EMS Artifact

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Signed by,

John Adams (MA), Samuel Adams (MA), Josiah Bartlett (NH), Carter Braxton (VA), Charles Carroll of Carrollton (MD), Samuel Chase (MD), Abraham Clark (NJ), George Clymer (PA), William Ellery (RI), William Floyd (NY), Benjamin Franklin (PA), Elbridge Gerry (MA), Button Gwinnett (GA), Lyman Hall (GA), John Hancock (MA, President), Benjamin Harrison (VA), John Hart (NJ), Joseph Hewes (NC), Thomas Heyward, Jr. (SC), William Hooper (NC), Stephen Hopkins (RI), Francis Hopkinson (NJ), Samuel Huntington (CT), Thomas Jefferson (VA), Francis Lightfoot Lee (VA), Richard Henry Lee (VA), Francis Lewis (NY), Philip Livingston (NY), Thomas Lynch, Jr. (SC), Thomas McKean (DE), Arthur Middleton (SC), Lewis Morris (NY), Robert Morris (PA), John Morton (PA), Thomas Nelson, Jr. (VA), William Paca (MD), Robert Treat Paine (MA), John Penn (NC), George Read (DE), Caesar Rodney (DE), George Ross (PA), Benjamin Rush (PA), Edward Rutledge (SC), Roger Sherman (CT), James Smith (PA), Richard Stockton (NJ), Thomas Stone (MD), George Taylor (PA), Matthew Thornton (NH), George Walton (GA), William Whipple (NH), William Williams (CT), James Wilson (PA), John Witherspoon (NJ), Oliver Wolcott (CT), George Wythe (VA)

I’ve posted and linked to this Article from The Atlantic Monthly before. First published in November 1960 it is now behind a paywall so readers are required to pay to read it on line. Well, sort of, but more on that in a minute. First here is a short excerpt from the article.

Unlike what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.

This fluke of history is doubly ironic since no other decisive battle has ever been so thoroughly reported for the official record. While the troops were still fighting in Normandy, what had happened to each unit in the landing had become known through the eyewitness testimony of all survivors. It was this research by the field historians which first determined where each company had hit the beach and by what route it had moved inland. Owing to the fact that every unit save one had been mislanded, it took this work to show the troops where they had fought.

Here is a link to a PDF version of the original printed on paper article. Please read it in it’s entirety while it’s still on line.

First Wave At Omaha Beach

Among the soldiers landing on Omaha Beach that day were Thirty-four young men from Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division. By the end of the day Nineteen of them would be dead. Four more would die in the following days. Bedford, VA proportionally suffered more losses than any other town in the United States.

Which is why the National D-Day Memorial is located in Bedford. It is well worth the drive out into the countryside to visit.

The generation that waged that war to destroy enemies of civilized society is quickly fading from the scene. Those of us who are from a younger generation bear the responsibility of keeping the memory of their lives and heroism alive.

Today I’ll be ensconced in my aptly named “Lazy Boy” recliner watching “The Longest Day.” Time permitting I’ll watch episode two of “Band of Brothers” which is “Day of Days.” From which I borrowed the title of this post.

Eighty-two years ago the Japanese Imperial Navy had a very bad morning. It had started out fine with Japanese bombing Midway Island and causing significant damage. In return the initial attacks by American planes were ineffective.

At 9:20 Devastator Torpedo Bombers flying off of the USS Hornet attacked and every plane was shot down with no hits. Only one member of the attack survived. Similarly Devastators from the E USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown suffered heavy casualties with no effective hits.

A combination of Japanese fighters and ship based anti aircraft fire had stopped the torpedo attacks, but their efforts had diverted their attention from another threat. The losses of American pilots was not totally in vain. First, the Japanese were undisciplined in their attacks, so weren’t in position to intercept the American dive bombers that were not overhead. The attacks had also distracted the Japanese from rearming their planes and properly storing bombs and torpedoes.

That all changed starting at 10:20 when Dauntless dive bombers started scoring hits on the Japanese aircraft carriers. Within a few minutes the Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu were on fire and would sink later in the day.

The aircraft carrier Hiryu would follow later in the day and other ships would be damaged or sunk for the next couple of days as the shattered Japanese fleet withdrew.

Perhaps more important than the ships and airplanes themselves were the almost complete loss of experienced Japanese pilots, aircrew, maintenance crews. Unlike America, which had a policy of returning experienced crews to the United States to train new pilots and air crew, the Japanese pretty much sent people to combat until they died.

The United States lost the USS Yorktown which had been heavily damaged at the Battle of the Coral Sea and been repaired in record time and sent to fight again at Midway.

That’s the short story, the long story is several books long. I recommend just about any of them for those interested in what turned out to be one of the most crucial victories in the history of naval warfare.

The other day was June 4, 1944. The Germans were driven out of Rome by Allied troops. In late 1943 the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini collapsed and he was arrested. He escaped, but that’s a story for another day. Italy now joined the Allies in fighting against their former partner Nazi Germany. The Germans retaliated harshly and Italy was now treated as a captured nation.

The Allied assault started in January of 1944, but Rome was not freed until June 4. The fighting was on some of the worst terrain for combat in some of the worst weather in Europe. The American 5th Army and British 8th Army were the major Allied forces and both nations suffered heavy casualties. Rome was an open city by the time the Allies entered and a good deal of the German troops had retreated and would fight on until May of 1945 when Germany surrendered.

The Liberation of Rome would have been the biggest story of the month of June except for that other invasion which was labeled the “Invasion of Europe.”

The Italian theater of war doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserves. Many of the hard lessons learned at the cost of many lives were used during both the Normandy invasion and the invasion of southern France in August 1944.

It would be nice if politicians would stop throwing young Americans lives away for nothing more than to score political points.

A friend complains that “We can’t afford to go to war, we don’t have the money.” I remind him that the real cost of war is in lives lost, ruined, or permanently altered, usually in negative ways.

Which is all I have to say today other than “Thank you” to those who gave up their futures for ours.