Just To Beat A Dead Horse...
Dean
One of our commenters, Mike O. (I'm not sure he wants me to publish his full name) was recently kind enough to scan the photo on the right from his copy of the book Nimitz, by E.B. Potter.
Click on the image to see the full-sized scan. This was taken on board an aircraft carrier (Presidents seem to like to be on those things). The caption reads, "On board the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, of the Eighth Fleet, during maneuvers off the Virginia Capes, April 1946, left to right: Fleet Admiral Nimitz, Fleeet Admiral William D. Leahy, President Harry S. Truman, and Admiral Marc A. Mitscher."
Note that the President is wearing the same military-issue hat as Admirals Nimitz and Mitscher, and the same exact military-issue overcoat as all three admirals. The jackets look like they might be Navy-issued wet weather gear, circa 1946. Someone from that era would probably know for sure.
Anyway, in case anyone's wondering, I took all the earlier graphics on Presidents in pseudo-military garb from their respective Presidential Libraries' pages, all easily available on the web. I'm certain Mike didn't photoshop this picture of Truman, but anyone who wants to can double-check it by checking the book out of the library or ordering it from Amazon I suppose. The book again is Nimitz by E.B. Potter, published in 1976 by the Naval Institute Press.
I might actually have to put that one on my wish list, I'm a sucker for history books and I know I don't know anywhere near enough about the Pacific conflict in World War II. Hell, most young people don't know enough about that. We probably suffered more casualties and fought harder in the Pacific than anywhere since the Civil War, but thanks to Hollywood most people these days probably think the majority of the American fighting in World War II took place in France and Germany! Argh! These kids today....
Related Posts (on one page):
- Just To Beat A Dead Horse...
- Presidents & Pseudo-Military Garb
I gotta get back there some day soon.
Anyway, let me tell you about Richard Bong. He was the "Ace of Aces," and was so popular in his day that news of his death eclipsed that of the bombing of Hiroshima. Any film or TV with Hiroshima showing on the front page of any US newspaper that day is incorrect.
I've probably brought this up before, but in case I haven't, I wanted to mention it. I was commissioned to write a screenplay on this guy's life by a guy who lived in Bong's hometown of Superior, Wisconsin. He was your ordinary dude, doing his bit to keep us free.
His record of 41 downed enemy planes cannot ever be duplicated. On Wisconsin!
But then, there were quite a few pilots who felt that both Bong, and Tommy McGuire, shot down at least twice as many planes as they were credited for. The problem was that most of the fights were either over water, or over enemy air bases, not to mention strict USAAF requirements about claiming a "kill."
As for the original topic, Dean, why not a quick roundup on western countries which used to grant special rank to their leaders, or those who still do today?
For example, Prince Charles has a rank in the British armed forces, and the right to wear full uniform, although I'm not sure now if that's limited to a particular service, such as the Royal Navy, or not. In fact, there is (or used to be) a nice little bit of protocol wherein the King was wearing his uniform, members of the armed forces didn't bow to him; one never bows to a military superior. While he was in uniform, he was of the most exhalted rank, but not -technically- royalty.
But every time i wear that coat, a WW2 vet asks me about it and the tells me about himself. iT's very cool.
I also have a "hell on wheels" division shirt from the Korean War i get a lot of conversations out of. :) One guy even asked if i served in the division and ended up being someone who was in it during GW 1. Once he got a good look at the fabric, he laughed to have asked me, but he still thought it was neat seeing it.
These military uniforms are fascist! They symbolize hierarchy, aggression, and oppression. This proves that the President stole the election and is plotting a military coup. And, why are all the men in this picture white and male? This blog oppresses wymyn.
[/moonbat off]
/snicker/
Mike :P
Pril: That is so cool. I envy you that jacket.
A lot of these other nations didn't rotate their pilots out of combat as often as the US did. We had the numbers to send ours back to do training and rest. This kept morale up because the pilots knew that deployment wasn't a death sentence and it provided trainees the benefit of hard-won experience. The Germans racked up kills against very inexperienced and ill trained Soviet pilots. For some reason the individualism that is needed in fighter pilots was ground out of the Soviet trainees but not the Germans or the Japanese.
The Germans were pretty accurate with their numbers. Japanese numbers? Well, they had issues with 'face' and not wanting to admit that things were going as bad as they were. (I think the USS Enterprise, CV-6, was sunk by radio Tokyo about six times during the war). The British and the Americans probably had the tightest reporting standrds. The Italians, they seemed to take disorganization to levels that had never before been reached.
Equipment was also a factor. German aircraft were good as were British. Early American models were mediocre, but quickly replaced with superlative designs. The Italians didn't get a decent fighter until the end of their run. The Soviets' early fighters were inadequate, by mid-war they had good designs. The Japanese didn't have the industrial base to replace the Zero. By the end of the war they had some excellent designs, but no way of producing them in numbers or the time to adequately train pilots.
Number of available pilots, quality of training, equipment, and how long the nation was in the war - these all factor into kill numbers.
But one terrible day in the late 1950s, my mom gave away all this stuff to a guy who would come around the neighborhood paying a pittance for old clothes. Oh well. Sic transit gloria.
In the Korean war era, World War II vets still in the army wore two shoulder patches. One represented their current division or army unit, and the other their WWII unit. At various times I had patches for the 85th (Custer) division, the 31st (Dixie) division, the 10th division and the fifth army, depending on where or when I served at a particular time.
The 'Ike' jackets looked trim, but didn't do much to keep your lower back warm during outdoor duty on frosty days. Much superior was the army's M51 jacket which both zipped and snap buttoned up the front, had an attached hood which could be rolled up and zipped into the coat shell when not needed, a draw string to close up the bottom and keep out cold air, lots of useful large pockets, and an auxiliary padded liner for bad weather. Fact is, I've bought a number of these and used them up in succeeding years.
About the Pacific theater of operations. I had a cousin with the US Marine Corps in some of the hot spots of the Solomon islands.
There were really two theaters of war in the Pacific. The central Pacific theater was commanded by the great admiral Chester Nimitz cited above, and which included the Solomon islands fighting, was largely a US Navy and US Marine Corps effort. The southwest Pacific theater of war was commanded by general Douglas MacArthur and was largely a US Army and US Army Air Force effort. One of the great stories of the history of that era is that of the great men of the 5th US Army Air Force commanded by general George Kenney. That alone could fill hundreds of books and probably has.
About the aircraft and pilots of the various countries involved in World War II.
Germany and Japan began their separate wars with large numbers of the best trained pilots in the world, who had cut their teeth in combat in the late 1930s during the Spanish civil war (Germany) and the war in China (Japan). And they began the war with two of the finest fighter aircraft of the war. These were the Messerschmidt bF-109 in Germany and the Mitsubishi A6M (Rei Sentoki, or type zero) in Japan.
Germany's Luftwaffe lost significant numbers of their most skilled fighter pilots when they were shot down over enemy territory in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. Japan lost many of her best pilots, the carrier-based naval aviators of their striking force, the Kuda Butai, when four of their fleet carriers were sunk in a single day of action off Midway island on 4 June 1942.
As early as autumn 1942, the Soviet air force had been rebuilt and had replaced its catastrophic losses suffered in the German invasion, operation Barbarossa, the year before. After that, they dominated the skies over the eastern battlefronts. Among their finest aircraft were their IL-2 and IL-2A3 Shturmovik aerial tank busters. Among their finest fighter jockeys were a corps of women who flew combat missions and routinely scored well-earned kills against Luftwaffe aircraft.
None of this denigrates the great record of the US and British pilots of the war. But remember, quality is where you find it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI