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May 5, 2005

By The Armorer on May 5, 2005 | | Comments (14)

Busy day in history.

If you're a conspiracy fanatic - Napoleon died this day in 1821.

If you're Mexican - or an Gringo who looks for an excuse to Party - it's the 143rd opportunity to slam Tequila in celebration of the Cinco de Mayo. How many of your partyers actually know what's being celebrated?

If you are an Italian Patriot, 145 years ago today Garibaldi and The Thousand landed in Sicily

If you like Gun Pr0n, 63 years ago, in 1942, the Japanese landed on Corregidor, capturing these guns.


Hi-res, click here. (take a look at the tube)


Hi-res, click here.

The Mortars, I believe, are the only M1890 12-inch seacoast mortars left in existence. If I ever win the lottery or somehow gather a Gatesian fortune - I'll see if the Phillipine government won't let me buy one of those mortars and return it to the US, probably to install it someplace like Fort Monroe, where the mortar pits are still in pretty good shape... Barb will like this - Battery Way. Hat tip to John S for sending along the pictures from his trip!

[N.B. Several commenters and one emailer have pointed out that Fort DeSoto, Mullet Key, Florida (south of Saint Petersburg) has 4 of these mortars - two per pit, vice the normal four per pit. H/t, Emdfl, JTG, and Mike E. -the Armorer]

If you are an Oregonian, you can commemorate your WWII civilian casualties caused by the pointless Japanese weapon, The Balloon Bomb. Lesson learned here - leave UXO alone. Even if you don't know it's UXO (UneXploded Ordnance).

44 years ago - Alan Shepard became the 1st American in space. Yuri Gagarin holds the title for Humanity, chinese claims notwithstanding...

But perhaps, most importantly in my little window on the world, from last night at sundown until today at sundown, it's Yom Ha-Shoah Ve-Hagevurah. The Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Heroism. The Heroism being the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Charles Simmins, of the blog You Big Mouth, You! notes that 60 years ago today, the soldiers of the 89th Division overran Ohrdruf.

I'm not jewish. But I believe the Holocaust happened. And I, too, should like that "someone remember there once lived a person named David Berger."

Not because David should be exalted above other names and deaths just as worthy - including anyone you know who has died - but because by putting a name, and a face to the David Bergers of the Holocaust, we help to combat the reality of Stalin's observation: "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."

Nie Wieder.

"Towards the end of the trip, we visited Ohrdruf and, to our surprise (although we had been forewarned) found nothing, absolutely nothing. All traces of it had disappeared. There is only a graveyard for POWs and a German Army Training Camp. It was like it never existed. But it did and we can testify to it personally." All of the horrors of the last sixty years have numbed us. A bombed wedding party in Afghanistan becomes the equivalent of the German camps, and so on. You cannot put a qualification on evil, but acts such as these cry out to us through the passing decades to be remembered.

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14 Comments

By Le Criquette on May 5, 2005 7:54 AM
Sacre Bleu! Thees ees thee day when we, the most arrogant military in the world were defeated by the Mexicans! They did not want Sauce Bernaise on el pollo. They wanted mole. Silly Meso Americains. But oh, can they make a relleno for poblanos!
 
By Masked Menace© on May 5, 2005 10:27 AM
Hey, I'm all for celebrating a defeat of the French Army. It's just that there are so many of them. HEH :-)
 
By Lennard Vogelaar on May 5, 2005 1:57 PM
Today we celebrate liberation day and the defeat of nazi Germany here in The Netherlands. So, a big thank you to all the US grandma's and grandpa's who made this happen! Lennard
 
By Lennard Vogelaar on May 5, 2005 2:17 PM
Oh, and yesterday was our day of remembrance. We were 2 minutes silent at 20:00 to remember the dead of ww2 and the conflicts that followed. This is a tradition since 1945, so we never forget what happened and make sure it will never happen again ("Nie wieder"). And then came the civil war in Yougoslavia! In the backyard of worlds only military superpower NATO, and worlds second economic power EU! We were not able and willing to prevent it or end it. Shame!
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 5, 2005 2:29 PM
And when we finally stepped up to the plate, Lennard, we pretty much botched it, too.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 5, 2005 2:36 PM
And for the support of the people of the Netherlands during Market-Garden and beyond, Lennard - thank your oldsters, from us! Oranje! Oh, and really thank you for the nude beaches I visited while in the Netherlands for REFORGER 84!
 
By Cricket on May 5, 2005 8:57 PM
John, you are hopeless, you big teddy bear you. Lennard, I have a question for you. First of all, thank you for the remembrances of not just our dead, but for others and your countrymen who died as well. We sometimes forget the price of freedom is not only vigilance but gave their lives for it so others would have it. Here is my question: What do you do for a living? I am just curious and you don't have to answer that. I am being nosy and wanting to put a label on you via your profession. One other thing: I think it takes a great amount of courage to live for your cause too, and so I salute those who were in the Maquis and the resistances of their countries. To hide Jews or to raise the children; evacuate them when the Nazis went looking for them. All these things tell us that we can and should stand for what is right. Thanks Lennard, for your reminder.
 
By emdfl on May 6, 2005 8:47 AM
Unless they have been moved, there were several 12" coastal mortars at the Mullet Key fort leading into Tampa Bay. For a long time there were a couple of coastal rifles - looked like maybe 8" - on Eggmont Key across the channel, but I think the sea finally reclaimed the barbets and the guns.
 
By Justthisguy on May 6, 2005 1:41 PM
Whee! *finally*, some Coast Arty pix. I believe that the absolute *Last Round* is still in one of those mortars at Btty Way. The officer commanding supposedly ripped out the telephone, so as not to receive any surrender orders. He and his guys only quit because the last piece stopped working and he was grievously wounded. William Massiello was his name, I think. He survived the war.
 
By Justthisguy on May 6, 2005 2:00 PM
emdfl, I think there may be photos of the mortars at the Tampa Bay fort at www.cdsg.org/gunpics/gunsx.htm Their server seems busted at the moment, though. I often fantasized, when looking at those pix, of calculating azimuths and elevations for those pieces to hit all of the golf courses in the area, then sneaking in to the place and posting them as a table on one of the walls. I think such nasty thoughts, sometimes...
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 6, 2005 2:27 PM
Yay! I was wrong! (The link works, JTG). Kewl!
 
By Jusstthisguy on May 6, 2005 2:57 PM
Whoops! Just now clicked on the link to the image of the plaque. Hesitated before, being on dial-up. Yeah, what they said, that John S photographed.
 
By Justthisguy on May 6, 2005 3:40 PM
Here's an article about MAJ Massello I found at corregidor.org: http://corregidor.org/ca/btty_erie/massello.htm I heartily recommend the corregidor.org site to anyone who thinks he has even half a soul. The images and writings there will sometimes make you drool (pix of kewl guns) and sometimes make your eyes wet (accounts of what happened, and what people did there)
 
By Boquisucio on May 6, 2005 7:51 PM
Back during my bohemian days, payed my respects at Garibaldi's tomb in Isola Caprera. The same trip where we played that wonderful game of "Count the Urchins" (previous post). My buddies and I rented mopeds and tore both islands La Maddalena and Caprera, both linked by a causeway. Remember driving by the Sub Base there.