Veterans...Get the hell in here now!

Today in Military History:


At 8:00 p.m. on February 27, 1943, nine Norwegian commandos trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) left their hideout in the Norwegian wilderness and skied several miles to Norsk Hydro's Vemork hydroelectric power plant. All the men knew about their mission was the objective: Destroy Vemork's "heavy water" production capabilities.

The operation was a resounding success. The commandos destroyed the electrolysis cells and over 500 kg of heavy water. They managed to escape without firing a single shot or taking any casualties.

The Germans repaired the damage by May, but subsequent Allied air raids prevented full-scale production. Eventually, the Germans ceased all production of heavy water and tried to move the remaining supply to Germany.

In a last act of sabotage, a Norwegian team led by one of the Gunnerside commandos sank the ferry transporting the remaining heavy water on February 20, 1944, although at the cost of 14 Norwegian civilians.

The operations helped foil Germany's nuclear ambitions, and the Nazis never built an atomic bomb or a nuclear reactor. Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies in early May 1945, two months before the US's bigger and better-resourced Manhattan Project tested the first nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945.

Their mission would be one of the most successful in special-operations history, and it contributed to one of the Allies' most important goals in World War II: Preventing Nazi Germany from developing nuclear weapons.

All members of the team were decorated, with Joachim Rønneberg, the mission commander receiving Britain's DSO and Norway's War Cross with Sword' the highest ranking Norwegian gallantry decoration. Media coverage of the Vemork missions (a total of six) was extensive. In addition to books and articles, in 1948 a Norwegian movie about the missions was released, starring some members of the team. In 1965, Columbia Pictures released the movie The Heroes of Telemark starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris, a highly fictionalized version of the action.

BarnBuster said:

"Walter Cronkite, the CBS News anchor, billed as the nation’s most trustworthy voice, who on Feb. 27, 1968, told his audience of millions that the (Vietnam) war could not be won. Commentary like this was remarkable back then because of both custom and the Fairness Doctrine, a federal policy requiring broadcasters to remain neutral about the great questions of the day."

Opinion | When Walter Cronkite Pronounced the War a ‘Stalemate’ (Published 2018)

The nation’s most trusted news anchor had not been critical of the Vietnam War. A visit to Hue during the Tet offensive changed his mind.

www.nytimes.com

Click to expand...

No "Alternate truths" in that mans world.

On Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, the House voted to award the only all-female, Black unit to serve in Europe during World War II with the Congressional Gold Medal. The 422-0 vote follows a long-running campaign to recognize the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. The Senate passed the legislation last year. The unit, known in short as the Six Triple Eight, was tasked with sorting and routing mail for millions of American service members and civilians. Only a half-dozen of the more than 850 members are still alive.

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was credited with solving a growing mail crisis during its stint in England and, upon their return, serving as a role model to generations of Black women who joined the military.

“The Six Triple Eight was a trailblazing group of heroes who were the only all-Black, Women Army Corps Battalion to serve overseas during World War II,” said Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore, who sponsored the bill after being contacted by the daughter of 6888th members Anna Mae Robertson.

“Facing both racism and sexism in a warzone, these women sorted millions of pieces of mail, closing massive mail backlogs, and ensuring service members received letters from their loved ones,” she continued. “A Congressional Gold Medal is only fitting for these veterans who received little recognition for their service after returning home.”

The House also voted Monday night to the rename the Central Park Post Office in Buffalo as the “Indiana Hunt-Martin Post Office Building” after veteran Indiana Hunt-Martin, a member of the 6888th. Hunt-Martin died in 2020 at the age of 98.

“Throughout her life and military service, Indiana Hunt-Martin experienced racism and sexism firsthand, but no amount of discrimination prevented her from serving her country,” New York Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins, who sponsored the post office bill and also was a co-sponsor of the Congressional Gold Medal bill, said in a statement. “Her courage and bravery paved the way for future generations of African American women serving in the military.”

