The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Battle of Savo Island - (8/9/1942)

Half an hour past one in the morning, Mikawa's line began to make for 30 knots, and went into battle. In another example for the luck that shone on Mikawa, even his close range sighting of the crippled destroyer Jarvis could not unbalance the admiral, who held fire.

Not too long thereafter, however, at 0130, Chokai's lookouts sighted the Southern Force, and the Northern Force thereafter, 17,000 yards distant. A minute later, Chokai's first torpedo left its tube, and five minutes into its run, the eerie silence over the sound was broken by the rolling thunder of Chokai's first eight-inch volley, aimed at Canberra.

On the latter, the sudden shock of gunfire from the north brought the bridge watch into action and Captain Getting to the bridge, but her engagement that night would be swift and violent. Turning northeast to unmask her aft batteries, Canberra was hit some twenty plus times in a matter of five minutes, lost power for her armament and pumps, and was rendered unable to fight with not a single main gun round fired. A single torpedo, fired by the destroyer Bagley, had also hit Canberra.

On Chicago, hints at the presence of enemy ships had been seen earlier but not triggered a response. Captain Bode, in tactical command, was in his cabin, and hurried up. Even as aircraft flares blossomed over the Southern Group, and Canberra started her turn, few on Chicago figured out the facts. Chicago did not get to fire her 203mm guns either, when she began a series of maneuvers undertaken to evade torpedoes. Alas, confusion reigned on her bridge. Captain Bode, who had come up from his cabin, reports came in of torpedoes approaching from starboard. Bode turned his vessel towards that direction, leading his to comb the Japanese torpedo spread. However, moments later, the bridge lookouts spotted torpedoes to port, from on the unengaged side, possibly from the same spread of Bagley that had hit Canberra. Bode swung his ship around again, trying to comb the new thread, but by doing so, exposed the entire length of his ship to the Japanese torpedoes. One slammed in Chicago, crippling her. Slowly, she swung westward (via a southerly heading), out of the battle. Captain Bode, immersed in the plight of his ship, and fighting the damages incurred, ignored his role as task group commander and failed to issue orders to his ships or to inform his superiors of what had happened. Chicago shortly rendered fire support to the destroyer Patterson, which was dueling with Japanese light cruisers Yubari and Tenryu. From Patterson, the only contact report had been made by the Southern Group, issued by Commander Frank Walker via radio at 0146.

While Chicago and destroyer Bagley steered clear of the enemy, Mikawa having turned northeast for more prizes, Patterson remained in contact until 0210. To Captain Riefkohl of Vincennes, officer in charge of the Northern Group, the actions south of him were masked by a cloudbank hiding the ships, though the fire of Patterson at the Japanese light cruisers was seen and judged as a minor engagement with light forces. Riefkohl accordingly refused to leave his position. Vincennes had in fact received Patterson's call regarding enemy ships but Riefkohl had not been informed. Now, with a slight increase in speed to 15 knots his only reaction to the presence of the enemy, he elected to wait for orders from Admiral Crutchley. His unit had just executed another of its scheduled turns, keeping course along the edges of a large box-like figure. Vincennes led, followed by Quincy, and Astoria in the rear. Destroyers Wilson and Helm had lost their positions on the flanks and were hurrying to catch up.

Admiral Mikawa, his helm already due northeast to deal with the Northern Force, now completely lost the coherence of his force. Already, the elderly destroyer Yunagi had departed the rear of his force, and now, just as the Kinugasa had aligned herself right behind the flagship Aoba, and the Kako, the Canberra drifted into the path of following Furutaka, forcing her to turn to port at once, leading her and the two light cruisers trailing her away from the main column. Now, the two separated pincers were moving at will against the outnumbered and unsuspecting Northern Force.

Riefkohl found himself, or would soon find himself, in a little-promising situation: to his rear, Chokai, Aoba, Kako and Kinugasa threatened to cross his T from the rear, a rather unusual maneuver but efficent nevertheless, while to the forces south, Furutakaand her two lighter colleagues would have to exchange broadsides with the enemy.

Mikawa could allow himself a moment of pleasure when at 0150 the searchlights of three Japanese cruisers snapped on to light the U.S. line up. A moment later, the first salvo left Chokai's gun tubes, and soon the entire Japanese line was firing, with torpedoes added for good measure.

