|
Post by AZ Ranger on Dec 14, 2014 8:34:54 GMT -6
My great grandfather was an engineer of the AT&SF. He covered the distance between Ash Fork, Arizona and Needles, California. At one there was a train book in Scotty's Castle and it was opened to the page where there was a picture of my g grandfather. It said Jackson didn't know a curve when he saw one. He held the record for steam locomotive at the time for that route. I had his retirement certificate in my office he had worked 33 years and 10 months with the railroad.
Regards
AZ Ranger
|
|
|
Post by chris on Dec 18, 2014 18:38:00 GMT -6
Fred, I read the posts about "sophistry" on the other board. The poster you replied to needs another dictionary. Anyone with an open mind can read no deceit in your work. True you challenge Gray's work but only in terms of accuracy.
Best, c.
|
|
|
Post by montrose on Dec 18, 2014 19:18:54 GMT -6
Fred was accused of being anti Gray. I think we have all read Gray, no one who seriously researches this battle can avoid Gray. Gray was an amateur whose hobby was LBH. He had great enthusiasm for the subject, similar to Gordon Harper.
There are problems with Gray's work. He worked theory to fact, while Fred went fact to theory. This means that Gray cherry picked data, keeping the ones that supported his theory, tossing out the ones that did not. Read his hundreds of measurement justification arguments (MJAs).
Gray was a man of strong emotions. His views on principals is very much saint or devil. If he liked you , you could no wrong. If he didn't like you every decision and act you made was wrong, and he expressed strong emotional contempt. Military history does not work that way. You have to understand the military decision making process, and judge actors within those parameters. I believe Fred does an excellent job staying neutral.
(Sidebar: I have this image of Kathy Bates from Waterboy: Crook was the devil. Benteen was the devil. Reno was the devil.)
Logistics is completely over Gray's head. is writings clearly show he had no understanding on how logistics effect military operations. Given the nature of the 1876 lines of communication; this is a major failing.
Fred's work picks up from Gray, and improves it. I believe Fred in his books and on these boards has shown great admiration for Gray's work; that it is where he started.
Gray's work is a major milestone in the history of LBH. I think it is a must read. But Fred improved the story immensely.
|
|
|
Post by montrose on Dec 18, 2014 19:38:59 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Dec 18, 2014 21:40:25 GMT -6
1. It hasn't been possible for me to give Fred's book the attention it deserves, but this will ease soon because experts and their computers assure me it will. Yet, somehow, doubt remains. However....... 2. Montrose: What would be an example of this: "Logistics is completely over Gray's head?" From this site: www.kshs.org/p/veterinary-service-on-custer-s-last-campaign/13275 (corrected 1219) "Dr. John S. Gray is a native of Chicago with a B.S. degree from Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., and Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago. He retired to Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1974 after 24 years as chairman of the physiology department of the Northwestern medical school." I don't think much was over his head. If you haven't read that monograph on vet services to the 7th, it's of interest. 3. And to revive my old complaint: what was sop in our lifetime bears little resemblance to what it was in 1876. People react much the same, but how they remember their reactions is based on the mental tools their time and cultures provide. If we don't understand their time and culture enough to at least recognize differences and the outlines of those templates, then we're at sea. Which is a clever segue. Thank you, yes, it was. Tip the waitress..... Regarding record keeping during naval action: "I am an awful cynic about these things; I mean, logging the signals is the sort of thing you do afterwards and by that time you make it up - on the line of "My God, if I don't get something in here, I'm going to be in trouble!" If you immediately zing on the records of Godfrey and others in their day and how this might reflect upon them, that's logical. Logging signals in battle is keeping record of orders/directions/instructions given by the command and is very important when history is written, as well as the secondary* concern of winning the battle and living to write about it. Of course, there were incompetent ne'er do wells in every outfit, and this confession clearly damns the writer as one of them. Oh, wait..... This was written by Royal Navy Rear Admiral Royer Dick, a veteran of naval battles at the Falklands, Jutland, and Matapan. Probably vaguely competent and with enough courage to be honest. Here's more: "Dick entered the Royal Navy in 1914, following an education at both Osborne and Dartmouth Royal Naval