Category: Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad

Categories
Allies Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad Leadership of the highest kind Soldiering The Green Machine Useful Shit War Well I thought it was neat!

For all the Folks who wonder why we Lost in Nam – Some interesting thoughts to ponder upon

Why America Is Losing Its Wars

William Slim

William Slim

Daniel N. White.  Introduction by William Astore.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the U.S. military has embraced special forces (SEALs, Green Berets, and the like) and has been deploying them globally to at least eighty different countries.  There’s an allure to special forces and the special ops community captured in the country’s admiration of SEAL Team 6 and Hollywood productions like Act of Valor. 
Yet some of history’s finest military leaders haven’t been as enamored of special forces as Hollywood and the American public.  Count William Slim among their ranks.  Slim was a British field marshal who rescued Britain from certain defeat in Burma during World War II, a man deeply respected within military circles for his leadership and wisdom. 
Slim, as Dan White shows, has a lot to teach the US military about the danger of placing too much faith in special ops, especially when larger political and strategic purposes are misguided or lacking.  W.J. Astore
Why America Is Losing Its Wars
Daniel N. White
There are two big reasons why the US military continues to lose its wars.  The first is an uncritical embrace of special forces; the second is a complete lack of clear and achievable political and military objectives.  Both reasons are best exposed through the writings of one of the great military leaders of the 20th (or any other) century: Field Marshal Viscount William Slim.
Let’s take the first point first.  Currently, the US military is undergoing an unprecedented boom in special forces manpower.  Special forces now number a stupendous 63,000 (with expansion plans to 72,000) when the US Army numbers only 546,000.  This push to create a huge special forces establishment and to make it the apex of the US military’s operational forces has gone largely unnoticed and uncommented on.  And that’s a shame, since it’s perilous both for our military and our country.
In this conclusion I’m supported by Field Marshal Slim.  Slim led the Imperial British forces in Burma, a composite army of more than a dozen nationalities, from defeat in 1942 to an overwhelming victory in 1945.
Americans celebrate our defeats of the Japanese in World War II, but our battles—tough as they were—were against Japanese forces outnumbered and cut off from supply and reinforcement on Pacific island battles.
Slim inflicted the largest defeat ever in the history of the Japanese military, and did it on an open battlefield with no great superiority in men and materiel with a defeated army he personally rebuilt and retrained.
Slim’s thoughtful critique of special ops, based on hard-won military experience, is worth quoting at length:
Special forces, according to Slim, “formations, trained, equipped, and mentally adjusted for one kind of operation only, were wasteful.  They did not give, militarily, a worthwhile return for the resources in men, material, and time that they absorbed.”
“To begin with, they were usually formed by attracting the best men from normal units by better conditions, promise of excitement, and not a little propaganda.
Even on the rare occasions when normal units were converted into special ones without the option of volunteering, the same process went on in reverse.  Men thought to be below the standards set or over an arbitrary age limit were weeded out to less favored corps.
The result of these methods was undoubtedly to lower the quality of the rest of the Army, especially of the infantry, not only by skimming the cream off it, but by encouraging the idea that certain of the normal operations of war were so difficult that only specially equipped corps d’elite could be expected to undertake them.”
“Armies do not win wars by means of a few bodies of super-soldiers but by the average quality of their standard units.  Anything, whatever short cuts to victory it may promise, which thus weakens the Army spirit is dangerous.
Commanders who have used these special forces have found, as we did in Burma, that they have another grave disadvantage—they can be employed actively for only restricted periods.
Then they demand to be taken out of the battle to recuperate, while normal formations are expected to have no such limits to their employment.  In Burma, the time spent in action with the enemy by special forces was only a fraction of that endured by the normal divisions.”
“The rush to form special forces arose from confused thinking on what were, or were not, normal operations of war…The level of initiative, individual training, and weapon skill required in, say, a commando, is admirable; what is not admirable is that it should be confined to a few small units.
Any well trained infantry battalion should be able to do what a commando can do; in the Fourteenth Army they could and did.  The cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree.”
Let’s recap.  We have the US military, the Army in particular, embarked on an unprecedented explosion of special forces within its ranks.
One of the great military leaders of the 20th century says that special forces are expensive in resources and generally don’t deliver on what they promise.  This doesn’t look good.
It looks worse when you consider that this explosion of special forces has coincided with two military defeats against what charitably must be called third rate opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Slim provides additional reasons why our military’s excessive reliance on special forces contributed to these defeats:
“The question of control of these clandestine bodies is not without its pitfalls.  In the last war among the allies, cloak-and-dagger organizations multiplied until to commanders in the field—at least in my theater—they became an embarrassment.
The trouble was that each was controlled from some distant headquarters of its own, and such was the secrecy and mutual suspicion in which they operated that they sometimes acted in close proximity to our troops without the knowledge of any commander in the field, with a complete lack of coordination among themselves, and in dangerous ignorance of local tactical developments.
It was not until the activities of all clandestine bodies operating in or near our troops were coordinated and where necessary controlled, through a senior officer on the staff of the commander on the area, that confusion, ineffectiveness, and lost opportunities were avoided.”
Special forces, with their unique and often secretive lines of command, generate severe operational problems in the field, a problem which the US military has experienced in its own, most recent, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Slim’s critique supports the notion that the US military’s recent rush to special forces has contributed to its defeats of late.  The question is why this rush to special forces occurred.   The major reason is our confused thinking about war.  Any war as incoherent and objectiveless as a global war on “terror” must inevitably spawn confused thinking about what normal military operations are in such a war.
The US military simply has no coherent military or political objective for these wars.  I’ve written elsewhere about this, see HERE and HERE.
For the US military, confused thinking at the higher echelons provided special forces enthusiasts with their chance to expand beyond all necessity because they claimed (falsely) to have all the answers for the current uncharted seas we were sailing. They had a plan when others didn’t, and that’s a large part of the rush to special forces—no firm hand was on the tiller.
Here again we should turn to Slim, because he brings to the fore the dire consequence of fighting without coherent objectives:
“For the poor showing we made during the first phase of  the war in Burma, the Retreat, there may have been few excuses, but there were many causes, some of them beyond the control of local commanders.
Of these causes, one affected all our efforts and contributed much to turning our defeat into disaster—the failure, after the fall of Rangoon, to give the forces in the field a clear strategic object for the campaign….
Yet a realistic assessment of possibilities there and a firm, clear directive would have made a great deal of difference to us and to the way we fought.  Burma was not the first, nor was it to be the last, campaign that had been launched on no very clear realization of its political or military objects.  A study of such campaigns points emphatically to the almost inevitable disaster that must follow.  (Italics mine)   Commanders in the field, in fairness to them and their troops, must be clear and definitely told what is the object they are locally to attain.”
Future discussions of why the US has been defeated in its two most recent wars should use these words of Slim as the starting point for any explanation of US failure.  The US military’s rush to special forces is a contributing factor to our current military defeats, but the lead cause is as painfully obvious as it is almost completely ignored: the total lack of clear and coherent political and military objectives for our wars.
The US military’s mania for special forces bothers no one in Washington’s political circles, let alone within the Pentagon.  But from what Slim has taught us, it’s all going to end badly.  Just how badly depends on our future military adventures.
We will certainly have a less effective military because of our special forces mania.  In peacetime that’s regrettable but not fatal.  But come wartime we will ask too much of our special forces and they will fail.  Meanwhile, the regular military, weakened by years of special forces mania, may fail as well.  It’s a sure-fire recipe for defeat.
Unlike Slim, the US military—weakened by structural faults driven by special forces mania and befuddled by a lack of clear and achievable objectives—won’t be able to turn defeat into victory.
Daniel N. White has lived in Austin, Texas, for a lot longer than he originally planned to.  He reads a lot more than we are supposed to, particularly about topics that we really aren’t supposed to worry about.  He works blue-collar for a living–you can be honest doing that–but is somewhat fed up with it right now.  He will gladly respond to all comments that aren’t too insulting or dumb.  He can be reached at Louis_14_le_roi_soleil@hotmail.com.