On the U.S. ships, disbelief was the common reaction to the sudden illumination. Captains Riefkohl and Greenman (of Astoria) were certain they faced the Southern Group, accidently assuming their Allies to be the enemy. Soon, however, shells erased all hope that a peaceful conclusion could be found with a radio call or flag hoisting (although Riefkohl tried the latter with curious success lasting several minutes). Riefkohl ordered battle stations and twenty knots, the latter being made impossible by untimely interference from a torpedo from Chokai.

In a photo taken from a Japanese cruiser, searchlights illuminate the U.S. cruiser Quincy, which was the first ship in the group to succumb. She rolled over and sank in 11 minutes.

Neither of the three heavy cruisers put up much of a fight, though two salvoes from Quincy slammed into Chokai, destroying a gun turret.

As the battle unfolded, further problems reduced Mikawa's line, now merely a loosely connected and very broad bar instead of a neat line, but it was not later than 0220 that all three U.S. cruisers were reduced to swimming wrecks. There remained little to do for Mikawa, who kept to a new northwest course he had established during the brief engagement with the Northern Force. There, U.S. picket destroyer Ralph Talbot blundered into the Japanese path and was given an unhealthly large dose of fire. Burning and lisiting, only a rain squall at the right time saved the little ship from becoming another victim of Mikawa's. The Admiral, after consulting his staff,decided at shortly before three in the morning to cancel any further attacks and retire at top speed to Rabaul. Thereby, he concluded the first naval battle fought in the Solomons. The dawning of the new morning saw the vicinity of Savo littered with wrecks -- or worse, it didn't. Vincennes had slipped under at 0300 already, with her surviving crew being rescued from the shark-infested waters. Astoria had looked as if she were salvable, and energetic efforts went into her, improving her watertight integrity and keeping fires down, but uncertainty rose with regard to her ammo lockers, which were presumed to have not been flooded - correctly. Thirty minutes past midday, Astoria accompanied Vincennes and Quincy, having already sunk at 0238, down to the ground of Ironbottom Sound.

Canberra, burning fiercely in her interior, was ordered to be scuttled should she not be able to accompany Turner's retreat at 0600. With lots of fires raging around the boilers but none in a position to power the ship's engines, rudders, or even pumps, the ship was sunk by U.S. destroyer Ellet. Admiral Fletcher did not turn around to persue Mikawa,as the Japanese Admiral had expected, but kept heading southeast. Like rats leaving the sinking ship, all ships abandoned Ironbottom Sound by the evening of August 9th. Silence fell over the sound, and no hints remained that only a day before, Allied and Japanese naval forces had fought the largest surface battle to that date in the Pacific.

HMAS Canberra underfire

Several questions need to be discussed here, even if only for the sake of completeness. The primary one to be solved is, who must be made responsible for this disaster? First on this list would be Admirals Crutchley and McCain: the first, for failing to make known his extension of his stay with Turner's force, and for going to see Turner without informing anybody but Bode of his absence in the first place. The second for failing to conduct a requested air search without any reason and not informing the commanders of failing to conduct it, leaving them in a wrong feeling of immunity.

First and foremostly culpable was Turner, whose was the plan, afterall, by which the forces operated; which did consider that the Northern Force would not need flag officer with it; which had provided for the spotty air reconnaisance plans, and for Fletcher's early withdrawal.

Somewhere on the list would be Captain Bode of Chicago, not for failing to stand up to his new post as Task Group commander but for not informing the other commanders of the presence of a strong enemy force. Certainly, also, his handling of Chicago had been somewhat spotty; granted that the situation was difficult, his decision to head west, instead of east towards the transports, whose defense was his job, and where Australia was to be found, was false. Had he encountered Mikawa again, alone, he would have stood no chance.

