Post by Karl Welteke on Jun 2, 2022 15:47:55 GMT 8
Grande Island, FORT WINT, January 24 1945 at 0900
This snapshot in time taken was taken at about 0930 on January 24, 1945, shows a place where these men and their wives walked in 1940~1941 or flew over in 1945. No person’s history stands alone in WWII; it touches the lives of many more people.
These 6 pictures and write-up of this presentation are from the author team of this book:
RELENTLESS HOPE - A True Story of War and Survival, by David L Britt (Chester's youngest son) with John Duresky ( the researcher) and Vickie Graham ISBN 978-1-09838-539-2
The book RELENTLESS HOPE writing team gave me permission to present it to the public!
Thru their research of the book Relentless Hope, the writing team found this bomber group and attained their cooperation:
The 345th BG is made up of four squadrons: The 498th Falcons. The 499th Bats Outta Hell. The 500th Rough Raiders. The 501st Black Panthers
The forum does not allow posting in high resolution, so, these pictures are available in high resolution at this venue, and you ought to look at this presentation in high resolution:
www.flickr.com/photos/44567569@N00/albums/72177720299441854
#1 The January 24, 1945 0930 photo of Grande Island/Fort Wint being bombed, shot in high resolution digital without any notes.
#2 The January 24, 1945 0930 photo of Grande Island/Fort Wint being bombed, shot in high resolution digital with notes.
#3 The January 24, 1945 0930 photo of Grande Island/Fort Wint being bombed, shot in high resolution. Same photo connecting photos in the life of Chester and Grace Britt to locations in the B-25 photo. Lt Monteith and Capt Gray would have also walked these areas, but we don’t know which building they lived in. On the right side is a photo of Grace with Col and Mrs. Boudreau with Grace Britt. After Fort Wint was abandoned, he went and commanded Fort Frank in Manila Bay which was surrendered on May 6, 1942 along with Corregidor.
#4 Original photo on a sheet of paper which if printed out will show you the actual size to the naked eye. In order to bring out the quality and detail which WWII photo analysts saw under a magnifying glass, this 345th unit photo had to be photographed using a Canon T3i 35mm camera at 18 megapixels using the CA (Creative Auto) setting with no flash and the photo lit from two opposing sides with goose neck lamps to eliminate glare. This last bit for our aerial photography wiz Vickie Graham copied here who edited our book.
#5 Newspaper article 1945 10 26 ROANOKE AL LEADER Air Apaches bomb with kitchen sink.
#6 Google Earth, a more recent image of Grande Island.
The true originator of this research work is John Duresky, a member of the book RELENTLESS HOPE - A True Story of War and Survival, by David L Britt writing team. This is his presentation that came with the 6 images:
This snapshot in time taken was taken at about 0930 on January 24, 1945, shows a place where these men and their wives walked in 1940~1941 or flew over in 1945. No person’s history stands alone in WWII, it touches the lives of many more people.
GRANDE ISLAND NORTH SIDE WITH FORT WINT BUILDINGS IN SUBIC BAY
Chester and Grace Britt lived at Fort Wint on Grande Island in Subic Bay, Philippines, from December 1940, until May 4, 1941. Then they went to Manila to spend the night before Grace left the next day with other evacuees on the USAT Republic on May 5, 1941, seeing each other the next time in late October, 1945 when Chester finally came home to La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Chester would spend the rest of his time at Fort Wint with other men in preparation for war, which war erupted in the Philippines on December 8, 1941, only hours after Pearl Harbor but a different date due to the international dateline. The men at Fort Wint recorded sinking a Japanese barge filled with about 30 soldiers, and shooting down at least one Japanese plane. Fort Wint’s large guns were aimed toward the sea and never fired a shot, much like most of Corregidor’s guns which were mainly meant to defend against attacks from the sea, and so the Japanese generally simply stayed out of range of the guns. Chester left the island with the last of the men on December 25, 1941, under orders to abandon it because it was indefensible against an amphibious attack by the Japanese and would have resulted in a quick slaughter of the defenders. The men went to Corregidor, or like Chester to Bataan, to continue the fight. We don’t know if Chester saw Grande Island again while he was on Bataan fighting with the 301st Field Artillery, but due to the mountainous geography and his area of battle it would have been unlikely. When Bataan was surrendered on April 9, 1941, he was taken prisoner and the next day began the Bataan Death March.
Chester spent 2-1/2 years as a POW in the Philippines until he boarded the Oryoku Maru in Manila Harbor on December 13, 1944, to be taken to Japan. The Oryoku Maru set sail, and was attacked on December 14, and as fate would have it, the ship passed about a half mile from Grande Island, but Chester was in the bow hold of that ship with hundreds of other men and could not see it. Then on December 15, the ship was again attacked and hit by a bomb dropped by a plane from the USS Hornet, and the Oryoku Maru was ordered abandoned by the Japanese guards. Chester and hundreds of other POWs and some civilian prisoners swam several hundred yards to shore and were retaken and put in a tennis court at Olongapo. After abandoning ship, we could have seen Grande Island again for the first and last time since December, 1941, about 4.6 miles south across Subic Bay. He may have seen a thin whitish line along the north shore of Grand Island which was the headquarters building and the homes of officers, including Chester and Grace. The above facts are covered in our book RELENTLESS HOPE - A True Story of War and Survival, by David L Britt (Chester's youngest son) with John Duresky (myself) and Vickie Graham ISBN 978-1-09838-539-2
After the Fort Wint was abandoned in 1941, it was then occupied by the Japanese. Grande Island was retaken on January 30, 1945, by American troops who came ashore and found that the Japanese had also abandoned it because they too found it indefensible, and so it was retaken without firing a shot. That same day, Chester and the remaining emaciated, ill survivors of the voyage that began with the Oryoku Maru arrived at Moji, Japan, in the hold of the Brazil Maru.
We had photos taken on the north side of Olongapo by Chester and Gace, but only very distant views of the island taken in 1933 which were not very helpful in putting those photos into context.
Finally, after almost three years of looking for a good photo showing the north side of Grande Island in Subic Bay where Chester and Grace lived, I was blessed to spot one for sale on Ebay by Premier Relics and purchased this one-of-a-kind view. The physical photo measures only 6.5” W x 4.5” H, but the clarity and details are remarkable once it is magnified.
Thanks to another photo for sale online at Premier Relics which shows an unrelated mission photo, I was able to determine it was taken by a B-25 from the the 345th Bomb Group. The entire collection for sale is found here premierrelics.com/consolidated-b24-liberator In this link, second photo from the left in the top line, if you click on that photo, it will bring up some close-ups including one showing a B-25 banking right with a white stripe on the tail which was the key clue, and the black hump at the top of the photo shows a way to identify photos from B-25s, including the one of Grande Island. That is the tail marking for a plane from the 501st Squadron (BLACK PANTHERS) of the 345th. From that I found the 345th was famous for low level bombing and strafing with their B-25 twin-engine bombers with the history here www.345thbombgroup.org/index.php One famous photo shows them actually “bombing” the Japanese with the proverbial kitchen sink (see attached article). After determining some basic things, I contacted this organization dedicated to the 345th and was greatly helped by Mary Roby, President of the organization, whose father was 1LT Eugene B Sloan a navigator in the 500th Bomb Squadron (ROUGH RAIDERS) of the 345th, and then talking with their archivist Dennis O’Neill whose father-in-law 1LT Joseph Symonds was a pilot with the ROUGH RAIDERS.
All such WWII mission photos need to be viewed in context as we remember the risks these men took on every mission when these photos were shot, and the lives lost in many missions. We thank the men of the 345th who risked their lives and their courage during the war every time they took off. Dennis told me that after the missions, the photos were developed and used for intelligence, and then put on a table and anyone could take them. I know the Navy did the same with most of their photos. There are certainly many more similar unique photos gathering dust in attics and closets around America still to be found. Each such photo helps to tell a part of the story of WWII.
Attached or linked with this report are the following:
1. PDF of the pages from the 345th group website of mission after-action reports of the of attacks on Grande Island between Jan 22~25, 1945, pages 5~6 covers this photo under attack by the 498th Bomb Squadron (FALCONS) which matches details about this photo. Dennis confirmed that two of the four planes turned back, and so the photo was taken either by a B-25 piloted by 1LT Truett C Gowan or 1LT Roy Lee Jarman. The report in this PDF lets us confirm this is the photo taken on January 24, 1945, at about 0930. The planes first attacked Bataan, then flow over Grande Island where this photo was taken, and then continued on to attack Olongapo. In this report it also makes clear that area is burned out the next day, making this photo the last where these buildings where the men of Fort Wint lived and fought can be seen. In these reports, they refer to this as the east side of the island, but I've always referred to it as the north side, but it's the same location....see attached Google Earth view.
