Blog Archives
U.S. Marine Corps Birthday
The Marine Corps Birthday is on November 10 and celebrates the establishment of the US Marine Corp in 1775.
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USMC Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
Nickolas Alba – Kyle, TX; USMC, Purple Heart
Robert Bailey – Fort Wayne, IN; USMC, Korea, Purple Heart
Herbert Carlson – Hartford, CT; USMC, WWII, PTO
John ‘Dan” Driscoll – Frisco City, AL; USMC
Joseph Ehrenberger – Charlotte, NC; USMC, WWII & Korea
David Gates – Edwardsville, WY; USMC, Sgt., Fighter Attack Squadron 312
Jack Hamblin – Pittsburgh, PA; USMC, Korea
Roger Lagace – Manchester, CT; USMC, Cpl.
William Milovich – Cowpens, SC; USMC, WWII, PTO
Francis Morris – OK; Womens USMC, WWII
William Soderna – Deerton, MI; USMC, 5th Div/27th Marines, Japan Occupation
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Home Front recipes from WWII
As most of you know, America experienced rationing for the first time in World War II and with the holidays looming in the wings, food seemed to be a logical subject.
Some products that were rationed during World War II were sugar, meat, coffee, typewriters, fuel oil, gasoline, rubber, and automobiles. Each person was issued a book of ration coupons each month. Rationed goods were assigned a price and point value. Families were not restricted to certain quantities of rationed goods. But once their coupons were used up, they could not buy rationed goods until the next month. Families were encouraged to plant victory gardens. These gardens supplied a major part of the vegetable supply during the War.
But one thing most of us can admit, our parents and grandparents ate well. They ate to live – not lived to eat! Here are some of the recipes, given to us from The 1940’s Experiment . More of the wartime recipes will posted at a later date or you can get them directly from Carolyn at her website.
EAT WELL MY FRIENDS!
Recipe 1. Wartime Loaf
Recipe 2. Wartime Dripping
Recipe 3. Meaty Gravy
Recipe 4. Bread Pudding
Recipe 5. Corned Beef Fritters
Recipe 6. Eggless Sponge Gone Wrong
Recipe 7. Salad Dressing for immediate use
Recipe 8. Wartime Vegetable Turnovers
Recipe 9. Wartime Scotch Shortbread
Recipe 10. Carolyn’s ‘Everything In’ Wartime Stew
Recipe 11. The Oslo Meal
Recipe 12. Curried Carrots
Recipe 13: Pancakes (5 dishes from 1 recipe)
Recipe 14: Wartime Cauliflower Cheese with Bacon
Recipe 15: Cynthia’s Eggless Sponge (gone right)
Recipe 16: Pear Crumble
Recipe 17: Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam..
Recipe 18: Rock buns
Recipe 19: Mock cream recipe 1
Recipe 20: Spam Hash
Recipe 21: Wartime Pumpkin Soup
Recipe 22: Bread stuffing balls
Recipe 23: Apple crumble
Recipe 24: Lord Woolton Pie
Recipe 25: Cheese Whirls
Recipe 26: Glory Buns
Recipe 27: Cheese and Potato Dumplings
Recipe 28: Cream of Parsnip Soup
Recipe 29: Carrot and Potato Mash
Recipe 30: Cheese Dreams
Shopping with ration books.
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WWII Home Front Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
Frances W. Braun – Beverwijk, NETH & London, CAN; Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force, P-40 & P-51 pilot
Clarence Budke – Waynesvillle, NC; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 77/11th Airborne Division
Simon Growick – NYC, NY; US Navy, WWII, ETO, Lab Tech, Medical Corps
Benjamin Kushner – Philadelphia, PA; US Army, WWII, ETO
Stanley Leimer – Clarksville, TN; US Army, Co. A/159th Aviation Battalion, Chinook helicopter Flt. Engineer
Thomas Lynch – Janesville, MN; US Army Air Corps, WWII, 508th PIR, 82nd A/B / Korea & Vietnam, Pvt. to MGeneral (Ret.), Bronze Star, Silver Star 7 Distinguish Service Medal
Edgar Miles Jr. – Bellefonte, PA; US Army, WWII, Lt.Colonel (ret.)
