View allAll Photos Tagged bedsheets
Crazy, crazy week. I need to leave again. This time for Tallahassee. Urgh!
Bubblewraps make me happy.
P.s. nope, not naked here.
strangely, this got explored
Explore-12/14/09 highest position 260
The original bedsheets still cling to the dirty mattress after more than 25 years. The town was abandoned in 1984 by the EPA due to toxic pollutants (arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc) leaching into the soil.
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For this triptych, my goal was to represent a few of the different stages of a woman’s life through the use of bedsheets. I used three different models aged 5, 14, and 19, and placed them in staged situations that typically occur at those ages. The first image shows a child wetting her bed, the second shows a girl waking up with her period, and the last is of a girl waking up after a night of drinking with mascara/tear stains on her pillow. Though I used three different girls for the photographs, they are supposed to be seen as the same girl throughout the process of growing up. The text that I have paired with the images is an excerpt from one of my diaries from when I was a teenager. I used that specific passage because I felt that it fit with the overall theme of my photographs: the struggles of maturing.
D300s
85mm f/1.4
SB-900 thru BedSheet Diffuser
Triggered via Built-in Flash (CLS)
Capture NX2
Nik Filters
That is right. That is my oldest daughter with a tutu on her head. A quick grab shot as we were setting up for the shoot with Jessica.
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I flew this flag at the Grateful Dead/Who concert at the Oakland Coliseum on October 9, 1976. I drew it with smelly marking pens on part of a bedsheet while I was sitting on my parents’ living room floor. I used the back of a Risk board to keep my little project from permanently decorating the carpet. My grandfather watched with a bemused smile. (For the design I combined elements from the Dead’s "Almanac" mailings and a Disneyland “Pirates of the Caribbean” souvenir magazine that my brother had.) The finished measurements were 40” x 45”.
My friend Bob stapled the flag to a sturdy piece of wood molding that was probably ten feet long. I remember it sticking out of the bed of his pickup truck. We carried it through security (guess it wasn't contraband!) without question (I think the guard smiled). I dug a divot in the Oakland Athletics' home field with my boot heel and stuck it in the turf.
After the Dead finished their set Bob and most of our group had enough of sitting on the grass and headed to the upper deck to watch the Who. Susan and I stayed put, thinking that the sound would be better on ground level. Before long, a stoned young man who thought the flag was unattended started to pull out the pole. When I explained that it was ours he apologized and moved on. After the show my buddies said they watched the encounter unfold from their perch. Bob treated me like a conquering hero for "defending the flag" and made it sound like a skirmish with fifes and muskets.
I didn't get a medal, but I still have the flag. I still have the Risk board, too, for that matter. (No, Mom, I don't ever throw anything away.) A recording of the concert was released in 2004 on the Dead's "Dick's Picks Volume 33."
On the origins of everyone and everything by Kevin Moore.
This story is merely my perspective, from the viewpoint in which I was raised and expresses only one man's possibility of the origins of humans. If you are a person whom is offended by the thought of the universe without a creator. Stop reading now.
There really is no beginning to this story, because time itself is a component of our universe. Time is a dimension just as we perceive height, depth and width as dimensions of space. But there is no doubt in my mind that there was something before the Big Bang, because after all, something had to bang to begin with. The theory that makes the most sense to me is that we live within a multi-verse, that is, there is more than one universe, and the mathematics that is far beyond my comprehension is telling the scientists, that these universes including our own, are what we would perceive as two dimensional membranes. Picture if you will, a bedsheet, that is infinitely thin, but at the same time infinitely wide. And as with bedsheets these membranes are not perfectly flat. They have ripples and waves, like the surface of a pond or lake. And at some point during this alternate time line, two membranes were very close to one another and their waves converged upon each other, and then they bumped. They exchanged an unimaginable amount of energy and a third membrane was born, Our Universe!
