Sebastian P. Breit's Blog, page 8

Zipang, Episode 4: MIRAI'S BATTLE

Review of Episode 3: Here.




Torpedoes in the water - and nobody in CIC is apparently at their stations. Crew members have to be told to get going even after a loudspeaker's blared it all across the ship that two torpedoes have been detected at around 3,000 yards, closing at a speed of 44 knots.



Take a deep breath, War Blogger. Think of your blood pressure. ... There, better. Welcome to Episode 4 of my Zipang review series.



You know, they didn't pick up these torpedoes earlier because - as the sonar operator states - they have insufficient oceanographic data for this region they've stopped in. Oh, is that so? May I remind you that it's the very same region they traveled through before as part of a long-planned war game? How comes they don't have the correct oceanographic data for a part of the Pacific Ocean they knew they would be in? Secondly - and I've got no deeper understanding of the technology, so feel free to fill me in if I'm talking bollocks here - but how does a lack of oceanographic data have such an influence on the detection of an obsolete submarine operating at periscope depth in the open ocean, with probably thousands of meters of water beneath it? Argh! I feel as if my opinion of this crew is dropping rapidly with every passing minute!




I'm not certain what to make of Kusaka. However, going by his quick grasp of the situation and his lack of hesitation to adapt compared to what the show has been doing with its 'future' characters I somehow don't believe the show will end up presenting him in the shining hero category.




[image error]
JDS Mirai right before the torpedo attack.

While trying to evade the incoming torpedoes we're shown close-ups of a frightened operator in CIC talking to himself until he's convinced enough to fire an ASROC. Now, we're clearly not meant to sympathize with this characters - he's panicked, mumbling, not acting on orders - but the thing is... he's doing the right bloody thing! Even the things he mumbles - about the U.S. sub not knowing what it's getting into, about them being stuck in the past no matter what, about them dying if they don't fight back - are all and without exception correct!



Lt. Commander Masyuki is doing his ample best to make me like him even less as he grabs the sailor, yelling at him "Are you trying to start your own little war?!" Yeah, way to go there "Don't change history"-man! You're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1942 on a warship flying a Japanese flag. What the hell do you think you're in? The Swiss Neutrality Boating Tour?!? Look, I get it. You joined the armed forces for purely economic reasons, and even more so, I commend you for not being a trigger-happy cowboy. But these guys are seriously trying to kill you! Your job would it to be to defend the ship, not chewing out your subordinates who - even when suffering a breakdown - see the situation more clearly than you do! Do you see how many exclamation marks this guy drives me to use!?!



Well, the ASROC's homing in on the U.S. submarine, much to their horror. Much to mine, however, the makers of the anime decided to employ their pseudo-dramatic saxophone score. Because nothing says "torpedo attack" like a nonsensical saxophone track! Why, Zipang, why? You've shown you can do it right. You did so less than five minutes ago. Enough with the saxophone already. IT. DOESN'T. FIT! I took a peek at some of the tracks on Youtube and they range from passable to really good - and yet it's always back to being hammered with that one damn track that I hate! Anyway, long story short: they self-destruct the ASROC just before it's about to hit its target. Congratulations! In your desire not to change history you've now allowed an enemy submarine to escape with information that will most likely intensify the U.S. war effort. And that barely an episode after you've emphatically stated that keeping the Mirai and its crew safe is your primary concern. Just so we understand each other: I don't want to see those U.S. sailors die, but given what the show has shown us so far it would have been the rational choice, no, the only choice to safeguard Mirai. Sinking them means just another submarine lost in the wide ocean to unknown causes. Letting them leave and live means that the hunt for the Mirai is on. Morons!



But let me end this on a conciliatory note, as does the episode itself for we are introduced to Admiral Yamamoto! If only he didn't have such a dreadful American accent. Call me yaded, but in my opinion if you want to go for something your audiences can understand and want to distinguish one side from another via audio means you've got to use Oxford English. Just my two cents.



Check back in next week for the review of Episode 5: KUSAKA'S CHOICE.

Uprising '44 screenshot.


