First

Strike

The American
triumph you
never heard of

Hitler's
Harvard
Henchman

Bloody
Surprise at
Shanghai

MAY/JUNE 2013

How the Deuce Rolled

Over the Axis

WHG

ORDER TODAY!
Museum Store:
504.528.1944, ext. 244,
SHOPWWII.org or
americasww2game.com

USAOPOLY is a trademark of USAopoly, Inc. Copyright 2012 USAOPOLY. HASBRO and its logo and the MONOPOLY name and logo, the distinctive design of the game board, the four corner squares, the
Mr. Monopoly name and character as well as each of the distinctive elements of the board and playing pieces are trademarks of Hasbro for its property trading game and game equipment. 1935, 2012
Hasbro. All rights reserved.

WORLD

May/June 2013

WAR II
FEATURES
C O V E R S T O RY

First Strike

The Shanghai Gambit

The United States first large-scale

bombing mission of the war was a triumph.
Why, then, was it quickly forgotten?

China attempted to turn the tables on its

Japanese invaders by luring them into an urban
battleand very nearly succeeded

JOHN D. LUKACS

GREGORY CROUCH

Hitlers Harvard Man

E S S AY

30

Ernst Putzi Hanfstaengl called himself

half Americanbut his heart and mind
belonged to the Fhrer
ANDREW NAGORSKI

38

52

Lessons from The Caine Mutiny

This famous work of World War II fiction
is flush with timeless truths
DAVID T. ZABECKI

60

PORTFOLIO

Ghosts in Cement and Steel

Hitlers mania for massive fortification survived
the Reichs ruin to haunt Europe today

46

WEAPONS MANUAL

Americas GMC 6x6 Truck

To keep rolling toward victory, the Allies
needed trucks that could go the distance
JIM LAURIER

64

WORLDWARII.COM
For our blog Front & Center
plus online extras
World War II magazine
@WWIImag

INTERPHOTO/ALAMY
COVER: AP PHOTO

Endorsed by The National World War II Museum, Inc.

D E PA R T M E N T S
Weider Reader
Excerpts from our
sister publications

ANDREW CARROLL

22

Mail

World War II Today

Brewster Buffalo wreck discovered
off Midway; new museum wing
soarsand plunges; a modern
generals Reading List

12

Conversation
Reporter-turned-propagandist Betty
McIntosh on messing with minds
GENE SANTORO

20

War Letters
The many surprises confronting a
navy doctor in the Gobi Desert

Their Darkest Hour

A Japanese soldier speaks
of an unspeakable act
LAURENCE REES

25

Time Travel
Peleliu
RICHARD CAMP

26

Reviews
Patrick K. ODonnells Dog
Company; the Military
History Channels Nazi
Gospels; reads for
teens and tweens

66

What If
Stalin had signed an
alliance with the west?
MARK GRIMSLEY

75

Challenge
Steve McQueens
famous scene

79

Pinup

80

German troops load a captured Soviet 152mm howitzer at an emplacement on the Atlantic Wall near Biarritz, France.
On the cover: An American B-25B Mitchell medium bomber heads toward a target early in the war.

WHG

W EIDER H IS T O R Y G ROU P
EDITOR IN CHIEF

Stephen L. Petranek
David Grogan
Rudy Hoglund

executive editor
design director

Vol. 28, No. 1

EDITOR

MAY/JUNE 2013

Karen Jensen
Peggy Archambault
Michael Dolan
Guy Aceto
Aleta Burchyski
Jon Guttman
Gene Santoro
Paul Wiseman

Art director
Senior editor
Photo editor
Associate editor
research director
reviews editor
news editor

David Zabecki

Senior historian

ADVISORY BOARD Ed Drea, David Glantz, Jeffery Grey, John McManus,

Williamson Murray, Dennis Showalter, Keith Huxen

First Battle
of Bull Run

150th Anniversary
Civil War Coin

Karen G. Johnson Production director

Karen M. Bailey Production Manager
Barbara Justice
Senior Graphic designer

DIGITAL

Brian King
Gerald Swick
Kelvin Holland

director
editor
Producer

PRESIDENT & CEO Eric Weider

Bruce Forman
Chief Operating Officer
Pamela Dunaway Chief Marketing Officer

Get Your FREE

ow you can preserve important

history of the Civil Wars first
major land battle with a FREE
colorized U.S. Half-Dollar.
The First Battle of Bull Run
stunned the nation and changed the
course of history. Imagine owning
this 150th anniversary commemorative coin for just $2.95 shipping and
guaranteed delivery.
Send today and youll also receive
special collectors information and other interesting coins on approval. Limit
one coin. Satisfaction guaranteed.

PRODUCTION

Battle of Bull Run Colorized Coin

Yes! Send me the First Battle of Bull Run

half-dollar. Enclosed is $2.95. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. Limit one coin.

Quick order at MysticAd.com/UM217
Name ____________________________________
Address __________________________________
City/State/ Zip _____________________________

Check or money order NY State residents add sales tax.

Visa MasterCard Exp. Date ____/____
Send to: Mystic Stamp Company, Dept. UM217
9700 Mill St., Camden, NY 13316-9111

Rob Wilkins
Partnership Marketing director
Bill Breidenstine Product Marketing Manager
George Clark
Single Copy Sales director
ADVERTISING

Julie Kershenbaum
Advertising director

Julie.Kershenbaum@weiderhistorygroup.com
Richard E.Vincent national Sales Manager
richard.Vincent@weiderhistorygroup.com
Kim Goddard national Sales Manager
Kim.Goddard@weiderhistorygroup.com
Rick Gower Georgia
rick@rickgower.com
Terry Jenkins tennessee
terry.Jenkins@weiderhistorygroup.com
CSI Advertising, Inc. new York
csiadsales21@gmail.com
Kurt Gardner Creative Services director
DIRECT RESPONSE Russell Johns Associates, LLC
ADVERTISING
800-649-9800 WW2@russelljohns.com
Subscription Information
800-435-0715
Yearly subscriptions in U.S.: $39.95
2013 Weider history Group
List rental inquiries: Belkys reyes, Lake Group Media, inc.
914-925-2406; belkys.reyes@lakegroupmedia.com
World War II (iSSn 0898-4204) is published bimonthly by
Weider history Group, inc.
19300 Promenade drive
Leesburg, VA 20176-6500
703-771-9400
Periodical postage paid at Leesburg, VA and additional mailing ofhces.
POStMASter, send address changes to World War II
P.O. Box 422224
Palm Coast, FL 32142-2224
Canada Publications Mail Agreement no. 41342519
Canadian GSt no. 821371408rt0001
the contents of this magazine may not be reproduced
in whole or in part without the written consent of Weider history Group.

Printed in the U.S.A.

WORLD WAR II

Contributors

A Notice from the Editor

Dear Subscriber,
Some of you have recently reported suspicious phone calls or offers in the mail
to renew your subscription to World War II
magazine. Your uneasiness may be justified.
While still rare, fraudulent mailings and
phone calls are increasing. We have
confirmed that criminal organizations
are attempting to represent themselves
as the Weider History Group, asking for
a check or credit card number to renew
your subscription. They take your money
but cannot deliver the subscription.

ZABECKI AND STUDENTS

These simple guidelines can help you

avoid becoming a victim:
Before renewing, check your mailing

CAMP

CROUCH

Dick Camp (Time Travel) retired from the

Marine Corps in 1988 as a colonel after

serving in a variety of command and staff
assignments. Since then, Camp was vice
president for museum operations at the
National Museum of the Marine Corps.
His books include Last Man Standing:
The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu, a topic
he explored firsthand on his recent trip
to the island.
Gregory Crouch (The Shanghai Gambit)

became intrigued by the 1937 Battle of

Shanghai while researching his 2012 book
Chinas Wings: War, Intrigue, Romance,
and Adventure in the Middle Kingdom
During the Golden Age of Flight. Crouch
was surprised to discover that he couldnt
find a single decent English-language
overview of such an important battle,
and decided to write one for World War II.
John D. Lukacs (Forgotten Valor), a fre-

quent contributor to World War II, is

a writer and historian whose work has
appeared in USA Today and the New York
Times. He is the author of Escape From
Davao: The Forgotten Story of the Most
Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War;
his upcoming book is on the Battle of
Manila. His website is johndlukacs.com.

NAGORSKI

Andrew Nagorski (Hitlers Harvard

Man) is an award-winning journalist and

former Newsweek bureau chief in Bonn,
Berlin, Moscow, Warsaw, Rome, and Hong
Kong, and is currently vice president and
director of public policy at the EastWest
Institute. The subject of Nagorskis article
is Hitlers bombastic half American
propagandist, Ernst Putzi Hanfstaengl,
who appears as a central character in the
authors fifth and most recent book
Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the
Nazi Rise to Power.
David T. Zabecki (True Fiction), senior

military historian for the Weider History

Group, started his military career as an
enlisted infantryman in Vietnam. While
serving as the Department of Defense
executive director for the World War II
60th anniversary observances in Europe
in 200405, he commanded the 3,300
American troops who supported the
ceremonies commemorating the D-Day
landings. In 2012 he served as the Dr.
Leo A. Shifrin Distinguished Professor
of Military History at the U.S. Naval
Academy at Annapolis, where he came to
appreciate his students perspective on his
favorite World War II novel: Herman
Wouks The Caine Mutiny.

label. You'll find your expiration date on

the line above your name, the second item
from right. If your subscription has not
expired and you receive a phone call
asking for your renewal, it is fraudulent.
The Weider History Group will not telephone you to renew unless your subscription
has actually expired.

Look carefully at mail requests. We do

not begin mailing renewal efforts more

than about six months before your subscription expires. We will never ask you
to write a check to anyone other than
World War II magazine or the Weider
History Group, and our mailing address
on the return envelope should be Palm
Coast, FL 32142, with P.O. Box 420456,
420457 or 420458.
If you are uncertain about any offer

you receive, simply phone us toll-free at

1-800-435-0715. Orders placed through
this number are secure. Or you can go
onl i n e a n d p l a ce yo u r o rd e r a t
www.HistoryNet.com and click on the
secure link for Subscription Help.
We sincerely appreciate having you as a
faithful reader and we are eager to help
make the experience of subscribing to
World War II magazine pleasurable. Always
feel free to contact the editor, Karen Jensen,
at worldwar2@weiderhistorygroup.com.

M AY / J U N E 2 01 3

WORLD

WEIDER READER

WAR II

A sampling of decisive moments, remarkable adventures, memorable characters,

surprising encounters, and great ideas from our sister publications

MILITARY HISTORY
QUARTERLY

AMERICAN HISTORY

MILITARY HISTORY

Does This Uniform

Make Me Look Fat?

Lusitania Crisis Tests

Woodrow Wilsons Nerve

1945: An American Army

Comes into Its Own

In May 1915, a U-boat

torpedo sent the ocean
liner Lusitania to the
bottom of the sea and
pushed the U.S. to
the brink of joining a
conflict under a president whose campaign
slogan had been He kept us out of war.

With the May publication of The Guns at

Last Light, writer Rick
Atkinson completed
his epic three-volume
history of World War II
in North Africa and
Europe. He addresses
how his sense of the U.S. Armys fighting
qualities has changed.

During World War II,

the Soviet Union sent
hundreds of thousands
of women into combat.
One of them, sniper
Lyudmila Pavlichenko,
is credited with killing
over 300 Germans.
LYUDMILA PAVLICHENKO, Russias
most famous sniper, didnt learn her craft
at the Central Womens School for Sniper
Training. The daughter of a Red Army
soldier, she trained as a young woman
with a shooting club affiliated with the
arms factory where she worked. During
the war, she racked up more than 300
kills and became legendary for her
toughnessshe was wounded four
timesand her endurance. Often, shed
lie in ambush for days.
Pavlichenko was sent to the United
States in 1942 to lobby the Allies to open
a second front on the Germans in
Europe. Americans did not send women
into combat, and the novelty of a female
killer thrilled them. Woody Guthrie
wrote a ballad extolling Pavlichenkos
virtues: Your smile shines as bright /As
my new morning sun / But more than
three hundred Nazi dogs fell by your
gun. The press surprised Pavlichenko by
asking about her makeup and hairstyle.
Dont they know there is a war? she
said. One reporter even questioned her
fashion sense, saying her uniform made
her look fat.
From Why Not Send Women to War?,
in the Spring 2013 issue

WORLD WAR II

WOODROW WILSON learned the

grim news of May 7, 1915, before he
had a chance to read it in the press, but
the full-banner headlines about the
German attack on a British ocean liner
accurately framed the predicament
confronting the former university president and governor. Lusitania Sunk by
a Submarine; Twice Torpedoed Off
Irish Coast, the New York Times blared.
Washington Believes That a Grave
Crisis Is at Hand. The New York
World wrote: President, Stunned,
in Seclusion.
Wilson was indeed stunned. A highminded intellectual and progressive, he
suddenly had to wrestle with brutally
real foreign policy issues. For nine
months he had kept the United States
out of World War I. Now, with 144 of
his fellow citizens dead, the war was
pressing closer to American shores. The
Lusitania crisis was the first major test
of Wilsons judgment, concentration,
and nerve. In dealing with the crisis, he
emerged as a war leadera role Wilson
never imagined for himselfand a
prophet before his time.
From Wilson At War, Wilson in Love,
in the June 2013 issue

WE WERE PRETTY incompetent in

November 1942, going into Africa
we being the American fighting man.
They were green at all levels, from the
theater commander on down. By the
spring of 1945 there had been a great
sifting-out, so that those with a gift for
commandas platoon leader or corps
commanderhad manifested themselves. There was a ruthlessness in
replacing those deemed unfit for command, so by the spring of 1945, I think,
the U.S. Army was pretty fine.
There has long been an argument
over whether, mano a mano, a German
unit was superior to its American
counterpart in a fair fight. That is a
nonsense question. Who is talking
about a fair fight in a global war? War
is a clash of systems, and it includes the
capacity to outfit and train units and
get them into battle in a way that
allows them to prevail. If you look at
the American army from that standpoint, the question of whether some GI
is a better combat soldier than some
German counterpart is just nonsense.
From Rick Atkinson: World War II
Finale, in the April/May 2013 issue

WEIDER READER

BRITISH HERITAGE

AVIATION HISTORY

VIETNAM

Mystery Solved
After 527 Years

Death Comes
for Yamamoto

Snookering SAMs Is
No Game for Amateurs

Scientists digging beneath pavement rocked

the worlds of history,
archaeology, and literature when they found
bones that have been
confirmed as being
those of one of
Englands most fiercely debated rulers.

In April 1943, two

U.S. Navy fliers met
with higher-ranking
officers on Guadalcanal. The purpose
of the meeting was
to plan how to shoot
down Japanese
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto the next day.

YES, A SKELETON FOUND underneath a car park in Leicester is the body

of King Richard III.
Working down the spine there were
vertebrae missing, said Jo Appleby,
who uncovered the cache of bones.
Then, there they were to the side,
where theyd be with severe scoliosis.
That was the aha moment.Up until
then, I had convinced myself that it
wasnt Richard, the osteologist
recalled. Then, I knew.
Its one of the most important
archaeological discoveries in decades,
solving one of the great mysteries of
British history. The remains of only one
king since the Norman Conquest,
Richard III, the last Plantagenet, had
remained lost.
Some 527 years after Richards
gruesome death in battle, the discovery
of his skeleton is all the more exciting
because of its sheer unlikelihood and
because of the extraordinary way the
evidence so easily and clearly corroborated the fallen kings identity. The
discovery was akin to reaching into the
proverbial haystack and pulling out
the needle on the first try.

THE SMOKY, sweltering, ramshackle

command bunker at Henderson Field
was packed with Navy and Marine
brass hats.
Lowly flyboys Captain Thomas Lanphier Jr. and Major John W. Mitchell
were the last to arrive at the redoubt, but
inexplicably found themselves being
treated like guests of honor.
One of the other men handed Mitchell
a message marked Top Secret: what
looked like the flight schedule for some
Japanese admirals inspection tour.
Whos Yamamoto? Mitchell asked.
Pearl Harbor, Lanphier said.
Harvard-schooled Isoroku Yamamoto,
commander of the Imperial Japanese
Navys Combined Fleet, had planned the
December 7, 1941, attack. Now U.S. Navy
code-breakers had intercepted Japanese
radio traffic indicating that early the next
morning, April 18, 1943, the famously
punctual Yamamoto would be over
Bougainville Island. The newly appointed air commander in the
Solomons, Rear Admiral Marc A.
Mitscher, saw an opportunity for a
surprise attack employing the 339ths
Lockheed P-38G Lightning fighters.
Were going to get this bird, the Navy
planners told Mitchell and Lanphier.

Loaded with electronics

and rockets, the twoseat F-105 Thunderchief became the work
horse of the intrepid
Wild Weasel teams
that ferreted out Sovietbuilt SA-2 missile sites
in advance of bombing missions. One 1968
mission epitomized this convergence of
courage and technology.

From Discovery: The Bones of Richard

III, in the July 2013 issue

From Death by P-38, in the

May 2013 issue

WARREN KERZON now found himself in a life-or-death game of chicken.

A pair of SA-2 missiles was barreling
at his F-105. Kerzon pushed down and
turned a bit so he was flying more on
his side, but his maneuver was in vain.
The SAMs remained locked on his aircraft, and both of the missiles were
closing fast.
With only seconds to react, Kerzon
had to calculate when to make a hard
pull-up. The SAMs had been launched
at close range, so the missiles were still
accelerating, approaching at about
3,000 feet per second. Darkness added
yet another degree of difficulty. If
Kerzon made his move too soon, the
SAM controllers could redirect their
missiles flight. If Kerzon was too slow
to act, he and the electronics warfare
officer in the Thunderchief s other seat
would be toast.
From Weasel vs SAMs Over Dong Hoi,
in the April 2013 issue

To subscribe to any Weider History

magazine, call 1 (800) 435-0715
or go to HistoryNet.com

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

WORLD

WAR II

COURTESY OF THOMAS LINDER

Mail

Machinist Albert A. Linder created these keepsakes of ships he fixed at Pearl Harbor.

Art for the Ages

MY FATHER, Albert A. Linder, made

trench art items like the ones in January/
Februarys Time Pieces while stationed
at Pearl Harbor during the war. He was
a machinist first class. He helped raise and
repair damaged ships, and made rings
from parts he saved.
He was very fond of the USS Wahoo
ring. Lieutenant Commander Dudley
Mush Morton always insisted on my
fathers crew to repair his submarine. He
even had a plane fly my father to the sub to
make repairs while the ship was underway.
Although my father was proud that he was
personally requested, he didnt appreciate
the thrill ride the 19-year-old pilot gave
him, or being in a submerged sub.
THOMAS LINDNER
WEST BEND, WIS.
THIS REMINDED ME of a story my
father-in-law, Joseph Graziano, tells from
his army service in the South Pacific.
Trained as an artist before the war, he made
a sculpture of Abraham Lincolns head
from clay he found during some downtime
on New Britain. When a group of natives
saw it, they began shouting and gesturing
toward the head, as they apparently had
never seen clay rendered with such realism.
They gave him the ultimate accolade for his
work: they picked it up and ran off with it!
WILLIAM THYMIUS
WILLISTON PARK, N.Y.
8

WORLD WAR II

A NITPICK TO BE SURE, but it appears

that the ashtray shown on page 55 was
made well after the Second World War.
The can appears to be from a Vietnamera C-ration, surrounded by .308-caliber
rounds on M60 machine gun links, which
werent used during World War II. Still
trench art, but just a bit newer.
DON KITCHEN
EAGLE RIVER, ALAS.

Striking Torpedoes

JOHN PRADOSS Torpedo Junction is

one of the few articles Ive seen that focuses
on specific Japanese sub activities as part of
a wider strategy. Most histories mention in
passing the sinking of OBrien and Wasp,
and damaging of North Carolina. Prados
framed it in the context of what it was: part
of an Imperial Navy master plan.
Two minor points: The Alhena was not a
merchant cargo ship, it was a navy cargo
ship (AK-26), later reclassified as an attack
cargo ship (AKA-9). The Kitty Hawk was
was an aircraft transport (AKV-1); it did
not have a carriers flight deck.
JOSEPH W. RACHINSKY
WEST CHESTER, PENN.
MY FATHER, Norm Riise, flew Wildcats
off the Wasp and was in the air when she
was torpedoed. He returned to see her listing and on fire. His squadron (VF-71) was
directed to another carrier, where they were
told there was no room for more planes.

They fueled up, got a clean set of underwear, and went on to Guadalcanal. Dad
spent several harrowing months there
flying with the Marines.
Dad is 97 and doesnt remember much
about those days. But he still gets the
Stinger, the newsletter of the USS Wasp
Association. Thats where I first learned
that the I-19 had wreaked so much damage
with one spread of six torpedoes. Prados
notes that it was the most successful
Japanese sub attack of the war. I wonder if
the Stinger was more accurate, calling it
the most destructive salvo of torpedoes
ever known in the history of warfare.
JOHN RIISE
LAKE ISABELLA, CALIF.

Neptunes Highest Honor

I READ KNEELING TO Neptune, and

having been there, done that, I could
relate to this story of becoming a Shellback.
There are two more levels of certificates
for crossing the line. If you cross the equator and the International Date Line within
24 hours you become a Golden Shellback. Cross both lines at the same time, you
become a Golden Dragon. You could have
three different initiations. A Shellback who
crosses at either of the other two places gets
the works again, and so does a Golden
Shellback who crosses both lines at once.
The Golden Dragon will cover them all.
I personally hold the Golden Dragon
certificate. When I was heading for combat
in 1944, less than 2 percent of navy personnel held it, and there were only four or five
Golden Dragons to start the proceedings.
Even the ships captain had to go through
the gauntlet and all the rest.
CHARLES W. CARSON
HOLTON, MICH.
AFTER READING Sterling Maces account
of his crossing ceremony, I couldnt help

Follow the Greatest Generation from

Normandy to Bastogne to Bavaria
with an Experienced Historian
D-DAY and the Battle of Normandy
Visiting: Omaha Beach Utah Beach Pointe du Hoc
Ste. Mre Eglise St. L Pegasus Bridge
PLUS
Bastogne Battle of the Bulge Hurtgen Forest
Siegfried Line Remagen
PLUS
Dachau Berchtesgaden Eagles Nest
Munich Nuremberg

THIS HALLOWED GROUND

A Journey through the Civil War in
Virginia and at Gettysburg
with an experienced historian
Summer and Fall 2013 departure dates

Summer and Fall

2013 departure dates

Gain deeper insight into Americas

most divisive war since the Civil War

The

Vietnam War
WEEKEND CONFERENCE

Historians will discuss many of the overriding

questions about the war that are still debated today.
Conference Site
Hilton Alexandria Mark Center
Alexandria, Virginia
2013 Conference Weekends:
April 47 and October 2427

For detailed brochures with 2013 dates and prices, please contact
MATTERHORN TRAVEL
Established 1966
46 years of successful group holidays

MATTERHORN TRAVEL
3419 Hidden River View
Annapolis, MD 21403

800.638.9150 410.224.2230
Holidays@MatterhornTravel.com

www.MatterhornTravel.com

Mail

but reminisce about my own as an

ordnance man on the Enterprise in 1982,
off the coast of Kenya. Our gauntlet
included a head-first slide through what
seemed like an endless supply of rubbish
that had been fermenting in the Indian
Ocean heat. I still carry my Shellback card
and it says much the same as Maces.
Maces prank on his buddy was also
funny. Often we would send a raw recruit
on a mail buoy watch. But the drop-dead
line was the Crap-class chum-bucket
description of his ship. We too referred to
Enterprise in less than flattering terms.
Semper Fi, Private Mace. Thank you for
your service and the fantastic story.
DAVE JOENKS
SANTA CLARA, CALIF.

Nazi Swine

IT WOULD SEEM that one of the German

dissidents in Brad Bauers Defiance of the
Lambs was adding insult to injury when
he wrote enjoy eating Russian caviar to the
detriment of the people to the Propaganda

Do you have a
World War II
artifact you cant
identify?
WE CAN HELP. Beginning with our
September/October issue, World War II
magazine is launching an exciting new
department, From the Footlocker,
created in conjunction with curators at
The National World War II Museum.
An example appears at right.
To participate, write to
Footlocker@weiderhistorygroup.com
with the following:
Your connection to the object and
what you know about it
The objects measurements
Several high-resolution digital
photos taken from different angles
and at close range. Pictures should
be in color, and at least 300 dpi.
Unfortunately we cant respond to every
query, nor can we provide appraisals.
10

WORLD WAR II

Ministry. Its been over 50 years since I

studied German, but if I remember correctly, there are two verbs for to eat: essen
is used when humans eat, and fressen, as in
the letter, refers to animals or describes
slovenly or piggish eating by humans.
RALPH RICCIO
ELVERSON, PENN.

