Stay ConnectedAmerican history, one story at a time. Every episode tells the story of the people and the events that matter in America’s past. As history is learned, it becomes apparent that hindsight isn’t always 20/20; context matters.
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Copyright: Copyright © Andrew Gehrt 2019
This episode is brought to you by Sudio Headphones. Visit the website by clicking hereor visiting sudio.com/USand enter the promo code: “MONDAYAMERICAN” to get 15% off of anyorder placed including free international shipping! Visit the official website(www.themondayamerican.com) to listen to all our episodes, shop for officialMonday Americanswag, contact us, and appreciate our use of the oxford comma! The Monday Americanis proudly part of the Podcast Advocate Network.To find out more visit the website by clicking hereor by going to podcastadvocate.network America reels in the face of the worst economic disaster ever faced. The attempts to bring the country and its people out of the Dust-bowl of despair only make things worse. The nation of wealth and prosperity in the post World War I era suddenly finds itself scrambling to keep its own people from starving in the streets while the world watches on. The attempts to right the ship serve as a lesson to future generations on the danger of government power-grabbing; even when fueled by the most noble of intentions. Democracy is challenged on a global stage after it nearly collapsed from the Civil war. America pays a painful price to learn the lessons of economics and what happens when the Government takes action and control despite honest intentions. Sources Used:
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Part II highlights the dichotomous type of war that the Korean War seemed to become once the Chinese Army threw their hat into the ring. It not only changed the war, it was an action that had rippling effects of change for the whole world.
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Timestamps:
The Korean War is known, ironically so, for being America's forgotten war. It was a war that sparked America's involvement in southeast Asia for next thirty years.
Part one of this series on the war begins by explaining how we got to the point of war in Korea, and the history of Korea itself.
One unique aspect of this war is that it never officially ended, and the ramifications of the events are still in place today.
A list of sources as well as maps is available on this episode's page on the official website by clicking here or visiting www.themondayamerican.com/korean-war-sources.
To help support the podcast you can visit our Patreon page by clicking here.
This episode tells the story of the Battle of the Bulge, one of the worst battles in American history. This battle took place in late December of 1944 in the Ardennes Forest region of Belgium, near the town of Bastogne.
View maps detailing the battle here.
This episode is brought to you by the book titled "Last Judgement", written by Michael Canon. To purchase a copy for only $7.99, click here.
Michael Canon is also working on a graphic novel based off of the book. You can see a preview for the graphic novel set to come out in early 2019 by clicking here. You can help donate to support the project by clicking here.
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This episode tells the story of America's journey from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Pacific. The great American migration west is a story that tells of America's growth in land as well as national identity.
The Manifest Destiny ideology served as the foundation that the nation built itself upon, in methods both good and bad. America's saga is a story of happiness and tragedy in so many ways, this chapter is no exception to the highs and lows of human behavior.
For a detailed list of sources cited you can click this link or visit the website at www.themondayamerican.com
Interview with Bruce Carlson: Host of "My History Can Beat up Your Politics"
We are joined by Bruce Carlson who hosts the podcast called "My History Can Beat Up Your Politics."
Bruce is a very educated man in both history and politics and the conversation we had is a great footnote to the recently concluded Vietnam War Series.
To find out more about Bruce and his podcast you can visit his website by clicking the link above or listen to his show anywhere you find podcasts!
This episode is brought to you by: "The Three Brothers", a book written by Stephen E. Marantelli that tells the story of a dinner with George Washington and Edmund Barton. It's "history with a mystery" as it convey's Australia and America's similarities in their founding days.
The Monday American is proudly part of the Podcast Advocate Network. To find more amazing podcasts like this one or for more about the network, click the link. You know you want to...
The fifth episode picks up right where part four left off. Nixon takes the reigns of Presidential burden and responsibility from the hands of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The most daunting task ahead of the nation and the new administration, to no one's surprise, is the looming war in Vietnam and the path out of the conflict.
Nixon and Henry Kissinger fell into a trap that was partly due to their own pride, their own arrogance and their own insecurities. It was also in part due to the nature of the Vietnam War itself. It was a bloody, gruesome and gory affair. The arrogant Nixon and Kissinger duo somehow managed to convince themselves that reality was something other than what was in front of them. They decided on the paradoxical, if not tragically ironic, policy of "War for Peace".
Nixon allowed himself to believe he could use brute force to force the North Vietnamese into a peace settlement adhering to his definitoin of "peace with honor". Each step and decision he took became more obsessive, paranoid and constitutionally unsound as he drug America through its final stages of the conflict in Vietnam that would become America's longest war; as well as one of it's most costly lessons.
This show is proudly part of the PodcastAdvocate.Network. To find other amazing shows like this one or to find out more about the network such as its award winning editing service, click the link. You know you want to...
The Vietnam War (Part IV): Tet Unravels the West.
Lyndon Johnson comes to terms with the reality he and his administration of "wise men" had been avoiding until this point. The reality that they were in a war that was neither winnable nor popular was no longer a "sweep it under the rug" thought for them. They reached the crucial point where we (looking back from today) see the decisions they made and the responsibility they bore; or in this case the responsibility they deflected.
Rather than take the blame for their own actions these men, men like LBJ and McNamara, decided to cast the blame of their own actions onto the very American public they "represented and served", they cast the blame onto the press, onto the people, onto any other thing other than themselves.
The Tet Offensive pushes the conflict in Vietnam to a boiling point both abroad and within the United States. The American public after Tet, the odd victory without reward, finally was able to see the real situation in Vietnam. What was even more jarring to the public than the "principals" and their malfeasance was the unsettling realization that the war in Vietnam had somehow started a civil war in America.
This show is proudly part of the PodcastAdvocate.Network. To find other amazing shows like this one or to find out more about the network such as its award winning editing service, click the link. You know you want to...
Part III of the series takes an in-depth dive into the man largely credited for the escalation, continuation and cover-ups regarding the Vietnam War: Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Picking up where we left off in part II, we learn a bit more about who LBJ was and what helped him to make the fateful decisions made throughout his administration regarding the Vietnam War, its escalation and its subsequent veiling to the American public.
The former Senate Majority Leader was a master of manipulation, skilled like none other in the art of politics, personal flattery and the ability to read a man in order to face off against him. Lyndon B. Johnson masterfully avoided the rebuke of Congress and the American people while further involving the nation in a conflict with no hope of resolution.
Using the attack of Pleiku airbase, as well as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, LBJ was able to position himself as the President leading the charge of retaliation against the "aggressor" North Vietnamese. Operation "ROLLING THUNDER" would kick off the bombing campaign that would prove the North Vietnamese would not only withdraw in their campaign, but they would escalate it on a magnitude with which the United States was un-willing and un-able to match.
This is one of the incredible podcasts in the Podcast Advocate Network family. Explore http://PodcastAdvocate.Network for more great content.As always, you can contact us by sending an email to contact@themondayamerican.com, following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and by visiting the website at www.themondayamerican.com
To find the list of sources used, visit the episode page on the website.
Special Episode: Interview with William Timmons
Although this podcast is not an interview format show (usually), I had the chance to sit down with a State Senator from South Carolina who is running for Congress in the upcoming election. I believe that what he has to say about politics, congress and the country in general are beneficial for not only his constituents but for any American listening in. Please excuse the interruption of the Vietnam War series (of which part III will release shortly) in order to enjoy a conversation with a congressional candidate.
To learn more about William Timmons and his run for congress please visit his pages listed below:
Website: www.votetimmons.com
Facebook: Timmons for Congress
Twitter: @votetimmons
email: william@votetimmons.com
The Vietnam War Series presented by The Monday American Podcast
Thank you for listening and downloading Part II of the series covering the Vietnam War. If you're interested in finding out the sources used and cited during the series, you can find all of them on the website by visiting www.themondayamerican.com or if you'd like to email us you can send it to contact@themondayamerican.com
The Vietnam War has hardly begun in the point where we left off part one and now start part two, yet it isn't difficult for us looking back to see how much destruction is on its way.
Part II continues the story of America's involvement in Indochina and Vietnam and touches on topics such as:
The Buddhist Crisis, the JFK assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, as well as the Gulf of Tonkin Congressional Resolution, the Strategic Hamlet Program.
The Monday American: A History Podcast is proudly part of the Podcast Advocate Network. Visit the network's website at podcastadvocate.network where you'll get great podcast tips and news, editing services, the only newsletter you won't unsubscribe from and much more!
The analogy of Domino's falling is admittedly a lazy subtitle on our part. That said, even though it rings as a loud cliché it is easily the most appropriate way to describe the entire American involvement in the Indochina (Vietnam), South Asia and overall struggle against the "un-ceasing" growth of communism.
Part One of the series provides the context that is necessary to glean the story out of the Indochina conflict. Without understanding not only how, but why these events came to be, the story within the history doesn't get through and it doesn't teach those of us looking back at it today.
The difficult aspect of covering this specific war in American history is the sheer amount of lies, misdirection and flat out confusing amount of sources and historical data are available. It is ironically fitting however, the Vietnam war remains one of the most complex and farthest thing from "simple" that endures in the history of America.
Part one of the series begins the journey that is the story of the Vietnam War, we hope you enjoy.
As always, please email your thoughts, complaints, arguments or general dad jokes to contact@themondayamerican.com you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Youtube and don't forget to check out the website at www.themondayamerican.com
Sources Used:
McManus, John C. Grunts: Inside the American infantry combat experience, World War II through Iraq. New York: NAL Caliber, 2011.
Herring, George C. Americas longest war: the United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Sheehan, Neil. A bright shining lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Modern Library, 2009.
Downs, Frederick. The killing zone: my life in the Vietnam War. New York: Norton, 2007.
Moïse, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf And the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2004.
Mason, Robert. Chickenhawk. New York: Penguin Books, 2005.
The American Civil War (Part V)
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Part Five of the series opens with the full realization of the Confederate States of America that the war cannot be won setting in. General Ulysses S. Grant moves into Richmond, VA and occupies the recently abandoned Confederate government headquarters. Robert E. Lee takes his men on a "march from hell" only to realize the only option is surrender, which he does on April 9, 1865. When everything seems to be coming together, the nation loses Abraham Lincoln to an assassins bullet. Altering the course of the new nation forever...
Sources Used
Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Vintage Books, 2000.
Winik, Jay. April 1865 the month that saved America. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Blight, David W. Race and reunion: the Civil War in American memory. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.
Alexander, Edward Porter. Military Memoirs of a Confederate. New York, NY: C. Scribners Sons, 1907.
Fellman, Michael, Lesley J. Gordon, and Daniel E. Sutherland. This terrible war: the Civil War and its aftermath. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.
Coski, John M. The Confederate battle flag: Americas most embattled emblem. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.
Taylor, Michael W. The Cry is War, War, War. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1994.
Geer, Walter. Campaigns of the Civil War. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 2009.
In Part IV of the American Civil War the nation reels from the cost of the conflict. The Battle of Antietam takes its toll as the nation's bloodiest single day of combat - ever. The Battle of Gettysburg becomes the country's most costly single battle, still to this day. The Union army control is given to Ulysses S. Grant who battles Robert E. Lee through the Overland Campaign, inching closer to Richmond where the life of the Confederate States of America seems to be waning.
Topics and events discussed in this episode:
The Battle of Antietam, The Battle of Gettysburg, The Wilderness Campaign, Spotsylvania, The Mule Shoe, General Robert E. Lee's decision to join the Confederate States of America, The promotion to commander of Union armies given to Ulysses S. Grant, The Overland Campaign.
Sources Used:
Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Vintage Books, 2000.
Winik, Jay. April 1865 the month that saved America. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Blight, David W. Race and reunion: the Civil War in American memory. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.
Fellman, Michael, Lesley J. Gordon, and Daniel E. Sutherland. This terrible war: the Civil War and its aftermath. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.
Coski, John M. The Confederate battle flag: Americas most embattled emblem. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.
Taylor, Michael W. The Cry is War, War, War. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1994.
Geer, Walter. Campaigns of the Civil War. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 2009.
Chernow, Ron. Grant. New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2017. Pgs 289-311, and 366-447.
