Re: Contrasts-Long

["Richard Tunison" <rtunison@cox.net>]

Nice job Lynn. I liked what you wrote. I must admit I've tried hard not to
be touchy about being a forgotten KW vet, but the feeling lay under the
surface somewhere until a little over a year ago. That's when I began
writing One Ship. Two Wars, the story of the USS Greer County (LST-799). The
799 was my ship, and for an old rust bucket that wasn't supposed to last,
she racked up a remarkable record.

I was motivated to write the book, because it became clear to me far too
many people (including my adult kids) know nothing about the war in the
Pacific and the Korean War. I finished the book this past month, and I'm
expecting a shipment tomorrow. I've realized I've done something worthwhile,
and that gives me a good feeling. Thanks for sending along your
recollections.

Dick Tunison
Edmond, OK

P.S. The first cigarette I ever smoked was a Wings. I was nine years old. A
roofer dropped a pack behind our garage while he was up topside applying a
coat of tar. I horded those smokes for weeks before my mother found them in
my underwear drawer.

DT


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lynn H. Nelson" <lhnelson@raven.cc.ku.edu>
To: "KOREAN-WAR-L" <korean-war-l@listproc.cc.ku.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 5:37 PM
Subject: Contrasts-Long


> I must confess that, having spent most of my adult life as a
> professor of Medieval History, my mind is so set on providing the
> proper background for things that I rarely can get immediately to
> the point. I assure you that I _am_ aware that this is a forum
> for the discussion of the Korean War and associated matters, and
> that I _do_ eventually get to the point that I would like to
> make. But, first the background.
>
> Back in the 1930's, there was a brand of cigarette called "Wings"
> that, from a kid's point of view, was outstanding in that, inside
> the cellophane that enclosed each package, there was a neat
> little card with a picture of an airplane on one side, and a
> description of the craft on the other. My father was a
> chain-smoker, and I was able - through incessant whining and
> moping - managed to get him to switch from Marvels to Wings.
> Mother was much less tractable, though, since she smoked
> Raleighs, which provided their addicts with a regular supply of
> coupons that could be exchanged for all kinds of trash.
>
>
> So it was that, up until the beginning of the Second World War,
> when Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to War, the UAW-CIO Makes the
> Army Roll and Go, Doncha Know There's a War On?, many of the
> lesser brands of smokes - including both Wings and Marvels -
> disappeared from the shelves forever. The rationing of cigarettes
> and the consequent appearance of little machines with which one
> could (supposedly) roll one's own cigarettes changed the market
> considerably and set me to the daily task of keeping my parents
> supplied with smokes.
>
> By that time, though, I had a massive collection of Wings cards,
> the coverage of which I had appreciably increased through astute
> trading. I was well-acquainted with the capabilities of the B10,
> the speed of the BeeGee, the armor of the Curtiss-Wright P40, the
> Lockheed Electra, the Boeing P26, and many others.
>
> Then, too, the Office of Civil Defense had gotten rolling, and
> hordes of youngsters plunged into the task of learning the
> silhouettes on enemy airplanes as part of their assignments as
> plane-spotters. I lived in Chicago at the time and, although the
> Tribune clearly delineated how the city could be attacked by
> Japanese Zeros (which, admittedly, had a rather long range for
> such craft) or German FW200C Kondor sea planes refueling from
> Milch-cow submarines stationed off Halifax, I never had the
> opportunity to use my knowledge during the War.
>
> It may be that the presence of the USS Wolverine, a side-paddle
> aircraft carrier converted from an old Lake Michigan excursion
> ship, discouraged our enemies from attacking a city teeming with
> young airplane spotters and defended by a host of carrier-borne
> biplanes.
>
> In 1983, though, while walking down the Gran Via (temporarily
> called Avenida Francisco Franco) in Madrid, I heard a droning
> from above and looked up. Other pedestrians were startled and my
> wife deeply embarrassed when I raised my arm to the sky and called
> out "Heinkel 111! Heinkel 111!" I had forgotten that the Kondor
> Legion had left their planes in Spain at the end of the Civil War
> and that the Spanish Ejercito Aerea had continued to use them,
> along with some early ME109s and a few Stukas as their mainline
> strike aircraft until such time as the boycott of the country was
> ended and they could purchase some more modern craft.
>
> All of this is a prelude to the fact that, all last week, I was
> bemused to see a B17e flying around over Lawrence, Kansas,
> followed, improbably, by a Boeing-Stearman PT-17 fitted out in
> the blue and gold of the pre-war U.S. Air Corps. On one of my
> Wings cigarette cards, it was suggested that the PT-17, which, as
> the designation indicates, became one of the standard primary
> trainers of the Second World War accompanying a number of
> fledgling pilots and their instructors into the cold waters off
> Navy Pier while pursuing the goal of learning how to take off and
> land from an aircraft carrier and so lose them their chance of of
> moving up to a _real_ carrier, the Wolverine.
>
> I caught glimpses of a few other planes that once graced Wings
> cigarette cards as well as a number of more modern, World War II
> vintage, aircraft. This week-long air show was only a minor,
> although highly-visible, event in the festivities marking the
> dedication of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the
> University of Kansas. For those of you who don't know all that
> much about Robert Dole, he left the University of Kansas in 1943
> after his sophomore year, and was several times decorated as a
> member of the 10th Mountain Division. He was badly wounded and
> was in hospital convalescence for three years before his
> discharge.
>
> Given the fact that Tom Brokaw, author of _The Greatest
> Generation_ was happy to join in the celebration, the theme for
> the festivities was "The Greatest Generation," and the
> celebration was graced by the presence of ex-Senators Nancy
> (Landon) Kassebaum Baker and spouse, Governor Kathleen Sebelius
> (who is cute), Rudy Juliani (who is not), Jimmy Carter, fifteen
> Second World War Congressional Medal of Honor winners, and a host
> of other veterans and assorted dignitaries. There were fireworks,
> breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, speeches, roundtable
> discussions, parades, exhibitions, displays, T-shirts, pavilions,
> myriads of television cameras, and so forth, all leading up to
> the great dedication ceremony Saturday.
>
> It was all over by Sunday. The B17e had gone to wherever it is
> that B17s now go, although the Boeing-Stearman still roared
> around for a while. There were no parades, speeches, luncheons,
> breakfasts, dinners, or even milk and cookies. Summer peace had
> once again descended on Lawrence, Kansas, although, at the bottom
> of the leading page of section B of the Sunday Lawrence
> Journal-World, there was a short article about an interview with
> a veteran of the Korean War who seemed to be getting a bit
> irritated that the friends he had lost in "The Forgotten War",
> not to mention the war itself, continue to be ignored.
>
> A representative of the University of Kansas, which had spent a
> great deal of money on the previous week's celebration, hastened
> to note - and be quoted in the article - that the University has
> not forgotten the Korean War, but in fact has drawn up plans for
> a Korean War Veteran's Memorial - to join Memorial Stadium and
> the Memorial Union (dedicated to veterans of the First World
> War), the Memorial Campanile (dedicated to veterans of the Second
> World War), and the memorial to veterans of the Vietnam Conflict
> (KU once had a memorial to veterans of the Spanish-American War
> and Philippine Insurrection, but, somehow or another, lost it) -
> and would begin construction as soon as they had collected the
> necessary $300,000 in contributions. They already have $30,000
> contributed by a South Korean businessman last month toward that
> goal.
>
> There some faculty, ex-KW vets) who say that setting the cost as
> high as $300,000 was designed to ensure that a memorial would
> never have to be built. Of course, the Field House, built in
> 1955, is a memorial, but it memorializes "Phog" Allen, for many
> years the basketball coach of the Kansas Jayhawks, just as
> Naismith Drive memorializes James Naismith, the University's
> first basketball coach. Which just goes to show something about
> priorities, I suppose.
>
> Anyway, Sunday, 27 July 2003, the fiftieth anniversary of the end
> of the Korean Conflict - a war in which one and a half million
> men served, over 36,000 men gave up their lives and many more
> permanently relinquished their personal comfort and well-being,
> was a quiet day in Lawrence, Kansas.
>
> Lynn
>
>