On this day in 1944, the U.S. 1st Marine Division landed on the island of Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands in the Pacific, as part of a larger operation to provide support for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who was preparing to invade the Philippines. Within one week of the invasion, the Marines lost 4,000 men. By the time it was all over, that number would surpass 9,000. The Japanese lost more than 13,000 men. Flamethrowers and bombs finally subdued the island for the Americans, but it all proved pointless. MacArthur invaded the Philippines without need of Army or Marine protection from either Peleliu or Morotai.
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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest
Today we present another entry for Round 84 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
- A $3,000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
- A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
- A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
- DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
- Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
- A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
- American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
Second Prize:
- A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
- A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
- A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
- A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
- Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
- An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).
Third Prize:
- Good2GoCo.com is providing a $400 purchase credit at regular prices for the prize winner’s choice of either Wise Foods or Augason long term storage foods, in stackable buckets.
- Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
- A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
- Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
- Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
- Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.
Round 84 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
Re: A Big Picture SITREP from Matt Bracken
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2019/09/the-future-is-drone-warfare/
Excerpt:
“THE FUTURE IS DRONE WARFARE
by Matt Bracken | Sep 15, 2019
The small size of attack drones and their global availability makes them especially attractive to non-state actors, or to nations (Iran in the Saudi case) who wish to arm proxies with effective weapons while maintaining deniability. In the current Saudi (or a potential United States civil war scenario), with Balkanized ethnic or religious groups mixed across the battle space, it will always be possible for an enemy guerrilla team to get within drone-launching range of their targets.
Re: More from Bracken on Drones as the Future Weapon of Choice:
“Kaboom! Russian Drone With Thermite Grenade Blows Up a Billion Dollars of Ukrainian Ammo
A single grenade-carrying drone set off one of the largest explosions in recent memory. (From 2017, relates to recent drone attacks against Saudi oil targets)
A key factor regarding drones is that they have the capability to precisely place exactly the right ordnance for maximum damage. In this case, a thermite grenade is placed exactly where it will lead to a massive cascade effect. By leveraging its effect via ultra-precise placement, a cheap COTS drone with a small grenade can do as much or more damage as a major power’s long-range cruise missile. In fact, a small drone can be flown, for example, under an ordnance depot warehouse roof to alight exactly upon the most vulnerable spot.
We will see increasingly drone warfare in the future, so pay attention! In a CW2 scenario, a grenade drone might even have your address.”
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a27511/russia-drone-thermite-grenade-ukraine-ammo/
re:
from ‘can you imagine everything you know is wrong’ department
sub-re:
atrocities by warriors
One reason Japanese warriors fought to beyond reasonable:
American propaganda depicted Japanese as brutal savages deserving of the worst… aka TheOpposition aka DifferentFromUs.
Accordingly, American warriors, believing their propaganda, slaughtered surrendering Japanese warriors. Japanese survivors, realizing Americans would murder them too, kept fighting instead of surrendering to certain death. Of all the Japanese warriors, less than a handful were kept alive to be paraded as ‘proof’ of American generosity.
Because Japanese warriors knew they would be slaughtered if they surrendered, they continued defending their territory.
Because Japanese warriors defended their territory, American warriors continued fighting.
All because of propaganda.
To achieve such a reprehensible victory, global bankers ordered Roosevelt to toss ever-increasing numbers of TheGreatDepression cannon-fodder into the destruction machine.
(Who caused TheGreatDepression in the first place? My bet is on global bankers.)
Global bankers, through their puppets such as Roosevelt and Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and Churchill, encouraged both the propaganda machines and the slaughters… resulting in the death-toll in today’s header.
With dozens of pages of supporting documents, the book SUPERMOB by Russo carefully identifies the global shadows pulling all the strings.
Can you imagine everything you know is wrong?
Re: Peleliu. My dad, who was a Marine in that time and locale (Guadalcanal) was clear about the command attitude toward the grunt…expendable.
Carry on
In spite of all the blessings our Creator has endowed upon us, we will continue to fight and kill and ravage this remarkable creation. We think we are so clever in devising weapons of war, we fail to live as Christ taught us. Every single one of us will ultimately answer this question, “what did you do for the least of these my brethren?” I fail to see many of us truly loving our neighbors as we do ourselves. This is going to be an awkward moment, at the Last Judgement. I’m not preaching and casting stones here, I stand as guilty as the next, and I will not likely have any excuses to offer. I remain thankful that God is patient and forgiving.