When Lions Roared
  • Home
  • America at War
  • The Horrors of War
  • The Tuskegee Airmen
  • Quotes
  • Documents, Speeches, and Media
  • Propaganda
    • Trading Cards >
      • Military Propaganda & Posters (2012) - ​Cult-Stuff
      • WARCRY! Propaganda Poster Art of WW II (1992) - Kitchen Sink Press
      • The Story of World War II (1992) - ​Pacific Trading Cards, Inc.
      • World War II Propaganda (1991) - ​Tuff Stuff, Inc.
    • Posters
    • Videos
  • American Beauties
    • Trading Cards
    • The Real Women
  • Band of Brothers
    • The Real Guys
    • The TV Stars
    • In Memoriam
  • Contact Us / Submit a Story

Sicily

6/2/2015

0 Comments

 
Trees sometimes get in the way of forests . . .

Sometimes in war, the ‘little’ stories tend to be more interesting than the big picture. This is partly because it’s easier to focus on a specific location or event, whereas the entire battle can result in an inundation of facts and figures
​

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic--
wrongly attributed to Joseph Stalin.

​Yes, we identify with the young man: a dreamer (or a realist), who shows up for training, and ships out for war, more than we ever could with the hundred, the thousand, or the five-hundred thousand who perished on a battlefield somewhere ‘over there.’ It’s not right, but it is.

Yet, to omit them would be to erase the importance of the sacrifices that are made. Victory is often expensive.
The Invasion of Sicily

Allies:
over 22,000 casualties.

Germany:
over 30,000 casualties.

Before we consider these numbers to be an indication of a brutal campaign, and it was, here is one more number:
Italy:
   over 130,000 casualties.

​Though they suffered massive losses, mostly as prisoners to the allies, the Axis was able to withdraw over 130,000 troops from Sicily before it fell.
Picture

Take a look at the picture above. In the foreground, you can see rooftops. The photographer is some distance inland. Further out, the surf is coming in, and beyond that, a few landing craft are seen approaching the beach with a larger vessel behind them. In the background, there is the plume of a massive explosion that is ... that WAS a large ship.

Her name was Robert Rowan. Like her 2,750 sisters, she was named after a prominent American. By March of 1943, the production line was so streamlined, she was completed in just over a month. She may not have been a destroyer, battleship, or aircraft carrier, but the Robert Rowan was important:
American Merchant Marine at War
http://www.usmm.org

​Delivered in May, she was in theater soon after. Her first official action was carrying supplies for the invasion of Sicily. She arrived on July 11, holds full of ammunition and transporting over 400 fighting men. That same day, German dive bombers attacked Allied ships at anchor and the Robert Rowan was hit by three massive bombs. Two exploded in her holds, and, knowing the situation to be extremely dangerous, she was ordered abandoned. Shortly after, there was a massive explosion splitting the ship in two. She burned for two days, the wreck to remain visible in the shallow waters until long after the war.

In 1948, she was sold as scrap metal to Italy.

So, what did she contribute to the invasion? The  ammunition she carried was the cause of her death but the soldiers she carried survived to fight another day. Her destruction made for a great photograph and that in turn makes a great story. 

Perhaps that is her legacy.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    June 6, 1944. On Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, America storms Normandy, and the world will never be the same. It's D-Day, the event that changed the course of history forever. And the explosive story is in these war cards. 

    America at War: D-Day / Band of Brothers Collectors Cards reveal everything you need to know about the Invasion of Normandy and the battles and valor that came in the wake of Operation Overlord.

    Order online and have this chapter of US history delivered to you today.
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    1940
    Battle Of Britain
    Blitzkrieg
    Bradley
    Britain
    Canada
    Chamberlain
    Churchill
    Conspiracies
    Dieppe
    Dunkirk
    Eisenhower
    FDR
    France
    Germany
    Hitler
    Infamy Speech
    Italy
    Japan
    JU-88
    Montgomery
    Napoleon
    Normandy
    North Africa
    Operation Barbarossa
    Patton
    Pearl Harbor
    Poland
    Robert Rowan
    Roosevelt
    Russia
    Scorched Earth
    Second Front
    Sicily
    Spitfire
    Stalin
    Tehran
    The Cold War
    The Pacific

    RSS Feed


About the trading cards depicted on this website:

America at War: Band of Brothers Series 1 (2010) - iCardz

American Beauties (1944) - Gum Inc.

Horrors of War / Horrors of War II  (2011 / 2013) - Famous Fabrics

Tuskegee Airmen autographs (2012) - Panini

​Military Propaganda & Posters Series 1 (2012) - Cult-Stuff
WARCRY! Propaganda Poster Art of WW II (1992) - Kitchen Sink Press
World War II: The Story of (1992) - Pacific Trading Cards, Inc.
World War II Propaganda: Diamond Edition (1991) - Tuff Stuff, Inc.
  • Home
  • America at War
  • The Horrors of War
  • The Tuskegee Airmen
  • Quotes
  • Documents, Speeches, and Media
  • Propaganda
    • Trading Cards >
      • Military Propaganda & Posters (2012) - ​Cult-Stuff
      • WARCRY! Propaganda Poster Art of WW II (1992) - Kitchen Sink Press
      • The Story of World War II (1992) - ​Pacific Trading Cards, Inc.
      • World War II Propaganda (1991) - ​Tuff Stuff, Inc.
    • Posters
    • Videos
  • American Beauties
    • Trading Cards
    • The Real Women
  • Band of Brothers
    • The Real Guys
    • The TV Stars
    • In Memoriam
  • Contact Us / Submit a Story