The American Civil War (Part III) A House Divided Welcome to Part III of The Monday American series on the American Civil War; the story of America's darkest days in which it ultimately becomes the nation's brightest hour. In order to find out more about this episode, or the series as a whole, please visit the official website by clicking here! Fill out the new (anonymous) 6 question survey to contribute to the growth of the show! Six questions and less than seconds gives the podcast anonymous information about its audience in order to further grow and expand the listener base! Please leave a review on iTunes and subscribe to the show on whatever platform you listen on! It helps the show out tremendously when you do so and we greatly appreciate the support! Show Topics and Timestamps: Nat Turner’s Rebellion (2:45) The Fugitive Slave Act (8:30) Uncle Toms Cabin (13:30) The Kansas-Nebraska Bill (14:25) The Dred Scott Case (16:40) The Emergence of Abraham Lincoln (20:55) Secession from the Union (30:45) Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address (36:20) The Fort Sumter Crisis (40:00) The Battle of Bull Run (54:04) Gen. Ulysses S. Grant Takes Forts Henry and Donelson (1:01:53) Other:
For general inquiries, questions, criticisms or words of encouragement you can email the host directly by sending an email to: contact@themondayamerican.com
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The American Civil War
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry On November 2nd of 1859 John Brown made a bold claim stating, “Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments…I submit; so let it be done!" Six months earlier he was heard interrupting a meeting of the New England Antislavery Society when he shouted out“Talk! Talk! Talk! That will never free the slaves…what is needed is action!…action!”Action indeed was what John Brown gave the nation when a little more than a month after that he took matters into his own hands and led a raid on a federal arsenal located in Harper’s Ferry Virginia. It was here that Brown took a fatal leap from angry talk to revolutionary action. If contradictions within the national structure regarding slavery and democratic principles co-existing amid some awkward unspoken peace agreement, those contradictions that were nearly tangible weren’t enough, on their own right, to bring the country to war as it were. Before John Brown, the economic, social and political system had proved sufficiently coherent to hold the nation together. After his revolutionary raid on Harper’s Ferry, the United States was thrust into the fast lane that led only to war. Although John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal was a complete tactical, strategical and any other conceivable means a total defeat militarily, he gained what is all too common a theme in history by winning a moral victory for his cause. Isn’t it interesting how often these moral victories spurned from a military defeat come to alter the history of nations so often? John Brown’s moral victory amid military disaster was certainly no different. Brown’s idea that led to the eventual action was a fairly simple idea to begin with. He had long held the belief that was common of that day that slaves were not only capable but eager for violent insurrection and Brown took it upon himself to make sure that outcome happened. He was so optimistic in his plan that he commissioned the forging of one thousand pikes which he would supplement with the stands of rifles he would seize later at the arsenal. Why one thousand pikes? He certainly didn’t have that many men in his band of marauders; Brown assumed that when word of his raid spread and the slaves heard of his daring initiative, they would rush to him at the arsenal and then, protected by mountains, travel south where slaves existed in far greater numbers. His idea was that he was going to start the slave insurrection by raiding Harper’s Ferry and causing a “spontaneous”, chain reaction type revolution. Brown had 21 men who joined his cause, three of them were his own sons and those men marched to and managed to seize the arsenal while taking thirty hostages, among those hostages where ten “quite bewildered” slaves. This was the end of the success portion of his raid as not a single slave came to join Brown and his men at Harpers Ferry. As a man of Brown’s demeanor would be expected to do he refused to admit his cause, his noble mission as he saw it, was not only staring at defeat but it had already failed. He and his men barricaded themselves inside the nearby brick walled building of a fire engine house and were quickly surrounded by local citizens at first followed shortly by a company of United States Marines commanded by none other than Col. Robert E. Lee. The following day the marines stormed the building killing several of Brown’s gang and severely wounding Brown as well. On a military level this raid was a disaster, which Brown later would concede to. He was imprisoned, tried, and hanged within six weeks. Where Brown was able to pull a surprise victory however was during his trial and execution and rather than a weapon found in an arsenal, his greatest weapon was his eloquence with the english language. Brown had a “come to Jesus” moment that seems to be mostly an act of an observant man than an honest one. Brown held the prisoners at Harpers Ferry but did not kill them, he later admitted he“should have gone away, but I had thirty-odd prisoners whose wives and daughters were in tears for their safety, and I felt for them. Besides I wanted to allay the fears of those who believed we came here to burn and kill.”This won over the sentiment of the public of a man surrendered to his cause with the noblest virtue and as he said himself,“I never did intend murder or treason or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion or to make insurrection.”This was a lie obviously but a genius defense plea that shows the mans understanding of the human nature to root for the underdog while also showing his own deep sympathy. The reality that on May 24, 1856 just three years prior in Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas a group of men were led by none other than John Brown when they encountered five pro-slavery settlers and proceeded to hack all five of the men into pieces and mangle their bodies. But that mattered little now because Brown had played the game perfectly with the cards he was presented with. He had secured himself as the martyr that would spark the fire of freedom for slaves, one way or another. Brown’s defense attempted a plea of insanity (something not far from the truth as insanity ran in his family) but Brown would hear none of it; any plan to break him free would have been even more insane as the military guard surrounding Brown had swollen to 1,500 men on the day of his execution. Before Brown was hung he made his last statement that ultimately ignited the nation over the issue of slavery when he said“I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them: that is why I am here, not any personal animosity, revenge or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged that are as good as you and as precious in the eyes of God.”He was able to secure himself as the spark that set the fire of the debate that consumed the nation for the next two years. As he walked towards his scaffold that would hang him until he died he handed a note to one of his captors, in what was ultimately his moment of prophetic wisdom because the note stated that the type of insurrection he had attempted wouldn’t be sufficient to free slaves and that only a vast, civil war was capable of ending the violent slave system. It read: “I John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of the guilty land; will never be purged away; but with blood." The Desire for War John Brown had successfully started the insurrection in America he had dreamt of, although not in the way that he had thought or hoped it would occur. Instead of inciting slaves to rebel and take up arms, he sparked the fire of the American people themselves and the country was on a track not only for eventual war, but a track that saw the people adopt a view of the necessity to wage war. What John Brown had just accomplished, that most didn’t realize at the time although they certainly would realize it in the days ahead, is he had altered the very mindset of the national argument. He took the entire radical anti-slavery movement and shifted their view to one that saw them clamoring for national redemption through the absolute necessity for war. History is full of some truly incredible things for us today to be able to understand and this certainly makes the list for one of the more wild instances in the past. Now I’m one of those History guys who thinks that although History is typically considered the past, I believe history is an inevitability of sorts. That inevitability, or the natural order of the world in a way dictates that things are going to happen regardless of what certain people decide to do. This is one of those occurrences where the inevitable is tremendously sped up through the actions of just one man. One man was able to speak a few well placed words that essentially changed the future of the country, well for that matter the world really, in a way he never could have conceived to be possible. But that’s the beautiful part about history, that speculation is essentially meaningless because history deals with facts and it doesn’t matter how much we decide to speculate and debate, it happened the way it did. The result of the actions of John Brown obviously wasn’t an immediate armament or immediate conflict breaking out but it absolutely was the last real piece of the puzzle that ensured there was no other alternative to war even though the people at the time thought otherwise. What’s interesting about all of this is the somewhat awkward position that politicians were finding themselves in while watching reactions from the public and the world to the remarks and actions of John Brown. The Republicans of the day, though they were far more conservative than the radical abolitionist, found themselves attempting to navigate a seemingly impossible situation in which they were forced to pick their own political poison. If they denounced Brown too strongly they would come across as a pro-slavery advocate and surely would lose the coming election; but the failure to admonish him at all would ensure they lose the vote of any pro-slavery voter. Perhaps the most talented at avoiding this political poison pill was the famously moderate and cautious Republican from the state of Illinois named Abraham Lincoln. He calculated the effect of Brown politically and was able to navigate those treacherous waters by embracing them head on. He spoke frequently about Brown and when doing so he always called him wrong, sometimes even insane noting that “an enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he feels commissioned by Heaven to liberate them…which ends in little else than his own execution.” The difference in the mass of republicans who succumbed to political death in the John Brown fallout versus the overwhelming success that Lincoln experienced was his ability to anticipate the attacks of the democrats before they were able to be launched at all. Lincoln denied that either he or even a single republican had supported brown and on December 5th 1859 during a speech in Kansas he told his audience that “Old John Brown has just been executed for treason against a state. We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking that slavery [is] wrong. That alone cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail [Brown] nothing that he might think himself right.” Lincoln was able to find that delicate balance that so many others sought after, and that was obviously something he was eventually known for, giving some of the greatest speeches in history. Unlike others who were uncomfortable with how to handle their political plight, Lincoln embraced it. He used John Brown to his own political gains by speaking about him very often, using him almost as a kind of warning should the nation take a turn against his advice. In his famous Cooper Union address on February 27, 1860 he successfully predicted that if the Democrats should try and succeed (which they eventually did) in using Brown to break up the Republican party, that the majority of antislavery proponents would turn away from what he called “the peaceful channel of the ballot box” and instead would embrace the very same violent means embraced by John Brown and his men in the first place. Lincoln was able to avoid utterly disavowing someone who was willing to go to the gallows due to his hatred of slavery, which was a feeling Lincoln and Brown shared; but was also able to use Brown as a warning to voters about the consequences should they not follow Republican moderation and instead embrace the un-thinkable. Ultimately though, Lincoln could not disassociate Brown from his own feelings of hatred for slavery as well as his larger antislavery political goals. Lincoln certainly wasn’t alone in that mindset as it wouldn’t be very long at all when men from all over the north, with an array of backgrounds would be marching together in the south while singing “John Brown’s body lies amouldering in the grave, but his truth goes marching on!” It’s an interesting look at the inability of humanity at times, obviously nothing is 100% consistent, to excuse actions that are wrong when commited in the name of a cause they agree with. The National Identity The nation reacted to the raid from John Brown in a way that would further the national divide of “north” vs. “south” so much so that each further action made it impossible to go back to the way things were without the inevitable conclusion of war in America. This section of the podcast goes over some of the details about changing American life in the nineteenth century in order to further assist the listener in understanding the perceived and the actual differences between the north and south in the United States as well as how those differences came to fruition. As well as the description and detail of nineteenth century life in America, this last section of the episode touches on two crucial portions that led the nation to war with itself. The Missouri Compromise and the Nullification Crisis; both are events in the history of the country that aren’t exactly “riveting” stories in their own right but to tell the story of the civil war in America without these two events is to tell the story in an incomplete way. They are both events that helped cement the issue of slavery as the central issue in all debates as well as the issue that leads to the first threat of a state to secede from the Union; the civil war nearly began thirty years before it did had it not been for the political wisdom of America’s oldest politicians and some cautious maneuvering from representatives. Part III of the story picks up amid the “action” as the nation votes on the new president during the election of 1860, which is also an election for war in a way that the nation would soon find out for themselves. Works Cited: Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Vintage Books, 2000. Winik, Jay. April 1865 the month that saved America. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2008. Blight, David W. Race and reunion: the Civil War in American memory. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. Fellman, Michael, Lesley J. Gordon, and Daniel E. Sutherland. This terrible war: the Civil War and its aftermath. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Coski, John M. The Confederate battle flag: Americas most embattled emblem. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Taylor, Michael W. The Cry is War, War, War. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1994. Geer, Walter. Campaigns of the Civil War. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 2009.Our Darkest Day (Part One)
This is part one of the American Civil War series. We dive into the story behind the most bloody, most tragic, and ultimately most costly war the United States has ever fought.
Foreword:
Throughout this series you will hear quotes from the men and women who lived during this event. Their quotes include language and words that are derogatory in nature and may make some listeners uncomfortable or upset.
I by no means have included the aforementioned quotes in order to offend anyone and I apologize if that may be the case. In order to fully understand what happened, why it happened and what we can learn from it these quotes shouldn't be glossed over. It is important to understand the world that these people lived in and how they understand life and the world around them. In order to do so, we must not skip over parts of history that make us uncomfortable or angry.
If any of these quotes or words upsets you I encourage you to write me an email with any concerns you would like to address. Send your thoughts and concerns to contact@themondayamerican.com thank you.
Part One
The beginning of the civil war story starts earlier than you might imagine. We back up all the way to 1790 where George Washington announced his retirement from politics with his famous farewell address.
It was a few months prior to this event that led Washington to address to the nation just what he felt was necessary in order to preserve the life of this new democratic republic that the United States had formed.
He issued a warning that the biggest threats to democracy were the people themselves not understanding the freedom with which they were granted, and not unifying as a nation of United States.
The reason Washington had these concerns was due to a debate about slavery that occurred a few months prior to his address.
The slavery issue came to the house floor and was debated with fervor and heated conversation. The eventual outcome would be that due to the passing of the United States Constitution years prior, congress had no right to touch the topic of slavery through the year 1808. It ended with the abolitionists and pro-slavery arguers understanding that not only could the United States of America not do anything about the issue right then, due to the overwhelming understanding that the states dependent on it for their economy would surely succeed and destroy the Union right away; but they understood that they weren't even ready to talk about the topic due to the fact that neither side had a realistic and attainable solution.
Episode 24, Part one of the Civil War series begins the story of the Civil War in the midst of the heated congressional debate about what this new nation known as the United States of America will do about the topic of Slavery.
Sources Used:
Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Vintage Books, 2000.
Winik, Jay. April 1865 the month that saved America. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Blight, David W. Race and reunion: the Civil War in American memory. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.
Fellman, Michael, Lesley J. Gordon, and Daniel E. Sutherland. This terrible war: the Civil War and its aftermath. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.
Coski, John M. The Confederate battle flag: Americas most embattled emblem. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.
Taylor, Michael W. The Cry is War, War, War. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1994.
Geer, Walter. Campaigns of the Civil War. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 2009.
Eastern Airlines Flight 855: The Miracle over Miami.
This is the story of how a commercial jetliner was able to avoid utter disaster over the ocean and safely land in Miami, all 172 passengers and crew along with it.
The story is one that is close to home for me as it features my grandfather, Captain Steve C. Thompson, as the main character in this near tragedy. He was a man I grew up with in the same house for more than 16 years and was a father to me.
The reason I am choosing to tell this story is because although I'm heavily biased by my own family's involvement, it changed the way that the FAA, Airlines and aviation travel is conducted today. Seeing that millions of people fly every day, most without any concerns whatsoever, I thought it would be beneficial to hear the story about how it is safe now and what it took to get there.
Although this is a slight deviation in the normal American history episodes we do it still plays an integral part in the nation's story. We hope you enjoy.
Don't forget that you can send in your email submissions for the topic you want to hear about to contact@themondayamerican.com
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What follows is a brief outline of the event and some technical info:
1.14 FireThe American Revolution (Part III)
The third and final part of the American Revolution series wraps up everything discussed so far. This episode presents information in a way that helps to enlighten anyone with the importance and the lasting impact of the revolution in creating the America we know today. Don't forget to "subscribe" to the show on Apple Podcasts and leave a review! You can check out our website for all the latest! Send your complaints, praise and general tom-foolery to contact@themondayamerican.com Part Three In this third episode of the series the action picks up right where part two left off just before the battle of New York was to begin and George Washington would be pulled to the brink of disaster only to find a way to persevere... The Battle of New York If the battle of Dorchester Heights was Washington's first display of brilliance as a commander in chief, the Battle of New York and the ensuing winter at Valley Forge certainly would knock his pride down a few pegs. This was the largest battle fought for the duration of the entire war and easily Washington's worst display of strategic leadership while simultaneously shows one of the most miraculous strategic military maneuvers attempted to this day. After a successful siege against the British in Boston, Washington sent his army to New York City ready to defend the critical port city knowing the British already had an advantage in their Navy occupying the New York harbor and surrounding waters. There were several critical disadvantages that the Continental Army faced in New York that they didn't have to contend with during the Boston campaign. To begin, there were still citizens in the city, in Boston it was largely empty. Relatively speaking, the city of New York was brimming with people, and those people were largely loyal to the British Crown. Washington had ample intelligence for the Boston campaign; here he was left desperately wanting. Washington's Historic Crossing of the Delaware River General Washington had been considering some sort of bold move since arriving in Pennsylvania. With the arrival of Sullivan's and Gates' forces and the influx of militia companies, he felt the time was finally right for some sort of action. He first considered an attack on the southernmost British positions near Mount Holly, where a militia force had gathered. He sent his adjutant, Joseph Reed, to meet with Samuel Griffin, the militia commander. Reed arrived in Mount Holly on December 22, found Griffin to be ill, and his men in relatively poor condition, but willing to make some sort of diversion. (This they did with the Battle of Iron Works Hill the next day, drawing the Hessians at Bordentown far enough south that they would be unable to come to the assistance of the Trenton garrison.) The intelligence gathered by Reed and others led Washington to abandon the idea of attacking at Mount Holly, preferring instead to target the Trenton garrison. He announced this decision to his staff on December 23, saying the attack would take place just before daybreak on December 26. Washington's final plan was for three crossings, with his troops, the largest contingent, to lead the attack on Trenton. A second column under Lieutenant Colonel John Cadwalader was to cross at Dunk's Ferry, near Bristol, Pennsylvania, and create a diversion to the south. A third column under Brigadier General James Ewing was to cross at Trenton Ferry and hold the bridge across the Assunpink Creek, just south of Trenton, in order to prevent the enemy's escape by that route. Once Trenton was secure, the combined army would move against the British posts in Princeton and New Brunswick. A fourth crossing, by men provided by General Israel Putnam to assist Cadwalader, was dropped after Putnam indicated he did not have enough men fit for the operation. Preparations for the attack began on December 23. On December 24, the boats used to bring the army across the Delaware from New Jersey were brought down from Malta Island near New Hope. They were hidden behind Taylor Island at McKonkey's Ferry, Washington's planned crossing site; security was tightened at the crossing. A final planning meeting took place that day, with all of the general officers present. General orders were issued by Washington on December 25 outlining plans for the operation. The morale of the Patriot forces was boosted on December 19 when a new pamphlet titled The American Crisis written by Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, was published. These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. Within a day of its publication in Philadelphia, General Washington ordered it to be read to all of his troops. It encouraged the soldiers and improved their tolerance of their difficult conditions. On the morning of December 25, Washington ordered his army to prepare three days' food, and issued orders that every soldier be outfitted with fresh flints for their muskets. He was also somewhat worried by intelligence reports that the British were planning their own crossing once the Delaware was frozen over. At 4 pm Washington's army turned out for its evening parade, where the troops were issued ammunition, and even the officers and musicians were ordered to carry muskets. They were told that they were departing on a secret mission. Marching eight abreast in close formations, and ordered to be as quiet as possible, they left the camp for McKonkey's Ferry. Washington's plan required the crossing to begin as soon as it was dark enough to conceal their movements on the river, but most of the troops did not reach the crossing point until about 6 pm, about ninety minutes after sunset. The weather got progressively worse, turning from drizzle to rain to sleet and snow. "It blew a hurricane," recalled one soldier. Washington had given charge of the crossing logistics to his chief of artillery, the portly Henry Knox. In addition to the crossing of large numbers of troops (most of whom could not swim), he had to safely transport horses and eighteen pieces of artillery over the river. Knox wrote that the crossing was accomplished "with almost infinite difficulty", and that its most significant danger was "floating ice in the river". One observer noted that the whole operation might well have failed "but for the stentorian lungs of Colonel Knox".[29] Ice had formed in the river due to the Little Ice Age. Washington was among the first of the troops to cross, going with Virginia troops led by General Adam Stephen. These troops formed a sentry line around the landing area in New Jersey, with strict instructions that no one was to pass through. The password was "Victory or Death". The rest of the army crossed without significant incident, although a few men, including Delaware's Colonel John Haslet, fell into the water. The amount of ice on the river prevented the artillery from finishing the crossing until 3 am on December 26. The troops were not ready to march until 4 am. The two other crossings fared less well. The treacherous weather and ice jams on the river stopped General Ewing from even attempting a crossing below Trenton. Colonel Cadwalader crossed a significant portion of his men to New Jersey, but when he found that he could not get his artillery across the river he recalled his men from New Jersey. When he received word about Washington's victory, he crossed his men over again but retreated when he found out that Washington had not stayed in New Jersey. On the morning of December 26, as soon as the army was ready, Washington ordered it split into two columns, one under the command of himself and General Greene, the second under General Sullivan. The Sullivan column would take River Road from Bear Tavern to Trenton while Washington's column would follow Pennington Road, a parallel route that lay a few miles inland from the river. Only three Americans were killed and six wounded, while 22 Hessians were killed with 98 wounded. The Americans captured 1,000 prisoners and seized muskets, powder, and artillery. This was the basis for the turn of the entire Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. What follows is a bitter, bitter winter for the American Regular army, they hunker down at Valley Forge where thousands died. But because of the renewed confidence they had in their leader, George Washington, they stayed by his side and shared his vision of the war. They were able to overcome. A Long, Bitter Winter Washington and his troops had to retreat away to Valley Forge, the locale for the most horrific winter an army has had to endure in history. The American public and Congress began to criticize Washington for his inability to advance the war effort, because of the terrible conditions of the army during the winter of 1777. The army was undernourished and poorly clothed, living in crowded, damp quarters, and ravaged by sickness and disease. Typhoid, typhus, smallpox, dysentery, and pneumonia were among the numerous diseases that thrived in the camp during that winter. These diseases contributed to the death of 2,500 soldiers by the end of the winter, along with malnutrition and exposure to the freezing temperatures and snow. Governor Morris of New York later stated that the Continentals were a "skeleton of an army...in a naked, starving condition, out of health, out of spirits." Soldiers deserted in "astonishing great numbers" as hardships at camp overcame their motivation and dedication to fight. General James Mitchell Varnum warned that the desperate lack of supplies would "force the army to mutiny." Washington himself was aware of an increasing impatience and criticism of his leadership. A few soldiers wanted to replace him with General Horatio Gates, who had won a decisive victory in the Battles of Saratoga. Some members of the Continental Congress complained that Washington had left the surrounding countryside unprotected by moving into the isolated area of Valley Forge. Washington replied furiously: I can assure those Gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fire side than to occupy a cold bleak hill and sleep under frost and Snow without Clothes or Blankets; however, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked, and distressed Soldier, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my Soul pity those miseries, [which], it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent. Washington could not have launched any campaigns during the hardship at Valley Forge, yet anti-Washington movements still arose, led by Brigadier General Thomas Conway. These soldiers worked "behind the curtains" to degrade Washington's reputation in hopes that this would enable Horatio Gates to replace him as the commander of the Continental Army. This scheme is known today as the Conway Cabal. Washington was aware of them, and addressed them by saying: Whenever the public gets dissatisfied with my service... I shall quit the helm... and retire to a private life. This silenced his main critics and easily renewed his authority as the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army; his authority was never critically challenged for the rest of the decade. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the most incredible things about any American in our country's history. That Washington was able to not only silence his critics, but to put forth the notion that once the general public no longer wants him at the helm he will quit and retire to a private life. If we had more of that attitude in our present political climate this country would be a much, much better place.
