Day: February 24, 2019

History For A Sunday: Kasserine Pass

Another Sunday and I want to share a little personal stuff…..nothing to personal just a thought or two…..and a little history (is that an eye roll?)

First, how many know what Kasserine Pass is?

My favorite uncle was in the US Army in World War Two…..1st Army Division….he was there when America invaded North Africa and fought his way across Africa then onto Sicily and up the nation of Italy where he was wounded and taken prisoner at Casino…..

He use to tell me about the fighting as forces tried to enter the German stronghold in Tunisia….the worse fighting was for the Kasserine Pass in May of 1943……

It all went very wrong.

Beware a Desert Fox when he’s cornered.

It was North Africa, in the winter of 1943, and American soldiers were feeling cocky as they prepared for their first ground battle against the Germans in World War II. So far, it hadn’t been a bad war for the U.S. Army. The GIs were well fed, well paid and well equipped, especially compared to their threadbare and envious British allies. Even better, their baptism by fire had been to splash ashore in Algeria and Morocco in November 1942, where the defenders had been unmotivated Vichy French soldiers who soon capitulated.

Maybe defeating Hitler wouldn’t be so hard, after all.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/kasserine-pass-americas-most-humiliating-defeat-world-war-ii-19574

https://www.thoughtco.com/battle-of-kasserine-pass-2361495

Just what did the green troops learn from the battle for Kasserine Pass?

The February 1943 Battle of the Kasserine Pass marked the first serious confrontation between America’s amateur army and Germany’s professional Wehrmacht— specifically the elite Afrika Korps— so it should come as no surprise the Allies got beat. But what is surprising is that everybody from General Dwight Eisenhower down to platoon leaders made so many mistakes that defeat was inevitable.

Least guilty of incompetence were the draftees. As war correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote: “There is nothing wrong with the common American soldier.…The deeper he gets into a fight, the more of a fighting man he becomes.” Unfortunately, Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall and his unit commanders stuck the American fighting man so deep into this scrap there was no way out.

https://www.historynet.com/learned-kasserine-pass.htm

My uncle would only talk to me after Vietnam about his time in North Africa and Italy…..we had some very similar experiences……

This battle is not one historians like to teach or even talk about because it was such a fiasco in the beginning.

That is it for me for the day……hope everyone is having a good weekend and I will be back in force tomorrow…..peace out!

Random Thoughts On A Sunday #1

On weekends I try to pick a subject that will inform as well as entertain and some days I just cannot find that hook at all…..so I will be posting what I call “Random Thoughts On a Sunday (Saturday)……

I read a piece that could very well be a script for a bad scifi movie…..”Revenge Of The Sex Doll”……..

According to Nicholas Patterson, a cybersecurity lecturer at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, humanoid sex robots that have recently hit the market could potentially be hacked and turned into killing machines.

https://theantimedia.com/hackers-turn-sex-robots-into-killing-machines/
Sex Robots?  Are we ready for this trend?
 
 
Next Random Thought—last month I wrote a post about those people that still actually believe the earth is flat…..https://lobotero.com/2019/01/27/is-the-earth-flat/
 
You might ask…how can this be in the 21st century?
Researchers believe they have figured out why a growing number of people all around the world believe that the Earth is flat. Texas Tech University assistant professor of science communication Asheley Landrum says interviews with 30 “Flat Earthers” at conventions in 2017 and 2018 revealed that all but one of them decided our planet wasn’t a sphere after watching YouTube videos, the Guardian reports. “The only person who didn’t say this was there with his daughter and his son-in-law and they had seen it on YouTube and told him about it,” Landrum said at an event run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“There’s a lot of helpful information on YouTube but also a lot of misinformation,” Landrum says. “Their algorithms make it easy to end up going down the rabbit hole, by presenting information to people who are going to be more susceptible to it.” She urged scientists to counter videos like “200 Proofs Earth Is Not a Spinning Ball” by releasing their own videos saying “here’s why those reasons aren’t real and here’s a bunch of ways you can research it for yourself.” Google said earlier this year that it plans to gradually reduce YouTube recommendations for potentially harmful misinformation “such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11,” CNET reports.
Remember that yahoo who was going to last himself into space to prove the earth was flat?
 
 
That is about all the energy I have on this Sunday…..enjoy your day…..be well, be safe…..chuq