Sir Basil Hudson-Landry
The Unforgotten War
As a kid, I thought "CATSKILL HILLBILLY" was the funniest name in the world for an airplane. I knew the Catskills were in New York, and as a child in Texas, with nothing but sitcoms and old movies on TV to go by, I thought all New York was New York City, and thought the idea of any hillbillies being there was every bit as comical as what transpired--several years after I was first old enough to read the name on the aircraft--when Jed loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Of course, I now know that that part of New York, especially back then, wasn't all that different from the Ozarks (although, having also learned a little about the Borscht Belt, the idea becomes even more humorous). But I'm still pretty sure that that joke was exactly what whoever named the plane (Lt. Clark?) had in mind.
I'm not sure about the name of the crew chief. The placard is too small and the images aren't sharp enough to make out any more than the initial "J." and a four-letter last name which COULD start with a "B". The only people dad identified by name on the backs of his photographs were a Lt. Jacobson, one "Handsome" Burns, and another sergeant identified only as "Beam". Based on that, and the fact that a crew chief named "Jim Beam" (and you KNOW his nickname was "Jim" no matter what his first name really was) was too good to pass up; so, considering that (speaking of Jims) "Damn it, Jim--I'm a girlie cartoonist, not a historian!" (any BA from UTA notwithstanding) and therefore not bound by any obligation to be 100% (or even 1/100%) accurate, I went with it.
Nor am I sure that that's Lt. Clark in the cockpit, in the picture taken before takeoff. Again, the only officer dad identified by name was a Lt. Jacobson. The photo of him is almost identical to the one of dad standing in that hole in the wing root, and dad's note on the back says, "This is Lt. Jacobson, the pilot who was flying my ship when it got hit." I recall dad telling me Lt. Jacobson was not his regular pilot, but had taken the Hillbilly for the mission because his own aircraft was unserviceable that day. I also vaguely remember him telling me his regular pilot was a "Lt. Blue". I put that in quotation marks because what I heard as "Blue" could have been "Bleu" or "Bleau", or even something like "Bellew" or "Ballou", and my 8-year-old ears just didn't copy correctly. And, for that matter he could have even been talking about one of the pilots in his stateside B-29/B-25 days, before he got MOS-mismatched and sent to a jet fighter squadron in Korea as part of Truman's one-year extension of everyone's enlistments.
And, it could well be that neither Clark nor the crew chief had anything to do with dad and the pilot in the cockpit. In the "Forgotten Jets" section at www.millionmonkeytheater.com (a great B-movie review site, by the way) it says the Hillbilly was assigned to the 9th FBS/49th FGB. Dad was in the 7th FBS/49th FBG. It could be that millionmonkeytheater had a typo, or there may have been a mistake in the source of his information, but, maybe not. Maybe the information wasn't incorrect, just incomplete. In every photo of it, dad identifies it as the "...new plane", "...new ship", "...just after it was assigned to me", etc., so it could have been the case that the Hillbilly was transferred to the 7th from the 9th, and Lt. Clark and Sgt. Beam(?) were the 9th FBS guys from whom dad and the pilot inherited the plane, and they just hadn't had time to change the names on the placard.
I freely acknowledge an equally glaring historical error as regards fashion. Traditional hanbok is both loose-fitting and full-length, but, again, I'm a girlie cartoonist and know my rights as such, so my little Korean K-2 Kutie got the sweater girl version of the jeogori and a micro-mini chima. And, yes, I'm sure the Sweetheart of Tech Supply would have been embarrassed to tears to be seen in such an outfit.
But, the www is chock-full of Han River Hotties who wouldn't be embarrassed, which, their being a reflection of the modern Republic of Korea, brings me to the title, a play on the title of Clay Blair's definitive history of the war. It hasn't been forgotten by all of us, but it has been forgotten by all too many of us, due no doubt to the idiotic popular wisdom that Korea was "the first of our 'no-win' wars." To which I say, "'No-win war' my a--!"
True, we failed to accomplish MacArthur's (and Truman's, the JCS's, and the UN's initial) objective of unifying all Korea into a single nation, and "merely" restored the status quo antebellum of a free South Korea with a border at the 38th Parallel. We didn't utterly and completely destroy the enemy's will and means to fight, dictate peace terms in his capital, and set up a government in our own image, as we had done less than a decade before with Germany and Japan (and, oh, yeah, sorry, I almost forgot, Italy), so Americans, being the World Series fans they are by nature, were naturally disappointed by something that was less than a clearly-defined win.
But, by that yardstick, America has only actually "won" two wars in its entire history--the aforementioned WW II, and the Civil War. Every other war, from the Revolution on, was settled by a negotiated peace that got us some or all of what we wanted, but left the enemy nation unoccupied (and in most cases even un-invaded) and the enemy government still in power (the jury is still out on Iraq and Afghanistan--we did a good job of moving in and taking over, but I'm afraid that, like Vietnam, utter failure will fill the vacuum created by our impending departure; for that matter, given recent trends in domestic politics, I'm not altogether sure we weren't a little premature in hanging out a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner with regards to The Confederate States of America).
By any other (rational) yardstick, that "merely" in regard to restoring the status quo antebellum definitely deserves to be in quotation marks. We "merely" restored the Republic of Korea's border to the 38th Parallel, the ROK has "merely" been a democracy for the almost sixty years since, and in those six decades, the ROK has "merely" become the 11th largest economy in the world and one of America's staunchest allies, with armed forces that are among the most well-trained, well-equipped, well-led, and most highly motivated in the world. I'd call that a win, without any qualifying quotation marks. And, while I not only think Truman was right to fire MacArthur, but agree with Bradley and Marshall that he should have done it a year sooner than he did, we should never let those Old Soldiers who went on under Ridgway and Van Fleet to secure that victory fade away.
