The FReeper Foxhole Profiles Brig. Gen. William Mitchell - Dec. 15th, 2003

Aviation History Magazine ^ | September 1997 | C.V. Glines

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
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for all those serving their country at this time.

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Brig. Gen. William Mitchell
(1879 - 1936)

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Billy Mitchell: Air Power Visionary

As Brig. Gen. William Mitchell faced court-martial charges in 1925, the Kansas City Star described him as 'a zealot, a fanatic, a one-idea man...' but added that someday his dream might come true.

As the U.S. Air Force celebrates its 50th anniversary in September 1997, it is fitting that the man who did much to help bring the Air Force into being should be remembered. William "Billy" Mitchell was a crusader who had the vision to understand the potential of air power long before his contemporaries.


Born in Nice, France, in 1879, on his parent's extended tour of Europe, Mitchell was brought back to Milwaukee at age 3. This photo was taken in 1898, when Mitchell first entered the military service. Mitchell held the rank of junior lieutenant.

The name Billy Mitchell brings different images to mind. To most, he was a hero, without whose dire warning the United States might never have been able to field the world's largest air force in time to fight World War II. To others, he was an ambitious egotist and zealot who ran roughshod over anyone who opposed his views on air power, especially his military and civilian superiors.

In a sense, the barnstorming era of the 1920s was also the Billy Mitchell era, because it was his voice that first loudly proclaimed the need for strong air defenses. Long before anyone else, he vigorously advanced the theory that the airplane would replace the fleet as America's first line of defense. He also saw the flying machine as a strategic weapon that could take a war to an enemy's industrial resources.


Billy Mitchell's first solo landing, spring, 1917

Mitchell was born in Nice, France, in 1879, the son of a U.S. senator. At age 18, he enlisted in the Army as a private when the Spanish-American War broke out. He was commissioned and served in the Army Signal Corps in Cuba, the Philippines and Alaska before becoming interested in aviation. As early as 1906, however, he prophesied in the Cavalry Journal that "conflicts, no doubt, will be carried out in the future in the air." After the first aircraft was purchased by the Army, he wrote several more articles pointing out that airplanes would be useful for reconnaissance, for preventing enemy forces from conducting reconnaissance and for offensive action against enemy submarines and ships.


General Billy Mitchell, standing in an allied trench somewhere in France, ca. 1918.

Mitchell was assigned to the Army General Staff in Washington in 1912 as a captain; at age 32, he was the youngest officer ever assigned to that important post. He prepared a report on the needs of American aviation and argued that, with the advances then being made in aeronautics, the United States was being drawn ever closer to its potential enemies and that distance would soon have to be measured in time, not miles.

Promoted to major, Mitchell was considered too old and held too high a rank for flight training. Convinced that his future lay in aviation, however, he paid for his own flying lessons at a civilian flying school at Newport News, Va., and later received a rating as a junior military aviator.


Billy Mitchell was a strong believer in the importance of air power

In April 1917, by then a lieutenant colonel, he was assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces in France and became one of the first Americans on the scene after the United States declared war on Germany. He immediately fought for the creation of American air units in France but was frustrated by the delay in getting American planes and pilots into the war. It galled him that the French had to provide air protection over the American lines, resulting in what Mitchell viewed as a lack of control and effectiveness. Mitchell met British General Hugh "Boom" Trenchard and quickly adopted his thesis that military air power could and should be used in a "relentless and incessant offensive" in wartime and, if so used, would one day become much more important in military strategy than sea power.



Slowly, American pilots arrived, were assigned to squadrons and were put in the air in French planes. In March 1918 the Germans began a desperate push against the Allies, and Mitchell was placed in charge of all American aviation units at the front. On Sunday, April 14, 1918, a year after the United States entered the war, Mitchell declared that America had finally put its first squadron into combat. His flair for combat leadership was subsequently proved at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel when he coordinated a force of 1,481 British, French and Italian planes to support American ground forces. He was promoted to brigadier general and became more vocal about the importance of a strong military air arm. He quickly earned the enmity of his nonflying contemporaries for his aggressiveness in building airfields, hangars and other facilities. His flamboyance, ability to gain the attention of the press and willingness to proceed unhampered by precedent made him the best-known American in Europe.


Mitchell (at center, with walking stick) and his staff pose at Koblenz, Germany, in January 1919. His World War I experiences, he said, had "conclusively shown that aviation was a dominant element in the making of war."