URL for this pdf file: philippine-sailor.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Doc005.pdf
1. The January 24, 1945 0930 photo shot in high resolution digital without any notes.
2. Same photo with a notes.
3. Same photo connecting photos in the life of Chester and Grace Britt to locations in the B-25 photo. Lt Monteith and Capt Gray would have also walked these areas, but we don’t know which building they lived in. On the right side is a photo of Grace with Col and Mrs. Boudreau with Grace Britt. After Fort Wint was abandoned, he went and commanded Fort Frank in Manila Bay which was surrendered on May 6, 1942 along with Corregidor.
4. Original photo on a sheet of paper which if printed out will show you the actual size to the naked eye. In order to bring out the quality and detail which WWII photo analysts saw under a magnifying glass, this 345th unit photo had to be photographed using a Canon T3i 35mm camera at 18 megapixels using the CA (Creative Auto) setting with no flash and the photo lit from two opposing sides with goose neck lamps to eliminate glare. This last bit for our aerial photography wiz Vickie Graham copied here who edited our book.
A note for my friend Karl BBC'd here, it's most likely that the bombs coming down in the water detonated, but there is no way to tell. Dennis said some of them even had their fuses set to detonate hours later. You might want to ask the Philippine Navy to do dive in that area to see if they can be located because if by they are unexploded they would pose a hazard should anyone from the resort on the island now go diving and find them there.
On January 24, 1945, when this photo was taken of Grande Island, Chester Britt and hundreds of other POWs were in the hold of the hell ship the Brazil Maru. The men had on only scraps of clothing in the frigid hold of the ship, with snow and ice on the deck above them. On this day alone, 21 POWs died of exposure, illness or wounds in that hold, among them was Lt Col Fred Saint, 1931 graduate of West Point. Fred Saint was an instructor of Chester when he attended West Point from 1936~1940, and Fred was a friend of Paul D Phillips, a classmate of Chester, who is now 104 and the sole living survivor of the 1619 men who boarded the hell ship the Oryoku Maru and was also in the Brazil Maru. Six days later the Brazil Maru at last docked at Moji, Japan.
This PDF is an account of such low-level bombings and by searching PARACHUTE you can find the history and use of those bombs www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0096_RODMAN_WAR_OF_THEIR_OWN.pdf
Anyone is free to use any photos of the attack on Grande Island, and the information about the attack, with my permission, but please credit it to our book, because everything we’ve found about events and her people has been due to trying to trace down parts of the lives of Chester and Grace Britt. This permission DOES NOT INCLUDE anything for sale by Premier Relics on their website, including the photo I referenced above with the white stripe.
This snapshot in time taken was taken at about 0930 on January 24, 1945, shows a place where these men and their wives walked in 1940~1941 or flew over in 1945. No person’s history stands alone in WWII; it touches the lives of many more people.
These 6 pictures and write-up of this presentation are from the author team of this book:
RELENTLESS HOPE - A True Story of War and Survival, by David L Britt (Chester's youngest son) with John Duresky ( the researcher) and Vickie Graham ISBN 978-1-09838-539-2
The book RELENTLESS HOPE writing team gave me permission to present it to the public!
Thru their research of the book Relentless Hope, the writing team found this bomber group and attained their cooperation:
The 345th BG is made up of four squadrons: The 498th Falcons. The 499th Bats Outta Hell. The 500th Rough Raiders. The 501st Black Panthers
The forum does not allow posting in high resolution, so, these pictures are available in high resolution at this venue, and you ought to look at this presentation in high resolution:
www.flickr.com/photos/44567569@N00/albums/72177720299441854
#1 The January 24, 1945 0930 photo of Grande Island/Fort Wint being bombed, shot in high resolution digital without any notes.
#2 The January 24, 1945 0930 photo of Grande Island/Fort Wint being bombed, shot in high resolution digital with notes.
#3 The January 24, 1945 0930 photo of Grande Island/Fort Wint being bombed, shot in high resolution. Same photo connecting photos in the life of Chester and Grace Britt to locations in the B-25 photo. Lt Monteith and Capt Gray would have also walked these areas, but we don’t know which building they lived in. On the right side is a photo of Grace with Col and Mrs. Boudreau with Grace Britt. After Fort Wint was abandoned, he went and commanded Fort Frank in Manila Bay which was surrendered on May 6, 1942 along with Corregidor.
#4 Original photo on a sheet of paper which if printed out will show you the actual size to the naked eye. In order to bring out the quality and detail which WWII photo analysts saw under a magnifying glass, this 345th unit photo had to be photographed using a Canon T3i 35mm camera at 18 megapixels using the CA (Creative Auto) setting with no flash and the photo lit from two opposing sides with goose neck lamps to eliminate glare. This last bit for our aerial photography wiz Vickie Graham copied here who edited our book.
