Filed under: 101st, Band of Brothers, Officers, Veterans, WWII | Tags: Easy Company, Roy Gates, WWII
2LT Roy Gates must have gotten around a lot as a young man, even before he helped defeat the Germans in World War II. He was born in New York, enlisted in the Army in Texas and is now retired in Florida. Here’s wishing a happy birthday to Lieutenant Gates, who just turned 90.
Hat tip to Mooch, who leads the Easy Company reenactors.
Filed under: Marines, Veterans, WWII | Tags: Climate change, Oradour-sur-Glane, Technology
One of today’s Freshly Pressed blogs also mentions the use of iPads in learning. I was especially interested at the mention of using them to help out in galleries. I found a few other WWII related blog entries as well:
- It turns out that we could avoid climate change if we just had more WWII bombers making contrails, as it turns out that high-aviation traffic areas in WWII had a temperature of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) cooler.
- Someone researching ghost towns wandered across Oradour-sur-Glane and found it as chilling as I did. Joanna also posted her thoughts, comparing the impact of visiting the ghost to her experience as a guide at a concentration and some powerful photos on the chilling experience of visiting Oradour-sur-Glane.
- As we all know, the internet is an amazing thing. Andrew Ronzine had blogged about his grandmother, mentioning his WWII-veteran grandfather only in passing. The daughter of one of grandpa Ronzine’s buddies was working on making a book of his wartime journals and…. found Andrew. Now, both the daughter and the grandson know a little more about their Marines.
Filed under: Battle of the Bulge, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Anne Frank, Battle of the Bulge, Field Artillery, Hemingway, Museum
As the weather gets hot, one can always sit in a cool air-conditioned room and revel in the vast expanse of knowledge that sits out there on the Internet, begging to be found. Here are a few tibdits I found this week that interested me.
- Barbara Whitaker blogged about her father-in-law’s servicein the 276th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, seeing action during the Bulge, crossing the Rhine and within Germany.
Barb's Father-in-Law's M7
- Beanandgone is a humorous blog by a young Australian woman who loves her coffee and her travels. She was recently in Berlin and notes some of the funny things as well as some of the horrifying ones.
- As a historian, I tend to visit a fair number of museums when I travel and it sounds like we all ought to visit the National World War II Museum. The even have an annual Family Overnight (yes, it was last night, so you missed it this year!) The capstone, however, appears to be the Victory Theatre’s “Beyond the Boundaries”.
- Courtesy of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, you can also move around inside The Secret Annex and experience The Diary of Anne Frank in a completely different way – virtually in 3D, with stories and videos. Hat tip to musingmk for these two.
- I finished reading Wukovitz’ book on Boyington today and thought a fair amount about Afroxander’s blog entry on Hemingway’s suicide. In reading Hemingway as a young man, I wanted to be him. To have grand adventures, to cheat death, to drink “manly” drinks and to truly “sieze the day”. With Boyington, his alcoholism was fueled by doubt and discomfort. With Hemingway, I wonder if it was all just from boredom. Perhaps he just kept searching for elusive happiness in bigger and bolder things until he finally despaired. I’ll be honest, if a bit brutal, but the Hemingway who zipped around France during WWII strikes me as a comical figure, trying to act the part of a war hero while others actually fought it. Kind of like John Wayne’s and Humphrey Bogart’s experience on USO Tours – the tough guys were the ones in the audience, not the ones on stage, but at least Wayne and Bogart realized that.
Filed under: Officers, Veterans, WWII | Tags: Harley-Davidson, Hemingway, Obituaries
On occasion, I read the obituaries in the Washington Post and I always find someone interesting. The sad thing is, if they’re commemorated there, I’ll never get to meet them. Today’s obituary for Reginald Augustine made me wish that I had met him.
Augustine served as a Captain in the US Army at the end of World War II, racing around France and Germany, securing both scientists and nuclear materials. While searching a warehouse near Toulouse in southern France, Augustine found 31 tons that made the Geiger counter spike. He participated in Operation Epsilon, escorting several German physicists seized near Stuttgart to American territory. After the war, he had a career in operations for CIA, including time in Germany and a post in Saigon in 1968.
What makes Augustine truly interesting is his adventurous youth. After he garduated from Northwestern with a degree in Latin (minoring in German and studying Greek), he spent 16 months touring Europe on a Harley. That included ‘a Nazi party rally in Heidelberg that he later described as akin to a “Fourth of July” celebration with scarlet swastika banners and leather-booted storm troopers.’ While Augustine may not have been able to talk about his post-war career, I’m guessing there were a barrel of stories about traveling footloose and fancy-free in mid-1930s Europe. One wonders if he crossed paths with Hemingway.
