I think the only thing that can be said with any certainty about the 2016 election, and which also all can agree upon, is that it is unexpected in its ferocity, its revolt against the establishment, and its divisiveness. And the center of this three ring circus is Donald Trump. I hear a lot of talking heads say that the Trump phenomenon is due to two things. First he has tapped into the anger of a large portion of the US population. Second is that he isn't using the standard political playbook. Whats more is the fact that he is doing so unexpectedly well has caused a great many people to panic and come to the conclusion that he would be a disaster as President, and that he certainly wouldn't bring the level of decorum expected of the office. People, Im here to tell you that its all been done before. Trump is playing by a political playbook; just one dated 1828. I've often noted that we, as a people tend to do one of two things when it comes to history and historical figures in particular. We either totally forget them or we mold them into what one historian termed as "the marble man".
What we have in this election is a perfect display of both faults in action. Lets take the election of 1828 for example. The candidates were none other than Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. There were a few others, but these were the most notable. What made this election interesting is the amount of mudslinging and personal attack that went into it. For example, there were personal attacks aimed at Jackson's wife, because her divorce wasn't finalized when she married Jackson which caused one newspaper to pose the question, "Should a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest office?" Jackson was also attacked for being a slave trader, yet ironically, not for being a slave owner. Different era in terms of what was and was not acceptable professions I suppose. Trump is also lambasted in a similar manner for outbursts and even more so when his opponents fail to make a particular point stick. Ever wonder how the Democrats were tagged with the symbol of a donkey? Its because Jackson (a Democrat) was referred to by his detractors as a Jackass. Jackson fought back by adopting the symbol for his campaign for a short while. Years later, newspaper man Thomas Nast would resurrect Jackson's old symbol and apply it to the Democratic party....and it has stuck since.
As to the charge that Trump, Cruz, Hillary, Rubio, and Sanders are not Presidential in their attitude, actions, or past actions; lets review the past of some of our past Commander in Chiefs:
Adultery/extramarital affairs: Clinton, Kennedy, LBJ, Eisenhower, FDR, Harding, Jefferson.
Responsible for murder or execution: Cleveland and Jackson
Killed a man in combat: Washington, Monroe, Harrison, Taylor, T.R. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, G.H.W. Bush.
Slave Owners: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Johnson and Grant...yes U.S. Grant via his wife.
Impeached (though not convicted): Andrew Johnson, Clinton.
But lets not stop there. What about the tone and comments of some of the candidates, particularly Trump? For this lesson, I've chose one President in particular, Mr. John Adams of Boston MA. Though spoken in the language of his time, here are some things he and to say about some of our most notable historical figures and publications:
Ben Franklin: “His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency.”
Alexander Hamilton: “That bastard brat of a Scottish peddler! His ambition, his restlessness and all his grandiose schemes come, I'm convinced, from a superabundance of secretions, which he couldn't find enough whores to absorb!”
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense": “What a poor, ignorant, malicious, crapulous mass.”
Thomas Jefferson: "His soul is poisoned with ambition."
GEORGE WASHINGTON: “That Washington is not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station is equally beyond dispute.”
And just to give Trump's comments about "New York Values" some perspective, Adams had this to say about the city of Brotherly Love: “Phyladelphia [sic], with all its trade and wealth and regularity, is not Boston. The morals of our people are much better; their manners are more polite and agreeable... Our language is better, our taste is better, our persons are handsomer; our spirit is greater, our laws are wiser, our religion is better, our education is better. We exceed them in every thing, but in a market.”
This brings me to the second fault I mentioned. It is likely that you were not aware of any of what I mentioned above. Like I said, we tend to forget our history rather quickly. But whats more is that we idealize those whom we admire to the point that they shed all of their faults, they shed their humanity and in the process become these ideal, godlike figures that are lionized and whoa be it upon the person who speaks ill of them. In 1977, historian Thomas Connelly published "The Marble Man", a detailed look at the life of General Robert E. Lee and his subsequent image in American society. What he discovered was that although Lee was a very patriotic, pious, brave, and intelligent man, his image had been hijacked by many of the senior commanders who had served under him. More to the point, they realized that their cause (states rights based upon slavery) was not such a noble ideal. So in order to rescue that ideal from infamy, they made Robert E. Lee their symbol of "the lost cause". To be sure, Lee was and is a good example to follow in terms of honesty, integrity and character, but what the authors of the lost cause did was to hide the Confederate cause of slavery behind the good example that was Lee. They stripped away his faults, washed his history clean of any mistakes, be they on the battlefield or on social issues, and canonized him as what historian Douglas Freeman called "The Southern King Arthur".
But Lee was human. An examination of some of his recently discovered letters show that although he never showed any disappointment in his defeat, he was privately bitter about it. Though he agreed that slavery was an evil practice, he also did not think that African Americans were equal in station to white men. Rather than take decisive action to end slavery, he believed that God had placed this burden upon them for whatever reason and that time and the humble teachings of Christ would eventually destroy the practice. So he was human after all. But we don't like to think of our hero's like that. Can you imagine the uproar that would occur if a historian were to write a biography on Dr. Martin Luther King and dedicate a chapter to the FBI's files on his extramarital affairs? Yes, even Dr. King is in danger of becoming as marble a man as his statue on the Washington Mall. And when we do that to our past leaders, we lose perspective on their humanity and on our ability to judge the present with regards to the past.
Thus today we have an election that is unparalleled in its viciousness, uniqueness, and filled with unsavory characters who are driven by their fanatic moral beliefs, questionable pasts, and deranged vision of what America is and should be. Cruz and Rubio are driven by their religion, Trump is a bully and a potential stain on the office, not to mention the fabric of America, Hillary has blood on her hands, and Bernie..well he is just a Jackass. But the real story here my friends, is that there is nothing "new" to see here. No one candidate is more of a threat to American values than the other. We could replace Trump with John Adams, Hillary with Andrew Jackson, Cruz and Rubio with Kennedy, G.W. Bush, or Madison, and Bernie with Eugene V. Debs. To paraphrase the Bible, "there is nothing new under the Sun or in American Presidential elections".
Disclaimer: No this is not an endorsement of Trump or any one candidate. Just trying to bring some perspective from the steady stream of nonsense spewing forth from the TV and the Internet.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Monday, May 11, 2015
Winning the job hunt war
This will be a short missive on the very interesting, trying, and often stressful journey of transitioning out of the Armed Forces and into the civilian work force. Though I am in the middle of this process as I write, and as of this publication do not have an ironclad lock on a second career, I think it is fair to say that I have had some success thus far in comparison to some of my predecessors and contemporaries. To qualify this assumption, I can point to the fact that seven months out from my final day, I already had one interview under my belt, and to date have had a total of two video interviews, 10 phone interviews, and two contingency job offers. All of which I am most grateful to God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, and the myriad of Spirits that inhabit the various Shinto Shrines that I frequent for extra back-up. I must also give credit to a retired Master Chief who, while preparing to cross over after 30 years, pulled me aside and told me up front, "its very scary business, so get your resume out there early. Even if you are way to early. Get it out there." So here is my advice and lessons learned, written in a military history frame of reference, as is what Im best at.
So that is my first recommendation. Get your resume out there early, even if it is way to early. I think that General Nathan B. Forrest's maxim on war, (yes I know who and what he was, and his dismal record in the field of human rights has no bearing here) when he said "Get thar the firstest, with the mostest" certainly applies in this situation. An early start has often been the deciding factor in who succeeds and who fails in a host of arenas. "Victory flies with the first effective salvo", a hard learned lesson of the bloody naval campaign off the island of Guadalcanal in WWII. So, get there the first with the most and speed to get the first effective salvo of resumes.
This is also very much a war of attrition, and the victory is the one who has the most staying power. I've been turned down for several jobs. One of my contingency offers was pulled after the job was given to another, better qualified candidate. It is, and can be, in the words of one my brothers, "soul crushing". But you must stay on it. Im still finding the drive in myself, still struggling to face and overcome my fears of failure and the unknown, but Im determined to keep fighting. It means long hours on a computer applying for jobs, it means early morning or late night Skype/phone interviews. It means improvising if possible, and it may require the swallowing of a great deal of my own pride, but I'm in it for the long haul. You should be prepared to do the same as well.
In the famous opening scene of the movie "Patton", George C. Scott quotes General G.S. Patton when he says, "Now I don't want to get any messages saying we are holding our position. We aren't holding on to anything, except the enemy. We are gonna hold onto him by the nose and we are gonna kick him in the ass. We are gonna kick the hell out of him all the time and we are gonna go through him like crap through a goose." The point here is persistence. Two to three resumes a day. Try to average 20 to 40 applications a week. It is ok to take a brief respite for a day, but otherwise, keep at it. Keep a log of whom you applied to so you don't apply twice. Also, this will allow you to track your averages. When I heard one fellow shipmate tell me that he had only put in for four jobs, I was shocked. Just as equally, a retired Master Chief who interviewed me was shocked to learn that he was my second interview. He told me that he must have sent out 300 resumes and didn't hear a peep from any of them for nearly six months. Others said they submitted around 80 and maybe only heard back from one or two. As of this writing, I have submitted 185 applications, which does not include a significant number of applications that I sent off before I began logging them in March. And I have had success in hearing back from several potential employers, so keep pouring it on every day until the day you finally report for that first day at work.
This leads to another lesson I have learned. Keep your options open. A contingency offer is just that..a contingency. Keep looking within your field of interest, even if you have offers. Don't burn bridges. If you get an offer that looks good, don't turn around and turn down an offer you had from another company two days earlier.
When looking, cast your net wide at first and then start singling in on the targets of opportunity. In my case, I apply for damn near every training/instructor job I can find, but I heavily concentrate on companies that work with the DoD and DoJ. I have chosen this one field because it is my most marketable asset, however if possible try to expand on your other talents as a back up. I have given the emergency management field a try every now and then just to broaden things up some.
You can have the biggest army or navy in the world, but it won't be worth a damn if the guns don't shoot straight and the ships have leaks. The same is true with resumes. I had one that I wrote myself and sent out in my initial looks back in November 2014. It got some results, but not a lot. Then I did the research and paid to have a professionally written corporate and federal resume prepared for me based upon inputs from my existing resume and other training documentation. Utilizing these two resumes as a baseline, I modified them into three separate documents that I have used with much better results. So, if you have the means, spend the cash to get a professionally written document. Be sure to research the companies first and then make sure you give them as much information as possible to work with. Also, tell them field you are going for. Once you have it in hand, you can then modify as need be to suit the job you are applying for. So, if you want to win the war, spend the money to get the right tools to get the job done.
Defeat can be turned into a victory if lessons are learned. Even though I have not done a face to face interview, I have learned a great deal from the Skype and phone versions that I have done. Some of the phone interviews were absolutely terrible performances. Too ridged, too blathering, disjointed, and filled with nervous ticks. But I noted what I did that was good and what I did that wasn't so great. My wife listened in on a few and gave me some candid and valuable input. I was even lucky enough to have an interviewer give me a post-interview, off the record critique of my performance. You will screw interviews up, I can almost guarantee it, but if you take those hard lessons and apply them to your next interview, you will find that you have improved. Train like you fight and fight like you train is a often quoted mantra in the Navy, and the same applies to interviews. If you have a phone interview, dress up like it is a face to face. If it is a Skype interview, prep the hell out of your surroundings/background, check your connections and practice talking to your computer....and dress the part to include shoes.
Finally, a quote from Japanese Admiral Togo of an old Samurai maxim. "Tighten your helmet chords at the moment of victory". Once you get a job, the fight is just getting started. All the hard work you put into getting it was just the prelude. So once again, as in a war of attrition, dig down and find that will to win. I haven't had my moment of victory yet, but Im sure it will come, and I keep telling myself that when it does that that is the moment of my greatest peril if I am not ready. So tighten up that helmet strap, the fight is just getting starting. I hope this helps some of you out there who are in the same predicament as I am, and helps those who may soon find themselves in it. Hopefully, I can refer back to this in my moments when hope seems a lost cause and draw strength and knowledge from it. I hope you can too.
"Victory usually flies with the first effective salvo"
.
