SEPTEMBER 21, 1897= "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus!"

Yes I know! With every year that passes the pause between the end of summer and Halloween gets smaller. And after Halloween never mind Thanksgiving but let's move straight on to the Christmas BUYING season.  I bemoan this entirely commercial kidnapping of our once cherished kids holiday into a big cashier's payoff as much as you do. So please understand that that is not what I'm doing here! It would feel a lot more appropriate if this had occurred some time in December.  But it didn't.  It happened now and since this Blog is called "TODAY in History", please indulge me for posting it today.

It just so happens that one of the best loved episodes of our Christmas holiday season occurred on today's date, September 21 in 1897  when the little eight year old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote in to the newspaper the New York  Sun to  get an authoritative answer to a question which had bothered her. Miss O'Hanlon's actual letter (above) struck one of the the Sun's editors as being important enough to require an immediate response.  So Mr. Francis Pharcellus Church composed a properly philosophical answer. First I'll give you the full text of the Sun's introduction, Miss O'Hanlon's letter, and then the Sun's rather lengthy response and then we'll look at some of the historical details.

"Is There a Santa Claus?

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.

Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’

Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.

115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

The Reaction to and Legacy of "Yes, Virginia..."

  The editorial response from the Sun has gone on to be the most often repeated editorial in our English language. Nevermind that it goes on to deal with some pretty adult concepts such as "the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge." and uses some words which I don't imagine most 8 year olds would ever understand these days such as "comprehensible". But it does refer to some very modern day problems as "the skepticism of a skeptical age." In our very own present day with our computers, cell-phones, "smart" phones, we. or at least I wonder if it's possible to capture the imagination of children who seem jaded in a world that that has become harsh and all too real, wherein children know the latest computer trends, but rarely go out and see nature in its own habitat.

Some Reality...

  And of course even this seemingly magical moment has some harsh reality to go with it. The editorial went unsigned in the newspaper that day; its author, Mr. Francis Pharcellus Church had been a war correspondent during the American Civil War, and had thus seen humanity and destruction at its worst. So that may have informed the editorial with its laments about skepticism, and the need for child-like faith, romance and love. Indeed it may very well be that Mr. Church

himself (right) was a kind of hardened cynic. In an edition of the radio program "the Rest of the Story" an anecdote was broadcast saying that Francis Pharcellus Church was an atheist who had no belief in superstitions. It also said that Church didn't want to write the editorial and that this was why he didn't want his name attached to it. Although I must say that I find it difficult to believe that the man who wrote those sweet words was a cynic who didn't believe any of what he wrote there. But there it is for my readers to consider.

"Yes Virginia" Continues....

   Whatever the truth about the details of the story behind the story may be, the essential meaning of the story goes on year after year to inspire readers with its faith in the goodness and love to be found in the whole idea of Christmas and Santa Claus. A cartoon has been produced of the story, a TV movie, and of course numerous newspapers around the
country continue to re-print the letter from little Virginia, and the Sun's response every Christmas. Not a bad legacy for a letter from a little girl, wouldn't you say?


Sources =

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus

https://oklahoman.com/article/2878743/yes-virginia-brwe-offer-this-classic-for-santa-doubters

https://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia/ 

SEPTEMBER 3, 1783 = The Treaty of Paris is Signed

The Treaty of Paris was signed by Britain and America on today's date, Sept. 3 in Paris (hence the name), in 1783. This document recognized the former American colonies to be a free and independent nation.  Although both the Brits and we Americans mostly got what they wanted out of the Treaty, the Brit's overall feelings can be summed up by the painting above by Benjamin West. It is a painting of the peace negotiators and it remains eternally unfinished, because the British  declined to sit and be painted into it.

The Fighting War Ends

The last actual armed combat between Britain and America came in October 1781 with the surrender of the last major army the Brits had in America (outside of New York City) on October 19, 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. That left @ 9,000 prisoners of war (including General Cornwallis) on America's hands. The defeat at Yorktown left the war in

America with diminishing support in the British Parliament and with the British public. The war government of Lord North had been brought down by the defeat at Yorktown  and had been replaced the new Prime Minister, Lord Shelburn (right) who saw a favorable opportunity to develop a new and lucrative trading partner with the Americans. But the point which held up full negotiations on a Peace Treaty was the British unwillingness to recognize America as a free and independent state. Lord Shelburn had no problem with this. Yes Britain would accept American Independence. So on that basis negotiations could proceed.

