(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, […]

(The Famous Bluesmobile. Photo Socotra)   My apologies in advance; it is the anniversary of The Bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, which fits loosely into my disjointed narrative of the Pacific War.   If you did not get it  by now, I am pretty sure that the monstrous imposition of hyper-technology and the deaths of […]

(Military Doctrine of “Shit Happens” from Joint Pub 1)   Preparations for offensive operations against Japan had been in place since the days of Plan Orange; there is nothing our military has learned how to do better than plan. Mac was part of all that, of course, and I have a couple of stories that […]