Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Come on, man.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / The 73rd Anniversary of D-Day

The 73rd Anniversary of D-Day

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Today is the 73rd anniversary of D-Day.

Here is the lost, but now found, D-Day documentary:

 

From the Unwritten Record blog:

The First D-Day Documentary

Posted onSeptember 9, 2014by

This post was written by Steve Greene. Steve is the Special Media Holdings Coordinator for the Presidential Libraries System. Previously, he was the audiovisual archivist for the Nixon Presidential Materials.

Despite being cataloged, described, and housed at the National Archives for decades, the films created by the U.S. Military during World War II still hold unexpected surprises.

In a recent search for combat moving image footage to complement the Eisenhower Library’s commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings, I identified four reels of a documentary on the landings prepared by the “SHAEF [Supreme Headquarter Allied Expeditionary Forces] Public Relations Division.”

These reels were assigned separate, nonsequential identifying numbers in the Army Signal Corps Film catalog, suggesting that the Army did not recognize them to be parts of single production. Rather than offering the perspective of a single combat photographer, the reels shifted perspective from the sea, to the air, to the beaches, suggesting careful editing to provide an overview. The 33 minutes of film were described on a shot card as “a compilation of some of the action that took place from D Day to Day Plus 3, 6-9 June 1944.” The production, with no ambient sound, music or effects, includes a single monotone narrator and gives the impression of a military briefing set to film.

This film is probably the first film documentary of the events of the first four days of the D-day assault, created within days of the invasion.

More at the link.

Here’s the US Army Europe’s Military Band playing at the 70th anniversary festivities:

Here’s a 70th anniversary air drop over France:

The President doesn’t seem to have made any formal remarks, but he did issue a commemorative tweet!

Here’s President Reagan’s 40th anniversary remarks:

And President Obama at the 70th anniversary:

Reader Interactions

176Comments

  2. 2.

    raven

    My understanding has been that almost all of the footage of the D-Day Landings were gathered by one officer who put them in a duffle bag and dropped them in the drink as he climbed up a cargo net.

  3. 3.

    efgoldman

    Thanks Adam.
    I got a nickel says “the president” never saw that tweet, let alone wrote or approved it.

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Okay, the 73d anniversary is not a big one, but a tweet? Also, that generation is fast disappearing.

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    @raven: That had been mine. Apparently a keyword search at Youtube and Google do not agree with us.

  7. 7.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I was thinking about this all day, and yesterday.

    I once went down on Omaha Beach with someone and we stayed too long and by the time we clambered up to the parking lot they had locked us in. I had to go knock on the door of the concierge, who was nice enough about it. And luckily was home.

    Not sure why I think of that except it was so peaceful down on the beach and such a pleasant place to be, we lost track of time. You just stand there trying to imagine.

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Not sure why I think of that except it was so peaceful down on the beach and such a pleasant place to be, we lost track of time.

    Memories of a better time.

    We all have them now.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I was actually at US Army Europe, under temporary assigned control (TACON) as the Cultural Advisor to the Commander when the 70th anniversary events were going on. Unfortunately I was working on a hard deadline to help get a several hundred page report done and never made it out of the headquarters building in Wiesbaden that week.

  14. 14.

    raven

    After what seemed an eternity, Capa turned away from the beach killing zone and spotted an incoming LCI (landing craft, infantry). He headed for it. “I did not think and I didn’t decide it,” he later wrote. “I just stood up and ran toward the boat. I knew that I was running away. I tried to turn but couldn’t face the beach and told myself, ‘I am just going to dry my hands on that boat.'”

    With his cameras held high to keep them from getting waterlogged, Capa was pulled aboard the LCI and was soon out of harm’s way. He had used three rolls of film and exposed 106 frames. After reaching England, he sped by train to London and delivered his precious film for developing.

    A darkroom technician was almost as anxious to see the invasion images as Capa himself. In his haste, the technician dried the film too quickly. The excess heat melted the emulsion on all but 10 of the frames. Those that remained were blurred, surreal shots, which succinctly conveyed the chaos and confusion of the day.

  17. 17.

    raven

    From the article

    Many fixed cameras mounted to landing craft were destroyed by fierce enemy fire, and an entire duffel bag filled with film shot in the first day of landings was reported lost overboard by an officer transporting the film for processing.

  18. 18.

    JMG

    I was in France in ’94, but too late for the 50th. Was in Paris for 50th Liberation Day, though. Pretty cool.

  20. 20.

    eclare

    Thank you, was just talking to my 79 yo mom who was sad that no one remembered what today was. Sent the link to her.

  23. 23.

    zhena gogolia

    @raven:

    The Times recently published a correction saying this wasn’t the case. I don’t know what they based it on, they gave no source. But they said it wasn’t the fault of a technician, it was the conditions on the beach.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    That reminds me, I still need to watch the documentary of Five Came Back.

    Apparently John Ford used to make John Wayne cry on sets by reminding him that Ford went overseas to shoot war footage while Wayne got a waiver and stayed home in the States. (Wayne had 4 kids under 18 at the time, which was one of the reasons he was able to get a waiver.)

  26. 26.

    raven

    A friend told me a story about his dad. He landed on D-Day, fought his way inland and was resting under a lime tree. He had a packet of family photo’s that he managed to drop. A little girl found them and kept them until she asked her granddaughter to try to find the family of the owner. She did and she returned them with a beautiful letter explaining how she came by them.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, as someone who works in an archive, I can tell you that stuff gets lost all. the. time. Someone mislabels a box, or puts a folder in the wrong box, or misspells a name in the catalog, and now you have no frickin’ clue where that footage or piece of paper is.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: He also got a waiver because he was scared to go and believed that if he stayed he’d have a leg up, career wise, over all the better known actors who left Hollywood to serve in Europe and the Pacific.