Works Cited:
Kierner, Cynthia A. Revolutionary America, 1750-1815: sources and interpretation. Upper Saddle River (N.J.): Prentice Hall, 2003.
McCullough, David G. 1776. New York: Simon Schuster Paperbacks, 2006.
Fischer, David Hackett. Washingtons Crossing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Chernow, Ron. Washington: A life. New York: Penguin Books, 2010.
The American Revolution (Part II) The Second of three parts devoted to the American Revolution. We go through the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Second Continental Congress' decision to declare their independence from Great Britain, and their decision to appoint George Washington as the General of the first Continental Army. An episode packed with a story of struggle, excitement and fear that is ultimately the beginning of American History. Don't forget to "subscribe" to the show on Apple Podcasts and leave a review! You can check out our website for all the latest! Intro Before the Second Continental Congress made the ultimate decision to draft the Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, the revolutionary movement had yet to achieve a single unified vision. Many of the state representatives at that congressional meeting were still pushing for British loyalty after the war should they be able to achieve their goal of true representation. They saw the war as a way to let Great Britain and Parliament know the seriousness with which they viewed their purpose. Ultimately on July 2nd, 1776 the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America was voted on and approved. Two days later it was signed and ratified and the United States of America was officially a sovereign nation; it was anyone's best guess as to how long that union of states would last. Before the congressional meeting in Philadelphia, PA drafted, signed, and ratified that monumental document, the Battle of Bunker Hill gave colonial Americans a glimpse of hope that they would be able to use their untrained, unexperienced and unorganized militias to stave off the British invaders. The Battle of Bunker Hill The Battle of Bunker Hill occurred one year before the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was the first real engagement of American militia as American soldiers against the British Regular Army. The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in the battle. It was the original objective of both the colonial and British troops, though the majority of combat took place on the adjacent Breed's Hill.On June 13, 1775, the leaders of the colonial forces besieging Boston learned that the British were planning to send troops out from the city to fortify the unoccupied hills surrounding the city, which would give them control of Boston Harbor. In response, 1,200 colonial troops under the command of William Prescott stealthily occupied Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill. During the night, the colonists constructed a strong redoubt on Breed's Hill, as well as smaller fortified lines across the Charlestown Peninsula.By daybreak of June 17, the British became aware of the presence of colonial forces on the Peninsula and mounted an attack against them that day. Two assaults on the colonial positions were repulsed with significant British casualties; the third and final attack carried the redoubt after the defenders ran out of ammunition. The colonists retreated to Cambridge over Bunker Hill, leaving the British in control of the Peninsula.The battle was a tactical victory for the British, but it proved to be a sobering experience for them, involving many more casualties than the Americans had incurred, including a large number of officers. The battle had demonstrated that inexperienced militia were able to stand up to regular army troops in battle. Subsequently, the battle discouraged the British from any further frontal attacks against well defended front lines. American casualties were comparatively much fewer, although their losses included General Joseph Warren and Major Andrew McClary, the final casualty of the battle.The battle led the British to adopt a more cautious planning and maneuver execution in future engagements, which was evident in the subsequent New York and New Jersey campaign, and arguably helped rather than hindered the American forces. Their new approach to battle was actually giving the Americans greater opportunity to retreat if defeat was imminent. The costly engagement also convinced the British of the need to hire substantial numbers of foreign mercenaries to bolster their strength in the face of the new and formidable Continental Army. The Battle of New York and Washington's Growth The Battle of New York was a massive blow not only to the army under Washington's command, it was a blow to his mental fortification and resolve. The battle of New York began in August of 1776 and in terms of troop deployment it was the largest battle of the whole war. Most notably though it was a string of defeats, much like the battle of bunker hill, that saw the American army outgunned and outnumbered by a devestating margin. Somehow the American Regulars were able to quell their casualties to an unbelievably low amount given the potential they could have sustained. Much like the battle of Bunker Hill was able to create a cautious hesitancy in the leadership of the British Regulars, so too did the Battle for Brooklyn, the Battle for long Island or most known as the Battle for New York. George Washington is most known for his exceptional leadership in the Revolutionary War and from then as the first President of the United States of America. He was the kind of man with character that doesn't exist anymore; he declined what was essentially the coronation of the King of America and not only did he decline that when the people clamored for his third term, he explained to them why he must do that and what the whole war was faught for to begin with. What is lesser known about Washington is his string of failures in this battle that nearly broke his resolve, his fortitude, and the country. Without Washington the Revolution Dies George Washington was more crucial to the American "rebellion" or revolution, depending on which way you saw it at the time, than most people tend to realize. This was a man who embodied the revolution and in a way showed the American citizens to be what an American really looked like. Its important to look at who Washington was in order to understand how the country got its vision from his leadership style and his character. Washington was born in Virginia and lived the life of a farmer who was not very well educated, something he always was self-conscious of. He was a self educated man and strived to become a gentleman according to the books he was reading. He was a large physical presence as well as having a personality that could fill a room on its own. He was an excioptional horseman and Thomas Jefferson himself said he was the finest horseman on the planet at the time. This was something Washington, whether knowingly or not, used to propel his image as leader or commander in chief if you will. He was always pictured on top a horse with that type of heroic pose that you see in paintings, except that was how people saw him in real life. In one of the most exceptionally well written books describing Washington and his part of the war and revolution entirely, Washington's Crossing, the opening pages are dedicated to explaining his presence as he rode through Boston on horseback and how the people of the city saw him and were inspired just from the sight of him. He wasn't just a figure of the revolution, he was the soul of it. Works Cited: * Kierner, Cynthia A. Revolutionary America, 1750-1815: sources and interpretation. Upper Saddle River (N.J.): Prentice Hall, 2003. * McCullough, David G. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006. * Fischer, David Hackett. Washingtons crossing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
In the first of three episodes comprising a series devoted to The American Revolution, we discuss how we got to the point of all out war against the largest military power the world had seen so far. Who were these people that left Great Britain in search of entrepreneurial fortune and adventure in a brand new world? What made these colonists so angry that they decided their very own lives were worth less than their cause? Listen to part one and find out everything you didn't know about the American Revolution. Visit the Website for all the sources, show notes, merchandise and episodes! Don't forget to click "Subscribe" so you don't miss out on new episodes! We want to hear from you! Send an email to: contact@themondayamerican.com
A WAR AGAINST EVIL
You're about to listen to the third and final part of a three part series covering World War II. If you'd like to get the full story, I'd recommend going back two episodes and getting the context before listening to this episode. If you're someone that can pick up in the middle of the story and not have a problem keeping it all straight, then by all means keep listening.
In this episode we will wrap up the experience, if you even can "wrap up" something like World War II. We begin in the cold and bitter winter of 1944; this is Episode twelve, part three of the World War II series titled: A War Against Evil. I hope you enjoy.
PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE OF THE BULGEWhen Allied forces began making their slow march towards Berlin they realized that this was not going to be a conflict that would end quickly. Shuttering visions of World War I were not far from the back of these people's minds to be sure. There were early predictions of making it back home as early as thanksgiving and Christmas; after the first few battles with the enemy the troops new those predictions of making it home in time to unwrap presents with loved ones were entirely wrong.
As far as a broad overview of what was going on lets remember that this war was not just fought on one continent or region. The United States was jumping from island to island fighting a ferociously dug in Japanese defender, each Island tougher than the next as they made it closer to the Japanese mainland. The war that the American Marines were fighting, as far as they were concerned, was an entirely different war altogether. The differences between theaters are startling as well; if you listened to part one of this series you should remember the story of the Marine throwing pebbles into the skull of a dead Japanese soldier to pass the time; it was this gruesome immersion into human destruction that characterized the Pacific theater of war.
I spent some time in the last episode talking about the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy and the horrors of the paratroopers jumping in the night before. What is often overlooked is how the marines in the Pacific were going island to island and would make these landings sometimes monthly! The continual horrors that these men faced were being stuck on a ship that eventually felt like a prison while waiting on the next amphibious invasion to take place, and when they returned to that prison ship of theirs, they always returned without some of their friends who had left with them. I cannot imagine a more bitter hell than to constantly have the grueling fear of waiting on your death or waiting to go to the beach that would probably kill you; and these men were doing that over and over again. Two of the battles in the pacific that always captivate me personally are the Battle of Saipan and the Battle of Iwo Jima. The reason that the Battle of Saipan is so interesting to me is mainly just because I've been to Saipan and seen the crater holes in the walls of the old Japanese bunkers.
When I was about 15-16 years old or so, or however old you are as you are about to be a Junior in High School, my dad lived in Tokyo and my sisters and I stayed with him out there for about a month during the summer before my Junior year. While we were there my dad wanted to get away for a week and we went to Saipan. It wasn't a very long flight and at that point I was just beginning to dive into reading on the Pacific theater of WWII. That week there was the most eye opening experience I might have ever had. I will never forget driving from the airport to our hotel and seeing U.S. Sherman Tanks still in the water that never made it to the beach, for on reason or another they were immobilized and never picked up but these things were in perfect condition. They were in water only about Tread deep and you could see the big white star on the side as you drove by and these things were all over! It was absolutely crazy for me to see that and think that about four guys either never made it out of that tank or they got out in a real hurry. It was just so cool to see that and those were just scattered all over the small island.
I'll never forget one day we went to the base where the Japanese headquarters was for the defense of Saipan. It was like no one had touched a thing since the day the last Imperial Soldier left that base so many years ago. We walked around and I saw the hole that a direct hit created that was from a shell from a navy destroyer. I've read in books about that shot and it was surreal to touch the entry hole that the round created as it punctured through that coral wall. It made the war so real to me and it was almost as if I was going back into history and seeing everything I couldn't get enough of it. I'm saying this because I want everyone with any interest in this stuff or history at all, to go and see these things that are local to you, if you're in Belgium you can sit in a crater in the Ardennes forest where US Paratroopers dug in and endured hell on earth. If you're in South Carolina you can see some of the most important battle grounds for the Revolutionary war. You can walk where those men walked and died and it makes it such a different experience for you. One of those experiences for me was on Saipan at the edge of a cliff that went a couple hundred feet down and ended with crashing waves and jagged rocks.
These were known by the locals as the Banzai cliffs. The unique part of the Battle of Saipan is that this was the first Island the U.S. Marines encountered where there were actual Japanese citizens on the island. This led to two main results: the island was more strongly defended and the defenders were much more voracious in their fighting than the marines had encountered thus far. I always pause when talking about this because there are so many humanity or morality questions that arise in WWII especially when discussing the Pacific Theater of the war. Let me just say quickly that we will discuss later the Atomic Bomb in its entirety so what I'm about to say is not said lightly and I am not saying it without remembering that event.
The Japanese empire, its soldiers, generals, and politicians were some of the most brutal and despicable people who have ever walked this planet. What they did to their prisoners and their own people should never be forgotten and should never be repeated under any circumstances. I take a fairly harsh stance on this but I don't believe the acts that these people committed and imposed on other human beings should really ever be forgiven. That isn't truly the "Christian" way to view this or the mature way maybe; but when you've read and seen how evil these men forced upon the world and how willingly they were with their execution of it. I simply have trouble ever saying I can forgive what they did. Now that is not to say the current Japanese government or people should be responsible for the sins of their fathers and grandfathers, they are as innocent of those acts as I am of my own forefathers or ancestors who did things before me. I think really that the best way to try and grasp the sheer evil of that regime is to listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History episode titled "Logical Insanity"; its one of the most well done explanations of what was going on in this period of time that you'll ever find. This logical insanity of the time period is truly the best name to call what was essentially unfiltered chaos across the planet.
