The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Japanese Attack on the Philippines (12/10/1941) - Jul. 29th, 2004

www.military.com ^ | John W. Whitman

[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.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

...................................................................................... ...........................................

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Disaster in the Philippines:
Air Raid on Cavite

The morning of December 10, 1941, would be to the Americans on Luzon what December 7 had been for those in Hawaii -- but without the element of surprise.

The Japanese aerial armada droned into view on December 10, 1941. In each bomber, seven-man crews tensed behind four 7.7mm machine guns and a single 20mm tail gun. Everyone scanned the skies for defending fighters.

Americans in Manila shook their heads in disbelief. Despite the disasters of December 8, the defenders of the Philippines were still confident in their own strength and still amazed at the audacity of the Japanese. "We were Americans," Sergeant Sidney Stewart later wrote, "proud and sure and free. We had nothing but contempt for the stupid fools blackening the sky. The Japanese must be crazy to attack a city held by Americans."


Bombed Clark Field, south of Manilla, The Philippines">
Japanese destroyed half of the aircrafts of Clark Field Navy Base, south of Manila on the Philippines, 25 B17's-bombers and their fighters were destroyed. A substantial part of the defending American air force on the ground was destroyed.

Monday, December 8, in the Philippines had been terrible. The main American bomber base at Clark Field had been bombed to rubble. Japanese attacks had reduced Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's bomber fleet by 50 percent and his modern fighters by 37 percent. Japanese pilots flew triumphantly back to Formosa, having lost only seven fighters.

Japanese Preparations

Bad weather on Tuesday, December 9, had given the Americans a respite, but December 10 would be another very grim day. On Japanese-occupied Formosa, the weather threatened the morning's air operations. At 0300 hours a drizzling rain had begun, but the weather officer told his dubious colleagues that it would clear by 0830 and that flying conditions would be good.


Clark Field

High winds and storms had scattered Japanese aircraft across Formosa that Tuesday night. This ill wind had done some good for Japanese pilots. They took advantage of local inns, soaked in hot tubs and got a good night's sleep. When they awoke on December 10, the weather remained bad but within tolerances if the Japanese were willing to accept some risk to pilots and planes. Because they had been so badly scattered, Japanese fighter aircraft spent early Wednesday morning reassembling at their proper bases, refueling and rearming. Pilots received new orders, new targets and briefings as to remaining American strength on Luzon.


G4M1 "Betty"

Aircraft of the Tainan-based 1st and Tainan Kokutais (naval air groups) and the Takao-based Takao and 3rd Kokutais finally got airborne about 0900. Their targets for Wednesday were American airfields at Del Carmen in central Luzon (18 Mitsubishi A6M2 Zeros of the 3rd Kokutai), Nichols and Nielson adjacent to Manila (34 Zeros of the 3rd Kokutai and 27 twin-engine Mitsubishi G4M1 "Betty" bombers of the Takao Kokutai), shipping in Manila Bay (27 of the Takao Kokutai's G4M1s, switched from their original target of Del Carmen) and the Manila Bay naval base at Cavite (27 Mitsubishi G3M2 twin-engine "Nell" bombers of the 1st Kokutai, escorted by 22 Zeros of the Tainan Kokutai). Another 27 fighters of the Tainan Kokutai took off to cover minor amphibious landings against north Luzon.

American Delays

As the bombers and fighters assembled over Formosa, American radio-intercept personnel snatched Japanese ground-air radio calls from the air. These intercept specialists had identified possible bomber-fighter radio nets the day before. When the intercept people heard radio calls on the bomber net in the morning, they alerted the Air Warning Service that 100 bombers were headed for Luzon.


Aircraft in the Philippines, December 1941: Douglas B-18A ">

"Very interesting," came the reply from an unimpressed Air Warning Service. Few people yet believed that important information could come from radio intercepts.

Time passed. Then the Japanese fighter net came on the air. The radio intercept detachment called again. Based on the radio signal strength, Japanese planes were 15 minutes out, they warned. The Air Warning Service said that ground observers had not yet spotted anything, so no alert would be sounded.

Alarm Raised

About 1115, roughly the same time as the American 20th Pursuit Squadron was returning to Clark Field from attacks against Japanese landings, ground observers told Interceptor Command headquarters at Nielson Field that a big formation of fighters and bombers was north of Clark, heading toward Manila and Nichols.


