It that don’t paint a perfect picture…
I heard Dad was the first man to land on Omaha, Juno, Sword, Utah and Gold beaches on D-Day. He just borrowed Doug’s plane for a couple of days to get there on time, then flew back once he had secured the beaches.
Before or after he pulled a Baron Munchausen and buzzed the moon?
At least you guys don’t have DrStalky constantly entering threads you are in accusing you of asking questions and demanding that you provide a solution to whatever problem is being discussed.
I hope you’re reporting that.
DrDeth is going full-on gun nut in the “gun safety laws” GD thread. Got a mod note that really should have been a warning for taking a quote completely out of context and making a snarky comment about it. While in the meantime trying to advance some statistically ludicrous argument about the low ratio of gun homicides to total number of guns. What a total dumbfuck.
On a positive note, since his jackassity has escalated to the point where mods are warning about warnings (I guess that’s something) then he might be close to flaming out, in which case I’d only have 1 person on my ignore list.
He is the reason that I don’t even bother with any sort of gun thread anymore.
Can have several posters having a reasoned, if disagreeing discussion. Then he comes in with his bullshit and trainwrecks the whole thing.
I also have two written accounts of that kamikaze attack, one by my dad and one by an officer he bumped into while looking for injured personnel, but I don’t know where they are at the moment. He’d probably accuse me of making them up, anyway.
And a full on warning:
What’s really, truly fascinating is that it’s a difference between an entirely mundane (from a historical perspective—I’m sure it was terrible to live through) account attesting to something that the historical record will readily bear out (a destroyer-sized vessel can take a kamikaze hit without sinking) and an extraordinary account that purports to provide an unnecessarily convoluted and highly implausible explanation for one of the most baffling incidents of the war: why did MacArthur so badly botch the initial response to news of the attack on Pearl Harbor?
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence to be believed. I’m happy enough to believe that someone’s dad, say, took a bullet in the arm in Vietnam or survived a kamikaze attack during WWII (so long as there are no higher stakes tangled up in the claim). Less so to believe the sort of claim DrDeth is making.
I wish I could remember the name of Dad’s DE. It was likely an Edsall-class out of Consolidated Steel in Orange, TX.
Honestly, I’m not sure he was at Iwo but his comments at the recruitment office where I enlisted and at the memorial by Arlington Cemetery led me to believe his ship was there.
I personally would be interested if you do find them. Even if they don’t have any really new information, it would be neat to read them, or at least read a summary (if you don’t want to post the whole thing).
Oh, a summary I can provide.
Much of the account has to do with the aftermath. Dad was running in and out of compartments, looking for casualties. He eventually found himself in some officer’s quarters, completely unoccupied other than himself. He picked up a pearl-handled pistol and was about to walk out with the sidearm when an officer walked in and demanded to know what he was doing there. Dad complied, handed over the sidearm, and was allowed to leave.
He recounted this story in some veterans’ magazine. Couple of months later, a letter from that same officer appeared in the magazine, thanking Dad for returning his sidearm!
And that officer? DrDeth’s father!
Naw, pearl handles clearly indicates that the officer was actually General Patton.
Ivory. Only a pimp from Douglass MacArthur’s office staff would carry a pearl-handled pistol.
Doh! You’re right of course.