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Posted on 05/04/2005 10:02:16 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Israel's greatest military commander since Judas Maccabeus -- David 'Mickey' Marcus -- was accidentally killed by one of his own troops.  Marcus was born on New York's Lower East Side on February 22, 1902. He was the fifth child of Mordecai and Leah Marcus, who had emigrated from Romania to escape the waves of antisemitism sweeping Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century. Mordecai Marcus sold vegetables from a pushcart and eventually worked his way up to owning his own stall in the Washington Market. That enabled the family to move to Brooklyn, but then Mordecai died suddenly in 1910. Antisemitism was also very much alive in early-20th-century America. Michael, the oldest of the Marcus children, formed a self-defense group that protected elderly Jews from neighborhood street gangs. "Big Mike," as he was called, worked out daily. When young David started following his older brother around, and even sparring with him at the local gym, people started calling him "Little Mike," which soon was shortened to "Mickey." Mickey Marcus excelled in high school both as a student and an athlete. To his family's chagrin, he decided somewhere along the line that he wanted to go to the U.S. Military Academy. Marcus entered the academy in 1920, when Brig. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was superintendent. He became a standout athlete, winning letters in boxing and football, and graduated in 1924 as a second lieutenant of infantry. During his first assignment, on Governor's Island in New York Harbor, Marcus studied law at night school in the city and in 1927 married Emma Hertzenberg. His next duty assignment was to be Puerto Rico, but the newlyweds decided that they really did not want to live there. Marcus resigned his Regular commission and went to work as a law clerk in New York.  On a corridor wall in the Jewish Chapel of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is displayed the above photo layout depicting Col./Commissioner David 'Mickey' Marcus at different stages in his military career. From left: Cadet Marcus, Class of '24. Marcus and roommate Lt. Charles Stevenson on Mickey's Wedding Day, 1927. Col. Marcus, February,1945. Marcus with Israeli Army, 948. A year after he resigned from the Regular Army, he received a doctorate from Brooklyn Law School. Between 1930 and 1934, Marcus was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. One of his closest associates was future presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey. When Fiorello La Guardia became mayor of New York on a reform ticket in 1934, he appointed Marcus deputy commissioner of corrections. One of Marcus' first actions was to personally lead a special police raid on the corruption-ridden and prisoner-controlled penitentiary on Welfare Island. In 1936, La Guardia appointed Marcus a temporary magistrate to help relieve the case backlog in the crowded Manhattan courts. That summer Marcus worked closely with Dewey in an operation that eventually led to the shutdown of Lucky Luciano's crime ring. Marcus had actually been running the department for five years when La Guardia finally appointed him commissioner of corrections in April 1940. Meanwhile, he had maintained a Reserve commission as a field artillery officer. In 1939, because of his legal experience, he was persuaded to transfer to the Judge Advocate General's Corps.  Then Chief of Department Edward Reilly and Parks Commissioner Henry Stern unveil a biographical plaque at playground ceremonies commemorating U.S. and Israeli military hero David 'Mickey' Marcus who headed Correction under Mayor LaGuardia. In 1940, Lt. Col. Marcus' National Guard unit, the 27th Infantry Division, was federalized and sent to Alabama. Marcus was then the unit's judge advocate. Although legal officers were not supposed to command troops in the field, Marcus managed to lead a unit of special troops during maneuvers in Louisiana in 1941. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, the 27th Division deployed to Hawaii. There, Marcus organized and commanded a Ranger school, training some 8,000 men during the next year. Using his training experience as justification, Marcus tried to talk the Army into giving him a field command with a Ranger unit, but he was unsuccessful. In the spring of 1943, Marcus was posted back to the Pentagon to become chief of planning for the War Department's Civil Affairs Division (CAD), headed by Maj. Gen. John H. Hilldring. For most of the rest of the war, Marcus, now a full colonel, found himself on a whirlwind tour of the corridors of power. While at CAD, Marcus served as a legal and military government adviser at some of the war's most important Allied conferences. Those included Cairo in November 1943; Dumbarton Oaks, where the United Nations was born; and Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, where the postwar world order was forged. According to the citation for his Distinguished Service Medal (an unusually high service decoration for a colonel), Marcus played a key role in the "negotiation and drafting of the Italian Surrender Instrument, the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender of Germany, and the international machinery to be used for the control of Germany after her total defeat."  