Rao bulletin 15 April 2016 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles
A Vietnam Veteran is reflected in the Vietnam War Memorial Wall before a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War on March 29
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- Civil War Monument Controversy ► New Orleans Removal Backlash
- The Robert E. Lee Monument in Lee Circle in New Orleans
- Bataan Death March ► 74 th Anniversary
- Ralph Rodriguez, 98 Atilano ‘Al’ David, 95
- The Hump’s Casualties ► Recovery Efforts
- B-24 Liberator flying over Mt. Lassen, California.
- WWII Little Known Facts ► First German KIA
- Infantry disembarking from helicopters
- Drang Valley
A Vietnam Veteran is reflected in the Vietnam War Memorial Wall before a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War on March 29 * Military History *  
Civil War Monument Controversy ► New Orleans Removal Backlash Backlash against a plan to remove prominent Confederate monuments in New Orleans has been tinged by death threats, intimidation and even what may have been the intentional torching of a contractor's Lamborghini. For now, at least, things have gotten so nasty the city hasn't found a contractor willing to bear the risk of tearing down the monuments. The city doesn't have its own equipment to move them and is now in talks to find a company, even discussing doing the work at night to avoid further tumult. Initially, it appeared the monuments would be removed quickly after the majority black City Council on 17 DEC voted 6-1 to approve the mayor's plan to take them down. The monuments, including towering figures of Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, have long been viewed by many here as symbols of racism and white supremacy. The backlash is not surprising to Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor and longtime civil rights activist in New Orleans who's worked on behalf of a group demanding the monuments come down. The South has seen such resistance before, during fights over school integration and efforts in the early 1990s to racially integrate Carnival parades in New Orleans. "Fighting in the courts, fighting in the legislature, anonymous intimidation," Quigley said. "These are from the same deck of cards that are used to stop all social change." For all its reputation as a party city of fun and frolic, New Orleans is no stranger to social change and the tensions that come with it. It was the site of an early attempt to challenge racial segregation laws in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case and home to then-6-year-old Ruby Bridges whose battle to integrate her elementary school was immortalized in a Norman Rockwell painting. New Orleans is a majority African-American city although the number of black residents has fallen since 2005's Hurricane Katrina drove many people from the city. Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who proposed the monuments' removal, rode to victory twice with overwhelming support from the city's black residents. Nationally, the debate over Confederate symbols has become heated since nine parishioners were killed at a black church in South Carolina in June. South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds in the weeks after, and several Southern cities have since considered removing monuments. "There is no doubt that there is a huge amount of rage over the attack on Confederate symbols," said Mark Potok with the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based group that tracks extremist activity. His group counted about 360 pro-Confederate battle flag rallies across the nation in the six months after the church shootings. Such rallies were rare before then, he said. In New Orleans, things have turned particularly ugly. In early January, as it beat back legal challenges seeking to stop the removal, the city hired a contractor to remove the monuments. But H&O Investments LLC. of Baton Rouge soon pulled out of the job, citing death threats, "unkindly name-calling," outrage on social media and the threat of other businesses canceling contracts. One day, several protesters came while H&O workers took measurements. Some of the protesters wore materials "with affiliation to white supremacy groups," said Roy Maughan Jr., a lawyer for the contractor. That same day, Maughan said, "a specific articulated threat" was phoned into city authorities warning workers at the monuments to leave for their safety. On 12 JAN, H&O sent the city a letter saying it was dropping out. Then, on 19 JAN, a Lamborghini belonging to the owner of H&O Investments was set on fire. The sports car was parked outside his office near Baton Rouge, Maughan said. A national rental crane company the city had hoped to hire also refused to be involved. The FBI and local fire investigators declined to comment. No arrests have been made. After H&O withdrew, the city opened a public bid process to find a new contractor - and things got messy again. When the names of companies interested in the work turned up on a city website, businesses were reportedly slammed with emails and telephone calls denouncing their involvement. The protest was organized at least in part by Save Our Circle, a group touting thousands of supporters who want a massive monument to Lee in Lee Circle preserved in the spot where it has stood since 1884. The city closed public viewing to the bidding process and has met with contractors without disclosing their names. The mayor declined requests for an interview. Michel-Antoine Goitia-Nicolas said his reasons for supporting boycotts, making calls and joining protests on behalf of the monuments are personal: He traces his ancestry to Beauregard, a Louisiana native who led Rebel troops at the opening of the Civil War. A prominent equestrian statue of Beauregard at the entrance to City Park is slated to be taken down. "It's totally divided this city," Goitia-Nicolas said of the city's plans. Standing next to the Beauregard statue, Goitia-Nicolas said he was willing to chain himself to statues to stop the removal. "Our lesson in history is that when we tear down the monuments of the past we rebuild the errors of our past," he said. He said he was proud of Beauregard, who he said "never owned slaves." "Why take it down? Put a statue of somebody positive in black history right here, in the midst of Beauregard, or in the midst of Lee. We support that." 