#5 Newspaper article 1945 10 26 ROANOKE AL LEADER Air Apaches bomb with kitchen sink.
#6 Google Earth, a more recent image of Grande Island.
The true originator of this research work is John Duresky, a member of the book RELENTLESS HOPE - A True Story of War and Survival, by David L Britt writing team. This is his presentation that came with the 6 images:
This snapshot in time taken was taken at about 0930 on January 24, 1945, shows a place where these men and their wives walked in 1940~1941 or flew over in 1945. No person’s history stands alone in WWII, it touches the lives of many more people.
GRANDE ISLAND NORTH SIDE WITH FORT WINT BUILDINGS IN SUBIC BAY
Chester and Grace Britt lived at Fort Wint on Grande Island in Subic Bay, Philippines, from December 1940, until May 4, 1941. Then they went to Manila to spend the night before Grace left the next day with other evacuees on the USAT Republic on May 5, 1941, seeing each other the next time in late October, 1945 when Chester finally came home to La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Chester would spend the rest of his time at Fort Wint with other men in preparation for war, which war erupted in the Philippines on December 8, 1941, only hours after Pearl Harbor but a different date due to the international dateline. The men at Fort Wint recorded sinking a Japanese barge filled with about 30 soldiers, and shooting down at least one Japanese plane. Fort Wint’s large guns were aimed toward the sea and never fired a shot, much like most of Corregidor’s guns which were mainly meant to defend against attacks from the sea, and so the Japanese generally simply stayed out of range of the guns. Chester left the island with the last of the men on December 25, 1941, under orders to abandon it because it was indefensible against an amphibious attack by the Japanese and would have resulted in a quick slaughter of the defenders. The men went to Corregidor, or like Chester to Bataan, to continue the fight. We don’t know if Chester saw Grande Island again while he was on Bataan fighting with the 301st Field Artillery, but due to the mountainous geography and his area of battle it would have been unlikely. When Bataan was surrendered on April 9, 1941, he was taken prisoner and the next day began the Bataan Death March.
Chester spent 2-1/2 years as a POW in the Philippines until he boarded the Oryoku Maru in Manila Harbor on December 13, 1944, to be taken to Japan. The Oryoku Maru set sail, and was attacked on December 14, and as fate would have it, the ship passed about a half mile from Grande Island, but Chester was in the bow hold of that ship with hundreds of other men and could not see it. Then on December 15, the ship was again attacked and hit by a bomb dropped by a plane from the USS Hornet, and the Oryoku Maru was ordered abandoned by the Japanese guards. Chester and hundreds of other POWs and some civilian prisoners swam several hundred yards to shore and were retaken and put in a tennis court at Olongapo. After abandoning ship, we could have seen Grande Island again for the first and last time since December, 1941, about 4.6 miles south across Subic Bay. He may have seen a thin whitish line along the north shore of Grand Island which was the headquarters building and the homes of officers, including Chester and Grace. The above facts are covered in our book RELENTLESS HOPE - A True Story of War and Survival, by David L Britt (Chester's youngest son) with John Duresky (myself) and Vickie Graham ISBN 978-1-09838-539-2
After the Fort Wint was abandoned in 1941, it was then occupied by the Japanese. Grande Island was retaken on January 30, 1945, by American troops who came ashore and found that the Japanese had also abandoned it because they too found it indefensible, and so it was retaken without firing a shot. That same day, Chester and the remaining emaciated, ill survivors of the voyage that began with the Oryoku Maru arrived at Moji, Japan, in the hold of the Brazil Maru.
We had photos taken on the north side of Olongapo by Chester and Gace, but only very distant views of the island taken in 1933 which were not very helpful in putting those photos into context.
Finally, after almost three years of looking for a good photo showing the north side of Grande Island in Subic Bay where Chester and Grace lived, I was blessed to spot one for sale on Ebay by Premier Relics and purchased this one-of-a-kind view. The physical photo measures only 6.5” W x 4.5” H, but the clarity and details are remarkable once it is magnified.
