Killing Patton

“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.” — George S. Patton.

On November 20, 2014 I posted a book review of Mark Bowden’s book “The Finish, The Killing of Osama bin Laden.” As I wrote I did not think much of Bowden’s book nor his research. I am always suspicious of books about recent events as too many of those interviewed for the book give self-serving reports and are prone to withhold bits of information that may put them, their colleagues. or bosses in a negative light. They also are guilty of embellishing the roles they may or may not have played in the subject of the book. This is certainly true of the Bowden book.

I have just finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s and Martin Dugard’s book; “Killing Patton – The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General.” It is not only well written and informative, but the descriptions of the combat at the battle for Fort Driant, at Metz, The Battle of the Bulge, and the Crossing of the Rhine are as thrilling and gripping as if written by Tom Clancy or Brad Thor.

O’Reilly and Dugard give us a primer on the characters, strategies, and politics involved in the European Theater during WWII. Characters such as General Patton, General Eisenhower, General Bradley, Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Eva Braun, and “Wild Bill” Donovan are profiled in the book. This gives those readers, who are not familiar with WWII or too young to know much about these major characters, some basis to understand the forces that were hostile to George Patton.

Here is what Senator John McCain had to say in his review of the book on Amazon.com:

“In Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard have written a lively, provocative account of the death of General George S. Patton and the important events in the final year of the Allied victory in Europe, which Patton’s brilliant generalship of the American Third Army did so much to secure.

The fourth book in the bestselling Killing series is rich in fascinating details, and riveting battle scenes. The authors have written vivid descriptions of a compelling cast of characters, major historical figures such as Eisenhower, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, and others, as well as more obscure players in the great drama of the Second World War and the life and death of Patton.

O’Reilly and Dugard express doubts about the official explanation for Patton’s demise from injuries he suffered in an automobile accident. They surmise that the General’s outspokenness about his controversial views on postwar security, particularly his animosity toward the Soviets, our erstwhile allies, might have made him a target for assassination. They cast a suspicious eye toward various potential culprits from Josef Stalin to wartime espionage czar “Wild Bill” Donovan and a colorful OSS operative, Douglas Bazata, who claimed later in life to have murdered Patton.

Certainly, there are a number of curious circumstances that invite doubt and speculation, Bazata’s admission for one. Or that the drunken sergeant who drove a likely stolen truck into Patton’s car inexplicably was never prosecuted or even reprimanded. But whether you share their suspicions or not this is popular history at its most engrossing.

From accounts of the terribly costly battle for Fort Driant in the hills near Metz to the Third Army’s crowning achievement, its race to relieve the siege of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, the reader experiences all the drama of the “great crusade” in its final, thrilling months.

The authors’ profiles of world leaders and Patton’s contemporaries are economic but manage to offer fresh insights into the personalities of well-known men. Just as compelling are the finely wrought sketches of people of less renown but who played important parts in the events.

There is PFC Robert Holmund, who fought and died heroically at Fort Driant having done all he could and then some to take his impossible objective. PFC Horace Woodring, Patton’s driver, who revered the general, went to his grave mystified by the cause and result of the accident that killed his boss. German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s young son, Manfred, exchanged a formal farewell handshake with him after learning his father would be dead in a quarter hour, having been made to commit suicide to prevent the death and dishonor of his family.

These and many other captivating accounts of the personal and profound make Killing Patton a pleasure to read. I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in World War II history and the extraordinary man who claimed Napoleon’s motto, “audacity, audacity, always audacity,” as his own.”

If anything, the book, as many of O'Reilly's other ones in the Killing series, serves as a general historical overview piece, albeit one with mystery and intrigue laced into it in attempts to keep the reader engaged. Though it is styled to be a work of nonfiction, it sensationalizes a controversial ending of a greater-than-life individual who was both idolized and rankled by the people, military, and government.

No doubt General Patton’s greatest achievement during WWII was his Third Army’s relief of the 101^st Airborne who were holding the crucial crossroads town of Bastogne and holding back the Nazi’s winter counteroffensive through Belgium’s Ardennes Forest known as the Battle of the Bulge.

On December 16, 1944 the Germans began a massive armored and infantry attack aimed at splitting the allied lines and driving to retake the port of Antwerp — the only viable port for supplying the allied forces in Europe.

Hitler’s grand plan besides halting Allied transport over the channel to the harbor of Antwerp was also to split the British and American Allied line in half, so the Germans could then proceed to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis Powers' favor. Once that was accomplished, Hitler could fully concentrate on the eastern theatre of war.

Had Hitler’s grand plan worked Western Europe would have looked much different in 1946. Had the Nazi’s been able to negotiate an armistice with the Americans. British, and French they would have still had problems facing the much greater Soviet Army.

No doubt eventually the Red Army would have prevailed and pushed far beyond the Elbe River where they halted per the agreement made by Eisenhower. They would have reached the Rhine and had control of not only Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and the Baltic States they would have total control of Germany.

Patton knew this was possible as did his intelligence officer. He knew his Third Army was the only tool that could break the German siege at Bastogne. To spearhead this drive he chose the 4^th Armored Division with the tip of the spear being led by his favorite tank commander Creighton Abrams. It was Abrams who taking a risk by bypassing German troops on his flanks to drive into Bastogne and relieve the embattled troopers of the 101^st on December 26^th.

This was no doubt the greatest feat of arms by an American Army. Fighting horrible weather, snow and ice covered roads, rough topography, and Germans Patton saved Eisenhower’s bacon and proved himself once again as America’s best combat general. For this he was rewarded with orders to pull back and tack up defensive positions after the bulge had been cleared on January 25, 1945.

Patton wanted to push forward into Berlin and felt he had the tools to do it. But as was the case in the closing of the Falaise Pocket and capturing thousands of retreating German soldiers Patton was restrained. Instead Eisenhower chose Montgomery to enter into German. Once again Patton was done in by politics. O’Reilly and Dugard detail all of this in the book. As I student of WWII History I know they have their facts correct.

I have always admired George Patton and believed he was very much needed to defeat the Germans from North Africa, through Sicily and France. Through all of this Patton made many enemies in the United States and Soviet Union. Much this was caused by Patton’s own ill-conceived remarks pertaining to the Soviet Union. In fact Josef Stalin wanted him dead. This is all detailed in Killing Patton.

The book is an easy read. It is a page turner. If you’re a fan of military history you will enjoy this book. You will not only learn a few things about Patton and the politics surrounding WWI you will certainly enjoy this book. Yes, I highly recommend this book.

As an aside several years ago I visited the George S. Patton Memorial Museum in Southern California. The museum is located on the grounds of Patton’s desert armor training grounds in eastern San Bernardino County. It is a great place to spend a few hours to learn more about “Ole Blood and Guts.”

