Rangers on the Western Front!

 Druy, Bob, & Tom Clavin.  The Last Hill: The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle 

           That Defined WWII.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2022.  ISBN: 9781250247162

If you know World War II history, you know of Rudder's Rangers.  They were the 2nd Ranger Battalion that climbed the cliffs at Omaha Beach to seek and destroy the big guns.  They also played an important role in the capture of the port of Brest.  They performed magnificently on both, but then came their final major mission - the storming and holding of Castle Hill (also known as Hill 400) in the Hurtgen Forest in December 1944.  The Last Hill is a detailed look at this key fight.

But before they get to that fight, Bob Druy and Tom Clavin provides the reader the history and backstory of the 2nd Ranger Battalion by dividing the book into 5 parts with a number of chapters per part.  Part 1: The Rangers - provides the background on why Rangers were created, introduce the members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, and their training for D-Day.  Part II: The Beach - follows the 2nd Rangers as they scale the cliffs at Omaha Beach, discover the empty bunkers and then locate and destroy the targeted weapons among other heroic actions.  Part III: The Fortress - highlight the actions and individuals of the 2nd Rangers during the campaign to take Brest.  Part IV: The Forest - covers the hellish experiences of the 2nd Rangers in the Hurtgen Forest.  Part V: The Hill charges the reader alongside the 2nd Rangers as they make their way to Bergstein, assault and take Castle Hill from the entrenched defenders men that had turned back multiple regiments with 130 men and then held the hill against all that the Germans could throw at them.  One week later, the Battle of the Bulge opened. The 2nd Ranger's role for the rest of the war is briefly covered in the Epilogue and Afterword.

In The Last Hill, Bob Druy and Tom Clavin provides the reader with insight on an epic battle that is all to often only a footnote in the fight for the Hurtgen Forest.  This tale and these individuals should be more widely know!  If you enjoy stirring history, you will want to read The Last Hill!

Can You Handle the Truth?

 Spitale, Samuel C.  How to Win the War on Truth: An Illustrated Guide to How Mistruths are

        Sold, Why They Stick, and How to Reclaim Reality.  Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2022.  ISBN:   

       9781683693086

 

What is truth?  Is there and absolute Truth with a capital T or is all true relative based on how many people believe it?  Is there an organized assault on truth or is this just the result of a very frenzied "marketplace of ideas?"  Interested?  Read on!

 

Samuel Spitale is fervent in his belief that objective truth is under attack.  He has come to the conclusion that the United States and other countries have evolved into a post-truth nation where facts matter less than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs.  He is among the thinking majority that believe this is a dangerous state of being.  So he conceived of How to Win the War on Truth as a means of educating the reader on tools to recognize when they are being manipulated and how to fight back in eight chapters.   Chapter 1: Propagating the Faith delves into the history and process of propaganda, public relations and advertising.  Chapter 2: Cutting Out Complexity examines how a complex situation is reduced to a simple either or choice.  Chapter 3: Bias and the Brain sheds light on how the lenses we view the world are wired and how these lenses can be manipulated.  Chapter 4: Emotional Manipulation checks out how propaganda uses people's emotions to take action.  Chapter 5: Dividing and Conquering (An Audience) looks at the use of stereotypes to separate folks into "us vs them" groups.  Chapter 6: Power, Profit, and Propaganda slices into the use of propaganda by corporations to increase their influence and bottom line.  Chapter 7: Propaganda Techniques lays out the tools used in propaganda.  Chapter 8: The Southern Strategy provides a case study in the use of propaganda in the service of politics.  

 

Samuel Spitale in How to Win the War on Truth provides a passionate plea for readers to be media literate, not passive media consumers.  His point of view is clear to any discerning reader, but he does not ask for blind faith, rather he provides activities that allow the reader to participate in their own education.  If you have an interest in thinking about stories, politics, and/or life, take the time to carefully read this book!

 

Army vs Marines in the Pacific, 1944

McManus, John C.  Island Infernos: The U.S. Army's Pacific War Odyssey, 1944.  New York: 

           Caliber, 2021.  ISBN: 9780451475060

1944 would be a milestone year in both the Pacific and European theaters for the U.S. Army.  In Europe wold be invasions of Italy and France.  In the Pacific the U.S. Army was still struggling in New Guinea.  It had made progress among the Gilbert Islands, cleared the Aleutian Islands, and established a force in India aimed at Burma.  It was the opening John McManus had set for Island Infernos, the second volume of his series on the U.S. Army in the Pacific War.

John McManus lays out the situation at the beginning of 19955 in the Prologue of Island Infernos.  He then takes the reader though all the operations and activities of the U.S. Army in 1944 over the course of the next ten chapters.  Operation Flintlock - the invasion of the Marshall Islands.  The invasion of the Admiralty Islands of Los Megros and Manus.  Fighting and more fighting in New Guinea and on Bougainville.  Galahad Force left India and trekked though Burma.  The Marine/Army invasions of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian that brought plenty of casualties and almost ruptured relationships between the two services.  Finally came the longed for return to the Philippines by McArthur and the U.S. Army assisted by the U.S. Navy.  McManus also provided a brief update on POWs and their treatment.  

