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The Earth’s Coming Death?


Since man first stood upright on this planet he has been a creature like none other. In his earliest days, he was a hunter-gatherer. That meant he used very rudimentary tools to kill animals and he harvested fruits, berries, roots, and other edible plants to stay alive. To be sure, for man’s first million years, his was a constant struggle just to stay alive.

But during this period he also started to move outward from East Africa where he first rose to prominence. He discovered that even though he was not match for many of the larger animals he co-existed with, he could use his brain to elude those animals should they decide they had a taste for human flesh.

But also during this period man discovered war. Man grew from family groups into small protective groups and then into small communities. These communities fought one another when food became scarce and possibly when one group felt another was impinging on their territory. This probably did not happen very much but we need only look at today’s society to discover man’s ancient proclivities.

And so it went until the 20th Century arrived. The 20th Century, and now the 21st Century, have burdened our planet early like never before. Even though the industrialization of the Earth started in the 19th Century, those toxic fumes emitted by mills were not so great that they posed an immediate threat to Earth’s biosphere.

The 20th Century, however, was one of great scientific and industrial invention. It has also been the period of the most rapid growth of Earth’s human population. Between these two things, planet Earth has been put at risk of dying, literally.

Industrialists, and those who support them, contend that what is happening to planet earth is little more than a natural progression. That the earth is warming is nothing new and those who complain about it are just alarmists. The contend that there is more than enough proof that the Earth has gone through similar events and survived. The question here is: Is their logic sound?

During the 1940s through and into the 1970, aerosol cans used a gas named florochlorohydrocarbons. This gas was used in items such as hair spray and other consumer items that needed a gas to propel their active ingredients. When it was discovered that the use of this gas compound was causing a big hole over the Earth’s poles where ozone had previously existed, the federal government stepped in and banned the use of those compounds. Most other countries on the earth did the same, following our lead. The result was the holes closed up and there was proof positive that man had caused an unnatural imbalance in the earth’s biosphere.

Plastic was first made in the 1920 but did not come into any sort of widespread use until the 1950s. As a child I remember our milk was delivered either in glass containers or paper containers that were lined with was. Neither of these containers posed any threat to our biosphere. Additionally, most other liquid items were delivered either in glass or metal containers. Again, no serious threat to the biosphere. But starting in the 1970s industrial economies dictated that the delivery of fluids in plastic containers was much more economical. Glass containers, such as the soft drink industry used, required that the bottles be returned, then cleaned for reuse. This process proved relatively expensive. Today, such a process is considered “green.”

Grocery stores changed over from the paper bag to the plastic bag. Plastic bags were less expensive and required smaller spaces for containment. But plastic bags, once recycling took hold, were not acceptable items for many communities recycling. The problem? They tended to get bound up in the gears of the machinery processing them with the other forms of plastic and therefor became prohibited items.

Curiously, one of the nation’s larger food market chains which uses only paper bags and promotes its reusable repurposed plastic bags has no system to capture used plastic bags. To be fair, the reusable plastic bags that I am referring to, feel like fabric to the touch and last a long time making the need to use a food stores plastic bags unnecessary. This is an industry at least attempting to take positive measures in the responsible use of plastics.

To further illustrate the threat these plastic containers pose to the planet, there is an island of plastic sitting in the middle of the oceans larger than 3 countries. More, who has not been to a beach where plastic bottles and bags could be found along the beach front?

The other great threat to our biosphere is atmospheric pollution, green house gases. Most prominent, but not alone, are carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). I put the chemical formula for these compounds to show how closely related they are. Carbon monoxide is unstable and will capture an oxygen molecule quickly thereby robbing our atmosphere of its precious oxygen content and leaving behind carbon dioxide, the compound which most seriously impacts the green house warming our planet is presently experiencing. Green house gases trap sunlight in the earth’s atmosphere, sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back out into space.

One method scientists use for tracking the effect of our planet’s warming is the regression of glaciers. In the 1930, many was the author who wrote about the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. They were legendary but they no longer exist because of global warming. Of particular interest to them has been the glacier which covers most of Greenland. This glacier has always melted during the summer months but the rate of melting has increased over the past decades. Also, where small puddles of water that existed atop this glacier during the summer months, they have been replaced by large lakes, further proof of the extent of global warming.

One of the side effects of global warming, and probably the most deadly to the continued existence of the human race, is that deserts are becoming larger and small tracts of arid land are fast converting into deserts due to the lack of rainfall. The reason for the lack of rainfall is how air circulates around our planet. The rainy seasons that sub-Saharan residents used to rely upon have all but disappeared. The Sahara desert in turn moves southward pushing out the people who used to populate this land. Many other parts of our planet are experience elongated droughts. Such droughts have never been recorded in these areas for as long as man has inhabited them.

A case in point is California. California had traditionally relied upon the snows of the Sierra Mountains to provide them with needed water. But for years on end the snows came in such reduced amounts that the reservoirs they typically filled fell far short of the water necessary. Certain of these reservoirs dried up completely. The city of Los Angeles was in crisis. The drought ended just in time to avert the crisis at hand. But it is only a question time, and not an if, when the next elongated drought strikes the southwestern United States and it lasts far longer than the available water can support.

California is one of the chief vegetable and other food producing areas of the United States. A plant killing drought will be disastrous for both the people of the United States and its economy. That a single state can be the root of a catastrophe illustrates how dependent we are on any one region being economically healthy.