  30. 30.

    raven

    @Mnemosyne: It’s good. I didn’t realize that Ford was wounded at Midway shooting film. William Wyler came back to the states after filming overseas and, when he went to a hotel, heard a doorman say something about a “dirty Jew”. He decked the dude and was almost courtmartialed. The story of John Huston and the movie at San Pietro is really good too.

  32. 32.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    On the 60th anniversary, the Int’l Herald Tribune in Paris was giving away beautifully done prints of the front page from D-Day and the days after — but not to everyone. I went to get my morning paper and the shopkeeper looked at me and said Americain, oui?, attendez… and reached up on a shelf and pulled out the rolled up print and gave it to me with the paper. I thought that was awfully nice.

    Looked like this. They’re tucked away in storage (see last thread).

  34. 34.

    raven

    @Mnemosyne: I just started a subscription to Ancestry and have a dozen citations abut a relative who was killed on July 22 at the Battle of Peachtree Creek. That day was the Battle of Atlanta, Peachtree Creek was the 20th.

  35. 35.

    hellslittlestangel

    I was going to correct the grammar of “…our troops that stormed the beaches …”, when I realized that The Orange Better One probably regards troops as things rather than people.

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    back a long time ago, Bartcop posted action reports written after D-Day. I have searched & searched but am not able to find them now. The one set was from the first landing crafts to set out for Omaha. They dropped their doors & the machineguns where perfectly aligned so that nobody got off those boats. The report was written by a kid who was along shortly after, they had seen what happened & most went over the side before the door was dropped, most of them did not make the beach either. The writer ended up huddled against a dune with a dozen others that had made it but none of them was fighting, they all were in shock & hiding. It was the most harrowing account of combat I had ever read & wish it had wider distribution to counteract the macho romantic view too many hold of war.

  38. 38.

    raven

    @Omnes Omnibus: Nah, he was killed at the Battle of Atlanta. His unit did not engage at Peachtree Creek but they got decimated at Bald Hill. Actually I’m pretty sure my uncle’s family tree is the document with the wrong info.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And Ford knew that, which was why he would viciously taunt Wayne in front of the crew until he cried. But Wayne just kept coming back for more. It was a weird relationship.

    @raven:

    That’s all in the book. Wyler isn’t as well remembered as he should be, but The Best Years of Our Lives is probably the greatest American film made about the aftermath of WII.

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I actually used that defense once when I was working at a call center and our warehouse guys had lost a computer this poor guy had sent in for a refund. I was able to make him chuckle and got us another couple of weeks to find the damn thing and refund him.

  40. 40.

    bystander

    Since this is an open thread, I’ll post this bit of irreverence. Aunty American’s response to the Breitbart “journalist” who got fired for being too racist is the funniest thing I’ve read today. Including the Dan Coats leak.

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: Which side was he on? I have a great great grandfather who was with Sherman from Vicksburg on through the Washington DC parade.

  45. 45.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @bystander: That’s a winner, thanks.

    Reminds me, weirdly, of an equally great Fran Lebowitz line that to understand her view on exercise you should know that she was “someone who wishes that cigarettes came already lit”.

  47. 47.

    Schlemazel

    @raven:
    I can’t even imagine. I know we all would like to think we would be brave & perform perfectly but I think that for the perfect part at least, most would just flail and hope for the best. Sort of like the beginning on Pvt Ryan

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Dewey decimal doesn’t do you any good if someone misshelves the book.

    Neither does LoC. Or alpha by author. Or pretty much any system.

  49. 49.

    Ruckus

    @Schlemazel:

    the macho romantic view too many hold of war.

    I’ve related here before that I saw no combat. But I did spend 2 months in a navy hospital, and was sent to group therapy. I think I was the only one in the group of about 60 who hadn’t served in combat in Vietnam. Not one of those guys thought it was macho or romantic. Not. One. Far, far from it. I also spend a lot of time these days at the VA, which I may have mentioned once or twice, and while the decades has taken off the edge for a very few guys, the ones I’ve had any conversation longer than Hi, how’s it going, not one of them thinks about it that way. I’ve sat with pilots, marine grunts and army paratroopers, and know someone who was a machine gunner on a navy PBR. None of them see it as macho or romantic, not in any way.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I was amused to find out that Lebowitz really likes kids (though on the same basis I do — she likes other people’s kids). But her reasoning was sound.

  51. 51.

    Schlemazel

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Had a great-grandfather that was with a New York artillery battalion. I remember he was at St. Petersburg but forget the other engagements. I have looked him up online but found nothing remarkable.

    We think of it as so long ago but it is only a couple generations back. I remember obits of ACW soldiers who died when I was a kid.

  54. 54.

    eclare

    Tried to edit my comment, for those of you who have not been, the WWII museum in New Orleans is amazing. It is easily a two day exhibition. It’s divided into two sections, one for European theatre, one for Japanese. By the time we were done with the European theatre, we were exhausted and didn’t spend the time we should have with the Japanese.

    It also has a growing collection of planes.

  58. 58.

    MobiusKlein

    Thank you for posting this.

    I appreciated all the bicycles that came ashore, and the “Dump Mae West” sign as well.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Schlemazel: It is weird. My great grandmother was the daughter of a civil war vet. I knew her. I was eight when she died. I was born nearly 100 years from the end of the Civil War.

