Archive for the ‘1997’ Category

Re[2]: Letow Schnapps

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Wed Dec 17 14:59:47 1997
>X-Sender: msmall@roanoke.infi.net
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>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 16:57:48 -0500
>To: mahan@microworks.net
>From: Marc James Small
>Subject: Re: Re[2]: Letow Schnapps
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>At 01:45 PM 12/17/97 GMT, Bill Riddle wrote:
> > I suspect they were “good capitalists” with their license revenues
> > waiting for them after the war. So that they had funds on hand to get
> > back to work with after the inevitable departure of the Austrian
> > Corporal.
>
>
>Oh, NO! ALL German assets, including patents, copyrights, and trade-marks,
>were seized by the US government in early 1942. They were administered by
>the US Alien Properties Office and were auctioned off in the ’50’s. There
>are some grand tales as to how Leitz regained control of their American
>agency and of the poor relations between Carl Zeiss and its American agency
>in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s (you see, the American agency head, Dr
>Bauer, one of the inventors of lens coatings, insisted on doing business
>with those EAST German guys … )
>
>If any royalties were paid, they were paid to the US Government. The
>German companies would not have gotten a dime.
>
>Marc
>
>
>msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315
>Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!

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African Queen

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Wed Dec 17 11:36:11 1997
>From: “John Forester”
>To:
>Subject: Re: African Queen
>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 10:15:00 -0800
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161
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>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
> Well, the same old story. Read the book before seeing the > film, which has
>an incredible ending that horrified CSF. The Konigin Luise is described as
>a gunboat, “in appearance just like a white-painted Thames tug.” However,
>she is also described as “The Konigen Luise had not really been designed as
>a fighting ship; her engines and boilers were above water line instead of
>being far below under a protective deck.” In response to the initial
>attack, “The three-pounder shells began to burst about the Konigin Luise’s
>stern. At first they merely blew holes in the thin plating, … ” Much
>earlier, her building had been described. “She had been brought up from the
>coast, overland, in sections, eight years before. The country had been
>swept for bearers and workmen then as now, for there had been roads to hack
>through the forest, and enormous burdens to be carried. The Konigin Luise’s
>boiler needed to be transported in one piece, and every furlong of its
>transport had cost the life of a man in the forest.”
>
> I suggest that she did not look like a Thames tug, with its > engines deep
>inside, but more like an American river steamer, probably, than like a
>European river steamer, because the American design was better suited to
>shallow water. Probably, the Germans used as much locally available wood as
>possible in her construction, rather than steel plate carried overland,
>thin or not. Anybody know the facts about the actual gunboat that the
>Germans had on Lake Tanganyika?
>
> During the filming, CSF liked what he had seen. In my book I write:
>”Shooting was complete in 1951 and my father told me his reaction to the
>film as far as it had progressed. ‘I’ve seen some of the rushes of The
>African Queen and I’m as pleased as everybody else by Bogart’s acting.
>Seeing him so good has taken quite a load off my mind, for I was genuinely
>worried.’
>
> “His statement contrasts against his opinion of the film, > as written to
>Frances [Phillips, editor of William Morrow & Co., his mistress and
>literary advisor]. ‘Anyway I went down to Hollywood by the night train last
>Saturday and went to the preview of The African Queen on the night of the
>23rd. There was the hell of a party afterwards. It’s hard to be definite
>about the film. It’s a fine corpse, so to speak, except for the end, where
>corruption has already set in so that it stinks. Up to the end they
>followed the book quite slavishly, even in minute detail, so that it’s
>exactly like the book except that it it’s as dead as mutton, and I can’t
>think why — the humour is quite good, and the love story is quite
>convincing, and Bogart and Hepburn do real good jobs, but the soul of the
>thing just isn’t there — but other people may not notice its absence. …
>God knows why the picture is a decaying corpse, but I think it is.'”
>
> Of course, the part about Allnutt holding the ends of the > shot-through
>main steam line together with his hands wrapped in cloths, as the African
>Queen ran past the German fort, was not in the book, either. Even CSF must
>have been appalled at that, although he didn’t mention it.
>
> And, of course, CSF had told me, when the contract was > signed, that when
>the picture was over the boat was mine. That was in the contract, so he
>said. Later he told me that he was very sorry, but they had had to sink
>the African Queen, just like in the book, so she could not be given to me.
>When the film was released, I was in the USN and missed it, and I didn’t
>see it for quite some time (no video tapes in those days). Frankly, I was
>skeptical, but I still believed in him. When I first watched the film, I
>was more concerned about the sinking of the boat than anything else in it,
>and I decided that the sinking was miniature model stuff and that if I had
>been the director I would not have risked losing my prime prop just to have
>a piece of wreckage, that would be much easier faked, for the Konigin Luise
>to collide with. However, I had my own real-life difficulties to deal with
>at that time, rather than trying to pursue the question of whether or not
>my father had deliberately lied to me, which lay latent for decades.
>
>John Forester 408-734-9426
>forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
>http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041

