Japan's Coup d'etat

Victories in Midway, Guadalcanal, and New Guinea were the beginning of the end for Japan's supremacy in the Pacific. It would take another two and a half years of bitter, deadly combat, invading island after island held by the Japanese before the Japanese were finally defeated, but not without a great cost to both sides. 

Steeped in century's old military tradition, the Japanese fought to the death, many by their own hands in the tradition of the Samurai Bushido honor code known as Seppuku - to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies. 

The last battle of the war was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa. It was from this island that Americans planned on launching ships, planes, and troops for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. Knowing from the first-hand experience of how fanatical Japanese warriors had been during every island battle, American planners expected it to be the bloodiest seaborne attack of all time, conceivably ten times as costly as the Normandy invasion in terms of Allied casualties; estimated to over 100,000 Allied troops. The total number of casualties for the entire operation was estimated to be 250,000 - 500,000 Allied troops and millions of Japanese troops and civilians.

In an attempt to avoid the bloody invasion, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the "unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces." Failure to comply would mean "the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitable the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland." Totally unaware the United States possessed two nuclear bombs and the threat was real, the response by Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki was his government was "paying no attention" to the Allied ultimatum. 

After days with no sign that the Japanese would accept the surrender offer, President Harry Truman ordered that an atomic bomb be dropped on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the B -29 bomber "Enola Gay" dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 80,000 people and fatally wounding thousands more. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks and months from wounds and radiation poisoning.

Believing this to have been such a dramatic demonstration of American power, President Harry S. Truman called for Japan's surrender 16 hours later, warning them to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth." After the Hiroshima attack, a faction of Japan's supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. 

On August 9, a second U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese coastal city of Nagasaki. That same day, Japanese Emperor Hirohito convened the Supreme War Council. After a long, emotional debate, he backed a proposal by Prime Minister Suzuki in which Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration "with the understanding that said Declaration does not compromise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as the sovereign ruler." The council obeyed Hirohito's acceptance of peace, and on August 10th, the message was relayed to the United States.

Two days later, the United States answered that "the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." After two days of debate about what this statement implied, Emperor Hirohito brushed the nuances in the text aside and declared that peace was preferable to destruction. He ordered the Japanese government to prepare a text accepting surrender.

But there was a group of high ranking officers and cabinet members who began a coup in hopes of stalling the surrender by plotting to seize the Imperial Palace and to prevent the broadcast of Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech to mark the end of World War II. They did this in hopes of securing better terms of surrender.

Late on the night of August 12, 1945, Major Kenji Hatanaka, a member of Military Affairs Section of the Japanese Ministry of War, along with Lieutenant Colonels Masataka Ida, Masahiko Takeshita, and Inaba Masao, and Colonel Okitsugu Arao, the Chief of the Military Affairs Section, spoke to War Minister, General Korechika Anami (the army minister and "most powerful figure in Japan besides the Emperor himself) and asked him to do whatever he could to prevent acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. General Anami, in the photo on the left, gave no indication as to whether or not he would help the young officers. Hatanaka and the other rebels decided to continue planning and to attempt a coup d'etat on their own. 

Hatanaka spent much of August 13 and the morning of August 14 gathering allies, seeking support from the higher-ups in the Ministry, and perfecting his plot. In the meantime, extremists were calling for a death-before-dishonor mass suicide.

Shortly after the surrender was decided, a group of senior army officers, including Anami, gathered in a nearby room. After a silence, General Torashiro Kawabe, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff, proposed that all senior officers present sign an agreement to carry out the Emperor's order of surrender - "The Army will act in accordance with the Imperial Decision to the last." It was signed by all the high-ranking officers present, including Anami. "This written accord by the most senior officers in the Army acted as a formidable firebreak against any attempt to incite a coup d'etat in Tokyo." 

That same evening of August 14, Hatanaka's rebels set their plan into motion. 

The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards had entered the palace grounds, doubling the strength of the battalion already stationed there, presumably to provide extra protection against Hatanaka's rebellion. But Hatanaka, along with Lt. Col. Jiro Shiizaki, convinced Colonel Toyojiro Haga, the commander of the 2nd Regiment of the First Imperial Guards, of their cause, by telling him (falsely) that Generals Anami and Umezu, and the commanders of the Eastern District Army and Imperial Guards Divisions were all in on the plan. Hatanaka also went to the office of Shizuichi Tanaka, commander of the Eastern region of the Army, to try to persuade him to join the coup. Tanaka refused and ordered Hatanaka to go home. Hatanaka ignored the order.

Originally, Hatanaka hoped that simply occupying the palace and showing the beginnings of a rebellion would inspire the rest of the Army to rise up against the move to surrender. This notion guided him through much of the last days and hours and gave him the blind optimism to move ahead with the plan, despite having little support from his superiors.

Having set all the pieces into position, Hatanaka and his co-conspirators decided that the Guard would take over the palace at 2 AM. The hours until then were spent in continued attempts to convince their superiors in the Army to join the coup. At about the same time, General Anami committed Seppuku, leaving a message that, "I - with my death - humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime." Whether the crime involved losing the war, or the coup remains unclear.

At some time after 1 AM, August 15th, Hatanaka and his men surrounded the palace. Hatanaka, Shiizaki, and Captain Shigetaro Uehara went to the office of Lt. General Takeshi Mori, commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, to ask him to join the coup. When Mori refused to side with Hatanaka, Hatanaka killed him, fearing Mori would order the Guards to stop the rebellion. Hatanaka then used General Mori's official stamp to authorize Imperial Guards Division Strategic Order No. 584, a false set of orders created by his co-conspirators, which would greatly increase the strength of the forces occupying the Imperial Palace and Imperial Household Ministry, and "protecting" the Emperor.

