World War II

On the night of May 31, six Japanese submariners staged a bold raid on Sydney Harbour in Australia. Two of the midget submarines that slipped into the harbor that night to attack allied warships were destroyed before they saw action. The third sub intended to go after the USS Chicago but wound up putting a torpedo into the HMAS Kuttabul, a converted ferry, which sank. Twenty-one of the sailors sleeping onboard were killed.

That third sub disappeared only to be rediscovered by amateur divers in 2006. On August 6, relatives of Sub-Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban and Petty Officer Memoru Ashibe cast flowers from the deck of an Australian warship and poured sake into the water in tribute to the men and the wreckage below.

The submarine is largely intact although filled with sand. It is believed that the remains of the crew lie inside the vessel, which will be left undisturbed as a protected monument. The younger brother of Lieutenant Ban, speaking through an interpreter, said, “We were all feeling uneasy about where it was so we are very happy the Australian divers found it.”

That “little” brother is now 74-years-old. Their story, like many in recent years, is being concluded after long years of wondering. During my childhood the news would occasionally report on an isolated Japanese soldier pulled off some nameless island after years of solitary waiting for the war to be over. I was fascinated by these men who remained at their post years beyond the official end of the conflict.

I won’t lie. In our household the Germans and the Japanese were referred to in derogatory terms replete with racial slurs. I don’t blame my father. These were the people who were trying to kill him when he was just 21-years-old. I’m not sure he lived long enough to see them as anything but the enemy. But part of the act of reconciliation is to remember that 21-year-old boys were dying on both sides, some, like these two men, entombed at the bottom of the ocean. Now their relatives know where they lie, in a sense, still at their post beneath the waters in the vessel they so daringly piloted. Two more boys who have finally come home.

(Click here for the International Herald Tribune story.)

WWII, Sydney, Australia, Japanese midget submarine

During World War II the Nazis transferred the collection of the Prussian State Library in Berlin to 29 sites throughout the Third Reich in an effort to protect the treasures from Allied bombs.

Five hundred wooden crates containing manuscripts and documents were placed in the Sudety Mountains at Ksiaz Castle, although they were later moved farther south.

Here’s the problem, when the Polish border was shifted to the west at the end of the war, the collection fell into the hands of Polish authorities who moved it to Krakow at the Jagiellonian University Library.

Some of the materials went back to Germany in 1977, the remainder are still in Poland. They include original manuscripts by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Goethe. Germany wants them back.

Poland, a country that endured a merciless five-year occupation that led to the death of six million Poles has essentially responded with, “Yeah, so?”

The official statement issued by the Polish Foreign Ministry read in part, “all artworks, library and archive materials and all other objects of German origins that found themselves on Polish territory in connection with World War II were taken over by the Polish state on the basis of appropriate legal acts.”

The Ministry made it clear the opinion is the last word on the subject and that they have no intention of entertaining any more groundless claims.

The position of the Polish government is understandable in an emotional sense but for that matter, so is Germany’s. The issue raises the questions, when is a war really over?

There’s universal agreement that works of art taken by the Nazis are to be returned to their legal owners whenever possible. And yet anti-German sentiment is still sufficiently strong that German national treasures are not accorded the same respect.

It’s a difficult subject, one to which I have no answers, but I find it an incredible example of just how recent the war really is in our collective societal memory.

WWII, Poland, Germany, artwork, Prussian State Library

Yesterday an interesting documentary project came to my attention. The Ghost Army will tell the story of an Army unit unlike any other — provided a much needed matching funds grant comes through.

Activated before the Normandy invasion, the mission of the unit was obfuscation. Armed with inflatable tanks and sound effects among its toolbox of tricks, the 23rd Headquarters Special Tropps, the Ghost Army, worked on deceiving the Germans about the location and strength of American troops from Normandy to the Rhine.

Even more fascinating, however, is that many of the soldiers were young artists like fashion designer Bill Blass and painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly who used their skills for the war effort in a completely unique way.

Documentarian Rick Beyer wants to tell their story and he needs some help. If you visit The Ghost Army site, you can not only watch video clips from the production, but under the News section you can learn more about the matching funds campaign underway. There you’ll find tools to make a personal donation or to help spread the word. (See the right sidebar for donation and “share” options.)

Here’s the real kicker. They’ve only got until September 16 to reach their goal and earn a $10,000 matching grant from Kevin Bacon’s “Six Degrees” organzation. This is a story that needs to be told and valuable history that must be preserved. Visit Beyer’s site and if nothing else, help spread the word about his project.

WWII, documentary, Ghost Army, Rick Beyer

Today is the 62nd anniversary of the dropping of the nuclear bomb euphemistically named “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Seventy-thousand people died and almost 70 percent of the city was turned into a wasteland. In the months that followed another 60,000 died of their injuries and from the effects of radiation.

One hundred and thirty thousand dead from a single device that ushered in the nuclear age. That’s a staggering statement and one that still causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. You see, I grew up during the Cold War. Oh, not the height of it. Not the days of “duck and cover” drills. I was still in my Mother’s womb during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But still there was a pervading sense of “us and them,” the comments my Dad would make about how we should have gone ahead and whipped the Russians when we had the chance, and the anti-communist rhetoric that seemed a staple of political addresses well into the Reagan administration. When the Berlin wall came down I remember thinking that in a way it really signalled the end of World War II, the easing of a degree of global tension that had overshadowed the world since that morning in Hiroshima.

As a young person I really did worry that the world would end in a nuclear conflageration. Now I fear other methods of our global demise but I’m also old enough to know that if it is destined to end, there’s not much I can do about it.

Paul Tibbets, the man who was at the stick of the Enola Gay sixty-two years ago once said, “I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing. We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.”

