THE FRIDAY FOTO (April 26, 2024)

TWO JEEPS, NO WAITING.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Gideon M. Schippers) Click of photo to enlarge the image.

This has got be the aerial equivalent of chewing gum while walking and juggling knives.

Here is a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, engaged in an air-to-air refueling training exercise — while lugging a couple of ground vehicles. You can see that this mid-air ballet involves another aircraft, note wing at top of the photo and fuel line back to the aerial refueling tanker.

The exercise is part of Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 2-24, near Yuma, Arizona on March 29, 2024. WTI is an advanced graduate-level course that provides advanced tactical training to enhance and employ advanced air weapons and tactics.

The crew in this photo is assigned to Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One, which provides standardized advanced tactical training and certification of unit instructor qualifications in order to support Marine Aviation training and readiness. A three-minute video (click here to view) shows what they do and how they do it.

SHAKO: Road Trip to Arkansas-2 (Part II)

SECOND STOP: Surprising Corinth, Mississippi (Part II).

One of the many historic homes near downtown Corinth, Mississippi. (4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies) Click on photo to enlarge the image.

After the shooting stopped on the second Day of Shiloh (April 7, 1862) Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard withdrew his battered Army some 20 miles south to the railroad hub of Corinth, Mississippi.The Union Army did not pursue the rebel army for nearly a month. As horrible as the carnage was on the Tennessee battlefield, what awaited the Confederates in the small Mississippi town was, in many ways even worse, according to the National Park Service’s Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center, which we toured the day after our visit to Shiloh.

A Month of Hell.

Beauregard knew he had to hold the crucial base at Corinth, writing to headquarters in Richmond, Virginia “if defeated here we lose the Mississippi Valley, and probably our cause.” But he had just lost thousands of men and officers at Shiloh. Many of the survivors were wounded. A small town of approximately 1,200 inhabitants, Corinth had no hospital, just five churches and three hotels that were converted to care for the wounded, sick and dying. Calls went out to surrounding communities for doctors and medical supplies. Most of the women in Corinth served as volunteer nurses.

An 1862 poster seeking assistance for the wounded of Shiloh displayed at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center. (4GWar Photo by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies.) Click on photo to enlarge image.

The arrival of reinforcements from elsewhere in the South increased the number of troops camped in and around the town to 75,000, taxing the water supply. Food and medicines were scarce. A constant rain made conditions muddy and miserable. Attempts to dig new wells, eight to ten feet down in the boggy soil produced foul, milky-looking water that horses refused, but desperately thirsty men drank, causing waves of dysentery and typhoid, according to the National Park Service.

“In Corinth, the same number of men died from disease in the seven weeks following Shiloh as perished in the battle itself.” — from a display in the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center.

Meanwhile, Northern newspapers and politicians excoriated then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant for being caught by a surprise attack and the ensuing  slaughter at Shiloh. He was accused of everything from drunkenness to incompetence. His superior, Major General Henry Halleck, commander of Union forces in the Western Theater of Operations, replaced Grant as commander of the force marching on Corinth. A brilliant strategist, Halleck was an inexperienced and overly cautious field commander. It took him nearly a month to reach Corinth while the Confederates had time to dig an impressive seven miles of defense works. By late May Halleck’s 100,000 troops were entrenched within cannon range of the rebel fortifications, forcing Beauregard to abandon the Confederacy’s crucial rail link.

Bloodstained Confederate officer’s jacket and flag of the Corinth Rifles at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center. (4GWAR photo by Deborah Zabarenko, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies.) Cl ick on photo to enlarge image.

His army slipped out of town unnoticed. On May 29th, trains began to evacuate the sick, wounded, and equipment. To deceive his foe, Beauregard told his men to cheer every time an empty train came into the city to make it seem like the Confederate army was receiving reinforcements. By the morning of the 30th, the Union army discovered the city was abandoned.