John McManus has continued his credible job of presenting the role of the US Army in the Pacific Theater of WWII.  He works to provide details from both combat and other aspects of Army life.  In one volume he managed to cover the wide range of activities undertaken by the U.S. Army over the course of 1944 for the reader to peruse and absorb. 

Crime and Your DNA

Humes, Edward.  The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double 

           Murder.  NY: Dutton, 2022.  ISBN: 9781524746278

 Do you crave a chance to solve a mystery?  Do you follow true crime stories and read everything you can get on killers?  Or do you live in northwestern United States?  Finally, are you engaged in the ancestry DNA craze?  If your answer to any of these question are yes, you might want to pick up and read The Forever Witness.

 

On November 18, 1987, Jay Cook and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg left Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada) to drive five hours to Seattle, Washington, to pick up a furnace for his dad.  They never arrived.  Someplace along the way they encountered someone who murdered them both, left their bodies in rural Washington and the copper-colored van was left in the town of Bellingham.  A massive search went out, but the case went cold.  

 

In 2005, Jim Scharf was appointed to work the 65 cold cases of Snohomish County (WA) where he had worked off and on since 1h3 1970s.  The only double-homicide was that of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.  In 2008, Sharf invested in decks of tip cards -  playing cards that had the story of a case and photo of the victim.  Since DNA in semen was found on Tanya's body, DNA matching could be used to rule out various suspects that tips brought forward.   CODIS, a database of DNA collected from known criminals was tried a few times without any hits.   Then came the genetic genealogy phenomenon where folks started sending in their DNA to trace back their ancestors and find living relatives via 23andMe and other DNA testing companies.  Scharf used Parabon which had gone private after creating a terrorist DNA database for the Defense Department. He got a profile with a description.  This is where CeCe Moore comes into the story.  She is a genetic genealogist who  has made a business out of her obsession with tracking down genealogical answers.  She saw that her toolkit for helping people find answers could possibly be a way to help solve police cold cases.  She and Parabon gotten together to work on cases using the GEDmatch platform to solve cold cases and the first case was Jim Sharf's.  It took CeCe Moore nine hours to identify the possible killer.  Then came the need to obtain direct DNA evidence that was positively linked to the suspected person which was accomplished on May 18, 2018.  Then all the evidence collected over the years needed to be put in order, a case presented to a court, and a verdict rendered which happened on December 6, 2021.

Edward Humes provides a very readable account of how the case of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook's murders were solved and the vindication of genetic genealogy as a tool in law enforcement's handbook.  He also provides a warning about the need for limits on these tools.   Pick up a copy and dive into the details of a fascinating cold case solved!

 

 

One ruler for all Russia?

Weiss, Andrew S.  Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin.  New York: First Second 

          Books, 2022.  ISBN: 9781250760753

Ruling Russia is tricky.  For centuries, tsars ruled the vast land of Russia, but that ended with the Revolution of 1917.  After a bloody civil war, the Communists under Lenin, followed by Stalin, followed by several more leaders ruled the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics.  But this ended in 1991 under Premier Gorbachev.  Boris Yeltsin became president of a shrunken Russia.  Then in 2000, Vladimir Putin managed to wrangle his way into the presidency.  Why him?  Not to mention how? 

Andrew Weiss lays out his credentials in the introduction - opening with "I'm Andrew Weiss, and I'm a Russia geek."  He then proceeds to outline the interactions between Russia and the U.S.A. under Yeltsen and Putin culminating in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.  To understand Putin, Weiss argues, you need to understand hi motivation and the history behind them.  

Weiss covers Putin's career in the KGB both in USSR and in East Germany in Chapter 1 - Super Spy.  Chapter 2 - Riding High - highlights how Russia is controlled by personal ties, not institutions or law.  Chapter 3 - O Lucky Man! - delves into Putin's rise to become president of Russia via Kremlin's "Operation Successor" talent search.  Chapter 4 - Into the Abyss - is split between Putin's and the Kremlin's views that any opposition is fueled by "outside influencers" such as Soros or the CIA and Putin's life in St. Petersburg during the 1990s.   Chapter 5 - Frontal Assault - opens with Putin returning to power in 2011/2012 with blatantly rigged elections.  The chapter then dives into Russian history and the roots of the ideology Putin follows - "orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality." Then came the Sochi Olympics and street protests in Ukraine that led to President Yanukovych's ouster.  Crimea was seized and annexed and Russia backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine.  Chapter 6 - Feet of Clay - lays bare the ways that Putin and the Kremlin sought to influence a whole host of countries via social media, "useful idiots," hack-and-leak attacks, infiltrating fringe organizations, and a host of other ways all to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the EU.  When that did not seem to work, Putin launched his secret plan to militarily take-over the country.  Chapter 7 - A Deeply Unsatisfying Ending - briefly sums up the problem Putin has created for himself and the rest of the world.  

