Battlefield Chronicles: The Christmas Truce of 1914

During World War I, in the bitter winter of 1914, on the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever.

All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the "no man's land" between them came songs from the British and French troops. Incredibly, many of the Germans, who had worked in England before the war, were able to speak good enough English to propose a "Christmas" truce.

A spontaneous truce resulted. Soldiers left their trenches, meeting in the middle in fortified trenches to shake hands. The first order of business was to bury the dead who had been previously unreachable because of the conflict. Then, they exchanged gifts: chocolate cake, cognac, postcards, newspapers, tobacco. In a few places, along the trenches, soldiers exchanged rifles for soccer balls and began to play soccer in the snow.

According to Stanley Weintraub, who wrote about this event in his book, "Silent Night," "Signboards arose up and down the trenches in a variety of shapes. They were usually in English, or - from the Germans - in fractured English. Rightly, the Germans assumed that the other side could not read traditional gothic lettering and that few English understood spoken German. 'YOU NO FIGHT, WE NO FIGHT' was the most frequently employed German message. Some British units improvised 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' banners and waited for a response. More placards on both sides popped up."

Rare photo shows German soldiers of the 134th Saxon Regiment and British soldiers of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment meeting in "no man's land" on December 26, 1914.

Its truce didn't last forever. In fact, some of the generals didn't like it at all and commanded their troops to resume shooting at each other. After all, they were in a war. Soldiers eventually did resume shooting at each other. But for a few precious moments, there was peace on earth goodwill toward men. There's something about Christmas that changes people. It happened over 2000 years ago in a little town called Bethlehem. It's been happening over and over again down through the years of time.

Although the Christmas Truce of 1914 may seem like a distant myth to those now at arms in parts of the world where vast cultural differences between combatants make such an occurrence impossible, it remains a symbol of hope to those who believe that a recognition of our common humanity may someday reverse the maxim that "Peace is harder to make than war."

A reenactment on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM

America's First Park Rangers

Early in 1851, during the frenzy of the California Gold Rush, an armed group of white men were scouting the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They called themselves the Mariposa Battalion. They were searching for Indians, intent on driving the natives from their homelands and onto reservations when they stumbled upon an area of awe-inspiring beauty, later to be known as Yosemite. It was this discovery of Yosemite that set into motion events that would lead to the U.S. Congress proclaiming it a national park in October 1890, as it had done several weeks earlier for Sequoia and Yellowstone in March 1872. However, it had made no provision for an authority to oversee them. Instead, it required the U.S. Army to patrol and protect federal lands, making them, in essence, America's first national park rangers.

It was a mammoth task for the Army to patrol the millions of acres of no man's land on horseback. While they did their best to stop poachers and vandals, the soldiers had no authority to punish offenders. No laws had been defined, and so the wrongdoers were only issued warnings or, in severe cases, expelled from the parks. Nevertheless, the presence of these soldiers as official stewards of park lands brought some sense of law and order to the mountain wilderness.

Protecting the park was also dangerous work. In the frigid winter season, cavalrymen on skis patrolled for poachers. Conditions were often treacherous; soldiers died in avalanches and snowstorms, or were killed by poachers.

Among these earliest stewards were four segregated black army regiments formed just after the Civil War and sent west to fight in the "Indian Wars."  Native Americans living on the plains called them "Buffalo Soldiers." They saw a resemblance between their dark, curly hair and the matted cushion between the horns of the buffalo. It has also been written that the Cheyenne called them "Buffalo Soldier" because their fierce, brave nature reminded them of the way buffalos fought. Whatever the reason, the term was used respectfully and with honor.


Many of the African-American troops of the 24th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry were also veterans of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War in which they were called "Smoked Yankees."

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, these units were consistently assigned to the harshest and most desolate posts. They were sent to subdue Mexican revolutionaries, outlaws, Comancheros, rustlers, and hostile Native Americans. They also explored and mapped the Southwest and established frontier outposts that would become future towns and cities.

Even though the Buffalo Soldiers wore the uniform of the U.S. Army, their ethnicity combined with the racial prejudice of the time made the performance of their duties quite challenging. In the early 1900s, African-Americans were routinely abused, or even killed, for the slightest perceived offense. They occupied one of the lowest rungs of the social ladder, a fact which served to undercut the authority of any black man who served in any position of power. Yosemite and Sequoia's Buffalo Soldiers had to be simultaneously strong and diplomatic to fulfill the duties of their job but to avoid giving offense.

