Review – The Russia Hoax

Jarrett pens a comprehensive review of the Deep State’s inordinate fraud on our Constitution—perhaps the greatest attack on our constitutional republic in the history of our country. He writes in clear and empathetic style. His narrative evolves in a coherent and logical progression that details the conspirators’ skullduggery in an “ABC” type of progression. He cites exactly who violated the relevant federal statute and why and how it was violated. Unfortunately, as of 30 September 2018—the date I’m preparing the review—none of the  miscreants have been indicted even though the documentation of evidence is ponderous.

A cabal of high-ranking government officials in the Barack Obama administration, from the Department of Justice, intelligence community, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others formed a shadow government—a camorra. Their goals were to insure that the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the 2016 presidential election. Should the Republican candidate win, “God forbid,”  their self-generated insurance policy would form a shadow government with Obama holdovers during the interregnum and into the incoming administration in order to engage in a illegal campaign to have Trump impeached and, failing that, to destroy his presidency—a coup d’état, as it were.

 Leaders of the Deep State and fellow conspirators are

• Barack Obama, ex-President
• Hillary Clinton, ex-Secretary of State and presidential candidate
• John Brennan, ex-national security advisor
• Eric Holder, ex-Attorney General, serving from 2009 to 2015
• Loretta Lynch, ex-Attorney General, serving from 2015 to 2016
• Sally Yates, ex-Attorney General, serving from 10JAN16 to 20JAN16
• Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General
• James Comey, ex-Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Andrew McCabe, ex-Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Peter Paul Strzok, ex-Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Lisa Page, ex-legal counsel to Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
• James Baker, ex-chief lawyer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Robert Mueller, special counsel

Ancillary Actors

• Mike Kortan, ex-Assistant Director for Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation
• David Laufman, ex-Chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section
• Andres Weismann, deputy special counsel
• Unnamed others

Their first task was to shield Hillary Clinton from a federal indictment, prosecution, and almost sure conviction for her egregious violation of the espionage law—extremely carelessness in handling of Sensitive Compartment Intelligence, and other federal malfeasances. If such were the case, it would ensure the Republican candidate Donald Trump’s victory. At the time, Clinton had a commanding lead in the polls and was a sure winner. Accordingly, these illegal and untoward deeds would remain secret.

There are far too many details to expose in this book review. Nonetheless, following are some of Jarrett’s key comments.

• “New York Times, Cash Flowed to the Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal,” p. 74.
• “Roughly $25 million poured into the Clinton Foundation,” p. 74.
• “Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein, and Weissman ignored potential crimes involving Russia and (Hillary) Clinton,” p. 81.
• “…Clinton could and should be prosecuted for racketeering,” p. 79.
• “… the Clinton foundation was built on greed and the lust for power and wealth—not charity,” p. 85.
• “… Officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice—their motives corrupt and animated by antipathy for Trump. They were determined to tip the scales of justice and in the process, undermine the (2016) electoral democracy.”
• “It appears there was coordination between the White House (Obama’s), CIA, and FBI at the outset of the (Mueller’s special counsel) investigation.”
• “(The cabal’s) dossier (on President Trump) was salacious and unverified,” p. 156.
  • This dossier was paid for by the Hilton Campaign and the Democrat National Party and developed by a former MI6 agent who detested Trump.
• “Under the law, the content (of a document) dictates its classification, not the markings,” p. 248.
• “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had a conflict of interest so acute that no sincere debate could be waged on whether he should have stepped down,” p. 274.

As the days pass, more and more details of the camorra’s illegal activities are exposed. This attack to undermine our democracy is unparalleled in the history of our republic.

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Review – Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy

Five Stars

Pirro pens a dynamite exposé of the Deep State’s cabal to insure that the consummate liar (New York Times) and inveterate racketeer Hillary Clinton won the 2016 presidential election. With Clinton as the president, their chicanery would fade and their mischief would continue as normal. To the Deep State’s horror, the outsider Donald J. Trump topped Hillary decisively.

