Saturday, December 06, 2025
I bet the crew of the Madam Schlitz VII were not fortunate enough to get some beer sponsorship from the Schlitz beer company
Just after the start of 1945, the division saw its bloodiest fight. While the more famous Battle of the Bulge was going on in the Ardennes Forest, German troops launched counteroffensives in other parts of the Allied line. On the French and German border, some of these attacks focused on tanks of the 12th Armored near Herrlisheim, France.
The 12th Armored lasted long enough to be relieved by other U.S. units and was pulled back from the front. During the fighting around Herrlisheim, the division lost approximately 1,250 men and 70 combat vehicles.
Like other major Milwaukee brewers, Schlitz benefited immensely from the nearby Chicago market, opening an agency there in 1868. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 temporarily destroyed the local brewing industry, and Schlitz more than doubled sales over the next year.
Schlitz employed a wide array of scientific, technological, and marketing innovations to standardize their product and compete for leadership of the national market. In 1883 William J. Uihlein brought the first pure culture yeast strain to the United States from Copenhagen, which allowed Schlitz to produce a higher quality beer more consistently. Schlitz helped establish the Union Refrigerator Transit Company in the 1890s, with Joseph Uihlein, Sr. as president, to develop and operate a more cost-effective refrigerated freight line for the brewery. Schlitz was the first to introduce the brown bottle to industrial brewing in 1911, which protected the beer from the harmful effects of light during shipping.
Its decline began in the 1970s after recipe changes, leading to its sale to Stroh's (1982) and later Pabst (1999), with the original Milwaukee brewery closing in 1981 and becoming Schlitz Park, while the brand is now owned by Pabst Brewing Company and produced in other locations
Beer brewing during World War II saved the beer industry. During World War I, anti-alcohol crusaders launched a campaign to label beer makers in America, many of whom were German immigrants, as anti-American and wasters of U.S. resources. It helped the passage of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture and import of alcoholic beverages.
After Prohibition was repealed, breweries went right back to doing what they knew best, but the industry was still on shaky ground. Then World War II broke out, and the U.S. government saw beer as what we would today call a "force multiplier." It declared beer production an essential wartime industry, with 15% of its output reserved for the military.
When the Korean War started, some of the old "dry" politicians and activists were still around, fighting against the evils of alcohol. The teetotalers somehow managed to convince the Department of Defense that troops could do without the two-beer ration. When the news hit headlines, it sparked a nationwide debate.
A U.S. representative, Democrat Andrew J. Biemiller, who represented Milwaukee, demanded on the House floor that the Army explain its rationale for cutting off its soldiers' taps. He argued that beer could be used in place of water when necessary and had "as much alcohol as a good pudding."
While the war raged in Korea, the war at home between beer lovers and anti-alcohol groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was fought to keep beer out of the hands of the GIs. Then, a couple of brewing heavyweights escalated the conflict.
A U.S. representative, Democrat Andrew J. Biemiller, who represented Milwaukee, demanded on the House floor that the Army explain its rationale for cutting off its soldiers' taps. He argued that beer could be used in place of water when necessary and had "as much alcohol as a good pudding."
While the war raged in Korea, the war at home between beer lovers and anti-alcohol groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was fought to keep beer out of the hands of the GIs. Then, a couple of brewing heavyweights escalated the conflict.
Milwaukee's own Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company and Blatz Brewing Company offered to buy the troops a round and see what might happen. The companies volunteered 600,000 cans or bottles (apiece) of their products to be sent to the Korean Peninsula and handed out to the Americans fighting there.
Army Secretary Frank Pace agreed to the donation, so long as the beer was less than 3.2% alcohol by volume.
The first cans of Schlitz, which was America's top beer at the time, rolled away from Milwaukee on Sept. 28, 1950. Blatz wasn't far behind, shipping theirs out on Oct. 4, 1950. The beer made it to the troops in time for Christmas.
The first cans of Schlitz, which was America's top beer at the time, rolled away from Milwaukee on Sept. 28, 1950. Blatz wasn't far behind, shipping theirs out on Oct. 4, 1950. The beer made it to the troops in time for Christmas.
WW2 Tank Battalion patch art from Disney, the 710th, 714th, 751st, and 68th
68th Tank Battalion
68th Tank Battalion - 6th Armored
John just told me about Florrie Maloof! His mother in law, who was a WASP in Sweetwater TX, and flew B26’s from the factory to Bangor Me!