The 6888th was sent overseas in 1945, a time when there was growing pressure from African-American organizations to include Black women in what was called the Women’s Army Corps and allow them to join their white counterparts overseas.

The unit dodged German U-boats on their way to England and scrambled to escape a German rocket once they reached a Glasgow port.

They were deployed to unheated, rat-infested airplane hangars in Birmingham, England, and given a daunting mission: Process the millions of pieces of undelivered mail for troops, government workers and Red Cross workers. The mountains of mail had piled up and troops were grumbling about lost letters and delayed care packages. Thus their motto, “No Mail, Low Morale.”

They cleared out a backlog of about 17 million pieces of mail in three months — half the time projected. The battalion would go on to serve in France before returning home. And like so many Black units during World War II, their exploits never got the attention afforded their white counterparts.

Despite their achievements, the unit endured questions and criticism from those who didn’t support Black women in the military.

Housing, mess halls and recreation facilities were segregated by race and sex, forcing them to set up all their own operations. The unit commander, Maj. Charity Adams, was also criticized by a general who threatened to give her command to a white officer. She reportedly responded, “Over my dead body, sir.”

Many of the women had plenty of success after getting out of the military.

Elizabeth Barker Johnson was the first female to attend Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina on the GI Bill. She took part in the school’s graduation ceremony at the age of 99 — 70 years after getting her degree. Hunt-Martin worked for the New York State Department of Labor for 41 years.

McClendon joined the Air Force after the military was integrated and retired in 1971. She was the first female to command an all-male squadron with the Strategic Air Command. Another unit member, the late Doris Moore, became the first Black social worker in New Hampshire, her family said.

“This is a long-overdue honor and recognition for the women of the Six Triple Eight, including New Hampshire’s own Doris Moore,” New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas said in a statement. “Doris and her sisters in arms were trailblazers and patriots who answered the call to service. It’s even more remarkable that their sacrifice and service in defense of freedom came at a time when many of the very freedoms they fought for were not yet available to them.”

.

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea occurred March 2-4, 1943, when planes from the U.S. Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a convoy of Japanese ships carrying troops and supplies to Lae, New Guinea. The bombing campaign ended with the destruction of four Japanese destroyers, eight Japanese troop transport ships, 102 Japanese fighter planes, and some 3,000 enemy soldiers.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur called the Allied victory in the Bismarck Sea “one of the most complete and annihilating combats of all time.” The three-day battle on March 2–4, 1943, simply stunned the Japanese military and changed the course of the Pacific war. “Japan’s defeat there was unbelievable,” one of the destroyer skippers, Capt. Tameichi Hara, said. “Never was there such a debacle.” Thereafter, the war in New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands was a losing fight for Japan. Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa, the commander of the Japanese Eighth Fleet at Rabaul, lamented shortly afterward, “It is certain that the success obtained by the American air force in this battle dealt a fatal blow to the South Pacific.”

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill chose March 4, the official end of the battle, to congratulate President Franklin D. Roosevelt, since that day was also the 10th anniversary of the president’s first inauguration. “Accept my warmest congratulations on your brilliant victory in the Pacific, which fitly salutes the end of your first 10 years

More than that, the Battle of the Bismarck Sea would become an enduring milestone in modern air power history, a lopsided naval defeat that involved not a single ship on the victorious side.

The battle immediately convinced the Japanese that they could not operate even strongly escorted convoys in areas within range of land-based Allied airplanes. From then on, they were forced to rely on barges, small coastal vessels, and submarines to provide a lifeline to their vital strategic outposts in the archipelago. Aerial attacks continued to exact a dreadful price on Japanese ships, even as they hugged the coasts in desperate attempts to escape detection from above. Submarines met with more success but could not move significant quantities of men and materiel.


