#Army Coast Artillery Corps

[w975x]

where did shinichiro go during his stay in the philippines?

an. an interesting (and really quick) insight into the story between japan and the philippines included in tokyo revengers! inspired by this @tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang's post. i saw as i did my research that some people already knew where it was, but without further explanation as to why or any add-ups, so i'll bring what i know to tumblr! cw: tr spoilers, big analysis post, mentions of war & rape

so! manila. mostly known because that's where mikey asks takemichi to meet him in the future and unfortunately dies in one of the bad timelines (chapter 116, black dragon's arc).

but why manila?

that's a fairly easy question. the answer is given three chapters before: this is where shinichiro found the parts for the twin babu bikes. mikey clearly says he wants to go there in the future, probably because that's one of the last places he can associate with his big brother and hasn't been to yet.

the follow-up question is: what was shinichiro doing there?

the manga doesn't give us a clear answer. since izana is half-philipino, we can assume he went there to get more information about his brother's roots: who was his real mother? did he have a family who knew about him there?

this is where things get interesting. because while that was a nice gesture, shinichiro had surely no idea on where to start. his father was dead, karen kurokawa was nowhere to be found and grandpa sano is a useless old hag who never ever served the plot (confirmed by where shinichiro went because it didn't make much sense), leaving him without any info he could use to start looking for izana's potential relatives.

so he turned to a place he knew in the philippines: the corregidor island in manila's bay.

why would shin know about the corregidor island? surprising answer: world war two.

i did not know about it until i did some research for this post (!! you can call me uncultivated), but japan occupied the philippines (among other countires) during the world war two. i did a good amount of research, but i struggled understanding it all (esp because i find wikipedia's navigation confusing on the topic), so i just copy-pasted some parts that hopefully, if my selection is good, explain globally what happened. if you are interested on the topic, i do recommend you to do your own research.

the philippines campaign, also known as the battle of the philippines or the fall of the philippines, was the invasion of the american territory of the philippines by the empire of japan and the defense of the islands by united states and the philippine armies during world war ll.

the japanese planned to occupy the philippines as part of their plan for a "greater east asia war" in which their southern expeditionary army group seized sources of raw materials [in malaya and the netherlands east indies]. captain ishikawa shingo, a hard-liner in the imperial japanese navy, had toured the philippines and other parts of southeast asia in 1936, noting that these countries had raw materials japan needed for its armed forces. this helped further increase their aspiration for colonizing the philippines.

the battle of the philippines resulted from the invasion of the philippine commonwealth by the empire of japan in 1941-42 and the defense of the archipelago by filipino and american troops. this battle resulted in a japanese victory.

(see: battle of bataan). after the flight of the philippine government and the end of the battle bataan on 9 april 1942, the japanese controlled the entire northern part of the philippine archipelago, with the exception of the island of corregidor. the capture of the island was also the condition for the japanese to ensure control of manila bay.

(see: battle of corregidor). corregidor (which included fort mills) was a u.s. army coast artillery corps position defending the entrance to manila bay, part of the harbor defenses of manila and subic bays. it was defended by 11,000 soldiers. some could reach corregidor via the baatan peninsula, where they had escaped the japanese attack. the 59th regiment was able to repel japanese air attacks, shooting down numerous planes. the older stationary batteries with fixed mortars and immense cannon, for defense from attack by sea, were easily put out of commission by japanese bombers. the american soldiers and filipino scouts defended the small fortress until they had little left to wage a defense. on december 29, 1941, the japanese carried out a strategic bombing raid on corregidor, destroying the hospital. until the end of april, the filipino and american defenders of the island resisted attacks by japanese aircraft, which inflicted 614 bombings on them, for a total of 365 tons of explosives. from april 28, the bombings increased in intensity. beginning on may 1, japanese artillery also began firing from bataan. early in 1942, the japanese air command installed oxygen in its bombers to fly higher than the range of the corregidor anti-aircraft batteries, and after that time, heavier bombardment began.

the capture of corregidor marked the final victory of the japanese in the philippines, but contributed, like the battle of bataan, to cost them precious time, handicapping their strategy in the pacific ocean region.

4,000 of the 11,000 filipino and american prisoners were then paraded by the japanese in the streets of manila. several thousand were sent to labor camps (see: baatan death march) and numerous women were forced into sexual slavery by the imperial japanese armed forces (see: comfort women and asia women's fund)

corregidor was recaptured in another battle in 1945, during the liberation of the philippines. a pacific war memorial was later built on corregidor, commemorating the resistance of american and filipino soldiers.

first of all, i really reccomend you the asia women's fund digital museum for information related to comfort women—if it something you can stomach. second of all, i think it's a great addition that wakui included a reference to this in the manga, even if it is in such a discreet way. the corregidor hospital (specific place where takemitchy finds mikey) is very much drawn the same way as it looks in real life, but it is specified nowhere in the series where this is or why this place is chosen, and yet it holds a very important role in japanese history.

(pics from dailytakemitchi on twt, og post + google maps location)

though it is true that japan is known for not recognizing it's war crimes (see: nanjing massacre); certainly here an apology to the philippines was made, but only seventy-two years after the incident, so this issue was most likely very taboo by the time shin went there (which must have been between the time period where he met izana in the orphanage and their fight. judging by shin's haircut (we are working with very little information here ok but he didn't had his punch perm when we see him fiding the bikes so i believe it is around the time he askd mikey if he would like to have an older brother), i'd say 2000-2003ish, when izana was in juive. thanking the gods for this izana's timeline post btw, i actually need one with everyone's tls please-). philipino people were, from what i have understood, a pretty consequent part of the population in the 2000s for the reasons i mentionned just before. wakui must have met a few in his bossozoku days, and from them comes izana. i really like the fact that every one of the inclusions in the manga come from his real-life experience, it adds a lot to his whole universe!!

so yeah, if shin came there, it is probably because he did some research by himself on the philippines &this ended up being one of the first places that came up and catched his attention. like i said, it is likely that he went to the philippines looking for izana's relatives, but it strikes me as weird that he went there since the corregidor island has nothing but ruins to offer. maybe he just did some tourism on his way.

this whole trip didn't end up giving him any more information on izana's family. we don't actually know if izana's mother was in the philippines; karen does say that he is the son of her ex-husband and a filipino woman, but she herself is american and lives in japan. important to note that the ex-husband in question is not makoto sano! i personally had a hard time understanding that(oᗜo;)

this place is said to be haunted by the ghosts of filipino, american and japanese soldiers who died there, especially in the hospital. as for today, it is possible to visit the location, and there are vlog-type articles of people who went there, some quick youtube summaries and a few videos like "spending the night in this haunted island😱😱"

aaand this is pretty much all i had to say about this!! i haven't adressed the twin bikes because it'll be for another post. this post might not be much, esp taking in consideration how much time i took to post it(ᵕ—ᴗ—) but i had fun writting it! hopefully this post will find it's public. if you are still here, thank you so much for reading the whole thing!! i'll be posting some more tr posts like this one, so stay tuned. ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )

[overland-defender]

05/06/2022 - Day 2

We wake pretty early after the Château was beaten within an inch of its life after a heavy rain storm which passed in the middle of the night.

Meeting the team and the rest of the tour guests at the front of Château, Keith briefed each vehicle individually on today’s agenda and the importance of these locations.

The Longues-sur-Mer battery

Omaha Beach

Pointe du Hoc

Maisy Battery

La Cambe German War Cemetery

The Longues-sur-Mer battery We use mostly paved roads until we reach Manvieux, here we traverse unpaved roads parrallel to the coast overlooking the British channel and arrive at our first point of interest Longues-sur-Mer battery. The battery is a Huge, preserved WWII gun installations, built by the Germans to defend France from sea invasion. It was part of Hitlers Atlantic Wall defences consisting of four rapid firing 152mm navy guns, each housed in large concrete enclosures. The site also includes a fire control post, ammunition stores, defensive machine gun posts and accommodation for the soldiers. The battery is actually located between Omaha and Gold beach which made it a massive threat to the Allied landings. Because of this, the area was heavily bombed on the night before D-Day. This was followed by a naval bombardment in the morning. Although the bombing did not cause much damage to the guns it did destroy the phone line linking the fire control bunker to the guns which severely disrupted the batteries ability to engage with the Allied ships that eventually knocked the guns out of action during a duel in which no Allied ship was damaged despite the battery firing around 170 rounds. On the 7th of June the major responsible for the battery surrendered to the British with 184 men. Gravel paths make access easy from the gun enclosures all the way to the coast line vantage points. Omaha Beach 18.5km west is the infamous Omaha Beach which was part of the D-Day Operation 'Overlord'. I could bang about this place for ages as it's such an important piece of the D-day puzzle. But i'm sure readers are already familiar of what happened here, so i will talk about what is here now... and you wouldn't think it was a place of a blood bath where Americans (1st Army, 5th Corps) suffered roughly 2,400 casualties. White sandy beaches and apart from the traffic noise the sound of waves crashing on the break on the beach was tranquil.We get chance to have a quick bite to eat before we head over to another location made famous by the Americans. One last thing to note is a white house nessled under the cliff, this house managed to survive the naval bombardment and Ally landings, it can be easily found as the owners have a picture of the house on D-day next to there letter box. Pointe du Hoc Not what i expected and though i went with zero expectation it is how i can describe as suprising. Prior to this trip inpreparation i had watched a documentary / read some articles of what is described as the most dangerous mission of D-Day and where the first American Forces on D-Day accomplished their mission objectives. The 2nd Ranger Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel James E. Ruddler were tasked with assaulting the battery on D-Day to silence the guns, protecting Allied ships and soldiers on the beaches below from artillery fire.

Today the site remains cratered from the aerial and naval bombardment prior to the Rangers assault and features a memorial and museum dedicated to the battle. Many of the original fortifications and bunkers remain which you can access as well as the edge of part of the cliff. Given we are attending a around the anniversary of D-Day, an American ceremony was taking place attended by the new generation of US service men and women, as well as some vet's which was awesome to see.

Maisy Battery

The BF4x4 team always have something up there sleeves and it was the Maisy Battery and this was annouced over CB radio whilst driving through rural normandy. I would be very suprised if many people would know about Normandy's best kept secret where you can walk through 2km of original German trenches and explore their WWII bunkers. The Maisy Battery is a group of World War II artillery batteries that was constructed in secret by the German Wehrmacht near the French village of Grandcamp-Maisy in Normandy. British military historian Gary Sterne rediscovered Maisy Battery in 2004, after he had found a hand-drawn map in the pocket of a US Army veteran's uniform he had bought. The battery was about 1.6 km inland marked on the map as an "Area of high resistance".

The battery had been recorded as the second highest D-Day target in the Omaha Sector group of fortifications, but the exact location had been lost from later records. Using the old map, Sterne was able to locate a bunker entrance amongst the undergrowth. He (Sterne) then investigated further and found additional fortified buildings, gun platforms, and a hospital. Over 3 kilometres of trenches were uncovered and apparently there's still more to discover with time and permissions. Making this a little Land Rover related after enjoying the site i saw another defender parked up, a swiss TD5 110 Hicap which would be the definition of 'overlander spec' unfortunately i didn't get the oppurtunity to meet the owner(s) but had a good nose around. Make this location one to visit if you are in area as it’s really interesting and there are also a collection of WW2 guns and vehicles to view.

La Cambe German War Cemetery

I wouldn't say saving the best till last in this situation and like i had mentioned on our first BF4x4 trip (WW1) you don't see too many German cemeteries. Whether it be Allie or German, cemeteries are a place of reflect and appreciation. Though the enemy, these boys and men lives were needlessly cut short, what makes it worse is the value of these individuals post death.... forgotten and it took the families of the fallen to get this site erected. La Cambe was inaugurated in September 1961. Spread out over 7 hectares and located close to the American landing beach of Omaha, 25.5 km north west of Bayeux. It is the largest German war cemetery in Normandy where 21,222 German soldiers are buried. In fact, the mass burial mound holds the remains of 207 soldiers whose names were never discovered.

This ends Day 2 of our D-Day tour, we retreat back to the Château where we join the BF4x4 team to take advange of the fine dining offered as well as on the house calvados... which i still don't like.

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of D-Day and we don’t have a clue what is installed for us.

[horns-the-demon]

thinking ab pacrim again

pls may we reread :)

*slides in like a month later*

I'm so sorry, please take this as an apology for while AO3 is down

It happened for the first time when Seb’s parents were still children. A massive monster the size of a small mountain rose out of the sea, like something from humanity’s collective worst nightmare. It attacked San Francisco in the United States, and destroyed so much. For six long days, it carved a path of destruction, killing millions and flattening three cities. At first it was just the American armed forces trying to bring it down, but then it became everyone. Desperate to stop the loss of their people and country, the Americans accepted help from any military that would send it. Everything imaginable was thrown at it: troops, tanks, artillery, jets.

It still wasn’t enough.

In the end, the only things that brought the gigantic beast down were a series of nuclear bombs. They killed it, but made the entire area around where San Francisco had once stood uninhabitable. Even worse was the monster: it was destructive even in death. Its blood proved toxic, poisoning the environment and causing sickness to break out across the western coast of North America.

Still, the monster was dead. The world grieved, buried what few toxic bodies remained in welded-steel caskets, and attempted to move on.

But then six months later, it happened again in Manila, devastating the Filipino capital. And then four months after that, in Cabo San Lucas. And then in Sydney.

It became evident that wherever these monsters were coming from had many more to send. It was clear that whatever had caused this wasn’t a one time thing: it wouldn’t stop happening.

Countries bordering the Pacific Ocean banded together to create a solution. While nuclear bombs and armies could bring the monsters down, those took time that they didn’t have (not when every minute they spent on dry land was measured in tens of thousands of deaths), and destroyed almost as much as the monsters- dubbed Kaiju by the Japanese, which stuck- did. It would be different, maybe, if the Kaiju ever went ashore in unpopulated areas, but they didn’t: every time one appeared, it made a bee-line for a major population center right on the coast.

Those countries created a new organization: the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, tasked with one goal: to kill Kaiju and stop their destructive rampages by any means necessary.

The means that they came up with, initially, seemed stupid.

The PPDC brought forward the suggestion of building massive mech-robots to fight the Kaiju. It was deemed laughable by many countries around the world, especially those not bordering the Pacific, who pulled out, claiming that the matter clearly wasn’t being taken seriously. And yet, there was a spark of brilliance in the idea: robots that large would be capable of going toe-to-toe and blow-for-blow with a Kaiju. They could kill Kaiju without spreading nuclear radiation all over the surrounding area and necessitating the creation of another exclusion zone where it fell. And by relying on bludgeoning and heat-based weapons, the robots could even kill Kaiju without spilling their toxic blood.

The nations around the Pacific were not dissuaded. The idea was the best they had, so the project was greenlit and the robots- called Jaegers, meaning ‘hunters’- were built. At first, it was decided that a single person would pilot them, but the neural load proved too strong for them to carry on their own. So instead, a two-pilot system was implemented, with each one controlling one half of the Jaeger. 

In order to ensure the pilots stayed synchronized, they began to use technology to allow pilots to Drift, temporarily melding their minds so they could share their memories, instincts, and emotions with each other, acting as one cohesive being to control the Jaeger. And, amazingly enough, the Jaegers worked. They stopped the destruction of Seattle in its tracks. They pushed the Kaiju back, and for the first time since San Francisco was destroyed, people on the Pacific coast could breathe a little easier.

The rest of the world got a firsthand look at the Jaegers in all their glory when Seb’s parents were teenagers. He couldn’t count how many times they’d told him and his siblings about it when they were growing up.

A Kaiju emerged, but left the Pacific without attacking any cities so no one realized. It travelled all the way to the Atlantic, where its presence became known when it leveled Lisbon and then moved further inland.

At massive cost, two teams of Jaegers were transported to Portugal to put the Kaiju down, and put it down they did.

That was when Europe bought into the Jaeger program, and when the world saw what Jaegers could really do.

(Seb realized, when he was older, that apparently the world didn’t sit up and take notice when they saved Ho Chi Minh City. Or Kuala Lumpur. Or Taipei, Tijuana, Shanghai, Lima, or Davao. Jaegers were only a big deal, apparently, when they were stopping a continent who had called their creation a disgrace from being flattened.)

It was European nations re-entering into the PPDC who raised the idea of creating pilots, just the same as much of the world had pooled their resources to create the Jaegers in the first place. Building pilots who were built from the ground up for combat, who could drift with each other as easily as breathing. Pilots with faster reactions, better instincts, and more endurance.

Living weapons built to use the metal ones that had already been built.

Monsters, to match the monsters that had been invading Earth.

They mixed animal DNA into human genomes, and then edited out the things that weren’t necessary to piloting a Jaeger. Sure, this new wave of pilots were shaped like humans, and kind of looked like them, too (allegedly- no images of the pilots were ever made public), but that was only so they could fit into already-existing Jaegers better.

And the hybrid pilots were good. Better than the human pilots had been, even. It took about a decade to get them up and running, but the first generation of them had excellent results. Jaegers were only as good as their pilots, of course, and hybrid pilots were the best.

They felt nothing, knew nothing outside of fighting Kaiju, and would rather die than risk defeat. They were hardy enough to handle the physical strain that came from piloting a Jaeger without even thinking about it. They went after Kaiju, actually living up to the Jaeger name- part soldiers, and part hunters. It was decided that it was more humane to phase out human pilots: why risk human lives, when the hybrids were right there? They fought Kaiju better than people did, and at the end of the day, they weren’t people.

Individual countries sponsored the creation of hybrid pilots, just as nations would shoulder the load of designing and building Jaegers. Germany made one of the first, and hands down the best: designated Michael Schumacher, a synthetically developed human mixed with a Tibetan mastiff. He started killing Kaiju right about a decade before Seb was born, representing Germany in the war against the Kaiju just like the American-, Chinese-, Japanese-, Mexican-, Canadian-, Peruvian-, Vietnamese-, Philippine-, Taiwanese-, Malaysian-, Russian-, and Australian-made Jaegers did.

That was the balance, it was decided. Countries that had more to lose spent most of their money on building Jaegers, while countries further removed from the risks funded the creation of their pilots.

Monsters built to fight monsters.

Very fitting.

Or it would be, if it wasn’t all based on a lie.

Mark returns to himself slowly.

It takes time, coming out of a bad Drift like that: hearing takes about a minute, vision takes longer. The nausea lasts for anywhere from one hour to twelve, and if the skin-prickling sensation of wrongness fades, it takes longer than four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-one minutes, give or take a few.

Mark would know.

He remains stationary on the hard metal slab he’s laid on. It isn’t comfortable- his tail always ends up getting crushed a bit, no matter what he does. That’s to be expected: Mark is a Jaeger pilot. He wasn’t made for comfort, he was made for fighting Kaiju.

Mark hasn’t fought a Kaiju in four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-one minutes, give or take a few.

Absentmindedly, he listens in on the conversations around him: they talk over him, about him. He gives no indication he’s listening. They don’t like it when he does that. But he has better hearing than they do, and they talk about him less than fifteen feet where he lies. He can stop the ears on top of his head from twitching or swivelling to hear them more clearly, but he can’t stop himself from hearing.

“That’s the eighty-third failed Drifting attempt. What happened this time?” says one of them. That voice is harsh, the lingering scent of cigarette smoke curls in the air around him. The man is a Marshall, but typically Mark just calls him ‘Sir’.

“I don’t know, sir,” says another, audibly frustrated. A scientist, one of the higher-ranked ones. Mark usually calls him ‘Doctor’, or ‘Sir’. It’s hard to tell what he’s going to want any given day. “He was designed to be easy to Drift with. This isn’t supposed to happen at all. We’re pairing him with police officers and enlisted personnel from every military branch we can tap from. They know how to follow orders, he doesn’t even have any feelings to get in the way. It couldn’t be any easier, but he still keeps messing it up. I think it’s time for us to pull the plug and admit that he’s just admit that he’s unsalvageable.”

“Come on, Dr. Tetzlaff. You must admit he’s been around for a while. The newer models have plenty of advantages, but money can’t buy experience like his.”

“Sir, does it matter? All the experience in the world is useless if he is, and if he can’t Drift he’s useless. Worse than useless, actually. He’s just siphoning resources that could be better used. I don’t even know why we bother feeding him. What a waste!”

“So your recommendation is that we scrap him?”

“Yes, sir,” the scientist says without hesitation. “At least then we can dissect him and see what the issue is. If there’s a fundamental flaw we’re missing with the designated pairs, we need to know as soon as possible.  We can't lose the whole advantage of hybrid pilots just to make them work a bit better. Yes, the designated pairs synchronize better and that synchronization is great, but they were designed to be easy to drift with first. We still need them to be able to pair with a different asset if told to. We can’t risk losing a whole team if one of them gets themselves killed.” Ah, yes. The reason Mark is here. Four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-two minutes ago, give or take a few, Mark’s other half died. They had been together forever- they were made for each other, made to work together. But four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-two minutes ago, Mark got blindsided while fighting a Kaiju.

It wasn’t fair- he was the one to make a mistake. It was Mark’s hemisphere, his half of the Jaeger. He should have paid the price.

But he didn’t.

Because Jenson took the blow meant for him. Jenson died terrified and in agony. And Mark felt it all.

Jenson died four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-two minutes ago, give or take a few, and Mark may as well have died with him.

“Alright,” the Marshall says, followed by the sound of a finger tapping on a glass screen. “It’s decided, he’s getting decommissioned tomorrow.” “Do we have to wait that long?” asks the scientist. His tone is almost a whine. The chip in Mark's back has zapped him for much less.

“Yes. You know how Pacific countries protest when we decommission one of theirs. The Australians are going to throw enough of a tantrum as it is, even once we explain the situation to them. Christ, if only they could all be as easy to work with as the Germans or the Finns.”

Then, the Marshall raises his voice. They never seem to realize that they don't have to, that Mark can hear them even if they whispered from across the room. It always seems strange to Mark that they designed him with better hearing but only ever seem to use it to hurt him.

"Hey, Webber! Heel."

Mark opens his eyes and sits up mechanically. He doesn't waste any extra movement getting his tail out of the way, though the motion crushes it further. What does it matter if he bruises it? He'll finally be dead by this time tomorrow.

He stands up and follows the pair of them back to his quarters, his back straight and his eyes pointed straight ahead the whole way. Despite the fact that they've just signed his death warrant, he maintains a proper heel- just behind them to make it clear that it's them who are leading him, but not beside and not in front.

He’s only ever in front if there's a Kaiju in the way.

As they walk through the Shatterdome towards the small, cramped rooms where the pilots are kept when not in use, the other humans who work in the Shatterdome stare when they pass. They stop and watch as the Marshall and the Scientist walk by, and watch Mark, too, as he walks behind them. He doesn’t know why they watch him- he’s just a sad excuse for a hybrid. Nothing more to see.

Heedless of the stares, the pair of humans in front of him continue to talk.

“Well, even if they drag their feet on scrapping him, this at least means we don’t have to feed him any more, right?”

“Unfortunately not, sir. Lethal injections don’t work well on an empty stomach.”

“Ah, well, that’s still just one more meal and then we can divert those resources elsewhere and get what we can from what’s left of him. Although, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what you’re looking for, Doctor,” the Marshall said. “From the looks of things, Button was malfunctioning at the end there. There was no logical reason for him to have taken a blow like that.” “What can I tell you, sir? They’re just dumb animals. We do our best to get them to act right, but sometimes all the training in the world can’t completely beat that into their heads. I will say, though, that Button’s malfunction just makes Webber’s body more valuable. If there’s any pilot that’s going to have the same issues, it’s the other half of Button’s pair, especially since their minds were linked at the time he did.” “Shame there was nothing of Button left to recover. If only the stupid thing drowned himself or died in the Jaeger so we could have taken a look at him.”

Mark has to fight to keep his steps even and his breathing level. He can’t let his heart rate rise, he can’t let the chip in his back shock him again if it gets too high. If Mark starts letting it, he’ll never stop.

It’s difficult, though, when they talk about Jenson. Mark has no issues being talked about himself: they’re right, he is useless like this, and he has been malfunctioning for four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately twenty-seven minutes, give or take a few. 

But Jenson didn’t malfunction. Jenson was good- the best of them. Jenson was the best thing in the world.

It wasn’t Jenson’s fault he died. Mark was there with him in the Jaeger, it was his job to keep Jenson safe like it was his job to keep Tokyo safe. Mark had failed and so Jenson had died.

The only malfunctioning one is him.

He doesn’t like it when they talk about Jenson like this.

But they don’t like it when he talks back.

He can’t do anything to them if they do something he doesn’t like. That was the first thing he learned when he was small, with too-large ears and too-bright eyes and a too-long tail clutched in both hands for comfort: the humans will do what they want to do. It’s best to just go along with it. Things will go back to being sane once they lose interest and leave you alone.

If he does something they don’t like, they can do quite a lot to him. They can shock him hard and make him scream. They can send a light electrical current through his body to freeze him in place and leave him there until they think he’s learned not to do it again. They used to be able to take Jenson from him, or him from Jenson.

Mark was good. Mark never let that happen.

There was no revenge or vindication that could ever feel good enough to justify being separated from Jenson.

That was what he told himself his entire life, only to bring that habit to an abrupt halt four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately thirty-seven minutes ago, give or take a few.

“Hey, animals are going to do what animals do,” the scientist sighed, shrugging loosely. “They’re going to die in stupid, illogical ways. It isn’t all lost, though. Webber could have the same problem, and this malfunction he’s exhibiting could just be that.”

They draw closer to Mark-and-Jenson’s quarters (it will never stop being Jenson’s, not so long as Mark lives) and Mark thinks he is nearly safe. The Shatterdome is a massive building and its layout was designed to make things easier for leadership first, scientists second, and the massive teams of people that kept their Jaegers repaired and in good working order third. Hybrid pilots came last. The trip from the Drift theatres to the pilots’ quarters has taken a while, but it is nearly over, and then Mark will be able to lie down, close his eyes, and wait for tomorrow.

Nearly safe isn’t safe, though. Mark should know this by now.

“You know, the more you talk the more interested I am in seeing the results of Webber’s autopsy,” the Marshall says. “He was always a bit stronger than Button, and could’ve overpowered him physically if he wanted. Do you think there was any way he could have done that in the Drift?” “I don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.” “Well you said Button taking the hit for Webber was illogical, but from where Webber is standing, it wouldn’t have been. If one of them was guaranteed to die, why not make sure it’s the other guy, right?”

Mark needs them to move faster. His stomach is turning, and he’s going to start heaving soon.

“You know, that makes sense,” the scientist says, “and it is possible. Honestly, it’s what I would do if it were me.” Mark would never do that. Ever. Even if he was willing to sacrifice another person’s life to save his own (he isn’t), he would never trade Jenson’s. There is no force on the planet that could make him, especially not fear for his own life. That is why it is Mark, and not the scientist, in the Jaeger. That is why they don’t put humans in Jaegers.

“Honestly, I think if he was smart enough to figure something like that out on his own, I’d actually have to respect him a bit.”

They’re at his-and-Jenson’s door. The Marshall opens it, though he doesn’t need to: Mark can do it, as can anyone else on base. It’s an illusion of privacy, nothing more.

“Webber, in. Stay,” the man barks, once again much louder than needed, and in Mark goes to stay.

And then the door closes and he is finally alone.

Mark sinks down the wall, tilting his head back against the solid surface once he’s seated and closing his eyes. It’s both easy and hard to be back in the room.

On one hand, it’s the one place in the entire Shatterdome that’s his. This is his territory, this is where he can relax as much as he ever can. He doesn’t have to stop his ears from swivelling or his tail from twitching. He can show as much tooth as he wants, he can let his shoulders slump.

There are no eyes on him here. According to Michael and Mika, they used to monitor the pilots everywhere, but eventually stopped when they proved to be incredibly boring when left to their own devices. Apparently, there are only so many times you can watch something sleep, or eat, piss, or stare at a wall before it starts to be excruciatingly monotonous. Go figure.

