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The FReeper Foxhole Remembers D-Day - Air Power Over the Normandy Beaches(6/6/1944)-June 6th, 2005
The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II | Richard P. Hallion

Posted on 06/05/2005 10:43:52 PM PDT by SAMWolf



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.


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

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D-Day 1944
Air Power Over the Normandy Beaches
and Beyond



June 6, 1944


Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion--like William the Conqueror's before it or the Inchon landing afterwards--will long be studied as a classic in military planning, logistics, and operations. OVERLORD depended to a remarkable degree upon the use of air power in virtually all its forms. A half-century ago, aircraft were primitive vehicles of war compared to the modern attackers of the Gulf War era, with their precision weapons, advanced navigational, sensor systems, and communications. Yet, the airplane still had a profound impact upon the success of the invasion. Simply stated, without air power, Normandy would have been impossible.

Planning for OVERLORD


By D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies had been planning for the invasion of Europe for more than two years. In August 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff had approved the general tactical plan for the invasion, dubbed OVERLORD. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander of the European theater since February 1944, would be responsible for carrying off this bold gambit. The Allies' main strategy, in Eisenhower's words, was to . . . land amphibious and airborne forces on the Normandy coast between Le Havre and the Cotentin Peninsula and, with the successful establishment of a beachhead with adequate ports, to drive along the lines of the Loire and the Seine rivers into the heart of France, destroying the German strength and freeing France.


Two P-47D Thunderbolts take off on a bomber escort mission


The Allies believed that the enemy would resist strongly on the line of the Seine and later on the Somme, but surprisingly, once ground forces had broken through the relatively static lines of the bridgehead at Saint-Lô and inflicted heavy casualties on enemy troops in the Falaise Pocket, Nazi resistance in France disappeared. British and American armies swept east and north in an unimpeded advance which brought them to the German frontier and the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

Air Power: Critical to Success on D-Day


From the beginning Eisenhower and the rest of the combined forces planners recognized that air power would be critical to success of OVERLORD. Experience had taught planners to avoid facing hostile air power over the battlefront. This meant that the Luftwaffe would have to be destroyed, but not at the price of sacrificing vitally needed air support missions for air superiority ones.

Fortunately, in early 1944 the Luftwaffe was on the skids. By the fall of 1943, Republic P-47 Thunderbolts equipped with long-range "drop" tanks were inflicting heavy losses on German fighters over Occupied Europe and in the German periphery. Then, in December 1943, the North American P-51B Mustang entered service. Featuring superlative handling qualities and aerodynamic design, and powered by a Packard-built Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the P-51B (and its successors, the P-51C and P-51D) could escort bomber strikes to Berlin and back, thanks in part to a symmetrical wing section that was thick enough to house a large quantity of fuel and streamlined enough to minimize drag. These two fine aircraft were worthy supplements to the overall Allied strategic bombing effort.


AVM "Johnnie" Johnson on patrol over the Normandy beaches in June, 1944.


Whatever the bombing campaign may or may not have accomplished in destroying enemy resources, it did contribute directly to the D-Day success. Large bomber formations were aerial magnets that drew up the Luftwaffe to be destroyed by the American fighter force. The omnipresent Thunderbolts and Mustangs (and less frequently P-38 Lightnings) gave the Luftwaffe no respite over Germany, complementing the shorter-legged Spitfires and Hawker Typhoons of the Royal Air Force.

Between January and June 1941 the five months before D-Day--the Luftwaffe was effectively destroyed: 2,262 German fighter pilots died during that time. In May alone, no less than 25 percent of Germany's total fighter pilot force (which averaged 2,283 at any one time during this period) perished. During Big Week, American air forces targeted the German aircraft industry for special treatment; while production continued, the fighter force took staggering losses. In March 1944, fully 56 percent of the available German fighters were lost, dipping to 43 percent in April (as the bomber effort switched to Germany's petroleum production), and rising again to just over 50 percent in May, on the eve of Normandy. No wonder, then, that the Luftwaffe could contribute less than a hundred sorties to the defense of Normandy. Months of concentrated air warfare had given the Allies not only air superiority, but air supremacy as well.


D-Day 6th. June 1944. Troop carrying C-47s approach the Normandy drop zones.


Basically, the Allied air campaign for the invasion of Europe consisted of three phases. First, Allied fighters would attempt to destroy the Luftwaffe. The second phase called for isolating the battlefield by interdicting road and rail networks. And once the invasion began, Allied air forces would concentrate on battlefield interdiction and close air support. The requirements to keep the landing sites secret-particularly the deception to encourage the Germans to devote their greatest attention in the region of the Pas de Calais-complicated the air campaign. Strike planners had to schedule vastly more operations across the sweep of likely landing sites rather than just at the true site of OVERLORD. For example, rocket-armed Royal Air Force Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers of the Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF) attacked two radar installations outside the planned assault area for every one they attacked within it.

The "Desert Fox" on the Beaches


Entrusted with the defense of Nazi-occupied Europe from the Allies, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel realized that he faced a most critical challenge. The Panzer and Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber units that he might want to defend the West were, instead, needed for the Eastern Front; and, of course, aircraft like the Stuka simply could not be expected to survive in the face of intensive Allied air and ground defenses. In 1940, France had confronted the specter of defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany. Now the shoe was on the other foot.


