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One more anniversary passes of the end of WWII.

Wouldn’t you know it was a Sailor who made the timeless pose for the celebration of the end of WWII.

For those of you who have been reading a while, you may have read the stories of my friend who flew gliders way back then. This day, 61 years removed, set history as a man with his youth, his French girlfriend, a small spotter plane, and full of bravado did something, well, shall we say “different” (but certainly not out of character for those who venture into the skies in combat aircraft…)

This past June 6th, I posted some more details Jim Helinger, Sr., passed along to me regrading his duty. By this time, I had also scanned in the few remaining pictures he has of those days gone by. They are in that post.

So, hopefully you’re still scratching your head and wondering what Jim did, and what a French girlfriend has to do with VJ day in 1945.

The story begins here. If you want the details, chase the links to part II and then to the final segment, Part III (link provided for those with little patience, or time today).

I used to wonder about Jim’s claim of this “first,” but have come to see it’s entirely feasible. I found these excellent photos by Christopher Michels (who was a Navy P-3C Naval Flight Officer). One of his sets was of the Eiffel Tower at night.

Using your old intel photographer training, you can see from the size of the people under the tower that there’s plenty of room for an L-5 Stinson Spotter plane to ge through there safely.

Thanks to LGF for a place to share good news and John of Castle ARRGGHH!! for the trackback and Plank’s Constant for the Open Trackback, < ahref="http://www.conservativecat.com/mt/archives/2005/12/continue_the_co.html">The Conservative Cat for the floating trackback festival, Blue Star Chronicles for the Open Trackback, The Pirates Cove for the Open Trackback!

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20 years ago, I got involved in an interesting exercise. The roots of the participation began during the cruise I discussed in the series “A Journey Into History.”

After relaxing from the hectic operations of the three CV battle groups, we headed west to the states. Sometime during the transit, tasking arrived for our staff to handle two Operational Test Launches (OTL) for Tomahawk in August. The plan was to exercise operational control of a two ship unit that would shoot two TLAM exercise rounds at the range on Eglin AFB.

Internally, our tasking was to “read everything there is written on Tomahawk.” Back then, must of the documentation was in the initial stages of being put in a tactical format, and only one TACNOTE existed for operational guidance, everything else was technical documentation.

The staff I was assigned two was one of the “Tactical DESRONs,” which complimented the “READRONs.” I ention this for a little history of the surface Navy’s organization at the time. TACDESRONs were flaters in the grand scheme of operational schedulers, middlegrade and upper level officer and enlisted “nomads.” On paper, we had a chain of command through a CRUDES group commander, but they rarely tasked us. We were operationally attached to deploying BG commanders, which may be Carrier Groups or Crusier-Destroyer group types, and our operations became linked to their work ups. Since we didn’t have any individual functions, for the early part of the deployment cycle work ups, while ships and air squadrons individually worked on their training, we were floaters for use for anyhting else that happened. This method of our use never gave us any real down time, as we never needed to go into the yards, a drydock, or any sort of maintenance availability. Net result: We got to meet a lot of ship’s company personnel from all over the East Coast. That’s how we came to get the assignment for the Tomahawk firings. Some of you will have read between the lines on what this meant for OPTEMPO, and if you didn’t, it’s not important.

We got a few days to spend with the families on return from the Med, and then it was in the pubs, on the phones and off to meetings, looking for any piece of information on THawks. We met with the Project Office guys, who told us about the test objectives. We hounded the Surface Warfare Development Group (SWDG) for more info. We re, re-read, and re-re-read the TACNOTE, then sat in meetings with the Commodore, discussing what we had learned. We thought we knew a lot, after the extensive study.

