To All
Good Friday Morning July 7, 2023.
Great Bubba Breakfast this morning. I hope you all have a great weekend
Regards,
Skip
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This Day in Navy and Marine Corps History:
July 7
1798 Congress rescinds treaties with France, and the Quasi War begins.
1846 During the Mexican-American War, Commodore John D. Sloat, disembarks from his flagship frigate, USS Savannah, at Monterey and claims California for the U.S.
1915 Thomas A. Edison becomes the head of the Naval Consulting Board, which screens inventions for the Navy.
1948 The first six enlisted women are sworn into Regular Navy: Chief Yeoman Wilma J. Marchal; Yeoman Second Class Edna E. Young; Hospital Corpsman First Class Ruth Flora; Aviation Storekeeper First Class Kay L. Langen; Storekeeper Second Class Frances T. Devaney; and Teleman Doris R. Robertson.
1979 USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) is commissioned at her homeport of Norfolk, Va. The submarine tender is named after Adm. Emory S. Land, an officer noted for his designs of submarines.
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Today in World History: July 7
1742 A Spanish force invading Georgia runs headlong into the colony's British defenders. The battle decides the fate of a colony.
1777 American troops give up Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, to the British.
1791 Benjamin Rush, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones found the Non-denominational African Church.
1795 Thomas Paine defends the principal of universal suffrage at the Constitutional Convention in Paris.
1798 Napoleon Bonaparte's army begins its march towards Cairo from Alexandria.
1807 Czar Alexander meets with Napoleon Bonaparte.
1814 Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley is published anonymously so as not to damage his reputation as a poet.
1815 After defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, the victorious Allies march into Paris.
1853 Japan opens its ports to trade with the West after 250 years of isolation.
1863 Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in Hagerstown, Maryland, reports his defeat at Gettysburg to President Jefferson Davis.
1925 Afrikaans is recognized as one of the official languages of South Africa, along with English and Dutch.
1927 Christopher Stone becomes the first British 'disc jockey' when he plays records for the BBC.
1941 Although a neutral country, the United States sends troops to occupy Iceland to keep it out of Germany's hands.
1943 Adolf Hitler makes the V-2 missile program a top priority in armament planning.
1966 The U.S. Marine Corps launches Operation Hasting to drive the North Vietnamese Army back across the Demilitarized Zone in Vietnam.
1969 The first U.S. units to withdraw from South Vietnam leave Saigon.
1981 Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear … Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post
Skip… For The List for Friday, 7 July 2023… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 7 July 1968…
Colonel Jack Harvey Tomes inspirational message: a product of 2400 days as a POW…
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear's Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at
: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
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Thanks to Billy and Dr.Rich
A great article about the unsung hero of the Battle of Midway. The Washington crowd never acknowledged his work and he ended up in the basement in DC .
"The Man Who Won World War 2"
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2 pilots visited 48 US states in less than 48 hours, potentially breaking a world record …
Thanks to Dr. Rich
Two Delta Air Lines pilots say they visited 48 US states in under 48 hours, potentially breaking a world record, the Atlanta-based carrier reported. Captains Barry Behnfeldt and Aaron Wilson completed their goal of stopping in all 48 contiguous states in less time than they expected…
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Thanks to Billy ... And Dr Rich
Like being there!
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
How big was the Inca Empire?
5 Fascinating Facts about the Inca Empire
The Inca Empire was a powerful pre-Columbian civilization that stretched for thousands of miles, once covering almost the entire west coast of South America. Machu Picchu is probably their most famous achievement, but there is much more to the Inca Empire than some ruins on a mountain. Here are five incredible facts about the Inca Empire.
1 of 5
The Inca Empire Was Massive
The Incas didn't have a writing system, so it's hard to determine when the empire officially started. However, it's often said to have reached its prime between 1400 and 1533 CE. The Incas built a strong central government and a massive military that was sustained on taxes (more on those below). By 1471, the empire stretched for more than 3,400 miles, from the border between modern Ecuador and Colombia to about 50 miles south of what's now Santiago, Chile. It was the largest empire in the world at the time, including European nations, and consisted of 10 million people ruled by 40,000 Incas.
