Several of my blog posts over the past few months have dealt with issues related to World War II. Four of the seven related more specifically to the 83rd Infantry Division, to which my father, a member of the Counter Intelligence Corps, was attached. These posts, particularly those related to WWII, required a significant amount of research. While I have read several books on WWII over the years, including Rick Atkinson's liberation trilogy, it was my Dad's war letters that provided inspiration to me to delve deeper into the actions of the 83rd, in hopes of possibly understanding the context in which he worked. I would not wish to total the hours spent on those posts, but let me just say my wife apparently began to think of herself as a widow. I had taken over the dining room. Along the westerly wall was a table with plants I had started and brought up from the basement to better take advantage of the day light, rather than fluorescent lights. But, the big issue was the dining room table. It was cluttered with papers, books, and legal notepads.
Knowing that WWII ended 70 years ago this coming May, and that the Battle of the Bulge, which started in late December concluded in January, I chose to take time to read some of the letters my father wrote home. I started this in early February. He could not write about tactics, what his work involved, or even give a location more than stating a country of his location. But, yet I wanted to know if they would give any information as to what was occurring at that time. It was of course in a March letter home that started me on a journey to discover what was occurring in the war at that point that had kept him, and the 83rd Infantry busy. That early March letter contained a simple notation that they probably read about the division in the news. This of course, was the 83rd having been the first of the Allies to reach the Rhine, which you can read here. My three month journey to overtake the dining room had begun in an unassuming fashion. It first started with his letters from about February 1945 to May 1945. It then blossomed into printouts of division history, parts of division newspapers, and then of course the pages of action reports for three regiments. Not to mention books, some of which I owned, others which I obtained from the library. Even my vacation in mid-March was primarily devoted to reading, research and writing regarding events of WWII.
Thomas Edison once famously said that invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. In writing, the inspiration may be 1%, and the perspiration 99%. That is not to say that inspiration comes easy, in many cases it does not, but this is overwrought by the documents read, the notations taken, and the more difficult compilation and synthesis of thought. Little of what I read became part of those posts, but it was not time wasted. For example, who could not help but like reading about Soviet soldiers entering a German home with indoor plumbing and destroying it because they did not know its purpose. Or, the details of German Colonel-General Jodl, having obtained a copy of Operation Eclipse and in so doing knew more of the Allied movements to come, than did all but the highest Allied generals at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
It turned out I was like those American field generals. I did not know my wife felt like a widow, and it took more than two months for me to realize that she was not very happy with me having dominated the dining room. (Apparently my obtuse nature can come in handy.) I had invaded the dining room, and to her it started to look like a permanent occupation. She could only hope it would not last as long as the Allied occupation of Germany, not to mention the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. It was not until this past Saturday, that while in a discussion with my twin brother, his wife, and my spouse about my April 13 post that my wife made a comment which had the intended effect of her having become a war writer's widow. Yet, it was a good conversation of the war, the circumstances that arose, the what "could have been" and its implications to activities in our world today.
Some subjects are heavy in our general knowledge base, such as the Civil War, and World War II, although the nation is more seemingly concerned with Bruce Jenner and the Kardashian sisters than with events of our historic past. We all know, however, something about those two wars. We know that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, we know about Pearl Harbor, and that the US, as part of the Allies, defeated Germany. The idea of my posts is to not simply regurgitate what is part of our general knowledge base, but to add to that knowledge, and to give some little known or understood piece of information. For example, few of us knew that the first major battle of the Civil War occurred on Wilmer McLean's farm, causing him to move further south and to have that home become the site of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to U. S. Grant. Few of us knew that the 83rd Infantry had crossed the Elbe River only to pull back on orders from the Supreme Commander.
While events that make our history are intractable, small personal stories within the larger context help us to better understand and perhaps make some sense out of the unduly nature of the events. History is not just about events it is about people. People and their connection to place. People and their connection to time, People and their connection to knowledge. People and their knowledge of history to help them deal with and explain the intractability of what has occurred, and what is occurring. Time-Place-People all come together to form our history. An event can be seemingly meaningless, like Roy Hovel being on the move so much that he only had candy to eat. But then we have to ask why he had to rely on candy his mother and father sent him, rather than the food the army provided? During the Great War (WWI) a German Corporal had to be hospitalized due to effects of chemical warfare, he was only one of thousands so affected, but yet it left a dark place in his psyche and, in combination with other events, it would lead to consequences for much of the civilized world. On the other hand there is the birth over 2,000 years ago of a baby to a young unmarried women, who just over three decades after his birth would destroy and rebuild the temple--all in three days.