All that said, we can continue back to the story in Saipan. The citizens of Japan were told lies and stories about the American marines that essentially brainwashed them into thinking a horrific group of half man, half beast soldiers were the ones on their way to get them. They were led to believe that American Marines were in the practice of eating human babies alive, torturing their prisoners and all around blood-thirsty murderers who would stop at nothing to inflict as much pain and suffering possible before their victim was set free by the sweet release of death that ends the suffering. It should go without saying that these myths were just that, myths. If anything the Imperial army and its higher ups were describing their own methods rather than their enemy's. Either way, the citizens of Japan were scared to death of the invading Marines and who could blame them? This was a day in age where TV's were not yet widespread, on Saipan they were 1,500 miles away from the main Island of Japan and obviously they weren't exactly connected to the rest of the world so who could blame them from believing the things they were told by the only government that they have ever really known? 25,000 Japanese civilians lived on Saipan. They had been informed by the Japanese government of the untold horrors that would happen to them if they fell into the hands of the Americans – how they would be brutally treated etc. As a result, and some say as a direct consequence of an order apparently sent out by Emperor Hirohito, over 1,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide as the battle came towards an end. US army film clips exist of Japanese civilians throwing themselves off ‘Suicide Cliff’ to escape the shame of capture and the fear of what the Americans would do to them.
There is a video that you can see where a mother is carrying her infant child and a marine is about 200-300 yards away with a local translator begging for her not to jump. She ends up leaping off the cliff with her infant in arms. Its chilling to watch but so is every other video that was filmed during world war II it was an absolute tragedy of humankind what some of the people went through and saw. The battle for Saipan would be grueling, bloody and would be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theater until the Battle of Iwo Jima. This was also the island that was home to the largest Banzai charge of all the Japanese charges in the war. One machine gunner recalls what it was like to witness that chaos ensue:
Our weapons opened up, our mortars and machine guns fired continually. No longer did they fire in bursts of three or five. Belt after belt of ammunition went through that gun, the gunner swinging the barrel left and right. Even though Jap bodies built up in front of us, they still charged us, running over their comrades' fallen bodies. The mortar tubes became so hot from the rapid fire, as did the machine gun barrels, that they could no longer be used."- First Lieutenant John C. ChapinSaipan was widely considered to be the turning point in the pacific theater of war that marked the point where Japan began losing the war; the Japanese command even had a meeting afterward to have a symbolic change of leadership in order to shake things up a little bit. One Japanese admiral said of the battle that "our war was lost with the loss of Saipan." Remember, this was the first Island with Japanese citizens and part of the group of islands that the Japanese considered within their "home islands". The loss was a heavy blow to the Japanese Empire and surely was a significant boost for the American Marines.
After Saipan the next major American offensive was on Iwo Jima; its the battle where the iconic photo was taken with the US troops raising the flag on the mountain top. It was the last big battle of the pacific theater and only about three of those guys lived to see the photo become famous. The rest were killed within a day or two. It was Marine Raymond Miller who pointed out that the battle for Iwo Jima was no where near over with the raising of that flag. He remembered that the Japanese guns and positions had been concealed and dug in. "They could see us, but we couldn't see them."
After the island of Iwo Jima was taken it was clear there would need to be an invasion of mainland Japan. This invasion was supposed to make D-Day look tiny in comparison based on the sheer number of people involved on both sides of the battle. The thing that most forget when looking back on it today is that the Japanese empire was still run with this very historic and traditional sense of the Bushido code; the ancient Samurai code of the warrior. Surrender was never an option and was literally the greatest shame you could bring upon yourself and your family. Every citizen was in the frame of mind that they were a soldier first and citizen second.
They were training in elementary and middle schools with spears during their recess or lunch hour for the future invasion they all knew was to come. This wasn't like what Normandy was, this was military planners acknowledging that we were going to go into a country and every single person that was there was an enemy combatant. Initial allied losses for the invasion alone were estimated and projected at one million men. This was a low-ball estimate and I don't know what it must have been like to see those numbers as a soldier and retain any shred of hope that you'd make it through everything you already had and that in the future on top of it. The only way to explain pretty much anything during this time is that phrase coined by Dan Carlin: "Logical Insanity". Before we get too deep into that side of the war, though I'd like to switch gears and go back to Belgium shortly before Christmas in 1944 where American Paratroopers in the 101st and 82nd divisions were about to have the worst Christmas of their entire lives
THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASTOGNEShortly before Christmas in December of 1944 Allied lines were established past Antwerp, the most important port city in Belgium that had been secured only about a month or so before, and extended north into the Ardennes forest in Belgium. The city of Aachen, bitterly defended by the Nazi's was now in Allied hands and it seemed that the war in Europe might be over before the new year for the Fuehrer and the third Reich. Don't forget that Hitler was fighting a war on more front than just one. On the eastern front he was facing the Red Army of Stalin, a massive army led by completely inept commanders and ultimately by one of the worst and most evil men in history. The soviet army of Josef Stalin fits the bill for the well known expression of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The Red Army was a crucial part of the result of WWII, without them it would have been a much more bitter assault through France, and a much stronger Wehrmacht Army focused entirely on one war rather than two. The soviets couldn't have beaten the Nazi war Machine alone and the Allies couldn't have done it without the Soviets either. Before going to much farther I want to touch on this part specifically because I think today its an often overlooked part of the war. I'll never forget a co-worker I used to work with at my summer job through high school and college. She was from Moscow and was born before the Soviet collapse in 1991 and actually grew up in Communist Russia, she and her family came to the states after the the collapse of the communist bloc and her dad was rushed out of the country because he was what basically we'd equate to a superintendent of a school district but because he was high in the communist party they had to sneak him out of the country to ensure his safety and the safety of his family. Now the reason I bring up this seemingly unrelated point is because I worked with that mans daughter for about six years and she and I would fairly often talk about old communist Russia. People incorrectly assume or argue two main points in this part of history. The first being that the soviets didn't play much of a role in the Nazi defeat and the second argument is that the Red Army didn't need allied assistance and would eventually have beaten Hitler on their own. Here's the thing with either argument though, its entirely crap whichever way you argue it because it doesn't matter what you think might have happened, history deals in facts and absolutes and neither of the aforementioned category is a fact. What bothers me more than anything is when people try and revise history in order to fit a specific narrative, for example the Soviet Union actually taught their citizens that the Communist Red Army was solely responsible for defeating the Nazi Germany military machine and no one else was really involved at all. I'll never forget one night after work me and a bunch of co-workers went for a drink at a bar and were just talking, somehow the topic of World War II came up and this girl's face kept showing a stronger and stronger expression of confusion. Eventually I chimed in and asked this girl who was at that time maybe 30 years old what she was confused about and her answer left nearly everyone speechless. She actually answered questioning why were talking about D-Day like it was a national Tragedy because "The U.S. wasn't even involved in WWII at all." Now I'm not telling that story to get snippy at the soviets but I think its a very enlightening thing to be able to calmly put yourself in someone else's shoes and truly she did the same once we explained to her that wasn't the case. I can't really imagine her thought process at that time where everything she had known growing up and reading in these textbooks created by a government she trusted was suddenly and quickly all thrown out to the point of not knowing what was real at all anymore. She had been raised her whole life to believe that her country was solely responsible for fighting Hitler to the point that she was 30 years old, living in the United States and still held the belief that it was all the red army and no one else. All that story is essentially to explain the notion that in today's world there is a Revisionist aspect to many historians out there and its an unfortunate bi-product of history that I think has a good bit to do with man's tendency to offer an apologetic explanation of bad people doing bad things because we as a people have a difficult time owning our own acts. Whats important to remember in history are the facts, not the "what if's" or possible outcomes, just the actual outcomes. So we find ourselves in Belgium in December of 1944; the men on the allied lines in the Ardennes forest were sent for a reprieve from front line action only to find out that they were about to become the center of one of the most devastating attacks in American Military history.
HITLER'S FINAL OFFENSIVEChristmas, 1944 is quite possibly one of the worst Christmas or holiday seasons that we could have possibly had of them all. It was a time where the American's were under-equipped and ill prepared both mentally and physically. The allied planners expected the war to be over by this time and didn't put a hurry on the troops winter boots and clothing. Most of these men were still in the same clothes they were wearing when they landed in Normandy back in June. They simply said the men wouldn't need it, the war would be over.
They were in Belgium, in the Ardennes forest which was thick with trees and blanketed with snow. It was cold and the Americans that were there were just sitting and waiting while holding the front lines. Up until this point in the war, they had always been moving, always advancing through defenses and trying to get closer to the next objective. This felt like they were losing in comparison; they were there mainly to recoup after a long stretch of battle and this was a way to get them some rest without completely pulling out of the war for a month at a time. The lines on this side of the European theater were relatively quiet compared to elsewhere and this was seen as a way to give some of the men a Christmas break of sorts.
By this time in the war for Hitler and his Nazi Reich the situation had reached a critical stage. They had sustained massive bombings from allied bombing raids that targeted the Ruhr River Valley, the heart of the Nazi industrial production and thereby putting a stranglehold on supply lines. The Wehrmacht was so low on oil entire columns of Panzer tanks were being abandoned. Hitler had lost the critical Belgian port of Antwerp despite defending it bitterly and he knew that he had to make one last move in order to try to change anything at all to benefit them. He came up with a giant offensive plan with the overall goal of reclaiming Antwerp and access to its ports. Hitler devised a plan to launch an offensive he titled operation "Watch on the Rhine" designed to move a massive amount of armored weapons and men as rapidly as possible through the Ardennes, consuming 4 allied Army groups in the process, and going straight into Antwerp to reclaim the city and its vital port access.
The plan had to be a total surprise for it to work, and the Allied code breakers had the ULTRA code decipher and would surely pick up any transmission sent. Ironically enough it was Hitler's own maniacal paranoia that hurt his military odds in the war in general but made this last offensive a complete and total surprise to the Allied defenders. Instead of the normal coded messages Hitler had grown increasingly skeptical of spies and leaks from within. He used actual message runners and messengers to carry communications about the impending offensive attack in order to ensure total surprise, a decision that proved wise because the Allies were caught off guard entirely.
"Never in history was there a coalition like our enemies. If we deliver a few more heavy blows, this artificially bolstered common front may collapse with a clap of thunder." (The Bitter Woods, by John Eisenhower)What made this battle particularly worse is that the Nazi soldiers who were making the attack weren't the regular German Army, they were comprised of Hitler's elite Waffen-SS soldiers, a group of men who were the meanest and most sadistic of all the Nazis and Hitler's personal body guard group; he hardly needed that many for just body guards and they were eventually incorporated into the German military infrastructure. Hitler had already had several assassination attempts against him by his own Army, most famous was code named "VALKYRIE" which a movie was made about a few years back with Tom Cruise. Long story short, in a meeting a briefcase was smuggled in and placed under the table and detonated. Several men were killed but somehow Hitler was in the correct position that a very thick wooden table blocked him from the blast and spared him from almost even a scratch. Hitler's paranoia led him to assign his SS death squad to make this final offensive that he thought would push the allies back into the sea.
One thing about this winter in the forest that all the soldiers always mention in their account is how foggy, and how cloudy it was. This was a dark, bitter cold winter and those clouds ended up being one of the worst enemies of the Americans fighting in that forest. The Germans were able to bring up tons of artillery, troops and equipment stealthily and under the cover of darkness. They had horses pulling tanks, both to keep noise down and to save on fuel, and large groups of men couldn't be seen by aerial surveillance above because the cloud cover was thick and unceasing. It was all prepared for and the American army was entirely caught off guard and nearly run right over. There were reports of diesel engines or German voices in the night fog that were given by American soldiers on the front lines but they were largely ignored or dismissed. The sounds of battle on the front lines are one of those things that stick with you in battle. An officer wrote:
On the front line all your senses work better than ever. I knew the sound of each tank, plane, gun or anything. I knew whose artillery made each sound. It was called survival. We got so far ahead of the rest of the units that we had to hold our position for several days sitting in those foxholes and freezing to death. It wasn’t so bad when we moved every day and dug a couple foxholes to keep us half warm.When the "Watch on the Rhine" kicked off it did so with a thunderous artillery barrage that the men who were on the ground in the foxholes that day still have nightmares remembering back on it. Artillery shelling was one part of the war that stuck with the men forever who had to endure even just a little bit of it. This battle was particularly fierce and unimaginably brutal to be subject to the barrage of shrapnel and tree trunks that shredded men after they were shredded from shrapnel. Starting at 5:30 in morning on December 16th of 1944 a total of 1,600 pieces of artillery pounded away for 90 minutes. In the initial wave of the attack the Germans hurled 406,000 men, 1,214 tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns; and 4,224 artillery pieces. These were reinforced a couple of weeks later, bringing the offensive's total strength to around 450,000 troops, and 1,500 tanks and assault guns. This was no small advance that Hitler was making and he staked everything on its success, it was their last big ditch effort to make a push against the allies.
EXTREMELY CLOSE COMBATThe difficult part of this battle was the closeness that it brought with it. The nature of the offensive meant rapid advancement and that created pockets of confusion and chaos all over the forest. Add to that the fog and weather and it created some of the nastiest hand to hand combat the world has seen. These men were on top of each other out of no where and without any warning. Its hard enough to know you're killing a man, its something else to be able to smell the coffee on his breath when you kill him. That's what these men dealt with. A journal excerpt from one soldier recalls digging into an area only to find out that they were not the only ones who were digging:
About four in the morning we came on a hill that overlooked a small group of homes in the valley. The Germans were eating their breakfast. I could hear their silverware rattle (that is close combat). We stopped to dig in. I told my foxhole buddy to start cutting twigs with his pocket knife for we needed a cover over. When the Germans find out we were this close they would have all kinds of artillery coming in. With this being in a wooded area, those shells would hit the trees and explode and send shrapnel down on us. After getting those twigs across the foxhole we would throw ground on top to keep shrapnel from hitting us. I was on my knees, digging as fast as I could with my rifle standing against a tree about eight feet away. Someone down the way from me called out, “there are Germans behind you”. As we have done many times, we would kid someone even if we were to get killed the next minute. I never paid attention to this, though in the corner of my eye I thought I caught some thing. When I stopped to look around there stood three German SS soldiers with their burp guns and hands up. They were close enough that I could have shaken hands with them. The first thing I thought, “My rifle!” There it was eight feet from me against the tree. Right away they asked to give up, saying, “Comrade, comrade.” I’ve been lucky throughout the war. I have taken so many prisoners; I don’t know if I looked so forgiving. Later I found out that we dug our foxholes in the same area the Germans were dug in. After we found out about that we took a lot of prisoners.Another soldier recalls what it was like in the aftermath of an artillery attack:I had a hard time getting out. The ground on top had settled down with weight and it was smashing me. I managed to get out. When I did, I found a lot of my of my buddies that didn’t get cover lying all around in pieces. One look and all I could do was to walk away. The officer was getting the guys ready to march out; there were only eleven GI’s. We were standing in a group waiting for two guys that were still coming. After five minutes I got the feeling that we should spread out, for we were a perfect target for the Germans. So I walked out away from the group. The officer ordered me to come back to the group and I told him it was a good target for the Krauts; but he insisted. As I walked back a shot come in. An 88mm artillery shell, it was a tree burst about fifty feet away, and again I took off. I knew that the next one would be right on us. I have seen this happen too often. The officer insisted that we group up. Well I did obey his orders and I just got back when this 88 mm shell came in and exploded, maybe eight feet from me. I was looking right at it; just a big three-foot orange ball of fire. Thank God I was ok, my buddies not so lucky. The day went on in those foxholes; we were gaining ground mostly in the night. There was less opposition from the enemy since they could not see us come. There were a lot of surprises though. The weather was our worst enemy as we were always trying to keep from freezing. I think I was out there two weeks at a time without seeing the inside of a building. It’s amazing how much torture the body can take. One afternoon we got ready to take a small town. This was something different. It was the first day attack we had for a long time. Being about a half mile from the town, the tanks started to come up from the forest behind the infantry. One of the tanks stopped about fifteen feet behind my foxhole. I told him to get back in the forest since the Krauts would start firing at him, but no they let it there. It wasn’t long and the shells started coming. Our foxhole wasn’t dug big enough since we were only going to be there a short time. My buddy was in the foxhole. When the shelling started, there wasn’t room for me to get in. I dove in and laid across my buddy, figuring I would be killed anyway and maybe could save him. With hands over my head, I just said LORD here I come. I never ever heard so much shrapnel around my head. It was like having a hive of bees dumped on me, and to this day I don’t understand why this didn’t burst my eardrums. I think they shot about three shells at the tank. They did explode that tank and killed everyone in it. We were about fifteen feet from it. Again I was thankful for all those prayers going on back home.
