Musings and History
Happy Birthday Mardy
Quote of the day:
“Traffic signals in New York City are just rough guidelines.”
David Letterman
Trivia question of the day:
Hugh Mercer was a Scottish warrior/physician that came to America and fought with the Continentals. He was instrumental is several victories. There is one of his descendants that was a song writer/lyricist and wrote “Blues In The Night”, “One For My Baby” and several other great hits. Who was it? Answer at the end of the blog.
I met a friend at lunch Tuesday. He is a retired Marine that was awarded the Navy Cross in Nam. He told me about a major combat that he experienced. It was called Operation Starlite in August, 1965. It was the first time the US Marines ever encountered an organized Viet Cong Regiment. He was with “H” Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. It lasted six days with 5,500 Marines engaged. 700 Cong were killed to 45 killed and 400 injured for Marines. The remainder of this Viet Cong regiment went to reinforce the NVA regiment that fought against the AIRCAV unit led by Col. Hal Moore in the Ia Trang valley two months later. The movie "We Were Soldiers" starring Mel Gibson was about this battle in general and Col. Moore in particular. There was an embedded civilian news reporter with Col. Moore's unit. His name is Joe Galloway and it was he that wrote the book “We Were Soldiers' from which the movie was made. By the way, in the movie Hal Moore's first sergeant named Basil Plumley was played by Sam Elliot. The fighting got so desperate that Joe Galloway threw down his camera and writing implements, grabbed an M-16, dug in and fought his ass off with the rest of the Marines. He was awarded a Bronze star with a “V” for his contribution. Lt. General Hal Moore (Ret.) died Saturday February 10, 2017 in Auburn Al. at the age of 94.
By the way, there was such a man named Basil Plumley that also is legend in the paratrooper/combat soldier community and was indeed with General Moore in Nam. He died in Columbus, Ga. in 2012 at the age of 92. I will do an essay on him in the near future.
This Date in History February 15
1835 Alexander Stewart Webb was born in New York City. His Grandfather fought at Bunker Hill for the Patriots and his father was US minister to Brazil during the Civil War. Alexander attended West Point and graduated in 1855 13th in a class of 43. He taught mathematics at West Point and Florida before the outbreak of the Civil War. After the outbreak of the war he was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida. He did not stay long before he was called back to Washington and given command of an artillery battalion protecting the capitol. Webb’s first taste of combat came at the Second Battle of Manassas where he and his troops tasted defeat for the first time. The next major engagement he was in was the last day of the Battle of the Seven Days, the infamous encounter at Malvern Hill. In this battle Webb and his troops were victorious against the Confederates. They won this particular skirmish at Malvern Hill but the victory of the Battle of Seven Days went to Robert E. Lee but it was accredited to Webb that his artillery skills prevented the total annihilation of the US army by Confederate artillery. In spite of his obvious military skills he was passed over for promotion several times because of his association with General George B. McClellan who was fired by President Lincoln and that left Webb in limbo as a Colonel. Even some of his students at West Point became a General before him. He was finally promoted to Brigadier General and had command of a brigade in the center of the Union lines at Gettysburg during Pickett’s Charge. At the zenith of the charge the 5th and 7th North Carolina crashed through the Union lines and were close to opening a breach that would have allowed the rest of the 13,000 screaming Confederates to pass through to the rear of the Union lines where General J.E.B. Stuart and his cavalry awaited. Had these two forces been allowed to join up the US army would have been destroyed and perhaps a different history of these United States would have been written. But when the battle at the front line reached a critical point, General Webb personally led his brigade in a ferocious counter-attack and blunted the Confederate advance and drove them back across the line of attack and back across the field separating the two armies. For this action, Alexander Stewart Webb was awarded the Medal of Honor. He wasn’t done yet. He was at the savage battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and received a terrible head wound. I took him eight months to recover. When he came back to duty he was made an aide to US General George Meade and eventually went back to West Point as an instructor. He was made president of City College of New York and he died in Riverdale New York in 1911. There is a statue of General Webb at the spot where his brigade was gathered during Pickett’s charge (been there) at Gettysburg.
1942 One of the worst defeats in the history of British military culminated on this date. The British army was driven off the southern end of the Malay Peninsula by the Japanese General Yamashita and his 25th Army. The retreating British had a chance to delay the Japanese advance by dynamiting a causeway across a large inlet behind them on their way to Singapore, but the destruction was not complete and the Japanese were able to re-build in a matter of days and surrounded and began a siege around that great city. The British commander General Percival held out as long as he could but he ran out of water, food and ammunition and so he surrendered the city. There were over 130,000 allies captured in this disaster of which only a very small percentage ever saw their homes again.
Born today:
1368 Germanic Emperor Sigismund. He said “I am a Roman Emperor and am above grammar.” Siggy, shut the hell up.
1564 Astrophysicist Galileo. He said “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who had endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego its use.” This came as a result of a squabble with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church wanted Galileo to teach want the Pope said instead of what he had discovered. The church prevailed under the threat of torture. I am going to repeat that. The church prevailed under the threat of torture.
1748 English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. He said “As to the evils of censorship, it is impossible to measure because there seems to be no end to it.” That is one of the main reasons for the establishment of the United States.
1912 English writer George Mikes. He said “British humor resembles the Loch Ness monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither one exists.”
1964 American comic Chris Farley. He paraphrased the famous quote by Erasmus who said “In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king.” Chris Farley said “In the land of skunks, the man with half a nose is king.”
Answer to the trivia question:
The songwriter/lyricist that was a descendant of Hugh Mercer was Savannah, Ga. born Johnny Mercer.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment