The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle, written by Phillip K. Dick in 1962, depicts a world in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have won World War II. The story is set in the year 1962, fifteen years after a longer version of World War II (1939-1947) ended. I'll refrain from getting into the storyline of the novel, so as not to spoil the book for any of you who may be interesting in reading it, but instead I'll describe the world as Dick imagines it to be, for I feel that is most relevant to the information we're learning about.

A map of the world in the novel.

Giuseppe Zangara, who is famous for actually assassinating Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, successfully kills President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, in reality, was rumored to be Zangara's original target, in 1934. So, FDR's current Vice President at the time, John Nance Garner, becomes President of the United States, with Republican candidate John W. Bricker winning the presidency in 1941. Unfortunately, both politicians fail to help the country recover from the Great Depression, and continue the United States' isolationist policies. As a result, the United States never intervenes in World War II and fails to build up their military, making itself unable to help Great Britain or the USSR, and unable to defend itself.

The Nazis successfully conquer the USSR in 1941 and proceed to kill off most of the Slavic people, with the remaining few captured and put into camps. Over in the Pacific, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is significantly more successful than what actually happened, as the Japanese destroy the United States' entire naval fleet in that one, decisive battle. The Japanese then proceed to conquer Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania during the early 1940's. Then, Germany and Japan, working together, attack the United States from both coasts, conquering the West coast, and the United States and the other Allied powers surrender in 1947.

Alaska, California, Oregon, Hawaii, and parts of Nevada and Washington formed the puppet state of the Pacific States of America under the rule of Japan. The remaining mountainous areas, the Great Plains, and Southwestern states became the Rocky Mountain States, a Nazi puppet state comparable to that of Vichy France. The Rocky Mountain States act as a buffer region between the Pacific States of America and what remains of the United States.

Because Germany and Japan triumphed in World War II, the rise as superpowers and as a result have their own Cold War. The Nazis have a so-called "hydrogen bomb" that has the potential to destroy all of the main islands of Japanese territory, which becomes the basis of a storyline throughout the novel.

Hitler dies of syphilis, leaving Martin Bormann, the Chancellor of the Nazi Party, complete, dictatorial control of Germany. Bormann uses newfound technology to drain the Mediterranean Sea and turn it into farm land. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who was Chancellor of Austria for two days when the Nazis created Anschluss and who was a supporter of the Nazi party, organized the colonization of Africa and the extermination of most of the people who lived there. The novel begins soon after Bormann dies, with many of the remaining top Nazis vying for his position.

I found the set up of this book particularly interesting because I always wonder what would have happened in history if something had gone differently. Parts of this scenario are quite outrageous, like the draining of the Mediterranean Sea, but I think some parts of it were totally possible, like FDR's assassination. There is also a TV adaptation to this book that was just released on Amazon, and with some quick research the reviews don't look very good. I also glanced at some sources saying there was a movie being made based on this book, if anyone wants to look more into the TV or movie adaptation I'd be interested to hear what they have to say!

BB-61 Battleship Turrets

In history we often talk about battles and wars on a very broad scale, especially so in naval warfare.  Rarely do we look at the actual complexity of what these men accomplished.  It is easy to say "the ship shot at the other", however that action alone is extremely difficult.  I found this training video for the US Navy Battleship's 16"/50 guns, and it really is incredible how much work went into firing just one shot.

Displacing 45,000 tons of water, these are some of the largest ships in history.  However, the Japanese Yamato abd Musashi were even larger, displacing 76,000 tons.  BB-16 Class ships were quite long as well, at 887 feet.  Clearly these ships had space for quite a bit of manpower.  As the video says, each turret took 79 men to operate and each BB-61 Class ship had three turrets.



Source/Additional Info:  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/bb-61.htm

Erich Hartmann - Top Ace of All Time

In class the other day we were watching the video for the aerial battles in the Pacific where they interviewed a veteran who had 8 kills in 6 minutes, if I remember correctly. Right afterward, Mr. Stewart brought up the highest scoring ace from the German forces, Erich Hartmann.

Erich Hartmann fought in WWII with the German Luftwaffe. He had the highest score for aces ever at 352 aerial kills. Over three years, Hartmann got his unrivaled score on the Russian front. At age 19 in the year 1941, he joined the Luftwaffe and was posted to their Eastern front in October of 1942. He got his first kill the next month, and he got his second three months later. Even with this "slow" start, Hartmann was able to revamp his tactics that proved to be extremely effective.