To be fair, they’re a fairly boring bunch, the hybrid Jaeger pilots of the Tokyo Shatterdome.

Occasionally, when it’s quiet, they’ll hang out- they have to go into their quarters if they’re told to, but they only have to stay there if they’re ordered. They’ll get shocked if they try to leave the general area, but the chips can’t differentiate well between individual sets of quarters.

Mark hasn’t hung out with the others too much in the last four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately thirty-nine minutes, give or take a few. It’s fair. He’s been rotten company.

And he’s been deteriorating in front of all of their eyes. They all know he’s been dying for months, has been since Jenson died. They didn’t need to go through this whole farce with police officers and military personnel from the outside world. If anyone had thought to ask the other pilots, they all could have told them that Mark would never be able to Drift with another person, so they should euthanize him now and save time.

It’s the truth: Mark was made for Jenson. He was made to be Jenson’s. They were a pair- a designated pair. Everything about them had been tailor-made to complement the other perfectly.

No one else can be inside Mark’s head, not once he’d had Jenson in there.

Mark can’t do it. Furthermore, he won’t allow it.

So if he didn’t just die, he was going to be decommissioned soon, anyways. They’d all known it right from when he’d woken up after losing Jenson. The others had to emotionally detach themselves from him during his last time alive in order to stay sane. It’s fine. It’s exactly what Mark would have done, too, if faced with an unfixable basemate.

It’s nice to be alone, no matter how loud his own thoughts are. It is still difficult to be here, though.

Mark has barely cleaned in the last four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-one minutes, give or take a few. He’s lucky they don’t have any janitors for the pilots. They’re responsible for keeping their own quarters in whatever level of cleanliness they desire. 

Ordinarily, it’s somewhat difficult: they live in the bowels of a building right on the coastline, in a deepwater harbor. It’s cold no matter what. The ceiling and the walls all leak. They have to be careful to avoid mold.

But the lack of cleaning, other than what Mark has dragged himself into doing over the last four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-two minutes, give or take a few, means that he’s been able to leave their room the way he wants.

Almost everything is exactly the way they left it that night, when the alarms sounded and Mark and Jenson suited up, were strapped into their Jaeger, and set out to fight a Kaiju. It was the exact same thing they’d done hundreds of times: the Tokyo Shatterdome is the closest one to the Breach, and the busiest by a good margin.

Except what had happened out there hadn’t been like any of the other hundreds of times they’d done it. Mark and Jenson in their Jaeger, Horizon Watcher, had been running point. Fernando and Stoffel had been there as backup in Wicked Wildcat, under orders not to engage unless the situation was critical. That was all routine: no use in causing combat damage to two Jaegers if not strictly necessary.

The Kaiju had been called Edgehunter. It was slippery and serpentine. Hard to nail down. It had limbs, but didn’t use them much, preferring to swim like a massive, wickedly-fast eel. It was badly suited to Horizon Watcher’s strengths: Mark and Jenson were best at hand-to-hand combat, and had a plasma cannon as backup. Using a Jaeger with a blade somewhere on it would have been the smarter option.

It wasn’t like bad strategic matchups were out of the ordinary, though. They were good at what they did, the expectation was that they would adjust and win anyways.

Bhat wasn’t what had happened that horrible day. They’d had Edgehunter in a hold between their mech’s giant fists, and then it had slipped out.

Mark is a hybrid. A wolf hybrid. He is supposed to have good vision. 

But there was no moon that night. The sea was dark, barely illuminated by the floodlights on Horizon Watcher’s head and shoulders. It was stormy, too. With the rain soaking their visor the way it was, the visibility was too low for even Mark to function. He lost track of the Kaiju somewhere in the ink-black waters of the Pacific Ocean.

And then it had exploded out of those waters, finally using its limbs to power a massive leap and taking him completely off-guard. It had landed on Horizon Watcher before they’d had a chance to do much more to raise an arm to try and shield themselves, an effort that had failed completely. The Kaiju latched on with its legs, clamping down and hanging on, while clawing ferociously at the Jaeger’s head.

Titanium screeched as it was rended open, and Mark and Jenson both screamed with it, feeling as though it was their head having a hole ripped into it. It was always like this- they linked together in the Drift, yes, but they linked with the massive robot they piloted, too. Most injuries were easy enough to ignore: there was always pain when the Jaeger’s knuckles met the tough flesh of a Kaiju, or when they were hit or knocked over or bitten or scraped or clawed, but it was low-grade. If there was one upside to the chips implanted in them it was how familiar those made them with pain. Most things, they could shake off as if nothing had happened.

This wasn’t like that. It was horrible, so agonizing that Mark couldn’t even think straight.

But then it got worse. The Kaiju reached into the cockpit, and then the Jaeger pitched sideways, and then-

And then even though it had jumped on Mark’s side, even though it had made a hole on Mark’s side, the Jaeger throwing its entire weight to the other side meant that he wasn’t the one speared by its claws and dragged, screaming, out of the cockpit.

Mark and Jenson were more than just Drift Compatible- they’d shared each other’s minds and memories hundreds of times. Mark knew Jenson’s brain as well as his own.

That must have been why he felt everything that happened after that, even though the neural handshake had been broken and they were no longer actively Drifting. That must have been why Mark still felt Jenson’s stomach-turning mixture of mortal terror and acceptance of his own end.

And then he felt it as the Kaiju pulled Jenson off its claw and into its massive mouth, taking so much of Jenson’s blood and skin and organs with it. Once it bit down, Mark didn’t feel anything else.

Afterwards, he heard secondhand about what he’d done. How he’d taken control of the Jaeger solo, used one hand to wrench Edgehunter’s jaw open, before grabbing Jenson’s side of the controls to unload Horizon Watcher’s entire clip of plasma cannon shots down its throat with the other, frying the Kaiju from the inside out.

How he’d walked the Jaeger, alone, to the nearest patch of shoreline, and come crashing down just outside some tiny Japanese fishing village he still didn’t know the name of once he couldn’t take it any further. How he’d terrified civilians by staggering his way out of the still-open head of the Jaeger, passing out on the beach about fifteen feet away from it.

Mark doesn’t remember any of it.

All he remembers is waking up in the medical bay, alone and in pain. He still felt where Edgehunter’s claw had pierced Jenson’s body, still felt an ache in his bones from where the Kaiju’s teeth had grinded his co-pilot, his partner, his other half into bloody paste. Worst of all, he still felt the empty hole in his mind where Jenson’s warm, comforting presence used to be, even outside of the Drift.

Mark was alone in his head for the first time since he met Jenson.

Over the next four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-six minutes, give or take a few, none of that has faded. Even now, his bones still ache, his torso still stings, and his head still screams over the loss of Jenson. It all still feels just as agonizing as the first second: not dulling, not going away, and definitely not getting any less persistent.

Mark has spent four months, two weeks, eight days, six hours, and approximately forty-six minutes, give or take a few, going through life as a walking, talking echo of his other half’s last moments.

He doesn’t know how he could possibly learn to function like this. He doesn’t want to find out. All he wants to do is get one last injection, and then fade away to nothing. Even if there is nothing after that, it will still be a lot better than living life without Jenson by his side.

The room is strange to be in. Though he can’t stop physically feeling the lack of his partner, if he uses his sight alone, he can almost pretend it’s like he never lost Jenson. There’s the shirt Jenson had flung over the emergency light and then left there- he always hated to be woken up quickly, regardless of whether they were being deployed or not. There is his pillow, arranged the way that the fox hybrid had preferred it. There’s his pair of dog tags, hanging off the end of the mirror above the sink- Jenson almost never wore his, no matter how many times it got him in trouble. True to form, he’d left them there as they got changed out of their pyjamas and then ran to suit up, neither of them knowing they were doing it for the last time. There are the two beds they’d pushed together to form one, with the sheets and mattresses and pillows still rumpled from how they’d left them that night.

Mark hasn’t touched the bed since. He knows, even without trying, that it will be too big for him alone. He can’t sleep on it, but he can’t disturb it, either. The faint outline of Jenson’s body preserves the illusion that the man that made it isn’t gone. If he pretends hard enough, it almost looks like Jenson has only stepped out for a moment, and will be back soon to make more noise, more messes, and more imprints on their bed.

If he sleeps on the floor, he can preserve the sight a little longer.

The problem is (always is) that Mark is a hybrid. His senses are excellent. He can’t stop himself from using his other ones.

The room is far too quiet to have Jenson anywhere in the vicinity. If they didn’t have someone around who could make him hurt for it, he was always talking, laughing, or humming to himself. Jenson had snored, too. He was comfortingly noisy even in his sleep.

Moreover, Jenson’s scent has faded so much that it only barely clings to anything any more, covered up by Mark’s own. That alone shatters any illusion that Mark tries to cling to.

Already, things are starting to dwindle from Mark’s mind, mundane little things that he didn’t appreciate nearly enough while he had them. He can’t remember quite how many freckles Jenson had on his nose. He can’t remember what the exact shade of blue Jenson’s eyes were, or the specific way his cheeks scrunched when he smiled, really smiled, big and beautiful and all for Mark.

How can Mark not remember that smile? He had treasured almost nothing in the world more than that- not his life, not their Jaeger, not his own body. Nothing, outside of Jenson himself. How is he already forgetting it? How can he even dare to continue breathing, how can he think he deserves it after-

There is a knock at Mark-and-Jenson’s door.

At first he thinks he’s imagining it.

But no, it happens again: a light knock-knock-knock from the metal door to their room.

This isn’t normal. No one knocks, outside of the other hybrid pilots, and there’s very little chance they come and talk to him tonight. The Marshall and the scientist weren’t quiet when they’d walked through the pilots’ quarters. They’d discussed their plans for Mark loudly enough that the others would have heard. The only reason they’d be here now would be to see Mark one last time, which is unlikely. 

Michael and Mika probably won’t: they’ve seen so many pilots die over the years. Doing things like saying goodbye if given the chance will only drive them insane. Lewis and Nico likely won’t, either. He and Jenson had been friendly with them, but that team is younger, and less used to loss. They will take cues on how to deal with it from Michael and Mika, the two oldest hybrid pilots remaining in the world. That is a good choice. They need to keep their heads focused as much as possible, especially since they’re the only other designated pair at the Tokyo Shatterdome: like Mark and Jenson were made for each other, so too were Lewis and Nico. They need to be on their A-game if they don’t want to end up like he has.

Fernando and Stoffel probably won’t. It doesn’t matter how many times Mark tells Fernando that he doesn’t blame them, that they’d been too far away to help and that the situation had gone sideways too fast for them to have any hope of responding. That they had been following orders just like every other time they’d done this, and there had been no indication that this time there would be a price to pay for obedience.

Mark doesn’t blame them. Mark blames no one but himself.

But Fernando feels too much, he always has. He takes losses personally and internalizes them. Stoffel is often good at pulling him out of his spirals, but against something like losing another pilot he’d known for almost a decade he won’t be able to do much.

Fernando doesn’t believe Mark when he says he doesn’t blame them. Hopefully he can start to believe it one day, but Mark doesn’t think he’ll be alive to see it.

Still, it could be Fernando at the door. Mark won’t turn down a chance to console his closest friend still living.

He opens the door.

It is not Fernando.

It is not a pilot at all.

The person standing at the door is small and slight. He’s shorter than Mark or Jenson, perhaps around the same height as Lewis, Nico, Michael, or Mika. He is taller than Fernando, but that isn’t surprising: everyone is taller than Fernando. Honestly, his height isn’t unusual for the black-haired humans that work all over the Shatterdome, but his hair isn’t black- it’s golden in the light of the hallway, and curly. The eyes looking up at Mark are blue, somewhat like Jenson’s but a little less grey, and wider, too.

He has no ears poking out from underneath his hair like most of the pilots do. It doesn’t look like he has a tail, either. There are no markings on his skin, no claws in the place of his fingernails, and his jaw doesn’t sit like there he has any fangs.

There isn’t anything to distinguish him from humans, to mark him as humanoid but not all the way there.

That’s because he isn’t just humanoid. He isn’t a hybrid at all, he’s a human.

And yet.

“Hallo,” he says, in a soft voice. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have time. Can I come in for a moment please?”

His voice is strange. He speaks similarly to how Michael does. Mark focuses on that, rather than how taken aback he is by the whole thing. This man in front of him is clearly a human. And yet, despite his obvious humanity, he hasn’t barged into Mark-and-Jenson’s room, even though it’s technically his right. He isn’t speaking around Mark, or giving him any orders, really. He’s looking Mark in the eye. They never do that.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.17

45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda. 180 – Commodus becomes sole emperor of the Roman Empire at the age of eighteen, following the death of his father, Marcus Aurelius. 455 – Petronius Maximus becomes, with support of the Roman Senate, emperor of the Western Roman Empire; he forces Licinia Eudoxia, the widow of his predecessor, Valentinian III, to marry him. 1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England. 1400 – Turko-Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus. 1776 – American Revolution: The British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city. 1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King of Italy. 1824 – The Anglo-Dutch Treaty is signed in London, dividing the Malay archipelago. As a result, the Malay Peninsula is dominated by the British, while Sumatra and Java and surrounding areas are dominated by the Dutch. 1842 – The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo is formally organized with Emma Smith as president. 1860 – The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand Wars. 1861 – The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed. 1862 – The first railway line of Finland between cities of Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, called Päärata, is officially opened. 1891 – SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board. 1901–present 1921 – The Second Polish Republic adopts the March Constitution. 1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland. 1945 – The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany, collapses, ten days after its capture. 1948 – Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO. 1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "californium". 1957 – A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others. 1958 – The United States launches the first solar-powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long-term orbit.[ 1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion. 1960 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 710 crashes in Tobin Township, Perry County, Indiana, killing 63. 1963 – Mount Agung erupts on Bali killing more than 1,100 people. 1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb. 1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead. 1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel. 1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. 1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers. 1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree. 1988 – A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143. 1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet. 1992 – Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242. 1992 – A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.

[senaabhyasagra]

Types Of Army In India

Here Is The Types of Army in India

Get to know about the different types of army in India , their roles, and responsibilities, with this comprehensive guide. Learn about the Indian Army, Navy, Air Force, and much more!

