Gus Allen

Radio guy at iHeartMedia Louisville. Problem Solver. Hilltopper Fella. Father to Griffin and Molly.

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

The idea was brilliant. The execution was catastrophic.

Allied planners knew that the men hitting the beaches of Normandy would be cut apart without armor support in those first critical minutes. The solution was the DD tank. The Duplex Drive Sherman. A standard 33-ton Sherman tank fitted with a collapsible canvas flotation screen and two small propellers bolted to the rear. Raise the screen, drop into the water, swim to shore, lower the screen, start shooting. Tanks arriving with the first wave, ahead of the infantry, suppressing German positions before the ramps even dropped.

The concept worked perfectly in testing. The designers had one requirement: waves no higher than one foot.

On the morning of June 6th, 1944, the waves off Omaha Beach were six feet high.

Nobody stopped the launch.

At 5:40 AM, the 741st Tank Battalion began dropping their DD tanks into the English Channel, six thousand yards from shore. More than three miles of open water, in seas that were six times rougher than the tanks were designed to handle. The first tank hit the water. The canvas screen, designed to hold the weight of a Sherman afloat, was immediately overwhelmed. Waves crashed over the top. Water flooded in. The tank went down.

Then another. Then another.

The canvas screens collapsed like paper bags in the swell. Tanks that had been designed to float became 33-ton anchors the moment they hit the water. Crews inside had seconds. Some got out through the hatches. Many did not. The tanks took them straight to the bottom of the English Channel.

Some crews managed to get a radio signal out as their tank went under, warning the following units not to launch. The warnings either did not get through or came too late.

29 DD tanks were launched by the 741st Tank Battalion that morning. 27 sank before reaching the beach. The entire left flank of Omaha Beach, where the 1st Infantry Division was assaulting, had five tanks to support it. Five. Against fortified German positions housing hundreds of machine guns, 88mm guns, and mortars zeroed on every inch of that sand.

The infantry arrived first. Alone.

What happened next at Omaha Beach, the 2,400 casualties, the slaughter in the first ten minutes, the near-total destruction of Company A, is inseparable from the loss of those tanks. They were supposed to be there. They were supposed to be firing at German positions while the ramps were still closed. Instead they were on the bottom of the Channel with their crews.

The story of the 743rd Tank Battalion makes it worse.

The 743rd was assigned to the western sector of Omaha Beach. Their LCT flotilla commander looked at the sea conditions that morning, looked at the waves, and made a different decision. He refused to launch his tanks into the water. Instead he drove his LCTs directly onto the beach and dropped the ramps in the shallows. The tanks rolled off onto sand.

Nine tanks were knocked out by German fire during the assault. But they were there. They were fighting. The infantry had armor.

At Utah Beach, the sea was calmer, protected from the prevailing winds. 28 of 32 DD tanks launched there made it ashore. The infantry had support. Utah Beach cost 197 casualties. Omaha cost 2,400.

The sunken tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion still lie on the bottom of the English Channel off Omaha Beach. They have never been raised. Divers have visited them. Inside some of the wrecks, they found what they expected.

They are still there today, 82 years later, three miles off the coast of Normandy, on the bottom of the sea.

Today is June 6th.

Remember them.

[Zain @NotZainAgain]

A friend of mine has two tickets for game 4 of the nba finals. They are courtside seats plus airfare and hotel accommodations. He didn't realize when he bought them that this is the same day as his wedding - so he can't go.

If you're interested and want to go instead of him, it's at St. Peter's Church in New York City at 5 PM. Her name is Donna. She will be the one in the white dress.

[Steve Byk @Steve_Byk]

Golden Rainbow 🌈

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921.

They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year.

Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move.

They lost them for two reasons.

The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs.

In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack.

Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet.

That fight dragged on for years.

The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois.

Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting.

So now it's all gone.

The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything.

Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize.

Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up.

But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works.

Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team.

And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago.

Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes.

Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."

There it is. "Billionaire-owned."

That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line.

Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it.

Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return."

When you run things this badly, you sell what's left.

They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect.

Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check.

But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires."

Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in.

Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster.

Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.

[Gus Allen @unklegus]

@chloewoods2022 Prayers for your dad and your family

[Big Fish @BigFish3000]

I won again haters.

[Gus Allen @unklegus]

😄😄😄😄So true!

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

Sure, 4K is nice, but there was nothing like sitting two inches away from one of these sweet bastards while your mother predicted you’d be as blind as Ray Charles by the following Thursday.

[Barnaby Breaks History 🇺🇸 @CorpBarnaby]

🇺🇸 Most Badass Americans You Don’t Know D-Day Edition: John J. Pinder Jr.

Technician Fifth Grade John J. Pinder Jr. landed on Omaha beach on his birthday. He didn’t make it off.

Born June 6, 1912, in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, Joe Pinder was the oldest of three children. His father worked in the steel industry.

He graduated as valedictorian of Butler High School in 1931.

Pinder spent the next several years as a right-handed pitcher in the minor leagues.

He played six seasons in the farm systems of the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees, Washington Senators, and Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 1941 he won 17 games and was still chasing a shot at the major leagues when the war came.

He entered the Army in January 1942 after Pearl Harbor.

Assigned as a radio operator with the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, he fought in North Africa and Sicily.

In Sicily he earned a Bronze Star for staying at an observation post under fire.

On June 6, 1944, Pinder landed with the first waves on Omaha Beach on his birthday.

Communications were shattered. His job was to get a working radio ashore.

He made it off the landing craft. They were 100 yards off the beach.

Then he was hit. A round tore into his face after only a few steps off the boat.

Pinder held the torn flesh of his face together with one hand, carried the radio with the other, and delivered the radio to his unit, while wading thru waste deep water.

That should have been enough. It wasn’t.

Weakened and bleeding, he turned around and went back into the surf and fire three more times to salvage communication equipment.

He even recovered another workable radio.

On the third trip machine gun fire hit him again, this time in the legs.

Still he kept going.

Weakening but exposed on the beach, he helped get the radios working so the men around him could call for support.

While doing so, he was hit for the third time and killed.

Medal of Honor. Posthumous.

It was presented to his father on January 26, 1945.

Pinder was initially buried in Normandy.

In 1947 his family brought him home to Grandview Cemetery in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania.

He was the only professional baseball player awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II.

John Pinder is an American Badass

Thank you, John! 🫡🇺🇸

[Erick Erickson @EWErickson]

One of the greatest speeches of the late 20th century, given on the 40th anniversary of one of the most spectacular days in human history.

[NotKennyRogers @NotKennyRogers]

Just a bunch of toxically masculine Christian Nationalists walking directly into Nazi machine gun fire to help save the world.

This is yet another reason why I will always be proud to be an American.

[Gus Allen @unklegus]

@OJRunElectric Fine job and fine tribute. She would be proud!❤️❤️

[Jane @JaneFranklin99]

Normandy veterans Henry Rice and Ken Hay - both 100 - on Sword Beach once more. @ForcesNews #D-Day

[NotKennyRogers @NotKennyRogers]

Since I moved out of Los Angeles and back to Indiana 18 months ago, the Indiana Hoosiers won a national championship in football and we just stole the Bears from Chicago.

Please don't call me a hero.

[Gus Allen @unklegus]

An amazing story. Let us never forget their memory.

[Garrett Exner @Exner_Garrett]

Ray’s Rock - Omaha Beach

On the morning of June 6, 1944, 23 year old Staff Sergeant Arnold “Ray” Lambert came ashore with the first wave of the 1st Infantry Division on the eastern side of Omaha Beach. At this small patch of concrete he saved nearly 20 lives:

The division came under intense fire from several German bunkers surrounding the entrance to the Colville Draw (one of two exits off Omaha Beach). Ray, a medic, immediately went to work.

He was shot in the arm. Moments later he was hit by shrapnel in the leg, but Ray kept pulling men to safety. He pulled nearly 20 wounded soldiers to cover behind this 8ft wide obstacle, treating each soldier before going out in search of others.

After several hours under fire, while pulling a wounded soldier from the ocean, he was struck by a landing craft. It dropped its ramp on top of him, breaking his back. He fell face down in the water, drowning. The craft backed up and nearby soldiers pulled an unconscious Ray to safety, eventually evacuating him off the beach.

Remarkably, Ray had already earned two Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts in Sicily and North Africa, prior to landing in France. But here in Normandy his war would end.

He awoke in a hospital back in England a day later. In the next bed over was his brother, who had also been wounded at Omaha.

When asked about his work on D-Day, Ray simply said, “I did what I was called to do.”

Ray Lambert passed in 2021 at 100 years old. He exemplified the best of American grit and why remembering this day is so important.

[The Iceman @the_iceman64]

90% of the soldiers on the first boats to hit the beach didn't live to see the end of the day. Look at those faces. Some of them never made it to 18.

Never forget that they paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We live our lives the way we do because of them.

[Gus Allen @unklegus]

@KNorman0313 That’s a fantastic looking home. I attend a lot of auctions. One thing I always stop and take in are the memories that have been made. Lives are crafted inside those walls. As tough as it is I’m hopeful someone else will cherish your home and create more special moments.

[Gus Allen @unklegus]

@OptiplexPrime Sorry to hear of the passing of your father Justin. It’s so very hard to say goodbye. Lost my dad a few weeks back and it’s a deep hole to fill. Dads are a special part of our lives. Praying for grace and peace in this difficult time of life. ❤️❤️

[Boston Radio Watch®️ @bostonradio]

44 years ago today, June 3, 1982, students at Ridgemont High were taking/cheating on their final exams.

“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”(1982).

[Chronic Hoosier @ChronicHoosier]

15 years gone
15 years too long
Somebody knows something, SPEAK UP #FindLauren