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Maj Gen. George S. Patton, son of the famous WWII general of that name, dead at age 80:
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story. ... tm&sc=1110
Pat
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Notable Passings
Notable Passings
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I attended a lecture he gave at the Royal United Services Institute in London in 1970, on his command of the 11th Cavalry Regiment in South Viet Nam. It was extremely informative, he a quite superb lecturer - not using notes. It was of interest in that he stated that the use of tactical helicopters by the US Army were giving a false idea of future war, and how he believed that future land battles had to be fought by a integrated combination of all arms of the army and that the air force MUST provide tactical close air support in order for the army to win. Attack helicopters by themselves had only a limited role, this was shown in the 2003 Iraq War. Yours, G/.
Elmer Berstein
Elmer Berstein, film composer, died yesterday at age 82.
A person might well ask why I've mentioned that here. The reason is that amongst his many film scores was the score for "The Magnificent Seven". True, the Magnificent Seven is not a military movie, although arguably Seven Samurai, which it is take from, sort of is. But it is a very good oater, and the films score was very good. Those of us old enough to remember an earlier era probably recall it as the "Marlboro" theme song form television cigarette ads. Pat
Re: Elmer Berstein
Must disagree. "7 Samurai" was a Western, with Toshiro Mifune in the Gabby Hayes role.
Bernstein's jazz score for "Man With the Golden Arm" is some of the best movie music ever done. B45
Ancel Keys. Inventor of the K Rations, dead at age 100.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/ ... 7154.shtml Pat
Albert Marshall
Albert "Smiler" Marshall, believed to be the last living British cavalryman to have ridden into battle on the Western Front during WWI, died this week at age 108. He was a survivor of Loos and the Somme. He was a member, during the war, of the Essex Yeomanry until March 1917, when he was wounded. He returned to the front in a machinegun unit after recovering from his wounds. He served in the British Army after the war in Ireland until 1921, when he received his discharge from the service.
Pat
Britian's Last Cavalryman Dies
20 May 2005
Mr Albert Marshall (ex sgt) the last surviving cavalryman to take part in a full charge has died aged 108 from pneumonia. He served with the Essex Yeomanry and took part in the cavalry charge at Loos in 1915.
See also here:
http://www.militaryhorse.org/forum/topi ... IC_ID=3420 From what I read of him, Sgt. Marshall had an interesting military career. He continued to serve after the war for a time, and he served in a machinegun unit later in WWI. Can it really be said that he served in the last charge, however? One British newspaper account I read qualified it by noting that it was the last saber charge. Another seemed to indicate that it was the last charge because other charges undertaken in WWII didn't quite qualify. That is sort of the debate that occurs when people try to determine what the last US charge was. Some maintain that the last charge occured in the Punitive Expedition, as that was the last time a planned mounted attack took place, they state (although that seems to discount later action in Mexico following WWI). Others say it took place in the Philippines, although that can be debated as it was a charge in reaction to an event, rather than an offensive planned assault. Still others cite to the 10th Mountain Division in Austria in 1945, but then others point out that a mounted reconnaissance troop is not a cavalry unit. The debate seems similiar in the case of the last British charge, as there were at least a couple of British mounted actions early in WWII. No matter, however. Sgt. Marshall did see service in the last large British army to have large amounts of cavalry, and did participate in a charge with them. That is remarkable in and of itself. Pat
The last combat digger of the Great War
The last Australian combat veteran of WWI passes on.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/06/ ... click=true Pat
Speaking of WW1, I have a friend and colleague whose father at 104 years of age is one of the last veterans of the Kaiser's army. In one of the horrible ironies of history, this same man was forced to flee to America with his pregnant wife in 1938 and leave behind a very large fortune. They are Jewish.