Categories
A Victory! Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad I am so grateful!! Leadership of the highest kind Manly Stuff Soldiering Stand & Deliver The Green Machine This great Nation & Its People War Well I thought it was neat!

A Great Story about the Rangers

FATHER’S DAY
They Didn’t Do It for Medals
A tribute to our fathers who fought to give us freedom.
by 
 8th Ranger Company during the Korean War (courtesy of U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center in Carlisle, PA)
“Only you — only you! — could manage to get shot in the ass!”
The year was 1987. A group of middle-aged men sat under the umbrellas at the cheap fiberglass tables of the Holiday Inn in Columbus, Georgia not far from Fort Benning. They deserved a Ritz-Carlton, but this would have to do. The sign out in front of the hotel, the letters hanging somewhat askew, read:

WELCOME 8TH AIRBORNE RANGER COMPANY

The comment about taking an unfortunate enemy round in the gluteus maximus was an affectionate jab from one member of the company to another, and it was met with howls of protest and laughter.
“Son,” a grizzled old veteran said gripping my shoulder while the other men tried to interrupt him. “Hush! Hush!” he said to them in mock annoyance before turning back to me. “I mean it went in one cheek and came out of the other just as neatly as could be! No bone, just flesh!”

The index finger of his right hand poked one of his own cheeks while the thumb of his left hand moved up and out on the other side, indicating the bullet’s exit.
The conversation turned to a man with an even more unfortunate war wound.
“I tell ya, he thought his life with the ladies was over.” The other men listened expectantly for the ending of a story they knew well. “There was so much blood, we feared he had been gut shot! But, nooo!”
“No!” bellowed another, like a member of the choir in a good Pentecostal church.
The teller of the story continued: “So, I pull his pants down and guess what? It was just nicked!”
Again, howls of laughter.
My father finished the story: “We just told him he’d have a good story to tell when it came to explaining how he got that scar.”
Men wiped their eyes and guffawed.
This was a reunion of the 8th Airborne Ranger Company, or what remained of it. The end of the American spear in Korea 1950-51, they were the handpicked elite from all airborne and subsequent Ranger units. Not surprisingly, 8th Company had the highest qualification scores in the history of the Ranger Training Command (RTC).
Over the course of that weekend, the Ranger School at Fort Benning would honor them with a demonstration of modern Ranger skills and tactics. The latest generation of Rangers would rappel from helicopters, make a practice jump, and tour them around Benning, the place where 8th Company was born in 1950. And, not coincidentally, it was where I was born.
The men of 8th Company were much older now and not as lean as the men — boys, really — who appeared in the photos from 1950-51. Most carried extra weight around the middle, had the leathery skin that came with years of overexposure to the sun, and old tattoos that had purpled with age on biceps and calves that were not as hard and chiseled as they once were — but you didn’t try to tell them that. Like old athletes, they spoke with as much bravado as ever.
I had to smile. It had been my privilege to be raised in the company of such men. They could be profane and the jokes were always off-color. They were, to a man, hard-drinking and chain-smoking. They incessantly complained about the army and were fiercely proud of their part in it. Ornery and ready to fight each other, they were nonetheless ready to die for each other, too. Their vices were ever near the surface and yet, I cannot imagine where America would be without their kind.
I was 20 years old and sat silently watching and listening as I so often did when my father swapped war stories with other veterans. But this time it was different. These weren’t just any veterans; these were the men with whom he had shed blood. This would be his last reunion and it was important to him that I be there. As the son of an 8th Company Ranger, I was, like other sons, an honorary member of this very exclusive club and therefore allowed to participate on the periphery of their banter — and fetch them beer. Lots of beer. Ranger reunions were impossible without beer. And with middle-aged men, that meant frequent trips to the bathroom.
With my father away for a moment on just that sort of mission, one of his old buddies leaned in as if to tell me a secret:
“If any man was ever born to be a soldier, it was your father. Some men have an instinct for the battlefield, and he damn sure did. Absolutely the best shot I ever saw. Could hit flies at a hundred yards. And, man, he was fearless…”
My father, returning, rolled his eyes: “That’s bulls–t, Mike. I was as afraid as any man.”
He turned to me. “It’s as I’ve told you before, son, a man who is truly fearless will get you killed. There’s something wrong with him. His instincts don’t tell him to be afraid when he should be. You want a man on point who wants to stay alive just like you do and whose senses are telling him ‘something’s not right here’ when there’s reason to believe you’re walking into an ambush. Now Mike here, was a helluva point man…” This was all very typical. They extolled each other’s battlefield heroics, but not their own.
Graduates of the 1950 RTC should not be confused with the more than 10,000 military personnel who wear Ranger tabs today and who do not serve in Ranger units. This is no slight to those who wear them. But as any Ranger will tell you, there is a difference between passing the Ranger course and serving as a Ranger, especially today where the standards have been watered down for political reasons. These men were truly elite as indicated by the high washout rate and the fact that of the 500,000 soldiers of the United Nations serving in the Korean War, there were never more than 700 Rangers.
Just as my father indicated, I had heard stories like this before, this old battlefield wisdom. My whole life, in fact. More stories followed. More laughter, backslapping, and beer. Indeed, the cans in the center of the table began to pile up and lips became looser.
Those of us who have heard a lot of old war stories, the wives, the sons and daughters, learn to distinguish the authentic from the fictional. Because the men who did the real fighting as these men had — and I mean the really brutal, prolonged, on the ground stuff where the sight and smell of the dead forever sears memories — they don’t like to talk about the details. Not even with each other. The guy who talks casually about what he did in combat? You can bet that he’s either a fraud or that battle has unhinged him.
“When your dad came home from Korea,” my Uncle recently told me, “he had a chest full of ribbons. He was a hero. But he wouldn’t talk about it in anything but general terms.” And nor did the rest of 8th Company who had their share of ribbons, too. The stories they told on this reunion weekend were mostly amusing, but to the veteran listener of veterans’ stories, you knew that the humor masked a horror.
All of these men dealt with the psychological wounds of war whether they ever received a Purple Heart or not. My mother tells me that my father suffered from hideous nightmares to the day he died, a recurring one being that he had fallen into a thinly covered mass grave full of bodies in a state of decomposition. Though he fights to climb out over the bodies, the rotten flesh slides off the bones as he grips them and their flesh remained on him for days until he could bathe, a luxury not afforded to men behind enemy lines. Though he would never say, she thinks the nightmare reflected an actual occurrence. I wager all of these men had nightmares of war.
Years later, as he lay on his deathbed delirious from the heavy doses of morphine, he returned to the battlefield. I will never forget his words, a command shouted with urgency and authority: “Cover the left flank! Cover the left flank! Move! Move! Move!” The order was repeated along with something about laying down suppression fire. Whatever the battle he was in, he was reliving it and he was determined to hold the line. In that moment, I prayed that the Lord would take him. He was suffering the horror of war all over again.
The next afternoon, his chest, heaving and belabored for days, relaxed and the air left his lungs in one long sigh. My father was dead.
A few days later, I sat solemnly with my mother going through his things. It was a joyless task. Buried among his memorabilia we found a letter from a fellow member of 8th Ranger Company, Thomas Nicholson. It was an award of sorts, but deadly earnest, and, again, the humor here serves a purpose — it makes a terrifying memory more tolerable to recollect. It read:

