Strange as It Seems was distinguished for its adherence to Hix's standard that every published fact be verified by a minimum of three sources. In Hix's words, Strange as It Seems is a library of
“the curious, in nature and humankind, set adrift on the vast sea of public opinion with the hope that it will fulfill its mission to entertain and acquaint its viewers with some of the marvels of the world in which we live."
If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.China will continue to expand its holdings and presence in the South China Sea and the first and second island chain as long as it can and does not face pressure to do otherwise.
They have an unmatched shipbuilding program to expand not just their traditional navy, but their coast guard and maritime paramilitary fleets.
To discuss these and related topics will be returning guest, Hunter Stires.
As a starting point for our discussion, we'll review the major points in his US Naval Institute General Prize Essay Contest winning essay, The South China Sea Needs a 'COIN' Toss and related recent works.
Hunter Stires is a fellow with the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research at the U.S. Naval War College. His focus centers on maritime strategy and logistics in the Western Pacific. Hunter is the winner of the U.S. Naval Institute’s 2018 General Prize Essay Contest, with his winning entry published as “The South China Sea Needs a ‘COIN’ Toss” in the May 2019 issue of Proceedings alongside a companion piece, “Why We Defend Free Seas.” His article “’They Were Playing Chicken:’ The U.S. Asiatic Fleet’s Gray-Zone Deterrence Campaign against Japan, 1937-40,” is featured in the Summer 2019 issue of the Naval War College Review. He is an Associate at Central Gulf Lines, a division of SEACOR Holdings Inc., and is a graduate of Columbia University.
Among the nations using oil from the Arabian Gulf area the French and the Brits have shared some of the sea lines of communication protection load, but since 1980 the laboring oar has been the U.S. Navy - which today has more sailors serving in that region of the world than anywhere else.President Donald Trump on Monday told other countries to protect their own Gulf oil shipments, declaring that the United States has only limited strategic interest in the "dangerous" region.
In a pair of tweets, Trump said US aims regarding Iran boil down to "No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror."
Stating that the United States is now the world's biggest energy producer, thereby weaning itself off decades of dependence on Middle Eastern oil, Trump said "we don't even need to be there."
And the US military should not be depended upon to keep the narrow sea routes along Iran's coast free.
"Why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation," he asked. "All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey."
As for Tehran, Trump said, his only demand is that the country not pursue nuclear weapons and halts what the United States claims is backing for terrorist groups.
"The U.S. request for Iran is very simple," he wrote.
***
Trump's tweets add to his record of seeking a wider draw down of the US diplomatic and military footprint around the world.
The Weinberger doctrine:You might note that the "burr under the saddle" approach the Iranians follow never really crosses that line which would justify the U.S. completely destroying Iranian maritime forces of the Iranian Navy or its Iranian Revolutionary Guard or taking out the dictators who head Iran.
- The United States should not commit forces to combat unless the vital national interests of the United States or its allies are involved.
- U.S. troops should only be committed wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. Otherwise, troops should not be committed.
- U.S. combat troops should be committed only with clearly defined political and military objectives and with the capacity to accomplish those objectives.
- The relationship between the objectives and the size and composition of the forces committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.
- U.S. troops should not be committed to battle without a "reasonable assurance" of the support of U.S. public opinion and Congress.
- The commitment of U.S. troops should be considered only as a last resort.
THE NEW NATIONAL military strategy is an unclassified document. Anyone can read it. It is short, to the point and unambiguous. The central idea in the strategy is the change from a focus on global war?fighting to a focus on regional contingencies. No communist hordes threaten western Europe today and, by extension, the rest of the free world. So our new strategy emphasizes being able to deal with individual crises without their escalating to global or thermonuclear war.I left that last paragraph in as a reminder that even you are engaging in punitive strikes or limited wars there is always the potential of getting stuck in problems that are not yours to solve, as we now ought to know too well. You want unforeseen consequences? See the effects of the Somalia, Libya and Syria "humanitarian" interventions, though they were of limited scope.
***
To help with the complex issue of the use of "violent" force, some have turned to a set of principles or a when-to-go-to-war doctrine. "Follow these directions and you can’t go wrong." There is, however, no fixed set of rules for the use of military force. To set one up is dangerous. First, it destroys the ambiguity we might want to exist in our enemy’s mind regarding our intentions. Unless part of our strategy is to destroy that ambiguity, it is usually helpful to keep it intact.
Second, having a fixed set of rules for how you will go to war is like saying you are always going to use the elevator in the event of fire in your apartment building. Surely enough, when the fire comes the elevator will be engulfed in flames or, worse, it will look good when you get in it only to fill with smoke and flames and crash a few minutes later. But do you stay in your apartment and burn to death because your plan calls for using the elevator to escape and the elevator is untenable? No, you run to the stairs, an outside fire escape or a window. In short, your plans to escape should be governed by the circumstances of the fire when it starts.
When a "fire" starts that might require committing armed forces, we need to evaluate the circumstances. Relevant questions include: Is the political objective we seek to achieve important, clearly defined and understood? Have all other nonviolent policy means failed? Will military force achieve the objective? At what cost? Have the gains and risks been analyzed? How might the situation that we seek to alter, once it is altered by force, develop further and what might be the consequences?
As an example of this logical process, we can examine the assertions of those who have asked why President Bush did not order our forces on to Baghdad after we had driven the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. We must assume that the political objective of such an order would have been capturing Saddam Hussein. Even if Hussein had waited for us to enter Baghdad, and even if we had been able to capture him, what purpose would it have served? And would serving that purpose have been worth the many more casualties that would have occurred? Would it have been worth the inevitable follow?up: major occupation forces in Iraq for years to come and a very expensive and complex American proconsulship in Baghdad? Fortunately for America, reasonable people at the time thought not. They still do.
Punitive expeditions, retaliatory strikes, raiding, hitting pirate camps,Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at Spreaker.
attacking enemy ships in the dark of night, striking enemy facilities & resources on shore and other forms of irregular naval warfare - sound new, transformational?
No. They've been with the US Navy from day 1.
Join us this Sunday with returning guest BJ Armstrong to discuss his latest book, Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy.
CDR Benjamin "BJ" Armstrong is an Assistant Professor of War Studies and Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy. A former search and rescue and special warfare helicopter pilot, he earned his PhD at King's College London and is the author or editor of three books, including his most recent Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare and the Early American Navy.
High adventure in the wild vast reaches of space! Mission of daring in the name of interplanetary justice! Travel into the future with Buzz Corry, commander-in-chief of the Space Patrol!
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| Đurđevića Tara Bridge |
All the different kinds of leaders were grouping and re-grouping, forming alliances and breaking them up with threats of assassination: the klephts, the primates, the bishops, the islanders, Greeks from abroad, and the British."1 Those words, were written to describe the situation in Greece during the winter of 1821 but could serve equally well--with the inclusion of the Americans--as a synopsis of the same season in 1943.*About the Đurđevića Tara Bridge:
Greece was then occupied not by the Turks, but rather by Germans, Bulgars, and a few Italians. To make the scene complete, there were competing guerilla forces which owed allegiance to either the non-resident monarch, King George, or the Greek Communist party. British SOE was having great difficulty sorting out exactly who was loyal to whom, under what circumstances, and four what price. When OSS opened its Cairo station in 1943, it stepped squarely into the political dung heap.
Exiled Prime Minister George Papandreou summed up the atmosphere accurately: "The country is an inferno. The Germans are killing. The Bulgarians are killing. The Security Battalions are killing. The guerillas too are killing. Everyone is killing and burning. What is going to be left of our unhappy country.?"2
Several Marines would soon find out.
Captain Gerald F. Else, USMCR, was born in Redfield, South Dakota in July 1908. Else entered the University of Nebraska in 1924, but transferred to Harvard, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1929. A scholar of classical Greek and Latin, Else remained in Cambridge, completing his M.A. in 1932, and receiving his PhD. in 1934. He then took a teaching job in the Department of Greek and Latin, until he was recruited into COI as a civilian.3
By January 143, it was apparent that Greece was a target of increasingly high intelligence priority. Similarly, it was clear that those OSS personnel not in uniform as officers would soon find themselves draftees. Else therefore applied for a direct commission in the Marine Corps Reserve, and OSS endorsed his request with a plea for retention within the intelligence agency.
Although he was over-age and color blind, Else was finally commissioned in August 1943, under Special Program 28-42 and assigned straight back to OSS as a Captain.4
Captain Else continued to work in the Greek Section of SI's Washington headquarters until late summer 1943. Then he shipped out for Egypt via Brazil and Nigeria.
