TheList 6964

The List 6964     TGB

To All,

Good Sunday Morning September 29, 2024. Heavy fog again this morning when I started working on this List but it cleared up to beautiful clear blue sky and should be a nice day. I did get a call yesterday and my hat is in the mail. Picked up by mistake. Thanks to the integrity of an old F-8 driver. Hell we are all old but the spirit that drove us 60 years ago is still there. Watching the conversations at the LACB on Friday your could not help notice the smiles and the eyes lite up as the stories and memories were exchanged

Enjoy the rest of a great weekend

Regards,

skip

Make it a good Day

 

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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)

Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/.   Go here to see the director's corner for all 83 H-Grams 

Today in Naval and Marine Corps History .

September 29

 

1829 The brig-sloop USS Hornet is driven from her anchorage off Tampico, Mexico by a gale. She is never seen again and her crew of 140 is lost.

1854 The sloop-of-war USS Albany departs Aspinwall, Columbia (now Colon, Panama) for New York with a crew of 193. She is never seen again.

1906 USS Connecticut (BB 18) is commissioned. During World War I, USS Connecticut is employed as a training ship off the United States East Coast and in the Chesapeake Bay. In the first half of 1919, she serves as a transport, making four trans-Atlantic voyages to bring home veterans from France.

1944 USS Narwhal (SS 167) evacuates 81 allied prisoners of war from Lanboyan Point, Sindangan Bay, Mindanao, Philippines. They had survived the Sept. 7 sinking of Japanese POW transport Shinyo Maru.

1946 Lockheed P2V Neptune, Truculent Turtle, departs Perth, Australia on a long distance non-stop, non-refueling flight to the mainland United States that ends on Oct. 1 at Columbus, Ohio. The flight breaks the world record for distance without fueling at 11,235.6 miles over 55 hours and 17 minutes.

1959 USS Kearsarge (CVS 33), with Helicopter Squadron 6 and other 7th Fleet units, begin six days of disaster relief to Nagoya, Japan, after Typhoon Vera.

 

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Today in World History September 29

1197    Emperor Henry VI dies in Messina, Sicily.

1399    Richard II of England is deposed. His cousin, Henry of Lancaster, declares himself king under the name Henry IV.

1493    Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz, Spain, on his second voyage to the new world.

1513    Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean.

1789    Congress votes to create a U.S. army.

1833    A civil war breaks out in Spain between Carlists, who believe Don Carlos deserves the throne, and supporters of Queen Isabella.

1850    Mormon leader Brigham Young is named the first governor of the Utah Territory.

1864    Union troops capture the Confederate Fort Harrison, outside Petersburg, Virginia.

1879    Dissatisfied Ute Indians kill Agent Nathan Meeker and nine others in the "Meeker Massacre."

1932    A five-day work week is established for General Motors workers.

1939    Germany and the Soviet Union reach an agreement on the division of Poland.

1941    30,000 Jews are gunned down in Kiev when Heinrich Himmler sends four strike squads to exterminate Soviet Jewish civilians and other "undesirables."

1943    Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf is published in the United States.

1950    Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev repeatedly disrupts a UN General Assembly meeting with his violent outbursts over intervention in the Belgian Congo, US U2 spy planes, and arms control.

1960    General Douglas MacArthur officially returns Seoul, South Korea, to President Syngman Rhee.

1962    Canada launches its first satellite, Alouette 1.

1962    The popular Argentinian comic strip Mafalda beings publication, in the weekly Primera Plana; focusing on a six-year-old girl (Mafalda) and her friends, it has been called the Argentinian Peanuts.

1966    Chevrolet introduces the Camaro, which will become an iconic car.

1971    Oman joins the Arab League.

1979    John Paul II becomes the first pope ever to visit Ireland.

1990    The YF-22, later named F-22 Raptor, flies for the first time.

1992    Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello impeached for corruptions; he was the youngest president in the nation's history, taking office at age 40 in 1990.

2008    Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 777.68 points in the wake of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual bankruptcies, the largest single-day point loss in Wall Street history.

2009    An 8.1 earthquake causes a tidal wave that claims 189 lives in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga.

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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear … Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻

OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…

Thanks to the Bear

I have provided access to archive entries covering Commando Hunt operations .

https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/commando-hunt-post-list/

 

(To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and can read what happened each day to the aircraft and its crew. .Micro is the one also that goes into the archives and finds these inputs and sends them to me for incorporation in the List. It is a lot of work and our thanks goes out to him for his effort.

From Vietnam Air Losses site for "for 29 September  

29-Sep:  https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=3024

 

 Vietnam Air Losses

Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at:  https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.

 

This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info 

https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM

 

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Thanks to Dr. Rich

Good Mornin' — EYE CANDY con't…

 

I can't get many pictures through the server but I urge you to read this whole note and then  Read his book. Farm Boy to Fighter Pilot…..Skip

 

Navy Captain Richard "Dick" Schaffert was born on a farm in Nebraska.  He received a scholarship to the University of Nebraska, and enrolled in ROTC; but after graduation, became a county extension agent and played semi-pro baseball.  On a train trip to California to join a minor league team, he saw a billboard about the Blue Angels and decided to become a Navy Pilot. Although he had never been in an airplane, Schaffert was to become a distinguished Naval Aviator.