Colleges. As a Midshipman, Dick saw action at the Battle of the Falklands, Jutland and at Archangel in North Russia. Dick was promoted to Lieutenant in 1918, Commander in 1933 and Captain in 1940, serving as Deputy Chief of Staff, Mediterranean Station (Matapan), 1940-42. Then as Commodore, was Chief of Staff to Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Mediterranean Station, 1942-44. After the war, Dick served as the Captain of HMS Belfast, 1944-46, before taking several land-based positions, including Director, Tactical and Staff duties, Admiralty, 1947-48 and Chief of Staff to Flag Officer, Western Europe, 1948-50, before his promotion to Rear-Admiral. Dick was then Naval ADC to the King for one year, after which he served as Flag Officer, Training Squadron, 1951-52, before being offered the NATO post of Standing Group Liason Officer to North Atlantic Council, which he held for three years, before retiring in 1955." I think he qualifies as a source. Since careers were at risk by the supposed written record, and people blamed for deaths because of those records, this was and is not a minor issue. How long after, and how many conferences were held to get a common story together for official histories, isn't mentioned. Probably because, at that time and in battle, the following issues prevailed. SOMEtimes directions and orders were given, heard, remembered and recorded based on true north, and sometimes on magnetic north. At Jutland, there was a 14 degree difference. See the issue? During those years, ancient commands no longer relevant were retained for "tradition", which is to say based upon a bloody tiller and not a ship's wheel. With a tiller pushed all the way to starboard, the vessel hopefully turns left. But culture change was in motion. So when a command was made, what the officer giving the officer meant, the helmsman heard, the ship did, and the historian recorded could be confusing. For example, the Titanic, after the berg was sighted, featured a command to the helm for "starboard" when they needed to turn to port, which is correct 'tiller speak.' No evidence, but if the helmsmen made a brief error and it was corrected, would it make it into the log if the berg was not hit? Maybe not. The British battlecruisers paraded in a circle during the battle by error and the admiral responsible tried to erase it from history. If there were errors, and there were, they were rarely if ever recorded even though corrections were made to indicate a smooth transition rather than the Hokey Pokey the ship may have danced for a moment. The language was changing as well. Some of the "Fighting Instructions" in the transitional years to the dreadnoughts and after had issues. "Primary" and "secondary" might mean in one context something completely different from another in naval talk. To Admiral Tryon, primary didn't mean "more important", but "elementary." *"Secondary" did not mean "subordinate to" but "more advanced." And, perhaps, readers of the time were okay with that and understood. How about today's researchers? There's multitudes of these issues. So, what did I mean in my use of secondary denoted by * and directing you to this paragraph from the 8th? This was well into the 20th century and more or less cheerfully admitted by Dick and others. But at the LBH, although it is not syllogistic, there are decided similarities. Apparently, we can somehow nail the exact time based upon time pieces less than chronometers by mere serious study when we don't have agreement on what geographic time zone's opinion they were initially, and laughably, to keep together. Again, my inability to credit precise detail that appears for the first time decades after the event over confusing contemporary accounts is based on this fear of not admitted ignorance. People tried to meld stories as courtesy and ease even above cya. Not just Indians. Ward Churchill was a pain in Boulder long ago, and he really screwed up the university, which in any case itself lied and brought out the worst in administrators and others.
|
|
|
Post by Mike Powell on Dec 21, 2014 15:59:29 GMT -6
"Ward Churchill was a pain in Boulder long ago, and he really screwed up the university, which in any case itself lied and brought out the worst in administrators and others."
DC,
Isn't this somewhat cart before horse? How was Ward Churchill able to find entry and employment, indeed I believe tenure, at an "un-screwed" up place? Was he so devilishly influential as to induce falsehood among clear-headed innocents? I thought he was only an ordinary louse upon a body that probably was in need of a good bath before he arrived.
Secondly, I haven't discussed Jutland in too long and would ask for a more specific about Beatty steaming in circles. About when or about where would help me evaluate.
Both these questions I'm posing seem off this topic of Fred's fine book so perhaps we might carry on below if you're interested? I'd be happy to open new threads if that would suit.