Halleck was promoted to General-in-Chief of all Union forces and called back to Washington, while Grant got his old command back. But in late summer 1862, Confederate leaders launched a series of counter offensives in three states, including an attempt to recapture Corinth. Confederate troops under Major General Earl Van Dorn managed to break through the Union line and there was street fighting — one of the few incidents of urban warfare during the Civil War –in Corinth but eventually the rebels were driven back with heavy losses. Van Dorn ordered a retreat to the West.

Site of street fighting for the the crucial railroad crossing during the second battle of Corinth, Miss. in October 1862. (4GWAR blog photo by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Human Contraband.

Confederate Monument in Corinth, Miss. (4GWAR Photo by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies) Click on photo to enlarge image.

Inscription on Confederate Monument, Corinth, Miss. (4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies.) Click on photo to enlarge.

In Deep South towns like Corinth, one expects to see monuments like this in courthouse squares or other public spaces, recording for posterity the noble sacrifice and bravery of individuals, regiments or a whole generation of warriors for  the Lost Cause.

But in recent years, you will find more monuments dedicated to other people seldom mentioned or recognized in the first 100 years after the Civil War, largely because many — if not most — enslaved people were illiterate (it was against the law in many southern jurisdictions to teach a slave to read and write). And their enslavers often kept minimal records of the people they considered property.

Black Soldier at Contraband Camp Park in Corinth, Mississippi. (4GWARphoto by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies.) Click on photo to enlarge.

As Union armies advanced into Confederate territory thousands of enslaved people, mostly men at first, fled farms and plantations where they were held in bondage, seeking refuge behind U.S. Army lines. As their numbers grew it posed serious logistical problems for generals fighting a war now saddled with how to feed and house hundreds of non-combatants with nowhere else to go.

Until President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the law of the land was still the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision in 1857, which held that the enslaved were property, not people, and without civil rights. Adding to the problem, Southern slave owners were pursuing their escaped property into Union Army camps — creating security issues — and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required law enforcement, particularly U.S. Marshals, to arrest people suspected of escaping enslavement on as little evidence as a claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership. The law also subjected any person found guilty of aiding a fugitive slave to six months’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.

In Virginia, Union Major General Benjamin Butler came up with a novel approach to the issue. A largely ineffective commander but a clever lawyer and politician, Butler turned the definition of human slaves as property on its head. He refused to send three escaped slaves back to their master, a rebel colonel, classifying them as contraband of war. All enemy property that fell into Union hands that might be used to further Rebel war efforts — including labor, farming and manufacturing — constituted contraband and would not be returned. The “Contraband Decision,” which became federal policy on August 6, 1861 enabled thousands of enslaved people from Southern states to seek refuge behind Union lines.

Entrance to Corinth Contraband Camp Park, Mississippi. (4GWAR photo by Deborah Zabarenko, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies) Click on photo to enlarge.

After Union forces occupied Corinth in May 1862, the flow of enslaved African Americans increased dramatically. To accommodate these refugees, Union Brigadier General Grenville M. Dodge established a camp northeast of town. What began as tent city blossomed into a thriving community by mid-1863.

The camp featured numerous homes, a church, school and hospital. The freedmen cultivated and sold cotton and vegetables in a progressive cooperative farm program. By May 1863, the camp was making a clear profit of $4,000 to $5,000 from it enterprises. By August, over 1,000 African American children and adults gained the ability to read through the efforts of various benevolent organizations. Although the camp had a modest beginning, it became a model camp and allowed for approximately 6,000 ex-slaves to establish their own individual identities.

Black soldier and stacked arms at Corinth Contraband Camp Park (4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle, Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies).

Once the Emancipation Proclamation was implemented, nearly 2,000 of the newly freed men at the Corinth Contraband Camp had their first opportunity to protect their way of life and made up a new regiment in the Union army. Since most of the men came from Alabama, the unit was named the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment of African Descent, later re-designated the 55th United States Colored Troops

 

 

In December 1863, the camp was moved to Memphis and the freedmen resided in a more traditional refugee facility for the remainder of the war. The Corinth Contraband Camp was the first step on the road to freedom and the struggle for equality for thousands of former slaves.

