Keynes' Cruisers

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sloreck

For burn victims, the need for blood/blood fractions is not as great as you'd think. A significant proportion of the deaths were from smoke inhalation - the plastic artificial palms etc in the club gave off toxic smoke. An uncle of mine was an army officer at the time, and was in the club. He got out, didn't remember quite how. Some time later he was called to a Boston police station, they had him sign for personal property - his officer's hat had been recovered from the coat room, in perfect condition. Spooky.
 

Butchpfd

sloreck said:
For burn victims, the need for blood/blood fractions is not as great as you'd think. A significant proportion of the deaths were from smoke inhalation - the plastic artificial palms etc in the club gave off toxic smoke. An uncle of mine was an army officer at the time, and was in the club. He got out, didn't remember quite how. Some time later he was called to a Boston police station, they had him sign for personal property - his officer's hat had been recovered from the coat room, in perfect condition. Spooky.
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Actually, the crush injuries by those around the doors, iotl, virtually depleted the available blood supplies in the Boston, civilian hospitals. The smoke inhalation victims, that survive will need blood to volumize their systems, to reverse some the effects of shock.
At this time the modern volumizers of saline and D5W, were not really available. It was whole blood or nothing.
 
Story 1378
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    • fester

    New Caledonia June 8, 1942

    The crowded harbor was overflowing again. Two infantry regiments, an trio of artillery battalions, a heavy anti-aircraft battalion and a company of tanks were due to offload along with sixty days of supply. The few French officers attached to the harbor master were split between their inclination to help the Americans protect the colony from any Japanese advance and the disturbance that the impending avalanche of Americans and their money and the demands would do to their power and the colonial social structure.

    It was an impossible dance. Too few lighters were available and the docks were overcrowded. Troopships had the first priority and then the tankers and then the cargo ships. Troopers held the msot valuable cargo and they were in the shortest supply. Emptying their hulls of 16,000 men before sending them back to San Francisco was the optimal decision even without regarding the need to keep at least one regiment near the docks as longshoremen for the next two weeks. The other regiments would soon be making camps in the hills above the port and along the western coast.

    Even as the army P-39s flew top cover and waves of Navy PBYs and Army A-20s scouted the seas for Japanese submarines, the four carriers of the Pacific Fleet began to refuel. Four fast ships were still continuing into the Coral Sea with their close escort as the covering force would catch up with them by the end of the day. Another regiment was on its way to Timor.
     
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    • Story 1379
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    • fester

    Truk June 9, 1942

    Five aircraft carriers left the atoll. Three battlecruisers and six other cruisers preceded the striking arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy. A dozen destroyers were already probing for American submarines.


    Several miles away USS Trout stayed silent and stayed deep. Her skipper had his last glance at the outgoing fleet two hours ago. A dozen patrol aircraft were already overhead. Three seconds after the periscope had broken the surface, it was coming back down again to avoid the black sky ASW tactics that the Japanese were using to cover the fleet. If the force managed to stumble over him, he would send every torpedo into a ship, but his primary responsibility now was to survive until dark when he could call in the sightings to Pearl Harbor.
     
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    • Story 1380
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    • fester

    Davao June 9, 1942

    Two convoys left the harbor. Guerillas spotted one consisting of seventeen large ships. The other one left the gulf in a rain squall unobserved but still counted as other guerillas had been keeping a daily count of shipping in the harbor. They saw the empty docks and the unemployed workers again. A few discussed their loading duties carefully to their brothers and their cousins who were still running around in the hills playing soldiers while they were responsible men trying to take care of their families as well as they could. Thirty ships were heading south again under a heavy escort. By nightfall, radios with fresh batteries supplied by the routine submarine rendezvous were sending messages to Pearl Harbor, Batavia and Singapore.
     
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    • Story 1381
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    • fester

    The Golden Gate June 10, 1942

    Sailors lined the deck to see their country’s mainland again for the first time since the war started. USS Boise had been steaming at a steady eighteen knots since leaving Darwin except for a refueling stop in Samoa where she picked up eighty men who needed to go to Pearl Harbor, and then a twelve hour port visit in Oahu. Her decks were cleaned, the paint redone and the men were adjusting to the omnipresent fog and cool mists rising from the California Current. Red-skinned men beaten down by the sun were uncomfortable in their bright white uniforms. Two minesweepers and a tug led the cruiser underneath the bridge and past the prison on Alcatraz Island.

    As the cruiser neared the shore, the roar of thousands of civilians could be heard as the cruiser slowly steamed south past the row of piers and canneries of the inner bay. The men on the decks were stiff legged and as the journey that had started in Los Angeles the previous Halloween had taken the ship to Manila, Singapore, Batavia, Timor and three major battles and a dozen skirmishes. Six large Japanese flags were painted under the bridge: a light cruiser, a minesweeper and a transport were claimed during the Battle of Pattani, a destroyer and a transport were her claims during the raid on Balikpapan while the brawl off of Timor led her to vanquish another Japanese destroyer. A dozen smaller flags, arm-size instead of man size, represented the bombers and fighters her anti-aircraft crews had sent into the ocean.

    An hour after the first cheer had been heard, her engines were secured and she was tied fast to the pier in the Hunters Point Shipyard. Men were being allowed off the ship in waves. Anxious older men sought out specific women, their wives, fiances and girlfriends while the younger men sought out any available woman as roving bands entered the city as heroes with stories to tell and money in their pockets.

    Four days later, the first man entered sickbay with a social disease leading to losing the first week of what should have been a forty five day liberty.
     
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    • Palantir

    fester said:
    New Caledonia June 8, 1942

    The crowded harbor was overflowing again. Two infantry regiments, an trio of artillery battalions, a heavy anti-aircraft battalion and a company of tanks were due to offload along with sixty days of supply. The few Vichy French officers attached to the harbor master were split between their inclination to help the Americans protect the colony from any Japanese advance and their orders to at least keep up the appearances of neutrality. It was the same dance that their brothers in arms were trying to tap out in Tunis and Bizerte.

