Category: interview

WWII history book – “No Forgotten Fronts” (Naval Institute Press, 2018) – Lisa Shapiro interview

 

Professor Lisa Shapiro holds masters degrees in literature and management and teaches at San Diego Mesa College. She has previously taught creative writing. She’s written a book based on thousands of archived letters sent by San Diego State students who were in WWII to their professor Dr. Post. I interviewed Professor Shapiro about the book titled “No Forgotten Fronts.”
1:54 – Professor Shapiro talks about her first historical project. It dealt with European medieval historical fiction. Her interest in WWII came out of her work with community college students in San Diego.
3:57 – She began studying war literature and got a second degree in that subject. In the school archives she found letters written to a professor during WWII.
5:46 – Professor Shapiro explains the basis and details of the book. It’s a collection of student letters written to their professor, Dr. Post. He turned the letters into a regular newsletter. He did this through the entire war.
10:16 – Several hundred students participated in writing to Dr. Post. This includes men and women and many wrote repeatedly. People also provided funds to support him. The original documents are in the San Diego State college archives.
12:16 – Professor Shapiro discusses how the US military censors worked with Dr. Post. He took care to keep out sensitive information out of his newsletters.
16:35 – Sometimes students wrote things only for Dr. Post and not the newsletter.
17:16 – Dr. Post was also able to connect two brothers, one of whom was a prisoner of war during the war. Dr. Post even visited their mother to provide reassurance about her sons. One student who was at Anzio wrote that he had lost his marbles and Dr. Post knew he needed some mental comfort. Dr. Post notified a nearby chaplain in Europe from San Diego State to visit this soldier and also gave comfort to the student’s father.
22:54 – Professor Shapiro explains how Dr. Post got information on killed or injured students and how he dealt with that information. Dr. Post would also update information he had published.
27:57 – Dr. Post didn’t have any children. Professor Shapiro discusses how Dr. Post met his wife in college. But both were active in the lives of their students. He also did trick roping and performed for his students. His wife was a singer. Dr. Post did have a nephew in the Marines who would write to Dr. Post.
30:36 – There don’t seem to have been any other people who collected letters from specific groups during WWII. Others have created letter collections after wars.
34:43 – The students loved getting the newsletters.
36:07 – Professor Shapiro focused on the letters that captivated her. The emotion of the letters touched her. She was able to track the stories of specific individuals.
40:28 – Professor Shapiro reads a letter from Herman Adelson who nicknamed himself Little Geronimo since he was a paratrooper. He and the others really believed in what they were fighting for. For good, freedom and democracy.
43:22 – A letter arrived for Dr. Post saying that Herman had died during D-Day and included a eulogy for him. San Diego State lost three members of their championship basketball team during the war. But the community found comfort in knowing what their loved ones had been doing.
48:29 – Professor Shapiro did a lot of reading to brush up on her knowledge of WWII and current events at the time the letters were written. She used Anthony Deevers’ history. She also read a lot of San Diego history. San Diego had a lot of women participate in the war. A lot of San Diego State students became pilots.
53:40 – Professor Shapiro had few problems getting the book published. She had to shorten the book since it was very long at first.
55:02 – Grif Williams was one of the students and was famous for being on the Doolittle Raid. He was taken prisoner eventually and he was eventually a cellmate with another San Diego State student who had been captured in Germany.
59:26 – The website for the book is NoForgottenFronts.com.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Lisa Shapiro
Host: Cris Alvarez
Tags: war, military, WWII, WWII history, san diego, san diego state, pacific war, d-day, north africa, europe, germany, doolittle raid, anzio

19th C Naval Warfare book – “Progressives in Navy Blue” (Naval Institute Press, 2018) – Scott Mobley interview

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Dr. Scott Mobley studied history at the US Naval Academy and stayed in the Navy until retirement. He then went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn a PhD in history. The work for his PhD led to the publication of his book “Progressives in Navy Blue.”

1:23 – Scott talks about how he got into writing and history. He majored in history at the US Naval Academy. He stayed in the Navy until retirement and then got a PhD in history afterwards at the University of Wisconsin. He became interested in the book’s subject matter while pursuing his PhD. The book comes from his dissertation.

3:55 – The main themes of the book are maritime strategy, American Empire and the transformation of US Navy professional culture from 1873 to 1898.

5:35 – The modern Navy was born at the end of the 19th century from a Navy of mariner-warriors to warrior-engineers.

7:05 – The backdrop of an American empire changes much of what the Navy is about. The role and missions of the Navy changes.

9:46 – During the US Civil War, the US Navy went from a commercial mission to a whole new War Navy but it returns to the commercial mission after the war. But the commercial mission eventually moves to second place in the 1880s and becomes more of a war fighting Navy.

13:26 – Two groups of Navy thinkers emerged after the Civil War. One was based on technology. They were dissatisfied with the direction the Navy went during the 1870s.

