Tuesday, April 21, 2015
twice in US history the Marines were set on guard of the Post Office deliveries
During the 1920s, two of our Presidents ordered the Marine Corps to help guard the U.S. Mail because mail robbery in those days was really lucrative because in those days before the electronic transfer of funds between banks and other financial institutions, large amounts of money and negotiable bonds was routinely shipped by registered mail.
From 1919 to 1921, about $6 million was lost to mail robbers, and back then $6 million was real money. The worst loss was at a robbery on Leonard Street in New York. Five sacks of registered mail carrying an estimated $2.4 million in cash and negotiable securities was snatched in one heist.
By the end of 1921, things had gotten so bad that Postmaster General Will H. Hays requested President Harding to direct the U.S. Marine Corps to help guard the mail.
2,200 Marines and 53 officers, taken mainly from the expeditionary forces kept alert at Quantico, Virginia, and San Diego, California, were spread throughout the country guarding the mail. They usually worked in small detachments of two or three Marines.
Navy Secretary Denby, a former Marine, sent a message to the Corps: ....You must, when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand and, if attacked, shoot and shoot to kill. There is no compromise in this battle with bandits. If two Marines guarding a mail car, for example, are suddenly covered by a robber, neither must hold up his hands, but both must begin shooting at once. One may be killed, but the other will get the robbers and save the mail. When our Marine Corps men go as guards over the mail, that mail must be delivered or there must be a dead Marine at the post of duty.
The Marines didn't have to put their special orders and training to the test-the mail robberies came to a screeching halt. From the day the Marines assumed guard duty until March 15, 1922, when they were withdrawn, not a single attempted mail robbery took place.
The lull in mail robberies continued until April 1923 when a mail messenger in St. Louis was relieved of $2.4 million worth of registered mail. By 1926, things were again at a crisis point. The final straw came in October in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where a group of gunmen shot down a mail truck driver and made off with $5,150,000.00.
Postmaster General Harry New asked Congress for money to create a special force of armed guards and to build armored mail cars. While this was being done, he requested President Coolidge to reassign the Marines to guard the mail. By 1926, the robbers had increased their firepower by use of automatic rifles and machine guns. The Marines responded in kind. In addition to pistols and shotguns, the Marines were armed with Thompson submachine guns.
By February 1927, the Marines were needed for an expeditionary force headed for Nicaragua, and were relieved by newly trained security forces of the Postal Service. Twice during a period of 5 years, the Marines had brought to a standstill a series of dangerous mail robberies.
Story by Colonel Nate Smith, USMC (Ret), and George Corney, Associate Editor of U.S. Stamps and Postal History - (Originally Published in October 1993).
Found on https://www.facebook.com/whoknowseast1/posts/618349134968380:0
Uber drivers in the news... good and bad
Chicago:
An Uber driver put his concealed carry permit to use Friday night when he pulled a shotgun and opened fire on a man he saw firing a pistol into a group of people on a Logan Square sidewalk, according to prosecutors.
An Uber driver put his concealed carry permit to use Friday night when he pulled a shotgun and opened fire on a man he saw firing a pistol into a group of people on a Logan Square sidewalk, according to prosecutors.
Six blasts from his shotgun injured a 22-year-old man identified as Everardo Custodio.
Custodio suffered wounds to his shin, knee and lower back and was still in Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center on Sunday, when Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas refused to grant bail on charges of aggravated battery with a firearm and illegal possession of a firearm.
The 47-year-old Uber driver “was acting in self-defense and in the defense of others,” Assistant State’s Attorney Barry Quinn said. Custodio, who lives about a block from the site of the shooting, was the only person injured in the confrontation that happened about 11:50 p.m. in the 2900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/04/20/uber-driver-with-concealed-carry-permit-shoots-gunman-in-logan-square/
San Francisco:
The driver, who police identified as 38-year-old Emerson Decarvalho was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault with a vehicle shortly after the collision at about 1 p.m. Sunday near the intersection of North Point and Taylor streets.
The 45-year-old victim was biking when he reached out his hand and struck the window of the black four-door Toyota Camry. The Uber driver then retaliated by charging the victim with his car, knocking him off his bicycle and rendering him unconscious.
According to police, the bicyclist suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and a broken collarbone when the Uber driver purposely struck him, according to police.
http://kron4.com/2015/04/20/police-uber-driver-arrested-for-intentionally-hitting-bicyclist-near-fishermans-wharf/
Ronald Read, a WW2 vet who served in Africa, Europe, and the Pacific... then was a gas station mechanic unitl retiring, bequeathed 6 million dollars to his favorite library and hospital
Read, the first person in his family to graduate from high school, dressed in worn flannel shirts and spent his free time scavenging for fallen branches for his home wood stove. He drove a second-hand Toyota Yaris.
Read graduated from Brattleboro High School in 1940 and during World War II served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theater in the U.S. Army's Military Police Company. He was honorably discharged from active service at the rank of Technician Fifth Grade on December 21, 1945.
Returning home, he worked at Haviland's service station and then as a janitor at a JCPenney store, marrying a woman with two children.
"You'd never know the man was a millionaire," Rowell said. "The last time he came here, he parked far away in a spot where there were no meters so he could save the coins."
Before his death on June 2, 2014, Read's only indulgence was eating breakfast at the local coffee shop, where he once tried to pay his bill only to find that someone had already covered it under the assumption he did not have the means, Rowell said.
Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital each received their largest bequests ever. Read left $1.2 million to the library, founded in 1886, and $4.8 million to the hospital, founded in 1904.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/04/us-usa-vermont-millionaire-idUSKBN0L82IU20150204
The president of the Board of Trustees for the Brooks Memorial Library said in a release he was delighted by the news and said Read's donation was the largest bequest since that of George J. Brooks in 1886.
After World War II Read began working as a mechanic with his brother until 1979.
In his safety deposit box were dividend producing stock and bond certificates worth about 8 million.
In addition to his charitable donations, Read also gave a portion of his fortune to a couple of stepchildren and friends.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/05/us/vermont-frugal-man-donates-millions/
Read left the Dummerston Historical Society with an antique Edison phonograph along with dozens of recording drums.
Financial expert Chris Hogan, a strategist with Ramsey Solutions, applauded Read's diligence and believes others can follow his example.
For example, to reach Read's $8 million fortune, Hogan calculated that investors would have to invest about $300 a month at an 8 percent interest rate over 65 years.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102410730
Read graduated from Brattleboro High School in 1940 and during World War II served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theater in the U.S. Army's Military Police Company. He was honorably discharged from active service at the rank of Technician Fifth Grade on December 21, 1945.
Returning home, he worked at Haviland's service station and then as a janitor at a JCPenney store, marrying a woman with two children.
"You'd never know the man was a millionaire," Rowell said. "The last time he came here, he parked far away in a spot where there were no meters so he could save the coins."
Before his death on June 2, 2014, Read's only indulgence was eating breakfast at the local coffee shop, where he once tried to pay his bill only to find that someone had already covered it under the assumption he did not have the means, Rowell said.
Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital each received their largest bequests ever. Read left $1.2 million to the library, founded in 1886, and $4.8 million to the hospital, founded in 1904.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/04/us-usa-vermont-millionaire-idUSKBN0L82IU20150204
The president of the Board of Trustees for the Brooks Memorial Library said in a release he was delighted by the news and said Read's donation was the largest bequest since that of George J. Brooks in 1886.
After World War II Read began working as a mechanic with his brother until 1979.
In his safety deposit box were dividend producing stock and bond certificates worth about 8 million.
In addition to his charitable donations, Read also gave a portion of his fortune to a couple of stepchildren and friends.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/05/us/vermont-frugal-man-donates-millions/
Read left the Dummerston Historical Society with an antique Edison phonograph along with dozens of recording drums.
Financial expert Chris Hogan, a strategist with Ramsey Solutions, applauded Read's diligence and believes others can follow his example.
