A Day That Will Live In Infamy

[V.C. Brunswick]

In fact the performance of US forces in the Tunisian Campaign was so dismal that the British dubbed them "our Italians."

 

[HudsonHawk]

HudsonHawk,



Unfortunately, this seems to apply as well to a lot of Americans these days.

True, but so does the opposite. There are too many folks who are "America: Love it or Leave it" when their guy is in the White House and armchair revolutionaries when he's not. I agree with Lizzie...if you really love your country, you'll work to fix what is broken. Hyperbole and complaining alone rarely achieves much.

 

[HudsonHawk]

It's interesting to note that there was very little talk in 1945 of "America won the war!" The credit for victory went to "The Allies", or more commonly "the United Nations." The modern "we did it all" cult seems to owe more to baby-boomer boys playing with their G. I. Joes in the fifties and sixties than it does to those who actually fought the war. There were an awful lot of American soldiers pushing into Germany in the winter of '44-'45 who were very much looking forward to shaking hands with the Russians who were pushing in from the other side.

This is not a strictly American phenonmenon, nor even are we the worst perpetrators. As I mentioned, I work with numerous folks who grew up in Soviet-cloc countries who believed up until the last decade or so tha the US simply sat out the entire war. Glory hounds transcend political boundaries, particularly when those boundaries depend on the perception of such.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is not a strictly American phenonmenon, nor even are we the worst perpetrators. As I mentioned, I work with numerous folks who grew up in Soviet-cloc countries who believed up until the last decade or so tha the US simply sat out the entire war. Glory hounds transcend political boundaries, particularly when those boundaries depend on the perception of such.

That's why I don't have much use for "hindsight history," and prefer to study primary sources. You'll learn a lot more listening to H. V. Kaltenborn than you will reading whatever new axe-grinding revisionist take is popular this year.

 

[Guttersnipe]

That's why I don't have much use for "hindsight history," and prefer to study primary sources. You'll learn a lot more listening to H. V. Kaltenborn than you will reading whatever new axe-grinding revisionist take is popular this year.

Secondary sources are fine for amateurs, but real academics agree with the LizzieMaine approach.

 

[sheeplady]

I was taught in school that it was the Allies that won the war, that is that kind of thing.

Many years ago my husband and I had the opportunity to travel to a part of the Netherlands where my husband's grandfather was among the U.S. army troops that "liberated" that area of Holland (Timberwolf, 415th infantry regiment, M Company). When people found out that my husband was the grandson of one of their liberators, they treated us like royalty. We toured the battlesites in the area with a local historical society. They fed us dinner after having driven 45 minutes to pick us up from a train stop. The host at the bed and breakfast we stayed at was the son of a resistance fighter, so he gave us free breakfasts every morning and wine every night because he had promised his father he would be kind to any American who had liberated his country. Everyplace we went someone we had spent time with told someone we were meeting that we were related to a "liberator" (this is the term they used over and over again) and the red carpet was rolled out for us. I think we must have been thanked a thousand times for what my husband's grandfather did.

I have never been treated so generously in my life.

I would say that those who we met were very well aware of the sacrifices the U.S. made and gave the U.S. a lot of credit- much more credit than I would have imagined. I did not expect that experience at all. Given what I think is an aversion to "inherited" titles in the U.S. (don't know what else to call it) it was a bit uncomfortable for me to know I was only being treated so well because I was married to a grandson of a man who was just doing his duty. And that is because what I was taught- the U.S. and so many men and women fought because it was their job and they were asked to do it.

 

[1961MJS]

I think the real issue is that too many people don't know the difference between jingoism and patriotism.

A jingoist says "My country, right or wrong."

A patriot says "My country -- let's right the wrongs."

Thanks Lizzie

I thought it would be helpful here to put what appears to be the original quote (from Wikipedia):

Originally Stephen Decatur, in an after-dinner toast of 1816–1820:

“Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”

That seems to be somewhat between the two above.

Later

 

[LizzieMaine]

And that is because what I was taught- the U.S. and so many men and women fought because it was their job and they were asked to do it.

Indeed. They didn't just put a sticker on their car, hoist a flag, and say they were "supporting the troops." They *were* the troops.

 

[sheeplady]

Indeed. They didn't just put a sticker on their car, hoist a flag, and say they were "supporting the troops." They *were* the troops.

That matter of fact attitude that many of them had* is what makes them so admirable. And fascinating.

*I've never met a WWII veteran who didn't have that humble attitude either here in the U.S. (U.S. vet) or abroad (foreign vet). I am sure they are exceptions out there, but they certainly aren't numerous.

A generation of people who saved the world from the brink of disaster but who are so humble about it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've known a lot of WW2 vets in my life, from the WAC who was my Scout leader to the former AAF gunner who was a deacon in my church, and none of them ever felt like they needed to wave their veteran status like a flag -- they felt that those who crowed the most about having served were usually those who'd spent the war peeling potatoes or running a mimeograph machine. Because military service was such a universal experience, nobody *needed* to brag about it. There was always somebody else in the room who had a story just like yours.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I've known a lot of WW2 vets in my life, from the WAC who was my Scout leader to the former AAF gunner who was a deacon in my church, and none of them ever felt like they needed to wave their veteran status like a flag -- they felt that those who crowed the most about having served were usually those who'd spent the war peeling potatoes or running a mimeograph machine. Because military service was such a universal experience, nobody *needed* to brag about it. There was always somebody else in the room who had a story just like yours.

I've known both those who like to tell the stories and those who don't. One of my ex-fiance's father was a gunner on a B-17, was shot down and spent time as a German POW. He often talked about it, attended reunions, kept in touch with fellow soldiers, etc. My great uncle, who was in the 101st Airborne, jumped on D-Day, wounded during Operation Market Garden, did not. He threw away all his medals and when asked about it would simply say "I did what I did. That's all I'll say". And it was all he ever did. Even my father, who served in the 101st during the late 50's/early 60's could barely get a word out of him. I respected his privacy, but I sincerely wish he'd have been more willing to discuss...that primary source you speak of.

 

[vintageTink]

I know of no one like that. Though I know several folks who grew up in Soviet-bloc countries who were shocked to learn, in graduate school, that the US even participated in WWII.

I dealt with a lot of Russians and I can second that. These people were taught that the Great Satan sat it out and the soviets single-handedly defeated the Axis. Some even thought that the rest of the Allied nations were spineless cowards.
They were very nasty towards America and her people and I asked them, "If you hate it so much, why did you come here? Why stay?"
The ones I knew also refused to acknowledge that there was a pact of non-aggression between Hitler and Stalin or that the soviets committed atrocities as well.

Yeah..Surely if bad ole 'Murica hadn't entered the war..everything would have still worked out just fine.
HD

Well, I guess if we'd stayed out of it but just kept supplying materials, ships, guns, planes, money (Lend-Lease, anyone?) like we were before Pearl Harbor was attacked...
I'm sure the Allies would still have won without us pitching in our over 1,000,000 dead and wounded and over 30,000 missing.
I guess that's our duty: stay out of it but provide everyone else the tools.

I thought it would be helpful here to put what appears to be the original quote (from Wikipedia):

Originally Stephen Decatur, in an after-dinner toast of 1816–1820:

“Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”

That seems to be somewhat between the two above.

Later

I like that quote.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've known both those who like to tell the stories and those who don't. One of my ex-fiance's father was a gunner on a B-17, was shot down and spent time as a German POW. He often talked about it, attended reunions, kept in touch with fellow soldiers, etc. My great uncle, who was in the 101st Airborne, jumped on D-Day, wounded during Operation Market Garden, did not. He threw away all his medals and when asked about it would simply say "I did what I did. That's all I'll say". And it was all he ever did. Even my father, who served in the 101st during the late 50's/early 60's could barely get a word out of him. I respected his privacy, but I sincerely wish he'd have been more willing to discuss...that primary source you speak of.

I had an uncle who was just like your uncle in that regard. He spent almost forty days on a raft with seven of his men after his tanker was sunk by a U-Boat, and not only did he never talk about it, neither did anyone in my family. I only found out about it long after he'd died, when I found some newspaper clippings in my grandmother's scrapbook. "Oh yeah, that was Earle," she said. "He was in the war."

 

[LizzieMaine]

All the postwar posturing aside, the Eisenhower Institute has a rather sobering essay on what the Soviets actually faced during the war, and why what "scholars" were saying on either side of the Iron Curtain in 1965, 1975, or 1985 is completely irrelevant.

About the only way we can begin to understand is through imagination. The distance between Moscow and Berlin is about the same as that separating New York City and Atlanta. Imagine twenty million people being violently killed between those two American cities in four years. The Eastern Front in the war wound like a serpent from Sevastopol on the Black Sea to Leningrad on the Baltic. Including the twists, bulges and turns of the line of battle at the height of German penetration, November 1942, the line would have stretched from Baltimore to Cheyenne, Wyoming. In place of Leningrad, can you fathom Chicago under bitter siege and constant shelling for 900 days? Is it possible for us to mentally picture thousands of dead bodies lying on the frozen streets between Lake Shore Drive and Evanston? Could we endure seeing a million people die, mostly from starvation, during the Chicago siege or begin to fathom our own citizens engaging in cannibalism for profit? At the same time of the Chicago siege think of Cincinnati becoming a battleground such as Stalingrad where not a single structure was left habitable and several hundred thousand soldiers killed each other in the process of leveling the city. Mentally switch names such as Smolensk, Karkov, Minsk, Kiev and Rostov for American cities and picture them destroyed and silenced. If such images are possible for us to even conceive, we can begin to understand why Americans refer to the conflict as World War Two, but the Russians universally refer to it as the Great Patriotic War.

And that's just the beginning.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

My Dad, and several of his friends like to discuss the war. Dad was a weatherman on the way to the Pacific War. His main topic that he didn't like to discuss was a cocky pilot who wouldn't take an alternate landing sight on New Guinea. He got to Finschhafen at the same time as the storm and they never found his plane. Dad didn't feel sorry for him, but really felt sorry for his two crew members whom the pilot effectively killed.

One of Dad's friends back home was a Corsair pilot and a flight leader of some sort. He mentioned keeping his flight of 4 Corsairs from attacking a flight of 10 plus zeroes because there were too many.

A friend of mine from work's Dad NEVER discussed WW2 and burned all of his stuff from the war probably in the 1970's. He came ashore in Normandy in about July 1944 and spent until sometime in 1946 burying the dead. I can see not mentioning that.

My Dad's neighbor Jerry was in New Guinea for the whole war. He said it was hot, wet, and the bugs were everywhere. He was in the Artillery. He mentioned carrying shells, but not actually seeing any Japanese.

Later

 

[Stearmen]

When my Dad got off the train, he went straight back to work on the farm. When he was in town for the first time, the banker said to him, "I see you managed to survive." My mom told me, the thing my Dad heard the most was, "time to put all that nonsense behind you!" Knowing what I know now, I see all the classic signs of PTSD in my Father and Uncles plus most of his friends that served.

 

[Benny Holiday]

For an historical overview of the origins of Japanese-U.S. hostilities, see James Bradley's Flyboys: A True Story Of Courage. Bradley is the author of Flags of Our Fathers amongst other books, and the first chapters of Flyboys delve back into the middle of the 19th century to trace the political attitudes of both future combatants and the policies that paved the way for Pearl Harbor to take place.

Australia's close political relationship with the United States began after our two nations fought closely together in the Pacific War. During and after WWII, the Australian public began a decades-long love affair with U.S. popular culture that affected many different facets of life here. I remember December 7 every year because of the tragic loss of life and in memory of my Dad, who months later would be defending Darwin against Japanese bombing raids. For Australia, it was the beginning of the very real threat of invasion.

Pearl Harbor should serve as a remidner that nations are not simply faceless political entities but they're made of people who live and love and dream and have families who love and care about them. I tend not to think of the world in terms of "America did this" or "America did that" but I think of my friends (many whom I've got to know on this forum and have met when visiting the U.S.A.) and how fiscal and political decisions affect them personally.

 

[jamespowers]

A friend of mine from work's Dad NEVER discussed WW2 and burned all of his stuff from the war probably in the 1970's. He came ashore in Normandy in about July 1944 and spent until sometime in 1946 burying the dead. I can see not mentioning that.

M uncle buried and processed the dead as well. He was at the back of the lines tough as he managed to be in the artillery figuring distance etc. for the shelling. He spoke about it and I'm glad he did. How would I have known otherwise from a first hand perspective? These people are dying at a rate now that means soon they will all be gone. I know my uncle is.
Santayana said it best:
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
WWI begat WWII for the same reason. We NEED to REMEMBER---always!

 

[rjb1]

"The modern "we did it all" cult seems to owe more to baby-boomer boys playing with their G. I. Joes in the fifties and sixties than it does to those who actually fought the war."
As one of the fifties baby-boomer boys mentioned, I disagree. Can you expand on this? Those who played Army and cared about such things talked with our fathers about what they did in the war, and got evasive answers in most cases where combat was involved, but I don't think we influenced anyone else with our attitudes.
Those of us (fifties baby-boomers) who went on to study history (or teach it) know as well as anyone what happened in WWII. Those who didn't don't know much more than the general population and don't have any particular influence on the popular perception of the War.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was speaking figuratively there -- the "America won the war" mindset is a popular-culture view, not any kind of a historical view, and was the sort of thing you'd expect from kids playing with Army men and looking forward to the next episode of Combat! or "The Rat Patrol," rather than people who'd ever given it any kind of serious thought. I think it's safe to say most of those kids *didn't* grow up to study or teach history, and that apparently a good number of them grew up to be the kind of swaggering oafs who think they're being patriotic when they tell off an Englishman in a bar, or call the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." We've all met the type, and even though there aren't as many as there were twenty or thirty years ago, there are still too many of them.

This idea isn't original with me. William Manchester, himself a Marine combat vet of the Pacific theatre, wrote rather bitterly about the pop-culture trivialization of the war in "The Glory And The Dream," just thirty years after Pearl Harbor:

The sad part is that hardly anyone remembers GIs as they were. Actors pretending to be in the armed forces of those days appear in situation comedies on TV so often that children are seduced into believing the war was all thrills and high good humor. Every dogface in the ETO assumed that if he grew old enough to father children at home, one of them would ask, 'Daddy, what did you do in the big war?' He never imagined that the question would be rhetorical, to be followed by the child's observation that doubtless it was great to have been one of Hogan's Heroes or in McHale's Navy, or -- cruelest of all -- 'What fun it must have been to fight with Patton!'"