WW2 June 2021 by HistoryNet

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Members of the 97th Bomb Group gather to celebrate the safe return of B-17 crews after an August 17, 1942, bombing raid over occupied France. IWM FRE 878 COVER: USS PHOENIX CREWMEN LOOK SKYWARD AT A POTENTIAL KAMIKAZE, DECEMBER 18, 1944. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

JUN E 2021 ENDORSED BY THE NATIONAL WORLD WAR II MUSEUM, INC.

F E AT U R E S COVE R STO RY

28 STORM DEAD AHEAD

A U.S. Navy force endured a three-hour kamikaze frenzy during the bloody battle for Okinawa BRENT E. JONES

38 NAZI SYMPATHIZER IN THE U.S. ARMY

Charged with plotting an insurgency from within the army’s ranks, a G.I. was sentenced to death JOSEPH CONNOR

W E A P O N S M A N UA L

46 FIRESPITTER

Britain’s flamethrowing Churchill Crocodile tank

48 MIRACLE MAN

With tough love and conviction, a commander turned around two woefully underperforming bomb groups STEVEN TRENT SMITH

P O RT F O L I O

56 REMAINS OF THE DAY

Artifacts from the beaches of Normandy honor the memory of the servicemen who fought on D-Day JOHN D. LONG

62 UNKNOWN X-331

Shot down in France, American airman Lincoln Bundy’s final fate remained a mystery to his family for decades GAVIN MORTIMER

D E PA RT M E N T S

8 MAIL 10 WORLD WAR II TODAY 18 CONVERSATION

Codebreaker Dolores Burdett recalls her top-secret wartime service

20 FROM THE FOOTLOCKER 22 NEED TO KNOW 24 TRAVEL

Revisiting Hemingway’s hunt for U-boats off Cuba’s shores

70 REVIEWS

The Panzer Killers, The Ratline—and a Churchill pop quiz

76 BATTLE FILMS

1987’s Hope and Glory has much to say about war and life

79 CHALLENGE 8O FAMILIAR FACE JUNE 2021

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Michael A. Reinstein CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER David Steinhafel PUBLISHER Alex Neill EDITOR IN CHIEF

William M. Kays, in mid-1945

WWII Online WORLDWARII.com

D-Day is, of course, an essential topic here at World War II magazine, and on this 77th anniversary of the Normandy invasion we want to call attention to two particularly important pieces, written by men who were there:

I Stormed Ashore With Robert Capa on D-Day

By William M. Kays A combat engineer (pictured above) tells how he landed on the beach in the second wave on June 6, 1944— and into the iconic photos that form the world’s collective view of D-Day.

War Story: A G.I. Recalls His Experience at Omaha Beach

By Gordon Hearne In an essay written in 1948 and published in World War II for the first time, a soldier describes his D+1 landing: “It is peaceful on the beach. The calm seems unearthly, unnatural. Suddenly you sense why. It is the dead.”

VOL. 36, NO. 1 JUNE 2021

EDITOR

KAREN JENSEN Larry Porges SENIOR EDITOR Kirstin Fawcett ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jerry Morelock, Jon Guttman HISTORIANS David T. Zabecki CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN Paul Wiseman NEWS EDITOR Stephen Kamifuji CREATIVE DIRECTOR Brian Walker GROUP ART DIRECTOR Melissa A. Winn DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Guy Aceto, Jennifer E. Berry PHOTO EDITORS ADVISORY BOARD

Ed Drea, David Glantz, Keith Huxen, John McManus, Williamson Murray CORPORATE

Rob Wilkins DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIP MARKETING Tom Griffiths CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT Graydon Sheinberg CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT Shawn Byers VP AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Jamie Elliott PRODUCTION DIRECTOR ADVERTISING

Morton Greenberg SVP ADVERTISING SALES MGreenberg@mco.com

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Nancy Forman / MEDIA PEOPLE

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JONES

SMITH

MORTIMER

CONNOR

SAINSBURY

JOSEPH CONNOR (“Nazi Sympa-

thizer in the U.S. Army”) studied history at Fairleigh Dickinson University and is a graduate of Rutgers Law School. Following a stint as a newspaper reporter and editor, Connor worked for 27 years as an assistant county prosecutor in New Jersey. When he first read about G.I. Dale H. Maple, a Hitler supporter who tried to free German POWs, Connor became intrigued by this man who, on the outside, appeared to be an all-American boy.

BRENT E. JONES (“Storm Dead

Ahead”) had a relative serve aboard USS Astoria in 1944-45. What started as a family project learning about the light cruiser led to a lasting friendship with the central personality in his story, Photographer’s Mate Herman Schnipper, who captured life aboard ship. Jones worked

with Schnipper for years to restore and preserve his images and date them using period documents; he conducted numerous interviews in the process. His new book, Days of Steel Rain (2021), is the product of more than a decade of research on USS Astoria and the late-war Fast Carrier Task Force.

visiting and writing about Cuba for 25 years and is the author of the last seven editions of the guidebook Lonely Planet Cuba. He jumped at the chance to try his hand at fishing off Cayo Guillermo—where writer Ernest Hemingway once trolled for U-boats—after pandemic closings had ended.

GAVIN MORTIMER (“Unknown X-331”) is a Paris-based British historian. His feature in this issue tells the tragic story of how an American pilot ended up in front of a Nazi firing squad in a French forest. Mortimer learned of the tale while researching his recent book about British Special Forces, The SAS in Occupied France in 1944 (2020).

STEVEN TRENT SMITH (“Miracle Man”) is a five-time Emmy award– winning television photojournalist with a passion for history. He first learned about General Frank Armstrong, the subject of his story, while covering a 306th Bomb Group reunion in England in 1982. The assignment for CBS’s Sunday Morning gave him the privilege of meeting dozens of former flyers and learning their stories. He lives in northwest Montana, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

BRENDAN SAINSBURY (“Fishing

Expedition”) is a British writer based in Canada. He has been

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STAR ATTRACTION I ENJOYED James Holland’s colu m n about t he Coa st Guard’s wartime participation (“Always Ready”) in your February 2021 issue, especially its mention of coastguardsman Marvin Perrett, the New Orleans native who was coxswain of a Higgins Marvin boat at Ut a h Beach on Perrett D-Day. I had the honor of hosting Marvin at the MidAtla ntic A ir Museu m’s World War II Weekend in Reading, Pennsylvania, a couple of years before he died in 2007, aged 81. He was quite a character. The show that year happened to have a Higgins boat on display. Marvin was in his element: he spent the better part of three days by that boat explaining it and recounting his experiences with it to the public. He barely took a break, and in hot weather to boot—quite an accomplishment for a man his age. He was the hit of the show! David J. Nowack Schnecksville, Penn.

POINT OF PRIDE

I wanted to give James Holland a shout-out for his “Always Ready” column. As an Air Force brat growing up, I knew I would one day enlist in the military to put myself through college. Then I came of age during the Vietnam draft, so my hand was forced regardless. A friend suggested we try the Coast Guard. I had visions of inspecting small boats in San Diego loaded with bikini-clad girls. I did not know I would be ultimately spending weeks sailing in circles in the stormy North Atlantic in January. Then my trusty (and sometimes

Russia’s Amber Room

rusty) ship, the USCGC Campbell, was transferred to the West Coast and I was granted permission to sail north of the Aleutian Islands in search of Soviet trawlers violating our fishing rules in the middle of winter. I put in my four years—and as I matured, I grew proud of what we did on that ship. I also learned that the Coast Guard is often an afterthought in the military, so I really appreciated the little bone James threw our way. David E. Buehler Shoreline, Wash.

FIRE OR WATER?

Your February 2021 issue contained a brief about Russia’s missing “Amber Room” and the sunken German steamer Karlsruhe, which could contain it (“World War II Today”). You ran the wrong picture; I visited the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo with my Russian wife in 2005, and we saw the recreated Amber Room for ourselves. The image you showed was of the palace’s ballroom, or “Grand Hall.” [He’s right: the correct image is at left.] I read The Amber Room (2004) by English journalists Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy; their conclusion was that the original panels were destroyed by fire in Königsberg Castle during a drunken victory party thrown by peasant Russian soldiers. Russia’s embarrassment over their destruction is why the incident has never been made public. It will be interesting to see if the cargo on the Karlsruhe wreck can be recovered and what it will contain. Alan Jenkins Littleton, Colo. EDITOR’S NOTE: A letter we ran in our February 2021 issue about U.S. Army dentist Ben Salomon (October 2020) correctly points out that two U.S. Navy dentists were also awarded the Medal of Honor, in World War I. But we wanted to clarify that the original article identified Salomon as the only U.S. Army dentist to have been granted the award for valor.

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WWII TODAY

REPORTED AND WRITTEN BY PAUL WISEMAN

THE YELLOWED PAMPHLET was an anti-Semitic screed, urging Lithuanians to boycott Jewish businesses, blaming Jews for the country’s problems. Then journalist and teacher Silvia Foti noticed the name of the author: it was her grandfather. Horrified, she dug deeper. The story that gradually emerged was even darker. She found that the man she’d grown up idealizing, Jonas Noreika, revered as a Lithuanian patriot and martyr, was responsible for the murder of Jews in wartime Lithuania. Her painful investigation resulted in a book published in March, The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather Was a War Criminal. The project began as an attempt to honor her mother’s dying request in 2000 to finish work on her grandfather’s biography. Foti thought she would be writing about a hero. After the war, Noreika led a futile revolt against Lithuania’s Soviet occupiers.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF THE INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE; FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES; PERMANENT COLLECTION OF THE FLORIDA HOLOCAUST MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG, FL/DONATED BY LISL SCHICK (NÉE PORGES)

JOURNALIST UNCOVERS GRANDFATHER’S HIDDEN PAST

Captured in March 1946, he was executed the following February at age 36. His portrait, in full military uniform, occupied a place of pride on Foti’s living room wall in a Lithuanian neighborhood of Chicago. As she worked, Foti began hearing rumors describing her grandfather as a “Jew killer.” She tried to wish them away, but the evidence piled up. She found he’d collaborated with the occupying Germans and oversaw the 1941 murder of all 2,000 Jews in the western Lithuanian town of Plunge. Later, the Germans accepted him as a local leader, and he signed orders that sent another 8,000 Jews to a ghetto and eventual death. In a letter reprinted in the book, she urged the mayor of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius to take down plaques honoring Noreika: “My Grandfather was a Holocaust perpetrator, and he was not alone.” Her account has not been well-received by Lithuanian nationalists, who accuse her of being a Russian agent—Lithuania was a Soviet republic until gaining independence in 1990. But as she said in a recent New York Times editorial, “I have made my peace with my grandfather….But we can’t move on until we admit what he really did.”

JOSE M. OSORIO/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Journalist Silvia Foti’s research revealed unsettling truths about her grandfather, whose framed portrait hung in her Chicago home for years.

MURDERED POLISH NUNS UNEARTHED

JOSE M. OSORIO/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES

WORD FOR WORD

POLISH RESEARCHERS say they’ve found the bodies of three nuns murdered by Soviet troops in 1945. Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates war crimes committed by both the Nazis and the Soviets, found the skeletons in December 2020 in Orneta, a village in northern Poland. The team had spent months searching for the bodies of seven nuns from the order of St. Catherine of Alexandria, believed to have been slaughtered by the invading Red Army. Remains of four sisters were found in the summer and fall of 2020; at least one had been tortured and another mutilated. Using archival records, the researchers then found what they believe to be the remaining three sisters. The skeletons’ ages and genders, along with necklaces, crosses (above), and religious garments found with them, led the team to believe the three are Sisters Rolanda (Maria Abraham), Gunhilda (Dorota Steffen), and Bona (Anna Pestka). Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed the report as “fake news” and “dangerous lunacy.” Russia has been reluctant to take responsibility for the Soviet Union’s wartime behavior in Poland. In August 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin agreed to divide Poland with Germany’s Adolf Hitler. He invaded from the east 16 days after the Nazis attacked from the west on September 1, 1939. In 1940, the Soviets executed thousands of Poles, mostly members of the intelligentsia and military elite, in Russia’s Katyn Forest and at locations in the western Soviet Union. Betrayed and attacked by Hitler in 1941, the Soviets repulsed the Nazi invasion and counterattacked, driving the Germans back through Poland three years later. In 2019, the National Catholic Reporter wrote that Soviet troops killed more than 100 sisters from the order of St. Catherine when they re-invaded Poland in 1944-45 while en route to Berlin. The Soviets viewed religious orders as a threat to the atheist Communist Party’s hold on power.

“I’ve had my fill of Hitler. These conferences called by a ringing of a bell are not to my liking…. For five hours I am forced to listen to a monologue which is quite fruitless and boring.” —Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to his son-in-law, June 10, 1941

DISPATCHES Germany is pushing to purge its legal system of Nazi-era laws that remain on the books 75 years after World War II. German lawmakers are weighing whether to wipe out the laws with a single act of legislation or to go after them one by one. Germany has already eliminated many Nazi laws, including one that criminalized sex between men. But others linger, even if they go unenforced. Among them is the requirement that Jewish men add “Israel” and women “Sara” to their first names (above) if they do not already have names that easily identify them as Jewish. JUNE 2021

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FRONT-ROW SEAT TO HISTORY AS THEY RUMMAGED through Adolf Hitler’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps, the Berghof, at the close of World War II, American military police officers were told by their superiors to take anything they wanted. So Sergeant Ragnvald Borch headed to Hitler’s bedroom and grabbed an armored vest, two oil paintings—and a toilet seat. One of

his colleagues, himself carrying a chandelier, questioned Borch’s choice of loot. “Where do you think Hitler put his ass?” the MP said by way of explanation. Turns out, Borch was on to something. The dictator’s throne had some value after all: in a February auction, the two-piece white wooden toilet seat fetched $15,000. Borch had shipped it home to New Jersey, where it remained for 75 years. In its promotional material for the sale, Alexander Historical Auctions of Chesapeake City, Maryland, wrote: “Imagine the plotting the tyrant undertook while contemplating the world from atop this perch!”

DISPATCHES

Some female guards faced swift justice after Stutthof ’s liberation.

German prosecutors have indicted a 95-year-old woman on 10,000 counts of being an accessory to murder and complicity in the killings at a Nazi death camp. Identified only as “Irmgard F.” in accordance with German privacy laws, the woman will be tried in juvenile court (and likely get a more lenient sentence) because she was younger than 21 when the crimes occurred. From June 1943 to April 1945, she worked as secretary for the commander of the Stutthof camp, near what is now the Polish city of Gdansk, where it’s believed more than 60,000 people perished. Prosecutors have been pursuing people whose complicity allowed the Nazi death machine to function, even if they were not directly involved in killings.

TOP LEFT AND RIGHT: VIA ALEXANDER HISTORICAL AUCTIONS; BOTTOM: FLHC A33/ALAMY

Among the booty grabbed by MP Ragnvald Borch (above) from Hitler’s Berghof at the war’s end was the Führer’s toilet seat (left).

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Preservationists are fighting to protect 14 pillboxes and a trench system built in Hong Kong by the occupying Japanese in 1943.

THE OLD FORTIFICATIONS are hard to get to and hard to see, overgrown as they are with vegetation and damaged by the years and careless passersby. But Hong Kong preservationists say the pillboxes and trenches used by occupying Japanese troops during World War II are worth saving. In early March, they brought reporters to the site, pressing their case for the government to do more to protect the historic ruins and develop them as an attraction for hikers and tourists. At issue are 14 pillboxes—seven of them connected by deep open trenches—in Luk Keng at the edge of Pat Sin Leng Country Park in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Getting there requires a long hike up a set of stairs—the reward for which is a stunning view of Starling Inlet and Shenzhen on the Chinese mainland.

D-DAY PRAYER SLATED FOR WWII MEMORIAL

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S “D-Day Prayer” will be inscribed in its entirety on a bronze plaque at the National World War II Memorial (left) in Washington, D.C., funded by a $2 million grant from the Lilly Endowment. When FDR addressed the nation on the evening of June 6, 1944, hours after the invasion of Germanoccupied France was underway, he chose to express his thoughts through a prayer. He sought divine help for Allied forces: “Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.” The plaque will be supported by granite pillars in a landscaped area of the memorial’s northwest corner called the Circle of Remembrance, which is being restored as part of the project. The prayer was not part of the memorial when it was dedicated in 2004. A 2014 law called for the prayer to be added, but only with support from private funds. The Memorial hopes to dedicate the new plaque on June 6, 2022.

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CALL TO PROTECT HONG KONG WAR RUINS

Pillboxes at another, larger Japanese stronghold on the Sai Kung Peninsula northeast of downtown Hong Kong were all destroyed. “So this place”—with its pillboxes intact—“is very spectacular,” Lawrence Lai Wai-chung, an urban planner at the University of Hong Kong whose team has researched the site, told the South China Morning Post. Japan occupied Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945; the fortifications were built in 1943 to suppress local resistance groups. Hong Kong’s Antiquities Advisory Board has been unimpressed with the Luk Keng fortification, giving it a low preservation rating. But former board member Tim Ko Tim-keung, a historian, said the group habitually undervalues the historical significance of sites and focuses instead on architectural merit. Professor Lai calls for the officials to clean up the area and add paths and signs. “It is in a state of wildness, attractive to enthusiasts but not accessible to the general public,” Lai said. “People should enjoy this place as a scenic spot and also as a historical and cultural site.” But Antiquities Advisory Board member Anthony Siu Kwok-kin remains unmoved. “There is no need to look at the Luk Keng pillboxes again because nothing has changed, so it would receive the same grading,” Siu said.

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Q: Above is an excerpt from the deck log of an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) in a November 1943 convoy heading from the Mediterranean to England. The log notes three times that the escorts executed or hoisted a “black flag.” What does a black flag indicate? —P. M. Hoekstra, Memphis, Tenn. A: This is a trickier question than it may at first appear. I checked with several naval history experts, and the consensus is that convoy escort vessels raised a black f lag when they had contact with or were engaged in tracking and/or attacking a U-boat. A few of my colleagues recall that there was still a black flag in the shipboard flag locker as late as the Vietnam War, though it was never used by then. One interesting note shared by my colleague Michael Whitby, a senior naval historian at the Canadian defense department’s Directorate of History and Heritage, is that Nicholas Monsarrat, author of the classic novel The Cruel Sea, and who served on a British corvette doing convoy duty in World War II, refers to the black flag in his book. When the commanding officer of the Flower-class corvette Compass

St. Simons’s Home Front Museum, part of Georgia’s new World War II Heritage Trail.

