Jim Medding’s Blog

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Ben Franklin

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As many baby boomer children did, I frequently asked my father, Richard (Dick) S. Medding, about his experiences during WWII. In my naive way I would ask something like “Did you shoot anybody?” The answers were always terse but once in a while some small detail would emerge. I knew my father had served as a combat engineer but had not seen much combat. He told me once about carrying a flamethrower to a pillbox and when they found it was abandoned, he asked for and got permission to leave the flamethrower behind because “it was heavy.” In my mind, I figured this was like a hiking trip on a warm day with plenty of up and down hills. Otherwise, why leave something awesome like a flamethrower behind?

Over the years a few more details have emerged as my father has been willing to share them. That hiking trip with the flame thrower; well, it was in the dead of winter and the reason for leaving it behind was that the Germans were counter attacking. To repulse the counter attack, an artillery barrage was called in on top of their own position.

When my father sent me the book Visions from a Foxhole, he included a page’s worth of notes on his personal experiences as they related to the book. Many of them were names of towns he remembered, but here are the more important excerpts:

Here is a book about the 94th Infantry Division’s tour in the ETO during WWII… that’s what I was in and where I was… Since I was in the 319th Engineer combat Battalion, rather than the 302nd Infantry, our paths diverged considerably. However, many of the places Foley mentions are familiar to me…

Pg. xvi – St. Nazaire and Lorient – The French cities where we held the Germans while being brought up to strength after losing about one-third strength for over-age. We shouldn’t have brought all these men overseas.

Maps – Several of the towns in Germany where I was working at one time or another. Campholz Woods – I really remember that. That’s where we carried TNT boxes into pillboxes for demolition, and from where we launched an attack on a bunker (I carried a flamethrower). Map of the Saar Bridgehead – My squad was the first to cross the Saar from Taben. My assault boat was the second boat to make the other side safely.

Pg 68 – Tettingen, Butzdorf… description of an attack with engineers carrying flamethrowers (not me!)

Pg 75 – I was also in B Company of the 319th.

Note: this reference is to a description of of an event where engineers who had been “mutilated” by Schü mines while carrying demolition charges up to destroy bill boxes; see comments above about Campholz Woods.

Pg 98, 99 – Description of the Saar River crossing. Foley apparently crossed some time after the first crossing.

P 102 – There were always three engineer troops for each assault boat. Two in front to place the infantry with the paddles and one in back steering. I was the one in back on my crossing.

Shortly after crossing the Saar, I was transferred from B Company to H&S Company, into the Engineering Reconnaissance Section as a radio operator. Because of the transfer, I didn’t get much of the action Foley did. While in France, near Chateaubriant, the battalion held a “radio school” to teach several of us Morse Code and radio procedures. That’s why they put me in H&S Co.

Pg. 265 – Ludwigshafen – The end of our attack down the Autobahn.

Pg. 281 – Krefeld – We were near Krefeld when the war ended.

Pg. 296, 297 – The USO show with Bob Hope that I also saw.

Since I didn’t have any decorations, my point total was relatively small, so I had to wait for the entire Battalion to be shipped home. We went from Czechoslovakia to a little town near Munich to wait for our call to come home. We sailed from Le Havre, France on the Victory Ship Chapel Hill, sailing south to miss a storm, and sailed right into the middle of another.

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A friend of mine sent me this video clip. The quality is a bit low so it’s hard to figure out a couple of scenes. But still, it’s an amazing video.

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My father recently sent me a copy of Visions from a Foxhole, A Rifleman in Patton’s Ghost Corps by William A. Foley Jr. Foley had served as a replacement in the 94th ID during the second world war; my father had served as a combat engineer. Many of the places, and some of the events, matched with my father’s experiences so he thought I might enjoy the book.