The palace police were disarmed, and all the entrances blocked. Over the course of the night, Hatanaka's rebels captured and detained eighteen people, including Ministry staff and workers sent to record the surrender speech. 

Hatanaka and his rebels spent the next several hours fruitlessly searching for Imperial House Minister Sotaro Ishiwatari and Koichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and the recordings of the surrender speech. The two men, along with the recording, were hiding in the "bank vault," a large chamber underneath the Imperial Palace. The search was made more difficult by a blackout in response to Allied bombings, and by the archaic organization and layout of the Imperial House Ministry. The rebels did find Chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa, Emperor Hirohito's closest personal aide. Although Hatanaka threatened to disembowel him with a samurai sword, Tokugawa lied and told them he did not know where the recordings or men were. During their search, the rebels cut nearly all of the telephone wires, severing communications between their prisoners on the palace grounds and the outside world.

At about the same time, another group of Hatanaka's rebels, led by Captain Takeo Sasaki went to Prime Minister Suzuki's office, intent on killing him. When they found it empty, they machine-gunned the office and set the building on fire, then left for his home. Warned on the attempt on his life, he escaped minutes before the would-be assassins arrived. After setting fire to Suzuki's home, they went to the estate of former Prime Minister Kiichiro Hiranuma to assassinate him. Hiranuma escaped through a side gate, and the rebels burned his house as well. 

Around 3 AM, Hatanaka was informed by Lieutenant Colonel Masataka Ida that the Eastern District Army was on its way to the palace to stop him and that he should give up. Finally, seeing his plan collapsing around him, Hatanaka pleaded with General Tatsuhiko Takashima, Chief of Staff of the Eastern District Army, to be given at least ten minutes on the air on NHK radio broadcasting station, to explain to the people of Japan what he was trying to accomplish and why. He was refused. Colonel Haga, commander of the 2nd Regiment of the First Imperial Guards, discovered that the Army did not support this rebellion, and he ordered Hatanaka to leave the palace grounds.

Just before 5 AM, as his rebels continued their search, Major Hatanaka went to the NHK studios, and, brandishing a pistol, tried desperately to get some airtime to explain his actions. A little over an hour later, after receiving a telephone call from the Eastern District Army, Hatanaka finally gave up. He gathered his officers and walked out of the NHK studio.

At dawn, Tanaka learned that the palace had been invaded. He went there and confronted the rebellious officers, berating them for acting contrary to the spirit of the Japanese Army, demanding that the dishonor brought by their treason could only be absolved through Seppuku. A number of conspirators committed ritual suicide that morning, on the grounds of the Imperial Palace.

By 8 AM, the rebellion was entirely dismantled, having succeeded in holding the palace grounds for much of the night but failing to find the recordings. Hatanaka, on a motorcycle, and Shiizaki, on horseback, rode through the streets, tossing leaflets that explained their motives and their actions. Within an hour before the Emperor's broadcast, sometime around 11:00, August 15, Hatanaka placed his pistol to his forehead and shot himself. Shiizaki stabbed himself with a dagger and then shot himself. In Hatanaka's pocket was found his death poem: "I have nothing to regret now that the dark clouds have disappeared from the reign of the Emperor."

References

The 1967 Japanese movie "Japan's Longest Day," a detailed dramatization of the 24-hour Coup d'etat (an excellent 157-minute film available on Netflix)

"Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict" by Edwin Hoyt
 
John Toland's "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire," winner of the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction

"What if the Japanese Command Had Refused to Surrender" by Mark Grimsley, Word War II magazine, dated August/September 2008

Strike Team Idaho

In November 1968, I was a team leader (one-zero) of Spike Team Idaho. John "Bubba" Shore was my assistant. We were running top-secret missions for MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam - Studies and Observation Group) out of FOB-1 (Forward Operating Base) in Phu Bai, South Vietnam. 

We'd been detailed to assist FOB-6 near Ho Ngoc Tao. Intelligence estimates had NVA strength across the Cambodian border at more than 100,000, and the terrain for our first target was flat as a pancake. The mission: Locate one of three NVA divisions that had disappeared. 

As our team sat at the launch site in Bo Dop, a chopper landed with a Thanksgiving feast, complete with hot turkey, cranberry roll, gravy, and mashed potatoes. As we finished overindulging, Air Force Hueys arrived to slip us into Cambodia. 

The insertion was slick and quick. We flew into the target area at treetop, full speed. We were so close I was worried about branches hitting my feet. 

Because this was an area where FOB-6 teams had been taking serious casualties recently, the command and control chopper remained airborne a few miles away, far enough where NVA troops couldn't hear the bird but close enough for radio contact. 

Special operations teams could only go ten klicks into Cambodia. If attacked by NVA troops, we were "forbidden" for using fixed-wing assets - assets we used heavily in our Prairie Fire AO, assets that kept us alive when surrounded by hundreds of NVA troops. 

Not only were the rules different in Cambodia, but instead of the dense jungle foliage of Laos, it was more like the thinly wooded central New Jersey countryside, I had hunted a few years earlier. With no double canopy, we could see sunlight. And we could see straight ahead, through the trees, more than 100 yards. 

During our first break, because the vegetation remained thin, I had Phouc, our point man, and Bubba put five-second fuses in two claymores - the openness of the wooded area made me hinky. Then we moved on. 

Sau, my counterpart, spotted smoke, and we moved toward it. Sau said, "No VC," and we continued forward. As always, Sau's reading of the NVA was correct. We were in an NVA bivouac area, the smoke originating from a fading fire. 

I started taking pictures, but Sau was nervous. His eyes were getting bigger. His speech was quicker. Heip, my interpreter, was getting nervous from talking to Sau. Sau was quick, smart, agile, and fearless. He could smell the NVA and knew how they worked. 

I wanted to see if we could find a cache and suggested going further west. 

Not waiting for Heip's interpretation, Sau looked at me and said, "Call helicopters now! Beaucoup NVA come now!" 

I must have had an incredulous look on my face because I couldn't hear anything, and I certainly didn't see any NVA troops. 

Sau turned to Heip, now more than a little agitated. Before Heip said a word, I turned to Bubba, who was tail-gunner in our formation. I signaled our point man to head back to our LZ. 

Heip explained: "Sau say this is enemy camp. We're beaucoup lucky because no VC here. But, he found hundreds of fresh footprints going there," he pointed south. As Bubba passed me, I told him to give me a claymore mine with a five-second fuse. 

"De!" (Go) Sau hissed. "De, de mou!" (Go quickly). 

We were in Cambodia. Alone. With no fixed-wing aircraft. And Sau's eyes were as wide as saucers. 

As we moved forward, Sau backpedaled, hastily covering our tracks. We had only gone a short distance when Sau hissed: "Beaucoup VC! Beaucoup, VC!" 

I could see pith helmets coming from the south. I radioed the C&C helicopter, told them to return with Cobra gunships, and to pick us up at the primary LZ, ASAP! C&C said they'd have assets on site in 10 minutes. 

I fired my M79 in the NVA's direction, two high bursts, which slowed them down for a few seconds. I yelled to Bubba to move out. The race for life was on. 

Sau hissed to Heip and pointed north. Damn, there were pith helmets and NVA uniforms coming at us from the north, too - at a dead run. The elements from the south were from the division, which had left the base camp, and the NVA from the north were moving into it. 

Sau and I placed the first claymore behind a tree and ran. The NVA were now running and shooting wildly. 

We sprinted to catch up as the claymore exploded. The NVA kept on charging. Sau quickly placed his five-second claymore in front of a tree and ran. We sprinted toward our team as the second claymore detonated. We felt the backblast as we ran. 

At the LZ, Heip placed another claymore toward the charging NVA. To the north, Bubba rigged a claymore with a contact detonator on a tripwire. As the tide of pith helmets flowed toward us, Bubba and I opened fire with our M79s, and Sau and Heip opened up full-auto with their CAR-15s. 

More NVA emerged from the smoke and tripped Bubba's claymore. The rest of the team jumped on the chopper, and I fired the last claymore as a wave of NVA troops got in front of it. The blast gave me a few seconds to make the Huey. 

As we pulled out of the LZ, several NVA burst from the woods, surprised to see the choppers. One NVA tried to stop, his boots kicking up clumps of mud as he tried to bring up his AK from port-arms. 

I watched the mud kicking upward toward the rotors as the door gunner, and I hit him in the chest with a burst, stopping him suddenly - so suddenly he reminded me of a cartoon character whose head and feet moved forward while his chest and stomach were slammed with lead, driving him back into the woods. 

When we landed at Bo Dop at 1400, the Air Force pilots invited us for Thanksgiving dinner. We were starved. The narrow escape from Cambodia was sobering. If the Air Force had delayed a few more minutes... 

As we rolled out of the mess hall, one of the SF launch site people said we had to get back to FOB-6 ASAP for debriefing.

I reported directly to the CO, who said, "Give me a thumbnail description of what happened, so I can send that to Saigon, then we can eat our Thanksgiving dinner and do the detailed report afterward. That makes it two Thanksgiving dinners and one mission. Not bad for a day's work," 

"Make that three dinners," I laughed. 

Bubba and I ate the third dinner. But this time, we passed on the second helping and thanked God for the U.S. Air Force. 

Editor: Some time ago, John Meyer sent TWS the URLs to a six-part story on the attack at Marble Mountain on August 23rd, 1968, which was included in his book "On the Ground: The Secret War in Vietnam." Its length was such that we could not post it in Dispatches. We also had just posted in the April 2015 Dispatches an article entitled "Six Days on Marble Mountain" by Neil R. Thorne. That story was more about a SOG Hatchet team firing on the NVA raiders from Marble Mountain. 

If you recall, that article dealt with a large NVA force hitting a MAC-V SOG FOB and mission launch site below Marble Mountain in Da Nang. The attacking NVA numbered at least 100 and were armed with AKs, grenades, satchel charges, and RPG-2 launchers (or B-40s as they were called in Vietnam).

Most of the attacking NVA died in the three-hour attack, but they killed over two dozen Americans and over 40 Montagnards who manned the Recon Teams or the Hatchet Force alongside Americans.

Rather than deny our members the best account ever written on the early morning attack on Marble Mountain, we are posting Meyer's complete story below in six parts; five, which were posted in SOFREP. To read Part Six, the reader needed to subscribe to SOFREP magazine. So as not to leave our readers in the lurch, we are posting the essence of Part Six following Part Five.

It is an excellently, highly informative account of one of the worst days for Special Forces in Vietnam. At the time, I was operating in Saigon following the 1968 Tet Offensive as a member of 5th Special Force Group's Delta Project. While I had heard of this horrendous attack, I didn't know the details until I read Meyer's account. 

Part One
http://sofrep.com/40610/secrets-of-sog-unheeded-warning/

Part Two
http://sofrep.com/40448/secrets-sog-unheeded-warning-pt-2/

Part Three
http://sofrep.com/40697/secrets-of-sog-an-unheeded-warning-pt-3/

Part Four
http://sofrep.com/40838/secrets-sog-unheeded-warning-pt-4/

Part Five
http://sofrep.com/40882/secrets-sog-unheeded-warning-pt-5/

Part Six

A couple of facts about the deadly attack were obvious: The NVA had planned the attack for months, and they'd had good intelligence inside the camp to assist in picking the date. A Vietnamese woman who worked in the personnel administrative office had failed to report to work two days prior to the attack. It was later determined she was a communist agent, a sympathizer who had provided critical intelligence to the NVA regarding the layout and troop strength of FOB 4. Fortunately, in the two days following her departure, staff personnel had closed the old tactical operations center, and the new TOC had been made fully operational on August 22nd, 1968 - the day before the early morning attack on the 23rd.