  60. 60.

    HRA

    The contrast is never so vivid of a president who never made it about him to the present president who makes every utterance all about him.
    Thank you for posting this video, Adam

  62. 62.

    NYCMT

    Pop-pop got out of Dachau on December 12, 1938, and a friend flew him over the Bodensee into Switzerland between Christmas and New Years. He crossed the Atlantic and reached New York in late July of ’39, went to work for a cousin in a Philadelphia bakery. After the war started, he was drafted, trained in Biloxi, Mississippi, and rode a landing craft into Omaha with the third wave of the Big Red One.

  63. 63.

    ??‍? Martin

    My great uncle was there. He was a medic at Utah, his first combat deployment. Apparently he spent quite a bit of time hauling dead and wounded up the beach just as they were getting a toehold. Apparently he did well, and did well afterward – never got wounded, but like my grandfather (other side of the family) returned with PTSD. It wasn’t nearly as debilitating as with my grandfather (3 yrs pacific theater including Iwo Jima), but I remember having him having panic attacks from time to time when I was a kid over what seemed to be very odd things. He was claustrophobic even just being in a normal house. You’d have to open the windows when he visited even in the dead of winter.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    I’ve seen The Best Years of Our Lives, but it’s been a while. Have to look it up and see how I like in now but I remember it as being a very realistic portrayal of how many have reentered the world after combat.

  68. 68.

    NYCMT

    @Omnes Omnibus: He was a baker/medic. Served until his unit reached the German border, then came down with cystitis and kidney failure – we always said, from the beatings he had in Dachau. He came home, married my grandmother, ran a bakery in the Philly suburbs, and died of uremic poisoning three months short of his seventy-third birthday, with a daughter and two grandchildren. He made me devil’s food cakes. I wear his tallis and tefillin.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    @??‍? Martin: I had a great uncle who was at Normandy too. I only saw him a couple of times when I was a kid. He always liked youngsters.

    I asked my mom about him once, that I remember. She said the war changed him, but he never talked about it. He never married. He lived with his mom (my great-grandmother) on a farm in the country for the rest of his days.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @Schlemazel:
    That is true.
    A funny story along those lines (at least to me) I joined the navy on a delayed entry program (gave you a couple of months to continually ask yourself, how fucking stupid am I, and answer every time, pretty damn fucking stupid) but the marines kept calling my house trying to get me to join. I went to the recruiting station and told them to stop calling. I was 20 at the time and the two HS kids sitting there and getting the entire line of bullshit were amazed and I don’t think could imagine that someone would walk in and tell 2 marine sargents to stop bothering him. Never did receive another call.

  71. 71.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Omnes Omnibus: I do too. He was in the 11th Iowa from Wiĺton, Iowa. Family moved to IA from VA in 1849. Some of the relatives who stayed in the Shenandoah Valley fought for the South at Gettysburg.

  72. 72.

    Origuy

    None of my ancestors were in WWII. My grandfathers were too old and my father and his brother were too young. They were in Korea; Dad was in the Corps of Engineers and I don’t know about his brother. I think he was in the Navy. One of my grandfathers was in WWI. He went to France with the Balloon Corps. I know of one ancestor in the Civil War. He joined the Union Army in February 1865, just a few months before the ware ended. He was around 26; I always wonder why he waited so long and how he avoided being drafted. His unit was sent to Georgia to guard the railroads. Not completely safe, as there were still a lot of rebels with grudges.

  73. 73.

    Steve in the ATL

    @NYCMT:

    Pop-pop got out of Dachau on December 12, 1938, and a friend flew him over the Bodensee into Switzerland between Christmas and New Years. He crossed the Atlantic and reached New York in late July of ’39, went to work for a cousin in a Philadelphia bakery. After the war started, he was drafted, trained in Biloxi, Mississippi, and rode a landing craft into Omaha with the third wave of the Big Red One.

    Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ

    Philadelphia?!?

  74. 74.

    Quinerly

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Time is a funny thing. My mom was born in 1923. She was the first great grandchild of a Confederate war hero (wounded twice, one of 4 in his regiment that walked home to NC after the surrender). Her “Grandpa Bill Joe” wanted to live long enough to see her walk. He died in the morning. She started walking in the afternoon and her parents couldn’t get her to stop ? Side story…very conflicted past, he was 18 when he went to fight for the “Cause,” just a poor boy from a poor family who owned no slaves. ***I, too, was born nearly 100 years after the Civil War.

  80. 80.

    Lyrebird

    @NYCMT: I got to meet a D-Day vet who’d started in Poland, where they’d only just let a few Jewish men into the army out of desperation (he was good w/engines, & they had these new tanks from France, see…)… He was able to march fast enough to evade the Germans, fought with the French army, did time in a labor camp in Spain (who knew??? not me), then fought with the British. He wasn’t even the only one, though the narrator in the above doesn’t mention that the Polish Army in Exile had joined forces with the British Army… this man came up to my shoulders maybe? but all made of wire and gristle and determination. Like your Pop-pop.

    ETA: and thanks Adam

  81. 81.

    debbie

    Big of him to remember, but he should have remembered at the beginning of the day.

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:
    Those 60 or so guys that I sat with in 1973 in the hospital? To this day I can not imagine that a few of them aren’t still there on that psych ward. And that a majority of them are not and never will be fully recovered. It deeply affected me, just sitting there listening to them. It still bothers me to this day, those memories, that weren’t even mine. People wonder why most combat vets don’t want to talk about it. Not me. Not for a nanosecond.

