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Posted on 04/01/2002 2:10:24 AM PST by Snow Bunny
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God bless your cousin and all the loved ones of this young Marine! Bless his soul and may Jesus be holding him in His strong arms.......Eric Michael Logsdon, USMC, rest in peace.
To pass the time at sea, sailors have been known to play pranks and practical jokes on one another. Feel free to add to this collection because I know I missed some. I'm sure some specific jobs spawn specific pranks.
We need a 9v battery for the sound powered phones - NOW! Before they have a General Quarters drill! (Sound powered phones need NO battery!)
Sending a sailor to supply to get a "Box of Radar Contacts". A radar contact is a blip on the radar scope.
The rumor that always started as we were pulling out of some port about a "Female stowaway".
Elevator passes. US Navy ships don't have elevators for people.
Dispatching a sailor to supply to get some "Relative Bearing Grease". This was always a RUSH job because the bearing is "about to burn up"! Relative bearing is a compass point relative to the ship's heading.
Telling a sailor to go and get "50 feet of Chow Line". Chow line would be the line for chow and 50 feet of it would be about 25 sailors. I doubt that anyone has actually ever fallen for this one.
Convincing a sailor that there really is a bowling alley on the aircraft carrier he/she are about to report to. Of course, the lanes are gyroscopically stabilized.
The Sea Bat. This one needs explanation,
This is always done at night. Everybody knows that bats don't come out during the daytime!
The Sea Bat is an ancient tradition. The perpetrators gather around a closed cardboard box and look hard at it. Many of them are leaning on brooms or swabs (mops to you landlubbers). There is often a piece of invisible fishing line running into the box tied to a bolt or something. One of the perpetrators is wiggling the line to make the bolt in the box make a little noise. Along comes the victim. Curiosity will make the person wonder what is in the box. "A Sea Bat" is the answer. Very rare creature. Mean sucker, too! No, you don't want to see it! I told you they're really mean. No, really, you DON'T want to open that box. Trust me! Oh, man! You're braver than I am! You get the idea. They'll say anything to keep the poor guy interested!
By this time, the victim has just GOTTA see this Sea Bat! When he bends over to open the box, all those brooms and swabs come up (just in case that thing gets loose, of course). When the box is opened, it's time to strike! WHACK-O! All those brooms and swabs right on the victim's butt - he's just been bitten by a Sea Bat!
Setting a Mail Buoy watch. There's no such thing as a mail buoy.
One I'd never heard of before, sending a sailor for a "Fallopian tube" for the radar. Anybody who'd fall for this one probably has to be reminded to breathe.
Sending someone for a padeye stretcher. (Those things just NEVER are big enough, are they?)
Sending someone to the engine room for a bucket of steam
Sending the new guy to find the keys to the C.O.'s jet so he can make the next launch (there are no keys to these aircraft)
Channel fever shots, got to get those before a port call Ssend someone to get some pneumatic fluid
Pump the nose strut up on the jet (launch bar on the nose strut that drops to hook onto the cat shuttle)
Aircraft sound powered phones (aircrew relief tubes, lick your lips for a better seal) we do this one after we change out a set of them and they are brand new to keep it in good taste, no pun intended.
Run to the maintenance control chief and bring out the eye-dee-ten-tee (IDIOT) form for the pilot to sign.
Is that all? Shows you how unnecessary those nukes were, doesn't it?
Good luck with that. If she reads awhile she will come to understand and appreciate them like we all do.
However, wait until you try to explain a 'figment of your imagination'....I want to hear this.
Much more pleasant weather than you have, I am certain. Will be in low 80's, dry, clear skies and roads and sidewalks, etc. Trees are blooming, the bees are working, hoping for a good harvest this year.
Since you are off today, will you be taking Beamer out this afternoon or shall I plan on grooming him?
A Marine of the 1st Marine Division draws a bead on a Japanese sniper with his tommy-gun as his companion ducks for cover. The division is working to take Wana Ridge before the town of Shuri." S.Sgt. Walter F. Kleine, Okinawa, 1945.
LST 568 Brief History:
LST-568 was laid down on 21 March 1944 at Evansville, Ind., by the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co.; launched on 18 May 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Arthur E. Owen; and commissioned on 3 June 1944.
During World War II, LST-568 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theatre and participated in the following operations:
Leyte landing -- October 1944
Lingayen Gulf landing -- January 1945
Assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto -- April 1945
Following the war, LST-568 performed occupation duty in the Far East until mid-October 1945. She was decommissioned on 4 March 1946 and struck from the Navy list on 20 March that same year.
LST-568 earned three battle stars for World War II service.
LOL, I had forgotten about that one!!!
One thing we used to do in the federal prisons (industries) was send an inmate back to the warehouse with a req form for a 55 gallon drum of compressed air...they weren't known for their smarts, LOL!
Nothing is too good for our men in the field!!
Still trying to get used to the new format(s), I don't mind changes I just wish he'd pick one and stick with it!!
Hey there who, good afternoon to ya Lady! Nah, we'll be taking a walk later, I think we'll be going to Beamer National Monument and see the progress they have made on the visiting areas...:^)
The ultimate image of Japanese determination and desperation in the war is that of the Kamikaze pilot, a young man sworn to crash his airplane directly into an enemy vessel to destroy it. Nearly 4,000 Kamikaze aircraft managed to sink or damage over 300 Allied ships and kill or injure more than 15,000 Allied sailors.
