DOCSLIB.ORG

F)Llilf . IIIS'i,F)Lly Illlfjjjj\TJ~S

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
F)Llilf . IIIS'i,F)Lly Illlfjjjj\TJ~S l\1 I'I,NI~SSI~S 'l,f) l\1illl: \Tf)Jfji~S l~llf))J '1,111~ lliJ'I,fJI~IlS f)llilf_. IIIS'I,f)llY illlfjJJJ\TJ~S Image from the Alexander and Bertha Bell Papers, Special Collections & University Archives September 14 to December 31, 2005 Callery '50 Special Collections and University Archives Rutgers University Libraries Rutgers University Libraries RUTGERS WITNESSES TO WAR: VOICES FROM THE RUTGERS ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVES A GUIDE TO THE EXHIBITION Sandra Stewart Holyoak PeterAsch Stephanie Darrell Shaun Illingworth Nicholas Molnar Susan Yousif Curators of the Exhibition Special Collections & University Archives Rutgers University Libraries New Brunswick, New Jersey September 14 - December 23, 2005 - 2- WITNESSES TO WAR: THE USE OF FIRST-PERSON PRIMARY RESOURCES IN THE STUDY OF WORLD WAR II AND THE UNITED STATES, 1989-2005 INTRODUCTION History is lived in instants and revealed in stages. The story of the United States' involvement in the Second World War initially took shape through the pens and lenses of war correspondents and the home front press and the typewriters of government public relations officers. Journalists like Ernie Pyle, Homer Bigart and GI cartoonist Bill Mauldin aspired to transmit the true essence of the war, while the media's lesser lights and the PR men presented a sanitized record draped in patriotic bravado. 1 In the immediate post-war period, the branches of the Armed Forces issued official histories that dealt primarily with battle maneuvers and administrative matters.2 As the surviving luminaries among the Western Allies retired from the military and/or public life in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, they composed (with the assistance of ghostwriters in some cases) and published their memoirs, followed shortly thereafter by their subordinates. 3 While each volume offered a new perspective on the inner workings within the war's upper echelon, it also served as its author's bid to establish a legacy of his owr1 choosing. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement and the struggles for recognition and equality by numerous other groups within American society, coupled with the development of social history as an academic genre, initiated a realignment of what was considered important in the study of the Second World War. The experiences of the common serviceperson, war worker and civilian took on new importance. Studies of women, African Americans, gays and lesbians and members of other marginalized groups began appearing in the body of research, although years would pass before they would receive adequate attention. For example, historian Barbara Tomblin noted that, even in the early 1980s, "Few publishers were interested in a book about women in the military."4 The genesis of a body of first-person, war-related primary resources can be traced back to the war years themselves. Individual veterans and civilians began publishing their memoirs, diaries 1 In 1943, Ernie Pyle published Here Is Your War: Story ofGI Joe, a collection of his columns on the North African Campaign. Brave Men, an anthology of Pyle's reporting on the war in Europe from 1943 to 1944, appeared in 2001. In 1992, Betsy Wade brought together selections from Bigart's entire career, including Korea and Vietnam, in Forward Positions: The War Correspondence ofHomer Bigart. Bill Mauldin combined cartoons from his Pulitzer Prize-winning series "Up Front With Bill Mauldin," featuring his famous GI characters, "Willie and Joe," with a narrative on the combat experience in 1945's Up Front. 2 In 1946, the US Army, in conjunction with the Government Printing Office, initiated the seventy-eight-volume The United States Army in World War II series, popularly known as the "Green Books." Backed by the US Navy, Samuel Eliot Morison of Harvard University published the fifteen-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War //between 1947 and 1962. Under an agreement struck between the Army Air Forces and the University of Chicago in 1945, Professors Wesley Frank Craven ofNew York University and James Lea Cate of the University of Chicago edited the work of the AAF's Historical Division, which they had served in during the war, into theseven-volume The Army Air Forces in World War II, published between 1948 and 1958. Numerous historians aided in the production of the History of US Marine Corps Operations in World War II, which appeared between 1958 and 1971. 3 Here are a few examples: American leaders: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs (1955), Cordell Hull, The Memoirs ofCordell Hull (1948), Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (1948), Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (1964), Omar Bradley, A Soldier's Story (1951), Henry "Hap" Arnold, Global Mission (1949), Curtis LeMay, Mission With LeMay: My Story (1965). British and French leaders: Charles DeGaulle, (English versions) War Memoirs: Call to Honor, 1940-1942 (1955), War Memoirs: Unity, 1942-1944 (1959), War Memoirs: Salvation, 1944-1946 (1960); Bernard Law Montgomery, The Memoirs ofField Marshal Montgomery (1958); Winston Churchill, the six-volume, Nobel Prize-winning The Second World War (1953). 4 Tomblin, Barbara Brooks, GI Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II (University Press of Kentucky, 1996), p. vii. - 3 - and correspondence even before V-J Day. Each branch ofthe Armed Forces conducted after­ action interviews with men coming off the line. In the post-war period, those interviews joined thousands of other oral histories of officers and enlisted men and personal papers collected by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Armed Services' historical divisions: the US Army's Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks (MHI), the US Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base (AFHRA), the US Navy's Naval Institute in Annapolis and the US Marine Corps' History and Museums Division in Washington, DC. University-affiliated oral history programs and document repositories also established World War II collections, such as the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri-Columbia (WHMC), founded in 1943, Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, established in 1948, and the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (CSWS), founded in 1984. Oral history compilations also appeared in print, most notably Roy Hoopes' Americans Remember the Home Front: An Oral Narrative (1977), John Tateishi's And Justice For All: An Oral History ofthe Japanese American Detention Camps (1984) and Studs Terkel's The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two (1984), perhaps the best known oral history of Americans in World War II. The fiftieth and sixtieth anniversaries ofthe war's critical events and a flourish of popular movies and books, such as Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation (1998) and Stephen Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan (1998), brought about renewed interest in the war among the American public. Urged on by this revived appreciation and cognizant of their own mortality, the remaining eyewitnesses to the war, now in their seventies and eighties, previously reticent to discuss their experiences due to modesty or self-assessed insignificance, have become more willing to share their stories. Since 1989, publishing houses, eager to take advantage of the public's appetite for World War II works, have published the memoirs, diaries and letters of hundreds of veterans and civilian participants. Thousands more have revealed their stories to the world through independent publishers and the Internet. Simultaneously, a number of new oral history programs and document repositories have emerged to capture their stories before the demographically inevitable occurs. At Rutgers University, the Class of 1942, as the first class to graduate from Rutgers College after Pearl Harbor, founded the Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) in 1994 to record and disseminate their experiences. The project, which houses its materials in the Special Collections and University Archives Division of the Rutgers University Libraries, was later expanded with the addition of the GI Bill Class of 1949 and other war year classes. The Rutgers Oral History Archives was one of the first projects to go online in 1997. In 1995, the Reichert Oral History Program at Florida State University formed the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience to narrow in on the World War II generation. Web-based projects, such as Patrick O'Donnell's Drop Zone Virtual Museum, founded in 1995, which primarily targets Airborne and Ranger veterans, have pioneered new methods for gathering and exhibiting first-hand accounts. In 2000, the Federal Government established the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center, which coordinates the activities of numerous partner groups and individuals across the nation. This flurry of collection development has provided recent scholars and authors with a plethora of sources to choose from at a time when they are most receptive to using them. - 4- Thus, the most recent stage in the historiography of the Second World War in the United States has seen the confluence of a generation willing to tell its story and an academic and popular audience willing to listen. This essay will acquaint the reader with a sampling of the works published between 1989 and 2005 that utilize oral histories and other personal papers, such as diaries and letters, in their scholarship. Some have contributed to the historical record by adding interviews and document collections to the body of documentation; others have built upon it through their use ot tlrst-~1 .... ;::~ l'lccounts to reinterpret or elucidate events. In an effort to benefit students and researchers 011 the high school, undergraduate and graduate levels, I have based my bibliography upon a personal survey of two large state university libraries, the Archibald S. Alexander Library at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and the WEB DuBois Library at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1945 November 26-December 2 from Red Raider to Marine Raider