 

He entered flight training in 1956. After qualifying aboard the USS Saipan, he flew F-6 Hellcats at Guantanamo Bay, F-11 Tigers off the USS Intrepid, and F-8 Crusaders off the USS Shangri La in the Mediterranean before transferring to the USS Oriskany and Vietnam. By June 1966, he was on Yankee Station flying missions into Vietnam. When an ammunition storage locker exploded near his stateroom, Schaffert narrowly escaped the fire, which killed his roommate and 44 others who were mostly Air Wing Pilots. After Oriskany was repaired, he was back on Yankee Station from 1967 to 1968. During an escort mission, he had a solo engagement against four MiG-17s and two MiG-21s. The History Channel's Dog Fighter documentary series featured the 10-minute engagement as The Last Gunfighter. It ended in a draw, but one of the MiG-17s was shot down by another Crusader pilot as he was exiting the fight. During the 16 months of Rolling Thunder that Oriskany was on Yankee Station, 58 of her 72 assigned pilots were killed in action, 11 became POWs, and 5 are still missing.  The wing's 65 assigned combat aircraft were hit by enemy fire on 238 occasions, and 69 were shot down.

 

After transitioning to F-4 Phantoms and instructing at Top Gun, Schaffert returned to combat, serving two tours on the USS Constellation as Squadron Executive Officer in 1972 and Commanding Officer in 1973. He flew 236 combat missions and was decorated 35 times, including three awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross "with the Grace of Almighty God." In all that time, his plane was never hit by enemy fire.

 

Schaffert later served in the office of Secretaries of Defense Schlesinger, Brown, and Rumsfeld, at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, and then as Director of Policy Studies at NATO Military Headquarters in Belgium. He retired in 1983, following 27 years of service. He, his deceased Navy Petty Officer son, his surviving Marine Corps son, and his two Navy Corpsmen grandchildren served a combine total of 87 years of active duty in America's military.  CAPT Schaffert often reflects back on his years in Vietnam by saying; "In Vietnam we fought for each other.  We knew we had to do the job right the first time, or someone would have to go back and do it again."

 

Alone Vs six MiGs: the legendary Dogfight of Dick "Brown Bear" Schaffert

 

Schaffert had survived a gruelling ten-minute solo combat with six MiGs — a classic engagement still examined at Topgun decades later  During the Vietnam War, the 'Sundowners' (VF-111) logged six deployments, scoring MiG kills in F-8s and F-4 Phantom IIs.

 

Noteworthy one of the highlights of the 1967 cruise was a fighter combat that did not result in a MiG kill. Nevertheless, it entered legend as one of the classic dogfights of the jet age.

 

As explained by Barrett Tillman with Henk Van der Lugt in their book VF-11/111 'Sundowners' 1942-95, on the afternoon of Dec. 14, Lt Cdr Dick Schaffert escorted an A-4E on an Iron Hand anti-SAM (surface-to-air missile) mission supporting a mining operation between Hanoi and Haiphong. Alerted by bandit calls, 'Brown Bear' Schaffert remained vigilant while the Skyhawk pilot, Lt(jg) Charles Nelson, prepared to fire an AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missile. At that moment Schaffert spied a glint — two MiG-17s. He called Nelson, who also spotted the threat, but lost sight of the Crusader.

 

Schaffert rolled in from his 18,000-ft perch, tracking the MiG section as he descended. Pulling level at 3000 ft, he looked for Nelson . . . and saw two more MiGs. Schaffert laid the control column over and pulled hard, loading eight Gs on 'Old Nick 106'. 'Brown Bear' had 3500 hours of fighter time, and he would need all of that experience to survive on the short end of four-to-one odds.

 

Schaffert's initial break forced the nearest MiGs to overshoot, but the exceptional stress pulled his oxygen mask below his chin. Unable to call for help, he was on his own.

 

It was nearly impossible for a Crusader to turn with a MiG-17 so Schaffert did what F-8 pilots did best — he fought in the vertical. Kicking in and out of afterburner, he began a series of 'yo-yo' manoeuvres peaking as high as 25,000 ft, trying to deny the VPAF pilots a good shot at him, while striving for an advantageous position. The odds against Schaffert were improved since the four MiGs fought as two sections, permitting the former tactics instructor to conduct the engagement as a '1-v-2'.

 

The first time Schaffert got a tracking tone from one of his Sidewinders, he was about to shoot when 23 mm tracers flashed past his canopy. The second pair had quickly reversed and countered his run on the first section. After three more 'yo-yos', Schaffert had worked into position for a missile shot, but the AIM-9B passed between two MiGs without exploding. One of his four Sidewinders had been inoperative before launch, so he was now left with just two missiles.

 

 

MiG 17

 

Working hard, timing his breaks and pitch-ups, Schaffert sustained high-G overhead reversals to defeat the MiGs' superior turning radius. The next time he pressed the trigger, the missile tracked but failed to explode. In turn, two MiGs fired 'Atoll' heat-seeking missiles at the F-8 but the launches were out of parameter. Schaffert's third Sidewinder failed to guide. He was beyond frustration — three good shots and three malfunctions. But 'Brown Bear' was undaunted. With hundreds of gunnery flights in his logbook, he felt confident that he could hit anything in range. When a MiG presented him with a tracking solution, Schaffert pulled into a five-G turn and, at a range of 800 ft, pressed the trigger. All four 20 mm cannon choked. The high-G manoeuvres had disconnected the pneumatic ammunition feed system!

 

 

MiG 21

 

At some point in the fight two MiG-21s blazed through the combat area, firing 'Atolls'. Schaffert was barely aware of them.

 

Nonetheless, Schaffert determined to teach the Vietnamese a lesson. Still feeling confident, he pulled into another high-altitude yo-yo, engaging in a vertical rolling scissors with the enemy leader. At the bottom of that evolution Schaffert bent the throttle for the coast, leaving the MiGs behind. He recovered aboard Oriskany with merely 200 lbs of JP-5 remaining. There, VF-162 skipper Cdr Cal Swanson and Lt Richard Wyman performed a victory roll after the latter had successfully engaged another MiG-17. Schaffert had survived a gruelling ten-minute solo combat with six MiGs — a classic engagement still examined at Topgun decades later. He recalled, 'I needed every ounce of experience to come away from that mission intact'. Schaffert's 1500 hours in F-8s had been time well spent.