Veterans Day Then and Now

"In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible." — President Eisenhower, October 8th, 1954

Before we can review the history of Veterans Day we first have to look back at World War I — The War to End All Wars and the armistice that ended that war and led Congress to making November 11^th a legal holiday in the United States.

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.

On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle's imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention.

On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. On July 29, Austro-Hungarian forces began to shell the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and Russia, Serbia's ally, ordered a troop mobilization against Austria-Hungary. France, allied with Russia, began to mobilize on August 1. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3. After crossing through neutral Luxembourg, the German army invaded Belgium on the night of August 3-4, prompting Great Britain, Belgium's ally, to declare war against Germany.

For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. Most patriotically assumed that their country would be victorious within months. Of the initial belligerents, Germany was most prepared for the outbreak of hostilities, and its military leaders had formatted a sophisticated military strategy known as the "Schlieffen Plan," which envisioned the conquest of France through a great arcing offensive through Belgium and into northern France. Russia, slow to mobilize, was to be kept occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces while Germany attacked France.

The Schlieffen Plan was nearly successful, but in early September the French rallied and halted the German advance at the bloody Battle of the Marne near Paris. By the end of 1914, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and neither for the Allies nor the Central Powers was a final victory in sight. On the western front—the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium—the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.

In 1915, the Allies attempted to break the stalemate with an amphibious invasion of Turkey, which had joined the Central Powers in October 1914, but after heavy bloodshed the Allies were forced to retreat in early 1916. The year 1916 saw great offensives by Germany and Britain along the western front, but neither side accomplished a decisive victory. In the east, Germany was more successful, and the disorganized Russian army suffered terrible losses, spurring the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany. In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies' favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.

World War I was known as the "war to end all wars" because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict—the Treaty of Versailles of 1919—forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II.

WWI was a tribute to the incompetence of European and British leaders and diplomats. It was a war that had been brewing under the surface since 1871 when Germany defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War. It was also a war that collapsed the Russian and Austrian empires, divided Europe into a polyglot of new countries and occupied territories, and brought into being a Communist dictatorship in Russia that would last for almost 80 years. It redrew the map of Africa and the Middle East, brought down the Ottoman Empire dividing the region into cultural and religious factions — something we are dealing with today. The Treaty of Versailles pushed Imperial Japan to become a world power – something the United States would encounter on December 7, 1941. It was these events that brought on a more disastrous war – World War II.

WWI and WWII were celebrated in songs such as “Over There” The Boogie Woggle Bugle Boy of Company B” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” But to celebrate Armistice Day 1938 Kate Smith introduced the most famous of our patriotic songs, Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” Unfortunately the first part of this song is rarely heard. In 1938 Berlin wrote these lyrics as a prophecy as to was about to become the United States.

“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,

Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer."

Kate Smith Introduces Irving Berlin’s God Bless America, November 10, 1938

These lyrics are as current today as they were in 1938. The only difference is that the storm clouds are not in Europe but in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan where so many of our vets are returning from with life-changing traumatic physical injuries and emotional distress (PTSD). Physical battlefield injuries that in previous wars would have been fatal are not due to the great advances in trauma medicine. These vets will require a great amount of life-long care, something the VA has not been doing and needs to do. These men and women have given so much of themselves and deserve not only to be remembered with speeches and celebrations but with quality care.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:

“Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.”

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in its place the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Photo at right is President Eisenhower signing the 1954  Veterans Bill

While the holiday is commonly printed as Veteran's Day or Veterans' Day in calendars and advertisements (spellings that are grammatically acceptable), the United States government has declared that the attributive (no apostrophe) rather than the possessive case is the official spelling.

In 1921, President Warren Harding had the remains of an unknown soldier killed in France buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery. Inscribed on the Tomb are the words:

"Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."

On October 4, 1924, at the dedication of the monument to the American Expeditionary Forces in Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:

"They did not regard it as a national or personal opportunity for gain or fame or glory, but as a call to sacrifice for the support of humane principles and spiritual ideals.

If anyone doubts the depth and sincerity of the attachment of the American people to their institutions and Government, if anyone doubts the sacrifices which they have been willing to make in behalf of those institutions and for what they believe to be the welfare of other nations, let them gaze upon this monument and other like memorials that have been reared in every quarter of our broad land.”

I can still recall Armistice Days parades in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio where veterans of both world wars would march along wearing artificial orange poppies on their lapels and handing out these memorials to the assembled crowds. The poppies were a memorial to the poppies that grew in Flanders Field in France where so many men died in useless and ill-conceived battles.

Veterans of WWI and WWII were not cared for in the same manner as today’s veterans are or should be. Many of the WWI vets suffered the aftermath of the poison gas attacks that were used when the trench warfare drew to a stalemate. There was also little or knowledge of PTSD. In those days it was known as battle fatigue in the effects plagued these vets for years. It caused irrational behavior, severe alcohol abuse, and suicide as was the case of on 10^th grade biology teacher. In my own family my uncle, a survivor of the Battle of the Bulge suffered from alcohol abuse which affected his family, hampered his employment opportunities, and eventually contributed to his death.

Over the past several years, over 2 million veterans from the post-9/11 generation have returned to civilian life and our communities. Many faced the immense stress of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our nation owes them enormous gratitude, which we must demonstrate in far more than words or symbols. Our veterans deserve the opportunity for personal and professional success long after their military service.

For most, that means having the opportunity to work and move up in the world, a journey that is usually undertaken not as an individual, but as a family. So our national commitment must be to make sure not only that every veteran can find a job, but also that military spouses have a fair shot at building successful careers. Doing so will not only repay a debt we owe, but also deliver enormous benefits to our entire economy.

The good news is that progress has been made to address veteran unemployment. From September 2013 to September 2014 the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was cut from 10.1 percent to 6.2 percent due to both an improving jobs market, as well as focused hiring efforts.

As just a few examples, JPMorgan Chase and over 170 other companies work together as part of the 100,000 Jobs Mission, which is on pace to hire 200,000 veterans by the end of the year, while Starbucks committed to hiring 10,000 veterans and spouses by 2018 and is well on the way toward that goal and Wal-Mart has committed to hiring 200,000 veterans by 2020.

In addition to employing veterans, it’s equally important to be aware of and bring attention to their plight as companies such as HBO have done through an effective mix of programming that spotlights their tremendous sacrifices and many contributions.

More must still be done. Nearly 160,000 post-9/11 veterans remain unemployed and their unemployment rate is still above the civilian rate. That is both shameful and illogical. Given the unique skills and attributes veterans offer, their unemployment rate should, if anything, be below the national average. It should be remembered that a 20-year old corporal capable of leading men into battle and being responsible for millions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated military equipment cannot be trusted to make copies on a Xerox machine, perform building security, or run construction equipment.