Although officers were mostly Euro-American, an exception to this was Charles Young, the third African-American graduate of the U.S. military academy at West Point. He served as the acting military superintendent of Sequoia National Park in 1903. Although his tenure was brief, it was groundbreaking. Young is considered by some to be the first African-American superintendent of a national park as well as the first black military attache, first black to achieve the rank of Colonel, and highest-ranking black officer in the United States Army until his death in 1922.

Most of the men under Young's command in Sequoia, as well as the 9th Cavalry soldiers serving in Yosemite, were war veterans, but service in the Sierra brought about an astonishing change in geography and function for these battle-weary men.

Their duties included confiscating firearms as well as curbing poaching of the park's wildlife, suppressing wildfires, ending illegal grazing of livestock on federal lands, and stopping thefts of timber and other natural objects. They oversaw the construction of roads, trails, and other infrastructure.

Their accomplishments included the completion of the first usable road into Giant Forest and the first trail to the top of Mt. Whitney (the tallest peak in the contiguous United States) in Sequoia National Park in 1903; and the building of an arboretum in Yosemite National Park near the south fork of the Merced River in 1904. One scholar considered the latter area to contain the first marked nature trail in the national park system. Thus, an integral part of that history played by the 500 Buffalo Soldiers, comprising eight troops of cavalry and one company of Infantry, will no longer be forgotten. Their noteworthy accomplishments were made despite the added burden of racism.

Soldiers from the 25th Infantry, referred to at the time as a "crack black regiment," were famously called in during the Great Fire of 1910 - the same year Glacier National Park was established - to fight the largest blazes. The forest fires raged over 2,000 square miles of northern Idaho and western Montana and consumed more than 100,000 acres of park forests, killing 70 people and destroying timber worth $13 billion.

In 1914, civilian employees of the Department of the Interior replaced the Army in administration and protection of Yosemite National Park, thus ending the U.S. Army's role as the official administrator of Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. Between 1891 and 1913, the U.S. Army helped create a model for park management as we know it today.

Hollywood Illusionists Hide Aircraft Factories

In February 1942, U.S. Navy personnel tracked a Japanese submarine lurking just outside of San Francisco. A few nights later, a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara and fired a few shells at an oil storage facility. With the memories of December 7th, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor still fresh, the threat of a Japanese invasion seemed more than possible, perhaps likely.  

Fear of further Japanese attacks on vital installations along the Pacific coast, the War Department ordered the implementation of 'passive defense measures,' which included the use of cover, concealment, camouflage, and deception. The man selected to oversee this arduous task was Col. John F. Ohmer, a pioneer in camouflage, deception, and misdirection techniques. At the time, he commanded a camouflage training center at March Field east of Los Angeles.

Ohmer visited England during the Battle of Britain in late 1940 when the full force of the Luftwaffe was attempting to bring England to her knees. He witnessed first-hand how carefully made, and positioned camouflage could be used.  The camouflage caused the Luftwaffe to waste thousands of tons of bombs on empty fields.

With the help of scenic designers, painters, art directors, landscape artists, animators, carpenters, lighting experts, and prop men from major movie studios, Colonel Ohmer began the task of disguising key factories and assembly plants that would be likely targets for a Japanese assault on the Pacific Coast. Facilities included the Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach and the Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant in Burbank.

As you can see in the top photo, Lockheed-Vega would have made a fairly obvious target.  But after the illusionists finished their magic, it looked like a nice, friendly neighborhood, as shown in the bottom photo.

The Lockheed-Vega plant was fully hidden beneath a complete suburb replete with rubber automobiles and peaceful rural neighborhood scenes painted on canvas. Hundreds of fake trees and shrubs were positioned to give the entire area a three-dimensional appearance.

The entire factory was covered with a huge burlap tarpaulin, painted to resemble a rural landscape. On top of this were placed fake trees made from chicken wire covered in chicken feathers and then painted. There were even fake rubber cars and mock buildings. Air ducts for the bustling factory beneath were disguised as fire hydrants on empty streets. But the Hollywood illusionists knew that the scene couldn't look too inanimate.

Maintaining the illusion of a neighborhood required careful timing and planning. The suburb had to show signs of life and activity. To do this, workers occasionally emerged to relocate automobiles, and through hidden trap doors in the canopy, appeared to take walks on hidden catwalks and pretended to do maintenance work. Flights over camouflaged areas tested positively as pilots were unable to identify the bases, factories, and plants.

