Jump to content

Bill's Stories about Things and Stuff


crossmember
 Share

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, crossmember said:

 Collapse

Image may contain: outdoor
Bill Powell to Bill's Stories about things and stuff

What would you call the signature sound of the twentieth century? I was reading through a book by an author I was not familiar with, a guy named Lee Child, and suddenly I was reading my own thoughts. I had picked the sound years ago and did not know anyone else had even dwelt on it.
Some may say the drone of an Aero engine, and early morning dawn patrol in a Spad, or the lonely sound of a single plane in 1940 or '41. Some may call it the sound of a ground vibrating low flying jet. The whup whup whup of a helicopter. All sounds never heard before the twentieth century. There are other sounds born in the 20th century.
But, the sound that is the signature of the twentieth century is the squeaking and clattering of tank tracks on a paved street. It was a sound heard in Warsaw, Rotterdam, Stalingrad, and Berlin. More recently in Budapest and Prague, Seoul and Saigon. It is a brutal sound, the sound of fear (unless your're an A-10 pilot). Probably the ultimate unfair advantage is the M1A1 Abrams. No other tank can begin to hurt it, with its armor from hell, depleted uranium sandwiched between high strength steel. Mr Child singled out M1A1. My though was just tanks in general.
How about it, boys und girls, anyone have any thoughts on that?

No matter who you talk to the overwhelming answer will probably be something that can protect you or something that can kill you. I like the reassuring sound of a bullet being chambered (unless its not my gun).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators
5 hours ago, XSIV4S said:

Well it's about damn time. Welcome aboard Bill (AKA. Electric Bill, Bill's stories, Big Heads dad).

Hey, he's your dad too. You keep putting all the blame on me.:crylikeender: Welcome aboard Bill.:599c64bfb50b0_wavey1:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Eric pinned this topic

Korea 1961:  One day my riding pardner and I became totally pissed at a pappa-san, a Papa-san riding a bike and hauling a giant pig on the back.  He kept cutting us off, and crowding us to the on coming traffic lane.  This kept up til th edge of town where we could get around him.  As we started around him I handed my bud my machete and told him to him and told him to whack across hi juevos with the flat side of the blade.  When he did way more hell than I anticipated broke loose.  The pig started    bucking and snorting,    threw the rider in the ditch, and stole the bike.  Last time I saw the rider he was sitting in the ditch shouting foul obsceneties st us, and the ast time I saw the pig hes was heading over a rice paddy levee with the bike sticking straight up in the air.

dmzville4.jpg

  • Like 1
  • Haha 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, crossmember said:

Korea 1961:  One day my riding pardner and I became totally pissed at a pappa-san, a Papa-san riding a bike and hauling a giant pig on the back.  He kept cutting us off, and crowding us to the on coming traffic lane.  This kept up til th edge of town where we could get around him.  As we started around him I handed my bud my machete and told him to him and told him to whack across hi juevos with the flat side of the blade.  When he did way more hell than I anticipated broke loose.  The pig started    bucking and snorting,    threw the rider in the ditch, and stole the bike.  Last time I saw the rider he was sitting in the ditch shouting foul obsceneties st us, and the ast time I saw the pig hes was heading over a rice paddy levee with the bike sticking straight up in the air.

dmzville4.jpg

So if I'm hearing you right, You came to a pork in the road and it took the path less traveled?

 

  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Though it's been Thirty years, my second favorite sound in this world is the sound of a Huey rotors slapping the air on a crisp below zero night.  A night where you've been awake and humping for days on end, cold, hungry, tired and constipated. That is the sound of relief. That sound carries the knowledge that you'll soon be warm, fed, showered, rested and relatively safe.

My first favorite sound is the sound of my kids telling me that they love me.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

THE SURPRISED SLICKY BOY:  This the story that started it all.

This happened just behind that pile of barrels. The pump shed is that roof just visible.

In Korea a slicky boy is anyone who makes his living primarily by stealing. Today something happened that reminded me of a small incident that happened in the summer of 1961, in Munsan-ni Korea.

