Book R & R: The Last of the Doughboys

Today's Book Review and Recommendation is "The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War" by Richard Rubin.

The Doughboys are what we called the soldiers and marines who fought in WWI, like calling the soldiers of the WWII era "G.I.s." The 100th anniversary of the First World War is going to be upon us very soon. I don't know as much as I'd like to about that conflict, so I thought I'd pick up a couple of titles to rectify that situation. One that caught my eye was Richard Rubin's "The Last of the Doughboys" that was just recently released (May 2013). The book's back cover said that Rubin had interviewed some of the last surviving World War I veterans. Being into applied history and oral history interviews, I thought this book would be a great place to start. Well, every once in a while I make a brilliant decision without even knowing that I'm doing it. "Last of the Doughboys" was a great book on so many levels.

I really enjoy Richard Rubin's writing style. His voice is very conversational and his pacing in this book keeps the reader engaged. I suspect that comes from Rubin's experience in writing feature articles for magazines like the Atlantic, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and others. He has one other book out, but it is not a work of military history. You see, what I like about Richard Rubin is that not only is he an outstanding writer, but he follows through on his natural curiosity. And as a result he accomplished something that I think the rest of us who are "doin' history," whether it's academic or popular, should be a little chagrined that we didn't think of it first and then act on it.

So one day around 2003, Richard Rubin the writer hears the declaration that many of us have heard in one form or another: "We're losing up to 1,000 WWII veterans every day! We have to hurry and collect their stories while we still can!" But Rubin took the thought process one step further and asked himself if there were any veterans of WWI still alive, and was anyone scrambling to get their stories. Rubin then went about finding out. Initially, no one knew the answer. The Department of Veterans Affairs didn't have a list, they only estimated (based apparently on actuarial tables) that there were as many as fifteen hundred still living. After repeated inquiries from Rubin, the VA then reduced that estimate to "fewer than two hundred."

Rubin did find dozens of WWI veterans to interview: men and women, American and Canadian, Army, Marine, and Navy, all between the ages of 101 to 113. His best and main source for locating these veterans was the French government, who maintained a list of recipients of the Legion d'Honneur. The French awarded this medal during the late 1990s to American veterans who had served on French soil during the "Great War." Others he found through media research. It turns out that this forgotten war from our distant past wasn't so distant after all. Rubin traveled the country, conducting his interviews from 2003 to 2010. Some of his subjects had vivid memories of the events that had occurred eighty-five years or more in their past and were interviewed on more than one occasion. Others, let's just say they proved to be less than successful. His last interview subject was the last surviving American veteran of WWI, Frank Buckles, who passed away in February 2011.

I'm amazed at what Rubin did as far as thinking up this project, and then unrelentingly following up until the last veteran of WWI had passed away. In addition, I am more than impressed with what he did with the information. If the veteran was a combat veteran of say, Belleau Wood, then Rubin explains the circumstances, events, and effects of that battle to the reader. You'll also hear about what conditions were like on the home front, how we treated the immigrant population, the military's handling of "shell-shocked" soldiers, how we suppressed free speech with the Sedition Act of 1918, and how we deployed cavalry (yes, still using horses) to guard the Mexican border. You'll even learn about media coverage of the war and popular culture as expressed in song lyrics of the day. Every aspect of the war is covered, and accompanied by the voice of the young person who lived through it and experienced it. This book is a "page turner." The history is accurate and provided in a voice that is entertaining and engaging.

If you are looking for a book that covers only the military actions, strategy, etc., of the First World War placed on a timeline, then "The Last of the Doughboys" is probably not the book for you. If instead you are looking gain an insight on the whole of the war and its effect on regular people whose lives were forever changed by it, then I cannot urge you strongly enough to read this book. It will have a prominent place on my bookshelf, ready for a re-read in the near future.

Will the Army retire the "Band of Brothers"?

The wars are winding down and the budget is shrinking. The United States Army, as it has done after every period of conflict, will go through a cycle of downsizing. The goal this time around is to reduce active army forces by about 80,000 soldiers. This move will be accomplished in the deactivation of 12 combat brigades. One of those on the chopping block is the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Part of this BCT is the first and second battalions of the 506th Infantry Regiment (1/506 and 2/506), therefore making this brigade the modern manifestation of the "Band of Brothers."

As expected, there is a collective howl coming from those veterans and others with an affinity toward the lineage of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. To their credit, The Huffington Post published a well done article on this, explaining that the 506th PIR of WWII fame earned that moniker of "Band of Brothers" for the title of the Stephen Ambrose book and the HBO miniseries of the same name. I can't do better than the Huff article for explaining the situation and what it means to keep storied units like this in an active status. The article also has a nice summary history of the 506th Infantry from its birth during WWII, through Vietnam and their recent participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, I will say that from the beginning of this blog a recurring theme I write about is the importance of a military unit's history to the esprit of its soldiers and veterans.

Courtesy www.MilitaryVetShop.com.

Unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that the Department of the Army just doesn't get it. When the Army went from organizing by regiment to divisions, that was okay from a lineage standpoint because soldiers have always taken pride in the shoulder patch of their parent unit and regiments were the building
blocks of the Army that could move from one division to another. However when the Army began to create brigade combat teams that would deploy separately, without their division headquarters like some kind of "plug and play" component, the shoulder sleeve insignia lost a lot of its meaning. The Army's plan was to provide the battalions within these BCTs a regimental affiliation so that the soldiers would have an anchor of unit history and tradition, that - with a few exceptions like the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the Armored Cavalry Regiments - really had nothing to do with the BCT or the division the battalion was assigned to. And now that disregard for lineage, tradition, and unit history has come full circle because apparently decisions on which brigades to deactivate are being made with a total disregard for the regimental affiliations of the battalions within that brigade.

Why bother with unit crests or shoulder sleeve insignia at all? Maybe soldiers could just wear bar codes?

Book R & R: The Brigade

Today’s Book Review and Recommendation is "The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII" by Howard Blum.

I had bought a copy of The Brigade a couple of years ago, and there it was on the shelf, sleeping away while others came into the house and jumped ahead of it in the queue. Between purchasing and reading the book, I had read one of Blum’s other works, The Floor of Heaven, a nonfiction story that occurred during the Yukon Gold Rush, (which was outstanding, btw) without realizing that it was written by the same author. As these things happen, the other day I was looking for a new book to start and I noticed The Brigade. Something that rates books very high for me is learning about events I was not already aware of. This book was a pleasant surprise. I wish I had read it sooner.

 The end of the nineteenth century brought the rise of the Zionist movement that inspired Jews from Europe to immigrate to Palestine. This did not sit well with the Ottoman Turks who controlled the area, but it was supported by Great Britain, who would push the Ottoman Empire out of Palestine during the First World War. After WWI, the League of Nations awarded Britain a formal mandate to administer the region. This “British Mandate” was in effect from 1922 until the state of Israel declared independence in 1948.

Due to a lot of political pressure and a measure of military necessity, Great Britain formed the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group during the last year of WWII, most of the members of which were from Palestine. The unit trained and was deployed to northern Italy where they were in combat from March to May of 1945. After the war, the Jewish Brigade was kept in Italy, and later in Belgium to serve as part of the Army of Occupation. One suspected reason for maintaining the Brigade in Europe was that the British government did not want to add fuel to the fire in the volatile Middle East by returning several thousand trained Jewish soldiers to Palestine. However, a number of the Brigade’s soldiers were members of the Haganah and had an agenda of their own. The Haganah was the main underground Jewish militia in Palestine who defended Jewish communities against violent Arab incursions, and fought a campaign for independence against the British Mandate. First, members of the Brigade formed assassination squads that scoured post war Europe terminating former low level war criminals. Later, with coordination and guidance from superiors in Jewish Palestine, the Brigade systematically helped thousands of displaced Jewish refugees, the majority concentration camp survivors, illegally immigrate to Palestine. They also worked at smuggling weapons to Palestine to prepare for their war of independence they all knew was coming. Finally, unable to control their activities, the British government disbanded the Jewish Brigade and sent the soldiers home. These Jewish soldiers became the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

In The Brigade, author Howard Blum tells the story of the Jewish Brigade through the narrative of three soldiers who were involved with both the termination of Nazi war criminals and the smuggling of people and weapons to Palestine. This not only a story of fighting unit during World War II, but also a story of the Holocaust and its aftermath. While one of the soldiers searches for his sister left behind in Poland, Blum tells of the sisters struggles for survival. At times the narrative takes on the pace and excitement of a spy story, while the reader is on the edge of their seat hoping that the soldiers do not get caught on their clandestine missions.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have been a member of this Brigade. With Arabs trying to kill you at home, going to war to fight Germans, and then dodging the British and Russian military forces to help your people reach freedom, knowing that if you are caught you will be treated like a criminal and a traitor. It must have seemed like they were fighting a war that would never end. Their sense of duty was incredible. We’ll never know what it was like to be them, but their story does provide insight to what they were fighting for and the impetus for the modern state of Israel. The Brigade is fast paced and an entertaining read. I highly recommend it, not just for military history buffs.

We Jumped the TOC again!

According to Forbes magazine, about 40 million Americans move each year. For the last few years, Sheila and I have added to that statistic. This blog got its name from our wandering about the country, besides the fact that my interests drift to so many different subject areas. We have been in search of that part of the country that was the perfect balance between geography, weather, people, politics, and history. After trying out several sections of the USA, we've come full circle and decided that where we started out is actually where we belong. So last month we moved to Fresno, California's best kept secret and my adopted hometown.

This marker, on the Sugar Pine Trail at the corner of Shepherd and Maple,
says "Site of historic Williams Ranch which saw first use of a Caterpillar
tractor for farming - 1920's, Provided by Jim Kaufmann." This marker
sits in front of a luxury apartment complex.