This brings me to the beginning of "Our Time". 13.5 Billion years ago, our universe expanded from a spot, a speck, smaller than an atom, The Big Bang. And to imagine how small this is, picture in your imagination, one single speck of dust. That dust speck contains billions of atoms. In what we would perceive as an instant, the universe expanded from this space that was smaller than a speck, to the size of the Milky Way galaxy. An unimaginably hot, dense and bright ball of pure energy. It is at this point that all of the dimensions that we can measure came into existence, Time and Space was born. And during this instant of time there was a war between matter and antimatter. And fortunately for us, there was just a little bit more matter than I was antimatter. Then over the course of millions of years of expansion and cooling the first protons and electrons formed atoms. Atoms of hydrogen, and these vast clouds of hydrogen, the size of galaxies began to gravitate towards one another, these are called Nebula. If we could been there at the time to witness these modest beginnings. We would have perceive the universe as being a dark place, with only the faint glow caused by hydrogen atoms bumping into one another at incredible speeds. More millions of years pass. The clouds of hydrogen become more and more dense and because the hydrogen atoms are moving and bumping into one another. It creates an effect known as Angular Momentum. This angular momentum causes, the clouds to begin to rotate and as density increases so does gravity. This gravity pulls in more and more gas forming planets similar to our Saturn and Jupiter. But unlike Saturn and Jupiter these planets are made of pure hydrogen. Deep under the clouds of these gas giants, the pressure from gravity is so strong It forms a core of liquid metallic hydrogen and deeper still the atoms are squeezed so tightly together they began to radiate lots of heat. And as the gravity of the planet attracts more and more gas the temperature at its core steadily rises. At or about 13 times bigger than our planet Jupiter, the gas giant is producing so much heat and radiation that is now classified as a Brown dwarf star. Finally when the gas giant consumes enough hydrogen, to be roughly 3/4 the size of our sun, the core temperature reaches 7199540 degrees Fahrenheit the hydrogen atom's nuclei begin to fuse to gather at a rate equivalent to the amount of gas is coming out of the tailpipes of 1,200,000 cars, every second. This release an enormous amount of energy. The equivalent energy to six billion Hiroshima bombs per second. But the gravity of this giant is so massive that the explosion is contained and a Star is born.
Let me introduce you to our first Ancestor, called Population 3 Stars, they were the first main-sequence stars. Because the universe was so dense with clouds of hydrogen, it was like an all-you-can-eat buffet for these stars, they would even eat eachother. As a result, when a star grows to be approximately 120 times the size of our sun it's gravity can no longer contain this energy and stars begin to blow off their outer layers. When supermassive stars run out of hydrogen to fuse. Then they begin to fuse the helium into heavier elements and these fuse into even heavier elements until finally, its core becomes iron, and within seconds from the moment, a star begins producing iron they become supernova and explode. They only lived for a few million years. You could say that these first stars lived the life in the fast lane. These supernova explosions created shock waves in the gas clouds/nebula that they were born in. And these shock waves sparked new star creation and in these 2nd generation stars they had something new to work with. The heavy elements created in the explosions first stars. This made it possible for the first solar systems with rocky planets like the Earth to be formed. It is thought by many scientists our solar system is 3rd generation.
Now let's fast-forward to 5 billion years ago. The early universe only had hydrogen to work with. Imagine trying to create a recipe with only one ingredient. Now that the stars have created all these other heavy elements things really get interesting. To me, Cooking and Chemistry, are one in the same thing and by the 3rd generation of stars, the universe has all the ingredients it needs to cook up everything that you and I have ever known. By combining the elements created in the death throes of exploding stars, in different proportions and different combinations, by varying heat and pressure compounds like water, salts, minerals and metals, organic compounds and long chain molecules begin to form in asteroids, comets, and proto-planets.
Meet our third-generation ancestors. Not alive but not quite dead, either. Vast amounts of compounds, Organic and Inorganic, in the vacuum of space floating around waiting for the right conditions. Our solar system began to take shape approximately 5 billion years ago by means of the same physics and mechanics I described earlier in the formation of the first stars. Our Sun reached critical mass and brought light and heat to the solar system. Out of the billions of objects in orbit around the sun a proto-planet about 93 million miles out from the sun began to take shape. Let me call this planet as Earth 1.0. This area of space out at 93 million miles from our type of star, is known as the Goldilocks zone, because it is not too hot, and it is not too cold. It is the perfect location for water to form on a planet without being frozen and without boiling off. But nevertheless Earth 1.0 was dry as a bone. Having been constantly being bombarded by asteroids and comments for millions of years Its entire surface was a massive ocean of molten lava, a real-life vision of what people imagine Hell to be like. And then one fine day on Earth 1.0 a proto-planet size of Mars entered the atmosphere of Earth 1.0 and the collision was enormous. Much of the two planets was vaporized in an instant and any solid material at that time was instantly liquefied. But this was not a head-on collision. Earth 1.0 was destroyed but because the collision was more of a side swipe it reformed over the course of a few months, and our Earth, Earth 2.0 was born.
Most of the heavy elements had separated like salad oil, in the collision and sank to the Earth's core and the lighter elements formed the crust on its surface. About 10% of the Earth's light material on the surface was sent into orbit and formed a ring around the planet, which eventually coalesced into our Moon. The Moon at this time was much closer to the Earth and if you were standing on this new Earth looking up at the moon. It would appear 100 times bigger than it does today. The formation of the Moon had two major effects on this new Earth. It slowed the planet's rotation on its axis from 12 hours to the 24 hours that we have today. The Moon also stabilized the axis of the Earth. Without the Moon the Earth would wobble like a top. Its north or south pole would face the sun for many thousands of years before flipping back again. This would cause the planet to be in frozen darkness on one side. The Earth's core was now iron and its mantle was molten rock. And because the core and the mantle rotate at different speeds, this generates electricity, and our magnetic field. The field protects us from harmful radiation of our own Sun's solar wind.
Thousands more years pass. The surface of the Earth and Moon have now cooled and solidified. The gravitational effects of the Sun and all the planets have cleaned up most of the dust, rocks and gases floating around the inner solar system. But something unusual was happening, out beyond Jupiter. Mathematics suggests that Uranus and Neptune formed inside the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. But massive gravity tugs of Jupiter, lining up with Saturn, knocked Uranus and Neptune further out into the solar system. It is thought they actually switched places making Neptune the furthest out from the sun. It is also thought that they would've been flung completely out of the solar system had they not encountered a large ring of debris known as the Oort cloud. Pluto and it's moons are Oort cloud objects. Entering this ring of leftovers from the formation of the solar system had the effect of slowing the two planets down, and they settled into their current orbits. This also had the effect caused by gravitational fields of these two planets within the Oort cloud of disrupting the orbits of the Oort cloud objects and flung many of these objects into the inner solar system as comets and ice covered asteroids. This marks the period known to scientists as the second heavy bombardment, the scars of which can be plainly seen on the face of the moon today. These asteroids and comets brought to the Earth all of the water that exists on the surface and all of the ingredients for the organic compounds that constitute every living thing on the earth. The stage was set for life. The Earth was in the Goldilocks zone. The Moon was there to stabilize its axis. The core was generating a magnetic field to protect us from cosmic rays and all of the ingredients for life were Fedex delivered to us courtesy of Neptune and Uranus.
Fast-forward 3.5 Billion years ago. It is at this point that the history of our origins is a bit fuzzy. Because of weather, corrosion and continental drift, very little exists in the geological record of this time. When, where and how the first organisms came to be is still a mystery. But the evidence is very clear, by 2.5 billion years ago that your next ancestor in the chain is an organism known as blue-green algae, that was king and ruler of the planet and stayed the king for over 1.5 billion years. Building structures known as Stromatolites that grew in the same way that modern coral grows. That is, each generation builds its colony over the skeletons of the previous colony. These blue-green algae's were thought to be flourishing in shallow warm waters using sunlight and minerals as food, Photosynthesis. The atmosphere of the Earth at that time, would have been filled with toxic gases and would have been bombarded with ultraviolet rays. No life on land could have lived. Alas, you can thank your ancestors the blue-green algae for creating most of the oxygen-rich atmosphere you are breathing today and for the ozone layer in the atmosphere that protects us from ultraviolet rays. Living examples of these Stromatolites can still be found on the shores of Australia.
Fast forward to 125,000 to 60,000 years ago after the advances and retreats of many glacial periods on Earth the Sahara desert on the continent of Africa turned green with grasslands. Many creatures that were once isolated by the vast desert could now migrate north. One of these creatures was a bipedal, primate with a 3lb brain. This creatures is known as Homo sapiens, Modern Humans. Identical to you and I in mental faculties and biology. It has been suggested that there were as few as 10,000 individuals on the entire planet at this time. They had relatives such as the Neanderthal, but modern humans were close to extinction. Then some of our ancestors followed the game animals northward, up an out of Africa. Ultimately humans proved to be so resourceful, intelligent and capable of adapting to many different environmental climates, that by 12,000 years ago, they inhabited every continent on the planet and numbered in the many millions.
And so it is, in a nutshell, in my opinion, we humans in every sense are the descendents of Pure Energy, uprecycled, cooked up and combined in the universal kitchen. We have come a long way from starting this journey as pure energy. It seems to me that we are the result of 13.5 billion years of evolution and the universe thru us is now self-aware. It makes me wonder how many other recipes of life there are out there among the stars. I would love to meet our cousins!
1. Purple Floral, 2. Gold Retro Floral, 3. Cool Floral, 4. Cool Daffodil, 5. Orange Floral, 6. Sweet Floral, 7. Yellow Vines, 8. Blue Floral, 9. Yellow Butterfly, 10. Garden Party, 11. Wildflowers, 12. Green & Yellow Floral, 13. Soft Blue Floral, 14. Pink Floral, 15. Orange and Green Floral, 16. Floral
Small white cotton Red Cross bedsheet sized for a doll's bed. Has a simple hem all around with the top hem wider than the others. A Red Cross patch is sewn a little crookedly on the top border (perhaps by a child?). Very thin material. 21" x 17"
Donated by Madison's Judith Young from her late mother's collection, Feb 2021
ACC# 2021.030.012
See other similar items in the MHS collection at flic.kr/s/aHskJYimRs (Photo credit - Bob Gundersen www.flickr.com/photos/bobphoto51/albums)
D300s
70-200mm f/2.8 G VRII (N)
SB-900 thru Bedsheet Diffuser
SB-600 w/Honl Blue Gel & Honl Grid
Triggered via Built-in Flash (CLS)
Nikon Capture NX2
Nik Filters
I was really pleased that I got to work with these very wonderful young women again.
So I got creative again and this was taken with a blue bedsheet over the camera. Sorry about the funny expression you can kinda still see hahahaha.
