War Horse

This is one movie where I want a horse to win the Oscar for Best Actor.  I caught a matinee showing on Christmas Day and did not expect to see anyone else in the cinema.  I was very wrong.  The theater was at least 85% full and since I arrived at the start time, I ended up in the front rows.  I rapidly forgot about my seat location as this movie pulled me in from the first unsteady steps of Joey as a foal.  I had to see this movie all the way through, calls of nature bedamned.  This movie is this well crafted, even the quiet times when you learn a bit more about Albert, his father, and his father’s past; I was enthralled.  I was also shocked and amazed and sad in this movie.

One sequence of scenes I think can be used to show the craftsmanship of this movie and it’s story.  Albert’s father is in a terrible bind, rain has destroyed the turnip crop and the rent is due.  Even though it was Joey and Albert who made that planting possible, Joey has to be sold to cover the rent.  As Joey is being led away, a tearful Albert affixes to Joey’s bridle the pennant of his father’s unit in the Boer War.  Capt. Nichols solemnly promises Albert he will bring Joey back. 

Scene then shifts to the cavalry unit Nichols belongs to.  Here we are treated in full glorious color how war was viewed as 300 men, in full service dress, atop horses charge to see who can snag the ring with their sword first.  Next we see them in France and being briefed for an attack against a German field encampment. 

We see this vast field of golden wheat that is ready to be harvested as the next scene.  And then we see these green hats bob amidst the wheat and the flick of horse ears also.  And as one man all the soldiers mount the horses and the order to attack is given.  With swords drawn they charge out of the wheat field, across open ground, and then they are amidst the Germans just waking up and rushing to meet the attack.  Swords flash, striking men down.  Men atop horses charge through tents.  And then we see Germans fleeing to the tree line with British cavalry close behind.  Then we see the emplaced machine guns and as the Germans take cover the guns open fire.  Machine gun bullets spit with lethality and rider-less horses plunge through the German lines.  One of the horses is Joey with pennant still affixed to his tack, but no one in the saddle.

One of the survivors of the charge is Nichols’ commanding officer.  He is still astride his horse and is encircled by Germans armed with rifles but he has his sword drawn.  One of the Germans screams at him asking did he really think the Germans would not defend their camp.  The officer looks around and we are treated to a scene of horror.  Strewn throughout the open field where the camp was lie the bodies of many dead British officers and their horses, cut down by a scythe of lead.  The man then throws his sword into the ground and surrenders.  The imagery of a wheat field ready to be harvested now makes sick sense, it is foreshadowing the fate of these brave men in a new kind of war.

I watched the interview with Steven Spielberg about this movie.  He said he was not looking for a project when he stumbled across this play called War Horse.  That it just grabbed his attention.  I am glad this story did.  For fans of Tolkien and the Shire, you might want to watch this movie to get a better appreciation of what shaped Tolkien and his stories.

Forgetting Veterans

Actions like this leave me gobsmacked. Stunned and speechless also pop to mind as proper adjectives. Something rotten is afoot methinks. Lots of attention needs to be applied to this school board for their excuse holds not a drop of water or believability.

What am I irate about that causes to pen the above? The school board for Norwalk, CT is dropping from their school calendar November 11th as a recognized holiday. You heard me right, they want to cut out Veterans Day to get more school time in but they promise to spend some of the time teaching about Veterans Day. Right. The feedback needs to be monumental to correct the errant ways of this school board. So lets go for broke and tell them how we feel on this matter.

The Unknowns

11/11/1918

A Co 11th Battalion Cheshire Reg

During the Battle of the Somme 1916

Imperial War Museum Catalog # Q3990

The Battle of the Somme in 1916 turned into a meat grinder. By the end of the long battle, some 400,000 British Empire soldiers would be casualties. Total casualties from all sides would reach 1,000,000 in this battle.

This removed in time, 94 years later, one has to ask if there is any interest left. The answer as the Independent in the UK discovered last year is an emphatic yes with almost 2,000,000 visits. A barn in the Somme region was renovated in 2007 and hundreds of glass plate negatives were tossed out onto the rubbish pile. Luckily 400 of these plates were found, digitised, and restored by two men, Barnard Gardin and Dominique Zanardi, showing unknown Empire soldiers just before the Battle of the Somme started. A slideshow of 286 pictures can be found here. Of all the people shown in these recovered pictures, only one has been positively identified.

Oct 9, 1942

On this date in 1942 this is some of what happened.

The country of Ethiopia joined the United Nations. Note - this United Nations was a pact by 26 countries to fight against the Axis powers and to not seek any separate peace. The United Nations of today was founded in 1945.

Major Joe Foss landed his F4F Wildcat on Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. It was the start of his meteoric rise to ace and hero as he and his squadron mates fought to defend American forces from Japanese attack. On January 15th, 1943 Foss scored his 26th aerial victory to tie the record set by Eddie Rickenbacker in WWI. For his flying skills, leadership, and heroism Foss would be awarded the Medal of Honor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Meanwhile in Europe one of the most evil pieces of paper was signed by Hitler's number one henchmen, Martin Bormann. It was with this document the Nazis became officially committed to the pogrom of exterminating all the Jews in Europe. Which is cold comfort to the Jews who had already been murdered. As a side note, Oct 9, 1942 marked the end of one chapter in Anne Frank's diary.

