A Flying Chinese-American W.A.S.P. in WWII

 Ankeny, Susan Tate.  American Flygirl.  New York: Citadel Press, 2024.  ISBN: 9780806542829

In World War II, the United States had a big problem.  They were growing the Army Air Corp, churning out planes by the thousands, but they needed pilots to get planes from the factories to the air units.  Male pilots were needed overseas, so was born the Women Airforce Service Pilots program which trained women to fly the military aircraft across the country.  In American Flygirl, Susan Ankeny tells the story of Hazel Ying Lee, the first female Chinese-American to obtain her pilot's license and train as a member of  W.A.S.P. 

 

Hazel Ying Lee grew up in Portland's (OR) Chinatown facing all the "normal" racism of the time, but she had a dream of flying.  In 1932, she managed to get a job running an elevator to pay for flying lessons and obtained her private pilot's license.  She later joined the Chinese Flying School to train for lying in China against the Japanese.  But when she arrived in China in 1933, she was not accepted in the Chinese Air Force.  She did manage to fly commercial aircraft and served a a security guard at a Chinese air force base.  Then in 1934, she moved back to the United States to work with the Universal Trading Corporation getting war supplies for China.

 

In December 1942, Hazel heard about an opportunity to fly.  Jackie Cochran had made a deal with General "Hap" Arnold to allow women to be trained to fly military planes in noncombat roles, specifically from factories to exit points or permanent units.  Hazel joined the fourth training class in 1943 - the first class that trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.  After learning to fly the Army way, Hazel and the other member of her class joined the Ferry Command to fly military aircraft all over the country.  They flew B-17s, B-29s, P-51, P-47s, and P-40s along with A-24s.  Hazel was flying a P-63 Kingcobra from New York to Seattle in November 1944 when her plane was struck by another plane while landing in Great Falls (MT).  Both planes burst in flames and crashed.  Hazel died two days later due to her injuries.  

In American Flygirl, Susan Ankeny provides a life history of Hazel Ying Lee in historical context while also providing an interesting look at the training that Hazel and other members of W.A.S.P. received.  If you are interested flying, female aviation or the WWII home front, this is a book for you!

Diving on 12 wrecks!

Gibbins, David.  A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 

         2024.  ISBN: 9781250325372

Who is not intrigued at exploring a shipwreck?  Come on, there might be treasure!  Or at least very cool stuff, right?  Well, David Gibbins, an archeologist and diver, strongly believes that the stuff found in a shipwreck reflects the trade history and economic environment at the time the ship went down.  In A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, he provides the reader a chance to explore that history.

The first shipwreck was found in Dover during a excavation below the road.  This boat was used to trade across the Channel during the middle of the Bronze age (about 1550 B.C.).  The next shipwreck comes from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey from the time of Tutankhamun or Nefertiti based on a gold scarab found in the wreck.  Also in the wreck were copper and tin ingots, jars of terebinth resin, glass ingots, various Cypriot dining dishes, and ivory from elephants and hippopotamus.  The third wreck was also off of Turkey, but on the Aegean coast and dated to be from the classical age of Greece.  The wreck had 196 wine amphoras and associated drinking-ware. 

Wreck number four was a cargo ship with olive oil and fish sauce from A.D. 200 during the reign of Septimius Severus off the coast of Sicily right near where the author's grandfather had landed in WWII.  Wreck number five was also off the coast of Sicily filled with prefabricated marble elements for a church sent out from Constantinople by Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century A.D.  For wreck number six, the reader travels to Indonesia to explore a wreck that could have been featured in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor.  The wreck had 57,000 Tang Dynasty Chinese bowls created for export to Abbasid Persia along with other cargo.

 

Next David Gibbins uses several Norse ships found in scattered locations to talk about the trade, explorations, and conquests made by the Vikings that culminated in the invasion of England in 1066 A.D.  Wreck number eight looks at the sinking (1545 A.D.) and recovery of The Mary Rose, King Henry the VIII's flagship.  Wreck number nine has Gibbins diving on the Mullion Pin Wreck (1667 - Santo Christo de Castello) off Cornwall and discussing the cargo lost in that wreck which included lost paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, thousands of brass clothing pins, spices, hides, and other trade goods.