The camp security forces had also been infiltrated by the NVA. Up until two weeks before the attack, the fearless Nungs had been assigned to base security for several months. The Nungs were a totally trustworthy fighting force trained by Special Forces. For some reason, the Nungs were replaced by members of the South Vietnamese QC (Quan Canh, military police), a corrupt organization known more for its political connections than its fighting prowess. It was well known they could not be removed without the explicit blessings of both local South Vietnamese politicians and the Saigon bureaucracy.

On the night of the attack, the indigenous mess hall had been secured by the NVA, and a map of FOB 4 had been drawn on the wall, designating the main objectives of the attack. While the NVA sapper leadership was briefing its troops in the mess hall, two South Vietnamese indigenous soldiers stationed at FOB 4 had observed the suspicious activity and moved closer to investigate. Their bodies were among the dead collected the next morning, their throats cut before they could sound the alarm.

The following facts have never been reported publicly, nor were they known to many of the men who fought against the enemy sappers that night:

An S-2 officer told the base commander and his command staff that he had heard several reports from other intelligence sources in Da Nang that an NVA Battalion, R-4, was slated to carry out the attack. The S-2 officer said they knew the NVA unit's location, personnel strength, and past successes and failures. This is in addition to the three CIA flash messages received at FOB 4 warning of an imminent attack - warnings that base command staff ignored.

On August 22nd, 1968, less than 24 hours before the sapper attack, three platoons from FOB 4's Hatchet Force command were sent by helicopter to a target 15-20 minutes southwest of the base. Their objective was to make and maintain contact with enemy forces from the 34th NVA Regiment, according to one of the platoon leaders of that mission, Lt. Geoff Fullen. If contact with the enemy could be sustained, local U.S. Marine units were scheduled to follow-up the engagement.

 The early morning launch ended with the helicopters taking heavy enemy fire from the primary, secondary, and alternate LZs. By 0730 hours, the Hatchet Force men had returned to FOB 4.

Meanwhile, on the morning of August 23rd, as the sun rose over FOB 4, more light was shed on just how well-organized and deadly the attack was, and how valiantly the indigenous personnel in the camp had responded to the communist forces.
 
As surviving SF soldiers moved through the camp, it became painfully obvious that, prior to the first satchel charge going off, enemy machine gunners had established clear lines of fire down the pathways that ran between the indigenous barracks and the recon company area. From these predetermined sites, the NVA and VC were able to mow down dozens of indigenous and Green Berets as they emerged half-naked and half-asleep in response to the attack. Bodies were two- and three -deep between some of the barracks.

The SF soldiers also found multiple spots in the perimeter fence where the barbed wire had been cut. There were dozens of blood trails left by wounded sappers as they retreated back into the numerous caves that honeycombed Marble Mountain. The troops followed several of these trails but decided against going into the cave complex. In the end, it was impossible to get an accurate count of enemy casualties. Not only had the wounded escaped, but many of the dead had been removed by either the NVA themselves or by residents of a nearby fishing village who sympathized with them.

They also learned that the NVA launched probe attacks on nearby Marine units, as well as hit two Marine Corps 106mm recoilless rifle positions located across from ST Rattler on the second peak of Marble Mountain. The attack on ST Rattler was also part of the general action plan, as was its strike at the POW camp.
 
In a well-coordinated effort, the NVA hit the POW camp at its entrance from Highway 1, its most vulnerable point. Fortunately, Lt. Fullen had his PRC-25 FM radio with him, and when he heard the first report of the NVA hitting the POW camp to release enemy prisoners so they could join the battle, Fullen directed a Cobra gunship to make a gun-run across the northern perimeter of the camp, which broke the back of the NVA sappers' attack on the POW camp.

The NVA also struck FOB 4's eastern perimeter on the South China Sea. Simultaneously, sappers moved through the fishing village south of FOB 4 and infiltrated the compound by simply walking in. The corrupt and compliant South Vietnamese QC obligingly gave no warning. Some of the sappers had been provided with boats by communist sympathizers in the fishing village, and these were used to ferry troops north on the South China Sea, off-loading them on the beach near the POW compound.

As the collection of bodies continued at FOB 4, a formation was ordered for all indigenous personnel. A heavily armed contingent of Special Forces Hatchet Force personnel and Chinese Nung mercenaries oversaw the painstaking process of accounting for and verifying the bona fides of all those assembled. They found several NVA sappers mixed in with the South Vietnamese, trying to pass themselves off as little people. The impostors were separated, restrained, and turned over to Intelligence for interrogation.

In addition, the SF personnel also found a few South Vietnamese from the FOB 4 security force trying to hide among the ranks of the other South Vietnamese troops. The security force men were getting beaten up pretty badly by the Nungs. Everyone understood that the attack could not have occurred unless the NVA had inside help. It was equally clear that the South Vietnamese security forces assigned to FOB 4 had not performed well.

By afternoon, a relief force from 5th Special Forces Headquarters arrived from Nha Trang. While bodies were still being sorted out, Seabees placed bodies of dead enemy soldiers into the scoop of a backhoe, drove across Highway 1, and unceremoniously dropped them in the dump.

At the end of the day, several things were clear:

The NVA/VC sappers executed a well-planned attack, killing 17 Green Berets and at least 40 indigenous troops. Estimates on enemy dead fluctuate between 78 to more than 100. No one will ever know because the enemy was adroit at recovering dead personnel from the battleground, as evidenced by the many blood trails that lead south to Marble Mountain through the wire.

If ST Rattler hadn't been on Marble Mountain, far more casualties would have occurred.

The indigenous troops had also fought valiantly. Without them, the casualty rate would have been much higher.

