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The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The War in the Aleutians - Feb 17th, 2003
http://www.hlswilliwaw.com/aleutians/Aleutians/html/aleutians-wwii.htm ^

Posted on 02/17/2003 5:36:32 AM PST by SAMWolf

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To: bvw
I can't imagine conducting a campaign in the conditions found in the Aluetians. Just the logistics had to be a nightmare.
21 posted on 02/17/2003 8:33:09 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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To: SAMWolf
The Last Flight of Bomber 31

Transcript

22 posted on 02/17/2003 8:33:51 AM PST by top of the world ma
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To: top of the world ma
Good Morning, top of the world ma. Good to see you.

I remember hearing about bomber 31. Didn't see the documentary though. Thanks for the link.
23 posted on 02/17/2003 8:36:49 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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To: SAMWolf
On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on February 17:
1444 Rudolf Agricola [Roelof Huysman], Dutch humanist/organist
1490 Charles de Bourbon officer/governor (Lombardy)
1519 François de Guise [Balafré], French general strategist (Calais)
1583 J Henry Alting Dutch theologist
1653 Arcangelo Corelli Fusignano Italy, violinist/composer (Concerto Grosso)
1667 Georg Bronner composer
1675 Johann Melchior Conradi composer
1696 Baron Ernst Gottlieb composer
1697 Louis-Maurice de La Pierre composer
1699 Hans Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff German architect (Sanssouci)
1723 Tobias Mayer "method of lunars" for longitude determination
1740 Horace B de Saussure Swiss physicist/geologist
1747 Narciso Casanovas composer
1752 Friedrich M Klinger German playwright (Wirrwarr)
1754 Jan Jachym Kopriva composer
1758 John Pinkerton Scottish historian
1774 Raphaelle Peale US, painter (After the Rain-1823)
1781 René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec France, inventor (stethoscope)
1796 Giovanni Pacini composer
1804 Samuel Read Anderson Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1883
1816 Friedrich Wilhelm Markull composer
1817 Frederick Douglass famous African-American
1820 Henri Vieuxtemps Verviers Belgium, composer/teacher (Brussels Cons)
1824 William Farrar "Baldy" Smith Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1903
1831 Francisco Salvador Daniel composer
1837 Francis Jay Herron Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1902
1837 Sam[uel] van Houten Dutch (Liberal) minister (child labor laws)
1844 A Montgomery Ward founded mail-order business (Montgomery Ward)
1849 Selwyn Image Bodiam Sussex, painter
1850 Anton Urspruch composer
1850 Ludwig Bonvin composer
1853 Jaroslav Vrchlicky [Emil Frída], Czechoslovakian poet (1 night on Karlstein)
1854 Friedrich A Krupp German arms manufacturer
1855 Otto Liman von Sanders German general in Turkey (WWI)
1857 Samuel Sidney McClure Irish-American newspaper editor/publisher
1858 Ernest Ford composer
1862 Edward German (Jones) Whitchurch Shropshire, British composer
1862 Mori Ogai [Mori Rintarô) Japanese author (Maihime/Gan)
1864 Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson New South Wales Australia, poet (Waltzing Matilda)
1867 William Cadbury England, chocolate manufacturer (Cadbury)
1870 Louis de Raet Belgian economist/founder (Flemish People's Party)
1874 Thomas J Watson Sr US, representative/founder (IBM)
1877 Henri Vandeputte Belgian author/poet (L'homme Jeune)
1879 Dorothy Canfield Fisher US, novelist (Book-of-the Month-Club)
1880 Alvaro Obregon General/President of Mexico (1920-24)
1882 Kurt Schindler composer
1882 Noah Beery Smithville AR, actor (Story of Esther, Mark of Zorro)
1884 Arthur Vanderpoorten Flemish minister of Internal affairs (1940)
1887 Leevi Antti Madetoja composer
1888 Henrietta P "Hetty" Beck actress (Bouwmeester Award)
1888 Otto Stern German/US physicist (Stern-Gerlach-experiment, Nobel 1943)
1888 Ronald Aburthnott Knox English priest/writer (Viaduct Murder)
1889 H[aroldson] L Hunt Texas oil multi-millionaire
1891 Georg Britting writer
1892 Theodor Plievier German writer (Des Kaisers Kulis, Stalingrad)
1895 Anita Stewart New York, actress (South of Hell Mountain)
1895 Edna Park Edwards PA
1897 Johan[nes A] Kaart Dutch actor/stage manager (My Fair Lady)
1898 Tom Lowry cricketer (New Zealand batsman in seven Tests & their 1st Test captain)
19-- Christine Pickles Yorkshire England, actress (Helen-St Elsewhere)
1902 Marian Anderson Philadelphia PA, operatic contralto (banned by D A R)
1903 Johannes Linthorst Homan director of the queen in Groningen
1904 Albert Kuyle [Louis Kuitenbrouwer], Dutch writer (Jesus' Robe)
1906 Galo Plaza Lasso President of Ecuador (1948-52), head of OAS (1968-75)
1906 Ramon Tapales composer
1907 Alec Wilder Rochester NY, composer (1973 ASCAP award)
1907 Charles B Timmer Dutch translator/writer (Russia Black on White)
1908 Walter L "Red" Barber Mississippi, sports announcer (Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees)
1908 Staats Cotsworth Oak Park IL, actor (Peyton Place)
1909 Marjorie Lawrence Australia, soprano (Venus-Tannhäuser)
1909 Joseph "Poeske" Scherens Belgian cyclist (champion sprinter 1932-37)
1910 Ai Qing poet
1910 Marc Lawrence New York NY, actor (Man With Golden Gun)
1911 Arthur Hunnicutt Gravelly AR, actor (Big Sky, Apache Uprising)
1912 Andre [Alice Mary] Norton Cleveland OH, science fiction writer (Beast Master, Stand & Deliver)
1913 Joséphine F "Fietje" van Anrooy Dutch actress/director
1913 Oskar Danon composer
1913 Rene Leibowitz composer
1914 Arthur Kennedy Worcester MA, actor (Fantastic Voyage, Peyton Place)
1914 [Bert de] Wayne Morris Los Angeles CA, WWII-pilot/actor (Paths of Glory)
1914 Albert Westerlinck [José J M Aerts], Flemish literary
1914 Per-Jakez Helias writer/teacher
1915 Homer Keller composer
1916 Don Tallon cricketer (perhaps Australia's greatest wicket-keeper)
1916 Raf Vallone Tropea Italy, actor (El Cid, 2 Women, Greek Tycoon)
