US and Philippine forces cancel ship-sinking drill after World War II-era target prematurely sinks
The BRP Miguel Malvar, which was decommissioned by the Philippine navy in 2021, took on water while being towed in rough waters facing the disputed South China Sea and sank about 30 nautical miles (55 kilometers) off the western Philippine province of Zambales. Nobody was onboard when the ship listed then sank, the Philippine military said.
American and Philippine forces would proceed with other live-fire maneuvers off Zambales on Monday despite the premature sinking of the Malvar. The ship was built as a patrol vessel for the U.S. Navy in the 1940s and was transferred to Vietnam's navy before the Philippine military acquired it, Philippine navy Capt. John Percie Alcos said.
"It's an 80-year-old dilapidated ship and it wasn't able to withstand the rough seas,' Philippine Lt. Col. John Paul Salgado told The Associated Press.
The ship-sinking exercise was planned in an offshore area facing the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal, which has been closely guarded by the Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships.
The Philippines also claims the fishing atoll, which lies about 220 kilometers (137 miles) west of Zambales. Chinese and the Philippine forces have had increasingly hostile confrontations in the waters and airspace of Scarborough in recent years.
The cancelled ship-sinking drill would have been the third to be staged by the treaty allies in recent years. It was supposed to be one of the highlights of largescale annual military exercises by the United States and the Philippines from April 21 to May 9 with about 14,000 U.S. and Filipino forces participants.
Called Balikatan, Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder, the combat drills have increasingly focused on the defense of Philippine sovereignty in the face of China's growing aggression in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety.
Mock battle scenes which have been staged so far, including the retaking of an island from hostile forces, have reflected assurances by the Trump administration, including by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that the U.S. would abide by its treaty commitment to defend the Philippines in case Filipino forces come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
On Sunday, U.S., Australian and Philippine forces practiced retaking an island from hostile forces in the coastal town of Balabac in western Palawan province, which faces the South China Sea.
Japanese forces and British marines joined as observers of the combat exercise, which 'showcased the growing interoperability and cohesion among partner nations in maintaining regional security,' Salgado said.
"What we have seen since Trump returned to the White House is a remarkable level of continuity in the US-Philippines alliance not only in joint military drills, but also on American statements that the alliance is 'ironclad,' said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at RAND Corporation.
'The Trump administration is trying to keep the pressure on China through its support to the Philippines," Grossman said, but added that it's unclear 'just how sustainable this commitment will be given that the Trump administration seems less hawkish on China than its predecessors.'
China has vehemently opposed such exercises involving U.S. forces in or near the South China Sea or Taiwan, the island democracy, which Beijing claims as a province and has threatened to annex by force if necessary.
U.S. and Philippine military officials, however, have insisted that the combat exercises were not designed with China in mind but serve as a deterrence to acts of aggression in the region.
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Tens of thousands perished instantly, others died from festering wounds or radiation sickness weeks or months afterwards. Nagai's two small children, who had been sent to the countryside, survived, but his wife Midori was reduced to 'a bucketful of soft ashes' and a clod of melted rosary beads. Four years later, Nagai published a haunting eyewitness account of the bombing and its aftermath, The Bells of Nagasaki. It's being republished this week, in English translation, by Vintage Classics. Eighty years after the atrocity, as the clouds of conflict gather once again, his book is a crushing reminder of the obscenity of nuclear war. In the wake of the bomb, Nagai recounts, the survivors looked upon a desert of naked corpses. A professor cradled the charred bodies of his dying students. Their flesh was peeling off 'like the skin of a peach'; blood flowed from their ears and noses. One student, who was 'swollen like a pumpkin', took his last breath: 'There's no hope for me. Thanks for everything.' All the while, distant cries of agony echoed in the wind. A child's voice screamed, 'I'm burning! Throw water on me!… Mummy! Mummy!' Then, silence. One nurse could only compare Nagasaki to hell. Nagai, and a small group of surviving doctors, nurses and medical students, tried to treat the mass of wounded with only the most basic medical equipment. Nagai worked with one hand pressed against his own lacerated forehead to stop blood spurting out of a severed artery. His patients' injuries were graver still. Two plump nurses, nicknamed Little Barrel and Little Bean, felt 'ecstatic joy' as they crawled through burning rooms to rescue survivors. As flames enveloped the hospital, the medics made for safety up the hill with the wounded on their backs. Using the blood dripping from his chin as paint, Nagai 'traced a huge circular sun' on a white sheet to create a Japanese flag; with this held high, they abandoned their college. Later, Nagai's lionhearted troupe – stumbling, limping, deathly pale, in bloodstained skirts and ragged trousers – would trudge from village to village to heal the sick and chronicle their torments for the future benefit of science. For a while, they had no word from the outside world. But when American planes scattered leaflets announcing the atomic bomb's devastation 'to the People of Japan', the political situation became dreadfully clear. The message: surrender, or we will 'use this bomb… to bring this war to a swift, irresistible conclusion'. The weapon made a mockery of Japan's war effort. 