He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (“Philly”) and was living there before he entered the Army.   I think the orders (GO 4 1 July 44) you may have seen for his CIB are actually for an EIB.   Dan

Hi Matt, Thank you so much for your effort! I couldn't find any other W. B. Fortney, so you might have found the one! Maybe somebody changed the shoulder boards for a display..

Hint, it might be found in the 2027 state budget. 😁   Scott

Patton didn't always have more resources than the Germans and MacArther certainly didn't have more than the Japanese for a long time. The point was that Grant always had more and he knew it so he used them unsparingly with little regard to casualties and this does not make him a great general.          As for the earlier battles in the east, we will never know how it may have been different, but what we do know is that Lee, but mostly Jackson, out generaled all of the Union generals and likely could have taken DC had they decided to. As I said, Grant did what he needed to do, but carrying a big hammer doesn't equate to being a great or even a good general.          MacArther was always short on troops and supplies and especially naval support and his SW Pacific area was over 100 million square miles of land and sea, with the land mass being as large as the continental US. He commanded roughly 200,000 troops to Grants 500,000. Patton often lacked fuel to move but these two improvised, read maps, studied the enemy, and went where they weren't to either encircle them or leave them to starve in the backwaters of the war. They were brilliant in both strategy and tactics and they had levels of brilliance beneath them like Eichelberger, Krueger, Allen, Truscott, Gavin, heck Patton had Bradley under him for a while. Not a good comparison to prop up Grant.          He was imaginative to the point of near failure in most of the swamp cuts as well, they are considered tactical failures and only successful in that they kept his troops active in the Winter. Upon finally reaching Vicksburg, he wasn't able to take it and had to lay siege and cut off the supplies which still took him nearly two months. So, yeah, he won but not by any stroke of genius.          Scott

Hello Here a very nice US M1 helmet liner identified to the Pvt Ramon J. PETRONE of the B Co , 115th IR of the 29th ID. He was wounded in july 1944 in Normandy and after in september 1944. Got the CIB in Normandy in July 1944. I would know the signification of the marking "Philly's kid" please ? And i don't find any information if he was in Brittany in August 1944 ?   Thanks David

I found this patch for the USS Tatum (DE-789/APD-81).  It is a rather small patch being 3 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches in height so this could be some sort of reunion type post war produced patch.

I hear what you're saying.  The Wilderness campaign and the final battles of the war were not military genius type stuff, but it was Grant's understanding that to win the north must lock horns with the confederate army where ever it could and not let go - high casualties on both sides in a war of attrition that the South could not win.  But it was what needed to win and he did it.  If you look at his Western campaign leading to Vicksburg he was, in my opinion, as imaginative as he was dogged and aggressive.  Cutting through swampland to bypass fortified points in the Mississippi and constantly pushing south through difficult terrain, and then crossing the river and coming at Vicksburg from the east was very skillful.  I've never heard Patton or MacArthur criticized for having more resources than the Germans and Japanese.   In my view, if Grant had been in command of the Army of the Potomac at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville, etc where McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Pope all flamed out, the war would have gone very differently.     

He did lack imagination, and as he knew the North had greater resources he wasn't afraid to attack as he also knew his men would be replaced. This made him victorious to be certain, but it didn't make him a great general in my opinion. Most Southern generals knew early on that a war with the North was a losing prospect for the same reasons Grant had. When war came, those Southern leaders had to rely on the training they had from West Point, VMI, etc... as well as their service in the Mexican War to engage the North and they did so quite successfully. If you look at the amount of battles fought which was an estimated 370, the North won 195 and the South 129 with 46 accepted draws. Since the North was the greater power in both men and materials, most would award a draw to the loser, or in this case the South. Numbers like these reflect the poor leadership in the Union Armies which was often plagued with political appointees and other mitigating factors. Yes, the North won the war, and yes Grant was overall the architect of that, but he was no Jackson, Lee, Forrest, or Cleburne when it came to leadership, strategy, and tactics. He just carried a bigger stick. The other thing I would give him was that he did know, thanks largely in part to Sherman, that he must prosecute the war fully and brutally to bring it to an end and that philosophy carried us through WWII. Sadly it wasn't applied in Korea and Vietnam.      Scott

I have just found a small period reference to Lt J.E. Bowen online, for a pre-war fatal boat accident, along famous Jack Valentine Woolams, Chief Experimental Test Pilot, Bell Aircraft Corporation and Lt. Camp. : "On 10 February 1939, Lieutenant Woolams was one of three Air Corps officers thrown into the waters of Cross Lake, near Shreveport, Louisiana, when the boat, owned by Woolams, capsized in 4 foot (1.2 meters) waves. Woolams and Lieutenant J.E. Bowen were rescued after 4 hours in the water, but the third man, Lieutenant Wilbur D. Camp, died of exposure" Not sure it is the same person, or how he ended up in CC Moseley's aviation school. If someone with better investigative skills and tools wants to help. I will greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance for your time and valuable help. Vellocino 

Hi fellow members, I was lucky to obtain the early Moseley's presentation pilot wing to JE Bowen recently.  I share with you the rest of the pictures in the local auction. Hope you enjoy! Thank you. Vellocino