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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 13, 2016 15:27:49 GMT
That one seems to it is broader based.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 13, 2016 15:30:47 GMT
C'mon Tom, get your stick on the ice!
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 13, 2016 15:33:52 GMT
Go back one post, I think I need an Ice Pick! Or a saw for an Ice Carving!
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
Posts: 1,824
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Post by azranger on Jul 13, 2016 15:50:35 GMT
Yep
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jul 13, 2016 15:57:07 GMT
QC The Americans at 1st Savo were surprised and devastated and in fact if I am not mistaken it was the worst defeat in US Naval history. I have never viewed the battle like you have with it being a successful operation in protecting the amphibious landing force. The battle was a brutal learning process for the Americans in discovering the Japanese had better optics, torpedoes and superior night training abilities, possessed flash less powder and better command and control . To be fair, the Australians and Americans were scrambling in haste to set up tactics, communications as they had not operated together in training activities plus the personality conflicts between the top commanders all added up to disaster. I am curious what you think of the performance and leaderships of Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley and how it might have affected the outcome of the engagement if any?
The Alamo's outcome with the death of all the defender's along with the treatment of their remains has lead me to think of the massacre as a military disaster. Travis disobeyed his orders to abandon the Alamo, did he not? Yet he held out for 13 days and the rest is Texas lore. I am aware that Houston used the sacrifice to gain valuable time to assemble and position his army to defeat Santa Ana.
We will always look at events in different a light due to our backgrounds and experiences. The military view point expressed on this board and others has enabled me to see many aspects of this fight that were previously hidden though I do not agree with all I have become educated. In many ways it is similar to traipsing across Shiloh with a history professor who also a some timed tour guide and that is good. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Jul 13, 2016 17:30:27 GMT
I cannot disagree with what you said in your first paragraph Dave. That said, I am more concerned with outcomes, and the outcome was that that the IJN did not penetrate into the transport anchorage. Had they, the Guadalcanal campaign would have ended there and then. Tactical ass whipping? Yes. Operational defeat? No. Disaster? No. Who possessed the area when the IJN departed? That is the measure of 1st Savo.
Travis was ordered. Can't buy that either. Travis was the junior man when he arrived. Neill was in command, and he and Bowie jointly signed the "Die in These Ditches" letter. Neill departed on leave shortly thereafter, intending to return. He did not, but his not returning was due to circumstances not the lack of will to do so. Bowie was the guy Houston told to go to San Antonio and remove the guns and blow the Alamo up, not Travis. Bowie got there, understood the situation, looked about him and said remove and blow up - with what. I believe Travis, although he and Bowie did not get along at all, was heavily influenced by Bowie. Travis was also confronted with what to do with the thirty something sick and wounded housed in the Alamo, from the December siege of San Antonio. They could not be moved, there was nothing to move them with or in, and just like the guns no live stock to move wagons with even if they could be found.
Travis made the correct decision to stay. Houston made the correct decision not to come. If you want military disaster out of that mess, Santa Anna was the engine of his own disaster. He reached San Antonio on the 23rd of February with his vanguard force of between 1000 and 1200. This was enough to contain, but not make an assault on the Alamo. His main body (most of it) arrived on 2/3 March. Had he moved off immediately with his vanguard he would have caught Houston at Gonzalez, and whipped the snot out of him, meanwhile keeping the Alamo contained with his late arriving main body, then letting it die on the vine. Meanwhile another column was moving on Goliad, and they would have Fannin in the bag within a few weeks. Santa Anna brought about the disaster (for him) that was San Jacinto on 3 March with the decision to assault and not pursue.
Treatment of the bodies.
Texians - Burned as heretics, save one, turned over to his family (Esparza).
Mexican Officers - Buried with all the honors of the military and Catholic Church at the Campo Santo.
Mexican soldiers - Thrown in the river like trash.
Take your pick as to who got treated better the Texians or the soldatos.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jul 13, 2016 19:46:12 GMT
QC The burning of the bodies after the fall of the Alamo was especial grievous in the Protestant south since the resurrection of the body was expected on the Lord's Day. They knew the body would decompose and turn to dust as written in Genesis 3:19 still the usual custom was to bury the deceased. The treatment of the Mexican soldiers was hardly if ever thought about or known. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Jul 13, 2016 20:03:17 GMT
Ghormley. A brilliant man, and exceptional naval officer. No combat or theater commander. He worried too much.
With the exception of Scott and Lee, there were none in those early days that were top performers at the tactical level. Most of the rap against Fletcher is deserved, although he scored three out of four carrier battle victories in 42. Two of those Coral Sea and Eastern Solomons were directly tied to Guadalcanal, even though Coral Sea was in the previous May. Callahan was brave but incompetent in that he had been on the beach far to long before taking command at sea and was not up to speed on sensor technology and how to use it.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 13, 2016 20:33:37 GMT
The burning of the bodies was no great shakes to the Roman Catholics either. Cremation was forbidden by the church well into the 20th century.
You must remember that almost all those who lived in Texas prior to the revolution were Mexican citizens and by law Roman Catholic. Most who fought at the Alamo arrived from mid 1835 on, but Bowie was an RC, all of the Hispanics were RC, and I would venture to say about 30% or so of the rest as well.
They were however considered both pirates and heretics by the political/religious government of Mexico and like the heretics of the Spanish Inquisition burned.
That is not the end of the story though for their remains remained. Those remains were gathered later in the year following San Jacinto and buried with honors at, at least two places. One is known, and it is very near the site of St. Joseph's RC Church on Commerce Street, near River Center, and the other site is most probably near the present fire station on Houston Street due east of the Alamo about a block and a half. The remains marked as Alamo defenders in the cathedral downtown are much more likely to be deceased monks from mission days.
It was hardly every thought about or known Dave, because the Protestant South, nor anyone else gave a rats as about what happened to them. The Mexican soldiers at the Alamo fought very well and there is a multitude of incidents of individual bravery, a couple on the scale we would use to award the MOH today. But to most of this country they were just Mexicans, a low life that deserves no mention. We forget at times that these men were fighting for what they believed in and deserved better at the hands of their own than to be thrown in the dumpster.
You must also remember, and this is very important:
1) There was a public health issue, that could not wait.
2) Francisco Ruiz the alcalde of SA supervised the collection of Texian dead. He had no choice but to burn them, or Santa Anna would have had him shot. Ruiz did all in his power to do what little he could to provide some dignity. Ruiz knew most of them, and was a good friend of Bowie and those that had homes in San Antonio.
3) You do what you have to do, when you have to do it, the best way you can. That said there is always someone or someone's that will be appalled, and cry disgrace. It has come to my notice thought that the ones who cry the loudest were not there, and generally, at least to me, have no standing.
My opinion is that the Texian dead came out far better than the Mexicans
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Post by Beth on Jul 13, 2016 20:55:12 GMT
QC The burning of the bodies after the fall of the Alamo was especial grievous in the Protestant south since the resurrection of the body was expected on the Lord's Day. They knew the body would decompose and turn to dust as written in Genesis 3:19 still the usual custom was to bury the deceased. The treatment of the Mexican soldiers was hardly if ever thought about or known. Regards Dave I don't think Santa Ana would be terribly concern about Protestant beliefs, however the RC church was slow to adopt cremation and still doesn't allow spreading off ash. The words Battle or Massacre have distinct implications, whether the Alamo was a massacre or a battle only matters to those who write the history. Alamo might have been called a massacre if it hadn't been for the closeness to the date of the Goliad Massacre. Perhaps it would have been too hard to rally support having two massacres instead of a 'brave battle fought to the last man' and a massacre.
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dave
Brigadier General
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Post by dave on Jul 13, 2016 21:53:57 GMT
QC Remember the Mexican War occurred a decade after the Alamo and Mexicans were not held in high regard in Mississippi. The "Mississippi Rifles" commanded by Jefferson Davis which gained famed at Buena Vista was composed of volunteers from Mississippi became part of the 155th Infantry Division which is Mississippi's oldest National Guard unit. Racial hatred and bigotry against Mexico and Mexicans were firmly established in the United States after Texas gained their independence. There is a Cenotaph in St. Peter's cemetery in Oxford for Thomas Jones, Company F "Lafayette Guards" who died in Vicksburg on the way to Texas with Davis and his command. Mississippi was tasked with raising one infantry unit but over 17,000 men made their way to Vicksburg to volunteer to no avail. Only one regiment, The Mississippi Rifles, was permitted to enlist and move off to Mexico. Regards Dave PS The site below provides more about Mississippi and the Mexican War mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/index.php?id=202
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carl
Recruit
Posts: 48
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Post by carl on Jul 13, 2016 22:22:48 GMT
Just a link to Ghormley and my family.
The USS Argonne was Ghormley's flagship. A member of the Marine Detachment of the Argonne was my lst Cousin, PFC Thomas Turbak.