I am always interested in learning more about France. In particular, about small towns in France. In my wanderings, I came across a woman who had visited Charles De Gaulle’s adopted home, Colombey-les-deux-Eglises. Colombey is south west from Paris, near Chaumont.
De Gaulle is often thought of as so full of Gallic pride as to be arrogant. I find it interesting that he would choose such a small village and simply try to blend in as a normal villager. This is reinforced when one considers his gravesite, which is simple and humble.
When De Gaulle came ashore on the 14th of June, it rankled the Allies. There was great uncertainty about De Gaulle and, I suspect, Allied leadership wanted someone they could control more easily than De Gaulle. Actually, as French leaders had learned in the 1930s and the early days of the war, no one could control De Gaulle, except De Gaulle. By August, De Gaulle had moved from being only the leader of the Free French Forces to being the Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la République française or GPRF). Seeing him march down the Champs Élysées on film on the 26th, while there were still snipers around (apparently right in Hotel de Crillon) with hordes of his countrymen around is simply stirring.
Perhaps it is fitting that a man often seen as the height of Gallic arrogance turns out to be just another small town boy.
Filed under: Books, Leadership, Marines, Medal of Honor, WWII | Tags: Baa Baa Black Sheep, Boyington, Leadership, USMC, VMA-214, VMF-214
Greg Boyington was a belligerent alcoholic who despised paperwork, couldn’t stomach rules, rankled under close supervision, disregarded proper uniforming and protocol, exaggerated his feats in China and in other ways demonstrated that he would never survive, let alone thrive in the modern Marine Corps. Yet….
“Pappy” Boyington was not only one of the great fighter pilots of WWII, but also a stunningly effective leader who took a group of “casuals” and replacements and molded them into perhaps the most deadly fighter squadron in the Pacific theatre.
As a Premium Book Member of the US Naval Institute, I receive three books published by the Institute each year. I joined the Institute after my sister-in-law gave me a copy of Gators of Neptune: Naval Amphibious Planning for the Normandy Invasion, which tells the story of the sailors and planners of the naval side of the D-Day invasion. Of course, I already had dog-eared Clay Blair’s Ridgway’s Paratroopers without realizing it was a Naval Institute product. So, when I pulled the book mailer from my mailbox at the end of my block a few days ago, I nearly began dancing in the street.
In the late 1970s, I watched a lot of television. As a young man enamored of the military and wanting to be a tough guy, I adored Robert Conrad’s tough-but-caring portrayal of Pappy Boyington. While the television show bore almost no resemblance to reality, I enjoyed it immensely. As such, my joy was uncontained when John F. Wukovits’ Black Sheep: The Life of Pappy Boyington arrived.
While Boyington never fit in while in the Flying Tigers, once he had his own command in the Black Sheep Squadron (VMF-214 at the time, now VMA-214), Boyington became almost a different man. His leadership style had a lot of elements that I tried to emulate. I don’t know which of those came out in watching the TV show, but Wukovits details them in a chapter entitled, “We Had Pride; We Had Class; and We Were Winners”, quoting from one of Boyington’s men. Some highlights of his style:
- Lead by example: “Boyington refused to send anyone on a mission that he would not go on as a squadron leader, and he made a point to be the first to volunteer for especially dangerous missions…. He believed that his example coaxed the rest to follow after him.”
- Have few rules, but enforce those: “In his opinion, rules stifled imagination and initiative and allowed men like Colonel Smoak to throw their weight around. The only rules that mattered to Boyington pertained to the air, and those were to be implicitly followed. Otherwise, he commanded with a loose rein.”
- Don’t try to do it all yourself: “Despite his abhorrence for anything official, Boyington realized that paperwork had to be filed and the nuts and bolts of a squadron had to be tended, so he delegated those duties to men who could capably execute them…. By utilizing his strengths and allowing others to compensate for his weaknesses, the undisciplined Boyington achieved tremendous results as a commander.”
- Take responsibity for your people: “At some point during the squadron’s first days, someone warned Boyington that the inexperienced Lieutenant McClurg would either soon be dead or would accidentally kill another Black Sheep. Undeterred by the challenge, Boyington said what any top-notch educator would say: ‘If the boy can’t fly well enough, it’s up to me to teach him.'” McClurg finished the war as an ace, with 7 victories.
There’s plenty more there and I urge you to read it. Like so many airborne leaders, Boyington was unconventional. Heck, he and many of them were worse than unconventional – they were iconoclastic trouble-makers who would earn time in the brig when in garrison. Nonetheless, when it came time for a fight, we needed Pappy Boyington, Bourbon Bob Sink, and a host of others.
