Infinite Wisdom

"I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea."

--	John Jarvis, the Earl of St. Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1805, asked if Napoleon might invade England The Guns of August

La Triviata

• So much ticker tape, confetti, and miscellaneous stuff (including several typewriters and some furnishings) was thrown out of windows by office workers in Manhattan on V-J Day (August 15, 1945), that the Sanitation Department calculated it picked up an additional 5,488 tons of trash over the next few days.


• On November 30, 1895, Winston Churchill not only turned 21 but celebrated by taking part in his first battle, as a reporter with the Spanish during the Battle of Iguara, as they defeated the Cubans.


• Of approximately 3,000 women who took part in the Red Chinese Army’s 370 day “Long March” in 1934-1938, only 149 survived the desperate trek, of whom nearly half were the wives or girl friends of senior officers or Communist Party officials.


• Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who headed the U.S. Army War College from 1997 to 2000, is the great-grandson of Brig. Gen. Alfred Scales, C.S.A.


• Of 45,500 volunteers who served in the Spanish Division Azul on the Eastern Front during World War II, two earned the Cruz laureada (Spanish “Medal of Honor”), 16 earned the Medalla de merito militar in the first class and 2,200 in the second class, two the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, 138 the Iron Cross First Class and 2,366 the Iron Cross Second Class, while suffering some 11 percent battle deaths and 45 percent other casualties.


• Convoy OG-71, which sailed from Liverpool to Lisbon in mid-August 1941, lost seven of its 21 ships to German u-boats, in a series of attacks that were later worked into the novel The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monssarat, who had served as a lieutenant in one of the escorts, the Corvette H.M.S. Campanula.


• In November of 1917, a full year before the Armistice, two of Germany’s most senior officers, Imperial Crown Prince Wilhelm and Bavarian Crown Prince Ruprecht, who commanded army groups on the Western Front, suggested that the war could no longer be won, and that the Reich should seek peace.


• Early in 1943 a wealthy Texan sent Franklin Roosevelt some fine steaks, which the president declined, the White House not having sufficient ration points to cover them.

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