Showing posts with label WW2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WW2. Show all posts
Thursday, July 02, 2026
Thursday, June 11, 2026
American journalist Martha Gellhorn tricked the Navy so that she could write firsthand dispatches from Normandy in June 1944, she lied to get on a hospital ship so she could be a stowaway and get transported to the D Day invasion!
She had already accompanied the US Fifth Army to the front in Monte Cassino, Italy in 1943. She wasn't worried about being in the middle of the war.
Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991.
Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991.
Her defiance meant she was on the first hospital ship to reach Normandy, arriving at Omaha Beach early on the morning of 7 June, and becoming the only woman correspondent on the ground at the D-Day landings.
"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'
"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'
"You could always get by with that. It always sounded harmless and idiotic, and it worked a treat. 'I'm just doing the woman's angle,' and nobody's interested anymore. And then I just locked myself in a toilet until after we left port."
During a career that spanned 60 years, the Missouri-born journalist covered the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Finland, and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp.
She befriended the Roosevelts and stayed with them at the White House, cadged bed and breakfast from HG Wells, and married Ernest Hemingway
She also wrote for Vogue magazine and reported on the Great Depression for the US government, travelling through the Dust Bowl with the photographer Dorothea Lange.
Thanks to Don for highly recommending the movie "Hemingway & Gellhorn". Martha Gellhorn is played by Nicole Kidman.
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Tuesday, June 09, 2026
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Some officers in the 101st thought a 75mm pack howitzer could not knock out a German tank. The grunts ignored the naysayers and did it anyway
On Christmas morning '44 the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion were dug in northwest of Bastogne.
A German armored assault force helped out by showing up to provide tanks to submit for testing, with direct fire, at short range.
The battalion claimed eight tanks destroyed, though only two could be confirmed at the time and other units shared the fight. Of the eighteen that began the assault, none survived the day.
The 463rd received the Presidential Unit Citation for its work at Bastogne.
Monday, May 25, 2026
Friday, May 15, 2026
“Jumpin’ Jim” at age 37 getting ready for Operation Market Garden. He would eventually become a three star general and the Commanding General of the 82nd.
He got his nickname as the only American general officer to make four combat jumps during the war.
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Thursday, May 07, 2026
John Eads Cushman shop built a lightweight racer using a Cushman (named Black Jack) with a bored out cast iron engine using a piston from a Studebaker six and an overdrive unit giving it two gears. took it to the drag strip and it went 89 mile per hour in the 1/4 mile, a record for a scooter.
John Eads of Kokomo Indiana lived a 102 years despite crewing a bomber as a gunner on 50 missions in WW2
He was born in 1923, in Kokomo, and Married Thelma in 1952
John enlisted in the Army Air Corp on December 5, 1942, at the age of 19 with plans to be a mechanic. But after his enlistment, he was sent to a gunnery school and was assigned as a waist gunner with the 97th Bomber Group, 342nd Squadron of the 15th Air Force in Italy.
He was honorably discharged on March 26, 1945, earning the rank of TSgt.
He was an Army specialty Airplane Mechanic Gunner and during battles, engagements, skirmishes and expeditions, flew in 50 heavy bombardment missions over enemy occupied territory from 1943-1944.
After WW2 he bought a Cushman dealership and also sold Whizzers, it was open until 1958 and worked for Martin Wrecker Service in their office and was very involved at Bunker Hill Dragstrip
After WW2 he bought a Cushman dealership and also sold Whizzers, it was open until 1958 and worked for Martin Wrecker Service in their office and was very involved at Bunker Hill Dragstrip
His Cushman used an old lawn mower handle for steering, a hand ground cam, and a hot water bottle filled with alcohol that he used as a seat for a fuel pump and supply. It weight 136 pounds.
He was a member of Greentown Road Kings Car Club, Kokomo VFW and the Cushman Club
He set the track record in 1958 at 89.4 mph 14.46 seconds in the quarter mile at Bunkerhill Drag Strip.
in this video he went down the strip on an exhibition pass at age 90, in 2013
Yes, I've got 65,000 posts and have forgotten most of them, and if this one is something you've never read before, you oughta consider looking through the last 19.5 years of archives.
Wednesday, May 06, 2026
OUTSTANDING WW2 history! Truk Lagoon, April 30th to May 1st, 1944, in the Caroline Islands
Carrier strikes in the area had left several U.S. aviators downed inside the lagoon, a place still firmly within enemy territory. In response, a Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplane from the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) had been dispatched on a rescue mission and had recovered a downed pilot, but while loading him aboard the plane, the Kingfisher was swamped and capsized.
Another Kingfisher from the battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55) piloted by Lt. j.g. John A. Burns with Radioman Aubrey J. Gill, saw their capsized compatriot and landed to pick up the three aviators. The Kingfisher could have just taken off with one downed pilot on board, but with three, it was too overloaded. Burns made the decision to taxi out of the lagoon and rendezvous with the lifeguard submarine USS Tang (SS-306) who took the three men aboard.
But Burns wasn't done yet.
After delivering his first three rescues, Burns took off for the lagoon again. Over the next few hours, he located seven more downed airmen scattered across the choppy waters. As he kept picking up survivors with no hope to take off again, Burns packed men into the fuselage, onto the wings, and even towed one of the downed aircraft's rafts to carry all the survivors.
He taxied for five hours through heavy seas, finally returning to the submarine. By the time they rendezvoused with the Tang, the Kingfisher was nearly out of fuel, listing badly from a leaking pontoon, and battered by the waves. The survivors as well as Burns and Gill all were transferred by raft to the sub.
Once the survivors were safely aboard the Tang, the damaged Kingfisher was sunk by gunfire. For his extraordinary persistence and resourcefulness, Burns was awarded the Navy Cross.
Monday, April 27, 2026
A rare Douglas B-23 Dragon, once owned by Howard Hughes, is getting restored at Pearland Regional Airport in Texas. (thank you George!)
A total of 38 B-23s were built, serving initially as U.S. Army Air Forces medium bombers before being relegated to secondary roles during WWII, including reconnaissance, training, transport, and test duties.
Several aircraft converted for transport use were redesignated UC-67s. Following the war, all surviving examples were declared surplus, and many entered civilian service as cargo and executive transports
Sunday, April 19, 2026
hand painted Mini pick up, inspired by the 303 squadron, the most successful fighter squadron, consisting of 95% Polish pilots, in the Battle of Britain (thank you Shas!)
Shas corrected my post, with some accurate facts (thank you Shas!)
the non polish members of the 303 were flight commander John Kent, a Canadian from Winnipeg serving in the RAF, and Josef František a bit eccentric Czech pilot that entered Polish service after the III Reich annexed Czechoslovakia and he fought with the 303rd to his end in a crash near Cuddington Way. At that time he was number 4 top ace pilot in all allied forces.
Friday, April 17, 2026
this is so typically odd... an artist who is so talented, unable to pay the bills with art, has to have a regular job to pay the bills.... David Wright, famous pin up artist, was a driving instructor!
During the war he worked as a driving instructor for the armed forces in Abersoch, Wales, which left him plenty of time to continue his illustration work.
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
Saturday, February 28, 2026
the SS Thistlegorm sank in 1941, meeting her untimely end while carrying war supplies to Alexandria via the Suez Canal, sank by German bombers, found by the ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau in the 1950s, but he didn’t tell anyone where she was.
Among her most famous treasures are the BSA motorbikes, Bedford trucks, guns and Wellington boots.
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