The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. All new posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

Mike @Substack

New Eyrie posts go up every Monday and Friday, although the time of day may (and most likely will) vary. Mike’s latest Eyrie offering is available for perusal here: Screamin’ meemie Monday!

Please do consider subscribing to The Eyrie, gang; subscribers receive email notification whenever each new post goes live. All Eyrie articles are getatable (yes, that’s really a word—trust me!) for one and all to read and enjoy totally free of charge, regardless of subscription status. However, a paid sub is required to unlock commenting privileges—an almighty incentive to kick loose and chip in if ever there was one. Thanks!

You go, Rubio!

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

“Little Marco” is proving his mettle as SecState, and it’s a joy to behold.

Rubio: ‘Every Time I Find One of These Lunatics, I Take Away Their Visa’
At Thursday’s press conference in Guyana, a reporter asked Rubio about a particular case involving a student having a visa revoked, and he did not shy away from it. In fact, he got a little fired up and doubled down on the message that the Trump administration has been sending to people who come into this country with bad intentions. He even put it into simple language that maybe Democrats can understand.

Let me be abundantly clear. If you go apply for a visa right now, anywhere in the world — let me just send this message out — if you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus — we’re not going to give you a visa. If you lie to us, and get a visa, and then enter the United States. and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa. And once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States.

And we have a right like every country in the world has a right to remove you from our country. So, it’s just that simple. I think it’s crazy. I think it’s stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country that are going to go to your universities as visitors — they’re visitors! — and say I’m going to your universities to start a riot. I’m going to your universities to take over a library and harass people. I don’t care what movement you’re involved with. Why would any country in the world allow people to come in and disrupt…we gave you a visa to come in and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. And if we’ve given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we’re gonna take it away. I encourage every country to do that, by the way, because I think it’s crazy to invite students into your country that are coming onto your campus and destabilizing it. We’re just not gonna have it.

So, we’ll revoke your visa, and once your visa’s revoked, you’re illegally in the country and you have to leave. Every country in the world has a right to decide who comes in as a visitor and who doesn’t. If you invite me into your home because you say, ‘I wanna come to your house for dinner,’ and I go to your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray-painting your kitchen, I bet you you’re gonna kick me out. Well, we’re gonna do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus for us. We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country, but you’re not gonna do it in our country.

The reporter followed up by asking, “Did you confirm, there’s been a report that 300 visas been permanently revoked?” To which Rubio replied confidently, “Maybe more. Might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.” She seemed shocked at that response, but Rubio did not back down and gave a perfect example of one of the millions of reasons why illegal immigration is such a huge threat to our national security.

At some point I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up. And by the way, we wanna get rid of gang members too. So, Venezuela sent us a bunch of gang members. I’m sure you’ve heard of Tren de Agua, Mr. President. Terrible gang, vicious gang. They flooded in our…

Yesterday, just so everybody knows, yesterday one of these gang members who was involved in New York City in attacking a police officer, was deported back to Venezuela because they’re now taking flights again, you know, because of, of some strong measures we’ve taken. And this guy lands, this guy’s the guy that attacked a police officer in New York City and laughed about it in court with a smirk on his face. When he gets off the plane in Venezuela, he’s welcomed by this character named Diosdado Cabello. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this guy. And, and he welcomes him, hugging the guy. So, does anybody have any doubt that these people are pushing these people into the United States to destabilize us in the region? That, so, yeah, we’re looking for people like this and we wanna get them out of the United States. Absolutely.

Rubio is referring to 19-year-old Darwin Andres Gomez-Izquiel, who attacked a police officer in January 2024, and Diosdado Cabello is the so-called “Minister of the Popular Power for Interior, Justice and Peace of Venezuela.” In reality, he’s a major criminal involved in narco-terrorism who is wanted in the United States. However, he currently oversees Venezuela’s police forces and prisons as part of Nicolás Maduro fraudulent administration.

If ever there was a pluperfect example of someone embiggening himself to fit his assigned role, Marco Rubio as SecState would have to be it. What we seem to have here is one of those all-too-uncommon cases of the Right Man in the Right Job at the Right Time. Excellent work, young feller, and well spoken also. Ye Aulde CF Chapeau is hereby duly doffed to ye.

How to win a war

Posted on March 28, 2025March 28, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Something the US has liong since forgotten how to do. Or just gave up caring about doing, more like.

