CHRONICLES OF HEROIC ARIZONA CHI

CHRONICLES OF HEROIC ARIZONA CHINESE AMERICAN SERVICEMEN OF WORLD WAR II

Even before Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt and the American military chiefs had agreed on a common strategy with Great Britain: Germany, the most powerful and dangerous of the Axis powers, must be defeated first. Only enough military resources would be devoted to the Pacific to hold the Japanese west of the Alaska-Hawaii-Panama defensive line.

The Pacific was a naval war, and little U.S. Naval power was required in the Atlantic. Aside from the U-boats, the Germans posed no threat in the Atlantic waters. Almost the entire British Navy was deployed in the Atlantic, thus, American naval power could be committed to the Pacific war.

From the beginning of the war, rivalry between the Army and the Navy marked the conflict. The inter-service rivalries and great distances prevented a single unified commander from being named. Instead, the Pacific was divided into area commands. General MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) and Admiral Chester Nimitz's Pacific Ocean Areas (POA). The POA, in turn, was subdivided into North Pacific, Central Pacific, and South Pacific commands. Admiral Nimitz retained commander of the Central Pacific. General MacArthur became Supreme Commander Allied Powers (SCAP) in the last days of the war.

Fighting in the Pacific was unlike fighting in Europe. The Pacific was a seemingly endless series of amphibious landings and island-hopping campaigns where naval power, air power, and shipping were of primary importance. The soldiers and marines who assaulted the countless beaches in the Pacific war was brutal and deadly. Japanese defenders always dug in, reinforced their bunkers with coconut logs, and fought until they were killed. They almost never surrendered.

Japan, largely lacking of natural resources to feed its industries, looked overseas for supplies of strategic materials such as ore and petroleum. Before 1939, the U.S. was Japan's major supplier. But President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull shut off American supplies in an effort to force the Japanese to end hostilities against China. The Japanese had long sought the resource-rich British and Dutch colonies of Southeast Asia, and as the U.S. trade embargo tightened, the Japanese increasingly looked southward for raw material and strategic resources.

Only the U.S. stood in Japan's path. The U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was the only force capable of challenging Japan's navy, and American bases in the Philippines could threaten lines of communications between the Japanese home islands and the East Indies. Every oil tanker heading for Japan would have to pass by American-held Luzon.

From these needs and constraints, Japan's war plans emerged. First, its navy would neutralize the American fleet with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan would also seize American's Central Pacific bases at Guam and Wake Islands. and invade the Philippines. With American naval power crippled, Japan's military would be free to seize Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies in a series of rapid amphibious operations. Japan would the establish a defensive ring around its newly conquered empire by fortifying islands in the south and central Pacific. Japan's leaders were convinced the Americans, once involved in the European war, would be willing to negotiate peace in the Pacific.

To Block Japanese ambitions, the U.S. Army had scant resources. Two small forces, the garrison in the Territory of Hawaii and General Douglas MacArthur's command in the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Both were only peacetime organizations. Yet, these forces would face overwhelming odds in the event of war. The thousands of islands that comprised the Philippines lay 8,000 miles from the American west coast, but only 200 miles from Japanese held Formosa. To defend them, Gen. MacArthur had the Philippine Scouts. He could call on additional thousands of Philippine militia, but they were untrained and ill equipped. Lt. General Walter C. Short's Hawaiian command held 43,000 Army troops, including tow infantry divisions, coast artillery, air corps and Support troops. The US had equivalent of three divisions in the Pacific to stand in the path of the Imperial Japanese Army.

American strategists had developed two plans to counter possible Japanese aggress-the Navy to fight across the central pacific for battle with the Japanese fleet. The Army saw no way to save the Philippines and favored a strategic defense along an Alaska-Hawaii-Panama line. Seaman William Jewe was in the U.S. Coast Guard manning these defensive perimeter.

All of the efforts proved to be too little, too late. The Japanese worked to perfection. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese paralyzed the Pacific Fleet in its attack on Pearl Harbor. In the Philippines, Japanese fliers destroyed most of General MacArthur’s Japanese air force on the ground. Japanese forces took Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies in rapid succession. By March 1942, the Japanese had conquered an empire. Only General MacArthur's American-Filipino army still held out on the main island of Luzon.

A Japanese army landed in northern Luzon on 22 December 1941 and began to push southward toward Manila. Al first General MacArthur was inclined to meet the Japanese on the beaches, but he had no air force and the U.S. Navy's tiny Asiatic fleet was in no position to challenge Japan at sea. The U.S. regulars and Philippine Scouts were excellent troops but were outnumbered and without air support.

General MacArthur decided to withdraw to the Bataan peninsula. There he could pursue a strategy of defense and delay, shortening his line and using the mountainous, jungle-covered terrain to his advantage. Perhaps he could even hold out long enough for a relief force to be mounted in the U.S.

