VE DAY PERSPECTIVE

I began my blog in 2009, and this will be the shortest entry ever.  That’s because there is no elaborating upon it.

This month marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe, ending that phase of the Second World War.

Amid the celebrations and commemorations, my memory reverted to an event that has stayed with me for thirty-five years.

In 1985 I hosted a member of the American Fighter Aces Association and his family, touring the Champlin Fighter Museum in Mesa, Arizona.  We had friends in common from his ETO fighter group and quickly bonded.  

After awhile I sensed that the ace wanted to talk, so we edged away from the group.  He looked me in the eye.  “I'll tell you a secret."  He inhaled, paused, and said, “I loved aerial combat.  On the day the war ended I sat down and cried, and not because I was glad it was over."

I'd heard similar sentiments. "How old were you?"

"Not quite twenty-six."  (Later I found his birthday was VE + 1.)

"You knew you'd never be that happy again."

His eyes misted, he nodded, and rejoined his family.

IN PRAISE OF HOSPITAL SHIPS

Hospital ships are like antifreeze: you cannot have them too early; you can only have them too late.  

The U.S. Navy and the Trump administration demonstrated that fact by deploying both of our hospital ships (designated AHs for “auxiliary hospital”) within days of the order to sail amid the Wuhan Virus emergency.

Hospital ships have a history spanning millennia, dating from ancient Greece and Rome to the Spanish Armada of 1588, which had two.  The British Royal Navy deployed dedicated hospital ships from the 17th century.  

The first six American vessels were commissioned between 1798 and 1896, serving in climes as varied as President Thomas Jefferson’s 1803 campaign against Tripoli, and anti-piracy efforts in the West Indies.  The Union Navy had at least three hospital ships during the Civil War and the Confederacy confiscated a Cornelius Vanderbilt yacht for the purpose.

Despite international conventions, hospital ships were not always immune to danger.  In World War I twenty-six were sunk by intention, mistaken identity or crew error, including sixteen British Commonwealth vessels.  Austro-Hungary lost three, the Netherlands two, Czarist Russia two, with one each by Greece, Italy and Germany.

The U.S. transport Henderson, accompanying an Atlantic convoy in 1918, rammed a German submarine, inflicting serious damage.  She began her second war at Pearl Harbor and was converted to the hospital ship Bountiful (AH-9) in 1944.  The second Solace (AH-5, converted from a passenger ship in 1940) also was at Pearl Harbor and earned seven battle stars through 1945.

The Navy acquired twelve more AHs during World War II.  Three were crewed by sailors on behalf of the army: Comfort (AH-6), Hope (AH-7) and Mercy (AH-8).

During World War II twenty-five hospital ships from seven nations were lost to all causes, including seven British Empire and six Italian vessels. Japan’s three included the Awa Maru, sunk in error by a U.S. submarine in 1945.  The lone survivor admitted she was carrying military supplies (a violation of international law governing hospital ships)   but the sub skipper was court martialed and found guilty of negligence.

Subsequently, U.S. hospital ships came under attack.  Off Okinawa on April 2, 1945, Relief (AH-1) was bombed by Japanese aircraft with slight damage but far worse awaited.

On the night of April 28, south of Okinawa, the third Comfort (AH-6) was running illuminated as per international regulations.  But a Japanese kamikaze pilot made a masthead pass over the white ship with red crosses, circled and dived into the sweet spot.  The impact in an operating room killed 28 patients and staff, including six nurses.

As many as three other AHs also were attacked, ineffectually.

Three hospital ships served during the Korean War—Haven (AH-12), Consolation (AH-15) and Repose (AH-16).  Two deployed during Vietnam—Repose and Sanctuary (AH-17).

Today’s AHs are far beyond anything previously envisioned.  At 900 feet long and 69,000 tons they displace four to ten times their predecessors, well over twice the tonnage of a large World War II aircraft carrier.  When Mercy (AH-19) and Comfort (AH-20) were commissioned in the mid 1980s they were the first new hospital ships in four decades.  Both were christened in honor of prior AHs, each becoming the third to bear the name.

The ships have responded to humanitarian crises in the Caribbean and Pacific, the 9-11 response, Operations Desert Shield and Iraqi Freedom, plus Hurricane Katrina, among others.

Two years ago the navy considered decommissioning both AHs or scrapping one to maintain the other.  Congressional opposition not only saved the ships but led to some upgrade funding.  That was money well spent.