Mitchell returned to the States as a hero in 1919 and was appointed assistant chief of the U.S. Army Air Service. He was appalled at how quickly the organization he had helped to build in war had disintegrated in peacetime. He decided that the nation must not be deluded into the belief that "the war to end all wars" had really accomplished that end. "If a nation ambitious for universal conquest gets off to a flying start in a war of the future," he said, "it may be able to control the whole world more easily than a nation has controlled a continent in the past." Such statements embarrassed his superiors. He soon provoked the Navy admirals into open hostility through his tirades against their super-dreadnought concepts.

[SAMWolf]

The Agitator

Mitchell the hero soon became known as Mitchell the agitator as he tried to prove that airplanes could actually accomplish the things he forecast. He proposed a number of daring innovations for the Air Service that stunned the nonflying Army generals--a special corps of mechanics, troop-carrying aircraft, a civilian pilot pool for wartime availability, long-range bombers capable of flying the Atlantic and armor-piercing bombs. He encouraged the development of bombsights, ski-equipped aircraft, engine superchargers and aerial torpedoes. He ordered the establishment of aerial forest-fire and border patrols, and followed that with a mass flight to Alaska, a transcontinental air race and a flight around the perimeter of the United States. He encouraged Army pilots to set speed, endurance and altitude records in order to keep aviation in the news.

Mitchell was a bold advocate for airpower. In commanding air forces from several nations in 1918 and through later experiments and demonstrations, he laid the foundation for US airpower today.

With each success, Mitchell became more determined that the nation's money should be spent on aircraft and not expensive battleships. He stepped on the egos of the ground generals and the battleship admirals--especially the latter--with his fiery rhetoric and boasted that Army planes could sink any battleship afloat under any conditions of war. Dynamic and impetuous, he sought out the American press and announced that if he were given permission to bomb captured German battleships, he would prove his assertions.

Newspaper reporters and editors, sensing open interservice warfare that would make headlines and sell papers, thought he should be given the opportunity to conduct tests against actual warships that were going to be scuttled or scrapped anyway. The New York Times summarized the general feeling by saying that the country could not afford to ignore Mitchell's claims.

Maj. Gen. Mason Patrick, Chief of Air Service, is greeted at Bolling Field, D.C., in 1923 by Mitchell (right), his second in command. Mitchell criticized the Air Service's state of preparedness and equipment and was sent to the hinterlands.

The Navy's ironclad die-hards fought the idea of actual tests and preferred that their word be taken that aircraft could never sink the super-safe, first-class fighting ships of any nation. Strong pressure was brought to bear on President Warren G. Harding and Congress to withhold permission to use the German ships as targets. An angry Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels offered to stand bareheaded on the bridge of any ship Mitchell chose to bomb.



Not all of the admirals disagreed with Mitchell, however. Admiral William S. Sims, commander of U.S. naval forces in European waters during World War I, remarked: "The average man suffers very severely from the pain of a new idea....It is my belief that the future will show that the fleet that has 20 airplane carriers instead of 16 battleships and 4 airplanes will inevitably knock the other fleet out." Admiral W.F. Fullam, author of an exhaustive study of the use of air power, concluded that with the progress then being made in aviation, "Sea power will be subordinated to or dependent upon air power."

Mitchell continued to expound his views in speeches and articles for national publications. With the press strongly behind him and despite Navy foot-dragging, permission to demonstrate his theories was finally granted. The tests were scheduled for June and July 1921. While the ships were being assembled off the Virginia coast, Mitchell amassed an armada of airplanes as the 1st Provisional Air Brigade and ordered exhaustive bombing practice against mock ships near Langley Field. Army ordnance personnel produced the new 2,000-pound bombs that would be needed to sink a battleship.

The tests began as scheduled, and the careful preparations paid off. The bombers sank a German destroyer first, followed by an armored light cruiser and then one of the world's largest war vessels, the German battleship Ostfriesland, followed by the U.S. battleship Alabama--and later the battleships New Jersey and Virginia. As far as Mitchell and the press were concerned, the assertion that air power should be the nation's first line of defense had been proved. "No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them," Mitchell declared.

