SEX SCENES IN MILITARY-THEMED NOVELS.

True, I included sex scenes in three of my military-themed novels, but without lingering on the obvious bodily details. I like to think my readers have sufficient imagination to understand what is going on.
However, some new, younger, literary agents seem convinced that no manuscript is acceptable unless it is slathered with numerous sex scenes described in excruciatingly gross detail. Typically, such “agents” are gormless, gauche, and quite unsuited to their job.
I treasure the memory of one such poor soul (female), who suggested that I change a WWII manuscript of mine to include a scene in which the soldier hero copulated with a woman war-correspondent aboard a landing-barge speeding through shot and shell while approaching an enemy shore fortress.
Evidently, the agent lacked my experience that when you are under fire, sex tends to be rather the last thing on your mind.
-- Sidney Allinson.


http://www.southafricanwar.info/



HOW TO CURE WIDESPREAD
IGNORANCE OF MILITARY HISTORY

Writers of military history and historical novels in general have a personal interest in encouraging public knowledge of history – and in rectifying the deplorably high level of historical ignorance. Fashionable anti-war posturing may lend social cachet in liberal circles, but nevertheless some knowledge of the history of warfare is essential to a broader understanding of all human history.

See here why the widespread extent of the problem is inexcusable, and some suggestions how knowledge of history could be made more appealing:

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/20/how-to-get-smart-again.html

-- Sidney Allinson.

BRITAIN'S VIEW OF THE ALLIED
AIR-STRIKES AGAINST LIBYA.

‘Turbulent world, lately, isn’t it? (2011)

To people my age, it seems quite like old times to see Libya in the news again. Benghazi, Tripoli, Tobruk ... Familiar scenes of WWII ding-dong battles back and forth between the British Army and the German Afrika Korps in 1941/42.
Interesting to see how the Allied forces' attack on Gadhaffi’s Libya is seen in Britain today:
http://bit.ly/iayP4w

ALLIED AIR-STRIKES AGAINST

GADHAFFI'S LIBYA.

Here we go again --- Western nations are once more allies in a thankless war. As we speak (March 20, 2010) a squadron of Canadian fighter planes is about to fly into harm’s way in Libya, alongside USAF, RAF, and French Airforce fighter-planes and naval ships that are already attacking Gadhaffi's forces.
I fear we have possibly just stumbled into yet another cataclysmic war. They all start with us busy-body-ing into “saving” a small nation -- Belgium, Poland, Iraq. Pray, Libya does not widen to pitchfork us into war with a resentful united Moslem world.



MOST YOUNG CANADIANS ARE IGNORANT

OF THEIR NATION'S MILITARY HISTORY
By Don Butler, Postmedia News March 14, 2011.

Most young Canadians know little or nothing about most of the wars and peacekeeping missions their countrymen have served in, according to a survey done one year ago for Veterans Affairs Canada.

While a bare majority of the 13-to-17-year-olds surveyed claimed to know at least a moderate amount about the Second World War, their knowledge fell off rapidly beyond that.

More than two-thirds said they knew very little or nothing at all about the First World War, and nearly as many were equally unaware of Canadian peacekeeping efforts since 1960.Their ignorance peaked with the Korean War, about which 82 per cent said they knew nothing or very little. Even for the best-known conflict, the Second World War, 37 per cent of the youth said they knew very little, and nine per cent knew nothing at all.
The 514 youth were surveyed last March by Phoenix Strategic Perspectives as part of a $47,600 project for Veterans Affairs designed to assess Canadians' awareness, engagement, and satisfaction with Remembrance Day programming.
"It's discouraging that young people don't know a lot about the events of our past," said Jeremy Diamond, director of development and programs with the Historica-Dominion Institute. But he said there's a real opportunity to use technology to bring these events back to life.
"We can do a lot more now, sharing those stories, than we could a generation ago. I think we're going to see that tide turn a little bit with young people's knowledge of Canadian history."
In the past 18 months, the Historica-Dominion Institute has recorded the stories of more than 2,000 Second World War veterans, Diamond said. It's the largest oral history project of its kind ever in Canada.
Students and others can listen to podcasts of the interviews at thememoryproject.com, Diamond said.He added they can also invite veterans to speak at their schools, which provides a personal connection between veterans and young people.
As well, the approach of the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, in 2014, provides a "great opportunity" to help young people learn — perhaps for the first time — about that conflict's important events and individuals, Diamond said.
The Phoenix survey found about eight in 10 of the youth participants expressed at least some interest in learning more about Canada's veterans, though their interest was likelier to be moderate than strong.
About 80 per cent said websites were a good way for them to get information about Canada's military history. Significant numbers also mentioned books, libraries, talking to people, newspapers or magazines, television or radio and social-media sites.
While the survey therefore cannot be considered representative of the youth population, Phoenix tried to ensure that the sample mirrored the regional, linguistic and gender characteristics of Canadian youth.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://bit.ly/gzb1Ly

MAX BRAND -- AMERICA'S MOST PROLIFIC NOVELIST

Max Brand [Frederick Schiller Faust] probably was the most prolific American novelist ever; author of 500 novels -- 30 Million words. A highly popular writer of westerns, his
books were also turned into movie-scripts, including the character of "Doctor Kildare."
In the Second World War, Brand became a war correspondent for Harper's Magazine, assigned to Italy. Within just a couple of weeks of arrival, he insisted on accompanying a platoon of American infantry going into an attack on the village of Santa
Maria Infante, because "I want to study men under fire." He was wounded in the chest by German shrapnel, and died before he could receive medical aid. Max Brand is buried in the American War Cemetery, Netuno, Italy.

Search Amazon.com for Max Brand  

COMBAT

"COMBAT" -- A NOVEL OF WWII.

Several American novelists who had served in WWII wrote only a single book, usually based on their war experiences. Van van Praag is a particularly good example. His 1949 novel "Day Without End" [retitled "Combat" in 1951] is an authentically-written story that follows a US Army platoon in Normandy, 1944. Its accuracy and characterizations are spot-on, unmistakeably a soldier's tale, more than likely based on actual incidents during the war.
Born in New York City in 1920, van Praag was a truck salesman, a World's Fair lecturer, before he volunteered for miltary service. Van van Praag spent five years in the United States Army, was promoted up through the ranks, and commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. He fought in France as a platoon leader, was severley wounded, and returned home a
casualty.
I read "Combat" many years ago, and I still remember it vividly. It sold 500,000 copies, but far as I know, it was the only book van Praage ever wrote.

"Hachiko" Bronze Statue, Tokyo, Japan.

FAITHFUL JAPANESE DOG'S  9-YEAR VIGIL

FOR HIS HUMAN FRIEND 

There are many accounts of the fidelity of dogs for their owners in peace and war, and sometimes their loyalty strikes a particular chord in its community. One poignant example began  in Tokyo, Japan, in 1924, when a stray Akita breed street-dog was adopted by university professor Hidesaburo Ueno, who commuted by train to his job. He named the dog "Hachiko" and it would would meet the professor at the end of his commute every day and walk him home.

The dog met the professor at the same Shibuya Train Station exit every weekday evening, and continued greeting him until a day in 1925, when the owner did not arrive back at his usual time.

The reason was that Ueno had died suddenly at work that day, though the dog obviously did not know. For the next nine years, Hachikō patiently met the same train, at the same station, at the same time, in the vain hope that his master would arrive to walk him home.

Soon, commuters who remembered seeing the professor and the dog walking together began to feed and care for Hachikō at his habitual place on the platform. When one of the professor’s students found out about the dog, he brought it to the attention of a local newspaper, which published the story.

The dog became a national sensation and symbolized the embodiment of Japan's cherished attribute of family loyalty. In 1934, a bronze statue in the dog's likeness was erected at Hachikō-guchi (as the Shibuya Station Exit was renamed in his honor) with Hachikō present at its unveiling.

The loyal dog's vigil ended in March, 1935, when he passed away in the street near the station exit, still awaiting his master. Such was his fame, that Hachiko was stuffed and mounted on display at Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science. The still-famous Akita's monument remains to this day as a reminder of the faithful love given by man's best friend.

[For centuries, the Akita was considered to be Japan's national dog. However, the breed was almost eradicated during World War Two, when they were officially ordered to be slaughtered to provide fur linings for military officers' coats. Only the efforts of one man, Morie Sawataishi, rescued the Akita from extinction, which is now a widely available prized dog again.]

TOGETHER FOREVER

In life, this brave British soldier, Lance Corporal Liam Tasker,

and his devoted dog "Theo" were inseparable.

Now, in death, they will rest by each other’s side always.

Serving in Afghanistan, the intepid pair uncovered 14 IUD's [Improvised Explosive Devices] and numerous hidden enemy weapons in just five months – a record total for an Army explosives-sniffer dog and his handler. It is deeply moving that they died within hours of each other and made their final journey home together in March, 2011. Theo, a springer spaniel cross, suffered a fatal seizure shortly after his master, L/Cpl Tasker, was shot dead by a Taliban sniper. The 22-month-old dog was said to have died of a broken heart after his Arms & Explosives Search soldier comrade was killed.

During only five months in combat, the pair detected more concealed weaponry than any other dog and handler team during the war. The pair are hailed for saving the lives of countless British soldiers in Afghanistan. And when L/Cpl Tasker, 26, were flown home to Britain,Theo’s ashes were alongside his body in a casket on the RAF Hercules carrying the coffin. The casket containing Theo’s ashes will be handed over to their unit, the 104 Military Working Dog Squadron, then given to L/Cpl Tasker’s grieving family.

L/Cpl Tasker, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, was the 358th member of the British armed forces to die since operations in Afghanistan began in 2001. He was killed taking part in a mission in the Nahr-e-Saraj district in Helmand. The pair served in Afghanistan as part of the Theatre Military Working Dogs Support Unit based at Camp Bastion. Theo was the ‘front man’ of a patrol, sniffing out IEDs, weapons, and bomb-making equipment hidden by the Taliban. Consideration is being made to honour Theo with the award of a Dickin Medal – the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

 



Dickin Medal For Brave Animals

Famed WWII poet Pilot Officer John Magee (far right) with his

fellow pilot trainees: l-r: Fred Heather, Tom Gain, Duncan

Fowler, at #9 Elementary Flying Training School, Royal

Canadian Air Force Station St. Catharines, Ontario,

Canada, Feb. 5, 1941.

 HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high un-trespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

HIGH FLIGHT remains the most evocative poem of the

Second World War, which has become the most famous

flying poem of all time. It was written by John Magee

in 1943, during his service as a Pilot Officer, Royal

Canadian Air Force

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Air_Force

The son of an American father and an English mother,

Anglican missionaries, Magee was born in China in 1921,

and was educated in Britain and the USA. Though he

earned a scholarship to Yale University, Magee chose

instead to volunteer for service with the Royal

Canadian Air Force in September, 1940.

After training as a fighter-pilot, he was posted to

Britain, where he joined a Spitfire squadron.

The exhilaration of flying an aircraft inspired him to

write "High Flight" on September 3, 1941. Only three

months later, at the age of 19, John Magee was killed

when his Spitfire collided with a training aircraft. 

His grave is in Holy Cross Cemetery, Scopwick,

Lincolnshire, England.  

Lee Harvey Oswald, lone assassin of US President John F. Kennedy.

REVISIONISM -- CULT OF THE CREDULOUS

Writing about historical events often requires keen vigilance to record the actual truth of events.  All too often, the determination to present interpretations which conflict with current popular acceptances is the most critical issue connected with historical research -- the problem of revisionism. Revisionism is a deadly and contagious condition which afflicts some researchers, and its chief characteristic is the need to "reveal" something extraordinary and new to the public. It particulary appeals to credulous folk eager for dramatic revelations, and self-consciously egalitarian youth. These interpetations often cause researchers to radically change their opinion about how and why certain events occurred. Revisionism is not to be confused with research which truthfully enlarges our knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of history. Legitimate historical research can occasionally discover new evidence that overturns accepted beliefs, and the distinction between that and sensationalism can sometimes be subtle. True revisionism, however, can be clearly identified because its thesis is always shocking in quality and turns an accepted historical happening upside down; black becomes white, and vice versa.

Have you ever noticed the prevalent view that nothing of consequence ever happened the way it was originally explained? Lee HarveyOswald did not kill JFK -- the CIA did. Sirhan did not alone kill RFK; he was a planted 'Manchurian Candidate'. Amelia Earhart did not simply crash her aircraft into the ocean and die; she was shot as a spy by the Japanese. Rudolf Hess was not the person tried at Nuremberg or the one who committed suicide at Spandau in 1987; it was a substitute double, and he was murdered, not a suicide. Napoleon Buonaparte did not die of stomache cancer, he was "murdered by the British."
James Earl Ray did not alone kill Martin Luther King; he was the patsy for some unnamed national conservative conspiracy. Marilyn Monroe did not die of a drug overdose; (you supply the name) murdered her. The same for Elvis; he is now doing undercover work for the DEA.
Although most of these examples are from the 20th Century, wise men throughout the ages have been well aware of this tendency by some to disbelieve the obvious.
Why is this belief in hidden contrarian truths so pervasive? For many members of the public, there seem to be many reasons -- an underlying distrust of anything said by authorities; a need to believe that bad things just do not happen to people in a simple or random manner; and finally, there may just be delight in gossip or sensationalism.
For historians, it is even more complicated. As human beings, they are subject to the other motives, but additionally, the very validity of their field of study rests on their ability to revise. There is a fundamental presumption by some academics and media persons that what is known to have happened did not happen in the generally accepted manner or for the generally accepted reasons. Furthermore, their professional reputations and individual egos are based on their revisions. For instance, any journalist who puts the blame solely on Lee Harvey Oswald for shooting Pres. Kennedy is considered to be hopelessly naive, and any historian who teaches the French Revolution exactly as described in history books is professionally dead.
This drive to radically alter the accepted truth is not the only reason many historians change history. For the most part, revisionism changes facts for cultural or national self-interests.

Why Americans Can't Help But Keep

Playing Britain’s National Anthem

Americans are thoroughly familiar with the melody of God Save The King – though they sing the words of My Country 'Tis Of Thee to it. US citizens listening always feel their patriotic juices flow as they sing the moving stanzas of the song, also known as America. Few of them know the tune was written by an Englishman, in honour of the British monarch.


Few still Americans realize the melody was written by Dr. John Bull, son of a London goldsmith. He began as -a choir boy in Queen Elizabeth Chapel in 1572. Ten years later, he was appointed organist at Hereford Cathedral. By 1589, he had earned a doctorate of music at Cambridge University and became one of the most famous keyboard musicians and composers in England.


Bull wrote God Save The King in 1619, the same year English settlers arrived in America with an order from King James to celebrate their arrival with a day of thanks, leading the Jamestown colony to celebrate America's first Thanksgiving Day.


John Bull later moved to Belgium, where he became organist at Antwerp Cathedral. He died in 1628, and it was said the piece of music that become God Save The King was found among his papers. It would be over 100 years before his tune was published, in the 1744 English tune book “Thesaurus Musicus.”


In Sept. 1745, the leader of the band at the Drury Lane Theatre Royal arranged for a performance of God Save The King at the end of a play. It was a great success and was repeated nightly. The practice soon spread to other theatres and the custom of honouring the monarch with a finale of what evolved as Britain’s national anthem was born.