Donald J. Trump, this self-made billionaire, is dedicated to making “America great again” and to draining the swamp of the career politicians and entrenched bureaucrats that suffuse throughout government and whose primary task is to enrich themselves and insure their continued membership in the “good ol’ boys/gals gang.”

There’s no fiction in Pirro’s pithy essay. “Just the facts, Ma’am,” as Joe Friday was wont to say (TV show Dragnet, 1951–59). Judge Pirro was an accomplished prosecutor and a no-nonsense judge in Westchester County, New York. Accordingly, she understands full well and supports assiduously the equal application of law, and she holds as a primary tenet of the law that Madam Justice is blind. Nowadays, she is a commentator on Fox News.

The Deep State includes a host of Poohbah miscreants from former President Barack HusseinObama’s administration. They were leaders in the intelligence community, Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of State: for instance, James Clapper, chairman of the National Security Council; John Brennan, Director of the CIA; James Comey, Director of the FBI; Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General; Sally Yates, former Deputy Attorney General; Loretta Lynch, Attorney General; and Christopher Steel, former British MI6 agent, to name a few.

On Trump’s presidential victory, the Deep State clique, now in extremis, had to engender an alternate scheme. Now they had to unseat our duly elected president to deflect scrutiny from their chicanery to rig the election—lest their malfeasance be exposed and their next ensembles be yellow jumpsuits. In concert with an eagerly accomplice media to spread their agitprop, they waged an intensive, illegal campaign focused on a Kremlin-based, gossip-filled dossier about President Trump’s failings and his extramarital, sexual proclivities. A faction consisting of Comey, Rosenstein, and others committed perjury on presentation of this nonsense dossier to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court(FISA) to obtain a warrant to surveil Donald Trump and his campaign, and to justify Rosenstein’s appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate the president for the alleged crime of collusion with the Russians to rig the election in his favor.

Their unlawful campaign consisted of abuse of power, obstruction of justice, perjury, conspiracy, and violations of the Espionage Acts. In effect, the Deep State staged a coup d’état. It failed. And now, notwithstanding their continued futile resistance, the details of their corruption are unfolding day by day.

I’ll not go into the details of Pirro’s exposé of this Deep State conspiracy. I do not want to spoil your reading pleasure with “giveaways.” Her narrative is comprehensive, straightforward, and cogent. For those who believe in our constitution, the equal application of justice, and the rule of law, Judge Pirro’s book is a must-read.

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Review – The Case Against Impeaching Trump

Alan Dershowitz

Dershowitz pens a dispassionate, cogent, and compelling monograph that makes the legal case that the blather that suffuses through the media regarding the impeachment of President Trump is but manifestly political agitprop. He presents his thesis in the Queen’s English, instead of legalese, for the proletariat—it is easily readable and comprehensible, and decidedly politically neutral.

This is a small book, only 150 pages. The nugget of Dershowitz’s explication lies in the first seventy pages. The remaining eighty pages are primarily transcriptions of his television interviews that enhance his thesis. He explores the constitutional duties and protections that a sitting president has. The law must be applied equally to all our citizens. But, Dershowitz notes, some parts of the law are different for a sitting president. For example, a president cannot be subpoenaed in federal court, indicted, or convicted of a crime while in office. Impeachment is the only remedy for removing a president. Such a constructional legislative action must be rare and used only after a sitting president commits an obviously egregious “high” crime—murder, treason, etc.

Dershowitz assails the radical left with constitutional vigor for their irrational rhetoric regarding President Trump and their self-righteous hypocrisy. For example, he chides the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for its leftist bent. On page 100 he writes, “Unfortunately, however, over the last several years it has turned from being a neutral civil liberties organization to a left-wing, agenda-driven group that protects its contributors and constituents while ignoring the civil liberties of Americans with whom it disagrees.” He applies an equal reproach to the “civil libertarians” who have abandoned their neutrality and have embraced the leftist agenda.

Dershowitz is an unabashedly proud liberal. He tells his audience that he voted for Barack Obama twice and voted for Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election. He is an emeritus professor of law at Harvard University, a criminal defense attorney, and a noted civil libertarian. He is a man of courage and principle and a zealous advocate of applying the principles of our Constitution equally (my emphasis). The recurring theme in his monograph is “the shoe on the other foot test.” Will the accusation (or whatever) that is leveled against a person, race, religion, etc., be equally applied to that which is different, least favored, or the opposition? For example, “If a controversial president is denied constitutional protection, then any citizen can be denied constitutional protection.”

My favorite line is, “The Constitution is fragile and imperfect, as is democracy itself. Both require the legitimacy of the governed.”

FIN

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Book Review – The 1929 Sino-Soviet War: The War Nobody Knew

Rating – Four Stars

Congratulations to Michael Walker on his assiduous research and lucid manuscript about this seminal 1929 conflict between the Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) over control of the China Eastern Railroad (CER). The CER runs through Chinese Manchuria and links the Russian Far East city Chit with Vladivostok. This railroad spur is a shortcut of about 1,200 miles between these two cities on the northern loop of the Trans-Siberian Railroad that skirts Manchuria. If you study a map of this area, you will understand why both its economic and its military value have been apparent to Imperial Russia, the USSR, Russia, and China.

In 1896, after the first Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895, the Chinese Qing dynasty was weak and adrift under the inept leadership of the Empress Dowager Tz’u His. Under intense Russian pressure, the Qing government granted a concession to Czar Nicholas II of Imperial Russia to construct the CER through northern Manchuria. Work began on the CER in July 1897. The contract provisions provided for dual control by the USSR and Imperial China, and for employment of Chinese executives and workers.

A large Russian army occupied Northern Manchuria to control the CER and protect it from bandit raids and Japanese incursions. The Japanese were gravely concerned that Russia was appropriating their sphere of influence; this led in large measure to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–1905.

Freight traffic on the CER line started in November 1901, and regular passenger traffic from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok across the Trans-Siberian railway and the CER began in July 1903.

Problems of ownership of the CER and its operations festered for years.. In July 1919, the Soviets promised to return the CER to Chinese control without compensation. The Soviets had laid the foundation for a double-cross to regain complete control of the CER and its auxiliary lines. In 1924, the Soviets, under the reign of Joseph Stalin, reneged, and began a campaign of subterfuge to get rid of all Chinese control and interest in the CER. The Soviet Comintern spread Marxist agitprop among the Chinese executives and workers, led strikes, and encouraged sabotage.  In the ensuing years, the controversy escalated.

In 1929, Generalissimo Chang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang government in Nanking was weak and controlled only about fifty percent of the land area of China. A collage of warlords controlled the remainder. The powerful warlord Chang Hsuch-liang (Wade-Giles spelling), the leader of the Fengtian clique, governed Manchuria with a large, well-trained, and well-armed modern army

The Soviets intensified their perfidious campaign with wide-ranging agitations, purloining of CER funds, and assassinations. In turn, Chang began retaliation activities including the kidnapping of Soviet CER executives—leading to his goal of a forced hostile takeover. Realizing that armed conflict with the USSR was inevitable, Chang Hsuch-liang pledged his army and his loyalty to the Kuomintang government in Nanking. In turn, Chang Kai-shek pledged what support he could. Warlords in other cliques also offered backing.

The armed conflict started slowly in the summer of 1929 with skirmishes along the Amur and Songhua Rivers. The first battle started on 17 August 1929, when the Soviets attacked Chalainor. Chang’s troops retreated to a heavily armed trench line. The Soviets advanced into a killing zone, and suffered heavy losses. Following that, the Chinese troops fought a valiant and bloody defensive campaign. However, by late November, the USSR’s overwhelming military power forced the Chinese to sign a treaty on Soviet terms on 13 December 1929.

The most serious negative I find with Walker’s narrative is the absence of a series of small-scale maps to detail the conflict areas and include the many geographical names mentioned in his text.

Note. The USSR conceded ownership of the Chinese Eastern Railway to the People’s Republic of China in 1952.

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Book Review – Exploring Chaos

Rating – Three Stars

In Exploring Chaos, Hall has combined eighteen essays that explore the science of chaos in several disciplines: the stock market, quantum physics, the arrow of time, electronics, mathematics, fluids, chemistry, engineering, the solar systems, and so forth. The authors are prominent scientists, professors, and aerologists.

This book is not an easy read. It is geared to a sophisticated audience that understands science and mathematics. Nonetheless, there are gems of information scattered throughout the essays. For example:

• The theory of chaos touches all disciplines.
• Small changes lead to bigger changes later—the signature of chaos.
• Chaos is persistent instability.
• Feedback may morph into chaos.
• Chaos helps researchers understand evolving, complicated systems.
• Chaos is a dynamic phenomenon.
• Extreme sensitivity of initial conditions characterizes an evolving chaotic system.
• The language of chaos is topology.
• Frequently, chaotic motion follows simple, deterministic laws.

Lastly, I fault Nina Hall for not including an index—essential for all science books.

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Book Review – African Kaiser

Rating – Four Stars

Gaudi weaves an intriguing chronicle of the ferocious campaign in East Africa between the German Schutztruppe and British Commonwealth troops during the Great War—1914 to 1918. He develops the account of this little known Afrikanischer Krieg from the German perspective and in an easy, empathetic, and coherent style. The account is so compelling that we experience the details as if we are participants in the narrative.

The protagonist is Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Imperial Army. For four years, Lettow-Vorbeck led his Schutztruppe of well disciplined and highly trained German and colonial askaris troops in skillful guerrilla warfare in a classic tactical retreat through East Africa: British Africa (later Kenya), German Equatoria (later Tanganyika), Portuguese East Africa (later Mozambique), and Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe). In failed pursuit were elements of the British Army.

Clockwise from the top: Lt. Col Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck; German Askaris Company; German Askaris; Askaris on the Krieg-Safari

Lieutenant Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Schutztruppe of almost fifteen thousand troops eluded, perplexed, and defeated the ten-times-larger British forces, inflicting horrendous casualties on their troops.

And, peripheral to the ground war in East Africa, Gaudi recounts exactly how the German “battleship” SMS Königsberg (actually a light cruiser) from the Kaiserliche Marine escaped from the British battle squadron in the Indian Ocean; the ship’s role as a commerce raider; and its journey up the Rufiji river to hide from the British ships pursuing it. After several weeks of fruitless search, Fleet Air Arm aeroplanes spotted the SMS Königsberg in a remote tributary of the river, hidden under the leafy limbs of a copse of trees. He continues with the particulars of its demise by British naval artillery.

In another tangential episode, he details the German High Command’s resolve to resupply Lettow-Vorbeck’s isolated Schutztruppe with arms, food, and other necessities.

The scheme was to use the super Luftshiff Zeppelin L57 to carry these supplies to East Africa. In command was Korvettenkapitan (Corvette Captain) Ludwig Bockhold of the Kaiserlich Marine’s Naval Airship Service. The L57, after a harrowing flight, finally reached the Nile River in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. But, British Intelligence had broken the German naval codes and sent fake messages to the L57 telling Bockhold to abort the mission and return. He ordered the zeppelin to reverse course and sail to Europe.

In June 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm awarded Lieutenant Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck Germany’s highest military award, the Pour le Mérite. In October 1917, the German General Staff promoted Lieutenant Colonial von Lettow-Vorbeck directly to Generalmajor (Major General).