Mitchell's subsequent writings and pronouncements--all duly carried by the nation's press--continually fanned the flames of interservice rivalry. He proposed that the U.S. Army Air Service should take over all control of defense responsibilities for 200 miles out to sea. In view of the bickering over the tests that had taken place, he asserted that fundamental changes in defense policy were necessary and called for a "Department of National Defense...with a staff common to all the services" and with "subsecretaries for the Army, Navy and the Air Force." Mitchell staged a simulated bombing attack on New York City and mock bomb runs over other eastern cities, and he let the press carry the message to the public.

After the Ostfriesland, Mitchell's bombardiers conducted a demonstration in September hitting the battleship Alabama with phosphorus (as shown here), tear gas, and other bombs.

To quell the resultant fury of the battleship admirals and get Mitchell off the front pages, his superiors sent him to Hawaii. However, he returned with a scathing report on the inadequate defenses he saw there. He also went to Europe and the Far East to study the advances being made in aviation. After returning from the latter trip in 1924, he wrote a shocking 323-page report--probably the most prophetic document of his career--that stressed that, when making estimates of Japanese air power, "care must be taken that it is not underestimated."

[SAMWolf]

The Court-Martial

Mitchell believed that Japan was the dominant nation in Asia and was preparing to do battle with the United States. He predicted that air attacks would be made by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines and described how they would be conducted.

His report was received with all the enthusiasm of "a green demolition team approaching an unexploded bomb," according to one writer. The report was ignored; it is said that even his boss did not read it for two years.



In the following months, Mitchell wrote many articles expounding his theories and demanding national awareness of the new dimension of warfare that he perceived. Despite his efforts, large appropriations for new aircraft were not forthcoming. The Air Service was still flying aging de Havillands. Crashes occurred frequently, and with each one, Mitchell lambasted the shortsightedness of the War Department and Congress for allowing them to happen.

Mitchell's attacks became more vitriolic and were embarrassing to his superiors as well as to Capitol Hill and the White House. When his term with the Air Service expired in April 1925, he was not reappointed. He reverted to his permanent rank of colonel and was transferred to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as air officer for the VIII Corps.


NATIONAL ARCHIVES. Mitchell stands to face charges of insubordination at his court-martial on October 28, 1925, while his defense attorneys, his wife Betty, her father and Mitchell's brother-in-law listen.

On September 1, 1925, a naval seaplane was lost on a nonstop flight from San Francisco to Hawaii. Two days later, the U.S. Navy dirigible Shenandoah was destroyed while on a goodwill flight. Mitchell's reaction was prompt. From his post in "exile," he released a scathing denunciation of the Navy and War Department and dropped the heaviest bomb of his career. He released a 6,000-word statement saying that these and other accidents were "the result of incompetency, criminal negligence, and the almost treasonable negligence of our national defense by the War and Navy departments."

Mitchell added that "all aviation policies, schemes and systems are dictated by the non-flying officers of the Army and Navy, who know practically nothing about it." He ended his denunciation by saying that "I can stand by no longer and see these disgusting performances...at the expense of the lives of our people, and the delusions of the American public."


When a Navy dirigible crashed in a storm, Mitchell made a statement to the press, charging the War Department and Navy with incompetence and negligence. He was court-martialed (above) and in 1926 resigned from the military.

Reaction in Washington was immediate. Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis announced that Mitchell would be disciplined and implied that it would be by court-martial. Mitchell said he would welcome a court-martial if it "stung the conscience" of the public. Press reaction was mixed. The New York Times charged Mitchell with "insubordination and folly." The Herald Tribune called him "opinionative, arrogant and intolerant." However, the Kansas City Star editorialized that although he was "a zealot, a fanatic, a one-idea man," someday his dream might come true.

Mitchell was put under technical arrest, and a court-martial began in Washington on October 28, 1925, for insubordination under the catch-all 96th Article of War. Twelve generals (two of whom were later dismissed) and a colonel were appointed to sit in judgment, the highest ranking court ever convened to try an officer. None of them was a flier.



The court-martial dragged on for seven weeks. When it was over, the board deliberated for about half an hour and rendered its verdict--guilty of the charge and all eight specifications. The sentence was suspension from rank, command and duty with forfeiture of pay and allowances for five years.

The verdict was widely debated on Capitol Hill, and veterans groups passed resolutions condemning the outcome. President Calvin Coolidge approved the sentence handed down by the court, but altered the court's verdict by granting him full subsistence and half pay because Mitchell would not be able to accept private employment while still in uniform. Mitchell said he would not accept the modified sentence because it would make him "an object of government charity."


