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