#BlackHistoryMonth In the Navy, I was fortunate to serve at Commander Cruiser Destroyer Group 2(CCDG2). I reported to duty in 1981 as Radioman Seaman Apprentice(RMSA), and served through 1985 in the communications division achieving the rank of Petty Officer 2nd Class(RM2/SW) /1

Rhino Barges

One of the dullest, coolest, more bizarre and fascinating pieces of kit used in Normandy.

Which NO ONE REALLY CARES ABOUT.

BUT I DO AND YOU SHOULD TOO.
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#WW2 #SWW #History

Planning for Overlord and Neptune had a serious snag, how to get troops from LSTs onto the beach as simply ramming them onto the beaches and dropping the ramp was known to damage the exceptionally vulnerable LSTs and felt to be unsustainable in the mid to long term. /2

LSTs were essential in sustaining Overlord's progress and were a subject of major headaches in the planning phase, and a real subject of friction when it came to launching additional amphibious operations such as Dragoon.

A single LSTs loss represented a capability nick. /3

So, logic dictated, we don't really want these remarkable but rare and highly valuable vessels constantly doing beach landings, we want something to act as a medium between ship to shore, and in came the (mostly) American designed Rhino. /4

I fucking love Rhinos.

Seriously.

Graceful lines of pure industrial pedigree.

Modular.

LOOK AT IT. /5

A Thanksgiving story to warm your pluralistic hearts:

It was the early 1990s, the days before Washington DC had meters in taxis. A famine was raging in Somalia. And I was working in my first job out of college: a brief stint working for an organization that focused on the Middle East peace process.

I was heading to my parents’ house. I was standing in front of a mailbox near my office. I was holding a stack of papers with Hebrew writing on them. I hailed a cab.

I was aware that on the mailbox behind me was a large sign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals with an image of a turkey and the words: “Thanksgiving is Murder on Turkeys.”

It was the period right around Thanksgiving.

A cab pulled up, and I got in the front seat—because in the days before metered cabs in DC, drivers were allowed to pick up more than one fare, and someone else was already occupying the back seat.

(An extract from Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, Soldiering with Dignity)

The man eventually destined to be free India's first Field Marshal was born on 3rd April 1914 at Amritsar. How did a Parsi couple settle for the holy city of the Sikhs? I once asked him and was told that in+

1899, his father recently qualified as a doctor and just married, could make no professional headway in Bombay, and was advised to try his luck at Lahore in the Punjab. With his young wife, he set off by train for Lahore. The long dusty and hot journey took five days and by the+

end of it, his young wife, who had never left the comforts and civilization of Bombay, was in hysterics and cried to go back. Poor Dr Manekshaw did all he could to comfort her, but as the train steamed into Amritsar, with her first sight of the Sikhs the young bride screamed her+

lungs out and refused to go any further. So they left the train at Amritsar, and there they stayed for forty-five years.

The Manekshaws had six children, four boys and two girls, and Sam was the fifth child. Sam had his schooling at Nainital's Sherwood College.+

After completing his schooling, he should have gone to England to pursue higher studies; this was the promise made to him by his father but, fortunately for the Indian Army, Dr Manekshaw felt that this particular son was far too young to be on his own in a foreign country, even+

Ronald Reagan called Medicare & Medicaid dangerous socialism in 1961... he was a right winger of the Barry Goldwater variety, not the warm and fuzzy presidential muppet he has become in his canonization by the 1980s Alex P. Keatons in the commentariat.

Reagan launched his 1980 presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, just 16 years after Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were lynched there, 17 years after Medgar Evers' slaying and 12 years after Dr. King's assassination.

He did it send a message to white voters, not different from the message Donald Trump sent. He was letting white people who were resentful of civil rights advances know whose side he was on, further codifying the GOP as America's white interests party.

Reagan gutted what was left of the Great Society to shovel tax cuts into the pockets of the super rich. (My mother's federal job was deleted by his first presidential budget, though my absentee father was a big Reagan fan. Needless to say they divorced).

Reagan tried to ignore the AIDS pandemic which killed more people than Trump's COVID pandemic has. He just didn't give it the time of day, even though at the time, it was something seemingly everyone thought about, talked about and was terrified of.

Some thoughts on @UKLabour... Many consider Sir Winston Churchill as Britain's greatest PM, yet he succumbed to a huge election defeat in 1945, right after spearheading Britain and its allies to victory in WWII. But how and why did this come about? 1/9

Some say that Churchill was the perfect leader for the job at hand – winning a war. Once war was over having completed a seemingly impossible mission; he had little direction, he was redundant, and society sought new leadership for a new era. 2/9

Some say that Churchill’s unwillingness to adapt caused his defeat. The movement for social reform grew throughout the war and reached a climax with the publication of the Beveridge Report. Churchill missed an opportunity to take on those reforms, and another 5 yrs as PM 3/9

Instead of backing them, he attempted to scare people away from the reforms and socialism as a positive force for good. The party centred the election around Churchill the ‘war lord’. Whilst Labour and Atlee brought the reforms to the centre of their campaign. 4 /9

Following the end of the war, the national conversation centred around issues of housing, health, and employment. Atlee and the Labour Party tuned in and devised a comprehensive manifesto for social change and justice. 5/9