Cape Cod Curmudgeon

May 18, 2011 No Ordinary Donkey

Marines took him in, this malnourished Iraqi donkey, and built him a stable, and corral. The donkey would stroll into offices where he learned to open desk drawers in search of a goody. An apple, a carrot or some other sweet treat, planted there by some Marine. He loved to steal cigarettes whether lit or unlit and so it was, they called him “Smoke”.

The air strip lies in central Iraq 50 miles west of Baghdad, on the Habbaniya plateau. Originally built by the RAF in 1952, the base was home to several Iraqi Air force units following the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy and ascension of the Arab socialist ‘Baath” party, in 1958. The place was bombed during the Iran-Iraq war and destroyed by American Air forces, in 1991. Reoccupied by the US Army following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the abandoned base was briefly known as Forward Operating Base (FOB) Ridgeway.

In 2004 the name was changed to Taqaddum, Arabic for ‘progress”, to keep a more Iraqi face on the mission. In 2008, camp Taqaddum or “TQ” was home to several United States Marine Corps fixed- and rotary wing squadrons, plus ground support and combat operating units.

Marine Colonel John Folsom was stationed at TQ in 2008, along with the rest of Marine 1st Combat Logistics Battalion, stationed at the base near Fallujah. That was the year the small animal first appeared, wandering the countryside. Starved, emaciated and alone it was a donkey, arrived in hopes of a morsel.Marines took him in, this malnourished Iraqi donkey, and built him a stable, and corral. The donkey would stroll into offices where he learned to open desk drawers in search of a goody. An apple, a carrot or some other sweet treat, planted there by some Marine. He loved to steal cigarettes whether lit or unlit and so it was, they called him “Smoke”.Smoke had his very own blanket, bright red and emblazoned with unit insignia, for the camp’s September 11 parade. On the side were these words, “Kick Ass”.Regulations prohibited keeping the animal on base but Colonel Folsom found a Navy psychologist, willing to designate Smoke a therapy animal. He was good for morale.

Dads would write letters home to their kids, telling stories about Smoke the donkey.

Folsom and his Marines left TQ in 2009. The army unit moving into the base, didn’t want a donkey. Marines found an Iraqi sheikh who said he’d look after the animal, and they said their reluctant goodbyes.After half a life serving the United States Marine Corps, John Folsom returned home to Omaha. He’d often think of his “battle buddy” and those long walks, around the base.

In 2010, Folsom learned that Smoke was out on his own again, wandering half starved and alone. Thus began “Operation Donkey Drop”, Folsom’s 18-month odyssey first to raise the funds and then to wrangle the red tape thrown in his way through multiple jurisdictions, on Smoke’s journey to his new home in Nebraska.

Turkey alone posed a titanic, 37-day ordeal to untie the bureaucratic Gordian knot, with help from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International. Folsom himself grew a beard to help conceal his western identity and flew to Turkey to enlist the aid of the US Departments of State and Agriculture and the United States Marine Corps, with further aid from the German government.Terri Crisp heads SPCAI’s “Baghdad pups”, reuniting US troops with dogs and cats they had once bonded with, while serving overseas. This was her first donkey.

Reuters news service reports, ““He was a great traveler,” Crisp said, noting Smoke posed for hundreds of photos during a six-hour wait in the Istanbul airport parking lot. “Everywhere we went, he’d draw a crowd.””

Smoke was formally released by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on May 18, 2011, arriving at JFK International Airport in New York for the long drive to his new home in Nebraska.

For Colonel John Folsom, USMC (retired), “semper fidelis” (“always faithful”) had become “semper fi(nally).”

Smoke lived out the rest of his days at the Take Flight Farms in Omaha, helping therapists help children come to terms with deployed or war-wounded parents.

Smoke died of natural causes on August 14, 2012 and was cremated, along with that red blanket with the words, “Kick Ass”.

The daily Star Newspaper of Lincoln Nebraska interviewed Sharon Robino-West, a Marine veteran who once worked with the donkey and “still has to bite her lip when she talks about laying a shiny Marine challenge coin on Smoke’s red blanket”.

Today, the ashes of John Folsom’s old battle buddy are on his desk, in his own special urn. As of October 2014 a little donkey filly peered out of the stall, where Smoke’s face could once be seen.

“She doesn’t have the story that Smoke did,” Folsom said, “but I needed to fill the void.”

May 17, 1934 A Most Perfect Aryan Baby

It must have been terrifying but secretly amusing, at the same time. To see this beautiful Jewish baby, depicted as the perfect “Aryan” child.

In the world of crackpot theories, none have had more lasting effect than the work of 19th century intellectuals. The economic theories of Karl Heinrich Marx, which continue to plague us, to this day. The French aristocrat Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau, whose work on “racial demography” renders him the intellectual father of Aryan “Master Race” theory.

250px-Arthur_de_Gobineau — Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau

De Gobineau’s work was lauded by white supremacist, pro-slavery Americans like Josiah Nott and Henry Hotze, who translated his book into English but somehow managed to leave out the hundreds of pages describing Americans themselves, as racial mongrels.

The book went on to fuel the late-19th and early 20th century movement in eugenics but nowhere did the work enjoy more enthusiastic support, than the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.

With Hitler’s appointment as chancellor on January 30, 1933, the National Socialist Worker’s Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP) lost no time in consolidating power. Interestingly, the former Austrian corporal did not call himself a “Nazi”. That term was an insult, coined a long time before the party’s rise to power.

Two days later, the 876-member democratically elected deliberative body, the “Reichstag”, was dissolved.

On February 27, an arson fire broke out in the German Parliament building. Hitler’s government blamed Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe for the fire, claiming the arson to have been the result of communist plots, against the Nazi government. Today, the term “Reichstag fire” is synonymous with a false flag operation, carried out by authorities to exact retribution on a political adversary. At the time, the “Reichstag Fire Trial” served to decimate political opposition and consolidate Nazi power.March elections failed to produce a Nazi party majority. For the time being, Herr Hitler was forced to rely on his coalition partner the German National People’s Party (DNVP), to hold a majority in the new Reichstag.

Nazi propaganda was relentless. Hitler himself had written back in 1924, that propaganda’s “task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.”

Nazi racial propaganda was everywhere, in art, in music, in theater, radio and educational materials. Posters, leaflets, books and magazines proclaimed the perfect, “Aryan Master Race,” the Übermenschen of Friedrich Nietzsche, in contradistinction with the Üntermenschen: the Roma, the “feeble-minded”, the Jew.

In the first six years after Hitler took power, no fewer than 400 decrees and regulations were aimed specifically, at the Jews of Germany.

