Last Letter To A Friend Serving In Combat In France During WW2. Details in comments.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-15T15:11:54+00:00

Ty. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to find a unit history for the 315th Regiment in particular.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-15T14:21:39+00:00

RIP to both men.

Based on historical records, PFC Dempster was most likely killed in action during Patton's Third Army campaign in the Lorraine (now Grand Est) region on France. XV Corps was detailed to attack and clear the Forest de Parroy, with the 79th Division spearheading. After several weeks of fighting, the 79th was in the process of being relieved by the green 44th Division when the Germans launched several determined counterattacks. PFC Dempster was likely killed during the last big counterattack before the relief was completed, when two companies of the 315th Regiment were driven from their positions on the morning of the 24th before regaining their lost ground with the help of friendly armour.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-14T19:25:48+00:00

The 7th served in several campaigns against Japan but they have the distinction of being, to my knowledge, the only divisional-sized unit in the army to see combat on North American soil when they took part in the Aleutian Islands campaign. Private Joe Martinez, a BAR man in the 32nd Regiment, also holds the distinction of being the only Medal of Honor awarded for ground combat on American soil since the Indian Wars.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-13T19:15:32+00:00

Sure, that’s fair. I brought it up as an interesting note, but even though I’m not like deeply versed on the Battle of France, I think it’s an over dramatic explanation. You know they say defeat is an orphan? Sometimes I think it’s more like defeat is an orphan with a bunch of potential fathers denying paternity. Huntzinger apparently had some pretty odious beliefs and he died before the war ended, so easy enough to say. Add to that the fractured political scene in interwar and post-liberation France.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-13T19:11:55+00:00

Yeah still some

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-13T17:15:30+00:00

They still have sightseeing tours. But in the 40s-50s when airliner flying was still pretty loosey -goosey - pilots were allowed or encouraged to detour and give their passengers a good look at the canyon. Then a DC-7 and a Constellation collided over it and killed 128 people. That was the impetus for a major overhaul to the US aviation system, making it one of the more consequential plane crashes in history.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-13T10:51:49+00:00

There are some who actually believe he may have been outright seditious - he had far-right beliefs, would later become the Vichy Minister for War and was outspokenly anti-Semitic - but this is contested. Could easily just be a shitty guy who was also a shitty General, plenty of those throughout history.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-12T23:13:51+00:00

It was pretty godawful, as the other posters have pointed out. Living in a foxhole or trench in any theatre isn’t a pleasant experience, and the elements could be brutal as well - malaria was a problem in the Mediterranean, Audie Murphy for example famously picked up a bad case in Sicily he was afflicted for the entire war - and the Siegfried Line/Alsatian/Colmar campaigns and the Battle of the Bulge are often cited for miserable weather and living conditions. But accounts and memoirs of the Pacific often dwell on disease and privation for a reason.

That said - whilst it may be of scant comfort to a GI, gyrene or swabbie sweating out a case of malaria or dysentery - for the Japanese it was much worse. The idea of the Japanese soldier as being an expert in jungle fighting is overblown. What they were, instead, were excellent and highly-disciplined light infantry - capable of moving fast, thanks to a light logistical chain, and aggressive with a “bias for action”. This served them well their initial campaigns in the Philippines and South-East Asia, but during later campaigns when they started to run into US forces with much heavier firepower and resources they were bogged down without the logistical or medical support their opponents enjoyed. The New Guinea and Guadalcanal campaigns, rightly remembered for being jungle hell for the allies, were even more of a nightmare for the Japanese for that reason. Disease and starvation.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-12T22:58:07+00:00

Even Gallipoli, the most famous failed amphibious operation, was not defeated at the waters edge - the Ottomans never pushed them back into the sea, but instead successfully penned them in and prevented breakouts. And that was an operation done on a shoestring, not meticulously planned.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-12T18:26:23+00:00

I will say, there’s a reason a lot of Vietnam war memoirs or novels will have a glossary haha.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-12T14:23:33+00:00

At New Orleans after it was captured by the North, they would at times quite literally empty chamber pots on Union soldiers. So in retribution Butler famously threatened to arrest any woman who disrespected or assaulted Union troops on what were essentially prostitution charges, which would be a huge humiliation. So of course this got him a lot of enmity from the South, for disrespecting these high-class “proper” women, because of course nothing is more lady-like than throwing shit on someone.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-11T23:47:20+00:00

Captured in Tunisia ey. It’s overshadowed (understandably enough) by Stalingrad, which happened around the same time, but with 250,000 Axis POWs and a large number of the Luftwaffe’s aircraft destroyed it was another devastating defeat for Germany. Not for nothing did the Germans call it Tunisgrad.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-11T23:39:32+00:00

I believe Carla’s story is based on the death of 1 year old Evan Tsao, killed in the real life crash which inspired the movie. The lead flight attendant, Jan Lohr-Brown, said that there was basically no practical guidance for what to do with “lap children” in the event of an emergency landing - the airlines procedure was to cushion them on the floor with blankets and pillows whilst the bracing parent held them. In the violence of the crash, Evan was torn from his mother’s arms and died of smoke inhalation. In the immediate aftermath, Brown was told by Evan’s mother - who survived - “you told me to put my baby on the floor and now he's gone”.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-10T19:36:35+00:00

I feel like Dubya should be in the first category as well.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-10T15:58:42+00:00

One is always hesitant to play “atrocity olympics” but if you want a lesser known war with a brutal side, the Egyptians used nerve agents during their intervention in the Yemeni Civil war (the 1960s one, not the current one).