USS IOWA (BB-61), USS CONOLLY (DD-979) and USS DOYLE (FFG-39) were the three ships assigned to us, and along with that came addtional tasking. COMSECONDFLT staff directed us to also develop and test over-the-horizon targeting (OTHT) tactics for Battleship Battle Groups (BBBG) use. Assigned to us for this purpose was USS WILLIAM V PRATT (DDG-44) to act as a “cooperative mobile target” and one ship, a SPRUANCE Class DD (it may have been the USS PETERSON) headed to Guantanamo Bay for training to cooperate as possible enroute Cuba. We dug further into what ever we could find to figure out how to exploit the range of the Tomahawk Anit-Ship Missile, given the nominal resouces of the proposed BBBG. A LAMPS MK III single plane detachment would embark on DOYLE, and the CONOLLY would have her normal LAMPS MK I SH-2F Sea Sprite. We would have some hours of support from a pair of S-3B Vikings equipped with the very new, cutting edge, inverse synthetic aperature radar (ISAR). The Vikings would come from the Pax River assets, and I think were the only equipped units at the time.

There you have the initial layout: Lots of new toys that would be coming to the fleet, or had just begun to arrive aboard, that had to be leveraged to get the most out of the reason we bought them. Seeing as how the Commodore was a man who believed that intimate knowledge of details would lead you to the big picture, we spnt many, many and the many more hours, trying to gather the info, but then to game out how it might work best in a real seaborne envirnment.

Stay tuned. I’ll have to do this one in parts….

Part II here

I want to get this post of thanks started. Laughing Wolf, a guest poster at Black Five had put up a short post on how much money he wasn’t spending at Hilton corporate properties, as fall out of how the DC Hilton mis-treated the owners of Fran O’Briens.

I commented that it would be great if someone would create a website where those protesting the action to close down a restaurant that served meals to our wounded veterans would show graphically the mounting lost revenues. The mind of any human loves graphics….I like computers, but I’m not up to the integration of data to a website, so I figured posting the thought might get someone’s attention.

In just short of one hour and 56 minutes, MSchienle popsted he had registered the domain of Perish Hilton and just happened to make a living taking data, formatting it and posting in in web based formats. I followed the link to the website Custom Visuals, LLC and I’d say this poster is up to the task.

For your readers, if you’re upset about the decision to shut down Fran O’Briens in DC, and you travel, shunning putting money in Hilton’s cash register, check out this method of making your feelings known. I have no idea on how this will come off, but…keep checking to see when the site comes up and any directions for submitting receipts for adding to the accumulating data.

BZ to MSchienle for supporting our troops!

For a short history lesson, Fuzzybear Lioness broke the story earlier this year about Hilton, just two months before the end of the lease for the restaurant in the basement of the DC Hilton, that they had decided not to renew. John of Castle Argggh! picked the story up (he has a much bigger readership) and the rest is history. It certainly was a main point of discussion at the MilBloggers Conference in April, 2006, as we met there Friday night before the conference to support Fran O’Brians.

One daring Navy 1110 LT, and sailors with many hours of practice behind them…

Navy Drill Team Video

From the Virginian-Pilot:

Petty officer held in secret for 4 months.

NORFOLK — A petty officer has been in the Norfolk Naval Station brig for more than four months facing espionage, desertion and other charges, but the Navy has refused to release details of the case.

The case against Fire Control Technician 3rd Class Ariel J. Weinmann is indicative of the secrecy surrounding the Navy military court here, where public affairs and trial court officials have denied access to basic information including the court docket – a listing of cases to be heard.
[…]
The command’s e-mail to The Pilot this week said that Weinmann was arrested at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on March 26 after he had been listed as a deserter. Fleet Forces officials refused to release the so-called charge sheet, which would detail the accusations against the sailor.

Weinmann had been serving aboard the submarine Albuquerque until he deserted in July 2005, according to Brown. Weinmann enlisted in July 2003, he said.

The enlisted man could face a court-martial. An investigative officer who presided over the Article 32 is expected to release a report to Weinmann’s command in the coming weeks. Besides espionage and desertion, Weinmann is charged with failure to obey an order and acts prejudicial to good order and discipline, according to Brown.

Interesting….any of you sub sailors have more details?

H/T: Sailor Bob’s bulletin board

Capt Lex tries to convince us he has brain lock. Not a chance for the master poet/author and philospher of all things Naval Aviation related….

