Thanks for the vids Gary. Makes me think of a Jacques Cousteau program that I saw many years ago where they dived at Truk Lagoon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truk_Lagoon
In 1969, the famous French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and his team explored Truk Lagoon. Following Cousteau’s 1971 television documentary about the lagoon and its ghostly remains, the place became a scuba diving paradise, drawing wreck diving enthusiasts from around the world to see its numerous, virtually intact sunken ships.
Operation Hailstone, the attack on Truk Atoll: the Japanese “Pearl Harbor” of the Pacific.
February 16-17, 1944
by Rear Admiral James D. Ramage (USN, ret.),
Executive Officer of Bombing 10 during the February 1944 Truk attack.
Links to article:
http://www.cv6.org/1944/truk/default.htm
http://www.cv6.org/1944/truk/truk_2.htm
Truk had a magnificent harbor and contained four airfields. Carrier aircraft alone would take on this large land-based air defense. The atoll was the major Japanese fleet base in the Pacific and was the anchorage of the Japanese Combined Fleet…
…In addition to destroying or heavily damaging all installations in the second of the raids on Truk that had not been moved underground, the force shot down 59 aircraft and destroyed another 34 on the ground. Only 12 Japanese aircraft were serviceable when the task force left on 1 May. Our losses were 26 aircraft lost in combat. More than half of the 46 airmen shot down were rescued, some inside the lagoon.
That was the end of Truk. Its large garrison that survived the raids was left to starve as we took the war farther west to the Marianas.
“The Pacific Fleet has returned at Truk the visit made by the Japanese Fleet at Pearl Harbor…”
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz
SEE ALSO:
Truk Lagoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truk_Lagoon
Operation Hailstone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hailstone
MODERN CHUUK ATOLL (FORMERLY TRUK ATOLL)
TRUK ATOLL IN WORLD WAR II
Map showing the main features of the Japanese base at Truk Atoll, based on US Navy intelligence at the time of the attack.
From History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, by Samuel Eliot Morison, Volume VII: Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942 - April 1944, p 318:
The larger islands of Truk Lagoon, with installations and facilities as of 17 February 1944:
*Moen (Haru Shima “Spring”) - Bomber strip 3340 ft., combined seaplane base and fighter strip, with 68 planes, coast defense and anti-aircraft guns, radar, torpedo storage, torpedo boat base.
*Dublon (Natsu Shima “Summer”) - Main town and docks, main seaplane base with 27 planes, submarine base, naval HQ, 2500-ton floating drydock, oil and torpedo storage, magazines, coast defense and anti-aircraft guns, aviation repair and supply station.
*Fefan (Aki Shima “Autumn”) - The supply center, with pier, warehouses, ammunition dumps, search radar, two 5-inch dual-purpose guns.
*Uman (Fuyu Shima “Winter”) - Search radar, torpedo boat base.
*Eten (Take Jima “Bamboo”) - Airstrip 3340 x 270 ft., revetments, 20 planes fully equipped; 180 planes awaiting pilots or repairs.
*Param (Kaide Jima “Maple”) - Airstrip 3900 x 335 ft., with 40 planes, eight 5-inch, four 80-mm dual-purpose, three medium anti-aircraft guns.
*Ulalu (Nichiyo To “Sunday”) - Radio direction finder station.
*Udot (Getsuyo To “Monday”) - Three 8-inch dual-purpose guns.
*Tol (Suiyo To “Wednesday”) - Four 6-inch coast defense guns and a battery of anti-aircraft guns, radar, torpedo boat base.
From pp 316-317:
For Truk, capital of the Carolines under German and Japanese rule, is situated almost in the geographical center of Micronesia. Possessing the best fleet anchorage anywhere in the Mandates, it was very valuable to Japan during the first two years of the war. Indeed, the main motive of Imperial Headquarters in taking Rabaul, Lae and Salamaua early in the war was to protect Truk from Allied air attack and reconnaissance. Important as it was to the Japanese, Americans were inclined to overemphasize its strength, as is evident by such deceptive phrases as “Japanese Pearl Harbor,” and “Gibraltar of the Pacific.”
The combined area of all the islands is not equal to that of Oahu; the largest town, Dublon, never had more than 1200 buildings or facilities for more than temporary repairs to naval vessels. But the Combined Fleet was based on Truk Lagoon from July 1942, and its flagship, super-battleship Musashi, was generally stationed there. Commander Sixth Fleet ( submarines ) kept his headquarters on Dublon Island during the same period. In addition, Truk was an important air base and staging point for planes between Japan and the South Pacific. Fortifications were started as early as 1940, and all defensive works were speeded up in January 1944; but Truk was weakly defended, by American standards. Some 7500 Army troops and 3000 to 4000 sailors and aviation personnel were stationed there in mid-February 1944; but there were only 40 anti-aircraft guns in the archipelago, and all fire control radar had been lost when the ship bringing it thither was sunk by a United States submarine.
Geographically, Truk resembled nothing that American forces had yet encountered; it was a drowned mountain range inside a coral ring. Take a coral atoll of the type already familiar in the Marshalls, the reef shaped like a rounded equilateral triangle with 35-mile legs; dump into the lagoon a dozen volcanic islands rising to 1500 feet above sea level; scatter about the lagoon 30 or more islets; and you have Truk. The Japanese named the islands after the four seasons, trees, and the days of the week.
These wooded islands, standing out prominently and easy to identify, may be approached by anyone of four passes through the reef, all of which were defended by coast defense guns on their flanking islets. The Northeast Pass, nearest entrance ( 10 miles ) to Dublon and to the Eten airfield, also had been mined. Any surface attack on Truk, therefore, would first have to break a passage through one of these strongly defended passes and then assault through, well fortified positions inside, island by island. The Japanese atoll commander, Rear Admiral Chuichi Hara, remarked after the war that when hearing American radio broadcasts refer to his bailiwick as “The Gibraltar of the Pacific” he only feared lest the Americans discover how weak it was. Its essential strength was given by nature. Naval gunfire from outside the reef could reach neither the islands nor the fleet anchorage in the lagoon. But air power could.
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