    
Title: USS Wintle, May 5-6, 1945 Description: Sailors at the bow of the American destroyer USS Wintle (DE-25) stand ready to take aboard natives sailing in outriggers under cover of darkness, some in the water swimming, from the Japanese-held island of Jaluit, Marshall Islands; more than 2,000 escaping natives were rescued from such Japanese-held islands in the Marshalls, where their Japanese occupiers treated them like slaves, physically abusing them out of their routine savagery and executing anyone displeasing them; Jaluit was never captured, but left to "die on the vine" in the U.S. strategy to bypass island strongholds held by the Japanese; on September 5, 1945, Jaluit, an atoll occupying less than five square miles, was surrendered to U.S. Navy forces; commander of the Japanese garrison on Jaluit, Rear Admiral Masuda Nisuko, committed suicide on October 5, 1945, shortly before facing an inquiry about the execution on the island of three captured U.S. fliers; punctilious, he left a detailed report of the executions, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of several of his junior officers and enlisted men, charged as war criminals; Date: May 5-6, 1945 Category: World War II Keywords: atrocities, abuse, brutality, destroyers, Japanese invasions, Second World War, U.S. Navy, U.S. sailors, U.S. warships, World War II, WWII Orientation: Landscape Dimensions: 1710 x 1057 (1.81 MPixels) (1.62) Print Size: 14.5 x 8.9 cm; 5.7 x 3.5 inches File Size: 5.18 MB (5,431,092 Bytes) Resolution: 300 x 300 dpi Color Depth: 16.7 million (24 BitsPerPixel) Compression: None Image Number: 0000010313 Source: Jay Robert Nash Collection |