Martin O’Callaghan Jr. – Memphis, TN; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO, 96th Fighter Sq/82nd Fighter Group, 2nd Lt., KIA
Mamie Petty – Gulfport, MS; US Navy WAVES, WWII, Pharmacist Mate 3rd Class
Dennis Seward – London, ENG; Royal Navy, WWII, HMS Alacrity & Slinger
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Salute to the Home Front Women of WWII
“Rosie to the Rescue”, Norman Rockwell
In 1943, several major magazines agreed to salute the women war workers of America on their September covers. The Post gave the assignment to Rockwell, who’d already created an iconic tribute to women defense workers with Rosie the Riveter.
For this new cover, he wanted to acknowledge the wide range of jobs that 15 million women had taken up as men went off to war. The result was Rosie to the Rescue, which showed a woman bearing the symbols and tools of several trades hurrying off to her next job. The Post editors claimed 31 different occupations were represented on this cover. Some were jobs traditionally associated with women: cleaning, farming, nursing, and clerical work. Others, indicated by tools such as an electric cable and a monkey wrench, referred to industrial occupations that women were starting to enter in great number.
The cover not only acknowledges women war workers, it also recalls occupations of the 1940s that once employed thousands. Post readers of the day would have instantly recognized the bus-driver’s ticket punch, a taxi-driver’s change dispenser, a milkman’s bottle rack, a switchboard operator’s headset, and the blue cap of a train conductor. The railroad industry was also represented by the railroad section hand’s lantern, the locomotive engineer’s oil can, and that round object swinging on a shoulder strap — a clock used by night watchwomen in railway yards.
Here is what the Post editors had to say about this image in the “Keeping Posted” section of our September 4, 1943 issue:
At least thirty-one wartime occupations for women are suggested by Norman Rockwell’s remarkable Labor Day Post cover. Perhaps you can think of more. The thirty-one we counted, suggested by articles the young lady is carrying or wearing, are: boardinghouse manager and housekeeper (keys on ring); chambermaid, cleaner and household worker (dust pan and brush, mop); service superintendent (time clock); switchboard operator and telephone operator (earphone and mouthpiece); grocery-store woman and milk-truck driver (milk bottles); electrician for repair and maintenance of household appliances and furnishings (electric wire); plumber and garage mechanic (monkey wrench, small wrenches); seamstress (big scissors); typewriter-repair woman, stenographer, typist, editor and reporter (typewriter); baggage clerk (baggage checks); bus driver (puncher); conductor on railroad, trolley, bus (conductor’s cap); filling-station attendant and taxi driver (change holder); oiler on railroad (oil can); section hand (red lantern); bookkeeper (pencil over ear); farm worker (hoe and potato fork); truck farmer (watering can); teacher (schoolbooks and ruler); public health, hospital or industrial nurse (Nurses’ Aide cap). —“Keeping Posted: The Rockwell Cover,” September 4, 1943.
When the war began, quickie marriages became the norm, as teenagers married their sweethearts before their men went overseas. As the men fought abroad, women on the Home Front worked in defense plants and volunteered for war-related organizations, in addition to managing their households. In New Orleans, as the demand for public transportation grew, women even became streetcar “conductorettes” for the first time. When men left, women “became proficient cooks and housekeepers, managed the finances, learned to fix the car, worked in a defense plant, and wrote letters to their soldier husbands that were consistently upbeat.” (Stephen Ambrose, D-Day, 488) Rosie the Riveter helped assure that the Allies would have the war materials they needed to defeat the Axis.
The National WWII Museum recognizes the contribution that women played in the success of the Allied victory in World War II and explores that contribution in depth in its newest permanent exhibit, The Arsenal of Democracy: The Herman and George Brown Salute to the Home Front.
Let’s hear about those Victory Gardens and other ways your mothers and grandmothers joined in!!
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Home Front Humor –
WHAT THE HECK DID WE DO EVERY EVENING BEFORE THIS WAR?
