Humint and the 1972 Easter Offensive

This is an interesting article on "Humint" or Human intelligence.  There are other forms of Intelligence like Sigint" or Signal Intelligence, "Elint" or electronic intelligence.    Humint had been discredited by a lot of intelligence agencies because getting intelligence from people that usually are unsavory people and that makes the prim and proper people squeamish.  The United States has gone away from "Humint" especially after the "Church Commission" was used by the anti-war Communist loving HoChiMinh scum sucking democrats to gut the intelligence apparatus of the United States.  

    I saw this Article pop up on one of my feeds and it talked about the 1972 Easter Offensive and the failure of the Intelligence community and the commanders to pay attention to the reports and the misconceptions of the commanders.  The Allies figured that the North Vietnamese were planning something along  the lines like Tet Offensive, instead they got a huge conventional offensive with a lot of Chinese support.  It is a long article and there is a lot of information of a historical nature.

W. R. Baker wrote this extraordinary article about his "Human Intelligence" Group in I-Corps during the later part of the Vietnam War.  After the failure of Operation Lam Son 719 in Laos, the South Vietnamese Army was licking their wounds and reorganizing units. During that time, intel reports cited enemy buildups and routes of travel through I-Corps with warnings to the brass of a potential large enemy offensive in the works. Easter was just around the corner and only a few commanders of the Allied forces had read the Intel Reports. The Easter Offensive begins and the Allied forces are ill-equipped or prepared for the invasion...if only the brass had heeded the warnings in the intel reports. Here's the author's take on it:

Before Vietnam completely fades from memory and its lessons learned gather even more dust, it might be worth exploring a few issues that will likely resurface again.

During the latter months of the Vietnam War (1971-72), the United States was actively sending units home, turning facilities and functions over to the South Vietnamese and to U.S. forces located elsewhere before the 29 March 1973 deadline for all U.S. forces to be out of the country. In January 72, President Nixon announced that 70,000 troops would be withdrawn by 1 May 72, reducing the troop level in Vietnam to 69,000.

Beginnings

I was assigned in 1971 to the 571st Military Intelligence Detachment in Da Nang, the unit primarily ran Human Intelligence (HUMINT) operations throughout I Corps in northern South Vietnam. I was quickly exposed to Viet Cong (VC), North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and friendly forces’ activity in our area of interest. As such it was evident that South Vietnamese forces that had taken part in Lam Son 719 in Laos were licking their wounds - even the much touted 1st Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Division, garrisoned in Hue had been severely crippled in this failed campaign in 1971.

We also dealt with other foreign country units, i.e., South Korean, who left I Corps a few months after I arrived, in addition to ARVN commanders and secret police officials.

As we ran Unilateral and Bilateral agent networks, remaining U.S. units in I Corps and MACV, USARV, USPACFLT, 7th AF, 7th PSYOPS, and our headquarters (the 525 Military Intelligence Group in Saigon) all received copies of our Intelligence Information Reports (IIRs), as they applied to their Areas of Operations and Interest. Unit 101 was an ARVN intelligence unit that also received selected reports. Being responsible for the distribution of all these IIRs allowed me to know the status of the remaining units, which would aid me later during the Easter Offensive of 1972.

Shortly after arriving at my unit, it became clear that it had been content to operate without understanding the tactical and strategic situation in I Corps (the identifier that most soldiers continued to use after it switched into the newer term, which I will continue to use in this article), relying on XXIV Corps, which soon became the First Regional Assistance Command (FRAC), for area knowledge when it became necessary. “The advisory command, recalled Major General Kroesen (the FRAC commander), was ‘heavily weighted to provide administrative assistance and logistical advice’ with only a token intelligence and operations section.  It was neither manned nor equipped to monitor the combat actively or to provide tactical guidance.”[1] The general and his staff failed to mention these “little” points to our intelligence organization. The rub, though, is that we were the only functioning intelligence unit in all of I Corps/FRAC during the Easter Offensive of 1972 and we didn’t know it!

I was very fortunate to work for an organization that didn’t inhibit new ideas – actually, this was not uncommon for intelligence units then and for the next few years after Vietnam ended. Trained as an Intelligence/Order of Battle Analyst, I began creating topical files on enemy units and equipment (the “old” Composition, Disposition, Strength, etc, of FM 30-5 that was drilled into us in intelligence school), while obtaining 1:50,000 scale UTM maps, which took up considerable wall space. Our unit was lucky to also have helicopter support from the 358th Aviation Detachment for 2-3 weeks every month for “ass and trash” missions. I would occasionally fill in for sick door gunners and visit our teams in Quang Tri, Hue, Chu Lai, Tam Ky and Quang Ngai, making notes on the physical features I saw to make changes to our maps, highlighting such things as avenues of approach, military crests, new physical features, friendly military positions, etc. This type of reconnaissance was supplemented by occasional trips by jeep, as well.

The maps were an immediate “hit” with our unit, as we and any visitors would be able to view and comment on where enemy units were positioned and other loci made while using the maps. The maps were obviously a tremendous asset during the Easter Offensive, especially since they were manually and accurately updated. Unexpectedly, an event occurred that made use of them beforehand.

