Subject: WWII-L Digest - 17 Mar 1995 to 18 Mar 1995

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 00:01:04 -0500

There are 7 messages totalling 168 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. POW treatment
  2. Churchill and Ireland (2)
  3. Dudley Morton
  4. TAC: Enterprise Green
  5. Accuracy and "Victory at Sea" (was- Re: Battle of the Bulge)
  6. Strange American Desertion...

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 00:59:44 EST
From:    William Lippert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: POW treatment

On Fri, 17 Mar 1995 14:17:41 -0600 Kelvin Brent Luther said:
>
> This leads to the
>atrocities one would expect at this time amongst Asian combatants and as
>the Western nations are also involved they suffer the same fate.
>        The treatment of prisoners in a humane manner was part and parcel
>of a complete reworking of Japanese society on a massive scale and an
>incredible pace.  During the earlier conflicts they were simply emulating
>western ways of doing things as they learned to adapt them to their
>society.  By the time WWII roles around this is in the past and the
>Japanese are again applying their own cultural mores (and those of the
>militarists in power).
>                                Kelvin Luther

      Above, you make the statement that one would expect this of "Asian
combatants".  Why do you say specify Asian?  Not to say that Asians are
particularly nice in their waging of war, but that Asians do not posess
a monopoly on savage warfare.  One need not read too much about the
Germans vs. the Russians, or the Italians against the Ethiopians.  Nor
indeed about the Hutus and the Brundis of today or even the various
Yugoslavs.
      I think that the waging of "civil" warfare which we Americans and most
westerners have come to regard as the rule is, in fact, the exception seen
mainly between Western combatants rather than conflicts in which the West
is involved or conflicts between non-Westerners.

William Lippert
The American University

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 00:54:58 -0800
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Churchill and Ireland

Someone on here mentioned they had a professor who taught that "In WW2,
Prime Minister Churchill offered to turn over Ulster (Northern Ireland)
to the Dublin government in return for Ireland allowing Britain free use
of Irish sea-ports..."

Preposterous, of course.

For a start, neither Churchill nor anyone else had any authority to hand
over Ulster. Northern Ireland was/is an integral part of the United Kingdom.
The majority of its residents repeatedly express their preference to remain
part of the United Kingdom, rather than merge with Ireland.

Aside from authority,it would have been politically and morally impossible
to make such an offer. The enormous war-effort (and casualty rate) of the
people of Ulster fighting for Britain in two world wars created a
debt of
"debt of blood" which could not be ignored.

The civil unrest in Northern Ireland is a sad and complicated business, then
and now, but it was never a bargaining-chip in the Second World War.

--

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 01:14:14 -0800
From:    Sidney Allinson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Churchill and Ireland

Recently, Sotheby's in London sold for L12,650 (sterling) a letter
written by Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera in May, 1945.
The letter was written to Ireland's then-Ambassador to USA, explaining
Mr De Valera's own defence of why he had expressed condolences on the
death of German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler.
        Mr de Valera wrote "... I acted very deliberately in this matter.
So long as we retained diplomatic relations with Germany, to have failed
to call upon the German representative would have been an act of unparonable
discourtesy to the German nations and to [Ambassador] Dr Hempel himself....
I certainly was not going to add to Dr Hempel's humiliation in the hour of
defeat...."
        Dr Dermot Keogh, an Irish historian, found that, in fact, German
Ambassador Hempel was not a Nazi and was deeply embarrassed by de Valera's
action in conveying condolences to Germany over Hitler's suicide.
        Mr de Valera's official condolences drew a lot of condemnation at the
time, not only from the USA and UK, but also from many Irish politicians who
expressed their repugnance.

--

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 08:03:44 -0600
From:    "Roddy R. Rupert" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Dudley Morton

On Fri, 17 Mar 1995, Jodi Berls wrote:

> John Riegsecker wrote:
>
> > I've read _Wake of the Wahoo_, by Forest Sterling who was the Yoeman (I
> think) and as I recall, he never discusses the incident.
>
> That's disappointing. Do you know of any other first-person accounts?
>
> Jodi Berls
> [email-masked]
>

Apparently George Grider, Wahoo's engineering and diving officer
at the time and later Skipper of the Flasher, was also an
eyewitness. The account of the incident in the volume 'War Under
The Pacific' of the Time-Life series, evidently gleaned from
Grider, supports O'Kane. It also says that the troops in the
motor launches, cabin cruisers, and lifeboats, fired on Wahoo
with machine guns and small arms.

Grider's book 'War Fish', which I've not read, may contain more
details. I plan on getting it from the local library later today.

---------------------------
Rod Rupert
Springfield, MO

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 19:58:48 +0100
From:    Perrin Olivier <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: TAC: Enterprise Green

>        In August and September 1940, while a large German force was being
>assembled in the Channel ports to invade England, a smaller force was also
>being assembled for a similar operation.  The target of this force was
>Ireland and the Germans showed uncharacteristic irony when they named the
>operation Enterprise Green.
>
Do you know what were the german forces involved in this operation ?
Thanks in advance
O. PERRIN
Paris - France

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 17:53:01 -0500
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Accuracy and "Victory at Sea" (was- Re: Battle of the Bulge)

Thanks to Greg, Brad, and the others who answered my question re
the film of the BB explosion.

HS

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Date:    Sat, 18 Mar 1995 15:09:00 -0800
From:    Jim Curry <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Strange American Desertion...

For facts about Sergeant John Provoo,see E. Bartlett Kerr's _Surrender
And Suvival_(Morrow,1985),a carefully researched account of Japanese
POW policy, and the experiences of Allied prisoners.  He was found guilty
of treason in 1953,but the verdict was overturned.
Jim Curry
[email-masked]

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End of WWII-L Digest - 17 Mar 1995 to 18 Mar 1995
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