Adams Election Celebrated with Two Parties

Wow!  I can’t believe it’s been a week.  There have been a lot of things happening and Today’s History Lesson, unfortunately, hasn’t been one of them.  Hopefully, I won’t go a week between postings again.  Let’s see if we can’t get back into the swing of things.

On February 9, 1825, John Quincy Adams was elected the 6th President of the United States.  Now right away, you should notice that U.S. Presidents are normally chosen during the November elections, so something’s out of place.  There was an election, but it didn’t end with any one candidate garnering a majority of the available Electoral Votes.  Voting was split between Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay.

What makes this result a little more interesting is that all four candidates were from the same party.  In fact, they were from the only party.  The Federalist Party, the party of Washington, Hamilton, and John Adams, and John Quincy himself, had collapsed some years before, leaving just the Democratic-Republican party.  So it might be said that, during this period of time, the U.S. was blessed (if that’s the right word) with a one-party system, which probably made the conventions unworthy of TV coverage.

Anyways, while the “popular vote” was not really tallied in the 1824 election like it is now, Andrew Jackson was the clear winner, collecting more than 40% of the votes to Adams’ 31%.  He also had 99 Electoral Votes under his name, more than Adams’ 84.

But 131 Electoral Votes were required and so, as stipulated by the Constitution’s Twelfth Amendment, the election issue was passed to the House of Representatives.  Clay, who finished 4th in the voting, was ineligible.  Crawford, having garnered 3rd place despite suffering a massive stroke way back in 1823, was deemed unfit.  So it came down to Adams and Jackson.

Clay’s position as House Speaker gave him pretty heavy influence in the proceedings, and he carried with him a strong personal dislike for Andrew Jackson.  Furthermore, his own policies aligned more closely with those of Adams, so all his support was thrown to John Quincy, who carried the day and was named President on the first ballot.

Then Adams chose Henry Clay as his Secretary of State, and the fur began to fly.  An outraged Jackson accused the two of collusion, and the collapse of the one-party system had begun.  As it would turn out, Adams’ Presidency was much like his father’s.  Both men were of unquestioned integrity, but both lacked to political savvy to garner support in Washington, both allowed dissension to remain in their Cabinets, and both did little to promote themselves for re-election.

John Quincy Adams would be soundly trounced by Andrew Jackson four years later.  And by then, the battle lines in the Democratic-Republican Party had been drawn, with Jackson taking the “Democrat” side, and Adams the “Republican”.

The two-party system was back in American politics…this time to stay.

Winter War: Timoshenko Preps for All-Out Assault

The war that was being fought between the Soviet and Finnish armies in the brutal Scandanavian cold had accomplished several things.  First, it had elevated the vastly outnumbered, out-gunned, and out-manned Finnish army to exalted status.  That had happened because of the second accomplishment…the total embarrassment of the Soviet army.

Beginning in early December of 1939, Finnish commanders had begun using the terrain and better tactics to hold down their much larger enemies.  They made small night-time attacks and, with platoon- and company-sized forces (along with a healthy dose of Red Army arrogance), were able to destroy regiment-sized encampments.  In this manner, entire Red Army divisions were wiped out almost to a man.

But even more than that, the Finns understood rest and relaxation as important components of war better than their invaders did.  As much as possible, soldiers given time to sit in hot springs and saunas, which served to warm their bodies.  Many of their meals were served hot.  A cold soldier was most often a dead one, and the Russians, without these benefits, verified that theory thousands and thousands of times.

As the 1930’s gave way to January of a new decade, the Winter War captured the imagination of the world.  Radio and newspapers broadcast accounts of how tiny Finland was putting a big-time hurt on the mighty Soviet Union.  It was at this time that fighting on the Finnish front entered something of a lull.  The Finns, largely exhausted and running low on pretty much everything needed to fight, simply slowed down.  This quiet time allowed Stalin to lop off a few more heads for incompetence and bring in General Semyon Timoshenko.

Timoshenko’s plan was to build up a massive force that would, once and for all, simply overpower the Finns.  They began a process of daytime bombardments with artillery and aircraft.  The Finns, low on ammunition and possessing no air force, simply hid in their bunkers during the day and came out to make repairs at night.  But as the weeks passed, the men grew more and more worn down as sleep became more fleeting.

And then on February 1, 1940, Red Army artillery turned up the dial, beginning a ferocious bombardment that would last 10 days.  It was one of the longest “softening-up” periods of the war.  But Timoshenko knew that if victory was not achieved, he only had a bullet to look forward to.  And after 10 days, the all-out assault would finally break the Finns. But that’s for 10 days from now…

Recommended Reading: A Frozen Hell

USS Chicago Sunk by Bombs and Bumbling

Today we bid adieu to the USS Chicago.  The heavy cruiser was sunk off Rennell Island, situated roughly 200 miles straight south of Guadalcanal, during the afternoon of January 30, 1943.  The Chicago was part of a task force that was sent to Guadalcanal due to increased enemy naval activity in the area.

The U.S. Navy had incorrectly assumed that a flurry of recent Japanese movements were the first moves in another offensive action in the area.  So Admirals Nimitz and Halsey deployed as large a force as possible.  The USS Enterprise (recovering from war wounds sustained near Santa Cruz)  was augmented with carrier USS Saratogo.  And a bevy of heavy cruisers and destroyers, including the Chicago, was ordered to rendevouz, under the leadership of Admiral Richard Giffen.

In reality, the Japanese were getting their ducks in a row to completely evacuate Guadalcanal.  Operation Ke was now underway, and the Imperial Japanese Navy was working to keep the soldiers on the ground safe.

Giffen’s force was attacked in the final hours of January 29th and, despite the cover of darkness, they gave a good account of themselves.  But a couple of enemy aircraft shot down near the Chicago silhouetted her against the darkness.  Japanese Betty torpedo bombers targeted her, and hit her with two torpedoes, killing the engines and leaving her listing and dead in the water.

Her sister ship USS Louisville began towing the damaged Chicago out of harm’s way (shown above), but she was found again the next afternoon by enemy torpedo planes and hit with four more torpedoes.  At this point, she rolled over and sank.

Looking back, the loss of a single cruiser doesn’t seem to be much in light of the reality that the U.S. was just about to wrest its first major chunk of Pacific territory from the enemy.  But the naval side of the 7-month struggle had been sprinkled with bad decisions and a tendency to underestimate the enemy’s capability while simultaneously acting with a bit too much self-confidence.

The loss of the Chicago was, in some ways, the proverbial broken record.  Admiral Giffen’s push to reach his sector caused him to move his forces in predictable patterns.  At one point, he even gave up the standard zig-zag movements.  These tactics angered Admiral Nimitz a lot, though he didn’t replace Giffen who, despite his errors off Rennell Island, was a capable Admiral with significant experience.

The sinking of the USS Chicago, and the loss of 62 of its men, left a bitter taste to mingle with the sweet when Guadalcanal was secured a week later.

USS Missouri: Last of the Breed

It’s getting late this evening, so I’ll keep it fairly brief…or at least I’ll try to.

When we discussed the sinking Japan’s humongous battleship Yamato (now approaching two years ago), we put it in a hypothetical shootout with the USS Iowa.  Back then, I concluded that such a battle would have been won by the ship that landed the first blows with its main rifles (18″ on the Yamato, 16″ on the Iowa).  I still hold to that.

And while the Yamato-class battleships were easily the largest and most powerful of their type ever produced (with displacements approaching those of an aircraft carrier and those massive 18″ guns), I think the ships of the Iowa-class actually demonstrate the highest refinement of the mark, with their advanced (for the 1940’s) radar and fire-control systems.

