How The US Got Its First Japanese Zero In WW II

Synchronicity - I thought I would use that word to describe how I've been reading Brian Garfield's The Thousand Mile War:  World War II In Alaska And the Aleutians and just recently saw a photo at the Anchorage Museum of an event I had just read about.

But when I looked up synchronicity online, I realized that while it sort of has that meaning, it has a lot more meaning than I really want to imply.  I don't think I want to suggest that these two events - reading about Japanese Zeroes in the Aleutians and finding a picture of a downed Aleutian Zero at the museum - had any special meaning beyond coincidence and the fact that I was especially alert to WWII Japanese Zeroes when I happened to see this picture at the museum.  I might have passed by a similar picture a month ago, not giving it any special notice.  But now that I just read about it, I'm paying more attention.  Like when a couple is pregnant, suddenly they see a lot more pregnant women than they had before.

But, I will take this opportunity to share some Alaska WWII history with you.  The book is full of stories of incredibly far sighted thinking on the part of some - General Simon Bolivar Buckner gets lots of credit for getting Alaska as ready as possible given the inter-service rivalries, the general lack of military resources in the US in general, and the belief by many that Alaska was irrelevant - and equally incredible lack of preparedness as, for example, primitive communications systems that prevented critical information from getting delivered.

Photo of photo at Anchorage Museum

The quote below comes from a description, in The Thousand Mile War, of day two (June 4, 1942) of the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor.  The weather is horrible.  Buckner has managed to put in a landing strip on Umnak Island and get some planes there to help protect Dutch Harbor.  The Japanese have no idea this air strip or these fighters are there.  The whole Japanese mission to go after Dutch Harbor was to divert US ships and planes to Alaska while the Japanese attack Midway.  US planes fly out into the storm to try to locate and torpedo the Japanese fleet.  (Yes, they have torpedoes, not bombs.)  They find them, but can't hit them.  The Japanese zeroes are far superior planes to the ragtag collection that Buckner's been able to cadge out of the military brass in the Lower 48.

The Japanese have bombed Dutch  for 20 minutes,  hitting a wing of the hospital and setting fire to a warehouse.  750,000 gallons of fuel exploded when they hit four storage tanks.   Garfield writes that because Dutch Harbor knew the Japanese were coming, only eighteen men died.

Heavy antiaircraft flak scored no hits on the wheeling enemy aircraft, but the Japanese did not escape untouched.  The Rube Goldberg radio had failed to get through, but Umnak had been alerted by the noise, and the Japanese choice of the west end of Unalaska Island as a rendezvous point to rally after each attack.  Now eight Japanese planes from Junyo had formed up in plain sight of the Umnak runway - and eight Flying Tiger Warhawks scrambled to meet them.

American fighters corkscrewed through the enemy formations, striated the sky with tracers, and sent one Zero into a spin, surrounded by a white vapor that turned black and erupted before the Zero touched into the water.
Lieutenant John J. Cape, a good-natured boyish twenty-three year-old pilot who loved to drive an old tractor around Umnak, watched a Japanese dive-bomber swell in his gunsight until, at point-blank range, he triggered a burst that hammered the enemy plane into a ball of flame and sent it down in fragments.  Then a snapped warning in his radio headset made him look behind:  he had a Zero on his tail.  He zoomed upward, hung desperately on his propeller, and rolled over on his back in a wild attempt to evade the Zero. 

In 1942, the United States had no fighter capable of outmaneuvering the Japanese Zero.  When Cape righted his P-40 he found the Zero still with him.  The panel instruments blew apart in Cape's face.  Ammunition exploded in his gun racks and fumes rolled through the cockpit.  Engulfed in flame, Cape fell into Umnak Pass, unable to get out of the spinning airplane.

From Navy webpage The Forgotten Theater  (Japan to lower left not on map)

As Cape when down, Lieutenant Winfied E. McIntyre tried to break away from another pursuing Zero.  The Zero's guns knocked out McIntyre's engine and set it afire.  McIntyre put the ship into a screaming dive, trying to blow out the fire;  he could not get the engine restarted, and almost went into a spin before he glided to a crash-landing on the Umnak beach.  He put the burning P-40 down so skillfully that he climbed out of it and walked unaided into camp.

Meanwhile, four of the homeward-bound Zeroes spotted an American PBY flying low on the water.  The PBY's waist-blister gunners raked the sky with tracers that seemed to have no effect on the diving fighters.  But three of the Zeroes broke off and headed away, too low on fuel to stay for the finish.  One stayed behind to finish off the PBY:  Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga, a slim young man with an abiding hatred for Americans.  Koga blew the plane apart in the air with his guns.  The Catalina splashed into the ocean, but Koga stayed to make sure.  Finally one man (Aviation Machinist's Mate W. H. Rawls) crawled out of the burning wreckage and paddled away in a life raft.  

Rawls, the blister gunner, had put a machine-gun bullet into Koga's plane, though Koga did not know he had been hit.  That one bullet, a third of an inch in diameter, was to bring the Allies a decisive prize of war.  Koga circled the bobbing rubber raft and machine-gunned Rawls to death in the water.

Koga climbed into the soup after that, but at that moment the needle of this oil-pressure gauge dropped to zero.  Convinced his engine was about to pack up, Koga turned toward the nearest land - Akutan Island.  He sent out a voice broadcast to the I-boat submarine which he had been told was standing by to pick up downed pilots.  Coming in over the island, he prepared to make a forced landing on the flats.  

He made the mistake of lowering his landing gear;  his wheels caught in the boggy tundra, snagged and flipped the Zero on its back.  The crash broke Koga's neck.

The alerted Japanese submarine searched the coast by periscope, but could not find Koga's plane.  (The Zero remained undisturbed on the lonely island until a month later, when a U. S. Navy PBY sighted it.  Navy crews were immediately dispatched to collect the prize.

(Aside from a few dents, Koga's Zero was intact.  Its only damage was a single bullet hole, from A/M Rawls' gun, severing the pressure gauge indicator line.  The gauge was broken, but the engine was unharmed.  American crews quickly dismantled the Zero and shipped it back to the States.

(Tadayoshi Kogoa's fighter was the first Zero captured intact by the Allies in World War II.  The apparently trivial loss cost Japan dearly.  American engineers, with this opportunity to fly and study the war's fastest, deadliest and most secret fighter aircraft, would design the Navy's F6F Hellcat around the principles they learned from Koga's Zero;  in less than eighteen months the Hellcat would drive the zero from Pacific skies and insure Allied supremacy of the air.) [pp. 40-42]

Such little things can make such a big difference.  One bullet in the pressure gauge indicator line, because Koga hung around to kill Rawls before flying back.  Koga trying to land, not knowing he could get back to his carrier, and getting his landing gear caught in the brush.

The book was published in 1969.  I'm not exactly what you'd call a war buff, but as you can tell from this quote, the prose moves you right along.  And for Alaskans, the book is full of back stories on familiar names and places. 

Shell's Kulluk Response: Look How Great We Are!

Shell has a huge oil rig adrift near Kodiak Island, Alaska being battered by high winds and waves. (NOTE - this is not unusual weather for Alaska in the winter.)  But Shell's response is like being at the funeral and talking only about how nice the flowers look.

Here's a press release from Shell yesterday (Jan. 1, 2013)

1.  "We deeply appreciate the professional and effective response of the responders from the U.S. Coast Guard, Shell, Noble, Edison Chouest and many other organizations who worked together seamlessly at sea and under extreme weather conditions to control the vessel, rescue the crew on board, and prevent injury and environmental impact.

The gist of paragraph 1: We were successful!

• "professional and effective response"
• "worked together seamlessly"
• "to control the vessel, rescue the crew on board, and prevent injury and environmental impact"

2.  "In the circumstances we faced over the last 4 days, we cannot underscore enough how significant it is to have weathered fierce winds and high seas with no more than two first aid cases."

The gist of paragraph 2:  We did great under terrible conditions

• In terrible conditions we only had two "first aid cases"

Note:  in the press conferece they said there were three people injured.  Also note that the weather in winter in Alaskan waters is more likely to be terrible than not.  This is NOT unusual weather.  Author Brian Garfield, writing in 1969 about World War II in the Aleutians:

"The conditions were war conditions - war with the enemy, war with the perpetual enemies of weather, water, and terrain." [Thousand Mile War p. 106]

Back to the press release:

3.  "The Kulluk successfully completed its role in supporting our 2012 Alaska exploration program several weeks ago and was en route to winter harbor, through waters off the southern coast of Alaska, when this incident occurred.   We have already begun a review - working with our marine experts, partners and suppliers – of how this sequence of events, including the failure of multiple engines on the MV Aiviq (towing vessel) led to this incident.  We intend to use lessons from that review to strengthen our maritime fleet operations, globally.    

The gist of paragraph 3:  Kulluk was a success and this is merely a learning experience so we can be more successful. 

• successfully completed its role
• headed to winter harbor
• incident occurred
• Review has begun
• with experts, partners, and suppliers
• sequence of events -including multiple engine failures on towing vessel - led to this incident
• Will use lessons from review to make our fleet stronger
•  

4.  "The incident did not involve our drilling operations, nor does it involve any possibility of crude oil release.  Through our role in the Unified Incident Command, we quickly mobilized experts to respond to this situation.  And, we can confidently say that the Shell emergency response assets and contingences that were deployed over the last four days represent the best available in the world."

The gist of paragraph 4:  This wasn't about drilling and we've got the world's best working on this.  We're confident!

• It wasn't our drilling operations
• No chance of crude oil release
• We quickly got the world's best experts

Could you tell from this that:

• Their drilling rig Kulluk broke loose from its towing vessels and had run aground on rocks south of Kodiak Island?
• That this was one more mishap in a series starting last year that delayed drilling for Shell?
• That there's  roughly 143,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of "other petroleum products on this now crewless oil rig being battered by winds and waves?
• 
  

Here's the Anchorage Daily News description.

Aleutian Weather - Shell Should Have Known

With Shell's regular mention of the terrible weather when they talk about the Kulluk's problems, it seems appropriate to dip once more into Brian Garfield's Thousand Mile War where he discusses the weather conditions during WW II when the Japanese and Americans fought in the Aleutians. The Americans (and the Japanese) lost far more planes and pilots and ships to the weather and terrain than they lost to enemy fire.

"It was dreary but seldom calm, Corporal Dashiell Hammett wrote:  "There was a guage to measure the wind, but it only measured up to 110 miles and hour, and that was not always enough."

At Cold Bay, soldiers for the 260th Transportation Battalion built a hut for their day room (with 6X6 studs and joists stolen on a moonlight requisitioning sortie from Navy ships).  Wind rolled the building away.  The soldiers set it right-side-up and anchored it down with steel cables imbedded in concrete.  After that the hut stayed put, but it was the only permanent above-ground structure in the area.  Throughout the Aleutians in the next two years, the rule was dugout architecture. . .

The weather, "Made in Japan,"  lent truth to standard jokes:  "It's too thick to fly if you can't see your co-pilot."
"Stick your hand out.  If it touches a ship's mast, you're flying too low."
One pilot claimed he followed a duck because he knew it wouldn't fly into a cliff.  Unmak used "a 500 pound bomb for a windsock."  A PBY pilot claimed a seagull landed on his wing;  convinced that weather too thick for Hannibal the Hitch-Hiking Gull was too thick for a PBY, the pilot landed his seaplane on the water, and watched the gull jump off and go away - swimming.  (p. 125)

The stories were not always apocryphal.  It wasn't unusual for flights of B-17s to fly at 25-foot altitudes, so that pilots could follow the sea wake of the airblast from the leading plane's propellers.  On a socked in July day, three bombers landed at Cold Bay at six-minute intervals:  the first found the runway fogged in, the second found a clear 5000 foot ceiling and landed easily, and the third couldn't find the field in the fog.  "The weather," wrote Wheeler, "goes up and down like a whore's drawers."  (pp. 125-126)

Headwinds sometimes made it six hours to target and two hours back.  The noisy wind often blew west at one end of the runway and east at the other.  In a signle cloud front, a bomber could pick up a ton of ice.

At Umnak, PFC Edward O. Stephens invented a wind-driven washing machine.  Others boiled their laundry in discarded metal drums.  When they hung clothes out, they took three days or more to dry. . .

From Cold Bay and Umnak the air warriors saddled the weather and rode it out to Kiska and, usually, back home.  It was a hell unlike any other. Constant turbulence tossed airplanes like kites.  Ground crew mechanics learned to hate the unstable Aleutian air.  It twisted airframes, wrecked fuselages, stretched and loosened rivets, bent wings.  It shook up cockpit instruments and threw them out of whack.  It clogged carburetors.  It loosened window seals, rusted landing-gear oleos, ruined fuel lines, shook engine mounts loose, gummed guns, froze bomb-bay rack releases, and fouled hydraulic systems.  It killed.

The groundling grease monkeys seemed to keep the planes flying with nothing but skyhooks, rolling their own spare parts with hand-bellows forges and hammers, maintaining aircraft outdoors in williwawas with only flashlights  and truck headlamps for illumination.  The chief stockpile of repair parts was wrecked planes.  There were no inspectors, but the ground crews never failed to make a repairable plane airworthy within twenty-four hours.  It sometimes took four back-breaking hours in gale winds to refuel a B-17 by hand, pouring gas through a chamois filter.  Colonel Everett S. Davis wrote to Hap Arnold, "Don't figure on getting any serviceable planes back from us.  We have been hard on them." (p. 126)

The kind of weather the Kulluk encountered is nothing out of the ordinary.    It's nothing that Shell's contingency plans shouldn't have planned for.

And the book's description of the war is in sharp contrast to the heroic and nationalistic tone of this Academy Award winning 1943 documentary about the airbase in Adak that bombed the Japanese base in Kiska daily.  The end of the film shows an actual bombing raid from Adak to Kiska.




This original comes from the internet archives which has this description:

Director John Huston, while a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1943, creates an Academy Award winning documentary, which he narrates with assistance from his actor father Walter, treating of the Armed Forces' successful effort to prevent the fall of the Aleutian Islands to advancing Japanese troops who had captured several islets. Although no claim can be reasonably made that this location was of major strategic importance during the War, it presented enormous tactical and logistic difficulty for those assigned there, and Huston's color film demonstrates the determined ensemble work upon the outpost of Adak by a wide range of military specialists who combat loneliness and boredom along with notably severe weather conditions. The work was made over a six month period, and is climaxed by the preparations for, followed by an actual filming of, a bombing run over Japanese-occupied Kiska, wherein Huston nearly lost his life, and which is significant for its combat footage and for the atmosphere of suspense present in the viewer who wonders if all will return safely.

It's very much a war propaganda movie making this sound much better than they were, as this comment reflects:

Reviewer: jimelena - 3.00 out of 5 stars - December 2, 2005 Subject: Progadanda. My dad was in the Aleutians during WWII so I watched this. This is a propaganda film. It does not begin to relate the huge mistakes made, the tragedy upon tragedy, or the reasons why it is known as "the forgotton war". Maybe someday the truth will come out but even 60 years after it is still too sad, too horrible, to be remembered for what it was.

