On their Shoulders
December 7, 1941 – a day for remembrance and teaching
Good Saturday morning December 7, 2024. . . Over the last 32 years I have asked my students of all ages what happened on this day in History and I have found that as the years went by fewer and fewer of them knew what this date meant or even what Pearl Harbor was all about. Very discouraging. History is something that you need to remember so you will not make the same mistakes again. I fear we are still doing that today. Skip Leonard.. The List This day in Naval and Marine Corps History 1941 – In [...]
Battle of Midway – The Legacy
… a fundamental transformation in naval power had just taken place. Carriers usurped the prime strategic role of battleships in that their principal opponents were their enemy counterparts, and they should only to be committed to battle in the proper circumstances .. Lundstrom, John B. Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway & Guadalcanal Attack on the Akagi by R.G. Smith On the anniversary of the Battle of Midway (June 4-5 1942) , Rememberedsky offers some reflection on the battle particularly in context of sea-based airpower given current tension and potential conflict in the South China [...]
Last of the Few
Group Captain John Hemingway, now 104, was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. He is the last known surviving member of the group Sir Winston Churchill famously described as “the few”.
Testimony of Pilot: The Silver Waterfall
Testimony of Pilot# 22 Stephen Crane once said that he wrote The Red Badge of Courage because reading the cold history was not enough; he wanted to know what it was like to be there, what the weather was like, what men’s faces looked like. In order to live it he had to write it. This book was written for much the same reason. Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels Few battles have received more research, attention and words by historians and authors than Gettysburg and Midway. Each stands as an un-argued hinge and view-port to the nature of that war, [...]
Testimony of Pilot: “I Am a Dragon, America the Beautiful Like You Will Never Know”
Testimony of Pilot#3 From AIRSHIPS; Testimony of Pilot by Barry Hannah … Through Lilian I got the word that Quadberry was out of Annapolis and now flying jets off the Bonhomme Richard, an aircraft carrier headed for Vietnam. He telegrammed her that he would set down at the Jackson airport at ten o’clock one night. So Lilian and I were out there waiting. It was a familiar place to her. She was a stewardess and her loops were mainly in the South. She wore a beige raincoat, had red sandals on her feet; I was in a black turtleneck and corduroy jacket, [...]
Testimony of Pilot: Of the Telling of TINS and the Avoidance of Lawyers
Testimony of Pilot #1 You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn’t any woman and there isn’t any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane, and men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has only one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely plane he loses it to, there his heart will ever be. Ernest Hemingway Spitfire by Barrie Clark This Ernest Hemingway quote is from an article he wrote for Collier’s [...]
Veterans Day 2017: What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Burns and Novick The Vietnam War – A Counter Anthology The PBS documentary The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick has received critical acclaim and has been recommended for showing in schools. It follows Burns reputation well as a work of film art. For all its ‘truth telling,’ I simply cannot get in tune with its overall context. This Veterans Day post focuses on the Vietnam veteran with remembrance of all. “This documentary succeeds in vividly evoking sadness and frustration. But that is not all there was to the story. “The Vietnam War” strives for a moral equivalence [...]
The 4th of June – Remembered Sky Day
Blown Slick Series#5 The A-7 Corsair II carried a healthy fuel load for a carrier based strike aircraft. On major strikes – those to significant, highly defended targets – into North Vietnam called “Alpha Strikes” with 30 -40 A-7,s, A-6’s, F-4’s, bombers, fighters, Iron-Hand MiG Cap, tankers, Electronic Warfare birds and an E-2 control – the A-7’s mostly took off first, landed last. The strike group launched and rendezvoused in a circle above the USS Midway before heading into as we non-PC called it, Indian Country. It took a bit and once joined on my flight lead, it was both a time of anticipation and building [...]
What kind of war was it? – “How do I know, I saw the whole thing backwards!” June 4-7, 1942 at Midway
Battle of Midway, Commanding Officer, USS Enterprise, Serial 0133 of 8 June 1942 At Sea June 8, 1942 From: The Commanding Officer. To: The Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet Via: Commander Task Force Sixteen. (Rear Admiral R.A. Spruance, U.S. Navy). Subject: Battle of Midway Island, June 4 – 6, 1942 — Report of. 1.) The attack delivered upon enemy carriers by the torpedo squadrons of our forces is believed to be without parallel for determined and courageous action in the face of overwhelming odds. These crews were observed to commence their attack against heavy anti-aircraft fire from the enemy carriers and [...]
June 4th 1942 – It begins
Preface to Blown Slick -the series: The evolution of fighter, attack, and strike warfare All days come from one day, that much you must know. You cannot change what’s over, but only where you go… The road that leads to nowhere, the road that leads to you… Will you find the answer in all you say and do, will you find the answer in you? Each heart is a pilgrim, each one wants to know, the reasons why the winds die and where their stories go Pilgrim in your journey you may travel far, for pilgrim its a long way to [...]