The bottom line is: the Earth is reliant up a series of interrelated eco-systems, each reliant upon the other. When any one of these systems changes, even slightly, the effect of that change is felt in all the rest of the systems. The question is how much is each system affected? That we can quantify the rise in the temperature of sea water to be several degrees is hugely significant. Were it just a tenth or two, there would be no reason for concern. But that is simply not what is happening. The larger question at hand here is: how much more will the temperature of the oceans rise? The is extremely important because the ocean’s temperature directly affects weather patterns. In the Atlantic ocean we have seen a marked increase in both the number and the intensity of hurricanes. In other parts of the earth the change in weather patterns have caused stronger winter storms, greater flooding, hotter summers and even colder winters.

That the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords is a travesty. It says that the United States cares more about corporate profits than the continued life of our planet. The United States, which for over 100 years, has lead the world in most areas, has abdicated its leadership responsibility. This is a debt which must be paid whether the United State’s present political leadership acknowledges or not. The debt grows daily and will be paid by our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren.

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Our World in 50 Years


There are three generations whose ability to impact positive change in the United States has either gone to zero or is on that track. I’m a baby boomer, born in 1949, which means the majority of my generation is either retired of contemplating it. The generation ahead of us has, for the most part, embraced their retirement and only gives thought about our country during national elections. Then there is the generation right behind me. Their age range is about 30 to 55. The youngest end still has a chance to make strong positive changes while the older end, if they are not actively engage in public policy, are not likely to join in.

 
The future of our country lies in the hand of those who are now in high school and country. We need them to be as well-educated and actively involved in government as possible. History teaches us that a large portion of discoveries, inventions, and activism happens to this age group as soon as they finish their education. But my generation, and those generations around mine, are leaving a legacy which is in desperate need of a large influx of new ideas. The ideas of those presently in power are simply not working to a large degree.

 
What will our work look like 50 years from now? First of all, recent history has shown our planets oceans have risen enough that ocean-front cities are experiencing flooding at ever increasing levels. My own city, Boston, Massachusetts, has just this last winter seen flooding of city streets with water from the ocean that has entirely overwhelmed the ability of the city’s storm drains to remove these waters. That the level of our oceans in continuing to rise in indisputable. What will our children have to do?

 
First of all, they are going to need to occupy and become a majority of every country’s leadership and embrace the fact of global warming an man’s contribution to it. Their’s will be the challenge to improve and expand upon renewable energy sources which do not contribute to global warming: wind farms, solar panels, geo-thermal, and water both from the planets rivers but also from the ocean, a well-know but entirely undeveloped source of energy.

efully, the internal combustion engine will be mostly, if not entirely, obsolete worldwide. It will have been supplanted by electric automobile. But to do that effectively three things have to happen: first, batteries capable of operating automobiles at highway speeds must be good for 450 miles. At present 200-250 it about the best. Secondly, the price of these automobiles must be brought into line with what the average consumer can afford. With an average price tag of around $40,000 at the low end, such cars are simply out of the range of the average consumer. But with such cars available, cities, towns, and villages are going to have to accommodate charging stations in their public parking lots, at a reasonable fee of course. And lastly, as the price of oil rises at first, such demand should fall with the advent of the wide-spread electric automobile. This in turn should mean lower diesel fuel prices which will keep our trucking and railroad industries viable. But even their, the Hybrid diesel engine must come into wide use and still have the ability to haul heavy loads.

 
I believe that in 50 years the most notable global crises will be a food shortage. But at the root of this will be two things: expanding deserts and extreme water shortages worldwide, even in the United States. One solute to the water problem is the desalinization process of turning ocean water into fresh water. Right now such costs are prohibitive but that does not mean with our young people and their new idea, the cost of such a process cannot be reduced to where the economics of desalinated ocean allows the flow of huge quantities of water to feed the world’s farmland. Man can develop friendly ecosystems but he has to be willing to pay for the initial costs. My generation is not so inclined but hopefully the next two generations will see this differently.
These three things, energy, food and water, are guaranteed to be at the root of future wars if we do not start acting in a positive manner now and in the immediate future.

 
If you happen to read this and are between the ages of 15 and 30, I do not envy the challenge ahead of you but I believe that when you see the enormity of our failures you will take on the challenge and succeed like we never have.

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Thanksgiving


The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 in Plimouth. That is how they spelled it back then so don’t correct me. Anyway, there were only about 50 white people at the meal and no one knows how many native Americans but probably at least an equal number. Those 50 settlers were giving thanks for having survived that first winter which took 50 of their brethren. But they were also thankful that the local natives were instrumental in assisting them in farming and fishing techniques. Most of those settlers had professions other than farming or fishing and knew little of either.

But can you imagine living in America those first few decades? Between the Plimouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony there were only a handful of towns, Boston, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury being a few. A quick look at any map shows these towns all sit on the ocean. And each had its own port. Two things were certain in the minds of the early settlers: they would need to harvest the ocean and they would need a supply line from England.

Landing in those few towns was easy. But as soon as they traveled inland things became extremely difficult very quickly. The natives were not unhappy with their new neighbors but neither spoke the other’s language so to ask a question of the natives, like, where is there a large body of water inland that we might settle near, simply was not happening. That meant exploration. And remember, there were no roads, no maps, no knowledge. There may have been trails the natives used but where did they go?

The Pilgrims who settled Plymouth did not grow in size at the same rate as their brothers to the north did. For one thing, they were still persona non grata in England and for those still not in America, arranging travel was a challenge.

The Puritans, on the other hand, were mostly middle class Englishmen in somewhat good standing and could come and go in England as they pleased. The King, Chares I, was just as happy to see them go as they had proven to be a thorn in their side. They openly challenged the beliefs of the Church of England which, at the time, was quite the sin. But these Puritans were more than capable of bringing more than the shirts on their backs to the New World unlike the Pilgrims.

