Infinite Wisdom

"A commander who stops to appraise the impact of a military decision upon his personal fortunes has no right to be entrusted with command."

--	Rear Adm. Joseph Mason Reeves, January 26, 1929

La Triviata

• Somewhat more than 150 Americans served in the French Foreign Legion during World War I, in the process garnering eight awards of the Legion d’honneur, 21 of the Medaille Militaire, 52 of the Croix de Guerre, and over 100 citations in Army “Orders of the Day.”


• Admiral Hasegawa Kiyoshi, who commanded the China Area Fleet when Japan invaded China in 1937 and later went on to serve as wartime governor of Formosa, graduated from Annapolis in 1897, and was a classmate of Fleet Admiral William Leahy and Admiral Thomas Hart.


• The word “gun” seems to derive from the Old Norse root “gunn – war”, which was often used as part of the name of siege engines.


• During Louis XIV’s long reign (1643-1715) something like 80-percent of the officers in the French Army were noblemen.


• Dan Kiley, the distinguished modernist architect who did the landscaping for St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, had earlier designed the layout of the courtroom at Nuremberg for the trials of the principal Nazi war criminals, while working for the OSS.


• For most of his reign, Austro-Hungarian Emperor-King Franz Joseph (1848-1916) slept on a simple iron-framed army bed, though in deference to his exalted status it was provided with an extremely fine mattress.


• On April 4, 1941, Rear Adm. Claude Bloch, Commandant of the 14th Naval District, warned the garrison at Midway to expect Japanese surface, air, or submarine attack without prior declaration of war at any time, which raises the question as to why another island in his bailiwick proved so unprepared just eight months later.


• During the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, which lasted about seven months, the British Army in Zululand, which never amounted to more than about 15,000, including colonials and native troops, inflicted over 500 floggings.

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