The siege of Pavlov’s House (26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942)

The house built parallel to the embankment of the river Volga, Prior to the war, the four story building Pavlov’s House had served as a residential building for employees of the regional consumer union. It was considered one of the most prestigious apartment complexes of Stalingrad, as it overlooked 9 January Square.

The beginning of the war in Russia came as a surprise to the Soviet government, even though they had been repeatedly warned by other countries that Nazi Germany was planning an attack on Russia.

The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began on 23 August 1942, using the German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. In this new form of urban warfare, frontlines were constantly shifting block by block, and every building was a fortress waiting to be stormed. One of the most notable of these urban strongholds was given the moniker "Pavlov's House."

In September 1942, the house was attacked by German soldiers, and a platoon of the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division was ordered to seize and defend it.

Captured by Red Army Sergeant Jacob Pavlov, a low-level noncommissioned officer in the last weekend of September, the house allowing the defenders to observe and fire into German occupied territory.

The building was not just important because it stuck into German defenses , but for the fact that a grain mill converted into a Soviet command post and staging ground was only 300 yards into Soviet lines behind the house.

This allowed for constant communication between the observation stronghold and Soviet HQ. All of these factors of course made the house a constant target for German offensives, which is where the fame of Sergeant Pavlov and his defense originates.

In keeping with Stalin's Order No. 227 - "not one step back", Sgt. Pavlov was ordered to fortify the building and defend it to the last bullet and the last man. Taking this advice to heart, Pavlov ordered the building to be surrounded with four layers of barbed wire and minefields, and set up machine-gun posts in every available window facing the square.

From their vantage point, they could strike at the Panzers with impunity. They were not only a symbol of the resistance against the Germans, but they were also proven deadly. The Germans would routinely attempt to take the house almost daily, only to fail every time. Pavlov’s House stood for fifty-eight days, until the defenders and the civilians found hiding in the basement were finally relieved in November.

The siege of Pavlov’s House (26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942)

Hirsch's "Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg" at WHS

The next meeting of the Washington History Seminar will be devoted to Francine Hirsch, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her book, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II.  It will be held on Thursday, November 12 at 4:00 pm ET.  Click here to register.

Organized in the wake of World War Two by the victorious Allies, the Nuremberg Trials were intended to hold the Nazis to account for their crimes and to restore a sense of justice to a world devastated by violence. As Francine Hirsch reveals in her groundbreaking new book, a major piece of the Nuremberg story has routinely been left out: the critical role of the Soviet Union. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers a startlingly new view of the International Military Tribunal and a fresh perspective on the movement for international human rights that it helped launch.

--Dan Ernst

Poland, Nazis, and World War II

I was forwarded this article in NPR talking about how the government of Poland is poised to pass a law making it a criminal offense to claim "...Poland was complicit in the Nazi atrocities committed on Polish soil during World War II."  First allow me to say that I am not a fan of any law that attempts to restrict or regulate academic inquiry or the exploration of history.  Frankly such a law seems to imply more a fear of something being discovered or a high degree of prickliness about the past.  But the broader issue I wanted to address in this blog post is the question, can one argue that Poland has any complicity in the actions conducted by the Nazis during World War II on its soil.  My contention is that this conversation is actually particularly valuable because it forces those considering it to answer the question of what exactly makes a nation-state complicit in events that occur when it is occupied.

First off Poland (technically the Second Polish Republic) existed as a sovereign nation from 1918 to 1939, and gained its independence from a mix of the Versailles Treaty and armed resistance after the end of World War I.  That independence ended de facto by early October 1939 when the last organized and formal units of the Polish army were defeated in the field of battle and some dispersed to continue fighting through guerrilla actions.  By 30 September 1939 the Polish government-in-exile was formed with its wartime leader taking the oath of office in the Polish embassy in Paris.  This action was undertaken within the bounds of the Polish republic's constitution at the time.  This government in exile was recognized by nations outside of Germany and its allies.

Now what makes Poland unique in World War II is that, unlike every other nation Germany successfully invaded and overran, the Nazi German government did not create a puppet government to oversee Poland incorporating elements of the Polish citizenry to lead it.  Every other nation the German's occupied had at least a fig-leaf of a government with some local citizens providing token leadership or its pre-invasion government was allowed to continue operations with German controls upon its functions.  Poland though had territory directly annexed to Germany and the non-annexed bits were put under the control of a special Nazi created government called the General Government.

The General Government was under the control of Hans Frank, who held the rank of Gauleiter, which although it had different technical duties depending on location, time period, and ambient Nazi administrative chaos factor in his case meant he was the head of all civilian government operations in the General Government.  Below him every official within the General Government, above the lowest ranks of civil administration were filled with German officials.  Higher education institutions were closed, the judiciary was modified so that only Poles answered to Polish judges, matters involving German interests were overseen by a parallel court system.  Although Polish police officers were retained (and history indicates probably took part in anti-Jewish violence and roundups) Polish police officials and officers were installed Germans.  (Polish policemen were restricted to the rank of patrolman.)  The Polish police department was also nationalized to further German ambitions.