But too many people were crowded into Bataan, with too little food and ammunition. By March it was clear that help from the U.S. was not coming. Nevertheless, the American-Filipino force, wracked by dysentery and malaria, continued to fight. In March 1941, President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to escape to Australia. He left his command to Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright and to Major General Edward King, who on 9 April was forced to surrender the exhausted and starving Bataan force. General Wainwright continued to resist on the small fortified island of Corregidor in Manila Bay until 6 May under constant Japanese artillery and air bombardment. The Japanese troops stormed ashore on the island, General Wainwright agreed to surrender Corregidor and all other troops on the island. By 9 May 1942, the battle for the Philippines had ended, though many Americans and Filipinos took to the hills and continued a guerrilla war against the Japanese.

The courageous defense of Bataan had ended. Marching them toward camps in northern Luzon, the Japanese denied food and water to the sick and starving men. When the weakest began to struggle, guards shot or bayoneted them and threw the bodies on the side of the road. Japanese guards may have killed 600 Americans and 10,000 Filipino prisoners. News of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had outraged the American people, but news of the "Bataan Death March" filled them with bitter hatred.

By May 1942, the Japanese had succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. If their forces could move into the Solomon Islands and the southern coast of New Guinea, they could threaten Australia and cut the American line of communications to MacArthur's base there. If they could occupy Midway Island, only 1,000 miles from Honolulu, they could force the American fleet to pull back to the west coast..

THE TIDE TURNS

Japanese overconfidence lay the seeds of Japan's first major defeat. Japan's fortunes turned sour in mid-1942. Their uninterrupted string of victories ended with history's first great carrier battles. In May 1942, the Battle of the Coral Sea halted a new Japanese offensive in the south Pacific. A month later the Japanese suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Midway in the central Pacific. Chief Petty Officer John Jung served under Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid during the great battles in the Pacific. Aviation Machinist Mate Sol Levitt served on the U.S. Ranger Aircraft Carrier.

Seaman Second Class Arnold Smith was on the USS President Hayes, where they won the Navy Unit Commendation for exceptional meritorious service in action against Japanese aircrafts, shore batteries, submarines and mines in the South Pacific campaign.

The American resources were slim. When MacArthur arrived in Australia in March 1942, he found, to his dismay, that he had a little to command. Australian militia and a few thousand U.S. airmen and service troops were his only resources. The Australian 7th Division soon returned from North Africa, and two U.S. National Guard divisions, the 32nd and the 41st, arrived in April and May. MacArthur had enough planes for two bomber squadrons and six fighter squadrons. The American and Australian forces were able to begin two small counteroffensives. With only these forces, MacArthur set out to take Papua, while Admiral Nimitz, with forces almost equal, attacked Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Of all the places where GIs fought, Guadalcanal and Papuan peninsula may have been the worst. Separated by 800 miles of ocean, the two were similarly unhealthy in terrain and climate. The weather on both was hot and wet, rainfall may exceed 200 inches a year, and during the rainy season sometimes 8 to 10 inches of rain occur daily. Temperatures in December reached the high eighties, and humidity seldom falls below 80 percent. Terrain and vegetation are equally forebodes-dark, humid, jungle-covered mountain island, and smelly swamps along the coasts with insects abound. The soldiers and marines wet every day; most fought battles while wracked by chills and fever. For every two soldiers lost in battle, five were lost to disease especially malaria, dengue, dysentery, or scrub typhus, a dangerous illness carried by jungle mites. Almost all suffered "jungle rot." ulcers caused by skin discase.

Guadalcanal lay at the southeastern end of the Solomons, an island chain 600 miles long. Navy carriers and other warships supported the landings but they could not provide clear air or naval superiority. The marines landed on 7 August 1942 without opposition and quickly overran an important airfield. The carriers sailed away almost as soon as the marines went ashore. Then Japanese warships surprised the supporting U.S. Naval vessels at the Battle of Salvo Island and quickly sank four heavy cruisers and one destroyer. Ashore, the Japanese Army fought furiously to regain the airfield. Through months of fighting, the marines barely held on. But gradually land-based aircraft were ferried in to provide air cover. The Japanese continued to pour men into the fight for Guadalcanal.

Slowly American resources grew, while the Japanese were unable to make up their losses. In October, soldiers of the American Division joined the battle. In November, the Navy won a smashing victory in the waters off shore and in early 1943, the army 25th Infantry Division was committed as well.

The Japanese lost the ability to supply their forces and they began to stave in the jungles. But not until February, six months after the initial landing - Guadalcanal was finally secured.