But even if we reach the goal of full employment for veterans, it wouldn’t be sufficient. Like most American families, most military spouses choose to seek work outside the home for reasons both financial and personal. Yet too often they face daunting obstacles.

Military families must frequently relocate. That forces spouses to face constant searches for new jobs, along with forfeiture of seniority and advancement opportunities, and the loss of state-based professional certifications and licenses.

In essence, every time the military sends a service member a transfer notice, his or her spouse must restart their career path from square one. That burden, which is inherent in military service, largely explains why a recent survey found that 90% of military spouses report that they are underemployed and earn less than their civilian peers.

To address this problem, we need to start by making a national commitment to military spouses. The Department of Defense has created a platform for doing so in the Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP), which helps connect spouses to job opportunities. Already, tens of thousands of spouses have found opportunities through that system, but more companies need to get involved.

We must also do more to help military spouses address the challenge of frequent relocations. One way is by encouraging employers to share information about job applicants from the military community. Recently, some members of the 100,000 Jobs Mission created the Military Talent Exchange, a portal that allows businesses to pass around resumes so that military spouses on the move can find jobs in new markets.

Job portability is another area that requires more exploration. No company can guarantee that all jobs will follow a military spouse wherever they go. But efforts must be made to accommodate such moves as best we can and look for ways to make jobs as portable as possible.

Training and education are another part of the solution. Again, flexibility is the key. One innovative idea comes from the Institute for Military and Veterans Affairs at Syracuse University, which provides free on-line job training programs. By allowing participants to access the program anytime, anywhere it is uniquely suited to the needs of military families.

In order to make the investments necessary to scale these and other programs, employers must recognize that this is not about charity. Hiring veterans and military spouses is an investment that offers a tremendous return. The U.S. military does a better job than just about any organization on the planet at creating a culture of teamwork, adaptability and dedication to mission. That culture forever changes veterans and the spouses who share the experience of service.

These men and women can achieve great things in civilian life. When we give them the opportunity they so richly deserve, then they can help us all build a country and an economy that is more resilient, more team-oriented and more generous of spirit. Every veteran I ever hired when I was running land surveying firm proved this in spades.

Photo at right is the entrance to the Medal Of Honor Wall at the  Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, California

The former CEO of Procter & Gamble is clearing house and reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs after the wait-time scandal broke this year. VA Secretary Robert McDonald plans to fire up to 1,000 people, hire 28,000 more health care workers, and insists on calling the veterans who come to the VA "customers" as a sign of commitment to them, not the bureaucracy. Of the people who are expected to get the pink slip, "The report we've passed up to the Senate Committee and House Committee has about 35 names on it. I've got another report that has over 1,000," McDonald said. "We're simplistically talking about people who violated our values." And of those values, McDonald continued, "It's integrity, it's advocacy, it's respect, it's excellence. These are the things that we try to do for our veterans." This is obviously smoke and mirrors. If Barack Obama was really interested in veterans' health, he would not have pulled out of Iraq without a SOFA ahead of his 2012 election

In short, our veterans and their spouses will do for our economy what they have already done for our national security – make it stronger.

As John Adams stated in his 1808 letter to Benjamin Rush: "Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives." It can be said that those who subscribe to Adams’ beliefs without hesitation are our veterans and current serving military.

D-Day Plus 70 Years

“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.” Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1984

With all of the controversy surrounding the release of five of the Taliban top commanders in exchange for an alleged American deserter from the U.S. Army who claimed the Army was a “joke” we should look back seventy years to remember the boys of Pointe du Hoc.

Seventy years ago on this day, June 6, 1944, the allied armies, under the direction of General Eisenhower, invaded the coast of France to liberate the European Continent from the clutches of Hitler’s Nazi armies.

Over 160,000 troops from America, Britain, Canada, free France, Poland, and other nations landed along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast of France. It was the largest amphibious invasion force in world history, supported by 5,000 ships with 195,700 navy personnel and 13,000 aircraft. It was a major turning point in World War II.

The steps which led up to D-Day deserve serious examination.

After World War I, Germany's economy suffered from depression and a devaluation of their currency.

On January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany by promising hope and universal healthcare. Less than a month later, on February 27, 1933, a crisis occurred - the Reichstag, Germany's Capitol Building, was suspiciously set on fire.

He ordered mass arrests followed by executions, even ordering his SS and Gestapo secret police to murder rivals, as during the Night of the Long Knives.

Using diplomatic intimidation, deception, and Blitzkrieg 'lightning' attacks, Hitler's National Socialist Workers' Party proceeded to take control of: Austria, The Sudeten Region, Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, France, Monaco, Greece, The Channel Island (UK), Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states, Serbia, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia and more.

The National Socialist Workers Party operated over 1,200 concentration camps where an estimated 4,251,500 people lost their lives.

Church leaders who spoke out in opposition to Hitler were arrested and executed.

In his D-Day Orders, June 6, 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower sent nearly 100,000 Allied troops marching across Europe to defeat Hitler's National Socialist Workers Party:

"You are about to embark upon a great crusade... The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. You will bring about...the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely. And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."

President Franklin Roosevelt stated June 6, 1944:

"My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God, Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization. Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, and steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard.

For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. ”Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.”

FDR concluded:

"Help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength and, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen."

Eleven months after D-Day, the war in Europe ended with an Allied victory on May 8, 1945.

Although the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east.

With Hitler's armies in control of most of mainland Europe, the Allies knew that a successful invasion of the continent was central to winning the war. Hitler knew this too, and was expecting an assault on northwestern Europe in the spring of 1944. He hoped to repel the Allies from the coast with a strong counterattack that would delay future invasion attempts, giving him time to throw the majority of his forces into defeating the Soviet Union in the east. Once that was accomplished, he believed an all-out victory would soon be his.

On the morning of June 5, 1944, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious military operation in history. On his orders, 6,000 landing craft, ships and other vessels carrying 176,000 troops began to leave England for the trip to France. That night, 822 aircraft filled with parachutists headed for drop zones in Normandy. An additional 13,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.

By dawn on June 6, 18,000 parachutists were already on the ground; the land invasions began at 6:30 a.m. The British and Canadians overcame light opposition to capture Gold, Juno and Sword beaches; so did the Americans at Utah. The task was much tougher at Omaha beach, however, where 2,000 troops were lost and it was only through the tenacity and quick-wittedness of troops on the ground that the objective was achieved. By day's end, 155,000 Allied troops — Americans, British and Canadians — had successfully stormed Normandy’s beaches.