Filed under: Battle of the Bulge, Veterans, WWII | Tags: Battle of the Bulge, Fort Benning, Marksmanship, Sniper, Ted Gundy
When he arrived in Europe as a replacement, Ted Gundy was handed a sniper rifle because he’d scored the highest in his company during training. Today, sniper selection and training is far more complex and involved, but, truth be told, Ted Gundy would likely be a sniper if he enlisted today. Given a replica of his old rifle and 65 years later, Gundy showed he is still a marksman.
Today, Gundy’s gait might be uncertain, his hands shaky and his hearing electronically enhanced (but not always quite enough), but when he settled behind “his” 03 Springfield A4 sniper rifle, none of that mattered.
From a basic rest, he proceeded to make hits on a silhouette target -at 300 yards. Each one was better than the previous, with the final round landing dead center. Shooting Wire, February 8, 2010
I think this was passed to me the reenactors I know, but I’ve lost the original email, so can’t tell you which one passed it along. Gundy watches Shooting USA on TV and had emailed them about the long-range shots modern snipers make. When they realized they had a sniper from the Battle of the Bulge, they coordinated with the Army Marksmanship Unit (established back in 1956 by Eisenhower) to grant Gundy a chance to make a 1000-yard shot himself. It made for marvelous television.
Filed under: Korea, Marines, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Chosin Reservoir, Dieppe, Philippines, Royal Marines
With VCU going against Butler on Saturday, we were assured of at least one “Cinderella” team in the final, but being a Virginian, I was pulling for VCU all the way. Well, Monday night, I will be a Butler fan.
- A Canadian visiting Dieppe had some interesting thoughts and photos in a blog entry.
- XBradTC directed me to a moving tribute to a soldier from Ohio who lost his life in the Philippines during World War II.
- 41st Independent Commando Royal Marines at the Chosin Reservoir inspired one man to quote Yeats “And thinking where most men’s glory begins and ends, I say my glory was: I had such friends” in the Marine Corps Gazette.
I’d never heard of Oradour-sur-Glane before, but it was apparently an idyllic little town in the Limousin region of France, roughly in betwen the Loire Valley and Bordeaux. There is another similarly named town, Oradour-sur-Vayres, about 36km away. Just as I sometimes have trouble finding the right town in France, it seems that the Germans occupying France in 1944 had the same trouble. Unfortunately, the consequences of this confusion were disastrous for the townspeople.
On the 10th of June, 1944, the first battalion of the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Das Reich was moving to the fighting in Normandy. They received a report from the Milice that Helmut Kampfe, who commanded the 3rd battalion and who had been captured by the Maquis, was being held in Oradour-sur-Vayres and would be executed.
Sturmbahnfuhrer Adolf Diekmann ordered his men to round up all the people in Oradour-sur-Glane. The women and children were moved into the church, while the men were taken to barns and sheds around town. Then, the SS troops set off an explosion in the church, killing the women and children. The men were apparently machine-gunned mostly in the legs so that they couldn’t move, then the entire town was put to the torch, burning them alive.
Diekmann didn’t survive the war (Kampfe was executed by the Resistance on the 10th), but a number of his men were tried for the war crime. Some of the men were in East Germany or the British zone in West Germany at the time and not extradited. A number were Alsatians, who were French citizens before and after the war, but not while Alsace was “reunited” with Germany during the war. Those Alsatians received an amnesty shortly after their conviction.
The town has been kept as it was after the massacre, as a monument to man’s inhumanity to man.
This was first blogged by baworldtraveler and I am grateful for the eye-opener.
Filed under: Homefront, Veterans, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Japanese Internment, Korean War, RAF, Veterans
This weekend, the Jets and Steelers face off for the AFC championship, while the Packers and Bears have an old-school matchup for the NFC championship. Hopefully, nothing gets in the way of your chicken wings, ribs, burgers, cold beers and NFL watching. As always, I will be checking what Terry and Howie have to say, but first, here’s the most interesting stuff I’ve found this week….
- New Zealand provided pilots to the RAF and one of their daughters posted up photos from her Dad’s service in 127 Squadron. Hopefully, she’ll post some of his journal entries.
- Three veterans in New Jersey shared some stories with the Wyckoff Historical Society. There are several inaccuracies in the article, as it puts Saigon in Korea (it was probably a town that sounded the same instead of the capital of South Viet Nam) and vaguely refers to the Korean War starting “less than 10 years after World War II” instead of 5 years, but provides interesting little tidbits nonetheless. With World War II veterans dimishing in numbers every day, their stories drift away with them. Hopefully, we can record as many as possible, while also putting them in context with slightly more accurate historical knowledge….
- One of the darkest chapters of American history is the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. A blogger writes about their own mother’s inability to talk about her internment and has an interview with one of the women was interned on video. If it doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, you must be made of stone….
We're not lost, Sergeant, We're in ... France 