Thirty-four military air bases were also camouflaged, including March Field.  This sometimes involved creating decoy airbases with aircraft made of canvas scraps, ration boxes, and burlap on chicken wire as well as flattened tin cans dominated the landscape. None of these aircraft looked real up close but looked great from a distance. Fake runways were made by burning grassy strips.

Soon orders came from other areas of the U.S. In Seattle, the gigantic 26-acre Boeing Aircraft complex ordered the same treatment, blanketing the plant under netting, disguising the area as a suburb complete with municipal buildings, parks, schools, and homes.

As the war continued, the threat of the Japanese invasion seemed unlikely, especially after the U.S. Navy dealt a crippling blow to the Japanese carrier task force at Midway Island. Eventually, the camouflage would be removed, but had the Japanese ever mounted an aerial attack; it would have been fascinating to see if the camouflage netting would have proved successful.

Grunt's Challenge To An Army Gunship Pilot

In 1970, I was Company Commander of Charlie Company, 2/503d, 173rd Airborne Brigade operating out of LZ English near Bong Son in northern III Corps. At that time, we carried out our "Search and Destroy" missions with relatively small size elements. Additional responsibility was to provide the firebase with the company's mortar section. About midway through my command time, I took R&R to Australia.

The afternoon before I was to arrive at the in-country R&R center, I got a hop on a Huey to Lane Army Air Field near Qui Nhon. One of the units flying out of Lane AAF was the 61st AHC (Assault Helicopter Company), which supported the 173rd Airborne Brigade.  

That night I had a few drinks with some of the pilots I knew when one of the gunship pilots started bitching about how slow the guys on the ground were. He said they just plodded, and they could not wait around some times. I quietly told him that if he and other pilots felt "grunts" were too slow, maybe they should come out to the field and visit. "Get a feel for the life of a field soldier," I added. That ended that exchange, and we continued other conversations. The next morning I was off to the in-country R&R Processing Center and soon boarded a plane for the "land down under" where I had a great, carefree holiday.

Once it was over, I returned to Vietnam and resumed the command of my troops. A few days later we got a resupply and surprise-surprise, one of the gunship pilots jumped off. He had accepted my "challenge" and come for a visit.

I took him up on the base and started a VIP tour. He had only been there for a few minutes when I got a call to immediately take a platoon and reinforce a Cavalry troop in contact. I called to alert the 1st Platoon Leader to get his men ready, then called by headquarter crew telling them the same.    

During the prep, I told the Weapons Platoon Sergeant to get a rifle, some web gear with canteens, and two bandoleers of ammo. He quickly returned with the gear which I handed to the surprised pilot. I told him the best way to learn why we were so slow was to see us in action. He was going with us. I put him under the care of the company medic and my artillery FO.  Within minutes were picked up on our LZ and linked up with the first platoon enroute.  

We landed in a valley in the Tiger Mountains with a lot of grass fires going filling the air with dense smoke with the action up a steep hill. The temperature was near 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity equal. Not a nice day.

We assembled, and I made radio contact with the Cav. We organized a scheme of maneuver, and I gave the troops a quick operations order. We formed up and started up the hill.  

We moved up, made some contact, and had a lot of close air support from the cobras the Cav had called in. As we continued the attack, the NVA were giving ground at first. As we got closer to the top of the hill, we heard a Soviet 12.7 - 108 mm heavy machine gun working. It got into a duel with a cobra, and we held up while the cobra engaged. It was quite close as frags from the rockets were rattling in the trees. The gun shut up, and we were going to drive on when we got a call on the radio.  

Stop the advance, pull back, and move to the LZ to be picked up for a return to our AO. Apparently, the crisis had ended, and we were no longer needed.

We moved down and assembled into chopper loads. As we waited, I got another call. We had a Ranger team in the An Lao Valley that was in heavy contact and being pursued. I got the leaders together and gave a brief order explaining what we were to do and how we would do it. Just then, the first Huey started to arrive. Our guest, a CWO 2 who was built much like a fireplug and trained by setting on his ass, came to me and said, "I can't do it. I will bring the rifle and gear back tomorrow, but I can't go with you. I will never ever, ever bitch again about how slow you guys move." I reminded him he was carrying a really light load, so what was his problem. The reply was basically that he knew that, but he had never really understood what a grunt had to face.  

The choppers arrived, we boarded, and off we went less one gunship pilot.  

I might add that I ran into him once when I went to visit some wounded, and I was unable to buy a drink!

Wounded American Vets Experience SCUBA

SCUBA diving has been a lifelong passion of mine. I started SCUBA while stationed with the 374TAW at Clark AB, RPI, in the 1980s. It is one of the most relaxing activities I've ever been able to enjoy.  