Tagged:
one> So I finally got a job YAY so now I can save money and go overseas again next year (hopefully) haha.
two> Aaaand I got my new debit/credit card because someone in America tried to steal my money (I found out last week) but luckily my bank said 'NO YOU ARE DODGY' and didnt let the transaction go through coz otherwise they'd have stolen my $2000!!!! PHEW.
three> There are so few places to get film developed (and buy it) in Australia, its quite annoying.
four> for some reason some of my web pages font has gotten a lot bigger and I dont know whyyyy.
five> I am bored.
six> I watched an interview with Sir Ian Mckellen the other night, I love him a lot :)
seven> I would never get a formspring because I dont want to see the other side of people. The side that they dont let anyone else see but when they are hidden they let it out.
eight> I wish I hadnt sold my car when I went overseas.
nine> My fingernails grow so quickly!!! I cut them and the next week they have grown back.
ten> Sometimes I feel like I go to all the effort of coming up with ideas, taking the photo, editing and posting to flickr and I feel like people just steal my photos and put them on blogs or whatever with no credit and its like why do I bother. But then I get over it hahaha.
Alrighty I have tagged some random people :)
I thought people might enjoy the following story I found online. This plaque is on the church in Hemroulle, which is just outside Bastogne. If you look in my set of pictures for Battle of the Bulge or Band of Brothers, you'll see reference to a tank battle outside Hemroulle. This describes in detail that fight on Christmas Day. Pretty riveting reading. The tanks came in from the left of this plaque down towards Hemroulle.
Oh by the way, there's a picture in my set of where a German tank was knocked out by the 705th, that was part of the attack described below and is what the author refers to as part of the attack on Champs.
And another by the way. Did you ever hear the story of how the 502nd airborne desperately needed sheets, so they went to the mayor of a small town and asked the civilians for their bedsheets? That was this town, Hemroulle. A couple of years later, the commander of the 1st Battalion returned with sheets for the residents of Hemroulle!
Enjoy!
In stopping the last major German assault against Bastogne, the veteran gunners of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion proved their skill to skeptical troops of the 101st Airborne Division
By Martin F. Graham
Sergeant Joseph Rogan took a long drag from a cigarette as he stared intently at the terrain that disappeared into the darkness and fog to his front. It was about 3:30 a.m. on December 25, 1944, and Rogan was spending his second Christmas overseas in a foxhole on the outskirts of Bastogne, Belgium. His partner, Corporal Restor Bryan, was resting in the corner of the hole, enjoying a rare moment when he could sleep in this intensely cold, snow-covered region.
Rogan and Bryan were forward observers for the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. Their battalion command post was in the village of Hemroulle, about a mile northwest of Bastogne. A machine gun crew from Company A, 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, was within a stone's throw of the two men, and a third member of the 463rd, Corporal William Everhardt, was in a slit trench not far behind their position.
The sound of distant shells and bombs crashing around Champs did not even stir the exhausted infantry and artillerymen, leaving Rogan alone to think about home and happier Christmases. The 594 men of his artillery battalion should have been sleeping off their hangovers from Christmas Eve celebrations in Mourmelon, France. They had arrived there only 13 days earlier with orders to join the 17th Airborne Division once it came in from England. Instead, the holiday found them battling German tanks and troops desperately attempting to pierce the American defenses around Bastogne.
Never willing to dodge a fight, the 463rd's commander, Lt. Col. John Cooper, had volunteered his unit to Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, the 101st Airborne Division's acting commander, as soon as he heard the division was being rushed to Belgium to help repel a major enemy breakthrough. Cooper's zeal was a lucky break for the men of the 101st. The veterans of the 463rd had already distinguished themselves in combat in Sicily, Italy and southern France.
The 463rd's odyssey to this Christmas morning in Belgium began in February 1942, when the War Department authorized the creation of the first test parachute artillery battery. That experimental unit would become Battery B, 456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion. Colonel Harrison B. Harden Jr. was designated the new battalion commander. The battalion's first combat jump was in Sicily on the evening of July 9, 1943, in support of the 82nd Airborne Division's 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
The battalion's primary mission was to fire at enemy troops and tanks utilizing a high arc, or indirect fire. During the intense Battle of Biazza Ridge, however, the battery had scored its first victory against enemy tanks using direct fire. Following the Sicilian campaign, the battalion was split up. Batteries C and D remained with the 82nd Airborne Division and transferred to England to prepare for the invasion of France. Headquarters Battery and Batteries A and B supported the 1st Special Service Force and participated in the Italian campaign battles for Monte Cassino, Anzio and Rome. In February 1944 the three batteries were redesignated the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, with Major Hugh A. Neal as battalion commander. Neal's command was short-lived, however, for less than four months later an enemy shell seriously wounded him. He was replaced by Cooper, who remained the battalion commander for the duration of the war.
In early July, the 463rd received 200 replacements, which were used to create Batteries C and D. Now a complete battalion once again, the 463rd was attached to the 1st Airborne Task Force and jumped into southern France on August 15.
By the end of the month, the 463rd was transferred to the French Maritime Alps to assist in blocking any attempted German escape from France into Italy. At the beginning of December the battalion was transferred to Mourmelon, where it arrived on December 12. By then, a large number of the 463rd's members had been overseas more than 19 months.
The battalion was ordered to rest and refit while waiting for the 17th Airborne Division, then in training in England. As it awaited the arrival of its new division, the battalion was temporarily attached to the 101st Airborne Division for administration and rations.
A few of the artillery battalion commanders in the 101st, unfamiliar with the 463rd, thought the battalion consisted of a bunch of greenhorns just arriving from the States. During one dinner discussion between Cooper and officers from the 101st, a debate developed about the ability of a 75mm pack howitzer to knock out a German tank. At one point, Cooper said, "We certainly can knock out Mark IV tanks with a 75 pack howitzer." An artillery officer from the 101st responded, "Do not ever say, in your after-action reports, that you knocked out a tank, because General Anthony McAuliffe says you might disable, but you'll never knock out a tank." Incredulous, Cooper was quick to respond to the taunt. "We have spent more time waiting for our parachutes to open," he said, "than you guys have spent in combat since the invasion of Europe." Cooper would soon have an opportunity to back up his words with deeds.
Fate had placed Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, the 101st's artillery commander, in acting command of the division when word reached Mourmelon that the Germans had launched a major offensive in Belgium. Major General Maxwell Taylor, the 101st's commander, was in the United States, and his deputy, Brig. Gen. Gerald Higgins, was in England along with five senior divisional commanders and 16 junior officers to discuss the recently concluded operation in the Netherlands.
After being alerted by XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters, McAuliffe called a division staff meeting at 9 p.m. on December 17 to mobilize the division. To his shocked and sullen officers he announced, "All I know of the situation is that there has been a breakthrough, and we have got to get up there." He informed them that they should be ready to move out by truck the next morning for Werbomont, Belgium.
As the meeting broke up, Cooper approached McAuliffe and the acting division artillery commander, Colonel Thomas Sherburne, to remind them that his unit was only temporarily attached to the 101st and requested permission to join the division in its advance. McAuliffe directed Cooper to talk to Colonel Joseph H. "Bud" Harper of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, which lacked direct support artillery. Cooper found Harper, who had just made it back from England, and asked, "Do you need me?" Harper replied, "You're goddamn right." As a formality, Cooper returned to his battalion and gave his officers a choice of whether to stay and wait for the 17th or to join the 327th. To a man, the officers voted to go.
The division's convoy began leaving Mourmelon at 9 the next morning. Since the 463rd would be supporting the 327th, which was the last infantry regiment to leave, Cooper's battalion did not set out until 9:30 that evening. After more than a year of active campaigning Cooper knew that you could never have enough ammunition and directed the battalion's truck drivers to pass by Mourmelon's ammunition dump yard. "As we passed the ammo dump," Cooper remembered, "I turned and took the whole battalion through with orders to load as much 75mm ammo as we could carry in any vehicle, regardless of how crowded they were." This extra ammunition would come in very handy a few days later when the Germans cut all supply lines into Bastogne.
By the time the 463rd entered Belgium, the division's destination had changed from Werbomont to Bastogne. The 327th was directed to cover a position to the west of the town. Cooper's command deployed its guns around the small village of Hemroulle, about a mile northwest of Bastogne. The command post and fire direction center were set up in a house across the street from the village church, which was designated as the battalion aid station. While the primary mission of the 463rd was to support the thinly covered western and southern sector held by the 327th, it was called on daily to assist in repelling the Germans from the other sectors of the 101st's perimeter.
On the 19th, the Germans cut off the 463rd supply train, which Cooper had sent back for more ammunition. The next day, they succeeded in blocking all roads into Bastogne and launched major assaults on the 101st's positions northeast and east of the town. Even with the extra ammunition they had brought with them, by the 22nd--after supporting efforts to repulse earlier German attacks--the battalion had little more than one day's worth of rations and ammunition left.
The temperature on the morning of the 23rd was 10 degrees above zero, and it remained painfully cold throughout the day. Despite the freezing temperatures, the men's morale improved somewhat when they looked up around noon to see the sky filled with red, yellow and blue parachutes dropped by 16 Douglas C-47s. It was an early Christmas for the "Battered Bastards of Bastogne." One of the planes was shot down by enemy fire and crash-landed near the 463rd's position.
Every morning during the siege the division's artillery commanders would gather to discuss their situation and to prepare for the day ahead. Remembering Cooper's earlier boast about his battery's effectiveness against enemy tanks, at every one of the meetings either Lt. Col. Edward Car-michael, the commander of the 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion, or the commander of the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, Lt. Col. Harry Elkins, would ask, "Cooper, have you knocked any tanks out yet?" His answer was always, "No, not yet." That was about to change.