So that is my first recommendation. Get your resume out there early, even if it is way to early. I think that General Nathan B. Forrest's maxim on war, (yes I know who and what he was, and his dismal record in the field of human rights has no bearing here) when he said "Get thar the firstest, with the mostest" certainly applies in this situation. An early start has often been the deciding factor in who succeeds and who fails in a host of arenas. "Victory flies with the first effective salvo", a hard learned lesson of the bloody naval campaign off the island of Guadalcanal in WWII. So, get there the first with the most and speed to get the first effective salvo of resumes.
This is also very much a war of attrition, and the victory is the one who has the most staying power. I've been turned down for several jobs. One of my contingency offers was pulled after the job was given to another, better qualified candidate. It is, and can be, in the words of one my brothers, "soul crushing". But you must stay on it. Im still finding the drive in myself, still struggling to face and overcome my fears of failure and the unknown, but Im determined to keep fighting. It means long hours on a computer applying for jobs, it means early morning or late night Skype/phone interviews. It means improvising if possible, and it may require the swallowing of a great deal of my own pride, but I'm in it for the long haul. You should be prepared to do the same as well.
In the famous opening scene of the movie "Patton", George C. Scott quotes General G.S. Patton when he says, "Now I don't want to get any messages saying we are holding our position. We aren't holding on to anything, except the enemy. We are gonna hold onto him by the nose and we are gonna kick him in the ass. We are gonna kick the hell out of him all the time and we are gonna go through him like crap through a goose." The point here is persistence. Two to three resumes a day. Try to average 20 to 40 applications a week. It is ok to take a brief respite for a day, but otherwise, keep at it. Keep a log of whom you applied to so you don't apply twice. Also, this will allow you to track your averages. When I heard one fellow shipmate tell me that he had only put in for four jobs, I was shocked. Just as equally, a retired Master Chief who interviewed me was shocked to learn that he was my second interview. He told me that he must have sent out 300 resumes and didn't hear a peep from any of them for nearly six months. Others said they submitted around 80 and maybe only heard back from one or two. As of this writing, I have submitted 185 applications, which does not include a significant number of applications that I sent off before I began logging them in March. And I have had success in hearing back from several potential employers, so keep pouring it on every day until the day you finally report for that first day at work.
This leads to another lesson I have learned. Keep your options open. A contingency offer is just that..a contingency. Keep looking within your field of interest, even if you have offers. Don't burn bridges. If you get an offer that looks good, don't turn around and turn down an offer you had from another company two days earlier.
When looking, cast your net wide at first and then start singling in on the targets of opportunity. In my case, I apply for damn near every training/instructor job I can find, but I heavily concentrate on companies that work with the DoD and DoJ. I have chosen this one field because it is my most marketable asset, however if possible try to expand on your other talents as a back up. I have given the emergency management field a try every now and then just to broaden things up some.
You can have the biggest army or navy in the world, but it won't be worth a damn if the guns don't shoot straight and the ships have leaks. The same is true with resumes. I had one that I wrote myself and sent out in my initial looks back in November 2014. It got some results, but not a lot. Then I did the research and paid to have a professionally written corporate and federal resume prepared for me based upon inputs from my existing resume and other training documentation. Utilizing these two resumes as a baseline, I modified them into three separate documents that I have used with much better results. So, if you have the means, spend the cash to get a professionally written document. Be sure to research the companies first and then make sure you give them as much information as possible to work with. Also, tell them field you are going for. Once you have it in hand, you can then modify as need be to suit the job you are applying for. So, if you want to win the war, spend the money to get the right tools to get the job done.
Defeat can be turned into a victory if lessons are learned. Even though I have not done a face to face interview, I have learned a great deal from the Skype and phone versions that I have done. Some of the phone interviews were absolutely terrible performances. Too ridged, too blathering, disjointed, and filled with nervous ticks. But I noted what I did that was good and what I did that wasn't so great. My wife listened in on a few and gave me some candid and valuable input. I was even lucky enough to have an interviewer give me a post-interview, off the record critique of my performance. You will screw interviews up, I can almost guarantee it, but if you take those hard lessons and apply them to your next interview, you will find that you have improved. Train like you fight and fight like you train is a often quoted mantra in the Navy, and the same applies to interviews. If you have a phone interview, dress up like it is a face to face. If it is a Skype interview, prep the hell out of your surroundings/background, check your connections and practice talking to your computer....and dress the part to include shoes.
Finally, a quote from Japanese Admiral Togo of an old Samurai maxim. "Tighten your helmet chords at the moment of victory". Once you get a job, the fight is just getting started. All the hard work you put into getting it was just the prelude. So once again, as in a war of attrition, dig down and find that will to win. I haven't had my moment of victory yet, but Im sure it will come, and I keep telling myself that when it does that that is the moment of my greatest peril if I am not ready. So tighten up that helmet strap, the fight is just getting starting. I hope this helps some of you out there who are in the same predicament as I am, and helps those who may soon find themselves in it. Hopefully, I can refer back to this in my moments when hope seems a lost cause and draw strength and knowledge from it. I hope you can too.
"Victory usually flies with the first effective salvo"
.
Friday, February 20, 2015
Dealing with a teenage Islam
I'm taking a break from my usual history comments to discuss something more current, namely ISIS. I've sat back and watched the non stop stream of news and news angles on this phenomenon called ISIS. I've heard the pundits, the politicians, the military, the clergy, social media, and just about every other form of media out there discuss what they are, what they represent, what they don't represent and so on and so on. I'll even admit to having watched the full length of one of their most recent atrocities where they burned a man alive and another purported video where they stop a woman for wearing a red coat, conduct a on the spot trail, and then summarily execute her. So the question is, what do we do about it?
Lets look at what we have done thus far. First, an air campaign designed to weaken their infrastructure, diminish their supply routes, and destroy the oil depots that supports their operations. We have also provided aid of various type to groups that are fighting against them such as the Kurds, and other tribal factions. We have put "Advisors" on the ground in Iraq to re-train the Iraqi Army that we supposedly already trained. I love the term advisor...its so pre 1966 Vietnam. We have also took a stab, albeit a weak one, at the winning the hearts and minds approach. I think it is fair to say thus far, that it has had an effect upon them, but a limited one at best, and certainly not anything that has brought them to the point of where we can deliver a knock out blow.
Currently, the President is holding a summit on extremism and ways and means we can counter it. All well and good, but I get a distinct feeling from this particular approach that reminds me a little too much of LBJ and his take on "Veetnam" as he called it. A bit to touchy feely. Granted the media has played this summit two different ways, depending upon what network you watch. Granted, I think that the issues that this summit is exploring are things that need to be looked at, but they are only a part of a much larger picture. And while I do think that Fox News is making a bit too much out of the whole name game as to what ISIS is and isn't, I also think that one of the primary tenants of any operation is to clearly identify what it is you are up against. For instance, if I said I was a Professor, that would be all well and good, but a Professor of what? If you are a math student, you want a Professor who is a Professor of math, not a Professor of underwater basket weaving. In this case, I think it is fair to call a spade a spade and a radical Muslim a radical Muslim.
Then their is the drawing comparisons issue. Yes, Christians slaughtered thousands in the name of Christ in a number of events through the past 1000 years. A couple that I can name off the top of my head are the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the burning times of the witch hunts, and the "conversion" of the native peoples of the Americas. It is true, Christians have dumped a heap of corpses at the foot of the cross. It is also fair to say that Christianity has become a lot less violent in the last 400 years or so. There are some recurrences that did rear its ugly head between 1600 and now. The Salem trials, native American conversions, Jim Jones and the like, but still the numbers are not like they used to be. By way of comparison, Islam is about 1300 years old, or roughly half the age of Christianity more or less. If we were to look closely at the first 1300 years of Christianity, I think it is safe to say that it too was a pretty violent and bloody mess if you didn't agree with whatever religious leader was running the show at the time. So really, Islam is going through much of the same bloody and violent growing pains that the Christian Church and its variations experienced in its first half of existence.
If history is any guide, then I think we can expect this identity struggle within Islam to continue to grow worse or at least maintain a high body count for the foreseeable future. So again, what to do? We can't hide behind our borders anymore, that much is certain. The tactics that we have employed thus far haven't done much. A social outreach may assist in some ways, but again history has shown that such tactics usually don't work out to well. The third world is littered with the bones of a lot of humanitarian workers and ISIS has a tendency to cut off their heads in well produced propaganda pieces. Persecution of Muslims is a very real possibility that must not be allowed to occur. Besides, the human spirit is an amazing machine of the divine. Jews have been persecuted since day one, yet they endure and they flourish just as they should despite the ignorance of large swaths of the human race. The same was true of the early Christians in the Roman Empire. There were a lot of well fed lions, yet the Church of Rome built its capitol upon the ruins of those ancient places of Christian persecution.
Some call for immediate military action. Even the President recently went to Congress to ask to bomb ISIS back into the stone age per say. But lets face facts. In the last 112 years of powered flight, no war has been won, nor no enemy vanquished by air power alone. It still takes boot on the ground and sometimes ships at sea in combination with planes in the air to effect that type of victory and even then it isn't a sure bet. Vietnam taught us that lesson and sadly I think Afghanistan and Iraq is remediating us once more on that point. Military might most certainly could do the trick, but then we would need to be willing to have the gloves come completely off. But it would have to be the gloves of our humanity itself that would have to come off. The US did this with the Native American population and damn near wiped them out. One need only drive through a modern Reservation to see just how complete that campaign of destruction was and how it continues to endure across the generations. We could do that. Just go over there and wage a epic campaign of utter destruction in a true Genghis Khan style complete with "defeating our enemies, driving them before us, taking all they possess, seeing those they love in tears, riding their horses, and holding their wives and daughters in our loving American arms." It could be done if we wanted to, but do we really want to go that route? We wouldn't be much better than ISIS is or Nazi Germany was were we to do so.
So what to do? Perhaps if we scale this down a bit for starters. Think about your family or even your extended family of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and the like. Every family, no matter who you are, every family has that one unruly teenager caught in the turmoil of the transition between being a child and being an adult. Even when they enter their 20s, they are often still reckless for a time. Think about how your family handled that member. Some took a heavy hand which more often than not boomeranged in resentment. Some were too lax and were run over by the teen. Others took a blended approach of being firm but caring. Giving them space, but not the whole house. Allowing some freedom, but not reckless abandon. Obama is on the right track in looking at things the way he is, however he has to be willing to call radical islam what it is....radical islam...the same way a parent would call a disrespectful, unruly teen a disrespectful, unruly teen. He cannot be too lax and I think that is the way he is going. Military action may be warranted in some cases, but it is not the final answer. Reaching out in a touchy feely liberal approach alone is also not the answer.
However, we may find a path in blending the two in the same way that families have found ways to bring that unruly and reckless teen/young adult back into the fold. It takes time and patience...lots of patience. We have to give them room, but not too much. Sometimes we will need to apply military force, but not so as to annihilate them. Christianity went through the same period of turmoil and as I stated before, we still have our less than shining moments, but nowadays the actual body count isn't as bad as before....we are getting better, more compassionate and hopefully more mature in the way Christ would want us to be. And we must now endure the painful transition of the youngest of the big three religions of the world as it tries to find its way just as Judaism and Christianity did and is still in the process of doing. It will be a long and doubtless bloody road ahead, but if we stay with our younger sibling, helping here, restricting there, each in good and just measure I do believe that we stand a good chance of one day seeing radical Islam collapsing in upon itself and a more moderate and mature version rejoin the family of the world. They, the Muslims, have their work cut out for themselves. The Western world does too, and though our work will be tasking, hopefully it will be less bloody. They have to find themselves....We have to find that elusive middle path between too much and too little.
Lets look at what we have done thus far. First, an air campaign designed to weaken their infrastructure, diminish their supply routes, and destroy the oil depots that supports their operations. We have also provided aid of various type to groups that are fighting against them such as the Kurds, and other tribal factions. We have put "Advisors" on the ground in Iraq to re-train the Iraqi Army that we supposedly already trained. I love the term advisor...its so pre 1966 Vietnam. We have also took a stab, albeit a weak one, at the winning the hearts and minds approach. I think it is fair to say thus far, that it has had an effect upon them, but a limited one at best, and certainly not anything that has brought them to the point of where we can deliver a knock out blow.