By 1636, however, a schism in the Boston Puritans arose when several of the men asked to see the charter which John Winthrop had held close to his chest. Once they read it, and discovered they could not be compelled to believe as Winthrop believed, something he had done, they quickly moved across the Charles River and founded Cambridge and a quaint little school was started to guarantee their form of religion was properly taught. They were the first Congregationalists, no central leadership, no hierarchy. And that little theological college took on the name of its founder, John Harvard.

Now when the Puritans first arrived in the New World, they first settled in what is today Charlestown. But all the water was brackish, not fit to drink or cook with. By chance they ran across a fellow who was living on the peninsula across the Charles River, William Braxton, who claimed he had a fresh water well. And so the move was on. But this amplifies the very basic needs of the settlers and the difficulty surrounding such needs. The Pilgrims had had a similar experience ten years prior when the first stopped at the tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown today, and were unable to locate drinking water. While most of the Pilgrims left the Mayflower’s tight confines for the shores of Cape Cod, a small group of others went in search of drinking water and hence came to Plymouth.

Traditionally the first thing settlers did was to build their church and then continue on to small dwelling surrounding the church. But where did they get the lumber, the nails, and the other materials needed to construct any building? New England abounds with trees which meant they needed a brook, for power, and a saw mill built next to it.

One thing is certain about both groups, they were happy to be in this new world, a world where they decided what their religion would be, a world where they made all the laws, all the rules and through a democratic process in the earliest days, they decided upon their leadership. The Virginia Colony, the Plimouth Colony, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony all had one thing in common, a charter. And it was from those charters that each colony first developed its laws and later each wrote a constitution for the colony which defined their form of government.

The Thanksgiving tradition died out pretty quickly in those early years. It was not celebrated as a national holiday until 1863 when Lincoln declared it such. The first president to broach the question, however, was Thomas Jefferson who said that it was a religious feast and that there must remain an absolute separation of church and state. I think it wise to remember that it was the travails of those early settlers, their mettle and hard work, that kept us together and gave us a land to be proud of and to be thankful for.

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Despotic Donald: The Ultimate Narcissist


Let me start by telling you that I have over 30 years of service in the federal government, am now retired.  I spent the first almost 11 years of that service as a member of the U.S. Army on active duty: 1968 – 1979.  Then from 1987 – 2007 I was a systems analyst/computer specialist for the U.S. Department of transportation.  I mention this to validate what I know from experience within the government.

I have listened very carefully to Donald Trump and two things occur to me, both scary.  He is an absolute narcissist.  A narcissist cannot image that anything he says or does is wrong.  He believes that he is always misunderstood when people try to correct him.  But worst of all, a powerful narcissist, as Trump is, feels he can do just about anything with impunity; he believes he is above the law, that he has certain privileges that set him apart from most everyone else.  And as a despot, he wields his power without an sense of responsibility when things go wrong.  In his case, he does not feel stiffing people their wages when his companies went belly up is wrong.  And just last night (September 26), he thought the fact that he did not have to pay any income tax on over $600 million income meant he was smart.  Those were his words actually.  Had he paid only the 14% tax rate most of the middle class pays, he would have paid $84 million.  Don’t you think some school systems, some public health agencies, some poor municipality could have used that money?  It makes me wonder just how much income over the years he has paid nothing on.  And in that same sense, how many others do the same?  But that’s another subject.

Trump stated last night that he had been endorse but the Federal Agency ICE.  That is a very interesting statement since no agency, by law, can endorse or engage in any political activity.  And to do so would require action from that agency’s inspector general with possible criminal charges.  Every year I worked for the federal government I was required to attend ethics training and that is one subject, particularly during election years, that was emphasized.  It is a prohibited action.  I think more likely he got some official to say he is support Trump in his run.  But that official cannot say those words publicly as a member of ICE for to do so would “give the appearance of a conflict of interest,” very damning situation in the government.

Trump was born June 14, 1946 which means he was required in 1964 to register for the draft.  Curiously when he registered he was a student at the New York Military Academy, a military prep school.  I too went to a military prep school and I can tell you with certainty that a very large portion of my classmates went into the military.  We had 10 out of a class of 69 who went to one of the service academies, several others went to Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel.  We had a feeling of duty to our country.

Trump, like so many, got a college deferment while he attended Fordham University and after 2 years transferred to Penn.  That means he graduated in 1968, the height of the Vietnam war.  He did not continue on to grad school and probably would not have gotten a deferment had he, the exceptions were medical school and theological studies.  We know he is neither Dr. Donald nor Rev. Donald, so how did he avoid military service.  He was not married until 1977 so that was not it either.  He was quite the patriot!  What he was doing during the early 70s was using his family money to buy real estate, housing mainly.  It was also the first time, of many, that he was charged with “anti-black bias” in a suit brought by the Dept. of Justice.  In turn he filed suit against the federal gov’t for $100 million because he said the gov’t was trying to force him to rent to welfare recipients.  Contrary to what Trump said last night, the affair ended 2 years later when he settled with the DOJ.  The narcissist looks back upon such incidents and claims no wrong doing, no fault, no responsibility, and states he was innocent of anything said against him even when the facts show the opposite.  He cannot see such facts because they do not suit the narcissistic mind.

One of the strong-holds of the Republican Party has traditionally been the military.  Trump claims to have been endorsed by over 2o0 admirals and generals.  Why have we not seen this list?  You would certain want such a list front and center to prove your validity as Commander-in-Chief.  I suspect he had 2 or 3.  I noticed time after time during the debate Trump’s penchant for speaking in hyperbole.  And since he refuses to show proof, then hyperbole of the worst kind it is then.  Our military is literally tired from all the wars it has been forced to fight.  They are war weary.  But if you listen to Trump, it takes no imagination at all to see he is hell-bent on starting a war somewhere.  He thinks that is the was to kill of ISIS, and other undesirable elements.  Trump will probably still get a large portion of the military vote but it is unlikely he will get the 90% most Republican candidates have enjoyed over the years.  It is very difficult to have confidence in a commander-in-chief who has absolutely no military or government service experience.  And as an aside, if elected, he would be the first president to have neither.