One AH is allotted to each coast: Mercy in San Diego under Captain John Rotruck, and Comfort under Captain Patrick Amersback in Norfolk.  President Trump announced their possible activation on March 18 and, upon completing scheduled maintenance, they arrived in Los Angeles and New York within thirteen days, vastly less than “weeks to come” floated in some media.  Mercy arrived at San Pedro Bay on the 27th; Comfort at New York’s Pier 90 on March 30, following a few days of required dredging in the harbor.

The Mercys bring enormous capability to any port.  With 1,200 military and 60 civilian staff they possess 1,000 beds, a dozen operating rooms, an ICU, laboratory, dental service, and even a morgue.

Early reports indicated that neither ship was required to meet the actual number of patients.  However, combining mobility and capability, America’s two hospital ships should remind We the People why they maintain a navy that often performs duties beyond its primary role of keeping freedom of the seas.

GUNS AND APOCALYPSE FEVER

This month's entry is courtesy of a valued friend and colleague writing under the moniker "Cincinnatus."  Previously published in Powerline, March 15.

I shoot a lot. A lot. Three times a week minimum, sometimes four, and if I’m lucky and time permits, five. That’s one of the benefits of retirement, besides granddaughters and late-- sometimes optional--awakening.

So my shooting range/gun shop is what sociologists would call my Third Place. It’s not home, where I’m a spouse and indifferent layabout, it’s not work, since I am 10 years beyond the horrors of office life; it’s the place where I’m me without any effort. They’re probably sick of me there but that’s OK because they do a good job of hiding it. The talk is always banter and needle and jest, all bonding courtesy of a sense of being a besieged community, and  general enthusiasm for the gizmos themselves. Needless to say, it’s as non-racist, non-classist, non-mysogenist as any place in America. 

But today it wasn’t my place. It was a hot mess.

People, people, people! Everybody is buying guns. It happens every time apocalypse fever fills the air, animated by crazed dreams of civil breakdown, anarchy, food shortage, the whimsy of life and death, and anyone’s aching need to protect children, spouse and self in that order. This time it’s COVID-19, but it could be any dodgy possibility as sustained and amplified by an ignorant media.

So as I sat there in the crowd, waiting for my turn to get to the firing line, I wondered: Who ARE these people?

They’re not conservatives. Conservatives already have their guns, many of them of the so-helpful AR and AK variant, and many boxes—and crates and pallets—of ammo. That’s because apocalyptic thinking is never far from the conservative mind, with its realthink about the evil the men do and how quickly they can do it. It wasn’t a liberal who said “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

Some are certainly the low-informed indifferent, bludgeoned into fear by the media blackjack.  Some are the occasional shooter discovering himself low on ammo.  But certainly, some--maybe even most--are liberals.

They make me sick. You would think them at least capable of some honor on these issues.  They desire a certain world, one without the righteous force of self-protection, which they consider vulgar and immoral.  (Hard to tell which looms larger in their imagination!)  So here is an opportunity for them to live in that world and they say, No thanks.  Not me.  Him or her, but not me.  Which way to the .45 automatics?

These are people who would deny us any living creature’s fundamental right to self defense. These are a tribe that condemns righteous force as both vulgar and unnecessary. These are the creatures who want to look in our bedstand for the .45 auto with the light aboard. These are the lads whose ignorance is bliss when it comes to the things themselves, as if knowledge of the difference between a .308 and a .30-06 disqualifies one from the human race. These are the dweebs who want gun-owners listed in a public registry, like child molesters, of whom they consider gun-owners the moral and ontological equal.

I have a modest proposal for this annoying situation. The gun industry, especially at the retail level, should boycott THEM.  It is for their own good.  In my deep empathy for my fellow humans, though of the sub-special homo liberals, I wish to spare them the danger of an accident, the trauma of shooting a fellow sentient beings or even their own foot, the hypocrisy of not practicing what they screech. I feel those burdens are simply too heavy for their turbulent emotional state.

Thus I believe gun stores should be encouraged to sell only to select groups of those who can be trusted with the power of life and death. That would be NRA members or members of any other of the many pro-gun rights groups. Another group would be those who already have state issued gun-possession permits. Another would be known customers, those who’ve supported the places for years, not only with cash but with comradeship. Of course active-duty police and armed forces, or retirees, would be included as would sons and daughters of all of the above.

As for liberals, what do they do when S hits F, and bad dudes are smashing down the door to get at the food that was meant for Jimmy and Little Sally? Why, they can call the police.

What do you mean, there’s no answer?