    It was an impossible dance. Too few lighters were available and the docks were overcrowded. Troopships had the first priority and then the tankers and then the cargo ships. Troopers held the msot valuable cargo and they were in the shortest supply. Emptying their hulls of 16,000 men before sending them back to San Francisco was the optimal decision even without regarding the need to keep at least one regiment near the docks as longshoremen for the next two weeks. The other regiments would soon be making camps in the hills above the port and along the western coast.


    Even as the army P-39s flew top cover and waves of Navy PBYs and Army A-20s scouted the seas for Japanese submarines, the four carriers of the Pacific Fleet began to refuel. Four fast troopers were still continuing into the Coral Sea with their close escort as the covering force would catch up with them by the end of the day. Another regiment was on its way to Timor.
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    Just a problem, Fester, isn't New Caledonia Free French since 1940? OTL the territory rallied the Free France on september 24 1940.
    So no Vichy French officers, they're back in France since 1940 or they are in prison (New Caledonia was a penal colony until 1924).
     

    fester

    Palantir said:
    Just a problem, Fester, isn't New Caledonia Free French since 1940? OTL the territory rallied the Free France on september 24 1940.
    So no Vichy French officers, they're back in France since 1940 or they are in prison (New Caledonia was a penal colony until 1924).
    Click to expand...
    thank you, will update in a moment.
     

    sloreck

    As a Navy doc who had to give all sorts of lectures about this, as well as having corpsmen give condoms to sailors/Marines going on liberty....
     
    Story 1382
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    • fester

    Wilmington North Carolina June 11, 1942

    A whistle blew.

    Hundreds of men stopped. Crane carried nets hung overhead, precariously dangling light tanks and artillery and spam and spare uniforms. One last crew unhooked a factory fresh M-4 medium tank into the hold of a brand new assault transport. Men scrambled for hot coffee and cold sweet tea. A few popped salt tablets while most looked for bacon and biscuits. They had been on the docks since two hours before dawn and the first break of the morning was needed.

    Sweat had stuck to the back of the shirts of every man on the docks.

    Twenty minutes later, the whistle blew again and the crews went to the cranes. Navy loadmasters and Army quartermasters argued as box cars were emptied and supplies piled up as another train came to the port. Most of the 1st Infantry Division was loading in Wilmington and there soon would not be enough space in the ships for the loading scheme the Army wanted. The more efficient Navy scheme still had enough space and tonnage to spare for at least one more last minute surprise.

    These arguments were duplicative of the arguments happening in Savannah and and Charleston as other divisions saw their equipment head to the ports for deployment overseas.
     
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    • Story 1383
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    • fester

    North of Edinburgh June 11, 1942

    The Norwegian soldiers struggled in the scramble down the cargo nets of the seven assault ships. Two battalions were each loading two companies of infantry for the first wave. The follow-on wave would have the rest of those two battalions while the remainder of the brigade was not due to come ashore until late afternoon.

    The assault craft stayed close to their ships, the varied accents of the coxswains confused and caused pauses in the loading process as the few fully bilingual Norwegians had to switch from listening to brogues to Cockney in mere feet before passing along new orders. The last man dropped from the cargo net and the small boats shoved off to advance to the beach.

    Overhead, a JU-88 streaked by, cameras shuttering quickly. A pair of Spitfires half-heartedly chased the scout before breaking off, having fulfilled their duty of seeming interested in shooting the bomber down.

    After the bomber landed, the developed film was match with radio intercepts to determine that the 4th Brigade of the 6th Norwegian Division was undergoing final amphibious training. Notifications were sent to both Berlin and Oslo.
     
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    • Story 1384
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    • fester

    June 12, 1942 The Tyne

    HMS Anson     was ready. Her work-up had been completed and the last repairs and modifications were finished. The crew had been filled out by a small draft of men returning from their leave after Resolution had been placed into ordinary. Those experienced men were in awe at the size, complexity and comfort of their new ship. Two destroyers waited for the battleship at the mouth of the river before they all turned north to join Home Fleet at Scapa Flow.
     
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    • ExScientiaTridens

    sloreck said:
    As a Navy doc who had to give all sorts of lectures about this, as well as having corpsmen give condoms to sailors/Marines going on liberty....
    Click to expand...

    I wonder if you are aware of this study? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/107450

    One ship, one four-day liberty, one port. A total of 1,080 sailors randomized after unprotected exposure into a double-blind, placebo controlled trial of minocycline for prophylaxis against gonorrhea. Don't recall which carrier, but the port was Subic Bay (IIRC).

    So much for the condom lecture.

    I was always amazed at the scope and duration of that trial. Randomize over 1,000 study participants in less than a week at a single site? I can't imagine it has ever been equaled.

    PS: Subic was really cleaned-up after the Navy left, so no chance to repeat the trial there.

     

    fester

    ExScientiaTridens said:
    I wonder if you are aware of this study? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/107450

    One ship, one four-day liberty, one port. A total of 1,080 sailors randomized after unprotected exposure into a double-blind, placebo controlled trial of minocycline for prophylaxis against gonorrhea. Don't recall which carrier, but the port was Subic Bay (IIRC).

    So much for the condom lecture.

    I was always amazed at the scope and duration of that trial. Randomize over 1,000 study participants in less than a week at a single site? I can't imagine it has ever been equaled.

    PS: Subic was really cleaned-up after the Navy left, so no chance to repeat the trial there.
    Click to expand...
    Thank you, I am bringing this article to Journal Club for the summer interns as they should get a kick out of it on multiple levels.
     
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