He Would Have Been 90 Today...

My favorite picture of my father.

He was born on the 6th of June, 1928...

This would have been his 90th birthday...

I think of you everyday Dad.

Every, single, day.

I miss you.

Happy Birthday Dad.

I will love you always.

I will never forget you.

Happy Birthday Dad.

I Cannot Imagine...

The 5th of June 1944, after standing down on the previous day, the airborne again moved to their C-47s, their gliders, again they kitted up. Checked each other over. Letters were written, some were the last letters those young men would ever write.

I cannot imagine the nervousness they felt, the anticipation. Some were combat veterans, many were not, would they cut it, how would they behave in battle? I marvel to this day at the bravery of those young men, some barely out of high school.

Young men boarded their aircraft, young Americans, young Brits, all bound for the areas behind the Normandy beaches. All ready to jump into the darkness, into the unknown. The men in their gliders, soon to slip quietly out of the night to seize Pegasus bridge.

Brave men, as ready as they would ever be to face the Hell of battle.

The 6th of June, 1944, off the wet, storm-tossed coast of Normandy, the men climbed down the cargo nets into their assigned landing craft. Pitching and rolling in the swell, they huddled together as the Navy and Coast Guard coxswains steered the small craft towards the beach.

Where the Germans waited, fingers on the triggers of their machine guns and rifles, waiting for the enemy to get closer.

Artillery fire churned the waters of the Channel, small geysers erupting where the first machine gun rounds sought the soft cargo inside the small steel boats. The men crouched, many shaking with sea sickness, and fear, the ever present fear of imminent combat, for only the insane do not fear battle.

The artillery began to find the range, turning landing craft into burning nightmares. The first bullets begin to ping off the steel, soon the ramps would drop and the troops would attempt to survive the Hell which waited for them.

Be forewarned, do not watch the following video if the sight of realistic combat bothers you. It is Hellish, it is realistic, not for the faint of heart. The first time I watched this movie, nearly nineteen years ago, in a theater filled with active duty military, the tension in the theater was palpable. As we left the theater, it was a very somber crowd.

I cannot imagine what those men faced seventy-four years ago on this day. Most of them are gone now, even those who were but seventeen on that day, having enlisted with their parents' permission (how many would have signed knowing what their sons would face) are now ninety-one. Their days are quickly coming to a close.

But once upon a time, they stormed Fortress Europe to end the Thousand Year Reich of Hitler's demented dreams. Americans, British, Canadians, French, Poles, and others all did their bit to topple the Nazi empire.

I cannot imagine what they went through, I cannot thank them enough.

Far too many paid the ultimate price and never came home.

I will never forget them.

Operation Juno

German Schlachtschiff KMS* Gneisenau firing her guns at HMS Glorious.
(Photo taken from Gneisenau's sister ship, KMS Scharnhorst.)
(Source)

For my first battle post for the month of June, I could have gone with the obvious, the Battle of Midway but I thought I would go with a perhaps lesser known battle which took place off the coast of Norway in June of 1940. A battle in which a British aircraft carrier was sent to the bottom by a pair of German surface ships.

The loss of HMS Glorious was the only occasion in history where a fleet carrier was engaged and destroyed by enemy surface units. (At Leyte Gulf, Japanese surface units sank an American light carrier and two escort carriers. American surface units sent a Japanese light carrier to Davy Jones' locker in return. Different by degree perhaps, not so different to the crew lost on those ships!)

In the early days of World War II in Europe, Germany was running amok. Poland had been overrun (with help from our later "buddies" the Soviets) in September of 1939. Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg had been dispatched before June of 1940. France was on the brink of surrender in early June.

The Norwegian campaign began in April of 1940, the Germans were concerned about the British interfering with shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which traveled by sea down the coast of Norway. The British were concerned with the Germans using the territorial waters of neutral Norway for military purposes. Both sides decided to invade, Hitler moved first.

