Humor: How the Continental Army Won the Revolution by Taking Over Airports

-

“The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do.” - Donald J. Trump, July 4, 2019
From the newly revised edition of "The British Are Coming," by Rick Atkinson and Donald J. Trump:
General William Howe, commander of the British armies in North America, was flummoxed. One day after Congress approved the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, his spies noticed a buildup of Continental Army forces near La Guardia Airport, a vital gateway to the British transatlantic air bridge from the Mother Country. Writing anxiously to Lord North, Howe fretted that the Rebels' latest endeavors threatened his troops' logistics, especially the all-important ability to resupply by air, and implored the Prime Minister to "send with the utmost of expediency, a squadron of Royal Air Force Harriers, or, better yet, Tornados."
In London, this missive was received with both alarm and incredulity. "My dear General Howe," Lord North wrote in reply to this latest request from New York, "we are sending you everything we can, including Hessian mercenaries and new Brown Bess muskets, but you are asking His Majesty's government to provide you with equipment that will not be available for some time. Please inquire about these newfangled planes in 1985."


July 5, 1776, somewhere on Manhattan Island
Dearest Martha,
Our forces have, after a day's hard fighting, captured George the Third International Airport and destroyed fourscore and seven Royal Air Force Spitfires, as well as a British Airways 747 which was carrying 400 fully-equipped redcoats. It was a costly effort, to be sure, but if the United Colonies of America do form a Republic that lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

Incidentally, I was thinking of renaming this airport Idlewild, but I am open to suggestions.
Your devoted husband,
George Washington
5 July 1776
From William Howe, General Officer in Command, His Majesty's Forces in North America
To His Excellency the King's Chief Minister, Lord North
Sir,
I have been requesting more assistance from the Royal Air Force in our endeavours to bring this accurs'd Rebellion to a felicitous and timely end in favour of Great Britain, but so far my pleas fall on deaf ears. The Americans have captured several of our aerodromes, and the few Spitfires that Fighter Command hath seen fit to dispatch are now in Rebel hands. If the North American Command is denied further air reinforcements, then I foresee the day when we will have to quit our positions on this part of the Empire and treat our rebellious countrymen as an independent power. I fear the worst is yet to come.
I remain, sire,
Your Obdt. Servant,
General William Howe

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's 'It'?

-
Image
How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's It ? It  has been adapted twice for filmed audio-visual media. The first filmed version of  It was a TV limited series; the second was a duology of theatrically-released movies.  The first adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 doorstop of a novel was a 1990 adaptation made as a two-part ABC miniseries for television. Among the cast members: Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, and Richard Thomas. The miniseries also featured Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise the Clown. Adapted for television by director Tommy Lee Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen (who also adapted King’s  Carrie  for director Brian De Palma in 1976),  It  was okay but a watered-down take on the scary novel about a group of friends who must face off against a monstrous entity known as “It” twice. Once as kids in 1960, then again as adults in 1990. (Like  11,22.63,  the TV version of It avoids the year ...
Read more

Talking About 'Band of Brothers' (HBO Miniseries): Why were there no black soldiers in the Band of Brothers TV miniseries?

-
Image
Band of Brothers,  sadly, reflects one of the sad realities of American society in the 1940s - racial segregation in the armed forces. Although there  were  a few all-Negro (as blacks were referred to in those days) units in the U.S. Army and the Army Air Forces that served with distinction in the European Theater of Operations, most black servicemen were assigned to non-combat units in Supply of Services and other support forces. Most of these soldiers were truck drivers, anti-aircraft gunners, barrage balloon handlers, engineers, stevedores, clerks, cooks, corpsmen, and so on. Only late in the war (fall of 1944 and winter/spring 1945) did large numbers of black infantrymen see combat against German forces, and even then they served in all-black units commanded by white officers. © 2001 Home Box Office, Dreamworks SKG, and Play-Tone Pictures The 101st Airborne Division was an all-American unit made up of individuals from many different groups - Easy Company’...
Read more

'The Boy in Striped Pajamas' movie review

-
Image
(C) 2008 Miramax, Heyday Films, BBC Films Writer-director Mark Herman’s 2008 film “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is a faithful but (necessarily) condensed adaptation of John Boyne’s 2007 novel about a German boy, Bruno (Asa Butterfield), who befriends Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), an eight-year-old inmate in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.  Like Boyne’s novel, the film is not a definitive history of the Holocaust. It’s not as graphic or historically accurate as Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic “Schindler’s List,” nor was it intended to be. (Indeed, Herman says in the behind-the-scenes featurette “Friendship Beyond the Fence” that he doesn’t consider “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” to be a “Holocaust film.”) Set in the early 1940s at the height of Nazi Germany’s power, the film follows Bruno on a journey that takes him and his family from Berlin to German-occupied Poland. His father Ralf (David Thewlis) is a newly-promoted SS officer with a new posting: commandant...
Read more