Great War Saboteur Manhunt

Mills, Bill.  Agent of the Iron Cross: The Race to Capture German Saboteur-Assassin Lothar 

        Witzke during World War I.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.  ISBN: 

        9781538182086

 

Secret agents, sabotage, planned invasions, codes breaking and double agents are often the stuff of spy stories, but can be found in real life as well.  Agent of the Iron Cross documents Lothar Witzke's story as German agent, running loose in the United States and Mexico from 1915 till his capture and trial in 1918.  

 

At the opening of World War I, Witzke was a midshipman on the German cruiser Dresden and wounded in the final battle with the British Navy off the coast of Chile.  He escaped from the hospital at Valparaiso, Chile, and disguised as a Danish seaman who had lost his papers made his way to San Fransisco.  Consul Bopp employeed Witzke as a courier until he hooked up with Kurt Jahnke and became a saboteur.  He helped plant explosives on merchant ships and with involved in the Black Tom Island and the Mare Island Naval Station explosions.  In 1917, Witzke and Jahnke moved to Mexico to stay in communication with their HQ while continuing their operations.  One such operation involved creating labor unrest at mines in southwestern United States so that local US Army troops would be called out while also having blacks in the South rise up in insurrections followed by the Mexican Army invading and occupying parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and California.  All this mayhem would keep the United States out of the war in Europe.  Fortunately, for the United States there were some competent undercover agents and double agents embedded in the German camp so that this plot could be thwarted.  As part of the plot, Witzke crossed the border into Texas and was arrested, his luggage searched and a code found.  The contents of the coded message played its part in the court-martial trial in convicting Witzke of espionage and sentenced to be hanged.  After judicial review in 1919, the sentence was changed to confinement at hard labor.  In 1919, Witzke and two other prisoners broke out of Fort Sam Houston prison but quickly recaptured and he ended up in Leavenworth for several years until released in 1923.  Witzke moved back to Germany and  joined the Abwehr under Canaris before World War II started.  After the war Witzke served in the Hamburg legislature from 1949-1952.  He died on January 6, 1962.

If you are interested in spies, secret agents, double crosses and feats of daring, pick up a copy of Agents of the Iron Cross and pick up a few little known facts!

 

Pirates in the South Seas!

Thomson, Keith.  Born to be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates who Raided the 

          South Seas, Rescued a princess, and Stole a Fortune.  New York: Little, Brown & Company, 

         2022.  ISBN: 9780316703611 

Pirates!  Almost everyone's favorite villains/heroes!  But, do we really need another tale of daring do?  Of course we do!  Especially this one where Keith Thomson uses the diaries of various pirates along with court records and other documents to trace out their adventures on land and sea during the reign of Charles II.

In 1680, 300 pirates banded together to rescue a princess of a local tribe from the Spanish.  They used this pretext to go a "pyrating" in the fashion of Captain Morgan across the Darien jungle to attack the city of Panama.  That attack did not quite work out, so they set out to blockade the city until a ransom was given.  Some pirates returned back across the jungle while others decided to hang out in the South Seas and see what treasure they could scrounge up.  But not all pirates were happy with their leaders so a series of mutinies and failed attacks slowly whittled down the pirate band while the Spanish opposition grew.  After finding a decent haul off the Santo Rosario (treasure worth 10,000 pieces of eight) but failed to take the 670 "piggs of metal" (in this case silver worth around a million pieces of eight ) aboard their ship.  But they did get a book with 300+ pages of maps/charts and sailing directions for the South Seas before the Spanish could toss it overboard.  The pirate crew set sail for England going around the tip of South America and barely making to the Nevis in the Caribbean before their ship, the Trinity, fell apart.  The crew split up with several traveling to England where they were put on trial for breaking the peace between Spain and England.  But the fix was in at the Admiralty Court due to the intelligence gained by the "gentlemen pirates." 

If you are interested in true tales of adventure that may have inspired at least one author, pick up a copy of Born to be Hanged by Keith Thomson and be enthralled!

Preston, David.  The Lost Tomb and Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder.  New 

         York: Grand Central Publishing, 2023.  ISBN: 9781538741221

Douglas Preston is half of the duo that writes the Agent Pendergast series (Lee child is the other half). When he is not writing thrillers, Preston writes non-fiction books and articles. This tome is a collection of articles he has written on murders, unexplained deaths, unsolved mysteries, curious crimes, and old bones (those were how he categorized the articles).

 

 Douglas Preston opens with him discovering the murder of a middle school friend who had moved away; another murder explains why he can no longer visit Italy. The unexplained deaths happened in the Himalayas, the Ural Mountains, and Kennewick , Washington. The mysteries involve Oak Island, Sandia Cave (NM), and Hell Creek (MT). The crimes involves a con that was thought impossible by experts, and the ire and blow-back caused by Amanda Knox haters (interesting link back to the 2nd murder story). The final section (Old Bones) discuss the human remains held by museums, the possibility of cannibalism in the American Southwest, and a visit by Preston to KV5 - the "lost" tomb of Ramesses II's sons. All of the articles have updates after the original article and have listed the original publication dates and journals. 

 

If you enjoy the topics or have enjoyed other non-fiction titles by Preston, pick up this book and read!

Blazing a Trail from World War II to Vietnam!

Rinehart, Lorissa.  First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female 

        War Correspondent.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2023.  ISBN: 9781250276575

 

How many war correspondents can you name?  Okay, now for a even trickier question - How many female war correspondents can you name?  If you can name any, it might all be due to the path Georgette "Dickey" Meyer Chapelle created for all who came after her.  In First to the Front, Lorissa Rinehart seeks to tell the whole story of Dickey Chapelle.  