The Robert E. Lee Monument in Lee Circle in New Orleans Just this month, a state lawmaker began pushing a bill meant to save the monuments. Legal challenges, too, are on appeal. "With this city, the way things go, it might not come down," Lisa Huber, a 39-year-old greenhouse gardener, said as she pondered the statue of Lee atop a 60-foot-high marble column, standing in his Confederate uniform with his arms crossed, staring down the North. "I think it should come down, just because of the symbolism behind it." [Source: Associated Press | Cain Burdeau | March 25, 2016 ++] ********************************* Bataan Death March ► 74th Anniversary Ralph Rodriguez says he’s not a hero. He doesn’t even want to talk about his wartime experiences of battling the Japanese and surviving the Bataan Death March. “But I do it because I need to help people remember,” said Rodriquez, 98, following Saturday’s ceremony honoring Bataan Death March survivors who are still living, as well as those who have died since April 1942, when U.S. military commanders stationed on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.  
Ralph Rodriguez, 98 Atilano ‘Al’ David, 95 “It’s not fun to really suffer or be tortured,” the Albuquerque man said. Rodriquez was one of about 100 people, mostly military personnel, who attended the event near the Bataan Memorial Building on Galisteo Street to mark the 74th anniversary of a journey “too painful to remember, too tragic to not.” While 74 may seem an odd anniversary to mark — unlike next year’s milestone 75th — time is thinning the ranks of the Bataan survivors. Each year, their numbers dwindle a little more — nine have died since last April’s ceremony. Nine others died the year before that. Every anniversary of the march is significant. Veterans groups in the state estimate that just 20 survivors of the Bataan Death March are still living, eight in New Mexico. The youngest of them would be about 90. Just three showed up for Saturday’s event — Rodriguez, William Overmier, 97 (https://archive.org/details/WorldWar2PowWilliamOvermier), and Atilano “Al” David, 95. From December 1941 to April 1942, some 1,800 New Mexico soldiers fought alongside Filipinos to repel Japanese invaders on the Bataan peninsula. On 9 APR, Bataan’s military commanders surrendered. The American and Filipino defenders were killed, captured or forced to march 65 miles through the jungle. Japanese soldiers used their bayonets and bullets along the way to kill the weak, wounded and defiant ones. Those who survived the march ended up in prisoner-of-war camps where violence, malnutrition and disease took their toll. By the war’s end, just 900 New Mexico soldiers were alive to return home. David, a native Filipino who moved to the United States in the mid-1950s, was one of the luckier ones. Weak from a combat wound and suffering from malaria, he knew he faced a risk of being bayoneted or beheaded. And had he made it to a concentration camp, he said, he would not have lasted long. But two of his military buddies who had been carrying him made a decision that saved his life: When Japanese guards were not looking, they pushed David through some deep jungle brush, and the marchers passed him by. With the aid of local Filipinos, he recovered within a month and was battling alongside Filipino guerrilla fighters in the jungles, ambushing Japanese supply convoys. On the day the American military surrendered to the Japanese, he said, “We were crying. I was crying.” Despite being ill-equipped and surviving on one bowl of rice a week, however, many Americans and Filipinos wanted to fight on, he said. The Bataan battle, he said, was a combination of horror, chaos and death. He recounted with a tone of sorrow how he and some other soldiers had mistakenly shot down an American B-17 bomber, killing its crew, in the thick of battle. “What can you say about something like that? Sadness,” he said. Before the Americans surrendered, David felt like the defenders didn’t have a chance. “If we had had reinforcements, the proper equipment and air cover, we could have blown them all away,” he said. “We had no air cover, ineffective weapons and untrained soldiers. The Navy abandoned us. We were doomed from the start. “We were waiting for Superman and Captain Marvel to win the war for us.” Still, David avoided the grisly fate that many of his comrades met during or after the march. For years, he resented the Japanese, who, he said, treated the Filipino prisoners much worse than their American counterparts. One day in the mid-1950s, he found himself shaking with rage when he saw a Japanese man on the subway in New York