Joe
How interesting! When I was a boy here my father was friends with a fellow named "Mr. Bennet". He had been a German infantryman in WWI, and then had illegally immigrated by jumping ship after the war. He married a German lady here, and then set up a restaurant. In the late 30s his status was discovered and he returned to Germany by himself to apply for legal immigration. From what I'm told he made it back before the war started, but was on pins and needles as to whether he was going to get back, or have to stay in a Germany that he'd thought had lost its mind. Pat As an addition, and for a really odd variant of this, there was a first hand personal history up on the net somewhere by a fellow who had been born in New York. His mother was a teenager from Germany, and her parents still lived in Germany. Apparently there was a scandalous history to the birth, as she was working as a maid, not married, . . .etc. She returned home to Germany when the boy was about 7 or so and left him with her parents and then left again, so from there until his teens he was raised in Germany. He was drafted into the Germany army, and by his own admittance had pretty much bought off on the German propoganda. He served as an armored crewman towards the end of the war, seeing some pretty nasty combat. Post war, with the German economy wrecked, he left for the US, which he was able to enter as he was a citizen. Feeling odd about things, he joined the US Army to try to make up for having served in the German one, and ended up serving in the Korean War in Korea. If I can find the link, I'll post it.
<font size="3"><font face="Book Antiqua">Greetings All,
Interesting this last post by Pat. My Dad knew a guy with whom he worked off and on over the years through the early 60's in Florida where they were both working the Cuban situation. He had started out his education as it were, in the Estonian Military Academy and was "recruited" as an NCO into the Red Army when the Soviets took over in 1939. A couple of years later he was captured by the Germans who because he was Estonian, "recruited" him in to the KreigsMarine as an NCO. Toward the end of the war he was captured by the Americans who put him into a refugee camp - because he was Estonian. This is where my dad first met him - my dad was the OIC of that camp. The man met his future wife there and rather than return to the dubious future of Stalinist Russia, they came to the United States he posing as a gardner and she as a maid. Within 6 months he was a foreman at Sperry Univac over 200 men - all that NCO experience. When Korea broke out he was drafted into the United States Army. His movement to the intelligence world need not be explored here - but there are two additional things worthy of note. First he, while in the United States Army, was always soldier of the month, quarter and year - all that experience. Second my dad indicated he had a golden smile - from all those interrogations. <i><b>Terroriferi delende est</b></i>,</font id="Book Antiqua"></font id="size3"> Jeffrey S. Wall
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Subotai</i>
<br /><font size="3"><font face="Book Antiqua">Greetings All, Interesting this last post by Pat. My Dad knew a guy with whom he worked off and on over the years through the early 60's in Florida where they were both working the Cuban situation. He had started out his education as it were, in the Estonian Military Academy and was "recruited" as an NCO into the Red Army when the Soviets took over in 1939. A couple of years later he was captured by the Germans who because he was Estonian, "recruited" him in to the KreigsMarine as an NCO. Toward the end of the war he was captured by the Americans who put him into a refugee camp - because he was Estonian. This is where my dad first met him - my dad was the OIC of that camp. The man met his future wife there and rather than return to the dubious future of Stalinist Russia, they came to the United States he posing as a gardner and she as a maid. Within 6 months he was a foreman at Sperry Univac over 200 men - all that NCO experience. When Korea broke out he was drafted into the United States Army. His movement to the intelligence world need not be explored here - but there are two additional things worthy of note. First he, while in the United States Army, was always soldier of the month, quarter and year - all that experience. Second my dad indicated he had a golden smile - from all those interrogations. <i><b>Terroriferi delende est</b></i>,</font id="Book Antiqua"></font id="size3"> Jeffrey S. Wall <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Wow. A person would be entitled to have a terrible attitude after all that, but likely he did not. I knew, but only vaguely, a college professor at one time who had been a Sudenten German and drafted into the German Army. He'd been badly wounded towards the end of the war, and picked up by the Soviet Army. He spoke Czech, and apparently they thought he was a Soviet soldier. After a while, they loaded up all the men in the hospital and loaded them on a train to go back to the Soviet Union. He got off at the first opportunity and walked back to his home, where he was no longer welcome. He then became a displaced person. I'm not sure how he ended up in the US. Oddly, he taught Spanish. Pat
I haven't heard anyone use the expression "displaced person" for ages. When I was in Germany in the mid-1960's, there were supposedly labor battalions formed from former soldiers who did not go back home to eastern Europe after the war. They had their own uniform, which was a dark blue British-style battledress. I never saw any that I know of and I don't know where they fit into the organization but it is an interesting historical footnote that few Americans were aware of.