Jacob and Pauline Levinsons came to Berlin in 1928, a few years before Hitler came to power. Both Latvian Jews, the couple gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on this day in 1934. Later that year, the proud parents brought wide-eyed, curly haired, chubby little Hessy to photographer Hans Ballin of Berlin.

As required by law, the Levinsons informed the photographer they were both Jews. Hessy was the perfect photographer’s subject, and Jacob and Pauline happily brought home a portrait, to keep on the shelf.

And that’s where the story ends, except, no. Unbeknownst to the Levinsons, the photographer submitted the portrait in a contest, a search for the perfect Aryan child.

You know where this is going, right? Ballin’s picture won. Pauline was struck with terror, to find the image on the cover of a prominent Nazi magazine. There were posters, billboards, the picture was…everywhere.

Near hysterical, she called the photographer. You knew very well that we’re Jewish, how could you do this? Ballin, no friend of the Nazis, replied “I wanted to allow myself the pleasure of this joke”, he said, I wanted to make the Nazis ridiculous”.

The picture spread throughout the Reich. It must have been terrifying but secretly amusing, at the same time. For her first birthday, Hessy’s aunt gave her a birthday card, with her own image printed on the front. To escape attention the little girl lived her childhood years, entirely indoors. The Nazis never did figure out, who she was.

In 1938, Jacob Levinsons was arrested by the SS, but later released. This was the year of the Kristallnacht and the family fled, first for Paris and later to Cuba before emigrating to the United States in 1949.

Hessy Levinsons went to Julia Richman High School in New York and later majored in chemistry at Barnard College, graduating in 1955. As a graduate student at Columbia University, Hessy met her future husband, mathematics professor Earl Taft. The couple joined the faculty at Rutgers University before she interrupted her career to raise a family.

She was interviewed in 2014, by the German magazine Bild. “I can laugh about it now, she said, “but if the Nazis had known who I really was, I wouldn’t be alive.” Hessy Levinsons Taft, once the Jewish infant selected to represent the Most Perfect Aryan Baby, retired from academia in 2016.

May 15, 1602 Cape Cod

A “cape” is a headland or promontory extending into a body of water, formed by glaciers, volcanoes or changes in sea level. A quick count reveals the existence of 67 capes around the world, (Cape Fear, Cape Canaveral, Cape Coral), yet we locals love to call our little bit of paradise on earth, “The Cape™”.

In the Elizabethan and Stuart ages, exploration and colonization was a private enterprise. The English Crown would grant exclusive rights to individuals and corporations to form and exploit colonies, in exchange for sovereignty and a portion of the proceeds. Such propositions were high risk/reward, profit-driven enterprises, of interest to a relative few explorers and investors.

Queen Elizabeth I of England granted Walter Raleigh a charter to establish a colony north of Spanish Florida in 1583, the area called “Virginia” in honor of the virgin Queen. At the time, the name applied to the entire coastal region from South Carolina to Maine and included Bermuda.

By the turn of the 17th century, Raleigh’s influence with the Queen was just about nil. Liz’ only interest seemed to be the revenue stream produced for the crown, and Raleigh was providing none after sinking £40,000 into the disastrous “Lost Colony of Roanoke”.

By the mid-1590s, a new colonial plan identified parts of northern Virginia where climate conditions better suited English sensibilities, than those of the more southerly latitudes. The area produced vast wealth from the cold-water fish prized by Europeans, providing the foothold and profits required to support the addition of settlers.

Early explorers to the area included Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Martin Pring and George Weymouth, who brought back an American Native named Squanto, who learned to speak English before returning to his homeland. Sir John Smith called the area “New England”.

Bartholomew Gosnold departed Falmouth, Cornwall in 1602 with 32 onboard the barque “Concord”. Intending to establish a colony in New England, Gosnold sailed due west to the Azores, coming ashore at Cape Elizabeth Maine, on May 14. He sailed into Provincetown Harbor the following day, naming the place “Cape Cod”.

Following the coastline, Gosnold discovered an island covered with wild grapes. Naming it after his deceased daughter, he called the place Martha’s Vineyard. The expedition came ashore on Cuttyhunk in the Elizabethan island chain where they briefly ran a trading post, before heading back to England. Today, Gosnold is the smallest town in Massachusetts with a population of 75 with most of the land owned by the Forbes family.

The title of “first European” may be a misnomer, as Vikings are believed to have explored the area as early as 1000AD. The land was fruitful for those first Viking explorers, but the indigenous peoples fought back ferociously, causing the Nordic interloper to withdraw to the more easily colonized areas of Greenland and Iceland.

The first Puritans fetched up on the shores of Cape Cod in 1620, staying long enough to draw up the first written governing framework in the colonies, signing the Mayflower Compact off the shore of “P’town” on November 11. Today the sandy soil and scrubby vegetation of the Cape is a delight to tourists, but those first settlers weren’t feeling it. They had to eat. The only positive result from two exploratory trips ashore was the discovery of seed corn stashed by the natives. A third trip ashore resulted in a hostile “first encounter” on the beaches of modern day Eastham, persuading the “Pilgrims” that this wasn’t their kind of place. They left the Cape for good on December 16, dropping anchor at Plymouth Harbor.

SK_Eastham-First-Encounter-Sunset_10.24.16-11 — First Encounter beach, Eastham

The Pilgrims would later encounter the English-speaking natives Samoset and Squanto, who helped to conclude peace terms with Massasoit, Sachem of the Wampanoag.
Some 90% of the native population had been wiped out in the two years preceding, by an epidemic long thought to be smallpox but now believed to be Leptospirosis, a highly contagious pulmonary hemorrhagic syndrome. Things may have otherwise gone for the Pilgrims as they did for those Vikings of 600 years earlier, but that must be a tale for another day.

Militia from my own town of Falmouth and neighboring Sandwich poured onto the beaches on April 3, 1779, opposing a landing by 220 Regulars in the modern day area of Surf Drive. The invaders were repulsed but not before little Falmouth sustained a cannonade of ball shot and grape that lasted from eleven in the morning, until dark.

The British warship HMS Nimrod fired on my little town during the War of 1812. It’s closed now, but the building formerly housing the Nimrod Restaurant, still sports a hole in the wall where the cannon ball came in.

Cape Cod was among the first areas settled by the English in North America, the town of Sandwich established in 1637 followed by Barnstable and Yarmouth, in 1639. The thin soil was ill suited to agriculture, and intensive farming techniques eroded topsoil. Farmers grazed cattle on the grassy dunes of the shoreline, only to watch “in horror as the denuded sands ‘walked’ over richer lands, burying cultivated fields and fences.”

By 1800, Cape Cod was all but denuded of trees and firewood had to be transported by boat from Maine. Local agriculture was all but abandoned by 1860, save for better-suited, smaller scale crops such as cranberries and strawberries. By 1950, Cape Cod forests had recovered in a way not seen since the late 1700s.

cranberry-picking-around-cape-cod-1906 — Picking cranberries, ca 1906

The early Industrial Revolution that built up Rhode Island and Massachusetts bypassed much of Cape Cod, but not entirely. Blacksmiths Isaac Keith and Ezekiel Ryder began building small buggies and sleighs in the Upper Cape town of Bourne, in 1828. Two years later Keith went off on his own. By the Gold Rush of 1849, the Keith Car Works was a major builder of the Conestoga Wagons found throughout the United States and Canada, as well as its smaller, lighter cousin, the Prairie Schooner. Before the railroads, Conestoga wagons were heavily used in the transportation of shade tobacco grown in Connecticut, western Massachusetts and southern Vermont, even now some of the finest cigar binders and wrappers available. To this day we still call cigars, “stogies”.

The dredging of a canal connecting the Manomet and Scusset rivers and cutting 62 miles off the water route from Boston to New York had been talked about since the time of Miles Standish. Construction of a privately owned toll canal began on June 22, 1909. Giant boulders left by the glaciers and ghastly winter weather hampered construction, the canal finally opening on July 29, 1914 and charging a maximum of $16 per vessel. Navigation was difficult, due to a 5-plus mile-per-hour current combined with a maximum width of 100′ and a max. depth of 25-feet. Several accidents damaged the canal’s reputation and toll revenues failed to meet investors’ expectations.

German submarine U-156 surfaced off Nauset beach in Orleans on July 21, 1918, shelling the tug Perth Amboy and its string of towed barges. The federal government took over the canal under a presidential proclamation within four days, later placing it under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers. The canal was re-dredged as part of President Roosevelt’s depression era Works Progress Administration to its current width of 480-feet and depth of 32-feet and connected to the mainland by the Sagamore, Bourne, and Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridges.

Despite the WuFlu, millions of tourists will wait countless hours this year in a sea of brake lights, to cross those two narrow roadways onto “the Cape” to enjoy that brief blessed moment of warmth hidden amidst our four seasons, known locally as “almost winter, winter, still winter and bridge construction”.

If anyone wonders why my buddy Carl calls me the “Cape Cod Curmudgeon”, I can only say in my own defense. I’ve been commuting through that crap, for decades.

May 14, 1796 Revolution in the midst of Pandemic

Had the program begun a year earlier, the US/Canadian map might look quite different, than it does today.

Childhood memories of standing in line. Smiling. Trusting. And then…the Gun. That sound. Whack! The scream. That feeling of betrayal…being shuffled along. Next!

Ask anyone of a certain age and they can show you the scar, round or oblong, jagged around the edges and just a little lower than the surrounding skin.

Between 1958 and 1977, the World Health Organization conducted a great campaign, a global effort to rid the world of the great scourge, of smallpox.

Child_with_Smallpox_Bangladesh — Young girl afflicted with smallpox, Bangladesh, 1973

Today we face a worldwide pandemic of the COVID19 virus, calculated to produce a crude mortality rate of .28% and an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), of 1.4%. Hat Tip worldometers.info

The four Variola virus types responsible for smallpox produce a death rate between one in ten at the low end and two – three out of four with an average of 30%.

The disease is as old as history, believed to have evolved from an African rodent virus, at least 16,000 years ago. The Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V died of smallpox in 1145, BC.

Survivors are left with severe scarring and often blinded. Josef Stalin was famously pockmarked after acquiring the illness at age 7. Other famous survivors include Abraham Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth I and Pocahontas.

And did you know? The American Revolution was fought out, entirely in the midst of a smallpox pandemic.

How it all began, is uncertain. By the fall and winter of 1775, the disease was raging through British-occupied Boston.

In the south, escaped slaves crossed over to British lines only to contract smallpox, and die. The disease hit Texas in 1778. New Orleans was particularly hard hit with its densely populated urban areas. By 1780 it was everywhere from Mexico to the Great Plains to Alaska.

Native populations were particularly hard hit. As many as 11,000 were killed in the west of modern-day Washington state, reducing populations from 37,000 to 26,000 in just seven years.The idea of inoculation was not new. Terrible outbreaks occurred in Colonial Boston in 1640, 1660, 1677-1680, 1690, 1702, and 1721, killing hundreds, each time. At the time, sickness was considered the act of an angry God. Religious faith frowned on experimentation on the human body.

On June 26, 1721, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston in consultation with Reverend Cotton Mather, performed the first smallpox inoculations in America. Two male slaves, an adult and and a two-year-old were inoculated, along with Dr. Boylston’s 6-year-old son. All three became mildly ill but recovered, never again to be bothered by smallpox.Colonists were chary of the procedure, deeply suspicious of how deliberately infecting a healthy person, could produce a desirable outcome. John Adams submitted to the procedure in 1764 and gave the following account:

“Dr. Perkins demanded my left arm and Dr. Warren my brother’s [probably Peter Boylston Adams]. They took their Launcetts and with their Points divided the skin about a Quarter of an inch and just suffering the blood to appear, buried a thread (infected) about a Quarter of an inch long in the Channell. A little lint was then laid over the scratch and a Piece of Ragg pressed on, and then a Bandage bound over all, and I was bid go where and do what I pleased…Do not conclude from any Thing I have written that I think Inoculation a light matter — A long and total abstinence from everything in Nature that has any Taste; two long heavy Vomits, one heavy Cathartick, four and twenty Mercurial and Antimonial Pills, and, Three weeks of Close Confinement to an House, are, according to my Estimation, no small matters.”

As Supreme Commander, General Washington had a problem. An inoculated soldier would be unfit for weeks before returning to duty. Doing nothing and hoping for the best was to invite catastrophe but so was the inoculation route, as even mildly ill soldiers were contagious and could set off a major outbreak.

The northern army was especially hard hit in Quebec, with general Benedict Arnold reporting some 1,200 out of 3,200 Continentals sick in the Montreal area, most with smallpox. It was “almost sufficient to excite the pity of Brutes” he said, “Large barns [being] filled with men at the very heighth of smallpox and not the least things, to make them comfortable and medicines being needed at both Fort George and Ticonderoga.”

Major General John Thomas, Commander of the Army in Quebec was dead of the disease. John Adams complained “The smallpox is ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians and Indians, together.”

