picture of the war. you get a different picture actually from even people, i have two friends named matt who are both cavalry from both deployed in the same area. they both worked with the same translator, but one in 2006 i think, and one was two years later. their wars couldn't have been more different. mainly what it gave me was just a subject that felt vitally important to me i think is what it was. so had to do a lot of work as i was writing the collection. and it mattered to me. i was kind of writing in a sort of state of care of getting it wrong, right? because of my obligation to the obligations that failed to the material, right? an obligation which also meant like telling, kelly and coco

thanks and telling things that might upset people. >> maybe i will take the last question. wars make writers and wars make ms., and i wonder -- myths. and i wonder for you, as these wars begin to kind of fade, certainly they are not on our front pages anymore but what do you think should endure in the culture in terms of an understanding of the young men and women who served? what should we know? what should we continue to no? >> man, i don't know. i think we will find out, right? what i wanted when i wrote this book was not that somebody would kind of take away one thing that i even knew. when i was hoping that people would engage with it and to get stuff that i don't know. there are other veterans who are writing books, there's more

literature coming out about the wars it and they think it all kind of adds to the conversation that we are having about iraq, about what it meant. about veterans. what i want people to engage with veterans as humans, there's a way in which we kind of tend to conflate our feelings about the war and the veterans who served in it. and i think, thinking about what that feels like on a human level is extremely important for understanding the wars, and also for not the kind of falling into false myths about war. >> great, thanks, phil. thanks everyone. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you, guys so much for coming out. if anyone wants to get a book signed with copies on the table just outside the door.

rather copy, get assigned tempers like and you can pay for after. i still trust most of you, even after those questions. thank you, guys. >> [inaudible conversations] >> yoyou are watching booktv on c-span2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> up next on the 2014 virginia festival of the book, a panel of little stories from world war ii.

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. my name is art beltrone and i will be the moderator for this afternoon's world war ii program, world war ii, little-known stores to should be a fascinating event. first of all i'd like to thank the city of charlottesville providing this wonderful venue. every year they do so for the virginia festival of the book and it's really outstanding for both the authors and for the audience.

also thanks to charlottesville's own tv 10 for broadcasting today's session. just a reminder, bold, this session is being recorded so when it comes time to the q&a session, raise your hand. you will be recognized but a microphone will be passed to you so that you can post your question. it's important that you speak into the microphone so the question can be recorded. please, please turn off any cell phones that you might have with you. the festival is free of charge and not free of cost of the. please remember that the virginia festival of the book is sponsored by the virginia foundation for the humanities. there are ways to support this organization by direct support or otherwise. at the information desk at the omni our envelopes in which you

can place a contribution, should you desire. you have been handed a yellow sheets. these are very, very important because they are evaluations for the program. and this helps in next year's session. so please take the time to address the answers to that. there will be books sold, both of the authors of books are here, and michael green gladly provides a part of that sale to the virginia festival of the book. this afternoon we have two wonderful authors, and i'm going to introduce them in the order in which they will speak. oath of them have a bit of an audio or a visual presentation. i guess they are both visual presentations. they will be doing the speaking. but first of will be cheryl jorgensen-earp on my left, immediately on my left.

she's the author of "discourse and defiance under nazi occupation." a fascinating subject just off the coast of england. she's the professor of communication, studies department at lynchburg college, and she was named virginia professor of the year by the carnegie foundation in 2001. craig shirley on the far left of myself is the author of "the new york times" bestseller "december 1941". he's an acclaimed historian. he has authored to reagan books, reagan's revolution, and rendezvous with destiny, and he is the reagan scholar at eureka college and a widely sought after commentator and speaker. without further ado i would like to introduce sheryl and her presentation with her book.