Now individual Poles and organized groups of Poles did engage in actions that supported the Nazis, of that there is no historical question.  But I think I can say comfortably that the Polish state can probably be found to not be responsible for what the Nazis did on Polish soil.  I'll admit it is reading the events of World War II in Poland with a very narrow lens, and if anyone has information about the Polish state supporting the Nazi actions during the occupation I'm interested in learning about it.

Sources

• Wikipedia article on General Government
• Wikipedia article on Polish police during the Occupation, the Blue Police
• Wikipedia article on Hans Frank
• Wikipedia article on Gauleiter
• Time article on the law 

Battle of the Java Sea (February 27, 1942)

Java Sea was the site of a battle between Japanese forces en route to Java and remnants of the Allied fleet in the Netherlands East Indies. In January 1942, the Allied defense of the southwest Pacific was collectively organized in the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA Command).

By February 1942 Japanese pans for the invasion the Dutch East Indies island of Java were well advance; and Allied naval units based at Surabaya were the only real obstacle. On February 24, two Japanese invasion forces set sail for Java. Rear Admiral Takagi Takeo commanded a force of 2 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 14 destroyers covering 41 transports.

Dutch Admiral Karel Doorman commanded the ABDA striking force of 2 heavy cruisers, 23 light cruisers and 9 destroyers, representing all four ABDA nations, but had no air support.

On the afternoon of February 27 1942, at 2.27pm Doorman was notified of the approach of an invasion force some 80 miles northeast of Surabaya in the Makassar Straits.

At 4.16 pm the Japanese opened the battle. Soon thereafter, the heavy cruisers USS Houston - its aft turret inoperable from earlier battle damage – and HMS Exeter returned fire. During torpedo attack by Japanese, The Exeter later was damaged before finally being cornered and sunk by the Japanese.

An Allied counterattack resulted in the loss of two more ships - the Eletcra and the Kortenear – and Doorman was forced to turn south to regroup.

Doorman went down with his flagship De Ruyter. Japanese forces suffered only minor damage. Surviving Allied ships attempted to flee, but most were hunted down and sunk in separate air and sea engagements over the next few days.

In the battle of the Java Sea, the Allies lost two light cruisers and three destroyers. Three cruisers and six destroyers (four US) survived. Four American destroyers reached safely in Australia. With the Allied forces swept from the sea, the Japanese landed on Java after one-day delay and the island fell on 8 March with almost 100,000 Allied troops taken captive.
Battle of the Java Sea (February 27, 1942)

No Amelia Earhart was not a prisoner of the Japanese

The Magics
This is one of those moments that makes me, as an amateur historian cry inside, because stories like this grow legs and go racing along the digital byways of the 21st century.  The above photograph is being held up as "potential proof" that Amelia Earhart, rather than dying during her round-the-world flight attempt in July 1937 was instead captured by the Japanese and held prisoner/killed/helped by the U.S. government as part of its secret spying mission masquerading as her flight.  The culprit on this is the History Channel with promotional stories like this one and breathless articles like this one run by People Magazine.

I'll summarize for you the gentle reader - the above photograph was found in the National Archives by a retired federal agent named Les Kinney who found it misfiled.  The image was in the collection of the Office of Naval Intelligence and, you can see from the caption on it, was taken in the Marshall Islands, a Japanese possession at the time and within "oopsie" distance of Earhart's flight path.  Purportedly one of the gentlemen in the shot is her navigator, Fred Noonan, and the individual in the white shirt with the short haircut seated on the dock is Earhart.  In the far right, her plane is being towed by a ship into harbor.

People Magazine helpfully blew up the picture so you could see the magic.  The other chunk of proof is a listing of records from the Office of Naval Intelligence that shows a file of 130 pages about Earhart being a prisoner on the Marshall Islands was in the governments records and was "purged":

Why This Is Stupid
Context mainly, to accept this theory requires a misunderstanding of the 1930s, Earhart's life prior to her flight, Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. military and government resources, and American-Japanese relations in 1937.  Lets dig into things piece by piece:

• Earhart's Flight/Aviation in the 1930s was dangerous - there is a reason Earhart's exploits earned her so much press and also so much fame, they were dangerous and being done by a female aviator.  Flying across the Pacific in the 1930s was a risky activity, the Clippers that did the jaunt regularly and were commercial aircraft carried extensive survival gear in case of crashes - and one of them vanished as well without a trace.  Support systems in the Pacific were minimal and Earhart's flight plan centered on landing on a tiny spot of an island to refuel, when her fuel capacity was extremely low.  It was a high-risk/high-reward strategy to hit a timeline and get press.  Speaking off...
• Earhart was a brand as much as a person and her style was wildly popular - that photo hinges, if you read the articles, on that being Earhart's signature haircut.  She did cut her hair short and maintain it cut short, as part of her image.  An image plastered on magazines, newspapers, and newsreels the world over.  A haircut imitated by a huge number of women in the 1930s.  Have a look at some style guide photos from the period below and remember - we are identifying Earhart based on looking at the back of her hair - any of the styles below potentially look like they might be mistaken for her distinctive look from the back?

