Author: Grumpy
Ask you guys to send in funny gun-related stuff, and you don’t send squat. Run just one teeny little article about an attack by an assault monkey, and you menagerie-minded maniacs go into overdrive.Apparently, some significant percentage of our readers are fish-and-fur-fight fanatics. I guess there ain’t no accounting for taste. So here’s a sampling of the weird critter tales you’ve sent me:
Coon Toss
You didn’t catch this one on CNN, but it was a headline in the Syracuse, N.Y., Herald Journal: “Woman Hurls Dead Raccoon At Lawyer.”
The lady was arrested following a scuffle with her neighbor, an attorney, after he allegedly knocked her down onto a road-killed raccoon. The story said she then grabbed the recumbent raccoon and hurled it with malicious intent.
The outcome of this case is unknown — perhaps a reader in Syracuse can help us out — but it should be noted that American Handgunner wants to go on record deploring the secondary use of brainwave-challenged victims of highway violence as missiles, even when thrown at lawyers.
In our view, not only is this an inexcusable exploitation of ravaged raccoons, but a fundamental violation of a long-standing American cultural value. Rotting fruit!, we say, over-aged eggs!, we implore you, but in the name of all that’s decent, leave our honored road-killed ’coons out of the messy business of barrister-bashing.
Haven’t they — the raccoons — suffered enough already?
Don’t Move! I’ll Fowl Ya
So, if you had a gun that could fire poultry at high velocity, what could you hunt with it? Aircraft, apparently, but without too much success. According to Business Week magazine, a testing laboratory used a “gun-like device” to blast fowl at a new type of aircraft windshield.
“To measure resistance against flying objects, engineers recently fired chicken carcasses at 300 mph at the windshield of the new Saab-Fairchild turboprop airplane.” The windshield held, but according to a spokesman, “Mud, blood, and feathers were everywhere.”
American Handgunner isn’t impressed. If they could develop a revolver capable of shooting frozen squirrels at 900 fps, now there, you’d have something!
No Kidding, Really
Now visualize a young man the medical journal called Dexter relaxing on the couch in his apartment watching TV. Very much like any other working stiff on the weekend, he’s just kicking back and enjoying the company of his pet rattlesnake, snoozing on his belly.
That is, the snake is resting on his belly on Dexter’s belly. Dexter later reports he suddenly sneezed, which startled the snake, causing it to bite Dexter on the lip.
The rattler — we’ll call him Ralph — is a fully-fanged, standard-issue unmodified venomous pit viper. Pause here to note that “experts in this area” remain unnamed. What area? Pit viper lip-bites?
Anyway, the experts do not believe Dexter’s story. Instead they think he is one of a select few nutcases who are fascinated, even sexually aroused, by close observation of the flicking action of snake tongues.
Caught up in their obsession, they sometimes actually try to kiss the snake. On the tongue. as circumstantial evidence, they cite the fact that Dexter was previously bitten under similar circumstances by a former pet, in that cased a venomous Habu snake, native to Okinawa.
So Dexter is bitten on the lip, causing him some degree of discomfort and involuntary animation, a condition possibly exacerbated by sudden onset of a neurosis we’ll call “fear of pending death.”
Now the real tomfoolery begins. Dexter’s roommate offers to help, explaining he heard somewhere that rattlesnake venom can be neutralized by running electrical current through the bite site.
The two rocket scientists adjourn to the apartment parking lot, where roomie hooks up jumper cables to Dexter’s lip, connects them to the battery of his car, jumps in and fires ’er up!
Concerned neighbors observe this unorthodox holistic treatment and summon paramedics.
When parameds arrive, they find roomie sitting in his ride revvin’ the engine and suckin’ down a cold one. They inquire as to how long Dexter’s been unconscious on the pavement, connected by 18-gauge rubber-shrouded twin-cabled lip-umbilicus, just twitchin’ and smokin’. Roomie answers that he ain’t sure, because the hood was up and he couldn’t see too good.
Dexter lived, and as far as we know didn’t even kill his roomie after being released from the hospital. Dexter lost a considerable portion of lip due to the effect of venom and electrical burns. He might also have lost some brain cells. Maybe. Who could tell?
Concealed Turkey
Two Haitians have been arrested and charged with stuffing handguns into frozen poultry and smuggling them to members of the Haitian secret police.
Patrick Louiseau and Florence Toussaint pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges after it was discovered they were buying .380 pistols, stuffing them into defrosted turkeys, refreezing the gobblers, and carrying them as luggage on trips to Haiti.
They could have stuffed a bazooka into a pig, but it wouldn’t fit under an airline seat.
Mark Moritz hung up his satirical spurs last issue to a collective sigh of relief from America’s gunwriters whom he had lampooned in “Friendly Fire” for two long, painful years. The 10 Ring is written by Commander Gilmore, a retired San Diego police officer who bases his humor, like Mark did, on actual occurrences. All the incidents described by the Commander are true.
The Japanese seized the Caroline Islands in Micronesia in 1914, and established a naval base on the island of Truk within it in 1939. As the primary anchorage for the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 4th Fleet, Truk was soon transformed into a fortress.
