Book Nook Cafe discussion

No problem. I think this is the first time I am actually ahead of you.

My dad told me about "Kilroy was here" when i was fairly young, so it's been a part of my WWII story for a long time. He was tickled to share the story & sightings, as it's just the sort of thing he loved. And it's one of those things which can easily be lost in the massive history of WWII.

So, there i was walking around the WWII memorial in D.C. in '08, on a visit to D.C., taking photos so my dad, who no longer traveled, could "see" it. It was part of the Mall Walk i was making from the Lincoln monument to the Capitol building. Imagine my thrill to walk along one side & see "Kilroy was here". Frankly, it meant more to me than all the flags, stonework and statuary. It was MY soldier. And i wasn't clear whether it was included intentionally or whether some GI (or his kin!) had added it. Turns out, it was intentional & there is another elsewhere. Good.

Here's a photo of it, just the way it should be viewed there, imo. http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&am... I love that those Vets are in front of it. I think Kilroy called to many soldiers as a reminder of the kids they were.

deb, crying in pleasure & thanking ya'll for that memory reminder

On this day in history....

June 4

70th anniversary of battle that turned tide against Japan in WWII


[image error]
PHOTO: Surrounded by flak bursts, USS Yorktown is hit by a torpedo during the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942.


PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- Six months after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan sent four aircraft carriers to the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway to draw out and destroy what remained of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

But this time the U.S. knew about Japan's plans. U.S. cryptologists had cracked Japanese communications codes, giving Fleet Commander Adm. Chester Nimitz notice of where Japan would strike, the day and time of the attack, and what ships the enemy would bring to the fight.

The U.S. was badly outnumbered and its pilots less experienced than Japan's. Even so, it sank four Japanese aircraft carriers the first day of the three-day battle and put Japan on the defensive, greatly diminishing its ability to project air power as it had in the attack on Hawaii.

On Monday, current Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Cecil Haney and other officials will fly 1,300 miles northwest from Oahu to Midway to market the 70th anniversary of the pivotal battle that changed the course of the Pacific war.

"After the battle of Midway we always maintained the initiative and for the remaining three years of the war, the Japanese reacted to us," said Vice Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, told a crowd gathered outside Nimitz's old office at Pearl Harbor on Friday to commemorate the role naval intelligence played in the events of Jun 4-7, 1942.

"It all started really in May of 1942 with station Hypo (the Combat Intelligence Unit at Pearl Harbor) and the work of some great people working together to try to understand what were the Japanese thinking, what were they going to do," Rogers said Friday.

Intelligence wasn't the only reason for U.S. victory.

The brave heroics by dive bomber pilots, Japanese mistakes and luck all played a role. But Nimitz himself observed it was critical to the outcome, said retired Rear Adm. Mac Showers, the last surviving member of the intelligence team that deciphered Japanese messages.

"His statement a few days later was `had it not been for the excellent intelligence that was provided, we would have read about the capture of Midway in the morning newspaper,'" said Showers said in an interview.

Japan's vessels outnumbered U.S. ships 4-to-1, Japan's aviators had more experience, and its Zero fighter planes could easily outmaneuver U.S. aircraft.

But Japan, unlike the U.S., had little knowledge of what its enemy was doing.

Japanese commanders believed a U.S. task force was far away in the Solomon Islands. Then, as June 4 neared and Nimitz prepared his troops, Japanese commanders failed to recognize signs of increased military activity around Hawaii as an indication the U.S. had uncovered their plans to attack Midway, the site of a small U.S. base.

The U.S. lost one carrier, 145 planes and 307 men. Japan lost four aircraft carriers, a heavy cruiser, 291 planes and 4,800 men, according to the U.S. Navy and to an account by former Japanese naval officers in "Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story."

The defeat was so overwhelming that the Japanese navy kept the details a closely guarded secret and most Japanese never heard of the battle until after the war.

Nimitz got his intelligence from Showers and a few dozen others relentlessly analyzing Japanese code in the basement of a Pearl Harbor administrative building.

Japanese messages were written using 45,000 five-digit numbers representing phrases and words.

The cryptographers had to figure out what the numbers said without the aid of computers.

