World War II

On this 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I want to write about comradeship that transcends eras and conflicts. You see the images of this day that always get me are those of the survivors going back to honor their fallen comrades at the U.S.S. Arizona memorial. Those old men gazing down into the waters thinking of the young men who lie entombed beneath never fail to bring tears to my eyes.

As I was contemplating what to write today, I came across an update to a story I’ve been following on CNN, that of 25-year-old marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel, horribly injured and disfigured in Iraq and fighting the VA to receive the full benefits he so richly deserves. Today’s story, featured in the screen capture above, is entitled, “WWII Vet: Wounded Marine’s Story ‘Broke My Heart.’”

In it you will read about 84-year-old Medal of Honor winner Chief Warrant Officer Hershel “Woody” Williams who reached out to Ziegel. This elderly veteran of Iowa Jima crossing barriers of time and age to honor a young Marine made me cry as surely as those images of Pearl Honor ceremonies. (Click here for ABC’s story “Survivors Remember Pearl Harbor.”)

What these stories illustrate to us in tandem is the power of the brotherhood (and sisterhood) of those who serve. Both men, Williams and Ziegel regards the other as a hero and after you read their stories, I think you’ll feel the same day. I can’t think of a better way to remember Pearl Harbor on this anniversary.

WWII, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Medal of Honor, Ty Ziegel, Hershel Williams

Many years ago I remember reading a book by Kate Hafner, “Where Wizards Stay Up Late: the Origins of The Internet.” (Non-affiliate Amazon link to the book for information purposes only.) It was a fascinating read, but I don’t remember any information about six women who were responsible for hacking into ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) and making it easier for the folks who followed behind them to access and develop the monster leviathan that is the great-great-great-great-granddaddy of the laptop I’m using to write this entry.

World War II was coming to an end and the Army had a unique shortage — not enough male mathematicians. The ABC news story (featured in the screen cap above the text and accessible here) “First Computer Programmers Inspire Documentary” tells the story of five women who stepped forward to fill that void. Their stories have been recorded by historian Kathy Kleiman and the women — Jean Bartik, Marlyn Meltzer, Kathleen Mauchly Antonelli, Betty Snyder Holberton, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, and Frances Bilas Spence — are the subject of the resulting documentary “Invisible Computers: The Story of the ENIAC Programmers.”

These women were so discounted by history that they weren’t invited to the 40th anniversary of the ENIAC project and Kleiman only found them after seeing a photo of them standing by the massive computer. Assured by a computer historian that the women were just there as window dressing, Kleiman didn’t buy it and made it her work to track them down and find out the true story.

This is not just the tale of the dawn of the computing age in the closing days of World War II, but also a shocking look at sexism of the rankest order in the United States that persisted well beyond the war years. For more on the documentary, which I can hardly wait to see, click here.)

WWII, World War II, ENIAC, computer history

This past Wednesday, November 28 was a big day for historians when an enormous archive of German war records was finally made available to the public. Accessibility to the data also means that some Holocast survivors and their families, who have been waiting 60 years, may finally get some answers about the fate of their loved ones at the hands of the Nazis.

The eleven countries that oversee the International Tracing Service finally reached an agreement allowing for the unsealing of 50 million pages of records, a staggering amount of information. Previously the material had only been available for locating missing persons, reuniting families, and providing documentation in cases of compenstaion claims.

While most experts agree that the records aren’t going to change the big picture of what we know about the Final Solution and Nazi Germany itself, they are likely to add new depth to the story and to answer many personal questions. The archive contains references to 17.5 million individiuals and covers 16 linear miles.

As an historian who has conducted research in archives I can tell you that the sifting process will consume the efforts of generations of my colleagues. While computers and technology have dramatically changed how we collect and store data, there are still connections and conclusions that can only be drawn by the mind of man (or woman) laboring over dusty folders and armed with an already intimate understanding of the topic at hand. Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were not my particular area of expertise, but I can freely admit that when I saw the photo above (a screen capture from the original ABC news story, which you can read here), I was fairly itching to get in there and start reading.

WWII, World War II, Nazi, archive, Holocaust, International Tracing Service

Really, it was the photo that got me. The image I’ve used here is a screen shot from the original story posted at ABC News. (Click here to read.) What you’re seeing is an American P-38 fighter plane that made an emergency landing in 1942 on the Welsh coast. It’s been buried under sand and water for 65 years until erosion of the beach revealed the wreckage in July. Do I even need to say, “How danged cool is that?”

But wait, it gets better. Using the serial number to track the plane, it may well be the oldest of its kind in existence and the oldest plane that flew with the 8th Air Force to have survived. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has surveyed the site and will collaborate with museum experts in Britain to recover the craft which, though fragile, is largely intact. A number of museums have expressed interest in the find.

The exact location of the plan is being guarded since the archaeologists need to stay ahead of potential looting to protect their find. When the tides expose the plane, it is being guarded, however for the time being the craft is once again safely encased in sand. The U.S. Air Force regards planes lost prior to 1961 to be “formally abandoned” and would only get involved if human remains are found, which won’t be the case with this plane.

The pilot of this plane was 2nd Lt. Robert F. “Fred” Elliott of Rich Square, N.C. He was forced to make a belly landing when he ran out of gas on a training mission on Sept. 27, 1942. Elliott, who was just 24 at the time, was shot down three months later on a combat mission over Tunisia. Neither he nor his plane was ever recovered.

WWII, World War II, P-38, historic aircraft

Today I’ll dodge the bugles — not turn on the television set, walk out of the room during the news broadcast — because I can no longer hear the bugler blow “Taps” without crying. Oh yes, I set my jaw. I tell myself I won’t do it this time. And still the hot tears roll down my cheeks unbidden and uncontrollable.

Since my father died Veteran’s Day is an intensely personal commemoration for me and a difficult one — the lone trumpets, the rifle salutes, the missing man formation. It is a confusing feeling of pride and pain so intimately intermingled I cannot begin to separate one from the other.

On the wall here beside me in my study is a framed photographic arrangement of eight men. My Uncle Louis starts the assemblage, a 17-year-old boy who volunteered for the American Expeditionary Force and served as a machine gunner in the Argonne in World War I. Uncle Alf was at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and Papa flew bombers in North Africa and Italy. Uncle Curly was a telegraph operator, Uncle Jack served in the Army, and my cousin Junior died in the South Pacific when the plane on which he was a bombadier was shot down. Cousin Alf flew Hellcats for the navy and his little brother Charlie was in the Marines.

They are my people. My soldiers. The descendants of men who fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War. Southerners to a man, they put their country first, over dreams and sweethearts, safety and security. We’ve taken to calling them the “greatest generation,” but I know my Dad wouldn’t have liked that. Often when I gaze at this photo my eyes fall on my cousin, the boy who went to war and came home in a casket after the fighting stopped. (I’ve written about him before.) He was a handsome young man and I wish I’d had a chance to know him.

For so many World War II vets we have only the fragments of their fight, the letters home, the stray photos. And we have the bugles that blow the sad notes of “Taps,” — we have tears intermingling memories both happy and sad. On this Veterans Day — still Armistice Day in my mind — I wish the guns could truly fall silent around the world.

WWII, WWI, World War I, World War II, Veterans Day, Armistice Day

With life still interfering with the much more important business of blogging, I’ve been trying to get to the keyboard for a couple of days now to write about the death of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, a B-29, that dropped the Hiroshima atomic bomb, Little Boy, on August 15, 1945. General Tibbits died on November 1 at age 92.

The plane was named for his mother and like Tibbets, will live forever in the history books as the agent of the dawn of the atomic age. In an interview with Studs Terkel, Tibbets said plainly that he had no regrets. He joined the air corps to defend his country to the best of his ability. “I knew we did the right thing becasue when I knew we’d be doing that I thought, yes, we’re going to kill a lot of people, but by God we’re going to save a lot of lives. We won’t have to invade [Japan].” (For the full interview, click here.)

