Friday, March 22, 2024

The Victors: Eisenhower and his boys the men of WW2 by Stephen E Ambrose 199, 270pg

 

From invading Normandy till German Capitulation.  (to be edited)
Note: I only read sections of this book that I never knew about and were very interesting, and not in other books I had read 
 The End of th Day       10
1944 June 6th .90 thousand GIs entered France by land or sea, More than 2 million would follow. There were some teenagers but the average age was 22 to 23 amongst the enlisted me.  From Sept to Spring 1944 they came in at Cherbourg and Le Havre and came as liberators no conquerors. The intelligence  had not realized that the hedgerows was unlike those in England the kind that fox hunter jump over. Hedgerows dated back from Norman times  French farmers would pile up soil around their fields and plant hedges and trees there. The troops had no specialized equipment against this.
Hitler was sure that the spoiled sons of democracy couldn't stand the solid sons of dictatorship. Victory depended on Junior officers and NCOs on the front lines. Here no terrain in the world was suited for defensive action.
Young men just arriving learned to keep head down , dig deep, distinguish between incoming and out going artillery , judge when an where a mortar barrage would hit and that fear is inevitable but can be managed.
Armillary does not fire forever guns over heat , ammunition's runs low.  A soft spoken kid in camp could be a standout in combat. Combat brought out the best in some men it brought out the worst in others.
Montgomery shunned women after his wife died did not smoke or drink and was conceited. His arrogance offended even British officers. Eisenhower was modest. Personality difference strained relationship. Eisenhower's military theory was straight forward and aggressive, you keep up constant attack. Monty believed in unbalancing the enemy abut keep your own balance.  Monty in theory was responsible to Ike but in reality looked to Field Marshal Alan Brooke.  Ike had no choice but to put up with Monty.
Hedgerows  11
Ultra radio intercepts showed that the Germans were stretched to the limit. Bradley was working on plan Cobra to break out to the right. Ike's advantage was that he had control of the air.  They wanted to bring special dozer tanks or some commercial bulldozers which they had at the Normandy beach but not enough. Using explosive was slow difficult and not available in the quantities needed .
1944 The German's produced 24,410 tanks The British 24,843 and the Americans 88,410 mainly Sherman's. American were better at recovering damaged tanks and fixing the to return to action, half the damaged tanks saw action again.by maintenance battalions. An army in the field has individual initiate that comes forward and does what it has to. Sherman's used less gasoline that Wehrmacht's tanks and their tracks lasted 2,500 miles as apposed to the enemies 500 miles. German tanks were better designed for hedgerow fighting.
GIs reported that 8 dud shells fell around them and failed to explode. From the Germans they never heard of US shells failing. American equipment was build by free labour while the Germans used slave labour, who sabotaged some of the shells. 1998the author received a letter from a Jewish slave labourer in the panzerfaust shell factory. He said when they could they added sand to the sulfur. Only German soldiers dealt with the trigger mechanism but when they were on brake the salves speed up their output and they never inspected the shells made during their brake but this increased the soldiers production.
The early success of the Germans in bring troops to Normandy was the rain and fog and bad weather.
There were experiments of welding teeth to the front of the Sherman's. Then they took scrap iron from the German roadblocks and constructed a hedge cutting devise that looked like a rhino. They also plugged a radio handset into the tank so that infantrymen could speak to them. Now the 1st and 3 armies were ready to break through.
Breakout and Pursuit 12
German units were made up of people from the same town. The worst thing that could happen to a German soldier was to be thrown in a unit where he knew nobody, as nobody was motivated to look after him. Patton lusted to seized the opportunity to surround the German Army as he saw a clear road. "Victory in the  next war will depend on execution and not plans" said Patton, Monty agreed with  Patton.
Falaise Pocket this trapped 50 thousand German troops that became prisoners, their commander was told to fight to the end. About 15 Germans  thousand died. The Battle of Normandy had lasted 75 days and Allies lost 209, 672 casualties and 39,976 killed. It cost  the Germans430,000 men 240,000killed..  Of 1,500 German  tanks only 67 got out 3,500 armillary and 20,000 vehicles were left behind. 2.6million pounds of been and 500,000 of German canned beef was left behind and distributed to the troops. The PLUTO pipe line under the ocean to bring gasoline ran from England to Omaha to Chartres. Patton wanted to invade Germany from both the north and south via the Ardennes.
Rhineland battle 17
The Americans banged away confident that more shells would arrive, while the Germans husbanded their shells uncertain of more arriving. US  Troops following tanks through the mud in tracks that were exploding antipersonnel mine. If the tanks skidded of reversed many were killed. There is no such thing as getting used to combat., Psychotic casualties are as inevitable s gunshot or shrapnel wounds.  Soldiers reach the peak of their efficiency after 90 days of combat after that the efficiency began to fall. The Germans knew what they had done as conquerors and occupiers and what they could expect when conquered. At the Siegfried line Germans fired till they were out of ammunition the raised the white flag. The American were through the initial German  defenses.  Patton always said fixed defenses are useless and the only defense is attack. The Germans got very little for  their poured concrete.
The Remagen Bridge was still standing which was reported by an areas photographer and the Allies were able to take it even as the Germans were trying to blow it up. Units in the area now headed for Remagen to get over the Rhine. 
Ike say Patton was a good General and a lucky on, Napoleon preferred luck to greatness.
Overrunning Germany 18
Americans saw the people in the countries they liberated, the French were sullen , slow and ungrateful. The Parisians were cunning and indifferent to whether they were cheating Germans or Americans. The British brave resourceful quaint dull. The liked the Dutch in every way but few GIs met them, only the airborne.  In Germany at first they liked them the best , identified most closely, clean hard working, educated middle class tastes and had flush toilets and soft toiled paper, and seemed just like us.  In Germany everyone goes out and works more ambitious than the English or French.
It is a fact  that British and Americans compaired to  conquering armies of the world behaved correctly. The Germens in areas occucpied by the American were lucky and they knew it. The German supply system lay in ruins and all the German soldiers wanted was a safe passage to a POW camp. While German armies were trying to surrender  German fanatics were still blowing up bridges on German soil.
General Maxwell Taylor saw Dachau and got the people of Landsberg everyone between ages of 14 to 80 to be rounded up and marched to the camp to bury the bodies and clean up, that evening the crew came along the road and saw how people were still vomiting.  Major Winters wrote - "now I know why I am here."
Montgomery wanted to lead his army into Berlin but both Ike and Bradley were against it. Politically at Yalta Germany had been divided into 3 zones with the Elba River as the boundary, The Red army was their in great strength 1.25 million troops. The Hitler Youth and SS were fanatics. Even after the surrender of the Ruhr and never ran out of ammunition. The German troops had received the code Werewolf and it they had lost the war and  meant that they were supposed to head east. Hitler wanted to hold out till the Western Allies and Soviets went to war.
For the GIs Eisenhower's decision was that he put them first.
1945April the British got into Belsen and Edward R. Murrow went to Buchenwald.
In Laingsburg when the German troops withdrew the citizens hang out white flags the SS then came in and hanged civilians on trees.
1945 May 7th Germany capitulates to the Allies. The George C Marshall said of Eisenhower "you have commanded with outstanding success the most powerful military Force that has ever been assembled.
The Russians would not accept the surrender sighed in Reims and insisted on another sighing in Berlin.
The G.Is
It is not accidental that so many paratroopers of E Company became teachers It is not surprising after seeing so much death and destruction at one time led them to want to do something creative. The became the men who build modern America. They had learned to work together, knew teamwork and the value of individual initiative.  The had also seen the evil of dictatorship. They knew that the way to prevent war was to reject isolationism.
The aim of the war had been to eliminate the Nazi tyranny over the oppressed people of Europe and for security for ourselves in the free world.  In June 1945 Eisenhower said "The success of the occupation can only be told 50 years from now. if the Germans have a stable prosperous democracy."
GIs fought because they had to , what kept them together was unit cohesion. They did more to spread democracy around the world than any other generation. They talked about friendship with buddies , No-one ever talked about patriotism and pride. America had sent the best of her young men around the world. They returned to become successful citizens and good family men. Perhaps we thing the biggest price of a war is what might have been. When asked Grandpa "were you a hero" he answered no " but I was in a company of hero's"