When he was attacked from behind, he would send out his wingman lower and in front. He would then get behind the enemy and fire accurately until the enemy filled "the widescreen." He was known to be content with one kill in a day, waiting until the next day for another attack.

Even with all of this success and all of his kills, he was said to have thought that his best accomplishment was that he never lost a wingman.

In 1945, the German troops were all turned over to the Red Army. From there, Hartmann was sent to Siberia and was sentenced to 50 years of hard labor. The Soviets had wanted Hartmann to build the East German air force and had then wanted to make him an undercover agent against the west. When he refused to do this, the Soviets had threatened to capture and murder his family that lived in Western Germany. Hartmann came home to Germany in 1955 (when the Soviets were releasing the POW's) when he joined the new West German Luftwaffe and helped build up the new fighter unit. He passed in the year 1993, unparalleled with his aerial kills.

The Frogmen

Hey guys! So this was a topic that was brought up yesterday in the video, and Mr. Stewart had also stopped the video to tell us that the Frogmen were the precursors to today's Navy SEALs.

The idea for the American Frogmen first originated from the Italian "Uomini Rana" who also fought in World War II. The name is said to either have come from the gear that they wore (particularly the shoes) that made them look "frog-like" or their style of kicking to gain depth in the water. The Americans, after the destruction in Tarawa, had decided very quickly that they would need to be more aware of the conditions of each island in order that the Island-Hopping plan work.

Drapel Kauffman is said to have been the father of the Navy SEAL's. As a graduate of the US Naval Academy, Kauffman started thinking about the idea of UDT's (Underwater Demolition Teams). He eventually decided that this would be the best way to search out the conditions of beaches, as well as rid the beaches of obstacles. These men were trained in handling explosives and clearly had to have previous swimming experience. Kauffman sought out the most rugged of the Navy and the Marines. All of the men from the original Frogmen were volunteers and were able to resign at any time.

After Tarawa, the small Frogmen teams were extremely sought after. They had enormous impact on the war, especially in the Pacific, where they demolished 930 obstacles in six days. As part of the Navy, they were an extremely small unit, never at one point numbering above 3000 men.

Because of their success in the war, the Navy SEAL program became a permanent fixture in the American fighting system. A lot of the training for the conditions of explosive handling and extreme water conditioning are still applied in this program today.

https://www.navysealmuseum.org/about-navy-seals/seal-history-the-naval-special-warfare-story/seal-history-origins-of-naval-special-warfare-wwii

http://honorflightaz.org/u-s-navy-frogmen-the-story-of-the-underwater-demolition-teams-udts-of-wwii/

Japanese Internment: Video

 Donna's post did an excellent job with the Japanese internment info! Heres's a video I made that has some visuals and interviews to go along with what she said.

Skip to 4:10 to see how the US war relocation authority justified it's actions
There's more about the Korematsu case at 5 minutes that might be worth looking at too.
3:12 if you like watching things blow up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRw00pJP9Cc&feature=youtu.be

Japanese Internment

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Americans expected an attack on the West Coast. This allowed the U.S. Government to round up any suspicious Japanese for internment. Many men got taken without the knowledge of their families, who would find out what had happened several years later. This government act also allowed for the freezing of bank accounts, seizure of contraband, limitation on travel, curfew and other drastic measures. However, this operation by the FBI was only the beginning. In February 1942 John L. DeWitt requested authorization from the Secretary of War to move the "Japanese and other subversive persons" from the West Coast. On February 19 Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, this established "military areas" and excluded "any and all persons." A month later Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9120 which established the War Relocation Authority, headed by Milton Eisenhower which operated the internment camps.

In March 1942, 77,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese origin and 43,000 older Japanese citizens were moved from California coastal areas to Washington, Oregon, Arizona or inland California. Posters started to appear that provided, "Instructions to all persons of JAPANESE ancestry" to report to "designated areas by 12 o'clock on Tuesday April 7, 1942." People being evacuated could only bring bedrolls and only as much baggage as could be carried by hand. 120,000 Japanese Americans were ultimately detained in ten permanent mass detention camps built by the government.