Today a portion of the historic Corinth Contraband Camp is preserved to commemorate those who began their journey to freedom there in 1862-1863. This land now hosts a quarter mile walkway which exhibits six life-size bronze sculptures depicting the men, women, and children who inhabited the camp.

Statue of woman and child reading at Coronth Contraband Park. (National Park Service photo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Soon

THIRD STOP: Memphis.

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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

BALTIC-2-BLACK:

Monitoring Europe’s Response to Russian Aggression from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

THE BALTIC REGION:

Poland to Join European Sky Shield.

Poland’s new government  has announced it will be the latest nation to join the “European Sky Shield Initiative.”

Spearheaded by Germany, in reaction to Russia’s war against Ukraine, the initiative aims to create a European air and missile defense system through the common acquisition of air defense equipment and missiles by European nations.

Warsaw’s move amounts to a major policy shift under the new government, as the previous Cabinet of the right-wing Law and Justice party opposed partaking in the initiative due to its frosty relations with Berlin, according to Defense News.

“We will cooperate as part of the European Sky Shield Initiative,” Tusk said at an April 16 Cabinet meeting, as quoted in a statement released by his office. “It completely does not bother me that the Germans were the main initiators of this initiative.”

Back in 2022, Defence Ministers from 14 NATO members and Finland – before the Nordic nation was admitted to the Western defense bloc in 2023 — signed a Letter of Intent for the development of a “European Sky Shield Initiative.

More countries have since joined. In February, Turkey and Greece announced their intention to join the project, bringing the total number of participating states to 21.

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German Firm to Make Artillery Shells in Lithuania.

German defense contractor Rheinmetall is set to widen it presence in the Baltic region with the construction of an artillery shell factory in Lithuania.

The Lithuanian government and Rheinmetall have signed a memorandum of intent to build a 155mm ammunition plant in Lithuania, the country’s Ministry of Economy and Innovation said in an April 16 statement, Defense News reported.

“This factory will be important for Lithuania, Ukraine and our entire region, in turn, the government will do everything so that it can start operating as soon as possible,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said.

The official warned that Russia would remain the “biggest threat to Europe” for decades to come.

Lithuania’s minister of economy and innovation, Aušrinė Armonaitė, said at a press conference that construction of the plant would begin later this year.

FRIDAY FOTO (April 19, 2024)

SIMON SAYS — DO THIS.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Cole Pursley)   Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Robert Miller guides a Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft during take off from the flight deck of the  amphibious assault ship USS America in the Philippine Sea on April 2, 2024. This Osprey is part of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 262.

America, lead ship of an Amphibious Ready Group, is operating in the Indo-Pacific region, the U.S. 7th Fleet’s area of operations, which encompasses more than 47 million square miles (124 million square kilometers), stretching from the International Date Line to the India/Pakistan border; and from the Kuril Islands in the North to the Antarctic in the South.

The 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in the region, which includes 36 maritime countries and 50 percent of the world’s population, not to mention the world’s five largest foreign militaries: China, Russia, India, North Korea, and the Republic of Korea.

SHAKO: Road Trip to Arkansas-2

SECOND STOP: Shiloh, Tennessee and Corinth, Mississippi (Part I).

We hadn’t planned on spending time in Mississippi, on our way to Memphis from Bardstown, Kentucky, but when a scheduling hole opened up we decided to visit Shiloh National Military Park on Day 4 of our road trip to see the total solar eclipse in Arkansas.

The Park Service website advised that the Shiloh Visitor’s Center was closed for installation of a new exhibit, but the auditorium was open and one could still view the 20-minute film that explained the battle and the events leading up to it. The Park Service added that a satellite unit about 20 miles down the road in Corinth, Mississippi had lots of material on Shiloh and two subsequent battles in and around Corinth months later.

We caught the last showing of the film and were awed by the complexity of the battle and the terrible toll on both sides.

Chromolithograph of Thure de Thulstrup’s 1888 painting, “Battle of Shiloh.” (Library of Congress)    Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Fought over two days, April 6 and 7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee, Shiloh (also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing), was the biggest and bloodiest battle fought up to that point in the American Civil War. Out of some 85,000 troops engaged, the combined butcher’s bill for North and South was 23,746 Americans killed, wounded, captured or missing.

On the battle’s first day, some 44,000 Confederate troops commanded by General Albert Sidney Johnston surprised the Union forces as they were having breakfast and drove them back almost to the Tennessee River before Union commander, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, organized his 40,000-plus troops into a strong defensive line, interspersed with artillery, halting the rebel advance with intense cannon and small arms fire. Among the dead was Sidney Johnston, the Rebel commander, who was shot in the leg, didn’t know how badly wounded he was and bled to death.

Artillery lined up as they might have been on the Union’s last line of defense on the first day of battle at Shiloh National Military Park. (Photo: National Park Service)

Reinforced overnight with more than 20,000 fresh Union troops commanded by Major General Don Carlos Buell, it was Grant’s turn to surprise the enemy. The Confederates thought they had licked the Yankees the day before and were not expecting Grant’s bruising counterattack on the morning of April 7.  The now outnumbered rebels held for six hours, but finally gave way. To save the army, General P.G.T. Beauregard, who took command after Johnston was killed, decided to withdraw to Corinth, a strategic railroad hub and supply center just over the state line in Northern Mississippi.

The Tennessee River just south of Pittsburg Landing today. (4GWAR photo by Deborah Zabarenko. Copyright Sonoma Road Strategies, 2024.)

That’s just a brief description of this monumental battle. While the National Park Service film isn’t available, the American Battlefield Trust Shiloh website has an animated map that explains the events leading up to Shiloh as well as the series of clashes across the nearly 4,000-acre battlefield during the two days of combat.

As boy during the Civil War centennial 1961-1965, your 4GWAR editor read every comic book and magazine and watched every movie and TV show about the War Between the States, but my knowledge of the Battle of Shiloh largely came from the Civil War segment in the 1962 Cinerama film “How The West Was Won,”…

 

… and a Walt Disney TV miniseries “Johnny Shiloh” about John Clem, a 10-year-old drummer boy in Grant’s Union Army — who, it turns out, probably never served at Shiloh, although he did participate in numerous battles later in the war.

Capturing the crucial railroad junction of Corinth, Mississippi was actually Grant’s main objective when his troops camped at Pittsburg Landing after traveling up the Tennessee River by riverboat. They were awaiting Buell’s reinforcements marching overland from Nashville before continuing the advance on the Mississippi town of five churches, three hotels, a small women’s college and about 1,200 inhabitants. Most of the rebel troops who fought at Shiloh had arrived by train in Corinth. Two of the most important railroads in the Confederacy passed through the town. The Memphis and Charleston R.R. linked the Mississippi River with the Atlantic seaboard and the north-south Mobile & Ohio line connected the Gulf Coast to Columbus, Kentucky — less than a mile from the Mississippi River.

Corinth, Mississippi was fought over twice during the Civil War due to the city’s vital location of rail lines connecting the North and South. (Photo by Zack Steen at (WT-shared) Corinthms at wts wikivoyage via Wikipedia)

Corinth today, is a city of 19,000 with a lovely historic district, lush with flowering trees and stately old houses — many of the them with metal plaques or signs detailing some of the town’s violent and dismaying history in 1862. After the Battle of Shiloh, thousands of wounded Confederates and Union prisoners, as well as Beauregard’s battered army and its hundreds of horses and mules descended on Corinth.