Tibbets sentiments echoed my father’s own remarks about the bombing raids he conducted in North Africa and Italy with conventional weapons. Most of my Dad’s stories about the war were humorous and interesting, but rarely graphic. One time he did say to me that he would always wonder how many women and children he killed when he dropped his bombs. But like Tibbets, Papa felt he was doing his job in a time of war.

It is terribly easy for us now in an age where we fully understand the horrific geo-political ramifications of nuclear arms, to condemn the men who developed “Little Boy” as well as those who planned and executed its delivery that day in Hiroshima. All too often we fail to put ourselves in the mindset of 1945 after four bloody years of fighting in both Europe and the South Pacific. Without a doubt an invasion of Japan would have been bloody and horrific. As bloody and horrific as Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Frankly, probably not, but Tibbets and the others involved in the raid didn’t know that, nor were the long-term implications of the new destructive technology readily apparent. It took the Cold War to bring that reality home and now we live in fear that instability in nations like Pakistan will lead to a horrible repeat of that August day in 1945.

But that is now and Tibbets’ moment in history was then. And then, Paul Tibbets was a soldier doing his job without question and for that, we honor his memory at his passing.

(There’s a guest book online for General Tibbets that has already run to 32 pages of electronic signatures. Many of them brought tears to my eyes.)

WWII, World War II, Paul Tibbets, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Enola Gay

This piece from htrnews.com caught my eye today, “World War II Veterans Sought for Medals.”

Don Schroeder of Manitowoc wants to contact World War II vets who saw service in the Pacific between June and July 1944, specifically the men who participated in the invasion of the Northern Mariana Islands, which includes Saipan and Tinian.

In 2004 the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands commemorated the 60th anniversary of its liberation from Japan with a medallion. Now the Commonwealth wants every member of the armed services who took part in that liberation to have one of the medallions.

Veterans may contact Don Schroeder at 3703 Dale St., Manitowoc, Wisconsin or at gerryanddon [at] sbcglobal.net. VWF Post 3457 in Saipan is handling the distribution of the medallions, which technically cost $10. They’re not asking for the money, but will happily accept donations since the post also maintains a museum. The medallions have a diameter of 2.5 inches and are an eighth of an inch thick on a red, white, and blue ribbon. One side bears the seal of the Commonweatlh of the Northern Mariana Islands while the other reads, “Our Grateful Islands remember Tinian, Saipan, 1944-2004.

Schroeder is himself a vet, having served abord the U.S.S. Sangamon CVE-26, which was an escort aircraft carrier and part of the 5th Fleet under the command of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance at the time.

WWII, World War II, Mariana Islands, Saipan, Tinian, Don Schroeder

There are 5,782 Indian soldiers lying in the cemeteries of Italy representing all India’s religious faiths (Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh). The “men,” some just boys of 16, served during World War II fighting to liberate Italy. Last week a wreath-laying ceremony was held at the Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery in Cassino to honor their wartime service for the first time. (For the full story from adnkronos.com, click here. It’s worth it, there’s a nice little wartime love story related toward the end.)

The Battle of Monte Cassino was one of the most vicious of the war lasting from January 17 to May 19, 1944. Allied casualties totalled 54,000 with the Germans and Italians losing 20,000. The Cassino cemetery includes 431 graves of Indian soldiers, some marked with their names, religion, and other relevant data. Others just read, “A soldier of the Indian Army.”

The fallen men were part of a force of 50,000 Indian troops who served in Italy. Six received the Victoria Cross, the highest award bestowed by the British Empire for acts of bravery. It’s easy to just use the throwaway term “British” to refer to troops who participated in key battles during WWII and to forget that many of the soldiers from the empire, like these Indian men, were fighting for countries — even a continent — that was not their own.