One of these camps was located at Tule Lake 5 miles south of Tulelake, CA. There were 18,000 people in the camp surrounded by a barbed-wire stockade. There were turrets for soldiers and machine guns in case someone tried to climb the high wiring. The outside of the building was covered in tarred paper over shiplap, which fought the low temperatures that occurred in the area. Children and babies were also kept in this camp. To get to the unheated bathrooms a person had to leave the residential shacks and walk through rain and snow. This did not change based on age or health. The living conditions were also very crowded. The Tule Lake camp was guarded by six tanks and 889 men and 31 officers (1 battalion of military police).

Some camps had electrically charged fencing which was unnecessary because most camps were invariably located in deserts or other demote desolate areas. Every camp was also equipped with searchlights which shown over the living quarters at night.

During their internment dozen of people were shot and wounded. 8 were killed by guards and many were brutally beaten or seriously injured without reason. At the tule Lake camps guards would beat people with baseball bats.





Hitler's main goal was genocide, while the United States rationalized that their actions were for the country's safety. Still, it seems ironic that Americans were so appalled by what the Germans were doing to the Jewish, while they were doing similar things to the Japanese back home.

Sources:

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v02/v02p-45_Weber.html

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html

Japanese Prisoner of War Camps

During war, prisoner of war camps were never where you wanted to end up, but in World War 2 the worst POW camps were those of Japan. During the course of the war over 140,000 soldiers would be imprisoned in Japanese camps. Of these, one in three died from starvation, overwork, punishments and disease. Japan ignored the Geneva Conventions so camp guards could inflict any punishment they wished whenever they wanted to. 

Living conditions were very poor. Prisoners lived in barracks and were given only mats to sleep on. Their Japanese guards rarely spoke English so new prisoners needed to learn commands quickly since the punishments for no response was a beating. This was a common occurrence because the men had to call out their prison number in Japanese every morning at roll-call. Prisoners lived on a 600 calorie a day diet. The majority of survivors lived on barley, green stew, meat or fish once a month and seaweed stew. One prisoner said, "... I was- a white slave. I worked 12 hours a say on a diet of soy beans and seaweed."

Escape attempts were very rare in these camps due to the fact that camps were enclosed with barbed wire of high wooden fencing and often located in remote areas. If an escape attempt was made, the person who attempted it was executed in front of all the other prisoners, in some cases along with ten other prisoners. 

The worst camp was the group that was sent to make the Burma-Thailand Railroad. They worked alongside Asian laborers and laid 260 miles of track by hand. They worked from dawn to dusk, 10 days on with one day off, moving earth, building bridges, blasting through mountains and moving track. Prisoners worked on a diet of rice and vegetables, suffering from malnutrition, cholera, and ulcers. Of the 61,000 workers sent there 13,000 (20%) would die.

Sources:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/changi_pow_camp.htm

http://www.historyonthenet.com/ww2/pow_camps_japan.htm

Segregation in the U.S. Army during World War 2

At the start of World War 2 only 4,000 African American men were enlisted in the US Armed Forces, and only 12 of these men had become officers. This was due to the segregated draft in which most African Americans were overlooked by the All-White draft boards. Due to this unequal treatment, the NAACP put pressure on President Roosevelt who eventually pledged that African Americans would be enlisted based on their population percentage. This meant that African Americans would have to make up 10.6% of the Armed Forces because that was the percentage of African Americans in the United States at that time. Although this goal was never achieved, by the end of the war there were 1.2 million African American men serving.

At the start of the war, African Americans were assigned to non-combat units, such as supply, maintenance and transport. At this time units were assigned based on the AGCt, which was a test of intelligence. Due to the fact that African Americans didn't have the same access to schooling as white people did, they usually scored lower and therefore were assigned to these non-combat units. This eventually changed because of the sheer need for men on the front lines. In these new positions African Americans served with the same courage, distinction, and honor as any other soldier.

One notable unit in the war was the Tuskegee Airmen. This group of African Americans were pilots. This group was the first group of African American soldiers who were allowed to fly. During the war these men flew in many battles and did exemplary work for the American cause.










Segregation in the U.S. Army would end three years after the war (1948), and this helped break down some barriers and prejudice between blacks and whites. Still, at home and in everyday life, blacks were often the object of great distain, especially in the southern states. It would be more than twenty years after the end of the war before the Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, giving all African Americans a constitutional right to equality.

