OK, so, here we go: 5 February and winter’s half-done in the Great Lakes. Still, we’ll get more snow, more ice, more bone-chilling cold. But I’m hoping by now we’ll have our new furnace (writing this in December, and the contract is to have it done in some “slack period” in January or February). But, other than that…
Our calendar for 5 January is pretty full, starting with the birth of the Sanjo Emperor of Japan in 976 AD; the Sanjo had five wives and seven children before his death in 1017, a most prolific fellow. On 5 February 1663 came the Charlevoix earthquake in modern Quebec: a 7.3-7.9 (calculated Richter) shock that knocked down chimneys as far away as Roxbury, Massachusetts, and leveled a waterfall on the St. Maurice River. And on this day in 1784, the mother of a future president, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, was born is what is now Mineral County, West Virginia. And on 5 February 1869, two miners in Australia found a two-hundred-plus pound gold nugget called “Welcome Stranger:” as of this morning, it would have been worth $3.8 million. The last of the American Punitive Expedition left Mexico on this day in 1917, barely a month before America would go to war with Germany. And speaking of leaving, the last Soviets left Afghanistan on this day in 1989, after a decade of indecisive and costly fighting, they left behind a state on the brink of collapse. Also, today is National Weatherperson’s Day, the day of John Jeffries’s birth in Boston on 5 February 1745, celebrated as the first meteorologist. But today we’re talking about Manila in 1945, and about saving water and time with friends.
This was another case where dedicated samurai warriors were defying orders for reasons they could justify in the name of gekokujo, and thousands would die for it.
After Walter Krueger’s Sixth US Army landed at Lingayen Gulf on 9 January 1945, the American forces met fairly light resistance from Yamashita Tomoyuki’s defenders. But, when Joseph Swing’s 11th Airborne Division reached Manila on 3 February, Iwabuchi Sanji’s 31st Naval Special Base Force 12,500 men were digging in to make a fight of it, augmented by 4,500 soldiers under Katsuzo Noguchi, despite Yamashita’s orders to evacuate the city. This was another case where dedicated samurai warriors were defying orders for reasons they could justify in the name of gekokujo, and thousands would die for it.
In the way that the Japanese armed forces were so severely divided between Army and Navy, Iwabuchi’s sailors and SNLF troops weren’t Yamashita’s to command. So was born the ghastly fight for Manila.
To be clear, the Japanese high command by early 1945 was committed not to stopping the Allied advances in the Pacific and in Burma–they knew they lacked the power for that. What they were hoping for was to make their remaining holdings look too costly to seize by creating as many Allied casualties as they could. Yamashita, concerned about feeding the million or so Philippine civilians trapped in Manila over a siege, was trying to conserve his resources for battles in the interior. But, arguably, in the way that the Japanese armed forces were so severely divided between Army and Navy, Iwabuchi’s sailors and SNLF troops weren’t Yamashita’s to command. So was born the ghastly fight for Manila.
There’s a certain sense of tragedy about the battle of Manila: tragedy because it was all quite pointless, and primarily to stroke Douglas MacArthur’s ego.
The gunfight actually started on 3 February and lasted until 5 March. On 5 February, Douglas MacArthur entered the city behind a spearhead of the 37th Infantry Division, declaring Manila to be “liberated,” when in fact the battle had only just begun. There would be over 16,000 Japanese casualties before it was done, in addition to as many as a quarter million Filipinos and some 6,000 Americans. There’s a certain sense of tragedy about the battle of Manila: tragedy because it was all quite pointless, and primarily to stroke Douglas MacArthur’s ego. Bypassing Manila was not out of the (military) question, as Krueger argued later, but MacArthur simply had to have his victory parade.
Now, National Shower with a Friend Day was registered in 2014 by New Wave Enviro, a Colorado-based manufacturer of durable water bottles and food storage products. This much is known, but I can recall showering with…well, associates, anyway, like this:
Showers with Freinds, ca 1960. Don’t tell me you never did something like it…
In the school gym, in the barracks, in a public pool. Sure, I did something like this a lot in my younger, school and Army days. Now, there’s a different kind that you filthy-minded voyeurs were thinking of…
There’s the different kind of “shower with a friend” that you know you have fantasized about more than have actually done…
But even the more adventurous among us haven’t found too many showering facilities big enough to accommodate two consenting adults, despite what the movies show. Still, did it maybe twice, with consenting persons of the opposite sex. It wasn’t like the movies, as I recall (these events were during the Carter or first Reagan administrations and we were both far more limber), but crowded, and harder for her to wash her hair properly with another body in the way. Still, our backs did get cleaner than usual, as I recall.
But the point of National Shower With a Friend Day isn’t to provide titillation or romance (which it really wasn’t), but to conserve water. Ultimately, I’m not sure how it could do that, simply because you end up running the water longer for two people, or more, like the lead picture shows, which is I believe more for cooling off than for washing up…but it got you down this far, didn’t it? It does save a little time, though.
Meanwhile, as you read this there shall be one more update on Why the Samurai Lost. Yes, it moves right along, but we’re going to publish entirely ourselves, my co-author Lee Rochwerger and I. JDB Communications, LLC will be the publisher. Follow us at JDBCOM.COM for further developments.
JDB Communications, LLC 