As it was for many nations, the war was a transformative period for India. Indian political leaders were not consulted when the British viceroy and governor general, Victor Alexander John Hope, Marquis of Linlithgow, declared India to be at war with Germany in 1939. Inspite of this snub, and the political turmoil within a country already well on its way to independence, between 1939 and 1945 the British Indian Army grew to a force of some 2 million, all volunteers, who served in Italy, Africa, the Middle East, Burma, and Southeast Asia.

Just another reminder — more than 60 years after the fact — that World War II was not an American war, nor a British war, but a world war.

WWII, World War II, Italy, Monte Cassino, India, British Indian Army

On Oct. 5, 1944 the first German jet fighter, pictured, was shot down in combat by Canadian forces.

This morning as I was poking around for a Friday Five topic I began to really look at the link structure on Wikipedia, a site I use a lot (albeit with grains of salt at hand and a willlingness to verify things that don’t sound quite right to me.) I did not realize that the site allows users to look at timelines of events by year. (Ask me how much time I wasted over my coffee doing this.)

This is not only a useful quick reference tool for World War II events, but it also gives you some context about what was going on in the world in the same timeframe. For instance, most folks take Sept. 1, 1939 (the Nazi invasion of Poland) as the beginning of the war in Europe. I did not know that on January 1 of that same year, Hewlett-Packard was founded.

I used to get my students to read Alvin Toffler’s book The Third Wave. (Click here for non-affiliate Amazon link.) It was an attempt to get them to stop thinking of history as a string of isolated events broken into multiple choice questions.

In its most simplistic telling, Toffler suggests a progression of history in agricultural, industrial, and technological waves. When I saw that World War II started the same year Hewlett-Packard was founded, my first thought was, “The beginning of the end for one way of life, the dawn of another.” (That was also the year the 1st World Science Fiction Convention was held in New York and the one during which Einstein contacted FDR about developing the atom bomb.)

So, for today’s Friday Five, here are the links to the timelines for the major war years. And be forewarned — you can get sucked into this one real fast!

- 1940
- 1941
- 1942
- 1943
- 1944

(For last week’s Friday Five, click here and for Sept. 21, click here.)

WWII, World War II, timelines

Today I want to share a link to a USAToday article “Learning About ‘The War,’” which puts some finishing notes on the airing of the 15-hour documentary on PBS.

Tonight most PBS stations will begin the second airing of the series, which will continue weekly for seven weeks. It’s a good opportunity for people like me who missed a couple of episodes to catch up with something much less than the marathon intensity of the original airing.

I’d also encourage everyone to have a look at the article “PBS Affiliates, Schools Add to Veterans History Project.” We have to face the scary statistic that more than 1,000 WWII vets die every day — and take more than 1,000 personal stories with them. The airing of “The War” has jump-started a grass roots efforts to collect that material before it disappears forever.

You can visit the Veterans History Project directly and learn how to participate. There are five steps:

- registering with an online form
- downloading a field kit
- preparing for the interview
- conducting the interview
- submitting the collection to the Library of Congress

This project is open to first-hand accounts from:

- World War I
- World War II
- Korean War
- Vietnam War
- Persian Gulf War
- Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts
- civilian supporters

The last category includes war industry workers, USO workers, flight instructors, medical volunteers, and folks who contributed to a war effort in similar ways.

The Veterans History Project accepts video and audio in several formats (see the site for specific details) but the submission must be at least 30 minutes in length. They also collect original narratives such as diaries or journals provided they are more than 20 pages in length, letters (ten or more in each collection), original photos, and artwork. (Again, see the site for full explanations.)

They will not accept photocopies, physical memorabilia (like medals or uniforms), and framed materials but do offer an extensive list of repositories that will accept such items.

Regardless of any controversy the documentary may have generated, if it stimulates renewed interest in World War II studies in our public schools and encourages the active collection of World War II material and first-person accounts, Ken Burns has performed a real service.