THE FOG OF DEATHPart of the reason for the battle to be as successful as it was for the German army was the absolutely intense fog that accompanied the winter snowstorm. The German Air force, the Luftwaffe, was by this point almost entirely ineffective as far as an air force was concerned. They couldn't come close to matching the allies in the air in any regard. The fog took the Allied control of the skies, their ability to provide air support and defend ground troops, was completely negated by the awful fog and weather that December. The fog was so thick that the allied planes couldn't even risk taking off in most cases, fearing they wouldn't be able to find their way back at all. One pilot told the story of flying through such an intense fog for a mission he knew they shouldn't have done in the first place that his wingman nearly collided with him, missing each other by mere inches. He said that the fog was so intense that he couldn't find his way back to the airstrip or even figure out where he was at all, flying completely blind with only instruments to help him. He said he eventually found a small patch in the fog and landed in a field and tried to get a bearing. When he finally did get his bearing and ran into some allied troops the fog was so thick that he couldn't see how long the field was to take off again. And the ground troops were fighting hand to hand in this. The men on the ground by far were under the worst circumstances imaginable. They had no winter clothing, no winter boots, most had no gloves or jacket. They dug in into the snow and weren't in one spot long enough to make an adequate foxhole for warmth, if they could even dig deep enough through the frozen ground to begin with. They weren't able to light a fire at all, that would be a massive target for german artillery gunners to zero in on a position. These men were screwed, they were plain screwed from the get go and then the battle started. The result of the surprise attack overwhelmed part of the Allied front lines. The American 101st and 82nd airborne divisions were brought in to reinforce the gaps from Reims, where they were recovering from the debacle that was Operation "MARKET GARDEN" in which they suffered unbelievable casualties within their divisions. They followed orders, after going from D-Day to MARKET GARDEN and now into the Ardennes forest to fight the fires of hell with a garden hose essentially. The design of Hitlers offensive was to move as quickly as possible forward so as to overwhelm and consume, what he believed to be possible, 30 whole divisions of the American Army. What ended up happening was the 101st Airborne, battle hardened as they were, held their ground under surreal attacks, close range combat, a shelling that seemed to be constant and unceasing, and a battle hardened division of Hitler's hand selected SS division which were his very best Combat Soldiers. These SS soldiers were part of the Waffen-SS and were the military operations side of the group. The other side was the Allgemeine SS and were the General SS who were responsible for the security of Nazi meetings and personnel details ensuring protection and order in the the homeland. The brutality of the SS knew no bounds, they were largely responsible for most of the crimes against humanity and the murders of the Holocaust as they were the ones carrying out Hitlers orders for the "final solution". The Waffen SS was Hitlers paramilitary organization comprised of highly skiled, highly brutal and overall ruthless soldiers. They were a killing squad used for the toughest of military assignments and they were brought to be the tip of the spear of what would be the worst battle in American military history. The shelling began and seemed to never cease, the idea was to overwhelm and consume but as brutal and skilled at war as the Waffen SS was, they were met by an equally skilled combat group of the Allies, comprised of the Army's 101st Airborne division. These were the men who went through hell on the battlefield every single time they were there and this was no exception. The reason the battle of the bulge has its nickname is because of the incredible determination and miraculous ability of the 101st to not get overwhelmed or retreat. They held the lines they were sent to defend and did so without retreating, the rest of the lines around them withered away and were pushed back until the 101st airborne was in front of the rest of the allies and it created a "bulge" in the lines. The rest of allied forces were pushed back further and further until finally the 101st was completely surrounded, low on ammo and supplies, and desperately outmanned. The US army was about to lose an entire division unless somehow those men dug into the ground found a way to persevere without the hope of reinforcements or supply drops, remember the fog was too thick to drop supplies and they didn't want them to fall into German hands either. What made this battle particularly difficult for the 101st was the addition of "battle babies" into their division. These were fresh recruits who were replenishing the losses of the division to this point that had been lost so far. These men had never seen battle before and they were about to jump right into it. The effect of these battle babies shouldn't be looked on as a negative, its a hard thing in combat to fight with someone you haven't forged that bond with as well as someone who is experiencing it for the first time. When the barrage started the new guys were "so unaccustomed to large concentrations of German artillery that some of them initially thought the barrage was coming from American rounds falling short." The German's heaved shells from their notorious 88-millimeter artillery guns towards the Allies that pvt. Lloyd Long described by saying "it sounded like wolves howling." The noise was always something soldiers could fear without knowing where the shell would land, Long continues by saying
"we could hear incoming whistle and whoosh depending upon how close. Direct hits on huge trees blew their tops off but also splattered shrapnel around." Sergeant Milton Kitchens, a machine gunner wrote of the experience: "My bunker sustained a direct hit, logs, timber and muddy snow flew everywhere." Blood was pouring from his mouth and his coat was shredded but he was otherwise, miraculously so, undamaged. Two men on his crew were wounded and the fourth was on the verge of a mental breakdown, he was a newbie to battle and Kitchens wrote "He was bawling like a baby and he looked finished but kicked his ass up and ordered him to man that machine gun, which he did admirably."The effect of war on a man is something that is hard to explain but these men had something so different than any other war has had before it and since it ended. It was chaos, like that term from earlier it was "logical insanity". The German artillery had two purposes: destroy and disorganize. The confusion created by artillery attacks like this serve to soften up front lines but also during and after it creates a massive amount of chaos that ultimately lowers defenses as well. To understand that you are going through an artillery barrage and you can only duck and cover in fear creates confusion in the human mind.
At the crossroads, two gun crewmen from an antitank unit ran from their gun. They had failed to dig a proper hole for themselves and were frantically looking for cover. In the chaos of the moment, they ran into a line of foxholes manned by a platoon from K company. The riflemen of this platoon did not know the crewmen. In the recollection of one witness, the crewmen were "oblivious to the several calls to halt, and tore off the cover of one of the fox-holes. They were, of course, the instant target of the foxhole occupants." One of them was killed immediately, the other badly wounded.The Confusion was so great that over in Buckholz, where the 3rd battalion was in position guarding a railroad line to the right of the American 99th infantry division the men were eating breakfast at a chow line. When one soBldier looked over he saw several dozen men approaching, in march formation, on either side of the railroad track. When one of the men asked the commanding officer, Sergeant Elmer Klug, "Klug, First Platoon is coming in for breakfast, what the hell is going on?" Klug knew what was going on and shot back to his fellow soldier: "First Platoon my ass! Those are Germans!"
The Germans scattered about and the American 3rd Battalion was officially inducted into the battle of the bulge. The Bulge is one of the more famous battles of the war, if not its one of the most famous of all military history. Its been discussed so many times and in so many different ways its almost hard to do something that covers it myself. I think the one aspect of the battle that gets focused on in a way that overshadows the others is the complete encirclement of the 101st Airborne and how they managed to not get entirely overrun or even surrender. Don't get me wrong its an incredible story and one of the best American military success stories you'll ever hear, even to this day not a single soldier from that division has admitted that they needed reinforcements, not since the day they were essentially rescued by Patton and his army breaking through German lines and arriving in Bastogne; and not a single soldier since that day through today has said that they needed reinforcements. Thats an absolutely incredible thing to think about, its a patriotic success if nothing else. Obviously this is one of the biggest parts of the battle that gets focused on and I think that what is overshadowed as a result is the close combat that ensued, for all troops involved, and the amount of carnage and death that these men fought off and brought to others on a level that most people couldn't fathom.
Back in Buckholz, at the train station where Sergeant Klug and his men were nearly snuck up on entirely, fighting was close and nasty. At the train station on top of a water tower the German soldiers managed to set up a machine gun, its always a machine gun that brings the most gruesome stories for future generations to hear, and with that machine gun they were able to "beat the hell out of us"; which was one officer's way of saying men were slaughtered. The sound of a machine gun bullet hitting a man and killing him was something most of those men would never be able to wipe from their memory. Its been described in so many ways, this officer remembers hearing the sound of a watermelon being hit with a baseball bat each time a bullet tore into the flesh of a man. Whats worse than the sound of human bodies being torn and tattered with bullets is the sound of those men who don't die from it right away; the sound of wounded men dying was too much for some of those soldiers to be able to bear. Private John Kuhn wrote about his experience in the Bulge and remembers the dead at the train station that day, he wrote:
"When you hear the painful cry of a wounded soldier and you see his life's blood oozing out in the waist deep snow turning it to crimson red, whether he is a friend or foe, it is not a thrilling experience or one soon forgotten." He remembered watching in horror as "a young lieutenant danced rubber legged until he twisted slowly and revealed a blue bullet hole in the middle of his forehead."Back in Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne was completely surrounded a group of German soldiers approached to make a request to surrender. And as well they should have, any one with half a brain would've looked at the numbers of the situation and expected the 101st to surrender, they were a total of 18,000 men who were fighting against a group of 45,000 Germans that were completely surrounding them. General McAuliffe took the message and read it, the German officer Lieutenant General Heinrich von Luttwitz penned the note that read:
"The fortune of war is changing...There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: In order to think it over, a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. if this proposal should be rejected, one German artillery corps and six heavy AA battalions are ready to annihilate...all the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity."General McAuliffe read the note, looked the German messenger in the eyes and gave him a one word reply: "NUTS!" the German officer didn't understand the response and had to ask the American messenger if "The response was affirmative or negative" and the American messenger replied "the reply is decidedly not affirmative, if you don't understand what 'nuts' means, in plain english it is the same as 'go to hell'...We will kill every goddamn German that tries to break into this city" The German officer replied: "We will kill many Americans. This is war." What the German's there didn't know was that a new type of weapon had arrived for the American artillerymen, it was the Pozit shell.
Before this a normal antiaircraft or artillery shell would explode upon contact with another object, or detonate by a fuse set to a pre-determined flight time. Both methods proved to be highly ineffective. The new pozit shell had a radio signal affixed to its nose as the fuse, it would bounce radio signals off the ground and would detonate about fifty to seventy five feet in the air rather than upon contact with the ground. The resulting killing power was devastating, foxholes were no longer effective cover for these new shells. One captured German officer told of his experience on the wrong end of the new weapon: "It hangs in the air until it finds just the right place to explode." He said the killing power of the shell was capable of of shredding every square foot within a 75 yard diameter. He continued by saying "Such mayhem was pure manslaughter; the Devil himself could not escape." These shells would help delay the advancing Germans from completely overwhelming the surrounded Airborne troops, but it would not hold them off alone.
AN EARLY CHRISTMASOn the morning of December 23rd the fog finally lifted and the allies were able to resupply their battered bastards over in Bastogne. As the fog lifted the allies launched a total of 12,000 sorties in a campaign given the name of operation "processing the terrain." In Bastogne, C-47's were able to drop parachuted bundles of supplies and on the first day of flying after the fog, more than 240 planes had delivered 5,000 artillery shells, almost as many mortar rounds, 2,300 grenades, a dozen boxes of morphine, 300 units of plasma and 1500 bandages. The next day would bring rations, a quarter-million machine gun rounds, and almost one thousand radio batteries. The men of the 101st were battered, but they weren't broken, and now they had supplies to fight back.
Although the fighting was bitter they were able to hold the town of Bastogne, it was a feat that was nothing short of a miracle in which 18,000 men bled and died to hold off 45,000 attackers. It was as important a victory as any in the history of American military engagements. Patton himself said the battle of Bastogne would be considered "just as important as the battle of Gettysburg was to the civil war." Rundstedt's chief of staff later listed "the failure to conquer bastogne" as the first among seven reasons that caused the Nazi expansion to fail.
In order to reach Bastogne and provide relief to the men there, Patton charged ahead full bore until he couldn't go any further. His most difficult obstacle was the town of Assenois just three miles southwest of Bastogne and it was defended ferociously by the SS occupiers. Patton gave his men orders that "No SS prisoners were to be taken alive" which was followed by "Drive like hell...we have an opportunity of winning this war." Patton knew what Hitler and his commanders knew, if he broke through to Bastogne the offensive of the third Reich was likely their last. In Assenois the allies launched 500 artillery rounds into the area while Sherman tanks and half-tracks charged through the smoke filled streets fending off the SS defenders who were pouring out of cellars and basements to meet them. The official history of the event would call that short battle a "shooting, clubbing, stabbing melee." Once through that small farm town in Belgium, the 101st had finally been re-linked with the rest of the Allies, they were no longer surrounded.
It couldn't have come at a better time, the German attacks had become so severe on Bastogne that "despondent American officers shook hands goodbye", gunners from the 101st had been limited to ten rounds per day and heeded the advice of General McAuliffe to look for the whites of the enemy eyes before firing. It was a grim situation and Patton knew he had very limited time to get there.
Patton was a man who came alive in battle, the thought of Battle would take him from appearing old and tired and invigorate him with a energy of a young man. He was truly one of America's soldiers in the sense that he was a soldier first, civilian second. On Christmas eve Patton walked outside from a makeshift church service and looked at the stars as the weather cleared and muttered "Noel, noel, what a night to give the Nazi's hell." When his advance was prepping for their drive towards Bastogne he could be heard yelling at his men "if those Hun bastards want war in the raw, then that's the way we'll give it to them!" When the weather cleared Christmas morning he wrote in his diary to inform of the "clear cold Christmas, a lovely weather for killing Germans." He was a man who was bred for war and knew his purpose. He gave the 101st the best Christmas gift they could receive when he rolled into the city and brought the fight back to the Germans.
Although the Bulge battle officially didn't end there, it was effectively over for the "Watch on the Rhine" assault of the Nazi offensive. The biggest obstacle for the allies now was to get the strategy in order. Really what that entailed was yanking the leash on the good ole' British "field marshall" Montgomery; the biggest ass in military history who cared for nothing other than his own name, at the expense of thousands of American lives. Charles DeGaulle wasn't too far behind as a second place trophy holder in selfish neglect for lives other than his own. What ensued was a disagreement between Eisenhower and Montgomery about how to mount the counterattack against the Nazi offensive. Montgomery would disagree with about anything Ike suggested because ultimately he felt he should be in command and not Ike. Eisenhower showed more patience than most men would have been capable of in that scenario; but every man has a breaking point and Monty was about to push Ike to his.