The 24th was clear and bright although still very cold. Another 160 planes dropped an additional 100 tons of supplies. Foragers from the 463rd found flour, sugar, lard and salt that had been left by the VIII Corps when it hastily departed Bastogne at the start of the German offensive. Even though they were surrounded, the morale of the men remained high. By the afternoon of the 24th, division headquarters was convinced that an attack was likely in the 327th's sector either that day or the next. For the past week, German troops and tanks had tried to puncture holes in the 101st's defenses east and south of Bastogne. Troop deployment to defend against these attacks had weakened defenses west and north of the city. Almost half of the 101st's line was now covered by the 327th.
On Christmas Eve, the 101st's operations officer, Lt. Col. Harry W.O. Kinnard, had regrouped the defenders around the perimeter of Bastogne, a line almost 16 miles long. Kinnard attached the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, two platoons of the 9th Armored Engineer Battalion and four platoons of the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion to the 327th along with an amalgam of infantry, tank destroyers and tanks.
Sergeant Rogan knew little of divisional intelligence estimates, but he could hear the sound of armored vehicles being deployed in his front as the sun went down on Christmas Eve. Unknown to him and the others huddled nearby in their foxholes, these tanks and their supporting infantry were making final preparations to come crashing through their lines early the next morning.
Rogan, Bryan and Everhardt were acting as forward observers in support of the men of the 1st Battalion, 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, which was serving as the 327th's third battalion. Nearest to the three artillerymen were the 77 men of the 401st's Company A, commanded by 1st Lt. Howard Bowles. The lieutenant's men defended a large section of the flat, frozen plain west of Hemroulle. They were deployed across a 1,200-yard front line along a ridge about 25 feet high. There were two small woods on top of the ridge about 50 yards apart, with an open field between them. One of the woods concealed two tank destroyers. Two more tank destroyers were in a group of trees some 400 yards to the left of Company A's position. Company B of the 401st was dug in on the right side of Company A on the ridge, extending about 1,100 yards to a roadblock on the Champs to Mande St. Etienne road. The troops were also armed with machine guns and supported by four tank destroyers. The battalion's Company C was kept in reserve near the 463rd's command post at Hemroulle.
Anticipating an attack along his front, Cooper positioned outpost guards with telephone communications to battalion headquarters and battery commanders. He deployed the antitank guns in mutually supporting positions. Experience had taught him that a tank will attack a gun head-on, so he had another gun that would have a side shot at any approaching tank. Each of Cooper's guns had 20 rounds of hollow charge antitank ammo to provide direct fire against enemy armor. At about 3:30 a.m., Rogan radioed his battalion's operations officer, Major Victor Garrett, that he and his supporting company had been overrun by an enemy tank column accompanied by white-capped infantrymen, some riding on the back of the panzers. He informed Garrett that the tanks were moving toward Hemroulle.
Rogan had seen 18 whitewashed Mark IV tanks belonging to the 115th Panzergrenadier Regiment of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division move through his position and pass between the two wood lots. The column was accompanied by two battalions of the 77th Panzergrenadier Regiment. Each tank had 15 or 16 infantrymen, wearing white sheets, riding on it while others walked beside the tanks. As the Germans crossed Rogan's position, they fired rifles and flamethrowers, probing and trying to identify the American frontline positions. When they pierced Company A's line, the Germans killed four Americans, including Rogan's companion Restor Bryan, and wounded five. Allowing the tanks to pass, the survivors re-emerged from their holes and prepared to do battle with the infantry that was following behind the tanks.
After driving through what he believed was the weakly held American front line, at 4:15 a.m. the German tank commander radioed headquarters that his advance was proceeding successfully. He reported that the only evidence of American resistance were pockets of enemy infantry and tank destroyer fire. A half-hour later he informed his superiors that his panzers had reached the western edge of Bastogne. German headquarters was elated, but the celebration was short lived. Word of continued progress toward that long-sought objective never came; instead, German forward observers reported hearing the crash of artillery fire and mortars from the direction of Hemroulle.
The 18 Mark IVs and their accompanying grenadiers had actually only advanced to the outskirts of Hemroulle, mistaking it for Bastogne. As they approached the road between Hemroulle and Champs, the German armored force split up. Seven of the tanks headed in the direction of Champs, while the others moved to a ridge overlooking Hemroulle and parked.
Shortly after receiving reports of the enemy attack, Garrett woke Cooper with the information that German tanks had pulled off the road near one of the 463rd's outposts. The panzers had assembled behind a line of trees on a ridge overlooking Hemroulle. Garrett informed Cooper that the enemy tank crews had dismounted and appeared to be preparing breakfast. The artillerymen counted 11 tanks and a large number of German soldiers, including all of the tank crews.
Since it was too dark to positively confirm that these were truly enemy tanks, Garrett told his men to sit tight until they could see either the muzzle brakes on the tanks' guns or the crosses painted on the side. Cooper knew that American armor was on the way to relieve Bastogne and did not want to pour fire on friendly tank crews.