>> on the british channel islands, everyone seems to be in a dreadful hurry. if you wonder today the water today to the narrow winding streets of st. peter's or you may hear rapid footsteps behind you as young and not so young islanders walked briskly past. i once felt the light sharper rap of a woman's cane on my leg. 85 if she was a day, to urge me out of the way as i lollygag through the narrow winding street that is an extension of their high street, and it curved gently down toward the harbor. it almost seems to me as if these busy people will run out of room and continue walking purposefully write off the island and into the english channel. but if you leave the poor are one of the of the little towns that dot the edge of the island, you might walk through a dark fragrant forest or a long one of the many high cliff paths with

their vertigo inspiring launches to the rocks and phone below. a walk down the roads in the know of the island has a storybook feel with the hedge rows, stone walls and shady lanes of a british countryside. infields close by there likely will be guernsey cows comfortably grazing, each one attached by a long rope to our individual state just like a dog in a suburban backyard. yet walk down another line back toward the sea and there it stands, cold and stark against the sky, a german watchtower. there's something really jarring about the juxtaposition of nazi germany with guernsey's ancient towns and narrow streets. yet the channel island were the only pieces of british land captured and occupied for five

long years by the germans but i think we have a little catching up to do here. i'll just carry on and we will catch up with it. i notice whenever i'm there that islanders have quite an emphasis on sound, the sound of martial music industry, the ringing of jackboots that echoed off the buildings of their high street. and in that there some sense of violation, but also a fascination with this simple incongruity of the whole thing. now, it was that oddness that always fascinated me ever since i started visiting a guernsey in the 1970s. i was introduced to the island courtesy of my older sister who had the good sense to meet and marry a guernsey man. and so i spent many years going back and forth to visit them, or just going because it's such a beautiful place to visit.

and i was always struck when i went there by people saying, well, during the occupation we didn't have an actual resistance. i always believed that they were wrong about that. i believe that there was a resistance -- now i will catch up with this. some of the scenes of guernsey. there are some of those cliff paths i was telling you about. the center of the island, look at the stone churches. there are the guernsey cows. there's the german watchtower. this is one of the most famous pictures that came out of the guernsey occupation with the german marshall banned for rating very loudly and voice firstly through the high street. so i was interested in seeing what resistance would be like in guernsey, was there a resistance? and they didn't get to explore

this until 2003 when i started researching this book. now, when i first started i would tell people what i was researching that i would talk about guernsey and the common response was, where? and then in 2008, that lovely little fictional account, the guernsey high society came out and it seemed that everyone knew where guernsey was. i have to stop and ask him how many of you have read the book? it is a charmer, it really is. ..

>> it also, the dire risks also include the fresh perspective of ken lewis. of he was 18 when the occupation started, absolutely fascinated with the adventure of having germans in their midst, and he's pining for a girl. good case of love for this girl who had evacuated to england before the occupation. many of the die carrists i used are working men, the very sweet and cheerful jack savery left alone to mourn his wife and missing his evacuated children.

arthur major, a lovely old victorian who drew hearts in his diary wherever this were weddings and -- there were weddings and victorian black bands whenever there was a death. burt williams who was a constable at the start of the occupation, and then the germans decided he was too short to be a constable and relieved him of his duties. this made burt very, very angry. but he was also an electrician and a band leader, so he gives this lovely backstage view of occupation life. and w.a. worry who had a shop in in the again city arcade -- gun city arcade. women are also represented. wynn fellowed harvey, a woman of the upper classes, her grand home was taken over by german

officers. kitty bachmann who so missed her daughter diana who had evacuated to england at 10. in the middle of the occupation, she had another baby, and i write quite a bit about him. and dower think higgrs -- dorothy higgs who concocted wonderful recipes to meet the food shortages that they were all dealing with. in all, 12 diarists -- [inaudible] to understand resistance in the channel islands, we have to get rid of cinematic notions that violence is the only counter to violence. the germans knew they were unlikely to face the equivalence of your -- european guns.

