Posted on 07/31/2014 4:31:55 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Amazing pictures. Makes you feel like you were there.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Parche in a predawn attack on a Japanese convoy, 31 July 1944.
Boldly penetrating the screen of a heavily escorted convoy, Comdr. Ramage launched a perilous surface attack by delivering a crippling stern shot into a freighter and quickly following up with a series of bow and stern torpedoes to sink the leading tanker and damage the second one. Exposed by the light of bursting flares and bravely defiant of terrific shellfire passing close overhead, he struck again, sinking a transport by two forward reloads.
In the mounting fury of fire from the damaged and sinking tanker, he calmly ordered his men below, remaining on the bridge to fight it out with an enemy now disorganized and confused. Swift to act as a fast transport closed in to ram, Comdr. Ramage daringly swung the stern of the speeding Parche as she crossed the bow of the onrushing ship, clearing by less than 50 feet but placing his submarine in a deadly crossfire from escorts on all sides and with the transport dead ahead.
Undaunted, he sent 3 smashing “down the throat” bow shots to stop the target, then scored a killing hit as a climax to 46 minutes of violent action with the Parche and her valiant fighting company retiring victorious and unscathed.
Commander Lawson P. Ramage, Medal of Honor
It was a matter of highest Nazi state interest, as explained by Himmler, October 4, 1943 at Poznan, Poland.
Hitler & Himmler:
Yeah, that’s “cider” all right. If you say so...
Thanks for the photos.
“Red” Ramage was one of many top-flight submarine skippers at this point in the war. Reading the Nimitz’ diaries, you get the sense that the American submarine campaign is doing to Japan what the Germans were not able to do to the British. Our subs didn’t have an auspicious start in the war, due to defective torpedoes and too much “dead wood” in the conning tower. Not anymore.
Guys like Ramage, O’Kane, Morton and Dealey left a tremendous legacy for our “Silent Service.”
Yeah. I’ve been doing a little studying of my own in the last week of the submarine war in the Pacific, and you’re right. Basically the first half of the war was largely wasted, mainly because nobody would fix the damned torpedoes.
But our boys sure made up for lost time and opportunities.
Well, there’s cider, and there’s cider. :-)
The Japanese don’t do too many communiques do they?
wasn’t it a bit early to say we owned Guam?
nice trenchcoat... might have to confiscate that... could be concealing something in there...
That German soldier actual looks pretty healthy and fit. By this time next year they won’t look like that.
Yeah, I hear ya. Noticed that myself. :-)
The sign in the background seems to indicate it could have been Vin Tonique or Ale something....
A few months ago in Italy, we were capturing German soldiers who had been in high school just weeks earlier. They’d barely had time to get dirty, let alone thin.
LOL! Yes, yes, it was.
What’s in the bottle might be local homemade cider. The books mentioned that American soldiers were very impressed with the product.
The signboard behind is advertising “Tonic Wine with Quinine,” an anti-malaria beverage.
anti-malaria beverage must have sold well since France was a tropical jungle in those days.
:p
Yes, extremely sharp. Maybe they've been digitally remastered, like old films.
Meanwhile they were still wasting their resources on concentration camps. Maybe that is why the Generals tried to kill Hitler, they saw the amazingly bad strategies and the waste of resources.
I think I read something in the last few days (1944 time) about outbreaks of malaria in the Netherlands, because the war had disrupted drainage and mosquito eradication policies.
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