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"Camel Red rekindled the impact of the day at Valley Forge Army Hospital when I recognized
a man I had known since high school days as a respected competitor on the playing field."
"It captures the essence of what this most courageous patient experienced, his pain, suffering, and
resiliency. It shows how against all odds this battlefield hero managed not only to survive, but to go
on to lead an exemplary life."
--Dr. Joseph E. Murray
1990 Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine
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Welcome to the Camel Red blog.
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PACIFIC: THE GREATEST INVASION THE WORLD HAS NEVER KNOWN
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 5/7/2010
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Plans for the invasion of Japan, dated 1945 are buried somewhere in the National Archives in Washington DC stamped “TOP SECRET.” Operation Downfall, the most spectacular operation in modern history, was to involve the largest naval force ever assembled on the face of the Earth and included thousands of ships, tens of thousands of planes, and an invasion force of five million. The estimate of American casualties was put at one million. Downfall consisted of two parts, Operation Olympic, aimed at gaining a foothold on the southern tip of Japan, followed four months later by Operation Coronet, the final all-out attack of the island where Tokyo is located. Plans were delayed four months while the Army and Navy argued over which one would take the lead until it was finally agreed that MacArthur would head up the invasion while the amphibious landings would fall under Admiral Raymond Spruance.
Surprisingly, throughout the war, not a single Japanese unit had ever surrendered, and it was this suicidal resistance demonstrated at Iwo Jima and Okinawa that made it clear an intensified naval blockade and air bombardment wouldn’t do the trick. Japan had two million well-fed, highly-equipped, and extremely-motivated troops, backed by a 10 million civilian guerrilla force and thousands of kamikaze pilots trained and ready to man the horde of planes stockpiled for just such an emergency. Japan’s jagged ravines riddled with fortified caves and tunnels were considered an invaders worse nightmare. The goal was to lessen these dangers by striking fast, surgically, and with a force on a scale that would dwarf the prior year’s Normandy landings. Hundreds of thousands of Marines and Sixth Army infantrymen would storm dozens of beachheads for 250 miles around Kyushu’s southern shore with the hope of bringing the war to a close by the end of 1946.
Then, on May 25, 1945, seven weeks prior to detonation of the first atomic device at Alamogordo, NM, the Joint Chiefs ordered Olympic to proceed. Incredible as it may seem, no one in the Pacific would learn that the bomb existed until two weeks prior to Hiroshima, from private to top general. One serviceman wrote home, “My number is up for this one.” At the same time, soldiers stationed in Europe were awaiting transfer papers to take them to the fighting in the Pacific to support the attack on Japan. But because of the decision was made to drop the bomb in order to save one million American lives, Operation Downfall never took place.
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HEALTH CARE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO “LEAD BY EXAMPLE?”
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 3/27/2010
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Our military leaders are taught to lead by example. The President of the United States is the Commander-In-Chief of our military. When one enlists or becomes an officer in a branch of the military, he or she swears to obey the orders of the President. Then isn’t the highest ranking officer of the military obligated to lead by example, especially since that’s what is taught to new officers coming out of West Point and Officer Candidate Schools, and exactly what is demanded of all who serve under the President’s command?
Let’s assume you don’t agree that we’ve been forced to pay for health care services many question in terms of quality, and many more fear will bankrupt the nation and lead to the rationing of healthcare. You think the plan will work because the government really cares and is enacting this legislation out of the goodness of their hearts. Then wouldn't it make sense for those who devised the Plan to also live by it? Congressman John Fleming, a physician and Representative from Louisiana, proposed an Amendment requiring Congress to take the same Obama Health Care Plan. Interestingly, more than 100 Republican Representatives signed on to his amendment but not one single Democrat.
"This is your victory," Obama told an enthusiastic crowd at the University of Iowa. Health care reform "was about the future of our country. And today ... that future looks stronger and more hopeful and brighter than it has in some time." According to CNN, he will now go on the road to aggressively sell the benefits of his health care overhaul. He will push a Health Care Plan not good enough for Congress but more than adequate for the rest of us. This is not exactly "leading by example," it’s more like shoving it down our throats.
Congressman Fleming’s petition is on his Website where you can go and sign (just first, last and email). Go to: Fleming’s site.
(FTR: From a registered Independent who votes conscience and makes honest choices.)
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IRAN - BE ARAID OF HISTORY
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 3/23/2010
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In 1937, following raids, skirmishes, incursions and a few battles, Japan openly warred on China then came a period of horror stories like the use of Chinese prisoners for bayonet practice and other atrocities the U.S. watched with concern. Then in 1938, fighting between Japan and Russia erupted on the Russian-Korean-Manchurian border. By 1940, the Japanese began occupation of French Indochina and the U.S. placed an embargo on shipments of scrap metal to Japan in protest. In that same year, a ten-year alliance was signed that united Germany, Italy and Japan militarily and economically. In 1941, Japanese assets in the U.S. and Great Britain were frozen, prohibiting oil exports without government-issued permits. That had the effect of crippling Japan’s war effort. Japan decided to go to war subsequently attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Japan’s decision to pursue war rather than surrender their ambitions in China was irrational. Now fast forward to the present situation with Iran, a country with similar ambitions with regard to taking over power in the entire mid-east. Since 1979, when the Shah of Iran was exiled, fears of a U.S. backed coup to reinstall him led to the taking of hostages. The U.S. then froze Iranian assets in the U.S. After Iraq invaded Iran in 1984, weapon sales were curtailed then loans and in 1987 all imports or exports with Iran. Clinton ordered a total ban in 1995 then eased them after the election of a reformist. But a retightening of sanctions on the Ahmadinejad regime gained criticism from the European Union. Now the debate rages in Washington around "targeted" versus "broad-based" or "smart sanctions" or "crippling sanctions," without imposing humanitarian suffering on Iran. Meanwhile, Iran continues to pursue nuclear ambitions, raising concerns that history may repeat the events that played out with Japan before the start of World War II. Today Iran is aided and encouraged by Russia and China, and recently Brazil rejected a U.S. appeal to curb investment in Iranian oil and gas to help pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program. Once they have the bomb, does history repeat as it has for centuries?