Group Captain Johnnie Johnson leads Spitfires of 144 Squadron, (Canadian Wing) over Sword Beach at Ouistreham and the Orne Estuary on D-Day, 6th. June 1944.


The "Desert Fox" emphasized meeting and defeating the invasion forces on the beach. Rommel understood that if the Allies got a toehold on the continent, it would be extremely difficult, probably impossible, to remove them. The field marshal discussed the upcoming invasion frequently with his naval aide, Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge, and the Allied air threat figured prominently in his thoughts. On one occasion, as Rommel inspected a gun battery on the coast, two British fighters roared overhead. His staff members scattered at the low-level approach, but Rommel defiantly remained standing in plain view. Perhaps the "Desert Fox" was subconsciously attempting to offset, by this theatrical (if foolhardy) gesture, the crushing Allied air advantage that he knew was deployed against the German forces.

On April 27, forty days before the invasion, Admiral Ruge confided in his diary that he found the disparity between the Luftwaffe and the Allied air forces "humiliating." By May 12, he was reporting "massive" air attacks, though troops often exaggerated the amount of actual damage. On the 30th, with "numerous aircraft above us, none of them German," Ruge narrowly missed being bombed into the Seine by a raid that dropped the bridge at Gaillon. At 01:35 on June 6, as Ruge and other senior staff officers regaled themselves with tales of the Kaiser's army and real and imagined conditions around the world, the German Seventh Army reported Allied parachutists landing on the Cotentin peninsula. OVERLORD was underway. Time had run out for Rommel, and the countdown to the ignominy of the bunker in Berlin had begun.

Assembling the Allied Tactical Air Forces


As OVERLORD embarked upon its preparatory phase, tactical air power increasingly came into play. Two great tactical air forces existed to support the ground forces in the invasion--the AAF's Ninth Air Force and the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force. Both were under the overall command of Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. In addition, of course, Eisenhower and his ground commanders could call upon strategic aviation as required, in the form of the AAF's Eighth Air Force and Great Britain's Bomber Command.


D-Day Plus One, yet another aerial armada heads inland over the heavy fighting on the beaches below. Bearing their high profile invasion stripes, P-51 Mustangs of the 354th Fighter Group are seen escorting B-26 Marauders of the 397th Bomb Group as they cross the battle lines, the Marauders' mission to hit enemy targets ahead of advancing Allied ground forces. Below, endless flotillas of troop ships and landing craft swarm onto the beaches as day two of the invasion draws towards it close.


In June 1944 the Ninth Air Force consisted of several commands, including the IX Fighter Command. The IX Fighter Command in turn spawned two Tactical Air Commands, the IX TAC and the XIX TAC. IX TAC had three fighter wings, and the XIX TAC had two. Each of these fighter wings contained at least three-and usually four-fighter groups, a group typically consisting of three fighter squadrons. Of the two, IX TAC was the "heavy"; it could muster no less than eleven fighter groups, while the XIX TAC could muster seven. From late 1943 to early 1944, IX Fighter Command had served primarily as a training headquarters, under the command of Brig. Gen. Elwood Quesada. Eventually Quesada assumed command of the IX TAC, and Brig. Gen. Otto P. "Opie" Weyland took over XIX TAC. No in-theater formalized structure linked the Ninth and its subordinate commands directly to specific land forces units, though there was a general understanding that the IX TAC would support the First Army, and the XIX TAC would support Lt. Gen. George Patton's Third Army once the Third became operational in France nearly two months after D-Day. Eventually, on August 1, 1944, when both Patton's Third Army and Bradley's 12th Army Group became operational, this arrangement was formalized.

On the British side, the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF) had grown out of initiatives in mid-1943 to structure a "Composite Group" to support the invasion of Europe. It had risen from the ashes of the moribund and never-satisfactory Army Cooperation Command. In January 1944, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham took command of 2 TAF, and two months later he assumed additional duties as commander of the Advanced Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AAEAF). Ironically, at this critical point, two serious command problems arose. Relationships among the RAF commanders, particularly Coningham, Leigh-Mallory, and Arthur Tedder (Deputy Supreme Commander for OVERLORD) were strained at best. Much more serious was the breakdown between the RAF commanders and 21st Army Group Commander, Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, who also wore an additional hat as commander of Allied ground forces during the invasion.


D-Day, 6th. June 1944. To say the least, it was highly unconventional for the Supreme Commander of the largest Air Force that existed at that time, to pilot himself over the Normandy beaches during the early stages of the greatest invasion in history, but Gen. Doolittle was no ordinary Commander.
"I want to see for myself how things are going", he was reported to have said as he climbed into a P-38 and headed for the crowded, dangerous skies over Normandy.


While fighting Rommel in the Western desert, Montgomery had enthusiastically supported air action in the Mediterranean and accepted whole-heartedly Coningham's thoughts on air support. Ironically, Montgomery and the RAF now came to disagree over the relationship between the air and the land commander. Montgomery paid lip service to the concept of independent air action, but his actions in early 1944 clearly indicate that he considered his equals in the RAF merely advisers. For their part, Coningham and Tedder nursed grudges going back to the plodding advance after second El Alamein and Montgomery's notorious slowness during the pursuit of Rommel's retreating forces.