Uprising44 is named after one of the lesser popularised events of World War 2. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 saw the Polish resistance take on occupying Nazi forces in an attempt to free their capital city. Unlike other major events of WW2 that have received some serious pixellated attention, this story is something of a fresh one, and developers DMD Enterprises hope to capture the attention of gamers who have perhaps given up on WW2 games as old news.



DMD are a small independent studio based in Poland, and Uprising44: The Silent Shadows is their first major release as a team. The game is a blend of third person perspective and real time strategy – thankfully no more FPS!



Subtitled The Silent Shadows after a fictional military unit, Uprising44 will be released on August 28 across PC, Mac and iOS. A console release on Xbox 360 was on the cards in previous press releases, but the new developer diary shows no sign of this happening – for the moment at least. As well as the video attached below which discusses story and sound, a handful of screenshots have also been released to give gamers a better idea of the in game world.

[image error]



Zipang, Episode 03: Drifters

Review of Episode 2: Here.




As with the last episode this one jumps seamlessly in where the one before left us, giving the whole narrative a very organic overall feel. Having come across a downed Japanese floatplane hovering in the waters of the Pacific the JDS Mirai has stopped to look for survivors. Our main POV character, Commander Yosuke, leads a small search and rescue party in the destroyer's dinghy to check on the wreck while it looks as if Lt. Commander Masayuki can just keep himself from having a panic attack at the sight of someone actually doing something for a change. He looks almost relieved when the plane starts going underwater, but Yosuke jumps into the water and pulls the unconscious passenger - a man in the white parade dress of an IJN Lt. Commander - from it just in time. Once rescued, the man's put into isolation - he's still unconscious - on the behest of Masayuki at a command crew meeting.




Despite being supposed to be "out" for quite some time due to his injuries and the pain killers he's been set on the ship's doctor soon finds her patient to be conscious again. Since apparently nobody thought to enforce the "isolation" with a guard - or something as novel as a locked door - the IJN officer slips out of sickbay and ... stands on deck outside. Determined to finish his mission - supposedly something to do with the sealed briefcase found with him - he quickly realizes he's in no position to leave the ship. He comes face to face with his savior, Yosuke, and poses the so simple but also so hard question: on whose side are you guys?




And Yosuke can't tell. Because he genuinly doesn't know. 

Allthewhile the Mirai's crew is keeping their fingers crossed. They've returned to the spot where they first traveled through time, hoping to go back the same way. But none of the signs that appeared the last time happen. In fact, nothing at all happens. 




Which doesn't really surprise me. In Wolf Hunt the protagonists are facing very much the same problem of having been thrown back in time. How likely is it to travel through time in the first place? I think we can all agree that the likelihood is pretty much zero, or, going with these fictional examples pretending to happen in the real world, extremely close to zero. Now tell me, how high is the probability of something as unlikely as that happening to the same people in the same manner again? Winning the superjackpot twice in a row is outright easy stuff compared to that!




But I suppose they've got to go through the motions. Psychologically, clinging to that hope has the advantage for them of not having to cope with the loss of what's basically there lives up to this point, including friends, loved ones and families. On the practical side, believing they can go back comes with the up of not having to face the reality they've plunged into.




And in the meantime apparently nobody's manning CIC's sonar station since a U.S. WW2 Gato class submarine can sneak up on them, which speaks neither exactly well of JSDF discipline, training or equipment capacity. Just to emphasize this, the difference in sonar quality and detection measures compared to a WW2 submarine's noise output makes this akin to you not noticing the guy three feet away who is clanging pots together with all his might!




Lt. Commander Kusaka, the rescued IJN officer, finds out that he's on a ship from the 21st century and takes it pretty much in one stride. In fact, he takes it alltogether a lot better than pretty much everybody else on the Mirai! I already like this guy. Leaving aside Yosuke's good intentions, Kusaka's the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind right now. Or maybe that's just my dislike for Lt. Commander Masayuki clouding my judgement.




Zipang, Episode 03: Drifters. What's there more to say except that I'm getting the impression of a thoroughly incompetent JSDF crew? I'm not asking for an all-time initiative-taking motley crew of heroes, or even a bunch of gung-ho whackos. But so far their performance has been more than lacking. Yosuke is acting pretty much by what his gut tells him. Masayuki isn't acting at all, like a rabbit in front of the snake. Yanagi probably would have acted if he had the authority to do so. The captain is more of a negotiator between his command crew than a truly commanding officer taking lead of the situation. Everybody else in the course of one episode went from 'What do I care?' to 'Oh my gawd, what shall we do?' without the outer circumstances having changed.