Elizabeth and Harriet Mitchell, Billy Mitchell's daughters with Walter Lees at Newport News

Mitchell resigned effective February 1, 1926. He immediately embarked on a four-month, coast-to-coast lecture tour, showing films of the ship bombings and continually expressing his by now familiar theme of the necessity for military preparedness in the air. His sweeping charges appeared in major American magazines and aviation journals. He continually called attention to the rapid strides being made in aviation in Europe and Asia and warned of Japanese plans to seize the Hawaii, Alaska and the Philippines. He also predicted, accurately, that the Japanese would not bother to declare war formally. "We not only do nothing in the face of all this," he said, "but we leave our future in the air to incompetents."

Mitchell wrote more than 60 articles, several newspaper series and five books, never deviating from his appeal for public understanding of the promise and potential of air power. He made his last public appearance on February 11, 1935, when he addressed the House Military Affairs Committee.


"To Walter E. Lees in whose airplane I made my 1st "solo" flight.
J. M. Mitchell, Brig. Gen. Air Service"

Weakened by his struggle, the old campaigner died in a New York hospital on February 19, 1936, at the age of 56. He had elected to be buried in Milwaukee, his hometown, where he enlisted in 1898, rather than at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1955, the Air Force Association passed a resolution to void Billy Mitchell's court-martial. In 1957, Mitchell's youngest child, William, Jr., petitioned the Air Force to set aside the court-martial verdict. Secretary of the Air Force James H. Douglas unhappily denied the request, saying, "It is tragic that an officer who contributed so much to his country's welfare should have terminated his military career under such circumstances."



Although the conviction was not removed, Billy Mitchell had already received a measure of official recognition from a grateful nation when President Harry S. Truman signed legislation in 1946 bestowing a special medal posthumously on Mitchell "in recognition of his outstanding pioneer service and foresight in the field of American military aviation."

Should Billy Mitchell be remembered today? The answer is a definite and strong affirmative. He not only foresaw that an air force was essential for national survival but also educated the public and its leaders on the role that the airplane would eventually play in national life. For his foresight and willingness to sacrifice his career for his beliefs, the nation owes to this unorthodox visionary a debt of gratitude it can never repay.

Additional Sources:

www.uwm.edu
www.centennialofflight.gov
history1900s.about.com
www.acepilots.com
www.christopherlong.co.uk
www.afa.org
www.oldgloryprints.com
www.glennhcurtiss.com
www.americanflyers.net
www.uwm.edu

[SAMWolf]

Lost Legacy of Billy Mitchell

Precious little film footage remains of a man who did much for aviation and the modern U.S. Air Force.

Memories of Billy Mitchell seem to be growing dim just at a time when his spirit is needed more than ever. The reason, of course, is the relative lack of film coverage on this great leader in a time when most of the public is so readily reached through television. Precious little film footage remains of a man who did much for aviation and the modern U.S. Air Force. For the most part, we see him striding around the bombing planes getting ready to attack the battleships, and we see him standing proudly outside the shabby temporary buildings where his brilliant military career would end in a court-martial. Sadly, most memories of Mitchell derive from the Gary Cooper film on that done-deal trial.


Billy Shows Them
Billy Mitchell thought that America needed an independent Air Force. So, he had some of his men fly their Keystone bombers over the captured German battleship, Ostfriedland, and showed the Navy how he meant to put them out of business.

Nor have his biographers served him very well. Those who reached a large audience were almost simplistic in their approach; the few scholarly works were read for the most part only by a limited audience of academics. While all the biographers agreed that Mitchell had many great qualities, no one emphasized that two qualities stood out. Of these two, one is by far the most vitally important today.

The first of Mitchell's outstanding qualities, and the less important one in today's environment, was his ability to intelligently forecast the future. His great service to aviation was in visualizing what aviation could do when it had the means, even though he had to base his estimates on contemporary equipment that was lacking in capability. In other words, while he could not have designed the B-29 or even imagined that it would be produced by the thousands, he knew that aircraft of some nature would be developed that would achieve the effectiveness of the B-29 and thus be able to dictate the outcome of a war.