Introduction:

India has a rich history of warfare and battles that date back to ancient times. The Indian Army is one of the largest and most powerful armies in the world. It has been involved in many conflicts throughout history and has always emerged victorious. However, many people are not aware of the different types of army in India and their roles and responsibilities. This article will provide a comprehensive guide to the various types of army in India.

Types of Army in India:

Indian Army:

The Indian Army is the land-based branch of the Indian Armed Forces. It is the largest component of the Indian military and is responsible for land-based operations. The Indian Army has a strength of over 1.4 million personnel, making it one of the largest armies in the world. The Indian Army is further divided into various branches such as the infantry, artillery, armored corps, and more.

Indian Navy:

The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. It is responsible for protecting the maritime borders of India and ensuring the safety and security of Indian waters. The Indian Navy has a strength of over 67,000 personnel and operates various ships, submarines, and aircraft.

Indian Air Force:

The Indian Air Force is the aerial branch of the Indian Armed Forces. It is responsible for conducting aerial warfare and defending Indian airspace. The Indian Air Force has a strength of over 1.7 lakh personnel and operates various aircraft such as fighters, transport planes, and helicopters.

Indian Coast Guard:

The Indian Coast Guard is responsible for protecting India's maritime interests and enforcing maritime law. It is a maritime security agency and is not a part of the Indian Armed Forces. The Indian Coast Guard has a strength of over 15,000 personnel and operates various ships and aircraft.

Assam Rifles:

Assam Rifles is a paramilitary force that operates in the North Eastern region of India. It is responsible for maintaining law and order and protecting India's borders in the North East. The Assam Rifles has a strength of over 63,000 personnel and is the oldest paramilitary force in India.

Special Frontier Force:

The Special Frontier Force is a special force that operates under the supervision of the Indian intelligence agencies. It is responsible for conducting covert operations in enemy territory and is primarily used for operations in the Himalayan region.

Territorial Army:

The Territorial Army is a part-time military force that is composed of civilians who have a regular job but still want to serve their country. The Territorial Army is used for tasks such as disaster relief, aid to civil authorities, and other non-combat roles.

FAQs:

Q- Which is the largest component of the Indian military?

A. The Indian Army is the largest component of the Indian military.

Q- What is the strength of the Indian Navy?

A. The Indian Navy has a strength of over 67,000 personnel.

Q- What is the role of the Indian Air Force?

A. The Indian Air Force is responsible for conducting aerial warfare and defending Indian airspace.

Q- Is the Indian Coast Guard a part of the Indian Armed Forces?

A. No, the Indian Coast Guard is not a part of the Indian Armed Forces.

Q- What is the role of the Assam Rifles?

A. The Assam Rifles is responsible for maintaining law and order and protecting India's borders in the North East.

[sfc-paulchambers]

With the establishment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in World War II, women entered military service as something other than nurses for the first time. The original concept for the WAAC was to assign women to critical non-combat roles and “free a man to fight.” They were expressly excluded from combat-related duties, and – as the name "auxiliary" implied – were not considered a formal part of the Army. However, the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, experimented with allowing women to serve in a limited combat role as range-finder operators with anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) units of the Coast Artillery Corps (CAC) in the Continental United States. With the encouragement of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who promoted an expansion the WAAC's role, Marshall consulted Colonel Edward W. Timberlake, commander of the air defenses of WashingtWAAC DiOveta Culp Hobby. They selected WAAC 3rd Officer (corresponding to the rank of second lieutenant) Elna Hilliard to oversee the experimental program dubbed "Battery X." Eleven WAAC officers and 58 enlisted women were selected and issued cold weather clothing and equipment to allow performing round the clock duty in anti-aircraft dugout emplacements. They received six weeks of training as range-finder instrument operators and learned about the operations and employment of anti-aircraft defenses at a firing range on a sub-post of Fort Miles at Bethany Beach, Delaware. On graduation, they were expected to train other women to eventually replace male range-finder instrument operators at harbor defense installations in the Continental United States. Despite the potential it may have unleashed, the experiment proved short-lived, and remains relatively unknown. If you’re ready to be a part of #armyhistory then contact me now 615-429-0932 #bearmystrong #bedifferent #theydiditwhycantyou #theydidit #whatsyourexcuse #usarmyreserve #bedifferent #sisterhood#womenshistorymonth #bearmystrong #dosomethingpositive for your #futureself #dosomethingworthwatching #yourarmyreservecareercounselor #parttimejob #fulltimebenefits #usarmyreserve #beallthatyoucanbe Posted @withregram • @armyhistory (at Spring Hill, Tennessee) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpuvtNeOLGH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[northernmariette]

Part 4: Army life for the Napoleonic infantryman morphing into...

... the battle of Ulm. 

This is my fourth and last translated post drawn from an article in the September 2019 issue of Historia magazine, This the same magazine from which I posted eight biographical sketches of Marshals recently. I was inspired to do this by @history-and-arts‘s recent participation in a re-enactment of the battle of Waterloo.

The article is specific to the battle of Ulm, but parts of it described aspects of army life applicable throughout the Napoleonic era.  

For the two years preceding this battle, Napoleon had been involved in preparing an invasion of Britain, and had stationed seven army corps along the northern coasts of France and the Flemish coast, Bernadotte holding the easternmost position in Holland, and Augereau the westernmost at Brest. This final post will concern the seven army corps marching to Ulm, and some information regarding the battle itself.

One bit of preliminary information: when historians refer to Boulogne, they don’t mean just the city of Boulogne itself, but the entire seven army corps along the coast facing England. The distance between these corps’ encampments and Boulogne itself, where Napoleon had his headquarters, could be hundreds of kilometres.

The Magnificent Seven (no, not the movie)

Each corps, commanded by a marshal and comprising the different branches of the army - namely the infantry, the cavalry, artillery, and engineers -, followed a separate route in order to speed up movement and facilitate provisioning of supplies. The marches were organized by divisions, each spaced one day apart. Despite these precautions, the marching columns spread over long distances.

From Boulogne to Ulm

August 1805: Napoleon was planning to land in England when Austria's declaration of war caught him by surprise. A third coalition, including Russia, had arisen against him. Without delay, he had to turn his army around and rush to Germany. In order to prevent his enemies from joining forces and outnumbering him, he had to crush the Austrians. The Grande Armee departed from Boulogne on 29 August 1805 and moved in what Napoleon called "seven torrents", covering almost 40 km per day and reaching the Rhine on 25 September. Less than a fortnight later, on 7 October, it crossed the Danube. As a result of the speed of its progress, Napoleon's army trapped the Austrians inside the stronghold of Ulm and forced them to capitulate on 17 October. 

This last part of the article is accompanied by a map showing the position of the army corps on September 25, as well as their individual paths to Ulm. In a rough north-north-east line, starting from the south and going north, we have Murat, Lannes, Ney, Soult, Davout, Marmont, and Bernadotte. The seventh “magnificent”, Augereau, is missing. Murat’s path is shown as an assemblage of curlicued arrows, as he was ordered by Napoleon to feign an attack so as to distract the Austrians. To the north, Marmont and Bernadotte seem to have crossed paths at some point, Marmont’s corps taking the northernmost position.

My copy of David G. Chandler’s The Illustrated Napoleon has a similar map on page 44. It includes some differences and additional information. Murat’s movements are shown with similar curlicues, but Marmont’s and Bernadotte’s armies apparently merged in Wurzburg, about 80 miles from Ulm. Augereau’s corps is at least 100 miles away, not surprising since it had the longest distance to travel. Wrede and Deroi are shown fighting with the French at the head of Bavarian troops. I know that Deroi died in batttle, but I’m not sure if it happened at Ulm. Be it as it may, there is a painting showing Deroi being carried off a field of battle. 

[greatworldwar2]

• Battle of Memel

The Battle of Memel or the siege of Memel was a battle which took place on the Eastern Front during World War II. The battle began when the Red Army launched its Memel offensive operation in late 1944.

The Soviet Belorussian offensive of June–August 1944 (commonly known as Operation Bagration) had seen the German Army Group Centre nearly destroyed and driven from what is now Belarus, most of what is now Lithuania and much of Poland. During August and September of that year, a series of German counter-offensives – Operations Doppelkopf and Casar – succeeded in stalling the Soviet advance and maintaining the connection between the German Army Groups Centre and North; however, Stavka made preparations for an attack by the 1st Baltic Front against the positions of the Third Panzer Army and thence towards Memel, splitting the two Army Groups. Soviet General Bagramyan planned to make his main attack in a 19 km sector to the west of Šiauliai. He concentrated up to half of his entire force in this area, using concealment techniques to ensure there was not a corresponding build-up of German forces, and attempting to convince the German command that the main axis of attack would be towards Riga.

On October 5th, Bagramyan opened the offensive against Raus's Third Panzer Army on a sixty-mile front, concentrating his breakthrough force against the relatively weak 551st Grenadier Division. The latter collapsed on the first day, and a 16 km (10 mile) penetration was achieved; Bagramyan then committed Volsky's 5th Guards Tank Army to the breach, aiming for the coast to the north of Memel. There was a general collapse of the Third Panzer Army's positions by October 7th, and a penetration further south by Beloborodov's 43rd Army. Within two days, it had reached the coast south of Memel, while Volsky had encircled the town from the north. In the south, the northern flank of Chernyakhovsky's 3rd Belorussian Front was advancing on Tilsit. Third Panzer Army's headquarters were overrun by the 5th Guards Tank Army, and Raus and his staff had to fight their way into Memel. The neighbouring Army Group commander, Ferdinand Schoerner, signalled on 9 October that he would mount an attack to relieve Memel if troops could be freed up by evacuating Riga. A decision on this matter was delayed, but the Kriegsmarine managed to withdraw much of the garrison and some civilians from the port in the meantime. The German XXVIII Corps under Gollnick held a defensive line around the town itself. The success of the offensive in the northern sector encouraged the Soviet command to authorise the 3rd Belorussian Front to attempt to break through into the main area of East Prussia. This offensive, the Gumbinnen Operation, ran into extremely strong German resistance and was halted within a few days.

The stalling of the Gumbinnen Operation meant that Soviet forces (mainly from the 43rd Army) settled down to a blockade of the German troops that had withdrawn into Memel. The German force, largely made up of elements from the Großdeutschland and 58th Infantry Divisions and the 7th Panzer Division, was aided by heavily fortified tactical defences, artillery fire from ships (including the Prinz Eugen) in the Baltic, and a tenuous connection with the remainder of East Prussia over the Curonian Spit. The blockade, and defence, was maintained through November, December and much of January, during which period the remaining civilians who had fled into the town, and military wounded, were evacuated by sea. During this time, the Großdeutschland and 7th Panzer Divisions were withdrawn, having suffered heavy losses, and were replaced by the 95th Infantry Division, which arrived by sea. The town was finally abandoned on January 27th, 1945. The success of the Soviet East Prussian offensive to the south made the position of the bridgehead untenable, and it was decided to withdraw the XXVIII Corps from the town into Samland to assist in the defence there; the remaining troops of the 95th and 58th Infantry Divisions were evacuated to the Curonian Spit, where the 58th Division acted as a rearguard for the withdrawal. The last organized German units left at 4am on January 28th, Soviet units taking possession of the harbour a few hours later.

Memel, which had been part of Lithuania only between 1923 and 1939 prior to being reincorporated into Germany, was transferred to the Lithuanian SSR under the Soviet administration. In 1947 it was formally renamed using the Lithuanian name, Klaipėda.

[histoireettralala]

Ulm

As the Allies advanced, Napoleon raced to the critical point, exploiting the superior mobility of his corps, which had billets and supplies arranged by local authorities waiting for them. The smooth and rapid movement of such a large army was unprecedented: the French troops averaged some twenty miles per day. The Grande Armée reached the Rhine river by late September, and after crossing at various locations between September 26 and October 2, it advanced toward the Danube. This speedy advance once again revealed a key feature of Napoleon's character: his willingness to accept long-term political risks for immediate strategic and operational advantages. To threaten the enemy position, Napoleon pushed his I and II Corps through the Prussian territory of Ansbach, flagrantly violating its neutrality. This was a politically perilous decision, but in Napoleon's mind it was justified by military need. It took the Austrians by surprise, as they had received assurances that Prussia would oppose any such move, and so they were convinced of the security of their rear. Napoleon's gamble paid off, but it caused considerable outrage in Prussia and led to calls for war.

Napoleon needed to act quickly, and act quickly he did. With his spies reporting that Mack had concentrated his forces around Ulm, he issued a new set of orders designed to cut the Austrians off from the Russians and destroy them piecemeal. By early October Napoleon's forces were advancing in six great columns in a wide arc around to the north and then east of Mack's position. An important element in Napoleon's plan was his use of intelligence to deceive his enemy, with French agents Charles (Karl) Louis Schulmeister and Edouard Fetny well placed inside Austrian headquarters to supply misinformation to the Austrian command while transmitting crucial Austrian military plans to Napoleon.

By September 30 Mack had realized that he was in danger of being encircled, and he tried to break out of the trap and open a line of retreat toward Vienna. In the first two weeks of October the Austrians suffered a series of major defeats: at Wertingen (October 8), Marshals Joachim Murat and Jean Lannes mauled the Austrian forces under Franz Auffenberg; at Haslach (October 11), some 4,000 French troops commanded by General Pierre Dupont managed to withstand an assault by 25,000 Austrians; at Elchingen (October 14), Marshal Michel Ney routed the Austrians and prevented them from escaping north of the Danube while most of Napoleon's forces were south of the river. By then, the French had two corps in the vicinity of Munich, eighty miles east of Mack, severing his line of communication and closing off his more southerly routes of escape. Napoleon's swift advance and victories demoralized the Austrian army. With the Russians still over a hundred miles away, Mack surrendered his forces, consisting of some 23,500 men and sixty-five pieces of artillery, at Ulm on October 19-20.

