The FReeper Foxhole Revisits The Cactus Air Force - Guadalcanal - October 27th, 2005

see educational sources | originally posted by SAMWolf 2/4/2003 | Don Hollway

[snippy_about_it]

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.


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

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

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.

To read previous Foxhole threads or
to add the Foxhole to your sidebar,
click on the books below.

The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

The Cactus Air Force

A small group of die-hard aviators fended off Japanese invaders at Guadalcanal, code-named "Cactus."

The Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter swept in low over the sweltering jungle of Guadalcanal, as if to land on the nearly completed, crushed-coral runway at Lunga Point. Once the air base was completed, the Japanese planned to fly long-range bombers from it to cut off Australia from the east.

But as the Zero buzzed the field, the pilot was startled to see enemy troops on the runway -- 10,000 U.S. Marines had landed the day before, August 7, 1942, and now held the field. He hastily climbed away, leaving this little clearing in the jungle to become the objective of the pivotal campaign of the war in the Pacific.

Birth Of The Cactus

Believing the amphibious assault to be a temporary, diversionary raid (and seeing that they were outnumbered 3-to-1), Japanese ground forces on Guadalcanal initially withdrew into the jungle, expecting air attacks to drive the Americans off. Over the next two days, land-based Japanese navy planes, including Mitsubishi G4M bombers (Allied code name "Betty") and Zero ("Zeke") fighters, downed 20 percent of the U.S. Navy fighters sent against them but lost nearly half their own. The loss of four cruisers and a destroyer in the sea battle of Savo on the night of August 9, combined with the continuing threat of daylight air attack, caused the U.S. Navy to withdraw. The Marines were left on "the Canal" with what they referred to as the only unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Solomon Islands -- the Guadalcanal airfield. They used captured construction equipment to finish the 2,600-foot runway, adding an extra 1,200 feet for good measure.


Major John L. Smith scored 19 aerial victories and earned the Medal of Honor over Guadalcanal. (National Archives)

Although bereft of taxiways, revetments, drainage and radar, the airfield -- christened Henderson Field after Marine Major Lofton Henderson, who died leading a dive-bomber attack in the June 4 Battle of Midway -- boasted Japanese hangars, machine shops and radio installations, a pagodalike control tower complete with a warning siren for air raids, and even an ice plant. But not until August 20 did Guadalcanal -- code-named "Cactus" -- take delivery of 12 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers and their escort of 19 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighters, the advance squadrons of Marine Air Group (MAG) 23. "I was close to tears and I was not alone," said Maj. Gen. Archer Vandergrift, the Marine ground commander, "when the first SBD taxied up and this handsome and dashing aviator jumped to the ground. 'Thank God you have come,' I told him."

Within 12 hours the fledgling "Cactus Air Force" helped finish off a Japanese infantry assault. The next day, the American fliers gave an enemy bomber raid from Rabaul, New Britain, a rude welcome. In his first combat engagement, Captain John Lucien Smith, commanding Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 223, and four F4Fs met the fighter escort, 13 Zeros of the crack Tainan Kokutai (naval air group) led by Lieutenant Shiro Kawai, head-on. All four Wildcats survived, though two were badly damaged and one cracked up attempting a dead-stick landing. No Zeros were destroyed, but Smith thought the skirmish "did a great deal of good" by giving the Marines a better idea of the Zero's capabilities while giving them confidence in the performance and durability of their own Wildcats. Later that week, Captain Marion Carl, who had downed a Zero at Midway, got two Bettys and another Zero. Carl and Smith were to become friendly rivals.

Building Up The Fighter Force

The balance of power on Guadalcanal seesawed with the waxing and waning of fighter strength at Henderson. By the end of August the Cactus Air Force included 14 Bell P-400 Airacobra fighter-bombers (export versions of the company's P-39) of the 67th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), and 19 F4Fs of VMF-224, under Major Robert E. Galer.

(In less than two weeks Galer would knock down four enemy planes, go down in the water and swim ashore. His gallantry would eventually garner him 13 kills and the Medal of Honor.)



