The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Operation Tiger - Slapton Sands - May 8th, 2004

see educational sources

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

Slapton Sands: The Cover-up That Never Was

"It was a disaster which lay hidden from the World for 40 years . . . an official American Army cover-up."

That a massive cover-up took place is beyond doubt. And that General Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized it is equally clear."

Generals Omar N. Bradley and Eisenhower watched "the murderous chaos" and "were horrified and determined that details of their own mistakes would be buried with their men."

"Relatives of the dead men have been misinformed -- and even lied to -- by their government. "

It was "a story the government kept quiet ... hushed up for decades ... a dirty little secret of World War II."

What was that terrible event so heinous as to prompt those accusations of perfidy 43 years later from the British news media from some American newspapers and in a particularly antagonistic three-part report from the local news of the ABC affiliate in Washington D. C. WJLA-TV?

It was two hours after midnight on 28 April, 1944. Since the moon had just gone down, visibility was fair. The sea was calm.

A few hours earlier, in daylight, assault forces of the U S 4th Infantry Division had gone ashore on Slapton Sands, a stretch of beach along the south coast of England that closely resembled a beach on the French coast of Normandy, code-named Utah, where a few weeks later U.S. troops were to storm ashore as part of history's largest and most portentous amphibious assault: D-Day

The assault at Slapton Sands was known as Exercise Tiger, one of several rehearsals conducted in preparation for the momentous invasion to come. So vital was the exercise of accustoming the troops to the combat conditions they were soon to face that commanders had ordered use of live naval and artillery fire, which could be employed because British civilians had long ago been relocated from the region around Slapton Sands. Individual soldiers also had live ammunition for their rifles and machine guns.



In those early hours of 28 April off the south coast in Lyme Bay, a flotilla of eight LSTs (landing ship, tank) was plowing toward Slapton Sands, transporting a follow-up force of engineers and chemical and quartermaster troops not scheduled for assault but to be unloaded in orderly fashion along with trucks, amphibious trucks, jeeps and heavy engineering equipment.

Out of the darkness, nine swift German torpedo boats suddenly appeared. On routine patrol out of the French port of Cherbourg, the commanders had learned of heavy radio traffic in Lyme Bay. Ordered to investigate, they were amazed to see what they took to be a flotilla of eight destroyers. They hastened to attack.

German torpedoes hit three of the LSTs. One lost its stern but eventually limped into port. Another burst into flames, the fire fed by gasoline in the vehicles aboard. A third keeled over and sank within six minutes.

There was little time for launching lifeboats. Trapped below decks, hundreds of soldiers and sailors went down with the ships. Others leapt into the sea, but many soon drowned, weighted down by water-logged overcoats and in some cases pitched forward into the water because they were wearing life belts around their waists rather than under their armpits. Others succumbed to hypothermia in the cold water.



When the waters of the English Channel at last ceased to wash bloated bodies ashore, the toll of the dead and missing stood at 198 sailors and 551 soldiers, a total of 749, the most costly training incident involving U.S. forces during World War II.

Allied commanders were not only concerned about the loss of life and two LSTs -- which left not a single LST as a reserve for D-Day -- but also about the possibility that the Germans had taken prisoners who might be forced to reveal secrets about the upcoming invasion. Ten officers aboard the LSTs had been closely involved in the invasion planning and knew the assigned beaches in France; there was no rest until those 10 could be accounted for: all of them drowned.

A subsequent official investigation revealed two factors that may have contributed to the tragedy -- a lack of escort vessels and an error in radio frequencies.

Although there were a number of British picket ships stationed off the south coast, including some facing Cherbourg, only two vessels were assigned to accompany the convoy -- a corvette and a World War I-era destroyer. Damaged in a collision, the destroyer put into port, and a replacement vessel came to the scene too late.



Because of a typographical error in orders, the U.S. LSTs were on a radio frequency different from the corvette and the British naval headquarters ashore. When one of the picket ships spotted German torpedo boats soon after midnight, a report quickly reached the British corvette but not the LSTs. Assuming the U.S. vessels had received the same report, the commander of the corvette made no effort to raise them.

Whether an absence of either or both of those factors would have had any effect on the tragic events that followed would be impossible to say -- but probably not. The tragedy off Slapton Sands was simply one of those cruel happenstances of war.

Meanwhile, orders went out imposing the strictest secrecy on all who knew or might learn of the tragedy, including doctors and nurses who treated the survivors. There was no point in letting the enemy know what he had accomplished, least of all in affording any clue that might link Slapton Sands to Utah Beach.

Nobody ever lifted that order of secrecy, for by the time D-Day had passed, the units subject to the order had scattered. Quite obviously, in any case, the order no longer had any legitimacy particularly after Gen. Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, in July 1944 issued a press release telling of the tragedy. Notice of it was printed, among other places, in the soldier newspaper, Stars & Stripes.


The long beach at Slapton and its evacuated hinterland was the great practice ground for the invasion of Europe. During many months U.S. forces attacked with heavy bombardment and live ammunition in large-scale maneuvers.

With the end of the war, the tragedy off Slapton Sands -- like many another wartime events involving high loss of life, such as the sinking of a Belgian ship off Cherbourg on Christmas Eve, 1944, in which more than 800 American soldiers died--received little attention. There were nevertheless references to the tragedy in at least three books published soon after the war, including a fairly detailed account by Capt. Harry C. Butcher (Gen. Eisenhower's former naval aide) in My Three Years With Eisenhower (1946).

The story was also covered in two of the U.S. Army's unclassified official histories: Cross-Channel Attack (1951) by Gordon A. Harrison and Logistical Support of the Armies Volume I (1953) by Roland G. Ruppenthal. It was also related in one of the official U.S. Navy histories, The Invasion of France and Germany (1957) by Samuel Eliot Morrison.

In 1954, 10 years after D-Day, U.S. Army authorities unveiled a monument at Slapton Sands honoring the people of the farms, villages and towns of the region "who generously left their homes and their lands to provide a battle practice area for the successful assault in Normandy in June 1944." During the course of the ceremony, the U.S. commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Gen. Alfred M. Guenther, told of the tragedy that befell Exercise Tiger.



All the while, a detailed and unclassified account of the tragedy rested in the National Archives. It had been prepared soon after the end of the war by the European Theater Historical Section.

For anybody who took even a short time to investigate, there clearly had been no cover-up other than the brief veil of secrecy raised to avoid compromise of D-Day. Yet, in at least one case -- WJLA-TV in Washington -- the news staff pursued its accusations of cover-up even after being informed by the Army's Public Affairs Office well before the first program aired about the various publications including the official histories that had told of the tragedy.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[snippy_about_it]

Yet why, a long 43 years after the event, the sudden spate of news stories and accusations?

That had its beginnings in 1968 when a former British policeman, Kenneth Small, moved to a village just off Slapton Sands and bought and operated a small guest house. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Mr. Small took long walks along the beach and began to find relics of war: unexpended cartridges, buttons and fragments from uniforms. Talking with people who had long lived in the region, he learned of the heavy loss of life in Exercise Tiger.

Why, Mr. Small asked himself, was there no memorial to those who had died? There was that monument the U.S. Army had erected to the British civilians, but there was no mention of the dead Americans. To Mr. Small, that looked like an official cover-up.



From local fishermen; he learned of a U.S. Sherman tank that lay beneath the waters a mile offshore, a tank lost not in Exercise Tiger but in another rehearsal a year earlier. At considerable personal expense, Mr. Small managed to salvage the tank and place it on the plinth just behind the beach as a memorial to those Americans who had died. The memorial was dedicated in a ceremony on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

That ceremony prompted the first spurt of accusations by the British and American press of a cover-up, but they were soon silenced by publication of two detailed articles about the tragedy: one in American Heritage magazine co-authored by a former medical officer, Dr. Ralph C. Greene, who had been stationed at one of the hospitals that treated the injured; the other in a respected British periodical, After the Battle. Those were carefully researched, authoritative and comprehensive articles; if anybody had consulted them three years later, they would put to rest any charges of a cover-up and various other unfounded allegations.

Kenneth Small, meanwhile, wanted more. Although persuaded at last that there had been no cover-up, he nevertheless wanted an official commemoration by the U.S. government to those who had died. Receiving an invitation from an ex-Army major who had commanded the tank battalion whose lost tank Mr. Small had salvaged, he went to the United States where the ex-major introduced him to his congresswoman, Beverly Byron (D-Md.), who as it turned out is the daughter of Gen. Eisenhower's former naval aide, Capt. Butcher.

With assistance from the Pentagon, Rep. Byron arranged for a private organization, the Pikes Peak Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army in Colorado, where the 4th Infantry Division is stationed, to provide a plaque honoring the American dead. She also attached a rider to a congressional bill calling for official U.S. participation in a ceremony unveiling the plaque alongside Ken Small's tank at Slapton Sands.



Information about that pending ceremony scheduled for 15 November, 1987, set the news media off. There were accusations not only of a cover-up, but also of heavy casualties inflicted by U.S. soldiers, who presumably did not know they had live ammunition in their weapons, firing on other soldiers. Nobody questioned why soldiers would bother to open fire if they thought they had only blank ammunition ... or why a soldier would not know the difference between live ammunition and blanks when one has bullets, the other not. Nor was there actually any evidence of anybody being killed by small arms fire.