The Unforgotten War
As a kid, I thought "CATSKILL HILLBILLY" was the funniest name in the world for an airplane. I knew the Catskills were in New York, and as a child in Texas, with nothing but sitcoms and old movies on TV to go by, I thought all New York was New York City, and thought the idea of any hillbillies being there was every bit as comical as what transpired--several years after I was first old enough to read the name on the aircraft--when Jed loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Of course, I now know that that part of New York, especially back then, wasn't all that different from the Ozarks (although, having also learned a little about the Borscht Belt, the idea becomes even more humorous). But I'm still pretty sure that that joke was exactly what whoever named the plane (Lt. Clark?) had in mind.
I'm not sure about the name of the crew chief. The placard is too small and the images aren't sharp enough to make out any more than the initial "J." and a four-letter last name which COULD start with a "B". The only people dad identified by name on the backs of his photographs were a Lt. Jacobson, one "Handsome" Burns, and another sergeant identified only as "Beam". Based on that, and the fact that a crew chief named "Jim Beam" (and you KNOW his nickname was "Jim" no matter what his first name really was) was too good to pass up; so, considering that (speaking of Jims) "Damn it, Jim--I'm a girlie cartoonist, not a historian!" (any BA from UTA notwithstanding) and therefore not bound by any obligation to be 100% (or even 1/100%) accurate, I went with it.
Nor am I sure that that's Lt. Clark in the cockpit, in the picture taken before takeoff. Again, the only officer dad identified by name was a Lt. Jacobson. The photo of him is almost identical to the one of dad standing in that hole in the wing root, and dad's note on the back says, "This is Lt. Jacobson, the pilot who was flying my ship when it got hit." I recall dad telling me Lt. Jacobson was not his regular pilot, but had taken the Hillbilly for the mission because his own aircraft was unserviceable that day. I also vaguely remember him telling me his regular pilot was a "Lt. Blue". I put that in quotation marks because what I heard as "Blue" could have been "Bleu" or "Bleau", or even something like "Bellew" or "Ballou", and my 8-year-old ears just didn't copy correctly. And, for that matter he could have even been talking about one of the pilots in his stateside B-29/B-25 days, before he got MOS-mismatched and sent to a jet fighter squadron in Korea as part of Truman's one-year extension of everyone's enlistments.
And, it could well be that neither Clark nor the crew chief had anything to do with dad and the pilot in the cockpit. In the "Forgotten Jets" section at www.millionmonkeytheater.com (a great B-movie review site, by the way) it says the Hillbilly was assigned to the 9th FBS/49th FGB. Dad was in the 7th FBS/49th FBG. It could be that millionmonkeytheater had a typo, or there may have been a mistake in the source of his information, but, maybe not. Maybe the information wasn't incorrect, just incomplete. In every photo of it, dad identifies it as the "...new plane", "...new ship", "...just after it was assigned to me", etc., so it could have been the case that the Hillbilly was transferred to the 7th from the 9th, and Lt. Clark and Sgt. Beam(?) were the 9th FBS guys from whom dad and the pilot inherited the plane, and they just hadn't had time to change the names on the placard.
I freely acknowledge an equally glaring historical error as regards fashion. Traditional hanbok is both loose-fitting and full-length, but, again, I'm a girlie cartoonist and know my rights as such, so my little Korean K-2 Kutie got the sweater girl version of the jeogori and a micro-mini chima. And, yes, I'm sure the Sweetheart of Tech Supply would have been embarrassed to tears to be seen in such an outfit.
But, the www is chock-full of Han River Hotties who wouldn't be embarrassed, which, their being a reflection of the modern Republic of Korea, brings me to the title, a play on the title of Clay Blair's definitive history of the war. It hasn't been forgotten by all of us, but it has been forgotten by all too many of us, due no doubt to the idiotic popular wisdom that Korea was "the first of our 'no-win' wars." To which I say, "'No-win war' my a--!"
True, we failed to accomplish MacArthur's (and Truman's, the JCS's, and the UN's initial) objective of unifying all Korea into a single nation, and "merely" restored the status quo antebellum of a free South Korea with a border at the 38th Parallel. We didn't utterly and completely destroy the enemy's will and means to fight, dictate peace terms in his capital, and set up a government in our own image, as we had done less than a decade before with Germany and Japan (and, oh, yeah, sorry, I almost forgot, Italy), so Americans, being the World Series fans they are by nature, were naturally disappointed by something that was less than a clearly-defined win.
But, by that yardstick, America has only actually "won" two wars in its entire history--the aforementioned WW II, and the Civil War. Every other war, from the Revolution on, was settled by a negotiated peace that got us some or all of what we wanted, but left the enemy nation unoccupied (and in most cases even un-invaded) and the enemy government still in power (the jury is still out on Iraq and Afghanistan--we did a good job of moving in and taking over, but I'm afraid that, like Vietnam, utter failure will fill the vacuum created by our impending departure; for that matter, given recent trends in domestic politics, I'm not altogether sure we weren't a little premature in hanging out a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner with regards to The Confederate States of America).
By any other (rational) yardstick, that "merely" in regard to restoring the status quo antebellum definitely deserves to be in quotation marks. We "merely" restored the Republic of Korea's border to the 38th Parallel, the ROK has "merely" been a democracy for the almost sixty years since, and in those six decades, the ROK has "merely" become the 11th largest economy in the world and one of America's staunchest allies, with armed forces that are among the most well-trained, well-equipped, well-led, and most highly motivated in the world. I'd call that a win, without any qualifying quotation marks. And, while I not only think Truman was right to fire MacArthur, but agree with Bradley and Marshall that he should have done it a year sooner than he did, we should never let those Old Soldiers who went on under Ridgway and Van Fleet to secure that victory fade away.