Also, never put me into Mirai's sickbay. Going by the reliability of the doctor's prognosis I'll be dead from a wrongly diagnosed cough.



Highlight of the episode: the clear-thinking Lt. Commander Kusaka. 



Next episode stands to get interesting since Mirai will be attacked by the U.S. submarine!

Laurence Stern


Just a news story Google Alerts sent my way under the FDR tag. Given how Roosevelt had people like Morgenthau in his cabinet I'm somewhat surprised this finding is even an issue.




* * *


A close follower of American political history, Laurence Stern of Glenview has visited 12 of the U.S. presidential libraries in the country.



He reads books and documented diaries and reports of government officials stored away years ago in university archives.



In return, for the past four years Stern has lectured his findings at libraries, senior centers, American Legions halls, synagogues and churches in the Chicago area.



“One year I gave 39 lectures. I love history,” said Stern, a retired wedding photographer who owned a Morton Grove studio for 15 years.



A sampling of his research projects has been the major decisions of President Harry Truman regarding the atomic bomb, recognizing Israel and civil rights.



“I was really inspired in the Truman Library. He stood up for civil rights when he said, ‘I’m president for all of the people.’ He had the courage to make the right decision, even though at the time it was politically bad.”



At the University of Chicago, Stern’s latest foray into mid-century history was finding the microfilm diary of Henry Morgenthau Jr., U.S. secretary of the treasury for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s.



Morgenthau wrote about an audit he authorized that discovered the U.S. State Department failed to spend funds on a project to relocate “a handful” of European Jews to safer parts of the world, Stern said.



“Morgenthau was very upset about this because the State Department said it would use the money account to help Jews. The State Department even testified before Congress about helping these people. The department did nothing,” Stern said.



Also at the University of Chicago, Stern found a written study by Morgenthau’s staff to him titled, “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.”



The January 1944 report claimed the State Department had repressed information of the Nazis’ effort to kill Jews.



Stern said the report also stated the department failed to cooperate with private organizations in helping Jewish refugees, did not provide them with visas for traveling to America and did not fill immigration quotas.



Roosevelt read the report and later established the War Refugee Board that succeeded in saving 200,000 Jews.



“FDR really never received credit for doing this. It was not publicized,” said Stern, adding Roosevelt is often wrongly criticized for not helping European Jews during World War II.



“People today don’t understand. They look for scapegoats,” Stern said.



“When Roosevelt entered office in 1934, 3 percent of the American population was Jewish. But 15 percent of his staff were Jews,” Stern said.



“Samuel Rosenman, a Jew, was a key advisor to Roosevelt on the war. He couldn’t have been anti-Semitic like a lot of people believed,” he said.



Originally posted here.

[image error]




Zipang, Episode 2 (2004): MIDWAY

Review of Episode 1: Here.




Zipang 02 starts off right where the first episode ended. Peeling itself from the night time mist under a half moon, the JDS Mirai finds itself face to face with a hulking colossus, a swimming city of steel and guns: the IJN Yamato and the fleet she's leading. Mirai is first hailed via light signals and, failing to reply, her course is being blocked by two destroyers. However, she can outmaneuver and outspeed them since the old boiler-powered designs can't keep up with Mirai's modern turbines. Her captain orders her to stay away until they can figure out what's happening to them.




Luckily for them, their Senior Chief Petty Officer Yanagi is a military history geek, which really isn't a stretch. He tells it plain and clear. What they've encountered the IJN's Combined Fleet, the formation indicating it's the night before the Battle of Midway.




What follows directly is both logical and infuriating at the same time, especially because the dialogue lays it out so plainly for all to see. It's the staple of the ISOT genre: figuring out just what the hell happened. Some series do this better than others. Zipang? Really not that good on the mystery side, I must admit. 




Their own ships are all gone. They know that since their radar's functioning without any problems.
The radio frequencies they usually communicate on are all dead - and they know it's not an equipment problem on their side.
They can't get through to any satellites - and again, their own equipment doesn't show any signs of malfunctioning.
They do know from the words of an expert on the subject that they've just run into the IJN fleet heading to the Battle of Midway in 1942.
They also quickly dismiss the idea of this being something done by Hollywood for a movie.
Lt. Commander Kikuchi Masayuki quickly points out that its most likely them who have traveled back in time, using the half moon as an indicator: the day before they were sailing under a full moon.


It's all spelled out for them, and if they weren't too daft to actually stick their heads together right away, they -. I digress, sorry. 




The lack of equipment problems or strange atmospheric phenomena affecting them takes away even the pretext of mystery. Given that, Mirai's command crew displays a strange mix of rationalizing the situation away on the one hand and an almost casual sense of acceptance on the other. So, back in time it is? Well, not gonna talk about it, there's standing around to do! 




We are left hanging with the situation as the Mirai's captain, Umezu, orders her to continue their course to Pearl Harbor since HQ hasn't given them new orders. Well, no shit! Given how bluntly you just accepted the situation how could they have possibly given you new orders? They don't exist! 




Nobody questions the situation. In fact, they blithely continue their duties until the next morning when their radar first picks up a Dauntless dive bomber crashing into the sea, and then, the battle proper. Both Yanagi and Lt. Commander Masayuki know what's going to happen, know it by the minute (07:23 AM, to be precise). The following scenes showing the attacks on the Japanese carriers that ultimately crippled the IJN's carrier force are of a great quality and well-narrated by Chief Yanagi.




Masayuki brings the Butterfly Effect speech, talking about unintended consequences when confronted by the navigation officer on their passive stance in the face of the battle raging outside. The navigation officer claims that them shooting down even a single plane could help save hundreds of Japanese lives. Masayuki, on the other hand, claims that they are a danger to history, in fact, that they have no right to change history at all, regardless of whether offering even passive assistance could save lives. He opts for passivity, which in all honesty is in line with his character. As far as the main cast go, I consider him to be the most unlikeably character, also because I don't think he's fit to be an officer in a position with responsibility. Commander Yosuke, our main POV for the series, then states that their main mission is to find the lost warships and return Mirai and her men home.




Captain Umezu ends the conversation by stating the hope that this is only happening in that area of the sea and that there is a chance everything is fine once they head back to their base at Yokosuka. And yet, if this was an area specific problem, why can't they reach any satellites? After all, it's not like their communications are being jammed. They're simply not there at all!




The episode ends with the Mirai coming across a shot-down floatplane holding one unconscious survivor who will become one of the main characters of the show.




So, Zipang 02: MIDWAY? The bottom line is this: The visuals are definitively better than those of the first episode, the animation team using close up shots and wide panoramas and tracking shots to good effect. The battle scenes are well-animated and show a better blend of CGI and drawn animations than before. On the audio side the whole score is rather subdued and cued in at the right times, and with the exception of the atrocious J-Pop opener I've got no bad things to say about it. As an addendum the actual runtime of the individual new episode - meaning solely new content, not the intro and the recap they seem to do, isn't less than 25 minutes. Rather, it's barely 18 minutes.




The episode's story, on the other hand? By all means 02: MIDWAY should have been an all-out thing. Were this a book it would've been the chapter that establishes the setting, the one after which you decide to either put the book away or furiously continue to read on. Episode 02 however? How do I put it best? It's not good or bad per se. But I found it to be bland. Very bland. Mystery is neither revealed nor established - it's bypassed. This also should have served - in the narrative - as the piece to set up the fault lines/differences between the main characters established so far. It touches the surface of that, if barely so. The only short piece of conflict is when the navigation officer briefly opts to join the battle and Lt. Commander Masayuki gives his Butterfly Effect speech. Which is wrong, by the way, since they've already changed history by virtue of traveling back in time as is and by being detected by the Combined Fleet immediately thereafter. Critically examining this and the stance of our main POV character, Cmdr. Yosuke, could - should! - have opened up the episode for some great character scenes and discussions. But I've got a hunch that those two are going to continue haunting us...

[image error]
The Jooos! The Joooos!