By the afternoon of September 10, however, only three P-400s remained, with 22 SBDs and 11 F4Fs. (Among the missing was Marion Carl.) Two dozen Navy Wildcats hurriedly flew in to reinforce them; the Airacobras proved barely enough to help repulse an attack on Bloody Ridge, just south of the airfield.

During the course of the Bloody Ridge battle, Henderson received 60 planes, including 18 more F4Fs,12 SBDs and six Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, but the Japanese reinforced Rabaul with 60 fighters and 72 medium bombers.

Stopping Them Cold

By mid-October, 224 Japanese planes had fallen to the Cactus Air Force, including 111 1/2 to VMF-223 and 19 to Smith, who, as the highest-scoring American airman to date, was awarded the Navy Cross and the Medal of Honor. His erstwhile opponent as top gun, Carl, had actually made it back to Henderson after spending five days with the natives, only to find that Smith had pulled ahead of him in victories. ("Dammit, General," he urged Brig. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, the Marine air commander, "ground him for five days!") Carl finished with 18 1/2 kills and a Navy Cross.


Joe Foss (standing second from left) and pilots of VMF-121 at Henderson Field in February 1943. By that time, Captain Foss was in command of the squadron and had earned the Medal of Honor. (National Archives)

Seven of the pilots who had arrived with Smith and Carl in August went out as aces; six were killed and six wounded. Of the Dauntless squadron, only the commander, Lt. Col. Richard C. Mangrum, was able to walk away when he was evacuated on October 12; all his men had been killed, wounded, or hospitalized.

"These guys had stopped [the Japanese] cold," said Captain Joseph J. Foss, who would become Cactus' premier ace, "and now it was our turn." Foss -- "Smokey Joe" for his cigar habit -- was executive officer of Major Leonard K. "Duke" Davis' VMF-121, which moved up to relieve VMF-223 on October 9.

Terrible Conditions

"We were fired upon by Japanese troops as we landed," recalled Lieutenant Jefferson J. DeBlanc of VMF- 112, some of whose pilots arrived a month later in transport planes. "We were always under fire on takeoffs and landings."

Pilots were quartered in mud-floored tents in the frequently flooded coconut grove called "Mosquito Grove," between the airstrip and the beach. The latrine was a trench, with a log for a seat; the bathtub was the Lunga River. There were only two meals a day -- dehydrated potatoes, Spam, cold hash and captured Japanese rice -- and cigarettes. Malaria, dysentery, dengue fever, beriberi and myriad lesser known tropical diseases stalked the garrison. No man could get out of duty with less than a 102-degree fever, but by October more than 2,000 had been hospitalized.



Working conditions were also daunting. Fuel had to be hand-pumped out of 55-gallon drums (and strained through chamois, since native porters sometimes cooled their feet in it) into 12-quart buckets before being poured into airplanes. There were plenty of bombs but no bomb hoists; the SBDs' 500-pounders had to be hand- loaded. The Wildcats' turbochargers, not to be engaged below 10,000 feet but wired open anyway, wore out the engines in 25 to 50 flying hours.

Enemy Strikes

"Almost daily," wrote the 67th Squadron historian, "and almost always at the same time -- noon, 'Tojo Time' -- the bombers came." Advance notice arrived from coastwatchers up the archipelago or, once incoming Japanese bombers learned to detour out of their sight, via Henderson's new long-range SCR (signal corps radio) 270 radar. The Wildcats, the Dauntlesses and the P-400s scrambled to take off two at a time -- through a blinding pall of dust or, if it had rained, through wheel-sucking mud -- on a treacherous runway pocked with half-filled bomb and shell craters and rutted by the solid rubber tail wheels of carrier aircraft. Almost invariably one or two planes failed to take off.

The "ground pounders," the SBDs and P-400s, scuttled off over the treetops to work over enemy ground positions -- or at least to keep out of the way of the impending airstrike. The Wildcat pilots had their work cut out for them just raising their landing gear (which took 29 turns of a hand crank), struggling to form up, trimming their aircraft and testing their guns. (Early Wildcat guns had a tendency to jam during hard maneuvers; furthermore, if the oil necessary to prevent rust on the guns in the humid sea-level air was not removed before takeoff, it froze at altitude, jamming the actions.) Most important, the pilots had to reach the Japanese bombers' altitude before the Zekes fell on them.