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff 2023 272 pg.

    This is a novel that covers about early European settlers in North America. The themes are history, hunger, survival, her education and treatment of women, her being a foundling. Plague and disease, travel on a ship, Religion and Mans domination. 16/3/24


1558 -1603 Elizabeth I
 1533   Henry VIII  divorced Catharine of Aragon then  Catholic Spain and England were enemies. 
1592 -1593 Plague of London
1583 Humphrey Gilbert got a charter and went to discover the north passage to China and settlement to America but his ship the Delight was lost at sea. Only Raleigh and the Golden Hind returned. 1584 Reached Roanoke Island and named the English colony Virginia 1587 Over 150 settlers arrived in Virginia and mostly starved 1588 Spanish Armada defeated trying to attack England. 1603 James 1 became king and wanted peace with Spain. Tobacco had become he main export from the colony but would not succeed with out the royal favor.
1588 Spanish Armada attacks England and is defeated
1603- 1625  James I
1606 London company set up to colonize without women, they chose the James river and named the town Jamestown in a place that Spanish ship could not raid. They grew, corn beans, squash and tobacco. Many died from malaria but mostly from famine.
John Smith who had fought in the 13 years war 1654 to 1657 between Prussia, Poland against the Teutonic Order. Became governor of Jamestown and the story of Pocahontas occurs here.
1608 other ships went out with women.

Hunger
She had on a pair of good boots from the son of a gentleman but were her size , the kid had  died of small pox and hunger. Leather gloves stolen from her own mistress. In fleeing she left behind her roof, home, country and language. She was unlettered but pious. So she was not alone as she had god in her heart. She had a stolen pewter cup (popular between 1600 and 1800) She was running northwards.
The horses that had been brought on the ships had all been eaten already in the famine. Hunger caused the most viscous of men to be indolent as there was no food to steal for a few days already. Any abandoned houses had been torn down to burn to warm the gentlefolk She tried to lie with  her charge the child Bess hot with fever to keep warm. Bess had died a slow intentional death.? When they could not get Bess's jaws open to feed her the second husband grabbed her bowl. All the livestock were eaten and even the vermin that crawled amongst the dead. A body that did not die of disease was a body that bore good meat. Bess died and the butchered her to eat.