Rose attacks a U-boat, he orders the black flag raised. That’s pretty conclusive. Ironically, in May 1945, the victorious Allies ordered that black flags serve a very different purpose—one of surrender. As Mon sa r rat put it, “A l l over the broad Atlantic, wherever they had been working or lying hid, the U-boats surfaced, confessing the war’s end…. [T]hey hoisted their black surrender flags, and stayed where they were, and waited for orders.” —Craig L. Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U. S. Naval Academy and author of the 2018 book, World War II at Sea: A Global History SEND QUERIES TO: Ask World War II, 901 N. Glebe Road, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203 OR EMAIL: worldwar2@historynet.com

DISPATCHES Georgia has inaugurated a “World War II Heritage Trail” linking 10 far-flung sites tied to the state’s wartime history. Among them are the Currahee Military Museum in Toccoa, where the army’s first paratroopers trained; the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning; St. Marys Submarine Museum near the Kings Bay submarine base; and the World War II Flight Training Museum in Douglas, where pilots trained at South Georgia State College. The effort is the result of collaboration between museums and historic sites.

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ASK WWII

References mention that Allied convoy escorts battling in the Atlantic would sometimes hoist a “black flag.” But why?

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A Scottish Hero? The Somers Mutiny Ted Williams at War Israel’s Close Call Riding a Torpedo Cedar Creek, 1864

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PHILIPPINES, DECEMBER 8, 1941

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FDR’s Power Move He shocked Big Business— and electrified America

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This man taught thousands of U.S. Army Rangers how to fight dirty in World War II.

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CONVERSATION WITH DOLORES BURDETT BY DAVE KINDY

CODE OF SILENCE WHEN AMERICA NEEDED HER MOST, Dolores Burdett was there to serve. The Waterloo, Iowa, native was one of World War II’s fabled female codebreakers—in her case, deciphering intercepted messages from the Japanese to help her country turn the tide in the Pacific Theater. An estimated 10,000 women served as codebreakers during World War II, assisting the navy and army in their efforts to eavesdrop on the Japanese and Germans. After being ordered by the U.S. Navy to remain silent, Burdett, at 100, is fully free to talk about what she did. Now living at an assisted living facility in Florida, the gregarious veteran recalls breaking codes that helped win battles, along with a host of other once-in-a-lifetime events.

How did you become involved in codebreaking?

“Can you believe it? That woman kept her mouth shut for 50 years!” We would get these messages and decode them. The navy had these wizards who had figured out a way to read these transmissions and taught us how to do it. They gave us the decoding key, and we had to go through and decipher the messages. It was quite a process. I remember working the midnight shift, and it was three o’clock in the morning. I decoded one message that had a lot of interesting stuff in it. I took it to the watch officer. He said he was going to the radio shack and was gone for about three hours. He came back and said, “Dolores, you know we can’t talk about what we’re doing. You will have to read about it in tomorrow’s newspaper.” That’s how secret it was. The message told how the Japanese were going to attack one

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ALEX MCKNIGHT

What did you do as a codebreaker?

COURTESY OF DOLORES BURDETT

It wasn’t long after Pearl Harbor. The military needed people bad, so they started the women’s organizations. I was working in an office at a meatpacking plant, the Rath Packing Company, when a friend and I went to join the WACs (Women’s Army Corps). We had been kidding that there were no men around, so we might as well join the service. The WACs office was closed, so we went to the navy. My friend decided not to join, but I signed up with the Women’s Naval Reserve, the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). They sent us to what we called “boot school” in Stillwater, Oklahoma, for training. We got there, and they said, “We need you so badly, you’re going to be here only for one month so you can learn how to march”—and that we did! When our uniforms were ready, they sent us to Washington, D.C. I was assigned to the codebreakers with the U.S. Naval Communication Intelligence Organization. My mother told me later that the FBI went to all my neighbors, teachers I had in high school, everybody to see if I would qualify for this. She told me afterward, “Honey, you’ll never know how many people the FBI sent here to see if you could keep your mouth shut.” As codebreakers, we were told, “You don’t talk about it. When your day is over, forget what you’ve done.” We would work 10 days straight, then have three days off. We’d visit Philadelphia and New York and just have a good time. When it was over, the navy told all of us not to discuss what we did for 50 years. We got a unit citation that came with a note saying that the award wouldn’t be publicly acknowledged, so I stored it away in a bank box. When I finally could talk about it, somebody interviewed me, and there was an article in the newspaper. I remember being in the beauty shop and hearing one of the hairdressers say,

U.S. Navy codebreaker Dolores Burdett outside her Florida residence last February, and with her husband, Glenn, during the war (opposite).

You married in 1944, to a man also in the navy.

Glenn and I were married 70 years before he passed away. During the war, while I was in Washington, D.C., he was in Norfolk, Virginia. Glenn later was in the Philippines for about one and a half years. He worked in intelligence, too. After the war, we both went to college on the G.I. Bill to become medical technicians, but then I got pregnant. We have two children: my daughter Glenda, who is 72, and my son John, who is almost 70. We moved

‘“Don’t talk about it,’ we were told. ‘When your day is over, forget what you’ve done.’” to Washington, D.C., and Glenn worked in a hospital for a few years. He wasn’t happy with that, so he went back to the navy and stayed for 30 years.

How does it feel to be a witness to history?

of the islands. We got it out in time so our navy could sink them first. I can’t remember what island it was, though. That’s ancient history!

You saw Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt while in the navy. Tell us about that.

I can still visualize it. We were in the backyard of the White House for the president’s fourth inauguration. There weren’t many people there. I also remember Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit our barracks, and I had lunch with her in the mess hall. I can still see her standing with me, going down the line with her metal tray, getting food just like all of us.

ALEX MCKNIGHT

COURTESY OF DOLORES BURDETT

You also heard Harry Truman deliver a very important message.

I remember V-E Day when the war ended with Germany and then V-J Day when all the fighting was over. We all went absolutely wild! I was working the midnight shift at about two in the morning when the word came through that the Japanese had surrendered. Well, we just screamed and hollered! We went straight down to Lafayette Square, across from the White House. President Truman came out of the front door of the White House all by himself, walked down the front lawn, and stood in front of us to tell us the war was over. Can you see anyone doing anything like that now?

As I look back at it, I did see a lot of memorable things. When I tell people about it, they look at me and say, “What’s that all about?” That’s because no one is as old as I am! There are not many of us codebreakers left now. When I think back about all the restrictions and everything, I wonder about the young people today. Could they do it? Would they do it? That was a time when there was a war on, and we were protecting our country. We did what we were told to do, and we didn’t ask questions. It was a different time. I’m very proud of the lapel pin I received as part of our unit citation. It is on the dress I will wear when they bury me.

You turned 100 on January 18. What was that like?

I got flowers like you wouldn’t believe. My children sent me an arrangement with 100 carnations. Somebody asked me the other day: “How are you doing?” I said, “I’m going to stick around a little longer and kick a few more butts!” I lived through some amazing times, and I’ve got good memories of them. H JUNE 2021

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Reminiscent of a yearbook, this small volume was intended to preserve reflections and memories of time spent serving in the German air force.

FROM THE FOOTLOCKER

Curators at The National World War II Museum solve readers’ artifact mysteries

This book was given to me as a high school senior in 1964 by a World War II veteran, Edmund V. Gillis, who said he obtained it while stationed in Europe during the war. I was told it was a recruiting piece for the Luftwaffe; do you have any further information? —Herb Lambrechts, Elk Grove Village, Ill. THE 80-PAGE BOOK, Wir von der Luftwaffe (We of the Luftwaffe), is one of several such volumes produced for members of the German air force. It contains photos of Luftwaffe leadership and text detailing the service branch’s history and organization. This particular book, published in 1938, was produced by the Luftgaukommando—the district administrative air command—in Hanover and Münster and includes images specific to Luftwaffe activities in that northwest German region. Other versions exist related to the commands

in Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna, among others. The volume was intended to serve as a remembrance book: a souvenir album through which to interpret and frame one’s time in the Luftwaffe. Its first page—not inscribed in this copy—has space to add a name, birthdate, birthplace, and service details. There are also blank pages for recording notes and memories. During the war years, more than 3.4 million individuals served in the Luftwaffe. Surely 3.4 million copies of this work weren’t printed, but many examples can still be found for sale online. —Kim Guise, Assistant Director for Curatorial Services Have a World War II artifact you can’t identify? Write to Footlocker@historynet.com with the following: — Your connection to the object and what you know about it. — The object’s dimensions, in inches. — Several high-resolution digital photos taken close up and from varying angles. — Pictures should be in color, and at least 300 dpi. Unfortunately, we can’t respond to every query, nor can we appraise value.

COURTESY OF HERB LAMBRECHTS; PHOTOS BY GUY ACETO

WAR AND REMEMBRANCE

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BY JAMES HOLLAND

LEADING ON THE FLY

I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT RECENTLY ABOUT the astonishing responsibility that lay on the very young shoulders of junior tank commanders during the war. Take John Semken, for example, of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, a British armored regiment. On October 25, 1942, Semken, then a lieutenant and just 21, was pausing in his Sherman tank on the second morning of the Battle of El Alamein. It had been a tough couple of days, and his great friend, Lieutenant Ronnie Hill, clambered down from his own tank and jumped up behind the turret of Semken’s vehicle to have a quick chat. Suddenly, a shell whooshed in and Hill disappeared. Semken was left standing in his turret with bits of his friend’s atomized body plastered all over him. Twenty months later, Semken was commanding the Sherwood Rangers’ A Squadron in Normandy. A British squadron of tanks was the equivalent of an American company; as such, Semken had under his command some 19 tanks and around 100 men. That was no small number. He was, though, a hardened veteran by that time, as were the other Sherwood Rangers men now in Normandy. They had begun the war as cavalry and, with their horses, had been packed off to Palestine. The horses had not lasted, however, and the Rangers retrained—first as artillery and then as an armored regiment in early 1942. By the end of the Tunisian campaign in May 1943, they had a mass of combat experience and had become a very fine outfit indeed. That was why they were earmarked for a role on D-Day on June 6, 1944. Normandy, however, was very different from the wide-open deserts of North Africa. Their role was to support the infantry—yet many of these infantry troops were new to battle, and not much thought had been given to fighting a battle of attrition among the narrow lanes and hedgerows of Normandy’s bocage country. That meant that while the Sherwood Rangers’ previous experience was of huge value, their tactics had to be completely rethought. In fact, they had to be worked out on the fly during the fighting, and it was squadron commanders such as Semken who were best placed to do

ILLUSTRATION BY RICHARD MIA

NEED TO KNOW

that and then pass these tactical innovations along. That did mean, though, an extra layer of burden laid on Semken and other young leaders. Just think about this: A man like John Semken would have had his head out of the turret because otherwise the tank was effectively blind. He had to communicate with his own crew on the tank intercom, but also with the rest of the squadron—and keep a listening ear on the other squadrons, too. He had to make snap decisions—reaction time was everything—and be constantly alert: for snipers, for hidden enemy guns, for lone foes with panzerfausts. He had to read the lay of the land and make sure he was working with the infantrymen the tanks were supporting. There was so much to think about. Concentration at all times during combat was paramount. And exhausting—physically and mentally. Semken kept going, all through Normandy and the rapid advance through France and into Belgium and Holland. All the way until November 18, 1944, when the Sherwood Rangers were supporting the U.S. 84th Infantry Division—the Railsplitters—at Geilenkirchen on the German border, in what was the 84th’s first-ever combat. That day, in thick mud, Semken’s tank hit four mines simultaneously. Miraculously, he survived and was awarded a Silver Star for his leadership. “But that was my last battle,” he told me many years later. “After that I was finished.” Suffering from combat fatigue, Semken was sent home—but by that time, the Sherwood Rangers had become one of the very best armored units in the British Army. Semken was then just 23 years old. Times might be difficult now, but it helps, I find, to think about what those boys went through—and, more importantly, achieved—back then in their tanks. The hardships they experienced in the prime of their lives seem almost unimaginable today. We don’t know how lucky we are. H

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4/6/21 5:58 PM

BY BRENDAN SAINSBURY

FISHING EXPEDITION

IT IS EERILY QUIET THE DAY I ARRIVE at Cayo Guillermo, a small tropical island in the Jardines del Rey archipelago off Cuba’s northern coast. The Covid-19 pandemic has decimated the country’s tourist industry, and most of the hotels are closed and empty. The newly constructed Grand Muthu is the only place in business, its 500 rooms accommodating just 26 guests. I am one of them. It is my 25th visit to Cuba, but the first time I’ve stayed on Cayo Guillermo. I don’t have much choice. During the first phase of its post-Covid reopening, the rest of the country is still sealed off. Yet, with a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream stuffed in my bag, I have an ulterior motive. This was where “Papa” Hemingway came to hunt for German U-boats during World War II. Accompanied by a motley crew of fishermen, barflies, and semiretired players of pelota, a Basque court sport, he navigated his boat, Pilar, around Cuba’s wild northern cays. Outwardly a fishing vessel, Pilar secretly carried grenades, machine guns, and rocket launchers. It was an experience Hemingway fictionalized in his posthumously published novel Islands in the Stream. But, like so many Papa stories, the truth often gets confused with the legend. It’s hard to avoid Hemingway in Cuba. The ghost of the nation’s secondmost revered Ernest—after Ernesto “Che” Guevara—is everywhere, from El Floridita, the Havana bar where he allegedly once downed 13 double daiquiris in one sitting, to his book-lined former home, Finca Vigía, where you can look in through the windows at a 1950s freeze-frame of Papa’s life. Cayo Guillermo is a newer lure. Until the early 1990s, the cay was unin-

habited, but a subsequent hotelbuilding spree designed to draw in sun-deprived Ca nadia n a nd European tourists has drastically altered its appearance. Today, the five-square-mile cay with its briny mangrove swamps and resident flamingos supports nine all-inclusive resorts and vigorously markets its Hemingway connections. Among the soft, sandy beaches and limestone headlands, there’s a Hemingway shopping mall and a wooden Hemingway jetty. On the bus from the airport, I spot three statues of the writer adorning the bridge that connects Guillermo to Cayo Coco. Later that afternoon, I stroll across to Guillermo’s main beach, a blonde beauty named Playa Pilar after Papa’s fishing-vesselturned-spy-boat. Crowded with tourists in more normal times, the beach is empty. Enjoying the silence, I look out to sea where nearly 80 years ago Hemingway, armed with booze, bait, and bazookas, sailed clandestinely on the Pilar searching for German subs. The U-boat threat was very real in Cuban waters during World War II. The country had declared war on Germany on December 11, 1941—the same day as the United States—and had quickly been drawn into the

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BRENDAN SAINSBURY; JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM/ ERNEST HEMINGWAY COLLECTION; PETER ZIMMERMANN/ PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

TRAVEL CAYO GUILLERMO, CUBA

TOP LEFT: BRENDAN SAINSBURY

A statue of Ernest Hemingway stands on the bridge leading to Cuba’s Cayo Guillermo. The writer patrolled these northern Caribbean waters in search of German U-boats during the war.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BRENDAN SAINSBURY; JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM/ ERNEST HEMINGWAY COLLECTION; PETER ZIMMERMANN/ PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

TOP LEFT: BRENDAN SAINSBURY

Battle of the Atlantic, then going through a protracted spike. By the spring of 1942, German U-boats were sinking around 15 Allied boats a month in Cuban waters. Short on firepower, the U.S. Navy appealed to local yachters, offering them hard cash to refit their boats with weapons. For Cuba’s most famous resident fisherman, it was an opportunity too good to miss. Equipping Pilar as an armed spy boat appealed to Hemingway’s sense of adventure. Craving action after returning to Cuba from reporting on the Spanish Civil War, he imagined himself fighting the curse of fascism and contributing positively to the American war effort. By posing as an innocuous fishing vessel, Pilar would dupe German U-boats into an unguarded approach and then—hey presto—unload the heavy ammunition. If the mission sounded far-fetched, it was. It was hard to fancy Pilar’s chances against a torpedo-brandishing German submarine sporting an 88mm deck gun. According to historian Nicholas Reynolds in his 2017 book, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, even Hemingway later admitted that the whole operation was “just so improbable” that no one would ever believe it had happened. Notwithstanding, the U.S. ambassador to Cuba, Spruille Braden, rubberstamped the seemingly suicidal mission, offering the writer munitions, radio gear, and promises of secrecy. Braden, who had already worked with Hemingway on a short-lived Cuban spying caper called the “Crook Factory,” was supposedly so impressed w ith Papa’s patriotism and sleuthing abilities that he circumvented normal regulations to back him. Other observers, including Hemingway’s wife at the time, Martha Gellhorn, weren’t so confident. Gellhorn was a fearless war correspondent anxious to get back to the conflict in Europe after serving in Spain. According to Reynolds, she saw her husband’s over-enthusiastic U-boat tracking as “just a way for Pilar’s skipper to get scarce wartime fuel for his boat so that he could fish and drink with his friends.” Undeterred, an adamant Hemingway gathered his crew and set off on what he christened “Operation Friendless.”

Hemingway (above) equipped his fishing boat Pilar for wartime service off Cayo Guillermo, now a built-up resort (left). Below: Pilar resides today at Finca Vigía, the author’s former Havana home.

To get a feel for Hemingway’s Uboat adventures, I decide to hit the water myself. I go down to the beach in front of my hotel and persuade an underemployed Cuban boat operator to take me out fishing. Thirty minutes later I am bobbing half a mile offshore on a small sail-powered catamaran feeling distinctly Hemingwayesque as I try to reel in a stubborn barracuda. As I look back at pancake-f lat Guillermo, lined these days with

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hotels, I recall the dramatic climax of Islands in the Stream. After days spent tracking a stricken German submarine, the A merican protagonist, Thomas Hudson, and his crew apprehend the abject survivors in a mangrove-choked channel behind Cayo Guillermo. There’s a shootout and Hudson—a typically flawed Hemingway hero—is mortally wounded. For Hemingway, the reality wasn’t quite as heroic as the fiction. In 1942–43, the writer spent the better part of a year on his so-called war cruises but only ever spotted one potential U-boat—from a distance. Trying to get close enough to dispatch his bazookas, Hemingway gave chase only for the mystery vessel to promptly speed up and disappear. And that was that. Aside from writing up ship logs and sending coded radio messages back to Havana, Hemingway and his crew spent the remainder of their lengthy patrols playing cards, lobbing grenades at marker buoys, and getting increasingly bored—and drunk. By the summer of 1943, the war was turning against the Axis and the U-boat threat was waning. A coded message summoned Hemingway back to Havana. Operation Friendless was over. While the U-boat tracking might have been fruitless, Hemingway had been right about the fishing. During my brief catamaran cruise off Guillermo, I catch four barracudas in less than two hours.