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Farewell Salutes –
Ruth Apple – North Dorset, VT; Civilian, WWII, ‘Rosie’, aircraft
Angelina “Betty” Cicatelli – Throop, PA; WWII, Civilian, ‘Rosie’
Angnes Clagg – Ona, WV; WWII, Civilian, ‘Rosie’, weapons
Thelma Cook (104) – Pikeville, NC; WWII, Civilian ‘Rosie’, welder & parachute seamstress
Jacquelin Johns – Ft. Lauderdale, FL; WWII, Civilian, Office of Strategic Service
Lois Lenz – Chicagi, IL; WWII, Red Cross nurse’s aide / US Army, Signal Corps
Wand Elliot Matson – Quad Cities, IA, WWII ‘Rosie’, Grumman Hellcats
Mariemma Nelson – Indianapolis, IN; WWII, Civilian ‘Rosie’
Louise Steinberger – Vallejo, CA; WWII, Civilian ‘Rosie’, shipyard welder
Harriet ‘Jean’ Waltuck – Jordon, NY; US Navy, nurse
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I will Salute
The sentiments spoken by a true American. I hope many will follow Bob MacPherson’s example and once again revere the flag !!
Forty six years ago, I raised my right hand in a room full of strangers and pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I solemnly swore to do so while standing facing the flag that represents this country. For all of the years since then, that flag has played a central role in my life.
I watched her fly as a green recruit and came to understand she is more than just another piece of cloth. I watched her fly from the deck of many submarines and ships at bases all over the world. I listened with pride one night in Yokosuka Japan while a shipmate played Taps as we retired her for the day. I felt the crushing weight of seeing a comrade under her in a casket bound for home. I felt sadness at the deaths of so many veterans who also shared her…
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Japanese Balloon Bombs hit USA & Canada
Avenging the Doolittle Raids – Project Fugo
November 1944 – Young Japanese girls wore headbands that designated them as Special Attack Force members. Daily they would recite the Imperial Precepts for Soldiers and Sailors before they began a twelve-hour shift in a makeshift factory in Kokura, Japan. Here they were producing 40 foot balloons to carry a bomb package across the ocean as they were released to drift on the Pacific jet stream.
A total of approximately 9,300 of these weapons were made and about 342 reached land, some as far east as Ontario, Michigan and Nebraska. Some were shot down or caused minor injuries and one hit a powerline of the nuclear weapons plant at Hanford, Washington.
Three days before the end of World War II in Europe and just three months before the Japanese surrendered, spinning shards of metal ripped into the tall pine trees, burrowing holes into bark and tearing needles from branches outside the tiny logging community of Bly, Oregon. The nerve-shattering echo of an exploding bomb rolled across the mountain landscape. When it was over, a lone figure—Archie Mitchell, a young, bespectacled clergyman—stood over six dead bodies strewn across the scorched earth. One of the victims was Elsie Mitchell, the minister’s pregnant wife. The rest were children. Four of the children—Jay Gifford, Eddie Engen, Dick Patzke, and Sherman Shoeman died instantly; Joan Patzke, 13 years old, initially survived the explosion but succumbed to her injuries shortly afterward.
Rev. Archie Mitchell and his wife, Elsie
Forestry workers were running a grader nearby when the force of the explosion blew one of them off the equipment. Another dashed to the nearby telephone office, where Cora Conner was running the town’s two-line exchange that day. “He had me place a call to the naval base in nearby Lakeview, the closest military installation to our town,” recalls Conner. “He told them that there had been an explosion and people had been killed.”
Within 45 minutes, a government vehicle roared to a stop in front of the telephone shack. A military intelligence officer scrambled out of the car and joined Conner inside. “He warned me not to say anything,” Conner says. “I was not to accept any calls except military ones, nor was I allowed to send out any information.” The rest of the day proved difficult, as Conner struggled with lumber companies and angry locals who had been stripped of their phone privileges without explanation.
The U.S. government immediately shrouded the event in secrecy, labeling the six deaths as occurring from an “unannounced cause.” But in the close-knit atmosphere of Bly, many of the locals had already learned the truth: Elsie Mitchell and the five children were victims of an enemy balloon bomb, held aloft by a gigantic hydrogen-filled sphere and whisked from Japan to the western seaboard of the United States. The contraption had alighted on Gearhart Mountain, where it lay in wait until the fateful day when it found its victims—the only deaths from enemy attack within the continental United States during World War II.
bomb map
To help avoid similar tragedies, the government lifted the media blackout. In late May 1945, the headquarters of Western Defense Command, based at the Presidio in San Francisco, issued a cautious message entitled “Japanese Balloon Information Bulletin No. 1.” In an effort to avoid a media frenzy and quell public paranoia, the document was to be read aloud to small gatherings “such as school children assembled in groups.
Preferably not more than 50 in a group and Boy Scout troops.” The bulletin warned that many hundreds of Japanese balloons were reaching American and Canadian airspace.
Balloon bombs
For Archie Mitchell, who lost his wife, unborn child, and five members of his church on that fateful day in 1945, life eventually resumed its course. He remarried and in 1947 moved to Southeast Asia to continue the missionary work that inspired him. Unfortunately, fate would deal him yet another blow. On June 1, 1962, a wire report brought his name back into the news: “Today word came from South Vietnam that three Americans had been kidnapped by Communist guerrillas. One of them is Reverend Archie E. Mitchell, a former pastor at Bly in southeast Oregon.” Mitchell was never heard from again.
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Today’s Military Humor –
How would you finish this caption?
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Farewell Salutes –
J.R. Brown – Henryetta, OK; US Army Air Corps, WWII, B-17 waist gunner, 2nd Bombardment Squadron
Adrian Cronauer – Troutsville, VA; US Air Force, Vietnam, (Armed Forces Radio D.J.), / DOD official
Steve Ditko – Johnstown, PA; US Army, (cartoonist)
Brian Dutton – UK; Royal Navy, Falklands, Lt.Commander, mine clearance expert
Robert Hagan Sr. – PA; US Air Force, Captain, pilot
Homer Myles – Dermott, AR; US Army, WWII & Korea
Paul Racicot – Detroit, MI; US Navy, WWII
Joseph Stanhope – Berlin, NH; US Army, WWII, ETO, Bronze Star
James Shaw – Baird, TX; USMC, WWII, PTO, Korea, Major
Dale Wilson – Des moines, IA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, LT, B-25 pilot, KIA (MIA)
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July Fourth 2018
While you enjoy your bar-b-ques and fireworks – take a moment to remember the troops that made it all possible for that to happen today.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA !!!
Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s “Concord Hymn.” It was sung at the completion of the Concord Battle Monument on April 19, 1837.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world,
The foe long since in silence slept,
Alike the Conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires our sons are gone.
Spirit! who made those freemen dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid time and nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and Thee.
If you are setting off fireworks this evening, please be courteous to your neighboring veterans . Haven’t they heard enough?
Take good care of your pets
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Fourth of July Humor – or is it?
courtesy of ‘America on Coffee’
courtesy of: Henry Kotula
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Farewell Salutes –
Hobert Bingham – Alcorn County, MS; USMC, WWII, PTO
James Conway – Sun City, AZ; US Army, WWII, 2nd Lt.
Irving Green – Mountaindale, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, bombardier
Charles Highley Jr. – Glen Ridge, NJ; USMC, WWII, PTO
Lois Jolly – Hempstead, NY; US Army WAC, WWII, ETO, nurse
Thomas Miller – Norfolk, VA; US Army Air Corps, 152nd AAA/11th Airborne Division
Joseph Rizzi – Bronx, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, CO A/457 Artillery/11th Airborne Divsion
Ray Sarvis – Bessemer City, NC; US Navy, WWII, PTO
Harold Tor – Beach, CA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co F/187th/11th Airborne Division
Robert Watz – Westerly, RI; US Army, Korea, Co A/187th RCT
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Special Issue – MAY – Military Appreciation Month
May, marked officially as Military Appreciation Month, is a special month for both those in and out of the military.
Not only do we pause on Memorial Day to remember the sacrifice and service of those who gave all, but the month also holds several other military anniversaries and events, including Military Spouse Appreciation Day and Armed Forces day.