The United States Send Jay, Adams and Franklin

  The U.S. sent John Jay, the U.S. Minister to Spain to Paris to negotiate with the Brits, and with him sent John Adams (below), and Ben Franklin, already in Paris as our Minister to France.  The Continental Congress  had given it's delegation strict instructions to follow France's lead in the negotiations. But the U.S. delegation saw no advantage in hitching our position to France. Jay told the Brits that his 

people would negotiate directly with them. Adams, who favored the idea as well said that the U.S. wished: "...to be honest and grateful to our allies,  but to think for ourselves."  The most important point came in the first sentence of Article I stating, "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges
the said United States... to be free, sovereign and independent states." 
This was fine with Shelburn who saw it as a way of splitting the U.S. off from France and thus bring about the rich trading partnership with the Americans. And it paid off handsomely with the Brits ceding all of the territory south of Canada down to Spanish held Florida, and east of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, thus doubling the size of the United States with the stroke of a pen.

Other Terms of the Treaty of Paris

Among other things, the treaty recognized the deep sea fishing rights of American fishermen in the Grand Banks off the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland coasts.

Declared the Mississippi River to be open for the free navigation of both countries.

Said that the Continental Congress would recommend and "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties.." seized from British loyalists during the war. Also, it said that debts to creditors on either side of the conflict would be paid.

Released Prisoners of war on both sides; and any property of the British army presently located in the United States was forfeited. This included slaves.

The Treaty was signed by Franklin, Adams and Jay and the British emissary Richard Oswald at the Hotel d’York in Paris, on September 3, 1783.  It would be ratified by the Continental Congress in early 1784. The conflict which had started out as a skirmish between a few hundred British regulars and disgruntled Massachusetts farmers and townsmen way back on April 19 in 1775 and had swallowed up a large chunk of the North American continent was at long last over. And the United States of America which would eventually take up nearly the entire continent was born.


Sources =

https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/treaty-of-paris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)

"John Adams" by David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2001

"The American Heritage History of the American Revolution" by Bruce Lancaster, American Heritage Publishing Co., New York, 1971

AUGUST 22, 1485 = The Battle of Bosworth Field

The Battle of Bosworth Field, which was fought on today's date, August 22 in the year 1486, was the climactic engagement in the English Civil War which took up the later half of the 15th Century, called "the War of the Roses". The war was essentially  a struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York over which of them would hold the throne of England and thus rule the country.  The Battle was won by the forces of Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond who would afterword would ascend to the throne as Henry VII, having vanquished the forces of King Richard III of the house of York whom he believed had usurped the throne via murder. Richard was killed during the battle; the last English king to suffer that fate in battle. As this marked a change to the house of York and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty over to the Tudors it is a very important moment in the history of England.

Richard Usurps the Throne

The murder which Richard was suspected was that of his nephew Edward V. Richard had become Lord High Protector when Edward IV died and his only successor was his son the 12 year old Edward V. But Richard managed to get himself declared King on July 6 1483 after

which date the young Edward was not seen in public again. Richard III (right) was of course widely suspected of having him murdered. Richard was also rumored to have murdered his own wife Queen Anne. There was also some troubles regarding the Princess Elizabeth, the elder sister of the murdered Prince, and whom she was going to marry.  She was already engaged to marry Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond who had been across the English Channel in France waiting for the right opportunity to go and knock the usurper Richard off the throne. With Richard under a cloud of suspicion, now was the time.