DISSENT AMONG THE RANKSGeneral Montgomery and Charles DeGaulle were two of the biggest ass-holes in the entire WWII experience. They were examples of men who cared only for themselves to the point they actually were responsible for thousands of deaths of American men who were there to fight the Evil of Nazi Germany. Montgomery met Ike on a train car in a station to talk through the counterattack plans and ended up pushing Eisenhower to his breaking point. Ike wanted a firm commitment from Monty to start a Counterattack by the 1st of January, the first day of the new year in which one soldier wrote to describe the year that had just passed by saying: "Never was the world plagued by such a year less worth remembering." Eisenhower listened to Montgomery's plea to allow the German's to attack themselves into exhaustion by over advancing and then being consumed by the Allies waiting to pounce. The meeting went back and forth and eventually, according to Eisenhower's own belief, it ended with a firm commitment from Montgomery to launch an attack on the 1st.
Montgomery apparently left the meeting feeling he had completely gotten the best of Eisenhower and wrote to a Parliament contact Ike was "definitely in a somewhat humble frame of mind and clearly realizes that the present trouble would not have occurred if he had accepted British advice and not that of American generals." He further pushed his own lunacy by asserting that Ike had recognized the limitations of his own leadership and said "Poor chap, he is such a decent fellow and the whole thing is a bitter pill for him." He believed he had "tidied up the mess" of American disorganization and "got two American armies properly organized." He took this advance of courage and wrote a letter to Eisenhower which was the last straw for Ike, the letter read:
"We have had one very definite failure...One commander must have powers to direct and control the operation; you cannot possibly do it yourself, and so you would have to nominate someone else. I put this matter up to you again only because I am so anxious not to have another failure. Without one man directing and controlling ... we will fail again."The sheer vanity and prideful arrogance of this man, especially considering the world around him at the time, is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. He cared only about being the hero and nothing about the actual cause of the war. The nerve to lay his own failures of Market Garden, and positioning the British lines in a way that the Nazi offensive could break clean through, at the feet of anyone but himself is one of the biggest stains on the entire legacy of British History. I would be ashamed of my country if I looked into its history and he was there. This man deserves no praise and no thanks; he deserves scorn and pity.
Eisenhower had enough of his antics and wrote him a response:
I do not agree that one army group commander should fight his own battle and give orders to another army group commander...You disturb me by predictions of "failure" unless your exact opinions in the matter of giving you command over Bradley are met in detail. I assure you that in this matter I can go no further...We would have to present our differences to the CC/S (Combined Chiefs of Staff).The message was carried personally to Montgomery and was preluded with the message of "if you keep on one of you will have to go, and it won't be Ike." Montgomery was presented with a pre-written response and signed it and once again took the easy way out, provided by someone else to save his own skin and he retreated back to his cowardice way of normal. Eisenhower had quelled Montgomery for the time being but was kept awake at the thought of his insubordination. He would write in his journal about Montgomery saying "He's just a little man. He's just as little inside as he is outside."
For now the plan to halt the German advance was to have French troops fall back to a more defensible position. This was to retreat from the town of Strasbourg, a symbolic importance to the French, and fall back to re-strengthen lines. DeGaulle, a man made of the same small-ness that Montgomery personified, was beside himself due to his own pride and idiotic stupidity. He was worried about a symbol to France as a matter of pride; funny how he didn't worry before when he tucked tail and ran to London while letting his country get overrun by Nazi's without putting up anything vaguely resembling a defense. He had no problem claiming he was leading France from London, while the people in France were being murdered and tortured by the Nazi regime, and he had no issue with jumping in front of American soldiers marching through the streets of Paris to soak up any and all glory and play the role of the returning crusader. But this one city was too much for him to bear the thought of losing apparently; so he took matters into his own hand.
Eisenhower had heard rumors of the impending insurrection from the French coward and sent a letter to DeGaulle like a real man should do. He wrote:
The political pressure to retain French soil, which you are undoubtedly experiencing, must be resisted if it leads to any risk of your losing divisions...You must not endanger the integrity of your units east of your main position, the Vosges. You must be prepared to accept the loss of territory east of the Vosges and all its political consequences.DeGaulle responded like a coward, instead of replying to Ike he went to General Devers, his top field commander, and assured him that Ike's plan was "unsound" and ordered Devers "not to surrender any ground, but make it a Stalingrad." This is the leader of France acting like a child and disobeying direct orders from the man placed in charge by a conglomerate of people to lead the liberation of Europe; he couldn't get over his petty pride and instead acted with selfishness that costs lives of men. I want that to come through clearly, these two men were so damn prideful they didn't care how many deaths they caused for their own men, and mostly for American men, so long as they got their own way. They are a stain on the history of the Allied liberation of Europe and deserve to be remembered as such. Their squabbling and petty issues opened the door for Hitler to make one last push, the last major offensive of the German army in the western war in Europe.
OPERATION "NORDWIND" (NORTH WIND)This offensive wasn't nearly as large a scale as the Bulge, neither was it a total surprise. The Americans had intel reports indicating it was coming, they just lacked the specific details. General Alexander Patch, a veteran of World War I, was sure that the attack was coming for the American seventh army left, west of the Haardt Mountains, with a complementary attack to the east between the mountains and the Rhine. His prediction was spot on; the Germans were making their last ditch offensive effort to keep the invaders out of their home land, out of the borders that held the inception of the worst Evil to plague planet earth. Gen. Patch's chief of staff wrote about the attack they knew was coming later saying: "German offensive began on Seventh Army front about 0030 hours. The Krauts were howling drunk, Murdered them all." The Waffen-SS soldiers were carrying out their equivalent of the Japanese Banzai charges in the Pacific and they all knew it. Atkinson writes of the stalled attack on the seventh army,
Shrieking Waffen-SS troops, silhouetted by moonlight that glistened off snowfields near the Sarre River, hardly dented the American left wing. A single .30 caliber machine gun, slewing left and right with long, chattering bursts, was credited with slaying more than one hundred attackers. Volksgrenadier corpses piled up in a kill sack soon dubbed "Morgue Valley". "Gained only insignificant ground" the [German] Army Group G war diary recorded; then, by nightfall on Tuesday: "The attack has lost its momentum."Although that attack stalled, the ancillary attack ten miles to the east was able to bypass American strongpoints in the Vosges, where DeGaulle was supposed to defend, and gained some traction. Rumors spread of German shock troops assembling to seize the town of Strasbourg, where DeGaulle refused to retreat from, and sent the city into mass panic. A reporter wrote that the roads out of the city were clogged with women pushing babies in strollers and citizens preparing for yet another reversal of fortune in the occupation of their city.
DeGaulles saw no problem with staying. He wrote of himself in the third person, something he did often and shows his ability to identify himself as one of the biggest ass holes in history, and declared that the abandonment of Strasbourg would not only be "a terrible wound inflicted on the honor of the country, but also a profound blow to the nation's confidence in DeGaulle." How anyone could have any confidence in such a sniveling coward is truly beyond me. He continued in his letter to his General in command in Strasbourg saying "Naturally the French Army cannot consent to the abandonment of Strasbourg ... I order you to take matters into your own hands." his General replied saying he had to wait for approval and consent from the Allied high command before committing to the defense of the city, because he was a good man who understood that they were fighting for something bigger than themselves. DeGaulle replied with arrogance saying "I cannot accept your last communication." and attempted to remind his General that his sole duty was to France. This is the man who ran from duty and tried to spin it as a honorable retreat, lecturing a man of character about duty. The irony here is palpable. DeGaulle went so far as threatening to remove all French forces from SHAEF command, essentially the Allied Alliance entirely. Maybe the threat would have held weight had the French not continually proved to be not only useless but counter-productive from the very beginning of the conflict of WWII until the very end. Eisenhower wrote to his wife about the debacle stating: "Next to the weather, the French have caused me more trouble in this war than any other single factor. They even rank above landing craft." That statement alone should embarrass any man or woman with French heritage today; no nation is free from the scars of history including America, but this type of action is beyond shameful.
On top of this, Montgomery was somehow emboldened to go on British radio and tell a complete fabrication of a story about how he single handedly organized and executed the strategy to counter the offensive of the Battle of the Bulge. It was such a fabrication that even German radio mocked the BBC transmission saying the Ardennes offensive could be written off, thanks to Field Marshall Montgomery. The official war diary of the US 9th Army wrote of Montgomery saying "He sees fit to assume all the glory and scarcely permits the mention of an army commander's name." One commander in particular was General Omar Bradley who's feelings towards Montgomery evolved from "contempt that had grown into hate". Bradley had such an issue with Montgomery that he called Eisenhower and said "I cannot serve under Montgomery. If he is to be put in command of all ground forces, you must send me home." In today's society this statement doesn't carry as much weight as it did went Bradley said it. This was a statement that would never be uttered by a General such as Bradley unless there was truly no other option. General Eisenhower wrote to one of his aides and admitted "No single incident that I have encountered throughout my experience as an Allied Commander has been so difficult." referring to his interactions with the Little man Montgomery.
THE LONG AWAITED ADVANCEOn January 3rd, Montgomery finally picked up his dragging heels and started his offensive, the freezing weather and terrain made it difficult to advance more than a few yards at a time. Gen. Patton experienced the same difficulties, using flamethrowers to thaw frozen guns from their positions and dealing with temperatures that even froze gas tanks. The Battle of the Bulge would go down in history for its casualties and number of men killed, but equally so for its destruction of the towns and civilians within them that the Battle brought to the places it touched. Upon arriving in the town of Houffalize Patton saw the result of one thousand tons of allied bombs and countless pozit shells that had completely removed the town from where it once was. Patton was taken aback and said "I have never seen anything like it in this war. Village by village the American soldiers advanced and took back territory that they had once held. It was a slow advance but an advance nonetheless, a captured German officer's diary recorded that "the battle noises come closer to the town...I'm sending back all my personal belongings. One never knows." His attitude was a reflection of the German army all around. This was the point where all Nazi soldiers, all German citizens and all SS demon men knew they had no way to win this war. Even Hitler knew that there was no way they could avoid defeat, but he covered up that admission with his maniacal enthusiasm and wildly odd battle strategies. Hitler admitted to his Luftwaffe commander "I know the war is lost, the superior power is too great. I've been betrayed." Exactly who betrayed him isn't clear, he was always paranoid to the point that any failure was no fault of his own. Hitler had taken a strategy that had the eastern front "taking care of itself" against the Red Army; but it could no longer sustain its own defense. The Soviets had amassed more than 180 divisions and nine thousand aircraft for an offensive attack spanning the entire eastern front; as one german historian later wrote it had "showed itself again to be a suction pump which weakened other fronts."
As the allies moved through towards the Fatherland itself the war in the west had begun to recede, and this time for good. They moved through towns where children shrieked with joy at the news that they had been liberated for the last time; women would ask the passing soldiers "Are you sure? Are you sure they have really gone for good?" Their skepticism is understandable, but the the men could finally answer with a resounding yes. The loss of the Bulge was the final blow to the Nazi war machine, the damage had been costly for both sides; the Allies knew Hitler was reaching his end. Patton sensed the kill and told reporters "when you catch a carp and put him in the boat he flips his tail just before he dies. I think this is German's last tail flip." The mess of the bulge was left in the rear view mirror for the advancing troops but was the responsibility of one of the toughest roles of the soldier in the whole war; the Graves Registration units. Everywhere there was a battle the men in Graves Registration would follow to pick up the pieces of human bits scattered about, identify the dead and bury them. It was a nasty, thankless and utterly void of happiness type of job. After the bulge the unit came upon several scores of men murdered by a SS squad near Malmedy, they weren't discovered until two feet of snow thawed to reveal the corpses. They took the bodies and noted the possessions the men died with. like Private First Class Robert Cohen, who left this world carrying thirteen coins, two cigarette lighters, and a Hebrew prayer book.
All said and done the Battle of the Bulge, from December 16th to January 25th cost the Americans 105,000 casualties which included 19,246 dead. Thousands more suffered from Trench foot, frostbite and diseases. Even with the mounting losses in the Pacific, roughly one in ten US combat casualties during World War II occurred in the Bulge where 600,000 US troops fought; a number that was four times the amount of combatants in all of Gettysburg. More than 23,000 men were taken prisoner, most would spend the rest of the war or their life in a German concentration camp where they lived off of a diet of 700 calories a day. The men who had come closest to death would lay in hosptial beds and cots wide eyed "like somebody rescued from the ledge of a skyscraper." as one surgeon put it. One of these men who had narrowly survived a gunfight on January 13th when a German shell scorched by him wrote to his parents in Nevada saying "I looked down and my right hand was gone...Dad, you'll have to be patient with me until I learn to bowl left-handed." The German army was certainly not without its own losses in comparison. More than 700 armored vehicles were lost in the Ardennes offensive, German manpower reserves had been completely exhausted and all rail freight shipments were banned except for coal and official Wehrmacht material.
After more than five years of war the German army had lost four million men who were killed, wounded or captured. Hitler professed to find solace in a letter Frederick the Great had written during the Seven Years' War: "I started this war with the most wonderful army in Europe. Today I've got a muck heap." Nothing could be more true for the situation Hitler found himself in. The American war machine had proved to be too much for the Nazi hold to cling to its gains. Churchill later spoke of the American military by saying
"United States troops have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losses, they have lost sixty to eighty men for every one of ours."...The Bulge "is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory." He continued to praise the American force saying to his secretary that there was "no greater exhibition of power in history than that of the American Army fighting the battle of the Ardennes with its left hand and advancing from island to island toward Japan with its right."That is no small compliment from the leader of the sister country of America, and he couldn't have been more accurate. It was a feat that is probably never going to be topped again, we can hope at least. Atkinson writes of the battle in the Ardennes and sums it up asserting
"The Battle of the Bulge had affirmed once again that war is never linear, but rather a chaotic, desultory enterprise of reversal and advance, blunder and élan, despair and elation. Valor, cowardice, courage - each had been displayed in this spectacle of a marching world. For magnitude and unalloyed violence, the battle in the Ardennes was unlike any seen before in American history, nor like any to be seen again. Yet as always, even as armies and army groups collided, it was the fates of individual soldiers that drew the eye."The battle in the Ardennes was over, and the time for the Allies to seize the glory and consume the Nazi war machine was at hand. It was time to start the last march that would lead to Berlin, and ultimately the survival of the world. While the troops marched on the leaders of the respective nations that comprised the Allied forces met for a conference at Yalta, located in Crimea within the Soviet Union. It was the meeting where the "big three", Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, met to discuss the future of Europe in a post war world. They discussed the brutality that laid before them in Europe, Genocide was something you couldn't help but notice. Stalin put Roosevelt's observations of the brutality of the Red Army laid before him at rest by assuring him the carnage was much worse farther north in Ukraine, where the Nazi Lebensraum plan had resulted in the genocide of ten million people. He told FDR that everyone had become more bloody-minded because the Germans "were savages and seemed to hate with a sadistic hatred the creative work of human beings." This was a rich statement coming from a man who murdered as many of his own citizens resulting in genocide on par with Hitler's crimes. The conference concluded that the three remaining post-war powers would be Great Britain (which hardly had any power left), the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Roosevelt intentionally wanted to leave out France and DeGaulle specifically from controlling any zone of influence or power in the post war world and the conference itself. Churchill had recently written to his secretary explaining why DeGaulle was left out of the Yalta conference saying:
"I cannot think of anything more unpleasant and impossible than having this menacing and hostile man in our midst."France was to be given a small sphere of influence in postwar Germany, Roosevelt being the one to suggest it, which was immediately questioned by Stalin who asked why should they get anything when taking into account how little of a role they contributed to winning the war. Roosevelt replied "only out of kindness", Stalin agreed and added "that would be the only reason to give France a zone." It was at this conference in Yalta where those three men would be together in person for the last time; Stalin and Churchill both noted how ill FDR looked and even Stalin commented about FDR in his wheelchair saying aloud in Russian "why did nature have to punish him so?"