If you’re interested in reading my previous posts about “The War” in the order in which they appeared on the blog, here are the links:

- Ken Burns, The War - It’s Hard to Watch
- Let’s Wait to Criticize Ken Burns
- Debate about “The War” Continues
- WWII, Ken Burns, and a Word on Historiography

My final word on the experience of “The War” is positive. As I indicated in my previous comments, you have to take the documentary for what it is and not expect it to be a perfect, encyclopedic treatment of a vast and complex subject. In a massive body of World War II treatments, “The War” is a good addition — not the last word, but a good word in a dialog that will continue through many more generations.

WWII, World War II, Ken Burns, The War, Veterans History Project

This weekend our local news carried a story about World War I and World War II vet Frank Buckles, 106, of Charles Town, West Virginia. Buckles saw a news report about the nation’s only traveling replica of the Liberty Bell. It’s being used at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. Buckles wanted to see the bell — so they took it to him.

It was touching to watch as the elderly gentleman was wheeled from his home to ring the bell parked in the driveway of his Revolutionary War-era house tucked away in the beautiful West Virginia countryside. In a weak, but clear voice Buckles said, “It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.” Inside the reporter held up a tin cup and described it for the viewers — it was the cup Buckles used during three years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese in the Philippines during WWII.

The next morning I went in search of information on Buckles online and discovered he is one of an elite group of four surviving Great War veterans. In November 2006 twelve WWI vets were still living. By January 2007 five of those men passed away. As of April 2007, four remain — Buckles is one of them. (The article reports his age as 105 but the news story I heard said 106.) If I’m reading correctly the oldest survivor is 108 but many of these man lived past 110 and the lone woman in the group was 109 at her death.

Their stories are nothing short of remarkable, both in terms of service to their country and in their longevity. A similar phenomenon was witnessed in survivors of the Titanic sinking. I recall hearing one of them say that after surviving that even little else bothered her in life. I suspect if you make it through two world wars you’d feel much the same way.

WWII, WWI, oldest living vets, Frank Buckles

Today marks the anniversary of the German defeat of British paratroopers at the Battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands, part of Operation Market Garden. This is actually a battle with which many people are familiar though they may not realize it. Cornelius Ryan wrote an excellent book on the subject entitled, A Bridge Too Far, that was subsequently made into a film with an all-star cast.

The plan was bold and daring, send in thousands of paratroopers behind enemy lines to secure the main bridges across the rivers into Holland to make a path for the advancing Allied Armies to turn into the lowlands of Germany avoiding the defenses of the Siegfried Line. Had it worked, the war would have been over by Christmas 1944. Sadly, Arnhem was that “bridge too far.”

I’m going to let the above link to the book (a non-affiliate Amazon link) as one of our five for the day because there are some seventy reader reviews of the book that I thoroughly enjoyed going through. It’s an excellent cross section of the ideas of “every day” historians, people who delve deeply into a subject for the pure joy of it. (And some of them do a pretty darn good job of summarizing the battle action.)

- A Bridge Too Far: This is the Internet Movie Database entry for the film. If you haven’t seen the movie and you’re looking for a war film to rent, go for it. I’ve seen it many times and get sucked into watching it again every time I run across it while channel surfing.

- RememberSeptember1944.com - An exhaustive treatment of Operation Market Garden that is also a tribute to the men who participated in the mission.

- Results of a flickr search for the phrase “Operation Market Garden.”

- Results of a YouTube search for the phrase “Operation Market Garden.” (I watched several of these videos and couldn’t single one out.)

WWII, Operation Market Garden, Arnheim

I’m not sure I can take 15 hours of the new Ken Burns series “The War.” Since my father’s death in 1996 war films and documentaries are hard for me. Generally it takes nothing more than the sight of a man in an Eisenhower uniform to put a lump in my throat. Last night I did fine until Bing Crosby started singing “White Christmas” and then hot tears rolled down my face. The images of grubby G.I.s huddled around record players and radios flashing on the screen were more than I could take. I didn’t fight in World War II, but it is intensely personal for me and Ken Burns has produced an intensely personal documentary. I’m not sure he’d know how to do anything else.

