Talking Marines!

Davis, Scott.  The Last of the Old Breed: An Oral History of the Final Marines From World 

        War II.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2026.  ISBN: 9781250429933 

 

How much do you know about the Marines in World War II?  Besides the Marine Monument In Washington, DC, which celebrates Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.  Well, if you want to hear from actual WW II Marines, Scott Davis has a volume for you in The Last of the Old Breed.  He spent ten years interviewing veterans and their families and then weaving their individual tales into this book.

 

Scott Davis opens the book with what various individuals were doing before World War II came to American soil at Pearl Harbor and the reaction to this attack and the preparation by the Marines to get into action.  There are chapters on Guadacanal, New Georgia, Tarawa, New Britian, Kwajalein, Saipan, Guam, Peleliu, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa interspersed with chapters on Marines spending time in Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, and the home front.  Scott Davis would provide the individual's name, age at the time of the interview, and their unit and then a snippet of their tale relevant to the particular chapter.  He closes the book with three chapters - "Home Alive by '45," "Life After War," and "In the Shadow of War" which provides context for the veterans' lives after they came home and what they did along with some interactions with family members.  At the tail end of the book is an appendix listing all the Marines who contributed to the book, an appendix of various awards given to the Marines in the book, and an appendix discussing the 121st Naval Construction Battalion - the Seabees - attached to the Fourth Marine Division.

 

If you are looking for first-hand accounts of WW II Marine veterans, pick up Scott Davis's The Last of the Old Breed and listen to their tales.  

Hunting for Traitors!

Harding, Stephen.  G. I. G-Men: The Untold Story of the FBI's Search for American Traitors, 

         Collaborators, and Spies in World War II Europe.  New York: Citadel Press, 2026.  

         ISBN: 9780806544137 

 

How much do you know of the FBI's role in hunting down spies during World War II?  Did you know of the FBI's activities in South America and the Caribbean islands early in the war? Did you know that Director Hoover had an obsessive belief that the FBI was the best tool to root out American traitors in Europe instead of the Oh-So-Social (OSS) that President Roosevelt favored?  In G.I. G-Men, Stephen Harding lays out the story of what Director Hoover managed to extract from the President and what they accomplished.

 

After the United States joined the fighting in World War II, the FBI sent some agents over to England to liaison with the British on  domestic and foreign security practices.  It was brought to the FBI's attention that there were certain American individuals such as Ezra Pound who were aiding and abetting the Axis powers against the United States.  Since the FBI was the domestic lead for counter-intelligence within the USA, and had been authorized by the President to work covertly in Central and South America in 1940, why not allow a small group of FBI special agents to be embedded with the US military to assist with the apprehension and processing of any Americans found aiding the Axis powers who had been indicted by the Department of Justice while also investigating those other Americans who had stayed in occupied Europe to see if they merited an indictment.  So the Army Liaison Unit (ALU) was formed and operated in France, Italy, Austria, Hungry, and Germany from 1943 until 1945.  They helped capture Ezra Pound in Italy, investigated W. Dawson who had ties to both Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, hunted for dirt on Florence Gould, the wife of one of the richest Americans, and a host of others.  Some were indicted, others were not ultimately charged due to lack of evidence.  The ALU worked diligently until the OSS and the US Military Forces in European Theater intelligence chief managed to get their authorization revoked at the end of 1945.  Harding ends the book with a discussion of what the ALU accomplished and what the agents did after the war.

 

G.I. G-Men provides a look into a part of World War II history and FBI history that is not well known.  If you have an interest in the nuts and bolts of World War II history or of the FBI, do pick up this book!  

The Creator of the Skunk Works!

Dean, Josh.  The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the 

        Lockheed Skunk Works, America's Innovation Machine.  New York: Dutton, 2026.  

        ISBN: 9781524745516 

 

So how much do you know of aviation history?  Can you name any American airplanes form the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, or any recent ones?  Have you heard of "The Skunk Works" and do you know where the term originated?  Even if you can name the airplane, can you name the aircraft designer?  If any of this catches your eye, pick up and read Josh Dean's The Impossible Factory which tells the story of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, a poor boy from Michigan who fulfilled his dream of creating and building iconic airplanes!

Kelly Johnson was an iconic airplane engineer who graduated from the University of Michigan and moved out to California to work for Lockeed in 1933 and helped launch the Lockheed Electra.  During this time Kelly Johnson helped build planes for Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, and Amelia Earhart.  He also worked with Howard Hughes to build the Constellation passenger plane for TWA which was used as the C-69 by the Army Air Corp during WWII.  Then England came calling and Kelly Johnson sold them the Hudson anti-sub/bomber plane which he redesigned over a weekend. This achievement was followed by the P-38 Lightning - a twin-engine design that was a radical departure from current aircraft, but was a great fighter plane that made history, especially in the Pacific campaigns.  And the Skunk Works was born when Kelly Johnson got the go-ahead to create the first American jet fighter in  June 1943 and the prototype flew in January 1944 as Lulu Belle (aka P-80 Shooting Star).  In 1953, Kelly Johnson and Lockheed built the F-104 Starfighter for the US Air Force.  Then in 1954, Lockheed and Kelly Johnson got involved in creating spy planes.  They did the U-2, then in 1961, the A-12 Blackbird which morphed into the SR-71.  The final project that Kelly Johnson was involved with at Lockheed was another secret project - the F-117  - a design he did not like it could fly but worked due to its mathematically created shape.  Josh Dean includes the interesting details that bring the stories he tells to life.

 

In The Impossible Factory, Josh Dean provides a look into aviation design history embodied in one man, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson who helped shape some of the most iconic aircraft for the United States and Lockheed!  Read and enjoy!