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African Queen

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Tue Dec 16 20:46:05 1997
>From: MHayes7292
>Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 22:05:35 EST
>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Subject: African Queen
>Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com)
>X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11)
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>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>
>In a message dated 12/16/1997 10:13:51 PM, you wrote:
>
>Hepburn classic. >>
>
>Also a nice work of fiction. However, I never did figure out how the Germans
>got a cruiser on Lake Tanganyika.
>
>Mark

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History

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Mon Dec 15 10:56:33 1997
>From: Brooks Rowlett
>Subject: Re: History
>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 12:54:23 -0500 (EST)
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
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>
>Tom Robison asked about the freighter hit by a Harpoon. IIRC, the
>freighter wandered into the exercise area, and the surveillance measures
>intended to prevent firing when there was a vessel or aircraft at risk in
>such an area, failed to detect it. Oops…… I do not remember if the
>aircraft was actually operating from a carrier at the time.
>
>-Brooks

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Naval history quiz winners

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Mon Dec 15 11:53:32 1997
>Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 10:51:34 -0800
>From: Mike Potter
>Organization: Artecon, Inc.
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (WinNT; I)
>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Subject: Naval history quiz winners
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>21-gun salutes to Brooks Rowlett and Steve Alvin!
>19-gun salute to Timothy Francis!
>All are US participants although both actions involved British and
>German units.
>
>1. Identify the first major surface warship to be sunk in combat from
>damage inflicted by hostile air attack:
>
> German light cruiser Kõnigsberg (L 1927) was sunk in April 1940 at
> Bergen, Norway, by multiple hits and near misses from 500lb bombs
> dropped by RN dive bombers. Aircraft sank smaller warships in China
> and Poland before this but Kõnigsberg was much larger and was armed
> and prepared to fight back.
>
>2. Identify the first major surface warship to be sunk in a naval action
>in which the victor used aircraft for gunfire spotting:
>
> German light cruiser Kõnigsberg (L 1905) was destroyed in July 1915
> in the Rufiji River delta, Tanzania (then German East Africa), by
> indirect fire from RN river monitors Mersey and Severn using 2
> (soon reduced to 1) spotter aircraft to call corrections.
>
>3. Before they were sunk, what did the victim warships from these
>actions have in common?
>
> To quote Brooks:
> > From the minimalist point of view, I suspect all three questions can
> > be answered with : “The name of the ship was KONIGSBERG”
> And both were light cruisers, obviously both were German. Probably
> the 1940 victim commemorated her 1915 predecessor, as did another
> WW 1 light cruiser.
>
>I’ll post separately a short account of the loss of the first
>Kõnigsberg, the result of a 10-month campaign that isn’t well known in
>naval history. Possibly another “first” was that this Kõnigsberg shot
>down a spotter, which could be the first surface-to-air kill in naval
>history.
>
>–
>Michael C. Potter, Mgr, TelCo/Govt Programs mike.potter@artecon.com
>Artecon, Inc. | | mail PO Box 9000
>6305 El Camino Real -|- _|_ Carlsbad CA
>Carlsbad CA 92009 >_|_( |/_>ph 760-431-4465 >_III_ V|/ _III_ |/|_o fx 760-931-5527
> =-| L/_| _|____L_/_|==
> ___ ________|____-===L|_LL| -==| .___ |
> ___. __I____|_[_]_______|_____[__||____[_]_|__|_=====_|\__–+====–/
>\_____/|_|__| == 963 /
>|

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Early postwar Japan

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Mon Dec 15 07:35:58 1997
>From: “John Forester”
>To:
>Subject: Early postwar Japan
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 21:47:57 -0800
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
> As I wrote earlier, my father was probably the first person > of the victors
>who was allowed to leave the Tokyo-Yokohama area. When he visited the
>country, it was only two weeks or so after the surrender, and there hadn’t
>really been sufficient time for the Japanese as a whole to appreciate the
>general decency with which they were being treated. I attribute the
>happiness of my father’s tour to something more than that, earlier than
>that, and I suspect that part of it was the Emperor’s order to surrender
>quietly.
>
>John Forester 408-734-9426
>forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
>http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041

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American GIs/Marines in Japan — Good Guys … or Mass Rapists?

