Father Vincent Robert Capodanno.

May 25th, 2020

Father Capodanno was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1958. He did missionary work in Taiwan and Hong Kong. But he felt a stronger calling.

So he enlisted, went through Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1965. He served with the United States Navy Chaplain Corps, and was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Later he was transferred to the 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Marine Division to finish out his first tour. He took six months of leave, and then re-enlisted and was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. Shortly after that, he was reassigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division.

Father Capodanno was more than a priest ministering within the horrific arena of war. He became a constant companion to the Marines: living, eating, and sleeping in the same conditions of the men. He established libraries, gathered and distributed gifts and organized outreach programs for the local villagers. He spent hours reassuring the weary and disillusioned, consoling the grieving, hearing confessions, instructing converts, and distributing St. Christopher medals. Such work “energized” him, and he requested an extension to remain with the Marines.

The troops called him “The Grunt Padre”.

Lt. RJ Marnell remembers, “Fr. Capodanno was … told several times it was not his job to go on patrols, fire sweeps, etc. Yet you had to watch him like a hawk as it was not uncommon to see a group of Marines running to get on a helicopter to go into battle, and all of a sudden this figure comes out of nowhere, no rifle, just his priest gear, and jumping in the helicopter before anybody could catch him. He wanted to be with his Marines and didn’t feel his job was simply to say Mass on Sundays.”

…

He became a true father to young boys on the front lines. He was “out there” with his men where he lived, ate, and slept as they did. To the young recruits thrust into the terrifying reality of battle, he was always available in his tent where anyone could drop in for comfort and guidance.
He shared his salary, rations and cigarettes with anyone in need. He could always be counted upon for a cold soda or a book from his reading library. When Christmas came around and soldiers felt forgotten, Father Vincent saw to it that no Marine was without gifts which he obtained through a relentless campaign from friends and organizations all over the world.
More importantly, he heard confessions for hours on end, instructed converts, and administered the sacraments. His granting of General Absolution before battle unburdened the consciences of the Marines and instilled in them the courage to fight. His mere presence in a unit was enough to lift the morale of all on patrol.
When men died, he was at their side so they would not die alone. He gave them Last Rites encouraging them to repent and persevere. In addition, he wrote countless letters of personal condolence to parents of wounded and dead Marines and offered solid grounding and hope to fellow Marines who lost friends.
When the pseudo-peace movement began to oppose the war, Fr. Vincent raised the spirits of demoralized soldiers in the field. He encouraged his men to oppose that same brutal communist system, which still oppresses Vietnam today.

When his second tour of duty was up, he begged his superiors for an extension. That extension was denied: he was supposed to go home in November of 1967.

On September 4, 1967, at 4:30 am, during Operation Swift in the Thang Binh District of the Que Son Valley, elements of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines encountered a large North Vietnamese Army (NVA) unit of approximately 2,500 men near the village of Dong Son. The outnumbered and disorganized Company D of the 1st Battalion was in need of reinforcements. By 9:14 am, 26 Marines were confirmed dead, and two rifle companies from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines were committed to the battle. At 9:25 am, the commander of 1st Battalion requested further reinforcements.

…

In response to reports that the 2d Platoon of M Company was in danger of being overrun by a massed enemy assaulting force, Lt. Capodanno left the relative safety of the company command post and ran through an open area raked with fire, directly to the beleaguered platoon. Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic-weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering last rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded. When an exploding mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical aid. Instead, he directed the corpsmen to help their wounded comrades and, with calm vigor, continued to move about the battlefield as he provided encouragement by voice and example to the valiant marines. Upon encountering a wounded corpsman in the direct line of fire of an enemy machine gunner positioned approximately 15 yards away, Lt. Capodanno rushed a daring attempt to aid and assist the mortally wounded corpsman. At that instant, only inches from his goal, he was struck down by a burst of machine gun fire.

Father Capodanno was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions.

The Catholic Church is considering the case to canonize Father Capodanno as a saint. As I understand it, he has been named “Servant of God”, which is the first step in the process, but I can’t tell if there’s been any progress on this since 2013.