Col. Marcus in Israel, 1948 Although locked into a general staff job, Marcus did figure out a way to make one trip to the front lines. In early May 1944, he convinced Hilldring to send him to London on temporary duty "to provide liaison and act as observer in the implementation of military government policies for France." At first Hilldring was pleased because Marcus managed to answer on the spot most of the civil affairs questions that usually wound up at the Pentagon. Then, in the second week of June, Hilldring realized that he had not heard from Marcus since the end of May. After a few transatlantic phone calls, Hilldring learned from Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith that Marcus was "somewhere in France," having jumped on D-Day, June 6, with the 101st Airborne Division. Marcus used a very elastic interpretation of his orders from Hilldring, combined with the fact that he had been a fellow cadet at West Point with the 101st's commander, Maj. Gen. Maxwell Taylor (class of 1922), to get himself on a Curtiss C-46 in the first wave. Of all the soldiers who jumped with the 101st that day, only Marcus and one other had never jumped before. Once on the ground in Normandy, Marcus collected groups of the widely scattered paratroopers and organized them into patrols. He led several of those patrols himself, engaging in firefights with German units and, on one occasion, freeing a group of captured U.S. paratroopers. As the 101st regrouped over the next few days, Marcus finally bumped into Taylor, who asked him, "What the hell are you doing here?" Marcus characteristically replied, "Oh, just looking around." Back in Washington, a frustrated Hilldring finally had to issue the order: "Find Marcus. Arrest him if you have to--but send him back!" Shortly after that, Marcus was on a plane to the United States, still in his dirty field uniform.  Latrun Police Building Immediately after the end of the fighting in Europe, General Lucius D. Clay, commander of U.S. occupation forces in Germany, requested that Marcus be assigned to his staff. Clay's standing instructions at the time were that all senior officers in Germany were to visit the recently liberated Dachau concentration camp. As a civil affairs officer, Marcus was well-acquainted with Nazi wartime atrocities. But even that knowledge did not prepare him for the horrors he saw at Dachau. He had never been a Zionist, but now he started to rethink his position on a future Jewish state. During his tour in Germany, Marcus served as executive for internal affairs of the U.S. Group Control Council, then its acting chief of staff, and then the U.S. secretary general in occupied Berlin. Much of his time and energy was devoted to improving conditions for the vast numbers of displaced persons in Europe. Despite his anger over Nazi treatment of the Jews, at a White House conference Marcus argued strongly against adopting the drastic Morganthau Plan, which would have reduced postwar Germany to an agricultural state--one vast farmland. In early 1946, Hilldring managed to get Marcus back from General Clay, this time to head the Pentagon's War Crimes Division. Marcus was responsible for selecting the judges, prosecutors and lawyers for the major war crimes trials in Germany and Japan. He attended the Nuremberg Trials, where one of his main concerns was the complete documentation of Nazi atrocities for future generations. In 1946, the British government made Marcus an honorary officer of the Order of the British Empire, "in recognition of the distinguished service performed…in cooperation with British armed forces during the war." By then, he had been nominated for the rank of brigadier general five times. Nomination No. 6 came in early 1947, along with the offer of a coveted assignment as the military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He elected instead to return to civilian life and his law practice--but his respite from military service would be short.
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Evening w_over_w.
We're getting swamped by Gold Finches. :-)
LST = Large Slow Target
I remember this well as I was in the 2nd grade and we were watching the launch on a grainy B&W TV and the nuns were really working their rosarys.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Evenin Snippy!
Now you might be asking yourself, What the heck does Knob Noster have to do with anything, eh??? Well Knob Noster is where Whiteman AFB is located and Whiteman is home to some of these aircraft.
Another aircraft based out of Whiteman might be just a tad bit more impressive. As a matter of fact as I was getting out of the truck I heard a roar of jet engines. Looking up but what should I see but one of these...
