Showing posts with label Personalities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personalities. Show all posts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Saturday, March 18, 1944. Summoned to Germany.

VI Corps cleark working near entrance to cave which has been filled by explosion from German shell, March 18, 1944.

The Soviets, reacting to their recent defeat, began the Third Narva Offensive.

They also, on the same day, took Zhmerynka.

The Germans began a two-day massacre of prisoners, mostly being Soviet citizens and anti-fascists in the Romanian city of Rîbnița.

Miklós Horthy went to Schloss Klessheim, south of Salzburg, at Hitler's invitation. It was not a pleasant meeting.  Horthy was forced to accept a new government and allow German troops onto Hungarian soil, which amounted to an effective German invasion.

German allies were abandoning Germany as quickly as possible, remaining in its orbit, at this point, by force.

The German 1st Fallschirm-Panzer Division Hermann Göring bombed the villages of Monchio, Susano and Costrignano, around Montefiorino, and slaughtered their entire population.

Aimo Allan Koivunen became the first documented case of a soldier overdosing on methamphetamine during combat.  The Finnish solider retreated singly after his ski patrol was attacked and surrounded by Soviet troops.  He was carrying the unit's entire supply of Pervitin, a methamphetamine used to keep troops awake on duty, and entered a state of delirium and became unconscious.  He came into Finnish lines days later with a still retained massively elevated heart beat and weighing under 100 lobs.  He'd skied nearly 250 miles during the ordeal.\

He died in 1989 at the age of 71.

World War One French general, and opponent of Vichy, Noël Édouard, vicomte de Curières de Castelnau, died at age 92.

Last prior edition:

Friday, March 17, 1944. Forces of nature.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Wednesday, March 17, 1909. John Redmond appeals to the readers of the Rocky Mountain News.

 


Colorado had a substantial Irish  and Irish American population, both of which were represented by my father's grandparents, who at that time lived in Victor, near Leadville.  Redmond was a major Irish figure who was working diligently towards Irish self rule, something that would come flying apart due to World War One.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, March 16, 1909. A serious Congress.

Tuesday, March 17, 1874. John Younger shot and killed

 


John Younger of the James Gang was paid with the wages of sin when he went down in  a gun battle when he and Jim Younger ambushed Pinkerton detectives who had asked them for directions.  After detaining them, detective Louis Lull drew a hidden pistol and shot John in the neck, Jim killed Deputy Sheriff Edward Daniels, John pursued Lull into the woods and shot him.  John Younger then died of his wounds, Lull died three days later.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, March 15, 1874. The Second Treaty of Saigon.

Tuesday, March 17, 1824. Irish in Savannah and Old Glory

Savannah, Georgia held its first St. Patrick's Day parade on this day in 1824.

We don't tend to think of the Irish immigrating to the American South, but there were some, although the story is complicated by the conflation of the Irish with the Scots Irish, the latter group actually being a Scottish Protestant population imported by the United Kingdom with the intent to create a sort of Protestant wall in Ulster.  The actual Irish were a massively unpopular "race" in the United States at this point in time.

The original Old Glory.

The name "Old Glory" was applied to the U.S. flag for the first time, with that coming from Cpt. William Driver, a commercial captain who received it from his mother and local women of Salem, Massachusetts.  The name was applied to the individual flag.

Driver was an interesting character and had originally gone to sea at age 13 as a cabin boy.  On an 1831 expedition to the South Pacific, his ship was the only one out of six that survived the trip, and his ship escorted 65 descendants of the Bounty survivors back to Pitcairn Island.  He retired from sailing in 1837 and became a salesman. During the Civil War, he remained loyal to the Union while living in Nashville.

It remained in his family's possession until 1922, when it was donated to the Smithsonian.

The Anglo Dutch Treaty was entered into resolving issues that had arisen due to a prior treaty in 1814.

Last prior:

Thursday, March 11, 1824. Bureau of Indian Affairs formed.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Monday, March 11, 1974. The Obstinate

Imperial Japanese Army Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda formally in the Philippines.  He had been recently informed by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, that the war was over.


Originally part of a party of four such soldiers, one who abandoned the group in 1949 to surrender, they carried out guerilla raids which ultimately reduced Onoda to the sole survivor.  Their ongoing obstinacy was frankly irrational as well as deadly.

He found post-war Japan disappointing and became a cattle rancher in Brazil.

Contrary to popular belief, he was not the last Japanese soldier still holding out.  At least one more, Teruo Nakamura, who was Taiwanese, was in Indonesia.  He was actually a private and of native Taiwanese background, with a poor command of Japanese and Chinese.  He'd be captured in December 1974.  Another, Fumio Nakahara, may have been holding out in the Philippines as late as 1980, although that has never been determined.

A ceasefire between Iraq and the Kurdish Democratic Party was subject to an ultimatum, which provided that Kurdistan could be autonomous.  The offer would expire without acceptance, and a renewed war resumed.

The United Kingdom tended its Oil Embargo related state of emergency.

Last prior:

Friday, March 8, 1974. Exit Brady Bunch

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Monday, March 3, 1924. End of the Caliphate.

The Turkish National Assembly ended the Ottoman Caliphate.  It had been in existence for 407 years and claimed religious sovereignty over Islam.  The Assembly also ordered that Abdulmejid II and his harem were to be deported by March 15.  The official deposing of Abdulmejid would come at 2:00 a.m. on March 4.

