Courage Before Every Danger, Honor Before All Men

IP is over the quota
IP is over the quota

Courage Before Every Danger is a documentary of the lives of the people who served in the 31st Bomb Squad (H). A reader will find the importance of the book within the "Foreword" section written by Norah Davenport Pratton. "When that old veteran faces the reality of the final days of his 90 years and has only one request - to hear the unfinished manuscript of Joanne Emerick's book - there is no doubting that manuscript's importance...Roy Davenport passed from this world into the next a few hours after the reading of this special manuscript. He was so satisfied with what Joanne had written - with the truth, the harsh reality, the beauty and all of those voices of his fellow warriors telling the stories that would now be passed down to the next generation and the next. 'Don't forget me,' he told us again and again. 'Don't forget me.'"

While family and friends may never forget those who served in the 31st Bomb Squad (H), others have never heard of them. Why is that?

This year is the 70th anniversary of the beginning of WWII for the United States. Three to four generations have joined those old veterans and with each new generation, WWII becomes less of a conversation around the dinner table. That is unless you are related to someone who served in the war or you are studying the war in school or as a history buff. Even then, the common veteran's name is unknown because not all could hold the high commanding jobs such as Eisenhower, Patton and Marshall. For the common veteran's name to become known it takes people like Emerick doing research - tracking down the veterans or their family and reading through thousands of documents, letters, diaries, etc. to find that special story.

Courage Before Every Danger is told in the veterans' own words. Twenty chapters tell stories of where the veterans were from, what they did before becoming a part of the 31st and what they did during the war. Most of the veterans became a close knit family during the war. After the war, some remained friends and others grew apart as they were reincorporated into their own families' lives.

It took Emerick eighteen years to complete this masterpiece. One of her most moving times was when she attended the funeral and burial service of William Wyatt Patton, Jr. On a mission to Munich, Germany, Patton, flying a P-51 Mustang, encountered fog and disappeared. On February 22, 2001, near Longueville, France, a farmer digging a ditch found some metal which turned out to be the P-51 Mustang and there in the cockpit was Junior Patton, wearing his flight jacket and dog tags. Fifty-six years later, on November 9, 2001, Patton made it home and to his final resting place in Springfield, Missouri.

There are other touchy, feel-good stories in this book: some may bring tears to the eyes of the reader. But, mostly, the stories will give you a glimpse into the lives of the 31st Bomb Squad (H) stationed in the Pacific islands during WWII.

The book itself is pleasant to look at and is easy to read. It has several pages of endnotes for those who want to do their own research, an index to help locate a certain name and/or place, acknowledgments, maps, photographs, poems, excerpts of diaries/journals, and direct quotes from the living veterans.

I would recommend this book to high school and college history classes, to all WWII history buffs, and to others who have that curiosity to dig into the past of other people.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Award-winning and best-selling author Erik Larson pulls back the screen and exposes the world behind the glamor of 1933 Berlin with its beribboned, dashing young officers. Its seeming gaiety and the never-ending round of parties. This was the world into which the first Ambassador to Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich", William Dodd and family were thrust when he accepted the post.

Larsen is a skilled story-teller who has a rich body of material to work with. Indeed, it takes a craftsman to walk the fine line where his work remains true to the moment so that Dodd's unusual and sadly frustrating years as America's top diplomat to Hitler's Reich remains the centerpiece without slipping off as a sad sideshow to the life his family led as they were seduced, wined and dined by the country's ruling elite.

Dodd was just a college professor when he was tapped by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt to become the top diplomat in Berlin. He brought his wife, son and daughter with him on this assignment. Martha becomes the chief protagonist in this piece as the flamboyant young woman is not only swept off her feet by the royal treatment she receives, but is swept into the arms of lovers such as Rudolph Diels, first head of Hitler's feared secret police, the Gestapo and then into the arms of others.

Larsen, using Dodd's accurate reporting, skillfully recounts the rising horror as he hears reports of Jews disappearing and of regular beatings in the streets. Dodd knew there was a "special program," as it was easy to see, aimed at Jews and he reported the facts to a State Department that seemed not care enough.

By now nearly every Dodd's cable to the State Department seems to be met with not much concern even as Hitler enacts the racist "Nuremberg Laws," where the degrees of "jewishness" are established with penalties attached. Larsen shows us Dodd's frustration mounting, also as the Reich leadership becomes more and more oppressive and erratic. Newspapers are censored; reporters and other disappear.

Larsen, whose gripping writing takes us through this dark period in history, builds his work like a composer builds a symphony as the intrigue, excitement and romance lead inexorably to the cataclysm called "Crystal Nacht," where Jewish shops are burned and ransacked, their owners beaten senseless by thugs with clubs and ax-handles, all in the name of the "pure" Reich.

Larsen's portraits of the bizarre behavior of Goering and the slimy Goebbels are spot on.

This work deserves a place on your reading list if you enjoy good history and it most certainly deserves a spot there if you like good writing and portraits painted as if by a painter. Larsen deserves high praise for his work. It was chosen for an Amazon Best Books Award.

Roberto Sedycias works as an IT consultant for ecommUS-Books