In my 5 April entry, I mentioned the USS Cony in the North Atlantic. The Cony was a DDE, a Fletcher Class WWII destroyer that had been refitted for ASW work. See Roger Reiman's great website, www.usscony.com. In WWII. Cony had five five inch single gun turrets. To make her into a 1950's DDE, she got a new sonar and fire control system, the #2 turret was replaced by a weapon able (a gadget that projected a large explosive charge that would go off when it got near a submarine), and #3 and #4 turrets were replaced by antiaircraft 3 inch guns and director. The topside torpedo projector was replaced by a guided torpedo system enclosed in the deck housing. The hedgehogs were still there but the depth charge racks were removed.

The main reason for the weapon able was that depth charges dropped off the stern, combined with the turbulence caused by the ship's screws, would create an area where a submarine could not be detected. Projecting a large charge out ahead from the weapon able and a ring of small charges for the hedgehog meant that there were no explosions unless the charge hit or came close to the sub. And the ship could turn so that the target was kept out of the screw noise.

An ASW exercise for DesRon 28 usually meant using one of our diesel subs as a target. It would try to penetrate the area. We would try to either “attack” it using cement filled dummy projectiles or hold it down until it ran out of air and had to surface. There was a line of sonar stations along the Atlantic coast that would detect that a sub was out there somewhere. Usually the aircraft would pick it up first with sonobouys they could drop into the water. Then the four destroyers would converge on the spot. Two would circle the target in an inner attack circle and two in a larger circle to watch for it to escape. The two in the inner circle would alternate swooping in to attack. The dummy projectiles and torpedoes had a small charge inside them so if the destroyer's got a “hit”, the sub could hear that go off. Someone said that the four destroyers plus the aircraft from the carrier had about a 50-50 chance of success. If we won, the sub would hear the charge in the dummy go off. One time, a sub had a hedgehog stuck in its tower.

Russian submarines did appear every so often. They would try to get past us and we would try to hold them down until their air was gone.

Despite Krushev's shoe banging, it was pretty much a game with the Russian boats. One of them was held down and had to come up for air. There was an exchange of greetings and it went on its merry way.

Nuclear boats meant a whole new plan, however. They could go past us like we were standing still. They were very noisy back then but it made little difference. The Cony quickly became obsolete, decommisioned in 1969, sunk in a gator gunnery exercise in 1970.

Today is one of my favorite memorials. On this date in 1865, in Appomattox, Virginia, the treaty between Lee and Grant that ended the Civil War was signed. Thanks to the Brittania alert on my Yahoo home page for the reminder.

The main reason it is one of my favorites is that it pretty much ended the whole thing. Unlike so many civil wars and uprisings – Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq – that continued for generations, centuries. (See my 22 January, 2007 entry) True, there was lots of hard feelings and difficulties after Appomattox, but things could have gone a lot worse than they did.

The first hero of that event was President Lincoln.”With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” The South was not to be plundered and the war was over.

The second hero was General Grant. I am not a real student of all of this, but I like Bruce Catton's description of him. In his dirty corporal's blouse, as much a shining knight as any. He told Lee to send his men back to their homes and farms with a “parole” not to fight again. Grant fought the politicians to keep Lee and other generals from punishment. The war was over.

The next is Marse Robert, General Lee. Lee did not leave the Union Army to fight for the South, he came to Virginia because it had been invaded. Another name for the Civil War is the War of Northern Aggression. The South wanted to live peacefully by itself but the North invaded it. (See my 17 January, 2007 entry) The Constitution does not say anything about states not having the right to secede. Not that it was right to have slaves nor right to break up the United States nor that the Articles of Confederation were better (another name for the Civil War is the War for States Rights). And the outcome of the war was generally for the good of us all. But a common view of Virginians at that time was to fight for their state and their homes. When some of Lee's officers wanted to just drift off into the hills after Appomattox and continue the battle as guerilla fighters, Lee told them “Our cause is lost.”. The purpose was not to fight the Yankees but to preserve the rights of the states. And the war was over.

After Appomattox, General Sherman still faced General Johnston in North Carolina. They are the next heroes. Johnston disbanded his army with the same instructions as did Lee. No guerilla warfare, go home. Sherman paroled them, letting them take their guns and mules. He even gave the Southern states permission to keep their governments and their militias. And the war was over.

And, 142 years after Appomattox, the war is over.

A couple of days ago, there was a horrible accident in the local (Norfolk, VA) news. Two high school girls were sitting in their car waiting for a red light when they were hit from behind by a speeding car. The car was driven by an inebrated illegal alien with a list of DUI and alcohol offenses as long as your arm. Both of the girls were killed. The news has been full of the families and friends and the heartbreaking story.

Yesterday, Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera had a very vocal discussion of the incident (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264526,00.html). I felt sorry for Geraldo, a lot of typical O'Reilly attack and bullying. Lots of ranting and raving by O'Reilly. He accused Geraldo and the Mayor of the City of Virginia Beach of being unAmerican, terrorists, and negligent in allowing this to happen. O'Reilly has a list of “sanctuary cities”. Virginia Beach was not on the list but probably will be now. I sort of agree with the general immigration idea, that more needs to be done by a lot of levels of government (mostly the Federal level). Geraldo and the Mayor and Virginia Beach certainly do not deserve the blunt of O'Reilly's vituperations, however. Well, Geraldo, maybe.