Fortunately, a few SF soldiers and the Cobra gunship, working with Lt. Fullen on the radio, were able to stifle the attack on the enemy POW camp, preventing hundreds of enemy soldiers from joining the fray.

Lastly, there was a failure of response from leadership in the camp to the many reports of an imminent attack. There was a new S-2 officer in camp, the compound was adjusting to having the Command and Control element moved into FOB 4, and due to the top-secret nature of the secret war, there wasn't enough communication between intelligence, recon, and Hatchet Force staff.

The individuals Killed In Action were: Donald W. Welch, Gilbert A. Secore, Tadeusz M. Kepczuk, Paul D. Potter, Donald R. Kerns, Anthony J. Santana, Albert M. Walter, Rolf E. Rickmers, William H. Bric III, Richard E. Pegram, Charles R. Norris, James T. Kickliter, Robert J. Uyesaka, Talmadge H. Alphin, Howard S. Varni, Harold R. Voorheis.

About the Author 

John Stryker Meyer is an accomplished writer of military topics with two books on his own experiences in Vietnam with SOG-MACV. He is also a correspondent for SOFREP (The Special Operations Forces Situation Report), which presents real operative insight on news, events, and history on special operations forces. Since 1986 he has been a correspondent and contributing editor for Soldier of Fortune Magazine. He has also been a reporter for a number of San Diego newspapers, including the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

For three years (2011-2014), he was president of the 3000-plus members of SOA (Special Operations Association). 

John currently resides with his family in Oceanside, California.

Profiles in Courage: Bayonet Charge

Following World War I, Americans reached the conclusion that our country's participation in that war had been a disastrous mistake, one which should never be repeated again. This resulted in a major segment of the population becoming "isolationist" hoping to avoid dragging the country into another disastrous foreign war. 

Even when Nazi German invaded Poland in 1939 and began conquering and controlling much of continental Europe, most Americans were adamant we stay out of the war - even though the war in Europe posed a serious challenge to the U.S. neutrality. Americans eager to help fight fascism and Hitler grew frustrated. A large number of these were young American males. Romanticized by the idea of fighting in battle and not wanting to wait until the United States decided to enter the war, many crossed the border into Canada. Among them was a South Dartmouth, MA. teenager by the name of Lewis Lee Millett. 

But before Millett made the actual decision to enter Canada, he enlisted into the National Guard while still in high school and in 1940 joined the United States Army Air Corps when he was 20-years-old. Watching the German's make advances after advances in Europe, he deserted in mid-1940 and went to Canada with a friend where they joined the Royal Canadian Army. He was shipped to London where he manned an anti-aircraft gun during the eight months Nazi Germany bombed of the city during the "London Blitz."

On December 11, 1941, four days after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States, dragging America into war in Europe they could no longer avoid. Millett quickly rejoined the U.S. Army, which apparently was not being overly meticulous in its background checks, missing completely his 1940 desertion.

Assigned to the 27th Armored Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Millett served in Tunisia as an anti-tank gunner. During his first battle, he drove a burning ammunition-filled half-track away from Allied soldiers, jumping to safety just before it exploded. For this action, he was awarded the Silver Star. He later shot down a Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter plane using half-track mounted machine guns.

Millett, by then a Sergeant, next took part in the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno and the subsequent Battle of Anzio. It was at this time that the U.S. Army discovered Millet's 1941 desertion; he was court-martialed, convicted and ordered to pay a $52 fine. Only weeks later he was given a battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant.

When World War II ended, Millett left active duty, only to rejoin the National Guard. He was in his third year at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, when he was recalled to active duty to serve in the Korean War.

On February 7, 1951, while Millett was serving in Korea as a Captain and Commander of Company E of the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment. The company was on patrol near Soam-Ni, when he observed a heavily fortified enemy position atop Hill 180. Leading his company in an attack against the strongly held position, he noted his First Platoon was pinned down by small-arms, automatic, and anti-tank fire. He quickly ordered the Third Platoon forward, placed himself at the head of the Second Platoon and with fixed bayonets and hand grenades, led the assault up the fire-swept hill. In fierce hand-to-hand combat, he threw grenades, clubbing and bayoneting the enemy. So fierce and lethal was the assault, the surviving enemy fled in disbelief. Although wounded by grenade fragments, he refused to be evacuated until the position was firmly in the hands of his company. Out of about 50 enemy dead, roughly 20 were found to have been killed by bayonets, and the location subsequently became known as Bayonet Hill.

Historian S.L.A. Marshall described the attack as "the most complete bayonet charge by American troops since Cold Harbor." 

For his leadership and courage during the assault, Millett was awarded the Medal of Honor. The medal was formally presented to him by President Harry S. Truman in July 1951. He was also awarded the Army's second-highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross, for leading another bayonet charge in the same month. 

After the Korean War, Millett attended Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He served in the 101st Airborne Division as an Intelligence Officer and later served in the Vietnam War as a military advisor to a controversial intelligence program called Phoenix. (The program killed thousands of suspected Viet Cong and their sympathizers in an effort to destroy the Viet Cong infrastructure in towns and villages). He also helped found a "Recondo" school which trained small units for deployment to Vietnam. 

Millett retired from the military in 1973 at the rank of Colonel. He later stated that he retired because he felt the U.S. had "quit" in Vietnam. After his military career, Millett served as a Deputy Sheriff in Trenton, Tennessee. He eventually moved to Idyllwild, California, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

He regularly appeared at events celebrating veterans, both in the Riverside County area and elsewhere around the country. He was a member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and the California Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars.

Millett's first marriage, to Virginia Young, ended in divorce. During the festivities surrounding his Medal of Honor award in 1951, he met Winona Williams. The two were later married and had four children: Lewis Lee Jr., Timothy, John, and Elizabeth. By the time of Winona Millett's death in 1993, the couple had been married over 40 years. Millett's son John, an Army Staff Sergeant, was among more than 240 U.S. military members killed in 1985 when their airplane, Arrow Air Flight 1285, crashed in Gander, Newfoundland while carrying them home from peacekeeping duty in the Sinai Peninsula.