You are correct: the writer is implying that

broadcaster Hans Fritzsche and his ilk are
eating caviar in a more animal-like manner.
Another translation would be gobbling up
your Russian caviar. Brad Bauer

An experimental Type 38 rifle folded, but

the design proved unsatisfactory.
DOSS WHITE
VIA EMAIL
YOU SAID THE TYPE 99 and Springfield
M1903 were based on the action of the
Mauser K98k. This is incorrect. The bolt
action of all three of these excellent firearms was based on the Mauser M98.
BOB SIKKINK
VIA EMAIL

Corrections

The WWII Today photograph of Russian

commissioners is from January 1944, not
March 1943. The church pictured on page
25 is at Saint-Marie-du-Mont.
Please send letters to:

World War II
19300 Promenade Drive
Leesburg, VA 20176

Firing Squad

THE ASK WWII on Japans Type 99

Arisaka has an error: there were no foldable paratroop models. The standard paratroop Type 2 disassembled into two pieces.

or e-mail:

worldwar2@weiderhistorygroup.com

Please include your name, address,

and daytime telephone number.

Q: My father was an officer in a naval construction battalion. This strange piece of hand gear turned up among his
possessions. What is it? Nelson Sweeney, Beavercreek, Ore.
A:

You have a Sedgley .38

Glove Gun, one of the
wars oddest weapons.
Manufactured in
Philadelphia, the
Sedgley was a singleshot pistol riveted to
a leather work glove. When a wearer
punched his target with his gloved
fist, a plunger extending in front of the barrel depressed, firing the pistol at
point-blank range. Although frequently identified as an OSS assassination weapon,
the Sedgley was designed by the Office of Naval Intelligence for Seabees, who
frequently came under attack by Japanese holdouts while building airfields and bases
throughout the Pacific Theater. The only recorded instance of a glove gun being used
was by a Seabee. Eric Rivet, Curator

FRITZSCHE LETTER: GERMAN. REICHSMINISTERIUM FR VOLKSAUFKLRUNG UND PROPAGANDA MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS, BOX 3, HOOVER INSTITUTION ARCHIVES

www.bradfordexchange.com/m1

This officially-licensed edition is strictly limited to just 5,000 worldwide, and strong demand
is anticipated. Act now to acquire your tribute at the issue price, payable in four interest-free
installments of $37.48, for a total of $149.95*, and backed by our unconditional 365-day
guarantee. Send no money now. Just mail the Reservation Application today.

An exceptional value unconditionally guaranteed

First produced in 1932, the powerful M1 Garand was so highly regarded that General
George Patton called it the greatest battle implement ever devised. Now, celebrate the
80th Anniversary of this legendary weapon, and its place in Marine Corps history, with
the M1 Garand: A Timeless Tribute Scaled Reproduction Panorama, exclusively from
The Bradford Exchange.
This custom-designed tribute unites the military portraits of artist James Griffin with
a sculpted Scaled Reproduction of the M1 Garand in exacting detail. The custom-framed
panorama is protected under glass, and features portraits of Dwight D. Eisenhower at
D-Day, the Liberation of France, Battle of the Bulge, the Battle of the Philippines, and the
compelling image of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima.

2013 BGE 01-14675-001-EI

Make a powerful statement

about your Marine pride.

SEND NO MONEY NOW

Zip

01-14675-001-E57301

Name (Please Print Clearly)

*Plus $15.99 shipping and service. Limited-edition presentation restricted to 5,000 worldwide. Please allow 4-8 weeks after initial payment for shipment. Sales subject to product
availability and order acceptance.

State

City

Address

Mrs. Mr. Ms.

Please reserve the M1 Garand: A Timeless Tribute

Scaled Reproduction Panorama for me as described in this
announcement.
Limit: one per order.
Please Respond Promptly

9345 Milwaukee Avenue Niles, IL 60714-1393

YES.

RESERVATION APPLICATION

Shown much smaller than actual size of 23" wide, 11" high and 1" deep built-in hanging device for easy and immediate display.

Marines always aim for excellence

Ofcially licensed by
The United States
Marine Corps
The Bradford Exchange
is a proud supporter
of the Marine Corps
Recruit Depot Museum
Historical Society

ion
Edit d to
e
l imit ,000!
5
just

Scaled
Reproduction
Panorama

2 f Nearl
eet y
wid
e!

WORLD

W W I I TO DAY

WAR II

Midway Discovery Raises Profile of

Late, Mostly Unlamented Fighter
The half-buried remains
include a bent propeller
encrusted with coral, tires
with Goodyear labels still
intact, and clumps of ammunition. Archaeologists traced
the ruined planes numbers
and revealed its provenance.
On February 12, 1942,
Marine Lieutenant Colonel
Charles W. Somers Jr. was
trying to land his Brewster
F2A-3 on Midways Eastern
Island during a squall and

Seventy years after a Brewster Buffalo sank at Midway, a diver examines its landing gear.
At right, a navy pilot flies a Buffalo stateside in 1942 before deploying to the Pacific.

ew mourned the fate of

the Brewster Buffalo in
mid-1942, when the
Grumman Wildcat replaced
the stubby prewar aircraft,
least of all pilots who had had
to fly the Buffalo in combat.
The U.S. Marines derided the
squat, much-maligned fighter
as a flying coffin.

Until last year, only one

Brewster Buffalo was known
to exist, in a museum in central Finland. That changed in
June when divers from the
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
were working at Midway
Atoll lagoon, which lies
within Papahanaumokuakea

Marine National
Monument, part of
the Hawaiian archipelago and one of
14 marine sanctuaries being
surveyed for historical artifacts and wildlife. In 10 feet
of water, members of the
underwater crew discovered
the wreckage of a Buffalo.

crashed. Somers survived and

went on to a distinguished
career, including a brief stint
with a Marine unit that later
gained fame as the Black
(continued on page 14)

D I S PAT C H E S

Patty Andrews, last of the

Dont Sit Under the Apple Tree

War II miniseries, following

Myanmar came up empty

(With Anyone Else but Me).

the acclaimed Band of

handed, the BBC reports (see

Brothers and The Pacific,

Spitfires in the Hole,

according to the Hollywood

September/October 2012).

Reporter. The untitled and

Treasure hunter David Cundall

enlivened USO shows singing

unscheduled project, to focus

claimed to have evidence that

such hits as Boogie Woogie

on the Eighth Air Force, will

as many as 124 fighters lay in

Bugle Boy (of Company B) and

draw from Donald L. Millers

crates beneath a Burmese

2007 book, Masters of the Air.

field. But Wargaming.net, the

Andrews Sisters, died January

30 at 94. With siblings Maxene
and LaVerne, Patty (on left at
right) sold war bonds and

Reported and written by

Paul Wiseman

12

WORLD WAR II

HBO plans a third World

Britons convinced they

would find Spitfires buried in

firm that financed Cundalls

quest, told the BBC there are
no Spitfires underground.

TOP: STEPHANI GORDON/NOAA/OPENBOAT FILMS; INSET: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; BOTTOM: AP PHOTO

W W I I TO DAY
New Orleans Museum Opens Exhibits That Take Flight, Dive Deep

he National World War

II Museum in New
Orleans, Louisiana, debuted
its latest addition in January.
Besides a multistory space
presenting vehicles and warplanes, the US Freedom
Pavilion: The Boeing Center
brings fresh eyes to history,
even simulating the terror of
being trapped aboard a
doomed submarine.
At the grand opening of
the $35 million pavilion,
John DiFatta, a former
Higgins boat crewman who
volunteers at the facility (1),
entertained with a song.
Crowds marveled at the
flock of restored warbirds
(2), including a B-17 and
(from left) a Corsair, a
Dauntless, a Mustang, and
an Avenger. Glass walls lend
the pavilion drama inside
and out (3), while a multisensory exhibit on the USS
Tang (4) lets visitors like
Alaster Adams immerse
themselves in the subs final
battle. In a replica torpedo
room (5) the color abruptly
changes (6) to signal an
emergency aboard the Tang
as one of its own torpedos
boomerangs back on the
sub, sending vessel and crew
to the ocean floor.

1. USCG PHOTO BY BOBBY NASH; 2, 3. THE NATIONAL WORLD WAR II MUSEUM; 4. TIMES/PICAYUNE/LANDOV; 5, 6. WILLIAM WIDMER

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

13

W W I I TO DAY
(continued from page 12)

Sheep Squadron for its fliers

combat exploits and roughand-ready attitude.
Not all Americans piloting
Buffalos had as much luck as
Somers. During the Battle of
Midway on June 4, 1942,
Marines in Buffalos attacked
two squadrons of Nakajima
torpedo-bombers. The
American planes proved no
match for the nimbler Zeros
escorting the bombers. Only
eight of 21 Buffalos returned.
The F2A-3 is not a
combat aircraft, wrote
Captain Phillip R. White, a
survivor of the Midway
encounter. Any commander
who orders pilots out for
combat in a F2A-3 should
consider the pilot as lost
before leaving the ground.
The Buffalos woes began
at the Brewster Aeronautical
factory, a former PierceArrow automobile plant in
Queens, New York. To ensure

that parts fit, workers assembled and disassembled the

planes, then trucked them in
pieces to Long Island for
reassembly and test flights at
Roosevelt Field. Production
was dogged by a string of
vexatious delays.
Beginning with the first
delivery to the U.S. Navy in
1939, Brewster Aeronautical
made 503 Buffalos. Of those,
340 were delivered to foreign
militaries. Britains Royal Air
Force, generally unimpressed
with American aircraft,
foisted its complement of
Buffalos off on its No. 71
Eagle Squadron, made up
of Americans.
Early on, the Yanks in the
RAF praised the fighters
maneuverability, but the aircraft had serious liabilities.
The engine leaked oil. At
15,000 feetcombat altitudethe Buffalo lost power.
Pilots found that upon landing the planes wheel struts

tended to buckle and break.

When the final model, the
F2A-3, acquired armor, the
extra weight negated what
few virtues the Buffalo had
the sports car transformed
to a slug, writes Daniel Ford
in his e-book The Sorry Saga
of the Brewster Buffalo. Then
came the Midway debacle.
Before incurring ignominy
in the South Pacific, though,
the Buffalo found glory
in the Arctic. In December
1939, the Finns, fighting the
Soviet Union and anxious to
update their aged air force,
paid $3.4 million for 44
Buffalos. Since the planes
would be land based, workers
at Brewster removed carrierrelated gear like tail hooks
and life-raft containers, lightening the aircraft, which the
Finns came to value so much
they gave it the nickname
Taivaan Helmi: Sky Pearl.
Battle hardened and facing
inferior Soviet pilots and

planes, Finnish airmen found

the American-made fighter
easy to operate, to repair, and
to modify. Mechanics in
Finland were able to eliminate the chronic oil leaks that
bedeviled the Buffalo everywhere else, and the cool
northern weather seemed to
suit the chunky and sometimes finicky plane.
The Finns claim to have
downed 500 Soviet planes at
the cost of only 28 Buffalos
one of which was retrieved
from the bottom of a lake,
given a cleaning, and now is
on display at the Aviation
Museum of Central Finland.
This seems entirely appropriate, Ford writes. After
all, it was only the Finns who
ever loved the plane.
The Buffalo wreckage
found at Midway will remain
undisturbed until park officials decide whether to
retrieve and display it or to
leave it in place.

Sugiharas List
or weeks, he worked through the
F
night, signing visa after visa. Chiune
Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat serving

Compassionate diplomat Chiune Sugihara at his desk in the Japanese consulate in Kaunas,
Lithuania, where in 1940 he issued visas that saved the lives of an estimated 6,000 Jews.

14

WORLD WAR II

in Lithuania, knew that he was providing more than travel documents. To

thousands of Polish and Lithuanian
Jews, he was delivering life itself.
Sugiharas effort to confound the
Third Reichs death machine has been
overshadowed by better-known humanitarians like Swedish diplomat Raoul
Wallenberg and German industrialist
Oskar Schindler. But as part of events
for January 27, 2013, International
Holocaust Remembrance Day, survivors
and their descendants honored the
Japanese official who defied his bosses
and approved visas that helped thousands of imperiled Jews survive.
Israels representative to the United
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM, COURTESY OF HIROKI SUGIHARA

W W I I TO DAY
THE READING LIST

Stanley McChrystal
Unbroken

Darbys Rangers

A World War II Story of Survival,

Resilience, and Redemption

We Led the Way

William O. Darby, with

William H. Baumer (1980)

Laura Hillenbrand (2010)

Hillenbrand is masterful in
weaving one mans story of
unbelievable strength, faith, and
endurance into the larger context of
world events. There are many aspects
of the war in the Pacific that this story
brings to light that I had never
contemplated before.

Darby and Baumer detail Americas

first truly special operations force,
which set the groundwork for all the
others to follow. Their direct legacy
continues today.
The Forgotten Soldier
Guy Sajer (1971)

This German soldiers account

of the Eastern Front is both poignant
and disturbingat first reading
like an adventure novel, and
then detailing the struggles faced
in the battles against the
Soviet military.

Stilwell and the American Experience

in China, 191145
Barbara W. Tuchman (1970)

Barbara Tuchman has always been

one of my favorite authors, and she
doesnt disappoint in her account of
Vinegar Joe Stilwell.

Beyond the War

Street Without Joy

Night Drop
The American Airborne Invasion
of Normandy

The French Debacle in Indochina, 194654

S. L. A. Marshall (1962)

Fall captures the difficulties

of the French attempting to retain
colonial control in a surging
tide of Vietnamese nationalism.

Marshall provides a vivid

account of the airborne invasion,
giving the reader a sense of what it
must have been like to be there and
detailing the heroic actions of
U.S. soldiers in France.
In Harms Way
The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and
the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors

Doug Stanton (2002)

Bernard B. Fall (1961)

Defeat into Victory

Battling Japan in Burma and India, 19421945

Field-Marshal Viscount Slim (1961)

Field Marshal William Slims memoirs

detail one of the lesser-known theaters
of the war. He provides an honest
account of a harrowing retreat.

This may well be the most

underreported story of valor, courage,
and sacrifice of World War II. Stanton is
able to recreate the emotions of the
actual events surrounding the USS
Indianapolistragic, emotional, and
inspiring all at the same time.

This is a moving memoir,

and a Marines very honest
account of his experience in the
Pacific Theater.

Nations remembered Sugihara and

others who helped Jews escape the Nazis
in a January 25 speech at the United
Nations General Assembly. These
inspiring stories must become guideposts for the international community,
Ron Prosor said. They remind us that

the responsibility to act is universal. A

UN facility in Accra, the capital of Ghana,
screened The Rescuers, a documentary
about Sugihara and those like him, and
the Illinois Holocaust Museum saluted the
diplomats commitment to the idea that
the actions of one individual can make a

ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE CAPLANIS

Goodbye Darkness
A Memoir of the Pacific War

William Manchester (1980)

Stanley McChrystal retired in July 2010 as

a four-star general in the United States Army.
His last assignment was as the commander
of the International Security Assistance
Force and the commander of U.S. forces in
Afghanistan. He had previously served as
the director of the Joint Staff and as the
commander of the Joint Special Operations
Command. He is currently a senior fellow
at Yale Universitys Jackson Institute for
Global Affairs and the cofounder of the
McChrystal Group, a leadership consulting
firm. McChrystal and his wife of 35 years,
Annie, live in Virginia.

difference....This is the Power of One.

For years, Sugiharas good works went
unrecognized; indeed, they ended his
career with Japans Foreign Ministry. He
spent most of his postwar life in obscurity. In 1985, a year before his death,
(continued on page 17)
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

15

Explore the dramatic military history of the Russian Front during World War II: a
sobering story of treachery, tragedy, heroism and survival. Russias memory of the
Great Patriotic War has been an important infuence on its contemporary character,
and we will learn of the old and experience the new on this wonderful tour.
Experience WWII history right where it happened. Planned and escorted by WWII
experts, The National WWII Museums signature tours ofer unmatched travel and
educational experiences.

A TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO THE PHILIPPINES

APRIL 3 - 13, 2013
Visit the tropical island nation of the Philippines and explore the site of
our militarys greatest defeat and later redemption, through MacArthurs
triumphant return.

THE ALLIED INVASION OF NORMANDY

MAY 31 - JUNE 8, 2013
Follow the story of the greatest invasion in history from England to France,
visiting important points of interest along the way, including Omaha Beach.

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

JUNE 8 - 15, 2013
Follow the story of the greatest invasion in history from England to France,
visiting important points of interest along the way, including Omaha Beach.

RUSSIA: THE EASTERN FRONT

AUGUST 2 - 14, 2013
Delve into the dramatic military history of the Russian Front during World
War II on this tour, where you will learn of the old and encounter the new.

SICILY: THE RACE TO MESSINA

SEPTEMBER 19 - 27, 2013
Follow in the footsteps of Patton and his army while examining the landing
areas and traversing the terrain on your own Race to Messina.

SOUTHERN ITALY: THE BROKEN ROAD TO ROME

SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 5, 2013
Travel from the Amalf Coast through Cassinos mountains and Anzios
beaches on to Mussolinis fascist capital on this fantastic journey.

To recieve a full-color brochure on these exciting tours, please visit

www.WW2MUSEUMTOURS.org or email travel@nationalww2museum.org.
The National WWII Museums hotline is 1.877.813.3329, ext. 257.

SPACE IS LIMITED AND SALES ARE UNDERWAY SO MAKE YOUR PLANS TODAY!

W W I I TO DAY
SOUND BITE

It begins to
look as though
in Hitler we
have a new
Napoleon who
may sweep
Europe and
conquer it.
William L. Shirer,
Berlin Diary,
September 9, 1939

(continued from page 15)

Israel added Sugiharas name to its

honor roll of the Righteous Among
Nations, an appellation reserved for
non-Jews who risk their lives for Jews.
During the 1930s, Sugihara, a descendant of samurai who was fluent in
Russian, became one of the rising stars
of Japans foreign service. But after he
protested his countrys brutal occupation of Manchuria, Sugihara found
himself shunted to the diplomatic backwater of the Japanese consulate in
Kaunas, Lithuania, in March 1939.
After Germany invaded Poland that
fall, Polish and Lithuanian Jews were
desperate to reach safety. Seeing Japan
as a way station to points beyond, Jews
came to the consulate where vice consul
Sugihara worked, seeking Japanese exit
visas, which could apply to a single
individual or, if granted to a head of
household, an entire family.
Recognizing what it would mean for
his visitors if they were not able to use
his country to reach a safe haven, the
anguished Sugihara sought permission
from the home office to issue documents. His superiors rebuffed his pleas
three times. Finally Sugihara took matters into his own hands, working round
the clock signing all the visas he could

CBS PHOTO ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

between July 31 and August 28, 1940.

Eventually, Japans diplomatic corps
ordered Sugihara out of Kaunas. As his
train was pulling away from the station
he was still signing visas and handing
the documents through the rail car
window. Sugihara issued at least 2,139
visas that about 6,000 Jews used to
escape their intended fate.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los
Angeles estimates that 40,000 people
who are descended from those and
other refugees are alive today thanks to
Sugihara. Visas for Life, a foundation
authorized by the Sugihara family to
promote the diplomats legacy, puts the
figure at more than 100,000.
One descendant is Richard Salomon,
whose father, Bernard, got the 299th
humanitarian visa Sugihara issued. A
Polish Jew, Bernard Salomon used the
paperwork from Sugihara to cross
the Soviet Union and reach Kobe,
Japan. He later settled in Chicago.
Richard Salomon, a Chicago-area
businessman, serves on the Illinois
Holocaust Museum & Education Center
board. He says his son Mark summarized Sugiharas contribution when he
was 7: if not for Sugihara signing a visa
on a frantic day in 1940, Mark Salomon
said, I wouldnt be here, either.
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

17

W W I I TO DAY
Kiwis Killer Wave Theory Resurfaces
ew Zealand, a vocal foe of nuclear
N
arms, tried during World War II to
develop a weapon of mass destruction.

The obscure scheme behind the tsunami bomb went nowhere, despite
having Admiral William Bull Halseys
encouragement. A new book, based on
documents New Zealand declassified in
1999, has garnered the project headlines.
The weapon, developed in a classified
program called Project Seal, was tested off
New Caledonia and the Whangaparaoa
Peninsula in 1944 and 1945. The idea was
to use explosives to trigger a wave capable
of devastating a small coastal city. The
presumed target was Japan.
Halsey, at that time commander of the
U.S. Navy Western Pacific Task Forces,
was intrigued. Inundation in amphibious warfare has definite and far-reaching
possibilities as an offensive weapon, the
admiral wrote in spring 1944.
The unconventional idea came from a
U.S. Navy officer who noticed that blasting intended to clear coral reefs generated

towering waves. Project Seal began in

June 1944 as a joint U.S.-New Zealand
effort. Scientists concluded that a single
charge could not trigger the killer wave; it
would take 2,000 tons of explosives, set
off serially, to cause a tsunami.
Project leader Thomas Leech, engineering dean at the University of Auckland,
was enthusiastic about the results. But
team member Toby Laing has said the
explosions caused barely a ripple.
They didnt produce a wave that was

big enough to surf on, says journalist Ray

Waru, who unearthed previously hidden
details about Project Seal for his new
book, Secrets and Treasures.
Waru sees rich irony in New Zealand
devising a weapon to inflict mass civilian
casualties. After all, in 1987 the nation,
which had come to deem weapons of
mass destruction an anathema, declared
itself nuclear free, irking the United
States, which wanted to dock nucleararmed ships at New Zealand ports.

ASK WWII

U-507 (background) and U-156 rescue

survivors of a British troopship in 1942.

Q.

Did an enemy submarine come up the Ohio River during World War II?

Ive been told a U-boat sailed upstream as far as Cincinnati. Ive also read
that a farmer saw one in the Mississippi River. Orvin Dove, Florence, Ky.

A.

U-boat on the river!a wartime alarm raised in many an American townhad

no basis except paranoia, thanks to natural barriers and submariners common sense.
Even smaller full-sized U-boats would have scraped bottom in 15 feet of water. Much of
the Ohio is 3 to 20 feet deep, and a Kriegsmariner crazy enough and lucky enough to
infiltrate 500 miles up the Mississippi from New Orleans and enter the Ohio (apparently
none was) could not have gotten past Louisville, Kentucky, 130 miles downstream from
Cincinnati, because islands and falls there stand in the way. The German sub that may
have gotten closest was U-507. On May 12, 1942, at the mouth of the Mississippi, the
U-507 torpedoed the Virginia, killing 26 members of the tankers 40-man crew. Despite
a vivid and variegated body of domestic U-boat folkloresub crews sneaking onto
American shores for a meal and a movie and returning to their boats, saboteurs inserted
at every harborthere is no evidence to support any such claims. Jon Guttman
Send queries to: Ask World War II, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176, or e-mail:
worldwar2@weiderhistorygroup.com.

Declassified documents from Project Seal

illustrate the science of tsunami starting.

18

WORLD WAR II

LEFT: ARCHIVES NEW ZEALAND; ABOVE, NATIONAL ARCHIVES

What Stauer Clients Are Saying

About Our Hybrid Watches

ADVERTISEMENT

Great watch... an
impressive piece straight
out of the box.
C. FROM COLORADO

$49

75%

Colossus
Watch with
FREE
Sunglasses!

Less

than the
independently
appraised
value*

No More Mr. Nice Watch

Forget sleek and subtle, the Stauer Colossus Hybrid is one tough timepiecenow for less than $50!

ever underestimate your competition. Just ask Demetrius,

the unfortunate Greek general who set out to conquer
Rhodes in 305 BC. He assumed that a massive force of 40,000
men, a fleet of Aegean pirates and an arsenal of wall-smashing
war machines would be enough to crush the tiny Greek island.
He was wrong. The Rhodians were tougher than he thought. And
so is this watch. If youve always believed that the biggest,
baddest watches had to cost big, bad money, the $49 Stauer
Colossus Hybrid Chronograph is here to change your mind.
A monument to toughness. The people of Rhodes were ready
for Demetrius and repelled his attack. To celebrate, they built the
Colossus of Rhodes, a 107-foot bronze and iron giant that towered over the harbor like a ten-story trophy. It warned future
invaders that Rhodes is tougher than you think. You give the
same message when you wear the Stauer Colossus.
The timepiece that works twice as hard. The Colossus
Hybrid Chronograph will keep you on schedule, but its about
much more than time. The imposing case features a rotating
gunmetal bezel that frames the silver, black and yellow face.
Youll find a battalion of digital displays on the dial arranged
behind a pair of luminescent hands and a bold yellow second
hand. Powered by a precise quartz movement, the watch is
doubly accurate in analog and digital mode.
The Colossus is packed with plenty of handy extras including a
bright green EL back-light for enhanced nighttime visibility, a
tachymeter along the outer dial and a full complement of alarms
and split-second countdown timers. It secures with a folded steel
bracelet that highlights a row of striking dark center links. Its a
rugged watch thats more than ready for your daily grind.

More watch for less money. Big-name watchmakers raise

their prices because they can get away with it. But Stauer wants
to turn luxury on its head. We sent the Colossus Hybrid to an
independent appraiser who works with auction houses, luxury
estate sales and insurance companies. He valued the watch at
$199.* We thanked him for his professional opinion and then
ignored it. Because we still want you to wear it for ONLY $49.
Your satisfaction is guaranteed. Wear the Stauer Colossus
Hybrid Chronograph for 30 days and if you are not 100% thrilled
with your purchase, return it for a full refund of your purchase
price. But once you get a taste of more watch for less money, its
likely youll be back for more... and well be waiting.
WATCH SPECS: - Easy-to-read analog/digital modes - Back-lighting &
luminescent hands - Tachymeter, countdown timers & alarms
- Folded stainless steel bracelet fits a 6 3/4"9" wrist - Case size 16x43mm

Colossus Hybrid Digital/Analog Watch

Appraised at $199* $79 Now your price only $49 +S&P

PLUS receive our Stauer Flyboy Optics

Sunglasses FREE a $99 value!
Call now to take advantage of this fantastic offer.

