May 25, 2011

Boeing B-17F-10-BO Flying Fortress Serial 41-24485, Memphis Belle, 324th Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, June 9, 1943

Memphis Belle was the nickname of a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress during the Second World War that inspired the making of two motion pictures: a 1944 documentary film, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, and a 1990 Hollywood feature film, Memphis Belle. She was the first United States Army Air Forces heavy bomber to complete 25 combat missions with her crew intact. The aircraft and crew then returned to the United States to sell war bonds.

CREW OF THE MEMPHIS BELLE Left to Right: Harold Loch, Top Turret Gunner (Died 2004) Cecil Scott, Ball Turret Gunner (Died 1979) Robert Hanson, Radio Operator (Died 2005) Jim Vernis, Co-Pilot (Died 2003) Robert Morgan, Pilot (Died 2004) Chuck Leighton, Navigator (Died 1991) John Quinlan, Tail-Gunner (Died 2000) Tony Nastal, Rt Waist Gunner (Died 2002) Vince Evans, Bombardier (Died 1980) Bill Winchell, Lt. Waist Gunner (Died 1994) Not in Photo: Joe Giambrone - Crew Chief (Died 1992) - Who replaced 9 engines, both wings, two tails, and both main landing gear. Ms. Margaret Polk - The Memphis Belle (Died 1990) Scotty Dog "Stuka" - Mascot OTHER PEOPLE WHO FLEW MISSIONS IN THE BELLE Levi Dillon, 1st Top Turret Gunner. Flew four missions. (Died 1998) Eugene Adkins, 2nd Top Turret Gunner, Flew six missions. Hands froze on 6th mission. (Died 1995) E. Scott Miller, Right Waist Gunner, Flew 15 Missions. (Died 1995)

The plane was named for pilot Robert K. Morgan's sweetheart, Margaret Polk, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee.  Morgan originally intended to call the plane Little One, after his pet name for her, but after Morgan and his copilot, Jim Verinis, saw the movie Lady for a Night, in which the leading character owns a riverboat named the Memphis Belle, he proposed that name to his crew.  Morgan then contacted George Petty at the offices of Esquire magazine and asked him for a pinup drawing to go with the name, which Petty supplied from the magazine's April 1941 issue. The 91st's group artist Corporal Tony Starcer reproduced the famous Petty girl nose art on both sides of the forward fuselage, depicting her suit in blue on the aircraft's port side and in red on the starboard.  The nose art later included 25 bomb shapes, one for each mission credit, and 8 swastika designs, one for each German plane claimed shot down by the crew of the Memphis Belle.  Station and crew names were stencilled below station windows on the aircraft after her tour of duty was completed.

The Memphis Belle, a Boeing-built B-17F-10-BO, USAAF Serial No. 41-24485, was added to the USAAF inventory on July 15, 1942, and delivered in September 1942 to the 91st Bomb Group at Dow Field, Bangor, Maine.  She deployed to Prestwick, Scotland, on September 30, 1942, to a temporary base at RAF Kimbolton on October 1, and then to her permanent base at Bassingbourn, England, on October 14.  Each side of the fuselage bore the unit identification markings of the 324th Bomb Squadron (Heavy) - DF: A. Captain Robert Morgan's crew flew 29 combat missions with the 324th Bomb Squadron, all but four in the Memphis Belle.  The aircraft's 25 missions were: November 7, 1942 - Brest, France November 9, 1942 - St. Nazaire, France November 17, 1942 - St. Nazaire December 6, 1942 - Lille, France December 20, 1942* - Romilly-sur-Seine, France December 30, 1942 - Lorient (flown by Lt. James A. Verinis) January 3, 1943 - St. Nazaire January 13, 1943 - Lille January 23, 1943 - Lorient, France February 14, 1943 - Hamm, Germany February 16, 1943 - St. Nazaire February 27, 1943* - Brest March 6, 1943 - Lorient March 12, 1943 - Rouen, France March 13, 1943 - Abbeville, France March 22, 1943 - Wilhemshaven March 28, 1943 - Rouen March 31, 1943 - Rotterdam, Netherlands April 16, 1943 - Lorient April 17, 1943 - Bremen, Germany May 1, 1943 - St. Nazaire May 13, 1943 - Meaulte, France (flown by Lt. C.L. Anderson) May 14, 1943 - Kiel, Germany (flown by Lt. John H. Miller) May 15, 1943 - Wilhelmshaven May 17, 1943 - Lorient May 19, 1943* - Kiel (flown by Lt. Anderson) Morgan's crew completed the following missions in B-17s other than the Memphis Belle: February 4, 1943 - Emden, Germany (in B-17 DF-H 41-24515 Jersey Bounce) February 26, 1943 - Wilhelmshaven (in B-17 41-24515) April 5, 1943 - Antwerp, Belgium (in B-17 41-24480 Bad Penny) May 4, 1943 - Antwerp (in B-17 41-24527, The Great Speckled Bird) The aircraft was then flown back to the United States on June 8, 1943, by a composite crew chosen by Eighth Air Force from those who had flown combat aboard, led by Capt. Morgan, for a 31-city war bond tour. Morgan's original co-pilot was Capt. James A. Verinis, who himself piloted the Memphis Belle for one mission. Verinis was promoted to aircraft commander of another B-17 for his final sixteen missions and finished his tour on May 13. He rejoined Morgan's crew as co-pilot for the flight back to the United States.