Currently, the President is holding a summit on extremism and ways and means we can counter it. All well and good, but I get a distinct feeling from this particular approach that reminds me a little too much of LBJ and his take on "Veetnam" as he called it. A bit to touchy feely. Granted the media has played this summit two different ways, depending upon what network you watch. Granted, I think that the issues that this summit is exploring are things that need to be looked at, but they are only a part of a much larger picture. And while I do think that Fox News is making a bit too much out of the whole name game as to what ISIS is and isn't, I also think that one of the primary tenants of any operation is to clearly identify what it is you are up against. For instance, if I said I was a Professor, that would be all well and good, but a Professor of what? If you are a math student, you want a Professor who is a Professor of math, not a Professor of underwater basket weaving. In this case, I think it is fair to call a spade a spade and a radical Muslim a radical Muslim.
Then their is the drawing comparisons issue. Yes, Christians slaughtered thousands in the name of Christ in a number of events through the past 1000 years. A couple that I can name off the top of my head are the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the burning times of the witch hunts, and the "conversion" of the native peoples of the Americas. It is true, Christians have dumped a heap of corpses at the foot of the cross. It is also fair to say that Christianity has become a lot less violent in the last 400 years or so. There are some recurrences that did rear its ugly head between 1600 and now. The Salem trials, native American conversions, Jim Jones and the like, but still the numbers are not like they used to be. By way of comparison, Islam is about 1300 years old, or roughly half the age of Christianity more or less. If we were to look closely at the first 1300 years of Christianity, I think it is safe to say that it too was a pretty violent and bloody mess if you didn't agree with whatever religious leader was running the show at the time. So really, Islam is going through much of the same bloody and violent growing pains that the Christian Church and its variations experienced in its first half of existence.
If history is any guide, then I think we can expect this identity struggle within Islam to continue to grow worse or at least maintain a high body count for the foreseeable future. So again, what to do? We can't hide behind our borders anymore, that much is certain. The tactics that we have employed thus far haven't done much. A social outreach may assist in some ways, but again history has shown that such tactics usually don't work out to well. The third world is littered with the bones of a lot of humanitarian workers and ISIS has a tendency to cut off their heads in well produced propaganda pieces. Persecution of Muslims is a very real possibility that must not be allowed to occur. Besides, the human spirit is an amazing machine of the divine. Jews have been persecuted since day one, yet they endure and they flourish just as they should despite the ignorance of large swaths of the human race. The same was true of the early Christians in the Roman Empire. There were a lot of well fed lions, yet the Church of Rome built its capitol upon the ruins of those ancient places of Christian persecution.
Some call for immediate military action. Even the President recently went to Congress to ask to bomb ISIS back into the stone age per say. But lets face facts. In the last 112 years of powered flight, no war has been won, nor no enemy vanquished by air power alone. It still takes boot on the ground and sometimes ships at sea in combination with planes in the air to effect that type of victory and even then it isn't a sure bet. Vietnam taught us that lesson and sadly I think Afghanistan and Iraq is remediating us once more on that point. Military might most certainly could do the trick, but then we would need to be willing to have the gloves come completely off. But it would have to be the gloves of our humanity itself that would have to come off. The US did this with the Native American population and damn near wiped them out. One need only drive through a modern Reservation to see just how complete that campaign of destruction was and how it continues to endure across the generations. We could do that. Just go over there and wage a epic campaign of utter destruction in a true Genghis Khan style complete with "defeating our enemies, driving them before us, taking all they possess, seeing those they love in tears, riding their horses, and holding their wives and daughters in our loving American arms." It could be done if we wanted to, but do we really want to go that route? We wouldn't be much better than ISIS is or Nazi Germany was were we to do so.
So what to do? Perhaps if we scale this down a bit for starters. Think about your family or even your extended family of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and the like. Every family, no matter who you are, every family has that one unruly teenager caught in the turmoil of the transition between being a child and being an adult. Even when they enter their 20s, they are often still reckless for a time. Think about how your family handled that member. Some took a heavy hand which more often than not boomeranged in resentment. Some were too lax and were run over by the teen. Others took a blended approach of being firm but caring. Giving them space, but not the whole house. Allowing some freedom, but not reckless abandon. Obama is on the right track in looking at things the way he is, however he has to be willing to call radical islam what it is....radical islam...the same way a parent would call a disrespectful, unruly teen a disrespectful, unruly teen. He cannot be too lax and I think that is the way he is going. Military action may be warranted in some cases, but it is not the final answer. Reaching out in a touchy feely liberal approach alone is also not the answer.
However, we may find a path in blending the two in the same way that families have found ways to bring that unruly and reckless teen/young adult back into the fold. It takes time and patience...lots of patience. We have to give them room, but not too much. Sometimes we will need to apply military force, but not so as to annihilate them. Christianity went through the same period of turmoil and as I stated before, we still have our less than shining moments, but nowadays the actual body count isn't as bad as before....we are getting better, more compassionate and hopefully more mature in the way Christ would want us to be. And we must now endure the painful transition of the youngest of the big three religions of the world as it tries to find its way just as Judaism and Christianity did and is still in the process of doing. It will be a long and doubtless bloody road ahead, but if we stay with our younger sibling, helping here, restricting there, each in good and just measure I do believe that we stand a good chance of one day seeing radical Islam collapsing in upon itself and a more moderate and mature version rejoin the family of the world. They, the Muslims, have their work cut out for themselves. The Western world does too, and though our work will be tasking, hopefully it will be less bloody. They have to find themselves....We have to find that elusive middle path between too much and too little.
Friday, January 2, 2015
The last mission over Cologne
The day began long before dawn, 3:30 AM to be more exact. 2nd LT Roy Wendell Duncan got up from his cot and strained to wake up. His Quonset hut was dark and a bit chilly this mid October morning. His bunk mates stirred a little as he arose and dressed himself, but there was no need for them to wake up this early....not today anyway. The day before he had been informed that he would be flying as a substitute Co-Pilot for B-17G 737, commanded by 2nd LT John Ritter. Apparently the assigned Co-Pilot of that crew had come down with a cold and Roy had the crummy luck of being selected as his replacement. The mission would not be a milk-run, that much was certain. Germany was fighting for its life on all fronts. The bulk of the 8th Air Force, 306 Bomb Group had been pounding the industrial and communications heart of the Third Reich for the better part of a year and a half now and had paid dearly for their incursions into Hitlers air space. But now Germany faced a two front war in addition to the assault from the air.. The noose was definitely tightening all around. The Russians were advancing from the East, and the Americans, British, and free French from the West. Of course, this only meant that German resistance would be all the more intense, like a cornered wild animal.
Roy, the eldest son of Lora Morrow-Duncan and Roy Duncan, had enlisted in the Army Air Force shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He tested significantly high enough to be admitted into the aviation cadet corp and his subsequent aptitude batteries showed him best suited to the skills needed to pilot one of the Army's most effective bombing platforms, the veteran Boeing B-17. After a years worth of rigorous testing and training, he earned his wings and was shipped over to England to join the 369 Bomb Squadron, 306 Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, based in Thurleigh Airfield. He was assigned to bomber crew and, like all new arrivals, he soon learned the deadly implications of his chosen profession. Some 27,000 men had already died in the skies above Germany. Certainly this damming figure stirred in his mind as he headed out this early morning. Bomber crews were required to complete 30 missions, 5 more than what was expected, before they were allowed to rotate back to the states. Yet only 2% of crews ever made that magic number...chances were that you would be blown out of the sky and die first. If you were lucky, you would be able to bail out, then you would have a 50/50 chance. 50% you would be captured or escape into the French/Belgium underground, or 50% chance that you would be shot on the way down or that your parachute would malfunction. Certainly not a numbers game that any sane gambling man would take. What was worse was the knowledge that his mother, Lora, was still recovering from the loss of Roy's younger brother, Hewlett, who died three years before at the tender age of 15.
Roy stopped briefly at the officers mess hall and downed an quick bite to eat before making his way to the briefing hut adjacent to the flight line. He stepped into the room and milled around for a few minutes looking for Ritter. He found him a few minutes later, a tall, lanky guy from New York. He was about the same age, but unlike Roy, he already had 11 missions under his belt. Ritter introduced him to the other officer crew members, 2nd LT Joe Siebert, crew navigator, and 2nd LT Rob Stalker, the bombardier. It was an awkward situation. Roy was an outsider flying with another veteran bomber crew. That was a tough enough prospect in itself, but in a world dominated by an almost religious devotion to good luck charms and routines, fitting in would be a monumental task to accomplish. He chatted with Ritter for a few moments and took a seat next to him as the briefing began. The Squadron commander, G-2 Intelligence rep, and a handful of other briefers entered the room. They stood in front of a large wall map that showed England and Germany. After a moment, the Colonel ordered the men to be seated and began the brief. Their target this day would be the a group of manufacturing plants in the city of Cologne. The G-2 man explained the significance of the target, locations of anti-aircraft batteries, and the general approach. The weatherman followed and gave a quick run down of the weather and visibility conditions they could expect. He was followed by the flight leader, who went over the launch times, formations, approach, initial point, and all the other in-depth details of the mission.
The brief concluded about 4:30 and Roy followed Ritter and the others out into the crisp morning air. It was still dark outside, though there was a hint of blue light in the eastern sky. He hopped into a jeep driven by Ritter and sped off down the flight line. They passed several rows of bombers, each surrounded by men in a flurry of activity as last minute preparations were being made. Their metallic skins reflected in the light of the jeep and flood lamps around them, some a dull olive drab, others a shiny polished aluminum silver. Ritter pulled the jeep over to the side and said "here we are". Roy look up and was nearly blinded by the silvery sheen of a B-17G. Even though, he had seen this sight before, it was still a beautiful thing to behold that dark morning, her polished silver fuselage studded with 50cal machine guns, the number 737 painted on the right side of the nose, and he could just make out the yellow and green tail markings with the white H centered in a black triangle which indicated that the plane belonged to the 306 Bomb Group. The enlisted crewmen were already there, going over the final checks and starting the process of priming the engines by manually turning each her four propellers. Roy, took a slow walk around the bomber, admiring her beauty, as much as he was performing a routine pre-flight inspection. As he rounded the starboard wing, Ritter called him over to meet the other crewmen. There was S/Sgt Sam Bussieres, top gunner, S/Sgt John Daly, the radio operator, Sgt Ken Ross, the ball turret gunner, Sgt Dan Callahan, waist gunner, and Sgt John Tomke, the tail gunner.
Roy chatted with the men for a few moments and then made his way to the left hatch of the plane and put on his survival gear, a parachute rig, and his flight jacket. Flying at 32,000 ft was a very cold business. Once suited up, he crawled up the hatch into the crew cabin and took his seat in the right Co-Pilot position. Then he and Ritter began going through the process of checklists and equipment checks to ensure the plane was ready for start up. By 5:00, everyone was in their position and everything was ready. Ritter and Roy started engine #3 and brought it up to power. Next come #2, #1, and finally #4. Roy scanned over the dashboard, noting the rpm, oil pressure, fuel and other indicators. He felt a lump in his throat when he looked up and saw a lighted pace jeep pass by followed by the lead bomber as it taxied to the run way. It was a nerve wracking process to watch the procession of bomber after bomber pass by waiting for their turn, but finally it came. Ritter released the brakes and the plane crept forward and turned into the single file line. They followed along the taxi-way and patiently waited as each bomber made a 180 degree turn onto the runway. A deafening roar followed and slowly each behemoth clawed its way into the air. Then it was their turn. Roy scanned over the dashboard and then pushed the throttles for two of the engines forward while Ritter controlled the other two. He could feel the acceleration in his chest...the landing gear bounced on the uneven surface, then he and Ritter pulled back on the controls and slowly the plane began to angle upward. 30 seconds later the landing gear broke free of the Earth and the plane soared into the first light of the morning sky. It was 6:00 AM.
Ritter and Roy brought the bomber up to 1,000 feet and joined a formation of aircraft circling above the airfield. Another 45 minutes to an hour would pass before all 36 bombers were airborne, time again spent patiently waiting. Luckily, the business of monitoring the ships performance made things seem to go by more quickly. By 7:45, all the bombers were up and the bomb group had formed into three district diamond formations. The group turned to a general southeast heading and began ascending to 32,000 feet. Shortly after passing over the coast of England, Roy was pleased to see a very welcome sight approaching from the north. A squadron of shiny new P-51 Mustangs moved into position slightly ahead of them to act as escorts into German held airspace. These "little friends" as they called them, were a god send. The P-51 could out fly the very best that the Luftwaffe could throw at them. They were fast, nimble, armed to the teeth, and best of all, they could fly almost all the way into Germany with them. Roy strained to see if he could make out the tail markings, hoping to see a red tail fin identifying the 361st Fighter Group, 434 Fighter Squadron. His Uncle, 1st LT JW Morrow, piloted one of these sleek fighters, and the thought that he might be up with him brought a sense of comfort.
The English coast passed below them and gave way to the Channel. Half an hour later, they passed over the coast and into the European Continent proper. Thankfully, by this stage in the war, the Allies had pushed deep into both Belgium and the Netherlands, so they wouldn't be greeted by the Luftwaffe or anti-air-artillery yet, but that time was rapidly approaching with each passing mile. Roy tried to calm himself with the thought that there was a substantial sized raid hitting multiple targets today. Hopefully, that would keep the Luftwaffe preoccupied and lessen the number of fighters that might hit his group. But the Luftwaffe was the easy part. The P-51s would take care of most of them and you could at least shoot at the ones that got through into the formation. In short, you had a fighting chance. But flak guns were a totally different story. There was no P-51 or 50 cal bullet that could stop a deadly 88mm shell from blasting you and your plane to bloodly little bits. All you could do was try to stay above them and pray they didn't find their mark. So far, the mission had gone well enough. No fighters had risen to meet them, and as they passed over land controlled by German forces, neither had any flak bursts.
They had been cruising at 32,000 feet for more than an hour now. Even with the layered clothing and electrically heated suits, the sub-zero outside temperatures penetrated your bones. As the target drew nearer, Ritter and Roy began the series of routine checks to ensure everything was ready. Radio checks, navigation updates, oxygen checks, weapons check, mobility for the ball gunner, updates from the flight engineer. All was ready for action. At 9:00 the lead bomber signaled that it had Cologne in sight. Each man in the plane braced himself. There wasn't a man in the sky that day who did not have an icy ball of fear in the pit of their stomach....each in his own way engaging in a titanic internal struggle to control themselves and focus on the job at hand. The sky was clear this morning, so at least they would be able to get a good shot at the target, but that also meant that the 88mm guns would also have a clear shot at them as well. Always there was a trade off for any advantage. The formation went through a series of turns to pre-selected way point as a means to throw off ground observers. Each turn would vary to some degree until finally the lead plane reach the initial point, or IP. It was usually a tall landmark of some sort located near the target area. Once reached, the formation would alter course for the final bomb run on the target. This was the most critical part of the mission, and the most dangerous. The pilot would switch control of the bomber to the bombardier who would guide the plane to the target using the Nordan bomb site. What made this part so tedious was the fact that the pilots did not have control and no evasive maneuvers could be taken. If flak guns opened up.....and they would, all you could do was fly through it and pray you didn't take a direct hit or get sprayed by shrapnel.
At 9:15 the lead plane called the IP. It was time. Roy's mind raced through the series of checks and calls to be made before they reached the IP. Oxygen checks were good. Engine operations, fuel levels, oil pressure all good, bomb bay doors open. No sign of enemy fighters. Communications check with all positions good. He glanced once more over the dashboard, then looked up and what he saw made his blood run cold. Up ahead, about two miles distant, appeared tiny black puffs of smoke.....flak bursts from the 88s. No matter how many times he had seen them before, or been buffeted by their close proximity, it was something you just never got used to. Both Ritter and Roy watched intently as the clouds got closer and closer. So far, the Germans aim was off today. There were puffs above and below the formation and the ones within didn't come to close to any of the planes ahead. Ritter called down to Stalker and Siebert asking if they were on course. Siebert replied that they had reached the IP. Stalker concurred and directed that the planes course be altered 5 degrees left. Roy and Ritter pitched the plane over until Stalker called it good and then leveled out. Suddenly a jarring motion shook the plane and all around them the deadly puffs of flak began to appear. Stalker called up, saying they were on their run. Ritter reached down and flipped the auto-pilot switch. Control of the craft went to the bombardier. Their lives were in his hands now.
The flak began to intensify as they neared the center of Cologne. Still, Roy could see no clear hits or damage to either his plane or anyone else. Stalkers eyes was glued to the bomb site, while Siebert carefully monitored his navigation and engineering board. Roy called for one last oxygen check and each crewman responded in the affirmative. Everyone was listening to Stalker as he lined up on the target below. They had just crossed over the Rhine, which ran through the center of the city, when the flak began to get more intense. Stalker looked up from the bomb site for a moment and saw two puffs of black smoke directly ahead. He keyed his intercom and shouted "Flak! 12 O'clock and level." Suddenly the plane was rocked by two simultaneous explosions. The plane was thrown upwards in a violent jerky motion and dropped back down. Roy felt something sharp and hot slash across the right side of his temple. The instrument panel seemed to lift up and shatter.....everything was a blur...moving in slow motion. Ritter looked to his left and yelled that both engines had been shot away. He struggled to control the craft, but it was too late. With both left engines gone, the bomber began a port turn into a downward spiral. Ritter hit the bail out alarm and then looked over at Roy. He was bleeding from a cut above his right eye, but he seemed frozen...staring straight ahead. Ritter followed his gaze and was stopped cold by what he saw. The nose of the plane was completely gone. There was no sign of either Siebert or Stalker anywhere.
737 had taken two simultaneous direct hits of flak from an 88mm gun. The first blew away the nose, killing Lt's Joe Siebert and Robert Stalker instantly. The second wrecked both port engines and set them ablaze. The plane was shedding altitude at an appalling rate as it spun out of control. Ross, Callahan, and Tomke were the first to bail out. Ritter checked to ensure that the bomb bay doors were open and then yelled for the radio operator and the top gunner to get out. Daly and Bussieres quickly unbuckled themselves and made their way to the bomb bay. Daly removed the safety lines and dove out with Bussieres following close behind. The plane had now arched over the northern end of the city and was plummeting downward on a reciprocal course away from Cologne towards the west. Satisfied that all the enlisted men had made it out, Ritter looked over at Roy and signaled him with a thumbs up gesture, indicating it was time for them to get out. Roy was still bleeding from his head wound, but he seemed to have his wits about him. He made his way aft, fighting to maintain his footing as the plane rolled to the left, but the sight of the open bay doors made him hesitate for a moment. He looked up and saw Ritter emerge from the cockpit....as if in slow motion, Ritter looked out of the bay, braced himself and then dove out. He hadn't notice Roy standing by the outer frame of the bomb rack. The realization that he was now the only man left on board snapped Roy to his senses. He looked out and saw the city give way to green pastures. Not a single one of them had ever had any actual training for this beyond a 10 minute movie back in flight school, but now action was a matter of life or death. Roy inched his way to the rail, steeled himself and dove out head first.
The wind slammed him like a brick wall and his stomach felt like it was lodged in his throat. Above him, the crippled bomber sped away, trailing a tail of oily black smoke behind it. "Free fall...free fall" he thought. Some little bit of training kicked in as he remembered not to pull the rip cord too quick. Germans were apt to shoot at a man as he glided down in a chute, but a free falling target was almost impossible to hit. Roy arched his body out, not so much from training, but rather from the force of the air rushing past him. He counted...1..2...3..4...5..6...7..8...9...10...and pulled the rip cord. He felt a sudden jerking motion as the parachute deployed, but then....nothing....he was still free falling. He looked up and saw that several of the harness lines were severed. A sheer panic suddenly hit him....the chute wasn't opening. He desperately struggled with the harness trying to get the some kind of control over them. The ground was speeding towards him, faster and faster. He struggled, tried to remember some bit of training...something....anything......he glanced down and saw a pasture...."Oh no...." There was a sudden thudding sensation...and everything went dark.
The village of Brauweiler lay just to the west of Cologne. It was a small, peaceful farming community, untouched by the war, unlike its immediate metropolitan neighbor. There were no regular troops stationed there, but it was used as over-flow station for wounded from the city. A young nurse was taking shelter inside the towns small hospital, grateful that her location was of no interest to the bombers that roared overhead. Then she heard an unusual sound....a mechanical straining noise drawn out like a siren. She instantly knew what it was...a plane was about to crash. Instinctively, she ran outside...knowing that at least if she saw the incoming plane she would have a chance to avoid it. She looked up and saw a silver bomber trailing smoke and diving down at a steep angle. It was still to high to hit were she was....thank God. Then she noticed a small dark figure emerge from the underside of the craft. A tiny black dot that fell towards the Earth faster and faster. Suddenly she was struck with horror as she saw his parachute deploy and realized that it had malfunctioned. She could see the man struggling to get it open but it was too late....he struck the ground about 500 yards away. Moments later, she heard a muffled explosion to the south and saw a plume of black smoke billowing up near the village of Konigsdorf as the bomber she saw moments ago had crashed.
The girl made her way towards where she had seen the man fall accompanied by two members of the local guards unit. They stepped off the road and into a small field and found the man. He was laying in a heap on the ground...the left side of his body smashed, the mangled parachute still attached to him. Several of the cords were severed and had scorched marks on them. Apparently the shell that took down his plane and sent shards of shrapnel spewing out in all directions and must have damaged the mans gear in the process. One of the men rolled the body on its back and began to look for some sort of ID. In the coat pocket he felt a lump and pulled out a wallet. Inside were a few pieces of military script, a photo of a older women, perhaps the boys mother. Tucked in the wallet was a small leather ID case, embossed with a set of wings and the words "identification card, Air Corps, United States Army. Inside he found two credentials, one indicating the persons rank, and service number, the other a photograph of the young man with the name Roy W. Duncan typed below it. The soldier took the papers, along with the ID tags from his neck. The nurse who had found him had already summoned a truck to come pick the body up. After he was loaded in the back, the soldier told the driver to take the body north to the village of Geyen. There were already several bodies of Allied Airmen buried there....Duncan would be laid to rest with them.
Ritter couldn't believe his crummy luck. Not only had his plane been blown out of the sky, but now he was about to land on top of a 88mm flak gun emplacement. At least there would be little question as to what would happen next. Both he and Dan Callahan, who landed nearby, were immediately captured upon landing and taken to a bunker adjacent to the gun. An angry Major stormed in a few moment later and began yelling at him in German. Ritter stared him down as he ranted. Suddenly, the officer balled up his fist and punched at Ritter's head, but missed. Ritter didn't flinch. A moment passed, then the Major looked at the confiscated ID and in broken English said "Ritter...that is a good German name". "That's a good name" Ritter replied. About an hour later, he was led to a truck and driven out to a field. The first thing he noticed was a silvery heap of wreckage.....the nose from his plane. He then saw two bodies about 50 yards distant, both horribly mangled, their parachutes still attached and unopened. He found an ID tag on one...it was Rob Stalker. The other body was not recognizable and had no ID, but Ritter was sure that it was Joe Siebert. As he was led away, another officer stopped him and handed him a wallet and USAAF ID. Ritter opened it and saw the face and name of Roy Duncan. He looked back at the officer who nodded to the ID and shook his head....Duncan was dead. Ritter knew that the local population had a reputation for harsh treatment of downed pilots, so that meant that either Duncan's chute didn't open, he was shot on the way down, or he was shot by civilians on the ground. He assumed civilians simply because the German Army normally observed the rules of the Geneva Convention once you were on the ground.
Ritter and Callahan remained in Cologne for another 4 days before being sent off to a Stalag camp for the duration of the war. While there, they learned that the all the other members of their crew had survived the crash with the exception of Stalker, Siebert, and Duncan. There were conflicting post- war reports as to how Duncan died, but the story that he was killed on the ground by civilians was what was reported to his family. More recent research seems to indicate that his parachute malfunctioned and that he fell to his death. Several years later, Duncan's remains, along with several other airmen, were disinterred and moved to an American cemetery in Belgium. In 1949, Roy's Mother and Father had a memorial grave marker for Roy placed in the family plot in Georges Creek Cemetery, near Cleburne Texas. It is believed to be a marker only, though some family members say that a casket was buried in the plot. He most likely still rests with his fellow Airmen in Belgium. His Uncle, JW Morrow, was assigned to escort another group of bombers that day and later recalled that as he made his way back to his air base, he could see Duncan's base in the distance and was suddenly overcome with a bad feeling that his nephew wasn't coming back. Roy Wendell Duncan was my Fathers cousin.