As U.S. units left, so our presence would eventually follow and so would the amount of money that could be expended on our agents. So it fell to me to go through each agent’s reports and each net that we ran. I protested at first, but I was told simply that there was no one else qualified to do it because I knew the military situation in I Corps and had created topical files for each area and unit.

Well aware that this “paring down” of agents was a huge responsibility and what the consequences meant, I took 3-4 months’ worth of IIRs for each agent, my topical files and the appropriate maps and carefully waded through them all. What I found was eye-opening. Some of the agents had been reporting virtually the same events over and over, making little changes. Some agents rarely reported anything, while others sometimes described units located well outside their operational area. Some agents were mediocre and a few were exceptionally good – these reports were always valuable.

The next step was to rate all the agents, each net, and to justify the reasons for each rating. Having my recommendations affirmed by the area specialists and our leadership was gratifying. Little did we know that this was to become more of a plus in our accuracy and information reliability during the Easter Offensive.

The NVA/VC were “expected” to make trouble during TET (mid-February) 1972. Because nothing happened, the press took the intelligence and various other command organizations to task for not having any idea of what was going on and of being mere sycophants of the upper echelons. Events were to prove that the press weren’t too far off…

Because we were such a small unit that was HUMINT-oriented, we were never asked for our opinion or intelligence. We had received virtually nothing about TET from anyone, but early the next month (March), we started getting various indicators from our own agents. It is important to understand that we never received intel from 7th Air Force, MACV, DIA or CIA: our information always went up but NOTHING came down – we were disregarded, just as HUMINT was and generally is today.

Hostilities Begin

Soldiers manning a perimeter on a hilltop looking into the A Shau Valley

The 324B NVA Division moved into the A Shau Valley in early-March, heading for its usual AO to the west of Hue to keep the 1st ARVN Division occupied. The 324B was a Military Region Tri-Thien-Hue (MRTTH) unit. As it moved through the A Shau, it linked up with the 5th and 6th Independent Infantry Regiments, also of the MRTTH. As time progressed, it was obvious that at least two regiments were moving northeasterly and could act as a blocking force along QL-1 (the main north-south highway in country), while the other two regiments confined 1st ARVN to Firebases Bastogne and Birmingham. There wasn’t as much as a single ARVN battalion able to defend Hue as the 324B engaged ARVN.

We started to receive information from across I Corps on targets and unit activity. Though we were generally a strategic unit and our IIRs were often not timely enough to act on, it was necessary to make or strengthen contacts to respond to the targets that were rapidly presenting themselves, which could just as rapidly move away. There had been no usual way for us to provide targets to air or ground forces before. We had gone out with 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division units to confirm some of our IIRs, but time was always critical as units and weapon caches moved, etc.

We had been coordinating with the local Special Forces unit when we received information on the “Salt and Pepper” VC propaganda team operating to the west of Chu Lai. I knew they had an on-call capability, so I would feed them information on newly developed targets, as well. I also had a friend that worked ARCLIGHT (i.e., B-52) targets in Saigon and would make sure the 196th Light Infantry Brigade would get infiltration and unit reports for their AO.

In early March, we had information concerning the forthcoming Offensive of major importance. “Moreover, among the reduced number of enemy documents that were exploited were detailed orders of battle and COSVN plans for the spring offensive”[2] contained in our IIRs. Even this information wasn’t enough to convince other intelligence agencies, nor command elements, that a major event was going to take place.

Throughout March 1972, the pace of incoming information quickened to the point that it was obvious that a major offensive was going to take place, but this time (and unlike TET 1968) it would involve main-force units, to include tanks – something the NVA had never done before! “One example of the close-mindedness of some senior military commanders was the total disregard (MG) Kroesen and (Gen) Westmoreland among others showed toward intelligence predictions of an enemy frontal assault along the Demilitarized Zone.”[3]

“John M. Oseth, who was then serving as the G-2 adviser to the 3rd ARVN Division, acknowledged that although there might have been isolated agent reports of an impending invasion, the general consensus, at least at the division level, was that the threat of enemy attack though present, was not great.”[4]

“The most prevalent problem in this regard was an unwillingness on the part of commanders to heed warnings of massed armor and heavy artillery.”[5]

“…and in spite of at least four separate human resources who claimed that there would be a ‘great offensive’ in the near future, American military personnel for the most part were dubious about any impending large-scale attack. Information from theses human sources proved to be both detailed and factually accurate as the Offensive took its course."[6] Undoubtedly, this was our northernmost network of agents.

As the IIRs arrived, it was obvious that we needed to report our compiled information in an expeditious manner. Again, I was asked how best to do this and we went with an Intelligence Summary (INTSUM) format, which allowed us to report virtually everything with a minimum of format. There had never been an INTSUM used by the 525 MI Group before, undoubtedly because there had never been a tactical situation arise before like the Easter Offensive of 1972. An INTSUM was later imposed by the Group on all its detachments, twice a day.

Just prior to the Offensive, many of the major NVA units crossing the DMZ, their commanders and their probable avenues of approach and initial objectives were developed and reported in our INTSUM.

Though not specifically cited, South Vietnam’s Joint General Staff was said to have issued an alert for the end of March based on intelligence reporting. This implies that our INTSUMs were used by at least one organization, though it was not an American one!