Cavite Naval Yard

Clark's air-raid siren sounded when Japanese planes neared the field. Doctors, nurses and patients at the adjacent Fort Stotsenburg base hospital scrambled for the air raid shelter. Patients whom no one thought were ambulatory ripped the transfusion needles out of their arms and legs, jumped from their beds, and ran. Frightened litter bearers carried those who could not move.

Pilots from different squadrons raced each other to claim the Curtiss P-40B Tomahawks and P-40E Kittyhawks remaining, then sortied without regard to each another's proximity. Lieutenant William E. Dyess was at lunch when he heard that Japanese bombers were due overhead in two minutes. He jumped into the luggage carrier of a passing motorcycle and hightailed it for his plane. In his haste, he forgot his goggles, helmet and parachute. He taxied his plane past bomb craters, took off blind through a dust storm raised by previous planes, and nearly collided with another P-40. Overhead, Clark's aircraft assembled above the field. Then the 17th Pursuit headed for Manila Bay, and the 21st Pursuit for Manila's port area. Not all the P-40s that got into the air necessarily threatened Japanese aircraft. When Dyess got to Manila, he found his guns were jammed and would not fire.

Ineffective Intercept

Some Nichols Field pilots were already airborne, but they were about to come home from standing patrol shift. They were tired, and their fuel tanks were low, but they climbed after the bombers. The Americans from Nichols and Clark fought as best they could, but inoperable or jammed guns put plane after plane out of commission. Japanese bombers droned stolidly toward Nichols, Cavite and the shipping in Manila Bay.


Pearl Harbor wasn't the only place that was attacked on December 7th. Across the International Date Line - making it officially December 8th - lay Clark Field, which was pounded by Japanese "Betty" Bombers, then strafed by Zeroes.
Some American pilots managed to counterattack, two such heroes, LT. General USAF (Ret.) Joseph Moore and Colonel USAF (Ret.) Sam Grashio,are pictured in "Too Little Too Late".

A shortage of fuel forced the American pursuit planes to break away. One plane landed with only three gallons remaining. Three P-40s fell during the intercept attempt without inflicting any loss on the enemy. Japanese pilots reported that they were outnumbered two to one by the Americans, yet had shot down more than 43 P-40s and Seversky P-35s.

Attack On Del Carmen

The field hit hardest was Del Carmen, where five P-35s of the 34th Pursuit had just returned from their successful attacks against enemy landing forces. Another seven P-35s, scheduled for the anti-invasion mission, were on the ground because of mechanical failure.

Blind luck was with the Japanese. The Americans had been on the ground about 10 minutes, and ground crews were refueling and rearming the planes. "Look," an airman called, "P-35s coming in for a landing." But the airman's aircraft identification expertise was poor. Ten Zeros arrived and caught the immobile P-35s. No revetments had yet been constructed to protect the planes, and the P-35s were lined up side by side. The field's only defense came from six Lewis .30-caliber machine guns. The men manning the guns were poorly trained, and all but one gun jammed after firing just a few rounds.



The Japanese destroyed or damaged 10 of the P-35s, yet failed to injure a single man. When strafing set a gasoline tank truck on fire, the driver disconnected his tractor from the flaming trailer and saved his vehicle. The Japanese also concentrated on two tanker trucks filled with molasses, used to dampen dust on the runway. Del Carmen radioed for help. A P-40 flown by Lieutenant Carl P. Gies jumped the last Zero as it pulled out of a strafing run, and shot it down. Gies' victim may have been Seaman 1st Class Masaharu Higa, the only member of the Tainan Kokutai killed that day.

Destruction At Nichols

Farther south at Nichols, airmen scrambled for shelter. Ground crews dived for holes and ditches. More men were hurt piling atop one another than by enemy fire. The Americans had not been enthusiastic about digging shelters, but now they tried to get as deep as they could in the shallow holes they had dug. Enemy fire reversed the normal desire to strive for the top of the heap. Now the object was to get as low as possible.


Aircraft in the Philippines, December 1941: Curtiss P-40E

Nichols Field had sent up all the P-40s that could fly and had scrambled everything else and sent them to hide. One old twin-engine Douglas B-18 that was being prepared for a bombing mission could not take off and remained in a revetment on the ground. The airmen at Nichols watched as 27 Japanese twin-engine bombers opened their bomb bay doors and released their loads.

The bombs blew up a tent city and burned the field's main hangar and the Philippine Air Depot. Bombs hit the field's big fuel tanks and set them on fire. Men lying on open ground bounced into the air with each concussion. Explosions buried one airman in dirt and nearly smothered him before his friends could dig him out. Some men huddled in a bomb shelter reinforced by railroad irons. Bombs rocked the shelter and dropped concrete onto the irons but not onto the men.



As the P-40s engaged the incoming fighters, one American broke away and headed for Nichols. Lieutenant Forrest M. Hobrecht needed to land and have ground crewmen unjam his guns. A Zero followed him, fired at point-blank range and destroyed the P-40E. Hobrecht bailed out, hit the plane's stabilizer, and fell to the ground without his parachute opening. Another P-40 was on the tail of the Zero and shot it down.

[SAMWolf]

Confusion Reigns

In the momentary quiet in the wake of the departing bombers, the incongruous sound of a San Francisco radio station playing popular jazz came over a radio set. The lull was brief. Enemy fighters now rolled in to complete the destruction. The lone B-18 drew the attention of Zeros, which strafed it and exploded some of its bombs. H Battery of the 515th Coast Artillery (anti-aircraft) let loose with its automatic 37mms. Air-cooled .30-calibers and water-cooled .50-calibers from a platoon of M Battery, 60th Coast Artillery (anti-aircraft), rattled away at the planes. Local air corps machine guns also engaged the Japanese. The combined fire brought down two Zeros.

Aircraft in the Philippines, December 1941: Boeing P-26A

A low-flying Japanese pilot, his canopy open and his white scarf blowing in the wind, roared over the Americans and waved at them. The pilot of another plane took special interest in a ditch full of airmen. Omar L. McGuire could see the pilot's hands at the controls as he banked the plane sharply after each dive. "It gave me a strange sensation to be looking into the man's helmeted and goggled face while he was looking into my ditch," McGuire recalled.

A hapless P-35 flying low to the ground drew the fire of hundreds of trigger-happy Americans. Rifles, pistols and machine guns set up a terrible din. Next, an American observation plane came into sight. Although the pilot waggled his wings, flashed his running lights and did everything he could to show he was friendly, his reward was to have every armed man on the ground fire at him as furiously as possible. As the stricken plane sank lower, the observer bailed out. The roar of small-arms fire increased as the men on the ground concentrated on the parachute and sent 12 bullets into the observer.

The Japanese bomber fleet had divided north of Manila, and 27 aircraft had gone after army installations at Nichols. The remaining 54 bombers flew in magnificent V-shaped formations toward Manila. It was a beautifully clear tropical day, and the silver planes sparkled and flashed in the sun like minnows in a pond. Near the city, the Japanese split once more, this time into two 27-plane formations. One half went after shipping in Manila Bay while the second half lined up on the navy yard at Cavite.

Cavite

Single-engine floatplanes and larger flying boats raced in every direction across the bay in a rush to get airborne. Submarines hastily abandoned their mooring places at buoys and tenders, sprinted outside the harbor's breakwater and submerged.

The Japanese were not terribly successful in their anti-shipping efforts. They might have misidentified Maréchal Joffre as an aircraft carrier or large warship. They went after her but missed. The misses, however, put a bomb forward of the bridge on the 5,343-ton steamer Sagoland, set her afire and sank her. Fragments from a bomb that exploded 50 meters away lightly damaged the tanker Gertrude Kellog.

Americans around Manila watched the Japanese arrive. One of the observers was Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, who would have a clear view of the destruction of his fleet base. He was disgusted at the absence of Army fighter protection, the very protection he had assumed MacArthur's air force would provide.

Aircraft in the Philippines, December 1941: Martin B-10B

The Navy used Cavite chiefly for refueling and light repair. The base was packed with offices, residences, foundries, machine shops, aircraft repair shops, boat shops, parachute rigger lifts, lumber yards, ammunition depots and numerous warehouses. Normally inhabited by fewer than 2,000 civilians, Cavite had grown to 5,000 workers when the war started.

