Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

August 13, 1951: the large scale Cold War era war game Exercise Southern Pine commenced.

In August 1951, before the term “jointness” was widely used, the Air Force and Army worked together to deploy 100,000 soldiers and 400 warplanes to defend North and South Carolina from a Soviet invasion.

Of course, the Soviets didn’t really invade the Carolinas.

It was an exercise, called Southern Pine. It unfolded during a period of heavy fighting in the Korean War and reflected the Pentagon’s priority at the time: Real fighting in Korea took second place behind preparations for war with the Soviet Union.

Exercise Southern Pine, carried out near Fort Bragg, N. C. between Aug. 13 and Sept. 2, 1951, was one of the largest military war games of the era. The exercise tested three Army combat divisions against a Soviet-like foe who was identified simply as “the Aggressor.”

Facts about Exercise Southern Pine are sparse. Donna Tabor, command historian for the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, and Betty Rucker, collections manager for the 82nd Airborne Division Museum, both said their files contain no documents about the exercise, nor do the files of the Fayetteville Observer, the newspaper closest to Bragg. Mark Morgan, historian at the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, found some items that confirm the Air Force’s role in moving troops quickly and supporting them.

Despite the Caribbean context of the war game’s premise, Exercise Southern Pine was meant to prepare American soldiers to defend Western Europe from an armored assault by the Soviet Union and its allies.

The Aggressor made heavy use of armor, just as the real-life Soviets did. The emphasis was on air-to-ground operations, including movement of soldiers by air. “Blue” troops (friendlies) often arrived from the air and nominally waged the mock war partly with nuclear artillery.

New ideas and equipment were tested. The troop-carrying H-12 helicopter was evaluated in Southern Pine, but never became operational. Later, the H-12’s maker, Bell, introduced the Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey, which was initially called the XH-40.

An Associated Press story of Aug. 14, 1951, told of the 28th and 43rd divisions assembling east of Fort Bragg “to prevent this huge encampment from seizure. With the capture of Fort Bragg, the enemy would have easy sailing in its drive toward the Raleigh-Durham industrial area, the objective of Aggressor forces in the operation.” The AP report said the exercise was to prepare these divisions for duty in Europe and was “the armed forces’ biggest training effort since World War II.”

The 28th and 43rd divisions did, indeed, transfer to Europe. In 1951, an atomic war with the U.S.S.R. was a real prospect that seemed as important to Pentagon decision makers as Korea did. In the end, of course, there was no such war – in part because of the readiness fostered by rehearsals like Exercise Southern Pine.

Exercise Southern Pine Illustrated Cold War Era Priorities

Exercise SNOW FALL, conducted in Jan-Feb 1952 in northern New York at Camp Drum, was the first exercise to include atomic play.

USAF Historical Studies: No. 129 [Air Force Participation In Joint Army-Air Force Training Exercises 1951-1954]


In this 2nd Loudspeaker and Leaflet Company training leaflet used in Exercise Southern Pine in August 1951, a Lovely woman is depicted at the left with a microphone. The girl was a local named Gladys Mathews. The text is:

Listen to Lorelei
The velvet voice of aggressor in her nightly broadcasts...
Just for you!

PSYOP HISTORY - Voice of the U.S. and Aggressors The 2nd Loudspeaker & Leaflet Company. By Jared M. Tracy, PhD

From Veritas, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2016

    “Dropping leaflets instead of parachutes and using loudspeakers instead of rifles, psychological warfare [psywar] units are ‘fighting’ side by side with airborne troopers of the [82nd Airborne] Division.”
    –New York Times, 15 November 1953

Supporting that maneuver, Exercise FALCON, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was the 2nd Loudspeaker and Leaflet (L&L) Company, a tactical psywar unit. For most of its brief existence (November 1950-February 1955), the 2nd L&L functioned as the stateside psywar training element for Army Field Forces. It thus ‘filled the gap’ left by the 1st L&L Company (formerly called the Tactical Information Detachment) when it deployed to Korea in late 1950. This article introduces the 2nd L&L in the context of renewed U.S. Army efforts to rebuild its psywar capability during the Korean War.

Leading the U.S. Army psywar resurgence was Brigadier General (BG) Robert A. McClure, who orchestrated the strategic psywar campaign in Europe during WWII. Heading the Psywar Division, Army G-3 starting in September 1950 and the Office of the Chief of Psywar (OCPW) after January 1951, McClure prioritized activating, manning, training, and deploying psywar units to the Far East and Europe. By spring 1951, the Army’s active duty tactical psywar inventory consisted of the 1st, 2nd, and 5th L&L Companies. The mission of these permanent, table of organization and equipment (T/O&E) units was “to conduct the tactical propaganda operations of a field army and to provide quality [psywar] specialists as advisors to the army and subordinate staffs.”

.....

During Exercise SOUTHERN PINE, the 2nd L&L designed and printed some 485,800 leaflets that Aggressor forces employed against U.S. units. Loudspeaker appeals complemented printed messages. In addition, the 2nd L&L introduced “Lorelei, the Velvet Voice of Aggressor.” Promoting her nightly local radio broadcasts on Aggressor News Network, a mock enemy news station, one leaflet offered a written sample of Lorelei’s messages: “I hope you’ll like me, fellas… Will you listen to me each night? Please? I promise you, fellas, you won’t regret it.” The detachment recruited local girls to pose for leaflets and to speak on air as Lorelei.

Bonus link: PSYOP Training Leaflets


The following decade they went from "Atomic play" to "Biological Weapon Play"...


Army Report Details Germ War Exercise In N.Y. Subway in '66  (I wonder what interest the Church of Scientology had back then)



Cats Fight Like People - 1950s Government Film Preaches... You Can't Guess What!...Unless you're British!



In the 1950s, particularly around 1955 when this was produced, the concept of fallout shelters became increasingly popular in the United States due to the escalating Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. This period marked a significant rise in the public's fear of nuclear warfare, leading to a surge in the construction and sale of fallout shelters by various companies and entrepreneurs aiming to capitalize on these fears.

This film took an unusual approach to selling American citizens on fallout shelters. An immigrant comes to town. The US Government (as in this film) and several companies and rich individuals, began to pitch and manufacture and sell fallout shelters.


August 13, 1961: The Berlin Wall begins with barbed wire.




August 13, 1966: debuting on the Hot 100 at No. 81 ... the B-side to "Wouldn’t It Be Nice."






Colorado passed the first law in the US to include bio and brain data in the State Privacy Act to protect people's thoughts from mind-reading tech. Those sci-fi movies from the 70s-80s era keep coming true. Make it stop!


As mind-reading technology improves, Colorado passes first-in-nation law to protect privacy of our thoughts

Next up will be a bill for Neurorights and Neuromarkets riddled with loopholes & congressional kickbacks. Invest in tin foil!


Modesty Blaise (1966) Stylish ex-con Modesty Blaise and her partner Willie Garvin are tasked by the British Secret Service with preventing her rival Gabriel from stealing diamonds that are to be delivered to her adoptive father, a Sheikh.

Modesty, a secret agent whose hair color, hair style, and mod clothing change at a snap of her fingers, is being used by the British government as a decoy in an effort to thwart a diamond heist.


In 1978, a businessman claimed he was negotiating with a European navy to lease a submarine that would take Scottish fans known as the 'Tartan Army' to the World Cup in Argentina. He said he could not reveal the name of the country, but its navy needed to generate revenue due to defense budget cuts. The undersea journey would be limited to 180 male fans, each paying £595 for a ticket. However, the deal fell through.


Jim Tait, Bookmaker, greyhound trainer, bon viveur


Excerpt from last night's X Games:


Donald Trump and Elon Musk (Full Transcript) - August 12, 2024


R.I.P. Paramount Television Studios — the current iteration of Paramount’s TV division will shut down amid cost-cutting. Projects will be absorbed into CBS Studios, the successor to the original Paramount TV, formed after the 1967 acquisition of Desilu. Good luck trying to track the Paramount history of acquisitions, mergers, un-mergers, re-mergers, and name changes.