And speaking of Germany, my son, who just returned from two months at Graf and Hohenfels with a tank battalion, reports seeing non-German troops there. I believe they were from one of the Baltic countries.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by BlueTrain</i>
<br />I haven't heard anyone use the expression "displaced person" for ages. When I was in Germany in the mid-1960's, there were supposedly labor battalions formed from former soldiers who did not go back home to eastern Europe after the war. They had their own uniform, which was a dark blue British-style battledress. I never saw any that I know of and I don't know where they fit into the organization but it is an interesting historical footnote that few Americans were aware of. And speaking of Germany, my son, who just returned from two months at Graf and Hohenfels with a tank battalion, reports seeing non-German troops there. I believe they were from one of the Baltic countries. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> The number of DPs after the war was hugs, but I wasn't aware that many were left that late. Most Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Allies were in repatriated, right into prison, to the USSR. It's one of the little told sad tales of the war. They came into Allied hands in two ways. Some were freed prisoners of war, having surivived horrid treatment by the Germans. And some were Soviet soldiers who volunteered to serve with the Germans for a variety of reasons. Both groups ended up in the gulags, as Stalin feared any exposure to the West would have negative impacts on their views toward his regime. In the case of some groups, such as the German cossacks, they were virtually mislead into their fate, and when they learned of it they were greatly distressed. It seems citizens of Eastern European nations sometimes fared better. They'd often fought in Allied armies and never returned to their homes. Even some who fought in the Red Army in ethnic units managed to leave. Pat
<font size="3"><font face="Book Antiqua">Greetings All,
I recently finished reading General Donald Bennet's <u>Honor Untarnished</u>, his autobiography through the end of WWII. He was initially an officer in the first mobile armored artillery battalion to recieve their weapons [M-7s] and later commanded his own independant armored mobile artillery battalion [the 62nd I believe]. It is a very worthwhile book and in it he relates that he was on the Chech border at the end of the war. While there and after hearing stories of Soviet conduct he had one of his battalion arial obeservers take him up and over the border to see what the Soviets were doing. They were herding dozens of groups of refugees back to the Soviet Union machine gunning those who either couldn't or wouldn't keep up or just for the fun of it. He also noted that a Soviet unit came over the border and took over a Chech town in his sector. The Soviet commander announced they were there to stay and began to have his men, among other examples of the bounties of Soviet civilization, forceably impregnate the local women. Bennet ringed the town with his pieces and threaten to smother them with fire if they didn't leave. They left. According to a well researched book <u>Death by Government</u>, the death total attributed to the Soviet Union - in the sense of their murdering their own citizens - was something over 62,000,000. Other sources estimate as high as 100,000,000. And people wonder why I am such a proponent if the positions held by Frederick A. Hayek in his classic <u>The Road to Serfdom</u>. We tend ot take our liberty for granted. Fellers it ain't the norm in the world. <i><b>Terroriferi delende est</b></i>,</font id="Book Antiqua"> </font id="size3"> Jeffrey S. Wall
Road to Serfdom should be read by everyone. I usually keep a stack at hand for gifts.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Subotai</i>
<br /> According to a well researched book <u>Death by Government</u>, the death total attributed to the Soviet Union - in the sense of their murdering their own citizens - was something over 62,000,000. Other sources estimate as high as 100,000,000. And people wonder why I am such a proponent if the positions held by Frederick A. Hayek in his classic <u>The Road to Serfdom</u>. We tend ot take our liberty for granted. Fellers it ain't the norm in the world. <i><b>Terroriferi delende est</b></i>,[/font=Book Antiqua] [/size=3] Jeffrey S. Wall <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> I'm not familiar with those texts, but The Black Book On Communism, a French book written by authors from the left, catalogs in depressing detail Communist crimes and is an excellent, if very depressing read. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of the last century. It does detail the Soviet Union's treatment of its own citizens, although it discusses much more than that. This is not to excuse Nazi barbarity in the same period. It details, however, an often missed aspect of the 20th Century. Pat
William C. Westmoreland
William C. Westmoreland, who commanded US troops in Vietnam for much of the Vietnam War, died July 18, 2005 at age 91.
Pat
Long Missing Airman found in California Glacier.
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story. ... tm&sc=1110 Pat
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