Henry Lands in Wales, the Armies Clash at Bosworth

Henry, (below) with an army of 6,000 men landed unopposed at Milford Haven on the southwest coast of Wales on August 11, 1485. He

pushed immediately towards Richard, gathering support as he marched toward Richard's forces in London. Richard quickly gathered his forces, between 7,500 and 12,000 men, and the two finally clashed at Bosworth Field, near Leicestershire.  A large portion of Richard's army was under and Sir William Stanley but he held back while they decided which side it would be most advantageous to support. Thus leaving Richard with fewer men at his disposal than he thought, Richard divided his army into three portions each with a specific goal. Stanley's inaction left the battle swaying back and forth until Richard apparently decided to bring it to an end by charging his group directly at Henry. When he saw Richard apart from the rest of his forces,  Stanley decided to throw in with Henry which turned the tide against Richard.  Seeing Henry fairly close by, Richard swung at him mightily, but was unable to get at him and was soon overwhelmed by Henry's men, who knocked him to the ground, and killed him there on that ground. thus ended the troublesome reign of the Richard III of the house of York.


Sources =

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-Battle-of-Bosworth-Field/

"Kingdoms of  Europe" by Gene Gurney, Crown Publ., New York, 1982.

AUGUST 16 = Gold is Discovered in Alaska, 1896.

"To Whom It May Concern:

I do, this day, locate and claim, by right of discovery, five hundred feet, running up stream from this notice. Located this the seventeenth day of August, 1896."

With this simple hand-made sign, prospector George Carmack set off the last great Gold rush that our country would ever see.

George Carmack and His Find

  There had been reports of gold in Alaska and in adjacent parts of Canada for years. There were smaller parties of men looking for gold along the Klondike River in parts  of the United States and Canada's Yukon Territory.  The Gold Rush of 1848 was a not too distant memory,

so at about this time, Carnack having found nothing in California heard about gold to be found along the Klondike River.  So he moved into the area with a pair of Native American cohorts: Tagish Charlie, and Skookim Jim. On today's date August 16 in 1896 while camped near Rabbit Creek, Carmack said that he saw a nugget of gold in one part of the creek, The three men looked further and found more gold in many of the rocks at their spot.  Carmack posted the sign quoted above the very next day. As it turned out there was gold to be found all around this portion of Rabbit Creek which was renamed "Bonanza" as many of the local prospectors began setting up claims in the area as news of the find began to spread.

News of Gold Goes National

While the men who were already on the spot at the time became rich, the Yukon was in a fairly remote spot.  So it was nearly a year before the news spread around the country. But on July 27, 1897 news got to the rest of the world. This was when the steamship Portland arrived in Seattle filled with Gold from these original finds. And the newspapers just couldn't resist from trumpeting the news in their largest print. As a

result over the next several months nearly 100,000 men made their way north to Canada and Alaska hoping to strike it rich quickly. Although most of the easy to find gold had been snapped up by the men like Carmack, they made it as best they could to the Klondike river. The fact is that only about 30,000 actually got there.  It was a long and very cold journey by foot or using pack animals or sleds.  And many just gave up or were killed. Said one prospector: "“It is impossible to give one an idea of the slowness with which things are moving. It takes a day to go four or five miles and back; it takes a dollar to do what ten cents would do at home.”

Klondike Fever Rises!

  The excitement was extreme according to further reports in the Seattle Post Intelligencer: "It is safe to say that never in the history of the Northwest has there been such excitement as has prevailed in this city all day long and which is raging to-night.  It is due to the arrival ... of the steamer Portland, carrying sixty-eight men, from the Clondyke

gold fields, every one of whom brings down a fortune." The hopefuls would land at such tent city ports as Skagaway and Deya, And from there they would start the 600 mile trek to the Gold fields (they hoped). There were many routes, one of which was the steep climb of Chillkoot  Pass (left).  They of course needed all manner of supplies, like snowshoes, winter coats, boots, picks and shovels... everything. and of course there were many men who got rich providing these supplies.


The End Result....