For their part, the Germans suffered from confusion in the ranks and the absence of celebrated commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was away on leave. At first, Hitler, believing that the invasion was a feint designed to distract the Germans from a coming attack north of the Seine River, refused to release nearby divisions to join the counterattack and reinforcements had to be called from further afield, causing delays. He also hesitated in calling for armored divisions to help in the defense. In addition, the Germans were hampered by effective Allied air support, which took out many key bridges and forced the Germans to take long detours, as well as efficient Allied naval support, which helped protect advancing Allied troops.

Though it did not go off exactly as planned, as later claimed by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery— for example, the Allies were able to land only fractions of the supplies and vehicles they had intended in France — D-Day was a decided success. By the end of June, the Allies had 850,000 men and 150,000 vehicles in Normandy and were poised to continue their march across Europe.

The heroism and bravery displayed by troops from the Allied countries on D-Day has served as inspiration for several films, most famously The Longest Day (1962) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). It was also depicted in the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers (2001).

My guess is that today less than 50% of Americans know the full story of the Normandy landings and the heroism of the troops who carried it out. This is the fault of our education system that focuses on things such as civil rights, the environment, and other progressive causes. Heroism is not on their agenda. It was certainly not on the agenda of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the alleged army deserter exchanged by President Obama for five of the most notorious and vicious Taliban terrorists.

Today President Obama will make a statement from Normandy. I will not listen to or watch this presidential photo-op. Instead I will read the remarks made by President Ronald Reagan made on the 40^th anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6, 1984 from Pointe du Hoc:

“We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers — the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

I think I know what you may be thinking right now — thinking “we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.” Well, everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren’t. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him — Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, “Sorry I’m a few minutes late,” as if he’d been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he’d just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold, and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet” and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought — or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day: their rockhard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together.

There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall plan led to the Atlantic alliance — a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They’re still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as 40 years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose — to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.

But we try always to be prepared for peace; prepared to deter aggression; prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms; and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It’s fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that some day that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.”

It is estimated that less than 10% of our World War II veterans are alive today. When WWII ended these veterans returned home to raise families, build and buy houses. They went to college under the GI Bill of Rights. They became teachers, engineers, businessmen, and factory workers. They made the same level of contribution to our nation in peace time that they made during the war. They talked very little of their experiences during the war.

I consider myself very fortunate to have known a few of these veterans, both as family members, co-workers, and friends. As a person too young to participate in World War 2 I stand in awe of the sacrifice, courage, and contribution of these veterans.

They have been called the “Greatest Generation” due to their rise from the Great Depression of the 1930’s to their contribution in WWII and the peace that followed. Yes, they were great but so were those of other generations. Generations who fought for our freedom in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Those who fought to end slavery and preserve the Union in the Civil War and all those who served during the Cold War to thwart the expansion of Communism and the Soviet Union. And those who willing volunteered to fight against Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is drawing to a close and soldiers who once would have died from their wounds on the fields of battle are now returning home due to the tremendous advances in battlefield and trauma medicine. They are returning home not to ticker-tape parades and cheering crowds but to families that have to dealing with not only their physical disabilities but to their emotional distress caused by PTSD. They are returning home to broken Veterans Administration, the government agency responsible for their medical care.

So on this 70^th anniversary of D-Day let us remember all of those who sacrificed so much in our name.

Shame on the History Channel

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana

George Santayana’s comment on remembering the past rings true, but the History Channel’s memory is a bit clouded when it comes to World Wars 1 & 2. Tonight I finished watching there 3 part, six hour miniseries “The World Wars” and found it to be not only inaccurate in many places but at the level for a second grader.

The series produced by the History Channel and narrated by two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Town), this three-night event series features interviews with contemporary leaders, including John McCain, Colin Powell, John Major and David Miliband, along with noted historians from around the world.

According to the History Channel’s promo piece:

“An assassination in Sarajevo sparks a global war. For the next 30 years, deadly fighting rages across Europe, Africa, China and the Pacific.

Hitler. Churchill. De Gaulle. MacArthur. Patton. Stalin. Mussolini. We know them as legends. But they first learn what it will take to rise to greatness as young soldiers, fighting for their lives on the frontlines.

This is the story of a generation of men who come of age in the trenches of World War I, only to become the leaders of World War II. The lessons they learn on the frontlines shape them as they rise to power—and haunt them as the deadly fighting breaks out again. Some become heroes, forged in courage under fire. Others emerge as the most infamous villains the world has ever seen.

Theirs is one story—the story of a 30-year global struggle. A fight that will either save the world—or destroy it.”

While the concept of linking WWI and WWII into one world war of 30 years in length with only pauses here and there is a good and, what I believe, a valid concept their execution missed by a mile.

Anyone who has studied 20^th century history and men like Wilson, Churchill, Hitler, and Stalin should be embarrassed at what the producers and writers of this series fed the viewing public. Those who are not familiar with the events of the 30 year period from 1914 to 1945, as no doubt most of today’s high school and college graduates are, will get a very flawed picture of the reasons, players, events, and ramifications of this period and how they affect us to this day.

Here are a few of the more glaring oversights and inaccuracies dished out by the series:

Wilson’s Reasons for Entering World War I:

The series portrays President Woodrow Wilson as a man who had no desire to intervene in the First World ar. Yes, they mentioned the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania (1915) by a German U-Boat of the coast of Ireland and the infamous Zimmerman Telegram urging Mexico to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1917. These events turned public opinion against Germany and gave Wilson a green light for declaring war on Germany but Wilson had designs on entering the war as he always was a Europhile since the time he spent at Johns Hopkins University a hotbed of progressivism and Europhiles where those like John Dewey had great influence.

They did not mention the resignation of Wilson’s Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan over what he believed was a dangerous action to enter a world war some 5,000 miles away. Nor was there any mention of Coronel House Wilson’s closest advisor and advocate of intervention into the war.

There was no mention of Wilson’s efforts to counter opposition to the war at home. Wilson pushed through Congress the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 to suppress anti-British, pro-German, or anti-war opinions. While he welcomed socialists who supported the war, he pushed at the same time to arrest and deport foreign-born radicals. Citing the Espionage Act, the U.S. Post Office, following the instructions of the Justice Department, refused to carry any written materials that could be deemed critical of the U.S. war effort. Some sixty newspapers judged to have revolutionary or antiwar content were deprived of their second-class mailing rights and effectively banned from the U.S. mails.Mere criticism of the Wilson administration and its war policy became grounds for arrest and imprisonment. A Jewish immigrant from Germany, Robert Goldstein, was sentenced to ten years in prison for producing The Spirit of '76, a film that portrayed the British, now an ally, in an unfavorable light.

Also absent from the narrative was that Wilson set up the first western propaganda office, the United States Committee on Public Information, headed by George Creel (thus its popular name, Creel Commission), which filled the country with patriotic anti-German appeals and conducted various forms of censorship. All of these actions were in direct violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

Lenin and the Communist Revolution:

This was one of the most glaring inaccuracies of the series. While their mention of the German’s secretly bringing Vladimir Lenin into to Russia from his exile in Switzerland was correct the rest of this segment was totally distorted. The series writers had Lenin storming the Winter Palace and overthrowing the Tsar Nicholas II.