The victory at Ulm was a remarkable success. In less than two months Napoleon had marched some 200,000 men from the Atlantic coast into Bavaria and achieved his major objective of annihilating the enemy without even needing to fight a major battle. It was this success, achieved at the operational level rather than the tactical, that led his men to joke that Napoleon had found a new way to make war: with their legs rather than their arms.

Alexander Mikaberidze- The Napoleonic Wars, A Global History

[usafphantom2]

Stuart Banham Following

📌 V1 Flying Bomb (Vergeltungswaffe 1 "Vengeance Weapon 1") IWM Duxford.

The V-1 Flying Bomb (German: Vergeltungswaffe 1 ''Vengeance Weapon'') was an early 'Cruise Missile and the only production Aircraft to use a Pulsejet for power. Its official RLM Aircraft designation was Fi 103, and was also known to the Allies as the ''Buzz Bomb'' or ''Doodlebug'' and in Germany as ''Kirschkern'' (''Cherry Stone'') ''Maikäfer'' (''Maybug'').

The V-1 was the first of the so-called ''Vengeance Weapons'' Series (V-Weapons or Vergeltungswaffen) deployed for the 'Terror Bombing' of London. It was developed at Peenemünde Army Research Center in 1939 by the Nazi German Luftwaffe at the beginning of World War Two, and during initial development was known by the codename ''Cherry Stone'' because of its limited range, the thousands of V-1 Missiles launched into England were fired from launch facilities along the French (Pas-de-Calais) and Dutch coasts.

The Wehrmacht first launched the V-1's against London on 13th June 1944, one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied Landings in France. At peak, more than one hundred V-1's a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied Forces. After this, the German's directed V-1's at the port of Antwerp and at other targets in Belgium, launching a further 2,448 V-1's. The Attacks stopped only a month before the War in Europe ended, when the last launch site in the Low Countries was overrun on 29th March 1945.

As part of Operations against the V-1, the British operated an arrangement of Air Defences, including Anti-Aircraft Guns, Barrage Balloons, and Fighter Aircraft, to intercept the V-1 Bombs before they reached their targets, while the Launch Sites and Underground Storage Depots became targets for Allied Attacks including Strategic Bombing.

In 1944, a number of tests of the V-1 Weapon were conducted in Tornio, Finland, according to multiple Soldiers, a small ''Plane''-Like Bomb with wings fell off a German Aeroplane. Another V-1 was launched which flew over the Finnish Soldiers' Lines. The second Bomb suddenly stopped its Engine and fell steeply down, exploding and leaving a crater around 65ft to 98ft wide. The V-1 Flying Bomb was referred by Finnish soldiers as a ''Flying Torpedo'' due to its resemblance to one from afar.

The first complete V-1 Airframe was delivered on 30th August 1942,after the first complete As.109-014 was delivered in September, the first glide test flight was on 28th October 1942 at Peenemünde, from under a Focke-Wulf Fw 200. The first powered trial was on 10th December, launched from beneath a Heinkel He 111. The LXV Armeekorps z.b.V. (65th Army Corps for Special Deployment) formed during the last days of November 1943 in France commanded by General der Artillerie z.V. Erich Heinemann was responsible for the operational use of V-1.

The conventional Launch Sites could theoretically launch about 15 V-1's per day, but this rate was difficult to achieve on a consistent basis, the maximum rate achieved was 18. Overall, only about 25% of the V-1's hit their targets, the majority being lost because of a combination of Defensive Measures, MechanicaliUnreliability or Guidance Errors. With the capture or destruction of the Launch Facilities used to attack England, the V-1's were employed in Attacks against Strategic Points in Belgium, primarily the port of Antwerp.

Launches against Britain were met by a variety of countermeasures, including Barrage Balloons and Aircraft such as the Hawker Tempest and newly introduced Gloster Meteor Jet Fighter. These measures were so successful that by August 1944 about 80% of V-1's were being destroyed (Although the Meteors were fast enough to catch the V-1's, they suffered from frequent Cannon failures, and accounted for only 13) In all, about 1,000 V-1's were destroyed by Aircraft.

The intended operational altitude was originally set at 9,000ft, however, repeated failures of a Barometric Fuel-Pressure Regulator led to it being changed in May 1944, halving the operational height, thereby bringing V-1's into range of the 40mm Bofors Light Anti-Aircraft Guns commonly used by Allied Anti-Aircraft Units.

▪︎Type: Cruise Missile

▪︎Place of Origin: Nazi Germany

▪︎In Service: 1944 to 1945

▪︎Used By: Luftwaffe

▪︎Wars: World War Two

▪︎Designer: Robert Lusser

▪︎Manufacturer: Fieseler

▪︎Unit Cost: 5,090 RM

▪︎Mass: 4,740lb

▪︎Length: 27.3ft

▪︎Width: 17.6ft

▪︎Height: 4ft 8in

▪︎Warhead: Amatol-39, later Trialen

▪︎Warhead Weight: 1,870lb

▪︎Detonation Mechanism: Electrical impact fuze / Backup mechanical impact fuze / Time fuze to prevent examination of duds

▪︎Powerplant: Argus As 109-014 Pulsejet

▪︎Operational Range: 160 miles

▪︎Maximum Speed: 400mph flying between 2,000ft and 3,000ft

▪︎Guidance System: Gyrocompass based Autopilot.

Via Flickr

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.17

45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda. 180 – Commodus becomes sole emperor of the Roman Empire at the age of eighteen, following the death of his father, Marcus Aurelius. 455 – Petronius Maximus becomes, with support of the Roman Senate, emperor of the Western Roman Empire; he forces Licinia Eudoxia, the widow of his predecessor, Valentinian III, to marry him. 1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England. 1400 – Turko-Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus. 1776 – American Revolution: The British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city. 1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King of Italy. 1824 – The Anglo-Dutch Treaty is signed in London, dividing the Malay archipelago. As a result, the Malay Peninsula is dominated by the British, while Sumatra and Java and surrounding areas are dominated by the Dutch. 1842 – The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo is formally organized with Emma Smith as president. 1860 – The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand Wars. 1861 – The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed. 1862 – The first railway line of Finland between cities of Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, called Päärata, is officially opened. 1891 – SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board. 1921 – The Second Polish Republic adopts the March Constitution. 1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland. 1945 – The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany, collapses, ten days after its capture. 1948 – Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO. 1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "californium". 1957 – A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others. 1958 – The United States launches the first solar-powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long-term orbit. 1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion. 1963 – Mount Agung erupts on Bali killing more than 1,100 people. 1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb. 1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead. 1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel. 1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. 1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers. 1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree. 1988 – A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143. 1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet. 1992 – Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242. 1992 – A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%. 2000 – Five hundred and thirty members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead. 2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 2004 – Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. Thirty-five Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Serbia are destroyed. 2016 – Rojava conflict: At a conference in Rmelan, the Movement for a Democratic Society declares the establishment of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.

[cyazurai]

✨❄️🍪🎥🔪 sorry I know it’s a lot of them!

Haha all good, I don’t mind answering a lot! 😁

✨- which fictional character (book, show, or movie) do you relate to most? This one was REALLY hard, lol! I went through a looooot of characters from different books, shows, and movies I’ve watched, and there are definitely several I relate to, but.. honestly, I think I relate to Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter books the most? Strange, kind of lost in my own world, considered weird, not a lot of friends (at least in real life), but a nice person when you get to know her.

❄️- what is your favorite season? Fall! I like cooler weather better than warm weather, and I love Spring but it gives me such horrible allergies. Plus, Fall has all of my favorite flavors, apple, pumpkin, etc.

🍪- cookie dough or cookies? Ooooo another hard one. But I think cookies? Because I know of some GREAT cookies that aren’t as good as dough as they are as cookies.

🎥- what show are you currently binging on? The original Sailor Moon! I never watched the whole thing when it was originally on, just a few episodes here and there, so I decided it was time I watched it from the beginning.

🔪- scariest/creepiest experience? I was hoping someone would ask this one, heheh. I actually have quite a few scary/creepy experiences, but I’m gonna go with one that feels a bit more supernatural just for fun. I was staying with my parents in an old fort house on the coast, in what used to be a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps base. It was for a family reunion, because the place is now a state park with a conference center and everything, and my mom’s extended family is HUGE. Well, 3 of my cousins and our friend (we used to bring friends along as kids) decided to explore the basement. I was a chicken so I didn’t really want to, but I went along with it. The moment they opened the door, I felt the strongest sense of “don’t go down there” I’ve ever felt, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I flat out refused, and they kept saying we should go. I was normally a pushover, but this one time there was nothing they could do that would make me go down there. I found out later, that this basement was actually connected to all the houses on the entire property, and it was more like a giant room we may have gotten stuck in if we’d explored too far.  Also, found out that the place is considered the most haunted campground in my entire state. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[warsofasoiaf]

The Celtic Tiger - A Kaiserreich Ireland AAR Chapter 3: A More Perfect Union

16 January 1938 - Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin, Ireland

The East Coast Enclave had been months of ferocious fighting, but with the fall of New York City, the center of combat had shifted halfway across the country; it was now time for the west under General Eisenhower to show what they were capable of. Militia forces had been brought up to supplement the professionals, and training camps on the West Coast from MCRD San Diego to Fort Lewis in Washington State were training enlistees that had signed on to protect the country. The Federals were pushing on the western front from the Dakotas and Kansas, looking to threaten the rebel capital of Chicago. The Great Plains were difficult to defend as long as the Federals maintained control of the air. Close air support had orders to target Syndicate armor, vehicles, and artillery, depriving them of their heavy firepower, and allied fighters had swept the skies clean.

That had not meant that the East Coast was idle. Dan McKenna and the 1st Thunderbolts did not follow as the other volunteers pivoted to the southern front. The Irish were to stay in the north and eliminate pockets of Syndicalist resistance and clear the pathway to the new Syndicalist eastern command nexus in Cleveland. Irish volunteers often clashed with Union of Britain volunteers under General Paget in that theater, and McKenna knew that the more experience and knowledge he could gain about the Union’s fighting capability, the better informed Ireland would be about the Union. With the loss of Pittsburgh and New York, Cleveland was now the major stronghold for Syndicalists in the east, and if Cleveland was threatened, Detroit and Chicago would both be left vulnerable from MacArthur’s infantry in the east as well as the armored units driving in from the west. 

The Syndicalist position was dire. Mass outcry and demonstrations had taken place when news of Welfare Island had begun to circulate, calling for increased support for the embattled Federal government and more shipments of vital war materiel and volunteers. Canada closed the border to refugees in Syndicalist New York, citing the need to prevent war criminals from escaping their crimes, and had King Edward had strong-armed Parliament into raising the possibility of full military intervention, though the Liberal majority under MacKenzie King vowed that such an action would never pass the Canadian Parliament. Savinkov, the Vozhd of Russia, had given a fiery speech in Moscow, that the forces of the left “were monsters in human skin, and must be eliminated before they establish their visions of extermination in other countries,” in a rebuke to those who had protested his purging of the Left SR. Almost with equal fervor, the Internationale had defended the CSA’s actions, with Marcel Deat stating that “those who have kept the workers in captivity have tasted but a fraction of a fraction of what they wrought upon the working class.” Smedley Butler had agreed, quoting “What is a nation supposed to do with gangsters?” Jack Reed was uncharacteristically quiet, only citing incidents of financial workers sympathizing with Federals and committing crimes against the Combined Syndicates of America and that such actions were no different than the Federal arrest of syndicalist comrades in their own territory. Reed had focused on attempting to win more support for the CSA on the world stage, looking for recognition from social democrat regimes across the world. 

At home, Collins had reiterated his support for the American government in their civil war, and continued to push his economic initiatives at home, focusing on improving Ireland’s scientific and research prowess by improving the Éireann Scientific Innovation Council that had been founded in 1937. After the rapid industrialization that had turned Dublin into a manufacturing hub for civilian and military industry alike, Collins believed that a well-funded research program was necessary to transform Ireland into a truly modernized country with a knowledge economy. Research grants to universities, government contracts for private industry, and public research initiatives in strategic sectors. Oil and rubber were going to be critical, Ireland had no naturally existing quantities of either, and although there was trade between the German and Dutch colonial holdings in East Asia, that could not last forever. Collins had seen great strides with synthetically derived Buna rubber, and synthetic derivations of oil. Any plans to improve the An tAerchór weren’t going to go anywhere if Ireland couldn’t produce the AVGAS needed to get the planes to take off. There was also a need to develop better machining tools and expand the use of mechanical calculation machines with advanced differential analysis. Early in 1936, Collins had ensured that Ireland focused on developing such electronic machines to assist in the small research programs that Ireland did have, and time was proving him to have been prudent. Irish researchers were exceptionally productive, but they lacked the funding and manpower of the Great Powers. 

The ESIC had succeeded in its early endeavors, helping to develop radar technology that Collins had hoped to install in each of the four provinces as a warning against any Union aerial incursion. Industrial investment has also boomed in the ESIC, with the new factories in Dublin taking advantage of the development of industrial turret lathes to help improve factory productivity. The foreign financial press had delighted in previous Irish endeavors, and Collins knew that if he could continue to charm the reporters, foreign investments would continue to roll in. Long gone were the days where performance on the battlefield could earn him concessions from his enemy. This new kind of war was measured in industrial tonnages, wastage percentages, and research publications, and much like the soldiers of 1916, Irish industry had significant disadvantages in organization, technology, and training. They had responded effectively to the crisis of Black Monday, but how Ireland would modernize its economy had been an open question. It was easy to fix a crisis, but maintaining a high level of prosperity in peacetime was an entirely new sort of war. Some critical articles dismissed the Irish recovery as a fluke, and predicted that Ireland would continue as it already had, a largely agrarian economy, a quaint backwater.

Collins hoped to change that. If Ireland was going to maintain its independence, it was going to need to make up for any shortage in men with the quality of their labors, from warfare to labor productivity and now, with research. The ESIC would get more funding, allowing for multiple projects that could benefit the industrial and military spheres. Perhaps in the near future, competing with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the Imperial Scientific and Academic Council in prestige and accomplishment. It would be a great green leap forward into the modern era, a synthesis of knowledge, industry, and agriculture - the benefits of all three, and the drawbacks of none. Ireland would shake off the old plantation ways of the British colonial times, and take its place among the modern world.

