Staff Sergeant James Hantzis, shoved off from Wilmington, California on December 10, 1943, aboard the converted ocean liner, S.S. Mariposa. He and 5,000 GI Railroaders sailed west and south for 15,000 miles en route to India. Few had ever been to sea, let alone this sea. 1 January 1944—S.S. Mariposa, Southwest of Tasmania, Read More
20 May 1945 0733 hours—378 Miles East of Yangkai, China There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Sun Tzu—The Art of War (Circa 475 BCE)[1] The art of war was an airborne exhibition thanks to General Chennault’s Fourteenth Air Force. In the land of Sun Tzu, two and, Read More
Over 59,000 women served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. Thousands more, like Mary Louise Hantzis, R.N., my mother, cared for war-wounded in the States. Mary worked with a noted orthopedic surgeon in Indianapolis and saw war-torn bodies on every round. For Veterans Day 2021, I offer this vignette, an, Read More
Memorial Day honors the sacrifice of veterans and all who served. But to a subset, Hoosiers, it’s also about the biggest sporting event on the planet. I count among them. Growing up in central Indiana, the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race was the soundtrack of our holiday weekend. My father, a China-Burma-India veteran, had the, Read More
America can achieve improbable things. That’s our history. I hope this vignette reinforces that hopefulness. It is early in the Pacific War, 1943. The Marines have taken Guadalcanal and the Americans now have an airbase to use against the Japanese. On this night and the following day, that advantage bedeviled America’s public enemy number, Read More
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From Where They Came This Memorial Day allow me to introduce a few of the men who led by example and molded America’s modern Special Operations Force. They were British, part of a secret organization called the Special Operations Executive (SOE). During World War II, SOE commandos fought in every theater and found time, Read More
You’ve finished training, you’re inoculated, and your paperwork is filed. Now, it’s time to board an overloaded, repurposed luxury liner and outlast the chaotic sea and a determined enemy. You know not your destination, that they will tell you along the way. Your only clue is that you are sailing west from California. , Read More
Seventy-five years ago, August 1944, Merrill’s Marauders captured Myitkyina in northern Burma eight hundred miles from where GI railroaders left them. The Marauders spent seven months in the most unforgiving jungle on earth. Their exploits are legendary. They fought thirty-two engagements including four major battles for which they were neither intended, trained, nor, Read More
The river was muddy and wide. In the northern distance, the brick-red roof and gold weathervane atop Mount Vernon’s cupola graced its western bank. Talk about history. The window wall of the Fort Belvoir Officers Club was panoramic and the view breathtaking. This was the celebrated venue of the Saint Martin’s Military History Club,, Read More
Happy people, I didn’t see a scowl all weekend, Buddha all. And, before I offend Buddhists, I use nirvana in an unexamined way, a colloquial synonym for Christian heaven. But, as true Buddhists know, nirvana is the extinction of desire, and in that sense, the Amherst Railway Hobby Show is the opposite. The show, Read More