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Sun Dec 14 16:51:53 1997
>X-Errors-To:
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 18:51:21 -0500 (EST)
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>To: mahan@microworks.net
>From: rickt@cris.com (Eric Bergerud)
>Subject: Re: American GIs/Marines in Japan — Good Guys … or Mass Rapists?
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
> >Eric,
> >
> >Is the U.S. historical community then taking substantive action
> > to organize a refutation of Yuki Tanaka’s charges of mass rape by GIs?
> > … a charge which … after the recent Okinawa incident … is of
> > intense interest to the Japanese people.
> >
> >Since my purging from H-War (and WWII-L, which is less vital), I’m not
> > up-to-date on developments.
> >
> >Thanks.
> >
>Lord, this is a new one on me. I haven’t heard a word about it. Lately H-War
>has been squabbling with the Minerva crowd (women infantrymen will end rape
>etc etc) and refighting the 1948 Israeli war of independence. Now…it would
>not suprise me at all if it is true that rape etc was part of the
>occupation..within limits. There have been explosive charges made in the
>past few years about GIs both taking “liberties” in Germany and turning a
>blind eye to ugly violence caused by freed POWs and camp survivors against
>local civilians. My Lai took place too. In all things of this nature, what
>is vital is scale. Compared to what the Japanese did in any of the countries
>where they met resistence, US behavior in Japan was excellent. BTW: Japan is
>a country where rape is very sensitive. It is quite common in one guise or
>another (what we’d call “date rape” especially) and the Japanese have never
>looked at sex and violence in the same way as we. Now that US cultural
>values are being imported over there (probably more successfully than US
>products) the fur is starting to fly. Now a lot of Japanese blame us for
>that. The Japanese Left has always blamed us for “creating” JAPAN INC, and
>the Japanese Right blames us for all kinds of spiritual ills. A lot of
>Europeans blame the US for the ills of the late 20th Century: the underclass
>doesn’t know it’s place, less wine being drunk, no more three hour lunches,
>German students paying fees for college etc etc etc. The US is a big target.
>I think it’s a kind of mercy that the average American doesn’t know what
>goes on outside our borders. It’s also true that MOST foreigners trust our
>intentions to a degree without precedent in history. Can you think of any
>other great power that smaller nations ask to stick around?
>Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

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American GIs/Marines in Japan — Good Guys … or Mass Rapists?

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Sun Dec 14 15:52:14 1997
>X-Authentication-Warning: ecom4.ecn.bgu.edu: mslrc owned process doing -bs
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 16:51:36 -0600 (CST)
>From: “Louis R. Coatney”
>X-Sender: mslrc@ecom4.ecn.bgu.edu
>To: mahan@microworks.net, mahan@microwrks.com
>Subject: American GIs/Marines in Japan — Good Guys … or Mass Rapists?
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>Eric,
>
>Is the U.S. historical community then taking substantive action
> to organize a refutation of Yuki Tanaka’s charges of mass rape by GIs?
> … a charge which … after the recent Okinawa incident … is of
> intense interest to the Japanese people.
>
>Since my purging from H-War (and WWII-L, which is less vital), I’m not
> up-to-date on developments.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Lou
> Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
>
>On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, Eric Bergerud wrote:
> > John is not the first person to wonder why relations between the US
> > occupation and the Japanese civilians were pretty good coming on the heels
> > of a savage war. It is essential to realize that the Japanese people had
>[SNIP!]
> > famine in the face, and fire-bombings do nothing to improve > morale.) But the
> > major factor was the strict discipline placed on the US occupation forces
> > which prevented large scale acts of revenge on the part of US soldiers
> > against a hated foe. Obviously this also says good things about American
> > soldiers too. We were the good guys in that war, no joke.

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American GIs/Marines in Japan — Good Guys … or Mass Rapists?

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Sun Dec 14 15:52:05 1997
>X-Authentication-Warning: ecom4.ecn.bgu.edu: mslrc owned process doing -bs
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 16:51:36 -0600 (CST)
>From: “Louis R. Coatney”
>X-Sender: mslrc@ecom4.ecn.bgu.edu
>To: mahan@microworks.net, mahan@microwrks.com
>Subject: American GIs/Marines in Japan — Good Guys … or Mass Rapists?
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>Eric,
>
>Is the U.S. historical community then taking substantive action
> to organize a refutation of Yuki Tanaka’s charges of mass rape by GIs?
> … a charge which … after the recent Okinawa incident … is of
> intense interest to the Japanese people.
>
>Since my purging from H-War (and WWII-L, which is less vital), I’m not
> up-to-date on developments.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Lou
> Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
>
>On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, Eric Bergerud wrote:
> > John is not the first person to wonder why relations between the US
> > occupation and the Japanese civilians were pretty good coming on the heels
> > of a savage war. It is essential to realize that the Japanese people had
>[SNIP!]
> > famine in the face, and fire-bombings do nothing to improve > morale.) But the
> > major factor was the strict discipline placed on the US occupation forces
> > which prevented large scale acts of revenge on the part of US soldiers
> > against a hated foe. Obviously this also says good things about American
> > soldiers too. We were the good guys in that war, no joke.

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BISMARCK

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

From Sun Dec 14 15:21:44 1997
>From: John Snyder
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 14:26:41 -0800
>To: mahan@microwrks.com
>Subject: BISMARCK
>Organization: MacNexus, the Sacramento Macintosh User Group
>X-Mailer: TeleFinder BBS v5.6
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>OK, memory fails me: was it on this list that the purported color of
>BISMARCK’s turret tops was the subject of discussion? If so, I have more
>info.
>
>John Snyder
>John_Snyder@bbs.macnexus.org

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