This is the Special Congressional Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to Mitchell in 1946

Today, that ability to look into the future would be valuable, but not as essential as his second great quality--courage. He had the courage to speak out in adversity, to damn the system when it needed damning and to be ready to sacrifice his career for his beliefs.

Time, society and political pressure have moved us away from having spokesmen like Mitchell. Political correctness is dominating the military mindset now in a way that would have been considered impossible even 10 years ago. Admirals and generals must be absolutely politically correct or their careers will be terminated by the shrill cries of the press. Men who have served their country in three wars and endured hardships and dangers can be summarily dismissed--or, sadly, driven to suicide--if they even accidentally transgress some artificial boundary of the rabidly righteous. The result is a paralysis of will and a continual anxiety that some unintended comment or reflexive gesture will offend the culture vigilantes who circle like wolves around every press conference and every public statement.



Mitchell would not have put up with it; he would have said that it is nonsense to throw young men and women in the same foxhole, the same bunk area, the same alert shack, and not expect to have romantic entanglements. He would have exercised his common sense, told it like everyone knows it is--and accepted the inevitable witch hunt that would follow.

We need not another Billy Mitchell, but a host of Billy Mitchells in all the services to turn around the absolutely insane situation into which the armed services have been thrust and which will destroy them unless remedied.

-- Walter J. Boyne

[SAMWolf]

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

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Tribute to a Generation - The memorial will be dedicated on Saturday, May 29, 2004.

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Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

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[snippy_about_it]

FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Monday Morning Everyone

If you would like added to our ping list let us know.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on December 15:
0037 Nero Claudius Augustus Germanicus 5th emperor of Rome (54-68)
1770 Ludwig van Beethoven, composer
1832 Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, French engineer (Eiffel tower)
1852 Antoine Henri Becquerel, discovered radioactivity (Nobel 1903)
1863 Arthur D Little, US, chemist (patented rayon)
1882 Helena Rubinstein, US cosmetic manufacturer
1892 J Paul Getty, Minneapolis Mn, oil magnate (Getty Oil)
1918 Jeff Chandler (Ira Grossel) (actor)
1920 Eddie Robinson (baseball)
1922 Alan Freed (disc jockey: WJW, Cleveland, WMGM & WABC, New York coined the phrase rock and roll)
1928 Ernest Ashworth (Country Music Hall of Famer: Talk Back Trembling Lips; Member of Grand Ole Opry)
1933 Tim Conway (actor, comedian: McHale's Navy, The Tim Conway Show, The Carol Burnett Show, various Dorf Does videos)
1940 Nick Buoniconti (football)
1944 - Stan Bahnsen (baseball: NY Yankees pitcher: Rookie of the Year [1968])

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Deaths which occurred on December 15:
1025 Basilius II, the Bulgarendoder, Byzantine emperor (976-1025), dies
1230 Ottokar I king of Bohemia (1197-1230), dies
1626 Adriaen de Vries, Dutch sculptor/painter, dies at about 70
1817 Maria Walewska [Leszczinska], lover of emperor Napoleon I, dies
1890 Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa-Sioux chief (Little Big Horn), is killed by Indian police.
1943 Thomas W "Fats" Waller jazz pianist, dies in Kansas City MO at 39
1944 Glenn Miller, US band leader/jazz composer, dies at 40 Shot down(?) over English Channel (held rank of Major)
1966 Walt Elias Disney, animator, dies at 65
1978 Chill Wills actor (Frontier Circus, Rounders), dies at 75
1997 Lillian Disney widow of Walt Disney, dies at 98

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Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1965 CLARK JERRY P.---DAVENPORT IA.
1969 SCHUMACHER JAMES K.
1970 DEUSO CARROLL J.---RICHFORD VT.
1970 MC COY MERIL O JR.---NORTH SACRAMENTO CA.
1970 OWEN CLYDE C.---ELKLAND MO.
1970 PIERSANTI ANTHONY J. JR.---PENNSAUKEN NJ.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