1918 Charles A Hayes (Representative-D-IL, 1983- )
1918 Olive Gibbs peace campaigner
1919 Kathleen Freeman Chicago IL, actress (Beverly Hillbillies)
1919 Jock Mahoney Chicago IL, actor (Dallas, Yancy Derringer, Day of Fury)
1919 Joseph R Hunt tennis champion (US Open-1943)
1920 Colin Franklin doctor
1920 Paul Fetler composer
1920 Trevor Oswald Ling religious studies professor
1922 Tommy Edwards rock vocalist (It's All in the Game)
1923 Alden Winship Clausen Hamilton IL, banker (President of World Bank)
1924 Margaret Truman Missouri, president's daughter/writer (Murder at FBI)/pianist
1925 Hal Holbrook Cleveland OH, actor (All the President's Men, Mark Twain)
1925 Fritz Behrendt German/Dutch cartoon character (The Slogan)
1926 Lee Hoiby Madison Wisconsin, composer (1957 Arts & Letters)
1926 Friedrich Cerha composer
1929 Chaim Potok New York NY, novelist (The Promise)
1929 Yasser Arafat PLO-leader (Achille Lauro, Nobel 1994)
1930 Usko Merilainen composer
1932 Buck Trent Spartanburg SC, banjoist/singer (Hee Haw)
1933 Bobby Lewis rocker (Tossin' & Turnin')
1933 Craig Thomas (Representative-R-WY)
1934 Alan Bates Allestree England, actor (Zorba the Greek, Unmarried Woman)
1934 Barry Humphries Australia TV host (Dame Edna Everage)
1934 Buddy Ryan NFL coach (Philadelphia Eagles, Phoenix Cardinals)
1935 Johnny Bush country singer
1936 Barry Jarman cricketer (Australian wicket-keeper in 60's)
1936 Jim Brown Georgia, NFL full back (Cleveland Browns)/actor (Dirty Dozen)
1936 Peter Walker cricket all-rounder (Glamorgan did little for England 1960)
1937 Mickey McGill US vocalist (Dells-Love is Blue)
1938 Mary Frances Berry educator/head (US Commission on Civil Rights)
1939 Mary Ann Mobley Biloxi MS, Miss America-1959/actress (Diff'rent Strokes)
1940 Dennis Gamsy cricketer (South African bat in 2 Tests vs Australia 1970)
1941 Heidi Biebi German Federal Republic, downhill skier (Olympics-gold-1960)
1941 Gene Pitney Hartford CT, singer/songwriter (Town Without Pity)
1942 Huey Newton Black Panther leader
1944 Bernie Grant British politician (Labour)
1945 Patricia Morrow actress (Rita-Peyton Place)
1945 Brenda Fricker Dublin Ireland, actress (My Left Foot)
1945 Willie J L Swildens-Rozendal Dutch MP (PvdA)
1946 André Dussollier Annecy France, actor (3 Men & a Cradle)
1946 Valdemar Bandolowski Denmark, yachting (Olympics-gold-1976, 80)
1946 Zina Bethune New York NY, actress (Nurses, Who's That Knocking at My Door)
1947 Ben Cramer Dutch vocalist (Clown)
1947 Dallas Adams British actor/painter/writer (Terror From Within)
1947 Dodie Stevens [Geraldine Ann Pasquale] Chicago IL, actress (Mary Hartman!)
1949 Fred Frith English guitarist/violinist/bassist (Skeleton Crew)
1950 Rick Medlocke rock guitarist/vocalist (Blackfoot)
1952 Guillermo Vilas tennis player (1977 US Open)
1952 Insook Bhushan Seoul Korea, US US table tennis player (Olympics-92)
1953 Janice Dickinson Brooklyn NY, model (Vogue)
1954 Rene Russo actress (Ransom)
1958 Heidi Hagman actress (Linda-Archie Bunker's Place)
1958 Karen Lende O'Connor Concord MA, equestrian 3-day (Olympics-silver-96)
1959 Ambrose "Rowdy" Gaines US, 100 meter swimmer (Olympics-gold-1984)
1959 Daniel Ray "Danny" Ainge basketball & football star
1959 Richard Karn Seattle WA, actor (Al-Home Improvement)
1961 Deb[ra] Richardson Minneapolis MN, beach volleyballer (Olympics-96)
1961 Guy McIntyre NFL guard (Philadelphia Eagles)
1962 David McComb Australia, vocalist/songwriter (Triffids)
1962 Hennie Meijer soccer player (Cambuur L, FC Heerenveen)
1962 Lou Diamond Phillips Philippines, actor (La Bamba, Stand & Deliver)
1962 Tony Blain cricketer (New Zealand Test wicket-keeper)
1963 Michael "Air" Jordan Brooklyn NY, NBA guard/forward (Chicago Bulls)
1963 Dan Reed rocker/actor (HOTS, Lake Consequence)
1964 Mike Campbell Seattle WA, pitcher (Chicago Cubs)
1965 Clayton Prince Philadelphia PA, actor (Dark Justice, Reuben-Another World)
1965 Jim Bowie Japanese/US baseball infielder (Oakland Athletics)
1966 Melissa Brooke-Belland rocker (Voice of the Beehive-Let it Bee)
1966 Luc Robitaille Montréal, NHL left wing (New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins)
1967 Gary Shuchuk Edmonton, NHL center (Los Angeles Kings)
1967 Michelle Forbes Austin TX, actress (Ensign Ro-Star Trek Next Generation)
1968 Bryan Cox NFL linebacker (Miami Dolphins, Chicago Bears)
1968 Celita Schutz Riverdale NJ, half-middleweight judoka (Olympics-96)
1968 Patrick Uterwijk pop guitarist (Pestilence, Consuming Impulse)
1969 David Klingler NFL quarterback (Oakland Raiders, Cincinnati Bengals)
1969 Joel Steed NFL nose tackle (Pittsburgh Steelers)
1969 Levon Kirkland NFL linebacker (Pittsburgh Steelers)
1969 Traci Adell New Orleans LA, playmate (July, 1994)
1970 Tommy Moe Anchorage AK, nordic skier (Olympics-gold/silver-1994)
1972 Billie Joe Armstrong singer/musician (Green Day)
1972 Lloy Ball Ft Wayne IN, volleyball setter (Olympics-96)
1972 Richard MacQuire Melbourne VIC Australia, canoeist (Olympics-96)
1972 Stephen Robinson Arlington VA, rower (Olympics-1996)
1972 Tony Lawson NSA Australia, diver (Olympics-96)
1972 Vladimir Vujtek NHL forward (Team Czechoslovakia Olympics-gold-1998, Tampa Bay)
1972 William Floyd full back (San Francisco 49ers)
1973 Chris Robinson NBA guard (Vancouver Grizzlies)
1973 Drew Barry NBA guard (Atlanta Hawks)
1973 Frank Sanders NFL wide receiver (Arizona Cardinals)
1973 Raymond Jackson NFL defensive back (Buffalo Bills)
1974 Jerry O'Connell New York NY, actor (Scream 2, Sliders, Andrew Clements-My Secret Identity)
1974 Valeria Mazza Rosario Argentina, model (Cosmopolitan-July 1995)
1975 Sung-Hee Park Pusan Korea, tennis star (1993 Futures-Seoul)
1975 Todd Harvey Hamilton, NHL center (Dallas Stars)
1975 Vaclav Prospal NHL forward (Team Czechoslovakia Olympics-gold-1998, Philadelphia)
1980 Shanyn MacEachern Brampton Ontario, gymnast (Olympics-96)
1981 Donielle Thompson Wheatridge CO, gymnast (World-bronze-95, Olympics-96)
1981 Lisa Skinner Queensland Australia, gymnast (Olympics-96)
1982 Joseph Gordon-Levitt actor (Tommy Solomon-Third Rock From the Sun)





