February 23, 1945

Worth A Thousand Words: Or, In Some Cases, Even More Than That.

Last Friday we mentioned that February 19th was the anniversary of invasion of Iwo Jima, the tiny hulk of volcanic rock just 750 miles south of Tokyo. Hitting the beaches with the Marines that morning was a short, bespectacled photographer for the Associated Press named Joe Rosenthal. Risking life and limb to tell the story of the struggle to the American public, Rosenthal followed the Marines inland, unwittingly about to capture one of the most iconic images in the history of photography, let alone warfare.

On February 23, 1945, Rosenthal climbed to the top of Mt. Suribachi and was fiddling with his film while some marines kicked around in the nearby debris. The men were going to put up a large American flag, replacing a smaller flag put up a little while before. Since every American in sight of the mountain had rejoiced at the first flag raising, and since the battle was still raging below the summit, Rosenthal had no idea he was about to witness a landmark in history. In fact, still not ready as the men were hoisting the pole, he thought he'd missed the whole show.

The story of the Flag Raising on Iwo Jima has been well chronicled, most notably and eloquently by James Bradley's Flags of Our Fathers. But Rosenthal's photo was not the only image of World War II to live on in history, so today, in honor of one of the Marine Corps proudest events, we'll look at some other notable photos that have outgrown the very circumstances they depict.

Confederate Dead at Devil's Den

This Confederate soldier fell in an assault on a rocky bottom near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in one of the decisive engagements of the American Civil War. Or so the picture would have you beleive. The photographer, Alexander Gardener, posed the dead Southerner and his rifle at the photo site; he was killed somewhere else.



Today, you can go to Gettysburg National Military Park to visit the battlefield, and pose bodies of your own.

Execution of Sergeant Leonard Siffleet

This incredible picture catches an Imperial Japanese Army officer about to behead an sickly prisoner of war. You might want to keep this sort of damning evidence to your depravity from getting out right? In fact, moments before the officer ordered a nearby soldier to snap the photo.

Raising the Banner of Victory

Incredibly, the Soviets seemed to have an Iwo Jima-like moment of their own. Two soldiers, with the smoke of the raging battle in the background, climbed to the roof of the Reichstag and raised the flag of the Soviet Union over the city of Berlin in May, 1945. Even more incredibly, a photographer was there to immortalize the act.


Not quite. The picture was taken two days after the flag was first raised over the building. The photographer Yevgeny Khaldei hand picked the two men; one Russian, one Georgian (just like Stalin). You can see in the original that smoke was later added to the image, and a watch was removed from the right wrist of the soldier below. Multiple watches were a sign of looting, and what good communist boy would need to loot a watch?

Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner


We thought we'd finish off with this picture of Chief of the South Vietnamese National Police Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing Nguyen Van Lem, a VC officer in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. Actually, we're only posting this picture for the student in a history course at Temple University, who showed this to our Editor-in-Chief as an example of American brutality in Vietnam.

In short, war is Hell, folks. Brave men and women risk their lives every day to show us just how horrible it is. These images don't need our stories or fabrications to enhance the horrors of war. What can not be forgotten, and what so often is, is the figures in the images are real people, flesh and blood. They had dreams and fears; virtues and short-comings; wives, sweethearts, mothers. Their experiences were terrible enough, to steal a phrase from Abraham Lincoln, "far above our poor power to add or detract."

February 22, 1797

Close But No Cigar: Or, When Will They Build the Chunnel?

We start the new week at Lies Agreed Upon by turning our attention to that tiny arm of the Atlantic that always seems to cause so much trouble for Europe's continental powers. At it's narrowest point, the English Channel separates Great Britain from France by a scant 21 miles. Yet this distance, lengthened by the renowned British sea power, has stymied countless invasion attempts, once prompting this quote from our boy Napoleon. Ask the sailors of the Spanish Armada just how difficult the task can be.

An American fighting for France is not an unfamiliar story to some of our readers, but few Yanks have fought under quite the same circumstances as Colonel William Tate. A South Carolinian of Irish descent, Tate's family had been murdered by pro-British Indians during the American Revolutionary War. In Paris after the war, the advocate of Irish Republicanism felt the best way to get back at the crown was to take up arms again.