Survival
She discovered a large fish  frozen within the ice which she ate. There was a soldier sent to find her and he had a musket and knives, he was the type that choked a prostitute with his hands and longed to do  it again. He was supposed to bring the girl back and hang her naked.    She went up the river and found a frozen place she could head north. Some Englishmen were prepared to become servile to the natives to survive the starvation?
Hearing footsteps she replaced them in her mind with those of a deer. She found the skeletons of 2 dead deer, their antler entangled so in  their anger they could not separate.
She took shelter in a cave where she envisioned a dragon a strange creature in a strange land.
She found as tired duck sitting ion its eggs and killed it and took its eggs and when she roasted it put the fat on her chapped hands. She found a frozen fish in the ice and grilled it on the fire as well a smoked it above the fire and kept it in her bag to eat later. She found good walnuts and a clutch of pigeon eggs that she ate. 
While the ground was frozen she cold move swiftly but with the thaw you get sucked into the mud. 
She took shelter in a hollow tree trunk and ate the wood grubs she found there. She could watch across the river and saw 2 girls playing together and women planting maize in the high fields
She frightened a fish out of the mouth of a crane and found cray fish in the river. She went into the river naked with her knife stabbed 2 fish, she saw her naked body that she had no fat upon her. She set up a platform to smoke the fish. . She knew how to determine north, by a stick marking the shadow direction in the morning and then again later.
A stag had died and one winter she dragged back the body and had food for the season and a skin dress for herself. The natives let her live they knew about her. She did not threaten them. Death touched every place that had been touched by man.

Her Education
The governor had a parchment map and it showed where the French settlements were in the north.  You had the Spanish in the south,  both  French and Spanish were Papist but she knew some French.
When she was small the mistresses son Kit did not torment her but showed her things in books, that educated boys knew. Fairies monsters in the forests she was advised to stay away from soldiers and mercenaries. She had seen bear baiting and the strength of a blind toothless bear. 

The mistress's first husband had been a goldsmith

.The Natives
The natives Powhatans knew the area well and when men went out  of the fort raiding they returned wounded. Initially amongst the settlers were gentlemen who refused to dirty their hands with work. One of the settler had raped a native woman and they caught him, tied him up in view of the fort and flayed him and cut off his parts while he was alive. This proved the godlessness of the natives. This type of behavior was not limited to here as under Queen Elizabeth  traitors head were hung on pikes on London Bridge. 
They had traded metal goods, linens sugar for heaps of dried corn and fish.
The natives would burn the underbrush in the forest so that they see the game through the trees. Hickory chestnut and hazelnut below the leaf  litter would find ample nuts. some of these trees had been planted. She had known none of the natural world as she was raised in the city. 

On the Ship
On the ship she was one of very few to find herself at peace with her stomach as other vomited and lost weight unable to take in food which was worm riddled peas.  At the age of 4 she had been taken to the mistress house from the parish poorhouse she had been a foundling. On the ship she had a friendship with a young Dutch glassblower who had given her an orange. Of all the  names she had he called her Mine Heliefda A storm had battered the  to all the people broken bones, her Dutch friend had been washed overboard vanished. Both nobleman and servants had died in the storm and their bodies were thrown overboard. Other ships of the fleet were missing. They the Blessing but later the saw the Falcon , the Lion and the Unitie, Lost forever the Diamond and Swallow.


The French had been amongst the lords and artist, writers that came to the mistresses' house. and had all worn perfume. She had picked up basic French .
She mistress married the minister and he was going to America and wanted her to follow when he had set up there but wanted to go with him as she was scared he would find a younger women. |Nobody asked the narrator if she wanted to go. 

The education she had was by chance the mistresses son Kit showed her pictures to display his superior education and could count till 999.

Religion
Jesuit priest who came out as a missionary, he had been an orphan child in the church and learn to speak Latin, he studied Powhatan on the long journey over and learned it from the  guide. However they had forced their customs on the natives who had burned down the mission killing al the priest except him, he fled and survived in the forest. Later other of his countrymen arrived and destroyed the natives villiage.in revenge and sailed off. He has lived in a cave and survived without fire in looks like a hairy jungle animal. Humans are not meant to live alone, they need company to survive. He had trained baby crow to be his pets and look out for him. He called himself sanctus ioannes cavae arboris  Saint John of the hollow tree
Purgatory a Papist concept that if you have not been baptized you go there instead of heaven, souls amongst the heathen, animals and slaughtered souls. 

Mans Domination
The Bible says escape to the mountains before you get consumed. In the bible Adam dominated everything.  He let them have dominion over the fish in the sea and fowl in the air and the cattle. God was not singular or triple but multiple in all creatures.  Where you Dominate you give things their names.



The Foundling
At the poorhouse she had been given the name Lamentations to remember that her mother was a whore. The first husband the goldsmith called her many things, girl wench, fool , child and Zed.(last to be counted) Just before she was brought to this rich house their pet monkey named Zed had died. The mistress had taught her to sing and accompany her on the lute to dance coranto la volta. Painter , players and artists visited the house. Z would sleep at the foot of the mattress to keep the mistress feet warm. Later her role was to look after the retarded daughter Bess(named after the Queen).  After the goldsmith dies the whole household to hear the new minister preaching
Kit now returned from university with his student friends and wanted her to be their servant "Wake up you lazy wentch , thou stupid slut , thou nimble mischance thou sooty mammet, why does thou sleep when a man needs thee" Afterwards the mistress told her to ask the cook for a kettle of tansy (ragwort) to drink every day for a week.
Bess had golden locks her strength went into her hair and nowhere else.
The mistress was an uninvolved mother and the wet nurse was always drunk and unreliable for nothing but milk.
In Italy people used lead paint called Venetian Ceruse to whiten their skins. Back in London she remembers the milliners shop and its pretty linens, the goldsmith shop , the saddler letter writer  next to the church. 
 She carried a staff which was the sigh of a pilgrim on the way to sacred lands to get salvation, A staff was also the sign of an old person. The mistress realized that her daughter Bess mentally had remained in her infancy and she did not like to be near the child so Z had to fulfill this role.  When Z had come from the poorhouse she had been treated like a sister and given sweets. as the mistress could not fall pregnant.
The nail in her boot is like the cilice worn around the leg by some Christians?



