By Christopher Eager

He lifted from the bed and went to the bathroom in the dark.
In the bathroom he felt how thirsty he was.
The light of from the refrigerator falls across the linoleum, his legs. Briefly he wonders where Max is off to. He stands there drinking water from a cup that has a map of Wisconsin on it, a bird and a rat.
He recalls that his daughter calls Wisconsin the beaver state, which always makes his wife smile and steal a glance at him. He pours the rest of the water into Max’s enamel dish on the kitchen floor and turns toward the bedroom.
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by Rich Moran

Remembering back to 1776 we often forget that the designers of our Declaration of Independence, and Constitution in 1788, were wealthy landowners and unhappy because England was impacting their personal freedoms. They had no intention of freeing the slaves, although many northern states would have liked to include that. They empowered male landowners with the right to vote – a small minority at best during colonial times; and of course women could only own property if her husband died and there was no male heir. Furthermore, a father could leave property to his daughter if he had no male children or brothers. In this case ownership would be transferred to the daughter’s husband once she married. A classic example of this situation was George and Martha Washington – Mt Vernon came from her family. Women could also receive property by a court of law. A penalty for adultery leading to divorce was to give the offender’s property to the wife. As you might expect, women had no voting rights, even if they did own property. (more…)

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by Guenther Langohr

Looking back on that day in August 1943, why I am breathing today still escapes me. Several gaping holes had been torn through the skin of our B17. Both side gunners were dead from flack that careened through; and the bottom turret was blown away taking that gunner to his death, hopefully before he hit the ground. The copilot was hit by multiple machine gun rounds from ME109’s attacking on the way to Schweinfurt. The bombardier, wounded in both legs from flack might make it back, but would most likely never walk again. We couldn’t communicate with the tail gunner, the lines being cut by another flack burst so who knew his status. Basically, out of our crew of ten, at least 3 were dead. Another 3 wounded, 1 unknown, and three in one piece – the pilot, the top gunner, and myself – the navigator.

Our group dropped its load of bombs on Schweinfurt that day while the other 8th Air Force Group did the same on Regensburg – all with the mission to cripple the ball bearing production in Germany. The logic was if we prevented them from producing ball bearings that would stop all types of armaments since the ball bearing was integral to aircraft, tanks, wheels, and all other moving weapons. 376 B17’s left that morning for the two mission objectives each carrying 4,500 lb of bombs. With this mission most were not incendiary but high-explosive to do the most damage to the plants.

The original concept was a dual strike that would split the Luftwaffe fighters into two parts thereby cutting their strength when the bombers arrived. We sat on the runway in England waiting for fog to lift and finally took off two hours late. Unfortunately, the Regensburg flight had to wait four hours, and therefore, the original plan was doomed to failure. Later we found out that Adolf Galland’s, the German general in command of fighters, entire fighter force of about 400 planes attacked us first, could land and refuel and then attacked the Regensburg force. Our escort fighters had long since had to go back to England because of low fuel. We were hit by all the fighters, when they withdrew the flack started, both taken the highest toll yet on our bombers.

That day, 376 B17 bombers with about 2,900 men left for Germany. By the end of the mission only 33 returned without damage. 650 men had died or were being held in prison camps. 60 planes lost, and a further 122 damaged many beyond repair. Afterwards it was determined that the 8^th Air Force had actually lost 147 aircraft because so many were damaged beyond repair.

Our 91st Bomb Group, based in Bassingbourn had sent 18 planes, only 11 returned and 3 of those probably beyond repair. 169 men left that morning. Ninety-five returned unscathed. In one day our entire force was cut in half.

“As soon as the reconnaissance photographs were received on the evening of the 17th, Generals Eaker and Anderson knew that the Schweinfurt raid had been a failure. The excellent results at Regensburg were small consolation for the loss of 60 B-17s. The results of the bombing were exaggerated, and the high losses were well disguised in after-mission reports. Everyone who flew the mission stressed the importance of the escorts in reducing losses; the planners grasped only that Schweinfurt would have to be bombed again, soon, in another deep-penetration, unescorted mission.” —Donald Caldwell

Albert Speer, the German Minister of Armaments, announced only a 34% loss of production of ball bearings, which was replaced within four weeks. Our planes also had killed 203 civilians with inaccurate bombing. Neither was compensation for the terrific losses shouldered by the 8th Air Force.