Over 25,000 women applied for the honor of flying for their country during WWII.
Of these, 1,830 were chosen to receive training, and 1,074 graduated.
About 30 percent did not pass the training requirements or resigned.
WASP Class 43-W-6
Dates: April 25, 1943-October 4, 1943
Number of Trainees: 123 trainees, 84 graduates
Place: Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas
Graduation Speaker: William T. Piper, President, Piper Aircraft Corp. Lockhaven, Pennsylvania Distinguished Guests: Jacqueline Cochran, Director of Women Pilots, AAF
You can see a lot about WASPs in this online library https://texashistory.unt.edu/search/?q5=%22Women%20Airforce%20Service%20Pilots%20%28U.S.%29%22&t5=str_subject&searchType=advanced
this GT350 fastbacks built for 1968, this was a commuter for 24 years, 5 while attending college, then 7 as a tax accountant, and 12 more during an FBI career. No AC, and an automatic... in Florida, Alabama, and new Jersey
The teen saw Shelbys in the dealership, but it was not until he was driving behind a ’68 in his mildly hotrodded ’59 Chevy that he felt the urge to buy one. He followed it into a Lou Bono’s BBQ restaurant, captivated by the car’s sequential turn signals, a feature of the 1965 Thunderbird taillights used on 1968-1970 Shelbys.
“When I saw those, I immediately thought, ‘That’s my car,” he remembers.
That summer, Sizemore had money from his job and from selling his Chevy. Because he’d earned a full two-year athletic scholarship to Florida Junior College, his parents approved his using the $1500 they’d saved for his education toward a car.
“My mom helped talk my dad into letting me buy a Shelby, but he would not allow a GT500 KR,” Sizemore says. “I guess he figured I’d hurt myself, and he was probably right.”
That July, Southside Ford still had a half-dozen ’68 models on the lot. The young man picked a GT350 with the automatic transmission but without air conditioning.
“I knew that the A/C would take a little bit of horsepower when it was on, and I didn’t want to give up any. I regretted that decision every Southern summer since!”
At college in Florida, Sizemore became an All-American in cross country and two years later earned a full scholarship at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The Shelby went with him. His girlfriend, Cathy, also attended UA and owned a 1967 Mustang six-banger hardtop with a three-speed stick. The couple married in 1970 and recently celebrated their 55th anniversary.
With his accounting degree, Sizemore first worked for a Jacksonville CPA firm and picked up extra cash working in his dad’s gas station on weekends. He had hood stripes added to the Shelby, saying the shop did “a halfway decent job.”
In 1980 and with two children, Alton III and Kimberly, the family began moving around with Sizemore’s FBI assignments: Jacksonville, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Birmingham. In the Jacksonville office, a colleague spotted the 1977 Wallace Wyss book, “Shelby’s Wildlife,” on Sizemore’s desk and offered to get it autographed by Carroll Shelby through a connection. He got it back six months later, with the signature.
Sizemore’s drive from D.C. to his Birmingham assignment in 1992 was the Shelby’s last such trip.
“I met so many people in the Bureau, but even now, when I talk to someone I haven’t seen in years, the first question they ask is how I’m doing, and the second is always, ‘Do you still have the Shelby?’”
Test Pilot Boone Guyton was out flying the Corsair prototype one day... It did not go well, SNAFU, rain blew in fast, while he ran out of fuel, because he was at max power, using more fuel than normal in a new plane, and had to put 'er down some where fast. Thank you John!
As Harrison Ford can attest, a golf course will do in an pinch. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/03/did-you-hear-todays-celebrity-news.html
As he circled lower and lower, desperately looking for a place to land, he saw nothing but trees below.
Then the rain let up, and he spotted a church steeple and a few seconds later the outline of a golf course.
As he dropped below the height of the steeple, he slid the canopy back and steepened his bank to keep the golf course in sight. It was the Norwich Golf Course, where an 18-year-old caddy had been watching the Corsair since it first appeared overhead, obviously in trouble
"On the green of the straightest and longest fairway, I could make out the flag. It was hanging limp- no wind. Behind it was a stand of heavy woods, but at the far end, the fairway was wide open - a good approach. I would land toward the green.”
The fairway that Guyton chose was the 14th, and the caddy was already running in that direction because he knew it was the longest and most suitable place to land.