  The Shell announcements about the Kulluk have the same flavor as the movie. They acknowledge problems (the movie even showed a burial of a pilot) but everyone is a hero, cooperating 100%, to achieve the goal. The book tells a very different story. 

Ruth Gruber - First To Report On Soviet Arctic - At Museum One More Week

Photo of Photo at Anchorage Exhibit

"In 1941, US Secretary of the Interior Harold I. Ickes appointed Ruth Gruber as his Field Representative to the Alaska Territories. . .  For 18 months, she reported on the conditions and experiences of American soldiers stationed there and documented the abundance of natural resources, development of industry, progress of the Alaska railroad, government initiatives, and the opening of land and air routes.  Encouraged by Ickes to take moving footage and color photgraphs - exhibited here for the first time - Gruber became a serious photojournalist."  [From Museum exhibit description.]






























  The museum has a display of some of the old Alaska photos and some of the film footage.  There are also photos of her trip to the Soviet Arctic.  And her documentation of the Holocaust survivors on ships the British refused entry into Palestine after the war.

There's also a seven minute video interview with Gruber.  I don't remember when the video was taken, but it was recent and she was in her late 90's at the time.

From Ruth Gruber Video about Age 97

She's still alive today at 101. The exhibit is at the Anchorage Museum until January 6, so there isn't much time to see it.  There's a lot of history covered here and a lot of things to think about.  For example, her Alaska time coincided with some of the time covered in the book I'm reading Brian Garfield's Thousand Mile War about the Aleutian campaign in WW II.  There's also coverage of the Jews coming after WW II to Palestine which feeds into another post I've been thinking about - my comments on the AIFF winning Documentary Roadmap to Apartheid. 

Radio Babies And 113 Year Old Public Opinion Put Redistricting Into Context

Three white men, two over 60, from Kenai and Fairbanks and Kodiak.  A white woman from Juneau, and a Native woman from Kotzebue.  These are the members of the redistricting Board who are mapping the election districts for Alaska.  And those labels don't capture who these people really are any more than do their maps capture what Alaska is and how significantly their task affects all our lives.   They have state requirements and federal requirements to meet, plus the conflicting expectations of those Alaskans who are paying attention.  It's not an easy task.  I left the Board meeting Friday feeling a little empty.

They adopted all seven Board maps and all four third-party maps, which were only due at the time the meeting began - noon.  So how could they have rejected any?  Not only had they not articulated any criteria for selection, they really hadn't even seen the third-party maps.  I'm not sure it matters.  Having them all gives people more ideas to look at.  Or some might be so outrageous that mediocre ones look good in comparison.  I don't know.

But I decided to stop by the museum on my way home to wash out my brain.  And it worked. 

With the Board meeting in mind, things took on a new meaning.  For one, fighting over land in Alaska goes back a long way. Here are some images from the museum that the Board and all of us should consider.





A Haida Gwáahl beaded hunting bag.  From Southeast.  Not sure of the date.

 A diorama of a traditional bowhead whale hunt on the Northwest Alaska Coast.

The Episcopalian church in Anvik.  The mission was established in 1887.

I try to get the captions so I know what I have but here I only got part of this one and the wrong one on the wall.  But this is Siberian and Alaskan indigenous leaders coming together  - I think - in Wales around 1900.

Still pretty accurate 113 years after it was published in 1900 in the Dawson Daily News.  If you click on the image it gets bigger and clearer and you can see that Public Opinion is propped up on a lot of broken promises, oratory, credulity.

German artist Julius Ullman got talked into a trip to Alaska when he was 35 to see the Gold Rush, and stayed around in Dawson City for six years.










If you click on the image with the red wing, you can read the airfares from Anchorage to points around the state in 1926.  Rates are per person for one, two, or three passengers.  Shipping rates are also on there.  Trip to Nome for one passenger was $750!  Wasilla was only $35.

Ketchikan sketched by WPA artist Prescott Jones in 1937.














This one is one of the more amazing and magical pictures I saw.  It's called Radio Babies and it was done by George Ahgupuk in 1940.

Be sure to read the second paragraph below. Again, click on it to see it better.  Can you see the baby going from Anchorage to Bethel via radio waves? 

This one is called "Headquarters Camouflaged Umnak."  It was painted by an army artist, Ogden Pleissner, in 1943.  Umnak was an important location in the book Thousand Mile War, I read recently.

Fighting over land isn't new.  We all need to see ourselves in the larger context and make decisions that history will look back on favorably.  We aren't just Republicans and Democrats.  We're human beings.  We all have (or had) mothers and fathers, struggles becoming adults, figuring out who we are and how to be true to ourselves and those around us.

We should be striving to create a place where parents can raise their kids to fulfill their human potential.  We should be thinking about a legislature that keeps those basics in mind and doesn't get caught up in petty politics.

This summer the museum's special exhibits include spectacular Alaskan portraits by photographer Clark James Mischler.  Here are a couple to help remember who we are and what Alaska is.

Mischler:  St Mary's

Mischler - Gun salesman Al 'Bondigas' Anchorage

Mischler:  Vera Spein Kwethluk

Alaska is a lot more than this:

"Erik" Eareckson Hero Of Aleutian War - But Was The War Necessary?

"Major William O. Eareckson, forty-one, a raffish aviation pioneer who had been piloting fabric-and wood biplances when some of his squadron's young officers had been in safety pins.  A crack pilot who flew with his fingertips.  Eareckson was headstrong and sometimes arrogant;  he had a contagious drive and a romantic recklessness that infected his young pilots with the notion that pilots were a breed apart, a race of giants." (p. 53)

William "Eric" Eareckson is by far the clearest hero in Brian Garfield's Thousand Mile War about WW II in the Aleutians.  In fact, Part II of the three part book is titled "Eareckson's War."

He was the right person in the right place.  His personal set of skills - an ability to fly any kind of plane in any kind of weather,  an ability to think up new ways to do things when the regular way doesn't work,  a belief in his own immortality, and a drive to be the best - fit perfectly for the job he had to do.  He flew planes in the Aleutians to bomb the Japanese in Attu and Kiska and created a lot of new tactics to overcome the constant fog  (other severe weather conditions) and the Japanese anti-aircraft weapons - like flying in at water level to do the bombing.

He could do crazy things like have his squadron buzz downtown Reno at almost street level for his wedding.  But he also worked his squadron hard, making sure they were as well trained as they could be.  For example:

"Colonel Eareckson put his crews through the daily hurdles of deck-level practice missions at altitudes as low as 75 feet." (pm 112)

But while his squadron idolized him, not all those above him felt the same.

The Army did not like lone wolves;  and Eareckson, in Colonel Lawrence Reineke's words, was "the honest sergeant on the police force.  He bucked the system, and suffered for it."  Lucian Wernick recalls, "Eric was absolutely incapable of bowing and scraping.  He refused to show respect for superiors unless he felt it, and up there he didn't have very many opportunities to feel it."  (p. 156)

His superior in Alaska, General Butler tried to retire him to training status in California.  In a pile of complaints to General Buckner he

". . . suggested that Eareckson had too many missions under his belt, that he was flak-happy, that he had been warned to stop trying to be both commander and crew, and that he needed a rest." (p. 156)

Buckner didn't want to lose Eareckson, so he transferred him to his own staff.

