The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I think the British Air Force Officer who wanted Dresden destroyed was named Harris. I see that we are basically in agreement on this. I have a real soft spot in my heart for Germany and also the cities of Leipzig and Dresden. When I first read about the Dresden air raids as a teen ager, I had some strong reactions in the pit of my stomach. Probably, I had some past lives there or somesuch. I don't remember any such thing but in 2009 I traveled from Berlin to Prague by train and we went through both Dresden and Leipzig. It was very thrilling.

The city of Dresden probably was not rebuilt that much when it was in East Germany so after reunification with Germany in 1989 a complete rebuild has been done. One thing I was glad to see is that the City still looks old, the older type architecture has been preserved to a significant degree.

I checked on Wikepedia and considerable rebuilding was done when Dresden was in East Germany.
Lakey

yeah

harris

that's the sonofabitch i was thinking of, ruthless, relentless, a real bloody goddam hero

the only name i could come up with was tedder. correct me if i'm wrong but he was the main man dispatching the spitfires and hurricanes during the blitz. hell of a genius. analysts have been poring over his work for decades finding scant reason to quibble with tactical decisions he came up with in scant minutes or even quick moments

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: johnny mercer

Hats uses bulletpoints


johnny mercer was behind capitol records

picture above of the "House That Nat Built"



Der Bingle had a little clambake, now called "The AT&T" on some golf courses, now owned by Arnie and Clint, and some others. Doris has a little "pet friendly' hotel in the same city..... somewhere near CarmeloOrchards!

we are all connected

glow little glowworm glow, glow little glowworm glow

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

i'm really very grateful for this post carmie as i love it when i find a clue that let me unravel some small mystery.

like this tune

it's really a gawdawful piece of boozhwah cornball kitsch. yeh, yeh, yeh, it has a simple elegant beauty, the imagery is familiar but rich, the melody is undistinguished but fits the lyric the way a little black dress fits jessica simpson. it's a pleasant bit of schlock. the sort of thing hat should make a whacked out lame ass wannabe hipster like me want to strangle kittens. but it doesn't. it has always seemed precious and terribly evocative

and now i know why

that's a very magical little vignette mel gives us...

1945

a hot summer day

some guy going buggy with the muggy wants to think cool thoughts, jots down a few words. his pal shows up, sees the notes and sees some notes rattles the guy's cage and they turn it into a tune just about like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube.

now i know why that tune turns me on, why it always treated with dignity and respect, why it's not belabored like crosby's "white christmas", why you hear "rockin' around the xmas tree" twety times on the radio for every time you hear it.

now i know the zeitgeist of it, what it meant when it was new.

summer of 1945...

VE Day a couple months before and europe disgorging it's tales of belsen-belsen and famished orphans war still raging in the pacific and the end was in sight for only a small coterie of cognoscenti...

the end came soon...

to radio america who had their fears presaged in 1938 by Mercury Theatre's presentation of Wells by Welles, that grand "War of the Worlds" foofaraw that turned into 1939 somber declaration by h. v. kaltenborn "the awful geography lesson continues" as the wehrmacht swept through an alphabet soup of polish towns and led to 1940's stern augustan prose as winston delivered his fierce immortal litanies of defiance while edward r. murrow reported the blitz live his words punctuated by a crescendo of luftwaffe bombs through the lightning rods that bore the bolt that interrupted the contest between the giants and the redskins from the polo grounds the 7th of december 1941...

the radios that in december of 1945 carried mel's tunes into all those homes where people had spent four years transfixed by marconi's marvel. homes where young men had now returned or were soon expected. and to tens of thousands of homes with gold stars hung in front windows...

think about it...

think what that tune meant to them. ho it hung upon the air as if war were not, how it made christmas fresh with it's newness, how pregnant it was with the christmas's they would give their children even as it reflected the christmas's stolen from them...

presque vu is the lesser known cousin of deja vu. it means "almost seen". now i see what i had ever almost seen. that one brief season when mel torme made Big Medicine and poured a soothing balm across a hardscourged nation

yeah, i really do get off on some small clue that lets me unravel some inconsequential mystery

"the greatest thing since sliced bread"

????????

i saw an allusion to that long familiar colliquialism on another thread just the other day shortly after seeing a cartoon in the new yorker which referred to it. that thing has legs to it, it's still around. i think it's usage i commonly ironic today but wen i was a lad, back during the boxer rebellion, it was high praise.