There surfaced a new an allegation made earlier by a local resident, Dorothy Seekings, who maintained that as a young woman she had witnessed the burial of "hundreds" of Americans in a mass grave (she subsequently changed the story to individual graves). Dorothy Seekings also claimed that the bodies are still there.

At long last, somebody in the news media -- a correspondent for BBC television--thought to query the farmer on whose land the dead are presumably buried. He had owned and lived on that land all his life, said the farmer, and nobody was ever buried there.

That tallies with U.S. Army records that show that in the first few days of May 1944, soon after the tragedy, hundreds of the dead were interred temporarily in a World War I U.S. military cemetery at nearby Blackwood. Following the war, those bodies were either moved to a new World War II U.S. military cemetery at Cambridge or, at the request of next of kin, shipped to the United States.

Yet many like Ken Small continued to wonder why it took the U.S. government 43 years to honor those who died off Slapton Sands. Those who wondered failed to understand U.S. policy for wartime memorials.

Soon after World War I, Congress created an independent agency, the American Battle Monuments Commission, to construct overseas U.S. military cemeteries, to erect within them appropriate memorials and to maintain them. Anybody who has seen any of those cemeteries, either those of World War I or of World War II, recognizes that no nation honors its war dead more appropriately than does the United States.



Only the American Battle Monuments Commission--not the U.S. Army, Air Force or Navy -- has authority to erect official memorials to American dead, and the American Battle Monuments Commission limits its memorials to the cemeteries, which avoids a proliferation of monuments around the world. Private organizations, such as division veterans' associations, are nevertheless free to erect unofficial memorials but are responsible for all costs, including maintenance.

Soon after the end of the war, veterans of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, which incurred the heaviest losses in Exercise Tiger, did just that, erecting a monument on Omaha Beach to their dead, presumably to include those who died at Utah Beach and those who died in preparation for D-Day.

At Cambridge, there stands an impressive official memorial erected by the American Battle Monuments Commission to all those Americans who died during World War II while stationed in the British Isles. That includes the 749 who died in the tragedy off Slapton Sands, and there one finds the engraved names of the missing.

Long before 15 November, 1987, the U.S. government had already honored those soldiers and sailors who died in Exercise Tiger.

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[snippy_about_it]

..........

Operation TIGER was held 22-30 April 1944, at Slapton Sands, England. It was the major training dress rehearsal for the 4th Infantry Division's assault at Utah Beach, Normandy, France on D-Day, 6 June 1944. In the early morning hours of 28 April 1944, eight Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) were in Lyme Bay, heading towards Slapton Sands, with the assault's follow on force of combat service support soldiers. The losses sustained during this exercise were a closely held secret until the end of D-Day invasion to keep the Germans from learning about allied invasion plans. The 3206th Quartermaster Service Company sustained the heaviest losses of any unit the night of 27-28 April 1944. According to the historian Charles MacDonald, in an article written for the June 1988 Army magazine, "When the waters of the English Channel at last ceased to wash bloated bodies ashore, the toll of the dead and missing stood at 198 sailors and 551 soldiers, a total of 749, the most costly training incident involving U.S. forces during World War II."



During the buildup phase of TIGER, eight LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank) in a convoy were caught by German E-boats which torpedoed and sank two, causing a loss of life greater than that later suffered by the assault troops during initial attack on Utah Beach. The final account of this incident must take into account naval records not available in the European Theater, but Army records indicate that the following took place.

During the night of 27-28 April (1944), eight LSTs in convoy T-4 were proceeding at about five knots per hour off Portland. The craft were scheduled to participate in the buildup phase of the exercise. They had travelled [sic] almost due east of their points of departure, Plymouth and Dartmouth, had turned around, and were proceeding westerly toward Bruxham [sic]. They were loaded with troops of the 1st Engr Sp Brig, the 4th Div, and VII Corps. Presumably the LSTs were escorted by one corvette, but this vessel does not seem to have been in the vicinity during the action. The night was dark but clear, with no moon. At least one LST was equipped with radar and reported that two unknown vessels were approaching, but it was assumed that these were craft belonging to the convoy.

Times given for the attack vary between 0130 hours and 0204 hours 28 April. The attackers, believed to have been E-boats, were never positively identified, and it is not known whether the two picked up by the radar constituted the whole enemy force. LST 507, the first attacked, was hit by several torpedoes which failed to explode, then was set afire by a direct torpedo hit. Another struck five minutes later. The enemy craft straffed [sic] the decks with machine guns, and fired on men who had jumped into the water. LST 507 began to settle.



About the same time, LST 531 was hit and set afire. Flares were seen to drop, but LST officers did not know whether the planes were enemy or Allied. Some survivors stated that they heard anti-aircraft fire, but there is no evidence of bombs being dropped. LST 511 was struck twice by torpedos [sic] which failed to explode.

