Monday, March 31, 2025

Blog Mirror: Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About Seeking a Third Term in Defiance of Constitution, by Erica L. Green

The worst President in American history, and the worst human being to occupy the office, seemingly has no bounds in his love of himself.

Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About Seeking a Third Term in Defiance of Constitutionby Erica L. Green

White House spokesmen immediately went into spin mode, but if we've learned anything about Trump is that we should take him at his word on his plans, no matter how illegal they may be.  He's going to try this, there's virtually no doubt.   And the GOP will support it.

One of the ways Trump thinks he can do this, which won't work, is to have J. D. Vance run for office, with Trump on the VP ticket, and then resign.  That is against the Constitution but it also assumes that Vance is willing to be a giant patsy.  Maybe he is, but. . . 

By the way, Julius Caesar used the elephant as a symbol. . . 

Saturday, March 31, 1900. Sanna's Post.

Boer forces under Christiaan de Wet attacked at Sanna's Post, taking 400 British POWS and cutting off the water supply to Bloemfontein, which resulted in the spread of typhus. 

Last edition:

Friday, March 30, 1900. Child and Female Labor.

Monday, March 31, 1975. Resupply and luck.


U.S. Army Chief of Staff Frederick C. Weyand was in South Vietnam and determined that: "It is possible that with abundant resupply and a great deal of luck, the GVN [Government of South Vietnam] could survive...It is extremely doubtful that it could withstand an offensive involving the commitment of three additional Communist divisions...without U.S. strategic air support."

Colonel William Le Gro of the U.S. Embassy said that without U.S. strategic bombing of North Vietnamese forces, South Vietnam would be defeated within 90 days, which proved to be an overestimate of the time the South could hold out.

Gro would later write a book about the fall of South Vietnam.

North Vietnamese General Dung, was instructed to  "liberate Saigon before the rainy season [mid-May]" rather than the original plan of taking the city in 1976.

Technicians from the United States Atomic Energy Commission escorted by Navy SEALS removed the fuel rods from the nuclear research reactor at Dalat University (Đại học Đà Lạt) in Đà Lạt, capital of Lâm Đồng Province, Vietnam. and flew them to Johnston Atoll.  It was a Catholic institution at that time.  It still exists, but of course is no longer a Catholic university.

Last edition:

Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975.

Saturday, March 31, 1945. Liberated.

"Children of the Soviet Union whose parents were captured by the Germans and made to work in one of the German aircraft and rubber tire plants at Sanbach Odenwald, Germany, are shown playing a game.
The factory Seventh Army troops found intact when they pushed through. Note the white flag flying in background. This factory made automobile, airplane, bicycle tires and [censored] for Messerschmitts. 31 March, 1945. Photographer: T/5 Louis Weintraub, 163rd Signal Photo Co. Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive.

The Red Army prevailed in the Upper Silesian Offensive.

The U.S. Navy sank the I-8 off of Okinawa.

The British and Nationalist  Chinese armies took Kyaukme.

The French 1st Army crossed t he Rhine near Speyer.

Last edition:

Friday, March 30, 1945. Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie gassed at Ravensbruck. Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose killed in action.


Sunday, March 30, 2025

Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975.

It was Easter.

In 1975 I'm not sure if we would have gone to Mass the prior night, or on Easter Sunday itself.  Probably the prior night.  My father would have bought some Easter chocolates, but we wouldn't have done the Easter Egg thing.  One thing about being an only child is that you grow up quickly in a lot of ways.

Our small family would have had ham for dinner and probably potatoes au gratin, out of the box of course.

Thousands of Vietnamese Catholics were on the road, hoping to escape the advancing communists.

Da Nang was completely in the hands of the NVA.  The defeat there had become a rout, with only South Vietnamese Marines retaining discipline.

It was begging to dawn in the South Vietnamese government that the United States was not going to come to its aid, resulting in real anger in the South.  The withdrawal that had been going on had in mind something like the Pusan Perimeter operation in the Korean War in 1950, in which the United States reversed the course of the Korean War.  Geographically there were real similarities and the strategy made some sense, but only if the US was willing to reenter the war.

Last edition: 

Saturday, March 29, 1975. NVA takes Da Nang.

Various World War Two Artillery pieces. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


The photograph above depicts a US M115 8" howitzer. The basic gun saw service as a licensed British pattern first in World War One, and on into the Vietnam War.


Above is some sort of U.S, I think, anti tank gun, but I can't identify the pattern.


And the same is true here.  I can't identify what the artillery piece above is.

Last edition:

British Universal (Bren Gun) Carrier. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Friday, March 30, 1945. Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie gassed at Ravensbruck. Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose killed in action.


Algerian born Élise Rivet, whose father was a French Naval officer and whose mother was Alsatian, also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie was gassed at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp after volunteering to take the place of a mother who was slated for that fate.  She had been arrested in 1944 for harboring refugees fleeing the Germans and for allowing her convent to be used to store weapons for the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance at the request of Albert Chambonnet.

She was 55 years of age.


Commander of the 3d Armored Division, Maj Gen. Maurice Rose was killed in action near Paderborn, Westphalia, where many of many ancestors immigrated from in the 19th Century.