In case we don't speak again before the holiday, I wish you a Merry Christmas and I hope all is well with you.
Mike
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Dec 21, 2014 17:37:27 GMT -6
mp,
A University is a huge thing, and CU has much good (law, medicine, physics, history, music) and a few real bad. When it was decided to start an Ethnic Studies Department (?) they called up a lecturer - who had probably got that job by lying, claiming to be an Indian by blood - to be department head with neither the academic nor ethical credentials. Churchill was imposing, 6'7" and a good actor playing a role he himself wrote. There are all sorts of rumors, many with minimal backup but some near surely true, about how he charmed his way into that position. So: yes, that was a horrible screw up. Today, there's been a scandal in the Philosophy Department that's as ugly and hard to know what's true or not. The Regents were more interested in winning at football during those years, and some of them had never even attended a college. Then some lied about their degrees and resumes. Inspiring, all of it.
Football was the worst scandal, though. For different reasons it remains a scandal today.
But Churchill wasn't nailed for anything except his contention that 9-11 was our due for our past and somehow deserved. It's now admitted by everyone that he had the right to say it, but he's a real arrogant SOB whose corruptions had bubbled for a while and they used that as the reason to get rid of him, later amended to more relevant issues. Administrators and state politicians competed to be the most patriotic supporter of God and Country and some of them, including one governor, lied outright and had to walk stuff back. Churchill had been in the military, something many of his critics had not, which was embarrassing.
EVERYone wanted him gone, but for favored reasons that either were not valid or true. In the end, when everything else failed, the truth was reluctantly trotted out and he was fired. It continued to cost time and money because he took them to court and everything was in the press again, but he lost with some iffy reasoning. He should never have been hired, and I myself do not understand the point of an Ethnic Studies Department. History and Sociology ought to have covered it.
I never mentioned Beatty, so the fact you know it involved him is sort of odd. A more specific what? Gordon and others have the records from the ships and the observations from participants. Page 456 passim of ROTG. If Beatty hadn't made such a fuss about denying it happened, nobody would care. But the officers on Lion wrote it up and New Zealand kept her logs accurate despite apparent suggestions from above to rewrite them.
|
|
|
Post by mac on Dec 21, 2014 18:14:25 GMT -6
With respect to the timings in Fred's book. My view is that the actual greenwich mean times for incidents are not so relevant as the relative times. Those who insist on second perfect times will always be disappointed. In my view what Fred has done is create sensible well researched and justified times and importantly married these with extensive on site measurements and actual route riding to create consistent relative times for events in various places. The beauty and importance of this is that it allows us to see what the timing relationships were between the various parts of the action. This is far more imporatant than some silly argument about what was actually showing on some watch. Comparing his timelines adds a whole new dimension to understanding the flow of this battle. It is the timing sequence and the temporal relationship of events that matters. Calling the end time on LSH as 3:43 or 4:40 is immaterial! It is the sequence of events and their time relationships that matter! Cheers
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Dec 21, 2014 18:49:35 GMT -6
My first interactions with Fred were over my concern he was, at one time, more interested in proving Gray wrong, than anything else. Over a decade back, now. Haven't read his whole book but I'm taking notes as I go through it.
My consistent fears about any Custer book:
1. Concentration on unknowable detail and the overspecific is often a cover for insufficient substance. Some re-enactors know everything about the uniform warp and weave and colors but, essentially, not a damn thing about the events they sometimes celebrate. Ergo, propping up a re-ennactor as an authority may or may not be true beyond the duds.
2. The best info we have does not make it, somehow, 'enough.'
3. You cannot take accounts made right after the battle and dilute them to accounts with 'new' detail that appear for the first time decades later. Boston did not meet Martin, for example. If they had met, Martin would have recalled and told many people before the RCOI, where Lee would have been ecstatic to dwell upon it.
4. As late as the era of Admiral Dick, records of navigation in battle at sea (and on land, I believe can be assumed)can be totally made up. Diaries and journals with dates for the week of the battle may have been written much later. Godfrey's was.