In the Aleutians the USAAF carried out bombing missions against the Japanese entrenched on the Alaskan island of Kiska. B-25s struck at the Japanese stronghold of Lae on New Guinea and B-17s of the 5th AF struck at Rabaul.

Night of 8/9 October 1942 the RAF carries out mine-laying operations at Lorient, St. Nazaire, Brest, Ostend, Texel, and the Frisians. Two Wellington bombers were lost. Also five Mosquitos were dispatched to scattered targets in Germany, one was lost.

And on a river called Matanikau on Guadalcanal a Marine would lose his life repelling a Japanese attack to recapture Henderson Field. For his gallantry during desperate hand-to-hand combat Cpl Joseph Connolly was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously. DE-450 was commissioned as the USS Joseph E. Connolly. The ship would earn one battle star for service in WWII and was part of the US Pacific Fleet in Tokyo Bay to accept the surrender of Japan, thus ending WWII.

For War Was Too Terrible

The newest sanctions against Iran remind me of another series of sanctions against Iraq. We know how those Iraqi sanctions worked. This also remind me of another time when people thought if they kept talking with the despots they could avert conflict because the last shooting match was literally bloody terrible.

I speak of the scars and fears induced by World War I. When England lost 600,000 on the Somme. Then Gallipoli. And the French being equally winnowed. The thought of war became akin to grasping a hot skillet without a mitt on. So instead at the League of Nations and in other forums England and France talked and talked while the likes of Mussolini and Hitler portrayed such talk as signs of weakness.

Mussolinni rose to power in a sick Italy. He made many promises, among them restoring the glory that was Rome to Italy. So he invaded Ethiopia in Africa and proceeded to conquer the poor country. When the King of Ethiopia appeared before the League of Nations to plea to this body that was supposed to end conflicts, his pleas were heard and nothing done. The days of considering the League as of any importance became numbered then.

So when Chancellor Adolph Hitler broke the Versailles Treaty that started Germany on the road to military re-armament, what was the reaction of other countries? More talk. Austria was absorbed in the Anschluss and all the West did was talk more to Hitler. Then the Sudetenland demands came, it was given to Herr Hitler and the Czechs lost faith in the West. Then the rest of the Czech populace was taken into the new German Third Reich. While Chamberlain talked of 'peace in our times' Hitler and his minions were building to their next conquest. Even though England and France promised to some to Poland's aid if Germany attacked, by now the word of these two countries was extremely suspect. So Hitler, believing he would only get more words from England and France while having a deal with the USSR, invaded Poland. That was the official start of World War II. The French invaded the Rhur and the German generals got nervous since all German forces were in Poland, but Hitler laughed and predicted the French would pull back. And Hitler was right. So six months later France fell to the German forces that had transferred in from the Polish campaign. When this conflict ended, large swathes of Europe were piles of rubble and tens of millions lay dead, including almost 12 million in Nazi concentration camps.

It seems we are on the precipice of another global conflict, this time with a nuclear Iran bent on controlling all around it. One conflict that could have been ended in earlier stages if the international community could have countenance such abhorrent idea as a muscular diplomacy that involved striking at Iran with military forces. Instead we see IAEA reports Iran may have enough nuclear material for two atomic weapons. And still too many in the West believe they can talk Iran out of snuggling up to a nuclear teddy-bear while ignoring lessons brutish dictators of not 100 years ago taught. Titlting at windmills never seemed more dangerous.

Christmas Eve, 1918

It had been four years since the miracle of Christmas had laid across the trenches in Europe that saw British soldiers playing soccer with their German counterparts in the no mans land between trenches. On November 11, 1918, the war to end all wars had been concluded with the complete surrender of Germany to Allied forces in a railway car outside Compien France.

While the American Expeditionary Force under General Blackjack Pershing returned home to a hero’s welcome; there were 5,000 Americans still locked in combat in Europe, though against a different set of enemies. In September of 1918 in order to reopen the Russian front that the Bolshevik Revolution had closed; American, British, Australian, and Canadian forces had landed in Archangel in northern Russia. There the men of the 339th Infantry Brigade of the 85th Infantry Division would be locked in combat against Red Bolshevik forces as their political masters chased the dream of restoring Russia to non-communist rule.

This Christmas Eve, remember all those men trapped in Russia back in 1918 fighting a war they did not understand for objectives that were impossible to achieve. Remember too the horrible conditions they lived in; of freezing temperatures, exploding frozen trees, and such odd contraptions as ambulance-sleighs because the severe cold immobilized their mechanical ambulances.

And most of all remember those Americans that are still buried in that Russian permafrost, interred where they fell on this all but forgotten front of World War One. To never return home like their compatriots finally did in June of 1919 and thus ending the most frustrating, futile, and quixotic deployment of American fighting men.

For Further Research:
Polar Bear Memorial Association.
Polar Bear Digital Collections - University of Michigan
Images of a Forgotten War - Canadian Expetionary Force in the Great War.