She started naming everything she could see thus she could identify them. She watched Indian men with bows and arrows. They shaved their long hair on one side so as not to imped using the bow. Surely their teeth were not blackened by eating sugar as in England. 

She undressed and went underwater and all black oil and lice and fleas came off her.

A wolf caused the stick of her tent to collapse onto the fire and the sudden flame chased the wolf away but nothing was left of her coverlet.

Plague and Disease
In the fort she had watched people die of bilious fluxes, shitty or bloody fluxes , brackish swellings scurvy , venereal lews and yaws different pox, fevers and malaria. A man went crazy from hunger and murdered his pregnant wife and was hung by the thumbs to freeze to death. 
She had small  pox and barely survived it by herself there out in the wild and was left covered with scars. A bear woke of from it hibernation and it cubs wanted to play with her they did not know about the terrible things that humans had done. Even the bear could smell the disease on her.
The summer of the most terrible plague the world had seen, the dogs had been caught and drowned. She had been locked into the room of the sick goldsmith and had to look after him till he died, the servants had fled the sick house for the stables. He had started an unlettered  Scottish lad and almost became elected the mayor twice. Dick Whittington?  There was nobody to do the work and cows died from not being milked and the libraries, homes deteriorated and collapsed and the Eden would overtake the world and the mistake of man would be forgotten.

The treatment of  women
When the minister decided to go to America he dragged along his wife and the girl in greed for riches, For what is a girl but a vessel to hold the desires of men.  The master of the house could punish everyone. This minister was also a pedophile?


 

 


Thursday, March 14, 2024

How the English Establishment framed Stephen Ward by Phillip Knightley & Caroline Kennedy 2013 343pages

Corruption of Justice in England.    12/3/24

 Caroline Kennedy had worked alone to gather information about Ward's relationship with M15, who dumped him when his link threatened to become an embarrassment. There was Wards own tape- recorder, interviews with 80 of his friends or enemies and FBI documents. Russian Intelligence, Operation BowTie (Risk Management) , J Edgar Hoover and Attorney General Robert Kennedy also. Lord Goodman described Ward as the historic victim of a historic injustice a "British Dreyfus."
1956 Sexual Offences Act. This Ward story is about the Trial of the Century.  Ward was a guest at many tables at the Thursday Club with Prince Phillip, Baron Nahum, David Mitford Haven artist Feliks Topolski, Lord Boothby. Was at Sarah Churchills wedding.
Ward  was a rational intelligent and persuasive person. Edgecombe's girlfriend Christine  Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice Davis
John Profumo was the British Secretary of State for War  a married man had the making of a future Prime Minister he was having an affair with Christine Keeler.  (Richard Crossman and Barbra Castle were aware of these rumor's) British press were scared to write about this because of the libel laws. However some of this was printed in Europe and the US, Yevgeny Ivanov the assistant naval attaché at eh Soviet Embassy also shared a bed with Christine.
1961 Major Gagarin (cosmonaut) at  the Soviet Embassy in London.  Both Profumo and Ward were invited  there to meet him.
Lucky Gordon a boyfriend  was arrested and accused of assaulting Christine  June 6th he was sentenced to 3 years. Mandy was taken  off and plane and arrested. Ward was arrested and charged for living and earning from prostitution.
Front page of the Daily sketch had a picture of a woman kissing a Ivanov. This was the wife of US embassy Thomas  Watson Murphy. Newsweek wrote the New Pornocracy.
Christine said she would be the another  Lady Hamilton, The Conservatives Party were in their greatest array since the Suez fiasco.
Ward in 1932 in Paris understood that tourists were more interested in the nightspots than the Eiffel Tower. He studied to be an osteopath in Kirksville Missouri. Chicago was far more American than NY and he explored the brothels and prostitutes'. After 5 years he had a medical degree as an osteopath and had cast off his English inhibitions. A girl who promised to marry him when he returned from Missouri probably married someone else. He worked as a medic during the war in India. There he managed to get an interview with Mahatma Gandhi.
Duncan Sandys  wife was Churchills daughter and he was invited to treat Winston and this enhanced his reputation and he got lots of clients. Wards professional and private life began to overlap and his patients became his friends. 
Andrew Ferrier a Fleet St artist and cartoonist and his wife Freda held parties in thier home for New Years Eve, Baron Nahum, Maxie Taylor , Theodore Bikel, Burn Ives , Lauren Bacall, Peter Ustinov and Lawrence Harvey with Zsa Zsa Gabor were guests.
In Wards circle he deliberately mixed people from many backgrounds. He said to hell with conventions that set up social barriers that prevented him knowing ordinary people. He liked listening tho women and helped solve their problems he seldom went to bed with them and perhaps he had homosexual tendencies. He was present with  group sex taking place but was the only man who never removed his pants. He was fascinated by prostitutes and occasionally went to bed with one.
1949 Married Patricia Baines but when she understood his sexual views  of independence, 6 weeks after she moved into his flat they divorced and after that he never became emotionally attached to anyone.
Bill Astor became one of his clients, and he took Astor to the exciting of coffee bars , drinking clubs and bottle parties.
The Profumo family were an entrenched in the British establishment, they were English  landed gentry. His father was a barrister a King's Councilor. In 1940 Profumo was one of the Conservative  MPs who led a revolt against  Chamberlin. In the army he rose to Lieutenant and by 1944 he was liaison officer with Field Marshal Alexander.  In Japan he was in the British Liaison commission to Douglas Mc Arthur. 
One example of Wards creativity is he  took Valerie and transformed her into Vicky Martin reconnected her with her grandmother introduced her into Mayfair society and she became a model for photographers Baron Nahum, Antony Beauchamp and Vasco Lazzolo painted her portrait, She died in a car accident aged 23.
On Bill Astor's  estate of Cliveden where he entertained many guests including Ward, Ward saw an unused cottage and got permission to fix it up and use it over weekends, where he was available to give treatments. Philip de Zulueta private secretary to the Prime Minister Harold Mc Millian and Sir Malcolm Sargeant the conductor Tommy Steele would drop in on Ward.  
One party at Cliveden included the Queen and Prince Phillip, Peggy Bancroft , the Rothchild's and Richard Todd's.
Margaret Brown genuinely wanted to marry Ward but he had to drop her as he would not commit to marriage.

