[Boatanchors] WW II Vet recalls the first use of radar in the
Pacific
William L Howard
wlhoward at verizon.net
Mon May 31 22:07:59 EDT 2004
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 31, 2004 - With the dedication of the National World War
II
Memorial here, the Memorial Day weekend has brought much overdue
attention to
the men and women whose efforts helped to win the war in two theaters of
combat.
Warburton Miller was revved up to help win the war in the Pacific during
World
War II, but when he read newspaper accounts he didn't know if he'd get
the
chance. "I was scared to death the war was going to be over before I got
out
there to fight," the 82-year-old retired Naval Reserve captain said.
But it was a different story when he got there. The United States was a
long
way from winning, and the war was a long way from being over, he said.
"When I went out into the Pacific during the Guadalcanal Campaign, we
were not
winning the war," said Miller. "(The Japanese) were sinking our ships
and
shooting our planes down."
The six-month long Guadalcanal Campaign between August 1942 and February
1943
was a brutally hard air-sea-land campaign against the Japanese for the
possession of the island of Guadalcanal. It was the first major
offensive
action of the Pacific War for the United States and its Pacific allies.
Miller also fought in the Bismarck Archipelago Campaign, which was
fought from
Dec. 15, 1943, to Nov. 27, 1944. The goal was to capture several
islands,
including New Britain, New Ireland and the Admiralties in the World War
II
Pacific Theater. It was necessary to capture these islands off the New
Guinea
coast before Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur could keep his promise to
return to
the Philippines.
Miller remembers seeing a torpedo heading directly for his destroyer,
the USS
Saufley, to but his surprise and relief, it went under the ship. "You
could see
torpedoes coming through the water, because they leave a stream of air,"
he
noted. Even with that close call, Miller maintained, "I was never
scared, even
when people were killed on both sides of me."
Navigational charts of the area that had been made by the Germans and
British
during the 1800s, Miller said, often were off by as much as five miles.
"Very
few coral reefs were noted in an area that was heavily landscaped with
reefs,"
he noted. "It appeared to the men fighting the war that the Japanese
were
winning.
"One of the turning developments that contributed to our ultimately
winning the
war in the Pacific was the use of radar," said Miller, who was in charge
of
security aboard the USS Saufley during the Guadalcanal Campaign. "Most
senior
naval officers didn't trust or fully use radar at the beginning of the
war."
Miller, a graduate of the Navy's sonar and radar schools, said his
squadron was
one of the first to use radar effectively. "I was one of the few
officers who
were trained in the tactical use of radar and its implementation in
modern
naval warfare," said Miller, a clinical psychologist who owns the
Warburton
House in Highland, Calif., along with his wife, Dr. Joyce Miller, who
also is a
psychologist.
"Our destroyer was the first two squadrons of destroyers that had
complete
radars - the air search as well as the ground radars," the doctor noted.
"Those
radars were not like radars today; they picked up everything. So there
was a
lot of interpretation that had to be done.
"Just like most people in my age group are fearful of computers," he
continued,
"the senior Navy people didn't understand and were fearful of the radar,
because the identification systems didn't always work."
For example, he said, in the fall of 1943 during the Bismarck
Archipelago
Campaign, his ship's gunnery crew shot down an American scout plane near
the
Solomon Islands.
"The guy didn't turn on his IFF, which is the information friend or
foe," the
retired captain noted. "We were 300 miles inside enemy lines in the
middle of
the night, and we couldn't see him, except that he was a plane.
"I met the pilot later at Espirito Santos (an island in the Sea of
Cortez), and
fortunately we didn't kill him," Miller said. "They sent (patrol
torpedo) boats
and towed the plane back about 300 miles the next day. Those things
happen.
There's a lot of hullabaloo about it now, but you do, unfortunately,
shoot at
your friend."
In the summer of 1944 during the Bismarck Archipelago Campaign, Miller
was
responsible for tracking friendly and unfriendly aircraft and ships and
directing U.S. planes in achieving their missions.
"Due to our direct use of the radar systems, the U.S. effectiveness in
fighting
the Japanese increased monthly," he said. "This was a key factor in
obtaining
control of the airspace over the Solomon Islands."
Radar technology at the time made it possible to tell the direction, but
not
the altitude of aircraft, Miller said, but radar was a key factor in
detection
of aircraft and in directing the pilots.
"This new technology was combined with the observational skills of each
pilot
to bring about a successful mission," he noted. "As the war went on,
things got
better and better."
Miller said sea battles seemed oddly familiar. "You could see the dive
bomber
pilot's face and eyes, the guns spitting out bullets, and hear them
hitting the
ship," he recalled. "I got a strange feeling during my first fights. I
said,
'My gosh, this is just like in the movies.' Of course, the results are a
little
different.
"One night we took quite a serious hit, and the doctor was wounded," he
said.
"He was on the bridge watching the fireworks instead of being down where
he was
supposed to be in the wardroom, which was the center for casualties. So
when we
needed him most, he wasn't there. Some of the other officers tried to
take care
of patients while the doctor told them what to do, Miller said. "He went
ashore
when we got back and a couple of weeks later we heard that he'd died,"
he
added.
Miller, who spent about 14 months in the war zone, said fighting wasn't
always
a dive-bomber jumping out at the ship. "A lot of the fighting was
shelling the
beach and they'd shell back," he noted. "I don't think a shell coming
from the
beach ever hit us; it was all from airplanes."
Recalling his ship's contributions to driving the Japanese out of the
Pacific,
Miller said the Saufley shot down five Japanese planes and sunk one and
a half
submarines. When two ships sank a sub, they each got a half credit.
"We also had about 15 bombardments and about seven landings," he said.
"A lot
of the landings were unopposed or opposed lightly at the beginning. They
landed
where there weren't a lot of Japanese troops. But within 24 hours, the
Japanese
troops would get organized."
Released from active duty in June 1946, Miller joined the Naval Reserve
and
used the GI Bill to get his master's degree and later a doctorate.
He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War, served as the
senior
watch officer aboard the carrier USS Salerno Bay, and was promoted to
lieutenant commander. "We chased Russian submarines, keeping track of
them
throughout the Atlantic," he said. "I'm sure the Navy still has a policy
of
keeping track of any potential enemy ship."
Miller said his wartime experiences changed his outlook on life. "My
life was
never the same again," he said. "I met my wife in Florida, and she was
from
Indiana, and we moved to California. Both of our lives were completely
changed.
That's probably true for anybody in our age group.
"Staying the Navy Reserves has been wonderful to me and for me," Miller
said.
"You probably can tell that I'm just sold on the Navy.
"Of all the time I was in the Navy I only one duty that wasn't very
comfortable," he noted. "It was good duty, but the living conditions
were not
good. I was at sea, and my wife was very unhappy. We were in Norfolk
(Va.),
where they used to have signs on the grass that said, 'Dogs and sailors
stay
off the grass.'"
_______________________________________________________
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