B06 Turning Point & Good War's Images -Jack and Wanda's Stories in Historical perspective

Ref: MAT2_B06

<<<go back to Paper Table of contents page<<

Part B-6

6. Turning Point & the “Good War’s images”:

Excerpts & Historical Context: Parallel Lives in Perspective

Not playing by rules of WAR

WDK: One of the boys, I had gone with two years in high school. And was one of my best friends. His twin brother and he went over at the same time. Moiré was in the hospital and had been wounded. Ronny was in an ambulance going to the hospital and it was blown up. They were both killed.

AKK: So the one in the hospital ended up dying? And the other one --

WDK: Well, they bombed the hospital. And they bombed the ambulance as they were going. If there was a red cross on the ambulance, this was the rules of the war, they weren't supposed to, but they did. Both sides did it. In other words they didn't play by the rules.

JJK: Both sides did it.

Horrible Times

JJK: Eddie O'Connor, [a neighbor of JJK] tells the story, that in Sicily, he and another guy were delegated to bring a group of prisoners back. They were walking along and it was a hot day in Sicily, you know. And this guy takes his machine gun burrrrrrrrrrrrrr, and knocks them all down. Eddie says you'll never have another day of good luck. Never! Never, never. The guy got killed within moments.

JJK: So, you can say what you want, -- the Japanese certainly were savage. But they say some of the Marines were just as savage. Taking skulls home, you know, for souvenirs and all that sort of stuff. Man's inhumanity to man.

WDK: Horrible, horrible times.

Interview Abbreviations: JJK = Jack [John Joseph] Keefe; WDK = Wanda Davis Keefe; AKK = Adhiratha Kevin Keefe

Table of Contents

6. Turning Point & the “Good War’s images”:................................................................................ 1

Good War................................................................................................................................................................. 1

War-Bad against the worse.................................................................................................................................. 1

Combat Images and Stories................................................................................................................................. 2

2. Frank & Tom Keefe – Get well after Brooklyn Dodgers Team Visit...................................................... 2

3. Frank the weatherman & 3 day Novena....................................................................................................... 3

4. Frank defending himself – potential court-marshal...................................................................................... 3

War - corrupting and Brutal............................................................................................................................ 4

Holocaust............................................................................................................................................................... 4

23. Friends lost in World War 2, Canadian Forces in Battles............................................................................... 5

24. Atrocities on both sides during the war........................................................................................................... 5

Germans assist American Red Cross Driver......................................................................................................... 6

Canadian Colonel Saves life of German Lieutenant............................................................................................... 6

Brother killed takes out on Prisoner...................................................................................................................... 7

End of the WWII...................................................................................................................................................... 7

War-As teacher....................................................................................................................................................... 8

25. Canadian friend visits a battle area in Sicily years later................................................................................... 8

More Humorous Stories and Rivalry with British Navy................................................................................. 8

26. Sailor toasts the King,...................................................................................................................................... 8

Save the King – God or British Navy?.................................................................................................................. 9

Many participants and historians saw World War II as a Turning Point or Watershed event. However there were many different "Home Fronts", that is reflected in the variety of stories and developments of the peoples' lives, [B06-N01]

Good War

For millions of Americans WWII was surely a "Good War" of national and personal accomplishment. "Reinhold Niebuhr said that even sinful man had the duty of acting against evil in the World. Our sins, real as they were, could not justify our standing apart from the European struggle. [B06-N02]

War-Bad against the worse

Jack and Wanda seem to agree with philosophy behind Schlesinger's quote of Englishman’s C. Day Lewis piece on the lack of War Poets: "That we who live by honest dreams defend the bad against the worse" [B06-N03]

Jefferies refers to Studs Terkel's collection of oral Histories which appeared in book form in 1984 s "The Good War" and helped popularize the notion of the good War. Jefferies remarks that the stories contain much more that challenges the idea of the "Good War" including the brutality against innocents etc. [B06-N04]

Combat Images and Stories

In the beginning of the war stories and pictures were presented to the public in manner to support the war effort. Advertising images of the war were typically melodramatic and sentimental, not realistic, they suggested adventure, glory and success, not the brutality, costs and uncertainty of combat. Before 1943 and clear turn of the tide it was regarded as harmful to morale to show pictures of dead Americans. The experience of combat was more brutal and savage, its physical and mental impact larger and more lasting then myth and memory would have it. [B06-N05]

Many of Jacks' war stories are humorous - but as you can see from the later stories in this section a few touch on the brutality of war.

