Sidetracked...

(Source)

So the header thing for the blog has been a recent obsession. True, I've been having a lot of fun with it, and no doubt spending too much time doing it. Making new headers that is. Someone suggests something then I start chasing photographs (or paintings) online in order to create yet another header. So the other day I wrote "One more, that's it, for now..." - remember that? Well yeah, I lied.

I've created nine more (yes, nine) for your enjoyment which I will show you near the end of the post. Patience. (I'm told it's a virtue, yet another failing of mine. Who knows, by the time I publish this post there may be more than nine. It's an obsession I tell you.)

Anyhoo, while searching for something to write about I was sidetracked a bunch of times.

The first sidetrack occurred while I was running the blogs in the morning, this post of Old NFO's caught my attention. A delightful look back at what flying commercial was like when only people with lots of money could do it. Then, the first sidetrack occurred. The post went from talking about the Boeing 314 Clipper, the more famous of the commercial flying boats, to a mystery surrounding the Hawaii Clipper, which was actually a Martin M-130 flying boat. (Which led to another sidetrack, did you know that there were actually three commercial flying boats? The Sikorsky S-42, the Boeing 314 Clipper, and the Martin M-130? I didn't. All were built to meet Pan Am requirements for trans-oceanic flights.)

None of those aircraft were built in quantity, only ten Sikorsky S-42s, 12 Boeing 314s, and three M-130s. Now of the three Martin flying boats, one, the Hawaii Clipper, went missing in the Pacific. Old NFO mentions one story going the rounds about the aircraft landing on a Japanese base in the Pacific, where the passengers and crew were executed by the Japanese. The story says that the Japanese wanted the engines of the aircraft. I cannot find anything to verify that story, though one chap seems to have made something of a career out of trying to discover what happened to that aircraft.

From my point of view, the Pacific is a BIG ocean (truth be told they're all freaking big) and it's not hard to lose stuff out there. (See Amelia Earhart...)

Anyhoo, after digging through all of that, which did make for interesting reading, I thought about doing a post on the sole Coast Guardsman to receive the Medal of Honor. Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for his actions on Guadalcanal in World War II. That story has a number of different facets which will take some time to put together and do justice to. Hopefully I can get to that soon. (Heck, the Coasties did such a great job during that campaign that they even impressed the Marines! Not easy to do.)

So a couple of great stories, one for which little evidence exists to support blaming the Japanese, the other needs more time to write it up properly. Which still left me with needing a topic for a post. Today.

So I thought, "Heck, I've got all these new headers, just write about those." So I went searching for a good opening graphic. Based on the keyword "header," which led me to concussions in soccer (what the rest of the world calls football) due to heading the ball. Which is the act of redirecting the flight of the ball by using one's head. Having been there, done that, trust me, that can hurt. Especially if the ball has any "way" on it. (To use a nautical term.)

Which led me to a blog from a Boston University journalism professor regarding doing away with the header in soccer. I panicked a bit when I first stumbled across that post "Ban the header!" Because I like the header on my blog, most blogs have a header, the header sets the tone, and, oh wait, the word "SOCCER" precedes the whole "Ban the header!" thing. So to borrow from juvat -

Anyhoo. There will be no banning of the header here at The Chant, though I may need to ban creating more headers (which means I will have to lay off most of the Header Production Department, poor bastids).

Speaking of headers, here are the new ones, with a brief explanation as to why I made that header. (As always, click to embiggen.)

How could I not have a header dedicated to the landings in Normandy on the 6th of June 1944? Besides which, that is an iconic photograph of the landings. The men in the photo wading ashore at Omaha Beach are from Company E, 16th Infantry Regiment, the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One. Two-thirds of those men became casualties on that day. (The photo is catalogued in the National Archives with the title, "Into the Jaws of Death - U.S. Troops wading through water and Nazi gunfire."

The North American F-100 Super Sabre was suggested by one of you, the readers As this was the very aircraft which the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds were flying when I first saw them as a kid, I chastised myself for not thinking of that myself. (Now I need to hunt down a good photo of the Grumman F-11 Tiger in Blue Angels livery, for that was the aircraft they were flying when I first saw them. As a kid. Before I saw the Thunderbirds.)

The Aggressive-class minesweeper header is a tip of the hat to fellow blogger (and all around great guy) HMS Defiant. As USS Esteem (AM/MSO-438, he served aboard that one) graces his blog's header, I chose a different one, so I picked USS Fortify (AM/MSO-446). The photo actually shows her at sea, most of the other photos wouldn't fit in the header (1476 x 466 pixels, no exceptions) or were tied up to the pier.

World War I aircraft was another reader suggestion. But what aircraft, there were so many. So I chose an iconic event from the air combats of the Great War - the downing of Manfred von Richthofen, the leading ace of that war with 80 aerial victories. The red triplane (Fokker Dr.I) in the painting is the Red Baron's aircraft. The Sopwith Camel on his tail is flown by Canadian Captain Roy Brown. Whether it was Captain Brown or ground fire from an Australian unit that killed von Richthofen will probably never be settled to anyone's satisfaction. Suffice to say, the Red Baron was no more. (The blurriness to either side of the main action is something I did to stretch the painting into the correct width. I wasn't happy with it at first and tried to mend it, nothing satisfied me. Then I thought that the blurriness to the left and right of center imparts a sense of motion. Anyhoo, that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

I think we all know juvat's love of destroyed armored vehicles and his hatred of fully functioning tanks. (Which stems from his having been attacked by the hood of a Dodge Ram pickup in his formative years.) So I really did need to include a header with a destroyed tank on it. As this particular photo also includes Dwight D. Eisenhower, general, President, namesake of The Nuke's first carrier, and a man with whom my paternal grandfather served, I thought, "Why not?" It's a good photo.

I ran across this painting quite by accident. Two stretcher bearers carrying a wounded comrade away from the front in World War I. It struck me that I needed to honor the docs, nurses, medics, corpsmen, etc. who treat the wounded. I hold them in great respect and no little amount of affection. Expect to see this around Memorial Day or around what some call Veterans Day, but which to me will always be Armistice Day. Maybe both. Here's to you Doc!

Another painting which I "stumbled across." Actually, on one of my sidetracks I thought of the great American painter Frederic Remington (may have been triggered by a comment over on koobecaF by my friend Brig, who knows her Western art). So I though that a Remington-based header would be nice. (A Dash for the Timber is one of my favorite Remington paintings.)

The Battle of the Bulge is one of my "favorite" battles (a topic I need to think on and post about, how can one have a "favorite" battle, as if it's like a flavor of ice cream. Dammit Sarge, people die in battle, how can you have a "favorite"? Yep, sidetrack, right there.) Anyhoo, the long line of American infantry marching off into the snow and cold in the Ardennes is evocative of that battle, at least to me. Expect to see this one used in the mid-December time frame.

Another reader suggestion was the C-47, the ubiquitous "Gooney Bird." The aircraft which delivered paratroopers to many a far-flung battlefield, a cargo hauler extraordinaire, and an iconic symbol of the Allied victory in WWII. Not to mention a very successful aircraft design which is still in use after it's first flight roughly two weeks after Pearl Harbor. Like John Blackstone said, "When the last C-47 is delivered to a museum somewhere, the crew will probably get a ride home in a C-130."

No doubt.