Andrew Weiss provides in graphic form a succinct history of Putin and his view of Russia.  He draws upon his knowledge and experience to document especially relevant history in light of recent events.  Readers who are following the news or are interested in the causes behind the news will find plenty to digest in Accidental Czar.

A Treasurey of Tales About the Space Race!

Cuhaj, Joe.  Space Oddities: Forgotten Stories of Mankind's Exploration of Space.  Lanham, MD:   

         Prometheus Books, 2022.  ISBN: 978-1-63388-784-4

 

Did you grow up in the age of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo?  Or are you just a space junkie who hoards details about the space program, actually any space program?  Joe Cuhaj fits in both categories.  Space Oddities is the outpouring of his obsession with space that began when a 4-year-0ld Joe saw his first rocket launch in 1962.  

Joe Cuhaj opens with a look at some of the early space pioneers - Wan Hu, Max Valier, and Wernher von Braun.  Von Braun ended up in the USA after WW2 still working with left-over German V-2 rockets.  One launch went astray and blew up a cemetery in Mexico  - dubbed the only attack on Mexico by Germans from their base in the US of A..  The second chapter covers the role of women in space, both as ground crew, calculators and astronauts/cosmonauts.  The role of animals in space has its own chapter.  International space exploration such as Zambian Afronauts and the Russo-American cooperation that lead, eventually, to the International Space Station also has a chapter.  Cuhaj discusses the objection many made to the cost of space exploration versus spending that money of problems on Earth which also examines how NASA and the Civil Rights marches of the 1960's interacted and affected each other.  Another chapter looks at the safety concerns and risk analyses are a matter of life in death in space exploration.  Did you know that there were wake-up calls for the space missions? In 1981, the crew of the Columbia were woken up by the crew of USS Swinetrek - "the puns were painful!"  this chapter is followed by one in which Cuhaj documents some of the pranks done on various crew members and/or ground crew.  Then there is always the issue of what to pack and how much to pack.  And for all you coders, there is a chapter entitled "Wrecked by the Most Expensive Hyphen in History."  Anyone remember the "space pen" being sold on QVC?  This phenomena and other space business stories are listed in "Space is Open for Business"  The next last chapter asks the perennial question -  "How do you have sex in space?"  The final chapter looks back at the Earth and longs to go forth and spread humanity's wings outside the cradle.

Space Oddities is a collection of miscellaneous stories brought together by Joe Cuhaj and bound between the front and back covers.  Each chapter could be a launching point for exploration by the interested reader.  But the only links between the chapters are that these are the tales Joe Cuhaj choose to share with the reader.  Dip in and read what interests you! 

25 Missions in a B-17

 Maurer, Kevin.  Damn Lucky: One Man's Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in 

          Aviation History.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2022.  ISBN: 978-1-250-27438-0

In World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corp waged a brutal air war against Germany and occupied Europe by day and British Bomber Command did the same by night.  The object of this campaign was to destroy German infrastructure and bring the German economy to a halt.  For the Eighth Air Force based in England, the B-17 Flying Fortress was the main weapon.  Each B-17 had a crew of 10 men armed with bombs and machine guns.  But despite the name, the B-17 was vulnerable to enemy fighters and flak.  The goal of every crewman was to survive 25 missions and return home.  But the average crew only lasted 10 missions, so a constant stream of new recruits were needed.  Damn Lucky is the story of John Luckadoo, a pilot of a B-17 during 1943 at the height of the air campaign and his 25 missions.

John Luckadoo had planned on being a fighter pilot.  He and his friend Sully planned on joining the Army Air Corp, but need two years of college before they could apply.  Then Sully heard about the Royal Canadian Air Force and joined with his mother's permission.  Luckadoo could not get parental approval, so he stayed in college until Pearl Harbor happened.  He then joined the Army Air Corp, but he almost did not become a pilot.  His flight instructor was terrible, doing everything by rote and by the book.  Luckily, Luckadoo go a second chance with another flight instructor and passed.  Instead of becoming a fighter pilot, Luckadoo was assigned to the B-17 as a pilot in the 100th Bomb Group.  In June 1943, the 100th Bomber Group flew across the Atlantic to England.  They were based at Thorpes Abbots in East Anglia.  Luckadoo  flew missions over France and Germany from June 1943 to February 1944 when he flew his 25th and final mission.  

 

John Luckadoo provides just enough details for Kevin Maurer to describe the course of several missions.  Each mission had its moments of tensions, but several missions were quite harrowing and nerve-wracking to read.  If you want to know what the air war was like over Germany in World War II, Damn Lucky is one of the books to read!  John Luckadoo was damn lucky to survive!