???????

but a couple years ago i stumbled across a small factoid that made the sphinx dissolve (nice turn of phrase. like most of my best stuff i stole that from an obscure bohemian poet)

so...

do any of the bright lights on this thread know why it would be high praise?

 

[RogerB]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

yeah

harris

that's the sonofabitch i was thinking of, ruthless, relentless, a real bloody goddam hero

the only name i could come up with was tedder. correct me if i'm wrong but he was the main man dispatching the spitfires and hurricanes during the blitz. hell of a genius. analysts have been poring over his work for decades finding scant reason to quibble with tactical decisions he came up with in scant minutes or even quick moments

Nah, Harris was Bomber Command . . . wiki him

Dowding was the head of Fighter Command . . . both Leon and I wrote on this earlier a page or two back.

The key big secret during the war was that the Brits had an early version of radar going that gave them critical minutes of warning of incoming Jerry bomber flights and also giving exact coordinates of flight path and probable target.

Thus the Germans couldn't figure it out how come we continued to have so many fighters up there to "always meet and shoot them out of the sky" . . . . what we were doing was marshaling all our planes from around S.E England to meet each incoming raid. The Jerries ended up thinking we had ten times more fighter cover than we actually had, because we always had so many to meet them at each of their targets.

R

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Nah, Harris was Bomber Command . . . wiki him

Dowding was the head of Fighter Command . . . both Leon and I wrote on this earlier a page or two back.

The key big secret during the war was that the Brits had an early version of radar going that gave them critical minutes of warning of incoming Jerry bomber flights and also giving exact coordinates of flight path and probable target.

Thus the Germans couldn't figure it out how come we continued to have so many fighters up there to "always meet and shoot them out of the sky" . . . . what we were doing was marshaling all our planes from around S.E England to meet each incoming raid. The Jerries ended up thinking we had ten times more fighter cover than we actually had, because we always had so many to meet them at each of their targets.

R

We are fortunate that the Brits had that "ace in the hole". Had they not had it, the Germans may have eliminated the RAF and that would have probably enabled them to launch a land attack against Great Brittain. The Nazi's probably would have defeated Great Brittain or at least have taken the British homeland. Perhaps the British government would have continued the fight in exile.

If all this had come to pass, Germany might have actually won WWII. We are all very lucky that this did not occur. Sir Winston Churchill, the Brits and the RAF with their radar may have saved the day for the Democracies and the Western World. We are really indebted to them for standing alone in 1940 and the first half of 1941 against Nazism and keeping the Nazi's at bay during that key time period.
Lakey

 

[Div6]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Nah, Harris was Bomber Command . . . wiki him

Dowding was the head of Fighter Command . . . both Leon and I wrote on this earlier a page or two back.

The key big secret during the war was that the Brits had an early version of radar going that gave them critical minutes of warning of incoming Jerry bomber flights and also giving exact coordinates of flight path and probable target.

Thus the Germans couldn't figure it out how come we continued to have so many fighters up there to "always meet and shoot them out of the sky" . . . . what we were doing was marshaling all our planes from around S.E England to meet each incoming raid. The Jerries ended up thinking we had ten times more fighter cover than we actually had, because we always had so many to meet them at each of their targets.

R

It gets even better than that: in the early days of the bombing of Britain the Germans had only two radio beacons to guide in the night bombers, one in Belgiium and one in France. The English soon learned the frequencies, and would broadcast on them, overriding the German signals, and guide the bombers off-target. This electronic cat and mouse went on through the course of the war.
Eventually the Germans went to 3 beam triangulation; the English got hold on an Enigma machine, and were eventually decoding the German battle plans.