During combat operations in the Republic of South Korea, Charles Taunton bravely, but unknowingly, earned life membership in The Noble & Ancient Order of the Combat Boot…. He deserves the acclaim and friendship of all who learn that he unselfishly, and with little regard for his own safety, went behind enemy lines to assist a fellow soldier. This act of courage, which epitomizes the U.S. Army tradition of ‘never leaving an injured or deceased soldier in enemy territory,’ is worthy of great praise. Be it therefore known that I, Thomas Nicholson, was the injured soldier he carried back to friendly lines, and that it is with everlasting gratitude that I certify the truth of this citation.

Napoleon said that “Men will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” Some men perhaps. But I never got the impression that the men of 8th Company cared about such things. They valued, above all, the opinions of the other men in 8th Company. To have the respect of the man who fought to your right and to your left, well, that meant something. In an interview with NBC News many years later, radio operator E.C. Rivera spoke with great emotion about his fellow Rangers and other Korean War veterans: “Nobody gave a rat’s ass about us. Nobody cared. They [i.e., people in America] were very cold to us.”
On July 27, 2013, the surviving members of the 8th Airborne Ranger Company gathered at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Led once again by their former captain, James Herbert, who was now a retired Brigadier General, the half dozen men sat with their wives and families. Before them stood Son Se-joo, the Consul General for the Republic of Korea, who had come to honor them:

In the face of overwhelming danger, your stories of valor and sacrifice saved our country and made it what it is today. As we pay tribute to you, I can confirm that the Korean War is not a ‘Forgotten War’ and that the victory is not a forgotten victory. The Korean people will never forget your sacrifice.

It was an honor long overdue, but too late for most. Coming as it did sixty years after the end of the war, most of the men of 8th Company were, by now, dead. Many had died on hills with no names, only numbers, in a country that was not their own, but in defense of principles they held dear. Others died later from wounds received in battle. And still more passed away as old men who fought in a war no one seemed to care about. Historian Thomas H. Taylor writes of 8th Ranger Company:

[Their] only tribute has been from their own post-war lives. Their collective lack of bitterness. Their forbearance from bitching about the lack of deserved recognition. This may be because they were mobilized but their nation was not. They went to war while their countrymen remained at peace. They fought, they bled, they won. Then they returned. Having given their all, they asked for nothing — and that’s just what they got.

I would add to this that satisfaction for the men of 8th Airborne Ranger Company came from something much more important to them than ribbons or recognition. It is something that only those who have known the battlefield can fully appreciate, but that the rest of us can glimpse in the terrible and inspiring story behind Thomas Nicholson’s humorous letter.
According to the Ranger Hall of Fame at Fort Benning:

On the 22nd of April 1951, 350,000 CCF [Chinese Communist Forces] troops launched their largest offensive of the Korean War. The attack broke the 6th Republic of [South] Korea Division that retreated 21 miles, leaving the right flank of the U.S. 24th Infantry Division exposed. The Commanding General of the 24th Infantry Division sent the 90 men of the 8th Ranger Infantry Company into this void.

