The FReeper Foxhole Presents the Saturday Symposium - May 7th, 2005

our own minds :-)

[Professional Engineer]

Happy VE day.

[PhilDragoo]

The USNA Class of '94 grad gave me Stockdale, In Love And War, U.S. Naval Institute, 1990. For sheer lasting courage the Vice Admiral's performance during eight years imprisoned by Kerry's comrades is classic.

Classic, too, is the "spoken only in Hell" remark of Halsey, absent any comment on his rash behaviors.

The following is the Gertz "Inside the Ring" excerpt re Blair as it appeared in the online edition of the Washington Times of the stated date:

The Washington Times 7/30/99 Bill Gertz "...The Clinton administration has made punishing Taiwan its main policy option in the dispute between Taipei and Beijing over Taiwan's assertion it should have a "state-to-state" relationship with China. China perceives the remark as a statement of independence and a threat to the "one-China policy," which the United States endorses. As a rebuke, the United States has held up announcement of a planned arms sales to the island, and the visit of a Pentagon delegation to Taiwan was put off. Now comes word that the chief of the U.S. Pacific Command and the leader of the 100,000 troops in the region would not defend Taiwan if it declared itself an independent state and not a part of China. Adm. Dennis Blair, the commander in chief, Pacific, or Cincpac, expressed the Clinton administration's pro-Beijing views in meetings this week with members of Congress and staff. Adm. Blair said Taiwan has become "the turd in the punchbowl" of U.S.-Chinese relations. If Taiwan declared independence, "I don't think we should support them at all," the admiral told several congressional aides. The remark was the clearest sign the administration is aligned with the communist regime in China and would not live up to its defense obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to prevent an armed aggression against the island...."

The "turd in the punchbowl remark was not included in our hard copy Washington Times, and I emailed Bill Gertz, who replied, "Appears to have been edited without permission. Will investigate." The following week's Times "Inside the Ring" reprinted the intact item complete with the Blair gem stating the Clinton regime's Beijing-as-Butt-Buddy policy.

Admiral Boorda was a casualty of much ado about nothing, having been given Zumwalt's okay for the V--whereas Kerry the Komrade of Kommies had a citation for a Silver Star with V Device, an item nonexistent in the official inventory. Somebody needs to produce a signed 180 or at least have the decency to commit soo-ee-side.

Admiral M.D. Willcutts Report
on the Death of James V. Forrestal
1949

This page links to two text files in Adobe PDF format containing the 1949 report by Admiral M.D. Willcutts, the Navy Department's chief investigator into the death of James V. Forrestal. The documents were procured by David Martin of Virginia via a Freedom of Information Act request in April 2004. Martin scanned the report and gave the PDF files to the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library in August 2004. This is the first time this report has been made available to the public. Also included are scans of five photographs obtained and scanned by Martin.

The PDF scans are of typed transcripts of four days of board hearings, witness depositions and questioning.

The space of five minutes at 1:45 A.M. Sunday, May 22, 1949, is not accounted for by the supervising psychiatrist out of the city, the corpsman out of the room.

But the exit from tower sixteen was not via any window in the room or the head or the adjacent room, but the galley.

The alleged "suicide note" was a partial transcription of a poem witnessed by no one.

The year the Administration was busily "losing" China, one voice warned against the dangers facing the nation.

Then Vince became depressed and skydove out that itty-bitty opening you see above.

The parallels with known suicides of the depressed victims of Sidney Gottlieb's MK-ULTRA LSD ambushes beckon like Suzi Wong.

But surely the Navy that busted the skipper of Indy and drove him to suicide, that let the Greeneville skipper slide, that blew the espionage case in Moscow Station, while botching Tailhook, would not get the Forrestal skydive wrong?

"After the war Forrestal became associated with the campaign against communism. This upset liberals in Washington who still believed it was possible to develop good relations with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. In September 1946 he joined with James F. Byrnes to get Henry Wallace sacked after he made a speech calling for an end to the Cold War. "

Drew Pearson made Forrestal his special target--Drew Pearson, comsymp.

[PAR35]

Then Vince became depressed and skydove out that itty-bitty opening you see above.

Nice of him to close the window after he went out.

Forrestal does not deserve unlimited praise, however. He was busily chopping away at the carriers, and had the North Koreans waited, they might have had an easier time of it. Specifically, he should be credited with stopping the first planned supercarrier, the USS United States, as well as planning other cuts to the 'peacetime' carrier fleet. Its cancellation in 1949 may well have encouraged the reds.

[PhilDragoo]

Louis Emil Denfeld
Admiral, United States Navy
Courtesy of the United States Navy:

By 1949 the Berlin airlift and the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had enhanced Air Force arguments against the funding of super carriers. Because air force bombers could now operate off European airfields well within range of Soviet targets, carrier aviation was increasingly viewed as superfluous. Critics of an independent navy were supported by a new secretary of defense, Louis A. Johnson, who had a personal dislike for the navy and its officers. Accordingly, Johnson managed to cancel the United States, even though its keel had been laid.

