War stories...

[Truckman]

Odd things happen in war, both heroic and tragic...I thought it might be appropriate to start a thread where they can be assembled...

We'll start with the story of why a US Navy Commander was ordered to face court martial for the act of sinking a Japanese ship in the western Pacific with torpedoes during WWII while commanding the operation of his submarine on combat patrol...

Commander Loughlin was found guilty of negligence, and the U.S. Government offered, via neutral Switzerland to replace the Awa Maru with a similar ship. Japan demanded full indemnification.

Commander Loughlin took full responsibility for his actions and accepted the sentence of the court, which included preclusion by Admiral Ernest King from any future command assignments...He resumed his naval career until his retirement as Rear Admiral after 35 years of continuous service, eventually including several more sea commands...

He is buried at the US Naval Academy cemetery...The Awa Maru still lies on the bottom carrying it's cargo of contraband......Ben

[mgrist]

Rear Admiral Loughlin has significantly enhanced the material effectiveness of his complex command, and has upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.[6]

A hell of a man! With all the crap he went through he still served and led over and above!!

[Truckman]

This entry surfaced today from an obscure blogger, and is notable in this thread only because it ties the work of four generations of one family into the outcomes of three different wars, the American Revolution, the War For Texas Independence and the War of Northern Aggression...In my vast research library, I have a proof copy of the history and genealogy of the family in question, written and published in the 60's, and have verified many of the facts as written...It also contains a reproduction of an article titled, "The Beans of Tennessee, Master Gunsmiths," written by Paul M. Fink, originally published in the October 1946 issue of Muzzle Blasts, a gun publication of the time...,,,Ben

[Truckman]

The current talk against Mexican immigrants takes a different tack when one considers the story of Staff Sgt. Marcario Garcia, the first Mexican immigrant to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by a grateful America...The citation for the award reads:

Staff Sergeant Marcario García, Company B, 22nd Infantry, in action involving actual conflict with the enemy in the vicinity of Grosshau, Germany, 27 November 1944. While an acting squad leader, he single-handedly assaulted two enemy machine gun emplacements. Attacking prepared positions on a wooded hill, which could be approached only through meager cover. His company was pinned down by intense machine-gun fire and subjected to a concentrated artillery and mortar barrage. Although painfully wounded, he refused to be evacuated and on his own initiative crawled forward alone until he reached a position near an enemy emplacement. Hurling grenades, he boldly assaulted the position, destroyed the gun, and with his rifle killed three of the enemy who attempted to escape. When he rejoined his company, a second machine-gun opened fire and again the intrepid soldier went forward, utterly disregarding his own safety. He stormed the position and destroyed the gun, killed three more Germans, and captured four prisoners. He fought on with his unit until the objective was taken and only then did he permit himself to be removed for medical care. S/Sgt. (then Pvt.) Garcia's conspicuous heroism, his inspiring, courageous conduct, and his complete disregard for his personal safety wiped out two enemy emplacements and enabled his company to advance and secure its objective.

In later life, after becoming a US citizen, Garcia served as a counselor with the Veterans Administration for 25 years...He also became an activist for the rights of Latino immigrants...This part of his life might never have happened if not for an incident which occurred shortly after he had returned home following the war...Those people unhappy with Garcia's turn to activism may wish to direct their displeasure toward Mrs. Donna Andrews who refused service to Garcia because he was Hispanic in her Oasis Cafe in Richmond, Texas days after he was awarded the CMH by President Harry Truman...

On November 21, 1963 Garcia met with another decorated WWII veteran, President John Kennedy, at the Rice Hotel in Houston to discuss ways to improve ethnic relations in America...The next afternoon, Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas...

When I worked for Goodyear in Houston, I often traveled on S/Sgt. Marcario Garcia Blvd. when my duties took me to Goodyear's Harrisburg store......Ben

[wacojoe]

I know much too little about the First World War. The following article served to inform me truly how little. The article is a chronological list of the battles of that massive confligration, few of which I have even heard, much less know anything about. Many of the brief discriptions jog me to learn more, but the shear number make it obvious knowing much would be a lifetime undertaking. Anyway, here is the list —

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/th...lete-timeline/

Here is one example of a huge campaign with one million casualities of which I know nothing —

June 4-Sept 20, 1916: Brusilov Offensive

Russian General Alexei Brusilov attacked the southern Austrian defences, advancing the front more than 60 miles and inflicting a million casualties.

[Truckman]

I know much too little about the First World War. The following article served to inform me truly how little.

