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Scripps Howard News Service
May 11 2005
Professors challenge image of 'The Good War'
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
May 11, 2005
- The gunfire ended 60 years ago, but the bitterness over World War
II rages on.
Protests in the Baltics over how Soviet troops came to occupy the
region in 1940, and recent demonstrations in China over the cruel
treatment by Japanese soldiers before and during the war show how
sensitive the conflict remains.
The war produced powerful myths that have led historians to comb
through tons of dusty documents to unravel.
The BBC recently detailed how wartime spinners hid the debacle of
Germany's 1940 blitzkrieg into France by highlighting the heroic
stories of an armada of small British ships crossing the British
channel to rescue 300,000 British Tommies stranded on the beaches of
Dunkirk.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 shattered the myth the
Soviets peddled that Russian troops were stationed in Central Europe
to protect the region. It also gave Poles, Czechs and others in
Central Europe their first look at a more accurate history of their
two-front wars against the Nazis and the Soviets. After decades of
Communist dissembling, Russian officials now acknowledge that 27
million Soviets died - a stunning figure the Soviet regime refused to
disclose, choosing lower casualty numbers.
Some myths were woven during the war to hide secrets. The "wizard
war" of electronics and radar was not disclosed until long after the
war ended, and the United States only recently declassified the
Venona papers detailing how code breakers monitored the activities of
Soviet rings stealing America's nuclear secrets during the war.
Details of how the U.S. Navy used code breaking to monitor the
whereabouts of Japanese forces in the Pacific provide explanations
for victories in the Coral Sea and Midway that at one time were
credited to naval expertise.
"War captures the essence of many myths. It's so troubling,
disturbing and upsetting an event it rips apart the fabric of
history, and has got to be justified by some powerful force," said
Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University in
Washington.
The United States developed its own myth of World War II as the good
war, Kuznick noted. "There is near-universal agreement that the
United States was the good guy in World War II, and that this was a
legitimate war that should have been fought, and should have been
won," he said.
But he said that myth covers over some strategies that modern
historians now are questioning, including the military necessity of
firebombing Japanese cities and the decision to use the atomic bomb
on a nation whose military forces already had been destroyed on the
battlefield and driven back to their homelands.
Japan also emerged from the war with its own myths of the heroism of
Japanese troops. That myth doesn't accommodate the Japanese
atrocities in the 1937 rape of Nanking, China, or the cruel treatment
given American and other prisoners of war in Japanese camps. Kuznick
said highlighting military atrocities dishonors the deaths of
Japanese soldiers in the eyes of Japanese right-wingers, although he
said Japanese academics are much more open about discussing this
issue.
University of Pittsburgh professor Donald Goldstein said Hollywood
has been responsible for finding new war myths to promote, and
amplifying others.
Goldstein points to the myth of the superiority of Western bridge
design that is the plot of the Oscar-winning "Bridge over the River
Kwai." He said there also are glaring mistakes in the 2001 movie
"Pearl Harbor," in which Japanese aircraft are fitted with bomb
sights they didn't actually have, Japanese pilots flew Zero models
that weren't produced until the war ended, and the bombs hit Spruance
destroyers also built after the war.
"The problem is that kids believe that's the way it happened,"
Goldstein said. "They say that bad history is better than no history
because it gets people interested in reading more about it. But these
kids today are not going to the bookstore. I'm teaching it, I know
it," he said.
Goldstein said he wouldn't be upset if Hollywood declared its movies
were not accurate, but he said moviemakers use historical accuracy as
part of their public-relations campaigns to persuade Americans to
come to the theater.
He credits movies like "Tora, Tora, Tora" and the first half of
"Saving Private Ryan" for their accuracy. Goldstein is less
charitable about "The Thin Red Line,'' involving Guadalcanal, which
he said is "awful history."
Harvard Sitkoff, a history professor at the University of New
Hampshire, said Hollywood has an enormous effect on students today
because of the impact of TV, film and music on younger generations.
"They often come with a lot of myths firmly implanted in their
brains, and they're difficult to dislodge because the quality of
filmmaking is very good, and powerful images stay with us," he said.
Sitkoff said Hollywood is too wrapped up in the message of World War
II as "the good war," while glossing over the negative aspects of war
- the impact of firebombing raids, the labor strikes in America and
problems on the home front. He said historians are beginning to
detail some of the negative aspects of the war. "A lot of things
don't work with the good-war idea," he said.
War myths are difficult to dislodge, historians say, especially if
they become part of the narrative of how government stays in power.
Peter Balakian, a Colgate University professor of English and author
of "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's
Response," said Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the 1915 massacre
of Armenians and Christians.
He said that after the loss of the Ottoman Empire in World War I,
Turkish leaders deliberately suppressed any mention of the genocide.
"It was an attempt to sanitize the past and make the new Republic
good and wonderful," he said. Turkey even made it a criminal offense
to refer to the cleansing, although books published in the West still
note the documentary evidence.
"I think the truth eventually does come out. The Soviet Union
dis-armored itself of its institutionalized myths that involved
things they said did not happen," he said. "The smaller the world
becomes, the harder it is for totalitarian regimes to hold onto these
ideas."
