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Americans in a World at War

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Brooke Blower discusses ill-fated Pan American flight during World War II that captures the dramatic backstories of its passengers and, through them, the impact of Americans’ global connections.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 23, 2024

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In this text, the author reflects on their unexpected decade-long journey of researching and writing a book about World War II, a topic they initially had little interest in. They grew up during the World War II Memory Boom of the 1980s and 90s when the war was a prominent part of American culture. The author notes that historical narratives often separate homefront and combat experiences, leading to a narrowed understanding of the American experience during the war.

Upon deciding to explore the subject, the author investigated Pan Am's commercial airline services during the war, particularly focusing on a significant plane crash involving the Yankee Clipper, which carried military personnel traveling incognito. They utilized archival resources to understand the diverse backgrounds and experiences of those on board, seeing them as representatives of broader themes in wartime America.

The narratives of individual plane passengers revealed the multifaceted nature of World War II, showcasing how various Americans perceived their role and the war's significance. Characters like Frank Kiehl and Ben Robertson demonstrate differing perspectives on the conflict, highlighting divisions in American sentiment and political beliefs.

The author aims for readers to appreciate the complexity of American engagements in global affairs before Pearl Harbor, understand the perilous early stages of the war, and recognize the interconnectedness of American efforts with those of other nations and peoples involved in the conflict. They hope to provide a more international perspective on the war, challenging the insular narratives that often dominate popular portrayals of World War II.

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In the early two thousands, I never ever would've guessed

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that I would work for over a decade on

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a book about World War ii.

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It was not a subject that I was really interested in myself.

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I grew up, and came of age during the 1980s

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and nineties, what Emily Rosenberg calls the

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World War II Memory Boom.

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And this was a period in American history

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where World War II was basically

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everywhere in American culture.

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You had all kinds of commemorations of D-Day, you had,

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video game reenact reenactments,

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you had Steven Ambrose books, Steven Spielberg movies.

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We, our, our our Lives were basically saturated with,

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with thinking about World War ii.

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And I thought, you know, this was a well covered terrain.

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It wasn't something that I was gonna work on.

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But then I started

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to think a little bit more closely about the kinds

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of narratives about World War II that were

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prominent in American life.

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And I decided that, over time,

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Americans had forgotten a lot about the war

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and about Americans' experiences during the war

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that were worth reviving.

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Uh, in particular, Americans had begun

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to think about the war in two non intersecting parts, a kind

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of homefront history and a Warfront history.

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So sort of the people who stayed at

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home and the men who fought.

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And, the story about Americans abroad really centered

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on, combat histories

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and in particular, the end stages

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of the war when GIS were helping to liberate beaches

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and towns and high military histories.

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So high diplomatic summits, you know, between, Churchill

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and Stalin and Roosevelt and so on.

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And so, I wanted to work on it in a way

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that would capture a broader canvas

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of American activities at a longer sweep of time.

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Once I started thinking about the war

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and how I might work on it in a way

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that conveyed a broader canvas

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of American activities in a broader timeline,

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I started researching Pan AM's commercial airline

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service during the war.

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Um, it might not be as well known today,

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but their sea planes.

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These are giant planes that landed on water,

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which was helpful in a world that was not

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yet paved over with runways.

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They were transporting a tremendous number of people, 83,000

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by one account across the Atlantic during World War ii.

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Um, back and forth across the Atlantic,

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across the South Atlantic between Africa

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and South America, and across, the Pacific and, and,

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and other, other spots abroad.

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And so I started researching,

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these commercial networks thinking

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that they might be a nice window into

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a broader non-combatant history

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of Americans abroad during the war.

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And it didn't take long for me to find, news reports

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of the crash of one of these clipper planes,

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the Yankee Clipper, which went down in the Tous River in

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Lisbon in February of 1943,

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because some of the people on the plane were

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not supposed to be on the plane.

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These were US army officers

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who were traveling incognito as civilians.

