Operation Flintlock 65 Years Later

This week is the 65th year since Operation Flintlock and The Battle of Kwajalein. So not only is our home a tropical paradise it is also a former battlefield where thousands lost their lives during World War II. Here is a little excerpt from wikipedia on the battle.


-The Battle of Kwajalein was a battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, fought from January 31, 1944, to February 3, 1944, on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Following the capture of Tarawa in November 1943, American eyes turned to the Marshall Islands. These were the next vital stepping stone across the Pacific towards Japan, and would bring the islands of Guam and Saipan within the reach of US forces. Employing the hard-learned lessons of the battle of Tarawa, the United States launched a successful twin assault on the main islands of Kwajalein in the south and Roi-Namur in the north.The Japanese defenders put up a stiff resistance though outnumbered and under-prepared. The determined defense of Roi-Namur left only 51 survivors of an original garrison of 3,500.
For the United States, the battle represented both the next step in its island-hopping march to Japan and a significant moral victory because it was the first time the United States penetrated the "outer ring" of the Japanese Pacific sphere.

By the time U.S. Troops landed on the islets of Roi, Namur, and Kwajalein the Navy had laid on a non-stop barrage of 2655 tons of ammunition.

In their first amphibious attack, the new 4th Marine Division landed on Roi and Namur Islands on February 1st 1944, while US 7th Division landed on Kwajalein. At the time this was the longest shore to shore amphibious assaults in history. The lessons of the bloody fighting on Tarawa had been well learned and the successful attack on the Marshalls set the pattern for future amphibious operations in the Pacific War.

The airfield on Roi (the eastern half) was captured quickly, and Namur (the western half) fell the next day. The worst setback came when a Marine demolition team threw a satchel charge of high explosives into a Japanese bunker which turned out to be a torpedo warhead magazine. (Photo of this Explosion in the upper right of the operation flintlock collage). Only 264 out of 10.000 Japanese soldiers surrendered during the US Invasion.

As per request

American and Marshallese Flags




Only 7158 miles to home


Downtown Bike Parking

Our new rides, BMW for a Huffy quite the trade!

Beth's Red Rider

First Christmas Coconut

As I figure out my video editor I will upload more videos from our adventures!
This is from our Christmas Drop for the Marshallese Village on the outer atoll islet of Majetto. I am trying my first coconut hand picked and machette sliced by the local Marshallese. Sticky Sweet Goodness!

The RESSLYN

For those of you that remember the Diablo Dispatch from Iraq I will try my best to continue in that tradition. However, I am still not sure if I am allowed to be blogging so I have to stop by our Legal Office and double check. Although Beth has already been out drinking in the attorney's back yard ocean side bar so I think we may be okay for now. I thought I might walk you through my day on Saturday (your Friday), it started off with an early morning workout. The great thing about early morning workouts on Kwaj is that you can see the Southern Cross (a.k.a. Crux; The Southern Hemisphere's North Star) as you bike to the gym.





One of my additional tasks has been trying to track down a Marshallese Boat to carry a deceased U.S. Army Soldier (Marshallese Citizen) to his desired final resting place on Ujae Atoll (140 Miles West of Kwaj). In the Marshallese Culture the funeral process can last a very long time. The Soldier's funeral was held today on Ebeye the most populated islet in the Atoll. Picture Below.

Ebeye is a 3000 meter by 800 meter islet just north of Kwaj. It is supposedly the most densely populated piece of land in the world (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebeye), 13,000 people live there literally on top of each other it is also pleasently known as the "Slum of the Pacific". I have been to many a slum in my Army adventures (Pristina and Gilijane, Kosovo; Tikrit, Baghdad, Sadr City, Babylon and Najaf, Iraq; and Brompton of course). Sadly, its not an Army post without a nearby shady town, think Daleville of Fort Rucker or Fayetteville of Fort Bragg and Ebeye is it for Kwaj.

In an effort to save your tax dollars I passed on using our own Army Marine assets to take the remains and the Marshallese family for the four day burial process and instead tried to outsource at a significantly reduced price by contacting the Marshallese owner of an inter Atoll cargo boat. The boat was intended to bring about 30 people and the remains to Ujae Atoll. So my boat warrant officer, our host-nation officer, our Marshallese translator, and I hopped in our small dual engine boston whaler style boat and speed over to Ebeye to due a safety assessment of the cargo ship. This was my first visit to Ebeye and upon our arrival we were swarmed by little kids. The translator asked the oldest looking one to keep in eye on our boat and I think slipped him a buck or two but I wasn't looking to closely at that transaction. So we left the boat and headed over to the RESSLYN the suggested cargo boat for the journey.

Picture looking into the RESSLYN from the Ebeye dock.

The RESSLYN was unloading food supplies to include a giant pig as we approached.

While the boat was only three years old one could tell that it hadn't quite been maintained to USCG safety standards. We talked with the boat captain and he gave us permission to board the vessel. Not that I knew what I was looking at but I wanted to provide some cover for our boat warrant and make sure he wasn't held a gun point and forced to serve as a cabin boy. The upper deck was good looking but had limited charts of Ujae Atoll not that we had any better charts, thank goodness for GPS. After boarding the ship we went down below to checkout the engine room and made an assessment that it should be renamed the oil room since everything was covered in oil. The fire suppression system was non-existent and there was a half-naked marshallese man sweating it out on the repair of a transmission both were very very scary. In addition the boat only had two life rafts for just ten people so all around a bad selection for our desired mission but the owner and captain tried their best to offer up their services at a premium price. I am still in the market for a ship so if any of you know of any high quality Marshallese fishing or cargo boats let me know. (Update: We found a boat! RMI government owned...). After we got back from Ebeye having stopped in the hardware store for some WD-40 for our Bikes and eyeballing some good looking Southern Fried Chicken, I headed over to the small boat marina for a boating orientation class. Beth and I are both getting certified to drive all the rental boats so we can go out fishing, SCUBA diving or adventuring among the atoll's islets. I think I have gone on long enough but needless to say it was another great day on the Atoll.