 

Wreck number ten was The Royal Anne Galley (1721) which sank off Lizards Peninsula in Cornwall while conveying the new governor of Barbados and then off to pursue pirates such as Bartholomew Roberts.   Wreck number eleven has Gibbins returning to Canada to dive on the HMS Terror which sank in 1848 as part of the John Franklin expedition disaster.  Wreck number 12 covers the story of SS Gairsoppa which was sunk in 1941 by a U-Boat while carrying 17 tons of silver from India to Great Britain.

In each chapter of A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, David Gibbins provides the reader a chance to experience the thrill of undersea exploration while providing a context for the wreck and its place in world history.  So read this title and find out for yourself!

Textbooks - Misinformation or Disinformation?

 Loewen, James W. and Nate Powell.  Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaption.  New York: 

            The New Press, 2024.  ISBN: 9781620977033

 

How well do you remember your elementary, junior high, and high school history textbooks?  Were you ever confused because facts did not seem to be in the right order or contradicted each other?  If so, get hold of this graphic adaptation of James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me and find out what has been missing in all those textbooks!

 

Over the course of twelve chapters Loewen dissects the problems he has identified in a variety of textbooks.  One of the first issues he raises is the sheer amount of facts that are poured into students' brains and the sheer size of the textbooks (18 most popular textbooks he examined averaged 975 pages)!  Then there is the fact that most textbooks have an agenda that is focused on telling a heroic story of American history, not a balanced telling.  The role and status of Christopher Columbus is explored in its own chapter as is the First Thanksgiving.  Loewn spends two chapters looking at the invisibility of racism and antiracism in textbooks (think Gone with the Wind, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln).  Then there is a exploration of The Land of Opportunity trope in textbooks, a look at how the concept of the Federal government is taught, and two chapters that discuss the avoidance of the Vietnam War and the recent past in textbooks.  Loewen and Powell finish out the book by looking at how history could and should be taught in textbooks.  In the afterword, Powell discusses how he and Loewen created a format with the  author breaking the fourth wall by talking directly to the reader in a fashion that makes the reader a participant, not just an observer.  

 

If you ever questioned your school textbooks, Lies My Teacher Told Me could be the answer you are looking for!  You might not agree with everything in this book, but this is a book that everyone should read and discuss.

 

An Author on His Love of Reading Providors!

 Patterson, James, Matt Eversmann, and Chris Mooney.  The Secret Lives of Booksellers and 

         Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading.  NY: Little, Brown, and Company, 2024.  

         ISBN: 978031656734

Do you know a bookseller of a librarian?  Are you interested in learning about what booksellers or librarians do all day?  No, they do not get to sit and read all day - that is just a myth, unfortunately!  World famous author James Patterson has a great love of reading and spends a lot of time at and in bookstores and libraries.  So he and two collaborators decided to gather and share stories from booksellers and librarians.

The first section has booksellers and librarians discuss being book detective.  This involves either trying to figure out what book a patron/customer is trying to find based on what little information they have  (it was a red book on birds or it had vampires and airplanes and World War I) or trying to find a book that meets the needs/tastes/desires of the patron (I want a cozy romance set in Rome that involves baking).

The second section interviews librarians and booksellers on books.  All sorts of stories about books - their favorites, the first books they read, what books they tend to recommend, etc.  

The third section dives into booksellers and librarians reminiscing on the role that books and reading plays in their lives.  One librarian talks about how she learned about interlibrary loan when she was seventeen and working on an art project.  Another has a plan for world domination via children's literature. 

 

Section four is all about reading!  Booksellers and librarians are more interested in getting people hooked on reading and less worried about what they are reading.  Because, as one bookseller states, "a kid who reads is a kid who thinks."  Not to mention that adults who read tend to think as well.

 

The fifth and final section is talking about everything that librarians and booksellers do behinds the scenes so that the books and other items/services are easily found by the customers/patrons.  Did you know that some libraries have tools you could check out?  Or job resume services?  How about tax forms?  The list of services just grows and grows!  

