Remembering D-Day

On this day in 1944, the Normandy Invasion, also called Operation Overlord or D-Day, was launched.  D-Day marked the beginning of the Allied invasion of western Europe during World War II. Below is a Navy team in training:

They landed on Utah Beach. Blogger's late father is first row center -- the skipper.

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Remembering D-Day

On this day in 1944, the Normandy Invasion, also called Operation Overlord or D-Day, was launched.  D-Day marked the beginning of the Allied invasion of western Europe during World War II. Below is a Navy team in training:

They landed on Utah Beach. Blogger's late father is first row center -- the skipper.

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Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport : The B-29 History Restored Tour

Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport hosted the B-29 HistoryRestored Tour this week.  According to their website, it runs through tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 22), held over one day due to demand: 

B-29 Doc [arrived] at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport, Monday, July 19 and will be available for static display with ground and flight deck tours Tuesday, July 20, as well as B-29 Doc Flight Experience rides Wednesday, July 21, and Thursday, July 22.

B-29 Doc Flight Experience rides will be available at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., July 21 and July 22, followed by ground and flight deck tours until 5 p.m both days . . . Admission for the ground and cockpit tours will be $10 per person or $20 per family. Tickets for the ground tours can be purchased at the gate.

Here are some fun photos:

From Rumble footage page: 

This is one of the two still flying. It was a B29 that ended WW2 by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Remembering on Memorial Day

 

Scott Johnson at PowerLine:

In observance of Memorial Day 2007 the Wall Street Journal published a brilliant column by the late Peter Collier to mark the occasion. The column remains timely and is accessible online here. I don’t think we’ll read or hear anything more thoughtful or appropriate to the occasion today. 

The entire column is worth reading; it begins:

Once we knew who and what to honor on Memorial Day: those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays. But in a world saturated with selfhood, where every death is by definition a death in vain, the notion of sacrifice today provokes puzzlement more often than admiration. We support the troops, of course, but we also believe that war, being hell, can easily touch them with an evil no cause for engagement can wash away. And in any case we are more comfortable supporting them as victims than as warriors.

. . .

Not long ago I was asked to write the biographical sketches for a book featuring formal photographs of all our living Medal of Honor recipients. As I talked with them, I was, of course, chilled by the primal power of their stories. But I also felt pathos: They had become strangers–honored strangers, but strangers nonetheless–in our midst.

***

In my own boyhood, figures such as Jimmy Doolittle, Audie Murphy and John Basilone were household names. And it was assumed that what they had done defined us as well as them, telling us what kind of nation we were. But the 110 Medal recipients alive today are virtually unknown except for a niche audience of warfare buffs. Their heroism has become the military equivalent of genre painting. There’s something wrong with that.

Mr. Collier vividly describes actions taken by Medal of Honor recipients, and then closes his column:

We impoverish ourselves by shunting these heroes and their experiences to the back pages of our national consciousness. Their stories are not just boys’ adventure tales writ large. They are a kind of moral instruction. They remind of something we’ve heard many times before but is worth repeating on a wartime Memorial Day when we’re uncertain about what we celebrate. We’re the land of the free for one reason only: We’re also the home of the brave.

The full column is here.

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Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary Death of A Nation

Over the weekend, our household watched Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary Death of A Nation. From the documentary website: 

Not since 1860 have the Democrats so fanatically refused to accept the result of a free election. That year, their target was Lincoln. They smeared him. They went to war to defeat him. In the end, they assassinated him.

Now the target of the Democrats is President Trump and his supporters. The Left calls them racists, white supremacists and fascists. These charges are used to justify driving Trump from office and discrediting the right "by any means necessary."

But which is the party of the slave plantation? Which is the party that invented white supremacy? Which is the party that praised fascist dictators and shaped their genocidal policies and was in turn praised by them?

Moreover, which is the party of racism today? Is fascism now institutionally embodied on the right or on the left?

Through stunning historical recreations and a searching examination of fascism and white supremacy, Death of a Nation cuts through progressive big lies to expose hidden history and explosive truths.

Lincoln united his party and saved America from the Democrats for the first time. Can Trump—and we—come together and save America for the second time?

Progressives will not like this film (for example, see here). We had some quibbles, but overall, it is excellent. The film includes some historical footage as well as some impressive re-enactments.

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Happy Labor Day

image credit: vacuum engineering

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Cleveland Air Show tribute: Doolittle raider

photo credit: pat j dooley photography

This World War II Air Force B-25B medium bomber was in the Cleveland Air Show this weekend. As it was flown by the crowds, the announcer paid tribute to Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle’s co-pilot, Richard E. Cole, born in Dayton, Ohio.  Earlier this year, Cole passed away at age 103; he was the last survivor of the Doolittle raids on Tokyo. From Wikipedia: 

The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid (Saturday 18 April 1942), was an air raid by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. It demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attack, served as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was planned, led by, and named after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle of the United States Army Air Forces.

Sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Hornet deep in the Western Pacific Ocean, each with a crew of five men. (from Wikipedia)

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The Last Longest Day - Fernandez

This coming week will mark the 75^th anniversary of the landings on the Normandy beaches. I’ll be posting a few blogs on the landmark remembrance of D-Day. Today, Richard Fernandez at PJ Media) contemplates the historical consequences of the Allied victories:

it is likely to be the last major D-Day anniversary while veterans are still alive.

. . .

Seventy-five years ago, the human impact of the invasion could scarcely be understated. Over 4,400 soldiers died in a single day, the Longest Day, so named in popular culture after Erwin Rommel's prescient observation: "The first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive. . . . For the Allies as well as Germany, it will be the longest day."

It was an all-out throw of the dice. A maximum effort. There was no plan B if it didn't work.

. . .

And what of D-Day? Like the fading black and white chemical film on which its images were captured, modern culture has lost the detail, emotional tone and context once provided by living memory. What still remains is posterized, compressed and pixellated to the point where, to paraphrase Tennyson, "they are become a name." The Longest Day grows less distinct with each passing year.

Less distinct but no less real. . . .

Mr. Fernandez's full article, "The Last Longest Day," is here.

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Bob Feller, All Star and All-American

 Bob Feller during WW2

Image credits: Wikipedia

Bob Feller pitched for the Cleveland Indians from 1936 to 1941, and again from 1945 to 1956. He is a baseball legend, and his number 19 was retired when he retired from baseball. But I did not know this about him (from “Democrats In The House Make Us Yearn For Serious People” by Silvio Canto, Jr. at American Thinker):

He enlisted [in the US Navy] after Pearl Harbor and served in World War II for almost four years!  He did not seek a "safe space" or look for excuses.  He gave up four of his prime years for country.  I wonder how many of these Democrats have a clue of what that means!

More here.

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

"A date which will live in infamy"

Today we remember those who were caught by surprise when the Japanese attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor. 2,403 Americans died in the attack. Above is footage of our flag flying over the Arizona memorial, taken by Cleveland Tea Party roving photographer Pat J Dooley.

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