Sheila and I both grew up in southern California. We've lived in Fresno before. I graduated from Fresno State in 1984 and received my commission through the ROTC program there. All of the familiar sites and sounds are back, including 100-degree days (but it's a dry heat) and Wah's Kitchen, the best Chinese food I've had since I was in college (thirty years since I was a regular customer and nothing has changed, except the prices are just a bit higher. Everything is great; try the lunch special!).

California has some world-class historic sites and museums. I'm looking forward to sharing some of our trips to these and maybe some articles on local history. But I'd be the first to admit, we don't have an over abundance of historic buildings left standing, especially here in the San Joaquin Valley. California is big on building new, and I know you cannot (or should not) preserve every old building. But that doesn't mean we should not acknowledge what was once there. I'd like to show you a couple of examples I found along my new favorite bike path.

This marker, on the Sugar Pine Trail on Shepherd Ave between Chestnut and
Willow Avenues, says "Site of Garfield School known as the first Native
American school in the area. 1884 Provided by Thielen and Associates"
Behind the marker is a relatively new housing development.

Fresno's Sugar Pine Rail Trail is one of the smarter things this city has done in the thirty years since I was in college. The original railroad brought logs from the local Sierra Nevada mountains to a lumber mill located in a place called Pinedale (now a Fresno neighborhood surrounded by new development). The Pinedale area has an interesting history of its own, and I'll get to all that in a future post. The route of the railroad is now a paved bicycle path that cuts through neighborhoods and runs beside busy boulevards for thirteen miles through north Fresno and the neighboring city of Clovis. It is awesome to have an off-street trail of this length that is accessible by so many walkers, joggers, and bicyclists in order to safely exercise or use it as a transportation corridor to go to the store or the library. Bike paths and bicycle lanes together is one of the major reasons we settled here. Are you listening local government?

I've shared with you pictures of two monuments, erected not by a government agency or local historical society, but placed through the efforts of private parties. The monuments, found along the Sugar Pine trail, point out what was in this location prior to suburban development. I was thrilled to see that someone thought enough of the history of this area to place those monuments even though there was no remaining evidence of what was there before. It reminds me of a state historical marker program, only this was accomplished by private funds.

There will be more information coming from "Fres-waii" (our name for our new home because we can live in shorts and t-shirts nine months out of the year). But in the meantime I had to share these pictures with you. It made me happy to find them.

Soldiers Behaving Badly

I read a book review in the New York Times that ties in nicely with the theme of the last post, the fact that  people of different countries have varying perspectives of WWII. The book reviewed is "What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France" by Mary Louise Roberts. The book was just released, so I haven't had time to read it yet, but it is definitely going on my wishlist.

Roberts, a professor of French History at the University of Wisconsin, has mined French archives and U.S. military records to bring to light an apparent epidemic of sexual assaults committed by members of the American military upon French civilians during WWII. She makes the argument that these crimes were encouraged by American military propaganda dished out to soldiers prior to the D-day invasion, overlooked if not condoned by the military authority, and the knowledge of it concealed from the public back home.

As pointed out in the New York Times article, we have collectively mythologized WWII as "the good war" fought by "the greatest generation." I hasten to add a caveat: I believe (and I doubt many would argue with me) that the accomplishments of the American military, industry, and home front during the war were incredible. However, we have heard, and easily believe and retain, stories of wartime atrocities committed by the enemy (primarily the Germans and the Japanese) and even our allies (Soviets). But we're loath to read about any systemic criminal activity on the part of our own soldiers, much less war crimes committed against civilians, particularly rape and murder. But as Stanford's Professor David Kennedy is quoted in the New York Times, we should not be saying "aha," but instead be saying, "of course."

Several times in my life I have either read or heard someone utter some derivation of the statement "yes, bad things happen in war" when presented with a story of an American war crime. As if they are really saying, "sure, sure, now...can we move on to a story of American valor and courage where we are, of course, the good guys?" No doubt that WWII history is a genre that is consumed by the public. And most popular historians will write about subjects that sell. The story presented in "What Soldiers Do" is a wonderful example of the beneficial work that academic historians do. Someone needs to look at the tough subjects, even if they won't be popular in the marketplace. Terrible things do happen in war. But if we want to stop them from occurring, we have know about them. At the risk of being criticized for quoting Dr. Phil, "monsters live in the dark."

WWII, From Different Perspectives

May 8, 2013 was the 68th anniversary of V-E Day or "Victory in Europe" day (commemorated on May 7th in the Commonwealth countries). Of course it was mentioned on radio, television, and on the Internet in more locations than I could keep track of. But usually it came across as just an aside, like some small factoid of trivia, and just as quickly left behind for the next news item. However, a couple of articles I ran across made me think of how the Second World War continues to have an effect on many people around the world. Quite a few of them view those years quite differently than we Americans do.