 

[Leon]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Ah yes . . . . .that was The Battle of the Beams, waged by R V Jones for the Brits. A brilliant man. Probably the most important "backroom boy" of the war after Alan Turing. Not too well known, even today

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Nah, Harris was Bomber Command . . . wiki him

Dowding was the head of Fighter Command . . . both Leon and I wrote on this earlier a page or two back.

The key big secret during the war was that the Brits had an early version of radar going that gave them critical minutes of warning of incoming Jerry bomber flights and also giving exact coordinates of flight path and probable target.

Thus the Germans couldn't figure it out how come we continued to have so many fighters up there to "always meet and shoot them out of the sky" . . . . what we were doing was marshaling all our planes from around S.E England to meet each incoming raid. The Jerries ended up thinking we had ten times more fighter cover than we actually had, because we always had so many to meet them at each of their targets.

R

then who the fuck was general tedder? he was something in the RAF.

right. the code name for the radar was "carrots". the shore story was the RAF pilots had real sharp vision from the vitamin A in carrots

winnie's observation "nevah...in the history of human conflict...have so many...owed so much...to so few" still stands wot?

 

[Leon]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur William Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, GCB (11 July 1890 – 3 June 1967) was a senior British air force commander. During the First World War, he was a pilot and squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps and he went on to serve as a senior officer in the Royal Air Force during the inter-war years. He held high command during the Second World War, and after the war he served as Chief of the Air Staff before retiring from the RAF and taking up the position of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.



wiki is your friend

 

[Mick Wenlock]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Nah, Harris was Bomber Command . . . wiki him

Dowding was the head of Fighter Command . . . both Leon and I wrote on this earlier a page or two back.

The key big secret during the war was that the Brits had an early version of radar going that gave them critical minutes of warning of incoming Jerry bomber flights and also giving exact coordinates of flight path and probable target.

Thus the Germans couldn't figure it out how come we continued to have so many fighters up there to "always meet and shoot them out of the sky" . . . . what we were doing was marshaling all our planes from around S.E England to meet each incoming raid. The Jerries ended up thinking we had ten times more fighter cover than we actually had, because we always had so many to meet them at each of their targets.

R

My Dad was in Bomber Command for 3 years in Manchesters and then Lancasters.

Some additional points that might interest any history buffs out there - the casualty rate (death) during WWII in bomber command was over 44% if the injured are added the rate climbed over 50%. There is not a combat arm in any of the services that suffered a comparable rate.

In 1941 the RAF introduced the idea of a tour of duty. Each tour being thirty sorties or 200 flying hours. After each tour of duty air crew were given a six-month rest from operations at a flying training establishment. By 1942 less than half of all bomber crews survived their first tour. These figures got worse in 1943 when only one in six were expected to survive their first tour, while only one in forty would survive two tours.

My Dad did two tours - unlike most he was actually a regular as opposed to a draftee.

 

[Leon]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Yes. No other arm of the military would ever have tolerated such dismal results from a commander. But Harris knew best.

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

yeah, i really do get off on some small clue that lets me unravel some inconsequential mystery

"the greatest thing since sliced bread"

????????

i saw an allusion to that long familiar colliquialism on another thread just the other day shortly after seeing a cartoon in the new yorker which referred to it. that thing has legs to it, it's still around. i think it's usage i commonly ironic today but wen i was a lad, back during the boxer rebellion, it was high praise.

???????

but a couple years ago i stumbled across a small factoid that made the sphinx dissolve (nice turn of phrase. like most of my best stuff i stole that from an obscure bohemian poet)

so...

do any of the bright lights on this thread know why it would be high praise?

what?

nobody bit on this?

i know this board has posters old enough to remember the reappearance of sliced bread on amurrican tables. doesn't anyone recall why it was a watershed event?

two or three years ago i stumbled across something noting the steel in the blades of bread slicing machines was of exceptionally high quality so a call was issued for them to be melted down for the war effort.