But carrying out your orders well, if the orders aren't good in the first place, raises questions and  I've been wondering throughout the book whether we even needed to be fighting in the Aleutians.  The terrible weather - it's not horribly cold, but has constant rain, wind, snow, and cloud cover - gave the Japanese (and the Americans) enough trouble.  But hindsight is easy.  Just as the Americans - particularly General Buckner - saw the Aleutians as the pathway to invade Japan, they also saw it as a way for Japan to have bases closer to the US.  

You can see in the map how close Attu is to Japan.  (The reddish dot is Attu and the green dot is Anchorage.)

So, bear with me as I try to pull a number of different ideas together here.


In 1943, the US mounted an invasion of Attu, American territory then occupied by the Japanese.  They planned to take over the island in three days.  It took more like 17 days.  It was the first island landing.  It was the second most deadly of the Pacific war.

"In proportion to the numbers of troops engaged, it would rank as the second most costly American battle in the Pacific Theater - second only to Iwo Jima.  Total American casualties amounted to half again the number of Japanese troops on the island; the Japanese force suffered annihilation, almost to the last man.
"Landing force Attu had suffered 3829 casualties;  killed, 549; wounded, 1148;  severe cold injuries, 1200; disease (including exposure), 614;  other casualties (including self-inflicted wounds, psychiatric breakdowns, drownings, and accidents), 318 men." (p. 256)

Heroism is a tricky concept.  Some people fall apart under pressure.  Others firm up.  You don't know how you will react until you're in the situation.  Some people did crazy things and for some it turned out ok, for others not.

Two companies of Buckner's 4th Infantry got pinned down at the base of the ridge by nine Japanese machine-gun nests.  Private Fred M. Barnett remarked to a companion that he was fed up.  He walked up into the snowfall, carrying only his rifle and a string of grenades.  He disappeared, climbing, and his companions heard furious volleys from machine guns, rifles, and grenades.  The racket faded toward the distance, there was a single ragged aftervolley, and then silence.
Private Barnett reappeared and walked unhurriedly downhill.  When he was in full sight he stopped and waved the two companies forward.  The troops stepped from cover and climbed cautiously.  Barnett turned and joined the front rank.  The companies found the Japanese trenches free for the taking - Barnett had charged nine successive Japanese emplacements, wiped them all out and emerged without a scratch.   (p. 244)

Just five pages later we hear a different story.

Private Joe P. Martinez from Taos, New Mexico, was an automatic rifleman in Company K of the 32nd Infantry.  With the company stalled by enemy trenches, Martinez walked into the enemy fire, slaughtered five Japanese soldiers with grenades and his BAR, and reached the crest of the ridge before he collapsed with a mortal wound he had taken fifty yards down the hill.  Northern Force followed him up and took the northwestern razorback of the Fish Hook, which Martinez had cleared:  but it was too late for Martinez, whose posthumous reward was Attu's only Medal of Honor. (p. 249)

But based on this book's account, Eareckson seems to have been a true hero.  A good part of this was having skills and disposition that fit him perfectly into this sitution.


While he irritated his commanders, he also had their begrudging respect.  On May 21, 1943 during the battle of Attu, on a ship, visiting General Buckner got Eareckson to give him a ride over the island to see things first hand.  After they got back the weather was so bad, there was no chance of more flying.  Eareckson went ashore with Buckner.  He hadn't spent any time on the ground and wanted to get a sense of things.

He walked up to the front line, borrowed a rifle and started shooting at Point Able.
He had fired three shots when a Japanese sniper's bullet creased him across the back.  Eareckson emptied his rifle in a furious barrage;  several witnesses claimed he killed the sniper.  His wound was dressed at an aid station, after which Eareckson walked back down to the beach.  Simon Buckner was there, looking after his 4th Infantrymen.  Buckner found a Purple Heart medal, pinned it on Eareckson's chest, and then turned Eareckson around and kicked him with a hard combat boot in the buttocks, "for being where you had no business being." (p. 241)

Eareckson made things work.

Japanese planes were trying to sink US ships at Adak and the American planes coming a distance from Unmak to combat them, didn't have enough fuel capacity to fly around waiting for them and it was hard to find them in the fog anyway.

. . .especially for American fighters which had maneuverability and firepower, but no radar.  Eareckson solved the problem with typical inventiveness.  No one had ever heard of using bombers to escort fighters:  traditional air tactics worked the other way around.  But traditional tactics had not been devised with the Aleutians in mind.  Eareckson's new P-38 "Peashooter Patrol" sent five radar-equipped B-17 bombers out, as mother ships to a pack of Lightning fighters. . .

. . . a B-17's radar flushed the three oncoming enemy bombers.  Fed range and directions by radio, the P-38 fighters dived straight into the soup and broke through shooting.  The . . . chatter of their cannon and machine guns caught the big Kawanishi 97s totally by surprise.   (pp. 111-112)

Their bombing missions faced

"the heaviest flak concentration of any forward Japanese base in the Pacific . . . but  Eareckson seldom lost a plane to enemy flak:  he made it a point to brief every outgoing mission on the exact location of every antiaircraft gun, as determined by weather planes' photoreconnaissance." (p. 113)

But as mentioned above, he had no respect for the official way if it didn't suit the conditions and created his own ways that allowed him to fulfill his mission.

General Butler's staff included a number of paperwork addicts who demanded "certificates of airworthiness" before releasing grounded planes, condemned beat-up engines and tires as "unfit for use," and tried to ensnarl Eareckson's Bomber Command in the kind of red tape loved by all military organizations.  Eareckson bulldozed his way through it all.  In the process he became known as "Commander in Chief, Junkman's Air Corps." because every plane in his command was composed of the cannibalized parts of at least three wrecked bombers.  . . "(p. 113)

The Japanese knew about Eareckson because he

"heckled the Japanese by radio - "How'd you like that bomb, Tojo?  Give Tojo headache maybe?"  It quickly became a daily trademark and before long Tokyo Rose was airing sarcastic remarks aimed at Eareckson by name." (p. 98)

        At Kiska the Japanese order came down:  "Get Eareckson"  (p. 115)

When Eareckson went to California to help plan the invasion of Attu, the Japanese no longer heard his taunts.

"Tokyo Rose announced with grim satisfaction, "Our very good friend, Colonel Eareckson is no more.  He was shot down in the sea on January 13."
"When Eric learned of this,"  recalls Colonel William Alexander, "he said, 'Why, the little bitch, wait till I get back up there!" (p. 157)

From most people that would be seen as just empty boasting, but as Eareckson is portrayed in this book, it's genuine.  


Was the Aleutian War Worth It?

In 1943, Earickson had been pulled off bombing Adak and Attu to go help plan the invasion with the chosen force - made up of Southwesterners headed by a general from South Carolina - in the San Diego area.

Earickson's experience in the Aleutians caused him to question the wisdom of trying to retake Attu.   He penned a limerick (another example of his unique abilities was his ability to question his bosses without penalty):

In viewing Attu's rocky shores
     While planning how to take it,
This thought impresses more and more:
    The Nips should first forsake it.
Since Attu ain't worth a hoot
    For raising crops or cattle,
Let's load with booze and take a cruise
    And just call off the battle. (p.204)

Despite advice from Alaskan-experienced officers like Eareckson, the troops were grossly under equipped for the weather and terrain.  Despite warnings that the trucks would get mired in the wet tundra, large guns and equipment were shipped to Attu only to be left on the beaches.

I was reading the attack on Attu on the ferry from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, when the speakers announced that we shouldn't worry that we were being escorted by the Coast Guard, that this was a routine Homeland Security activity.  Which got me thinking about the Coast Guard working closely with Shell right now near Kodiak.


And I thought about the Kulluk again when I read about the lack of news coverage of Attu.  Despite the importance of the operation there was very little publicity about it, especially compared to other Pacific battles.

Attu veteran George F. Noland recalls wryly:  "No Marines - other wise it would have been world history."  Attu did receive some press coverage, provided by the nine American war correspondents on the scene, the belated and superficial announcements of the Navy in Washington, and the daily accounts broadcast by Radio Tokyo on short-wave.  But the battle was soon eclipsed by developments in other theaters.

And here's where I perked up:

Meanwhile Washington's official information offices, embarrassed by the mistakes and failures of Attu, were not eager to encourage the public to ask questions. 

Sounds a little like the Kulluk Unified Command, apparently led by Shell, the company that has said how prepared they are for anything that could come at them in the Arctic, also limiting information about what is happening in the rescue of the Kulluk.  Their current embarrassment is at the eastern end of the Aleutian Chain.  

In part, the higher ups wanted to retake Attu because it was US territory.  And its possession gave the Japanese a base from which to protect their North Pacific Fleet and potentially attack the US mainland.  The American repossession would put the US within air striking distance of Japan.  In hindsight, neither of these scenarios happened.  The daily US bombing of Attu and Kiska when they were occupied by the Japanese prevented any offensive action by the Japanese.  Would it have been different without the bombing?  We don't know.

But the cost of retaking Attu and Kiska in lives and equipment lost, not to mention the pulling away of troops from other theaters, was high.

In Attu it was high because the Japanese soldiers stranded there fought to the death and the invading American troops were not prepared for the conditions they faced.

In Kiska, the Japanese had managed to sneak all their men off the island before the attack, but the US didn't know this, though the lack of movement on the island as observed by pilots raised this possibility.  This meant the Japanese soldiers didn't have to die in battle or through suicide.  But it didn't prevent American casualties:

"Twenty-four men were shot to death by their own comrades in the fog.  Booby-traps and mines killed four others.  Fifty were wounded - booby-trapped or shot by mistake.  One hundred and thirty men got trenchfoot.

Patrolling destroyer Abner Read  struck a Japanese mine moored in a Kiska cove.  It crushed her stern plates and filled her hold with asphyxiating smoke - several men died there, and then the ship's stern broke off and sank, carrying men down.  The final toll from Abner Read was seventy-one dead, thirty-four injured." (p. 288)

Garfield writes:

The outcome [the retaking of Kiska] was satisfactory, but nothing could disguise the fact that for more than two weeks the Allies had bombarded an abandoned island, and that for a week thereafter they had deployed 35,000 combat soldiers - 313 of whom became casualties - across the deserted island.   .  .  The Kiska operation reddened faces from Anchorage to Ottawa to Washington.

The positive outcomes, aside from getting the Japanese out of US territory, according to Garfield were the lessons that were learned in Attu and Kiska that would be applied elsewhere in the war. 



 

Refugees Dying In Boats Is Not Unique To the Mediterranean In 2015

The world's media today is focused on the deaths of boat people fleeing Africa for Europe.  There's a lot of wringing of hands and talk about ways to prevent future such disasters.

But I would argue that it would make more sense to step back and remember that refugees fleeing persecution by boat has a long history.  I'm sure there are examples that go back much further than mine, but they are hard to find.  The Israelites fleeing Egypt across the Red Sea is different because they didn't go in boats.  But I'm sure there were plenty of people who fled various wars and famines by boat.

Let's look at these and consider at the end what they have in common and how the world might develop mechanisms to mitigate future such migrations.  Each of the examples below are just snippets from larger posts that you can view through the links.

Europeans of various religious denomination fleeing to the New World - 1600s - 1700s 
from the Library of Congress

The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of all citizens. Nonconformists could expect no mercy and might be executed as heretics. The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as "inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward coreligionists. Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented for generations.

The African Slave Trade

While the circumstances of the slave trade were different from the situation of refugees, the experience of horrendous sea voyages to distant lands is relevant.   From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

The level of slave exports grew from about 36,000 a year during the early 18th century to almost 80,000 a year during the 1780s.
The Angolan region of west-central Africa made up slightly more than half of all Africans sent to the Americas and a quarter of imports to British North America.
Approximately 11,863,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, with a death rate during the Middle Passage reducing this number by 10-20 percent. As a result between 9.6 and 10.8 million Africans arrived in the Americas.

Irish Fleeing the Potato Famine in the 1840s:

Image from Historyplace

"Of the 100,000 Irish that sailed to British North America in 1847, an estimated one out of five died from disease and malnutrition, including over five thousand at Grosse Isle.
Up to half of the men that survived the journey to Canada walked across the border to begin their new lives in America. They had no desire to live under the Union Jack flag in sparsely populated British North America. They viewed the United States with its anti-British tradition and its bustling young cities as the true land of opportunity. Many left their families behind in Canada until they had a chance to establish themselves in the U.S.
Americans, unfortunately, not only had an anti-British tradition dating back to the Revolutionary era, but also had an anti-Catholic tradition dating back to the Puritan era. America in the 1840s was a nation of about 23 million inhabitants, mainly Protestant. Many of the Puritan descendants now viewed the growing influx of Roman Catholic Irish with increasing dismay."

Jews Fleeing From Nazi Germany

 Both my parents participated in this story, though their passages across the Atlantic were relatively civilized and they had managed to get proper papers.  But their parents did not.

Here is one harrowing story of a ship that was sent back to Europe

From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

The voyage of the St. Louis attracted a great deal of media attention. Even before the ship sailed from Hamburg, right-wing Cuban newspapers deplored its impending arrival and demanded that the Cuban government cease admitting Jewish refugees. Indeed, the passengers became victims of bitter infighting within the Cuban government. The Director-General of the Cuban immigration office, Manuel Benitez Gonzalez, had come under a great deal of public scrutiny for the illegal sale of landing certificates. He routinely sold such documents for $150 or more and, according to US estimates, had amassed a personal fortune of $500,000 to $1,000,000. Though he was a protégé of Cuban army chief of staff (and future president) Fulgencio Batista, Benitez's self-enrichment through corruption had fueled sufficient resentment in the Cuban government to bring about his resignation. . . .

Following the US government's refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the St. Louis sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939. The passengers did not return to Germany, however. Jewish organizations (particularly the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with four European governments to secure entry visas for the passengers: Great Britain took 288 passengers; the Netherlands admitted 181 passengers, Belgium took in 214 passengers; and 224 passengers found at least temporary refuge in France. Of the 288 passengers admitted by Great Britain, all survived World War II save one, who was killed during an air raid in 1940. Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 (14%) managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. 532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278 survived the Holocaust. 254 died: 84 who had been in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France.

Jewish Refugees Trying To Reach Palestine After WW II

The ship Exodus 1947 became a symbol of Aliya Bet — illegal immigration. After World War II, illegal immigration increased and the British authorities decided to stop it by sending the ships back to the ports of embarkation in Europe. The first ship to which this policy was applied was the Exodus 1947.

Image source

The ship sailed from the port of Site, near Marseilles, on July 11, 1947, with 4,515 immigrants, including 655 children, on board. As soon as it left the territorial waters of France, British destroyers accompanied it. On July 18, near the coast of Palestine but outside territorial waters, the British rammed the ship and boarded it, while the immigrants put up a desperate defense. Two immigrants and a crewman were killed in the battle, and 30 were wounded. The ship was towed to Haifa, where the immigrants were forced onto deportation ships bound for France. At Port-de-Bouc, in southern France, the would-be immigrants remained in the ships’ holds for 24 days during a heat wave, refusing to disembark despite the shortage of food, the crowding and the abominable sanitary conditions. The French government refused to force them off the boat. Eventually, the British decided to return the would-be immigrants to Germany, and on August 22 the ship left for the port of Hamburg, then in the British occupation zone. The immigrants were forcibly taken off and transported to two camps near Lubeck.

Journalists who covered the dramatic struggle described to the entire world the heartlessness and cruelty of the British. World public opinion was outraged and the British changed their policy. Illegal immigrants were not sent back to Europe; they were instead transported to detention camps in Cyprus.

The majority of the passengers on the Exodus 1947 settled in Israel, though some had to wait until after the establishment of the State of Israel.

Cuban Boat People 1960 - 2015
After Castro's revolution in Cuba, people have been trying to make the 100 mile boat trip to Florida, many making it, many not.  There were many, many small boats over the years.  There were a few times when large number of boats left Cuba.  But I didn't find a succinct overview of the number of people who left Cuba during all that time.  Here's a photo essay from 1994. 









Vietnamese Boat People 1975-1980s

Starting in 1975, after the US left Vietnam in defeat, many Vietnamese fled, disastrously, by boat.

Image source

When the Americans lost the Vietnam War there were many who did not wish to stay in Vietnam. Those with influence were airlifted out by the Americans but many had to make do with crowding onto leaky boats and making the journey from Vietnam to the gulf of Thailand. In doing so they unwittingly wrote themselves into modern pirate history.

Conditions were perfect for piracy. The local fishermen were poor and were looking for an easy means to supplement their income. The Vietnamese government did not care about them and the Thai government was not anxious to receive large boatloads of refugees. No one cared about the fate of the boat people so allegations of piracy were often ignored. It was only when the incidents became more shocking that pressure was brought to bear on the Thai government by maritime interests led by the Americans. By then thousands had been robbed, raped and murdered.

These are just a few examples, ones that got some attention.

So what do they have in common?

1. Leaving conditions where their lives were threatened by religious or political persecution.  In the case of the Irish hunger was added to the other two reasons.
2. The quotas for accepting refugees in other countries was much lower than the number of refugees.
3. Conditions on the ships ranged from relatively comfortable to nearly suicidal.  

Thus solutions will involve:

1. Improving economic and political conditions around the world so people have no reason to flee so perilously.
2. When that fails, have reasonably decent housing and living conditions for refugees until they can find a permanent new homeland.
3. Increase understanding of destination populations so they are more welcoming.  

These are pretty broad recommendations.  I don't claim to have all the answers.  But as the species that produces great art, great music, and such wonders as the Hubble telescope, and a map of the human genome, surely we can find ways to reduce the need to flee, and when it does occur, we can make the reception more humane. 

Ferries First, Then Come The Bridges

Yesterday I had a chance to meet John Duffy, the former manager and planning director of Mat-su.  I asked him about his thoughts on the Knik Arm bridge and the ferry that has been a white elephant for the borough since building a ferry dock on the Anchorage side never happened.

His response was that the ferry was a good idea and the Knik Arm bridge is a bad idea.  But the comment he made that most caught my attention was that "there has never been a bridge built that wasn't preceded by a ferry."   He even volunteered to give me $100 if I could find one.

Did he have any backup evidence on this?  Is there a book on this?  An article?  Is there a way to find this on google without checking bridge by bridge?  He didn't know of any, but he said he just knew this because he worked in this area.  He did add that all the contractors who looked at building the Knik Arm bridge said that they needed a ferry to get supplies, employees, and inspectors across the gap while building the bridge, that they weren't going to do the five hour round-trip drive.  That made sense.

OK, I realize that while Duffy didn't initiate this project, he did inherit it and promoted it for a while. I'd never heard before that bridges don't get built unless there are ferries first.  If this is true, what does it suggest about the future of the Knik Arm bridge?  Duffy's role might give him an incentive to make it look like a good deal, but it also gives him some inside knowledge.  And, as I said, the idea that bridges don't get built unless there are ferries first is new to me, and I suspect to others.   Of the many projects in Alaska that haven't worked out, this one had acquired a pretty pricey boat for nothing and merely needed a port on each end - a minor task compared to, say the Knik Arm bridge project.  If people had supported it strongly, it could have easily happened.  The question is why, really, did the support evaporate?  (I don't have the answer today, but it's something we should be asking.)

But I'm am going to offer what I've found about the idea that bridges are always preceded by ferries.


Googling The Link Between Bridges And Ferries

So I started googling.  Things like 'bridges preceded by ferries,"  which got a number of articles about specific bridges in the US.  But I wanted a larger selection.  So I looked up "10 biggest bridges in the world."  That got me lots of the ad-laden list sites.  So I opted for Wikipedia which gave a list of countries and lists of bridges in those countries.  But they tended to only talk about the bridge and not what preceded the bridge.

I changed my strategy a bit.  Once I got a bridge name, I googled for the river plus crossing with ferries.  This got ferries for every bridge I looked up.  I've got those below.  Of the 15 or so bridges I looked up, I didn't find one that wasn't preceded by ferries.  That's a small sample size, but I looked at bridges in different parts of the world, old ones, new ones, big ones and small ones.  I also have examples of bridges crossing different bodies of water - mostly rivers, but also bays, lakes, fjords, and canals. 

A ways into my search, I did find a general statement about bridges and ferries (and fords.)

From an 1898 book titled Science and Industry, Vol II

"Barring these disadvantages, fords and ferries are adequate for the needs of a thinly settled community;  but, as population and traffic increase, there arises a demand for a safe and certain crossing of streams, whatever the state of weather and water.
This demand always precedes the bridge-building period."

Why Does This Matter?

Why am I making such a big deal about this?  We've got a well paid commission that is working to set up the Knik Arm bridge.  Many people think there is no need for such a bridge.  The Mat-su Borough attempted to develop a ferry at the same location.  They got a great deal on an experimental ship built by the US military and they built a ferry terminal on the Mat-su side.  But they couldn't get Anchorage to build a site on the Anchorage side.

Mat-su finally gave up and put the ferry up for sale.

I had assumed the Anchorage side didn't want the ferry because they were pushing the bridge and didn't want the competition.  But the point Duffy was making was that you need a ferry service to demonstrate the need before you build a bridge.  His point was that every bridge over water was preceded by a ferry.  The Science and Industry text says that outright, but it's an old text.  Below is a list of 15 bridges around the world.  Every one I looked up was preceded by ferries.

Not only are ferries, apparently, important as a first sampling test of the need for a bridge, but Duffy points out that to build a bridge, you need ferries to cross the body of water to take materials, employees, and inspectors.


15 Bridges That Were Preceded By Ferries

1.  SFChronicle:

"Ferries on the San Francisco Bay predate cable cars in the city by nearly 50 years, starting with John Reed, who ran a sailboat from Sausalito to San Francisco in 1826. His business didn’t last long. The American Indians, who paddled across the bay, were faster and much more reliable.
Regular ferry service started in 1851, and the popularity exploded in 1907, when several ferry companies consolidated into Northwestern Pacific (taken over by Southern Pacific in 1928). Southern Pacific’s 43 boats in 1930 were reportedly the largest ferryboat fleet at the time in the world.
The local ferry companies aggressively fought the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge, and they were financially smart to do so. The popular bridges mortally wounded the ferry business, and the final transbay ferry journey of the era was completed in 1958."