He did not welcome the news and warned that the ending of the caliphate would cause the rise of extremism in Islam, which his role as the religion's leader of Muslims tempered.  He proved to be correct.  He lived the rest of his life in Europe, at first in Switzerland, and then in Paris, where he died in 1944.  His exile was not an easy one at first, and he was disappointed that Muslims did not demand the restoration of his office.

The Teapot Dome investigation continued.


And the local Piggly Wiggly was robbed.  That location is now a tattoo parlor.

Last prior:

Saturday, March 1, 1924. The Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Some recent bios and what they tell us about the realatively recent past.



In the last week or so, we've posted a series of threads that dealt with various personalities.  In setting them out, it occured to me how some of them actually reach back to the supposed purpose of this blog, which is:

Lex Anteinternet?





Well, in reality, that broadened out pretty rapidly to taking into account looking at everything in this era in trying to get a grasp on it.  Since then, it's certainly broadened out enormously, probably much too much.

Anyhow, some recent items help illuminate some of the things of this era, and the one immediately after it.  Indeed, as we'll discuss, one of them helps actually define, maybe, how to property define certain eras.

The items we looked at which brings this to mind are the story of Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, that of Dick Proenekke, and also Lee Marvin, and the work of the Southern Agrarians, and that of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Quite a varied set, I'll admit.

Let's start with Dr. Gale Cleven, which is how most people who knew him, knew him as, the latter part of his life.


I'd never heard of Dr. Cleven until I started Watching Masters of the Air.  The show references him as being from Casper Wyoming, and that caused me to research him further.  As noted on the entry on him, he was born in Lemmon, South Dakota, but came with his family to the oil town of Lusk when he was just a very small boy.  From there he moved to Casper, at some point.

What I could find on him notes that he worked as a roughneck as a young man, while going to college to study geology.  I did both of those things also, and also simultaneously, giving me an odd occupational connection with him, although one that's not all that uncommon around here.  I did find that a little startling, however.

What all that does, however, is to show the very long-lasting economic feature of Wyoming as being an oil and gas province, something that is still the case, but waning.  It remains a strong aspect of the state's economy, however.  This has been the case since, as we explored earlier, at least 1917, although things were headed that way earlier.  It's interesting, looking back, to realize how many of us in The Cowboy State, have worked in oil and gas in some fashion.  Given the economic reach of the industry, darned near everyone at one time.

Something else that really had the reach was the newspaper, in the form of The Society Page.  I was able to track Gale Cleven, as he would then have been known, joining a fraternity and going to UW dances.  I could even track who he was casually dating.

That's odd.

Society columns in newspapers were common at least into the 1950s, and even beyond that. They reported all sorts of snoopy stuff.  I've found, for example, my grandfather mentioned in The Denver Post because his sister was visiting, this in the 1930s.  Another sister of his visited somebody in Denver in the 1920s.  Whose business was that?

They also reported on when people went on vacations, even extended vacations, which is a horrible thought.

I guess it shows, to an extent, the concept of privacy, which the Internet has eroded, is a modern thing.  In the newspapers of the 20s divorces made front page news, births were mentioned, as they are now, scandals were reported, and where you were going, with whom, was as well.

People were keeping track of things and didn't need an iPhone to do it.  No wonder people all subscribed to the paper.

This item also pointed out what a small world Wyoming was and is.  Cleven, whom I had not heard of previously, took a relative by marriage to a dance.  She was from a ranch family that owned a ranch that I later owned a piece of.  She married a rancher who left his name on a prominent local feature.  One of her brothers-in-law was the best friend of one of my old, now long gone, partners.  That fellow was killed in World War Two.  My partner was a crewman on a B-24.

In the small world item also is the thought that I, my father, my wife, and my children all walked the same high school halls, and have driven on the same streets as this fellow.  

And that fame, to the extent fame is involved here, if fleeting.  I'd never heard of him in spite of his remarkable wartime service.  Nothing is named for him here.

Another thing, and one that cuts a bit against something I've noted here in the past.

As I've noted, for at least some Americans, going to university was really a post World War Two thing. That's widely known.  Less well known is that Catholics didn't go to university for the most part until after the war (and I don't know what religion Cleven was).  

Cleven's story shows that this was already changing before the war, however.  Cleven didn't come from a wealthy family, and his parents clearly weren't college educated.  But there he was, at UW, before the war.  

University education was reaching down to the Middle Class, even though we were still in an era when less than 50% of American males graduated from high school

Indeed, while its jumping ahead, the story of Richard Proenneke demonstrated that.  He dropped out of high school as it didn't interest him but went on to, at first, as successful blue collar career.  He seems to have actually retired in his 50s.

Back to Cleven, he had what looks to be the start of a pretty conventional, Wyoming, advanced education before the war, and then went on to an extraordinary one due to the war in no small part.  That demonstrates the manner in which World War Two altered all of society massively.

We'll get back to that.

Finally, in regard to Cleven, his story also demonstrates the ongoing impact of disease in that era.  His young wife was killed by polio.

The polio vaccine didn't come out until 1955, two years after her death.  Somewhat associated with children now, polio in fact struck adults as well.  It was highly contagious and it often killed rapidly.  People went form well in the morning to dead by the end of the day.   And the deaths weren't pleasant. That appears to be basically what happened to her.