AN EARLY END TO THE "THOUSAND YEAR REICH"From this point of the war the allies targeted the Ruhr valley, the heart of German production and had dwindled their production capabilities through continual bombing to just 20 percent of its peak power. Eisenhower had plans to cross the Rhine into the Fatherland in March, and on the Eastern front the Red Army had advanced 300 miles in 3 weeks. The German expectation that the Soviets would wait for better weather turned out to be inaccurate and they were caught completely off guard by the advancing red army. That advance resulted in the Soviets standing on the bank of the Oder river, less than fifty miles from Berlin. It was at this point the world first was awoken to the true evil of the Nazi Reich and its deplorable actions against other human beings. The Soviets had just liberated Auschwitz, among the most heinous of Nazi concentration camps. They found only a few thousand inmates alive when they arrived but quickly discovered the extermination of more than a million people, mostly Jews, and the discovery of unspeakable medical experiments. The soviets advance was so fast that the officers in charge of the camp didn't have time to dispose of the evidence of more than seven tons of women's hair that was shorn from the prisoners, or the 348,820 men's suits and 836,515 dresses neatly baled together, or the mountains of dentures and eye-glasses whose owners had been reduced to to ash and smoke. Unspeakable things happened to those untold millions murdered by the Nazi regime and the SS death squads who committed unspeakable acts.
Although the camps were liberated the Allied command wanted to speed the end of the war as quickly as possible, because the Red Army wasn't free of guilt for atrocities against humanity even as it was advancing across Germany. In order to save the innocent people in the path of the Soviets the war had to be sped up. Soviet atrocities were now rampant in the east; they included burning of villages, wanton murder and mass rape. An estimated two million German women would be raped by the advancing Red Army, a number that excluded poles and liberated soviet women who had been kidnapped and forced into German slave labor; no one was safe in the path of the Soviets. Stories of Soviet atrocities were hard to stomach,
Nurses would be dragged from operating tables to be gang raped. "Our men shoot the ones who try to save their children," one soviet officer said. German father's would execute their own daughters in order to save them from their future defilement, and raped women were nailed by their hands to the farm carts carrying away their families as part of the migration of 7.5 million Germans to the west over the next few months. A Soviet soldier wrote his father telling him "They are going to remember this march by our army over German territory for a long, long time."It was a brutality the likes of which the world had never seen. One high ranking SS officer was well aware of the suffering that was en route to him and his family and decided to have him, his three daughters and his wife sit down at a dinner table to a nice meal. Under the table in his hands he pulled the pin on three grenades and dropped them on the floor; he decided that was the only way to spare the four women in his life from the unimaginable horror that was on their doorstep. This wasn't something that was a sexual conquest for the red army, it was revenge rape and murder. Not a single woman was saved, it wasn't just the pretty and young it was the old, the crippled and the too young to imagine going through this torture. The effect of war was something that was inescapbale whether you found yourself a solider on the front lines or an innocent civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The effect of this war was notably brutal for all involved. US cheers of "Win the war in '44" changed to "Stay alive in '45". It became increasingly difficult for the infantry on the ground, witnessing the brutal savagery in front of them to understand the reasons for war. It hardened them, as one soldier noted:
"My mind is absolutely stripped of any traces of reason for war...Maybe the overall picture justifies what goes on up here, but from an infantryman's point of view, its hard to see."In a hard to watch type of glimpse into the depths of humanity we can see what this type of war leads men to, killing and death from all involved without a shred of remorse or hesitation. The things these men went through were absolutely unimaginable, a soldier from the 75th Division described what it was like to spend an hour in a foxhole with a mortally wounded comrade and no morphine: "I tried to knock him out. I took off his helmet, held his jaw up, and just whacked as hard as I could...That didn't work. Nothing worked. He slowly bled to death." The amount of bodies that were left behind the advancing armies was something hard to take in, one soldier on Grave detail recalled
Everywhere we searched we found bodies, floating in the rivers, trampled on the roads, bloated in the ditches, rotting in the bunkers, pretzeled into foxholes, burned in the tanks, buried in the snow, sprawled in doorways, splattered in gutters, dismembered in minefields, and even literally blown up into trees.One nurse wrote that "maybe it was a good thing their mothers can't see them when they die." Death was everywhere, prison guards unlocked the locked box car doors transporting captured Germans through France to find that 104 had suffocated. Their cries and pleas had been ignored and investigators found evidence of teeth marks and clawing on inner walls. The guards were apathetic and shrugged off the death. What this all led to was a question of survival for the soldiers on the ground. They wondered what they were fighting to survive for, when asked that question the answer was often "for the pacific". The army would be involved in the invasion of mainland Japan where casualties were expected to surpass well over one million men on the initial invasion alone. This attitude left the men apathetic to death, a soldier recalled watching GI's playing soccer with the severed head of an executed German officer. With each camp liberated and each city conquered the men on the ground gained more hatred for the German people. A British soldier wrote "A hatred such as I have never seen has sprung up among us against Hitler's armies and all of Germany. The question of killing does not present itself as a moral problem any more - or as a problem at all."
The hatred for these soldiers led to killing more and taking less prisoners, the 103rd Division found about fifteen Germans cowering in a deep crater in the forest, one of the men described what happened next when he wrote down
"Their visible wish to surrender - most were in tears of terror and despair - was ignored by our men lining the rim...Laughing and howling, hoo-haing and cowboy and good-ole-boy yelling, our men exultantly shot into the crater until every single man down there was dead...The result was deep satisfaction.There are stories beyond stories of the atrocities of every side involved in the war and I could go on for hours and hours trying to retell each individual experience; the point I'm trying to make here is that once the Allied forces were closing in on Berlin and the war was clearly over. The depravity of what those men had experienced to that point had taken its toll on all involved. Murder and killing was what they knew and they did it well. It was a different experience than normal; most wars are fought nearly to the finish until one side gives up quickly. This was the Nazi army defending all the way to the Reichstag building and everyone knew the war was over but the Nazi surrender didn't come until May 7th 1945, after Hitler took his own life on April 30th officially ending the "thousand year reich" about 991 years early.
The war in Europe had come to a bloody, brutal and devastating end. The Nazi party was no more and the post war plans had been put together and started. The majority of the Nazi leadership either took their own life or was sentenced to execution in the Nuremberg Trials, where the world put the men on trial for the acts of human depravity that can hardly be put into words. Although Europe was free from the Nazi insurrection the axis powers still had Japan actively engaged in warfare with the US marines, and they weren't showing signs of surrender.
THE END OF THE AXIS, AND WWIIJapan was bitterly defending their territory to the last man island by island. With the recent acquisition of Saipan, Guam and Tinian in the Northern Marianas Islands the US had an airstrip close enough to bomb mainland japan without the use of naval carriers and could send thousands of planes to bomb the Japanese into surrender. The only problem with this was the Japanese commitment to the samurai code of no surrender under any circumstance, it was the ultimate shame. The united states air force had recently begun to use incindiary bombs rather than explosive ordinance. The Japanese cities and towns were built of mostly paper and bamboo and these fire bombs would set whole towns on fire for weeks at a time, eventually killing anyone in the city. The first fire bombing raid was on Tokyo at night, the weather and breeze created a swarm of fire that burned half of the city in a few hours. The inferno was strong it would suffocate everyone in a bomb shelter by sucking oxygen away from the room in order to fuel its unstoppable blaze. The air would be so forcefully sucked towards the fire that babies would get sucked out of mothers arm and flung into the blaze. This type of bombing went on for months, killing thousands with the promise to escalate the bombing raids unless the Japanese surrendered; something they didn't even consider a possibility.
Finally, Harry Truman who was now President after the passing of Franklin Roosevelt, decided to use the ultimate secret weapon and to date the most devastating type of weapon in the history of man-kind. I won't spend too much time on this issue, if you want to listen to the best summary of this portion of the war I'll again refer you to Dan Carlin's hardcore history episode titled "Logical Insanity"; but to sum up the decision to drop one bomb that instantly killed between 40,000 to 60,000 people depending on which estimate you choose is a bit like trying to create a language from scratch. Its something that we can't fathom because we don't live in the same world. When you put yourself into the shoes of the men who were there and factor in everything going on in the world you can just barely begin to understand some of what they were thinking and why they did what they did; again thats the importance of learning history. Many people still think America is guilty of a crime against humanity for the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but what the ones who make that claim never equate is that the fire-bombings were just as deadly. No one ever has an issue with a fire bombing because its "military strategy" but those revisionist historians claim that America breached the line beyond military and into crimes against humanity with the atomic bomb. By all accounts they were both horrible but if you were already bombing cities daily that had total death counts, in most cases higher than the atomic bombs, what is the difference between killing with fire bombs and instant death of a nuke? It could almost be argued that the nuke was more humane than that of the burning of whole cities. Again, its something that doesn't have a clear answer or a real way for us today to understand what led to make that decision back then.
World War II affected millions of people all over the world and still does today. We live in a post World War II world of mechanical and technological innovations, nuclear capabilities and scars of atrocities in the past. The end of the war marked the beginning of the era of the long peace in which we still are in today. It ended just as it began; the sun set to bring about the next day.
For six long years the sun set on Europe without front lines, it was a Europe that was at peace. The most notable difference was the lighting at night that now came on; a major in the 29th Division wrote of the odd difference it was compared to six years of darkness, "Lights scintillated-truck lights, jeep lights, tent lights, flashlights, building lights, farmhouse lights. Everything lit up." Dark fell over the continent of Europe creeping west from Vistula to the Oder and to the Rhine and then the Seine. Darkness enfolded and consumed a thousand battlefields, at Remagen and St.-Vith, Arnhem and St.-Lô, Caen and Omaha Beach. Darkness consumed the continent and blanketed the horror of the war, and across all of Europe the lights came back on again after six long years of darkness; the lights came back on.
From D-Day all the way up to the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes; this episode covers individual stories of the men who fought and died in France for the sake of the world. We analyze the horrific experience that it was to be on the beach that fateful day and what it was like to experience the jaws of death.
PART TWO: INTO THE JAWS OF DEATHWhat you're about to listen to is part two of a multiple episode series regarding the second world war. If you happen to be the kind of person that can pick up in the middle of a story and be able to listen in then keep on listening. If you are more like me and you want to get the full picture I'd encourage you to go back and listen to the previous episode, part one, which will help you develop a fuller understanding of what this episode is diving into.
Many people don't understand the full picture without the complete contextual back drop, and I can hardly think of a story that requires more context, background and explanation than that of World War II. At the very least if you go back and listen carefully to the first episode you'll be able to listen to me use the same quote twice without realizing I had already done so; that might be worth it on its own.
This is part two of the series and it picks up just before the Allied invasion of Normandy, France; marking the beginning of the end for the Axis. So, without any further adieu, this is part two of the World War II series on The Monday American "Into the Jaws of Death." I hope you enjoy...
June 6th, 1944 marks the day that the United States landed on the beaches of Normandy, France along with the British, Australian, and Canadian forces to engage in battle the Nazi Wehrmacht Army. No one knew just what they were getting into.
Its truly hard to imagine the chaos that these men were jumping into; and to top it off they were all off course by an unimaginable amount. Stories have come from this landing such as a hole getting blown into a plane fuselage that sucked two GI's right out of the plane, in another plane the floor had so much vomit on it that the men couldn't get enough traction to stand and had to wait an hour to jump.
THE PRE-INVASION:The plan for the invasion of Normandy hinged on the successful landing of the army troops on the 5 beaches: Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha and Utah. In order to make sure that these men weren't just sitting ducks on the beach they had to figure out a way to keep the German Wehrmacht (Army) from sending in their reinforcements. That involved the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions along with the British 6th to parachute behind enemy lines the night before in order to secure key towns and bridges to stop any Germans away from the beach landings.
The paratroopers had to deal with the torment of sitting helplessly while floating slowly toward the ground as lead filled the air around them. They mayor of St. Mere noted that he saw one American dangling from a tree limb "with eyes open, as though looking down at his own bullet holes."
Many of these paratroopers would land in the ocean, given a signal to jump when the plane was way off course; many others would land in a valley that had been flooded by Germans as deep as ten feet in some places and would be taken to a watery grave by their heavy kits strapped around them. By some miracle, four hours later a message was sent to the Division commander that simply stated "I have secured St.-Mere-Eglise." The message was sent from an American Colonel, and it would be the first town that the Americans liberated in the war.
The paratroopers were more or less in place and ready to fight, undermanned and under equipped certainly, to defend their comrades who were on their way to the beaches behind them. Operation Overlord was about to hit its next big challenge.
THE BEACH LANDINGS:Of all the things about the D-Day landings, I always gravitate back to one question regardless of what part of D-Day I'm thinking about. I always wonder what it was like to sit in that boat for the long ride over and watch everything around you happening. What would that feel like, how afraid would you have been if you thought you might be one of the 15 or so that made it off that boat out of the 40-50 that got on with you? If you could possibly fathom what that felt like, that's what these soldiers felt like nearly every single day. One soldier said about his experience on the naval ships before the landing began that "fear...is a passion like any other passion." That passion, that fear its what gripped these men. They were consumed by a passionate type of fear that I don't really know if I can adequately understand what that felt like. One of the doctors on the ship confessed to drinking "so much coffee I was having extra systoles every fourth or fifth beat." The crazy part is that he was that nervous for those men and he wasn't even leaving the ship!
"The Waiting is always the worst. The mind can wander."These men weren't just fighting a physical enemy they were fighting their own psyche from ripping them apart from within. Atkinson does a wonderful job in his book The Guns at Last Light when he says "Waiting for battle induced the philosopher in every man. 'Mac,' a young soldier in the 16th infantry asked a comrade, 'when a bullet hits you, does it go all the way through?'" These were young boys, the large majority of them between 18 and 20 years old and they were about to jump off of a boat and onto a beach in order to carry out an operation where the safety and security of the world rested on the success of a bunch of boys and how they handled themselves on the battlefield. That's a scary thought to have in the back of your mind and obviously an enormous amount of pressure if you're on the ground. Those boys weren't thinking about the larger picture, they were thinking about what was in front of them and all around them. They were surrounded by death and destruction like none else, they were firmly in the grasp of the jaws of death; there was no turning back.
PROBLEMS FROM THE GET GO:From the get go conditions were far from perfect. There was a thick layer of overcast clouds that shrouded the view from the air, on the ground the current was stronger than expected with high winds and rough seas. Eisenhower had already canceled the invasion once; he couldn't afford to do it again. The Airborne divisions landing the night before managed to turn chaos into success but everyone wondered how the big landing would go if it went as poorly as the jumps just a few hours before. As the ships drew near they began to drop anchor and the men began to slowly climb over the sides into their landing craft. Many of them wouldn't be able to get in the seas were so rough, on many occasions a sea swell would cause a soldier to lose footing and get thrown up and then down into his steel bottom landing boat and upon impact he would break his legs.