WHEN YOU GO

After the boat operator drops me back on the beach, I wander past the wooden Hemingway jetty down to Hemingway Bridge to get a closer look at the statues. Two depict him in fishing poses. A third shows him raising a hand in greeting. Fish dart through the shallow channel beneath the bridge while a couple of hopeful fishers stand above, casting lines from cheap-looking rods. Despite a 60-year U.S. trade embargo, Cubans still love the great American wordsmith. Havana’s main marina is named in his honor, and every state-run travel agency worth its salt offers a definitive Hemingway tour. Meanwhile, biographers remain split on the usefulness of Hemingway’s Cuban war efforts. Reynolds writes that he “took the work seriously and put his heart into the mission,” while Kenneth Lynn, author of a 1995 Hemingway biography, suggests that the whole thing was more of “a lark.” Ambassador Braden was effusive in his praise at the time, claiming that Papa made a real contribution to the war effort. Captain Ramírez Delgado, the only Cuban to sink a German U-boat during World War II, was less enthusiastic, calling the writer “a playboy who hunted submarines as a whim.” Persona lly, I’ve a lways admired Heming way for his taut prose and gripping stories, while recognizing the hyperbole surrounding his larger-thanlife personality. He might have been a celebrity, but he wasn’t a coward. The writer acted with valor in World War I, operated behind enemy lines in the Spanish Civil War, and would go on to report bravely from Normandy. For me, Hemingway’s Cuba escapades were more of a hiccup. Naive? Yes. Desperate? Perhaps. But if his luck had gone another way, things might have turned out differently. Rather like that other rugged American scribe, Jack London, who had ventured confidently off to the Klondike 50 years earlier, Hemingway didn’t find any gold, but he uncovered plenty of raw material for his stories. H

U.S. citizens need to apply for a “general license” to travel to Cuba in one of 11 categories listed by the U.S. Treasury Department (home.treasury.gov; use the search function and enter “Cuba”). Independent travelers with no specific affiliations are best off qualifying under the “support for the Cuban people” category.

WHERE TO STAY AND EAT U.S. citizens are currently only allowed to stay in private accommodations; the closest to Cayo Guillermo are in the mainland town of Morón. For non-U.S. citizens, one of the best hotels on Cayo Guillermo is Gran Muthu (muthuhotelsmgm. com). Highly recommended in Havana are the privately run Hostal Peregrino (hostalperegrino.com) and art deco-themed Casa 1932 (casa1932.com). Fresh seafood is the star of several beach restaurants. Ranchón Flamenco in Cayo Coco (check “Local Restaurants” on cayocococuba.net) serves lobster, shrimp, and red snapper.

WHAT ELSE TO SEE AND DO The most famous Hemingway-got-drunk-here bars in Havana are El Floridita (Obispo No. 557) and La Bodeguita del Medio (Empedrado No. 207). To see all the Hemingway sights, including his home, Finca Vigía, take a day trip through Havana Super Tour (campanario63.com). Fishing trips on Cayo Guillermo can be organized at any of the cay’s hotels.

JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM/ERNEST HEMINGWAY COLLECTION; MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

MIAMI

GULF OF MEXICO

Hemingway, a more successful fisherman than naval operative, poses with his sons and a vanquished tuna.

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4/6/21 6:00 PM

Under a sky dotted with antiaircraft flak bursts on April 11, 1945, the crew of USS Essex reels in the aftermath of a suicide attack. They would face many that day.

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STORM DEAD AHEAD

Over three horrifying hours, a group of American ships off Okinawa faced an unprecedented swarm of kamikaze attacks By Brent E. Jones

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Photographer Herman Schnipper, here in a self-portrait aboard the USS Astoria, documented the day’s mayhem.

forces to Japan’s doorstep. So from the first day, enemy planes targeted the Fast Carrier Task Force in return. Increasingly those attacks included the most desperate of all: suicidal kamikaze strikes aiming to sink or damage the aircraft carriers bringing so much floating airpower over a critical island stronghold. Across the 30-odd vessels surrounding Astoria in formation, men stood at their guns, lookouts scanning the skies. For Herman Schnipper, his assigned role would also be to pull the trigger and shoot—photographs. Hailing from Bayonne, New Jersey, the wiry 21-year-old lucked into a photographer’s role upon induction into the navy. He did not attend the photography schools of the larger units stationed across the fleet; he simply owned a 35mm camera and knew how to use it. Before long he was issued his Speed Graphic and assigned routine work as needed. As Astoria trained and joined the f leet, Schnipper learned to love his work. Far from the mundanity of shooting portraits for sailor ID cards and personal photo requests for a wife or sweetheart, capturing operational images brought a thrill. The December 1944 typhoon, the bombardment of Iwo Jima, even refueling operations—Schnipper’s tiny darkroom below decks began to fill with enlargements of favorites he secured to the walls. He always sought to land another shot worthy of Our Navy magazine. Yet Okinawa was proving to be different—more taxing—given the daily onslaught of counterattacks. Schnipper had grow n accustomed to having full run of the ship during general quarters; he wasn’t tied to a gun mount or any other specific station. He learned during training exercises and then in combat that the fire control decks were far from ideal locations for photog work. While positions high up in the ship provided long views and unobstructed sightlines, the five-inch secondary mounts directly below them tended to shake a man to the core and toss him around. Even the fire controlmen and the ship’s captain, George C. Dyer, complained about that Cleveland-class battery configuration. The photographer landed on a suitable alternative: he took position in the main searchlight platform protruding from Astoria’s aft funnel. High in the superstructure, with unobstructed access to vantage points port and starboard, the platform offered the

ALL PHOTOS BY HERMAN SCHNIPPER/U.S. NAVY, EXCEPT WHERE NOTED. PREVIOUS PAGES AND OPPOSITE, TOP: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

he overcast dawn of April 11, 1945, brought no visible sunrise, just another order to general quarters. Across the light cruiser USS Astoria (CL-90)—“Mighty Ninety” to the crew— men raced to their battle stations. Such mornings had grown commonplace over the past four months. After protecting the flattops of the Fast Carrier Task Force during airstrikes in the Philippines, the South China Sea, Iwo Jima, the Japanese Home Islands, and now Okinawa, a once-neophyte crew had grown salty. Photographer’s Mate Third Class Herman Schnipper held his navy-issue Graflex Anniversary Speed Graphic medium-format camera at the ready with plenty of film handy. Based on the past few days, action shots would come. When the U.S. Tenth Army had landed at Okinawa on April 1, Astoria and the fast carriers conducted offensive missions to suppress the Japanese response, as they had been doing for weeks prior. U.S. Navy and Marine aircraft bombed airfields, strafed enemy planes on the ground, and intercepted them in the air—everything to soften resistance the landing forces might face. The invasion codenamed Operation Iceberg had been inevitable—no secret to Japan—as Okinawa was the final steppingstone in an island-hopping campaign taking Allied

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ALL PHOTOS BY HERMAN SCHNIPPER/U.S. NAVY, EXCEPT WHERE NOTED. PREVIOUS PAGES AND OPPOSITE, TOP: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Schnipper’s favorite perch for photography was on Astoria’s searchlight platform (at arrow).

additional benefit of distance from the guns. Plus he had it to himself; no one manned its 36-inch General Electric lamps in broad daylight. Exhaust fumes from the forward stack proved a small price to pay for not having to endure muzzle blasts when working on framing a shot. He didn’t mind the solitude. His singular role on a ship of 1,300 men already rendered him an outsider. His Jewish faith amplified

this isolation; men brought their prejudices aboard ship with their seabags, and some of the same sailors who hounded him for photographs used ethnic slurs behind his back. Just as his darkroom compartment became a place of refuge, so did the searchlight platform. Schnipper had grown accustomed to the bulk of the camera beyond his gray-painted M1 helmet and sweaty, full-body experimental flak suit, even when climbing ladders. After

Below Schnipper, sailors man a battle station (right). No enemies were in sight yet, but experience told them they were coming. One defense: the experimental flak suits (left), which the men roundly despised.

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months in theater, the Speed Graphic felt like an extension of his arm. From his searchlight perch, Schnipper would be ready to capture whatever might ensue. NOT THAT THE MORNING brought much. Heavy overcast, rain, and whipping winds brought terrible flying conditions for aircraft operating from the carriers. There were only so many photographs one could take of Corsairs, Hellcats, Avengers, and Helldivers launching for perimeter patrols and strikes over target areas. For Schnipper, that particular novelty had worn off long ago, and the day’s weather sealed the deal. Still, he waited as the steady drizzle soaked into his suit. If the past three weeks served as any indication, photo opportunities would be plentiful. Beginning in mid-March, the first phase of pre-invasion fast carrier operations had focused on reducing Japanese air capability from Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese Home Islands. The carriers paid dearly

for their efforts. USS Franklin, burned and gutted, now steamed stateside for massive repairs. USS Wasp followed suit, also heavily damaged from bombing during the strikes. USS Randolph had been struck by a kamikaze before even leaving the carriers’ anchorage at Ulithi Atoll, more than 1,500 miles south of Japan; after a month it was just joining the fray. A fourth fast carrier, the venerable USS Enterprise, had been hit on March 20 by friendly fire from another ship in Astoria’s task group, an event Schnipper had captured on film. As a result of these carrier losses, the Fast Carrier Task Force entered the April 1 Okinawa landings with fully one-quarter of their force projection capability off the line. Even after six months in use, kamikaze attacks remained highly censored from the American public. While the Astoria crew had first learned of the Japanese suicide tactic back in December when they were en route to join the fleet, they had yet to see it successfully employed. Suicide planes had struck car-

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Even after six months in use, kamikaze attacks remained highly censored from the American public.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

USS Enterprise fires on a passing “Judy” dive-bomber as Astoria, in the background, holds its fire to avoid hitting Enterprise. Friendly fire incidents were all too common in defending against kamikaze attacks.

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riers during the Philippine and Iwo Jima operations early in the year, but never within Astoria’s immediate formation of ships. At Kyushu, Herman Schnipper had captured images of kamikaze planes diving on the nearby USS Essex and other carriers, all brought down short of their targets by antiaircraft gunfire from surrounding ships of the

screen. Some of those images now hung in his darkroom. For days at a time, men slept and took meals at their stations, successfully fighting off the enemy when raids appeared. While repelling such attacks, Schnipper and his shipmates learned a serious side effect of low-flying Japanese planes screaming by: they were causing American ships to fire into

A photographer aboard USS Missouri aims his camera at a Zero a split second before the Japanese fighter rams into the battleship’s side.

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Schnipper captures the moment an “Oscar” fighter splashes down off the right rear of light cruiser USS Pasadena (at left); a screening destroyer is at right.

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one another. On the same afternoon that friendly fire had damaged EnterJAPAN prise, Astoria had been hit by a five-inch round from a neighboring ship. The shell pierced Astoria’s bridge armor, even peppering Captain Dyer’s flak suit with metal splinters. Yet the month ended without a single kamikaze hit on a ship in Astoria’s task group. That changed five days earlier. On April 6, Schnipper witnessed a glancing kamikaze blow to the light carrier USS Cabot. The friendly fire effect persisted during the attack, as Astoria put a round into the aircraft crane of sister cruiser USS Pasadena, killing a Marine. Such incidents abounded even as ships worked to cut off their fire earlier. The next day, an excruciating tradeoff ensued when a Japanese plane dove at the USS Hancock. When Astoria and other ships stopped shooting at the kamikaze, with no clear shot and their own ships in the line of fire, a suicide crash delivered a devastating blow to Hancock. As the crippled Essex-class carrier maneuvered, engulfed in flames and smoke, men across Astoria feared all would be lost. Their guns silent, helpless shipmates could only watch and hope that the men of Hancock who were blown into the water or forced overboard by flames could be fished

out by destroyers. Sickened, Schnipper reluctantly took photographs for the ship’s action reports while lamenting his lack of zoom optics for the Speed Graphic. Effective damage control by its crew extinguished Hancock’s fires, but the attack meant yet another carrier was out of action, forced to retire at the cost of 62 men killed and many more wounded. Hancock became the latest casualty in a war of attrition where one man could sacrifice his life to take an entire aircraft carrier off the line and reduce American striking capability by almost 100 planes. Between almost daily attacks leading to attrition, numbing fatigue, mounting casualties, and friendly fire damage, by April 11 Operation Iceberg was proving to be a slog. One bright spot brought encouragement for the day: Schnipper noted that their old friend Enterprise, the “Big E,” had just returned to join their task group last night, back from repair. With five aircraft carriers surrounded by their protective screening ships, Astoria’s group made for a formidable force. It also offered a ripe target. BY EARLY AFTERNOON the overcast had dispersed and visibility improved, making for better flight conditions. Men had learned that such improvement worked both ways and, sure enough, shortly after 1:30 p.m. reports came in of large numbers of likely enemy planes in the

MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

SEA OF JA PA N

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area. Carriers scrambled additional aircraft to intercept them beyond range of the two task groups on station. Shortly before 2 p.m. a report came from USS Kidd, a destroyer on picket station outside the group and 28 miles northwest of Astoria’s position: the Kidd had been attacked, and “bandits” were inbound. Men readied at their guns. Within minutes, lookouts spotted a Japanese Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighter making a run at Enterprise from astern. Schnipper rushed to the searchlight platform’s starboard railing. Astoria didn’t have the range to engage, but the battleship USS South Dakota did, joining Enterprise in blazing away at the diving plane. The fighter fell short, splashing off the starboard quarter of the carrier. Schnipper clicked the shutter at the exact moment a water plume shot higher than Enterprise’s masts under a sky peppered with antiaircraft flak bursts. He hoped he had the shot. Less than five minutes later, a second plane dove on the “Big E,” identified as a Yokosuka D4Y “Judy” reconnaissance plane. Even as Enterprise executed an emergency turn, the Judy crashed just off the carrier’s port side, striking 40mm mount shields as it plunged. The plane’s unreleased bomb detonated under the ship, throwing one man overboard. At the same moment, the carrier USS Bunker Hill and light cruiser USS Wilkes-Barre brought down another Judy to Astoria’s port side. The same pair of ships then downed a dive-bomber immediately on the Judy’s heels; both planes splashed off the bow of Bunker Hill. Schnipper missed the action; caught between port and starboard, a lone photographer couldn’t be both places at the same time. Nor had Astoria been in a position to fire from either side; it would have been shooting toward its own ships. At 2:15 a fifth plane, a Nakajima Ki-43 “Oscar” army fighter, barreled in toward Essex, off Astoria’s starboard beam. With range and a clear target, this time the “Mighty Ninety” roared. Opening up along with Pasadena and Essex, the trio tore the tail off the plane. Spinning out of control, it hurtled to the water off Pasadena’s starboard beam.

Another mountainous spray erupted under the blackened skies. Click went the shutter. Schnipper believed he had a good shot, but he couldn’t be sure until he developed his images. It occurred to him that combat photographers aboard surrounding ships surely captured many of the same events from differing vantage points. A lull in the action brought a breather for the photographer, new strikes launching from the carriers—and an unexpected visitor to the searchlight platform. Much to Schnipper’s surprise, he looked and noticed Astoria’s chaplain, Al Lusk, standing behind him. Schnipper immediately recognized the tall, slender Baptist “jack of all faiths” from Friday night prayer services. He also knew the chaplain had no business being exposed high in the superstructure, and the lieutenant wasn’t wearing any protective gear to boot—neither a helmet nor a flak suit. The photographer’s instinct was to remind the chaplain of this, but the “padre” was an officer. He was also an avid shutterbug who wanted to see some action. The young enlisted man kept his mouth shut on the matter. Schnipper instead showed Lusk around his camera, explaining its intricacies. Their photography lesson was interrupted at 3 p.m. by the jarring sound of surrounding gunfire as more inbounds approached. Astoria joined in, elevating the cacophony. Schnipper scanned JUNE 2021

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the sky for flak bursts and spotted a diving Judy, again headed toward Enterprise. Chaplain Lusk positioned himself behind the photographer, like an umpire to a catcher. The Judy dove hard and crashed close aboard Enterprise, throwing debris into the air. A delayed thunderclap reached the two men, who observed fires breaking out on the carrier’s forward flight deck: a pair of F6F Hellcats on the catapults appeared to be burning. Schnipper snapped a quick photo, but Enterprise was steaming farther away and its emergency turns created a poor angle for an image. He knew from this distance he wouldn’t capture much. Immediately after, the photographer and the chaplain watched as another plane approached the “Big E” from the same bearing, but antiaircraft fire and a pursuing Hellcat chased it off. As the plane sped away, gunfire from their ship again jolted the pair, this time back to port. They crossed the platform in time to see a Zero taking hits as it approached Bunker Hill. White flashes popped across the fuselage of the plane as rounds riddled the suicide attacker. Much to Schnipper’s horror, the crippled aircraft veered toward Astoria. Staring down a spinning propeller, Schnipper in that moment had the same thought as most sailors and Marines in such circumstances—he’s coming straight for me. Bunker Hill continued to fire as the plane spiraled and fell. While Schnipper tracked its fall through the viewfinder, Lusk clearly saw a muzzle flash from Bunker Hill’s forward five-inch mounts. The plane isn’t the only thing coming straight for us. “Get down!” Lusk shouted just as Schnipper clicked the shutter. The chaplain dove on top of the photographer, driving him to the deck. The late round slammed into Astoria’s stack at high velocity and exploded, sending steel splinters flying. All fell momentarily silent as Lusk rolled off Schnipper. Composing himself, Schnipper realized Lusk was wounded, writhing and groaning. He leapt to the edge of the platform and shouted down for a corpsman. Looking back across the

REPORTS CAME IN from other ships. While Schnipper had been tending to Lusk, one of

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An Astoria corpsman takes the pulse of Chaplain Al Lusk on the searchlight platform after he and Schnipper were wounded by friendly fire.

