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 When the 77th Division infantry battalion was withdrawn.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.
Given what happened to DoD procurement after the 2nd Clinton Adm. annihilation of military specifications, which killed the configuration mgt, systems engineering & production engineering disciplines in defense contractors.
I've written about this issue for seven years starting on the Chicagoboyz weblog with a post titled:
"The 737 MAX and the Death of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
March 24th, 2019"
2/
In 2020 I was talking how the decay of systems engineering skills are affecting US Navy nuclear sub safe programs due to the lack of good systems engineering talent in Defense contractors.
The snail like pace of Western military procurement versus the Ukrainian fielding of an all-aspect stealth shaped OWA drone in less than a couple of years is very noticeable.
On the morning of 20 July 2025, a AFGSC airman at Minot AFB took his M18, still inside it's issued holster; and placed it on a desk.
It then went off, struck him in chest, and killed him
AFGSC issued a halt order on 21 July 2025 for use of M17/18 Modular Handgun System.
1/
As an ex-DoD procurement official, that letter is a procurement killing hammer.
This is going to hit SIG Sauer like a moderate sized asteroid in terms of DCMA corrective actions requests or "CAR."
2/
This AFGSC halt use order letter will be grounds for a level three corrective action request (CAR).
A DCMA level III CAR is defined as follows:
"A Level III Corrective Action Request (CAR) issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a serious action taken when there are significant contractual nonconformities.
It is directed to the supplier's top management and is just one step below the possibility of contract suspension or termination.
This type of CAR serves as a management tool to address critical issues that need immediate attention."
During WW2's combined bomber offensive, unitary incendiary bombs were found to be five times as effective as high explosive, mass for mass, at destroying buildings & structures.
But the bomber barons were hung up on the tonnage delivered, not their effects.
A single 100lb M47 bomb (left) was as effective as a M65 500lb general purpose HE bomb.
The Bomber Mafia in ETO fought incendiaries, as their bombers lacked the bomb station multiple release modifications for most of WW2, as the mass of bombs dropped was a 'success metric.'
2/
After the bomber barons -finally- surrendered to the realty of incendiaries operational effectiveness.
Avoiding any USAAF responsibility for the horror that was Dresden cemented the burying of the effectiveness of USAAF firebombs used in the ETO.
"Russian aircraft manufacturers have failed to create analogues of foreign bearings and electronic components for aircraft, said Anatoly Gaydansky, CEO of Aerocomposite."
Also applies to railway cassette bearings for Russian wagons and locomotives.
Russian Railway🧵 1/
Low friction roller bearings are a major technological strength of the West.
They are the difference between Rolls Royce jet engines lasting thousands of hours and Russian or Chinese jet engines lasting half as long.
Rail roller bearings are different in their application
2/
...but the computer control software for SKF & Amsted co-production machine tooling that Russia used is proprietary. That software left Russia in April/May 2022.
Russian rail system has been doing the whole 'just in time' inventory game
3/
The following is a serialized post from Strategypage -dot- com on the disastrously bad US Navy leadership decisions on fleet maintenance & where they have left US National Security.
"Surface Forces: USN Maintenance Mess
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July 11, 2025: The U.S. Navy is no longer able to maintain or repair its ships. In an earlier economy move, all the navy ship repair and maintenance facilities were sold off. The worst aspect of this was the loss of skilled shipyard workers. ...
2/
... The older ones were retiring and the navy did little to recruit and train replacements. Now, as the United States strives to expand its navy and repair and upgrade current ships, it finds that the resources are lacking. There are no easy solutions.
3/