2. Frank & Tom Keefe – Get well after Brooklyn Dodgers Team Visit

[excerpt below, for full seejw00se30.doc para 02]

JJK: Shortly after Pearl Harbor day, Frank and Tom went into the hospital to be operated on. Tom was having his tonsils out. And Frank had some problem with a deviated septum. Nothing too serious. So after a couple of days they are all ready to leave and go out on “Leave” on a Sunday afternoon. They are in their Dress Blues, they have their pass to go, when they hear that a group of professional football players are coming in to visit the men and to ask them to get better quicker in the hospital. So Frank hears about this and he goes up to Tom and says listen, these guys are going to come in here in this room let's get into the bed, pull the covers over ourselves and maybe they will take a picture of us. So Tom says, well okay. So they get there and the football players come in, and one of them is Bruiser Kinard; it's the Brooklyn Dodgers [a NY football team which lasted only a couple of years]. And he sees the two brothers, and he goes over and he talks to them. And then as he is leaving he turns to them and says "listen fellas get well, real quick! So you can go out and fight those Japs." So they leave. With that, Frank pulls off the covers, and he takes his pass. And he runs out past the football players, and he holds up the pass and he says "Hey Bruiser, how's this for getting well, real quick!". (Laughter)

3. Frank the weatherman & 3 day Novena

[excerpt below, for full seejw00se30.doc para 03]

JJK: Shortly after that he went up to the North Atlantic, he was on a weather ship, and he was the weatherman. And it got caught in the ice flows and so forth and they couldn't get out. So the captain says to him after awhile, "listen Keefe, what are we going to do? You've used all your scientific devices and we can’t get out." Frank says, I think we ought to make a three-day novena? And he says what the hell is a three-day novena. So he [Frank] tells him, well it's a Catholic prayer, he says, for three days. And he says, you pray and maybe at the end of three days we will be able to get out of this mess here. The captain says we tried everything else why not go-ahead? So he makes a three-day novena, and at the end of three days he tells the pilot who is on the ship to go up and look around and see if they can get out of the ice flow. And the pilot comes down after 45 minutes and says I found a way out. So they get out of the ice floe and the Skipper says, "Keefe, I don't know what this thing is about the three-day novena, but I'm all for it from now on." (Chuckle) that’s it!

AKK: You told the story about him defending himself? He was brought up on some service charges for flying under telephone wires?

4. Frank defending himself – potential court-marshal

[excerpt below, for full seejw00se30.doc para 04]

JJK: Oh yeah, yeah, well, he was brought up on charges. And Jimmy Smith, one of our neighbors, was the secretary there. And he was court-martialed. He decided that he would defend himself rather than have one of the Navy lawyers defend him. Jimmy Smith [a neighbor of the Keefe’s] is the secretary there. Or the Yeo man, as they call them in the Navy. And he had to take down all the notes and so forth and so on. And he told us later on. Frank was exonerated. So he ( Jimmy) said: I said to him after it was over "weren’t you (Frank) afraid of maybe being court-martialed?" He (Frank) said: "Oh, no I wasn't afraid of that. I wasn’t going to leave my naval career in the hands of some dumb lawyer." So Jimmy Smith told us, he started talking, and he had the jury there, they were supposed to say "no" and he was having them say "yes". And if they were supposed to say "yes" he was having them say "no". So then he had all the testimony read back. And all they could do was let him off. (Chuckle)

AKK: Because it was so confusing, the testimony?

JJK: That's right.

5. Frank Giving orders – Coffee for the officer

[excerpt below, for full seejw00se30.doc para 05]

AKK: I guess one of his friends in the neighborhood was acting officer, who was giving him a ride to the base?

JJK: Oh yeah, Buddy Weidlein, was a pilot. He was home. They were both assigned to the base in Brooklyn at this time. Buddy had been in the African invasion. And Frank had been in the North Atlantic and so forth. But they happened to draw the same time. Buddy was an officer, Frank is an enlisted man. Buddy would pick him up every night and he'd drive him to the airport, to the Floyd Bennett airfield. And Frank when he would get out he would say, "okay Bud, pick me up tomorrow at 8:00 o'clock." And Bud said, jeez, you know, there was no the problem picking him up, but he didn't use any diplomacy at all. After all, I was in officer, and he was enlisted man. And other people see that they figure, what the hell is going on here. So he said, I thought I would really get onto him. He said, I knew what he was doing, he was going to another part of the base, he was pulling out a mat and going to sleep. So he said, this night, I had the duty. And about 2 o'clock in the morning, I called him. And he said, it was cold, and I told him to come over, I wanted to see him. So he came over there. And he is all bundled up and he has one guy with them, who is lower than he is in the Navy. A kid by the name of Zimmerly, who was an apprentice seaman.. So, Buddy said: Keefe I want you to go over across the airbase there, I want you to get me a quart of coffee. And I want it real quick. And he (Frank) turns around to Zimmerly and he says: Zimmerly, you heard the officer, let's go. (Laughter) and he (Buddy) said I was so mad, I picked up an inkwell and threw it at him (Frank). But I missed. Frank was telling Zimmerly to get the coffee. (Laughter)

War – corrupting and Brutal

Schlessinger believes that no war is any good, but occasionally a few, like the American Civil War and the second World war are necessary. But he concludes, even the few good Wars can be corrupting as well as murderous. [B06-N06]. The brutality that many experienced as well as the Holocaust are examples.

