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 When the 77th Division infantry battalion was withdrawn.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.
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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.
In the late 1960's to 1973 Arab-Israeli War US EW contractors could meet a two week cycle time with "quick reaction capability program" to bypass normal procurement procedures and speed urgently needed electronic systems to the battlefield.
2/3
Given the the triple handicaps of Silicon Valley practice of outsourcing of engineering talent, counting foreigners as 'diversity hires,' and ITAR restrictions for defense work.
The USA lacks the electronic engineering talent it did in the Apollo/Vietnam era to do 'QRCP.'
3/3
The mass production of China's "Corvus Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.
Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that is building the means CCP will use to invade Taiwan! 1/
The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.
China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip. 2/
Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?
Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for for far fewer US lives.
The mass production of China's "Corvu Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.
Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that are building the means CCP will use to invade them.
Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?
Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for far fewer US lives. 2/
The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.
China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip.
It turns out that, in addition to "TAF-10" USMC SCR-270 radars, the USMC 90mm Heavy AA Battalion SCR-584 radars saw quite a few of the Japanese Balloon Radar Decoys at Okinawa in/near Hagushi Beach, Yonton & Kadena air fields.
The Marine AA troops didn't know what they were, but their descriptions match known aerodynamic templates for them.
The balloon decoy tended to fall through different levels of wind direction & updrafts. So the decoy often went in different directions than the ground wind. 2/
The 1st Marine Provisional Anti-Aircraft Group Hqtrs saw the radar decoy balloons most often when the Japanese engaged in a night time tactic they referred to as "Ice-Tong attacks."
Pairs of Japanese planes established themselves in orbits just outside effective 90mm gun
The one of the previous drawing is of a captured decoy from Roi island in March 1944.
Roi was subject to several IJN air raids using this decoy, as USS New Mexico reported its effects 14 Feb 1944, later reported in a Section 22 Current Statement dated 3 April 1944. 2/
Somehow the report in General Douglas MacArthur's Section 22 radar hunters current statement was scrubbed from all the Feb-March 1944 period after action reports and war diaries of USS New Mexico I've checked.
There is an tragi-comic story behind this Russian foreign ministry claim.
The Russian use the term "direct participation" because of a lie by Chancellor Scholz a year ago when he claimed the computer system used to program the Taurus missiles... 1/