Dawson City (below) became the largest genuine city north of San Francisco;  not just a giant tent city but a town with modern amenities such as proper plumbing, electric lighting and fire hydrants. The growth of Dawson City was one of the key reasons that the Yukon became a new Canadian Territory on June 13, 1898.  Those original groups that found gold (known as "the Klondike Kings") became very rich. It is estimated that over one billion dollars worth of gold was found (adjusted for

modern standards). The original "Klondike King", George Carmack, wound up leaving the area with $1 million in his account. There was an environmental impact on the  area due to soil erosion, and deforestation. And the Native American peoples also suffered from the introduction of white men's diseases such a venereal diseases and small pox. The gold began to run out around 1898-99 with many of the small claims selling off to large mining companies.  Also world events started crowding out the Gold Rush for national attention, such as the looming Spanish/American War. Also gold was found elsewhere in the area such as Nome, Alaska. But a handful had gotten very rich very quickly in this, the last great gold rush in our country's history



Sources =

https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush

https://www.historynet.com/klondike-gold-rush

http://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html

http://alaskaweb.org/mining/klongoldrushstrts.html

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gold-discovered-in-the-yukon

AUGUST 3 = Jesse Owens Wins Olympic Gold

On today's date, August 3, in 1936 at the Olympic games held in Berlin, the American track star Jesse Owens won the gold medal for his 1st place finish in the 100 meter dash. This was no ordinary feat.  This was because it had happened just three days after Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader of Germany had opened the games as a tribute to his regime which glorified the White Aryan as the master race. And Owens who would go on to win three more gold medals was an African American.  In the words of  ESPN: " When Owens finished competing, the African-American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy."

The Olympics: Hitler's Showpiece

As I wrote in my blog posting of three days ago (Aug.1 "Hitler Opens 1936 Olympics in Berlin"), the Nazi regime fully intended to use the Olympic stage as a propaganda tool for their new Germany. And as William Shirer told us, the Nazis saw these games as a perfect time for them to impress  the whole world with the scope of their achievements in their Third Reich.  And although the Nazis tried their best to put on a good public face, removing the most obvious signs of their Antisemitic policies, they could only go so far with that charade.  As ESPN further wrote: "Berlin, on the verge of World War II, was bristling with Nazism, red-and-black swastikas flying everywhere. Brown-shirted Storm Troopers goose-stepped while Adolf Hitler postured, harangued, threatened. A montage of evil was played over the chillingly familiar Nazi anthem: "Deutschland Uber Alles."

Jesse Takes Charge and Wins - FOUR times!

  It was into all of these symbols of the Nazi's racist pageantry James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens of Alabama standing 5-10, and weighing 157 lbs. dashed forward at the sound of the starter's pistol, and sprinted down the 100 meter track in a world record tying 10.3 seconds beating

Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands, and just edging out his own team mate Ralph Metcalfe, thus securing the gold medal (above). And this would only be the first of a total of FOUR gold medals that Owens would collect. In the next few days he would win three more gold medals for the 200 meters dash, the long jump and part of the U.S. team in the 4x100 meters relay, overtaking world records in each category. This total of four gold medals was a record unmatched in that time and for years after.

Hitler Wasn't Happy.....

  In his book "Inside the Third Reich" Albert Speer, one of Hitler's closest associates wrote that Hitler "was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games." On this day Hitler was only willing to shake the hands of the German athletes who had won medals, leaving the stadium immediately thereafter. When International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour protested saying that Hitler should shake hands with all the medalists or none at all.  Hitler took the suggestion, and in his Nazi snit skipped all of the remaining medal awards.

  Jesse Owens himself was not overly upset one way or another. A calm rational man, he took it all in stride, knowing that in his own country as an African American his treatment would not be much better. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens said. "I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either." This was certainly a regrettable reality for Jesse Owens' time, but that would eventually change and he would get the accolades due to him as a winner of the record four gold medals in the Olympics. Among many other honors he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford, in 1976 (below).

Sources =

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens

"Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970

https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ow/jesse-owens-1.html

http://www.espn.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html

https://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/august-3-1936-jesse-owens-wins-100m-gold-in-front-of-adolf-hitler-at-the-berlin-olympics-11363995389348

JUNE 21 = The Yankees Announce Lou Gehrig's Retirement

On June 21, 1939, the New York Yankees announced that Lou Gehrig (left), their long-time first baseman would be retiring from baseball.  "The Iron Horse", who had earned that mantle by appearing in what was then a world record 2,130 consecutive straight games had recently been diagnosed as having amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neuro-muscular disease which causes paralysis in those who have it, eventually resulting in death.

Lou Gehrig's Amazing Career in Baseball

Lou Gehrig, a player of amazing durability, and great offensive talent as a hitter had spent his entire career in Major League Baseball with the
New York Yankees from 1923 through 1939. He had been with then during their glorious period of dominance when they won an astonishing six World Championships between 1927 and 1938. Having come up to the Yankees in 1923, Gehrig took over the first baseman's job in 1925 from Wally Pipp. “I took the two most expensive aspirins in history.”  said Pipp, who sat out a 1925 game with a headache and lost his position to Lou Gehrig, who would play every game there for the Yankees for the remainder of his career. After that it was a ton of remarkable records for "The Iron Horse": he finished his career with an amazing lifetime batting average of .340. Add to that 2,271 runs batted in, 493 home runs a total of 1,195  runs batted in. Further, he led the American League in home runs three times, RBIs five times, and he put up eight seasons with 200+ hits.

Gehrig's Long Decline

   Starting with the 1938 season he seemed to drop off  the amazing standard which he had set for himself. He finished the season with a .295 batting average, 114 RBIs, 170 hits; a fine total for any player but not the spectacular numbers that Gehrig was used to. Gehrig himself remarked "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." As the 1939 season began. it was clear that he no longer possessed his former prowess.  He seemed slow on the base paths, and by the end of Spring Training he had not hit a single home run. When he was able to hit, he showed little power and during batting practice one afternoon, Joe DiMaggio watched in astonishment as the Yankees' hitting star missed 10 fat pitches in a row.  As the 1939 season moved through April Gehrig had only one RBI, and a lowly .143 batting average. Sports writer James Kahn wrote: "I think there is something wrong with him. Physically wrong, I mean. I don't know what it is, but I am satisfied that it goes far beyond his ball-playing...for some reason that I do not know, his old power isn't there ... He is meeting the ball, time after time, and it isn't going anywhere." Gehrig knew that he wasn't up to his own standard so on May 2, he went to Yankees manager Joe McCarthy and asked to be benched "for the good of the team."

The Diagnosis

Gehrig took a plane to Chicago and checked himself into the Mayo Clinic. There, after six days of tests, the doctors gave him the diagnosis: Gehrig was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease which deprives nerve cells of their ability to interact with the body's muscles. This disease causes rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty with swallowing or speaking, and left Lou Gehrig with a life expectancy of fewer than three years. The cause of the disease was unknown then and now. And then, as now, there is no cure.

Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day....

  The Mayo Clinic made their findings public on June 19, 1939. This led the Yankees to  announce Gehrig's retirement on this day, June 21 of that year. The game played on July 4, 1939 was designated as "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium. Ceremonies to honor this great player were held between games of a double-header. In it's coverage, the New York Time's John Drebinger wrote that the ceremony was "...perhaps as colorful and dramatic a pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field.  61,808 fans thundered a hail and farewell." Dignitaries and former Yankees players lined up to speak in tribute to Gehrig, most of them

struggling to hold back their emotions.  Babe Ruth embraced his team mate (right). Then Lou himself stepped forward and delivered a short speech that summed up the man's character, and his indomitable spirit:
       "For the past two weeks you've been reading about a bad break. (pause) Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. When you look around, wouldn't you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as are standing in uniform in this ballpark today?... that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you."

   The Baseball Writers' Association held a special winter meeting on Dec. 7 of 1939, during which Lou Gehrig was inducted to that hall of baseball honor as a result of a special election related to his illness. Lou Gehrig died on June 2, 1941 at his home in the Bronx, New York. His wife, Eleanor, with whom he had no children never remarried, saying: "I had the best of it. I would not have traded two minutes of my life with that man for 40 years with another." She dedicated the rest of her life to the support of ALS research.  Eleanor survived her husband by 43 years, passing away on her 80'th birthday, March 6, 1984.