MILITARY APPRECIATION MONTH
MILITARY HEROES
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Military Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
Walter Black – Marion, IN; US Army Air Corps, WWII, navigator
George Casseb – San Antonio, TX; US Army Air Corps, WWII, CBI / Korea, meteorologist, Captain
Charles Crittenden – Seattle, WA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, CBI
Francis Fleck – Louisville, KY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 547th Fighter Squadron, Bronze Star
Richard Lowe – Northglenn, CO; US Army, WWII, CBI
Putnam McDowell – Pittsburgh, PA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, P-38 pilot, photo recon
Robert Mumford – York, PA; US Navy, WWII, PTO, PT 288, torpedoman
William Punnell – Flandreau, SD; US Navy, WWII, PTO, Lt., Hellcat pilot, USS Wasp, KIA (Palau)
Ora Sharninghouse – Findlay, OH; US Navy, WWII, Aviation Ordnance, Avenger pilot, USS Intrepid, KIA (Palau)
Robert Welch – Byron, MI; US Army Air Corps, 187th/11th Airborne Division
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Eye Witness Account – Iwo Jima & Guam
Seaman Sal Murino
The pages, unearthed 70 years after their origin, are stark in simplicity and detail: One young man, one typewriter, together aboard the U.S.S. Doyen.
“Hello everyone!” reads a handwritten greeting on the top of page one, followed by a single-spaced report complete with wisecracks and World War II talk direct from young Sal Murino to his family.
The long, yellowing letter from the U.S. Navy man offers a first-person recitation of the fighting from Dec. 1944-March 1945 as the devastating war finally enters its final year..
Click on images to read the letter.
page 1
page 2
“To hear one combat fatigue(d) Marine put it who was smoking an endless chain of cigarettes — said, ‘Those bastards had us surrounded and throwing everything at us.’ Incidentally, this Marine wanted to go back and fight as he did not want to leave his buddies.”
The letters were in the custody of Murino’s niece, Marie, who across the decades tended carefully to the pages that preserved an unseen slice of history. Marie’s husband Jim, a regular reader of the Daily News, convinced her to share the letter seven decades after it reached her Brooklyn mailbox.
The missive was mailed to the entire Italiano family, living on DeGraw St. in South Brooklyn. Marie’s mother had three sisters and four brothers — Sal, Johnny and Tony were all fighting overseas.
USS Doyen
Yet progress against the tenacious Japanese fighters was slow despite the firepower — and came at a price.
His description of the war’s cost: “The task of removing the wounded was another hard job … These same wounded men not so long ago came walking up the gangplank with their rifles and equipment and now, some were able to walk by themselves and the others had to be assisted not only minus their rifles and equipment but a few with (out) their arms and limbs.”
He laid out the scene on the island of Guam, another hub of intense fighting.
“During our invasion last June it was without a question of doubt a place of ‘agony and hell’ (a partial payback for the sneaky attack on Pearl Harbor),” the sailor writes. “We saw many caves in the mountains — some as large as the tunnel of love you would find at amusement places.”
But months later, the only signs of battle were “remnants of Jap tanks, large guns still remained alongside the beaches. The natives were happy to see the Americans return.
“The majority of them wore American clothes and girls were painted with lipstick,” he wrote. “Mingling with them was entirely out, due to the old baloney of ‘military secrets.’”
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Military Humor –
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Farewell Salutes –
Taylor Conrad – Baton Rouge, LA; USMC, LCpl., 465th Squadron/3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, KIA
Arnold Harrison – Detroit, MI; USMC, WWII, PTO, Pfc, Co. B/1/2/2nd
Marine Div., KIA (Betio)
Richard Holley – Dayton, OH; USMC, GSgt., 465th Squadron/3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, KIA
John Kiefer – Fairport, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 11th Airborne Division
Charles Lazarus – WA; US Army, WWII, cryptographer
Zell Miller – Young Harris, GA; USMC, U.S. Senator & Governor
Samuel Phillips – Pinehurst, NC; USMC, 1st Lt., 465th Squadron/ 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, KIA
E.R. Reece – Klondike, OK; US Army, WWII & Korea, 24th Infantry Division
Samuel Schultz – Huntingdon Valley, PA; USMC, Captain, 465th Squadron/ 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, KIA
James Vincent – No. Sioux Falls, SD; US Army, WWII / Korea, Sgt.
