A Carroll “Lex” LeFon Primer

Who was Carroll LeFon?

The best description of Lex that I’ve heard is “Imagine Hemingway flew fighters…and liked people.”

Rhythms the Compendium

Welcome to the “Rhythms” home page, a blogvel of sorts in several parts. The author’s attempt was to reveal elements of life aboard an aircraft carrier on the line. He had no idea it would take so long, and leave so very much untold.

— Carroll F. “Lex” LeFon

Index – The Best of Neptunus Lex

In Memory of CAPT Carroll “Lex” LeFon, and the Wonderful Community He Fostered

Welcome. The idea was floated that a ‘talk amongst yourselves’ blog would be a good addition to for the Non-Facebook Crowd. Here it is.

Services

By Whisper, on March 13th, 2012

Captain Carroll “Lex” Lefon, USN (ret) will be interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, CA. The funeral will be at the Fort Rosencrans chapel on March 27th at 1:00pm.  The “Mighty Shrikes” of VFA-94, the squadron that Lex commanded, will conduct a fly-over.

Curtis LeMay – The Question That Changed the Air War in 1943

As I have been learning more about the 8^th AAF, I’ve learned more about Curtis LeMay. LeMay was known as a General who could be tactless but smart – and a problem-solver. And the main focus of this post will be a problem he solved for the 8^th AAF in 1943.

But first, a little story you probably haven’t heard about LeMay a Car Club member told me years ago. The member is probably long gone, but immediately post war he was a B-29 crewman.

Masters of the Air – 100th Bomb Group

Observations of the series and from other sources

I am 7 episodes into the series, based on the 100^th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts in Britain during WW II, and am thoroughly enjoying it.   I became so interested in the series that I started to read a book on the last surviving member of the 100^th Bomb Group, John “Lucky” Luckadoo. I was surprised to learn that the series was so accurate they brought many of the historical figures to life, with no fictional embellishment. 

As an aside, the one thing even this author did that bugged me a bit was refer to what was the US Army Air Force as the “Army Air Corps”. It seems a common mistake.  A minor nit perhaps, but by June 1941, the US Army decided that the mission of their Air Force had expanded such that their aviation arm was its own Air Force:

Words true today as they were then

“The best equipment and technology, in the hands of soft or spoiled men, can accomplish nothing at all. “
https://qcurtius.com/2023/12/30/what-you-need-is-strength-equal-to-theirs/#more-19231

The Boys In The Boat

I suppose that the greatest compliment you can give an author is to tell them that their book made a lasting impression on you. With the recent 120^th anniversary of the Wright Brother’s first flight at Kitty Hawk, I have mentioned to my Nep Lex friends on Facebook of the excellent book by David McCollough on the Wright Brothers. I didn’t realize that they battled everything from swarms of mosquitos at Kitty Hawk to indifference in America of their new invention. It wasn’t until Wilber went to Paris and at LeMans gave demonstrations to 100s of thousands of  enthusiastic French and Europeans that they saw the potential of powered flight.

A US Marine’s story of his survival in Korea

Reminds me of a story Lex narrated…

https://pjmedia.com/culture/catherinesalgado/2023/10/01/a-u-s-marines-story-of-archangel-michael-the-korean-war-and-a-miracle-n1731448

The young U.S. Marine believed Michael the Archangel had come to rescue him from the seven Communist soldiers who tried to kill him. To some modern skeptics it might sound ridiculous, but miracles do happen—and there seems no easy natural explanation for what occurred.

Another Great Road Trip – Victoria, British Columbia

If you do a quick search through the Lexican’s blog, you will see that I like to travel. And in addition to plane travel, Road Trips are right up there. I’d have to say when the opportunity arises I am like a house-bound dog who suddenly bolts out the front door when he sees it briefly open.

Actually, as a pure traveling experience, I would put road trips ahead of cross-country plane trips. Because for me, the journey is as fun as the destination. It’s the unexpected people and places along the way that add to the memories. From an interesting used book seller (with 100,000+ books) in rural Montana to an old Army buddy in Colorado Springs, they would not have been known but for a car drive.

For this drive, both the journey and the destination were exciting.

Media Coverage of Lahaina vs Katrina

Over at Chicago Boyz, Sgt Mom has a great piece on the coverage of the Lahaina fire, and compares it to the coverage given to New Orleans and Katrina 18 years ago. Back then, there was an incessant drumbeat of the failures of the Bush Administration in the handling that disaster.

And during the Lahaina fire, there was a lot of bureaucratic ineptitude that really helped “fan the flames”. Did the Hawaiian utility not attend to power line maintenance because a lot of their financial resources were devoted to “green projects”? Was this mandated or voluntary?
How was this disaster made worse by government decisions?

As of this writing there are still over 1,000 missing, many presumed dead.

She quotes an Iowa blogger, David Burge, aka Iowa Hawk, on the method of so much media coverage:

“Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving”.

Is it possible the people involved in the Lahaina disaster are more politically acceptable to these “journalists”?

On Getting Older

On Facebook, one of the few groups I am in is devoted to the old things my town (Sacramento) had in years past. The group is growing rapidly, populated by members like me I suppose – aging Baby Boomers.

Somebody today posted a chart from this week, 1962, showing what the songs of the “Top 40” were.

Where were you in ’62? Here’s a “top 40” list from July of that year. The Beach Boys would appear in less than a year, with the Beatles and the “British Invasion: 2 years later.

When did the “Top 40” go away?

Probably sometime in the 1970s I guess.

The Battle of Midway and the Mutiny that ensured victory

I have given the 3-part analysis by Montemayor before, and I give them again here.

But there is a postscript — the analysis of the critical air flights that ended up destroying the Japanese carrier fleet  Ward Carroll, a Top Gun, interviews the author of a deep analysis of those flights, including the MUTINY that made it possible…

Montemayor Part 1

Montemayor Part 2

Montemayor Part 3

Ward Carrol – Wrong direction