Polio, like Small Pox, and Measles are all preventable by vaccines.  So is Covid.  Not until recently, in the post Reagan post Scientific era, have Americans lost their faith in these lifesavers.  

And that is, quite frankly, stupid.

Let's look at Proenekke.


I really think Proennekke's story has been misconstrued, now that I've looked at it.  He tends to be viewed as somebody who turned his back on the modern world and moved to the Alaskan outback.  In reality, however, he's a guy who lived his whole life as a single man and retired young, then moved, in retirement, to the outback.

It's a bit different.

Proennekke's life brings to mind two items of social change, both of which are increasing rare and difficult for "moderns", or "post moderns", if you prefer to understand.  One is the existence of lifelong bachelors with nothing else being assumed about that status, and the other is the true jack of all trades.

We'll take the bachelorhood story, which we've dealt with before in another context, first.

Supposedly today 30.4% of men never marry, more or less (that's a 2010 figure) and 23% of women.  In 1900 that figure was 38.8% and 29.7% respectively, but that doesn't mean the same thing at all.  We've already seen that prior to the mid 20th Century, in many places "living together" was a crime, and in others that would have resulted in a common law marriage.  So those figures really reflect people who lived lives alone

The percentages dropped for every decade of the 20th Century, until the 80s, when they started hovering right around 30% consistently, never going back up to the 1900 38.8% for men.  For what it is worth, for women they dropped to an all-time low for the 1960s, of 17.3%, and the went up to about 23% where they've remained.  Realistically, however, the current 30% and 23% are probably significantly lower, if we take into account situations where couples exist but without the formal benefit of marriage.

And that's significant in multiple ways.

Currently, nearly any male in the "never married" category without some sort of female "significant other" will flat out be assumed to be homosexual once they get much past 30 years of age.  Many people will even assume that Catholic clerics must be homosexual, as they are required to be celibates.  The pressure is so high on unmarried males to declare, in some fashion or another, at the present time, that its actually proven to be a problem for recruiting Catholic Priests as some who have expressed a latent desire to do so have already married due to pressure, or have gone down the secularly pressured road of girlfriend and actions that used to wait until marriage to the extent that they really cannot get back from it.  For that matter, single men past a certain age are not only assumed to be homosexual, but are often societally pressured, in some areas, to be one in order to explain their status.  The thought that somebody could function, more or less alone, but with normal inclinations, just doesn't exist anymore.  The thought that anyone, and indeed anyone who isn't a cleric, could function in a single celibate way is almost regarded as making that person a raving deviant.

It was quite common, however, at one time.  Indeed, there are at least four movies that touch on the topic, all of which might be a little hard for people to grasp now, but which showed that this was a normal frame of reference for viewing audiences at one time, with those files being Marty (1955), The Apartment (1960) Only The Lonely (1991) and Brooklyn (2015).  The evolution of the films shows how this evolved, with the protagonist in Marty being a single male who is assumed by everyone, including his family, will remain one.  Indeed, they wish him to.  In The Apartment it is not assumed that the young executive will marry, even as he develops a deep affection for the female protagonist.  In Only The Lonely the situation is much the same as Marty, but with the mandatory introduction, by that time, of sex into the film.  In Brooklyn the assumption of marriage is much stronger, and indeed becomes a problem during the film.

Truth be known, however, up until at least the 1980s this was a relatively common thing to encounter, and there was no assumption that a single male was attracted to other men by any means.  Usually the single status was regarded as sort of a tragedy, but not one that was a deviation from the norm to much of a degree.  Indeed, I can easily recall several examples of this in adults when I was growing up.

One such individual was a plumber who was well liked and who lived next to my grandmother.  He was a veteran of World War Two and had served almost the entire war in a Japanese POW camp. For that reason, he never turned the lights off in his small house, as they had not done that in the camp.  HE never married.

Also, a tradesman, another person in my father's circle of friends was a fellow who was a plumber and who didn't marry until the 1980s, at which time that was regarded as nearly foolish as he would have been in his very late 50s or perhaps 60s at the time.  His long bachelorhood was not regarded as strange in any fashion, and for much of that time he lived with his mother, inheriting her house after she passed away.

Another example was a friend of my father's who was a mail carrier.  He'd started off before World War Two to become a Protestant minister in his home state of Nebraska, but like so many others, the war interrupted his planned career, and he was an artillery spotter during the war.  When he came back, he did not resume his studies, although he remained devoutly religious.  He dated after the war, at least until the late 1950s, but never found anyone and never married, passing way after my father and after having lived a very long life.  He was one of two postmen who shared a lifelong bachelorhood status, the other one living in a tiny house in North Casper, who when he passed away was a millionaire.

About the only example of this that ever struck me as odd, when I was a boy, were a brother and sister who lived down the block from us. They were both school teachers and never married, and lived into their old ages in a house they jointly owned.  I recall they called my father by a diminutive, the only people who ever did that, which he hated.

They had a Golden Labrador.

Finally, the owner of a men's clothing store here in town was single his whole life.  He was a fanatic UW football fan.

Could any of these people have been closeted homosexuals? Sure, but it certainly wasn't assumed so.  Indeed, it was just regarded as the fate they'd fallen into and a bit sad.  Most of them had something that was a bit quirky about their characters, and the majority of them were tradesmen or blue collar workers, although not all were. That might tell us something there.

