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Posted on 03/08/2005 10:10:02 PM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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In the dark days after Pearl Harbor, many of the islands' young women joined the Women's Air Raid Defense to help prevent another disaster.  Women's Air Raid Defense (WARD) staffers on the job in Oahu's information and control center in 1943. On the right is the radar plotting board, which displays data received from radar stations around the island. Workers positioned markers on the large "shuffleboard" at the center of the room to keep track of contacts. The room was nearly filled by a huge table -- a plotting board -- with the familiar outline of the Hawaiian Islands superimposed by a grid pattern. Around it, Signal Corps plotters sat or stood, talking intermittently with distant radar operators, code-named "Oscars," over telephone headsets. Using implements like shuffleboard sticks, the plotters -- known as "Rascals" -- were placing and moving small plastic markers on the board to indicate the locations and status of their Oscars' radar contacts. Overseeing the action from a balcony running around two sides of the room sat the senior controller, the officer in charge. With him were military and civil aviation liaison officers, who correlated the markers with their service's flights. If they could not identify a given track, the senior controller would have the pursuit officer, a fighter pilot, scramble interceptors to visually identify the "bogy," and, if it was an enemy plane, shoot it down. One by one, during lulls in activity, the young women stepped up to the plotters, adjusted their headsets and waited until they heard, "Rascal, this is Oscar, can you read me?" All around Oahu that night, radar operators were astonished when a self-assured female voice replied, "Oscar, this is Rascal. I read you loud and clear." Women's Air Raid Defense plotters had just taken over the night shift at "Little Robert," the Air Defense Command's information and control center (ICC). For the first time, American women had officially replaced male soldiers in a war zone and were directly participating in the defense of American territory. Little Robert had been built by Signal Corps troops in the autumn of 1941 as the hub of the Aircraft Warning Service. Radar contacts, ground observers' sightings and Wheeler Field's interceptor status came into the ICC via a buried telephone cable running around the island. The system was tested on September 27, with Army pursuit planes satisfactorily intercepting "attacking" carrier-based Navy aircraft. The radars had detected and tracked both Japanese attack waves on December 7, and even two cruiser-launched scout planes that had reconnoitered Pearl Harbor and the Lahaina Roads alternate fleet anchorage just before the raid, but an effective air defense operations system was lacking. Once the shock resulting from the attack had subsided, the Army created the Air Defense Command to control the 14th Pursuit Wing and the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Brigade, plus available Navy and Marine fighters and anti-aircraft weapons. Brigadier General Howard C. Davidson, the commander of the 14th Pursuit Wing, was appointed Air Defense commander, and the ICC became his operations center.  Fort Shafter Davidson also had to give up ICC staff from Oahu -- where air raids were expected at any time -- to create aircraft warning units for Samoa, Fiji and New Caledonia. The role of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in Britain's air defense centers was well known, but conservative congressional opposition in 1941 had blocked establishment of an American equivalent. (Created in mid-1942, the Women's Army Corps eventually staffed 27 aircraft warning units.) Davidson appealed to the War Department for an emergency executive order creating a WAAF-like organization for Hawaii. Executive Order 9063 was approved on Christmas Day. General Davidson telephoned a Honolulu couple he knew, asking for their help in finding some bright, trustworthy and reliable young women. Alexander and Una Walker were kamaainas (lifetime Hawaii residents), and Una knew many local women through her Red Cross work. When Davidson called back an hour later, they had a list of 20 names for him. The day after Christmas, Davidson met with Mrs. Walker and the 20 young women at the huge pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Being kamaainas like the Walkers, the women shared the trauma of December 7 and had personal as well as patriotic reasons for volunteering. To Nancy Hedemann and others, "It was the defense of our home which came clear, then service to your country." Pat Morgan, from a New England medical missionary family that had arrived in Hawaii in 1828, had found the raid "at once exciting and terrifying" and felt they "were all consumed with an urge to do something violent."  