Roy, the eldest son of Lora Morrow-Duncan and Roy Duncan, had enlisted in the Army Air Force shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He tested significantly high enough to be admitted into the aviation cadet corp and his subsequent aptitude batteries showed him best suited to the skills needed to pilot one of the Army's most effective bombing platforms, the veteran Boeing B-17. After a years worth of rigorous testing and training, he earned his wings and was shipped over to England to join the 369 Bomb Squadron, 306 Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, based in Thurleigh Airfield. He was assigned to bomber crew and, like all new arrivals, he soon learned the deadly implications of his chosen profession. Some 27,000 men had already died in the skies above Germany. Certainly this damming figure stirred in his mind as he headed out this early morning. Bomber crews were required to complete 30 missions, 5 more than what was expected, before they were allowed to rotate back to the states. Yet only 2% of crews ever made that magic number...chances were that you would be blown out of the sky and die first. If you were lucky, you would be able to bail out, then you would have a 50/50 chance. 50% you would be captured or escape into the French/Belgium underground, or 50% chance that you would be shot on the way down or that your parachute would malfunction. Certainly not a numbers game that any sane gambling man would take. What was worse was the knowledge that his mother, Lora, was still recovering from the loss of Roy's younger brother, Hewlett, who died three years before at the tender age of 15.
Roy stopped briefly at the officers mess hall and downed an quick bite to eat before making his way to the briefing hut adjacent to the flight line. He stepped into the room and milled around for a few minutes looking for Ritter. He found him a few minutes later, a tall, lanky guy from New York. He was about the same age, but unlike Roy, he already had 11 missions under his belt. Ritter introduced him to the other officer crew members, 2nd LT Joe Siebert, crew navigator, and 2nd LT Rob Stalker, the bombardier. It was an awkward situation. Roy was an outsider flying with another veteran bomber crew. That was a tough enough prospect in itself, but in a world dominated by an almost religious devotion to good luck charms and routines, fitting in would be a monumental task to accomplish. He chatted with Ritter for a few moments and took a seat next to him as the briefing began. The Squadron commander, G-2 Intelligence rep, and a handful of other briefers entered the room. They stood in front of a large wall map that showed England and Germany. After a moment, the Colonel ordered the men to be seated and began the brief. Their target this day would be the a group of manufacturing plants in the city of Cologne. The G-2 man explained the significance of the target, locations of anti-aircraft batteries, and the general approach. The weatherman followed and gave a quick run down of the weather and visibility conditions they could expect. He was followed by the flight leader, who went over the launch times, formations, approach, initial point, and all the other in-depth details of the mission.
The brief concluded about 4:30 and Roy followed Ritter and the others out into the crisp morning air. It was still dark outside, though there was a hint of blue light in the eastern sky. He hopped into a jeep driven by Ritter and sped off down the flight line. They passed several rows of bombers, each surrounded by men in a flurry of activity as last minute preparations were being made. Their metallic skins reflected in the light of the jeep and flood lamps around them, some a dull olive drab, others a shiny polished aluminum silver. Ritter pulled the jeep over to the side and said "here we are". Roy look up and was nearly blinded by the silvery sheen of a B-17G. Even though, he had seen this sight before, it was still a beautiful thing to behold that dark morning, her polished silver fuselage studded with 50cal machine guns, the number 737 painted on the right side of the nose, and he could just make out the yellow and green tail markings with the white H centered in a black triangle which indicated that the plane belonged to the 306 Bomb Group. The enlisted crewmen were already there, going over the final checks and starting the process of priming the engines by manually turning each her four propellers. Roy, took a slow walk around the bomber, admiring her beauty, as much as he was performing a routine pre-flight inspection. As he rounded the starboard wing, Ritter called him over to meet the other crewmen. There was S/Sgt Sam Bussieres, top gunner, S/Sgt John Daly, the radio operator, Sgt Ken Ross, the ball turret gunner, Sgt Dan Callahan, waist gunner, and Sgt John Tomke, the tail gunner.
Roy chatted with the men for a few moments and then made his way to the left hatch of the plane and put on his survival gear, a parachute rig, and his flight jacket. Flying at 32,000 ft was a very cold business. Once suited up, he crawled up the hatch into the crew cabin and took his seat in the right Co-Pilot position. Then he and Ritter began going through the process of checklists and equipment checks to ensure the plane was ready for start up. By 5:00, everyone was in their position and everything was ready. Ritter and Roy started engine #3 and brought it up to power. Next come #2, #1, and finally #4. Roy scanned over the dashboard, noting the rpm, oil pressure, fuel and other indicators. He felt a lump in his throat when he looked up and saw a lighted pace jeep pass by followed by the lead bomber as it taxied to the run way. It was a nerve wracking process to watch the procession of bomber after bomber pass by waiting for their turn, but finally it came. Ritter released the brakes and the plane crept forward and turned into the single file line. They followed along the taxi-way and patiently waited as each bomber made a 180 degree turn onto the runway. A deafening roar followed and slowly each behemoth clawed its way into the air. Then it was their turn. Roy scanned over the dashboard and then pushed the throttles for two of the engines forward while Ritter controlled the other two. He could feel the acceleration in his chest...the landing gear bounced on the uneven surface, then he and Ritter pulled back on the controls and slowly the plane began to angle upward. 30 seconds later the landing gear broke free of the Earth and the plane soared into the first light of the morning sky. It was 6:00 AM.
Ritter and Roy brought the bomber up to 1,000 feet and joined a formation of aircraft circling above the airfield. Another 45 minutes to an hour would pass before all 36 bombers were airborne, time again spent patiently waiting. Luckily, the business of monitoring the ships performance made things seem to go by more quickly. By 7:45, all the bombers were up and the bomb group had formed into three district diamond formations. The group turned to a general southeast heading and began ascending to 32,000 feet. Shortly after passing over the coast of England, Roy was pleased to see a very welcome sight approaching from the north. A squadron of shiny new P-51 Mustangs moved into position slightly ahead of them to act as escorts into German held airspace. These "little friends" as they called them, were a god send. The P-51 could out fly the very best that the Luftwaffe could throw at them. They were fast, nimble, armed to the teeth, and best of all, they could fly almost all the way into Germany with them. Roy strained to see if he could make out the tail markings, hoping to see a red tail fin identifying the 361st Fighter Group, 434 Fighter Squadron. His Uncle, 1st LT JW Morrow, piloted one of these sleek fighters, and the thought that he might be up with him brought a sense of comfort.
The English coast passed below them and gave way to the Channel. Half an hour later, they passed over the coast and into the European Continent proper. Thankfully, by this stage in the war, the Allies had pushed deep into both Belgium and the Netherlands, so they wouldn't be greeted by the Luftwaffe or anti-air-artillery yet, but that time was rapidly approaching with each passing mile. Roy tried to calm himself with the thought that there was a substantial sized raid hitting multiple targets today. Hopefully, that would keep the Luftwaffe preoccupied and lessen the number of fighters that might hit his group. But the Luftwaffe was the easy part. The P-51s would take care of most of them and you could at least shoot at the ones that got through into the formation. In short, you had a fighting chance. But flak guns were a totally different story. There was no P-51 or 50 cal bullet that could stop a deadly 88mm shell from blasting you and your plane to bloodly little bits. All you could do was try to stay above them and pray they didn't find their mark. So far, the mission had gone well enough. No fighters had risen to meet them, and as they passed over land controlled by German forces, neither had any flak bursts.
They had been cruising at 32,000 feet for more than an hour now. Even with the layered clothing and electrically heated suits, the sub-zero outside temperatures penetrated your bones. As the target drew nearer, Ritter and Roy began the series of routine checks to ensure everything was ready. Radio checks, navigation updates, oxygen checks, weapons check, mobility for the ball gunner, updates from the flight engineer. All was ready for action. At 9:00 the lead bomber signaled that it had Cologne in sight. Each man in the plane braced himself. There wasn't a man in the sky that day who did not have an icy ball of fear in the pit of their stomach....each in his own way engaging in a titanic internal struggle to control themselves and focus on the job at hand. The sky was clear this morning, so at least they would be able to get a good shot at the target, but that also meant that the 88mm guns would also have a clear shot at them as well. Always there was a trade off for any advantage. The formation went through a series of turns to pre-selected way point as a means to throw off ground observers. Each turn would vary to some degree until finally the lead plane reach the initial point, or IP. It was usually a tall landmark of some sort located near the target area. Once reached, the formation would alter course for the final bomb run on the target. This was the most critical part of the mission, and the most dangerous. The pilot would switch control of the bomber to the bombardier who would guide the plane to the target using the Nordan bomb site. What made this part so tedious was the fact that the pilots did not have control and no evasive maneuvers could be taken. If flak guns opened up.....and they would, all you could do was fly through it and pray you didn't take a direct hit or get sprayed by shrapnel.
At 9:15 the lead plane called the IP. It was time. Roy's mind raced through the series of checks and calls to be made before they reached the IP. Oxygen checks were good. Engine operations, fuel levels, oil pressure all good, bomb bay doors open. No sign of enemy fighters. Communications check with all positions good. He glanced once more over the dashboard, then looked up and what he saw made his blood run cold. Up ahead, about two miles distant, appeared tiny black puffs of smoke.....flak bursts from the 88s. No matter how many times he had seen them before, or been buffeted by their close proximity, it was something you just never got used to. Both Ritter and Roy watched intently as the clouds got closer and closer. So far, the Germans aim was off today. There were puffs above and below the formation and the ones within didn't come to close to any of the planes ahead. Ritter called down to Stalker and Siebert asking if they were on course. Siebert replied that they had reached the IP. Stalker concurred and directed that the planes course be altered 5 degrees left. Roy and Ritter pitched the plane over until Stalker called it good and then leveled out. Suddenly a jarring motion shook the plane and all around them the deadly puffs of flak began to appear. Stalker called up, saying they were on their run. Ritter reached down and flipped the auto-pilot switch. Control of the craft went to the bombardier. Their lives were in his hands now.
The flak began to intensify as they neared the center of Cologne. Still, Roy could see no clear hits or damage to either his plane or anyone else. Stalkers eyes was glued to the bomb site, while Siebert carefully monitored his navigation and engineering board. Roy called for one last oxygen check and each crewman responded in the affirmative. Everyone was listening to Stalker as he lined up on the target below. They had just crossed over the Rhine, which ran through the center of the city, when the flak began to get more intense. Stalker looked up from the bomb site for a moment and saw two puffs of black smoke directly ahead. He keyed his intercom and shouted "Flak! 12 O'clock and level." Suddenly the plane was rocked by two simultaneous explosions. The plane was thrown upwards in a violent jerky motion and dropped back down. Roy felt something sharp and hot slash across the right side of his temple. The instrument panel seemed to lift up and shatter.....everything was a blur...moving in slow motion. Ritter looked to his left and yelled that both engines had been shot away. He struggled to control the craft, but it was too late. With both left engines gone, the bomber began a port turn into a downward spiral. Ritter hit the bail out alarm and then looked over at Roy. He was bleeding from a cut above his right eye, but he seemed frozen...staring straight ahead. Ritter followed his gaze and was stopped cold by what he saw. The nose of the plane was completely gone. There was no sign of either Siebert or Stalker anywhere.
737 had taken two simultaneous direct hits of flak from an 88mm gun. The first blew away the nose, killing Lt's Joe Siebert and Robert Stalker instantly. The second wrecked both port engines and set them ablaze. The plane was shedding altitude at an appalling rate as it spun out of control. Ross, Callahan, and Tomke were the first to bail out. Ritter checked to ensure that the bomb bay doors were open and then yelled for the radio operator and the top gunner to get out. Daly and Bussieres quickly unbuckled themselves and made their way to the bomb bay. Daly removed the safety lines and dove out with Bussieres following close behind. The plane had now arched over the northern end of the city and was plummeting downward on a reciprocal course away from Cologne towards the west. Satisfied that all the enlisted men had made it out, Ritter looked over at Roy and signaled him with a thumbs up gesture, indicating it was time for them to get out. Roy was still bleeding from his head wound, but he seemed to have his wits about him. He made his way aft, fighting to maintain his footing as the plane rolled to the left, but the sight of the open bay doors made him hesitate for a moment. He looked up and saw Ritter emerge from the cockpit....as if in slow motion, Ritter looked out of the bay, braced himself and then dove out. He hadn't notice Roy standing by the outer frame of the bomb rack. The realization that he was now the only man left on board snapped Roy to his senses. He looked out and saw the city give way to green pastures. Not a single one of them had ever had any actual training for this beyond a 10 minute movie back in flight school, but now action was a matter of life or death. Roy inched his way to the rail, steeled himself and dove out head first.
The wind slammed him like a brick wall and his stomach felt like it was lodged in his throat. Above him, the crippled bomber sped away, trailing a tail of oily black smoke behind it. "Free fall...free fall" he thought. Some little bit of training kicked in as he remembered not to pull the rip cord too quick. Germans were apt to shoot at a man as he glided down in a chute, but a free falling target was almost impossible to hit. Roy arched his body out, not so much from training, but rather from the force of the air rushing past him. He counted...1..2...3..4...5..6...7..8...9...10...and pulled the rip cord. He felt a sudden jerking motion as the parachute deployed, but then....nothing....he was still free falling. He looked up and saw that several of the harness lines were severed. A sheer panic suddenly hit him....the chute wasn't opening. He desperately struggled with the harness trying to get the some kind of control over them. The ground was speeding towards him, faster and faster. He struggled, tried to remember some bit of training...something....anything......he glanced down and saw a pasture...."Oh no...." There was a sudden thudding sensation...and everything went dark.
The village of Brauweiler lay just to the west of Cologne. It was a small, peaceful farming community, untouched by the war, unlike its immediate metropolitan neighbor. There were no regular troops stationed there, but it was used as over-flow station for wounded from the city. A young nurse was taking shelter inside the towns small hospital, grateful that her location was of no interest to the bombers that roared overhead. Then she heard an unusual sound....a mechanical straining noise drawn out like a siren. She instantly knew what it was...a plane was about to crash. Instinctively, she ran outside...knowing that at least if she saw the incoming plane she would have a chance to avoid it. She looked up and saw a silver bomber trailing smoke and diving down at a steep angle. It was still to high to hit were she was....thank God. Then she noticed a small dark figure emerge from the underside of the craft. A tiny black dot that fell towards the Earth faster and faster. Suddenly she was struck with horror as she saw his parachute deploy and realized that it had malfunctioned. She could see the man struggling to get it open but it was too late....he struck the ground about 500 yards away. Moments later, she heard a muffled explosion to the south and saw a plume of black smoke billowing up near the village of Konigsdorf as the bomber she saw moments ago had crashed.
The girl made her way towards where she had seen the man fall accompanied by two members of the local guards unit. They stepped off the road and into a small field and found the man. He was laying in a heap on the ground...the left side of his body smashed, the mangled parachute still attached to him. Several of the cords were severed and had scorched marks on them. Apparently the shell that took down his plane and sent shards of shrapnel spewing out in all directions and must have damaged the mans gear in the process. One of the men rolled the body on its back and began to look for some sort of ID. In the coat pocket he felt a lump and pulled out a wallet. Inside were a few pieces of military script, a photo of a older women, perhaps the boys mother. Tucked in the wallet was a small leather ID case, embossed with a set of wings and the words "identification card, Air Corps, United States Army. Inside he found two credentials, one indicating the persons rank, and service number, the other a photograph of the young man with the name Roy W. Duncan typed below it. The soldier took the papers, along with the ID tags from his neck. The nurse who had found him had already summoned a truck to come pick the body up. After he was loaded in the back, the soldier told the driver to take the body north to the village of Geyen. There were already several bodies of Allied Airmen buried there....Duncan would be laid to rest with them.
Ritter couldn't believe his crummy luck. Not only had his plane been blown out of the sky, but now he was about to land on top of a 88mm flak gun emplacement. At least there would be little question as to what would happen next. Both he and Dan Callahan, who landed nearby, were immediately captured upon landing and taken to a bunker adjacent to the gun. An angry Major stormed in a few moment later and began yelling at him in German. Ritter stared him down as he ranted. Suddenly, the officer balled up his fist and punched at Ritter's head, but missed. Ritter didn't flinch. A moment passed, then the Major looked at the confiscated ID and in broken English said "Ritter...that is a good German name". "That's a good name" Ritter replied. About an hour later, he was led to a truck and driven out to a field. The first thing he noticed was a silvery heap of wreckage.....the nose from his plane. He then saw two bodies about 50 yards distant, both horribly mangled, their parachutes still attached and unopened. He found an ID tag on one...it was Rob Stalker. The other body was not recognizable and had no ID, but Ritter was sure that it was Joe Siebert. As he was led away, another officer stopped him and handed him a wallet and USAAF ID. Ritter opened it and saw the face and name of Roy Duncan. He looked back at the officer who nodded to the ID and shook his head....Duncan was dead. Ritter knew that the local population had a reputation for harsh treatment of downed pilots, so that meant that either Duncan's chute didn't open, he was shot on the way down, or he was shot by civilians on the ground. He assumed civilians simply because the German Army normally observed the rules of the Geneva Convention once you were on the ground.
Ritter and Callahan remained in Cologne for another 4 days before being sent off to a Stalag camp for the duration of the war. While there, they learned that the all the other members of their crew had survived the crash with the exception of Stalker, Siebert, and Duncan. There were conflicting post- war reports as to how Duncan died, but the story that he was killed on the ground by civilians was what was reported to his family. More recent research seems to indicate that his parachute malfunctioned and that he fell to his death. Several years later, Duncan's remains, along with several other airmen, were disinterred and moved to an American cemetery in Belgium. In 1949, Roy's Mother and Father had a memorial grave marker for Roy placed in the family plot in Georges Creek Cemetery, near Cleburne Texas. It is believed to be a marker only, though some family members say that a casket was buried in the plot. He most likely still rests with his fellow Airmen in Belgium. His Uncle, JW Morrow, was assigned to escort another group of bombers that day and later recalled that as he made his way back to his air base, he could see Duncan's base in the distance and was suddenly overcome with a bad feeling that his nephew wasn't coming back. Roy Wendell Duncan was my Fathers cousin.
2nd LT Roy Wendell Duncan
Crew of B-17G 737.
Standing L-R Carle, Ritter, Stalker, Siebert
Kneeling L-R Tomke, Ross, Bussieres, Callahan, Arnwine, Daly
(Carle and Arnwine were not on the 15 OCT 44 flight)
Photo of the Konigsdorf crash site of B-17 737
Marker of LT R.W. Duncan
Georges Creek Cemetery, Texas
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Saving Private Aceves
The last few weeks has taken me on a incredible
journey from the streets of El Paso Texas, to the mountains of France, to a
tiny village in southern Germany named Moosburg. My mission was to locate
a missing 26 year old resident of El Paso who was serving as a Private in the
141 Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division. His name is Noel Montestruc
Aceves and he is my Grandfather.
In
December 1944, my Grandmother was living in a small apartment on Virginia
Street in El Paso where she, like most women of that time, was adjusting to the
realities running a home, caring for her 3 year old son, Arturo, and her 1 and
a half year old daughter, Velia, while her husband was fighting the Germans in
France. One chilly December day, there came an unexpected knock on the
door. She found a man standing before her with a telegram from the War
Department......and in 1944.....a telegram from the War Department was a sure
harbinger of sorrow. I've never asked her what went through her mind at
that moment, but I can only imagine that her heart sank...her blood ran
cold...and certainly her mind struggled to deal with the flood of emotions that
this telegram would certainly bring.
The
message was phrased in the standard format of the time and stated in effect:
"The Secretary of War desires me to express
his deep regret that your husband, Private Noel M. Aceves has been reported as
Missing In Action since 28 November in France. If further details or
other information are received you will be promptly notified. Signed
Provost Marshal General."
The man read the telegram, handed it to her,
informed her that she could expect to receive an update in about three months,
and then departed to continue on his sad duties. That was it, nothing
more. There was no Internet, no 24-hour news cycle, and no support
groups...nothing. All there was to do was wait, just like every one else.
Two
months later, in February, my Grandmother was washing and folding diapers around
8 PM, when there was another unexpected knock on the door. Once again
there was a sudden rush of emotions as a man from the War Department stood in
the doorway. The moments must have seemed like hours as he confirmed that
he had the correct address and recipient. He then read aloud:
"A
report has been received through the International Red Cross that your
husband, Private Noel M. Aceves, is a prisoner of the Germans. A letter
of further information from the Provost Marshal General to follow."
Grandpa was alive...a prisoner of the Germans, but
alive. It was a telegram with a far better outcome than what most
households of that time received.
My
Grandpa died at the young age of 52, two years before I was born. Unfortunately
only 3 of his grandchildren had to chance to know and remember him to any
extent. He rarely spoke about his experience in the war or his time as a
POW. What little I know has been passed on from the few things he told my
Grandmother, my Mother, and my Uncles. All I knew was that he had been in
France, was captured, and spent some time at a prison in Germany. I later
learned that he was a part of the famed "arrowhead" 36th Infantry
Division, and this is was where my search began. A few days ago I found a
period film that narrated an account of the 36th invasion of southern France
and their push towards Germany. This spurred my interest and I began an
online research to find all that I could about their operations, and hopefully
find more about what happened to PVT Aceves. My big break came
when I found his POW registration in the National Archives and from there it
was if PVT Aceves began to leave telltale clues of what happened him.
This is his story.
In
1944, work in the rail yards in El Paso began to slacken and steady employment
was hard to find. The United States was well into its third year in the global
war against the Axis and able-bodied men were in demand. With the
knowledge that the military offered a steady paycheck that could support his
family, Noel Aceves decided to volunteer and enlisted in the Army on April 25,
1944 at Fort Bliss Texas. He completed his basic training there and
emerged as Private Noel M. Aceves, Serial Number 38580671, assigned to the
141st Infantry Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division. It was a venerable
unit that traced its origins back to a detachment of the original Army of Texas
that perished at the Alamo, thus giving the unit its motto: Remember the Alamo.
After
a very brief time with his family, he departed on a train bound for the east
coast of the US and from there he crossed the Atlantic (possibly on the Queen
Mary) and arrived in Naples Italy.
From there he traveled south to Salerno, where he joined his unit.
He was part of a massive wave of replacements for the 141st, which had
been bloodied during the Italian campaign and was now preparing to invade the
southern coast of France to act in concert with the US forces that had stormed
the beaches of Normandy a month before. Once those forces broke out of
the Normandy beachhead and moved towards eastern France and Belgium, the 36th
Division would invade from the south and shove the Wehrmacht forces north and
east back into Germany.
The
end of July 1944 was spent practicing amphibious operations and loading
equipment and men onto troop transports. By the first of August, PVT
Aceves began his second overseas excursion, bound for the European Continent. On the morning of 15 August 1944, the US 7th Army initiated
Operation "Dragoon", the invasion of southern France. Around
0515, PVT Aceves downed the traditional "last breakfast" of steak and
eggs and then went up on deck to be loaded into an assault boat. At 0650,
the USS TEXAS and USS ARKANSAS along with a host of cruisers and destroyers opened
up in a pre-invasion barrage of the beaches around St Raphael. By 0800,
he was on his way towards a high, rocky beachhead to the east of St Raphael.
His unit landed near the village of Antheor with few casualties.
Resistance was sporadic and they quickly moved inland. Throughout
the month of August and September he followed his unit through the Rhone
Valley, chasing the 19th German Army northward. Their advance was rapid
and assisted along the way by elements of the French resistance. However,
he had his first real taste of combat when the Germans made a determined stand
near Montelimar.
The
19th Army broke away from Montelimar on 30 August and continued its dash
northward. The 141 continued its pursuit, often engaging in brief but
sharp clashes with German units fighting a delaying action. He
participated in the taking of the villages and towns of Flancy, Maileroncourt,
Faverney, Fougerolles, Luxeuil Les Bains, and Corbenay before
reaching the Moselle River on 21 September. From that point on, the 141st
was engaged in a series of fierce battles in the approaches to the Vosges
Mountain range. Their objective was to push into and through the range
and then break into the Alsace Plain where they were to secure a crossing over
the Rhine River into Germany.