    1 1945 November 26-December 2 From Red Raider to Marine Raider (La Crosse Tribune, 1945 December 2, page 13) (La Crosse Tribune, 1944 March 5, page 7) Julius Wittenberg of La Crosse was a kid from a broken home who made his mark as a high school athlete and went on to become a member of one of the elite fighting units of World War II. Julius C. Wittenberg was born on May 2, 1920, in La Crosse to Frank and Sylvia (Miles) Wittenberg.1 He was named after his grandfather, Julius Wittenberg.2 Frank Wittenberg was a painter and wallpaper hanger.3 Young Julius was just four years old when Sylvia Wittenberg filed for divorce in September 1924 from her husband of 18 years. She alleged that Frank Wittenberg had "repeatedly struck her, used abusive language toward her and failed to properly support her."4 2 Four years later, Frank Wittenberg was living in Waupun, Wisconsin.5 He had taken a job as a guard at the Wisconsin state prison in Waupun. Julius, and his brother, Frank Jr., who was two years older, lived with their father at Waupun, as did a 21-year-old housekeeper named Virginia H. Ebner.6 Sylvia Wittenberg had also moved on. In October 1929, she married Arthur Hoeft in the German Lutheran parsonage in Caledonia, Minnesota.7 Arthur Hoeft of La Crosse was a veteran of World War I.8 In 1924, he had started working for his sister, Helen Mae Hoeft, at the Paramount Photo Shop at 225 Main Street. Helen Hoeft and photographer Millard Reynolds had created the first mail-order photo finishing business in the nation, and she named it Ray's Photo Service.
    [Show full text]
  • The Origination and Evolution of Radio Traffic Analysis: World War II
    DOCID: 3860741 UNCLASSIFIED The Origination and Evolution of Radio Traffic Analysis: World War II ( b ) ( 3 ) - E' . L . 86 - 3 6 ____I ··· Tb;• artitle it UNCLASSJF1ED OJrcept for the author's biography which is classified as marked. The bombing of the Philippines by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 came as a shock to the United States even though some Americans were braced for other attacks following the infamy of Pearl Harbor the previous day.1 After the near destruction of the U.S . fleet in Hawaii, the Japanese were focused on the rows of B-17s and P-40s parked neatly in the mid-day sun at Clark Field. MacArthur's air force was destroyed on the ground on that Monday afternoon without a fight. On that day, Lieutenant Howard W. Brown, a radio intelligence veteran attached to the Second Signal Service Company at Manila, changed the mission of the Army intercept unit from Japanese diplomatic to potentially more lucrative air force communications and began reconstructing the tactical military nets serving the attacking Japanese. Thus began U.S. Army radio traffic analysis in World War II. In Europe, our entry into the war spurred closer cooperation with British signals intelligence. Radio traffic analysis, as indeed the entire field of Sigint, was comprehensively developed by the British following more than two years of war with the Germans. Bletchley Park, home of Britain's Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS), became the center of Allied Sigint efforts in World War II. This included the preparation and training of U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Colby Alumnus Vol. 60, No. 1: Fall 1970
    Colby College Digital Commons @ Colby Colby Alumnus Colby College Archives 1971 Colby Alumnus Vol. 60, No. 1: Fall 1970 Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/alumnus Part of the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation Colby College, "Colby Alumnus Vol. 60, No. 1: Fall 1970" (1971). Colby Alumnus. 72. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/alumnus/72 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the Colby College Archives at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Alumnus by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. COLBY COLLEGE LIBRARY Waterville, Maine 0 The Issue Fall 1970 f/111111·111111111g . I ht· \H·tkc11d l11lo11gC'd to J. li1·el)e ancl \f,11\ Bi,ln, .111d \\ould h,t\L t\tll if tile footli.dl 1l·:1m h.tcl llJ"t'l tilt· mo.,l powtilttl Bowdo111 'lf"·'d i11 lll< lll\ a )l':1r. (l L Ill.II I) did.) I he pH·,ide11t t•111t·1 itm .111cl hi., wife were ho1101ecl 011 Colin l'\1g ht. .111d 1c,po11dul ''ith the w.umth, chatm :t11cl wit whith d1.11';1ttc111ccl the 18 \it.ti Bl\.kr )Car� at Colb)- (Pages 1-3) The /5Jul cl11.11 a11it•1·1 .. I'rt�idc11t .Strider, in his tradi­ tional aclcln·.,� lo f1c.,hmu1 011 tlwi1 f11.,t cl.n 011 c.tmpus. <lb- c m�td ,..-h:1l the tollege "ffu., .111cl \\h.1t <.111 be C\.pectcd of '>tudt•11L-.: i11tl'llcctu:tl ch.tllu1gl. \Oti.tl ad.1ptil1ilit) .•1 rc'>pect fot Colb) ·, hcrit.1gc .