as was said after the war, you can't take to the mountains with guns in hands. first, we have no mountains and, second, we have no arms. [laughter] because the channel islands are closer to france, occupied france than they are to the -- [inaudible] men and women had a improvise their own ways of undercutting their german masters. i believe that resistance was a rhetorical resistance, one that was based on the manipulation of verbal and visual symbols. very simply, i use stories from the diaries to describe a three-pronged resistance. first, they used old and informal channels of information as substitutes for the formal channels such as newspapers that were now controlled by the germans. so gossip and rumor became new

means of sending information around the island. they also served as very effective means of control over people. second, they used common narratives; stories, jokes, puns, counterreadings of german propaganda as ways to make sense of their experience and to bolster feelings of common british patriotism. and third, they came up with acts of symbolic resistance through colded messages that they'd -- coded messages that they'd send in red cross messages back to england, through sermons. the reverend ord was excellent at coding messages into his sermons, and through the visual displays of patriotic colors. they also did quite a bit of illegal information gathering. when wireless sets were confiscated, some islanders hid theirs, or they built very small crystal sets that could be easily tucked away in different

places. and i have great fun telling some of the tales of how they hid these sets from the germans. groups such as guns, the underground news service, consisted of men and women who listened to secret wireless sets, typed out the news on thin tomato packing paper and then sent the news around the island. some of these very brave people were arrested and sent to prison on the continent, and some of them died there. again city was -- against city was always very activity in the campaign that took place all over europe where vs for victory were challenged up on d chalked up on walls. i interviewed in 2003 and 2004alf williams, he passed away in 2006. and this is alf as a young man.

and alf and one of his mates made v for victory broaches out of english coins where king george's head seems to raise triumphantly out of a v, and the people would wear these broaches inside the lapels of their coat so they could flash them to other people in the street right under the germans' noses. now, with that overview, i want to tell two very quick stories of a form of resistance used and one that i think is very often overlooked. it's the ancient concept of parhesia. in its english translation, that comes out as free speech or fearless speech. a speaker values frankness over safety and views oppositional speech as a duty to the larger community. the exercise of parhesia demands

the courage to speak in spite of some danger. now, the germans knew the danger danger to them if optional speech and verbal confrontations went unpunished. so arrests started very early in the occupation and extended very late. in telling these stories, i won't try to do the gun city accent. my brother-in-law gives you a pet phrase, oh, yeah? pigs will fly. the royal hotel served as the first german headquarters. so winnie was surrounded by germans and their support staff, a situation filled with a lot of possible danger for somebody as patriotic and outspoken as

mrs. green. the swiss chef at the hotel was a great admirer of hitler. to the same extent, winnie green was an arkansas dent admirer of winston churchill. the teasing relationship developed between the two with the chef greeting mrs. green every day with good morning, mrs. green, he lyrics hitler. the staff lunches became this lively tit for tat with the chef crowing over any positive german war news. have you heard the news, mrs. green, germany has taken yugoslavia? one day it was we've got the battleship hood to which winnie came back several days later, heard the news? we got to bismarck. now, the danger for a subjugated

people in such joking exchanges, i think, is pretty apparent. in this case, the chef and winnie green are commenting on areas involving patriotism, war, matters of life and death. and pretty soon the levity started to wear away. the comments became more bitter and more freighted with meaning, and finally one day the chef said to winnie, would you like some rice pudding, mrs. green? yes, please, she replied. only if you say heil hitler, the chef baited. and after a few seconds, winnie burst forth with, to hell with hitler for rice butting and one made of -- pudding, and one made of skim milk for that. now, for that exchange -- and i think this is really important -- one that winnie be green defiantly verified at trial -- she received six months in prison in france.

