WOELLHOF-LLOYD

BEHEADED  WHILE  POW

AT  CHICHI  JIMA  ISLAND

About 620 miles south of Tokyo is the island of Chichi Jima, a small island only five miles by three miles in size but during World War II the island was critical to the Japanese communications services who used it as a strategic radio relay link.  Neutralizing the island became important when U.S. forces commenced long distance flights to attack the Japanese mainland and the flights often flew over Chichi Jima.  Thus, bombing attacks were launched from American aircraft carriers which flew into the teeth of Chichi Jima’s lethal antiaircraft guns, somehow dodge the shells aimed at them, and release their bombs onto the reinforced concrete communications facilities on top of the island’s twin peaks.

On July 4, 1944, SB2C-1 Helldiver BOMBER BuNo 01169, of Bombing Squadron One, departed the carrier USS Yorktown to attack Chichi Jima.  The plane was piloted by Ensign Owen Marsten Hintz with Aviation Radioman Second Class Lloyd Richard Woellhof as the radioman. After the sixty-six mile flight to the island, the plane was struck by intense antiaircraft fire and crashed.  ENS Hintz died in the crash and ARM2 Woellhof bailed out and survived.  However, after a period of confinement, a superior Japanese officer ordered Woellhof to be executed.  Historical records report that on August 5, 1944, Woellhof was taken to a rifle range, tied to a tree and attacked for bayonet practice.  While he was still alive a Japanese officer beheaded Woellhof with a sword and his body was buried.  On August 16, 1944 the Japanese exhumed Woellhof’s body, cremated his remains and disposed of the ashes to remove the evidence of his demise.

In 1947 at war crimes trials, the Japanese officer who ordered Woellhof’s death and the officer who executed him were tried, found guilty, and executed by hanging.  They were buried in unmarked graves on the island of Guam where the trial was held.  As the body of ARM2 Lloyd Richard Woellhof was not recovered, his name is engraved in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)