In fact, even the ARVN had little idea of the I Corps situation for days afterwards and the U.S. FRAC commander was caught dumfounded. LTG Ngo Quang Truong, ARVN I Corps Commander (beginning 3 May 1972) wrote, “Although there was general agreement in the intelligence community – Vietnamese as well as American – that an offensive in early 1972 was highly probable, some observers of the Vietnam scene, perhaps those not as well informed as those of us privy (my emphasis) to the most reliable estimates, were influenced more by what seemed to them to be the illogic of a major North Vietnamese attack at this time.”[7]

Our reporting was ignored until after the offensive began on the morning of 30 March 1972.  The exact time the Easter Offensive started depended on where you were located. One thing is certain, the NVA had acquired the M46 130mm Field Gun from the Soviets and they used it throughout the morning and very accurately.

In the first few hours of the Offensive, the first two Americans died. Both were US Army Security Agency soldiers assigned to the 407th Radio Research Detachment/8th RR Field Station. Bruce A. Crosby, Jr., and Gary P. Westcott were both working atop FSB Sarge when a rocket apparently blew up their bunker, killing them both.

As it was, the MACV commander, the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, the MACV J-2 and others were visiting their wives out of country. The Secretary of Defense was headed for Puerto Rico to play golf and the Senior Advisor of Team 155 to 3rd ARVN was also headed out the same morning that the Offensive began. The South Vietnamese warning was obviously not believed or didn’t make it into the U.S. command elements anywhere in the country.

Just below the DMZ, the newly organized 3rd ARVN Division occupied the northern and western firebases. The 2nd ARVN Regiment was taken whole from the 1st ARVN Division, while the 56th and 57th ARVN Regiments were entirely new 3rd ARVN Division units, composed of deserters and malcontents from within South Vietnam.

In an odd twist of fate (or design), 3rd ARVN’s 56th and 2nd Regiments were coincidently turning off their comms and swapping firebases when the NVA began their extensive artillery preparation of the battlefield, which began the invasion. The problem-plagued 56th Regiment was to occupy the western and northwesterly facing firebases to lessen the effects of something called “firebase syndrome,” after having only spent a few months in one of the northern firebases! Both regiments were on the road when the shelling began – well exposed in the open to NVA artillery.

Eventually, elements of the 56th ARVN reached Camp Carroll, the lynchpin of the western firebases and the major artillery support location in northern South Vietnam.

We were the only unit providing current intelligence for the first few weeks of the Offensive – primarily due to the bad weather across northern I Corps keeping winged-aircraft away and because FRAC was no longer in the intel business. Knowing that the USN destroyers were providing gunfire support in the waters off the DMZ (e.g., the USS Buchanan, DDG 14, in its resolute support of Captain Ripley and the Dong Ha Bridge), we tried to provide them with our INTSUMs (via the FRAC and NILO, who also supported the local SEALs). We also knew the destroyers would be in contact with PACFLT, who would also converse with MACV about the current situation.

The first day of the Offensive quickly became a Friday and a Saturday heralding the beginning of April and there was proverbially no rest for the weary. By Saturday, every ARVN firebase north of the Cam Lo River had fallen, from where the 57th ARVN had already been routed. But the first Sunday of the month (2 April 1972) was to be the most memorable.

Three key events were to occur within 1 ½ hours of each other on this Easter Sunday afternoon of 1972.

The first major incident occurred at 1520 when the LTC Phan Van Dinh surrendered all of his 56th ARVN Regiment at Camp Carroll to the 24th NVA Infantry Regiment/304th NVA Infantry Division and a tank company. The exploits of LTC Camper and MAJ Brown, who tried to convince LTC Dinh not to surrender are well-known. Dinh’s cowardice didn’t end with his surrender of Camp Carroll, as the next day he broadcast on Radio Hanoi to the military in South Vietnam to lay down their arms because the NVA was sure to win. The fall of Camp Carroll compelled the firebase at Mai Loc to be evacuated minutes later as the 66th NVA Infantry Regiment pressed their attack. The whole western defense line crumbled.

On the U.S. Army side, MG Kroesen wrote several statements in Quang Tri: The Lost Province that directly bear on this particular event. “The surrender (of Camp Carroll) has never been explained” and “…unidentified personnel of the regiment made radio contact with the enemy to arrange surrender terms.” LTC Dinh was the traitor who made the call and the arrangements. Another Kroesen error also mentions that the 56th lost two of its battalions and three artillery batteries, while “a third battalion refused to surrender and fought its way to Dong Ha.”[8] This statement directly contradicts Camper and Brown’s MFR, as well as any other known documents and makes one wonder where this information originated. Not one battalion even attempted to fight its way out and there was a report that most of the 56th had been executed in the vicinity of the Rockpile, northwest of Camp Carroll.

The Rockpile near Camp Carroll

Ironically, sometimes the press knew more than the generals. For instance, the Stars and Stripes had this to say about the fall of Camp Carroll. “The most crushing blow to the South Vietnamese Sunday was the fall of Camp Carroll, which had been pounded with hundreds of artillery, rocket and mortar shells since last Thursday. ‘Field reports said some government troops may have escaped and those left ran up a white flag of surrender. ‘All American advisors had been evacuated from Carroll by helicopter just before it fell, sources said. ‘It was not immediately known whether the four long-range 175mm artillery guns at Carroll were destroyed or fell into Communist hands.”[9] A battery of four 175mm guns, a 155mm Howitzer battery, two 105mm batteries and numerous quad-50s and twin-40s were lost to the enemy. In their haste to surrender, none of these weapons were rendered useless.

One of the 175mm guns remains on display in Hanoi. The forfeiture of all the artillery in Camp Carroll without a fight represented the almost complete loss of all indirect fire assets in northern South Vietnam, with the exception of U.S. naval gunfire off the coast.

Even more outrageously, Kroesen wrote that the surrender of Camp Carroll “had not shaken the morale or confidence of the other defending forces to any noticeable degree.” The reverberations of a surrender of a whole regiment were quickly and keenly felt across the country. American advisors assigned to II and III Corps have written of the instances of cowardice and of turncoats after the Camp Carroll surrender occurred in their areas.

The bridge at Dong-Ha

The second major incident was the Bridge at Dong Ha, which was blown at 1630, after various contradictory orders. The ARVN leadership didn’t want the bridge blown in order to use it for a counterattack, but the 3rd ARVN was not up to the task with NVA tanks attempting to cross the bridge.

Painting depicting Marine Capt. Ripley blowing up the Dong-Ha bridge during the 1972 Easter offensive.

Marine Captain Ripley and Army Major Smock ended up blowing the bridge after great difficulty, with the assistance of the USS Buchanan which was laying close in-shore supporting them. The Buchanan is credited with destroying at least four PT-76 tanks. Though Team 155 Senior Advisor and a South Vietnamese I Corps commander (who was not assigned to I Corps at the time) all credit ARVN for blowing up the bridge, it is obvious that Ripley and Smock brought the span down under the eyes of the Buchanan.

Iceal (Gene) Hambleton - Bat-21.  His escape was portrayed in a film by the same name with Gene Hackman and Danny Glover

The final major event of that Easter occurred some 20 minutes later, at 1650, when an EB-66, call sign Bat-21, was shot down south of the DMZ by SA-2/Guidelines located SOUTH of the DMZ in South Vietnam. Only one of the crew made it out of the aircraft, parachuting right into the attacking 308th NVA Division’s area. An immediate 27km no-fire zone was automatically imposed around the crewman (an Air Force lieutenant colonel). As Dong Ha Bridge was just blown, the invading NVA were forced to move west to the Cam Lo Bridge to cross or ford the Mieu Giang River, adding to the number of enemy troops in the area.

Though the no-fire zone was reduced, many enemy troops, trucks and tanks were able to cross the bridge at Cam Lo because it was not blown for 12 more days. The no-fly zone was a great matter of concern to ARVN and their advisors (et al), who chafed at the protection one man was receiving as the NVA moved without molestation in the area.

These three major events also show some of the major problems that occurred in Vietnam. The creation, training, and deployment of the 3rd ARVN Division was an open invitation to the NVA to strike at the key to the western firebases.  The changing dynamics of the battlefield which caused Ripley and Smock to act, undoubtedly saved lives by forcing the NVA to find a crossing to the west. The knowledge that SAMs and AAA had set-up shop in South Vietnam were known to USAF. The NVA had also created and improved the road network through the DMZ into South Vietnam allowing the NVA an easier entry into the South, which was observed and reported by 1st MIBARS during the year before.

As can be imagined, contact with our agents became increasingly more difficult as the Offensive continued, especially the northern most network in South Vietnam. The NVA divisions roared through the DMZ and Laos, primarily fighting in a regimental organizational structure.

Dropping the Ball

There were many senior officers who quite literally dropped the ball in not embracing the intelligence given them and acting upon it.

We will begin with COL Donald J. Metcalf, Senior Advisor of Team 155, advising 3rd ARVN Division. His U.S. War College Paper is an interesting bit of equivocation.   The first few pages have to do with why he didn't know the Offensive was coming and the role of intelligence. For instance, “I contend that among all the items of intelligence produced prior to the attack, a small fraction indicated that such an offensive might occur, but other equally sizable and equally believable fractions indicated that something less might occur. ‘The sources available to me were the G2’s of the 1st and 3rd ARVN Divisions, and the American estimates produced by XXIV Corps, and they were in general agreement that the enemy would repeat the dry season activities of previous years....”  Past activity patterns, he wrote “can cloud the observer’s vision…” and “may have led informed persons in the intelligence community to give less credence than was warranted to (other) indications….”[10] A not so nice way of blaming intelligence for the mistakes of a professional combat commander, it seems.

NVA soldiers taking over one of the northern firebases vacated by ARVN troops during the Easter Offensive

What COL Metcalf forgot to mention is that one the 571st’s Teams was co-located on Quang Tri and they were also recipients of our INTSUM, as well.

Kroesen states that, “Only a superficial study of the map, the foot mobility of the enemy, and the history of prior years was needed to conclude that these preparations would require two to three months.”[11] Yes, general, but there were many reports of vehicular Ho Chi Minh Trail activity and of NVA activity above the DMZ and let’s not forget the 1st MIBARS reports that stated the NVA were expanding and improving roads below the DMZ, too. As for the history of previous years, one wonders why, “It’s always been this way” is an excuse? General Kroesen’s FRAC also received our INTSUMs, though he admits his intelligence capabilities were limited, one would have thought he would have prized any information (especially in light of some of his statements).

MACV, PACFLT, 7th AF, CIA, DIA, JCS, the South Vietnamese JGS and even the Secretary of Defense had no expectations of a North Vietnamese offensive. All had preconceptions, helped along by the NVA who showed the U.S. and South Vietnamese what they expected to see. Americans still became KIAs and WIAs (as did the ARVN and South Vietnamese Marine Corps-SVMC), though only a couple of U.S. units remained in-country after all the U.S. divisions left. The indiscriminate artillery shelling of thousands of civilians caused thousands of deaths, as well.

One of the reasons given by some high-ranking individuals was that they never thought the North Vietnamese would break their agreement of not striking from the DMZ. This, despite the years of the North Vietnamese and VC lying only adds to the incredulity that the Easter Offensive of 1972 was allowed to happen.

“(John Paul) Vann (who commanded II Corps/SRAC), ever the doubting Thomas, stated on 7 February 1972 that ‘Intelligence gathering is the chief problem’ and that ‘Nearly all reliable intelligence is limited to US S.I. (Special Intelligence) Channels.”[12] Don’t listen to all of your intelligence personnel at your peril.

Aftermath

Having had this HUMINT experience, as I continued my MI career for a few more years in an all-source, multi-service environment, I found that HUMINT was often derided by commanders and analysts alike. Just as in Vietnam (and WWII before it), SIGINT was all knowing and all-important, with HUMINT relegated to a last-place position. I was to find years later that the remaining SIGINT units in Vietnam did have indications of some kind of NVA activity, but none of it was disseminated to other intel units. The question becomes why weren’t U.S. and ARVN/SVMC units warned?

LTG Michael Flynn, in his The Field of Fight, wrote about human intelligence and interrogation being “essentially nonexistent” at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk. He goes on to mention the “politicization of intelligence” and “don’t deliver bad news to your leaders” and how this “appears to be going in our intelligence system today regarding our fight against Radical Islamists….”[13]

Perhaps we need to relearn our lessons learned, again?

General H Norman Schwartzkopf Letter to the Troops

I did some research on this one after I had posted yesterday General Ike's speech to the troops on the eve of D-Day landing and I had mentioned the speech in a response to my friend we got from General Schwarzkopf before the Storm started.  I remember we felt like it was a "great Crusade" to liberate Kuwait

Soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines of the United States Central Command:

This morning at 0300 we launched Operation Desert Storm, an offensive campaign that will enforce the United Nations resolutions that Iraq must cease its rape and pillage of its weaker neighbor and withdraw its forces from Kuwait. The President, the Congress, the American people and indeed the world stand united in their support for your actions.

You are a member of the most powerful force our country, in coalition with our allies, has ever assembled in a single theater to face such an aggressor. You have trained hard for this battle and you are ready. During my visits with you, I have seen in your eyes a fire of determination to get this job done quickly so that we may all return to the shores of our great nation. My confidence in you is total. Our cause is just! Now you must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm. May God be with you, your loved ones at home, and our country.

   He had some detractors but we soldiers knew that he had our best interest in heart and we were fiercely loyal to him.  He was one of the officers that learned the lessons of Vietnam and vowed not to repeat them.  We were told that there was a "duration" policy, no rotation back to the world, there would be no "FNG" syndrome or any screwy Rules of engagement or the "Squad Leader in the Sky Syndrome" that was prevalent during the Vietnam War. 

June 6 1944 "Operation Overlord"

On this date in 1944 the allies landed in Normandy to free Europe from the German invaders and 11 months later Germany surrendered.

The Events of 4 June 1942 to 6 June 1942

I thought this posted on my scheduler thingie..



  Until this point the Japanese had free range in the pacific, with the inconclusive battle fought in the Coral Sea in may, the advantage and experience still lay with the Japanese.   Here is a link for the battle of Midway.

    I also have a link for the plane that is immortalized in that battle that I had posted a while back.
    

Historical moment

I am a student of history and what got me interested in history was the battle of midway,  it lasted from June the 4 1942 until June 6 1942.  I will not post any major details except when it was done, the power has shifted in the pacific war.  After Midway Japan never had a victory until the end of the war.  The biggest loss for the Japanese besides 4 first line carriers was the loss to her aviation arm, the level of experience that went down when those carriers sank, they never recovered.

The events that transpired on those fateful days swung the balance of power in the pacific to the end of the war.  Before June 4 1942, the Japanese ran rampant through the Pacific, from bombing Pearl Harbor to the capture of the Philippines to the capture of the Dutch East Indies and the capture of the British Fortress of Singapore.The capture of Guam and Wake Island.  The Japanese started suffering from "Victory Disease" as Admiral Yamamoto called it.  The Allies found themselves fighting a much superior force than they expected from prewar intelligence.  The only hiccup was the Doolittle raid...

   The Doolittle Raid so traumatized the Japanese that they started planning the Midway operation before their Port Moresby operation was complete.  The Japanese made a move toward Australia and Port Moresby and the battle of Coral Sea. Coral Sea was the first battle where the ships fought and they never saw each other.  The battle was fought by carrier airplanes.  The battle was inconclusive, but we lost the Lady Lex and a fleet oiler.  The Japanese lost the light carrier Shoho but their 2 fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku suffered heavy losses and the Shokaku was damaged.  This was why the Japanese didn't have those 2 carriers for the Midway operation.  The U.S.S. Yorktown was heavily damaged but they preformed a 72 hour miracle at Pearl Harbor and Yorktown joined her 2 sisters, Hornet and Enterprise.

   On that fateful day LtCmr Wade McClusky was leading a group of Dauntless Dive bombers from the U.S.S Enterprise and they followed a Japanese Destroyer that unsuccessfully depth charged an American Submarine and was rushing to catch up with her picket duties.  The 12 minutes that followed shattered the Japanese Naval Aviation and destroyed the aura of invincibility that the Japanese had.

  We lost the U.S.S. Yorktown and a destroyer The U.S.S. Hammond that was tied up alongside to aid in the firefighting effort when a Japanese Submarine put a torpedo into her going for the Yorktown.

.

   My favorite movie was of Midway with Charlton Heston, it was a good story and they used a lot of WWII movie cuts for the movie.  In the end there was a clip showing Admiral Nimitz played by Henry Fonda "Were we better than the Japanese?...Or just Luckier".  This battle showed a lot of luck for the Americans, from the Intelligence and the location of the carriers.  From the experience and power of the ships, the Japanese should have prevailed but luck was on the side of the Americans.

Monday Music "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas

I decided to roll with this one for my Monday Music.  I remember when this song came out in the 1970's and listening to the lyrics, it actually scared the crap out of me...I was a kid 12 years old and the song was talking about "mortality" and that you "Dust in the Wind" and no matter what you do, "all you are is Dust in the Wind."  Man talk about heady stuff.  As I got older and wiser, the lyrics I understood better, "I understand the truth of our Existence" and it doesn't bother me.   I heard  this song on my Sirius/XM when I changed it off my 80's channel because it was playing Prince...I know the "Purple one is Dust in the wind" to run with a metaphor but they play his songs soo much that it actually is souring my on Princes's songs.  I know....I am a heathen....
     And on a different note, I really like "Bill and Ted Excellent Adventure" it was a movie where a young Keanu Reeves was talking to "Socrates" and he used the lyric of the sing and "Socrates" in greek repeated the daytime soap "So from an hourglass so flow the days of our lives".   I thought it was a pretty neat hit on Popular culture.  I will see if I can find the clip on Youtube..

Hehehe Found it.

    And I had to add the Mall scene with Genghis Khan, Socrates, Billy the Kid, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Sigmund Freud and Beethoven...One of my favorite part of the movie.

"Dust in the Wind" is a song recorded by American progressive rock band Kansas and written by band member Kerry Livgren, first released on their 1977 album Point of Know Return.
The song peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of April 22, 1978, making it Kansas's only top ten Billboard Hot 100 charting single. The 45-rpm single was certified Gold for sales of one million units by the RIAA shortly after the height of its popularity as a hit single. More than 25 years later, the RIAA certified Gold the digital download format of the song, Kansas' only single to do so certified as of September 17, 2008.

Singer/songwriter Steve Walsh left the group briefly during the recording of the album. In an interview on the weekly In the Studio with Redbeard radio show, he would admit that, at this point, he had been something of a prima donna and was attracted by the chance of a solo career.
"Dust in the Wind" is known for its sparse acoustic nature. The guitar line for the song was written by Kerry Livgren as a finger exercise for learning fingerpicking. His wife, Vicci, heard what he was doing, remarked that the melody was nice, and encouraged him to write lyrics for it. Livgren was unsure whether his fellow band members would like it, since it was a departure from their signature style. However he did offer it to them, and the song was accepted and then recorded.
The album is critically acclaimed for singles like "Point of Know Return", which was a late addition to the album. "Portrait (He Knew)" was written about Albert Einstein. In 1988, Livgren released an updated version of "Portrait (He Knew)" titled "Portrait II" as part of the album Prime Mover credited to his band AD. He changed the subject of the song from Einstein to Jesus Christ. "Closet Chronicles" is a Howard Hughes allegory.

A last-minute addition to the track lineup for Point of Know Return, "Dust in the Wind" would also be its greatest success.
The guitar line for this song was written by Kerry Livgren as a finger exercise for learning fingerpicking. His wife, Vicci, heard what he was doing, remarked that the melody was nice, and encouraged him to write lyrics for it. Livgren was unsure whether his fellow band members would like it, since it was a departure from their signature style. After he played the demo for the band, there was a "stunned silence" and the band asked him, "Kerry, where has this been?"
The title of the song is a Bible reference, paraphrasing Ecclesiastes:

“

I reflected on everything that is accomplished by man on earth, and I concluded: Everything he has accomplished is futile — like chasing the wind!

”

A meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death, the lyrical theme bears a striking resemblance to the well-known biblical passage Genesis 3:19 ("...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."), as well as to the famous opening lines of the Japanese war epic The Tale of the Heike ("...the mighty fall at last, and they are as dust before the wind.") and from a book of Native American poetry, which includes the line "for all we are is dust in the wind."
"Dust in the Wind" was one of Kansas's first acoustic tracks; its slow melancholy melody and philosophical lyrics differ from their other hits such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Point of Know Return". The guitar track comes from two guitarists playing six-string guitars in unison, one in standard tuning and the other in Nashville tuning, to create a chimy sound similar to a twelve-string guitar. The instrumental bridge contains a distinctive melodic line and harmony for violin and viola.
Kansas also released a live version of the song on their album Two for the Show and a symphonic version on Always Never the Same

"What I saw and learned in the Gulag system."