    [Show full text]
  • Spearhead-Fall-Winter-2019.Pdf
    Fall/Winter 2019 SpearheadOFFICIAL PUBLICATION of the 5TH MARINE DIVISION NEWS“Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue” ASSOCIATION OCTOBER 22 - 25, 2020 71ST ANNUAL REUNION DALLAS, TEXAS Sons of Iwo vets take the helm of FMDA Bruce Hammond and statue in Semper Fi Tom Huffhines, both Memorial Park at the native Texans and sons Marine Corps War of Iwo Jima veterans Museum at Quantico, who previously (Triangle) Va., and served as Association had long worked with presidents and reunion the FMDA. hosts, were selected to Continuing his lead the Fifth Marine father’s work with the Division Association Association, President as president and vice Bruce Hammond said, president, respectively, “It is important that we for the next year. channel our passion, Additionally, move forward and lifetime FMDA mem- President Bruce Hammond and Vice President Tom Huffhines focus on our mission ber, Army helicopter for our Marine veterans.” pilot and Vietnam veteran John Powell volunteered to Vice President John Huffhines agreed and said, host the next FMDA reunion from Oct. 22-25, 2020, in “Communication with the membership, as good and Dallas. as often as possible, is extremely key to its existence. Hammond’s father, Ivan (5th JASCO), hosted the Stronger fundraising ideas and efforts should be the 2016 reunion in San Antonio, Texas, when John Butler main thing on each of our agendas.” was president, and in Houston, Texas, in 2009 when he Hammond graduated from the University of Texas, was president himself. Austin, in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Huffhines’ father, John (HS 2/3), hosted the 2006 He worked for 24 years as a well-site drilling-fluids reunion in Irving, Texas, when he was president.
    [Show full text]
  • The Forgotten Fronts the First World War Battlefield Guide: World War Battlefield First the the Forgotten Fronts Forgotten The
    Ed 1 Nov 2016 1 Nov Ed The First World War Battlefield Guide: Volume 2 The Forgotten Fronts The First Battlefield War World Guide: The Forgotten Fronts Creative Media Design ADR005472 Edition 1 November 2016 THE FORGOTTEN FRONTS | i The First World War Battlefield Guide: Volume 2 The British Army Campaign Guide to the Forgotten Fronts of the First World War 1st Edition November 2016 Acknowledgement The publisher wishes to acknowledge the assistance of the following organisations in providing text, images, multimedia links and sketch maps for this volume: Defence Geographic Centre, Imperial War Museum, Army Historical Branch, Air Historical Branch, Army Records Society,National Portrait Gallery, Tank Museum, National Army Museum, Royal Green Jackets Museum,Shepard Trust, Royal Australian Navy, Australian Defence, Royal Artillery Historical Trust, National Archive, Canadian War Museum, National Archives of Canada, The Times, RAF Museum, Wikimedia Commons, USAF, US Library of Congress. The Cover Images Front Cover: (1) Wounded soldier of the 10th Battalion, Black Watch being carried out of a communication trench on the ‘Birdcage’ Line near Salonika, February 1916 © IWM; (2) The advance through Palestine and the Battle of Megiddo: A sergeant directs orders whilst standing on one of the wooden saddles of the Camel Transport Corps © IWM (3) Soldiers of the Royal Army Service Corps outside a Field Ambulance Station. © IWM Inside Front Cover: Helles Memorial, Gallipoli © Barbara Taylor Back Cover: ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ at the Tower of London © Julia Gavin ii | THE FORGOTTEN FRONTS THE FORGOTTEN FRONTS | iii ISBN: 978-1-874346-46-3 First published in November 2016 by Creative Media Designs, Army Headquarters, Andover.