Battle of Savo Island: "Kako" attacks "Vincennes"

There is, however, much more blame to spread around than could possibly be laid upon the commanders on the spot. The Allied operations plan was poor. Although the distribution of the forces could not be helped, the fact that there were only two flag officers with the three screening groups necessarily led to command problems. Captain Bode of Chicago can not be considered ill-suited for a task group command, but to control damage control efforts on his ship, designated a new course and general approach to the action for his vessel, worrying about torpedoes and the like, in addition to trying to control the rest of his force proved too much. The dogged skill of the Japanese torpedo men and gunners and the coolness of the Japanese approach added to the completeness of the victory by ascertaining that the initial blows would come out of the dark and be deadly at the same time. The engagement with the Southern Force had been decided in five minutes, and not much more time was needed to deal with the Northern Force, which had a slight advantage of strength, position and alertness over its southern counterpart. This combination of near flawless execution of a well-exercised operation by the Japanese, and the problematic layout of command and control arrangements on the Allied side led to the defeat of Savo; the worst naval defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Navy.

"The fact must be faced that we had an adequate force placed with the very purpose of repelling surface attack and when that surface attack was made, it destroyed our force," said Admiral Crutchley. After full allowance for the element of surprise and for the fact that the attacker at night enjoys an immense advantage, there remain many questions about the action which cannot be answered.

It is unexplained how the enemy managed to pass the two destroyers stationed to give warning of just such an attack. Visibility of course was very low. The enemy might have escaped radar detection for a while by approaching close to the shore of the islands, but to reach Savo Island he had to cross open water, and at this point our radars should have picked him up easily. The nature of the radar search conducted by the two destroyers was not reported. It was suggested, without any evidence, that their search may have been intermittent, and not continuous. If this is true, the enemy could have crossed the open water at a time when the radar was not in actual operation. Admiral Crutchley suggested that our failure could be explained by the enemy's having detected our patrolling destroyers from the air and having made a wide circuit to the westward, approaching close along the shore of Guadalcanal.

Of less importance but of considerable interest is the problem of the "something" seen close aboard the Patterson at the beginning of the engagement, and the "dark objects" seen between our ships by the Chicago. They may explain the fact that both the Chicago and the Canberra were struck by torpedoes which could scarcely have been fired from the enemy cruiser line.

Because the enemy cruisers came in very close to Savo Island, their destroyers may well have been on their starboard bow, perhaps at some distance. If they failed to turn eastward quickly as did the cruisers, they might have passed through our formation. It seems probable, however, that in spite of the poor visibility, enemy destroyers would have been recognized at the close range at which they passed.

Secondly, it is possible that the "seaplane tenders or gunboats" reported in the Melbourne dispatch were in fact tenders for motor torpedo boats, and that some of these were present. The restricted waters, smooth sea, and poor visibility were well suited to their operation.

Aviation fuel that ignited during the battle on board the Australian cruiser Canberra—her survivors being rescued here by the U.S. destroyers Blue (alongside) and Patterson—diverted Japanese attention from the U.S. cruiser Chicago.

The most likely conjecture is that enemy submarines were operating on the surface in coordination with the attacking cruisers. A lookout on the Vincennes saw a submarine surface just as the action began. Capt. Riefkohl believed his ship might have been torpedoed by a submarine, and, at the close of the action, the last 5-inch gun on his ship was reported to have hit the conning tower of a submarine. The following morning several of our destroyers made sound contacts, and the Mugford believed that she sank a submarine.

The attacking ships were never seen with sufficient clarity to make identification certain. Admiral Crutchley reported, "The consensus of opinion assesses the enemy force as comprising one 8-inch cruiser (which I think might have been the Chokai) and two light cruisers of the 5.5-inch type. Probably there were three destroyers. This would correspond to the force reported in the Melbourne warning.

There is some question as to whether the enemy operated in one or two groups. The latter suggestion came from some officers of the Vincennes group who believed that they had been caught in a cross fire.

USS Chicago (CA-29) off Guadalcanal the day after the action, showing crewmen cutting away damaged plating to enable the ship to get underway. She had been torpedoed at her extreme bow during the night action of 9 August 1942.
View looks forward along her port side, with # 1 eight-inch gun turret in the upper right. Note life rafts hung on the turret side and destroyers in the distance.