He was right. Foley has done an excellent job of providing a first person narration of what it was like for an infantryman to fight the war in Europe during some of its worst combat conditions seen by the US troops. He begins by describing a bleak, ominous arrival as a replacement in January, 1945 at the Siegfried Switch Position on the Moselle River. Within hours he’s in a foxhole, in freezing cold conditions with the wrong kind of boots and being shot at.

Foley goes from there to provide a gritty, nothing held back, description of combat. He unapologetically describes dispatching enemy troops simply because it was expedient. And only occasionally does he describe any emotion at the loss of a fellow troop. But as the war begins to wind down, his humanity begins to reemerge. I was particularly taken by his narration of capturing two German soldiers near Krefeld; one in his 50s and the second no more than 16.

All of the narrations provided by Foley are not only engaging but they are also clear, detailed and easy to follow. I’ve read several personal recollections of solders; this has to be one of the best.

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The reason, it has been suggested, why India has become and remains the largest and only real democracy in the Third World is because of its citizens’ insatiable thirst for information.

John Keegan, Intelligence In War, 2002, page 17

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My experience with actually playing baseball is, well, limited. But I have been a lifelong fan of the game and have watched, and listened, to many games played by highly skilled professionals. So, I have just an inkling of how the game is played.

Back in September of 1999 when I still took a daily paper I opened the sports section of the Eastside Journal to find what I believe is the ultimate baseball photo ever taken. Not that it captures for all eternity anything like a major event. Quite the contrary, it captures a typical play-at-the-plate. While I find the anticipation of the play at the plate the best play in baseball, most people say “what?” when I mention my feelings about the significance of the play. In fact, the 6 paragraph game recap for game doesn’t mention play in the photo. Only this caption is provided:

Cleveland’s Roberto Alomar (12) slides home ahead of the throw to score a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning. Boston would win the game in the 13th inning.

What I feel is significant about this photo is how it captures the way that the game is played. The on-deck hitter intently staring at the scoring player and pointing for him to slide, the umpire also staring at the unfolding play while having his hand on the arm of the on deck hitter so as to move him out of the way if a better viewing position is needed, the catcher using two hands to catch the ball while attempting to block the plate with his leg, and, finally, the scoring player sliding past the leg of the catcher while reaching to touch the plate with his left hand.

This is a photo I’d love to have on my wall.

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On the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing it seems as though everybody is participating in the celebration. Well, since I have a web site, I figured I’d pitch in. But what to blog about, that is the question. Yes, I remember (duh, I was 14 at the time) being woken up in the dead of night to watch the momentous event. And since I was a substitute paper boy for the Washington Post, I remember carting the extra (as in extra-large and extra-heavy and extra-try-and-sell-some-more-of-these) editions up and down the many stairs of the apartment complex on my route on what had to be the hottest day of the year.

But, what was so special about that? Everybody my age has the same memories.

Well, sometime later, I did receive something special from the Apollo 11 Moon landing. One day my grandfather came over to visit and I was called out of my bedroom retreat because he wanted to present something to me - a check. Having not been handed too many checks in my life at that point, this was novel, but I was pretty sure there was something missing in the important spaces on the front of the check. And I was pretty sure that the only mark on the check, a signature on the back, was important. I was at a loss as to what I had been given. The front was blank and there was a signature on the back.

After puzzling this for a moment, I blurted out “What’s this? A blank check?”

This generated chuckles from the adults present. Then I was filled in. It was Buzz Aldrin’s signature.

“Who’s Buzz Aldrin?”

“The second man to set foot on the Moon.”

I had my answer; I had the signature of the guy who finished second. But it was obvious that this was impressive. I kept the check, and still have it today. But most important, I’ve been proud to know the answer to a trivia question for 40 years.

Thanks, Grandpa.

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In going through a rather large stack of my grandfather’s black and white negatives, I came across three negatives which stood out from the rest. They are all three informal family portraits which were taken on the family’s trip to Hawaii in the summer of 1931. What I like about the three photos is how the personality of the children, my father and his siblings, jumps out from the image.