Named for the "Divine Wind" which had twice saved Japan from Mongol invasion during the thirteenth century, the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps was a logical, almost reasonable measure. Japan's prewar pilots were extraordinarily capable, perhaps the best in the world, but there were relatively few of them, and Japan had an inadequate pilot replacement training program. So from the moment Japan entered the war she began to lose pilots faster than they could be replaced. By mid-1944, new Japanese pilots were being sent into action with less than one-third of the flight training time that US pilots received, and they were being shot down in disproportionate numbers. Meanwhile, the anti-aircraft defense capability of the US Navy had increased to the point that a pilot who attempted to attack an American ship was effectively committing suicide anyway, and not likely to do very much damage in the process. Given the sacrificial mythos of the Japanese military, the Kamikaze Corps was a logical step.
How much more practical and profitable to deliberately plunge one's aircraft into the enemy, thereby insuring his destruction along with one's own. And the Kamikaze pilots were actually quite effective. Indeed, they could easily have been more devastating than was the case.
The first attacks were very successful. From October 24 through November 1, 1944, Kamikaze attacks off Leyte in the Philippines sank one escort carrier, one destroyer, and an ocean-going tug, while damaging two fleet carriers, one light carrier, seven escort carriers, one light cruiser, and three destroyers, at an expenditure of 51 Kamikaze aircraft and 15 escorting fighters.
During the Philippines Campaign as a whole (October 24, 1944-January 31, 1945), the Japanese sank 16 US vessels (two CVEs, three DDs, one DMS, and ten smaller vessels, including a PT-boat!) and damaged another 87 (including seven CVs, two CVLs, thirteen CVEs, five BBs, three CAs, seven CLs, 23 DDs, five DEs, one DMS), at a cost of 378 Kamikaze aircraft and 102 escorts. Japanese air power had not done so well since Pearl~Harbor. Nor was it ever to do as well again.
The success of the Kamikaze off the Philippines alerted the US Navy to the threat posed by this new weapon. Defensive weapons and tactics which were adequate to deal with aircraft attacking in the normal way were inadequate to cope with the Kamikaze. AA machine guns were much too light, 20mm guns only marginally better, and even 40mm guns only barely served. The problem was that these wouldn't break up an incoming airplane. Even a bullet-riddled, dying pilot could guide his plane the few extra minutes necessary to crash it into a ship. What was needed was something explosive. The most effective gun was the Navy's standard 5"/38 dual purpose rapid fire cannon. CAP (Combat Air~patrol) was also much less effective against the Kamikaze. Standard doctrine assumed that defensive fighters could handle an attacking force of roughly twice their own number, since it was your fighters against the enemy's bombers. This didn't work with suicide attackers, for which you needed as many defenders as there were attackers and escorts.
Another asset of the Kamikaze was that aircraft making such attacks had much greater reach than those making conventional attacks. After all, they weren't planning on returning to base, so Kamikaze attacks were possible well beyond the range of conventional air strikes. This was particularly evident off Okinawa.
During the Okinawa Campaign (April-June 1945), the Japanese expended 1,465 aircraft in Kamikaze attacks, sinking 21 ships and damaging 217, of which 43 were constructive total losses and 23 required at least a month's repair before returning to service. Including casualties from conventional air attacks, a total of about 4,900 US Navy men were killed (more than 7 percent of total Navy war dead) and 4,800 wounded during the campaign, making it the bloodiest in US naval history. Altogether about 3,900 aircraft were expended by the Kamikaze, counting Army and Navy attacks together and excluding escorts. Several thousand aircraft sortied on Kamikaze missions but returned to base having failed to locate targets worthy of their sacrifice. Many of these were eventually used in successful attacks. These aircraft inflicted considerable damage on American and Allied ships, sinking 83 and damaging some 350 others.
The Kamikaze was the most serious threat to the safety of the fleet during the war. It was also, interestingly enough, the only major development in the war which US Navy brass had not anticipated during prewar planning. Actually, as bad as the experience with the Kamikaze was, it could easily have been worse. The Japanese could have resorted to Kamikaze tactics earlier, when anti-aircraft defenses were not so good. They also could have attempted mass attacks, rather than piecemeal ones, during the Philippine Campaign. Had the war lasted longer, it would most certainly have been worse. In anticipation of an American invasion of the Home Islands, the Japanese had some 9,000 aircraft on hand, of which a third were earmarked for Kamikaze attacks.
users.pandora.be/dave.depickere/Text/kamikaze.html
In this 3-panel photograph, a Japanese kamikaze (suicide plane) is on fire from anti-aircraft fire from a U.S. ship. It attempted to dive on the ship, but missed its objective completely, and fell into the ocean.
(Source:"The Naval Air War" by Nathan Miller)
A plummeting Japanese kamikaze plane narrowly misses the U.S. escort carrier Sangamon in early May, 1945. During the last year of the war the Japanese Navy expended many of its remaining aircraft in these suicide missions in a desperate attempt to stop the American fleet.
(Source:"The Carrier War" by Clark G. Reynolds & Time-Life)
LST-598: (p. 647) Kiel Laid: 14 July 1944, Evansville, Ind., Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co. Launch; 29 August 1944 Sponsor: Mrs. Robert H. Vickery Commissioning: 23 September 1944 Participation: Assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto in April and May 1945. Decommissioning: 10 June 1946, removed from Navy list on 19 July 1946. Awards: One battle star, World War II.
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War has come to our shores. It was committed on American soil. We have been able to live in Freedom only because of those who have fought in the past wars giving life, limb and all the sacrifices for us to live in Freedom and go about our day without fear. 
This is the Freeper version of the USO Canteen. Where soldiers could come and feel a small part of being at home. It is a place where you that have family in the military can post a thought to a loved one that might be able to read it far away from home. A place where we that support our military can help support them, post to them, fun graphics showing the price in America and our troops. Poems, quotes, cartoons, or articles of how America is behind our troops.