 

 

 

I'm a few days late sending the following POIGNANT message!  Like, 120 days late!  But, Boy Howdy, does The Brown Bear put things into perspective.  Please forgive my tardiness!

 

"I sent Dick Schaffert's annual Memorial Day letter to an old friend and retired Navy pilot, Lou.  He returned it with some comments ... you may not agree with everything written, but it's appropriate food for thought this Memorial Day weekend.  I personally know too many who went through hell in the Vietnam conflict. then came home to be spit upon or at, or simply kept quiet and held everything in.  But at least they came home alive ...

 

 

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Dear Friends: A friend sent me story of "Brown Bear" in VN that most of us heard his mixing it up with 4 MiGs. I did know of the loss of his room mate... or his way of honoring Norm over the years. I was in VN at the same time as Dick. My job was totally different--I was not dropping the bombs. I was however in the Hanoi area with our call sign of "Blue Eagle One".

 

I would like to request that you read the long email all the way to the end...we are not asking for pity.... but be advised that we did not ask to go to VN. And I for one when called to go--did not try to defer but answered our nation's call. When returning to the US at San Francisco International---I just erased the rest of the sentence because it would serve no purpose after so many years.    

 

 

This is what my old friend sent to me:      Thanks, Dennis L.

Lou L.

 

(I now proudly wear my Navy VN cap and when asked about it I reply:  "I am wearing this cap, Not for me but for the several hundred young men that never made it home that I had the honor of working with." May we never forget.

 

 

Memorial Days are difficult in many ways but yet I must remember these great people!!! "

 

Dr. Dick Schaffert (call sign "Brown Bear") is famous for an extended solo dogfight with four MiGs back in the Viet Nam conflict.  Once a year he sends a letter (like the one below) to his Naval Aviator squadron mate who died aboard the USS Oriskany.  It's a touching yet heartwarming story of the friendship between men who put their lives on the line for one another in combat.

 

His letter is too good to be overlooked.

 

Gob Bless You, Norm Levy, Dick Schaffert, and all who've gone in harm's way for the freedoms too many take for granted.

 

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Norm was killed on 26 October '66. Exactly one year later, we were again back on Yankee Station. After flying my 4th mission against Hanoi in 3 days, I rose from a restless night to scribble a note to Norm. I folded it into a paper airplane; then walked back to the Oriskany's fantail, lit the paper on fire, and launched it into the darkness above the ship's wake. Norm and I would both have turned 80 this year ... so, due to natural causes, this will be the last of the 47 annual letters I've written to him. With the help of friends and mutual acquaintances over the years, my original note has expanded into a perhaps "too lengthy" letter.  

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To: Lieutenant Commander Norman Sidney Levy, US Navy Deceased (1934-1966)

 

Good morning, Norm. It's Memorial Day 2014, 07:29 Tonkin Gulf time. Haven't talked with you for a while. That magnificent lady on which we went through hell together, USS ORISKANY, has slipped away into the deep and now rests forever in silent waters off the Florida coast. Recall we shared a 6' by 9' stateroom aboard her during McNamara and Johnson's ill-fated Rolling Thunder, while our Air Wing 16 suffered the highest loss rate of any naval aviation unit in the Vietnam conflict. Three combat deployments, between May '65 and January '68, resulted in 86 aircraft lost from the 64 assigned to us; while 59 of our aviators were killed and 13 captured or missing from Oriskany's assignment of 74 combat pilots. Our statistical probability of surviving Rolling Thunder, where the tactics and targets were designated by combat-illiterate politicians, was less than 30%. The probability of a combat pilot being an atheist approached zero!

 

Seems like a good day to make contact again. I've written every year since I threw that "nickel on the grass" for you. For several years, it was only a handwritten note ... which I ceremoniously burned to simulate your being "smoked." With the advent of the internet, I shared annual emails to you with some of our colleagues. Unfortunately, the net's now a cesspool of idiocy! Much of it generated by those 16 million draft dodgers who avoided Vietnam to occupy and unionize America's academia; where they clearly succeeded in "dumbing down" an entire generation which now controls the heartless soul of a corrupt "Hollywoodized" media. This will be my last letter. I'm praying Gabriel will soon fly my wing once more, and I look forward to delivering it to you personally.

 

This is the 47th year since I last saw you, sitting on the edge of your bunk in our stateroom. You remember ... it was the 26th of October 1966 and we were on the midnight-to-noon schedule. There was a wall of thunderstorms over North Vietnam, with tops to 50,000 feet, but McNamara's civilian planners kept sending us on "critical" missions all night. At 04:00 they finally ran out of trucks to bomb, in that downpour, and we got a little sleep.

 

Our phone rang at seven; you were scheduled for the Alert Five. I'd bagged a little more rack time than you, so I said I'd take it. I went to shave in the restroom around the elevator pit, the one near the flare locker. The ordnance men were busy putting away the flares. They'd been taking them out and putting them back all night as McNamara's "whiz kids" continually changed the targets. I had finished shaving and started back to our room when the guy on the ship's loudspeaker screamed: "This is a drill, this is a drill, FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!" I smelled smoke and looked back at the door that separated the pilot's quarters from the flare storage locker. Smoke was coming from underneath.

 

I ran the last few steps to our room and turned on the light. You sat up on the edge of your bunk and I shouted:  "Norm, this is no drill. Let's get the hell out of here!" I went down the passage way around the elevator pit, banging on the sheet metal wall and shouting:  "It's no drill. We're on fire! We're on fire!" I rounded the corner of that U-shaped passage when the flare locker exploded. There was a tremendous concussion effect that blew me out of the passage way and onto the hangar deck. A huge ball of fire was rolling along the top of the hangar bay.