There is one thing all president over the past 50 plus years have understood implicitly.  They knew you dealt with friends and enemies both via diplomacy.  The military necessarily is the last resort, when all forms of diplomacy have failed, AND, you are under attack.  Trump definitely does not understand this.

The man is dangerous and I am at a loss for what people see in him as a realistic leader, as someone who will keep our country safe and do what is best for the country, not what suits him.

 

 

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The New American Xenophobia


Xenophobe n. One who fears or hates strangers or foreigners or anything that is foreign. (Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, 1988, p. 1332)

At the beginning of the 20th Century American immigration laws were few. An immigrant had to have on his person $50, a named sponsor to take him in, be free of disease or mental defect, and have no criminal record. Americans today view all immigrants of that time coming through Ellis Island New York. But in truth, the ports of Boston and Baltimore were also quite alive with immigrants.

Europe during the period 1900 to 1915 was fraught with civil wars, unrest, and an Ottoman Empire which was at war with Great Britain. As can be seen by the map below, the Ottoman Empire covered most of the Baltic countries and large portions of the middle east. It is also worthy of mention that this was a Moslem Empire which Christian Europe feared. In Eastern Europe, Russia was flexing its influence as it held onto much of the territory it controlled when it became the USSR. In particular, it controlled most of Poland as we know it today. In 1905 the Czar ordered that all Polish men of a certain age be drafted into the Russian Army. Those who refused realized harsh consequences.

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Ottoman Empire 1905

 

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Russian Czarist Empire

 

In the case of Italy, the country’s industrial north did not offer enough employment for Italy’s labor force. The Italian tendency towards large families made for an excess labor force. The excess labor force could find work neither on the farm nor in Italy’s factories, hence they looked towards America where, they heard, there existed a need for more labor. They also heard, falsely of course, that such labor, even though unskilled, was well-paid.

The social, economic and political unrest of much of Europe lead to its radicalization. Some were of the new socialism as outlined by Karl Marx and practiced by Trotsky and Lenin prior to the revolution. Conversely, Fascism arose out of Europe’s aristocracy against the growing socialist ideals. The common man found himself caught between the two groups in Europe with no place to run, except America.

The overwhelming majority of immigrants to America in the early 20th century were people coming from extreme poverty. They were indeed a cross-section of Europe embracing every type of religious, political and social belief. And as with any cross-section, among them were the anarchists and others who would prove troublesome to the established American public.

The epicenter of American radicalism in those days was in the small boarding house rooms of Greenwich Village. They were a small but vocal group who advocated the overthrow of the wealthy, the industrialists, and the powerful politicians by any means possible. Names like Emma Goldman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Margaret Sanger, and John Reed seemed to most Americans to be the ones originating most of America’s radical troubles, but as with many things, the truth was something quite different.

When Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley, William “Big Bill” Haywood, Emma Goldman was extremely vocal in her opposition to violence as a tool of the anarchists. Margaret Sanger attended many anarchists meetings in Greenwich Village, but her purpose was to gain support for her settlement house in the lower east side and in getting aid for single mothers. John Reed was a journalist who was more interested in reporting on the anarchists, though he did agree with their views, the partaking in their political actions. Big Bill Haywood was an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, a socialist union whose prime member was the unskilled laborer. But in 1907 Haywood had been tried for murder in Idaho. Haywood was innocent of the charge, a charge that had been trumped up simply because local politicians hated him, and found innocent after his trial. But he could not shake being labeled as a murder and his presence always brought trepidation to any community he visited.

People like Haywood and Sanger took on the cause of the immigrant and were closely associated with the various new immigrant groups. When a strike broke out in Lawrence Massachusetts in 1912, Big Bill visited the city and both city and state leadership felt certain that riots and all sorts of violence were sure to follow. Again, the truth is far different. Haywood spent very little time in Lawrence and focused his energies on raising funds for the strikers in other parts of New England. He actually had no interest in being a part of the strike save the role of fund-raiser. But then dynamite was found at a house in North Lawrence and everyone was certain that the IWW and Big Bill were somehow behind it. A few days later it was discovered that William Wood, a mill owner, had planted the dynamite in an effort to discredit the efforts of the IWW to win the strike.

What in common between the events of the early 20th Century and those of this presidential campaign, is Donald Trump’s use of fear and xenophobia to activate an American public. Fear is common to all human beings and has been used to exploit people throughout the ages. Because we are in the middle of Trump’s plotting it can be hard to gain perspective, but it is perspective that will save us from foolish beliefs and even more foolish moves.

The immigrant is the life blood of America and their introduction into our country makes us stronger. And while it is true that there are elements in those immigrants who would do America harm, we are more than strong enough to survive their worst. Unlike much of the world, our country thrives upon its diversity. Our Constitution guarantees that diversity cannot be used against us.   And the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty bear remembering, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Amen!

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B-26 Bomber, Hell’s Belle on Her 100th Mission; A World War 2 Story


B26_11What follows is an exact copy of a report written during World War 2 by a SSG Robert A. Wade commemorating the 100th mission of the B-26 bomber “Hell’s Belle.”  I have transcribed it exactly as it was written.

The picture above is of the aircraft named in this account.

By S/Sgt Robert A. Wade

AT A 12th AAF BASE IN SARDINIA – Eight months ago a proud crew chief talked “Hell’s Belle II” out of the salvage heap after it collided with a Messerschmitt on its 23rd mission.

