The World War II Database has it all: Event Summaries, Book Reviews, Participant Profiles, detailed specs on ships and aircraft, and 3500+ photos. The DBs RSS feeds are here and here.
A short time ago, I posted a short chronology of the making of the “NUTS!” story (by way of a period newspaper) in the triggertime forum. I did it for fun, as the details of the story are all well known. The original poster of the thread in that forum was Ken McAuliffe, nephew to the famed speaker, Anthony McAuliffe. His words begin this post. The links here are to articles that progressively reveal the details. It didn’t take long for the story to get out.
KM: In December 1944 when the story first hit the newspapers in the USA, the identity of the Division and the name of the General in command were both withheld. Upon reading the story, my Mother said to my Father, “That’s Tony. It has to be; he used that word all the time.” Two days later, she was proven correct.
From me…
By DEC 27, word had filtered out that an American Commander had “curtly” declined an invitation to surrender in Bastogne. No names or divisions are listed. No mention of “Nuts.”
By DEC 28, the word “Nuts” and a short description appeared at the end of larger AP article about the Bastogne siege. See first attachment here. Again, no name or division…
By DEC 30, a legend is in the making. Notice in the second graf “Nuts” is compared to JPJ’s “We have just begun to fight.” This article also included an image of the general, and of his wife and daughter showing his Normandy parachute. The second half of the article details other groups involved in the fighting. Three parts are linked here: part I, part II, and the image of the general and his parachute.
Okay…I was looking on youtube for something else featuring Ronald Reagan (a ww2 training film featured in Burns’ The War), but this is much more interesting.
It starts with Chester Nimitz, then we catch a glimpse of the foxy Nancy Davis (later first lady Nancy Reagan), and as always, we have the fine stylings of Ron himself, acting…He is the K Reeves of his day.
Has it been nearly a month since my last featured image? Indeed it has.
So I wanted to jump back in with something I’ve seen around and this image fit the bill. It comes from Tarawa early in the war and shows just how far the Marines (and others) had to go before the war would end. But there is humor, too.
“Why the hell do you care? You ain’t going there.”
The image is part of a larger image set accompanying the Gilbert Island Campaign event description over at ww2db.com.
This has been another entry in the ww2db.com Featured Image partnership. The idea behind this post (and the weekly posts to come) is to highlight ww2db.com’s collection of 4000 plus photos, many culled from the National Archives, Library of Congress, the US Naval Historical Center, and other research institutions.
Episode 6 marks a high point for me in the series, especially the discussion of Iwo Jima. All the color footage was amazing to see, mixed in with sound to boot, and that certainly heightened the drama of the descriptions. Amazing stuff.
This is been the surprise of the series for me…the sound of it all. Most of the footage I’ve seen from the period is without sound. Certainly the capability was there, but the process too cumbersome, I think. But Burns’ crew has mixed it all together to create “an experience” (machine gun fire, shelling, etc), all cued up to match the images on the scene. Docu-movie magic, I’d say.
I was driving home from the supermarket the other day, and noticed a guy mowing his lawn. Nothing unusual for a SAT. After I’d passed by, I realized the man had a partial prosthetic arm, too. I noted later in the week the same man getting out of his car after work, in fatigues, likely coming back from his job at the local US Army post.
I’m reminded of cost.
It’s easy to think of of WW2 (and other conflicts) in a removed “academic” way, to think in broad terms about units/actions/leadership choices/materiel. Recently, I read this over at http://www.wildbillguarnere.com and it was posted not long after Band of Brothers first aired on HBO. It’s by Peter Toye, son of Joe Toye, and it is a moving tribute to a father, and the sentiment is also very uniquely _American_ .
One of my most vivid childhood memories was when he’d take my brothers and me camping and put on some trunks to dive in the lake. On his crutches, heading for the beach, I’d walk sightly behind him staring at his scar-covered body — it seemed front to back, head to toe — scars everywhere. Wrist from Normandy; back courtesy Holland; arm, leg, stomach a result of refusing to bend at Bastogne. I’d notice others staring at him as well because he made a formidable sight. But I never thanked him for leaving all that he left of himself in Europe so that we could take vacations like this whenever and wherever we wished. In his own hard and quiet way, he taught us all that it’s never OK to stay down on the mat no matter how much we may feel beaten. You always get back up and you never quit on yourself, NEVER! I can only hope that I have instilled this same 101st Airborne attitude on my children because my old man’s guts and pride courses our veins as well and there is no greater gift.
This quote was researched in the wildbillguarnere.com forums here and there is additional info in the post, specifically a eulogy offered by Richard Winters.
The web site is as advertised: “one of the largest repositories of data regarding World War 2.” There is much to learn there.
So what do you do when you have no time for anything but work but feel like a post is due? Link to Dale Dye. That’s what you do. His weekly update is as interesting as ever.
I’m particularly impressed with our plans to demonstrate Platoon Sergeant Basilone’s heroics in the fighting on 23-25 October 1942. There will be no doubt in anyone’s mind why he was awarded the Medal Of Honor as a result of that action. The real assets in bringing that fight to the screen are the young performers playing Basilone and his buddies in the heavy weapons company of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. They are as motivated and aggressive as any I’ve seen so far. Once again, training pays∧ just watching them fix, fire and maneuver those old M1917 water-cooled machineguns is a real treat. I’ve spent a lot of time lately wondering how Manila John and his machinegunners did what the record says they did given the unwieldy and overly complicated nature of those weapons.
So in the Invasion episode of The War, I found the discussion of Operation Cobra a little short. I mean, how is it possible to discuss this event and not mention the fact that Allied bombers also killed and wounded American soldiers due to “short” drops? One web page…
Over 100 U.S. soldiers were killed and approximately 500 were wounded. One unit, 1st Battalion, 120th Infantry Regiment, from the 30th Infantry Division, suffered 25 soldiers killed (including General Lesley J. McNair) and 131 wounded.
150 Americans were killed by accident by these bombs. The highest ranking fatality of this massive friendly fire incident was a three-star general of the US Army, “blown out of his slit trench some two miles behind where I had been hole up…”
This seems like a pretty big detail to exclude. How hard would have it have been to mention that in one sentence, out of respect to the dead?
For you folks surfing in looking for Eugene Sledge info, check this review of his book, With the Old Breed-At Peleliu and Okinawa. It’s a shameless plug to a review by a pretty talented writer at the DB. Enjoy.
Additionally, I took this photo at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in VA a few months back. As I walked through, reading about the history of the Marines, I stumbled upon this. It’s a display about Sledge’s book with a video narrative, much like the kinds of things you see on the History channel. It was one of the few video displays there. I couldn’t get a good shot straight on.