On the Net: www.worldwar-2.net
www.warmuseum.ca
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
May 11 2005
Professors challenge image of 'The Good War'
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
May 11, 2005
- The gunfire ended 60 years ago, but the bitterness over World War
II rages on.
Protests in the Baltics over how Soviet troops came to occupy the
region in 1940, and recent demonstrations in China over the cruel
treatment by Japanese soldiers before and during the war show how
sensitive the conflict remains.
The war produced powerful myths that have led historians to comb
through tons of dusty documents to unravel.
The BBC recently detailed how wartime spinners hid the debacle of
Germany's 1940 blitzkrieg into France by highlighting the heroic
stories of an armada of small British ships crossing the British
channel to rescue 300,000 British Tommies stranded on the beaches of
Dunkirk.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 shattered the myth the
Soviets peddled that Russian troops were stationed in Central Europe
to protect the region. It also gave Poles, Czechs and others in
Central Europe their first look at a more accurate history of their
two-front wars against the Nazis and the Soviets. After decades of
Communist dissembling, Russian officials now acknowledge that 27
million Soviets died - a stunning figure the Soviet regime refused to
disclose, choosing lower casualty numbers.
Some myths were woven during the war to hide secrets. The "wizard
war" of electronics and radar was not disclosed until long after the
war ended, and the United States only recently declassified the
Venona papers detailing how code breakers monitored the activities of
Soviet rings stealing America's nuclear secrets during the war.
Details of how the U.S. Navy used code breaking to monitor the
whereabouts of Japanese forces in the Pacific provide explanations
for victories in the Coral Sea and Midway that at one time were
credited to naval expertise.
"War captures the essence of many myths. It's so troubling,
disturbing and upsetting an event it rips apart the fabric of
history, and has got to be justified by some powerful force," said
Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University in
Washington.
The United States developed its own myth of World War II as the good
war, Kuznick noted. "There is near-universal agreement that the
United States was the good guy in World War II, and that this was a
legitimate war that should have been fought, and should have been
won," he said.
But he said that myth covers over some strategies that modern
historians now are questioning, including the military necessity of
firebombing Japanese cities and the decision to use the atomic bomb
on a nation whose military forces already had been destroyed on the
battlefield and driven back to their homelands.
Japan also emerged from the war with its own myths of the heroism of
Japanese troops. That myth doesn't accommodate the Japanese
atrocities in the 1937 rape of Nanking, China, or the cruel treatment
given American and other prisoners of war in Japanese camps. Kuznick
said highlighting military atrocities dishonors the deaths of
Japanese soldiers in the eyes of Japanese right-wingers, although he
said Japanese academics are much more open about discussing this
issue.
University of Pittsburgh professor Donald Goldstein said Hollywood
has been responsible for finding new war myths to promote, and
amplifying others.
Goldstein points to the myth of the superiority of Western bridge
design that is the plot of the Oscar-winning "Bridge over the River
Kwai." He said there also are glaring mistakes in the 2001 movie
"Pearl Harbor," in which Japanese aircraft are fitted with bomb
sights they didn't actually have, Japanese pilots flew Zero models
that weren't produced until the war ended, and the bombs hit Spruance
destroyers also built after the war.
"The problem is that kids believe that's the way it happened,"
Goldstein said. "They say that bad history is better than no history
because it gets people interested in reading more about it. But these
kids today are not going to the bookstore. I'm teaching it, I know
it," he said.
Goldstein said he wouldn't be upset if Hollywood declared its movies
were not accurate, but he said moviemakers use historical accuracy as
part of their public-relations campaigns to persuade Americans to
come to the theater.
He credits movies like "Tora, Tora, Tora" and the first half of
"Saving Private Ryan" for their accuracy. Goldstein is less
charitable about "The Thin Red Line,'' involving Guadalcanal, which
he said is "awful history."
Harvard Sitkoff, a history professor at the University of New
Hampshire, said Hollywood has an enormous effect on students today
because of the impact of TV, film and music on younger generations.
"They often come with a lot of myths firmly implanted in their
brains, and they're difficult to dislodge because the quality of
filmmaking is very good, and powerful images stay with us," he said.
Sitkoff said Hollywood is too wrapped up in the message of World War
II as "the good war," while glossing over the negative aspects of war
- the impact of firebombing raids, the labor strikes in America and
problems on the home front. He said historians are beginning to
detail some of the negative aspects of the war. "A lot of things
don't work with the good-war idea," he said.
War myths are difficult to dislodge, historians say, especially if
they become part of the narrative of how government stays in power.
Peter Balakian, a Colgate University professor of English and author
of "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's
Response," said Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the 1915 massacre
of Armenians and Christians.
He said that after the loss of the Ottoman Empire in World War I,
Turkish leaders deliberately suppressed any mention of the genocide.
"It was an attempt to sanitize the past and make the new Republic
good and wonderful," he said. Turkey even made it a criminal offense
to refer to the cleansing, although books published in the West still
note the documentary evidence.
"I think the truth eventually does come out. The Soviet Union
dis-armored itself of its institutionalized myths that involved
things they said did not happen," he said. "The smaller the world
becomes, the harder it is for totalitarian regimes to hold onto these
ideas."
On the Net: www.worldwar-2.net
www.warmuseum.ca
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress