RetroWarTHINK 009: ModelVISION! Bow Ramp Landing Craft: Japanese Idea--USMC Takes Credit when ARMORED U.K. LCA was Far Better

Saving Private Gomer Pyle, USMC: his "Sergeant" Carter was played by Real-Life, U.S. ARMY WW2 Combat Hero, Frank Sutton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_H._Krulak

While stationed as an observer in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Krulak took photographs with a telephoto lens of a ramp-bowed landing boat that the Japanese had been using. Recognizing the potential use of such a craft by the U.S. armed forces, Krulak sent details and photographs back to Washington, but discovered years later that they had been filed away as having come from "some nut out in China". Krulak built a model of the Japanese boat design and discussed the retractable ramp approach with boat builder Andrew Higgins who incorporated elements of Krulak's input into the Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) or "Higgins boat", which played critical roles in the Normandy Landings and amphibious assaults in the Pacific.[5]

In 2007, at the marine corps association's first annual banquet, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recounted the story of Krulak's time in China and his career:[17]

About learning from the experiences and setbacks of the past;

About being open to take ideas and inspiration from wherever they come [EDITOR: and dishonestly taking credit for them]; and

About overcoming conventional wisdom and bureaucratic obstacles thrown in one's path.

His book First to Fight won the 1984 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.[18][19]

The Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity (BKCIC) at the marine corps university is named after Victor Krulak.

****

Notice TELLING THE TRUTH is not a Krulak endorsed virtue--the USMC was NOT the 1st to fight in WW2--or any other war. 

Semper Airborne!

Comments

Popular Posts