In his first combat mission, attempting to intercept bombers at 24,000 feet, Lieutenant James Percy of VMF-112 suffered a partial turbocharger failure 10,000 feet short of the enemy formation. "I continued to climb very slowly on low blower, but it was obvious I wasn't going to reach [the enemy's] altitude in time to intercept," Percy recalled. "As the bombers passed about 3,000 feet over me, I noticed their bomb bay doors were open. As I grasped what that meant, their bombs started falling toward me. All I could do was duck my head and pray. Bombs passed all around me, but I was not hit." (Percy's luck held; in June 1943 he survived a 2,000-foot fall with a shot-up parachute into the waters off the Russell Islands.)

Down below, a black flag would go up at the "Pagoda" -- air raid imminent -- and the triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery) would open up. Around the runway, slit trenches and bomb shelters rapidly filled (a sign over one shelter entrance read, "Beneath these portals pass the fastest men in the world") as the first bombs began to fall at one end of the field, and the explosions "walked" across to the other side.

Taking A Dive

Diving, whether to attack or to escape, was the one maneuver at which the Wildcat bested the Zero. "The Zeros had superior maneuverability," said 2nd Lt. Roger A. "Jughead" Haberman, a division leader in Foss' flight who ultimately scored seven victories. "In two-and-a-half turns against a Wildcat they could have you boresighted. But our planes were heavier than theirs, so if you got into trouble, you could dive earthward away from them."

Usually.



In Foss' first combat on October 13, he was jumped by a Zeke flown by Petty Officer 1st Class Kozaburo Yasui of the Tainan Kokutai. Foss later recalled: "That bird came by like a freight train and gave me a good sprinkling, but I knew I had him. I pulled up and gave him a short burst, and down he went." But while Foss was credited with the kill, Yasui in fact survived (he would bring his own score up to 11 before he was killed over Guam on June 19, 1944) -- and his two wingmen, Petty Officer 2nd Class Nobutaka Yanami and Seaman 1st Class Tadashi Yoneda, bounced Foss. Their bullets hit his oil cooler, and his engine seized. "The only thing I could do to get out -- I was right over the field -- was to just wheel over and dive straight down," Foss recalled. He plunged from 22,000 feet right down to the deck. "I'd read that a Zero couldn't follow such a dive; its wings would come off trying to pull out. Well, whoever wrote that was a fiction writer because those boys just kept on my tail, pumping lead!" Anti-aircraft gunners cleared the Zekes from his tail, and Foss coasted in to a dead-stick crash landing.

The Americans knew the Japanese had the edge in experience. Most Yanks were straight out of flying school, with less than 300 hours in training aircraft. "Some of the pilots," wrote Percy, "barely had enough time in the F4Fs to get safely airborne." Many Zero aces, veterans of the Sino-Japanese War, counted 800 hours of flying time even before the United States entered the war.

---

---

FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[snippy_about_it]

Neat stuff they've got there. Thanks PE.

[snippy_about_it]

xoxoxoxo

[snippy_about_it]

Happy Birthday to the Czar of the Creamed Peas.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for the numbers Valin. Sad.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for the added info Sam.

[U S Army EOD]

Sorry, chuckle.

[E.G.C.]

Afternoon, folks.

It's nice and warm here temps in the low 70's.

50% chance of t-storms Sunday Night.

[Professional Engineer]

I'm sure you've no doubt noticed there are a number of SpankenTruppen recruits among the group.

[Professional Engineer]

A sign that the Apocalypse is near :-)

Ruh roh raggy.

[Valin]

Every KIA/WIA in this war is terrible BUT when we look at the war between the states, WWI, WWII...etc we see what real casualties look like. (as I've mentioned before) I read that of D-Day America was losing men at the rate of 1,000 an hour. 2 1/2 years Vs 2 hours, as wars go this one is pretty bloodless....and that's a good thing. We are in favor of our guy living and the bad guys dieing.

[Professional Engineer]

Cactus carrier?

[Iris7]

If Cindy Sheehan had tried her stuff in 1861-64 in the North she would have died in prison without trial....Copperhead.

She would have received absolutely zero publicity. Copperhead media got the chopper too. Not joking.