One of the many historical markers on the streets of Corinth, Mississippi. (4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle. Copyright: Sonoma Road Strategies, 2024.)

But there were also some surprises and previously untold stories among the events memorialized around this Mississippi city. We’ll share them in the next installment on Monday.

Entrance to the Contraband Camp Memorial in Corinth, Mississippi. (4GWAR photo by Deborah Zabarenko. Copyright: Sonoma Road Strategies, 2024)

Coming Monday

SECOND STOP: Surprising Corinth, Mississippi (Part II).

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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

ROBOTS DROIDS and DRONES

DRONE WARS.

Iran launched and unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel early Sunday (April 14, 2024).

The Israeli military said that “99 percent” of the more than 300 projectiles fired at Israel by Iran were intercepted, CNN reported.

Around 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles were launched at Israel by Iran, the vast majority intercepted by the Israeli Air Force and Israeli “partners,” said Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Iran had vowed repeatedly that it would respond to an apparent Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus on April 1 that killed two generals, the Associated Press noted. Sunday’s assault allowed Iran to show to its citizens that it won’t stand by when its assets are attacked and that it was serious when it threatened revenge.

However, analysts said the attack was also carefully choreographed — giving Israel and its allies time to prepare, and providing the Israeli government a possible off-ramp amid fears of a widening war, the Washington Post reported.

Front view of a Shahed-136 drone at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force exhibition in 2023. (photo by the Tasnim News Agency website via wikipedia)

Sunday’s attack was the first time Iran had ever launched a military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to the AP.

Iran has a vast arsenal of drones and missiles. Tehran’s choice of the Shahed-136 drones both give Israel and its allies hours to shoot down the bomb-carrying drones.

In a statement issued by the White House, President Biden said “Iran—and its proxies operating out of Yemen, Syria and Iraq—launched an unprecedented air attack against military facilities in Israel. I condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms.

“At my direction, to support the defense of Israel,” Biden added “the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the course of the past week. Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our service members, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles.”

THE FRIDAY FOTO: April 12,2024

STILL LIFE WITH FIGHTER JETS.

 (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Keagan Lee) Click on photo to enlarge the image.

Airmen from the U.S. Air Force 34th Fighter Squadron perform pre-flight checks on their F-35A Lightning II multi-role jet fighters during a foggy morning at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho on March 28, 2024.

The pre-flight checks preceded the squadron’s participation in an Agile Combat Employment large force exercise in Utah and Idaho in late March. Manufactured by Lockheed  Martin, the F-35 is called Lightning II to honor another deadly aircraft, the World War II era P-38 Lightning flown by the U.S. Army Air Force.

During the ACE exercise (March 22-to-29), airmen in the 34th Fighter Squadron and Fighter Generation Squadron operated from Hill Air Force Base, Utah and “contingency locations” at Historic Wendover Airfield in Wendover, Utah, and Idaho’s Mountain Home Air Force Base. It was the first locally-generated ACE exercise created by the 388th Fighter Wing.

Agile Combat Employment (ACE) is an operational concept that emphasizes flexibility and adaptability to enhance air power in more contested battlespaces.

Historically, the U.S. Air Force relied on a combination of U.S. and overseas air bases for relatively uncontested movement and operational reach — in short, to project combat power across the globe. But that all changed once the Cold War ended. The Air Force has reduced its global footprint, from 93 air bases during World War II, to 33 permanent overseas air bases — a 65 percent reduction. Adversaries’ new weapons systems now place bases at risk that were previously considered sanctuaries from attack.

To counter the threat, ACE seeks to develop operational maneuvering both before and after attack to increase the survivability of aircraft and other assets while still generating combat power. If done right, according to Air Force documents, ACE complicates the enemy’s targeting process, while creating political and operational dilemmas for the enemy, and flexibility for friendly forces.

Achieving ACE’s goals requires reexamining a wide variety of systems, including command and control (C2), logistics under attack, counter-small unmanned aircraft systems, air and missile defense, and offensive and defensive space and cyber capabilities.

SHAKO: Road Trip to Arkansas

FIRST STOP: Bardstown, Kentucky

Your 4gWAR editor and spouse headed southwest to Arkansas in early April to see the once-in-a-lifetime (for us) solar eclipse in the zone of totality. Along the way we’ve been stopping at places with some historical significance or interesting roadside attractions.

Most people come to Bardstown for the whiskey — bourbon to be exact — but we encountered some unexpected history in the Kentucky city that is surrounded by whiskey distilleries.

It began with the new Hal Moore United States Military Museum named for native son, Army Lieutenant General Harold “Hal” Moore, a Vietnam War hero and the subject of a 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson.

Lt. Gen. Hal Moore Museum of U.S. Military History at Bardstown, Kentucky. (4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle. Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies)

Moore’s heroism during the Battle of la Drang earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest medal for valor. At the time of the battle, Moore was commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment (the same regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn) in the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).

His unit was dropped by helicopter into the la Drang Valley on November 14, 1965, in one of the first major battles between U.S. and North Vietnamese regulars. During the battle, which included another 7th Cavalry battalion ambushed on a nearby landing zone, 234 Americans were killed, another 250 were wounded. Estimates of the North Vietnamese killed range between 600 and 1,200, depending on sources, according to a U.S. Army obituary of Moore who died in 2017 at the age of 94.

“Throughout the initial assault phase, Moore repeatedly exposed himself to intense hostile fire to ensure the proper and expedient deployment of friendly troops,” the Distinguished Service Cross citation stated, adding “By his constant movement and repeated exposure to this insurgent fire, Moore set the standard for his combat troops by a courageous display of ‘leadership by example,’ which characterized all his actions throughout the long and deadly battle.”

The Hal Moore collection at the Bardstown, Kentucky military museum. (4GWAR Blog photo by John M. Doyle, copyright 2024 by Sonoma Road Strategies.)

On the recommendation of a commission created by Congress to propose new names for Army posts honoring Confederate commanders and heroes, Fort Benning, Georgia was renamed Fort Moore, after Moore and his wife Julia Moore.

Julia Moore “was equally distinguished as a leader of Army family programs who changed how the military cares for the widows of fallen Soldiers,” the Army said in a statement announcing the renaming in May 2023.

Hal and Julia Moore’s leadership on the battlefield and on the home front in 1965 were portrayed in the 2002 motion picture, “We Were Soldiers …” which was based on Moore’s 1992 book,  “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” co-authored with Joseph L. Galloway, a former United Press International reporter, who was at the battle of Ia Drang. Click on the video below for a sampling.

 

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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

THE FRIDAY FOTO: April 5, 2024

YOUR PACKAGE HAS ARRIVED.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Christian Salazar) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

United States Marines use a tactical resupply unmanned aircraft system — drone — during Nordic Response in Alta, Norway, on March 12, 2024.

These Marines are with Combat Logistics Battalion 6, Combat Logistics Regiment 2 of the 2nd Marine Logistics Group.

Exercise Nordic Response 24 which ran from March 3-to-14, 2024 in northern Norway and neighboring waters, is designed to enhance military capabilities and cooperation with allies in high-intensity warfighting scenarios under challenging arctic conditions.

For more photos, click here.

 

 

SHAKO: Two Stories for Women’s History Month

WOMEN IN MILITARY HISTORY.

UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL AND PHOTOS

4GWAR is squeaking in under the wire with this post for Women’s History Month, just before March ends. In the past, we have run a series of photos in March showing women in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard in jobs that men have been doing for decades, even centuries like — pilots, chefs, doctors, drill sergeants, musicians, mechanics, navigators,  engineers, commanders and more.