For the airmen, the critical question in OVERLORD was how rapidly Montgomery would advance to seize airfields so Allied tactical air forces would not have to operate across the Channel, from bases in England. In fact, this issue turned out to be far less important than originally thought. Bases were quickly hacked out of the Normandy terrain, often only a few thousand yards from opposing German forces. Montgomery's planned advance from the beachhead (which the airmen considered too slow) turned out to be instead over-optimistic; the actual advance was even slower. Given this, Allied air power in Normandy proved all important. As historian John Terraine has noted:


A Republic P-47D Thunderbolt shown with two 500-lb bombs and an external fuel tank, a typical offensive load carried in the 1944 campaign across France.


History insists that the last word, in regard to the Battle of Normandy, must be that the quarrels did not, finally, matter: Allied air power was so overwhelming that the defeat of Allied intentions on the ground never threatened disaster, only delay, and that only in the early stages, well compensated later. But let us be quite clear about it: what made the ultimate victory possible was crushing air power.

Britain's 2 TAF consisted of four RAF Groups: No. 2 Group, No. 83 Group, No. 84 Group, and No. 85 Group. Of these four, only the first three were really available for the air-land battle in Normandy; 85 Group was under the temporary operational control of No. 11 Group, attached to an RAF home defense command. No. 2 Group consisted of four wings of Boston, Mitchell, and Mosquito light and medium bombers. No. 83 Group, exclusive of a reconnaissance wing and some light aircraft used for artillery spotting, contained one Mustang wing, four Spitfire wings, and four Typhoon wings. No. 84 Group, again exclusive of recce and spotting aircraft, consisted of one Mustang wing, five Spitfire wings, and three Typhoon wings. As the campaign progressed, 2 TAF's subordinate units directly supported units of the 21st Army Group. Thus, the British Second Army could rely upon 83 Group, and 84 Group supported the First Canadian Army.


The Northrop P-61B Black Widow was used for night attack missions. Often this intruder would attack under the light of flares dropped from another aircraft--a risky business but one followed in Korea and Vietnam as well.


Another important relationship, however, evolved between the Ninth Air Force's IX TAC and the 2 TAF's 83 Group. IX TAC's Elwood Quesada and 83 Group's commander, Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst, worked well together. For example, after troops were ashore at Normandy, control of tactical aircraft passed from shipboard control centers to two land-based control centers: a IX TAC control center in the American sector of the beachhead, and an 83 Group control center located in the British sector. Coningham later praised the "excellent teamwork" between the two control centers. This teamwork would be refined even further in the weeks ahead.

Altogether, the tactical air forces had 2,434 fighters and fighter-bombers, together with approximately 700 light and medium bombers available for the Normandy campaign. This force first struck against the Germans during the preparatory campaign prior to D-Day. At D minus 60 days, Allied air forces began their interdiction attacks against rail centers; these attacks increased in ferocity and tempo up to the eve of the invasion itself and were accompanied by strategic bomber raids against the same targets. The bridge campaign, which aimed at isolating the battlefield by cutting Seine bridges below Paris and Loire bridges below Orléans, began on D minus 46. Here, fighter-bombers proved more efficient than medium or heavy bombers, largely because their agility enabled them to make pinpoint attacks in a way that the larger bombers, committed to horizontal bombing runs, could not. The fighter-bombers also had the speed, firepower, and maneuverability to evade or even dominate the Luftwaffe. Though ground fire and (rarely) fighters did claim some attacking fighter-bombers, the loss rate was considerably less than it would have been with conventional attack or dive bombers. By D minus 21, Allied air forces were attacking German airfields within a radius of 130 miles of the battle area and these operations too continued up to the assault on the beachhead.

Air Support on the Beaches



P-38s of the 434th Fighter squadron provide air cover for the Normandy invasion June 1944.


During the June 6 D-Day assault itself, a total of 171 squadrons of British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of tasks in support of the invasion. Fifteen squadrons provided shipping cover, fifty-four provided beach cover, thirty-three undertook bomber escort and offensive fighter sweeps, thirty-three struck at targets inland from the landing area, and thirty-six provided direct air support to invading forces. The Luftwaffe's appearance was so minuscule that Allied counterair measures against the few German aircraft that did appear are not worth mentioning.

Of far greater importance was the role of aircraft in supporting the land battle. As troops came ashore at Normandy, they made an unpleasant discovery all too familiar to the Marine Corps and Army operating in the Pacific campaign. Despite the intensive air and naval bombardment of coastal defenses, those defenses were, by and large, intact when the invasion force "hit the beach." This was particularly true at OMAHA beach, where American forces suffered serious casualties and critical delays. Despite a massive series of attacks by Eighth Air Force B-17s, B-24s and medium bombers in the early hours of June 6, the invading troops were hung up on the beach. The air commanders themselves had, in fact, predicted that the air and naval bombardments would not achieve the desired degree of destruction of German defensive positions. The Army's general optimism that air would cleanse the beaches before its approach, however, was shattered. Only the subsequent success of fighter-bombers operating against the battlefield would revive the Army's confidence in air support. Indeed, throughout the post-Normandy campaign--and in the Second World War as a whole--the fighter-bomber proved overwhelmingly more valuable in supporting and attacking ground forces in the battle area than did the heavy or even the medium bomber.