The Iowa-class dreadnoughts came out of somewhat conflicted thinking.  The two preceding battleship classes (North Carolina and South Dakota) both tried to balance the need for bigger armament and protection while simultaneously remaining within the 35,000-ton limit imposed by the Treaty of London.  As it turns out, the South Dakota’s, with their shortened length (which meant better armor protection) and more powerful engines, actually were pretty good ships, as we saw at Guadalcanal.

But by the time they were in the water, Japan had already withdrawn from the Treaty and word that her Navy was building much larger ships came floating across the Pacific.  So an entirely new design was drafted, one which eschewed the Treaty requirements, and the Iowa-class battleships were born.

Six hulls would be laid down, and four would be completed.  The Iowa, New Jersey, the Missouri, and the Wisconsin comprised BB-61 – 64 in the Navy’s registry.  The Illinois and Kentucky (BB-65 & BB-66) were begun, but never finished.  BB-65 was eventually sold for scrap and parts of BB-66 were used to repair the Missouri after she suffered a ship-to-ship collision.  There was more-than-passing consideration for equipping the Iowa’s with 18″ main guns, and the U.S. Navy already had them in the inventory, ready to go.  But the guns would have “upset the apple cart” of the design, requiring more weight, bigger engines, and most importantly, a wider body.  Increased width meant the Iowa’s could not have used the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal, so the plan for 16″ rifles stayed.  As it is, the Iowa’s fit through the Canal with a few feet to spare.

The Missouri was the last the of the Iowa’s to be launched, having done so on January 29, 1944.  And of course, by this time the battleship had been overtaken by the aircraft carrier as the main instrument of force projection.  So she had the dual honor of being the very last battleship launched.

But these ships would hang around for a long time.  They served in Korea and in Vietnam.  Then they were placed in reserve until the 1980’s, when President Ronald Reagan’s call for a 600-ship Navy brought them back online, largely as missile platforms.  Both the Wisconsin and Missouri fired weapons in anger in the first Gulf War (the Iowa would likely have participated as well, but was damaged when a turret exploded).

As far as I can tell, the Iowa-class battleships are the longest-serving ships in U.S. history, fighting in various conflicts over nearly 50 years.  These battlewagons only journeyed together as a “foursome” for a few hours on one occasion, but it was probably a site to behold, and someone was wise enough to snap a photo (shown above)…the four most powerful ships of their kind (and the last of their kind) gliding through the water.  Their usefulness in the days of cruise missiles and carrier-centric fleet defense is long gone, but their beauty and grace will never be eclipsed.

Recommended Reading:  Iowa Class Battleships

“Those Cats Were Fast as Lightning”…

This weekend, we watched A Guy Named Joe, an old war movie from the 40’s.  In it, a B-25 pilot (played by Spencer Tracy) is killed bombing a German aircraft carrier (?!?) and then his ghost comes back to help a budding pilot learn his way around a fighter.  And there’s a love story with the dead guy’s wife (girlfriend? fiancee?…I never did quite figure that out), who’s hanging on to memories of the dead pilot…you know the drill.  If you saw the movie Always about 20 years ago (with actor-turned-history-buff Richard Dreyfuss), you’ve pretty much seen A Guy Named Joe, just different actors and in full color.

In the movie, the young guy’s fighter plane looked quite a bit different than traditional fighters, and my wife asked me what it was.  My response was something like, “That’s the ‘fork-tailed devil.’  A Lockheed P-38 Lightning.”  I went on to tell her a few things about it, but my first nine words were probably sufficient.

When discussing the P-38 Lightning, it might actually be good to look forward about 20 years.  In the mid 1950’s, the U.S. Air Force was really sold on the concept of the interceptor rather than a pure fighter.  At that time, missile technology was just beginning to advance, and thinkers envisioned an air force capable of engaging an enemy at long range, before guns would really be needed…standoff missiles would do the work.  So planes were being constructed that had remarkable straight-line speeds, but sacrificed great agility.

The P-38 is, in several ways, one of the first in that line of interceptors.

It was fast.  The specification called for at least 360mph…the Lightning was the first fighter to eclipse 400mph.  It had “standoff” capability.  Now in the 1930’s, “standoff” has to be used in a relative way.  Don’t think missiles here…think guns.  Traditional fighters of that day mounted their cannon in the wings.  In order to get bullets to converge on a point in the distance, the barrels had to be angled slightly.  This made the guns somewhat less accurate than those of the Lightning, which mounted a 20mm cannon and four 50-caliber machine guns together in the nose of the plane, giving it a much greater effective firing range.  Finally, its unconventional configuration (a trademark of many Lockheed designs), a fuselage with engines on either side, served to give it great straight-line high speed, but kind of “fattened” the body, which hurt its roll rate and made it less proficient as a fighter.

Like most of its contemporaries, it had hardpoints and could carry a modest bomb load.  But it was predominantly used as interceptor / fighter and, in the proper hands, was a very formidable weapon.  Its capability, together with its powerful ”massed” armament led German opponents to name it the “Fork-Tailed Devil”.  It served with distinction in all the theaters of World War II, and was the only fighter in production from the war’s beginning to its end.  More than 10,000 Lightnings were produced, and it produced dozens of aces (pilots with five or more kills).  It also was involved in one of the more famous missions of the Pacific War, intercepting and shooting down the plane carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943.

First flown on January 27, 1938, the Lightning would survive the war (though quickly removed from service) and numerous examples are still flying today.

And of course, the spirit of the P-38 lives on in the most advanced multi-role platform yet produced for the U.S. military…the Joint Strike Fighter.  Lockheed’s design carried the day and is named the F-35 Lightning II.  Which means the old adage of “lightning striking twice” has moved to the realm of provable fact.

Slavery: The Scourge of Many an Abolitionist

When Thomas Jefferson sat down as part of a five-man committee and began drafting a declaration of independence, he probably had little idea how exceptional that first of American documents would become.  But by the time he had written the second sentence, he probably had a pretty good idea of how accusatory it would be.

The words of the second sentence are incredibly famous, we pretty much know them by heart.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

They are indeed lofty, full of promise for a people weighed down by an oppressive regime an ocean away.  For the men who composed it, and for those that endorsed it in July of 1776, it was a immense release…a throwing off of the proverbial shackles, leaving a perceived plantation, and starting anew.

But, what about those in the Colonies for whom the shackles were real?  What about those for whom the “plantation” was not an ethereal concept discussed in the halls and taverns, but an everyday, back-breaking reality?  Where was their “declaration of independence?”

The men that brought freedom to America through pen and sword had to grapple with the finger of hypocrisy that pointed at many of them.  They preached “freedom” to their countrymen, while simultaneously endorsing the scourge of slavery.

A good number of the Founding Fathers were very much against slavery.  Men like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton spent most (or all) of their lives abhorring the practice.  But many others were, at the very least, conflicted.  George Washington had many slaves his entire life and, while he was relatively good to them (and freed them when he died), he was still a slave owner.  As was Thomas Jefferson.  Eliza Hamilton’s side of the family owned them.  Benjamin Franklin brokered slaves and didn’t become an abolitionist until later in life.  James Madison owned more than 100.

Slavery was an intensely divisive issue (as secession and the Civil War would prove), and a dangerous one for politicians to touch.  Though the early Presidents largely spoke out against the practice, they did little to push for change, because the southern states thoroughly endorsed it, and they were an immensely powerful voting block.  And while it’s easy to look at lower part of the map and say slavery was ”the South’s demon”, we have to recognize that a good number of Northerners owned slaves as well.  Passing legislation through a House and Senate that contained a significant pro-slavery contingent would have been very difficult.

