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: Navy, Normandy | Tags: Canadian Navy, D-Day, Gold Beach, Landing Craft, Omaha Beach, Oral History, Port-en-Bessin
Canadian sailor Don Kemsley’s journal is must-read material and on the 6th, Sandy included a special treat – an oral interview her father gave. After dropping off British troops at Gold Beach, Kemsley’s LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) brought American troops across the Channel. He mentions my favorite fishing village in Normandy, Port-en-Bessin, which is just east of Omaha Beach. I don’t think Don had a chance to buy Calvados from the market on a Sunday morning, but he and many other veterans made it possible for us to do so. Thanks, Don!
As we roll into summer, it’s time to start planning on attending the Operation Dragoon Commemoration, to be held this year on 4-7 August at the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. There will again be a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery – at 0900 on Saturday, 6 August, 2011. Further details will be posted here, or you may contact Monika Stoy via email – monikastoy@yahoo.com
Filed under: Normandy, Veterans, Weekend Wanderings | Tags: Commemoration, D-Day, Dead Man's Corner, Mark Bando, Michel De Traz, Normandy, Normandy American Cemetery, Patrick Elie, Veterans
On the eve of the 67th anniversary of the landings in Normandy, I thought I would share some interesting D-Day links.
- Patrick Elie has created D-Day: Etat de Lieux to not only commemorate D-Day itself, but also to act as a collection point for information on the ceremonies held each year. It is the most reliable site to find out which towns are holding events and when. After the events, Patrick adds photos to that year’s page to bring it to life.
- There is a webcam in the Normandy American Cemetery. While it’s not the same as being there, it is still stunning. (0800-2030, Paris time, so 0200-1430 EST)
- The Dead Man’s Corner museum website is one of the more modern historical websites and serves one of the better museums in Normandy. It’s also where I got to meet Bill Galbraith and Manny Barrios of I/3/506 during the 65th anniversary.
- Mark Bando’s Trigger Time is a source of extensive information on American Airborne forces. Bando has written multiple books on the subject and leads tour as well.
On vacation in Florida, Army SSG Eddie Peoples walked in on a bank robbery in Sarasota, Florida.
Since the bank robber waved the gun at his children, Peoples followed the man outside and used his rental van to block in the bank robber’s car (what fool parks the getaway car such that he has to back out of his parking spot?)
SSG Peoples has had many guns pointed at him during four deployments overseas (3 to Iraq and one to Afghanistan), so when the robber hopped out and pointed his gun at Peoples, it was a minor annoyance. Peoples dealt with “bad men” on deployment every day, so he used his training and disarmed the man, holding him until the police could arrive.
Was Peoples Airborne or Special Forces or a Navy SEAL? Nope. He’s just a regular soldier with the 14th Transportation Battalion in Vincenza, Italy, but he is someone you should know.
The gun ended up being a replica, but no one knew that until after he was disarmed.
Bill Warner thinks SSG Peoples looks like LL Cool J and I’d have to agree. You can also see the rap sheet of the bank robber on Warner’s blog and it becomes clear what kind of fool he is. Yes, Eddie Peoples got the bad man.
Filed under: Preservation | Tags: American Civil War, Brandy Station Foundation, Preservation
The Brandy Station Foundation is a 501(c)-3 non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the natural and historic resources of the Brandy Station area of Culpeper County, Virginia. It used to actually make efforts in that regard. Then, Joseph McKinney became the President of the organization. Now, the organization has published a position statement that states that it is “generally not productive to officially oppose common property improvements”.
I cannot imagine why anyone would bother with a preservation organization that has no interest in preservation of land that is privately owned.
I regularly read Eric Wittenburg’s Rantings of a Civil War Historian and first learned of Tony Triolo’s wanton destruction of the Brandy Station battlefield there. Things got worse with the rains we had here in Virginia, but fortunately, the Army Corps of Engineers got involved at that point, since he was damming a creek to expand a pond in the midst of the battlefield and there is massive erosion occurring.
I like to think it’s surprising, but perhaps it is not surprising at all, that landowner Tony Troilo is a friend of BSF President Joseph McKinney.
Craig Swain, who served a year on the Board of the Foundation, notes that it is effectively no longer a preservation group and has renounced his membership. It is a sad day when preservation groups become unconcerned about preservation.
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.
In reading Richard Hargreaves The Germans in Normandy to learn the German perspective on the Normandy invasion, I came across a passage that simply rattled me. After the bow ramps came down on the first boats landing in front of WN62 on Omaha Beach….
