Time, ten years later in 2020 for the number will be below 100,000 so the generation as generations do is slipping away, theyre passing over and i think we are finding 6 children, grandchildren, even great grandchildren who are keen to understand what their fathers, grandfathers did in part because it is part of their heritage, part of a parsimonious and part of understanding who we are, where we came from, world war ii affects us in very profound ways to this day, the way we think about gender, we are talking at the military academy, the way we think about race, the way we think about our role in the world. We will never be isolationist again the way we were before 1941. All of this do block from world war ii and people are interested in that just as they are interested in their own personal family histories so i think that helps to feed this ongoing fascination with it. Finally it is the greatest catastrophe in human history, sixty million dead. It is on not to watch a train wreck, hard to look away when you see something as grotesque as world war ii was on that scale and theres also a feeling that we are on the side of the angels. There is good day and evil and you can differentiate between the two more easily than you often can in contemporary life and contemporary conflicts. There is no doubt the we were on the side of good, the forces of liberation, even though many bad things happened as we discussed and people find that has an enduring appeal also. Host in your view how much did the Strategic Bombing campaign by the british and americans contribute to the defeat of nazi germany and what was the casualty rate, something you write about in the gunsg is absolutely invaluable. These are large bombers flown by the british and the americans primarily and flying over strategic targets. There was a bitter dispute over press sighly precisely how this should be carried out. The british believed that bombing cities was most effective in trying to whittle away german morale, to have the germans essentially implode. The americans flew mostly by day. The americans believed that hitting certain strategic targets, particularly oil starting in the spring of 1944, that oil was the achilles heel of the german war machine. And that proved to be true. Its absolutely vital in understanding how the Ground Forces are able to eventually prevail to know that these air forces by the time we get to 1945 have been hammering all this panoply of targets. The casualties were staggering. The odds of surviving and fulfilling your quota which can kept going up, initially it was 25 missions you had to fly and then it was raised to 30 missions, in some cases 35 missions, the odds of fulfilling those 30 missions, 35 missions and going home became pretty dire. And you found that there were few professions within the profession of arms that were as dangerous as being a crewman on a b17, for example. It was ex your quota which kept off it was extremely hazardous flying against german fighter planes and german batteries. Host jack is a world war ii veteran in louisiana. You are on with author rick atkinson. Caller they misquoted you. I am not a veteran of that war. But i wanted to pay tribute if i could to some dear friends of mine, they were very my engineer was one of the 80 second, 1 hundred first paratroopers that was at normandy sets and i will never forget the tears in his eyes when he said it was to take those guns and i lost 100 of my friends doing so and they were not even there and he went from there to Market Garden where he was not mortally wounded because he lived through it, seriously wounded. They had taken a bridge, the last bridge and you went and fought and my uncle who was in patents army throughout the campaign loved his general but said this of the soldier who was slapped, we had a serious problem with people shooting themselves in the foot and he was actually incensed about it and that is why he slapped the man. He loved his general. He said a lot of our boys died but not because we werent fighting. Host we will let your comments stand there. We appreciate your calling in and this email from atlanta. I am looking forward to hearing you speak in atlanta, she says. In 194445 hy was a child and 8 in northern italy, family moved to a small village to get away from the bombings. We were often visited by the partisans looking for food of which we had very little or by the fascists who were looking for the partisans. At these times we, the kids, were always shuffled away in the bed room out of sight but we could still hear everything and we were scared. So my question is how effective was the role of the resistance in the war. Guest she is talking specifically about italy. Every occupied country had its own flavor of resistance, particularly in italy it is not until you get into northern italy in the last year of the war from the summer of 1944 to mensa of 45 that the partisans become a vulnerable force and a harassed the german occupiers, blow up train tracks and bridges and ambush patrols and they became pretty vulnerable land they were aided by the o s s, forerunner of the cia and british counterparts so the player a roll. It is not a decisive role because there are not enough of them and it is very hazardous. The germans were ruthless. If you are a partisan or suspected partisan you were likely to be summarily executed. In france it is a bigger network. And again only the last year of the war where they play a role because prior to that there was simply very little partisan activity that reported dent in the germans and again you had to be incredibly brave to participate in the French Resistance because the germans would go through and insert a cases executed 3 when in a village if in fact partisans had been active in that area. It is not a decisive. Is important to acknowledge them and recognize that they play a role in southern france, especially. There were american agents, soldiers basically who would parachute in, british also and rendezvous with the French Resistance units and held in various ways, instruct them in in closes and so on. It is not what decided the battle for france but it is an important part of keeping the