PEAK OF OKINAWA RIDGE WON; SCORES OF FOE SURRENDER; 520 B-29’S SMASH AT OSAKA (6/15/45)

While Mauldin wound up being a total liberal with his post-war domestic cartoons, he did have a poignant way of capturing the war from the eyes of the GI. He was sort of an Ernie Pyle of cartoonists. And they seem a bit a bit bawdy by the standards of the day, although I'm sure it was far milder than what the GIs actually talked about.

My favorite Mauldin was from last summer, as the Americans liberated France:

"This is the town my pappy told me about."

I believe Mauldin was given grief by some of the brass because of his depiction of the average infantryman - hardly spit and polish! From what I've seen he was pretty accurate. Easy Company didn't have a shower or laundry exchange for two months after the Bulge began.

British cartoons were racier than the American. This Jane cartoon gives a little better image of what was on the troops mind.

Talking about the change of clothes - here is from an interview of my Dad’s cousin that I found on-line:

I know that during the Bulge, one time I helped a couple of the fellows who were wounded to an aid station. After we got them to the aid station, I helped lift this one fellow off the litter by putting arms underneath his waist to lift him off; it so happens that part of the litter was full of blood, and so my sleeves were soaked in blood up to the elbows. And it was exactly thirty days later that I got to change my shirt.

So we went for a month at a time without a change of clothes; and, as I say, taking our shoes off at night
was a luxury. We didn’t get to do that too often.

MH: Did everybody smell pretty ripe, or was it just so cold that you didn’t notice?

RD: We didn’t notice, no. I have tried to recall how often we had a change of clothes, and you know, I can only remember it happening twice: once in France, early on in France, and then once in Luxembourg.

MH: They actually would bring you new uniforms, new fatigues?

RD: Well, I don’t remember getting the new uniforms, exactly, other than underwear. But as far as during the Bulge and after the Bulge—after the Bulge, I wore a pullover sweater that I got out of a German department store, and some socks that I got out of a German store, where we were in the town. Of course, it was—they had fled; there were no Germans in the town when we got there, a small village. And I remember outfitting myself pretty much with clothes from the store, just helped myself. So, no.

During WW-2 Kansas City, KS had a B-25 assembly plant located at the old Fairfax airport.

After the war General Motors operated it as a car plant known locally as the B-O-P plant, Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac.

During the Korean War and shortly afterwards the plant not only produced cars but Republic F-84 jet fighters! This was one of a very few plants that produced both cars and planes.

A couple of links regards the old B-25 plant...

http://www.kclibrary.org/blog/week-kansas-city-history/flying-high

http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/2005winter_macias.pdf

Sorry for the late reply but I ended up being away from the computer most of the day yesterday.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

Sorry for the late reply I ended up being away from the computer most of the day yesterday.

And a big thanks for the link to the HTML page, will have to rebook mark that.

Will have to look into the Seamonkey thing, thanks!

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

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