2 of 5
The Incas Built an Incredible Network of Roads
Although they never had access to the wheel, the Incas built a vast network of roads that stretched for more than 25,000 miles. These roads were primarily used for trade, military operations, and quickly sending messages across the huge empire. Llamas were one of the Incas' most important assets; these fuzzy beasts of burden were used as pack animals to carry goods and supplies. The roads also included small or large rest stops every couple of miles, so that travelers could take a break or spend the night during longer voyages. Many of the roads (and rest stations) still exist, and are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
3 of 5
The Incas Developed Their Own Postal System
Because their empire was so large and intricate, the Incas had to come up with a way to quickly and efficiently spread messages throughout the land. Chaski were the postal carriers of the Inca Empire. They were trained runners who could collectively cover up to 150 miles per day to deliver a message or goods. The runners worked using a relay system — the first chaski ran 6–9 miles until he reached a small house, called a chaskiwasi, where another runner waited to complete the next leg of the journey. They used the extensive road network and specialized rope bridges to quickly move through the empire. Because there was no written language, each messenger carried a quipu, a unique type of Andean textile that uses a system of knots to record data and information.
4 of 5
The Incan Central Government Collected Taxes
The Incas had a strong centralized government and regularly collected taxes from citizens. Because currency didn't exist, taxes were collected in the form of food, goods such as precious metals or textiles, and even services. The Inca rulers performed annual censuses to keep track of the population and calculate taxes for a given area.
Foodstuffs were stored in government-owned warehouses to feed the army and to help in times of famine. Those who were not farmers or manufacturers could offer labor in lieu of physical taxes. These workers helped with state-run projects, such as building roads.
5 of 5
Machu Picchu Was Never Finished
Machu Picchu was built starting in the late 1400s and was an engineering marvel even by today's standards. Constructed high up in the Andes — 7,800 feet above sea level — the monument consists of over 200 buildings carefully built into the landscape. The precise purpose is unclear; it may have been a royal retreat or served a religious purpose.Unfortunately, the Incas never got the chance to finish it. After Spanish conquistadors landed in South America in the late 1400s, disease wiped out most of the Indigenous population. Machu Picchu was abandoned around 1533. The site is so hard to get to, it wasn't officially discovered by modern researchers until 1911. Today, the ruins are a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site and open to visitors.
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From the Archives
(No mention of the Curtis-Lee Mansion in Arlington National Cemetery-- http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/arlhouse.htm & http://www.nps.gov/arho/index.htm )
Spiritual Wealth
Friday, July 6, 2012
The Nation's Most Misunderstood Man
by Alexander Green
In 1776, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal. Yet it took almost another century - and the bloodiest war in American history - to begin turning that promise into a reality.
I was reminded of this on a trip last month to the famous Gettysburg battlefield, site of the key turning point in the Civil War and the first major loss for General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and, in the eyes of some historians, the most misunderstood man in American history.
When the war broke out, Northern newspapers branded Lee - a distinguished officer who turned down Lincoln's offer to lead the Union army - a traitorous lowlife, a Benedict Arnold who believed one man could own another as he might own a horse or a set of dishes.
Yet this perception is wrong. For starters, the Civil War was not just about slavery. Abraham Lincoln - who failed to carry a single Southern or border state - campaigned on a platform of not interfering with slavery anywhere it was legal, even pledging to maintain it if it would preserve the Union. Not all slave states joined the Confederacy. And almost ninety percent of whites in the South did not own slaves.
Yes, the Civil War was partly about slavery, but it was also about states rights and the limits of a still-young and newly ascendant federal government. In his conversations and letters, Lee - a committed Christian - consistently condemned slavery as unnatural, ungodly, impractical and morally abhorrent. Nor did he support the Southern states right to succeed, calling it "nothing less than a revolution."
So why did he turn down Lincoln's offer to lead Union forces? After all, this was America's highest field command, an opportunity to earn not just the President's gratitude but unparalleled reward and national glory.
The answer can be found in Lee's deep Virginia roots. His father, "Light Horse Harry Lee," was a Revolutionary War hero who fought beside George Washington and was later the state governor and a member of Congress. Yet when Harry defended a friend who published a newspaper opposing the War of 1812, he was attacked by a mob and nearly beaten to death. Disfigured and permanently disabled, he abandoned his wife and children for Barbados, leaving his son to raise his siblings and care for his invalid mother.
Robert was eleven at the time. He quickly learned how to handle responsibility, went on to graduate second in his class at West Point and distinguished himself during the Mexican War in 1847. The American general in chief, Winfield Scott, called Lee the finest soldier he had ever seen.