Deaths which occurred on February 17:
0364 Flavius Jovianus Christian emperor of Rome (363-64), dies at about 32
0956 Hugo the Great earl of Paris/duke of Francia, dies at about 55
1600 Giordano Bruno advocate of Copernican theory & plurality of worlds, burned at stake by the Inquisition in Rome
1612 Ernst of Bayern prince/bishop of Luik/archbishop of Cologne, dies at 57
1612 Jodocus Hondius Flemish cartoonist/mathematician, dies at 48
1652 Gregorio Allegri Italian singer/composer (Miserere), dies at about 67
1654 Michael Lohr composer, dies at 62
1673 Jean Baptiste Poquelin French author & dramatist, dies
1673 Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] French playwright (Learned Lady), dies in Paris at 51
1688 Reverend James Renwick hanged in Scotland for being a Presbyterian
1715 Antoine Galland French interpreter, dies at 68
1732 Louis Marchand composer, dies at 63
1796 James Macpherson poet, dies
1803 Louis R E prince de Rohan-Guémené archbishop of Straatsburg, dies at 68
1804 Christian Ernst Graf composer, dies at 80
1815 Franz Gotz composer, dies at 59
1827 Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Swiss educator, dies at 81
1841 Ferdinando Carulli composer, dies at 70
1847 William Collins landscape painter, dies
1852 Micha Joseph Levenson Hebrew poet, dies
1854 Hugues F R de Lamennais French priest/writer, dies at 71
1856 Heinrich Heine German poet, dies at 58 in Paris
1856 John Braham singer/composer, dies at 81
1874 [Lambert] Adolphe J Quetelet Belgian astronomer/sociologist, dies at 77
1875 Luís Varela Brazilian romantic poet, dies at 33
1878 José Amador de los Ríos Spanish historian/poet, dies at 59
1883 Napoleon Coste composer, dies at 76
1901 Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin composer, dies at 38
1903 Joseph Parry composer, dies at 61
1905 Serge Alexandrovich Governor-General Moscow, murdered
1907 Henry Steel Olcott US co-founder (Theosophist Society-Madras), dies at 74
1908 Geronimo Apache chief, dies at about 79
1912 Aloys von Aerenthal foreign minister (Austria-Hungary), dies at 57
1912 L Oates British explorer (Antarctica), dies
1917 Edmund Bishop English Secretary of Thomas Carlyle, dies at 70
1918 Wilfrid Laurier Canadian PM (1896-1911), dies
1924 Oskar Merikanto composer, dies at 55
1929 John Read cricketer (batted in 17 Tests for England for 463 runs), dies
1932 Frans Gailliard Belgian painter/graphic artist (Egina), dies at 70
1933 Henri[cus A] Viotta Dutch composer (Handbook of Music), dies at 84
1934 Albert I LCMM von Saksen-Coburg king of Belgium (1909-34), dies at 58
1936 Erich Schaeder German theologist (Theozentrische), dies at 74
1944 Fausto Agnelli Swiss painter, dies at 64
1951 Nikoghayos Fadeyi Tigranyan composer, dies at 94
1954 Evert Gorter children's artist (Kindergeneeskunde), dies at 72
1955 Otto J Gombosi Hungarian/US musicologist, dies at 52
1959 Tim Mara co-founder of NFL's New York Giants, dies
1959 Kathryn Adams actress (Meet the Chump, 5th Avenue Girl), dies
1961 Nita Naldi actress (Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde), dies of heart attack at 63
1962 Joseph Kearns actor (George-Dennis the Menace), dies at 55
1962 Bruno Walter symphony conductor (New York Philharmonic), dies at 85
1966 Frank Pettingell actor (Becket, Up the Creek), dies at 75
1966 Gail Kane actress (White Sister, Arizona), dies at 81
1966 Hans Hofmann German/US painter (Search for the Real), dies at 85
1968 Donald Wolfit actor (Lawrence of Arabia), dies of heart ailment at 65
1970 Agnon [SJ Czaczkes], Hebrew writer (Nobel 1966), dies at 81
1970 Alfred Newman US composer, dies at 69
1970 Schmuel J Agnon novelist (Nobel 1966), dies
1971 Teddy Hart actor (3 Men on a Horse), dies at 73
1972 Gavril Nikolayevich Popov composer, dies at 67
1972 Shunryu Suzuki Roshi founder (San Francisco Zen Center), ½ ashes buried
1976 Jean Servais Belgian actor (Every Man is My Enemy), dies at 65
1976 Johan[nes A] Card actor/stage manager (My Fair Lady), dies at 78
1977 Quincy Howe newscaster (CBS Weekend News), dies at 76
1979 William Gargan actor (Rain, Bells of St Mary), dies at 73
1980 Jerry Fielding orchestra leader (Bewitched, Hogan's Heroes, Lively Ones), dies at 57
1980 Graham Sutherland painter, dies
1982 Lee [Israel] Strasberg father of method acting/actor (And Justice for All), dies of a heart attack at 80
1982 Theolonious S Monk US, jazz pianist/composer (Blue Monk), dies at 64
1984 Lucille Benson actress (Lilly-Bosom Buddies), dies at 69
1985 Wanda Perry actress (Roberta, Death of a Salesman), dies at 67
1986 Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian philosopher (Kingdom Happiness), dies at 90
1986 Paul Stewart actor (Opening Night, In Cold Blood, Window), dies
1987 Hal K Dawson actor (Another Language, Wells Fargo), dies
1987 Verree Teasdale actress (Skyscraper Souls), dies
1989 Lefty Gomez New York Yankee pitching great, dies at 80
1990 Erik Rhodes actor (Top Hat), dies of pneumonia at 84
1990 Frans Kellendonk Dutch writer (Good for Nothing), dies at 39
1990 Keith Haring US graffiti-artist, dies at 31
1990 Marc Clement actor (Career Opportunities, Sluggers Wife), dies
1991 Enrique Bermudez commandant (Contra), dies
1993 Alfredo de Leon leader (Philippines Red Scorpio Gang), killed
1993 George E Wilburn film editor, dies of emphysema at 77
1993 Leslie Townsend cricket all-rounder (England in 4 Tests 1930-34), dies
1994 Randy Shilts US journalist (And the band played on), dies of AIDs at 41
1995 Jan Bart Klaster music editor (The Slogan), dies at 50
1995 Thelma Hulbert painter, dies at 81
1995 Timothy Hugh Brown theatre critic, dies at 52
1995 Uta Graf singer/teacher, dies at 80
1996 [Elsie] Evelyn Laye actress/singer (Sun Child), dies at 95
1996 Bentley Bridgewater British Museum secretary, dies at 84
1996 Henry Guinness missionary, dies at 87
1996 Jean Writer-Pierre Herve Bazin dies at 84
1996 Michael Raptis writer/revolutionary, dies at 84
1998 Ernst Juenger German writer, dies at 102