Actually there were two revolutions in Russia in 1917. The first was led by members of the military, civilian workers groups, and members of Russia’s parliament — the Duma. This revolution took place in March of 1917. The outcome of the demonstrations and strife was the abdication of the Tsar and his eventual being placed under house arrest by the provisional government.

When the leader of this provisional government, Alexander Kerensky, a young and popular lawyer and a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party while instituting reforms that provided more civil liberties he did not withdraw from the war. . This is when the Germans smuggled Lenin into to Russia.

The political group that proved most troublesome for Kerensky, and would eventually overthrow him, was the Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin had been living in exile in neutral Switzerland and, due to democratization of politics after the February Revolution, which legalized formerly banned political parties, he perceived the opportunity for his Marxist revolution. Although return to Russia had become a possibility, the war made it logistically difficult. Eventually, German officials arranged for Lenin to pass through their territory, hoping that his activities would weaken Russia or even – if the Bolsheviks came to power — lead to Russia's withdrawal from the war. Lenin and his associates, however, had to agree to travel to Russia in a sealed train: Germany would not take the chance that he would foment revolution in Germany. After passing through the front, he arrived in Petrograd (St Petersburg) in April 1917.

With Lenin's arrival, the popularity of the Bolsheviks increased steadily. Over the course of the spring, public dissatisfaction with the Provisional Government and the war, in particular among workers, soldiers and peasants, pushed these groups to radical parties. Despite growing support for the Bolsheviks, buoyed by maxims that called most famously for "all power to the Soviets," the party held very little real power in the moderate-dominated Petrograd Soviet. Lenin and his followers were unprepared for how their groundswell of support, especially among influential worker and soldier groups, would translate into real power in the summer of 1917.

On 7 November 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show a 25 October date). The October revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February, replacing Russia's short-lived provisional parliamentary government with government by soviets, local councils elected by bodies of workers and peasants. Liberal and monarchist forces, loosely organized into the White Army, immediately went to war against the Bolsheviks' Red Army, in a series of battles that would become known as the Russian Civil War.

While the Bolsheviks did storm the Winter Palace it was not the Tsar who was overthrown, It was the Kerensky Provisional Government. I realize the story of the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Communist state is long and complicated but at least the writers of the series could have gotten this fact correct.

Versailles Peace Conference and Wilson’s 14 Points:

This was a topic very lightly covered. Too integrate the two world wars together the Versailles Peace Treaty is a subject that cannot be brushed over as it laid the groundwork for the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Party to power and should be considered as the single most cause of WWII.

There was no mention of Wilson’s 14 Points and how the European Leaders pretty much ignored them. It was Clemenceau of France, upon hearing of the Fourteen Points, was said to have sarcastically claimed “The good Lord only had ten!” While the 14 Points were the basis for the armistice they were not really incorporated into the final treaty.

There was no mention of Wilson failing health and the conference and the role played by his foreign policy advisor “Colonel” Edward M. House.

The fact that the Japanese, members of the winning side, walked out of the conference when they felt left out was brushed over with a light touch.

There was mention that the Germans were not present, but once again it was given a one or two sentence statement. The German snub and enormous reparations were the primary reasons for the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolph Hitler. The reparations demanded were the cause of the collapse of the German economy which resulted in the civil unrest in Germany.

The Failed League of Nations:

No mention was made of the League of Nations and how Wilson, a proponent, was unable to get the treaty accepted by the United States Senate. This resulted in feckless organization that had no power to enforce penalties on violators and without the treasure of the United States it was bound to failure. Nations will act in their own self-interest and that’s the way it was to be.

Mussolini’s Rise to Power:

Benito Mussolini was shown as a fascist dictator, but no mention was made of his corporatist policies which tied him closely to the Italian industrial leaders, which without their support he would have been relegated to the trash heap of failed wanabe dictators. It was the Italian industrialists that really made El Duce.

Hitler’s Annexations and Territorial Grabs:

While some time was given to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland and their takeover of two-thirds of Czechoslovakia little mention was made of the plebiscites in the French Occupied Saarland and the Anschluss with Austria.

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz:

This one really bugged me. The series had the Battle of Britain and the Blitz reversed on the timeline. They had the Blitz (the German night bombing of London and other cities in the UK coming prior to the RAF’s battle to stop the Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over Britain. The Battle for Britain, or has Churchill described it as “Their Finest Hour” took place in the skies of England from July 10, 1940 to October 31, 1940.

The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. The battle received its name from a speech Winston Churchill delivered to the British House of Commons on June 18, 1940, in which he stated "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin." The German objective was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command. From July 1940 coastal shipping convoys and shipping centers, such as Portsmouth, were the main targets; one month later, the Luftwaffe shifted its attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted aircraft factories and ground infrastructure. Eventually the Luftwaffe resorted to attacking areas of political significance and using terror bombing strategy – the Blitz.

Regardless of the ability of the Luftwaffe to win air superiority, Adolf Hitler was frustrated that it was not happening quickly enough. With no sign of the RAF weakening, and Luftwaffe air fleets taking punishing losses, the Luftwaffe was keen for a change in strategy. To reduce losses further, a change in strategy was also favored to take place at night, to give the bombers greater protection under cover of darkness. On 4 September 1940 after a RAF night rain on Berlin, in a long address at the Sportspalast, Hitler declared: "And should the Royal Air Force drop two thousand, or three thousand kilograms then we will now drop 300,000, 400,000, yes one million kilograms in a single night. And should they declare they will greatly increase their attacks on our cities, then we will erase their cities.”

The Blitz lasted from September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941 and took the lives of 40 thousand civilians and injured as many as 139,000.

By preventing Germany from gaining air superiority, the battle ended the threat that Hitler would launch Operation Sea Lion, an amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain. However, Germany continued bombing operations on Britain, known as The Blitz. The failure of Germany to achieve its objectives of destroying Britain's air defenses, or forcing Britain to negotiate an armistice or an outright surrender, is considered its first major defeat and a crucial turning point in the Second World War

The Use of Documentary Footage:

The use of documentary footage was atrocious. In many scenes of German bombers shown during the Blitz and the invasion of Poland German four engine bombers were shown and in some cases the editors used footage of American B-17 bombers. At no time during WWII did the Germans use long-range four engine bombers. These scenes mad the series look amateurish and the documentary film researchers and editors could have done a proper job.

Roosevelt’s Constitutionally Illegal Support of Britain and Lend Lease:

No mention was made of Roosevelt’s providing illegal military support to Great Britain or his policy of Lend-Lease without it would have been almost impossible for England to survive.

