Given we’ve had so much balderdash about neckties lately, I’d like to point out my first business trip to South Korea taught me the value of decent tableware. The first two weeks in country I was working at what amounted to an IT factory in Pupyang near Incheon. My first exposure to metal chopsticks (I had mastered the disposable wooden variety many years earlier) and cheap spoons that were more like spatulas.
As I was required to wear a dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie by company policy, I ended up needing to visit The Shops In Itaewon, that famous source of touristy kitsch, to replace my shirts and ties as that was cheaper than what the 5-star hotel I was billeted charged.
Great times!
setnaffa
5 years ago
Speaking of history, I found myself watching Tora Tora Tora again today. During the scene where Admiral Kimmel is struck by a “spent” .50cal round, I wondered if being killed in the battle would have elevated him from scapegoat for US lack of preparedness to immortal hero” like Custer or Leonidas. Would his death have erased his “sins”?
Would that then have allowed MacArthur to have been punished for allowing his aircraft to be destroyed on the ground a day after the Pearl Harbor attack?
If MacArthur was removed, would his replacement have allowed the Japanese Emperor to keep his position? What impact might that have made? Would Christianity have replaced Shintoism?
Also, with someone besides MacArthur, in charge in 1950, would a full RCT (i.e., the actual war plan) been sent to stop the Reds instead of the much weaker penny-packet, under-strength battalions like Task Force Smith? Could the Korean War have been shut down without the Incheon Landing?
Granted hypotheticals are impossible to prove; but one rewrite in WW2 history might have had amazing results. Good or bad.
ChickenHead
5 years ago
Setnaffa, the quote you are looking for:
Kimmel stood by the window of his office at the submarine base, his jaw set in stony anguish. As he watched the disaster across the harbor unfold with terrible fury, a spent .50 caliber machine gun bullet crashed through the glass. It brushed the admiral before it clanged to the floor. It cut his white jacket and raised a welt on his chest. “It would have been merciful had it killed me,” Kimmel murmured to his communications officer, Commander Maurice “Germany” Curts.
2ID Doc
5 years ago
@setnaffa – I’m glad to see I’m not the only person here who doesn’t put MacArthur on some god-like pedestal. Years ago I met a US veteran of the Winter of 1950-51. He said Mac was so convinced the Chinese would not aid Kim, he told the troops to quit sending Chinese deserters to be interrogated, even after they assured HQ they were captured in battle, fully armed and fighting…
Here’s one paragraph from a lengthy extract of David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.
The key to the importance of Willoughby was not his own self-evident inadequacies; it was that he represented the deepest kind of psychological weakness in the talented, flawed man he served—the need to have someone who agreed with him at all times and flattered him constantly. “MacArthur did not want the Chinese to enter the war in Korea. Anything MacArthur wanted, Willoughby produced intelligence for … In this case Willoughby falsified the intelligence reports … He should have gone to jail,” said Lieutenant Colonel John Chiles, 10th Corps G-3, or chief of operations.
2ID Doc and Stephen, I knew the intel officer of an infantry unit that was up with the Marines near the Yalu. He said the same thing about Big Mac not believing the evidence and not wanting any more Chinese prisoners as the Chinese were not involved in the war.
He passed away a few years back; but he was also not a huge fan of that general officer.
Cho’s son also received a record of an internship at the SNU Center for Public Interests and Human Rights Law in 2013, but prosecutors found that the document pertaining to his case showed signs of irregularities, further adding to the suspicions of forgery.
That sucks, JoeC. 🙁
I know when my spouse started pilot training, the minimum flying hours to stay current was a lot higher. Think it was 3 hours a week then. Pretty sure it’s around 3 a month or so now. Really low. That’s USAF, but I doubt marines are much different.
ChickenHead
5 years ago
Bet all those aviators could pilot their way pretty well around some social justice workshops.
Given we’ve had so much balderdash about neckties lately, I’d like to point out my first business trip to South Korea taught me the value of decent tableware. The first two weeks in country I was working at what amounted to an IT factory in Pupyang near Incheon. My first exposure to metal chopsticks (I had mastered the disposable wooden variety many years earlier) and cheap spoons that were more like spatulas.
As I was required to wear a dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie by company policy, I ended up needing to visit The Shops In Itaewon, that famous source of touristy kitsch, to replace my shirts and ties as that was cheaper than what the 5-star hotel I was billeted charged.
Great times!
Speaking of history, I found myself watching Tora Tora Tora again today. During the scene where Admiral Kimmel is struck by a “spent” .50cal round, I wondered if being killed in the battle would have elevated him from scapegoat for US lack of preparedness to immortal hero” like Custer or Leonidas. Would his death have erased his “sins”?
Would that then have allowed MacArthur to have been punished for allowing his aircraft to be destroyed on the ground a day after the Pearl Harbor attack?
If MacArthur was removed, would his replacement have allowed the Japanese Emperor to keep his position? What impact might that have made? Would Christianity have replaced Shintoism?
Also, with someone besides MacArthur, in charge in 1950, would a full RCT (i.e., the actual war plan) been sent to stop the Reds instead of the much weaker penny-packet, under-strength battalions like Task Force Smith? Could the Korean War have been shut down without the Incheon Landing?
Granted hypotheticals are impossible to prove; but one rewrite in WW2 history might have had amazing results. Good or bad.
Setnaffa, the quote you are looking for:
Kimmel stood by the window of his office at the submarine base, his jaw set in stony anguish. As he watched the disaster across the harbor unfold with terrible fury, a spent .50 caliber machine gun bullet crashed through the glass. It brushed the admiral before it clanged to the floor. It cut his white jacket and raised a welt on his chest. “It would have been merciful had it killed me,” Kimmel murmured to his communications officer, Commander Maurice “Germany” Curts.
@setnaffa – I’m glad to see I’m not the only person here who doesn’t put MacArthur on some god-like pedestal. Years ago I met a US veteran of the Winter of 1950-51. He said Mac was so convinced the Chinese would not aid Kim, he told the troops to quit sending Chinese deserters to be interrogated, even after they assured HQ they were captured in battle, fully armed and fighting…
Here’s one paragraph from a lengthy extract of David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.
The key to the importance of Willoughby was not his own self-evident inadequacies; it was that he represented the deepest kind of psychological weakness in the talented, flawed man he served—the need to have someone who agreed with him at all times and flattered him constantly. “MacArthur did not want the Chinese to enter the war in Korea. Anything MacArthur wanted, Willoughby produced intelligence for … In this case Willoughby falsified the intelligence reports … He should have gone to jail,” said Lieutenant Colonel John Chiles, 10th Corps G-3, or chief of operations.
MacArthur’s Grand Delusion, Vanity Fair, October 2007
2ID Doc and Stephen, I knew the intel officer of an infantry unit that was up with the Marines near the Yalu. He said the same thing about Big Mac not believing the evidence and not wanting any more Chinese prisoners as the Chinese were not involved in the war.
He passed away a few years back; but he was also not a huge fan of that general officer.
Another of the US military tragedies in the western Pacific over the last few years blamed on inadequate training and poor leadership.
Cho’s son also received a record of an internship at the SNU Center for Public Interests and Human Rights Law in 2013, but prosecutors found that the document pertaining to his case showed signs of irregularities, further adding to the suspicions of forgery.
Can’t blame the wife for this irregularity.
That sucks, JoeC. 🙁
I know when my spouse started pilot training, the minimum flying hours to stay current was a lot higher. Think it was 3 hours a week then. Pretty sure it’s around 3 a month or so now. Really low. That’s USAF, but I doubt marines are much different.
Bet all those aviators could pilot their way pretty well around some social justice workshops.