1-888-277-8380
Promotional Code CHW565-06
Please mention this code when you call.

Stauer

14101 Southcross Drive W.,

Rating of A+
Dept. CHW565-06
Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 * For more information concerning the appraisal,

www.stauer.com
Smart LuxuriesSurprising Prices

visit http://www.stauer.com/appraisedvalues.asp.

WORLD

WAR II

Conversation with Betty McIntosh

At War With the Enemys Mind

By Gene Santoro

OST FEMALE spies

in World War II
werent Mata Ha-

ris. Witness Elizabeth Betty

McIntosh (then MacDonald),
a disinformation specialist
with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. McIntosh helped
the OSS devise campaigns
in the Far East that undermined Japanese morale and
saved American lives. She
detailed those frenetic days
in two books, Undercover
Girl (1947) and Sisterhood of
Spies (1999). Recalling them
now, the spirited 97-year-old
observes, The war meant
women could do a lot more
than theyd been allowed to
before. Where I was, there
was equality and openness
between the sexes. Thats
what made it work.

I worked on a Hawaiian newspaper, writing

for the womens pagesstories women
were supposed to be interested in. Alex
MacDonald, my then-husband, was also a
journalist. He and I visited a Japanese professor every day to study Japanese. We both
were intrigued by the Far East; we wanted to
be foreign correspondents.

Teamstrung barbed wire along Waikiki

Beach in case of invasion. At the hospital,
there were dead bodies everywhere. So
when my editor asked me to write about
what was going on in the city, I took him
at his word. I dont think he expected to
get what I reported about the damage and
dislocation and confusion. The story was
never published. They thought it would be
too damaging to morale.

What was December 7, 1941, like for

But you got promoted.

civilians in Hawaii?

The Scripps-Howard newspaper chain

sent me to Washington, D.C., to write a
womens column called Home Front
Forecasts, largely about how to cope
without things like gasoline and liquor
that Americans couldnt get because of
rationing. I also covered the White
House, so I interviewed colorful people
like Eleanor Roosevelt.

You started out as a journalist.

Honolulu was pretty gruesome. There was

complete terror. Planes were everywhere,
with a constant roar overhead. Ambulances were racing through the streets. I
saw a building just disintegrate. An openair market took a direct hit. One dead little
girl was still holding her jump ropes
wooden handles; the rope had burned
away. It was terrible. Our Niseisome, like
the late Senator Daniel Inouye, were later
in the famous 442nd Regimental Combat
20

WORLD WAR II

How did that lead you to the OSS?

In 1943 I met a businessman from Hawaii,

and mentioned I was getting bored with

this job and with Washington, that Id
studied Japanese, and that like most correspondents I wanted to go overseas, where
the action was. He got cagey, and said he
might be able to help, but Id have to work
for the government. I said that didnt
matter, I just wanted to go. He arranged for
me to join the OSS. Their offices were way
off the beaten path; to find them you had
to know where they were. For weeks they
put me through examining and testing,
including Japanese language skills. Then
they decided Id be assigned to the Far
Eastern section of something called MO
Morale Operations.
What was that?

Disinformation, psychological warfare. We

would be trying to change the minds of the
enemy. Writing pamphlets and newspapers and books, broadcasting on the radio
about how Japanese children were suffering and starving, for instance, and making
CHARLIE ARCHAMBAULT PHOTOGRAPHY; OPPOSITE: COURTESY OF BETTY MCINTOSH

these appear Japanese in originhowever

we could get to the enemy to change their
minds about the war and their role in it.
That was black propaganda, as distinct
from the Office of War Information, which
did white propaganda: morale-boosting
stories for our side.

The Japanese POW

broke down, and
helped us fake an
order aimed at troops
in northern Burma.

How did the OSS train you?

Our commander was Major Herbert Little. Like most in the OSS, he was casual
about rank; we called him Herb. He was
shrewd enough to let me imagine scenarios that our instructors hadnt outlined,
which introduced some radical thinking
into our black propaganda. And we had
field-agent training: ciphers, clandestine
meetings, interrogation techniques, firearms. The first time I fired a Thompson
submachine gun it almost turned me
around in a circlethe kick was so powerful! But I got the hang of it.
You got your husband into the OSS,
too. Why?

Alex had been activated from the naval

reserve and was in the Office of Naval
Intelligence. He was very much better at
Japanese than I was. He did a beautiful job
for the OSS at radio in Burma while I was in
India, then China in 194445. But like so
many,our relationship didnt survive the war.
How did you set up the MO unit in
New Delhi?

My colleague Marjorie Severyns and I

developed people and material. The first
was Bill Magistretti, an OSS analyst who
had lived in Japan. He spoke absolutely
flawless Japanese, and had a huge cache of
Japanese newspapers, postcards, and photographsjust what we needed. Bill and I
pooled ideas and worked really well as a
team. The son of my Japanese teacher
joined us, as did other Nisei I knew from
Hawaii. Each MO group had a Nisei member, whose contributions were essential:
They made sure we grasped nuances of
Japanese culture. They had to overcome so
much to be there, but there they were.

Your next gambit was even more

ambitious.

We were told there was a Japanese POW in

jail in Burma; we could visit him, but he
wouldnt talk to anybody, because he felt
hed let the emperor down and was ready
to die. Bill and I figured wed go anyway.
When we walked into his cell, he wouldnt
look at us. Bill managed to get his eye, and
the POW recognized himtheyd been at
school together in Japan. The man broke
down, and from then on he was with us.
He helped us to fake a Japanese order
aimed at troops in northern Burma. It said
they were now allowed to surrender if they
were completely surrounded or wounded
with no foodthe opposite of reality, of
course. This was put into proper Japanese,
and the orders paper and seal were taken
from real ones wed captured. The POW
forged the necessary signatures and corrected the language. We got the fake order
through the Japanese lines by pretending
it was a captured document. Soon Japanese soldiers were surrendering in increasing numbers. It was a wonderful feeling to
have accomplished that.

What was your first operation?

A British major let me go through sacks of

captured Japanese field manuals, books,
magazines, and newspapersall grist for
the MO mill. At the bottom of one bag I
found a leather pouch. Inside were almost
500 clean, dry postcards with standard
greetings from homesick soldiers, stamped
by the censor. I said, Lets erase the messages and substitute our own. Bill immediately agreed, saying we could easily have
them slipped back into the Japanese postal
system. That was Project Black Mail. The
cards would hammer the same message
home, like an ad campaign slogan: The
Japanese were losing in Burma, there was
heartbreak and starvation in the jungle,
and slackers back home werent supporting the troops. Several hours later, we were
done. The pouch of postcards was successfully slipped into the Japanese mail. A week
later Tojos cabinet resigned, and Bill joked,
See what youve done!

What was your final operation?

In early August 1945, our black radio station broadcast a prediction by the Hermit,
a Chinese seer and astrologer very popular with his people. We had the Hermit
predict that a Japanese city would suffer a
catastrophic disaster during the first week
of August. Now, we had no idea about the
atomic bomb. But we caught the dickens
anyway, about how we could have blown
this top-secret mission.
What did you do after the war?

I worked for Glamour magazine. Discussing fashion after all Id done seemed
absolutely ridiculous. I lasted a year. Then
I married Dick Heppner, one of [OSS
chief] Bill Donovans law partners, whom
Id met in the OSS through his wonderful
dog, Sammy; we decided he needed a real
family. After Dick died suddenly in 1958,
I joined the CIA.
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

21

WORLD

WAR II

War Letters

A Navy Doctor Describes His Unusual

Service in the Gobi Desert
By Andrew Carroll

N 1943, 23-YEAR-OLD New

Henry Heimlich and his sister

Yorker Henry J. Heimlich left

Cecilia, an aerial navigator

medical school to enlist in

with the WAVES, said their

the U.S. Navy, which sent him

goodbyes in Los Angeles the

to China for the duration of the

day before he shipped out to

war. On September 13, 1945,

China to serve in the navys

he wrote to his sister Cecilia

SACO organization. Heimlich

about the quirks of the remote

would achieve worldwide

China-Burma-India Theater, and

fame after the war.

about an experience that laid

the foundation for his future
in medicine. This is the first
time Heimlichs letter, which
has been edited for length, has
been published.

Shempa, China
Dear Cel:
Censorship has been lifted
today. I feel I have been cheated
out of telling you that I am
going to write but there will be
more to tell when I get home.
I know that you want to
know, first of all, where I am.
Before you go on, get a good
map of China. I am in the
town of Shempa (which
probably is not on any
map). We are right in the
GOBI DESERT, an island
of green made possible by
irrigation from a branch of
the Yellow River.
You next want to know what
I am doing here. Thats a long story
so Ill start from scratch. If the publicity
has broken then you will have an idea
when I say that I am a member of SACO.
If not, you can read on and learn.
SACO means Sino-American Cooperative Organization. The heads of this outfit
are Rear Admiral Miles and General Tai
Lee. It was conceived as follows:
22

WORLD WAR II

In 1940, the Admiral (then Commander)

was sent to China to have
some mines tested. It seems
the U.S. had some good new mines
and no one to test them on. Before Miles
left the States, the U.S. Navy, State Department, and Chinese embassy warned
DONT GET MIXED UP WITH TAI
LEE! When he stepped off the plane at
Chungking he was expected and was
greeted by some Chinese solders who hus-

tled him off to a hotel room

where he was told he was the
guest of the man he would
soon meet you guessed it,
Tai Lee (shall call him T. L.
from now on).
Who is T. L.? You wont read
this name in the papers or the
magazines. If you do it will be
a casual mention of Chinas
Police Chieftain. He is said to
be an ex-Yangtze River pirate,
a gangster, THE HIMMLER
OF CHINA, a man who has
his enemies murdered. Officially he is the Generalissimos
bodyguard, undisputed leader
of Chinas secret police (Gestapo), absolute chief of all
Chinas policemen. The Japs,
in order to make ruling the
occupied territory easier, kept
the police forces intact. Unknown to the
Japs they remained subject to T. L. and
were a source of Jap movements.
Out of this meeting grew SACO, which
was developed after Dec. 7, 1941. T. L.,
through his police, would furnish intelligence to the Navy and would get them to
places in China where they could watch
shipping off the coast and notify submarines, get weather dates of value to our
ship movements in the Pacific (most
important), set up D. F. (direction finder)
PHOTO COURTESY OF HENRY J. HEIMLICH; PATCH, U.S. NAVY

If youre one of those who enjoys the adrenalinepumping exhilaration of roaring across Americas open
roads on two wheels, we have a bold new ring design to
fit your lifestylethe Freedoms Ride Mens Stainless
Steel and Onyx Ring.

Custom-crafted in an Exclusive Design

This striking ring is individually hand-crafted in toughas-a-biker stainless steel, polished to piston-pounding
perfection. The rings original design features a custom
cut black onyx stone shaped to fit the central sculpted
eagle profile, with the eagles majestic feathers
spreading around one side of the band. Dramatically
standing out against the black onyx is a sculpted custom
chopper, and emblazoned on the other side of the band
are Americas proud stars and stripes. Adding to this
power statement are the words FREEDOMS RIDE,
engraved inside.

A Remarkable Value... And Your

Satisfaction Guaranteed!
A distinctive way to show your passion for two-wheeled
adventure, the Freedoms Ride Mens Stainless Steel and
Onyx Ring arrives in a custom
presentation case with a Certificate
of Authenticity and is backed by
our full-money-back 120-day
guarantee. An outstanding value
at just $99*, you can pay for your
ring in 4 easy installments of
$24.75. To reserve yours, send
no money now; just send in your
Reservation Application today!

Precision crafted in
rugged stainless steel

Bold sculpted design features

powerful symbols of freedom

Custom cut black onyx

center stone

Engraved inside the band

with FREEDOMS RIDE

EXCLUSIVELY from THE BRADFORD EXCHANGE

LIMITED-TIME OFFER

RESERVATION APPLICATION

Reservations will be accepted on a

first-come, first-served basis.
Respond as soon as possible to
reserve your ring.

SEND NO MONEY NOW

P.O. Box 806, Morton Grove, IL 60053-0806

YES. Please reserve the Freedoms Ride Mens

Dramatic from any
angle with design
continuing on
both sides
Arrives in a custom
presentation case with a
Certificate of Authenticity

www.bradfordexchange.com/13750

2013 BGE 01-13750-001-EI

Stainless Steel and Onyx Ring for me as described in

this announcement.
Signature
Shown actual size
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
To assure a proper ft, a ring sizer
will be sent to you after your
reservation has been accepted.

*Plus $9.98 shipping and service.

Please allow 4-6 weeks after initial
payment for shipment of your
jewelry. Sales subject to product
availability and order acceptance.

Mrs. Mr. Ms.

Name (Please Print Clearly)

Address
City

State

Zip

E-Mail (Optional)

01-13750-001-E57301

War Letters

to follow Jap ship movements. We, in

turn, would supply all equipment and
materials, would train and equip Chinese
guerrilla fighters in schools, lead the
trained guerrillas in sabotage and fighting
against the Japs, and give them doctors,
medicine and medical care, which Chinese
soldiers have never had.
There were several fanciful schemes
which (just as well) failed just before they
were put into action. For example
there was one group, headed by a doctor
(the American doctor being a god to
Eastern peoples), which was to parachute
into Burma and marry Burmese chieftains daughters in order to get them to
fight the Japs. The most important failure was a group of specialists in all fields
of medicine who were to set up a hospital in occupied territory near the coast.
They would treat Chinese civilians and
soldiers and would have a well-functioning hospital to treat Americans when
there was an invasion. The doctors came
over for this but were eventually sent to
the various camps. I am in Camp 4,
having relieved Dr. Goodwin, one of the
original group. Every camp (there are 12)
was in or near Jap occupied territory.
One could see the lights of Shanghai; one
was on the coast, another on the Yangtze.
Despite the supposed hazards, all camps
were well guarded by a ring of guerrillas
who knew that if an American got hurt
they would be shot. Unusually enough,
because of this, casualties were negligible
two men climbed on a wrecked army
plane for curiosity and a bomb exploded
& killed them; one man had nothing to
do one day and wandered into a harbor
and was shot in the leg by a Jap patrol
and captured.
9/15
Ill interrupt my story to tell why I
didnt write yesterday. Not that it is more
interesting than other medical experiences I have had here, it sort of typifies
my work.
Yesterday morning at 9 AM an interpreter came to tell me his wife was ready
to deliver. I was led into the patients
24

WORLD WAR II

room and stopped short. It was a small

room, about 12x15 feet, half of it occupied by a mud kang. A kang is the
Chinese bed in these parts. Most often it
has a hollow area through it connecting
with a fireplace of mud, and in that way
we sleep on warm beds in winter.
In the farthest corner of the kang, the
patient was on her knees & elbows with
her head down, in terrific pain. One old
woman straddled her hips and with her
arms around her abdomen was squeezing

There were several

fanciful schemes
which failed before
they were put into
action. One group
was to parachute into
Burma and marry
chieftans daughters
to get them to fight
the Japs.
with all her might. Another was holding
her shoulders down and a third was holding her in that position. I got up on the
kang to take over and to make them stop
tugging, and just as I got up her husband
yelled, The babys here (he insisted on
staying in the room). I just pulled the
women off her then sure enough the
baby had bounced on the kang in all the
dirt and all. I was able to deliver the placenta my way, then tied the babys cord. I
stayed for dinner of millet congee and
horrible chopped chicken and eggs with
chopped whole garlic.
To get on with my story Camp 4 was
in the outskirts of town surrounded by a
high mud wall. We consist of a weather
station, radio station and training school.
There are about 100 officers and 24 men.
We have a D. F. apparatus, which has
turned in good information on ship

movements (Japanese) & Jap fleet movements on the coast 600 miles away. We
had 250 Chinese student soldiers (guerrillas) who were trained in all forms of
demolition and close fighting. We armed
them with marlins and carbines.
My work was to treat all the American
& Chinese in camp officially. Unofficially,
there was a lot of antagonism between
General Fu, an independent warlord, and
our General Chao, a T. L. man thereby
representing the central government. Fu
had his own forces at the front working
with ours and we depended on him for
many things here in camp. He was very
generous in the usual underhanded Chinese way, and the only way we could
repay him & keep him working with us
was for me to treat his staff and high official friends of his. Out of this group I
actually drew most of my interesting and
seriously ill patients. Ive been wined and
dined by many people and have received
some unusual gifts. All in all Ive had an
interesting and pleasurable time.
Out latest orders are to head for
Peiping [Beijing]. There are a few complicating facts which prevent our leaving
right away but we hope for final orders
any day. As I have already given you a big
enough pill to swallow in this letter Ill say
no more.
Love, Hank
After the war, Heimlich became a thoracic
surgeon. In 1974 he developed an antichoking procedure that would come to be
known as the Heimlich Maneuver. Now
93, he has retired from full-time medical
practice and lives in Ohio.

Andrew Carrolls Legacy Project (online at

warletters.com) is dedicated to preserving
and collecting correspondence from all of
Americas wars. If you have a World War II
letter you would like to share, please send a
copy (not originals)
to: THE LEGACY PROJECT
P.O. Box 53250, Washington, DC 20009
or: e-mail WarLettersUS@aol.com

WORLD

WAR II

Their Darkest Hour

All Too Inhuman

By Laurence Rees

HE JAPANESE assault on the

Chinese is one of the least wellknown facets of the Second
World War. And yet that conflict was
immense: At least 20 million Chinese
died between 1937 and 1945 as the
Japanese Imperial Army sought to
turn China into a puppet state. Moreover, the campaign ground forward
with a level of deliberate brutality
nearly unequalled in modern times.
Few Japanese veterans want to confess to crimes they committed in
China, but in 2000 I met a former soldier who was prepared to speak frankly
about what he did there. His name
was Masayo Enomoto. I filmed an
interview with him in Tokyo, at a traditional teahouse. Our exchange was
one of the most remarkable encounters
of my lifeculminating in Enomoto
explaining in detail how during the war
he had raped, murdered, and eaten
a Chinese villager.
This act of appalling cruelty was only
possible because military training and
wider cultural values had warped Enomoto. During basic training, for example,
his instructors regularly beat him and
other recruits. Gradually I felt Id missed
out on something if by night time I hadnt
been beaten up at least once, he said.
Enomoto said his superiors also taught
him to look down on the Chinese: They
were one rank lower than the Japanese,
and we should treat them as animals.
Once he arrived in China, officers ordered
him and his comrades to use Chinese
farmers for target practice. We tried to
shoot the heart and I was successful, but
my colleagues sometimes hit the abdomen
and other parts of the body, the former
soldier said. So a single farmer could be
shot by some 10 or 20 people. I felt like
I was just killing animals, like pigs.
In May 1945, Enomoto entered a village
in the combat zone in northern China. He
POSTER: HOOVER INSTITUTE ARCHIVES; PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURENCE REES

Japan feigned love

for China and its
people (top) but
Masayo Enomoto
(right) embodied
the Empires true
brutal intent.

met a young Chinese

woman whose neighbors had fled. She had
not been able to make
the break. She could
speak Japanese, and
she said that her parents had tried to persuade her to leave, he
said.She said that the
Japanese people arent such bad people, so
shed decided to stay in the village.
Enomoto proved the woman wrong
with a personally tragic result.When I saw
a woman in this enemy zone, the first thing
that would come to my mind uncondition-

ally would be to rape her. No hesitation, he said. She did resist. But such
resistance didnt affect me whatsoever. I
didnt listen to what she was saying.
After raping her, I stabbed her with a
sword, he told me. On television you
see a lot of blood flow out, but thats not
the reality. Then, because he was hungry, he decided to cut chunks of flesh
from her arms and legs, Enomoto said.
I just tried to choose those places where
there was a lot of meat.
He took the cuts of human meat
back to camp, where he and his fellow
soldiers cooked and ate the dead womans flesh. The meat was nice and
tender, Enomoto told me. It was
tastier than pork.
What I heard from Masayo Enomoto
that evening appalled me. It seemed
almost inconceivable that he could
have done this, but I believed him. In
pioneering studies,
Japanese academics
have documented
that in Japans Imperial Army, soldiers engaged in
cannibalism more
often than had
been thought.
Masayo Enomotos testimony is a
powerful reminder
that humans have
an almost boundless capacity for
criminalityespecially when their
outrages have state
sanction. Raping
her, eating her, killing her, I didnt feel anything about it, Enomoto explained. And
that went for everything I did [in China].
We felt we were doing it for the emperor,
so everything was all right so long as it was
done in the emperors name.
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

25

WORLD

WAR II

Time Travel

The Forgotten Battlefield

By Richard Camp

Inland on Peleliu, a Japanese bunker

molders in shadow, while on White
Beach sun plays on .30-caliber M1
rounds and other wartime artifacts.

HEN WE FINALLY reached

Koror, the economic center of
the Republic of Palau, we were
very happy to be there; our flight from Los
Angeles, with stops at Hawaii and Guam,
had lasted 15 hours. A little sleep, showers,
then we were off to Peleliu on a spirited 45minute cruise, speeding 30 miles an hour in
a 20-foot boat through the Rock Islands,
uninhabited coral hummocks famous for
their beautiful lagoons and beaches. The
sea got choppy, soaking those of us on
the outboard side to the amusement of our
better-situated fellow passengers. Peleliu
appeared and we were soon at the north
dock. We stowed our gear beneath tarps
amidships, and within minutes were
passing a huge cave and a machine gun
emplacement built into a hillsigns that
we were nearing one of the last unspoiled
battlefields of World War II.
26

WORLD WAR II

Peleliu is one of the Pacific island

nations 16 states. The island, shaped
like a lobster claw, is about eight
miles long and two miles or so at its
widest. Much of Peleliu is uninhabitable,
most notably the ridges of Umurbrogol
Mountain on the western lobe.
Peleliu is legendary not because of what
its conquest accomplished, but for the valor
and violence that its conquest required. On
September 15, 1944, the 18,000-man 1st
Marine Division began landing on Peleliu
in Operation Stalemate II, meant to support
General Douglas MacArthurs invasion of
the Philippines. One month and more than
6,000 casualties later, the 1st Division was
withdrawn. The U.S. Armys 81st Infantry
Division stepped in, taking another 3,278
casualties before declaring Peleliu secure.
Of 11,000 Japanese defenders, 200 survived.
(A few remained in hiding until 1947.)

MacArthur wound up not needing Peleliu,

which was forgottenexcept by those who
fought there.
During my March 2012 visit, I found that
Peleliu looked, curiously, as it did both
before the war and after the battle. The
islands vibrant plant life, once erased by
shellfire, has returned with a vengeance in
peacetime. But the battle is never far away.
Pelelius caves, bunkers, and tunnels are still
littered with relicsJapanese mess kits,
ration cans, boot soles, and Coke bottles
dated 1944. By a low ridge near the landing
beach is a barbed wire dump, complete
with corkscrew stakes and oxidizing curls of
concertina wire. Inland, I came upon three

Time Travel

Near White Beach, a Japanese coastal

gun (top left) and an American landing
craft (above) rust in peace, in stark
contrast to an amtrac (left) that in 1944
was not only transport but shelter.

ruined M1 rifles, stocks long gone. One

Garand was so rusted I thought it was a
vine until I tugged on it. Nearby, a corroded
Japanese machine gun lay atop a boulder
whether newly placed or lying there since
1944, I couldnt tell. Live hand grenades
and mortar rounds regularly crop up. Palau
forbids the removal of artifacts, and posts
signs warning of the danger they pose. An
ordnance removal service is on the job and
still has years of work ahead.
The day of the invasion, the 1st Marine
Regiment landed on a concave strand designated White Beach 1 and White Beach 2.

