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Ernest A. Janson

Gunnery Sergeant Janson also served under the name Charles F. Hoffman, the name appearing on his Army citation. The practice of awarding two Medals of Honor for the same action is no longer practiced.

Army Citation:
Rank and organization: Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, 49th Company, 5th Regiment, 2d Division, (Name changed to Ernest August Janson, see p. 444. ) Place and date: Near Chateau-Thierry, France, 6 June 1918. Entered service at: Brooklyn, N.Y. Born. 17 August 1878, New York, N.Y. G.O. No.: 34, W.D., 1919. (Also received Navy Medal of Honor. ) Citation: Immediately after the company to which he belonged had reached its objective on Hill 142, several hostile counterattacks were launched against the line before the new position had been consolidated. G/Sgt. Hoffman was attempting to organize a position on the north slope of the hill when he saw 12 of the enemy, armed with 5 light machineguns, crawling toward his group. Giving the alarm, he rushed the hostile detachment, bayoneted the 2 leaders, and forced the others to flee, abandoning their guns. His quick action, initiative, and courage drove the enemy from a position from which they could have swept the hill with machinegun fire and forced the withdrawal of our troops.

Navy Citation:
Rank and organization: Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, 49th Company. (Served under name of Charles F. Hoffman) Born: 17 August 1878, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. (Also received Army Medal of Honor.) Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Chateau-Thierry, France, 6 June 1918. Immediately after the company to which G/Sgt. Janson belonged, had reached its objective on Hill 142, several hostile counterattacks were launched against the line before the new position had been consolidated. G/Sgt. Janson was attempting to organize a position on the north slope of the hill when he saw 12 of the enemy, armed with 5 light machineguns, crawling toward his group. Giving the alarm, he rushed the hostile detachment, bayoneted the 2 leaders, and forced the others to flee, abandoning their guns. His quick action, initiative and courage drove the enemy from a position from which they could have swept the hill with machinegun fire and forced the withdrawal of our troops.

John Lafferty

FIRST AWARD
Rank and organization: Fireman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1842, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 45, December 31, 1864.
Citation:
Served on board the U.S.S. Wyalusing and participated in a plan to destroy the rebel ram Albemarle in Roanoke River, 25 May 1864. Volunteering for the hazardous mission, Lafferty participated in the transfer of two torpedoes across an island swamp and then served as sentry to keep guard of clothes and arms left by other members of the party. After being rejoined by others of the party who had been discovered before the plan could be completed, Lafferty succeeded in returning to the mother ship after spending 24 hours of discomfort in the rain and swamp.

SECOND AWARD
Rank and organization: First Class Fireman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1849, Ireland. Accredited to: California. G.O. No.: 326, October 18, 1884.
Citation:
Serving on board the U.S.S. Alaska at Callao Bay, Peru, September 14, 1881. Following the rupture of the stop-valve chamber on that vessel, Laverty (sic) hauled the fires from under the boiler.

John Cooper

FIRST AWARD
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1832, Ireland. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 45, December 31, 1864.
Citation:
On board the U.S.S. Brooklyn during action against rebel forts and gunboats and with the ram Tennessee, in Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864. Despite severe damage to his ship and the loss of several men on board as enemy fire raked her decks from stem to stern, Cooper fought his gun with skill and courage throughout the furious battle which resulted in the surrender of the prize rebel ram Tennessee and in the damaging and destruction of batteries at Fort Morgan.

SECOND AWARD
G.O. No.: 62, June 29, 1865.
Citation:
Served as quartermaster on Acting Rear Admiral Thatcher‘s staff. During the terrific fire at Mobile, on 26 April 1865, at the risk of being blown to pieces by exploding shells, Cooper advanced through the burning locality, rescued a wounded man from certain death, and bore him on his back to a place of safety.

Thomas Custer

FIRST AWARD
Place and date: At Sailor Creek , Va, April 1865. Date of issue: 26 May 1865. Citation: 2d Lt. Custer leaped his horse over the enemy’s works and captured 2 stands of colors. having his horse shot from under him and receiving a severe wound.

SECOND AWARD
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, Company B, 6th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At Namozine Church, Va., 10 May 1863. Entered service at: Monroe, Mich. Birth: New Rumley, Ohio. Date of issue: 3 May 1865. Second award. Citation: Capture of flag on 10 May 1863.

Note: The citations are taken verbatim from the Army’s Center for Military History. Careful readers will note that the dates of the battles are incorrect in the citations, as explained in the Wikipedia article.

Patrick Mullen

FIRST AWARD
Rank and Organization: Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Entered service at: Baltimore, Md. Birth: Baltimore, Md. G.O. No.: 59, June 22, 1865.
Citation:
Served as boatswain’s mate on board the U.S.S. Wyandank during a boat expedition up Mattox Creek, March 17, 1865. Rendering gallant assistance to his commanding officer, Mullen, lying on his back, loaded the howitzer and then fired so carefully as to kill and wound many rebels, causing their retreat.

SECOND AWARD
G.O. No.: 62, June 29, 1865.
Citation:
Served as boatswain’s mate on board the U.S.S. Don, 1 May 1865. Engaged in picking up the crew of picket launch No. 6, which had swamped. Mullen, seeing an officer who was at that time no longer able to keep up and was below the surface of the water, jumped overboard and brought the officer to the boat, thereby rescuing him from drowning, which brave action entitled him to wear a bar on the medal he had already received at Mattox Creek, 17 March 1865.

The bagel reference is from an episode in The West Wing season 5, where two underlings say the economy is in a recession, and Josh Lyman scolds them – “Call it anything else, just don’t say that word. Call it a bagel.” My implication being that price controls, like any other like-minded government control on freedom, bring about “bagels” that politicians deny responsibility for.