On this day...
1370 Battle at Rudau Germany beats Lithuania
1568 Holy Roman Emperor agrees to pay annual tribute to Sultan for peace
1598 Boris Godunov chosen tsar of Russia
1621 Miles Standish appointed 1st commander of Plymouth colony
1634 William Prynne tried in Star Chamber for publishing "Histriomastix"
1670 France & Bavaria sign military assistance treaty
1676 Kings Charles II & Louis XIV sign secret treaty
1691 Thomas Neale granted British patent for American postal service
1714 Parliament of Paris accepts Pope Clemens XI's "Unigenitus" degree
1772 1st partition of Poland-Russia & Prussia, joined later by Austria
1776 1st volume of Gibbon's "Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire" published
1791 Messier catalogs M83 (spiral galaxy in Hydra)
1795 Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden Chester, England
1801 House breaks electoral college tie, chooses Jefferson President over Burr
1817 1st US city lit by gas (Baltimore)
1818 Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patents "draisine" (early bicycle)
1836 HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin leaves Tasmania
1841 Dutch ex-king Willem I marries Henriette d'Oultremont de Wégimont
1848 Toscane gets liberal Constitution
1854 British recognize independence of Orange Free State (South Africa)
1859 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premieres at the Apollo Theatre in Rome
1864 Confederate sub "HL Hunley" sinks Union ship "Housatonic" (1st submarine to sink an enemy ship)
1865 Columbia SC burns down during the Civil War
1865 Battle of Charleston SC
1867 1st ship passes through Suez Canal
1867 Gyula Andressy becomes premier of Hungary
1870 Mississippi becomes 9th state re-admitted to US after Civil War
1870 Esther Morris appointed 1st female judge
1876 Sardines 1st canned (Julius Wolff-Eastport ME)
1878 1st telephone exchange in San Francisco opens with 18 phones
1880 Tsar Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt
1882 1st Test Cricket match played at Sydney Cricket Ground
1883 A Ashwell patents free-toilet in London
1885 Bismarck gives Carl Peters' firm management of East-Africa
1896 London Country Councils' Muzzling Order becomes effective
1897 National Congress of Parents & Teachers (PTA) organizes (Washington DC)
1904 Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" premieres in Milan
1905 Frances Willard becomes 1st woman honored in National Statuary Hall
1906 Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice marries in the White House
1911 1st amphibian flight to & from a ship, by Glenn Curtiss, San Diego
1913 New York Armory Show introduces Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp to US public
1913 1st minimum wage law in US takes effect (Oregon)
1915 Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WWI, is mortally wounded
1916 Romberg/Hanley/Atteridge/Smith' musical premieres in New York NY
1921 Arthur Honegger's "Pastorale D'été" premieres
1923 Ottawa Senator Cy Denneny becomes NHL's all time scorer (143 goals)
1924 Johnny Weissmuller sets 100-yard freestyle record (52.4 seconds)
1926 Tennis star Suzanne Lenglen beats Helen Wills in their only match
1926 Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch Bingham UT, 40 die
1930 French government of Tardieu, falls
1931 1st telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball)
1931 Hockey's Hershey Bears (now with AHL) 1st game
1932 Irving Berlin's musical "Face the Music" premieres in New York NY
1933 Blondie Boopadoop marries Dagwood Bumstead; Dagwood's father promptly disinherits him
1933 1st issue of "Newsweek" magazine published
1933 Marinus van der Lubbe arrives in Glindow, at Potsdam
1933 US Senate accept Blaine Act ending prohibition
1934 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College PA)
1936 "The Phantom" cartoon strip by Lee Falk debuts
1936 -58º F (-50º C), McIntosh SD (state record)
1936 S[amuel] N[athaniel] Behrman's "End of Summer" premieres in New York NY
1938 1st public experimental demonstration of Baird color TV (London)
1939 Katwijk soccer team forms
1940 Bradman scores 135 in a non-Shield match for South Africa vs West Australia
1940 British destroyers board German Altmark off Norway
1941 Joe Louis KOs Gus Dorazio in 2 for heavyweight boxing title
1943 Dutch churches protest at Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews
1943 General-Major Bradley flies to Washington DC
1943 Hitler visits field marshal von Mansteins headquarters in Zaporozje
1943 New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio, enlists into the US army
1944 Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins; US victory on Feb 22
1944 US begins night bombing of Truk
1946 Humanistic Covenant forms in Amsterdam
1947 Voice of America begins broadcasting to USSR
1947 Dutch Roman Catholic bishops publish manifest against "godless communism"
1949 Chaim Weizman elected 1st President of Israel
1949 Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Andrea Kékessy/Ede Király of Hungary
1949 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Alena Vrzanova of Czechoslovakia
1949 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Richard Button USA
1950 31 die in a train crash in Rockville Center, New York
1953 Baseball star/pilot Ted Williams uninjured as plane shot down in Korea
1953 DSB soccer team forms in Eindhoven
1955 Mike Souchak sets PGA 72-hole record of 257
1955 Ice Dance Championship at Vienna Austria won by J Westwood/Demmy Great Britain
1955 Ice Pairs Championship at Vienna won by Frances Dafoe & Bowden of CAN
1955 KTVF TV channel 11 in Fairbanks AK (CBS/ABC) begins broadcasting
1955 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Vienna won by Tenley Albright US
1956 Ice Dance Championship at Garmisch won by Pamela Weight/P Thomas Great Britain
1956 Ice Pairs Championship at Garmisch won by Schwarz & Oppelt of Austria
1956 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Garmisch won by Carol Heiss USA
1956 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Garmisch won by H A Jenkins USA
1957 Suez Canal reopens
1957 Fire in Warreton MO, kills 72
1957 Mary Lena Faulk wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1958 Comic strip "BC" 1st appears
1958 WETV (now WPBA) TV channel 30 in Atlanta GA (PBS) begins broadcasting
1959 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg
1962 Wilt Chamberlain of NBA Philadelphia Warriors scores 67 points vs St Louis
1962 Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit "Surfin"
1962 Storm in Hamburg, kills 265
1963 Toru Terasawa runs world record marathon (2 15 15.8
1964 101st member elected to baseball's hall of fame (Luke Appling)
1964 US House of Reps accept Law on the civil rights
1964 US Supreme court rules - 1 man 1 vote (Westberry vs Sanders)
1964 WMEM TV channel 10 in Presque Isle ME (PBS) begins broadcasting
1965 US Ranger 8 launched, will transmit 7,137 lunar pictures
1965 US-Japan baseball relations suspended over Masanori Murakami dispute
1966 French satellite Diapason D-1A launch into Earth orbit
1967 Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields"
1967 Kosmos 140 (Soyuz test) launches into Earth orbit
1968 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield MA, opens
1969 Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash record an album (never released)
1969 Golda Meir sworn in as Israel's 1st female prime minister
1970 Jeffrey McDonald slices up his wife & daughter
1970 Joni Mitchell's final concert (Royal Albert Hall)
1970 Robert Marasco's "Child's Play" premieres in New York NY
1971 England regains cricket Ashes with a 2-0 series win
1972 President Nixon leaves Washington DC for China
1972 British Parliament votes to join European Common Market
1973 Rodney Redmond scores 107 on debut vs Pakistan, his only Test Cricket
1974 49 die in stampede for seats at soccer match, Cairo, Egypt
1974 Carol Mann wins LPGA Naples Lely Golf Classic
1976 Organic statute makes Macao autonomous
1976 "Rockabye Hamlet" opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 7 performances
1976 Macau adopts constitution (Organic Law of Macau)
1976 New Zealand scores their 1st innings win in Test Cricket, vs India
1976 Richard Hadlee takes 7-23 vs India, his 1st match-winning spell
1979 China invades Vietnam
1979 Eric Heiden equals skating world record 1000 meter (1:14.99)
1980 Buddy Baker wins Daytona 500 (177.6 MPH/285.8 kph)
1980 Dot Germain wins LPGA S&H Golf Classic
1981 Chrysler Corp reports largest corporate losses in US history
1982 Commencement of Sri Lanka's 1st Test Cricket match, vs England
1983 Bob Bourne fails on 8th Islander penalty shot
1983 Netherlands adopts constitution
1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1985 1st class postage rises from 20¢ to 22¢
1985 3rd person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon)
1985 1st day/night game at the MCG, Australia vs England
1985 Hein Vergeer becomes world champion skater
1985 Laffit Pincay Jr is third to ride 6,000th winners at Santa Anita
1986 1st Francophone Summit convenes at Versailles
1986 Johnson & Johnson announces it no longer sells capsule drugs
1986 Howard Stern radio show returns to NYC morning radio (WXRK 92.3 FM)
1986 Libyan bombers attack N'djamena Airport in Chad
1987 Don Mattingly wins highest salary arbitration ($1,975,000 per year)
1987 Michelle Renee Royer, 21, (Texas), crowned 36th Miss USA
1988 US Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins kidnapped by Lebanese terrorists & later killed
1989 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole"
1989 Former baseball player/manager Leo Durocher injured in a car crash
1989 Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia & Libya form common market
1989 Orel Hershiser, Dodger pitcher signs record $7.9M-3 year contract
1989 Whitesnake's rocker David Coverdale weds actress Tawny Kitaen
1989 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR
1991 US male Figure Skating championship won by Todd Eldredge
1993 Haitian ferry boat capsize in storm, 800-2,000 die
1993 Mark Foster swims world record 50 meter free style (21.60 seconds)
1995 11th Soap Opera Digest Awards
1995 Colin Fergusson found guilty of killing 6 people on the Long Island Railroad in New York
1995 Federal judge allows lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive & manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked
1995 Tiger manager Sparky Anderson takes unpaid leave due to baseball strike
1996 1st full ODI for the Netherlands vs New Zealand, cricket World Cup Nolan Clarke makes ODI debut for Netherlands at age 47
1997 Carl Sagan Public Memorial at Pasadena CA
1997 Weekly Standard shows evidence Larry Flint sex abused his daughter
1998 Diane Zamora, 20, Naval Academy cadet convicted of capital murder
1998 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax




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

Sri Lanka : Maha Shivaratree
US : Presidents' Day (formerly Washington's Birthday)-legal holiday - - - - - ( Monday )




Religious Observances
Ancient Rome : Quirinalia-Feast of Quirinus (a d xiij Kal Mar)
Christian : Feast of St Silvinus
Christian : Commemoration of Flight into Egypt
Roman Catholic : Memorial of 7 Holy Founders of the Servite Order (opt)
Cyprus, Greece : Green (or Clean) Monday (1st Monday of Lent-movable)




Religious History
1741 English revivalist George Whitefield advised in a letter: 'Be content with no degree of sanctification. Be always crying out, "Lord, let me know more of myself and of thee."'
1815 In deciding the legal case "Terrett v. Taylor," the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an act of the Virginia Legislature which denied property rights to Protestant Episcopal churches in the state. The Court ruled that religious corporations, like other corporations, have rights to their property.
1816 Birth of Edward Hopper, American Presbyterian clergyman. He is remembered today as author of the hymn, "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me."
1889 Billy Sunday, 27, baseball player-turned-preacher, made his first appearance as an evangelist in Chicago. A strong fundamentalist, Sunday preached temperance and opposed scientific evolution. Over 100 million are estimated to have heard Sunday preach before his death in 1935.
1969 Russian-born, Milwaukee-raised Golda Meir (n‚e Mabovitch [Myerson]), 70, was sworn in as Israel's first female prime minister. (She would hold the office for five embattled years.)



Thought for the day :
"Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received."
24 posted on 02/17/2003 8:58:55 AM PST by Valin (Age and Deceit, beat youth and skill)
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To: Valin
1864 Confederate sub "HL Hunley" sinks Union ship "Housatonic" (1st submarine to sink an enemy ship)

The Foxhole has a thread coming up on the Hunley soon.

25 posted on 02/17/2003 9:03:09 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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To: Warrior Nurse; JAWs; DryLandSailor; NikkiUSA; OneLoyalAmerican; Tester; U S Army EOD; sonsa; ...
Fall in to the FReeper Foxhole!

To be removed from this list, send me a blank FReepMail (private reply) with "REMOVE" in the subject line. Thanks, Jen

26 posted on 02/17/2003 9:39:36 AM PST by Jen (Still Aiming High!)
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To: AntiJen
Present!

Also, the readers of this thread might be interested in: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/843898/posts
27 posted on 02/17/2003 9:44:31 AM PST by manna
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To: AntiJen
Colder than Hades Dutch Harbor bump!
28 posted on 02/17/2003 9:46:55 AM PST by VOA
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To: AntiJen
Present!
29 posted on 02/17/2003 9:47:52 AM PST by kemathen7
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To: AntiJen
Morning Jen.
30 posted on 02/17/2003 9:48:58 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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To: manna
Thanks for the Link to that Threa, manna.
31 posted on 02/17/2003 9:49:47 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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To: AntiJen
BTTT!!!!!!
32 posted on 02/17/2003 9:57:49 AM PST by E.G.C.
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To: AntiJen; E.G.C.; MJY1288; WatchNKorea; ChaseR
"Behind Left's Lies"
(To be sung to The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes")

No one knows what it's like...to be Left's BagMan...
To be Slick's Stag, man...Behind Left's Spies!!
No one knows what it's like...
To be Hated, Lib'rally-Jaded, Believin' all Dem LIES!!

Aid my dreams...fer "T." McAuliffe...
Help MUD's Prescience come to be!!
Righteous Power...Devolved Nobly...
Right's Goal is Vengeance...fer Tyranny!!

No one knows what it's like...
To know Slick's Tyranny...like I do...and I blame YOU!!
No one fights back this hard 'gainst Left's Evil...
None of MUD's Pain and Woe...shall show through!!

Folks, my dreams...they aren't that risky...
Heed MUD's Prescience...Follow Thee!!
Po' McAuliffe, he's MUD's only...
Slim's GOAL is Vengeance...fer Tyranny!! (eee-eeeeeee-ummmmm!!)

(Big Man gettin' busy on the GeeTAR!!)

When my fist clenches, 'tis Verboten!!
Hell, Yeah!! I'll use it 'cuz MUD's NO Fool!!
Networks smile, tell me their bad news...still, Mudboy laughs at their Leftist drool!!
FRiends, if I swallow the Med'yuh's EVIL...Strap yer fingers roun' MUD's throat!!!
If I back down, please give me a whuppin'...
Righteous Swarm!! Leftists...Fear the VOTE!!

(Yep...the BigMan wailin' on his new LesPaul)

No one knows what it's like...to be the bad man
To be the mad man...REJECT Left's Lies!!

FReegards...MUD


40 posted on 01/17/2002 2:59 AM EST by Mudboy Slim

33 posted on 02/17/2003 10:07:46 AM PST by Mudboy Slim (Git the US Outta the UN...and Git Ashcroft Outta the DOJ!!!)
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To: SAMWolf
I've often heard them referred to as the forgotten warriors. Good post and a salute to all of them.

Eagle


34 posted on 02/17/2003 10:13:23 AM PST by ProudEagle
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To: Mudboy Slim
BTTT!!!!! Thanks, Mudboy for the bump and the post.
35 posted on 02/17/2003 10:15:40 AM PST by E.G.C.
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To: ProudEagle
Thanks ProudEagle. Hell of a place to have to fight a war.
36 posted on 02/17/2003 10:30:35 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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To: E.G.C.
De nada, mi amigo bueno...MUD
37 posted on 02/17/2003 10:33:22 AM PST by Mudboy Slim (Git the US Outta the UN...and Git Ashcroft Outta the DOJ!!!)
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To: AntiJen; SAMWolf
There should be a special medal for those who serve under these circumstances. Thank you for the thread. They did indeed keep the Aleutian war quiet...no doubt to prevent the WWII Daschles in Congress from causing a national panic for political purposes.

Happy "Washington's Birthday" Day:

The fate of unborn millions will now depend. under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die.

