CHAPTER 3

ARCHIVE INDEX

July 1940-Jan. 1942 USS CHESTER, Signal Officer. First radar to go to sea. Atlantic neutrality patrol. Trained for amphibious landings with Marines in Caribbean.

Spring, PH. Good, relaxing time. Escorted 2 transport ships to Manila. Those aboard did not expect to ever come home. (Later were on Bataan March.)

PH. Nov., secret mission with Adm. Halsey in ENTERPRISE. Wartime conditions on board. (Later learned they were delivering Marine squad. to Wake.) Should have returned to PH Dec. 6; underway refueling necessary, and they did a lousy job. Halsey ordered them to stay at sea and practice.

Missed the PH attack. Lessons Learned: In times of imminent war, keep alert, even on Sunday. CHESTER's AA could not have defended against the air attack.

1944 USS CHESTER, Main Battery Asst. Gunnery Officer. Cruiser Div. 5. Bombarded Marshalls periodically. No action. May, Aleutians. CO on Attu kept a cow for fresh milk.

SW to bomb Paramushiro in the Kuriles Island Chain with only fog for cover. Gunnery Officer. Sept., bombardment of Wake Island. Cover force for Leyte Gulf landing, late Oct. Typhoon sank 3 destroyers.

Ulithi with huge assemblage of ships. Iwo Jima. 1945 Iwo Jima bombing cont'd. Kalen's brother a Marine LT landing on Iwo Jima. Trouble assessing damage. Trouble with shells from US ships on one side of island going all the way over and hitting US ships on the other side.

Brother killed.

Collided with ESTES which had SecNavy on board. San Francisco for repairs.

Okinawa. Prepared for kamikazes. None came. Aleutians, Kurile bombardment again. War ended.

Occupation. Led Surrender Inspection Party at Mutsu City, N. Honshu. Japanese inexplicably friendly and helpful. Hokkaido, Supporo and Hakodate. Operation Magic Carpet.

Navigator left; Kalen made navigator. Made 5 troop transport trips.

Philadelphia for decom. Kalen made 1st LT to inactivate ship. After 6 yrs on CHESTER, Kalen had been everything but CO and engineer.

Starting with rough experiences in Iceland in 1941, I was impressed with the outstanding professionalism of all concerned and particularly our NCOs. Then WW II started, and NCOs were commissioned and served in outstanding fashion throughout the war.

By contrast, during the McNamara era, I served in HQMC as Chief of Programs and became aware of the lack of delegation of authority to juniors. Only the chiefs could brief DOD.

I spent a year in Artillery from Battery Reconnaisance Officer through Battery Commander, Battalion Commander, and Regimental Commander. In 1943, I was assigned as Plans and Training Officer of the 14th Marines at Camp Pendleton, as the 4th Marine Division was preparing for overseas deployment. Our only chance to train as a regiment consisted of a regimental firing exercise of a few days at 29 Palms. From there we went to Roi Namur.

Upon return to Maui for retraining, we moved the regiment out of the camp and on the artillery firing range. Two months later we embarked for the assault on Saipan, Tinian, Maui, and Iwo Jima.

Dec 1951-June 1953: assigned as CO 410, S-3 and then EO of the 10th Regiment.

June 1953: ordered from Command & Staff College, Quantico, to Camp Lejeune to command the 10th Marine Regiment. I then received a call from HQMC saying that my orders were being reconsidered and I might get orders to the Joint Staff. I objected. The lesson from this is that there is one manager for a career and that is the individual whose career is at stake.

After eighteen months as CO 10th Marines, I was moved to G-3 and was continually updating plans for a Cuban operation. Believed that the 2nd Marine Div, ready and capable, could have reinforced a Landing Force at the Bay of Pigs and carried it off.

In 1954, I was assigned as Secretary of the Joint Landing Force Board at Camp Lejeune. In early 1955, the Board was dissolved.

April 1955: I was assigned as Chief, Plans Section, J-2 Division, Joint Hqs, Far East Command. The job was more operational than intelligence, and was directed to covert activities. At the end of the tour, I was ordered to Joint Staff at the Pentagon. I objected and wrote a letter to Gen. Pate stating that I thought my career depended on going to school and to the FMF. The order was then changed and I went to the Command and Staff College.

Retired on 30 June 1967, and went to CEIR Inc., as Director of The Institute for Advanced Technology. Retired from Control Data Corp. in 1975. I am currently President and Chairman of the Board, Institute for Professional Education.

1. Unsigned, undated commentary on the Vietnam War by Karch, (Note: Important; Karch argued that the US was not 'winning' the Vietnam War and would not until the countryside pacified and VC infrastructure destroyed. He clearly had little use for the Army's "search and destroy" heavy maneuver battalion-heavy firepower strategy.)