TOPICS: VetsCoR
KEYWORDS: airforce; airpower; dday; europe; freeperfoxhole; normandy; usaaf; veterans; wwii
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To: bentfeather

Good morning feather.


41 posted on 06/06/2005 10:39:24 AM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: SAMWolf

On this anniversary of D-Day, a Rememberance from College Station, Texas.

Would have been last Wednesday or so, that they started moving unloaded (easily tossed on stormy seas) landing craft to the staging points for loading on 4 June. This against a treacherous lee English shore in some of the worst weather in five decades.

Friday night, while many were out starting their weekends, 62 years ago, armorers were wrestling with live ordinance and ammunition, loading planes in equally execrable weather, only to have to tie the a/c off and sit and wait.

Saturday, fifteen divisions of paratroopers (150K), sat on their green lines or in assembly areas, wet, and cold, and hurried-up-and-waited in 150 or 200# of paratroop gear. Some watched wood and fabric gliders, loaded to design maximums, soaking in the pouring rain.

On the flight lines, in the miserable weather, on a near-moment's notice struggled to keep every "up" aircraft in that state, no matter what.

Were that not enough, there were others with more than enough to worry about. Monte Cassino had only fallen two days ago; the troops in the record mud of Italy that summer knew not how special this longest day would be.

Planes struggled against the conditions to get supplies into CBI just as they had the day before, and the day after.

Embarked at amphibious convoy speed (about 10 knots) were the forces set to land on Saipan. The landings are so close that Saipan has been planned as J-Day and Y-hour; 15 June would see that campaign commenced.

It's about 1600 in Brittany, as I write this, about H+10; the longest day had come and passed for many.

That rather puts how bad a Monday might be in perspective. how many would trade a surly or churlish boss or supervisor for a rifle and bayonet. How many would trade a poorly designed cubical for a landing craft under fire, and an uncertain wade through salt water surf. How many would trade their traffic jams for formation flying with thousands of other aircraft loaded with paratroops, though flak, in the dark.

Yet, those people did, and prevailed. Folks all over the nation built planes and tanks, and guns, and houses, and roads, and all the things people do--to see this day, sixty-two years ago today, through.


42 posted on 06/06/2005 10:40:59 AM PDT by urtax$@work (we have faced tenacity before....)
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To: The Mayor

Good morning Mayor.


43 posted on 06/06/2005 11:20:19 AM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: snippy_about_it; SAMWolf; Professional Engineer; bentfeather; Samwise; Wneighbor; All
Round Two of D-day pics before I take my afternoon nap. After all nights are fun...............NOT Fill in F-O-G at bottom of post.

First a shot of one of snippys favorite planes, a Mossie :-)

Next up the Panzers favotire aircraft, a Tiffy rolling in>

Ow about a nice WW_II color pic of a Typhoon being bombed up?

A P-47 pic that got left out this AM

Here's a Spit taxing to the take off line to provide air coverage over the fleet.

Of course you can't have just one Spitfire pic :-)

Okay a couple of P-51 pics and I have to gey my nap in :-)

And a fill in F-O-G till P.E. gets a chance to do his thing

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

44 posted on 06/06/2005 11:24:17 AM PDT by alfa6
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To: snippy_about_it; SAMWolf
I wish everyone a happy D-Day anniversary, especially to any and all WWII vets.

My dad tried to become a Navy aviator, even leaving High School early, but the war ended when he was still in training.

45 posted on 06/06/2005 12:08:25 PM PDT by colorado tanker (The People Have Spoken)
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To: Polak z Polski

Credit should be given where credit is due. Poland has been a good ally when not ruled by foreigners. Freedom.

Hill 262 was quite a place. Patton was stopped from going for it by Bradley. Bradley feared loss of Patton's command, too many casualties, etc. Political general. Montgomery would never send the Brits. So your people did the job.

"Your" people? Certainly. And, also, "My" people. "He who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother" whatever his nation or station in life. (Quote from "Henry V", Shakespeare.) (As I am sure you know.)

Take care, lad. I am old enough to be your grandfather. Listen to my words. There are never enough good men. I think you can be a good man, can achieve this high estate. So take care of yourself, we cannot afford to lose you.