General Howard C. Davidson, 1942 General Davidson addressed them in an upstairs meeting room, overlooking white beaches strung with barbed wire. Due to tight security, there was little specific he could tell them, only that they would be doing critical secret work for the Army, replacing men for duty in forward areas. They should be between 20 and 34 years of age and childless, be able to pass a physical examination and an Army Intelligence background investigation, be willing to work any shift and abide by special regulations. They would be appointed to the civil service, with pay of $120 per month, and would be furnished uniforms and quarters at Fort Shafter, with officers' mess privileges. "[We] would be considered officers," Hedemann recalled, "so that in the event of capture by the enemy, [we] would be treated according to the…international law regarding prisoners of war." For an organizational name, Davidson suggested Women's Air Defense. The women inserted the word Raid to make a more euphonious acronym, and thus the WARD was born. Administratively, it was known as the WARD Detachment, Company A, 515th Signal Aircraft Warning Regiment (Special), reporting to the commanding general, 7th Fighter Command (formerly 14th Pursuit Wing). The WARD was transferred to the Army Air Forces in 1943. The WARDs-to-be were to report to the Army-requisitioned Iolani Palace on January 1 for formal induction and training, and were asked to bring any interested friends who met the standards. Davidson soon realized that the population of eligible kamaainas was too small. He also learned, however, that some military wives wanted to stay in Hawaii, in spite of air raid alarms and invasion rumors, and he obtained authority to take anyone going into the WARD off the evacuation lists. About half of those who gathered at Iolani Palace on New Year's Day were military wives. Many had witnessed the horrors of the December 7 raid close up. Joy Shaw, wife of a captain at the Marine barracks, remembered driving behind "a truckload of bodies stacked to the top like logs, naked, blackened by oil, smoke and blood, boys from the various ships." To Kathy Cooper, 19-year-old Navy daughter and wife, Hickam Field had looked from her parents' home "like a great sea of flame about a mile long." She felt at that moment that "If a Japanese pilot had walked into the house, I would have tried to kill him."
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Morning PE.
You mean the shoulder patch ones?
Mailed an envelope without putting the payment check inside?
Guilty of that one. :-(
Mornig Sam, I think most of us are guilty of that!
From Baxter New Era, January 18, 1906
SAW BIG NAVAL BATTLE
There is one man in the home who witnessed the sea fight in Hampton Roads, Virginia, between the "Monitor" and the confederate iron-clad ram, "Merrimac." This veteran is Mr. E. A. Goodwin, who served in the Ninety-ninth New York volunteers of New York city. He witnessed what he calls two of the most important events that occurred between March, 1861, and the surrender of Lee - the inauguration of President Lincoln and the battle already referred to.
His regiment landed at Fortress Monroe about the 1st of June, 1861. On the 8th day of March, 1862, the members of the regiment saw a huge flat boat, with a French room, and this object proved to be the terrible Merrimac. Shortly afterward, the regiment was ordered under arms, in light marching order, to go to Newport News, eight miles distant; but before they arrived there, they heard the roar of guns, and met sailors who had escaped from the wrecked and sunken frigate "Cumberland" (wooden) and also from the frigate "Congress," which had been run ashore and set on fire, the Merrimac having practically destroyed both vessels.
The sailors were on their way to the fort, and made the soldiers acquainted with the news of the disaster that had overtaken them. The brave officers and crew of the Cumberland did not surrender; but on the contrary, and the gun crews worked the guns until the water was knee-deep on the gun deck. Then they jumped overboard, and while many were drowned, others succeeded in swimming ashore, leaving old glory still flying at the mast-head when the Cumberland went down as a result of the ramming she received from the hands of the Merrimac.