About 0210, LST 289 was hit by a torpedo which destroyed the crew's quarters, the rudder and the rear guns. The commanding officer of the 478th Amphibian Truck Company (TC), a 1st Brigade unit, suggested to LST officers that the vessel's ramp be put down and personnel be taken off in the company's dukws (amphibious trucks). This plan was considered but abandoned when flooding was brought under control. LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) were put over the side to steer the LST, and it made Dartmouth under its own power at 1430 hours.

Other LSTs put on full speed and escaped, although LST 515, according to Army records, turned and picked up some survivors several hours later. LSTs 507 and 531 continued to burn and settle. Deck guns were not manned, although some shots were fired by Navy personnel. The craft burned for about two hours, LST 531 sank, but the exact time is uncertain. At 0400 a British destroyer arrived and picked up survivors. Its captain ordered that LST 507, which had settled until only its bow was above water, be sunk. The enemy did not suffer any known casualties or damage.

Most of the casualties were from LST 531. There were only 290 survivors of 744 soldiers and 282 sailors. Aboard LST 507 there were 13 dead and 22 wounded. The 1st (Engineer Special) Brigade suffered most heavily in the action with 413 dead and 16 wounded. The 3206th Quartermaster Service Company was virtually wiped out. Of 251 officers and men, 201 were killed or wounded. The 557th Quartermaster Railhead Company also had heavy losses, 69 casualties in all. A complete list of casualties is not available, but Army records, possibly not complete, state that 749 were killed and more than 300 either injured or suffering from severe exposures



The E-boat attack disclosed a number of deficiencies which were rectified for the invasion. Among them were the following:

(1) Lifebelts issued were of the self-inflating type. In many cases they were improperly used. Some belts contained defective inflating capsules or none at all. Contents of others had been discharged, either intentionally or by accident. In marshalling areas before the invasion, troops were impressed with the necessity of retaining the capsules, and were well briefed in the use of the life belts.

(2) The general alarm system aboard the LSTs was not generally understood, although instructions were posted and non-commissioned officers were instructed to brief the men. This, however, did not result in any loss of life, since the men had up to a half hour to reach the deck and there was no difficulty in getting there.

(3) Only two of six lifeboats on LST 507 were lowered. On some of the boats, release pins were bent by the concussion and had to be forced. Of the boats that got into the water, one, with a capacity of 40 to 60 men, was occupied by 80 to 100, and capsized. Drills aboard invasion craft helped to minimize this danger.

Individuals on the LSTs reacted in different ways. According to survivors, some even managed to keep their sense of humor and lept over the rail shouting, "Dry run!" Other men though at first that it was all a part of the problem (exercise).

In general, discipline on deck was poor, due in part to the fact that the loudspeaker systems were put out of order by the explosions and no commands could be given over them. Some men lost valuable time searching for their duffle bags. In some cases there was panic, and men went over the side before the order to abandon ship was given, and were strafed by the E-boats' machine guns fire. Col Eugene M Caffey, 1st (Engineer Special) Brigade commanding officer, later commented, "Officers and NCOs cannot expect their men to remain cool when they themselves seem to go completely crazy."

The unfortunate sinking of the LSTs greatly marred the buildup and supply phases of the exercise, reducing the beach party practically to its assault phase elements. Survivors were warned to keep all details a secret, and no account was released until after the invasion. Critiques of the mounting and assault indicate that results otherwise were fairly satisfactory, although there was a tendency on the part of officers and men to treat TIGER as another problem in a long series. By this time exercises had become routine, practicularly [sic] for the 1st (Engineer Special) Brigade, which had taken part in 15 exercises from January through April. Observers reported that many officers were inclined to dismiss shortcomings as unimportant, and to feel that when the invasion took place, deficiencies shown in TIGER and other exercises would no longer exist.

Mounting, in particular, showed great improvement, particularly in regard to the operation of the camps. There were a few flaws; such as lack of sufficient briefing tents, and the fact that a large shipment of jerricans had just arrived with each can painted yellow so that it was easily seen from the air. Security in the camps was improved, although a lack of uniformity in the pass system was criticized. Camouflage was better than in previous exercises, and signal installations were found to be adequate.

During the period 1-18 May, units which had lost heavily in personnel and equipment during TIGER and the E-boat attack were re-equipped and replacements were secured. The 3206th Quartermaster Service Company, which had been practically wiped out, was replaced by the 363d Quartermaster Service Company, and the 557th Quartermaster Railhead Company, which had lost very heavily, was replaced by the 562d Quartermaster Railhead Company.

Additional Sources:

www.qmmuseum.lee.army.mil
www.combinedops.com
www.discounttrainsonline.com
www.army.mil
www.history.navy.mil
www.dwightdeisenhower.com

[snippy_about_it]

The subsequent report from Rear Admiral John Hall dated May 5 offered profound regrets to the Americans. The main cause of the tragic incident was attributed to inordinate pressures on staff. Factors included the concurrency of Operation Tiger and Operation Fabius and actions against enemy destroyers on the 25th and 26th and a further planned action on the 28th. Under these extraordinary circumstances communications and signals were delayed and some reporting was incomplete.

Lessons were learned but the appalling loss of life had little or no compensating benefit to the allied landings at Normandy. However recommendations included;

• using larger escort forces if available
• the need for rescue craft during any large scale landing
• ensuring that vital information on enemy contacts was disseminated quickly
• introducing standard procedures and special communication circuits for each Operation including the use of the same radio wavelengths
• reinforcing the message for all hands not to look at flares or fires ... to do so reduced ability to see objects in the dark
• limiting the amount of fuel carried to that needed for the operation itself to reduce combustible material and thereby fire risk
• making rifles and pistols more generally available to fire on E-boats when they paced close aboard especially when guns could not depress sufficiently
• making life boats and life rafts as near ready for lowering as possible
• issuing illumination rockets to help slow moving large ships locate E-boats in darkness
• improving fire fighting equipment including the installation of manually operated pumps for LSTs and other ships carrying large amounts of inflammable material
• providing training in the use of the kapok life preserver jacket in preference to the CO2 single type. The former was more effective in keeping heads above water
• loosening boot laces where an order to abandon ship seemed likely to make it easier to remove heavy waterlogged boots in the water.

When 10 "bigots" were reported missing there was a strong possibility that the plans for the reinvasion of Europe had been seriously and possibly fatally compromised. At the time of Operation Tiger the date for D-Day was not known even to Eisenhower but the 10 officers did know the location of the invasion beaches ... information of vital interest to the enemy. A vast search of Lyme Bay was undertaken and by a miracle the bodies of all ten officers were recovered whilst 100s of others were, at least for the moment, lost at sea. Although the loss of the "bigot" officers was regrettable the relief amongst the allied planners, to know that the their invasion plans had not been compromised, can only be imagined.

To the outside world the disaster of Tiger was kept a closely guarded secret. No official communique was issued and the staff of the 228th Sherbourne Hospital in Dorset, who received hundreds of immersion and burns cases, were simply told to ask no questions and warned that they would be subject to court martial if they discussed the tragedy.

The total of 639 American killed and missing was 10 times the actual losses on Utah beach on June 6 1944.

[snippy_about_it]

A NEW FEATURE ~ The Foxhole Revisits...

The Foxhole will be updating some of our earlier threads with new graphics and some new content for our Saturday threads in this, our second year of the Foxhole. We lost many of our graphic links and this is our way of restoring them along with revising the thread content where needed with new and additional information not available in the original threads.

A Link to the Original Thread;

The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Operation Tiger - Slapton Sands (4/28/1944)- Apr. 29th, 2003

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[snippy_about_it]

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[snippy_about_it]

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The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

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[SAMWolf]

Good Night Snippy.

[snippy_about_it]

Wow. Haven't seen that in a long time! Nice. Good night Sam. We get to sleep in late tomorrow! Yippee.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, snippy and everyone at the freeper foxhole. Weather's nice today with tempertures in the mid 80's.

[aomagrat]

Good morning. I've been real busy lately. Will be real busy in the near future. (I am stealing internet time from my employer as I type!)

[Samwise]

A coverup that wasn't a coverup? Now, snippy, what are you really saying?

[texas booster]

Fascinating account of what happens when one shoots their mouth off without bothering to do the research. It shows again that a modern peacetime society must be careful in judging past events. The war was not going very well for us until after D-Day was assured to be a success. What if D-Day had failed due to a leak of plans, or simply dumb luck for the Germans?

The total of 639 American killed and missing was 10 times the actual losses on Utah beach on June 6 1944.

Is this a typo, or did we only lose 65 men on Utah beach the first day? After watching Private Ryan it is a wonder anyone survived.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on May 08:
1521 Peter Canisius [Pieter de Hondt/Kanijs], jesuit/saint
1737 Edward Gibbon England, historian (Decline & Fall of Roman Empire)
1753 Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla father of Mexican independence
1786 Thomas Hancock founded British rubber industry
1810 James Cooper Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1863
1824 William Walker President of Nicaragua (1856-57)
1828 Jean Henri Dunant Switzerland, writer/founder (Red Cross (Nobel Peace Prize 1901))
1829 Louis Moreau Gottschalk 1st internationally recognized US pianist
1833 Frank Wheaton Brevet Major General (Union Army), died in 1903
1836 Bryan Morel Thomas Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1905


1884 Harry S Truman Lamar MO, 33rd US President (D) (1945-1953)

1893 Francis Quimet Massachusetts shop assistant who won golf's US Open (1913)
1895 Edmund Wilson American critic/writer (Patriotic Gore)

1895 Fulton J Sheen El Paso IL, bishop (Life is Worth Living)

1899 Friedrich August von Hayek Vienna Austria, author (The Road to Serfdom)/co-recipient of Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (1974)

1904 John Derrick Mordaunt Snagge BBC news announcer/commentator
1910 Mary Lou Williams US jazz pianist/composer (Zodiac Suite)
1911 Robert Johnson blues singer (King of the Delta Blues Singer. Crossroads)
1920 Sloan Wilson Norwalk CT, novelist (Man in the Gray Flannel Suit)
1925 Ali Hassan Mwinyi President of Tanzania (1985- )
1926 Don Rickles Queens NY, comedian (Don Rickles Show, CPO Sharkey)
1926 Sir David [Frederick] Attenborough London England, environmentalist/zoologist/TV host (BBC)
1928 Theodore Sorensen presidential advisor (JFK)/author (1000 Days)
1930 Gary Snyder [Japhy Ryder] beat poet (Rip Rap & Cold Mountain Poems)
1934 Sonny Liston US heavyweight boxing chmap (1962-64)
1936 James Darren actor (Time Tunnel)
1937 Dennis DeConcini (Senator-D-AZ, 1977- )
1940 Peter Benchley New York NY, novelist (Jaws, The Deep)
1940 Rick [Eric Hilliard] Nelson Teaneck NJ, rock star (Hello Mary Lou, It's Late, Garden Party)
1941 James A Traficant Jr (Representative-D-OH, 1985- )
1942 Euclid "Motorhead" Sherwood rocker (Mothers Of Invention)
1943 Toni Tennille Montgomery AL, female Beachboy (Captain & Tennille)
1945 Keith Jarrett jazz musician/film composer (Nachtfahrer)
1955 Stephen Furst Norfolk VA, actor (Animal House, Elliot-St Elsewhere)
1959 Ronnie Lott Albuquerque NM, NFL defensive back (San Fransisco 49er)
1963 Clemens Lothaller Austria, cosmonaut (Soyuz TM-13 backup)
1964 Melissa Gilbert [Boxleitner/Brinkman] Los Angeles CA, actress (Little House on the Prairie)
1972 Keelin Curnuck Miss New York USA (1996)/Ms Venus Swimwear (1994)

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Deaths which occurred on May 08:
0535 John [Mercurius] Italian Pope (533-35), dies
0685 Benedict II Italian Pope (683-85), dies
1319 Haakon V King of Norway (1299-1319), dies
1725 John Lovewell US Indian fighter, dies in battle
1773 Ali Bey Egyptian Mameluk head, dies
1844 Charles XIV Johan [Jean B Bernadotte] King of Sweden/Norway, dies
1864 James Samuel Wadsworth General-Major (Union), dies in battle at 56
1873 John Stuart Mill Empiricist philosopher, dies at 66
1876 Truganini last originating Tasmanian, dies
1880 Gustave Flaubert French writer (Salammbô), dies
1904 Edward Muybridge English photographer (horse trot), dies
1915 Henry McNeal Turner 1 US black army chaplain, dies at 82
1936 Oswald Spengler German philosopher (Underworld of Abendlandes), dies

1943 Mordicai Anielewicz commander of Warsaw ghetto uprising, killed

1958 Nasni Matni Lebanese journalist, murdered
1967 Laverne Andrews singer (Andrews Sisters), dies at 51
1973 Ralph Miller last 19th century baseball player, dies
1976 Ulrike Meinhof lead Germany Red Army Faction, dies
1982 Gilles Villeneuve Canadian auto racer, dies in an accident
1985 Dolph Sweet actor (Gimme a Break, Gil McGowan-Another World), dies of cancer at 64
1985 Edmond O'Brien actor (Sam Benedict), dies at 69 of Alzheimer's disease
1987 Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) character on Dallas, is killed off
1988 Robert A Heinlein sci-fi writer (Friday), dies of heart failure at 80
1990 Tomas O'Fiach [Tomas Seamus Fee], Irish cardinal-archbishop, dies
1994 George Peppard actor (Breakfast at Tiffanys, A-Team), dies at 65
1995 Carroll Best bluegrass banjo, dies at 63