17:18 – The other group of thinkers were strategic in focus. They worried more about planning for wars. They focused on policy and strategy rather than technology. Mechanism was the term used in the 19th century for technology.

19:07 – Bradley Fiske was on both sides of this debate. But in the 1890s these factions were fighting for limited resources.

26:06 – Torpedo technology is the one technology Congress supported right after the US Civil War. Technical subjects were taught to Navy officers at the new Torpedo School in Newport, Rhode Island.

30:26 – Fears of international turmoil and advancing technology abroad got Navy officers worried about future war involving the US.

32:05 – The Endicott Board was a joint board between the Army and Navy to discuss coastal fortifications. They discussed how to defend the US against modern mechanized threats.

36:43 – Navy officers embraced progressive methods and ideas quicker than other professionals in the 1880s and 1890s.

38:19 – Peacetime war planning efforts, contingency planning, began at this time for the first time in the US. There was no Naval plan for the US Civil War until the war started.

40:25 – Scott possibly found the first strategic peacetime war plan in the papers of a junior Naval officer. The plan was focused on a possible war with Canada. The plan was read by Mahan and possibly incorporated into Naval War College classes.

45:25 – Scott was surprised to learn that the building of modern warships was not motivated by empire as many scholars have claimed. Naval growth was spurred by a desire to defend the US. Some wanted empire but the majority wanted to protect US shores.

51:46 – The US did not have an empire-focused Navy until after 1898. The US had to quickly acquire gunboats, logistics ships, and other vessels to control its new empire.

 

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

 

Guests: Dr. Scott Mobley

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, navy, empire, mahan, civil war

WWII history book – “Seven at Santa Cruz” (Naval Institute Press, 2018) – Ted Edwards interview

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Ted Edwards grew up around WWII veterans and ended up studying history in college. He’s a mountaineer and involved with US Gymnastics and kept journals about his experiences. These varied interests resulted in a meeting with some famed WWII naval aviators and he ended up writing a book about one of them. I interviewed him about the new book.

[Editor’s note: Mr. Edwards mentioned an “A-team” but he meant Lundstrom’s First not A Team. He also mentions Joe Stapp but he meant John.]

1:58 – Ted first discusses how he got into writing and history. He was born in 1945 and grew up around WWII veterans. He became fascinated with military history. He learned how to write history at Stonybrook.

4:31 – He took up journaling and did so when he did mountaineering and was involved with US gymnastics.

5:01 – He attended an event for men who had been on the USS Enterprise and he met a man who who flew on the Enterprise and wrote a book about it. Ted was then introduced to Swede and they spoke a while.

7:21 – Swede had done a lot on the Enterprise but none of the official accounts of his exploits matched. They then discussed what actually happened during his career. Swede then let Ted record and then write about Swede’s career. It was an 8 year endeavor.

10:02 – The book talks about the A-team, which were the first group of pilots who fought the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. The book also talks about leadership failures including those of Admiral Kincaid. There is also a discussion of Medal of Honor politics.

12:20 – Swede saw a report about one of his important missions that was supposed to have been written by him but he said he was certain he never wrote the report. Swede kept his own journal during his life.

15:31 – Swede went on missions right after Pearl Harbor and said that even a month later the devastation was apparent.

18:43 – Bill Birch, Swede’s old squadron commander, had taught Swede and fellow pilots a lot about dogfighting which helped him achieve success.

20:50 – He switched to fighters after success as a bomber pilot.

22:04 – The day before the battle of Santa Cruz might be more important than the battle itself. Swede’s group had a terrible patrol that made the battle that much more difficult.

23:36 – Swede was shocked when he heard that Admiral Kincaid was in charge of the carrier task force before Santa Cruz because Kincaid wasn’t an aviator.

25:17 – Kincaid creates a Wildcat strike group to go out 300 hundred plus miles and Swede objected because of the distance but they’re sent out.

27:08 – The patrol found nothing and returned late even though almost none of them was qualified for night landing. Then the Enterprise wasn’t where it was supposed to be and it was dark. They followed an oil slick to find the ship.

33:31 – The US rotated its veteran aviators to train young pilots whereas the Japanese used their best pilots until they died. Swede didn’t like being made an instructor but he did enjoy being an instructor once he started.

37:31 – He was made CO of the Constellation in the 1960s but there was a fatal accident that hurt his career. He took responsibility for it though.

40:31 – Ted interviewed a number of WWII naval aviators for the book.

45:09 – Swede told Ted about John Stapp who was studying the forces on pilots when they ejected from planes.   John used a high speed spinning sled to test this and Swede was offered a ride and declined because John got beat up by the machine. John became famous for this and got seat belts mandated for cars.

51:01 – Ted had to learn the format that Naval Institute Press used for his books before he could finish it.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

 

Guests: Ted Edwards

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, stonybrook, corsair, wildcat, enterprise, constellation, aviation accidents, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, combat air patrol