46 posted on 06/06/2005 12:15:18 PM PDT by Iris7 ("War means fighting, and fighting means killing." - Bedford Forrest)
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To: alfa6

Nice 'fill in' FOG. Nighty nite. ;-)


47 posted on 06/06/2005 1:06:13 PM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: SAMWolf

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on June 06:
1755 Nathan Hale hanged patriot, had but one life to give for his country
1756 John Trumbull US painter (Declaration of Independence)
1799 Aleksandr Sergeyevich Russia, poet, founder of modern Russian Lit
1799 Alexandr Pushkin Russia, writer (Eugene Onegin) (5/26 OS)
1850 Karl F Braun codeveloped wireless telegraphy (Nobel 1909)
1868 Robert Falcon Scott leader of ill-fated south polar expedition
1872 Alexandra last Russian tsarina (1894-1918)
1875 Thomas Mann Germany, novelist (Magic Mountain-Nobel 1929)
1875 Walter Percy Chrysler found Chrysler Corp (1925)
1886 Paul Dudley White heart specialist
1901 Sukarno Java, PM of Indonesia (1945-67)
1915 Vincent Persichetti Phila Pennsylvania, composer (Sibyl)
1932 David R Scott San Antonio Tx, Col USAF/astronaut (Gem 8, Apol 9, 15)
1933 Heinrich Rohrer Swiss physicist (tunneling microscope-Nobel 1986)
1935 Dalai Lama Tibet, spiritual leader of Tibet's Lamaistic Buddhists
1936 Levi Stubbs rocker (4 Tops-Same Old Song)
1939 Gary "US" Bonds [Anderson] singer/songwriter (Summertime Blues)
1939 Marian Wright-Edelman health care president (Childrens Defense Fund)
1946 Chelsea Brown Chicago Ill, comedienne (Laugh-in, Matt Lincoln)
1955 Dana Carvey Missoula Montana, comedian (Church Lady-SNL)
1955 Sandra Bernhard comedian/actress bugs Letterman (King of Comedy)



Deaths which occurred on June 06:
0840 Agobard, archbishop of Lyon (anti-Semite), died
1671 Stenka/Stepan Razin, Russian cossack leader, killed
1799 Patrick Henry, American orator, died in Charlotte County, Va
1862 Gen Turner Ashby is killed near Harrisonburg, VA


1944 Danny Brotheridge, British lieutenant, 1st to die during D-Day

1944 Gerrit John van de Peat (41), artist, resistance fighter, was executed.
1961 Dr Carl Gustav Jung Swiss psychatrist, dies at 85
1967 Edward G Givens Jr astronaut, dies in an auto accident at 37
1968 Robert F Kennedy (Sen-D-NY), assassinated in LA by Sirhan Sirhan
1976 J Paul Getty oil magnate dies at 83 in London
1991 Stan Getz jazz saxophonist (Girl from Impanima), dies at 64
1991 Sylvia Porter economist/author, dies at 77
1991 Stan Getz (b. 1928), jazz saxophonist,(Girl from Ipanema) died age 64


GWOT Casualties

Iraq
06-Jun-2003 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Petty Officer 3rd Class Doyle W. Bollinger Jr. Al Kut Non-hostile - ordnance accident
US Sergeant Travis L. Burkhardt Baghdad Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US Petty Officer 3rd Class David Sisung Persian Gulf Non-hostile - unspecified injury

06-Jun-2004 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Sergeant Melvin Y. Mora Lopez Taji (Camp Cooke) Hostile - hostile fire - mortar attack
US Private 1st Class Melissa J. Hobart Baghdad Non-hostile - illness

Afghanistan
A Good Day

http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White


On this day...
1242 24 wagonloads of Talmudic books were burned in Paris
1523 Gustavus I becomes king of Sweden (Swedish National Day)
1639 Massachusetts grants 500 acres of land to erect a gunpowder mill
1654 Queen Christina of Sweden (Daughter of Gustavus Adolphus) resigns and converts to Catholicism
1813 US invasion of Canada halted at Stoney Creek (Ont)
1816 10" snowfall in New England, the "year without a summer" (Krakatoa)
1822 Alexis St. Martin, a fur trader at Fort Mackinac in the Michigan territory, was accidentally shot in the abdomen. William Beaumont, a US Army assistant surgeon, treated the wound and St. Martin survived. The stomach wound did not close and Beaumont undertook experiments in 1825 to study the digestive system
1844 Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) founded in London
1862 Battle of Memphis-the city is surrendered
1882 Cyclone in Arabian Sea (Bombay India) drowns 100,000
1882 Electric iron patented by Henry W. Seely
1889 Great Fire in Seattle destroys 25 downtown blocks
1896 George Samuelson leaves NY harbor to row across the Atlantic (Some people will do anything to get out of NY city in the summer)
1904 National Tuberculosis Association organized, Atlantic City, NJ
1912 Alaskan Mount Katmai volcano exploded. Crops withered across Canada and the US that summer under skies shrouded with volcanic ash.

1911 Nicaragua signs treaty turning over customs to US (not ratified)
1913 Rabbit Maranville, was thrown out trying to steal home 3 times
1914 1st air flight out of the sight of land (Scotland to Norway)


1918 Battle of Belleau Wood, 1st US victory of WW I (Score one for the Devil Dogs)


1919 Man O' War wins 1st victory as a 2-year-old at Belmont
1924 S Belyavskij discovers asteroid #1031 Arctica
1925 Walter Percy Chrysler founded Chrysler Corp (Iacocca was 8 months old)
1931 G Neujmin discovers asteroid #1210 Morosovia
1932 US Federal gas tax enacted
1933 1st drive-in theatre opens (Camden NJ)
1934 Securities & Exchange Commission established
1934 Yankee Myrl Hoag hits 6 singles in one game
1936 Aviation gasoline 1st produced commercially Paulsboro NJ
1937 Phillies trailing 8-2 to St Louis, forfeit game
1942 1st nylon parachute jump (Hartford Ct-Adeline Gray)
1942 Japanese forces retreat, ending Battle of Midway
1942 Nazis burn village of Lidice Bohemia, as reprisal of killing Heydrich