Revisionism. Revisionism is one of those handy blanket accusations thrown around by many without any idea about what they're actually decrying. Scientific progress, however, is dependent on constant revision, on new approaches and the questioning of familiar perspectives and established models. Of course, not every revision, regardless of the scientific discipline, is useful just because it is one such. It must be compatible with the existing data or source materials and its explanatory power should at least equal the established theoretical paradigm.



Unfortunately, for historical research and its public perception in general, the image of historical revisionism is a tarnished one, and one doesn't have to search long for reasons for that sorry state of affairs. To explain it a bit I'd like to draw the distinction between actual historical revisionism and what I call "Big R Revisionism". And the latter one somehow always ends up taking on the members of a certain Abrahamic religion...



Let's take The War That Had Many Fathers as an example. The broadly generalized view that the popular understanding of history (in Germany) is based on resembles this narrative:

Already the German Empire sought the German domination of at least Europe and, if possible, the whole world. After the defeat in the Great War, this desire, supported by a Social Darwinist ideology, was the program - moderate and radical variants - of the German Right, most radically embodied in Hitler and his Nazi party. Hitler from the beginning sought to extend Germany's power base through the successive elimination of neighboring states to gain the strength to fight  against Great Powers, to disable France and Great Britain, to destroy the Soviet Union, thereby gaining "Lebensraum" for Germans and perhaps to create the basis for a war against America and thus finally push forward to world domination.

Against which Schultze-Rhonhof places his own interpretation (sourced with around 1,000 foot notes, in the majority primary sources from diplomatic archives) that is both common-sensical and thoroughly heritical at the same time: that, contrary to popular belief, Europe in the 1930s wasn't comprised of an active Germany with the rest of the nations posing as merely re-acting extras. Rather, Europe's nations were all actors, all working towards their own goals and desires to the best of their abilities. Germany just happened to make the correct choices at the correct times, and often did so on a whim rather than based on some long term plan (which is very well represented by transcripts of conversations and notes on the same topics, ie. the Anschluss of Austria, from the archives of several nations). And yet, the author does not excuse Germany. In the end, Germany started the war. What he does is document that what preceeded that declaration of war was far, FAR less black and white than the common narrative wants us to believe.



That is why genuinely well-researched and documented works like that of Schultze-Rhonhoff as well as polemical but thoroughly justified positions as that of Nigel Knight are so reviled. Not only because they question what may be comfortable myths, but because of the miserable, loud-mouthed company they unwillingly find themselves in. You may not agree with what they write - hell, I certainly don't agree with all they write - but they do raise sensible points that warrant discussion and possibly a re-evalution of how we - the public - see our past. That's historical revisionism. The one with the small "r".



David Irving.

But where does the "Big R" begin? Well, I'm not too deep into that part (because, as you'll see later, it invariably ends up courting a certain type of denial), but maybe lets start with a well known name: David Irving.





Okay, I admit it: I've read a book by David Irving. Yes, that David Irving. The one accused of holocaust denial. The one put in jail in Austria on charges of Wiederbetätigung, IIRC. Why? Because once in a while I like to know what I'm talking about before I pass judgement on someone, that's why. And, quite honestly, I was simply curious.



What did I read? Parts of his Churchill biography. In and by itself its a rather intriguing read. Irving has the advantage of being fluent in both German and English, which certainly helped him alot in his work. He certainly isn't a bad writer. He's just not a good historian. I'm aware the man never studied history in the sense that he participated in university courses and got a degree. Now, getting a degree is one thing. It certainly looks nice on your CV. But ironically the other part is way more important: learning how to do scientific research and present your findings is something everybody who does some serious writing should have learned at some point. 



David Irving is a revisionist in the bad sense of the word, and he apparently didn't learn this type of scientific handiwork. He claims using only primary sources - most the time its diaries - for getting to his conclusions, and these conclusions usually aren't very close to the orthodox view of history. That, in and by itself, isn't really a problem: a new point of view, new data, new results. Cue a discussion. That's the way all science basically ought to work.




Matters become problematic when one makes statements based on unreliable sources, or based on pure hearsay. It gets worse when the conclusions one draws are obviously flawed. For example Irving's opinion that Churchill was a coward, which is based on, I think, supposedly some driver's diary (or was it one of Churchill's bodyguards?) stating that whenever the British got an early enough indication that the Luftwaffe would bomb London Churchill would leave the city. 