As a result, early abolitionist movements had to start in a “low” place.  Small groups of people had to get together and begin acting on their own to change the situation.  The New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slavery was one such group.  It met for the first time on January 25, 1785, at an inn owned by John Simmons.  For the 19 men in attendance, their goal was to battle against slavery in the state of New York and, ultimately, the emancipation of all the state’s slaves.

But even within the New York Manumission Society (its abbreviated name), there were those that owned at least one slave.  Robert Troup owned a couple.  John Jay (shown above), a long-time abolitionist and the Society’s first chairman, owned five.  Aaron Burr, an early abolitionist and supporter, owned several.  In fact, while all the members were against slavery, at least half the members were slave owners.

The Society spoke out against slavery, printed essays and pamphlets, and created a register of all freed slaves to prevent them from being re-enslaved.  The African Free School, set up by the Society, offered education, training, and apprenticeship for freed slaves.  They pushed for state legislation to outlaw slavery which, given how widespread the practice was even in the North, didn’t get very far.

The New York Manumission Society did a lot of good things and worked hard to keep free men free, but the double standards of many of its members not only ”stained” the Society’s good intentions, they clearly reflected the conflicted nature of  the issue in the 1780’s, where citizens believed strongly in freedom, but pandered to (or fully supported) slavery.

Recommended Reading: Alexander Hamilton

“U. S.” Roosevelt

Our ISP seems to have conquered the Internet ills it had yesterday.

The Civil War battle at Fort Donelson earned Ulysses S. Grant the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant (see it there?…”Ulysses S”…”U. S.”…”Unconditional Surrender”?).  But you probably didn’t need to be reminded of that, much less have it explained.  It’s one of those pieces of Americana that just never goes away.

But that same demand, emanating from the mouth of President Franklin Roosevelt at the end of the Casablanca Conference 80 years later on January 24, 1943, was probably a little more surprising, particularly considering the circumstances under which he said it.  In 1862, Fort Donelson was beaten and General Grant’s Union forces had clearly won the day.  In January 1943, the same could not be said for Allied forces fighting around the world.

To be sure, there had been victories.  The Wehrmacht had been stopped and reversed at Moscow.  Leningrad was suffering badly, but holding on.  And Paulus and his men had been outflanked (brilliantly, I may add) and then surrounded at Stalingrad…a massive defeat there was looking inevitable.  But even with those losses, German strength in the east was formidable.

In North Africa, the forces of America, Britian, and France were struggling to make good progress against a German enemy that, even in a somewhat weakened state and at the end of a very long supply line, was still a formidable foe.  To the east, British forces were pushing the remnants of Rommel’s powerful Afrika Korps towards Tunisia.

And American Marine and Army forces were on the verge of seizing Guadalcanal in the Pacific.

So there had been gains and some considerable victories, but calling for “unconditional surrender” at this point was not all that unlike the Indianapolis Colts calling for the Jets to forfeit the game this afternoon when the Colts were down 17-13 in the 3rd quarter (though Manning’s men had gained the momentum).  The Allied forces clearly had momentum, but they were still behind with a long ways to go.

But Roosevelt was convinced that (eventual) victory was certain, and he had discussed the policy with his Joint Chiefs prior to leaving for Casablanca.  And so, at the conclusion of the Conference, in front of the cameras and with Prime Minister Churchill sitting next to him, he stated that, “The elimination of German, Japanese, and Italian war power means the unconditional surrender by Germany, Italy, and Japan.”

Prime Minister Churchill reaction, which he controlled very well, was still one of surprise.  In his book War Summits, David Stone recognizes this but also clarifies the Prime Minister’s position.  He writes, “Apparently, although he had certainly broached the subject with Churchill beforehand, Roosevelt’s decision to announce it at this press conference took the British leader by surprise.  However, this would appear to have been more a question of presentation and timing rather than an indication of any disagreement over policy, and Churchill immediately endorsed and reinforced Roosevelt’s announcement at the January 24 press briefing.”

Neither Roosevelt nor Churchill had the clairvoyance to see that the Second World War was going to last another two-and-a-half years, but they had laid down the terms under which it would end.

Recommended Reading:  War Summits

Hannibal : Konigsberg :: Dynamo : Dunkirk

The Internet is bouncing up and down like a yo-yo.  Up for two minutes, down for two.  There’s a network problem somewhere.  As a technology guy myself, I understand the fickleness of the Internet, but it’s frustrating nonetheless.  This may get published piecemeal…we’ll see…

On January 12, 1945, Russia launched its massive East Prussian Campaign.  Comprised of seven “Army Fronts”, more than 1.6 million men, and tanks and artillery pieces too numerous to count, it created a battlezone more than 500 miles long.

And it overwhelmed the 800,000 exhausted, under-supplied, and (in some cases) inexperienced German forces on the front’s other side.  In places, the Germans fell back at a staggering rate of 40 miles per day.  The Russians simply advanced faster than the Germans could retreat.

And many of those Soviet soldiers, having endured three years of German barbarity on their home soil, came westward with another goal, secondary to victory…payback.  Germans who surrendered were, in a great number of instances, simply shot.

As each town turned Red on the map, from it came citizens-turned-refugees trying to escape.  They carried with them a handful of possessions and an earful of stories, with descriptions of brutality and violence among the advancing Soviets that is too terrible to reasonably describe.  Max Hastings, one of my favorite historians, recounts in his book Armageddon that even Soviet leaders, also anxious for revenge, recoiled at the stories they were hearing and sent word down the line for their troops to exercise a little more restraint.

It had only modest effect.

Way up north, the 3rd Belorussian Front swept to the south and west, cutting off the port city of Konigsberg and, with assistance from the 2nd Belorussian Front, succeeded in isolating nearly all of East Prussia.  A steady stream of German and Prussian refugees poured into Konigsberg…and there they were stranded with their backs to the frigid Baltic.  With no way to move south towards the homeland, there was nowhere to go.

German Grand-Admiral Karl Donitz probably looked on his situation and thought back to the heady days of 1940, when the Germans had trapped the British and French at Dunkirk and victory looked close to certain.  It was a bitter pill for him to swallow, and a bitter irony that 5 years later, the roles were now reversed.  But his situation was far grimmer.  He was not facing Americans and Brits and French soldiers, who acted with relative chivalry and decency.

And so, taking a chapter from what he witnessed back in 1940, he devised an evacuation.  Operation Hannibal, as it was called, was a much more ambitious plan than Operation Dynamo, the British evacuation.  The goal was to ferry as many soldiers, officers, and civilians to either Germany or German-occupied Denmark…away from the Red Army.

Begun on January 23, 1945, the operation would last the remainder of the war.  Utilizing more than 1,000 naval and merchant ships, nearly 2,000,000 refugees in total would be evacuated from the Baltic coast…a staggering achievement considering the state of the German situation.  One vessel involved in Operation Hannibal was the Wilhelm Gustloff, and her voyage, as we learned last year, ended in disaster.

Ax Men in France

This hasn’t been a very good month for writing.  If one thing hasn’t gotten in the way, it’s been another.  I really wanted to write about Orde Wingate and the Gideon Force yesterday, so of course, our Internet Service Provider decided to disconnect our DSL service.  And we were kind of pre-occupied anyways, owing to an ice storm.  Unfortunately, the format of Today’s History Lesson means that Wingate has to wait another year.  Our internet connection has been restored, so we move on…

To France…

The French Revolution in the late 18th century drew very different reactions in America, depending on who was asked.  Some believed that the drastic changes in France were taking it down the road to violence, upheaval, and bloodshed.  Others thought it closely mirrored the American version, fought and won against the British just 10 years before.  The growing French unrest reverberated through nearly all facets of American life, including politics.