Not a Belgian waffler, our awesome founding father. (^:

38 posted on 02/17/2003 10:50:31 AM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl (If Al Gore were President our sole purpose would be not to offend the Taliban. -RcWino)
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To: SAMWolf
U.S.S. SALT LAKE CITY CA25
"MY SPEED ZERO"



John Bishop
An American Base in the Aleutians





The Battle of the Komandorski Islands, little heard of at the time beyond the Aleutians, was one of the strangest sea engagements ever fought. Afterward, Americans who were engaged in it came to look upon it as a miracle at sea. For surely it is a miracle when a great fighting ship walks wounded on the water, halts in her tracks to die, then comes alive to lob victorious shell at her foe. Surely it is part of the miracle when three little destroyer David's...with torpedoes in their slings, go forth to meet a Jap Goliath, ten times their strength and power, slug it out with him and return alive

Yet it all happened, and now it's significance is known. After we captured Attu in May (1942), took Kiska bloodlessly in August (1942), and our balance sheet of the Aleutian campaign was totaled up, the truth was plain to see: Blockade, as much as bombing, bombardment and amphibious attack- perhaps even more - contributed to our success in expelling Hideki Tojo's military squatters from the islands. Blockade isolated the Jap-held Aleutians from all reinforcements and supplies except the thin trickle which got in by submarines or in lone transports under cover of the demoniac Aleutians weather. And the blockade was clamped on irremovably in the Battle of the Komandorskie Islands.

From the moment of sighting the enemy on that March (1943) morning, the Americans fought at a bitter disadvantage. The American task group was steaming through the dusk before dawn - four destroyers, a light cruiser and a heavy cruiser in a scouting line - a long column which stretched miles across the sea somewhere northwest of Jap-held Attu and south of Russia's Komandorskie Islands, the nearest land. Their mission in these waters was to intercept and turn back or destroy any Jap Convoys. The flag of Rear Adm. Charles H. McMorris flew on the light cruiser, second in the line: one of the rakish four-stacker cruisers, she was of the Omaha Class. Captain Ralph S. Riggs commanded the destroyer division.

Fifth in the line, more powerful and massive than the others with her 8-inch guns, steamed the heavy cruiser, Capt. Bertram J. Rodgers commanding. Her crew stood at their battle stations. Her lookouts, along with every lookout of the American force, were peering with frozen concentration through their binoculars across a calm gray sea to a horizon clear as glass under a solid overcast. Out there to the north, vertical needle lines showed above the horizon's knife edge, the masts of Jap ships.

That first sighting was made on two large Jap Transports with destroyer escorts who immediately reversed course to run to the north. But as the American ships turned northwestward to cut off the Jap line of retreat, a second sighting was made on more masts to the east of the first group, plain pole masts like any merchantman's. But these enemy ships gave no sign of turning away in flight. They held on along a course opposite to, and paralleling, the American course, ten miles or more to the eastward. A few moments of waiting revealed the reason for their rashness. Below these pole masts, those merchantman's masts, the fighting tops of warships began to appear. Swiftly, they came over the horizon. Two heavy cruisers in the van, then two light cruisers, then six destroyers

0837...The first exchange of the battle was brief and sharp. The Japs were closing the range rapidly, and as the flagship, now heading the American column, swung left into her westward turn to begin the retirement, the Jap heavies opened fire on her from a distance of twelve miles. Four times at least, without registering a hit, the shells splashes spradled her or leaped close - short, vicious spurts made by armor-piercing shells with delay-action fuses. As the Jap heavies closed within range of her own 6-inch batteries, she returned the fire with salvo after salvo. Then se checked fire as her turn put the Japs beyond range of her guns and the Japs were training their turrets around. They had recognized their Target NO. 1, the lone American heavy. The first Jap salvo, fired hastily, fell short.

0842...The American heavy cruiser's decks leaped with the enormous concussion of her reply. Sixteen times in the course of her turn away from the Japs, she fired full salvos. Her fourth salvo scored a hit on the lading heavy, the Jap flagship and touched off an explosion of some kind. At the base of the Jap's bridge, a light flared, as no shellburst would flare, to envelop the whole tall bridge and firecontrol superstructure in a sheet of flame. The sixteenth salvo hit again. From the vicinity of the Jap's forward stack, smoke billowed suddenly, we think, black sluggish smoke of an oil fire.

0848...Following the wake of the flagship, our heavy cruiser swung around to a heading a little southwest and steadied on the course while the four destroyers maneuvered to their stations in line astern on the left flank of the two cruisers. From the American ship, men looked astern to assess the damage done to the Jap flagship but there were good damage-control parties aboard the Jap. The black pillar of smoke thinned and disappeared, and he came on without losing a knot of his speed or missing a beat of the slow regular rhythm of his salvos.




A Grim Game of Tag

The two Jap heavies lay over the American heavy's quarter now, so that her forward turrets, blocked off by her bridge superstructure, could not bear. Only five guns of the after turrets stood against the twenty of the Japs.

The Jap ships showed in dark silhouette against the gray horizon, cardboard cutouts from which clusters of orange flame bloomed and vanished deliberately at thirty-second intervals. The range held fairly constantly at about ten miles. The Japs shot skillfully. Time after time, the splashes of a salvo seemed to walk up from astern and on past only a few yards away from the foam which roared sibilantly along the hard-driven sides.

On the open bridge, Captain Rodgers watched the fall of a Jap salvo close aboard and spoke to the officer of the deck, Lieutenant (jg) R. B. Hale, "Fifteen degrees right rudder, Mr. Hale." The helmsman moved the wheel, and the ship, traveling at full speed, heeled hard to port, laboring under the pull of centrifugal forces, then righted herself slowly as she straightened out of the turn. Another Jap salvo fell. Captain Rodgers judged angle and distance, and said, "Ten degrees left rudder, Mr. Hale." He was calling on all his seamanship and knowledge of gunnery to outguess the Jap gunners. He watched the salvos, estimated how the Jap spotters would correct the errors, and conned his ship with a sure timing and skill which nullified every Jap correction. Commander Worthington S. Bitler, the executive office, described it:

"The skipper zigzagged the ship.........We talked normally in between times.
....The skipper would ask, "well, Worthy, which way shall we turn next? I'd answer, "your guesses have been perfect so far, Captain. Guess again." He'd swing right or left, and the spot we would have been in had we gone the other way would be plowed up with ten or fifteen eight inch shells. The skipper would then look at me with a grin on his face a yard wide and say, just like a schoolboy that's got away with something in school, "Fooled them again, Worthy," He did too. It was uncanny."

0856...One of the Jap light cruisers was seen to launch a plane. All but invisible against the gray overcast, it began to work up to a good spotting position on the American Ship's beam.

0910...Our heavy suffered her first hit. She leaped and shuddered and seemed almost to stand still in the water, paralyzed by her pain. But then, she was racing smoothly on again. A Jap shell, falling steeply, had glanced off her hull hear the water line and exploded within a few feet of her bottom. It had bruised her and shaken her cruelly, without breaking her steel skin.

0913...Sky Control reported the Jap spotting plane within range abeam, and Commander James T. Brewer, the gunnery officer, prowling restlessly around the bridge with a long tangle of phone wires trailing behind him, ordered the 5-inch batteries to open fire. Less than a minute of ack-ack discouraged the pilot. He pulled up to safety and uselessness, in the clouds.

0920...The Jap flagship took another certain hit. Smoke rose above his after superstructure, and this time it persisted, drifting away astern without any sign that the Jap damage control parties were able to smother the fire.

0931...The spotting plane reappeared on the starboard beam. The antiaircraft batteries of our light cruiser joined with the heavies to fill the air around the plane with a maelstrom of shellbursts and drove it away, floundering , to the northward with smoke streaming from its fuselage. The next day a Navy PBY sighted the wreck of a plane still afloat bottom up in the sea not many miles from the battleground.