Thanks to another photo for sale online at Premier Relics which shows an unrelated mission photo, I was able to determine it was taken by a B-25 from the the 345th Bomb Group. The entire collection for sale is found here premierrelics.com/consolidated-b24-liberator In this link, second photo from the left in the top line, if you click on that photo, it will bring up some close-ups including one showing a B-25 banking right with a white stripe on the tail which was the key clue, and the black hump at the top of the photo shows a way to identify photos from B-25s, including the one of Grande Island. That is the tail marking for a plane from the 501st Squadron (BLACK PANTHERS) of the 345th. From that I found the 345th was famous for low level bombing and strafing with their B-25 twin-engine bombers with the history here www.345thbombgroup.org/index.php One famous photo shows them actually “bombing” the Japanese with the proverbial kitchen sink (see attached article). After determining some basic things, I contacted this organization dedicated to the 345th and was greatly helped by Mary Roby, President of the organization, whose father was 1LT Eugene B Sloan a navigator in the 500th Bomb Squadron (ROUGH RAIDERS) of the 345th, and then talking with their archivist Dennis O’Neill whose father-in-law 1LT Joseph Symonds was a pilot with the ROUGH RAIDERS.
All such WWII mission photos need to be viewed in context as we remember the risks these men took on every mission when these photos were shot, and the lives lost in many missions. We thank the men of the 345th who risked their lives and their courage during the war every time they took off. Dennis told me that after the missions, the photos were developed and used for intelligence, and then put on a table and anyone could take them. I know the Navy did the same with most of their photos. There are certainly many more similar unique photos gathering dust in attics and closets around America still to be found. Each such photo helps to tell a part of the story of WWII.
Attached or linked with this report are the following:
1. PDF of the pages from the 345th group website of mission after-action reports of the of attacks on Grande Island between Jan 22~25, 1945, pages 5~6 covers this photo under attack by the 498th Bomb Squadron (FALCONS) which matches details about this photo. Dennis confirmed that two of the four planes turned back, and so the photo was taken either by a B-25 piloted by 1LT Truett C Gowan or 1LT Roy Lee Jarman. The report in this PDF lets us confirm this is the photo taken on January 24, 1945, at about 0930. The planes first attacked Bataan, then flow over Grande Island where this photo was taken, and then continued on to attack Olongapo. In this report it also makes clear that area is burned out the next day, making this photo the last where these buildings where the men of Fort Wint lived and fought can be seen. In these reports, they refer to this as the east side of the island, but I've always referred to it as the north side, but it's the same location....see attached Google Earth view.
URL for this pdf file: philippine-sailor.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Doc005.pdf
1. The January 24, 1945 0930 photo shot in high resolution digital without any notes.
2. Same photo with a notes.
3. Same photo connecting photos in the life of Chester and Grace Britt to locations in the B-25 photo. Lt Monteith and Capt Gray would have also walked these areas, but we don’t know which building they lived in. On the right side is a photo of Grace with Col and Mrs. Boudreau with Grace Britt. After Fort Wint was abandoned, he went and commanded Fort Frank in Manila Bay which was surrendered on May 6, 1942 along with Corregidor.
4. Original photo on a sheet of paper which if printed out will show you the actual size to the naked eye. In order to bring out the quality and detail which WWII photo analysts saw under a magnifying glass, this 345th unit photo had to be photographed using a Canon T3i 35mm camera at 18 megapixels using the CA (Creative Auto) setting with no flash and the photo lit from two opposing sides with goose neck lamps to eliminate glare. This last bit for our aerial photography wiz Vickie Graham copied here who edited our book.
A note for my friend Karl BBC'd here, it's most likely that the bombs coming down in the water detonated, but there is no way to tell. Dennis said some of them even had their fuses set to detonate hours later. You might want to ask the Philippine Navy to do dive in that area to see if they can be located because if by they are unexploded they would pose a hazard should anyone from the resort on the island now go diving and find them there.
On January 24, 1945, when this photo was taken of Grande Island, Chester Britt and hundreds of other POWs were in the hold of the hell ship the Brazil Maru. The men had on only scraps of clothing in the frigid hold of the ship, with snow and ice on the deck above them. On this day alone, 21 POWs died of exposure, illness or wounds in that hold, among them was Lt Col Fred Saint, 1931 graduate of West Point. Fred Saint was an instructor of Chester when he attended West Point from 1936~1940, and Fred was a friend of Paul D Phillips, a classmate of Chester, who is now 104 and the sole living survivor of the 1619 men who boarded the hell ship the Oryoku Maru and was also in the Brazil Maru. Six days later the Brazil Maru at last docked at Moji, Japan.
This PDF is an account of such low-level bombings and by searching PARACHUTE you can find the history and use of those bombs www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0096_RODMAN_WAR_OF_THEIR_OWN.pdf
Anyone is free to use any photos of the attack on Grande Island, and the information about the attack, with my permission, but please credit it to our book, because everything we’ve found about events and her people has been due to trying to trace down parts of the lives of Chester and Grace Britt. This permission DOES NOT INCLUDE anything for sale by Premier Relics on their website, including the photo I referenced above with the white stripe.