It is truly an awsome sight seeing on these aircraft flying overhead. My daughter reports that occasionally while walking across campus a shadow will appear and looking up there will be a B-2.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Chapter VIII: A NATION IS BORN
- one Palestine completeIn February 1947, the British government had decided to turn the mandate of Palestine over to the United Nations. The U.N. set up a special commission and finally came to a decision that Palestine should be partitioned.
On May 12th, 1948, the United Nations proposed to take over Palestine when the British left and demanded that the Jews would not declare statehood until an agreement had been worked out between them and the Palestinian Arabs.
Ben-Gurion, "the visionary", urged his colleagues to reject the American plan and proposed instead an immediate declaration of statehood.
This Declaration of Independence which was written in May 1948, states that the State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Five members of the ten man council feared that the moment statehood was declared, the Arab nations would attack and win.
The operation officers of the Haganah, headed by Yigael Yadin, added that the Haganah had a high level, both of training and determination, which could offset the overwhelming numbers of soldiers and superior arms and equipment of the Arabs.
Ben-Gurion then mentioned that new arms and supplies were arriving shortly from Europe.
The council voted once more, and decided on the Declaration of Independence. They still discussed what the new state should be called - Zion, Ziona, Judaea or Herzliya.
The council finally decided on the name, Israel.
On May 14th, 1948 at 5 pm, Ben-Gurion presided over the signing of Israel's Declaration of Independence in Tel-Aviv.
Two thousand years of prayers and spiritual longings had been fulfilled!
Joshua and I ran out into the streets and joined friends and strangers dancing the horah and singing on Dizengoff Street.
Strangers hugged, kissed and cried - we were all in a frenzy of emotions.
But everywhere in the country the Haganah was on the alert.
News of the massacre of the Jews in the Etzion Block cast a grim pall! As did the fact that 1,200 Jews had already been killed since the U.N. partition resolution, less than six months earlier.
Immediately after Independence was declared, five Arab armies crossed the borders into the former mandate, Palestine.
Ben-Gurion forged immediately the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun into a single Jewish army - The Israel Defense Forces, known as the I.D.F.
On the morning of May 14th, we were awoken by sirens - an Egyptian bombing raid in Tel-Aviv killed 100 Jews.
We stood shattered and frightened - the sorrow followed too soon after our joy.
In the days ahead, Egyptian troops overran two Jewish settlements south of Gaza and captured Yad Mordechai, and advanced to within 25 miles of Tel-Aviv. The Arab Legion, the best trained of the lot, cut the road from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem and occupied the former police fort, at Latrun.
Three attempts were made by the Israelis to reopen it, but each attack was unsuccessful.
In besieged Jerusalem, the battle for the Jewish quarters of the old city lasted two weeks. On May 28th, it surrendered to the Arab Legion.
Among its defenders was a young English girl of 21 years - who was killed. A letter was found after her death, written to her parents:
We had a difficult fight, I tasted hell, but it has been worthwhile because I am convinced in the end we will see a Jewish state. I have lived my life fully, and very sweet, it has been to be in our land!
The mood in the country was somber and grim. Again we faced the threat of total annihilation. I felt trapped in our own country, short of a miracle how could we be saved?
By now, Joshua had been called up to the army and waited every day to join his battalion. I was due to join part-time, in order to work in the military offices.
It has always been said that turbulent times bring about strong leaders. Well, it certainly applied to those dark, difficult days, when a young nation was fighting for its survival.
From the first days of independence, volunteer fighters reached Israel from abroad. One of them was an American Colonel, David Marcus, a graduate of West Point, who parachuted into Normandy and had seen Dachau a few days after its liberation.
Marcus fought in Latrun, and later opened a by-pass road through the hills to besieged Jerusalem. The road was called, "Burma Road."
He would fly the small planes we had for crop-dusting and flying clubs, to deliver mail and medicine to cut-off besieged settlements and kibbutzim.
He also flew the first Israeli "Messerschmitt," delivered from Germany May 28th, 1948. He was our pride and joy and shaped the fledging Israeli Air Force of one!