Rose was cut off in a forested area near the city and his part attempted to escape in their Jeeps, which one Jeep managed to do.  Stopped by a tank, a Waffen SS tank commander emerged from the hatch with a submachinegun and Rose's hand went for his sidearm.  He was machinegunned and left.  The remainder of his party hid in the woods overnight, and recovered his body, which contained operational orders that had not been disturbed, that night.

He was the highest ranking U.S. Army officer to be killed in direct action by enemy forces during World War Two.

Rose was Jewish by descent and grew up in a Jewish household in Denver.  His father was a businessman who later became a rabbi.  Rose himself could speak Yiddish and read Hebrew.  He joined the Colorado National Guard before he was legally old enough to do so, hoping for a military career early on, and hoping to serve in the Punitive Expedition, but was discharged six weeks later when his age was discovered.  He enlisted again during World War One at age 17 with his parents permission, and went to OCS, which says something about how different things were in regard to educational requirements at the time.  He was briefly out of the service in 1919, but returned to the Army as an officer in 1920.

Rose was married for about ten years, from 1920 to 1931, to Venice Hanson of Salt Lake City.  although the marriage ended in divorce.  Their son served as a career Marine Corps officer and also served in World War Two, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  He later married Virginia Barringer in 1934.

While born and raised Jewish, Maurice identified as an Episcopalian as an adult, which has lead to speculation on whether his conversion was real or political, it being difficult at the time to advance in American society, and the Army more particularly, while being outwardly Jewish.  Not that much is known, however, about his personal religious convictions.

He was 45 years of age.

"he rabbi of the Jewish Inf. Brigade visits the aid station and distributes newspapers. 30 March, 1945. Photographer: Levine, 196th Signal Photo Co."

The Battle of Lijevče Field began near Banja Luka between Croatian and Chetnik forces in what would soon be incorporated into communist Yugoslavia.

The Red Army took Danzig.  The Danzig Corridor, of course, had been one of the things the Germans claimed they required that lead to World War Two.

Anyone else make a connection to Greenland today.. . . ?

Eric Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey to 16 year old Patricia Molly Clapton and 25 year old Canadian soldier Edward Walter Fryer.  He was raised by his grandparents, whom he thought to be his parents until he was nine years old.  He thought, at that time, his mother was his older sister.  She'd marry another Canadian soldier later on and his grandparents would continue to raise him.

He was performing the blue professionally by age 17.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 29, 1945. The first Public Passover Sedar in Germany since 1938.

Monday, March 30, 1925. Cougars win the Stanley Cup.

Newly ordained St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás celebrated his first Mass in the Chapel of Our Lady of Pilar in the Saragossa Cathedral.

He would found Opus Dei in 1928.

The Victoria Cougars of the WCHL beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 to become the last non-NHL team to win the Stanley Cup.


Bringing Up Father On Broadway premiered.

Last edition.

Saturday, March 28, 1925. Society Number.

Labels: 

Friday, March 30, 1900. Child and Female Labor.

France, effective on this day, reduced the workday for women and children from 12 hours to 11 hours.

Current American Republicans would likely find that abhorrent.

The law provided further that on April 1, 1902, the workday would go to 101⁄2 hours and to ten hours by April 1, 1904.

Father Leonardo Murialdo, 71, founder of the Congregation of Saint Joseph died.. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI on May 3, 1970.

Last edition:

Tuesday, March 27, 1900. Gen. Joubert dies.

Thursday, March 30, 1775. King George III gave Royal Assent to the New England Restraining Act, which provided. . .

 that New England's trade be limited to Britain and the British West Indies.

Last edition:

Monday, March 27, 1775. Choosing Jefferson as an alternate.

Saturday, March 29, 2025

The Best Posts of the Week of March 23, 2025.

The best posts of the week of March 23, 2025, a week which featured sad stories of the last day of the Republic of Vietnam, and a lot of vehicles.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus

















Condemn attacks on judiciary, Wyoming lawyers and judges urge delegation






Last edition:

British Universal (Bren Gun) Carrier. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


Sort of an early APC, but receiving use almost like the Jeep, this is a British Universal Carrier.  The large star on this one would reflect late World War Two use in Europe, as all Allied vehicles started to receive this and similar paint schemes to make them more identifiable from the ari.

Last edition:

M76 Otter. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

M76 Otter. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


This is a M76 Otter, an amphibious cargo carrier used by the USMC in the 1950s and into the 1960s.  This one, apparently, was used by the Army.

The vehicle did see use in the Vietnam War.

Last edition:

Miscellaneous wheeled transport of World War Two. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


Miscellaneous wheeled transport of World War Two. National Museum of Military Vehicles.


International 4x4 truck.




2 1/2 ton 6x6.


Ford F8, a type of truck built in Canada for the Commonwealth forces.  This one is painted in German colors, at least for the time being.





Marmon Harrington 4x4 conversion of Ford truck in British service.





Fort GTB 1 1/2ton truck, a type mostly used by the Navy and Marine Corps.

Early Dodge 1/4 to weapons carrier.


Pacific Car and Foundry M26.




Last edition:

British QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti aircraft gun. National Museum of Military Vehicles.