  84. 84.

    Quinerly

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Generations are funny. My parents were considered old when they had me. They dated through the late 1940’s into the 1950’s. My mother finally agreed to marry my father in 1959. I was born in 1961. Just lost her at age 92 in 2015. Her favorite thing to say to me when she was 90 plus was, “I just can’t believe I have a daughter in her 50’s.”?

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    A bit O/T, but the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi died today. He is one of those people that, if anyone had mentioned his name, I would have guessed had been dead for years.

    Also, Roger Smith, of 77 Sunset Strip and Ann-Margret fame. RIP.

  86. 86.

    Another Scott

    @Quinerly: I was told a story (that I barely remember) of someone who fought for the Union in our family, went off to war as a 16 or 18 year old (was either thrown out of the house or ran off). He sent all his pay home. Apparently his parents spent all his pay and kicked him out again when he tried to return. :-/

    For every dozen stories of the “conquering hero” returning, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if his story wasn’t uncommon.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    Origuy

    @Lyrebird: There were four squadrons of Polish flyers with the RAF in the Battle of Britain. The 303 was the most efficient in terms of number of kills of any RAF squadron.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Quinerly: My grandmother was 22 when my dad was born. My dad was 21 when I was born. I am only three-ish years younger than you.

  90. 90.

    Quinerly

    @Another Scott:
    Tend to agree. But in the South, everything is documented! Kidding aside, I just got back from NC, clearing out the house I grew up in…and 5 generations plus of paper! Had the pleasure of reading some of Grandpa Bill Joe’s letters home. A great aunt had even saved all his service papers.

  92. 92.

    efgoldman

    I think some of my mom’s uncles (she was from a VERY large family) may have gone to WW1, but it was before both my time and hers (she was born 1917, would have been 100 this July 1).
    I know one of her uncles was with the Rough Riders in the Spanish American War, Uncle Moe, he brought home a present for Aunt Kitty: Syphilis. She died in an asylum in the 1940s. I met him in the early 70s. Mountain of a man, well into his 90s, hands like first baseman’s mitts, could still crush you. My grandfather was too old for WW1, my uncles on that side too young, and then too old for WW2.
    When mom graduated nursing school in 1938(?) (maybe ’37), she joined the Army – it was an immediate commission and a steady job, near the end of the depression. She had to resign in ’41, when she got married; them was the rules, then.
    Dad was the oldest of five brothers (and a tagalong baby sister). All five went in the service in WW2; he was the only one not to go overseas (although he went on a couple of convoys as a personnel sergeant – scary enough.) My uncles went to England, Italy, North Africa, and Island-hopping from the Philippines in the Pacific. None of them ever talked about it. I am middle-named for my dad’s best friend from Boston Latin and Harvard, who died at or near the Anzio beachhead in ’43 or ’44.

  93. 93.

    Gin & Tonic

    My father was in what Timothy Snyder calls the Bloodlands during the war. Never spoke a word about it until the day he died. I’ve pieced a few things together since based on some others’ accounts, and understand his reticence. But he lived.

  94. 94.

    Lyrebird

    @NYCMT: Thanks. Sounds like his memory is indeed a blessing… glad to see his smiling self in those photos.

  95. 95.

    Quinerly

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    ?. I’m actually thinking of doing a book. My father was an only child (as was my mother, as am I). His mother married 4 times (all marriages done and over with by 1935, single until her death in 1984) and his father married 5 times (4 women from Alabama, 1st and 5th were sisters)?

  97. 97.

    Quinerly

    @efgoldman:
    Las Vegas, NEW MEXICO….the original Las Vegas…great Rough Riders Museum. A must if you are ever near Santa Fe and want a day trip. Wonderful town.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: I used to live there. Or just north of there. We had a place in Pendaries. I highly recommend Charlie’s Spic and Span.

  101. 101.

    J R in WV

    My Mom’s brother was in the Army Air Corps in the south Pacific. He was a turret gunner on a heavy bomber. Never uttered a word about the war the 40 odd years I knew him. Years later, after Mom died (in 1997) and Dad died in 2004, we were cleaning out the family home and I found my Uncle’s silver wings in Mom’s jewelry – he gave them to his little sister when he got home and never saw them again.

    I gave them to my cousin, his only son.

    My dad volunteered, joined the Army on deferred enlistment, but when he showed up for induction physical, the first doc who listened to his chest called another doc over to listen, said “I think he’s got a murmur, Joe?” and Dad said “Is that good doc?” It was good, kept him out of WW II….

    Dad’s brothers were both in the war, George was a Chief on a Cruiser in the Pacific and John was a ambulance driver for the Free French in North Africa. Both came home, neither talked about it.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    @Quinerly: As OO says, please write it down. It’s far too easy for this stuff to get lost. A Slave No More has a couple of amazing short memoirs. It’s important for personal histories to make it into the future, especially stories from times of great conflict…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  103. 103.

    frosty

    My father’s oldest brother enlisted in the USAAF for pilot training, won his wings and commission, and was assigned to fly a C-47 in IX Troop Carrier Command, 435th group, 78th squadron. The only thing he ever said, and the only thing his brothers and my cousins ever knew was that he towed gliders over Normandy.