Recently I was heard about a new program called WAVES, which stands for Wounded American Vets Experience SCUBA. Intrigued by such a concept, I wanted to learn more.

WAVES started when Steve Rubin and Jon Schumacher were talking one day. Jon is a former Marine who lost both legs and most of his left hand while on a dismounted patrol in Afghanistan. While patrolling a tree line, he stepped on and triggered an IED. During the conversation, Jon found out that Steve is a PADI SCUBA instructor and commented on how he would like to try SCUBA.  

Steve began the research into what teaching SCUBA to a disabled vet really entailed. Soon he and several other instructors and dive masters traveled out to Denver to meet with instructors from the Handicap SCUBA Association (HSA). The team completed the training to become HSA Instructors, Dive Masters, and HSA Dive Buddies.

After meeting Steve and Jon, I became involved in the WAVES Project. I set out to learn as much about the therapy as I could, which was thoroughly studied by neurologists from Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger's International Center for Spinal Cord Injury. They conducted a small trial study with ten vets in the Cayman Islands. The study showed amazing results after only four days and ten dives. The participants in the study we're all veterans who had become paralyzed during their service and who also suffer from PTSD. The results were nothing short of miraculous. One hundred percent of the study participants showed an improvement in neurologic function. The improvement is equal to what would normally be expected after 6-12 months of task-based rehab. The same participants also showed an 80% - 100% reduction in PTSD symptoms during final examinations at the close of the study 6 weeks after diving proving, to some degree, that the physiological and psychological benefits of SCUBA are real and measurable.    

The physiological results of the Johns Hopkins study on SCUBA and spinal cord injuries so surprised the doctors involved that they are working hard to understand why it worked so well. Another study at Hopkins supports the use of hyperbaric oxygen treatment for wound care, as well as many other injuries. Being underwater at depth provides many of the same benefits as the much more expensive hyperbaric oxygen treatments found at hospitals.  

Using SCUBA to help with PTSD is less of a mystery. SCUBA presents the diver with an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand you're weightless, in a very relaxing environment, "looking at all the cool stuff." On the other hand, it's a very task loaded activity. As a diver, you must control your breathing, monitor buoyancy, and watch out for your buddy. You have to keep an eye out (in a fully 3D environment by the way) to make sure you don't inadvertently touch something and injure it, or conversely, touch something and injure yourself. Our divers tell me that the task loading is similar to that of a combat situation, but without the fear.  

When you confine someone, who has been a fully able-bodied person to a wheelchair, you take away a level of freedom they have been used to all their life. One diver tells it this way. One of the study divers says, "When I'm in my chair, I can't go across this field, that gravel, or that beach. On SCUBA, I am just like everyone else in the water. I can go anywhere I want, when I want and am not constrained." Having the ability, even if only temporarily, to be just like everyone else, is an excellent boost to the vet's self-esteem.  

However, more studies are being conducted to better understand the effect it has on veterans suffering from PTSD or traumatic brain injury (TBI) as well as those who are paralyzed or have suffered amputations.  

The first class of the WAVES Project was in April 2014, with the first student in the first class being Jon Schumacher. Since that first class, WAVES has certified over 30 divers and their buddies. The divers represent all five service branches. Unlike many veterans support groups, we don't limit our outreach to only Post 911 Vets, the tours of duty of our divers range from Afghanistan and Iraq to Vietnam.

Diving is a social sport, and all divers are supposed to dive with a buddy. Those with a disability typically have a higher reliance on their dive buddy than normal. The dive buddy can be a spouse or longtime friend because we all know, the families and friends of wounded vets are affected in some part by the injury. Caring for those who are physically disabled, or are suffering from PTSD, carries its own level of stress. This stress, if not managed well, can cause irreparable damage to the family unit. WAVES believes that by including the buddy in the program at no cost, they are helping the whole family, not just the vet.

WAVES provides all the instruction, course materials, equipment, boat fees, etc. to the vet and their dive buddy at no cost. Even though local dive stores donate rental gear for participants and the instructors have donated their time, the cost is still about $800.

With Steve Rubin continuing to enlist the help of a few friends and contacts in the local business community, the group has continued to expand as more and more people are volunteering their time and skills. As more vets work their way through the program, many of them stay with WAVES and help spread the word about the great work that is being done.  

Our criteria is pretty simple; if you were injured during the line of duty, we would like to help.