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On this day...
0687 St Sergius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope succeeding Conon
1488 Bartholomeo Diaz returns to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope
1593 State of Holland grants patent on windmill with crankshaft
1612 Simon Marius, is 1st to observe Andromeda galaxy through a telescope
1791 1st US law school established at University of Pennsylvania
1791 Bill of Rights ratified when Virginia gave its approval
1792 1st life insurance policy issued in US (Phila)
1794 Revolutionary Tribunal abolished in France
1811 Earthquake hits New Madrid, Missouri
1836 Patent Office burns in Wash, DC
1854 1st street-cleaning machine in US 1st used in Philadelphia
1859 GR Kirchoff describes chemical composition of Sun
1864 Battle of Nashville, TN
1877 Thomas Edison patents phonograph
1899 3rd defeat of "Black Week" - Battle at Colenso South Africa (Boers-British army)
1916 French defeat Germans in WW I Battle of Verdun
1938 Groundbreaking begins for Jefferson Memorial in Wash DC
1939 "Gone With the Wind" premieres in Atlanta it was the first movie premiere ceremony to be televised. The governor of Georgia proclaimed the day a state holiday in commemoration of the event and the holiday celebrations continued for three days.
1939 1st commercial manufacture of nylon yarn, Seaford, Delaware
1944 US Congress gives General Eisenhower his 5th star
1944 Bandleader, Major Glenn Miller, lost over English Channel
1944 Hizbu'allah (Arm forces for Allah) forms
1948 Former state dept official Alger Hiss indicted in NYC for perjury
1950 NYC's Port Authority opens
1961 Equal access rule, political parties get TV broadcasting time
1964 Canada adopts maple leaf flag
1965 3rd cyclone of year kills another 10,000 at mouth of Ganges River, Bangladesh
1965 Gemini 6 launched; makes 1st rendezvous in space (with Gemini 7)
1973 American Psychiatric Assn declares homosexuality is not mental illness
1976 Argo Merchant tanker off Massachusetts' SE coast, spills 7.6 m gallons of crude when ship ran aground
1979 Deposed Shah of Iran leaves US for Panama
1983 Last 80 US combat soldiers in Grenada withdrew
1997 SF 49ers retire Joe Montana's #16

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
Turkey : Festival of Mevlana-Jelaeddin Rumi (Whirling Dervishes) (thru 12-17)
Esperanto League : Zamenhof Day (1859)
Malaysia : Hol Al-Marhom Sultan Ibrahim of Johore
Netherlands Antilles : Kingdom Day/Statute Day (1954)
Pakistan : Quaid-i-Azam's Birthday
US : Bill of Rights Day (1791)
US : Firefighters Day
US : Quarterly Income Tax Due.
World : Underdog Day (Friday)
Art and Architecture Books Month

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Religious Observances
Christian : Commemoration of St Nio, virgin
Christian : Commemoration of St Offa of Essex, king
Christian : Commemoration of St Paul of Latros, hermit
Christian : Commemoration of St Mary di Rosa

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Religious History
1558 Dutch Anabaptist reformer Menno Simons wrote in a letter: 'Wherever there is a pulverized and penitent heart, there grace also is, and wherever there is a voluntary confession not gained by pressure, there love covereth a multitude of sins.'
1629 In England, proto_Baptist minister and founder of Rhode Island, 26_year_old Roger Williams married Mary Barnard, daughter of a Puritan clergyman. Two years later, he and his wife sailed from Bristol to Massachusetts.
1739 English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter: 'My brother, entreat the Lord that I may grow in grace, and pick up the fragments of my time, that not a moment of it may be lost.'
1957 British apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'May it please the Lord that...faith unimpaired may strengthen us, contrition soften us and peace make us joyful.'
1990 More than 400 American Roman Catholic theologians charged that the Vatican had been throttling church reforms and imposing "an excessive Roman centralization." They contended that the Vatican had undercut a greater role for women, slowed the ecumenical drive for Christian unity and undermined the collegial functioning of national conferences of bishops.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Thought for the day :
"For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them."

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Question of the day...
Why is the word abbreviation so long?

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Murphys Law of the day...(Laws of sex)
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation; the other eight are unimportant.

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Astounding fact #8,729...
The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is Harmon Killebrew.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone in The FOXHOLE!

[snippy_about_it]

FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Monday Morning Everyone

I apologize for the late ping today. I'm just home from vacation and having trouble getting back on schedule. :)

If you would like added to our ping list let us know.

[Soaring Feather]

Morning snippy!

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Freeper Foxhole.

[The Mayor]

It's a Great Day, God Bless the 4ID....

Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed? —Zechariah 7:7

Kindness is always in season

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning Mayor. Nice graphic. God Bless all our troops, everyday. The 4ID should be proud. :)

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning feather. I'm a little flustered and messed up the ping list first thing this morning but finally got it right once I got up and about. It's tough getting back into a routine after a great vacation. Now I must run out and to do some errands. See you later.

