian WW2 exceptionalism" myth that Putin used to zombify Russians over 20 years to make suicidal assaults over and over again.
Historic war mobilization production curves are heavily back loaded.
That is, the production rates of B-17's and B-24's bombers in the 3rd quarter of 1943 versus the 3rd quarter of 1944 showed a much higher production rate in late 1944.
2/
We are mid-way through the 3rd quarter of the 2025 where Ukraine's OWA drone annual production goal was 40,000.
Ukraine should be around 850-950 OWA drones a week in August 2025 and will be close to 1,200 a week in the 4th qtr. of the 2025.
Both polities had monumental hubris, the conviction that all was permitted, and that they were invincible.
The committed Nazis still believed they were winning in March-April 1945.
Japanese 'Yamato-damashii' beliefs took nukes to break.
2/
This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.
Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?
These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...
2/
..."every soldier is a logistical manual laborer when not in combat".
Water is heavy. Pipelines are more efficient that trucks. Yet all we are seeing is Russian water trucks?
Who stole the Russian Army tactical pipelines? Or were they nothing but disinformation?
3/3
While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)
2/
...claiming Russia is "obviously winning."
We are at the same time seeing economic signs of Russian "End Run Production."
The Russian wartime economy is functioning hand to mouth with oil sales revenues because all of the foreign exchange reserves are spent or frozen.
3/