Meanwhile, 800 miles to the west on the eastern peninsula of New Guinea, another offensive began. Even after the Battle of Coral Sea, the Japanese persisted in their efforts to take Port Moresby, a strategic town on New Guinea's southern coast. In late July 1, 1942, they landed on the north coast of the huge, mountainous island and began to make their way south toward Port Moresby, across the towering Owen Stanley mountains. Almost impassable, the trail they followed was a quagmire under constant rain. Supply became impossible; food ran short, fever and dysentery set in. They were defeated just short of their goal by Australian defenses, the Japanese retreated. General MacArthur decided to launch a counteroffensive against the fortified town of Buna and other Japanese held positions on the northern coast. He sent portions of the Australian 7th and the U.S. 32nd Divisions over the same mountainous jungle tracks used by the Japanese. The result was the same. By the time his troops reached the northern coast, they were almost too fatigued to fight. Around Buna and nearby village of Gona, the Japanese hold up in coconut-log bunkers that were indestructible to small arms and mortar fire. The Americans lacked artillery, flamethrowers, and tanks. While they struggled to dig the defenders out, malnutrition, fever, and jungle rot ravaged the troops. Like the troops on Guadalcanal, the Aussies and the men of the 32nd barely held on. Cpl Jick Lee was with the 190th quartermaster Gas Company in the participation of the battle of New Guinea.

The growing American air power made it impossible for the Japanese Navy to resupply their forces ashore, and their troops began to run short of food and ammunition. By December, they were on the edge of starvation. January 1943, the last Japanese resistance was eliminated.

While Nimitz crossed the central Pacific, MacArthur pushed along the New Guinea coast, preparing for his return to the Philippines. Without carriers, his progress was slower. After cleaning the Buna area in January 1943, MacArthur spent the next year conquering northeastern New Guinea, the eight months that followed, Admiralties, Bora Bora, Biak, Netherland West Indies, PFC Don Woo was in most of those islands. He was later awarded the Bronze Star for his heroic actions. Sgt. Jack Hom also saw action at the island of Panay and was wounded and received the Purple Heart Medal. Cpl. Don C. Tang was nearby with the 13th Air Force was able to look him up while he was in the hospital at Leyte.

MacArthur's Island leaps were measured precisely by the range of his fighterbombers. The primary task of Nimitz's carriers was to support and defend the landing forces. As soon as the landing and islands were secured, land-based planes and personnel were brought in to free the carriers for other operations. Because he had to cover hit landing with be land-based planes, was limited to 200 miles. Further, he had to build airfields as he went. As each Island was secured the 13th Air Force moved in with their aircraft and personnel. With them came the planes, men, and equipment Cpl. Den C. Tang was among those personnel arriving. Almost nightly, they would have bomb raids from the Japanese aircrafts Lt. Conrad Woo was assigned to the 5th Bomb Group of the 13th Air Force flying B-24 missions as a bombardier raiding Japanese islands, air fields, and supplies.

On November 1943, Nimitz's island-hopping campaign began with his assaults on Tarawa Atoll and Makin, a 100 miles north. Naval gunfire and air attacks had failed to eliminate the deeply dug in defenders and landing craft grounded on reefs offshore where they were destroyed by Japanese artillery. The 2d Marine Division encountered stubborn and deadly resistance.

Like MacArthur, Nimitz determined to bypass strongly held islands and strike at the enemy's weak points. During January 1944, landings were made in the Marshalls, at Kwajalein and Eniwetok, followed by Guam and Saipan in the Marianas during June and July. Because the Marianas were only 1,500 miles from Tokyo, the remaining Japanese carriers came out to fight. The resulting Battle of the Philippine Sea was a disaster for the Japanese. In what U.S. Navy pilots called "the great Marianas turkey shoot". The Japanese carrier power was effectively eliminated

By October 1944, MacArthur was ready for a leap to the Philippines, but his objective was beyond the range of his planes. Nimitz loaned him Admiral William F. Halsey's heavy carriers, and on 20 October 1944, MacArthur's Sixth Army landed on Leyte Island in central Philippines Tech 4 Fee "Barney" Ong was with Co. A, 154th Combat Engineer Battalion, on 17 Sept. 1944 at the campaign of Anguar Island, Barney was wounded while crawling to deliver a message between positions. He was awarded the Purple Heart. Cpl. Jick Lee was with the 190th Quartermaster Gas Co. and participated in the So. Philippine campaigns. M/Sgt Jack Yue was a radio operator in the liberation of the Philippines.

The Japanese reacted vigorously. For the first time in war, they employed Kamikaze attacks, suicide missions flown by young half-trained pilots. They used their last carriers as decoys to draw Halsey's carriers away from the beachheads. With Halsey out of the battle and the landing forces without air cover, the Japanese planned to use convention --al warships to brush aside the remaining American warships and destroy the support vessels anchored off the beaches. They almost succeeded. In the naval Battle of Leyte Gulf, the big guns of the big ships, not carriers planes,

decided the battle. The Japanese Naval forces were decimated. Japan no longer had an effective navy. Seaman Dong M. Hom served on the USS Quiross, an oil tanker, that supplies fuel to all the fighting ships. Radio Tech Sing Yee, Jr. was aboard the Amphibious Attack Cargo Ship, the USS Athena, АКА-9.

Sgt. James Sing was with the 345th Medium Bomb Group. The Liberty Ship SS Thomas Nelson, carrying the ground echelons of the 345th HQ, 498th and small contingents from the 500th and 501st Squadrons had been lying in the harbor of Dulag on the Island of Leyte, Philippines for two weeks waiting to be unloaded. At 1124 hours, Nov. 12, 1944, the ship came under kamikazi attack as it road at anchor. A Japanese fighter dropped a bomb on the No. 5 hatch, then caught a wing tip on the 30 ton main boom, ripping it loose and flinging it overboard. The plane spun to the deck and exploded spreading burning gasoline over the ship. The 345th lost 89 men killed or died of their wounds. Sgt James Sing was among those killed in action.

On July 5, the Philippine campaign was over. The American had annihilated four hundred and fifty thousand of Japan) best remaining troops.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA

"We got a hell of a beating," Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American General, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field.

Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their empire from Wake Island in the Pacific to Malaya and Singapore in Southeast Asia. When Stilwell had arrived in the embattled Chinese capital of Chungking in March, the Japanese were already driving into Burma, capturing the capital of Rangoon on 6 March. The American General took command of two Chinese divisions and, in cooperation with the British and Indians, tried to stem the Japanese onslaught Defeated, he and his staff endured a rugged. 140 mile hike over jungle-covered mountains to India By occupying Burma, the Japanese had not only gained access to vast resources of teak and rubber, but they had closed the Burma Road, 700 miles of direct highway that represented China's last overland link to the outside world.

The objective of restoring a land route to China originated specifically to keep China in the war to tie down Japanese troops and serve as a base of future operations against Japanese home islands. It also reflected an idealistic view of China as a great power, capable of a major contribution.

The Americans soon found the situation to much more complex than they had anticipated. The Chinese government and army were riddled with inefficiency and graft. Chiang Kai-shek preferred to leave the defeat of Japan to the other Allies and keep his resources for a postwar showdown with his mortal enemies, the Communists.

The recovery of Burma would be the preoccupation of the American theater commander, Gen. "Vinegar Joc" Stilwell. He had served in China during the interwar years, knew the country, and could speak its language fluently. He served as chief of Chiang's joint Allied Staff, and commanding officer of the China-Burma-India (CBI) theaters of operations. It's primary mission to supply China. Cargoes entered at Karachi, Pakistan or Calcutta, India. Then proceeded by rail, road and ferry to Assam, the Indian province close to the Burma border. Assam was an incredible 67 day journey by rail from Calcutta-but they were congested and inefficient. Once the goods reached Assam, C-46 & C-47 transport planes had to fly them over the Himalayas to China. Pilots flying this route, call it the "Hump", and had to contend with poor weather, 15,000 foot mountain peaks, and enemy fighters operating from a base at Myitkyina. The India Air Task Force, later the Tenth Air Forces, was responsible for the supervising and protection of the supply flights over the Hump and supported Allied ground efforts with close air support and operations against Japanese communications and supply installations in Burma.

Far northeast of Calcutta, along the Indo-Burma border, American engineers in late 1942 began to construct a road meant to restore China's land communications with the outside world. Taking over the project from the British in October 1942, they began construction from Ledo in December with the goal of arriving at the Burmese city of Shingbwiyang, about103 miles. The road was called the "Burma Road".

Early 1944, the Allies finally agreed to launch an offensive into Burma. While the Chinese Y Force advanced from Yunan into eastern Burma and the British IV Corps drove east into Burma from Manipur State, Stilwell's Chinese-American force would attack southeast from the Shinbwiyang area toward Myitkyina. Capture of that key North Burma city and its airfield would remove the threat of enemy fighter from harassing transports flying the Hump and also enable the Allies to connect the advancing Ledo Road. Capt. William Toy trained Chinese Armies in India and returned to Northern Burma to engage the Japanese Army. Capt Toy while in the field observed an American transport plane crash land near his area. He drove his jeep near the sight, but the air crew, not knowing if he was friend or foe, started shooting at him. After he convinced them he was friendly, he rescued them. General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, need groups of Chinese Americans who could speak and write Chinese for assignment to Kunming, China for communication services. Sgt. Num J. "Jack" Yee was one of the 400 who was selected for that assignment.

THE FLYING TIGERS

Chiang Kai-shek chose to build his new air force, named Colonel Claire Chennault, who was retired from the U.S. Army Air Corps because of deafness and internal disagreement with higher authority, By 1938, Colonel Chennault begun a major airfield construction program and the force behind the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known as “Flying Tigers."

Recruitment of pilots had to be conducted with secrecy because the U.S. was still neutral. All transaction were through a private corporation, the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO) and Chinese Defense Supp AVG recruiters were considered employees of CAMCO. So the whole thing was an elaborate scheme to minimize office U.S. involvement.

In April 1942 the AVG was officially incorporated with the Tenth Air Force. Chennault was reactivated by the U.S Air corps and promoted to Brigadier General, and assumed command of the new China Air Task Force (CAT), the forerunner of the 14th Air Force.

Lt. Albert Ong boarded an Army transport for Malis Air Base, Karachi, India to help form the Chinese-American Composite Wing to train for combat duty in China, Burma, India theater. Lt Albert Ong was reassigned to Kunming Air Base, Hunan Province, China, where he reported to duty with the 14th Air Force. He later served at Kweilin and Luichow Air Bases, Kwangsi Province where he was assigned to the 43rd Fighter Squadron as Combat Intelligence Officer, April 21, 1944. Sgt Harry Ong and Cpl. Douglas Dong left Newport News, Virginia, crossed the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to Bombay, India and flew to Kunming China and assigned to the 14th Air Force. Cpl. Douglas Dong was then assigned to Guiyang, Hengyang, and to Chunking. Sgt Harry Ong was later assigned to Shanghai.

The 14th Air Force was the smallest army air force in World War II, but it was responsible for the largest land area- Burma, all of China, the Formosan straights, Indo-China and Thailand. The 14th's 308th Bombardment Group's B-24 Liberators, had the best bombing record of the entire USAAF.

The first raids on Formosa were successful. Chennault's 14th destroyed 42 Japanese aircraft on the ground in twelve minutes without a single casualty and damaged aircraft. The Japanese were convinced that this thorn in their side had to be destroyed. An immediate air and ground offensive was initiated against east China by the Japanese Command, to neutralize the 14th Air Force.

An all-out attack against Hankow, combining the 14th with Major Gen. Curtis LeMay's 20th B-29 Command The Hankow mission was the first massive fire-raid conducted and the results was the decisive factor in LeMay's decision to utilize the low level firebombombing techniques against the Japanese. The tide had finally ebbed. Chennualt's bombers continued to strike, though now at a beaten and ever-retreating enemy.

Sgt. Grey Toy served with the Chinese-American Composite Wing (CACW) and the 20th Bomb Command. He was then assigned to the 407th Service Squadron, 14th Air Service Group of the 14th Air Force. June 15, 1945, Lt Thomas Tang arrived in the CBI theater stationed at Kunming, China, served as Combat Liaison Officer with the Artillery Training Command to assist the Chinese Army and equip them for combat.

The CBI saw some impressive achievements; the Hump, the pipeline to China, the Ledo Road, the conquest of northern Burma, but the only significant and lasting achievement was the Hump.

THE CROSS-CHANNEL ATTACK

Preparations for an attack on German-occupied France continued as the campaigns in the Mediterranean. The defeat of the German U-boat threat, critical to the successful transport of men and materiel across the Atlantic, had been largely accomplished by the second half of 1943. Sgt. Roy Hoy made 7 trips across the Atlantic dodging U-Boats while escorting troops to England.

By early 1944 an Allied strategic bombing campaign so reduced German strength in fighters and trained pilots that t Allies effectively established complete air superiority over western Europe. Sgt Henry ong, Jr. assigned to the 837th Bomb Squadron, 487th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force completed 24 missions in B-24's, when the 8th Air Force changed to B-17s. Aug 1944, this crew was scheduled to fly on their last mission, their 30th. The designated target was the engine plant Berlin. After releasing the bombs over the target, the plane was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire. The plane dropped from 27,000 feet to 4,000 feet, the crow was order to bail-out. Henry was wounded by flak and sustained multiple cuts and bruises. All the crew members were captured by German soldiers. Their bombardier dead of wounds. They were prisoners of war until the war in Europe was over.

Developments on the Eastern Front also aided the success of the invasion. In early 1943, the Russians destroyed a German army at Stalingrad. The Germans tried Ito regain the initiative in the summer of 1943, attacking the Russian City of Kursk. In the largest tank battle known to history, they suffered a resounding defeat. Thereafter, they remained on the defensive, in constant retreat, while the Soviets advanced westward. By March 1944, the Soviet forces had reentered Polish territory, and a Soviet summer offensive had prevented the Germans from transferring troops to France.

On 5 June 1944, General Eisenhower took advantage of a break in stormy weather to order the invasions of "fortress Europe." In the bours before dawn, 6 June 1944, one British and two U.S. airborne divisions dropped behind the beaches. After sunrise, British, Canadian, and U.S. troops began to move ashore. The British and Canadians met modest opposition. Units of the U.S. VII Corps quickly broke though defenses at a beach code-named Utah and began moving inland, making contact with the airborne troops within twenty-four hours. But heavy German fire swept OMAHA, the other American landing area. Elements of the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions and the 2d and 5th Ranger Battalions clung to a narrow stretch of stony bench until late in the day, when they were finally able to advance, outflanking the German positions. PFC Moon S. Yee was with the 325th Gilder Regiment. PFC. MOON S. YEE was with the 325^th Gilder Regiment PFC. Wing Yip Quan was with the 100th Airborne Division.

It was 3:32 am New York time when a radio flash announced the invasion and Eisenhower's Order of the Day: "The tide” has turned. The free men of the world are

marching together to victory. A few hours .later, President Roosevelt led the American people in prayer: "Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set out upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization and to set free suffering humanity.....”

Cpl. Loy Mah was assigned to the 402d Field Artillery Battalion as gun crew for the 105 howitzer. Their unit was waiting to cross the channel to France, but the troop ship that was to take them across was sunk before they could board. So the battalion had to wait for transportation across the channel. They later fought in Southern France.

American and British beachheads linked up within days. While the Allies raced to build up supplies and reserves, American and British fighter aircraft and guerrillas of the French resistance blocked movement of German reinforcements. Allied troops seized Cherbourg and struggled to expand southward through the entangling hedgerows. The hedgerows divided the countryside into thousands of tiny fields. The narrow roads, sunk beneath the level of the surrounding countryside, became deathtraps for tanks and vehicles. Small numbers of German infantry, dug into the embankments with machine guns and mortars and a tank or two or a few antitank guns for support, made advancing across each field costly.

The British made several attempts to break through to open country beyond the town of Caen, but were stopped by the Germans. By 18 July, the U.S. First Army fought its way into St. Lo, and on 15 July , launched Operation Cobra. As heavy and medium bombers from England pummeled German frontline positions, infantry, and armor finally punched through the defenses. Capt. Robert Ham was with the U.S. First Army.

Rejecting his generals' advice, Hitler ordered a counterattack against the widening breakout by Germany's last available mobile forces in France. U.S. First Army forces stopped the Germans and joined Canadian, British, and Polish troops in catching the enemy in a giant pocket around the town of Falaise. Allied fighter bombers and artillery aided a massive destruction of twenty enemy divisions.

The Canadian and Gen. Montgomery's British soldiers trudged through the frozen mud and water of the flooded lowlands In the Netherlands to free the Belgium port of Antwerp Gen. Bradley's First Army took the German City of Aachen on 21 October. The drive of General Patton's Third Army toward the German border halted on 25 September due to shortages of gasoline and other critical supplies. Sgt. Fay M. Wong was attached to the 3rd Army.

With the enemy forces in full retreat, French and Americans troops roll into Paris on 25 August 1944. Meanwhile veteran U.S. and French divisions, pulled out of Italy, and landed on the beaches of the French Riviera in southern France. Victory seemed to be at hand. But by mid-September Allied communications were strained. Combat troops had outrun their supplies. British and Canadian forces advanced into the Netherlands and American troops crossed Belgium and Luxembourg and entered German territory. They both met strong resistance. Bad Weather curtailed unloading of supplies directly across the Normandy invasion beaches.

The attacks by the U.S. First and Ninth Armies toward the Roer River were extremely difficult. The Huertgen Forets through which they moved was thickly wooded, cut by steep gullies and trails. Armor had no room to maneuver. Two months of close-quarters fighting the mud, snow and cold was devastating.

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

On 16 December powerful German forces struck the lightly held sector of the First Army front south of Monshau in the Ardennes. German armored spearhead drove toward the Meuse River, aiming at Antwerp. Aided by bad weather, a variety of deceptions, and the failure of Allied intelligence correctly to interpret the signs of an impending attacks, they achieved complete surprise. Elements of the five U.S. divisions plus support troops fell back in confusion. Two regiments of the 106th Infantry Division, cut off and surrounded atop the mountainous Schnee Eiffel, surrendered after only brief fighting the largest battlefield surrender of U.S. troops in World War II.

Partly as a result of decision to continue attacking throughout the autumn, U.S. forces were spread thin in areas such as the Ardennes, and the Americans had few reserves to meet the attack.

SHAEF immediately ordered available units into the threatened area, sending an airborne division into the important communications center of Bastogne. 18 December, Eisenhower ordered Gen. Patton's Third Army to disengage from its offensive toward the Saar and to attack the enemy's southern flank. Scattered American units, fighting desperate rearguard actions, disrupted the German timetable, obstructing or hold key choke points road junctions, narrow defiles, and single-lane bridges across unforgettable streams to buy time. Defenders at the town of St. Vith held out for six day V Corps troops at Elsenborn Ridge repelled furious attacks, jamming the northern shoulder of the enemy advance. To the south armored and airborne troops, although completely surrounded and under heavy German attack, held Bastogne for the duration of the battle. A German officer with a white flag, approached the American defense and asked to speak to the American Officer in charge. He was taken blind folded to Gen. McAuliffe with a message from the Germans to surrender his troops. His answer was "Nuts". So the battle continued.

Short of fuel, denied critical road, hammered by air attacks when the weather finally cleared and confronted by American armor, the German spearheads recoiled short of the Meuse. Meanwhile, Patton had altered the Third Army's advance and did a complete turn around, attacked northward, relieving Bastogne on 26 December. The German attack lost its momentum. By the end of January the Allies had retaken all the ground lost. The Battle of the Bulge was over Hitler had squandered almost all his remaining armor and fighter aircraft. Infantryman Sing Y. Yee was killed at the Battle of the Bulge.

THE FINAL OFFENSIVE

With the elimination of the "bulge", the campaign in the west moved into its final phases. Eisenhower decided that his armies should advance to the Rhine all along its length before crossing. Eisenhower planned concentrate attacks from the north by the British 21st Army Group and the U.S. Ninth Army and from the south by the U.S. First Army. Meanwhile, the Third Army would drive straight across Germany, and the Seventh Army would turn southward into Bavaria. Pic Ngauoun "Ben" N. Tang was an infantry machine gunner with the 462nd Anti-Artillery Battalion in the battle and campaigns of Normandy, Ardennes, Northern France, Rhineland, and Central Europe.

First, a pocket of German resistance at Colmar had to be eliminated. Eisenhower assigned five additional U.S. divisions and 10,000 service troops to that effort. Meanwhile, the Canadian First Army cleared the area between the Maas and Rhine Rivers. At the same time, the First Army advanced and finally seized the Roer River dams, but found that the Germans had destroyed the controls. The result in the flooding

delayed the Ninth Army's advance by two weeks. The attack finally began in late February and linked up with the Canadians, cutting off German forces facing the British. Meanwhile, the First Army's drive to the Rhine resulted in the capture of Cologne and on 7 March the seizure of an intact bridge at the town of Remagen. T/Sgt. Walter Yuen was with the 81st General Hospital in Northern France & the Rhineland.

As American divisions poured into the bridgehead, the Third and Seventh Armies launched coordinated attacks to the south. On the 22nd, and the 25th, Third Army troops made assault crossings of the Rhine. The Allied columns fanned out across Germany, overrunning isolated pockets of resistance. While Montgomery's force drove northward toward the great German ports of Bremen, Hamburg, and Luebeck, the Ninth Army advances along the Axis Muenster, Magdeburg. The night and the First Army troops met on 1 April, encircling the industrial region of the Ruhr and capturing 325,000 prisoners. The First Army continued eastward toward Kassel and Leipzic while the Third Army rolled through Frankfurts, Eisenach, and Erfurt toward Dresden, then southward toward Czechoslovakia and Austria. The Sixth Army Group advanced into Bavaria toward Munich and Salzburg, denying the Germans a last-ditch defense in the Bavarian or Austrian Alps. Germany was shattered.

On the eve of victory, April 12, 1945, while having his portrait painted, President Roosevelt complained "I have a terrific headache.” Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Within two hours, Vice President Harry S. Truman became President.

Nevertheless, Eisenhower resisted British and Patton's pressure to drive on to Berlin. He saw no point intaking casualties to capture ground that, in line with earlier agreements between Allied leaders, would have to be relinquished to the Soviets once hostilities ceased. The Soviets massed 1.2 million men and 22,000 pieces of artillery and on 16 April began their assault upon the city. The British and American forces stop line along the Elbe and Mulde Rivers. The Russians moved through the streets of Berlin. On 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide in a bunker beneath the ruins of his capitol.

May 4, 1945, Tech Sgt. Henry Ong, Jr. was liberated by the British 8th Army. Henry celebrated V-E day in Brussels, Belgium, the target of his first bombing mission in 1944.

German forces in Italy surrendered effective 2 May and those in the Netherlands, northwestern Germany, and Denmark on 4 May. On 7 May the German High Command surrendered all its forces unconditionally, and 8 May was officially proclaimed V-E Day. The U.S. had contributed 68 divisions, 15,000 combat aircraft, well over 1 million tanks and motor vehicles and 135,000 dead. The country now turned its focus to a war a half a world away and to the defeat of Japan in the Pacific.

THE FINAL VICTORY

The last two major campaigns of the Pacific war-Luzon and Okinawa were long fights on larger land masses with entire armies in sustained combat over the course of several months. Japanese defenders on Luzon numbers 262,000 under LL Den Tomoyuki Yamashita, perhaps the best field commander in the Japanese Army. He refused an open battle, knowing that superior firepower and command of the air would favor the Americans. Instead, he prepared defensive positions where his forces could deny the Americans strategic points like roads and airfields. On Oct 1944, D Day (H Hour) in Leyte, Philippines, PFC Don Woo helped shoot down Jap Zeros. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his action.

MacArthur's Sixth Army under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger landed on Luzon on 9 January 1945 and began the Army's longest land campaign in the Pacific. MacArthur's forces fought for almost seven months and took nearly 40,000 casualties before finally subduing the enemy. Lt Edward Ong served as a pilot with the 55th Troop Carrier Squadron, 375ch Troop Carrier Group. 26 May 1945, on a flight from the Philippines to Pelilu Island with 4 crewmen failed to arrive at their destination. Their aircraft was never found and presumed to have went down into the Pacific Ocean. They were listed missing-in-action.

Staff Sgt. Frank Y. C. Ong was with the 419th Field Artillery Group during the liberation of the Philippines in the invasion of Leyte and Luzon Islands. Staff Sgt. Quinn S. Fung was attached to the Army unit stationed in Manila, Philippines. Tech 4 Yow C. Sem participated in the liberation of the Philippines. Tech Sgt. Harry Wong served with the service battery of the 143rd Field Artillery in the battles and campaigns of Bismarck, Southern Philippines, and Luzon. Cpl Foo Kee Tom was with the 1521st Army Air Corps unit in the Central Pacific. On 17 July 1945, Sgt Jack Hom Cpl Don C. Tang off on his flight to Okinawa flying from Palawan to Manila. Flying in rainy weather, their C-46 crashed into mountains in Mindoro Island killing Don and all the crew just one month before the end of the war. T/4 Soon Ong participated in the liberation of Southern Philippines.

The largest landings of Nimite's central Pacific drive were carried out on Okiura, only 300 miles from Japan, on 1 April 1945.Before the fight was over three months later, the entire Tenth Army infantry divisions and two Marine divisions-had been deployed there. Like his Counterpart on Luzon, the Japanese commander on Okinawa, Lt. Gen. Misuru Ushijima, refused to fight on the beaches and instead withdraw into rocky hill to force the defensive battle. Staff Sgt. Frank Y. C. Ong’s group landed on Kaise Shimas an island 5 miles from Okinawa. Again the strategy worked. U.S. casualties were staggering. the largest of the Pacific war. Over 12,000 American soldiers, sailors and marines died during the struggle. At

Okinawa, the Japanese launched the greatest Kamikaze raids of war, the results were, 26 ships sunk and 168 damaged. Almost 40 percent of the American dead were sailors lost to Kamikaze attacks.

1 November 1945, Kyshu would furnish air and naval bases to intensify the air bombardment and strengthen the naval blockade around Honshu, the main island of Japan. A massive invasion in the Tokyo area was scheduled for 1 Mar 1946, if Japanese resistance continued. In fact, Japan was already beaten. It was defenseless on the seas, its air force was gone, and its cities were being burned out by Incendiary bombs. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 95 August and the Sovie declaration of war 8 August forced the leaders of Japan to recognize the inevitable. On 15 August 1945, Empar Hirohito announced Japan's surrender to the Japanese people and ordered Japanese forces to lay down they arms. V-J Day-2 September 1945-the greatest in human history came to an end.

The surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay aboard Admiral Nimitz's flagship, the U.S.S. Missouri, General MacArthur stand at the surrender table, awaiting the Japanese delegation grouped stiffly before him. Behind MacArthur are signers for the victorious nine nations and dominions, lined up at his left are a score of Allied Admirals and Generals and other officers and enlisted men. Seaman Tom Bon Yee was one of those aboard to witness the surrender.

The occupation of Germany and Japan followed the surrender. Tech 5 Francis Wong went to Frankfurt, Germany with the U.S. military occupational force. Staff Sgt. Joe Quan was with the 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cr Cavalry Division in the occupation of Japan. Staff Sgt. Quin Fung went to Kobe, Japan with the occupation force. Warrant Officer Benjamin Joe, Jr. was with the 95th Infantry Division during the occupation of Japan. Tech 4 Jimmy C. Tang was with the 65th Engineer Combat Battalion. at Kanoaka, Osaka, Japan during the occupation, Tech 14 Jack Sang Lee was with the 252nd Medical Corps at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, when he was about to be shipped out, when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and the war ended.

References: Thomas Tang Post 50 phoenix Arizona;

Proofreading：Mr. Sean Cotton