Tom McMahon

The Bataan Death March: Bad Manners To Wear Hat In Presence Of Sacred Symbol Of Rising Sun

The Bataan Death March: Bad Manners To Wear Hat In Presence Of Sacred Symbol Of Rising Sun

From the 1961 Dell comic book Combat!: The Death March of Bataan

The Bataan Death March: Me Knock That One Right Out Of Ball Park!

The Bataan Death March: Me Knock That One Right Out Of Ball Park!

From the 1961 Dell comic book Combat!: The Death March of Bataan

Stamp Out The Axis

Stamp Out The Axis

World War II Emergency Signalling Mirror Made By General Electric

World War II Emergency Signalling Mirror Made By General Electric

I bought one of these just in case. You never know.

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich

The blurb:

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich is a detailed, heavily illustrated reference book containing relevant historical exposition on many of the personal, organizational and commemorative spoons of the 3rd Reich period from 1933 to 1945. These spoons, unlike most other collectibles from this period, were actually owned and used daily by the people and organizations of those times. The book includes many spoon types, for example: Hitler’s personal silverware, Red Cross, SS, the U-47 etc. With over 200 photos / graphics and over 19,000 words of text, the book extensively explores the relevant historical highlights which in turn illuminate this unique period in history as reflected by the spoons. These spoons are history that you can hold in your hand and were once in the hands of the German history makers of the 3rd Reich era. As the years pass, the 3rd Reich era will move from the monster of history to just plain history as did the Napoleonic era and like Napoleon collectibles, there is increasing interest in acquiring 3rd Reich collectibles, although understandably relatively modest in our lifetime. Thus, this book should be of interest to the collector and educational for the casual reader of history.

Another one where adding commentary would be like dousing a fine steak with ketchup.

Confronting Himmler

Confronting Himmler

A wartime photograph shows Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, inspecting a prison camp and a shirtless skinny PoW close to the fence confronting him. The prisoner has been identified as Horace Greasley, who said he did not know who Himmler was at the time, but realised that he was some superior officer. Greasley said that when the photo was taken he was demanding more food for the prisoners, having taken off his shirt to show how thin he was. Rations did not improve as a result.

Rat Poison Wanted

Rat Poison Wanted

World War II Conservation Public Service Ad

Mustard Gas Smells Like Garlic

Mustard Gas Smells Like Garlic

Who knew? A World War II unpublished poison gas warning poster. (via Neatorama)

A Very Inconvenient Question About The John Demjanjuk Nazi Death Camp Guard Trial Going On Now In Germany

An excerpt from FoxNews.com:

MUNICH — Jewish prisoners had to unload decomposed corpses at the Nazi death camp at Sobibor and were forbidden to warn new prisoners that they would be gassed within the hour, a survivor testified Thursday at the trial of John Demjanjuk.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old retired Ohio autoworker, is accused of serving as a low-level guard at the Nazi camp in occupied Poland and is charged with accessory to murder in 27,900 deaths. Demjanjuk rejects the charges, saying he never served in Sobibor or any other Nazi camp.

Sobibor survivor Philip Bialowitz told the Munich state court that Jews being brought from western Europe largely believed the Nazi ruse that they were being resettled and arrived at the camp relieved that their long journey was over.

The 84-year-old testified that he and other Jewish prisoners helped unload the trains, under the watch of German SS and Ukrainian guards. Music was played over loudspeakers to keep the atmosphere calm.

"When I helped the Jewish passengers with their bags, some of them offered me a tip," said Bialowitz, who was born in Poland and now lives in New York. "My heart was bleeding because I knew that they would be dead in less than an hour and I couldn't warn them." ...

Bialowitz was the second Sobibor survivor to testify this week. Though neither he nor the other witness remember Demjanjuk from the camp, their testimony aims to give the court a general idea about how the camp operated.

So if John Demjanjuk is on trial for helping out the Nazis at the Sobibor Death Camp, why isn't Philip Bialowitz also on trial for helping out the Nazis at the Sobibor Death Camp?

A Knack For Accomplishing Impossible Things

From Herbert E. Meyer:

An intelligence service is one of these highly specialized organizations whose success depends more on talent than on management. And the precise talent that an intelligence service needs is the ability to connect dots -- to spot a pattern with the fewest possible facts -- not only to intuitively grasp what lies in the future, but to grasp it soon enough, and clearly enough, so that there's time to change the future before it happens.

We used to understand this. Our country's World War II intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services, was led by William J. Donovan. He was a brilliant Wall Street lawyer with a razor-sharp analytic mind and a talent for spotting talent. For example, when all the experts told Donovan that it was impossible to get spies into Nazi Germany, he gave the job to a young tax attorney he'd worked with who seemed to have a knack for accomplishing impossible things. His name was William J. Casey, and from his base in London as head of secret operations for the OSS, he organized 103 missions behind Nazi lines. The OSS was perhaps the greatest intelligence service in world history, and its roster of stars included Arthur J. Goldberg -- later President Kennedy's secretary of labor, Supreme Court justice, and U.N. ambassador -- and even Julia Child.