[AT] Thank You Vets

Fri Nov 13 13:47:11 PST 2015

Cecil,  I played with Google Earth some more and plotted lines of travel
by measuring lines from the points you mentioned.  It turns out that if
you pass off Cape Horn and continue south, not actually rounding the cape
but passing near it and skirting around Antarctica that you end up near 
Australia
following a direct arc in clear water.  Then plotting a course from 
Australia
to Egypt it is pretty much a clear shot and away from both Africa and the
south Pacific.  If the goal was to steer clear of the Germans around Africa 
and
the Japs in the western Pacific that turns out to be a fairly reasonable 
route.
It's a few thousand miles out of the way but that was not the major concern
in those days.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cecil R Bearden
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 8:30 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Thank You Vets

Charlie:
I got to thinking about that story and then tried to look at Google
Earth and sp;ent the next 2 hours trying to get it to load....   I think
things are working for the present.  HP and Windows just did something
last night that will probably screw up something elsewhere...   They
went from San Francisco to Pearl, Dad said he could hear the guys in the
battleships banging on the walls, then to Sydney then through the Suez
Canal.   He said they went so far south of Australia that the spray
froze on the railing of the ship..  I was thinking they went around the
tip of S.A. but that would not even make sense to the military..  They
would not go through the Straits of Gibraltar due to Rommel going across
North Africa at the time...
Cecil in OKla

On 11/12/2015 11:10 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> My dad was a bit old for WWII and had some health issues
> plus he had a "vital job".  He owned a service station.
> So he escaped the war several ways.  However several of my
> uncles served in WWII.  One uncle was in the Army and served
> as a coast watcher in New Zealand.  Lonesome work!
>
> Cecil, I'd like to know the details of the trip from San Francisco to
> Egypt.  If he went via Australia I don't understand why he would
> go around the Cape and if he did he'd have to go around Cape Horn
> and Cape Good Hope and up the east coast of Africa with a detour to
> Australia.  Seems like from San Francisco it would be a straight shot
> to Indonesia and past Australia into the Indian Ocean and up.  Unless 
> maybe
> they went from Cape Horn, around Antarctica and up past Tasmania to
> Australia
> and up into the Indian Ocean.   I know some guys that have sailed around
> the world in sail boats.  That Southern Ocean is a tough place!
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cecil R Bearden
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 9:24 AM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Thank You Vets
>
> My Dad was in the Army stationed in Egypt repairing Radar & Radios in
> planes making bombing runs around the Mediterranean.  He would talk
> about cornstalks being found in the bombay doors of the planes from the
> low level runs the planes would make.  He would tell of the boat trip
> from San Francisco to Egypt via Australia and around Cape Horn.  The one
> he always told with that story was seeing the Statue of Liberty in NY
> Harbor.   His brother was in the Seabees and stationed in the Aleutians
> for the entire war.  Dad used to talk of  letters between them when the
> temperature was 200 degrees difference. The censors would not let them
> write where they were located, one of his letters said: " I'm in the
> land where God was born and I wish to God I was in the land where I was
> born".  I hope to go through his letters home and give them to the
> Veterans museum here in our small town.
>
> The Uncle in the Seabees came home and was a carpenter for the next 40
> years.  He taught me the trade starting at the age of 3, I followed him
> around on building sites until I was 13.  When I built my house 20yrs
> later, I all came back to me like it was yesterday.
>
> My Mother's brother was in Germany and was captured and escaped. He
> would not really tell many war stories, he just listened to the others
> tell theirs.
>
> As a kid, it was always interesting to hear these war stories. Whenever
> a group of men got together, the war stories would start within 15
> minutes............
>
> We will never be able to thank our veterans enough.
>
> Cecil in OKla
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 11/12/2015 5:35 AM, charlie hill wrote:
>> Hi Don,  I live about 35 miles from Lejeune and have worked aboard that
>> base many times over the years.    I'm not surprised at the living
>> conditions.
>> There wasn't much in this part of the world when I was born in 1950 and
>> most of what was here was built up during the war.
>>
>> I had a couple of friends aboard the Enterprise off Vietnam.  One of them
>> died
>> of cancer a few months ago.  He was on her when the N. Koreans captured
>> our spy ship in the late 60's and took a high speed ride up the coast as
>> we
>> repositioned assets for that episode.   My thanks go out to your dad and
>> you
>> and all of our vets for your service.  I was in the draft line but they
>> didn't want me.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Don
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 9:56 PM
>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>> Subject: Re: [AT] Thank You Vets
>>
>> My father joined the Marines in 1938.  He was in the maneuvers in Camp
>> Lejeune where they used trucks with stove pipes to pretend to be tanks
>> and bombed with sacks of flower.  My mother said that they lived in a
>> converted chicken coop.
>>
>> He was in Perl on December 7 building barracks and was in several
>> Pacific island invasions including Guam where he was wounded.  He was
>> one of those who went into caves and in one a suicide with a hand
>> grenade blew him back out.  He always said he was "Shot in the ass on
>> Asan Point", one of the invasion beaches.  They sent him home and he
>> spent the remainder of the war as a drill Sargent at Pendelton.  I
>> always kidded my mother that I knew what they were doing to celebrate
>> the end of the war, I was born in March of 1946.
>>
>> I have looked in one of those caves on Asan Point, glad it was not me
>> there.  But someone had to do it.  I have also looked up that draw on
>> Omaha Beach on a nice June day and wandered through the cemetery at the
>> top.
>>
>> My little taste of war was working on helicopters while ridding a big
>> boat with an airport on its roof off Viet Nam.
>>
>
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