Posted by
GunnyG© on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 2:53:37 PM
Here is a blast from the past. Apparently, liberals have been back-stabbing the US Military for quite awhile. In Clay Blair's book, "Silent Victory", in Volume 1, on page 397, he relates how a DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMAN by the name of Andrew May torpedoed the US Navy.
Apparently, Congcritter May (House Military Affairs Committee) was on a junket to Pearl Harbor and got a briefing on how the US subs were taking the fight to the Japanese and really starting to kick some tail by 1943. He was briefed on the following subjects:
- That the Japanese destroyers were not following up attacks.
- That the Japanese were setting their depth charges too shallow.
- That the Japanese depth charges were not packing enough "wallop" to breach the 1" steel plating on US subs unless it was a direct hit.
Congcritter May then held a press conference when he got home, relating the TOP SECRET information to the radio and newspapers, assuring the mother's of submariners that their boys were safe. Of course, Japanese spies ALSO listen to the radio and read the papers, and they reported the issues to their bosses. Corrective action was soon applied, with a super depth charge of 600 lbs of TNT hitting their arsenal. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. submarine fleet in the Pacific, later estimated that May's revelation cost the navy as many as ten submarines and 800 crewmen."
Clay Blair wrote:
"A serious breach of security may have helped the Japanese anti-submarine forces. In June 1943, Congressman Andrew Jackson May, a sixty-eight-year-old member of the House Military Affairs Committee returning from a war zone junket, gave a press interview during which he said, in effect, Don't worry about our submariners; the Japanese are setting their depth charges too shallow. Incredibly, the press associations sent this story over their wires, and many newspapers, including one in Honolulu, thoughtlessly published it.
"Lockwood and his staff were appalled--and furious--at this stupid revelation. Lockwood wrote Admiral Edwards in acid words, "I hear ... Congressman May ... said the Jap depth charges ... are not set deep enough. ... He would be pleased to know the Japs set'em deeper now." And after the war, Lockwood wrote, 'I consider that indiscretion cost us ten submarines and 800 officers and men.'"
Andrew May was later CONVICTED by a federal jury less in less than two hours of deliberation, of taking bribes from wartime Munitions Makers Henry & Murray Garsson and conspiring to defraud the U.S. He was imprisoned for seven months before Truman pardoned him. (Libs look after their own rather well.)
http://www.ww2pacific.com/congmay.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805201,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,817584,00.html