[CholeraJoe]

Great Thread, SAM and snippy. You know how I love Airpower.

[thatdewd]

Mornin', and a very big BUMP for Billy Mitchell! He was one of my heroes as a child.

[Darksheare]

It's sad that they chose to string up the messenger rather than look at his message.
Even after being vindicated, they chose to ignore him.
And many died as a result.

And they still won't overturn his verdict?
Cowards.

[SCDogPapa]

Mornin' Snippy,,,Mornin' Sam!

Billy Mitchell was one *ell of a man!

[SAMWolf]

1964 Canada adopts maple leaf flag

The Red Ensign -- Canada's Flag

The real Canadian flag, the one that reflects Canada's history and Canada's hopes, is the Red Ensign. It is potent in symbolic meaning. Edmund Burke warned that a people who ignore their past, will have no future. Canada came of age as a nation in two world wars under this flag. General H.G.D. Crerar, commander of the First Canadian Army in WW II, recalls a comment made to him by Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King: "And that, General, is another problem which your Canadian Army has solved for Canada -- the matter of our national flag." H. Gresham Carr in Flags of the World (Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., London, 1956) explains that, in 1924, "the Government of Canada approved this flag as 'the distinctive flag for Canada overseas,' and, in 1945, for general use." (p.67)

On September 5, 1945 by the Governor-General signed Order in Council (P.C. 5888) which proclaimed:

"The Red Ensign with the Shield of the Coat of Arms of Canada in the Fly (hereinafter referred to as 'The Canadian Red Ensign') may be flown from buildings owned or occupied by the Federal Government within or without Canada ... and that it shall be appropriate to fly the Canadian Red Ensign within or without Canada wherever place or occasion may make it desirable to fly a distinctive Canadian flag."

The Union Jack in the flag demonstrates that Canada's legal system and Canada's political system of representative, parliamentary democracy originate in Britain. Also, English is the dominant language in Canada. Canada is predominantly a Christian country. Canada's compassionate social legislation owes its origins to Christianity. Integrity and compassion and concern for the family -- virtues which infuse public and private morality in Canada -- reflect the importance of underlying Christian morality in Canada. That is symbolized by the cross within the Union Jack.

The colour red in the background of the flag symbolizes life and blood -- blood shed in the settlement of this country and in wars to preserve basic freedoms, now very much in peril.

Blue in the Union Jack and in the crest represents the oceans, lakes and rivers which are so important to Canadians for transportation, fisheries and, in the case of the fresh waters, for drinking water and irrigation. Traditionally, blue symbolizes loyalty and dedication.

White suggests purity and honourable intentions.

Additionally, white suggests the vast snows of Canada, an Arctic nation.

The components of the Union Jack reflect the Christian core of the peoples of the British Isles.

The Cross of St. Andrew (the white "x" on the blue background) is the ancient flag of Scotland. The Cross of St. George (red cross on white background) is an ancient English banner. The red "x" on the white background is St. Patrick's cross of Ireland.

The crest contains three maples leaves with stems joined. The three leaves represent the component peoples of Canada: the natives, the French and English original settlers, and the others, mostly European, who came later.

The veins of the leaves are gold, symbolizing wealth -- wealth created through unity and passion for this land and hard work.

The Maple Leaf, of course, also represents the forests of Canada -- a most important contributor to the nation's wealth. These maple leaves also match the anthem The Maple Leaf Forever, whose stirring words make it the anthem of the real Canada.

The emblems within the crest reflect the origins of our founding peoples. the couchant lion (upper left), emblem of William of Normandy, has been used by the British monarchs since 1066. It represents both the British and French settlers, the latter mostly from France.

The red lion rampant (upper right) was the emblem of the Scottish monarchs. From Cape Breton to Glengarry County, Ontario, Scots, many refugees from the Highland clearances, were important early settlers and leaders (like Sir John A. Macdonald) in Canada.

The harp (lower left) is a symbol of Ireland -- another important source of our founding people.

The fleur de lis symbolizes the early French settlers of Canada, who brought this as an emblem of a royalist not a republican France.

[SAMWolf]

Morning Feather.

[SAMWolf]

Morning E.G.C. Overcast again today.