The panzers were directly in front of three of the 75mm guns deployed in antitank positions, about 500 to 600 yards away. Garrett directed the gun commanders to quietly bore sight their guns on the tanks and prepare to fire as soon as they could confirm that these were indeed the enemy. Cooper's plan was to have one of the three guns shoot the first tank in the line while the other two went after the remainder. All the battery's other guns would then fire at will. Garrett spoke with the commanders of the other guns, directing them to remain quiet and not begin firing until he gave the order, "Let the **** hit the fan."
Once the tanks began to move, the artillerymen could make out the muzzle breaks on the guns, and Garrett ordered, "Let the **** hit the fan." Cooper later remarked that with those words, all hell broke loose. Several tanks were immediately disabled by the 463rd's guns, their crews scurrying from the turrets of the burning panzers.
The artillery was quickly joined by soldiers from Batteries A, B and C with bazookas, machine guns and rifles firing at the tanks and the enemy infantry around them. Since most of men of the 401st were busy with the infantry that had followed the tanks on foot, Cooper's men were part of the thin buffer blocking the German armor and infantry from the center of Bastogne, less than a mile away.
As soon as the fighting began, Cooper called division headquarters and informed them that the 463rd had been attacked and would hold out as long as possible. To the question "Cooper, are you telling me the facts, that you are under attack?" Cooper replied, "If you don't believe it, look down this way, and you will see five spirals of smoke, which represents five tanks burning--no, there are six spirals of smoke, which makes six tanks burning."
Cooper did not know how long his battalion could hold out, but he was determined that his guns would slow the enemy advance, if not stop it. By 8:30 a.m. enemy infantry had approached to within 200 yards of the 463rd's command post in Hemroulle. Cooper ordered all classified documents and the M-209 cryptographic machine destroyed. Captain Victor Tofany of Battery D and the other battery commanders ordered their men to stack their barrack bags in a pile, ready to be burned if the enemy broke through.
There was no need. The fight in and around Hemroulle ended at about 9 a.m. with the destruction of the last of the German tanks that had attacked the town. The seven panzers that had veered away from the column heading toward Champs met the same fate. Although panzers knocked out two tank destroyers from the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, they were themselves destroyed by a combination of fire from American tank destroyers and bazookas fired by members of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment near Champs.
While his battalion fought the tanks outside of Hemroulle, Rogan had been with the remaining men from the 401st as they shut the door behind the tanks and dealt with their supporting infantry. Brought out of reserve, C Company of the 401st joined the fight against the 115th until daybreak, when American artillery and mortars could deal with the enemy infantry, which was now outlined against the snow-covered slopes west of Hemroulle. Battered by increasingly accurate American artillery fire and the small arms of the 401st, the Germans tried to dig in and hold what they had gained, but the ground was frozen. Instead, they hugged the earth and waited for the artillery to stop. During a brief lull their commander, Colonel Wolfgang Maucke, had his men retreat to a hill southeast of Flamizoulle. Allied aircraft soon began battering Maucke's isolated men. By nightfall it became clear that the German force that attacked early on Christmas morning had been almost completely destroyed, with the bulk of the men dead, wounded or captured.
Soon after the fighting ended, Carson "Booger" Childress, a member of Battery B, radioed Cooper to tell him that he had captured one of the tanks in good running order. Childress informed Cooper that when the firing started, the tank crew had tried to get into the panzer, but it was hit on the turret, killing the first man trying to enter. The rest of the tank crew members ran for cover and were later captured by the 463rd's tank stalking party, commanded by Lieutenant Ross Scott. Cooper drove out to the tank and placed a white undershirt on the tube to identify it as captured. Ever the resourceful soldier, Childress figured out how to drive the Mark IV and followed Cooper back to his headquarters. The lieutenant colonel then called Colonel Sherburne, the acting division artillery commander, and told him that he had a Christmas present for him but that he would have to personally come to pick it up.
McAuliffe, Sherburne and a few commanders of other artillery battalions later arrived to view the scene of the Christmas Day battle. As they approached the wreck of each tank, McAuliffe asked, "Which gun knocked this out?" They could clearly see ricochet marks across the snow in front of two tanks and could see the gun from which the shot was fired. McAuliffe stated, "I give you credit for these two tanks." Cooper asked him whether these tanks were knocked out or disabled. He replied, "They're damn sure destroyed and knocked out." Cooper then turned to those present, including some of the officers who had been chiding him about the ineffectiveness of pack howitzers, informing them that his battalion had knocked out and destroyed at least two tanks with direct fire. The remaining tanks had been fired on from so many directions that McAuliffe and Sherburne felt it was not possible to confirm which weapon disabled them. Even though there had been other American tanks and antitank units in the vicinity, Cooper was convinced that since his guns had all 11 panzers in their sights, they had been responsible for the destruction of the entire force moving against Hemroulle. But as some of the tanks had moved after being struck, there was no way to confirm the kills. All that could be certain by the end of the day was that 18 panzers had attacked early on Christmas morning, and by 9 a.m., all had been destroyed, disabled or captured.