I, on the other hand, sometimes think like that, yet, via the magic of the net (invented by Al Gore), lo and behold, things of interest just appear….

For example: Last night while looking for pictures of ships, I came across a poem, in hand written an illustrated form, that speaks to the fine life of the legendary destroyerman. A creature of iron constitution, a stomach that can handle greasy food in a hurricane/typhoon, eagle eyes (correctable to 20/20 and not color blind, but possibly partly deaf from too many gun shoots or years as the MPA/CHENG/DCA/ELECO/AUXO/B DIV, etc), and a sense of dark humor of their own.

The larger version is here, but difficult to read.

Fear not, my few readers….Here it is in more legible form, even if it lacks the character of the original graphics.

Destroyer Life
by Berton Braley

There’s a roll and a pitch a heave and a hitch
to the nautical gait they take,
For they’re used to the cant of decks aslant
as the white toothed breakers break,
On the sides that thrum like a beaten drum
to the thrill of the turbines might,
As the knife-bow leaps thru the yeasty deeps
with the speed of a shell in flight.

Oh their scorn is quick for the crews that stick
to a battleship steady “floor,”
And they love the lurch of their own frail perch
at thirty five knots or more.
They don’t get much of the drill and such that battleship sailors do,
But sail the seas in their dungarees,
a grimy destroyer crew.

They needn’t climb at sleeping time
it to a hammock that sways and bumps,
Don’t leap, Kerplunk! In a cozy bunk
that quivers and bucks and jumps.
They hear the sound of seas that pound
on the quarter inch plates of steel,
And close their eyes to the lull abyes
of creaking sides and steel.

They’re a husky crowd and vastly proud
of the slim grey craft they drive.
Of the roaring flues and hammering screws
that make her a thing alive.
They love the lunge of the surge and plunge
and the mark of her smoke screens, too
As they sail the seas in their dungarees,
a grimy destroyer crew.

Back to Neptunus Lex for a moment and some analysis:

After he made his rhetorical post, he made two more and has already made three today. Go figure.

I found this speech when a friend gave me a small reprint of it in a booklet that he thought I had loaned to him. It wasn’t me, but I told him I’d like to read it myself. It’s a good topic for the times and a well done speech. Given by William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education and now well known talk show host, it was addressed to the Midshipmen of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, November 24th, 1997.

It is a bit strange to me that a well-worn former government employee and sometimes philosopher like myself should be asked to address this assemblage on matters of ethics and honor, right and wrong, on the question, “Does Honor Have a Future?” But as Sir Thomas said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you these times.”

And what do we make of these times? These are good times and bad times. We all know that there have been troubling, and even terrible, incidents here at the United States Naval Academy and other academies as well. While we should be bothered by these incidents, we should also be bothered by the superficial, flawed analysis these events have sometimes received. Most of these bottom on the limp excuse that the academy simply reflects more general changes in society. It goes something like this: “There are problems like these problems everywhere – so why not here? The Academy is just a reflection of the larger society.” To which I would respond: No, it is not. Whether we are talking about Annapolis, West Point , or Colorado Springs, you are supposed to be different – and in some important ways, you are supposed to be better. It is a wise man who said that when a man enters military life, he enters a higher form of civilization.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister, who called the U.S. Marines “extremists,” did not sufficiently grasp the point. But, thank goodness, many others Americans do.

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August 2nd, 1943:

John F. Kennedy’s PT boat was run over while patroling the Ferguson and Blackett Straits near the islands of Kolumbangara, Gizo, and Vella-Lavella.

And, as an aside, it seems the great ship finder, Robert Ballard found the wreckage in 2002.

A few days ago, I blogged out loud about the muddled assumptions. One comment I made was I didn’t think we had faced a situation where we had had a populace with a significant number of citzens who held an allegiance to something above the nation itself. I wrote that before the shooting in Seattle at the Jewish Federation Building, but the behavior of the man who entered the building, using a hostage to get in the door is exactly the mindset that is so troubling:

Amy Wasser-Simpson, the federation’s vice president, told the Seattle Times that Haq got past security at the building and shouted, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” before he began shooting.