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really, but I love to say that. It was night, but there was a nice moon, and you could see without the aid of artificial light. I was walking guard duty in a petroleum pumping and storage yard. The place was fenced by an eight foot high fence with razor wire at the top and thre rows of concertina wire on either side at the bottom. Well, I was walking my post from flank to flank, and taking no crap from any rank. It was during one of my strolls along the south fence that I saw a little white stake driven into the ground. I didn't remember that stick, it wasn't there on my last round. I knelt down and looked, and saw a hole of ideal Korean crawl size going all the way through our many rolls of concertina. I thought about this for a second, pulled the stake up, and moved it ten feet west, where I drove it back into the ground.

Then I went looking for my slicky boy.

I found him in a pump shed, where he was strealing engine parts. I snorted and yelled and ran toward him like I had his murder on my mind. He jumped up and ran, leaving his parts, tools and all right there on the ground. When he saw his white stake he dove from about eight feet out and hit where he thought his hole was at full speed.

It took me and an MP awhile to extract him from that wire. All the while he was looking at his white stake. He was bleeding from a hundred cuts, none of them serious, and all he could do was look at that white stake. Slicky boys lost that night.

Image may contain: text
  • Like 2
  • Haha 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Where the hell did you get those.  Is thee a picture of a badly wrecked among them.  The Corvette picture is the day I picked it up from the shipping company that shipped it from Bremerhaven to Kaiserslautern.  Cost $45.00 to load it and transport it.  It was cold.  see that little patch of snow on the fender.  When I took down to the PX garage to get it safety inspected I heard later the German civilian mechanics were taking turns hot lapping it around the property.

.Jackie was a girl my brother, Jack, was dating.  The building on the hill was the Officer's club and Quarters.  The tower on the right is where the guard was when he shot the dove off the roof of the officer's quarters.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/19/2017 at 9:25 PM, crossmember said:

THE SURPRISED SLICKY BOY:  This the story that started it all.

This happened just behind that pile of barrels. The pump shed is that roof just visible.

In Korea a slicky boy is anyone who makes his living primarily by stealing. Today something happened that reminded me of a small incident that happened in the summer of 1961, in Munsan-ni Korea.

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really, but I love to say that. It was night, but there was a nice moon, and you could see without the aid of artificial light. I was walking guard duty in a petroleum pumping and storage yard. The place was fenced by an eight foot high fence with razor wire at the top and thre rows of concertina wire on either side at the bottom. Well, I was walking my post from flank to flank, and taking no crap from any rank. It was during one of my strolls along the south fence that I saw a little white stake driven into the ground. I didn't remember that stick, it wasn't there on my last round. I knelt down and looked, and saw a hole of ideal Korean crawl size going all the way through our many rolls of concertina. I thought about this for a second, pulled the stake up, and moved it ten feet west, where I drove it back into the ground.

Then I went looking for my slicky boy.

I found him in a pump shed, where he was strealing engine parts. I snorted and yelled and ran toward him like I had his murder on my mind. He jumped up and ran, leaving his parts, tools and all right there on the ground. When he saw his white stake he dove from about eight feet out and hit where he thought his hole was at full speed.

It took me and an MP awhile to extract him from that wire. All the while he was looking at his white stake. He was bleeding from a hundred cuts, none of them serious, and all he could do was look at that white stake. Slicky boys lost that night.

Image may contain: text

I've missed these stories! I came in late to the thread, so I remember pulling practically an all-nighter catching up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A Bucciali Tribute Car

Yes, I know, I know, it’s a copy, a clone, what some now call a “tribute car” and I don’t normally write about clones but this one’s special.

Why? Because it is nothing short of a love affair between a man and a photograph of a car. The photograph was of a French car marque called Bucciali (Yes, I know, it sounds Italian. But it is Corsican French and pronounced b-yew-see-ah-le.) The man was American construction giant William A. Tishman, who found a faded photo of the Bucciali and simply had to have one, even if it meant recreating what could have been a rival to the Bugatti Royale.

The American that fell in love with a car in a picture

Bill Tishman was a scion of a family that owned a worldwide construction group, already owned a Rolls Royce Phantom II, Marmon Speedster and several other classics. But after he saw this Bucciali photograph he wanted a Bucciali, badly.