Throughout
October and most of November, the 141st slowly pushed its way into the Vosges,
encountering determined resistance from the 19th German Army including several
SS Panzer units. By this time, PVT Aceves had seen more violence than any
man should have ever experienced in two life times. There
included moments of sheer horror, such as when he discovered the
decapitated body of a soldier inside and abandon home......a scene forever
seared into his memory. He pressed on. Late November found his unit
on the western bank of the Meurthe River. Unbeknownst to PVT Aceves,
the veteran 198th German Infantry Division, which had been holding
the mountain passes ahead of him, had been pulled out in preparation for
the planned winter offensive into the Ardennes, the famed Battle of the Bulge.
In its place was the inexperienced 16th Volksgrenadier. Although
untested and poorly equipped, they occupied a strong defensive positions left
behind by the 198th.
On
20th November, the 141 began taking artillery fire from the eastern bank
of the river. They moved north and found a weak spot near Anould and
forced a crossing of the river. The 16th Volksgrenadier put up a
sporadic, but determined resistance as they fell back into the heights of the
Vosges. Following route D415, they pushed the Germans out of the village
of Clefcy on the 24th, and Fraize on the 26th. They paused briefly to
enjoy a small Thanksgiving Day meal before pushing on down the road towards the
village of Bonhemme and the ridgeline of the Vosges. On the 27th they
began moving down road D415 towards the critical juncture at Col De Bonhomme
and the village just beyond.
The
morning of 28 November found PVT Aceves on patrol with a new 2nd LT.
Their objective was to probe forward to a point along a ravine
of that ran off of the Meurthe River and down the Fraize Valley. His
company's overall objective was to move to the southeast of road D415 road and
attempt to flank a German roadblock that had been set up there. They
reached the ravine without incident, and the lack of enemy contact gave the LT
enough confidence to push on to a second objective. If they could move
uphill towards the roadblock and use the forest as cover, then they might be
able to take the Germans by surprise and clear the way for the rest of the 141
to take Col De Bonhomme.
Suddenly,
the patrol began to take fire from a nearby house. They returned fire and
within a few minutes, suppressed the German assault. PVT Aceves and the
rest of the patrol carefully approached the house, believing they had either
killed the Germans inside or forced them to retreat. They entered and
found themselves face to face with a group of German Grenadiers. A
scuffle ensued....to close for either side to use their weapons. After a
brief struggle, PVT Aceves, along with the rest of the patrol, broke free of
their adversaries and burst out into the open only to find themselves
surrounded. The Germans were in sad shape, but it was clear that they had
the upper hand. They had only two options available to them....resist and
die or surrender and pray for the best. PVT Aceves looked at his comrades
for a long moment...and then he, along with every one else, slowly placed their
weapons on the ground and raised their hands.
PVT
Aceves was now a POW. He was gripped with fear at the thought that he
might be killed, or worse tortured and then killed. He had seen several
examples of this already and the very thought of it was almost too much to
bear. Those feeling slowly began to subside as he was shuffled further and
further behind enemy lines, though the thought never truly left him. In
fact, he was quite lucky, as Hitler himself would sign an order two weeks later
that required the German Army to kill all prisoners taken in during the Ardennes
offensive.
He
was shocked to see that the Germans were in far worse shape than he had been
led to believe. They had little in the way of food or comforts, but they
treated him fairly well as he was moved farther from the Voges. He was eventually taken to a railway head where he was put onboard
a crowded boxcar and shipped east. His journey would take him deep into
the German interior to a small village named Moosburg in the southeastern part
of the country. There he was ushered behind the barbed wire gates of
Stalag 7A. His first stop would have been at the registration office,
which still stands to this day. It must have been some consolation to him
to know that at least now his whereabouts would now be reported and hopefully would
reach his family.
He
owned only what he was wearing the day that he was captured, and new clothes
were scarce. Luckily, he had been dressed for winter and thus was in
better shape than other men there. The camp was fairly large and had been
in service since the beginning of the war. The guards were older, as most
able-bodied men were being shipped to one of the two fronts. There had
been some instances of mistreatment prior to his arrival, but since mid 1944,
the prison was becoming over-crowded and such acts began to trail off.
However, this also meant that food and other such comforts were in short
supply.
The
camp was packed with a variety of men from all over the world. There were
Americans and British of course, but there was also a very large population of
Russians, whom the Germans seemed to reserve all of their spite for.
There were smaller groups of French, Italians, Pols, and even Indians and
native Africans captured during Erwin Rommel's North African campaign.
Americans were housed in a set of open bay 400 men barracks. They
were very sparse, lit by windows, and warmed by two to three cast iron stoves.
Behind the barracks was a set of latrines, which frequently over-flowed
and without any lime or chloride present, caused a constant stench to hang over
the camp.
Medical
supplies were in very short supply and a man was lucky to take a very short
shower once every 15 days or so. The day would start around 0600 when men
were roused and marched to a kitchen area where they would get a few biscuits
and maybe some coffee. They would muster at 0800 for a head count and
then around 1130 they would eat lunch, which consisted of a few boiled
potatoes. Dinner was a similar affair, occasionally supplemented by a
some sort of barley soup, and sometimes a little bit of spinach or bread.
Their limited diet was also supplemented by pooling food sent in Red
Cross packages received from Argentina.
After
the each meal, the men either returned to the barracks or were selected for
work details. Details could take a man on a 3.5-hour railroad trip west
to Munich, where they would clear debris left by Allied air raids. More
often than not though, men would be sent to work on neighboring farms to tend
to gardens and livestock that helped feed both the staff and prisoners of the
camp. PVT Aceves was no stranger to hard work or hardship. Growing
up in the harsh conditions of the Great Depression, he was very used to going
with out and doing whatever needed to be done to get by. He was a tough man
and this would serve him well in this environment.
He
frequently volunteered for work details, often taking the place of men who were
too sick or weak to leave the barracks. The work was hard, but it
afforded him an opportunity to get outside the camp and enjoy the beauty of the
surrounding forests, which must have been a stark contrast to the desert mountains
of El Paso. In later years, he would occasionally remark that Germany was
one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. Work details also gave
him the chance to trade some of the Red Cross rations for bread, which was far
more filling than the usual food available. The German guards were also
suffering from a lack of food as well, and bread could be traded with them in
exchange for certain favors or privileges. It is possible that he traded
some of these rations for a pair of small plastic toys that he intended to give
to his son upon his return.
December
turned to January, January to February, February into March and March to April.
The days were long, the nights cold. A man would find inventive
ways to relieve the boredom and to pass the hours keeping their mind going,
lest depression or worse set in. Occasionally, they would hear the roar
of Allied bombers overhead and feel the distant thumps of bombs exploding.
PVT Aceves got used to this and would automatically roll off of his cot
and then roll under it. It would be an action that would often plague him
in later life when he would hear a plane pass overhead.
Then
in late April, rumors began to spread that US forces were nearby. The
rumors were true. US Combat Team Alpha of the 14th Armored Division began
to discover some of the outlying work farms and POWs who led them towards
Moosburg. On the morning of 27 April 1945, an officer of the regional SS
command, along with a Swiss, British, and American representative drove to the
US lines and were met by two tanks. The US Colonel in charge brought the
group to the units Commanding General and talks ensued. However after a few
hours, the US General made it clear that no deal would be struck. German
forces would surrender unconditionally and all of the POWs of the camp would be
released. The SS officer refused and returned to the camp.
At
10:00 AM, the tanks of the Alpha combat team rolled forward and engaged the
German units scattered around the base. The battle raged for two and a
half hours, during which one shell landed inside the camp, wounding some guards
and killing one. By 1230, it was over and Sherman tanks rolled to the
gates of Stalag 7A and demanded the surrender of all the guards. They
complied, and a spontaneous burst of joy swept the POW's out of their barracks
and into the arms of their countryman.
A
film taken that day shows smiling former prisoners enjoying the first good meal
that they had had in months or years. Water was available to wash
clothes, and more importantly, stores of winter clothing were distributed.
PVT Aceves most certainly partook in the joys that swept the camp that day.
He could expect better treatment, warmer clothes, and far better food,
even if was still just rations. But more importantly, he could expect to leave Moosburg
soon, and that his family would be informed that he was alive and had been
liberated. For him, the war was over, though the deep scares that it made
would remain with him for the rest of his life.
Despite
those scares, he had a full life to look forward to that was full of promise. Far more promise than the defeated men
he saw around him. He never harbored any animosity towards his German
captors. In his mind, they had suffered as a result of their nations
leaders, and they had more suffering and want ahead of them as they tried to
rebuild what Hitler had destroyed. He walked out of the gates of Stalag
7A shortly afterwards and on 14 June 1945 was recorded as having been
officially repatriated to US control. All that remained now would be his
third and final ocean voyage and home. Private Noel M. Aceves had seen
the horror of the war, had endured the hardship and fear of being captured and
imprisoned, but that was all over now....Private Aceves had been saved.
Friday, November 21, 2014
"I bombed Pearl Harbor, but you forced me to"
So the next time you have the opportunity to travel to Hawaii and you visit Pearl Harbor and the USS ARIZONA Memorial, remember whose fault it was. NO, not Tojo and Yamamoto.......it was all the United States and its misguided leadership under FDR. Shocking as that statement and the title of this blog may seem, it serves to illustrate a point that is often overlooked. History is many different things to many different people, however there are some things that history is not, namely black and white, good versus evil. Instead it is a variation of a million shades of gray.
The impetus of this post was my recent trip to the Yasukuni Shrine and museum. It was my second trip, and like the first, it proved to be an enlightening view on how the Japanese understand the history of WWII. For those who don't know, Yasukuni Jinga is a major Shinto shrine located in central Tokyo. Unlike other Shinto Shrines, it is dedicated to the spirits of all the Soldiers, Sailors, and Airman who died in the service of Japan and the Emperor. It is essentially the Japanese equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery. Most shrines are considered the home of a particular spirit or "Kami", and as such, the men and women enshrined at Yakakuni are considered to be a "Kami'". A "Kami" can be roughly translated as either divine, a divine spirit, or divine entity, however this is a bit of a misnomer as it really has no clear cut comparison from a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish framework. The shrine is also considered to be a political flashpoint for nations such as China and the Korea's since Japan has enshrined all of the men/women who have died in the service of the nation...to include those convicted and executed as war criminals after WWII.
Controversy aside, the accompanying museum highlights the military history of Japan from feudal times through to the end of WWII. Each section has at least one or two signs in English which describe the major theme of the display, while artifacts are commented on in Japanese. Luckily, I know just enough about their history to know what Im looking at and what is being conveyed. Most of the displays are fairly balanced in terms of the Western view of the same time period, that is until you get to the 1930s. China is where things get a little, shall we say, glossy. For instance, when you read any western work on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, you are sure to find at least a chapter describing the atrocities committed during the taking of Nanking, more commonly known as the "rape of Nanking". However, at Yasukuni, Nanking is not much more than a footnote. They took it after a brief struggle...nothing more. Again, the need to save face rears its head, and those events which would make one look bad should be skimmed over if not outright omitted. I would go on about this section, however that would constitute writing a book, so on to Pearl Harbor.
This section begins with a timeline (with each event in english) describing the diplomatic, economic, and world events that took place between January-December 1941. What this timeline makes clear is that Japan was trying its best to restore the rule of Asia back to Asians and that their expansion was simply an attempt to bring stability to the vacuum of authority left when a colonial power departed. The timeline says as much with regards to the invasion of French-Indo China (Vietnam). They were just spreading freedom....which sounds somewhat familiar, but I digress. Anyway, the US wasn't going to stand for this and began slapping embargoes on Japan, which threatened their capacity to continue the liberation of Asia. What was worse, it threatened the very economic life of the Empire. No matter how much they pleaded with that mad man FDR, he wasn't going to relent unless Japan did as he dictated. Thus Japan was left with no choice....with its economic survival threatened by the US, their commitment to ousting colonial rule in Asia, and the unwillingness of Britain and the US to see the situation from their point of view, what could Japan do? They would have to take the resources of the Dutch East Indies, but to do so would risk war with the US and Britain. While most Japanese agreed that their superior spirit would win the day, there were a few who knew that such a conflict would be an enormous gamble.