Or at least, that had always been the vision.

---

16 March 1938 - Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

It was over. The Combined Syndicates had capitulated.

Surrounded on all sides, the Syndicates had quickly lost control of Ohio. The Federal army threatened Cleveland from the land and rail routes toward Pittsburgh, but had pushed along Lake Erie and the Canal to create a stranglehold, cutting off the Combined Syndicates from international support and re-supply and starving the CSA army of vital fuel. Butler’s orders were to hold the city and prevent the eastern front from collapsing, but after ferocious attack from Federal bombers and artillery, the Syndicates were forced to withdraw. Holdout forces persisted, but McKenna’s Irish Thunderbolts had been able to eliminate the remaining guerrillas with minimal casualties.

The fall of Cleveland was a deathblow to Syndicalist morale, as the Federal could threaten Detroit from the east. Reinforcing the eastern theater was a daunting proposition, as the motorized and armored forces were primarily situated in the west to push toward Chicago. The militia forces that had been raised from Michigan and Illinois were not up to the task of facing the dogged professionals that had made up the volunteer corps or the crack Federal professionals. The French armor division had opted to fight to the last in Cleveland, and they had, but this had left the Combined Syndicates without a strong maneuver unit in theater. Desertions began to plague the Syndicalist army, with militia forces melting away in an attempt to return to their homes. Butler had increasingly ordered blocking divisions and rear pickets being established to prevent desertion, and rhetoric intensified against “cowards who betrayed the revolution,” but on the front lines, the order was rarely implemented, since every professional was needed to halt the tide of the Federal advance. 

Butler’s solution was to withdraw from the large Minnesota line, shortening the defensive line and allowing mutual support from quiet portions of the front to reinforce trouble spots. This had allowed even foot infantry to relieve areas under fire. By employing a mobile reserve, Butler was able to stabilize the line and prevent a complete collapse in the east. Reed had continued to lobby the Internationale for more funding, perhaps to even officially declare war on the Federal government, but the Communards disallowed it. Deat worried that if the Internationale declared war on the Federals, the Canadians would declare war on the Combined Syndicates, and the war would be over before the Union of Britain or the Commune of France could land their troops on the East Coast. With the seas and skies closed, supply shipments were irregular at best, to the benefit of the Federals who happily seized Communard supply shipments of food and weapons for their own. No relief would be coming.

After a week, Dan McKenna and the 1st Thunderbolts received their orders to join the Federal effort to take Detroit from the Syndicalists. The Federal plan was deceptively simple, a push from the east to threaten Detroit, and when Butler would pull forces to reinforce the eastern line, the west would launch an assault on Chicago, using infantry units and airpower to disrupt the line and after collapse, the motorized units would penetrate into the territory, causing as much damage to the strategic depth and attacking fleeing units with the hope that the units themselves will rout. Ideally, they would disband completely, but even if they were isolated and out of contact, that would mean success as the slower infantry moved in to occupy territory in Iowa and southern Illinois. 

Butler did not take the bait, electing instead on a fighting withdrawal, hoping to overextend the Federal lines and encircle them. Yet with the Federals using their professional as the spearhead, with militia following behind, few openings presented themselves. Federal control of the sky made ambush and counter-attack difficult to conceal, in some cases Federal bombers would simply bomb the ambush before they could even reach their target. Butler had even attempted a marine raid across Lake Erie, to cause chaos in the Federal rear and cause the advance to pause, but deserters had tipped off field commanders to the plan in exchange for parole, allowing MacArthur to order air patrols of the lake, to sink the enemy when they appeared. With losses mounting, eventually the Detroit defenders elected to initiate a scorched earth policy, burning their fuel reserves and destroying the Edsel Ford memorial building, before retreating to the West End, hoping to reinforce their capital in Chicago.

Such a feat was perhaps too much to hope for; Chicago fell shortly thereafter. General Doolittle, the commander of the newly-minted United States Army Air Force, had ordered bombing raids to occur daily in Chicago to destroy Syndicate factories and depots, hoping to force their workforce to refuse to work in such dangerous conditions. Reed had ordered that workers who had missed their shifts would be prosecuted, turning over power of enforcement to political commissars, but a destroyed factory produced nothing, workforce or not. Families huddled within basements, churches, and schools, hoping to avoid becoming collateral damage. On 13 March 1938, Jack Reed and several important militia figures were nowhere to be found, having fled the city during the night. Smedley Butler, seeing all was lost, gave the order for a ceasefire and truce. Butler and MacArthur signed the Treaty of Chicago on 16 March, and Butler publicly urged the Syndicate army to turn over arms and surrender to the nearest Federal officer. The news was accepted to mixed response, made worse by the fact that Reed was not the one who had signed the surrender documents. News of attacks against civilian targets came in almost immediately, and National Guard divisions that were not on the front lines found themselves tasked with occupying hostile territory and subject to a nasty guerrilla war.

Reed was caught a few days later, attempting to flee along the Erie Canal to the Commune of France, and turned over to Federal courts. Reed was defiant, citing the never-ending struggle of the American worker for their liberation, and he and Butler were both taken to Washington to await trial. President Garner, jubilant at the news, demanded Long’s immediate surrender to spare “the country any more damage and work to establish the United States as one nation indivisible.” Long never responded to Garner’s request, and continued to push against Federal positions in the Midwest and the Carolinas, hoping to secure a decisive advantage before northern front troops could reinforce their southern brethren. 

---

08 May 1938 - Kentucky/Tennessee Border, United States of America

“Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the United States of America and Volunteer Forces of Allied Nations

We are to embark upon the Great Crusade toward which we have striven these many months, and seek an end to this civil war that has plagued our country. We have accomplished much in this past year of warfare. Our forces have inflicted upon the Combined Syndicates and the Union State great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. We have taken New York, Detroit, and Chicago. We have forced the surrender of Smedley Butler and the forces which have opposed us in the north. Much more remains in front of us. George Patton and the military of the Union State are ahead, and they will fight tenaciously. They are well-equipped, well-trained, and battle-hardened. Yet our Home Fronts are behind us, producing an advantage in our reserves of Fighting Men, in our weapons and munitions of war. I have nothing short of the utmost confidence in your skill as fighting men and your devotion to duty. We will accept nothing less than full Victory, and that America will again be one nation indivisible. Good Luck! And let us all beseech blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” -Dwight Eisenhower, Speech to the Troops following the invasion of the American Union State

The push into Union State territory was going to have to start somewhere. A sense of quiet unease had fallen over the front lines of the American Civil War. Eisenhower and MacArthur had been recruiting militia and bringing them to the front lines in an attempt to bolster their push with raw numbers; the manpower advantage had favored the Federals over the Longists. The militia, however, were more of a paper tiger than anything else, they quickly folded in the face of a determined struggle by professional troops. MacArthur had suggested attaching militia to their professionals to supplement an attack, while Eisenhower wanted them to take over less combat-heavy roles like transporting supplies. Ultimately, Garner elected on both strategies, letting the professionals take the lead while militia primarily acted as support, but not forbidding them from the front lines. The militia hadn’t been too happy about that order, but more than one eager volunteer went to pieces when it came to shelling. No one wanted the effort to stall out when the militia abandoned it, and the professionals were happy to have one less headache to deal with.

The volunteers had spread across the massive border of the American Union State, with Dan McKenna and the 1st Thunderbolts stationed on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. There was a salient in the Union line, as Longist forces had opted to secure an advance bridge to prevent armor and motorized units from pouring into Tennessee, and McKenna had opted to fight with the Americans in taking it back. McKenna’s friends in the 12th Hohei Shidan had been stationed near the three way intersection of Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee, too far to fight with them on the bridge as they had in Pittsburgh. Adna Chaffee Jr. had been appointed theater commander with divisions of motorized infantry and tanks fighting in the Great Plains, but the bridge needed to be taken before any wheeled or tracked units could get into enemy territory. If they couldn’t take the bridge, the push would be slow as bridging operations would need to be conducted, potentially leaving them vulnerable to enemy bombardment. Chaffee had sent an Irish militia brigade, the First Dublin Volunteers, to fight with the Thunderbolts, in hopes that it would form greater unit cohesion between the militia units and McKenna’s professional volunteers. 

McKenna, after seizing the bridge, opted to strike toward western Tennessee, as his recon teams had seen that the Union State was only defended by poorly-equipped militia forces. McKenna crossed the border and struck north, surprising the 2nd Minutemen with a night crossing of the river and attack in the dawn hours. The militia had fled, and McKenna boasted that his volunteers “were the first in Tennessee.” During the war itself, he had said he was the first division to achieve its objective, but this claim was hard to verify, as multiple divisions had achieved successful ingress during the first day of operations.

Claire Lee Chennault was ordered to counterattack, sending members of the Minutemen and the Silver Legion to attack the Irish volunteers before they could consolidate their position and establish good defensive fighting ground. McKenna elected to fight, aided by locals sympathetic to the Federal cause. Long’s acceptance of the Silver Legion had starkly divided the American Union State, and much like the Federal militia, the Silver Legion were unready for warfare, forcing Long to lean heavily on the professional forces that had sided with him over the Garner government. Chennault also received no aircraft and little in the way of towed anti-aircraft guns for his theater, which he had fiercely protested. Industrial shortages had plagued the American Union State and Chennault was not well-liked by the high command of the Union State, many of whom carried their grudges from the US military. The German volunteers in Tennessee opted not to support his push against the Irish volunteers. Without air support and with little in the way of trained troops, Chennault’s move was difficult. To counter, Chaffee ordered the 4th Ohio loyalist militia to support McKenna while professional Federal forces flanked the Silver Legion from the north. Chaffee’s move was successful, threatening Nashville and relieving the pressure on the Irish volunteers, and McKenna ambushed the 2nd Minutemen after luring them into the open. After ten days of fierce fighting, the Union State withdrew to Nashville, ceding the area to the north to the Federals. McKenna would earn immortality for his ability to fend off multiple angles of attack using localized strongpoints and artillery fire throughout the Second American Civil War.

---

29 June 1938 - Mississippi Lowlands near Greenville, United States of America

McKenna marveled at just how ridiculously large the United States was. It was one thing to see a map, to look at numbers printed in a book, and know that it was a massive country; it was another to experience the chill of New York in winter and the sweltering humidity of Mississippi in summer. 

Alas, he was not here to write a weather guide, he was here to fight. The Federals had enough manpower and foreign support that the American Union State had been falling back on almost every front. Patton’s regulars were well-led, some of his tactical maneuvers were downright brilliant, but he lacked the manpower to secure strategic gains. With the victory over the Combined Syndicates, Federal morale was at an all time high. Even those who couldn’t fight helped in their own way, even if it was just buying war bonds to help further the effort. Local intelligence was particularly prized, but even just a warm meal or good directions had supported the war effort.

The Federal High Command sought to split the American Union State. The Deep South States of Alabama and Mississippi could cut Florida off from AUS command, that would make it vulnerable. If Florida could fall, that would give the US Navy a local base to contest the Gulf of Mexico, hopefully robbing the AUS of supplies. The Texas oil fields meant that they were unlikely to run out of fuel, but taking Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas would cripple Long’s supply of bauxite that he needed for his support companies, as well as threaten his capital in New Orleans. Biloxi and Mobile were just a short boat ride away, and if the Federal could control those areas, they may even be able to start shelling the capital and force a surrender.

More than the heat, McKenna was in awe of the fighting prowess of his men. The Thunderbolts had to have been one of the finest units in this war. They were true veterans, who had gone through the crucible and come out the other side to become a spear in the hearts of any foe. They moved without wasted movement, everything from the artillery to the ambulance corps had been honed to a razor’s precision. The way the infantry effortlessly went from defense to attack as if it were no more a burden than shifting from one foot to the other. Casualties for the Thunderbolts had been among the lowest across the entire Federal forces, a far cry from the grievous losses they had taken in West Virginia and New York City. If they could bring back this level of exceptional ability to Ireland, the sky was truly the limit for the Irish Republican Army.

Hopefully, that would have to act as a deterrent to Mosley across the Irish Sea. The failure of the Combined Syndicates had also acted as a slap in the face for the Internationale, as they had poured men, money, and materiel into Jack Reed’s insurrection. Collins had feared the Internationale acting emboldened if they had won the American Civil War, but McKenna had wondered if they would be chastened if they had failed. Neither Mosley’s Totalists nor the Jacobins in France were likely to simply accept their failure, lest King Edward and Marechal Petain become more emboldened in their efforts to retake their homelands. Even so, a hostile American government would have only made it worse. McKenna and the Thunderbolts had their fates written in stone, and that meant marinating in the heat of Mississippi, attacking the American Union State, and hoping to force a surrender before even more lives were lost. 

The Federals had opted to place a large number of regulars to push west, due to the width of the Mississippi. The Union State had blown the bridges leading to the Mississippi Lowlands, and MacArthur had been forced ordered the militia to take the long route north to secure better bridges, but McKenna had learned a few techniques to create makeshift bridges quickly under fire. The 10th Mountain Division, supplemented by Pennsylvania volunteers, had finished their pacification campaign in the Appalachians, and had opted to fight with the Thunderbolts. The goal after taking the Mississippi would be to force a split between Texas and Lousiana, driving the traitors into the Gulf of Mexico or forcing them to surrender at the Mexican border, if necessary.

More and more reports had come in, particularly among black communities in Alabama and Mississippi, about the mass evictions, supply and money confiscations, and other expropriations of “donations to the war effort,” and as the war turned, the Silver Legion found no shortage of ‘traitors’ and ‘Federal sympathizers.’ Their punishment was as brutal as it was calculating, with homes burned first, sometimes with families still inside them, or an entire family forced to watch their members executed one right after the other. As the warfronts collapsed, Pelley continued to focus on ‘domestic unity,’ as he called it. One captured Silver Legion member, before his execution by firing squad, summed up the matter with the coldness of a lobster: “We have to create the impression of mastery eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do. There can be no cowardice. If we hesitate one moment and fail to proceed with the greatest determination, we will not win.”