Today, pause for a moment to remember the people of Hiroshima, the men who dropped the bomb that day, and all of us who have been effected by the shadow of those events these many years. Let’s hope that of all the legacies of World War II the use of nuclear weapons as a means to “resolve” conflicts is not one that will endure.

WWII, Hiroshima, Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets, Cold War

I’ve never been much of a computer gamer beyond a passing addiciton to Descent in grad school — and that was mainly because anything was better than working on my dissertation. I did, however, once purchase a B-29 simulation package.

It would be hard to describe how God awful I was with that game. Time and time again I crashed and burned that make-believe Superfortress complete with sound effects and curling smoke. Finally, in frustration, I called my Dad. He flew B-29s stateside as an instructor and in the ferry command after he got back from 51 missions in North Africa and Italy.

Without even being able to see my computer screen, he talked me through a take-off — from memory — a good 45 years after he’d last sat behind the stick of that aircraft. It was, to put it simply, damned impressive.

World War II remains a popular scenario for computer game developers and later this year a new game, Undercover: Operation Wintersun will be released. The game will debut in Russia, but an English version has been promised. Players will be put inside Hitler’s Third Reich with a mission to infiltrate Hitler’s inner circle and assassinate the Fuhrer. (If you know your history, you know that didn’t play out so well in the infamous July 20 Plot.)

The more immersive these games become, the more I’m tempted. This one just sounds like plain fun, as much fun as walking into Rick’s bar in Casablanca and trying to get those missing exit visas. Come on, you know you’ve had the day dream . . . you in a dinner jacket, Sam playing “As Time Goes By,” Ingrid Bergman looking tragic and gorgeous. There’s just no escaping it. Those were romantic, dangerous days and their appeal remains undeniable. Just be thankful you grandfather lived it and you can get up and walk away from the computer.

WWII, computer games, B-29, Third Reich

At Florida State University, the Institute on World War II and Human Experience works to preserve World War II memorabilia and artifacts it receives through donations from the men and women who served in the war and from their families.

Too many of these items are thrown away when the individual to whom they were meaningful dies. If you inherit these kinds of materials and have no one to pass them on to, consider donating them to the Institute or a similiar museum or preservation effort. (Click here for donation information for the FSU Institute.)

Don’t let the memories of the greatest generation be carried out with yesterday’s newspaper. The Institute will consider just about anything. Some of the items they’ve already received since the beginning of the program in 1997 include:

- personal papers
- letters and diaries
- scrapbooks
- memoirs
- photographs and films
- maps and flight or ship’s logs
- military documents
- unit histories
- uniforms
- books and works of art including cartoons
- newspapers
- business records
- oral history interviews

While it may be difficult to part with momentos that belonged to your loved one, make sure that the items will be properly appreciated, preserved, and cared for. If that can’t happen within the family, look to outside sources like the FSU Institute. Their webpage bears the famous “I Want You” poster of Uncle Sam and the words beneath the image say it all, “I want to save your memories of the war that saved the world.”

FSU, Florida State, Institute of World War II and Human Experience, WWII artifacts, memorabilia

You’d be hard pressed to find a more icongraphic World War II photo than this one of a sailor locking lips with a nurse on V-J Day. Eighty-year-old Houston resident Glenn McDuffie has claimed for many years that he’s the lucky man in the photo. Now a forensic artist from the Houston Police Department, Lois Gibson, says McDuffie is telling the truth.

Gibson, according to the 2005 Guiness Book, has helped police to nail more suspects than any other forensic artist in the business. She posed McDuffie in his uniform and measured various parts of his body and features, comparing them to enlarged versions of the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph. Her conclusion? McDuffie is the man in the picture.

Life magazine, however, isn’t buying it. Eisenstaedt didn’t bother to get the identity of the sailor and Life execs maintain the story of the famous photo will forever remain a mystery.

My opinion? Life is being hard-as . . . well, you get the idea. This old man has lung cancer. He’s gone through three wives, played a little semi-professional baseball, put in time with the Postal Service. He wants the world to know he’s the young sailor in the photo that day and I think he deserves his due. I mean really? Would a guy be likely to forget a lip lock like this one? And what is there to be gained from lying all these years?

For the article from the Washington Post, click here.

V-J Day, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Glenn McDuffie, Lois Gibson, WWII

Ron Modro (whose haunting video of a Nazi stronghold in Bretagne, France I featured in this entry) has a new project set to commemorate the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb, which was dropped at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945.

According to Ron’s site Once Upon A Time on Planet Earth, 80,000 people died in an instant and 60,000 have since died. On the 62nd anniversary of the bombing more than 40 photographers in 25 countries will take a single photograph and share the story behind the image. The goal is to raise awareness about the considerable challenges and crises that face our planet today.

I’m greatly looking forward to the exhibition on many levels — as a total shutterbug, as a concerned citizen of the world trying to live as “green” a lifestyle as possible, and because I have a particular memory.

When I was in the 8th grade a very fine social studies teacher taught a unit on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among the materials provided was an address to a retirement home where many of the elderly survivors received care. I selected a name and wrote a letter expressing my deep regret for the suffering of so many innocent civilians.

To my great surprise I received a reply a couple of months later. The note had been written by an orderly who explained that the woman to whom I had written did not see well and no longer attempted to write. She did, however, want me to know that she had appreciated my letter and that I must not feel guilt about what happened at Hiroshima. It was war time and many horrible things happened. She blamed no one and was thankful to have had a long life.

I’ve never forgotten that letter nor the sentiment and each year on the anniversary I think of that woman who I am sure is now long dead. Grace and forgiveness are rare commodities in our world. I applaud Ron’s project and am curious to see what thoughts go through the minds of other people on the anniversary of the dawn of the atomic age.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Ron Modro, photography