But this year we waited — some would say too long — to find unusual bits of military history where women took over jobs (non-combat, they were barred by law until recently) that were traditionally handled by men — and excelling at them. We’re also adding a few photos of women in the military who became the first of their gender to serve in certain assignments. We hope we’re coming to the end of the era when a female reaching a high rank or performing a dangerous or complicated job is no longer front page news.

CIVIL WAR NURSES.

Among the white headstones of Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., you’ll find the graves of 23 pioneering female Civil War nurses.

When the Civil War began, nursing was still a male profession. However, after seeing what Florence Nightingale and other women were doing for British soldiers in the Crimean War, Congress authorized the hiring of female nurses to assist the Army. Other non-official nurses volunteered with local units, too, having been recruited by state or local officials. Many more followed their husbands to war to help soldiers in their units.

The Influence of Women Harper’s Weekly, September 6, 1862 (Photo via American Battlefield Trust)

Very few of these nurses had professional medical training because it simply wasn’t available to women back then. Instead, they had on-the-job training on how to care for injured and ill patients.

“They would feed, clothe and wash soldiers, do their best to make them physically comfortable, and they would tend to their mental and spiritual needs,” Army historian Kathy Fargey told a recent public tour of the Civil War nurses’ area of Arlington’s Section 1 to commemorate Women’s History Month. “They helped [soldiers] write letters, and they would read to them, talk with them and pray with them.”

Here are the stories of three of them. For more information, click here.

Anna Platt was born in 1820 in New York. She made her way south in February 1863 to help at Armory Square Hospital, a 1,000-bed facility in Washington, D.C., where she stayed through the end of the war.

The nurses started their days at 6 a.m., feeding and giving patients medicine, as well as changing their bandages and offering them comfort. They also arranged evening entertainment.

Anna played accordion music for the soldiers in the evening,” Fargey said. “They all had singing and music and public readings. Then the night watchers would finally arrive at 8:45 p.m. to take over from the nurses.”

Like many Army nurses, Platt  caught some of the diseases the soldiers had, suffering “a severe attack of typhoid and brain fever” while working at Armory Square. She never fully recovered. Platt is one of 21 of the nurses buried in Arlington’s Section 1 to receive what was called an invalid’s pension — an antiquated term for a disabled veteran’s pension.

Platt died in November 1898. She was the first Civil War nurse to be buried in Arlington specifically because of her wartime service.

Adelaide Spurgeon was born in England in 1829 and immigrated to the U.S. around 1860. She lived in New York City and was recruited in the early days of the war to go to D.C. to help as an Army nurse. When she arrived in Washington, she discovered there was only one hospital in which to work, and it was for smallpox patients.

“The other nurses said, ‘No thanks,’ and Adele was the only one to say, ‘I’ll take the risk’,” Fargey said.

Civil War Army nurse Adelaide Spurgeon. Right: Spurgeon’s gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery. (Left: Courtesy Photo; Right: Defense Department photo by Katie Lange)

Spurgeon became well-known for her skills. According to Fargey’s research, the nurse complained of the lack of medical supplies and the quality of food at the hospital, so she went back to New York and enlisted her friends to help her collect better supplies, which she brought back for the patients. Spurgeon eventually became sick herself, being diagnosed with blood poisoning at some point during the war. Spurgeon also received an invalid’s pension for her sacrifices. She died on March 4, 1907.

Emma Southwick Brinton was born in 1834 in Massachusetts. During the Civil War, she first worked as an Army nurse in the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, before working at Armory Square Hospital in D.C. Records show she was one of three nurses who were sent to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to care for 10 buildings filled with wounded men.

Due to the unsanitary conditions in which she often worked, Brinton contracted typhoid fever. She was sent back to Massachusetts to recover. Afterward, she returned to D.C. and various battlefields to continue nursing. She also received an invalid’s pension. Brinton died on February 25, 1922, at age 88. She was the last of the 23 female nurses to be buried in Arlington’s Section 1.

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THE EFFICIENCY OF THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT.