City. “Something came over me. I wanted to do something violent to him. Strangle him. But I overcame it.” Now, he said, he bears no ill will toward the Japanese: “We cannot generalize a nation.” David just completed a memoir of his wartime experiences called End of the Trail. He hopes it can be published before the 75th anniversary of the march next year. At 95, his mind is still sharp, though he relies on a wheelchair to get around. But there are still things he won’t talk about regarding Bataan and the war. “War is an insult to humanity,” he said. And, like Rodriguez, he says it’s not the soldiers who are the heroes. It’s their families, the ones who wait at home for them to return. Or suffer when they don’t come back at all. [Source: The Santa Fe - New Mexican | Robert Nott | April 09, 2016 ++] ********************************* The Hump’s Casualties ► Recovery Efforts At 7:40 a.m. Jan. 25, 1944, five B-24 Liberator heavy bombers from the 308th Bombardment Group, 425th Squadron, took off from their base at Kunming, China, on a routine supply run to India. Their route took them over the Hump, a treacherous eastern stretch of tall peaks in the Himalayan mountains. At 10:45 a.m., flying at 15,000 feet, the formation "was forced to break up due to extreme instrument weather conditions," according to World War II documents on the mission. Clouds obscured the mountains' tree lines; visibility was less than a mile. Each aircraft was on its own, trying to land safely in valleys or at the nearest airstrip. All five bombers crashed. Crews parachuted out of two aircraft and survived; a third bomber crashed, with two survivors. The fourth and fifth B-24s -- Hot as Hell and Haley's Comet -- disappeared. Their crews were presumed dead. After many years of work, the remains of some of Hot as Hell's crew are making their final journey home. A repatriation ceremony is planned next week in New Delhi as part of Defense Secretary Ash Carter's trip to India. 
B-24 Liberator flying over Mt. Lassen, California. The return of the remains marks a victory in an incomplete recovery that started with luck and continues through determined persistence. The Hump was a deadly cargo route from China to India. The flight path included constant severe weather and 15,000-foot peaks that claimed 600 aircraft and more than 1,000 lives over the course of World War II. Hot as Hell's final resting place, where the wing section and engines are visible, is about 9,400 feet up the outer Himalayas in northeastern India, near China. The crash site is a three-day climb from a village called Damroh. Most of the bomber's broken pieces are blanketed by leaf litter. The location was initially reported by Arizona mountaineer Clayton Kuhles, who had climbed the region's mountains as a hobbyist for years until he saw his first World War II crash site. Then he combined those two passions -- mountain climbing and recovery work -- building a network of villagers who would report things they'd seen in the mountains and experts who helped identify wreckage and crews. To Kuhles, there were too many airmen who'd never come home. He has found the crash sites of more than 80 missing airmen, and he is driven to find more. Along the India-China route alone, DoD estimates there are remains of more than 400 airmen. In 2006 Kuhles was led to a crash site by a villager who once cut aluminum from an aircraft and carried it on his back down the mountain to salvage it. But when he grew frustrated with the difficult process, the 60-year-old hunter left the last stack he had cut at the site. He hadn't gone back until he brought Kuhles to the wreckage. Even though there were engine parts, Kuhles could find no serial numbers -- a key to identifying an aircraft. They looked all over the site. Nothing. Then the villager led him to the aluminum stack. The last sheet had the aircraft construction number 2878 stenciled on it. Research confirmed the link: Hot as Hell, the long-lost bomber named for its pinup girl nose art, had been found. In 2007 Gary Zaetz found Kuhles' report about the crash on the Internet, and he knew he had to go to the site. His uncle Irwin -- his father Larry's favorite sibling -- was on the Hot as Hell when it crashed. Both brothers served in the war; Irwin was a navigator, and Larry was a pharmacist's mate 3rd class on the USS Hornet, CV-12, and at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Larry Zaetz had gone a lifetime missing his younger brother, whom he nicknamed "Zipper" for his speediness on the basketball court. But Zaetz, now 91, was ill so it was up to Gary to bring Irwin home. Gary Zaetz was out of shape and