2. Six pg. unsigned, undated speech for (and, clearly, by) Karch explaining his role in the Danang landing, his attitude toward the Vietnam War, and associated comments about the SU and the PRC.

3. Handwritten ltr, BG Cliff Drake, USMC [Command and Staff College, Quantico] to Karch, 28 May 1965; a. attached, undated, "Questions for BrigGen KARCH," b. 5-pp draft answers to above c. ribbon copy of ltr, Karch to Drake, 27 May 65; contains detailed explanation of the Danang landing, the Marines' position in I Corps of SVN, and Karch's views and estimates of the course of the Vietnam War. 6pp. (Note: This extraordinary document is important in recounting the thinking of the US military's higher command on the eve of the Vietnam War.)

4. Large, bound file labelled "Personal Ltr." a. personal correspondence from 17 Nov 64 to 8 Nov 65.While some of these letters are perfunctory or purely personal, many are "personal-official" in that they contain Karch's comments on the Danang landing he commanded, the Vietnam War, high-level Marine Corps issues, and his own career.

Remembrances of USNA: "entered as an appointee from the fleet via a Secretary of Navy competitive set of examinations...Each year was a torture until I managed to squeeze by my eye exams...

I was graduated but discharged from the service. I applied for a reserve commission, intending to be recalled when needed - which happened in September 1940."

"During my 4 years I was continually conscious of my extreme good fortune in attending the USNA, especially since I was an immigrant from Germany (1923) at age 7 and had absolutely no English language ability. At that stage, I luckily grew up under the Regents system of N.Y. State."

"This is relatively a negative report since I had no shipboard or operational experience during 6 June 40 - 31 Dec 41.

"I was an "eye unsat" and received no commission on graduation day. In August 1940 I was given a Naval Reserve (special because of defective vision) Commission. I was asked to return to active duty in Sep 1940 with a report day of 1 Oct 1940 to the US Naval Training Station, Norfolk, Va., for duty involving training of recruits.

"One year later July 41 I was sent to Postgraduate School USNA for a years emergency "war time" course in Naval Architecture, which I completed in Feb 1942."

Service and Civilian resume.

USS LEXINGTON. Retired as Capt., 1964. Retired from civilian employment, 1985.

King "Reported aboard HELENA (CL 50), a new 6" main battery cruiser with 3 turrets forward and 2 aft and 4 enclosed 5"38 cal. gun mounts....In early fall transited Panama Canal to Long Beach, CA., Mare Island Shipyard, and finally Pearl Harbor to join those ships of Pacific that had been positioned there indefinitely." Followed by a impressions on equipment and personnel.

7 December 1941: "HELENA was torpedoed amidships, the torpedo track running under the shallow draft Hudson River ferry being used as the flagship for the Pacific Mine Force. HELENA's captain ordered the OGLALA's mooring cut and she sank alongside from split seams opened from the explosion inside HELENA. Critical of poor medical procedures in Pearl Harbor.

1944: USS HOUSTON commissioning in Va. Training at Trinidad. In the Pacific: Tinian, Guam, Pilileu campaigns. Bombardment and carrier support. Shot at cows and reported this as tanks. Torpedoed off Formosa, Oct. Again 2 days later. King tried to keep crew organized after abandonment of ship at PH, then most of crew reassembled on HOUSTON.

To Wash. DC for Gunnery School to become Gun. Off. After course, returned to repaired HOUSTON and was ordered to be Navigator. 1945 Repairs in Brooklyn Navy Yard. Oct., training at Guantanamo.

Lessons Learned: none. Many snafus of the type that still exist in the Navy, business, gov't. Big difference in attitude between 1942-43 and 1944-45. Latter, "Charley McCarthy could have been in charge of the Fleet and the outcome would have been the same," because Am. fleet so much larger than Japanese by then. Had the Japanese been as strong in those yrs as in the earlier ones, US mistakes would have been "catastrophic."

1965-7: Service on the Staff of OSD. King's last tour of duty was spent on the staff of the Secretary of Defense with the Directorate of Inspection Services.

1987 Destroyers: Flagship for DESRON FOURTEEN was ENGLISH, FOREST SHERMAN class. It was extremely deficient in fuel capacity.

King makes valuable observations comparing Navy commanders and staff officers with Army and AF CinCs and staff officers. "The Navy's senior personnel, those at the top within the staff organization, demonstrated more skill and perceptiveness, capable of making independent judgments, reflecting command at sea."

Following the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal, the lower Solomons were quiet. The cruiser HELENA bombarded enemy positions in the Munda Straits before going to Sidney, Australia for R and R.

The HELENA returned to the South Pacific in time to participate in the July 1943 action in Kula Gulf. An American cruiser-destroyer task force advanced on a Japanese cruiser-destroyer force in Kula Gulf on 6 July, opening fire upon sighting the enemy. The HELENA used rapid continuous fire with her 6-inch battery, but so many shells were falling around her that the target blip disappeared from her radar. As a result, the target was thought to be sunk, firing was suspended, and time was taken to shift targets.

