Finally in the gunnery service! / Glory be to the University

Ive lived a long life so far. When I was young, did I ever think I'd kiss a girl - or have, you know, several different Loves through the different layers Ive lived? See the Sox win the World Series? Be not a PhD but instead an MS /MA and teaching in a high school instead of having grad seminars on .... farming in 17th century England? Or - ready - smell and look like Dad (Ugg those nose and ear hairs I have)?

Nah.

And if someone ever told me I'd become obsessed - if only for 6m or so - with the strategic bombing offensives of World War One (I mean really - those rickety giant biplane bombers or Zeppelins?- gahh!!) I woulda ... well, I disbelieve y.

What I grew up with naval history style was the Pacific War in WW2 - and that's about all. Midway, Coral Sea, The various naval battles off of Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, Wake Island, the Philippines ... less known were the Battle of Java Sea or the Sinking of Force Z and etc -

And never would I have believed that the naval war from 1914-1918 would become one of my major touchstones in my life. Really. You should see my FB posts - almost all revolve around my imaginary naval side, where Hilts still serves on ships shelling coastal towns - or on the ships that chased these raiders.

But that freshman year of university I discovered heaven - the University Library. The branches around where I grew up - the smallish one on 61st and Kedzie, and the two storefront ones on 55th and Mozart and 63d and Pulaski only had so many books - and there was no such thing as 'inter library loan' back then for em. In HS i would take trips downtown to one of the bigger libraries - but @ that time the books were bweing switched and held for the upcoming Harold Washington main library in the Loop.

So when me little freshie first wandered all aloft over these unending vats of wonderbooks in the Loyola collection - I was thundersmashed. College, man - opens up to everything - or at least opens us up for the possibility of whatever thing it is. For me? Women, of course. Scholarship. New frenz. A regular hanger out on the North side. Women. Music. Philosophy. Women. Women. and etc...

And the Loyola Lib opened up me to all sorts of different warfare for the first time ever - and, like the spheres above, I took it all in and and just ran as if I was Walter Payton - stiff arm, jump over the line, pull up for a touchdown pass, etc etc etc...

The two main interests of that first freshman year - just that year, not what followed - were the Russian Front and the Naval War 1914-1918. Now's not the time for Russia - though I'm waiting to finsih Erickson still. But the months of massive farming of the stacks, extracting interesting new worlds for me to live in. The slite book - not very interesting in itself, but it was the trigger - that kicked it off was Hough's Dreadnought: a History of the Modern Battleship. Less than 200p candy, I became obsessed. Knowledge begat hunger for more, and I went to the top rite away - Arthur J. Marders 3000p in five volumes history of the Royal Navy from 1906 to 1919. It took forevr to read - young me ate books belligerently back then -but 3000p when I was reading 65 other books @ the smae time was ok.

Expansion. it all went from there. Books on Dogger Bank. Books on battlecruiser design. Books on British naval actions in the Pacific. From zero to 1916 in so many seconds. This is an occurrence that happens to us all - no nod and wink to the reader from Hilts on just how kool Hilts is because HE likes battlecruisers and you do not - but then it became the obsession. Everything became naval. Bruces song "Glory Days"? The refrain became the much more kooler "Jel- li - Coe", a nod to the Admiral of the Grand Fleet John Jellicoe. We went Joh Denver as well - "Star shells/ on my port bow/ makes me happy/ star shells/ on my port bow/ always made me sad."

And the Lansing Five. One of our major areanas of devience for years was in roofing roofs laden with bursting bulges of water ballolons ready to lay a pattern on whoever was our target that nite. For example, the bestus of all targets was when our St. Rita HS had danses - because the kids, wanting to extend the nite after the danse had ended, presented them selves to us - waiting and waiting and waiting, hidden up 70 feet on the roof of the buildings they had to walk by - in long straggling groups, each group seperated by a block or two. What we would do - of course - was hammer them with a double salvo of ballons exactly when they were in our sites.