Even before the era of the "Band of Brothers" our collective memory was shaped by our media. I grew up with movies like "The Longest Day" and the Vic Morrow in "Combat" reruns on television. I reveled in the war stories of my several relatives who were veterans of World War II (all of them survived the war and have since passed away). When the Army sent me to Germany in the mid-80s, I was no different than many Americans are now: with a detached and almost romanticized view of the war. None of the tragedy of war was handed down to me. It became a bit more real when I was exposed to some of the tangible effects. Trips to historic sites like Bastogne, Arnhem, and Dachau helped to make it real. More so the people I met who were affected by the war. My landlords father, Willie (I called him "ompa"), told me how he deserted from the Eastern Front in order to surrender to American forces near his home. Probably a good thing he did, as I dated a German girl whose father was held as a prisoner of war by the Russians for eleven years and did not make it back home until 1954! Her landlady was a 19-year old bride, married for only three weeks when her husband went to war, never to return and with no word of what happened to him. She never remarried.

I ran across a curious article from a Prague newspaper while surfing around about how Czechs remember the war. Basically, according to the article, they don't talk much about it. There are a few publishers in Czechoslovakia who print books on German Aces, but basically the war is forgotten in the collective memory of young Czechoslovakians. I had to give that some thought. From my perspective, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and they country suffered as much as other Eastern European countries. But there are many ethnic Germans in the country and although over 140,000 Soviets died taking it back, the Czechs had to suffer through decades of communist rule as a Soviet satellite. So the Red Army can't possibly be the good guys. Rather than explain it, maybe they feel it's better not to talk about it?

What really tweaked my beak was the news release about Ireland passing a law that pardons those members of their military who left to join the military forces of Great Britain during WWII. Wait, what?! Still hard to wrap my brain around this. Ireland maintained neutrality during World War II. However, many of her citizens had ties to Great Britain, saw the threat to both England and Ireland, and chose to fight. "Around 60,000 citizens of the Republic of Ireland" fought in Allied armed forces, most of them for Great Britain. Almost 5,000 of them were members of the Irish military. Upon their return they were branded as deserters and placed on a formal blacklist, created by a law passed by their legislature, that prevented them from receiving their retirement, or any kind of government funded job. The law made them social pariahs and virtually condemned the veterans and their families to poverty. The people called the law the "starvation order." Now that enough time has passed, clearer thinking realized that the government of Ireland owed these individuals and their families an apology. Unfortunately, there are only about 100 of these veterans still living.

I have no conclusion to give you other than to state that I wanted to bring these stories to your attention. I hope that as we lose our WWII era veterans and their contemporaries who served on the home front, we will view that tragic time in American history for what it really was. That as a result of the sacrifice and tragedy of people around the world and here in the U.S., the war was followed by a time of great economic prosperity for America, the United States was positioned as a dominant world power, and a 45-year Cold War was initiated. I hope that the war will not be remembered only as a background setting for movies and television. I do trust that we will teach future generations its lessons learned through real events that were experienced by real people.

503rd PIR in Australia, Yesterday and Today

This post is actually about bringing the hobby of metal detecting and the enjoyment of history closer together. But in honor of Anzac Day occurring this week (and the fact that I'm working on book about the 503rd), I found an illustrative example that includes the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment and their time "down under" training in Australia during WWII.

First, take a moment to think about the relationship between metal detector enthusiasts and archaeologists/historians. My history friends that I've conversed with about relic hunters (two National Park Rangers and an Archaeologist), to put it plainly, did not have a high opinion of "relic hunters." The punishments for getting caught metal detecting on National Park property usually worked its way into the conversation. How is the view from the other direction? I have to assume that most metal detecting enthusiasts do not really understand why so few sites have been examined and what all the fuss is.

This dialogue in my mind came up when I ran across a post on the Society for Historical Archaeology blog about archaeologists and metal "detectorists" coming together in Montpelier. Here's the gist, borrowed from the SHA blog:

In mid March, the Montpelier Archaeology Department completed the first public archaeology program at Montpelier that was open to the general metal detecting public. This program pairs metal detectorists with trained Montpelier archaeology staff to conduct gridded metal detector surveys across a section of the 2700-acre property to locate and identify archaeological sites. This survey work is combined with lectures regarding what archaeology can reveal of sites, human activity, and how it meets the goals of a historic site such as Montpelier. On one level, the purpose of this program is to locate historic sites so they can be preserved. It just so happens that controlled and gridded metal detector surveys are one of the most efficient means of finding a range of sites from ephemeral slave quarters, to barns, and sites characteristically missed by standard shovel test pit surveys.

As you will find out in the article, both sides learned lessons from each other. The dectorists began to feel appreciated in having a valuable skill set gathered over years of pursuing their hobby. Apparently the interaction also went a long way toward convincing the archaeologists the the hobbyists were not the "looters" they were stereotyped to be.

And what, you may ask, does this have to do with the 503rd Parachute Infantry during WWII? Well, in 1942 the 503rd spent about eight months in Gordonvale, Queensland, Australia. They were training there in preparation for their first combat jump, at Nazdab in New Guinea. While writing about this period, I found the most interesting video, posted on YouTube by a member of the NQ Explorers, a group that maintains a blog about their relic and coin hunting trips around Australia. The video is very well done, with newsreel clips about the 503rd as an opener, then a drive through the local area to the site that gives you an idea of what the terrain is like. Next you see the site of the parachute packing sheds is now a park and tennis club. But the  detectorist finds some coins, a shell casing, and a belt buckle in the lawn around the tennis courts.

