Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Messerschmitt Bf109E White 4


I was reading and listening to stories on the NPR website about Memorial Day and found this audio recording of Sir Hilary in 1940 describing his thoughts on his first day in air combat.

There's also a fascinating story about the Lafayette Escadrille - a group of American students who formed one of the very first fighter pilot groups in France during WWI.
They were studying in Paris when war broke out in 1914 so they decided to lend support to their adoptive home.

It's worth a look see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186752528/france-pays-tribute-to-first-u-s-fighter-pilots







Ed. Note:

Funny.

I was laying on the couch yesterday watching "The Dirty Dozen" with Lee Marvin and here's a story about the real guys who inspired the real story.


From NPR -
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186273553/jake-mcniece-wwii-hero-and-self-described-troublemaker

Sixteen million men and women served in uniform during World War II. Today, 1.2 million are still alive, but hundreds of those vets are dying every day. In honor of Memorial Day, NPR's All Things Considered is remembering some of the veterans who have died this year.

The Dirty Dozen was a Hollywood hit, but it was based — loosely — on a true-to-life WWII paratrooper regiment. Jake McNiece led the group, whose exploits inspired the 1967 movie and earned the nickname "The Filthy Thirteen." McNiece died in January at the age of 93.

While the movie took liberties with The Filthy Thirteen, the real-life McNiece was no less colorful than Maj. John Reisman, the character played by actor Lee Marvin. As McNiece recalled in an interview a few years ago, he considered himself "the head troublemaker" of a group of troublemakers.

On the eve of the Normandy invasion in 1944, his men jumped behind German lines. Some called it a suicide mission. For the D-Day jump, McNiece shaved his head and painted his face — and the look caught on with his men.

"So I started cutting their hair and I put markings all over their face for camouflage," McNiece recalled in a 2008 interview. "And it looked like a bunch of war paint with Indians."

Enlarge image
McNiece received four Bronze Stars, two Arrowhead Bronzes and was appointed a Knight of the French Legion of Honor.

Courtesy of the McNiece Family
"It was a morale booster," says McNiece's widow, Martha. "And it not only scared the Germans; it scared the Frenchmen when they landed in France."

McNiece's son, Hugh McNiece, says it wasn't just the unorthodox haircuts that earned The Filthy Thirteen their name. "They didn't take a lot of baths and they didn't keep their barracks very clean," he says. "And that went along with just a lot of disregard for military discipline."

In a 2002 interview, Jake McNiece said The Filthy Thirteen got away with a lot of stunts.

"We went AWOL every weekend that we wanted to, and we stayed as long as we wanted to. We stole jeeps; we stole cranes. We blew up barracks; we blew down trees. And we stole the colonel's whiskey," he said.

That sort of misbehavior was a long way from the The Dirty Dozen portrayal of a team comprising murderers and psychopaths. But the Hollywood spin stuck.

"The Filthy Thirteen had to live down the fact that they weren't criminals for the rest of their lives," says Martha McNiece.

Understandably, Jake McNiece never was a fan of The Dirty Dozen — yet the movie, in a scene where Lee Marvin portrays Maj. John Reisman, captured an element of truth about The Filthy Thirteen: "Look, they might not be pretty, but any one of mine is worth 10 of yours," says the major. "My contention is that my men are more than able to handle any job given them."

After D-Day, McNiece helped resupply troops in the Battle of the Bulge and took on other tough assignments. He received four Bronze Stars, two Arrowhead Bronzes and was appointed a Knight of the French Legion of Honor.


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http://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186286259/after-wwii-a-letter-of-appreciation-that-still-rings-true

In the fall of 1945, my father was honorably discharged from the Navy. He was one of the lucky ones. He'd served on a destroyer escort during the war, first in convoys dodging U-boats in the Atlantic and then in the Pacific where his ship, the USS Schmitt, shot down two kamikaze planes. My dad always kept a framed picture of the Schmitt above his dresser, but, like most men of his generation, he didn't talk a lot about his war years.

One story he did tell me, because it haunted him, was about a shipmate who was lost on duty one night. That sailor had told the other guys on watch that he was going to the galley to get some cherry pie and coffee; while he was crossing the deck a wave smashed into the ship and washed him overboard. The captain, against regulations, ordered the ship's lights turned on to search for the sailor in the black waters. That poor guy was never found. Like I said, my dad was one of the lucky ones.

And how special he must have felt in late December of 1945, when a letter from Washington, D.C., came for him at his sister's house in Llanerch Hills, Pa. My father was living with his sister and her family because, by then, both of his parents had died. The letter, signed in fountain pen, was from the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal. It began:


Click here to see the letter James Forrestal sent to John Joseph Corrigan.
Courtesy Maureen Corrigan
My dear Mr. Corrigan:
I have addressed this letter to reach you after all the formalities of your separation from active service are completed. I have done so because, without formality but as clearly as I know how to say it, I want the Navy's pride in you, which it is my privilege to express, to reach into your civil life and to remain with you always.
I found this letter about a year ago in one of the many boxes of stuff that people leave behind when they die. My dad died in 1997 and I'm still finding stuff. The beauty of the letter's opening paragraph literally took my breath away. This may have been a "form letter," but there was a compassionate presence behind those words. Someone, either James Forrestal, or an anonymous aide serving under him, had the humanity to think about the hundreds of thousands of sailors who were going to have to adjust to civilian life; many of them, like my father, had been in the Navy since right after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In that pre-computer age, clerical staff would have had to hunt up all those former sailors' forwarding addresses and mail this letter out to them. The letter goes on to list some of the achievements of "the greatest Navy in the world." And it concludes with these words:

For your part in these achievements you deserve to be proud as long as you live. The Nation which you served at a time of crisis will remember you with gratitude.
The best wishes of the Navy go with you into civilian life. Good luck!
I've tried to find out what I can about this letter. It seems that it was sent, as it should have been, to all discharged sailors; the fountain pen signature on my dad's letter is probably a facsimile of Forrestal's handwriting, made with an "autopen." If you go on eBay you'll see this same "vintage" letter for sale, for as low as $14.99.

Also sad is Forrestal's own post World War II history: He became the first-ever secretary of defense under President Truman, but Truman later dismissed him in March 1949. Suffering from depression, Forrestal committed suicide two months later by jumping from a window on the 16th floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital. Many conspiracy theorists still allege that Forrestal was murdered.

Here's what I know for certain: I know that when my 25-year-old father received this letter, it meant the world to him. I'll bet that, in 1945, most other discharged sailors around the country felt the same way. I've asked a couple of friends who served in Vietnam whether they ever received a letter of gratitude and they say "No."

One vet I showed my dad's letter to printed a copy to tape over his desk, so that other vets in his office could read it. Almost seven decades later, that letter conveys something special to ex-service people. I know Memorial Day is about honoring those who've died in service to this country, but the tender grace in that gesture from an earlier age reminds us that gratitude to those who've served and continue to serve doesn't need to be rationed.












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