The Charge of the Light Brigade

HI very much like a movie that inspires me to want to learn more about an event. Last night I watched the 1968 version of the film The Charge of the Light Brigade starring David Hemmings and Trevor Howard, directed by Tony Richardson. The movie is a reasonably accurate depiction of the tragic 1854 British cavalry charge led by Lord Cardigan (Howard) against the Russians during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War.

Watch the trailer ...


Prior to this I had only a sketchy knowledge of this event derived mostly from the epic poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Consequently, I wanted to know more about this incident in history.

Of the more than 600 cavalry troops who rode into the "Valley of Death" that day about half were killed, wounded, or captured. The brigade, led by Lord Cardigan at the front, displayed great courage in the face of overwhelming fire raining down from three sides. However, the charge violated sound military principles and was destined to catastrophic failure by incompetent leadership and petty jealousies and rivalries at the command level.

An interesting fact I learned from the film is that officers' wives traveled with the troops. But not all wives. According to the movie, only one in six wives were permitted to make the journey with their husbands.

Made at a time when when the Vietnam War was raging in southeast Asia the film includes themes such as class distinctions in Britain, racial and social prejudice, and the glorification of war.

Read the Wikipedia entry for The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Read an eyewitness account by London Times correspondent William Howard Russell

See a virtual movie of Tennyson reading his poem on YouTube
See a copy of the poem hand-written by Tennyson

More from WW2 Weekend

This short clip shows some World War II era planes on the taxiway at Reading Regional Airport during the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's World War II weekend.

Mid-Atlantic Air Museum World War II Weekend

On June 6, the 65th anniversary of D-Day, a friend and I visited the annual World War II weekend at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, PA. It was quite an interesting day. There were displays of all sorts of military personnel, equipment, and other paraphernalia. The stars of the show were the numerous military aircraft from the era which were on display, many of which were flying.

Nearly all the nationalities involved in the war were represented, American, Britons, Canadians, Germans, Japanese, and more. There were displays representing life on the home front as well as a mini French village. A highlight was the appearance of five of the actual men whose war experiences have been portrayed in the television series Band of Brothers.

I was surprised by the number and broad variety of people attending the event, small children, teens, young adults, all the way up to those who lived during the war years. There were so many visitors that traffic was backed up for miles. It took nearly an hour to travel the last two miles.

Unfortunately, heavy rains Friday caused some areas to turn into quagmires as you can see in one of my photos, so people had to tread through some very muddy conditions.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Major Dick Winters (slideshare.net)
• D-Day +65 Years (minx.cc)
• D-Day's bloody toll unclear 65 years later (thestar.com)

Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer is best known for the funny, satirical songs he wrote and performed in the 1950s and 60s. He was a student of mathematics at Harvard (He earned his BA in 1947 at the age of 18.) where he began writing humorous songs to entertain his friends. His songs were often parodies of popular songs such as in "The Elements", where he sets the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

It's rumored he invented the J-ello shot during his time in the Army working at the NSA in the mid-1950s. Lehrer taught his last math class at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2001.

Link to my YouTube Tom Lehrer playlist

Rationing in World War 2

Recently my mother, who is now 76, came across a couple of her World War 2 ration books that she had as a young child. I was fascinated to see these artifacts which are still in very good condition despite being more than 60 years old. I wanted to share these rare items with you.

During World War 2, American citizens at home were asked to conserve everything. The government found it necessary to ration food, gasoline, rubber, and many more commodities, even clothing.

In the spring of 1942, the Food Rationing Program was introduced with the goals of preventing public pique at shortages and to preclude people with more means from acquiring an unfair portion of scarce goods.

Rationing controlled the amount of commodities that persons could buy. Not all items required rationing, however. All meats, butter, fat, and oils, and most cheese were regulated with "Red Stamp" rationing. Each individual was allowed a number of points weekly. "Blue Stamp" rationing controlled the distribution of canned, bottled, and frozen fruits and vegetables, plus juices and dry beans; and such processed foods as soups, baby food and ketchup.

Rationing also employed a point system. But many Americans grew frustrated and confused trying to decide what coupons went with which items, how many points they needed to purchase them, and that some coupons did not require points at all.

Rationing also controlled the distribution of clothing, shoes, coffee, gasoline, tires, and fuel oil. With each new coupon book came new rules and deadlines. Rationing of gas and tires depended on the distance to a person's job. X stickers on cars permitted their owners unlimited supplies and were obviously highly prized.