By mid-1776, half the continentals in and around Montreal were infected. The order was given to withdraw. John Adams cited smallpox, as the cause. In February 1777 while encamped in Morristown, Washington became convinced that the benefits outweighed the risks. Washington himself had survived the dreadful disease. Martha Washington had undergone the procedure, known as variolation. He ordered his medics to cut small incisions on the arms of his troops, and to rub the pus from infected soldiers, into the wounds. Thus inoculated, soldiers were kept under strict quarantine and issued either new or “well washed, air’d and smoaked” clothing.

The program had enthusiastic support from the likes of Jefferson, Franklin and Adams. Nearly every continental soldier was inoculated before the end of the war. Had the program begun a year earlier, the US/Canadian map might look quite different, than it does today.

In Washington’s day, the method used live virus, accounting for the long sick time and high mortality rate. In the 1790s, Doctor Edward Jenner of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England observed milkmaids developing the signature pustules of smallpox on their hands, after touching infected udders. The Orthopoxvirus responsible for “Cowpox” is very similar to that which produces smallpox but results in far milder symptoms. The implications were stunning. Orthopox could be administered in place of live Variola, virtually eliminating side effects and reducing the chance of smallpox outbreak, to zero.

On this day in 1796, Dr. Jenner administered the first modern smallpox vaccination. The new vaccine was soon being used around the world.

So it was on December 9, 1979, smallpox was officially described, as eradicated. The only infectious disease ever so declared.

Few among us born after 1980, bear the scar their parents know so well. Today, stockpiles of live Variola exist only in laboratories, and military bioweapon stockpiles. Just in case of terrorism, or some rogue nation ever resorting to biological warfare.

Today we grapple with a virus, with a 98.6% recovery rate among those infected. God help us all if that other stuff ever gets out of the lab.

May 13, 1916 The Lafayette Escadrille

Long before the American entry in 1917, individual sympathies brought Americans into the war to fight for Britain and France. They traveled to Europe to fight the Axis Powers joining the Foreign Legion, the Flying Corps or, like Ernest Hemingway, the Ambulance Service.

Knowing his father would not approve, Norman Prince of Beverly Massachusetts concealed his flight training. Using the name George Manor, Norman earned his wings in 1911 in the Quincy, Massachusetts neighborhood of Squantum.

A fluent French speaker with a family estate in Pau, France, Norman sailed in January 1915, to join the French war effort.

The earliest vestiges of the American Hospital of Paris and what would become the American Ambulance Field Service can be found five years earlier, in 1906. Long before the American entry in 1917, individual sympathies brought Americans into the war to fight for Britain and France. They traveled to Europe to fight the Axis Powers joining the Foreign Legion, the Flying Corps or, like Ernest Hemingway, the Ambulance Service.

Lafayette_Escadrille_Pin — Squadron Insignia pin

After 1915, American pilots volunteered for multiple “Escadrille” – flight squadrons of the French Air Service, the Aéronautique Militaire.

The March 7, 1918 Harvard Alumni Bulletin would give Norman Prince full credit for persuading the French government to form all-American flying squadrons.

Prince would not live to see the article, in print.

Sergeant Norman Prince caught a landing wheel on a telegraph wire after a bombing run on October 12, 1916, sustaining massive injuries when his plane flipped over and crashed. He was promoted to sous (2nd) lieutenant on his death bed and awarded the Legion of Honor. He died three days later, at the age of 29.

William Thaw II of Pittsburgh was the first pilot to fly up New York’s East River under all four bridges, the first American engaged in aerial combat in the war.

LtCol_William_Thaw_with_lion_cub_mascots_of_Lafayette_Escradrille_c1916 — Lt. Col. William Thaw II with lion cub mascots Whiskey and Soda

Thaw pooled his money with three other pilots to purchase a male lion cub, the first of two such mascots kept by the Escadrille. He bought the lion from a Brazilian dentist for 500 francs and bought a dog ticket, walking the lion onto the train on a leash.

Explanations that this was an “African dog” proved less than persuasive, and the pair was thrown off the train. “Whiskey” would have to ride to his new home in a cage, stuck in cargo.

A female lion, “Soda”, was purchased sometime later. The lions were destined to spend their adult years in a Paris zoo but both remembered from whence they had come. Both animals recognized William Thaw on a later visit to the zoo, rolling onto their backs in expectation of a good belly rub.

French Lieutenant Colonel Georges Thenault owned a “splendid police dog” named Fram who was the best of friends with Whiskey, though he learned to keep to himself at dinner time.

Originally authorized on March 21, 1916 as the Escadrille Américaine (Escadrille N.124), American pilots wore French uniforms and flew French aircraft. Nevertheless, Germany was dismayed at the existence of such a unit and complained that the neutral United States appeared to be aligning with France.

Escadrille N.124 changed its name in December 1916, adopting that of a French hero of the American Revolution. Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.

Five French officers commanded a core group of 38 American volunteers, supported by all-French mechanics and ground crew. Rounding out the Escadrille were the unit mascots, the African lions Whiskey and Soda.

This early in aviation history, flying duty was hazardous to say the least. Planes were flimsy and plagued with mechanical difficulties. Machine guns jammed and other parts failed when they were needed most. There were countless wounds in addition to fatal injuries. At least one man actually asked to be sent back to the trenches, where he felt safer.

Kiffin Rockwell "In American Escadrille "movie" picture May 1916" — Kiffin Rockwell

The first major action of the Escadrille Américaine took place at the Battle of Verdun on May 13, 1916.

Kiffin Rockwell of Newport Tennessee became the first American to shoot down an enemy aircraft on May 18, later losing his own life when he was shot down by the gunner in a German Albatross observation plane on September 23. French born American citizen Raoul Lufbery became the squadron’s first Ace with 5 confirmed kills, and went on to be the highest scoring flying ace in the unit with 17 confirmed victories. He was killed on May 19, 1918 when his Nieuport 28 flipped over while he attempted to clear a jam in his machine gun.

The unit sustained its first fatality on June 24, 1916 when Victor Chapman was attacked by German flying ace Leutnant Kurt Wintgens, north of Douaumont. Chapman was carrying oranges at the time, intended for his buddy Clyde Balsley, who was in hospital recuperating from an earlier incident.

Edmond_Charles_Clinton_Genet_circa_1915-1917 — Edmond Genet

Ossining, New York native Edmond Genet was a bit of a celebrity among American expats, as the second-great grandson of Edmond-Charles Genêt, of the Founding-era Citizen Genêt Affair. Genet sailed for France at the end of January 1915, joining the French Foreign Legion, and finally the Lafayette Escadrille on January 22, 1917.