"I was delayed enroute by problems unspecified (I realized later that the reason with the Cairo and Tehran Conferences, which must have produced an acute shortage of air transport) . . . It amuses me to recall that I was originally recruited for OSS because of my known Greek--ancient Greek--and that Knowledge was one of the chief obstacles to learning the modern language which I tried to do after reaching Cairo."5
Else arrived in Cairo during November 1943, and set to work developing a network of agents who could be infiltrated into predetermined target areas.
The biggest problem faced by OSS in the Middle East was not recruitment or training, but rather transportation. Parachute training (usually conducted in British Palestine) was inevitably followed by excruciating delays in aircraft availability. The British, who controlled all air assets for operations in Greece and the Balkans, carefully placed American requests for support at the bottom of the list. "The question of a small air unit under OSS control was unsuccessfully raised. Motor Torpedo boats were requested repeatedly but never arrived. Of all means available, Greek caiques, which usually transported agents in about one and a half months, proved to be the fastest."6
Caiques were small vessels used for fishing or limited cargo hauling. Varying in size from two to eighty tons, these were manned by crews ranging up to six or seven men. Few could make more than 4 knots. Of course, all were virtually defenseless.
Eventually, OSS put together a fleet of 36 such rafts,most of which were leased by British SIS.* The port of Alexandria was the normal "jumping off" spot. From there, the boats usually proceeded to one of several small harbors in Cyprus. Here agents went aboard still smaller caiques which ran into a clandestine base at Kusadasi, Turkey; transferred to even more flimsy (and usually wind-powered) versions; and in these made the final stage of their trip to occupied Greece.7
Merely sailing the Aegean Sea was a tricky business. Although men had been doing it for thousands of years, they had done so by
*SIS was only too glad to help anyone having problems with SOE.
choosing their season and waiting for the weather. The Aegean has no tide, and the winds blow north only during the summer. In the winter, storms come up from any direction, and the shallow bottom makes for dangerous waves. Of course there are hundreds of rocks to run upon as well.8 But the OSS "navy" proved equal to the task, and Else's section put more than 80 agents--primarily Greeks--ashore during 1944.*
Else remained in Cairo until the Fall of that year, serving as assistant to Rodney Young, a former archeologist who had spent years in Greece and soke the language fluently. As the Germans began slowly to retreat northward, OSS set about organizing the usual "capital liberation team." Young was to command with Else as his Executive Officer. On 12 October, they and two other members of the cairo staff flew directly into Athens, arriving there days before the transport rich British could get in. Soon afterward, Young resigned and Captain Else became Commander of the Athens mission.9
Civil war broke out in Greece on 3 December 1944, with the British backing the EDES guerilla army (royalist) against the ELAS (communist) irregulars. OSS personnel termed this "the unpleasantness," and attempted to carry on as neutrals. This was not easy since fighting raged in Athens proper. As one agent put it:
* The Germans mercilessly hounded any team which was unlucky enough to be compromised. The taking of hostages, summary executions, and torture were routine.
"During the first week the combination office-billet was situated a half-block from the front lines. With a British machine gun firing day and night from next door, a Greek military barracks down the street, and ELAS mortar shells falling all about, there were few periods quiet enough to concentrate on long reports."10
In January, Else left Athens for Caserta to head the Greek SI desk for the entire European Theater. Within a month of his arrival, the situation became so befuddled by conflicting State Department directives that he was recalled to Washington. After a short mission to Liberia, he was demobilized in December 1945.
While Captain Else was providing some of the "brains" behind OSS operations in Greece, Gunnery Sergeant (later Warrant Officer) Thomas L. Curtis, USMC, was supplying the brawn.
Curtis, unlike many Marines in OSS, was a career man. Born in Massachusetts, he enlisted in 1935, served in Hawaii until 1939, and was discharged. The next year, Curtis joined up again. Soon, he was hard at work in the Reconnaissance Section of Amphibious Corps, Atlantic, teaching rubber boat handling to members of what became the 1st Raider Battalion.11 When OSS began to become involved in paramilitary training, Curtis was one of the first Marines to be transferred to the new organization. It was not much of a transfer. Headquarters of the Amphibious Corps in those days was at Quantico. So was the OSS training camp.
Sergeant Curtis taught new recruits the fundamentals of clandestine entry, patrolling,submarine exiting procedures, and hand-to-hand combat. He was a big, tough, beefy man, and he knew his trade. In October 1943, now a Gunnery Sergeant, Curtis was tapped for an operational mission.12
Curtis arrived in Cairo after a stop at Oran, Algeria. Immediately, he was made a member of the team being put together for an important sabotage job in German-occupied Greece.
