Last chance today to get the purple cover edition!
To celebrate the last two hours of the Pistols of the Warlords launch, I have Shanghai’d my father into coming down to join me in a 2-hour livestream tonight! From 7pm to 9pm Pacific (10pm to midnight Eastern) we will be snacking on good Chinese food, talking about guns, and trying out some of the cocktails from the book. The link to the livestream will be posted when it starts.
If you have already backed the Kickstarter, you can check the backer-only update there to download the complete cocktail sheets. The cocktails are taken from a 1930s Shanghai nightclub, four originals and four modern reimagining. If you haven’t backed the Kickstarter, there are a couple of the recipes below that Dad and I will be trying out…
You may recall that my Dad wrote a small book on Arisakas many years ago, which is still a great introduction to collecting that field…
Aviation:
2 oz Gin
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Maraschino liqueur
1/4 oz Creme de Violette
Maiden’s Blush:
1 oz Gin
1 oz fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz grenadine
Shanghai Cocktail:
1 glass Canadian whiskey (rye)
2 dashes grenadine
1 dash simple syrup
Juice of 1/2 lemon
I just ordered your dad’s book. I have a Arisaka carbine my dad brought back as a war trophy. He was an junior navy officer on an APA (attack personnel transport ship; the ship’s that look like regular cargo ships of the period that carry the landing craft and marines/army troops for the non-navy types). His ship was in one of the Japanese ports after the war, they first went to Hiroshima and dropped off the first load of marines to secure the city. His captain invited the marines that were in that were securing that port onboard for a hot meal, hot shower, and a clean place to sleep. The marines tanked the APA’s crew with Japanese rifles they had “liberated” from the local armory. The enlisted men got one of the standard rifles and the officers all received a carbine.
I have photos my dad took of Hiroshima. One thing that has stuck with me though, was my father said as bad as Hiroshima looked Tokyo was much worse. His ship wasn’t present for the surrender, but he was there shortly afterwards.
Lee,
Your dad was right. The fire bombing of Tokyo caused more destruction and killed more people than the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The B29s flew in low and dropped napalm onto a city mostly built of wood and paper. That is what the people who moan about the use of the atomic bombs don’t get. The A bombs were so shocking they brought the war to an and. Without their use, Japan would have been wrecked from end to end, and millions upon millions of Japs would have died. The A bombs, in context, were the humane option.
Anyway, good for your dad. I’m glad he made it home with his Arisaka. One of my great uncles did not make it back from a POW camp on Borneo. The way the Japs treated our prisoners meant there was no sympathy for them whatsoever in 1945.
The counter argument, reflecting that firebombing was worse than the A-bomb, is that we in the West have over-rated the impact of the two A-bombs and that the Japanese surrendered because of the cumulative effect of Nazi Germany’s fall (meaning the full force of the allies could now be brought against them), two years of losing men and machines and devastation on the home islands from conventional bombing, lack of basic raw materials, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, AND the A-bombs.
Affirmative; it was Kwantung Army defeat just days before the surrender. Last hope of redoubt in Manchuria failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwantung_Army
The actions of the U.S. government were led by one foremost concern: NOT to allow Japan to fall into Soviet hands. All and everything had to be done to prevent that eventuality, including sacrifices of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was done in order to inform the S.U. what would follow, if they did enter the Japan mainland. That is also why this act is officially so fiercely defended.
“(…)Last hope of redoubt in Manchuria failed.(…)”
It was acknowledged by more realist but nonetheless Major Hatanaka wanted to kill baron Suzuki, which he hoped would prevent surrender. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
The concern was to save American and Allied lives by ending the war. President Truman had been a front line field artillery officer in 1918 and he retained that perspective.
Here’s the best thing ever written about it- http://croker.harpethhall.org/Must%20Know/History/AtomBombFussell.pdf
“(…)A bombs, in context, were the humane option.(…)”
In fact viewing them as gloomy seems to start years later, take look at song When the Atom Bomb Fell (Karl and Harty) written shortly after that event
https://genius.com/Karl-and-harty-when-the-atom-bomb-fell-lyrics
most notable verses
I believe the bomb that struck Hiroshima
Was the answer to our fighting boys’ prayers
I would point to so-called Doomsday Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock as beginning of darkening vision of said bombs in wider audience. Interestingly now it is set at 1 1/3 which mean we are closer to atomic annihilation than ever, including this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Herald and even that https://youtu.be/nbC7BxXtOlo?t=1311
“The fire bombing of Tokyo caused more destruction and killed more people than the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”(C)
A much larger number of casualties (than all the bombings combined) were caused by the famine that was provoked by the occupation administration.
So that’s what Gun Joseph looks like.
Or is that Gun God?
The firebombings of Tokyo and Kobe were war crimes much worse than the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
If I can make it, will be drinking beer, my liquor supply is a little low and my discretionary spending is a little low due to some damnfool book on Chinese pistols,
McCollum senior looks at Arisaka rifle and utters…mmmmm. You can tell the dedication to the subject right there. As is father so is the son.