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On their Shoulders
December 7, 1941 – a day for remembrance and teaching
Good Saturday morning December 7, 2024. . . Over the last 32 years I have asked my students of all ages what happened on this day in History and I have found that as the years went by fewer and fewer of them knew what this date meant or even what Pearl Harbor was all about. Very discouraging. History is something that you need to remember so you will not make the same mistakes again. I fear we are still doing that today. Skip Leonard.. The List This day in Naval and Marine Corps History 1941 – In [...]
Battle of Midway – The Legacy
… a fundamental transformation in naval power had just taken place. Carriers usurped the prime strategic role of battleships in that their principal opponents were their enemy counterparts, and they should only to be committed to battle in the proper circumstances .. Lundstrom, John B. Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway & Guadalcanal Attack on the Akagi by R.G. Smith On the anniversary of the Battle of Midway (June 4-5 1942) , Rememberedsky offers some reflection on the battle particularly in context of sea-based airpower given current tension and potential conflict in the South China [...]
Last of the Few
Group Captain John Hemingway, now 104, was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. He is the last known surviving member of the group Sir Winston Churchill famously described as “the few”.
Testimony of Pilot: The Silver Waterfall
Testimony of Pilot# 22 Stephen Crane once said that he wrote The Red Badge of Courage because reading the cold history was not enough; he wanted to know what it was like to be there, what the weather was like, what men’s faces looked like. In order to live it he had to write it. This book was written for much the same reason. Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels Few battles have received more research, attention and words by historians and authors than Gettysburg and Midway. Each stands as an un-argued hinge and view-port to the nature of that war, [...]
Testimony of Pilot: “I Am a Dragon, America the Beautiful Like You Will Never Know”
Testimony of Pilot#3 From AIRSHIPS; Testimony of Pilot by Barry Hannah … Through Lilian I got the word that Quadberry was out of Annapolis and now flying jets off the Bonhomme Richard, an aircraft carrier headed for Vietnam. He telegrammed her that he would set down at the Jackson airport at ten o’clock one night. So Lilian and I were out there waiting. It was a familiar place to her. She was a stewardess and her loops were mainly in the South. She wore a beige raincoat, had red sandals on her feet; I was in a black turtleneck and corduroy jacket, [...]
Testimony of Pilot: Of the Telling of TINS and the Avoidance of Lawyers
Testimony of Pilot #1 You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn’t any woman and there isn’t any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane, and men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has only one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely plane he loses it to, there his heart will ever be. Ernest Hemingway Spitfire by Barrie Clark This Ernest Hemingway quote is from an article he wrote for Collier’s [...]
Veterans Day 2017: What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Burns and Novick The Vietnam War – A Counter Anthology The PBS documentary The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick has received critical acclaim and has been recommended for showing in schools. It follows Burns reputation well as a work of film art. For all its ‘truth telling,’ I simply cannot get in tune with its overall context. This Veterans Day post focuses on the Vietnam veteran with remembrance of all. “This documentary succeeds in vividly evoking sadness and frustration. But that is not all there was to the story. “The Vietnam War” strives for a moral equivalence [...]
The 4th of June – Remembered Sky Day
Blown Slick Series#5 The A-7 Corsair II carried a healthy fuel load for a carrier based strike aircraft. On major strikes – those to significant, highly defended targets – into North Vietnam called “Alpha Strikes” with 30 -40 A-7,s, A-6’s, F-4’s, bombers, fighters, Iron-Hand MiG Cap, tankers, Electronic Warfare birds and an E-2 control – the A-7’s mostly took off first, landed last. The strike group launched and rendezvoused in a circle above the USS Midway before heading into as we non-PC called it, Indian Country. It took a bit and once joined on my flight lead, it was both a time of anticipation and building [...]
What kind of war was it? – “How do I know, I saw the whole thing backwards!” June 4-7, 1942 at Midway
Battle of Midway, Commanding Officer, USS Enterprise, Serial 0133 of 8 June 1942 At Sea June 8, 1942 From: The Commanding Officer. To: The Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet Via: Commander Task Force Sixteen. (Rear Admiral R.A. Spruance, U.S. Navy). Subject: Battle of Midway Island, June 4 – 6, 1942 — Report of. 1.) The attack delivered upon enemy carriers by the torpedo squadrons of our forces is believed to be without parallel for determined and courageous action in the face of overwhelming odds. These crews were observed to commence their attack against heavy anti-aircraft fire from the enemy carriers and [...]
June 4th 1942 – It begins
Preface to Blown Slick -the series: The evolution of fighter, attack, and strike warfare All days come from one day, that much you must know. You cannot change what’s over, but only where you go… The road that leads to nowhere, the road that leads to you… Will you find the answer in all you say and do, will you find the answer in you? Each heart is a pilgrim, each one wants to know, the reasons why the winds die and where their stories go Pilgrim in your journey you may travel far, for pilgrim its a long way to [...]