1959 Christine Keeler from, Wraysbury realized the power of her sexual attractiveness. She was banned as a baby sitter as she flaunted with the husbands.  At age 16 she gave birth to a premature baby that died soon afterwards the father was an American GI at the nearby base. She got a job at Murrays Club one of 45 dance girls and was a true nymphomaniac and became a leading showgirl. She was living at Wards apartment and then became Peter Rachman's mistress. He was a notorious slum lord. Later she fell out with him and returned to Ward.
Marylin Rice -Davies called Mandy and she was one organized other girls including Christine in managing their finances. Mandy efforts were fruitless with Christine and they shared a flat. Rachman bought Mandy a Jaguar for her 17th birthday with a forged driving license. 
1959 Bill passed that made street prostitution an offence, The Wofrended Report called to decriminalize homosexualism but was defeated in parliament.
1960 Brush and Palette was a diner where pretty girls posed nude for artists to paint. Hugh Leggatt an art dealer suggested that Ward put on an exhibit of portraits.  Amongst the people he did was Paul Getty, PM  Harold Macmillan, Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, Sophia Loren ,Douglas Fairbanks. This would take Ward from a amateur to a professional. Later Prince Phillip, Princess Margaret.
1960 March, Captain Yevgeny Ivanov assistant naval attaché. arrived in London to be one of 63 members of the Soviet Embassy. He would liven up the restricted lives of the Soviet diplomats.
1960 test case on Lady Chatterley Lover which was unbanned, and Penguin books sold 2 million copies of it in the  next 8 months.
1962 Eichmann  Trial The Daily Telegraph sent Ward to Israel to do drawings for the press rather than photographs.   Then he got the idea sketch Soviet leaders. He got a visa but no appointments, then Coote of Daily Telegraph introduced him to Ivanov. 
Ward tutors Ivanov in bridge and as his English improved they became big pals. Ward took him to English homes where no Soviet diplomat had ever been, and Ward was invited to all Soviet Embassy parties and was at the huge reception to receive Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin was the first Soviet astronaut to get  back from space? He met the Soviet Minister of Culture Madam Furstova and wrote notes on their open conversation and Ivanov had to beg him not to publish that. Ivanov met Christine at Mandy's flat. Everybody at the Russian Embassy was a spy. A defector had revealed that Ivanov was a spy.
Ward had been asked to report to M15 about Ivanov which he did faithfully to a Mr Woods (alias) But information the Soviets wanted passed on was in this way. Ivanov was trying to find out when nuclear missiles would come to Germany.
1961 July 8th at a dinner at Bill Astors mansion  Christine Keeler was swimming and had taken her costume off when  Bill Astor and Jack Profumo went for a  walk. Ivanov and Profumo met at Cliveden. Ivanov visited Christine flat and she said they were in bed together. Profumo showered Christine with gifts and money, he was only interested in her sexually who wanted her to leave Ward and move to a flat he would provide. He could now be blackmailed by the Russians. Ward already knew too much of the Profumo affairs with Christine. Ward was an avid reader of spy novels and now he was in a real life drama.
1961 In the Berlin crises Ivanov through Ward could be an unofficial communication with the Soviet Union to foreign secretary Lord Home.  George Wigg MP was an old soldiers and so was Profumo and so the could trust each other? William Vassall the homosexual Admiralty clerk was convicted of spying for Russia. Hohn Lewis was informed forget about Vassall you want to look at Profumo. Ward had introduced Ivanov to Profumo as well as Lord Mountbatten, Paul Getty, Nubar Gulbeklan and Sir Godfray Nicholson and dined in the House of Commons
1961 Christine met Lucky Gordon then she returned to her old boyfriend Michael Lambton who gave Christine 500 pound and she and Mandy wanted to try their luck in the States, this adventure lasted 2 weeks, but it came to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover.
1962 October the 12 day missile crises. America knew that Khrushchev was bluffing as the Soviets did not have the capacity to attack, nor did Khrushchev have the support of his colleges. the US. The Russian were trying to put a wedge between the UK and America but Lord Home told the Russians they stood by the Anglo American accord.
MP William Shepherd had close link to M15 and that he should know everything about the goings on in Wards flat. I objected to the immoral behaviors of half a dozen minister in Macmillan's government, as well as homosexuality and a minister involved with young boys.
1962Rachman died of a heart attack, Mandie suffered real grief and then discovered that Audrey had only been Married to Rachman for 2 years.
Wards introductions had set Maureen on the road to stardom.
The Russians decided to return Ivanov home and left without even saying good bye.