Prior to the Second World War, there were entire occupations that tended to be dominated by single men.  Most of those occupations involved hard labor in some fashion.  By the 1920s ranch hands, for example, were single men, and they often spent their entire careers in relatively low paying jobs that precluded them from ever marrying.  The few places that actually have hired cowhands today, if you find a career one, replicate this.  Enlisted men in the Army had always been single in US history unless they advanced to more senior Non Commissioned Officer status.  Well after World War Two, enlisted men frequently required permission to marry from their commanding officers, and before World War Two they routinely did. Wartime was the exception, as married men were brought into the service during war.  Even junior officers were not usually married.

This somewhat reflects, therefore, the harder working conditions and lower incomes in society overall.  Being married took enough of a male's income to make it work, as women often were not employed and typically were not employed once they started having children.  Hired hand status on farms and ranches, and enlisted status in the service, precluded marriage as a result.  The long working hours in some instances, and griminess of manual labor, also worked against marriage for a certain percentage of men as hypergyny didn't favor it, if other options were available.

Indeed, this also helps explain the occupations that the actually closeted went into, as has been discussed before.  Generally occupations that paid better, or steadily, and perhaps which weren't grimy in comparison to others, also favored marriage.  Occupations that were essentially white collar in a way, that didn't favor marriage were very few and far between.

The other thing Proennekke's story brings up is the successful jack of all trades.  His father was one, and he seems to have been as well.  Men with really good mechanical skills who could go from one setting to another were pretty common, and indeed they were at least up until the 1990s.  "He's good with his hands" was a compliment that was often paid to somebody who could act as a universal skilled laborer.  

I'm sure that these guys still exist, but not nearly in the numbers they once did.  I really can't recall meeting one recently, except for older ranchers who are that way by default.  Indeed, everyone I knew of a certain age who had grown up on a farm or ranch was like this.  I was actually surprised as an adult to meet younger ranchers who didn't have those skills, although plenty of them still do.



Finally, there's the modern aspect of strongly pigeonholing, indeed even limiting, people by their perceived disabilities, many of them mild.

The item on Lee Marvin notes that he was afflicted with ADHD, which may in part account for his somewhat wild nature, his early failings at school, and his strong affinity for alcohol.  Or maybe not.  At any rate, he was enormously successful at his trade, acting, and he would never have known he was ADHD, if he was.

This is true of all sorts of things like this. Dyslexia, which I have in a mild form, also afflicted such people as George S. Patton.  Not knowing what it was, you didn't really worry about it, and carried on.  

It's not that these things should be ignored, but I worry that our appreciation of them may not be really well-founded in biology, and certainly evolutionary biology.  Dyslexia, some now claim, is not a neurological disorder or an impairment, but a concession for cognitive strengths in exploration, big-picture thinking, creativity, and problem-solving, so its a byproduct of generally positive aspects.  ADHD, which occurs strongly in some human populations, is now suspected to be an evolutionary trait favored evolutionary people, which makes lots of sense, and which frankly is something that we earlier realized when we called people polymaths and autodidacts.  In contrast, the large occurrence of anxiety in our modern populations reflects an evolutionary need to be careful and alert, made problematic as our modern cubicle lifestyle sucks.

Saturday, February 28, 1944. Foreigners in the Wehrmacht.


In what was becoming a late war rarity, German and Estonian's in German service decisively defeated the Red Army's first Narva Offensive.  The Estonian's were mostly recent volunteer conscripts, brought into service after Estonian leaders urged an end to an Estonian boycott of German conscription in hopes of defending Estonia from being retaken by the USSR.

The German 14th Army renewed attacks against the US VI Corps at Anzio.

Ukrainian's in German service carried out the Huta Pieniacka Massacre of ethnic Poles, killing between 500 and 1,200 people.   The actions were carried out principally by police units of the 4th SS Volunteer Galician Regiment and the14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), which were under German command at the time.

The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division continues to have fans in Ukraine today, who deny its association with atrocities.  Many of its surviving members, who surrendered to the Western Allies late in the war, were allowed to immigrate to the United States and Canada in 1947, in part due to the intervention of Polish General Anders who knew some of its commanders due to their pre-war Polish Army service.  In spite of claims to the contrary, the early arrival of the Cold War clouded their association with atrocities, which were accordingly not well known at the time, as Anders intervention demonstrates.  The unit was sufficiently well thought of that a memorial to Ukrainians bearing their unit symbol was put to them in St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery, Oakville, Ontario.

Aviator Hanna Reitsch visited Hitler at Berchtesgaden to receive a second Iron Cross.  She suggested kamikaze like volunteers there to fly piloted variants of the V-1.  Hitler rejected the idea as a waste of resources.

Reitsch survived the war and went on to a long post-war life. She never disavowed her association with Hitler, but did heavily alter her pre-war racial views.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Going Feral: Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke

Going Feral: Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Pr...

Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke

Dick Proenneke may be the ultimate modern subsistence hunter and fisherman in so far as the Western World is concerned.

Proenneke was born in Iowa in 1916.  His father was sort of a jack of all trades laborer, which is and was common to rural areas.  His father was also a veteran of World War One.  Dick followed in his father's footsteps prior to World War Two, leaving high school before graduation, something extremely common in that era (less than 50% of males graduated from high school prior to World War Two  He joined the Navy in World War Two and took up hiking around San Francisco while recovering from rheumatic fever contracted in the service.  Having the disease was life altering for him, as he became focused on his health.  He received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1945.