AA Gunners Prepare

Marine Corps anti-aircraft gunners outside the yard received word to man their nine 3-inch guns at 1100. The Japanese came into sight at about 1210. The air raid siren atop the yard's powerhouse began wailing to warn those in the yard and to prevent workers who had left for lunch from returning.

Japanese aircraft attack Cavite Navy Yard, near Manila, on December 10, 1941, in a painting by Japanese artist Chosei Miwa.

Private R. Jackson Scott, a young Marine who had left high school at age 16 to join the Corps, was serving as a second loader on a 3-inch gun as he watched the ghostly white planes come in at about 20,000 feet. To him, it was an unreal sight.



The 27 enemy planes circled Cavite slowly and deliberately as they formed over Manila Bay for the attack. They split into three groups of nine planes each, then headed for the north side of the yard. What looked like phonograph needles began falling, twinkling in the sunlight. They soon sounded like coal rattling through a metal chute. One string of bombs hit the water and lifted a line of huge geysers. The first attack -- the breathtaking explosions and the novelty of it all -- drove the anti-aircraft gunners to ground. They reluctantly got up and manned their guns when a second wave of nine planes drifted in.

Nailed To The Mast

Gun crews fired when the planes came into range. Private Scott passed the 25-pound shells to the first loader, who never looked back. He just moved his hands back, received the projectile, swung it forward, dropped it into the breech and pushed it home with his right arm. The sharp crack of 3-inch guns followed, one after the other. The sustained rate of fire for a 3-inch gun was 12 rounds per minute, one every five seconds. The crew of Scott's gun managed a rate of one round every three seconds for a solid hour, just short of the gun's maximum rate of fire.

Death and destruction left in the wake of the Japanese bombing of the Cavite Navy Yard on December 10, 1941.

Exploding anti-aircraft shells spread little clouds that gave the gunners a sense of accomplishment. "We're right on 'em. We're right on 'em, but we're hittin' below 'em. Use some longer fuses!" yelled the height finders. The 21-second fuses, the longest available, still detonated the shells below the Japanese bombers. Even less effective were sailors firing pistols, rifles and machine guns. A civilian worker in Cavite watched the shells explode well short of the planes and exclaimed, "By God, we're going to be nailed to the mast!"


Aircraft in the Philippines, December 1941: Boeing B-17D

Well-trained Japanese pilots and bombardiers had a perfect target in Cavite, a small island only 50 acres in area that was connected to a small peninsula by a 200-yard-long causeway. The Japanese dropped their bombs into Cavite in a strike nearly as good as the first day's attack on Clark. Almost every bomb fell within the Navy Yard.

[SAMWolf]

Ships

The first string of bombs straddled the 6,750-ton USS Otus, a former Lykes liner undergoing conversion to a submarine tender. Bombs that landed in the shallow sea threw up geysers of water topped with mud and smoke. Engaged in taking on torpedoes, Otus backed away from the wharf unscratched, but left behind the torpedoes she had come to pick up.


Direct hit! Two bombs strike Sea Lion (SS-195) almost simultaneously. First U.S. submarine casualty of the war, she went down in the shambles of Cavite - was later raised from the shallows off Machina wharf and sunk in Manila Bay to prevent capture. Sea Dragon (SS-194) (shown at right) narrowly escaped the blast.

Two submarines were nestled at Machina wharf, Sealion and Seadragon, tied up next to the minesweeper Bittern. The old, 840-ton Bittern caught fire. Sealion's engines had been dismantled for an overhaul, so she had no chance to run. She took a direct bomb hit aft of the conning tower and a second that smashed through the main ballast tank and pressure hull and exploded in the engine room. The second bomb killed four sailors, put a starboard list on the boat, and sank her halfway by the stern.

Seadragon's overhaul had been rushed to completion with the exception of dozens of cans of paint that were still on the boat's wood-slat deck. A blast next to her damaged Seadragon, and the paint cans caught fire. When the torpedo repair shop ashore was hit, pieces of metal scythed across Cavite. Air flasks and torpedo warheads exploded and caused even more damage to the ships. The paint shop blew up and splattered burning paint over the yard's wooden buildings; all were extremely dry and burned easily. A barge holding torpedoes was hit, capsized and rolled the torpedoes into the water.