1944 D-Day, a million Allied troops, under the overall command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, moved onto five Normandy beachheads in three weeks. Operations “Neptune” and “Overlord” put forces on the beaches and supplies aimed at the liberation of Europe and the conquest of Germany. Operation Overlord landed 400,000 Allied American, British, and Canadian troops on the beaches of Normandy, France. In addition, U.S. and British airborne forces landed behind the German lines and U.S. Army Rangers scaled the cliffs at Pointe de Hoc. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a tenuous beachhead that would lead to an offensive that pinned Adolf Hitler's Third Reich between two pincers--the Western Allies and the already advancing Soviets--accelerating the end of World War II. More than 6,000 trucks of the Red Ball Express kept gasoline and other vital supplies rolling in as American troops and tanks pushed the Germans back toward their homeland.

1944 Brig. General Norman “Dutch” Cota was the first American General to step foot on Omaha Beach. Cota, assistant commander of the 29th Infantry Division, heroically spurred his men to cross the beach under withering German fire. He went on to lead his infantrymen across France to the Siegfried Line and in the battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge.


1944 Theodore Roosevelt Jr receives congressional medal of honor
1946 Henry Morgan is 1st to take off shirt on TV
1953 J Churms discovers asteroid #2025
1955 Bill Haley & Comets, "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1
1960 Roy Orbison releases "Only the Lonely"
1966 James Meredith wounded by white sniper
1966 NFL & AFL announce their merger


1967 6 day war between Israel & Arab neighbors begin (start of the modern middle east)


1971 Air West filght 706 collides with Navy Phantom jet over LA, 50 die
1971 Soyuz 11 takes 3 cosmonauts to Salyut 1 space station
1972 David Bowie releases "Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust"
1972 Explosion at world's largest coal mine kills 427 (Wankie Rhodesia)
1972 Gold hits record $60 an ounce in London
1975 British voters decide to remain in Common Market
1975 Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam established
1977 Supreme Court tossed out automatic death penalty laws
1978 A Mrkos discovers asteroids #2199 Klet & #3339
1978 Proposition 13 cuts California property taxes 57%
1979 200th running of horse's Derby in England
1980 Bjorn Borg beats John McEnroe for Wimbeldon title
1982 Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon ordered his forces to invade southern Lebanon to drive Palestine Liberation Organization fighters out of the country.
1984 1,200 die in Sikh "Golden Temple" uprising India
1985 Body of Nazi criminal, Dr Josef Mengele located & exhumed
1985 Soyuz T-13 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 7 space station
1987 NY Yankees play their 13,000th game
1988 3 giant turtles found in Bronx sewage plant
1996 The Senate narrowly rejected a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution
1999 The Worm Explore.Zip virus was first detected in Israel. The virus was disguised a an e-mail attachment and destroyed files when opened.
2000 National D-Day Museum openes (New Orleans) on the 56th anniversary of the Allied landing to liberate Europe from Nazi terror.
2001 Democrats formally assumed control of the U.S. Senate; the unprecedented shift in power came about after the decision of Vermont Republican James Jeffords to become an independent.
2003 Chile became the first South American country to sign a free trade agreement with the United States
2012 Transit of Venus (between Earth & Sun) occurs


Holidays

Malaysia : King's Birthday
New Zealand : Queen's Birthday (Monday)
South Korea : Memorial Day
Sweden : Constitution Day/Flag Day/National Day (1523, 1809)
Ireland : Bank Day
Bahamas : Labour Day (Friday)
Western Australia : Foundation Day (1838)
National Soaring Week Day 2
National Humor Week Day 2
National Fragrance Week Day 2
National Chocolate Ice Cream Day
National Yo-Yo Day. Feel the Yo
Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Month


Religious Observances
RC : Mem of St Norbert, abp of Magdeburg, confessor (opt)
RC : Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday)


Religious History
1622 Gregory XV published the bull 'Inscrutabili Divinae,' which reminded the Church of its mission to the newly discovered native populations in the recently discovered Americas.
1799 Birth of Alexis F. Lvov, Russian church musician who composed the tune to the hymn, 'God, the Almighty One! Wisely Ordaining.'
1882 Blind Scottish Presbyterian clergyman George Matheson penned the words to the hymn, 'O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.'
1907 Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, a graduate school for biblical and rabbinical studies, was chartered in Philadelphia.
1977 Joseph Lason was installed as Bishop of Biloxi, Mississippi, becoming the first African- American Roman Catholic bishop consecrated since the 19th century.

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


Ohio Man Sets Unofficial World Record Bowling
He Also Raised $7,000 For Children's Charity

POSTED: 10:00 am EDT June 6, 2005

MASON, Ohio -- In exchange for three sleepless days and nights and a badly blistered left thumb, a Mason man has set a new unofficial world record for continuous bowling.