For example, to reach Read's $8 million fortune, Hogan calculated that investors would have to invest about $300 a month at an 8 percent interest rate over 65 years.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102410730
trucker smashes into New York monument to those killed by traffic accidents...
A truck crashed into a half-finished monument on south Fourth Street meant to honor those killed in traffic fatalities in New York on Saturday.
Right of Way, a group of road safety activists, had put nearly 10 hours into an art installation depicting the silhouettes and names of the 264 people killed in traffic accidents in 2014 when a truck hit one of the walls.
South Fourth Street is not a truck route. Witnesses say that the driver spent 30 minutes to an hour trying to extricate himself from the monument and the narrow street.
http://cdllife.com/2015/top-trucking-news/truck-crashes-into-monument-honoring-traffic-fatality-victims/
The back end of a tractor-trailer smashed into a wall in Williamsburg where a group of activists were installing a memorial to New Yorkers killed in traffic accidents.
The crash rattled the memorial wall where more than 40 volunteers of the transportation group Right of Way were almost pasted as they pasted silhouettes of 264 dead people on the temporary wall along Kent Avenue and S. Third Street on Saturday.
The group spent 10 hours on Saturday hanging wooden planks and then pasting on the 264 5-foot-high, 20-inch wide panels that now covers two-and-a-half sides of the full-city-block construction fence. Each silhouette reads “Killed by traffic” and has the name of the victim underneath.
The 18-wheeler sped around the corner at about 11 am, and the back left portion of the truck slammed into the wall, according to the activists. The force of the crash cracked the wall on impact. The volunteers, many of whom were perched on ladders and scaffolding, were shaken, but no one was injured.
The irony of the situation was not lost them.
The group installed the memorial to protest what they call the city’s insufficient steps taken to quell traffic deaths in the year since it instituted “Vision Zero” — the mayor’s plan to decrease the number of pedestrian fatalities to zero.
The temporary wall is wrapped around the construction site that will be one of the massive skyscrapers of Two Trees Management Co.’s Domino sugar factory project.
This all happened on the same weekend that the New York City Street Memorial Project, which installs white bike sculptures in spots where bicyclists have been killed, hosted its Ghost Bike ride across the city. The two projects are unrelated, but have many crossover members and supporters.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/38/17/dtg-truck-crashes-into-traffic-death-memorial-2015-04-24-bk.html
finally, a B 29 has completed a restoration, and is rolled out of the hanger after being rescued from the desert in 1987 where it sat on a Mojave bombing range for 40 years
One of the members of the Disney Squadron "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" this rare B 29 is Doc, and has been restored in Kansas at the hangers that once were Boeing's business in Wichita.
Spirit CEO Larry Lawson presented a replica of the B-29’s horn button from the yoke of Doc to Dermer as part of the delivery ceremony.
Doc’s Friends will need to find a permanent location to house the airplane and ongoing support to operate it as a flying museum. The organization estimates it will need to raise an additional $7 million to $9 million to complete those efforts.
http://www.kansas.com/news/business/aviation/article16083872.html
I last posted about Doc in January http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-2nd-b-29-is-ready-to-fly-again-doc.html
It's website is http://b-29doc.com/ if you can make a donation
Applause and compliments to Officer Cody Remy of Bridgeport CT, a good cop that does his community proud
While he was on patrol April 11th when he spotted some kids, one with a bike problem, stopped and helped.
Remy was totally unaware that a neighbor had snapped a picture of him stopping to assist with the kid’s bike. It was later sent to local media outlets.
http://wtnh.com/2015/04/19/bridgeport-police-officer-stops-to-help-fix-childs-bike/
So I raise a cold refreshment and tip my hat to compliment him for helping a kid.
The Bridgeport Police Department is dedicated to serving the community through the protection of life and property and the prevention of crime. The police and the community are accountable to each other and will work together for the purpose of ensuring the highest quality of life; to enforce the law, maintain order, educate the public and provide public assistance with respect, dignity and equality while maintaining the highest standards of professional ethics and integrity.
http://www.bridgeportct.gov/content/89019/89755/90919/default.aspx
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