But the thing was was that all our terms were naval terms from WW1. Boys were classified "Dreadnaughts". Girls were labeled "Battlecruisers". The term salvo also is naval culled. We'd have a ballon in each hand - rite when the kids would cross the killing zone, we'd salvo one ballon from each of us in a very high arc, and then instantly switch the other ballon iinto our throwing hand and toss in faster and in a lower arc. The idea was that all 8 or 10 or 12 ballons would fall @ once - and , of course, what we wanted was a "straddle" .

What's a straddle? here, from someone who wrote about it lovingly wheneverwaybackwhat?:

Gunnery:
There is the age old naval gunnery practice of "over/under". Thinking of warfare especially in the Dreadnought era - lets say, 1900 -1945 (before effective gunnery radar, that is), ships in a surface action would have to hit a moving target from several miles away. This wasn't just a moving target; it was a cutting, speeding, turning, maneuvering target -albeit one that can take a bit to turn, but moving none the less. And the ship that is trying to hit it - itself is wildely speeding and maneuvering to avoid being hit from the other side.

The firing system back then consisted of zeroing in on the other ship bit by bit until they 'found the range'. This meant that guys w/ super Zeiss binoculars and 20/20 vision, way up in the crows nest @ the beginning of the battle, wouls find the approximate range of the target. They would compute the range and speed of the target with atmospheric conditions and the movement of ewinf\d and their own ship and 50 million other variables into a primitive computer (In ww2- not sure in ww1). The computer spat out a target area, and then half of the ships main battery would fire.

Wait 40-60 seconds. Then observe the shell splashes. Almost always - wait, always - there were corrections to be made. If the shells fell short, the binocaulared men would be able to spot that and ask for -say =400 yards more ranger. If long, take off 400 yards. Fire again and wait.

Then, finally, something called a straddle was achieved - range was found and the target was either hit or water columns from the exploding shells would rise up to either side of the target. The range had been found. It was now that the firing ship "Opened fire/ fire @ will" until range was lost. then; repeat.

So, in reality we would just wait for the kids to cross in front of us - we really didn't need to 'find the range' - but the idea of hitting them with a double salvo borrows itself enough from Jutland to justify ... well, I'll write about what I want.

Jutland was one of the deep expressions of study I pursued in university. But Jutland went only so far. Readings on Coronel and Falklands. Then studying th epredreadnaught era - Marder wrote two kick ass books on that period. Then tracing the Dreadnaughts into World War 2 and beyond. I'm actually a pacifist - though my interests are most weaponly - but always interested is I in the last few dreadnaughts in commision - in our time, even - the WW2 Iowa class battleships that fought in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and Iraq.

And then the great change. Jutland eventually had to share me with warfare of the NApoloenic era - Admiral Fischer's (the great proponent of dreadnaughts over predreadnaughts) career had to be digested, and HIS OBSESSIOON with Hortaio Nelson begat mine. From musing on Jellicoe's great decision on deploying to either port or starboard deleved into the understanding of the vast differences 100 years wrought in naval warfare - think of the immense amount of time betwixt the convergence of the English fleet witht he French and Spanish @ Trafalgar juxtaposed w/ the mad dash of the English and German fleets @ Jutland. You know, Collinwood on the deck munching on an apple with the enemy spread out before them.

Again, bit deal. We all go through phases. The was the role of infantry in 2002. Linear warfare (think American Revolution and Civil War and Napoleon) in the years folowwing 1994. Strategic bombing when - 1999?? All cycles. And Jutland would rise again. There was Campbells An analysis of the fighting at Jutland or somehting like that, which was a book dedicated to catalouging each and every hit on a British ship - so, the book consists of deeply boring item after item such as

"...the shell hit admidships 27 yeards to the stern of the fourth 5 inch secondary gun onnthe post side. It penetrated the armour to the depth of 7 inches before the shell richocted into a holding box filled with rags. This caught fire @ 1517h, to which the firefighters took 20m to put out..." Rreally, shit like that.(this was totally madeup, but it's a taste).

However, Jutland lives with me still. When I accidently discoved that instead of signing into DCS blog to leave a comment I'd actually invented Securityout!, the first post ever for Hilts that came to mind was ... those shells richocheting off inches of armour.