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Post by batteryboy on May 31, 2009 6:00:05 GMT 8
When ICBMs have a failure in their launching mechanism, they secretly grab Battery Hearn from its loading platfrom and load it into this:  ...and before you know it, its back to greet the next day's group of tourist with a smile  |
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Post by batteryboy on May 31, 2009 7:26:11 GMT 8
I have been thinking of how difficult it is to deal with some of the anecdotal stories(a.k.a. tall tales) that get thrown around about Corregidor, and how best to deal with the retelling of the more outlandish of them. And, aside from an attack of whimsy, I haven’t got any solution. If a guide comes up with some outrageous bit of bullsh, what can you do? They take it so personally if you tell them straight, and they take it so personally if you tell them indirectly. Too indirectly, they don’t get it at all. Maybe one day there’ll be a written exam to be a guide, and a badge when they win thru to a higher level. Where is Battery Kysor on the map, mark it “K”. Mark where H Battery 60th CA were stationed. List two 50 calibre batteries. Who was Col. Bunker? How many paratroopers dropped on the second day? (None, it’s a trick question). Why did Btry Way cease firing? Where does Battery Hearn go during the rainy season? Where's Waldo? Oh the guides... sometimes its like operation "Shock and Awe". Here's a classic: One of them tells a group tourist that he personally toured Maj. General Moore when he came back for a sentimental visit. ...boy did I miss that.  |
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Post by mapmaster on May 31, 2009 7:31:39 GMT 8
Hi EXO
All the questions you asked, as examples, have answers readily available in Corregidor.org - no one has to look very hard. It's easy to click print on the computer screen and staple pages into a booklet to be read to tourists.
There are super detailed electronic maps available, through the same site, now and they have been set up so that portions of each map can be printed to cover specific areas. Who would disagree that a guide with a print of San Jose would not be popular when he/she explained "the Dance Hall was here, the Market was here, behind us was where the Bakery was and over there you can see the Cable Hut".
Hopefully this thread will be read and acted upon, so the EXO does not have to go "whimsical" again.
Regards to all
mapmaster
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Post by batteryboy on May 31, 2009 15:12:59 GMT 8
Hi guys, One of the guides here says that the gun at Battery Hearn was initially a navy gun. Is this possible? Sounds crazy to me. Steve Alright, now time to give Battery Hearn some tribute. The M1895 barrel on Hearn is designed and made specifically for Coast Artillery, which is a branch of the US Army. Therefore, it is an Army gun. The Army's specification of their heavy artillery differs from the Navy requirements. The M1895 barrel is trunioned to mount either the barbette or the disappearing carriage. Navy large calibre gun barrels are generally manufactured without trunions and they need special gun cradle as they are usually mounted on turrets desined for ships. Even their ammunition, although of the same calibre, (and they would technically fit) they were tapered differently from the Navy ammunition, including the explosive contents, powder charges and even its reaction to the barrel's rifling. There are NO Navy heavy artillery guns or barrels that were ever mounted in any of the fixed seacoast emplacements of the Harbor Defenses of Manila Bay. Even the 14-inch guns on the turret of Fort Drum were built specifically for the army despite it resembling a battleship armament. One thing I know that they borrowed from the Navy was the "scavenging system" for the turret mounted guns. FWIW, |
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Post by The Phantom on May 31, 2009 21:55:28 GMT 8
Maybe someone can help me here. I have been following this story of Battery Hearn as it moves around the world at its own leisure. I'm afraid I don't have access to the particular photo proof that I require for my testimonial of Hearn's travels, but I'm sure someone can supply said photo as my proof of it's rascally past. The photo shows a large number of Japanese troops showing their capture and holding technique of Hearn in 1942. Many sandbags are placed on it's base and a large number of the troops are standing on the gun itself in gleeful triumph as it is held in place as a land based artillery piece! The Navy be damned, Hearn was captured on land............ but will it remain there tied to Topside and but a brief span of it's worldly history? For years many of us have observed a very large, secretive Banka being built on Corregidor in Engineer's Ravine under some trees, by Engineer's Dock. BREAKING NEWS! Could the Navy again be planning to relaunch Hearn for further combat on the high seas? Sandbags on the ready please........ |
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Post by The Phantom on May 31, 2009 22:08:15 GMT 8
What was the name of the Japanese battleship that was sunk, that put a lot of Japanese navy men on Corregidor in 1945? Maybe they brought Hearn with them........... Hearn was previously known in the Japanese Navy as Hearnomoto ! |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2009 0:47:03 GMT 8
It was the Musashi and her survivors were put onto Fort Drum to defend it. I wasn't aware that there may have been some of them on Corregidor as well.