• Earhart was a good pilot, not a great pilot - for the conspiracy to work you have to imagine that the United States government wanted to spy on the Japanese fortifications in the Marshall Islands (or other Pacific regions), needed a really good cover story to do so, and settled on convincing one of the most popular celebrity flyers of the 1930s to undertake this mission and keep it a secret.  Earhart was a close personal friend of the Roosevelts but she was also a popular lecturer, writer, and professional celebrity, trusting her with such a mission would be risky on those grounds alone.  But she also wasn't a great pilot - good pilot per those who knew her, solid pilot, but not great.  Also prior to her flight she hadn't spent a great deal of time with her plane and made several errors in flight that damaged it.  
• The United States had other pilots and spy aircraft - spying on Japanese military base construction in the Pacific was actually not that hard for the United States, the U.S. Pacific fleet (which was in the area and took part in the expensive search of Earhart post disappearance) had plenty of aircraft capable of long range flight in the late 1930s that could have taken pictures of those bases.  Aircraft piloted by veteran naval pilots familiar with their craft and, if captured, not a public relations nightmare for the U.S. government.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was into spy stuff but not crazy spy stuff - FDR was down for unusual plans to mess with Japan and he did enjoy dabbling in spy missions/covert operations, but there is no evidence he went for using civilians as spies in this capacity.  Covert military operations, covert financial aid, absolutely.
• FDR was already hiding secret stuff to support Earhart - that airstrip that Earhart was going to land on at Howland Island, built by the U.S. Navy.  At FDR's request, to support this effort, because he, his wife, and Earhart were good friends.  Built at considerable expense during the Great Depression.  Now imagine going to Congress and saying "Yeah I built that base to support a secret spy mission on Japan.  What?  Use it again, nah, no plans for that."  FDR was popular but not that popular.
• Japan had nothing to really hide in the Marshall Islands - I dug around and it took some work but if you look at a solid online listing here the Marshall Islands did have military fortifications beginning in 1936 on them.  Specifically some minor guns and a few troops.  On islands owned by Japan.  Fortified in violation of their League of Nations mandate but as Japan had resigned the League of Nations in 1936, they kind of didn't care.
• The Office of Naval Intelligence file is not a smoking gun - it is a 130 pages of correspondence on Earhart being a prisoner of the Marshall Islands, as in - people wrote the government letters on the subject.  Funny thing about the government, generally it has to file every letter it receives for its archives.  Every one.  Even crazy ones talking about how Earhart's plane was brought down in the Marshall Islands by magical flying squirrels who taught her their secret nut-based code, which led to her being taken prisoner by the Japanese.  Because the squirrels taught her how to get to Atlantis and the Japanese wanted to know.  Goes in the file.  Eventually the file gets thrown out after enough years.  Could there have been a useful letter in there by someone with information?  Possibly, but there were also probably a LOT of squirrel letters.

But since we are in a special spot historically with this, I'm going to go to the broader point, in 1937 Japan could have really used a good public relations boost with the United States.  The image above is of the sinking U.S. gunship Panay, destroyed in December 1937 by Japanese aircraft.  The ship was stationed in China and the Japanese government apologized and paid an indemnity for the action.  1937 overall was a bad year for Japanese-American public relations, with Japan's invasion of China and smashing of large amounts of territory.  Earhart vanished in July 1937 and the U.S. government spent over $4 million in the largest search and rescue effort in history to that point trying to find her.  

Had the Japanese government found her, why in that climate would they have locked her up?  Lets look at the options:

• She is a U.S. spy on a clandestine mission - Japan returns her without saying anything, FDR owes them a favor/is at risk of exposure.  Japan exposes her, FDR looses position in the U.S. and faces some nasty questions from Congress.  
• She saw some Japanese military building while crashing - the U.S. learns about Japanese base building, which isn't actually a secret, and Japan gets credit for finding and saving the most popular female aviator in the world.  Bonus points if done after the U.S. government spent $4 million and failed in its efforts.  Japan is a hero for finding and saving her.
• She didn't see squat and Japan found her - Japan gets hero points and makes a wonderful public relations success with the U.S. public

Had the Japanese government found her in July 1937 alive post crash I can only imagine them announcing it to the world with glee.  Probably offering to help fund repairs to her plane and an offer that she work with them in he next attempt to use Japanese facilities to support her flight in a "hands across the Pacific" PR coup.