In WWII she would have lived but would have been imprisoned and her mail censored. Fact.

[Iris7]

Do not forget New Guinea. It was by no means an all Aussie show.

Heroes? Every last one.

[Iris7]

"It might be Waterloo, but Delay is Wellington."

Those people are doing their worst to put Delay in prison for a non-crime. They want Rove to prove he didn't do whatever their fantasy is. It is impossible to prove a negative, so the burden of proof is on the persecution. We are talking "Thoughtcrime" here.

[Iris7]

Hi, Valin.

MacArthur thought that if the Japanese could land in force in Australia then goodbye, Australia. This is why the Aussies fought so hard on New Guinea. If Australia fell MacArthur thought the war would likely be lost. George Kinney did too, I think. Kinney's "boys" (he called them "my boys") thought so too. Almost the first thing Nimitz did was go to unrestricted submarine warfare, then still a sore spot from WWI.

The Battle of the Coral Sea wrecked an attempted Japanese invasion of Australia and that is why it was a great victory even at such a high cost. Nimitz immediately replaced Ghormley, who was scared sh!!less, with Halsey. Nimitz ordered the Guadalcanal landing just as soon as humanly possible mostly to take the pressure off of New Guinea. The Japanese fought so hard because they knew the stakes. Victory, or defeat.

I think the thought was of ten million Aussies in the hands of the Japanese Army, the Imperial Japanese Navy having control of the Indian Ocean, no reinforcements or supplies to the Brits in North Africa, and the Russians not able to hold the Wehrmacht at all, not at all. (Stalingrad was late in the year.)

Would the Brits have accepted the deal Hitler had offered in 1940? That is, ally with Germany and keep the Empire and get the Japanese out of Australia? Remember how close the Brits came to accepting this right after Churchill took office. Remember Rudolf Hess. Remember how the Japanese treated civilian prisoners. Think of Rommel meeting the Japanese in Cairo. Think of the Wehrmacht taking the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok. Think of no bombing war from England to gut the Third Reich.

[Iris7]

Yeah, nuclear weapons. No one knew about them in 1942. That would have worked, right?

The Third Reich had a pretty fair nuclear weapon project. It was not an enriched uranium - plutonium affair, pretty strange in a way, but....

Not a physicist by a long shot, but what they were making would have played hell with New York City. The bombing survey did not even recognize the program for what it was, no gaseous diffusion plants don't you know. Bunch of academics.

[Iris7]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348497.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4598955.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1581691,00.html

Sure don't say this is anything like proof............

Interesting, though.

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies and gents. Flag-o-12 hour day #12-o-Gram.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Master Sgt. Timothy Deramus clinches the U.S. flag during a Veterans Day ceremony at Camp Sather here Nov. 11. Sergeant Deramus is an information manager deployed from Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., and is the noncommissioned officer in charge of the camp's honor guard detail. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Michael O'Connor)