ship toward Enterprise, he saw that its fires had been extinguished. Its crew had come up with a novel solution for the burning Hellcats: they launched the planes down the catapults and into the sea. Waiting for help, Schnipper set his camera aside to comfort Lusk. As he did so, two more Zeroes screamed past in succession with Astoria’s guns, among others, blasting away at them. The starboard 40mm gun crews found their mark and dropped the first plane, but there would be no photographs. Schnipper didn’t need one in this instance; he and others across the ship saw an image they would carry through life. The plane had been so close that even beneath a flight helmet and goggles, they could make out the Japanese pilot’s face looking back at them. Far from the cartoon caricatures drawn in the papers, they looked into the eyes of a terrified kid who died moments later. A corpsman in full flak gear clambered up the ladder with his medical kit. Removing his gloves, the corpsman checked Lusk’s pulse as Schnipper captured the scene—an action within the four walls of his duties. Only then did he realize he had also been hit—splinters of steel embedded in his face. He calmed himself and plucked the small shrapnel out. Lusk wasn’t so lucky—he bore the brunt of the impact and had significant shrapnel embedded in his back. It missed the spine—he could move his hands and feet—but he was going to require emergency surgery. Another casualty of friendly fire. Getting him down from the platform would be the first challenge. The corpsman rigged a rope seat, and Schnipper helped him gingerly lower the wounded chaplain to waiting hands below. More planes came in through the five o’clock hour. Astoria brought one down outside the formation at 16,000 yards, and another crashed into the water near Bunker Hill after taking hits from multiple ships. By 5:30, dusk rendered further photography impossible, even if attacks developed. Before descending the ladder, Schnipper took one last shot for the day: Supply Division sailors cracking open cases of K-rations. With the ship remaining at general quarters into the evening, there would be no action in the messing compartments. The crew would eat dinner again at their stations.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

the passing Zeros dropped a bomb that had narrowly missed Essex. Detonating below the waterline, it wounded 20 men. While Essex would remain on station, picket destroyer Kidd would not. It had been struck low to starboard by a suicide plane, then successfully fended off a follow-up. Kidd would have to retire for anchorage to be patched up and sent stateside for extensive repair. In Astoria’s neighboring task group, the battleship USS Missouri had received a glancing yet harrowing blow: shattering on impact, the Zero hurled parts of the Japanese pilot onto the deck. As Enterprise prepared to retire once again for repairs, its men posed with a trophy: the wing of the third attacking Judy had been thrown onto the flight deck when the plane exploded against the side of the ship. One of Schnipper’s fellow combat photographers took a picture of a shipmate standing next to the propped-up wing which had been marked, “Hands off.” Enterprise had been back in the group for exactly one day. On this April 11, USS Astoria’s task group endured attacks from no fewer than 13 consecutive Japanese kamikazes over a threehour period—the heaviest concentrated effort they had yet experienced. Despite well-coordinated antiaircraft fire across the group, the day once again knocked vital ships out of action and pulled others away to escort the “cripples” back to Ulithi. Chaplain Lusk was going to make it. Astoria’s doctor determined that he could perform the surgery aboard ship. Nevertheless, Captain Dyer fumed at his padre for venturing where he had no business during general quarters, let alone active combat. Much to his ire, the captain also knew he would have to put Lusk in for a Purple Heart, a rare medal for a ship’s chaplain. In the late evening, after chow and headed to his darkroom sanctuary, Herman Schnipper looked up to watch flares dropping from enemy planes all around the task force, tracking their movement. Astoria’s five-inch guns occasionally fired via radar-guided direction— brilliant flashes of light, but little opportunity for still photography. He set out to get some rest; morning would again come soon. Three days later, on April 14, Astoria retired to meet its replenishment group some 250 miles southeast of the strike area. Fueling and resupply brought no rest for the weary—just a different form of strenuous activity after five

Aboard USS Enterprise, a sailor poses with a grim prize: the wing from an attacking Judy dive-bomber.

days on station. The light cruiser would steam back to the operational area overnight for the next stint. As nets of supply crates and boxes came across from the oiler alongside, Schnipper hoped for film and developing supplies. Chaplain Al Lusk remained in sickbay while recovering from surgery. He also survived his tongue-lashing from the captain. Nevertheless, after the crew learned that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died on April 12, Lusk insisted upon leading the men in prayer from his bed. Once he could, Herman Schnipper developed his film. Several shots turned out well, but one in particular made him smile to himself: the image would win no accolades, but he had indeed captured the muzzle flash from the round that struck the stack just as the padre pounced. In the evening at least the men got a hot meal in the messing compartments. They would be back at quarters before dawn, still no end in sight. H

The plane had been so close that they could make out the Japanese pilot’s face looking back at them.

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NAZI SYMPATHIZER

IN THE U.S. ARMY He helped two German POWs escape, plotted to fight against the U.S., and faced a grim reckoning By Joseph Connor

THE GREY CASTLE, SAN DIEGO HIGH SCHOOL, 1937

rivate First Class Dale H. Maple and his two companions completed the first leg of their audacious journey when they crossed the border into Mexico on February 18, 1944. Three days earlier, they had left an army base in Colorado and driven south on a 500-mile trip plagued by flat tires and mechanical breakdowns, but they still had a long way to go. In Mexico, the trio encountered an inquisitive customs Surrounded by smiling officer. When Maple’s answers didn’t satisfy the officer, classmates in his 1937 he called in American officials, who determined that these were high school yearbook, no ordinary travelers. Maple was a U.S. Army deserter, the other Dale Maple was a gifted two were escaped German prisoners of war, and the three of them student—and a loner. were on their way to Germany. The bizarre story of who they were, how they had reached Mexico, and what they ultimately planned to do led to a series of shocking revelations. Most shocking was that Maple was part of a vigorous Nazi insurgency inside the U.S. Army and the key plotter in a grand scheme to fight on behalf of Germany—an act that would come within a hair’s breadth of costing Maple his life.

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THE GREY CASTLE, SAN DIEGO HIGH SCHOOL, 1937

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FROM TOP: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO BY IRVING HABERMAN/IH IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

BORN IN SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, in 1920, Maple had a knack for drawing attention. After his parents bought him a piano when he was 5, he became a musical prodigy, performing works by Beethoven and Chopin at public recitals. With an IQ of 152, he was the top student at San Diego High School, graduating first in a class of 585 in June 1937 and winning a scholarship to Harvard. In college, Maple excelled in foreign languages, easily learning to speak most European languages and majoring in German—his favorite. He showed a keen interest in Germany, a curious fixation as his family was of Irish and English stock. He was also a member of Harvard’s

FROM TOP: THE GREY CASTLE, SAN DIEGO HIGH SCHOOL, 1937; COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MEMORIAL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

In high school (top) and in college, Maple participated in the ROTC. But his increasingly strident pro-Hitler views got him kicked out of that organization as well as Harvard’s German Club—which balked at his singing of the Nazi anthem, the “Horst Wessel Song” (above).

Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Standing 5 foot 10 and weighing 160 pounds, he was described as a “quick-witted young man with a ruddy face and ready grin.” In 1939, at the start of Maple’s junior year at Harvard, war broke out in Europe, and Americans debated how their country should respond. Most wanted to avoid foreign entanglements. A January 1941 Gallup poll showed that 88 percent thought the United States should stay out of the conflict. Their voice was the 800,000-member America First Committee, which advocated neutrality and accused President Franklin D. Roosevelt of trying to drag an unwilling country into war. Critics, however, claimed the group had an anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi tinge. In September 1941, famed aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, America First’s frontman, drew fire for alleging that the American Jewish community was plotting to get the nation into the war. A more extreme organization was the German American Bund, which unequivocally and unapologetically backed Hitler. The group drew 22,000 supporters to a February 1939 rally at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. “If Washington were alive today, he would be a friend of Hitler,” proclaimed one speaker, the Reverend Sigmund G. von Bosse. A congressional committee chaired by Representative Martin Dies Jr., a Democrat from Texas, found the Bund to be a well-organized group intent on forming a pro-Nazi fifth column in the United States. Harvard students, too, debated America’s role in the war, joining groups such as the Committee for Militant Aid to Britain and the Committee Against Intervention. Maple never joined any pro-Nazi organizations, but he put himself in Hitler’s corner in other ways. He displayed a plaster bust of the German dictator in his dorm room and attended a costume party dressed as Hitler. He repeatedly contacted the German consulate in Boston, ostensibly for help in pursuing graduate studies in Berlin. Maple was active in Harvard’s German Club. Members shunned European politics, but Maple repeatedly and stridently injected his Nazi views. The final straw came at a meeting in October 1940 when he persisted in singing the “Horst Wessel Song,” the anthem of the Nazi Party. He was forced to resign from the club, but he didn’t go quietly. He

FROM TOP: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO BY IRVING HABERMAN/IH IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

FROM TOP: THE GREY CASTLE, SAN DIEGO HIGH SCHOOL, 1937; COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MEMORIAL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

issued a statement to the student newspaper, the Crimson, doubling down on his Nazi views, excusing Hitler’s worst excesses, and claiming that “even a bad dictatorship is better than a good democracy.” This was too much for Harvard’s ROTC commander, who expelled him from the unit. The press took notice, and in its October 28, 1940, issue, Time magazine profiled Maple under the headline, “Making of a Nazi.” The FBI paid attention, too, targeting him as someone to watch if the United States entered the war. Maple graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in June 1941. That summer, while visiting his father in San Diego, he applied for a job with a defense contractor, the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. However, he was rejected as a security risk, so he returned to Harvard for graduate school. On December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Maple phoned the German Embassy in Washington. He begged to accompany the diplomatic staff, should it be recalled to Berlin, so he could join the German army, but Maple was politely rebuffed. Hitler declared war on the United States three days later, leaving Maple, as he later explained, “in the position of being in a country at war with a country whose ideals I wished to uphold.” MAPLE KNEW the security-risk label would haunt him, and he figured that serving in the U.S. Army was the best way to purge the taint. He enlisted on February 27, 1942. Maple was assigned to a field artillery unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, then as a radio instructor at Fort Meade, Maryland, and was promoted to corporal before his past caught up with him. In March 1943, the Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) interviewed him, and he was busted to private and shipped to the 620th Engineer General Service Company at Fort Meade, South Dakota. The 620th was anything but a typical army unit. It consisted of nearly 200 suspected Nazi sympathizers. Some were German nationals, and some had been active in the Bund or America First. Others, like Maple, had made public statements backing Hitler. At the beginning of the war, the army had realized its ranks included an estimated 1,500 soldiers of dubious loyalty. The Selective Service Act did not bar these men from serving, and none had done anything while in the service to warrant a court-martial. But

The German American Bund holds a 22,000-strong rally in 1939 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Below, members of the America First Committee march in 1941.

sending them to ordinary units might create the risk of sabotage and espionage. On May 19, 1942, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had ordered these soldiers quarantined in “specially formed organizations” like the 620th and kept under the “strict control” of loyal officers and noncoms. The men in these units would be those “definitely suspected of subversive activity or disloyalty, even though investigation has failed to uncover specific evidence in justification of this suspicion,” Stimson noted. They would be unarmed and given duties “of a harmless character.” As an added precaution, the CIC would set up a network of secret informants to report any suspicious activities by these soldiers. Three such companies were formed in the United States: the 620th; the 358th Quartermaster Service Company at Camp Carson, Colorado; and the 525th Quartermaster Service Company at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Maple never joined any pro-Nazi organizations, but he put himself in Hitler’s corner in other ways.

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FROM TOP: R. G. ZELLERS/STEPHEN H. HART RESEARCH CENTER AT HISTORY COLORADO; COLORADO SNOWSPORTS MUSEUM; BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

A sign (top) at Colorado’s Camp Hale (center) reflects sentiments not shared by Maple and some in his unit, or by the Afrika Korps POWs housed nearby. Above: German prisoners at Camp Carson, Colorado, work on a newspaper, Die PW Wolke, or The Prisoner of War Weekly. A wartime caption claimed that such privileges were good for morale.

The men in the 620th quickly figured out that their unit was a make-work outfit composed of soldiers the army didn’t trust. When Maple joined the 620th in South Dakota, he gravitated to an inner circle of Nazi sympathizers that included Theophil J. Leonhard, Paul A. Kissman, and Friedrich W. Siering. Born in Germany, Leonhard, 30, had come to the United States as a child and later taught political science at the University of Texas. When registering as an enemy alien in 1942, as the law required, he had written that he “stood in a condition of allegiance” to the German Reich. Kissman, a 28-year-old refrigeration inspector from Erie, Pennsylvania, had spent several years in Germany and was affiliated with the Bund. Siering, a 27-yearold machinist from Chicago, had been born and educated in Germany. Maple was the only one in the inner circle who was not of German descent and had never set foot in Germany. In December 1943, the 620th was transferred to Camp Hale in Colorado. Built in 1942, the camp was home to 16,000 soldiers, including the ski troops of the 10th Mountain Division, a Signal Corps detachment, and a unit of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). It also housed a prisoner of war camp holding 200 members of the Afrika Korps. Loyal soldiers on the base knew what the 620th was and looked down on these men as traitors, which led to ostracism, insults, and fistfights. The army, too, treated these men as second-class soldiers. It assigned them to the same menial jobs as the prisoners, such as pulling weeds, chopping wood, and shoveling dirt, and issued them the same blue denim work uniforms—the only differences being the 620th’s work uniforms didn’t have “PW” stenciled on the back, and the men of the 620th were as free as other U.S. soldiers to come and go. Although the army forbade it, the 620th and the prisoners fraternized. The POWs’ stockade was only two blocks from the 620th’s barracks. Many of the Americans spoke German, and they worked on the same details as the prisoners. On December 31, 1943, Leonhard and Siering freed a prisoner they had befriended, dressed him in an American uniform, and took him to Eagle, Colorado, for a three-day New Year’s romp, with Leonhard footing the bill. They returned the prisoner to Camp Hale on January 2, 1944, with the army none the wiser.

AP PHOTO (ALL)

R. G. ZELLERS/STEPHEN H. HART RESEARCH CENTER AT HISTORY COLORADO; COLORADO SNOWSPORTS MUSEUM; BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

EVENTS TOOK A MORE seditious turn a few days later when, on January 8, the inner circle met secretly in a room at Denver’s ShirleySavoy Hotel with a delegation from the 358th Quartermaster Service Company—the unit of suspected Nazi sympathizers from nearby Camp Carson. The men displayed a swastika, toasted Hitler with champagne, and hatched an extravagant plan. The 358th would stage a mutiny at Camp Carson as a diversion. When troops from Camp Hale rushed to help quell the insurrection, the 620th would seize the Camp Hale armory and free the German prisoners. The 620th and the prisoners would then wage guerrilla warfare in the Rocky Mountains. They hoped, Maple said later, “to disrupt the internal economics and morale of the country to such an extent that further participation in the war would be impossible….” When this f lamboyant plan never got beyond the talking stage, the inner circle worked out a scaled-down version: Maple would desert and take two prisoners with him, traveling to Germany by the circuitous but only available route via Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. In Germany, he would arrange contact between German spies and the 620th with an eye toward sabotage. The inner circle successfully evaded Camp Hale’s CIC informant network because a WAC had leaked details of the surveillance system to her boyfriend in the 620th. Maple borrowed money from his parents to finance the trip, telling them he needed it to pay a college debt. Theophil Leonhard, who was familiar with Mexico from his years in Texas, advised Maple on Mexican geography, gave him a list of supplies he would need, and tipped him off to a pawn shop in Denver that would sell him weapons. In late January 1944, Maple gave Paul Kissman $50, and Kissman bought equipment for Maple’s trip, including a .38-caliber revolver. On February 12, Maple and Kissman went to Salida, Colorado, for more supplies: a yellow woman’s sweater, scarf, and handbag to disguise one of the escaping prisoners as a woman. The next day, they visited Salida again. This time, Maple bought a car—a tan 1934 REO sedan—for $250, plus $5 sales tax. Two days later, Maple carried out his plan. On February 15, he slipped away from his work detail at a nearby sawmill, as Kissman covered for him. He drove off the base and met the two escaping German prisoners, Heinrich Kikillus,

33, and Erhard Schwichtenberg, 25. They hopped into the REO, and Maple drove south through Colorado and into New Mexico. They conversed in German, ate their meals in the car, and slept in the vehicle on the nights of February 15 and 16. Rationing had made good tires scarce, and they had to fix several flats along the way. When the REO broke down in New Mexico, they got a push-start from an unsuspecting off-duty U.S. customs agent. Twelve miles from Mexico, the car conked out for good, and they crossed the border on foot. At 4:30 p.m. on February 18, Maple and the prisoners encountered Medardo Martinez Mejia, a Mexican customs official, near the border town of Palomas, Mexico. Wearing a hat with the brim pulled down to hide his face and feigning a German accent, Maple identified himself as Edward Mueller and offered up background information he’d learned from a POW. He said he and his companions were seeking work in Mexico. Mejia became suspicious when they couldn’t produce passports. He and another customs official became even more suspicious when Maple changed his story and said the trio was bound for Germany. The Mexican authorities called in William F. Bates, a U.S. immigration official, who drove the men back to New Mexico. Maple told Bates he and his companions were Jewish refugees from Europe, but Bates thought they might be German prisoners who had recently escaped from a camp in Amarillo, Texas. FBI Agent Delf A. “Jelly” Bryce grilled Maple for five hours, and Maple eventually dropped his German accent and revealed his true identity. He confessed his subversive activities and implicated his accomplices. He even volunteered a plan he claimed he had devised to cripple the American rail system, vital for moving troops and military equipment. Bryce was skeptical, but Maple drew a map showing the bridges and junctions whose destruction would immobilize rail traffic. The FBI arrested Maple and charged him in federal court with treason. A letter found in prisoner Schwichtenberg’s possession confirmed the motive behind the escape. Written by Leonhard in German and given to Schwichtenberg to deliver to Nazi officials, it identified Leonhard as the “leader of the boys, that are ready to stake all for Germany.” If Nazi agents contacted him, “everything will be possible,” Leonhard wrote, later admitting that “everything” included sabo-

Plans to create a warending insurrection in the U.S. eventually devolved into Maple (top) attempting to reach Germany with two escaped POWs, Erhard Schwichtenberg (middle) and Heinrich Kikillus. The result: their arrests—and these mug shots.

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AFTER MAPLE’S ARREST, the army raided the 620th’s barracks and the prisoner compound, but the 620th had anticipated this and destroyed all incriminating items. The German POWs had done the same—although not as thoroughly. Hidden in a wall, the army found 20 gallons of fermenting fruit from the prisoners’ bootlegging operation and love letters from five WACs, who were later court-martialed for their indiscretion. The FBI’s criminal charge against Maple presented a problem because a civilian court trial would be public. Any disclosure of Nazi sentiment and subversion in the U.S. Army would embarrass the army and give Germany a propaganda windfall. The case was transferred to a military court, which would meet behind closed doors. The army charged Maple under the Articles of War with the military equivalent of treason (Article 81) and desertion (Article 58), both capital offenses. On April 17, 1944, Maple’s trial began in the Disciplinary Barracks of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, before a court consisting of two generals, seven colonels, and three lieutenant colonels. The two German prisoners testified against Maple, as did Leonhard, Kissman, and Siering. Prosecutors presented an airtight case, but Maple thought he could change the narrative. He took the stand and told an outlandish story, swearing that he had acted as an American patriot to vindicate himself and his outfit. He described the 620th as “two hundred highly capable, honest, loyal men,” with only a few disloyal ones, and said he believed the army had stigmatized the entire company as traitors. By pretending to be a Nazi, he said, “I was accepted with open arms by the more radical elements, and became acquainted with all their plans and schemes.” He hoped, he testified, that “by making this information available at a proper time to the correct authorities, I might prove my loyalty to America.” His escape, Maple insisted, was part of this plan, orchestrated so he

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tage and espionage. Leonhard’s letter boasted that “when the hour comes I shall without doubt gladly give my life for Germany.”

would be caught and tried for treason in federal court. “While I controlled this limelight of publicity, I would turn it from myself to [exonerate] the 620th Engineers,” he said. He knew his actions might be misunderstood, but said he had “so great confidence in the ultimate judgment and justice of the American people that I was willing to take the risk.” Prosecutors quickly confronted Maple with a letter he had written to Kissman while awaiting trial. In it, Maple outlined his plan to dupe the judges, asking Kissman, Leonhard, and Siering to play along. “Will use abused Americanism angle,” he wrote. “Pass word to others: We’ll lay it on thick.” This letter, an army review board later concluded, “exposed the whole fraud of his defense.” With Maple’s credibility in tatters, his civilian attorney, Humphrey Biddle, took the only avenue left to him, arguing insanity. “No human being of his background and being in his right mind could have done what he did,” Biddle contended, but the judges weren’t persuaded. On May 8, 1944, they convicted Maple on both charges and sentenced him to be hanged, making him the war’s only American soldier to be sentenced to death for treason. The army wasn’t squeamish about capital punishment: between 1941 and 1946, it would execute 140 soldiers for rape and murder, and one for desertion. Maple’s fate rested with the authorities who would review his sentence. On June 22, 1944, a four-officer Board of Review affirmed the sentence, but the final decision rested with President Roosevelt. As the case headed to the White House, Maple acquired an unlikely benefactor:

FROM LEFT: AP PHOTO; OFFICE OF THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL

Maple was sentenced to be “hanged by the neck until dead” (right)—but the army’s judge advocate general, Major General Myron C. Cramer (left), argued that a more fitting punishment was to let Maple live to see the U.S. prevail.

ACME/GETTY IMAGES

FROM LEFT: AP PHOTO; OFFICE OF THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL

Major General Myron C. Cramer, the army ’s judge advocate general. The 63-year-old lawyer was no soft touch. He had prosecuted the eight German saboteurs who had landed on Long Island and in Florida in June 1942. He had argued vigorously for the death penalty, and six of the saboteurs had been swiftly executed in August 1942. After the war, he would serve as a judge on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which would sentence seven Japanese political and military leaders to death. Cramer saw Maple’s case as calling for a more benevolent form of justice than Maple’s Nazi heroes would ever have given him. “I feel that the ends of justice will better be served,” Cramer wrote to the president, “by sparing his life so that he may live to see the destruction of tyranny, the triumph of the ideals against which he sought to align himself, and the final victory of the freedom he so grossly abused.” Roosevelt agreed, and on November 18, 1944, he commuted Maple’s sentence to a life prison term and a dishonorable discharge. Maple was sent to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth to serve his time as prisoner number 61364-L. Maple was not the only one punished. Leonhard and Kissman were each sentenced to life in prison and a dishonorable discharge for helping Maple plan and carry out his escape. The army couldn’t tie Siering directly to the plan, but he was given a 10-year prison term and a dishonorable discharge for taking the German prisoner out for his New Year’s frolic. Ironically, the escaping prisoners, Schwichtenberg and Kikillus, faced no penal consequences. Under the Geneva Convention, a prisoner could not be prosecuted for escaping. The army had disbanded the 620th—along with the 525th and 358th—shortly after Maple’s arrest and reorganized the men into a single unit, the 1800th Engineer General Service Battalion. The German Americans of its new Company A were assigned to a camp at Bell Buckle, Tennessee, where they spent their time repairing damage to farms caused by army maneuvers. After the war, the government gave these soldiers a final insult: blue discharges. These discharges, named for the color of the paper on which they were printed, were considered neither honorable nor dishonorable; still, they disqualified these men from benefits like the G.I. Bill. In 1946, the army reduced the sentences of soldiers incarcerated in federal penitentiaries for court-martial convictions. Maple was released from Leavenworth on October 8, 1950; Leonhard, Kissman, and Siering were freed at about the same time. Maple quickly put his past behind him. He got a job with the National Steel & Shipbuilding Company in San Diego and developed

Agent Delf A. “Jelly” Bryce (right) had a reputation as the FBI’s deadliest marksman; his charge bore the dubious distinction of being the only U.S. soldier in the war to be sentenced to death for treason.

an expertise in marine insurance. In 1964, he became an insurance manager for the American National General Agencies and retired as a vice president in 1978. In his later years, he dabbled in computers and pursued his hobby of building organs, but he refused to discuss his abortive escape. He died in 2001. Maple’s attempt to lead the escaped prisoners from Colorado to Germany cost him six years of his life and was a fool’s errand from the start, a grandiose and delusional plot with no chance of success. Of the 435,788 German prisoners held on American soil during the war, 2,222 escaped. Most were recaptured within days, and not a single one succeeded in reaching Germany. Maple wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. H JUNE 2021

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WEAPONS MANUAL BRITAIN’S CHURCHILL CROCODILE TANK ILLUSTRATION BY JIM LAURIER

FIRESPITTER THE BRITISH FIRST BEGAN experimenting with armored flamethrowers as early as 1915, but didn’t fully develop the weapon until just before World War II. After several early efforts, they finalized the Churchill Crocodile, a variant of their standard Churchill VII tank and one of MajorGeneral Percy Hobart’s specialized armored vehicles known as “Hobart’s Funnies.” Production began in October 1943; the flamethrowing tank was available for D-Day the following June and was used extensively by Britain’s 79th Armoured Division in support of the Allied march to Germany. The Crocodile’s distinctive wheeled trailer pumped thickened fuel through a hinged coupler to the main tank; the ignited flame shot out from a nozzle on the front of the hull. While it may at first look cumbersome, the mobile Crocodile soon emerged as a highly feared weapon. Although this helped elicit quick surrenders, it also made the tank a primary target for enemy gunners, and reports emerged of Germans summarily executing captured Crocodile crews in retaliation for the terror the tank inspired. The Crocodile was withdrawn from service in 1951. —Larry Porges

FUELING THE FLAMES The trailer’s two large fuel tanks contained 480 gallons of thickened gasoline and five cyclinders of compressed air (later compressed nitrogen) as propellant. Refueling the tanks and changing the cylinders was slow and arduous work; refueling alone took upward of an hour and a half.

REAR GUARD The fuel tank trailer was heavily protected with nearly half an inch (12mm) of armor, bringing its weight to a hefty 6.4 tons. A direct hit from enemy artillery could still prove catastrophic, and drivers often positioned the main tank to protect the trailer from the line of fire.

LINKED IN The Crocodile’s most ingenious innovation was the strong yet flexible “Link” that connected the trailer to the main tank. Heavily armored to shield the fuel pumping through it, the Link featured swiveling articulated joints that allowed freedom of movement, even over rough terrain. If necessary the tanker could quickly uncouple the trailer from inside the command compartment.

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BRITISH CROCODILE TANK A Churchill Crocodile demonstrates its flamethrowing capabilities in a 1944 exercise.

Crew: 5-6 / Weight: 45 tons (main tank); 6.4 tons (trailer) / Length with trailer: 40 ft. 6 in. / Max. road speed: 14 mph / Range: 90 miles / Britain made 800 Crocodiles during its 1943-51 production run.

THE COMPETITION GERMAN FLAMMPANZER III

Crew: 3 / Weight: 20 tons / Length: 17 ft. 9 in. / Max. road speed: 25 mph / Range: 102 miles / Germany adapted its Flammpanzer from the Panzer III medium tank; a 14mm flamethrowing nozzle replaced the tank’s primary 50mm cannon.

ITALIAN L3 LF

DOUBLE TROUBLE Design requirements called for the Crocodile to function as a standard tank as well as a flamethrower. The Crocodile therefore retained the Churchill VII’s main weapon, the Ordnance QF (for “quick firing”) 75mm gun, replacing instead the 7.9mm machine gun beneath it with the flame nozzle.

Crew: 2 / Weight: 3 tons / Length: 9 ft. 11 in. / Max. road speed: 26 mph / Range: 68 miles / Italy’s L3 Lf flamethrowing light tankette originally pulled a fuel trailer like the Crocodile, but later versions placed the fuel supply in a tank over the engine.

SOVIET OT-34

Crew: 4 / Weight: 29.2 tons / Length: 21 ft. 11 in. / Max. road speed: 33 mph / Range: 250 miles / The Soviets produced an OT-34 for both the 76mm and 85mm models of its T-34 tank, replacing the front machine gun with an internal flamethrower.

FLASH DRIVE A sparkplug ignited the fuel, which shot out of the flame nozzle at a rate of 4.5 gallons a second and a range of 120-150 yards. This allowed about 80 seconds of firing. Gunners could also perform a “wet shot”—dousing a target with unlit fuel before setting fire to it.

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MIRACLE MAN A resolute commander took on two underperforming bomb groups and led them to storied firsts in the air war against Germany by Steven Trent Smith

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Colonel Frank A. Armstrong (opposite) drilled his charges of the 97th and 306th Bomb Groups on formation flying and other fundamentals, readying the B-17 crews for combat.

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THIS WASN’T THE FIRST or last time that Eaker would rely on Armstrong, who made a livelihood as a “Mr. Fixit” for the general. That career path, though, didn’t appear likely in 1927, when Armstrong was living “high on the hog,” as he liked to say, as first baseman for the minor league Sarasota Tarpons baseball team, earning the princely sum of $300 a week. But

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Head of Europe’s VIII Bomber Command, Brigadier General Ira C. Eaker—here with an air force mascot named Winston Churchill— quickly recognized Armstrong’s leadership skills and turned to him several times during the war.

the team folded at the end of the season, and Armstrong found himself facing a bleak future. While he could fall back on the law degree he had earned at Wake Forest College, the thought of spending his life writing torts and filing motions held no fascination for him. The woman who would become his wife intervened. Vernelle Hudson, a 22-year-old Virginian, made clear that she was “not about to marry a man who wanted to do nothing more with a college education than play ball.” She’d recently seen a recruitment poster that exhorted young men to “Join the U.S. Army Air Corps!” Formed in July 1926, the Air Corps was just a fledgling outfit, but full of opportunities. Armstrong had never been up in a plane, but the thought of being a flier caught his fancy. What a fine pursuit: “exciting, exacting, challenging,” he wrote in his memoir. And so in February 1928 he enlisted. After completing basic and advanced flight training in 1929, he was assigned to a bomber group, then did stints as a flight instructor. In 1934 Armstrong flew airmail routes when President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the army to replace private airlines in an effort to cut down fraud. It was during this tour of duty that Armstrong first met Ira Eaker, already a renowned flier, who set a world flight endurance record in 1926 and, more recently, was the first man to fly across the country “blind”—piloting an airplane purely by instruments. Eaker would go on to become the young officer’s mentor. In 1937 Armstrong earned his first Distinguished Flying Cross for safely landing a severely damaged twin-engine amphibious aircraft on a tiny, boggy clearing in Panama’s jungle fastness. The following year he took command of the 13th Bombardment Squadron based in Louisiana. Late 1940 saw Armstrong deployed to England as a combat observer with the Royal Air Force, tasked with learning how Britain conducted its air war, from broad strategy all the way down to the minutiae of base operations and gunner training. He arrived in London that October—at the height of the Blitz. His first night in the capital proved memorable. As he wrote in his diary, “I heard the first bomb explode with a strange, sickening ‘thud.’ I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sound, or the way our hotel swayed from the shock waves.” In January 1941 Armstrong left the U.K. for reassignment as commander of the 90th Bombardment Squadron before joining the Army

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uly 1, 1942, was a red-letter day in the career of Brigadier General Ira C. Eaker, chief of VIII Bomber Command, the Eighth Air Force’s heavy weapons division. That was the day the first dozen Boeing B-17E bombers and crews of the 97th Bombardment Group arrived at their bases in England, finally giving VIII BC a strategic offensive capability to fight the Germans in Western Europe. Eaker wanted to show off his new unit, so he arranged an aerial gunnery display for July 29 in the presence of senior generals down from GHQ. The base was in a festive mood that morning as the officers gathered on the roof of the concrete block control tower to watch. But things did no go well. The gunners, most of whom had never operated a turret in the air, failed miserably to hit their targets, and the results embarrassed and angered Eaker. Upon investigation he discovered the 97th’s fliers “were inept at formation flying, had little high altitude flying experience and were lackadaisical, loose-jointed, fun-loving, and in no sense ready for combat,” recalled aide and biographer James Parton. Eaker immediately fired the commanding officer and set about replacing him with someone capable of turning the group around. He had just the guy in mind—a spirited, capable 40-year-old aviator whose natural leadership talents had impressed him over the years, and whose career would be marked by making possible the impossible: Colonel Frank Alton Armstrong Jr. General Eaker called him into his office and said, “I have a small job for you. You are going to complete the training of our new heavy bomb group and lead them in combat within 16 days.” Armstrong replied, “I’ll do my best, sir.”

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Air Forces’ operations branch in the Munitions Building in Washington, D.C., early the following year. Eaker’s office was one floor up. The general, who had just been given the job of establishing VIII Bomber Command, began putting together a cadre of trusted senior officers to assist him. He buttonholed Armstrong and said, “You’re going to England with me. The orders are being cut today.” IN RESPONSE to the Blitz, in late 1941 the RAF had opened a campaign of “area bombardment” on German cities using nighttime attacks. It was not a particularly effective tactic, but the British stuck with it because they believed night bombing made their airplanes harder to target and kept their casualties to a minimum. When the advance elements of Eaker’s VIIIth began arriving in the U.K. in the spring of 1942, the RAF pushed Eaker to join forces with them on the night raids. Eaker pushed back, arguing that he had orders to employ high-altitude precision daylight bombing strikes, when targets could be seen. This strategy would take advantage of the powerful four-engined Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress,” a plane designed with heavy defensive armament to help protect it, even during daytime raids. The “Fort,” able to carry 4,200 pounds of bombs over 2,000 miles, would soon become the Allied workhorse of

the European war. But the British remained skeptical, fearing that daytime operations would mean catastrophic American losses. Two days after the July 29 gunnery display debacle, the 97th’s new commanding officer was on the base, beginning to make his plans. In his memoir Armstrong wrote: “The 97th was in sad shape. Morale was low. Military courtesy was almost non-existent. I knew if I were to succeed in preparing this outfit for combat I would have to be tough.” And tough he was, according to Captain Paul Tibbets, a 97th squadron commander (and later of Hiroshima fame): “He had a commanding presence. He looked like the boss. He looked like a guy that had no doubt that what he was doing was the right thing.” The next morning Armstrong gathered his outfit. He explained his role. He explained their role. He told them that if they succeeded

Both Armstrong and Eaker led by example. Armstrong was first in formation on the 97th’s August 17, 1942, inaugural mission, flying B-17 Butcher Shop (above) on a raid over Rouen, France. Eaker flew as an observer in the B-17 being fueled up for action at top, Yankee Doodle.

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With each passing day the confidence, the morale, and the spirit of the 97th rose.

in becoming combat-ready, they would make the Eighth Air Force’s first heavy-bomber raid from England on targets in Western Europe. That created quite a stir among the crewmen. He finished by making clear that they all had a lot of work to do. Armstrong’s first move was ordering everybody back to school. In makeshift classrooms the airmen pored over flight manuals and watched instructional films. The next step was to get the Fortresses in the air to practice low-level attacks, flying no higher than 300 feet above the placid Northamptonshire countryside. Stern when he needed to be, the colonel made sure he flew with every pilot, putting them through their paces, criticizing or praising the performance of each. After four days the group moved their training up to 25,000 feet, where the B-17s were optimized to perform best. Armstrong used the opportunity to drill formation flying into the heads of his pilots, and to teach them the delicate intricacies of navigating in fickle European

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The 97th’s bombing mission on Rouen was a success, despite fierce resistance from German fighters, seen here shooting out a B-17’s engine in gun camera footage from an Fw 190.

weather. The colonel threw in lots of gunnery work with towed targets. Lest their primary mission be overlooked, he made certain there were plenty of bombing exercises. With each passing day the confidence, the morale, and the spirit of the 97th rose. On August 12, the group received orders to prepare for an August 16 raid on the sprawling, bustling railway yard and shop complex at Rouen-Sotteville, 90 miles northwest of Paris. Bad weather over the Channel at the last moment pushed the attack back by one day. The final call late on the 16th from Bomber Command stated simply, plainly—“Pull the string.” The strike was on. “I didn’t sleep much during the few remaining hours before the briefing,” the CO recalled. The morning of the 17th, the airbase was a beehive of activity. Engines received lastminute tweaks. Planes were fueled. Bombs were fused. Guns were armed. All was in readiness for the 3:30 p.m. takeoff of the 12 B-17s heading to Rouen. Colonel Armstrong was in the lead Fort, nicknamed Butcher Shop. General Eaker flew as an observer in Yankee Doodle. Just after noon, the flight crews gathered at the operations hut for a final briefing on weather conditions. Colonel Armstrong’s remarks to his men were brief—he figured they didn’t need a pep talk this late. He told them, “I want you boys to fly as close to me as possible. I’ll be right up there in front.” When the control tower flashed the “go” signal, Butcher Shop lumbered down the runway and into the air to the cheers of ground crews, staff, and reporters lining the way. The dozen Forts headed out over the English Channel, where they were met by four squadrons of RAF Spitfires, there to provide air cover. It was needed. German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and Messerschmitt Me 109 fighters attacked the formation on the way into Rouen. Flying through a field of flak fired by ground batteries, the 97th’s bombers dropped 36,900 pounds of explosives from 23,000 feet. True to his word, Frank Armstrong’s Butcher Shop was the first in formation and the first to call “Bombs away!” As the group swung around and headed back to England, the Germans kept up persistent attacks on the B-17s. “Enemy fighters came at us from every figure on the clock. They bore in, holding their fire until they were within 200 yards or less, flying through our formation rolling and shooting all the while,” Armstrong said later. Belly

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gunner Sergeant Kent L. West got the thrill of his life when he knocked down one of the Focke-Wulfs—the first gunner in the group to score a kill. As he told a reporter afterward: “He started to climb on us from underneath. I got him in my sights and gave him a burst of 20 rounds. He went down smoking.” The mood on the ground was jubilant when all the planes returned safely. General Eaker received credit for leading the raid while Frank Armstrong, the man who had built and led the fighting team, hung back to let his senior bask in the limelight. Eaker told reporters that all that was left of the target was “a great pall of smoke and sand.” Indeed, the 97th had done themselves, and the Army Air Forces, proud that day. More than half the bombs fell in the target area, causing serious damage to the locomotive shops. The first B-17 raid on Western Europe kicked off the Eighth Air Force’s long and successful campaign to humble the enemy. In the coming weeks, the 97th Bombardment Group flew many missions into western France. After a particularly rough one, Armstrong posted a message of thanks to his outfit. “It is my desire that every soldier under my command feel that he had a personal interest in having placed the 97th Bombardment Group among the foremost fighting organizations the United States Air Force has ever produced…. The whole world has been astounded and amazed by our accomplishments. The 97th has made history.” So it came as a blow to the colonel and his men when, on September 14, 1942, the 97th was seconded to the Twelfth Air Force operating in North Africa in support of the planned Allied invasion of the region. After just six weeks on the job, Armstrong returned to the States to make a two-month tour of training bases to share his warfighting experiences over Europe.

Military brass at the 97th’s airfield at Grafton Underwood, England, watch B-17s return from the raid. Below: The crews celebrated the mission later that evening. The airman at center, Captain William Musselwhite, holds the arming wire from the fuse of the first bomb dropped by his Flying Fortress.

ON NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1943, General Eaker called Armstrong back into his office to inform him that he had been recommended for promotion to brigadier general. As Armstrong later recalled, “He then repeated those now familiar words, ‘I’ve got a small job for you.’” This next “small job” was to turn around the 306th Bombardment Group (Heavy) at Thurleigh Airfield in Bedfordshire, north of London. It was much the same task as Armstrong performed on the 97th, but with a huge JUNE 2021

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difference. The 97th had entered the European Theater with no fundamental experience in combat flying. The 306th, on the other hand, was a veteran of 15 missions since October 9, with a disproportionate share of losses to crew and planes, amounting to 30 percent of its original strength—the highest in the Eighth Air Force. In its three most recent raids, the group had lost nine Fortresses. A newly

arrived airman asked where to put his clothes in the barracks. “Choose any bed. These guys won’t be coming back,” a quartermaster told him. After so much combat the men of the 306th had become complacent, and discipline was weak. The group stood down until Colonel Armstrong got a handle on things. Armstrong knew his paternalistic approach with the neophyte 97th would not work with the 306th. Instead he treated the veteran group with the respect they had earned over their months at war, acknowledging their losses but promising to help the outfit reduce its casualties. He replaced several key staff officers. He canceled all leave and passes. He pushed military discipline. He set clear expectations. And he set out to establish a sense of pride in the pursuit of excellence in all tasks the group undertook. On the nitty-gritty side, the colonel instituted a rigid training schedule to make sure his flyers got lots more time in the air, drilling the basics: formations, gunnery, bomb runs. By the end of January 1943, their colonel deemed the 306th ready to return to combat. And he had something special in store for them. January 27, 1943, didn’t feel like an auspicious day at Thurleigh. It was still pitch dark as groups of fliers trudged across the frosty ground toward the low brick building that housed the briefing room. Inside the men found seats on the backless benches that lined both sides of the narrow space. Some smoked. Some rubbed the sleep from their eyes. Most chatted about unimportant things. But despite the outward calm, anxiety was manifest. The crews knew that this morning’s mission was going to be something special. They didn’t know for sure what—just that it wasn’t going to be the usual raids on the U-boat pens at St. Nazaire or Lille’s railway yards.

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Armstrong (far left) took command of the battle-weary 306th Bomb Group in January 1943. After restoring the group to combat readiness, he and this B-17 crew led the first American daytime raid over Germany—a bombing run on the naval base at Wilhelmshaven (left).

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Just past 4 a.m. Colonel Frank Armstrong walked briskly up the aisle to the low dais in front of the covered target map. He noticed the room was unusually crowded, and that the “tension was so great, the atmosphere could be cut with a knife,” he later wrote. And so, without ceremony, he slashed through it with one simple word: “Wilhelmshaven!” At first there was stunned silence, and then the room erupted in cheers. Within hours those crews from the 306th Bombardment Group would be high over the North Sea, leading the very first U.S. daylight precision bombing raid on Germany itself. To be first was quite a feather in the 306th’s cap. The attack formation included 91 bombers from six different groups, with Colonel Armstrong in the lead plane, as usual. The weather over the objective, the German navy base at Wilhelmshaven, was poor, with only occasional gaps in the clouds. When they neared the target, the Americans were swarmed by over 100 enemy fighters, but the 306th’s gunners claimed 22 shot down during the mission. As the CO promised, the group suffered only minor losses. Post-raid analysis judged the bombing accuracy as only “fair but adequate,” due in large part to the bad weather. Of larger import, though, the strike let the German people know that the Fatherland was no longer safe from U.S. bombers. Pressmen smothered the crews upon their return. “Better than bombing the Jerries in France and a hell of a lot more satisfying,” one crewman told a young Stars & Stripes reporter, Andrew Rooney (later a correspondent for CBS’s 60 Minutes). But the quote of the day came from Colonel Armstrong, elated by the success of the attack: “I could go out and dance all night.” Armstrong, officially a brigadier general soon after the raid, flew a few more missions with the 306th before being sent back to the States in May 1943 to lead an operational training wing, established to provide large numbers of qualified fliers to the ever-growing Eighth Air Force. In 1945 he was assigned to train and command the 315th Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy), flying B-29s. The unit was tasked with destroying Japanese fuel production and storage facilities. On August 15, 1945, just before Japan announced its surrender, Armstrong climbed behind the controls of one of the Super Forts and took off on the final heavy bombing raid of the war, a 3,800-mile

round-trip run to Japan—the longest nonstop combat flight of the war. As Armstrong later noted in his memoir, he led the Eighth Air Force’s first heavy bombing mission in Western Europe and the last raid of the Pacific War—two events that neatly bookended strategic aerial combat in World War II. The turnarounds he pulled off at the 97th and the 306th “stuck.” Both groups finished the war intact with stellar combat records to their credit. AFTER THE WAR General Armstrong split his time between training and operational commands. He was CO of Alaskan Command in May 1961 when he was summoned to Washington about his persistent public insistence that the Department of Defense was threatening national security by cutting military resources for Alaska’s defense. The Pentagon directed the 33-year veteran to “quietly submit a retirement request.” The news stunned Armstrong. “My career was history.” His military career may have been over, but his legacy as a leader would live on. Two colleagues at VIII Bomber Command, force historian Beirne Lay Jr. and intelligence officer Sy Bartlett, were eyewitnesses to the Eighth Air Force’s victory in the European Theater. After the war, the pair got together to write a novel about their experiences and decided to base their tough-as-nails main character—General Frank Savage—on Frank Armstrong, whom they both knew well. They called the work Twelve O’Clock High. Their bestselling book was released in 1948 and a major motion picture, starring Gregory Peck, followed the next year. Lay and Bartlett emphasized General Savage’s strong leadership skills, based directly upon their intimate knowledge of how Armstrong had successfully motivated men throughout the war. The film, a critical hit nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, struck a chord among senior air force and navy officers as the perfect visual aid to demonstrate how leaders lead. For several decades, the service academies used Twelve O’Clock High as a treatise on effective leadership for young officers-in-training. Because of the film’s long-term impact, Frank Alton Armstrong Jr. achieved the sort of legacy that few men are ever accorded. H

Two officers within the 306th—Beirne Lay Jr. and Sy Bartlett— based the protagonist of their war novel, Twelve O’Clock High (above), directly on Frank Armstrong. The book was made into a Hollywood film in 1949 (top), winning two Oscars and acclaim as a study in effective leadership.

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REMAINS OF THE DAY Surviving objects from D-Day speak volumes on sacrifice

DEAD WEIGHT It is not known who wore this particular assault vest on D-Day, but there’s a good chance he didn’t like it. Designed so amphibious troops could organize, carry, and quickly access needed gear, these garments were generally considered cumbersome by soldiers and viewed as an impediment in battle rather than an advantage. Many refused to wear assault vests; those who did often quickly discarded them ashore. As a result, few survive today.

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IN ONE STROKE Virginian James Foster died on Omaha Beach while serving in an antiaircraft artillery unit. His personal effects were later returned to his widow, Margaret. In addition to his wallet—which contained this water-damaged photo of the couple—she received his watch. It presumably recorded the exact time of Foster’s death.

f a picture is worth a thousand words, then some objects, when seen in person, must be worth a million. Historic artifacts convey stories in ways that capture the imagination and bring home the reality of a moment in time. To read about an important event can be informative. To hear a description of it can be illuminating. But to view a tangible object that was there, something that survived battle to become a cherished reminder—that can be inspiring. At the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, we often call such items “Silent Witnesses.” Among our broad array of World War II artifacts, some pieces hold special significance because they were at hand on June 6, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy during Operation Overlord. Carried by a soldier, held by a sailor, cradled by a comrade bringing comfort to a dying buddy—these relics from one of history’s most crucial days speak to anyone who sees them. As time passes, fewer and fewer survivors remain to share their stories directly. Too soon, only the Silent Witnesses will be left to remind us of the tragedy and triumph that was D-Day. On these pages is a selection of these special items from the Memorial’s collection. Each one tells a tale, and together, they form a larger narrative: one of costly victory. The Silent Witnesses attest to the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of a generation that, by winning some French beaches in a terrifying 24 hours, saved the world. —John D. Long is the National D-Day Memorial’s director of education

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Eisenhower—a type of missive usually termed an “Order of the Day.” It informed them that they were “about to embark upon the Great Crusade,” and were to accept “nothing less than full victory.” John Robert “Bob” Slaughter (inset) took his copy around to his army buddies and asked them to sign their names on the front or back. He then tucked it into a plastic bag and stowed it away. Only later would he discover that 22 of the 75 men who autographed the Order never came home: 11 died on Omaha Beach that same day. Unable to shake his memories of them, Slaughter founded the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, in 2001 as a tribute to those who fell on June 6, 1944.

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FOR THE RECORD Just prior to D-Day, Allied personnel received a printed pep talk from General Dwight D.

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MIDWEST IS BEST This wellpreserved bomber jacket belonged to decorated pilot Marshall Johnson (above). Johnson hailed from Milwaukee, which inevitably became his nickname (note the city’s most famous product emblazoned on the leather). The name of his B-24, El Flako, stretches across the garment’s back. Johnson recorded each mission on a small emblem on his jacket; he’d go on to fly others, but the last sortie he found space for was D-Day.

FLYING HIGH This company flag (technically a guidon) crossed Utah Beach with Company B of the 299th Engineer Combat Battalion. The unit’s mission was to destroy German obstacles and clear mines, a goal complicated by the fact that nearly everyone landed in the wrong place that day. As other elements of their battalion landed on Omaha Beach, the 299th was the only engineering unit to have troops on both Omaha’s and Utah’s shores.

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GLIMPSE OF THE PAST Frank Draper (left)—one of 20 men from tiny Bedford, Virginia, who died on D-Day—carried these binoculars as his landing craft approached Omaha Beach. A German shell struck the craft, and Draper was mortally wounded before he even reached shore. He was taken back to the troopship SS Empire Javelin, where a British sailor tried to render first aid, removing the binoculars from the dying man’s neck in an effort to provide comfort. Draper passed away within minutes; the man who tended to him, Bert Fuller, kept the binoculars for 61 years as a reminder of D-Day before returning them in 2005 to Draper’s family in Bedford.

IN HIS SHOES These combat boots were worn by Sergeant Thomas J. Ruggiero, 2nd Ranger Battalion, as he trained to climb the bluffs at Pointe du Hoc prior to D-Day. However, on June 6, Ruggiero’s landing craft was capsized by a German shell. Ruggiero survived and, two days into the campaign, forged on to scale the cliffs as planned.

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CROSS TO BEAR Dr. Robert Ware (right) was supposed to serve as a battalion surgeon on D-Day, setting up a field hospital as soon as possible post-landing to treat the wounded. Unfortunately, Ware, 29, never got the chance to save lives; he lost his own when he was hit and killed by enemy fire immediately after exiting his landing craft. Weeks later, the medic armband Ware wore that day was returned to his grieving family.

HOLES IN THE NARRATIVE Found by an American soldier in a bunker on D-Day, this M-35 German helmet was kept as a souvenir for years before joining the National D-Day Memorial’s collection. The fate of its owner— presumably named “Wenz,” judging from a faded signature carved inside its brim—is unknown, but the bullet holes in its metal may provide some clues.

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UNKNOWN X-331 Shot down over Normandy shortly after D-Day, the American pilot was assumed to have died then. Fifty years would pass before his family learned otherwise By Gavin Mortimer

n Sunday, December 17, 1944, a group of Frenchmen was hunting wild boar in the Saint-Sauvant forest in central France. It was a special occasion for those present—the inaugural hunt of the season and the first since the Liberation. As the men tramped along a forest road with dense thickets on either side, they spotted numerous broken branches. Looking closer, they noticed three large areas of disturbed earth. They scraped away some of the soil, first with their boots and then with their hands—and recoiled at what they saw. The next morning a party of six gendarmes arrived, bearing spades and accompanied by several officials from the nearby village of Rom. Over the course of several hours, they unearthed 31 badly decomposed On July 7, 1944, in the bodies. A local physician named Maupetit examined the Saint-Sauvant forest of corpses, compiling detailed notes on what remained of central France, Germans the deceased and estimating the time of death as early gunned down a group of July. The majority were dressed in identical military British soldiers and one uniforms: khaki jackets made from heavy twill with two man in civilian clothes. buttoned breast pockets, and khaki pants with two front pockets and press-stud fastenings. Two men wore identity discs with their names and regimental numbers; one had a tube of Macleans toothpaste, a British brand; another had the manufacturer’s name on his underwear: “Faulat Belfast.” Doctor Maupetit observed that one corpse was dressed differently from the others. He wore low-laced shoes and a pullover with a label inside reading “Le Mont St Michel,” a French brand. The doctor took note of the man’s wounds: “Bullet in the head, entered right parietal area. Bullet in praecordial region [the anterior chest wall over the heart] and another in central thorax.” He then added: “Presumed to be French nationality.” This corpse was assigned the number 22. At a short inquest on December 21, three witnesses who lived near the forest testified that they’d heard machine gun fire early on the morning of July 7. One man, Paul Alleau, a member of the local Resistance, said that in late June or early July “approximately 30 British parachutists” had been captured in the region and that their fate was “unknown.” Later on the 21st, the head of the local gendarmerie, Albert Charron, compiled his report on the discovery; based on the evidence, he wrote, all but one of the dead were probably “British parachutists.”

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LINCOLN DELMAR BUNDY was born on February 12, 1918, the seventh child of James and Chloe Bundy. They lived on 640 acres of land shared with James’s parents in a rural part of northern Arizona known as Mount Trumbull, but had to travel nearly 60 miles to Saint George, Utah, for their child’s birth, as that was the nearest town with a midwife. Bundy’s childhood was an idyll. When he wasn’t attending the one-room schoolhouse, he roamed the woods and hills in the company of his brothers and cousins. No one shared his adventurous spirit more than his elder cousin, George C. Iverson, whose homestead was three miles north of the Bundy family’s. With their dogs, Strip and Van Dyke, the pair explored the wilderness, toughening their bodies and developing their characters as they fished, hunted, and climbed. Bundy had much to commend him as he reached adolescence. Handsome and athletic, he was also bold, intelligent, and ambitious,

BUNDY GRADUATED from the 63rd Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment in Douglas, Georgia, in April 1943, and on May 28 the new second lieutenant received his silver wings at Napier Field in Alabama. That summer, Corporal George Iverson wrote to his mom from his post at the Naval Air Station in Sitka, Alaska. “I got a letter from Lincoln,” he told her. “He has finally earned his wings, now he is a pilot. More power to him, I say, even if I have to salute him if I ever get the chance to see him. If he and I both get through this mess alive, we are fixing to get a plane and chase a few clouds in the far horizon.” Bundy had also finished his training as runner-up in a sharpshooting contest within the training division, and he was the outstanding track and field athlete of his intake. The future looked promising. First, however, he had some furlough to enjoy—which he did at Mount Trumbull in early June 1943. According to the local newspaper, Utah’s Washington County News, Bundy was “honored with a dance and social in the ward hall, a large crowd attending.” Lincoln spent August to October 1943 train-

The last sight William Reese caught of Lincoln Bundy was over La Mailleraye, a rural village, at 10:15 in the morning.

Postmortems completed, the bodies were placed in coffins along with copies of their autopsy reports and glass tubes containing the numbers Doctor Maupetit had assigned each corpse. The same numbers were affixed to the outsides of the coffins. On the afternoon of December 23, the men were laid to rest in Rom’s village cemetery. The 30 soldiers were buried in a communal grave, marked by one long row of headstones and a second shorter row; the man presumed to be a French civilian—probably a member of the Resistance— was interred close by in a plot of his own. But he was not French, nor was he British. He was an American—but it would be another half a century before his family learned of his terrible fate.

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Lincoln Bundy (center) stands with his father, James (far left), and brothers at their rural Arizona home in the mid-1930s. With the outbreak of war, Bundy decided to enlist with the U.S. Army Air Forces.

but the confines of a classroom held no attraction for him. On finishing eighth grade at Mount Trumbull he enrolled at Dixie High School in Saint George but soon dropped out and headed to Kingman, Arizona, about 300 miles south, where he took a job in the mines. The work was tough, but the money was good for a boy of his age. He saved his wages and, in 1936, bought his aunt’s homestead—1,280 acres just south of his dad’s land. Bundy, at just 18, had his own ranch. He aimed to breed the finest horses in Arizona. War interrupted his plans. In October 1940, one month after Congress passed the peacetime Burke-Wadsworth Act requiring all men between 21 and 35 to sign up with the selective service, he and George registered for the draft. When the United States entered the war neither had been drafted, but they knew their time would soon come. Better to enlist, they agreed, so in January 1942 they drove to Kingman and presented themselves before the U.S. Army Air Forces with a request to become fighter pilots. The recruitment officer took one look at George’s 6-foot-1-inch frame and told him he was too tall. Try the Marines, he suggested, which George did. The 5-foot-7-inch Lincoln was accepted as an aviation cadet.