I’ve rethought the issue, and we have had a situation like this before. It began on Dec 7th, 1941, but the outcome is not the same. Back then, the response from the Japanese-American community, was to send forth the 442nd Regimental Combat Team:

On December 7, 1941, the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by Japan. This act thrust the United States into World War II. All men who were eligible for military duty were called upon to fight, except Japanese Americans. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Japanese American men were catagorized 4C, non-draftable. Moreover, they and their families were placed into concetration camps by the United States Government. However, on February 1, 1943, the government reversed its decision on Japanese Americans serving in the armed forces and announced the formation of the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team.
The 442nd initially consisted of Japanese American volunteers from the mainland United States and the Hawaiian Islands. There were many different reasons why these young men volunteered. Despite the rampant racism towards Japanese Americans during this period, many volunteers felt that if there was to be any future for Japanese in the United States, they had to demonstrate their loyalty by fighting for their country.

The majority of volunteers from Hawaii and the mainland were sent to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. Initially, tension existed between the Hawaiians and the mainlanders. The mainlanders often degraded the Hawaiians for their poor speech and “barbaric” aggressive manners, thus causing them to feel inferior. Due to the excessive fighting and dissension among the troops, the commanding officers were ready to terminate the training. However, a suggestion was made to have the Hawaiians and mainlanders visit relocation camps. After Hawaiian Japanese Americans visited some of the camps, they realized the hardships mainlanders had gone through and a new sense of respect developed for each other. One Japanese American remembers, “the regiment was not formed when we volunteered, nor when we arrived in Camp Shelpby, but rather, it was formed after this (relocation camp) visit” (Matsuo, Boyhood to War. 73)

When this unified unit arrived in Europe, they still had to prove their competence, as well as their loyalty to white soldiers and commanding officers. However, after liberating the small town of Bruyeres in Southern France and rescuing the “Lost Battalion” (141st), Japanese American soldiers gained the respect of their fellow soldiers, the townspeople of Bruyeres, and particularily the members of the “Lost Battalion.” For their performance, the 442nd has been recognized as the most decorated unit in United States history. 18,000 total awards were bestowed upon the 442nd, including 9,500 Purple Hearts, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, Seven Distinguished Unit Citations, but only one Congressional Medal of Honor (Crost, Honor by Fire. 179). Although their impeccable service earned the 442nd the respect of their fellow soldiers, they were not perceived in the same way by American society when they returned to the West Coast.

Immediately following their return, the 442nd realized that the attitudes of many Americans had not changed. World War II veterans of Japanese ancestry were welcomed home by signs that read, “No Japs Allowed,” and “No Japs Wanted.” In many cases, veterans were denied service in local shops and restaurants, and their homes and property were often vandalized or set on fire.

Joe Byrne
Kyle Higuchi
Jason Opdyke
Mario Sani

Notice the mentality shift. In 1941, those oj Japanese descent felt they owned it to their new nation, and the rest of the citizens, to demonstrated in a courageous manner, their loyalty. Their nickname: “Go For Broke.” we know what that means and that’s how they fought, becoming the most decorated regiment in the US Army.

Get a load of this:

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was the most decorated unit for its size and length of service, in the entire history of the U.S. Military. The 4,000 men who initially came in April 1943 had to be replaced nearly 3.5 times. In total, about 14,000 men served, ultimately earning 9,486 Purple Hearts , 21 Medals of Honor and an unprecedented eight Presidential Unit Citations.

Anyone who questions service like that has lived in a hole their entire lives. They, like the units comprised of African-Americans, such as the USS MASON (DE-529) and the 761st Tank Battalion, were accepted at the front lines as fighting men, equal to the challenge of combat.

The situation of the day, vs the time of the reloaction camps of the 1940’s are opposite in how communities of non-native Americans handled the decision of loyalty.