  It is perhaps a sad thing that the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) has come to be known as  Lou Gehrig's Disease. Just as the
neurological disorder with which I must do battle every day, "Parkinson's Disease" has come to be known by that name after the doctor who first wrote about it, James Parkinson (who wrote "Essay on the Shaking Palsy" in 1817). With both maladies there is no known cause or cure, but scientists and doctors continue to study these disorders and make gains on them every day. Perhaps one day these names will come to be associated with the great victories that will  one day be achieved when a cure for each one is found.  For this we can only pray. But if you wish to do more than that try
  http://www.alsa.org/donate/   to help with research on ALS or go to www.michaeljfox.org/  to help with research on Parkinson's.


Sources =

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig

 https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/gehrig-lou

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Baseball_(documentary)#Inning_5:_Shadow_Ball_(1930_to_1940)

https://www.biography.com/athlete/lou-gehrig

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/

JUNE 6 = "D - Day" 76 Years Later

"Omaha Beach was a night- mare. Even now it brings pain to recall what happe- ned there on June 6, 1944. I have returned many times to honor the valiant men who died on that beach. They should never be forgotten. Nor should those who lived to carry the day by the slimmest of margins. Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero."

- General Omar Bradley, "A General's Life", 1983

On today's date, June 6 in 1944 - 76 years ago -the forces the Western Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France. This was the largest amphibious operation in military history with 160,000 men hitting the beach that morning starting at 6:30 a.m. The landings were preceded by airborne attacks through the early morning hours of June 6 by 24,000 Allied paratroopers. There were 5,000 ships supporting the invasion with naval bombardment as well as carrying the troops and supplies. The enemy were the forces of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany who had occupied France since 1940, imposing untold brutality. The Allied forces were the armies of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, the Free French, as well as ships and contingents of many of the countries which had been overrun by the Nazis. This was quite literally democracy and freedom versus the forces of tyranny, and as would become apparent as the invading allies moved inland and uncovered the murderous death camps, the forces of darkness and evil.

These are basic facts of the operation that day, called "D Day". But this battle (code named "Operation Overlord")... this one day... was such a huge and complex undertaking that entire books, movies and TV documentaries have been devoted to it.. This one engagement would decide whether the Nazi tyranny could be overthrown, or whether it would last indefinitely. Every part of this story would qualify for a separate posting of it's own. But for our purposes here I shall choose one particular facet of the story and focus on that. And as the worst of the fighting -- the bloodiest, yet as General Bradley (commander of the U.S. forces in Normandy) tells us above the most heroic part of the story came at Omaha Beach, that is where I shall focus, attempting to relate what it was like to be there.

Omaha Beach - A Killing Field

Omaha Beach was so bloody is because of its topo- graphy and its po- sition in the Allied attack zone: right in the middle of it - a fifty mile (80 kilometer) stretch of the of northwestern France's Normandy peninsula, divided into Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah Beach (click on the above map to enlarge). The British, Canadian, and Free French were assigned the Sword, Juno and Gold beaches, the Americans were assigned Omaha and Utah Beaches. Failure to take it could endanger the entire operation by leaving the Allied forces divided. The German commander, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, an intelligent officer (to say the least) saw that this area would be the key to any Allied assault, and had put up the strongest defenses in Normandy here. Omaha was overlooked by tall cliffs (easily visible in the middle of the above photograph) from which the Germans could blanket the whole beach with machine gun fire. The beach leading up from the water was filled with obstacles and mines. Part of the beach was called "shingles" - a line of small stones which offered a very small amount of protection from the machine gun fire. These were lined with barbed wire which made it impassable without exposure to the machine guns. And staying by the shingles too long left the troops exposed to German mortar fire. And with high cliffs enclosing it, Omaha could not be gone around.

"A hurricane of enemy machine gun fire..."

As if the above was not enough, the German forces defending Omaha were not the soft, half-loyal Russian and Polish conscripts that Allied intelligence had reported, but the crack, battle-hardened 352'nd Division. Their artillery made it nearly impossible for the men to be taken close to the beach. Thus from the moment they left their landing craft, the American infantry was in high water under heavy fire. As General Bradley sorrowfully recorded: "All men instantly came under a hurricane of enemy machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. Dozens died or fell wounded, many drowning in the sea. There was no cover. The men lay in the sand or shallow water, unable to return fire, or crouched behind stranded landing craft. For several hours, the beach and the water just beyond was a bloody chaos."

