On this day during W.W. 2

Happy 242nd Birthday U.S. Army!!

It was August 16th on this day in 1943…

And?…
My dad was born In a war torn Tuscan village on the 17th.

@wittmann:

And?…
My dad was born In a war torn Tuscan village on the 17th.

But that would be tomorrow… you’re a day early!  :-D

I wondered what happened on The 16th. It seemed you  were referencing something. Hence my question and mention of my dad.

I feel old now. My dad was born during the First World War.

Well that surprises me , Herr KaLeun. I always imagined you as younger than me.

My youthful appearance, probably.  :mrgreen: Anyway, I was born well after WW II.

1940- 45 German aircraft shot down over England
1941-HMS Mercury, Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School opens at Leydene, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England
1943-1st Long Tom bombs on Italian mainland (from Sicily)
1944-2nd Canadian Division occupies Falaise, Normandy
1944-Dutch begin diplomatic contact with Vatican in London
1944-US 15th Army corp reaches Eure, surrounds Dreux
1944-First flight of the Junkers Ju 287.
1943- wittman’s Grandma has had enough and is ready to give birth any time now, please!

Thanks GeneralHandGrenade.

On this day in 1947 (okay, so I’m off a bit on the subject matter), the United States Air Force was created… Happy 70th Birthday to my branch of military service… I was happy to serve 20 of those 70 years in the Air Force blue!

Did not know it was 70 years old. Thank you.

@wittmann:

Did not know it was 70 years old. Thank you.

Yes, the USAF was created in 1947, as a direct result of lessons learned in WWII and the need for a separate branch away from its direct ties to the US Army (during WWII it was the Army-Air Corps/Force). Certainly not the first, other nations realized this earlier, as both the RAF and Luftwaffe (and others) had separate air forces before the USAF separated from the Army.

Saw an awesome looking book from University of Cinn? press called “Grounded” about why the USAF was created based on the “air alone” doctrine that prevailed in the 1920s and 1930s but was totally discredited by WW2 and the wars after.    Only skimmed it but basically its that the independent branch has become a huge boondoggle on the scale of the other branches but that has no remaining independent mission (if it ever legitimately had one) and has repeatedly developed assets that cannot be used, are never used (Hustler, etc.) or cannot be used as intended.

Devastating indictment, way worse than a stratbombing!

Here’s the blurb

The United States needs airpower, but does it need an air force? In Grounded, Robert M. Farley persuasively argues that America should end the independence of the United States Air Force (USAF) and divide its assets and missions between the United States Army and the United States Navy.

In the wake of World War I, advocates of the Air Force argued that an organizationally independent air force would render other military branches obsolete. These boosters promised clean, easy wars: airpower would destroy cities beyond the reach of the armies and would sink navies before they could reach the coast. However, as Farley demonstrates, independent air forces failed to deliver on these promises in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, and the War on Terror. They have also had perverse effects on foreign and security policy, as politicians have been tempted by the vision of devastating airpower to initiate otherwise ill-considered conflicts. The existence of the USAF also produces turf wars with the Navy and the Army, leading to redundant expenditures, nonsensical restrictions on equipment use, and bad tactical decisions.

Farley does not challenge the idea that aircraft represent a critical component of America’s defenses; nor does he dispute that―especially now, with the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles―airpower is necessary to modern warfare. Rather, he demonstrates that the efficient and wise use of airpower does not require the USAF as presently constituted. An intriguing scholarly polemic, Grounded employs a wide variety of primary and secondary source materials to build its case that the United States should now correct its 1947 mistake of having created an independent air force.

@taamvan:

Devastating indictment, way worse than a stratbombing!

Meh… One man’s opinion…

This book portrays itself as presenting a logical argument for the elimination of the U.S. Air Force but in reality only argues for redistributing its assets in a less efficient manner.

In a poorly constructed attempt to justify a foregone conclusion, the author argues for disestablishment of an independent air force for the U.S., maintaining that the Army and Navy can do the job better with the same assets. In a mixture of organizational platitudes and some worn criticism of air power, the book is unconvincing in its simplistic arguments.

Although similar arguments could be made for the other services (when did the U.S. Navy last attack an enemy naval force or when did the U.S. Marines last storm a hostile beachhead), the author takes a swipe at the U.S. Air Force, basing his arguments on old doctrine and a superficial understanding of military doctrine and operations. To some extent, the author has fallen victim to accepting U.S. Air Force hype about its successes at face value without an appreciation for the more rational airpower theories and criticism within the Air Force itself.

I have seen high school debate teams do a better job of research and logical presentation of arguments.

10th May 1940: Germany invaded France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

@Herr:

I feel old now. My dad was born during the First World War.

Here’s a somewhat similar story.  I once read (about 15 years ago) a posting by an American college professor of military history who said that, in his lectures over the years, he would sometimes mention that his father was a veteran who had fought in “the war”, by which he meant WWII.  For many of those years, his late-teenage / early-adult students would typically understand what he meant.  One day, however, he got a bit of a jolt (and started feeling old) when one of his students raised his hand and casually commented, “My dad fought in Vietnam too.”  Given that this story happened about fifteen years ago, the poor fellow must feel even older today.

Not totally related but I felt the generation change when I asked in my classroom how many saw the first Star Wars movie (Ep. IV) and only 3 hands out of 30 were raise…

Yeah, and now all of a sudden we should feel something like an awaakening :roll:.

The youth of today can not relate to WWII anymore.
Most of the Veterans are gone and you have to deal nowadays with fantastic storybooks of it where only the half is true.

Memorials becoming more interest because People don’t know for what they stand for.

https://youtu.be/QsbtoXUD38M

Enjoy.