With the same crew chief riding on his first raid as a stowaway, Hell’s Belle completed its 100th mission against the Calafuria, Italy, rail viaduct (May 1) to become possibly the fightingest B-26 Marauder in combat anywhere.

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(Hell’s Belle II after her 100th Mission)

Hell’s Belle was recommended for grounding after a German pursuit crashed into it during a 35-minute running battle of Salerno Aug. 22. Sixty Nazi fighters jumped the Marauder formation. One Me 109 was shot down and collided with the Belle’s tail, smashing the rudder almost flat and bending the whole tail section. But the B-26 made it home, though it burned out both engines doing it.

“Well, we fixed the tail up,” says the crew chief, Technical Sgt Kenneth L. Smith, 24, Bedford, Pa., “but we couldn’t get it quite back in line, and so it trimmed a little badly.”

Pilots, conscious of the beating the ship had taken, were hypersensitive to the difficult trim, and finally the regular pilot recommended that it be retired from active duty. Smith argued for another chance, and when he was given it, went to work on the plane, tightening, straightening, adjusting. When he finished, the Belle still had some peculiarities— but it went back into combat. “I guess I kinda talked them into it,” Smith admits. “But about that time we got some new pilots who didn’t know anything about the trim being off—and not one of them noticed it. I guess you might call it psychological.”

But even then Smith had no inkling of the record that his plane would roll up. His pleadings for its combat life were due solely to the fact that it was his first ship, and “Well, I like it pretty well,” he says.

Smith denies that he even considered that perhaps his was the B-26 that would be first in the Mediterranean’s oldest medium bomb group to cross the 100 mark, at least not until it had over 75 raids anyway. However, his mechanics have a different version of the story.

“Why, I remember when we hit 50 missions,” says Sgt. Clifford Parks, 25, Littcarr, Ky., assistant crew chief, “and I said, ‘Smitty, let’s see if we can make sixty.’ He went right up in the air and told me we were going to take it up to a hundred at least.”

Smith claims that he didn’t really start sweating the plane out—more than usual—until the score stood around 90. “I kept thinking of that B-26 in another group that went down on its ninety-fourth mission,” he says.

The ground crew and squadron engineering officers believe that Hell’s Belle has more combat missions than any other B-26 in the Mediterranean theater, and oldest combat Marauder in any theater.

Hell’s Belle has been in combat almost continuously since June 7, and has shot down fighters and dodged flak over Pantelleria, Lampedusa, Sicily, Sardinia, Italy and southern France.

Smith gives the bulk of the credit for the record to the plane itself—“You either have a good plane, or you don’t,” is the way he puts it—but squadron engineering officers and other crew chiefs claim that the maintenance on Hell’s Belle has been above average in every respect.

As proof, they point to the fact that Hell’s Belle has returned early only five times in all its hundred missions, and only twice for mechanical trouble. The two mechanical failures were a fault generator and a nose wheel that wouldn’t retract. The other three returns were due twice to gun failure and once to pilot error.

The last 46 missions were flown without an early return, which is an unusual record. And, before that, Hell’s Belle had gone 42 consecutive raids without coming home ahead of time.

The Belle has had only one complete engine change, and Smith believes that it might be flying on its original engines right now if it hadn’t collided with that Messerschmitt. With the exception of one generator, all the original accessories are still in use. This includes carburetors, magnetos, starters, and vacuum, hydraulic and fuel pumps. Also the B-26 has its original radio equipment, and 11 of the 12 machine guns are the ones it started out with.

The Marauder was named by the original pilot, after a previous Belle which had been lost over Tunisia. Bombers with a “II” or “III” after their names are notoriously unlucky, but this one proved the exception to the rule.

Aside from Salerno, Hell’s Belle has been in trouble only once in its career. That was during a January raid on German rail communications above Rome. Flak cut one fuel line and slightly wounded the pilot, but the Belle made it back to an emergency landing in Corsica. But it is no stranger to either flak or fighters. Its gunners have knocked down three Nazi pursuits, and the Marauder’s plexiglass nose and aluminum skin is splotched with patches.

Hell’s Belle has seen all the hot spots the Mediterranean has to offer. Zit has raided Olbia Harbor, Sardinia (where the B-26’s knocked down 10 Me 109’s, with six probables, June 18). Gerbini airdrome, Sicily (19 pursuits downed, July 4). Messina, Naples, Salerno (24 Me’s shot down, with 14 probables, Aug. 22). Anzio, Cassino, Florence, the Abbey di Monte Casino, and has been to Rome eight times, including the first Allied attack, July 19.

The Belle came to Smith on May 20, 1943, just 85 hours out of the Glenn L. Martin plant and the Rome, N.Y., modification center. It now has 724 flying hours, of which 450 to 500 have been combat.

The Armorer who loads the bombs and guns on the B-26, Cpl. Samuel Osgood, 31, 46 Osgood St., North Andover, Mass., figures that the Belle’s average bomb load has been around 2,500 pounds—which should make a rough total of 250,000 pounds or about 125 tons dropped on Axis bridges, railroad yards, airfields, docks, towns, gun positions and troop concentrations.

“It’s been a good ship from an armorer’s point of view,” Osgood says. “Only one gun burnt out in a hundred missions. Besides, I never seem to have to change the load—she usually drops her bombs.”

While Osgood admits that the latter is just luck, it bears out his feeling that the Belle is essentially a good airplane, better than the average.

The five men who have kept the B-26 flying through its hundred missions are tight-knit by their pride in their ship. Every one of them was with the Belle at the beginning of her combat career, and—with one exception—have been with her ever since.