Posted in Heroism, History, Leadership, Religion | 3 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 55

May 24th, 2020

Science Sunday!

I thought I’d go back to the early days, starting with the 1950s.

From 1953, and the Bell System, “The Transistor”, an early documentary about the transistor and its anticipated impact on society. (Remember, this was six years after the transistor was invented.)

Wrist radios! Portable televisions! Computers that can fit into “a good sized room”! The future!

Bonus video #1: “Genesis of the Transistor”. Also from the Bell System, but from 1965 this time: the origins and development of the device.

Bonus video #2: “The Incredible Machine”. Electronic circuit design, digital drawing with a pen, computer animation, computer music composition, speech synthesis…none of this stuff is extraordinary today. But it was in 1968.

The Bell Labs ‘Graphic 1’ computer system consisted of a Digital Equipment Corporation ‘PDP-5’ computer coupled with input devices such as the ‘Type 370’ light pen and Teletype Corporation ‘Teletype Model 33’ keyboard, married to a Digital Equipment Corporation ‘Type 340’ precision incremental display backed by 36-bit Ampex ‘RVQ’ buffer memory capable of storing 4096 ‘words’. The resolution on the monitor was 1024×1024.
This system was designed to transform the graphics-based input into output to be fed into a IBM ‘7094’ (200 Kflop/s). The entire thing was attached to a microfilm-based recorder – the Stromberg Carlson ‘SC 4020’, which took hours to read and record the data.

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 54

May 23rd, 2020

Since it is Memorial Day weekend…

“The Legacy of the Thresher”. This is (according to the YouTube notes) an old “CBS Reports” special from 1964. (The USS Thresher was lost April 10, 1963.)

Of possible amusement value to some folks: this features a very young Dan Rather.

Bonus video: this is a little shorter, if you’re pressed for time on this Saturday. It also fits in thematically with Lawrence’s Battleswarm post today.

From the Department of the Navy and the US National Archives: “To the Shores of Iwo Jima”.

Posted in History, TV | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 53

May 22nd, 2020

Here’s something I haven’t done before. Remember the days of auto stunt shows? Guys jumping over cars? Demolition derbies?

“So You Want Thrills!” No, that’s the name of the movie, not a statement of fact. Featuring Jimmy Lynch and his Death Dodgers. And what do the Death Dodgers drive? If you said “Dodge cars”, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.

That one is from 1948. Our bonus video is from the early 1980s, and alsp features Chrysler/Dodge cars: “The Hell Driver Formula”.

That’s something I wish I could have seen when I was younger. Unfortunately, there really weren’t any tracks in the Houston area where a team could do this kind of driving. They did do a stunt show/demolition derby in the Astrodome when I was young, and I remember going to that at least once: the high point for me was the guy who sealed himself in a coffin and blew himself up. There was also a car jump involved, as I recall, but (odd as it may seem) space in the Astrodome didn’t allow for a truly epic long car jump.

(They were doing these shows in the Astrodome at least up until 1985: a Wikipedia search reminded me that Karel Soucek, a “Canadian daredevil” who went over Niagra Falls in a barrel, was killed during one of those shows.)

Oh, what the hell, one more: “Paul Riddell’s Imperial Hell Drivers”. I think this is from Canada, eh? Oh, wait, I’m sorry: I checked Wikipedia, and it is actually from a show in Quebec. Apologies to both the Canadians and the Québécois in my audience.

Posted in Cars, History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 22, 2020.

May 22nd, 2020

Legendary Army Ranger, trainer, and gun guy Chuck Taylor passed away a few weeks ago. I wasn’t aware of this until Bayou Renaissance Man posted a nice tribute to Mr. Taylor on his blog, which I encourage you to go read.

Theodore “Ted” Keith passed away last September. I was not aware of this until it was posted on one of the forums for Smith and Wesson collectors.

Ted Keith was the son, and last surviving child of, the legendary gun guy Elmer Keith, about whom I have written in the past and certainly will in the future.

Ted Keith was a special guest at the 2012 S&WCA meeting in Boise. I didn’t get as much of a chance to talk to him as I would have liked (his time was pretty booked), but I have one outstanding memory of him: I was standing in the Boise Cabela’s with a bunch of other S&WCA folks looking at the Elmer Keith Museum (which, at the time, was located in the Boise Cabela’s). Ted was going around introducing himself to everyone there: he walked up to me, stuck out his hand, and said “Hi, I’m Ted Keith.”

The man was a class act.

Ted bagged bear, deer, elk, moose, antelope, ducks, pheasants, geese and wild boar. “The older I get, the smaller the game I pack out,” was a favorite sentiment.

Posted in Guns, Obits | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 52

May 21st, 2020

Pan Am was founded in 1927. By an obscure mathematical property known as addition, this would mean that 1977 was their 50th anniversary.

So they decided to do something special. Pan Am flew a 747-SP1, the “Clipper New Horizons” around the world from San Francisco…

…over the North and South Pole. The flight took 54 hours, 7 minutes, and 12 seconds.

Here’s a Pan Am promo film/documentary about the flight.

Bonus video #1: would you like to watch a reasonably attractive blonde in a Boeing promo film for the 747? Then “Assignment 747” is for you!

Bonus video #2: If you want something with a little bit more substance, “The New Era: Flight Testing the 747 Superjet”. Personally, I think I’d watch this one before I watched the one with the blonde, but that’s just the kind of hairball I am.

Posted in History, Planes | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 51

May 20th, 2020

Would you believe the Central Intelligence Agency has a YouTube channel? Probably.

Would you believe the (even more secretive) National Reconnaissance Office has one? Maybe.

A couple of short ones today, and a longer one:

“Development of CORONA, The World’s First Reconnaissance Satellite”. This is on the CIA’s channel, but was apparently prepared by the NRO. I’ve touched on CORONA before, but this is a more recent, better quality, and declassified look.

Bonus video #1: From the NRO itself: “The Last Bucket Catch”, about the film retrieval from CORONA. As you may recall from the previous CORONA video, they were basically snatching containers of undeveloped film out of the air.

Bonus video #2: Because we all love it, “Angels in Paradise: The Development of the U-2 at Area 51”. From the CIA in 1960: according to the YouTube notes, “This video was made for family members of the people working on the Angel reconnaissance plane to explain the workers’ long absences from home.”

There are times when I just can’t believe this stuff is out there…

Posted in History, Planes | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 20, 2020.

May 20th, 2020

Annie Glenn. The phrase “love story for the ages” is over-used, in my opinion. But it fits here. She and John Glenn were childhood playmates, and were married for 73 years.

“I could never get through a whole sentence,” she told The New York Times in 1980. “Sometimes I would open my mouth and nothing would come out.”
But in 1973, in her 50s, she decided to address her stuttering by participating in a fluency-shaping program developed by Dr. Ronald Webster at Hollins College (now Hollins University) in Virginia.
“I cannot make telephone calls, so John called and enrolled me,” she told The Boston Globe in 1975. “The first requirement was to do a taped interview. That established the fact that I’m an 85 percent stutterer, which is in the ‘most severe’ range.”
She immersed herself in Dr. Webster’s intensive, three-week program. By the end of it, she said, she could do things that had been beyond her before, like go to a mall and comfortably ask a store clerk where to find something.
“Those three weeks, we weren’t allowed at all to see our family, or to call, or anything,” she said.
“When I called John” at the program’s end, she added, “he cried.”
She became a champion for people with speech disorders and an adjunct professor in the speech pathology department at Ohio State University’s department of speech and hearing science. In 1987, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association created an award in her honor, known as the Annie, presented annually to someone who demonstrates, as the organization puts it, her “invincible spirit in building awareness on behalf of those with communication disorders.”
“Annie Glenn remains a hero to many of us who in various periods of our lives couldn’t get a word, a thought, or a sentiment past our lips,” David M. Shribman, executive editor emeritus of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, wrote in February in The Boston Globe on the occasion of Mrs. Glenn’s 100th birthday.
“She fought her condition, to be sure,” Mr. Shribman, a stutterer himself, wrote, “but she also fought for broad public understanding of stuttering, for the idea that stutterers weren’t merely shy, weren’t unintelligent, weren’t social pariahs.”

