Militaria – Page 4 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

America Will Never Forget Sacrifices of Heroic Men and Women

The flag that led the first American troops onto Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, sold for $514,000 at a June 2016 Heritage auction.

“When it mattered most, an entire generation of Americans showed the finest qualities of our nation and of humanity. On this day, in their honor, we will raise the American flag over a monument that will stand as long as America itself.” – George W. Bush, May 29, 2004

By Jim O’Neal

Sixteen million Americans served during World War II. Twelve years ago, the National World War II Memorial, honoring their commitment and sacrifices, was dedicated in the nation’s capital. The event featured a four-day celebration with special museum exhibits and services in the National Cathedral.

Almost every feature and detail of the seven-acre memorial in the National Mall are symbolic. A ceremonial entrance is flanked by 24 bronze bas-relief sculpture that provide glimpses into the American experience and on the battlefield. Inside, the memorial is anchored by two pavilions – one proclaiming victory in the Atlantic Theatre, the other success in the Pacific. Fifty-six granite pillars represent the states, federal territories and District of Columbia.

The columns are linked with bronze ropes to reflect the nation’s unity during the war and adorned with two bronze wreaths, one of wheat, representing the United States’ agricultural strength, and one in oak, signifying the might of a nation.

The site also features the Freedom Wall, decorated with 4,048 gold stars, each representing 100 Americans who lost their lives during the war or who remain missing in action. Carved at the bottom are the words “Here we mark the price of freedom.”

Visitors can find hidden treasures in the site, including the famous “Kilroy was here” graffiti familiar to every WW2 veteran. Also carved into the memorial are these words from President Harry S. Truman: “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.”

Amen.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

100 Years Later, Battle of Verdun Remains an Example of Senseless, Protracted Warfare

This World War I propaganda poster issued by the U.S. government in 1917 realized $15,535 at a July 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

After every great war, heads of state invariably declare, “This must never be allowed to happen again” – as though their pronouncements will have some profound, magical effect on future generations determined to use force to rectify some grievance they have suffered.

That was certainly the case in 1984 when German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand met at Verdun, an ancient town on the Meuse River in eastern France. Later this year, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel will again hold a ceremony in Verdun, this time to inaugurate a renovated museum.

One can only assume that their prepared remarks will contain similar definitive declarations.

This year marks the centennial of the Battle of Verdun, which was part of the First World War. The fighting erupted on Feb. 21, 1916, when German artillery began firing on French troops. It’s estimated that 1 million shells fell on the first day and an astonishing 60 million more in the next 300 days.

Historians and military experts are still asking a simple question: Why?

There was nothing strategic about Verdun in the context of the much broader war being waged, yet the battle raged for a remarkable 10 months – often cited as the single longest battle of WWI, if not history. In addition to 300,000 casualties, the lush forestland around Verdun, “an area larger than the city of Paris,” was devastated. Even today, arsenic, unexploded bombs, tracks of barbed wire and remains of the dead lurk under deceptive greenery.

The most popular theory is that the Germans were hoping they could lure French troops into a war of attrition by diverting their reserve troops from the main battlefronts. Then they intended to “bleed the French army white” as they attempted to defend their homeland and honor.

When the battle finally ended, the French could claim victory, but they had actually only moved a few hundred yards and without any tangible benefits – just immense suffering in a senseless, protracted battle that was part of an even more “tragic accident,” as World War I has often been described.

Twenty-six years later, in November 1942, Adolf Hitler would declare, “I do not want this to be another Verdun!” – referring to the siege of Stalingrad that would end up costing him his entire Sixth Army!

And still the question of “Why?” remains unanswered as Verdun maintains its eerie silence.

Vietnam Exemplifies the Sad Results of False Expectations

This South Vietnam, National Bank of Vietnam 1000 Dong ND (1955-56), is one of Vietnam’s most coveted currency designs. It realized $32,900 at an April 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The war in Vietnam was a continuation of a war that had been going on since the end of WWII. After the Japanese surrender, the French attempted to take back their former colony, but Vietnamese nationalists (led by communist Ho Chi Minh) defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

In the peace settlement, Vietnam was divided into two separate states at the 17th parallel – North (a communist state) and South (a Western-backed democracy) with a DMZ in the middle to keep them apart.