 

You and forty-five other guys, mostly Air Wing pilots, didn't make it, Norm. I'm sorry. Oh, dear God, I am sorry! But we went home together: Norm Levy, a Jewish boy from Miami, and Dick Schaffert, a Lutheran cornhusker from Nebraska.

 

I rode in the economy class of that Flying Tigers 707, along with the other few surviving pilots. You were in a flag-draped box in the cargo compartment. Unfortunately, the scum media had publicized the return of us "Baby Killers," and Lindberg Field was packed with vile demonstrators enjoying the right to protest. The "right" you died for!

 

Our wives were waiting in a bus to meet our plane. There was a black hearse for you. The protestors threw rocks and eggs at our bus and your hearse; not a policeman in sight. When we finally got off the airport, they chased us to Fort Rosecrans. They tried interrupting your graveside service, until your honor guard of three brave young Marines with rifles convinced them to stay back.

 

I watched the TV news with my family that night, Norm. Sorry, the only clips of our homecoming were the "Baby Killer" banners and bombs exploding in the South Vietnam jungle ... although our operations were up North, against heavily defended targets, where we were frequently shot down and captured or killed. It was tough to explain all that to my four pre-teen children.

 

You know the rest of the story: The vulgar demonstrators were the media's heroes. They became the CEO's, who steal from our companies ... the lawyers, who prey off our misery ... the doctors, whom we can't afford ... the elected politicians, who break the faith and the promises.

 

The only military recognized as "heroes" were the POW's. They finally came home, not because of any politician's self-aggrandized expertise, but because there were those of us who kept going back over Hanoi, again and again ... dodging the SAM's and the flak ... attacking day and night ... keeping the pressure on ... all by ourselves! Absolutely no support from anyone! Many of us didn't come home, Norm. You know; the guys who are up there with you now. But it was our "un-mentioned" efforts that brought the POW's home. We kept the faith with them, and with you.

 

It never really ended. We seemed to go directly from combat into disabled retirement and poverty, ignored by those whose freedoms we insured by paying that bloody premium. Our salary, as highly educated-combat proven Naval officers and fighter pilots, was about the same as what the current administration bestows as a "minimum" wage upon the millions of today's low-information, unmotivated, clueless graduates. Most of them lounge at home on unemployment rolls and feed off the taxes that we pay on our military retirements; which are 80% less than what the current All Volunteer Force receives and from which we have already lost 26% of our buying power to pencil-sharpening bureaucrats who "adjust" the economic data.

 

Do you remember, Norm? We got 55 bucks a month for flying combat; precisely $2.99 for each of the 276 missions I flew off Yankee Station. Can you believe America's new All Volunteer Force, which recently fought a war with a casualty rate less than 10% of ours ... and only 1% of WWII ... , received more than $1,000 a month combat pay from a guilt-ridden Congress, which trusts paid mercenaries more than old-fashioned American patriotic courage. The families of those of us who were killed in Vietnam got $10,000 of life insurance. Today's survivors get $100,000! Unfortunately, the gutless liberalism of today's elected officials has created the worst of all possible situations: Our socially engineered, under-funded, military couldn't presently fight its way out of a wet Chinese paper lantern!

 

The politically adjusted report, issued for the 100th Anniversary of U.S. Naval Aviation, confirmed that we and our brothers who flew in Korea have been written out of American history. Norm, I only hope that today's over-paid bureaucratic "dudes" who cook the books, scramble the facts, and push the propaganda for their political puppet-masters, will not be able to scrub your name off the Wall. The Wall and our memories are the only things many of us have left. We hold those memories dear! We band together in groups like the Crusader Association, which is now holding its 27th "Last Annual" reunion. Some say the association has to do with flying a peculiar aircraft, I say it has to do with a peculiar bunch of guys. We're damned few now! After 5,000 hours flying simulated and actual combat, and pulling at least 5 g's more than 25,000 times, those who are still around have ultrasounds resembling haunted houses on Halloween; with nerve bundles sagging like cobwebs, leaking valves, and ruptured pipes. We'll all be seeing you shortly, Norm. Put in a good word for us with the Man. Ask Him to think of us as His peacemakers, as His children. Have a restful Memorial Day. You earned it.

 

Very Respectfully,

Your Roommate Dick (Brown Bear) Schaffert

14 May 2014

 

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. From the list archives a bit of humor

One of my favorites

Flying the F-8 all over the west and southwest in the 60s and 70s there were a lot of places to go and things and people to see. From the Grand canyon to the mountains and the river from Hoover Dam to Yuma waving at the folks in their inner tubes it was great fun. In those days when you went out at night from NAS Miramar it was all black below you. There was one small bit of light in Mira Mesa, one in Poway and a few in Escondido. Old Hiway 395 was the way to go north from San Diego and the only place to pass was when you went through Escondido and then it was only two lanes all the way north to go skiing. Passing cars was exciting. skip

Thanks to Chuck

Great aviation story

Byrum Teekel, a 90 year old insurance man, who once flew a twin Piper around the WORLD with a co-pilot friend who had been a Navy test pilot in the early days of jets told the funniest aviation story I'd heard in a long time.

When the Navy first began test flights with jets, they were flying out of Carswell because the Chance-Vought plant was there in Ft Worth.  Gen. LeMay found out about it and had a stroke worrying that if "any of those Navy pukes" crashed a plane at Carswell, they might not be able to get the bombers off to start WWIII – so he kicked them out.  The Navy still wanted a long runway near Ft Worth and the C-V factory, and they settled on Ardmore, OK. 