Holocaust

Most students of the period and the public know of the Holocaust. However the meaning of the "final solution" killing policy was not fully understood by most until after the end of the WAR. Some read about the Nazi's plans in the papers from 1942, but most did not really comprehended what was implied until pictures were released and the details became known at the war crimes trials. [B06-N07] There has been an discussion as to amount of resources that should have been invested during the War in rescuing more individuals from the prison camps as compared to using resources to build up for the final push to end the war. One Calculation after the war suggested the number Jews saved by ending war a week earlier was equal to the total amount saved by all the various rescue efforts of 1944-1945 [B06-N08]

Wanda’s Friends from Canadian forces

23. Friends lost in World War 2, Canadian Forces in Battles

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para23]

AKK: It was still feeling like the war could continue for a longtime. By that time had you started to get information about some your friends that had been killed in war?

WDK: When I first came down almost every letter I got was -- somebody else had been killed. And so my friends went over in 1939.

JJK: They went in 1939 and the first group went into Sicily in July of 1943.

AKK: This is the Canadians?

JJK: That is the Canadians.

WDK: But didn't some of the Canadians also go in to Africa before that? They went into Africa before that didn't they?

JJK: No, no. They were at the Dieppe, which I think was 1942. And they were just slaughter, massacred. They were all Canadian troops.

AKK: They weren't well outfitted? Or just overpowered?

JJK: They thought it was going to be an invasion. You know, they were going to take these German guys --

WDK: And they were all set up for them when they got there. The Germans were all dug in.

JJK: They didn't have the experience. But they said they learned an awful lot which helped on D-Day later on. But then a lot of the Canadian boys, they weren't even on the continent when the Germans went into France in 1940. They were still in England. Then they sent the first group into Dieppe where they were slaughtered. And the next group went to Sicily and Italy and they went all the way up the boot. And then of course, there are an awful lot went in on D-Day. The Canadians. And I guess it was on D-Day when, what was his name? The Twins got killed.

WDK: Yeah, the Burkett's (spell).

JJK: She knew twins they were killed

Jack and Wanda comment on the Brutality of both sides

24. Atrocities on both sides during the war

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para24]

WDK: One of the boys, I had gone with two years in high school. And was one of my best friend. His twin brother and he went over the same time. Moiré was in the hospital and had been wounded. Ronny was in an ambulance going to the hospital and it was blown up. They were both killed.

AKK: So the one in the hospital ended up dying? And the other one --

JJK: Both sides did it.

AKK: That seems to be coming out more and more. That both sides, especially -- and Asia seems to have been really incredible.

Germans assist American Red Cross Driver

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para24]

JJK: I am just reading a couple of books* on it. You can say what you want about the Germans and the Russians but Americans were just as bad. And yet some were great, some of the Germans were great. Some of the Americans were great. They tell the story of one group of Americans in the Red Cross driving the wounded got lost and they ended up in the Germans section. And the Germans saw the Red Cross there and they told them to go back and go this way and that way -- and they got out. So, about an hour later, another Red Cross vehicle comes up. And all they did was they stopped and put out a big bundle of stuff, corrugated boxes. And they waved and they walked away. And Germans didn't know what the hell it was. They thought maybe it was a bomb or something. But they took a chance. They were Cigarettes [as a gift to thank them]].

*Get book titles.