Get a tissue size.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on October 28:
1017 Henry III Holy Roman emperor (1046-56)
1585 Cornelius Otto Jansen France, Roman Catholic reform leader
1793 Eliphalet Remington US gun maker
1810 Brig Gen Adley H Gladden La, killed at Shiloh
1818 Ivan Turgenev Russia, novelist/poet/playwright (Fathers & Sons)
1834 Dudley McIver DuBose Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1883
1842 Anna Elizabeth Dickinson orator (Joan of Arc of the Civil War)
1846 Auguste Escoffier king of chefs & chef of kings
1902 Elsa Lanchester Lewisham London, actress (Bride of Frankenstien)
1903 Evelyn Waugh London, author (Brideshead Revisited)
1907 Edith Head fashion designer (MGM)
1910 Marie Dollinger Germany, dropped baton in 1936 Olympic sprint
1914 Dr Jonas Salk NYC, medical researcher, made polio a fear of the past (It's baaaack!)
Amish Community Dealing With Polio Virus
http://wcco.com/health/local_story_294100014.html
1926 Bowie Kuhn baseball commissioner (1969-1984)
1927 Cleo Laine Middlesex England, singer (Flesh to a Tiger)
1929 Dody Goodman Columbus Ohio, actress (Mary Hartman!, Max Duggan)
1934 Jim Beatty track runner (1st sub 4 minute indoor mile)
1936 Charlie Daniels country music star (Devil Went Down to Georgia)
1940 Gennadi M Strekalov cosmonaut (Soyuz T-3, T-8, T-11)
1944 Dennis Franz Maywood Ill, actor (Norman Buntz-Hill Street Blues)
1945 Wayne Fontana Manchester England, rocker (Groovy Kind of Love)
1948 Telma Hopkins Louisville, singer (Tony Orlando, Family Matters)
1949 Bruce Jenner US, decathalete (Olympic-gold-1976)
1952 Annie Potts Nashville TN, actress (Mary Jo-Designing Women)
1955 William Gates billionaire CEO (Microsoft)/secret ruler of the world
1962 Daphne Zuniga actress (Gross Anatomy, Fly II, Spaceballs)
4285 NRA1995 time traveler born in M51 galaxy
(http://www.skyimagelab.com/hubble-new-m51.html)
That's right! And you all thought those bagels were just bagels. Well they are more than that, Oh so much more! In an exclusive FreeRepublic report it can be reported that NRA1995 while looking like a mild mannered human female freely spreading coffee and bagels wherever she goes is in fact a time traveling SPACE ALIEN sent here to conquer us by addicting us to bagels. (DON'T EAT THE RAISON BAGELS) That's right, it all part of a giant plot...no make that a giant nefarious plot! (and you know how bad they can be)

Remember: Too much of a good thing. . . can be wonderful.
Hope the next year proves this true.

---

Deaths which occurred on October 28:
0900 Alfred the Great English monarch, dies
1704 John Locke, English philosopher (2 treatises on govt), dies at 72
1740 Anna Ivanova Romanova empress of Russia (1730-40), dies at 47
1875 William Howard Glover composer, dies at 56
1957 Anthony J Morabito co-owner of SF '49ers, dies while watching a game
1987 Andr‚ Masson France, surrealist artist (Labyrinth), dies at 91
1987 Woody Herman, US jazz clarinetist/composer, dies at 74
1991 John Korbal film historian (Marlene Dietrich), dies at 51

---

Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties

Iraq
28-Oct-2003 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Isaac Campoy Balad (near) - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Sergeant Michael Paul Barrera Balad (near) - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Private Algernon Adams Fallujah - Anbar Non-hostile - weapon discharge

28-Oct-2004 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Stephen P. Downing II Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire
US Specialist Segun Frederick Akintade Balad (S of) - Salah ad Din Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
US Sergeant 1st Class Michael Battles Sr. Baghdad (southern part) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack


Afghanistan
A GOOD DAY


http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
HeroBracelets.org

---

On this day...
0306 Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius proclaimed emperor of Rome
0312 Constantine the Great defeats Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius at the Mulvian Bridge
0969 Byzantines troops occupy Antioch Syria
1216 Henry III (9) was crowned king of England . Regents led him to agree to the demands made by the barons at Runnymede. Prince Louis, repudiated by the barons, returned to France.
1492 Christopher Columbus discovers Cuba
1595 Battle at Giurgevo: Zsigmond Bathory of Transylvania defeats Turkish army
1636 Harvard University (Boston) established
1776 Battle of White Plains; Washington retreats to NJ
1790 New York gives up claims to Vermont for $30,000
1793 Eli Whitney applies for a patent on the cotton gin
1863 Battle at Wauhatchie Georgia: 865 killed or injured
1864 Battle at Fair Oaks, Virginia, ends after 1554 casualties
1886 Statue of Liberty dedicated by Pres Grover Cleveland, it is celebrated by the 1st confetti (ticker tape) parade in NYC
1890 Last NL-AA World Series game Brooklyn ties Louisville 3 games & 1 tie
1891 Quake strikes Mino-Owari, Japan kills 7,300
(George Bush strikes again!)
1901 Race riots, sparked by Booker T. Washington's visit to the White House, killed 34.
1904 St Louis police try a new investigation method-fingerprints
1914 George Eastman announces the invention of the color photographic process.
1914 Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, founded at Howard University, incorporates
1918 Czechoslovakia gains independence as Austria-Hungary breaks up
1919 Volstead Act passed by Congress, start prohibition over Wilson's veto
(Well that worked out real good)
1922 1st coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a football game
1922 Benito Mussolini takes control of Italy's government
1924 White Sox beat NY Giants 8-4 in Dublin, less than 20 fans attend
1929 1st child born in aircraft, Miami, Fl
1934 Brooklyn & Pittsburgh play a penalty free NFL game
1936 FDR rededicates Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary
1940 Greece successfully resists Italy's attack
1946 German rocket engineers begin work in USSR
1948 Flag of Israel is adopted
1953 Bud Grant of Winnipeg Blue Bombers intercepts 5 passes (record)
1958 Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, elected Pope, taking the name John XXIII
1959 Buffalo Bills enter the AFL
1961 Ground broken for Municipal (Shea) Stadium for NY Mets
1962 Khrushchev orders withdrawal of missiles from Cuba, ending crisis
1962 NY Giant YA Tittle passes for 7 touchdowns vs Wash Redskins (49-34)
1965 Gateway Arch (630' (190m) high) completed in St Louis, Missouri
1965 Pope Paul VI proclaims Jews not collectively guilty for crucifixion
1966 Belgium's Gaston Roelants runs 12-4/5 miles in 1 hour
1970 US/USSR sign an agreement to discuss joint space efforts
1971 England becomes 6th nation to have a satellite (Prospero) in orbit
1975 Calvin Murphy (Houston) begins NBA free throw streak of 58 games
1976 Billy Martin named AL Manager of the Year (NY Yankees)
1977 TV's Rhoda gets married
1978 Donald Ritchie ran the fastest 100 Km ever, doing it in 7.2722
1979 Dick Howser (best Yank mngr win-lost pct .636) replaces Billy Martin
1982 NASA launches RCA-E
1985 The leader of the "Walker family spy ring," John Walker, pleaded guilty to giving U-S Navy secrets to the Soviet Union
1988 Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen gives $10 million to U Wash library
1989 Oakland A's sweep SF Giants in earthquake/BART series
2001 U.S. led forces resumed air strikes against targets in Afghanistan, bombing the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar
2002 In Jordan an assassin pumped eight shots into Laurence Foley (62), an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development, outside his home in the first known killing of a Western envoy in Amman. 2 suspects were arrested Dec 14. Abu Musab Zarqawi was suspected in the murder.
2004 Amar Saifi, one of North Africa's most wanted Islamic terrorist leaders, is taken into custody in Algeria. The No. 2 leader of the Salafists is accused in the kidnapping of 32 European tourists last year.

---

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

Cuba : Loss of Major Camila Cienfuegas
Czechoslovakia : Foundation of the Republic Day (1918)
Greece, Cyprus : Ochi Day (1940)
US : National Pie Day.
Disarmament Week (Day 6)
National Magic Week (Day 4)
Plush Animal Lover's Day
National Folly Day.
National Communicate with Your Kid Month

---

Religious Observances
RC, Ang, Luth : Feast of St. Simon
RC, Saint Jude's Day. saint of hopeless causes

---

Religious History
0312 Roman emperor Constantine, 32, defeated the army of Maxentius, a contender to the throne, at Milvian Bridge, after trusting in a vision he had seen of the cross, inscribed with the words, "In this sign conquer." Constantine was converted soon after and became the first Roman emperor to embrace the Christian faith.
1646 At Nonantum, Mass., colonial missionary John Eliot ("Apostle to the New England Indians"), 42, conducted the first Protestant worship service for the Indians of North America. He also delivered the first sermon preached to the Indians in their native tongue.
1777 Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter; 'The Lord usually reserves dying strength for a dying hour.'
1820 Birth of John H. Hopkins, a leader in the development of Episcopal church hymnody during the mid-19th century. Today, he is better remembered as the author and composer of the Christmas hymn, "We Three Kings of Orient Are."
1949 American missionary martyr Jim Elliot, 22, inscribed in his journal perhaps the most oft-quoted of all his sayings: 'He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.'

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

---

BILL GATES TO BUY MARS!
. . . He'll use his new version of Windows 'Microsoft Wormhole' to get him there fast!


By JOHN CARTEROF
Financial Reporter
Redmond, Wash.