The skipper of the ex-minesweeper -- now tender -- Pigeon had kept steam up and pulled away from the burning Sealion. Sailors on Pigeon tossed a towline to Seadragon and pulled her to safety. The first two waves of bombers did not hit the destroyer Peary, which had been undergoing repairs, but the third wave straddled her. Bombs hit the central wharf, and fell into the water alongside Peary. One bomb hit the fire-control platform on the destroyer's main mast and ignited small fires the length of the ship. The minesweeper Whippoorwill towed her clear.

Another Pass

The planes swung in for another pass. This time they scoured the east side of the base. Violent explosions blew blackout covers off windows, shattered glass and vigorously shook buildings. Many of the yard's buildings were light, modern and constructed of wood. They offered no protection at all.



Once the first 27 bombers finished their work, another 27 -- those that had struck at shipping -- came in and finished unloading their bombs. The Japanese scored direct hits on the yard's power plant, dispensary, torpedo repair shop, supply office and warehouses, the signal station, commissary, receiving station, barracks and officers' quarters. For two hours, maybe longer, the bombers passed steadily back and forth above Cavite, taking great pains to ensure that their aim was accurate.

Stray bombs hit the densely populated, centuries-old town of Cavite, which was jammed right up against the navy yard. Rather than dropping to the ground during the attack, people ran wildly in a blind search for nonexistent safety. One bomb penetrated the roof of the provincial governor's office, exploded in a prison cell on the bottom floor and killed a jailer and several prisoners. More than 100 civilians were killed at the provincial building and the plaza alone.



After the bombing ceased, Japanese fighters came in low and strafed anything they could see through the thick smoke. Zeros blew one PBY out of the sky above Laguna de Bay and sent a ball of flaming debris into the lake. They forced another flying boat onto Manila Bay in a crash landing, but lost one of their own nimble fighters to the .30-caliber machine gun in the PBY's bow.

Attack Over

Then the attack ended. The flight home for Japanese pilots was nerve-wracking because weather over Formosa had deteriorated since the morning. By dusk, when the planes were due back, the ceiling was down to between 300 and 450 feet. Aside from one Zero that crash-landed just off the coast, the fighters were able to make forced landings on Koshun Field at the south tip of Formosa. The bombers also got in safely. During debriefings, Japanese pilots claimed 104 U.S. planes destroyed, 43 from aerial combat. Bomber pilots claimed two submarines, two destroyers, two small transports and three other ships. Despite those inflated claims, there was no doubt that they had inflicted serious damage on Cavite. In addition to Masaharu Higa, Petty Officers 2nd Class Tamotsu Kojima and Kiyoharu Iezuka of the 3rd Kokutai failed to return. Sixteen other Zeros sustained hits but made it home.


Aircraft in the Philippines, December 1941: Republic P-35

Americans at Cavite tried to sort out the confusion after the Japanese had cleared the area. Because the dispensary had been destroyed, Navy corpsmen set up an aid station in the Marine guard shack near the main gate, where doctors established a 70-bed facility. Able-bodied men directed walking wounded through the wreckage to the guard shack and carried those too seriously wounded to walk. Many of the victims suffered from bad burns.

Stretcher bearers carried casualties between rows of beds until they found one containing a dead man. They then removed the body and placed the new patient on the same bloody sheets. The dead were carried out and placed next to the base exchange. Medical personnel grabbed trucks, cars and horse-drawn carriages to take the injured to nearby Cañacao Naval Hospital, to Manila, or to barrios outside Cavite. Volunteers canvassed local civilian drugstores and commandeered all the surgical dressings and drugs they could carry. Men involved in the rescue work began vomiting. Thinking it a was reaction to the smell of the torn and burned bodies, they put on their gas masks -- only to vomit again. A PT-boat shuttled seriously wounded men to the piers at Cañacao. Within two hours the hospital was filled and corpsmen told the less seriously wounded they would have to go somewhere else. Drivers trucked bodies and parts of bodies to Manila's air-conditioned Jai Alai Fonton Pavilion and stacked them wherever there was room.

Clear The Way

Sailors fought scores of roaring fires through the heat of the 90-degree day, but they could not keep water pressure in the hoses. Exploding 500-pound torpedo warheads and alcohol fires drove the firefighters back. They tried to save the burning machine shops, but whenever they made any headway against the lubricant-fueled fires, the strong winds shifted and routed them.