The fight in Norway was tough, the Norwegians fought hard, it took the Germans two months to defeat them. The help provided by the British and the French was not really intended to benefit Norway, it was intended to benefit Britain and France.

While the Germans were defeating the Norwegians in main actions in the south, the Western Allies occupied the port of Narvik, in the far north of Norway, from which port Swedish ore was shipped to Germany. Long story short, due to the disasters being suffered by Britain and France after the Wehrmacht drove from the Ardennes to the Channel, the decision was made by Britain and France to withdraw from Norway. If their home countries fell, there was no point to holding onto Narvik.

In naval terms the campaign was a disaster for the German Kriegsmarine -

The German losses at sea were heavy, with the sinking of one of the Kriegsmarine's two heavy cruisers, two of its six light cruisers, 10 of its 20 destroyers and six U-boats. With several more ships severely damaged, the German surface fleet had only three cruisers and four destroyers operational in the aftermath of the Norwegian Campaign. Two torpedo boats and 15 light naval units were also lost during the campaign. Two German battleships and two cruisers were damaged during the campaign. (Source)

But on the 8th of June HMS Glorious, escorted by destroyers HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent, were spotted by German Schlachtshiffe KMS Scharnhorst and KMS Gneisenau.

The commanding officer of Glorious, Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, was a former submariner who had been executive officer of Courageous for 10 months. He was granted permission to proceed independently to Scapa Flow in the early hours of 8 June to hold a court-martial of his Commander (Air), J. B. Heath, who had refused an order to carry out an attack on shore targets on the grounds that the targets were at best ill-defined and his aircraft were unsuited to the task, and who had been left behind in Scapa to await trial. On the way through the Norwegian Sea the funnel smoke from Glorious and her two escorting destroyers, Acasta and Ardent, was spotted by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at about 15:46 pm. The British spotted the German ships shortly after 16:00 and Ardent was dispatched to investigate. Glorious did not alter course or increase speed. Five Swordfish were ordered to the flight deck and Action Stations were ordered 16:20. No combat air patrol was being flown, no aircraft were ready on the deck for quick take-off and there was no lookout in Glorious's crow's nest. Scharnhorst opened fire on Ardent at 16:27 at a range of 16,000 yards (15,000 m), causing the destroyer to withdraw, firing torpedoes and making a smoke screen. Ardent scored one hit with her 4.7-inch guns on Scharnhorst but was hit several times by the German ships' secondary armament and sank at 17:25.

Scharnhorst switched her fire to Glorious at 16:32 and scored her first hit six minutes later on her third salvo, at a range of 26,000 yards (24,000 m), when one 28.3-centimetre (11.1 in) hit the forward flight deck and burst in the upper hangar, starting a large fire. This hit destroyed two Swordfish being prepared for flight and the hole in the flight deck prevented any other aircraft from taking off. Splinters penetrated a boiler casing and caused a temporary drop in steam pressure. At 16:58 a second shell hit the homing beacon above the bridge and killed or wounded the captain and most of the personnel stationed there. Ardent's smokescreen became effective enough to impair the visibility of the Germans from about 16:58 to 17:20 so they ceased fire on Glorious.

Glorious was hit again in the centre engine room at 17:20 and this caused her to lose speed and commence a slow circle to port. She also developed a list to starboard. The German ships closed to within 16,000 yards and continued to fire at her until 17:40. Glorious sank at 18:10, approximately at 68°38′N 03°50′E, with 43 survivors.

As the German ships approached Glorious, Acasta, which had been trying to maintain the smokescreen, broke through her own smoke and fired two volleys of torpedoes at Scharnhorst. One of these hit the battleship at 17:34 abreast her rear turret and badly damaged her. Acasta also managed one hit from her 4.7-inch guns on Scharnhorst, but was riddled by German gunfire and sank at around 18:20.

