This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Historical

  • Military Records and “the Records Fire”

    Many of us have heard something about a “records fire” that destroyed many military Official Military Personnel Files (OPMFs) years ago.  And we’ve also heard some people claim that “my records were destroyed in ‘the records fire’ – and that’s why there’s no record of my <insert award for valor/Special Operations qualification/service here>”.

    But many people don’t know much more than the fact that a fire once happened where many military records were stored.  The reality is that liars using the excuse of a “records fire” to justify false claims about their military service are regrettably common.  Such claims are very often if not almost always false.

    This article will give the facts concerning that fabled “records fire”.  In it, I’ll give some background about the storage activity, its history, and its design – which contributed to the severity of the fire.  I’ll also briefly discuss the fire and its impact.

    And, finally, I’ll discuss what records were – and what records weren’t – affected by the fire.  I’ll also provide some references that provide much more detail.

    BLUF:  if someone was an Army retiree alive in July 1973; served in the Army after 1959; served in the USAF after 1963; or served in the Navy or USMC – it’s a virtual certainty that their records of service were not affected by the fire.  Any claims to the contrary are pure, unadulterated organic fertilizer of the type produced by male bovines capable of reproduction.

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  • Cold War cables declassified

    The Washington Times reports that several thousand cables between US government agencies in regards to incident reports of events in Berlin have been declassified for historians’ review;

    “What really struck me the most was the day-to-day nature of the confrontation in Berlin,” said Donald P. Steury, a historian at the CIA. “Every day there was something happening. Minor incidents that could’ve escalated into something significant.”

    The cables offer a kaleidoscopic picture of life in the divided city: negotiations over East German workers smuggling a bouquet of flowers across the border to present to President Kennedy, pending Secret Service inspection, during his 1963 visit. The “tense, hushed” crowd that “sobbed openly” as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached in an East Berlin church a year later. East German displeasure after young rioters damaged five S-Bahn trains following the 1965 Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin (one State Department cable described the group as “jazz” and “English beat-singers”). The behind-the-scenes Soviet protest to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger after a Nikon camera containing aerial photos of Soviet army units tumbled out of a foreign plane over East Germany.

    Documents also include a big-picture strategy that could involve a nuclear confrontation, escape attempts using a homemade submarine of dubious quality uncovered in West Berlin, low-level conflicts such as consternation over communist flags on East German locomotives pulling U.S. military trains and U.S. negotiations with the Soviets on the propriety of curtains in military liaison vehicles.

    It all seems so inconsequential now. You can read my own experiences, not in Berlin, but along the intra-German border in Bavaria at this link.

  • “I just felt like someone would want to know when these people had died”

    Not all heroic acts occur on a battlefield.  And not all are recognized at the time; some are not observed, or otherwise slip through the crack.  Some are even ignored or forgotten for a while – sometimes permanently.

    Sixty-plus years ago, an act of heroism occurred.  It was one among many that occurred during the Korean War.

    It’s a story you’ve likely never heard.  I hadn’t either – until today.

    It’s a story worth hearing.  But you might want to grab a tissue or two first.

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  • John Boyd, Revisited

    Readers of my previous article on the subject of Colonel John Richard Boyd, USAF, may recall that at the time of its writing I’d not had time to read the three major works on Boyd that are currently available – those by Coram, Hammond, and Osinga.  I’ve since read the works by Coram and Hammond, and am partway through the work by Osinga.

    Both the Coram and Hammond works are excellent.  What I’d been lead to believe about the works seems to have been correct. As a popular biography, the Coram work is probably the better of the two.  The Hammond work may be of more interest if you want to put Boyd and his work into historical perspective within DoD (though Coram’s work is also helpful for that). If you want to learn more about Boyd, I’d recommend starting with Coram’s work and then proceeding to Hammond’s.  But you won’t go wrong if you reverse the order. If you only have limited time or funds, you should probably go with Coram’s work.

    Osinga’s work is more along the lines of a senior- or grad-school level discussion of Boyd’s major later works (Creation and Destruction, Patterns . . . , and Discourse . . . .)  Though I’m only about 1/3 of the way through that work – and it’s definitely not an “easy read” – it’s probably the best if you want to understand both the man’s ideas and some of the thought process that went into creating them.   Be forewarned you might have to read it more than once – and do some additional reading in sources it suggests.

    I also discovered one additional major, if indirect, accomplishment of Boyd’s.  Boyd’s final (and least-known) acolyte, Col Jim Burton, USAF, was responsible for instituting realistic live-fire testing for the Army’s Bradly Fighting Vehicle (BFV).   The Army apparently “rigged” the Bradley’s initial live-fire testing to ensure success through a variety of shameful means.  Realistic testing, which Burton forced with Boyd’s guidance and help, showed that the initial design for the Bradley (e.g., without the inner Kevlar lining) would have been a disaster in combat.  Though it cost Burton dearly – he was forced to retire early and was denied appointment as the initial DoD Director, Operational Test and Evaluation – this decision has doubtless saved US lives during the past 2+ decades of conflict.

    If you know anyone who’s ever served in an Army Bradley unit, you might tell them they should consider leaving a small pebble on the grave of the Air Force officer buried at Section 60, Grave 3660, Arlington National Cemetery, the next time they visit.  When they ask why, have them read the paragraph above.  I think they’ll “get it” then.

    Happy New Year, all.