Yet Lee said he would not raise a sword against his fellow Virginians. As the war approached, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to head the Virginia state militia, taking command of Confederate troops only after Virginia later voted to succeed.
As general, Lee quickly demonstrated that he was a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning numerous battles against larger, better-fed and far better-equipped Union forces.
Lee's reputation soon became the stuff of legend, as he inspired shoeless, starving soldiers to dig deep within themselves and fight beyond their endurance. At times, his Confederate soldiers marched barefoot through fallen snow, lived on cattle feed, and endured countless other privations.
(My Gettysburg guide said Union soldiers claimed they could smell Lee's troops long before they saw or heard them.)
His soldiers' devotion was due largely to the way Lee carried himself. He was always impeccably dressed and groomed, never swore, and exhibited superb posture and horsemanship. He was deeply, genuinely humble as well, never seeking adulation or applause or considering that he deserved them.
Lee fought and suffered with his men, always sharing their burdens and discomforts, wintering with his men even during miserable field conditions, for instance, when any number of wealthy landowners would have been honored to host him.
Lee's troops followed him not out of fear or obligation but out of the greatest respect and admiration. And he returned their devotion, refusing near the war's end to risk a single man's life once he recognized the cause was lost. Lee's farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia - sometimes referred to as "the Gettysburg Address of the South" - is one of the most poignant moments in American history.
The Civil War cost Lee almost everything. He lost his home, his career, his investments, and virtually all his worldly goods. He suffered the premature death of a daughter, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and countless friends and family. He was deprived of his citizenship and liable to be tried for treason. Yet he never abandoned his personal standards or wavered from doing what he thought was right even in the face of devastating consequences.
Perhaps Lee's greatest service to the nation was his example after defeat.
He believed it was his duty to make the best of circumstances, to help rebuild the South and to convince Southerners to become a strong and vital part of the American Union.
He was elected president of struggling Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. Founded in 1749, the school had been nearly destroyed in the war and stood on the brink of collapse. Lee rebuilt it, expanded the curriculum, put the school on solid financial footing, and raised the enrollment eight-fold. He also introduced the honor system. When a new arrival once asked for a copy of the school's rulebook, Lee explained, "We have but one rule here, and that is every student must be a gentleman."
There was no doubt that Lee himself was. He considered it a special honor to push his invalid wife in her wheelchair. During the war, he picked wildflowers between battles and pressed them into letters to his family. He once described two dozen little girls dressed in white at a birthday party as the most beautiful thing he ever saw.
Lee's highest gift to subsequent generations was the example of his own character. He is a reminder that what ultimately matters is not what you have or how much you've accomplished but who you are. Lee dedicated himself to the ideals of honor, fortitude, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Teddy Roosevelt cited Lee - along with George Washington - as one of the two all-time greatest Americans. Winston Churchill wrote that Lee was "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived, and one of the greatest captains known to the annals of war." In Lee: A Life of Virtue, biographer John Perry writes, "To know how he lived, what he thought, and what experiences and legacies defined his life is to know the essence of honor, sacrifice, faith, humility, and ultimate triumph in the face of defeat."
For some, of course, Lee will be forever tainted by the fact that he fought on the side of those who would preserve slavery and dissolve the Union. But if the poet Alexander Pope was right that "the proper study of mankind is man," it will always remain essential to understand not Robert E. Lee the general, the military tactician or the educator, but Robert E. Lee, the man.
Carpe Diem,
Alexander Green
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From the Archives. My brain hurts just trying to take all this in…skip
OPINION
July 5, 2012, 6:57 p.m. ET
The Spark That Caused the Big Bang
There's a reason the newly discovered Higgs boson is called the 'God particle.' It started it all.
By MICHIO KAKU
Champagne bottles were being uncorked at particle accelerators around the world this week as physicists celebrated one of the great moments in scientific history: the discovery of the elusive Higgs boson. Hundreds of physicists and engineers were ecstatic, having devoted almost 30 years of their lives—and $10 billion—trying to track down this almost mythical subatomic particle.
In their press release, the scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, were careful to say they've only found evidence of a "Higgs-like" particle. But this is too modest. With 99.9999% confidence, they can claim to have found the Higgs boson itself.