the germans saw such incidents not as pinpricks as they're often described, but as serious disruption to the seamless functioning of masterful domination. as long as insults are disguised, they can be ignored. but overt insubordination calls into question the whole relationship between dominator and dominated. now, sometimes apparent compliance is shadowed by a little twin of insub odder to nation. one woman bravely kept a tin box filled with news sheets from guns under the counters that she could give out to the islanders. ms. godin specialized in burlesque with double meaning. she used the small stage of her book shop as a place to entertain fellow islanders with a tax on german dignity. in november 1940 a german

english storybook that he could

. >> i think it's interesting that he uses martial language right there. that's war imagery. and it really was a little micro war that the islanders conducted to preserve their way of life. the genius of reor to have call resistance lies in its ability, as james scott said, to nibble away at the power of the dominant. such actions are subtle, they're unlikely to overthrow the basic power structure. but it's been said that every day resistance is tenacious. had the worst happened and the war been lost, resistance forms would have been in place for an ongoing life of subversion. of course, liberation did come to the channel islands. but the islanders' creative and

resistant use of information and the community that they formed through that defiance, i think, provides a very good example of the effectiveness of rhetorical resistance. [applause] >> thank you. craig shirley, you're up. >> thank you, art. thank you, cheryl, that was -- i loved that presentation. that was fascinating. i love writing books for a lot of reasons, one of them is, you know, you get a chance to meet people and interview people, and, you know, for this book i interviewed, for instance, john dingell, former congressman dingell -- soon to be former congressman dingell, who was a 15-year-old page on the floor of the house of representatives on december 8, 1941. his father was a member of congress, he was a page and interviewed him about, you know,

witnessing real history in the making, the day of infamy speech. also interviewed a fellow by the name of jay dolly, 95 years old. west point class of 1939, was stationed at the army base on oahu on december 7, 1941. was in his bunk, heard explosions. ran outside in his skivvies, was told by his ceo to start shooting anything he saw in the sky, and he started doing that right there in the field in his underwear. so you meet all sorts of wonderful people at the -- one of the things for december '41 last year i went on the daily show with john stewart. and i wasn't all that familiar with the daily show. [laughter] i think, you know, there's a generational divide. we have four children, and my kids, our kids know all about it. i wasn't all that familiar with

it. and i think there's some kind of divide somewhere, you might call it a bright red line or something like that. anyway, so we went up to new york to do the preinterview and then do the show that night, and i was in the hotel room, and the producer calls, and she asked me all sorts of questions. and then she said i don't know why i even bother, because jon's just a going to -- just going to ask the questions he wants anyway. and finally as we're wrapping up the conversation, i said, jennifer, i don't know how to tell you this, i think my kids are more excited about me going on with jon stewart on the daily show than i am, and there was a long pause, and she said, mr. shirley, we hear that a lot from men your age. [laughter] so that's one of the funnier sides. why this book in because i have now written four books on ronald reagan, two have been published, one is with a publisher being

edited now, and i'm finishing up a fourth. but i wanted to take a little bit, i'm immersed in reagan and reaganism and his presidency and all those things for many, many years, but i always was interested in this period of time from the civilian standpoint. and that's what i tried to write it from. gordon praying wrote the definitive book on parallel harbor -- pearl harbor with. that was the great best book ever run on december 7, 1941. but i discovered that there were very few books written from the perspective of civilian life and how it radically changed between december 7th and december 31st and then throughout the rest of the war. and as i tell people, i grew up in an andy hardy movie in upstate new york. my grandfather was a very prominent businessman like judge stone, and, you know, we used to get together for, you know,

sunday dinner when i was a child after church. we would be at my mother's house or my grandmother's or an aunt's house, and everybody -- all the men were many suits and ties, and the women were in dresses, and there'd be a big ham or turkey and lace table cloth, and all those things, and invariably the conversation would turn to "the war." they didn't say world war ii, but it was always "the war." and that was the point of reference for everything. and i'd listen to my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and parents talk about it, and you'd hear my grandfather say, well, i got that desoto before the war, but i didn't sell it until after the war. and they would talk about oleo manager run and -- margarine and fake coffee and all those other things. and the other thing, too, was that my family was like most probably everybody here, was very much immersed in what was called the war effort. if you were not in uniform,

