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Shiro Ishii

C. Peter Chen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:00:00

Shiro Ishii was born in Shibayama Village, Sanbu District, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. He studied medicine at the Kyoto Imperial University. In 1922, after joining the Japanese Army, he was assigned to the 1st Army Hospital and Army Medical School in Tokyo, Japan. In 1924, he returned to Kyoto Im...

Kaganovich

C. Peter Chen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:00:00

Kaganovich was laid down in 1938 and was commissioned in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. However, she was not fully completed until 29 Jan 1947, thus missing all WW2 action. She was named for Joseph Stalin's associate Lazar Kaganovich; in 1945, Lazar's brother Mikhail was accused of associ...

Kalinin

C. Peter Chen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:00:00

Light cruiser Kalinin was laid down in 1938 in the Far East and was commissioned at Vladivostok, Russia on the final day of 1942. On 24 Apr 1943, she was ordered to prepare for a journey via the Northern Sea Route to join the Soviet Northern Fleet; she was fitted with special propellers (with ea...

Kliment Voroshilov

C. Peter Chen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:00:00

The Kliment Voroshilov heavy tanks, or KV for short, were the result of a Russian desire for a modern heavy tank that was not designed for the WW1-era philosophy which restricted heavy tanks' image as a slow moving breakthrough tank. During the Winter War, three prototypes (SMK, KV, and T-100) w...

Be-4

C. Peter Chen — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:00:00

Originally designated KOR-2, the Be-4 flying boats were aircraft designed to be operated from warships. They had gull wings with slight angles, and they each had their radial engines mounted in a nacelle above the fuselage. The first prototype took flight in 1941. They were built by the firm B...

US Navy Report of Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbor, Enclosure E, USS Raleigh

C. Peter Chen — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:11:09

CL7/A16 (0167)

U.S.S. Raleigh

December 13, 1941

From:

Commanding Officer.

To:

Commander in Chief, U....

Yalta Agreement

C. Peter Chen — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:00:00

The leaders of the three Great Powers-the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain-have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe has terminated the Soviet Union shall enter into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condi...

Bob Hackett of CombinedFleet.com and Discovery of Two Japanese Subs

C. Peter Chen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:00:00

In 1946, two high-tech Japanese submarines were scuttled by the US Navy off Hawaii Islands to prevent the technology from falling in to the hands of the Soviet Union. I-14, one of the submarines sunk, was 400 feet long, had capacity to carry two aircraft, and was capable of circling the globe on...

Toshio Shiratori

C. Peter Chen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:00:00

Toshio Shiratori born in 1887. He was the Director of Information Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry from 1929 to 1933 and the Japanese ambassador to Italy between 1938 and 1940. In 1940, he was an advisor to the Foreign Minister, thus was in position to facilitate the alliance with German...

Molotov

C. Peter Chen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:00:00

Like her sister ships, light cruiser Molotov was named after a contemporary Russian politician; in her case, she was named after Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. When she was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet on 14 Jun 1941, her mainmast-mounted Redut-K radar made her the first Soviet ship to ...

Evacuees of the Second World War

C. Peter Chen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:00:00

At the mention of WW2, most people, myself included, think of Marines charging up a hostile beach, the German Blitzkrieg, and the brutal house-to-house fighting in Stalingrad. The story of the ordinary citizens was much less exciting. However, this seemingly dull story played such a big ...

MWD

C. Peter Chen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:00:00

The prototype of the Bedford MWD, 15-cwt, 4x2 General Service Truck appeared in 1937 and throughout the War years provided the backbone of the British army's transportation. It was based on a commercial 2-tonnes (2-tons) truck with a modified chassis to increase the ground clearance. The British ...

76 mm Divisional Gun M1939 (F-22 USV)

C. Peter Chen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:00:01

In Mar 1937, the Russian Army issued a requirement for a field gun that would replace the unsatisfactory 76-millimeter field gun that had been in service only since the previous year. V. G. Grabin, the designer of the original gun, despite complaints with his previous design, won the competition in...

US Navy Report of Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbor, Enclosure E, USS Pyro

C. Peter Chen — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:02:52

AE1/A16/(0233)

U.S.S. Pyro

Pearl Harbor, T.H.,
December 10, 1941.

To:	Commanding Officer.
From: Potsdam Declaration C. Peter Chen — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:00:00 We-the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war. <...