Thomas L Turbak enlisted in USMC in Oct 1940 at age 18 and served until Oct 1946. He was assigned to Marine Detachment, USS Argonne in April 1941 and remained in that Detachment until it became Mar Det, US Forces So Pacific Area. As A Corporal in July 1943 he returned to the States and was in the Guard Bn at Camp Lejeune until mid 1944 when he returned to the Pacific Area in the 5th AA Bn, where he became a Sgt. In May his unit arrived on Okinawa and he was there until Oct 1945 when he spent the next year in the Marine Detachment of the Pocatello, Idaho Ordnance facility.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 13, 2016 23:20:22 GMT
155th Infantry Regiment, not division.
One of the raps on Ghormley was that he never left his flagship. In fact he rarely left his cramped office on Argonne, which was submarine tender in the first place and ill suited to be a flagship for anyone. It had very limited facilities, was old, and was quite deficient in its communications suite.
The French would not let Ghormley come ashore to establish his headquarters on land. Times had changed from Nelson. A flagship for a theater commander needed to be on shore, and command exercised where all of the tools of command can be effectively employed.
Just prior to the war the flagship of the U S then Pac Fleet was on Pennsylvania. It stayed tied to 1010 Dock at Pearl most of the time. The command though functioned from the building immediately behind the submarine piers and would stay there until Nimitz moved to the Marianas late in the war.
Ghormley also had some very severe dental problems which wore him down, sapped his energy, and greatly effected his performance.
I don't think much of him as a commander, but as an intellect, and fine naval officer he was aces. Not everyone can be the Captain Pretend model of an officer. Some guys are great commanders, and could not find their way to the bathroom in a staff assignment. Other a great on a staff, but when they are in the role of commander, they fall very short. Halsey was a example of the first. Ghormley and example of the latter. Spruance was an example of a guy who could do both equally well.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 14, 2016 10:36:34 GMT
The theme of this thread, why do we care, should, if we think about it be called an appreciation of issues. Non appreciation of a given issue leads to an inherent fear concerning that issue. If you understand the issue that goes a long way in dispelling the fear that may surround it.
When I want to understand what makes an issue tick, I often turn to the novels of Michener. If he has written on the subject at hand I find it a very good place to start on the road to getting a clearer picture.
I moved to Colorado in 1991. I had read Centennial when it first came out in the mid 1970's as a celebratory piece for the Centennial State, as it approached the 100th year in the Union. Upon arrival I found myself a stranger in a strange land, not understanding the locals, local politics, and the driving factors of everyday life including race relations, conservative values, the value put on preservation, and a host of other things. I picked up Centennial again, as I have two more times since, and read it through cover to cover. From it I learned to appreciate the back story on what makes my now home tick, and how to live among these people in harmony.
I did the same thing with Texas. I had long been a student of the Texas Revolution. I was as familiar with the Alamo story as I was with the story of my children's birth. I never understood Texas though, until I reread Michener, drawing on the same reasons and methods that I used in Centennial.
I am from the Chesapeake Bay area, so when my mom passed away, I picked up a copy of Chesapeake from her book shelf brought it home and read it. Mind you I was raised there, but still I had never understood both Bay and Tidewater, until I sat down to read Michener.
Later, although I had seen the movie many times (highly recommended) I had never fully understood the attitudes of our military in the Korean Conflict until I read Bridges of Toko Ri.
We face many problems today. Most of them deal will an inherent fear, particularly people of my generation, of change. This is not the America we were born into. Why can't it be the same? Why can't successive generations adapt to me? Why must I adapt to them? These are what concerns us, the proximate cause of all the ills of our communities and country. When we learn to understand that those same concerns were present among those who came before us, only then will we learn to deal with many of those same problems today.
Warfare as I have said many times on this board and others is a struggle of continuance, and we deal with it by learning from the past, and building upon that knowledge, while keeping the basic principles in place. Life is also like that, everyday life, yours and mine. Michener helps us discover a pathway to those truths.
When we stop caring, we stop living.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 14, 2016 12:18:13 GMT
Santa Anna was the engine of his own disaster. He reached San Antonio on the 23rd of February with his vanguard force of between 1000 and 1200. This was enough to contain, but not make an assault on the Alamo. His main body (most of it) arrived on 2/3 March. Had he moved off immediately with his vanguard he would have caught Houston at Gonzalez, and whipped the snot out of him, meanwhile keeping the Alamo contained with his late arriving main body, then letting it die on the vine. Meanwhile another column was moving on Goliad, and they would have Fannin in the bag within a few weeks. Santa Anna brought about the disaster (for him) that was San Jacinto on 3 March with the decision to assault and not pursue. Chuck was Santa Anna a Snafued section 8
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