This could be explained by the fact that the enemy crossed astern of this group at such speed that the leading vessels of the enemy column might have been firing on our ships from their starboard quarter while the last ships of the column were still firing from the port quarter. Admiral Crutchley remarked, "The Vincennes suggests that the other enemy force consisted of destroyers. As the enemy had two separate transport groups to attack, there seems to be good reason for dividing his force into two sections, but if this were so, the enemy destroyer force apparently destined to be the one sent against Squadron Y at Tulagi was not intercepted by any of our patrols and it becomes difficult to explain why they did not go on to attack their real objective." The fact that the enemy planes dropped flares over Tulagi considerably later than over Guadalcanal indicates that the enemy plan was probably for a single force to attack first one and then the other.

It seems certain that our ships scored several hits on the Japanese, but there was no evidence that we inflicted any considerable damage. None of the enemy ships was seen to be seriously on fire, and apparently all cleared the area at high speed.

The redeeming feature of the battle was the splendid performance of our officers and men. They had been on the alert for days and had had about 48 hours of continuous, active operations immediately before the battle. In spite of this, their conduct under the most trying circumstances was beyond praise, and they made it, in the happy phrase of one of our officers, "a night in which heroism was commonplace."

Additional Sources:

www.ww2pacific.com
www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker
www.ibiblio.org
www.usni.org
www.warship.get.net.pl
www.history.navy.mil
pw1.netcom.com

In just 32 minutes the enemy had inflicted massive damage. Four heavy cruisers were sunk and a heavy cruiser and destroyer badly damaged. 1,270 men were killed and 708 injured. The enemy had comparative scratches on three cruisers.

What Went Wrong?

A court of inquiry determined that US ships required more training in night fighting.

There were several sighting of the IJN 8th fleet by USAAF and RAAF aircraft along with several other Japanese ship movements: each report was of different ship compositions and bearings. Weather and enemy air defenses were a factor, yet a common denominator of these sightings was delay in getting the information from MacArthur's Army zone to Nimitz's Navy zone on the scene. Japanese seaplane carriers were included in the sightings and the Allied fleet prepared for submarine or air attack, rather than surface action. Almost two thousand men paid for a chain of errors.

The 8th fleet cruiser's floatplanes were noticed and reported. Radio communication was poor that night and nobody associated aircraft reconnaissance with a surface attack. Visibility was 2 to 6 miles with rain in the area.

Both radar picket ships (radar range about 10 miles) were at the extreme ends of their patrols sailing away from the Japanese fleet. San Juan had modern search radar, but was at the other end of the Sound. Was too much or too little reliance placed on this new technology? This battle must be considered to have been fought in the pre-radar days.

RAdm Crutchley, RN, was in command of the screening force in recognition of allied unity: three of the eight cruisers were Australian. He had fought with Fletcher at Coral Sea, but was not totally integrated with the US Navy. HMAS Canberra, for instance, did not have TBS (short range radio known as Talk Between Ships) and could not hear the initial alarm issued by USS Patterson. Crutchley had left with his flagship, heavy cruiser Australia, that night to attend a conference called by RAdm Turner and did not participate in the battle. Chicago had the senior captain, but his ship was immediately torpedoed into a state of confusion that even included an exchange of friendly fire.

What went right?

Well, nothing, but luck helped a little.

Fortunately the Japanese did not steam through and attack the thinly defended transports. When the lead flagship turned towards the channel, his column, intent on sinking cruisers, failed to follow and continued north, then west to avoid shoal water, but away from the transports. The flagship then turned to chase after his squadron. To reform the Japanese fleet would have taken two hours; after attacking the transports and defenders the Japanese fleet would still be in the channel as daylight exposed them to carrier aircraft and any surviving ships of the earlier battle. The flag chartroom had been destroyed so that navigation into the channel would have been dangerous. Japanese naval tradition called for attacking warships; to expose cruisers to a second attack, with no torpedoes left, to extreme risk, for half empty transports may not have seemed worthy. They had already won a great victory over warships and that was enough for one night's work. The heavy cruiser, HMAS Australia, with screen commander Crutchley aboard, returning from his midnight meeting with Turner, was steaming to the battle site. Close support for the transports consisted of anti-aircraft light cruiser San Juan and light cruiser HMAS Hobart and destroyers Monssen and Buchanan.

Unaware of the nature of the battle, VAdm Fletcher's 3 carrier and 1 battleship force was withdrawing and not in range to attack the withdrawing enemy cruisers at first light. Fortunately the Japanese did not know this. Equally fortunate was that an enemy air attack of 40 bombers early the next morning could not find the carriers and were only able to finished off Jarvis (DD-799), torpedoed during the previous day's noon air attack.

Afterword

All agreed the Japanese had not lost their fighting spirit after their defeat at Midway and that the allies had lost a major fight from problems with reconnaissance, communication, and preparedness. Yet RAdm Crutchley calls our attention that the propose of the fleet was to protect the landing and that the enemy did not get through. The cost was 1,270 sailors killed, more than Marine loss in the entire 6 month Guadalcanal campaign, 1,207.

www.ww2pacific.com

On this Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on December 18:
1707 Charles Wesley, co-founder (Methodist movement)
1778 Joseph Grimaldi, known as the "greatest clown in history,"
1856 Joseph John Thomson, Eng, physicist discovered electron (Nobel 1906)
1879 Paul Klee, Swiss abstract painter.
1886 Ty (Tyrus Raymond) Cobb, American baseball player, first man to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1890 Edwin Howard Armstrong, NYC, radio pioneer inventor (FM)
1913 Willy Brandt, Mayor of Berlin and Chancellor of West Germany.
1913 Betty Grable (Elisabeth Grasle) (actress: The Gay Divorcee, Follow the Fleet)
1917 Ossie Davis (writer, actor: A Raisin in the Sun)
1919 Anita O'Day (Colton) (jazz singer)
1927 Ramsey Clark (U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson [1967-1969]){never met a dictator he didn't like}
1943 Keith Richards (guitar: group: The Rolling Stones:)
1947 Stephen Spielberg (Academy Award-winning director)
1955 Ray Liotta (Actor: Good Fellas)

Deaths which occurred on December 18:
0468 Huna Mari bar Mar Zutra, rabbi, executed in Pumpedita
1505 John IX van Horne, prince-bishop of Lieges, executed
1565 Benedetto Varchi, Italian humanist/historian (L'Ercolano), dies at 62
1737 Antonio Stradivari, renowned violin-maker, dies in Cremona Italy at 93
1829 Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, French nature investigator, dies at about 85
1919 Horatio William Parker, composer, dies at 56
1931 John T "Legs" Diamond US gangster, murdered at 35
1959 Dorothy L Sayers, writer, dies at 66
1977 Cyril Ritchard, actor (Peter Pan), dies at 80
1980 Alexei N Kosygin, Soviet PM (1964-80), suffers heart attack at 76
1996 Arthur Jacobs, musicologist, dies at 74
1997 Chris Farley, comedian (SNL, Tommy Boy), dies at 33
2000 Newspaper heir Randolph Apperson Hearst, the last surviving son of William Randolph Hearst, died in New York at age 85.

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1968 BARRAS GREGORY I---JACKSON MS.
["REMAINS RETURNED, IDENTIFIED 12/03/98"]
1971 HILDEBRAND LELAND L.---FIFIELD WI.
[03/28/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 1998]
1971 WELLS KENNETH---VANCOUVER WA.
[03/28/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 CERTAIN ROBERT G.---SILVER SPRINGS MD.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 FERGUSON WALTER L.---DETROIT MI.
[08/23/78 REMAINS RETURNED]
1972 JOHNSON RICHARD E.---OCEANSIDE CA.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1972 MC ELVAIN JAMES R.---LA VERNE CA.
1972 RISSI DONALD L.---COLLINSVILLE IL.
[08/23/78 REMAINS RETURNED]
1972 SIMPSON RICHARD T.---ANDERSON SC.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 THOMAS ROBERT J.---MIAMI FL.
[08/23/78 REMAINS RETURNED]
1972 WARD RONALD J.---ANADARKO OK.