The Battle of the Atlantic:

No mention was made of the German U-Boat campaign that almost destroyed Great Britain’s ability to survive. The German U-Boat offensive in the Atlantic cut off much of the war materials and foodstuffs until the United States entered the war after Hitler’s Declaration of War on the U.S on December 11, 1941. Once the U.S entered the WWII they were able to provide convoy support thus allowing the buildup of forces in the U.K. This was a major factor in the Second World War.

Japan’s Reasons for the Invasion of China and Korea:

The series focused on Roosevelt’s oil embargo which was correct but did mention Japan’s need for more natural resources than oil. They needed timber, iron ore, copper, rubber and other precious metals for their war effort, resources they did not have.

While the United States was still struggling to emerge from the Great Depression at the end of the 1930s, and would do so partly because of the war, Japan had emerged from its own period of depression, which had begun in 1926, by the mid-1930s. Many of the young soldiers mobilized into the Japanese army by the early 1930s came from the rural areas, where the effects of the depression were devastating and poverty was widespread. Their commitment to the military effort to expand Japanese territory to achieve economic security can be understood partly in these terms. The depression ended in the mid-1930s in Japan partly because of government deficits used to expand greatly both heavy industry and the military.

The Japanese military faced a particular tactical problem in that certain critical raw materials — especially oil and rubber — were not available within the Japanese sphere of influence. Instead, Japan received most of its oil from the United States and rubber from British Malaya, the very two Western nations trying to restrict Japan's expansion. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's embargo of oil exports to Japan pressured the Japanese navy, which had stocks for only about six months of operations.

The Japanese army, for its part, was originally concerned with fighting the Soviet Union, because of the army's preoccupation with Manchuria and China. The Japanese army governed Manchuria indirectly through the "puppet" state of Manchuria and developed heavy industry there under its favorite agencies, disliking and distrusting the zaibatsu (large Japanese corporations). But the Soviet army's resistance to Japanese attacks was sufficient to discourage northern expansion.

The Japanese army, for its part, was originally concerned with fighting the Soviet Union, because of the army's preoccupation with Manchuria and China. The Japanese army governed Manchuria indirectly through the "puppet" state of Manchukuo and developed heavy industry there under its favorite agencies, disliking and distrusting the zaibatsu (large Japanese corporations). But the Soviet army's resistance to Japanese attacks was sufficient to discourage northern expansion.

Meanwhile in 1937, the intensification of Chinese resistance to the pressure of the Japanese military drew Japan into a draining war in the vast reaches of China proper, and in 1940 into operations in French Indochina, far to the south. Thus, when the navy pressed for a "southern" strategy of attacking Dutch Indonesia to get its oil and British Malaya to control its rubber, the army agreed.

While it seems that economic factors were important in Japanese expansion in East Asia, it would be too much to say that colonialism, trade protection, and the American embargo compelled Japan to take this course. Domestic politics, ideology and racism also played a role.

Japan’s Brutality in China:

While much space was given to the Nazi’s brutality and the Holocaust no mention was made of Japan’s brutality during WWII. No mention was made of the Rape of Nanking or the Japanese Unit 731, a united devoted chemical, biological, and human experimentation. Also no mention was made of the Battan Death March. Possible this was done to preserve sympathy for Japan after the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Russo-German Pact:

Not much space was given to the 1939 Russo-German Pact. Without this agreement with Stalin’s Soviet Union it is doubtful that Germany would have invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. This pact allowed Germany and the U.S.S.R. to spilt Poland in two giving each party their portion. Eventually Hitler voided the Pact on June 1, 1941 when he invaded the U.S.S.R.

The North African Campaign and El Alamein:

The series claims that the first use of American troops in the European Campaign was the Invasion of Sicily. This is blatantly wrong. The first use of U.S troops was in North Africa with the landings at Algeria. They did not even mention the fighting in North Africa and the defeat of Rommel’s Africa Corps. They wanted to focus on Patton’s performance in Sicily. No mention was made of the British Eighth Army’s final defeat of the Africa Corps at El Alamein and the eventually dominance of the Mediterranean. This cut off Hitler’s supply of oil from Libya and the allies ability to build air bases where their long-range bombers could reach other oil fields in Romania.

General Patton vs. General Eisenhower:

Not one word of mention was given to General Eisenhower the appointed Supreme Commander of all allied forces in Europe. The focus was on Lt. General Patton and his part in Operation Fortitude, a ruse conceived by the British to disguise the Normandy site for the invasion by forcing Hitler to believe the real invasion would take place at the Pas de Calais.

Fortitude was one of the major elements of Operation Bodyguard, the overall Allied deception stratagem for the Normandy landings. Bodyguard's principal objective was to ensure the Germans would not increase troop presence in Normandy by promoting the appearance that the Allied forces would attack in other locations. After the invasion (on June 6, 1944) the plan was to delay movement of German reserves to the Normandy beachhead and prevent a potentially disastrous counter-attack. Fortitude's objectives were to promote alternative targets of Norway and Calais.

The planning of Operation Fortitude came under the auspices of the London Controlling Section, a secret body set up to manage Allied deception strategy during the war. However, the execution of each plan fell to the various theatre commanders, in the case of Fortitude this was Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. A special section, Ops (B), was established at SHAEF to handle the operation (and all of the theatre's deception warfare). The LCS retained responsibility for what was called "Special Means"; the use of diplomatic channels and double-agents.

While this faint was important it did not surpass the job Eisenhower did in planning the Normandy invasion and his tireless efforts of holding the allied coalition together — especially when it came to Charles De Gaul. If one did now know better watching this series would have you believe Patton won the war in Europe with his tanks. Yes General Patton’s role was not insignificant, especially during the Battle of the Bulge, but so were the efforts of many others. It was Eisenhower, as Supreme Commander, who made the tough decisions and held the political wolves at bay.

On the other side of the world the focus was on General MacArthur the overall commander of the army forces in the Pacific Theater. No mention was made of Admiral Nimitz, the overall naval commander and co-commander with MacArthur, and the role of the Marines in the brutal island-hopping war nor the naval battles such as the Coral Sea, The Battle for Leyte Gulf, The Philippine Sea, and Guadalcanal carried out in that theater of operations.

The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences:

Mention was made of the Tehran Conference between the big three; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin where Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan at some point. However, no mention was made of the Yalta Conference where to get agreement on unconditional surrender by Germany a physically weakened Roosevelt surrendered all of post-war Eastern Europe to the Stalin’s Soviet Union while a war-weary Churchill looked on. Also no mention was made of the Potsdam Conference after victory in Europe where President Truman got the same terms of surrender for Japan. I will say, however, that I thought Winston Churchill’s role in WWII was accurately displayed.

