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| At random: A church in Kyoto, Japan calls its congregation to worship with a bell from a submarine. The bell, from the submarine USS RAY was purchased for the church, and was transported to Yokosuka, Japan by another submarine, the USS RONQUIL. |
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Pedro |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 2974 Location: Liverpool, England | Subject: The Survivor In September 1944, nine American airmen survived when their planes were shot down off the coast the tiny Pacific island of Chichijima. Eight of the young men were captured by the Japanese, tortured and eaten. The ninth drifted out to sea and was remarkably rescued by the US Navy. His name became a household word in America, and in 1989, he became famous worldwide. ……………………………. In 1944, he was part of a mission against the Japanese occupied island of Chichijima, 1000km southwest of Japan. While flying over, the Avenger was struck by flak, setting his engine ablaze. When the Avenger could fly no further, he and his crewmates decided to bail out. But while his parachute opened cleanly, one of his crewmate's didn't. The third did not escape the plane before it crashed into the water. The 20-year-old lieutenant found himself the sole survivor of the crash, floating in the Pacific on an inflatable raft. ………………………………. The fates of eight other US airmen who landed on Chichijima in raids on the island that month brings his luck into stark perspective. The other Americans suffered horrible deaths as prisoners-of-war, ranging from beheading to being stabbed to death with bamboo spears and bayonets. Their deaths and the treatment of their bodies were documented in subsequent war crimes tribunals but never published to spare their families additional grief. It was not until the publication of James Bradley's book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage in 2003 that the awful truth became known. Several of the airmen were sliced up and served as the main course in a lavish banquet held by senior Japanese officers on Chichijima, including a general and an admiral. The cannibalism did not come out of hunger. The top brass on Chichijima had plenty of food. The atrocity was a gesture of scorn. A Japanese medical orderly recounted how a surgeon sliced open one US crewman for a prime cut. "Dr Teraki cut open the chest and took out the liver. I removed a piece of flesh from the flyer's thigh, weighing about six pounds and measuring four inches wide, about a foot long," the orderly said in a war crimes trial. Another crewman's liver was served in small pieces with soy sauce and vegetables. The rescue The last surviving airman in his life raft had a terrifying wait in the hopes of rescue, drifting only a few kilometers off the shore of Chichijima. A Japanese boat was sent out to capture him, but another plane in his squadron dived into it, scaring it off. The other planes circled him as a protective escort, albeit one very high up. But his rescue did not come from above, but from below. From underneath him an enormous dark leviathan emerged to retrieve him. "I saw this thing coming out of the water and I said to myself, ‘Jeez, I hope it’s one of ours'," he would say later. It was the USS Finback, a submarine on its tenth war patrol. Film footage shows him climbing up the side of the Finback with the help of the submariners. The young airman? George H.W. Bush. 56 seconds of very historic footage on the link below. https://youtu.be/be3N4LaFekM Pedro  | ||
| Ric |
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Plankowner Posts: 9164 Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | |||
| Sid Harrison |
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Great Sage of the Sea Posts: 590 Location: Colton, NY | |||
| Pedro |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 2974 Location: Liverpool, England | |||
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