Illinois Operating Arrangement: Fill & Download for Free

Jenna Ravenstone, thanks for the A2A. I love talking about obscure bits of naval history!USS Wolverine and her half-sister USS Sable were the only aircraft carriers in the world to be propelled by sidewheels, the only carriers (AFAIK) to be solely coal-driven, and the only carriers to operate exclusively on freshwater. Both ships started life as Great Lakes passenger ships in the 1910s and 20s, and were built fairly big so they could make what in those days were overnight runs between various cities on the Lakes. Sable, known as Greater Buffalo before her conversion, spent most of her time making trips between Detroit, MI and Buffalo, NY; Wolverine was known as Seeandbee and usually went between Buffalo and Cleveland, OH. Both ships also made occasional runs to other cities as well as “party boat” cruises on the Lakes.Then along came Pearl Harbor. By the time the smoke had cleared on December 7, 1941 it was apparent that the US was going to have to win the war at sea with carriers, or not at all. Fortunately, there was an entire fleet of Essex class CVs and Independence class CVLs already building. Unfortunately, existing training arrangements were not adequate to produce the huge number of naval aviators that would be needed to man those ships’ air groups, without which they would be merely large, oddly-shaped barges. One of the challenges involved in expanding the training establishment to meet the demands of the war was the problem of qualifying all those new aviators in carrier deck landings. Field practice was all very well, but sooner or later each shiny new Ensign was going to have to prove he could put a plane on an actual deck. Before the war fleet carriers had provided this service as needed, but with the war on that wasn’t an option. For one thing, the carriers were far too precious on the front lines to divert to training duty. For another, training duty meant steaming in circles around a fixed point so the student aviators could find you, which practically rang the dinner bell for submarines and other nasties of the sea.So some bright soul in the Navy got an idea- why not use Great Lakes steamers? They’d be relatively cheap to acquire and convert, since they wouldn’t need hangar decks, elevators, weapons, or armor- just take their superstructures off and put on a wooden flight deck and island. The planes could be parked on the deck during the relatively short time they spent aboard. Sure, they’d normally be considered too slow to be carriers, but the planes landing on them could be kept relatively light- no bombs, and only a relatively small load of gas to get from a shore field to the carrier- which reduced the need for wind speed over the deck. Most important of all, they were on the Great Lakes, which meant they didn’t have to worry about submarines or aircraft.And so it was. Both ships operated out of Chicago, Illinois and were known as the “Corn Belt Fleet.” Budding Naval Aviators would fly up to various fields on the Great Lakes, make their practice landings on Wolverine or Sable, and go on their way. Probably their most famous alumnus was the late President George H.W. Bush, who got his deck qualification on Sable. The two ships would occasionally have to curtail or suspend operations in light winds, but on the Great Lakes this was less of a problem than you might think.After the war, both ships were decommissioned and scrapped. The Essex class carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) acted as a training vessel for several generations of aviators until she was retired in 1991. The supercarrier USS Forrestal briefly took her place as AVT-59, but was soon retired. Today the Navy has gone back to having Fleet carriers provide a deck as needed.As a side note, Wolverine and Sable are near and dear to my heart because they inadvertently provided a boon to aviation history. After WWII aircraft were scrapped by the hundreds of thousands, and by the time interest in warbird preservation picked up again there were often very few representatives of important Navy types like the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, and SBD Dauntless. However, during the war a fair number of student aviators (not surprisingly) ended up crashing into the lakes during their attempts to qualify on the two sisters. Since they were crashes near takeoff or landing most were low-speed and ended up with the only consequences a sunken plane and a red-faced, drenched Ensign sent ashore for another try. The planes then sat on the bottom for decades in cold, fresh water, which kept them very well preserved. When interest picked up again a minor industry developed around finding the most intact ones, raising them, and restoring them. One beautiful example is the SBD-4 at Chicago’s Midway Airport:Not bad for a bird that spent 45 years in the drink, huh?