Before the Bridges: When ferry boats plied the river - See more at: http://www.wnypapers.com/news/article/featured/2015/02/21/119687/before-the-bridges-when-ferry-boats-plied-the-river#sthash.64ZHPgcL.dpuf

Before the Bridges: When ferry boats plied the river - See more at: http://www.wnypapers.com/news/article/featured/2015/02/21/119687/before-the-bridges-when-ferry-boats-plied-the-river#sthash.64ZHPgcL.dpuf

2.   Niagra Wheatfield Tribune    Grand Island, Niagra Falls NY

The push for Island bridges

Grand Island was purchased from the Senecas in 1815. Forests of oak trees drew settlers for the Island's valuable lumber. Farms then flourished and the Island became a popular summer resort with sprawling, gracious estates, private clubs and summer homes. It officially became a town in 1852. Two ferries provided transportation to and from the Island before the bridges were built. One launched from the former Bedell House in Ferry Village and the other from the site of the current Byblos Niagara Resort & Spa.
Luther's grandfather, Henry Long, went to Washington, D.C., in 1898 to make a case for bridge construction, but he died in 1925 without seeing his dream come true. A decade later, Island schoolchildren were bused to the South Grand Island Bridge for its grand opening, where noted urban planner Robert Moses and other dignitaries joined in the celebration in 1935. Grand Island Boulevard, then called the Express Highway, had been built in 1933-34, Luther said, to connect the two bridges. The Congregational Church was torn down to make room for the highway to come through. "The second set of bridges didn't come 'til the 1960s," she explained. "But there certainly wasn't the flow of traffic that we have now."
- See more at: http://www.wnypapers.com/news/article/featured/2015/02/21/119687/before-the-bridges-when-ferry-boats-plied-the-river#sthash.64ZHPgcL.dpuf

"The push for Island bridges

Grand Island was purchased from the Senecas in 1815. Forests of oak trees drew settlers for the Island's valuable lumber. Farms then flourished and the Island became a popular summer resort with sprawling, gracious estates, private clubs and summer homes. It officially became a town in 1852. Two ferries provided transportation to and from the Island before the bridges were built. One launched from the former Bedell House in Ferry Village and the other from the site of the current Byblos Niagara Resort & Spa.

Luther's grandfather, Henry Long, went to Washington, D.C., in 1898 to make a case for bridge construction, but he died in 1925 without seeing his dream come true. A decade later, Island schoolchildren were bused to the South Grand Island Bridge for its grand opening, where noted urban planner Robert Moses and other dignitaries joined in the celebration in 1935. Grand Island Boulevard, then called the Express Highway, had been built in 1933-34, Luther said, to connect the two bridges. The Congregational Church was torn down to make room for the highway to come through. "The second set of bridges didn't come 'til the 1960s," she explained. 'But there certainly wasn't the flow of traffic that we have now.'"

3.  Duluth 

1906 – 1910: Working Out the Bugs
In March McGilvray reported that the bridge had run perfectly since February 6, handling two hundred to three hundred teams of horses and thirty thousand people a day. He estimated the cost of operating the bridge, including the $4,000 in interest on the bond, at $10,578.31. It may not have been as big a savings from the ferry operation as anticipated, but McGilvray’s spin on the numbers illustrates the bargain that was the bridge: it cost the city “one-fifth of one cent per passenger for operation, maintenance, interest, and power.” He closed his report with a request for the city to install a telephone in the ferry car so its operator could call for help should the car break down in the middle of the canal. It was not granted.

4.  Idaho government webstie talks about ferries in Idaho

In the late1800’s there were hundreds of ferries operating throughout the state, but by the early 1900’s the business began to disappear.  With the population growing, it made sense to build bridges across the most traveled routes.  Once a bridge spanned the river, there was no need to have a ferry.

5.  Columbia River Bridge at Astoria, Oregon:

“The Columbia River span ended the last operating ferry service along the Oregon Coast Highway. The use of ferries at the mouth of the Columbia River began in 1840 when Solomon Smith, Astoria’s first schoolteacher, lashed two canoes together and carried passengers and cargo across the river.3 Ferries intermittently served the area into the beginning of the twentieth century. When the Columbia River Highway (US 30) opened a direct overland link between Portland and Astoria in 1915, automobile traffic through Astoria rose, creating pressure for more dependable ferry service. Seeing opportunity, Captain Fritz Elfving established the first commercial auto ferry service in 1921, when the Tourist I made her maiden voyage. For forty years ferries kept the traffic moving, but there were some drawbacks. For one thing, they were slow. In good weather the 4.5-mile trip took half an hour. Since the boats could hold only a limited number of vehicles, motorists often endured long waits in heavy traffic.”

6.  Chesapeake Bay.

Were there any Chesapeake Bay car ferries?
Why yes, there were once a number of ferries that crossed the Chesapeake, and they transported automobiles and trucks from one side to the other. They were quite popular for a time, actually.
As an example, the Virginia Ferry Corporation operated ferries that crossed the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. They departed from Little Creek (on the border between Norfolk and Virginia Beach) on the western shore to Cape Charles and Kiptopeke Beach on the Virginia Eastern Shore. The heyday for this corporation wasn’t very long. It ran ferries in the years after World War II and into the 1960’s according to the Chesapeake Bay Ferries website.
A much longer ferry tradition existed further up the bay in Maryland. Ferries existed between Annapolis and Kent Island as early as the nineteenth century. They were probably carrying automobiles by the 1920’s or 1930’s according to the Roads to the Future’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge History. Several lines and operators existed between the Maryland Eastern Shore and the larger portion of the state. These included the Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry operated by a private company and the Sandy Point-Matapeake Ferry operated by the State of Maryland
Why aren’t there any Chesapeake Bay car ferries?
That’s another question I often see in my query logs. The answer is simple: Bridges. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel opened in 1964, connecting the two shores of Virginia with an innovative combination of bridge and tunnel segments. Maryland also connected its shores with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952. They weren’t too original with the names, though. This one is just a bridge, no tunnel, as the name clearly states.

The ferries disappeared soon thereafter at both locations. They simply couldn’t compete with the bridges. It might take an hour or two to cross the Chesapeake Bay using a ferry after figuring in waiting, loading, sailing and unloading. It took just a few minutes to drive across a bridge, and travelers didn’t have to worry about sailing times either. Ironically the traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge can get so bad on summer weekends that a ferry is starting to sound pretty attractive again.

7.   From Gulflive, the bridge at Fort Bayou, Mississippi:

Older generations know not to take for granted some of our modern bridges, especially the four-laned ones. In generations past folks often had to rely on ferries to cross bodies of water.
One of the earliest exits out of Ocean Springs was north on Washington Avenue across Fort Bayou. Franco's Ferry came to be operated there by 1875.

Quoting from a book by Chris Wiggins the article continues:

"Ferries came in all sizes and descriptions," wrote Wiggins. "For crossings on smaller bodies of water, a rope or cable ran from one bank to the other. "The ferry guided along this and was pulled by cranking on a winch. For larger crossings a ferry could be propelled by a boat and motor attached to the ferry and no permanently moored cable was required. This was the case across the Pascagoula River, from Gautier to Pascagoula.
"The ferry was operated under a license issued by the county, and public documents provide a record of the rates. In 1893 the fare was: one man on foot $.05, man and horse $.10, man and horse and cart $.15, each driven horse or cow $.02. Interestingly, when the first bridge was completed to replace the ferry in 1901 rates dropped for humans. A man on foot now cost only $.01, but herded animals didn't get a break."
Wiggins noted that the first Fort Bayou Bridge was worn out by 1929 and a new one was constructed. It, like the first one, opened and closed with a swinging span. In 1985, the third and now existing bridge was built. It opens with a draw-bridge (lifting) mechanism, a faster apparatus."