Two frigates and two corvettes made up the French squadron, sailing under Russian colors, that set out from Brest in 1797 on the last invasion of Great Britain.

In January, 1797, as Napoleon Bonaparte prepared for his first invasion of Italy, a large French force had set out from Brest to land in Ireland. Hoping to incite the Emerald Isle's anti-British fervor, the weather (not the Royal Navy) forced the French to turn back. In spite of this, a smaller diversionary landing went ahead as scheduled.

Tate had been given command of the French Second Legion, 1,500 troops known as the Legion de Noire because of their distinctive dark uniforms. Even after the failed Irish Expedition, they slipped into the Channel aboard four French ships, hoping to land near Bristol on Britain's western coast. Bad weather forced them further north, and on February 22, 1797, Tate's men disembarked near Fishguard, Wales, the last foreign invaders to successfully land on British shores.

His ill-fated campaign was doomed almost from the outset. Among the Black Legion were over 600 irregulars, convicts who dispersed soon after landing to loot the local towns. Tate's problems were compounded by the discovery of stores of wine rescued from a Portuguese shipwreck by the locals a few weeks before. When British forces, made up mostly of volunteers, appeared before him the next day, Tate's command was severely depleted.

Tate arrayed his small force in strong defensive positions to face the oncoming enemy. Under command of John Campbell, 1st Baron Cawdor, the British initially planned to drive the French back into the sea. With only three cannon, however, Cawdor avoided a potentially deadly ambush when he held his men in the village for the evening. That night, their disheartened men scattered by drink and temptation, two French officers made their way into the town to negotiate a surrender.

The Royal Oak Pub in Fishguard, site of the British headquarters and French surrender negotiations during the brief invasion.

The next afternoon, with most of the town of Fishguard turned out to see them, the French forces laid down their weapons and began a march to prison camps in England. The last invasion of Great Britain ended almost without a shot, and the British even captured two of the four invasion ships. Local legend credits Jemima Nicholas, a townswoman armed only with a pitchfork, with the capture of 12 drunk French soldiers.





The grave marker of Jemima Nicholas, Fishguard, Pembrokshire, Wales.









Since the short lived landing at Fishguard, the English Channel and the Royal Navy have not only safeguarded Great Britain, but also caused her enemies to take on other daunting campaigns. Lord Horatio Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805, for example, would come at the expense of French squadrons attempting to consolidate in preparation for a cross-Channel invasion. In 1940, German planes could not clear a path for the Kriegsmarine, nor knock the British out of the Second World War. In both cases, the conquest of Western Europe was halted by a narrow strip of water, a distance a well-trained army can negotiate in a single day's march.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

February 21-27, 2010

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance in the face of fatigue. Courage in the face of the enemy is only second.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Dead Admiral Quote of the Week

Love Your Lady.

Since we spent so much time at sea this week, we felt it was fitting to find a quote from a man who served on the waves. Commander-in-Chief of the American Pacific Fleet during World War II, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz knew a thing or two about keeping ships in fighting shape. Badly damaged by enemy planes during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, 1942, many thought the USS Yorktown would be out of action for months. Known to her crew as "The Fighting Lady, Nimitz's ordered repairs on the flattop to be carried out around the clock, making her seaworthy in time for the pivotal Battle of Midway, fought just a few weeks later. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, Nimitz suggested how the process related to an old nautical tradition:

A ship is always referred to as a she because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder.

February 19, 1999

A Long Time Coming: Or, What a Way to Treat a Pioneer.

Today the calender offers us a number of wide ranging topics to cover. On this day in 1945, nearly 30,000 Marines stormed a spit of volcanic rock known as Iwo Jima. Two years earlier, American soldiers first encountered German panzers in a small mountain pass near Kasserine, Tunisia, and were thrown back 50 miles. And, way back in 1674, the English and Dutch signed a treaty transferring possession of a small North American settlement known as New Amsterdam.





USMA portrait of Henry O. Flipper. In 1877, he became the first African-American cadet to graduate from West Point.




Nevertheless, we turn instead to another one of those personal stories that reflect so largely on men and nations as a whole. Born into slavery in Georgia in 1856, the cards seemed stacked against Henry Ossian Flipper from the start. Yet after the war he enrolled in Atlanta University, and reached out to a congressman for an appointment to the United States Military Academy. In 1877, Flipper became the first black cadet to graduate from West Point.

Assigned to the 10th Cavalry of the "Buffalo Soldiers," Flipper was the first African-American to command a unit of army regulars. His thoroughness and skill as an engineer shone through, and Flipper endeared himself to Captain Nicholas M. Nolan, his troop commander. For his part, the young lieutenant developed a bond with Mollie Dwyer, the sister of Nolan's wife. Sadly, fraternization with a white woman by a black man, even a competent Army officer, was still considered a grave taboo.




Lieutenant Flipper, sometime before his arrest. He proved his skills as an engineer when he drained the malarial swamps that surrounded his first post, Fort Sill, modern-day Oklahoma.





While it may have aroused suspicion and anger, Flipper's relationship with Dwyer did little to diminish his military success. He served with distinction during the Apache Wars, but afterward his duty separated him from Nolan, his friend and mentor. In 1881, at Fort Davis, Texas, Flipper came under the command of Colonel William R. Shafter, a man with no love loss for the black officer. Shafter immediately relieved Flipper from his position as quartermaster, setting the stage his downfall.

Sometime after Shafter took command, he ordered Flipper to keep a safe with the post's funds in his quarters. Flipper obliged, but soon noticed that over $2,000 was missing from the safe, and attempted to hide the discrepancy until the money could be found. Fearing the missing cash could be used to force him out of the army, Flipper even lied to Shafter about the incident. He was arrested, and although he was acquitted of embezzlement, he was dismissed from the Army for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman."

Flipper was shamed, to be sure, but spent the rest of his life trying to clear his name. At the time, the decision was upheld by President Chester A. Arthur, but in 1976, the Army reviewed the case and ruled the sentence had been too harsh. White officers who had committed worse crimes had not been so disciplined, and Flipper was awarded an honorable discharge. On February 19, 1999, almost 120 years after he was arrested, Flipper was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton.






Flipper before his death. After his discharge, Flipper continued his work as an engineer while trying to clear his name.




The story of Flipper, by all accounts a capable soldier, serves only to illustrate the racial issues that plagued not only American armed services, but the nation as a whole. The only black officer in the Army at the time, many felt Flipper had been railroaded by Shafter, but few spoke out against his arrest. Once again, the United State government was forced to atone for past offenses, but as usual it was too little, too late. Flipper died in 1940, with the Army still segregated, not knowing if his honor or rank would ever be restored.

February 18, 1861

Contradictory States of America: Or, How to Make Someone's Job Difficult.

Today the calender gives us the chance to examine the political structure of the one of the more interesting, if not short-lived, nations in history, the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis, a Mississippi Senator and West Point graduate, was given the daunting task of guiding the country through its infant, war-torn years. The task was made all the more difficult because Davis' position of President was at times contradictory to the very constitution he was sworn to uphold.


The inauguration of Jefferson Davis as the President of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America, as depicted by Harper's Weekly.





Inauguration Day, February 18, 1861 dawned warm and clear in Montgomery, Alabama. By 11:30, a soaring blue sky hung over the head of Jefferson Davis as he strode to the State Capitol, and one has to wonder if, from on high, Davis could feel George Washington looking down. "The Inaugural ceremonies," the New York Times reported the next morning, "were the grandest pageant ever witnessed in the South. There was an immense crowd on Capitol Hill, consisting of a great array of the beauty, military and citizens of the different states."

At the heart of Davis' task was running the new Provisional Government in a country that was founded on decentralization. The states that had seceded from the Union, and were preparing to go to war to defend their decision, claimed the Federal Government had infringed upon their individual rights. The new nation, they declared, would honor states' rights, the way they felt their forefathers had intended. For Davis, who before the war had argued against secession, this was no small roadblock.







Jefferson Davis.