pressure on the germans and keeping them uneasy and making them sleep very lightly and night in some instances. Host email from arkansas, why in your opinion didnt eisenhower and bradley better heed the warning signs that led to the battle of the bulge and secondly would you think of likes decision to let the russians take berlin . The warning signs were fairly opaque. It is easy to say in retrospect you could see the germans were massing along the border in belgium and luxembourg. At the time there was a believe the germans had been there so surly battered in their flight across france that they lack the wherewithal to put together this kind of three Army Offensive that took place in the beginning of december 16th. There was also an overreliance on the british ability to intercept and decrypt the most secret german radio traffic, military radio traffic. If you didnt hear it there was a belief hadnt happened. And all the planning for the battle of the bulge was done facetoface basically or by written message and they were not messages transmitted by radio that could then be intercepted and decoded and consequently there was not a recognition that this Huge Corporation was underway. In retrospect you can say it was unpardonable said they had no clues as was coming. It was an intelligence order, failure of the first magnitude and yet there are reasons for it. Why not take berlin . He intended to. That was in the plan for normandy. Eisenhower reaffirmed in the fall of 1944 that the ambition of the western allies was to go to berlin and then he changed his mind and he changed his mind in march of 1945 in part because the russians were virtually on the doorstep of berlin, the russians beginning in january of 1945 amass several million troops that were going to fall on berlin, western allies, american and british were 200 miles from berlin, and the decisions that had been made about how germany in general and berlin specifically with divided up after the war, they would be partitioned with zones for the russians, for the british, for the americans, for the french and the same would happen with berlin, and eisenhower came to believe and was encouraged by roosevelt to avoid conflict with the russians, came to believe was pointless to risk tens of thousands of casualties racing to berlin when the russians were already virtually inside city limits of berlin and so he changed his mind and directed his armies towards dresden, to the southeast in order to cut germany in half. In retrospect i think it was entirely the right decision, the british were not happy with it, churchill in particular believed there should have been an effort to push to berlin, but 70 years later, that decision holds on really well. Host walking piper speaking of the battle of the bulge. Guest he was a Lieutenant Colonel. He was the point of the experience the attack that began in december 16th, 1944. His task was to lead an armored column through the American Defense and get to the news river and help capture bridges across the news and proceed on to m 4, cute important belgian port, piper was quite sophisticated, spoke english, spoke french, had two brothers who had been killed in the war, very intelligent, utterly ruthless and so what we find with pipers column, theyre finding difficulties right from the get go on december 16th, the timetable is disrupted, things are moving slower than theyre supposed to be moving, he comes to a village in belgian where there is an American Unit travelling by truck, his forces happen to fall on this unit, they shoot up the convoy, american soldiers who survive this initial encounter taken into a field and lined up and massacred, more than 80 of them are shot, others get away, word of the massacre gets around very quickly, begins a cycle of reprisal, there are no prisoners to be taken, orders given by some American Units, piper never makes it, he gets close but not quite, doesnt have combat power, he is running out of fuel. Team manages with very few of his original forces, 1500 or so men to get back, hes tried for war crimes after the war, sentenced to death along with scores of others involved in the killings. It was a tainted procedure. The confessions that have been extracted from the defendants were considered to be under judicial review to be improper and the death sentence was lifted, a life sentence eventually was commuted, he served about ten years in prison and then he was left out of prison, he became a salesman for the motor co. Porsche and later for volkswagen. He was in charge of american sales if you can believe it, he was murdered in nearly 70s, he had house in eastern france, it was arson, is burned body was found, the case was never solved, it remains unsolved, there were very few tears shed for him it should be added. Host he sold cars to americans and had a house in france. David tweets in the weekend overvalue of our contribution to the allied effort to defeat nazi germany and undervalue the role of the u. S. S. R. . I think we do. That is a good point. I try to make the point whenever i can that the soviets did most of the killing, bleeding, dying for the alliance. They had twentysix million died during the war, and imaginable for us and theres a tendency frequently to overlook the soviet contribution. World war ii immediately turns into a cold war and the soviets become our adversaries and there is little profit acknowledging the soviet role when they are adversaries during the cold war but 70 years after the affected to be recognized by every american that were it not for the russians the war would not have been won as quickly as it was spent for every russian soldiers died that was one american soldier that didnt have to die. Host steve is in california. Caller the great books, thank you for writing them. My question is december 16th, was just answered. So im going to go off to your at the 11 book and asked about political pressure in the u. S. Congress to stop the war after 100 hours in iraq. How big an effect was that . I remember the time very vividly and listening to nancy pelosi rant about continuing the war, was that a factor in the ending of it . No, i dont think it was. I dont think congress