A good article by my favorite Aviation Writer. I do believe many on here can relate to this I know I do. ENJOY
What follows are remembrances from growing up in a small town in the immediate postwar era. I'm also tossing in an assemblage of facts I've accumulated from a lifetime of journalist endeavors that have often had a vintage military slant.
Thanks for reading Budd Davisson: Thinking Out Loud.
As close as I've always been to the events of June 6, I have yet to get my head around what it must have been like to be a 19-year-old in a LCVP invasion landing craft bouncing around in the Normandy surf. He had been hunkering down behind the armored bow ramp but the instant it was dropped he was exposed to the most concentrated machine gun and artillery fire of the war. He saw the expanse of water between him and the beach and knew he was totally exposed. But he jumped in anyway. What was his brain doing as he waded around the bodies, fought the surf, ignored the blood and the little splashes around him indicating rounds that had missed him? Would one find him? There is no accurate way we can imagine his thoughts. And as much as we honor the vets today, we can't possibly repay what they endured that day and the months that followed.
Every male in their 30s who surrounded me, while I was growing up, were involved in the War in some way. I knew a half-dozen combat pilots, which seems like a big number in a town of 4,000 people. However, I was only aware of three young men who had been in the infantry. Looking back, I know there had to be many times that number. However, with the exception of my science teacher, who had flown Mustangs in the 354thFight Group, not once did I ever hear anyone talking about the war. Not once! It was a shared experience that apparently, they didn't feel others would care about. Or they didn't want to relive it.
Although the price paid was enormous and is impossible to justify, Germany and Japan are responsible for making America a dominant force and the nation that it is. We united and rose to the challenge, the result being a massive spurt forward in almost every cultural, economic and technological area.
Here are some interesting facts. I've mentioned some of these numbers in the past but today, June 6, I think they bear repeating.
Prior to Pearl Harbor, war was known to be inevitable plus we were producing materials for Britain. So, our industrial base wasn't caught totally flat footed, however, it definitely wasn't on war footing. Pearl Harbor kicked everything into a production frenzy that is difficult to totally appreciate. It would be impossible to duplicate today, even though our population is two and a half times what it was then; 330 million versus 133 million.
December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked. December 8 we're at war. At that time the concept of amphibious warfare, invading an enemy beach or island, didn't exist. Nine months to the day later, August 7, 1942, Marines waded ashore at Guadalcanal. During those nine months we perfected the concept of amphibious warfare, invented and built the landing craft, built the ships to carry the landing craft, trained the men, built everything from belt buckles to fighters and shipped everything, including the gas and the food to wage war, to the South Pacific. NINE MONTHS!
What's more, we did exactly the same thing three months later in Operation Torch when we invaded North Africa.
We did all of this without e-mail. Only telegraph and that was iffy. We built a gazillion of everything, and every lathe and mill cut was handset! No CNC or computers. It is simply amazing!
In round numbers, we produced 300,000 airplanes. December 7, 1941 to September 2, when the Japanese surrender was signed is 46 months. Airplanes were in limited production prior to Pearl so the following number isn't exact but is still something to consider: 217 airplanes A DAY!!!
We had one other huge advantage which was pointed out in a short, 1946 interview being conducted with several German generals. I've only seen it once. One General/Field Marshal said they had carefully calculated America's maximum possible output based on the number of men we had, how many would be in combat and how many would be in production. His final comment says a lot in terms of how much America changed because of WW II. He said, "We never considered the possibility that women would be put on production lines."
A more important question would be "If so many young men hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice 80 years ago today, would Europe and the world be free?" Think of Europe and probably Britain, being run by Hitler's new-generation storm troopers. Think the US not being able to turn its ole attention to the Pacific and Tojo's thugs were running the Orient!
Given the current state of both hemispheres it's hard to guess what the eventual outcome of a failure at Normandy would have been. But it would certainly be worse than it is today.
Probably anyway…
bd
Thanks for reading Budd Davisson: Thinking Out
What follows are remembrances from growing up in a small town in the immediate postwar era. I'm also tossing in an assemblage of facts I've accumulated from a lifetime of journalist endeavors that have often had a vintage military slant.
Thanks for reading Budd Davisson: Thinking Out Loud.
As close as I've always been to the events of June 6, I have yet to get my head around what it must have been like to be a 19-year-old in a LCVP invasion landing craft bouncing around in the Normandy surf. He had been hunkering down behind the armored bow ramp but the instant it was dropped he was exposed to the most concentrated machine gun and artillery fire of the war. He saw the expanse of water between him and the beach and knew he was totally exposed. But he jumped in anyway. What was his brain doing as he waded around the bodies, fought the surf, ignored the blood and the little splashes around him indicating rounds that had missed him? Would one find him? There is no accurate way we can imagine his thoughts. And as much as we honor the vets today, we can't possibly repay what they endured that day and the months that followed.
 |
You're 19, the ramp drops and, being a country boy, you're a hunter and you know a sitting duck when you see one. How do you deal with that kind of thought?