~Kevin

The "pools" of Kwajalein

Hello Everyone,

Hope you are all doing well and staying warm back home. I see on the news it is very cold where most of you are! Kevin and I do not miss that, although I think Kevin is longing to be on a ski slope somewhere.

Anyhoot, I have attached more photos for your viewing pleasure. I wanted to show you all the Japanese/American "pools" I was referring to in the last blog. The first photo shows the "pools" at high tide, can't see them at all, which is why you go snorkeling in them at low tide. The second photo on the right shows the "pools" at low tide, this is when we would go out snorkeling. You have to wear little booties on your feet to walk out to the "pools", that is coral and rock you are looking at up to the water. Coral is very dangerous if you get cut by it, apparently wants to grow in you. (I keep picturing Kevin and I turning into those sailors on the pirate boat in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean)!

These "pools" were created by the Japanese and American soldiers during WWII, they dug out the coral to expand Kwajalein. We live on an area from the dug out coral. We are not allowed to plant anything in the ground, all plant life must be in some type of container. The palm trees are basically the only plant growing in the ground and some weeds trying to pass as grass.

The weeds growing as grass makes playing golf out here challenging. If you hit the ball in the rough, good luck finding it and if you are able to find it, good luck hitting it out. This must be what it is like for the pro's playing on the British open. Between the wind gusts and the grass, I should have an amazing golf game on other courses! :)

The other interesting thing about golf out here is that no pesticides are used on the course. If the course used any pesticides they would soak into the island water supply. There is a lens well under the island which is a pocket or lens of fresh water that rests above the salt water. It takes several years to develop but once tapped through a well can be used as a source of fresh water. This is how we get the bulk of our fresh water. The golf course sits on top of a part of the lens well, so no pesticides, therefore lots of weeds on the course.

Today I am off to my first stained glass class. I am excited to learn how to do this, although there is not much artistic ability in me, I am hopeful. I am suppose to make a sailboat, I'll let you all know how that goes.

All our best,

Beth & Kevin

Photos and such

Marshallese Christmas "Dancers"

Beth's Shark Experience


Kwaj Harbor Christmas Boats

Kevin handing out fruit to the Marshallese Children of Ebadon during the Christmas Helicopter "Resupply Mission"

Sunset on Roi

Settling into Island Life

Hello Everyone,



I have finally gotten this blog thing under control, so there will be regular posts and hopefully photos!
The photo that I was able to upload on the right is our house. We have a nice two bedroom, one and half bath, spacious living area and okay size kitchen. The big issue with these houses here is the mold, as I'm sure I've already told you all before. Kevin and I sprayed our first can of Lysol into the AC unit yesterday, the whole house smelled like Lysol for the entire day. The purpose of this is to kill the mold that may be growing in the AC vents throughout the house. We also have two dehumidifiers going to help control the mold, so far so good!
Kevin is busy at work, lots of crazy things going on that he gets the privilege of addressing! I am "busy" being island "fluff". "Fluff" is the term for island spouses who do not work. There is a good percentage of island fluff, of course most are retirement age! I spend my days going to the pool, working out, playing golf, and will soon start doing pottery, stained glass and playing softball on Kevin's work team. It is good for now, but I don't know if I can keep that up for another 23months! There are a few job prospects, so well see how that all goes.
So, what have we been doing for the past month??? We have been snorkeling, which is pretty cool out here, although I am more focused on staying away from the coral than really enjoying the colorful fishes. We went snorkeling the other day in the Pacific Ocean, there are these cut out areas, "pools", in the ocean created by the Japanese and American Military during WWII.















As we were snorkeling around we came across a shark...well, I didn't, one of the more experienced snorklers/divers saw it and told us all to turn around and get out. He told us the shark had gotten caught in the "pool" when the tide went out and had to wait until the tide came back in to get out into deeper water. There are a series of these "pools" in the ocean, so we just went to another one and snorkeled around for a bit longer. I am going to take some photos of these "pools" today and will post them so you can see what I am writing about.
I have been playing golf, working on that horrendous putting game of mine! My favorite thing to do though is go out to the swimming pool and lay out in the sun with a book. There is an area behind the pool where there are beach chairs and it overlooks the ocean. It is very relaxing, of course I do have to watch out for that skin cancer thing!
Kevin and I have been to various people's houses for dinner. That is a very popular thing to do here, potlucks. They have all been great. People out here do know how to cook. We had sushi the other night, fresh caught Yellow Fin Tuna and some Mahi-Mahi. It was delicious, I know my dad would have really enjoyed it! :) Our neighbor is originally from Hawaii, but has been on this island for 43 years. He knows how to make some very yummy sushi mi, I didn't think I would enjoy it, but it was really tasty! I have been experimenting with various recipes as well, since I have the time now!
We hope everyone is doing well back in the States! More fun life on Kwaj info to come.


Have a great day!