The Cloud cover was so thick that Eisenhower had agreed to permit clumsy "blind bombing" if necessary, which hardly more effective than the name suggests. The pilots would use radar to pick the shoreline and then gauge their targets from there. Not only that but on the night before, on June 5th, he had issued an order for the bombers that were to bomb the beach before the infantry arrived to postpone their payloads for an additional 30-45 seconds in order to not hit the invasion flotillas on accident. These were conditions that only added onto a pile of issues that were working against the invaders before they had even begun, but they were able to stick through it and fight it out. At 5:36 am the ships were anchored offshore and ready to begin their assault, it was precisely at this time that allied fighter planes acting as spotters had identified muzzle flashes coming from the shore and notified the navy below; there was no more surprise its time to light it up.
THE INVASION BEGINS:The naval bombardment of the Norman beaches had begun and in a moments notice there were suddenly eight hundred naval guns thundering across a fifty mile firing line. Sailors had to pack cotton into their ears it was such a massive display of firepower. Reporter Don Whitehead was there and he said it felt like "the air vibrated", Ernest Hemingway wrote about the the murderous guns of the Arkansas and Texas that "they sounded like rail way trains thrown skyward." Perhaps the best account of what it was like to actually be on one of those ships as they wreaked havoc towards the enemy comes from David K. E. Bruce who was on board the Tuscaloosa which he described as:
There is cannonading on all sides as well as from the shore...The air is acrid with powder, and a fine spray of disintegrated wadding comes down on us like lava ash...The deck trembles under our feet, and the joints of the ship seem to creak and stretch...Repeated concussions have driven the screws out of their sockets [and] shattered light bulbs.And for all that might and power, the preparatory bombardment for the American beaches in operation Overlord only lasted half an hour so that they could just move on with the beach landings. In total they fired 140,000 shells, but little was destroyed. Nevertheless the GI's were about to go there and see if for themselves.
BOOTS ON THE GROUND:Omaha beach is where we are going to spend most of this D-Day portion of the story because it is by far the landing site that received more than its share of difficulty to take. The Canadian force was able to mostly walk to shore, some men didn't even get wet. The British troops had some fighting but really not very much of a difficult time taking their beachhead, on Utah and Omaha beach (the two American beaches) is where the bulk of the German defense was housed; and the GI's went right up to that house and knocked on the door. The German's had prepared fearsome defenses for the Americans on Omaha beach; there were 85 machine-gun nests, which GI's nicknamed "murder holes", that was more machine guns on Omaha than three times the amount of all the British beaches combined. Most of the obstacles and barriers the GI's found as the only source for cover on the beach were so densely mined on navy officer described them "like huckleberries". the shape of the land on this section of beach made it particularly deadly. The landscape offered the ability for the defenders to lay down both plunging and grazing fire, the GI's coming to shore essentially had no where to hide.
The American intelligence which was normally spot on correct, had predicted one battalion of weak and inexperienced defenders, and they had failed to detect the hidden artillery guns that the Germans used at will against the GI invaders. If they had been one battalion it would have been a different story but General Erwin Rommel, the tactical mastermind that he was, had foreseen a weakness in the line and reinforced Omaha beach with two veteran and battle hardened battalions right behind them. What was supposed to be a three to one ratio in favor of American forces ended up becoming a three to five ratio weakness. These men that were walking onto those beaches were up against every single odd they could have possibly faced, and then they landed on the beach.
CARNAGEWhat made Omaha beach exceptionally more dangerous and difficult to capture was the amount of beachhead exits that particular strip had. There were only five ways off the beach. This allowed the German defense to concentrate all their power on only five narrow thoroughfares instead of spreading out to defend a plethora of exit routes. Like I've mentioned several times already, its impossible to know what it was like on that beach unless you were actually there.
Atkinson writes:
"For those who outlived the day, the memories would remain as shot-torn as the beach itself. They remembered waves slapping the steel hulls, and bilge pumps choked with vomit from seasick men making 'utterly inhuman noises'...They remembered machine-gun bullets puckering the sea 'like wind-driven hail' before tearing through ground driven boats so that, as one sergeant recalled, 'men were tumbling out just like corn cobs off a conveyor belt.'"That was just from the machine gun firing. The mortars were often the most terrifying thing that soldiers had to deal with because there was no real way to be safe from them. Mortars and artillery would, for those who aren't familiar, be shot high up and then they would fall down and explode on impact spewing shrapnel in every direction. The only way to be relatively safe from it was to be in a hole underground because the shrapnel wouldn't touch you there. The thing in the back of every soldier's mind though, was if they would be lucky enough to not have a shell land directly in their hole. Mortar fire on the beaches of Omaha spewed fragments "said to be the size of shovel blades" that would skim the shore, trimming away arms, legs and heads off the men that were on the beach that day.
The contrast of these men from before the landing to how they were on the beach was startling; "Soldiers who had sung 'Happy D-Day, dear Adolf' now cowered like frightened animals." These men had no escape, they desperately gouged out shallow holes in the shingle with mess kit spoons and bare knuckles. Their mouths wide open with a look of astonishment, as instructed, which was intended to prevent artillery concussions from rupturing their eardrums. The men that were there that day remembered brave men advancing on the beach "as if walking in the face of a real strong wind...all affecting the same tight grimace until whipcrack bullets cut them down; Above the battle din they remembered the cries of comrades ripped open." BBC reporter David Howarth described the screams and sounds of these men as they laid dying in pieces on a beach far from their home, he described the sound as
"a long terrible dying scream which seemed to express not only fear and pain, but amazement, consternation and disbelief."The men that were on that beach on that fateful day remembered "the shapeless dead, sprawled on the strand like smears of divine clay, or as flotsam on the making tide, weltering, with their life belts still cinched." The carnage that these men witnessed, and the fear that was unavoidable is truly beyond the point of our understanding today. These men were so stricken with fear they were like statues stuck in place; even as all their training and their fellow soldiers would remind them to get off the beach, they were paralyzed with fear beyond comprehension. In order to help create and widen the exits from the beach there were army and navy engineers that were supposed to land three minutes after the initial wave. Like the rest of the invasion, little went right for them as well some of them landed nearly a mile and a half away from their intended zone due to current or navigator error. In one of these boats an 88mm shell hit Team 14's landing craft "blowing the coxswain overboard and slaughtering the vessel's entire navy demolition squad; one man's lower trunk and severed legs were described by a seaman as 'sticking up in the water like a pitiful V for victory.'" Men were so fear struck that they "sheltered behind the German obstacles 'like clusters of bees,' even as engineers screamed, kicked, and threatened to blow their charges anyway." By seven A.M. only six of the 16 gaps that were intended to be cleared had been opened; and that cost more than half of the engineers that were there. The death on that small strip of beach that day would be something that those men could never overcome in their nightmares for years to come. One master sergeant would years later recall,
"I can still hear those men calling for help over the noise." The machine guns were the one part of the weaponry that soldiers remembered the most. On man said the sound was "like a Venetian blind being lifted up rapidly" and that was perforating the beach, killing the wounded and re-killing the dead. "All thirty-two soldiers in one boat...were slaughtered, including their captain. A lieutenant shot in the brain continued to direct his troops until, a survivor recounted, 'he sat down and held his head in the palm of his hand before falling over dead.' Wounded men jabbed themselves with morphine and shrieked for medics, one of whom used safety pins to close a gaping leg wound."By 8:30 a.m. the invasion had stalled while the rising tide quickly began to return, "drowning those immobilized by wounds or fear." What strikes me here as especially significant is that the amount of fear these men had was so great that some were drowned to death by a returning tide, they were so afraid they were paralyzed to the point that they drowned were they were because they couldn't escape the grip of fear on them. Think about that for a minute, that is something that I just can't fathom. The words of Captain Joseph T. Dawson of the 16th infantry summarize this ordeal the best as Atkinson writes in his book,
"an hour earlier, Dawson had leaped from his landing craft onto Easy Red just as an artillery shell struck the boat, exterminating the thirty-three men behind him. 'The limitations of life come into sharp relief,' he would write his family in Texas. 'No one is indispensable in this world.'" MONSTERS OF MENAs the engineers finally were able to use the long tube grenades known as Bangalore's the men on the beach had finally been given a route of escape, and that's really what it was, it was an escape rather than an advance. At one of these cleared areas the first man that ran through was cut down by machine gun fire, he cried for a medic "then sobbed for his mother until he died."
One aspect of this war that so drastically separates it from wars before it is the dehumanization in the sense that revenge killings were not only common but widely accepted as normal. When some of these men got through one exit on Omaha beach and the fighting had mostly subsided a German soldier came out of a pillbox and "feigned surrender and threw a grenade from his raised, disemboweling a Ranger lieutenant, the dead officer's enraged men not only killed the killer but each man reportedly 'shot the corpse six or eight times' as they filed past." This was just a mild example of the revenge type of killings or actions that occurred in this war; more famously associated with this idea is the way that the Nazi army raped and murdered its way to Russia; and the way that the Red Army (who was encouraged to do so by their officers and politicians) responded by raping their way back to Berlin. This idea of humanity as something that didn't even matter, or basic human treatment to other people whether or not they were civilian or soldier; that is is what makes this war so much different than any other war in the history of mankind. There is a famous soldier who took photos throughout the war his name was Robert Capa and I watched a documentary about how he took the most iconic photos of the war, not a single one staged as they often were back then, and it ended with Capa telling this story about the last photo he took while over there. He said it was the only thing throughout that entire experience that he wishes he had never seen. This was after the war had ended and the fighting was over, he came upon a woman who was dead on the side of the road. The sight he saw was a woman who had sympathized with Nazi's and was a known supporter; she had been raped by several men and when they were done raping her they killed her. They killed her by stabbing a bayonet into her vagina.
Capa said of that ordeal it was the first time that what he saw made him physically sick to see and once he had come to from vomiting he raised his camera to take a picture but he said he couldn't do it. It was too brutal a sight to put on film and he pulled the woman's torn dress over her waist to cover the scene and give some respect to the corpse. As he was walking away he stopped and he remembered why he had been taking picture after picture from the beaches of Normandy through the Ardennes forest and battle of the bulge; it was to document and let us know in the future what this war was like. He said he turned around, pulled the dress back the way it was when he originally found it and took one single picture. I tell that story because it lends an explanation of why studying these events is so crucial to our understanding today. The most important part of history is context and if we can gather context for this war and these experiences we understand things differently and in a way that will help us to understand the present. The way that humans treated other humans in this war was one of the most terrible acts of our history as a species, hopefully studying the context of this war allows us to never repeat that mistake again.
THE HEDGEROWSThe only thing working against the American invaders once they got past the beach, as far as France itself, were the hedgerows. Rommel himself noted that for the American's France would be "a conqueror's paradise" because the people of France helped the Americans every chance they got. Once the invasion moved off the beach, the only natural obstacles the Americans faced as invaders were the hedgerows. These were century old entanglements of vines and bushes that provided borders to land plots and shelter from high winds for agriculture. These would be sometimes as high as 10ft. and thicker than the length of an outstretched man. Not even the American Sherman tank could break through these hedgerows and if they did they would expose their soft and un-armored underbelly to crippling enemy fire. In one stretch of 4 miles by 6 miles there were 2,000 such irregularly shaped fields, all with hedgerow borders. The Germans took full advantage of the ancient wagon tracks that provided excellent ambush spots, the inability to see through the brush and the American planners' failure to understand the terrain they were to be fighting in after the beach. Normally progress for an advancing army is measured in miles, with the army in the hedgerows progress was measured in yards. The reason these were such an obstacle is within each square of hedgerow was wide open field, just farm land. The German's were able to use these hedgerows defensively knowing that the allies wouldn't be able to get through them easily and once through they were in an expansive field were they were then gunned down mercilessly by pre-sighted machine gun nests. Some of the most gruesome fighting of the war was in between these hedgerows. Rommel was particularly concerned with the Allied position once off the beach saying to one of his generals "If I was commander of the Allied forces right now, I could finish off the war in fourteen days!" Needless to say that wasn't case but his statement reflects just how poor off the Nazi defenders were after the beach.
TO PARIS, TO BERLIN...The following is a list of works cited or referenced for the creation of each part of the series covering World War II. This list includes all works cited directly as well as any additional work used to gather information pertinent to the episodes.
WORKS CITEDSledge, E. B. With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa. New York: Presidio, 2010. Print.
Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. NY, NY: Picador, 2014. Print.
Hofmann, Michael, and Ernst Jünger. Storm of Steel. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
McManus, John C. Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II through Iraq. New York: NAL Caliber, 2011. Print.
Keegan, John. The Face of Battle. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988. Print.
Kershaw, Ian. Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Bishop, Morin, Mike Humphries, and Joanne Camas, eds. World War II Victory: The Pivotal Events That Won The War (2015): n. pag. Print.
Welch, Claire. Rise and Fall of the Nazis. London: Magpie, 2008. Print.
Mettler, Suzanne. Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. New York: Oxford U Pr., 2007. Print.
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.
Range, Peter Ross. 1924: The Year That Made Hitler. New York, NY: Little, Brown, 2016. Print.
Every event in history has a story behind it. This is the story of the world going to war for the second time in just twenty years.
Works Cited
Sledge, E. B. With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa. New York: Presidio, 2010. Print.
Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. NY, NY: Picador, 2014. Print.
Hofmann, Michael, and Ernst Jünger. Storm of Steel. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
McManus, John C. Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II through Iraq. New York: NAL Caliber, 2011. Print.
Keegan, John. The Face of Battle. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988. Print.
Kershaw, Ian. Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Bishop, Morin, Mike Humphries, and Joanne Camas, eds. World War II Victory: The Pivotal Events That Won The War (2015): n. pag. Print.
Welch, Claire. Rise and Fall of the Nazis. London: Magpie, 2008. Print.
Mettler, Suzanne. Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. New York: Oxford U Pr., 2007. Print.
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.
Range, Peter Ross. 1924: The Year That Made Hitler. New York, NY: Little, Brown, 2016. Print.
This episode focuses on the history of agencies like the CIA and FBI, how they got their start and their power, and what they did with it. We discuss the implications that came along with the growth of power; both good and bad. Listen in as this history podcast takes you far into American History in order to answer the difficult questions. The CIA, the FBI, the NSA and Pentagon all comprise the United States Intelligence culture and there isn't a good warm story for how they formed either. Join in and listen to the history of WWII, the Korean War, The Vietnam War and the Cold War; because we can't talk about these intelligence agencies without talking about those wars.
The Kennedy administration had an atmosphere worthy of the nickname "Camelot". We dive into the Kennedy era starting at World War II and going through to his death. We discuss the implications that the JFK assassination had both at home and abroad.
This episode is a very brief intro about the show and what it was created for. We also dive a bit into the foundation of the country and the one document that is tied to the life of the country and freedom itself. Don't forget to check out the website!
Just what is this show about anyway? After nearly a year of broadcasting through the online media of podcasts, I have decided to give you folks just now finding this show a bit of an explanation of just what this show is all about.
First and foremost this show is about stories from American History, told in a way that educates while also ensuring that the story isn't left out of history.
However, as you continue to listen to each episode you'll be able to gather that over the course of the last year the show has gone through some pretty significant changes, all for the best of course.
When it started out the show was originally meant to use history as a lens with which to view current day politics, today that couldn't be farther from our goal. We take topics and stories from the past and bring them new life by tediously researching primary sources and secondary sources in order to bring you, the esteemed listener, the best story possible.
In between each of these historical episodes or series we interview people we believe that are relevant to the show in any way. We have people on who are interested in talking about a wide array of subjects and stifling conversation is never something we aim to do!
As you listen through the episodes available you'll hear the transformation of the podcast from where it began to what it is today, the audio is shaky on a few episodes and the narration improves more and more with each story you listen to.
Its the story of The Monday American Podcast in a way, you're getting to see and hear the story of how this show got to where it is today.
Enjoy!
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