It was in that void, on Hill 628, a godforsaken, bleak mass, that Thomas Nicholson was shot up badly. Wounded and expecting to die as the battle raged around him, he sat propped against a tree, bleeding to death and holding a hand grenade. His plan was to pull the pin when the enemy that surrounded them drew near, thus killing himself and as many of the CCF as possible.
But that’s not what happened.
Instead, his fellow Rangers came for him just as they came for every other wounded or dead American on that hill. Calculating that the CCF who surrounded them would not expect them to abandon their fixed positions on 628 and attack, the Rangers closed ranks, formed a spearhead, put the wounded in the middle, and assaulted the side of the hill between them and a company of tanks in the valley below (see no. 2 on this list of most heroic acts of bravery). One platoon remained on the hill to provide cover fire as the other two platoons slammed into the unsuspecting Chinese. The effect was devastating. Writes Taylor: “As the Rangers approached, Chinese came out of their holes in a banzai attack. They were mowed down — nothing was going to stop 8th Company unless every man took a bullet.”
They carried him off of Hill 628 just as a U.S. Navy gull wing Corsair fighter bomber descended, banked, and hit the mountain with napalm. Ranger Robert Black recalled it years later: “A black canister fell from beneath the plane and a moment later a towering gout of flame erupted from behind the hill.” For over a mile the Rangers fought their way through CCF lines until they reached the tanks where their wounded could be evacuated.
Thomas Nicholson spent the next 18 months in hospitals. He never rejoined 8th Company, but he did live to become a husband and father. He also became a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Thirty years after the war was over, he issued “citations” to the men responsible for his rescue. My guess is that this included every man who fought to get all of the dead and wounded — a third of 8th Company — off of Hill 628.
When my father spoke with pride of his war record, it was never with a medal in mind. It was not in the recollection of some heroic act or a promotion. And it wasn’t in the body count of enemy dead, a statistic of which he never spoke. If I may borrow a phrase from E.C. Rivera, my father “didn’t give a rat’s ass” about any of that. No, he took great pride in one simple fact: in the history of 8th Ranger Company, they never left a man behind be he wounded or dead. Never. And if I had to bet, I would wager that the rest of the men in this remarkable company felt the same way.
Perhaps that explains why his mind went back to a specific moment in battle as death, the enemy he could not escape, closed in on him. Even in dying, the men of the 8th Airborne Ranger Company maneuvered to protect:
“Cover the left flank! Cover the left flank! Move! Move! Move!”
Larry Alex Taunton is an author, cultural commentator, and freelance columnist contributing to The American Spectator, USA Today, Fox News, First Things, the Atlantic, and CNN. You can subscribe to his blog at larryalextaunton.com.

Categories
Good News for a change! Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad Leadership of the highest kind

10 Heroic Acts Of Bravery That Involved Disobeying A Direct Order

JONATHAN H. KANTOR  161

  In the military, personnel are taught to always obey the lawful orders of those placed in positions of command over them. In turn, military commanders are taught the weight of those orders and how they can either save soldiers’ lives or lose them.
Throughout history, men and women have followed orders in combat, but sometimes, an order is given and disregarded when a person decides that their life is less important than the lives of others.
Here are 10 acts of bravery that were performed when someone decided that the order they were given was not worth the potential cost to their fellow combatants, civilians, or humanity.

Featured image credit: United States Marine Corps

Listverse – Daily Highlights

10 Sergeant Dakota Meyer
US Marine Corps, Operation Enduring Freedom

Sergeant Meyer was serving in Afghanistan in 2009 where, at the Battle of Ganjigal, he was instructed by his commander to disregard a distress call due to an order to fall back. Nearly 100 American troops were pinned down by enemy fire and were repeatedly denied artillery support. Sergeant Meyer realized that the possibility of those troops’ survival was unlikely and took matters into his own hands.After being told by his commanding officer to remain behind with the unit’s vehicles, Meyer refused to follow the order and got into a Humvee with his driver. Under heavy enemy fire, Meyer drove into and out of the battle zone five times and was able to save the lives of more than a dozen fellow Marines.
Meyer’s website describes his actions:
Over the course of the five hours, he charged into the valley time and again. Employing a variety of machine guns, rifles, grenade launchers, and even a rock, Meyer repeatedly repulsed enemy attackers, carried wounded Afghan soldiers to safety, and provided cover for dozens of others to escape.
For his heroic actions in the face of overwhelming odds, and in spite of his refusal to follow the orders of his superior officer, Sergeant Dakota Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor.

9Private Daniel Hellings
British Army, Operation Enduring Freedom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0gCyB01Bao
Private Daniel Hellings was on patrol with several Afghan soldiers in Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in a narrow alleyway. The blast severely injured two service members, blinding one and damaging the other’s legs. Shortly after the first explosion, another was triggered only a few meters from Private Hellings, and a third soldier was injured.
Private Hellings’s commander immediately ordered him to withdraw from the alleyway because it was too dangerous. The commander insisted that an alternate route be found so that they could evacuate the injured soldiers. Hearing these orders, Private Hellings got down on the ground and began an hour-long fingertip search for more explosives. A fingertip search is exactly what it sounds like: He prodded the dirt and debris very carefully and methodically so that he could find the IEDs without setting them off. This is accomplished by lying on the ground only a few inches from the explosives.
He was able to uncover four IEDs, one of which had command wires running the length of the alley, but instead of waiting for a bomb-disposal unit, he continued. His fearless act of bravery in defiance of orders helped to save the lives of his three injured comrades. For demonstrating “a level of courage and ability far beyond that which could be expected of his age, rank, and experience,” Private Hellings was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

8Major General Daniel Edgar Sickles
Union Army, Battle Of Gettysburg

Daniel Edgar Sickles

Photo credit: Library of Congress

This one is contentious among Civil War historians and has been since the Battle of Gettysburg. General Sickles was commander of the Third Corps under General George Meade during the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. After being told to move his unit to Little Round Top, Sickles refused and instead moved his men to Peach Orchard, where they were nearly destroyed.
With the Union forces in the wheat field and peach tree orchard, the Confederates, under the command of General James Longstreet, initiated an attack. The small Union forces were nearly destroyed in the attack. Even though his defiance of orders led to the deaths of many of his men, General Sickles’s choice to fight in the orchard instead of the little hilltops allowed for a counteroffensive along the flanks of the attacking Confederates to succeed, thus routing the Rebels and helping to win the battle.
General Sickles was injured in the battle and lost a leg, which he donated to the Army Medical Museum in Washington, DC. He spent many of his remaining years defending his actions as being instrumental in the defeat of the Confederacy at Gettysburg. He was awarded the Medal of Honor (the only combat medal given at the time) and helped to preserve the battlefield at Gettysburg for its use as a cemetery and national historic site.

7Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov
Soviet Union

If you don’t recall the time back in the early 1980s when the United States and the Soviet Union fought in a bitter thermonuclear war, then we all owe a debt of thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov. Colonel Petrov was in charge of the command center for the Oko Nuclear Early Warning System when, on September 26, 1983, he disobeyed a standing order to report the probable launch of American nuclear missiles to his command, suspecting that it was a false alarm. It was.Petrov knew that if he alerted his superiors, they would likely order retaliation with nuclear missiles and begin World War III. Because of his ability to think on his feet and surmise the threat as being a false alarm, he effectively saved the entire world from nuclear annihilation. The incident exposed a flaw in the Soviet Union’s missile-warning system and helped to prevent any future situations. Petrov was neither awarded nor punished for his failure to follow orders, but he is remembered as the man who prevented a nuclear war.

6First Lieutenant Frank Luke Jr.
US Army Air Corps, World War I

Frank Luke Jr.