On June 11 th, 1948, Colonel Marcus left his tent after dark, wrapped in a white sheet. When challenged by a sentry to give the night password, Marcus hesitated for whatever reason. Perhaps he was too sleepy and his Hebrew not good enough; the guards mistook him for an Arab and shot him dead.
He was buried with full honours at West Point, and later portrayed by Kirk Douglas in the film, "Cast a Giant Shadow."
The young nation mourned its heroes - tragedy did strike. We were all shaken by this needless loss!
Czech made AVIA S-199 (Messerschmitt Bf 109) the first REAL Fighter of the IAF in 1948.Ten aircraft ordered 23 April 1948 from Czech government. Delivered May 1948. Total of 25 acquired. Design based on Messerschmitt Bf 109G-14 with Junkers Jumo 211F fitted in place of the normal Daimler Benz engine, original BMW. Used by 101 sqn for interception and ground attack duties. All withdrawn from service by May 1949. They were very hard to fly, there were no spare parts and the spitfire entered in 1948. No experience with handling the BMW fuel injectioned Engine. The narrow landing gear was very tough, even for experienced pilots. The Luftwaffe lost many, due to this horrible arrangement.
Hebrew name "sakeenim" ("knives", as Messer means knife in German). Nicknamed "Mezek" (mule) because they were so hard to handle.
On the first operational mission three "sakeenim" were sent to attack an Egyptian convoy some 10 miles South of Tel Aviv, heavy Anti Aircraft fire shoot down one of them and the pilot, a Holocaust survivor died in the crash.
Later on, the first aerial combat was over Bombed Tel Aviv when Pilot Mody Alon downed an Egyptian Dakota C 47.
Better be careful or they'll start replacing "Aggie" jokes with "Oregon City" jokes. ;^)
A Dwarf a day keeps the Elves away?
Cool! Haven't seen one of those in the flesh yet.
Thanks for the background on the IAF Messerschmidts.
The station is about two block from the store and Snippy's house. She heard the explosion when the fire started last night.
Honey... Where Did the Bird Go?
I think Hugh's terrific, but I have to agree about today. I can barely take one turn through Small World. Can't wait 'till I don't have any kiddo's in that age range!
Ever contemplate the fact that after the 1948 war the Arabs refused to allow the creation of a Palestinian state, instead Syria kept Golan, Jordan kept the West Bank and Egypt kept Gaza? Never hear a peep about that from the lefties who bleed for the "Palestinian people."
It frequently cites examples of BBC's anti-Israel bias. What is past (Montgomery) is prologue (BBC).
A Dwarf a day keeps the Elves away?
Are ya sure? Seems like they're always trying to gather my hair.
Remember the scene from Chariots of Fire, where the Cambridge Dons look out the window at Abrahams, and one says, "there's your Semite . . . " You're right, things haven't changed much.
And the world press, the British, French and U.S. media, the UN and EU, all the fine civilized bigots and accessories to genocide always always always demand more from Israel--
The parallel is in the insufferable Edward M. Kennedy equating abu Ghraib with hundreds of thousands of mass graves, executions, rapes, disappearances.
The shrieking fairies will not allow Sharon to build a fence to stop the bombers who explode human body parts from buses and pizza parlors, nightclubs and markets.
We were treated to the junior senator from New York deriding the poor air quality at Ground Zero--the air quality--as though the burial pit of three thousand innocents is a Kerryesque nuisance.
Humanity is at war with inhumanity. America and Israel are on the same side, the right side.
Even now we are forced to battle for the vocabulary and the imagery, but I believe we are winning.
The old propaganda is becoming as transparent to us as an Arafat speech for Western consumption, or a Clinton claim of not being able to recall.
The UN Building will make a fine USO as soon as our president recess appoints Ambassador Keyes as our designated evictor.
Islamic fascism doesn't threaten Europe, much. Europe is way down the to-do list, after the Jews and Americans. So, they just don't give a crap. The Europeans don't much care for Jews, but they sure like Arab oil and petro-Euros.
I heard that last night. I was listening to Lars Larson on the radio which ends at 1 a.m. I was just about to fall asleep and BOOM. Sounded like something made of metal blew up. I guess it was the fire truck.
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