relatively unknown wwII operation

[Otto Harkaman]

The Japanese must have suffered huge losses in their Merchant Marine, never seen anything said about it. I am currently listening to an audiobook of "Silent Running" by Vice Admiral Jim Calvert. He hints at some of the awful scenes he saw when they hit Japanese tankers carrying gasoline or kerosene.

 

[J.T.B.]

^ Clay Blair in Silent Victory gives the figure of 116,000 casualties (27,000 killed and 89,000 wounded) out of 122,000 Japanese merchant marine personnel, based on Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee numbers. About 95%.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

^ wow

 

[Drone]

In a way, I would suspect that a good number of people might be aware of German activities off the East Coast if for no other reason than the story of Operation Pastorius and the attention and legacy given to its attendant legal proceedings.

 

[J.T.B.]

There are many people still alive who lived on the East Coast and can remember smoke from burning tankers, seeing oil from wrecks on beaches, hearing stories of sailors' bodies washed ashore and so on. In the semi-autobiographical Woody Allen movie Radio Days, the Allen character and his Brooklyn friends look for U-boats at the shore, and he thinks he actually sees one surface off Coney Island.