The solution to this conundrum? Strike first and strike hard. Crush the US Pacific Fleet at its base in Pearl Harbor and the US Army in the Philippines would be isolated. Once the Philippines were taken, there would be nothing to stop the Empire from steamrolling south into the Dutch East Indies, the Malaysian peninsula, Singapore and so on. The colonial powers of the Dutch and British would be ousted, freedom restored to those areas, a vast new pool of resources would be available to the Empire, and the crippled US would be unable to do anything about it. Once their gains were consolidated and a defensive parameter established, then Japan would be able to negotiate a peace with the US from a position of strength and the tables would be turned. Now FDR would have to listen because his economic bag of tricks would be empty and his Pacific fleet and army smashed. Of course, none of this need have happened had FDR not interfered with Japan in the first place. Had he listened to reason, there would be no attack on Pearl Harbor.
All this sounds like revisionist history, but this is how the Japanese thought at the time, and this is how it is portrayed by the nations premiere military history museum. Of course, our point of view is 180 out. We were trying to stop Japanese aggression and atrocities and sought to do so by non-military means. However, instead of choosing to solve things in a peaceful manner, Japan started a war by launching a "sneak attack" at Pearl. Most Americans would see the Yasukuni version of WWII as utter nonsense. Nothing more that the losing side trying to rationalize their actions, while "We" know the truth of the matter.....or do we? Ask someone from South Carolina about that war that occurred in the US between 1861-1865 and then ask someone from New York about it. I suspect that the only thing they will agree upon is the fact that a war took place on the North American Continent between 1861-1865. 150 years on, and we still cannot agree on the name of the battles that took place: was it Shiloh or Pittsburgh Landing? Sharpsburg or Antietam? Bull Run or Manassas? While we are at it, what about those 19th Century Indian Wars? Well, they needed to get out of the way of progress and stop attacking settlers along the frontier, but we will skim over that...casting such things as atrocities doesn't reflect too well on us.
So my day with Japan's war dead served to reinforce my believe that there are no definitives in history. One may find some facts, but the truth is elusive. Perhaps this point is best illustrated by Star War's Obi Wan Kenobi (oddly enough a character based on aspects of the Japanese Samurai). When confronted by Luke Skywalker with the revelation that Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker, and Darth Vader are one in the same, Kenobi explains how Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader, thus killing the good man that he knew. His statement is most revealing and relevant to our treatment of history: "So what I have told you is true...from a certain point of view."
The impetus of this post was my recent trip to the Yasukuni Shrine and museum. It was my second trip, and like the first, it proved to be an enlightening view on how the Japanese understand the history of WWII. For those who don't know, Yasukuni Jinga is a major Shinto shrine located in central Tokyo. Unlike other Shinto Shrines, it is dedicated to the spirits of all the Soldiers, Sailors, and Airman who died in the service of Japan and the Emperor. It is essentially the Japanese equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery. Most shrines are considered the home of a particular spirit or "Kami", and as such, the men and women enshrined at Yakakuni are considered to be a "Kami'". A "Kami" can be roughly translated as either divine, a divine spirit, or divine entity, however this is a bit of a misnomer as it really has no clear cut comparison from a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish framework. The shrine is also considered to be a political flashpoint for nations such as China and the Korea's since Japan has enshrined all of the men/women who have died in the service of the nation...to include those convicted and executed as war criminals after WWII.
Controversy aside, the accompanying museum highlights the military history of Japan from feudal times through to the end of WWII. Each section has at least one or two signs in English which describe the major theme of the display, while artifacts are commented on in Japanese. Luckily, I know just enough about their history to know what Im looking at and what is being conveyed. Most of the displays are fairly balanced in terms of the Western view of the same time period, that is until you get to the 1930s. China is where things get a little, shall we say, glossy. For instance, when you read any western work on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, you are sure to find at least a chapter describing the atrocities committed during the taking of Nanking, more commonly known as the "rape of Nanking". However, at Yasukuni, Nanking is not much more than a footnote. They took it after a brief struggle...nothing more. Again, the need to save face rears its head, and those events which would make one look bad should be skimmed over if not outright omitted. I would go on about this section, however that would constitute writing a book, so on to Pearl Harbor.
This section begins with a timeline (with each event in english) describing the diplomatic, economic, and world events that took place between January-December 1941. What this timeline makes clear is that Japan was trying its best to restore the rule of Asia back to Asians and that their expansion was simply an attempt to bring stability to the vacuum of authority left when a colonial power departed. The timeline says as much with regards to the invasion of French-Indo China (Vietnam). They were just spreading freedom....which sounds somewhat familiar, but I digress. Anyway, the US wasn't going to stand for this and began slapping embargoes on Japan, which threatened their capacity to continue the liberation of Asia. What was worse, it threatened the very economic life of the Empire. No matter how much they pleaded with that mad man FDR, he wasn't going to relent unless Japan did as he dictated. Thus Japan was left with no choice....with its economic survival threatened by the US, their commitment to ousting colonial rule in Asia, and the unwillingness of Britain and the US to see the situation from their point of view, what could Japan do? They would have to take the resources of the Dutch East Indies, but to do so would risk war with the US and Britain. While most Japanese agreed that their superior spirit would win the day, there were a few who knew that such a conflict would be an enormous gamble.
The solution to this conundrum? Strike first and strike hard. Crush the US Pacific Fleet at its base in Pearl Harbor and the US Army in the Philippines would be isolated. Once the Philippines were taken, there would be nothing to stop the Empire from steamrolling south into the Dutch East Indies, the Malaysian peninsula, Singapore and so on. The colonial powers of the Dutch and British would be ousted, freedom restored to those areas, a vast new pool of resources would be available to the Empire, and the crippled US would be unable to do anything about it. Once their gains were consolidated and a defensive parameter established, then Japan would be able to negotiate a peace with the US from a position of strength and the tables would be turned. Now FDR would have to listen because his economic bag of tricks would be empty and his Pacific fleet and army smashed. Of course, none of this need have happened had FDR not interfered with Japan in the first place. Had he listened to reason, there would be no attack on Pearl Harbor.
All this sounds like revisionist history, but this is how the Japanese thought at the time, and this is how it is portrayed by the nations premiere military history museum. Of course, our point of view is 180 out. We were trying to stop Japanese aggression and atrocities and sought to do so by non-military means. However, instead of choosing to solve things in a peaceful manner, Japan started a war by launching a "sneak attack" at Pearl. Most Americans would see the Yasukuni version of WWII as utter nonsense. Nothing more that the losing side trying to rationalize their actions, while "We" know the truth of the matter.....or do we? Ask someone from South Carolina about that war that occurred in the US between 1861-1865 and then ask someone from New York about it. I suspect that the only thing they will agree upon is the fact that a war took place on the North American Continent between 1861-1865. 150 years on, and we still cannot agree on the name of the battles that took place: was it Shiloh or Pittsburgh Landing? Sharpsburg or Antietam? Bull Run or Manassas? While we are at it, what about those 19th Century Indian Wars? Well, they needed to get out of the way of progress and stop attacking settlers along the frontier, but we will skim over that...casting such things as atrocities doesn't reflect too well on us.
So my day with Japan's war dead served to reinforce my believe that there are no definitives in history. One may find some facts, but the truth is elusive. Perhaps this point is best illustrated by Star War's Obi Wan Kenobi (oddly enough a character based on aspects of the Japanese Samurai). When confronted by Luke Skywalker with the revelation that Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker, and Darth Vader are one in the same, Kenobi explains how Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader, thus killing the good man that he knew. His statement is most revealing and relevant to our treatment of history: "So what I have told you is true...from a certain point of view."
Friday, November 14, 2014
Saving face at Midway
The need to save face is a very interesting facet of the Japanese culture, and one that has led to a multitude of misunderstandings....and conflicts. It was the agenda of the militarists to invade China and stay the course even though the situation rapidly deteriorated. However, it was the need to save face that kept them there and would eventually result in the development of the plan to take the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. To the casual observer, it seems incredible that Japan would rather enter into an suicidal war with the United States rather than enter into negotiations and also extract itself from the quagmire that China had become, but the need to save face dictated otherwise.
The same was true when Commander Mitsuo Fuchida presented his post-battle analysis of the Midway operation, which would eventually be incorporated into his book "Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan". This work was used extensively by U.S. historians, movie makers, and documentarians over the next 40 years resulting in a very blurred and incorrect view of the events of June 4 1942. Read almost any book or watch any movie/documentary produced between 1950 to 2006 and you will find our dive bombers hurdling out of the sky to hit Japanese Carriers whose decks were filled with planes being fueled and armed and moments away from launching a strike upon U.S. Carriers. The resulting carnage saved the day and secured a incredible victory for the U.S. Navy.
Fuchida began his report with a simple phrase that roughly translates to "it happened this way", and the story above is what followed. However in recent years, historians reviewing the Japanese records have found that "what happened" was somewhat different. Yes, the strike forces was being rearmed and refueled, but they were all below deck in the hanger bays of the AKAGI, KAGA, and SORYU. Their flight decks were clear, save for a few Combat Air Patrol (CAP) fighters that were either preparing to launch or had just landed. This may look like a small oversight, however Fuchida made it seem as though an a massive strike force was on deck and moments away from being launched. The reality was that the carriers had been dodging attacks all morning long while simultaneously arming/rearming planes to first re-attack Midway and then strike the recently discovered U.S. Carriers. On top of all of that, they also had to keep the decks clear to recover the planes that had bombed Midway earlier that morning.
The bottom line is that at no point during the morning of 4 June did the Japanese aircrews have the opportunity to fully fuel and rearm the planes, get them to the flight deck, spot them, and warm up their engines. Therefore, there was no strike force ready on deck to attack the U.S. Carriers. This begs the question of why would Fuchida say that they were ready to strike, when in fact, they were never even close? The answer: To Save Face. Ask yourself which version makes a defeated Navy sound better? Unorganized, struggling to respond to a fluid battle situation and then getting caught in the open by American bombers resulting in the loss of 4 Carriers. Or a well honed naval strike force, surprised by the discovery of U.S. Carriers and valiantly fighting off attacks and being moments away from launching a victory assuring air assault when suddenly....the fickle Gods of war allow a small handful of American bombers to snatch it away at the last moment. My choice, as well as Fuchidas' was the latter.
The same was true when Commander Mitsuo Fuchida presented his post-battle analysis of the Midway operation, which would eventually be incorporated into his book "Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan". This work was used extensively by U.S. historians, movie makers, and documentarians over the next 40 years resulting in a very blurred and incorrect view of the events of June 4 1942. Read almost any book or watch any movie/documentary produced between 1950 to 2006 and you will find our dive bombers hurdling out of the sky to hit Japanese Carriers whose decks were filled with planes being fueled and armed and moments away from launching a strike upon U.S. Carriers. The resulting carnage saved the day and secured a incredible victory for the U.S. Navy.
Fuchida began his report with a simple phrase that roughly translates to "it happened this way", and the story above is what followed. However in recent years, historians reviewing the Japanese records have found that "what happened" was somewhat different. Yes, the strike forces was being rearmed and refueled, but they were all below deck in the hanger bays of the AKAGI, KAGA, and SORYU. Their flight decks were clear, save for a few Combat Air Patrol (CAP) fighters that were either preparing to launch or had just landed. This may look like a small oversight, however Fuchida made it seem as though an a massive strike force was on deck and moments away from being launched. The reality was that the carriers had been dodging attacks all morning long while simultaneously arming/rearming planes to first re-attack Midway and then strike the recently discovered U.S. Carriers. On top of all of that, they also had to keep the decks clear to recover the planes that had bombed Midway earlier that morning.
The bottom line is that at no point during the morning of 4 June did the Japanese aircrews have the opportunity to fully fuel and rearm the planes, get them to the flight deck, spot them, and warm up their engines. Therefore, there was no strike force ready on deck to attack the U.S. Carriers. This begs the question of why would Fuchida say that they were ready to strike, when in fact, they were never even close? The answer: To Save Face. Ask yourself which version makes a defeated Navy sound better? Unorganized, struggling to respond to a fluid battle situation and then getting caught in the open by American bombers resulting in the loss of 4 Carriers. Or a well honed naval strike force, surprised by the discovery of U.S. Carriers and valiantly fighting off attacks and being moments away from launching a victory assuring air assault when suddenly....the fickle Gods of war allow a small handful of American bombers to snatch it away at the last moment. My choice, as well as Fuchidas' was the latter.
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