Greatest generation

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[Ringo]

Lou Conter, the last survivor of the battleship USS Arizona, which exploded and sank during the Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor, has passed away. He was 102 years old.
Conter was quartermaster and was standing on the main deck of the Arizona when Japanese planes attacked the battleship at 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7.
After Pearl Harbor, Conter entered flight school to fly PBY patrol bombers, which the Navy used to search for submarines and bomb enemy targets. He flew 200 combat sorties in the Pacific as a member of the Black Cat Squadron, which performed dive bombing missions at night in aircraft painted black.
Conter retired in 1967 after 28 years in the Navy.
With Conter's death, there were 19 survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor (according to Kathleen Farley, chairman of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors). According to a rough estimate by military historian J. Michael Wenger, there were about 87,000 troops on Oahu on December 7.

 

[Ringo]

During World War II, American sociologists conducted a large study of their army personnel (VERY large: 600,000 interviews alone).
The results are still actively used in the social sciences and humanities - and we at Stalag null have referred to them more than once.
But what is truly instructive about this study is not even the data itself.
It is the extent to which this data goes against stereotypes and basic expectations of reality .
For the purity of the experiment: read the statements below, and determine which ones are true and which ones are false.

1. Soldiers with higher education were more likely to exhibit symptoms of neurotic disorders than soldiers with less education.

2. Rural residents endured the hardships of military service more easily than urban residents.

3. Soldiers from southern states endured the hot climate of the Pacific Islands more easily .

4. White soldiers had a stronger desire to move up (=get an officer's rank) than black soldiers .

5. Soldiers had a stronger desire to return home while the war was going on, than after Germany was defeated

All of these theses seem intuitively obvious to a person in the first half of the twentieth century .
Of course, intellectual people are less stable mentally - like the ordinary guys on the street who have never heard of any neuroses .
Of course, Southerners have it easier in hot climates .
Of course blacks don't seek promotions because they don't expect to get them anyway (you know what society is like) .

Why even research and test such basic things?

But here's the rub: every single one of these claims is wrong, and what's more, studies have shown that in practice things are exactly the opposite .

Southerners suffered in tropical climates just as much as Northerners.
Poorly educated soldiers were more likely to suffer from neuroses (NB: “neurosis” at the time referred to PTSD, for example) than soldiers with higher education.
Blacks were more likely to seek promotion than whites.
Etc, etc., etc.
In general, when studying people and society, whether in the present or the past, “self-evident” assumptions should be checked first.

What at first glance seems perfectly logical and natural - not requiring study at all - may work quite differently in practice.

 

[Litwin]

Lou Conter, the last survivor of the battleship USS Arizona, which exploded and sank during the Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor, has passed away. He was 102 years old.
Conter was quartermaster and was standing on the main deck of the Arizona when Japanese planes attacked the battleship at 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7.
After Pearl Harbor, Conter entered flight school to fly PBY patrol bombers, which the Navy used to search for submarines and bomb enemy targets. He flew 200 combat sorties in the Pacific as a member of the Black Cat Squadron, which performed dive bombing missions at night in aircraft painted black.
Conter retired in 1967 after 28 years in the Navy.
With Conter's death, there were 19 survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor (according to Kathleen Farley, chairman of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors). According to a rough estimate by military historian J. Michael Wenger, there were about 87,000 troops on Oahu on December 7.

SAVE THIS PICTURE on your computer ivan

 

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Alexander Tikhomirov, Nikolai Ilyin. The feat of petty officer Lysenko. 1968

The picture is painted in gloomy colors - it makes one feel the inhuman tension, the hero's last suicide effort. Ivan Lysenko was indeed a strongman: before the war he took part in the USSR championships in weightlifting and won prizes. It was in the spring of 1943. The Red Army was liberating the Polar Region. The reconnaissance detachment of the Northern Fleet was breaking through to the town of Pechenga. There were fierce battles.

The commander of the detachment, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Viktor Nikolaevich Leonov, recalled:

"A fascist battery protected by a powerful wire fence appeared in front of us. The enemy opened fire. A decisive throw was necessary. I give the command: "Whoever can, but everyone be on the battery."
Next to me was a communist Ivan Lysenko. Noticing my intentions, he shouted: "Commander, you can't go over the wire, you'll die, I'll lift you up now!"

I jumped over the wire and did not see what Lysenko was doing. The scouts later told me that Ivan threw his jacket over his head, climbed up under the cross-wire, tore it out of the ground and, hefting it on his shoulders, stood up to his full height, letting his comrades into the battery. Bullets, one after another, dug into the body of the strong man, and, weakening, Ivan whispered:

• Faster, there is no more strength.
• Be patient a little, Ivan, there is not much left, - asked one of the scouts.
• Then help me, otherwise I will fall.

Next to Ivan Lysenko stood senior lieutenant Alexei Lupov. They let all the scouts on the enemy battery and fell next to each other. Alexei Lupov died immediately, and Ivan Lysenko, having received 21 bullet wounds, still lived.
When the battle on the battery was over, I approached Ivan, and the first question he asked me was:

• How was the task?
• Fulfilled, Ivan, thank you, - I answered.
• How many guys died?
• Very few, a few people, - I reassured Ivan.
• Then it's right. If it had been through the wire, there would have been more.....

Those were his last words.