Earhart was a brave woman, a brave aviator, and she and her navigator died attempting a dangerous Pacific crossing.  Mistakes were made, it was an ill-fated attempt, but give her credit for flying and dying pursuing it.  Don't turn Earhart's story 80 years after her death into a weird conspiracy mess.

Sources:  Wikipedia on Japanese history in the Marshall Islands, USS Panay incident, and Amelia Earhart; North American Forts listing of Pacific island fortifications, Timelines of History on 1937 events

1920 National Defense Act, Tank Developments, and World War II (Why U.S. WW II tanks kind of sucked)

One of the unusual stories from the interwar period (1919 - 1941 for the United States) is the passing of the National Defense Act of 1920.  Sponsored by Julius Kahn this piece of legislation reorganized the United States Army and modified the rules on procurement and acquisitions, aiming to decentralize the process.  The National Defense Act of 1920, to my eye, has its greatest impact in how it influenced the development of tanks in the United States between World War I and World War II, due to a key technical requirement of the bill, that tanks were to be subordinated to the needs of the Army.  During World War I the United States had played with the idea of a separate Tanks Corps but after the war decided to focus in on tanks serving in an infantry support roll.

This, frankly, annoyed two leading United States military figures, Patton and Eisenhower, because it would strip tanks of their mobility potential and instead put them on the path of being rolling infantry support vehicles.  Congress however was firm on this point and also reduced the available budget for tank development to a bare minimum, forcing the army to pour its development dollars in the 1920s into vehicles like the one pictured above, the M2, a slow, under armed, mobile gun platform with an emphasis on machine guns to cut down advancing infantry over heavy cannons to destroy other tanks.

However Douglas MacArthur was made Chief of Staff of the United States Army and MacArthur wanted the United States Army to focus on being a faster, more mobile, and more nimble force.  He also wanted to develop tanks that focused on mobility and anti-tank capacity over lumbering along behind the infantry with a wad of machine guns.  But Congress had forbidden any development of tanks except by the Army, so what was a newly appointed general to do?

As it turns out, engage in some legal trickery.  The top image, and the one just above, are of respectively the T7 Combat Car and the M1 Combat Car.  Nearly identical to tanks they were developed by the United States Cavalry and use of development dollars was permitted because MacArthur told the Congress, with a straight face, that these weren't tanks.  No, these were "combat cars" - use they had armor, they had treads, and they had guns, but they were "cars" not tanks.  In fact the T7 Combat Car pictured at the top was built so it could be converted from treads to rubber tires, so it could flexibly roll along paved roads and then switch to an off-road tracked configuration.

This focus by Congress on cost-savings, and pinching military development funds during the interwar period, did help reduce the federal budget but it also led to the United States entering World War II with some, speaking frankly, really shitty tanks.  What you see above is the M3 Medium Tank, the Grant, which was obsolete at the start of the war and featured the terrible design flaw of many western tanks of the period, putting the heavy armament in a fixed side turret because fully rotating top turrets were hard to make work well.  The problem with this design is if your enemy happens to have a tank with a moving turret they have a better chance of lining up your non-cannon side for a kill shot.  (Note the awesome side mounted machine guns though.)

The United States did eventually hammer the issues out, with the design of the M4 Sherman, but it was made under pressure of war.  The United States also never really got into the business of real heavy tanks until World War II was nearly over, leading to some very lopsided tank engagements in 1944 through 1945 with the German army.

But I remain convinced it all hinges on the 1920 National Defense Act and how Congress shifted the focus of the United States military towards a fun-sized cost-saving military plan.

Sources:  Wikipedia articles on U.S. Tank Development History, the 1920 National Defense Act, the T7 Combat Car, the M1 Combat Car, and U.S. Army Military history journal entry on the Birth of the Armored Forces

The Japanese Oil Embargo - History and Ambiguity of Sources

It is always a bit of a thrill to read an article that covers a facet of the 1930s or 1940s which I'm not aware of, which made this Salon article on the 1941 United States oil embargo against Japan fascinating.  To summarize for those unfamiliar with it, in 1941 before the Pearl Harbor attack United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt imposed a freeze on Japanese assets within the United States, which would require permits to be issued prior to any sale of goods taking place to Japan.  As Japan relied heavily upon United States oil exports to meet its fuel needs, particularly for its military, this action represented a significant risk to Japan's ability to continue its on-going war in China at the time.

The ambiguity comes in regarding how the oil embargo was imposed and the role of Dean Acheson, pictured above, in creating that oil embargo.  As Assistant Secretary of State at the time Acheson had an unusual opportunity to shape United States policy, while the President was in Newfoundland having a secret conference with Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, Acheson had near total authority to decide if any licenses would be issued to Japan to allow the purchase of oil.  He chose to not issue any such licenses, imposing an effective oil embargo on Japan and starting the chain of concerns that led to the Pearl Harbor attack on the United States in December 1941.

The question that needs to be asked though is this - did FDR know that Acheson was going to take this action and allowed it or was he surprised by the action and left it in place to avoid appearing weak?

This is not an easy question to answer, several sources claim that Acheson acted on his own and FDR was not involved in the choice, he wanted to avoid war.  However one source I checked claimed that FDR did know and, more critically, a close friend of FDR's was in the State Department and had access to warn FDR if Acheson had been acting without approval.

My research into FDR has shown when it came to foreign policy he seemed to like having a distance between himself and certain actions, but was very willing to engage when needed in quite aggressive action.  The theory that seems most likely to me is FDR was aware of the oil embargo being implemented by this indirect means and supported it, to see what impact it would have on Japan.  If it turned out to be far too dangerous he'd be able to then retract what Acheson did and state Acheson had gone "too far" with his authority.

But we won't ever know - this was one of the items that there simply aren't clean records or sources to document.  Considering this policy can be directly linked to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, it has relevance.

Sources:  Salon article on this topic, Wikipedia on Dean Acheson, State Department page on Acheson, Google Books scan of "An Introduction to the Causes of War" by Greg Cashman & Leonard C. Robinson, Google Books scan of "The History of American Foreign Policy from 1895" by Jerald A. Combs

World War II and STDs - the United States government versus "Loose Women"

The United States was involved in World War II from December 1941 through August 1945, with United States fighting forces engaged in conflicts in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe.  The United States though began expanding its military forces in 1940 with a new Selective Service Act and naval expansion.  With the expansion of the United States military, followed by war-time deployments, the United States government was deeply concerned about the risk posed by sexually transmitted diseases/venereal diseases to its deployed troops.  A particular threat was posed by the "dynamic duo" of syphilis and gonorrhea, which in the pre-penicillin period took considerable resources and time to treat.

To combat this threat the United States military undertook an aggressive training and propaganda campaign aimed at educating United States soldiers and sailors to avoid sexual contact with women.  The overall tone of the campaign is well captured by the posters above, with an emphasis on targeting women as the key vector for infection.  The United States military worked to emphasize to its enlisted personnel that infected women were something to be avoided and the best method to do so was to avoid all sexual contact entirely.  Failing that, the United States military issued prophylactics to its soldiers with detailed instruction kits, along with post-sexual contact disinfection kits.

Beyond posters however the United States military also issued its soldiers with a standard pamphlet upon enlistment titled "Sex Hygiene and Venereal Disease" (link here) which both reflects the outlook of the times and includes messages aimed at protecting female chastity and purity by avoiding STDs.

Some choice quotes:

"It's perfectly normal for you to want to go with girls-just as normal as to get hungry or sleepy.  Women have the same desire to go with me.  This attraction for each other is due to the sex glands.  It's what keeps the human race alive."

"Just because you have this desire is no reason why you must give in to it.  Sex relations should be kept for marriage.  Between people who aren't married they often lead to shame, sorrow, and disease.  The public knows this so well that laws forbid sex relations between persons not married to each other.  Good morals limit these sex relations to marriage."

My personal favorite though:

"You wouldn't like to thin that the girl you marry had been used by other men.  Or that your sweetheart or sister was letting herself be used by someone.  You feel a duty to protect her honor.  If you want the girl you love and respect to keep her body pure and free from disease, you owe it to her to keep yours the same way.  Nothing is more unfair than to expect her to control her normal desires while you give in to yours.  Americans pride themselves on fair play.  A good soldier plays fair.  Will you?"

A combination of patriotism, sexism, and yet a tiny acknowledgment that women have sexual urges as well.  It sums up the 1940s in the United States so well to my eye.

Apparently the "Black Widow" image was a favorite of artists making these posters.  Give it a search sometime online, there are hundreds of images repeating the same themes.  However I'll close with my favorite product of this period, a film simply titled "USS VD:  The Ship of Shame" - it was a real film made in 1942 that has a very basic plot.  A group of sailors enjoys shore leave and has a "good time" with some local prostitutes and they all catch an STD.

The ship sails and the ships medic has no end of trouble with sailors reporting in with illness and a general collapse of morale and the sailors ability to fulfill their duties.  Eventually the destroyer meets up with a Japanese submarine.  The sailors nearly fail in their duties due to sore penises and swollen testicles but fortunately American pluckiness wins the war!

Also the film apparently contains multiple montages of highly infected penises to help remind sailors watching the film what happens if you get laid in port.