When Sherburne returned to his headquarters, he prepared his after-action report with a written commendation for the 463rd. Since it was impossible to prove that his battalion had destroyed more than two tanks, Stuart Seaton, the executive officer, and Cooper decided that in their report they would claim to have knocked out two panzers and captured one. Cooper did not want to begin a controversy with Sherburne by insisting that his battalion had actually knocked out eight tanks and captured one. Years later Cooper stated, "It is immaterial to me now what anybody thinks, but the battle Christmas morning at Hemroulle was strictly a 463rd encounter." Cooper and Rogan both received Silver Stars for gallantry in the action that Christmas morning. Bryan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star.
The next day, December 26, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.'s 4th Armored Division broke through the German ring around Bastogne. The 463rd remained in Hemroulle providing support fire around the perimeter of Bastogne until January 15, 1945, when it joined the 101st in its final push into Germany. On January 31, Cooper received orders to transfer his command to the 17th Airborne Division, the unit his battalion was originally designated to join. General Maxwell Taylor, however, intervened by stating, "The 463rd is firmly united with this [the 101st] Division and any change will result in serious loss of morale and efficiency both to the division and the battalion." Headquarters then agreed, and the "Bastard Battalion" officially became a member of the Battered Bastards of Bastogne.
historynet.com/wwii/blhightide/index3.html
To all fans, my book, "From Toccoa to the Eagle's Nest: Discoveries in the Boosteps of the Band of Brothers" is now available on Amazon, Booksurge and Alibris Thanks Dalton
For a project in which we have to take a cliche photo (i.e. the fruit bowl portrait) and give it a twist.
This photo was one of the 14 photos selected from first year students to be featured in the IMA Gallery's 2013 Holiday Auction Show.
Hugo Gernsback first published “Wonder Stories” in 1929 and, after its sale to Beacon Publications in 1936, the magazine continued as “Thrilling Wonder Stories” until 1955. It then merged with “Startling Stories,” which itself ceased publication that same year, succumbing to the decline of the pulp magazine industry. As a source for science fiction, “Wonder Stories” together with many other pulp magazines were largely overshadowed by “Astounding Stories,” the leading magazine in the field. “Astounding” began in 1930 and continues today as “Analog Science Fiction and Fact,” an astounding 84-year run and counting.
1. Vintage Sheet - Large Pink Floral, 2. Vintage Sheet - Pink Purple Floral, 3. Vintage Sheet - Pink & Brown Floral, 4. Vintage Sheet - Pink Green Daisy, 5. Vintage Sheet - Funky Orange Daisy, 6. Orange Floral, 7. Vintage Sheet - Orange Daisy, 8. Vintage Sheet - 70s Orange, 9. Vintage Sheet - Warm Bouquet, 10. Vintage Sheet - Yellow Posies, 11. Vintage Sheet - Retro Yellow Daisy, 12. Vintage Sheet - Yellow Sweetheart, 13. Vintage Sheet - Mustard Gingham, 14. Vintage Sheet - Yellow Meadow, 15. Vintage Sheet - Yellow Vines, 16. Vintage Sheet - Fresh Bouquet, 17. Vintage Sheet - Stripe Lattice, 18. Vintage Sheet - Green Floral Burst, 19. Vintage Sheet - Green Floral, 20. Vintage Sheet - Monet's Garden, 21. Vintage Sheet - Green and Brown Retro, 22. Vintage Sheet - Blue Vines, 23. Vintage Sheet - Blue Plaid, 24. Vintage Sheet - Retro Blue Floral, 25. Vintage Sheet - Large Blue Floral, 26. Favorite Vintage Sheets, 27. Vintage Sheet - Blue Daisy Bouquet, 28. Vintage Sheet - Fresh Floral, 29. Vintage Sheet - Sweet Blue, 30. Blue Posies, 31. Vintage Sheet - Cool Mod, 32. Vintage Sheet - Large Purple Floral, 33. Vintage Sheet - Pink Purple Tulips, 34. Vintage Sheet - Soft Yellow Floral, 35. Vintage Sheet - Brown Check, 36. Vintage Sheet - Delicate Floral
Houdini’s Spirit Exposés was culled from his own manuscripts which describe his search for genuine spirit manifestations and his experiences in unearthing frauds. Dunninger details his experiences while investigating mediums in his capacity as Chairman of the Science and Invention Magazine Committee for Psychical Research. Belief in Spiritualism was on the rise after the First World War and unscrupulous mediums preyed on the vulnerability of people who had lost loved ones during the war. Magician Harry Houdini was skilled in the ways of scam artists and took steps to expose them. Fellow magician Joseph Dunninger joined him and together they published this inexpensive pulp-magazine-style handbook on the subject of phony mediums.