Photo credit: Library of Congress

First Lieutentant Frank Luke Jr. holds the distinguished honor of being the first aviator in US history to receive the Medal of Honor. The award was given to him posthumously following a daring raid that he undertook in spite of being ordered not to fly.
On September 28, 1918, Luke was grounded by his commanding officer and told that he could not fly and would be charged as being absent without leave (AWOL) if he flew the following day. Disregarding this order, Luke took to the skies in his SPAD XIII (a French biplane used at the time) and went on a balloon hunt. Luke was already considered an ace for having 15 aerial combat victories and was known as “The Balloon Buster” for his skill in taking out German aerial reconnaissance balloons, which were used as spotters for artillery. The balloons were always heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns, but Luke went after them anyway.
On what would be his final flight, he successfully took out three balloons before taking heavy machine gun fire and being forced to ditch his aircraft. He climbed from the wreckage and confronted the German military with his sidearm before finally succumbing to his injuries. Regardless of his failure to follow orders, First Lieutenant Frank Luke Jr. was awarded the Medal of Honor for his remarkable skill in being able to destroy 18 balloons in only 18 days of combat.

5Lieutenant Albert Battel
German Wehrmacht, World War II

Albert Battel

Photo credit: I Survived

Dr. Albert Battel, a lawyer, a member of the Nazi party, and a lieutenant in the German army, was able to block the SS from taking Jews from the Przemysl ghetto to the Belzec Extermination Camp. He was in command of a unit stationed in Przemysl, Poland, and was in charge of monitoring the Jewish ghetto laborers who were working for the army.
On July 26, 1942, Battel ordered his troops to block off and seal a bridge in order to keep the SS from entering the ghetto to remove the prisoners. Knowing that he was not only defying orders, but also putting himself and his men in danger, Lieutenant Battel was able to extract 80–100 Jewish families and move them to his army headquarters to protect them. Sadly, he was unable to prevent the SS from returning the following day and extracting the remaining Jews. While he wasn’t able to save all of them, several hundred people were able to survive the war thanks in large part to the actions of defiance of one German army officer.
Battel was only reprimanded by his superiors for his actions, and he was eventually promoted before being returned to the front lines. He didn’t know that his actions had reached the ear of Heinrich Himmler, who insisted that he be abolished from the Nazi party at the conclusion of the war and arrested. This never came to pass, as Battel was discharged due to a heart condition in 1944.
He survived the war, and his work and efforts in saving the Jews was honored as being “Righteous among the Nations,” a special honor for Gentiles who worked during the holocaust to save Jews from extermination from the Nazis.

4Corporal Desmond Doss
US Army, World War II

Desmond Doss

Photo via Wikimedia

Interestingly, Corporal Desmond Doss defied orders by refusing to carry any weapon into combat, not even a knife. This was the result of his personal beliefs as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church. Though he was able to join the military and serve during World War II, Corporal Doss maintained his status as a conscientious objector.
His refusal to carry a weapon and his actions as a medic earned him the Medal of Honor. In April 1945, Doss was accompanying the First Battalion as they attempted a summit where they took heavy artillery and small-arms fire. Seventy-five men were wounded in the attack, but Corporal Doss refused to take cover and instead personally moved all 75 men, one at a time and under heavy fire, to a safe area. The following month, he again exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in the rescue of another man who was severely injured.
On at least five separate occasions over the course of approximately 22 days, Corporal Doss personally rescued dozens of his comrades while under enemy fire. He was finally wounded by a grenade, which severely damaged his legs, and was struck by a sniper’s bullet, which injured his arm. Even then, he insisted that he be taken off his litter in lieu of another man whom he considered to be more seriously wounded. For his bravery in the face of severe enemy opposition and for his refusal to carry even the smallest means to defend himself, Corporal Doss was awarded the Medal of Honor.

3Lieutenant Thomas Currie ‘Diver’ Derrick
Second Australian Imperial Force, World War II

Thomas Currie Derrick

Photo via Wikimedia

During the Battle of Sattleberg, in New Guinea, Lieutenant Derrick distinguished himself and was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration for members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. The battle was hard-fought and may not have been as successful for the Australians had Derrick obeyed the orders of his commanding officer and withdrawn as he was told.
The Battle of Sattleberg was a push against Japanese forces for control of the town of Sattleberg, in which the Australians slowly saw gains over a period of eight days. As they advanced, the Japanese soldiers pressed hard against them, and the cost was high. On November 24, 1943, Derrick was in command of a small unit and was told to withdraw due to an inability to push for further ground. In response, Derrick said, “Bugger the CO. Just give me twenty more minutes and we’ll have this place.”
He then proceeded to move his men further up the hill toward the city and silenced 10 machine gun posts with accurate rifle and grenade fire from approximately 7 meters (23 ft). His push demoralized the Japanese forces, who withdrew from their position. Derrick then returned to his platoon and pushed them further toward the town before the rest of the battalion joined them the following morning and succeeded in taking the city.
The battalion commander insisted that the flag be hoisted by Derrick, who raised the Australian Red Ensign above Sattleberg, New Guinea, at 10:00 AM on November 25, 1943. For his gallantry in combat and in spite of his refusal to follow orders to withdraw, the king awarded Derrick with the Victoria Cross stating that, “Undoubtedly Sergeant Derrick’s fine leadership and refusal to admit defeat, in the face of a seemingly impossible situation, resulted in the capture of Sattleberg.”

2Major David Teich
US Army, Korean War

Korean War

Photo via Wikimedia

On April 24, 1951, then-Lieutenant David Teich was a member of a tank company that was near the 38th Parallel (the boundary that currently marks the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea) when a weak radio call came in for support. Members of the Eighth Ranger Company were nearby, wounded, and under heavy fire, as nearly 300,000 Chinese soldiers moved toward their position. Having been ordered to withdraw, Teich approached his commander and asked if he and some of his fellow tankers could remain behind and attempt to rescue the Rangers.
The captain replied, “We’ve got orders to move out. Screw them. Let them fight their own battles.” Leich refused to follow that order and manned a rescue attempt anyway. When the tanks approached Hill 628, 65 Rangers climbed the hill under heavy fire and boarded the tanks. So many men were sitting on the tanks that the guns were no longer visible.
Teich’s actions saved the lives of dozens of men who would certainly have been killed or captured had he not disobeyed the orders of his commanding officer. More than six decades after the war, Teich still receives letters from the survivors thanking him for what he did on that day in April 1951.