Survivors estimated that about 900 men abandoned Glorious. The Germans did not try to pick up survivors. The Royal Navy knew nothing of the sinking until it was announced on German radio. The Norwegian ship Borgund, on passage to the Faroe Islands, arrived late on 10 June and picked up survivors, eventually delivering 37 alive to Thorshavn of whom two later died. Another Norwegian ship, Svalbard II, also making for the Faeroes, picked up five survivors but was sighted by a German aircraft and forced to return to Norway, where the four still alive became prisoners of war for the next five years. It is also believed that one more survivor from Glorious was rescued by a German seaplane. Therefore, the total of survivors was 40, including one each from Acasta and Ardent. The total killed or missing was 1,207 from Glorious, 160 from Acasta and 152 from Ardent, a total of 1,519.

The sinkings and the failure to mount an effective rescue were embarrassing for the Royal Navy. All ships encountering enemies had been ordered to broadcast a sighting report, and the lack of such a report from Glorious was questioned in the House of Commons. It emerged that the heavy cruiser Devonshire had passed within 30–50 miles (48–80 km) of the battle, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral John Cunningham, who was carrying out orders to evacuate the Norwegian Royal Family to the UK and maintain radio silence. Some survivors from Glorious and Devonshire testified that a sighting report had been correctly sent, and received by Devonshire, but that it had been suppressed by Cunningham, who departed at high speed in accordance with his orders. It was also alleged that there was confusion over the use of wireless telegraphy frequencies on board Glorious which could have contributed to the failure of any other ship or shore-station to receive a sighting report. The absence of normal airborne patrols over Glorious and its destroyers, in conditions of maximum visibility, were named as contributors to the sinkings.

The circumstances of the sinking were the subject of a debate in the House of Commons on 28 January 1999. (Source)

The last photo of HMS Glorious.
(Photographed in May 1940 from the deck of HMS Ark Royal; the destroyer with her is HMS Diana.)
(Source)

As I read that account (and others at the sources listed below) I was struck by the following:

1. Glorious's captain was a submariner.
2. Glorious's CAG (which is what the USN calls that position, Commander Air Group) wasn't aboard but was awaiting court-martial back at home base for refusing a mission that he felt was beyond the capabilities of the aircraft embarked on Glorious.
3. All three British ships were apparently making far too much smoke, perhaps due to overconfidence?
4. Glorious, once spotted, made no speed or course changes, no combat air patrol was aloft.
5. Scharnhorst hit Glorious on her third salvo which started a fire on the hangar deck and holed the flight deck removing any chance for Glorious to get her aircraft in the air.
6. Subsequent hits left Glorious losing speed and apparently out of control as she was circling slowly to port.
7. HMS Acasta did manage to severely damage Scharnhorst before being destroyed by German gunfire.
8. Although approximately 900 men managed to get off Glorious, only 40 actually survived and two of those were from the escorting destroyers. The Royal Navy learned of the sinking from German radio broadcasts.

Harsh lessons were learned that day, the sea is good at teaching those sorts of lessons.

Operation Juno was originally planned for late May and was intended to disrupt the flow of Allied reinforcements to Norway. In reality, the Allies were already planning on (and were in the midst of) evacuating Norway. With France falling and Britain in peril, fighting men could not be spared for a secondary theater.

Not that it means much, but I have run through this very scenario in the computer game Atlantic Fleet. I managed to escape the Germans with "only" the loss of HMS Ardent. The key was an ancient stratagem called "Run away, run away!"

HMS Glorious was damaged but made her escape through nothing more fancy than hightailing it from the Germans as fast as the engines could drive the hull through the water. That and making copious amounts of smoke to confuse the German gunners. By having the two destroyers weave back and forth across Glorious' wake, I managed to save two ships out of three. One being the carrier.

But that was a computer game, turn based as well. In real life things are seldom that simple. As the brave crews of HMS Glorious, HMS Ardent, and HMS Acasta learned, most paying with their lives.