You Want to Win a War? This Is How You Win a War
There’s more good news out of the Middle East, I’m happy to report. On the heels of yesterday’s news that the Israeli Defense Force was doing an admirable and rapid job of eliminating Hamas leadership in an explosive game of Whack-a-Mole, today we learn that the Gazans themselves finally show signs of turning against their terrorist government.

We saw tiny signs of this in the awful weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror invasion that kicked off the Israel-Hamas War, such as the old Gazan woman who accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid meant for the people. “Everything goes to [Hamas] houses,” she complained. “They take it; let them take me, shoot me, or do whatever they want with me.”

Which, note ye well, is more of an expression of the hag’s disgruntlement over Hamas’ lack of concern for her own personal well-being than it is of horror at the brutal atrocities committed against guiltless civilians during the vicious Oct 7 rampage. Just in case any of you thought Gazans suddenly developing a functioning conscience had anything to do with their newfound dislike for Hamas, terrorism, or genocide of the Jews.

But Tuesday saw a rare mass protest against Hamas.

Even the mayor of Beit Lahia, Gaza, got in on the action.

If Hamas finds him, I suspect he won’t die well.

Why the mainstream media chooses not to air clips like these is anyone’s guess, but anyone’s most cynical and accusatory guess is probably the correct one.

None of this is perfect, of course. “Why aren’t they chanting to release the hostages then?” one critic wondered. Then there’s Iran, the official sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Until Iran is put back in the box President Donald Trump had them in during his first term, the terrorist kudzu will grow back.

But turning the population against the people who started the war is how you end a war, and Israel’s renewed offensive — the IDF’s WWII-style rubble-ization of the Gaza Strip — might be doing just that.

Most wars fail to accomplish that vital goal.

A tad too much Vietnam-era “hearts and minds” bushwa here for my taste, I’m afraid. Another Vietnam-era counterslogan is more my speed: When you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. The Gaza job will never truly be over and done with until the very thought of death, destruction, and strife makes Gazans puke all down their pant legs reflexively. As such, Bibi, this is no time to be going wobbly or weak in the knees just because a handful of Gazans have decided they aren’t happy with life under Hamas rule all of a sudden.

Our old chum Stephen knows all this too, of course, which the remainder of the piece confirms quite nicely, thanks. To wit:

That’s why I’ve often found the phrase “forever wars” so frustrating. In context, complaining about “forever wars” is often more of a way to shut down debate than a historically accurate assessment. What makes our poor military performance in places like Afghanistan sting so much isn’t that we were mired in so-called “forever wars,” but that they were wars of choice, not of national survival, that we chose to conduct inconclusively. All that spilled blood, and for what?

But sometimes a World War II comparison is spot-on, which brings us back to the Middle East and the Hamas terror invasion of Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas’s aims were explicitly genocidal and their means — including uploading videos of murdered civilians to the victims’ social media accounts for their families to see — were so horrifying that Hamas and Gaza must be smashed as badly as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

If the Israel-Hamas War is to end, it ends in the ruined streets of Gaza.

Indeed so—and not a moment before then, either. Sad as that may be, it also happens to be the plain, simple, and unadorned truth.

The Milei Miracle?

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Hardly. No, merely the triumph of simple common sense and hard-nosed reality over muzzy “pie in the sky bye & bye” Leftard shitwittery, that’s all. As Limbaugh used to say, it’s worked every time it’s been tried.

Have you heard about the so-called Argentinian economic miracle? I have news: there is no miracle. This is a lie.

I am the chairman of President Milei’s council of advisors, and I want you to know that there is no miracle here at all.

You read that correctly. No miracle whatsoever.

What you are witnessing is the most impressive turnaround in the country’s history.

We slashed wasteful spending that once enriched the few at the expense of the many.

We brought down inflation—a tax that disproportionately burdens the poor. As a result, we lowered poverty rates by more than 11% and lifted millions out of poverty.

We eliminated the thousands of pickets that made travel across the country a nightmare. Imagine the relief of breathing in fresh air after years of suffocating congestion.

Welfare programs? The left’s favorite: they mostly served politicians. They even stole food from the poor. Yes. They stole food from the poor.

Now, welfare flows directly to those who need it most.

At the core of our strategy, we eradicated the source of the macroeconomic instability that had plagued our nation for so long: we eliminated the fiscal deficit. We now run a fiscal surplus, which has dramatically reduced our country risk—from the 3000s to the 700s.