Every male in their 30s who surrounded me, while I was growing up, were involved in the War in some way. I knew a half-dozen combat pilots, which seems like a big number in a town of 4,000 people. However, I was only aware of three young men who had been in the infantry. Looking back, I know there had to be many times that number. However, with the exception of my science teacher, who had flown Mustangs in the 354thFight Group, not once did I ever hear anyone talking about the war. Not once! It was a shared experience that apparently, they didn't feel others would care about. Or they didn't want to relive it.
Although the price paid was enormous and is impossible to justify, Germany and Japan are responsible for making America a dominant force and the nation that it is. We united and rose to the challenge, the result being a massive spurt forward in almost every cultural, economic and technological area.
Here are some interesting facts. I've mentioned some of these numbers in the past but today, June 6, I think they bear repeating.
Prior to Pearl Harbor, war was known to be inevitable plus we were producing materials for Britain. So, our industrial base wasn't caught totally flat footed, however, it definitely wasn't on war footing. Pearl Harbor kicked everything into a production frenzy that is difficult to totally appreciate. It would be impossible to duplicate today, even though our population is two and a half times what it was then; 330 million versus 133 million.
December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked. December 8 we're at war. At that time the concept of amphibious warfare, invading an enemy beach or island, didn't exist. Nine months to the day later, August 7, 1942, Marines waded ashore at Guadalcanal. During those nine months we perfected the concept of amphibious warfare, invented and built the landing craft, built the ships to carry the landing craft, trained the men, built everything from belt buckles to fighters and shipped everything, including the gas and the food to wage war, to the South Pacific. NINE MONTHS!
What's more, we did exactly the same thing three months later in Operation Torch when we invaded North Africa.
We did all of this without e-mail. Only telegraph and that was iffy. We built a gazillion of everything, and every lathe and mill cut was handset! No CNC or computers. It is simply amazing!
In round numbers, we produced 300,000 airplanes. December 7, 1941 to September 2, when the Japanese surrender was signed is 46 months. Airplanes were in limited production prior to Pearl so the following number isn't exact but is still something to consider: 217 airplanes A DAY!!!
 |
No country in the world could gear up to the production levels the US did in such a short time. Amazing what we can do when we put our minds to it and stop bickering.
The Sherman M4 tank was our first modern medium tank and a major factor for us during all of WW II. Even though it didn't go into production until three months after Pearl Harbor 49,324 Shermans were built which is roughly 45/day during the war. That's more than all other combatants produced combined. It was far from the best tank, but it outnumbered its enemies by a huge margin, was cheap to build, was very reliable and relatively fast. |
We cranked out 45 of these puppies a day for three years. 49,000+! The firstest with the mostest!
We had several advantages, when it came to production. For one thing we weren't being bombed on a daily basis, as England was. For another, we had Henry Ford and his 1910 Model T production methods. |
Henry's production line concept was the backbone of the US's gigantic output.
An example: The Brits came to Ford to have them produce the Merlin V-12 engine (Spitfire, etc.) for them. Ford didn't want to get involved so Rolls-Royce went to Packard. Packard reviewed the drawings and production lines and told RR they couldn't produce it as crudely as RR did. RR got understandably incensed. Packard asked them how many Merlins they had produced in the five years they been producing it, and it was less than 7,000. They then told RR that Packard had built 91,000 engines in just the prior year. It turns out Model T production methods, a moving production line based on one-man-one-part, were foreign to RR and Europe in general. RR used the "craftsman" stationary approach, one-man-one engine. RR converted their production lines to Model T concepts and began using Merlins for everything but pencil sharpeners and the Packard-built Merlin made the Mustang the legend it became.We had one other huge advantage which was pointed out in a short, 1946 interview being conducted with several German generals. I've only seen it once. One General/Field Marshal said they had carefully calculated America's maximum possible output based on the number of men we had, how many would be in combat and how many would be in production. His final comment says a lot in terms of how much America changed because of WW II. He said, "We never considered the possibility that women would be put on production lines."
 |
Aha, Adolf! You don't screw with the American girl. Gotcha!
That one change in our culture determined a new future for America. Would it have happened without the abrupt interruption of a war? Maybe, but not nearly so quickly.A more important question would be "If so many young men hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice 80 years ago today, would Europe and the world be free?" Think of Europe and probably Britain, being run by Hitler's new-generation storm troopers. Think the US not being able to turn its ole attention to the Pacific and Tojo's thugs were running the Orient!
Given the current state of both hemispheres it's hard to guess what the eventual outcome of a failure at Normandy would have been. But it would certainly be worse than it is today.
Probably anyway…
bd
Thanks for reading Budd Davisson: Thinking Out