"In order to read the messages, we had to recover the meaning of each one of those code groups. The main story of our work was recovering code group meanings one-by-painful-one," Showers said.

At the time of the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, they understood a small fraction of the messages. By May 1942, they could make educated guesses.

A key breakthrough came when they determined Japan was using the letters "AF" to refer to Midway.

Showers said Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort, the team's leader, and Nimitz were confident the letters referred to the atoll. But Adm. Ernest King, the Navy's top commander, wanted to be sure before he allowed Nimitz to send the precious few U.S. aircraft carriers out to battle.

So Nimitz had the patrol base at Midway send a message to Oahu saying the island's distillation plant was down, and it urgently needed fresh water. Soon after, both an intelligence team in Australia and Rochefort's unit picked up a Japanese message saying "AF" had a water shortage.

Showers was an ensign in the office, having just joined the Navy. He analyzed code deciphered by cryptographers, plotted ships on maps of the Pacific, and filed information.

Now 92 and living in Arlington, Va., the Iowa City, Iowa native went on to a career in intelligence. He served on Nimitz's staff on Guam toward the end of the war, and returned later to Pearl Harbor for stints leading the Pacific Fleet's intelligence effort. After the Navy, he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Showers said commanders weren't always as open to using intelligence to plan their course of attack the way Nimitz was. Some were suspicious of it.

But Midway changed that.

"It used to be a lot of people thought intelligence was something mysterious and they didn't believe in it and they didn't have to pay attention to it. Admiral Nimitz was fortunately what we call intelligence-friendly," Showers said.

70th anniversary of battle that turned tide against Japan in WWII

*** See link for video
http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories...

I'm glad you shared this, Alias. Many of us don't know this date because D-Day's June 6 sticks more to our mind. This was an important event but is somewhat lost because the war continued for years afterward.

deb

I didn't recall the date myself. I heard it on NPR.

Finished chapter 19

I found this chapter a bit less interesting as it was about war strategy. New to me was info on the first Tehran conference with the "Big Three". I did hear about Yalta the second conference with the big 3.

One has to love the way Churchill can turn a phrase.

"the Price of greatness is responsibility"
"The Truth deserves a bodyguard of lies."

links for some books that look interesting in this chapter.

Eisenhower: Soldier and President~~Stephen E. Ambrose

The Second World War~~John Keegan

Yeah ch 19 wasn't all that exciting. I don't even think I said anything about it when I read it.

Ambrose was best known for the Eisenhower books until he wrote Undaunted Courage. I wasn't sure i wanted to read the Lewis & Clark book, given all the books SA had written about the 20th century. I'm glad the comments from book group members were so enthusiastic.

Deb, I was quite surprised as I only know Ambrose for the L&C book. I didn't know he wrote an Eisenhower book. If I ever get moving again on my presidential DL, I will keep it in mind.

Julie wrote: "Yeah ch 19 wasn't all that exciting. I don't even think I said anything about it when I read it."
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Julie, I am not totally clear why Churchill didn't want to do Overlord and why he rather keep doing these seemingly tangential fronts in Africa and such. No wonder Stalin was annoyed.

Speaking of Churchill I just saw in today NY Times that there is an exhibit about him at the Morgan Library & Museum. I'll post more about it in the Museum Thread.

I LOVE the Morgan library!!!!

:) Can you believe I've never been there. In another thread you mention Free Fridays. Many of the museums here have that. Thanks for the info. I have to check that out regarding the Morgan.

Chapter 20

Page 712
"For million of men born during and just after the Great War of 1914-18, their experience as GIs defined their generational identity as nothing else could, not even their long boyhood agony during the Great Depression. WWII took them away from home, taught them lessons both dreadful and useful, formed their friendships, and, if it did not end them, shaped the arc of their lives every after."

I guess I never thought about this, but now that I read it I can see how very true this is.

Chapter 20

P713

"Hungry Briton, whose standard of living declined by more than 20% after the war's outbreak..."

So after the Depression, which hit them, too, it declined another 20%? Yikes. The more I read about the British and how brave they were with the bombing and all, I am simply amazed by their fortitude.

Chapter 20
p 713

"The army improved the standard of living of many recruits. Not only did they receive proper medical attention some for the first time in their lives, but at the garrison food ration of 4300 calories per day many age than they ever had before. Even the standard field provender, the C-ration and the K-ration , contained about 3400 calories as well as a stick of chewing gum and four cigarettes."

Reading this as well as what I posted above about how many viewed their time in battle as a bonding and positive experience is interesting. Before this I guess I only really thought about the death and destruction of the war.

Also on page 712 that I highlighted:
Many young men who had never left their rural county or urban neighborhood confronted in the army more social, ethnic, and religious diversity than they had ever encountered, perhaps ever imagined.

Chapter 20
p 716

Deb, up thread I think you mentioned the many killed during the practice of the landing in France. I think you asked if it was mentioned in the book. I don't know if this is what you were referring to, but this chapter has this:

"One disaster marred the per-invasion training exercises in Britain: German torpedo boats chanced upon troop-laden landing craft rehearsing an amphibious landing at Slapton Sands near the Devonshire village of Dartmouth on April 28, 1944, drowning some seven hundred Americans."

It talks about how the army was the mother and father of all melting pots. Except for blacks.

Chapter 20
p722

"At day's end Omaha claimed more than two thousand casualties, the highest of any of the landing beaches and a number that, had it be matched elsewhere, would have confirmed Churchill's most sanguinary nightmares of the costs of the cross-Channel attack."

Reading page after page of these death totals is really beyond comprehension. It's so incredible sad.

I also thought the standard of living stuff was interesting.

Yes the deaths are unbelievable.

Let's see how many more posts we can write at the exact time. I keep refreshing to make sure I didn't miss any! :-)

Chapter 20
p728
"Shortly after noon on that day, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a handsome, debonair German officer, his gait stiffened by wounds suffered in North Africa, walked into Hitler's headquarters and placed a bomb under the conference table."

Tom Cruise made a movie about this.
Valkyrie (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985699/

Storyline:
In Nazi Germany during World War II, as the tide turned in favor of The Allies, a cadre of senior German officers and politicians desperately plot to topple the Nazi regime before the nation is crushed in a near-inevitable defeat. To this end, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an Army officer convinced he must save Germany from Hitler, is recruited to mastermind a real plan. To do so, he arranges for the internal emergency measure, Operation: Valkyrie, to be changed to enable his fellows to seize control of Berlin after the assassination of the Fuhrer. However, even as the plan is put into action, a combination of bad luck and human failings conspire on their own to create a tragedy that would prolong the greater one gripping Europe.


Did anyone see the movie? I should see if my library has it.

I never heard of that movie. I have not really been up on movies the last several years though.

Chapter 20

p 741

"By the second week in January, the Battle of the Bulge was over. It had claimed more than 70,000 Allied casualties and more than a 100,000 German. Measured by the numbers of dead and wounded, it was th single most costly American battle of the war."

It really is hard to wrap ones head around this ghastly numbers.

Chapter 20
p743

Re: Considering the Berlin bombing and bombing civilian targets. (the Berlin bombing killed 25,000 civilians)

"A second combined assault on Dresden ten days later ignited a firestorm that killed 35,000 people by both flames and suffocation- a horror described by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. An American POW in Dresden, in his postwar novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
Slaughterhouse-Five~~~Kurt Vonnegut

Movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069280/

Anyone read this book or see the movie? If so, what are your thoughts on it?


"Doctrine aside, many American bomber groups regularly took to the air when weather conditions made precision bombing next to impossible. The air crews referred to such missions as 'women's and children's days.'"

This line game me chills. :(

Julie wrote: "Also on page 712 that I highlighted:
Many young men who had never left their rural county or urban neighborhood confronted in the army more social, ethnic, and religious diversity than they had ev..."
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True, but it didn't change much. When they came home things weren't any better for minorities.

* Yes, I see we are posting at the same time. I also post then go back and do my editing and make changes/additions. So my posts are changing.

Alias Reader wrote: "Chapter 20
p 716

Deb, up thread I think you mentioned the many killed during the practice of the landing in France. I think you asked if it was mentioned in the book. I don't know if this is wha..."