Check out some non-infected penis moments from this gem on YouTube.  (Link here)

Sources:  Wikipedia entry on World War II and military sexual health education, Mother Jones article on World War II and STD posters, the War Departments World War II sexual hygiene booklet, IMDB entry and Bad Movies entry on the USS VD: Ship of Shame

HIROSHIMA AND THE BOMB

     JULY BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT FOR  AUGUST 2015 POST                                                              Our next post will be on or just prior to AUGUST 6, 2015, the 70th "anniversary" of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          NON-FICTION:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
HIROSHIMA by JOHN HERSEY (the later 1985 edition with the added final chapter "The Aftermath" concerning the author's return there four decades later).                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                    
                                                       
FICTION:  

BLACK RAIN: A NOVEL by MASUJI IBUSE, first published in Japan in 1966.                                                                                        

                                                                    







                                                                                                                           

NON-FICTION:
TO HELL AND BACK: THE LAST TRAIN FROM HIROSHIMA by CHARLES PELLEGRINO, pub. date August 6, 2015.                                                                                                                               *PLEASE NOTE: This is the NEW, REVISED EDITION following the controversy in 2010 over the author's first version - THE LAST TRAIN FROM HIROSHIMA which was withdrawn from publication when the publisher issued a "stop the presses" order and supposedly "pulped" its remaining copies. Adding to the controversy was/is the author's connection to film director James Cameron and his less than clear intention to make a film of his friend's book. This original version of the book hit the NYTS "extended bestseller" # 30. You may be able to find it at your local library or from a used book dealer or online seller such as ABE Books.                                                                    
                                                                       
                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
As in the June Blog Post we will read, compare and contrast, in this case, two non-fiction books, with one fiction book concerning the same historical event: the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima.  Given these particular books and their subject matter, the August Post will probably be more on the "long form" side. And the assumption here is that there will be more than a few comments and discussion by our readers. Thank you for your time and interest. See you in August.                                  

Rise of Dictators Pop Up Notes

This wonderfully creative lesson has students creating pop up figures of 5 dictators who came to power in the 1920's and 30's before World War II.

Included is a sheet with 5 people to cut out: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo. Students then place these onto an included world map that covers 2 pages of their notebooks with spaces for notes about each person.

A powerpoint comes with this download as well that covers everything students need to know based on Common Core Standards. The powerpoint has a warm up, quotes, pictures, and all relevant information for each dictator. This lesson is amazing for your visual and kinesthetic learners as they are creating a fantastic visual representation of dictators literally rising up out of their notebooks.

A free Preview file is available as well with the pop ups, notes pages, answer key, and 1 sample powerpoint slide. The full download includes the full 14 slide powerpoint with incredible images and quotes like below:

Last Japanese Soldier to Surrender in World War II

One of my favorite stories from history is that of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese intelligence officer in World War II who was stationed in the Philippines. In 1945, he did not believe the leaflets he saw that Japan had surrendered and continued hiding in the hills, using guerrilla tactics until 1974 - almost 30 years after the war was over!! I thought his story would be great for the classroom to bring history alive and make the end of the war more personal for my students.

I created this worksheet that tells his story for my students. The downloadble & printable worksheet includes his full story in one page and is written in an engaging style that will be easy for your students to comprehend and enjoy. The included comprehension questions test your students' reading ability and knowledge of World War II history.

 It does an excellent job of reinforcing to students how the Japanese felt about surrender and would work well after a lesson on the choice to use an atomic bomb or invade Japan. My students always enjoy this reading and feel a mix of humor and respect for such a dedicated soldier.

This is definitely a great read for World of US History students! You can download the worksheet here and an answer key is included for your reference.

World War II Keynote Presentation

Although I use my school/work computer for most lessons in the classroom, sometimes I want to create a more visually dynamic presentation for my students. This is when I use my Apple Macbook's Keynote software. Keynote has a lot of great features that Powerpoint lacks and one of the best is the ability to seamlessly embed videos into your presentations and edit them to your needs.

This World War II Keynote presentation is one of these lessons I created. It covers the major battles and events of the war and includes 8 short clips to help students better understand what happened. Slides include information in simple, easy to understand language for your students:

The videos include Churchill speaking, a Japanese suicide bomber, US newsreel footage and more. Maps show students exactly where each battle took place, and the videos and pictures bring them to life. My students are always all engaged throughout this entire lesson. I know your students will do the same. You can download this Keynote presentation here and use it today!

American History Vocabulary Football League

One of the most important parts of teaching history is helping students to learn vocabulary. However, many of my students traditionally struggled in their history classes due to difficulty with content and academic vocabulary. I wanted a way to make learning essential vocab more engaging for them and hit upon the idea of combining it with their love for football and competition.

The resulting Vocabulary Football League (VFL) has completely revolutionized my teaching. An otherwise dreary activity becomes much more fun and I have students actually LOOKING FORWARD TO QUIZZES now! This entire year-long package can be downloaded here.

