Jon Mikolashek is a military historian who has written extensively on US military history. We discuss his latest book about George Patton’s life during WWI. Check out the book here.
0:51 – Jon talks about how he became interested in writing on Patton
2:50 – Jon talks about his book is different from other Patton books.
5:27 – Jon talks about why he started the book in 1916.
7:41 – Jon explains why Patton modeled himself after Perhsing.
9:02 – Jon talks about how Patton got into tanks. Patton wanted command and quick promotion.
12:36 – Jon talks about how Patton approached commanding tanks.
15:52 – Jon talks about Patton picking his tank commanders.
17:53 – Jon talks about Patton’s approach to combined arms. Patton didn’t like the infantry much.
22:03 – Jon talks about an incident where Patton hits a soldier with a shovel.
22:58 – Jon talks about traumatic brain injury.
25:26 – Jon talks about Patton’s diaries and other resources he used.
29:45 – Jon talks about Patton’s relationship with his wife.
38:42 – Jon talks about Patton’s indecision to join the tank corps.
42:50 – Jon talks about the importance of WWI to Patton’s career.
48:58 – Jon is on facebook at Jon Mikolashek and twitter @slavoshek.
Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Patton, wwi, wwii, us army, mexico, punitive expedition, pershing, polo, tanks, staff officer, cavalry, infantry, salerno, billy mitchell, air power, virginia military institute, Rockenbach, renault, omar bradley, interwar
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I interviewed historian Kimberly Lamay Licursi about her new book “Remembering World War I in America” being released by University of Nebraska Press in March 2018.
1:09 – Kimberly’s interest in history began with her interest in genealogy. She began in the government field. The book came out of a seminar class she was taking and research she did at the archives of New York state. She noticed that not many books had been written about America in WWI.
3:26 – States tried to create histories of the war. Kimberly looked at movies and pulp fiction to determine how Americans remembered the war. There was even a WWI pulp fiction genre.
6:12 – Many Americans were apathetic after the war. People wanted to move forward from it and thought that maybe they shouldn’t have been involved in it. A lot of soldiers wouldn’t even participate in state remembrances for the war. Many were unemployed and poor after the war.
8:12 – Gold Diggers is a 1930s movie that mentions the Bonus Army. She looked at other movies from 1918 to 1941 such as Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Big Parade is the first to really look at the American experience in the war. Aviation movies like Wings became popular later on. Sergeant York becomes very popular right before WWII.
13:24 – King Vidor was one director who wanted to make a grand film but didn’t necessarily want to do a war movie. Warner Brothers made a WWI movie only because they were focused later on WWII.
15:29 – The soldiers who returned after the first returning wave didn’t get parades. Many soldiers resented what they had been through. They weren’t commonly thanked for their service.
17:44 – Americans didn’t see much of the war or the dead. Many dead soldiers were interned in Europe.
19:43 – Even Europeans didn’t talk about the Americans very much. Many Americans wrote memories but they weren’t popular among the public.
21:57 – A Farewell to Arms is one of the more important books about WWI for Americans. But it doesn’t really sell well until the 1950s when it came out into paperback. Academics made it popular and made students read it.
26:19 – The American Legion was prominent in trying to remember American soldiers after WWI. It was made up of veterans without much support from civilians.
28:59 – Kimberly most enjoyed reading the pulp fiction about the war. It was very light hearted and fun in many ways. Many of the writers were veterans.
34:21 – During the war many publishers were making a fortune putting out memoirs but soon after, the market disappeared. Most of the war books were supportive of the war, especially with the speech restrictions.
35:33 – There weren’t Federal efforts to get information out. Carnegie funded some national level private efforts.
36:53 – One female memoir by Ellen Lamotte called the Backwash of War is difficult to read because it presents the horror of war and was banned. Katherine Mayo wrote a popular memoir named That Damned Y. Many women wrote war memoirs who were in the war as ambulance drivers and nurses. Willa Cather and Edith Wharton wrote about the war.
39:48 – Two black women wrote memoirs about the war. A black film production company made a movie about the war and African-Americans.
43:40 – Kimberly would like to next write about remarkable women in the 1920s and 1930s. Women lost to history.
Hank Cox has been writing in various capacities for many years. He’s written a book on the Sioux Uprising of 1862 and now on General JCH Lee of WWII.
1:39 – Hank Cox discusses how he got into writing history. He first wrote “Lincoln and the Sioux Uprising of 1862”. There hadn’t been much written on the subject in many decades.
3:27 – He’s also a big WWII fan and wanted to write about Lt. Gen. John C.H. Lee. Many of his colleagues didn’t like him though he was very successful being in charge of Army supplies in Europe.
5:03 – Lee did have unusual characteristics. He was very military and something of a martinet.
6:24 – The book goes into Lee’s pre WWII life. He fought in WWI and then joined the Corps of Engineers. He worked on the great Vicksburg flood of 1927. He developed many contacts that helped dictate what he ended up doing during WWII.
9:38 – Lee was put in charge of the great buildup of supplies in Great Britain for the invasion of Europe. One of the big issues was the train Lee wanted.
12:09 – Lee was also criticized heavily for being very religious and going to church often and his staff had to attend with him. He also didn’t have drinking buddies.
14:28 – He was also a strong advocate of African-American soldiers and thought they should be put to better use.
15:19 – Many of the US Generals in Europe also refused to be part of a centralized supply effort controlled by Lee.
16:42 – By the time of the Battle of the Bulge, the US was running out of troops and Lee changed the rules to allow black soldiers into combat. This bothered a lot of US Army leaders but Lee didn’t back down. White troops in the field accepted them at the time of combat.
18:38 – When Patton raced across Europe, the US supply lines weren’t in place to properly support him with fuel, food and ammo. Lee created the Red Ball Express – trucks driven mostly by black drivers racing across Europe to supply Patton.
20:26 – Lee moved his command into Paris when it was liberated. But Eisenhower had said Paris should only be for soldiers on leave. Lee argued that Paris was the central communications point across Europe and he had to put his headquarters there. Troops resented the great accommodations Lee and his staff had in Paris.
24:22 – Near the end of the war. Bradley and others refused to report how many supplies they had to Lee. The Germans also tried to attack US supply depots around Europe and Lee worked on removing all these supplies and out of the hands of the Germans.
26:33 – When Lee allowed black soldiers into combat, they had to lose rank to do that but thousands went into combat roles anyway.
27:40 – After the war, Lee was put in charge of Italy despite all the negative comments made about him.
31:18 – Lee has been unfairly criticized by historians as well. After the war he joined the Episcopalian group the Brotherhood of Saint Andrew.
33:08 – Benjamin Davis was sent over to allay fears of black soldiers and he became good friends with Lee.
34:30 – Lee had a large staff to run his operations. Twenty-five percent of US forces were in Lee’s command. But many of the combat forces refused to let supply people inventory their supplies.
37:03 – US generals were constantly stabbing each other in the back politically speaking.
38:49 – Lee was in charge of building air bases and supplying them but air force supply control was held by others. Lee requisitioned many air force personnel at times.
40:47 – Hank went to Carlisle for some historical records and also used Lee’s memoirs.
44:10 – Keeping track of and sourcing all the information in the book was the hardest part of writing it.
47:47 – Learning about the hardships the soldiers went through was the hardest thing to study while writing the book. Lee tried his hardest to get winter clothing to the soldiers in Bastogne and other areas. There was a lot of chaos in supplying soldiers.
51:03 – Omar Bradley was much more petty than Hank had expected and that bothered him. Omar Bradley has always been known as the GI’s General.