had never climbed a mountain. His co-workers had a betting pool in their North Carolina office that he wouldn't come back. "They lost the pool," he said. "I was determined." In September 2008 he climbed the Himalayas with the same guide who took Kuhles. For three days he persisted. He was out of breath in the thinning air and in constant pain from his feet, which were beaten up from the climb. But he succeeded. "There was certainly a sense of relief that I'd finally made it," Gary Zaetz said. "I personally was exhausted by the time I got to crash site." He had told the families of the Hot as Hell crew about his plans, and had gotten to know their stories. He wanted to honor the lost. At the site he took out papers and began to recite Jewish and Christian prayers, reflecting the religions of the crew. Then he read each of their names out loud. In January 2011, Kuhles reached Haley's Comet. Its crash site is about 100 miles to the west of Hot as Hell, and the wreckage contains many more personal artifacts. There are shoes, bone fragments and clothing that Kuhles photographed and posted on his website, www.miarecoveries.org. The crash site has not been processed by Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. DPAA was notified about both sites years ago, and the same challenges that delayed Hot as Hell from being recovered for a decade haunt Haley's Comet, such as political sensitivities within the Indian government that have hindered US government teams from searching. A senior defense official who will be traveling with Carter to the repatriation ceremony said he hopes this return is the first of many. "We've been interested in working more closely with India in repatriation, and we are delighted by this latest activity," the official said. "We are delighted that we are able to return the remains of American [servicemembers] as part of the secretary's trip. We're going to work closely with the Indians on further MIA remains recovery efforts." Those closest to Hot as Hell want to ensure future excavations are not handled like theirs was. When DPAA arrived at the Hot as Hell site, it did an incomplete excavation, Kuhles and Zaetz said, leading both men to believe that if a more thorough job had been done, more remains could be on their way home. Time constraints by the Indian government hampered the effort. "It's really difficult," said Zaetz, who is founder and chairman of Families and Supporters of America's Arunachal Missing in Action. Family members of the Hot as Hell crew were notified by letter that the remains of one or two of the eight airmen have been collected. After the ceremony in India, the remains will be flown to DPAA's center in Hawaii for analysis and DNA identification. "I'll be happy for the one or two families that get loved one's remains," Zaetz said. "It's hard to get a sense of closure when you know as many as six of eight remains are still there. It goes beyond just my uncle." [Stars: Stars and Stripes | Tara Copp | Apr 09, 2016 ++] ********************************* WWII Little Known Facts ► First German KIA 
The first German serviceman killed in the war was killed by the Japanese. ******************************** Military History ► Battle of La Drang Valley Along the Cambodia border in the Central Highlands roughly 35 miles southwest of Pleiku sits the Chu Pong Massif, a 2,401-foot-high piece of ground that stretches to the Cambodian border and beyond for several miles. The impenetrable rain forests covering the high ground gives way to think jungle on the flat lands where there are open spaces with small strands of scrubby trees and large patches of razor-sharp elephant grass. So inaccessible is the region, neither French forces, South Vietnamese Army, nor the newly arrived American combat troops had ever been there. The area also belongs to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. It was into this enemy sanctuary that a lone, understrength battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) made a helicopter combat assault. Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the 450-man 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment was chosen to make the combat assault. Several days before the airlift was to take place, he and members of his staff made a cautious aerial reconnaissance by helicopter to check over the area and to locate a suitable landing zone. Moore selected a football field sized clearing at the base of Chu Pong Massif. American intelligence said the area was home to possibly an enemy regiment. In fact, there were three North Vietnamese Army regiments within an easy walk of that clearing.  