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ing in Meridian, Mississippi, before being posted, in late spring 1944, to the 486th Fighter Squadron of the 352nd Fighter Group, flying his P-51 out of their base at the Royal Air Force station at Bodney in Norfolk in the east of England. At about the same time, George Iverson sailed for Saipan with the 4th Marine Division. (He would be wounded on the third day of fighting for the island, rejoin his unit about a month later, and die on February 25, 1945, at Iwo Jima.) On June 10, 1944—four days after the Allies had landed on Normandy’s beaches—the 486th Fighter Squadron took off and headed across the Channel with orders to attack German reinforcements in France streaming toward the beachhead. Bundy had christened his Mustang Rustler; his fighter’s call sign was “Angus White Two.” His wingman, “Angus White Three,” was Second Lieutenant William Reese. In his subsequent combat report, Reese stated: “We had just finished strafing a group of trucks, one of which Lt Bundy destroyed, with our flight leader, Major Stephen Andrew. I rejoined with Major Andrew and when the Major called to Lt Bundy to rejoin the formation there was no response.” The inexperienced Bundy had had the misfortune to be singled out by one of the Luftwaffe’s top aces, Staffelkapitän (Squadron Commander) Lutz-Wilhelm Burkhardt of Jagdgeschwader (Fighter Wing) 1. He had claimed the first of his victories in Russia in May 1942; on the morning of June 10, Bundy’s Mustang became his 69th—and, as it turned out, last—victim before recurrent malaria took him out of action. Burkhardt’s Messerschmitt Me 109 had latched onto the Mustang’s tail close to the ground and opened fire. Keeping calm, Bundy climbed high enough to bail out. THE LAST SIGHT William Reese caught of his wingman was over La Mailleraye, a rural village, at 10:15 in the morning. Lincoln Bundy touched French soil for the first time 60 miles south of there, among some trees that lay between the villages of Les Aspres and Crulai. The Normandy beachhead was approximately 100 miles northwest. Bundy had some superficial lacerations on his arms and legs from the tree branches through which he had descended, but otherwise was unhurt. The first person to reach the pilot was a 24-year-old local, André Renard, who had watched the American bail out as he worked in a

Bundy as an aviation cadet, likely in 1942. He earned his wings in May 1943, and achieved his goal of becoming a fighter pilot.

nearby field. Renard led Bundy to a hay barn. He couldn’t speak English and Bundy couldn’t speak French, but the Frenchman conveyed the message that Bundy was to remain in the barn. He would return. When Renard reappeared, he was accompanied by a friend, Daniel Laguette; they carried some food and civilian clothes, including a pair of low-laced shoes and a pullover. At dusk the three men walked out of the woods and into Les Aspres, where they entered Laguette’s house. Waiting

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The distinctive P-51 Mustangs of Bundy’s unit— the 352nd Fighter Group—inspired the group’s nickname: “Blue-nosed Bastards of Bodney.”

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PARIS LES ASPRES

ATLANTIC OCEAN

POITIERS ANZEC ROM

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FRANCE

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to greet Bundy was the local physician, Jean de Goussencourt, who cleaned and dressed his lacerations. Bundy had a decision to make. Should he remain holed up in Les Aspres? Or should he follow the instructions issued to all aircrew in the event they were shot down in France: head south into Spain? Renard and Laguette urged him to stay put; surely it wouldn’t be long before the Americans arrived to liberate Les Aspres. But that felt too passive for Bundy; he believed it was his duty to strike out for Spain on foot—to hell with the fact it was 460 miles south. An outdoorsman of cunning and initiative, he was confident he could reach his objective. For two weeks Bundy made spectacular progress, traveling by night and sleeping during the day. He covered 160 miles, his only guides the tiny compass sewn into his flying suit and a map of France printed on a silk handkerchief. Friendly peasants provided fuel—some bread in one village, ham and cheese in the next. He plucked fruit from trees and hedgerows and sourced water from wells, drinking fountains, and animal troughs. By the end of June, Bundy had reached the hamlet of Anzec. It was 10 miles east of the city of Poitiers, in central France; 200 miles southwest of Paris; and still some 300 miles from the Spanish border. He was tired, hungry, and unkempt: more hobo than pilot in appearance. As he prepared to fill his water bottle from a farmyard trough, Bundy encountered a 15-year-old boy, Serge Guillon,

AT 9:41 THAT EVENING, Captain John E. Tonkin of B Squadron, Special Air Service—a British special forces unit raised in 1941 to penetrate enemy territory, attack targets, and gather intelligence—sent a message from his forest hideout to SAS headquarters in England requesting an identity check on “a Lincoln Bundy, USA AF.” He sounded American and looked American, but Tonkin was taking no chances on the unknown man brought to his camp a few hours earlier. Lincoln’s arrival could not have come at a worse time for Tonkin, an experienced guerrilla fighter. Shrewd and intrepid, Tonkin, 23, had joined the British special forces unit in North Africa in 1942 and was captured the following year by the Nazis during an operation in Italy. He wasn’t captive for long, however, successfully leaping from the truck taking him to a Gestapo interrogation and making his way to Allied lines. For the last three weeks, he and his squadron of 40 men, along with a group of 11 French Resistance fighters, had been operating in an area he described as “lousy with Germans.” Tonkin’s instructions for the mission, codenamed Operation Bulbasket, were to attack the enemy’s line of communications from the south of France to Normandy and sabotage the motorized columns and trains taking German supplies and reinforcements north. Unfortunately, it had soon become apparent Luftwaffe ace Lutzto Tonkin that several of his men, newcomWilhelm Burkhardt made his 69th—and ers to the regiment, were not psychologically final—kill with the suited for guerrilla warfare. Furthermore, downing of Bundy’s two of his most trusted soldiers were missP-51 over Normandy ing from a railway yard sabotage operation. on June 10, 1944. On top of that, the previous day, June 30, Lieutenant Peter Weaver and three SAS soldiers had arrived at the camp. They had parachuted into the region two weeks earlier and blown a train off its tracks before making their way 50 miles east to join Tonkin. At 33, Weaver was 10 years Tonkin’s senior, and he was disturbed by what he saw as lax discipline. Some of the soldiers were making frequent trips to farms to collect eggs, and young women from the nearby village of Verrières were wandering into the camp to flirt with the British soldiers. Weaver concluded that Tonkin “was getting a

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N O R M A N DY

HISTORYNET ARCHIVES; MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

ENGLISH CHANNEL

just back from his boarding school for the summer. Bundy was soon eating a hot breakfast in the presence of Serge’s father, Raphaël, a member of the local Resistance. Raphaël summoned two of his comrades, Joseph Garnier and Daniel Villey, the latter a lecturer in law at Poitiers University and fluent in English. Forget Spain, the Frenchmen told Bundy; it was an impossible goal. But they had another plan: a group of British parachutists was waging a sabotage campaign from a forest hideout not too far away. They would take Bundy to the British. The following morning, Saturday, July 1, Bundy donned a jacket over his pullover and pulled on a pair of matching pants. No longer in need of his tiny compass, Bundy gave it to young Serge as a souvenir and then climbed on the back of Raphaël Guillon’s bicycle and rode behind him for 15 miles to the village of Lussac-les-Châteaux. Waiting for them was another Resistant, who escorted Bundy to the forest of Verrières.

HISTORYNET ARCHIVES; MAP BY BRIAN WALKER

little out of his depth with his responsibilities.” He convinced Tonkin that it would be prudent to move to a new camp, which they did early on Sunday, July 2, taking Bundy with them. Following the advice of the Resistance fighters assisting them, the SAS team relocated a few miles south to a wooded area with a well. But the well ran dry almost immediately, and Tonkin had to lead his men back to Verrières at dusk that same day. He intended to find a new camp the next morning. Just after dawn, though, the sound of an explosion jolted Lieutenant Weaver awake. “For the life of me I couldn’t think what all the noise was about in my semi-sleepy state,” he recalled. “Then it dawned on me: ‘Christ, we’re being mortared!’” The Germans had somehow learned of their hideaway. Panic ensued. It was every man for himself. Most rushed down a slope toward a valley—just as their Nazi ambushers had envisioned. They were rounded up and herded onto trucks, except for seven Frenchmen, who were captured and summarily executed, and an SAS officer, Lieutenant Tomos Stephens, who was beaten to death as he tried to slip through the Nazi cordon. Four Frenchmen and seven SAS soldiers managed to escape, among them Weaver and

Tonkin. On July 7, Tonkin sent another message to England: “Betrayed and surrounded by 400 Jerry [Germans], incl SS and 2 field guns. Ordered base to scatter.” He listed those who had evaded capture and calculated that dozens of others, including Lincoln Bundy, were now prisoners of war. Bundy and the 31 captured SAS soldiers were taken to the headquarters of the Wehrmacht’s 80th Corps in Poitiers, commanded by Lieutenant General Curt Gallenkamp. There they were reunited with the two miss-

Men of Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) rest in their French forest hideaway (above); Captain John E. Tonkin is standing. The group was working with French Resistance fighters (top) to prevent the Germans from moving men and materiel north to Normandy.

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ing SAS soldiers, who had been captured a few days earlier while on their mission at the railway yard. The Germans took three wounded SAS men to a hospital for treatment. That evening an officer telephoned news of the capture to the German 1st Army headquarters. Gallenkamp’s men were ordered to shoot the prisoners, in line with Hitler’s Kommandobefehl of October 1942—an instruction to execute all enemy special forces. The general disapproved of the command but, lacking the resolve to challenge it, he instead absented himself from Poitiers on July 5. While the three SAS men in the hospital were dispatched by lethal injection, the task at Poitiers fell to Gallenkamp’s chief of staff, Colonel Herbert Koestlin, and 80th Corps’ senior intelligence officer, Captain Erich Schönig. As Schönig later said at his war crimes trial,

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FROM TOP: HOLLY BUNDY; NIGEL FRANCIS

Captain Tonkin and Lieutenant Peter Weaver (left to right, center, top, with two unidentified men) were among the few survivors of a July 3, 1944, German raid. Members of the Resistance (like these hailing British troops, above) were executed on the spot. Captured British troops—along with Bundy—were gunned down the morning of July 7, 1944, and buried in the forest.

FOR 50 YEARS, the Bundy family believed that Lincoln had died in the June 10, 1944, aerial battle. Then, in 1995, British historian Paul McCue contacted the 352nd Fighter Group Association seeking background information on the fighter pilot. He took for granted that the association knew about Bundy’s death before a firing squad. They didn’t. For decades the association had made regular pilgrimages to Cambridge, England, to honor Bundy and the 15 other 352nd airmen commemorated on the U.S. Army Air Forces’ “Wall of the Missing” at Cambridge American Cemetery. McCue passed on to the astonished association the information he had mined from British archives—including SAS operational reports, and war crimes trial interviews and court proceedings. The association contacted Sheriff Glenwood Humphries of Washington County, Utah, asking for help in tracing any of Lincoln’s relatives. As it happened, Lincoln’s younger sister, Nathella, lived just a few blocks from Humphries. The news he imparted was a deep shock to the family. How had it taken so long for the story to reach them? In March 1945 John Tonkin had written a lengthy memorandum to the British War Office in response to their request for information on the attack. He named Lincoln Bundy and said he was “dressed in civilian clothes.” In addition, Tonkin said that the Frenchmen in their camp “were all shot immediately at Verrieres on 3 July 1944.”

FROM TOP: PAUL MCCUE; AP PHOTO

he argued that Lincoln Bundy should be spared, as he was an airman, but Koestlin called Bundy guilty by association. Schönig also made another important disclosure—one that explained how the Nazis had learned of the SAS hideout. The two SAS soldiers captured at the end of June had refused to speak until the Sicherheitsdienst—better known as the SD, the intelligence branch of the SS—tortured the camp’s location from the pair. At 5:30 on the morning of July 7, Auguste Cousson, a gardener living on the edge of the Saint-Sauvant forest, was awakened by “several bursts of machine gun fire and two rounds of cannon fire, followed by several single shots.” They came from the direction of the forest road. When Cousson went to investigate, a cordon of German soldiers ordered him back to his house.

FROM TOP: HOLLY BUNDY; NIGEL FRANCIS

FROM TOP: PAUL MCCUE; AP PHOTO

Four of them had, in fact, escaped, but they were all, nonetheless, accounted for. In other words, Corpse 22, the one dressed in the “Le Mont St Michel” pullover and the low-laced shoes, could only be Bundy. Complying with a request from the U.S. Army’s Graves Registration Service, their British counterpart exhumed Bundy’s body in 1945 and handed it over for conclusive identification. Yet the Central Identification Laboratory reported that the “released remains were not those of the American decedent [and] were resultantly designated as unknown X-331.” Continuing their attempt to locate Bundy’s body throughout the 1940s, the Americans appealed to the British to exhume the other corpses that had been buried at the same time at Rom Cemetery, but to no avail. The British were adamant that they had handed over the requested remains; the rest were British soldiers, and they would rest in peace. The corpse designated X-331 remained in American possession until 1950, when it was returned to the British and buried in Rom Cemetery in an individual plot. The British then informed the U.S. Embassy in London that “we have assumed future responsibility for the care and maintenance and permanent marking of the grave of 2/Lt Bundy, U.S.A.A.F.” Nevertheless, there was further correspondence on the subject in 1951 when the State Department in Washington, D.C., informed the U.S. ambassador in London that “through an administrative error the remains of Lt Bundy have not been recovered.” Consequently, the adjutant general, Major General Edward F. Witsell, declared that “there is insufficient information as to the fate of Lt Bundy to establish the fact of death and place of burial.” This was not strictly true. John Tonkin and other SAS survivors had testified to an SAS war crimes investigation team that Bundy was in the camp when it was attacked, and in 1947 several Germans officers were convicted by a British military court in Germany of the murders of the SAS soldiers and of Lincoln Bundy. In all likelihood, the lines of communication between the various bodies investigating the case—one of many thousands in the years immediately after the war —broke down, and the dots of information remained unconnected. Much of this confusion started with the likely error made by the Central Identification Laboratory which, in fairness, had little to work with. They compared Bundy’s dental records with the shattered teeth of the deceased and concluded they weren’t one and the same. The British considered the matter closed and reinterred the corpse in 1950; however, when the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone was erected the next year over Bundy’s grave with his name engraved in the stone, they did add “Buried in this or the nearby communal grave”—the one holding the 30 soldiers—in recognition of the American doubt. It is the only headstone among the 31 to have such an inscription, even though 14 of the 30 other corpses were not positively identified. Incredibly, none of this was communicated to the Bundy family— with the first news coming from Sheriff Humphries in 1995. In the summer of 2002, six of Lincoln’s cousins made a pilgrimage to France to visit his execution site and final resting place. Their trip coincided with an official SAS commemorative tour, and among the visitors were several wartime members of the regiment and the 16-year-old grandson of John Tonkin. The most emotional moment of the trip came when the Bundys were introduced to a small, 73-year-old man.

Bundy’s gravestone stands before the mass grave of the British soldiers killed with him—all marked by wreaths in the SAS’s regimental colors. The compass he handed a French boy in 1944 (top) survived, to be returned to Bundy’s relatives 58 years later.

Fifty-eight years earlier, Serge Guillon had seen Lincoln at a trough in the hamlet of Anzec, an encounter he had never forgotten. The elderly Frenchman (who died in 2020) had a gift for the Americans, something that Lincoln had presented to the teenage schoolboy in June 1944. It was his tiny compass. Lincoln had hoped that the compass and his own capability would guide him to freedom, but by a cruel twist of fate they directed him to a Nazi firing squad. H JUNE 2021

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REVIEWS BOOKS

A CLOSED BOOK OPENED

Rose was highly esteemed by several of America’s foremost fighting generals. Following the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941, Major General George S. Patton jumped him over the heads of some 50 other lieutenant colonels, making him the 2nd Armored Division’s chief of staff. Several years later, General Joseph “Lightning Joe” Lawton Collins,

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HUAYI BROTHERS

By Daniel P. Bolger. 432 pp. Penguin Publishing Group, 2021. $30.

Major General Maurice Rose led the 3rd Armored Division into Germany, seizing Cologne (top) in March 1945 just weeks before dying in a German tank ambush.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES (BOTH)

THE PANZER KILLERS The Untold Story of a Fighting General and His Spearhead Tank Division’s Charge into the Third Reich

OVER THE COURSE of the past 70 years, tens of thousands of American G.I.s have been stationed at the U.S. Army’s Rose Barracks in Vilseck, Germany. Many tens of thousands more have cycled through Rose Barracks while on annual training rotations at the army’s Grafenwöhr Training Range in Bavaria. But how many of them know who this base was named for—and more importantly, why? Major General Maurice Rose, leader of the 3rd Armored Division (Spearhead), was one of America’s premier armored commanders in World War II, in the same league as Major Generals Ernest N. Harmon (2nd and 1st Armored Divisions), Isaac D. White (2nd Armored Division), and John S. Wood (4th Armored Division). A recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross and three Silver Stars, Rose was also the highest-ranking American officer killed by direct enemy action in the European Theater of Operations, and the army’s senior-most Jewish officer to die in the war. Yet today, Rose has been all but forgotten by many historians. In his new book, The Panzer Killers, Daniel P. Bolger, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and respected military historian, brings Rose and his remarkable accomplishments back to life.

HUAYI BROTHERS

NATIONAL ARCHIVES (BOTH)

Rose’s corps commander for much of 1944, described Rose as his “top division commander.” Like Patton and Collins, Rose believed that a division commander’s most important functions were “to see and be seen.” A general could not do that from a command post far in the rear; he had to lead from the front—something practiced by relatively few other American generals during World War II. The Panzer Killers is not a comprehensive biography; rather, it is a study in command, kicking off on June 13, 1944, shortly after D-Day, and ending in spring 1945. In describing and evaluating Rose’s assertive command style, Bolger offers pointed commentary on the generalship of many other European Theater senior leaders, contrasting Rose’s approach with those of not just Patton and Collins but also Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Sir Bernard Montgomery, Omar Bradley, and Courtney Hicks Hodges. Bolger writes with clarity and precision, and his insights on generalship in combat ring true with the authority of an of f icer who himself comma nded a n armored division in combat—the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq in 2008. Rose never expected his soldiers to run risks he wouldn’t run himself. In the end he paid the ultimate price for his boldness: on March 30, 1945, a few miles south of Paderborn, Germany, he and his very small command group were cut off by four muchfeared Panther tanks while accompanying a 3rd Armored Division lead column. Rose was killed while attempting to evade capture; he was buried in the American Cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands. The son and grandson of rabbis, Rose, for mysterious reasons, listed his religion as Protestant in his army records. His grave marker is a white marble Christian cross. This is the central enigma of Rose, one that Bolger comes back to many times in his portrayal of a great combat commander who, on a personal level, was unknown and unknowable. Thoroughly researched and crisply written, The Panzer Killers revives one of the great forgotten heroes of American military history. This book is destined to become a standard study of senior combat command in World War II. —Major General David T. Zabecki, U.S. Army (Ret.), is World War II magazine’s chief military historian.

REVIEWS MOVIES

VANQUISHED YET VICTORIOUS THE EIGHT HUNDRED is a technically superb epic film set during the August-November 1937 Battle of Shanghai—the first major engagement of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the true start of the Asia-Pacific phase of World War II. Foreign incursions on Chinese sovereignty in Shanghai left large sections of the city set aside as two independent settlements: the International Settlement and THE EIGHT HUNDRED the French Settlement. As the struggle in the city drew to a climax, the 1st Battalion, Directed by Guan Hu, 147 524th Regiment, 88th Division of the Chi- minutes. Huayi Brothers, 2020. Now streaming on nese National Revolutionary Army under Amazon Prime Video. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek transformed the rugged and massive Sihang Warehouse just outside the International Settlement into a fortress and, over four days, repulsed ferocious Japanese assaults. Surviving members of the “Eight Hundred,” as the numerous Chinese soldiers defending the warehouse were dubbed, ultimately withdrew to the International Settlement. (Their nickname boasted a propaganda figure; the actual tally of fighters approached 420 men.) Still, vivid accounts of their astonishing heroism electrified China and fueled ultimately victorious long-term resistance against Japan. This film captures a unique facet of the Battle of Shanghai: the stand at the warehouse occurred literally within eyesight of masses of Chinese and foreign spectators, all watching the drama from the gaudily lit “neutral” International Settlement. As the film’s meticulously choreographed bloodshed unfolds effectively before a packed grandstand, it recreates the stand’s essential history with liberties of fact and context that might trouble historians—but not most moviegoers, who should find the film both engrossing and illuminating. —Richard B. Frank is an internationally recognized historian of the Asia-Pacific War. His book Tower of Skulls, the first volume of a trilogy on the Asia-Pacific War, was published in March 2020. JUNE 2021

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Otto von Wächter, the Nazi governor of Kraków, Poland (in leather coat, center), talks with officers following the brutal execution of 50 Poles in December 1939. A fake ID (inset), issued in 1946, helped him navigate postwar life in exile.

REVIEWS BOOKS

THE RATLINE The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive

By Philippe Sands. 448 pp. Knopf, 2021. $30.

WHAT ATTRACTS ME to World War II history is that its events are close enough to the present day to be relatable yet far away enough not to pose a threat to anyone I love. Hypnotically interesting and beautifully written, The Ratline by Philippe Sands yanked me out of my comfort zone, showing me that the war is not, as I had believed, safely in the past. This immediacy comes from the book’s story itself and how Sands—a law professor at University College London and a historian and memoirist—tells it. The Ratline focuses on the privileged life and early death of Baron Otto von Wächter, a Nazi governor who lived in luxury while overseeing the extermination of Jews in Galicia, the eastern Polish province (now part of Ukraine) where Sands’s Jewish grandfather was born. Sands invites the reader along on his quest to learn about Wächter’s life after a chance introduction to his son, Horst Wächter. A sequel of sorts to

Sands’s acclaimed 2016 Holocaust history, East West Street, Ratline moves easily backward and forward in time and place, its first 50 pages alone bouncing from present-day Austria and Ukraine to Berlin in 1934 as Hitler consolidates his hold on Germany. Driven by anti-Semitism and nationalism, Wächter rose to power during World War II, first as the governor of Kraków, Poland (where he established the Kraków Ghetto), and then Galicia. By the war’s end, he held the second-highest paramilitary rank in the SS. Wächter may not always have been directly responsible for implementing murderous policies in Kraków and Galicia, but they happened on his watch, on his territory, with his knowledge. After being indicted in 1945, he

TOP: IPN; INSET: HORST WÄCHTER, COURTESY OF KNOPF

WILLING ACCOMPLICE

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TOP: IPN; INSET: HORST WÄCHTER, COURTESY OF KNOPF

REVIEWS BOOKS

CHURCHILL CHALLENGE WINSTON CHURCHILL is a perennial publishing favorite, so it’s no surprise that Kieran Whitworth, longtime book buyer at the Imperial War Museums in England, has amassed an entire volume’s worth of trivia on the British Bulldog. Wide-ranging and witty, The Churchill Quiz Book dispenses Churchill facts via multiple-choice questions, anagrams, photo challenges, and more. Try your hand at the two above. 256 pp. Osprey, 2021. $15. ANSWERS: 1. “Kanalkampf ” meaning “Channel fight.” 2. B) “The German air force controlling the air.” The Luftwaffe had to gain control of the air to support the landing of German troops.

hid in the Austrian Alps for several years, surviving with assistance from his wife, Charlotte, who faithfully brought him supplies. In 1949, he made his way to Rome, where he enjoyed the protection of conservative Austrian bishop Alois Hudal. Hudal was a principal in the socalled “ratline” of sympathetic contacts that enabled former Nazis to escape from Europe to South America—sometimes with the knowledge of (or even assistance from) U.S. intelligence agents, who worried more about rising Soviet influence than punishing war criminals. Wächter died the same year under mysterious circumstances, which Sands investigates in his book. The relationship between Sands, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, and Horst Wächter, born in 1939 and named after Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, gives the book a rare dynamic. Horst does not deny the Holocaust’s many atrocities. Still, he defends his father to Sands, arguing far beyond reason that Wächter was a victim of circumstance, a decent man who tried to do good—the kind of argument I heard many times in the 1970s while researching my PhD thesis on the German army and Hitler, and one I liked to imagine was dying out. Sands found Horst to be a likable man, willing to discuss his family history and, most importantly, to share with him thousands of family letters, photos, and memorabilia. These documents made it possible for Sands to write about the dayto-day thoughts of the Nazi elite: a mix of banality and entitlement, victimhood and racism. Even after reading and discussing his family’s papers, Horst, at the book’s end, is unable to see past his feelings for his Nazi parents, while his 42-year-old daughter concludes to Sands that her grandparents knew what they had done and had no regrets. For this reason, I found the book’s title misleading. The ratline—and the U.S. government ’s murky, unsavory relationship with it—is a relatively small part of this story of unspeakable evil and persistent delusion. —Nicholas Reynolds, a bestselling author, is at work on a history of American intelligence in World War II.

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REVIEWS BOOKS

QUIET RIOT REVIEWS GAMES

SAND, SEA, AND SNOW ENLISTED

DarkFlow Software. Free. Available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

WORLD WAR II RATING

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THE BASICS Enlisted is an online first-person shooter game that allows players to collaborate with or compete against vast numbers of gamers around the globe while recreating famous campaigns like the Battle of Moscow and the D-Day landings in Normandy. The emphasis is on infantry action, with players from Axis or Allied sides serving as squad leaders controlling numerous soldiers. There are also side elements of armored combat and aerial warfare; participants can assume supporting roles as pilots or vehicle crewmen, if they choose. THE OBJECTIVE To take and hold territories or positions or continue eliminating enemy combatants until all of their respawn tickets, or “lives,” run out. HISTORICAL ACCURACY Enlisted does a good job of representing the sheer size and scale of World War II combat, even if campaigns don’t always unfold in the same manner as their historical precedents. Vehicles, planes, and weapons are all based on authentic period models used by Axis and Allied forces; examples include the 7.62mm Mosin-Nagant rifle carried by Soviet Red Army soldiers, the imposing Tiger II German heavy tank, and the American Douglas A-20 Havoc bomber.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY Gaming enthusiasts might

note that Enlisted’s vivid graphics and intense playing style owe a debt to the popular 2012 game War Thunder, developed for the same company, Gaijin, by the Latvia-based DarkFlow. Weak aspects include hard-to-navigate battlefield terrain and soldiers that aren’t always responsive to player commands. There is also no dedicated tutorial for vehicle operations, which can make driving tricky; the infantry tutorial is also scant.

PLAYABILITY The game’s controls are easy to learn and are similar to those in other first-person shooters.

THE BOTTOM LINE Enlisted offers realistically large-scale battles; well-rendered graphics; and an exciting blend of armor, aircraft, and on-the-ground action. —Hayden A. Foster is an assistant editor at American Rifleman magazine.

PAPER BULLETS Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis

By Jeffrey H. Jackson. 336 pp. Algonquin Publishing, 2020. $27.95. IN APRIL 1937, artists and lesbian partners Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe fled France for the Channel Island of Jersey—a premature yet ultimately futile attempt to escape discrimination should the Nazis occupy their home country. Their wartime story unfolds in Rhodes College history professor Jeffrey H. Jackson’s new book, Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis. Paper Bullets begins quietly—a bold choice, given that readers who love World War II stories often prefer dramatics. Schwob and Malherbe, better remembered today by their respective artistic monikers Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, moved to Jersey after enjoying successful careers in Paris creating gender-bending artworks in various media like photography and collage. Their peers, including luminaries such as Gertrude Stein and André Breton, viewed their anxiety

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toward the Nazis as unwarranted. Tension picks up three years down the line when Jackson focuses on the German invasion of Jersey. Nazis swiftly began deporting “degenerate” residents from the sleepy island of just 50,000 people after its surrender on July 1, 1940. Schwob, in particular, who was fluent in German and had lied to the Nazis by denying her status as a “Jewess,” was in extreme jeopardy. Jackson provides a general overview of the island’s five-year occupation, its military management between France and Great Britain, and the local resistance movement. He compellingly describes how Schwob and Malherbe defied the Nazis, executing what Allies later referred to as a “paper bullets campaign”: the duo used Schwob’s German knowledge to create artistic propaganda that they typed onto small pieces of paper and stuffed into the pockets of unsuspecting Nazis as they bumped up against them in the streets. The two women paid a price for their bravery when they were arrested, tortured, and nearly executed. This trauma deepened the couple’s bond, even as the resistance took a toll on their partnership. While Schwob was willing to put her and Malherbe’s lives in danger to resist the Nazis, Malherbe expressed consternation that Schwob would risk all for the sake of political activism. One criticism of Paper Bullets, as a book about artists, is that it lacks quality color images of either Schwob’s or Malherbe’s work. It’s also missing an index, which would be helpful for researchers. Still, the book delivers an adventurous narrative—and a taste of the quiet, suffocating, and often claustrophobic tension of life under military occupation. —Mary M. Lane is the author of Hitler’s Last Hostages: Looted Art and the Soul of the Third Reich (2019).

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THE LAST JAPANESE HOW MANY TIMES SOLDIER HAS THEFROM DESIGN WORLD OF THE WAR U.S.IIFLAG SURRENDERED CHANGED? IN THIS YEAR 27, 31, 36 or 40?

- 1945 - 1947 - 1950 - 1974 For more,search visitDAILY QUIZ For more, WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ at HistoryNet.com. MAGAZINES/QUIZ HistoryNet.com

ANSWER: 1974. PRIVATE TERUO NAKAMURA, A TAIWANESE NATIONAL,27. ENLISTED IN THE JAPANESE ARMY IN 1943. ANSWER: THE CURRENT DESIGN HAS BEEN IN HE HELD OUT ON 1960 MORTAI IN INDONESIA HE WAS CAPTURED PLACE SINCE WHEN THE FLAGUNTIL WAS MODIFIED IN DECEMBER 1974. EARLIER THAT YEAR, HIRO ONODA, WHO TO INCLUDE HAWAII, THE 50th STATE. HELD OUT IN THE PHILLIPINES, FINALLY SURRENDERED.

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BATTLE FILMS BY MARK GRIMSLEY

IN A SINGLE MOMENT FEW MOVIES ABOUT WORLD WAR II focus explicitly on the generation of children who endured the conflict. An exception is Hope and Glory, released in 1987 and written, produced, and directed by John Boorman. Inspired by Boorman’s own youth, the film provides a semi-autobiographical account of what it was like to grow up in wartime England, particularly during the Blitz—the Luftwaffe’s extended night raids that pummeled London from September 1940 through May 1941. When the war began in September 1939, Boorman was six years

old—just three or so years younger than the film’s protagonist, Billy Rowan (exuberantly portrayed by Sebastian Rice-Edwards). Key supporting characters include Billy’s mother, Grace (Sarah Miles); father, Clive (David Hayman); 16-year-old sister, Dawn (Sammi Dav is); a nd g ra nd fat her, George ( Ia n Bannen). In broad outline, Hope and Glory is a comedy, though not without moments of poignant drama. Young Billy generally finds the war to be a marvelous adventure—especially the frequent intervals during which he and a band of friends gleefully smash the few surviving items from neighborhood homes destroyed in the raids. Many plot points are predictable. The father goes off to war; the mother attempts to hold the family together; the older sister finds early romance—and an unexpected pregna ncy—because in wa r time, the usua l restraints do not seem to apply. Eventually, the Rowan home is destroyed itself (although in an ordinary house fire, not in an air raid), and Grace Rowan must take her brood and move in with her father, who, inevitably, turns out to be an exasperating but lovably eccentric curmudgeon. But Hope and Glory’s charm and effectiveness lie in the care with which its characters are drawn and the unexpected uniqueness of its many wartime episodes, as when a German fighter pilot bails out of his damaged plane. He parachutes gracefully into Billy’s neighborhood, where he nonchalantly lights a cigarette and waits for local law enforcement to pick him up; to the crowd of civilians gathered to see him, he’s a figure not of fear but of fascination and even glamour. As for the film’s ending, it is so perfect, in terms a 10-year-old would appreciate, that it could hardly be improved upon. But the scene that stayed with me, long after I saw the movie, occurs near the beginning. It portrays a cloudless Sunday morning; the neighborhood fathers are busy trimming their lawns with push-reel mowers. Billy is absorbed in play with toy cowboys and a medieval knight—who suddenly encounters the magician Merlin. “Then something even more extraordinary happened,” interjects the narrator, an adult Bill (played in an

MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD/ALAMY; OPPOSITE: COLUMBIA PICTURES

Written and directed by John Boorman, Hope and Glory (1987) provides a child’s-eye view of the Blitz along with universal takes on life and loss.

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uncredited role by Boorman himself). “All of the Sunday lawnmowers suddenly stopped.” Everyone pauses to hear a broadcast announcement from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who formally proclaims, as if reading a business contract, that the Germans have rejected an ultimatum to abandon their invasion of Poland, “and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.” At once a test of the air raid warning system occurs, provoking momentary alarm. Then everyone returns outdoors to marvel that a war could have broken out on such a splendid morning. “A few lawnmowers started up again,” says the narrator, “but they didn’t ring true somehow. Nothing would ever be the same again.” It’s that last line that haunts me. Aside from Chamberlain’s announcement and the fleeting false alarm, nothing at all has happened—and, as the film makes clear, nothing would happen for months. Yet nothing would ever be the same again. How often life is like that. A perfectly healthy person visits a doctor and discovers, in stunned amazement, that they have a potentially fatal disease. They depart, still in good health; serious symptoms may lie months ahead, yet nothing will ever be the same again. An argument breaks out between a husband and wife—superficially, one that’s no different from many others. Yet, by its end, something in their relationship has changed forever, at one level almost indiscernible and at another unmistakable. Divorce might lie years in the future; indeed, it might never come. Yet nothing will ever be the same again. The best war movies—like the best films in general—transcend

Young Billy generally finds the war to be a marvelous adventure. their specific subject matter. Hope and Glory has much to say about life in wartime Britain, yet it also has much to say about life, full stop. And perhaps no single aspect is so powerful as its simple evocation of the way the world, in an instant, can change forever. It was true for young Billy and his family. Sooner or later, it is true for all of us. H

MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD/ALAMY; OPPOSITE: COLUMBIA PICTURES

USMC Ret. Master Gunnery Sergeant Bob Verell takes a moment to honor those commemorated on the replica Vietnam Memorial Wall. Photo by Thomas Wells

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“Moving and brilliant. From the very first page, this account of American airmen fighting in the skies of World War II China grips readers and never lets them go. Even those who think they know World War II will need to read this book.”

China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

AVAILABLE NOW AT KENTUCKYPRESS.COM

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EDWARD J. STEICHEN/US NAVY/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/ GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN WALKER

— Rana Mitter, author of

CHALLENGE

VICTORY AT SEA

EDWARD J. STEICHEN/US NAVY/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/ GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN WALKER

We altered this photo of U.S. Navy pilots celebrating the downing of 17 Japanese aircraft to create one inaccuracy. What is it?

Please send your answer with your name

Answer to the February Challenge: “I believe this would be a rough ride!” says reader

(and winner) Josh Groomes. He’s right: we removed the M7 Priest’s center set of bogies—or wheels— as an impressive 209 of you deduced. No, we did not tamper with the artillery vehicle’s gun.

Congratulations to the winners: William T. Cobb, Josh Groomes, and Thore Karlsson

and mailing address to: June 2021 Challenge,World War II, 901 N. Glebe Road, 5th Fl., Arlington, VA 22203 or e-mail: challenge@ historynet.com. Three winners, chosen at random from all correct entries submitted by June 15, will receive The Panzer Killers by Daniel P. Bolger. The answer will appear in the October 2021 issue.

JUNE 2021

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FAMILIAR FACE

KILLER SMILE

EVERETT COLLECTION; INSET: AF ARCHIVE/ALAMY

Actor Cesar Romero appeared in more than 40 films before enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard in October 1942. He served aboard the attack transport USS Cavalier, where he operated the winch that lowered landing craft over the side during the invasions of Saipan and Tinian, among others. Throughout, the mustached Romero took pains to come across as just another guy in uniform. “He was a grand fellow. He wasn’t above everyone else,” remembered fellow coastguardsman Ed Allesandro. After the war Romero returned to acting, best remembered for his role as the Joker in TV’s Batman series. It was a role he “thoroughly enjoyed playing”—but for which he refused to shave off his trademark mustache.

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STUDY WORLD WAR II WITH WORLD-CLASS SCHOLARS Learn Online and on Your Own Time

The National WWII Museum and Arizona State University have launched new online education programs focused on the most significant event of the 20th century. The fully accredited Master of Arts in World War II Studies program features an in-depth academic survey of the war and its legacies. Continuing education course offerings provide history enthusiasts a rare opportunity to engage and interact with leading experts on an array of WWII topics.

There is an enriching journey into WWII history here for learners of all backgrounds—from educators seeking professional development to students of all ages looking to expand their understanding of the war that changed the world. AN ENRICHING JOURNEY INTO WWII HISTORY FOR LEARNERS OF ALL BACKGROUNDS

MEET THE FACULTY, EXPLORE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS, AND LEARN MORE TODAY: N AT I O NA LW W 2 MUS E UM.O R G / A SU D I S TA N C E L E A R N I N G

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