Genet had left while on leave from the US Navy, and was therefore classified as a deserter. The decision weighed heavily on him. Edmond Genet was shot down and killed by anti-aircraft artillery on April 17, eleven days after the American declaration of war, officially making him the first American fatality in the War to end all Wars. The war department sent his family a letter after his death, stating that his service was considered in all respects, honorable.

38 American pilots passed through the Lafayette Escadrille, “the Valiant 38”, eleven of whom were either killed in action or died later as the result of wounds received. The unit flew for the French Air Service until the US’ entry into the war, when it passed into the 103rd Aero Squadron, American Expeditionary Force.

The Lafayette Escadrille is often confused with the much larger Lafayette Flying Corps, and the movie “Flyboys” adds to the confusion. The Flying Corps was different from the Escadrille, the former coming about as the result of widespread interest in the exploits of the latter. American volunteers were assigned individually or in groups of two or three to fly in various French Aviation units, but, prior to US entry into the war. The Lafayette Escadrille was the only one to serve as a single organization.

All told, 267 American volunteers applied to serve in the Lafayette Flying Corps, credited with downing 199 German planes at the cost of 19 wounded, 15 captured, 11 dead of illness or accident, and 51 killed in action.

May 12, 1780 Disaster at Charleston

As the British war effort collapsed in the north, Secretary of State for the American Department Lord George Germain set his sights on a “southern strategy”. The idea had been around since 1775, that the crown enjoyed greater support in the south. Break the back of the rebels down there, and the war would be won.

With the Revolution approaching the two-year mark, British war planners believed that the fractious northeast must be split off and separated from the more loyalist mid-Atlantic and southern colonies. A three prong pincer movement was devised by which the western pincer under Lieutenant Colonel Barrimore Matthew “Barry” St. Leger was to move east from Ontario along the Mohawk river, meeting up with a combined force of British regulars, Hessian mercenaries, loyalists and Indian allies under General John “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne, moving south from Quebec.

General William Howe was to move north from New York city and converge on the Hudson river valley, completing the pincer movement.

Burgoyne’s movements began well with the near-bloodless capture of Fort Ticonderoga in early July, 1777. By the end of July, logistical and supply problems caused Burgoyne’s forces to bog down. On July 27, a Huron-Wendat warrior allied with the British army murdered one Jane McCrae, the fiancé of a loyalist serving in Burgoyne’s army. Gone was the myth of “civilized” British conduct of the war, as dead as the dark days of late 1776 and General Washington’s “Do or Die” crossing of the Delaware and the Christmas attack on Trenton.

McCrae’s killing was as a hornet’s nest to the cause of patriot recruitment, and a severe blow to loyalist morale.

Meanwhile, attempts to solve the supply problem culminated in the August 16 Battle of Bennington, a virtual buzz saw in which New Hampshire and Massachusetts militiamen under General John Stark along with the Vermont militia of Colonel Seth Warner and Ethan Allen’s “Green Mountain Boys”, killed or captured nearly 1,000 of Burgoyne’s men.

Burgoyne’s Indian support evaporated in the wake of the disaster at Bennington, as did that of Barry St. Leger, following the failed siege of Fort Stanwix. St. Leger’s September arrival at Ticonderoga, was too late to save Burgoyne from what was to come.

Fun fact: On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the resolution: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white, on a blue field, representing a new constellation.” The measure wouldn’t be adopted until the September 3 signature of the Secretary of congress but the design was well publicized. Massachusetts recruits brought the news to Fort Stanwix, also known at the time as Fort Schuyler. The garrison cut up petticoats and other articles of clothing, and fashioned a banner. So it was the first official United States flag was raised over Fort Schuyler during the battle of August 3, 1777.

As it happened, General Howe moved his forces south by sea to capture Philadelphia. It was Burgoyne alone who met the Americans in battle, first at the small but costly September 19 victory at Freeman’s Farm and then at the decisive battle for Saratoga, the disastrous October 7 defeat at Bemis Heights.

The British defeat was comprehensive. Burgoyne surrendered ten days later, bringing the kingdom of France and Spain into the war on the American side.

Meanwhile Howe’s capture of Philadelphia met with only limited success, leading to his resignation as Commander in Chief of the American station and Sir Henry Clinton, withdrawing troops to New York.

As the war effort collapsed in the north, Secretary of State for the American Department Lord George Germain set his sights on a “southern strategy”. The idea had been around since 1775, that the crown enjoyed greater support in the south. Break the back of the rebels down there, and the war would be won.

The southern strategy began well in late 1778, with the capture of Georgia’s colonial capital at Savannah. Patriot forces held Savannah under siege between September 16 and October 18 1779, without success. A series of diplomatic and logistical blunders culminated in the frontal assault of October 9, one of the bloodiest American defeats of the revolution, saved largely by the intervention of 545 black colonial troops of the “Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue” who later returned to their homeland to help win the Haitian Revolution.

Franklin-Sq-Monument — Franklin Square Monument remembers the contributions of the Haitian militia, in the Siege of Savannah

Savannah remained in British hands, for the rest of the war. Meanwhile, the Patriot forces of General Benjamin Lincoln found themselves under siege South Carolina, penned up in Charleston by a force of some 5,000 under generals Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Charles Cornwallis.

George Washington had once departed a city in the face of superior enemy forces but Lincoln bent to the wishes of Municipal leaders, and hunkered down to defend the city.

In 1776 and again in 1779, Charleston had successfully repulsed the British invader. In the Spring of 1780, Henry Clinton succeeded where others had failed. Outnumbered and outsmarted with Lincoln’s forces bottled up in the city, Major General William Moultrie the hero of 1776, said “at this time, there never was a country in greater confusion and consternation.”

Fort Moultrie surrendered without a fight on May 7. Clinton demanded unconditional surrender the following day but Lincoln bargained for the “Honours of War”. Prominent citizens were by this time, asking Lincoln to surrender. On May 11, the British fired heated shot into the city, burning several homes. Benjamin Lincoln surrendered on May 12.

On hearing the news, American troops holding the towns of Ninety-Six and Camden surrendered, bringing the British haul to “5,266 prisoners, 311 artillery pieces, 9,178 artillery rounds, 5,916 muskets, 33,000 rounds of ammunition, 15 Regimental colours, 49 ships and 120 boats, plus 376 barrels of flour, and large magazines of rum, rice and indigo”. (H/T Wikipedia).

It was the worst American defeat, of the Revolution.