They jumped into the cold water up to their chests and shoulders. Some disappeared under the water for a moment, and half swimming, half wading, they began to move slowly on to the beach in front of our strongpoint. At this moment there was complete silence in the bay; not one shot was fired. We had strict orders to wait until the GIs were only about 400m from the edge of the beach and were wading in water up to their knees….
Once the Americans had firm ground under their feet, they waded in two long lines, one after the other, through the water, with the left hand firmly on the pack of the man in front. Everything was so calm, so organized, that you had the impression that they were merely carrying out an exercise.
The Americans struggled forward with their weapons and packs through the high surf of the cold sea, slowly and utterly unprotected. We were well aware that the GIs below us were being led like lambs to the slaughter.
Then the firing commenced and all hell broke loose. Heinrich Severloh, who wrote that passage above, fired thousands of rounds from a machine gun and hundreds from his rifle. While his own estimates of how many men he killed and wounded is nearly as many as the total American casualties on Omaha Beach, one can be certain that he witnessed and took part in an absolute horror.
By 1959, his story was known in the US and he was nicknamed, “The Beast of Omaha”. Terrible dreams afflicted him until his death in 2006.
On occasion, when I email or interview someone about the Bizory monument and Mark Patterson’s vandalism of it, they ask me why I’m bringing it up. Some of them simply want to forget about it. Some of them don’t want to harm Mark’s reputation. Some comment on how terrible it was, but state that they just want to put it behind them. Everyone finds the issue at least somewhat uncomfortable.
At his request, I interviewed Mark in March. Mark pointed out to me that a number of veterans and others have been upset by the monument’s limited scope (only memorializing Easy Company), feeling that it serves as a slap in the face to those who actually fought in that spot. It’s not that they dislike the veterans of families of Easy Company, they just feel that all the attention is focused on them because of the book and HBO series.
The typical protest has been the arrangement of small stones indicating the other units that actually fought there (like the 501st). Some folks have stated that they do that every time they visit it. I’m told that one 501st veteran even arranged stones to refer to Easy Company as “Sleazy Easy”. Obviously, we have a serious problem with the current monumentation.
Mark contends that it would have been a simple matter to include those units on the Bizory monument or to have included D/506 on the Brecourt monument (the Brecourt monument memorializes some Easy Company men who did not fight at Brecourt and ignores D Company which did). While I don’t think they should be obligated to do so, it would have been wise. Notably, the Richard Winters Leadership Project, which will unveil a statue of the Easy Company commander in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont on the 2012 anniversary of D-Day, is more inclusive, stating that it is Dedicated to all U.S. Army junior officers who led the way on June 6, 1944.
Since the damage to the monument is still there (not as evident as a year ago, but visible nonetheless), pretending it never happened isn’t going to work. People know something happened and that Mark was responsible, so if there is no record of it, but only a whispering campaign, his reputation will be in the trash anyway. So anyone who thinks ignoring it will make it go away is wrong.
I get at least one search hit every day for information on this vandalism, though Mark tells me that he and a friend are the one hitting Google on a daily basis (some days I get several searches, other days, I get none).
I’m going to continue writing about this as I learn more, because I think the best way to prevent these things from happening in the future is for people to know what happened and get some insight into the reasons. I think articles should be written for historical journals and magazines about this and about the problems with these monuments. Otherwise, the next frustrated person might go vandalize another monument.
As a historian, I feel that the best course is always more information, not less.
Filed under: Leadership, Normandy, POWs, Veterans, Weekend Wanderings | Tags: Anniversary, Baseball, Veterans
One of the most tragic events for Americans in World War II unfolded 69 years ago. Approximately 75,000 Americans and Filipinos who had surrendered on Bataan were force-marched to prisoner of war camps. At least 6,000 to 11,000 never reached the camps. Another example of man’s inhumanity to man….
- I found a wonderful post on two survivors of the Death March that explains the event very well, and can’t help but move you to tears.
- Fortunately, there was one young boy in Japan who fed one of the Death March survivors working in a factory during the war.
- Our Canadian on travel in France posted a great note entitled Things I Learned while in France that will make anyone who has visited feel nostalgic and want to go again….
- Baseball just started the regular season, so some folks have Opening Day Jitters.
- Another Canadian (Caleb) has started Bloggy Wogg and reviewed a book on Football in Germany.
- We lose WWII veterans by the hundreds every day, but for the children of those men, it’s a percentage. It’s 100% of their father. Louis Cohen’s sons learned a lot from him.
- Mitch wrote a nice piece on the defining characteristic of Normandy: the Hedgerow and the tools the Americans improvised to defeat them.
- Another reminder of good leadership can be found over at XBradTC’s Bring the Heat, as he relates the story of a company commander, a General and a father-to-be. Take care of your people. They remember that forever.
We're not lost, Sergeant, We're in ... France 