I thought this hobbyist provided a great service by not only making others aware of the subject, but also letting me get a glimpse of a historic site that I was interested in. I have to criticize the detectorist's historical knowledge, however. I've embedded the video below so you can see for yourself. I had to wonder, would this hobbyist enjoyed his trip more if he had a deeper appreciation for his subject? I'm undoubtedly biased, but I think so. Regardless, good on ya, mate. I appreciate the visit.

Book Review – Death in the Baltic

Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by Cathryn J.Prince

If you ask any given person what the worst maritime disaster was in history, (of those who could bring one to mind) you would probably hear about the Titanic, or even the Lusitania. However, I’d say it’s a safe bet that the odds are astronomical that you’ll find someone who knows about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Now author Cathryn J. Prince has brought this story to our attention.

The province of East Prussia is located on the Baltic Sea, between Latvia and a small sliver of Polish territory that allows that country access to the Baltic. Historically, the area was a Polish duchy, but when Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union in their Non-Aggression Treaty of 1939, the territory went to the Nazis. Where before East Prussia was an area of mixed ethnicity, now began a period of "Germanification." The Nazis and the Soviets relocated the civilian population by the hundreds of thousands. Ethnic Germans were expelled from Soviet states and relocated to East Prussia.

East Prussia, having been separated from the rest of Germany during the interwar years, had not been overly influenced by the Nazi rise to power. They were also relatively unaffected by the war until late 1944 when the Red Army started closing in. That all changed when the Soviets began to retake their former territory. Retribution for Germans was terrifying. The anticipated rape and murder by Russian soldiers created a panic to flee the area. However, Hitler would not allow any evacuation of civilians from East Prussia until Russian tanks were literally breaking through the German defensive line. Almost too late, the head of the German Navy, Admiral Karl Donitz, launched Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of both military and civilians across the Baltic to the German port of Kiel.

The goal of Operation Hannibal was to move one million military personnel and two million civilian refugees by ship and/or train from the eastern provinces to northern Germany beginning on January 23, 1945. Over 800 ships, both military and merchant marine, would participate. One of those ships was the Wilhelm Gustloff, a luxury cruise ship launched in 1938. The ship had been previously used as a troop transport, hospital ship, and floating barracks for the German navy. It was designed to carry only 2000 passengers and crew when it operated as an ocean liner.

On the night of January 30, 1945 the Wilhelm Gustloff departed Gotenhafen enroute to Kiel. It was estimated, since no records survived if any were available, that the ship carried over 9,000 souls. The majority were civilian refugees, women and children, and a number of wounded military personnel on board. A short time later, the Wilhelm Gustloff was struck by three torpedoes fired by a Soviet submarine S-13. The ocean liner sunk within an hour. Since there were lifeboats for only a fraction of those on board,  many drowned in the freezing Baltic. There were approximately 1200 survivors. Some estimate the death toll as high as 9,400. For perspective, the sinking of the Lusitania took under 1200 and the Titanic claimed just over 1500 lives.

The sinking was not deliberately kept secret over the years, but it wasn’t exactly publicized either. In post WWII America, not many people cared about what had happened to our former enemies. The ensuing Cold War with the Soviets further obscured the tragedy in the world’s collective memory. Author Cathryn Prince heard about it one day and was driven to find out more. She found a survivor who had since immigrated to Canada. Prince went there to interview him. That’s all it took to compel Prince to find more survivors to interview, and finally tell their story.

Prince articulates an observation that Americans have a tendency to not acknowledge the suffering of the German people during the war, not wanting to view them as having the right to be “victims” of the Nazis like other nationalities in Europe (p. 181). But if we are able to put those prejudices aside, there is a lot to learn in the details of the closing days of WWII in the European Theater. Moreover, as a reader and writer of military history, I think it’s a good thing that we periodically put strategy and tactics aside and examine the experiences of civilians during war.

The book is well written and reads at a good pace. There is no fluff, coming in at 236 pages including back matter, but it is a thorough history. The reader will learn about what happened on the Eastern Front in the closing days of WWII, and be caught up in several of the survivor stories. Photographs of the survivors as children help us see them as real people who went through extraordinary events. In the interest of full disclosure, Palgrave Macmillan provided a review copy of this book. I’m glad they did, as at first glance it was not a subject I would have chosen. However, I highly recommend Death in the Baltic. It is an interesting, well told story that brings a little known event from WWII to light.

The Fountain of Youth?

Down in St. Augustine, they are celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Ponce de Leon landing in Florida this week. According to the St. Augustine Record, events during the week-long celebration will include the unveiling of a new statue to the Spanish explorer where historians now believe he landed, a reenactment of said landing, and a wreath laying ceremony at the existing statue of Juan Ponce de Leon in town.