Teek's buddy and his wingman became famous in the small OK town and couldn't buy a beer at any of the local taverns.  After their test flights every day, they'd do some bonus acrobatics for the locals, who loved seeing and hearing the jets fly.  One day the mayor called the test pilots and asked if they could do a flyover for a local parade. Seems that Gene Autry, a native of Ardmore, had a circus at the time and he always did a parade in his home town and a few shows en route to Madison Square Garden.  The Navy test pilots were asked to do a flyover for the big parade down the main street that preceded the circus performances.

The Navy dudes went downtown and measured the width of the street, then called the mayor and asked if he wanted afterburners as well.  The mayor said, "hell yes – we want the whole show". 

On the day of the parade, with elephants, horses, giraffes, zebras and all manner of circus animals parading down Main Street, the two Navy jets cranked it up and made a low level, full AB pass down the street at VERY low level.  When they pulled up to come around and make a second pass, they observed complete chaos down below with animals in flight and handlers pursuing them down every street in the downtown.  The jet jocks decided to call off the second pass and RTB.  On landing, a ground crewman came running up to the lead pilot and told him the major was on the phone and it was urgent.  The flight lead didn't want to take the call but figured he had to.  When he got on the line, the mayor shouted, "You SOBs broke every goddam window in downtown Ardmore, Oklahoma with that low-level pass."  The pilot replied that the company would pay for fixing the windows, but what about all the animals – had they been rounded up?  The mayor replied, "well some of them are still running, but don't worry about the windows.  It was worth it to make sure that jerk Gene Autry won't bring that f______ circus to town and make us sit thru that awful parade again.  Nobody likes him anyhow."

 

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. Thanks to Interesting Facts

 

The human brain runs on less power than a 60-watt lightbulb.

 

Some 500 million years ago, an ancient fish-like creature produced at least one offspring with a curious mutation — twice the number of genes. These excess genes began developing in new directions, eventually creating more and more complex brains. Some 150 million years later, human ancestors roamed the land, and their brains continued to grow in complexity. About 2.5 million years ago, hominid brains started growing especially large, although scientists aren't exactly sure what led to that sudden burst. Yet after millions of years of evolutionary experimentation, the human brain is a biological wonder many times more efficient than any artificial equivalent — in fact, it's even more efficient than a 60-watt lightbulb.

 

Take, for example, IBM's Watson, the supercomputer that famously bested Jeopardy! champions on daytime television in 2011. Watson uses around 85,000 watts to electronically outfox a human. Meanwhile, its biological competitors' brains run at around 20 watts. It's true that when compared to the rest of the human body, the brain is a greedy customer, requiring about 20% of our energy use. It uses two-thirds of that energy to send signals along its neurons, and the rest for cell-health "housekeeping." But when it comes to everything our brains do for us — and how efficient they are overall — that seems like energy well-spent.

 

The idea that humans only use 10% of their brain is completely false.

 

The "we only use 10% of our brain" myth is one of Hollywood's favorite premises. Found in films such as Phenomenon (1996), Limitless (2011), and Lucy (2014), the general idea is that the human brain is an organ of almost limitless potential. If people could only access all of their brain, rather than just the usual 10%, humanity could become a race of superbeings — or so the theory goes. The idea is great for selling popcorn, but not so great when it comes to scientific reality. For one, evolution makes it highly unlikely that a species would evolve with an organ that requires so much energy and is then only used at 10% of its capacity. Sections of the human brain specialize in certain tasks, so while it's possible for only part of the brain to be activated, the whole brain is still very much in use. In fact, scientists have yet to discover any part of the human brain that does nothing.

I have known a few folks over the years who I think would challenge that -----even myself……skip-

 

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. Thanks to history Facts

 

Thomas Edison went camping with a U.S. president.

 

FAMOUS FIGURES

 

I n 1915, a group known as the Vagabonds embarked on a series of summer camping trips around the U.S. These wayfaring travelers weren't just any old campers, but rather some of the most well-known figures in American history: inventor Thomas Edison, industrialist Henry Ford, naturalist John Burroughs, and businessman Harvey Firestone. The idea was conceived in 1914 when Ford and Burroughs traveled down to Florida to tour the Everglades with Edison. In 1915, Edison, Ford, and Firestone took a road trip throughout Southern California, and it was during that excursion that the group's nickname was informally chosen.

 

Before long, these expeditions ballooned into a sophisticated operation, with some trips featuring as many as 50 vehicles filled with additional staff and equipment. The group journeyed through the Adirondacks, the Catskills, Appalachia, and many other stunning natural sites across the country. In time, the American public grew fascinated with these expeditions. The Vagabonds even attracted the attention of sitting President Warren G. Harding, who briefly joined them in 1921 for a camping trip in Maryland. During his visit, Harding chopped wood, rode horses, and sat around the campfire before returning to Washington, D.C. Three years later, the Vagabonds were invited to join President Calvin Coolidge at his childhood home in Vermont in 1924, where they spent an hour taking photographs, discussing politics, and exchanging gifts. Unfortunately, these trips began to attract too much unwanted public attention, forcing the Vagabonds to disband later that year.

 

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Moe Berg

On December 18, 1944, a 42-year-old man masquerading as a Swiss physics student settled his 6-foot-1 frame into a chair in a Zurich lecture hall.

Instead of simply listening to the brilliant insights offered by the physicist at the podium, the man was trying to understand enough of the scientist's native German to identify key words-words that could change, or perhaps even destroy, the world. All the while, he was hoping the gun tucked into his jacket pocket wouldn't fall out, as it had during his trip across the Atlantic.