had anything to do with it. The decision was made in the pentagon, it was made specifically by colin powell, obviously with the concurrence of his civilian masters. He called general schwarzkopf and said we are at the 100 our mark, we kicked them out of kuwait, we have done what the United Nations asked us to do, fulfilled the terms of the congressional and United Nations authorizations, what you think of ending it . Hall was concern that eventually there would be a backlash, television photos in particular would be seen of carnage on the socalled highway of death leading out of kuwait city. In fact none of those photos have yet been on television when pal made the decision that he was aware there was carnage in the fatah so i dont think nancy pelosi or anyone else in congress had nothing to do with. Host of veteran in richmond, va. You are wrong with rick atkinson. Thank you for putting this program on. Wrecks accusations are very profound. It was my privilege to twice go to the normandy cemeteries, the american cemetery, the beaches of normandy and one time, the nextdoor neighbor, congressional medal of honor winner, there are two congressional winners in the cemetery, one being general Theodore Roosevelt jr. And those two, just around the corner are the only two there, there gravesides on the white crosses. Thank you for that. Host was your service in world war ii . Caller i was in the marines in college and transport in the pacific but we got our fair light. Guest thanks for the question. Host we have had some callers calling in about rape and Sexual Assault in the military. In the guns at last night the war in western europe, 19441945 you write about this and there are some figures that would like to share with some viewers. 443 death penalties were imposed on g is most for murder or rape, severe the disproportionate number fell on black soldiers often after dubious due process, 70 executions took place in europe including several public hangings. Yes, and one execution for desertion, private eddie slovak which i write about at some length. You will find in general the racism that was prevalent in many institutions in the United States in the 1940s can be found in the 4 since, the disproportionate punishment that was meted out to american, black soldiers was something that reflected prejudices toward them and lack of counsel that they often did not receive and extends all the way to the death penalty. I dont remember the number of black american soldiers among those 70 but it was disproportionate. Guest the German Military issued 15,000 military death sentences in world war ii with half or more carried out, 21,000 soldiers would desert from the u. S. Army during the war, less than half had been caught by the late 1940s. Do we have any idea where some of these deserters are . I dont know where they are. Harris in particular was a haven for guys on the lamb or guys with shady business. Eddie slovak i just mentioned was a kid from detroit who was drafted, had the virtue of writing to his wife antoinette everyday while he was in the service, ended up being sent to the twentieth infantry division, deserted immediately, was hanging out with the Canadian Unit for a while and finally caught, courtmartials, refused the offer to have his sentence set aside if he would go back into combat, he said i will just desert again. His appeal came to eisenhower in december of 1944 at the darkest time of the battle of the bulge and eisenhower was not in a forgiving mood and unfortunately for slovak eisenhower affirmed the death sentence and eisenhower also said that his units, the 20 eighth division was a carry out the execution so i describe how all he was transported by military police to where the 20 eighth division is and a firing squad was set up. Slovak believed to the very end that he was going to be that the sentence would be commuted and it was not, they shot him dead. The Division Commander had been at omaha beach, he had been at one of the worst of all the battles in world war ii, had been in the battle the balls, 28 division was shot to pieces in luxembourg but fought heroically and it was the worst 15 minutes of his life, during the execution of any slovak. It left of hollow feeling in the hearts of everyone who witnessed it or participated in it in any way. Bill lynch, thanks for the story of 601 hardest the boulevard, kansas city, missouri, he was a draftee in the 1960s. What is your referring to. This is the end of the book and i found a document more than 400 pages written right after the war and it describes the operations of the quartermaster affects bureau and the effects bureau was set up at 601 hardesty avenue in kansas city to handle the effects of the american dead. It began in february of 1942, the first months of the war as a small operation, fewer than a dozen people land grew to more than a thousand people working in this converted warehouse and what would happen is real boxcars would pull up on the siding next to the warehouse and footlockers and other containers with the effects of the dead from Six Continents would be hoisted by elevated to the tenth floor and by Assembly Line conveyor belts down to the seventh floor where inspectors all along this line would go through the effects and take out pornography, ammunition, letters from a girlfriend you didnt want the window to see and other things that were inappropriate for one reason or another and all of the effect would then be repacked and as this was happening in a very large room adjacent to the Assembly Line there were banks of typists backing out letters, 70,000 letters a month by 1945 and the gist of the letters was this. Dear sir, dear madam, we have your dead sons tough, where should we send it . It is an extraordinary scene. The inspectors found all kinds of things, tobacco sack full of diamonds, shrunken head, all the things soldiers can and do accumulate. They also found many diaries, thousands of diaries and those were also collected at hardesty avenue and i quote from the diary of one young lieutenant who was killed in new guinea at the end and the gist of what he has written in the diary is actually last letter home because he is wounded, dy