We all learned about Ponce de Leon when we were kids. He was a Conquistador. He "discovered" what is now Florida in 1513. He was looking for the Fountain of Youth, right? Wrong. The waters that reversed aging was a legend, both in Leon's time and in ours. Ponce de Leon was tied to it by his contemporaries and later by our own Washington Irving, probably one of the first of a long line of American writers of fanciful historical fiction. The real story is that most explorers knew where Florida was. Ponce de Leon was the first to claim it for Spain and attempt to explore its interior. He was, of course, looking for gold or certainly some other commodity to exploit. Juan was trying to keep up with his fellow conquistadors who were gaining fame overthrowing Central and South American native societies. On his second trip to Florida, with the intent of setting up a colony, he was wounded in a fight with the locals. He later died of his wounds.

I read the true story of Ponce de Leon in Tony Horwitz' book "A Voyage Long and Strange." I mentioned reading this book back in December 2008. (It was such a good book that I think it's about time to get a copy of it and read it again.) Horwitz describes how we celebrate different groups that "discovered" America, including Vikings in Canada, and explains that what we are celebrating or what we think we know about these groups and events is usually just mythology created by popular culture.

T.D. Allman reminds us of the mythology surrounding the Ponce de Leon story on this benchmark anniversary in an opinion piece in the New York Times (which is also really worth reading). Allman is the author of "Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State." I haven't read his book yet, but I put it on my wishlist, simply based on this op-ed in the NYT. I enjoyed Allman's straightforward language and I assume we also share a frustration with the influence of popular culture.  Allman writes that "If we took the trouble to understand the past, we might stop building our lives on top of sinkholes." In other words, if we don't tell the truth, and we don't take away any lessons, we're going to keep making mistakes. If that is the case, and we're just going to listen to the people making up stories, why do we pay historians to try to find out the truth? And besides, in my opinion the true story is just as exciting, and often more so, than the myth.

Remembering Bataan

This April 9th marks the 71st anniversary of the 1942 Bataan Death March of WWII. On March 17th of this year, the veterans who suffered during the infamous event were honored at the 24th annual memorial march at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

WWII Poster that urges civilian workers to

"Remember Bataan and Corregidor." National

Archives image ARC 515483

I just finished writing an introductory chapter for a book on the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment during WWII. The subject is the Japanese successes in the beginning of the war, paying particular attention to the fall of the Philippines. (The 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team is the unit that took back Corregidor in 1945.) My editor/proof reader/wife, Sheila, now with her radar tuned to the subject, passed on an article in Stars and Stripes to me about an event that honors the veterans of this tragic episode in American military history. As I was unaware of this annual happening, I'd like to share the information with you here, as I'm guessing there is a few readers out there that did not know about the annual Bataan Memorial Death March either.

During the fight for the island nation in early 1942, American and Filipino forces withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula on the north end of the opening to Manila Bay, on the west coast of the island of Luzon. Allied forces, without reinforcement or resupply, held out for almost five months before surrendering on April 9, 1942. Approximately 76,000 Allied soldiers (just short of 12,000 Americans, the rest Filipino) became prisoners of war. Almost a month later, the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay surrendered, with nearly 15,000 (a majority of American) Allied soldiers following their comrades into captivity.

The Japanese force marched their prisoners, who were sick, exhausted, and diseased, over sixty miles non-stop to prison camps in the interior of Luzon. Exact casualty figures are not possible, but it is estimated that between five and ten thousand Filipino soldiers and from six hundred to a thousand Americans died on what became known to history as the "Bataan Death March." Thousands more would die in POW camps before being liberated in 1945. The news of these atrocities of course made it back to the United States. During the war the public was galvanized in their resolve to win the war with "Remember Bataan," "Remember Corregidor," as well as "Remember Pearl Harbor."

Both soldiers and civilians participate in the Bataan Memorial 

Death March through the desert at While Sands, NM to honor

WWII veterans of the tragic Bataan Death March of WWII.

USAF photo.

For a few years after the end of WWII, Americans acknowledged "Bataan Day" but it fell out of the collective memory in favor of "Pearl Harbor Day" and "V-J Day." April 9th remains a national holiday in the Philippines, known as "The Day of Valor." However, it came to the attention of the Army ROTC detachment at New Mexico State University that there were many veterans of the Bataan Death March living in there state. The 200th and 150th Coast Artillery were units from the New Mexico National Guard that had been mobilized and sent to reinforce the Philippines before the Japanese attack. In 1989 the New Mexico State ROTC cadets organized the first Bataan Memorial Death March through the high desert of the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, NM.

Now in its 24th year, the memorial march is a rough 26.2 miles through the desert at high elevation. Both civilians and soldiers come to march (and many to run) the course to honor those veterans who suffered through the original Death March. This year there were thirteen veterans able to attend the memorial and witness over three thousand take to the route to honor their service and sacrifice. The weather in New Mexico, apparently dry and in the mid-seventies, probably seemed perfect for the event. Compare that to the forecast for Manila, which was 96 degrees with over 60% humidity.