The war needed to end, and end soon. The longer it went on, the more people were brutalized, and the longer the United States would need to focus on rebuilding. 

“We will push forward, and push hard. We will fight hard, and we will fight forever, if that’s what it takes.” McKenna quoted to one reporter. “This war will only end when those who perpetrated it acknowledge their error, wrought in their pride, and end their fight. Then and only then will peace be achieved. Make sure you write that word for word. Peace will come, and it is only upon the American Union State to decide how quickly it shall come. They will come to the bargaining table or reap the fate of Carthage.”

---

23 September 1938 - New Orleans, United States of America

The 23rd of September, 1938 was to be known as Victory Day.

It was the autumn equinox, when the year took the transition from long days to long nights. For the Americans, however, it had a new meaning, the day of the signing of the Treaty of New Orleans. The United States stepped from a difficult war to a difficult peace. 

New Orleans had fallen, with Russian and Austrian volunteers eagerly attempting to be the first into the city. The Americans had made a successful push into Texas, dividing the command center of San Antonio from Long’s capital in New Orleans. Longists occupied several scattered parts of Arkansas, but were quickly collapsing in the face of dogged Federal assault. Much of the Texan contingent had likewise surrendered or faded into the Texas badlands to continue a guerrilla campaign against the victorious Federals. The writing had been on the wall since the summer; the failure of the Longist attack after the Treaty of Chicago and the success of the Tennessee campaign had shown that the Longists lacked the capability to achieve their strategic objectives. Only Germany and Paraguay supported Long, though their volunteers, depleted, helped little and even encouraged surrender with themselves as intermediaries. Long had been captured outside of New Orleans, and had formally announced a truce and an end to the civil war. Eisenhower took the instrument of surrender in a formal ceremony at the St. Louis Cathedral, and gave a somber speech in the ruined French quarter, urging “Americans everywhere to be reconciled, and to come again to each other as fellow Americans as one nation, under one flag.” Privately, Eisenhower feared guerrilla actions from fanatics who would refuse the surrender, but kept his misgivings to himself to not dampen the triumph of Victory Day. President Garner had flown to Washington D.C., to re-christen the capital as the seat of the Federal Government in a solemn ceremony. He announced an end to hostilities, and a new beginning for the country. “It will be a long rebuilding, and a hard one. But as I said before, we do not flee our problems, we solve them. We survived Black Monday, and we shall survive this.”

He hadn’t been wrong that it would be a hard rebuilding. Disease ran rampant through the country, people lived huddled in the husks of buildings gutted by bombs and artillery fire, exposed to the elements. Fields had been burned, water had been poisoned by bodies and poisonous runoff, exposing many to starvation. Only the West Coast and the Rocky Mountain States had been largely spared from the war, and they could not feed an entire nation. It had lost hundreds of thousands of people, and countless more had been crippled by their injuries or rendered completely mad. The German Kaiserreich had already promised a generous aid package and purchases of American goods to provide a steady influx of money, and perhaps to try and paper over their support of Huey Long during the war. The Japanese Empire, having fended off an army coup and proclaiming itself a friend to all democratic nations, had sent medical personnel and equipment to help stem the loss of people to injuries and disease. Canada and Mexico had already sent large relief caravans across their borders to assist, and established refugee camps on their borders to assist their beleaguered neighbor to treat those who had fled, with the hopes of repatriation in the near future. Even the Union of Britain and the Commune of France, while mourning their lost revolution, had offered aid to the United States worker in the form of grain shipments. For one brief moment, the world almost seemed united in a single purpose - to come to the aid of their fellow man for no other reason than because he was in pain.

The end hadn’t come soon enough for Daniel McKenna, who had spent the last 19 months far from home fighting fanatics eager to spill an ocean’s worth of blood for the cause. The defense of Americans against radicalism was a worthy goal, it was true, but what he had seen had far outstripped the battlefield. It was not a war for liberation, or for freedom. It wasn’t even a war borne out of something petty like resource gain or national honor. It was a war borne out of hate’s sake, and nothing else. The Irish Republican Army had done plenty of dishonorable things in their struggle for freedom, but what he saw was truly disturbing. What was worse though, was how many rationalized it as necessary. Their victims weren’t human, they were humanoid, something similarly shaped to man but without its inherent dignity. It would be a relief to McKenna, then, to finally head home with the 1st Thunderbolts. To sleep in his own bed, to breathe the air of home, and to eat lamb stew - the American love of beef had made him long for home.

He’d be back soon, he knew. He was the officer in charge when they had liberated Welfare Island. There would have to be a tribunal, and he would undoubtedly have to be a witness. He had hoped instead that the reporter lass could take the bullet for him, but that was improper. It was a soldier’s duty to see everything through, no matter how unpleasant, and duty did not end where the battlefield did.

---

26 September 1938 - Home of Michael Collins, Cork, Ireland

Michael Collins greeted the news of the American victory with cold cheer. All of the news was good, certainly. The United States had staved off the threat of radicalism, and the Irish volunteers had returned to Ireland well-experienced and ready to take on the challenges of the world. The Internationale had received a large black eye to their goal of world revolution, and Ireland had demonstrated its resolve and skill for the world to see. There had been losses, several families had fathers, brothers, or sons that wouldn’t be returning. Collins had made sure to meet with each one of them, to express his condolences. The Irish Volunteers had been an all-volunteer brigade, but that hadn’t meant that everyone had supported Collins’s choice to support what they saw was a distant war for a country that had maintained cool relations with the country at best. He had hoped to make them see their commitment, but it was impossible not to see a grieving widow and think, in some small way, that the cost was paid by some more than others. 

Yet there were stormclouds on the horizon. Plenty of American laborers felt cheated by Irish businessmen eager to hire at the lowest pound, that their plight was being exploited by greedy landlords and capital-holders; perfect fodder to sign on to Jim Larkin’s ideas and open the door to the syndicalists across the Irish Sea. Other laborers felt that the Americans were stealing their jobs, that they had gone out of the depression of Black Monday only to find that Michael Collins had given away their work to Americans for half the price. Ulster was a bigger problem, they had violently protested American migrants settling in Belfast despite their shared Protestantism. Carson had spread fear-mongering rhetoric about the American emigrants sent as the first wave of a larger colonization effort, to abandon northern Irish identity at the ballot box by vote stuffing in their constituencies. He had spoken long about ideas of culture war, that the Northern Irish had no place in an Irish Republic. Demonstrations against Collins and flying the banner of the Ulster Red Hand had been mostly peaceful, so far. Even then, assaults had started to rise, the perpetrators being gangs of young men prowling for drunk southerners walking home by themselves after a night at the pub. The next night would see several young Unionist men beaten by gangs of Republicans as retaliation, whether or not the victim was an active Unionist or even in the same area. Blood for blood, it seemed, and it would only continue.

And beyond that was Mosley. He was a proud man, and he was unlikely to take the Internationale’s defeat and the looming war crimes tribunal for Jack Reed and the Combined Syndicates meekly. He would need to validate his own leadership or face the same backlash that had propelled Totalism to success in the Trade Union Congress to begin with. He had purged the Union of naysayers, but if he could only offer failure, soon the naysayers might think that what held back the world revolution was him.

Even in a moment of success, Collins couldn’t help but look to the future with dread, robbing him of the taste of victory before he could ever taste it. And the only thing he feared more than what was looming on the horizon was the thought of it coming anyway without him there to fight against it. Ireland would be free, no matter the cost, and he was worried that there were some who were paying the cost more than others. 

---

Alright, that’s the third chapter. I opted for the American War Crimes tribunal to come to the next chapter, for accuracy’s sake, the tribunals probably wouldn’t happen until 1939 if we use the timing of the Nuremberg Trials as our guide. Decided to mix the historical violence in the Deep South with the Spanish White Terror when dealing with the Silver Legion, trying to illustrate the horror without being lurid and gross. 

Next chapter we have Mosley’s Response and the Invasion of Fortress Ireland. 

Images in Order

ESIC Rises to Advanced Level

Fall of Chicago

Fall of Detroit

Bridge Battle on the Tennessee Border

The Nashville Salient - AUS attack

The Nashville Salient - USA counterattack

Pushing into Lousiana

Thunderbolts Earn Veteran Status

Last Legs of the AUS

End of the Second Civil War

Fall of New Orleans

Return of the IRA Volunteers

Problems with Integration

-SLAL

[sandyhookhistory]

Brigadier General Frank Fergusson Hiya, folks. We have a terribly overdue, belated #harbordefensehappybirthday to celebrate! Today, we honor Brigadier General Frank Kerby Fergusson, who was born on (Wed) February 18th, 1874, in Riddleton, Tennessee. He attended West Point, NY, graduating in 1896, entering the Artillery for his branch of service. An absolutely stellar career would follow. As the Army changed, he would ultimately be in the Coast Artillery Corps. Following routine duty throughout the US, he attended the Submarine Mine School at Fort Totten, NY, graduating in 1906. He then accomplished an amazing feat – commanding the US Army Mine Planter “Armistead,” he led her and three other mine planters from Virginia, through the Caribbean, down the coast of South American AND AROUND CAPE HORN and up into the Pacific, delivering his little fleet safe and sound at San Francisco. This was absolutely incredible, as mine planters are bath toys in comparison to ocean going vessels. He graduated from the Army War College, served in the Philippines twice, served on the Ordnance Board, deployed for World War 1, returned to train Coast Artillerymen at Fort Monroe, VA, and was promoted to Brigadier General in 1918. His later career saw him in Command at San Francisco, Fort DuPont, Delaware, then commanded the Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound, down to the Panama Canal, and then back here where his final command oversaw the Harbor Defenses of Eastern New York, and the 62nd Coast Artillery (Anti-Aircraft). He passed away on Active Duty at Fort Totten, July 18th, 1937, age 63. He was buried at West Point. However, his legacy of service does not end there. At nearby Fort Tilden, a pair of non-permanent batteries of two six inch guns had been built for WW1 in 1917. They were nominally called “Battery East” and “West.” On December 1st, 1939, “East” was renamed in honor of General Fergusson. It would remain in service until 1942. Sadly, due to its temporary construction, only an odd piece of the Battery’s gun blocks may be seen today. However, as always, General Fergusson’s legacy of service, and of the Battery that bares his name, are in safe hands here. (at Fort Hancock, New Jersey) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpf2GIEgjCt/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[joachimnapoleon]

“Perhaps you love me still in the depths of your heart.”

Finally finished translating the Murat letter I mentioned in this post. I was just going to post some snippets of it, but decided I’d rather put it up in all its unabridged, rambling glory, because the totally random campaign details and assorted minutiae Murat starts throwing in through his alternately sarcastic, bitter, and angsty tirade are a nice glimpse into his (admittedly chaotic) thought process; they’re his way of trying to convince Napoleon that Murat’s Sicilian campaign is actually going quite well and is perfectly winnable if only Napoleon would just let him carry on with his business without further interference (which Napoleon won’t).

Some brief context: Murat, in the summer of 1810, is attempting to wrest Sicily from the Bourbons and reunite it with Naples. Or so he thinks; the reality is that Napoleon’s primary motive for sanctioning this campaign--though Murat is apparently oblivious to this--is to keep the British troops in Sicily distracted as long as possible so they don’t go reinforce those fighting the French in Spain. While this is going on, Caroline Murat is in Paris, alternately helping Napoleon’s new Empress to get her household up and running, and trying to keep her husband’s relationship with Napoleon from unraveling any further than it already has been for over a year now (and very likely beginning an affair with Metternich as well). Louis Bonaparte, who has been quarreling with Napoleon, is on the brink of losing his throne in Holland (he will be forced to abdicate by his brother less than a month after Murat writes this letter); Caroline is afraid of Napoleon’s wrath coming down on them in a similar manner. Napoleon begins interfering with Murat’s ongoing preparations for the Sicilian expedition; a letter from the Minister of War is sent to Murat instructing him that “the Emperor regards the enterprise as impossible, unless there are the means of transporting 15,000 men at the same time.” (Murat has the men, but not the means to transport them all simultaneously.) Additionally, Napoleon has the Minister “remind you that the French troops are to be commanded by French generals”--meaning, if it came to it, that they could refuse to obey Murat’s orders if they view those orders as contrary to Napoleon’s. Lastly, an aide-de-camp of the Minister--and a mere colonel, compounding the insults to Murat yet further--has been sent to Naples to inspect Murat’s fortifications and report back to Napoleon personally on any potential inadequacies. 

At which point Murat has a bit of a meltdown (neither his first nor his last of the year) and writes Napoleon the following letter. (From Lettres et Documents Pour Servir à l'Histoire de Joachim Murat, Vol. 8.) (Any translation errors are my own.) 

***

Joachim Murat to Napoleon Scilla, 11 June 1810

Sire,

I just received a letter from Your Majesty's Minister of War, which announces to me your will relative to the expedition of Sicily. Your orders are going to be executed, and I regret not being in Naples in order to support the mission of the aide-de-camp of the minister whom you sent there to take secret information. Sire, no one will ever provide you truer information than me. The minister, speaking to me of the expedition, explains in these terms: "The Emperor orders that you only attempt the expedition with the certitude of success, and only if you can cross fifteen thousand men at the same time." Sire, when I possessed your confidence; when I could count on your kindness, this double condition would not have stopped me, but today everything announces to me that everything is changed for me and I foresee what must await me, if Fortune were to abandon me in this circumstance.

Sire, the expedition will not be attempted, because there is always some uncertainty to face, and no maritime expedition especially is exempt from this. The plaza of Gaeta and the forts of Naples will be armed and provisioned. I think that there will be very little to do in this regard, Y.M. might have convinced himself of this, if the state of this place had been brought to your attention by your Minister of War. All the French soldiers that Y.M. order returned from my guard are going to receive the order to return to their former corps. The convention passed with Broadwent never had its effect, and this American was not able to introduce muslin into the Kingdom; it would be very cruel to have exposed such falsehoods. Would I have written to Y.M., if I had wanted to leave you unaware of what I might have done with this man? Everything that you ask for my navy will be executed, and, in a word, command in Naples and you will be obeyed, perhaps better than in Paris.