In concrete bunkers on two points covering

the landing zone, the Japanese had placed
murderously effective antiboat guns. In the
first minutes of the assault, 26 amphibious
vehicles lay burning in the water there.
Dead and wounded Marines dotted the
narrow strand. General Raymond Davis,
who as a 29-year-old major commanded
the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, on Peleliu,
told me about it a few years ago.My battalion was in reserve, and I had to fight my way
across the beach, he said.It was madness!
Walking White Beach at low tide, two
friends and I found a lump of copper-clad

TOP LEFT, RIGHT: DB IMAGES/ALAMY; BOTTOM: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE: REINHARD DIRSCHERL/ALAMY; INSET: RICHARD CAMP

slugs, casings oxidized to nothing, the fused

remains of a box of .30-caliber ammo. In
the shallows lay steel from a destroyed
amphibious vehicle, engine parts, and less
recognizable metal chunks. I spotted the
embrasure of a bunker, nearly invisible
amid the coral rock camouflaging it. Inside
are an antiboat guns rusty shards.
Two hundred meters inland we reached
a low ridge studded with automatic weapon
positions. A bunker stands undamaged,
anchoring the left flank of the ridge, whose
length is a catalog of battlefield detritus:
sake and beer bottles, spent casings, food
tins, and unexploded ordnance. Marines
took and held this spot, which was how that
barbed wire dump and a trench full of Coke
bottles came to be. Behind the ridge squats
a huge concrete building that houses a
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

27

Time Travel

Thousand-Man
Cave

r
ro
Ko

PH I

Umurbrogol
Mountain
Bloody
Nose Ridge

S
INE
LIPP

White 1
Beach 2

Peleliu
Island

WHEN YOU GO

cean
Pacific O

Peleliu
100 mi

museum. The pocked exterior is scarred by

two giant holes from 14-inch rounds fired
by the USS Mississippi as part of the preinvasion shelling. During the battle, the
blockhouse functioned like a fortress
because of all the pillboxes surrounding it,
Davis said. I took 25 casualties, including
three dead, before it was knocked out.
We drove a mile or so on a potholed road
through thick scrub to Bloody Nose Ridge,
at Umurbrogol Mountain, which a Marine
called a monster Swiss cheese of hard limestone pocked beyond imagining with caves
and crevices. Here the Japanese uncorked
a new strategy: instead of defending the
beaches, they executed a defense in depth,
hoping to bleed the Marines and succeeding. Five days of attacking the heights cost
70 percent of Ray Daviss battalion. Losing
more than half its men here, the 1st Marine
Regiment had to be pulled off the line.
Jungle again covers the mountain, and
climbing its ridges is a demanding adventure. They rise 30 to 40 feet, separated by
narrow ravines, all jagged and untrustworthy rock. We carried water fortified with
electrolyte tabletsthe modern version of
the horrid mix Marines forced down to
28

WORLD WAR II

their nicknames through hundreds of

American casualties.
During my years in the Marine Corps I
served with many Peleliu veterans whose
stories came to life as I walked the battleground. Amid remnants of fighting positions and in relic-strewn caves, I could
visualize the carnage. The sacrifices came
home when one of my companions invited
me to join him for a very personal walk on
White Beach 1, where he bent by the waters
edge to place a small American flag. Around
it he spread soil from his home in California
that he had carried across the Pacific. Then
he stood, head bowed, honoring his father,
killed in action the first day of the battle.

fight dehydrationand needed every drop.

At one point we crossed a wet, slippery path
a yard wide, a 30-foot plunge into razorsharp coral on either side. Imagine doing
that while lugging weapons and equipment,
and taking fire from all directions.
Such tourism is not for the faint of heart
but is worth the effort, for everywhere are
caverns and fighting positions. We capped
our day-long trek with a visit to the
last headquarters of Japanese commander
Colonel Kunio Nakagawa: a cave his troops
expanded several dozen yards into solid
rock. The floor was thick with rubber boot
soles, cans and bottles, and cartridges.
Returning to our vehicle, we stopped at
the memorials honoring the 1st Marine
Division and the 81st Infantry Division
that overlook the landing beaches.
During our four-day excursion, we also
visited Thousand-Man Cave, a 300-foot
shelter near our motel. The emplacements 8-inch coastal gun, set facing the
beaches, was never fired but testifies to
Japanese defensive capabilities. Other
stops included Horseshoe Valley, Wildcat
Bowl, Five Sisters, Five Brothers, Death
Valleyparts of Umurbrogol that earned

Peleliu is no easy destination. Visitors need a

valid passport, an onward or return ticket,
and proof of solvency. Visas are not required
for visits of 30 days or less. The boat trip
through the Rock Islands costs $45, though
we could have ridden a public ferry ($6; three
hours each way) that sails to Peleliu Mondays
and Fridays, returning Thursdays and
Sundays. A $15 land tour permit allows you
to explore the entire island. By all means,
hire an experienced local guide: overgrowth
conceals much of the battlefield, which is
not easily traversed.

WHERE TO STAY AND EAT

Tripadvisor.com is excellent for planning
trips to Koror and Peleliu. On Koror we
stayed in Ngermid, at the Green Bay Hotel
(greenbayhotelpalau.com). The island offers
many motels and restaurants. Pelelius
accommodations are limited. We stayed at
Island View Hotel (011-680-345-1106).
Storyboard Beach Resort, Dolphin Bay
Resort & Peleliu Divers, and Mayumi Inn
also cater to tourists.

WHAT ELSE TO SEE AND DO

The Territory of Guam offers plenty of nonmartial activities, but for many visitors the
prime attraction is military history (see the
January 2009 Time Travel). Koror offers land
and water tours, two museumsBelau
National Museum (belaunationalmuseum.org)
and Etpison Museum (etpisonmuseum.org)
and shopping. The Koror Jailreally!sells
prisoner-made storyboards that convey
legends and folktales in carved wood.

MAP BY KEVIN JOHNSON

ADVERTISEMENT

AMERICAS LAST MORGAN SILVER DOLLAR

SAVE OVER

$30!

Actual size
is 38.1 mm

Saved from DestructionGet yours before theyre only a memory

The U.S. Morgan Silver Dollar was struck from 1878
until its final year in 1921. Back then, a hefty, gleaming
Silver Dollar had real buying powerover 12 times
more than todays paper dollar. In those days, a new
car only cost you 325 silver dollars, and one silver
dollar bought you nearly four gallons of gasoline!

SILVER TREASURES LOST TO THE MELTING POTS

When these massive, 90% Silver Dollars were struck, the

price of silver was around 66 cents an ounce. Over the
next nine decades, as silver prices shot to as much as
$50 an ounce, untold millions of Morgan Silver Dollars
have been lost to private and government melting pots.
Today, as silver has reached as high as $48.70 an ounce
recently, there is no telling exactly how many 1921
Morgan Silver DollarsAmericas LAST Morgan
Dollar still survive in any condition!

AMERICAN SILVER WITH A RICH STORY TO TELL

Beautiful, historic, and brimming with pride, the U.S.

Morgan Silver Dollar is more than a coinit is a true
American heirloom. Each 90% pure silver dollar is an
impressive 38.1 mm in diameter, and has witnessed
a lifetime of American history, trial, and triumph.
Morgan Silver Dollars jingled in the pockets of
gunslingers, riverboat gamblers, gangsters, prospectors,
and pioneers. They were the storehouse of wealth for
our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers.

hoard of nearly two thousand 1921 Morgan Silver

Dollars. They were all in lustrous About Uncirculated
(AU) condition, showing sharp detail and original luster.
We wasted no time in securing the entire treasure trove
into our own vaults. Now, this historic heirloom can
become your familys own American silver legacy.

SAVE $30 OR MORE!

This same coin in the same About Uncirculated condition

is offered elsewhere for $90. But today, you can secure
the very last U.S. Morgan Silver Dollar for as low as
$55.95 (plus s/h).

BUY MORE AND SAVE

1921 Last Morgan Silver Dollar AU: $59.95 each plus s/h
Five for $58.95 each plus s/h
Ten for $57.95 each plus s/h SAVE $20!
Twenty or more for $55.95 each plus s/h
SAVE $80 or more!
Your satisfaction is assured with our full 30-day
return privilege.

Call Now Toll-Free 24 Hours a Day

1-888-870-8531
Offer Code MDS224-08

Please provide this code when you call

A PRIVATE VAULT GIVES UP ITS SECRETS

Today, virtually all the surviving Morgan Silver Dollars

are in private hoards. When we were recently guided into
a wealthy owners vault, we were thrilled to discover a

14101 Southcross Drive W., Dept. MDS224-08

Burnsville, Minnesota 55337

www.NewYorkMint.com

Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a predictor of future performance. NOTE: New York Mint is a private distributor of worldwide government coin and currency issues and
other collectible numismatic products, and is not affiliated with the United States government. Facts and figures deemed accurate as of January 2013. 2013 New York Mint, LLC.

By John D. Lukacs

he San Antonio Rose II, steel

propellers slashing the skies
above the Celebes Sea, was
hurtling toward hell at 200
miles an hour. The B-17 was
leading a flight of 10 B-25s and
two other Flying Fortresses,
and had just reached the palm-fringed coast of
Mindanao when a wall of black cumulus clouds
suddenly appeared, towering to 20,000 feet and
seeming to bar any approach to the southern
Philippine island.
None of the pilots thought of throttling back.
Not this close. Not with Ralph Royce, an unflappable aviator who had built his career on long
flights under less-than-ideal conditions, personally commanding the mission. Navigators hastily
plotted course corrections and the bombers
proceeded to their destination: a secret military
The triumphant crew of a battle-damaged B-25
gathers at an air base after the Americans
newsmaking attack on Japanese targets in the
Philippines; pilot Big Jim Davies is at center.

An accident of
timing consigned
a groundbreaking
mission to the
shadows
airfield in the highlands of northern Mindanao.
As Royces bomber banked to bypass the rumbling tropical thunderheads, the 51-year-old
brigadier general and the planes ranking passenger calmly bit into a chocolate bar and
flipped to the next page of his book, The Worlds
Greatest Adventure Stories.
The storm, not to mention Royces choice of
reading material, was apropos. It was Saturday,
April 11, 1942, the conclusion of Americas darkest, most turbulent week of the war. Two days
earlier, 75,000 American and Filipino troops on
the Bataan Peninsula had surrendered, the largest
capitulation in U.S. military history. That devastating defeat was the latest in a staggering series
of Allied setbacks in the Pacific stretching back to
December 1941, and news of the surrender cast
a pall over the nation. Never was the need for
heroes greater.
In the days to come, Royce and his men flew
into that void and executed the United Statess
first large-scale offensive bombing mission of
the war. Their sorties, originating deep behind
enemy lines, inflicted significant physical and

PHOTO COURTESY OF RONALD HUBBARD; NEWSPAPER: THE NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 16, 1942 1942 THE NEW YORK TIMES

M A Y / J U N E 2 0 13

31

psychological damage upon Japanese forces occupying the

Philippines. The crews also evacuated key military and civilian
personnel from the doomed territory. And they employed
death-defying, unconventional tactics, quite literally on the fly,
that provided a blueprint for aerial victories that would turn
the tide of war in the southwest Pacific. Yet due to a twist of
timing, only days after the triumphant completion of their mission, their sensational, singular adventure story all but vanished
from public consciousness.
The operation that would come to be known as the
Royce Special Mission to the Philippines, or the Royce Raid, was
conceived not by a young pilot or air officer, but by an old army
cavalryman. In late March 1942, Lieutenant General Jonathan
Wainwright, commander of the besieged troops on Bataan and
Corregidor, had radioed a plea to General Douglas MacArthur
for bombers to clear a path for supply ships blockaded in the
Philippine Visayan Islands. MacArthur ordered the commander
of the Australia-based Allied Air Forces in the southwest Pacific,
Lieutenant General George H. Brett, to proceeddespite Bretts
protestations that such a mission was impossible.
As if the distance wasnt daunting enough4,000 miles
of enemy-controlled skies and seas separated Manila from
Australias northernmost air base, at DarwinBretts command
was paralyzed by the Pacific pandemic of defeatism. In the wake

But there was someone

in Australia who could.
of Japans early conquests, a flood tide of refugee military personnel had inundated Australia. But there was little with which
to arm them, especially the pilots. Aerial assets included
Australian Wirraway trainers and Hudson bombers, and a handful of worn-out B-17s and P-40 fighters.
Brett had access to a pool of officers who could lead the mission, but given the circumstances there was really only one
choice: Ralph Royce. The West Pointer had served with the 1st
Aero Squadron in the 1916 Mexican Punitive Expedition and
in World War I, when he received the French Croix de Guerre
for flying the squadrons first reconnaissance mission over
enemy lines. In January 1930, Royce shepherded the 1st Pursuit
Group on a long-distance test flight through freezing temperatures from Michigan to Washington state that earned him the
prestigious Mackay Trophy. Four years later, Royce again braved
blizzards and ice piloting a B-10 bomber on an experimental
expedition led by then-Lieutenant Colonel Hap Arnold from
Washington, D.C., to Alaska.
Yet for all of Royces experience with long journeys and long
odds, he could not magically summon an air fleet. But there was
someone in Australia who could.
As a teenager in Arkansas in 1917, Paul Gunn was
caught running moonshine. A judge gave him a choice: go to jail
or join the service. Gunn chose the navy, where a career as a chief
petty officer and carrier pilot unlocked talents for mechanics and
aviation that would become legend. By the time the United States
entered World War II, Gunn, 42, had retired from the navy and
was living in the Philippines with his family, managing Philippine
Airlines. MacArthur called him out of retirement with a captains
commission and orders to shuttle VIPs and supplies on the airlines twin-engine Beechcrafts.
When the capital city, Manila, fell to Japan in January 1942,
Gunns wife and four children were interned. Japans defeat and
his familys freedom became Gunns obsession. Called Pappy, the
Brigadier General Ralph Royce radiates condence in
Australia just before leading his special mission to the
Philippines in April 1942. The Royce Raid was Americas
rst large-scale offensive bombing raid of the war; Royce
said it threw the Japanese into a terric panic.

32

WORLD WAR II

bourbon-loving flier was all over the southwest Pacific, swaggering around wearing a pair of shoulder-holstered .45 automatics
and exhaling clouds of cigar smoke, exhorting superiors and
civilians with salty language, and exhausting men half his age
while pulling double duty uncrating and assembling A-24
Dauntless dive-bombers and flying combat missions on Java and
supply runs to the embattled Philippinesone of which, on
March 20, 1942, earned him a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Fate guided Gunn on that flight, as it did days later on a
moonlit night at a field in Melbourne, Australia. Gunn was
scouting for machine shops that could service American transports when he made an exhilarating discovery: two dozen B-25
Mitchell medium bombers belonging to the Netherlands East
Indies Air Force, which had no pilots to fly them. Gunn despised
the Dutchhe felt American forces had done a disproportionate share of the fighting in Javaand the find left him furious.
He had recently arranged a transfer to the 3rd Bombardment
Group, which was still awaiting delivery of aircraft from
the United States, so he flew 1,500 miles from Melbourne to the
groups base at Charters Towers airdrome in north Queensland
and marched straight to the office of his commanding officer,
the 6-foot-6 Colonel John Big Jim Davies.
Jim, I just saw 24 of the prettiest B-25s you would ever want
to see, Gunn said.
Davies was frustrated with his planeless outfits inability to
fight in the Philippines. But when Gunn suggested they grab the
B-25s, he objected. A military court could call that theft.
COURTESY OF NATHANIEL GUNN; OPPOSITE: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE

The freewheeling Paul Pappy Gunnshown here in a B-25

called Out of Stock because Gunn used it to scour Australian
bases for aircraft parts that were often out of stockwas a
master at getting what he needed, and making it work.

Goddamit, Jim, the planes have been sitting there for two
weeks, Gunn barked back. I want you to get off your ass. Go to
one of your buddies thats a general and ask him, beg him,
threaten him, but come back with authorization to pick up our
planes from Melbourne! Ill have them ready for combat in a
few days and we can give the Australians in New Guinea some
much-needed help!
Two days later, with orders secured from an accomplice at Far
East Air Force Advance Headquarters in Brisbane, Davies
launched a daring plan. He would snatch the Dutch bombers
and when caught, as was inevitable, simply claim he had taken
the wrong B-25s.
Davies, Gunn, and 22 other pilots rode the mail plane to
Melbourne. There, aided by paperwork authorizing the pickup
of the 3rd Bomb Groups aircraft, they made off with 12 Dutch
B-25s. By the time they stopped at Brisbane to refuel, complaints
and condemnations had caught up with them. But Gunn duped
a duty officer and the 3rd Bomb Group bandits were back on
their way, parking the purloined bombers in revetments at
Charters Towers in the early morning hours of April 3.
Protests by the American and Dutch ambassadors failed to
make a difference. And the Dutch were destined to lose another
M A Y / J U N E 2 0 13

33

battle: While prepping the bombers, Gunn discovered their

Norden bombsights were missing and brazenly flew one of the
planes back to Melbourne to secure them. A standoff with a
Dutch supply officer ended when Gunn drew both his .45s;
he returned with the Nordens. Military rules and regulations
bothered him not, Lieutenant Harry Mangan, a pilot who would
participate in the Royce Raid, said of Gunn. Rules be damned.
He was fighting a private war.
On April 6, Davies and Gunn received urgent orders to
report to the Melbourne headquarters of the U.S. Army Forces
in Australia. Fearing disciplinary action, they instead were
rewarded with a mission. Two days later, they met General Royce
in a top-secret briefing. Royce told them that to increase the
B-25s range, extra fuel tanks would be installed. The bombers,
Royce explained, would stage out of secret fields on Mindanao
still in friendly hands. The latest intelligence and weather reports
would guide their target selection.
Also present was Captain Frank P. Bostrom, a B-17 pilot from
the 19th Bomb Group, which would be teaming up on the
mission. Bostrom knew the route well; just weeks earlier he
had flown MacArthur and his family from Mindanao over
the Celebes Sea, Timor, and New Guinea to Australia. Since only
six B-17s were available, Royce got just three. Ultimately 10
B-25s would participate in the missionone with Pappy Gunn
at the controls.
The news of the mission surged through Charters Towers and,
although pilots didnt know the objective, volunteers deluged
Davies. So fierce was the competition that Captain Ronald
Hubbard, scratched as a pilot because of dengue fever, volunteered
to be a bombardier. Optimism was becoming contagious. On
April 10, Brett ordered a Distinguished Service Cross, the armys
second highest award for valor, be readied for Royces return. But
when the expedition landed in Darwin the morning of April 11
en route to Mindanao, bad news caught up with them. Two
days earlier, Bataan had surrendered.

So low youll think

were swimming.
The needles on their fuel gauges tilting towards empty,
the bombers were about to be swallowed by the storm swirling
above Mindanao when, as if by magic, there was a hole in the
cloud cover, Lieutenant Frank Bender, co-pilot to Pappy Gunn,
recalled. Below them, three gunshots punctured the silence at an
airfield the U.S. military had bulldozed out of one of the Del
Monte Corporations pineapple plantations. The rifle reports
Del Monte Fields air-raid signalsent men scrambling for cover
and the bombers scudded to successive landings before wideeyed Del Monte personnel, none of whom had ever seen a B-25.
Brigadier General William Sharp, the commander of a few
thousand Allied troops still carrying on the fight in the southern
Philippines, ushered Royce into the Del Monte Officers Club,
which would serve as the missions operations center. Bataans fall
meant there was no longer a need to attack near Luzon. Yet they
had come to attack and thats what they were going to do: make
aggressive, archipelago-wide strikes on Japanese ships and naval
and air installations, focusing on the ports of Davao and Cebu,
until they ran out of bombs or fuel. They would also evacuate
various civilians, reporters, and military personnel MacArthur
had cleared to leave the islands.
As a precaution against enemy reconnaissance, Davies led five
B-25s to a strip at Valencia, 40 miles away, where Filipinos camouflaged the planes with jungle foliage. At both fields, crews
pumped fuel and swapped the auxiliary fuel tanks for ordnance
before bedding down beneath their planes.
Royces raiders found it difficult to sleep.Here we were surprising the enemy for the first time, Bender said. What a
pleasure [to be] going over the target after having taken so
much grief without having anything with which to hit back.
The raids namesake, however, wouldnt be going with
them. Official word was that the San Antonio Rose II, in
which Royce was to fly, needed repairs to its number 3
engine. But its likely that army forces headquarters had
grounded Royce to deny the Japanese a propaganda coup
should he be lost. Royce would instead choreograph the
raids from his war room.
The raid successful, Jim Davies scrawled a
telegram to Royce detailing the actions of the
B-25s he led and warning, Our airdrome
now known to the enemy.

34

Tactics developed during the Royce Raidparticularly low-level

strang and skip-bombingwere used effectively in later raids,

loaded with evacuees. A groggy Gunn then took off in his B-25 for
the secondand most fatefully significantday of the mission.

like this one at Rabaul, New Guinea, on November 2, 1943.

The B-25s drew first blood around bustling Cebu

Harbor, 150 miles north of Del Monte Field, at first light. Half
struck a Japanese airfield; the rest bombed the harbor from
4,000 feet. As American bombers registered hits on two large
ships, Daviess B-25 loosed five 500-pound bombs, which bombardier Ronald Hubbard watched walk through dockside
warehouses setting off several fires and dockside explosions.
The B-25s then raced home to refuel and re-arm for follow-up
attacks the next day.
The two B-17s were also on their way home after hitting targets in Luzon. One had sunk a tanker near the southern port of
Batangas; the other Flying Fortress, Frank Bostroms, had
bombed the runway and hangars at Nichols Field, a former
American air base near Manila. Bostrom then zoomed past
Corregidor, waggling his wings in view of its dazzled defenders.
Royce, riveted to his radio, was ecstatic. It was a picnic,
he recalled.
But no sooner had the B-17s landed at Del Monte than three
dive-bombing Japanese floatplanes damaged them and destroyed
San Antonio Rose II. Gunn and other mechanics repaired the two
Flying Fortresses so they could return to Australia the next day
NATIONAL ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE

On Gunns first run over Cebu, a large freighter evaded

his bombs. Incensed, he instinctively plunged into a steep dive.
Minutiae and memories of Gunns navy days went ricocheting
through his mind: the arcane knowledge that ships guns automatically stop firing when lowered below 18 degrees, to keep them
from blowing themselves out of their mounts. A pilot flying low
enough could get unbelievably close if he dared to. He also flashed
on the lucrative pots awarded to the pilot who could skip a bomb
across the water the most times during dive-bombing training.
Gunn ordered the turret gunners and bombardier to fire their
.50-caliber machine guns forward; hed release the bombs.Were
going in low, Gunn told them. So low youll think were swimming. Within seconds, the B-25 was 100 feet off the waves, guns
blazing, screaming straight for the ships bridge. Squeezing the
trigger and squirming in the Plexiglas nose, Gunns bombardier
pleaded with him to pull up, but Gunn had tunnel vision.Spray
the deck! Spray the deck! he yelled over the intercom before
releasing two 500-pound bombs and yanking back on the stick.
One bomb convulsed the ship in fiery explosions.
G-forces pinned Gunn to his seat, but could not restrain his
emotions. Thats the way to do it, boys! he yelled as he
whipped the B-25 into a crisp, 180-degree turn for another run
M A Y / J U N E 2 0 13

35

Royce and Davies were awarded the Distinguished Service

Cross shortly after returning to Melbourne (though a
Distinguished Flying Cross had to ll in until the other medal
was available). The citation noted Royces gallant leadership.

at the enemy. Thats the way to get em!