CREW OF THE MEMPHIS BELLE BACK FROM 25TH MISSION.  All in all, the crew of the Belle had downed eight enemy fighters, dropped a payload of over 60 tons of bombs over Germany, France and Belgium, and had flown 148 hours and 50 minutes of combat missions, covering more than 20,000 combat miles. Although the Belle had on many occasions returned from her missions battered and with her engines shot out, none of her men ever sustained much more than a scratch.

A shortage of baking flours after World War II forced breadmakers to substitute up to 25% of wheat flour with ground popped popcorn.  Over the years, popcorn also has been used as an ingredient in pudding, candy, soup, salad and entrees. 90% of the licorice used as a flavoring  is used to flavor tobacco. Licorice candy contains small amounts of licorice, but the main flavor ingredient of licorice candy is anise. As a promotional stunt in 1923, Otto Schnering, founder of Curtiss Candy Co., had Baby Ruth candy bars dropped from airplanes in cities around the country, with tiny parachutes attached to each candy bar. Jujube is a small fruit-flavored candy, with a hard gelatinous texture.  In the 19th and early 20th centuries, they often contained cough medication.  They originally contained juice from the Chinese Date (common jujube, Ziziphus jujuba).

Selasphorus floresii

This is one of my favorite spots.  From my viewpoint on the bluff above the Missouri River, the green emergence of spring presents a grand view.  The meadow below is also a favorite spot for nesting ducks and geese.

SUNSET OVER A MOUNTAIN LAKE

The Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863 A Transcription

By the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States." Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh. By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

A SHELL IN REBEL TRENCHES Winslow Homer

The "Laird Rams" were two ironclad steam powered rams (ships built for the specific purpose of ramming and sinking other ships), CSS North Carolina and CSS Mississippi, being built under contract for the Confederate States Navy during the U.S. Civil War by the Laird Shipyard at Birkenhead, England. The two warships would have been superior to virtually any vessel then in the U.S. Navy and thus represented a serious threat, but the Federal government acted behind the scenes to cause the British government to seize the rams before they could be delivered. After the Civil War, the ships were purchased by the Royal Navy and renamed HMS Scorpion and HMS Wivern.

NORTH COAST

PART TWO

There are six (five?) species of Lewisia in the Northwest and nine (ten?) others to the south.

No species of the genus is truly common.  Lewis and Clark, two centuries ago, happened onto one of the few that have really broad distribution, and even this far-flung bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva) is exacting in its needs.

Lewisia rediviva.  Most Lewisias demand precise, stable conditions in securely remote sites.