A miracle, some say? How dare they!

This is not a miracle. This is hard work. This is putting the country first, not politicians.

Why is the opposition protesting so fervently? Not because they care for the people or the nation, but because they fear the truth—that they have been the problem all along. Their time is over.

Again, this is not a miracle.

This is hard work. This is having a vision, formulating a plan, and executing it without fear. This is having the guts to do what is right. This is president @JMilei leadership.

The jig is up for the left. They have nothing, and they never did. They do not love the poor. They love poverty.

Now, tell me again that this is a miracle.

We didn’t know it was impossible—so we did it.

Viva la libertad, carajo!

Amen, brother-man.

Lowlife is as lowlife does

Posted on March 27, 2025March 28, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Trump, as per usual, calls ‘em like he sees ‘em.

Trump Calls Jasmine Crockett a ‘Lowlife,’ but That’s Not the Best Part

And the fun aspect is, it isn’t. It really, truly isn’t.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Victimhood) recently called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is wheelchair-bound, “Governor Hot Wheels.” Called out on this, Crockett issued a typical leftist non-apology, changing the subject and shifting the blame to Orange Man Bad and his efforts to save America from criminal migrant gangs. Now, however, Trump has responded, calling her a “lowlife,” which is obvious, and casting doubt on her chances to become the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2028. Yes, there are some people who actually think a Crockett candidacy would be a good idea.

Okay, wait a minute. She is angry at Abbott for supposedly sending “migrants to communities run by black mayors and stoke tensions and fear among the most vulnerable.” So she must support Trump’s efforts to get criminal migrants out of the country, right? Wrong. After all, she is a Democrat and he is Trump, so she has no more problem with inconsistency than any of her far-left colleagues.

And so when told about her claim that she was only objecting to Abbott sending illegal migrants to deep-blue “sanctuary cities,” Trump responded: “Well, it’s a lie. And she lies.” The president added: “But she’s a lowlife, and she’s a very low-IQ person… At first, I thought she was a comedian. I couldn’t believe she was a congressman or whatever she is.” He said she was “a little bit funny, but crude, and now I found out she’s actually a politician.”

Whether she knows it or not (PRO TIP: she doesn’t), the low-IQ lowlife makes a far better comedian than she ever will a statesman. Hell, she ain’t even much of a Congresscritter, which is about as low a bar to clear as they come.

Update! Mo’ bettah, same article.

These people (and there were many more of them in the thread) might be just a few nuts, but over at The Hill, former Reagan speechwriter Douglas MacKinnon said that “Crockett and Ocasio-Cortez are trying to fill the vacuum created by Harris’s loss, the absence of a clear 2028 frontrunner and a coherent agenda. With chaos comes opportunity — opportunity, perhaps, for them.”

Trump, however, was dismissive of this “opportunity,” saying: “The Democrats are going to suffer with this one… I don’t imagine the Democrats are going to have a person like that running their party.” He added that if Crockett ever becomes a leader of the Democrats, “they’ll never win an election again. It would be very hard.”

T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished, certainly. But for my money, just outright banning the D卐M☭CRAT criminal organization masquerading as a political party would suit just as nicely, perhaps even better in the long run. When it comes to forever ridding ourselves of pestiferous excrescences like Crockett and ilk, Real Americans need to be thinking proactively, not reactively.

Updated update! Via Sarah Hoyt, Tom Knighton piles on, and it’s a laff riot.

See, what we need to understand about Crockett and many of her fellow leftists is that, quite simply, they can do whatever they want to anyone on the right.

One would be tempted to call it a double standard–and cue the “If not for double standards, leftists would have no standards at all” line–but that’s not accurate, either.

They have very clear standards on how people should be treated.

They just don’t think anyone on the right counts as people.

She could make light of Abbott being in a wheelchair, not because disabled people are worthy of being disrespected in her mind, but because Abbott is a Republican and therefore doesn’t count as a human.

Remember eight years ago when everyone on the left was talking about “punching Nazis” while also claiming everyone they disliked was a Nazi? That was just a way to justify the assaults they wanted to carry out, all while pretending words they don’t like are violence. They’re people and we’re not.

High time we started treating them in kind, then—fully, forcefully, measure for measure—without surcease, restraint, or the slightest hint of mercy. Nice thing is, we’ll be right about them; by their words and actions both, shitlibs prove themselves to be at best quasi-human multiple times a day, each and every day.