Even today, it is played and sung in the United Kingdom as a matter of tradition, though it has never been proclaimed so by any act of parliament or royal proclamation.


Brahms used parts of the tune in some of his own compositions. After hearing it in England, Haydn was moved to write Austria's national anthem. Even Beethoven liked the melody. In his journal, he referred to one of his own compositions in which he used the tune. He wrote, "I must show the English what a blessing they have in God Save The King."


As the song's popularity grew, it spread to the European continent, where it was picked up and used in a German song-book.


A Baptist clergyman from Boston, the Reverend Samuel Francis Smith, was given the book by a friend. In humming some of the tunes, he was struck by the melody of one (guess which). He thought it had a quality appropriate for a song of hope and inspiration. He sat down and put words to it and called it America (though more Americans probably know it best now as My Country ‘Tis Of Thee.)


The first time God Save The King was sung as My Country `Tis Of Thee was on July 4th, 1832, in Boston at the American Independence Day service at Park Street Baptist Church.


The song America made the Reverend Smith famous in his lifetime, but he seems sadly forgotten now. It is doubtful that he knew the tune was the National anthem off the British Empire. Most Americans still don't. Some remain convinced that the British stole it from them, but in all truth, it is the other way around. Regardless of its origin, the stirring melody continues to echo the two nations’ origins and shared values.

ADVICE ON TERRORISM

"If you who call yourselves men of peace, I say:

You are not safe unless you have men of

action on your side." 

-- Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC).

It is heartening to see that Britain's Royal Air Force and Royal Navy has been so active in effectively rescuing civilians from Libya. In sharp contrast, it seems there is something of national outrage in the USA today, many folk there being indignant at the American government for its failure to send in the US Air Force on similar rescue missions to Libya.

USAF is the largest and best-equipped air force in the world, so its curious failure to lend a hand in the evacuation of its citizens from Libya clearly must have been caused by lack of decision right at the top – the White House. Observers can only suspect either that Pres. Obama tends to favour the Moslem world, or he is simply too timid to intervene for fear of alienating his US political support base.


As an aside, don’t even mention Canada’s craven lack of assistance for Canadians trapped in Libya. Thousands of Canucks were caught in the uprising there, and those who did manage to get out on their own have nothing but contempt for the utter lack of help by Canadian officials on the scene. None of Canada's military aircraft planes have been sent there to help with evacuation either.


Having said that, I am filled with dread at today’s hints by Britain and America they may send a military intervention force into Libya. No! No! No! Any Western troops sent into north Africa, no matter how laudable their intentions to "preserve human rights" by using military might against Gadhafi, will surely unite the entire Arab world in resentment against the West, and could provoke a Jihad holy war against us all.

We must keep our armed forces out of that hell-hole, or we risk Armageddon, a hopless quagmire far worse than even Afghanistan.

BAHRAIN UPRISING COULD BE HAZARDOUS

FOR UNITED STATES NAVY PRESENCE IN

ARABIAN GULF REGION

The wave of Middle Eastern anti-government rioting that has now rippled into Bahrain could lead to serious problems for the United States Navy's strategic presence in the region. The US Navy's Fifth Fleet is stationed there, which provides a powerful military base of operations against the Taliban and other potential adversaries.



Bahrain's current uprising is largely a sectarian religious struggle between two Islamic sects -- the Sunni-controlled autocratic government of King Hamad, and the largely Shiite population with strong popular links to Iran. If the rebellion does lead to a radical shift in political control, it could include demands for the USN to quit its base there, a potential threat to America's ability to support military efforts by Coalition forces in the region.

THE NIGHT THE YANKS A-BOMBED CANADA

United States Air Force Convair B-36 bomber

that crashed into the Canadian wilderness.

With the approaching 66th. anniversary of the WWII detonation of two atomic bombs on Japan, it is timely to recall that Canada also experienced the dropping of a similar US weapon, though inadvertently. This now largely-forgotten incident happened on February 13, 1950, five years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In 1950, a fearful world was caught in the Cold War, a tense military stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States, then the world’s most powerful rivals.


Late in the afternoon of that day, a Convair B-36 “Peacemaker” heavy bomber aircraft of the United States Strategic Air Command took off from Eileson Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska, during a bitterly cold blizzard. Its high-altitude flight-path would pass over British Columbia en route to California on a simulated combat mission to test San Francisco’s defences against possible future Soviet attack. The plane’s mission was typical of that era’s airborne practice exercises by U.S. and Canadian air forces, which closely co-operated to defend North America against possible incursions by Soviet bombers.


The six-engined giant B-36 had a wingspan of 70 metres (230 feet), making it the largest bomber ever built by the U.S. It cost $6 million and carried 17 crewmen. Also aboard was an inert atomic bomb much like the 19-kiloton weapon - dubbed “Fatman” – that had been dropped on Nagasaki in the Second World War. Though the practice bomb aboard the B-36 was a fully-functioning weapon, it contained lead for the core instead of plutonium, and so was not capable of creating a devastating thermonuclear blast. Still, it was armed lethally enough, packing several thousand pounds of conventional TNT high explosive for emergency use in vaporizing the shell of IA-grade uranium (which itself did not present any radiation danger.)

"Fatman" atomic bomb similar to the

weapon detonated over Canada in 1950.

 The B-36's routine training mission turned into a nightmare for the crew and even threatened British Columbians as they slept innocently below its droning passage through the black winter night.

Six hours into the flight, the huge plane encountered an increasingly violent winter storm that rapidly built up heavy icing on the wings and pusher-propeller engines. The aircraft’s pilot, Capt. H.L. Barry, said afterwards, “We were at about forty-thousand feet when iced-up carburetors caused three engines to burst into flames, the aircraft became very difficult to control, and we started to lose altitude"

Down to 14.000 feet, he radioed an urgent distress call for assistance at 11:25 p.m. "Engines on fire. Contemplate ditching on Queen Charlotte Sound. Keep lookout for flares or wreckage.” Lt. Paul Gerhart was the plane’s radar officer; if required, he was also responsible for dropping and detonating the bomb so as to avoid it falling into the hands of possible enemies. There was always anxiety in Washington that Soviet intelligence agents might try to retrieve a U.S. atomic weapon if one ever went down intact, to examine its secrets. With the plane obviously about to go down, there was urgent need to neutralize its deadly cargo.

“It was about midnight when I salvoed the bomb,” Gerhart recalled, “It detonated about 4,000 feet above the Pacific. There was a tremendous flash in the sky somewhere near Hectate Strait, apparently not witnessed by anyone below.”

The massive B-36 was falling 300 feet per minute when Capt. Barry set the automatic pilot to fly southwest, and ordered his crew to bail out immediately. Radio Sgt. Vitale Trippoldi’s last act was to tie down his Morse key so it would keep transmitting a steady location-fix for rescuers. Then the 17 crewmen parachuted out in rapid succession, and as they floated down caught sight of their blazing bomber still flying in a slanting course.

The first response to the distress call came from the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 123 Search & Rescue Squadron based at Sea Island, Vancouver, BC. There was quick follow-up by the destroyer HMCS Cayuga, then ships from Victoria, and various vessels and planes from RCAF Base Pat Bay. All of them sped northward along Vancouver Island.

Soon, they were joined by an armada of two dozen American ships and 70 aircraft that converged in a large-scale effort to locate the missing aircrew. Because their exact whereabouts were unknown, the search covered an area about 50 miles wide and 400 miles long, stretching along the coast of British Columbia.

Weather had turned nasty, with low temperatures, high waves, driving rain, and thick fog that made poor visibility. As there was scant chance of the downed flyers surviving long in the freezing-cold Pacific, search efforts concentrated first on the ocean waters.

The crash caused great interest in the city of Victoria, where people followed the details and anxiously waited for any news of survivors. But hope faded after 48 hours, when no trace of the airmen could be found at sea despite the massive search efforts. Teams of U.S. and Canadian service personnel, together with local On land, First Nations people, turned to scouring the wooded ravines of islands in Queen Charlotte Sound.

Then glad news came with a radio call from Vince King, captain of the B.C. fishing-boat Port Perry, who said he was bringing in nine survivors of the B-36 crew. Soon afterwards, HMCS Cayuga announced the rescue of another two USAF men from Price Island. Eventually, 12 of the missing airmen were rescued from various locations on rugged Princess Royal Island.

Sad to say, the first five men to evacuate the aircraft were never seen again after they parachuted into the darkness. Apparently, they drowned in the cold Pacific waters. Three others who fell into the sea were able to inflate their small life-rafts and survive long enough to be found by searchers. Most of the rest had been fortunate enough to fall on land, although they were widely separated from each other, lost in the densely-wooded rough terrain of the sparsely inhabited islands.

A few airmen were critically injured when they hit the ground, particularly Sgt. Trippoldi. His parachute snagged in a tree, injuring his shoulder and leaving him hanging upside-down by an ankle for 12 hours before being found by two of his crew-mates. Other airmen suffered broken bones or frostbite, but all were safely hospitalized or returned to their thankful families within hours.

American officials were fulsome in their gratitude to the Canadian rescuers, but they made it clear that the accident was classified as top secret. For months after, USAF insisted on carrying out its own search for the missing aircraft – and any of its atomic weaponry that might be recovered. However, no trace of the wreck could be found, and location efforts were finally abandoned.

The mystery of the missing bomber was finally solved three years later. In June, 1953, people searching for a downed Canadian civilian aircraft instead came across the B-36’s remains strewn along a high ridge on Kaloget Mountain beside Kispiok Valley, 360 metres from where its crew bailed out. The investigators retrieved a few bits of radar equipment, the used explosives to demolish the airframe fragments.

Today, the resting-place of the first plane to lose an American atomic bomb is designated a “heritage wreck-site” protected forever by the B.C. Archeology Branch.

"HERZL STREET" NOVEL IS SET DURING PALESTINE’S THREE-WAY CONFLICT.

Today’s continual turmoil in the Middle East has its roots in the decades-long bitter enmity between Arabs and Israelis. Though historical events there have been dramatically violent and complicated, there are strangely few fiction novels set there. One rare example, though, is Herzl Street by Maurice Tugwell, published by Xlibris.

Vic­toria, Canada, author Maurice Tugwell's fine novel is set in 1948 Palestine, just short days before the founding of present-day Israel. As well as being a "rattling good read," his book helps explain why even now -- more than 60 years after the end of the Palestine Mandate made way for the state of Israel -- the region still remains the centre of continuous political wrangling and sporadic warfare.

Herzl Street offers insights into this tangled arena, through the fact-based fictional expe­riences of a 19-year-old second lieutenant in the British army. Maurice Tugwell has first-hand knowledge of his subject, being a retired brigadier of the British Army who himself served in Pales­tine as a junior officer with the Parachute Regiment. He clearly explains how the conflict actually involved a complicated three-way war; Arabs and Jews against the British, Jews against Arabs, and Jews against Jews.

Tugwell effortlessly weaves into his tale details of how ordinary British sol­diers coped with their thankless task of overseeing the formation of the new coun­try of Israel, while keeping the peace between Arabs and Jews who were already at each other's throats. Each side committed' atrocities, and guerrilla war­fare killed 147 of the hapless “Tommies” who were caught in the middle.

This labyrinthine atmosphere forms the backdrop for Tugwell's story of intrigue, violence, and treachery. His youthful protagonist, Second Lt. Jonathan Wildblood, faces hostility from jaded officers before being pitched into combat against Arab and Jews equally determined to kill him. Along the way, he discovers a conspiracy of gun-running by a few members of a neighbouring army unit.

Along the way, Wildblood experiences a sensuous love affair with a gorgeous young Arab woman, and also encounters a cellarful of admirable enemy agents. Herzl Street is written in lean prose, with the perfect pitch of authentic 1940s attitudes. Maurice Tugwcll's paratroopers talk the way British soldiers actually spoke back then, sharing their deadpan humour and comradeship, and he gives both Jews and Arabs their say a well.

-- S.A.


Film footage - 1947 Palestine:
 http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=57324

"BLACK DIARIES" OF CASEMENT AUTHENTICATED

AS GENUINE BY EXPERTS.

 Sir Roger Casement,

executed for treason in 1916.

Expert researchers have authenticated the notorious diaries of Irish rebel Sir Roger Casement which record his homosexual activities and perhaps contributed to his execution for high treason in 1916.

Some of Casement's supporters have contended the so-called "black diaries" were forged to smear his character during his trial. Since they were made available for study in 1959, there has been a reluctantly growing acceptance they might in fact be authentic, and now experts have declared the diaries be genuine.

Casement, born in 1864, was a formerly respected British civil servant knighted for his crusading accounts of Belgian exploitation of natives in the Congo and by rubber-plantations in South America. Disillusioned with Britain's refusal to grant independence for Ireland, he travelled by U-boat to Germany during the First World War to seek funding and weapons for an Irish uprising. He also visited several prisoner-of-war camps in Germany in vain attempts to recruit Irish soldiers to change sides and fight against England.

Casement was captured by British soldiers after he sailed back to Ireland aboard a trawler carrying 20,000 German rifles. The subsequent Easter Rising in Dublin failed and seven commanders were shot by firing squad. Casement was taken to London, where Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and his cabinet debated his fate. He was tried at the Old Bailey Court on charges of high treason and hanged in 1916.


During his trial, Casement's personal diaries were introduced into evidence. The handwritten diaries recorded graphic details of Casement picking up young men and teenaged boys for sex in Africa and Ireland. Documents released in 1995 showed British authorities in 1916 used the diaries to smear Casement. At the time, sodomy was considered to be gross indecency, and a criminal offence. "I see not the slightest objection to hanging Casement and afterwards giving as much publicity to the contents of his diary as decency permits," wrote Sir Ernley Blackwell, undersecretary at the Home Office.

Now, the diaries have been subjected to handwriting analysis, ultraviolet light, and electrostatic detection tests, said forensic scientist Prof. Bill McCormack of Goldsmiths College, University of London. "The inescapable conclusion is that they are authentic," he said. "I am very confident, because of the scale of this operation."



Whether the diaries made a difference in Casement's fate remains debatable. "I am not a professional historian, but my educated guess, is that he would have been reprieved in the absence of the diaries," McCormack said.


Seamus Osiochain, a biographer of Casement, disagrees. "His trial happened at the same time as the Battle of the Somme was raging, and he had conspired with the Germans," Osiochain said. "I don't think it [the diaries]would have swung the outcome either way."

 LT.COL. JOAN KENNEDY -- CANADA'S FIRST

FEMALE SOLDIER

by Sidney Allinson. 

 

Joan Kennedy was the first Canadian woman

to receive an Army commission

Canadian women who now rightly enjoy full equality in every walk of life may not realize how much they owe to an almost forgotten housewife who was instrumental in forming the Canadian Women's Army Corps [CWAC] early in World War Two.

More than half a century ago, Joan Kennedy assumed command of the Cana­dian Women's Army Corps that was formed by her personal initiative, despite official short-sightedness and gender prejudice. From local beginnings as leader of a group of volunteers, she went on to spearhead the national formation of the CWAC, in which women became part of the Canadian army for the first time.

She was born Joan Barbara Fensham in Middlesex, England, in 1908, daughter of an immigrant banker who became an Alber­ta farmer. Having contracted malaria dur­ing the First World War, Harry Fensham re­settled his family in the gentler climate of Victoria. After matriculation from high­school, Joan worked as a telephone switch­board operator, then became an accountant with the B.C. Bond Corporation.

Described as "a slim, vivacious girl with short wavy hair and blue eyes, fond of a good time," she married Norman R. Kennedy, a B.C. government engineer in 1929. The bride dutifully quit her employ­ment, as was then expected of women upon getting married. The change to being "Mrs. Norman Kennedy, attractive young house­wife and club-woman," cannot have fully suited her energetic temperament. Still, she occupied herself with vigorous fund-rais­ing for Tiny Tim Cots in Victoria hospitals.

   Evidently, she was also a shrewd observer of world affairs and the    growing threat of war with Nazi Germany. Early in 1939. Joan Kennedy joined with other like-­minded women to form the British Columbia Women's Service Corps,' and became its commandant. Without any government' support, members of the BCWSC made their own military-style blue uniforms and trained themselves in practical skills likely to be needed in a war.
The British Columbia women were first, then similar groups formed in other provinces across Canada. Each proved their foresightedness and value after the Second World War was declared in September, 1939. Few, if any, women in Canada at the time expressed the slightest desire to go into front-line combat. Nevertheless. they held strong patriotic feelings. and were determined to serve in any vital support roles opened to them.

The aptitude of women to perform a variety of military jobs caught Kennedy's imagination. Almost single-handedly, she began a determined campaign to persuade the Dominion government to co-ordinate various women's voluntary organizations into a national army unit. For more than two years, she faced total indifference from politicians and downright hostility from military headquarters. Calmly, she kept' pointing out the successful example of half a million women already serving in the British armed forces. But hide-bound atti­tudes and well-entrenched prejudice towards women prevailed in Canada in those days. One brass-hat spluttered to her, "A petticoat army madness!"

After being turned down by three suc­cessive ministers of defence, Joan Kennedy's persistent lobbying finally paid off. On Aug. 13, 1941, the Hon. John Ral­ston signed an Order-in-Council to autho­rize formation of the Canadian Women's Army Corps. The new unit suddenly gained priority; and Elizabeth Smellie, matron in-­chief of the Canadian Army Nursing Ser­vice, was seconded to organize the CWAC's administration.

 CWACs on parade

Meantime, Joan Kennedv was admitted into the army with the rank of major -- the first Canadian woman to receive an Army commission - and appointed Staff Offi­cer CWAC: Military District 11, head­quartered at Work Point Barracks, Victo­ria. Because of Kennedy’s obvious suitability Chief Matron Smiellie soon recommended her to be appointed as commander of the CWAC, promoted to the rank of lieu­tenant-colonel.

By then, Canada's women had become part of an enormous effort to gear up: the country’s post-Depression industry into a powerful wartime production effort. Previously, the full potential of women had been untapped, relegated to occupations thought of be "suitable women's' work." However, females soon showed their stuff in jobs as welders and lathe-operators, helping build ships and tanks and aircraft.

Even more of a novelty in Canada was the innovative sight of women in military uniform. CWACs were outfitted in well­-cut khaki tunics, shirts, and skirts, plus trousers usually worn only while on such duties as driving trucks. Each individual woman's clothing measurements were forwarded to Army Central Stores in Ottawa, so indi­vidual uniforms were tailor-made. Officers were allowed silk stockings, while other-­rank legs wore lisle, and an allowance was paid for the purchase of civilian lingerie. 

Regulations required female recruits aged between 21 and 40, with a minimum height of five feet, weight no less than 105 pounds, and having no dependents.. They were to have at least Grade 8 education, and be British subjects, as Canadian citizens were at the time.  Basic training consisted of squad drill, marching, physical education, and military^, deportment, but without any weapons instruction.

When critics suggested that rigid army life could turn females into masculine indi­viduals, Kennedy snapped, "No, life in the CWAC will never rob a girl of her charm or her womanly qualities! Whatever tasks they undertake, they'll do them in a woman's way:"

She was forthright about what were tasks to be expected. "Any woman who goes into this with the idea of finding glam­our is entirely misled;" she said. "Her job will probably be pounding a typewriter, scrubbing floors, cooking, or something equally commonplace but necessary."

Kennedy's emphasis continued to be on craning women capable of non-combat­ duties to relieve men for front-line service. Early requirements were for clerks, telephonists, cooks, and drivers, out even­tually CWACs were performing scores of demanding military skills, including code-cipher­ing, motor-mechanics; and map-mating.

Whatever their rank, women received only two-thirds the pay of a male soldier. female private got 90 cents per day, com­pared with $1.30 for a man. Lt. Col. Kennedy's daily pay was $6.70. (A man in an equivalent position, commanding an entiire corps, usually held the rank of general.)

In 1943, after some understandable grumbling about inequality of earnings, CWAC pay was raised to 80 percent of a man's rate_

Early on, Kennedy did not see her unit having any revolutionary effect on women's status in society. In 1942, she said, "We are only in for the duration, In post-war years, women will return to the same position they enjoy in the business world. They are the housewives of tomorrow."