The Bataan Memorial Death March now has a long list of sponsors, most notably the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). But I'd like first throw out a "well done!" to the ROTC cadets who organized this event in the first place. And second, give a shout out to the folks who take the time to travel out to a military reservation out in the desert and gut out twenty-six as their way of showing these veterans that we remember. Keep this on your radar. Who knows, maybe one day we'll see each other there.

Honoring Leslie Ervin Green

PFC Les Green, B Company, 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion, was one of only 55 men in his battalion left standing at the end of the Battle of the Bulge.

Private Leslie Ervin Green, c. 1943.

One of the pleasures that come with writing a book like The Boldest Plan is the Best: The Combat History of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion during WWII, is the interaction you have with people who read your book and were moved to contact you. I am grateful to those folks and answer every letter and email I receive. Via Facebook, I was contacted by Pat Stephen of Morgan, Utah. Pat lost her father during the Battle of Midway when she was only 4 years old. Her uncle, Leslie Green, served with the Gingerbread Men during WWII. She was 8 years old when he came home from the war. Pat is 74 now and has many fond memories of her uncle. She recently sent me some information and a few pictures of her uncle Les, and I wanted to share those with you here.

Leslie Ervin Green was born on June 23, 1923 in Lebanon, Missouri. At age nineteen, Green was inducted into the United States Army on March 10, 1943 at the Army Induction Center in Arlington, California. Les spent his first thirteen weeks in the Army going through infantry basic training at Camp Roberts, California. That was followed with four weeks at Fort Benning, Georgia for jump school.

Click to enlarge and read article.

Les Green, and likely his whole class that had just completed parachute training, would move to the European Theater as replacements. In September of 1943, Green and his fellow paratroopers, moved from Fort Benning by train to Fort Patrick Henry, New Jersey, and then by convoy to the Port of Oran, in the North African country of Algeria. The trip took twenty-eight days.

From Oran, Green and the other paratrooper replacements moved by rail to the airborne training center that had been set up at Oujda, French Morocco. After weeks of intense training, Green boarded a train once more, this time bound for the Port of Bizerte, Tunisia. From Bizerte a convoy of ships carried Green and his fellow paratroopers to Naples, Italy.

Les Green was assigned as a rifleman in B Company, 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion, who at the time was deployed within the beachhead at Anzio. On February 18, 1944 a small British landing craft put Green and his fellow soldiers ashore at Anzio. This was the beginning of a cumulative 180 days of service on the front lines. After Anzio, Green participated with the 509^th PIB in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. He served in the Maritime Alps. Finally, Les Green fought with the Geronimos in the Battle of the Bulge. Les Green was one of the 55 combat soldiers who were still standing when the Battalion was disbanded.

Paratroopers of the 509th PIB gather before a training jump.
Les Green is the first man standing on the right, wearing the
helmet. Photo courtesy of the Harvey Sutherland family.

After the disbanding of the 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the survivors were sent to other units. Les served with the 82^nd Airborne Division until the end of the war. In occupied Germany, PFC Green was part of General Eisenhower’s honor guard. Leslie Green returned home in November of 1945. He had served in six campaigns. Representing his service, he wore the Combat Infantry Badge, the Purple Heart, and the Bronze Star. During his service with the Geronimos he also earned two Presidential Unit Citations and a unit award of the Croix de Guerre.

Les Green is on the back of the tank entering Nice during
the liberation of southern France.

Like many of his generation, Leslie Green did not talk much about the war, being fairly humble about his role in it. But his memories of the war and admiration of the men he served with remained. Green worked for Home Savings Bank for several decades before retiring. He told his niece, Pat, one of the highlights of his life was making an honorary parachute jump in 1994, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion of southern France. Leslie Ervin Green passed away on February 16, 2011 in Kingsburg, California.

Leslie Green, B Company, 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion
walks down the streets of Nice, c. 1944.

Leslie Green was one of thousands who have been a part of the legacy of the 509^th Parachute Infantry, and one of millions who have worn the uniform of the United States military services. Through their service and sacrifice, these people have had an effect on so many others. Their country called, and they went. Those who were able to return lived, and continue to live, among us. They are your next door neighbor; they work down at the bank, or in the grocery store. These men, and women, are not faceless or nameless. Today I wanted to introduce you to one of them.

Les Green (on the right) served on General Eisenhower's
Honor Guard in occupied Germany.

PFC Leslie Green, a proud Geronimo veteran
of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.

Ballad of the Green Berets

I fully admit to my love-hate relationship with the History Channel. This morning rather than ranting about the errors and dumbing down of history, I have to give them a thumbs up for their "This Day in History" newsletter. This morning they included a couple of articles that I enjoyed, both about the Vietnam era.

The first was a reminder that today in 1971, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (the Blackhorse) departed Vietnam. The Regiment, minus the 2nd Squadron who stayed in Vietnam for another year, redeployed to Germany. They would spend the next 21 years there patrolling the East German border. If you have read this blog for a while then you know I'm intimately familiar with that part of the unit's history.