In the summer of 1780, American General Horatio Gates suffered humiliating defeat at the Battle of Camden. Cornwallis idea of turning over one state after another to loyalists failed to materialize, as the ham-fisted brutality of officers like Banastre Tarleton, incited feelings of resentment among would-be supporters. Like the Roman general Fabius who could not defeat the Carthaginians in pitched battle, General Washington’s brilliant protege Nathaniel Greene pursued a “hit & run” strategy of “scorched earth”, attacking supply trains harassing Cornwallis’ movements at every turn.

British tactics made Patriot militia stronger, not weaker and they proved it in October, defeating Loyalist militia at King’s Mountain in South Carolina, the “Greatest All-American fight of the Revolution”.

Through the Carolinas and on to Virginia, Greene’s forces pursued Cornwallis’ army. With Greene dividing his forces, General Daniel Morgan delivered a crushing defeat, defeating Tarleton’s unit at a place called Cowpens in January, 1781. The battle of Guilford Courthouse was an expensive victory, costing Cornwallis a quarter of his strength and forcing a move to the coast in hopes of resupply.

British troops were harassed that summer by Continentals under the Marquis de Lafayette. By October, Cornwallis found himself pinned down, under siege in a place called Yorktown with Washington himself before him and the French fleet of the Comte de Rochambeau, at his back.

The main British army surrendered on October 19, effectively ending the American Revolution. The ragtag militia once held in such contempt had stood toe to toe with the most powerful military on the planet. And won.

May 11, 1942 Foreign Invaders

Since the War of 1812, the territorial United States has been invaded by foreign forces, only twice. By unlikely coincidence, May 11 comes up on both occasions.

In October 1835, settlers launched a bid for independence, for Mexican Texas. The heroic last stand at the Alamo is the stuff of American folklore. The crushing defeat of Mexican President and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s forces at San Jacinto, reducing the general himself to the status, of captive. The Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos of March 2, 1836 and the formal signing, the following day. Texas was an independent Republic.For nine years, threat of war with Mexico stayed the American hand. Through all or part of the next four Presidential terms, formal annexation of the Independent Republic was never far from view. Through all or part of the Jackson, Van Buren and Harrison administrations, it was not until 1944 when President John Tyler restarted negotiations. Issues related to the balance between slave and free states between north and south, doomed the treaty to failure. It was March 1, 1845 when Tyler finally got his joint resolution, with support from President-elect James K. Polk. Texas was admitted to the union on December 29.

Mexico refrained from declaration of war but relations, remained brittle. Ambassador John Slidell was dispatched to Mexico to settle boundaries and other matters, and to make an offer to purchase the lands we now know as California and New Mexico. Ambassador Slidell’s overtures rebuffed, General and future President Zachary Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the river asserted by the now-State of Texas, to be its southern boundary. Mexico, claiming the boundary to be the Nueces River to the northeast, considered Taylor’s advance to be an act of war.In April 1846, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and invaded Brownsville Texas, attacking US troops 20 miles upriver from Taylor’s camp.

The 80 dragoons commanded by Captain Seth Thornton was no match for the 1,600-man cavalry of Colonel Anastasio Torrejón. Thornton himself was knocked unconscious in a fall from his horse and presumed dead while 52 American survivors were held captive at Matamoros, later exchanged for Mexican prisoners. News of “Thornton’s Defeat” reached Washington two weeks later. On May 11, 1846, President James Polk asked Congress for a declaration of war. The Mexican-American war was approved on May 13, by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress.

Five time zones and near-100 years later, the military forces of Imperial Japan appeared unstoppable in the early months of World War Two, attacking first Thailand, then the British possessions of Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as US military bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines.

Desiring a position from which to protect their northern flank, Japanese forces bombed Dutch Harbor on the Aleutian island of Unalaska on June 3, 1942, invading Kiska island on June 6 and neighboring Attu, the following day. Opposition to the two landings was non-existent. Kiska had a 12-man naval weather reporting station and a dog called “Explosion”. Two were not present at the time of the invasion. Two were killed and another seven captured and sent to Japan, as POWs. Chief petty officer William C. House alone escaped, surviving 50 days in the bush eating whatever plants he could find…and worms. When he turned himself in to his captors, the man weighed 80 pounds.

hith-aleutians-dutch-harbor — Dutch Harbor

Japanese forces stormed ashore on June 7 on the neighboring island of Attu, randomly firing at terrified and fleeing Aleuts. With the sounds of rifle shots ringing through the valley and bullets striking the cabin windows and walls, Radio man Charles Foster Jones continued to transmit messages to Dutch Harbor. When Japanese soldiers appeared in the yard, only then did Jones walk out the door, and give himself up.

50205964_1475881703 — Charles Foster Jones

62-year-old Etta Jones was his wife, a nurse and schoolteacher with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). With bayonet pressed against her belly, the Japanese officer demanded to know, “How many are you”. “Two” came the reply, “how many are you?”. Two thousand, was the answer.

Etta Jones would be taken to Japan and held prisoner with a group of Australian nurses, until September 1, 1945. She was awarded a check for $7,371 from the B.I.A. as back-pay. Charles Foster Jones was murdered by his captors, within the first few hours of captivity.

Allied and American air forces maintained near-constant bombardment against Japanese occupying forces. Blockading vessels damaged or destroyed several Japanese warships, transports and submarines, sent to their aid.

On this day in 1943, units from the 17th Infantry of Major General Albert E. Brown’s 7th U.S. Infantry Division landed on Attu island. They had come to destroy the only foreign force to occupy American soil and only the second such force to invade American territory, since the War of 1812.

Arctic weather, exposure and savage resistance from entrenched Japanese forces resulted in the death of 549 US soldiers with more than 1,200, wounded.

Without hope for rescue, the last Japanese invaders performed the only Banzai charge ever made on American soil on May 29, led by Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki. Shocked rear-echelon troops found themselves in desperate hand-to-hand combat until at last, even that was through. The Japanese lost over 2,351 men, including Yamasaki himself. There were only 28 prisoners.

Aleutian-Islands-Invaded-75-Years-Ago-1 — Aleutian Island Invasion

On July 29, two light cruisers and ten destroyers under the command of Rear Admiral Kimura Masatomi crept through the American blockade under cover of fog and rescued the 5.193 occupiers, on Kiska island. American and Canadian forces executed an unopposed landing on August 15, not knowing the island was evacuated.

Accidents, friendly fire and booby-traps resulted in 313 casualties. The only force that came down to meet them, was a group of dogs including ‘Explosion’, from the old weather station.

kiska — Dogs were all that was left, to greet Canadian and American forces on Kiska island.