    My brother and I decided to do some research a couple of years back and ran into the first roadblock that all the records burned in a fire in St. Louis in 1971. With the help of other family members researching their fathers’ histories, etc etc, we pieced it together: Dropped the 82nd paratroopers on the 5th, the 101st in a glider on the 6th. Then Dragoon (southern France), Market-Garden, Bastogne resupply, and Varsity across the Rhine. Along with dozens of resupply and evacuation flights. And amazingly enough, one of the other 435 relatives had two photos of him in France!

    We could never have found all of this before the internet.

  104. 104.

    efgoldman

    @J R in WV:

    My Mom’s brother was in the Army Air Corps in the south Pacific.

    mrs efg’s dad flew PBY Pacific air-sea rescue in WW2. Never talked about it until (as we figured out later) the Alzheimer’s started to take hold.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Dad was in the navy in WWII and never, ever talked about it. Even after I joined the navy or when I got out, he wouldn’t discuss anything with me. He served in the Pacific theater, was a machinery repairman, a machinist. Was born in 1917, mostly Scotch/Irish background, his great grandmother was supposedly Blackfoot Indian, passed away on St Pats day in 2001.

  107. 107.

    Quinerly

    @Steve in the ATL:
    And out of all that, my father was an only child…born 1922. His mom was the second of the Alabama chicks. The first had died, along with twins in childbirth. The 5th wife…my grandfather reconnected with in his 60’s. Baby sister of the first wife. He outlived her, too.

  111. 111.

    vhh

    In 1994, I was working on secondment in a large French energy lab. For the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the French staff who were alive in 1944 invited all the Brits, Canadians and Americans to a champagne reception. I ended up interpreting for the speeches, in which people spoke, in tears, of how they as children saw Anglo-American soldiers die before their eyes. “Those young men came over the sea to fight and die for our freedom, for us.” Then I had to say something, so I said that my grandfather fought in France in WW I, my father fought in France in WW II, making me the third generation.

    And then we all went home and watched George C. Scott in the movie “Patton.” (Le Général Patton in a big hero in France; ordinary French people vie with the Aussies as the most pro-American people on earth).

    I have worked as a physicist in Russia, too. I speak Russian, I have Russian friends, I know that the Russians did more than their share to defeat the Nazis, and their people suffered terribly. Russian history is a series of tragedies—with foreign invasions two or three times per century for the last thousand years. I understand their fears, and I wish them well. Life has improved for lots of Russians since the end of the Cold War—for one thing, they are free to leave if they want.

    But what Vladimir Putin is doing to build his authoritarian regime in Russia—complete with a newly established internal army—the Rusgvardia—that is the re-incarnation of the infamous NKVD–and re-build the extended Soviet empire at the expense of the western democracies is evil.

    In helping further Putin’s goals, Donald Trump is at best a useful idiot, and more than likely to be a conscious collaborator.

    Why? For the money, of course. Back when I was working a lot with the Soviets, I was “invited” to attend a briefing by a high up in FBI counterintelligence. One of his key points was that while most other countries traitors betray their countries mainly for a cause—see for example, the Cambridge spies—American traitors always do it for the money

    And so, on this anniversary of the D-Day landings, we see Donald Trump pissing all over the Western Alliance and the sacrifices of its solders—which have kept our countries free. Instead, he is cozying up to tyrants in the Mideast and Russia.

    A very dangerous situation, which could become an epic tragedy if our politicians do not man up.

    And so I welcome the leak by Reality Winner about evidence for Russian tampering with American election machinery. Yes, she violated the letter of the law, but it was to expose the greater villainy of the bald faced lies of the two most powerful men on Earth, Trump and Putin. It is sad that she leaked to the incompetents of the Intercept instead of the WaPo or the NYT, who might have better protected her identity. I hope that in time, she will be vindicated (or at least spared) as was Daniel Ellsberg, who also broke the law to expose the truth of the Vietnam war. This is not a new drama, it goes back to Sophocle’s Antigone.

    I hope recent events encourage Coats, Pompeo, and Comey to add their testimony this week to the growing pile of evidence against the vile Trumpov regime.

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    From what I’ve read, those heavy bombers could be a horror – I think he was a belly turret gunner, which would have been pretty phobic in every way, tight, no escape, 30,000 feet below you. And if others in the crew were wounded, you had to deal with it as best as you could, with nothing much in the way of supplies.

    It’s hard to learn much about the actual missions. I can sure see why he didn’t talk about it. He grew up in a little coal town out in the countryside, and ran ‘shine into the nearest big town until he went into the Army. My cousin has the pistol he carried, not for cops but to protect his merchandise from being stolen.

    Times were hard once the depression set in.

  113. 113.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Big Charlie’s fan. Love that little tortilla assembly line.❤ I really like Las Vegas. I guess you know about the big bucks being poured into La Castenada? Alan Feldt rehabbing it. He also bought The Plaza Hotel (Poco, the traveling dog, rides the elevator there!)…owns La Posada in Winslow. That whole Little Vegas area is dear to me. Good friends over in Pecos…

  115. 115.

    Mike in NC

    Way back in ’94 my Navy Reserve assault craft unit based in Baltimore participated in the official 50th anniversary of D-Day event held at Fort Story, VA. Thousands of people attended and it was a very memorable and special occasion.

  116. 116.

    frosty

    My father-in-law must be the only vet who talked about WWII. He was on a PT tender in MacArthur’s Navy and liked to tell stories. Best one was the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the last batlleship-to-battleship combat that was ever fought. The Japanese fleet was spotted by PTs, and I’m pretty sure his ship (Wachapreague) passed the news on to the fleet.