The commander of Curtis' mission was Army Air Corps Major Jim Kellis, an unusual recruit in an unusual outfit. Most men joined OSS based on vague promises of "dangerous work behind enemy lines." Kellis actually proposed his own project to Army G-2 as part of a comprehensive plan for clandestine warfare to be conducted in his ancestral homeland and site of his own college education. This, in brief, is how a Marine Gunnery Sergeant found himself aboard the caique St.John several hundred yards off a swampy area of northeastern Thrace in early May 1944.13
Kellis and two Navy enlisted men were already in Greece, having infiltrated by foot across the Turkish border in December. It was their radio message to the secret base at Kusadasi which initiated the second phase of the EVROS mission. When the St. John cautiously worked her way toward the landing area it was nearly midnight. Everything was quiet, and the beach seemed deserted. But Kellis was waiting.
"One of my guerillas who had contacts in the vicinity had lined up some fishing boats which we needed to get through the swamp, and also to unload the caique, which couldn't come in very close because of the shoal water. The rest of us lay low in the cane . . In gathering the boats, my men were observed by some fishermen. So our presence would not be leaked to the Germans, we took into custody everyone who saw us. By nightfall we had sixty boats and 120 fishermen under guard. That night I rowed out to meet the St. John. The plan was for me to flash an "O" when I saw her, and they would reply with an "M". We had to be pretty careful, for German "E boats" patrolled the areas; moreover there were coastal batteries and searchlights on the hills; and a division and a half of German and Bulgarian troops were stationed at Alexandroupolis, a few miles from our pinpoint. At eleven-thirty I spotted the schooner. She kept moving around slowly, and I was not sure of her identity, having never seen her before. Finally after half an hour, I decided to chance it and flashed by recognition signal. It was returned immediately."14
Quickly, Kellis gave the go-ahead for unloading, and his armada of requisitioned lighters sallied from the swamp. In less than an hour, the entire EVROS team was ashore with Thompsons, grenades, and enough explosives to do the job for which they had been sent. At that moment, several important Greek bridges were doomed.
The EVROS team had been launched into action in accordance not only with Kellis' ideas, but upon formal request of the JCS. German steel production was a concern to the strategic planners and a key ingredient in the process was chrome ore. Much of this came from neutral Turkey. OSS was directed to cut that supply.15 The Research and Analysis branch in Washington had information that most of the ore was carried into Nazi controlled territory by two rail lines. Both of these wound through the eastern mountains of Bulgaria and Greece, crossing several major gorges atop modern bridges. Dropping these would at least partially solve the problem.
Kellis had hoped to blow the huge "International Bridge" which connected Greece and Turkey at the Evros River border. "This was a huge structure and although a difficult operation its destruction would have stopped literally all rail traffic into Greece. The State Department vetoed this plan for fear of Turkish reaction . . .16 Instead, the two spans picked by R&A were targeted.
The first of these was the Alexandroupolis Bridge in Greece, the second Svilengrad Bridge in Bulgaria. Kellis took Svilengrad, along (210 foot) low affair which would require over a thousand pounds of plastic explosive. Curtis drew Alexandroupolis, tottering on fifty foot piers in the center of a deep ravine. This one would need only about 550 pounds of demolitions,since its height would magnify any damage and make repair much more complicated.
There were more than 300 Greek guerillas involved in training for the mission. Of these, 30 were specially selected members of the elite "Black Squad." Only they were told of the exact targets.
Their supplies supplemented by clandestine parachute drops, the team practiced for several weeks before Kellis decided the time was right. On 27 May 1944, both sabotage units moved into positions near their respective targets. Meanwhile, a third unit was sent in the opposite direction and directed to launch diversionary attacks to mask the true purpose of the burgeoning resistance battalion.17
Curtis' group of 50 men (including 15 Black Squad experts) soon determined that their bridge was guarded by a screen of German patrols with thirty Greek policemen actually stationed on both ends of the span. After a hair-=raising near ambush by one German reconnaissance party, all of the raiders managed to slip inside the roving cordon. Below them was the target, codenamed JOLIET. Curtis started down.
Packing a Thompson, two .45s, and an assortment of charges and detonators, Curtis walked straight up to the nearest policeman, shoved his submachine gun into the man's stomach and calmly announced in fractured Greek, "I'm going to blow this bridge and I'll do the same to you if necessary." The Greek and some of his contingent decided instead of resisting to help. The less willing were tied to trees and work proceeded.18
Suddenly, rifle shot began ricocheting off the steel girders. A German patrol had arrived. While the Greek guerilla security element fought a short but savage engagement with the intruders, Curtis hurried witt the charges. When everything was set, he cut the time delay from nine minutes to three and pushed the plunger. Then the greatest middle distance sprint in Greek history got underway.
"The Gunny had done his work well. An explosion shook the wooded hills, and the huge bridge went skyward as one unit, lifting and twisting high in the air. The flame of the exploding charges was visible 20 miles away, and a shower of debris rained down for several minutes after it was over. Hemingway would have gnawed his beard with envy."19
After several brushes with Germans and Bulgarian rushing to the respective scenes of carnage, both attack groups made it safely back to their operating base. Word of the mission's complete success was flashed to Cairo and the goat-skin wine bladders were passed around. It took several months before either bridge could be put back into even a shadow of its former capacity.20
Six weeks later, the EVROS mission was withdrawn from Greece by caique, returning to Egypt through Turkey. Kellis received the Legion of Merit and Curtis the Bronze Star. Both men would later serve with OSS-trained guerillas in China, and both would win the Silver Star there. For his performance in Greece, Gunnery Sergeant Curtis was meritoriously promoted to Warrant Officer.21
Captain Else and Gunny Curtis provide an interesting duet in the libretto of Marines with OSS. One a scholarly organizer, observer, and analyst; the other a burly operator. Curtis retired as a Captain in the early 1960s. Else returned to academia and became Director of theCenter for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies at the University of Michigan. He never did fully master modern Greek.
Much of Montenegro, including the Tara Canyon, came under Italian occupation following the German-led invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. As the mountainous terrain made it suitable for guerrilla warfare, a partisan uprising occurred in the area. Italian forces took control of the Tara Bridge during an Italian offensive in 1942.It was rebuilt in 1946.
A Yugoslav Partisan raiding party blew up the central arch with the aid of one of the bridge engineers, Lazar Jauković. The attack cut the only feasible crossing over the Tara Canyon halting the Italian advance. When Jauković was eventually captured, however, the Italians executed the engineer.
On 18 Jun 19 at about 0245 hrs, about 10 men armed with high powered firearms, believed to be members of the Sulu-based Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) abducted 10 crew from two Malaysian-registered fishing boats (with markings SA/2325/F and SA/5699/C). The fishing boats were in the vicinity waters of Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia when the perpetrators boarded the fishing boats from one jungkong-type watercraft and one speed boat painted orange and white. The ASG members abducted four crew from the first fishing boat and six crew from the second fishing boat; and were sighted in the area of Pondohan, Tabawan, Sitangkai, Tawi-tawi, Philippines at about 0330 hrs on 18 Jun 19. The Philippine authorities are stepping up its patrol efforts, conducting pursuit operations and intensifying its military operation to rescue the abducted crew and neutralize the militant group.First such attack in this area this year.
“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” —Umberto Eco
U.S. Fifth Fleet reports:Two tankers operated by Frontline and Bernhard Schulte have reportedly been the subject of a "torpedo" attack off Fujairah in the UAE, according to broking and ship agency sources on Thursday.
IRIB News Photos
The 110,000-dwt LR2 Front Altair (built 2016) is carrying naphtha produced by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co to Taiwan, having lifted the cargo from Ruwais on 11 June.
According to Taiwan CPC, trading house Ocean Energy has chartered the vessel to transport the cargo to the Taiwanese refiner.
We are aware of the reported attack on shipping vessels in the Gulf of Oman. U.S. Naval Forces in the region received two separate distress calls at 6:12 a.m. local (Bahrain) time and a second one at 7:00 a.m. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) rendered assistance.In the background of this is a report of damage to ships in port Iran, as set out in Mysterious Blazes on Six Iranian Ships in Iranian Ports:
Which was, of course, preceded by May 13, 2019, damage to ships in UAE ports US Official: Explosives Blew Holes in Ships off UAE:As the strategic port of Shahid Rajaee, north of the Strait of Hormuz, was still dealing with the effects of a huge fire that caused serious destruction, Iranian media reported2 that six Iranian ships were ablaze in several ports in the southern part of the country.3
IRNA photo
The Iranian Republic News Agency reported that on June 7, 2019, four merchant ships caught fire in the port of Nakhl Taqi (Taghi) in the Asaluyeh region of Bushehr Province. Three ships were burned entirely, while two others in Asaluyeh suffered major damage. While the governor of Asaluyeh claimed the fires were extinguished without anyone harmed, the head of the emergency rooms in Bushehr Province said that several civilians and sailors had been injured and brought to hospitals in the region. The mayor of the town of Delvar, near the port of Bualhir, confirmed that one vessel in the port burned completely.
