Notes from a Small Island

[Canoerebel]

Yes, I think I'll try a deliberate attack once fatigue is down. But with forts and terrain, I think it will be bombardments that break this open.

[Canoerebel]

10/14/44

Ketoi: I really think Erik intends to pounce this turn, but it might just be a tired, overwrought imagination at work.

[BBfanboy]

Agree that it is good to be unpredictable, make those kind of unexpected moves. Your herd of transport shipping my draw some of his strikes if KB does appear.

[Bif1961]

Reading an old book on Iwo Jima. The Americans AV would be slightly above 1.5 initially of the Japanese it was a matter of reinforcements supplies, and bombardments that finally wore down the Japanese who were starved of almost all of those. The least effective were the bombardments since the fort level at Iwo would probably be a game 6+

[Canoerebel]

I hope it doesn't take six weeks to vanquish Ketoi, as it did Iwo, but it might.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: I haven't run the turn yet, but I have reviewed the Combat Report. There's no evidence of enemy carriers or combat ships or airfields loaded with enemy squadrons.

I was nearly certain something was about to happen. Did my spidey sense fail completely? I'll run the turn and see if there's any hint of aggression.

And I hope, if nothing else, I'll be able to detach the Herd of Empties, safely to make the trip home.

More later.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: A bunch of LSTs with only meager escorts remained at Ketoi to unload supply and two artillery battalions. They're going to get hit hard by enemy shore guns, this graphic being just one of many.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: A Death Star combat TF engages enemy riff-raff before DS can get underway. One enemy MTB "obliterated."

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: Nighttime bombing raids vs. Uruppu, Shimishura and Paramushiro, and daytime sweeps and raids against those bases and others, encounter no opposition.

Spidey-Sense Failure.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: Even the B-29s were employed to harass enemy airfields in night raids that accomplish little.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: DMS TF tangles with riff-raff, dispatching one. I think this TF is made up of lightly damaged minesweepers returning to Shikuka.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: Death Star and The Herd do exactly as ordered, steaming SW six hexes. Enemy search planes are downed by CAP. Allied search aircraft spot subs, TFs (riff-raff, I think) and the like. On the day, I don't think any DS strike aircraft sortie.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Marcus: A few damaged LSTs remain at and near Marcus. Several succumb to damage, and enemy aircraft finish off one or two. The bulk of this Herd has safely broken contact and is well on its way to Midway and Pearl.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: Onnekotan Jima airfield was the primary target today. Anticipating scores of enemy fighters everywhere, the bombers got lots of escorts (and were preceded by sweeps). But nothing there.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: AVs shown as the commencement of the Japanese bombardment.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: Allied bombardment fairly effective.

[Canoerebel]

10/15/44

Ketoi: I really thought I'd connected the dots last night. The downside to my play is that Erik got a free shot at air transporting reinforcements to Ketoi, as my LRCAP moved out of range. And he might have deduced things about my concerns and state of mind.

On the other hand, he probably has to allow for all kinds of things that DS might do. And I think I'll have a window to send the empties back to the West Coast unmolested. If Erik out thinks me and sends wolves among the sheep....I'll weep.

[Lokasenna]

Saying "malus" reminds me of apples as it's such a rare word outside of that context.

When do I get to derail this thread with "is this sapling a callery pear or not?" pictures? I know the previous AAR got into botany quite a bit...

[Canoerebel]

I've been reading an old book on Trees of America, published by the American Forestry Society a long time ago. I enjoy the descriptions of trees, the information about uses of the wood and how much a cubic foot weighs air-dried (live oak, our heaviest wood, is nearly double the weight of spruce and basswood and others). Another thing I enjoy about the book is that the photos seem to have been taken from the '30s to perhaps the '50s - the trees are the focal point but it's interesting to see fences and buildings and farm fields and wide open spaces....and no cell phone towers or wind turbines or McDonalds (stuff like that was present, but not like today).

Another thing I've enjoyed is refreshing my memory about the botanical (scientific) names of trees. So many of them are beautiful: Thuja occidentalis (northern white cedar); Chamaecyparis thyoides (Atlantic white cedar), Diospyros virginiana (persimmon), Liquidambar styraciflua (sweetgum), Lireodendron tulipifera (yellow poplar) and a host of others. There's poetry in the botanical names of trees.


The genus name of the apple is Malus, as Lokasenna is referring to. Apples, pear, plum, rose, hawthorne, prune, blackberry and a zillion other fruiting plants are in the Roseacea (rose) plant family.

I enjoy knowing that, so sitting around reading an old book by the American Forestry Society is time well spent.

Especially when there aren't any Braves games on the radio!

[Canoerebel]

One other tangential foray. A few weeks ago, I did a long hike in the mountains with a good friend. He's an old timer, able to tell me who lived where, where the old roads where, crazy things that happened, and the like. When I returned home, I started toying with a little free-verse poem about what I learned and saw that day. It ended up this way:

MEETING WHEELER CRENSHAW

I’d never heard of Wheeler Crenshaw
until I met his branch, his gorge, his gap.
It happened one afternoon in May, early enough
in the season that Vasey’s trillium still bloomed;
late enough that air lolled beneath the tree canopy,
motionless, damp and stifling as in mid-summer.
I made acquaintance with Wheeler’s namesakes
where two prongs join to create lively, splashy Mountaintown Creek.
From the west, Heddy Creek tumbles down from Three Forks Mountain.
From the north, Crenshaw Branch bounds down from Buddy Cove Gap.
An old-timer told me that if we wandered up Heddy Creek a ways,
we’d find a surprising waterfall – one worth seeing, few have seen.
I’ve really no reason to call him an old-timer, though;
I’m scarcely younger, so I’ll call him the Throwback.

The Throwback told me, “Dick Heddy once farmed up there,
a little flat land fit for corn, onions, beans and some orchard trees.”
A toppled pile of chimney rock is all that remains of his life’s-work now.

Since no named trail followed Heddy Creek, we saved it for another day,
choosing instead to amble up the Pinhoti Trail beside Crenshaw Branch,
splashing through its rock-dappled water time after time after times.
We slowed for a steeper pitch, climbing sharply a third of a mile or so,
paralleling a generator of prodigious noise to our right and down,
partly hidden by white pine and mountain oak and others,
deep within a jagged earth-gash named Crenshaw Gorge.
“More than fifty years ago, when I was 12,” the Throwback reminisced,
“my father and I walked right up that long, sliding sluice of whitewater.
When we finished, Dad said, ‘We’ll never do it again; it’s too dangerous.’”
The Throwback’s father was right, I could see.
The volume of water cascading down that race,
swollen by plentiful spring rains, reminded me
of an arcing white torrent discharged by a tall dam’s turbine.
Any water-walker who fell here would hurtle downstream,
dashing against rocks or snagging beneath one of the logs
that strains and chokes this lovely, untamed, reckless flume.

Above Crenshaw Gorge, the Pinhoti climbed more gently,
easing its way north, passing two tamer but eye-catching cascades.
On our right, Saddle Ridge rose sharply through the forest,
perforated here and there by coves, each leading to a gap at its crest.
The ruins of Wheeler Crenshaw’s homestead lies up another cove,
the Throwback told me. “He grew corn, like Heddy, and hunted ginseng
growing wild in the rich west-facing cove soil. Beyond his place,
an old wagon road climbed all the way to Crenshaw Gap,
but the trail didn’t take us there, instead following the creek
a ways, before abruptly turning aside to climb to Buddy Cove Gap.

The Throwback and I had already walked ten miles by then,
so that final climb through dry-land trees on a dry-land spur
left us winded, or maybe it was just me left winded,
on the memorable day I made acquaintance with
Wheeler Crenshaw, his branch, his gorge, his gap.