Her perception changed rapidly, though, when she saw her womens’ enormous capabilities, and she began to muse publicly about her changed view of the near future. "Canadian women on active service won't be content with a frivolous or idle life after the war is over. A life of teas, bridge, and gossip will be empty, after the important job they're doing now w Most will want to do something more useful in their com­munity.”

 Within a few months of the unit's for­mation. 80 members were sent to Washi­ngton, D.C., working at the British Mili­tary Mission.-They made such an impression in the U.S. capital, a platoon of them were invited to march in a U.S. armed forces parade down Fifth Avenue, New York.

One newspaper gushed, “Those smart Canadian gals in khaki stole the show!"

The first draft of 350 CWACs went overseas in November, 1942, to serve in London, England, and eventually 3000 served overseas. They bravely endured Luftwaffe bombing raids, and in Nothwest Europe, the first female Canadian soldiers to come under fire. Later in the war, 43 CWACs served in Italy, 156 in Northwest Europe, and eventually 4,000 were sta­tioned overseas.  During the war, 25 CWACs died in WWII, as result of accident, injury, or disease. No CWACs were killed by enemy action, but four were wounded by a German V2-missile attack on Antwerp in 1945.

After being posted to Britain for a while in 1944, Lt.-Col. Kennedy returned to Canada to be appointed General Staff Officer in charge of training for the CWAC. Her ability was further recognized by being appointed to an army board to organize formation of the new Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, a highly technical regiment. Having demonstrated her versa­tility yet again, she returned to adminis­tering the CWACs until after war's end in August, 1945.

The competence shown by females in general during the Second World War helped change forever the way in which women were viewed by the military establishment and Canadian civilian society in general. Success of the 21,000 "Kennedy CWACs" not only paved the way to equal status for females in the Canadian Forces. They had an even wider influence on later generations' radically changed perception of women in all career roles.

The CWAC was disbanded in Septem­ber, 1946, then re-formed three years lat­er, including a local Victoria platoon of women in 155 Coy., RCASC, later the 11 (Victoria) Service Battalion. After Canadian unification of the three armed forces in 1968, women blend­ed into the ranks of most units, becoming simply soldiers, sailors, and airforce personnel. Finally, in 1989, the Human Rights Commission ordered that women were to be fully inte­grated into all aspects of the military.

Meanwhile, Joan Kennedy herself had been let go from the army in 1946, She returned to Victoria, obtained a divorce, and quickly adapted to home-town life again. She took mischie­vous fun in telling how previous military comrades of both sexes often passed by without recognizing her in civilian clothes.

The post-war years gradually became more difficult for her. Despite her execu­tive skills, she faced an increasing straggle to make ends meet, and ended up trying to build a small secretarial business.

The whole city was shocked when she died suddenly of a heart attack at her Rock­land Avenue home on Oct.11, 1956. She was only 47 years of age; her early death more than likely the result of strain from overwork during five gruelling years of wartime responsibility.

The only Canadian woman ever to be accorded a funeral with full military hon­ours, her casket was draped with the Union Jack and home on a gun-carriage flanked by six army officers as pallbearers. The pro­cession marched slow­ly; through streets lined by Victorians standing to show their respect. Then Joan Kennedy's ashes were laid to rest in an unmarked grave at Hatley Park Memorial Gardens, Colwood, British Columbia. Forty-three years later, in 1999, a special plaque ded­icated to her was unveiled at the Ashton Garrison Museum, Victoria, BC, where her personal effects are held. It has become the primary museum of the CWAC, which houses a large collection of female uniforms and related artefacts. Other CWAC related materials are held by the Museum of Esquimalt Naval Base, Victoria, BC.

 Further recognition took place in August, 2001, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Women's Army Corps. A military guard of honour from the II (Victo­ria) Service Battalion paraded for a spe­cial religious ceremony at Lieutenant-Colonel  Joan Kennedy's bur­ial-place, where a suitably inscribed headstone is to be erected to memorialize Canada's first female soldier.

Lt. Col. Joan Kennedy, founding Commandant of the Canadian Woman's Army Corps (CWAC) and staff officer second to assist in the formation of the Royal Canadian Electrical Mechanical Engineers (RCEME), was the first Canadian Woman to receive a full military funeral in 1956. There was no graveside service after Kennedy's funeral, and this pioneer for all Canadian military women was buried in an unmarked grave and largely forgotten.
Many ex-CWACs stayed in close contact with each other for many years after their demobilization in 1946, to keep alive the memory of their service together. One such group of women in Kitchener, Ontario, proudly arranged a statue to their corps.

However, Joan Kennedy herself and her remarkable achievements had not been entirely forgotten. Aware of Kennedy's shamefully unmarked grave, the Ashton Armoury Museum made representation to Veteran's affairs Canada to rectify things, and also worked in partnership with the Last Post Society to provide a suitable headstone, which was erected in June 2001. Following the Remembrance Day Ceremony later that year, 11 (Victoria) Service Battalion, veteran CWAC's and RCEME, the Royal Canadian Legion, the Korean Veteran's Association, a Colour Party, and a large convoy of vintage World War vehicles made a long slow procession to the gravesite. So Lt.-Col Joan Kennedy finally received the long overdue graveside service and historical recognition that a woman of her accomplishments and stature was due.

Movie about Canadian women in military service during WWII:

http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/second_world_war/topics/855/