You know what I call that?  



Prudent behavior. 



Just imagine the scenario: the Russians are bombing Washington, D.C.. I sincerely doubt the Secret Service would be thrilled with the idea of the President staying in the White House! And anyone who's read about Churchill in the Boer War, or how FM Alan Brooke had to keep him from getting into danger pretty much all the time during WW2 will find the accusation of cowardice to be pretty misplaced.





But even if we assume that all he writes about Churchill is true - and I extremely doubt that - it doesn't stand up to the kind of serious historical debate and actual process of scientific revisionism depends on. Why? 




Because it's not sourced.





Everybody who has ever written a paper on anything knows that scientific peer review is based on you laying open your sources for others to check them. Not only do you have to be able to explain why you came to conclusion A (for example, "Because of Data B"), the explicit idea is that others can with a reasonable effort gain access to these sources as well. It's not made better by the fact that he conveniently ignores contrasting data. In fact, like everybody who's primarily occupied with pushing a point of view and not just with presenting what he or she has found out, it's unlikely Irving acknowledges these views exist. If your sources are diaries not accessible to your peers you have to provide these sources - in full. Otherwise what you claim are just that: claims. Unsubstantiated ones.



That Winston Churchill threw the Empire into a war because he was bought by a Jewish-dominated lobby group called The Focus (which is so likely given the man's stubborn character /sarcasm off) is the equivalent of you running nakedly out into the streets at night with one hand around your penis, yelling that the Jews stole your mojo. You might think you look awesome and have a point. But trust me. You really don't.



And somehow we always end up with the Jews. Isn't that a funny coincidence? That's the great difference between actual revisionism and the "Big R" type. Whatever it is that happened, the "Big R" always finds a way to link it all back to the Jews. Usually in a way that manages to unravel even the best argument made earlier.



It's what I would call the "Reverse Godwin's Law" or maybe the "Stormfront Syndrome". Stormfront is essentially a US-Nazi webforum (so I won't link there). If you dare do so, google Stormfront, steel yourselves, and check out a few threads. Like on every webforum you'll get absolute crap, and you'll get a lot of offensive material (comes with the environment), but you'll also get a handful of threads making coherent and sensible points. But just as with Godwin's Law, even the most useful thread in such an environment at some point slams into the "It's the Joooos' fault". Hence, the "Stormfront Syndrome". Unemployment, bad weather, your milk turning sour? You got it, it's got to be them evil Joooos and their inherent anti-lactation vibes...



The ironic thing about these people's efforts is that they are so utterly futile.



Let's assume for a moment that there really weren't any gas chambers at, say, Auschwitz (and even that assumption for the sake of the argument might put me on thin ice). Does that really make a difference? What about the hundreds of thousands that starved to death, or were rounded up from their homes only to be mass executed a mile down the road and thrown into ditches? What about the thousands mutilated and tortured for "medical" experiments? The hundreds of thousands that were dehumanized and herded together like cattle? Fact of the matter is that at the end of WWII there were several million fewer Jews and other ethnic minorities in Europe than before the outbreak of the war - up to eleven million -, and only a small percentage of those was able to emigrate/escape. Something must have happened to them; people don't dissolve into thin air (well, these did - ja, ja, bad pun, but it's the truth, isn't it?)!





An actual Aryan. Any questions?

At some point the intent and the "quality" of the crime become more important than the quantity of the victims. Nothing would wash away the monumental stain on Germany's reputation, nothing extinguish the guilt if it wasn't five or six million murdered but, say, "only" a hundred thousand. And I think that's what that breed of "revisionists" doesn't get. They are so mired in pointing fingers and in whitewashing some kind of mythical "Aryan" reputation that it is their kind of race-based skullduggery that makes actual historical revisionism as I outlined it above so hard for those conducting it and so reviled by the public. If your only conclusion to very complicated historical problems and chains of events boils down to "The Joooos did it!" for whatever reason the biggest favor you can do the world is to just shut up! That's not history. That's not historical revisionism. It's antisemitism wrapped in a time line.

Scrapes with death, romance, heartbreak, spies, humour and bizarre experiences all feature in a West Midlands woman’s account of her mother’s life on the home front in Worcestershire and Birmingham during the Second World War.



