WWII, Truman, and the bomb
- Thread starter mjmaherjr
- Start date
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
Throw in “To Hell and Back” (aka Audie Murphy story)
Also Battleground w/ Van Johnson and James Whitmore.
I don't kmow what it is with guys and war movies. When I was a small kid, Saturday daytime local television was littered with cheesy cowboy movies and reruns where mostly white guys played Indians with stereotyped broken English. Funny to think of a Brooklyn born Jewish guy playing an Indian chief with a new york accent.
Then Sunday daytime local (channel 5,9,11) playing WWII movies with diving whining plane engines, machine gun sounds, and soldiers crawling through mud or heaving grenades at the "jerrys or japs". Thank God for baseball February through October.
Spring training seemed so exotic. Baseball in a warm far off tropical place with palm trees and blue water.
Shell shocked forever, maybe it's time to watch some of these series or movies. I have visited lots of museums though across the country.
Then Sunday daytime local (channel 5,9,11) playing WWII movies with diving whining plane engines, machine gun sounds, and soldiers crawling through mud or heaving grenades at the "jerrys or japs". Thank God for baseball February through October.
Spring training seemed so exotic. Baseball in a warm far off tropical place with palm trees and blue water.
Shell shocked forever, maybe it's time to watch some of these series or movies. I have visited lots of museums though across the country.
Also, A Walk in the Sun with among others Dana Andrews who also starred in the Purple Heart
SJUWillRockNYC
Well-known member
Was going to type in the "pray for Israel thread" but seen that it's locked.
I'm not even going to bring it up or I'll probably get warned.
I'll just say God bless Israel!
I'm not even going to bring it up or I'll probably get warned.
I'll just say God bless Israel!
“Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.
Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’ by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away.
Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks come in and… they rip you to pieces.
You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.
At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’ by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away.
Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks come in and… they rip you to pieces.
You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.
At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
Nice Jaws story.
SJUWillRockNYC
Well-known member
From a real survivor of the Indianapois.
The men in the water faced relentless exposure to the sun, starvation, dehydration — surrounded by water, they had nothing to drink — and fatal saltwater poisoning if they gave in and tried to drink the ocean water. And then there were the sharks.
Harrell found himself in a group of about 80 men that first night, including another Marine, badly injured. Harrell held the man, keeping his head above water, but there was little else he could do.
"He basically died with me holding onto him," Harrell said, lowering his eyes but pausing only slightly. He has told the story many times by now; he knows how to get through it.
"And that first morning, we had sharks."
The men were bobbing in the water, trying to pack together, and fins would appear around them, Harrell recalled. But inevitably, a man would get separated from the group and float off.
"And then you hear a blood-curdling scream," he said. "And then the body would go under, and then that life vest popped back up."
By Day 3, only 17 of the original 80 who were with Harrell were still alive.
USS Indianapolis survivor: 'That first morning, we had sharks'
One of 36 living survivors of the USS Indianapolis still is on a mission to correct and tell the true history of the famed ship's sinking in World War II.
www.indystar.com
The men in the water faced relentless exposure to the sun, starvation, dehydration — surrounded by water, they had nothing to drink — and fatal saltwater poisoning if they gave in and tried to drink the ocean water. And then there were the sharks.
Harrell found himself in a group of about 80 men that first night, including another Marine, badly injured. Harrell held the man, keeping his head above water, but there was little else he could do.
"He basically died with me holding onto him," Harrell said, lowering his eyes but pausing only slightly. He has told the story many times by now; he knows how to get through it.
"And that first morning, we had sharks."
The men were bobbing in the water, trying to pack together, and fins would appear around them, Harrell recalled. But inevitably, a man would get separated from the group and float off.
"And then you hear a blood-curdling scream," he said. "And then the body would go under, and then that life vest popped back up."
By Day 3, only 17 of the original 80 who were with Harrell were still alive.