The next year, at the 11^th hour, on the 11^th day, and in the 11^th month of 1918, the guns of the Great War fell silent. Two weeks after the armistice in Europe, Generalmajor von Lettow-Vorbeck (Bwana Obersti) marched his Imperial East African troop, the last German command in the field still undefeated in battle, into Abercorn, Rhodesia. Von Lettow-Vorbeck ordered his Schutztruppe to lay down their arms, and he surrendered to Brigadier General Edward Northey of the British Army. The general accepted von Lettow-Vorbeck’s surrender in the name of King George V.

British Captain W. C. Downes of the The West African Frontier Force commented on the martial skills of Generalmajor von Lettow-Vorbeck, “He was a genius in the art of bush warfare, a man of indomitable spirit—a most remarkable leader of men, who did not know what it was to be beaten.”

On March 2, 1918, Generalmajor von Lettow-Vorbeck rode through the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, leading the survivors of the Schutztruppe in a parade, to boisterous cheers from the defeated and disheartened German folk. “’The Lion of Africa’ was the only undefeated German general from World War I still commanding an army of a defeated nation at the Armistice.”

Negatives:

1. Only two large-scale maps are in this book. To comprehend the details of the campaign, we need small-scale maps (about 1: 24,000) that highlight the geographic features and the movements of opposing forces.
2. Gaudi has a tendency to call most all warships “battleships.” No battleships were involved in the East African campaign.
3. He labels the SMS Königsberg a battleship. It was a light cruiser.
4. He discusses the “Indian” Gurkhas. The Gurkhas are from Nepal only.  
5. He states that Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated to Switzerland. He abdicated to the Netherlands.

 

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Book Review – Lindbergh

Rating – Four Stars

Berg presents a comprehensive biography of Charles A. Lindbergh, the famous hero and the infamous blackguard. The pioneer aviator, world traveler, political activist, intrepid warrior, zealous environmentalist, and international celebrity. Accordingly, this tome is heavy in weight and content.

Berg’s writing style is refined and empathetic. In this meticulously detailed litany of Lindbergh’s accomplishments and foibles, we learn more about Charles Lindbergh than most of us need or want to know. Nonetheless, the author reveals the key points in this aviator’s life in engaging fashion.  I’ll not repeat all of them in this review. However, following are some that I found particularly interesting:

• His solo flight from New York City to Paris in May 1927 in the Ryan M1 aircraft—dubbed “We”
• His marriage to Anne Spencer Morrow in 1929
• The kidnapping and murder of his firstborn son, twenty-month-old Charles Augustus, in March 1932, and the trial and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the convicted kidnapper and murderer
• His and Anne’s exploratory flights in their custom-built Lockheed 8 Sirius for Pan American World Airways in the 1930s
• His de facto mission as the global ambassador for aviation development

Of singular import were his visits to the Third Reich in the late 1930s, and his proclaimed admiration for Germany’s advanced military aircraft. At a dinner party on October 18, 1938 at the American Embassy in Berlin, the Nazi Air Minister, Field Marshal Hermann Göring, presented Lindbergh with the Verdienstkreuz der Deutschen Adler or “Service Cross of the Order of the German Eagle.” This swank medal was a Maltese cross surrounded by eagles and miniature swastikas. High-ranking German officials awarded this medal to foreigners who were considered sympathetic to the Third Reich.

Aside: In 1938 the Spanish Civil War raged—the Communist government v. General Francisco Franco and his fascist army. The Third Reich sent its Condor Legion, top of the line aircraft and experienced aviators, to support General Franco.

The Nazi medal would be Lindbergh’s shameful scarlet cross for the remainder of his life.

On his return to the USA, Lindbergh became an avid leader of and vocal advocate for the America First policy: no involvement in foreign wars, and Great Britain must stand alone against the Wehrmacht; if Britain should fall, so be it. Some of his rhetoric was tinged with anti-Semitic innuendos.

Now Lindbergh, the former hero of the world, became a pariah. He surrendered his colonel rank in the Army reserves and alienated President Roosevelt, all manner of politicians, the public, and some of his friends. Nonetheless, he continued his nonintervention policy until 7 December 1941—“a date which will live in infamy,” as President Roosevelt said in his declaration of war against the Empire of Japan in response to their surprise attack on our Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor.

The forty-two-year-old civilian Lindbergh went to the South Pacific to work with our aviators on methods to extend the range of their aircraft. General Douglas MacArthur gave him carte blanche to fly any aircraft within his command. He flew several dozen combat missions in the Vought F4U “Corsair” with the Marines against Japanese targets on New Ireland and New Britain. Following that, he went to Hollandia and flew the Lockheed P38 “Lightning” with Army aviators against multiple targets in the Bismarck Sea environ. On one mission, he shot down a Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-5 “Sonia.” On a mission over Palau Island, it is “rumored” that he downed a Mitsubishi A6M5 Reisen “Zero.”  He continued his combat flying from Biak, New Guinea, Kwajalein, and Roni Island.

In a private ceremony in the Pentagon on 7 April 1954, Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott swore Charles Lindbergh in as a Brigadier General (President Eisenhower and the Senate had approved this commissioning).

The rest of the story is for you to read. On 27 August 1974, the 72-year-old Charles Lindbergh died from complications of lymphoma. He is buried on Maui on a cliff overlooking the Pacific on the grounds of the isolated, small Kipahulu church. I’ve visited his grave and it is a humbling and an awe-inspiring experience. Highly recommended.

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Film Review – Dunkirk

 

Rating – Two stars

I enjoyed the first few minutes of Dunkirk. The narrative was presented in classic cinematic design—relevant, dynamic, kinetic action void of dialogue and supported by pertinent sound effects. “Here’s a winner,” I reckoned. Unfortunately, as the film continued, I became increasingly disappointed.

I do not know what to make of Dunkirk. Is it a historical fiction film based on the rescue of the British army from France, or an avant garde experiment? Nonetheless, as a straight narrative film it is seriously flawed. Notwithstanding the numerous technical errors, several egregious, I could not willingly suspend my disbelief while viewing this film.

Dunkirk does not engender empathy for its characters. One exception is actor Mark Rylance—the skipper of a small boat that putt-putts at an agonizingly plodding pace to the beach at Dunkirk. Other than him, I’ve no one to root for.

There is no antagonist, except some vague enemy who shoots from concealment, fires artillery shells from the ether (as it were), and flies Messerschmitt 109s and drops bombs from Hinkle 119s sans aviators. I’ve no one to fear or abhor. Who is the enemy that is causing the havoc at Dunkirk? I am bamboozled by why the producers did not identify the adversary—the German Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine. Am I to conclude that the filmmakers’ cultural-correctness negates history so as not to offend—anyone? Gadzooks! Without a defined antagonist, the narrative is palpably defective.

Compounding my disappointment is the negative ambiance that pervades Dunkirk. The mise en scène focuses excessively on sinking ships, downed aircraft, and dying and dead “tommies”—dying in all manner of horrors. Bedlam is a more fitting title for this epic extant. Admittedly, war is Hell. But to linger on its savagery is ghoulish.

My most serious objection to Dunkirk is the film’s dereliction in failing to communicate the critical importance and far-reaching consequence of the “Miracle of Dunkirk”—the evacuation of 200,000 British “tommies” and 140,000 French poilus from the beaches of France. This British operation was one of Word War II’s most critical actions. The film ignores the great triumph that it was. Had this operation failed, Britain would have been without an army and probably would have had to ask for terms with the Third Reich.

Background. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Wehrmacht Commander of Army Group A during the Battle of France, said, “Dunkirk was one of the greatest turning points of the war.”

The filmmaker missed a beckoning opportunity to concoct a classic cinematic montage that would portray the frenetic activity of British naval personnel and subjects fueling and preparing private boats that could sail the forty miles from Ramsgate to France, and return with soldiers. En route was an armada of eight hundred self-propelled vessels—the “little ships of Dunkirk.” It was a mélange of trawlers, pleasure yachts, fishing boats, dinghies, Thames ferries, lifeboats, automobile ferries, and tugboats. Included also were Belgian fishing boats, Irish motor torpedo boats, and Dutch coasters.

The last scene in Dunkirk shows a rescued British soldier riding in a train, looking at a newspaper. He spots a transcript of Winston Churchill’s famous “Miracle of deliverance” speech to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940—”We shall fight on the beaches…we shall never surrender.” This was the most famous speech of the war. It boosted British subjects’ sagging morale and encouraged them to carry on. To my serious disappointment, the soldier read aloud this hallmark speech. How pedestrian.

Nolan missed another golden opportunity to salvage a smidgen of this flawed film’s ambiance. After the surfeit of death and destruction that suffused through this epic, it ought to have ended on a high point, a capstone. Consider a scene that would show the “little ships” flotilla closing on the English coast. On the sound track is Winston Churchill delivering his “Miracle of deliverance” oration. Didn’t happen.

The special effects in Dunkirk are spectacular. I wonder, however, if less technology and more plot and cinematic design would have produced a more tolerable film.

FIN

Complete text of Winston Churchill’s “Miracle of deliverance” speech to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940—the last day of the Dunkirk evacuation.

”We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

FIN

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Ghost Towning

I was hooked on ghost-town photography the instant I viewed my pal’s photographs of Belmont, Nevada—the crumbling old buildings, abandoned mining equipment, dilapidated fire truck, crumbling courthouse, and all manner of detritus scattered through the site. Images flashed through my mind of the town in 1905, when it was fully functional as the county seat of Nye County. That was almost thirty-five years ago. Since then, I’ve been an avid aficionado of the ghost-towning craft.

Caution. Ghost towning can be serious business that requires a detailed operating scheme and sober execution. Consistently, I have found that it takes me one day of planning for every day in the field. I block out our routes on several scaled typographic maps and make a proposed schedule for each day.

Note. I always travel with a trusted partner—one who can take charge of the operation. We carry extra water, communication gear, and survival equipment. Please see my monograph Ghost Towning for Fun, Adventure, and Discovery for details.

Background. Over the years, I’ve made approximately fifty trips into Western states to document ghost towns and mining camps.  At first, I focused my activities in Nevada, with its wealth of interesting sites. Often, the sites with the most attractive remains are buried deep in the mountains. Traveling to such sites requires a four-wheel drive vehicle and an experienced driver. I recall our trip to Gold Park in Nevada—it was a serious four-wheel drive up a steep, rocky trail in the Shoshone Mountains. At times, very carefully we just inched along. Frequently, I had to clear rocks from the trail. Finally, after several hours, we spotted the top of the head frame. Great site. We spent a couple of hours photographing—a  material reward for the strenuous trip.

Sometimes, after an arduous trip to a site, we have been disappointed. All that remained of the site was a hole in the ground and a couple of tin cans.  Occasionally, there was nothing remaining—absolutely nothing.

There are a few great ghost towns on paved highways—for example, Orla in Reeves County, Texas, where many ruins sit alongside the highway. Another is Moapa, Clark County, Nevada, about forty miles northeast of Las Vegas. In its heyday, Moapa was a Union Pacific town. When I visited Moapa, twenty-two years ago, the site was well preserved: four or five wood buildings, some concrete structures, and the usual detritus.

Exhibition. In the summer of 2004, fifty-three of my Nevada ghost-town photographs were displayed in the Nevada State Library, Carson City, Nevada.

Preservation. It’s imperative that we understand that ghost towns are precious remnants of our past—fragile and nonrenewable resources. They are vulnerable to a harsh environment, artifact collectors, and lawless vandals, all of which have done incredible damage to these sites. Enjoy your visits and be an assiduous conservator in protecting them—take out everything you brought to the site and leave everything that you did not bring to it.

There are strict federal and state laws protecting our ghost towns. Yet, some folks ignore those laws to satisfy their illegal and untoward activities: serious looting, senseless damage, and infantile graffiti. I’ve seen it all, and then some. Once a ghost town is sacked, it’s lost forever. 

Read more about ghost towning from S. Martin Shelton. Ghost Towning for Fun, Adventure, and Discovery, is available on Amazon now!

 

Book Review – Flyboys: A True Story of Courage

Rating – Three Stars

As usual, my simple mind is confused. I do not know what to make of this book. It’s not a history of naval aviation in World War II, and it’s not a personal memorial to all the lost fliers “that did not return” to their aircraft carriers. It is a salmagundi of stories of naval aviators mostly dying. It’s a compendium of personal insights into naval aviators—officers and enlisted men that did not return—mostly.

Aside: Bradley’s use of “boys” throughout the text is an abomination and insult to the men of naval aviation who fought the good fight in the Pacific Campaign—many of whom did not return. I was in naval aviation for my entire career in the United States Navy. Prejudice against such disrespect is entrenched in me.

Also, to my amazement, Bradley fashioned the Japanese soldiers as “boys.” They were men.

Bradley rants pointedly about the USA’s eeevil colonialism in the Philippines and the diabolical war we waged on the populace—the slaughter of innocent civilians, internment camps, and the scorched-earth policy. I wonder what this screed contributed to Flyboys—perhaps only that war is Hell.

His detailed account of the Doolittle Raiders’ bombing of Japan on 18 April 1942 is compelling.

Bradley gets credit for his excellent research. His exposition of the Japanese army’s  training, discipline, and inexorable top-down chain of command is keenly informative and explains, in large measure, the inability of the on-scene commanders and their subordinates to make any decision of import without approval from the senior military clique in Tokyo—the “Spirit Warriors.” Of particular note is his explanation of their total disregard for the lives of their men. They sent soldiers to isolated islands. Their orders were to kill the American devils and to die for the Emperor. Surrender or failure to die was dishonorable and brought shame to their families. It was the Bushido code updated for the Pacific War.

Here’s one example. Japanese high command sent 130,000 troops to the island of New Guinea. After our navy’s victory in the battle of the Bismarck Sea, the Japanese soldiers were trapped. No supplies could reach them and there was no escape. The high command lacked concern—it was the vagaries of war and these men would die an honorable death. Nonetheless, the soldiers fought the Australian and American forces until almost all of the Japanese were dead—either killed or dead of disease and starvation. It’s in this story that Bradley tells us how the starving Japanese soldiers killed their own to keep from starving to death.

Bradley’s writing style is easy, fluid, and empathetic. And, that’s part of the problem with his book—it’s too empathetic, too vivid. We become immersed in his stories—we are at the location witnessing the details of the hideous torture, barbaric assassination, and gruesome cannibalism of our naval aviators. We attend the Japanese officers’ dining table to share the thigh of an enlisted gunner’s mate. Naturally, the reigning general has first pick.

Flyboys is a book suffused with death, torture, and cannibalism. I reckon that these horrors happened, but Bradley doesn’t have to be so dammed graphic about the details. This is not a book for the squeamish, the prudish, or the honorable warrior—in fact, I feel it’s a book solely for the Judge Advocate Generals.

My heart is greatly troubled by Bradley’s narrative. I regret having read his book. I’ve not slept well these past few nights. His images are too powerful. Flyboys is too personal, too engaging. I don’t want to witness the ignominious fate of my shipmates.  

Note: Many of these Japanese criminals were convicted of crimes and hung from the gallows.

Read more by S. Martin Shelton!