Book Review: Port Chicago: Images of America

Images of America: Port Chicago by Dean L. McLeod, Arcadia Publishing, San Francisco, 2007.

Port Chicago is a city that is no longer there.  The wanted to call it Chicago, but were not allowed, or the name is Port Chicago.  It is on the south side of the Sacramento River, not far upstream from Benecia, which is on the north side.  Port Chicago was a shipping town.  The depth of the water made it a convenient port.  Port Chicago played a very significant part in World War II.  Because of the convenient port, a large naval magazine was located there.  On July 17 1944 a large explosion on the main dock totally destroyed two Navy vessels, one was loaded and the other not.  The loaded vessel was thrown through the air, and it landed upside down.  The other vessel disintegrated.  320 men were killed and over 400 wounded.  this was the largest mainland disaster during the war.  This explosions left a crater at the bottom of the river over 60 feet deep, 300 feet wide, 700 feet long.  In town almost every building was damaged, although no one was killed.  The movie theater was damaged to the point it had to be destroyed.
Some conspiracy theories still persist about the accident; that perhaps it was a test of some nuclear device or a port busting bomb.  The more conventional answer is that the blast was accidental.
Port Chicago was a known place for nuclear testing, and often people from Los Alamos were there.  Also tested were mine clearing devices.  From Port Chicago, fissionable material was placed aboard the ill-fated USS Indianapolis which delivered this material for the strike on Japan. 
The town was closed by the U.S. government in 1969.  It is now surrounded by fencing and barbed wire.  The last residents were expelled.  However, there is a national monument at the Naval magazine that exploded, and this is accessible.  (Although currently closed it will reopen in March.)  to visit one must get a permit two weeks before their visits.  Visits are on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays only. 

Documentary Review: Nazi's Mega Weapons: Hitler's Battleships

Bismarck

Tirpitz

   Although Hitler had planned to build bigger and bigger Battleships, he actually only finished two large Battleships; the Bismarck, completed in 1940 and its sister, Tirpitz, finished the following year 1941.  Too Adolf Hitler these Battleships were propaganda pieces.  To the commander of the Navy, Admiral Erich Raeder, these Battleships afforded an opportunity to disrupt the British line of supply.  On the maiden voyage for the Bismarck, the British were determined to sink her.  The British feet set out to track her down, and finally did so, and engaged her in battle.  The British lost HMS Hood a battle cruiser, and a Battleship, HMS Wales was badly damaged.  The British continued to press, this time attacking with biplane torpedo planes, which were flying off an improvised aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal.  One of the torpedoes scored a hit at the aft of the Bismarck, flooding the steering house and causing the rudder to lock in place, and forcing the Bismarck into a tight circle.  The boat should have been able to correct for this using the propellers, however a design flaw had the propellers too close together so this was not possible.  After this the Bismarck was a sitting duck.  Two British ships came in for the kill, and the Bismarck was sunk 27 May, 1941.
Of course Hitler was furious.  His propaganda weapon was destroyed.  He would not let the other ship, Tirpitz, to engage in similar combat, and he scrubbed future Battleship projects, moving the material and men to construction of submarines.
The Tirpitz was sent North to Norway, where it was anchored in a fjord surrounded by high mountains and in deep water.  Defensive placements where scattered among the hills, along with fog making canisters.  They idea was if the ship could not be seen, it could not be sunk.  Antiaircraft placement in the tops of the mountains were not hampered by the smoke being made below them.  The Tirpitz itself also had antiaircraft guns.  Torpedo netting was placed around the ship, thwarting any effort by submarines or torpedo planes.  The British attacked with planes flying from Russia carrying Tall Boy bombs.  These bombs could penetrate a ship's deck.  The British attacked, and did score a successful strike with one of these bombs.  However, the Tirpitz was not sunk.  However it was no longer sea worth because of the damage.  It was taken a short distance away, where it became the northern anchor of the Atlantic Wall which ran from Norway to Spain.  The ship was propped up with sandbags.
Still the large ship was a tempting target for the British, and although no threat, the British did not know this.  Having moved closer to England, the ship could be reached with long range bombers.  Again it was attacked with Tall Boy bombs.  This time 5-6 of the bombs struck the vessel and it was sunk.  The sand bags did not help as the vessel rolled the opposite way.  Of the 2000 men on board, two thirds were lost.  Some were rescued from inside the vessel when the thick hull was finally welded away.
Thus was the end of Adolf Hitler's large Battleships.

Documentary Review: Memories of a WWII Hero: Captain Brown's Story

This biographical documentary tells the story of Eric Brown who served in WWII as a Navy pilot.  He became a pilot before the war, and was invited to Nazi Germany on a couple of occasions; as propaganda trips for the Nazis as he was shown the might of the German pilots.  He witnessed Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics.  He also happened to be in Germany when war between the German's and the British began.  He was arrested, and then escorted to the Swiss border and released with his car.
At the beginning of the war he was assigned to a carrier.  This carrier had been converted, so the landing deck wasn't long.  However Brown was very good at landing all the same.  This boat was sunk by a submarine, and most of the men aboard perished.  Brown was with a couple other pilots who survived.  He was then transferred to test piloting, focused on landing and taking off from aircraft carriers.  After the war he continued as a test pilot.  He was part of the attempts to break the sound barrier.  A fellow pilot's plane disintegrated.  When he had made the same flight he also had problems, and only in slowing the plan did he save himself.  He also felt his small stature played a part.  His nick name was winkle because of his stature.
He was the first person to land a jet on an aircraft carrier.  He also took off.  Thus began a new era in aviation and military warfare.  He flew planes from bi-planes to supersonic jets.  During his career he flew 487 different types of aircraft making a record.