The first photo was taken in Yellowstone National Park and has the added wow factor of having the family standing right in front of one of the mineral pools. Notice there’s no boardwalk in the photo.

That’s my dad, Dick, pointing a stick at the camera; Elinor, the youngest, is barely present; Walt is keeping his father close, but not holding his hand; and Mary, the oldest obviously volunteered for the responsibility of taking this important photo.

The second and third photos were taken soon after the family’s arrival in Hawaii. In the first of these two, the family is in a joyous mood. Dad and Elinor are involved in making a face that reminds me of a rat; Mary is bemused by something, probably Dick and Elinor; and Walt is not letting any of this detract from his new found stature as a world traveler. But even Grandma and Grandpa are happy to be in Hawaii.

The third photo was taken soon after the first and I would venture to guess there were probably some stern warnings from the photographer to the children. Elinor has retreated to the safety of her mother’s hand; Dad is making sure his smile can’t be interpreted as anything else; Walt has his head tipped down more so as to not draw too much attention; and even Mary is leaning in slightly.

Maybe I’m just easily amused, but I find these photos delightful.

-Updated 7/18/09 to correct spelling of Elinor

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I’m amazed at the number of times I’ve heard someone say “if we were to only invested in…” and named some renewable, or “green”, energy source like solar. Having worked, for a semiconductor company, I’m well aware that “we” have invested in renewable energy for many years. And, if you believe in the free market system you would come to the same realization. What company wouldn’t invest in the ability to generate cheap, clean energy?

What most people don’t realize is the massive scale of energy needed for modern society to function. Think for just a moment about what you know about the industrial revolution. It didn’t begin when we were able to domesticate livestock even though they were able to do a multiple of the amount of work done by a single human. It began when humans figured out how to harness significantly larger amounts of energy; enough energy to run a whole factory worth’s of equipment.

The average person, however, thinks on the scale of a sixty watt light bulb. A sixty watt light bulb provides sufficient light to light a room but it gets far too hot to touch. A fifteen watt compact florescent light bulb provides the same light and is a good bit cooler. You feel as though you’ve done well to replace your lights with compact florescent. But we don’t think about the energy consumed to broadcast our evening’s entertainment or to make the television we’re watching it on. Replacing an incandescent light bulb with a compact florescent is akin to a butterfly beating its wings; it doesn’t change much on the global scheme of things. Solar panels, and even wind turbines, just don’t compare on scale to the large power plants which supply the vast majority of our energy needs.

To understand this better, I like to refer to an illustration provided in the August 2005 issue of National Geographic. On page 28, as part of their exposé on alternate energy, they took a satellite photo of Manhattan Island and overlaid a one square mile grid. They then assigned a number of the squares to three alternate energy technologies based on how much land mass would be needed to supply power for the whole 128 square miles shown. Nuclear power would require 2 square miles, or about 1.6% of the land mass. Wind turbines would require about 10.6 squares or 8.3% of the land mass. Solar requires a whopping 74 squares which is 57.8% of the land.

Yes, nobody wants to live next to a nuclear plant. And people are beginning to realize that they don’t want to live next to a wind farm. But solar just won’t cut it; remember that 58% of the land is the total land mass and doesn’t account for the fact that some of the land can’t be utilized for solar energy collection.

If the land mass comparison doesn’t resonate with you, how about this one:

One solar panel (64”x32”) = 175 watts

One nuclear power reactor = 1,000,000,000 watts

Still can visualize? Most residential houses have a 200 amp service and even though few of us consume this maximum amperage, it would take more than 100 panels to supply just one half of this service. It’s not unusual for a modest office building to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of watts of service provided.

There may come a day when we can use solar energy on a massive scale, but it won’t be until we find a way of achieving significantly higher conversion efficiencies that the 12 to 15% solar panels we have today.

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The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.

Sir Winston Churchill

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