(USS South Dakota, (BB-57) in war colors as Flagship of the Pacific Fleet Commander, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. Official Navy Photo). The bill was paid, and people were starting to drift out of the bar area and over to the restaurant side of Willow. It is Restaurant Week, after all, and the prie fixe menu […]

Gentle Readers,   This has been a wild ride through my distinguished colleague Mac’s experiences in World War Two- not as one of the millions who served, for the tens of thousands who died- but as someone very close to the central mystery of “why” and “how” the great victory was won.   Nearly everyone […]

(The remains of Rex Barber’s P-38 Miss Virginia after crash-landing at Henderson Field.)   The Air Corps had a requirement for long-range escort of the bomber force in Europe, and had produced the remarkable P-38 Lightning, a twin-boomed long-legged two engine fighter that the pilots of the Luftwaffe called “Der Gabelschwanz Teufel,” or The Forked-Tail […]

(Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, 1942, photo wiki commons via ?????) Jim filled my wineglass to the precise point in the Tulip where the air could mingle sufficiently with the ambient air to produce a delightful aroma while not encouraging the alcohol to evaporate. I was getting to the point that I did not care, pleasantly warm […]

(Kawanishi H8K Emily lifting off. Official US Navy picture). “The Japanese decided to mount a follow-on attack against the shipyard at Pearl to destroy the big Ten-Ten Dry-dock. That would delay the repairs to the battleships, and increase the paranoia on the island. They envisioned an attack by five big Kawanishi H8K “Emily” class flying […]

(JICPOA Building 1943, left. Mac says the Quonsett to the right actually held mostly blank punch cards for the IBM machines and reams of onion skin and teletype paper the command went through. Mac’s car is the four-door 1936 Ford (body) at this end of the row parked along the Quonset Hut.  He says “body” […]

(Willow Miniature fish and Chips from the Neighborhood Bar Menu, with Mac’s Collossal Olive. Photo by Droid Smart Phone via Socotra) There were a ton of people from the Company at Willow. They clogged the passage past the near end of the bar.   They were not my division, so I didn’t know any of […]

Last night the Ornamental Concrete Workers International Executive Committee members were having a ball on Tony’s patio, a testosterone fueled back-slapping raucous affair that used to be much more common than of late, as some of the hormonal levels have fallen.   Time was there would be howling long into the night like a pack […]

(1970 AMX in Cherry Red) AMC products, in my mind, come in three versions. The Hoosiers prefer the Javelin and AMC vintage muscle cars, which salvaged a little of my teen-age pride. They were pretty cars, maybe not world class, but along with the Scrambler (developed by some loons at the Kenosha factory to go […]

(The American Inn in Sturgis, MI, “Gateway to Michigan). In Sturgis, Michigan, and no time to elaborate. The Bill Socotra Rambler Rally of the Hoosier AMC Club is today, just a few miles down the road in Shipshewana, IN. Weather good; much cooler than DC. His birthday is tomorrow, his 87th. He won’t be here, […]