From here to...well...it SEEMS like an eternity

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: tabpub

Washington DC
Pentagon
Feb 15, 1943

Tall Patrician-looking Admiral: <COUGH>....I hate the smell of new paint....and where are we?....I get lost in this place....

Good to hear that FDR's investment in that previously worthless land in Viginia paid off. We seem to be riddled with tall Patrician-looking leaders. Perhaps a few squat, working class types would bear greater fruit?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: witpqs
And HOA reps need to be field dressed right away or they get really gamey.

What do I do with the gut pile? I have to believe there is some kind of HOA rule against that.

Waste not, want not.



Remember: There's no cannibalism in the Royal Navy.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Honorary Visiting Editor's Note:

Aside from the very obvious elementary spelling errors, there is the question of the use of "Malaya" instead of the more often used "Malaysia" among colonials of the time... <POOF>

Cap Mandrake,

Far be it for me to question the knowledge of the Visiting Editor, particularly as I profess no detailed knowledge of the nomenclature employed during the era, but I had always believed that the term Malaysia had only been coined in the early 1960's when Singapore briefly joined the Malay Federation. Prior to the war I had believed the area had been referred to as the Malay peninsula or the Malay states, or the Straits Settlements - but of course I could very well have been misinformed.

I trust the Visiting Editor will be able to provide us with a dissertation on the subject and inform us all of the correct nomenclature.

Alfred

[Cap Mandrake]

Anonymous Editorial-like Note:

A number of readers have taken our immediate past guest editor to task regarding nomenclature and historical accuracy. We regret to inform the readers that said guest editor has disappeared and it is our firm belief he will not be coming back based on past experience. This is a good thing. What the immediate past guest editor did was a bad thing. Editors, whether guest or otherwise should not criticize. This is a bad thing. It is a good thing what happened to him. Thank you.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: witpqs


Remember: There's no cannibalism in the Royal Navy.

Eeeeewwwww...gross.

Did I mention the HA busted my chops over the flat tire on my Expedition in the driveway and over water stains on my oak front doors. I thought they looked cool, adding some character but I chose to surrender on that one.

I fixed the flat and restained my door with minwax one-coat cherry finish. It took two coats, of course, but it looks really good.

They are also complaining about "stains" on my stucco fence. The "stains" are really oak tannins that have dripped down off the oak trees and some lichens on North-facing cool areas. I am not going to paint over lichens that make it look like an English country garden. What a bunch of retards.

Frau Braun also ordered me to fix my street address sign as she had trouble reading it when she was citing me. [:@] I felt like telling her to go play with a potato masher, but, given what happened with the sheriff deputy, I am inclined to fix it now. That will also hlep stop some of the interruptions during WITP turns when I have to answer the door for the neighbor's pizza delivery.

[Cap Mandrake]

[font="Arial"]Feb. 11, 1943


There is a tremendous sense of excitement. We have been told the entire camp is moving today! Last night the Royal Navy bombarded Tavoy airfield and a few shots were long, one landing about 150 yds from the camp perimeter, though none of us were hurt. The sense of panic among the Jap can only mean the Army is near or invasion is imminent. I have been helping the patients get ready for the move, which is to be by lorry. The Jap commandant has declared that anyone who cannot be moved will be shot. This we believe to be no idle threat given his past behaviour. It appears to many that the Jap cannot let us be liberated lest we tell our stories, so we are being hustled South. I still hold hope that the Army will overtake us, but even if this is not to be, I will still be closer to Edith and the baby, who are still in Jahore if my last correspondence is to be believed.

I must go now. there are many malaria cases that will need help and we have two who underwent entereostomies just yesterday for amaebiasis.

Arthur Dent[/font]

[Cap Mandrake]

Japanese POW camps in SE Asia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_POW_camps_in_Japan

[VSWG]

ORIGINAL:&nbsp; Cap Mandrake

I felt like telling her to go play with a potato masher

Good idea! Give her this "potato masher" as a gift. Be sure to instruct her how to use it properly. [:)]

[witpqs]

I like the potato masher idea!

Cap, if one flat tire in your driveway annoys her, just think what four flat tires will do to her calm! Oh, wait - never mind that.

BTW, if you have Ryobi 18V "ONE+" tools, check out the Ryobi inflater. It's a nicely packaged compressor without a storage tank. Uses the ONE+ 18V batteries, dual hoses for high pressure (tires, etc.) and low pressure (think air mattresses), auto pressure settings, etc. Makes those flats in the driveway less irksome.

Have you tried putting a blue tidy bowl canister in line with the pipe for the front sprinklers to celebrate Frau Braun's visits?

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Have you tried putting a blue tidy bowl canister in line with the pipe for the front sprinklers to celebrate Frau Braun's visits?

That is seriously passive-aggressive. I love it! I will scan the HA bylaws tonight for a Tidy Bowl clause.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: VSWG

ORIGINAL:  Cap Mandrake

I felt like telling her to go play with a potato masher

Good idea! Give her this "potato masher" as a gift. Be sure to instruct her how to use it properly. [:)]

YES! YES! That is exactly the one I was thinking of. I'll check the Williams-Sonoma catalogue.