The audience member was no ordinary student. In fact, he wasn't a student at all. He was a retired baseball player named Morris "Moe" Berg, and the American government wanted him to assassinate a man dubbed "the most dangerous possible German in the field" of physics: Werner Heisenberg, director of the Nazi nuclear program.

An average-at-best catcher who played well past his prime, Berg joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the CIA, in 1943.

Nicknamed the "brainiest man in baseball" due to his knack for languages and quick wit, he found himself behind enemy lines five years after he hung up his cleats for the last time. A polymath who loved the press but was reluctant to discuss his personal life, he was a man of contradictions who crossed paths with many of the leading figures of the day, from Babe Ruth to Franklin D. Roosevelt to J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Berg played for five professional teams, mainly as a catcher. New York Public Library Moe Berg, baseball catcher Born on March 2, 1902, in Harlem, New York, Berg was the youngest child of Bernard Berg, a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant, and his wife, Rose Berg. A self-made pharmacist with his own shop, Bernard, who moved his family to Newark, New Jersey, in 1906, was a firm believer in the American dream. He expected all three of his children to take full advantage of educational opportunities and pursue respectable careers. Two heeded their father's wishes, becoming a doctor and a teacher. But baseball and espionage weren't on Bernard's list of preapproved professions, and he refused to attend any of his son's games throughout his career.

Berg was the most intellectually gifted of the three siblings. A precocious youth, he asked his mother to send him to school at age 3. After graduating from high school in 1918, Berg studied modern languages at Princeton University--, where he was one of the few Jewish students in the class of 1923. He claimed varying degrees of proficiency in at least six languages, including German, French, Japanese and Spanish, but his true passion was baseball.

"From the first, baseball made [Berg] very happy," writes biographer Nicholas Dawidoff in The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg.

"He would spend a generous share of his life inside ballparks. He felt comfortable, truly at ease, on the field or in the stands."

Some of you may remember that I had an article about Moe in the list many years ago. He went to Japan in the 30s to play baseball with an American team. He did play but he also brought back a lot of pictures of the Tokyo area that were later used for targeting I will look in the archives to see if I can find it.  skip

Found it

. https://www.jta.org/2019/05/28/ny/the-very-mysterious-moe-berg

 

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Cool Finds

Teenager Helps Uncover 34-Million-Year-Old Whale Skull in Alabama Working with one of her teachers, the 16-year-old student found the fossil, which may represent a new species, on her family's property

Carlyn Kranking

Assistant Editor, Science and Innovation

August 31, 2023

a student in a white lab coat and safety goggles holds a pen-like instrument to a fossil protruding from rock Sixteen-year-old Lindsey Stallworth cleans the whale skull in the lab at the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science. ASMS What started out as a trip to look for shark teeth ended with a shocking discovery, when a 16-year-old student and her teacher unearthed a 34-million-year-old whale skull in Alabama.

Digging on her family's property in the state's Monroe County, Lindsey Stallworth and Andrew Gentry noticed small bone fragments. They followed these fossils uphill, where they found even larger bones. At first, the pair didn't know what they were looking at. It took several days to reveal just part of a lower jaw. Then, when they uncovered one of the creature's large teeth, they realized they'd stumbled upon the prehistoric skull of a whale, which measures about four to five feet long.

"To find one that's this complete is actually very rare," Gentry, a paleontologist and biology teacher at the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science in Mobile, tells NBC 15's Andrea Ramey. "We're very excited by the fact that we got the majority of the skull out and that there is more of the skeleton left to uncover, which could give us the complete animal."

"It's really hard to comprehend something that's that many millions of years old, but it started to make more sense once we started getting the dirt away and saw what the skull might have looked like," Stallworth, a junior at the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, tells the Washington Post's Timothy Bella.

Under a tent canopy, a man and a teenage girl squat and smile at the camera in front of the fossil, a white blob, with plaster on it Andrew Gentry and Lindsey Stallworth sit in front of a plastered slab of the fossil whale skull.  Millions of years ago, most of what is now Alabama was covered by a shallow sea. Gargantuan creatures swam through these waters, including a sea turtle the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, aquatic reptiles called mosasaurs and snaggletoothed fish as large as great white sharks, wrote Jack Tamisiea for Hakai Magazine in 2021. As a result, Alabama is a prime region for finding fossils of sea creatures, however counter-intuitive that may seem when standing on the state's dry ground today.

The site where Stallworth and Gentry discovered the whale skull was on a swath of land owned by the teenager's family for timber. Growing up, Stallworth would collect fossilized shells and shark teeth on the property, but this experience brought a wider variety of fossils to her attention, she tells Dennis Pillion of AL.com, which first reported the story.

"I've been collecting fossils in Alabama for more than 30 years, and this was easily one of the best fossil sites I've seen anywhere in the state,"

Gentry tells WALA. Previously, he has discovered two new turtle species from fossils.

Given how old the whale skull is, experts say it, too, might represent an animal unknown to scientists.

"Once the whale is prepared and the bones are out of the rock and reassembled, there's a very good chance it's a new species," Jun Ebersole, director of collections at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham who was not involved with the find, tells the Washington Post.

The whale appears to be some smaller relative of Basilosaurus cetoides, a 60-foot-long, serpent-like whale that's the official state fossil of Alabama. A skeleton of this extinct creature went on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 1910. Alternatively, the newfound remains could be related to the lesser-known whales of the genus Zygorhiza, which along with Basilosaurus is an official state fossil of Mississippi.

girl lies on a towel over dry, crumbly ground, looking for fossils Lindsey Stallworth works on excavating a fossil in the field. ASMS Next summer, Stallworth and Gentry plan to continue excavating the rest of the whale skeleton, which, if intact, could measure about 15 to 20 feet long. Until then, the pair will work on cleaning, preserving and studying the skull, which is now housed in a lab at the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science.

