amarriageoftrueminds | Entries tagged with thc

Re: His family.

As a Californian, if Jim’s family were interned their most likely place of internment would be Manzanar concentration camp, as it’s the closest to Fresno.

(124 miles due east, though it takes 4 hours 22 mins to reach it by car nowadays -- presumably much longer, back then -- as you’ve got to go around Sequoia National Park to get there. The only other California camp was Tule Lake, but that is 482 miles due north of Fresno, or 8 hours even by modern car.)

Manzanar opened in March 1942 (coincidentally, the same time Red Skull recovered the Tesseract), housed 11,070 Americans of Japanese ancestry and their immigrant parents, and there’s a book, Farewell to Manzanar, (ebook here), which is a memoir by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston about her time in the camp (as well as her life before and after.)

Even angstier possibility: Some Japanese immigrants were given the opportunity to return to Japan on prisoner exchange ships. If Jim’s family were immigrants and decided to do this, there’s a real possibility that the last time Jim ever saw them was when he shipped off to war!

(Unless... he stayed in the army and somehow got himself attached to the US army of occupation in Japan, from September 2, 1945 to April 28, 1952? Which might be feasible as he could be counted as a useful Japanese-American public figure to have around? Some potential for a really moving post-war family reunion story, there. Hell, there’s no reason why all the Howlies couldn’t have gone with him!)

Sidenote: Though Jim is Japanese-American, Kenneth Choi (the actor who plays him) is actually Korean-American. so maybe you could throw in a ref to that and make Jim Korean on his mother’s side? (ie. suggesting only one half of his family would be interned, which is an unusual viewpoint to have... though would presumably see them experiencing even more prejudice at home when the Korean war started? 🤔)

Re: Jim and the War.

Given CATFA's habit of putting militaries nowhere near where they should be / when they should be, I think you could say that Jim was part of the 442 and they were just deployed much earlier in this 'verse. If they’re letting Steve publically found a desegregated unit in November 1943, it’s not so much of a stretch!

(Or you could go for some off-the-wall backstory where Jim was already in Europe when war broke out, for some reason, and he got stuck, ended up joining up with American forces to fight, and really is the lone Japanese guy in the whole US Army at the time? Again, if there’s a random French Resistance guy in Italy, why not?!)

If he’s in the 442nd, he would’ve trained at Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi (bumping the timeline back a year in April 1943; IRL it was in 1944), and come into conflict not only with white soldiers but also with other Japanese-Americans from Hawaii, (pejoratively called Buddah-heads) who outnumbered the mainland Japanese-Americans (pejoratively called Kotonks) and had a pretty dim view of them. (Although this changed after some of the Hawai'i recruits took to the nearby Japanese incarceration centers at Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas.)

Historically, the 442nd also served alongside the 92nd Infantry Division, (aka the Buffalo soldiers), a segregated African American unit... so maybe that could’ve been Gabe’s unit and how they first met?

(Here’s how both units’ insignia look).

Pre & Post-war:

Judging by his chopsy personality I'd say it's more likely Jim lived/worked in Fresno's Chinatown than on a farm. That man has 'Service Industry / dealing with The Public' all over him.

Given that this grandson lives in NYC / is the head of a prestigious science-based high school, I wonder if Jim moved to the east coast after WWII? That would also put him closer to Dum-dum and Gabe (and Frenchy and Monty if they visited America, of course).

Jim’s ethnicity makes it likely he would've been snubbed of medals he deserves after WWII. (Twenty Japanese WWII personnel didn’t get their Medals of Honour until 1998, and only then after an investigation into anti-Asian bias in the forcesh.)

Unless the remaining white Howlies spoke up for him (same goes for Gabe). So maybe there could be a link there, between Jim moving closer to Dum-dum,, and Dum-dum fighting his cause.

In response to ASK on tumblr:

Hi! Do you have any headcanons about the Howling Commandos?

.

Okay well sorry in advance 'nonny but it's been that kinda day so this answer might be a bit depressing

(to offset that here's an old ask with Howlie headcanons)

14 Headcanons about the Howling Commandos:

1 - all of the guys in the 107 who were captured by Hydra and put to work in the Krausberg POW-camp/factory later died of radiation-related cancers because of being exposed to Tesseract energy. (This was reported upon in the scientific press, post-war, and is part of the reason why people like Bruce Banner were duped into believing that the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project would be interested in a gamma-radiation sickness treatment.)

2 - Because Steve made the 107 famous, post-war there was a controversy of unscrupulous members of the 107 who hadn't been captured (ie. the guys who threw rotten food and homophobic jeers at Steve) claiming to have been in Krausberg. But the fact that those guys didn't develop the same health problems as real 107 rescue-ees unmasked them as valour thieves. (Especially galling for the Howlies, since Dum-Dum had had to fight for the government to officially recognise Gabe and Morita's valour in medals, as they deserved.)

3 - one of the Howlies' acquaintance Steve never got to meet was Izzy Cohen, a kid Bucky took under his wing from basic training onwards, who had lied about being underage in order to get into the Army. The same guns which Bucky and the guys were later forced to make for the Nazis turned him into a blue mist at Azzano.

4 - Gabe and Morita came from all-POC squads who were killed off completely because the Nazi guards at Krausberg were hardest on them and because they were the first Zola picked off to experiment on. (This presaged later torture by Zola of Isaiah's men, and of Asian civilians by Werner Reinhardt; both men hired by Peggy's SHIELDra).

5 - During the war Gabe once sat next to Bucky at a campfire, watching Steve perform some feat of extraordinary strength across the way, and -- thinking of his friends he had lost -- asked Bucky what Zola did to them all in the lab. Bucky couldn't talk about it...

6 - over Christmas 1943, before being deployed back to the continent, the Howlies were sent on intense specialised training in the coastal village of Aberdyfi in North Wales, under the auspices of a secretly all Jewish troop of Continental-European Commandos, called X Troop.

7 - because Monty was in with all the right chaps in the Old Boys network, he was able to give Steve et al insight into a lot of the political goings on behind the scenes in the British forces, give him a hint on which of the English intelligence-officers to dismiss due to incompetence, nepotism hiring, etc. Monty once took Steve and Bucky to the London Ritz, where the basement bar was a gay club. 👀

8 - during missions in France the Howlies met Virginia Hall, Noor Inayat Khan (Morita proposed to her while drunk), Logan Howlett (an old war buddy of Dum-Dum's), and Ernest Hemingway (whom they did not think much of: despite being just a journalist, he was waving a handgun around trying to 'liberate' the Paris Ritz... which had been long abandoned by the Nazis by the time he got there.)

9 - while filming movies as part of his USO tour, Steve was biletted at a place called Fort Roach, California, where the US Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit was making animated war-propaganda short movies for cinemas. While there, he got Bucky a signed animation-cell of 'Trigger Joe' and met (and punched) some actor guy called Donald Reagan??

10 - During the Allied Invasion of Sicily, the Howlies met three Brits who were introduced to Steve later on, in London. In the modern-day, Steve was delighted to discover that two of them had gone on to become famous actors after the war: one of them starred in Star Wars and another -- still alive -- in Lord of the Rings. He and Christopher Lee kept in touch (Bucky and CL agree that it's great they got the stabbing-noises right in the movies). It blew Tony's mind when he found Steve listening to an advance copy of a heavy metal album, that his 'buddy Chris' had sent him from England. Bucky kind of had a crush on him back in the day... (The third Brit the Howlies met in Sicily was 'Mad Jack' Churchill, of broadsword, longbow and bagpipe fame; Bucky wrote his Scottish dad a delighted letter about it).