In his biography of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow writes, “Americans increasingly defined their domestic politics by either their solidarity with the French Revolution or their aversion to its incendiary methods.  The French Revolution thus served to both consolidate the two parties in American politics and deepen the ideological gulf between them.”

But in France, the summer of 1792 was less about ideology and the niceties of political debate and more about violence and retribution.  William Short, at one time the private secretary to Thomas Jefferson in Paris, continued in correspondance with his boss, writing from Holland of “those mad and corrupted people in France who under the name of liberty have destroyed their own government.”  The streets, he said, ran red with blood.

Still, many in America (a majority, in fact) supported Robespierre and those with him, romanticizing their actions and comparing them to recent American history, while simultaneously ignoring the slaughter that these men brought upon their own countrymen.  The overthrow of the government in September of 1792 was met in the States with celebrations and toasts.

And then, on January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI was beheaded.  A goodly number of Americans gasped.  Sure, France with in the midst of turmoil and people were going to die.  But even those most “akin” to the uprising in France remembered well how Louis XVI had been a staunch ally of the American cause during the Revolution.  Sure, his support had been self-serving to a degree, as he was waging his own war with Britain.  But he was a supporter nonetheless, and more than one American who had given him or herself the label of “Jacobin” was now given sudden pause.

Thomas Jefferson, who had once called King Louis XVI “a good man” and “an honest man”, and now desperately wanted to hold on to his support of the Revolution, said that monarchs were “amenable to punishment like other criminals.”

Americans struggled with the trickle of news that came across the ocean.  Some were aghast at the reports, while others tried to downplay the news as sensationalism.  But regardless, the French Revolution quickly lost what little similarity it had to its American counterpart and took on the luster of a Stalin-esque purge, with thousands and thousands of professors, priests, politicians, and “enemies of the enemy of the state” meeting the edge of the guillotine’s blade in a wide-reaching political massacre.

The Road Away from Auschwitz

©Angelo Celedon

Filip Müller noticed the change.  People he considered “enemies” were now actually showing him a bit of deference.  Those in authority over him, while still attempting to do their jobs, were displaying, in his opinion, affability.  And while Müller may have wanted to attribute this change in attitude to a change in heart, he knew better.  It was more likely the low rumble of artillery fire in the distance that caused the transformation.

Filip Müller’s three-year internment in Auschwitz exposed him to man at his basest and most inhumane.  I think for any of us that read accounts of the Holocaust, what strikes us…well, I probably shouldn’t speak for “us”.  I think what strike me as most frightening is that some of the men who carried out the Final Solution did so with such a matter-of-fact, almost casual, detachment.  But I’ve only read about it…Müller lived it…every day.  Each sunrise brought with it the prospect of his own death and the inevitable death (by gassing or bullet or experiment) of hundreds who were herded into this most infamous of camps for their first (and last) visit.

But the rumble of guns changed the equation.  For the Germans, it was as though a dream had been interrupted by the harsh reality that they were losing the war.  And what’s more, they were losing it at a faster pace in the east, where all the extermination camps were located, than in the west.  And the uneasiness of the SS commandants and guards was directly proportional to the volume of those guns.  They grew together.

In his dreadful, yet eye-opening, account titled Eyewitness Auschwitz, Müller writes, “And then came that memorable 18 January 1945.  There was great confusion throughout the camp.  Early in the morning columns of smoke could be seen rising in all parts of the camp.  Quite obviously the SS men were destroying index cards and other documents.  The prisoners who normally at this time of day were bustling about, seemed almost paralyzed with inaction:  not a single team left camp for work.  The rumble of guns and the explosions of heavy shelling were very close…”

Müller and his comrades were almost certain that this day would be their last, so they were somewhat surprised when summoned for the evening’s roll call…the last roll call.  And then they were told to prepare for transport.  Shortly before midnight on January 18, 1945, after frantically grabbing the things they might need to keep warm in the frigid conditions while trying to keep their euphoria in check, they marched out of Auschwitz…nearly 20,000 of them.

Left behind were 7,000 prisoners, considered too weak or sick to make the journey.  They would be liberated by the Soviets just nine days later.  For Müller, and those with him, the ordeal would continue.  But one chapter at least had been closed.

Auschwitz had been abandoned.

Recommended Reading: Eyewitness Auschwitz

Spain Survives Another Nuclear Near-Miss

It’s been almost a year since we talked about the B-52 Stratofortress that crashed near Goldsboro, North Carolina.  Time really flies.  That accident, in 1961, was something of a nuclear “near miss” as the massive bomber was carrying a pair of Mk39 Hydrogen bombs.  Back then, we kind of thought that there would be other incidents like this floating in historical space, simply because Strategic Air Command’s (SAC) readiness code required that some planes be ready on a moment’s notice.  So they carried nukes.  Today, we’ll look at another of those incidents, one with a less happy ending.

On January 17, 1966, another B-52 was in the process of in-air refueling.  Now Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will recall Episode 612 (The Starfighters) as not only one of the funniest episodes ever, but also as the one that featured the most in-air refueling footage ever gathered in one movie reel.  And while Mike and the Bots make light of the process (for the sake of the movie), it really is one fraught with peril, with one (or more) planes trying to get really close to a tanker stuffed with flammable jet fuel.

Our subject B-52 was in the midst of a lengthy flight and preparing to refuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker in the Mediterranean not far from the coast of Spain.  But the big bomber came in a little too fast and collided with the tanker’s refueling arm.  The B-52 was heavily damaged and ultimately crashed, killing 4 of the 7 crew.  The KC-135 exploded, killing all 4 crew.

But as you know from the intro, the big Stratofortress was not cargo-less.  In its bomb bays were four Mk28 Hydrogen bombs.  This bomb was somewhat smaller than the Mk39, possessing a full yield of about 1.5 megatons, but that’s still a tremendous punch.  Three of these bombs fell near the quiet farming village of Palomares (on the southeast “corner” of Spain), and one fell in the Mediterranean itself.

Two of the bombs that hit solid ground exploded.  But we’ve briefly touched on the basics of how nuclear weapons work.  There’s a conventional explosion that serves to trigger the nuclear device.  However, the nuke only detonates if all the “kill” switches are turned off.  This mission was flown in peacetime, and so only the conventional weapon exploded.  So while there was no giant mushroom cloud and instant vaporization, the explosions served to “crack the shells” and release radioactivity into the air.

The third and fourth bombs were recovered intact and Spain had been spared a nuclear holocaust, but roughly a square mile of Spanish territory had been contaminated by fallout.  And of course, radioactivity hangs around for a long time.  Much of the affected topsoil was brought to the U.S. for disposal, but even today, radioactivity is still being discovered.  The United States and Spain continue the task of cleaning up a mess that occurred more than 40 years ago…a mess that, in 2009, Time Magazine called one of the worst nuclear disasters ever.

Recommended Reading:  America’s Lost H-Bomb

Super Bowl or Side Show?

Well, the long national nightmare is over.  No, we don’t have a balanced budget or lower taxes or world peace.  But the white car finally started.  On Wednesday, we reached 40°F for the first time in weeks.  So I went out and, after a bit of coercion, gained the victory.  There’s still plenty wrong with the world, but my wife finally has her car all to herself, and I can finally move on…

…to the Super Bowl.