Through a research fellowship program at the school, Stallworth plans to continue this work with the skull for the rest of her junior and senior years of high school. She's currently putting in about two hours of lab time each day, per the Washington Post.

"I was really overwhelmed, but at the same time, I was just full with excitement," Stallworth tells NBC 15. "As a high schooler, I didn't think I'd get to do any of this stuff

 

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This Day in U S Military History

 

29 SEPTEMBER

 

Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel, Patron Saint of Soldiers, marines, Military Police, Aviation, and Airborne: The name Michael signifies "Who is like to God?" and was the war cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against Satan and his followers. Holy Scripture describes St. Michael as "one of the chief princes," and leader of the forces of heaven in their triumph over the powers of hell. He has been especially honored and invoked as patron and protector by the Church from the time of the Apostles. Although he is always called "the Archangel," the Greek Fathers and many others place him over all the angels – as Prince of the Seraphim.

 

1789 – The U.S. War Department established a regular U.S. army with a strength of several hundred men.

 

1918 – At the Battle of St. Quentin Canal, Allied forces scored a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line during World War I. The Allied assault involved British, Australian and American forces in the spearhead attack and as a single combined force against the German Siegfried Stellung of the Hindenburg Line. Under the command of Australian general Sir John Monash, the assault achieved all its objectives, resulting in the first full breach of the Hindenburg Line, in the face of heavy German resistance and, in concert with other attacks of the Great Offensive along the length of the line convinced the German high command that the writing was on the wall regarding any hope of German victory.

 

1918 – Lt. Frank Luke Jr. against orders destroyed 3 German balloons and downed 2 pursuing fighters in a final flight of vengeance for the loss of his wingman Lt. Joseph Wehner. Luke received a posthumous medal of honor.

 

1965 – Hanoi publishes the text of a letter it has written to the Red Cross claiming that since there is no formal state of war, U.S. pilots shot down over the North will not receive the rights of prisoners of war (POWs) and will be treated as war criminals. The U.S. State Department protested, but this had no impact on the way the American POWs were treated and most suffered extreme torture and other maltreatment while in captivity. The first pilot captured by the North Vietnamese was Navy Lieutenant Everett Alvarez, who was shot down on August 5, 1964. The American POW held longest was Army Special Forces Captain Floyd James Thompson, who had been captured in the South on March 26, 1964. American POWs were held in 11 different prisons in North Vietnam and their treatment by the North Vietnamese was characterized by isolation, torture, and psychological abuse. The exact number of POWs held by the North Vietnamese during the war remains a debatable issue, but the POWs themselves have accounted for at least 766 verified captives at one point. Under the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords, the North Vietnamese released 565 American military and 26 civilian POWs in February and March 1973, but there were still more than 2,500 men listed as Missing in Action (MIA).

 

1995 – The United States Navy disbands Fighter Squadron 84 (VF-84), nicknamed the "Jolly Rogers". VF-84, Fighter Squadron 84 was an aviation unit of the United States Navy active from 1955 to 1995. The squadron was nicknamed the Jolly Rogers and was based at NAS Oceana. It took the number but not the lineage of a World War II squadron active in 1944–45, the "Wolf Gang", which was a new squadron formed around a nucleus of veterans of VF-17, the original "Jolly Rogers".

 

Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day In all the months that I have been providing these MOH this day had the most by far 63 were awarded in wars from the Civil War, WWI, WWII and Iraq freedom

 

*LUKE, FRANK, JR. (Air Mission)

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 27th Aero Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, Air Service. Place and date: Near Murvaux, France, 29 September 1918. Entered service at: Phoenix, Ariz. Born: 19 May 1897, Phoenix, Ariz. G.O. No.: 59, W.D., 1919. Citation: After having previously destroyed a number of enemy aircraft within 17 days he voluntarily started on a patrol after German observation balloons. Though pursued by 8 German planes which were protecting the enemy balloon line, he unhesitatingly attacked and shot down in flames 3 German balloons, being himself under heavy fire from ground batteries and the hostile planes. Severely wounded, he descended to within 50 meters of the ground, and flying at this low altitude near the town of Murvaux opened fire upon enemy troops, killing 6 and wounding as many more. Forced to make a landing and surrounded on all sides by the enemy, who called upon him to surrender, he drew his automatic pistol and defended himself gallantly until he fell dead from a wound in the chest.

 

*MONSOOR, MICHAEL A.

Rank and organization: Master-At-Arms Second Class, SEAL Team 3, Naval Special Warfare Task Group Arabian Peninsula,U.S. Navy. Place and Date: Ar Ramadi, Iraq, 29 September 2006. Entered Service at: Garden Grove, CA. Born: 5 April 1981, Long Beach, California. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Automatic Weapons Gunner in SEAL Team 3, Naval Special Warfare Task Group Arabian Peninsula, in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM on 29 September 2006. As a member of a combined SEAL and Iraqi Army sniper overwatch element, tasked with providing early warning and stand-off protection from a rooftop in an insurgent-held sector of Ar Ramadi, Iraq, Petty Officer Monsoor distinguished himself by his exceptional bravery in the face of grave danger. In the early morning, insurgents prepared to execute a coordinated attack by reconnoitering the area around the element's position. Element snipers thwarted the enemy's initial attempt by eliminating two insurgents. The enemy continued to assault the element, engaging them with a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire. As enemy activity increased, Petty Officer Monsoor took position with his machine gun between two teammates on an outcropping of the roof. While the SEALs vigilantly watched for enemy activity, an insurgent threw a hand grenade from an unseen location, which bounced off Petty Officer Monsoor's chest and landed in front of him. Although only he could have escaped the blast, Petty Officer Monsoor chose instead to protect his teammates. Instantly and without regard for his own safety, he threw himself onto the grenade to absorb the force of the explosion with his body, saving the lives of his two teammates. By his undaunted courage, fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of certain death, Petty Officer Monsoor gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