Embrace liberty, it’s the only way we’re getting out of this.

We lost Challenger twenty-six years ago today. I was in third grade. I was in a wedding the day we lost Columbia. Both of them were lost because of the fatal design flaw of placing the human-carrying vehicle next to the explosivey-stuff. In the first case, the explosivey-stuff done blowed up real good and in the second, a piece of the explosivey-stuff tank blew a hole in the human-carrying vehicle.

If, instead of next to the tank, the shuttle sat on top of the tank, with the engines attached to the tank itself, then the Challenger would not have made orbit but might have been saved. Columbia would have returned unharmed with such a configuration.

What does it matter? Not much to the crews and families, but a hell of a lot to engineers of tomorrow’s systems. If we think of how badly things might break, and how they might break, we can envision ways to make them better. Society benefits when engineers are pessimistic about their designs and work to improve them.

I’m making my way through Tim Pat Coogan’s The IRA, which is considered the definitive historical work on the Irish Republican Army. I’m only about a third of the way through it, which corresponds to the late 1940s-early 1950s, but the IRA comes off as a violent but incompetent group that was ineffective in achieving their goal of a united, independent Land of Eire.

The topic first came to my interest after I watched Michael Collins, which ends in the title figure’s death at the hands of the IRA (specifically, Jonathan Rhys Meyers character, so it could be said that Henry VIII killed Michael Collins). Collins had worked out an agreement with Great Britain which amounted to freedom for 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties, the remaining six being the “Northern Counties” dominated by Protestants. The President of the Irish Free State at that time was Eamon de Valera, who opposed the treaty but essentially accepted it once it was ratified. Collins saw it as a step forward, since it gave the 26 counties what amounted to freedom, and had he lived, it is thought that he would have worked towards unification.

The militant opposition coalesced into what we know as the IRA, and began a campaign of violent opposition to the “occupation” of the Northern Counties. This campaign began with a civil war and Collins’ death and eventually fizzled out as the independent militia was crushed between English forces in the North and de Valera’s counterinsurgency in the rest of the country. The IRA was a threat to his rule, and as he saw it, a threat to the stability of the country. He would use them as a political foil when it was useful, but often was at odds with what they were doing. Many of the leaders of the IRA ended up in prison or dead, sometimes through assassination (by both British and Irish opponents) and sometimes through incompetent bomb-makers whose creations went off a bit too soon.

By the time the Nazis rose and war loomed in 1938-39, England was in a tight predicament. They did not want Ireland to fight against England if it came to war, but they also did not want them to sit out, which was de Valera’s preferred tactic. The Nazis wanted Ireland in the fight against England, as did many in the IRA and some in the Irish populace. This isn’t to say that those elements were necessarily pro-Nazi, but merely that they were anti-English and saw an opportunity to unite the country.

Some Irish decided to fight, despite their country’s official neutrality. After the war, these men were blacklisted, and some place blame for this on the Irish government at the time. This clouds the issue though, and ignores some relevant facts.

First, the Irish government, like any other, is a political organization, subject to political considerations and influenced by the people it governs. If it was expedient to blacklist the men who fought for England, then they would be willing to do so. This isn’t to defend them, but merely to explain their actions – they felt justified in blacklisting the men because they felt they would suffer no repercussions from the populace.

Second, accusing the Irish government of being pro-Nazi (as some do) ignores the good that was done for the Allied cause by de Valera’s government during the conflict. Flyers who were downed over Ireland either went to prison or they were returned to their country of loyalty. But the crux of the matter is that, according to Coogan, only British flyers were returned to the fight – Luftwaffe aircrews were detained. In one case, a group of British flyers were collected, driven north to the border with the six counties, and left alone as they crossed over. Now, people can quibble over whether or not Ireland was truly neutral, or whether they should have fought against the Nazis, but actions like that were much more beneficial to the Allies than to the Nazis.

Some people don’t understand the depth of the Irish hatred for the British; it is not easily extinguished or dimmed simply because there was a war on. They also confuse the actions of the IRA, which according to some sources ineptly tried to get the Nazis to invade Ireland, with the actions of the Irish Government. The two are not the same. The IRA was and is an independent militia, organized against the ruling government in favor of a government that rules all 32 counties, not just the Catholic 26 in the South. The Republic of Ireland is an internationally recognized government, able then as now to decide its level of involvement in foreign wars.

As I said, I’m only about a third of the way through the book, but it is an interesting read. It gives needed perspective for a conflict that runs even longer than the past century.

Now that’s an elephant gun, though you might do to the elephant what a .30-06 would do to a squirrel. Hat tip: The Firearm Blog.

Jennifer is going through Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and recently told me she wants to read more about Karl Barth (pronounced Bart). A quick read of the Wikipedia article produced this gem of a quote. When he refused to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler in 1935, he

… then returned to his native Switzerland (home of the phrase, Ein Schweizer, sieben Deutsche – MSM), where he assumed a chair in systematic theology at the University of Basel. In the course of his appointment he was required to answer a routine question asked of all Swiss civil servants: whether he supported the national defense. His answer was, “Yes, especially on the northern border!”

The impetus for his exodus was the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which he wrote and personally mailed to Der Midget mit dem Moustache, declaring that no, the church would not switch the cross of Christ for the crooked cross and call it all copacetic. From Jennifer’s book, we learn this little joy:

The principal author of the Barmen Confession was Karl Barth, who claimed to have produced the final version “fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars.”

Something tells me his sermons were full of both snark and conviction.