August 6, 1945:  Hiroshima

In early May 1945, the war in  Europe ended.  Hitler was dead, Berlin captured and the remnants of the Third Reich surrendered to the Allied Forces.  But the World War was not over.  Japan remained defiant.  Over the last two years, despite consistent defeats, the Japanese Empire continued to show fanatic resistance.  Its soldiers chose to fight to the death rather than capitulate.  They adhered to the ideas of Bushido–“the way of the warrior”.  This had been the code of the Samurai, but what once had the etiquette of the medieval nobility now was the national policy of Japan.  Every soldier was to abide by it.   

On Iwo Jima, the Japanese garrison of 18,000 fought to the last man; and 6800 Americans died taking the island.  At Okinawa, a force of 110,000 Japanese found themselves cut off, defenseless against allied air power and outnumbered five to one.  Their position was hopeless but they would not surrender.  Nearly all of them died, and so did 12,000 Americans.  Faced with this fanatic resolve, the Allies had to plan the invasion of the Home Islands of the Empire. 

Two million Japanese soldiers were stationed there. The Japanese government also had organized a militia to resist the Allied invasion.  Every Japanese man from 15 to 60, every unmarried woman from 15 to 40– a total of 28 million– received military training and weapons.  They, too, were expected to fight and die for the Empire.  The Japanese air force was training its pilots for suicide– “kamikazes”– missions “: to deliberately crash their explosive-laden planes into Allied ships.  Japan had 10,000 kamikaze pilots ready.  Furthermore, there were another two million Japanese soldiers stationed in China and Korea; they had to be prevented from reinforcing the Home Islands.

The anticipated invasion would be the hardest and bloodiest campaign the Americans had yet to fight.  In August, the Soviets would enter the war against Japan and attack the imperial forces in Korea and China.  Then in late October or early November, Americans and British Commonwealth forces would land on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s Home Islands.  There, the Allies would establish a base from which they launch the next phase of the attack: an attack in March, 1946 on the island of Honshu.  Its goal was to capture Tokyo. 

Of course, the Allies expected a ferocious resistance.  Once the capital fell, the Allied strategists predicted that the Japanese would be too exhausted and demoralized to continue the war.  One evaluation by the U.S. Department of War predicted that the entire campaign would take six months and cost the lives of 260,000 soldiers; however, that was the most optimistic estimate.  Another strategic study predicted 800,000 dead.  As for the number of wounded, the standard calculation would be 4 times the number of dead.  Enemy casualties were not the primary concerns of these reports, but it was estimated that the Japanese could suffer up to 10 million dead.  At the time, the Japanese population was 80 million.

But there was an alternative to this anticipated carnage, at least one that would save Allied lives.  Throughout the war, Allied scientists had been working on the development of a phenomenal weapon that possessed unimaginable power.  Physicists had theorized the military potential of nuclear fission.  Splitting an atom of a radioactive element like uranium or plutonium could release a considerable and very destructive amount of energy.  Ten of thousands of scientists, technicians, and soldiers were involved in this top secret operation, codenamed “The Manhattan Project:  But for all these efforts, there remained the basic question: would the atomic bomb actually work?  On July 16, 1945 at Los Alamos, New Mexico, the doubt was answered: the atomic bomb detonated.  A single bomb could destroy a city.

Now the Allies could use this new weapon to overwhelm and force the Japanese to surrender.  At the time of the Los Alamos detonation, the Allied Leaders– Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin–were conferring at Potsdam, Germany.  Threatening certain but unspecified destruction, the Allies demanded Japan’s unconditional surrender.  The Empire would be deprived of all its annexations and conquests, its forces must be disarmed and Allied forces would occupy and administer the Home Islands while Japan adapted to a democratic, civilian government.  Responding through diplomatic channels, the Japanese rejected any Allied occupation of their country.

On August 6, 1945, three American planes flew to Hiroshima, a Japanese port and troop center with a civilian population of 300,000.  Such a small sortie did not concern the Japanese authorities.  But one of the planes, the Enola Gay, contained the atomic bomb.  That bomb contained 130 pounds of enriched uranium.  When detonated over Hiroshima, it created a blast equivalent to 13,000 tons of T.N.T. and ignited a fire burning at 7000 degrees Fahrenheit, the same temperature as the sun.  The bomb destroyed 69 percent of the city’s buildings and killed immediately 70,000 people; as many as 140,000 were injured. 

That same day, President Harry Truman gave a radio address to the American people.  “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.”  He went on to describe the bomb and the Allied effort to create it.  The President then warned the Japanese of the further consequences if they now refused to surrender.  “Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war…If they do not accept our terms they make expect a rain of ruin from the air, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth.”