STILL LIFE WITH BASKET OF APPLES

A CRITIQUE BY -- Meyer Schapiro IT IS HARD T0 IMAGINE A CIRCUMSTANCE of everyday life in which these objects would occur together in just this way. We are led to consider the whole as an arrangement by the artist, a pure invention.  The basket rests on a block, the cookies on a platter set on a book, the apples on a richly folded cloth, and all these together lie on a table. This insistent superposition of things--very clear in the biscuits--is the clue to the artistic idea:  the painting is a construction. The table too is treated as a kind of masonry with strongly banded forms.  What makes all this more interesting is that so many of the elements are unarchitectural in feeling--the thirty or more apples, irreducibly complex in the sequence of colors, each fruit a singular piece of painting, a unique object; the tilted asymmetrical bottle and the basket; the hanging, rumpled tablecloth. This carefully considered still life, so exact and subtle in its decisions, retains an aspect of randomness, of accidental grouping. It is an order in which sets of elements of different degrees of order are harmonized--the apples in the basket; the apples on the tablecloth; the broken folds of the latter; the regular pattern of the biscuits. Balanced as a composition, the painting risks a great unbalance in the parts.  It is not simply an equilibrium of large and small units, but of the stable and the less stable.  The odd tilting of the bottle must be understood in relation to other instabilities as part of a problem:  to create a balanced whole in which some elements are themselves unbalanced. In older art this was done with figures in motion, or with a sloping ground, or hanging curtains and reclining objects.  What is new in Cézanne is the unstable axis of a vertical object--a seated figure, a house, a bottle.  Such deviations make the final equilibrium of the picture seem more evidently an achievement of the artist rather than an imitation of an already existing stability in nature.  Here we cannot help but see together as balanced variations of a common unbalance the diagonals in different planes--the tilting of the bottle, the inclined basket, the foreshortened lines of the cookies, and, corresponding to these three tilted forms, the lines of the tablecloth converging to the lower edge. The color is luminous, robust, and clear--tempered in the large objects, more intense in the small; and everywhere finely nuanced--the product of a visibly active brush.  Although the bottle has the smoothness of glass, the other objects are fairly neutral in texture; assimilated to the qualities of the pigment and the stroke, they look solid but are not distinct substances.  In the table this character goes with the astonishingly radical "abstract" treatment of its structure.  The bottle too is submitted to this concreteness of paint and touch in the loosened, open rendering of its right edge.

Many foods have been adulterated throughout history. Pepper has been adulterated with such things as juniper berries, pea flour, mustard husks, etc. Today the preferred peppercorn adulterant is papaya seeds. Now for the question. In 1969, an Italian gentleman was charged with selling a product described as grated Parmesan cheese -- which it turned out, on analysis, to consist of grated ----- What? (a) bricks (b) umbrella handles (c) dried white cheddar cheese (d) sheep bones (e) plaster ??? PASS YOUR MOUSE OVER THE QUESTION MARKS FOR THE ANSWER!

ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS VIEWS OF EDO (TOKYO) NUMBER FIFTY-FIVE

SUMIYOSHI FESTIVAL, TSUKUDAJIMA

In the middle distance, a chanting mob of young men carries the sacred palanquin of the Sumiyoshi Shrine through the shallow flats surrounding the island of Tsukudajima at the mouth of the Sumida River.  Having encircled the island, the procession will return to the shrine on its northeast corner--to the left in this view, which looks across Edo Bay to the distant shore of the Chiba Peninsula. The giant banner that juts up before us is inscribed in archaic script "Sumiyoshi Daimyojim," an honorific title of the shrine deities, below which the parishioners of Tsukudajima are noted as donors.  The smaller inscriptions to either side provide the date and the name of the calligrapher, Seikengu Gengyo.

OMEGA	ORION

RESIN FIGURAL CLOCK

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Cropsey was a personal friend of President Henry P. Tappan. He came to Ann Arbor in 1855 at Tappan's invitation, and painted the Observatory and a landscape of the campus.  Both of these original paintings and some Cropsey sketches are at the UM Bentley Historical Library.

B-17

The reason cole slaw became as popular a side dish as it did in America was due to NYC deli owner Richard Hellmann's 1903 creation of a formula for bottled mayonnaise, which he began marketing in 1912. It became a bestseller, quick and easy to use as a dressing for shredded cabbage, which thereafter became a standard side dish to the increasingly popular sandwiches and hamburgers in American kitchens.

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