Dave Wilson, 39, bowled for 64 hours and 22 minutes at a Warren County bowling alley over the weekend, raising $7,000 for a children's charity.

Wilson's endurance mark is seven minutes longer than the previous record for longest tenpin bowling marathon, which was set last September by an Italian man.

Officials from Guinness World Records say it likely will take months to certify Wilson's effort.

Wilson says he followed Guinness rules, remaining under constant witnesses' supervision and taking just one 15-minute break every eight hours.


Thought for the day :
"Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons."


48 posted on 06/06/2005 5:28:41 PM PDT by Valin (The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.)
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To: colorado tanker

Hiya ct.


49 posted on 06/06/2005 5:37:20 PM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: All

Shameless Plug
Speed, technology have reduced mortality dramatically among U.S. troops (Must Read!)
Knight Ridder ^ | 6/6/05 | Mark Washburn
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1417812/posts
/Shameless Plug


50 posted on 06/06/2005 5:54:59 PM PDT by Valin (The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.)
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To: snippy_about_it; SAMWolf

Air Power bump.


51 posted on 06/06/2005 6:17:40 PM PDT by CholeraJoe ("Cowboy the f*ck up!" LT Waters in "Tears of the Sun")
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To: Valin

THE 1967 WAR

In May 1967, Egypt and Syria took a number of steps which led Israel to believe that an Arab attack was imminent. On May 16, Nasser ordered a withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Forces (UNEF) stationed on the Egyptian-Israeli border, thus removing the international buffer between Egypt and Israel which had existed since 1957. On May 22, Egypt announced a blockade of all goods bound to and from Israel through the Straits of Tiran. Israel had held since 1957 that another Egyptian blockade of the Tiran Straits would justify Israeli military action to maintain free access to the port of Eilat. Syria increased border clashes with Israel along the Golan Heights and mobilized its troops.

The U.S. feared a major Arab-Israeli and superpower confrontation and asked Israel to delay military action pending a diplomatic resolution of the crisis. On May 23, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson publicly reaffirmed that the Gulf of Aqaba was an international waterway and declared that a blockade of Israeli shipping was illegal. In accordance with U.S. wishes, the Israeli cabinet voted five days later to withhold military action.

The U.S., however, gained little support in the international community for its idea of a maritime force that would compel Egypt to open the waterway and it abandoned its diplomatic efforts in this regard. On May 30, President Nasser and King Hussein signed a mutual defense pact, followed on June 4 by a defense pact between Cairo and Baghdad. Also that week, Arab states began mobilizing their troops. Against this backdrop, Nasser and other Egyptian leaders intensified their anti-Israel rhetoric and repeatedly called for a war of total destruction against Israel.

Arab mobilization compelled Israel to mobilize its troops, 80 percent of which were reserve civilians. Israel feared slow economic strangulation because long-term mobilization of such a majority of the society meant that the Israeli economy and polity would be brought to a virtual standstill. Militarily, Israeli leaders feared the consequences of absorbing an Arab first strike against its civilian population, many of whom lived only miles from Arab-controlled territory. Incendiary Arab rhetoric threatening Israel's annihilation terrified Israeli society and contributed to the pressures to go to war.

Against this background, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt on June 5, 1967 and captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Despite an Israeli appeal to Jordan to stay out of the conflict, Jordan attacked Israel and lost control of the West Bank and the eastern sector of Jerusalem. Israel went on to capture the Golan Heights from Syria. The war ended on June 10.

Israel did indeed simultaneously attack Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq on June 5, 1967. It had little choice. For weeks leading up to that day, Israel's Arab enemies upped the temperature by amassing troops on the borders of the tiny Jewish state, while threatening murder and mayhem. Consider the following:
May 14, 1967: Egypt's President Gamal Nasser demands the withdrawal of United Nations force--established in 1957 as an international "guarantee" of safety for Israel--from the Sinai peninsula. The UN meekly obeys; the United States and Britain fail to rouse the Security Council to take action.

May 15: Three Egyptian army divisions and 600 tanks roll into the Sinai. World community does nothing.

May 17: Cairo Radio's Voice of the Arabs: "All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel."

May 18: Voice of the Arabs announces: "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."

May 18: Nasser announces blockade of Straits of Tiran in the Red Sea, severing Israel's southern maritime link to the outside world. Israel considers the closure an act of war. (US President Lyndon Johnson later says: "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed.")

May 20: Syria's defence minister (now president) Hafez el-Assad says: "Our forces are now ready not only to repulse the aggression but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united ..."

May 27: Nasser: "Our basic objection will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

May 30: Nasser : "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel."

May 30: Jordan's King Hussein signs a five-year mutual defence pact with Egypt and the two set up a joint command, making clear its stance in any future conflict.

My 31: Egyptian newspaper Al Akhbar reports: "Under terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, co-ordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two ..."

May 31: Iraqi President Rahman Aref announces: "This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear--to wipe Israel off the map."

June 4: Iraq joins Nasser's military alliance against Israel.