We tried again in October 1943 and lost another 60 of 291 bombers sent to Schweinfurt – this time over 20% of the force, with poor results. This would see a dramatic shift in policy. Raids deep inside Germany would cease for five months. They only recommenced after the P51 Mustang US Fighter was brought into action.

With the P51’s introduction, the bombing campaign shifted its objectives. We no longer even tried to attack military sites. Mass bombing of civilian cities commenced with the objective to draw the German fighters up into the sky so the superior P51’s could attack and shoot them down. Our bombers became merely bait for the fighters. The vast destruction of Hamburg, Berlin, and ultimately Dresden, was accomplished with this strategy. Thirty thousand civilians died in Hamburg in one raid. Estimates in Dresden have been 60,000 – 125,000 in the firestorms we created with our incendiary bombs.

In retrospect, the mass bombings of the civilian cities in Germany had proven to accomplish nothing other than to brandish our fliers as terrorists. The 8th Air Force lost over 26,000 men during the war. That is more than the US Marines lost in all the battles in the Pacific – a telling statistic.

Myself, and many of my fellow soldiers, are not proud of this strategy, and we can only justify our actions with the phrase, “we followed orders” – a familiar statement in post-war trials. It causes me to think – if the Germans won the war would we have been tried as war criminals?

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by: Ramone Valera

For many centuries, people have been using astrology and other practices to evaluate their lives and relationships.  Astrology has been used by people to look deeper into their personalities, love lives and other aspects of their being.  For these many centuries of its use, some people have followed astrology and some people have shunned it.  Astrology can be hit or miss with information.  Some people find that their astrological signs perfectly fit them while others are far from the description.  In the following article, we will review more about astrology and whether or not it is true when it comes to compatibility with another person. (more…)

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(3 votes, average: 8.33 out of 10)

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By Tim Martin

“Why ask me? He must know people better than me.” This was the first time I had met Miriam. “I haven’t even spoken to him as a grown up, are you sure I’m the right person to go?” I guess she had her reasons but her answer is unexpected. “Well, he talks of you constantly I think you kind of inspired him to be who he is, No?” This kind of threw me; I always thought it were the other way around.

We had been very good friends. But then that was way back when and well before he completed any of his known work. We knew each other at school, out of contact for some time yet once inseparable. Back then I sort of knew he would be big, though not perhaps his grand fame. I can’t remember him ever being interested in such things. We had had other hobbies; adventures around the forests and countryside that made up the landscape near the school or perhaps after lights out raids to the kitchen store. (more…)

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By Dennis Klein

The wind blew hard and cold across the flat prairie.  Their stout log house stood up to the wind, but was unable to stop the drafts that that seeped into every crack and seam .  The blazing fire in the kitchen kept a small area marginally warm, but if one moved a small distance away from the flames, the cold took over and made you stiff and uncomfortable.  During the short, sweltering summers, you forgot about the cold because you were miserable from the heat, but a few months later, you were buried again in ice and snow.

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by Guenther Langohr

He never knew pain like this before, Christmas should never be about pain.

Even when the RPG had shot down the helicopter in Vietnam that pain had quickly transformed into numbness. Probably, it was something to do with the body’s internal shock system. The shrapnel invaded my body in seven different places, the burning fast became a moot numbness, so by the time the pilot fought his way to the jungle floor only my head hurt and that from that concussion against the copter’s door plate. Luckily, the medic on-board was unhurt and soon we all were feeling no pain. Within fifteen minutes another 7th Calvary Medi-Copter was there and all of us evacuated. The only KIA was Lieutenant Yeoman, the gung-ho West Point graduate arriving three weeks ago; he sat directly in the door, seemingly with the mission to continue to maintain fire with the copter’s machine gun. The RPG’s launch came unseen from the jungle floor and ricocheted from one of the rotors, down to the door frame and exploded there. The Lieutenant masked the rest of us from the largest fragments so only the smaller, less lethal, pieces bounced around the helicopter’s interior before finding several soft bodies, including mine, to stop their pinball style flight. (more…)

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(5 votes, average: 9.50 out of 10)

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