The Battle of the Bismarck Sea An Evaluation of the Halt-Phase Strategy
WE SENT THE JAPS TO HELL THE BATTLE OF THE BISMARCK SEA

In honor of the beginning of Womens History Month, we would like to recognize Col. Ruby Bradley. Born on December 19, 1907, in Spencer, West Virginia, Ruby Bradley was an Army surgical nurse and veteran of World War II and Korean War. She was one of the most decorated women in the United States military, earning 34 medals and citations of bravery including two Legion of Merit medals, two Bronze Stars, a UN Korean Service Medal and the Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Red Cross.
As a career Army nurse prior to World War II, Colonel Bradley served as the hospital administrator in Luzon in the Philippines in 1941, when the Japanese invaded, she and a doctor and fellow nurse hid in the hills, but three weeks later, she was captured by the Japanese army and held as a Prisoner of War for over three years. During that time, Bradley help treating fellow POWs, assisted in more than 230 major surgeries and delivered 13 babies. She would regularly smuggle food to hungry children in the camp, despite dropping to under 90 pounds herself when the Americans liberated the camp in 1945. She was returned to the United States where she continued her career in the army. Bradley served as the 8th Army’s chief nurse on the front lines of the Korean war in 1950. She managed to evacuate all of the wounded soldiers onto a plane while under heavy fire and was the last to jump aboard the plane just as her ambulance was shelled. In 1958, Bradley was promoted to the rank of Colonel and retired in the Army in 1963. After her retirement, Ruby worked as a supervising nurse in West Virginia for 17 years. This true American hero passed away on May 28, 2002 at age of 94 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
We salute and honor Colonel Ruth Bradley's exemplary service for our country.
https://fallenyetnotforgotten.com/

BarnBuster said:

Modern design technique gives 60-year-old B-52s new lease on life

The B-52's current engines, which date back to the early 1960s, are soon reaching the end of their life spans and must be replaced.

www.defensenews.com

Click to expand...

It would have been nice if they could have gone to 4 turbofans instead of keeping eight engines but the hard points couldn't handle the weight.

Today in Military History:


"If war with the Japanese does come, we’ll fight mercilessly,” General George C. Marshall told news reporters in an off-the-record briefing on November 15, 1941, three weeks before Pearl Harbor. “Flying Fortresses will be dispatched immediately to set the paper cities of Japan on fire. There won’t be any hesitation about bombing civilians—it will be all-out.” More than three years of brutal global warfare would pass before Marshall’s prediction came true, but come true it did on the night of March 9-10, 1945.

U.S. warplanes launched a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

Early on March 9, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Superfortress bomber—and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65 percent, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons. Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by American rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians. “You’re going to deliver the biggest firecracker the Japanese have ever seen,” said U.S. Gen. Curtis LeMay.

The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this “paper city” was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called “shadow factories,” that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories.

The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained and poorly equipped. At 5:34 p.m., Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. Three hundred and thirty-four bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting.

The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours. “In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal,” recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost—considered acceptable losses.

Today in Military History:

After struggling against great odds to save the Philippines from Japanese conquest, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur abandons the island fortress of Corregidor under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt on March 11, 1942. Left behind at Corregidor and on the Bataan Peninsula were 90,000 American and Filipino troops, who, lacking food, supplies, and support, would soon succumb to the Japanese offensive.

After leaving Corregidor, MacArthur and his family traveled by boat 560 miles to the Philippine island of Mindanao, braving mines, rough seas, and the Japanese Navy. At the end of the hair-raising 35-hour journey, MacArthur told the boat commander, John D. Bulkeley, “You’ve taken me out of the jaws of death, and I won’t forget it.” On March 17, the general and his family boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress for Northern Australia. He then took another aircraft and a long train ride down to Melbourne. During this journey, he was informed that there were far fewer Allied troops in Australia than he had hoped. Relief of his forces trapped in the Philippines would not be forthcoming. Deeply disappointed, he issued a statement to the press in which he promised his men and the people of the Philippines, “I shall return.” The promise would become his mantra during the next two and a half years, and he would repeat it often in public appearances.