Car under construction,with Tishman next to it. Pictured in the workshop where three men were working from 18 months to 3 years building the car. (time estimates varied!).
Confounding his ambition was a little event called WWII. In 1939, the Nazis marched into Paris and all traces of the cars were temporarily lost. So he determined to make his own. He hired three workmen to fabricate the car. In a 1981 feature, Popular Science stated that the car took eight years and it certainly took a lot of money. Estimates are he spent between $600,000 and $650,000 which today would probably be closer to $2 million.

His design was remarkably like the original, at least going by pictures. It’s got the same roofline, the huge high arched fenders that are almost has high as the low hood line and which give the car what you would call an “ underslung look.” Those who visited his workshop say Tishman designed virtually every aspect of the car, from the all-steel body with unique steel inner fender linings, to a refreshment center that dispenses hot and cold water into lead crystal glasses which neatly fitted into place under spigots. The dashboard has acres of wood and an authentic prewar look.

Interior of the Tishman replicar.
VeloceToday contributor Al Axelrod remembers when it was built. “The project at least began one block from my shop in a small welding shop called ‘Art in Iron’, and I watched its progress. The car patron, Bill Tishman, a very nice, very well off car guy, had us maintain two of his great cars, the most interesting to me, a 1927 (I think) Rolls-Royce dual cowl, (the real deal) with a separate two-place back seat, way, way back there, with the top down, and a very similar wind screen in front for the chauffeur. I was told when the replica project started, Lincoln chassis and many other Lincoln components of the time period were used.”

For some reason he wanted four-wheel drive. One story says that he used a Chevrolet S-10 chassis, while the museum that has it now says he fabricated a chassis (perhaps out of those Lincoln parts). But at least it’s certain that the engine is a Chevrolet 350 V-8 retrofitted with a Rajay turbocharger which in turn uses an electronic water-injection system. It was rated at 304 hp. at 4000 rpm.

However, the various construction secrets might be found in this catalog found for sale on the Internet:

BUCCIALI (Bucciali [Replicar]): 8 page non-color catalog, 12×17. Six drawings show interior features. Includes discussion by owner and designer, Bill Tishman. Nice! Price: $100. Click here

The biggest expense in building the car was fabricating virtually all the parts you see, from the wheels to the door handles to the gas cap. Out of sight are the GM heating and air conditioning systems and the radio/tape deck. There are also novelties like a hood that rises electrically and a trunk lid that does the same.

A final touch was a radiator ornament of Steuben glass, depicting an eagle, which lights up at night. And of course the car has the famous stork insignia that adorned Albert Bucciali’s fighter plane during WWI.

Front view of Tishman's creation from the catalog.
After the car was finished in 1983, he drove the fully roadworthy 6,000-lb. pound car from the West Coast to East Coast, visiting many car shows where his reception varied from horror (from those horrified he dared make a replica) to appreciation of the car’s fine build quality.

In the meantime, news began to filter out about the reconstruction and restoration of the fabled ‘Fleche d’Oro’. After all the time and money spend on a recreation, to find that there was now a car rebuilt from original parts must have been a crushing blow to Tishman. He decided to get rid of it and it went to Houston collector Jerry J. Moore, who had said it was his “favorite car.” Moore, who died in 2008, was a strip mall developer who was a world class Francophile himself, living a faux 18th-century château which he had been disassembled and shipped from the French countryside to Friar Tuck Lane in Houston’s posh Sherwood Forest neighborhood, where it was painstakingly rebuilt, brick by brick and described it as a “miniature residential scale reproduction of the French Mannerist Palace of Fontainebleauoutside Paris.” It all made sense in a way, Moore owning a faux French luxury car to park in the 26-car garage of his faux French mansion…ain’t life grand?

Image may contain: car
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You ever see a tank explode? I've seen three, two complete and one partial. One was a M-47, one was an M-48, and one was an M-60. Two were in Korea and one was in Germany.

The partial was the only unavoidable incident of the three. I was supporting the 4th infantry brigade, and was parked by their headquarters tent. I had a 5000 gallon tanker, there was a 1200 gal tanker beside me, and there were two trucks loaded with artillery rounds. About forty yards in front of me an M-48 was making its way down a little creek and when it got to the bottom of a small hill it made a left turn out of the creek. When the off side track (which was my side) dug in to make the turn it detonated a Russian box mine right under the track. It broke the track, blew a fender off, and a few other items attached to the hull. The crew had that tank vacated before it settled back to the ground. The thing that saved everone's butt was that it was just one mine. For anti-tank they usually stacked two or three. It had washed down the creek from somewhere else, and being a wooden box mine normal mine detecting efforts didn't detect it.