While the crews were swimming ashore, the confederates put out small boats, filled with sailors, to capture them, but the Yankee sharpshooters on shore began picking the confederates off, and they withdrew. The Merrimac then returned to Norfolk, Va. We felt sure that the fight would be renewed in the morning, but we did not feel much alarmed for we had heard about the Monitor. I was informed that she had left New York in tow of a transport, on Thursday, March 6, 1862, and would be on hand next morning.
She arrived as was scheduled, and went alongside the frigate Minnesota, where she received her ammunition. (The Minnesota had started out the day before to take part in the battle, but had run aground and was helpless, there being a report to the effect that she had been run aground by the pilot who was suspected of being a confederate.)
THE MONSTER APPEARS
On Sunday morning the Merrimac came steaming down from Norfolk, as important as if she were the "biggest thing" out; and she was in the way of an ironclad vessel. Accompanying her came several steamers, whose decks were crowded with spectators who wanted to see the Yankees whipped and taken in as prisoners. When the Merrimac came near the Minnesota she saw something slip out from behind the frigate, and its appearance amazed the Merrimac's officers and crew and the spectators.
This "something" was the little Monitor, which the confederates called a "Yankee raft with a cheese box on it." In a few minutes the battle between the first two iron-clads in the world was on fast and furious. The Monitor circled around the Merrimac, seeking a vulnerable spot, giving shot after shot. The Merrimac did all she could to blow her antagonist out of the water, but her efforts were futile, the most serious thing that occurred being the wounding of Lieutenant Worden, commander of the Monitor, who was hit by a steel splinter as he was looking through a narrow slot in a conning tower. After the fight had been in progress two hours, the commander of the Merrimac decided to run down the "little whiffet" that was causing him so much trouble, and he started for the Monitor under a full speed of steam, and crowded upon her for a short distance, but was unable to make her acquainted with the bottom of the sea. As the Merrimac slid off the Monitior it caused the former to rock and, while she was rocking, the "whiffet" sent a ball into her below the armor that made a hole as large as a hogshead. "Then," says Mr. Goodwin, "you ought to have seen it "turn tail" and skidaddle back to Norfolk."
The soldiers of Mr. Goodwin's regiment, who lined the shore, for miles from the scene of action, filled the air with loud huzzas. The advance of McClellan's army caused Norfolk to be evacuated by the confederates, and they removed all the armament of the Merrimac and started her for Richmond, but she ran aground and was set on fire and burned to the waters edge. Mr. Goodwin saw her burning and, as he says, "I witnessed the beginning and ending of the career of the Merrimac."
M. D. NAGLE Twelfth Iowa Cavalry
BTW, folks today is Norton Update Day for those who use Norton Anti-Virus. Also, I downloaded the March version of the Malicious Software Removal Tool from Microsoft.
Incidentally I don't know if anyone has heard but Microsoft has discontuined Windows Product Activation on the Internet for pre-installed versions of Windows on some computers. If you end up re-installing Windows XP, you'll most likely have to do it by phone. Some people aren't too happy about this.
How's it going, Snippy?
The day war changed. Every navy in the world became instantly obsolete.
/firm grasp of the obvious
They would be appointed to the civil service, with pay of $120 per month, and would be furnished uniforms and quarters at Fort Shafter, with officers' mess privileges.
Not bad for 1942
"[We] would be considered officers," Hedemann recalled, "so that in the event of capture by the enemy, [we] would be treated according to the…international law regarding prisoners of war."
From the Japanese? Riiiight.
In many ways the war in the pacific was like the Eastern front. Not a lot of quarter given.
Good morning radu.
Geez. Doesn't seem like you were on days very long!
Wonderful news. Thanks.
Good morning EGC.
She must be Polish.
LOL. I double dare ya!
free dixie HUGS,duckie/sw
But you didn't double-dog dare me.
Found it anyway.
Good morning Mayor.
Hi Snippy!
Morning Feather.
We just saw a program on the Japanese War Crimes Trials. The list of offenses were just as bad as the Germans', yet Japan has avoided the stigma attached to them.
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