“Greatest Generation”? Yeah, I Think So.
Provided without comment, except to say: well done, sir. Thank you.
At 94, WWII veteran is still carrying the flag at Fort Snelling
Category: Veterans Issues
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Thank you Hondo. What a grand gentleman. Thank you Mr. Quentin De Nio sir, for all you gave and all you still give. God bless.
Thank you Mr. De Nio, for all you do. You are an inspiration and blessing to many.
Mr De Nio I’ll send the message I think my father would have: BRAVO ZULU. Well Done Sir. I pray we may be worthy.
No intention of taking away the good for those of that gen that really did stand up to be counted, and continue to do so. All glory to them as it is well earned.
But, lets also not forget the bad.
Example:
The US invasion fleet arrives off shore of Guadalcanal. The merchant marine union calls for a strike and refuses to do their damned job in unloading the supplies and equipment.
Sons of bitches should all have been shot for mutiny.
Careful, Grimmy. That story appears to be an example of an urban legend. In particular, the Navy and other sources seem to say it never happened.
http://www.usmm.org/shipstrike.html
Careful yourself, Hondo.
You can read it in any number of first person accounts from the Marines who were part of that landing force.
Grimmy: provide a citation, please. I did.
I can’t recall which of the first person accounts went into specific detail on that particular event, but this list should cover it.
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/goodbye-darkness-memoir-pacific-war-ebook/B000B1OJWI/B001MT5NT6
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/guadalcanal-tarawa-beyond-marines-pacific-ebook/B003LBE8DA/B003URQH8Y
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/helmet-my-pillow-parris-pacific-ebook/B000B59LBS/B0035J5DJ6
This one not a first person account, more of an overview:
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/challenge-pacific-guadalcanal-turning-point-ebook/B003F062QI/B003EY7IOU
Goodbye Darkness is probably a good place to start.
You can also ask the guy that runs this blog:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/
to send you info on how the dock workers in the ANZAC AO went full on sabotage against the same troops and supplies that were being used to safe guard their own asses in that AO.
Grim: nice. You do realize that essentially you just told me to “read a book” 3x vice providing anything resembling specific facts or citations backing your argument – right? IMO, that’s essentially the equivalent of someone who doesn’t believe in evolution saying “read the Bible if you don’t believe me” when challenged.
Still: if and/or when I have time and resources, I’ll track down those 3 books and take a look at them.
I am sorry. I know it’s not good form. But I don’t have an actual site that speaks to that event. All I have are first person accounts of men who were there during the event.
On the flip side, I’m one of those who have no faith remaining in official USNisms. They’ve gone full on PC ass cover for at least a couple decades now.
Anecdotal evidence can also be found in how our good socialist citizens changed their tune with a hard suddeness about US interventionism in the European AO after Germany attacked Russia.
Prior to that, the mass marches were all about “not our business, stay out of it”. The next day, it was all about “why aren’t we fighting the good war, yet?”
There is also a track record of collusion between US merchant fleet strikes during the early phases of the war in the Pacific, and those of unionist brotherhoods among the Aus and NZ pops.
Grimmy: I understand full well that the Navy/Army/DoD could well be lying through it’s teeth. Exactly that has happened before many times, and what you claim is quite consistent with known union behavior in other areas. That’s why I’m willing – when time/resources permit – to take a look at the works you cited.
Reputedly, the MM union sued those claiming that they “went on strike at Guadalcanal” and prevailed. (I’ve seen that claimed, but I don’t have a citation for that so I can’t say definitively that it happened.) But if so, that raises the bar for proving the occurrence even higher.
For the record: it wasn’t only the left and unions that changed their tune regarding WWII after Pearl. Rightist isolationists like Lindbergh also shut the hell up on the subject, as did more moderate (by comparison) folks like Joe Kennedy who’d previously urged America to sit out the war.
Yep. Lots of useful idiots in that Peace at ALL cost crowed.
But the mass marches, that the newsies used to use heavily to prove the “nation’s mood” were full on marxist/socialist. Much like our current commiescum outfits.
Flip side again. This is mostly 20/20 hindsight by me and those like me. If I had been in that day and time, I’d most likely have been of the “screw Europe. Let ’em bleed each other dry” mindset myself, kinda like I am today, actually.
Oh, forgot to mention yesterday… about that Joe Kennedy.
Didn’t he have a massive financial self interest in maintaining the status quo with our lend lease to the UK before we actually jumped into the fray?
I mean, wasn’t he abusing the convoy system to illegally import black market goods to and from England?
Dunno, Grimmy. But given how Joe Sr. reputedly made his fortune during Prohibition, IMO that’s entirely plausible.
Dang it. Need an edit button… or more coffee.
Lindbergh was an out and out, loud and proud Nazi supporter until we officially started shooting at the scumbags, wasn’t he?
Joe Kennedy (Sr.) made his money running bootleg whiskey during Prohibition and shorting stocks in the stock market. When the market crashed, he had a massive fortune on his hands and went right on with what he’d been doing.
Dunno if I’d go as far as to call him a “Nazi supporter”, Grimmy (though Roosevelt and his political allies certainly attempted to portray him as such). But Lindbergh certainly seemed to sympathize with Germany somewhat prior to Pearl, and definitely preferred them to the Soviets. He also appears to have been somewhat anti-Semitic.
Ex-PH2: yes. And his appointment by FDR as first Chairman of the SEC didn’t hurt in furthering/maintaining his family’s fortunes, either. (smile)
Hondo – quick query says Lindbergh was honored by the Nazis in 1938 and donated to the Hitler Fund in ’33. I don’t think he should be described as pro-Nazi after WWII stared, but certainly was more than just an isolationist prior to the war’s start.
David: yeah, Goering presented Lindbergh the Commander Cross of the Order of the German Eagle for his 1927 trans-Atlantic flight and other contributions to aviation in 1938. Germany also gave Henry Ford the same award earlier that same year, presumably for contributions to the automotive industry. So I wouldn’t exactly say receiving that award proves Lindburgh was “beloved” by the Nazis.
I looked, and I can’t find anything about that 1933 contribution you mention. The closest thing I can find is the “Adolf-Hitler-Spende der deutschen Wirtschaft”, which was established in 1933 but appears to have been an internal German affair.
Source, please?
Hondo- sorry, back behind firewall and unable…was a comment in a list of Americans like Henry Ford and Lindbergh who received the medal from the Nazis in 1938.
David: I think that original commenter was mistaken about the “Hitler fund” contribution. The Hitler fund – in German, “Adolf-Hitler-Spende der deutschen Wirtschaft” – was a fund initiated by the Nazis to raise funds via contributions from German workers. (Contributions were at first voluntary, but later reportedly became more coerced.) The fund began in 1933, but appears to have targeted German laborers vice foreign high-profile individuals.
I’d seriously doubt they hit up Lindbergh for a donation the first year of the fund’s existence, as Lindbergh was still living in the US at that time. It’s more plausible that the fund’s nature was misrepresented to Lindbergh during his 1938 visit and that he gave a small donation as a goodwill gesture during same (remember, Lindbergh was presented his medal well before Kristalnacht).
Even so, I’ve not been able to find anything else about such a donation on Lindbergh’s part. If you could provide a pointer to something about that, I’d be very interested in reading same.
@17, Hondo:
Yeah. I forgot about the FDR propaganda machine back in the day. Also, buddying up to Fascism/Nazism was pretty popular to a broad spectrum of those wanting some organized resistance to communism. That pretty much ended once the shooting started, iirc.
As to the anti-semitism, that was very wide spread and not at all limited to any particular part of the political spectrum.