I’m mostly a baseball guy.  I love to follow the game, I love to watch it.  I like to talk about it.  I’m in a fantasy baseball league with a 40-man roster.  Since only 25 are active, it means we can have minor league prospects as well.  That means researching each team’s farm system, digging for up-and-coming talent.  It’s really enjoyable, if a little time-consuming.

But my wife’s favorite sport is football.  And so we watch games every week (and on the occasional Monday and Thursday).  It was my favorite sport when I was a kid.  Back then, I liked the Baltimore Colts and Bert Jones was my favorite player.  He was a quarterback headed for stardom until shoulder problems put paid to his career.  I kind of followed the 49′ers through the Joe Montana / Steve Young years, but I can’t say they were a favorite team or anything.  And then I got away from football for ten or twelve years.

But when I got married, that all changed, and football regained a place in my sports routine.  We’re pretty much a Green Bay Packers household…and I can thank the family I gained for that.  But while I always root for Green Bay when they play, I like to think that I can watch and enjoy just about any game simply for the game itself.

And while the Packers got eliminated from this year’s playoffs in rather dramatic fashion, they’ve been to the Super Bowl before.  In fact, they were the victors in that first Super Bowl, played in Los Angeles on January 15, 1967. Their opponent, the Kansas City Chiefs, didn’t prove to be much competition as the Packers prevailed 35-10.

It’s too bad for the Chiefs, who have had very little success since 1967.  The Packers returned and won Super Bowl II the next year, and then began a long dry spell of their own.  It wouldn’t be until the mid-1990’s that Green Bay would again win the season’s final game.

I really enjoy the Super Bowl, but it’s kind of sad that, over the years, the spectacle of all the stuff surrounding the game has somewhat overshadowed the game itself.  More than 100 million people watch at least part of the game, but are they actually watching the game?

Or are they simply waiting for the next commercial break?  Advertisers spend millions of dollars to grab 30-second blocks of our attention.  And the whole “commercial competition” has gotten to the point that the host network can basically charge whatever it wants for its ad space, and the public’s fixation with the advertising means that companies will pony up regardless of cost.

Halftime shows have become more and more elaborate, with planners trying to “out-half” the previous year’s show.  It got to the point that I quit watching it, and I suppose I should thank that wardrobe debacle from a few years ago, as it actually brought a bit of restraint back to halftime.  But while I kind of enjoyed Tom Petty’s performance a year or two ago, I think the halftime show is still over the top.

So while I look forward to this year’s ultimate game and all the snacks we’ll have, I wish it was more like it was in ‘67.  Two teams…one of them the Packers.  One game.  Zero fluff.

Recommended Viewing:  The Super Bowl – Watch this year’s version…it’ll be pretty good even though it’s Packer-less.  Commercial junk and half-time show optional.

The Midwest’s “Weather Playground” Turns Violent

Samuel Glenn was a Sergeant in the Signal Corps.  His job was to, three times a day, take weather measurements and then send them up the chain to the weather guys.  The weather guys would then plot those readings on maps, which would give them a picture of what the weather was doing.

These days, computers and sophisticated electronic sensors handle most of these measurements (and many more besides) almost instantaneously, but in the 1880’s, that was how it was done…and Glenn was dedicated to his task.

At 11:42am on January 12, 1888, Glenn had slowly (he was fighting a stomach illness) made his way to the roof of the station in Huron, South Dakota.  His readings earlier in the morning showed temperatures that were more than 20 degrees warmer than the previous day.  The reason?  That surge of warm, moist air that we talked about the day before yesterday.

All throughout the Midwest, it was one of those “throw-open-the-doors-and-raise-the-windows” kind of days.  Temperatures that had been well below zero for some time were now, in places, 30 above zero…it was like spring.  Hundreds of children, kept home because of the cold, not only went to school, but did so without their heavy coats…some without coats at all.

Glenn’s position on the roof gave him a perfect view of what happened in that minute between 11:42 and 11:43, and it’s recounted in David Laskin’s brilliant book The Children’s Blizzard.  “‘The air, for about one (1) minute, was perfectly calm, and voices and noises on the street below appeared as though emanating from great depths.  A peculiar ‘hush’ prevailed over everything.  In the next minute the sky was completely overcast by a heavy black cloud, which had in a few minutes previously hung suspended along the western and northwestern horizon, and the wind veered to the west (by the southwest quadrant) with such violence as to render the observer’s position very unsafe.  The air was immediately filled with snow as fine as sifted flour.  The wind veered to the northeast, then back to the northwest, in a gale which in three minutes attained a velocity of forty (40) miles per hour.  In five minutes after the wind changed the outlines of objects fifteen (15) feet away were not discernable.’”

Within two hours, Glenn would be experiencing wind gusts of nearly 80 miles per hour.  That massive storm that two colossal fronts had created was now smashing into the Midwest with the coverage of a hurricane and the power of a tornado (many witnesses reported the tornado-esque sound of a freight train).  Along with the gale force winds came snow, some comprised of water droplets blasted by the wind into needles that made it impossible to see, others crushed to a dust-like consistency that made it nearly impossible to breathe.

As the massive blizzard blasted through each succeeding town, it largely caught everyone by complete surprise.  The weather changed in the matter of a minute or two.  Today, we have computerized weather models that allow forecasters to make at least general predictions far in advance.  What’s more, we actually have a communication system in place that doesn’t require oats to run or fingers to tap.  But in 1888, those systems didn’t exist.  Even if storm warnings were given promptly, their transmission was still largely by word-of-mouth or a paper pinned up at the post office.

Some school teachers immediately released their students to race home, but it was already too late.  Others kept them in the school houses to ride out the storm, but the blizzard was so violent that the buildings couldn’t keep out the cold and the wind.

Many that tried to make it home either became lost in the almost complete blindness, or succumbed to the brutal windchills.  The temperatures?…some stations reported drops of 18 degrees in just three minutes.

It was a story that was played out over and over as the storm blew east and south.  In its wake it left the real killer…brutal, brutal cold.  Behind the storm came high pressure and Arctic air.  In many midwestern locations (including the Iowa town in which I live), the historical record lows for January 12th, 13th, and 14th are still dated 1888.  And the frigid blast continued south, dropping temps in Dallas into the 20’s and to near freezing as far south as Mexico.

Hundreds of children and not a few adults, disoriented by the blinding snow and exhausted by efforts to reach safety, now faced temperatures of -40°F.  They simply couldn’t do it, and so they died…by the hundreds.  Sadly, some of these may have been saved by 20th-century medical practices, but they, like the weather and communications systems, didn’t exist in the 19th century.

The Children’s Blizzard (so named due to the number of children lost) claimed as many as 500 lives.  One historian would write, “A scene became quite familiar in many localities, the arrival of a party in quest of a doctor and bearing either on their arms or in some sort of conveyance, the half frozen body of a neighbor or two who have been exposed to the storm…”.

In the 1880’s, the Midwest was still pretty much the “wild west”, and people choosing to settle there – many amid promises of land and a bright future – quickly discovered a very harsh and unforgiving region.  But nothing could really prepare these men and women for the brutality of the Children’s Blizzard.

Back east, people in the relative safety and warmth of their cities took comfort in (and sometimes boasted of) their “advanced” protection.  But 1888 was just beginning, winter wasn’t nearly over, and the east would soon feel it’s wrath as well.

Recommended Reading: It’s a double dose today. Of course, The Children’s Blizzard. But in addition, read the Weather Doctor’s account.

James Howard: Lion in the Sky

As Major James Howard climbed into the cockpit of his fighter on January 11, 1944, he was already an ace. He was about to become one all over again.

Howard “grew up” as a pilot in the fledgling carrier wings of the U.S. Navy.  In the late 1930’s, he was aboard the USS Enterprise.  But when Claire Chennault put together his all-volunteer force in Burma in mid-1941, Howard couldn’t resist the lure of immediate action, possible glory, and flying the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, at that time the best fighter available in the U.S. inventory.  So he left the Navy and joined what became known as the Flying Tigers.  In 50+ missions, Howard was credited with six-and-a-half kills, one (and a half) more than the 5 required to be an ace.

In mid-1942, the Flying Tigers were assimilated into the Army Air Force, and Howard was commissioned as a captain, and promoted in 1943 to major.  It would be as a squadron commander in the 354th Fighter Group that he would become, for a while, a household name.  Which brings us back to January 11th…

Flying escort for a bombing package of B-17 Flying Fortresses, their formation was jumped by a gaggle of German Me-109’s and 110’s.  And while the gunners in the belly of the bombers had their hands full, they were also treated to an aerial spectacle as Howard repeatedly pressed attacks against the enemy.  Even when separated from the rest of his squadron and flying alone, he remained the aggressor.  James Howard was credited with 3 definite kills and 3 probables.

When Frederick Graham published the story a week later in the New York Times, he reported how bomber crews returned to base just gushing about this one guy who, for a short time, was a “one-man air force”.  The leader of the bomber force later said, “For sheer determination and guts, it was the greatest exhibition I’ve ever seen. It was a case of one lone American against what seemed to be the entire Luftwaffe. He was all over the wing, across and around it. They can’t give that boy a big enough award.”  And it would be their eyewitness accounts that not only verified his actions, but upped Howard’s conservative “2 kills and 2 probables” to ”3+3″.

The leader of the bomber force was right. Five months later, Howard was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his exploits (shown above with Howard on the right).

And James Howard’s airplane?  Well, his P-51B Mustang landed safely (unlike our comrade Alexander Gorovets) with just one bullet hole.  A pretty awesome result for a modest, tall, skinny kid.

But now intrepid readers will likely recall that, when we last visited the P-51 Mustang (in 1940), she was flying for the first time.  Characterized as a very solid medium-altitude fighter, what was it doing in 1944 as a high-altitude bomber escort, shooting down enemy planes with reckless abandon?  Ah, that is the question…and we’ll answer it in a couple months.

Recommended Reading: The Mustang Story

The Upper Midwest: The Weather Playground

Sulfur dioxide is one of the by-products of volcanic eruptions…all eruptions send it into the atmosphere.  Small eruptions release a little, big eruptions a lot.  Sulfur dioxide acts like a “radiation mirror”, reflecting the sun’s energy back into space.  Really big volcanic eruptions can cause enough solar power to be reflected to actually cool the earth and alter weather patterns.  Mt. Krakatoa’s eruption in August of 1883 did just that, and it affected the weather for several years.

And as we already know, weather is unstable enough.  David Laskin writes, “Constantly and futilely, the earth’s atmosphere seeks to achieve equilibrium.  Weather is the turbulent means to this perfect, hopeless end.  Contrasting temperatures try to balance out to one uniform temperature, pressure differences strive for resolution, winds blow in a vain attempt to finally calm down global tensions.  All of this is enormously complicated by the ceaseless rotation of the planet.  Weather is the steam the atmosphere lets off as it heaves itself again and again into a more comfortable position.  Weather keeps happening because the equilibrium of the atmosphere keeps getting messed up.”

As Christmas of 1887 gave way to the New Year, a large pocket of super-cooled air formed over Alberta, Canada, caused by a combination of factors.  Winters in northern Canada feature only a couple hours of sunlight, and much of that can’t be absorbed by the snow-covered surface.  Add in high pressure, very light winds, and the possibility that Krakatoa’s residue was still in play, and a region that averaged temperatures of -15°F in January was now a polar-esque -35°F.

At first, it’s hard to see how this is really news-worthy.  After all, it’s Canada, it’s winter, it’s cold.  You kind of expect it.  If the weather turns especially cold from time to time, well, that’s what happens.  Our recent weather south of the border hasn’t been, for the last 2 weeks, all that much warmer.  But things changed on January 10, 1888.

It was then that the jet stream dove down from the Yukon and ran into the Canadian Rockies.  The currents slid down the mountains, warming as they did, and collided with the super cold air mass that had stagnated there.  The drop in air pressure created a powerful low that, propelled by high pressure behind it, began sliding to the south.

In the meantime, many hundreds of miles to the south, a wave of warm, moist air was surging northward from Oklahoma, which would dramatically warm the upper Midwest, and provide welcome relief from the unseasonably cold weather.

Both air masses, the cold from the north and the warm from the south, were impressively powerful on their own.  But when the warm air collided with the cold, it would create a storm of awesome power.  Stay tuned…

Recommended Reading:  The Children’s Blizzard – A “glue” book.  Once it’s in your hands, it gets stuck until the last page is finished.  A huge kudos to a co-worker for lending me his copy.  I now have one of my own.

Montgomery Weighs in on the Bulge

A morning with temps above 0°!!  We actually started today at +12, but of course it came with 5-6″ of snow.  And now we’ve got 40-50mph wind gusts, which means terrible road conditions.  Then another couple nights in the deep freeze.  I really, really hate the cold.  I know, I’m obsessing.  But this is getting ridiculous.

The Battle of the Bulge was a fairly significant embarrassment to Allied military leaders.  Hitler’s last gamble had made fools of them all to some degree.  As we noted before, there would be a lot of after-the-fact finger-pointing.  There would be plenty of passing the blame.  And there would be pontification about how “we knew they were coming” and “we had it all under control”, but Allied leaders that said such things were lying.

When Hitler’s forces had attacked through the Ardennes in 1940, they had reached the Meuse River in just two days.  This time, Hitler’s forces ran out of gas (in both the literal and figurative sense of the phrase) long before they reached that goal, much less their ultimate goals of Antwerp and Brussels.  Once the weather cleared around Christmas, the Allies’ vast advantage in the air rained down on the (now stalled) Wehrmacht parade.  Allied fighters and bombers had a field day, plinking tanks and decimating infantry columns almost without opposition.

And while one shouldn’t understate the inherent German weakness in the December offensive – weakness caused by increased Allied bombing and pressure from the West, the East (from where the Soviet hordes were descending), and the South – care should also be taken not to understate the contributions made by Allied soldiers…particularly American soldiers.  It’s easy to forget that, in spite of the multiple countries coming at Germany from the West, 90% of the soldiers that fought in the Ardennes were Americans…many of them with little combat experience.

The 99th and 2nd Divisions were green troops or recuperating troops, sent to a relatively “quiet sector” to gain experience (or regain health) before moving to the front lines.  On December 16th, the front lines came to them in traumatic fashion, and relative “boys in war” became men, doing so at a price that stained the pristine Ardennes snow a bloody red.  American casualties were the heaviest of any campaign fought anywhere during the War.  Nearly 20,000 Americans were killed and another 70,000 were wounded or captured.  But they held against a most determined and desperate foe.

So it shouldn’t surprise us to learn that American commanders, stinging from their miscalculation and reeling from their losses, were angry…no, incensed is a better word…by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s actions on January 7, 1945.  It was then that he held a press conference, largely taking credit for stopping the Germans.

Monty said, “As soon as I saw what was happening, I took certain steps myself to ensure that if the Germans got to the Meuse they would certainly not get over the river.”

In his book The Longest Winter, Alex Kershaw says, “The picture Montgomery gave of the battle was of massive American blundering:  only when he had been brought in to command the armies holding the northern shoulder had catastrophe been averted.”