Canadian Colonel Saves life of German Lieutenant

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para24]

JJK: I had a friend of mine up in Moosejaw [Canada], Al Wilson. He was a lieutenant Colonel of the artillery, Canadian. And he was telling me towards the end of the war they were picking up so many Germans but they did not know where to put them. They had no place to put them. So he and another guy, another artilleryman were driving along in a Jeep and they saw a lone German soldier walking along, a lieutenant, a young lieutenant. And they told him to get in. He got in there and they tried to drop him off at some prison camps and guys would say nahaaa, we can't take him, please, we got too many now. Get out of here. So they would say: “what are we going to do?” “Well, we will try another one”. So finally, one guy reached the end of his rope. He said: Listen, I'm going to kill the son-of-a-gun. And Wilson said to him: well, wait a second, let's get something straight. I think maybe I've killed thousands of Germans with my artillery, he said, but I have never been guilty of murder. Never! And he said, I'm not going to have anyone murdered in my presence. We are going to get this guy into a camp. So finally he went up to the next camp. And told guys, listen, my partner here is going nuts. He wants to kill this guy. He said, I do not want to be a partner to murder. So the guy says, all right, come on, give him to me. With that, the guy [German] turned around, and with impeccable English and said: “Thank you Colonel, I appreciate you saving my life.” In English!

AKK: He could speak English the whole time?

JJK: All the while they are talking about putting the gun to his brain. He is just sitting there not saying a word. But I mean this has happened time after time.

Brother killed takes it out on Prisoner

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para24]

JJK: They tell of guys, whose brothers were killed, and a young guy, maybe 18 and 19 -- he would see Germans prisoners of war and he would just to go up and boom, boom. That was it. Eddie O'Connor, [a neighbor of JJK] tells the story, in Sicily, he and another guy were delegated to bring a group of prisoners back. They were walking along and it was a hot day in Sicily, you know. And this guy takes his machine gun burrrrrrrrrrrrrr, and knocks them all down. Eddie says you'll never have another day of good luck. Never! Never, never. The guy got killed within moments.

WDK: Horrible, horrible times.

End of the WWII

Two thirds of Americans, according to a gallop Poll in august 1943, expected the war against Germany to end in 1944 (more than a third, however , believed that the war with Japan would still be going on in 1946) [B06-N08]

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para22]

22. In 1944 the war result still not certain

AKK: What year would this has been?

WDK: 1944.

AKK: So the war was pretty much winding down then right?

JJK: 0h no, the war had pretty much another year ago. This was 1944.

AKK: But it looked like -- or people getting a sense?

WDK: Well I don't know. It was on in the Pacific..

JJK: I don't know, they were still fighting in Europe. You're having all full-time in the Pacific, going island hopping. And it wasn't even the battle of the Bulge yet. This is September of 1944 and the Bulge was December of 1944. The war in Europe ended May of 1945. And V.J. [Victory in Japan] day was August 1945. So there was pretty near a year to go.

AKK: And they didn't know that it was just a year to go?

WDK: No, no way.

Defeat in September of the British paratroops at Arnhem - undercut expectations of victory in 1944 -Germans fiercely resisting a strong American offensive at Aachen, Canadian forces struggling to liberate the vital supply port of Antwerp. The summer’s optimism was now on hold. The was far from over. [B06-N09]

War-As teacher

A.Schlessinger quoting O.W.Homes - -“realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the untamed streaming of the world.” [B06-N10]

25. Canadian friend visits a battle area in Sicily years later

[excerpt below, for full see jw00se04.doc para25]

JJK: Stan Chetleborough (spell) tells the story about after the war, he was in the Canadian forces going up the East Side of Italy. He and his wife were visiting Italy and they came to the area where his outfit had been stationed and engaged throughout. Tough going, you know. So the area was part of a hotel grounds and you were supposed to have been registered at the hotel. But they weren't registered. So, he went right through and sit right down there and just looked.

WDK: Sitting on a chair on the lawn.

JJK: Chair on the lawn. And with that a German woman and a Frenchwoman came up. The German was very --

AKK:

WDK: This was about twelve years ago.

JJK: And she said are you registered at the hotel? He said no. And the Frenchwoman said: well you should be registered, after all, if you want to sit here. Stan said: listen, during the war I and my buddies, came here and we fought our way. And he turned to the Frenchwoman and said, you know something? If it hadn't been for me and my buddies who sacrificed their life, you, would be taking orders from this [German] woman. (Chuckle). They both walked away. Both walked away. So, there you are.

AKK: A lot of memories.

End Note [EN] Part-Sect-Note	Author	Source & Link to Bibliography in Part G	Abbreviated reference to Source	Page
B06-N01	Jeffries, John W..	Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front	WA	Pp 015
B06-N02	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 249
B06-N03	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 246
B06-N04	Jeffries, John W..	Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front	WA	Pp 011
B06-N05	Jeffries, John W..	Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front	WA	Pp 173, 174, 185
B06-N06	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 283
B06-N07	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 306-312
B06-N08	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 312
B06-N09	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 329
B06-N10	Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.	A Life in the 20th Century	AL20C	Pp 353

25. Canadian friend visits a battle area in Sicily years later

Tom Keefe, Jack Keefe’s Brother

Save the King – God or British Navy?