However, the Viet Minh infiltrated the South, which the U.S. feared would lead to a takeover, followed by an Asian “domino” outcome. The response was a ramp-up in military aid, advisors and limited support troops. The first 3,500 combat troops landed in early 1965 and steadily increased to 200,000. By November 1967 (despite war protests), there were nearly 500,000 fighting the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army (NVA).

To counter the protests, General William Westmoreland claimed the U.S. was winning and President LBJ stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise and declared the war would continue “not many more nights.” It was late 1967.

Within weeks, the Tet Offensive would highlight the absurdly misplaced optimism of these words.

It started early in the morning of Jan. 31, 1968. The sounds of firecrackers were heard and assumed to just be Tet, the annual Vietnamese celebration heralding the beginning of the lunar New Year, “The Year of the Monkey.” All over Vietnam, similar celebrations were going on.

It was actually a massive attack by the communists on the South, and the surprise trapped many noncombatants, especially journalists, who quickly relayed the news home; vivid reports made front pages around the world with scenes of carnage shown nightly on television.

After the first few days, TV legend Walter Cronkite reportedly blurted, “What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war!” It mattered little that within weeks the North Vietnamese were being pushed back with heavy losses. The dramatic images stuck in people’s minds.

The combined impact of the offensive and images would ultimately force President Johnson not to seek reelection – a shocking result for the leader and his advisers, given the fact the offensive would end with an American victory, the devastation of the Viet Cong as a fighting force, and a severe mauling of the NVA.

It was a heavy price to pay for the faulty military propaganda and lying to the public that the war was “almost” won. Setting false expectations always leads to sad endings – but leaders persist, yet today.

Germany Represents Vivid Contrast Between Capitalist, Communist Systems

Robert Indiana painted his famous “LOVE” graphic on one side of a chunk of the Berlin Wall, and the word “WALL” on the other. This piece realized $65,725 at an October 2009 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

After the end of World War II, the Allies divided Germany into four zones, one each for the British, French, Soviets and Americans. Berlin lay inside the zone belonging to the Soviets and it also was divided into four sectors.

In 1949, the three Western powers merged their zones into a single entity: West Germany. This resulted in Berlin becoming an “island” in the heart of the East German communist state. Everyone in Berlin had an identity card, which allowed them to travel between East and West.

However, at midnight on Aug. 12, 1961, trains that traveled between East and West suddenly stopped. Passengers were forced out and told to walk home. The much bigger issue was that those living in the East were never allowed to travel to the West again (legally).

Then the East-West border was sealed off with armored cars, troop carriers and Soviet tanks. By the next year, concrete poles were erected and strung with barbed wire to further restrict travel. The metaphor of an “Iron Curtain” had become a reality.

By 1960, West Berlin had built 100,000 new apartments, raised luxury hotels, and constructed museums and art galleries. Industrial plants resumed production, creating thousands of new jobs.

In East Berlin, the economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was stagnant and food and clothing scarce. Burned-out buildings were a stark reminder of the war. Three and a half million East Germans fled to the West, including 1 million through East Berlin, where there were no barriers (by treaty).

Then the GDR decided to build a wall!

Eventually, there was a concrete slab wall – 13 feet high, 87 miles long – completely encircling West Berlin. There were nine border crossing points, including “Checkpoint Charlie,” where spies were exchanged and East-West met with steely tensions.

In June 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika (restructuring), expansion of trade, loosening of borders and limited freedom in other eastern bloc countries. Erich Honecker, head of the East German Socialist party, decried the reforms and promised the East Berlin wall would “last 50-100 years.”

In the autumn of 1989, thousands of demonstrators marched the streets of East Berlin, Honecker resigned, and on Nov. 8 the East Germans began allowing unrestricted travel. German Reunification was officially declared on Oct. 3, 1990, but the citizens of Berlin knew the real uniting began on Nov. 9, 1989, when the hated wall was breached forever.

Today, Germany represents the most vivid contrast between the capitalist and communist systems of government.

Journalist John Reed Witnessed 10 Days that Shook the World

This original photograph of Tsar Nicholas II, dated May 20, 1910, realized $16,730 at an April 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On Oct. 25, 1917, U.S. journalist John Reed was staying at the Hotel Astoria in Petrograd – the former grand city of the czars, Saint Petersburg. At 10 a.m., he awoke to bells ringing and trucks racing up and down the streets.

The trucks belonged to the Bolsheviks, a small left-wing revolutionary party headed by Vladimir Lenin. They were filled with soldiers who plastered up proclamations stating, “To the Citizens of Russia! The provisional government has been deposed. State power has passed to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies … Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers and peasants.”

Actually, the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky had not been deposed, but an ever-impatient Lenin was partially right: That morning in Petrograd would change the face of a century – as the revolution “that shook the world” had begun.

The events of the next 10 days set in motion a seismic upheaval of an entire country and resulted in a massive communist empire. It should have been no surprise as the country had been ruled by omnipotent czars and governed by a corrupt and crumbling bureaucracy.

The bloodletting of WWI became the catalyst for the Russian Revolution as Tsar Nicholas II vainly tried to regain the prestige lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 and to reunite the people. It backfired and by the winter of 1917, Russia had millions of soldiers as casualties, prisoners of war and deserters.

Deserters returned home and began seizing land from the wealthy. Food shortages were rampant, workers began to riot, and soldiers – instead of shooting them – joined them by tying red ribbons to their bayonets.

Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate in March 1917, ending the 300-year rule of the Romanov dynasty. He and his entire family were exiled and then executed. A moderate provisional government was set up with a Constitutional Assembly and led by the 36-year-old Kerensky.

However, Kerensky launched an offensive against Germany with disastrous results. Rebellious troops commandeered trains to return home and began murdering landlords and pillaging the great estates. Factories ground to a halt and food shortages quickly spread everywhere.

Kerensky was unable to regain control and this gave the two men who would end up leading the 1917 revolution, Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the opening they needed. Both had been in exile for years in Siberia and Europe.

Kerensky wisely fled to avoid capture.

John Reed’s book Ten Days That Shook The World describes the events in great detail, but even he was an extraordinarily controversial figure who ended up charged with treason, fleeing the United States back to Russia, where he died of typhus in 1920.

He became one of those rare Americans who is buried in the Kremlin.

Despite Portrayal as a Tyrant, Captain Bligh Received Hero’s Welcome

A six sheet poster from 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty realized $9,560 at a July 2007 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Most movie trivia buffs can generally rattle off the three films about the Mutiny on the Bounty and the co-stars in each:

1935 with Clark Gable (Fletcher Christian) and Charles Laughton (Captain William Bligh),
1962 with Marlon Brandon (Christian) and Trevor Howard (Bligh), and
1984 The Bounty with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins (Bligh).

However, many are not aware of two earlier versions – the silent 1916 version, and 1933’s In the Wake of the Bounty with Errol Flynn in his film debut as Fletcher Christian.

They also may not know that for the 1935 version, Gable, Laughton and Franchot Tone were all nominated for Oscars in the best actor category (they lost to Victor McLaglen in The Informer). The Academy quickly introduced a new category, best supporting actor, to avoid a recurrence of three actors competing in the same film.

In all five movies, Captain Bligh is portrayed as a tyrant who pushes the crew mercilessly and metes out harsh punishment for trivial incidents. In response, Christian leads a mutiny of the crew and sets Captain Bligh and a handful of crew adrift on the sea.

In reality, half of the Bounty’s crew chose to stick with their captain, despite being cast to the sea in an open boat with inadequate rations. Good decision since they made out much better than the mutineers.

In one of the great feats in seafaring history, Bligh navigated the small boat 4,000 miles across the Pacific to the island of Timor. En route, Bligh produced such excellent charts and descriptions of the water that the Royal Navy relied heavily on them for decades.

Bligh received a hero’s welcome when he returned home and eventually retired as Vice Admiral of the Blue. As for the mutineers, some were captured on Tahiti and either died or were hanged when they got back to England. Those who fled to Pitcairn were mostly killed by each other or their uninhibited Polynesian wives.

It is not surprising the screenwriters took some liberties with the real narrative.

For Germany, Economic Development Has Trumped Disastrous Wars

Stanley Kramer’s 1961 film about the trial of Nazi war criminals, *Judgment at Nuremberg,* featured some of the best actors working in Hollywood, including Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Spencer Tracy and Maximilian Schell.