'The bamboo spear against the atomic bomb! What a tragic comedy this was!' Nagai despaired. 'This was no longer a war. Would we Japanese… be annihilated without a word of protest?' On August 14, Japan surrendered. 'We all held hands and wept,' he recalled. 'The sun set and the moon rose; but we could not stop weeping.' For what had their friends and family died for? 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The second torrent of radiation quickened his decline. Soon, he knew, his children would be orphans. He described his five-year-old daughter playing alone with her toys: the head of a doll, some bottles, a mirror frame. She had no option. 'All her friends are dead,' Nagai wrote. She chattered with ghosts. Soon after, Nagai moved to a tiny hut near the centre of the explosion. From his sickbed, his spleen swelling up, he wrote a series of bestselling books. The Bells of Nagasaki was completed in 1946 and published three years later. In 1949, Nagai was Japan's most-read author, and by then he was a celebrity of sorts. He was also a devout Catholic: Eva Perón sent him a statue of the Virgin, Pope Pius XII a rosary. Hirohito, the emperor of defeated Japan, paid him a visit. By this point, however, Nagai was a divisive figure. 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I tried a World War II cake recipe from Marguerite Patten
These often turn out wonderfully, and it got me thinking what it would be like to try a wartime recipe using the same ingredients that people would have been restricted to during rationing. Rationing was a system implemented to make sure everyone got their fair share of food during national shortages in wartime. This was exacerbated by enemy ships and submarines attacking imports of food, which caused a greater reliance on items produced in the UK. Marguerite Patten was one of the earliest celebrity chefs, presenting a popular BBC radio programme during World War Two, in which she shared recipes for cooking with wartime rations. Here she is demonstrating how to make an Easter cake back in 1950.#ThrowbackThursday — BBC Current Affairs (@BBC_CurrAff) April 9, 2020 Several foodstuffs, such as sugar, meat, fats, bacon, eggs and cheese, were rationed, which caused a great impact. After doing a bit of research for wartime cake recipes, I was recommended by my mum to check out recipes from Marguerite Patten. She was one of the earliest examples of a celebrity chef and became famous during World War II, where she shared recipes on BBC radio that could work within the limits of rationing. It sounded like the perfect thing to explore, and I found her recipe for a Vinegar Cake, which was a fruit cake that used vinegar instead of eggs. This can be seen in her book Feeding the Nation, and is notable for using vinegar instead of eggs as a main component. How to make a World War II-era light fruit cake Making the cake will not require too many ingredients (Image: Newsquest) In terms of ingredients for the fruit cake recipe you will need 6oz of self-raising flour 3oz of margarine 3oz of sugar 1/4 pint of milk 1 tablespoon of vinegar 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda 3-4oz of mixed dried fruit Meanwhile, for equipment, you will need: a decent-sized mixing bowl large basin scales sieve measuring jug a teaspoon a tablespoon larger spoon (for mixing) 7-inch baking tin Baking cakes is not something I do very often, so I made it with my Mum overseeing things to make sure I didn't mess up anywhere. The first step involves creaming the margarine and sugar together (Image: Newsquest) Firstly, we creamed the margarine and sugar together and made sure it was well-combined. After that, the recipe recommends pouring the milk, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda into a "large basin". It was quite a vague term, so we combined the elements into a large measuring jug as it would supposedly froth up quite a bit. The recipe involves 3-4 ounces of mixed fruit (Image: Newsquest) However, this didn't happen in practice, so any worries of creating a mess were quickly alleviated, at least. We then poured that mixture into the mixing bowl with the creamed margarine and sugar, before sifting the flour into it. After mixing that, we then added the dried fruit, which was a combination of raisins, peel and cherries. All the ingredients will eventually be mixed together into the bowl (Image: Newsquest) Finally, after briefly mixing together, we then poured it into a seven-inch baking tin. The recipe recommends flouring and greasing the tin, but if you have a cake case to hand, you can line the tin with that. All there is to do after that is to pop it in a "moderate oven" (approximately 170-180C) and bake it for an hour. The verdict Once the hour was up, I took the cake out of the oven and was pleased to see that, at least aesthetically, it had turned out quite well. The cake certainly looked the part coming out of the oven (Image: Newsquest) It had a nice golden-brown colour with bits of dried fruit popping through the outer layer. All that was left to do was to try it, and I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I'd seen from other people trying the recipe that it had turned out really crumbly, but in this case it held its shape perfectly. The cake had a light and fluffy texture (Image: Newsquest) Having it warm was certainly a bonus, and it had a delightfully fluffy and light texture. Recommended reading: It also wasn't overly sweet and balanced all the flavours remarkably well. Due to how relatively few ingredients this requires and how it doesn't take too long to make, I would highly recommend giving this a try. While rationing is, of course, something nobody ever wants to go back to or experience in the first place, it is somewhat comforting to know that with a bit of adjustment, people were still able to enjoy some treats like this.