I have blogged a lot about the Kulaks as a description of the middle class, and as a warning of our political "betters" that believe that the middle class is a disruption of their attempts for political power.  Poor people that are dependent on the government for survival will do whatever they have to to keep themselves there including giving up their freedoms for the illusions of safety and security.

I was following a link and ran across the "What I learned in the Gulag system", and decided to add some information about the gulag system and some information about a couple of the more famous people in the system. Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov.   I have in the past had made comments as have many others during the time of the Obama administration about the modern day Gulags A.K.A "FEMA Camps", we have commented many times that we are on some .gov watchlist and we would be collected when the purges started and shipped off when the Obama Administration or the Clinton Administration Part II went after all the "Bitter Clingers".    This started as a history post and morphed into a Political warning post or was it vice versa..... 

The GULAG was an administration body that watched over the camps; eventually its name would be used for these camps retrospectively. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin was able to take control of the government, and began to form the gulag system. On June 27, 1929 the Politburo created a system of self-supporting camps that would eventually replace the existing prisons around the country. These prisons were meant to receive inmates that received a prison sentence that exceeded three years. Prisoners that had a shorter prison sentence than three years were to remain in the prison system that was still under the purview of the NKVD. The purpose of these new camps was to colonize the remote and inhospitable environments throughout the Soviet Union. These changes took place around the same time that Stalin started to institute collectivization and rapid industrial development. Collectivization resulted in a large scale purge of peasants and so-called Kulaks. The Kulaks were supposedly wealthy (comparatively to other Soviet peasants) and were considered to be capitalists by the state, and by extension enemies of socialism. By late 1929 Stalin started a program known as "dekulakization". Stalin demanded that the kulak class be completely wiped out. This resulted in the imprisonment and execution of Soviet peasants. The term "Kulak" would also become associated with anyone who opposed or even seem unsatisfied with the Soviet government. This resulted in 60,000 people being sent to the camps and another 154,000 exiled in a mere four months. This was only the beginning of the dekulakization process. In 1931 alone 1,803,392 people were exiled. Although these massive relocation processes were successful in getting a large potential free forced labor work force where they needed to be, that is about all it was successful at doing. The "special settlers", as the Soviet government referred to them, all lived on starvation level rations, and many people starved to death in the camps, and anyone who was healthy enough to escape tried to do just that. This resulted in the government having to give rations to a group of people they were getting hardly any use out of, and was just costing the Soviet government money. The Unified State Political Administration (OGPU) quickly realized the problem, and began to reform the dekulakization process. To help prevent the mass escapes the OGPU started to recruit people within the colony to help stop people who attempted to leave, and set up ambushes around known popular escape routes. The OGPU also attempted to raise the living conditions in these camps that would not encourage people to actively try and escape, and Kulaks were promised that they would regain their rights after five years. Even these revisions ultimately failed to resolve the problem, and the dekulakization process was a failure in providing the government with a steady forced labor force. These prisoners were also lucky to be in the gulag in the early 1930s. Prisoners were relatively well off compared to what the prisoners would have to go through in the final years of the gulag.

The Gulag (/ˈɡuːlæɡˌ -ɑːɡ/; Russian: ГУЛАГ, IPA: [ɡʊˈlak] ( listen); acronym of Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerej, "Main Camps' Administration" or "Chief Administration of [Corrective Labor] Camps") was the government agency in charge of the Soviet forced labor camp system that was created under Vladimir Lenin and reached its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the 1950s. The term is also commonly used in English language to refer to any forced-labor camp in the Soviet Union, including camps that existed in post-Stalin times. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners. Large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.
The agency's full name was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Settlements (Glavnoye upravleniye ispravityelno-trudovykh lagerey i koloniy). It was administered first by the State Political Administration (GPU), later by the NKVD and in the final years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). The Solovki prison camp, the first corrective labor camp constructed after the revolution, was established in 1918 and legalized by a decree "On the creation of the forced-labor camps" on April 15, 1919. The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s. According to Nicolas Werth, author of The Black Book of Communism, the yearly mortality rate in the Soviet concentration camps strongly varied reaching 5% (1933) and 20% (1942–1943) while dropping considerably in the post-war years at about 1–3% per year at the beginning of the 1950s.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, gave the term its international repute with the publication of The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. The author likened the scattered camps to "a chain of islands" and as an eyewitness he described the Gulag as a system where people were worked to death. Some scholars support this view, though this claim is controversial, given that the vast majority of people who entered the Gulag came out alive, with the exception of the war years. Although one writer, citing pre-1991 materials, claims that most prisoners in the gulag were killed, Natalya Reshetovskaya, the wife of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said in her memoirs that The Gulag Archipelago was based on "campfire folklore" as opposed to objective facts. Similarly, historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft asserts that it is essentially a "literary and political work". Numerous other accounts from survivors state otherwise and the Mitrokhin Archive claimed that these memoirs were part of a KGB campaign, orchestrated by Yuri Andropov in 1974, to discredit Solzhenitsyn.However, this archive itself has its veracity in doubt; among other, more practical issues, by the same token with which Vasili Mitrokhin claimed the Soviet government would obviously be interested in discrediting Solzhenitsyn, Western governments would have as much interest in lending him credence.
In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates (colloquially referred to as simply "camps") and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union. Today's major industrial cities of the Russian Arctic, such as Norilsk, Vorkuta and Magadan, were originally camps built by prisoners and run by ex prisoners.


