Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Antiquity

The Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
(Source)
In case you're wondering, yes, I know what yesterday was the anniversary of, you may also be wondering why I didn't post about it. Quite frankly, I'm a bit puzzled by that myself.

Yesterday, the 7th of December, 2021, marked the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The people and websites I follow on social media posted quite a few links to various articles on that event. Many pictures were posted, many expressed dismay as to the very few survivors of that attack who still remain alive.

Well, it was a long time ago. Not in historical terms, Pearl Harbor was but a moment ago in those terms, but in terms of a human life span it was over four generations ago.¹

My mother was eleven years old when aircraft from six Japanese aircraft carriers lifted off from their flight decks to begin their journey to Pearl Harbor, thus launching America's entry into World War II.

She turned 91 in October.

The anniversary of the "date which shall live in infamy" often finds me in a pensive mood. I'm in the middle of reading a biography of Bill Halsey, which follows my reading of Chester Nimitz's biography by the same author (E.B. Potter). Pearl Harbor, of course, gets a mention in both books. The Pacific War is not an area I've read a lot about, I'm rectifying that. (One could say "it's about time" but that's a story for another day.)

I should also mention at this point that Halsey gets a bad rap. There's more to the man than some historians give him credit for, just wanted to put that out there.

So what's my point here?

Well, I suppose it's to point out that nearly every day is the anniversary of some event, great or small, that people remember in one way or another. For instance, six days ago, the 2nd of December, marked the 216th anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz. A pretty big deal, back in the day.

It was also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors as the emperors of France, Russia, and Austria were all present on the field. It is remembered as the Emperor Napoléon's greatest victory as the French were outnumbered and far from home. You can read more about it at the link under the following painting.

La bataille d'Austerlitz. 2 decembre 1805
François Gérard
(Source)

What about December 8th, you might ask, what happened on this date in history? Well, lots of things, most noteworthy (to me at any rate) is that this is the anniversary of the Battle of the Falkland Islands. No, not that one, this one, in 1914.

Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914
SMS Scharnhorst rolls over and sinks while SMS Gneisenau continues to fight.
William Lionel Wyllie
(Source)
Betcha didn't know that there was more than one battle in the Falklands², betcha didn't know that Gneisenau and Scharnhorst had more than one ship named after them³. (If you did know one or both of those things, well done! You know your history.


In other news ...

I put the Christmas candles in the windows at Chez Sarge the other day. Much to my chagrin, out of nine candles, only six had operable bulbs. As it was late, I scrounged and found a couple of little dinky bulbs to tide us over until the morn.

Upon the morn, down I went to the local food emporium, which does have odd bits of hardware for sale, like light bulbs, and purchased enough to replace the old bulbs. Good and bad, I was going for uniformity.

Much to my chagrin, I hadn't noticed that they were 40-watt bulbs. Shone like the surface of the sun they did, burned with the fires of Hell they did. So obviously that wouldn't do. Back to the emporium I went and got the next lower size, 25-watts.

No. Appreciable. Difference. (As to brightness and heat.)

So what did Your Humble Scribe do next? Well, I did what I should have done in the first place, I went to a hardware store (not a grocery store) and purchased 7-watt bulbs. Bright enough and they don't give off a lot of heat, a key thing for those, like me, who don't actually wish to burn their house down.

Brought 'em home, two packs of four each, grand total of six bucks spent. Proud of myself I was, happy I was ... (You know where this is going, right?)

Much to my chagrin, they were the wrong size bulb, the screwy thing you use to install the little light givers was much too large for my wee Christmas candles. So, once again, back to the store, which I had left not fifteen minutes before.

To the querying eye of the young lass behind the counter, I held up the wrong size bulbs ($6.00 for eight of 'em) then held up the correct size bulbs ($12.00 for six of 'em, damn me and my eye for the cheap).

She said, "Wrong size?"

Nodding, with much chagrin, I gave her the wrong bulbs, with receipt, and the new bulbs.

After a quick exchange, which included me rendering shekels for the difference in price, I was on my way once more.

Now Chez Sarge is properly equipped with bulbs for its Christmas candles in the windows and my domicile can no longer be seen from outer space. Which is, I suppose, a good thing.