BILL GATES is the wealthiest man in the history of planet Earth -- if we discount the massive collection of beads recently found in the cave of Kromaguez, a prehistoric man who lived in the North of Spain, and also had a summer cave in the South of France. One would think the founder of Microsoft has no more mountains to climb. That's far from true, and those mountains are not on this planet.

And now a company insider is telling Weekly World News that Gates, the man who revolutionized the world of computing with Windows, plans to move from cyberspace to outer space. His target? Not Earth but Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. The reason? "Because it's there," our source laughs. "He thinks it's the next logical step. The age of computers was launched by the machines we created to explore space. To come up with the next generation of computers, Gates believes we need to go back into space.

"He also mentioned he wanted a new vacation home, something with a whole lot of privacy." Mars would certainly give him that. The latest data from the Red Planet shows it to be cold and lifeless.

"It's like Finnadigbodagattir on a Thursday night," laughed Einar Fredrikktsen, who is arranging the sale. He is the Greenland ambassador at the United Nations.

Not that the real estate purchase process came easily. As an uninhabited world, Mars fell under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Institute of Technology (UNIT). When the UN first decided to sell the Red Planet as a fund-raiser for peacekeeping efforts -- ironic since Mars was the Roman god of war -- Helki Santgar also made a bid to buy it. Though the international home-furnishing store mogul had the cash, his computer mysteriously malfunctioned when he was submitting his final bid. He also didn't have a way of actually getting to Mars. Neither did an anonymous third bidder who lives in Springfield, Ohio.

"We are at least fairly assured that Gates would have no difficulty commuting," said UNIT chairman Fredrikktsen. "The people at Microsoft are apparently developing a new version of Windows to make the trip -- something like 'Microsoft Wormhole.' "

Microsoft Wormhole will essentially be a matter-transporter, our source tells WWN. There are rumors the traveler would be digitally disassembled by a computer or cell-phone attachment, sent through Windows software and reconstituted at his destination.

"Developers will allegedly debug the program by going through the wormhole themselves," our insider explained. "So far, the worst that's happened is that an engineer somehow acquired another ear."

One feature in particular which our source thinks could be "the next big thing" is the compression utility which provides an instant five-pound weight loss per transport.

"We call it a super-'fast' program since it keeps you from eating," he chuckled. "It's better than exercise. Thanks to the passive nature of the Internet, we have a huge and 'spreading' community of potential users, if you get my drift."

"I hope Wormhole works as well as the Windows Millennium Edition," whined W. Smithers, who represented the bidder from Springfield. "If not, we have hounds that we'll send to pull him out."

The purchase also has political ramifications. Reporters who attended a recent press conference with President Bush asked him if he would ever consider visiting Mr. Gates in his new home. According to them, he said, "You bet. I've always dreamed of vacationing closer to the sun. And -- it's a red state, right?"

"Yes, sir," they replied patiently.

"Sure. It's the moon that's blue," they say the President went on. "Well, the democrats can have the moon," he said, gesturing toward his seat.

People who have bought homes know how exhausting the process can be. We asked our Microsoft source what Bill Gates thinks it would be like to buy an entire world.

"It would be rough, I can tell you that, though not quite as difficult as drawing up his prenup," the source explained. "Plus there's two moons which would have to be bought separately. If you stacked them up, the documents alone would reach his new planet from here.

"It's not simply a matter of buying land," he continued. "As Weekly World News has reported on numerous occasions, alien law is a real growth market. If microbes or amoeba are discovered on Mars their rights have to be preserved without reservations. Or rather, with reservations," he said with a wink, alluding to accommodations made for Native Americans.

Microsoft has also allegedly hired legal experts to draw up proprietary software licenses for the Red Planet. According to our man, "It will work like region codes on DVD players. If Wormhole users pick up any viruses on Mars they won't infect Earth hardware and vice versa."

When asked whether Gates plans to pick up a few more astral bodies when he's firmly entrenched on Mars, our wellinformed source stated, "The sky's the limit. He's got his eye on Pluto. Naturally, I guess he wants to build a dog house there."

---

Thought for the day :
"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead."
Evelyn Waugh

[Soaring Feather]

Good Morning FOXHOLE!!

Hey, PE. alfa, all. It's really Friday.