0942...The leading Jap heavy, still smoking, lost speed and dropped astern to bring under control the fire which burned somewhere near his stern. His guns were silenced, and Admiral McMorris took advantage of the easing of the pressure on our heavy cruiser by a move to bring his flagship into the fight once again. He led his force in a swift circle to the northward against the two Jap light cruisers, which, until now had been steaming along nearly abeam of the American Heavy to the north, safely out of reach of her guns. The range to the leading light cruiser closed with a rush, and within a few minutes of making the turn, the heavy, with her forward turrets, and the flagship, with her full main battery, were firing salvos which painted the fleeting white stripes of shell splashes along the leading Jap's gray hull. He returned the fire, but sheered away in haste to open the range.

0955...The damaged Jap heavy, no longer smoking, cut across the arc of the American's turn to the north and re-entered the fight, but he found himself opposed by ten guns instead of five, for now his position relative to the big American ship enabled her forward guns to bear. The battle track led to the northwest now. Minute after minute the guns of the American heavy thundered their salvos, and minute after minute the plunge of Jap shells all but grazed her as Captain Rodgers conned her along her elusive zigzag. Ahead, the flagship carried on her own duel with the leading Jap light cruiser, a duel for which the Jap seemed to have little stomach, since again and again he sheered nervously out of range after the the exchange of a few quick salvos.

To a turret officer watching from his little steel booth, his men might have seemed to be going through a jerky mechanical dance times by the rhythm of outlandish instruments. Backs heaved with the clack and hiss of breechblocks opening, bowed with the roar of compressed air rushing into the gun barrels, straightened with up-flung arms to the shout, "Bores clear". At the hoot of a whistle, men lifted and lunged, and the loading trays crashed in the open breaches; arms like pistons threw remer levers, jerked them back with the heavy thud of the shell driven home in the rifling. Shoulders swung to the pianissimo slither of powder bags shoved after the shells, and backs bowed and heaved again with the hissing, clashing impact of breechblocks swung closed and locked. Men stepped backward to the whirl of gears as the big silver breeches sand into their pits to elevate the muzzles.

All men froze at the sound of the firing buzzer warning with dot-dit-dash. And then the deep concussion, the rearward leap and return of the guns, jarred them to a slavish repetition of their strange dance figure. They know nothing of what went on outside their turrets, nothing of the calm sea and the bleak gray sky and the faraway silhouettes which flashed the orange flames. All they knew was the insatiable hunger of those silver breeches for powder and more powder, shells and more shells.

1010...Our heavy took her second hit. With the clang of an enormous metal punching machine, the Jap shell punctured her hull above the water line.

1018...After the American heavy had been cruelly shaken by a series of very close near-misses, the decision was made to shield her behind a smoke screen. On her fantail, man worked at the valves of the smoke banks until the chemical smoke was rolling away astern in a sluggish, snow-whit cloud. At the same time Capt. Ralph Riggs' destroyer flagship led the destroyers in a dash to begin a wild snake dance back and forth across the heavy's stern. Smoke boiled like black oil from their stacks to diffuse and hang in billowing clouds streaked by the white of the chemical smoke, and presently the big ship was hidden to her foremast hid from the enemy.

In their fighting tops, Americans and Japs kept an unrelenting watch on the smoke screen, and whenever the fire-control crews sighted the enemy over a depression in the screen or through a gap, the guns blasted a salvo. The battle went on at a slower, irregular tempo. The strain had been intensified, sharpened by those minutes of waiting for the next crash of a salvo.

1058...The Americans looked off to the Japs heavies with a shadow lifted from their minds. Admiral McMorris had led the way through a series of radical course changes aimed at baiting the Gaps into damaging countermoves and he had succeeded. The American Force was steaming due south with the Jap heavies dead astern. The road of escape had been opened.



FORTUNE OF WAR


For two hours and sixteen minutes the big American ship had fought off two Jap heavies and had dealt out in the fighting far more punishment than she had received. She had steamed among hundreds of falling Jap shells, yet had suffered only two hits. A great and incredible good fortune had guarded her all the way. But fortune now abandoned her.

1059...A shell struck and exploded above decks.

1103... A shell struck below the water line.
The first killed two men and wounded several more. The second pierced oil tanks, bulged and wrenched an engine-room bulkhead, and loosed a flood of water and fuel oil into several compartments adjoining the engine room.

Down among the white serpents' nets of steam lines, the fantastic shadows and shapes of machinery, in the dimly lit engine-room bilge's a struggle began which was no less grim than the gunnery battle above. From the scores of leaks where pipes and steam lines passed through the wrenched bulkhead, the mixture of water and fuel oil from the flooded compartments gushed in a splashing cascade. It gathered and rose in the bilge's, water, whose temperature was the deadly thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit of the Bering Sea in winter; oil, which coagulated in the cold to form heavy shreds and sheets of tarry stuff which clung like black glue. Inch by inch it rose, if it should rise too far the engines would have to be stopped.

Pumps labored to suck sway the flood, and damage-control parties attacked the leaking bulkhead. The men stood thigh deep in the freezing water while they pounded caulking into the leaks. Any leaks of caulking-rags, wiping waste, their shirts, their jackets- anything which could be wadded into the spurting crevices and pounded tight. Still, the level inched higher, to their waist, to their chests, to their shoulders.

They almost lost their battle. There came a moment at 1125, when the engines in that one engine room had to be stopped. But it was only for a moment. The flood began to recede at last. The men stood exhausted and oil-streaked while the level dropped as inexorably as it had risen, until it was little more than knee deep. They had son, but ill fortune was to strike again.

1140...Word came to the bridge that in the magazines and shell docks which fed the after guns, little powder and not many shells remained. A few salvos more and the guns would be silenced. Those guns had to be fed; they alone were able now to fight off the Jap heavies dead astern. And there was only one way to feed them. The forward shell decks were opened. Men muscled the heavy shells out to the wind-swept main deck, cradled them in wheeled dollies; trundled them aft. The forward magazines, with all their intricate safeguards against fire and explosion, were thrown open. From the Powder-handling rooms deep down in the ship, men started chains of powder bags passing from man to man up to the deck below the main decks, and on from man to man along passages, past galleys, through messing compartments and berthing compartments, past work shops, machine shops and offices, on to the powder circles beneath the after turrets, and up to the powder ready boxes.

It was a powder train needing only a spark to blow the ship and her men into nothingness. But, the shells flowed steadily, the powder bags slithered to the leading trays. The ship fought on. Then misfortune struck, its third, its finishing blow. Its weapon was the water still lying in the engine-room bilge's. Through the punctured fuel tanks, the water was creeping secretly into the complex system of pipes and valves, many of them racked by the shellburst, which controlled the distribution of oil from the dozens of tanks to the burners under the boilers. Above decks, the terrible warning signal was a burst of shite smoke from the two stacks...white smoke which was more steam than smoke. Down in the shimmering heat and the tornado road under road under the boilers burners were snuffing out one by one, two by two, extinguished by that treacherous seepage of water. The white smoke continued to pour from the stacks. And then, the sick moment came when the cibration of the engines, the pulses of the four propellers, died. Their absence was the sudden terrible silence when a dying man stops breathing.

Her momentum carried her on, but she was lifeless.

1150...Speed thirteen knots. No foam raced along her sides. Under her fantail, the sea swirled and eddied lazily

1153...Speed eight knots. A Jap salvo landed so close aboard that she seemed to lift in the water with the force of the blow.

1154...Her momentum was running out. She barely had steerage way. Another very near miss shook her brutally and she staggered.

1155...She lay dead in the water. Captain Rodgers ordered the flag signal hoisted. (Vito J. Monteleone is the Veteran that raised the "flags")



THE THIN EDGE OF DEATH

She lay motionless on the almost glassy sea, 600 feet of her looming dark and massive against the bleak gray sky. She would fight of course, while a gun could be fired, when the Japs closed for the kill. But she was little more than a helpless hulk. There was not a man aboard who did not expect to die within the next few minutes.

