SS CARIBSTAR SUNK BY U-175

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Here is the case of a steam merchant....on a short haul...from Trinidad to Georgetown, British Guiana....in ballast...un-escorted.....and she no more that gets out of the gate and "BANG!!!!"  she gets tagged by the lurking U-boat....U-175

There was loss of life....not so much when the first torpedo hit....but it was when the second hit and blew up the ammo that she had aboard.....

Anyway this ole girl didn't win the battle.....but her survivors were picked up by PC-469.....and I have a 'first hand' accounting of how the captain of PC-469 dealt with all of the wounded.....this is something that is not told all that often.....

Believe me....it is worth a read

Just click on the link below....it is only three pages but the event is interesting.

SS CARIBSTAR

M S BIDWELL

She tangled with the German U-boat U-160....and the result was the ship and crew were engulfed in a fire storm of burning oil

You can read about it below...just click the link.

MS BIDWELL

OPERATION OLYMPIC

THE BATTLE THAT NEVER HAPPENED

Scheduled to be an assault three times the magnitude of the Normandy landings, the invasion of Japan's home islands was also expected to be the bloodiest battle ever fought.

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Myoki Ushami still remembers her defiant teacher’s words well. “We’d been taken from Nagoya far into the countryside to escape the fire bombings by the American B-29s.  Our teacher took delight in describing every detail of how we girls, age 12 to 15, were going to kill the American soldiers with knives, spears and stakes before they could rape us when they invaded our Japanese homeland.” “Everyone will fight beside our valiant army when the Yankee infidels come,” Myoki’s teacher vouched. “They’ll find 28-million civilians ready to sacrifice their lives to defend our homeland.”  Were his commands a fanatical promise, or the empty boast of a dispirited warrior?  Luckily, Myoki would never know. 

Many know very little about this perposed battle......and actually it will knock your socks off when reading about it....

OPERATION OLYMPIC

Hope you enjoy the article

SS ACME.....ENCOUNTER WITH U-BOAT

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The SS Acme was a Steam Tanker....and she did have some years on her.....being built in 1916 and owned and operated by Socony Vacuum oil Co, she was not in the best of shape but she was doing her part in helping the war effort.

Well on March 17th, 1942 she met up with the Greman Submarine U-124 about a mile west of Diamond Shoals Light Buoy, North Carolina....and all hell broke loose......

The story and the outcome of the encounter can be read by clicking on this link:

SS ACME

NO DECK TOO SHORT

TRIBUTE TOO THE "BABY FLATTOPS" OF WW II

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Officially they called these floating airfields CVE's....but among the boys in blue they were better known as "Baby Flattops."

You know now days many types of ships are perserved as memorialized museum's...or convention centers on the water....but of all the 122 of these "Baby Flattops"...none are afloat in any shape or fashion.

Actually the're purpose was to help out with providing a mid ocean air umbrela for the many merchant convoys that was going back and forth from point A to point B in the Atlantic waters.  Now I don't know if you know this or not....but many of these CVE's were merchant ships themselves....at least that is how they started out....then some were pulled from the group and converted to the "Flattops."

So....here is some of there history....some you may alread know....some you may not.  If I stirred up some interest for you to let your eyeballs dance over a few words....you can click on this link to get to the article

NO DECK TOO SHORT

Hope y'all enjoy the article