I also think, having found the very consise history of the 442nd I quoted above, that is it interesting to observe how the rest of the population reacted. Once again, it is from oppostie ends of the spectrum: At the end of the war, the Japanese-Americans (and African-Americans) who stepped up to the plate and shed their blood for “the Man,” suffered cruelty and assaults from those who they had defended. In this day, while the Muslim-Americans don’t stand and proclaim their alliegance to the nation that affords them freedom, and, most notable, does not relocate them into camps, which conficating their money, personal property and businesses to divide between the Americans in their communities, we also go out of our way to make sure no one is offended by the words in print or on TV, nor any action taken by law enforcement that might be looked upon as “profiling.”

One group showed us they were with us, while the military members from the land of their ancestors, pilaged, raped and murdered their way across China and the Pacific Islands and Rim before cannibalizing our aviators at Chi Chi Jima.

Today, those who have come to us from the Islamic countries openly condem us when we discuss taking action to secure the freedom of all of our citizens, to include them. It’s a world upside down.

To the men of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, I salute you and the legacy you gave your new nation. To the Islamic-Americans, I challenge you to read their history and decide your response.

Update 8/01/2006: CDR Salamander has a post regarding this topic…

It’s a day late, but BMCM(MDV) Carl M. Brashear, USN (Ret), is worth a few moments.

*****
Update 07/31/2006: Neptunus Lex has posted a report of BMCM(MDV) Brashear’s funeral.

Link to the Navy News article on the funeral.

Update 08/03/2006: Military.com’s discussions on the article they have about Master Chief’s funeral. A few people who commented served with, or met the Master Chief.
*****

I can’t comment on his life, other than I heard of him when I was commissioned. He was the legend we know of by then. He passed away Tuesday. I Would like to take you a little way into the world Carl Brashear worked in, so you might appreciate, all the more, what a heroic man he was

This is the insignia Boatswain’s Mate Master Chief Brashear wore. It is silver anodized in color, not to be mistaken as the Diving Officer’s insignia that is gold. The MDV insignia is far more prestegious. A master diver has come through all the salvage diving training, and is also a supervisor, not just someone who has been a SCUBA diver, 2nd and 1st Class diver, but also a Saturation diver. Along the way, the Master Diver will have learned an incredible amount of diving medicine to augment the skills gained as a salvor. The Master Diver is the real person in charge of the technical work on a dive. The Diving Officer present, is the one responsible for the work.

Until sometime in the 80’s, the Navy used the MK V diving gear to make salvage dives. Carl Brashear, missing one leg, dove in this equipment through out his Naval career. I spent two months in the salavge officer pipeline at the beginning of my time in the Navy, but found out it wasn’t my calling.

I mde my first indoc dive in one of these in Jan 77 at NAB Little Creek. I followed that one dive (which was a check off item to be able to go to diving school) with three weeks of MK V dives at Anacostia Naval Shipyard, Washington, DC, beginning in February 77. I recall the data like it was yesterday:

Rubberized cotton suit: 18#
Spun copper helmet and breastplate: 54#
Boots: 38#
Weight belt: 98#
Total: 210#

Do the math. Except for the weight of the boots, most all of that is positioned above the knees, where Master Chief has his amputation. So take the 40# off the 210# total and do walk around a rolling, heaving deck, getting to the water, and coming out. It is work, without a handicap of a stump scrapping in a prosthesis.

My diving officer training wouldn’t have included saturation diving, which BMCM Brashear may have also been qualified. I can’t recall it exactly, but it seems the extra equipment, part of which is the cannister of CO2 scrubbing chemicals attached to the back of the helmet that took the total weight of the suited up diver up 300 lbs.

It is a physically demanding duty to be a salvage diver, but these days, they have markedly improved equipment, and are now using the MK 12 rigs, witch can be used for several types of diving.

So there’s a little history to help you connect with the persistnet spirit that we know as BMCM(MDV) Carl Brashear.

Oh, and if you have one of these laying around you don’t want, send me an email…I’ll gladly pay the shipping!

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!