Yet the Japanese government did not respond.  On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was detonated over Nagasaki.  At least 40,000 people died.  That day the Japanese cabinet met to discuss whether or not to surrender.   Half of the cabinet members were prepared to keep fighting;   the Bushido Code preferred death to the disgrace of surrender.  Others were not so proud when faced with the possible extermination of the Japanese people.  They were debating into the next morning when the Emperor Hirohito intervened.  The Emperor would not allow the further destruction of his people, no matter the humiliation of surrender.  “We must endure the unendurable” and he ordered the cabinet to acknowledge Japan’s defeat and capitulate to the allies.  Since the state religion of Japan revered the Emperor as a God, he had to be obeyed.

Through diplomatic channels, the Japanese approached the Allies on August 12th, acceding to the terms of an unconditional surrender.  The only Japanese request was that the monarchy be preserved.  In fact, Americans and British actually favored the existence of a modified, constitutional monarchy.  They thought that the Emperor could be a valuable intermediary in transforming a samurai culture into a peaceful, democratic one.  On August 15th, Japan surrendered to the Allies. The Emperor Hirohito gave his first radio address to his subjects, telling them that the war was over and Japan had lost.  “Should we continue to fight, it would only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but would also lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”

So the war ended.  The men who would have died on the beaches of Kyushu or the plains of Tokyo lived; many are still alive and their descendants number in the tens of millions.  The Allies occupied Japan until 1952.  The Emperor Hirohito reigned until his death in 1989; history honors him for his role in ending the war and presiding over Japan’s remarkable transformation to a prosperous and democratic society.  And now nine countries possess the atomic bomb and terrifying advancements of it.  Yet, none has risked to use the weapon; its power is its own deterrent.   The atomic bomb ended the Second World War; there dare not be a Third.

On this day in A.D. 70:

If you had booked the Temple of Jerusalem for a wedding or a bar mitzvah, ask the High Priest for a refund. Either that, or ask the cater to set up some extra tables for a rampaging Roman army. On third thought, get the refund. The Romans destroyed the Temple. And don’t let the High Priest or your insurance agent claim that it was an act of God. After all, which God? I’d say it was Mars, although it took the War God and Rome four months to crush Jerusalem.

To commemorate this day, I will be eating spumoni ice cream. But for the Romans and their pacification policy of exiling the Judeans to Europe (where no doubt we would lose our identity), today I might look Yassir Arafat. (Worse, my wife might.) Instead we were forced to wade through some better looking gene pools. So, thanks Rome.

On This Day in 1704:

Austria gained control of Gibraltar. At least, the British claimed the captured peninsula on behalf of Archduke Karl, their candidate for the Spanish throne. Yet, the British somehow never did turn over Gibraltar; perhaps, they were waiting for the Austrian navy to show up. The British settled in and soon abandoned all pretense of acting for their Hapsburg ally. Of course, the Spanish and their French allies attempted to retake Gibraltar but they learned this lesson in military topography.  Attacking from the sea, you can take Gibraltar. Attacking from land, you can’t.

In 1713, with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish ceded control of Gibraltar only on condition that “no leave shall be given under any pretence whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors, to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar.” The British agreed but they did not order their immigration officers to check everyone for foreskins. And once the Jews and Moors were back, the British did not ask them to leave. (Irish Catholics would have been less welcomed.) Of course, Spain declared that this was a violation of the Treaty and used it as a justification for another war. But once again the Spanish attacked by land, with predictable results.

Spain–with French support–attacked again in 1782 and this time remembered to use ships as well as a large army. Good strategy but bad timing. The British had been preoccupied trying to restore order over some dyspeptic colonies in North America, but after 1781 had signed an armistice with the rebels. Britain was now free to thrash the Spanish and the French–which is exactly what happened.

Yet Spain would try once more. In 1808, with Spanish permission, Napoleon and his forces marched into Iberia with the understanding that he take Gibraltar. But there must have been a misunderstanding; Napoleon seized Spain instead. Add a cedilla to the irony, the Spanish needed the British to drive out the French.

(And Hitler offered to march through Spain to take Gibraltar. For some reason, Franco refused.)

Of course, Spain still demands the return of Gibraltar. Britain will probably schedule that a week after it returns the Elgin Marbles.

p.s.  As if today did not have enough historical gossip, have some more:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/08/04/perhaps-the-most-incompetent-man-of-all-time-2/

The truth can always be improved. We see it all the time in ads for films. For example, let’s say the movie reviewer writes, “Once again that puerile bore Adam Sandler attempts to be funny.”  The ads for the movie will quote this from the review:”funny.” That may be slightly out-of-context but the quote is technically correct.

Now the same creative technique is being applied to political ads. Your newspaper may have written, “In his proposal to outlaw any sexual position he can’t spell, Congressman Wendell Gopper reveals himself an execrable buffoon”. The television ads for Gopper will quote the newspaper praising Gopper as “able” and “buff.”

There are other ways to create such quotes. Gopper’s campaign could put an ad in the singles’ section saying, “I am looking for the type of person who thinks that Wendell Gopper is a brilliant statesman and God’s gift to our district.” Since it is in the newspaper, Gopper’s TV ads have every right to quote “the brilliant statesman” bit. So what if it wasn’t exactly on the editorial page!

Of course, the same creativity can be applied to negative ads. The Gopper staff, remembering to use blank stationery, could submit this letter to the newspaper. “It is long overdue that candidate Drake Preenwell deny that he is a necrophile.” If the letter is published, then it is technically a quote. And the Gopper TV ads will publicize the line as if it were a Pulitzer Prize-winning pronouncement.

But what if the letter is not published? There is a way around that.

Show an unflattering picture of Drake Preenwell. The ad’s voiceover begins and the following words appear on the screen:

Your newspaper says, “a drunken degenerate”…”a ludicrous public spectacle”…”a disgrace to his family”…”dying of syphilis.”

And every quote would be true. Of course, the quotes were from an article on Toulouse-Lautrec but that is a trivial detail.

The modern bar mitzvah requires much more planning than the D-Day Invasion. At least our troops did not require place cards for the beachheads in Normandy. Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower and Montgomery were spared the daunting challenge of picking a theme for the event–a presumably fabulous motif that would flaunt our resources, humiliate the Germans and make Stalin jealous. In those more prosaic times, winning the war was ostentatious enough.

The bar mitzvah once was a rite of passage–when a thirteen year old really was expected to be an adult–but now it is a competitive form of self-deification. Who can put on the best show? Would you like a Hawaiian motif for the banquet? What about a Las Vegas theme? (Bugsy Siegel would be gratified.) There are party organizers who make a specialty of designing and choreographing these extravaganzas.

However, I have noticed that none of the bar mitzvahs have literary themes. That seems an ironic omission for the People of the Book. Perhaps I could go into this business. I do have ideas…

Of course, gentile authors might be inappropriate. A Faulkner bar mitzvah? (He is much more suitable for a 90 proof baptism.) But the number of Jewish writers still presents us with ample choices. To avoid all stress on the teenager, we could have a J.D. Salinger theme. The bar mitzvah boy won’t show up at the services but leaves a manuscript of his speech.

Would you like a Harold Pinter theme? A Pinteresque service would have four characters on the stage, doing disjointed readings, while interrupting and disputing each other. The audience doesn’t know which, if any of the children, is being bar mitzvahed.

A David Mamet service would certainly be noteworthy, especially when the Rabbi punches the child in the mouth.

For sectual ambivalence, choose the Irene Némirovsky theme.  The bar mitzvah boy insists that he is at his First Communion.

How about the Tom Stoppard bar mitzvah? The theme will be a dazzling synthesis of Shakespeare, Byron, Houseman, Joyce and Lenin. True, Judaism will never be mentioned, but in a Reform service it rarely is.

For a truly memorable service, you could have a Proustian bar mitzvah. It would last 40 hours but the bisexuality and the French pastry should keep the congregation interested. Furthermore, a Proustian bar mitzvah is an impressive credential on any college admission.

And for a truly traditional experience, there is the Sholem Aleichem theme. Your surviving guests will always talk about the pogrom.

If, through some lapse in the space-time continuum, you find yourself in 16th century Florence, here are some recommendations for tourists.  First, congratulations on beating the waiting lines for the Uffizi Gallery.  Try not to bother the muncipal bureaucrats; you are in their offices (hence, Uffizi).  You have to admit that they really knew how to decorate their cubicles, hallways and employee lounges.  (“The men’s chamber pots?  Turn left at the Raphael, in between the Botticelli and the Titian.”)

You might also want some guidelines for adultery.  (What better way to  demonstrate your humanism!)

Men: do not have affairs with women of superior social standing.  Unless you are an emperor, king, duke or cardinal (it is Renaissance Italy), do not seduce a duchess.  You will only get yourself poisoned and her strangled.

Women:  only have affairs with men of superior social standing.  They can protect you from your outraged husband or buy him off.

Take for example the happy couple Francesco de Medici (1541-1587) and Bianca Capello.  He is the Grand Duke of Tuscany and she is the wife of a Florentine clerk.  Of course, the Duke also has a wife, Johanna the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor and the first cousin of Philip II of Spain.  (Johanna’s opportunities for “correct” adultery would have been very limited; the only men with superior social standing would have been her father or the Emperor of China.)  The cuckolded clerk is bought off with a few bureaucratic promotions, perhaps a bigger warren at the Uffizi.

So, in this domestic skein, three out of four people are happy.  The Duchess is consistently miserable; in so many ways Florence is just too hot for an Austrian girl.  Then in 1572 the clerk becomes unhappy; that would be a normal reaction to being stabbed to death in public.  Of course, the culprits were never found.  The Duke and his widowed mistress continued in their bliss.  In 1578 Duchess Johanna was found at the bottom of a stairwell; apparently she had fallen.  In all probability, the Duke wouldn’t have been that stupid; you don’t needlessly offend in-laws like the Hapsburgs.  But would Bianca have been so ruthless?  Well, she was Mrs. Medici and the Grand Duchess the following year.

And Francesco and Bianca lived happily ever after until the very same day in 1587.  The cause of their deaths was said to be malaria.  Of course, the official coroner’s report took awhile….

NEWS FLASH:  “Italian scientists believe they have uncovered a 400-year-old murder. Historians have long suspected that Francesco de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his second wife Bianca Cappello did not die of malaria but were poisoned – probably by Francesco’s brother, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, who was vying for the title.”

Under normal circumstances, the Italian Coroner’s Office would not be dealing with a case from 1587 so soon. The Office has a backlog of autopsies dating back to AD. 19. (The preliminary report on Germanicus is expected shortly; but he is definitely dead.) However, the death of Francesco de Medici did involve a malpractice suit against his physician. The doctor was being sued for using unclean leeches. His insurance company expedited the case.  Four centuries of free lunches will get things done in Italy.

It should be noted that Cardinal Ferdinando made a much better ruler than his conveniently late brother. Although he was a Prince of the Church, Ferdinando never took any holy orders, and so was free to marry.  He chose a French cousin–the granddaughter of Catherine de Medici; and with that lineage, he might have been too terrified to cheat on her.  In any case, when Grand Duke Ferdinando died in 1608, there were no rumors and a genuinely sad widow.

So why am I writing this.  It is the birthday of Ferdinando de Medici:  good husband, capable ruler, dubious cardinal and a bad–but tasteful-brother.

Churchill’s choppers sold at auction in England

By AP

LONDON — A partial set of dentures used by former British leader Winston Churchill — described as the teeth that saved the world — sold at auction Thursday for 15,200 pounds ($23,723.)

The upper dentures, one of several sets specially made for the wartime prime minister, were used to maintain his distinctively slurred speaking style. They were bought by a British collector of Churchill memorabilia at an auction in England at three times the estimated price.

The set of dentures were unique because they were designed to be loose-fitting so that Churchill could preserve the diction famous from World War II-era radio broadcasts, experts said.

“From childhood, Churchill had a very distinctive natural lisp; he had trouble with his S’s,” said Jane Hughes, who is head of learning at London’s Hunterian Museum. “These are the teeth that saved the world.”

The medical museum displays a duplicate set of Churchill’s dentures in a glass cabinet alongside other famous teeth — including dentures worn by Queen Caroline, the estranged wife of King George IV.

“He wanted to maintain (the lisp) because he was already so well known for it,” she said. “The dentures wouldn’t quite connect with the top of the mouth, but that was on purpose.”

The dentures were made by dental technician Derek Cudlipp, who produced three or four identical sets for Churchill. One set is believed be have been buried with the leader. The set at auction was sold by the son of Cudlipp.

The false teeth were made just around the start of the war, when Churchill would have been about 65, Hughes said.

The politician is famous for his rousing speeches to the British nation during the war, but his dental issues have been less well known. Hughes said Churchill had many problems with his teeth as a child and probably lost some of them quite early. The leader valued so highly the skill of his dentist, Wilfred Fish, that he nominated him for a knighthood.

British actor Hugh Laurie, best known for his role as the misanthropic drug-addicted Dr. House and the chief justification for Christian Science, will record an album of blues songs.

The traditional blues singer is a share cropper with syphilis.  Mr. Laurie does not quite fit that image.  At the very least, he did not major in cotton-growing at Cambridge.  Now, it is possible that British life can provide the destitution and degradation that inspires “the blues”.  The poverty and short, brutal lives of Welsh coal miners should have prompted lyrical self-pity.  Unfortunately, the Welsh became Methodists rather than alcoholics, and you don’t sing the blues in choral arrangements. 

The Scots almost developed the blues.  With their endemic poverty (a Scottish banquet is two courses of oatmeal) and their suicidal loyalty to the Stuarts, the Highlanders did have some very depressing ballads.   