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| UAE photos |
A U.S. official says military experts believe explosives blew holes in four ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates Sunday, and suspects Iran may be involved but they have no proof.Yes, well, not the first "tanker war" in the area.
Two of the oil tankers belong to Saudi Arabia, which says the ships suffered "significant damage" in what it and the UAE calls sabotage.
Saudi Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih said the attack was meant to undermine "the security of oil supplies to consumers all over the world."
Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at Spreaker.How does our Army help officers understand military doctrine, history, and theory? How do we ensure that our staffs have leaders capable of generating options for commanders engaged with our most complex operational and strategic problem sets?
It doesn't happen by accident.
To address these questions and related topics, our guest this Sunday will be Colonel Kirk Dorr, USA the Director of the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (commonly known as “SAMS”) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
COL Dorr is a career Armor Officer, has commanded formations from the company to brigade-levels, and served in staff officer assignments up to the Army Staff and Joint Staff-levels.
COL Dorr’s military education includes attendance at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a resident Fellow studying international affairs and security studies. He is also a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies, Joint and Combined Warfighting School, and the Army Command and General Staff College.
At approximately 11:45 am on June 7, 2019 while operating in the Philippine Sea, a Russian Destroyer (UDALOY I DD 572) made an unsafe maneuver against guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG-62), closing to approximately 50-100 feet putting the safety of her crew and ship at risk.The videos are below. More damning, however, is this photo, obviously taken from the U.S. Navy helicopter:
While USS Chancellorsville was recovering its helicopter on a steady course and speed when the Russian ship DD572 maneuvered from behind and to the right of Chancellorsville accelerated and closed to an unsafe distance of approximately 50-100 feet. This unsafe action forced USS Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision.
Rule 1Now, look at these videos, not much doubt that the Russian destroyer is overtaking, as defined above the U.S. cruiser. In addition, the U.S. ship was conducting flight operations, thus adding to the Russian's breached obligation to stand clear of the U.S. ship.
Application
(a). These Rules shall apply to all vessels upon the high seas and in all waters connected therewith navigable by
seagoing vessels.
****
Rule 2
Responsibility
(a). Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master or crew thereof, from the consequences of
any neglect to comply with these Rules or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary
practice of seamen, or by the special circumstances of the case.
(b). In construing and complying with these Rules due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision and
to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, which may make a departure from these
Rules necessary to avoid immediate danger.
***
Rule 3
General definitions
. For the purpose of these Rules, except where the context otherwise requires:
(a). The word “vessel” includes every description of water craft, including non-displacement craft, WIG craft and
seaplanes, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water.
(b). The term “power-driven vessel” means any vessel propelled by machinery.
(c). The term “sailing vessel” means any vessel under sail provided that propelling machinery, if fitted, is not being
used.
(d). The term “vessel engaged in fishing” means any vessel fishing with nets, lines, trawls or other fishing apparatus
which restrict manoeuvrability, but does not include a vessel fishing with trolling lines or other fishing apparatus which
do not restrict manoeuvrability.
(e). The word “seaplane” includes any aircraft designed to manoeuvre on the water.
(f). The term “vessel not under command” means a vessel which through some exceptional circumstance is unable to
manoeuvre as required by these Rules and is therefore unable to keep out of the way of another vessel.
(g). The term “vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre” means a vessel which from the nature of her work is
restricted in her ability to manoeuvre as required by these Rules and is therefore unable to keep out of the way of
another vessel. The term “vessels restricted in their ability to manoeuvre” shall include but not be limited to:
(i). a vessel engaged in laying, servicing or picking up a navigation mark, submarine cable or pipeline;
(ii). a vessel engaged in dredging, surveying or underwater operations;
(iii). a vessel engaged in replenishment or transferring persons, provisions or cargo while underway;
(iv). a vessel engaged in the launching or recovery of aircraft;
****
Rule 8
Action to avoid collision
(a). Any action to avoid collision shall be taken in accordance with the Rules of this Part and shall, if the circumstances
of the case admit, be positive, made in ample time and with due regard to the observance of good seamanship.
(b). Any alteration of course and/or speed to avoid collision shall, if the circumstances of the case admit, be large
enough to be readily apparent to another vessel observing visually or by radar; a succession of small alterations of
course and/or speed should be avoided.
(c). If there is sufficient sea-room, alteration of course alone may be the most effective action to avoid a close-quarters
situation provided that it is made in good time, is substantial and does not result in another close-quarters situation.
(d). Action taken to avoid collision with another vessel shall be such as to result in passing at a safe distance. The
effectiveness of the action shall be carefully checked until the other vessel is finally past and clear.
(e). If necessary to avoid collision or allow more time to assess the situation, a vessel shall slacken her speed or take
all way off by stopping or reversing her means of propulsion.
(i). A vessel which, by any of these Rules, is required not to impede the passage or safe passage of another vessel
shall, when required by the circumstances of the case, take early action to allow sufficient sea-room for the safe
passage of the other vessel.
(ii). A vessel required not to impede the passage or safe passage of another vessel is not relieved of this obligation if
approaching the other vessel so as to involve risk of collision and shall, when taking action, have full regard to the
action which may be required by the Rules of this part.
(iii). A vessel the passage of which is not to be impeded remains fully obliged to comply with the Rules of this part when
the two vessels are approaching one another so as to involve risk of collision.
***
Rule 13
Overtaking
(a). Notwithstanding anything contained in the Rules of part B, sections I and II, any vessel overtaking any other shall
keep out of the way of the vessel being overtaken.
(b). A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5
degrees abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she
would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights.
(c). When a vessel is in any doubt as to whether she is overtaking another, she shall assume that this is the case and
act accordingly.
(d). Any subsequent alteration of the bearing between the two vessels shall not make the overtaking vessel a crossing
vessel within the meaning of these Rules or relieve her of the duty of keeping clear of the overtaken vessel until she is
finally past and clear.
***
Rule 16
Action by give-way vessel
. Every vessel which is directed to keep out of the way of another vessel shall, so far as possible, take early and
substantial action to keep well clear.
***
Rule 17
Action by stand-on vessel
(a).
(i). Where one of two vessels is to keep out of the way the other shall keep her course and speed.
(ii). The latter vessel may however take action to avoid collision by her manoeuvre alone, as soon as it becomes
apparent to her that the vessel required to keep out of the way is not taking appropriate action in compliance with these
Rules.
(b). When, from any cause, the vessel required to keep her course and speed finds herself so close that collision
cannot be avoided by the action of the give-way vessel alone, she shall take such action as will best aid to avoid
collision.
(c). A power-driven vessel which takes action in a crossing situation in accordance with subparagraph (a)(ii) of this Rule
to avoid collision with another power-driven vessel shall, if the circumstances of the case admit, not alter course to port
for a vessel on her own port side.
(d). This Rule does not relieve the give-way vessel of her obligation to keep out of the way
***We too often forget that there are sturdy men and women still working against "war's hard truths" today and writing history in their own time. We are still a new nation, constantly reinventing itself, constantly fighting against tyranny in all its forms.
One lesson of The British Are Coming is the history-shaping power of individuals exercising their agency together: the volition of those who shouldered muskets in opposition to an empire. Another lesson is that the democratic, sentimental idea that cobblers and seamstresses are as much history-makers as generals and politicians is false. A few individuals matter much more than most. Atkinson is clear: No George Washington, no United States.
Washington, writes Atkinson, learned that “only battle could reveal those with the necessary dark heart for killing, years of killing; that only those with the requisite stamina, aptitude, and luck would be able to see it through, and finally — the hardest of war’s hard truths — that for a new nation to live, young men must die, often alone, usually in pain, and sometimes to no obvious purpose.” The more that Americans are reminded by Atkinson and other supreme practitioners of the historians’ craft that their nation was not made by flimsy people, the less likely it is to be flimsy.
In his book, The Abolition of Man, Lewis was prophetic in pointing out that relativism—the idea that there are no absolute truths—would lead to the decay of morality and a lack of virtue within society. Without a belief in and the teaching of universal moral laws, we fail to educate the heart and are left with intelligent men who behave like animals or as Lewis puts it, “Men without Chests.”So when we see a free Europe, a free South Korea, a peaceful Japan, a free Singapore, or even a China that is soon to choose a path that may bring true peace or something else, it ought to remind us that our ancestors - our fathers and grandfathers did what they did not to create an empire ruled from our shores, but to create a world in which peoples of all countries can seek the blessings of freedom for themselves if they so choose.
The Normandy invasion took place in the Bay of the Seine, on the south side of the English Channel between the Cotentin Peninsula and the port of Le Havre. Some fifty-five miles broad and twenty deep, its waters were shallow, had a considerable tidal range, and, when the wind blew from the northward, could be very choppy. The planned landing beaches covered about forty-five miles of the Bay's shoreline. Westernmost was "Utah" Area, stretching eight miles southward along the low-lying southeastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula. Directly to the east was "Omaha" Area, covering twelve miles of generally hilly terrain. United States forces were assigned to take both of those areas, with important assistance from the navies of Great Britain and other Allies. British and Canadian troops would assault the areas code-named "Gold", "Juno", and "Sword", which ran twenty miles eastward from "Omaha". This sector ended at the mouth of the Orne River, some fifteen miles west of Le Havre, where the German Navy based a group of potentially very dangerous torpedo boats.
The actual landing beaches occupied a fraction of the width of each area, but were
intended to provide sufficient initial footholds to allow rapid reinforcement and expansion inland, with the attacking soldiers joining their flanks to create a continuous beachhead perimeter before the enemy could mount a major counterattack. Each area would be assaulted by approximately one army division, with initial landings being made by much smaller units at 6:30AM in the American areas and about an hour later in the British. Their arrival on the shore was to follow a bombardment by ships' guns and aircraft ordnance, kept relatively brief to maintain as much as possible of the element of surprise. As a result, German shore defenses frequently remained intact, and would prove troublesome to both the landing forces and ships offshore.
To protect the invasion zone's western extremity, and to facilitate the "Utah" landing
force's movement into the Cotentin Peninsula, the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions descended by parachute and glider in the small hours of "D-Day", 6 June 1944. Though badly scattered and lacking much of their equipment, these brave paratroopers kept the Germans occupied and helped ensure that the "Utah" Beach assault went relatively easily. The British and Canadian attacks, assisted by an air-dropped division on their eastern flank and a longer naval bombardment, generally also went well.
Not so in the "Omaha" area, where deep beaches backed by steep hills meant that the U.S. troops landing there were exposed to withering fire from enemy small arms, machine guns and artillery. Casualties were very heavy and the assult only succeeded after a day of brutal fighting, with warships coming in close to provide direct gunfire in support of the hard-pressed soldiers.
By nightfall on the sixth of June, the situation was favorable, even on Omaha. Entered the popular culture as THE "D-Day", a name it has retained ever since.
A remark by a captured German soldier best summarizes the importance of logistics in the battle for Europe in World War II. As he was marched past one of the many roadside supply dumps that dotted the Normandy landscape in the wake of the invasion, he was heard to remark "I know how you defeated us. You piled up the supplies and then let them fall on us." He was right. The war in Europe was what the Germans called materialschlact, "matériel battle." It was a "matériel battle" on a scale greater than any other conflict in history, a contest pitting the industrial capacities of Germany and the United States against each other. In the end, triumph was the result of the ability, of the United States to mobilize its industrial capacity" to provide the instruments of war for its troops and those of its allies and to deliver them where and when they were needed--to pile them up and let them fall.
Logistics in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) is a massive and complicated subject, one that accounts for thousands of pages in the official histories of the war. Although these events are over a half century past, the fundamental issues that concerned World War II logisticians--how to know what you need and how to get it where you need it when you need it--are the same problems their successors face today. . .
***
The story of theater logistics in WWII is not a unitary one; rather, it is two distinct stories. The Pacific and European theaters of operation were each unique in their strategic geography and military situation. In the European theater, the basic logistical task was to mass strength in a secure forward base to support operations--both land and air--against a nearby enemy. The United States entered the war after the British had forestalled Hitler's plans for a cross-Channel invasion. Therefore, Great Britain afforded a large, secure staging ground for the buildup of combat power. Moreover, as an advanced industrial nation, Great Britain possessed the ports, rail lines, and other facilities to support a massive influx of material and personnel. This buildup would require large numbers of ships to transit a single, highly vulnerable line of communication, the Atlantic route from the United States to England.
With the notable exception of the Battle of the Atlantic, the war in Europe is largely an Army story. The Army provided the theater commander and virtually the entire theater logistical structure. ... (Barry Dysart, Chapter VII)