Truman fired Forrestal and installed Johnson to accomplish this.

[PhilDragoo]

The Air Force in the Cold War, 1945-60
Birth of a New Defense Paradigm

When Truman replaced Forrestal with Louis A. Johnson in March 1949, the new defense secretary redistributed limited defense dollars to match America's military capabilities more accurately to the Soviet threat, cancelling the Navy's supercarrier-the USS United States-and investing more heavily in the Air Force's atomic bomber-the B-36.

Published Airpower Journal - Fall 1996

[snippy_about_it]

I had forgotten about Forrestal, thanks Phil.

[PAR35]

Thanks for straightening me out on that. That's what I get for relying on recollections rather than Google in the middle of the night.

[PhilDragoo]

We are wise to remember Truman's agency in the success of Communism: on his watch Communists took China, the biggest bite of humanity by the beast yet, a menace still, and growing.

Under Truman, the Communists were so emboldened they invaded South Korea and nearly won the peninsula, no thanks to Truman who canned MacArthur.

The attacks on Forrestal were part of the despicable record of the fellow travelers of the day, who scoffed at McCarthy and defended Hiss.

From the Venona Papers we know the government was penetrated by Soviet agents.

[PAR35]

We are wise to remember Truman's agency in the success of Communism:

On the other hand, he did come through on the Berlin airlift. Truman did not do a good job of purging Roosevelt's reds.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for telling us about Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid. Maybe we can find enough about him to do a thread. I figured you Navy folks would know best. :-)

[Peanut Gallery]

LOL thought that was from Farragut? He was an outstanding Admiral, however, I cannot, in good Southern conscience, take his side.

[Peanut Gallery]

Hmm, there is an article on him in the online archives. lemme find him... I'll let ya know.

[fredhead]

Wasn't Drew Pearson the reporter who broke the story of the Patton "slapping incident?"

[PhilDragoo]

Patton also created controversy when he visited the 15th Evacuation Hospital on 3rd August 1943. In the hospital he encountered Private Charles H. Kuhl, who had been admitted suffering from shellshock. When Patton asked him why he had been admitted, Kuhl told him "I guess I can't take it." According to one eyewitness Patton "slapped his face with a glove, raised him to his feet by the collar of his shirt and pushed him out of the tent with a kick in the rear." Kuhl was later to claim that he thought Patton, as well as himself, was suffering from combat fatigue.

Two days after the incident at the 15th Evacuation Hospital Patton sent a memo to all commanders in the 7th Army: "It has come to my attention that a very small number of soldiers are going to the hospital on the pretext that they are nervously incapable of combat. Such men are cowards and bring discredit on the army and disgrace to their comrades, whom they heartlessly leave to endure the dangers of battle while they, themselves, use the hospital as a means of escape. You will take measures to see that such cases are not sent to the hospital but are dealt with in their units. Those who are not willing to fight will be tried by court-martial for cowardice in the face of the enemy."

On 10th August 1943, Patton visited the 93rd Evacuation Hospital to see if there were any soldiers claiming to be suffering from combat fatigue. He found Private Paul G. Bennett, an artilleryman with the 13th Field Artillery Brigade. When asked what the problem was, Bennett replied, "It's my nerves, I can't stand the shelling anymore." Patton exploded: "Your nerves. Hell, you are just a goddamned coward, you yellow son of a bitch. Shut up that goddamned crying. I won't have these brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard sitting here crying. You're a disgrace to the Army and you're going back to the front to fight, although that's too good for you. You ought to be lined up against a wall and shot. In fact, I ought to shoot you myself right now, God damn you!" With this Patton pulled his pistol from its holster and waved it in front of Bennett's face. After putting his pistol way he hit the man twice in the head with his fist. The hospital commander, Colonel Donald E. Currier, then intervened and got in between the two men.

Colonel Richard T. Arnest, the man's doctor, sent a report of the incident to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The story was also passed to the four newsmen attached to the Seventh Army. Although Patton had committed a court-martial offence by striking an enlisted man, the reporters agreed not to publish the story. Quentin Reynolds of Collier's Weekly agreed to keep quiet but argued that there were "at least 50,000 American soldiers on Sicily who would shoot Patton if they had the chance."

Eisenhower told one of his senior officers: "If this thing ever gets out, they'll be howling for Patton's scalp, and that will be the end of George's service in this war. I simply cannot let that happen. Patton is indispensable to the war effort - one of the guarantors of our victory." Instead he wrote a letter to Patton demanding that he should apologize or make "personal amends to the individuals concerned as may be within your power."

Eisenhower now had a meeting with the war correspondents who knew about the incident and told them that he hoped they would keep the "matter quiet in the interests of retaining a commander whose leadership he considered vital." The men agreed to do this but the news of the incident eventually reached Drew Pearson and in November 1943, he told the story on his weekly syndicated radio program. Some politicians demanded that Patton should be sacked but General George Marshall and Henry L. Stimson supported Eisenhower in the way he had dealt with the case.

George Patton

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!