Yeah, thats the way, huffed Gunns hyperventilating co-pilot,
Lieutenant Bender,If you want to get us all killed, thats the way.
Flush with adrenalin, Gunn dove again, resulting in catastrophic hits with 500-pounders that skipped across the surface
to slam into the ship at the water line, shearing it in half.
Soon, the other B-25 pilots were emulating Gunn. The raid was
stunningly successful: 10 B-25s hit Davao in the morning and
four more in the evening, and four bombers pounced on Cebu.
Despite antiaircraft fire and fire from Zeros and seaplanes, the
strafing B-25s stitched warehouses, docks, and fuel dumps,
mowing down men and sparking huge fires. The fat 500pounders and shrapnel-spattering 100-pound fragmentation
bombs with instantaneous fuses whistled a symphony of destruction upon the Japanese. At Davao, Daviess copilot, First
Lieutenant James McAfee, saw three of five bombsthose with
Mother,Daddy, and Sally scrawled on them after members
of his familyobliterate a transport, a wonderful catharsis.I was
scared to death, admitted one pilot, Major William Hipps. But
Ive never had so much fun in my life.
They were the first Allied bombers to strike the Japanese and
inflict real damage, as well as shock. Over Davao an enemy pilot
sidled his plane up to Hippss ship.He was so close we could see
his faceand it just registered blank amazement, Hipps recalled.
He didnt seem to know where we came from or how we got
there. He never found out eitherthe rear gunner got a direct
hit on his motor and a few seconds later he went down in flames.
Back at Del Monte, bombs sent Royce running to a dugout five
times. He even helped put out a fire. More enemy planes, as well
as ground forces, were undoubtedly on their way. As smoke
mushroomed over Cebu and Davao, the general decided that it
was time to leave the Philippines. He ordered the B-25s home.
Gunn had made up his mind, too. Winging back to Del Monte,
his scattered thoughts coalesced. This was the way to fight with a
B-25. Get right down on the water with the ships and blow them to
hell. He couldnt wait to tell Davies of his tactical revelations. But
the news would have to waithe had another mission.
Landing that evening at a small strip on the island of Panay,
220 miles to the north, Gunn hurriedly took on four highpriority passengers: UPI war correspondent Frank Hewlett,
two Japanese American intelligence operatives, and a Chinese
military attach. Back at Del Monte, other priority evacuees
pilots, staff officers, and a quinine expertcrammed aboard
the remaining B-25s before they took off and headed for
Darwin at 12:50 a.m. on April 14. It would be more than two
years before large American bombers would again appear in the
skies over the Philippines.
36

WORLD WAR II

Royces Raiders had departed Australia in secrecy

and anonymity, but returned to fanfare. Royce received a priority telegram from U.S. Army chief of staff General George C.
Marshall: Good work stop Congratulations. The April 16 New
York Times called the raid the most spectacular aerial thrust of
the Pacific War. There were press conferences and popping flash
bulbs, as well as a ceremony during which Royce and Davies were
awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Gunn, Bostrom, and
the other dirty, exhausted pilots received medals, too, but they
cared little for the accolades or attention.Just give me a two-inch
beefsteak and bed for a week, James McAfee said.
It was just as well. While Royces patchwork aerial armada had
been descending to storm-shrouded Mindanao, a secret naval
task force led by the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, 16 B-25s lashed
to its flight deck, was sailing toward a higher-profile target: Japan
(see The Avengers, March/April 2013). The leader of this nearsimultaneous operation was Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle.
Doolittles men had been equally unaware of Royces adventure. Captain Ted Lawson, in his book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,
described the sick feeling he and his fellow Doolittle Raiders got
when a garbled report of the Royce attacks reached them on the
Hornet and word spread through the ship that Tokyo had been
bombed by four-motored American planes identical to those
they had aboard.
News of the Doolittle Raiders April 18 strike against targets in
Japan reached the world two days after word came of the Royce
Raid, banishing the accomplishments of Royce and his men
first to the back pages, then to obscurity. Yet the effects of Royces
raid carried into 1943 and beyond, perhaps impacting the Pacific
War more extensively than the more famous mission.
Royces men navigated a record 4,000 miles, operated for two
days deep within enemy-held territory, sank eight ships, shot
down five planes, inflicted incalculable damage on Japanese
installations and personnel, suffered no casualties, and brought
home all but onethe San Antonio Rose IIof their invaluable
birds. Furthermore, those immediately tangible results paled in
comparison to the raids short- and long-term effects at the indi-

vidual, local, and theater levels. The mission rescued nearly three
dozen important individuals from certain captivity or death,
reinvigorated MacArthurs command, and signaled Americas
resolvenot only to the subjugated people of the Philippines,
but to anxious Australians as well.
Pappy Gunn went to work in his hangar laboratory almost
immediately afterward, reconfiguring B-25s and A-20s into gunships. The mad scientists experiments, coupled with innovations
in ordnance and the revolutionary tactics he conceived over
Cebu, synthesized into a deadly technique for skip-bombing and
low-level strafing that would bring astonishing results at the
Battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943 and render a devastating attack on the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul the following
November. Gunn was reunited with his family after the liberation of Manila in early 1945.
Ralph Royce would receive a promotion to major general in
June 1942, and serve in Europe, the Middle East, and the United
States through the wars end. But, as his Distinguished Service
Days after the triumphant completion of the Royce Raid, the
more sensational Doolittle Raid on Japan grabbed the attention
of the public and militarysuch as Private Adam Pickerz of the
387th Quartermaster Battalion (below), as his unit prepared to
ship out from San Francisco aboard the SS Boschfontein.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE

USS Hornet was sailing

toward a higher-profile
target: Japan.
Cross citation supports, it was in the early days of the Pacific
conflict,at a time when defeatism wasthe mandatory doctrine
of the day, that Royce and his raiders left their mark through
their determined combative spirit of aggression, heroism, and
extraordinary achievement.
We came back cocky, said a prescient Royce after the raid,
foreshadowing the whirlwind of Allied aerial offensives that
would descend upon the Japanese.Thats the way we should and
will come back every time, too. When you have men who feel
cocky; when they get the idea that theyve got to lick the world,
thats the time they usually do it.

M A Y / J U N E 2 0 13

37

Hitlers

Harvard
Man
On his way up, the Nazi leader had help from
a source steeped in American culture
By Andrew Nagorski

n a cold spring morning in 1906,

a canoeist on the Charles River in
Boston lost control in the swift current and tipped into the water. At that
moment, several Harvard students
were nearby on the shore trying out
for crew; one young man immediately grabbed a boat and
rowed to the canoeist, who was floundering badly. Fully
clothed, the rower jumped into the frigid water and managed to push the man up into the boat. The next day,
the husky, tall (6-foot-4) Samaritan discovered he was
an instant local celebrity. A Boston Herald headline proclaimed: Hanfstaengl, Harvards Hero.
The beneficiary of this publicity, Ernst Putzi
Hanfstaengl, claimed that as a result of this incident he
got to know Theodore Roosevelt Jr., a fellow Harvard student and elder son of the president. This, in turn, led to
an invitation to the White House, where at a stag party in
the basement Hanfstaengl played the piano so enthusiastically he broke seven bass strings on a Steinway Grand.
This was a young man who loved the spotlightand who
would soon embark on an unlikely journey, from Harvard
38

WORLD WAR II

and the White House to the beer halls of Munich and the
entourage of a rising firebrand named Adolf Hitler. Once
he was at Hitlers side, Hanfstaengl took on the role of
court musician, spin doctor, and go-betweenespecially
with American correspondents, diplomats, and visitors.
It is a far cry from Harvard to Hitler, but in my case the
connexion is direct, he would write years later. Or, as
Putzi put it to one interviewer in recalling the chain of
events that led him to Hitler, All that is just by some
artistry of fate.
BORN IN BAVARIA IN 1887 and therefore a German
citizen, Hanfstaengl called himself half American
because he had a German father and an American
mother. Putzithe term in the local Bavarian dialect for
little fellow that stuck as his nickname from an early
agewas proud of his roots. On his fathers side, Putzis
ancestors were well known as connoisseurs and patrons
of the arts, he pointed out. His grandfather had been
famous for his art reproduction work, a business his
father expanded by opening galleries in London and New
York. Putzis mother was a Sedgwick, of the very eminent
ART RESOURCE/BPK

together the highly resourceNew England family. Her

Putzi believed he was more worldly
ful attach contacted a broad
uncle was General John
Sedgwick, a Civil War hero.
and sophisticated than his fellow Nazi range of political and military figures. One of Smiths
Her father, William Heine,
hangers-on, and he worked hard to
most interesting meetings
a European-born architect,
ingratiate himself with their leader. He was with Hitler, whom Smith
had fled his native Dresden
described as a marvelous
after the Revolution of 1848,
saw Hitler as an unconventional but
demagogue. I have rarely
worked on decorations for
gifted politician on the rise.
listened to such a logical and
the Paris Opera, emigrated
fanatical man. Smith wranto the United States, and
gled a press pass to a Nazi Party rally at a popular Munich beer
joined Admiral Matthew Perry as an illustrator on Perrys expehall. When Hanfstaengl and Smith did connect, on the latters final
dition to Japan. Heine, too, became a general during the Civil War.
day in Munich, the Berlin-bound diplomat gave Hanfstaengl his
Given such a lineage, it was hardly a surprise that young
pass to that evenings event and urged him to go. Putzi had never
Hanfstaengl would be sent to Harvard, where he mingled with
heard of Hitler, but he decided to see what Smith found so
the likes of T. S. Eliot, Robert Benchley, John Reed, and Walter
compelling about this political newcomer.
Lippmann. A gifted pianist, Putzi was equally at ease playing
When Putzi arrived at the Kindlkeller, he wasnt sure what to
Wagner and Harvard marching songs. After graduating in 1909,
expect. His first glimpse of Hitler left him distinctly underhe returned to Germany for a year of military service in the Royal
whelmed. In his heavy boots, dark suit and leather waistcoat,
Bavarian Foot Guards, followed by a year of studies in Grenoble,
semi-stiff white collar and odd little mustache, he really did not
Vienna, and Rome, and a return to New York to take over the
look very impressivelike a waiter in a railway station restaufamily gallery on Fifth Avenue. Eating often at the Harvard Club,
rant, Hanfstaengl recalled. But once Hitler took the floor, the
Putzi met yet another RooseveltFranklin Delano, then a New
atmosphere became electric. Hitler displayed a mastery of
York state senator. And he reconnected with the elder Theodore
innuendo and irony, starting in a light conversational tone and
Roosevelt, discussing both art and politics. Hanfstaengl, your
then cranking up his rhetoric as he blamed Jews, communists,
business is to pick the best pictures, he said the former president
socialists, and Weimar republicans for Germanys predicament,
told him. But remember that in politics the choice is that of the
promising a national rebirth that would sweep away those
lesser evil.With no sense of irony, Putzi wrote in his memoir that
enemies. Putzi observed how Hitler entranced his audience,
the phrase has stuck with me ever since.
especially the ladiesincluding one young woman who was
In 1920, Putzi married Helen Niemeyer, a matronly but still
transfixed as if in some emotional ecstasy.
attractive young woman he had met when she wandered into the
Impressed beyond measure, Putzi afterward made his way to
Fifth Avenue gallery. The daughter of immigrants from Bremen
the speaker, who was drenched with sweat but relishing his triwho made sure she spoke German at home, Helen was born and
umph. After introducing himself, Hanfstaengl declared, I agree
raised in New York. Her American identity is on full display in
with 95 percent of what you said and would very much like to
family photos dated 191213, when she was around 20. She is
talk to you about the rest some time. Hitler couldnt have been
decked out like a model for the Statue of Liberty, holding a large
friendlier. Why, yes, of course, he replied, Putzi wrote later. I
American flag on the steps of Hobokens City Hall. In 1921, after
am sure we shall not have to quarrel about the odd 5 percent.
the couples first child, Egon, was born, they moved to Munich.
From that moment on, Putzi effectively joined Hitlers moveFor Putzi, it was a disorienting homecoming. Postwar Germent, seeing his new acquaintance as a self-made man who could
many was riven by faction and near destitution, a madhouse,
rally Germans to a cause that would prove a strong alternative to
he noted. That madhouse was produced by Germanys humiliatthe communists, who were also pushing for power. Putzi would
ing defeat in World War I and the Weimar Republics chaotic
later maintain that his 5 percent disagreement had to do with
birth and simultaneous economic collapse, with hyperinflation
Hitlers Jew-baiting, but no records indicate that anti-Semitism
plunging millions of middle-class families into abject poverty
seriously troubled Hanfstaenglquite the contrary. Hitlers
a perfect setting for demagogues of every stripe.
claims that Jews were profiting shamelessly from Germanys
misery was a charge which was only too easy to make stick,
IN NOVEMBER 1922, Putzi met Hitlerand, yes, he did so
Putzi noted. He was more genuine in his disdain for the dubithrough a Harvard connection. Warren Robbins, a Harvard classous types in Hitlers entourage, like party ideologist Alfred
mate serving at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, called Hanfstaengl in
Rosenberg. Putzi always believed he was more sophisticated and
Munich to ask him to assist Truman Smith, a young military
worldly than others in that group, and worked hard to ingratiate
attach about to visit the Bavarian capital (see Eye on a
himself with its leader. He saw Hitler as an unconventional but
Juggernaut, March/April 2012). Robbins wanted Putzi to help
gifted politician on the rise, and was eager to rise with him.
Smith cultivate contacts there, but before the men could get
40

WORLD WAR II

After selling his share of the family gallery in New York, Putzi
put up $1,000 to turn the Nazis four-page weekly Vlkischer
Beobachter (Peoples Observer) into a daily, hired a cartoonist to
redesign the masthead, and claimed credit for coining the propaganda sheets original slogan, Arbeit und Brot (Work and Bread).
Hanfstaengl also claimed that he tried to educate Hitler about the
world, particularly the growing importance of the United States.
If there is another war it must inevitably be won by the side
which America joins, he told the Nazi leader, urging him to
advocate friendship with the Americans.
But Hitler seemed less interested in Putzis political theories
than in his skill at the piano. When Putzi first played Wagners
Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg for him, Hitler started marching
up and down, waving his arms as if conducting. When Putzi
added Harvard songs, Sousa marches, and improvisations to the

mix, explaining how at his alma mater music and cheerleaders

helped whip crowds to the point of hysterical enthusiasm,
Hitler became even more animated.That is it, Hanfstaengl, that
is what we need for the movement, marvelous, he said, prancing about like a drum majorette. Putzi would later write several
marches used by the Brown Shirts, including the one they played

Star turns: Putzi (right, seated) and journalist Ernst Franz

behind the scenes at the Louvre with Manets Djeuner sur
lherbe. Below, Helen Niemeyer, the future Mrs. Hanfstaengl,
looking blonde and beautiful and American in New Jersey.

TOP: ART RESOURCE/BPK; BOTTOM: COURTESY OF ERIC HANFSTAENGL

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

41

as they paraded through

Berlins Brandenburg Gate
on the day that Hitler took
power in 1933.

WHEN PUTZI introduced

the Nazi leader to his Helen,
he said the future chancellor
was delighted with my wife,
who was blonde and beautiful and American, Hanfstaengl recalled. Hitler became such a
frequent visitor at the couples residence on Gentzstrasse that the
Hanfstaengls jokingly referred to their apartment as the Caf
Gentz. In her fragmentary postwar notes, Helen wrote in a precise hand with unconcealed pride:It seems he enjoyed our home
above all others to which he was invited.
Although Helen reported that her first impression was colored
by Hitlers quite pathetic appearance in cheap mismatched
Perhaps playing his idols beloved Wagner, Putzi works the
Goebbels family piano during a 1932 party at his fellow acks
Berlin home. From left: Hitler, Hanfstaengl, Wilma Schaub,
Magda Goebbels, Wilhelm Brueckner, and Joseph Goebbels.

42

WORLD WAR II

clothes, she was as taken by

him as her husband was,
claiming that the Nazi leader
was a warm person who
loved playing with Egon.
Helen was fascinated by
Hitlers tendencyto talk and
talk and talk, as she put it,
refusing to allow anyone else
to get in a word. His voice
had an unusually vibrant, expressive quality, which it later lost,
probably through overexertion. She attested to its mesmeric
quality as he expounded on his political vision.His plans for the
renaissance of the country sounded ideal for most citizens, she
declared, alluding to the chaos of the times. Nor did the main subject of those monologues put her off. The one thing he always
raved against was the Jews, she said, recalling that he blamed Jews
for preventing him from getting jobs when he was living in
Vienna. It began as personal but he built it up politically.
Putzi, who believed Hitler had no normal sex life, came to
think that the Nazi leader had developed one of his theoretical
passions for Helen. Helen didnt disagree, seeing Hitler as an
admirer who was also probably a neuter. Whatever emotions

What do you think youre doing?

Putzis wife shouted at Hitler, after he
threatened suicide. Theyre looking for
you to carry on. Hitler sank into
a chair, and Helen quickly hid the
gun in the kitchen flour bin.

AKG IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

Hanfstaengl and HItler study the returns in Putzis hometown

daily, the Mnchener Zeitung, on April 25, 1932, a day after
elections in Prussia and other jurisdictions. Candidate Hitler
had campaigned city by city, American-style, using an airplane.

flowed between Hitler and Helen, they led to one of the most
bizarre episodes in the future dictators riseand a moment that
may have literally changed the course of world events.
Hitler was about to spend nine months in Landsberg Prison
(an episode that would prove more productive break than punishment, allowing him as it did to dictate Mein Kampf). Few
know that Helen Hanfstaengl, an American, may have kept Adolf
Hitler alive at his lowest moment.
The evening of November 9, 1923, Hitler suddenly appeared
at the Hanfstaengls country house in Uffing, about an hour
southwest of Munich. He and his coterie, including Putzi, had
just tried and failed to seize control of Bavaria. In a violent street
confrontation that left 14 Nazis and 4 policemen dead, the
authorities had quashed the rebellion. When the so-called Beer
Hall Putsch failed, Putzi fled to Austria, but Hitlers car broke
down. He decided to seek refuge with Helen. There he stood,
ghastly pale, hatless, his face and clothes covered with mud, she
recalled. Hitler had dislocated his left shoulder, probably in a fall
when the authorities opened fire on the Nazis as they marched
arm in arm and the man at his side went down. A doctor and a
AKG IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

medic tended to the injured insurrectionist during the night, and

Helen could hear Hitler moaning as they forced his shoulder and
arm bones back together.
The next morning, Helens mother-in-law, who lived nearby,
phoned to say that the police were in her house. Helen went
upstairs to alert Hitler that he was about to be arrested. The news
devastated him.Now all is lostno use going on, he exclaimed,
picking up a revolver that lay on a cabinet. But I was alert,
grasped his arm and took the weapon away from him, Helen
recalled. Alarmed that her guest might have killed himself, she
shouted, What do you think youre doing? She berated Hitler
for thinking of leaving his followers in the lurch. Theyre looking for you to carry on, she said. Hitler sank into a chair, and
Helen quickly hid the gun in the kitchen flour bin. The police did
arrest Hitler, leading to the trial that made him truly famous. He
took full advantage of sympathetic judges to proclaim his goal of
overthrowing the Weimar Republic.
On December 20, 1924, the guards at Landsberg released
Hitler. He promptly came to dinner at the Hanfstaengls elegant
new home on Munichs Pienzenauerstrasse. Both Hanfstaengls
were there to greet him; as soon as the authorities made clear
they would not arrest other Nazis over the abortive putsch,
Putzi had returned from Austria. At first Hitler turned on the
charm, apologizing to Helen for the episode in Uffing. But once
he had eaten a turkey dinner followed by his favorite Austrian
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

43

pastries, he launched into

poised, insecure, she added.
U.S. Consul General George S.
one of his tirades. We will
American radio newsman
reduce Paris to rubble! he
H. V. Kaltenborn, another
Messersmith dismissed Putzi as a
thundered.We must break
pompous, arrogant womanizer, calling of Putzis Harvard friends,
the chains of Versailles!
emerged from an August
Hanfstaengl out when he caught
Putzi insisted much later
1932 interview with Hitler
that he felt almost physithat his former classmate
him fondling a tablemate at an
cally sick whenever Hitler
had set up for him and two
embassy dinner.
started in that vein. He
other American reporters
seemed to have come out of
convinced that the Nazi
Landsberg with all his worst prejudices reinforced, he concluded.
leader was an unlikely threat. After meeting Hitler I myself felt
As was typical, Putzi was trying to portray himself as morally and
almost reassured, Kaltenborn recalled. I could not see how a
intellectually superior. He argued that hangers-on like Rosenberg
man of his type, a plebeian Austrian of limited mentality, could
and Rudolf Hess had unduly influenced the Nazi leader, arousing
ever gain the allegiance of a majority of Germans.
Hitlers latent radical tendencies. In fact, Putzis postwar recolAmericans gravitated to Putzi, mocking him even as they
lections are transparently self-serving, as he tries to justify his
sought him out. Fussy. Amusing. The oddest imaginable press
infatuation with the dictator-in-waiting and argues that he somechief for a dictator, Thompson wrote. Once Hitler took power
how was trying to push the Nazi leader in a moderate direction,
in 1933, he and Putzi did awe some Americans, like Martha
particularly regarding the United States. Putzi claimed he alone
Dodd, the 20-something daughter of the new U.S. ambassador,
could reason with Hitler, an effort the others constantly underWilliam Dodd. Others had the opposite reaction. William Shirer
mined with their racialist harping. He had failed to absorb any
called Hanfstaengl an immense, high-strung, incoherent clown.
of the information I had kept trying to give him and merely
U.S. Consul General George S. Messersmith dismissed him
regarded America as part of the Jewish problem, he wrote. Yet
as pompously arrogant and a notorious womanizer, calling
none of this kept Putzi from working for Hitler; he insisted later
Hanfstaengl out when he caught him fondling a female tablemate
that his aim was to guide this unpredictable genius.
at an embassy dinner party.
Putzi fought back by spreading rumors that Messersmith and
ALTHOUGH HITLER WAS BACK, as the German economy
correspondents critical of the new regime were Jews. Despite his
began to recover, events increasingly marginalized his movement.
postwar attempts to distance himself from Nazi anti-Semitism,
In the May 1928 parliamentary elections, the Nazis won a paltry
here Hanfstaengl left a trail of damning evidence. The Jews
12 seats, compared with 153 for the Socialists and 73 for the
are the vampire sucking German blood, he told James G.
Nationalists. Then came the Wall Street crash of October 1929. In
McDonald, visiting head of the New Yorkbased Foreign Policy
September 1930, the Nazis won 107 of 577 parliamentary seats
Association, in March 1933.We shall not be strong until we free
and Hitlers march to power began in earnest. This turnaround
ourselves of them. Quentin Reynolds of the International News
renewed interest in the Nazi leader among American corresponService admitted he initially found Putzi a likeable fellow, until
dents, diplomats, and visitors. And for most Americans, the key
he drew the mouthpieces wrath for filing a story about a mob that
go-between for personal meetings and interviews with Hitler
savaged a German woman for wanting to marry a Jew. Reynolds
was, of course, the half-American Putzi.
concluded, You had to know Putzi to really dislike him,
Hanfstaengl wanted his American contacts to come away
impressed with Hitlers leadership qualities, but the face-to-face
MANY OF THE TOP NAZIS who knew Hanfstaengl from the
encounters he engineered often had the opposite effect. Accomearly days had reached the same conclusion, although they had
panied by Putzi, Rudolf Hess, and Hermann Gring, Hitler met
to wait until Hitler began losing interest in Putzi before they
with U.S. Ambassador Frederic Sackett on December 5, 1931. The
could undercut him. Joseph Goebbels, the regimes propaganda
envoy later said he was struck by the fact that this fanatical cruchief, made no secret of his contempt for Hanfstaengl and his
sader never looked him in the eye. Should Hitler come to power,
desire to cut the Bavarian out of the inner circle. As Goebbelss
he must find himself shortly on the rocks, both of international
influence grew, Putzis diminished. The evil genius of the
and internal difficulties, Sackett predicted. He is certainly not
second half of Hitlers career was Goebbels, Hanfstaengl comthe type from which statesmen evolve.
plained. Soon Putzis foreign press office had been unceremoniIn the same vein, Putzi had arranged for Dorothy Thompson,
ously moved away from the Reich Chancellery, leaving him
the eras most famous female foreign correspondent, to interview
feeling isolated. After Helen divorced Putzi in 1936 he felt he had
Hitler in November 1931. Thompsons immediate judgment:
lost another connection to Hitler, who still had a soft spot for
There was no way, given his startling insignificance, that Hitler
her. Hanfstaengls ever more tenuous position led him to start
would lead Germany. He is inconsequent and voluble, illsmuggling gold and platinum objects to London. He claimed
44

WORLD WAR II

As Goebbels (center) and other political rivals elbowed for

room in the Fhrers inner circle, the once-prominent
Hanfstaengl (partly obscured by hat) was in eclipse even
before he ed Germany in 1937 out of fear for his life.

later that he had lost faith in Hitlers policies, but the real source
of Putzis disillusionment was his own dwindling stature.
Fittingly, Hanfstaengls abrupt exodus from Germany in
February 1937 plays as either drama or farce. Informed by the
Chancellery that he was to go to Spain to help German correspondents covering the civil war there, he was rushed aboard a
military transport plane and instructed to strap on a parachute.
Once they were aloft, the pilot said he had orders to drop Putzi
over Red lines between Barcelona and Madrid. Alarmed, Putzi
protested that this would be a death sentence. The pilot gave
Hanfstaengl a meaningful look as he turned off one engine and
landed, ostensibly for repairs, at a quiet airfield near Leipzig.
Under cover of darkness, Putzi slipped away and hopped a train,
fleeing first to Munich and then to Zurich. Putzi arranged for his
son Egon, who was at boarding school southwest of Munich, to
follow him to the neutral country. In Switzerland, Putzi received
a letter from Gring claiming that the whole affair was a harmless joke and that if he returned he would be safe.
Helen had returned to New York. Putzi moved with Egon to
London. Egon continued his schooling in Britain until 1939 when,
following in his fathers footsteps, he enrolled at Harvard.
AKG IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

When World War II started, Putzi was among Germans in

Britain rounded up as security risks. Interned in Canada, he contrived to smuggle out a plea for assistance that reached the desk
of my Harvard Club friend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as Putzi
grandiosely put it later. His bold move worked. The Canadians
transferred him to American custody. When he arrived in
Washington he was met by Egon, who had interrupted his studies at Harvard to join the U.S. Army. Sergeant Hanfstaengl greeted
his father in uniform. From 1942 to 1944, Putzi provided information to American intelligence officials on Hitler and other Nazi
leaders, along with analysis of German broadcasts. At wars end
he was sent back to Britain and eventually interned again, this
time in Germany, before being released on September 3, 1946.
Neither Putzi nor Helen ever quite lost their sense of wonderment that they had been so close with Hitler. In the mid-1950s
Helen left New York for Munich a second time, dying there in
1973. Putzi and Helens grandson Eric, born in 1954 in New York
but raised in Germany, lives in the house on Pienzenauerstrasse
where the Hanfstaengls feted the future dictator after his release
from prison. Eric recalls his grandfather endlessly regaling listeners about the old days, in effect boasting of being an intimate of
the Fhrer. While Putzi could be jovial and entertaining, Eric
said,most of the time he was on the Hitler tripit was terrible.
In an interview with Hitler biographer John Toland in 1971, the
elder Hanfstaengl declared that Hitler was still in his bones. He
died four years later at 88.
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

45

PORTFOLIO

Built to Last

Fortresses of Futility

o hold Europe once conquered, Germany

erected huge arrays of defensive structures.
In 1938, the Westwall, or Siegfried Line as the
Allies called it, began to rise near the French border,
eventually running from Switzerland to the Netherlands. In 1943, to foil Allied raids from the ocean,
Hitler assigned his work gangs to the wars largest
building job: the Atlantic Wall, 15,000 passive and
aggressive obstructions on the coast from Norway
to Spain. After the war Germany tore down much of
the Westwall, but thanks to sheer scale many coastal
redoubts remain ingloriously intact. They fascinate
British photographer Jonathan Andrew, whose color
images, mostly of Atlantic Wall elements, appear on
these pages. It was as if they were still on guard, but
nobody had told them the war is over, Andrew, who
lives in Amsterdam, told Britains Daily Mail. Once
I started photographing them, it was impossible not
to be moved by what the buildings symbolized and
what they have witnessed. Michael Dolan

NOT AS MUCH BITE AS DESIRED

The Todt Organization, which built the autobahns,
included dragons teeth in the Westwall to trap
attackers in killing zones, but Allied troops nessed
the obstructions. At left, Seventh Army combat
engineers perch on the 3-foot blocks to survey the
German homeland. Weatherworn and mottled with
lichen, another array of dragons teeth (above) tops
Riegelstellung Dune in the Netherlands.