o. i get it. that's where that quirky expression comes from. the war's end had two sharp and definitive moments, VE Day and VJ Day but the return to peace was gradual. we were criticised by our allies for our rapid demobilization particularly for the presence of the full weight in eastern europe of the red army but even at that though many troops were home for xmas in '45 millions still heard "chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." over the armed forces radio network and got the score of the packers game from stars and stripes. the gas ration was increased but it was a while before it disappeared. dozens of wartime conditions lingered but one by one they disappeared. i suppose it must have been in 1946 that high grade steel was again turned into blades for bread slicing machines

think about it...

such a mundane thing. sliced bread on the table. but in millions of american homes a scene was repeated where some ten year old kid was sent to the corner store to get a loaf of bread for a dinner that included some GI who was recently home alive and maybe in one piece. and the kid runs home to announce with breathless joy and wide grin "look at this! sliced bread!" so it became the great emblematic event that war was past and peace is now...

which brings us to our own war with it's fresh day of joy. the colors struck in baghdad and the flag presented on it's native soil. the thousands of american tables where xmas dinner will be served this year to a trooper freshly returned and maybe in one piece from a war that is now history. but isn't over. and not just because of our troops in afghanistan but the delays at airports and even more so with the duly legislated liberties our government may take with our privacy and our civil rights

i want MY sliced bread back. don't you?

think about it

 

[Winston Smith]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Bird, there are still a hell of a lot of boys in Afghanistan fighting a real hot war.

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Bird, there are still a hell of a lot of boys in Afghanistan fighting a real hot war.

yes winnie. i know. i don't have the afghan account in my portfolio. i did have the iraq account in my portfolio and now i don't and guess what? i don't miss it. yes maybe after the holidays i'll pay more attention to the land of cain and one never knows when the director might slip a new folder into the goddam portfolio but at the moment.. I FEEL GOOD!!!

man you don't know the SHIT i have to deal with and my plausible deniability is utterly impeccable. neither you nor anyone else would believe it if i told you

 

[RogerB]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Winnie,

The attached is for you, Mate.

R

 

[Mick Wenlock]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Yes. No other arm of the military would ever have tolerated such dismal results from a commander. But Harris knew best.

rubbish.

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Bird, there are still a hell of a lot of boys in Afghanistan fighting a real hot war.

There are WOMEN there also. Doing the same hard work, risking their lives just as much.

 

[Winston Smith]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

There are WOMEN there also. Doing the same hard work, risking their lives just as much.

Women are there, correct. They are not engaged in direct combat though. I am not one to go with the politically correct version of this war and give equal credit. For every woman who has been injured or killed, there are hundreds of our sons who have. I have walked through the orthopedic ward of Walter Reed to see the horror this war visited on our sons. Did not see any women being treated.

There are no women in combat platoons. The persons who squeeze the triggers are men. You will not find anyone else voicing this, certainly no US Marine or Soldier will speak the heresy I am writing here. But I am not bound by orders. I can speak my mind.

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

There are WOMEN there also. Doing the same hard work, risking their lives just as much.

I recently spoke with a young woman who is in the military. She told me that the women are not involved in combat. She said it's hard work, but the women don't have to face and deal with the worst of it the way the guys do and the women don't have as heavy a burden/load as the fellas. The military is protecting the women to some extent.

 

[RogerB]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I recently spoke with a young woman who is in the military. She told me that the women are not involved in combat. She said it's hard work, but the women don't have to face and deal with the worst of it the way the guys do and the women don't have as heavy a burden/load as the fellas. The military is protecting the women to some extent.

Hmm,

Personally, I would characterize it differently than to say "The military is protecting the women to some extent."

Personally, in the case of the ground troops, I would say the women are being wisely deployed to best suit their intellectual and physical strengths. I don't know the exact weight in pounds that the men are having to carry about on the battlefield but I have seen figures putting it up over 50lbs and closer to 75-100 . . . one shocker is the amount of weight in batteries to run all the personal gear such as night vision and such (have you noticed those funny things the lads have attached to the top of their helmets?). Today they have a rather vast array of personal electronic gear with them.

In the Navy and Air Force, the women are right on the firing line along with the men. In Desert Storm, for example, one woman was flying one of those tank-buster jets (called Wort Hogs?) that she brought back to base with most of its tail shot off and the fuselage shot through with holes about her cockpit.

R