For his valiant defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and celebrated as “America’s First Soldier.” Put in command of Allied forces in the Southwestern Pacific, his first duty was conducting the defense of Australia. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Bataan fell in April, and the 70,000 American and Filipino soldiers captured there were forced to undertake a death march in which at least 7,000 perished. Then, in May, Corregidor surrendered, and 15,000 more Americans and Filipinos were captured. The Philippines–MacArthur’s adopted home–were lost, and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had no immediate plans for their liberation.

After the U.S. victory at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, most Allied resources in the Pacific went to U.S. Admiral Chester Nimitz, who as commander of the Pacific Fleet planned a more direct route to Japan than via the Philippines. Unperturbed, MacArthur launched a major offensive in New Guinea, winning a string of victories with his limited forces. By September 1944, he was poised to launch an invasion of the Philippines, but he needed the support of Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet. After a period of indecision about whether to invade the Philippines or Formosa, the Joint Chiefs put their support behind MacArthur’s plan, which logistically could be carried out sooner than a Formosa invasion.

On October 20, 1944, a few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte. That day, he made a radio broadcast in which he declared, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” In January 1945, his forces invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon. In February, Japanese forces at Bataan were cut off, and Corregidor was captured. Manila, the Philippine capital, fell in March, and in June MacArthur announced his offensive operations on Luzon to be at an end; although scattered Japanese resistance continued until the end of the war in August. Only one-third of the men MacArthur left behind on March 11, 1942, survived to see his return. “I’m a little late,” he told them, “but we finally came.”

Lying to the Troops American Leaders and the Defense of Bataan

Decision To Withdraw to Bataan

From the Jaws of Death: MacArthur's Escape from the Philippines

In March 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and his family escaped from the Philippines in a daring PT-Boat operation.

warfarehistorynetwork.com

"On March 13, 1942, the Quartermaster Corps (QMC) of the United States Army begins training dogs for the newly established War Dog Program, or “K-9 Corps.”

Well over a million dogs served on both sides during World War I, carrying messages along the complex network of trenches and providing some measure of psychological comfort to the soldiers. The most famous dog to emerge from the war was Rin Tin Tin, an abandoned puppy of German war dogs found in France in 1918 and taken to the United States, where he made his film debut in the 1922 silent film The Man from Hell’s River. As the first bona fide animal movie star, Rin Tin Tin made the little-known German Shepherd breed famous across the country.

In the United States, the practice of training dogs for military purposes was largely abandoned after World War I. When the country entered World War II in December 1941, the American Kennel Association and a group called Dogs for Defense began a movement to mobilize dog owners to donate healthy and capable animals to the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army. Training began in March 1942, and that fall the QMC was given the task of training dogs for the U.S. Navy, Marines and Coast Guard as well.

The K-9 Corps initially accepted over 30 breeds of dogs, but the list was soon narrowed to seven: German Shepherds, Belgian sheep dogs, Doberman Pinschers, collies, Siberian Huskies, Malumutes and Eskimo dogs. Members of the K-9 Corps were trained for a total of 8 to 12 weeks. After basic obedience training, they were sent through one of four specialized programs to prepare them for work as sentry dogs, scout or patrol dogs, messenger dogs or mine-detection dogs. In active combat duty, scout dogs proved especially essential by alerting patrols to the approach of the enemy and preventing surprise attacks.

The top canine hero of World War II was Chips, a German Shepherd who served with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. Trained as a sentry dog, Chips broke away from his handlers and attacked an enemy machine gun nest in Italy, forcing the entire crew to surrender. The wounded Chips was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and the Purple Heart—all of which were later revoked due to an Army policy preventing official commendation of animals."

Today in Military History:


On March 16, 1968, a platoon of American soldiers brutally kills as many as 500 unarmed civilians at My Lai, one of a cluster of small villages located near the northern coast of South Vietnam. The crime, which was kept secret for nearly two years, later became known as the My Lai Massacre.

In March 1968, a platoon of soldiers from Charlie Company received word that Viet Cong guerrillas had taken cover in the Quang Ngai village of Son My. The platoon entered one of the village’s four hamlets, My Lai 4, on a search-and-destroy mission on the morning of March 16. Instead of guerrilla fighters, they found unarmed villagers, most of them women, children and old men.

The soldiers had been advised before the attack by army command that all who were found in My Lai could be considered VC or active VC sympathizers, and were told to destroy the village. They acted with extraordinary brutality, raping and torturing villagers before killing them and dragging dozens of people, including young children and babies, into a ditch and executing them with automatic weapons. The massacre reportedly ended when an Army helicopter pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, landed his aircraft between the soldiers and the retreating villagers and threatened to open fire if they continued their attacks.

The events at My Lai were covered up by high-ranking army officers until investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story. Soon, My Lai was front-page news and an international scandal.

Today in Military History:

On March 19, 1916, eight Curtiss “Jenny” planes of the First Aero Squadron take off from Columbus, New Mexico, in the first combat air mission in U.S. history. The First Aero Squadron, organized in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, was on a support mission for the 7,000 U.S. troops who invaded Mexico to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.

On March 9, 1916, Villa, who opposed American support for Mexican President Venustiano Carranza, led a band of several hundred guerrillas across the border on a raid of the town of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17 Americans. On March 15, under orders from President Woodrow Wilson, U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing launched a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Villa. Four days later, the First Aero Squadron was sent into Mexico to scout and relay messages for General Pershing.

Despite numerous mechanical and navigational problems, the American fliers flew hundreds of missions for Pershing and gained important experience that would later be used by the pilots over the battlefields of Europe. However, during the 11-month mission, U.S. forces failed to capture the elusive revolutionary, and Mexican resentment over U.S. intrusion into their territory led to a diplomatic crisis. In late January 1917, with President Wilson under pressure from the Mexican government and more concerned with the war overseas than with bringing Villa to justice, the Americans were ordered home.

BarnBuster said:

They Spent Years Caring for Their Veterans. Now They Are Losing a Lifeline

A review by the Department of Veterans Affairs of a program that gives stipends to veterans' caregivers is removing thousands of participants.

www.military.com

Click to expand...

They'll reallocate these funds to more lawyers so they can deny Veterans claims that much faster.

GreatwhiteNorth said:

They'll reallocate these funds to more lawyers so they can deny Veterans claims that much faster.

Click to expand...

Getting help for a disabled veteran is a full time job. I'm dealing with the VA right now more than I would like even when represented by a very good attorney. So if you wonder where I am, I'm buried under mounds of paperwork.

Which begs the question; if someone with my education, resources and professional connection has this much trouble how do people with full time jobs outside the health care sector, while caretaking their loved one manage at all? I won't even discuss the many veterans who you see with all kinds of presumptive disorders from their service eschew the VA because they don't want this emotional pain from having it not just implied but said to your face you are 'grifting'. How dare they.

curious2garden said:

Getting help for a disabled veteran is a full time job. I'm dealing with the VA right now more than I would like even when represented by a very good attorney. So if you wonder where I am, I'm buried under mounds of paperwork.

Which begs the question; if someone with my education, resources and professional connection has this much trouble how do people with full time jobs outside the health care sector, while caretaking their loved one manage at all? I won't even discuss the many veterans who you see with all kinds of presumptive disorders from their service eschew the VA because they don't want this emotional pain from having it not just implied but said to your face you are 'grifting'. How dare they.

Click to expand...

VA actually stands for "Vicious Attorneys".

GreatwhiteNorth said:

VA actually stands for "Vicious Attorneys".

Click to expand...

They are giving the state of VA a bad name too.