Number one question or statement we hear is, "I don't have use of my legs, I'm confined to a wheelchair, and I can't swim, and you want me to think about SCUBA." Because of the affiliation with the HSA, virtually no one needs to be excluded. If a vet is disabled to the point that they can't do all the skills required by PADI (the world's leading scuba diver training organization), WAVES has the option to certify with HSA instead. HSA has three levels of certification available to divers with disabilities. As long as the vet can be made comfortable in the water, they are a candidate for WAVES. Photo is former Marine buddies Nico and Brendon, ready for open water class dive number 4.

If you know of a wounded vet who might benefit from our program, please have them reach out to our site and fill in an application. Currently, we're serving southern California (soon in Maryland), but we welcome applications from all over the nation. It helps us understand where we need to add more WAVES chapters.

If you are a SCUBA professional or know of one who might be interested in helping, please reach out to Steve Rubin. If you're not in southern California, we're working on expanding our reach via regional chapters.

Steve's Email:   steve@wavesproject.com

Our limiting factor for reaching as many vets as we can is funding.  Government support is overwhelmed; we need to step up and help our fellow brothers-in-arms. If you feel this is a worthwhile cause, please consider a donation. Every dollar helps. Many people have found it easiest to set up an automatic monthly donation of $5.  

www.WavesProject.org/Donate

WAVES Project is a federal 501 c3 non-profit organization, so your donations are tax-deductible. Our goal is that 90% of our donations go directly to getting vets into the water.

If you would like more information on the WAVES Project, please see our site.  

www.WavesProject.org

Thanks for helping a wounded warrior reach the water.

Steve Moss is a former member of the US Air Force. I was stationed with the 9th MAS and 436th MAW at Dover AFB, DE, and 374th TAW at Clark AB, RPI.

When not writing bios and blog articles for the WAVES Project, Steve is the Director of Custom Application Development for a major semiconductor manufacturer in southern California.
 

Military Myths and Legends: Legion of the United States

When the 13 American Colonies initially began resisting Britain, they had no organized military. Individual states fielded militias and troops, but a unified military was lacking. In part, this was a result of wary attitudes among many members of the public who did not support the idea of an organized military force acting on behalf of all of the colonies. The Continental Congress also shared this view.  

After a few defeats, however, the Continental Congress reluctantly established the Continental Army as a unified means for the colonies to fight Great Britain. Officially established on June 14, 1775, George Washington was named its commander in chief. But unconditional support was missing.  The Continental Congress came up with an inadequate and, in retrospect, a foolish requirement where each of the then-colonies were to send men and to supply and pay those men. Since few colonies were able to meet these requirements, the Continental Army was often inadequately supplied with food, clothing, and other materials.

What was not lacking, however, was the spirit to succeed along with an interesting blend of traditional and well-established military tactics and innovations shown by members of the Continental Army. While it often struggled against the more highly trained and organized British troops in open battle, Continental forces were not above using guerrilla tactics to harry the British. It subverted traditional ideas about how wars should be fought, relying on knowledge of the terrain and creativity to fight the British, rather than attempting to overpower British forces by conventional means. Inconsistent organization within the British military forces was exploited by Continental troops.

Though there were many defeats, there were also enough successes for the United States to win its bid for independence. After the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 to end the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers, still suspicious of standing armies and believing that the militia would be suited to all the nation's defensive needs, they disbanded the Continental Army. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. 

However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The Regular Army was at first very small, and after General St. Clair's defeat at the Battle of the Wabash, the Regular Army was reorganized in 1791 as the Legion of the United States.

St. Clair's Defeat also known as the Battle of the Wabash, the Battle of Wabash River or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, was fought on November 4, 1791, in the Northwest Territory between the United States and the Western Confederacy of American Indians, as part of the Northwest Indian War. It was a major American Indian victory and remains the greatest defeat of the United States Army by American Indians; of the 1,000 officers and men that St. Clair led into battle, only 24 escaped unharmed.

The defeat of St. Clair, whose forces were drawn principally from state militias, caused a shift in thinking. President Washington picked his old lieutenant, General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, to lead a new professional army. At the recommendation of Secretary of War Henry Knox, it was decided to recruit and train a "Legion of the United States" that would combine all land combat arms of the day (cavalry, heavy and light infantry, artillery) into one efficient brigade-sized force divisible into stand-alone combined arms teams. Congress agreed with this proposal and agreed to augment the small standing army until "the United States shall be at peace with the Indian tribes."

Eventually, the need for a standing Army was realized by congress, and in 1789, the United States Army was established.