Alias, this does, indeed, seem more like the one i heard about years ago. Thank you for sharing the name & other info. It's rather incredible but in light of lives lost in the actual event, the grand total must have been an awful burden on the psyche of the leaders. I know they "had" to do it but it doesn't make the staggering loss of lives any easier.

In another post you asked about the film Valkyrie. I am amazed at how many Tom Cruise movies i've watched (let alone liked!), considering i don't like him. Still, we did see & like Valkyrie. While we knew about the events the movie filled in more.

In yet another post you asked about Kurt Vonnegut's book about Dresden, Slaughterhouse 5. As you may recall, i'm a fan of his. This was the first of his books i read, i believe. It's subtitle (the one i recorded in my Books Read list is The Children's Crusade but his longer subtitle is, Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace.

I really liked the book, which i read in the midst of turmoil over the Vietnam War. It helped one keep in mind the atrocities of war. The novel, however, is also a time-traveling one. This is, as one might imagine, a bit disconcerting. It called to me but i am sure others here would not like it. Iirc, even the character Billy Pilgrim was sometimes confused about which time he was in, just like the readers, i suppose. However, it was quite effective because one wonders which were the effects of the bombing itself and which of his life in general. Can ya tell i liked it?

The film was about the same but less successful and not at all popular. It starred Michael Sacks. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069280/ Oh, i see i forgot to mention aliens from the book, too. And so it goes. :-)

deb

I have slaughterhouse five on my list to read

I'm glad to post about it deb. And I'm glad you brought it to my attention in the first place. It made it stand out when I read about the per-invasion.

For some reason my library doesn't have Valkyrie. Though they seem to have every other movie he made. Odd.

They do list a documentary that I think I'll check out at some point.

This is an Amazon link for the movie-
http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Valky...

Not every German military man wanted to see Adolf Hitler succeed in his mad quest to dominate the world. This riveting documentary tells the story of Claus von Stauffenberg, the German army officer who led a conspiracy to kill the Nazi leader in July 1944, using suitcase bombs. The film skillfully blends archival footage with animation and dramatic re-creations to tell the gripping story of the failed assassination plot. 76 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital stereo; bonus footage; featurettes; interview; more. Two-disc set.

Thanks for the info on Slaughterhouse Five. I know it's a classic and a fav or yours. But I don't think it would be my type of read. Maybe I'll check it out from the library and see. As to the title, Wow !

Chapter 21

The second WW is bound to change all trends...Not since Reconstruction has there been more reason to anticipate fundamental changes in American race relations, changes that will involve a development toward the American ideals.
..... Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma, 1944An American Dilemma Revisited~Gunnar
Myrdal

Today on Book TV the editor of the letters of Bayard Rustin ~~Michael G. Long said almost the same thing. He talked of how much hope there was for change for minorities during WWII and that ran into a wall during the Eisenhower era and things took a step back.

Chapter 21
page 746

I don't think I knew that 4 bombs were dropped on Oregon during WWII. Did you ?

Here is a good article and a picture of the plan.
http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/Japane...

Chapter 21
page 747

I also wasn't aware that elections were suspended during the war in England.

"Most other wartime governments, including Winston Churchill's, suspended elections for the duration of the war, but in the U.S. the constitutionally mandated rhythms of the political cycle beat on unperturbed."

I seem to recall there was similar talk of suspending the mayoral election after 9/11. The people said, no way.

Edit- Yes, Wiki has the story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giu...

Julie, I believe you've read the book, . I own it, but have not read it, yet.

Is this the migration that on page 748 Kennedy is also talking about?

"One great migratory steam carried people from the south to north."

Don't you just love the way Kennedy turns a phrase. It is what make this book such a pleasure to read.

"...facts were no protection against the building gale of fear and prejudice."

Alias Reader wrote: "Chapter 21
page 746

I don't think I knew that 4 bombs were dropped on Oregon during WWII. Did you ?

Here is a good article and a picture of the plan.
http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/Japane......"

Nope! Not until I read it in the book. Thanks for posting the link.

The planes in the link hardly look scary. They almost look like crop dusters. Not what I pictured in my mind while reading.

Alias Reader wrote: "Julie, I believe you've read the book, [bookcover:The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration]. I own it, but have not read it, yet.

Is this the migration that on page 7..."

Although the book says the Great Migration happened over a much longer period than WW2, many of the people in the south did indeed move during that time period in order to find industrial jobs that were available in the north because of the war. Several things in these two books made me thing of the other. For example, one of the three people profiled in Warmth talked about the re-election of Roosevelt when she was in chicago.

Alias Reader wrote: "The planes in the link hardly look scary. They almost look like crop dusters. Not what I pictured in my mind while reading."

That's what I was thinking!

Alias Reader wrote: "Don't you just love the way Kennedy turns a phrase. It is what make this book such a pleasure to read.

"...facts were no protection against the building gale of fear and prejudice.""

This is funny. Everything you are mentioning is something that caught my attention but I was too lazy to bother with posting it at the time. :-)
Now I have to find something I highlighted that you didn't get to yet. hehe

Chapter 21
p752

Re: California's Santa Anita racetrack were Japanese detainees were jammed into converted horse stalls.

I remember reading about the horse stalls from a book my F2F book club read. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet~Jamie Ford.

I think it was this book, we've read a few on this topic.

P 756

For the first time in history, Murphy wrote, the Court had "sustained a substantial restriction of the personal liberty of citizens of the United States based upon the accident of race or ancestry." The government's policy, he darkly concluded, bore "a melancholy resemblance to the treatment accorded to members of the Jewish race in Germany and in other parts of Europe."

Yikes! The jewish internment stuff is so sad. I am on page 760 right now.

Alias Reader wrote: "I remember reading about the horse stalls from a book my F2F book club read. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet~Jamie Ford.

I think it was this book, we've read a few on this topic.
..."

I don't remember horse stalls but that doesn't mean they weren't in the book. :-)
Do you have any recommendations of other books on the topic of the japanese internment?

Maybe they were horse stalls. The image in my mind is very small wooden shack type things.

Julie wrote: Several things in these two books made me thing of the other. For example, one of the three people profiled in Warmth talked about the re-election of Roosevelt when she was in chicago.

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I know I am going to love the book, if I can ever whittle down my TBR and reading obligations !

It is very good and interesting. And easy to read too. It may seem repetative if you don't read it as slowly as I did though. I have heard others say that, but it helped me remember things.

Julie wrote: This is funny. Everything you are mentioning is something that caught my attention but I was too lazy to bother with posting it at the time. :-)
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I am generally lazy, too. But I am reading this at my computer desk. I figure if I am sitting at the desk instead of slouched on the couch, I will be able to read with more deliberate speed and not be distracted.

So, I will bore you silly with my thoughts as I read. ;)

Julie wrote:
I don't remember horse stalls but that doesn't mean they weren't in the book. :-)
Do you have any recommendations of other books on the topic of the japanese internment?
---------------

I think my first choice would be Snow Falling on Cedars~~~David Guterson

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries - memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense - one that leaves us shaken and changed.

You are not boring me silly. But I got up to get a cup of hot chocolate (yes weird in june, but I have a sweet craving) to drink while I read and I haven't made it back to my book yet even though my chocolate is almost gone!

P 756

For the first time in history, Murphy wrote, the Court had "sustained a substantial restriction of the personal liberty of citizens of the United States based upon the accident of race or ancestry." The government's policy, he darkly concluded, bore "a melancholy resemblance to the treatment accorded to members of the Jewish race in Germany and in other parts of Europe."

Yikes! The jewish internment stuff is so sad. I am on page 760 right now."
----------------

I'm exactly where you are in the book. :)

After reading about the Dresden bombings and now the Japanese internment, one has to think how war often turns us into the very things we are fighting against on some level.

Julie wrote: "You are not boring me silly. But I got up to get a cup of hot chocolate (yes weird in june, but I have a sweet craving) to drink while I read and I haven't made it back to my book yet even though m..."
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For me, chocolate is a 365 day a year necessary food. :)
My favorite for hot chocolate is Ghirardelli. It's sinful!

http://www.amazon.com/Ghirardelli-Cho...

I think I will stop for a bit to make dinner.