Wow! You and me both, Joe...The first battle alone would take a long time to digest just from its Wikipedia page...I see one discrepancy between it and the newspaper link you provided...The Telegraph article said 30,000 Belgian and 2,000 German losses...Wiki puts it at 30K Belgian, 20k German with 6,000 additional civilians killed...Either way, that's a monstrous loss of life for one battle......Ben

[wacojoe]

You might appreciate this article on the Battle Of The Somme, Ben, which is generating much discussion in the British papers now because it took an horrendous toll of their army 100 years ago next week. The colorized photos put a different feel from what we have grown up with. I tend to think of WWI in aged black & white thoughts and even more unrealistically of silly people moving stiffly and quickly like ancient movies showed them. Stupid, but hard to vacate from your mind even knowing they were very real and just like us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...years-ago.html

[Truckman]

Good find, Joe...For those wondering, in the third picture down the device held by the officer on the left is a trench periscope, used to see what the enemy is up to while keeping one's head attached to one's shoulders...Keep it coming, Joe......Ben

[Truckman]

Cold warriors have their stories too; this one is especially poignant...Edward R. Murrow of CBS radio had prepared a segment of his popular "Hear It Now" series telling the story of a simulated long-range bomber mission featuring a Convair B-36 and its crew, culminating in a bomb run over the Eglin Field practice range in Florida...All went well, and Murrow got the story he wanted, but at the exact time it aired on April 27, 1951, the same B-36 and crew were on another practice mission over Oklahoma...

Included was practice for a flight of P-51 fighters as they took turns diving at the giant, while the bomber's gunners simulated defensive gunnery with their gun cameras...One P-51 pilot miscalculated his attack, and sawed through the fuselage of the B-36, and both aircraft fell from the sky...I can only imagine the horror experienced by the crewmembers as they helplessly fell to their deaths, and what went through the survivors' minds as they floated down to the ground in their parachutes after exiting the broken-off tail section, and being forced to watch the remainder of their team plummet to their fate...

Here is their story......Ben

[Mike]

Army Capt. Paul “Buddy” Bucha faked out the enemy while leading a motley crew in Vietnam.

The Medal of Honor recipient was hailed as a hero after he made North Vietnamese fighters believe his 187th Infantry Regiment was much bigger than it really was. The combination of bravery and cunning helped him earn the nation's highest military honor, an award bestowed upon him by the president.

In 1967, Bucha — who graduated from West Point and earned an MBA at Stanford — arrived in Vietnam and was given a squad filled “with the rejects of all the other units,” including writers, intellectuals and men who had served time in military prison, he said.

“We were called the 'clerks and the jerks,'" he recalled. "We were a few smart guys and a lot of badasses … considered the losers of all losers.”

SOURCE Be sure to read the article and watch the video.

[Truckman]

SOURCE Be sure to read the article and watch the video.

Wow! That could be the "Dirty Dozen" all over again......Ben

[mgrist]

In the longest battle of the war, the German plan to wear down the French army and break civilian spirit failed. Casualties were huge: 355,000 German and 400,000 French.

Russian General Alexei Brusilov attacked the southern Austrian defences, advancing the front more than 60 miles and inflicting a million casualties.

The battle of Somme-Total casualties: 1,088,907 (both sides)

, the Germans were ready for the attack at Chemin des Dames and inflicted 100,000 casualties on the first day.

Just a few of the casulties, where did anybody ever get the people to fight WWII?

[wacojoe]

Just a few of the casulties, where did anybody ever get the people to fight WWII?

That's why at the end they called the war "The Lost Generation" — literally.

[Truckman]

My reply to Fred here turned up another war story after a little reading...Albert Peter Dewey, the first American military casualty in modern Vietnam, had his own set of coincidences before meeting his doom...

A distant relative of Thomas E. Dewey, who met defeat in the 1948 Presidential election at the hands of Harry Truman, he was sent to Vietnam by the Truman administration under the auspices of the OSS (the precursor to the CIA)...He was well regarded in France for his covert activities there during WWII, for which he was personally decorated by General W.J. Donovan...

While in Vietnam, he was responsible for the repatriation of 4,549 Allied POW's held in a Japanese prison camp near Saigon...After being told his flight out of Vietnam was delayed, he decided to have lunch with two news reporters, and was shot and killed in an ambush by the Viet Minh who mistook him for a Frenchman...The mistake is attributed to his not being allowed to identify his jeep with an American flag by a vindictive British officer after Dewey reported the poor treatment of Vietnamese civilians by some of the French POW's he had helped free...

Dewey is not listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. because the United States Department of Defense has ruled that the war officially started, from a U.S. perspective, on November 1, 1955, after the U.S. took over following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

...Ben

[TriGuy]

Good “Old 666”, the Cursed Bomber that No One Wanted to Fly took on 17 Japanese Fighters Alone and Lived to Tell About It



https://www.warhistoryonline.com/fea...vedtell.html/2