As to the secret mission of M. the colonel Leclerc, I regret not being in Naples in order to facilitate for him the means of fulfilling it, but I dare to assure that my ministers who know my sentiments for everything that comes from Y.M. will procure for this officer all the information he will need. May he consult public opinion, I don't fear judgement!

At Compiègne, I begged Y.M. to tell me if he wanted me to make the Sicilian expedition; I presented it to him as necessary for the repose of Italy and to prevent English contraband, and a plan was given and approved, because the Duke of Feltre wrote me in these terms: "The Emperor approves your plan of operation against Sicily in all its extent." I had thus to prepare the means of its execution, the paranzella barques* from nearly all the Kingdom were required, gathered at different points and loaded with everything that might contribute to the expedition, and the convoys have followed one another since 8 May, so that as I write, everything that should've been part of it has left Naples and is in the moorings of Pizzo, Tropea, Bagnara, and Scilla. The convoys of the siege artillery have not advanced, I think they are in the golfs of Policastro or at Palinuro; all the troops are cantoned or encamped from Monteleone to Reggio; all the batteries are armed to be able to protect them; and I await only my siege artillery in order to attempt the passage, the success of which no one doubts, not even the English. Such is my position, Sire, at the moment when I received the letter from the Duke of Feltre, and I am going to make arrangements accordingly.

However, Sire, who was able to bring about a change that makes me so unhappy? What have I done to be able to lose in an instant so many rights to your kindness? How did my enemies, who still number more than yours, manage to break an instrument that has never ceased to loyally serve you, and what are my wrongs? I am unaware of them and you will only ever find in me the one whom you have cherished like a father, like my benefactor. Am I not your creation, your pupil, are you not the author of my elevation? Have they hoped, my enemies, to make me revolt against Y.M. and to succeed in making of Italy a new Spain and in reversing your vast projects? Ah! sooner perish my fortune and my happiness, and your brilliant destinies be accomplished! Sire, there, there are my feelings; they are immutable, they are sincere, and you would have no trouble believing them, if only you would recall all my past conduct. Have you ever seen me change? Have I not heard you say: Murat is the only one of my family who has never given me cause to complain of him? Hasn't general opinion always shown me to be your minion, and do I not still have that reputation? And which of my actions could have bred suspicions about my loyalty? About my gratitude? There is only one: my opinion on your marriage; yet this was dictated by my attachment, I could be mistaken, but my heart alone was culpable, because it thought it was acting in your interests. What was it to me if Y.M. married a Russian or an Austrian? What did I want? Your happiness and some children, and I hope and I am sure that the current Empress shall give you the one and the other; so I was fully reassured when I was able to to appreciate her brilliant qualities. So I had nothing more to desire than the conservation of your kindness and some occasions to be able to prove to you my zeal, and I've lost these, and I have no more hope of being happy, since a letter from an ambassador who wanted to pay court to his master has rendered me suspect and has made me lose your friendship forever. Yet you loved me, I am sure of it, and perhaps you love me still in the depths of your heart. Sire, was it not in spite of myself that I came and returned to Naples? Did I not write you in Vienna that if you wanted to reunite the Kingdom of Naples, I would demand it and work for it accordingly? Didn't I beg you in grace during my second-to-last journey to keep me with you? And why is Naples not reunited today? Recall me to you. You spoke to me at Compiègne of a dignity of general of the cavalry of the Empire; create that for me; Sire, at the first battle, under your eyes, I will justify such a kindness, I will regain your friendship, your affection of which I am still worthy. Sire, why do you want to dishonor me in the eyes of the people you have destined me to command? Why do you send junior officers to my capital where it has begun to be said: "The Emperor doesn't want the expedition." Some particular letters are soon going to tell this to the army and to Sicily, and Stuart, whom I see very embarrassed from here, will resume his original attitude. How to palliate the abandonment of the enterprise? Since I can wait a while longer in my position and no one is master of the secret, I will see later what it will be better to do. Yet a great result has been obtained: Corfu is free and resupplied and I have the certitude that the English troops who occupy the islands of Cephalonia, Zakinthos, and Saint Maure, have returned to Messina. Yesterday still around 400 arrived, among other the cannoneers, all the batteries of the coasts have been rearmed and I could bring from Puglia all the oil, without fearing the crossing of the strait, which I am going to secure and complete its armament. The provinces of Calabria will be purged of the brigandage and I will ensure the progress of their administration. There is work night and day on the opposite shore, there are movements every instant; we are assured that Stuart has lost his head, since three days ago, that is to say since he was convinced by his attempt on Bagnara that he would neither be able to prevent the union of my resources, nor destroy them. This morning I saw the raising of some tents and the arrival of new troops in Faro. Since the taking of the gunboat, the removal of all the Neapolitans from the command by the English is assured, because they don't trust them, and I know they are not wrong. The Duke d'Orleans left on the 23rd of May for Spain where he has been called to command; the Sicilian troops aren't moving, they are still in Palermo. Yesterday I saw a vessel, three frigates, and a corvette enter into the port of Messina, later two empty transports, and today another. In several days I will know positively what is happening. I am assured that the Sicilians desire us very much; a pound of meat sells for fifteen sols in Messina and bread in proportion.

I just wrote at great length to Your Majesty. I wish that he may read me, I wish above all that he will give me his kindness and friendship. I present my homages to Her Majesty the Empress.

I am...

Joachim NAPOLÉON

***

[Murat’s Sicilian expedition will continue into the fall of 1810 and will ultimately fail, considerably widening the rift between Murat and Napoleon. In my view this is the real turning point in their relationship; but that’s another post for another day.]

[sjrresearch]

Bataan and Corregidor 1941-42 - Part 1

Last Stand of the “Battered Ba%$$rds”

(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

At the start of the Pacific War, the Philippines became a central target for the Japanese, and the islands were turned into a battleground. The events that unfolded at Bataan and Corregidor during the Japanese assault is not only an important piece of World War II history, it provides an incredible framework for potential wargaming scenarios.

Over a series of three posts, we will look at Bataan and Corregidor in-depth, starting with the lead up to the Philippines’ conflict and ending with an understanding of how learning about these locations can help construct wargaming scenarios. It has also been fodder for several fine boardgames on the topic.

Part 1, The Forces Gather

Author’s Note: Though both Philippine and American units fought in Bataan, I will refer to them as “American” collectively. 

 Most Americans aren’t familiar with names like Bataan and Corregidor. Like most historical topics in grade school, it’s quickly taught and forgotten by everyone, save for historical enthusiasts. In the Philippines, it’s akin to Bunker Hill, or Yorktown. To them, these places are where the modern Philippine nation was founded. Like many others, it was a nation bred on the battlefield.

The Philippines was in a unique state since 1898, when the United States had assumed control of the islands in the wake of the Spanish-American War. In 1935, the Philippines was made an American commonwealth, and a gradual process of making the islands ready for independence by 1946 was begun. To help form an independent Philippine armed forces, General Douglas McArthur was brought in by a Philippine government with the lofty rank of Field Marshal to try to modernize the defenses of the Philippines.

McArthur was seemingly a good choice for advising the nascent Philippine Republic, having served in the islands in his first assignment (1903-1906) after graduation from West Point while his father was Governor-General. He then spent time touring Japan (the future enemy of the Philippines) as his father’s aide de camp, and thus, had seen the Japanese soldier up close. Furthermore, Douglas McArthur and the president of the Philippines, Manuel Quezon, also had a personal relationship, as President Quezon had been friends with McArthur’s father during the latter’s time as Governor-General of the Philippines 35 years before. All of this made McArthur a shoo-in for the job of building a Philippine army. 

There were also other incentives to McArthur taking the job. He had just concluded his term as Army Chief of Staff, and his relationship with the new Roosevelt administration was poor, at best (he had been involved in the suppression of the Bonus Marchers in 1932). Though McArthur completed his term in October of 1935, he probably hoped for a change of scenery. One of the assistants McArthur brought with him on this assignment was none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

What they found was an army that existed only on paper. Weapons were cast-offs from U.S. service and were of dubious provenance. The first class of trainees wasn’t due for another two years, and the camps to train them hadn’t been built either. And the budget to accomplish all of this was paltry at best. The Philippine Army lacked basics, like uniforms and even boots, with many divisions having to make do with the despised blue denim uniforms that had just been put out of U.S. service. The Navy and Air Corps weren’t doing much better, with the latter only forming their first squadron in 1939. 

Worse, the level of training of the Army was poor, with one source stating:

“The men in the 31st Infantry [Division] were more fortunate than those in other regiments, many of whom had never even fired a rifle before entering combat. Nor had their previous five and a half months training under Philippine Army supervision been of much value…Practically none of the men…had fired as many as five rounds with the rifle or the .30 -caliber machine gun. None had fired the .50 caliber machine gun or the mortar.” (pp 29. The Fall of the Philippines, Morton, Lewis, US Army Center for Military History, Washington DC, 1953)

Contrast this with his Japanese opponent, who was most likely a veteran of the ten-year war in China, and was, supply deficiencies aside, well-trained and more than willing to come to grips with his opponent. The Philippine soldier was not ready for war, but war would be thrust upon him anyhow.  This wasn’t true of all Filipino soldiers, as the Philippine Scouts, who numbered 12,000, were considered some of the best troops in the pre-war U.S. Army and were relatively well-equipped. However, they were under direct American command, and not under the command of the Philippine Army.  

The U.S. troops in the islands themselves numbered 31,095 on the eve of war, and they had their own deficiencies. Funds were short for many years, and until September 1941, no reinforcements had arrived from the United States. 

In September, the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment (Anti-Aircraft) arrived, bringing much needed additional anti-aircraft guns. In October, two tank battalions, the 192nd and the 194th, arrived in the islands, with 108 M3 Light Tanks between them, both units were soon formed into a Provisional Tank Group. 

In addition, more P-40s and B-17s arrived to reinforce the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC) squadrons deployed throughout the islands. These were some of the most modern aircraft in the USAAC at the time, so this was meant as a deterrent to Japan and a signal that the United States was making a major investment in defense of the islands. At the outbreak of war, there were 277 USAAC aircraft of all types in the Philippines, most either at Clark or Nichols Fields on the main island of Luzon. There was also the construction of additional airfields, and many of them were built just in time. However, early warning capabilities against Japanese air attacks were woefully inadequate, and this would come back to haunt the Americans. For example, of the seven radar sets present in the islands, only two had been set up and were working. 

Meanwhile, the naval presence in the islands was reliant on the U.S. and consisted of the Asiatic Fleet under Admiral Thomas Hart. His force was more to protect American commercial interests in China and “show the flag” rather than be any real impediment to Japanese aggression. The heaviest he had available was the heavy cruiser Houston, and most of the ships he had were of World War I vintage. His air arm consisted of some PBY patrol aircraft, which were useful, and he had at his disposal the 4th Marine Regiment in Shanghai at the beginning of 1941, but the regiment evacuated to the Philippines in late-November. Hart’s hope was that he could rely on support either from the British, or the Dutch, who had larger fleets in Southeast Asia, or the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. All of these hopes were, of course, to be cruelly dashed when war came. The only ships Hart had in abundance were submarines, having 29 available as of November 1941. However, American torpedo design did little to help these submarines, as the standard Mark 14 torpedo had a high dud rate, and often, American subs were frustrated in the early part of the war in sinking targets they would have otherwise destroyed had they had better torpedoes.

In March 1941, McArthur was recalled to the U.S. Army and was placed in command of all American forces in the Philippines. Despite assurances and little to work with, McArthur had put together a force of 100,000 men to defend the Philippines. But the force still had many deficiencies, and not all of them, despite efforts on both sides of the Pacific to address them, were rectified in time. Many of these deficiencies would haunt the defenders of Bataan in the months to come.

Japanese Forces and Plans

The Japanese invasion plan for the Philippines was part of an even larger strategy that had been arrived at by the Imperial General Headquarters. It had been derived from separate Army and Navy plans, which had differed little in content. The strategic goal was simple: Seize Malaya for its rubber, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) for its oil, and expand a defensive perimeter as far out as possible to ensure that any attempt to push the Japanese back was a bloody one, and the Americans and British would prefer a negotiated peace to a long, intractable war. Many of the planned assaults were scheduled to occur within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

The Philippines was an objective for two reasons. First, it was a linchpin in the sea lines of communication (SLOC) with the proposed advance into the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. The islands needed to fall to ensure the Japanese had a secure rear area. Secondly, Manila harbor was, and still is, one of the finest deep-water ports in Southeast Asia. The Japanese needed access to that as well to sustain their advance to the south. 

The plan as it stood was for simultaneous air attacks on all American installations within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor. While this was going on, the Japanese 14th Army was to land along the north coast of Luzon and at Davao on the island of Mindanao. Both islands were the most populated in the Philippine chain. The initial objective was to seize airfields to allow the Japanese Army Air Force to provide direct air support to the forces ashore. Once the main part of the USAAC strength was wiped out, the bulk of the 14th Army was to land in Lingayen Gulf just north of Manila and Limon Bay, southeast of Manila. The two prongs of advance were then to advance quickly to Manila, trap the Americans between them, and destroy the enemy in a decisive battle somewhere near Manila. The 14th Army, under the command of General Masaharu Homma, had been given 50 days to complete this task, whereupon half of his command and most of his air support would leave to support operations to the south. As we shall see, the Japanese came nowhere close to meeting this ambitious timetable.

The Japanese planning and information gathering had been meticulous, and they had a very good idea what they would be facing in the Philippines. The Japanese were of the opinion that Americans were good soldiers, but not up to the task of prolonged combat in the tropical jungles that made up a good portion of Luzon. Additionally, Japan did not think much of the Philippine soldier at all. 

The main flaw in the Japanese invasion planning was they expected the American force would make its last stand around Manila, and then die in place. The Japanese had no plan for any contingency where the Americans withdrew into Bataan and fortified the peninsula. 

As the Japanese expected a relatively easy campaign, they only allotted two divisions, the 16th and 48th Infantry Divisions. It was this over-confidence and optimistic planning that would cost them dearly in the campaign to come. 

To be continued in Part 2 – The Curtain Rises – War Comes to the Philippines 

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