 

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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for September 29,  FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY

29 September

 

1918: MEDAL OF HONOR. After destroying a number of enemy aircraft within 17 days, 2Lt Frank Luke of the 27th Aero Squadron volunteered to go on a patrol to shoot down German balloons. Despite an attack by enemy fighters, he shot down a balloon. Severely wounded, Luke dropped close to the ground, where ground fire brought him down. On the ground, the Germans asked him to surrender, but Luke drew a pistol and defended himself until the Germans killed him. He received the Medal of Honor posthumously. (4)

1945: PROJECT PAPER CLIP. Dr. Wernher von Braun and other rocket scientists from Germany arrived in the US. Shortly thereafter, they began translating documents from the Peenemunde Test Center. These engineers helped the US in its missile and space programs. (8: Sep 90)

1946: Through 1 October, Cmdr T. D. Davies, Cmdr E. P. Rankin, Cmdr W. S. Reid, and Lt Cmdr R. A. Tabeling flew the Truculent Turtle, a Lockheed P2V-1, to a nonstop flight record. The Navy crew flew 11,236 miles from Perth, Australia, to Columbus in 55 hours 15 minutes. This record remained intact until 1962 when a B-52 flight set a new record. (9) (24)

1950: Capt Richard V. Wheeler made a world-record parachute jump of 42,449 feet at Holloman AFB. (16) (26)

1952: KOREAN WAR. Fifth Air Force fighter-bombers flew against enemy bunkers and gun positions 207 close air support sorties, the highest figure this month and well above the daily average. (28)

1954: The F-101A Voodoo flew for the first time. McDonnell Aircraft Corporation test pilot Robert C. Little made the first flight of the first F-101A-1-MC Voodoo ( s/n 53-2418). During this flight, the new interceptor reached 0.9 Mach at 35,000 feet. The Voodoo's career as a fighter-bomber was brief, but the reconnaissance versions served for some time. Along with the US Air Force's Lockheed U-2 and US Navy's Vought RF-8 Crusaders, the RF-101 reconnaissance variant of the Voodoo was instrumental in locating imported intermediate range Soviet missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis and saw extensive service during the Vietnam War.

1956: The 405th Fighter-Bomber Wing at Langley AFB received TAC's first F-100D.

1961: SAC declared the first Atlas E unit, the 567 SMS at Fairchild AFB, operational. (6) SAC issued a requirement to develop an ultra high frequency emergency rocket communications system (ERCS). (6)

1962: Canada became a satellite designer and builder, joining the US and USSR in that capability, when NASA launched its Alouette on a ThorAgena booster from Vandenberg AFB into a polar orbit. (24)

1964: LTV's XC-142A vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft made its first short-takeoff flight at Dallas, Tex. The first of 36 Minuteman II test launches occurred at Cape Kennedy. In this flight, the missile successfully delivered its payload nearly 5,000 miles downrange on target. The final Minuteman I launched from the Eastern Coast Range. In launches at Cape Kennedy, there were 38 successes, eight partial successes, and eight failures, while from Vandenberg there were 60 successes, four partials, and two failures.

1965: Aviatrix Jerrie Mock broke the speed record for conventional single-engine aircraft over a 500-kilometer course. She set an average speed of 203.858 MPH on her flight, which lasted 1 hour 31 minutes 27 seconds. A Czechoslovakian pilot, Lubos Stastny, set the former record of 178 MPH in 1956. SAC retired the first B-52 (B-model number 52-8711) it received to the Aerospace Museum at Offutt AFB. It had been assigned 22d BMW at March. (1)

1968: Launched one year earlier from Christchurch, New Zealand, a 10-foot diameter plastic balloon named GHOST (Global Horizontal Sounding Technique) broke all balloon flight duration records.

1969: At Edwards AFB, the first C-7A Caribou arrived for testing. (3)

1971: SAC retired its last B-52C (No. 53-402) from the 22d Bomb Wing at March AFB to the DavisMonthan AFB storage area. (1)

1974: At Edwards AFB, the F-5F completed its first flight. (3)

1988: MANNED SPACE PROGRAM RESUMES. The Space Shuttle Discovery launched to end the long stand-down of the space program after the Challenger disaster. (20)

1990: Lockheed pilot Dave Ferguson flew the YF-22A for the first time above Edwards AFB. (20)

1999: At Edwards AFB, an AFFTC team began test sorties of the LITENING II precision targeting pod to equip ANG and Reserve F-16s with a precision strike capability against sea and landbased targets. (3)

2001: The US used its Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska to launch satellites for the first time. Previously, the US launched its spacecraft from launch complexes in Florida or California. (21)

2002: Global Hawk AV-3 landed at Edwards after a 23.8 hour flight Southwest Asia, where it flew 15 missions for Operation Enduring Freedom. This completed the Global Hawk system's first combat deployment. (3)

2004: AFFTC at Edwards AFB supported the flight of Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne. The spacecraft flew to a 337,000 feet as the first of two flights above 100 kilometers to win a $10 million X-Prize. AFFTC provided radar tracking, weather service, a ground station, and a communications loop. (3)

2005: A C-17 dropped a dummy air-launched rocket booster from 6,000 feet over the Edwards AFB Precision Impact Range Area. The AirLaunch Quick-Reach Booster was a full-scale mockup for DARPA's Falcon Small Launch Vehicle program competition. At some 67 feet long and 50,000 pounds, it was the largest object ever dropped from a C-17, and nearly the heaviest. (3)

 

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