Feature image, top of page: “USS Pruitt leads landing craft from USS Heywood toward their landing beaches in Massacre Bay, Attu, on the first day of the May 11, 1943, invasion of Attu. Pruitt used her radar and searchlight to guide the boats nine miles through the fog. The searchlight beam is faintly visible pointing aft from atop her pilothouse. Some 15,000 American and Canadian troops successfully landed on the island. U.S. Navy”. H/T HistoryCollection.com

May 9, 1914 Mother’s Day

In 1872, American poet and author Julia Ward Howe proposed that the second of June be set aside each year, as a “Mother’s Day for Peace”. While Howe’s effort proved unsuccessful, the modern conception of Mother’s Day was established 36 years later, by Anna Jarvis.

The earliest discernible Mother’s day dates back to 1200-700BC and descending from the Phrygian rituals of modern day Turkey and Armenia. “Cybele” was the great Phrygian goddess of nature, mother of the Gods, of humanity, and of all the beasts of the natural world, her cult spreading throughout Eastern Greece with colonists from Asia Minor.

Much of ancient Greece looked to the Minoan Goddess Rhea, daughter of the Earth Goddess Gaia and the Sky God Uranus, mother of the Gods of Olympus.

Over time the two became closely associated with the Roman Magna Mater, each developing her own cult following and worshiped through the period of the Roman Empire.

In ancient Rome, women partook of a festival, strictly forbidden to Roman men. So strict was this line of demarcation that only women were permitted even to know the name of the deity. For everyone else she was simply the “Good Goddess”. The Bona Dea.

In the sixteenth century, it became popular for Protestants and Catholics alike to return to their “mother church” whether that be the church of their own baptism, the local parish church, or the nearest cathedral. Anyone who did so was said to have gone “a-mothering”. Domestic servants were given the day off and this “Mothering Sunday”, the 4th Sunday in Lent, was often the only time when whole families could get together. Children would gather wild flowers along the way, to give to their own mothers or to leave in the church. Over time the day became more secular, but the tradition of gift giving continued.

Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and author best known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, wrote an impassioned “Appeal to womanhood” in 1870, a pacifist reaction to the bloodshed of the Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War.Two years later, Howe proposed that the second of June be set aside each year, as a “Mother’s Day for Peace”. While Julia Ward Howe’s effort proved unsuccessful, the modern conception of Mother’s Day was established 36 years later, by Anna Jarvis.

Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis was a social activist in mid-19th century western Virginia. Pregnant with her sixth child in 1858, she and other women formed “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs”, to combat the health and sanitary conditions leading at that time to catastrophic levels of infant mortality. Jarvis herself gave birth between eleven and thirteen times in a seventeen year period.

Only four lived to adulthood.

Jarvis had no patience for the sectional differences that led the nation to Civil War, or which led her own locality to secede and form the state of West Virginia in order to rejoin the Union. Jarvis refused to support a measure to divide the Methodist church into northern and southern branches. She would help Union and Confederate soldier alike if she could. It was she alone who offered a prayer when others refused for Thornsbury Bailey Brown, the first Union soldier killed in the vicinity.

Following Jarvis’ death in 1905, her daughter Anna conceived of Mother’s Day as a way to honor her legacy and to pay respect for the sacrifices made by all mothers, on behalf of their children.

Obtaining financial backing from Philadelphia department store owner John Wanamaker, Anna Jarvis organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. That same day, thousands attended the first Mother’s Day event at Wanamaker’s store in Philadelphia.

Anna Jarvis resolved that Mother’s Day be added to the national calendar and a massive letter writing campaign, ensued. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure declaring the second Sunday of May, to be Mother’s Day.

Anna Jarvis believed Mother’s Day to be a time of personal celebration, a time when families would gather to love and honor their mother.

She’d worked with the floral industry in the early days, to help raise the profile of Mother’s Day. By 1920, Jarvis had come to resent what she saw as the commercialization of the day. Greeting cards seemed a pale substitute for the hand written personal notes she’d envisioned.

Jarvis protested at a Philadelphia candy maker’s convention in 1923, deriding confectioners, florists and even charities as “profiteers”. Carnations had by this time become symbolic of Mother’s Day. Jarvis resented that they were being sold at fundraisers. She protested at a meeting of the American War Mothers in 1925 where women were selling carnations, and got herself arrested for disturbing the peace.

Soon she was launching an endless series of lawsuits against those she felt had used the “Mother’s Day” name in vain.

During the last years of her life, Anna Jarvis lobbied the government to take her creation off of the calendar, gathering signatures door-to-door to get the holiday rescinded. The effort was obviously unsuccessful. The mother of the modern Mother’s Day died broke and childless in a sanitarium in 1948, her personal fortune squandered on legal fees.

Today, some variation of Mother’s Day is observed from the Arab world to the United Kingdom. In the United States, Mother’s Day is one of the most commercially successful days of the year for flower and greeting card sales, and the biggest day of the year for long-distance telephone calls. Church attendance is the third highest of the year, behind only Christmas and Easter. Many churchgoers celebrate the day with carnations: colored if the mother is still living and white if she has passed on.This story is dedicated to two of the most beautiful women in my life. Ginny Long, thanks Mom, for not throttling me all those times you could have. And most especially, for all those times when you SHOULD have. Sheryl Kozens Long, thanks for 25 great years. Rest in peace, sugar. I wish you didn’t have to leave us, quite so soon.

March 9, 1914 Chef Boy-Ar-Dee

From catering the wedding reception of a President to feeding millions of GIs in World War 2, the most familiar face on your supermarket shelf was no figment of an ad-exec’s imagination.

He’s one of the most familiar faces on the supermarket shelf, right up there with Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy. That smiling, grandfatherly face with the red bandana and the tall chef’s hat. Like those other two a fictional character, the product of some brand development meeting, produced by the art department and focus-grouped by panels of consumers. As the story goes, the face behind the spaghetti and meatballs is the amalgamation of three names, the men behind the company: Boyd, Art and Dennis.

Only in this case, Boyd, Art & Dennis are the fictional characters. The face you remember pulling out from your old Dukes of Hazard lunchbox was quite real, I assure you. I’ve been best buddies with one of his relatives, for nigh on fifty years.

Some 25 million legal immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924, among them Ettore Boiardi, Born in Piacenza, Italy, in 1897. By age 11, Boiardi was assistant chef at “La Croce Bianca“. The boy moved to Paris and then to London, honing his restaurant skills along the way. He arrived at Ellis Island on this day in 1914, age 16 and following his brothers Mario and Paolo to the kitchen of the Plaza Hotel in New York.