The key to finding this particle is CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a monstrous doughnut-shaped machine 27 miles in circumference, so big it straddles the French-Swiss border and devours enough electrical energy to light up an entire city. Two beams of protons are shot through this colossal, circular tube in opposite directions. When they're accelerated to near light-speed velocities, they're forced to collide head-on, creating a huge burst of subatomic particles that scatter in all directions. The collision creates energies (up to 14 trillion electron volts) and blistering temperatures not seen since the Big Bang. That's why the collider is nicknamed "the window on Creation." It creates a tiny, mini-Big Bang at the instant of the collision.
For a fraction of a trillionth of a second, the Higgs boson appears at the collision site, before it rapidly decays into a shower of ordinary subatomic particles. Some of the largest supercomputers on earth are then used to shift though this immense amount of data to identify the telltale tracks of the short-lived Higgs boson. It's akin to smashing two grand pianos together at high velocity, completely demolishing them, and then using supercomputers to analyze the noise of the crash to reconstruct a detailed blueprint of each piano—but far more complicated.
For the past 50 years, this expensive process of smashing beams of particles has yielded an embarrassingly large zoo of hundreds of subatomic particles, which can be tediously reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle called the Standard Model of particles. More than 20 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to physicists who have pieced together parts of the Standard Model.
All the particles of the Standard Model had been found, except the last, central piece of the jigsaw puzzle—the Higgs boson. That is why so much was resting on finding the Higgs particle. (If it had not been found, many physicists, I imagine, would have had a heart attack.) The press has dubbed the Higgs boson the "God particle," a nickname that makes many physicists cringe. But there is some logic to it. According to the Bible, God set the universe into motion as he proclaimed "Let there be light!" In physics, the universe started off with a cosmic explosion, the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, which sent the stars and galaxies hurtling in all directions. But the key question is left unanswered: Why did it bang? The big-bang theory says nothing about how and why it banged in the first place.
To put it another way, what was the match that set off the initial cosmic explosion? What put the "bang" in the Big Bang? In quantum physics, it was a Higgs-like particle that sparked the cosmic explosion. In other words, everything we see around us, including galaxies, stars, planets and us, owes its existence to the Higgs boson.
The Higgs boson also answers another profound physical question. Why is the universe so unsymmetrical and broken? When you calculate the masses of the subatomic particles like the electron, proton, neutrino or neutron, at first they seem almost random, displaying no rhyme or reason at all.
The latest thinking is that, just before the Big Bang, the universe was very tiny but also perfectly symmetrical. All the masses of the particles were the same, i.e. zero. But the presence of Higgs-like particles shattered this perfect symmetry. Once the symmetry was broken, the particles were free to assume the various masses we see today.
With the discovery of the Higgs boson, a whole new chapter in physics opens up. CERN's collider could lead to the discovery of unseen dimensions, parallel universes, and possibly the "strings" in string theory (in which the Standard Model is just the lowest vibrating octave). In other words, the discovery of the Higgs is but the first step toward a much grander Theory of Everything.
Mr. Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at CUNY, is author of "Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by 2100" (Doubleday, 2011).
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This Day in U S Military History…….
JULY 7
1863 – Lt. Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson leaves Santa Fe with his troops, beginning his campaign against the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. A famed mountain man before the Civil War, Carson was responsible for waging a destructive war against the Navajo that resulted in their removal from the Four Corners area to southeastern New Mexico. Carson was perhaps the most famous trapper and guide in the West. He traveled with the expeditions of John C. Fremont in the 1840s, leading Fremont through the Great Basin. Fremont's flattering portrayal of Carson made the mountain man a hero when the reports were published and widely read in the east. Later, Carson guided Stephen Watts Kearney to New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. In the 1850s he became the Indian agent for New Mexico, a position he left in 1861 to accept a commission as lieutenant colonel in the 1st New Mexico Volunteers. Although Carson's unit saw action in the New Mexico battles of 1862, he was most famous for his campaign against the Indians. Despite his reputation for being sympathetic and accommodating to tribes such as the Mescaleros, Kiowas, and Navajo, Carson waged a brutal campaign against the Navajo in 1863. When bands of Navajo refused to accept confinement on reservations, Carson terrorized the Navajo lands–burning crops, destroying villages, and slaughtering livestock. Carson rounded up some 8,000 Navajo and marched them across New Mexico for imprisonment on the Bosque Redondo, over 300 miles from their homes, where they remained for the duration of the war.