1General Dietrich Von Choltitz
German Wehrmacht, World War II

Dietrich von Choltitz

Photo credit: German Federal Archive

General Dietrich von Choltitz took command of Nazi-occupied Paris on August 8, 1944. When he did so, Hitler told him that he should be prepared to destroy all religious and historic monuments should the city fall to the Allies. At the time, the Allied forces of the United States, Great Britain, and the French Resistance fighters were closing in on the city.
Paris was surrendered on August 25 without a monument or building destroyed. In his memoir Is Paris Burning? Choltitz wrote that the titular question was asked of him by Hitler, but knowing the city was lost and not wanting to cause further destruction, bloodshed, and damage, Choltitz refused to follow the orders of the fuhrer. “If for the first time I had disobeyed, it was because I knew that Hitler was insane.” Choltitz risked the lives of his family and himself by lying to the chief of staff, informing him that the destruction of Paris had begun.
According to both Choltitz and his son, these events played out as he said. The French have never accepted these claims and have instead insisted that over 2,000 French Resistance fighters liberated the city. Even though the French insist that it was the Parisians themselves who saved the city, it is apparent that Choltitz was both ordered to destroy the City of Lights and had an opportunity to do so. He may have chosen to disregard the order from Hitler for his own reasons, but the fact remains that the orders were never carried out, and Paris remains a center for art and culture to this day.

Categories
A Victory! Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom Good News for a change! Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad I am so grateful!! Leadership of the highest kind Stand & Deliver The Green Machine This great Nation & Its People War Well I thought it was neat!

What a Stud!!

Your Army

Medal of Honor announced for soldier who fought through three floors of insurgents in Fallujah

By:    

Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, left, in Iraq. (Army)

The president will award the Medal of Honor on June 25 to a soldier who fought through a nest of insurgents during the second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, the White House officially announced Monday.

Then-Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia originally received the Silver Star for his actions, but his citation was revisited as part of a review of valor awards and determined worthy of the nation’s highest combat award.

The award will give Bellavia one of now seven Operation Iraqi Freedom Medals of Honor, and make him the only living recipient from the Iraq War.

During the battle, Bellavia single-handedly killed multiple insurgents, including one during hand-to-hand combat.

A squad leader at the time, Bellavia, now 43, was clearing a block of buildings when his platoon was pinned down on Nov. 10, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq.

The first nine buildings were found to be unoccupied, but were filled with rockets, grenade launchers and other weapons. When Bellavia and four others entered the 10th building, they came under fire from insurgents in the house, according to his Silver Star citation.

The ensuing gun battle injured several soldiers. Bellavia switched out his M16 rifle for an M249 SAW gun and entered one room where the insurgents were located to spray it with gunfire, forcing the Jihadists to take cover and allowing the squad to move out into the street.

Other insurgents on the rooftop of the building began firing on his squad below, forcing them to seek cover in a nearby building. Bellavia then went back to the street and called in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to shell the houses before re-entering the building to assess the scene.

Upon entering, Bellavia gunned down one insurgent who was loading an RPG launcher. A second enemy fighter began firing as he ran toward the kitchen and Bellavia fired back, wounding him in the shoulder. A third insurgent then began yelling from the second floor.

Cache of weapons confiscated in Fallujah by Staff Sgt. David Bellavia and his unit. (Army)

Cache of weapons confiscated in Fallujah by Staff Sgt. David Bellavia and his unit. (Army)

Bellavia then entered the uncleared master bedroom and emptied gunfire into all the corners, at which point the wounded insurgent entered the room, yelling and firing his weapon, the citation reads. Bellavia fired back, killing the man. Bellavia was then shot at by another insurgent upstairs and the staff sergeant returned the fire, killing him as well.

“At that point, a Jihadist hiding in a wardrobe in a bedroom jumped out, firing wildly around the room and knocking over the wardrobe. As the man leaped over the bed he tripped and Sergeant Bellavia shot him several times, wounding but not killing him,” the citation reads. “Another insurgent was yelling from upstairs, and the wounded Jihadist escaped the bedroom and ran upstairs. Sergeant Bellavia pursued, but slipped on the blood-soaked stairs.”

Bellavia followed the bloody tracks of the insurgent up the stairs to a room on his left. Hearing the wounded insurgent inside, he threw a fragmentary grenade into the room, which caused the insurgent to flee to the roof. Two more insurgents began yelling from the third story of the building.

Bellavia grabbed the wounded insurgent and put him in a choke hold to keep him from giving away their position.

“The wounded Jihadist then bit Sergeant Bellavia on the arm and smacked him in the face with the butt of his AK-47. In the wild scuffle that followed, Sergeant Bellavia took out his knife and slit the Jihadist’s throat,” the Silver Star citation reads. “Two other insurgents who were trying to come to their comrade’s rescue, fired at Bellavia, but he had slipped out of the room, which was now full of smoke and fire.”

A final insurgent dropped from the third story to the second-story roof. Bellavia saw the fleeing man and fired at him, hitting him in the back and the legs and causing him to fall off the roof and die.

By this point, five members of the platoon had entered the house and took control of the first floor. Before they would finish off the remaining insurgent fighters, however, they were ordered to move out of the area because close air support had been called in by a nearby unit.

The White House release said that Bellavia’s actions that day rescued an entire squad, cleared an insurgent strongpoint, and saved many members of his platoon from possible death.

Bellavia originally enlisted in the Army in 1999 and served in Kosovo, before deploying to Iraq in 2004 with Company A, Task Force 2-2, 1st Infantry Division. After leaving the service on Aug. 16, 2005, he has engaged in New York state politics and continued to serve the military and veteran communities through various advocacy groups.

Bellavia now has his own daily radio talk show for WBEN in Buffalo.

Categories
Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad The Green Machine War

Violent But True: General Norman Cota

Categories
Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad I am so grateful!! Leadership of the highest kind Soldiering

Indeed!

Categories
Dear Grumpy Advice on Teaching in Today's Classroom Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad Leadership of the highest kind

General George S. Patton – A Vision for Business Leadership

Categories
Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad The Green Machine War

Just another reason why I like the USMC!