Bradley gives "unstint- ing praise" to the ships of the U.S. navy, whose destroy- ers repeatedly risked running aground by steaming in close enough to the beach to give the Army troops cover with their big naval guns. But Omaha was still nearly impassable. Nearly entire regiments were wiped out within a few minutes, leaving many survivors disoriented. Sgt. Thomas Valance of the 116'th Regiment recalled that after being severely wounded, he "... staggered up against the seawall and sort of collapsed there, and as a matter of fact spent the whole day in that same position. Essentially my part in the invasion ended by having been wiped out as most of my company was. The bodies of my buddies were washing ashore and I was the one live body in amongst so many of my friends, all of whom were dead, in many cases severely blown to pieces."

Private John Mc Phee of the 16'th regiment recalled being exhausted by all of the heavy equipment he had to carry: "Our life expectancy was about zero. We were burdened down with too much weight. We were just pack mules. I was very young in excellent shape. I could walk for miles, endure a great deal of physical hardship, but I was so seasick I thought I would die. In fact, I wished I had. I was totally exhausted." Pvt. Mc Phee was hit three times, and luckily for him was dragged to safety by his buddies and evacuated.

Dealing With Chaos and Moving Off the Beach

With so many higher ranking officers being wounded or killed it was frequently left to Captains and lower ranking officers to organize the chaos from different parts of units being thrown together in the chaos of battle and find some way of moving off the very slim sliver of beach they were holding onto and moving up the cliffs. Lieutenant John Spaulding of the 16'th regiment's E Company lead one such movement, climbing one of the many bluffs looking down on the beach: "We still could see no one to the right and there was no one up to us on the left... we didn't know what had become of the rest of E Company. Back in the water boats were in flames. I saw a tank ashore, knocked out. After a couple of looks back, we decided we wouldn't look back anymore." Spaulding lead his men through a minefield with the help of Sergeant Fred Bisco, who yelled "Lieutenant, watch out for the damn mines... but we lost no men coming through them, although H Company coming along the same trail a few hours later lost several men. The Lord was with us and we had an angel on each shoulder on that trip." 

Captain Joseph T. Dawson was leading a company of men through a similar minefield situation when he met up with Spaulding's group. They were proceeding "... up to the crest of the ridge which overlooked the beach. We got about halfway up when we met the remnants of a platoon from E Company, commanded by Lt. Spaulding. This was the only group -- somewhere less than twenty men -- we encountered who had gotten off the beach." The group then organized an attack: "Above me, right on top of the ridge, the Germans had a line of defenses with an excellent field of fire. I kept the men behind and along with my communications sergeant and his assistant, worked our way up to the crest of the ridge. Just before the crest was a sharp perpendicular drop, and we were able to get up the crest without being seen by the enemy. I could now hear the Germans talking in the machine gun nest immediately above me. I then threw two grenades, which were successful in eliminating the enemy and silencing the machine gun which had been holding up our approach." 

General Eisenhower Pays Tribute

Overall the Allies suffered 12,000 casualties (men killed or wounded) in operations that took place on June 6, 1944. These included operations of airborne troops, naval vessels, and medical corpsmen operating on the beach, whose heroic contributions to the victory won that day we simply didn't have room to include in this posting, as extended as it is. In an interview with Walter Cronkite on the 20'th Anniversary of D Day in 1964 Dwight D. Eisenhower the Supreme Allied Commander who gave the order to go ahead with the invasion on June 6 said:

"It's a wonderful thing to remember what those fellows twenty years ago were fighting for and sacrificing for, what they did to preserve our way of life. Not to conquer any territory, not for any ambitions of our own. But to make sure that Hitler could not destroy freedom in the world. I think it's overwhelming. To think of the lives that were given for that principle, paying a terrible price on this beach alone on that one day... But they did it so that the world could be free. It just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves."

Sources:

by Omar N. Bradley & Clay Blair, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1983

by Stephen E. Ambrose, Touchstone Books, New York, 1995.

edited by Jon E. Lewis, Carroll & Graf Publ. Inc., New York, 1998.









http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings

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