“They’re a damn good crew, every one of them,” Smith declares. A small rather quiet man, Smith was a machine tool operator in a York, Pa., steel mill before entering the AAF in October, 1941. Smith learned his airplane know-how at Keesler Field, Miss., and the Martin plant in Baltimore. He had been overseas 19 months and his chief worry is whether he’ll recognize his three younger brothers when he gets home.

Assistant crew chief Parks was an automobile mechanic employed by the Citizens Motor Co., Vicco, Ky., before the war. Enlisting shortly after Pearl Harbor, he also studied at Keesler Field and the Martin plant, and has been overseas 19 months. A tall, lanky Southerner, Parks is the only crew member who hasn’t been with Hell’s Belle steadily. After about 25 missions, he shirted to another ship and then came back to the Belle when its mission score was 56.

Other mechanic on the crew is Cpl. William L. Howard, 24, 177 15th St., Wheeling, W. Va. A truck driver for the Warwood Armature Co., Warwood, W. Va., Howard entered the AAF in May 1942, and came overseas in January, 1943, where he joined the Marauder group. Small, rather quiet, he takes much good-natured kidding about learning about airplanes at the Rising Sun School of Aeronautics, Phila., Pa., because of the Japanese implications. The other crew members claim that he hasn’t been caught at any sabotage yet, but they’re keeping an eye on him just the same.

Radioman is Staff Sgt. Joseph S. Benak, 33, 1213 Wallgate St., Waterloo, Iowa. His parents live in Raymond, Iowa. Benak was a machine operator for the John Deere Tractor Co., Waterloo, before entering the AAF in March 1942. He was graduated from the Scott Field, Ill., radio school and has been overseas 19 months. Benak takes care of two or three other planes in addition to the Belle.

Osgood, the armorer, is—with Howard—the rookie of the crew, as they both have the least time with the group and overseas. Osgood joined the B-26’s in March, 1943, when they were based in North Africa. He was employed as a wool and textile designer by the M. T. Stevens Co., before entering the AAF in July, 1942. Osgood is a graduate of the Lowry Field, Colo., armament school.

New that Hell’s Belle has 100 missions, what is the next stop?

“Why, two hundred, of course,” Smith says, a little amazed at the question.   “Barring German flak or fighters, there shouldn’t be any reason we won’t make it!”

Some planes slow up noticeably after a great number of missions, as rough landings on bad fields throw the ship out of the best flying trim. Smith has noted no signs of old age or circles under the Belle’s eyes.

Smith flew on the Belle’s 100th mission strictly against regulations, but he has no intentions of making it a regular thing. “Too monotonous,” he claims, “You fly for a couple of hours. Then the Germans shoot at you for a few minutes, and you fly back for a couple of hours.” He plans, however, to go on the 200th mission.

The flak the Marauders met at the Calafuria bridge was heavy and accurate, and two pieces punctured the Belle’s tail section, but as usual did no harm. The viaduct was cut with direct hits.

Four combat crew members celebrated their 50 mission anniversaries with the B-26’s 100 mission cake. They were 1st Lt. Elliott Lysko, 1684 Central St., Stoughton, Mass., the pilot: Staff Sgt. Donald E. Miller, Robinson, Pa., engineer-turret gunner; Technical Sgt. Andrew L. Bergman, 4117 Montgomery St., Oakland, Calif., radio operator-waist gunner: and Staff Sgt. Charles E. F. Brinker, 528 N. Spring St., Blairsville, Pa., tail gunner.

Other crew members on the 100th mission were 1st Lt. Elmer L. Masters, 3639 Linden Ave., Seattle Wash., co-pilot on his 46th mission; and 1st Lt. Gustave G Pappetru, 1412 W. Juneau St., Milwaukee, Wis., bombardier on his 35th.

Hell’s Belle II went on to fly a total of 132 missions before the end of the war.

The picture below is of the Hell’s Belle armament section and shows several of the men named in the account.

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The picture below is of all the aircraft in the 319th Bomb Group, B-26.  A sortie is a mission.  Hell’s Belle II is in the 3rd row.

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Nature’s Wonderland Just Past Your Doorstop


A little over 15 years ago, after I had my heart attack, I decided it was time to get off my dead ass and exercise. The only thing I could think of was jogging. I found a pond in Wakefield MA, Lake Quannapowitt, that has a path entirely around it and has a length of roughly 2.5 miles. I started out run, walk, run, walk, each day. And each day I did a little better. When I was at the top of my game, so to speak, I was able to jog around that body of water 3 times non-stop. But then I moved and had to find a new location. I actually found two, both in Cambridge, Fresh Pond and the paths along the Charles River and so I began to jog them regularly.

My knees were hurting me so I consulted my doctor who advised me to act my age, that I was not 25 anymore. He was fine with the exercise but jogging had to go and so I join a gym which was good for about a year. But I find gyms boring, really boring. It then occurred to me how much as a child I had loved bicycling. More than once I literally rode a bicycle into the ground. One time the joint at the front fork and the cross bar broke. Anyway, I bought a cheap bike, about $300 and headed off for the Minuteman Railtrail. This pathway starts in Cambridge and travels through Arlington and Lexington and ends just short of Bedford center. The trail itself is roughly ten miles in length and for the most part travels through wooded areas.

While riding the trail I noticed lots of squirrels one of which was totally black and another which was totally white, both rarities. Our local squirrels are of the common gray squirrel variety. And the of course right next to them are the chipmunks.

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These guys love to play chicken with you as you ride along and sad to say one was not quite so quick as he thought when I could not avoid him and ran over the little guy. It made me terribly sad.

Another creature I see quite often on this trail is the red tipped hawk.