After the war he became a diesel mechanic, but his love of nature caused him to move to Oregon to work on a sheep ranch, and then to Shuyark Island, Alaska, in 1950.  From 1950 to 1968 he worked for a variety of employers, including the Navy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  He moved to the wilderness in 1968, at age 52, the year that in many ways gave us the Post Post World War Two World we are now seeing collapse.  He lived there, as a single man, until 1999, when old age forced him out of the woods and to his brother's home in California.  He died in there in 2003, at age 86.  His cabin now belongs to the Park Service.

Proenneke loved photography and left an extensive filmed record of his life in Alaska.

There's a lot that can be gleaned from his life, some of which would probably be unwarranted, as every person's life is their own.  Having noted that, however, it should be noted that Proenneke is not the only person to live in this manner in Alaska's back wood, including up to the present.  So he's not fully unique, but rather his high intelligence and filmed record has made him known.

It's also notable, fwiw, that he was a single man.  Basically, if looked at carefully, his retreat to the woods came in his retirement, as he had very low expenses up until 1968, and had worked for the government for many years.  He never married, so he never had a family or responsibilities of that type.  Many of the men who live in wild Alaska have married into native families, so their circumstances are different.

Probably every young man who loves the outdoors has contemplated doing something like what Proenneke actually did, while omitted the decades of skilled labor as a single man that came before it.  And in reality, Proenneke, had lived over half his life as a working man with strong outdoor interests, rather than in the wilderness.  People really aren't meant to live the way he lived, in extreme isolation, save for a few.

Related Threads:

Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness


Sunday, February 24, 1924. Machines.

Mexican Federals defeated rebels in Tamaulipas.

The Berliner gyrocopter No. 5 gave its first successful demonstration.  U.S. Army Lt. Harold R. Harris flew it for one minutes and 20 seconds at the College Park Airport, near the University of Maryland, in front of the press and members of the U.S. Navy.


Harris has been mentioned here before due to his career as a test pilot.  He lived until 1988, dying at age 92.

The Beverly Hills Speedway hosted its final race, which was attended by 85,000 automobile racing fans.  Harlan Fengler broke the world's record for a 250 mile race, averaging 116.6 mph.


Fengler would go on to be the Chief Steward of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1958 until 1974.  He passed away in 1981 at age 78.

February 24, 1874. Honus Wagner born.

 


Baseball great Honus Wagner was born in Pennsylvania.  

A shortstop, he played professional baseball from 1897 to 1917.  Following retirement as a player, he managed the team he had played for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, for 39 years.  He passed away in 1955 at age 81.

Two of his brothers were also professional baseball players.

Last prior:

Friday, February 23, 2024

Wednesday, February 23, 1944. Truscott assumes command at Anzio.

Lucian Truscott on the  Anzio beachhead, wearing cut down U.S. Army cavalry boots (not M1943 boots which they resemble) and an A2 flight jacket, which he routinely wore, with General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Allied Armies in Italy, who is wearing a  British sherling flight jacket and riding boots.
Today in World War II History—February 23, 1944: Maj. Gen. Lucian Truscott assumes command of US VI Corps at Anzio. First US Army blood bank in the Mediterranean Theater opens at Naples medical center.

Cavalryman Lucian Truscott was one of the great ones.

Of interest, Truscott, who had started off his adult life as a school teacher before entering the Army during World War One (he did not see overseas service), was replacing another cavalryman, Gen. Lucas.  His entry into teaching was based upon a lie, in that he represented, at age 16, that he was a high school graduate, which he was not.  His entry into the Army, which was combined with a petition to become an officer, was based upon a compounded lie that he had attended, but not graduated from, college.

Truscott with British troops, later in Anzio.  In this photograph we see the same A2 jacket but he's wearing riding breeches and three strap riding boots.

Truscott was an extremely able commander and the author of the excellent cavalry memoir, Twilight of the Cavalry.  He's an example, additionally, on how the era allowed capable individuals to excel without full accreditation, something that does not occur nearly as much now.

The Soviet mass deportation of the Chechens commenced.

Resistance on Parry Island ended, and with it the hard fought Eniwetok campaign.  Of the 3,400 Japanese troops committed to the defense of the atoll, 66 survived.

The Battle of Admin Box also ended in an Allied victory.

The late bluesman Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas.  He passed away in 2014 at age 70.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

February 22, 1874. Birth of Bill Klem.


"The Old Arbitrator", Klem was a Major League (National League) umpire from 1905 to 1941, and served in eighteen World Series (1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1934 and 1940), more than any other umpire.

He lived until 1951 and passed away at age 77, writing his attorney just before his death that "This is my last game, and I'm going to strike out this time."  He and his wife Marie had no children.

Last prior:

February 18, 1874. Disputed crown.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Today In Wyoming's History: Major Gale "Buck" Cleven

Today In Wyoming's History: Major Gale "Buck" Cleven:  

Major Gale "Buck" Cleven

 


In the Apple TV series Masters of the Air, one of the characters is Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, who reports himself as being from Casper twice in the first episode.

Who was he, and was he really from Casper?