Many U.S., British and even French soldiers interacted with Soviet soldiers in various parts of Europe at the end of WW2, and afterward. For many of us, in the movie “Patton”, with the scene of George C. Scott as General George S. Patton at the end of the war, toasting the Soviet General “from one sonofabitch to another”, is one of the only things that anyone has to gauge the feelings between Allied and Soviet soldiers after the war. For many on the opposite sides, this may have been true, but for many more, there were feelings of gratitude and joy for having finally accomplished such a momentous task.Elements of the U.S. 69th Infantry Division first made contact with Soviet troops of the 58th Guards Rifle Division near Torgau, Germany on April 25th, 1945. This was a big accomplishment, as it essentially cut Germany in two. Although the Third Reich had been in its death throes for weeks by that point, with Berlin surrounded and being pummeled by two Soviet Armies, and the British and Americans having completed the destruction of the Ruhr Pocket, with the capture of the remainder of Germany’s natural resources and war production capabilities along with over 300,000 prisoners, the link- up by U.S. and Soviet forces near Torgau was significant, from both a military and symbolic perspective. Not only did it signify that WW2 in Europe was nearly at an end, it also became an occasion for celebration and displays of comradeship and solidarity between ordinary soldiers, some of whom (especially on the Soviet side) had been fighting non-stop for years.After the first meetings between the two forces, formal ceremonies and gatherings were carried out, for the benefit of media coverage. Here we see an arranged photo commemorating the meeting of the Soviet and American armies, with 2nd Lt. William Robertson (U.S. Army) and Lt. Alexander Silvashko (Red Army) facing one another with hands clasped and arms around each other's shoulders. In the background are two flags and a poster that says “East Meets West”:In the next photo, we see American and Soviet soldiers sharing pleasantries (and flowers) near Torgau:Next we see a meeting between General Emil “Ducky” Reinhardt, the commanding General of the 69th Infantry Division, with his counterpart from the Soviet 58th Guards Rifle Division:(Interestingly enough, Reinhardt would receive a Soviet decoration, the Order of Suvarov, 2nd Class, awarded by the Soviets to Corps and Division commanders in their army “for exceptional leadership in combat operations”, to commemorate his leadership of the 69th when the two forces met.)There was plenty of reverie- besides symbolic photo opportunities, the Soviets and Americans had occasion to mingle, sometimes with humorous results. There was presumably plenty of alcohol consumed:which might explain the following photo:At any rate, as the war ended, and U.S.-Soviet relations eventually soured when the Cold War began, many of the participants of this meeting at the Elbe River in April of 1945, from both sides, pointed to the occasion as a way to advance solidarity and peace between the two sides.A former member of the U.S. 69th Infantry Division, Joseph Polowsky, who was present at the link- up, became a peace activist after the war, and lobbied the United Nations (unsuccessfully) to have April 25th declared the”World Day of Peace”. Polowsky had occasion to meet and speak with the Soviet Premier, Nikita Kruschev, about his endeavors when Kruschev visited the U.S. in 1959.He even visited the USSR and met with Kruschev again, then travelled to East Germany and met First Secretary Walter Ulbricht. Polowsky always described these meetings as ways to promote peace between former allies. He even held a peace vigil every year on the anniversary of the link-up, April 25th, on the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago, Illinois, his hometown. When he died in 1983, his final wish was to be buried at the site of the link up, and this wish was granted, Plolowsky being buried with military honors at the site in November of that year.On Polowsky’s headstone, reference is made to him being a “Participant in the swearing of the oath on the Elbe”. This is probably one of the most poignant moments to come out of this whole historical event.When the original members of the 69th Infantry and 58th Guards met near Torgau, they bore witness to the bodies of German civilians that had been killed by stray artillery fire. As Joseph Polowsky related after the war, the soldiers of the two armies made a vow to each other to do all that they could to prevent any more wars. This was obviously an oath that Polowsky intended to keep.In honor of Polowsky, the other participants of the link-up, and all of the people affected by WW2, many monuments were erected at the site near Torgau after the war. A “Spirit of the Elbe” marker was erected both in Torgau, and in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, DC. A simple marker was even placed to commemorate the memory of the fallen civilians near the cite. Both the U.S. and Russia have also made efforts to commemorate ”Elbe Day” as much as possible, conducting wreath-laying ceremonies in Torgau and Arlington, and even issuing commemorative money.So, in answer to the original question, the first American and Soviet soldiers to meet face to face toward the end of World War Two, swore to each other that they would do all they could not to meet under the same circumstances, ever again- and then, by all accounts, they partied.In today’s highly charged political climate, it is important that we continue to commemorate this event, and learn the lessons that it teaches us.

Looking just at numbers, any of the thirteen most populous (with the possible exception of Florida) would probably manage to fare okay, though the economic and political union of the United States has undoubtedly benefited all of them, so I am not sure that any of them would be “better off”.California has the most people (about the same number as the entire nation of Canada), a large chunk of land, and a diverse economy. It would be comparable in economic power to a largish European country (e.g. France). Its primary advantage is intellectual capital, but its biggest challenge would likely be water, for which it would be paying much more than it is now.Texas and New York are about half the population of California, but Texas is large and oil-rich and New York has both a fertile farming area upstate and a great deal of money downstate, and I have little doubt both of these would also be able to establish themselves as prosperous independent sovereigns if push came to shove. New Jersey, the 11th-most-populous state, has the eighth-largest economy in the nation but I would see it aligning itself with New York in the event of independence.Florida does have the fourth-largest population and the fourth-largest economy of any of the United States, but its per capita GDP is noticeably lower than most of the other states in this list, and much of Florida’s economic activity comes from other locations in the U.S. via “snowbirds” and tourists. Its need for social welfare is also going to be higher and it has a great deal to lose in the event of sea level rise. I am inclined to think that trade barriers and international borders would cut deeply into its main sources of economic activity and Florida would have more to lose than any of the other states in this list, though it might survive.Next, we have Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. All of these states also have fairly diverse economies, though their industrial sectors have been gradually declining or at least have become less dominant. Illinois, the richest of this group of states, has been through a serious financial crisis at the state level. However, these states all have over 12 million residents, the size of a smaller European nation (Belgium, by comparison, has about 11 million), and they would be in the top 10% of global economies, with Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio’s exceeding the likes of Sweden, which has 10 million people and a GDP of $ 512 billion dollars (Ohio’s is $ 599 billion).Michigan (10th-largest population) was comparable to the preceding three states until recently, but it has undergone a more serious industrial decline and active population loss, its GDP sinking to 13th in the U.S., though perhaps if it were independent, GM and Ford would keep more of their operations local as it would be less convenient to outsource manufacturing from headquarters. Michigan’s location would give it incentive to form deals with Canada that might give it some clout in dealing with the remainder of the U.S.North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia (9th, 8th, and 12th) all have about 10 million people and are the most prosperous (other than Texas) in the old South. Washington State (13th) has a lot of tech-type businesses, and like Michigan, would probably enjoy friendly relations with Canada that might help it survive.I think any of the smaller states would struggle, at least if they were on their own against the rest of the country staying united. If all of the states were independent, we’d likely see the emergence of regional trade agreements or European-Union-like arrangements that would accord a certain amount of cooperation.List of U.S. states by GDPGDP (nominal) Ranking 2016