Sources:

http://www.nationalww2museum.org/assets/pdfs/african-americans-in-world.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-was-black-americas-double-war/

"War of the Worlds"

A few months ago, my dad showed me a documentary on a radio broadcast called "War of the Worlds".  CBS radio station hired Orson Welles to write a drama based on H. G. Wells' "War of the Worlds".  The new radio show was to premiere on Halloween night in 1938.  World War II was starting to breakout in Europe, so there was a lot of increased paranoia of the oncoming war.

The highlighted act of that evening was a ventriloquist act with Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy that was playing at the same time "War of the Worlds" premiered.  At the beginning of the show, Orson Welles gave a disclaimer saying that the show is just a play.  However, most people only started to listen to the show once there was a commercial break in the ventriloquist act, so they did not hear the warning.  Many people only heard the "news bulletin" to report that an observatory in Chicago had seen explosions of gas from the surface of Mars and were heading to Earth.  Soon after, there was another announcement that martians landed in a farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

Orson Welles

Of course, no such event happened, but soon all of America knew about the town of Grovers Mill, New Jersey.  Orson Welles confided that he had picked the town of Grovers Mill by putting his finger down on a map while his eyes were closed and choosing the city his finger landed on.  Even though the CBS supervisor was told to interrupt the program to let people who missed the disclaimer know that it was all fiction, Orson Welles decided to continue.

"War of the Worlds" Monument  in Grovers Mill commemorating the martian landing site

It is debated today the extent of panic the radio broadcast caused nationwide, and most historians speculate most newspaper exaggerated about the hysteria.  It is known that some people did commit suicide out of fear.  For the production crew, the hours following the broadcast were a nightmare of telephone calls and interviews.  Welles still stood by his writing even with all the criticism, and his new popularity helped launched his entertainment career.  He later went on to write, produce, and star in Citizen Kane.

The full documentary is here and goes more in depth at the plot and aftermath of "War of the Worlds".  While I do realize this post will cause you to back track back to 1938, I still think it was an interesting piece to share from the time period.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/worlds/

The Imitation Game

Many of you may have seen The Imitation Game in the theaters lately or saw that it has been nominated for several Oscars.  I recently saw the film and was instantly curious about the historical accuracy of the film.  I did a little research on Alan Turning and Enigma to find out how true the plot was.

       Alan Turing                                   Benedict Cumberbatch playing Turing          

A little background, Benedict Cumberbatch plays a cryptographer named Alan Turing, who worked at Bletchley Park in London, that is working to crack the Nazi code dubbed Enigma.  The code was said to be unbreakable and had 159 million possible combinations each day, since the code would change daily.  Turing is a closeted gay man, and would be sent to prison if he is outed.  The movie follows Turing's journey to construct a machine that would be able to break Enigma while struggling with his homosexuality.

The film largely discredits many of the other people who helped create the machine used to break Enigma.  For staters, the movie calls the machine "Christopher" instead of "Bombe" which was the original name of the machine.  Also, the film makes it seem that Turing almost single handedly built and programmed the machine, when in reality a group of Polish cryptographers created "Bombe".  Turing's innovations to the machine allowed it to be able to break the code faster by searching for specific letter combinations.  Another man, named Gordon Welshman, was not mentioned in the film, but also collaborated with Turing.

 Inside "Bombe"                                Outside "Bombe"

Even Turing's personality is not accurate.  Cumberbatch plays a man who is humorous and brilliant, but is largely exaggerated to the point of portraying Turing somewhere on the autistic spectrum.  In a biography, Turing was described as shy, eccentric, and impatient, but not narcissistic as he is portrayed in the film.

Keira Knightly's character, Joan Clarke, was fairly accurate.  She really was a women who was hired to work at Bletchley Park by Gordon Welshman.  For those of you who haven't seen the film yet, I won't spoil what happens to her and Turing.  For those who have, what does happen between them was true, even if the reasons are different than the ones shown in the film.

I just highlighted on a few main points from the film, but if you are interested to see more about the historical accuracy of The Imitation Game, feel free to see the full article in the link here.  I highly recommend the film for anyone who is interested in still seeing in theaters.

Shocking Insight into America's Internment Policies During WWII

Much of the attention attributed to America's internment policies during World War II is concerned primarily with the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. However, what textbooks fail to mention is that Executive Order 9066, which is what permitted the internment of the Japanese, also led to the capture of many Germans and Italians suspected of being an "enemy alien" to the state. Granted these numbers were much smaller than that of the Japanese, a mere 264 Italians were arrested and 1,269 Germans, but they are numbers nonetheless.

Roosevelt also arrested Germans, Japanese, and Italians in many Latin America countries, expanding his authority outside of America's national borders. Under the Enemy Alien Act of 1798, which George W. Bush and Barack Obama have used to arrest present day possible terrorists, Roosevelt detained 4,058 Germans, 2,264 Japanese, and 288 Italians from thirteen different Latin America countries and imprisoned them in the United States. Many of these prisoners went to a secret government internment camp located in Crystal City, Texas. Roosevelt's primary motive for capturing all of these people was that he feared security threats from them. What's perhaps even more unbelievable is the fact that 81 of the people taken as prisoners were Jews who had fled persecution in Europe. The Jacobis, a Jewish family from Columbia, were taken to the Crystal City camp.

A more logical reason behind the internment program was to create an American pool of hostages that Roosevelt could use to exchange for American prisoners in Europe and the Pacific. Roosevelt created a division within the Department of State entitled the "Special War Problems Division," which dealt specifically with prisoner exchanges between the United States and Germany and Japan. Central to the exchanges was the Crystal City internment camp. Many of the prisoners were traded for American officials considerably more "important" than the average individual stuck behind enemy lines. The first and second of the exchanges both took place in Crystal City, the first being in June of 1942 and the second on September 2, 1943. During those two transactions, more than 2,000 Japanese were traded for Americans being held hostage in Japan. In February of 1944, 634 Germans were sent to Germany from Crystal City, and the final exchange of prisoners was made on January 2, 1945 where 428 more Crystal City victims were traded.

Not only did Roosevelt actually implement all of those policies, but the general consensus amongst his advisors, both political and military, was one of support. The only person who was against them was Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor. She believed the problems with immigrants originated from wartime hysteria, having no real foundation or purpose.

I found it shocking that this topic is not commonly addressed when discussing the internment camps of World War II. I certainly had never heard of this before doing some research, and was surprised to find the elaborate secrecy surrounding the entire operation. Last week in class we learned, on a worksheet, that the Japanese rather than the Germans and Italians were put into internment camps simply because they were easier targets. However, the article I found, which I will link below, clearly shows that unfortunately not all German and Italian Americans were safe from imprisonment. If anyone finds other information on prisoners and their exchanges, maybe from the German side of the war, I would be interesting in hearing about it!

http://www.businessinsider.com/5-surprises-about-american-internment-during-world-war-ii-2015-1

WWII Propaganda Posters

As you can imagine, it was very hard for Roosevelt to convince the entire American people, especially after strong isolationist sentiment, to rally for a war. As we have seen before, probably in previous history classes, there are several American Propaganda posters (such as Rosie the Riveter) that helped gain the support of the people to back the war. Though we have exposure to many propaganda posters from the US, have you ever wondered what they looked like in Hitler's Germany? Or Mussolini's Fascist Italy? For those of you interested in these posters, here's a compilation of Propaganda Posters from several countries involved in the war efforts.

**Sorry if there are any inaccuracies on this post. Since I can't fluently read all the languages that are on these posters, I only have google translate to help me. :) These are posters that I'm trying to get from the most accurate sites as possible!

America:

www.dailystormer.com

http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/propaganda-posters.html

Italy:

fineartamerica.com

www.axis-and-allies.com

www.wwii-collectibles.com

Germany:

www.axis-and-allies.com

www.pra.org

Japan

www.axis-and-allies.com

Japanese-American Concentration Camps

In February of 1942, President Roosevelt ordered that all Americans of Japanese ancestry be evacuated and moved into concentration camps scattered in remote areas of the US. Because of the waves of anti-Japanese paranoia from the beginning of the war, Americans were scared by the idea of having "enemies" among them, even though many of the people being moved into these concentration camps were legal US citizens.

When we talked about this in class, the video showed the evacuation mostly from a third party perspective, showing the two-day advance warning of the move and the people frantically selling off their belongings. There was a bit of footage from inside the camp showing the fences and the living quarters, but, for those like myself who like to hear some people talk about it for personal experience, here are some articles and short essays from people who lived in the concentration camps.

http://people.uwec.edu/ivogeler/w188/life.htm
http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/salinas/students/student_sites/Fall2008/1/participant.html

http://www.sanleandro.org/depts/library/collection/california_history_videos/california_of_the_past____stories_of_japanese_american_relocation_and_internment.asp

For me, an especially profound quote from Reiko Oshima Komoto when she ended her account of trying to assimilate back into "normal" society outside of the camps.

"I recall trying to walk on ice and hitting my head after a fall and falling down a few more times before arriving at school. I still have a scar on my head as a reminder. Adjustment to life outside the camp was difficult. I was afraid a great deal of the time. I didn't want to encounter incidents of prejudice. I became a timid and introverted person, which I've overcome as I've aged.

Hopefully, people will learn from this unfortunate episode in our history. People are people; judge them as individuals, not by race, color, or creed. No Japanese American was ever tried for espionage."

It's crazy to think that people were interned in America during a time of war that was fought against Germany (who was at that time also, at a much more gruesome level, discriminating and throwing people into camps). In principle though, we see many race issues during World War II in America that contradict the very basis of the war being fought. Just as shown in Double Victory it is interesting and ironic to see that we were having our own problems at home with the very discrimination we were fighting. 

World War II Pilot Gets Reunited With His Plane!

In 1944, 22 year old pilot for the American Air Force, Charlie Screws, was flying solo over France, which was controlled by Nazi Germany, in his P47 Thunderbolt, a fighter plane. Unfortunately the Nazis spotted Charlie, and he was forced to make a crash landing. Screws deployed his parachute and destroyed his radios to prevent the Nazis from obtaining the American's frequencies. As soon as he landed, Screws ran away from his plane and buried himself into some brush until nightfall when it was safe to escape. A French family took Screws in, and helped him cross the border into Spain where he was eventually able to reconnect with the rest of the military.

Screws is now 93 years old, and was quite surprised when the tail wing of his plane showed up on his doorstep. Texas Air Museum director Malcolm Laing and historian Michael Fuller were able to track the serial number still on the tail fin of the plane, and get in touch with Screws just last week. It turns out that Fuller had first come to Laing with the new discovery of the plane piece and the name of its pilot, and Laing put Screws in contact with the plane, for Laing and Screws had been friends for years.

Laing, Screws, and Fuller with the tail wing of the plan at Screws' house.

The reunion was bittersweet for Screws, for it certainly connected him to his youth, but brought back both good and bad memories. Currently the Texas Air Museum is working to build a rather personal exhibit for the tail wing.

I found it really interesting that even though World War II was, what seems like, such a long time ago, new discoveries are still being made for the veterans of the war. According to the news article I found, which I will link below, the connection was only made last week. If anyone can find any other similar stories, or just information about World War II veterans in general, I would love to hear it!

http://www.wfmynews2.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/21/man-reunited-with-piece-of-his-world-war-ii-plane-71-years-later/22122559/

D-Day Facts

Since we’ve been talking about D-Day in class, I found an interesting article written on the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day landings with ten interesting things about that day. Here’s a link to the article: http://www.euronews.com/2014/06/03/70-years-on-amazing-facts-you-may-not-know-about-d-day/

Below are some facts, summarized, that I found especially interesting:

I found the second fact pretty interesting: a British officer named Terence Otway was in charge of attacking the Merville battery on D-Day. To ensure that his men wouldn’t leak the information and ruin the attack. Otway send thirty of the “prettiest” members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, dressed as civilians, to the local pubs. The women did everything they could to try and get the information from the men, but none fell into the trap, and the information remained secret.

As we’ve been talking about D-Day in class, I’ve wondered what the “D” stands for. Fact number 6 explains that it really doesn’t stand for anything. D-Day and H-Hour stand for the time and day an operation is supposed to begin, so the phrase “D-Day” isn’t special to WWII. The day before D-Day is represented as “D-1” and the day after is “D+1.” This means that if the start date of the operation (D-Day) is changed, all the other dates in the plan don’t have to be changed.

According to the article, Eisenhower once said, “Andrew Higgins… is the man who won the war for us.” Andrew Higgins was the man who designed the LCVPs, or the amphibious (forces landing from the sea) vehicles. These vehicles allowed the Allies to cross the English channel into France and launch the D-Day invasion. The LCVPs are also known as “Higgins boats,” and have one major disadvantage: troops have to unload equipment and disembark over the sides, exposing them to enemies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Higgins)