Clevens was born in Lemmon, South Dakota, on December 27, 1918, just after the end of World War One.  His family moved to Casper when he was still a child, although I'm not certain when, as they moved first to Lusk, in 1920.  He likely was a 1937 graduate from Natrona County High School, the only high school in Casper at the time (Natrona County had a second one in Midwest).  Following graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wyoming while also working on drilling crews as a roughneck.

He did, in fact, move at some point to Casper, where he was employed as a roughneck on drilling crews.  He used the money he earned to attend the University of Wyoming and was enrolled by the fall of 1937, presumably right after high school.  His name appears in the social pages of The Branding Iron as having had a date attend the men's residence hall October dance.  He was a guest of a different young lady at the 1939 Tri Delts Halloween sorority dance.  The same year he was apparently in a fraternity, as he's noted as having attended the Phi Delta Theta dance with, yes, another young lady.  In February 1939 he went to a fraternity dance with Nova Carter, whom I believe I'm related to by marriage.  A year later, February 1940, he took a different gal to the same dance.

He left UW in 1941 to join the Army, intent on being a pilot.  The October 21, 1943, edition of the UW Student Newspaper, The Branding Iron, notes him (inaccurately) as being stationed in North Africa and having received the Distinguished Service Cross, which he in fact did receive for piloting his badly stricken plane from Schweinfurt to North Africa, the flight path taken on that raid. This even is depicted in Masters of the Air.  The Branding Iron noted that he had attended UW for three years.  In June, 1944, the student newspaper reported him a POW.  He's noted again for a second decoration in the March 2, 1944, edition, which also notes that he was a Prisoner of War.

As depicted in Masters of the Air, his B-17 was in fact shot down over Germany.  He ended up becoming a POW, as reported in the UW paper, at Stalag Luft III for 18 months, after which he escaped and made it to Allied lines.  He was put back in the cockpit after the war flying troops back to the United States.

Following the war, he was back at the University of Wyoming.  He graduated from UW with a bachelor's in 1946.  He apparently reentered the Air Force after that, or was recalled into service, and served in the Korean War, leaving the Air Force around that time.

He was on the Winter Quarter 1954 UW Honor Roll and obtained a Masters Degree, probably in geology, from UW in 1956.  Somewhere in here, he obtained a MBA degree from Harvard and an interplanetary physics doctorate from George Washington University.  

He married immediately after the war in 1945 to Marjorie Ruth Spencer, who was originally from Lander Wyoming.  They had known each other since childhood.  She tragically passed away in 1953 while visiting her parents, while due to join Gale at Morton Air Force Base in California.  Polio was the cause of her death, and unusually her headstone, in Texas, bears her maiden name.  Reportedly, her death threw Cleven into a deep depression.  He married again in 1955, to Esther Lee Athey.

His post-war career is hard to follow.  He flew again during the Korean War, as noted, which would explain the gap between his bachelors and master’s degrees, and probably his doctorate.  He's noted as having served again during the Vietnam War, and also has having held a post at the Pentagon.  He was in charge of EDP information at Hughes Aircraft.  Given all of that, it's hard to know if an intended career in geology ever materialized, or if his World War Two service ended up essentially dominating the remainder of his career in the form of military service.  The interplanetary physics degree would and employment by Hughes would suggest the latter.  His highest held rank in the Air Force was Colonel.

Following retirement, he lived in Dickenson, North Dakota, and then later at the Sugarland Retirement Center in Sheridan.  He died at age 86 in 2006, and is buried at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his marker noting service in three wars.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Thursday, February 19, 1924. The Dawes Plan and Lee Marvin.


Actor Lee Marvin was born on this day in 1924.

Marvin was a descendant of early and significant early American immigrants, including the founder of Hartford, Connecticut.  He was named after Robert E. Lee, as was his older brother Robert, the Confederate General being his first cousin, once removed.  A poor student growing up, he suffered from dyslexia and ADHD.  He tended to spend his school year spare time hunting. He attended Christian Socialist boarding school Manumit in New York in the late 30s, as well as Peekskill Military Academy, and Catholic St. Leo College Preparatory School, doing poorly at all of them.  He joined the Marine Corps in August 1942, which was hugely significant in his later life.  He was wounded during the wear, and turned to acting shortly after the war, almost by accident, when he was asked to fill in for an actor when he was working as a plumbers assistant.  His first screen appearance was in 1951's You're In The Navy Now, which was also the first appearance for Charles Bronson and Jack Warden.

Marvin passed away in 1987 at age 63, his early death not being surprising due to a lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking.

Marvin was a great actor, appearing in a surprisingly wide range of screen roles.  In military movies, and Westerns, his performances were natural and commanding, something that is a bit surprising when it's considered that he frequently reported to sets drunk or badly hung over.

He is buried at Arlington National Cemetary.

Eleftherios Venizelos resigned as Prime Minister of Greece because of bad health and was succeeded by Agriculture Minister Georgios Kafantaris.  He had served for only four weeks.

The Dawes Plan for German reparations was presented to French Prime Minister Poincaré.

A legislative committee of Pueblo Indians met with Indian Commissioner Charles Burke and President Coolidge

Assembly with Burke.


Sunday, February 18, 2024

OROZCO by SK GUNS and Pascual Orozco himself.


Wow, that's a wild commemorative.