History comes to us in many different ways, and mediums. Some provide opinion on what occurred, others try to present just the facts, and still others play with the facts to weave a story to their liking. There is also historical fiction. Ken Follett is a master story teller and to his readers he ties historical events to fictional families. Of course, not all may be true, and that too should lead us to further discovery and reading of history to wean the good from the bad, and to help us form our own opinion of the events of the recent or distant past. If the message prods us to seek out more information and detail are we not the better for it? In early February when I started to look at my Dad's letters, little did I know that it would take me on the tour it did, much less that it would involve dining room domination. That gets me to the war writer's widow, my wife. She is currently reading a Ken Follett book entitled Winter of the World, much of which is about the events leading up to and involving World War II. Perhaps my posts will add some relevance and personal interest to the events she encounters in that book. My wife is a well-organized person and while she may have felt widowed by all the time I spent on those war posts, part of me now knows she did not appreciate the clutter I left in the dining room. The dining room table has now become decidedly less cluttered, although the table is still occupied by my computer, and a few months of my Dad's letters. Perhaps I will again pick up the letters and find additional inspiration for another post or two, only to once again dominate the dining room.
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| Photo of first page of Roy Hovel's Feb. 23, 1945 letter to his parents |
Knowing that WWII ended 70 years ago this coming May, and that the Battle of the Bulge, which started in late December concluded in January, I chose to take time to read some of the letters my father wrote home. I started this in early February. He could not write about tactics, what his work involved, or even give a location more than stating a country of his location. But, yet I wanted to know if they would give any information as to what was occurring at that time. It was of course in a March letter home that started me on a journey to discover what was occurring in the war at that point that had kept him, and the 83rd Infantry busy. That early March letter contained a simple notation that they probably read about the division in the news. This of course, was the 83rd having been the first of the Allies to reach the Rhine, which you can read here. My three month journey to overtake the dining room had begun in an unassuming fashion. It first started with his letters from about February 1945 to May 1945. It then blossomed into printouts of division history, parts of division newspapers, and then of course the pages of action reports for three regiments. Not to mention books, some of which I owned, others which I obtained from the library. Even my vacation in mid-March was primarily devoted to reading, research and writing regarding events of WWII.
 |
| Dining room table during my WWII blog post writing |
It turned out I was like those American field generals. I did not know my wife felt like a widow, and it took more than two months for me to realize that she was not very happy with me having dominated the dining room. (Apparently my obtuse nature can come in handy.) I had invaded the dining room, and to her it started to look like a permanent occupation. She could only hope it would not last as long as the Allied occupation of Germany, not to mention the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. It was not until this past Saturday, that while in a discussion with my twin brother, his wife, and my spouse about my April 13 post that my wife made a comment which had the intended effect of her having become a war writer's widow. Yet, it was a good conversation of the war, the circumstances that arose, the what "could have been" and its implications to activities in our world today.
Some subjects are heavy in our general knowledge base, such as the Civil War, and World War II, although the nation is more seemingly concerned with Bruce Jenner and the Kardashian sisters than with events of our historic past. We all know, however, something about those two wars. We know that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, we know about Pearl Harbor, and that the US, as part of the Allies, defeated Germany. The idea of my posts is to not simply regurgitate what is part of our general knowledge base, but to add to that knowledge, and to give some little known or understood piece of information. For example, few of us knew that the first major battle of the Civil War occurred on Wilmer McLean's farm, causing him to move further south and to have that home become the site of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to U. S. Grant. Few of us knew that the 83rd Infantry had crossed the Elbe River only to pull back on orders from the Supreme Commander.
 |
| Dining room table today |
History comes to us in many different ways, and mediums. Some provide opinion on what occurred, others try to present just the facts, and still others play with the facts to weave a story to their liking. There is also historical fiction. Ken Follett is a master story teller and to his readers he ties historical events to fictional families. Of course, not all may be true, and that too should lead us to further discovery and reading of history to wean the good from the bad, and to help us form our own opinion of the events of the recent or distant past. If the message prods us to seek out more information and detail are we not the better for it? In early February when I started to look at my Dad's letters, little did I know that it would take me on the tour it did, much less that it would involve dining room domination. That gets me to the war writer's widow, my wife. She is currently reading a Ken Follett book entitled Winter of the World, much of which is about the events leading up to and involving World War II. Perhaps my posts will add some relevance and personal interest to the events she encounters in that book. My wife is a well-organized person and while she may have felt widowed by all the time I spent on those war posts, part of me now knows she did not appreciate the clutter I left in the dining room. The dining room table has now become decidedly less cluttered, although the table is still occupied by my computer, and a few months of my Dad's letters. Perhaps I will again pick up the letters and find additional inspiration for another post or two, only to once again dominate the dining room.
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