"This occurred on several targets. However, the targets were not sunk and, aided by the illumination from 15 continuously firing 6-inch guns, the Japanese launched a torpedo attack at this source." Three torpedoes struck the HELENA simultaneously.

According to King, she "shuddered and stopped instantly from flank speed to zero as if running into a brick wall." The ship broke in half and a forward and after section sank in about nineteen minutes. Only the bow remained afloat.

"King was in charge of abandoning ship on the main aft deck. "When all life rafts were launched with crews I simply waded off the deck into the sea as the after section sunk, stern up." He expected to be sucked under, but there was no pull at all, but he did have a problem with his old rubber life jacket which would hold no air. He swan over to the nearest raft and was saved.

Soon thereafter, an enemy ship fired at the HELENA's bow and the splashes landed perilously close to King's raft. When the ship closed on the raft, King ordered that a flashlight signal be given, figuring that it was better to be enemy prisoners than to drift about in the shark-infested waters. As it turned out, however, the approaching ship was the destroyer RADFORD. Many of the HELENA survivors not picked up by the RADFORD or the NICHOLS floated past Kolobangaro and landed on Vella la Vella where they were hidden by friendly Chinese and later rescued by a Navy APD at night without being detected by the enemy. (Note: This is an important account of the battle. King indicates that the rest of the US cruisers were firing salvos whereas the HELENA was firing continuously, and suggests that this may have been the reason that she was successfully attacked. Research on this and other cruiser-destroyer actions would be a useful project.)

In July 1943, King returned to San Francisco, and that October he was reassigned to the new light cruiser HOUSTON. He describes some of his work on aboard that ship during her pre-commissioning period.

Story of the small submarine. 5 color photos of subs. Between 1962-87, Kittredge built and sold 40 small subs operating between 250 and 600 feet. 9 black & white photos of subs. Prospectus on K-250 Submarine, Kittredge Industries, Warren, Maine.

Mar 1954 enclosed article written by Kittredge on Guadalcanal and Savo Island which appeared in Saga Magazine in March 1952.

1941 USS CHICAGO, Asst. Div. Off. and Turret Officer. PH. Six classmates; two to be killed in the war. CHICAGO lacking in air defense. To West Coast. Flagship of Cruiser Scouting Force. Capt. ordered ammo loaded. Gun. Off. said against regulations. Capt. bet him Japanese would attack PH next day. It was Dec. 6. Overnight, they left for PH. Capt. Kittredge was on board the Chicago joining the Anzac Squadron in the South Pacific in 1942.

Kronmiller reported to the heavy cruiser SAN FRANCISCO after graduation. She was, at the time, based in Pearl Harbor with the U. S. Fleet. He served as Assistant Plotting Room Officer and Rangefinder Operator.

In November 1941, the SAN FRANCISCO entered the Navy Yard to have her obsolete and ineffective 1.1" antiaircraft guns replaced with 40mm Bofors antiaircraft guns. However, her stay in the yard was extended at least once owing the inability of Navy Yard clerks to process the associated paper work. The ship had no idea as to when these problems would be remedied.

Kronmiller had the 4-8 watch on the morning of 7 December 1941 as OOD. As was the custom, he was relieved at 0745, and he walked to the Wardroom for breakfast. Moments later, the Japanese appeared overhead and the attack began. "It seemed as if quite a long period of time elapsed before General Quarters was sounded." Kronmiller went to his battle station, but in view of the fact that the ship was in the yard there was no sense in manning the Plotting Room, so he went topside to the aft antiaircraft battery control station to help out. The 1.1" guns had long since been removed, and, according to Kronmiller, "the flight paths of the attacking planes were such that we could not open fire with our 5" antiaircraft guns without doing major damage to our own people and facilities on Ford Island. All we could do was to watch the Japanese execution of the attack."

The SAN FRANCISCO's crew stayed at General Quarters long after the Japanese departed, assuming that followup attacks would arrive later in the day. "Shortly after noon I experienced one of the most infuriating moments of my life when the 40mm Bofors [antiaircraft guns] were trucked down the dock for installation in the ship. Miraculously, the bureaucracy had been able to solve the paperwork hangup when they felt some personal danger."

Kronmiller recalls his thoughts about the "total unpreparedness and helplessness of the battleships," for which "my mind had not been prepared at all. To be sunk without any real defensive effort was beyond anything I could have imagined."

Kronmiller recalls his views on prewar Navy gunnery. "Ever since reporting aboard, I had felt that our gunnery practices were so synthetic, stylized, and simple that they did not really prepare for actual combat. The complete surprise of the attack made me suspect that this unrealistic frame of mind must have been present at much higher levels."