The M4 Sherman Tank. National Museum of Military Vehicles

The mass produced M4 was the most significant tank of the Western Allies during the Second World War.  It came, as these photos show, in a variety of models as it was improved over time.

 

Last edition:

First U.S. Armor Engagement of World War Two Display, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1940s, 1942, Armor, Army, Catholic, Christianity, Imperial Japanese Army, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Personalities, Philippines, Prisoners of War, religion, World War Two

Central World War Two Display, U.S. manufactured light tanks: National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

Last edition:

Central World War Two Display, U.S. Armored Cars: National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

Labels: 1930s, 1939, 1940s, 1943, 1950s, 1960s, Military, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Tracked vehicles, World War Two.

M7 Self Propelled Gun. US Armored Vehicle Central Display. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

M7 Self propelled gun.  This 105 mm SP used a Sherman chassis.

Last edition:

Early Jeeps: National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

Location: 6419 US-26, Dubois, WY 82513, US

In Memoriam, James Earl Jones.

One of the most monumental actors of the second half of the 20th Century, and one of the most memorable voices of all times, James Earl Jones died at age 93 yesterday.

A lot has been written about Jones over the past day, and so we won't go back into most of it.  Born to actor Robert Earl Jones, whom he closely resembled in appearance and voice, and Ruth, he mostly grew up outside of the presence of his father who left the family shortly after he was born.  He mostly grew up on the farm of his maternal grandparents in Michigan.  After high school he started off towards a career in medicine but realized it wasn't for him and switched to drama, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1955.  He participated in ROTC while a university student and had expected to deploy to the Korean War, but it ended shortly after he graduated.  He attended Ranger school, something very difficult to graduate from and frankly making him an unusually large graduate of a program which tends to favor smaller men.  While in the Army, he converted to Catholicism.

His first film appearance was in Dr. Strangelove in 1964.  His last was in 2021 in Coming 2 America.  He had various monumental roles in between, including famously being the voice of Darth Vader and Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams.

2nd Bn, 300th AFA, activates.

Yesterday the 2nd Bn, 300th AFA, commenced active duty for a period of two years, during which they will be deployed to the "Middle East".

The Middle East is a large region.  The US has forces Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.  Most likely, the Guard is not going to Syria, Qatar (which is mostly USAF), or Iraq, but who really knows?

This is the largest deployment of the 300th since the Korean War, with it being perhaps significant to note that the 300th designation lapsed after the Korean War. During the balance of the Cold War, the Wyoming Army National Guard's artillery in the state was part of the 3d Bn 49th FA, which was part of the 115th FA Bde.

The deployment of a National Guard unit in this role, for this long, really demonstrates the degree to which the National  Guard is part of the overall Army structure today.  If you are in the Guard, you are going to see active duty.

Friday, April 28, 1944. Day Two of Execise Tiger.

USS LST-289. Arrives in Dartmouth Harbor, England, after being torpedoed in the stern by German MTBs during an invasion rehearsal off Slapton Sands, England, on 28 April 1944.

We've already discussed Exercise Tiger and won't repeat what we set out there, but we will note that while focus on Tiger tends to be on the American loss of life it caused, it very well may have resulted in avoiding disaster at Operation Overlord.  

In that sense, Exercise Tiger might be remembered justifiably in much the same way that the August 19,1942 Anglo Canadian raid at Dieppe can be, a disaster whose lessons were so significant that the event is sort of a Pyrrhic defeat.  That is, the lessons learned as a result of the disasters encountered there were so significant they served to avoid them occurring on the beaches in Operation Overlord.

British family moving from the Slapton Sands area when it was being taken over as an exercise area.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox died.

Knox had been ill for a while, having suffered a series of recent heart attacks.  He was 70 years old at the time of his death.

A Bostonian, he's served with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, the "Rough Riders", during the Spanish American War.  After the war he had been a newspaper editor in Michigan, where he was also the state chairman of the Republican Party.  He supported Theodore Roosevelt for President in 1912 and had agitated for U.S. entry into the Great War, in which he went on to serve as an artilleryman.  He was a Vice Presidential candidate in the 1936 campaign, on the Landon Knox ticket.  Roosevelt appointed the Republican Secretary of the Navy in 1940.  After Pearl Harbor, Knox, while still Secretary of the Navy, was shunted aside to a significant degree in favor of Admiral Ernest J. King, that being somewhat of a tradition by that time.

1944  USS Crook County, LST-611, named after Crook counties Wyoming and Oregon, launched. She was a landing ship, tank.

USS Crook County at Inchon, 1950.

The ship was a LST that served in the Pacific during World War Two and then again during the Korean War.  She was decommissioned in 1956.

Related threads:

Wednesday, August 19, 2022. The Raid On Dieppe.

1940s, 1942, Canadian Army, Commandos, Dieppe France, Dieppe Raid, Espionage, Free French, Guadalcanal, Operation Jubilee, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Siege of Leningrad, World War Two

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 27, 1944. Exercise Tiger

1940s, 1944, Capitalism, Disaster, Exercise Tiger, German Kriegsmarine, Poland, Quebec, U.S. Navy, Ukraine, United Kingdom, World War Two, Wyoming, Wyoming Stock Growers Association

Some Gave All: Punchbowl, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, O'ahu, Hawaii

Some Gave All: Punchbowl, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacif...: 

Punchbowl, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, O'ahu, Hawaii

Perhaps the most beautiful, and in someways the most somber, National Cemetery, this is the "Punchbowl" on O'ahu, Hawaii.  

Created after World War Two as a final resting place for the thousands of US servicemen who had died in the Pacific, it was established in 1949 and contains the remains of over 61,000 US servicemen who lost their lives in World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.