    [Show full text]
  • Closingin.Pdf
    4: . —: : b Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret) unday, 4 March 1945,sion had finally captured Hill 382,infiltrators. The Sunday morning at- marked the end of theending its long exposure in "The Am-tacks lacked coordination, reflecting second week ofthe phitheater;' but combat efficiencythe division's collective exhaustion. U.S. invasion of Iwohad fallen to 50 percent. It wouldMost rifle companies were at half- Jima. By thispointdrop another five points by nightfall. strength. The net gain for the day, the the assault elements of the 3d, 4th,On this day the 24th Marines, sup-division reported, was "practically and 5th Marine Divisions were ex-ported by flame tanks, advanced anil." hausted,their combat efficiencytotalof 100 yards,pausingto But the battle was beginning to reduced to dangerously low levels.detonate more than a ton of explo-take its toll on the Japanese garrison The thrilling sight of the Americansives against enemy cave positions inaswell.GeneralTadamichi flag being raised by the 28th Marinesthat sector. The 23d and 25th Ma-Kuribayashi knew his 109th Division on Mount Suribachi had occurred 10rines entered the most difficult ter-had inflicted heavy casualties on the days earlier, a lifetime on "Sulphurrain yet encountered, broken groundattacking Marines, yet his own loss- Island." The landing forces of the Vthat limited visibility to only a fewes had been comparable.The Ameri- Amphibious Corps (VAC) had al-feet. can capture of the key hills in the ready sustained 13,000 casualties, in- Along the western flank, the 5thmain defense sector the day before cluding 3,000 dead.
    [Show full text]
  • The Maverick Marine Carlson Evans Carlson Led America’S First Special Operations Force
    Profiles IBy Duane Schultz I Carlson did not look much like a hero that day at Jacques Farm. He was 46 years old and rail thin; although he stood tall and straight, he appeared frail. He had piercing blue eyes, a long nose, and a pronounced, chiseled jaw. Histo- rian John Wukovits described him as “an intel- lectual who loved combat; a high school dropout who quoted Emerson; a thin, almost fragile looking man who relished 50-mile hikes; an officer in a military organization who touted equality among officers and enlisted; a kindly individual with the capacity to kill.” The first thing he did at Jacques Farm was take out his harmonica and lead his men in singing the Marines land during training on Makin Island in 1943... The Maverick Marine Carlson Evans Carlson led America’s first Special Operations force. MAJOR EVANS CARLSON STOOD ON A RICKETY PLATFORM BUILT FROM wooden crates, the kind their rations came in. He said nothing for a moment as he looked out national anthem. over the young Marines he and his executive officer had personally selected after grueling inter- Carlson’s executive officer did not look like views. These were the elite, the toughest and most adventurous of the already tough and daring a hero either. The 35-year-old captain was also Marines. These were the men of the newly formed 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, America’s first thin, prematurely balding, and seemed in poor special operations team, trained to strike back at the Japanese in the hit-and-run style of the British health.
    [Show full text]
  • BATTLE-SCARRED and DIRTY: US ARMY TACTICAL LEADERSHIP in the MEDITERRANEAN THEATER, 1942-1943 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial
    BATTLE-SCARRED AND DIRTY: US ARMY TACTICAL LEADERSHIP IN THE MEDITERRANEAN THEATER, 1942-1943 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Steven Thomas Barry Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2011 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Allan R. Millett, Adviser Dr. John F. Guilmartin Dr. John L. Brooke Copyright by Steven T. Barry 2011 Abstract Throughout the North African and Sicilian campaigns of World War II, the battalion leadership exercised by United States regular army officers provided the essential component that contributed to battlefield success and combat effectiveness despite deficiencies in equipment, organization, mobilization, and inadequate operational leadership. Essentially, without the regular army battalion leaders, US units could not have functioned tactically early in the war. For both Operations TORCH and HUSKY, the US Army did not possess the leadership or staffs at the corps level to consistently coordinate combined arms maneuver with air and sea power. The battalion leadership brought discipline, maturity, experience, and the ability to translate common operational guidance into tactical reality. Many US officers shared the same ―Old Army‖ skill sets in their early career. Across the Army in the 1930s, these officers developed familiarity with the systems and doctrine that would prove crucial in the combined arms operations of the Second World War. The battalion tactical leadership overcame lackluster operational and strategic guidance and other significant handicaps to execute the first Mediterranean Theater of Operations campaigns. Three sets of factors shaped this pivotal group of men. First, all of these officers were shaped by pre-war experiences.
    [Show full text]
  • Raider Patch Magazine of the Marine Raider Association
    The Raider Patch Magazine of the Marine Raider Association No. 147 2nd Qtr 2020 Remembering Raider Sgt Wolf Weninger MARSOC Change of Command Raider Reunion Canceled Book Review: When the Tempest Gathers by Andrew Milburn Black Jack at War: Part 2 marineraiderassociation.org A National Non-Profit Organization Supporting: The Marine Raider Museum at Raider Hall, Quantico VA Executive Committee and Directors: President and Director 1st Vice President and Director 2nd Vice President and Director Col Craig Kozeniesky, USMC (Ret) Col Neil Schuehle, USMC (Ret) MSgt Zach Peters, USMC (Ret) (Det-1, MARSOC HQ) (1st MRB, MRTC) 1stvicepresident@marineraid- (1st MRB) [email protected] erassociation.org [email protected] Secretary and Director Membership Secretary and Director Treasurer and Director LtCol Wade Priddy, USMC (Ret) Helene Kozeniesky Sigrid Klock McAllister, (Hon 2BN) (Det-1) (Hon Det-1, MARSOC HQ) 1855 Kanawha Trail [email protected] 208 Shadow Wood Dr. Stone Mountain, GA 30087-2132 Argyle, TX 76226 (770)-939-3692 Past President and Director [email protected] [email protected] Karen Carlson Loving, (Hon 2BN) [email protected] Directors: MajGen Mark Clark, USMC (Ret) MSgt John Dailey USMC (Ret) MGySgt Corey Nash, USMC (Ret) (MARSOC HQ) (Det-1, MRTC) (3MRB, MRTC, HQ) [email protected] GySgt Oscar Contreras, USMC (Ret) Col J. Darren Duke, USMC LtCol Jack O'Toole, USMC (Ret) (1st MRB, MRTC) (3rd MRB, MARSOC HQ, MRSG) (MARSOC HQ) Officers: Chaplain Legal Counsel Historical and Legacy Preservation John S. Eads IV Paul Tetzloff Bruce N. Burlingham- WWII Historian [email protected] Pete Bartle Doug Bailey Communications Committee Advisor Public Affairs Louie Marsh Membership Committee Bill EuDaly (Hon 4th Bn.) Jenny Ruffini (Hon) Emeritus Board Members: Bob Buerlein (Hon) Gregg Ireland (Hon) Robert J.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Feed the Troops on Victory': a Study of the Australian
    ‘FEED THE TROOPS ON VICTORY’: A STUDY OF THE AUSTRALIAN CORPS AND ITS OPERATIONS DURING AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1918. RICHARD MONTAGU STOBO Thesis prepared in requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Humanities and Social Sciences University of New South Wales, Canberra June 2020 Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname/Family Name : Stobo Given Name/s : Richard Montagu Abbreviation for degree as given in the : PhD University calendar Faculty : History School : Humanities and Social Sciences ‘Feed the Troops on Victory’: A Study of the Australian Corps Thesis Title : and its Operations During August and September 1918. Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) This thesis examines reasons for the success of the Australian Corps in August and September 1918, its final two months in the line on the Western Front. For more than a century, the Corps’ achievements during that time have been used to reinforce a cherished belief in national military exceptionalism by highlighting the exploits and extraordinary fighting ability of the Australian infantrymen, and the modern progressive tactical approach of their native-born commander, Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash. This study re-evaluates the Corps’ performance by examining it at a more comprehensive and granular operational level than has hitherto been the case. What emerges is a complex picture of impressive battlefield success despite significant internal difficulties that stemmed from the particularly strenuous nature of the advance and a desperate shortage of manpower. These played out in chronic levels of exhaustion, absenteeism and ill-discipline within the ranks, and threatened to undermine the Corps’ combat capability. In order to reconcile this paradox, the thesis locates the Corps’ performance within the wider context of the British army and its operational organisation in 1918.