From the site – Random Acts of Patriotism
It is Memorial Day weekend, a time to remember those who answered the call and paid the full price.
So pick a battle. I’ll choose Tarawa. Three miles long, a half mile wide. In 1943 it seemed like a strategic island as we fought our way across the Pacific. The Japanese thought so, too. They had garrisoned 4,700 troop on the island and dug in deep, building layered defenses and bunkers that would allow them to survive a naval bombardment. It’s mostly forgotten now, the years have swept it out of time and memory.
It was our first amphibious landing against a fortified position. It’s where we learned how and combat learning is always paid in blood. If you want the details you can start here.
It was men stranded on the reef when the tide turned and wading into the beach while being fired on by Japanese machine guns.
Men pinned in the water unable to get off the beach. 988 died, either on the island or of the effects of their wounds after being evacuated. Almost all of those losses were in the first 76 hours of battle.
But you need to drill down further, because 988 is a statistic, so pick one man. It’s hard, 71 years later, to find a story. So many of them just died. Machine gunned in the water, blown apart by shell fire, drowned when they stepped into a shell hole in the surf and unable to get out of their gear.
Again, I chose one. Staff Sergeant William Bordelon, born on Christmas Day 1920 in San Antonio, Texas. We know some of his story because Pr. Roosevelt awarded him the Medal of Honor.
He enlisted on December 10th, 1941, went to boot camp in San Diego. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, and made the landing at Tarawa on November 20th 1943. His Medal of Honor citation reads as follows:

Citation:
For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but 4 of the men in his tractor, S/Sgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put 2 pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machinegun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall. Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and single-handedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machinegun position but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. S/Sgt. Bordelon’s great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout 3 days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

He was buried on Tarawa, then later re-interred in Hawaii. His brother had his body brought home to Texas in 1995 and he is now buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery along with 120,000 others.
He was 22 years old.
sam_houston_cemetary
He was 22.

Categories
Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad Interesting stuff Leadership of the highest kind Soldiering

I found a great Book that I thought you might like to know about!

Image result for unofficial history
Yes I know it is a real shock to some folks like my Old School Teachers that I can read. But nonetheless I do when I find time.
Anyways one of the men that I look up to is a man that most Americans and a lot of Brits don’t know about. Bill Slim, the man who rebuilt a savagely mauled Army that barely escaped the Japs in Burma. Who then took it back and almost completely destroyed the Occupying Jap Army.
This book though does not deal with this subject. Instead it deals with a lot of interesting characters and events in a very humorous manner that happened during his earlier military career.
For example when he was involved in a punitive campaign with the Pathans on the NW Frontier. When on horse back and carrying a flag to signal his beloved Ghurka Troops to withdraw. He had the flag wrap around his head all the while under fire.
Or how he got his butt chewed out for smuggling Australian beer from Haifa to his Troops in Iraq. When his very unofficial & unauthorised  Beer Convoy ran his bosses car and him into a ditch.
Anyways if you like a good war story or two. Then you might want to get your hand on a copy of this really amusing book. Oh yeah before I forget his other book Defeat into Victory. Is another great Generals Book to read! GrumpyRelated image
Image result for slim defeat into victory

Categories
Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad

Elmer Keith another American "hard case"

Elmer Keith
Elmer Keith.jpg

Elmer Keith shooting two revolvers at the same time.
Born March 8, 1899
Died February 14, 1984 (aged 84)
Nationality United States
Occupation Rancher, author, firearmsenthusiast
Known for Creation of the .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .41 Magnumcartridges
Home town Salmon, Idaho
Spouse(s) Loraine Randall

Elmer Merrifield Keith (March 8, 1899 – February 14, 1984[1]) was an Idaho rancher, firearms enthusiast, and author. Keith was instrumental in the development of the first magnum revolver cartridge, the .357 Magnum, as well as the later .44 Magnumand .41 Magnum cartridges.

Personality and life[edit]

Keith’s trademarks were his cigars, his Stetson, and his outspoken opinions. Keith was an avid handgun hunter in the earliest days of the sport, and often hunted medium game with a double action Smith & Wessonrevolver. In the days when handgun cartridges tended to fire large, slow bullets like the popular .45 Colt, or light, fast bullets like the .30 Mauser, Keith was pushing the limits of existing cartridges, driving large bullets at high velocities.
He was married to Loraine Randall. Elmer Keith was born in Missouri but was raised in Montana, Idaho, and eastern Oregon. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he had a ranch on the North Fork of the Salmon River near Salmon, Idaho. In the late 1940s, Elmer and Loraine left the ranch and moved into the town of Salmon. [The ranch is still owned by the Keith family.]
During World War II, Keith served as an inspector at the Ogden, Utah Arsenal. The rifles that he inspected were cartouche stamped with the initials “OGEK” in a rectangular box, on the buttstock. Rifles stamped OGEK without a rectangular box were inspected by Ed Klouser at the same Ogden Arsenal.[2]
In The Phantom Of Phu Bai, a biography of USMC Scout Sniper Eric England written by Dr. Joseph B. Turner, one chapter is about Elmer Keith and his influence on the shooting community.

Magnum revolvers[edit]