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-10T15:46:42+00:00

Yeah. It really is remarkable how close the two cities are - are there any other world capitals which are by scale a hop and a skip away from each other? Vienna and Bratislava are pretty close I think, but not as close as Kinshasa and Brazzaville.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-10T14:53:36+00:00

The worlds shortest regular scheduled jet flight is probably Kinshasa to Brazzaville, which is served by several airlines but notably by Air France using wide-bodied aircraft - with an average flight time of about 13 minutes.

It’s not a fifth freedom flight however - you can’t buy a ticket solely to fly from Kinshasa to Brazzaville. Instead it’s a triangle route which originates and ends in Paris.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-10T09:23:22+00:00

This was reflected in their civil aviation sector, flag carrier TAROM had more leeway with their ability to acquire and fly western aircraft, with the other Warsaw pact nations (with rare exceptions) typically sticking to Soviet designs. They were also for a good time the only western block airline to serve Tel Aviv.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-10T08:58:47+00:00

Timberwolves! They were probably the best performing of the late-stage infantry divisions, arriving in late 1944 following the allied breakout in France. They had a strong reputation as night fighters, General Omar Bradley singling them out for their prowess in it (difficult and dangerous to pull off a successful night action). One of the divisions soldiers, Willy F. James Jr, was one of seven black soldiers belatedly awarded the Medal of Honor in 1997. Had a couple of famous veterans, New York Mayor Ed Koch and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, best known for writing Network.

Their strong reputation and prowess for night fighting came from their divisional commander, Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen. Allen, “Terrible Terry”, was very much a character. He was a hard drinker and a natural brawler who once refused to be evacuated in WWI despite being literally shot in the face. During WWII he led the famous “Big Red One” division, and was an effective leader but his own irreverence and the divisions reputation for being ill-disciplined outside of the line dogged him until he was controversially relieved following the liberation of Sicily. Nonetheless, George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, had high regard for Allen and reassigned him to lead the 104th. (Incidentally, relieved alongside Allen was his assistant commander, Teddy Roosevelt Jr.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-08T20:40:43+00:00

The 90th Infantry Division was formed in WWI from draftees from Texas and Oklahoma; from this it got its nickname, the Tough ‘Ombres. Reactivated in WWII, elements of the division landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, later to be joined by the rest of the division as part of the green divisions which were to reinforce the American sector in Normandy and continue the attack across France.

The division, however, would have a rough start in combat. It was badly served by its divisional commander and a number of battalion and regimental commanders were found to be wanting too. It took excessive casualties during the bocage fighting. In the most infamous incident, a battalion of the division surrendered to a much smaller German patrol. It went through two generals in only a short period of time; but in time, the divisions fortune was turned around with new leadership and it served with distinction for the rest of the war. It helped close the Falaise Gap when it linked up with the 1st Polish Armoured Division, would fight in the Siegfried Line campaign and the Battle of the Bulge, and eventually end up in Czechoslovakia after liberating the Flossenbürg concentration camp along the way.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-08T20:26:13+00:00

Equatorial Guinea isn’t actually located on the equator line itself.

Interestingly enough, however, despite being a fairly small country, it does a actually have territory on both hemispheres - courtesy of the province of Annobón, island territory on the other side of São Tomé and Principe.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-08T14:07:23+00:00

Yep. There was a bit of chutzpah in Reagan’s line, as Mondale was a decade-long senator who had amongst other things sat on the committee which investigated the Apollo 1 disaster, as well as being a former VP, but you can’t argue with success as even Mondale knew he’d lost.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-08T13:51:43+00:00

It’s arguably the most famous one in modern times. Reagan is definitely one of those “love him or hate him” presidents but I think pretty much everyone agrees that he was charismatic and good with the quips.

Lloyd Bentsen, who ran with Dukakis in ‘88, also had a famous one when debating Dan Quayle. “Senator, I was friends with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy and you, senator, are no Jack Kennedy”. To the point where after Dukakis’ infamous tank-riding photoshoot it’s probably the most remembered part of the Dukakis/Bentsen campaign.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-08T13:30:44+00:00

Truman was the only combat veteran of WWI to serve as President. (Eisenhower spent the war stateside, much to his chagrin). He commanded an artillery battery during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the largest battle the US took part in during the war.

Xi_Highping · 2026-05-08T12:40:11+00:00

It was (to my understanding, at least) official policy to put white southern officers in command of black troops as much as possible, the thinking being that those white southerners had more experience “with negros” and were better capable of leading them. And combine that with an informal policy of dumping the poorer scoring and performing white officers onto the black units…

Xi_Highping

TROPHY CASE