An unintended and serious side effect of the rationing programs was the rise of a "black market" dealing in the illicit sale of rationed goods at inflated prices. Meat, sugar, and gasoline were the staples of the black market trade in the US.

In 1944, ration coins were introduced. These pressed cardboard coin-like tokens allowed vendors to make change on purchases made with ration stamps.

For more images of World War 2 rationing items, visit this site World War II Rationing.









Listen to this article

The USS Requin

The USS Requin, named for a sand shark, was commissioned in April 1945 and remained in service until December 1968. In August 1990, she was loaded onto barges in Baton Rouge, LA, for her trip up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Pittsburgh. She arrived at the Carnegie Science Center on the 4th of September and was dedicated and opened for tours on October 20, 1990.

The Requin had a crew of 10 officers and 71 crewmen squeezed into a boat just over 311 feet in length with a width of a bit more than 27 feet. With a range of 11,000 nautical miles, she could be at sea on patrol for up to 75 days.

Pictures from Requin

Digitally Visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Footnote.com has digitized the entire Viet Nam Memorial wall and made it free to view. The image was assembled from 6,301 images photographed by Peter Krogh and stitched by Darren Higgins. It is 400,000 pixels by 12,500 pixels.

The 58,320 names on the wall can be browsed by all, enlistment type, service branch, or hometown. You can chose to learn more about a name such as full name, rank, specialty, and hometown. Images and comments can be added. Military data is based on information supplied from The National Archives.

You will need to zoom the image several times before you can read any names. Because the image is so large it takes a few moments to refresh when you zoom, so be patient.

See it ... Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Vietnam Wall) : Footnote.com

How Much is $12 Billion-a-Month?

This article reports on a study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes that the war in Iraq will cost about $12 billion dollars a month in 2008.

Studies: Iraq a $12 billion-a-month war - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

A little simple arithmetic means the war costs a family of four in America about $150 a month. What would en extra $150 a month in the family bank account mean?

DST: A Brief History

Daylight Saving Time was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin in a 1784 essay. Daylight Saving Time has been in use in the US and many European countries since World War 1. President Franklin Roosevelt implemented full time Daylight Saving Time (War Time) during World War 2.

Prior to passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966, the observance of Daylight Saving Time was determined by local laws and varied widely throughout the US. This law set the beginning of Daylight Saving Time as the last Sunday of April continuing until the last Sunday of October. However, states could opt out by passing their own legislation.

The beginning and end of Daylight Saving Time in the US has been altered several times over the years since.

In 1974, President Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973 into law. This extended Daylight Saving Time from January 6 until October 27, 1974.

Now, in most of the US, Daylight Saving Time runs from the second Sunday in March to the last Sunday in November. Daylight Saving Time is not observed in Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and a few other locations.

In Europe, Summer Time runs from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Daylight Saving Time changes our clocks to shift an hour of daylight from early morning to late evening. The two predominant reasons for the implementation of Daylight Saving Time are supposed energy savings and more daylight for leisure activities. The former is somewhat in dispute as the result a recent study by Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant (University of California in Santa Barbara).

Read much more about the history of Daylight Saving Time at webexhibits.org.

Do you know how much this is?

The Bush administration is seeking the astronomical sum of $190,000,000,000 to continue to prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year.

Administration seeks $190B for wars - USATODAY.com

Can you imagine the scope of this budget request? Do you grasp how much money $190 billion dollars is?

190 billion seconds would take more than 6000 years to tick off on your clock! That would buy one and a half million new Ferraris. You could provide every kid enrolled in any US school with 2 new high end computers.

Old Bedford Village

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at Old Bedford Village. It is quite an interesting place. I shot nearly 70 pictures and a little bit of video of bits of the reenactment of a Napoleanic Grande Tactique.

I posted the still pictures to my Picasa Web Albums.

I compiled the video into a YouTube clip with a few stills.

The War Ends When ...

Recently, I watched a documentary on the last day of World War I. It occurred to me that one of the hugely significant differences between the two world wars and the Iraq war is that those wars had defined moments when they were over.

The Germans, the Japanese surrendered and agreed that hostilities would end, there would be no more fighting. How can that happen in Iraq? Who among our opponents has the authority or the power to step up and say, "Enough. It's over."

We are not fighting a traditionally organized, centrally commanded military force that can be defeated, that can be forced to lay down their weapons.

If the end of the war cannot be determined by the capitulation of an enemy force, then how is The End of the War to be defined? What are the criteria for determining a successful (or failed) prosecution of the war? What standard are we trying to meet in the Iraq war that will mean we have accomplished our task?