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The Gallant Hours with James Cagney as Adl Hawlsey

The Great Raid w James Franco

The Man Who Never Was

Con Ryan’s Express

Love "The Gallant Hours". If not for just the believability of James Cagney playing the part!

My favorite part though was the opening with the singing of that shanty:

Away He Went
LINK TO SONG: (Opening to “The Gallant Hours”)

I knew a lad who went to sea
And left the shore behind him
I knew him well the Lad was me
And now I cannot find him

Away, away, away he went
To deep and salty waters
His girl she waits and grieves for him
She was his neighbors daughter

Away away away he went
And left the shore behind him
I knew him well the Lad was me
And now I cannot find him

Away, away, away he went
Away he went
And now I cannot find him

The rolling sea he would embrace
The rolling sea hath took him
And pass him on a lonely beach
The rolling sea forsook him

Away, away, away he went
And now I cannot find him
Away, away, away he went

I knew a lad who went to sea
And left the shore behind him
I knew him well the Lad was me
And now I cannot find him

There are no great men. There are only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet. Admiral William F. Halsey

Admiral Halsey was a flawed man. But I feel that all great men have flaws. Patton was flawed. Churchill was flawed. But Halsey, early in the war, was the right man for the right time.

I loved the story about how Halsey took command of the Guadalcanal Campaign, and when he relived Admiral Ghormley (who was a good friend and classmate at the Naval Academy) he was astonished to see Ghormley cooped up in a little windowless compartment on a ship tied to a pier. When he asked him why he hadn’t acquired any facilities on the shore for his headquarters, he was told the French said there weren’t any, and weren’t helping find any.

Halsey had one of his subordinates put together a unit of armed sailors, and had them march over the to the French Governor’s mansion. When they got there, the Governor was out, so they simply requisitioned the mansion, and that was that.

No wonder his men loved him. He made mistakes with Typhoon Cobra and the Okinawa Typhoon, not to mention his leaving his transports unprotected in Leyte Gulf, but...early in the war, when we NEEDED someone, he was the one who stepped into the breach.

The Great Raid w James Franco

I met a guy who was there (NOT KNEW), Col ARTHUR “BULL” SIMONS. He was also the man who planned and led the Special Forces raid on SON TAY, in ‘71. Good Man.