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The news reports at the time did not list all the people on

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the plane, but it did mention a few people

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on board. And they were

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Sufficiently interesting and different from each other

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for me to sort of, to, for it to pique my interest.

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And so I decided that I would try to research this crash,

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see if I could find out documents on it, the planes manifest

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and so forth, and then use the people on that plane

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as a kind of prism into all these different aspects

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of the war effort.

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So once I had found this plane crash, I went down

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to the PanAm Archive.

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There's a wonderful PanAm archive at the University of Miami

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and basically struck gold.

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They had all the confidential, plane manifests,

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the crew lists the crew files.

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It had survivor testimony

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because night everybody dies in the plane crash,

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and a wealth of other materials on commercial

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airfare during the war.

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And so I began to run down the

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manifest of people on this plane.

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There were 39 people on the plane.

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Uh, 12 of those were crew members,

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and I couldn't find a lot of people.

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But it turns out, with 21st century databases you can find

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more than you maybe could have, well,

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definitely than you could have, in the 20th century.

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And I was able to locate a lot of these people.

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Um, in addition, I was able to locate some

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of their living relatives who willing, who were willing

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to share documents with me.

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And so I was able to piece together the,

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the background lives, the politics

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and the wartime endeavors of a cast of seven

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of these people on the plane,

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whose stories really bounded off in all

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kinds of different directions.

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So the book itself, roams widely from, Latin America

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and Africa to India to, the, the USSR,

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to England, and the Dutch East Indies and Australia.

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Um, and I basically used these people as a kind

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of micro historical window into these bigger, broader,

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themes and, and, and dynamics of the war effort.

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One of the things I really noticed when I started working on

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all of these people and putting their stories next

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to each other was the way that they highlighted,

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how much this war we call World War II,

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was actually a number of different wars, sort of overlapping

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and embedded it with each other.

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And looking at, say for example, one, one, character

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of mine, Frank Kiehl's story.

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He was, someone who lived in Southeast Asia

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for the entire 1930s

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and was, you know, escaped Java under a hail of bullets,

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when Ja, when the Japanese forces invaded in early 1942.

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And for him, the war was a,

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was an assault on his own home front.

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And he was, disturbed

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and angered by the Europe first policy

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that the allies adopted.

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And so, you know, he, in, in, in my story, he's in,

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in the South Pacific, you know, pleading for allied,

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troops and, and action in the South Pacific.

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And then juxtapose next to him is another one

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of the people I worked on, Ben Robertson,

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who was in Moscow at the same time, pleading for a quote,

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a so-called second front

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to help the Soviets push back the invasion of Nazi forces.

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And so seeing these two in tandem shows just

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how much division there were among Americans in terms

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of their understanding of where the heart of the war was,

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what needed to happen to win it, other characters,

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for example, a man named Manuel Diaz.

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He had grown up, in Spain,

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during the 1898 war when the United States took away

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all of Spain's colonies.

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And so he grew up amidst a, a strong anti-American set

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of sentiments in Spain,

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and a desire to rekindle Spain's world power.

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And so that background and,

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and his sort of, you know, experiences

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during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s explain

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how he comes to certain kinds

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of pro axis positions during the war.

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And in contrast, another character, Tamara, is,

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escapes Ukraine during the Civil War in 1920.

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Um, and she leans far left in in her politics.

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And so you, you know,

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by putting these people in conversation with each other,

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you can really see how there,

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there are different turning points

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that matter for different Americans.

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There are different, political convictions

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that underride their, their efforts.

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Um, and it, it, it really sort of seeks

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to nuance our understanding of, the vast array

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of engagements that Americans had around the world,

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and then how the war either reinforced those

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or derailed them, in many cases.

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I would love it if readers would take away from this story

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one their own impressions.

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I, I wrote this in a way that's fairly open-ended,

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so readers get to draw their own conclusions.

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I, I, I didn't sort of come, come at it with a strong,

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this is what you have to take away from this book.

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But what I do hope that they will come away with is a sense

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of the importance of American's engagement with the world

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before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, none

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of the people in my book needed the bombing of Pearl Harbor

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to wake up to world affairs.