8.  Lake Washington (Seattle Times):

"IN 1939, THE COUNTRYSIDE EAST OF LAKE WASHINGTON WAS FOCUSED on the little market city of Kirkland. In town, chicken ranchers and dairy farmers could buy seed and feed, get a tooth pulled, and stock up on groceries. Every hour, the lake ferry's arrival pulsed trucks, cars and foot passengers through town. But five minutes outside of Kirkland, the Eastside grew sleepy, almost primitive, dotted with worn farmhouses along muddy lanes. The King County Housing Authority worried about rural poverty on the Eastside -- ramshackle houses and poor sanitation.
    To the south, Bellevue was not really a town at all in 1939. "There was no 'there,' there," joked locals, thinking of the handful of stores along Main Street and the endless fields of berries and vegetables. Bellevue was a sprawling, unincorporated district best known for its Strawberry Festival. Along the lakeshore, there were a few elegant homes amid the rustic summer cottages of Medina and the Points -- the Gold Coast of the future.
    But from Bothell to Renton, lake to mountains, the Eastside dozed on gentle country time.
   As the 1940s began, two events awakened east King County to different futures: construction of the first bridge to span Lake Washington and dramatic industrialization of the Houghton lakeshore, in what is now south Kirkland. The revitalized Lake Washington Shipyards would skyrocket on the wartime homefront, only to sputter and fade. But the bridge would turn the Eastside toward a suburban future, and pulled the momentum of growth south from Kirkland to Bellevue."

9.  Istanbul - crossing the Bosporous, from Wikipedia:

Boats have traversed the waters of the Bosphorus for millennia and until the opening of the first Bosphorus bridge in 1973, were the only mode of transport between the European and Asian halves of Istanbul. They continue to serve as a key public transport link for many thousands of commuters, tourists and vehicles per day.

10.  Khabarovsk, crossing Amur River, from Wikipedia

In 1916, Khabarovsk Bridge across the Amur was completed, allowing Trans-Siberian trains to cross the river without using ferries (or temporary rail tracks over the frozen river in winter).

11.  Panama Canal -  Bridge of the Americas, from Wikipedia

"From the beginning of the French project to construct a canal, it was recognised that the cities of Colón and Panamá would be split from the rest of the republic by the new canal. This was an issue even during construction, when barges were used to ferry construction workers across the canal.
After the canal opened, the increasing number of cars, and the construction of a new road leading to Chiriquí, in the west of Panama, increased the need for some kind of crossing. The Panama Canal Mechanical Division addressed this in August 1931, with the commissioning of two new ferries, the Presidente Amador and President Washington.^[2] This service was expanded in August 1940, with additional barges mainly serving the military.
On June 3, 1942, a road/rail swing bridge was inaugurated at the Miraflores locks; although only usable when no ships were passing, this provided some relief for traffic wishing to cross the canal. Still, it was clear that a more substantial solution would be required. To meet the growing needs of vehicle traffic, another ferry, the Presidente Porras, was added in November 1942.  [emphasis added]

The Bridge Project

View on Bridge of the Americas

The idea of a permanent bridge over the canal had been proposed as a major priority as early as 1923. Subsequent administrations of Panama pressed this issue with the United States, which controlled the Canal Zone; and in 1955, the Remón-Eisenhower treaty committed the United States to building a bridge.
.  .  .
The inauguration of the bridge took place on October 12, 1962, with great ceremony.

12.  The London Bridge:

"Until Medieval times, the only way to cross the Thames from London on the north bank to the southern suburb of Southwark was by ferry or a rickety wooden bridge. In 1176 all that changed. After successive wooden bridges were destroyed by fire, Henry II commissioned the building of a permanent stone crossing. It took 33 years to complete and was to last – give or take repairs and remodelling – more than 600 years."

I kept looking for different bridges to see if I could find ones that didn't have ferry service first. I looked up bridges built after 2000 to see if new bridges were different.

13.  I found a bridge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida - the 17th Street Bridge - and the history didn't talk about a ferry, but when I looked up "Broward County ferries" I found this

"The fort was later moved to Tarpon Bend, and then to the barrier island near present-day Bahia Mar. A trading post established in the 1890s by Frank Stranahan (1864-1929) at a ferry crossing of the New River became the nucleus of the city of Fort Lauderdale.^[3]"

 I don't know that that specific bridge in Fort Lauderdale had a ferry first, but crossing the New River was first done by ferry.   I don't think this bridge will get me Duffy's $100.

14.  I looked for African bridges and found the Mkapa Bridge between Tanzania and Mozambique.
After a lot of poking around I found this (not quite grammatical) evidence that it was preceded by ferries:

"El Nino resulted in a severe flood in 1998 causing considerable loss of life and property
and use of   government rescue helicopters. The Tanzania Essential Health Intervention
Project (TEHIP) as did construction of a tarmac road from Ikwiriri to Mkapa Bridge
which imporvied [sic] the economy of Ikwriri and saved lives and property, the bridge had severe consequences for businesses and livelihoods dependent on the old ferry service." [emphasis added]

15.  Here's a bridge I randomly picked from the Wikipedia list of bridges in Norway:

"Ship services in Nordhordland started in 1866, and in 1923 the first car was purchased.^[5] A car ferry service between Isdalstø in Lindås and Steinestø in Åsane on the mainland was established on 7 July 1936.^[6] A plan was launched whereby all traffic from Nordhordland would be collected in one place and transported across Salhusfjorden to Åsane. By moving the ferry quay from Isdalstø to Knarvik, the length of the ferry service could be reduced. However, the fares would be kept the same and the extra revenue used to finance a bridge from Flatøy to Lindås.^[7] This allowed the Alversund Bridge to open in 1958, and the ferry service from Flatøy and Meland to move to Knarvik."

Some Possible Exceptions

Finding a bridge that wasn't preceded by a ferry is a little like looking for the black swan.  Not finding one doesn't prove they don't exist and there are too many bridges in the world for me to check them all.

There may, however, be some categories of bridges that were not preceded by ferries.  I was looking at a bridge over a man-made lake (caused by building a dam) in Malaysia.  While I can find evidence that there are ferries on the lake, they appear to be more for tourists than traffic.  But I haven't been able to find out how people crossed the river that got dammed before the dam. Probably by ferry in the beginning.  But so far haven't been able to document that.  The river that was damned was the second longest in Malaysia.  But there was a river there before the lake and there was a road. And the road had to cross the river.  Maybe an old bridge and before that a ferry?  Needs more research. 

I also checked on the bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand.  I can't find any real evidence that there was or wasn't a ferry over the river.  But it's possible this part of this river had no ferry.  Since it was used by the Japanese to make a shorter route from Thailand to Burma, they weren't serving local travelers, and weren't concerned about traffic over the bridge, or about the cost of the bridge.

The second case is not a model one would use to justify a bridge without having a ferry first.  The cost of the whole railroad (including this bridge)  in human lives and suffering  resulted in 

"111 Japanese and Koreans. . . tried for war crimes because of their brutalization of POWs during the construction of the railway. 32 were sentenced to death.^[3]"[Wikipedia]

I imagine there might be some bridges built out there that didn't have ferries first.  But I'm guessing those bridges were built not to meet the needs of the local folks but of some others who would be advantaged by the bridge.  Like the Japanese railroad bridges in Thailand in WW II.   And I'm guessing like the Knik Arm bridge here in Anchorage.