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WORLD WAR II'S DARKEST BEST-KEPT SECRET
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 3/18/2010
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April 28, 1944 marks the anniversary of Exercise Tiger, a practice run at 2 a.m. that morning off the British Coast in preparation for the upcoming Normandy invasion, which through a series of blunders led to the loss of nearly a thousand servicemen. The mishaps involved eight LSTs (Landing Ship, Tanks) and a total of 337 ships carrying 25,000 troops. When a torpedo from a German E-boat hit LST 507 at the tail end of the convoy leaving 13 dead in the darkness, it was at first regarded as part of the exercise. More torpedoes converged on other LSTs and when it was over, an estimated 551 sailors and 198 soldiers had been reported lost but that number would move closer to 1000 in the years to follow. Most deaths resulted from the failure to train the troops to affix life belts under the arms rather than around the waist, which caused them to flip upside down and thus drown.
Survivors and those who treated them were herded into various locations where they were sworn to secrecy then threatened with court-martial if they did any talking. A mass grave was bulldozed and bodies stacked atop one another still clad in soaked uniforms. Another 450 were left in Lyme Bay where divers went down to retrieve dog tags to insure that no officers had been taken by the Germans who might then reveal the oncoming invasion. On August 5, 1944, the overall commander of “Operation Tiger,” Rear Admiral Don P. Moon, was in the cabin of the ship he commanded as it sat off Utah Beach when he took out a .45 caliber revolver and put a bullet in his head. The secret was kept for thirty years, leaking out only after artifacts like grenades, bullets and canteens began surfacing and fishing nets were getting caught on tanks and LSTs below the waterline. Even after that, a strong reluctance to reveal the secret remained for fear of public reaction.
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TEXAS TEXTBOOK WAR COULD ERASE AMERICA’S HISTORY
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 3/13/2010
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TEA (Texas Education Association, the number one trend-setter in textbook production for the entire United States is considering substituting new textbooks for old to teach "GLOBAL" rather than American history. The real shocker in making our kids “GLOBAL CITIZENS” is that TEA’s new textbooks on the history of the United States would exclude the founding years up until 1877, meaning our children will no longer learn how the Constitution was derived or any of the history of the Civil War.
As a writer and historian and better yet, as an American, I am appalled by this and can’t imagine our school systems omitting this formative part of our culture and heritage. It is an important base of our children's education, children who in all likelihood will find themselves one day serving this nation in some remote country like Afghanistan with a rifle in their hands and people shooting at them. It might help their resolve to know they are keeping up with a tradition of defending their rights and the rights of others that go back to the American Revolution.
One important loss will be the failure to teach them about the mistakes that were made that no wants repeated. Let us not forget the Civil War was fought to abolish slavery and that freedom did not come easily. Not just freedom for all races and all colors but freedom of speech and the right to own property. Shouldn't they know how Betsy Ross made the first flag or that Florence Nightingale made important contributions to the hospital environment? Do we no longer want to hold up these great Americans as examples and role models for future generations? It’s like parents leaving out your ancestry and tales of how they got their start and ultimately how you got yours. New textbooks that no longer teach our children how America got its start gets even more preposterous when you take into account that the best grossing movie of all time was "Gone With The Wind," a book written about the period in our nation's history that TEA wants to erase.
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WWII POISON GAS
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 3/3/2010
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The newly formed “Fighting” 87th Chemical Weapons Battalion (Motorized) was activated on May 22, 1943 and entered the war carrying 4.2” mortars that could fire projectiles armed with smoke (white phosphorous) or high explosives. They came prepared to fire missiles armed with chemicals like mustard and phosgene gas. Though the Brussels Convention in 1874 and the Hague International Peace Conferences of 1899 outlawed the use of such poison gases, the Germans went ahead and launched a major chlorine gas attack at Ypres, Belgium during World War I. After that event, all bets were off as far as World War I was concerned.
Then in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles banned chemical weapons but not their development, production or possession. All countries retained the right to retaliate in kind should an enemy attack either them or their allies with such weapons. Not convinced the Germans under Hitler’s rule would not carry out a similar attack during World War II, the U.S. armed outfits like the 87th with gas-filled projectiles, which would have been used only in retaliation in response to an attack first initiated by the enemy.
The Germans feared that the West was in possession of some version of their newer nerve gases they developed during World War II and fearing retaliation, refrained from ever employing them. And though the Japanese Imperial army employed chemicals against enemies like the Kuomintang and Communist Chinese troops, they also refrained from using them against the West during World War II for fear of retaliation, showing that the warnings and preparation did work.
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WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD’S)
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Posted by: | Author Greg Page
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Created on: | 2/26/2010
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Chemical weapons are classed as WMDs because they produce massive casualties over expansive pieces of terrain. Although never used during World War II, there are some interesting facts about such weapons of which few are aware. For example, the reason Hitler did not employ poisonous gases like mustard and phosgene during World War II was not due to humanitarian considerations. It was for a much more practical reason.
All through the war, Germany experienced shortages of fuel to support mechanized warfare, so they employed horses in great numbers to move weapons, equipment and supplies. The inability to develop gasmasks to protect their horses was what led to the decision not to use chemicals. They could ill afford to lose a valuable means of transportation.
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