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This breed of hawk is common to our area and you see lots of them. But they own the woods along the trail and are fearless creatures. I had one alight on a pole just in front of me as I was moving along, similar to the one above, and stare me down. His obvious power and beauty are breathtaking. I could watch this bird for hours on end as he goes about his business. In flight he is a thing of beauty, barely flapping his wings as he adroitly glides on the air currents, the updrafts and the ambient winds.

One day as I was returning home on the trail I came across a rather large doe. Now I have seen lots of deer in my travel but this one was standing on a small rise a few feet away from the trail, her body parallel to the trail. I stared at her, as she was truly beautiful, and in return she snorted at me as if to say, “what are you looking at?” The picture below is a pretty good representation of just how she looked at me.

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The most surprising creature I ever came across was a wolverine.

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Now this guy I did not see along the rail trail but caught him crossing Route 2A in Lincoln MA but yes, I was on my bicycle. I honestly did not know what I had just seen but his fur was much more brownish than the one above and he moved very quickly across that busy highway. What I have found out since about wolverines, having watch a Nat Geo (I think) story on them, is that they are elusive to the extreme and they number only about 200 in the lower 48. Unfortunately, even had I had a camera at the ready it is unlikely I could have gotten a picture of this guy as he quickly disappeared into the brush next to the road. I also found out that a wolverine can claim upwards of 300 square miles of territory. The Nat Geo story said they were thought to be extinct east of the Mississippi until the camera crew found one in Michigan. That may be the only time I will ever see this guy but it was worth the price of admission.

blue heron

The bird above is known as a great blue heron. He has a wing span of roughly 80 inches which translates to about 6 feet 8 inches! There is a marshy area along the rail trail in Lexington and right next to the Lexington land fill when this bird frequents. He is simply gorgeous and I always hope that when I come upon him standing in the swamp that he will decide to take flight and give me a great show.

Other animals I regularly see are cardinals, house cats, beavers, crows and the occasional turtle. The point is, if you ride up and down this path enough you will eventual see many of nature’s creatures in their natural habitat, and that is wonderful, always.

There is a rail trail in every state of the lower 48 and I highly recommend that you find one which suits you and travel it as much as you can. You should be both surprised and amazed at the woodland creatures you will come across in your travels. And that is a trip worth all the time and effort you can give it.

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Wealthy People Owning Beaches


Yesterday’s Boston Globe newspaper (July 24, 2016) had an article in it about prime shore line on Cape Cod that is privately owned by some wealthy people. Even with reading the article, this seemed fundamentally wrong. To me it is akin to claiming you own the air.

Our nation’s seashore, in my opinion, should all be public lands in the hands of the federal, state or local governments. And that seashore should extend 10 feet beyond the highest high tide point. Believe it or not, and depending upon where you live, the high tide point can vary with the changes of the moon.

I have also seen where such homeowners have banded together to deny access routes to public beaches when such routes are near their property. This too seems wrong.

Newport Rhode Island is home to some of the most expensive oceanfront properties in the national and yet there is a public walkway which runs between their mansions and the water below. It is a rocky waterfront so there is no beach but it does show that accommodation is possible.

Anyway, back to those homeowners who somehow seem to have gotten beach area included in their property rights. The right and magnanimous thing to do would be for them to sign over their land to the town/city in which they live. Keeping the public off the beach because you happen to own it is both selfish and morally wrong.

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Clinton Broke the Law: So Did Others, Now What?


This is difficult for me to say as someone who tends to vote for Democrats but Hillary Clinton broke the law. It is even more difficult to say that Donald Trump is correct on that fact. But the law, regardless of the crime or injury, in civil cases, is bound by precedent.

What I am talking about is the 20,000 emails Karl Rove deleted from a private server located in the White House which was ostensibly for political uses only. This happened in 2007 and is well-documented. In question is whether there were emails pertaining to the Valerie Plame scandal of the Bush regime. At the time, neither the Justice Department nor its arm, the FBI, start an investigation. Congress, Republican controlled, saw no reason to set up a special committee to investigate what Rove and his accomplices had done. And there you have the precedent.

Good leadership always recognizes that the man, or woman, at the top is ultimately responsible for all things which happen during their watch, good and bad. Our politician, and this is without regard to political affiliation, always takes credit and always deflects blame. Ask yourself when the last time you heard any politician say “I screwed up” and take responsibility either for his erroneous actions or for the actions of those who work for him? I am willing to be you never have.

For many decades I held security clearances of various sorts and levels. It was always made clear to me that should I break any of the rules I faced almost certain jail time. But I was neither a politician nor someone in a high position.

Now there is one thing that has been missing from the Clinton debacle, the word ethics. As a public servant, both in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Transportation, particularly in the latter, I was made aware on a regular basis my absolute responsibility for maintaining a completely ethical position in all my works. Little things like not accepting a gift or other item worth in excess of $25, and never doing anything that even “gives the appearance of” a lack of ethics. To do so meant a punishment of some sort.

What many of you may not know is the fact that every department in the United States government has its own Inspector General. This is the person who upon gaining knowledge of some breaking the rules, or worse, possibly committing a crime, is duty-bound to investigate. Every person in the U.S. Government, political or otherwise, takes an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. And by extension, that means that they will do all within their power to remain above reproach, to be ethical, to safe-guard the secrets of our government, and to conduct themselves in a manner which is in all respects, ethical.

Now we come to Title 18 of the U.S. Code. This section of Federal Law deals with classified documents and materials. So here is what the code says 18 US Code § 798 – Disclosure of classified information:

“(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—

(1)

concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or

(2)

concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or

(3)

concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or

(4)

obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”

 

The way dissemination of classified material works is that it is available only on a “need to know” basis. That means the recipient has both a security clearance equal to the classification of the material in question and that that person needs that classified material for the conduct of his job. I suspect Clinton failed to use good judgement in who she shared classified material with. And that she could claim not to know that any particular item was not classified is laughable. In her position she should have had a heightened state of awareness of classified material.