On the bridge Captain Rodgers, still smiling, shook hands with Commander Bitler. All through the ship, officers quietly were inspecting the men under their command, seeing that they had their life belts, their knives, the proper amount of clothing to survive as long as possible in the water...if they should live to go over the side. There was one man who got himself ready very methodically for abandoning ship. He took off his jacket and his bulky, windproof overalls. He kicked out of his shoes. He checked his life belt and adjusted it to be ready for inflating as soon as he hit the water. But then, as he stood looking at the murderously cold seas, "To hell with!" he exploded. And he put on everything that he had taken off. He knew that he had to die, but he preferred a quick death with the ship to the long-drawn twenty minutes of dying which would be his in the grip of that icy cold water. There were many more like him.

When at about 1150, Admiral McMorris received the message that the heavy cruiser's engines were stopped, he took the only course which might save her. He ordered three destroyers to go in against the Jap force to launch a torpedo attack and press it home so long as they could manage to remain afloat. It was a tragic decision, forced upon him. At best, a torpedo attack would be little more than a bid for time a great sacrifice play by the destroyers to draw the gunfire of the Jap force away from the heavy upon themselves, and so to gain time enough for her men to clear her fuel lines of water and get her under way again.

In the road of wind on the bridge of the destroyer flagship where she steered her wild, smoke-laying snake dance astern of the stricken ship, Captain R. S. Riggs received the orders and acknowledged with the terse yet eloquent compliance of battle communications. He designated the fourth destroyer to stay behind to screen the heavy cruiser with smoke. Then he signaled, "the targets are the heavies" ordered his flagship into a hard, rail under turn back toward the enemy, and squared away with two other swings after him. At their magnificent full speed which saw the spray arching from their stems, they steamed off into the guns of the enemy, three little ships against enemy, 5,000 tons against 50,000.

On the big cruiser, the men who were preparing for death saw nothing of what went on beyond the smoke screen, but they could hear the deep, faraway thunder of Jap 8-inch salvos swelled by a flatter rumble as the destroyers came within range of the Jap light-cruiser batteries.

Time was swift with the certainly that these were their last moments in the living light and air of this earth. Time was interminable with the horror of imminent death. Off in the distance, the thunder of gunfire swelled again with a hard, irregular staccato as the three destroyers opened fire on the Jap heavies. On the clock, the minute hand crept forward. Far away beyond the smoke screen the sound of gunfire slackened to desultory bursts, thudded into silence. The destroyer's attack had run its course.

Later, when the heavy cruiser's men told of those next few minutes, their story lay less in their words than in their faces and their voices when the memory came back to them. Words were not to be enough. What happened, they said, they could not believe at first. Their minds were so profoundly fixed in the certainly of death that the truth was beyond believing.

Chronologically, this happened:

1158...The heavy cruiser stirred with a slow pulse of life. Her port engines were turning over, inching her ahead.

1159...A torrent of foam erased the lazy eddies under her fantail. She trembled with a mighty surge of horsepower to her propellers. Her decks leaped to a giant thunderclap as her after turrets resumed firing.

Men were looking at one another with unbelieving eyes. Men were laughing weakly. Men were going through all the complex and indescribable reaction of returning from thin edge of death back to life and hope again.

Speed had protected the three destroyers at first. They raced on through white thickets of 9-inch shell splashes until they came within range of the Jap light cruisers and the sea close around them was torn by the storm of shells into a wild white riot of leaping spray. Still they held on until their own guns opened an earsplitting barrage on the leading heavy, while the range closed to 9,000 yards, point-plant range for cruiser guns.

Then two 8-inch shells of a salvo struck the leader. They killed five of her men and robbed of all but fifteen knots of her speed. While she was slowing she launched her torpedoes; a last despairing gesture of defiance, it was, for at 9,000 yards she had little hope of scoring a hit. With a metallic shock and a fierce hiss of air into the torpedo tubes, the beautiful steel shapes made their racing drives into the swells, plunged, rose, steadied and headed away, leaving ruler-straight lines of bubbles behind them. The Leader held sluggishly on, awaiting her end, while the rain of steel lashed the surface of the sea around her into white shreds. In the minds of her men now lay the numbing certainly of death.

Six miles astern, there, our heavy cruiser had begun to inch ahead and our light cruiser circled near her, waiting for the Japs to close, men heard the thunder of the destroyer attack falter and stop. To them, the silence meant that the three destroyers had finished their journey to oblivion, but...as the big cruiser drove on and up toward her full speed...that their objective had been brilliantly gained.

But then an incident took place whose impact left men standing frozen, as men stand in the presence of the supernatural.

1200...The dead spoke, and with words proclaiming a miracle. A message flashed from Captain Riggs: "The enemy is retiring to the westward. Shall I follow them?" Off there beyond the smoke screen, the two Jap heavies had turned frantically to present the narrow targets of their sterns to the torpedoes, and two light cruisers and the six destroyers had followed. Before three American destroyers, one of them crippled, and before torpedoes launched four and a half sea miles away the ten Jap ships were fleeing in ignominious confusion. And they held on in the headlong flight. They had had their belly full of fighting.

1202...The American heavy blasted out a final gust of flame and smoke and titanic sound. The Battle of the Komandorskie Islands was over.

Admiral Charles H. McMorris and his task group had discharged their mission; they had turned back a Jap attempt in strength to supply and reinforce Attu and Kiska. They had won. And yet it was a strange, illogical victory; a victory won by three and a half hours of bitter defensive retirement before nearly two-to-one odds; a victory won in the moment of despair and when six ships and many hundreds of men reeled helplessly on the crumbling verge of defeat and death.

39 posted on 02/17/2003 10:57:54 AM PST by Light Speed
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To: Ragtime Cowgirl

Instituted: 1942
Dates: 1941-46
Criteria: Service in the Asiatic-Pacific theater for 30 day or receipt of any combat decoration
Device: Bronze, silver star; bronze arrowhead

For service during World War II within the Asiatic Pacific Theater of Operation. The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal is worn after the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and before the World War II Victory Medal.

The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was established by Executive Order on 6 November 1942 and amended on 15 March 1946, which established a closing date. The medal is awarded to all members of the Armed Forces who served in the Asiatic Pacific Theater of Operations during the period from 7 December 1941 to 2 March 1946. The service must have been as a member of the Armed Forces on permanent assignment in the theater, or within the theater on temporary assignment for thirty consecutive days, or sixty nonconsecutive days, the award of a combat decoration in the theater. Maps of the three theaters of operations during World War II were drawn on 6 November 1942 to include the American Theater, the European-African-Middle Easters Theater and the Asiatic-Pacific Theater.

The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was designed by the Army's Institute of Heraldry. The medal is a circular bronze disc showing troop landing in a tropical setting with a palm tree. battleship, aircraft carrier and submarine in the background. At the top of the medal, around the edge, are the words ASIATIC PACIFIC CAMPAIGN. The reverse of the medal shows an American eagle standing on a rock. On the left of the eagle are the raised inscribed dates 1941-1945 and on the right UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The ribbon is yellow-orange with narrow center stripes of red, white and blue (United States). Near the edges are narrow white, red and white stripes (Japan). Participation is specific combat operations is denoted by three-sixteenth inch bronze stars. A three-sixteenth inch silver star is worn in lieu of five bronze stars.

The closet the participants get.

40 posted on 02/17/2003 10:59:07 AM PST by SAMWolf (To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
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