What I Saw and Learned in the Kolyma Camps
     Varlam Shalamov
1. The extraordinary fragility of human nature, of civilization. A human being would turn into a beast after three weeks of hard work, cold, starvation and beatings.
2. The cold was the principal means of corrupting the soul; in the Central Asian camps people must have held out longer — it was warmer there.
3. I learned that friendship and solidarity never arise in difficult, truly severe conditions — when life is at stake. Friendship arises in difficult but bearable conditions (in the hospital, but not in the mine).
4. I learned that spite is the last human emotion to survive. A starving man has only enough flesh to feel spite — he is indifferent to everything else.
5. I learned the difference between prison, which strengthens character, and work camps, which corrupt the human soul.
6. I learned that Stalin's «triumphs» were possible because he slew innocent people: had there been an organized movement, even one-tenth in number, but organized, it would have swept Stalin away in two days.
7. I learned that humans became human because they are physically stronger, tougher than any animal — no horse endures work in the Far North.
8. I saw that the only group that retained a bit of their humanity, despite the starvation and abuse, were the religious, the sectarians, almost all of them — and the majority of the priests.
9. The first ones to be corrupted, the most susceptible, are the party members and military men.
10. I saw what a forcible argument a simple slap could be for an intellectual.
11. That people distinguish between camp chiefs according to the power of their punches, to their enthusiasm for beatings.
12. A beating is almost irresistible as an argument («Method number three»).
13. I learned the truth about the preparations for the cryptic trials[1] from masters of the craft.
14. I learned why in prison you get political news (arrests, etc.) sooner than on the outside.
15. That prison (and camp) rumours[2] always turn out to be anything but slop.
16. I learned that one can live on spite alone.
17. I learned that one can live on indifference.
18. I learned why a man lives neither on hope — there are no hopes at all, nor on will — what will?, but only on the instinct of self-preservation, the same as a tree, a rock, an animal.
19. I'm proud that at the very beginning, back in 1937, I decided to never become a foreman if my decision could lead to another man's death, if my will would be forced to serve the authorities oppressing other people, prisoners like myself.
20. My body and spirit proved to be stronger in this great trial than I thought, and I am proud to have betrayed no one, to have sent no one to death nor to the camp, to have denounced no one.
21. I'm proud to have made no requests until 1955[3].
22. I saw the so called «Beria amnesty» there and then — it was something to see.
23. I saw that women are more honest and selfless than men — there was not a single husband at Kolyma who came after his wife. But wives did come; many did (Faina Rabinovitch, Krivoshey's wife)[4].
24. I saw the amazing northerner families (civilians, former prisoners) with their letters to their «lawful husbands and wives» etc.
25. I saw «the first Soviet Rockefellers», underground millionaires, and heard their confessions.
26. I saw the hard laborers, and also the large E and B contingents, the Berlag camp.
27. I learned that one can achieve a lot (a hospital, a work transfer), but at the risk of life — at the cost of a beating and the isolation cell cold.
28. I saw an isolation cell carved out in rock, and spent one night in it myself.
29. The lust for power, for unpunished murder is great — from big shots down to regular police operatives with rifles (Seroshapka[5] and his ilk).
30. I learned the unrestrained Russian lust to denounce, to complain.
31. I learned that world should be divided not into good and bad people but into cowards and non-cowards. 95% of cowards are capable of any meanness, lethal meanness, after light threatening.
32. I am convinced: the camp is a negative experience — entirely. If one spent but an hour there — it would be an hour of moral corruption. The camp has never given anything to anyone — and never could. Everyone, both prisoners and civilians, are corrupted by the camp.
33. In every region there was a work camp, there was one at every major construction site. Millions, tens of millions of prisoners.
34. Repressions touched not only the ruling elite but all levels of society — in every village, at every plant, in every family either relatives or friends were repressed.
35. I consider the best time of my life to be the months spent in the cell of Butyrki prison, where I managed to strengthen the spirit of those who were weak and where everyone spoke freely.
36. I learned to «plan» one day ahead, no further.
37. I learned that kingpins are not human.
38. That there are no criminals at the camp, there are your present (and future) neighbors caught behind the line of the law and not those who crossed it.
39. I learned how terrible the ego of a boy, of a youth is: better steal than ask. This and their boasting throws youth to the bottom.
40. Women didn't play a big role in my life — camp is the reason.
41. The discernment of character is a useless ability — I am unable to change my ways for any scum that comes along.
42. The last in the row, which are hated by everyone — by guards and inmates alike — are those dropping behind, the sick, the weak, those incapable of running in the cold.
43. I learned what power is and what a man with a gun means.
44. That the scale is shifted, and this is what is most typical in a work camp.
45. That passing from a prisoner condition to civilian is very hard, and nearly impossible without a long adaptation period.
46. That a writer must be a stranger — in the subjects he describes. And if he knows the matter well — he will write in such a way that no one would understand him.

Translated by Dmitry Subbotin and Robert Denis.