Pascual Orozco was a Mexican Revolutionary who originally supported Madero before falling out with him.  He was of immediate Basque descent, something we tend not to think about in regard to Mexico, which is in fact more ethnically diverse than we commonly imagine.  He was an early recruit to Madero's 1910 revolution, and was a natural military leader, and could be rather morbid.  After his January 2, 1911, victory at Cañón del Mal Paso he ordered the dead Federal soldiers stripped and sent the uniforms to Presidente Díaz with a note that read, "Ahí te van las hojas, mándame más tamales" ("Here are the wrappers, send me more tamales.").


On May 10, 1911 Orozco and Pancho Villa seized Ciudad Juárez, against Madero's orders, a victory which caused Díaz to briefly resign the presidency.  Madero would naively choose to negotiate with the regime, which resulted in The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez allowing for the resignations of Díaz and his vice president, allowing them to go into exile, establishing an Interim Presidency under Francisco León de la Barra, and keeping the Federal Army intact.

Like Zapata, he went into rebellion against the Madero government, which he felt had betrayed the revolution.  He openly declared revolt on March 3, 1912, financing it with his own money and confiscated livestock sold in Texas.  His forces were known as the Orozquistas and the Colorados (the Reds). They defeated Federal troops in Chihuahua under José González Salas. Madero in turn sent Victoriano Huerta against him, who in turn were more successful.  A wounded Orozco fled to the US. After Madero was assassinated and Huerta installed, Orozco promised to support him if reforms were made, and he was installed as the Supreme Commander of the Mexican Federal forces.  As such he defeated the Constitutionalist at Ciudad Camargo, Mapula, Santa Rosalía, Zacatecas, and Torreón, causing his former revolutionary confederates to regard him, not without justification, as a traitor.

He refused to recognize the government of Carvajal after Huerta's fall and was driven into exile again.  He traveled in the US in opposition to Carranza along with Huerta.  In 1915, he was arrested in the US, but escaped.  An unclear incident at the Dick Love ranch in Texas led to claims that he and other like-minded combatants had stolen horses from the ranch, which in turn resulted in a small party of the 13th Cavalry, Texas Rangers, and local deputies pursing the supposed horse thieve with Orozco being killed once the party was holed up.  What exactly occured is not clear.

His body interred in the Masonic Holding Vault at the Concordia Cemetery in El Paso by his wife, dressed in the uniform of a Mexican general, at a service attended by a very larger gathering of admirers.  In 1925 his remains were retuned to Chihuahua.

Why the commemorative?  I have no idea.  He is not an obscure figure in the Mexican Revolution, but not a well known one like Villa or Zapata.  I can't see where he's associated with the M1911 either, a weapon that was brand new at the time the Revolution broken out.  The .38 Super, which is apparently popular in Mexico, wasn't intruduced by Colt until 1929.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Wednesday, February 16, 1944. Explanations.

Wyoming's Senator Mahoney was reported as having said that victory in the Second World War was closer than most imagined, and the country should be prepared to rapidly convert to a peacetime economy.

The optimistic Mahoney was a Democrat who served four terms as a U.S. as  Wyoming's Senator, first from 1934 to 1953 and then again from 1954 to 1961.  Orginally from Massachusetts, he moved to Wyoming in 1916 as a writer for the Cheyenne State Leader, which was owned by John B. Kendrick. When Kendrick became Senator, he accompanied him there as a staff member, and graduated from Georgetown with a Bachelors of Law in 1920.  He was considered as a running mate in 1944.  He lost his seat when Dwight Eisenhower won the Presidential election in 1954, but regained a position of Senator upon the suicide of Lester Hunt.

The prior day's raid on Monte Cassino already drawing controversy, Lord Chancellor John Smith appeared before the House of Lords and defended the raid.  He claimed that most of the destroyed abbey's structures dated to the 19th Century, and most of the artwork had already been removed.

German ground attacks at Anzio resumed, supported by Luftwaffe close air support.  Sarah Sundin, in her blog, reports this as the first use of Panther's in the west by the Germans. She also reports that mud defeated them.

New Zealand forces continued their attacks at Monte Cassino.

Goebbels went on the radio in Germany and exaggerated damages from an Allied air raid on Berlin that occured this day, in hopes that would draw the Allies off re bombing the city.

German forces trapped in the Korsun pocket launched their final, and somewhat successful, breakout attempt just before midnight.

Stalin replied to Roosevelt's letter of February 7 and stated that the Polish government was anti-Soviet and incapable of friendly relations with the USSR, and also that "The basic improvement of the Polish government appears to be an urgent task."

A Finnish diplomat arrived in Stockholm to receive peace terms from the Soviets.

 Commander Rieter demonstrating calculator for firing, atop of turret #3 on board USS Quincy February 16, 1944.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Friday, February 15, 1924. Gun fire and back pay.

U.S. Marines landed at Ampala, Honduras, during the Honduran Civil War.

U.S. Senator Frank L. Greene was wounded by a stray bullet when he was walking on Pennsylvanian Avenue in Washington, D. C.  The shot had been fired in a shootout between bootleggers and Federal agents.  He never fully recovered.

The jury in Joe Jackson's case against the White Sox awarded him $16,000 in back pay.   The Judge, however, decreed that the award was based on perjured testimony and set the verdict aside.  Jackson nonetheless felt himself vindicated.

German emergency powers, which had existed since December 8, lapsed, returning the government to its normal procedures.