There is another situation which exists which any person who has spent considerable time in government knows: any singular piece of information may not in and of itself be classified, but when many bits of information are put together they must be at the very least be considered sensitive in nature and be treated as classified. On her staff Clinton had someone whose sole purpose was to review material of a sensitive nature to determine the level of classification necessary. It is axiomatically given that you always defer to things being classified until proper authority deems otherwise.

The Bush administration proved fast and loose with its handling of classified material, vis-à-vis Valerie Plame et. Al. No one was ever held responsible for making public knowledge of a person who was in the conduct of her job classified. The Plame incident at the least meets the level of Clinton’s indiscretions if not exceeding them. The FBI could not have gone after Clinton without someone insisting upon an investigation of Bush, Cheney and Rove, and the Republicans know this.

All this is nothing new, sadly, it has been going on for administrations going back as far as anyone cares to go. Politicians typically, and regularly, place themselves above the law, and sadly most get away with it. The only way to change that is for the general public to demand change. Sadly, I do not see that happening any time soon.

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America the Violent: It is Time We Curbed Our Gun Preoccupation


Scholars debate the meaning behind the second amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen to take up a 2nd Amendment suit on only 3 occasions in its entire history. It is not that the 2nd amendment is sacred, it is just that there is no consensus on the writers’ intendent. Scalia commented on “original intent” as that was his belief. But he never spoke on the 2nd.

I did my graduate work on U.S. history, and while the Revolutionary War was not my focus, I was required to be more than just conversant in it. And because of that, I like to point to what the colonists called the “Townsend Act.” They detested all of them. But if you look at the Townsend Acts and the other acts instituted between 1765 and 1774, you will find they directly correspond to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. When the writers were constructing the Constitution they knew it would need amending and they also knew what those amendments would look like. But for the sake of expedience, getting 9 colonies to agree upon the document, they wrote the main document exactly as you see it today. The Bill of Rights, 10 amendments, were all passed in the first year of America’s existence. George Mason and James Madison, a Virginian wrote them, but we had already added a state, Vermont, which meant they needed 10 of the 14 to ratify. Mason actually wrote 12 amendments. The 11th Amendment was how states were represented in the house. Madison wanted a set small constituency for each congressman. This amendment failed. But the 12th amendment was one we can relate to today even better. It forbade Congress from giving itself pay raises. Of course that one failed.

But back to the 2nd Amendment. It is brief: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The colonists had, from their earliest days in America, maintained a colonial militia. This was made up of men who assembled once a month on the town’s green, practiced a bit and went back home. Because the colonial governments were always strapped for cash, the members of the militia were required to supply their own guns, which they did.

About 1765, the British government began a concerted effort to “control” the colonists in what they perceived as acts contrary to the desires of the crown. The British government sent British soldiers and British Marines to take the place of the militia and maintain the peace, as they saw fit. At the same time, they replaced the duly elected governors of the colonies with governor-general, their own men. Additionally, they replaced judges hearing admiralty (seagoing) cases with their own extremely biased judges.

Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts, a British appointee, declared that the storage of weapons and gun powder to be illegal and sent numerous forays to Plymouth, Salem, Portsmouth, NH and other locales, before ordering out his troops on the fateful day of April 19, 1775. The troop commander was ordered to capture all arms and powder known to be stored in Concord and bring into British possession. We all know how that worked out.

And so in the late 1780s when the Constitution and its amendments were being considered and written, the idea that a government could outlaw a state’s right to maintain its own militia was particularly sour in their mouths. It is important at this point to state that each colony joining the central Federal Government made it known that it desired as much autonomy as possible. The 1792 Massachusetts Militia was formed under the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment strictly outlawed the Federal Government from disallowing such an action.

In 1792, people who possessed guns tended to be members of the militia. And those people tended to be farmers, although certainly not exclusively so. But by that time the state government was suppling the guns necessary for its militia. The militia of 1792 is the National Guard of today. There is a direct lineage. Some states, however, maintain both, a National Guard force which can be called up to federal duty and a militia force which cannot be called up to federal status. In both cases, however, the governor is the commander-in-chief of such forces.

It is my belief that when Madison wrote “the right of the people” he was simply echoing the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence which starts “We the people.” People is being used in a plural sense and was never intended to mean the individual. I am certain it did not occur to Madison that people might grasp this amendment as an individual’s right. But Madison’s intent is clear. He meant the amendment to only apply to military forces.

Now, consider the fact that as of 1986 the purchase of machine guns was made illegal. In a curious twist, it is not, however, illegal to possess one but it cannot be made after 1986. And according to the ATF, as of 1986 there were only 182,619 that were transferable.

Now the only difference between a machine gun and an AR-15, civilian version of the M-16 rifle, is the number of rounds it can shoot with one pull of the trigger. Some machine guns use the same caliber round although most of the older ones use either the old NATO round, 7.62 or a larger round. I bring this up because no one is complaining about the machine gun law but try to restrict the usage of an almost equally lethal weapon and the push back is enormous. It makes no sense.

I do not think that a complete ban on assault weapons is necessary but I do think that any person desiring to own one should have to jump through a series of hoops prior to being allowed to purchase one. Getting such a gun should require legalities akin to gaining a security clearance and in turn, many will find themselves turned away, but for just cause.

I like guns and am an expert marksman. But it is difficult for me to understand why any responsible gun owner and prospective purchaser would object to more strict rules for ownership than now exist. These rules would never keep the responsible owner from purchasing a gun but it would certainly curb the illegal sales of guns and illegal ownership.