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. . . As our boat touched sand and the ramp went down I became a visitor to hell. --Pvt. Charles Neighbor, U.S. 29th Division, Omaha Beach, Normandy [1944] Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue. --Chester William Nimitz (18851966) Commander in Chief of Pacific forces during World War II. When one thinks of the lies and betrayals of those years [the Thirties], the cynical abandonment of one ally after another, the imbecile optimism of the Tory press, the flat refusal to believe that the dictators meant war, even when they shouted it from the house-tops, the inability of the moneyed class to see anything wrong whatever in concentration camps, ghettos, massacres and undeclared wars, one is driven to feel that moral decadence played its part as well as mere stupidity. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Who are the War Criminals?_ in "Tribune" [22 October 1943]. - There'll always be an England While there's a country lane; Wherever there's a cottage small Beside a field of grain. --Ross Parker (19141974) & Hughie [_not_ Hugh] Charles (19071995) British songwriters. "There'll always be an England" [1939] We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when. But I know we'll meet again some sunny day. --Ross Parker (1914-1974) & Hughie [_not_ Hugh] Charles (1907-1995) British songwriters. "We'll meet again" [1939] - - We are in a cabin deep down below decks on a Navy ship jam- packed with troops that's pitching and creaking its way across the Atlantic in a winter gale. There is a man in every bunk. There's a man wedged into every corner. There's a man in every chair. The air is dense with cigarette smoke and with the staleness of packed troops and sour wool. "Don't think I'm sticking up for the Germans," puts in the lanky young captain in the upper berth, "but." "To hell with the Germans," says the broad-shouldered dark lieutenant. "It's what our boys have been doing that worries me." The lieutenant has been talking about the traffic in Army property, the leaking of gasoline into the black market in France and Belgium even while the fighting was going on, the way the Army kicks the civilians around, the looting. "Lust, liquor and loot are the soldier's pay," interrupts a red-faced major. The lieutenant comes out with his conclusion: "Two wrongs don't make a right." You hear these two phrases again and again in about every bull session on the ship. "Two wrongs don't make a right" and "Don't think I'm sticking up for the Germans, but." The troops returning home are worried. "We've lost the peace," men tell you. "We can't make it stick." A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans, friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word "liberation." Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting. You try to explain to these Europeans that they expected too much. They answer that they had a right to, that after the last war America was the hope of the world. They talk about the Hoover relief, the work of the Quakers, the speeches of Woodrow Wilson. They don't blame us for the fading of that hope. But they blame us now. Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops, of our misunderstanding of European conditions. They say that the theft and sale of Army supplies by our troops is the basis of their black market. They blame us for the corruption and disorganization of UNRRA. They blame us for the fumbling timidity of our negotiations with the Soviet Union. They tell us that our mechanical de-nazification policy in Germany is producing results opposite to those we planned. "Have you no statesmen in America?" they ask. . . . [ . . . ] We know now the tragic results of the ineptitudes of the Peace of Versailles. The European system it set up was Utopia compared to the present tangle of snarling misery. The Russians at least are carrying out a logical plan for extending their system of control at whatever cost. The British show signs of recovering their good sense and their innate human decency. All we have brought to Europe so far is confusion backed up by a drumhead regime of military courts. We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease. [...] --John Rodrigo Dos Passos (1896-1970) American novelist and artist. "Americans Are Losing the Victory in Europe" In _Life_ (magazine) [7 January 1946]. - - There is one great thing you men will be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. And you may thank God for it. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won't have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No Sir! You can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Grandaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-bitch named Georgie Patton.' --George S. Patton, Jr. (18851945) American general. In a speech to troops of the Sixth Armored Division [31 May 1944]. A clear cold Christmas, lovely weather for killing Germans, which seems a bit queer, seeing Whose birthday it is. --George S. Patton, Jr. (18851945) American general. During the Battle of the Bulge, diary [25 December 1944], in Martin Blumenson _The Patton Papers 1940-1945_ [1974]. - The Orchestra very often played while the prisoners were at work. To the accompaniment of this music, the guards would call out prisoners whose work was especially feeble and shoot them there and then. --Polish miner deported to the Soviet labor camp at Maldiak, in Norman Davies _God's Playground_ v. 2 [1981] p. 450. - FRONTLINES IN ITALY Ernie Pyle (19001945) American journalist, war correspondent, and winner of a 1944 Pulitzer. In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow, of Belton, Texas. Captain Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle 20's, but he carried in him a sincerity and a gentleness that made people want to be guided by him. "After my own father, he came next," a sergeant told me. "He always looked after us," a soldier said. "He'd go to bat for us every time." "I've never known him to do anything unfair," another one said. I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow's body down the mountain. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley. Soldiers made shadows as they walked. Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across wooden pack saddles their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked. The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help. The first one came early in the evening. They slid him down from the mule and stood him on his feet for a moment. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there, leaning on the others. Then they lay him on the ground in the shadow of the low stone wall alongside the road. I don't know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of the dead men, and ashamed at being alive, and you don't ask silly questions. We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on water cans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules. Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more. The dead man lay all alone outside, in the shadow of the stone wall. Then a soldier came into the dark cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there, in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting. "This one is Capt. Waskow," one of them said quietly. Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and lay it in the shadow beside the low stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally there were five, lying end to end in a long row alongside the road. You don't cover up dead men in the combat zone. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them. The unburdened mules moved off to their olive orchard. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually one by one you could sense them moving close to Capt. Waskow's body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality, to him and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear. One soldier came and looked down and he said out loud, "Goddammit." That's all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said "Goddammit to hell anyway." He looked down for a few moments, and then he turned and left. Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half-light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain's face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: "I'm sorry, old man." Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said: "I sure am sorry, sir." Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for five full minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there. And then finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain's shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone. - Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese government had deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces with the unbounded determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. --Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945) American Democratic statesman and President [19331945]. _Speech_ [8 December 1941]. In times like these in times of great tension, of great crisis the compass of the world narrows to a single fact. The fact which dominates our world is the fact of armed aggression, aimed at the form of Government, the kind of society that we in the United States have chosen and established for ourselves. It is a fact which no one longer doubts which no one is longer able to ignore. It is not an ordinary war. It is a revolution imposed by force of arms, which threatens all men everywhere. It is a revolution which proposes not to set men free but to reduce them to slavery in the interest of a dictatorship which has already shown the nature and the extent of the advantage which it hopes to obtain. That is the fact which dominates our world and which dominates the lives of all of us, each and every one of us. In the face of the danger which confronts our time, no individual retains or can hope to retain, the right of personal choice which free men enjoy in times of peace. He has a first obligation to serve in the defense of our institutions of freedom a first obligation to serve his country in whatever capacity his country finds him useful. --Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945) American Democratic statesman and President [19331945]. Nomination acceptance speech, Democratic Convention [19 July 1940], quoted in Jon Meacham, _Franklin and Winston_. And while I am talking to you mothers and fathers, I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars. --Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945) American Democratic statesman and President [19331945]. Campaign speech in Boston [30 October 1940]. Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. . . . In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom. --Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945) American Democratic statesman and President [19331945]. _Message to American Booksellers Association_ [6 May 1942]. - - An American staggered and crumpled to the road. A guard kept kicking him in the ribs. The American tried painfully to rise and extended a pleading hand to the Japanese. The guard deliberately placed the tip of his bayonet on the prisoner's neck and drove it home. He yanked it free and plunged it again into the American's body. . . . Between 7,000 and 10,000 [Filipino and American soldiers] died on the march from malaria, starvation, beatings or execution. Of these, approximately 2,300 were Americans. --John Willard Toland (19122004) American author and historian. Referring to the 60-mile "Bataan Death March" following the Japanese conquest of the Philippine Islands, in _The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire_ [1970]. - Here is the victor announcing the verdict to the prostrate enemy. He can exact his pound of flesh if he so chooses. He can impose a humiliating penalty if he so desires. And yet he pleads for freedom, tolerance, and justice. --Toshikazu Kase (19032004) Japanese politician, ambassador to the United States. On Douglas MacArthur at the Japanese surrender in _Journey to the 'Missouri'_ [1950]. - If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia; and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany; and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19451953]. Soon after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union , Senate speech [July 1941], in James MacGregor Burns _Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom_ [1970]. Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British 'Grand Slam,' which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare. . . . It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its powers has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19451953]. Message to the nation [6 August 1945]. - Well, don't worry about it. It's nothing. --Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, Duty Officer at the Shafter Information Center, Hawaii, responds to a report of the radar sighting of 50 warplanes approaching Pearl Harbor at 180 mph [7 December 1941]. Gentlemen, I fear that all we have done is to have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with terrible resolve. --attributed to Yamamoto Isoroku (18841943) Japanese naval officer who conceived of the surprise attack on the U.S. naval base of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Commander-in-Chief, IJN Combined Fleet, [7 December 1941]. If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there. --Marshall Georgy Zhukov (18961974) Soviet military commander and politician. To General Eisenhower [1945]. - We sure liberated the hell out of this place. --American soldier in the ruins of a French village [1944]; quoted by Max Miller, _The Far Shore_ [1945]. They're overpaid, overfed, oversexed, and over here. --anon (British), on American GIs stationed in England during WWII. These endured all and gave all that justice among nations might prevail and that mankind might enjoy freedom and inherit peace. --anon. Normandy Chapel, inscription on the exterior of the lintel of the chapel. American Battle Monuments Commission _Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial_, p. 16 [1975] - Bedford, Virginia Ray Nance, who still has shrapnel lodged in his foot, has vivid memories of the bloodied beaches of Normandy hundreds of his fellow soldiers' bodies washing up with the tide. The D-Day invasion hit this rural farming community, with a population of 3,200 that year, harder than most. Nineteen of its 35 soldiers died during the first 15 minutes of the Allied invasion on June 6, 1944, four more in the following days. It was the most casualties per capita from any U.S. community. That's why the small city 25 miles east of Roanoke was chosen as the site for the National D-Day Memorial, a portion of which was to be unveiled during a ceremony today. Though most say the tribute is long overdue, it has opened old wounds. "It brings back a lot of bad memories," said Nance, 84. "I never really got over it. I'm not sure if I ever will." The $12 million memorial will honor the 6,603 Americans killed along the coast of France in the D-Day invasion of Nazi-held Europe during World War II. A total of 9,758 Allied soldiers died. Work has been completed on a 44-foot granite arch. The memorial also will feature an education center, reflecting pool and the flags of the 13 nations that participated in the invasion...Bob Slaughter, who fought during the invasion, and is chairman of the D-Day foundation called the memorial a symbol of freedom. "It will remind people that freedom is not cheap," Slaughter said. "These men did so much and they should not be forgotten." ... Both Roy Stevens and his twin brother, Ray, were in the Virginia National Guard at the time. Only one made it home. Roy Stevens' landing craft sank before he reached the beach and he had to be rescued from the English Channel. He regrets not saying good-bye to his brother before they boarded separate landing crafts. "He tried to shake my hand on the gangplank before we got off, but I told him we'd do it when we get to the crossroads at Vierville-sur-Mer," Stevens said. "That never happened." Four days later, he found Ray's dog tags on a cross in the sand where his company was to have landed. --Online news [29 May 2000] end page | UGLY - UNICORNS | UNHAPPINESS | UNIONS - USELESS | VACATION - VENGENCE | VENICE - VICTORY | VIGILANCE - VIRGINITY | VIRTUE - VULGARITY | WAGES - WAR & PEACE | WAR (THE CIVIL) - WAR (THE REVOLUTIONARY) | WAR (THOUGHTS ABOUT) - PAGE 1 (A-M) | WAR (THOUGHTS ABOUT) - PAGE 2 (N-Z) | WAR (VIETNAM) | WAR (WORLD WAR I) | WAR (WORLD WAR II) PAGE 1 (A-M) | WAR (WORLD WAR II) PAGE 2 (N-Z) | WASHINGTON (D.C.) - WEAK/WEAKNESS | WEALTH - WEASELS | WEATHER - WELLS (H.G.) | WEST (THE OLD/WILD) - WILDE (OSCAR) | WILL - WINNING | WINTER - WISDOM | WISHING - WIVES | WOMEN - WOMEN'S LIB | WOMEN'S RIGHTS - WORDS | WORK - WORLD | WORLD TRADE CENTER & PENTAGON DISASTER, 11 SEPTEMB | WORRY - WRONG | WRITING | YESTERDAY - ZOOS | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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