The M-60 happened in Germany, in '65. A company of tanks was convoying back from the Baumholder tank range to Kaiserslautern and in some little village they crossed an electric train track. The weak point in their plan was that someone failed to stow the whip antennae and it touched one of the overhead wires. That set off the electric primers, exploding all the on board ammo. 105 mm rounds were flying all over the place. Two old German guys were sitting in front of a gasthaus drinking beer when one of the rounds headed straight for them. They stopped drinking til they realized the round was going to clear them, then went back to their brew. It went through the roof of the gasthaus and wound three floors below, in the basement. This one I did not see happen, just the aftermath.

The other one I actually saw was the M-47 in Korea. It was during Operation Snow Tiger, and the temperature was 26 below zero. The crew was trying to keep warm with C-ration can heaters (can full of sand, soaked in gasoline). When one of the guys shifted his weight he kicked over the heater and the burning gasoline ran under a bulkhead to the tank's freshly topped off fuel tanks. Hit the fire extinguishers and they didn't work, so the crew un-assed the tank. A short time later 76 rounds of 90mm, 24 rounds of 90mm blanks, several thousand rounds of .30 and .50 cal, and an assortment of flash bang thingies, and couple of hundred gallons of gasoline went off simaltaneously. The tank jumped about twenty feet in the air, rolled the one inch thick steel floor of the tank back lie a sardine can. The engine and transmission went one way and the tank went another. One of the more spectacular things I've seen. The salvage crew took one look at it, loaded it on a flat car, and took it straight metal re-cycling.

Image may contain: one or more people and outdoor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

     In the late fifties a truck left Jackson, Miss with a load of cattle bound for the Phoenix area.  The driver and co-driver Jackson with high hope and a big bottle of bennies.   They made their west to Miami. Az where my uncle had to do some major brake work on the rig.  AS I under stand it , he had to go over the hill to Superior, Az for some more brake work.  After Superior they had flatland cruising  all the way to their destination.   At Florence Junction, with the lights of their destination  visible on the horizon, they turned south toward    Tucson.  In the outskirts of Tucson the driver went to sleep, drifted into the lleft lane and hit a GReyhound head on.  Nine peopled killed, and dead cows all over the place.                                               

Quote

 

50 years ago, horrific collision killed 9 - cows fell all aroundtucsontucson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did I ever tell you about the Turks? The Turks were chock full of attitude, and had the meanness to back it up. For everyday wear they wore a sharpened carbine bayonet instead of the traditional combat knife. The combat knife, pull it out, you gotta draw blood before you re-sheath it, that knife. As a quartermaster company we supplied the English, the Turks, the Greeks, the Americans, and whoever else may wander in.
At the food warehouse we had a brand-new black kid, named Franklin, and he had to supply the Turks. On his way over, in Japan, he had bought a custom Zippo with a music box built into the bottom. While he was issuing rations to the turks, one of the turks signaled he wanted a light. Light, no problem, out comes the Zippo. Turk uses the lighter and signals he would like to have it. Franklin says no, and grabs the lighter back.
Pisses off the Turk, out comes the bayonet. Franklin is holding one of the vegetable crate slats, a 2X2 about two feet long. Up comes the bayonet, and SMACK, goes that slat up side the Turks head. Every time the turk moved, he got hit, til his buddies had to help him back on the truck. After the Turks leave, someone tells Franklin how bad those Turks are supposed to be. SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF HIM. He would not go out on pass for fear of a vendatta.
Next week, here come the Turks, and the knife man tells Franklin, through an interpreter, that he had just impressed the hell out of him with that stick, and they should be buddies.

this story happened on the loading dock of that center warehouse.

8218785810_043b23eff5_z.jpg

Edited by crossmember
aded photo
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Eric unpinned this topic

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Please Donate To TBS

    Please donate to TBS.
    Your support is needed and it is greatly appreciated.
×
×
  • Create New...