Keith’s first major contribution, the .357 Magnum, was the result of handloading the .38 Special cartridge far beyond normally accepted limits, taking full advantage of the greater strength of the revolvers available in the 1920s compared to those of the late 19th century. The .357 Magnum first became available in 1935 and quickly became a favorite among law enforcement and civilian users. The .357 Magnum had a slightly longer case than the .38 Special, but was otherwise identical, so .357 Magnum revolvers could shoot .38 Special or .357 Magnum ammunition, but .38 Special revolvers (most of which are not safe for the pressures generated by the Magnum round) could not chamber .357 Magnum ammunition. Buying a .357 Magnum revolver gave the shooter all the abilities of the well-established .38 Special, with the ability to double the available power by using the Magnum cartridge. Keith’s contributions to the commercial development of the .357 Magnum have been questioned by some writers, and Keith subsequently denigrated the .357 Magnum as he had the .38 Special.
The .44 Magnum was developed in much the same way, and was released commercially in 1956. Keith had earlier determined that the thinner chamber walls of the .45 Colt would not comfortably withstand the pressures generated by his own heavy loads. He therefore started experimenting with the .44 Special revolver, and used the same formula of pushing heavy bullets at high velocities that he had used for the .357 Magnum. The resulting “.44 Special Magnum” was a formidable cartridge for handgun hunting, firing a 250 grain bullet at 1,200 ft/s (370 m/s).
Keith encouraged Smith & Wesson and Remington to produce a commercial version of this new high pressure loading, and revolvers chambered for it. While S&W produced the first prototype revolver chambered in .44 Magnum, the famous Model 29, Sturm, Ruger actually beat S&W to market by several months in 1956 with a .44 Magnum version of the single action Blackhawk revolver. In fact Remington delivered a more powerful cartridge than Keith asked for, firing a 240 grain bullet at 1,500 ft/s (460 m/s), and it remained the most powerful production handgun cartridge until the commercial introduction of the .454 Casull(based on the .45 Colt). The .44 Magnum is still far more popular, as the recoil of .454 Casull rounds is considered excessive by most shooters, and revolvers in .454 Casull were rare and expensive until the introduction of .454 Casull models by Sturm, Ruger and Taurusin the late 1990s.
The .41 Magnum, released in 1963, was an attempt to reach a middle ground between the .357 and .44 magnums. The .357 Magnum was adequate for hunting deer-sized game, but the limited power meant it needed to be used by a skilled marksman. The .44 Magnum provided far more power, easily taking deer sized game, but recoil and muzzle blast are substantial, at least in the earliest commercial loadings. The .41 Magnum, inspired by the older, obsolete .41 Long Colt cartridge, was intended to provide more power than the .357 Magnum with less recoil and muzzle blast than the .44 Magnum. The .41 Magnum used a completely new case (unlike the .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum which were based on existing cases), and used a .410″ bullet instead of the earlier .41 Colt and .38-40‘s roughly .400″ diameter bullet, while pushing the new .410″ bullet to similar velocities as achieved by the .357 and .44 Magnum bullets. However, while there was (and still is) a small community of shooters preferring the .41 Magnum, the round failed to achieve a similar high degree of popularity. Some police, to whom the .41 Magnum was initially marketed, were happy with the .38 Special or .357 Magnum, and many officers had no interest in anything more powerful, and which also delivered greater blast and recoil that could place the shooter at a disadvantage in a gunfight requiring fast follow-up shots. However, some police departments adopted the 41 Mag with the reduced load designed for police use, and were quite happy the added power required only one hit to put an opponent down. Thus the 41 Magnum saved many officer’s lives who were lucky enough to use them[citation needed]. Hunters likewise stayed with the more commonly available .44 Magnum, which could be used with full power factory loads, less powerful handloads, or commercial .44 Special ammunition as needed.
Keith regarded the handgun as a weapon of opportunity. He had plenty of opportunities to use his sixgun on game during his life. He was incredibly skilled with handguns. He shot at a rifle-wounded deer and hit it several times at a range of 600 yards using his 6½ inch S&W Model 29.[3] It is currently part of the Keith collection with the factory standard 4-inch (100 mm) barrel length that he more commonly carried. The Keith firearm collection has been dispersed, having been sold individually at auction by James D. Julia in March 2015. (http://jamesdjulia.com/373_shs/)
Keith is also famous for designing and commissioning his No. 5 revolver, fashioned by R.F. Sedgeley, in 1928.

Keith-style bullets[edit]

Keith was also responsible for a number of bullet designs still popular today, and collectively called “Keith style” bullets. These bullets were based on the semiwadcutterdesign, but using a wider than normal front surface, and convex sides. These changes increased the volume of the bullet outside the case, thus allowing more room inside the case, needed for large loads of slower burning powders (see internal ballistics). These bullets remain popular for both target shooting and hunting. When shooting paper targets, they cut a relatively clean hole in the target, yet provide more case volume and a better ballistic coefficient than a flat front wadcutter. When used for hunting, the heavy bullets provide excellent penetration; they are often used on dangerous game, for which more reliable penetration is required than is possible with expanding hollow point or soft point bullets.

Keith-Style SWC

Originally Keith specified a meplat that was 65% of the bullet caliber, but later increased it to a 70% meplat. The other distinguishing characteristics of a “Keith-style” SWC are a double radius ogive, beveled crimp groove, three equal width driving bands, wide square bottomed grease groove, and a plain base with sharp corners. The wide forward driving band helps keep the bullet aligned as it jumps across the cylinder gap. Because of the three wide equal width driving bands, the total bearing surface is half the length of the bullet. The relatively large bearing surface helps the Keith-style SWC to be an inherently accurate bullet, and minimizes leading from gas blow-by. The wide square bottom grease groove holds ample lubricant.[4]

Work with rifles[edit]

Keith was instrumental in the development of various wildcat cartridges, a few of which were later adopted as factory rounds. The .333 OKH (“O’Neil-Keith-Hopkins”), developed in conjunction with Charlie O’Neil and Don Hopkins, was made from .30-06 Springfield brass necked up to take the .333″ 250 and 300-grain bullets of the .333 Jeffery. There was also a .334 OKH,[5] based on the shortened .300 H&H Magnum case. The .333 OKH, necked up slightly to take the more common .338″ sized bullets of the older .33 Winchester, led to the creation of the popular Wildcat cartridge the .338-06, also known as the 338 OKH, and was the inspiration for the 1958 commercial introduction of the .338 Winchester Magnum based on the larger belted .458 Winchester Magnum case. The .334 OKH, likewise necked up to accept .338″ bullets and given the distinctive Weatherby “double-radius” shoulder, was introduced by Weatherby in 1963 as the .340 Weatherby Magnum. The .338-378 Weatherby Magnum, introduced in 1998, was developed based on another one of Keith’s wildcats, the .338-378 KT(Keith-Thomson), which he developed in the 1960s with Bob Thomson.
An admirer of the old British double rifles, Keith had numerous examples in his collection. He used two of these doubles, a .476 Westley Richards and a .500 Nitro Express, to take dangerous game in Africa on two different safaris. Keith documented the first of these hunts in his 1968 tome, Safari.

Published works[edit]

Keith was a prolific writer, writing both books and magazine columns. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was especially well known for his regular monthly columns he wrote for Guns & Ammo magazine and American Rifleman typically exploring the performance of the latest new gun offerings, especially those firing large, heavy bullets pushed to high velocities. He has influenced modern gun writers such as Mike Venturino and John Taffin.[6]

  • Sixgun Cartridges and Loads. Onslow County, N.C., Small Arms Technical Publishing Co, 1936. [Riling 2200]
  • Big Game Rifles and Cartridges. Onslow County, N.C., Small Arms Technical Publishing Co, 1936. [Riling 2199]
  • Keith’s Rifles for Larger Game Huntington, WV: Standard Publications, 1946. [Riling 2551]
  • Elmer Keith’s Big Game Hunting. Boston: Little, Brown, 1948. [Riling 2648]
  • Shotguns. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole & Heck, 1950. [Riling 2726]
  • Sixguns. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole & Heck, 1955.
  • Guns and Ammo for Hunting Big Game, with John Lachuk. Los Angeles, Calif. : Petersen Publishing Co.,1965.
  • Safari. La Jolla, Calif: Safari Publications, 1968.
  • Keith, An Autobiography, Winchester Press, 1974[7]
  • Hell, I Was There (autobiography). Los Angeles, Calif.: Petersen Publishing Co., 1979.

References are to Ray Riling, Guns and Shooting, a Bibliography, New York: Greenberg, 1951.