I began watching this series with great expectations but as the series drew on I became more and more disappointed with its soap opera appearance. I guess I was expecting too much from a six hour TV mini-series. Some of the historians had a chance to save the series with more cogent remarks but they fell into line with the writer’s narrative. It’s a shame as a series such as this had great possibilities to educate the viewers who were not aware of the history of the two world wars and their linking into a conflict lasting 30 years.

If you have the time and want to watch a comprehensive history of the Second World War I would suggest viewing the “Winds of War” and its companion series “War and Remembrance.” While a dramatic series it packs in a ton of accurate history.

If we want to follow George Santayana’s advice we have to view the past in a clear and accurate manner, not through the eyes of a victim of Alzheimer’s Disease.

The Morality of the Bomb

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” — George Washington, Fifth Annual Message, 1793.

On August 6, 1945 I was a 9-year old boy studying the clarinet. On that day my father, who at the time was working nights at a defense plant, took me to a matinee performance of the Benny Goodman band at the Palace Theater in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. We sat in the darkened theater listening to the great band leader and clarinetist play both pop and classical selections with his band. It was a great experience for me as I was with my dad in one of the best theaters in town listening to one of the best band in the United States.

As we walked out to the theater we saw crowds of people milling about the newspaper racks looking at the banner headline that read “A-BOMB.” The headline completely filled the width of the paper and its height covered the entire portion of the paper above the fold. In other words it was big.

Not only was the headline big, the news was big. At the time I did not know if the “A” was an indefinite article or an abbreviation for the word “Atomic.” I also recall sitting at the dining room table a few days later listening to my father and my uncles discussing the ramification of the use of the atomic bombs and how the world would change. I would soon learn what all of this meant.

Thousands of miles away on the island of Saipan in the Pacific Ocean was a young 18-year old Marine. At the time I did not know this Marine and it was many years later I heard his story. Bill was a client of mine and one day at lunch he was relating a few of his experiences as a young Marine and how the war affected him. When the subject of the A-Bomb came up he told me he had no reservations about of use of it against the Japanese. Bill had experienced some of the most brutal fighting in the Second World War and his division was preparing for the eventual invasion of the Japanese homeland where he was sure he would die. To Bill the news of the dropping of the atomic bomb was his Easter Sunday. He knew he would now go home rather than die on Japanese soil.

On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the world's first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a "conventional" bombing of Japan was underway, "Little Boy," (the nickname for one of two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets' plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets' B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6. Five and a half hours later, "Little Boy" was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a “T” bridge intersection unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read "Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis" (the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas).

There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city's 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before-only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying.

According to John Hersey's classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. They were out in the open when the Enola Gay dropped its load.

"War is hell," summarized Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose scorched earth policy during his march through Georgia is credited with further weakening the Confederate army, ultimately shortening the war and saving lives.

Eighty years later, during World War ll, the sentiments, tactics and strategy were still valid as President Harry S. Truman (D) authorized the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, 68 years ago today and another one on Nagasaki three days later. The Japanese surrendered a week later.

For those who still argue that this action wasn't necessary, mentioning the horrible deaths of the Japanese, (make no mistake, they were horrible) or the number of American troops saved (and they were) doesn't justify killing so many Japanese civilians, (the responsibility of a commander is to protect those under him as much as possible) or the Japanese were so weakened they were ready to surrender, (they weren't; they were the jihadis, suicide bombers, of their day) or other objections, Duncan Anderson of the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which trains all British Army officers, offers another strong opposing opinion..

Utilizing "discoveries made upon the opening of hitherto restricted archives, and the work of British- and American-educated Japanese historians" and newly available information after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Anderson writes:

“Also thanks to the work of Japanese historians, we now know much more about Japanese plans in the summer of 1945. Japan had no intention of surrendering. It had husbanded over 8,000 aircraft, many of them Kamikazes, hundreds of explosive-packed suicide boats, and over two million well equipped regular soldiers, backed by a huge citizen's militia. When the Americans landed, the Japanese intended to hit them with everything they had, to impose on them casualties that might break their will. If this did not do it, then the remnants of the army and the militias would fight on as guerrillas, protected by the mountains and by the civilian population.”

But what about the passive, helpless Emperor Hirohito? According to Anderson, he was not passive or helpless but the core of the Japanese military system:

“Japanese and American historians have also shown that at the centre of the military system was the Emperor Hirohito, not the hapless prisoner of militarist generals, the version promulgated by MacArthur in 1945 to save him from a war crimes trial, but an all-powerful warlord, who had guided Japan’s aggressive expansion at every turn. Hirohito’s will had not been broken by defeats at land or sea, it had not been broken by the firestorms or by the effects of the blockade, and it would certainly not have been broken by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, something the Japanese had anticipated for months.

What broke Hirohito’s will was the terrible new weapon, a single bomb which could kill a hundred thousand at a time. Suddenly Japan was no longer fighting other men, but the very forces of the universe. The most important target the bombs hit was Hirohito’s mind - it shocked him into acknowledging that he could not win the final, climatic battle.”

To this day, Harry Truman is viewed by ardent critics and revisionist historians as a war criminal and the United States is deemed as being stained by a sin as indelible as slavery. In fact, last November, a "documentary" on Hiroshima and its aftermath produced by Oliver Stone was shown on television and, as might be expected, it presented the standard apologist's take on the history surrounding Truman's decision to use nuclear bombs. To quote Stone from an interview he gave to the Stanford Daily earlier this year, his production was intended to "cause Americans to rethink your history. because you're not the indispensable, benevolent nation that we pretend to be." He might have gotten his facts straight before making such an arrogant and ignorant comment, but as we know from his past works, facts seem to get in the way of his agenda.

To begin with, the Japanese military knew long before atomic bombs were used that the war was lost. Why else resort to kamikazes in a last-ditch effort to dissuade the Allies from invading and to force a resolution short of absolute surrender? They could have surrendered long before they did but that was never a serious consideration, if it was a consideration at all. Even at the end, after Hirohito broke the deadlock in his cabinet, some military officers attempted a coup, to place him under house arrest and prevent the nationwide broadcast of his prerecorded statement advising his subjects that the Japanese nation had no choice but to "endure the unendurable." One key reason Hirohito's cabinet had deadlocked in the first place was because some of its members from the military considered the effects of the two bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as being no worse than that of conventional incendiary bombing on other Japanese cities, including Tokyo. And there was a genuine fear that, if the Japanese people found out that their government was negotiating the terms of surrender with the Allies, the government might face a popular uprising. One only has to consider the nation's history to understand why this was a real concern.