The Plaza Hotel menu was heavy on the French in those days and Ettore began to add some Italian. A little pasta, a nice tomato sauce. Before long, he was promoted to head chef.

According to his New York Times obituary, Boiardi was so talented that President Woodrow Wilson chose the man to cater the reception for his marriage to his second wife Edith, in 1915.

After World War 1, Boiardi supervised a homecoming dinner at the White House, for 2,000 returning soldiers.

Boiardi’s spaghetti sauce was famous by this time. Ettore and his wife Helen opened a restaurant in Cleveland in 1926, Il Giardino d’Italia (The Garden of Italy), patrons often leaving with recipes for his sauces and samples, packed in cleaned milk bottles. It wasn’t long from there before the two were giving cooking classes and selling sauce, in milk jugs.

Maurice and Eva Weiner were patrons of the restaurant, and owners of a self-service grocery store chain. The couple helped develop large-scale canning operations. Before long Ettore and Mario bought farm acreage in Milton Pennsylvania, to raise tomatoes. In 1928, they changed the name on the label, making it easier for a tongue-tied non-Italian consumer, to pronounce. Calling himself “Hector” for the same reason, Ettore said “Everyone is proud of his own family name, but sacrifices are necessary for progress.”

Meanwhile back in New York, Paolo (now calling himself “Paul”), made the acquaintance of one John Hartford, President of A&P Supermarkets. The Chef Boy-Ar-Dee company, was on the way.

During the Great Depression, Hector would tout the benefits of pasta, praising the stuff as an affordable, hot and nutritious meal for the whole family.

World War II saw canning operations ramped up to 24/7 with the farm producing 20,000 tons of tomatoes at peak production and adding its own mushrooms, to the annual crop. The company employed 5,000 people producing a quarter-million cans, a day. Troops overseas couldn’t get enough of the stuff. For his contribution to the war effort, Hector Boiardi was honored with the Gold Star for Excellence, by the War Department.

Such rapid growth is never without problems, particularly for a family business. Hector sold the company to American Home Foods in 1946, for the reported sum of $5.96 million.

boyardee2 — Boiardi family meeting, hat tip FoxNews.com

Boiardi stayed on as company spokesman and consultant until 1978. Forty years later, Advertising Age executive Barbara Lippert named the 1966 Young & Rubicam “Hooray for Beefaroni” ad patterned after the Running of the Bulls, as the the inspiration for Prince Spaghetti’s “Anthony” series and the famous “Hilltop” ad for Coca Cola.

One of the great “rags to riches” stories of our age, Hector Boiardi continued to develop new products until his death in 1987, amassing an estimated net worth of $60 million dollars. He is survived by his wife of 64 years and the couple’s one son, Mario. His face may be found smiling back from your grocery store shelf, to this day.

May 7, 1945 Victory in Europe

In England, May 7 dragged on with no public statement. Large crowds gathered outside of Buckingham Palace shouting “We want the King”. Bell ringers throughout the British Isles remained on silent standby, waiting for the announcement. The British Home Office issued a circular, instructing Britons how they could celebrate: “Bonfires will be allowed, but the government trusts that only material with no salvage value will be used.”

Beginning on the 5th of May, reporters from AP, Life magazine, and others began to sleep on the floor of Eisenhower’s red brick schoolhouse headquarters, for fear of stepping out and missing the moment. Adolf Hitler was dead by his own hand, the life of the German tyrant extinguished on April 30. So it was that General Alfred Jodl came to Reims to sign the document, including the phrase “All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945“.

The signing of the instruments of surrender ending the most destructive war in history took place on Monday, May 7, at 2:41am, local time. In Europe, World War II had come to an end.The German government announced the end of hostilities right away to its own people, but most of the Allied governments, remained silent. It was nearly midnight the following day when Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed a second instrument of surrender, in the Berlin headquarters of Soviet General Georgy Zhukov.

Soviet Premier Josef Stalin had his own ideas about how he wanted to handle the matter, and so the rest of the world, waited.

In England, May 7 dragged on with no public statement. Large crowds gathered outside of Buckingham Palace shouting “We want the King”. Bell ringers throughout the British Isles remained on silent standby, waiting for the announcement. The British Home Office issued a circular, instructing Britons how they could celebrate: “Bonfires will be allowed, but the government trusts that only material with no salvage value will be used.” And still, the world waited.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill finally lost patience in the early evening, saying he wasn’t going to give Stalin the satisfaction of holding up what everyone already knew. The Ministry of Information made this short announcement at 7:40pm: “In accordance with arrangements between the three great powers, tomorrow, Tuesday, will be treated as Victory in Europe Day and will be regarded as a holiday”.

The news was greeted with reserve in the United States, where the first thought was that of the Pacific. Even now, many months of savage combat lay ahead. President Harry Truman broadcast his own address to the nation at 9:00am on May 8, thanking President Roosevelt and wishing he’d been there to share the moment. Franklin Roosevelt had died on April 12 in Warm Springs, Georgia.President Truman’s speech begins: “This is a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe. For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to the Providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity”.

Victory in Europe, “VE Day” wasn’t the end of WWII, only the end of the war in Europe. Fighting in the Pacific would continue until the Japanese surrender of August 15, 1945, a date we remember to this day, as VJ Day.

The popular history of the era doesn’t talk much about the Ostfront, the Eastern Front, though this theater alone was the scene of the largest military confrontation in history. Fighting between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had long since taken on shades of a race war, Slav against Teuton, in a paroxysm of mutual extermination that is horrifying, even by the hellish standards of WWII.Nearly every extermination camp, death march, ghetto and pogrom now remembered as the Holocaust, occurred on the Eastern Front.

The loss of life was prodigious, through atrocity, massacre, disease, starvation and exposure. Civilians resorted to cannibalism during the 900-day siege of Leningrad. Landscapes were destroyed while entire populations fled, never to return.

Mass rape became a weapon of war. Estimates range as high as 2 million German females ages 8 to 80, were defiled by Soviet soldiers. Some as many as 60 or 70 times.

An estimated 70 million people were killed all over the world, as the result of World War II. Over 30 million of them, many of those civilians, died on the Eastern Front. Pockets of fighting would continue through the surrender in Europe. Soviet forces lost over 600 in Silesia alone, on May 9. The day after their own signing. Moscow celebrated VE Day on the 9th, with a radio broadcast from Josef Stalin himself: “The age-long struggle of the Slav nations…has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.”

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