5. The mental world was so different up to WWII that it is hard to credit, admit, or understand that the standards of children's literature and fantasy works warped the thinking of adults and the military. Men in the trenches found solace in, and quoted, juvenile nonsense Harry Potter would have blanched at. Equating sports with war and effort for success and incompetence for adventure was the hallmark of British literature and much of our own. It was important to die correctly and in eyes of Honour and God and King Arthur, it didn't matter if you failed trying. The thing is, it does matter, and the ones who realize that are often the ones sacrificed so most of us can continue living that fantasy. Winning badly or whatever they considered dishonorably was far worse than losing. In sports, yes.
Not in war.
|
|
|
Post by Mike Powell on Dec 21, 2014 23:41:31 GMT -6
DC,
Just call it a lucky guess from context that it would be Beatty. Don't own ROTG; library doesn't have it. Is this something that impacted the battle?
Mike
|
|
|
Post by fred on Dec 22, 2014 7:46:22 GMT -6
DC, My first interactions with Fred were over my concern he was, at one time, more interested in proving Gray wrong, than anything else. You and I have discussed this on many occasions. I never set out to prove Gray wrong. In fact, all my notes and documents are set up using his times, with mine as an add-on of sorts. I found inconsistencies, however, in his work and I could never reconcile those inconsistencies with virtually every account I read. It became extremely frustrating to me, and somewhere in there I made the determination that unless we know the correct time events occurred-- as near as possible-- we could never truly and fully understanding the battle and in inter-action of its main components, including people. So I determined to do my own work. I reject Gray's timing analysis, but the goal was never to prove him wrong and me right; the goal was to seek a much closer understanding based on what the participants said. I believe I have achieved that. The rejection of Gray's time analysis is an after-effect. I agree with you 100%. I doubt you will find any of this in the book, and if you do, i. e., the "simulation" notations in the timeline source notes, they have been explained in the Preface, and are my version of "re-enacting." I agree again. That is why I set up everything as probabilities... those infamous "percentages." We agree, yet disagree here. An omission, inserted at a later date, is not dilution; it is simply detail not called for in the earlier RCOI proceedings. Martini's claim of getting nearer and nearer to the battle, each claim being made at later and later dates, is. Best wishes and Merry Christmas, DC... Fred.
|
|
|
Post by fred on Dec 22, 2014 7:56:22 GMT -6
With respect to the timings in Fred's book. My view is that the actual greenwich mean times for incidents are not so relevant as the relative times. Exactly!! Those who rely on minute-specific times are foolish and in my opinion generally have some sort of agenda that specificity fits into. You will also notice that when "relative" times fit their agenda, they revert. Best wishes and Merry Christmas, Fred.
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Dec 22, 2014 10:33:19 GMT -6
MP,
In that anything in a battle like that has some impact, I'd suppose then yes. Gordon points out that it actually worked out well and brought the bc's back in with the battle line. The problem is - Gordon goes into specifics - it was not ordered nor intended, Lion's helm was in the hands of someone not in the ship's chain of command during the turn, and because it looked like nobody was paying attention (possible)it dissed Beatty, who would have none of that. He tried to explain it as a series of orders nobody somehow recorded, then denied it happened, and became lost in the miasma of stuff after the battle. Lion leading, the others followed, and those ships kept records as well.
I reference Jutland because even though 40 years later in another nation's war, and at sea, many of the same issues remain in recording such events events with accuracy. That Jutland is all bungled, arguably, doesn't speak to the accuracy of the pen in the hands of 7th officers and men 40 years previous. The Germans were no better. After claiming victory, not without reason, Admiral Raeder later admitted that Scheer had only the foggiest idea what was happening during the fight, and his some of his orders really cannot be explained to this day. Only in the middle of the battle did the Germans realize the Grand Fleet was at sea, Scheer had his T crossed twice, and it was clear the Germans could not defeat the British at sea, ever, with a surface battle. That could never be admitted to the public after the huge expense for the Navy, so it was patted into shape. Beatty, though, had lost two bc's and a third on its way to join him and his shooting stunk, and he was beaten bad by Hipper. Jellicoe won the fight without pointlessly risking the fleet, war, and nation.
Custer pointlessly risked the 7th. Like the British, but on a much smaller scale, he only had to prevent the Indians from their normal existence as the Brits only had to maintain the fleet to wage the blockade to win their war. Although, it was such a trivial affair it didn't even matter if they won battles or were wiped out. But that mindset conflicted with all the romantic and juvenile literature and assumptions in the media about the point and benefit of combat and wars.
|
|
|
Post by Yan Taylor on Dec 30, 2014 8:45:41 GMT -6
I am really enjoying Fred’s book, not only does Fred write as if he is sat in front of you explaining things to you, but he has little snip bits on nearly every page that surprize you, the first one what jumped out at me was “Tullocks creek” Terry could have moved through this area if he knew that it was clear, and GAC should have scouting it, this avenue may have allowed him to reach the valley around the same time as Custer, imagine thought of Terry joining up with the 7th and then attacking together.
Ian.
|
|
|
Post by fred on Feb 4, 2015 11:24:35 GMT -6
I am posting this—to all you, my “sheep”—in a semi-response to a post by the latest moron next door. And then people wonder why I left those boards!! Let me state this first: while I have issues with “robb/vben” the man at least is intelligent and it seems quite well-read. So far—and I have collected all his posts, including those he deleted—his posts are more concentrated on my style than any substance. To me, that is a picayune critique—annoying, certainly, especially when it goes public like an Amazon review—but I can understand.
Guys like this are my worst nightmare—I’m sure he will be happy to hear that!!—because it is people like him who should never be reading that book: they have no understanding of what is written. None. This is true, serious, unfettered stupidity. Here is what he wrote, aside from the general insults he aimed here: “sheep” “herd,” “adoring fans,” etc. He accuses me of “hid[ing] from those who seek to challenge his work and conclusions,” which is an interesting comment since so far, no one has. Maybe the closest was “vben’s” comment on Amazon about Mary Adams, but that was so silly it was hardly a challenge… and certainly nothing this guy has put up is challenging, other than maybe trying to understand his semi-literate writing.
He accuses me of being a “weasel.” OK… I can deal with that, though I might think my “aggressive writing style,” my challenging others to think, and my willingness over the years to go head-to-head with idiots like him might belie that pejorative. And like so many others who cannot support their accusations and claims, he says “a study beginning from the Reno/Custer split shows colossal cracks in the work and that is why the author is in his burrow.” Well then, why doesn’t our boy point them out? Where are they? I guess I can answer that myself: they are in his mind because they do not agree with his own opinions.
Then we have his outright lies: I put down other authors, “such as Gray.” Maybe he didn’t read what I wrote or how I praised John Gray except for his timeline. And who are all these other “authors,” I would like to know? He also criticizes my omission of discussing Reno’s retreat, but it seems to me I mentioned that early-on in discussing the purpose of the book, something which clearly went over this clown’s enfeebled mind. You can then see his agenda quite clearly: “fit the model - Custer to blame for everything, Reno/Benteen & Co without flaw…” Ah-ha! Agenda!! Now we know!! Yet don’t I say something about “blame” in there? It seems to me this guy reads about as well as he writes: 3rd-grade level. He also claims I “cherry picked witness statements to fit & justify conclusions. Concrete Evidence & fact that doesnt fit is disgarded.” I guess he missed the various comparisons, the weighing of various comments, the supporting footnotes and documents… he must have overlooked all that stuff. Yet he provides no examples, does he, fellow sheep? I did notice AZ took care of this guy’s “robb” and “Clair” claims, so I won’t bother with that.
The best, however, comes last: “This book will not stand up to serious scutiny.” (I guess he meant “scrutiny”…?) Suddenly, we have Nostradamus here!! But this too, I can deal with. For me, the people I like and respect have felt the book is important and well-done, and if some feel my writing is too aggressive, well, that’s me. Deal with it. I have never been a wishy-washy person and contrary to this clown’s belief, not quite the weasel he would like to label me.
And then you have this: people wonder why I left those boards….
Best wishes, Fred.
|
|