From its emergence as a powerful Asian state in the eighth century, Japan had never been successfully invaded or lost a war. The word "kamikaze" means "divine wind" and became part of the Japanese language after typhoons fortuitously prevented a Mongolian fleet from invading the mainland centuries ago. The Japanese people simply did not know the meaning of surrender, and in World War II and after the nation's surrender, not a few elected to commit suicide rather than face what they saw as humiliation. Then, of course, there were those soldiers stationed on remote islands who, for months and even decades after the surrender, refused to abandon their posts.

In the middle ages, a warrior class of strongmen, the samurai, took control of the country and the shogunate, a hereditary office of military dictatorship, was established in 1192. Although imperial rule was reestablished in 1867 in name, a militaristic mindset was entrenched in the thinking of the citizenry, and the people devoted themselves to the welfare of the nation as a whole, the Western concept of individuality being largely unknown. It took the postwar Allied occupation to put an end to that.

Before that, however, the world witnessed one of the most pernicious consequences of Japan's insularity and its historical embrace of a militaristic political posture, the brutality with which it suppressed foreign populations, including especially the Koreans and the Chinese. The "Rape of Nanking" is infamous, as is the Bataan Death March, but less well known is Japan's dispersion of mosquitos and fleas infected with bubonic plague and other diseases to spread terror and untold suffering among civilian populations the army intended to dominate. (Evidence exists that the Japanese Navy intended to use the same bioweapons against American West Coast targets late in 1945.) The Japanese military doctors of Unit 731 in Manchuria engaged in the very type of research and medical experimentation on live human "specimens" that made Josef Mengele a household name.

Japan also undertook its own program to develop an atomic bomb and, though as was learned after the war, it did not get very far, one can only imagine what might have transpired had it been successful. Nevertheless, that program continued up until near the bitter end, because, in the closing days of the European war, a U-boat transporting to Japan a cargo of raw uranium was intercepted by the American Navy.

After-the-fact armchair moralizers such as Stone tend to also overlook the "inconvenient truth" that Japanese scientists had figured out how to use upper air currents to direct hydrogen-filled balloons to the American West coast and that hundreds carrying incendiary charges and explosive devices actually made it here. The incendiary charges were for the purpose of starting forest and brush fires, and the bombs to spread terror by killing and maiming those unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong times. One church group picnicking in Oregon came across one such a balloon lying on the ground near their picnic site and, in the course of trying to figure out what it was, were blown to bits. American authorities saw to it that a lid was placed on publicity about these balloons, but they obviously feared that soon enough, plague, anthrax, and other horrible inflictions would become the Japanese military's weapon of choice.

Japan's indifference to the laws of war and human suffering had become infamous. Indeed, they never took great pains to hide it. There was little doubt among the Allies that, if the military had its way, unimaginable numbers of their own people would have died in an effort to avoid the shame of surrender. Truman knew all this, of course, and first and foremost put the lives of American servicemen at the forefront of his deliberations.

It is telling that it was not for a full five days after Nagasaki was bombed, during which the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria and the American air forces continued their bombing of Japanese civilian populations, before the Emperor broke the tie and announced his country's defeat. Lest there any doubt about what the effect of the atomic bombings, the Japanese prime minister acknowledged after the war that they were a key consideration that motivated him to ask Hirohito to speak to the cabinet and decide which way Japan should go. In his broadcast to his people, Hirohito himself left no doubt that the atomic bombs had had their intended effect.

Returning to Stone and his ilk, how full of themselves they must feel for rendering a moral judgment, and about the entirety of the American people no less, after the fact and without any way of proving that, if Truman had done things their way, the war would have come to an end as quickly as it did and, in their eyes, more humanely. Needless to say, it's a fool's errand to imagine how things might have been different had the bombs been left undisturbed and undeployed. But it is a certainty that within five days of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan did surrender and the war came to an end. As it turned out, the American occupation under Douglas MacArthur, who greatly respected the Japanese people, was relatively benign, and Japan took to democracy and became a close and respected ally. And since Nagasaki, no other atomic weapon has been used in combat.

Of course, since Nagasaki, millions of innocent people have been slaughtered and maimed in the old-fashioned ways we are all familiar with. Most of this death and suffering has been the result of the coming to power of political movements of the type for which Stone and the left have so often expressed admiration. But you never know. Maybe someday he and those who think the way he does will count themselves lucky that they never had to live where people like themselves were in control.

We now know that if the bomb had not been used, the invasion of Japan would have gone ahead. The best indication we have of the casualties that might have occurred are the actual figures for the eight-week campaign on Okinawa, in which 12,500 Americans died, and 39,000 were wounded. As Anderson states:

“Fighting at the same intensity (it could not have been less) on Kyushu and Honshu, campaigns which would have lasted some 50 weeks, would have produced 80 to 100,000 American dead, and some 300 to 320,000 wounded. Are these casualties enough to justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

If morality is based on numbers, and in this case it must be, then perhaps not. But what is usually overlooked in this numbers game, is the number of Japanese killed on Okinawa, which amounts to a staggering 250,000 military and civilian, about 20 Japanese killed for every dead American. If we conduct the same calculation for an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, we arrive at a figure of at least two million Japanese dead.”

Another issue to consider when it came to dropping the atomic bomb is the war weariness at home. The people of the United States were growing weary of the war. Germany had surrender in May and the losses of U.S. troops on Iwo Jima and Okinawa had greatly disturbed the American public. The thought of an invasion of the Japanese home islands was unacceptable to many Americans.

Also there was the matter of money. Even after the highly successful War Bond sales after the promotional tour by the Iwo Jima flag raisers the U.S. was running out of money to conduct the war. Another year of war in the Pacific would have demanded greater tax increases, something the public and Congress was dubious about. We needed to end this war quickly with minimum causalities or they cry for a negotiated peace would have grown louder. Remember at this time we did not know of all of the horrible atrocities committed by the Japanese. If we had not used the atomic Bomb and the public and Congress had learned of its existence and power Truman would have been impeached.

Anderson concludes:

“The losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible, but not as terrible as the number of Japanese who would have died as the result of an invasion. The revisionist historians of the 1960s - and their disciples - are quite wrong to depict the decision to use the bombs as immoral. It would have been immoral if they had not been used.”

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Over the years revisionist historians and left-wing peaceniks like Oliver Stone have changed the narrative of the use of the bomb. The latest example of this is the film “Emperor” staring Tommy Lee Jones in the role of General Douglas MacArthur. The film is a stodgy movie that mixes dubious history with a clichéd, Madame Butterfly romance story, set in the period immediately following Japan's surrender in 1945. In watching the film I was disturbed at some of the lines criticizing the use of the bomb by the Japanese that went unchallenged.

As time passes the historians have revised the history of the Second World War. There are countless documentaries about the evils of the Nazis while there are very few about the atrocities committed by the Japanese and their desire to carry on the war no matter how many of their people would die.