By Jim O’Neal

The 34th Academy Awards ceremony was held on April 9, 1962, to honor films from 1961. West Side Story dominated the field with 11 nominations and 10 Oscar winners.

Another strong contender was Judgment at Nuremberg with 11 nominations, including two for best actor: Maximilian Schell (winner) and Spencer Tracy for his portrayal of Chief Judge Dan Haywood, a fictionalized character. Many moviegoers (and probably others) naturally assumed this was the extent of post-war judicial actions. In fact, the film only represented the third (“The Judges’ Trial”) of 12 trials for German war crimes.

Even before Germany surrendered, the Allies had planned to establish courts to try Nazi military and political leaders for their actions during the war. On May 2, 1945, President Harry S. Truman selected Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to organize the proceedings and represent the United States.

Judge Jackson started by developing the London Charter, which established the International Military Tribunal and trial procedures. It was agreed to hold the trials in Nuremberg, where the Nazis held their annual rallies. Much of the city was damaged, but the huge Palace of Justice and a prison remained intact.

On Nov. 20, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began.

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.” – Justice Robert Jackson, November 1945

In the first trial, 22 Nazis faced one or more charges of war crimes, crimes against peace or crimes against humanity. The defendants included Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess and the Fuhrer’s successor Admiral Karl Donitz. (Martin Bormann was tried in absentia and Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler had committed suicide.)

Over the next 10 months, prosecutors offered evidence of propaganda movies, vivid films of concentration camp liberations and damning testimony from many eyewitnesses. The evidence was so overwhelming, the 250 journalists attending the trial were often heard weeping in the courtroom or sobbing in the hallways.

On Oct. 1, 1946, the court handed down the verdicts.

Twelve high-ranking men, including Goering, were sentenced to death by hanging. Three more were sentenced to life sentences in prison. Four got prison sentences of 10 to 20 years and three minor political figures were acquitted.

The Nazi leaders had been tried in courtroom 600 of the Palace of Justice, where all proceedings were recorded. Some were broadcast in radio reports. Many people still claim it was the first time they learned of Nazi atrocities, the concentration camps or the gas chamber horrors (“The Final Solution”).

What is interesting, at least to me, is just how much more the Germans have accomplished through economic development than they ever did with guns, planes and tanks. Just ask the Greeks.

American Resolve at the Battle of the Bulge Changed Course of WWII

Illustrator Dan Brereton completed this original cover art for *Sgt. Rock Special #2* (DC Comics, 1994) commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. It went to auction in October 2002.

By Jim O’Neal

A monumental military engagement took place on the European western front between December 1944 and January 1945. It was one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of World War II. It involved 500,000 German, 600,000 American and 56,000 British troops. The American casualties of 82,000 made the “Battle of the Bulge” the costliest U.S. engagement of the entire war.

Beginning in early June on D-Day (the invasion of Normandy), the summer of 1944 was long, hot and weary for the German army. Then in July, the Allies broke out of Normandy and two German armies were forced back toward their homeland. On the eastern front, a massive Soviet offensive shattered the Germany army there, while two more German armies were forced up the Italian boot by American forces.

But by September, the Allied offensive came to a grinding halt after moving so fast that they ran out of fuel, ammunition and spare parts. As the Allies paused, the Germans stopped their retreat. On Dec. 16, 1944, much to the American’s surprise, the Germans started counterattacks in France.

The surprise German bombardment involved 600 light, medium and heavy guns, as well as the Nebelwerfer (multiple rocket launchers), followed by the German 6th Panzer Army in the north and the 5th and 7th Panzer divisions in the south. A thousand paratroopers were dropped behind Allied lines to cut off any support.

This massive German counteroffensive against the U.S. Army in the Ardennes was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. “I have come to a momentous decision. I shall go over to the counterattack.” He had spotted an opportunity to divide the American armies and force them to sue for peace, which would allow the Germans to focus all their forces on the Soviets.

It almost worked.

But the Americans dug in at Bastogne, under the command of a tough, no nonsense officer, General Anthony McAuliffe. Despite little ammunition (10 rounds per day for each soldier) and some troops without guns and winter clothing, they repeatedly repulsed the German attacks.

However, they were gradually surrounded by German armored troops and on Dec. 22, four men carried a note to General McAuliffe asking for his “honorable surrender” or they would totally destroy Bastogne. McAuliffe’s quick reply is now legendary:

To the German Commander,

NUTS!

From the American Commander

The next day, the skies cleared, American reinforcements started pouring in and General George Patton’s tanks forged a narrow corridor to Bastogne. The Germans began to pull back on all fronts, so skillfully, in fact, that the Allies didn’t realize they were gone.

With very few reserves – and the Russians pressing from the east – it was now just a matter of time before the Allies secured the total defeat of Germany!

Somme Offensive was a Disaster for British, French Forces

A collection of 175 photographs relating to the ground campaigns of World War I went to auction in February 2016.

By Jim O’Neal

The Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, in the Civil War was the bloodiest day in American history, with more than 22,700 killed or wounded.

However, it pales in comparison to the Battle of the Somme in WWI. The Somme is a river in northern France that travels through a gentle valley to the Bay of Somme in the English Channel. “Somme” is a Celtic word for tranquility.

The Battle of Somme was anything but.

In 1916, northern France was a prime battleground where French and English armies ran headlong into the Second German Army. With superiority in numbers, the French planned a battle of attrition. But, a massive attack by the Germans at Verdun shifted the planning to the British.

The British launched an offensive with 20 Divisions of English plus seven Divisions of French troops attacking along a 10-mile-wide front, expecting an overwhelming triumph. A critical flaw in their strategy was an over-reliance on their artillery.

From June 24 to July 1, 1916, over 3,000 British and French guns bombarded the Germans with such ferocity that the 750,000 allied troops in the trenches facing west were confident that there would be little opposition when they “went over the top” to attack.

The only issue was that the shelling warned the Germans what to expect next and, critically, the damage to their forces had been amazingly minimal.

When the Allies did attack, it only took a few minutes for the slaughter to begin. But, when it did, it changed British history and attitudes about war forever.

The Germans had not only built just trenches, but heavy dirt and concrete bunkers so deep that no amount of shelling could damage them! So when the Allies finally charged, in tight lines, German machineguns methodically mowed them down. “We didn’t even have to aim.”

The casualties were staggering.

From July 1 to Nov. 16, the Somme became the costliest battle in the history of the world. On the first day (alone), the British Army lost 57,450 troops – 20,000 of them dead. The combined total for the British and French was 1,250,000 dead and wounded.

So much for tranquility and English military planning.

Federal Government Crucial to Making ‘Manifest Destiny’ a Reality

After the Mexican–American War, the Whig Party nominated Army General Winfield Scott for president. This daguerreotype from his unsuccessful 1852 campaign realized $25,000 at a September 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1848, the U.S. Army was firmly encamped in Mexico City waiting for orders from Washington, D.C.

General Winfield Scott’s surprise amphibious capture of Veracruz was followed by a five-month, 200-mile campaign involving bloody hand-to-hand fighting and now they were positioned to conquer the entire country.

President James Polk resisted calls to annex “all Mexico” once they had prevented the sale of California to Great Britain. On Feb. 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and Polk wisely got the U.S. Senate to approve it. In return for $15 million, the U.S. got a Mexican cessation that included the present day states of California, Utah, Nevada, much of Arizona and New Mexico, plus portions of Wyoming and Colorado.

With a stroke of the pen, the U.S. was now 25 percent larger in size. Added to the annexation of Texas in 1845, this constituted an area larger than the Louisiana Purchase, which had doubled the size of the nation. In a brief span of 45 years, the United States was now a remarkable four times larger.

President Polk also created the Department of the Interior to assist with the assimilation of these vast territories.

Almost from the moment of independence, an expansionist strand of American thinking had envisioned a nation growing beyond the Ohio River into an empire stretching as far as the Pacific Ocean. In 1845, newspaper editor John Sullivan famously described a “manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent.”

What underpinned this vision was the effectiveness of the public land survey and the federal government’s establishment of a sequence of events to guide actions. First, it acquired land by treaty, sending surveyors to map and document the land. Then it ordered federal troops to clear out and subdue any resisting natives. It subsidized the construction of railroads to facilitate western migration. And finally, it had bureaucracies to manage the process. This included the Land Office, Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Forest Service.

The process was not smooth.

Nevertheless, by the end of the 19th century, the federal government had amassed great size, power and effective control “from sea to shining sea.”

America the beautiful!