Lewis Millett wrote the following poem in memory of soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice, especially his youngest son, and the 347 people who were killed returning from a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai.

A SOLDIER'S PRAYER - by Col. Lewis L. Millett

I've fought when others feared to serve.
I've gone where many failed to go.
I've lost friends in war and strife, who valued duty over the love of life. 
I've shared the comradeship of pain
I've searched these lands for men that we've lost.
I've sons who've served our land of liberty who'd fight to see that other lands are free.
I've seen the weak forsake humanity.
I've heard fakers praise our enemy.
I've seen challenged men stand ever bolder.
I've seen the duty, the honor, the sacrifice of the soldier.
Now, I understand the meaning of all lives, 
The lives of comrades of not so long ago.
So to you who answered duties siren call, may
God bless you, my son, may God bless you all.

Millett died of congestive heart failure on November 14, 2009, one month short of his 89th birthday. He died at the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, after being hospitalized four days earlier. He had experienced various health problems over the last few years of his life, including diabetes. His funeral was held on December 5, 2009, at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California and his grave can be found in section 2, grave #1910. 

Reflecting on his career, Col. Millett once told an interviewer: "I believe in freedom, I believe deeply in it. I've fought in three wars, and volunteered for all of them, because I believed as a free man, that it was my duty to help those under the attack of tyranny. Just as simple as that."

A video interview of Col. Millett can be seen at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9H7XplkI54

A Love Story

I spent three years, one month and eight days during World War II in the southwest Pacific in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippine Islands. It left me with three years of unpleasant memories. 

I returned to the States in March 1945 and two weeks after arriving at my new assignment at Page Field, Ft. Myers, Florida, I began the start of 67 years of wonderful memories.

Seventy years ago I asked Jonnie to be My Jonnie. She had a weekend off and I got a weekend pass and we went to Miami. I got to a hotel on Miami Beach, went up to the desk and told him we needed two singles. He looked, turned around and said: "Haven't got any singles, got lots of doubles." Told him we can"t use a double, got to have two singles. Looked again, finally turned around and said: "Why can't you use a double?" I told him "Damn it we're not married." He gave us two doubles for the price of singles. I guess they were used to G.I.s coming in and "shacking up" for the weekend. 

That night we ate and danced at their Night Club. Sunday morning we got to Mass and Sunday afternoon we swam in the hotel pool. Sunday night we boarded the bus and headed back to Ft. Meyers. On the bus that night I asked her to marry me. Without any hesitation, her answer was yes, although we had only known each other for two months. I didn't know it at the time but she had two G.I.s in Denver and a home town boy in Kansas wanting to marry her. 

I was planning to go to a six-month Photography School in NYC after the war and when I finished it, we would get married. On August 6, 1945, we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and on August 9, a second one on Nagasaki, bringing an end to WW II. 

Jonnie asked for a transfer to Jacksonville Airport and got it. They sent me to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin for discharge. We rode the train together to Jacksonville where I kissed her goodbye. On September 5, they handed me an Honorable Discharge and sent me on my way. I got to NYC mid-October hoping to start school but found I couldn't get in a class until Jan. 1946. I went back to Fla. and we decided not to wait.

During the 7:30 morning mass on December 10, 1945, Jonnie's boss walked her down the aisle and we got married. We had only known each other for seven months, neither of us had ever met any of the other's family and none of either family was at the wedding. I'm sure there were some in both families that figured the marriage would never last but it did; 67 years and one day. We just knew that we were made for each other. Thanks to a Merciful God and an ever-vigilant Guardian Angel, I survived three years of the war in the southwest Pacific and He had Jonnie waiting for me at Page Field. 

In January 1946, I did start school in NYC and Jonnie got a transfer to LaGuardia Field she had requested. She supported me while I went to school. We did enjoy our six months in the "Big Apple," did our share of sightseeing, baseball at Yankee Stadium and dinners at a quaint little Chinese Restaurant near my school - before settling down to raising a family.

It's a good thing we were young and worry-free at the time. The first month we were there we lived in a room in upper Manhattan, a long way from LaGuardia over in Flushing. When Jonnie pulled the 3 to 11 shift, she would have to ride buses and the Subway alone for over an hour. I would meet her at the station after midnight and we'd walk to our room. Then we got a room out in Flushing that was about a 20-minute bus ride to LaGuardia. It's a good thing in 1946 our society was a little more civilized. I wouldn't think of doing that today.

It has now been two and a half years since the Good Lord took her home, and I still miss her something fierce. But when I go to bed every night I think about how blessed I was that He let Jonnie be "My Jonnie" for 67 years and one day, and give Him my everlasting, heartfelt thanks.

Military Myths and Legends: The Civil War's Most Productive Spy

Espionage was big business during the American Civil War. Both sides had thousands of spies including hundreds of women. Many of the spy rings were located in each of the capital cities, Washington D. C. and Richmond, sending valuable information back to their respective governments, and each side had a number of independent spies working for them. Some of these independent spies were under contract, but others did their dangerous work out of love for their country.
 
To be sure, it was a very dangerous business and inevitable, some were caught and often the penalty was hanging. Others were placed in prison or released. Of all these thousands of spies, there was one who many Civil War historians considered the most productive espionage agents of the entire war. Her name was Mary Bowser, a freed black slave working in the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born in Richmond, Virginia, as a slave to John Van Lew, a wealthy merchant. When he died in 1843, his wife, son, and daughter Elizabeth freed his slaves. They also bought everyone in the slave's family in order to set them free as well. Although a free woman, Mary stayed on as a servant in the Van Lew household until the late 1850s. 