Infantry disembarking from helicopters On the morning of November 14, 1965, Moore's battalion landed in LZ X-Ray without a hitch. That changed around noon when the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacked. The bitter fighting continued all day and into the night with the enemy relentlessly making assault after assault. Only through carefully placed massive fire support from nearby artillery and tactical air strikes outside the perimeter were they stopped but casualties mounted on both sides. No question, the North Vietnamese forces had succeeded in engaging the U.S. forces in very tight quarters, knowing supporting U.S. firepower could only be used well outside the perimeter so as not to endanger American lives. The cavalrymen returned fire, but the Communists were fighting from prepared fighting positions and many of the American leaders had been felled in the initial stages of the ambush. As night fell, the cavalrymen waited for the North Vietnamese to attack but illumination flares provided by Air Force aircraft made the enemy cautious. At daybreak, the North Vietnamese 66th Regiment joined the 33rd Regiment in the attack against the Americans. Again, tactical air strikes and well-placed artillery took a toll on the enemy allowing the U.S. troops to hold out against repeated assaults.   
The battle lasted for three days and two nights before the North Vietnamese vanished into the tangle of brush and elephant grass, leaving a large circle of their dead scattered around the American position. The smell of rotting corpses hung heavy over X-Ray, and with the arrival on foot of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry commanded by Lt. Col. Robert McDade, on the morning of November 16, there were now three Cavalry battalions crammed into that clearing, including Lt. Col. Walter Tully's 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry. By the third day of the battle, the Americans had gained the upper hand. The three-day battle resulted in 834 North Vietnamese soldiers confirmed killed, and another 1,000 communist casualties were assumed. As the battle on X-Ray subsided, McDade's 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was ordered to move cross-country to LZ Albany, where it was to be picked up by helicopter and moved to a new location. The U.S. unit was moving through the jungle in a long column when the 8th Battalion of the North Vietnamese 66th Regiment sprang a massive ambush along the length of the column from all sides. Of the 500 men in the original column, 150 were killed and only 84 were able to return to immediate duty. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack - within minutes, most of the men from the two companies were hit. It was the most successful ambush against U.S. forces during the course of the entire war. All total in the battle of X-Ray and the ambush near LZ Albany, 234 Americans were killed and more than 250 wounded in just four days and nights, November 14-17, 1965. Another 71 Americans had been killed in earlier, smaller skirmishes that led up to the Ia Drang battles. Despite these numbers, senior American officials in Saigon declared the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley a great victory. The battle was extremely important because it was the first significant contact between U.S. troops and North Vietnamese forces. The action demonstrated that the North Vietnamese were prepared to stand and fight major battles even though they might take serious casualties. Senior American military leaders concluded that U.S. forces could cause significant damage on the Communists in such battles - this tactic lead to a war of attrition as the U.S. forces tried to wear the communists down. Thus began the 'body count' as the measure of success. The North Vietnamese also learned a valuable lesson during the battle: by keeping their combat troops physically close to U.S. positions, U.S. troops could not use close in artillery or air strikes without risking injury to American troops. This style of fighting became the North Vietnamese practice for the rest of the war. It became more than obvious that the war had changed suddenly and dramatically in those few days. At higher levels, both sides claimed victory in the Ia Drang, they may not have used so grand a word and for something so tragic and terrible. It would become for many, the making of their worst nightmares for a lifetime. 'We Were Soldiers Once- And Young' is a 1992 book by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and war journalist Joseph L. Galloway about the Vietnam War. It focuses on the role of the First and Second Battalions of the 7th Cavalry Regiment in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, the United States' first large-unit battle of the Vietnam War; previous engagements involved small units and patrols (squad, platoon, and company sized units). To experience rare footage of the battle and to hear from those who were there, such as war journalist Joseph L. Galloway, go to the following YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxPeHqH4XxI. [Source: Together We Served | Mike Christy | May 2015 ++] ******************************** Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2016 2016 -> 2017 afoCo Landmark Scholarship Program 2016 -> Instructions for the Preparation of Camera-Ready Contributions to the Conference Proceedings 2016 -> Step student Scholarships for Year 10-13 2016 -> The united church of canada 2016 -> Idan raichel biography – May 2016 Brief Producer, keyboardist, Lyricist, composer and Performer Idan Raichel 2016 -> An introduction to centre’s interventions expanding access to justice 2016 -> Sanchar Shakti 2016 -> Unit analysis should help here. We want number of bananas 2016 -> The Autobiography of Elder Joseph Bates 2016 -> The Great Heat and the Rhode Island Deep Water Bay Scallop (Argopecten irradians) Fishery 1875-1905 Download 0.88 Mb. Share with your friends:
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