Monday, February 12, 2024

Saturday, February 12, 1944. Canaris fired.

Wilhelm Canaris was dismissed as head of the Abwehr.  Technically the Abwehr, the German military intelligence ministry, was abolished on the same day and its functions were taken over by the Ausland-SD, but this doesn't seem to have been really the case to some degree, and most sources show the Abwehr continuing on until the end of the Third Reich.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1979-013-43 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5419101

Canaris was opposed to the execution of Jews and registered complaints regarding it.  He also passed information on to the Allies and was involved in efforts to overthrow Hitler.  He was one of the most highly placed sources of intelligence for the Allies inside the Nazi regime.  An Abwehr deputy, Hans Oster, was also a figure in the German resistance.

His role would ultimately cost him his life, as he'd be arrested and executed later in 1944.  His wife, Erika, would relocate to Spain, where she would live until 1970.  Halina Szymańska, a Switzerland based Polish spy working for the British, whom Canaris used to pass on information, and who was also Canaris' paramour, and who was a widow of a Polish officer, would move to the UK after the war, marry an exiled Polish officer, and lived until 1989.

Canaris has always been a very difficult personality to grasp. Some regard him as being very heroic, as he was in fact carrying out resistance efforts from the very heart of Nazi Germany.  Others find him less so, wondering why he didn't go further given his central position.  He had briefly supported the Nazis, given their anticommunism, but had parted from them very early.  He had used his position to shield Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he seems to have been motivated in his opposition to the Nazis partially by faith. Regarding that, he was a Lutheran in keeping with a conversion from Catholicism that his grandfather had made, but he had referred to himself as a "Catholic Mystic" and was fascinated with Spanish castles.  Neither faith would condone carrying on an extramarital affair.  He believed himself to be of Greek descent, but in fact he was of Italian descent.

The German III Panzerkorps took Vinograd and Lysianka in its effort to relieve the Korsun pocket.

 F6F’s on the flight deck of USS Gambier Bay (CVE 73) en-route to the South Pacific, February 12, 1944.

Marines captured Gorissi on New Britain.  Allied forces landed on Rooke Island in the Bismark Archipelago as well.  In the Marshalls the US landed on the Arno Atoll.

The German ship Oria sank in a storm in the Mediterranean, taking over 4,000 Italian prisoners of war down with it.

The New Zealand Corps replaced the US 2nd Corps at Cassino.  

Defenses at Anzio were reconfigured given recent German successes, but no major fighting occured on this day.

The British troopship Khedive Ismail was sunk by the I-27 in the Indian Ocean, taking 1,297 troops down with it.  One of them was Kenneth Gandar-Dower, age 35, who was an English sportsman, explorer and author.  He was on board as a war correspondent.


Wendell Willlkie announced his candidate for President, back in an era when the Presidential election cycle didn't begin insanely early.  No Democratic candidate had yet been announced, although his name had been put forward for some primaries.

A lawyer by profession and the child of two lawyers, Willkie had been in the Democratic Party until 1939, and indeed Roosevelt had considered him, even after that, as a Vice Presidential candidate.  By 1944 his health was rapidly declining, something accelerated by heavy drinking and smoking, and he would, in fact, not be alive by the November election.

Margaret Woodrow Wilson, age 57, the daughter of Woodrow Wilson, died on this day of uremia.  She was living in India, where she had become a devotee of a Hindu sect.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Friday, February 11, 1944. The Factory Falls.

The Germans took "The Factory" from the British 1st Division at Anzio.

The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.


Wah Kau Kong (江華九), the first Chinese American fighter pilot, scored his first victory, showing down a FW190 while piloting a P-51B.  He'd be killed in a dogfight just eleven days later.  On that occasion, his wingman reported:
I was leading squadron in leader position of red flight, providing escort and target support for bombers with targets at Oschersleben and Halberstadt. 2nd Lt. Wau Kau Kong was my wingman. Enroute to target area, Northeim and Wernigerode, at 1350 hours I attacked a ME-410 which was pressing attack on a straggling B-17 at 16,000 feet. I fired a long burst from 300 yds, observing parts flying off the tail assembly and smoke pouring out of the right engine. All my guns stopped except one and I broke off attack to let my wingman finish off E/A. I circled and saw Lt. Kong fire at E/A from close range. The right engine of E/A burst into flames. As Lt. Kong broke off over the E/A the rear gunner must have hit him as his plane exploded and disintegrated in the air.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—February 11, 1944: First mission of the US 357th Fighter Group in P-51 Mustangs from England—this group would produce the most aces (42) in the US Eighth Air Force.

The U-424 was sunk off the Faroe's by a Wellington piloted by the RCAF.

Father Claude H. Heithaus, S. J. delivered a homily in what must have been a week day Mass at Saint Louis University denouncing racism.  It ended up getting him forcibly transferred out of state, but the school started admitting African Americans six months later, the first historically white Southern university to do so.

A photographer visited the USS Saratoga.



Commander Maurice Sheehy, Catholic priest and Chaplain Corps, on board USS Saratoga (CV 3), February 11, 1944.  The highly respected Fr. Sheehy would rise to the rank of Vice Admiral, the highest rank ever obtained by a Navy Chaplain.  He had taught at the Catholic University of America before the war, but after it became a pastor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  He passed away in 1972.