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Post by victor on Jun 2, 2009 2:26:42 GMT 8
Here in Philadelphia, they have the same problems with the city guides that drive the horse and carriage tours. There was a proposal to have them take history exams and be certified for history story-telling, but that was shot down because they determined that was a violation of the First Ammendment. (shrug)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2009 9:03:35 GMT 8
Hi guys, One of the guides here says that the gun at Battery Hearn was initially a navy gun. Is this possible? Sounds crazy to me. Steve Alright, now time to give Battery Hearn some tribute. The M1895 barrel on Hearn is designed and made specifically for Coast Artillery, which is a branch of the US Army. Therefore, it is an Army gun. The Army's specification of their heavy artillery differs from the Navy requirements. The M1895 barrel is trunioned to mount either the barbette or the disappearing carriage. Navy large calibre gun barrels are generally manufactured without trunions and they need special gun cradle as they are usually mounted on turrets desined for ships. Even their ammunition, although of the same calibre, (and they would technically fit) they were tapered differently from the Navy ammunition, including the explosive contents, powder charges and even its reaction to the barrel's rifling. There are NO Navy heavy artillery guns or barrels that were ever mounted in any of the fixed seacoast emplacements of the Harbor Defenses of Manila Bay. Even the 14-inch guns on the turret of Fort Drum were built specifically for the army despite it resembling a battleship armament. One thing I know that they borrowed from the Navy was the "scavenging system" for the turret mounted guns. FWIW, Well some of the post made me laugh but I believe only the above explanation of Batteryboy made sense here. |
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Post by buster on Jun 4, 2009 18:02:25 GMT 8
BACKGROUND: In 1977, a National Media Production Center book published in Manila (1977) called "Bataan and Corregidor - Battleground of the Brave," published a close-up photograph of what was clearly Btty Hearn - yet it was labeled "Battery Reyson, on the northwest coast of Corregidor looks out to Suicide Cliff where scores of Japanese soldiers jumped off rather than surrender in February 1945". Behind the scenes, and prior to the first reply in this thread, there was a private discussion between some members as to the direction the response should take. After one responds " NO, it's NOT a Navy Gun, what evidence suggests it is?", what does one say about the real issue, namely, "why is there a guide telling people that Hearn was initially a Navy gun?" One would normally expect Corregidor Guides to be familiar with the physical /geographical aspects of Corregidor, but our observations over time are that their knowledge of the history of the island seems to be haphazard. On a good day, you might get a bad one, and on a bad day, you might get a good one. It shouldn't be so. So what do you do with guides who would rather pretend knowledge ("Hearn was initially a Navy gun," "this is Suicide Cliff") than admit uncertainty? We have further examples - through the years we have suffered the mysterious Btry Reyson (no evidence so far that it ever existed), Suicide Cliff at Wheeler Pt. (fortunately we had direct evidence of why the Japanese bodies were there) and Suicide Cliff at other places (that the name and legend were promoted by guides as a means to maximise tips from teary Japanese). Recently, we even had a travel writer come up with the ever popular "XY was on the Death March and later surrendered at Corregidor." Some of these pale into comparison against "guiding Maj. General George Moore's on a sentimental visit". (General Moore died by his own hand 2 December 1949.) So how do we deal with incorrect information except to remind everyone to be on their guard against junk scholarship? That reminder takes a subtle path - whimsy. The evidence that "Hearn was initially a Navy gun" is, so far, even more flimsy than the evidence presented of Hearn pictured visiting the pyramids, firing nuclear projectiles, or being fitted to a submarine or banca. It's a challenge to always examine what you are being told. Sometimes a serious message is wrapped inside a candy paper. |
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