Seventy Years Ago: Pacific Fleet Carriers

December, 1942, the US Navy's force of aircraft carriers was depleted. Of the seven carriers in service at the time of Pearl Harbor, only USS Ranger, smallest and slowest of the seven, remained undamaged. She was also the only one of the seven serving in the Atlantic Fleet.

The Pacific Fleet had lost Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp. That left only Saratoga, twice torpedoed and repaired and Enterprise, damaged at the Battle of Coral Sea,and bombed six times later in the year.

Relief was at hand.

USS Essex, prototype of a newer, more powerful class of carriers, was to be commissioned in two days - December 31, 1942. Two weeks later, USS Independence, prototype of a smaller carrier built on a cruiser hull, was to be commissioned. Independence carried fewer aircraft, but was as fast as the larger Enterprise and Saratoga.

There would be nine new Independence class carriers in service by the end of 1943, almost one a month entering service. Only one, USS Princeton, was sunk in combat.

But the backbone of the Pacific Fleet was to be the Essex class. Thirty-two were ordered. Twenty-four were completed by war's end.None was lost in combat.

Seventy Years Ago: Women Auxiliary Territorial Service

On the home front in the US, women were tending their victory gardens, saving tin cans, riveting aircraft together and such like. In the U.K., it turns out some young women were drafted into various auxiliary services. This included manning antiaircraft artillery.

Some gave their lives. Here is one story.

Seventy Years Ago: "I'll Be Home For Christmas"

My father left home in February, 1942. He had just returned to Tallahassee from the Carolina Maneuvers on December 5, 1941, two days before Pearl Harbor. By March he had been transferred to Mobile, Alabama to prepare for overseas movement. We didn't see him for over three years.

He missed three Christmases with his family. He was gone "for the duration" as we said it in those days. No one ever finished the phrase: duration of what?

A lot of fathers, brothers, sons, and even daughters missed a lot of Christmases in those years. We were all in it together.

"I'll be home for Christmas," one popular song put it. After dragging the story line out, the song closed "If only in my dreams."

Today we have soldiers who keep going back into combat. In 1942, it may have been a long time at the front, but usually only once. Today, the tours are shorter, but repeated.

We have had soldiers and marines in Afghanistan for twelve Christmases. Three times as long as World War II.

Don't forget our troops. It's time to bring them home.

Christmas Gift!

In former times, across much of America, the expected greeting on Christmas morning was "Christmas Gift!" This was true especially in the South, but also in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. The Dictionary of American Regional English provides details.

I never heard it used myself, but learned about it in the mid-40's from a book a great aunt gave me: Miss Minerva And William Green Hill. The book was written around 1900 by a Memphis schoolteacher, and described a child's life in Southeast Missouri.

The effect of greeting someone with "Christmas Gift!" was not unlike "Trick or Treat!" That is, the person greeted had to give a gift to the person who first uttered the phrase as a greeting. My father, born in 1915, remembered the custom from the 1920's. It had fallen into disuse by the time I lived in Mississippi in the 1940's, replaced by "Merry Christmas" as a greeting.

But the game of catching the other person first and thereby getting a present, had disappeared.

Christmas Gift!

Good Guys And Bad Guys

I'm always a little uneasy when I hear young soldiers talking about "good guys" and "bad guys." How, I wonder, do they tell the difference, especially in someone else's civil war. Our guys weren't very good at it in Viet Nam, though I remember the time an airborne spotter called off a gunfire mission. He could tell the villagers weren't acting like bad guys.

All of us who grew up watching cowboy movies could easily tell the good guys from the bad guys. Good guys wore white hats and light-colored clothing. They were straight talkers.

Bad guys not only wore black hats, they sneered and bullied people.

Back in the 1950's, John Steinbeck wrote an essay about good guys and bad guys. He described the conventions of the cowboy movie in great detail. It was his young son who decoded the art form for him.

During the Army-McCarthy hearings, he asked his son if he had watched the hearings on television. He had. Could the son tell who was the bad guy? Yes. McCarthy was the bad guy. He wasn't clean-shaven and he sneered at people and bullied them.

Watching Congressional Republicans on TV, I think they didn't get Steinbeck's memo. Most of them seem clean-shaven enough, but they haven't dropped the sneering and bullying.

Fiscal Cliff Hanger

I say, again: we have a persistent economic crisis, but right now that crisis is jobs, not deficit. The deficit is a consequence, not a cause of job loss.

The looming 'fiscal cliff" is itself a consequence of a disastrous agreement last year to persuade Republicans not to throw the country into renewed, deep recession by refusing to raise the debt limit - essentially refusing to pay our bills.

No one disputes that, in the long run, we must reduce deficits. Reduce them back to the levels of the last two years of the Clinton administration.

But first we have to put people back to work. But Republican obstructionists don't want the economy to succeed. They will continue to obstruct economic progress.

At the state level, further obstruction will proceed apace in every state whose government is dominated by Republicans. We are about to enter that category here in North Carolina.

I don't make this stuff up, but I do read a lot of what is said by the best economists.

One of the economists I follow is Jared Bernstein. He's a very clear writer and thinker. Today he examines the question of what the last year has taught us about economic beliefs that have not served us well. Here's his summary.

Valentina Lisitsa - Concert Star

Marvelous concert this evening at Oriental's Old Theater. World class pianist Valentina Lisitsa played Rachmaninov, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Shubert, Liszt. Absolutely virtuoso playing. Marvelous acoustics in the old movie theater. Attendees treated to Champagne afterward and a DVD viewing of Valentina's recording session with the London Symphony Orchestra.

 A cause to celebrate.

An Economist's Take On Guns

It's hard these days to have a rational conversation about guns. We mostly seem to share views with those who share our views. I have posted a couple of things on my facebook page, and mostly don't hear anything from my gun nut enthusiast friends.

But here are some thoughts by an economist: http://newmonetarism.blogspot.com/2012/12/guns.html

I'm not sure what I think about his ideas, but guns are certainly a good example of economic externalities. A Pigouvian tax? Interesting idea. Maybe liability insurance as a practical way to implement the idea. It works (mostly) with cars.