Oh I have a sword, and you have some cannons.

So I’ll be in Scrapland before ye. 

And me and my true love will never meet again.

But she probably has starved in the meantime.

Mr. Laurie, judging from his surname, does have Scottish ancestry; but I imagine that his only experience with British brutality was the standard molestation at Eton.  Still, had he only been born some 75 years earlier, Laurie might well have found the classic conditions for the blues:  mud, frustration and death.  “It’s a long way to Tipperary, but if you find any of my body parts, please ship the casket there.”  Until the Quake, a shooting schedule in California is still preferable to one on the Somme. 

Nonetheless, there must have some event in Mr. Laurie’s life that gave him the depth and scars to feel the blues.  Was it when Harrow beat Eton at cricket?  “Sticky wicket” does have a sensual insinuation to it…

Oh you googly my wicket.  You leg-bye my stumps.  Oh you googly my wicket.  You pitched my batman and now I got no bails.   

In fact, here is a sneak preview of Mr. Laurie singing one of the greatest classics of British blues: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtXYB5cN-1k&feature=related

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/07/26/byzantine-eugenics-2/

Russia’s Putin sings with expelled agents

  — Vladimir Putin says he met with the Russian spies who were expelled from the United States, joining them in singing an unofficial KGB anthem and promising them good jobs and a bright future back in their homeland.

Russia’s prime minister said late Saturday he recently got together with the 10 sleeper agents, without saying when or where. The agents were deported from the U.S. earlier this month in a biggest spy scandal since the Cold War.

“We talked about life,” Putin told reporters in Ukraine. “We sang ‘What Motherland Begins With’ and other songs of that character.”

Fresh from their almost triumphal tour of the U.S., it is the Cagey Bees! 

Sit back with the three other families in your apartment and listen to this medley of hits: 

“Serf City”

“When You Wish Against a Tsar”

 “Smolensk Gets in Your Eyes”

“Stalinway to Heaven”

“Fool Russians Where Engels Fears to Tread”

“How the West Was Won”

p.s.  Let’s not forget the theological significance of this day: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/07/25/your-saint-of-the-day-2/

“The Pillars of the Earth”, cable television’s latest depiction of history, takes place in 12th century England.  I now doubt the existence of England and the 12th century.  Any historical accuracy in that series would be inadvertent.

Yes, I know the standards of cable television. So I would expect to see Queen Maude (mother of Henry II) nude more often than either of her husbands or God ever did.  And I am resigned to a film or series simplifying facts; the audience apparently can only swallow history if it is pablum.  For example, in the Cate Blanchett vehicle “Elizabeth, the Golden Age”, somehow Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh are combined into one character.  (So this super Raleigh must have sunk the  Armada by introducing tobacco to Spanish sailors.)  But “The Pillars of the Earth” is worse than your standard stupefaction.  It is a lie.

The series opens with the sight of a burning ship and the date 1120; the scrolling explanation says that the Crown Prince of England has mysteriously died.  Well, the Crown Prince did die that year, but it was a scandal rather than a mystery.  The drunken teenager, with his equally soused friends, decided to take the fastest ship in the fleet on a night cruise.  Unfortunately, the ship’s crew was as drunk as the passengers.  The ship hit a rock and sank.  However, the series insinuates that the death was a conspiracy–with several bishops smirking suspiciously.  The only legitimate heir now is Princess Maude,  just a little girl playing with her dolls,  Those nasty bishops intend to supplant her with her cousin and their stooge Stephen.  At least, that is what the series depicts.  Actually, Princess Maude was 18, already married and living with her first husband in Germany.  In fact, she was older than her drunken dolt of a brother.

The plot then skips to 1138.  King Henry I makes his nobles swear their allegiance to Maude, who is married and about to give birth.  She will reign until her royal embryo is old enough to rule in his own right.  It is a nice bit of drama; something like that actually happened in 3rd century Persia, but not in 12th century England.  The King named Maude his heir in 1123.  She had no children with her first husband, who died in 1125.  Her second husband Geoffrey Plantagenet proved more efficient at creating dynasties.  Maude’s first little Plantagenet was born in 1133; he was named Henry for his grandfather and eventually got two Oscar nominations for Peter O’Toole.  As for that loyalty oath in 1138, the presence of Henry I would have been memorable.  He died in 1135.  Either that is an indictment of medieval housekeeping or an inexplicable historical distortion.

Now, that was just the first five minutes of the show.  What happened next?  I wouldn’t know because I gave up.

p.s.  At least the following historical farce is intentional:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/07/24/the-kitchen-debate/