“One of the items asked for by [Colonel] Puller in an urgent dispatch, several hundred bottles of mosquito lotion, raised a few eyebrows at division headquarters, but the request was filled promptly. The Gilnit Group commander’s well-known disdain for the luxuries of campaigning caused the wonder, but the explanation was simple and a lesson in jungle existence. As a patrol member later remarked: ‘Hell, the colonel knew what he was about. We were always soaked and everything we owned was likewise, and that lotion made the best damn stuff to start a fire with that you ever saw.’” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Major Douglas T. Kane, USMC, Isolation of Rabaul, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. II, “Part IV, The New Britain Campaign”
Month: December 2024
“Fair, kind, and true, have often liv’d alone.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet CV”
“Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet CII”
“On the finger of a throned queen the basest jewel will be well esteem’d.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XCVI”
“Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, some in their wealth, some in their body’s force; some in their garments, though new-fangled ill; some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; and every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, wherein it finds a joy above the rest; but these particulars are not my measure, all these I better in one general best. Thy love is better than high birth to me, richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ cost, of more delight than hawks and horses be; and, having thee, of all men’s pride I boast.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XCI”
“The climate of western New Britain is what might be expected of a region of jungle-covered mountains and swamps. At all times during the year, the humidity is high, and the daytime temperature range hovers around 90 degrees; at night the temperature seldom drops below 72 degrees. The annual rainfall usually totals 150–200 inches and much of this, an average of 30 inches a month, comes during the period of the northwest monsoon, mid-December to mid-February. In this wettest season, rain may fall almost every day and squalls with torrential downpours are frequent. The northwest winds are strong and fairly steady, making the sea rough and the surf heavy. The dry season at Cape Gloucester occurs during the summer months when the prevailing southeast winds vent most of their force on the south slopes of the mountains. The periods between the two seasons, and the period of the southeast monsoon itself, are times of comparatively calm weather. The campaign to seize control of western New Britain would be fought in the worst possible weather of the year. Low-lying terrain would disappear beneath a cover of standing water, and, on the higher ground, the trees, the undergrowth, and the land itself would become and remain, rainsoaked. The prospect was that attacker and defender alike, mired in combat in the dripping jungle, would curse the day they set foot on the island.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Major Douglas T. Kane, USMC, Isolation of Rabaul , History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol.II, “Part IV, The New Britain Campaign”
“Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XCIV”
“In many looks the false heart’s history is writ, in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XCIII”
“If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, when other petty griefs have done their spite, but in the onset come; so shall I taste at first the very worst of fortune’s might; and other strains of woe, which now seem woe, compar’d with loss of thee will not seem so.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XC”
“That time of year thou mayst in me behold when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the west, which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, that on the ashes of his youth doth lie, as the death-bed whereon it must expire, consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet LXXIII”
“Like as waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end; each changing place with that which goes before. In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d, crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight, and Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, and delves the parallels in beauty’s brow; feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth, and nothing stands but for the scythe to mow.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet LX”
“Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said, thy edge should blunter be than appetite, which but to-day by feeding is allay’d, to-morrow sharpen’d in his former might: so, love, be thou.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet LVI”
“What is your substance, whereof are you made, that millions of strange shadows on you tend?” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet LIII”
“Nimble thought can jump both sea and land, as soon as think the place where he would be.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XLIV”
“Full many a glorious morning have I seen flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, kissing with golden face the meadows green, gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XXXIII”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date: sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimm’d; and every fair from fair sometime declines, by chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d; but thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou growest; so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XVIII”
“If I could write the beauty of your eyes, and in fresh numbers number all your graces, the age to come would say, this poet lies, such heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces. So should my papers, yellow’d with their age, be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XVII”
“ABDA Command was conceived as a means for the Allies to defend Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. As U.S. and British leaders convened in Washington in late December 1941 and grappled with the unexpected collapsing situation in the Far East, they pushed for a unified command structure. In a surprise to the British, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General George C. Marshall, supported even more surprisingly by Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, pushed to have a British army general put in charge of ABDA, while British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pushed to have an American admiral put in charge. Both sides apparently saw the situation as lost, leading to the gracious offers to have the other put in charge.” – Samuel J. Cox, The Java Sea Campaign
“Every thing that grows holds in perfection but a little moment.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XV”
“Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.” – William Shakespeare, “Sonnet VIII”
“The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly that a mad dog’s tooth.” – William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
“No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.” – William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
“Headstrong liberty is lash’d with woe.” – William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
“A man is master of his liberty; time is their master; and, when they see time, they’ll go or come.” – William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
“It is impossible to kill 7,000 to 8,000 people in the space of one week without methodical planning and substantial resources. Soldiers have to be mobilized to guard the prisoners, to move them from holding locations to execution sites, and to shoot them. Multiple locations to hold the prisoners and to execute them need to be identified and secured. Thousands of rounds of ammunition to shoot the prisoners need to be supplied. Numerous vehicles and hundreds of litres of fuel need to be commandeered to move the prisoners. A number of bulldozers and excavators need to be commissioned to dig their graves. During a state of war mobilizing such resources cannot be done at the whim of a few crazy soldiers. It needs to be ordered and authorized by commanders at high-levels.” – International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “Facts about Srebrenica”
“Those who act out of revenge, or call on it in order to justify crimes, are dealing a blow to the rule of law, and thus to civilization itself.” – International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “Facts about Srebrenica”
“Lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short: if pleas’d themselves, others, they think, delight in such like circumstance, with such like sport: their copious stories, oftentimes begun, end without audience, and are never done.” – William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
“Love makes young men thrall, and old men dote.” – William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
“Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, but gold that’s put to use more gold begets.” – William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
“The lamp that burns by night dries up his oil to lend the world his light.” – William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis