Lost Battalion Publishing Dispatch #24

Tanaka was commander of the 2nd Destroyer Squadron and in charge of the “Tokyo Express,” night resupply and reinforcement missions for Japanese troops trying to hold on to the island. US air superiority in the area (due to their possession of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal) prevented the use of slow cargo ships, so resupply was done by night using Tanaka’s fast destroyers.

On the night of December 11-12, Tanaka was personally conducting what the Japanese called a “Rat Transport” mission. Patrol Torpedo boats PT-37 and PT-40 intercepted the destroyers and fired torpedoes. One of them struck Teruzuki, leaving her burning and dead in the water. Tanaka was wounded in the attack and evacuated before the fire spread to the destroyer’s depth charges which exploded, sinking the ship.

Tanaka had fallen out of favor with the IJN High Command despite his modestly successful efforts in the no-win situation at Guadalcanal. A few weeks after being wounded, he was transferred to Singapore and then reassigned to shore duty in Burma for the remained of the war.

Marconi conducted the test using a 500-foot antenna held aloft by a kite at St. John’s. The message was simply three clicks, Morse code for the letter S. It was reported to have been received sporadically and faintly. The transmission was sent in the daytime, now known to be the worst possible time for long-distance radio communication since radio frequencies are heavily absorbed by the ionosphere during hours of sunlight.

To quiet his detractors, Marconi organized a better-documented and more thorough test in February 1902. He boarded SS Philadelphia, headed west from Great Britain, and carefully documented signals he received from his transmitter in Cornwall. The maximum distance was found to be achieved at night. Audio reception was recorded at a distance of 2,100 miles. This finally disproved scientists who believed radio would be limited to line-of-sight distances. In January 1903, Marconi transmitted a greeting from President Theodore Roosevelt to King George VII from a station in Massachusetts.

The commercial success of radio transmission was slow to follow. Marconi built high-powered radio stations on both sides of the Atlantic and began to communicate with passenger liners at sea, sending news that was then published in the ship’s onboard newspapers. A regular trans-Atlantic radiotelegraph service was begun in 1907, but Marconi’s company continued to struggle financially.

The value of radio communications was finally demonstrated to the general public on April 15, 1912, by radio operators employed by the Marconi International Maritime Communications Company aboard RMS Titanic. Jack Phillips and Harold Bride radioed a message from the sinking liner that was received by RMS Carpathia. Bride survived and Marconi took a New York Times reporter aboard Carpathia to interview him when she docked in New York. Lord Samuel, Britain’s Postmaster General (the official in charge of radiotelegraphy at the time), said, “Those who have been saved, have been saved through one man, Mr. Marconi.”

In 1909, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Braun “in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.”

For whatever it’s worth, Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik reported last year that an Iraqi interpreter attached to the operation claims Hussein was not actually hiding in the hole when captured but was “probably praying” because he was wearing a traditional prayer robe. The same source claims that crates containing “millions of dollars,” and “gold bars” were found.

Later, at Iwo Jima, Stryker’s men suffer heavy casualties during the landings. The survivors are among the men chosen to make the charge up Mount Suribachi. While the squad is resting during a lull in the fighting, Stryker is killed by a Japanese soldier who emerges from a spider hole. Moments later his men witness the iconic flag raising.

The idiom “Lock and Load” was popularized by the film. Though there is some dispute as to its origin, it describes the process of locking back the bolt of an M1 Garand rifle before loading an 8-round clip into the magazine.

The war declaration was enacted on the second day of the legislative session by an Assembly of members hand-picked by Manuel Noriega. Noriega’s attempt to fix the country’s May elections had backfired and in August he had dissolved the duly elected Assembly and replaced it. The new Assembly declared Noriega head of state, giving him the title of Maximum Leader. The Maximum Leader continued to lead for five days before US forces invaded and deposed him.

Both the northern thrust, by 6th Panzer Army, and the southern, by 7th Army, were stalled by unexpectedly fierce resistance from heavily outnumbered Allied formations. At Elsenborn Ridge, the 99th US Infantry stopped the advance of the best-equipped German troops, including four SS Panzer divisions some of which were equipped with Tiger II tanks. Outnumber 5 to 1, the 99th inflicted casualties at a rate of 18 to 1 and forced 6th Panzer Army away from the shortest route to Antwerp.

In the center, 5th Panzer Army fared better. A pincer movement surrounded two regiments of the US 106th Infantry division and forced them to surrender. In three days, the Germans advance 15 to 20 miles before running into elements of the 10th US Armored division that had been hastily rushed in to defend the vital road junctions at the town of Bastogne. 101st Airborne division would soon arrive at Bastogne, setting the stage for the epic siege that would follow in the days to come.

“Battle of the Bulge,” the better-known moniker for the campaign, was provided by American war correspondent Larry Newman. Newman was shown maps of the German penetration by General George Patton and thought the word “bulge” was more evocative for his readers than the proper military term “salient.”

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