    [Show full text]
  • HISTORY of the 87Th MOUNTAIN INFANTRY in ITALY
    HISTORY of the 87th MOUNTAIN INFANTRY in ITALY George F. Earle Captain, 87th Mountain Infantry 1945 HISTORY of the 87th MOUNTAIN INFANTRY in ITALY 3 JANUARY 1945 — 14 AUGUST 1945 Digitized and edited by Barbara Imbrie, 2004 CONTENTS PREFACE: THE 87TH REGIMENT FROM DECEMBER 1941 TO JANUARY 1945....................i - iii INTRODUCTION TO ITALY .....................................................................................................................1 (4 Jan — 16 Feb) BELVEDERE OFFENSIVE.........................................................................................................................10 (16 Feb — 28 Feb) MARCH OFFENSIVE AND CONSOLIDATION ..................................................................................24 (3 Mar — 31 Mar) SPRING OFFENSIVE TO PO VALLEY...................................................................................................43 (1 Apr — 20 Apr) Preparation: 1 Apr—13 Apr 43 First day: 14 April 48 Second day: 15 April 61 Third day: 16 April 75 Fourth day: 17 April 86 Fifth day: 18 April 96 Sixth day: 19 April 99 Seventh day: 20 April 113 PO VALLEY TO LAKE GARDA ............................................................................................................120 (21 Apr — 2 May) Eighth day: 21 April 120 Ninth day: 22 April 130 Tenth day: 23 April 132 Eleventh and Twelfth days: 24-25 April 149 Thirteenth day: 26 April 150 Fourteenth day: 27 April 152 Fifteenth day: 28 April 155 Sixteenth day: 29 April 157 End of the Campaign: 30 April-2 May 161 OCCUPATION DUTY AND
    [Show full text]
  • Dictionary of Westerns in Cinema
    PERFORMING ARTS • FILM HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts, No. 26 VARNER When early filmgoers watched The Great Train Robbery in 1903, many shrieked in terror at the very last clip, when one of the outlaws turned toward the camera and seemingly fired a gun directly at the audience. The puff of WESTERNS smoke was sudden and hand-colored, and it looked real. Today we can look back at that primitive movie and see all the elements of what would evolve HISTORICAL into the Western genre. Perhaps the Western’s early origins—The Great Train DICTIONARY OF Robbery was the first narrative, commercial movie—or its formulaic yet enter- WESTERNS in Cinema taining structure has made the genre so popular. And with the recent success of films like 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the Western appears to be in no danger of disappearing. The story of the Western is told in this Historical Dictionary of Westerns in Cinema through a chronology, a bibliography, an introductory essay, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on cinematographers; com- posers; producers; films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Dances with Wolves, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, High Noon, The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers, Tombstone, and Unforgiven; actors such as Gene Autry, in Cinema Cinema Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and John Wayne; and directors like John Ford and Sergio Leone. PAUL VARNER is professor of English at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas.
    [Show full text]