     

    Note:  the material about the Bradley, Burton, and the Army is contained in Chapter 29 of Coram’s bio.  Previous Boyd article has full ID info for the book, including ISBN.

    In a just world, people would have gone to jail for those shameful, fraudulent acts.  Instead, we have yet more proof that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

  • They Were Also Soldiers Once . . . .

    One of the benefits of a 2500-mile road trip is you have some time to reflect.  It’s also a time you can reconnect with music you haven’t really thought much about in 30 years or more.  When that’s done with new knowledge and the insight of age and experience, well . . . you sometimes end up with a new perspective.

    I did that over the last 2 days.  Fifteen hours on the road is long enough for some serious listening and thinking.

    After reading this, some of you might say it’s also long enough for confusion or hallucination.  Perhaps you’re right.

    . . .

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  • Monuments Men

    The folks at the National Gallery of Arts wrote to tell us of the new George Clooney movie due out soon, called “Monuments Men” based on Robert M. Edsel’s book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History about folks, many of whom were employees of the National Gallery of Arts, as they tracked down the historic pieces which were looted from Europe’s collections.

    The MFAA’s officers bravely followed frontline troops into war zones. Among them were Lt. Charles P. Parkhurst, Jr., the Gallery’s former registrar and eventual assistant director, and Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Capt. Edith Standen, secretary to the Widener Collection, the great gift of donor Joseph P. Widener that had only recently been installed in the museum’s galleries.

    “The finding [of looted art] was either easy or accidental, ” Parkhurst told a Gallery oral historian 45 years after his service in the MFAA. “Usually we had clues from shippers, from local residents who said, ‘well, there’s something funny about that castle.’ ”

    Chasing one such rumor, Parkhurst happened upon a full-sized cast of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais (1884–95), which German soldiers en route to Baden had been forced to abandon on a mountainside. Parkhurst continued up the mountain to the castle at its peak and found room upon room of plundered art. “The owner of the castle gave me a cup of tea and a list of the objects. [He] said ‘I’ve been wondering how long it would take you guys to get here!’”

    There’s more at the link that you should read about a little known historical event. I can’t stand Clooney, so I guess I’ll wait to rent the movie, but you do what you do..

  • Kalashnikov passes

    My email inbox has been filling up with tips that Mikhail Kalashnikov has died, so I guess you want to talk about it. The story goes that he designed the rifle that bears his name in his head while he lay in the hospital recovering from his wounds as a Soviet tanker in 1939. However, the design which he hijacked from his German enemies didn’t reach the production stage until 1947. From the Washington Post;

    Mr. Kalashnikov headed the design team that produced the AK-47 — standing for automatic by Kalashnikov, model of 1947 — as the assault rifle for the newly retitled Soviet Army. It went into service two years later and then was provided to the Soviet Union’s allies and clients, as well as many other countries Moscow was trying to influence during the Cold War and after.

    The AK first went into action to put down East Berlin riots in 1953 and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Egyptian soldiers used it to assassinate President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Troops on both sides in the Iran-Iraq war carried it. The al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden used a modernized one as a prop in his recruiting videos.

    It was easy to shoot and dependable, making it the weapon of the third world “spray and pray” armies and guerrillas and the symbol of communist insurgencies.

    No exact count is possible, but experts believe there are about 100 million AKs, modernizations and derivatives around the world, with as many as 1 million more being made each year.

    Kalashnikov, oddly enough, was one of Stalin’s kulaks, the middle class that resisted Stalin’s policies. His father died when the family was exiled to Siberia. Odd that he would eventually design the very symbol of Soviet power.

  • To Be . . . Or To Do?

    “Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road and you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” (He raised his hand and pointed.) “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” (Then [he] raised his other hand and pointed in another direction.) “Or you can go that way and you can do something – something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?”

    Many military theorists are well-known, at least within the military community.  Jomini and Clausewitz, Mitchell and Douhet, Mahan – these names are remembered, in some cases centuries after their deaths.

    Yet others have been incredibly influential – and remain virtually unknown.  This article concerns one of those influential unknowns.  The lead quote above is his.

    The individual’s accomplishments are varied – and are insanely impressive.  He is credited with:

    • Being perhaps the single best air-to-air dogfighter in USAF history;
    • Literally personally writing the “book” for jet air-to-air combat for the USAF;
    • With one other person, developing a major theory of aircraft performance in air-to-air combat;
    • Being partially responsible for the superior performance of one of the USAF’s primary air platforms;
    • Being largely responsible for the very existence of a second, highly successful USAF primary air platform; a successful US Navy air platform; and indirectly responsible for a third successful USAF air platform;
    • The development of an acclaimed major theory describing both individual and organizational behavior;
    • Being the root cause for major changes in a sister-service’s current warfighting doctrine; and
    • Being a major contributor to (some have gone so far as to call him one of the architects of) the winning strategy of one US war – and some would say, of two.

    Yet his combat service was very brief.  He was not well-liked by many during his lifetime.  He was far more interested in doing something worthwhile than recognition.  He published precious little in open literature for posterity.  And because of these (and other) factors, as I noted above there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him.  Indeed, even today he’s yet to receive full recognition in own parent service.

    That, ladies and gentlemen, is a damned shame.  Because this individual – though not particularly well-known – may well be the most influential military theorist of the last half of the 20th Century.

    His name was Col. John Richard Boyd, USAF.  Within his own service, he was somewhat of a pariah.
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