In fact, it was the 99th, outnumbered and holding under intense pressure and bitter cold at Elsenborn Ridge (which we’ll cover next year), that allowed the northern shoulder to hold.

General George Patton, never one to hide his feelings and having been frustrated by Monty in the Mediterranean, was less angry with Monty’s words than he was with Monty’s refusal to actually counterattack with any serious aggression.  He said that, had it not been for Montgomery, Americans could have “bagged the whole German Army…War requires the taking of risks and he won’t take them.”

It’s possible to that Montgomery was still bitter at “losing out” on overall command to Ike, even though he had instead been given the rank of Field Marshal by Churchill as a bone.  Or maybe he was trying to get a little more attention shown on the British, who comprised barely one-tenth of the battle forces at the Bulge.  But whatever the reason, Montgomery’s grandstanding really angered the American commanders.  And even as the War was winding down, disagreements such as this (some with issues going all the way back to North Africa two years before) were serving to tear down relations between the Americans and British.

The war had gone on long enough.

Recommended Reading: The Longest Winter

The Golden Gate Bridge is Born

The cold continues…-15 again this morning and the white car still doesn’t start.  It’s like a really bad saga.

When I mention that Today’s History Lesson has something to do with San Francisco, each of you will have different images pop into your brain.  For some, it’s the houses packed so tightly together (each of which costs a bundle to own).  For others, it might be the fog over the Bay.  Some may immediately think of the earthquakes that have, over the years, caused catastrophic damage to the area.

For me personally, it’s that one street that winds back and forth (the name escapes for the moment).  It’s the scenes from the movie Bullitt with Steve McQueen and his Mustang, where pursued became pursuer as they flew down those descending streets in one of the more dramatic car chases ever to grace the movie screen.  But the thing that probably comes to my mind first is the same thing for many of you as well…

The Golden Gate Bridge.

Along with the Empire State Building, Mount Rushmore, and the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate is likely one of the most recognizable man-made structures in America, if not the world.  It’s not the tallest, it’s not the longest (though it was when it was built), and it’s not the most expensive bridge ever built.  And it’s never had a major collapse to color its history, as others have.

But it, as much as any structure ever built, has demonstrated man’s ability to harness the rigid laws of physics and use them in a way that actually helps people.  Before the Bridge (in the early 1930’s), getting from San Francisco to Sausalito required a ride on a ferry across the Bay, or a drive of many hours around the Bay, taking advantage of whatever other bridges would serve to shorten the trip.  And while the ferry worked, it wasn’t so nice in heavy weather, and ferries could only move so many cars at a time.

The idea of a bridge, however, was looked on with skepticism.  The distance (6,700′) was daunting.  The weather and the winds and the waves would wreak havoc on a bridge.  The water in the middle of the proposed span was 500′ deep…driving pilings and pouring concrete and building supports would be very difficult.  And the harbor still had to support a significant shipping business as well as the needs of the U.S. Navy.  Nobody wanted ships constantly plowing into a bridge.  And of course, there were those occasional earthquake concerns.

The solution was a suspension bridge.  Two massive supports would be “planted” on the far ends of the bridge, which would prevent the expensive process of laying supports in deep water, while simultaneously removing a bunch of solid targets for ships to hit in bad weather.  Then, a bunch of cable would be strung between the supports and the bridge itself, providing the lift.  Of course, there’s a whole lot more physics and stuff involved, but I averaged a D+ in my two semesters of college physics, so I’m not the guy to explain it.

And on January 5, 1933, that’s what the workers started building.  Completed in 1937 and opened to traffic in May of that year, the Golden Gate runs almost 9,000′ from abutment to abutment.  It weighs in at a rather heavy 894,500 tons.  The bridge is supported and stabilized by 80,000 miles of high-tensile cable, which means two things.  First, it can hold up two tons of stuff (cars, trucks, and buses) per foot.  Second, the bridge offers significant flex (up to 15′ of total deflection) without collapse.

While I’ve visited California, I’ve never been to San Francisco nor seen the Golden Gate.  But I’d love to visit.  Getting my wife to actually cross the Golden Gate, however, well…

Tolkien’s Words, My World

Well, the cold weather continues.  We’re looking at temps around -10°F tonight.  The white car still refuses to start, so I think I’m simply going to give up trying until temps moderate, which means probably next weekend.  There’s no point burning out a starter.

I was telling a friend this week that Today’s History Lesson has given me a much greater appreciation for good writers.  So it’s great that I get to write about one today, though I won’t do him near the justice he deserves.

J. R. R. Tolkien may not be the most remarkable writer that ever lived.  He certainly wasn’t as prolific as many authors.  And I’m not 100% sure that writing was even Tolkien’s first love.  I think that was reserved for linguistics, languages, and the studies concerning them.  But J. R. R. Tolkien is responsible for one of the most remarkable works of literature ever created.  It largely defined a literary genre and has captivated millions of readers (and more recently, movie-goers) worldwide.

When The Hobbit was published in 1937, it achieved a success that surprised its author.  Tolkien had created a story essentially to read to his children, and a goodly number of people decided they wanted it read to (and by) their own kids.  Though the author did not really envision a sequel, the publishers believed one would be appropriate.

And so Tolkien began work on a continuation of The Hobbit, and very quickly discovered a story that ran much deeper, and with a much darker vein, than its predecessor.  Published as The Lord of the Rings, it contains many elements of the prequel.  There’s a quest, there’s a ring (the same Ring from The Hobbit, but with a much more sinister nature), and there’s a group that forms the “quest party”.

But the similarities pretty much end there, as The Lord of the Rings is far more involved, exposing us to much of the expanse of Middle Earth and the richness of its 7,000-year history.  There are numerous races of people, and Tolkien’s mastery of languages came to the fore, as he created more than a dozen distinct langauges and writing systems.

Since their first publication in the mid-1950’s, the three volumes that comprise The Lord of the Rings have sold millions of copies and have captivated millions of readers.  The trilogy largely created and defined the fantasy genre and has since become the benchmark against which all fantasy fiction has been measured.  It’s been made into numerous video games.  There were television movies in the late 70’s, though they weren’t very good.  It is, without question, one of the most important literary works of the 20th Century.

In the late 1990’s, New Line Cinema essentially “mortgaged the farm” on film director Peter Jackson and his ability to bring the massive scale of Tolkien’s world to the big screen.  The three movies were a tremendous success, introducing The Lord of the Rings to millions of new fans.

I read the trilogy every August, and 2009 was my 25th reading, so I consider myself a fan.  I love The Lord of the Rings so much because they’re the books I would have wanted to write.  I very much want to walk the plains of Rohan and stroll with Halflings through the Shire.  Maybe lay eyes on Sauron’s Dark Tower or stand over Balin’s tomb in Moria.  It could be the kid in me (or possibly I’m just weird), but Tolkien’s story draws me into the pages like no other fiction has or probably could.

It begins humbly enough, but builds in urgency and pace until the final crescendo before the gates of Minas Tirith when the King is crowned.  The 3rd book’s final 70 pages are basically the epilogue, and while the story seems to end on a positive note, I consider it a tragedy.  Evil is vanquished, but even good suffers loss…”they all lived happily ever after” sounds discordant as this masterpiece is completed.

And I want to see it…but then, maybe I already have.  My mind’s eye has created Middle Earth, and I’ve visited so often that, in some sense (a sense that might rightly earn a crossway’s glance from any number of people), I already know the place.  I own Peter Jackson’s movie renditions, but steadfastly refuse to watch them.  I’ve watched the intro to The Fellowship… and the scenes from Khazad-dum, but that’s it.  I don’t want another ”world-view” infringing on my own.