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They were all deeply invested.

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They just didn't agree about what was important.

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Um, and two, to recognize how,

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perilous the situation was until early 43, right

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around the time when the,

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when the Yankee Clipper went down the war

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before, that was a, a period of stunning axis gains.

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It was not at all clear the allies were gonna win this war.

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Um, and in retrospect, we tend to focus on the outcome.

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And so we have a kind of, you know,

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retrospective understanding that,

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of course, this is the outcome.

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But to see this through the eyes of these people,

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you can really understand like how intense

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and, you know, terrifying this moment in world history was.

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Um, and also I wanna just have people come away with a sense

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of how much American's war effort was,

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enmeshed in the war efforts

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of other people around the world.

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Uh, over time, Americans have started telling American World

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War II stories in ways that are very insular.

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Um, we can, you can find lots of movies these days

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where there's no non-American characters.

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It's all about GIS alone, liberating, you know,

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Europe or the Pacific.

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And these people in my book really show

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how much it mattered,

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what the people were doing in the, in the

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Colonies, in the American and European colonies,

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and how much Americans were collaborating with

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and depended upon networks, supplies,

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and all kinds of,

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factors coming from these other, parts of the world.

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So hopefully it will, it will give people a, a more,

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international sense, of the war

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and a less America centric sense of the war.

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Wow.

Uncovering Untold Stories of World War II

00:00:00 - In the early two thousands, I never ever would've guessed that I would work for over a decade on a book about World War ii. It was not a subject that I was really interested in myself. I grew up, and came of age during the 1980s and nineties, what Emily Rosenberg calls the World War II Memory Boom. And this was a period in American history where World War II was basically everywhere in American culture. You had all kinds of commemorations of D-Day, you had, video game reenact reenactments, you had Steven Ambrose books, Steven Spielberg movies.
00:00:35 - with thinking about World War ii. And I thought, you know, this was a well covered terrain. It wasn't something that I was gonna work on. But then I started to think a little bit more closely about the kinds of narratives about World War II that were prominent in American life. And I decided that, over time, Americans had forgotten a lot about the war and about Americans' experiences during the war that were worth reviving. in particular, Americans had begun to think about the war in two non intersecting parts, a kind
00:01:08 - So sort of the people who stayed at home and the men who fought. And, the story about Americans abroad really centered on, combat histories and in particular, the end stages of the war when GIS were helping to liberate beaches and towns and high military histories. So high diplomatic summits, you know, between, Churchill and Stalin and Roosevelt and so on.
00:01:38 - that would capture a broader canvas of American activities at a longer sweep of time. Once I started thinking about the war and how I might work on it in a way that conveyed a broader canvas of American activities in a broader timeline, I started researching Pan AM's commercial airline service during the war. it might not be as well known today, but their sea planes. These are giant planes that landed on water, which was helpful in a world that was not yet paved over with runways.
00:02:09 - by one account across the Atlantic during World War ii. back and forth across the Atlantic, across the South Atlantic between Africa and South America, and across, the Pacific and, and, and other, other spots abroad. And so I started researching, these commercial networks thinking that they might be a nice window into a broader non-combatant history of Americans abroad during the war. And it didn't take long for me to find, news reports
00:02:38 - the Yankee Clipper, which went down in the Tous River in Lisbon in February of 1943, because some of the people on the plane were not supposed to be on the plane. These were US army officers who were traveling incognito as civilians. The news reports at the time did not list all the people on the plane, but it did mention a few people on board. And they were Sufficiently interesting and different from each other for me to sort of, to, for it to pique my interest. And so I decided that I would try to research this crash,