1865 – The trap doors of the scaffold in the yard of Washington's Old Penitentiary were sprung, and Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, David Herold and George Atzerodt dropped to their deaths. The four had been convicted of "treasonable conspiracy" in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and had learned that they were to be hanged only a day before their execution. Shortly after 1 p.m. the prisoners were led onto the scaffold and prepared for execution. The props supporting the platform were knocked away at about 2 p.m. Assassin John Wilkes Booth had been killed on April 26, 12 days after Lincoln's assassination. Other convicted conspirators–Edman Spangler, Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin–were imprisoned. Surratt was the first woman to be executed in the United States.
1941 – The neutral United States moves closer to war with Germany when U.S. forces land on Iceland to take over its garrisoning from the British. From thereon, the U.S. Navy had the responsibility of protecting convoys in the nearby sea routes from attack by German submarines. With Iceland and its nearby sea routes under U.S. protection, the British Royal Navy was more free to defend its embattled Mediterranean positions. The occupation of Iceland came less than a month after President Franklin D. Roosevelt froze all German and Italian assets in the United States and expelled the countries' diplomats in response to the German torpedoing of the American destroyer Robin Moor. Much of the North Atlantic was now in the American sphere, and U.S. warships patrolled the area for German submarines, notifying London of all enemy activity. The United States officially entered World War II after Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii in December 1941.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
*AGERHOLM, HAROLD CHRIST
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: 29 January 1925, Racine, Wis. Accredited to: Wisconsin. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 4th Battalion, 10th Marines, 2d Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Saipan, Marianas Islands, 7 July 1944. When the enemy launched a fierce, determined counterattack against our positions and overran a neighboring artillery battalion, Pfc. Agerholm immediately volunteered to assist in the efforts to check the hostile attack and evacuate our wounded. Locating and appropriating an abandoned ambulance jeep, he repeatedly made extremely perilous trips under heavy rifle and mortar fire and single-handedly loaded and evacuated approximately 45 casualties, working tirelessly and with utter disregard for his own safety during a grueling period of more than 3 hours. Despite intense, persistent enemy fire, he ran out to aid 2 men whom he believed to be wounded marines but was himself mortally wounded by a Japanese sniper while carrying out his hazardous mission. Pfc. Agerholm's brilliant initiative, great personal valor and self-sacrificing efforts in the face of almost certain death reflect the highest credit upon himself and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
*BAKER, THOMAS A.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company A, 105th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division. Place and date: Saipan, Mariana Islands, 19 June to 7 July 1944. Entered service at: Troy, N.Y. Birth: Troy, N.Y. G.O. No.: 35, 9 May 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Saipan, Mariana Islands, 19 June to 7 July 1944. When his entire company was held up by fire from automatic weapons and small-arms fire from strongly fortified enemy positions that commanded the view of the company, Sgt. (then Pvt.) Baker voluntarily took a bazooka and dashed alone to within 100 yards of the enemy. Through heavy rifle and machinegun fire that was directed at him by the enemy, he knocked out the strong point, enabling his company to assault the ridge. Some days later while his company advanced across the open field flanked with obstructions and places of concealment for the enemy, Sgt. Baker again voluntarily took up a position in the rear to protect the company against surprise attack and came upon 2 heavily fortified enemy pockets manned by 2 officers and 10 enlisted men which had been bypassed. Without regard for such superior numbers, he unhesitatingly attacked and killed all of them. Five hundred yards farther, he discovered 6 men of the enemy who had concealed themselves behind our lines and destroyed all of them. On 7 July 1944, the perimeter of which Sgt. Baker was a part was attacked from 3 sides by from 3,000 to 5,000 Japanese. During the early stages of this attack, Sgt. Baker was seriously wounded but he insisted on remaining in the line and fired at the enemy at ranges sometimes as close as 5 yards until his ammunition ran out. Without ammunition and with his own weapon battered to uselessness from hand-to-hand combat, he was carried about 50 yards to the rear by a comrade, who was then himself wounded. At this point Sgt. Baker refused to be moved any farther stating that he preferred to be left to die rather than risk the lives of any more of his friends. A short time later, at his request, he was placed in a sitting position against a small tree . Another comrade, withdrawing, offered assistance. Sgt. Baker refused, insisting that he be left alone and be given a soldier's pistol with its remaining 8 rounds of ammunition. When last seen alive, Sgt. Baker was propped against a tree, pistol in hand, calmly facing the foe. Later Sgt. Baker's body was found in the same position, gun empty, with 8 Japanese lying dead before him. His deeds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.
