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.
For the last week or so, the ww2file has been running on autopilot, with posts appearing every other day (or so) while I was catching up with some relatives at the OBX, NC. It was nice to sun these tired old bones for a few days.
During my time in the water, I couldn’t help but think of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, or the sinking of the USS Indy, as dramatized in the show Ocean of Fear. Think about this: if you happen to travel to a beach (and swim a little past the shore breakers), or even find yourself in the deep end of the pool, try to keep afloat for more than a few minutes. It’s a lot tougher than you might think. Then read In Harm’s Way.
I also learned a good deal about the maritime shipping loses off the OBX shoreline (from German u-boats). I spoke to a resident (who was a teen in the early 1940s) who remembers seeing the fires offshore from sinking merchant ships as well the bodies that would wash ashore after the sinkings. I’m planning to study this a bit a make a post or two about it in the coming weeks.
So with the start of the school year just around the corner, the ww2file will feature 2 (or so) posts per week. When things do heat up on the job, (papers, papers, papers), I’m certain this site will be a sanity saver. Look for posts that follow the production of the new Pacific War mini-series, Ken Burns’ The War, and the Featured Image from ww2db.com.
First, linked here is Peter Chen’s review of In Harm’s Way.
The pictures linked below here are apart of the ww2db.com collection of 3500 photos, many culled from the National Archives and the US Naval Historical Center.
This is the USS Indy (at left) at the Mare Island shipyard in north California (7 Dec 1944). This is a pretty extraordinary closeup and you can see people moving around attending to their jobs. Notice the tiny circles as well. I have no idea what those are for…study points for Naval brass?
In the next photo (right), we see Captain McVay in Guam (Aug 1945) after the sinking of his ship. The actor tapped to play McVay in Ocean of Fear was much younger, if you recall.
I got to thinking about a passage I read in Fussell’s Wartime (I keep going back to that, I know, but it’s a great read) about public discourse (or what people could/would actually say in the 1940s regarding the actualities of conflict). Much of F’s argument has to do with light v. heavy duty, his metaphor for addressing how Americans conceived the war at the start v. what they discovered along the way (those many hard lessons).
The passage from the chapter Accentuate the Positive I’m thinking of connects to Ocean of Fear (Shark Week!)and has to do with morale. Fussell writes:
Another way for those in charge to raise service morale is by outright lies, as in the US Navy’s assuring its personnel that danger from sharks has been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, the Navy said, “Sharks are amazingly overrated, there being only three cases of shark bites in all records” (emphasis is mine).
Fussell’s footnote leads to a source called Service Newspapers of the Second World War by M. Anglo, page 130. So this quote appeared in a news rag consumed by the service masses. It’s interesting that this kind of idea was “out there” as a way helping/persuading sailors to do their job and have one less thing to worry about. After all, if you knew differently, that there was a chance you’d be ripped to shreds after surviving the sinking of your ship, would you ever go near the ocean again?
I know many would, since that sense of duty (”this has to be done”) was firmly built into the culture then. But perhaps a less than forthright message in many circumstances helped to do this.
Okay, so I watched all two hours of Ocean of Fear and thought it was a pretty decent show. I bet my wife a dollar that there would be at least two actors from Band of Brothers in the cast, since those guys seem to show up everywhere. I thought maybe Matthew Leitch (Talbert), Peter Hills (Shifty), or Rick Gomez (Luz) might be cast. But I lost that bet, and now I’m down a buck heading into the week. Damn it.
That said, the show itself followed the form I expected: decent recreations, a tight narrative line, and interviews from a core of survivors. Actually, I wish they would have focused more on the vets, but this is a minor complaint. I did like how they chose to tell the story from two angles: the omniscient narrator (Dreyfuss) and the first person recreations told in that office by close up. I expected a straight narration and this was a nice twist. This allowed filmmakers to jump to the various spots, tell a story, and then provide needed context. Then repeat.
And was it me, or was that ending a little weird? “Only 4 people per die per year from shark attacks. Humans kill over 40 million sharks a year.” I think I got that right. I know it’s Shark Week and all, but given the subject matter, this bit of statistical data fell flat. The teacher in me says A- before the end sentence…B+ afterwards.
In light of the Shark Week and the documentary Ocean of Fear (premiering today, July 29), I found myself over at the USS Indianapolis Survivors web site reading about Woody James. His day by day chronology of events is most engaging. From Day 3 of his ordeal:
The day wore on and the sharks were around, hundreds of them. You’d hear guys scream, especially late in the afternoon. Seemed like the sharks were the worst late in the afternoon than they were during the day. Then they fed at night too. Everything would be quiet and then you’d hear somebody scream and you knew a shark had got him.
It didn’t ever get any cooler in the daytime. In fact, Newhall asked me, he said, “James, do you think it’s’ any hotter in hell than it is here?” I said, “I don’t know, Jim, but if it is, I ain’t goin.”
Read the whole thing, if you have the time. James’ keen sense of irony is present throughout.
There isn’t much I liked about the movie Jaws. It did, however, keep me out of the surf for a good portion of my youth. But that’s another story.
When it airs on cable now, I always surf back in for Robert Shaw’s scene stealing moment on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis prior to that silly denouement. Via youtube, we have the three shark hunters: Quint (Shaw), the Sheriff (Roy Scheider), and the young marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) talking “scars.”
Say what you will about that movie, but Shaw nails the whole “concept” of the “old man and the sea” who has, no question, seen things he’d like to forget. This scene set up the movie’s final irony, I think. Not everyone there is going to make it. Isn’t this a screen writing rule outside of the Star Wars movies? Someone is going to die, and here, it’s Quint.
The Discovery Channel is set to air Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever, the story of the USS Indianapolis. Here is the blurb from their web site:
A dramatic documentary featuring the story of the USS Indianapolis in World War II. Explore the sinking and the horrifying shark attacks that cost hundreds of soldiers’ lives.
Air dates: Jul 29, 9:00 pm, Jul 30, 1:00 am, Aug 04, 11:00 am, Aug 04, 6:00 pm, and Sep 02, 5:00 pm
During my time in the water, I couldn’t help but think of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, or the sinking of the USS Indy, as dramatized in the show Ocean of Fear. Think about this: if you happen to travel to a beach (and swim a little past the shore breakers), or even find yourself in the deep end of the pool, try to keep afloat for more than a few minutes. It’s a lot tougher than you might think. Then read In Harm’s Way.