Invasion of the Philippines
December 10, 1941 - May 3, 1942

Naval officers at the Commandancia, a beautiful example of the best in Spanish architecture, hurried in and out of the war plans office as they evacuated classified papers. Firefighters pumped water from Manila Bay in an attempt to slow the approaching fire, but soon the Commandancia was also ablaze. Fires were so intense by 1530 that searchers abandoned their efforts to locate people trapped in the debris. A half hour later they began yelling, "The admiral says clear the yard." The fight to stay the flames was abandoned.

Additional Sources:

www.fourthmarinesband.com
www.history.navy.mil
www.mississippi.net
history.acusd.edu
www.navsource.org
www.ibiblio.org
www.grunts.net
www.brooksart.com
www.onwar.com
www.west.net

[SAMWolf]

By the close of December 10, the Americans had conceded control of both the skies and the seas. Many had considered the successful bombing of Clark on December 8 a fluke, the result of a surprise attack. But the December 10 razing of Del Carmen, Nichols and Cavite confirmed some hard facts: P-40s with poorly trained pilots could not successfully engage in dogfights with Zeros; and their anti-aircraft guns were too short-ranged to reach enemy bombers. Especially discouraging was the growing fear that neither American commanders nor soldiers were ready, psychologically or professionally, to match the Japanese.

December 10 was the second of many disheartening days to come. All too soon, a Japanese army would land on Luzon, driving the defenders to Bataan and Corregidor. In an astonishing series of aerial engagements that began on December 8, Japanese air forces had created the conditions that would lead to the most humiliating American defeat of World War II.

[SAMWolf]

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Good Thursday Morning Everyone


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

[Neil E. Wright]

Another outstanding thread .... PI then was a whole lot different than when I was stationed in PI in the early '70s.

I think I'll snag a couple of cold ones and lose myself in my memories of the Philippines .... Subic Bay, Olongapo City, Subic City, Clark AB and environs (had a buddy in the AF from my hometown who was stationed there during the same time period), Manila .... ah, memories .... :)

±

"The Era of Osama lasted about an hour, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty."
Toward FREEDOM

[SAMWolf]

Morning Neil. Thanks again for your service.

Never made it to the Philippines. My brother-in-law was stationed there in the 60's with the Air Force.

[SAMWolf]

Good Night Snippy.

[snippy_about_it]

Subic Bay

[snippy_about_it]

Good night Sam.

[GATOR NAVY]

Hey, I've been there!

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. Have you sailed all the seven seas?

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

[GATOR NAVY]

Nope, never been in the Atlantic, Med or Carribean. Been all over the place in the Pacific and IO though.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[The Mayor]

July 29, 2004

Power Outage

Read: Read: 2 Timothy 1:6-12

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. —2 Timothy 1:7

Bible In One Year: Psalms 49-50; Romans 1

---

The silence awakened me at 5:30 one morning. There was no gentle whir of fan blades, no reassuring hum from the refrigerator downstairs. A glance out the window confirmed that a power outage had left everyone in our neighborhood without electricity just as they would be preparing for work.

I realized that alarm clocks would not sound, and there would be no TV news. Coffee makers, toasters, hair dryers, and many telephones would be useless. Beginning a day without power was simply an inconvenience and a disruption of routine—but it felt like a disaster.

Then I thought of how often I rush into the day without spiritual power. I spend more time reading the newspaper than the Bible. Talk radio replaces listening to the Spirit. I react to difficult people and circumstances in a spirit of fear rather than the spirit of“power and of love and of a sound mind”that God has given us (2 Timothy 1:7). I must appear as spiritually unkempt as a person who dressed and groomed in the dark.

Our power outage was short-lived, but the lesson remains of my need to begin each day by seeking the Lord. His strength is not for my success or well-being, but so that I will glorify Christ by living in His power. —David McCasland

There’s never a lack of God’s power
In prayer and reading His Word,
For Jesus in heaven is listening-
Your prayer will always be heard. —Hess


The human spirit fails us unless the Holy Spirit fills us.

[alfa6]

Last day of vacation buimp for the Foxhole, dangnabit!!!!

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-gram.

[GailA]

Good morning...hmmm has hanoi john or breck girl been to Walter Reed to do a photo op of them 'visitin' our injured Troops?