Category: History-world-war-II
Origins of a Novel
Inspiration Every time I hold one of the silver spoons in my hand, I remember. My thumb strokes the simple design on the handle, the capital L and the flat, crossed ribbons. I admire the elegant shape of the spoon, and I remember. It is not even my memory. It is my grandmother’s. I grew…
The Muralist and LBJ, a Secret Hero.
WWII novels always figure importantly among the stacks of books waiting for me to read and summer is a great time for catching up. Maybe your “to read” stack is on your bedside table, or in leaning towers on the floor under your desk, or stashed neatly in boxes in a…
Hitler’s Adjutant – The SS Officer, Richard Schulze-Kossens
One of the more complicated and controversial minor characters in Immigrant Soldier is SS-Obersturmbannführer Richard Schulze. I have had several readers comment about the friendship between the novel’s hero, Herman, and this German SS officer. Most notably I received an email from a second cousin I’d never met who…
World War II POWs in the United States
In Immigrant Soldier, Herman and his unit captured a young German soldier who hated the fighting and killing. After Herman interrogated the youth, he sent the soldier to the prisoners’ infirmary. “He hoped that the boy would be on the next transport to the coast and a ship to the United States. Maybe he…
Camp Ritchie, Maryland – Development of the Intelligence Training Center
The 400 acres that was to become the Camp Ritchie Intelligence Training Center, began life in 1889 as the property of the Buena Vista Ice Company. They created two manmade lakes where winter allowed natural ice to form which could be shipped via the nearby railroad spur to Washington, DC. The lakes also served as…
World War II Posters and the War Advertising Council
When I visited the Military Heritage Museum in Punta Gorda, Florida, last October, I paused in the meeting room after my talk to enjoy their display of World War II posters. They reminded me vividly of the passion and self-sacrifice the American people were expected to display at that time in…
World War II slogan, Loose Lips Sink Ships
The novel Immigrant Soldier is interspersed with letters Herman writes to his mother. These letters are based on actual correspondence treasured by our family. One of these letters, the one Herman wrote during his Camp Ritchie training, is notable because it is composed on special stationery with the slogan, “Idle gossip sinks ships” printed at…
Camp Young, Desert Training Center, World War II
On Sunday, June 19th, I celebrated Father’s Day as part of a panel of authors of military literature, an event sponsored by the Friends of the San Juan Capistrano Library. The other panel member was Frank McAdams, who wrote the Pulitzer nominated book, Vietnam Roughrider: A Convoy Commander’s Memoir. Before the panel started, the moderator, Pat…
Marthe Cohn, Behind Enemy Lines
Last year in the end of December, I was able to attend a talk by Marthe Cohn, holocaust survivor and French spy. A diminutive woman in her mid-90s, she perched on a high chair with her husband by her side. I was part of the audience gathered at the Laguna Beach Chabad…
The Battle of Saint-Malo in World War II
Ever since I first visited Saint-Malo with my daughter in 1998, I have wanted to return. It is a beautiful old walled city on the Brittany coast of France where extreme tides create a dynamic backdrop. However, it was not until last year when I read All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, that I realized this beautiful city was decimated…