    FIL was asleep on the deck when the guns started firing in the distance. His buddies tried to wake him, telling him it sounded like something big was going on. He shrugged them off and slept through it.

  117. 117.

    Quinerly

    @J R in WV:
    ?. My dad was Army Air Corps, Pacific Theater. 125 lbs, 5’7″ from a farm in NC, flying big old transport planes. Once he learned how to fly, he never wanted to stop.

  118. 118.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: My Dad did his masters at Highlands. He went to Spic and Span when it was owned by the original owners (Mama Lucia I think was her name). I haven’t been back that was since 2009. We would spend part of the year out there – the house in Pendaries was Dad’s retirement home. He died three months after he retired. Once I went to work for the Army I never had the time off to go out there and Mom wouldn’t go alone. So she sold it while I was deployed in Iraq. Made a lot of sense. She got a great deal on the sale. But I do miss spending chunks of the year out there.

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @frosty:
    A gentleman I used to work at my hobby, which was a professional sport that used a lot of part time people like me, we got paid but frequently not enough to even pay the bills of just getting to an event used to drive a truck to get equipment to the event. His wife of decades passed away and someone had to ride with him and help drive the truck because he’d stare at her picture he kept on the dashboard. Did that for about a year, 9 or 10 events. He had been a radioman on a C47 flying over the hump in Burma. He would talk your arm off, but that last sentence is all I ever got out of him about his war. Trivia about him, his left arm was useless but he had refused to have it amputated. I could never get a straight answer how he lost the use of it but it never stopped him or slowed him down, except cutting his steak in a restaurant. He could golf one armed better than a lot of people with the use of both.

  121. 121.

    Mike in NC

    @vhh: I was once shown the office at COMNAVSUBLANT in Norfolk where the Walker family collected classified data to deliver to the Soviets. They’re now serving life in prison, while Trump has done basically the same thing with today’s Russians and the Philippino strongman and yet walks free.

  122. 122.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I “found” Vegas in 2011. Leaving SF and wanted breakfast so I stopped at Charlie’s not knowing a thing. Instantly loved the town…friendly visitor center by the tracks, that’s where I stumbled on the dilapidated La Castaneda and started keeping my eye on it. In 2012, I was back on my way to SF…spent two nights in Vegas, did the funky little walking tour, museums,music scene. Been back almost every year for a day trip when in SF in February. Poco had his first elevator ride there in 2014. Have even done those funky hot springs beside the road in neighboring Montezuma…what a trip!

  123. 123.

    Ruckus

    @vhh:
    I believe Reality was caught by her own ineptitude. Apparently she used company copiers and computers to leak this and that’s how they caught her. She may or may not have done this for the right reasons, but I think it will probably not be helpful, may actually hurt any case legally and will cost her a lot.

  124. 124.

    frosty

    @Ruckus:

    He had been a radioman on a C47 flying over the hump in Burma.

    That was not enough airplane for the Hump. C-47s had to fly in the passes between the Himalayas. IIRC once they got C-54s (4-engine DC-4) it got less hazardous because they could get over the mountains instead of through them.

    Growing up in the 50s on my street we had my dad (USAAF, didn’t leave the States), a Hump pilot, a guy who had lost a leg, a Pole? who may have been in a camp, and my scoutmaster, a Captain in the Marines who hit 3 beaches in the Pacific. And I’d bet most streets were similar.

  125. 125.

    MoxieM

    @J R in WV: Yah. My dad was part of a support crew stationed at Chakulia AB near Calcutta (as it was then) for most of the war. They were flying supplies over the Hump up to the Kuomintang, but that’s another story. He wanted to be a pilot, but had lost the hearing in his right ear due to scarlet fever as a kid (another pre-War goodie we don’t think too much about). So, support it was. But the Captain of his SuperFortress would take each and all the crew over the Hump if they wanted to go, and Dad did. They lost 3 of the 4 engines–the planes weren’t built for the thin atmosphere of the Himalayas, and 1 in 4 crashed. Fortunately, everyone on my dad’s survived (not so the Chinese who were building a road beneath them, and who had never seen an aircraft before; they didn’t know to get out of the way and, sadly, died.) It made an incredible story, what with being feasted by 3 days by the local warlord before being located by the AAF and flown out. I have a photo of the plane nose down and crumpled. Stunning. Dad flew all over the Pacific, including a posting on Tinian on his way home–turns out The Bomb was there too, although of course he didn’t know anything about it.

    In the end, he made use of the GI Bill to become an historian, understand the world and not be afraid of it, and spent his career making higher education more available to as many as he could.

    So proud and I miss him every day. I cannot even imagine what he would think of the current *resident. He would be beyond appalled.

  127. 127.

    Laura

    @Quinerly:
    I’m just coming off of 4 weeks of touching paper, reading paper, filing paper.
    Good gravy woman, get yourself an emollient hand cream STAT!

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    @MoxieM:
    I think most of the WWII vets that I’ve known could not believe that someone dumb as a post could be president. Remember for what 20-25 yrs after the end of the war, the guys that couldn’t get elected to the office? They might have been assholes but they didn’t have the maturity of a 4 yr old with daddy issues and weren’t as dumb as a post.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @MoxieM: Thanks for the story.

    In the end, he made use of the GI Bill to become an historian, understand the world and not be afraid of it, and spent his career making higher education more available to as many as he could.

    That reminds me of a prof in my department in grad school. He flew (don’t recall in what capacity) on B-52s in Vietnam. He once said something like, “Once you’ve survived SAMs exploding around you a few times, you learn not to take departmental politics so seriously.”

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  132. 132.

    Quinerly

    @Laura:
    I also touched other things? It just became such a joke with my friends when I was in NC…”what did you shred today, 1940’s bank statements?” I COME FROM PEOPLE WHO SAVED EVERYTHING. And, yes…a few times I thought I had rubbed my fingerprints off….PAPER. In unrelated news, Poco sends out a giant tail sweep to his biggest fan.?

  134. 134.

    vhh

    @Ruckus: I gather that too. She should have just found a way to do a screen dump or even a hand written copy and pass it to the WaPo thru three cutouts. They could then use superior tradecraft to verify. But it is the real bombshell, because it shows active attacks on the election itself. And the fix is simple in concept—paper ballets vetted by an independent Federal Election Commission like that in Australia (where the whole idea of the secret ballot originated). But what with privatization and all, the US would find a way to eff it up, of course.

  135. 135.

    MoxieM

    @Ruckus: Well, he died just before ole Ronnie Raygun got elected… that would have appalled him too! (Dad pursued acting in NY before the war, scraping by on rice & peanut butter, working at Scribners, hanging with the Bright Young Things.) I have a hilarious letter from Thornton Wilder, complaining that his agent basically locked him up in a small cabin (no booze) to finish this damned play. Yup — Our Town ! oh, where was I? What a bunch of folks, despite all the “greatest Generation” hooey.

  136. 136.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman:
    A lot of potential. Interesting housing stock. Love the Victorian District. Also, love that area around the World College (is that right name? drawing a blank. Armand Hammer $, Montezuma, old Harvey Hotel)…that campus is fabulous, the Dwan (sp) Sanctuary. I’m on my smarty pants phone so hard to look stuff up.?

  138. 138.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:
    Knew a guy who flew second seat in an F4. He and his pilot got hit 3 times with Sams. First time they landed back on the carrier OK. Second time they made it back but couldn’t land (don’t know why) and had to ditch, helicopter pick up immediately. Third time they barely made it back to water, bailed out and sat in a raft for a short time before air/sea rescue picked them up as NV boats were getting close. That was his last flight, he resigned his commission rather than see it escalate any further the fourth time.

  139. 139.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: Yep, the area around World College is Galenas Canyon and hot springs where you went for a dip. We have several friends with homes in the Victorian district. Though the oldest and dearest passed away several years ago. Her daughter still lives just out of town by the reservoir. The family has been in the area for several generations on both sides. They basically adopted my Dad when he was in grad school there in the 60s. Which is part of the reason he bought a lot outside of town and built a house on it for retirement. I miss the New Mexican cuisine (Spic and Span, el Paragua in Espanol, Mike’s in Taos – though it was streaky, good some years, not so much others just like Rancho de Chimayo). I miss hiking at Bandalier and in the Galenas area. Oh well – life moves on.

  140. 140.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: My maternal grand uncle, who went on to be mayor of Meriden Connecticut, had his plane shot out around him somewhere over Europe during WW II. He wouldn’t talk about it, but we knew about it because it was the reason he would never fly. Took the train everywhere for the rest of his life. Including to visit us in FL in the mid 70s.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @vhh:
    Saw an article in local paper that CA just passed some bill to upgrade the ballet system we have here, optical scan, always a paper copy to full digital. I’m writing a letter this week complaining that we must always have a paper copy so that ballots can, if nothing else, be counted by humans. Yes it’s slow, yes there can be errors if not enough cross checking, but fully digital? NFW. Some things just don’t need to be “modernized” especially if it’s for no other reason than someone gets to make a pile of money.

  142. 142.

    Kelly

    I heard Taps played graveside for the first time today. My uncle Walt was bombardier on a B29 out of Tinian. We buried him next to his wife of 71 years, who died 2 months ago. He made officer school in spite of leaving high school after 2 years. Became a successful small business man. A life lived well 95 years.

  146. 146.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    This guy would fly, had no problem as long as someone wasn’t aiming missiles at him. OTOH, I could see why someone who flew prop planes in WWII might not want to fly again, a lot of those old planes are not what one might call fantastically reliable. And yes I have flown in a (restored) B-17. Patched together with spit and bailing wire, and flown by someone who flew one in WWII. How people flew on those things at 20,000 ft with people shooting at them I’ll never understand. A friends dad flew P-51 in WWII, he started racing motorcycles in the 50s because he said it was as close as he’d get in real life to the thrill and danger of that.

  149. 149.

    Elmo

    My uncle fought all through Italy and France without a scratch. Came home to Brooklyn and was killed two blocks from home by a couple of mooks robbing a bodega. They were firing blindly behind them to discourage pursuit, and got my uncle square in the head.

  150. 150.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: I never got the details and I’m not sure anyone else ever did either. But I could imagine why that would make someone a wee bit leery. I’ve known plenty of pilots, including my Dad, who would white knuckle it at times when flying as passengers. The most amusing of these was when I was flying to Scotland for the first time to go to grad school. The guy sitting next to me on BA was a Saudi F16 pilot. When he found out what I studied, and that a Jewish American was interested in understanding Islam, its history, its relationship to Judaism and Christianity, its effects on politics and society, etc, I was his new best friend. When he started getting a really bad case of white knuckles he asked if I’d drink with him because he was only doing it to get through the flight and he wouldn’t feel so guilty if I’d join him. So I did. A very interesting 8 hours or so.

  151. 151.

    Tazj

    My dad was in the navy, the Seabees in WWII, in the South Pacific. I had older parents as my younger sister and I were born when my parents were in their 40’s, and the last of seven children to the Irish Catholic sex maniacs(according to my older siblings).