Almost all of the Japanese-Americans who served in WWII, were assigned to the 442nd Infantry, a Hawaiian military unit which is now part of the Hawaiian National Guard, and which served in Italy and Southeastern Europe during WWII. They became the most decorated military unit in the U.S. Army during WWII, and served while many had members of their families who were held at Internment Facilities (such as Manzanar, in California). Almost all were "Nisei", or second generation, Hawaiian residents (decades before Hawaii became a state). The following two men probably are examples of this:
*MOTO, KAORU
Private First Class Kaoru Moto distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 7 July 1944, near Castellina, Italy. While serving as first scout, Private First Class Moto observed a machine gun nest that was hindering his platoon's progress. On his own initiative, he made his way to a point ten paces from the hostile position, and killed the enemy machine gunner. Immediately, the enemy assistant gunner opened fire in the direction of Private First Class Moto. Crawling to the rear of the position, Private First Class Moto surprised the enemy soldier, who quickly surrendered. Taking his prisoner with him, Private First Class Moto took a position a few yards from a house to prevent the enemy from using the building as an observation post. While guarding the house and his prisoner, he observed an enemy machine gun team moving into position. He engaged them, and with deadly fire forced the enemy to withdraw. An enemy sniper located in another house fired at Private First Class Moto, severely wounding him. Applying first aid to his wound, he changed position to elude the sniper fire and to advance. Finally relieved of his position, he made his way to the rear for treatment. Crossing a road, he spotted an enemy machine gun nest. Opening fire, he wounded two of the three soldiers occupying the position. Not satisfied with this accomplishment, he then crawled forward to a better position and ordered the enemy soldier to surrender. Receiving no answer, Private First Class Moto fired at the position, and the soldiers surrendered. Private First Class Moto's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.
*O'BRIEN, WILLIAM J.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division. Place and date: At Saipan, Marianas Islands, 20 June through 7 July 1944. Entered service at: Troy, N.Y. Birth: Troy, N.Y. G.O. No.: 35, 9 May 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Saipan, Marianas Islands, from 20 June through 7 July 1944. When assault elements of his platoon were held up by intense enemy fire, Lt. Col. O'Brien ordered 3 tanks to precede the assault companies in an attempt to knock out the strongpoint. Due to direct enemy fire the tanks' turrets were closed, causing the tanks to lose direction and to fire into our own troops. Lt. Col. O'Brien, with complete disregard for his own safety, dashed into full view of the enemy and ran to the leader's tank, and pounded on the tank with his pistol butt to attract 2 of the tank's crew and, mounting the tank fully exposed to enemy fire, Lt. Col. O'Brien personally directed the assault until the enemy strongpoint had been liquidated. On 28 June 1944, while his platoon was attempting to take a bitterly defended high ridge in the vicinity of Donnay, Lt. Col. O'Brien arranged to capture the ridge by a double envelopment movement of 2 large combat battalions. He personally took control of the maneuver. Lt. Col. O'Brien crossed 1,200 yards of sniper-infested underbrush alone to arrive at a point where 1 of his platoons was being held up by the enemy. Leaving some men to contain the enemy he personally led 4 men into a narrow ravine behind, and killed or drove off all the Japanese manning that strongpoint. In this action he captured S machineguns and one 77-mm. fieldpiece. Lt. Col. O'Brien then organized the 2 platoons for night defense and against repeated counterattacks directed them. Meanwhile he managed to hold ground. On 7 July 1944 his battalion and another battalion were attacked by an overwhelming enemy force estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 Japanese. With bloody hand-to-hand fighting in progress everywhere, their forward positions were finally overrun by the sheer weight of the enemy numbers. With many casualties and ammunition running low, Lt. Col. O'Brien refused to leave the front lines. Striding up and down the lines, he fired at the enemy with a pistol in each hand and his presence there bolstered the spirits of the men, encouraged them in their fight and sustained them in their heroic stand. Even after he was seriously wounded, Lt. Col. O'Brien refused to be evacuated and after his pistol ammunition was exhausted, he manned a .50 caliber machinegun, mounted on a jeep, and continued firing. When last seen alive he was standing upright firing into the Jap hordes that were then enveloping him. Some time later his body was found surrounded by enemy he had killed His valor was consistent with the highest traditions of the service.
