The cspan cities tour is exploring american stories as we take book tv and American History tv on the road. We travel to san antonio, texas. Coming up in the next hour we will experience the history of this south, texas city. Starting with a visit to the San Antonio Missions National Historical park. Following that in about 20 minutes we will hear about the role the city played in early military aviation. And in about 40 minutes visit one of the citys most recognizable features and biggest attractions, the historic river walk. Later a trip to the Spanish Governors Palace, one of the oldest buildings in the city dating back to the founding. We begin our special feature at Mission San Jose, one of four remaining colonial Spanish Missions in san antonio. Welcome to our Spanish Governors Palace. What youre looking at is actually the last visual remnants of the presidio, the original facility was built in the 1720s and it was really the residence for the captain. What we are looking at toda
Tonight we are very pleased to welcome back mark wilkinson. He has also been the director at the atwood house museum. Mr. Wilkins is a published auth author. He has a masters from Harvard University and he is currently working on several books related to world war one aviation. Mr. Will kins is also conservativing as producer of aerial effects documentary film. His new book, aeroneurosis. Due to unforeseen complications, we dont have any copies you can have signed tonight. The speaker graciously agreed to personalize some as well. Please join us in welcoming mark wilkins. Thank you for that very nice introduction, crystal. Im very happy to be here tonight. Thank you all for coming. I hope you find this topic as fascinating as i do. Basically the to give you a little background, the book was something i did for air and space magazine. Anyway, the research for that article sort of opened my eyes to the amount of material about how greatly about a a lot of these First World War pilots suf
Russian armies were in desperate retreat. The German Air Force was raining death and destruction on england. Combined italian and German Forces were menacing egypt. [explosions] their objective to defeat an opposing british army and dominate all of north africa. In asia, japanese air and Ground Forces were driving forward in their bloody conquest of china. [explosions] only one of the worlds major powers was still not at war the United States. It was a sunday afternoon in december 1941, and the statue of liberty towered serenely over new york harbor. As if she was the last symbol of freedom left to the crumbling free world. Afternoon in new york, Early Morning in hawaii, and another great harbor where american ships rested dockside. Planes with cold engines stood idle at nearby hickam field when suddenly, without warning [explosions] [airplanes roaring] [explosions] [somber music] [rousing music] the immediate Japanese Military objective was to knock out United States naval and air pow
With combatexperienced divisions in north africa, the junglecovered islands of the pacific, the aleutians, where they had wiped out the japanese on attu. Now, the bloodied veterans of the north African Campaign had landed on sicily in a drive for the italian mainland. Millions more were training in the united states. We were well on the road to the ultimate victory. [rousing music] in 1940, our army numbered a little more than a quarter of a million men. Three years later in 1943, it numbered almost 7 million and would continue to grow grow to 8 million. But numbers alone do not make an efficient fighting force capable of winning the final victory. An undisciplined and unequipped rabble, even though the cause be war against the trained and well disciplined, well armed, and well led force. To the intensive training soldiers hadican never been as well trained and equipped to fight as were our soldiers in world war ii. The northns of African Campaign learned intensive training pays off. N
[explosions] norway and luxembourg. Armies were in desperate retreat. The German Air Force was raining death and destruction on england. Combined italian and German Forces were menacing egypt. Their objective to defeat an opposing british army and dominate all of north africa. In asia, japanese air and Ground Forward in driving their bloody conquest of china. Only one of the worlds major ers was still not at war the United States. It was a sunday afternoon in december 1941, and the statue of liberty towered serenely over new york harbor. As if she was the last symbol of freedom left to the crumbling free world. Afternoon in new york, Early Morning in hawaii at another restedwhere ships dockside. Planes with cold engines stood by at nearby hickam field when denly, without warning [explosions] the immediate Japanese Military outctive was to knock navalates air power and air power in the pacific in one stroke. They were convinced we were incapable of fighting a twofront war. The japanese