Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Sea story Sunday: Operation "Paintshop" in 1978 Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm FG.1 Phantoms of No. 892 Naval Air Squadron back on board the carrier HMS Ark Royal (R09) after a visit to a US Naval Air Station (NAVSTA) Oceana Virginia Beach, Virginia where they worked up with USS Saratoga (CV-60). The Royal Navy roundels had been "zapped" and replaced with interwar American Navy "meatball" insignia, and on XV590 001/R, the "Royal Navy" flash had been replaced with one for the "Colonial Navy." That's what happens when the Royal Navy visits their American brethren...


The F-4 Phantoms of the Colonial Navy


46 years later we're still brothers in arms...


U.S., U.K. Conduct Joint Strikes Against Eight Houthi Locations in Yemen



Feb 25, 1933: USS Ranger (CV-4) was launched. Ranger was the first U.S. ship to be designed and built from the keel up as a carrier. She was one of only three U.S. carriers commissioned before 1941 to survive WWII. Deemed too slow for the Pacific Theater, she served mostly in the Atlantic where the German fleet, the Kriegsmarine, was a weaker opponent. In October 1943, she fought in Operation Leader, air attacks on German shipping off Norway. She was sold for scrap in 1947.



“HOME ON THE RANGE®” [1939]
(Sequel to “Gloomy Sunday”)

Oh we got a home,
Where the Iguanas roam,
Where mosquitoes and Tarantulas play,
Where never is heard
An encouraging word,
And the dust never settles all day,

CHORUS:

Home, home on the Ranger,
We’re stuck in Guantanamo Bay,
And never is heard,
That most welcome word,
That we’re leaving for Norfolk next day.

How often at night
By a feeble flashlight,
With no help from the glittering stars,
Have we stood there askance,
With the bugs in our pants,
Oh there’s no one with troubles like ours.

Oh we’re in a land,
Where the rocks, dust, and sand.
Choke engines and pilots and things,
And for over a week.
There’s been no campho-phenique,
To put on our mosquito stings,

We would gladly exchange,
Our roost on the range,
For most any civilized spot,
But since we must roam,
Why can’t we go home,
Guantanamo Bay’s too darn hot.
Home on the Range®

The Saratoga (CV-3) carrier was sunk by an atomic bomb test, in Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll.

She survived the first atomic airburst detonation on July 1, 1946. The first test was named "Able." The bomb was named "Gilda" after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 film, Gilda, and was dropped from the B-29 Superfortress Dave's Dream of the 509th Bombardment Group. 5 ships sunk in that blast including one (USS LSM-60, WW II era amphibious assault ship) that was presumed completely vaporized as no particle of her has ever been found. The plane, formerly known as Big Stink, had been the photographic equipment aircraft on the Nagasaki mission in 1945.

A second nuke test "Baker" and the bomb known as "Helen of Bikini" was done on 25 July 1946, this time an underwater atomic detonation which sank the Saratoga along with 9 other warships including Japanese and German. Both nukes were 23-kiloton yield, about the same as "Fat Man" dropped on Nagasaki.

After a year and then some of digging for the "Atomic Goddess" Rita Hayworth image purportedly painted on the bomb, Gilda was discovered in 2013. Below images are stills captured from a film roll that came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory that happened to be dropped in a nuke researcher's email box. The film was found by Atomic documentarian Peter Kuran of Atom Central. His Youtube channel if interested.

A few guys who were still alive in the 21st century remembered it as only a stencil of the name "GILDA" was marked on the bomb, while a few others remembered it being a painting of Rita. So, the final mystery then is where did this particular Rita Hayworth image come from? After a few scholar's went on a Rita hunting expedition through meticulous scrolling archives, the elusive photograph appeared on page 78 of the June 1946 edition of Esquire magazine! The pin-up, credited to legendary Hollywood photographer Bob Coburn (1900-1990), was a dead ringer for the image on the bomb.

First came the "GILDA" stencil then came the Rita painting.





And the photo used for the painting...


Esquire Magazine - June 1946

Coburn’s star subjects included Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Kim Novak, Marilyn Monroe, Carole Lombard, William Holden, Glenn Ford, Orson Welles and more. His most famous portraits immortalized Hollywood’s greatest icons and helped to define this era as the Golden Age of Cinema.




The Fahey/Klein Gallery  | 35 Gorgeous Photos of Classic Beauties Taken by Robert Coburn


Uruguay joins the Space brothers order...

WASHINGTON — Uruguay signed the Artemis Accords outlining best practices in space exploration Feb. 15, the second country in as many weeks to do so.

In a ceremony at NASA Headquarters, Omar Paganini, foreign minister of Uruguay, signed the Accords on the behalf of the country. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and other officials from both the United States and Uruguay attended the signing.

“We are honored to have the opportunity to introduce space cooperation as a new chapter in the robust bilateral agenda between Uruguay and the U.S.,” Paganini said in a statement about the signing, calling it “the beginning of a new bilateral track” of cooperation between the countries.

Uruguay does not have a significant space program, but announced last year plans to establish a national space agency. Uruguay has hosted the headquarters of Satellogic, a company developing a constellation of Earth observation satellites, although the company said in September it planned to redomicile the company in the United States to allow it to compete for U.S. government business.

The signing took place as part of bilateral ministerial meetings between the United States and Uruguay. In a readout of those meetings, the U.S. State Department said the United States “agreed to support Uruguay exploring civilian and commercial space industries,” but did not elaborate on those plans.

“The United States and Uruguay share a commitment to democracy and peace, and now, we expand these principles in the cosmos to commit to the safe and transparent exploration of space,” Nelson said in a statement about the signing.

Uruguay is the 36th country to sign the Accords, established in 2020, and the second in as many weeks after Greece signed the documents Feb. 9. The signatories range from countries with advanced space programs to those like Uruguay that are only starting to develop space capabilities.

The Artemis Accords outline best practices for countries to follow in space exploration activities, building upon the Outer Space Treaty and other international agreements on topics ranging from registration of space objects to utilization of space resources.

Uruguay signs Artemis Accords

As dreamers and messengers of love, the Toltecs myth is that Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, was the planter of the cacao trees in the tropics of southern Mexico. He was called "the god of light, the giver of the drink of the gods, chocolate." Both the Mayans and Aztecs regarded chocolate as a potent aphrodisiac.