Imagine you are 15, you have just heard war has been declared and your father loads three bullets into his First World War revolver, pledging that if the Germans come he will shoot you, your mother and himself.



That’s just what happened to Pamela Wheeler, in the deathly hush after she heard Neville Chamberlain’s frightening broadcast, at the Woodman Hotel in Clent, near Stourbridge, which was then kept by her parents, Sidney and Marie Wheeler.



Now aged 87 and living in Worcester Road, Bromsgrove, Pamela – whose surname is now Moore – has recounted her memories to her daughter, Cherryl Vines, from Stourbridge, who has written a 128-page book.



It all started when Mrs Vines, aged 64, of Bridle Road, Wollaston, who used to own Wallflowers interior design business in Blakedown, near Kidderminster, took her mother back to the former Woodman Hotel, now called the French Hen, in Bromsgrove Road, Clent.



“As we walked across the car park she said ‘this is where I saw David for the last time’,” said Mrs Vines, the author of Pamela’s War, the moving account of her mother’s wartime experiences.



“David was an older boy, aged about 24, who she had fallen for at 17 after a kiss on the car park and he fell in love with her.



“But he was a pilot and was killed in a Spitfire accident. She wasn’t allowed to mourn – and it was the same for everyone.



“I thought I must write all this down and got a dictating machine and started talking to my mother about her life. I suddenly realised I’d got a book.”



At the time war broke out “aliens” such as Italians and Germans were being imprisoned and Pamela’s father recognised the accent of a man who had come to the bar.



Mr Wheeler, previously a butcher in Birmingham, decided to send his daughter on a spying mission, following a group of German customers to the house where they were living on the pretext of buying vegetables for the hotel.



Mr Wheeler then reported them to police and they were all arrested.



Later in the war, the business failed and Pamela, a former Stourbridge Girls High School pupil, and her parents moved to a mansion flat at Five Ways, Edgbaston.



“They couldn’t find the key to the air raid shelter because the caretaker was in hospital with incendiary burns – so when there was an air raid my grandfather told everyone to lie on the floor at the bottom of the flats,” said Mrs Vines, whose book is now on sale at Waterstones branches as well as on the internet.



“The air raid shelter took a direct hit but all the residents survived, although the flats were damaged.”



After their home was destroyed by German bombs, the family stayed with friends in Quinton and Hagley and Pamela had to work at a factory at Edgbaston.



Later, she worked in the Women’s Land Army in Broome, near Hagley.



She met and married John Fellows, who was posted to Canada in the RAF, and gave birth to her first child, Christine, in 1945.



History Press has now published Mrs Vines’s book about her mother’s war.



As found in the Express & Star .

2nd Lt. Charlie Brown was a B-17F Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17F was called “Ye Olde Pub” and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton. Most of the tail & half of the stabilizer were gone.



After flying over an enemy airfield, a pilot named Franz Stigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17F. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he “had never seen a plane in such a bad state”. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.



Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at 2nd Lt. Charlie Brown, Lt. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and bloodstained plane. Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.



When Franz landed he told the C.O. that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remainder of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.



More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at postwar reunions. They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns that day.



Research shows that 2nd Lt. Charlie Brown lived in Seattle and Franz Stigler had moved to Vancouver, BC after the war. When they finally met, they discovered they had lived less than 200 miles apart for the past 50 years!


The scene as depicted by DeviantArt artist Bidass. Check out his other work, leave him a comment.

[image error]



Zipang, Episode 1 (2004)




Zipang is one of those shows my friends have pointed me to several times already. It's an animated TV series that ran first in Japan from 07 October 2004 to 31 March 2005 on the Tokyo Broadcasting System and had a total run of 26 episodes. It was adapted from the manga of the same name written by Kaiji Kawaguchi. I've been reluctant to pick it up since my relation to animes is somewhat ambiguous, because I have the subjective but distinct impression that Sturgeon's Law applies to the art form a lot more than to others (for those not in the know, Sturgeon's Law formulates that "Ninety percent of everything is crap."). Granted, that impression may have been tainted by the fact that America and Europe have basically been swamped with animes and mangas since the turn of the century, but of the literally thousands of series I have never been able to enjoy more than a handful (like, for example, the Hellsing series or the bittersweet Cowboy Bebop). Still, Zipang intrigued me because of its premise.