Truk seemed the perfect spot. Offering a natural protected harbor with ready access to nearby deep water, Truk played home to dozens of Japanese warships and merchant vessels. Along the way, the Japanese built five major airfields and a seaplane base. The associated layered air defenses made the place seem impregnable.
American forces called Truk the “Japanese Pearl Harbor.” With the tide of the Pacific War gradually turning in the favor of the Allies, Adm. Ray Spruance ordered Vice Adm. Marc Mitscher’s Fast Carrier Task Force 58 to deal with Truk. They called the two-day aerial assault over February 17-18, 1944, Operation Hailstone.
The Attack
With his five fleet carriers and four light escort carriers in position along with seven battleships and numerous lesser vessels, Mitscher cranked up the party with a heavy fighter sweep that appeared over the island 90 minutes before dawn on the 17th. Dozens of American Hellcat fighters flew in low to avoid rudimentary radar coverage, achieving complete surprise. A total of 30 of the 80 Japanese fighters that launched in response went down in flames.
The Japanese based some 300 warplanes at Truk. Arrayed against this formidable force were around 500 state-of-the-art American carrier aircraft flown by well-trained, seasoned crews. By early afternoon on 17 February, the Japanese were no longer able to mount any serious aerial resistance. That’s when the proper pummeling began.
Japanese commanders appreciated that this had the makings of a disaster, so they ordered all of the ships that were able to make for the mouth of the lagoon to escape. American Dauntless dive bombers and Avenger torpedo bombers queued up to do the deed. However, the Japanese still had plenty of fight left in them.
These carrier air groups cratered the runways on Truk’s several airfields and scattered fragmentation and incendiary bombs among the enemy aircraft on the ground. They divided up the ships remaining the harbor and blew them to pieces. An Avenger piloted by Lt. James Bridges struck the fully loaded ammunition ship Aikoku Maru. The subsequent massive explosion obliterated the vessel and consumed Lt. Bridges’ plane as well.
Fallout
Despite having achieved tactical surprise, the area around Truk lagoon positively bristled with anti-aircraft guns. Many of the these fast-firing weapons were difficult if not impossible to target from the air. They took a heavy toll on attacking American aircraft. As the first day unfolded, the waters around the base filled with downed American aircrew in small rafts.
This was not a particularly desirable place to be. The Japanese were notorious in their ill treatment of Allied prisoners. As an example, during the battle of Midway, every TBD Devastator of Torpedo Squadron 8 was shot down. Those crews that survived to be picked up by Japanese escorts were interrogated, weighted down, and thrown overboard. Only Ensign George Gay survived by hiding underneath a seat cushion as the battle raged around him. Word of this had gotten around. Nobody much wanted to be captured by the Japanese.
Pilots and gunners improvised sails and sea anchors in an effort to distance themselves from the fighting. American submarines were dispatched to gather survivors. One of the subs was the USS Tang skippered by Lt. Cmdr. Richard O’Kane, who went on to earn the Medal of Honor.
In addition to the submarines, American commanders dispatched O2SU Kingfishers to assist in the hunt. These floatplanes launched from U.S. battleships and cruisers via compact steam catapults to be recovered via crane while underway. The Kingfisher was used for search and rescue as well as spotting the fall of shot for long-range surface engagements. This day, the Kingfisher crews were going to ask a lot of their ugly slow little planes.
The Rescue
Lt. John Dowdle and Lt. j.g. John Burns flew the two Kingfishers that searched the surrounding seas for downed aviators. Burns operated off of the battleship USS North Carolina. Spotting a downed Hellcat pilot, Dowdle landed his Kingfisher and taxied up close to take him aboard. However, sea swells were around five feet. An unexpected gust of wind caught the flimsy plane and flipped it over. Now Dowdle, his radio operator Robert Hill, and the downed Hellcat pilot clung madly to the overturned floatplane.
Seeing his fellow sailors in dire straits, Burns landed his Kingfisher and took the three aviators aboard. There was no room for the men in the plane and it was too overloaded to fly, so he taxied to the nearby Tang and offloaded his survivors. Then he went back to work.
By now, the air attacks against Truk had resumed in earnest. Burns spotted another downed Hellcat pilot followed by the crew from an Avenger. He landed and taxied his floatplane from spot to spot, at first having the survivors lash their life rafts behind the aircraft. However, whenever he gained any speed at all, the tiny little rafts just swamped in the wake of the plane. He therefore had the waterlogged men simply climb about the struggling machine and cling to its wings.
By now the combination of the severe sea state and the massive load of humanity conspired to the beat the Kingfisher to pieces. The main pontoon began to leak, and the plane developed a severe list.
With the valiant floatplane now badly taking on water, Burns nursed the crippled machine back to the Tang where everyone transferred onboard. Kane sent Burns and his radioman below so they wouldn’t have to watch and sank the Kingfisher with fire from his deck gun.
The War’s Not Over…
Submarines are notoriously cramped, and this one was now packed with waterlogged aviators. Lt. j.g. Burns had personally rescued 10 downed American aircrewmen, something that earned him the Navy Cross—the Navy’s second-highest award for valor in combat.