1963 started with what was known as the Profumo Affair. Ward was getting tired of Christine's coming and going, but the press were becoming interested in her. She gave a letter from Profumo to the Sunday  for 1000pounds, she had slept with him at the same time sleeping with Ivanov. She was approached to cancel the contract about the letter but she wanted compensation for this. Now stories of sex orgies at Cliveden, that Wards was a bad influence on young girls as he picked them up and dropped them. He was a procurer of women for gentlemen in high places.
By now the MI5 felt the Profumo case like that of Ivanov was closed and did not want to be involved.
Edgecombe trial  Edgecombe confronted Gordon with a knife in the Flamenco club on 27 October 1962, and Gordon required 17 stitches in the face.  Edgecombe took a taxi to the Marylebone home of osteopath Ward where Keeler was in hiding along with friend Mandy. When she refused to come out, he fired at least five shots at the front door with a semi-automatic pistol in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot out the lock on the door. He fled from the scene before the police arrived, but was arrested later that evening. Christine was supposed to give evidence but did not arrive at court with Keeler's non-appearance at his trial at the Old Bailey in March 1963 finally giving the British press the excuse it needed to publish the story. Edgecombe had to be acquitted but was convicted of possessing a firearm with the intention to endanger life. Christine on an impulsive moment left for Spain.
2 journalist Foster and Mulholland were jailed for refusing to reveal thier sources to the Vassail Tribune, it was argued that they were right to defy the law.  Richard Crossman and George Wigg from the Labour Party claimed that the Paris Press had by now probably published the whole story, even Barbra Castle now decided that Labour could not neglect the issue. Profumo said my wife and I had an open invitation to visit Ward hinting he was not there alone. But to explain his acquaintances with a 21 year old girl? Christine was portrayed as a sex goddess.
Ivanov a junior naval officer that drove expensive sports cars and wore Savile Row suits was frequently in West End night clubs. Ward could not be charged under the Official Secrets Act. Civil servants wanted to find something to charge Ward on  and convinced Christine that Wards carefree attitude to life was sinister. Ward would be charged on procuring and living on the immoral earnings of taking a sizable amount of prostitutes'. He used girls to gain influence with people in power.
The police started questioning his patients and they began cancelling appointments.  When Lord Astor returned from the US he was thoroughly questioned by Herbert so he asked Ward to vacate his cottage at Cliveden. Mandy refused to cooperate in evidence against Ward but they took away her passport.
Lucky Gordon was charged of assaulting Christine. If he helped with a statement that could help convict Ward the police would drop the charges. At this stage all Fleet Street editors believed the rumours about Profumo were true. Profumo tendered his resignation. The PM Harold Macmillan was fighting for his political life.
News of the world paid 24,000 pounds for Confessions of Christine. Sunday Mirror published Profunos letter to Christine.
1963 June Kim Philby disappeared from Beirut , after being a KGB mole for 30 years reappeared in Moscow, but the full Philby story only appeared in 1967
Macmillan slogan "We've never had it so good" became " We've never had it so often " By John Kennedy visiting British it gave Macmillan a reprieve of 24 hours.
Astor, Wards oldest friend was not going to give evidence on Wards behalf the others would decline.
1963 June at the Old Bailey was to be the Trial of the Century. The judge was the type who personally felt an moral indignation at the lifestyle Ward adopted.
Griffith Jones had been a morally outraged prosecutor at the "Lady Chatterley's Lover" trial.
The trial could have been at a magistrates court by Wards lawyer advised a jury court. The prosecutor painted a picture of Ward as a sexual reprobate, that Ward went for sexual foursomes. There was nothing for the police to lie about when the witnesses were lying.
Christine had lied at the Gordon trial so her evidance at the Ward trial was now suspect and she was sentence to 9 month imprisonment for perjury.  If Ward was convicted the press would be free to print stories that otherwise might be libel.
3 American friend each sent Ward $1000 but would not be prepared to be questioned by Griffith Jones on the sexual preferences. With the prosecutions last word Ward left the old Bailey with his girlfriend Julie Gulliver and swallowed  enough Nembutal to kill a horse.  All the writers, playwrights  who had stood ball for Ward sent a card to the funeral saying To Stephen Ward Victim of Hypocrisy.
Meanwhile a well dressed man walked into Bloomsbury Art Gallery where Wards drawing were on display and spent £11,517 on every drawing of the Royal Family. This would have left Wards very well off. What started as a national scandal turned into one man wickedness.
The purpose of the Denning report was to end the Profumo affair, it did not succeed. Vickie Barette said "it was all lies, but I never thought he would die" The jury was left with the impression that Wards account that he worked for MI5 was just one of his fantasies.  Mr. Woods could not be called as a witness as this was  just a cover name.  Ward was neither a pimp nor a ponce at worst He procured girls to maintain his social position.
Judge Marshall did not arrive at the Ward trial by rota but was handpicked for the position to find Ward guilty.
Although Macmillan abolished hereditary peerage he made an exception for himself and family. He died in 1989 aged 92.
1966 Mandy  married an Israeli and divorced him in 1977. In Israel she made a career as a night club owner. Her autobiography came out in 1989.  Lord Astor went into depression a few month after Wards death, all his friends deserted him and he died friendless in 1966
2013 Geoffrey Robetson QC examined the document and declared that the crimes Ward was accused of were entirely fabricated by the police under the Macmillan government.
 

Monday, February 26, 2024

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Johnathan Freedland 326pg

 

This is the most important holocaust book that I have read   26/2/24

 2000 The author  realized that Rudolf Vrba's first wife  Gerta lived in London  she was aged 93. She gave him a pile of letters  from Walter Rosenberg (born 1924). His 2nd wife the widow Robin was in New York and talked to him about the post war man she was married to.

The head of the Slovakian government head was Catholic priest Father Jozef Tiso, the state religion of this infant republic was Nazism The Jewish community was 89,000  Slovakia had gained autonomy in December 1938 under the Nazis. 
The Hlinka Guard were Slovakia's state police and most willingly helped Hitler with his plans. It operated against Jews, Czechs, Hungarians,
Walter Rosenberg and his mother moved to Trnava 30 km from Bratislava  a town that smelt from the sugar beet factory. He though he could join Josip Titos partisan's in Yugoslavia.
For every Jew deported Bratislava handed Berlin 500 Reichsmarks officially to cover the costs. 
When Walter was eventually caught youth his age had been deported early so that they could not cause trouble now it was adults with children. At Zwardon the Slovakian, Polish border the Hlinka Guards handed them over to SS Nazi's who now took charge. At Lublin they were marched via backstreets  to the camp of Majdanek.
The chapter on life in Auschwitz I never read as it is too upsetting but because Walter knew languages he worked his way into a clerical position keeping records of who came in. He was one of the most informed people of what was happening.

The Escape
They hid in the outer field in a hole that their friend covered with a pile of planks. They had Soviet Cigarettes soaked in petrol that would act as a repellant against the dogs. An escaped prisoner resulted in the SS searching the outer field for 3 days. At night  only the inner watch tower were operated.
Most of the people who managed to escape Auschwitz were Poles whose conditions were not as bad but no Jew had escaped. A Russian informed him that a man can live on potatoes and salt for month. You must take matches to cook stolen food and a watch to double as a compass. Travel at night and stay hidden in the day. Find a hiding place before dawn breaks. Trust nobody and share your plans with nobody.  There was a network of informers amongst the poisoners. A German by himself is a fragile human being.
They headed for Slovakia a place where their accents would not betray them.  Silesia had once been Polish but the Polish population had been driven out and Ethnic Germans replaced them.
On the escape some people though they were Soviet POWs escaping. In Slovakia the Jewish doctors were given a reprieve and many were in rural areas.
They got to Cadena where Mrs. Beck gave them shelter she was related to Leo Baeck the eminent Rabbi. 
Walter Rosenberg and Fred Wentzler now revealed about Auschwitz. The Jewish Council had been the enabler s of the Nazi's. Of a group 2000 French Jews executed  they had seen the younger brother of Leon Blum.
Walter now took on the name Rudolf Vrba who had been a influential Catholic priest.

1944 March The German army moved in to Hungary deal with the Jews. The regent Miklos Horthy had made antisemitism a key part of his program. The Calvinist church protected 100,000 Christians of Jewish origin.  The Protestant leadership was considering and edict of denying communion to anyone who helped rounding up Jews or detain members of the resistance. Perhaps the Cardinal could issue a ruling like this in the name of Hungary's Catholics.   " The pope himself does not undertake to do anything against Hitler."
When Walter met the Cardinal Martilotti who was not moved by what was happening to Jews, he told him about Catholic priest shot and then brought to Birkenau in boxes to be disposed of . The cardinal was now shocked and almost fainted.

1944 23 June. Garrett contact Alan Dulles of the US intelligence who ran the Swiss bureau. BBC reported in Check and Slovak . In the US the head of the Office of the War information refused to authorize publication.
Oskar Krasnansky had appended a after word to the report calling on the Allies to  bomb the crematoria and the roads leading to it.  Mc Cloy instructed that they kill this bombing idea and that the best hope for the victims was the defeat of Nazism. The US does not want to see Jews killed by US bombes.
The US airforces bombed Monowitz. Siemen's, Krupp and I G Fabens had factories here and the concentration camp was a subcamp of Auschwitz. The US airforce photographed over Auschwiths and this proved every word of the Vrba Wetzler Report. This report got to London from a few sources and Chaim Weitzman and Moshe Shertok got it. It was now in Churchills hands.
The Americans bombed by day and the Brits by night only the Americans were capable of doing it. If Hungarian Jews knew they would stampeded away in panic and there would be ungovernable mayhem.
Reszo Kasztner and the Jewish leadership said this is the fertile imagination of 2 rash young men. The leader resolved to do nothing that would spread alarm.
In Slovakia the Jewish community negotiated directly with Eichmann and Dieter Wisliceny  they paid $45000 and Slovak deportation stopped temporary till autumn 1944 for Germany's own reasons. Kastner may have shown the document to Eichmann who said that the 2 should be captured and if it was exposed the Nazi negotiation about Kasztner train would be cut off. 1700 boarded Kastners train many from his home town Kolozavar $1,684000 were paid to the Germans.  500 postcards arrived from Jews resettled in Auschwitz but this was a trick. Kasztner did not allow the postcards to be distributed but nor did he allow the publication of the Vrba Wetzler Report.
The Nazis conducted the largest and swiftest deportation operation437,402 Jews were transported on 147 trains. Next the Nazis set their sights on Budapest's 200,000Jews.
In Bratislava  Josef Weiss worked in the Office of the Prevention of Venereal Disease  where the authorities did not investigate and they printed copies of the report there. The report got to Miklos Horty the regent of Hungary.  Roosevelt had his Secretary of State deliver a message to Horthy. The king of Sweden Gustav V also wrote to Horthy a warning and Horthy said the deportation must stop as nobody wanted to be a war criminal. There now ensued a power struggle in the Hungarian government. Hungarian police were sent into close of the Jewish area so they couldn't escape.
1944 2nd July the US 15th Air force bombed in and around Budapest their target was factories south of the city.
Hungary's ruling circles it appeared that Roosevelt was making good his threat to hold the political leadership responsible. So Horthy instructed his chief military commander to prevent the deportation of Budapest's Jews. One train was even turned around by Horthy's orders. Germany began to look like it was losing the war.
1944 August the Nazi's invade Slovakia and  trains started heading to Auschwitz.
1944 Autumn Horthy was toppled and the Arrow Cross the Nazi party took over.
 People did their best to escape and Rudi joined the partisans under Milan Uher where he won a Medal for bravery.
War over he went to the Czech Technical University in Prague to study chemical technology. Status of being an ex partisan enabled him to get a flat. He got a PhD in chemistry of the brain.
Rudi was a paranoid person, never trusting anyone perhaps this had caused his survival.
1946 Rudi visited Bratislava where he joined up with Wetzler, Moroowicz and Rosin the only 4 who had escaped from Auschwitz.
The annual commemoration of the anti Fascist Union Fighter nobody mentioned the fate of the Jews. 
 
Ruby was the first Czechoslovak biologist to have won Soviet  recognition and was rewarded with a passport travelled to Denmark ,Ukraine and Russia and came back each time. 
1958 When he applied to go to a convention in Strasbourg and Vienna he went to the airport and his passport was handed back to him from the Ministry of Science. His wife and children left at the same time and crossed the border and defected . Rudi flew to Israel and worked at Beit Dagan's Veterinary research institute.

He did not like the fact that Kasztner was a government official in Israel. Grunewald accused Kasztner of collaborating with the Nazi and Grunewald was sued for criminal libel.. Hannah Arendt said this the darkest chapter in a  dark story of the role played by  Jewish leaders in the holocaust. Kasztner crime was his failure to share knowledge, and this judgement caused the government of Israel to fall. Kasztner was assassinator in the street.
After 18 months in Israel he found out his wife Gerta and children were in England and went there in 1960. Gerta was living with Sidney Hilton as husband and wife.
1960 May. Eichmann was brought to Israel. Rudi now was approached by the Daily Herald who did a 5 part series on Eichmann by Alan Bestic on Rudi's information.   Because he couldn't get into the US for being a Communist during Mc McCarthyism he was given a position in Vancouver by a Communist's group despite the fact that by now he was very anti Communist. He was appointed for 2 years as a visiting lectureship at Harvard Medical School.
1975 married 24 year old Robin Lipson, so he needed a women from a different generation and different continent. He would not talk to her about Auschwitz so she had to find his memoir in the Boston  public library. On seeing a tatoo number on a waiter arm told him that he must have been a Jew from Bedzin, Poland, who arrived at Auschwitz in the summer of 1943.
In Nazi trials he  showed that he was fluent in multiple languages and had an exceptional memory of the mass murder from beginning till end . The Nazis had taken pains so that nobody could understand the full process. He was in touch with Simon Wiesenthal especially about Nazi criminals in Canada.
1985Ernst Zundel was tried under a criminal code for false news a tract called "Did 6 million Jews Really Die" Rudi was a central witness and the truth of the holocaust was on trial.
1981 Martin Gilbert wrote a book Auschwitz and the Allies and he was a principal source. He advised on the World at War series and the Shoah by Claude Lanzmann. 
Josef   Lanik's book Co Dante Nevidel ( What Dante didn't see) he was portrayed as the leading character.  
The Zionist movement like every other, produced both saints and sinners while under the Nazi jackboot. Zionists led the armed resistant in Warsaw and Vilna Ghettoes some who saw Kasztner's case became the most anti Zionist.
Yehuda Bauer thought Rudi was a genuine hero of the holocaust but his deep hatred for Jewish leadership colored his judgement. Both Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi were writers and became famous while Rudi gave more information but did not achieve their fame.
His daughter Helena became a doctor and he was the last to know. She was a feminist and considered him a male chauvinist. She went to Papua New Guinee and committed suicide. (not unusual for Holocaust survivors  children).      1998 Haifa University awarded him an honoree doctorate. The same year Fred Wetzier who escaped with him, died in Bratislava 'Bitter, drunk and forgotten.'   As a librarian he never let on that that Jozef Lanik was his pseudonym.
Rudi's belief that once Jews understood what Auschwitz was about they would refuse to board the trains. The Nazi ambition to rid the world of Jews was no secret. 
Jan Karski a Polish Aristocrat in 1943 had informed Antony Eden  and Roosevelt of what he had seen of mass shooting in the Warsaw Ghetto. When supreme court Justice Felix Frankfurter met him for 20 minutes said I don't believe it.  Rome had been kept informed by the  apostolic nuncio Angelo Roncalli  in Istanbul, who became Pope John XXIII. (1958 to 1963) 
1942 Polish non Jews like Stanislav Jaster escaped and reported the killing of the Jews, or resistance fighter Witold Pilecki, but the Polish government in exile in London did not do much to publicize this. Whitehall want the British public to feel  they were fighting for Britain's sake and not to save the Jews.
A panicked refusal to go or a stampede would have forced the Nazi's to hunt deer rather than sheep. The young made plans to evade deportation but the middle aged had dependents careers and property and refused to believe what they were hearing. 
Allied military men said killing civilians did not make any military sense.  French Jewish philosopher Raymon Aron said "I knew but I didn't believe it. And because I didn't believe it I didn't know.'  
2006 Rudolf Vrba died aged 82. George Klein told him that 'you saved my like ' as I knew to run. You should be satisfied that you saved 200,000 Budapest Jews. Though he never escaped the holocaust shadow he  lived a full life.
Erik Weisz a Hungarian Jew and son of a Rabbi became Harry Houdini (1874 to 1926) The greatest magician and escapist.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The Victors: Eisenhower and his boys the men of WW2 by Stephen E Ambrose 199, 270pg

  From invading Normandy till German Capitulation.   (to be edited) Note: I only read sections of this book that I never knew about and were...