Look What I Found…

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Barry 1 Comment

I was looking for a video of a mechanical procedure and other things popped up…

Belmont Playboys – Crazy Arms

Memezapoppin’!

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny-pitcher lovers.

Continue reading “Memezapoppin’!“ →

The EV fever (dream) has broken at last

Posted on March 25, 2025 by Mike 1 Comment

Welcome news indeed.

Report: Hemi V-8s Are So Back and Are Headed for Dodge Muscle Cars
Production of most Hemi engines allegedly resumes in August for Ram and Dodge products.

Ram truck fans got exciting news two weeks ago when a dealer in Wisconsin leaked details of an internal Stellantis presentation confirming the return of the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 in the Ram 1500, which for the 2025 model year had gone six-cylinder-only. A new report claims other Hemis, including the 6.4-liter “392” and supercharged 6.2-liter “Hellcat” V-8s are also coming available again after a year off, and they’re not headed only to Ram trucks but also the new Dodge Charger, which launched this year in all-electric Daytona guise but with six-cylinder Sixpack models to follow.

(Okay, for sticklers, we should point out that the non-392 6.4-liter V-8 has remained in production for Ram HD models while other variants were discontinued for the 2025 model year.)

According to anonymous sources speaking with MoparInsiders, Hemi production will restart in August at the Dundee Engine Plant in Michigan, and it won’t be limited to the 5.7-liter V-8 as previously reported. If the sources are correct, the plant will build all Hemi variants, including the 392 and Hellcat engines. Whether that includes all variants of the Hellcat remains to be seen.

A separate report from the same outlet published a day later claims Dodge engineers are hard at work fitting the Hemi V-8 under the hood of the new Charger, which controversially dropped all eight-cylinder engines for this new generation, much like the Ram 1500. We reported back in 2022 this would happen based on information from our own sources, but Dodge denied that report and seemed to be committed to a Hemi-less muscle car future.

Read: a muscle-less “muscle” car future.

The initial report goes on to say the engines will likely be carryover designs, but that new enhancements could be in the cards. It also broached the possibility of a new Hemi variant with even greater displacement than the 6.4-liter engine already found in the Ram HD.

If you build it, they will come…and buy.

(Via Insty)

Austin clawback underway?

Posted on March 24, 2025March 24, 2025 by Mike 2 Comments

P’raps possibly, yeah. T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished for what was once a helluva fun Texas town.

Austin started to lose population in 2023, as the crush of exhausted citizens fleeing the “blue dot in a red state” started to exceed the number of incoming settlers. It wasn’t a huge number, just 2,500 net out-migration that year, but it was still significant in that the net incoming tide of people had been reversed.

While news of Austin losing population was shocking at the time, the trend has continued to accelerate. There was a net loss of 13,400 people in 2024.

With residents fleeing, there is a glut of houses for sale, and prices are plunging as the real estate bubble bursts. This is also deflating prices on homes in the surrounding suburban and exurban counties.

To the tune of ~20% or so in some places. Too bad, so sad. Onwards.

It is my hope that some of the depopulation is because of blue state colonizers returning to their natural coastal habitats, thus leaving Texas a little bit redder overall. Of course, there is also a steady exodus of regular people from Austin – those who just can’t take it anymore. From personal experience, I know that it is a goal of many normies to leave the oppressive and theocratically woke eco-leftism of Austin, as well as the social disorder it has wrought. My wife and I were among them.

Back when Austin was simply weird, it was a delightful melting pot of politicos, educators, hippies, rednecks, musicians, and regular suburban Texans. Music bound those groups together. I can attest that I spent a lot of evenings in my younger days at joints like the Broken Spoke, Continental Cafe, and Green Mesquite, catching great new acts, some of whom went on to significant success.

Unfortunately, Austin has also been pretty effective in killing off its legendary music scene. Apparently, tech bros and AWFLs just don’t foster a music scene the same way that hippies and rednecks once did, and now even the legendary SXSW Festival is largely ditching the music aspect that got the whole thing going.

You can never go home again, but I’ll always enjoy that musical legacy. Which reminds me, I probably need to put some Rusty Wier or Jerry Jeff on my stereo bluetooth, it’s been too long.