everybody still served in one way, shape or form, at least most americans did. my grandfather at the time was 43, 44 years old, tried to enlist three times, and he was turned down three times, and he was told by the draft board we're not that desperate. [laughter] you're blind as a bat, you have dependents. we'll call you if we need you. so he became a civil defense block captain. both my grandmothers were -- [inaudible] one tested machine guns, the other was a bomb inspector. my father was a boy scout, and the government used the boy scouts to distribute promotional posters. there were posters that the government was producing that says if you're going to drink, shut up, that would go up in bars because, you know, loose lips sink ships. my mother had victory gardens, and they both did scrap drives. so everybody in my family,

including my father's oldest brother -- and you may have seen his picture up here -- he made the ultimate sacrifice. he was, he signed up, tried to sign up before he was allowed to, and they said, no. and as soon as you were old enough at a certain age, you'd get your parents' permission to go in early which he did. his nickname was barney. enlisted in the navy and was a radio operator on a tbf avenger and was shot down and killed on his 21st birthday in 1945. and so i always grew up with all these stories about the home life. the america of world war ii or and the america that came out of world war ii was radically and tremendously different. and by the way, it wasn't even

called world war ii for a long time. it was still called, you know, the emergency, the national emergency or the war. obviously, world world war i wat called world world war i because nobody thought there was going to be another war. that was the war to end all wars which led in some ways to world war ii. but, you know, just to illustrate the difference, you know, you come out of world war ii, and the president of the united states now from franklin roosevelt to barack obama and every president in between has been referred to as the most powerful man in the world, the leader of the free world. well, that wasn't the fixation of a united states president before that. there were many powerful men in the world and queens, you know, in russia, czars, you know, england was the navy that ruled the waves. we were not the superpower. and as a matter of fact, were very, very isolationist coming out of world war i.

so world war ii changes everything. you cannot put your finger on any part of american culture, society, science, technology, politics. everything changes. we come out of world world war d we reject the league of nations. we tighten our immigration policies. we pass the neutrality acts of the 1930s which actually prohibited american troops from leaving u.s. soil, leaving north america. and that was the world in which we operated. so then you have rise, of course, to the america first movement after the nazi invasion of poland in september of 1939. and which, of course, we didn't respond to. december 7th and 8th and thereafter is the one time in the history of the united states -- you know, we like to kid ourselves that we're, you know, united as a citizenry. we've never been united. we've always been divided. during the american revolution, there was a lot of torrey

sympathizers in the united states. benjamin franklin's son was imprisoned as a torrey sympathizer during the revolutionary war. we were not united during the war of 1812, the civil war was about divisions in this country. spanish-american war, again. even our entry into world war ii, congress debated it many, many day, and even then after wilson's request for a declaration of war, 50 members of the house and a handful of united states senators voted against our entry into world war i. and, obviously, afghanistan and iraq, vietnam, all these wars that we've been in since world war ii, korea, we have not been necessarily united as a country. we're always united in support of the military, but not in support of the politicians or the policy. the one time in the history of the united states where we are complete unanimity is the afternoon of december 7, 1941.

there's nobody in america who was against going to war with the empire of japan. nobody. except for, of course as some of you know, congresswoman jeanette rankin from montana. and i've always thought that a book needs to be done about her, because she was first woman elected to congress, she was in congress in 1917, was one of the few, one of the 50 who voted against entry into war, was immediately voted out of congress. she was in the wilderness for many, many years and then was reelected in 1940. and then in 1941 she's again confronted with a war vote. and she said at the time, she says i cannot send young boys to fight in a war that i can't go fight in myself. she was extremely thoughtful, and, of course, it cost her her political career, because she was out of politics by 1942. she didn't seek re-election in 1942. but she's the only one. everybody in the united states senate, everybody in the united states house, everybody across