How it works is each week students are placed in groups of 4 and assigned a real NFL team. Each week they are given a set of 12-15 words like the one below:

Over the course of that week, we cover that material and students are responsible for looking up and defining those words in the notebook like so:

At the end of the week, students take a 10 question vocab quiz on those words. To differentiate for learners in my classes, I allow some classes to take the quiz open notebook, others to use a word bank, and my upper level students are not allowed any resources. Allowing students to take quizzes open notebook encourages them to complete the definitions for homework on their own time and I've found helps vocabulary comprehension. Here is a sample vocab quiz on the Revolutionary War:

I have students write their answers on the opposite side to ease grading and prevent cheating. Included in this download are all 16 sets of VFL vocabulary terms from US History that cover the early colonies through World War II and 32 corresponding quizzes. Since my students sit in groups at tables, I created 2 different versions of each quiz (hence 32 quizzes for 16 sets of words). .As a bonus, I included 2 "playoff" quizzes and a "Super Bowl" that use terms from throughout the year. 

I have been doing this with my classes for 6 years now and they all LOVE it! The kids get so into the competition that it turns quiz day into an exciting event! Inside the zipped folder you will find a directions sheet with all 32 teams to use, your 16 lists of vocabulary ready to print, and all 19 quizzes ready to go. This can last you all year long!!

Hope you find this project as powerful as I have!!

World War II Service Plaques for Navajo Code Talkers, Tuskegee Airmen, Rosie the Riveter, & Nisei Soldiers

This downloadable creative, fun activity for World and American History classes has students reading short, one page stories of minority groups that helped during World War II. These include one page each on:

1. The Navajo Code Talkers
2. The Tuskegee Airmen
3. Rosie the Riveter
4. The American Nisei Soldiers

Here are some sample images of what the readings look like:

Each page is simple and engaging for middle and high school age students, and is based on state and Common Core Standards for history. Students then use the information they read to create commemorative plaques that honor that group for their service.

To differentiate for your classes, higher level students can read and complete all four. Lower-level readers can be placed in groups of 4, with each student reading a different story, completing a plaque, and then sharing his/her plaque with the others. English language learners or special education students can be placed in groups with all the same story to create a plaque together, and then present theirs to the rest of the class.

Here are some sample, completed plaques from a student:

 

As a final activity or for homework, there are 10 review questions in which students identify characteristics of each of the four minority groups.

This is a fun activity for students to learn about some of the groups whose amazing bravery and contributions helped American through World War II. Click here to download this activity for your classes and let us know what you think!

Why was the United States unable to avoid entering a Cold War with the Soviet Union?

The Cold War was mainly a conflict for world supremacy. After the World War II, only two world superpowers stood up, each with its own political and economical ideology, and strategic interest, and a conflict between them was unavoidable. This competition was the fuel of the Cold War and since none of the parts was willing to give up and take defeat, the conflict lasted as long as the two superpowers existed. As the Soviet Union began to assert its control in Eastern Europe, the expansion of communism became the main concern of the United States. The US Government feared that, as the Soviet power was growing, this could generate revolution in the Western European countries and the movement would eventually reach the American soil. The danger seemed even higher as communist parties already existed in the Western hemisphere. In the same time, to keep total control, the communist states were isolated from the rest of the world (from where the term of Iron Curtain). This isolation increased the worry of the US government.

The Cold War was rooted in the fear of communism. To avoid this possibility, the United States took measures to block the expansion of the communist ideology. This odd sort of war was opened not by a cannon shot, but by a well known discourse. The speech delivered by Winston Churchill in 1946 in the town of Fulton, Missouri, drew attention to the danger that Western democracies were on the verge of being swallowed up by communism, and suggested a close Anglo-American alliance to defend their interests. The blackmail of the atomic bomb could not serve anymore at that time especially since the Soviets already had this weapon. And since the offensive was not recommended, the chosen alternative was the defensive. In 1947 President Truman, concerned about the security of Greece and Turkey, announced the Truman Doctrine. The U.S. agreed to support the free nations’ fight against the attempts of subjugation. This meant that the U.S. would act to restrain the expansion of communism.

Constantiniu, Florin. From the hot to the cold war. Bucharest, Romania: Corint, 1998, 111-120

Henretta, James A, and David Brody. “America: A Concise History, Volume II: Since 1877.” 4th ed., Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2010, 766-775

Do you think WWI could have been prevented?

Although almost a century passed since the First World War, some historians are still wondering if the conflict could have been prevented. When the war erupted in 1914 nothing could have prevented the world conflagration. If there was ever a moment prevention was possible it would have been in the 19^th century. The dawn of the 20^th century dragged with it unresolved problems from the previous century. Although at that time Europe still dominated the world, captive nations still exited, subdued by the multinational empires. Most of the European nations did not solve yet their national problems at that time, being assimilated and forced to denationalization. This situation extended until the war started in 1914 and was temporarily resolved at the end of it in 1918. The conflict between the big European powers however was of course a consequence of concrete issues, such as the domination of the continent, the control of some vital regions of the world, the expansion and preservation of the colonial empires, the control and access to resources of various kinds, aggravation of the national ego in regard to the enemy’s etc. But beyond the many causes and conditions, the catastrophe became inevitable because of the exacerbated, outward oriented nationalism that caused hate and phobia between nations.