Jerry Jeff Walker, Rusty Weir? No offense, but screw that noise, buster. You want a true taste of the good old Austin music scene, now sadly defunct, ain’t but one place you really need to look for it.

Gott DAMN, man: Jimmy Vaughan, Preston Hubbard, Fran Christina, the inimitable Kim Wilson? Texas blues just don’t come no more Texas blusier than that right there.

I was privileged enough to have the great Kim Wilson autograph not just one but TWO (2) of my beater-classic Ford dashboards after we opened for the Fab T-birds, the 61 Galaxy and, later on, the 67 Fairlane. Should be pics around here someplace or other, but damned if I’m gonna go digging around on this hard drive to find ‘em right now. Enjoy another T-birds clip as compensation.

An American

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Barry 3 Comments

RIP George, you were the real deal!

George

George Foreman, age 76, RIP

2

Department of Indoctrination, GUTTED

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Barry 2 Comments

As promised, President Trump guts the department of “education”…

Executive Order

Justice, DONE

Posted on March 19, 2025March 19, 2025 by Mike 4 Comments

Aww, that’s a doggone shame.

BREAKING: Greenpeace Loses Dakota Access Pipeline Trial, Faces Bankruptcy and Extinction
In 2016 and 2017, the left vented its shock and fury at Donald Trump’s unexpected victory by, among other things, protesting the construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota. The “mainstream” media claimed that Energy Transfer was ramming its Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) through all sorts of sacred Native American lands and that no one wanted it.

n fact, Energy Transfer went out of its way to work with natives and locals, and most were glad of the opportunity and prosperity DAPL would provide. Nonetheless, environmentalist activists co-opted a protest by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, making it into the face of the spurious claims. Professional protestors from near and far got into the act, throwing sand into the project’s gears at the construction site, at funding sources, and in the PR sphere. In the end, these actions delayed the project by five months and added approximately $350 million to the cost, Energy Transfer claimed in a lawsuit it launched in 2019.

Energy Transfer named three Greenpeace entities — Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International (based in the Netherlands), and Greenpeace Fund — as the organizers and funders of this sabotage. And on Wednesday, a North Dakota jury found that the infamous non-profit must pay the price for its actions.

The jury found in favor of the plaintiff on almost all counts, ruling that Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The loss is expected to bankrupt the half-century-old environmentalist nuisance organization.

There will doubtlessly be an appeal — Greenpeace’s Senior Legal Adviser, Deepa Padmanabha, said, “We know that this fight is not over.” But at any rate, this is a great day for Americans and people everywhere who are sick to death of environmentalists, BLM, and other disruptive, violent, and destructive Marxist mobs upending their lives under the guise of the right to protest.

Join me as I raise a glass to Energy Transfer and DAPL — Bravo!

Yes indeedy. Also, encore!

1

“VERY bad people” redux

Posted on March 19, 2025March 19, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Anybody wanna try explaining to me how this does NOT constitute actual, literal terrorism? Or at the very least incitement to terrorist acts?

Quick Hit:
A website called “Dogequest” has reportedly published the personal details of Tesla owners nationwide, exposing names, addresses, and phone numbers on an interactive map. The site, which appears to be targeting Tesla drivers due to CEO Elon Musk’s ties with the Trump administration, also features a Molotov cocktail as a cursor. The operators claim they will only remove personal information if the individual provides proof they have sold their Tesla.

Key Details:
The website “Dogequest” reportedly doxes Tesla owners and employees of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), listing personal information and Tesla dealership locations.

The site encourages vandalism of Tesla vehicles, stating it supports “creative expressions of protest.”

Recent incidents include vandalism at Tesla dealerships, gunfire attacks in Oregon, and harassment of Cybertruck owners.

Diving Deeper:
The emergence of “Dogequest” comes amid rising hostility toward Tesla owners and dealerships, a trend that has escalated following Elon Musk’s high-profile role in the Trump administration. According to a report, the website exposes the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Tesla drivers across the United States while using a Molotov cocktail cursor—a clear symbol of violent intent.

Beyond targeting individual Tesla owners, the site also reveals locations of Tesla dealerships and supercharger stations. One section of the website appears to endorse vandalism, stating that those looking to attack a Tesla “don’t need a map” to do so. This rhetoric coincides with increasing reports of Tesla-related attacks, including a woman arrested for throwing an incendiary device at a dealership in Loveland, Colorado, and multiple Tesla locations in Oregon being targeted by gunfire.