During those years, Miss Elizabeth Van Lew, a well-known member of Richmond, Virginia, society continued to live with her widowed mother in a three-story mansion in the Confederate capital. Educated in the North, Van Lew took pride in her Richmond roots, but she fervently opposed slavery and secession, became increasingly aware that Mary had exceptional intelligence. Being a staunch abolitionist and Quaker, she sent Mary to the Quaker School for Negroes in Philadelphia to be educated.

Mary returned from Philadelphia after graduating so that she could marry Wilson Bowser, a free black man. The ceremony was held on April 16, 1861, just four days after Confederate troops opened fire on Fort Sumter, thereby initiating the Civil War. Even though it was a marriage between two former slaves, most of the wedding party and parishioners of the church were white. The couple lived on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. There is no record of any children. Even after her marriage, Mary stayed in close contact with the Van Lew family and often conversations would be about intellectual and political views. 

Despite her abolitionist sentiments and her close ties to the Union, Miss Van Lew was a prominent figure in the Richmond political scene which made her key in the establishment of a spy system in the Confederate capital. Van Lew would use a guise that was always distracted and muttered when she spoke in order for people to think she was unbalanced and therefore not someone to take seriously. She was given the nickname "Crazy Bet." She would regularly visit the Libby Prison with food and medicine, and helped escapees of all kinds, hiding them in a secret room in her mansion. However, her biggest accomplishment in espionage was utilizing Mary Elizabeth Bowser in one of the greatest feats of espionage in the Civil War.

Because of Bowser's intelligence and photographic memory, Van Lew decided to make Bowser a spy to infiltrate the confederacy. In order to get access to top-secret information, Bowser became "Ellen Bond," a slow-thinking, but able, servant. Van Lew was able to have her work at functions held by Varina Davis, the wife of the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. Bowser was eventually hired full-time and worked in the Davis household until just before the end of the war. She worked as a servant, cleaning and serving meals and since slaves were trained to seem invisible, she was able to get incredible amounts of information simply by doing her work. The assumption was that slaves could not read or write, nor understand the complex political conversations being held. However, due to Bowser's education and keen perception, she was able to read and remember any papers that were left around in Jefferson Davis' study and report the information back to Van Lew all that was going on in Davis' house.

Jefferson Davis had become aware that there was a leak in his house, but for a while, he did not realize it was Bowser. Soon suspicion fell on Bowser. She chose to flee in January 1865, but she did not go quietly. Her last act as a spy was an unsuccessful attempt to burn down the Confederate White House. 

As with most Union spies who served in Richmond during the war, all records of Mary's work were destroyed by the War Department to protect her from the retaliation she would have faced if the extent of her service were uncovered. Because of this, very little specific information is known about her activities during the war aside that a significant amount made its way to General Ulysses S. Grant and influenced his decisions from 1863-1864.

After the war ended, Mary Bowser spent time serving as a teacher for freed slaves and gave at least one speech in which she told the story of her time as a spy in the Confederate White House. For the speech, given in the fall of 1865 in New York, she used the name, "Richmonia Richards." Later, in 1867, she had a chance meeting with Harriet Beecher Stowe in Georgia and told her story again. At that time, she was teaching under the name Mary J. R. Richards. 

After 1867, no one seems to know what happened to her. 
She seems to have effectively disappeared like a good spy would...
However, there is no doubt she served exceptionally well in an exceedingly dangerous position. In 1995, the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, honored her effort with these words:

"Ms. Bowser succeeded in a highly dangerous mission to the great benefit of the Union effort. She was one of the highest placed and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War. Her information greatly enhanced the Union's conduct of the war. Jefferson Davis never discovered the leak in his household staff, although he knew the Union somehow kept discovering Confederate plans." 

Battle Chronicles:The Battle of Saratoga

The road to the American Revolutionary War - or War of Independence - began in the wake of the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763) when the government of King George III of Great Britain decided that the American colonies should share in the costs associated with the War by adding taxes to common goods, such as sugar, molasses and tea.

These attempts were met with increasingly stiff resistance. American colonists claimed they were unconstitutional, suggesting that they deserved to have representation in the British Parliament if they were to shoulder some of the war costs. Taking a harsh response, the British instead used their military to allow their representatives to safely perform their tax collection and other duties. 

At the time, the loyalties among the colonists were divided. Historians estimate that one-third of colonists supported the American Revolution, one-third sided with the British, and one-third remained neutral about breaking away from British rule.

It was the passage of the Tea Tax in 1773 that resulted in the first revolutionary act; Boston colonists masquerading as Native Americans boarded merchant ships and tossed their cargo and tea overboard. In response, the British Parliament passed a series of punitive laws in 1774, which the American Patriots named 'Intolerable Acts,' closed Boston Harbor, and sent in troops to occupy Boston. The Patriots responded by setting up a shadow government that took control of the province outside of Boston. Twelve other colonies supported Massachusetts, forming a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance and set up committees and conventions which effectively seized power from the royal governments. Most Colonialists were uncertain of what was going to happen next.

In April 1775, fighting broke out between Massachusetts militia units and British regulars at Lexington and Concord. By the following summer, the rebels were waging a full-scale war for their independence that lasted eight years from 1775 to 1783.

The Continental Congress appointed General George Washington to take charge of militia units besieging British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776. Congress then created the first-ever Continental Army and placed Washington in command. He was also given the responsibility of coordinating state militia units. 

In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies' intentions. Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence - written largely by Jefferson - in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence. Later that month, the Continental Congress formally declared independence from British rule.

Following these actions, support for the Revolutionist grew to about 40 to 45 percent of the colonial population. About 15 to 20 percent of the population still supported the British Crown, however. Known as Loyalists, they fielded perhaps 50,000 men during the war years in support of the British Empire. 

To strengthen their forces, the British hired about 30,000 German mercenaries, popularly known in the colonies as "Hessians." They made up about one-third of the British troop strength in North America. By 1779, the number of British and German troops stationed in North America was over 60,000.