52 posted on 06/06/2005 6:53:24 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Mom said carrots are good for my eyes, but it hurts when I insert 'em.)
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To: SAMWolf

If I may recomend
"Six Days Of War"
June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
MICHAEL B. OREN
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345461924/qid=1118109490/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-8200073-5287164

From Publishers Weekly
This is the most complete history to date of the Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel entered and began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While no account can be definitive until Arab archives open, Oren, a Princeton-trained senior fellow at Jerusalem's Shalem Center who has served as director of Israel's department of inter-religious affairs and as an adviser to Israel's U.N. delegation, utilizes newly available archival sources and a spectrum of interviews with participants, including many Arabs, to fill gaps and correct misconceptions.
Further, Six Days of War is an attack on "post-Zionism": the school of politics and history that casts Israel as the author of policies that intentionally promote the destuction of Palestine as a separate entity and of Palestinians as a people, not least through the occupation that began with the 1967 War.
By contrast, Oren convincingly establishes in an often engrossing narrative the reactive, contingent nature of Israeli policy during both the crisis preceding the conflict and the war itself. As Prime Minister Levi Eshkol held the Israeli Defense Forces in check that May, Operation Dawn, an Egyptian plan for a preemptive strike against Israel, came within hours of implementation. It was canceled only because Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser feared it had been compromised. Israel's decision to seek its own security in arms was finally triggered, Oren shows, by Jordan's late accession to the hostile coalition dominated by Egypt and Syria.
Geographically, the West Bank, then under Jordanian rule and occupation, cut Israel nearly in half. The military risk to Israel was unacceptable, Oren makes clear, in the context of a U.S. enmeshed in Vietnam and a West unwilling to act even in support of the status quo. Far from being a product of strategic calculation, Oren further argues, occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was also contingent: the consequence of a victory so rapid and one-sided that even Israel's generals found it difficult to believe it was happening.
Israel, having proved it could not be defeated militarily and now possessing something to trade, hoped for comprehensive peace negotiations in a rational-actor model. Oren notes that some initiatives for peace did in fact develop. He seems, however, trying to convince himself along with his readers. Oren puts what he sees as Israel's enduring weaknesses in relief: not arrogance, but self-doubt, self-analysis and self-criticism, all carried to near-suicidal degrees in 1967.
Arab policy, by contrast, featured a confident commitment to erasing Israel from the map. The Six Day War shook that confidence, he finds, but did not alter the commitment. About the nature of Israeli policy since the war, the book says little, but finds that "for all its military conquests, Israel was still incapable of imposing the peace it craved." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


53 posted on 06/06/2005 7:01:18 PM PDT by Valin (The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.)
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To: SAMWolf; snippy_about_it; alfa6; Iris7; Aeronaut; E.G.C.; The Mayor; maestro; GailA; PzLdr; ...
In the days before the closing of the Falaise gap, the 2 TAF averaged 1,200 sorties per day. The air war was particularly violent from August 15 through the 21st. Typhoons and Spitfires attacked the roads leading from the gap to the Seine, strafing columns of densely packed vehicles and men. Under repeated attack, some of the columns actually displayed white flags of surrender, but the RAF took "no notice" of this since Allied ground forces were not in the vicinity, and "to cease fire would merely have allowed the enemy to move unmolested to the Seine." Typhoons typically would destroy the vehicles at the head of a road column, then leisurely shoot up the rest of the vehicles with their rockets and cannon. When they finished, Spitfires would dive down to strafe the remains.

Who was not dismayed at George Herbert Walker Bush's premature "end" to the Gulf War of 1990-91?

Saddam Hussein retained his military and remained in power--so as to spare the squeamish and keep within the chalklines of the United Nations mandate and the New World Order.

Yet the war was not won--and Bush went from 91 percent approval rating to distant second place in 1992.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Highway of Death was too cruel--and what of the mass graves of hundreds of thousands?

~~~


Got your Highway of Death right here.


And here as well.


Oh you beautiful doll. . . .


SCR528


SCR522


Click on the museum

54 posted on 06/06/2005 7:28:37 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: alfa6

Way cool pix!


55 posted on 06/06/2005 9:00:42 PM PDT by Samwise (In the battle between good and evil, evil often wins unless good is very, very careful.)
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To: PhilDragoo
Evening Phil Dragoo

Who was not dismayed at George Herbert Walker Bush's premature "end" to the Gulf War of 1990-91?

I know I was, he just left a lot of dirtbags alive we're fighting today.

Thanks for the link to the Montormel Museum.

56 posted on 06/06/2005 9:47:28 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Mom said carrots are good for my eyes, but it hurts when I insert 'em.)
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To: Valin

Thanks Valin. Haven't read that one.


57 posted on 06/06/2005 9:48:04 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Mom said carrots are good for my eyes, but it hurts when I insert 'em.)
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To: PhilDragoo

Thanks for the link to the museum Phil. Lots of good stuff there.


58 posted on 06/06/2005 10:14:46 PM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: urtax$@work

Thank you for your post in the Foxhole. What an amazing time it was those 60+ years ago.


59 posted on 06/06/2005 10:17:02 PM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: urtax$@work

Thank you for your post in the Foxhole. What an amazing time it was those 60+ years ago.


60 posted on 06/06/2005 10:17:03 PM PDT by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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