I wish more young people were interested in these critical moments in the history of our people, our nation, and our world. I applaud you for your enthusiasm.
@Makinmd That is true, but it is impossible to imagine the sheer horror those people went through without context. Equally, it must have been heart-breaking to have endured those horrors without the proper appreciation. I don't feel schools do enough to keep the level of appreciation alive.
June 4- June 6 the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum is holding it's annual WWll memorial. they have been doing a restoration of a P-61 Black Widow Fighter for years and it will take to the skies for the first time since it was recovered years ago. there are only 4 in the world and this is the only one that is flyable. can't wait to see it in the air over my house that weekend
@Thinkerbell good question. A few of my Air Force friends went to C-121s AWACS, the military version of the Connie with the big dish on top. Never heard from them again, so probably a close, private assignment that also became a tight community.
A sleek airplane, like the high water mark before 707s arrived.
how very sad. my dad fought in WWII. He was in the unit called the Bataan Avengers. He was a short man and they used him for reconnaisance. he had shell shock and refused to ever talk about the war.
@DogMan Gunships are too unique to be anything else. Extensive modifications all around that can't be either done or undone without a complete overhaul. Most of everything else makes the adaptability one of it's values, like switching from cargo hauling to passengers to airdrop delivery from one flight to the next.
I believe they are up to a "J" and a "Super J" now. And over more recent years have changed engines and propellers. The latest is an 8 blade propeller. I just checked, and it looks like Lockheed has been developing a sea-plane version. This kind of fits into its fundamental strength of being able to land and take off in/from primitive airstrips. Like any river, lake or ocean could be like an airport?
@Heartlander Nice! thanks for the info. I have tried to keep up with the new planes.
I live in Las Vegas Nevada, Nellis AFB was my first base, so I came back here to work after I got out. I was in from 77 - 85. I purposely bought a house north of town that is directly in the flight path between Nellis and the world famous range north of town. I get to see and hear them all when they fly over. This week we had B-1's and B-2's doing exercises. We usually do not get a lot of SAC planes here. Nellis is a very busy base, I saw just about every aircraft at one time or another. Including British, and French planes. I was lucky enough to go to a Capstone Firepower demonstration a few years ago. That was an experience.
@DogMan it's been 40+ years since I left the reserves. Lots have probably changed over those years. There are some things that probably haven't changed and probably wont. On that list is the viability of bases like Nellis. There will always be a Nellis, an Eglin, an Andrews, and maybe just 3 or 4 other bases. Every place else may vanish at the stroke of a new budget. They wouldn't dare close Nellis.
My dad was in combat as an infantry rifleman in Italy WWII I have two scrap books with every letter he wrote to his mom, she saved them along with all of his documents. I sent some of the letters to the WWII museum in Florence. They sent me 6 shell casings from an American M1 Garand that were found on Mt. Battaglia where dad was wounded. Dad's regiment took the mountain and defended it for a week, repelling relentless assaults by two German divisions.
@Thinkerbell Hmm, I don't know. But here is another patrol story if you liked that one. He told me that he and two others were walking down a little dirt road at night across the lines when they heard someone coming, they laid down by a little structure about 5ft off the path. As the people got closer they could hear people speaking German, they stayed put, and realized it was an entire German Infantry Regiment. He said that he was sure they would feel his heart pounding against the ground. They all thought this was the end. They finally past, and the guys got out of there to report the enemy movements. Again, this is one of the good stories.
I used to attend the Marine Corps birthday celebrations with a fellow Marine, my former science teacher, who was a WWII/Korea Corsair pilot. He was still picking me up at a spry 90 years old, still "piloting" his car down the highway. That man was [i]not[/i] afraid to use the gas pedal....whew! One year, we had the widow of one of the flag raisers, Rene Gagnon in attendance. I had a chance to meet her.
@Heartlander Yup, no where to go but onward to the target. The Colonel stated in conversation that, the corsair could absorb a surprising amount of damage. I would not know personally, but he knew those birds inside and out.....he kinda drove his car that way. Never a dull moment when I rode with him. We enjoyed swapping sea stories to the Ball and back. I miss him......hell, I miss the attitude of his generation. They all came home, and having hung up their uniforms, rolled up their sleeves and went to work. Steady as a rock, and none of today's self-entitlement whiners among them.
@Thinkerbell Music is the balm for the soul......I would completely agree......from the Colonel to my granfather, killed by a Nazi Uboat in 1943, so many personal stories of sacrifice and courage. I pray the coming generations understand how much they have been given, as Americans. Music.....this type of music is a balm for the soul of those who, are either military familes, or Gold Star families. I'm grateful for it.....as it stirs the soul.
I highly recommend John Garfield in Pride Of The Marines, who portrays real time marine hero Al Schmid, another tear jerker. This film has only one battle scene within Guadalcanal, but it's very realistic. Hard to believe but it's a chick flick....Eleanor Parker does a great job in it.
Another two on the homefront war films I recommend are Since You Went Away with Claudette Colbert and The Best Years Of Our Lives with Frederick March.
If you want to see a war film with the accent on the nurses in war, try So Proudly We Hail with Claudette Colbert.
I assume you have seen Saving Private Ryan. Im a film buff with the accent being on 30s40s50s movies.
Also try Dana Andrews in The Purple Heart for an Air Force perspective on WW2 in the Japanese theater,
A WW1 favorite of mine is The Fighting 69th with James Cagney.
Bataan with Robert Taylor is a real good one.
Another Robert Taylor flick, Above And Beyond deals with the atomic bomb build up and the eventual dropping of it. Another fascinating film.
They fought up Iwo Jima’s hill One hundred and fifty men But only twenty seven lived To fight back down again. And when the fight was over And Old Glory raised Among the men who held it high Was the Indian, Ira Hayes.