It’s so all-encompassing in scope.  The Tale of Years, detailed in the appendix, verifies the “truth” of the Third Age.  We see snippets of stories, largely untold and never-to-be-explained, that beg for fleshing out.  The historian in me just has to know.  Its languages, and lands, and races of people, and heroes long dead and gone, each story crying for its witnesses to come forth.  But while it’s “all-encompassing”, it’s also so personal…to the point of being just my experience alone.  Tolkien’s world is his creation…but the books make it my creation as well.  When I open the books, I play God for a brief moment and, with a thought, create a landscape “in my own image”.  Treebeard looks and sounds as I wish, the Misty Mountains are as rugged as I make them, the Brandywine River as cool to the touch as I desire.

Maybe that’s the magic of Tolkien’s creation for me…his creation allows me to create.  I don’t know.  It’s kind of ethereal and hard to explain.

J. R. R. Tolkien was born in South Africa on January 3, 1892.  When he died in 1973, he left behind a canvas that I paint, and repaint, every year.  I can’t wait for next August.

Happy Birthday, J. R. R. Tolkien!!

Recommended Reading:  The Lord of the Rings – Experience Middle Earth for the first time…or the nth time.

Hale to the…Skipper

Happy New Year everyone!!  We woke up this morning to an unpleasant -16°F.  I really hate winter.  Not because of the snow or the shortened days, but just those frigid temperatures.  If it would just stay around 25-30 degrees, I’d be fine.  But -16!!  And one of our cars sits out in the driveway and, even after driving it around last night, it refused to start today.  The battery had plenty of juice, but it was so darned cold that it just couldn’t start.  Maybe tomorrow.  Anyways, we’ve warmed all the way up to -1, so I’m feeling…still really cold.

Alan Hale, Jr. lived to be almost 72 years old, and he spent a good number of those years in front of camera.  But just three of those years would largely define his legacy as an actor.  In 1964, the first of nearly 100 episodes of Gilligan’s Island was shown on TV, and Hale would forever be known as “The Skipper”.  The somewhat portly captain of the S.S. Minnow spent a lot of time working with the Professor to get off the island.  He struggled to get any sleep at all in his hammock with the clumsy Gilligan (who slept in the hammock above him) constantly falling or tripping over him.  And he must have hit Gilligan with his hat at least a thousand times.

The show only lasted three seasons, but it developed a huge following and has achieved something of a cult status.  And Alan Hale remained “the Skipper” long after the tapes had been worn thin in syndication.  But his response to it all was somewhat unusual.  Many actors and actresses that have such defining roles – I think of Henry Winkler as Fonzie or maybe Ted Danson as Sam.  Bob Crane’s Colonel Hogan comes to mind as well – often come to resent them, because it so badly pidgen-holes their careers.  Rather than taking on broader roles or assuming new and different characters, they are repeatedly cast as characters of the same mold as that “one role” that made them.

What’s more, the public maintains such a strong name/face recognition that I imagine it’s difficult, even in everyday life, to leave those characters, long dead and gone, behind.  But Alan Hale was different.  Even though played dozens of different characters in dozens of different movies, he was always best remembered as the Skipper…and it seemed to be something he completely embraced.  Alan owned a seafood restaurant in Hollywood, and was often seen with his captain’s hat.

I’ve seen Alan in so few roles outside that of the Skipper.  As you know, I’m a big fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and a couple of movies with Hale made it the screens.  In The Giant Spider Invasion (episode 810), we see Hale in the role of a Sheriff.  Angels Revenge (#622) seems to be a knock-off of Charlie’s Angels…and not a very good one at that.  In it, Hale plays Manny, an agent of a female pop-singer whose current hit, “Shine Your Love”, is actually pretty terrible and draws the ire of Mike and the Bots.  The Crawling Hand (#106) again has Hale as a Sheriff, but while I have this episode, I’ve yet to watch it.

But I’m guessing that I could probably watch everything in which Alan Hale ever acted, and he would still be “The Skipper” to me.  I think it’s nice to know that Hale, who died of thyroid cancer on January 2, 1990, would probably be just fine with that.

Recommended Viewing:  Angels Revenge – You’ve seen him as the Skipper, now see him as agent to the stars!!

Jefferson Tosses in the Towel as Secretary of State

I’ve been away from the electronic “pen” far too long.  There were topics on my list for the days I missed, but I didn’t really make the time for the research necessary to do them justice.  Of course, I could have just gone to some other site, paraphrased/copied some material, and called it good, but the research part is often as enjoyable as the typing.  So I apologize for being ill-prepared this last week of the year.

But as we exit 2009, I want to briefly discuss another exit…the one made by Thomas Jefferson.  When President Washington had announced the first presidential cabinet in American history, it was no surprise that Jefferson was among the selections.  Author of the Declaration and an ambassador to France with John Adams during the Revolution, Jefferson certainly possessed the talents and initiative to help guide the States through their infancy.  He became the country’s first Secretary of State.

But it didn’t take long for this new appointee to start opposing not only other cabinet members, most particularly the Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, but the President himself.  So often when we think of those first Presidents, we put the party system we have now out of our thinking.  There weren’t parties, we say to ourselves, and the Founding Fathers were largely in agreement on matters of policy, we might think.  We see old paintings of the Fathers standing together in the meetings halls as the Constitution was formed.  Together they grace the cover of many books.  Washington reposes right next to Jefferson on Mount Rushmore!!  Our natural inclination is to think of the Founding Fathers as “Founding Friends.”  Such is not the case.

Jefferson clashed badly – initially on ideological grounds, later on most everything – with Washington and Hamilton.  Before the President’s first term had ended, Jefferson had tried to resign.  In early 1792, he tried to quit, but was convinced by Washington to do otherwise.  In October of that same year, he again met with the President, and was less subtle in his “Hamiltonian” disfavor.  Jefferson told Washington that Hamilton had told him the “Constitution was a shilly-shally thing of mere milk and water, which could not last and was only good as a step to something better.”  The President had heard enough.  Pinning the Secretary of State with his own words, he responded sharply that “as to the idea of transforming this government into a monarchy, he did not believe there were ten men in the United States whose opinions were worth attention who entertained such a thought.”  Ouch!!  Jefferson’s take-away was that Washington was now too old and weak to think and act for himself.  He again announced his intention to resign in March of 1793, when Washington’s term ended.  He ended up staying on into Washington’s second term.

Then Citizen Genet appeared on the scene - which we’ll discuss at some point, but in the meantime, go here for some great insight – and Jefferson, his ambition to rid the government of Hamilton all but destroying his wisdom and sound judgement, found himself on the wrong side of the mess Genet tried to, and partially did, create.  This time it was enough.  Jefferson agreed to stay on until the end of 1793 if the full story of Genet’s antics and misdeeds was not published until later.

On December 31, 1793, Jefferson “admitted defeat” to Washington and Hamilton and resigned his post.  He claimed he was overjoyed to be “liberated from the hated occupations of politics and sink into the bosom of my family, my farm, and my books.”  But, of course, Jefferson’s ambition meant retirement from politics was merely an attempt to direct the play from an agrarian stage.  Vice President Adams, never one to miss an opportunity to opine, said of Jefferson’s departure, “Jefferson thinks by this step to get the reputation as an humble, modest, meek man, wholly without ambition or vanity….  But if the prospect opens, the world will see and he will feel that he is as ambitious as Oliver Cromwell.”

Thomas Jefferson would be back.  And, ironically, it would be Adams that would provide the “prospect”.

I wish you all a wonderful, and safe, Happy New Year.

Recommended Reading: American Sphinx