Okay, the title is a bit misleading.  Not all librarians and booksellers are super heroes or keeping rare and strange artifacts safe from evil doers (see The Librarians for a fun watch).  But if you enjoy reading about why people enjoy their jobs, The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians is a good place to start!

Can You Win an Information War?

Pomerantsev, Peter.  How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist who Outwitted Hitler.   

          New York: PublicAffairs, 2024.  ISBN: 9781541774728

In an age of news silos, is it possible to reach folks?  Especially folks who only seem to listen to only one viewpoint?  Peter Pomerantsey has not given up hope.  He draws inspiration from Sefton Delmer who ran a black propaganda system during World War II that caused problems for the Nazi propaganda machine.

Sefton Delmer was born in Berlin to Australian parents.  His father was a professor in Imperial Germany and he was ten when World War I broke out.  He experienced the effects of propaganda first-hand as school friends turned on him in a matter of weeks.  His family did not get out of Germany for several years and this experience shaped his view of life and people.  He finished growing in England, got an Oxford degree and then became a journalist for the Daily Express in 1920's Germany.  He chronicled the rise of the Nazi regime, acting as an aide-de-camp to Ernest Rohm, the leader of the Nazi storm troopers at a private meeting.  Delmer accompanied Hitler on his airplane as he campaigned to become president against Hindenburg.  Delmer also gave lots of parties in Berlin that attracted a number of Nazi officials.  After World War II, broke out and France was occupied, Hitler gave a speech offering peace to Great Britain.  Sefton Delmar was selected at the BBC to provide an immediate reply that threw the Nazis for a loop.  This was what he wanted to do, using language to subvert the enemy.  But before he could get a position in the psych-ops wing of the British intelligence services, he had to persuade the powers that be that he was not a Nazi infiltrator and that he had an idea that would reach beyond the "Good German" that the current BBC programming was focusing on.  

In late1940, Delmer was posted to Lisbon by the Daily Express.  He was also to find out German plans regarding Gibraltar for the Secret Intelligence Service.  Then he got recalled to London where he resigned from the Daily Express and was placed in charge of a "Research Unit" - actually a code for "freedom radio."  Delmer had the challenge of setting up a right-wing sounding radio to influence the German public!  Finally Delmer could put his ideas into practice!  Propaganda was what was needed and that was what was delivered using language, tone, and innuendo that got the listeners to stop believing everything on the official radio broadcasts.  Delmer took the German broadcasts and spun them with sly bits of commentary that would get listeners rethinking their attitudes toward Nazi officials, the military, their neighbors, and eventually everything.  Delmar used the truth to undercut the lies and "fake news" that the official German broadcasts had regarding bombings, outcomes of battles, and survival of individuals. But, Delmer's success in floating some propaganda ideas during the war had unintended consequences after the war, specifically, the stories he spread regarding the German general's opposition to Hitler.  After the war, Delmer never knew the success he had before and during the war, but his contribution to winning the war was immense.

So if you are interested in the concept of propaganda and/or black ops during World War II, do pick up Peter Pomerantsev's How to Win An Information War!  You might even get some ideas on how to be subversive in countering today's propaganda silos. 

For the Love of Dictators

Heilbrunn, Jacob.  America Last:  The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.

        n.p.: Liveright, 2024.  ISBN: 9781324094661

 

 

Everyone alive knows that Donald Trump seems enthralled with Putin and Ron DeSantis with Victor Orban. What about dictators is so attractive to a certain mindset?  And when did this obsession become a passion of the Conservatives?  These are some of the issues that Jacob Heilbrunn seeks to clarify in America Last.

 

Jacob Heilbrunn lays out early in the opening of the book his relationship with the conservative movement to establish his credentials for the history he reveals.  He starts with the present day where the conservatives and many Republicans seem to think that Hungary and its culture wars is the future they should pursue.  So how and when did this "homage to authoritarianism" develop?  