11 - Steve and the guys once had to physically restrain Bucky from punching General Patton, during one of their morale-boosting visits to a Field Hospital. (One of the guys at this particular hospital had just had his leg blown off. And Bucky made sure Steve visited in his dirtied combat gear, and not looking immaculate, because he remembered how demoralising it was for bedridden pre-serum Steve if Bucky waltzed in looking all dapper, while Steve was feeling his worst.) The punishment for this incident was the Howlies having to let news crews follow them around for a week, filming propaganda newsreels.

12 - they also repeatedly got in trouble for damaging historic churches in Germany ('accidentally' blowing off the antisemitic Judensau carvings) and loitering in Nazi-occupied areas to put up anti-Nazi graffiti on public buildings (Steve loved exercising the old artistic muscles again.)

13 - after the war, Gabe became a leading light of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. He was once present for one of the Winter Soldier's assassinations in Manhattan, but didn't see who was responsible. (In another universe, where Isaiah Bradley escaped a lot sooner and managed to get to Macon, GA, he and Gabe teamed up to become a sort of Holmes-and-Watson vigilante duo.)

14 - Steve's tactical innovation for the D-Day Landings was to imitate the testudo or shield-wall formation of Roman legions. By standing at the front of one of the LCVPs as it hit the beach, holding a massive piece of steel as a shield, he was able to lead Bucky and the boys (plus 30 others, carrying a second giant shield) safely up the beach, plant the steel-shield, and then retreat to repeat this with each incoming landing craft. This was bastardised in a famous war movie, where Steve McQueen's Captain America simply did an Evel Knievel motorcycle jump over the fortifications to land on the German guns. Everyone is disappointed when Steve has to tell them he never did this. (Bucky keeps telling everyone he did... 🤦‍♀️🙄)

things I have thought about it:

after Krausberg the Howlies would’ve been together for 15 months and 15 days, from mid-November 1943 to March 1945.

Since Frenchy and Monty aren’t US Army, and Gabe and Morita are probably from segregated units, the Howlie Bucky could’ve known longest – after Steve – would’ve been Dum-dum.

If so (taking it from when Bucky was deployed) they would’ve spent a solid 20 months and 15 days in each other’s company.

if Morita was from the all-Nisei 442nd infantry Regiment, that means a) that’s the most decorated in US military history, and he’s a Ranger to boot! b) composed completely of Japanese-American volunteers who would otherwise have been in internment camps alongside their families.

a lot of black American servicemen were– well first of all not even allowed to serve initially, that had to be brought in– second of all were relegated to service roles at first and were the ones responsible for building a lot of the US Army infrastructure (like airfields) in the UK. If Gabe was among them there’s a chance he would be the guy who’s spent the longest time in England (after Monty of course).

Also: there were a couple occasions of black US troops clashing with white US troops in England, because of, eg. whites (especially from the South) expecting US segregation laws to be applied while they were in the UK.

(This also happened on the continent and in the Pacific. In 1945 the singer Tony Bennett was serving in the US Army of occupation in Germany and was demoted by a bigoted sergeant just for dining with a black high school buddy.)

After August 1944 the ‘Red Ball Express’ truck convoy system (keeping US soldiers supplied on the continent after D-Day), was driven by black soldiers. So having Gabe on the squad might’ve proven mighty handy for getting first dibs on supplies.

both Gabe and Morita would’ve had to fight to actually receive any of the medals they earned during the war, even decades later.

all the Howlies are considerably older than Steve and Bucky – maybe Bucky picked them specifically with experience in mind, thinking they’d have more to teach Steve.

(Dum-dum and Morita are comfortably above the draft age; maybe they’re career soldiers from before the war? or they both enlisted despite being too old? That would suit their fighty personalities.)

If Bucky and Dum-Dum’s first experience together was the Allied invasion of Sicily (aka Operation Husky) then there’s a chance they could’ve met Christopher Lee and Alec Guinness there.

