In last week’s column concerning the horror of World War II, I mentioned the Japanese emperor’s command to fight to the last person if Japan were to be invaded.
That brought an email from a U.S. Navy submarine veteran, Don Smith, who told me of a relatively unknown attack by eight members of a U.S. submarine, “The Barb,” under the command of Cmdr. Eugene Fluckey. This was on an island, Karafuto, between northern Japan and the Asian continent.
Eight carefully selected crew members went ashore on July 22, 1945 (nearly one month before Japan’s surrender was announced on Aug. 15), and planted explosives overnight, which destroyed a railroad train and tracks.
It’s likely the Japanese did not consider it an invasion, but a hit and run attack, one of several in the islands north of the main island of Honshu. It was, though, the only ground combat operation conducted by the U.S. on any of the Japanese home islands.
Russia, though, which had not helped out in the Pacific Theater during the war, was taking the advantage to grab more territory, and had already made several attacks in that area. (They were also claiming all of Korea.)
Getting back to the USS Barb, it had been launched on April 2, 1942, and was on its eighth patrol by that time, having operated in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea during the North Africa campaign, and the Pacific theater.
It completed 12 patrols before being junked and sold as scrap for $100,000 in 1972. Its captain, Eugene Fluckey, by that time an admiral, noted that if the crew had known about this they would have bought it themselves to serve as a museum ship.
Fluckey was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor, and the craft received the Presidential Unit Citation.
My thanks go to Mr. Smith for making me aware of this little known event at the end of WW II. Fluckey later wrote the full story of USS Barb in a book called “Thunder Below.”
Enough warfare, let’s turn to lighter things. There are two types of TV commercials that I abhor, and which I see nearly every day on TV’s noon news. One has two people sitting across from each other and hopes that what they’re discussing will be thought by some to be a genuine interview as part of the news instead of a sales pitch for a product to reduce pouches under the eyes.
The other example tries to appear as if it’s actually a TV emergency notice, by printing the white words on a black background and having the announcer speak slowly in a hushed voice about a signaling device for sale. Shame on them.
By the way, I’m currently making my way through an 800-page book (in double columns) giving the history, along with cast members, sponsors and times broadcast of almost every old radio program. It’s slow reading, but delightful for an ancient former broadcaster.
I mention that because the book, “The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio,” by mystery writer John Dunning, reminded me that up until nearly 1930 no commercials were allowed to be broadcast. Radio waves belonged to the public, and were not to be commercialized. How quaint.
By the way, Timberland Regional Library lists two copies of it available to anyone with a free library card.
In closing, Robert Ripley might be interested in this: I’ve been told that there is a resident in our nation’s capitol who is 71 years old, and who hasn’t a gray hair on his head. What a guy! That hasn’t happened since that old actor fella spent eight or so years in the city.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