46

WORLD WAR II

ALL COLOR PHOTOS BY JONATHAN ANDREW; LEFT, UIG/GETTY

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

47

BUNKER MENTALITY
Entangled on the Eastern Front,
Hitler at rst defended Western
Europe with structures more
than soldiers. However, he soon
ordered the 3,000-mile Atlantic
Wall garrisoned with 300,000
men. That demanded barracks,
ammunition bunkers, and storage
facilities for fuel and rations to
support posts like an observation
tower (above) near a dummy
aireld at Hemiksem, Belgium.
Atlantic Wall troops often served
as builders, maintenance men,
and movers (left), sometimes
installing equipment scavenged
from the Westwall.

48

WORLD WAR II

MODERN STONE AGE

A naval re control posts
11-foot concrete walls at
Ijmuiden, the Netherlands,
recall prehistoric times. This
was one of the rst Atlantic
Wall structures to arouse
photographer Jonathan
Andrews curiosity.

A TIME TO BUILD BIG

Hectored by Hitler to ensure
Germany kept Europe, the
Wehrmacht and the Todt
Organization used POWs,
forced labor, and soldiers
(right) to erect structures
like a Luftwaffe radio bunker
(left) at Spaandam, the
Netherlands. Wary of foreign
materials, Nazi construction
managers spent billions of
marks on German steel and
cement to ensure that the
Atlantic Wall would last as
long as the Thousand-Year
Reich. As things worked out,
it greatly outlasted the Reich.

GAMMA-KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE: BUNDESARCHIV BILD 101 I-292-1279-07A PHOTO TESCHENDORF

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

49

ROMMEL TO THE WALL

Baton in hand, Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel (foreground,
left) tours the French coast
in January 1944. Ordered by
Hitler to reinvigorate the
Atlantic Wall, the former
Afrika Korps commander
doubted Germany could
manage a defense in depth
and sought to smash Allied
invaders at the shoreline. He
supplemented bastions like
a casemate at Koudekerke,
the Netherlands (above), with
barbed wire by the mile,
mines by the million, and
countless barriers and
explosive booby traps lurking
in the shallows and staged
on the beaches.

50

WORLD WAR II

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION

View slits lend a stylish feel to an
observation tower on the English
Channel (left). Despite this facility and
many more like it, the D-Day invasion
still surprised the Germans.

ALMOST INTERSECTING
Upon conquering the Netherlands and
Belgium, Hitler extended the Westwall. At
Emminkhuizen, the Netherlands, an 88mm
antitank bunker (right) stands only 65 miles
from the nearest stretch of Atlantic Wall.

OUT OF SCALE
A guard keeps watch at
one of three 406mm
Adolfkanone guns on
the Atlantic Wall in
France, in the early
1940s. The enormous
guns, originally meant
for battleships, red
1,300-pound rounds.

TOP: AKG IMAGES.ULLSTEIN BILD; BOTTOM:, GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE: BUNDESARCHIV BILD 101 I-295-1596-10 PHOTO KURTH

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

51

When China lured Japan into urban combat in 1937, the

result revealed the Empires strengthsand its liabilities
BY GREGORY CROUCH

ll throughout the 1930s,

Japan pecked at China,
provoking incidents,
demanding apologies,
brandishing ultimatums,
and seizing terrain. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, leader of
Chinas ruling Nationalist Party, kowtowed to each aggression,
surrendering sovereignty and chunks of territoryManchuria
in 1931, and later substantial pieces of North China near Beijing:
52

WORLD WAR II

the entirety of Jehol Province in 1933, and sections of the

Chahar and Hubei provinces in 1935.
Rather than confront the Japanese, Chiang preferred to focus
his Central Army on suppressing Mao Zedong and his Communist Party, the Nationalists domestic foes. In 1932, for
instance, when Japanese forces squared off against a warlords
private army at Shanghai, Chiang withheld his troops, and the
Japanese used amphibious landings along the Yangtze to whip
the warlord. The Generalissimos chronic capitulations to the

A few of Shanghais 60,000 Western

residents watch from a rooftop in the
International Settlement as Japanese
bombs ignite the northern districts of
Asias most important commercial city.

enemy enraged many Chinese patriots. Frustration climaxed in

December 1936 in Xian, when the rabidly anti-Japanese Zhang
Xueliang, known worldwide as the Young Marshal for his hereditary status as warlord of lost Manchuria, refused an order to fight
the Reds. When Chiang traveled to Xian to force the matter,
Zhang kidnapped him. The Young Marshal held Chiang until he
agreed to stop scourging Mao and align with the Communists and
other Chinese factions in a united front against Japan. This forced
the Generalissimo to choose between fighting the foreign assailant
KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES

and losing what the Chinese called the Mandate of Heaven

akin to the divine right of kings but verified by popular
supportthat kept Chinese leaders in power.
After a July 1937 incident at Marco Polo Bridge, near Beijing,
the Japanese poured an army into North China, expecting and
obtaining an easy victory. Chiang responded from the balcony
at his military headquarters in the cool mountains of Jiangsu
Province, south of the Yangtze: If we allow one more inch of
our territory to be lost, he declared, we shall be guilty of an
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

53

unpardonable offense against our race. But Chiang did not

want to fight in earnest on North Chinas open terrain, where
his lightly equipped infantry stood little chance against Japans
tanks, artillery, airpower, and rapid coordination, and where his

Suzhou Creek split the International Settlement, and since

the early 1900s the Japanese had dominated the two districts
on the northeast side, Yangshupu and Hongkou. These neighborhoods and their industrial areas were vulnerable, the 30,000
resident Japanese and their economic
interests defended only by the few thouUrban warfare would neutralize Japans many
sand Imperial Navy marine infantrymen
military advantages, but the relentless combat
based there.
Chiang Kai-shek understood that fightwould put civilians into a hellish crossfire.
ing in a city would negate many of Japans
Central Army could only be supplied by two vulnerable railways.
military strengths. He also understood that he did not actually
The Generalissimo, however, could take the war south, forcing
need to beat the Japanese: For long-abused China, a stalemate
the Japanese to fight in the lower Yangtze Valley. This time
leading to a fair, negotiated peace would represent a massive
Chiang would make a stand at Shanghai in a blood-soaked donsuccess, one likely to cement the nation behind Chiang. The
nybrook, the first, the biggest, and the most important battle on
Imperial Japanese Navy could steam up the Huangpu to bring
the Asian mainland during what would become World War II
reinforcements and lend gunfire support, but in that setting
a battle the Japanese only barely managed to win.
warships would be highly vulnerable. And Chiang expected
Chinas new air forcetrained and advised by General Claire
Built on the banks of the Huangpu, 12 miles south of
Chennault and other Americansto drive the invaders back to
where that river meets the Yangtze, Shanghai dominated a
the sea. As a battleground, Shanghai offered the Generalissimo
swampy peninsula that jutted into the East China Sea between
every military advantage. He gave less consideration to the
Hangzhou Bay and the Yangtze Estuary. In 1937, a century
millions of Chinese civilians living there.
after being founded as a
foreign-controlled trading
zone, Shanghai was Asias
most economically and
culturally powerful city.
Its heart was the Bund
an imposing curve of the
Huangpu shoreline crowded with hotels, banks,
and trading houses.
Shanghais status as a
trading center meant the
city didnt wholly belong
to its millions of Chinese
residents. Of these, 1.5
million lived among the
60,000 foreigners who
occupied two neighboring redoubts of Western
privilege and power: the
International Settlement
and the French Concession, neutral enclaves that
together were half the size
of Manhattan. Another 2
million Chinese lived in
the Chinese-run districts
of Greater Shanghai that
Desperate to escape the violence about to descend, civilian residents clog Shanghais streets as
had grown up around the
Chinese and Japanese troops prepare to battle block by bloody block for the port city.
foreign enclaves. Turgid
54

WORLD WAR II

During July, tensions between the opposing forces

swelled until Shanghai was
seething. The pot boiled over
on August 9 at the gates of a
military airfield west of the
city when Chinese guards
killed a Japanese navy officer
and an enlisted sailor whom
they denounced as spies.
In response, Japan effectively demanded that China
abandon Shanghai.
Within two days, four
Japanese cruisers and 10 destroyers sailed up the Huangpu, batteries cleared, decks
sandbagged, rails abristle
with machine guns. Soon 32
warships clogged the river.
From these vessels, 3,000 to
4,000 marines rushed into
positions on the boundary
separating Hongkou and
Zhabei, the dense Chinese
district to the west. That
maneuver essentially doubled the size of the Japanese
ground force in Shanghai.
As the Japanese were moving, the 50,000-man cream of
Chiang Kai-sheks Central Army, advised and trained by Germany
since the late 1920s, was converging on Shanghai to surround the
critical Japanese-held districts. The 55th Division occupied the
Huangpu bank opposite the Japanese holdings. Lieutenant General
Sun Yuanliangs 88th Division garrisoned Zhabei, demolishing
buildings interior walls to create redoubts and digging in
around North Railway Station, a concrete blockhouse that
dominated the neighborhoods outside Hongkous northwest
corner. To complete the hemming of Japanese districts against
the Huangpu, the 87th Division under Lieutenant General
Wang Jingjiu deployed along the north.
On a muggy, fetid August day, Chinese regulars and Japanese
marines faced off across the barricades as opposing patrols
clashed in Zhabei and Hongkou. All day, tens of thousands of
sweating refugees trudged out of the threatened districts over
the Suzhou Creek bridges and into the supposed safety of the
International Settlement. A crush of displaced humans, carrying what possessions they could, squatted in doorways and
alleys, on street corners, windowsills, and sidewalks, and packed
the Bund, hoping the crisis would spare them.
MAP BY JANET NORQUIST/CREATIVE FREELANCERS; OPPOSITE, AP PHOTO

The afternoon passed in

calm, but before sunset the
guns barked again. Artillery
boomed. Flames lit the night
as structures burned north
of Suzhou Creek, which cut
off Hongkou from the rest of
the settlement. Feeling safe
on its opposite bank, Westerners stood on rooftops, sipping cocktails, and watched
the contested districts burn. It
was Friday, August 13, 1937,
and Asias last hopes for peace
were vanishing in the gunfire.
Before dawn on Saturday,
August 14, a typhoon swept
in from the China Sea and
quelled the infernos. Later
that morning, Japanese warplanes dove on targets around
North Station. Chinese air
force attempts to drive the
Japanese navy from the city
went disastrously awry: instead of striking the enemy
flagship Idzumo, the bombs
exploded among two clusters
of refugees inside the International Settlement, killing
1,740, a preview of feckless
sorties in the months to come. Chinese artillery, mostly wheeled
French 75mm guns from World War I, had to be repositioned for
every shot. Aimed line-of-sight at Japanese vessels, the surplus
field cannons merely drew killing fire from heavier naval guns.
Unable to confine the war to North China, Japan mobilized the
Shanghai Expeditionary Force, commanded by General Iwane
Matsui. A wizened, pitiless reed of a man, Matsui, 64, had brushcut hair, jug ears, and a wiry moustache. He had fought the Russians
in 190405, and again in the 1920s. Bounding out of retirement
despite chronic tuberculosis, Matsui began embarking his two
divisions of reinforcements from Japan, but they wouldnt reach
Shanghai for a week. In the meantime, the marines of the Japanese
naval landing party were fighting for their lives.
Inside the city, the Japanese and Chinese traded jabs along
the Hongkou-Zhabei boundary, the Chinese position anchored
by North Station and the Japanese lines by their headquarters
nearby. Straw-sandaled Chinese infantry lunged with bayonets
into eastern Hongkou and Yangshupu, making substantial
gains. Mortar rounds rained, 5- and 8-inch naval artillery
wrecked row after row of buildings, machine gun fire ripped
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

55

streets, and grenades boomed in contested structures.

Attacking ferociously the night of August 17, Chinese vanguards advanced to within a mile of the waterfront, creating a
salient that threatened to bisect the Japanese defenses.

The night of August 18, the Chinese broke through the east
side of the Japanese lines. A Chinese detachment actually
reached one of the numerous wharves, threatening catastrophe
until, after sunrise, desperate Japanese marines counterattacked
behind light tanks and armored cars as warships belched shells pointblank. Lacking
Outclassed in armor and artillery, the Chinese
heavy arms, the Chinese withdrew, endurhemorrhaged casualties but nonetheless made
ing terrible casualties. House-to-house
fighting continued through the windless,
Japanese attackers pay cruelly for every gain.
brooding heat into the night of August 21.
Outnumbered Japanese marines, their backs against the river,
Under a gibbous moon, foreigners watched the apocalypse
fought hard, supported by destroyers and cruisers firing from
from aeries south of Suzhou Creek. Flames rippled skyward.
the Huangpu. Several thousand Japanese reinforcements
Searchlights lanced the smoke. With hellfire flashes, naval salvos
marched from the docks straight into battle. The New York
illuminated ruined warehouses and factories. The crackle of small
Times reported Japanese destroyers idle in the river, their crews
arms was punctuated by artillery and bomb blasts. Through horsent to bolster the marines fighting ashore. The Times did not
rific fighting, the Japanese restored their lines.
have an exclusive. With the foreign concessions offering comfortable sanctuary near the fighting, correspondents from around
General Matsuis expeditionary force arrived the
the globe were covering the battle in extraordinary detail.
night of August 22. Dispatched from warships in the Yangtze,

Imperial Japanese troops stick close with a medium tank as their invading forces, enjoying
powerful advantages in weaponry and tactics, storm battered Shanghai.

56

WORLD WAR II

Chinese troops wearing vintage German, British, and American helmets show how they downed an enemy airplane with pistols.

lead elements of the Japanese force landed from flat-bottomed

barges and other shallow-draft vessels to assault fortified towns
from the mouth of the Huangpu to Liuhe, 17 miles northwest.
Matsui intended to outflank the Chinese in Shanghai with a
quick drive inland to the crucial towns of Dachang and
Nanxiang, 5 and 12 miles west of the city respectively. A cocksure Japanese army spokesman crowed that the landings would
deal a death blow to the Chinese.
He spoke too soon. Recalling the amphibious landings of
1932, the defenders had anticipated this maneuver, and their
diligence slowly revealed itself: The dug-in Chinese contained
the landings. Only in the northern sector, where the Japanese
penetrated a few miles inland before the Chinese 15th Army
Group halted them, did the invasion go well. Near the Huangpu,
at Baoshan and Wusong, Chinese infantry had the Japanese
barely clinging to the flat, muddy riverbanks despite gunfire
from 26 Japanese warships and bombing raids by an aerial
armada flying relays from two fields recently constructed on an
island in the Yangtze, only 10 miles away.
Under constant bombardment, a Chinese division held the
Wusong forts for a week. Scarcely a man survived; none surrendered. Japanese firepower inflicted terrible casualties, but the
invaders could not call their beachheads secure until September
4, when they drove the last Chinese from Baoshan and linked
to the lodgment they had won to the north.
Chinese counterattacks with bayonets, grenades, and small
arms did no more than prompt minor retreats at horrendous
cost. Both sides reinforced. The Japanese had driven only
two and a half miles inland. Foreign correspondents invoked
NATIONAL ARCHIVES (BOTH)

World War Is trench warfare, calling the struggle a Yangtze

Verdun and noting that the Japanese were as stymied northwest of Shanghai as they were inside the city. The barbarity
became clear to New York Times correspondent Hallett Abend
when a Chinese official told him, In this war no prisoners are
being taken on either sidenot even wounded prisoners.
Touring field hospitals, Abend found not a single Japanese
under Chinese care, and no Chinese in Japanese hands.
From their beachhead, Matsuis divisions slogged four miles
inland toward the fortified village of Yanghang through awful
terrain. The Yangtze Delta swarmed with mosquitoes, its landscape crisscrossed by tidal creeks and irrigation channels
bottomed by thick, oozing mud. In the sweltering weather,
thirst plagued both sides; none of the abundant water was fit to
drink. The Japanese hoped taking Yanghang, in conjunction
with a push north from Hongkou toward Jiangwana modern
town a few miles up the Shanghai-Wusong Railroadwould
pinch the Chinese out of the bend in the Huangpu north of
Shanghai. On September 11, as they reached Yanghang, the
Japanese advanced beyond the range of their naval guns. The
Chinese counterattacked, swarming the enemy infantry with
knives, swords, and bayonets. The Timess Abend reported that
the village changed hands several times, with heavy casualties
all around, but when the fighting petered out, the Japanese
held Yanghang.
Two nights later, the Chinese conducted an orderly withdrawal from the west bank of the Huangpu north of the
International Settlement. They abandoned Jiangwan and
manned previously prepared trenches stretching northwest
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

57

from Zhabei to Liuhe through Dachang and Liuhangan

intermediate position in front of the main defensive line, which
passed through Nanxiang. Facing two well-fortified defensive
positions, and with the Chinese right flank anchored to the

accepted a reprieve from Chiang Kai-shek and dashed through

enemy fire to the safety of the International Settlement.
The Chinese lines now stretched south from the Yangtze
above Liuhe to Suzhou Creek, and east along the creeks south
bank to the boundaries of the foreign
The Battle of Shanghai was a far more close-run concessions. Most positions were well
beyond Japanese naval gun range. As the
affair than often supposed; one variation, and
Japanese brought up tanks, heavy artillery,
engineers, and bridging equipment, forthe outcome would have been very different.
eign military observers reported 150,000
International Settlement, Matsui seemed to have only one
Chinese were sandbagging firing positions, entrenching, and
option: another amphibious assault, at the risk of being pinned
building pillboxes in what the onlookers considered the
into another beachhead.
strongest Chinese positions to date. But the observers were
The Chinese won the worlds admiration with their stoic
unaware that 80 days of hard fighting had stretched the Central
tenacity, but by mid-September Chiangs Central Army had lost
Army to its breaking point.
more than 35,000 of its best men, forcing commanders to
On November 1, the Japanese forced a crossing of Suzhou
commit to the front provincial units of much lower caliber. And
Creek a few miles east of the International Settlement. Over the
the battle for Shanghai was far from over.
next few days, bitter fighting flared around the bridgehead.
In mid-September, fighting ebbed. Rain fell. The Japanese
Barely holding on, the Chinese devoted much of their dwinlanded more men and prepared another offensive, which erupted
dling reserve to containing the salientjust as General Matsui
on September 26 along the entire 20-mile front. However, in
had hoped. The effort against the bulge would keep the Chinese
swampy paddies dotted with tiny villages recast as Chinese
from countering the flanking maneuver he planned.
strongpoints, Japanese mechanized forces made scant progress.
The Chinese counterattacked fiercely but Japanese firepower
Concealed by fog on November 5, assault elements
continued to inflict heavy casualties. We must attack them to
of three Japanese divisions landed at Jinshanwei, 50 miles
provoke a fight, because the Japanese keep hiding behind their
southwest of Shanghai on Hangzhou Bay. The first hours were
warships, airplanes, and artillery, a wounded Chinese soldier of
critical. If the Chinese sealed off the landing zones and kept
the 98th Division told an Associated Press correspondent.
these foes from linking with comrades in Shanghai, the landing
Though Japanese warships and bombers constantly pumforce would be vulnerable to piecemeal defeat. If the Japanese
meled North Station in Zhabei, their repeated tries failed to
broke out, an army corps would be loose in the Chinese rear
dislodge the Chinese from their fortifications. Hampered in
flank, threatening Chiangs army with annihilation.
early October by rain and mud, the Japanese battered on. They
The Chinese had proven their mettle in shattered Shanghai
fought across the Lotien-Liuhang Highway on October 3,
and in bloody quagmires north and west of the city. But at
hoping the progress they were making northwest of the city
mobile warfare they were no match for the Japanese, whose
would finally compel the Chinese to abandon Zhabei. But in
vanguards quickly overwhelmed two second-echelon Chinese
Zhabei the invaders stalled, and northwest of the city they could
infantry divisions holding inadequate coastal defenses.
measure gains only in yards. Stubbornly defended pillboxes and
Matsuis Hangzhou wager ended the stalemate. Advancing
crafty entrenchments dogged the advance.
double-time for 26 hours, three Japanese columns penetrated
In mid-October the battles began for Dachang and
20 miles inland. The attackers left wing drove 50 miles southNanxiang, and severe fighting seesawed along the banks of the
west to sever rail, motor, and canal communications to
creek that ran from Nanxiang to Wusong. Both sides suffered
Shanghai. The right wing advanced to cast a cordon east of the
tremendous losses, but the Chinese paid more dearly. On
city. A central thrust hammered toward Sonjiang, a railroad
October 19 fighting reached Dachang, which for a week
town southeast of Shanghai whose capture would imperil any
became a raging inferno of death and destruction, the China
Chinese forces remaining in the citys vicinity.
Weekly Review wrote. Finally, on October 2526, the Japanese
Outflanked, the Chinese army collapsed and fled west. Fastcaptured Dachang, exposing the Chinese flank at Zhabei. At 10
moving Japanese columns slaughtered defenders while navy
p.m. on October 26, the Chinese began evacuating the district,
planes harried them from land bases around Shanghai and from
burning all they left. By sunrise, Zhabei was a wall of flame
the aircraft carrier Ryujo, lying off the coast.
nearly six miles long. To cover the retreat, a 423-man battalion
Japanese units north and west of Shanghai swept over Suzhou
of the Chinese 88th Division fought from a reinforced concrete
Creek and around the foreign settlements, and soon Greater
warehouse on the north bank of Suzhou Creek. The unit held
Shanghai was in their hands. Rats and dogs gorged on rotting
out for four days, whereupon the battalions 377 survivors
corpses. The stench of decay hung over the ruined districts of
58

WORLD WAR II

A man gathers his children in Shanghais South Station in the aftermath of a Japanese air raid on August 28, 1937.
A photo taken moments earlier of the infant alone would become an icon of Japanese brutality.

Hongkou, Yangshupu, and Zhabei. High above Zhabeis ashes,

the Japanese flew a barrage balloon from which fluttered a selfcongratulatory banner. It was November 11, Armistice Day, 19
years after the end of the war to end all wars.
At 12:45 p.m., Matsui held a press conference in what had
been a classroom. Wearing a plain, crisp uniform with no
medals, he stood at a sheet-draped table on which rested three
vases of chrysanthemums and praised his foes courage in a voice
that seemed powerful coming from so slight a figure. Matsui told
correspondents he would take any steps necessary to secure
Japanese interests, but promised nothing brutal and foolish
would happen in Shanghai. The fundamental thing to understand, Matsui said, is that Japan is not an aggressor but came
here to restore order among the civilian population of China.
As Matsui spoke, his legions were chasing the remnants of the
Chinese army west, toward Nanking.
Militarily, the Battle of Shanghai ended in calamity
for Chiang Kai-shek. While the titanic clash bolstered his antiJapanese credentials at home and abroad, his Central Army

never recovered from the attritive campaign. Obsessed with

saving what remained of his military power for the inevitable
showdown with Mao and his Communists, the Generalissimo
never again sought bold confrontation with Japan.
But the Battle of Shanghai was a much more close-run affair
than most historians have appreciated. Only by risking the landings at Hangzhou Bay had Matsui brought the stalemate to a close.
If the Chinese had prevailed at Hangzhou, they might well have
divided the Japanese forces and negotiated a fair peace.
For Japan, Shanghai marked a triumph but not a decisive
victory. The Empire had mired itself in a war it could not end.
Floundering to finish it, the Japanese blundered into evergreater strategic debacles. Their December 1937 rampage in
Nanking would stain the Empire deeply, and in time cost
General Iwane Matsui much more than his reputation.
Convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far
East as a Class B and C war criminal, Shanghais conqueror and
Nankings despoiler joined Hideki Tojo and five others at
Sugamo Prison on December 23, 1948, for a march up the
gibbet stairs to be hanged.

TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY ARCHIVES

M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

59

E S S AY

True
Fiction
Why a classic
World War II story
always matters
By David T. Zabecki

erman Wouks The Caine Mutiny may be the

greatest American novel of World War II.
This 1951 study of men at war with a foreign
foe and with each other spent 122 weeks on
the New York Times bestseller list and
received a Pulitzer Prize in 1952. Wouk adapted the novel, his
third, into a hit play; The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
became a much-produced classic. The 1954 film based on the
book starred Humphrey Bogart in his least typical and
arguably greatest role as Lieutenant Commander Philip
Francis Queeg, the paranoid bully who captains a beleaguered destroyer-minesweeper. The Caine Mutiny earned
seven Academy Award nominations. Since then, Wouks
story has been retold countless times on stage, in film, and
on television.
Wouks fictional revolt rings true because he was writing
from intimate firsthand experience during World War II
with the conditions, ships, and character types he portrays.
Wouk was an established writer by the time of Pearl
Harbor. He enlisted immediately after that attack, attending
midshipman school at Columbia University and communications school at the United States Naval Academy in
Annapolis. Wouk fought in the Pacific from early 1943 until
the war ended, serving in eight invasions aboard the World
War Iera destroyer-minesweepers Zane and Southard.
In September 1945, Wouk, by then the Southards executive officer, was in line to replace that ships captain when a
typhoon wrecked the vessel off Okinawa. He never forgot
that storm, or the rest of his war: the anxious superior who
rolled toothpicks in his hand, the rancor between regular
navy men and reservists, and the personalities that meshed
60

WORLD WAR II

WEIDER ARCHIVES (ALL)

and clashed in ships wardrooms. During a 1949 training cruise,

Wouk, still a reservist, began blending memory and imagination
into the novel that would make him famous.
I was 7 years old when my lifelong love affair with Wouks
World War II story started. My father took me to see the movie.
We had no TV, so this was the first film I ever saw, and I have vivid
memories of that trip to the Capitol Theater in downtown
Springfield, Massachusetts. I was 12 when I read the book for the
first of many times. In seventh grade I got into big trouble for
bringing my copy to school. These were, after all, the 1950s, and
The Caine Mutiny is on the salty side.
I found the story of the Caine and its men gripping
no doubt in part because

In print and on celluloid,

Wouks ctional account of
men at war rang so true
that it became a global
sensation. The Caine was
portrayed in the lm by the
destroyer-minesweeper
USS Thompson.
M AY / J U N E 2 01 3

61

in those years nearly every man I

relieve a commanding officer in a crisis.
knew between 30 and 50 had served
As Maryk and company gradually come
during the war, which still loomed
to align with Keefer, Queeg spirals into
large in Americas consciousness.
paranoia. When a typhoon almost sinks
Later, during my own service, I came
the Caine, the captain breaks down and
to value The Caine Mutiny for the
goes catatonic. Maryk relieves Queeg
lessons it offers about the military
and assumes command, leading to his
and about life itself.
court-martial for mutiny.
A dramatic account of wartime
Back in port, defense counselor
tension between regular navy officers
Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, another
and reservists as well as between
reservist, accepts Maryk as a client only
cynical and principled self-interest,
after a dozen other navy lawyers refuse.
the novel unfolds from the perspecIn the trials climactic moment, Queeg
tive of Ensign Willis Seward Keith.
takes the stand. Greenwald breaks him,
Smart, snide Willie, a wealthy
forcing a display of the instability that
Princeton grad, looks down on his
led Maryk to relieve Queeg. The board
roommates at midshipman school.
acquits Maryk, but the label mutiThey are poorer than he is, and not
neer leaves a stain bound to kill his
nearly as book-smart. But Willie,
dream of a regular navy career.
a rebel without a clue, is always a
Afterward, at a celebratory party, a
demerit or two from being expelled.
drunk Greenwald indicts Keefer for
He is saved only when the roomundermining Queeg. Greenwald assails
mates he scorns, who are savvier
Maryk, Willie, and Keefers other acabout military life, help him out. In
complices for following along instead
exchange, Willie tutors them. They
of helping their commander. He says
all make it to commissioning day.
he only defended Maryk because he
Assigned to the Caine in the
knew the wrong man was on trial.
Pacific Theater, Willie comes under
Keefer, Greenwald says, should have
the command of two regular navy
been the one in front of the judge.
lieutenant commandersfirst, the
seemingly lackadaisical William
espite my affection for this seaDeVries, who is succeeded by Queeg,
faring story, I grew up to enlist
a martinet who comes to the Caine
in the U.S. Army. In 40 years of
after arduous years of antisubmarine
military service that included a direct
combat in the Atlantic.
commission to first lieutenant, I came
Wartime personnel demands have
to understand The Caine Mutiny as a
Author Herman Wouk (top) mined a rich vein of
filled the Caines wardroom with
set of lessons about leadership and loyWorld War II experience to forge his novel. As
reservists, as was true on most actual
alty, rooted in World War II but timeQueeg, Humphrey Bogart made ball bearings into
U.S. Navy vessels during the war. The a universally recognized symbol of paranoia.
less, that applies up and down the
Caines ensemble includes executive
chain of command.
officer Lieutenant Steve Maryk and Lieutenant Thomas Keefer,
As my career advanced, I frequently screened the movie for subthe ships communications officer and Willies boss. Maryk is
ordinates. Upon becoming a general officer, I often assigned the
competent, dedicated, and respected by the crew, an honest
book as professional reading to promising field-grade officers.After
Everyman hoping to go regular navy once the war ends. Maryks
retiring from the army, I had the opportunity to teach at Annapolis
friend Keefer hates the navyespecially career officers, who
in 2012 as the Dr. Leo A. Shifrin Distinguished Chair in Military
look down on reservists much as their real-world counterparts
and Naval History. For my course The Military Novel as Military
often did during the war.
History, I chose The Caine Mutiny to cover World War II.
The urbane Keefer defines the navy as a master plan created
In teaching the novel at the academy, I felt I was bringing it
by geniuses for execution by idiots.A would-be novelist, he conhome. Today the book is widely regarded as the best depiction
stantly mocks Queeg, arguing in the wardroom that he is unfit
of daily life aboard an American warship in World War II,
for command. Keefer goads Maryk into keeping a medical log
though it initially drew mixed reactions from the service. The
on Queegs oddities and coaches the executive officer on how to
navy tried to pry mutiny out of the title, claiming correctly

62

WORLD WAR II

TOP: EDITTA SHERMAN; BOTTOM: COLUMBIA/THE KOBAL COLLECTION

In the military, you are bound at some point to

work for a Queeg, but he is hardly unique to
the military. There are probably more Queegs
on Wall Street than in the Pentagon.

that nothing of the sort had happened aboard a U.S. Navy vessel
during World War II, or any other conflict. While junior officers who had served in the war tended to identify with the book,
some senior officers were reluctant to concede that a man as
flawed as Queeg could rise to command at sea.
When it came to the Hollywood version of the story, the navy
was ambivalent at best. After a long stall, the question of official support was about to reach the secretary of the navy when it
was bucked to the chief of naval operations, Admiral William M.
Fechteler, who during World War II had commanded the battleship Indiana and fought in 10 amphibious operations against
Japan. Asked to assess The Caine Mutiny by a skeptical public
affairs officer, Fechteler wondered aloud how Wouk, in a mere
two years at sea as a reserve officer, had managed to observe all
the screwballs I have known in my 30 years in the navy.
Fechtelers left-handed embrace melted resistance, and the navy
provided extras, ships, and technical advice.
To get my students at Annapolis thinking and talking, I asked
what they would do whennot ifthey found themselves
reporting to a Queeg, because in the military you will work
under a Queeg. (Though it must be said that Queeg is hardly
unique to the military. I know from my years at a Fortune 100
company that there are probably more Queegs on Wall Street
than in the Pentagon.) My students were quick to grasp the
characters complexity, in particular the effect of combat duty
on his nerves, and recognized that to a man his entire wardroom failed him, and themselves. Civilian readers might not
make these connections so readily.
We then examined a bizarre pseudomutiny aboard the
destroyer-escort USS Vance, deployed off Vietnam in early 1966.
Lieutenant Commander Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, the ships
new captain, had Queeg-like ambitions for restoring discipline.
The ships operations officer soon went into Keefer mode,
mocking the captains eccentricities. He suggested an ensign
keep a Mad Marcus Log of Arnheiters behavior, which
stretched to 58 pages. Arnheiter did have a record of serious
shortcomings, and complaints from a few junior officers were
enough for his superiors to relieve him after only 99 days at the
helm. However, the parallels between the real-life Vance and the
fictional Caine are far too great to be coincidence. It is difficult
not to feel that someone aboard the Vance knew The Caine

Mutiny well, and used it as a script for removing Arnheiter.

The Arnheiter affair has everything to do with Wouks message, and my students and I scrutinized it. The compelling
events aboard the Caine and the Vance revolved around junior
officership under combat conditions and under the command
of an officer who at best is less than competent. Command at
sea is the most isolated of all military leadership positions, and
in combat, complex problems become far more so. How are
junior officers to respond? How do they support a commander
they neither trust nor respect? How do they accomplish the
ships mission? How do they take care of the crew? How do they
live up to their oaths as officers? There are no textbook answers,
only good reasons why it takes so long to train an officer.
One reward of teaching is what your students teach you. My
future officers pinpointed elements in the book I had never
considered, such as the contrast between the teamwork that
benefited Willie at midshipman school and the lack of teamwork aboard the Caine under Queeg. Willie almost bilged out
of midshipman school; his roommates, better attuned to
military life, adapted to discipline. Willie breezed through
coursework while they struggled. He pulled his roommates
through academically, and they got him through militarily. The
officers of the Caine enjoyed no such teamwork. Instead, as my
midshipmen saw, in the scramble to avoid Queeg it was every
officer for himself. I had never noticed that dichotomy
perhaps because, as a direct commission officer, I never
attended officer candidate school or an academy. But my
midshipmen, deep in the first phase of the navy career portrayed by Willie, lived by the maxim cooperate and graduate.
They also saw that despite a sardonic style, Queegs predecessor got more out of the Caines crew than any other destroyerminesweeper captain in the fleet could have. They already knew
military leadership is not a science but a highly individual art.

n the crucible of his World War II experience, Herman

Wouk forged a morality play that deservedly tests the conscience of anyone, in or out of the military, who encounters
it. Although you would never want to work for a Queeg, someday you will. How do you handle that? The Caine Mutiny is a
wonderful study in how not to, and a reminder that whatever
the right answer may be, it isnt black and white.
M AY / J U N E 2 01 3

63

WEAPONS MANUAL by Jim Laurier

Thunder Rolling

Behind the Jargon

Most Red Ball convoys used the GMC
CCKW 353 variant depicted here: metal
cab, all-wheel drive, twin rear axles, and
long wheelbase, weighing in at five tons.

Americas GMC 2.5-ton 6x6 truck

In 1940 the United States invited bids on a three-axle truck with
a 5,000-pound load capacity. Besides hauling troops, ammo, fuel,
rations, water, and POWs, the vehicles would also serve as weapons
platforms, workshops, field kitchens, operating rooms, and radio
stations. Manufacturers delivered more than 800,000 6x6s, dubbed
Deuce-and-a-Halfs. Most Studebaker and Reo trucks went to the
Soviet Union; in the Pacific, Marine gunners liked International
Harvesters for off-road work during invasions. But the majority
562,750came from General Motors. Racing across Europe after
D-Day, the First and Third Armies relied on a convoy system of
GMC Jimmysthe Red Ball Express, named after slang for
priority cargothat linked depots in Normandy to materiel
dumps inland. From August to November 1944,
the mostly African American Red Ball crews
carted 400,000-plus tons of necessities.

Get Your Motor Running

The 6-cylinder, 92-horsepower
engine did 45 miles an hour,
though hot-rodding let rigs hit 60.
Tanksa Lot!
Five-gallon jerricans
fit nooks all over
for topping off the
40-gallon fuel
tank, good for
300 miles.

Season of the Winch

A bumper-mounted 10,000pound winch let the two
crewmen pull their rig or
another out of a jam or
up a slope.

64

WORLD WAR II

Axle Rows
Crews could engage the front axle or the rear axles or
all three axles. Some Jimmys had only rear-axle drive.

A Red Ball truck wages war with

mud. Convoy crews burned 300,000
gallons of gas, wore out 5,000 tires,
and wrecked 70 6x6severy day.
Basic Ingredients
The typical 6x6 had a five-rib bed and canopy frame. To save
metal and shipping space, steel beds were replaced with wood
or wood and steel, and metal cabs gave way to canopies.

The Competition

German Opel Blitz

6-cyl., 75 hp engine, 4x2 or 4x4 drive Wgt:

4,600 lbs. Load: 7,250 lbs. Crew: 2
Its versatility provided the backbone for
German Blitzkrieg in the opening days of
the war. Production: 82,000130,000

French Laffly S15

4-cyl., 55 hp, 6x6 Wgt: 6,000 lbs. Load:

1,700 lbs. Crew: 2 The same carriage
and drive train was used as gun tractor,
ambulance, personnel carrier, tow rig, and
tank hunter. Production: 45,000

British Bedford QL

6-cyl., 72 hp., 4x4 Wgt.: 15,400 lbs. Load:

6,000 lbs. Crew: 1 Variants ranged from
mobile office to fire truck to radio unit to
antiaircraft gun mount to gun tractor to
tow truck. Production: 52,000

Japanese Type 97

Fords in Their Future

High clearance allowed Jimmys to ford
30 inches of water, and twice that with
carburetor and exhaust snorkeled.

PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

6-cyl., 52 hp, 4x2 Wgt.: 6,000 lbs. Load:

3,000 lbs. Crew: 2 Type 97s, which saw
the same uses as kindred Axis and Allied
vehicles, were made by Isuzu and Toyota.
Production: unknown
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

65

WORLD

REVIEWS

WAR II

BOOKS

The Making of the Rangers

The U.S. Army Rangers build muscle
and callus in preparation for scaling the
100-foot cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day.

DOG COMPANY
The Boys of Pointe du Hoc
By Patrick K. ODonnell. 320 pp.
Da Capo, 2012. $26.

n June 6, 1984, Ronald Reagans

rousing 40th anniversary speech on
the cliffs of Normandys Pointe du Hoc
thrust World War IIs Ranger battalions
back into historys spotlighta sharp
contrast to their historical experience as
66

WORLD WAR II

the U.S. Armys stepchildren,

with commanders struggling
to define their role. Were they
small-unit raiders? Elite light
infantry? Or problem-solvers,
deployed on missions whose
sole common denominator
was that only the best had a
chance of completing them?
That last rationale dictated
the destiny of the 2nd Ranger

Battalionand particularly of Dog, one of

its six companies. Dog Company seldom
counted as many as 70 men in its ranks at
any one time. But from those Normandy
cliffs through the Hrtgen Forest to the
Roer River, it led the way across northwest
Europe. Dog has found a fitting chronicler
in Patrick ODonnell, an expert in the
small-unit dynamics of elite and specialoperations forces, as well as the technique
of comparative interviews, best known
from Stephen Ambroses Band of Brothers.
ODonnell spent years in conversation at
homes and reunions, walking the terrain
of Dogs battles, interviewing its German
opponents. The result: a unique reconstruction of a special kind of war fought
by a rare breed of soldiers.
Dog Companys Rangers were trained,
not born. The core was an eclectic group
of volunteers from an ordinary draftee
division; the rest included a fair proportion of army-wide discards. But Captain
Harold Slater and First Sergeant Leonard
Lomell, both citizen soldiers honed by
war, shook their recruits down through a
demanding training program that made
them feel like the worlds best fighting
men. Dogs small size helped foster a
collective spirit, transcending words like
comradeship and brotherhood. A
training manual called it Rangerism
and for once a manual got it right.
Rangerism was first tested on D-Day:
a 10-story climb up a sheer cliff face in
order to destroy a heavily
defended battery capable of
raking both U.S. invasion
beaches. ODonnells gripping account of this seeming
suicide mission is a case
study in courage, skill, and
spirit, undiminished by the
ironic fact, unknown to the
Allies, that Point du Hocs
guns had been removed. Two
days of constant German
COURTESY OF GEORGE KERCHNER

REVIEWS
[

BOOKS

counterattacks nearly drove Dogs survivors back over the cliff. When a relief
force broke through on June 8, 23 of
Dogs 70 men were dead and half of the
survivors were wounded.
That was just the beginning of Dogs
war. The rebuilt company captured Hill
63, a key strongpoint on the road to
Brest. Then four Rangers convinced the
commander of an enemy coastal battery
to surrender his 800 men. Next came the
blindfolded slaughterhouse
of the Hrtgen Forest. Here
Dog served first as a quickreaction force, then moved
through the vital village of
Bergstein; its objective was
Hill 400, the areas most commanding terrain feature. The
Rangers faced an open snowy
field sown with mines. Just
before 7:30 a.m. on December 7, 1944, they went in
with bayonets; an hour later, the hill
was in their hands. The rest of the day,
Dog Company, along with Fox, resisted
one after another of the slashing
counterattacks at which the Germans
were masters. In the intervals they
endured some of the heaviest barrages
of the entire campaign. When finally
relieved late on December 8, Dog had
advanced further into the Reich than any
British or American unit. Almost every
man in the company was a casualty.
Hill 400 proved to be Dogs longest
day. The company participated briefly in
the Bulge, returned to the Hrtgen for
mop-up duty, and crossed the icy Roer
River on foot. But it traversed the Rhine
on a newly built pontoon bridge, met
minimal resistance slicing into Germany,
and finished the war as a corps honor
guard. Dog and its parent 2nd Ranger
Battalion returned home in October;
deactivation featured neither ruffles nor
flourishes. But Dogs legacy endures
in the memories of its survivors, in
the deeds of the armys contemporary
Ranger regiment, and now in
ODonnells understated but eloquent
KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES (BOTH)

ON THE TUBE

tribute to service beyond any call

of duty. Dennis Showalter

OPERATION STORM
Japans Top Secret Submarines and
Their Plan to Change the Course of
World War II
By John J. Geoghegan. 496 pp.
Crown, 2013. $28.

mong the Japanese

Navys numerous and
exotic technical innovations
was the monster I-400 class
of aircraft-carrying submarines, the worlds largest
subs until the late 1950s.
Conceived by Admiral
Isoroku Yamamoto to shake
American morale with
surprise aerial attacks on
New York and other cities,
and later on the Panama Canal, the
subs only actual mission involved an
aborted strike on American aircraft
carriers at their Ulithi Atoll base in the
Caroline Islands.
This offbeat turf has been explored
before. In 2006, the excellent and lavishly
illustrated I-400: Japans Secret AircraftCarrying Strike Submarine, Objective
Panama Canal described the origins,
technical aspects, and operational
history of this submarine class. In
Operation Storm, author John J.
Geoghegan covers much the same
ground but adds a good deal about the
tortured history of the Aichi M6A1
Seiran aircraft the submarines carried.
He also enormously expands the I-400s
convoluted tale with a vast amount of
detail about the players involved:
bureaucratic warriors who battled over
the program, designers who turned
basic submarine and aircraft concepts
into reality, and especially the officers,
crews, and aviators.
At the center of Operation Storm
are the clashes between the 1st Submarine Squadron leader, Commander

Secret Stories

NAZI GOSPELS
120 minutes, now airing
on the Military History Channel

s head man of the SS, Heinrich

Himmler was not only a chief engineer of the Holocaust and Slav slaughter,
he assiduously laid the Reichs ideological foundations for the future. Born
Catholic, Himmler cultivated his taste
for pomp and ritual while he shaped a
motley, murky pastiche of slanted history and mythology into the template for
a Nazi state religion. The almost mindless fervor that drove SS brutality is one
indication of how effective his goal of
national indoctrination might have
been had the Reich lasted. The Military
History Channels Nazi Gospels unpacks
M AY / J U N E 2 013

67

REVIEWS
what Himmler wanted dedicated Nazis
to believe, where those ideas came from,
and how they were distorted and
practiced. Himmler relentlessly sought
historical evidence to buttress his creed,
sending teams of archaeologists to rove
the planet; the Holy Grail was on his
wish list. He studied, adopted, and
warped ancient Teutonic and Hindu
myths and insignias to romanticize and
aggrandize ersatz Nazi roots. And he
created traditions and rites for new generations: matching and mating perfect
Aryan Fruleins and SS specimens,
Himmler put their offspring into state
institutions where they were immersed
in his twisted culture. Well-researched
and delivered, Nazi Gospels is a thoughtful, disturbing introduction to the dark
faith behind Germanys mass murder.
Gene Santoro

Tatsunosuke Ariizuma,
and the skipper of I-401,
Lieutenant Commander
Nobukiyo Nambu
particularly over the fate of
the boat and its crew after
they received word of the
surrender. Juxtaposed with
the Japanese are the
American sailors on the
Balao-class submarine
Segundo, which ultimately
captured I-401.
Engrossing and deeply
researched, Operation
Storm tells one of the wars
most bizarre and fascinating stories with skillful
verve. Richard Frank
I-401 and its crew, just
after their capture.

BOMB
The Race to Buildand Stealthe
Worlds Most Dangerous Weapon
By Steve Sheinkin 272 pp. Roaring Brook
Press, 2013. $20.

he FBI has
its eye on
Harry Gold, and
he has to stay
at least one step
ahead of them
because Gold
is a Soviet spy,
filching from the
Manhattan Project. Award-winning
author Steve Sheinkin ably traverses the
sprawling science, personalities, politics,
and results of the race for the A-bomb.
For teens in middle and high school.
BEYOND COURAGE
The Untold Story of Jewish
Resistance During the Holocaust
By Doreen Rappaport. 240 pp.
Candlewick, 2012. $22.99.

T
68

he myth of Jewish passivity during

World War II has long been

WORLD WAR II

KID STUFF

exploded, but rarely has the topic

been aimed at ages 10 and up with
such historical precision and passion.
Author Doreen Rappaport dug
through primary sources and rare
archival images to present the stories
of some who did not go gently into
Nazi hell.
DOUBLE VICTORY
How African American Women
Broke Race and
Gender Barriers
to Help Win
World War II
By Cheryl Mullenbach. 272 pp.
Chicago Review
Press, 2013.
$19.95.

uthor Cheryl
Mullenbach
interweaves the wars big picture
with surprising individual tales of
struggle and triumphleft untold too
longwith an approachable fervor
that should woo teens.

GINGERSNAP
By Patricia Reilly
Giff. 160 pp.
Wendy Lamb
Books, 2013.
$15.99.

wo-time
New ber y
Medalwinner
Patricia Reilly
Giff delivers a
bittersweet tale
of adventure and self-discovery.
Jayna lives with her big brother Rob
in upstate New York. When Rob is
called to active duty in 1945, he leaves
Jayna a hand-written recipe book with
a Brooklyn address that maybe, just
maybe, belongs to the grandmother
theyve never known. After she learns
Rob is MIA, Jayna takes her fate into
her hands, grabs her pet turtle, and
heads to Brooklyn (guided by a ghostgirls voice) to find the family she never
knew. Well crafted; offbeat characters
and telling details will keep tweens
engrossed. Gene Santoro
US NAVY

An exclusive
Hamilton premiere

Handcrafted and
hand-painted

Hand-numbered
limited edition
with a Certicate
of Authenticity

Graced with the

Marine art of

Shown approximate
size of 4" high

Always Faithful to the U.S.M.C.!

Tough and tenacious, the beloved bulldog is the top dog of the United
States Marines and one of the most recognized symbols of their ghting
spirit. Now, celebrate the Marines with a faithful bulldog whose proud and
protective spirit mirrors that of those he so ercely honors!
The Art of James Grifn Graces This Exclusive Premiere!
Available only from Hamilton, Semper Fi Salute boasts the art of
acclaimed painter James Grifn. Its a masterful montage of a proud Marine
along with iconic imagery of the historic raising of the ag at Iwo Jima.
More impressive details abound, from the bulldogs endearing expression
and handsome coloring, to the scarlet piping and golden buttons adorning his
dress blues.
Order Risk-Free With Our 365-Day Guarantee
We expect demand to be strong for this rst-ever tribute to the worlds
mightiest ghting force. Our 365-Day Guarantee assures your satisfaction or
your money back, so theres no reason to delay. To begin your FREE 30-day
preview, simply return the coupon today!
2012 HC. All Rights Reserved. TM Ofcially licensed product of the United States Marine Corps.
Facebook is a registered trademark used by Facebook, Inc.

HamiltonCollection.com/bulldog

09-04604-001-ED

MAIL TO:

9204 Center For The Arts Drive, Niles, Illinois 60714-1300

Please Respond Promptly

YES! Please accept my order for Semper Fi Salute for

the issue price of $29.99*. I need send no money now.
I will be billed with shipment
Name___________________________________________________
(Please print clearly.)

Address_________________________________________________

City_____________________________State_______Zip__________

Signature________________________________________________
09-04604-001-E57301
*Add $8.99 for shipping and service. Deliveries to FL and IL will be billed appropriate sales tax. All orders are
subject to product availability and credit approval. Edition limited to 95 casting days. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for shipment.

REVIEWS
[

BOOKS

THOSE ANGRY DAYS

Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and
Americas Fight Over World
War II, 19391941
By Lynne Olson. 576 pp.
Random House, 2013. $30.

ow that World War II

has been enshrined as
The Good War fought by The
Greatest Generation, it can be
hard to remember that millions of
Americans avidly opposed entering it
and even harder to understand why. Those
Angry Days puts their many and varied
reasons in illuminating context, bringing
this stormy periods dizzying dynamics
and Tolstoyan cast of characters to cinematic life. Though individual parts of this
overview are familiar, the cumulative
effect is dramatic, often startling. We see
the blurry welter of events through the
eyes of hundreds of participants on all
sides and watch them try to interpret what
they think is happening. In the process,
we discover that isolationists, like interventionists, were as diverse as America

itselfa tangle of people

with often-opposed motives
and beliefs who joined forces
in shifting alliances to grapple with their countrys role
in a world at war.
The storys co-stars are
headlined in the books
subtitle: FDR and Charles
Lindbergh. But in author
Lynne Olsons telling, FDR
isnt cunningly leading the American
people through a bruising debate by indirection and stealth. Rather, battered by
political misstepsattempting to pack
the Supreme Court in 1936, then suffering Congressional losses at the midterm
electionsand pondering an unprecedented third term, Roosevelt tacks like a
new sailor scared of capsizing, drifting
despite polls that show most Americans
in favor of helping the British and even of
going to war. Lindbergh appears as a
loner incapable of adapting his ironclad
certainties to the worlds changes. He is
daunted by German military power and
willing to write off Nazi racial policy

Charles Lindbergh speaks at

a jam-packed America First
rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

70

WORLD WAR II

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

REVIEWS
[

because, like many Americans, he believes

in white Northern European supremacy,
is concerned about the survival and prosperity of Western capitalism, and fears the
perceived tyrannical and even totalitarian
bent in FDR.
Olson truly shines in her handling of
myriad supporting players, whose information, interactions, and intrigues had
serious significance. Churchill alternately
cajoles FDR and reins in his own growing
frustration and fear, and his government
sets up spy and propaganda shops on
American shores that tread carefully to
avoid blowback, given Americas angry
memory of Britains World War I espionage and misinformation. Hitler is eager
to avoid immediate war with the United
States as he casts hungry eyes on the
USSR, so he overrules his admirals and

BOOKS

orders U-boats away from American ships

despite their increasingly warlike North
Atlantic duties. The Japanese, secretly
urged by Germany to act aggressively
against the U.S., believe they face economic strangulation and certain defeat
unless they attack America first. The
Soviet Union, finally forced into the war,
directs American communists and fellow
travelers to support intervention instead
of neutrality. If Wendell Wilkie hadnt
taken American aid to Britain off the table
during the 1940 electionto the foaming
wrath of GOP honchoswhat might
have happened? How and why did an
antiwar movement started by leftist students and old-school populists get reoriented by right-wing business executives
and press tycoons? Why did so many
high-ranking American generalslike

Albert Wedemeyer and Hap Arnold

repeatedly push the line between freedom
of thought and treason? Dozens of revealing questions are probed in these wellresearched pages, animated by Olsons
storytelling flair and shrewd judgments.
Pearl Harbor, of course, clarified the
muddle and united the country. Yet, as
Olson observes, Much of the credit for
that feeling of unity must be given to the
two-year public debate over the war,
which, despite its unseemly acrimony,
helped educate Americans about the need
to ready themselves for entry into the
conflict. It was a robust, if tumultuous,
example of democracy in action. Its
worth considering how having such
debatesabout Vietnam, Iraq, drones
might have changed our postwar history.
Gene Santoro

M AY / J U N E 2 013

71

WAR STORIES
WORLD WAR II FIRSTHAND

THE PACIFIC
Volume Two

The Solomons to Saipan

Anchored on the stories of the marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen
and other frontline personnel who experienced the conflict, this
handsome volume will be a valuable keepsake for years to come.

Full color throughout, rich with images, 300+ pages

9 x 12 hardcover format with dust jacket
11 originally-designed maps with detailed legends
Printed in the United States of America

Item: WSP2 $49.95 plus $5 S&H

Complete and mail the attached card or call: 1-800-358-6327 (mention code WRX063)
Or order online: HistoryNetShop.com
Additional volumes in the WAR STORIES collection are available online.

REVIEWS
[

BRIEFS

A HIGHER CALL
An Incredible True Story
of Combat and Chivalry in
the War-Torn Skies of
World War II
By Adam Makos, with Larry
Alexander. 400 pp. Berkley
Hardcover, 2012. $26.95.
Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a 21-year-old
bomber pilot, is on his first mission. His B-17
is badly shot up and half his crew is dead.
He comes eyeball to eyeball with a German
fighter ace who, tired of war, spares them.
An expertly detailed and gripping narrative.

BAILOUT OVER NORMANDY

A Flyboys Adventures with the French
Resistance and Other Escapades
in Occupied France

WORLD WAR TWO

A Short History
By Norman Stone. 272 pp.
Basic, 2013. $25.
Compressed, incisive, and provocatively
opinionated.

By Albert L. Weeks

AMERICAN ACES AGAINST

THE KAMIKAZE

THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY

The Untold Story of the Women Who
Helped Win World War II

CAPTURED
The Forgotten Men of Guam

By Bill Yenne. 328 pp.

Osprey, 2013. $27.95.
Meet Lidiya Litvyak, the
highest-scoring woman
ace. This compelling read
relates her childhood in
the brand-new USSR, pans
to the Soviet armed
forces desperate need for
women to fill their decimated ranks, and zeroes in on the 21-yearolds remarkable gunning down of a dozen
Messerchmitts. The twist: when she went
missing in action in 1943, Soviet historians
made her an unpersonuntil Mikhail
Gorbachev rehabilitated her memory.

How Stalin the Great

Won the War,
but Lost the Peace

By Troy J. Sacquety. 336 pp.

Kansas, 2013. $34.95.
Actually the amazing story of Detachment
101: independent of both the OSS and the
U.S. Army, it grew from 21 newbie agents to
a feared force of more than 10,000 guerrillas
who helped liberate Rangoon.

By Edward M.Young. 96 pp.

Osprey, 2012. $22.95.
Or, how 81 American pilots
each racked up five-plus
suicide bombers during
the battle for Okinawa.

THE WHITE ROSE OF STALINGRAD

ASSURED VICTORY

THE OSS IN BURMA

Jungle War Against the Japanese

By Ted Fahrenwald. 288 pp.

Casemate, 2012. $29.95.
An American fighter pilot survives being
shot down, is drafted into the Maquis, then
gets captured by the Wehrmacht. Wry, vivid,
and compelling.

By Denise Kiernan. 400 pp.

Touchstone, 2013. $27.
Shrouded in secrecy, Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
was an epicenter of atomic research and
development. It was also a town of 75,000,
many of them rural Southern women lured
by good pay. Vivid storytelling brings Oak
Ridges characters and daily life into
thoughtful and entertaining focus.

PRAEGER

By Roger Mansell, edited by

Linda Goetz Holmes. 288 pp.
Naval Institute Press, 2012. $33.95.
The last work from the leading chronicler
of Pacific POWs.

THE LAST GREAT CAVALRYMAN

The Life of General
Sir Richard McCreery
By Richard Mead. 288 pp.
Pen & Sword, 2013. $39.95.
Undersung British general gets his due as he
fights his way from Alamein to Austria.

HITLERS PHILOSOPHERS
By Yvonne Sherratt. 328 pp.
Yale, 2013. $35.
Unfortunately stiff, largely for academics and
philosophy students.

THE TRUE STORY OF CATCH-22

The Real Men and Missions of Joseph
Hellers 340th Bomb Group in World War II
By Patricia Chapman Meder. 240 pp.
Casemate, 2012. $32.95.
The authors father commanded the
340th. Moderately interesting for fans of
Joseph Heller. Gene Santoro

This book documents dictator Joseph Stalins

brilliant tactics as well as missteps in taking
preemptive actions that guaranteed ultimate
victory over the German invaders. It also
covers the policies implemented after the
war that made the Soviet Union a menace
to world peace and led to collapse of
Soviet rule.
January 2011, 281 pp., 6 1/8x9 1/4
ISBN 978-0-313-39165-1, $44.95
eISBN 978-0-313-39166-8
Albert Weeks has taken on a very important
issue that still plagues Russian and Western
historiography of the war: Stalins political
objectives as they relate to the coming,
course, and outcome of the war. ...Those
interested in the coming, conduct, and
outcome of World War II will find much of
interest in this volume.

Dr. Jacob W. Kipp, Adjunct

Professor, University of Kansas
This striking new volume puts paid to current controversies regarding the greatness
of Josef Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet
Union before, during, and after the SovietGerman War (1941-1945). What results
is a sobering portrait of, arguably,
the Twentieth Centurys most accomplished
but brutal totalitarian ruler.

David M. Glantz, Colonel,

U.S. Army, retired
from the collections of
abc-clio.com | 1.800.368.6868

M AY / J U N E 2 013

73

ADVERTISEMENT

Technology Simplified New and Improved

WOW A Computer Designed

For YOU, Not Your Grandchildren!

FREE
Automatic
Software
Updates

This
computer
is
easy-to-use, worry-free
and literally puts the
WOW! The perfect name
for this amazing computer.
I have been using it for
about a month and thoroughly enjoy the speed
and ease in which I am able
to download pictures from
my camera and share them
with family and friends via
email. Everything is so easy
to use at the touch of my
fingertips. To be able to
chat with and see my
grandchildren is as though
they are here with me. I
haven't begun to explore
all the benefits of this
computer. It has opened
up a whole new world for
me. I love it, love it, love it!
Carol K., Benbrook, TX

NEW

Touch
Screen
Technology

Simple
navigation,
so you never
get lost!

designed for SENIORS

Big Bright Screen
One-touch zoom magnification
No bulky tower

surf the internet

Get current weather & news.
send and receive emails, and video chat
Keep up with family and friends.
play games online
U.S. Based
hundreds to choose from!
Customer Service
world at your fingertips.
From the moment you
open the box, youll
realize how different
the WOW Computer is.
The components are all
connected; all you do is
plug it into an outlet and
your high-speed Internet
connection. Then youll
see the screen. This is a
completely new touch
screen system, without
the cluttered look of the
normal computer screen.
The buttons on the
screen are easy to see and
easy to understand. All
you do is touch one of
them, from the Web,
Email,
Calendar
to
Games you name it and

a new screen opens up.

Its so easy to use you
wont have to ask your
children or grandchildren
for help.
Until now the very people
who could benefit most
from E-mail, and the
Internet are the ones that
have had the hardest time
accessing it. Now, thanks
to the WOW Computer,
countless older Americans
are
discovering
the
wonderful world of the
Internet every day. Isnt
it time you took part?
Call now, and a patient,
knowledgeable product
expert will tell you how
you can try it in your

home for 30 days. If you

are not totally satisfied,
simply return it within 30
days for a refund of the
product purchase price.
Call today.

Call now for

our special
promotional price!
Please mention promotional
code 46435.

1-877-772-8105
80385

Have you ever said to

yourself Id love to get a
computer, if only I could
figure out how to use it.
Well, youre not alone.
Computers were supposed
to make our lives simpler,
but theyve gotten so
complicated that they are
not worth the trouble. With
all of the pointing and
clicking and dragging
and dropping youre lucky
if you can figure out
where you are. Plus, you
are constantly worrying
about viruses, spam and
freeze-ups. If this sounds
familiar, we have great
news for you. There is
finally a computer thats
designed for simplicity
and ease of use. Its the
WOW Computer, and it
was designed with you
in mind.

Copyright 2013 by firstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc. All rights reserved.

Its easy to read. Its easy to see.

Its even easier to understand and use! Just plug it in!!!

WORLD

WAR II

W h a t I f. . .

Stalin Had Signed an

Alliance with the West?
By Mark Grimsley

HE AUGUST 23, 1939, signing of a nonaggression pact

between the Soviet Union
and Germany came as a thunderclap.
The Nazi regime had been so vociferously hostile to communism that
rapprochement between the nations
and their ideologies scarcely seemed
possibleand yet for decades historians have smoothly rationalized the
agreements logic for both sides.
But the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
was not inevitable. Stalin could have
decided that Hitler posed so great a
threat both short and long term that
he had to eschew a nonaggression
pact with the Nazi dictator. In that
event, the Soviet dictator most likely
would have allied with Great Britain
and France, two other great powers
that had also been hard at work
courting his favor.
Negotiations between the west
and the Soviet Union were triggered
by Hitlers annexation of Czechoslovakia
in March 1939, which violated the agreement made in Munich the preceding
September and made clear that his next
step almost certainly would be to invade
Poland. In talks that started in earnest in
April and continued through August, the
British, French, and Soviets began with
different starting points, but converged
on an April 17 Soviet proposal. That
arrangement posited a treaty of mutual
assistance, binding all three to go to the
aid of any states along the Soviet Unions
western border. The French more rapidly
embraced this position than the British.
If the British had shown as much alacrity,
it would have increased the chance of
the three powers formally aligning.
It also would have helped if the French
POSTER, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GUY ACETO

and British had accepted a Soviet demand

to reach a simultaneous military agreement along with the political agreement,
another stipulation at which the British
balked. Not until early August did the
British nominate a military delegation,
and only then did British and French representatives proceed by ship and train to
Moscow, arriving August 11.
Stalin had affixed a very high price tag to
an agreement. He wanted Soviet troops
to have access into Romania and Poland,
as well as the granting of security demands
in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and
Estoniain short, Anglo-French recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence from
the Baltic to the Black Sea. The western
powers were reluctantly prepared to
accede, but the Poles refused to allow

Soviet troops on their soil, on the

convictionwell founded, as eventually demonstratedthat once the
Soviets arrived they would be
unlikely to leave.
Nonetheless, an Anglo-FrenchSoviet alliance to protect Poland
offered Poland its best chance of
survival. The existence of an agreement to this effect might have led
Polish leaders to reverse themselves
and take the loathed step of allowing Soviet troops across their
border. In that event, the tripartite
alliance could have been in place
by mid-Augustor earlier, if the
British had been quicker to accept
Soviet terms.
What would Hitler have done in
the face of an Anglo-French-Soviet
alliance? He might have backed
off, lest he trigger a two-front
war. Hitler believed that he could
defeat Poland well before the western powers could intervene, but could
scarcely have entertained the same hope
with regard to the Soviet Union. In his
manifesto, Mein Kampf, the Nazi leader
warned against the danger of fighting on
two fronts. And, if anything, his generals
feared that prospect more than he did.
A secret resistance to Hitler among the
men of the German High Command
already existed. An alliance between the
Soviet and western powers might have
made Hitlers foreign policy course seem
so reckless as to spur that resistance
into action.
It is also possible, as historian John K.
Munholland suggests, that the sequel
would have been another round of
opportunistic diplomacy. The basis for
an Anglo-French-Soviet alliance was,
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

75

W h a t I f. . .
after all, tenuous. It had implications for
the rest of Eastern Europe, and over time
the Nazis might have concluded agreements offsetting or nullifying the Soviet
alliance with the west.
But Hitler might have invaded Poland
anyway. It was well known throughout
Europe that Stalins military purges of
the late 1930s had enormously damaged
the Soviet armed forces. Hitler had

Whatever their flaws,

Soviet forces would
have threatened
Germany in a way
that Hitler could not
have ignored.

MODERN WAR STUDIES

Mussolinis Death March

Eyewitness Accounts of Italian Soldiers on the

Eastern Front
Nuto Revelli

Translated with an Introduction by

John Penuel
The tragedy of the Italian mountain troops, who
marched to their doom in the service of
Mussolinis great ambitions, deserves universal
recognition as a monument to heroism in the
face of impossible odds. Anyone who reads this
superb English-language translation and edition
of Revellis original work will understand
why.Brian Sullivan, coauthor of Il Duces
Other Woman: The Untold Story of Margherita
Sarfatti, Mussolinis Jewish Mistress
576 pages, 1 photograph, 2 maps, Cloth $45.00

The OSS in Burma

Jungle War against the Japanese

Troy J. Sacquety

Sacquetys vivid and fascinating tale depicts

Detachment 101s evolution from an idiosyncratic,
dysfunctional outfit conducting small-scale
sabotage to a disciplined and effective clandestine
organization running major guerrilla operations
behind Japanese lines.Edward J. Drea, author
of Japans Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall,
18531945
336 pages, 41 photos, Cloth $34.95

University Press of Kansas

Phone 785-864-4155 s Fax 785-864-4586 s www.kansaspress.ku.edu

76

WORLD WAR II

contempt not only for the Soviet military

but for its political leadership, and, countervailing alliance or no countervailing
alliance, may well have pressed ahead
with an attack on Poland, gambling that
he could eliminate Poland before the Red
Army could lumber into action and
intervene effectively.
Some counterfactuals, once postulated, lead in obvious directions. This
one does not. An Anglo-French-Soviet
alliance might have achieved the desired
effect of deterring Hitler from invading
Poland. But an alliance also might merely
have postponed that invasion while
Hitler engaged in more of the diplomatic
maneuvering that had characterized
his foreign policy for years. Or a Soviet
alliance with the Western Allies could
have had scant effect, with Germany
invading Poland on September 1, 1939,
as occurred historically.
What then would have been the impact
of an alliance between Stalin and the
west? In many respects, Stalin would have
gotten what he wanted: annexation of the
Baltic states and an Eastern European
sphere of influence. But although it is
unlikely that he would have helped the
Poles fend off the Germans, Stalin could
have wound up holding onto an eastern
strip of Polish territory.
The main differenceand this is
vitalis that instead of a second front
breaking open with the surprise attack
of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941,
war would have broken out between
Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. The French army would
have stood undefeated, Britains forces
on the continent would have remained
formidable, and, whatever their military
shortcomings, the Soviets would have
threatened Germany in a way that Hitler
could not have ignored. In short, an
Anglo-French-Soviet alliance might not
have achieved its objective of deterring
war. But the alliance would have forced
Germany into a two-front conflict that
would have played out very differently
to Germanys disadvantage.

o ct
N tra
on
C

ADVERTISEMENT

NEW

Lo S B
ng ou et
er nd ter
Ba a
tt nd
er
y
FREE
Li
fe
Car

Finally, a cell phone

thats a phone

Charger

Introducing the all-new Jitterbug Plus.

Weve made it even better without making it harder to use.
All my friends have new cell phones. They carry them
around with them all day, like mini computers, with
little tiny keyboards and hundreds of programs which
are supposed to make their life easier. Trouble is my
friends cant use them. The keypads are too small,
the displays are hard to see and the phones are so
complicated that my friends end up borrowing my
Jitterbug when they need to make a call. I dont
mind I just got a new phone too the new
Jitterbug Plus. Now I have all the things I loved
about my Jitterbug phone along with some great
new features that make it even better!

Monthly Minutes
Monthly Rate

Order now and receive a FREE

Car Charger for your Jitterbug
a $24.99 value. Call now!

Basic 19

50

was 100 NOW 200

$14.99

$19.99

Operator Assistance

24/7

24/7

911 Access

FREE

FREE

No addl charge

No addl charge

FREE

FREE

Long Distance Calls

Voice Dial
Nationwide Coverage
Friendly Return Policy1

YES

YES

30 days

30 days

More minute plans available. Ask your Jitterbug expert for details.

the problem with prepaid phones. Since there is no

contract to sign, you are not locked in for years at
a time and wont be subject to early termination fees.
The U.S.-based customer service is knowledgeable
and helpful and the phone gets service
virtually anywhere in the continental
U.S. Above all, youll get one-touch
access to a friendly, and helpful
GreatCall operator. They can look
up numbers, and even dial them
for you! They are always there to
help you when you need them.

GreatCall created the Jitterbug with one thing in

mind to ofer people a cell phone thats easy to see
and hear, simple to use and afordable. Now, theyve
made the cell phone experience even better with
the Jitterbug Plus. It features a lightweight,
comfortable design with a backlit keypad and
big, legible numbers. Tere is even a dial tone so
you know the phone is ready to use. You can also
increase the volume with one touch and the
speakers been improved so you get great audio
quality and can hear every word. Te battery
has been improved too its one of the
longest lasting on the market so you wont
have to charge it as often. Te phone comes
to you with your account already set up
and is easy to activate.
The rate plans are simple too. Why
pay for minutes youll never use? There
are a variety of affordable plans. Plus,
you dont have to worry about finding
yourself stuck with no minutes thats

Basic 14

Call now and get a FREE Car

Charger a $24.99 value. Try
the Jitterbug Plus for yourself for
30 days and if you dont love
it, just return it for a refund1
of the product purchase price.
Call now helpful Jitterbug
experts are ready to answer
your questions.
Available in
Silver and Red.

Jitterbug Plus Cell Phone

Call today to get your own Jitterbug Plus.
Please mention promotional code 46434.

1-888-807-8590
We proudly accept the following credit cards.

47576

www.jitterbugdirect.com

IMPORTANT CONSUMER INFORMATION: Jitterbug is owned by GreatCall, Inc. Your invoices will come from GreatCall. All rate plans and services require the purchase of a Jitterbug phone and a
one-time set up fee of $35. Coverage and service is not available everywhere. Other charges and restrictions may apply. Screen images simulated. There are no additional fees to call Jitterbugs 24-hour U.S. Based
Customer Service. However, for calls to an Operator in which a service is completed, minutes will be deducted from your monthly balance equal to the length of the call and any call connected by the
Operator, plus an additional 5 minutes. Monthly rate plans do not include government taxes or assessment surcharges. Prices and fees subject to change. 1We will refund the full price of the Jitterbug phone if it is
returned within 30 days of purchase in like-new condition. We will also refund your first monthly service charge if you have less than 30 minutes of usage. If you have more than 30 minutes of usage, a per minute charge of 35
cents will apply for each minute over 30 minutes. The activation fee and shipping charges are not refundable. Jitterbug and GreatCall are registered trademarks of GreatCall, Inc. Samsung is a registered trademark of
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Copyright 2013 Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC. Copyright 2013 GreatCall, Inc. Copyright 2013 by firstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc. All rights reserved.

WORLD

WAR II

What
the ...?!?
Whats the purpose
of this pipeline?
ANSWERS

to the JANUARY/
FEBRUARY Challenge

Name That
Patch

What
the?!?

Which American
squadron used
this emblem?

Hitlers pants, damaged

in the July 20, 1944, plot

LEFT: BUNDESARCHIV BILD 146-1981-147-30 A PHOTO O. ANG; PATCH: WEIDER ARCHIVES

Challenge

Hollywood Howlers

Name That
Patch

61st Fighter Squadron

Congratulations
to the winners:
Steven Tenenbaum,
Dan Guerena, and
Todd Johnson

UNITED ARTISTS/GETTY IMAGES

TOP: BUNDESARCHIV BILD 146-1972-025-64 PHOTO O. ANG; MIDDLE: CONSTANTIN FILM; BOTTOM: WEIDER ARCHIVES

The truck is a postwar

Soviet GAZ-63; in the
film, Cyrillic lettering is
clearly visible on its hood

Please send your answers

to all three questions, and your mailing address, to:
May/June Challenge
World War II
19300 Promenade Drive
Leesburg, VA 20176
or e-mail:

challenge@weiderhistorygroup.com

Three winners, chosen at random from all correct

entries submitted by June 15, will receive a copy of
Dog Company by Patrick K. ODonnell. Answers will
appear in the September/October 2013 issue.

Hollywood

Howlers

In 1963s The Great Escape, based on the

mass escape attempt by Allied POWs at
Stalag Luft III, Steve McQueen commands
the spotlight as American flyer Captain
Virgil Hilts. After the big breakout, Hilts
steals a Wehrmacht motorcycle and jumps
a fence at the Swiss border. Where does
this scene go wrong?
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 3

79

WORLD

WAR II

Pinup

Wild Woman
Inventing an exotic background to
go with her exotic beauty, B-movie
actress Acquanetta arrived in
Hollywood as the Venezuelan
Volcano. When it emerged that she
wasnt Venezuelan, she said her
parents were Arapaho Indians who
named her Burnu Acquanetta
before giving her up for adoption. A
family in Pennsylvania raised her as
Mildred Davenport. After seeing
her dance and swim, Life magazine
reported in 1942, Hollywood has
decided, in any case, Burnus future

EVERETT COLLECTION

is more important than her past.

80

WORLD WAR II

THE SECRET IS OUT ABOUT

OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE

NOW ITS YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE!

in
Secret City Excursion Tra

American Museum
of Science

& Energy

ry
World War II Histo

Discover our Appalachian Heritage,

Manhattan Project History and World
War II Secrets.

Dont miss
the festival!
June 21-22

To plan your visit,

Call: 1-800-887-3429
Or go online: www.OakRidgeVisitor.com

Master of Arts in History Online

Master of Arts in Military History Online

Earn Your Masters Degree

from a Leader in History
Build a strong foundation for your career.
Regardless of your professional goals a Master of Arts in History or Military History
from Norwich University can help you sharpen writing and research skills, develop
a nuanced perspective on the past, and garner subject matter-expertise that could
aid in teaching, writing, or other career opportunities.
Innovation Founded in 1819 and
regarded as an innovator in American
education, Norwich University was the
nations frst private military college
and the birthplace of ROTC.
History For nearly two centuries
Norwich University has played an active
role in creating business, government
and military leaders who have helped
shape American history.

Expertise Students learn from a

diverse faculty comprised of PhD-level
subject matter experts and published
historians in the feld of history.
Convenience Online learning allows
you to access program content and
contribute to class discussions on your
own schedule and at your own pace
each week.
Immediacy There is no GRE required
if you meet the GPA requirement.

For more Information on Norwich University and our online history

programs, visit: graduate.norwich.edu/ww2