Round these brazen terrorists up and pack ‘em all off to their palatial new digs in Gitmo, sayeth I. Let me count the ways:

They are all violent, lawless, and dangerous
By their own actions, they have demonstrated themselves to be a credible, imminent threat to life, limb, property, and civic order
They are batshit insane

Our “fellow Americans,” you say? In a pig’s eye. No decent, civilized society can afford to allow thuggish ferals like these to walk around loose, not if it hopes to survive. As such, they of right ought to be rockin’ orange by no later than sunset tomorrow, every last man Jack of ‘em. If Your FBI© cared one iota about, y’know, doing its job (as opposed to harrassing, persecuting, and jailing patriotic Normals), they’d be all over these vicious swine like a pair of Fruit Of The Looms.

Memezapoppin’!

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny-pitcher lovers.

Continue reading “Memezapoppin’!“ →

The almighty Mustang

Posted on March 19, 2025March 19, 2025 by Mike Leave a comment

As I’ve long maintained, the Supermarine Spitfire won the Battle of Britain, certainly, and fair enough; credit where due. But if it can be fairly said of any one plane—be it fighter, bomber, pursuit, escort, etc—it was North American Aviation’s P51 Mustang that won the war.

Tommy Hitchcock, one of America’s most renowned polo players and the youngest American to win a pilot’s commission during the First World War, has become the archetype of the potency of individual human achievement.

Born on Feb. 11, 1900, in Aiken, South Carolina, the soft-spoken Hitchcock rose to prominence for his aggressive, hard charging ways during polo matches. His marriage to a Mellon family heiress in 1928 only helped to cement his celebrity status.

Actor David Bruce called Hitchcock the “only perfect man he had ever met,” while F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled two characters after him — writing that the athlete-turned successful businessman was “high in my pantheon of heroes.”

During World War I, the teenaged Hitchcock downed two German planes — for which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre — before being shot down inside German territory on March 6, 1918.

Badly wounded, Hitchcock spent several months recuperating inside a German POW camp before, according to author Lynn Olson’s account in “Citizens of London,” the 18-year-old pilot, who was in transit to another camp, “stole a map from a sleeping guard and leaped from the train. Escaping detection, he hiked nearly a hundred miles to neutral Switzerland.”

Upon America’s entry into the Second World War, the 41-year-old volunteered his services as a fighter pilot but was turned down personally by Gen. Hap Arnold, chief of staff of the U.S. Army Air Forces, for being above the flying age.

Frustrated, the well-connected Hitchcock turned to his old friend John Gilbert Winant, who was, at that time, the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Winant, according to Olson, suggested that the polo player-turned-fighter pilot-turned investment banker come to London as assistant U.S. military attaché to act as a liaison between the Eighth Air Force and the Royal Air Force’s Fighter command.

Hitchcock accepted the job on the spot.

Conceived by a German émigré who had once designed Messerschmitt fighters before fleeing to America, the P-51 — built by California’s North American Aviation Co. — was initially planned as an RAF low-level tactical fighter-bomber.

Hitchcock was stunned. The performance of the P-51, when fitted with a British Merlin engine, could “go as fast and as far as the bombers without losing its fighting characteristics,” historian Donald Miller wrote. It was, he noted, “the plane the Bomber Mafia had claimed was impossible to build.”

Despite this, Hitchcock’s superiors remained unimpressed and rejected the introduction of the American-British hybrid fighter.

“Sired by the English out of an American mother, the Mustang had no parent in the [Air Force] … to appreciate and push its good points,” Hitchcock wrote in 1942.

The Mustang, however, would soon find an adopted parent in Hitchcock.

The former fighter pilot became relentless in his quest to adapt the aircraft into the best fighter on the Western Front.

If you’re anything like the avid military aviation buff I’ve been my entire life, you aren’t going to want to miss a single word of this compelling, in-depth slice of real, true history—a must-read if ever there was one. Excellent pics, too. Notable quote:

“The story of the P-51,″ the official wartime history of the USAAF declared, “came close to representing the costliest mistake made by the Army Air Forces in World War II.”

One among many similar near-fatal errors, sad to say, which is but par for the usual course in wartime. Thanks so very much to our old friend Stephen for the steer to this top-notch article.

GIVE TIL IT HURTS

THANKS!

Mike @Substack

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Notable Quotes

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