I don’t want to give away the end of the obit: I encourage you to go read it.

Posted in Heroism, History, Obits | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 50

May 19th, 2020

I don’t want to burn off all of my military content before Memorial Day. But as it turns out, I’ve got a couple of things in reserve.

So here’s something we hope you’ll really like: “Floating Fortress”, from 1952. A slice of life onboard the USS New Jersey during the Korean War. Nice video of the big guns being loaded and fired.

Bonus video #1: As you may know, Bob, the battleship New Jersey is currently a museum ship in Camden. As you may have guessed, the museum is closed for the moment…

…so the good folks there put a virtual tour of the New Jersey up on YouTube.

Bonus video #2: “The American Dreadnaught” from 1968, which covers the de-mothballing and recommissioning of the New Jersey during Vietnam.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 19, 2020.

May 19th, 2020

Everybody and his brother sent me this, so: Ken “Eddie Haskell” Osmond.

I’ve never been a fan of “Leave It to Beaver”, but much respect to the late Mr. Osmond for honorable service with the LAPD:

“I’m not complaining, because Eddie’s been too good to me, but I found work hard to come by,” he said. “In 1968, I bought my first house, in ’69 I got married, and we were going to start a family and I needed a job, so I went out and signed up for the L.A.P.D.”
As an officer on motorcycle patrol, he grew a mustache to disguise himself. In 1980, he was shot three times in a chase with a suspected car thief but escaped serious injury: One bullet was stopped by his belt buckle, the others by his bulletproof vest. He was put on disability and retired from the force in 1988.

Michel Piccoli, prominent French actor.

Posted in California Über Alles, Cops, Law, Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 49

May 18th, 2020

I’m being lazy today, I admit: I had an eye doctor appointment this afternoon, didn’t have time to get this done before my appointment, and my right eye is still kind of messed up. But I didn’t want to miss a day.

So, please to enjoy: “Action at Dog Island”, a 1972 film about drug interdiction from…the Royal Navy?

Please also to excuse any typos.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 18, 2020.

May 18th, 2020

Phyllis George, former Miss America and former co-host of “The NFL Today”.

Hired as a co-host of CBS Sports’s weekly pregame football show — which featured the high-profile hosts Brent Musburger and Irv Cross and the gambling commentator Jimmy Snyder, or Jimmy the Greek, as he was known — Ms. George immediately became the most prominent woman in sportscasting.
But with her beauty-queen background and her modest television résumé, she was criticized for lacking the traditional sportscaster credentials. She was not a former sportswriter, like Mr. Musburger, and she was obviously not a retired football player, like Mr. Cross.
She responded to her critics by saying that she knew enough about sports, especially football, to get by.
“I’m from Texas,” she told People magazine in 1976, “and down there you follow the Texas Longhorns and the Dallas Cowboys or you don’t belong.”

Excuse me?

She was married twice: to John Y. Brown Jr., former Governor of Kentucky, and Robert Evans.

Captain Jenn Casey, Royal Canadian Air Force. She was a public affairs officer with the Snowbirds demonstration team: the plane she was in crashed during a demo in Kamloops yesterday. The pilot, Captain Richard MacDougall, ejected but suffered serious injuries.

McThag has some thoughts on the subject.

Posted in 1970s, NFL, Obits, Planes, Sports, TV | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 48

May 17th, 2020

Science Sunday!

Today, we’re wrapping up the Bell System Science Series. Previous posts:

We’re still in the “produced “under the personal supervision of Jack L. Warner”/Owen Crump era. But according to Wikipedia, the Bell System wasn’t all that happy with the first two Warner films, and actually approached Frank Capra about coming back. I gather he turned them down.