    My dad understandably didn’t want to talk about his experiences, but I know a few things. I know he was on Guam and in Papua New Guinea and at the battle of Leyte Gulf. He spent a night under a jeep because of being shot at by a Japanese plane. He had a pet monkey on one island who would pull his hair for candy but always knew when the Japanese planes were coming.

    He had a great admiration for the natives who worked with them and was amazed at how easily they could climb coconut trees. Many native woman were unfortunately treated badly by US serviceman on the islands.

    My dad had malaria and then pneumonia and was sent to Australia to recover before returning to the war. He always wanted to return to Australia but never got the chance.

  152. 152.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman:
    El Paragua…the whole family of restaurants….Espanola…great bar, the tree. The drive up taco stand on Cerrillos Rd. I could talk forever about NM. As I say, “I drive around and look at stuff, and eat.”

  153. 153.

    Kelly

    The Air Force and Army each sent a pair of guys with a flag and a trumpet. The Army played while the Air Force held handled the flag on the casket. Very emotional moment for us all.

  157. 157.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Quinerly: I miss their steak tips in green chiles and their tacos. And the burritos. And the enchiladas. And the… Screw it, I’ll take it – the whole damn menu! Whenever I’d go hiking at Bandolier we’d stop on the way back then take the back way back to home.

  158. 158.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    He would have hated to fly with me. My MO was/is to fall asleep before the plane takes off and wake up only for the drink cart (soda pop) and the food cart. I can’t do anything more, except open the escape door if I’m sitting in that aisle and it’s needed/possible, so no need to get excited.

  161. 161.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman:
    It’s a beautiful state with beautiful food. I hope you get back once in awhile. As I say, I started my NM journeys on a whim. Looking to change it up for my 50th in 2011…Subaru, dog Leo…Taos bound. Loved those days but then I moved on to Santa Fe for the next 5 Februarys… began to wander further around the state…2018 will give me a month in Bernalillo in February. Big fan of New Mexico. (I even have high praise for Gallup!!)

  163. 163.

    bemused senior

    I posted a link to my Dad’s WWII pictures on memorial day so I won’t again. He flew a P-47 fighter, first stationed in England, then at D-Day, defending against German planes. Then his squadron was transferred to France. He didn’t talk about the war but did say he had great respect for the ground troops​ that landed on the beaches​. In Vietnam he flew aB-66, doing ECM and shooting down SAMs.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I did most of my flying when cell phones were just a phone and lots of them wouldn’t hold the around 500 numbers that I stored and the internet was new and access was dial up. I also did a lot of my flying when cell phones sounded like AM radio under a bridge, because they were, and they were almost the size of a WWII walkie talkie.

  168. 168.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Quinerly:

    Generations are funny. My parents were considered old when they had me. They dated through the late 1940’s into the 1950’s. My mother finally agreed to marry my father in 1959. I was born in 1961. Just lost her at age 92 in 2015. Her favorite thing to say to me when she was 90 plus was, “I just can’t believe I have a daughter in her 50’s.”

    Ha! Generations are indeed funny. I’m the oldest child of oldest children of oldest children, and most married in their early 20s. My mom is also fond of saying she can’t believe she has a daughter in her 50s – and my mom is only 78.

    I’m descended from Abraham Lincoln’s uncle, making me his first cousin 9 times removed. Sounds like you and some others here had only about four generations to cover the same time span.

  170. 170.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s funny. I’m sure there’s some way to figure out how many cousins there would be at the 8th or 9th generation, on average, but I’m too lazy to look it up – at least in the hundreds, I would guess. Unrelated (mostly) to the Lincoln thing, but as a rough approximation, I do have a VERY unusual last name with a tight geographic distribution, and it’s likely that anyone with my surname is also descended from a 17th century couple in Maryland; the wife had the same first name as mine as well. There are only a few hundred people with that surname in the US now.

  171. 171.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I don’t even remember the name, just that we had a member of the class who was descended from President Lincoln’s family on the President’s side. Didn’t know her well, not sure I ever had a class with her, but since there’s only a few hundred per class at Oxford of Emory, you are acquainted with everyone. So if you know of a cousin of yours who went to Emory – Oxford 90, Emory 92 – that’s her.

  173. 173.

    Stan

    @raven:

    My understanding has been that almost all of the footage of the D-Day Landings were gathered by one officer who put them in a duffle bag and dropped them in the drink as he climbed up a cargo net.

    Close but no cigar. There were five invasion beaches and three major division-sized airborne assaults. Omaha beach, which was by far the most heavily-defended sector, was being photographed by the legendary Bob Capa. His film was lost in the manner you describe. Thus almost all the authentic D-Day film and still photography you see is of other beaches.

  175. 175.

    Stan

    @Origuy:

    There were four squadrons of Polish flyers with the RAF in the Battle of Britain. The 303 was the most efficient in terms of number of kills of any RAF squadron.

    Quite so. The Polish pilots were mostly very highly trained, experienced pilots. The Brits, not so much. Also, RAF air combat tactics at the beginning of the war were abysmal, and it took them a while to learn how to do it. This is distinct from their command and control, which was of course world-leading.

  176. 176.

    Bridget

    My dad was a T/Sgt in the Rangers in WWII and he was one of the ones who parachuted into Normandy on 6/5 to do sabotage before DDay. Dad was 20 years older than Mom when they got married, and I was born on Dad’s 44th birthday!

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