Another NISE BELOW
*TANOUYE, TED T.
Technical Sergeant Ted T. Tanouye distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 7 July 1944, near Molino A Ventoabbto, Italy. Technical Sergeant Tanouye led his platoon in an attack to capture the crest of a strategically important hill that afforded little cover. Observing an enemy machine gun crew placing its gun in position to his left front, Technical Sergeant Tanouye crept forward a few yards and opened fire on the position, killing or wounding three and causing two others to disperse. Immediately, an enemy machine pistol opened fire on him. He returned the fire and killed or wounded three more enemy soldiers. While advancing forward, Technical Sergeant Tanouye was subjected to grenade bursts, which severely wounded his left arm. Sighting an enemy-held trench, he raked the position with fire from his submachine gun and wounded several of the enemy. Running out of ammunition, he crawled 20 yards to obtain several clips from a comrade on his left flank. Next, sighting an enemy machine pistol that had pinned down his men, Technical Sergeant Tanouye crawled forward a few yards and threw a hand grenade into the position, silencing the pistol. He then located another enemy machine gun firing down the slope of the hill, opened fire on it, and silenced that position. Drawing fire from a machine pistol nest located above him, he opened fire on it and wounded three of its occupants. Finally taking his objective, Technical Sergeant Tanouye organized a defensive position on the reverse slope of the hill before accepting first aid treatment and evacuation. Technical Sergeant Tanouye's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for July 7 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
7 July
1897: Born on July 7, 1897, in Escambia, Ala., Blake served as a civilian employee of the Army Air Forces Air Service Command at the Miami Air Depot, Miami, Fla., now a part of the Miami International Airport, after World War II started.
Staff Sgt. Esther McGowin Blake enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on 8 July 1948, during the first minute of the first hour of the first day that women could join the United States Air Force, created nine months before on September 17, 1947. That date was 8 July 1948.
Seventy-five years ago, on June 12, 1948, President Harry S. Truman had signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act (Public Law 625-80), which authorized women to serve as regular members of the U.S. armed forces.
During July, AFHF will celebrate the lives and careers of many notable women who have worn the Air Force blue.
1914: Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the "father" of American rocketry, received a US patent for a two-stage solid-fuel rocket. It was the first of 69 patents he received for inventions. (21)
1920: The Navy flew an F-5L seaplane by radiocompass from Hampton Roads to the USS Ohio located 94 miles away at sea. (24)
1929: Transcontinental Air Transport, Incorporated, inaugurated a 48-hour cross county train-plane service. (24)
1942: Flying a Lockheed Vega A-29 Hudson, Lt Harry J. Kane of the 396 BMS attacked and sank a German submarine (U-701) off Cherry Point, N. C., to make the first sure "kill" off the Atlantic Coast of the US. (4) (21)
1955: First test mission of Project Whoosh, which evaluated escape from high-speed aircraft at nearly Mach 2.
1944: Eighth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces hit petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) targets hard throughout the Theater. Of the approximately 3,000 sorties flown during the day, around 60 planes are shot down. (USAF Art program)
1960: Public Law 86-601 provided $311 million for airlift modernization, including an initiative to build the C-141 Starlifter. (18)
1961: NASA successfully fired the eight-engine Saturn SA-72 for the second time at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Hunstville, in a 119-second test.
1965: Rockwell rolled out the first OV-10A Bronco at Columbus, Ohio. (8: Jul 1990)
1971: SAC transferred its last C-47 "Gooney Bird" (Number 44-76326) from the 97 BMW at Blytheville AFB to the USS Alabama Monument Commission. (1)
1973: The McDonnell-Douglas TF-15, the two-seat trainer version of the F-15 Eagle, flew its first flight. (30) 1985: The 96 BMW accepted SAC's first operational B-1B (SN 83-0065) at Dyess AFB. (1)
1987: The 76th and last C-5A (number 66-8307) to receive stronger wings rolled out of Lockheed's Marietta plant to complete a $1.5 billion project that began in 1975. (12)
1991: The 436 MAW delivered 70 tons of food and relief supplies to N'Djamena, Chad, to help that country overcome a drought-induced food shortage. (16) (21)
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