The second item that caught my attention was that on this day back in 1966 Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler hit #1 on the charts with his song "Ballad of the Green Berets." I loved this song when I was in elementary school, listening to it over and over again on my parents' 8-track. When my daughter wanted desperately to sleep in and be late to school, I would wake her up by singing this song at the top of my lungs. What kid could sleep through that? I went to YouTube and found a copy to share with you:

What I liked about History Channel's treatment of this was that they pointed out that when this song hit number one, there was still wide spread support for America's involvement in Southeast Asia. The first song that could be called an anti-war song to gain popularity was "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield that did not come out until 1967. I didn't recognize the title either, but you know it too: "Everybody stop, hey, what's that sound?" I went back to YouTube and found a copy of that as well:

So it made me think that you could use the Billboard Chart of popular music to track popular support for the war in Vietnam. In March of 1966 a "pro military" song goes to number one and is the best selling song of the year, while there are no "anti-war" songs on the charts. The next year, an "anti-war" song appears on the charts and becomes one of the songs most associated with the Vietnam era? Call me a geek, but I thought that was fascinating. Popular culture meets military and political history.

Book R&R - We Were Soldiers Once

Earlier this month I talked about going back and reading some of what I considered had become "classics" of military history that had gotten by me when they first came out. Admittedly this idea was spawned in part by all of the great books I was finding at used bookstores and my local library sales. I decided to start calling these posts "Book R&R," for review and recommendation. I hope you will find these books as meaningful as I did (or perhaps in some cases, take my recommendation to pass them by). I believe readers should review books as often as possible and recommend the ones they like to others. There are just so many outstanding books, and a good number of stinkers too, that we could all use a tip once in a while.

Book Review and Recommendation: "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed The War in Vietnam" by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway.

"We Were Soldiers Once" came out the year I left the Army (1992) and for a few years I had gotten away from reading any subject after WWII so this incredible book got by me. I suppose like many people I can thank Mel Gibson's movie for bringing this book back onto my radar. There is a reason this book is on the Center For Military History's Recommended Professional Reading List for Junior NCOs and is also on the United States Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List for 2013. Actually, General Odierno is joined by two previous Chiefs of Staff in recommending this book to his officers. I humbly join them. This is an amazing book. Not just a war story, but I believe an honest morality tale. It is both fascinating and disturbing at the same time.

There is probably nothing I can add to the hundreds of reviews of this book (367 on Amazon alone). However, I'd just like to tell you what lessons I took from this book. First of all, at the risk of hyperbole, I must say that I wish every American would read this book. In it, the reader will learn about the bravery of the American soldier and the real cost of war in terms of the sacrifice of those who have to fight it. It is a story that transcends the conflict in Vietnam and is very applicable to our modern military adventures, where the burden of war is carried by only a small number of our citizens.

The first half of the book describes the formation of what would become the 1/7 Cavalry, part of the first air mobile division (1st Cavalry Division) and its deployment to Vietnam in 1965. The 1/7th Cavalry is commanded by the co-author, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. Moore's battalion is sent into LZ X-ray and survives a battle against what would have been overwhelming odds if it were not for massive American artillery and close air support, along with the expert leadership of the officers and NCOs in the battalion from Moore down and the undisputed bravery of each individual soldier. Witness to this battle is reporter Joe Galloway, the other author of "We Were Soldiers Once." The fight for LZ X-ray is significant for study and analysis (both then and now) as the first major engagement between American air mobile infantry and the North Vietnamese Army.

The second half of the book, however, was not portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie. It tells the story of Moore's sister battalion, the 2/7th Cavalry, that was marching toward LZ Albany to be extracted after reinforcing the 1/7th at X-ray. While approaching the LZ, unprepared for meeting the enemy, the battalion was attacked by three battalions of NVA soldiers. The chain of command was not able to bring artillery and air support to their rescue in this engagement for several hours. The results were devastating. Both fights constitute the Battle of the Ia Drang, not just the part stylized in the movie version.

The most moving part of the book is revealed in the closing chapters. The stories of two of the soldiers' widows and two fatherless daughters bring to light how the sacrifices on the battlefield not only take the lives of amazingly talented soldiers, but also dramatically affect the loved ones at home, who also pay the price and for the rest of their lives. Reading about the aftermath and the effect on the veterans and their family members is a very emotional experience. However, even more amazing and anger inducing is the way the battle was treated by the leadership of the country. The upper management of the Army and the government refused any lessons to be learned from this battle, and the country continued on a path that we now know was already decided upon before the 1st Cavalry Division even arrived in Vietnam.

If anything I took away an amazing respect and gratitude for the soldiers who fought at LZ X-ray and LZ Albany. I was disturbed at the failure of our leadership and our citizens to take away the lessons offered by the event at the time. Although they were not heeded back in 1965, they are still there for us today. If you enjoyed the movie, I hope you will read the book. Only by knowing about it can we understand the whole and true story of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. History is rife with examples of the need for a citizenry that is engaged in our country's foreign policy. This is one of them.