 

So who all has the Right praised?   "Kaiser Bill" for one was praised by Henry Louis Mencken and George Sylvester Viereck as an upholder of traditional values.  Theodore Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant, and H. P. Lovecraft adored Benito Mussolini, the Fascist ruler of Italy.  Ezra Pound was another vocal advocate of both Mussolini and later Adolf Hitler.  Elizabeth Dilling was a fascist supporter who accused the YMCA and the League of Women Voters as communist front organizations and college campuses as "hotbeds of radicalism."  Then there was the America First Committee that openly support Germany with the assistance of Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, the return of George Sylvester Viereck, and the funding of William Randolph Hearst.  After the war, came the era of McCarthy with the Senator hunting for "dirty Commies" everywhere while working on rehabilitating Nazi Germany.  

 

In the 1950's Henry Luce and his wife Clara Booth Luce helped lead the charge against the U.S. State Department while fawning over Nationalist China's ruler, Chiang Kaishek.  About this time William F. Buckley wandered on to the stage praising McCarthy while pushing a shift from isolationism to confronting the Communist menace through The National Review.  However, Buckley, his brother-in-law Leo Bozell, Jr., and others also looked to Franco of Spain, and Salazar of Portugal for inspiration in opposing the rise of Liberalism in America.  Then there was the Kirkpatrick doctrine which provided cover for the Right to cozy up with authoritarian governments such as Pinochet, South Africa, El Salvador, and Argentina.  

In 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Right lost a major focus.  Patrick Buchanan started the charge of the new "Old Right" back to isolationism that puts America first leading to a fight between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives that is still going strong.  He voiced strong opposition to George H. W. Bush in regard to the Gulf War, to the U.S. sending troops to Bosnia, and was warmly embraced by Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky for his stance on Jews.  Then came 9/11 and the launch of the War on Terror.  In George W. Bush, the neocons had a champion to try out their ideas in Afghanistan and then Iraq.  The ultimate failure of the neocon plans provided the opportunity for the paleocons to come roaring back in the unlikely person of Donald J. Trump who made no secret of his love of authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin.  Even Putin's invasion of Ukraine in flagrant defiance of treaties that Russia has signed has not slowed the love of dictators found in the Right today.  It is amazing/appalling how many people have fallen in love with a nostalgic picture of a time that never was.

Jacob Heilbrun provides a very detailed schooling on the love for authoritarians that seem crafted into the DNA of the conservative Right in America.  So if you want to know the background to the news stories of today, take the time to read America Last.

Running up the Score!

Bruning, John R.  Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master 

        of the Sky.  New York: Hachette Books, 2020.  ISBN: 9780316508629

An Ace!  For airmen and the public, an ace is someone to look up to and admire.  They had mastered simultaneously flying and fighting and managed to bring down at least 5 enemy aircraft.  The Red Baron was a famous German ace of World War I who is best known now for fighting Snoopy.  But being an ace was no easy task since only bout 5% of all World War II fighter pilots managed to get 5 confirmed "kills."  However, in the Southwest Pacific, General Kenney inspired the Fifth Air Force to chase down WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker's record of 26 enemy planes as a way to boost morale.  This book tells the story of many who participated in the race for this crown.

John Bruning opens the book with General Kenney checking out the state of the Fifth Air Force based in New Guinea which was getting pounded by Japanese Air Force while the Japanese Army was approaching the few bases still operational.  He needed fighting spirit and better planes than the P-39 Aircobras and P-40 Warhawks he had.  What he got was the Lockheed P-38 Lightening, a twin engine fighter that could out-dive and out-run the current Japanese planes.  Then he started getting pilots such as Richard Bong, Gerald Johnson, and Tommy McGuire.  These pilots and a host of others managed to turn the tide against the Japanese, but at a cost of living in a jungle environment at the end of a very, very long supply chain.  The pilots of the Fifth Air Force strove to match and then beat Rickenbacker's record of 26 enemy planes.  This race cost lives and ended a few careers as pilots became obsessed with being the top ace. In the end, Richard Bong came out on top with 40 enemy planes shot down. Looking back, the race to be the top ace was cursed as only one top contender lived a long life after the war.  

If you have an interest in air combat or the Southwest Pacific Theater in World War II, you will want to read Race of Aces!  John Bruning brings you to the front lines of combat and provides all the thrills you desire.