With the onset of World War II, the United States rapidly expanded its military forces. Formed in early 1942, the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps marked the beginning of a separate department which allowed women to serve in the Army. Later changed to Women’s Army Corps (WAC), the Army recruited talented women capable of performing non-combat roles. One of them was  Charity Adams, young African American woman raised in South Carolina. Adams was a high school math teacher pursuing a master’s degree in psychology at Ohio State University when she applied to join the new unit in 1942. Soon after joining, Adams was selected to attend Officer Candidate School.

Lt. Col. Charity Adams Earley served as the highest-ranking Black woman officer during World War II. She has since paved the way for other Black women in the military. (Photo courtesy of the National Women’s History Museum)

She graduated in August 1942, becoming the first Black officer of the WAC. Stationed in Fort Des Moines until 1944, she worked as a station control and staff training officer. The Army promoted her to major in 1943, making her the highest-ranking female officer at Fort Des Moines in Iowa and one of the highest-ranking WAC officers in the nation, according to the National Museum of the Army.

In 1944, at just 25, Adams was placed in command of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion, the first Black WAC unit to serve overseas. In February 1945, these 800 women were stationed in Birmingham, England, for three months, moved to Rouen, France, and finally settled in Paris.

The battalion was responsible for the redirection of mail to all U.S. personnel in the European Theater of Operations (including Army, Navy, Marine Corps, civilians, and Red Cross workers), a total of over seven million people.

The Six Triple Eight, as the unit was known, was an experiment to determine the value Black women brought to the military, according to a 2020 New York Times article for the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. The U.S. Army was segregated all through World War II and many Army commanders did not want woman units in their area — let along black women. The 6888 faced a a tremendous challenge, sorting and distributing a backlog of 17 million letters and packages piled haphazardly in huge airplane hangars in Birmingham.

When mail could not be delivered to the address on the face of the envelope, it was sent to the Postal Directory to be redirected. The 6888th kept an updated information card on each person in the theater. Some personnel at the front moved frequently, often requiring several information updates per month. The WACs worked three eight-hour shifts seven days a week to clear out the tremendous backlog of Christmas mail, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

Each shift averaged 65,000 pieces of mail. Although the women’s workload was heavy, their spirits were high because they realized how important their work was in keeping up morale at the front. Adams was allotted six month to complete her mission. The Six Triple Eight would do it in three. In 2019, the Army awarded the battalion the Meritorious Unit Commendation.

Fort Lee, the U.S. Army’s base in Virginia, named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Virginia, was among nine nine bases the Pentagon ordered to remove the names and other displays honoring the Confederacy. In April 2023, the base was redesignated Fort Gregg-Adams to honor two pioneering black Army officers: Lieutenant General Arthur Gregg, a logistics innovator, and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams, the wartime commander of the Six Triple Eight.

Lt. Col. Charity Adams became the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, nicknamed the “Six Triple Eight”, the first unit of Women’s Army Corps African Americans to go overseas. (Photo courtesy of the National Veterans Memorial Museum)

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RECENT TRAILBLAZERS

U.S. Army Reserve Major Lisa Jaster, center, became the third woman to graduate from the U.S. Army’s elite Ranger School, October 16, 2015, in Fort Benning, Georgia. Jaster, 37, joins just two other women, Captain Kristen Griest, 26, left, and 1st Lieutenant Shaye Haver, 25, right, in gaining the coveted Ranger tab. (Paul Abell / AP Images for U.S. Army Reserve)

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Admiral Linda Fagan took command June 1, 2022 as the first female commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. (Dept. of Homeland Security photo via Twitter.)

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Lieutenant Colonel Christine Mau, 33rd Operations Group deputy commander,  made history as the first female F-35 pilot in the program. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant  Marleah Robertson)

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Marine Corps Captain Kelsey Hastings became the first woman to command the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon for its 2023 season. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser)

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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.