American Miscellaneous

The 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion, was a trailblazing group of women defied gender and racial barriers to serve during the war.
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Recomended (only Netflix)
www.imdb.com

The Six Triple Eight (2024) ⭐ 6.6 | Drama, History, War

2h 7m | 12A
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com

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mTk said:
Ah, yes. The valiant and brave women of our fighting Postal service.
Did we need a movie about mail delivery? :unsure:
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It was interesting to watch the film, to learn how important these women were in the task they were entrusted with. At least I didn't know that.
My wife gave it an "eight", and believe me, she is a bit lapidary when it comes to conceptualizing films.:ROFLMAO:
 
"Repple-Depple", or Replacement depot

These young men were drafted or volunteered in 1944, and were sent for basic training, they were destined to become replacements, ultimately being sent to their receiving units from a "Repple-Depple".

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Late in WW2 the duration of US Army basic training programs was reduced. As a consequence, although they arrived at the front well-fed & well-equipped, memoirs by vets reveal that in many instances they were woefully unprepared for what was ahead of them.

One account of an 18-year old replacement arriving at his unit in the dead of night, completely disorientated and really not knowing where he was or what his duties were.

On top of that, the "old-timers" in the platoon looked at him with a degree of suspicion because he was yet to prove himself...and he was filling the place of one of their fallen buddies.
Being a replacement in WW2 evidently wasn't easy.

"...A replacement depot in US military terminology is a unit containing reserves or replacements for large front-line formations, such as field armies. As such, the term refers to formations similar to, but larger than, march battalions in other countries. The slang term "repple depple" came into common use in the US Army during WWII.

These depots were used by the US Army in the Pacific, North Africa, Italy, and Europe in WWII. They were efficient at continuously keeping fighting units at high numerical strength during prolonged combat when compared to the German system, but were found to be deleterious to morale as the men assigned from these large pools often had poor esprit de corps and were unfamiliar with the names, history, and traditions of the formations to which they were subsequently assigned. The handling of the replacements in a bulk, impersonal way by permanent depot staff tended to cause psychological trauma such that they were weakened by the experience..." (Text from Wiki)
 
These souvenir wallet cards were given to every man who was on board the USS Missouri (BB-63) to witness the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay, 2 Sept 1945. (from NavalHistoria)
Note: Robert Llewellyn Balfour, a WW2 & Korean War veteran, highest rank: Lt. Commander.
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I was there when I visited Pearl Harbor.
Would have been cool had they handed out replica cards for us.
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A bit of info on Lt. Balfour.
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"He might have been found unfit for service when he enlisted in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
ut a determined Robert Balfour memorized the eye chart in his first Naval exam room and
then managed to disguise a bum knee when he applied to become a Naval officer. He spent
his first four months of duty in the Pacific on an LST that MacArthur would later use for his
return to the Philippines, and Balfour spent much of the rest of the war working under Admiral
Bull Halsey as a communications officer. He was on the deck of the Missouri when the surrender
was signed--bad eyes, bad knee, and all." - Library of Congress
 
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Donald Trump's bone spurs kept him out of the service.
 
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