Film number seven in the series: “Thread of Life”, about DNA and related matters (heredity, genetics, all that stuff). This is from 1960, so it’s worth considering where we were at the time: it wasn’t until 1952 that DNA was established as the carrier of genetic information, and it wasn’t until 1953 that Crick and Watson published the double helix paper. Franklin and Gosling’s X-ray diffraction photo was from 1952.

In an influential presentation in 1957, Crick laid out the central dogma of molecular biology, which foretold the relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins, and articulated the “adaptor hypothesis”. Final confirmation of the replication mechanism that was implied by the double-helical structure followed in 1958 through the Meselson–Stahl experiment. Further work by Crick and co-workers showed that the genetic code was based on non-overlapping triplets of bases, called codons, allowing Har Gobind Khorana, Robert W. Holley, and Marshall Warren Nirenberg to decipher the genetic code. These findings represent the birth of molecular biology.

This is literally within a couple of years of the beginnings of molecular biology, and the Bell System is trying to present these concepts to the general public.

What if – and I know this is a crazy thought – but what if someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos produced a one hour video once a year to explain some scientific concept to the general public? Get some real hotshot director like Tarantino to direct, bring in subject matter experts who come across well on camera, hire a charismatic host…? I think you could do this without veering into the political arena, though I’m sure the temptation would be hard to resist for some.

Just a thought.

Rowland Barber wrote the screenplay for this one: he’s perhaps more famous as the author of The Night They Raided Minsky’s, basis for the early William Friedkin movie.

Film number eight in the series: “About Time”. The people of Planet Q have a problem. They haven’t been into the concept of “time”, but they just got their first clock and want to know what time they should set it to. They are unhappy with the initial answer – “Set it anywhere you like.” which leads to a discussion of time, the nature of time, timekeeping, how do we really know what time it is anyway, and relativity theory.

Spoiler #1: the ultimate answer turns out to be…”Set it anywhere you’d like.” But there’s a catch: the people of Planet Q are looking for audiophiles who are interested in high quality cassette tapes.

Spoiler #2: if you don’t want to watch the whole film, but are just interested in the guest appearance, Dr. Richard P. Feynman appears at about the 45 minute mark.

Is it just me, or is there a little bit of resemblance between Feynman and Leonardo DiCaprio?

Okay, that may not have been the best DiCaprio photo I could have picked, but I have reasons. I really think DiCaprio could pull off the Feynman role, if they ever make that film of his life.

But I digress. There was one more film in the series: “The Restless Sea”. Unlike the first eight, it was only 30 minutes long. It also wasn’t produced by Capra or Warner: this was actually a Disney production. Les Clark, one of the early Disney animators, directed, and Walt Disney appears as himself.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find this one anywhere. Wikipedia’s page lists various public domain/DVD/VHS/laserdisc releases of the Bell System Science Series, but none of them seem to include “The Restless Sea”. I suspect this is locked away in the Disney vault, possibly on the same shelf as “Song of the South”.

Next week: I want to continue the “Science Sunday” theme, but I don’t have any good ideas right now. Suggestions from the gallery are very welcome.

Posted in Geek, History | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 16, 2020.

May 16th, 2020

Fred Willard. Damn.

Edited to add: NYT. Variety.

Posted in Movies, Obits | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 47

May 16th, 2020

This is kind of a three-way tip of the hat to:

  • Morlock Publishing, continuing yesterday’s theme.
  • Borepatch and ASM826, because this is related to some things they’ve been posting
  • and RoadRich, because planes. Also, tonight is “12 O’Clock High” night.

“The Story of Willow Run”, from FoMoCo. Willow Run was where Ford built the B-24. They initially were turning out parts that Consolidated and Douglas put together, but that turned out to be troublesome. In October of 1941 Willow Run got permission to build complete planes, and ran the line until May 1945. At peak, the line was turning out a finished bomber every 55 minutes.

Bonus video: unrelated to the above, but related to something earlier in the week. From 1937: “Boulder Dam”, a film from the US Archives about the construction of the dam that later became known as “Hoover Dam”.

Posted in History, Planes | Comments Closed

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