The Final Resting Place of HMS Glorious
Google Maps

For what it's worth, some sources (Ovid for one) say that the month of June is named for the ancient Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter. So the first battle post for June is about an operation named after a Roman goddess who may (or may not) be the origin of the month name, June. I never argue with poets.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Campaign
https://codenames.info/operation/juno-i/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Juno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glorious

* Schlachtshiff (plural Schlachtshiffe) is the German word for battleship. KMS stands for Kriegsmarine Schiff, Kriegsmarine was the name for the German Navy in WWII and Schiff is the German for ship. In WWI German ships were designated much like the Royal Navy's. SMS = Seine Majestäts Schiff, His Majesty's Ship (which is of course HMS in the Royal Navy).

Summertime!

Well.....

Guess we've got to start with a little music.

Or we would have if the blasted IT department would not block the tool which allows the embedding of YouTube videos.  Oh wait...

In any case, picture if you will, the early 70's a singer with long black hair, makeup and a top hat, singing what was every school child's anthem at the time.

Uhh, juvat?  Check your switches.

Dagnabbit!

School's out for Summer!

You know you've got that stuck in your mind now doncha?

So...juvat why are you writing this from your office in the IT department of the school district on Sunday.  Wasn't graduation Friday night?  Isn't School our for Summah!  (just in case the echos inside your head were dying out).

Yes to Friday night, Yes to Summah!  But evidently our internet provider at home decided to check one more time to see if a back hoe beats fiber optic cable.

Every.

Single.

Time!

In any case, yes, tomorrow is the first day of the summer vacation.

For Teachers and students.

Not for mere mortal IT guys.  Especially those who just put in a PO for $1.5M in new technology for the district. New computers and laptops.  Replace all the wireless access points.  Replace all the projectors with better ones connecting to touch screens.  Moving the website to a new site using different coding.  Moving our Student Data to a different database (that's actually being handled by our Service Center, but when they finish, I get to rewrite the code that gets the data and formats it such that it can be used by us.)

Plus the normal routine we go through every summer.

Oh...The department has 6 folks total.

So we're going to be "Balls to the wall" until October.  (Before anyone gets the vapors, "Balls to the wall" was a flying term from back in aviation's propeller age.  The throttles had rounded knobs on the top of them so you could find them by feel.  Pushing them all the way forward to the instrument panel was pushing the Balls to the wall. Now don't you feel better?)

Source

But since we seem to be in a heavy metal mood today,  (and to prove I DO know how to upload a video without on call ground maintenance support), here's another take on the phrase.

I don't remember having ever heard that one.

Catchy tune, but I don't think I can dance to it.  Course I can't dance to much.

Which reminds me, less than 6 weeks to the Wedding.  I've got to sign up for Dance Lessons.  I don't want to trip, fall and drag my daughter down with me in our dance.

Hope they can control the dust during the dance. Probably not.

As I said it's going to be a busy summer.

When October rolls around, Mrs J and I will be taking a cruise with our wine maker friends.  I may sleep through the whole thing. 

Except for a scheduled meet up with a friend.

June

The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17,1775 - John Trumbull
(Source)

June is a month within which a number of significant battles were fought. Midway, Bunker Hill, Monmouth Courthouse, Normandy, Ligny, Quatre-Bras, and Waterloo. To name but a few.

Expect a number of battle posts this month. Also if you chase that link under the painting, there is an annotated version of the painting (kind of like 18th Century Facebook) which identifies some of the men Mr. Trumbull included in the painting.

I'm feeling a bit lazy this Saturday night (as I write this, Sunday - or later - as you read it) as I spent some time war gaming today on the old computer. I have played face to face with other humans where I have a rather abysmal record as a commander. The Missus Herself beats me every damn time. The woman has a knack for selecting just the right time to send in her reserve.

She's also simply wicked with a pair of dice. I need a seven, I roll a three. She needs a three, she rolls a damn three. But like Juvat always says (and the Emperor Napoléon would concur), it's often better to be lucky than good.

Anyhoo, I ran across this video which a fellow made of a game reenactment of the Battle of Bunker Hill. (I know, I know, it was actually fought on Breed's Hill, did you know that the battle of Waterloo was not actually fought at Waterloo? Nearby, but not there. Wellington named the battle for where his headquarters was situated and he also figured that English speakers would find Waterloo easier to pronounce than Mont-St-Jean.)

The video is longish but I found it entertaining. Especially when you consider the depth of realism which even inexpensive computers are now capable of. Things we couldn't dream of back in the early 60s when I started wargaming.

Anyhoo. Enjoy. (I really am a geek when it comes to wargames.)

Tanks in Mexico and Famous People I May or May Not Look Like

M3 Stuart, as seen by STxAR, down Mexico way.
(Source)

So occasional reader and commenter STxAR says that he almost wandered onto a military facility during his travels for work, following directions written on a napkin apparently, and spots this old Stuart tank perched on a pedestal. Well, I read that while at work and figured that I would go off and attempt to find that tank using Google Maps (satellite view) by quartering the town of Reynosa in old Mexico when I got home.

I mean, I shouldn't be using my employer's time to research such things. Not proper and all. Well, a bit later on I check into the comments, which I do periodically, time permitting, and there is a comment from occasional reader and commenter Flugelman. With the latitude and longitude of the aforementioned ancient and honorable M3 Stuart, American made and who's last owner was the Mexican Army.

Mission accomplished. Once again our readers get the job done. I'd make y'all members of the yet to be created Département de Recherche du Chant du Départ, (French blog title so all of the departments have French names as well, stands to reason I suppose as I'm always putting on airs with regards to foreign tongues) but then the head of the Département des Pilotes de Chasse Retraités, i.e. Juvat, would no doubt commence to hollering about "where's my paycheck" and wondering what happened to PLQ's Premier Commentaire Trophée. Not insinuating that my man Juvat is given to muttering in the ranks and playing the old soldier, no sir. Not saying that at all.

On the other hand, our correspondent out California way, the head of the Département des Affaires de la Côte Ouest, i.e. Tuna (鮪), though a very laid back fellow (never having had to do time in the Pentagon) might start wondering where all the vast rewards, benefits, and glory of a blogger's life that I mentioned might could be in the offing would perhaps begin.

Soon Tuna, soon. Trust me. (Yes, Juvat the check is "in the mail." No, I don't know why that last bit is in quotes, no idea at all. Copy/paste error mebbe? Typo?)

Anyhoo.

I suppose LUSH and Beans want titles as well. I guess LUSH would be the Chef des petites têtes de merde inconscientes. Which is essentially her spelled out callsign with "Chief of" inserted at the front. All of which is in French. Hey, I don't make the rules, oh wait, yes, I do. (Note: For those wondering how LUSH got her callsign, read all about it here, the official authorized tale of how that callsign came to be.)

Now for Beans I though I might bestow upon him the title Le Chef des Haricots, which Google Translate gets all confused about, thinking that our man Beans might be The Chant's "bean chef." Now I happen to know that chef has at least two meanings in French, one is, yes, chef as in one who cooks fancy meals, the other means chief as in the person what be in charge of something, battalion commander, for instance, en français, is chef de bataillon. And that ain't the fellow what prepares chow for the troops. Not at all.

Besides which, though he is the FNG, the equivalent term for that in French is even more crude than the English one, which I will leave as an exercise for the reader. So for the nonce, Beans' official title in the hierarchy of the Chant du Départ is Le Chef des Haricots. Sounds kinda cool in French doesn't it?

In other news...

Seems the other day Big Time and The WSO (LUSH's name when she's not, theoretically, writing for the blog, or flying for the Navy) were watching this movie à la télévision (okay, I'll stop now, even I get tired of French, eventually) when Senior Granddaughter wanders into the TV viewing area at Chez Big Time et Le WSO...

Upon seeing Gene Hackman as the C.O. of the USS Alabama (SSBN-731), she immediately proclaimed, "Hey, that guy looks just like Grampa!"

Now this all occurred at or around 2100 hours California time, which is midnight Little Rhody time. At that time my text message chime sounded on my phone. Bleary-eyed, wondering "just who the Hell is texting me at this godforsaken hour" I checked the phone, the message was from Big Time, chief son-in-law, Navy department head, naval aviator extraordinaire, and father of both the Senior and Junior Granddaughters. Message was:

 Alexandra thinks you look like Gene Hackman in Crimson Tide.

Gave me a chuckle it did, had trouble going back to sleep thinking about it, I mean I  was once mistaken for French actor Alain Delon (by an extremely drunk Korean dude in downtown Kunsan in the middle of the afternoon) so I am not unfamiliar with being mistaken for some famous guy.

Yeah, that guy had to have been blasted out of his mind, where are my glasses, drunk.

But the next morning, The WSO had taken to Facebook to pose the question...

Watching Crimson Tide and Alex commented on how much my Dad looks like Gene Hackman...what do you think Chris Goodrich?

Hhmm, maybe a little. I look a lot more like Gene Hackman than I do Alain Delon, but hey, what do I know?

And yes, Your Mileage May Vary (quite a bit I daresay).

One last note, the scene from Crimson Tide is in no, way, shape, or form, similar to the conversations Juvat and I have had in regards to his alleged lack of a salary. And no, I have never, ever accused Juvat of mutiny. The WSO yes, numerous times.

Yes, I think I could use more sleep. Why do you ask?

From Kentucky to Bataan

Veteran's Park, Harrodsburg, KY
Google Street View

From Harrodsburg, Kentucky (population 4,673 in 1940) to Clark Air Base, near Angeles City in the Republic of the Philippines, is roughly 8,420 miles. In these modern times it takes less than a day (24 hours) to get from Harrodsburg to Clark. In 1941, it took substantially longer. Especially if we're talking about shipping a battalion of M3 Stuart tanks with all of its organic equipment and personnel.

Alert reader Bill spotted that Sherman in the opening photo whilst traveling from Virginia to Minnesota. As a Chant reader, I'm not surprised he did a "Wow! Is that a tank?" pullover and visit. I mean, I do that all the time. (Fortunately there aren't a lot of tanks on display here in Little Rhody, otherwise I would be a major hazard to navigation!) As a long term lurker in these parts, he knew instinctively that the Old AF Sarge would be keen to know the story. So, a couple of emails later, a bit of research and voilà, you get a post for what my buddy Dwight likes to call, "History Friday."

If you look closely in that first photo, over to the right, there's what looks like a plaque, and it is. Bill got a picture for us...


Harrodsburg is the county seat for Mercer County, it's a pretty old town, being one of three settlements in the Kentucky area back when the Revolution started. The Kentucky National Guard has quite a history and a pretty nice website describing that history here. If you dig a little deeper, you'll come across the page, The Harrodsburg Tankers.

These men were called to Federal service as the war clouds continued to gather in the Pacific (war was already raging in Europe) and went from being the 38th Tank Company of the Kentucky Army National Guard to being Company D of the 192nd Light Tank Battalion, being equipped with this little feller -

M3 Stuart Tank
(Source)

Incidentally the Harrodsburg Tankers site mentions the 38th being equipped at one point with the "M 2 T 2" tank, or "Mae West" as the troops called it. I do believe what they meant was the M2A2 tank, which had twin turrets, each mounting a .50 caliber machine gun. And in typical design fashion, each turret blocked the field of fire of the other in certain directions. So you could shoot in two different directions but couldn't bring both guns to bear out to either flank. Interesting, not exactly a flaw, but not exactly a feature either.