I've never been to Iwo Jima but overflew it a few times. Its most impressive feature? How small ... a tiny island for such a fierce battle. About 8 square mile total area. About the size of Grand Isle, LA, or Grand Turk.
During the Vietnam era, I spent some time ferrying aircraft back and across the Pacific, shorter range airplanes requiring refueling island stops along the way ... Midway, Wake, Johnson, Guam, Okinawa. But never Iwo Jima. Spent a few nights at Midway and Wake ... even smaller than Iwo Jima ... and had the opportunity to visit the beaches and old pill boxes. A very somber experience.
Yes, only 8 sq miles, a little over 5000 acres. That means on average, more than one marine died and more than three were wounded for each acre. Nearly all the Japanese defenders died, about 4 per acre. Just awful, hard to imagine today.
Yes, unlike some old war movies (where the constant wisecracking seems unrealistic), this one is really gripping.
I saw "Dunkirk" a few years back when it came out, and I got scared, sitting there in the theater, when the screaming Stukas were diving on the troops trapped on the beach.
The wisecracking back then was a way for the men to keep their mind off battles. I assure you, if you're all serious all the time, you will eventually go crazy in a war/combat setting.@Thinkerbell
@BluntSm0ker Both brutal events - around 800,000 Soviet citizens died in Leningrad - about the same as the combined deaths of Americans and Brits in the entire war. Near on a million Soviets Soldier and citizens lost their lives In Stalingrad ☹️
@DogMan Thanks for sharing that. I would have been but 3 at the time and have faint memories of blimps flying overhead and black-out drills.
He was the oldest son of my mom's oldest sister. 19 at the time. I remember my parents kept and cherished one of the last letters that he had written. As I recall, it was on that thin, near see-through paper with redacted sentences. All letters from GIs were screened by the army.
@Heartlander Yes, I have some of those type letters too. They were small, like they were reduced somehow. Do you know when he entered service? I'm from Waterloo Iowa. My dad worked at the John Deere factory there
An amazing, little spoken about, was trying to convince the GIs sent to Europe that there was a reason to fight the Nazis. They knew about the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor, but were unconvinced about the Holocaust. The GIs that eventually liberated the camps had no idea what they were! The US refused to accept Jews that were trying to escape the deaths that they faced. That subtle antisemitism is not so subtle now in the middle east!
@samueltyler2 That could be true for some of the GI's. My dad was drafted into the 88th infantry as a rifleman. He never mentioned anything like that. I also read all his letters that he wrote to his mom, and he did not mention it. He did however, tell his mom many times not to worry, that the 88th would crush the German Army, and he would be home for Christmas. He didn't get home for Christmas, but the 88th did in fact crush the Germans in every battle. They were the front line infantry division, that the Germans called The "Tip of the spear" The books I read about the 88th, say that they were outnumbered in every battle, and never lost one.
@therighttothink50 You know that movie is based on real soldiers? But they were called the Filthy 13 I believe. They shaved their heads into mohawks,and painted their faces with war paint before battles. And from what I understand, they didn't bathe too much.
Hopefully we'll nip that in the bud. There are enough nuclear bombs just waiting to be used to carve another dozen Grand Canyon in the earth. We humans would join the dinosaurs in the list of extinct lifeforms, and a bunch of cockroaches will have to start all over again.
If you're interested in these see of you can see the imperial world museum videos on YouTube. Some of the best on the topic. Might need a vpn to spoof a UK ip address.
I didn't know, but I looked it up just now and found that more recently (about a year ago), another of the six Iwo Jima flag raisers had been misidentified.
But whoever wrote JFK's speech for him got the battle to which he refers hopelessly wrong.
Fredericksburg is in Virginia, not Maryland, and the battle was fought on December 13, 1862, not September.
It was the battle of Antietam (which is in Maryland) that was fought in September. There is a city in Maryland named Frederick, but no significant battle was fought there.
@Thinkerbell Absolutely. "and beyond". We're still living in the shadow of WW2. Pick practically any spot on earth, and there's still the echo of that awful war. Ukraine, the Middle east, Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa? Dig a centimeter below the surface and it's that war.
We don’t appreciate how radical “Unconditional Surrender” was. The sheer mass of industrial might and dedication of the US against the Japanese Empire is only matched in scale to what Genghis Kahn achieved (non industrial, of course). One could argue the Soviet fight against Germany too was equal in scale, but the US did it accross the biggest ocean on the planet. Mind boggling. The US built so many Essex carriers...war on the greatest industrial scare possible.
@Thinkerbell Why was either the bomb or a land invasion the only options? We could have negotiated a conditional surrender with Japan. Their industry was crushed anyway, they wouldn’t have been a threat.
People say that Asians always have to “save face” but I think that really applies to us. It’s why the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars went on for so long.
@LeopoldBloom There was a conditional surrender, actually. The Japanese were allowed to keep the Emperor. The Japanese couldn't accept defeat, and didn't indicate any willingness to surrender until after the atomic bombs were dropped. Any maintenance of the old government would have been impossible given how they conducted themselves in the war, especially against China.
As Willie has already correctly pointed out, we [i]did[/i] give the Japanese a conditional surrender. And it had been decided at Yalta and Potsdam that the existing governments of Germany and Japan had to go, and their leaders tried as war criminals.
The existing government of Japan would never have agreed to an occupation without the bomb or without an invasion of the home islands.
It's ironic that Tojo, who sent millions of soldiers to their deaths under the Bushido code, proved unwilling to follow that code himself. He tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the heart only when US soldiers were at his door to arrest him. He missed his heart, recovered, and was hanged after being found guilty of war crimes at his trial.