So another momentous event shall go down in the annals of time for this date in history.

Antiquity it ain't, but it makes for a rather classy post title doesn't it?

(Or not, YMMV.)




¹ I consider the length of a generation to be roughly twenty years. Traditionally it's defined as the amount of time it takes for a child to be born, grow up, and have children of their own. Which, as you may well gather, can vary wildly depending on the historical period in question. These days you could almost define the length of a generation as closer to 30 to 35 years. The younger generations are having kids later and later in life, much to this amateur historian's concern.
² Or Islas Malvinas if'n you prefer.
³ Gneisenau had four, as did Scharnhorst, two of which were warships for each. One in WWI, one in WWII.

34 comments:

  1. Repeated trips to the hardware store: BT,DT.

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    1. Forgot to add: USS S-48 sank in Long Island Sound on 12/7/21 on a builder's trials test drive. The story of how they survived is almost movie-worthy.

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    2. CM #2 - A century ago! I would watch a film about that, fascinating tale!

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  2. Drachinifel is a good source for navy info:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQ9gv6ubck&ab_channel=Drachinifel

    up through WW II. He's a Brit, but has generally good overall knowledge.

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    1. Ah, another history channel on YouTube! Who needs regular TV! Thanks Mark!

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  3. Ahem..... six carriers Sarge.....

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    1. Argh! You're right, I was thinking of the ones sunk at Midway, we didn't get the other two until later in the war. (Fixed it.)

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  4. I should do that later today. We have new one (now several years old) that are LEDs. I suspect they'll outlast us.

    Our 0 - 0.5" snow forecast of yesterday dumped five or six inches on our driveway. With a layer of ice under it. This will not be fun.

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    1. Oh no!

      Five to six with ice on top, ankle killer snow, you walk on it, break through the crust, which then chops up your ankles. Don't like it, not at all!

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  5. I was wondering what all that extra light was coming from, making me squint. Can we call you Juliet now? ;) My family that served in WW2 are all gone. My old neighbor, Mr. Marvin, was in Patton's army for the end of the war and occupation. His younger brother is still around, too. He was in Korea. Mr. Perry. Good men. Both are getting on up there in age.

    Every day is an anniversary of something, no doubt. Tomorrow is the anniversary of a couple of immigrants coming to American through Ellis Island. I try and remember that every year. One was old Sam, a Chinese man that owned a laundry up in my neck of the woods. He came in behind a big Swede. When immigration asked his name the Swede said, "Yonnie Yohnson". When the Chinese man was asked his name he said "Sam Ting". And that's how Yonnie Yohnson's Chinese Laundry came to exist in my old home town.

    Lift a cup of tea to remember him tomorrow with me.

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  6. My building, now three years old, was built "green". The special light bulbs don't screw in. Rather, they have two pins you insert and twist. Need a replacement? Good luck, Lowes and Home Depot don't carry them. Amazon to the rescue. I don't want to talk about the cost as it hurts my cheapskate heart.

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    1. Built "green"? Not a good sign, ever.

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    2. What? It's made out of cob? (cow poop and straw, to be exact, with other things added, now that's GREEN!)

      Have a problem with green buildings. They're usually built so tight that they turn into perfect breeding grounds for all sorts of noroviruses and coronaviruses and other things like Legionaire's and such. Systems need some fudge room.

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    3. Bear in mind, "green" is a buzzword with no meaning in the modern world. Otherwise yeah, it would be built of cob.

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    4. (Don McCollor)..."green" is for the youngsters that have forgotten older methods. My (former) house in GF was built in 1936 - I know because the walls were insulated with newspapers from that year. About 3/4 inch of flat stacks of papers folded and nailed to the studs. (Fire? Ever try to burn a tight stack of paper?) Seemed to insulate as well as the new fancy stuff...

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  7. I was 33 when my daughter was born.
    She was thirty-three when her oldest was born.
    MB was nineteen when her oldest was born (only 25 for #3).
    That oldest has the potential for being a grandfather before he's 45.
    So, yeah, a generation isn't a constant.

    I've a friend in Cornwall who was a participant at the last Falklands battle.

    I think maybe our outside lights may go up today.

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  8. As usual, drama of one sort or another is delaying the decoration of the place. Sigh. What's life, without drama?

    Lots of anniversaries every day, as you said. A small one is coming in January 30th (Invasion of Kwajalein Island) but there are so many others, especially in the Pacific. And not one of them being taught in modern schools at all. Not even the ones from the Revolutionary War that formed this country.

    As to The Falklands, well, the Argies haven't been able to get their hands on them for over a century, so it sticks, right? Wasn't that one of the things behind founding the UN was that it froze all national borders (except for communist/socialist countries, of course)?

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    1. Freeze national borders? Might as well command the tide not to come in.

      Silly politicians.

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  9. It is odd how these things fade Sarge. Partially it is driven by the memory of those that were there or lived through it (at this point I think I have no living relatives that would remember the event), but also because the event itself comes to lose significance in a changed world. Austerlitz eventually meant nothing in Bismarck's Europe and the European Union, even as the shape of world alliances and the Pacific have come to change as well (Japan as close ally; who could have foreseen this in 1937?).

    The thing that we really should take away, the underlying principles and causes for how and why we got there, is what we should remember - and usually forget (see our current kerfuffle along the Ukraine/Russian Border for our most recent version thereof).

    I wish we remembered such days as the Battle of Thermopylae or the Fall of Constantinople, which although they did not impact our country directly, none the less had significant impacts on the world.

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    1. Most people are content to live their day to day lives without thinking of what went before, I have no problem with that. It's when the so-called world leaders ignore the past thinking that things will be different, "this time." They are invariably wrong, the current Ukraine-Russia thing concerns me.

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  10. The battle of the Falklands came after the battle of Coronel on the 1st of November 1914. Coronel was the first defeat of the RN since the battle of Lake Champlain in the war of 1812. Von Spee and his squadron were part of the German East Asia squadron. In reality it was a matter of 'if not when' they were caught and dealt with. Churchill described them as 'a cut flower in a vase, fair to see yet bound to die'. The decision by the RN Admiral Cradock to engage a superior force with his obsolescent armoured cruisers puzzles historians, one reason was that a contemporary of Cradock, Admiral Troubridge was awaiting court martial for failing to engage the enemy. Cradock felt that as the Admiralty had told him he had 'sufficient' forces he was duty and honour bound to offer battle. His ships were outgunned as their 6" casemate guns could not be used in rough seas and Scharnhorst and Gniesenau were 'crack' ships.
    The Falklands avenged Coronel, however the confidence of the British public in the RN had been severely dented by that time. The German Battle Cruiser Goeben had evaded the RN and made its way through the Dardanelles and three armoured cruisers (Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy) had been torpedoed with heavy loss of life off the Dutch coast in September 1914. This was in addition to the loss, by mining, of a dreadnought and a pre dreadnought to a magazine explosion.
    We forget history at our peril and we sometimes need to come to terms with facts that we may find unpalatable. For myself I try to look at multiple sources if that is possible, the other sides perspective is always useful.
    Retired






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    1. Very true, when a fact is unpalatable, it must be examined even more closely.

      SMS Goeben, now there's a story!

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  11. You're doing well, at least you're getting the lights up. I turned our Cafe lights into the multicolored Christmassy light display at the touch of a remote control button, but that's about the extent of it

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    1. Dang but I'm out of touch, I had to look up "Café lights." At least now I know what those are. (Wow, you can change the colors? Awesome!)

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  12. Designing lamp bases may be one of the things that occupy slow days in the engineering department.

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  13. Those candles for the windows tend to have " candleabra " bases to them. When my folks were alive, I was in charge of decorating their house. I would install 21 of those candles every year. One in each window, front ,sides, and back. Until the advent of LED bulbs, I bought the bulbs you bought, by the train car load.

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    1. Ah yes, that is the name for that type of base. I wanted to go LED, but couldn't find any that looked right. Not the shape, but the light emitted was weak as Hell. Didn't have that problem with the bigger LED bulbs, which work and look great.

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  14. The Ludovisi! Austerlitz! The Battle of the Falklands! And Christmas candles. This is a great post. And I'm with Beans, please, Lord, drive drama outta the business.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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