Interweaving images of the homefront and of the battlefield, the first installment of the documentary narrates a straightforward history of the progression of world events from the 1939 invasion of Poland to the bloody American victory on Guadalcanal in 1943. I knew three men who fought on Guadalcanal. One left a leg there and the second suffered from painful jungle rot on his feet for the remainder of his life. The third knocked back a shot glass of whiskey before he told me about his best friend who collected the ears of the Japanese soldiers he killed. The guy was finally sent home on a Section 8 when he beheaded a Japanese major with plans to make a lamp from the skull.

World War II wasn’t pretty and Ken Burns doesn’t make it pretty. You’ll hear things you don’t want to hear. You’ll see things you don’t want to see. During the segment on the Battling Bastards of Bataan (No Mama, no Papa, no Uncle Sam) a slow anger welled up in my chest. You see I knew a man who survived the Death March too. He was never “quite right,” drank too much, kept to himself, and slowly went blind. He almost starved to death and his eyes were damaged beyond saving. People in town said he was dangerous but damaged is the word, damaged beyond saving.

A Bataan survivor spoke of the beatings, the beheadings — at night the Japanese soldier would stick their bayonets out the window of trucks at just the right level to catch men in the throat. He described the way those same trucks swerved to run over men lying in the road — some already dead, some not. In another segment a grayed soldier described listening through a long night as the captured members of his patrol were tortured. The next day the Japanese soldiers who did the deed were captured. The commander asked who had lost friends the night before. Those were the men who got to shoot the prisoners. Very calmly the old man said some would say it didn’t happen, but it did.

While we the second generation may speak of forgiving and healing the wounds of the confict, we have no right to criticize any veteran for the feelings he still carries. You’ll understand that when you watch, “The War.” (For more of my thoughts on this subject, I invite you to read an archived entry on my personal blog, “The Local Nazi.”)

You’re not going to get a John Wayne version of the conflict in what Ken Burns has produced, and he’s been criticized for not portraying the totality of the experience for the nation in an ethnic sense. That may be true, but he’s still made something significant, something difficult, and something important. I may not be able to watch all of it, but I’m going to watch what I can and I highly recommend you do the same.

WWII, Ken Burns, The War

Today’s Friday Five topic is kind of personal for me because it’s related to my Dad. On this day, in 1942, the B-29 Superfortress flew for the first time. Papa trained in A-20s, flew B-25s in combat, and spent a lot of time in B-24s and B-29s stateside in the ferry command. He loved the B-29 because it was big, powerful, and a challenge to handle.

- The Wikipedia entry on the B-29 Superfortress.
- Boeing’s history of the B-29
- Lake Mead’s B-29 (Fascinating story of locating a missing plane in deep water.)
- Results of a flickr search for B-29
- B-29 Superfortress on YouTube

WWII, B-29, Superfortress

I was born in a small town in West Texas where societal lines were sharply divided between Caucasians and Latin Americans. It’s an issue that still plagues many Texas towns, especially in these days of debate over immigration issues and border security.

Sadly that has caused the patriotic contribution of Latinos and Latinas in the war effort before and during World War II to be overshadowed and at times forgotten. A University of Texas Professor, Dr. Maggie Rivas Rodriguez, is working to correct that with the US Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project. (She is also the author of A Legacy Greater than Words and Mexican Americans and World War II.)

Although the last batch of narratives posted on the site is from 2004, there is still an active contact address for information and suggestions. Note that the narratives are in PDF format, so depending on your system you may be asked to download the material, which will then open in your Adobe Reader or it may simply open in your browser. I spent a fascinating hour this morning going through accounts of life in the service and on the home front. This is an excellent repository of information and one I hope will grow in the future.

Click here for information on contributing to the project.

WWII, US Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project, Maggie Rivas Rodriguez