We think of news media - papers, magazines, TV – as there to tell us the news. Bull hockey, I tell you, bull hockey! They are a commercial venture whose goal is to make money, mostly by increasing their viewership so they can up their advertising prices. See my 22 March, 2007, entry. CNN leans pretty much toward actually giving us news. That is what their viewers watch for. Fox leans defintely in the entertainment direction, however. That is what they do for their viewers. Like 24 hours a day of Anna Nicole? Incidently, I refuse to watch Fox “News”. And I refuse to recognize O'Reilly as a contributor to a news channel.

There has been a rash of ranting and raving on TV recently. Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump, and now Bill O'Reilly. On O'Reilly's web page (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264526,00.html), his feud with O'Donnell is one of the headline links. And, of course, these vociferous battles make lots of news (And blogs. Here am I caving in to their efforts to get publicity.). Are we watching reality or are we just being manipulated for these buzzards to pick apart our wallets? I, for one, refuse to put these entertainers into any category other than that. They are not giving me any information that I need or want. Nor any entertainment I want or need.

I had a recent communication with another blogger (http://watchingtheparade.blogstream.com/) in which I mentioned my first duty in the U.S. Navy. Those formative years when we are wild and wooly seem to loom large in our memories. That first duty in 1958 was a WWII Fletcher Class destroyer, the USS Cony, DDE 508 (http://www.usscony.com) that had been refitted for Cold War anti-submarine warfare(ASW). Roger Rieman has done a great job with that Cony website. Everyone ought to surf through it. Cony was part of a lot of history and Roger has anecdotes for all of it. At 377 feet and 2000 tons, Fletcher Class destroyers are dwarfed by modern ships. Modern Coontz Class destroyers are 512 feet long and 6000 tons.

The Cony was part of what in the late 1950's was called Task Force Alpha. Our squadron would go out to Point Pete in the Atlantic with a carrier and some of our subs (that was Task Force Alpha), winter and summer, calm or storm. We would be on station for two weeks and then be replaced by Task Force Bravo, and then back again to replace them. The point was that we would be in position to intercept Russian submarines should they try to approach. No boomers yet. The early Cold War. We spent our time doing ASW exercises, plane guarding the carrier aircraft, and just plain survivng in the North Atlantic. At that point, we had a couple of nuclear boats but most submarines were diesel pig-boats.

Survivng in the North Atlantic in a smallish sort of ship is an event in itself. I can remember the Cony crawling up one side of a wave. The screws straining to push it up the mountain of water. At the top, the sonar would be out of water and we could hear it scream. Then down the other side. The flat bottom of the bow would slam against the water as she fell forward. As the screws came up out of the water, they would race in the air. And then at the bottom, green water looming overhead and washing over the bridge. We ate sandwiches and drank coffee. Eating at a table was impossible. Normal sleeping meant ending up on the floor. I spread myself out face down on my bunk with my arms and legs spread-eagled as much as I could to keep my center of gravity as low as possible and to hold on in my sleep as best I could. No one ventured outside unless there was an emergency and then only with safety lines. And we survived. Cony did not lose anyone. Mother Nature is a cruel, mean bitch and we beat her.

Plane guarding meant being stationed close in front of and behind the carrier in case an aircraft had to go down in takeoff or landing.

We would replenish our fuel and supplies by high-lining. That meant steaming about ten or twenty feet beside the carrier or a huge transport and pass oil, supplies, people across suspended by a rope. And the ships had to go fast for better stability. Water would race and boil between the ships. I highlined to the carrier one time to go home when our Dan was born. It is a memorable event. The Bos'n thought it amusing to almost dunk the new JG. Great seamanship, no spills and no accidents.

And the ASW. Today's blog is already long. Come back in a day or so.

According to my Yahoo home page and the link to Britannica's “This Day in History”, “On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law George C. Marshall's post World War II plan to revive the economies of western and southern European countries so as to foster democracy in the region.” The birth of the Marshall Plan.

Truman is one of my heroes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman). It used to be (they are redoing it) that when you go to the American History Museum, you could vote for your favorite President. I always voted for Harry. The end of WWII, the atom bomb, integration of the Armed Forces, the United Nations, the Cold War (which we won), the Berlin Airlift, doing what he thought best despite political pressures, lots of momentous decisions. “The buck stops here.” But most of all, the Marshall Plan.

And another of the things that defines our world, the differences between the end of World War I (The War to End All Wars) and the end of WWII. In a lot of aspects, WWI did not end, it just continued on to erupt twenty years later. The end of WWI in the Treaty of Versailles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles) and, for the Germans, the train car in Compeigne Forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compi%C3%A8gne_Forest) was a 19th Century dinosaur used to get revenge in a 20th Century civilization. It did not work.

It has been fifty years and WWII seems to be pretty well settled. President Truman and General Marshall seem to have gotten it right. They may have had fighting Communism as one of their motives but they ended up making the best (lasting peace) of a bad situation (a horrible and devastating war – 70 nations involved and 71 million deaths - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II).

I was born in 1936 and I remember it all. How many folks of the generations born after WWII know of this momentous undertaking that has affected their lives so much? How many citizens of those countries that we poured so much of our treasure into know of all of this?