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

On this day...
1118 Afonso the Battler, the Christian King of Aragon captures Saragossa, Spain, a major blow to Muslim Spain.
1378 Charles V denounces the treachery of John IV of Brittany and confiscates his duchy.
1719 Thomas Fleet publishes "Mother Goose's Melodies For Children"
1774 Jews expelled from Prague, Bohemia & Moravia by Empress Maria Theresa
1787 New Jersey becomes 3rd state to ratify constitution
1796 1st US newspaper to appear on Sunday (Baltimore Monitor)
1799 George Washington's body interred at Mount Vernon
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in Paris after his disastrous campaign in Russia.
1813 British take Fort Niagara in the War of 1812
1849 William Bond obtains 1st photograph of Moon through a telescope
1862 Nathan B. Forrest engages and defeats a Federal cavalry force near Lexington in his continued effort to disrupt supply lines.
1862 Union General Ulysses S. Grant announces the organization of his army in the West. Sherman, Hurlbut, McPherson, and McClernand are to be corps commanders.
1892 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Nutcracker Suite" premieres
1898 Automobile speed record set-63 kph (39 mph)
1915 President Wilson, widowed the year before, marries Edith Bolling Galt
1915 In a single night, about 20,000 Australian and New Zealand troops withdraw from Gallipoli, Turkey, undetected by the Turks defending the peninsula.
1916 The Battle of Verdun ends with the French and Germans each having suffered more than 330,000 killed and wounded in 10 months.
1925 Soviet leaders Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev break with Joseph Stalin.
1932 Chicago Bears beat Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in 1st NFL playoff game
1940 Adolf Hitler issues his secret plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union--Operation Barbarossa.
1941 Defended by 610 fighting men, the American-held island of Guam falls to more than 5,000 Japanese invaders in a three-hour battle.
1944 Japanese forces are repelled from northern Burma by British troops.
1947 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Optissima Pax
1948 Indonesia begins its 2nd political election
1951 North Koreans give the United Nations a list of 3,100 POWs.
1956 Japan is admitted to the United Nations.
1960 A rightist government is installed under Prince Boun Oum in Laos as the United States resumes arms shipments.
1963 Muskegon MI gets 3' of snow
1965 U.S. Marines attack VC units in the Que Son Valley during Operation Harvest Moon.
1966 Dr Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" airs for 1st time on CBS
1970 An atomic leak in Nevada forces hundreds of citizens to flee the test site.
1972 President Richard M. Nixon declares that the bombing of North Vietnam will continue until an accord can be reached.
1985 Congress approved the biggest overhaul of farm legislation since the Depression, trimming price supports.
1985 UN Security Council unanimously condemns "acts of hostage-taking"(WOW!!Bold!)
1991 DeForest Kelly (Dr McCoy on Star Trek) gets a star in Hollywood
2000 The Electoral College cast its ballots, with President-elect Bush receiving the expected 271; Al Gore, however, received 266, one fewer than expected, because of a District of Columbia Democrat who left her ballot blank to protest the district's lack of representation in Congress.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

New Jersey : Ratification Day (1787)
Niger : Republic Day (1958)
World : Underdog Day (Friday)
US : Pantotime Day
US : Crazy From Xmas Shopping Day (1 week warning!)
Stress-Free Family Holidays Month

Religious Observances
Christian : Feast of Our Lady of Solitude, patron of lonely

Religious History
1819 Birth of Isaac Thomas Hecker, American Roman Catholic leader. He entered the Redemptorist Order in 1845, and in 1858 founded the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle (the Paulist Fathers). He was superior general of the Paulist Society during his last 30 years (1858_88).
1834 Emory College was chartered in Oxford, GA, under Methodist auspices. In 1915 it changed its name to Emory University and in 1919 the campus was relocated in Atlanta, GA.
1892 Rabbi H. Rosenberg was expelled from Temple Beth_Jacob in Brooklyn, NY, for eating pork.
1904 Indian mystic Sundar Singh, 15, was converted to Christianity through a vision. Baptized into the Church of England in 1905, Singh afterward donned the robe of a Sadhu (holy man) in an endeavor to present Christianity in a Hindu form. (He disappeared in April 1929, while undertaking a strenuous work in Tibet.)
1943 German theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison: 'The man who finds God in his earthly happiness...does not lack reminder that earthly things are transient...and...there will be times when he can say in all sincerity, "I wish I were home."'

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

Thought for the day :
"Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think."

Question of the day...
A stitch in time saves nine what?

Murphys Law of the day...(Getty's Reminder)
The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.

Astounding fact #76,981...
Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses.

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