Exploring Diverse Perspectives on World War II

00:03:10 - and so forth, and then use the people on that plane as a kind of prism into all these different aspects of the war effort. So once I had found this plane crash, I went down to the PanAm Archive. There's a wonderful PanAm archive at the University of Miami and basically struck gold. They had all the confidential, plane manifests, the crew lists the crew files. It had survivor testimony because night everybody dies in the plane crash,
00:03:40 - airfare during the war. And so I began to run down the manifest of people on this plane. There were 39 people on the plane. 12 of those were crew members, and I couldn't find a lot of people. But it turns out, with 21st century databases you can find more than you maybe could have, well, definitely than you could have, in the 20th century. And I was able to locate a lot of these people. in addition, I was able to locate some of their living relatives who willing, who were willing to share documents with me.
00:04:11 - the background lives, the politics and the wartime endeavors of a cast of seven of these people on the plane, whose stories really bounded off in all kinds of different directions. So the book itself, roams widely from, Latin America and Africa to India to, the, the USSR, to England, and the Dutch East Indies and Australia. and I basically used these people as a kind of micro historical window into these bigger, broader,
00:04:45 - One of the things I really noticed when I started working on all of these people and putting their stories next to each other was the way that they highlighted, how much this war we call World War II, was actually a number of different wars, sort of overlapping and embedded it with each other. And looking at, say for example, one, one, character of mine, Frank Kiehl's story. He was, someone who lived in Southeast Asia for the entire 1930s
00:05:18 - when Ja, when the Japanese forces invaded in early 1942. And for him, the war was a, was an assault on his own home front. And he was, disturbed and angered by the Europe first policy that the allies adopted. And so, you know, he, in, in, in my story, he's in, in the South Pacific, you know, pleading for allied, troops and, and action in the South Pacific.
00:05:47 - of the people I worked on, Ben Robertson, who was in Moscow at the same time, pleading for a quote, a so-called second front to help the Soviets push back the invasion of Nazi forces. And so seeing these two in tandem shows just how much division there were among Americans in terms of their understanding of where the heart of the war was, what needed to happen to win it, other characters, for example, a man named Manuel Diaz. He had grown up, in Spain,

Nuanced Perspectives on World War II Engagements

00:06:19 - all of Spain's colonies. And so he grew up amidst a, a strong anti-American set of sentiments in Spain, and a desire to rekindle Spain's world power. And so that background and, and his sort of, you know, experiences during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s explain how he comes to certain kinds of pro axis positions during the war. And in contrast, another character, Tamara, is, escapes Ukraine during the Civil War in 1920.
00:06:50 - And so you, you know, by putting these people in conversation with each other, you can really see how there, there are different turning points that matter for different Americans. There are different, political convictions that underride their, their efforts. and it, it, it really sort of seeks to nuance our understanding of, the vast array of engagements that Americans had around the world, and then how the war either reinforced those or derailed them, in many cases. I would love it if readers would take away from this story
00:07:20 - I, I wrote this in a way that's fairly open-ended, so readers get to draw their own conclusions. I, I, I didn't sort of come, come at it with a strong, this is what you have to take away from this book. But what I do hope that they will come away with is a sense of the importance of American's engagement with the world before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, none of the people in my book needed the bombing of Pearl Harbor to wake up to world affairs. They were all deeply invested. They just didn't agree about what was important. and two, to recognize how,
00:07:55 - around the time when the, when the Yankee Clipper went down the war before, that was a, a period of stunning axis gains. It was not at all clear the allies were gonna win this war. and in retrospect, we tend to focus on the outcome. And so we have a kind of, you know, retrospective understanding that, of course, this is the outcome. But to see this through the eyes of these people, you can really understand like how intense and, you know, terrifying this moment in world history was. and also I wanna just have people come away with a sense
00:08:29 - enmeshed in the war efforts of other people around the world. over time, Americans have started telling American World War II stories in ways that are very insular. we can, you can find lots of movies these days where there's no non-American characters. It's all about GIS alone, liberating, you know, Europe or the Pacific. And these people in my book really show how much it mattered, what the people were doing in the, in the Colonies, in the American and European colonies,
00:09:17 - and depended upon networks, supplies, and all kinds of, factors coming from these other, parts of the world. So hopefully it will, it will give people a, a more, international sense, of the war and a less America centric sense of the war. Wow.

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