While Guyton was setting up his approach, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the once flickering fuel light had turned solid, he had little fuel remaining.
He lowered the landing gear and flaps and set the prop in low pitch, “Dropping down just above the course, I hung the Corsair on its prop, slow as I dared; I wanted to get down to the last flyable knot. Then I jerked the throttle full off. The big fighter hit hard a quarter of the way down the fairway. It headed straight for the green, and I got on the brakes fast. Relief at being safe on the good earth was instant, sweet- and totally false.
Slick form the wetness, the fairway that appeared so inviting was a skating rink. Braking had no effect, as the XF’s smooth tires held contact. I was a hundred yards from the green, and I knew I was headed for the bank of trees beyond.” As the XF4U skidded and skipped along the fairway with unchecked abandon, Guyton stomped a boot full of rudder to induce a ground loop, but it had no effect.
Seconds before he crashed into the trees, Guyton undid his parachute harness, shut off the ignition, cut the fuel, grabbed the bottom of the stick, and pulled himself down into the cockpit. That final action, Guyton said, probably saved his life, for when the fighter plunged into the trees, which concealed a large ravine of rocks and boulders, he was in for a rough ride.
“Paradoxically, the trees were both destructive and helpful, but at the exact moment, my only thought was survival. As the sturdy, tough saplings bent and split, they arched the XF into the air as though it were flung from a sling. As it flipped inverted, I felt a hammering at my head, hard thumps against my shoulders, and then- nothing. Its momentum barely broken, the big fighter crashed, inverted, down through the trees, slid backward down the steep slope of the ravine, and smashed into a huge tree stump.” Guyton related.
from somewhere outside his darkened universe, he heard the caddy ask, “Hey, you alright down there? Can you get out?”
Guyton replied, “I think so, I’ll let you know.” Guyton’s injuries were minor, and even though he had released his straps, he was still trapped in the darkness of the inverted wreckage, but after digging a small opening in the damp soil, he crawled out of the cockpit and made his way to the top of the ravine.
As he spoke to an elderly police officer, who arrived on scene surprisingly fast, Guyton looked down at the “sad remains” of what was then the only Corsair in existence
An engineer said, “Don’t worry, we can always fix the airplane. You got it down, and here you are, that’s what counts.”
The night after the accident, the fighter was hauled out of the ravine, and “Pop” Reichert, who headed the shop, told Guyton they’d have the fighter flying again in three months.
the photos of that made the news, and 54-year-old World War II Navy veteran turned postal worker read about the reunion in the New Haven Register.
It took him back to a rainy July afternoon in Norwich, Connecticut, where he saw a Corsair crash into a stand of trees at the Norwich golf course, where he’d been a caddy before the war.
That postal worker wrote a letter to Guyton, who was 63 at the time and still working for Vought. They met, and the newspaper got a photo op and cool story about the reunion
2016 Ford Mustang Shelby GT-H is available via auction was owned for a decade by the CEO of Hertz, it's a rare supercharged stick shift, and he was lame, and only enjoyed 500 miles of car therapy this beast offered at 670hp, and 3.55 gears
An innovative way to display mission markers on a WW2 bomber, "punching a ticket" on the Tough Shit, with an outhouse tent between the T and the S, and the mission markers were "punched out" around the perimeter
42-64051, "T.S.", with the blue reconnaissance camouflage paint half removed, late May or early June 1944, at Nadzab, New Guinea, then Biak Island in this time frame.
The nose art was applied at Hickam Field, Hawaii while the repair of leaking fuel tanks delayed the trip to New Guinea
20th Photographic Mapping Squadron Long range aerial mapping and reconnaissance using F-7A and F-7B aircraft (B-24's converted for aerial photography) Radar intelligence gathering with B-24J ferrets
In WW2, and when they needed more contract work, bridge companies would make LSTs for the Navy, and water towers for cities and railroad companies LST-669 was launched by the American Bridge Co. in May 1944.
I posted about the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works making rail road water tanks for steam locomotives, and water towers for cities a couple months ago https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-chicago-bridge-and-iron-works-built.html
modern versions of nose art, with Star Wars characters some just new versions of WW2 Disney military insignia / patches - and with cool mission symbols on the scoreboard, by Phil Postma
I just posted the original of this last week, the submarine USS Baya, SS 318 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2025/11/very-unusual-and-out-of-ordinary-disney.html
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