Manole, Gica. The First World War: A Long-Waited Conflict, 2010. (February 1, 2011). Electronic resource retrieved from http://gicamanole.blogspot.com/2010/05/primul-razboi-mondial-un-conflict.html

Bad History – Malmedy Massacre

To fully appreciate this entry you first will need to travel to You Tube and watch a preserved clip of a broadcast by Keith Olbermann in which he dresses down Bill O’Reilly for his attributing the events of the Malmedy Massacre to the United States Army, rather then to the German SS.  Overall the commentary of both men has aspects that are correct, Keith Olbermann is correct in asserting that Bill O’Reilly is wrong in attributing the events of the Malmedy Massacre to the armed forces of the United States, captured American soldiers were executed in a field near where they were taken prisoners by members of the German SS.  The SS, speaking broadly, was a military organization that was semi-separated from the regular German Army, the Wehrmacht, the SS had its own chain of command, supply systems, rules of engagement, military culture and organization, and was treated effectively as an “army within an army.”  The reason though they can only be considered as a semi-separate part of the Wehrmacht is that the SS did work in military operations in cooperation with the Wehrmacht and the two military commands were expected to operate together towards overall tactical and strategic goals.

This is important to understand because the policies of the SS reflect an extreme dimension of policies followed and often supported by the leadership of the Wehrmacht, especially on the Eastern Front.  That fact is important because Bill O’Reilly is also correct, there is solid evidence that the armed forces of the United States did execute some German prisoners taken in battle, some after the events of Malmedy in retaliation and also some German prisoners of war taken in earlier battles.  In the airborne landings prior to the Normandy amphibious landings (popularly referred to as D-Day) in the early hours of 6 June 1944 the deployed airborne units were widely scattered, disorganized, and lacked the capacity or facilities to handle German’s taken prisoner.  Some soldiers did execute German prisoners of war, a sad fact but one well documented by testimony on both sides of the battle lines.  Furthermore during the Normandy landings some German’s who attempted to surrender were executed by American forces, either immediately following the conclusion of the battle or shortly after the battle.  So Bill O’Reilly is correct, American armed forces did engage in actions that could be seen as atrocities against German prisoners of war.  What both commentators miss though is the broader context of the situation and, in that, lies the real key critical aspect of these events and why Bill O’Reilly’s comments represent a horrible twisting of history.

Massacres of German prisoners of war, conducted by American forces in the Normandy campaign, and earlier in the Italian campaign of 1943, were actions of individual units of soldiers.  The highest levels of command authorizing such actions, to my knowledge, were commanders in the front lines of individual units, no order of that nature came from the central leadership of the United States armed forces or from any political leadership of any Allied power.  To put it more simply, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, and Churchill never issued any orders following the events of Malmedy to kill German prisoners of war.  However in Germany, on the Eastern Front, the situation was quite different – Russian prisoners of war were executed in vast numbers, through forced labor, starvation, and direct violence upon prisoners taken on the Eastern Front.  This savage policy was an extension of Germany’s policies regarding “racial purity” and the overall plan of the Nazi leadership to destroy the various Slavic ethnic/linguistic populations in Eastern Europe to replace them with ethnic German settlers.  Slaughtering Russian prisoners of war, in brutal and calculated fashion, was the official policy of the high command of the German SS, it was a policy followed and often supported by the command of the German Wehrmacht, and it was a policy endorsed and orchestrated by the highest levels of command in the Nazi government of Germany.

In other words – evidence indicates solidly that Adolph Hitler was the central figure behind a systematic policy of execution of any Russian prisoners of war taken from 1941 onwards and that he was supported in this policy at most, if not all levels, of the command structure of his military forces and the government of Germany.

So why does this link to the events on the Western front in which American prisoners of war were killed by a German SS unit?  It matters because the massacre of the American prisoners of war is an extension of a Nazi policy of war on the Eastern Front, meaning that this massacre was undertaken in a military environment far different then that facing American military personnel.  It was unacceptable to the higher levels of command in the United States armed forces that German prisoners of war would be executed if taken in battle, it was a breech of the rules of engagement and punishable.  For the SS units going into battle in 1944, it was not an unacceptable policy and might have even been ordered by the Nazi high command.  Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann miss the broader impact of the Malmedy massacre and the executions of German prisoners of war that occurred at the hands of American soldiers, when German prisoners of war were shot by Americans it was an action by an individual unit acting on its own, in violation of the rules of engagement and standing orders.  When German military figures executed American prisoners of war in a field in Belgium, it was an extension of a policy in operation, with official blessing, in how the German military conducted its wars from 1941 onwards.  One is a single incident that is a regrettable human failing, the other a systematic policy of slaughter and brutalization with the aim of spreading terror among ones opponents and, more darkly, destroying an entire ethnic and cultural group.