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Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1965 LA HAYE JAMES D.---GREEN BAY WI.
[GROUNDFIRE CRASH AT SEA NO PARA]
1966 RAY JAMES E.---LONGVIEW TX.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1967 MC CUISTION MICHAEL K.---LINCOLN NE.
[03/08/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1967 STEIMER THOMAS JACK---PIEDMONT CA.
1968 CONDREY GEORGE T. III---ATLANTA GA.
[EXPLODE NO SIGN SUBJ NEAR CRASH]
1968 DAYTON JAMES L.---GRANITE CITY IL.
[EXPLODE NO SIGN SUBJ NEAR CRASH]
1968 JENNE ROBERT E.---SALT LAKE CITY UT.
EXPLODE NO SIGNS SUBJ NEAR CRASH]
1968 JURECKO DANIEL E.---CORPUS CHRISTI TX.
[EXPLODE NO SIGN SUBJ NEAR CRASH]
1969 BRASHEAR WILLIAM J.---CHULA VISTA CA.
1969 MUNDT HENRY G.---ABILENE TX.
1972 LEAVER JOHN M. JR.---ARLINGTON MA.
1972 TAYLOR EDMUND B. JR.---LIMA OH.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

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On this day...
0535 John II ends his reign as Catholic Pope
0615 St Boniface IV ends his reign as Catholic Pope
0685 St Benedict II ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1360 Treaty of Brétigny signed by English & French
1450 Jack Cade's Rebellion-Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI
1521 Parliament of Worms installs edict against Martian Luther
1541 Hernando de Soto discovers Mississippi River
1660 English parliament "asks" King Charles II to resigns
1784 Only known deaths by hailstones in US (Winnsborough SC)
1792 British Captain George Vancouver sights, names Mount Rainier WA
1794 US Post Office established
1823 "Home Sweet Home" 1st sung (London)
1840 Alexander Wolcott patents Photographic Process
1846 1st major battle of Mexican War fought at Palo Alto TX
1847 Robert Thompson patents rubber tire
1858 John Brown holds antislavery convention
1861 Richmond VA, is named the capital of the Confederacy
1862 Valley Campaign: Federals repulsed at Battle of McDowell VA
1864 Actions at Stony Creek/Nottoway Bridge VA (Drewry's Bluff)
1864 Atlanta Campaign: Severe fighting near Dalton
1871 English-US treaty ends Alabama dispute
1877 1st Westminster Dog Show held
1878 Paul Hines makes baseball's 1st unassisted triple play
1879 George Selden files for 1st patent for a gasoline-driven automobile
1881 Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolian monarch
1886 Atlanta pharmacist (Jacob's Pharmacy) Dr John Styth Pemberton invents Coca Cola (contained cocaine)
1895 China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki
1900 250 grave robbers shot to death
1902 Mount Pelée erupts, wipes out St Pierre, Martinique, kills 30,000
1907 Tommy Burns beats Jack O'Brien in 20 for heavyweight boxing title
1915 41st Kentucky Derby: Joe Notter aboard Regret wins in 2:05.4
1916 German munitions bunker in Fort Douaumont explodes
1919 1st transatlantic flight take-off by a navy seaplane
1920 46th Kentucky Derby: Ted Rice aboard Paul Jones wins in 2:09
1921 Sweden abolished capital punishment
1926 1st flight over North Pole (Bennett & Byrd)
1926 A Philip Randolph organizes Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
1929 Jan Mayen island, 500 km NNE of Iceland, incorporated into Norway
1935 Cincinnati Red Ernie Lombardi doubles in 6th, 7th, 8th & 9th beat Phils 15-4
1936 Jockey Ralph Neves unexpectedly revived after being declared dead after a fall; His wife fainted when he returned to the track
1937 63rd Kentucky Derby: Charley Kurtsinger on War Admiral wins 2:03.2
1941 German Q-ship Pinguin sinks in Indian Ocean
1942 1st twilight game in 24 years, the Dodgers top Giants 7-6 raising $60,000 for Navy Relief Fund
1942 Battle of Coral Sea ends; Aircraft carrier Lexington sunk by Japanese air attack
1942 German summer offensive opens in Crimea
1944 1st eye bank opens (NYC)
1944 U-575 sinks Asphodel
1945 General Von Keitel surrenders to Marshal Zhukov near Berlin

1945 V-E Day; Germany signs unconditional surrender, WWII ends in Europe

1949 West German constitution approved
1950 Chiang Kai-shek asks US for weapons
1951 Dacron men's suits introduced
1951 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak

1952 Mad Magazine debuts

1954 1st shot-put over 60' (18.29 meter)-Parry O'Brien, Los Angeles CA
1958 President Eisenhower orders National Guard out of Central HS, Little Rock
1958 Vice President Nixon is shoved, stoned, booed & spat upon by protesters in Peru
1960 USSR & Cuba resume diplomatic relations
1961 1st practical sea water conversion plant-Freeport TX
1962 "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" opens at Alvin Theater NYC for 965 performances
1962 1st Atlas Centaur Launch
1963 "Dr No" premieres in US
1963 JFK offers Israel assistance against aggression
1965 1st shut put over 70' (Randy Matson 70' 7")
1966 Only homerun ever hit out of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium (Frank Robinson)
1967 Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in US Army
1968 Jim (Catfish) Hunter of Oakland pitches perfect game vs Twins (4-0)
1969 Pope Paul VI publishes constitution Sacra Ritum Congregation
1970 Beatles release "Let it Be" album
1970 Construction workers break up an anti-war rally in NYC's Wall Street
1971 Joe Frazier beats Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden
1972 Sabena aircraft at Lod International, Tel Aviv, captured by Palestinians
1973 Ernie Banks fills in for Cubs manager Whitey Lockman who is ejected during the game, thus technically becoming baseball's 1st black manager
1973 Indians holding South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrender
1977 David Berkowitz pleads guilty in "Son of Sam" 44-caliber shootings
1978 ABC TV airs "The Stars Salute Israel at 30"
1979 Radio Shack releases TRSDOS 2.3

1980 World Health Organization announced smallpox had been eradicated

1984 Minnesota Twins Kirby Puckett debuts with 4 singles
1987 Gary Hart quits democratic presidential race (Donna Rice affair)
1988 François Mitterrand elected President of France
1991 CIA director William H Webster resigns
1993 16 year old Keron Thomas disguises himself as a motorman & takes NYC subway train & 2,000 passengers on a 3 hour ride
1993 Lennox Lewis beats Tony Tucker in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
1994 500th commentary by Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes
1996 South Africa's Const Assembly adopts permanent post-apartheid constitution
2000 The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to ban discrimination based on weight or height.

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

World: V-E Day, Victory in Europe (1945)

México : Hidalgo Day
Missouri : Harry S Truman's Birthday (1884)
Norway : Liberation Day
Ribe, Denmark : Stork Day
World : V-E Day, Victory in Europe (1945)
US : Mother's Day, give her a call today (Sunday)
Ireland : Feis Ceoil music festival (1897)(Monday)
US : Native American/Indian Day (Saturday)
Czechosolovakia : Liberation Day/National Holiday
Helston, England : Furry Day
National Walking Week (Day 6)
National Family Week ends.
National Herb Week (Day 6)
US : Let's Go Fishing Day.
US : National No Socks Day
National Bake Sale Day
National Asparagus Month

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Religious Observances
Orthodox : Latest possible Orthodox Easter
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of Apparition of St Michael the Archangel
Anglican : Commemoration of Dame Julian of Norwich

---

Religious History
1373 English mystic Julian of Norwich, 31, by her own account, received a series of sixteen revelations, while in a state of ecstasy lasting five hours. Her book, "The Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love," was written 20 years later as the fruit of her meditations on this experience. Little else is known of her life.
1816 The American Bible Society was organized in the Dutch Reformed Church on Garden Street in NY City. The non-profit society was instituted to promote wider circulation of the Scriptures by publishing Bibles without notes or comments.
1845 At a three-day convention in Augusta, GA, the Southern Baptist Convention was formed by 300 representatives from Baptist churches in Georgia, Virginia and South Carolina.
1939 English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.'
1948 American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'Either take me to be with Thee, Savior, or put out the life of this old man as I draw near Thee in the flesh. Consume me, Fiery Lover, as Thou dost choose.'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Thought for the day :
"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."

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Actual Newspaper Headlines...
British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands

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Why did the Chicken cross the Road...
EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

---

Stocks To Watch In 2004 Watch for these consolidations in 2004 and make yourself a bundle...
Knotts Berry Farm and the Nat'l Org. of Women will become.... Knott NOW

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Guide to REAL driving...
Speed limits are arbitrary figures, given only as suggestions and are apparently not enforceable in the metro area during rush hour.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[The Mayor]

. . having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck. —1 Timothy 1:19

Conscience is a safe guide when guided by God's Word.

[SAMWolf]

Morning E.G.C. Had rain overnight but looks nice and clear this morning.

[SAMWolf]

Morning aomagrat. Good to hear from you, I sure hope it's "get paid for it busy". That always helps. We'll keep a light on for you.

[SAMWolf]

LOL! She voted for the coverup before she voted against it. ;-)

[SAMWolf]

Morning texas booster.

Casualties were "light" on Utah Beach, "Private Ryan" was about Omaha Beach were casualties were heavy.

"At Bloody Omaha, as it came to be known, there were approximately 4,000 U.S. casualties. At Utah Beach casualties numbered fewer than 200."

[SAMWolf]

1943 Mordicai Anielewicz commander of Warsaw ghetto uprising, killed