Georgette "Dickey" Meyer was born and raised in Wisconsin, In 1935 she flunked out of MIT, and ended up in Coral Gables (FL) as the city editor for the Miami Airshow at $15 a week.She wrangled her way into an assignment for the New York Times covering the Havana Air Show.  This led her to a job as assistant publicity chief for Howard Hughes's airline - TWA.  There she met Anthony "Tony" Chapelle who was teaching photography.  Dickey became a photojournalist after she married Tony.  After December 7, 1941, Dickey Chapelle got a job with Look to cover the 14th Infantry Regiment training in the jungles of Panama.  Then she got a break - she was accredited as a photographer in the Pacific Theater of Operations..  On board the USS Samaritan, she took photos of blood drive that the Red Cross used for a decade at blood drives.  She also captured the faces and stories of soldiers and Marines loaded on board the hospital ship.  She spent time on Iwo Jima and then Okinawa managing to endear herself to Marines while ticking off the higher brass who arrested her and revoked her credentials. Seventeen was the one magazine who would still employee her.  

After the war, Dickey and Tony traveled around Europe for the Quakers bringing in supplies and photographing conditions in Poland, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, and  France.  After several trips through Europe, the duo made a sweep through Iraq, Iran and India for the US State Department's Point Four program documenting their work.  Dickey managed to get articles in National Geographic, World Magazine and Reader's Digest along with the documentaries for the State Department.  After finally divoracing Tony, Dickey returned to Europe to cover the Hungarian Revolution which lead to a stint in Hungarian prison.  Next, she traveled to Algeria to cover the Algerian Liberation Front's fight against French colonialism.  She covered Castro's fight with Batista in Cuba.  Then she went to cover the conflict in Laos.  She wrote a primer on guerrilla war for the Marines before covering the conflict in South Vietnam.  She spent time with the Sea Swallows, Marines in helicopters, and the Vietnamese Marines.  Then on November 2, 1965, while on patrol with U.S. Marines, a booby trap tripped by a Marine killed her.  She died doing what she enjoyed most - taking photos.

The bare details given above does not cover the depth of detail that Lorissa Rinehart provides in this well-written biography of Dickey Chappelle, who that deserves far greater recognition than she has received.  If you are interested in female journalists, especially photojournalists, First to the Front is a title to read!

Screens-R-Us

Hickey, Walt.  You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything.  New York: 

        Workman Publishing, 2023.  ISBN: 9781523515899

Pop culture - how much do you consume in a day?   Walt Hickey knows.  Well he knows the amount of time the "typical" American spends watching television/movies/reading/writing - about 3 hours and 22 minutes a day.  If you want to find out what all our media consumption does for and to us not to mention the world, dive in with Walt and find out!

In You Are What You Watch, Walt Hickey does several deep dives into pop culture.  He opens with a chapter on how movies, television and other parts of pop culture affects our bodies and shapes what we do. the next chapter looks at how social media, movies, television and books capture our attention and keep us coming back for more.  Two chapters guides us into the twisted mirror-scape where movies, television, and other aspects of pop culture reflect us as we are and how we change ourselves to reflect what we see in pop culture.  Of course there is a chapter on the role money plays in shaping pop culture and how pop culture shapes money making opportunities.  The final three chapters examine the empires created by pop culture (yes, Disney is part of the focus, but so is the United Kingdom!), what culture does to survive and thrive, and how stories and the creation of stories shape their creators.

So, if you ready to find out how pop culture has shaped the world in the past (can you name which movie led to a world-wide decline in sharks) and into the future, pick up Walt Hickey's You Are What You Watch, read it, and explore the whole spectrum of pop culture!

What is the Body's Biggest Organ?

Lyman, Monty.  The Remarkable Life of the Skin: An Intimate Journey Across Our Largest 

       Organ.  New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020.  ISBN: 9780802129406

So you think you know all about anatomy?  Can you name the largest and one of the most important organs in the body?  If you called out anything other than skin, you need to go and listen to John Lithgow crooning "You Gotta Have Skin!"  As Monty Lyman makes very clear in this interesting tome, your skin does so much more than just keep your insides in!

In ten informative chapters, Monty Lyman takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of skin.  He starts off with a look at instances when the skin fails, and then dives into all the intricate layers of your skin.  He looks at how your skin reflects what is going on in your gut, how skin deals with light and sun exposure, and how it ages.  Skin plays a key role in your sense of touch, for both good an ill. How our skin looks and feels affects us psychologically while what we ink on our skin can affect us socially.  And then skin plays a part in our impression of others and their impression of us.  Finally Monty Lyman discusses how skin shapes our thinking in regard to religion, philosophy, and language.

Skin is so much more than just a container for bones and guts.  The Remarkable Life of the Skin provides the reader a readable entrance into the world of skin!

Beware the Spade!

McDowell, Marta.  Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim  

          Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers.  Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2023  

          ISBN: 9781643261126

Do you read mysteries?  Do you garden?  If your answer to either is yes, then Marta McDowell has a book for you!  She has taken time out from her gardening to indulge in her other passion -  murder mysteries!  In Gardening Can Be Murder, she combines both by looking at how these two passions intersect.

 

McDowell opens with a chapter on detectives known for their gardening starting with Willkie Collins' Sergeant Cuff, meanders to Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple, darts back in time to Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael, Heads into the present with Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and his orchids, and finishes with Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles, 

Besides individuals, McDowell provides a look at various mysteries that are set in a garden; use  garden tools or objects for the murder; plants as means of the murder, gardens/plants as clues in the murder and an interesting look at mystery writers who garden.  Another nice feature is the list of all the authors and titles she mention through the book along with various source material used.

So if you are interested in mysteries and or gardens, do check out Gardening Can Be Murder for your enjoyment and enlightenment!