The rescued survivors tried to make themselves useful and tagged along for the rest of the Tang’s combat patrol. Upon her return to Pearl Harbor, Lt. Cmdr. Kane dropped off Burns and the rest of the rescued men. Before they departed somebody snapped a picture of them all arrayed around the conning tower.
History has glamorized the Second World War because we have had the luxury of doing so. Thanks to John Burns, 10 Americans who would otherwise have been lost survived to go home, make families, and just live. He was indeed a hero among heroes.
Ancel Keys, the Wolfman’s cousin.
Back when I was a kid, folks used to die in their fifties of heart disease all the time. I recall coming to church and hearing friends’ parents lamenting the fact that Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones had been toiling away at work and just fell over dead from a heart attack. That still happens, but it’s not nearly as common. There are a lot of reasons for this.
Curiously, our lifestyles are way worse today. Machines and microelectronics have conspired to make our jobs much more sedentary. Most modern folk work behind a computer rather than a shovel or a jackhammer. As a general rule, we don’t get nearly as much exercise as our grandparents did.
We also eat garbage, most all of us. Helping sizes have skyrocketed across the board. What used to be considered an adequate meal at McDonalds for a typical young adult is a child’s Happy Meal today.
Despite this, we are still doing a respectable job in the fight against heart disease. A big part of that is our current understanding of the links between diet and arteriosclerosis. While entire medical specialties orbit around this today, it really all started with one remarkable man. That guy was the Wolfman’s cousin.
Lon Chaney. Public domain.
Origin Story
Ancel Benjamin Keys was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1904. His mother, Carolyn Emma Chaney, was the sister of famed silent film actor and director Leonidas Frank “Lon” Chaney Senior. Lon starred in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. His son Lon Chaney Junior played a variety of famous Universal monsters to the include the Wolfman, Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Mummy. Ancel and Lon Junior were therefore cousins.
Young Keys was both brilliant and industrious. While in high school, he shoveled bat guano, toiled in a lumber camp, and worked as a powder monkey in a Colorado mine.
After taking a gap year to travel to China on the SS President Wilson, he returned home to study economics, political science, zoology, and oceanography. Keys was a polymath who was good at most everything. By the time he became a full-time professor and researcher, he had earned two sequential PhD degrees.
Accomplishments and Accolades
We lack the space to adequately catalog what this remarkable guy did. Keys is the person who figured out osmotic fluid regulation in fish. He developed a machine that let scientists determine the protein content in grasshopper eggs and assess anemia in human blood samples.
Keys exhaustively studied fatigue and starvation. He personally spent two months at 9,500 feet on the side of a Chilean mountain followed by a further five weeks between 15,000 and 20,000 feet cataloging the human body’s physiological responses to high-altitude stresses. His findings informed both mountaineering and high-altitude flight.
With war clouds looming, Keys took a job with the Army Quartermaster Corps in 1937. Burdened by the sordid state of logistics in the pre-war Army, Keys approached the Quartermaster Food and Container Institute in Chicago to inquire about emergency rations. He was told to mind his own business.
Undeterred, Keys secured $10,000 in research money from William Wrigley’s office to develop an emergency field ration for the US armed forces. He started at the Cracker Jack Company and obtained access to their technology for producing wax-impregnated, water-resistant cardboard boxes.
He then personally developed what would become the Army’s K-ration, something that, while not the tastiest thing in the world, did fundamentally help the Allies win World War 2.
In 1944, Keys led a study on 36 volunteer conscientious objectors intended to determine the physiological effects of starvation and ascertain the pitfalls associated with refeeding. The study spanned three months.
The results were distributed to international relief agencies after the war to assist in the rehabilitation of refugees. In 1950, he completed publication of his omnibus two-volume, 1385-page opus, Biology of Human Starvation. I bet that was a serious page-turner.
Some ingredients that form a large part of the Mediterranean diet: fruit, vegetables, bread, olive oil and red wine. Image by G.steph.rocket.
The Real Killer
In the early 1950s, Keys observed that American business executives, among the best-fed people on Earth, had markedly higher rates of heart disease than post-war populations subsisting on limited food supplies. He later opined a correlation between diet, serum cholesterol levels, and cardiovascular risk.
At the time, Italy had more centenarians than any other geographic location in the world. By studying the typical diet in this region, Keys and his wife, Margaret, proposed and popularized what became known as the Mediterranean Diet.
It was Ancel Keys who first discovered that saturated fats in meat and milk clogged your arteries, while unsaturated fats in vegetables helped keep them clean.
Keys was featured on the cover of the January 13, 1961, issue of Time magazine.
Image AI generated.
Ancel Keys and his wife Margaret developed the Mediterranean Diet. In so doing, they discovered invaluable connections between what we eat and heart disease.
Keys eventually moved his wife and three kids to an estate in the Italian seaside village of Pioppi. He and his wife co-wrote several books, and they traveled the world as a family.
On November 20, 2004, Ancel Keys, the inventor of the K-ration and discoverer of the link between cholesterol and heart disease, died just two months shy of his 101st birthday. That’s not a bad run for the Wolfman’s cousin.
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