M2A2 Light Tank
(Source)

Now I had never heard of that beastie before, by December of 1941 the M2A2 and it's sisters (M2A1 and M2A3) were only used in training. The M3 Stuart equipped the 192nd when it was shipped out to the Philippines in September of 1941. Just in time for the attack by Japan less than three months later.

The 192nd was the first American armored unit to fight enemy armor in World War II, clashing with Japanese armor near Lingayen Gulf on the island of Luzon, Wikipedia has a pretty good account of the action -

On 21 December 1941, the 192nd Tank Battalion, under the command of Major Theodore F. Wickord, was ordered to move north. Major Wickord sent Company B, commanded by Captain Donald Hanes, ahead, most likely as an advanced guard. During B company's advance, they had planned to refuel their gasoline powered M3's at Gerona and then again at Bauang. However, upon reaching Gerona, no fuel was available, and word reached Captain Hanes that the enemy was fast approaching Bauang.

The US Army's last official US Horse Cavalry to see combat was the US 26th Cavalry (Horse) (Philippine Scouts) in 1942. The 26th Cavalry had just recently been under enemy aerial attack, and was operating in the area currently being traversed by B company tanks. General Wainwright, commander of US/allied forces in the Philippines during its final period, received reports that the town of Damortis was fast being approached by mechanized elements of the Japanese Army; and he ordered Captain Hanes to engage them.

Since Hanes had not been able to re-fuel at Gerona, his Stuarts were nearly out of gas, so he had to consolidate the fuel from the whole company in order to "top-off" just one platoon of five light tanks. Hanes ordered the tank platoon, led by LT Ben R. Morin, to move north from the town of Damortis, where here on 22 December 1941, the platoon of M3 Stuarts ran into Japanese Type 95 light tanks from the Imperial Japanese Army 4th Tank Regiment. In this, the first American tanks manned by US tank crewmen to engage enemy tanks during World War II, the M3's of the 192nd Tank Battalion went up against the equally armed Type 95 light tank, which were armed with the 37mm cannon, but were equipped with diesel engines. The Type 95 light tank had been at the forefront of tank technology when it was fielded in 1935.

In the tank to tank battle that ensued, the lead 192nd tank immediately left the road to maneuver, but was instantly hit and caught fire. The remaining four Stuarts also received hits, but withdrew from the field, only to be destroyed by enemy aircraft later on. Lieutenant Morin was wounded, and he along with his crew were captured.

Both the 192nd and the 194th Tank Battalions continued to skirmish with the 4th Tank Regiment, as they retreated towards Bataan. But tank losses during the fighting required the re-organization of some of the units. Consequently, tank companies were re-organized into 10 tank companies with 3 tank platoons, and 1 tank for the company commander. During the remaining struggle for Bataan, the two Tank Battalions tried to defend the beaches, the airfield, and provided support for the infantry, until 8 April 1942, when the 192nd and 194th received orders to prepare to destroy their M3s, upon receiving the code word. The code word "Crash" was transmitted, and the US Army/allies on Bataan surrendered on 9 April 1942. (Source)

Type 95 Ha-Gō Japanese Tank
(Source)

You can read more about the exploits of the 192nd here. Seems those brave Kentuckians fought all the way to Bataan and the entire outfit, those who survived, went into Japanese captivity. They paid a heavy price for their service, according to this site, of the 596 members of the 192nd Light Tank Battalion, including Company D, The Harrodsburg Tankers, 325 paid the last full measure of devotion. The plaque above lists those from Company D who perished.

There's a little town in Kentucky which remembers the men they sent forth to do battle, and the ones who didn't return. They remember, so should we.

Thanks Bill for sharing this story and the photos.

Again, I learn from my readers...



Note: There's a name on the top left of that plaque which gave me pause. Caught my breath when I noticed it. Harry Riker LaFon, Jr. Then I noticed the difference in spelling, still, you have to wonder.