Since native lands were threatened by expanding American settlement, most Native Americans also joined the fight against the United States. An estimated 13,000 warriors fought on the British side. 

By June 1776, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, a growing majority of the colonists had come to favor independence from Britain. It was during that same month that the British government - determined to crush the rebellion - sent a large fleet, along with more than 34,000 troops to New York. 

In the cities, the British had an advantage due to its naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities. In August 1776, this enabled Gen. William Howe's Redcoats to rout the Continental Army on Long Island, forcing Gen. George Washington to evacuate his troops from New York City by September. Pushed across the Delaware River, Washington fought back with a surprise attack in Trenton, New Jersey, on December 26, 1776. It won another victory at Princeton to revive the rebels' flagging hopes before making winter quarters at Morristown.

In a plan to change the fortunes of war, the British attempted to strategically control Upstate New York and isolate New England from the Southern colonies in an effort to decisively put an end to the Revolution. The British strategy involved three main prongs of attack aimed at separating the Revolutionists from New England, where they enjoyed their greatest support by taking control of New York City, Albany, and the Hudson River. First, British Gen. John Burgoyne would lead 8,000 troops from Canada. Barry St. Leger would direct his troops east from Lake Ontario along the Mohawk River valley, and Gen. Howe would move his troops north from New York City, where all three would meet at Albany to destroy the Rebel armies caught in the middle.

In June, Burgoyne moved south from Canada, boated up Lake Champlain to middle New York, then marched over the divide and down the Hudson Valley to Saratoga, some 188 miles distance. On the way, Burgoyne's men dealt a devastating loss to the Americans in July 1777 by retaking Fort Ticonderoga. 

However, what Burgoyne didn't know was Howe's decision not to move north to Albany but rather to takes his forces southward from New York to confront Washington's army near the Chesapeake Bay. 

Howe was successful in defeating the Americans at Brandywine Creek, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 1777, and entered the Patriot capital of Philadelphia on September 25. Although he succeeded in capturing the city and forcing Congress to flee to York, Pennsylvania, he decided to camp his army in the capital for the winter, rather than proceeding with the plan of joining forces with Burgoyne and St. Leger at Albany.

Still unaware of Howe's change in plans, Burgoyne continued driving south to Albany, NY, along the historic water route of Lake Champlain, Lake George, and the Hudson River. But in the forests near the Lake George area, Burgoyne's advance south faltered from Colonist troops chopping trees and blocking Burgoyne's path, slowing the British considerably. 

By the time Burgoyne reached Fort Edward, supplies were running low, so he sent a detachment to capture an American supply base at Bennington, Vermont. The detachment was attacked and defeated by John Stark and the Green Mountain Boys, costing Burgoyne a thousand men. 

It was right around this time that another problem arose.

On the morning of July 27, 1777, a loyalist by the name of Miss Janes McCrea visited a friend, Sarah McNeil, who was preparing to leave Fort Edward for safety. About noon the two women were captured by some Native American scouts whom Burgoyne had employed as an advance force. McNeil was delivered safely to British hands, but McCrea was later discovered dead, several bullet wounds in her body and scalped. The culprits took the scalp back to Burgoyne. The murder and scalping sent a shock of horror through the colonies; it was even felt in England, wherein the House of Commons Edmund Burke denounced the use of "Indian" allies.
 
In America, the deed galvanized patriotic sentiment, swung waverers against the British, and encouraged a tide of enlistments that helped end Burgoyne's invasion. 

Burgoyne's advance south was slow and began to falter in the forests near the Lake George area. Colonist troops under the command of Gen. Horatio Gates were chopping down trees and blocking Burgoyne's path, slowing the British considerably. Small and numerous scrimmages forced Burgoyne to fall back to the vicinity of Saratoga. At the same time, Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, a Virginian patriot, had gathered a group of about 750 men to fight the British from the back. By picking off the British ranks from behind trees, they weakened Burgoyne's army considerably. 

The situation was growing desperate for Burgoyne when he received a letter from Gen. Henry Clinton learning of Howe's change in plans of meeting at the Hudson River. In the letter, Clinton promised he was coming up the Hudson with reinforcements from New York. Unfortunately, the furthest north Clinton would reach was Clermont, nearly 50 miles from Albany and 70 from Bemis Heights. 

As time passed, Burgoyne realized Clinton would never arrive on time with reinforcement, so he decided he could wait no longer to attack the colonialists. He was already forced to put his men on limited rations, and he did not want to surrender to the Americans, whom he considered almost conquered. With the forces he had left, he began his offensive.

The first battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Freeman's Farm, took place on September 19, 1777. A militia of sharpshooters from Virginia harassed the British, while other colonist forces aggressively charged into battle with them. Officially the British won the fight but weakened Burgoyne forces since he lost two men for everyone on the American side. 

The second battle, the Battle of Bemis Heights, occurred on October 7, when Burgoyne determined to break free from the encircling colonial forces and drive them from the field. The British troops and their German allies were devastated and nearly lost their entrenched positions. 

This defeat at Bemis Heights forced Burgoyne to withdraw north to camps in and around the present Village of Schuylerville. Burgoyne surrendered on October 17, 1777. Disgraced, Burgoyne returned to England and was never given another command. 

The American victory Saratoga would also prove to be a turning point of the American Revolution, as it prompted France, which had been secretly aiding the rebels d been secretly aiding the rebels since 1776 to enter the war openly on the American side. However, it would not formally declare war on Great Britain until June 1778. Spain and the Netherlands also joined as allies over the next two years. The American Revolution, which had begun as a civil conflict between Britain and its colonies, had become a world war. 

Although the War persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading to British Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown to the Gen. George Washington on October 19, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence. 

The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, formerly recognized the sovereignty of the United States, officially ending the American Revolutionary after eight years of War.