[Cap Mandrake]

Rather than force their way out overland, it looks like the main Jap effort is to evacuate as much as possible by air. On the 16th, ancient Dutch Demons have a field day intercepting Jap transports over Rangoon. On the 17th all the USAAF P-38's in theater are concentrated at Imphal, striking Lashio on the 17 and Mandalay on the 18th. A goodly number of Jap fighters and transports are downed. The airfield and port facilities at Rangoon are also bombed.

The Japs have their successes too. Jacks and Tonys (from Mandalay perhaps) intercept Spits and Chinese bombers over the Burma Road..downing half a dozen. Jap bombers from all the way from Hanoi manage to hit a RNN DD near Moulemein but suffer heavy losses. Also, the Jap rearguard on the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway perfectly times a night withdrawal and pulls back just before a planned attack of 7th Armoured.

Jap paratroopers try to cut off the Indian armor on the rail line South of Rahaeng by landing on the town on the 18th, but are thwarted by the timely arrival of an Indian infantry brigade.

Meanwhile, the other Indian armoured brigade has reached the Gulf of Siam. Lord Admiral Tabpub has advised a push toward Bangkok. I think he is right as there are reinforcements landing at Georgetown and Songkhla. There are also many Jap units in China on the march, undoubtedly headed toward the action.

[Cap Mandrake]

********Small Clearing Perimeter, Lyman Field, Hilo, Hawaii, Feb. 19, 1943***********


Major Quimbo is a proud man, or, more accurately, he was a proud man. He was a proud man when General MacArthur personally flew to Cebu, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him to take command of the remnants of the 82nd Philippine Army Division. The General had put a tall, patrician hand on his shoulder and said, "Generoso". In point of fact, it wasn't really such a surprising thing for the General to say such a thing because it was Major Quimbo's first name. I suppose you could also say MacArthur's hands were neither tall nor patrician. The General himself was tall, but his hands were more.....well..like long..yeah that's it, long. The General wasn't really patrician either, but he liked to pretend. The truth be told, the General was a bit of a primadona. Still, it was a moment of great pride for the Major.

"Generoso", the General had said, "You are the most senior officer of the Division still alive, I want you to take your men to Darwin. I shall be down presently". MacArthur said things like that.."presently", I mean. He might of said "soon" or "right away" like a normal person but he liked to say things like "shall" and "presently". It made him seem more patrician and it helped to distinguish him from the enlisted men. I have heard people say he really talked like that in private but I don't buy it for one second. No way.

The General continued, "Major, I want you to mold your dispirited force into a proud unit. Together WE, you and I and the men of the 81st shall return and take back this land."


Of course he said yes. Wouldn't you? I mean, what other gig did he have going? The Major and his men boarded the USS Tambor and left for Australia. Then, somewhere in the Sulu Sea they were bombed by Jap search planes and by some unfathomable set of circumstances, they were diverted to Hilo, Hawaii. That was late may of 1942. Now the tall and patrician General MacArthur was nowhere to be found and they were stuck here living in two tents at a US Army airfield with half a dozen surplus M1's and two colors of leggings. He had no communication with the Philippine Government in exile, if there even was such a thing and the US Army had no orders on what to do with them. At first he had tried his best. He had even recruited a few Filipinos who had been working at a nearby sugar plantation, but there was no pay, there was nobody to fight. It was hard to avoid ennui.

The Major is distracted by shouting among his men. They are building a human pyramid to try to reach some ripe mangoes high up in a tree from which the low-lying fruit has been picked. "At least the fruit is good", he thought. It reminded him of the mangoes from Cebu. At that moment the ungainly pyramid topples over pitching a young fellow onto his neck. "I will not lose 3% of my fighting force for a mango!", he says to himself, standing up. Then, he calls to his men, "You there, that is not how it is done..you must put the bigger ones on the bottom......"

[Cap Mandrake]

..

[DuckofTindalos]

"Georgetwon"?

[Reg]

9 forts????? [X(] [X(] [&:]

Well I suppose they needed something to do....

[DuckofTindalos]

It's all relative. 9 forts for 30 men isn't the same as 9 forts for 30,000.

[BrucePowers]

How much concrete did they use?





5 90 pound bags of ready mix?[:D]

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Reg


9 forts????? [X(] [X(] [&:]

Well I suppose they needed something to do....

[:)]

********Small Clearing Perimeter, Lyman Field, Hilo, Hawaii, Feb. 19, 1943***********


Major Quimbo, mango in hand, heads out of the bright sun into the cool of a surprise canyon. The walls are covered with ferns and water trickles from several spots in the wall.
It is the mouth of a lava tube perhaps 20 feet in diameter. He comes to a barrier of pumice boulders which reach almost to the ceiling. In the center there is an old C-47 door which has been welded to iron supports driven into the rock. The Major raps on the door.

"Halt, who goes there?", comes a voice through a small slit in the rocks. It is a young man's voice, purposely and artificially lowered in timber to add authority.

"Oh, cut it out Marcos, it's hot out here, let me in........"

[BrucePowers]

Ya know, if you moved them to Pearl, maybe they would rebuild faster.[:D]