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A Corpsman’s story on Iwo Jima
Many have seen a picture or the monument that depicts the raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi, but not many have heard what happened after that first, non-staged flag was raised amid Japanese territory.
Lt.Col. Chaney Johnson and Capt. Dave Severance gave the small flag to 1stLt. Harold Schrier and ordered him to take a 40-man assault patrol to the summit, secure the crater and raise the flag, as an earlier patrol had reached the summit without being fired upon.
Iwo Jima wounded w/ corpsmen
Schrier’s patrol included a radioman, 2 teams of stretcher-bearers and SSgt. Lou Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine bringing up the rear, photographing every step of the way. Marines below watched as the patrol moved forward in a difficult climb, slowly moving up the side of the mountain, sometimes crawling on hands and knees. Upon reaching the rim, they crawled over the edge, one man at a time.
Fanning out in the rim with minor enemy activity in the cave openings, a long piece of pipe was soon found and taken taken to a spot chosen by Lt. Shrier. The flag was attached to the pole and Lowery snapped the picture of the first flag raising at 10:10 A.M. on 23 February 1945.
Original flag picture signed by SSgt. Lou Lowery, Leatherneck Mag.
The 6 men present as the flag pole was planted were: Sgt. ‘Boots’ Thomas; Sgt. Henry Hansen; Cpl. Charles Lindberg (Raider); Lt. Harold Shrier (Raider), Pfc James Michaels and Pvt. Louis Charlo. As it came into view, the tired and dirt Marines below cheered loudly and a chorus of bells, whistles and foghorns emanated from the ships in the harbor.
At the same time, all hell broke loose in the crater as the Japanese saw the flag flying. Enraged by the sight of the flag, grenades came flying and shots rang out from the caves with one shot just missing Lowery, who tumbled almost 50 feet down the side of the mountain before grabbing a bush to save himself and his camera.
A Japanese officer, carrying a sword then charged the group. The other members of the patrol quickly killed him and charged the caves firing machine guns and flames throwers while tossing demolition charges to seal them off. When the area was secured, the platoon started back down the mountain only to meet another group coming up.
Mt. Surabichi climb
Col. Johnson had the thought that someone would want the flag as a souvenir and ordered a larger flag to be found. It was retrieved from LST-779 and given to 2nd battalion Runner Pfc Rene Gagnon to take to the top. And so – the more famous picture was taken by Photographer Joseph Rosenthal of the Associated Press.
Story is from “REAL BLOOD! REAL GUTS!: U.S. Marine Raiders and their CORPSMEN in World War II” by James Gleason.
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Current News – 
As many of you have certainly heard already, the wreck of the USS Juneau has recently been located. I’m sure the name must sound very familiar to you – the ship that carried down the five Sullivan brothers.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/explorers-discover-the-wreck-of-the-uss-juneau/ar-BBKwToF
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Human Interest Story –
Chesty XIV meets Chesty XV at Barracks Washington
Chesty XV, USMC mascot
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Military Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
Jean Bowen – Ottawa, CAN; RC Air Force, WWII
Irene Cason – Mosinee, WI; US Navy WAVE, WWII
Bill Dingwall – Woodstock, GA; US Army, WWII
Alan Falk – New Bedford, MA; US Army, Captain
Lewis Gilbert – London, ENG; RAF, WWII, Air Force film crew
Clifford Hunt – Anchorage, AK; US Army, Korea, Medical Corps, Psychologist
Charles Jackson – Parrish, FL; 187th RCT, Vietnam, Sgt. Major, Bronze Star
Florence ‘Shutsy’ Reynolds – Connellsville, PA; US Army Air Corps WASP, WWII, pilot
James Studebaker – Lucerne, MO; US Army, WWII & Korea
Phillip Wendell – Sioux City, IA; US Navy, WWII, PTO, PT boats
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Japanese weaponry
Firing a ‘knee’ mortar.
When it came to weapons production, the Imperial Japanese Army’s requirements often came in second to the needs of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Army was an infantry-heavy organization that lacked much in the way of the modern heavy weaponry other armies enjoyed.
To help compensate for the lack of heavy weapons, the Imperial Japanese Army worked hard to develop large numbers of what were probably the best light infantrymen in the world at the time. Their creed stressed relentless offensive action seeking a quick decision and emphasizing spiritual factors including zealous dedication and fighting spirit. Night attacks were a true specialty, and their weaponry reflected their light and fast doctrine.
To offset their frequent lack of artillery, the Japanese augmented their firepower through the extensive use of mortars, the best and most cost-effective substitute for industry-intensive heavier artillery. Technically, Japanese light “knee” mortars at first merely bridged the gap between hand grenades and true mortars and were more properly referred to as grenade dischargers.
The Model 89 was by far the most prolific of the grenade dischargers and the weapon most commonly encountered by Allied Marines and soldiers throughout the various theaters of the Pacific War. Technically known as the Hachikyu Shiki Jutekidanto, or 89 Model Heavy Grenade Discharger, the new weapon featured a wide variety of improvements over the old Type 10 and had almost universally replaced the former weapon by 1941. To the frontline Japanese infantryman, the Type 89 was most often referred to as the Juteki.
To fire, the gunner removed the fuse’s safety pin and dropped the bomb tail first down the muzzle of the knee mortar. A pull on the leather lanyard attached to the trigger then fired the weapon. The firing pin struck a percussion cap primer that fired the propelling charge, which also caused a copper driving band on the charge body to push out and engage the rifling of the barrel. The force of discharge also set back and armed the fuse in the nose projectile and re-cocked the mainspring inside the mortar. This was usually done at a 45-degree angle.
Despite these relatively crude controls, a soldier could quickly and easily be trained to fire the Type 89 knee mortar with impressive accuracy. While it could be fired by one man, a knee mortar with a three-man crew could maintain an effective rate of fire of 25 rounds per minute.
Lt. Col. Merritt “Red Mike” Edson, leader of the famous Marine Raiders, critically evaluated the knee mortar and insisted American forces badly needed an equivalent. He listed the following reasons:
“1. It is a one man load.
2. A man can carry ten rounds on his person besides his weapon.
3. It has a high rate of fire.
4. It gives to the platoon commander a weapon of this type which is immediately available to him.
5. This mortar uses the Jap all-purpose hand grenade….”
A Marine Corps legend, then-Lt. Col. Lewis “Chesty” Puller seconded Edson’s opinion. “I consider it imperative that the Army and Marines be equipped with knee mortars and only carry one type grenade.”
Army Sergeant C.W. Arrowood completely agreed: “The Jap knee mortar gives us hell. They come in fast, thick, and accurate. Can’t we have one?”
M79 40mm grenade launcher
The answer to Sergeant Arrowood’s question was a resounding No. United States forces soldiered on with the little loved rifle grenade until the advent of the M79 40mm grenade launcher during the early stages of the Vietnam War.
References: Warfare History Network;
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Military Humor –
You can always count on your scoped grenade launching silenced pistol bipod w/ attached katana handle crowbar!
Because no Zombie Apocalypse survival kit is truly complete w/out a grenade launcher & a few bandoleers of HE rounds.
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Farewell Salutes –
Cecil Akigg (100) – Calgary, CAN; RC Army, WWII, ETO, radar technician
Nicholas Baxter – Harrisburg, PA; US Army, Co. M/187th/11th Airborne Division
Benjamin Bold – Rotorua, NZ; NZ Army # 267128, WWII, Pvt., J Force
Jean Doyle – Tyngsboro, MA; US Army Air Corps WAC, WWII, 1st Lt.
Luther Gordon – San Diego, CA; US Army, WWII, ETO, Purple Heart, Silver Star
Melton ‘Dale’ Hair – Tulsa, OK; US Navy, WWII
Herschell Johnson – Dothan, AL; US Army, WWII, ETO, 8th Armored Division
John Kelly Jr. – Billings, MT; US Navy, WWII
Richard Pettijohn – Naples, FL; US Army, WWII, ATO, radio operator
Gordon Sherwood – Yarmouth, ME; US Army, Korea
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