If the Howlies were trained in how to handle SSR escapology gadgets while in England then the man who could’ve been teaching them that is… Naval Intelligence officer John Pertwee (who, as a teenager, was a circus 'wall of death’ rider who rode with a live lion in his sidecar. Bucky would have an aneurysm if Steve heard about this.)

other random Howlie headcanons here (they could’ve been in Paris at the same time as Ernest Hemingway, for example!)

also a lil meta here about some other real-world WWII details that might apply to them (like where might they have been stationed in the UK, where their Hydra missions actually were, etc.)

Steve

looks like he's got:

US pins (upper collar)
DUI pins (distinctive unit insignia, lapels)
Parachute badge (the little oval one)
Purple Heart (with gold oak leaf cluster)
American Defense Service (for chasing down the saboteur in Brooklyn?) *this one is a mistake!
Combat Infantryman badge (that’s the big blue one, but that's supposed to be on top! not bottom, as it’s considered the first and most prestigious!)
Distinguished/Presidential Unit Citation badge (R breast)

Bucky

should have:

US disc pin (R upper collar)
Infantry disc collar pin (L upper collar, crossed muskets)
DUI pins (distinctive unit insignia, lapels)
107th Regimental insignia badge (L bicep)
Combat Infantryman badge
if Steve's got a purple heart he'd probably have one too (minus oak leaf?)
maybe a red/white good-conduct ribbon
a Mediterranean theater ribbon (with a bronze battle star per campaign, and bronze arrowhead for amphibious assault landings at Sicily, etc.)
the same parachute badge
definitely some kind of marksmanship badge (below ribbon rack)
Distinguished/Presidential UC on R

Steve would also have a Medal of Honour or two somewhere; possibly only post-Valkyrie.

Further Info:

The fact that Steve has outlined letter US pins on his collar (as opposed to discs, like Bucky) shows he's an officer. (The What If animators stupidly gave Steve the same pins/uniform even though he’s just a private.)
The 2 gold bars on his epaulettes show that Steve is a Captain.
Bucky’s got his sergeant chevrons on his biceps.👆
(IIRC a deleted scene showed Dum-Dum with chevrons on his sweater sleeve, too? was he a sergeant?)
The long jacket seen in the pub is the dress uniform (a long cavalry-style jacket).
They’re supposed to have gold bars on the sleeve cuff, one for every 6 months spent deployed, and a diagonal below that, sloping the other way, for 3 years (but a lot of guys left these off because- well, they just did. Probably for practical reasons.)
Steve’s jacket is also darker because he’s an officer; in contrast, the standard issue pants for officers were lighter (a combination called the ‘pinks and greens’) but apparently they could wear matching pants if they wanted.
NCOs and enlisted men had matching lighter colour jacket/pants.
The short jacket Steve is also shown in (see above) is from later on in the war; it’s an ‘Ike’ jacket (after General Eisenhower), modelled on British service ‘battle dress’ uniforms, after the Americans realised the long cavalry-style jackets weren’t so practical in combat.
From wikipedia:
“However, development and approval by the Army was slow. Except for small runs of jackets made for soldiers in England, the U.S. Army did not provide the jacket as an issue item to enlisted soldiers until the war in Europe was almost over.”
So Steve probably has that jacket because he’s in England in Nov 1943.

( Read more... )

Today’s pointless and yet strangely therapeutic meta exercise:

Trying to work out:

A) where were the Hydra bases Steve and the Howlies attacked in WWII,

B) what order could they have attacked them in?

🤔
( Read more... )

I've been thinking about Steve's time during the war, and wondering if anyone has any headcanons about, eg. where he was stationed, how exactly the Howling Commando mission planning went, etc?
In the comics, Steve isn't assigned to the 107 but to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division (aka the ‘Big Red One’.)
They were part of D-Day landings, on Omaha Beach.

In deleted scenes / clips from the Smithsonian, it’s implied that Steve was also a part of D-Day:

( Read more... )

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