What then is Zipang? The series' premise can best be likened to author John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy, Final Countdown or, well, my own Wolf Hunt. Both play with the themes of modern day forces finding themselves transplanted by natural phenomena or accidents into the middle of decisive historical events. In The Final Countdown, the carrier USS Nimitz finds itself transported back in time to only hours before the Japanese suprise attack against Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Birmingham's protagonists find themselves smack in the middle of Admiral Spruance's fleet headed to face the Japanese at Midway, which leads to both sides inflicting heavy casualties on each other as one ship of the multinational future task force is from the Japanese Self Defense Force and is assumed to be hostile by Spruance's forces.



In Zipang 01 the crew of the newest, most advanced destroyer in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, the JDS Mirai, sets sail from Japan on a training exercise with the United States Navy. Enroute, they encounter a strange meteorological anomaly, causing the Mirai
to lose contact with her sister ships. After a short time, the crew
detects a fleet approaching, but can barely believe their eyes as a
massive battleship passes by them. The crew soon identify it as the Yamato , a ship which was sunk in 1945.





Kadomatsu Yosuke. JMSDF Commander and second-in-command of the Mirai. He adheres
strictly to the ideals of the postwar Self Defense Forces and considers
saving lives, regardless of consequences, as his most important duty.  
Kikuchi Masayuki. JMSDF Lt. Commander, Gunnery Officer of the Mirai, and a classmate
of both Kadomatsu and Oguri from the Officer Candidate School. He had
joined the Self Defense Force for economic reasons and consistently seek
to avoid situations where he might be forced to take lives. In 1991,
just the possibility of Japan sending warships to support U.S.
operations against Iraq during the Gulf War
was enough to cause him to resign from the academy — although his
commitment to friendship with Kadomatsu and Oguri is such that he
decided not to resign when his departure threatened to strain their
friendship. His fear of taking human life backfires on him badly when he
holds back punches against the U.S. naval aircraft attacking Mirai —
and results in a serious damage to the Mirai and many casualties.
In addition, he is extremely fearful of changing the past — and its
possible consequences: from the minute the Mirai goes back to the past, he warns everyone of the dire danger of changing the past.
Oguri Kouhei. JMSDF Lt. Commander, Navigation Officer of the Mirai, and a classmate to both Kadomatsu and Kikuchi. Unlike Katomatsu and Kikuchi, he is not racked by inner conflict following the Mirai's arrival in 1942. Rather, he is a happy-go-lucky character who believes that they went back in time for a reason.

Zipang is primarily of interest to me as the only show I know of that not only is based on an ISOT event but also tries to stick to a high degree of what I might call "narrative realism". The Mirai clearly is a game changer, but almost everybody's also aware of the limits of how much it can change the game.
 The animation quality is average, even for the time, even though the focus on technical realism and realistic character proportions positively distinguishes it from what feels like 90% of the rest of anime. As the production most likely began almost ten years ago by now the combination of hand-drawn elements and CGI doesn't really match up as flawlessly as more recent or higher-budgeted products (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, for example) do. As far as I can judge it the portrayal of the equipment, technology and setting is spot on (in this episode; I might find discrepancies once I rewatch the series in full).



As for the audio-side: ambient sounds fit right into the setting, and the voice acting seems to match the characters' personalities. I say "seems" since I watched the Japanese version with English subtitles. Where the episode - and much of the series, I'm afraid - fails is the musical score. The intro song is tedious, and far too many scenes rely on a saxophone-heavy pop-song score that couldn't be more out of place. In a way it's the Japanese version of the musical side of the otherwise excellent Ladyhawke (which would be ageless if it wasn't for its dreadful score).



All in all, Episode 1 does exactly what it's supposed to do: setting up the basic premise of the series and showcasing one half of the important characters. It also foreshadows some of the major problems I had with the series that I'll mention when they arise in full. It's certainly worth watching (individual episodes are less than 25 minutes in length). If you don't want to spend money on it you can easily find streams of it online on various anime-centric sites.



I'll continue this with Episode 2.