Throughout his administration, Davis would find himself constantly at odds with his Congress, not to mention state governors. Moving troops from one department to another; agreeing on the allotment of defense funds; even devising a strategy that would not only ensure independence, but also save Southern lives and property (read: slaves), all were made more difficult by a reluctance to trust central government.

In his inaugural address Davis directly mentioned the states' reliance on militia, yet warned that a national army and navy must be raised. But even he might not have had the foresight to know that this army would need to be fed by conscription. Taking young men that could serve in the state militia for a cause so heinously federal as a draft endeared Davis to few. Later, when the government moved to Richmond, there would be further criticism that the Virginia theater took precedent over others. Instead of banding together against a common enemy, the Confederacy was plagued by in-fighting, suspicion, and jealousy.

Another constant headache for Davis would be the creation and validation of a national currency. By the time Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate script was not worth the paper on which it was printed.

That February night in Montgomery, a reception was held in honor of the new president, and the city partied into the morning. "Bands...and fireworks...were the order of the evening," the same article from the Times reported. And the South went to sleep that night with dreams of a new nation in their minds; and in Congress the signatures of the delegates were drying on the newly ratified Provisional Constitution. It is doubtful if Davis knew that night just what fireworks that document might bring.

February 17, 1871

Passez la Champagne: Or a Conqueror's Guide to Paris.

Today we once again turn to our Gallic brethren to provide us with a chance to look at one of those events that seems to repeat itself throughout military history. Few cities in the world have the majesty, culture, and history of Paris, and surely few have evoked as much awe, envy, and even contempt. Throughout her history, the city on the Seine has been the target of a number of invaders and would-be conquerors.

Prussian soldiers march through Paris after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, February, 1871.

On February 17, 1871, Prussian troops celebrated their victory in the Franco-Prussian War with a parade past the Arc de Triomphe. The demonstration capped celebrations following the coronation of Wilhelm I, the first German Emperor. Fought mostly to unite Germany's southern kingdoms with Prussia against a common foe, the war was neither the first nor last period that saw foreigners march through Paris. To shake things up today, we'll take a look at some of the darker days in the City of Light.

52 BC:
During his conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar crushes a local uprising led by the legendary Vercingetorix on the left bank of the Seine. A nearby settlement, named for the Parisii people, is renamed Lutetia by the Romans and begins growing rapidly.







Caesar is still in Paris, but only at the Louvre.








1420 AD:
During the Hundred Years' war, and after years of local popular uprisings, the English under Henry V capture Paris. Henry VI is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in 1429, and the English hold the city for seven more years.

The coronation of English King Henry VI as King of France. Note the fleur-de-lys on his crest.

1814:
After Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia, his enemies in the east followed him back to France, culminating in a parade through Paris. Czar Alexander I was at the head of the column.

Russians parade though the city after the War of the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon in 1814.

1871:
Following a four-month siege of the city, Prussian troops enter Paris, resulting in the coronation of Wilhelm I, and yet another parade. Here is an awesome description of the first Prussians entering the city, originally published in Blackwell Magazine and reprinted in the New York Times, December 10, 1893:

[One] came tearing up the hill. As he neared we saw he was a hussar officer...He charged past us, his sword uplifted, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed straight...By Jove if that fellow's mother could see him, she'd have something to be proud of!

The youngster raced on far ahead...[to] the Arch of Triumph...We caught sight of him on the other side through the archway, his sword high up, as if he were saluting the vanquished city at his feet.

The coronation of Wilhelm I, held in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, 1871.

1940:
After the Germans failed to capture the city during the First World War, Adolf Hitler makes sure Gay Paree sees the indemnity of a Wehrmacht parade in the Second. Later, with Allied armies closing in, Hitler orders the city to be destroyed, but Paris is spared by the military governor General Dietrich von Choltitz.

Hitler found the exact railroad car in which the Germans signed their surrender in 1914, and used it to hold the ceremony in reverse in 1940.

To be sure, Paris' position as the envy of Europe has put it in some perilous spots in the past. The last time foreign soldiers paraded through her streets, it was on a much more joyous note. On August 25, 1944 American troops, spearheaded by Free French forces, marched into the city to end the German occupation.

Americans march through Paris after the liberation in 1944. That familiar landmark is just visible in the background.