Beech Tree News Network

I knew words and phrases were much used in our own U.S. Military after World War I.  I don’t know about before then.  Perhaps they were.  I do know there was a Civil War saying among the soldiers: “Have you seen the elephant yet?”  This meant, “Have you been in battle – have you seen fighting yet?”  This had the connotation that once you had been to the circus and seen an elephant, you were never the same person after that; you were forever changed.
    In World War II the German had an artillery shell dubbed; “The daring cutter”. It exploded before hitting the ground, cutting down everything around for several feet. If you weren’t in a hole you were cut down too.  The U.S. Navy in World War II introduced a small ship called an LST.  This stood for “Landing ship tank”.  It had very tall vertical doors in its bow.  It could come upon-to a beach and unload tanks, trucks, and various assortments of other vehicle and supplies.  Why it couldn’t just as well have been called a “landing ship truck?” but the Navy didn’t ask me.  During World War II the military came out with a small vehicle called a G.P. (general personnel).  This later became JEEP. One of my grandbabies called it a (“JEET”).  Then there were outsight coder-some of which combat soldier came –up with on their own.  In the early 1950’s during the Korean War, country music star, Hawk Snow, had a big hit called, “I’m moving on”.
    In combat when a unit was ready to move-out, the man in charge would say, “On your feet, we’re pulling a Hawk Snow.”  There was a highly-serious, important Japanese code naval intelligence needed to break after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Admiral Chester Nimitz and the top braise at Command Pacific Headquarters at Pearl suspected that the Japanese were going to try to block shipping out of Pearl Harbor toward the islands of the South Pacific.  Our Navy occupied Midway Island, half way between Pearl Harbor and the nearest enemy- held islands.  They weren’t sure what the Japanese code name for midway was. So the Navy intelligence people at Pacific Headquarters in Honolulu devised a ruse, they broadcast an uncoded message in the open that the fresh water system at our Naval base at midway was on the blink. The Japanese heard it and took the bait.  A couple of days later our people at Pearl intercepted a message from the enemy that (code word for midway) was having water trouble.  Our people at Pearl had heard the code name the enemy had used before- but were unsure which island they were talking about, now we were sure, at the naval battle of midway the Japanese were soundly defeated, and never again ruled the skies over the Pacific.
                                Kindest regards…..