america, you didn't find anybody who said we should not retaliate against the empire of japan. now, some people try to -- but this is not our entry into world war ii because the japanese attacked pearl harbor which, and also wake island, the philippines, the melee peninsula, a number of other u.s. and british military installations and civilian installations. it was a massive strike in the central and western pacific. but even then it is that there's no will in this country whatsoever to get into the european war. after -- as i mentioned, after world war i we became isolationists. after world war i, it was the same way around this country. all we got was death and debt and george m. cohen. [laughter] there was a real belief on the part of the american people that it wasn't worth it, that we, you know, loaned european powers a

lot of money which was never repaid, a lot of american dough boys as they were called at the time died, maimed, some came back. the great pitcher was never the ball player he was after ward and died, i believe, in his 40s. which, of course, led to the banning of chemical weapons in the geneva conventions. but that was the country we were operating in. i mentioned we rejected the league of nations. i want to read from a memo that was sent to the white house on december 4th, 1941, and then explain it, put it in context. we all asked about this question

about the linkage between, you know, the attack on pearl harbor and did franklin roosevelt know about it, and did he allow it to happen? i think in roosevelt's defense, i think it's utter and complete nonsense. there is no doubt, i mean, the stars were in the wind, we had cracked the diplomatic code. they were sending, you know, coded transmissions to their embassies in washington, and, of course, they had consulates around the united states in new orleans and san francisco. wherever we had big naval bases or military operations, it seemed like there was always a coincidence they had consulates there, boston and new york. and all this was they were gathering information on u.s. military, and we knew it. this was the memo that went to the white house. now -- and then i'll explain how we came by this. on december 4, 1941, from the office of naval intelligence, subject: japanese intelligence

states during 1941. on page 2 it reads: the focal point of the japanese espionage effort is the determination of the total strength of the united states. finish in anticipation of possible open conflict with this country, japan is jig rousely utilizing every available -- to secure military information paying particularly attention to the west coast, the panama canal and the territory of hawaii. now, this was a class v memo until the 1980s. mien son, one of our sons, andrew, was the principal researcher for me on december 1941. he uncovered this at hyde park. it had been laying around there with a number of other documents that had been declassified in the '80s, but nobody paid any attention to it whatsoever. now, the rest of the memo goes into extensive detail about japanese military intentions, but we were thinking at the time they probably focused more on the philippines, not necessarily

on hawaii. but this does put a little bit closer to the notion that washington could have done more to alert the pacific commands that possible, that things possibly were going to change very quickly in the pacific. but i reject the idea that franklin roosevelt did it because he wanted to help -- he allowed it to happen because he wanted to help his friend, winston churchill. first of all, the president of the united states has sworn to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. if it had been demonstrated that he knew about the attack on pearl harbor, he would have been impeached. he didn't know about it. the second thing is, and i was making this point earlier s that the japanese attacked us on december 7th. we declare war on december 8th, but it's not until december 3 19th -- 11th that germ and italy stupidly -- germany and italy stupidly declare war on us which means we've got to retaliate on

december 11th. but in those intervening several days there's no nothing. there's no editorials, there's no congressional speeches, there's no letters to the editor, nothing coming from the white house to intimate any intention of ours to get into the european war. as a matter of fact, my son was going through -- henry stimson was at the time the secretary of war. his papers are at yale. and we were going through his papers there, and we found a draft of franklin roosevelt's 500-word day of infamy speech. it was a draft of it. and they had typed in a declaration of war. they'd, obviously, discussed it to declare war on germany, italy and japan. but a line had been drawn through germany and italy, and they just decided that on december 8th they were just going to declare war on japan because even then there was no political will in this country.

but, you know, so although winston churchill was reportedly -- and he said in his own writings that he was jubilant about the attack because he knew it would eventually lead to america getting into the war, the european war -- there was no will in this country to do so. i just got a few minutes left here and then i'll held to whatever, questions and answers. is that two points i want to make is john patrick diggins who was a friend of mine, historian, was in many ways the unofficial historian of the american left and america in the 20th century, wrote books on the women's movement, wrote books on the environmental movement. but his last book was about reagan, and that's how we crossed paths and became friends. ronald reagan: fate, freedom and the making of history. in that book, he established a

criteria for greatness for great american president, and the baseline that he established was that did they save or free many people. and so by his criteria, our four greatest presidents were franklin roosevelt, abraham lincoln, george washington and ronald reagan because they had saved or liberated many, many people. i don't think there's any doubt. if you look at the new deal, you stand back and look at it, and reagan always defended it, and i see what roosevelt was trying to do and trying to instill spirit and hope in the american people, and we had to try something. but there's no doubt that absent franklin roosevelt, absent winston churchill that the world would be a much worse place today without them. they, winston churchill and franklin roosevelt, defeated the empire of japan and defeated nazi germany in italy -- and italy. as far as the attack itself, in

1967 apollo 1-rbgs, as many -- 1-rbgs, as many of us remember, burned up on the launch pad. and we had been on a pretty good roll for, you know, with shepard and glenn walking in space and the success of the gemini program, and then we're going to the moon to fulfill kennedy's commitment before the end of the decade, and it looks like everything's great, and apollo i in an unfueled rocket and three astronauts burn to death. and the head of the nasa investigation at the time was frank borman who himself was an astronaut, and he's hauled before a congressional committee that was chaired by clinton anderson who was then a senator from new mexico. and he says how does this happen? how does this happen? and he used a phrase that's been used before in literature, but it's still applicable. he says, senator, it was a failure of imagination. we simply couldn't on conceive the idea that this series of bizarre events, that one would

trigger the other, which would trigger the other, which would lead to these men's death. the same thing happened on december 7, 1941. we simply didn't conceive. there were war games about it, we thought about it, the admiral who was one of the real victims along with walter short of the events of pearl harbor and how they were treated afterward. but they really didn't ever think that the japanese could move six aircraft carriers over 4,000 miles along with dozens of escort ships, over 500 airplanes, thousands of men, stop in mid ocean to refuel and come in and attack hawaii. and not only that, attack the philippines, attack midway, attack wake island, attack the melee peninsula, all these other places in a massive strike. nobody thought that the japanese had the industrial plan, that they had the war material or that they even had the military

or political will to do something like that. so it was, it was a series of events. but in an ironic sort of way, it was a terrible tragedy, a terrible event. it changes the country forever in some ways good because we become internationalists, and i think there are some good things, a case to be made about that and other things that are not so good at being made about that. but it does -- everything that, as i started out saying is that everything that is different in america today, much or if not most can be traced to december 7th, 1941. thank you. [applause] >> i think we've all enjoyed two really remarkable presentations and programs. now it's time for questions. remember, a microphone will be passed to you. first question?

well, the island -- oh, you've got one out here? okay. [inaudible] >> there are two questions for you. one, was there -- [inaudible] on the channel islands, and if there were, were any of them transported out or was there an effort to save the, save whatever, however many jews there may have been on the island, and then you answer that, and i'll ask the second. >> okay. on gurnz city which is where i focused, all the islands had their own ethos, their own feeling, so mine was very concentrated. there were three jewish women. i write about terez, august and mary ann. in the prime of life. they look at you out of their id cards, and you know how they domesticate this large war and then the holocaust comes down to these three women. and, yes, they were sent away from the islands.

a very complicated situation. at the same time that they were deported, an american woman was deported, the wife of a man who had caused great trouble for the germans. he was just -- as long as america was neutral or had not entered the war, he was, you know, always intervening. and when they got the chance to drop the nickel on him, they got rid of him, and then later she was deported. but, yes, these three women were deported. it's interesting because the people on the island thought that every jewish person had evacuated before the war. because all of the prominent jewish people had evacuated, and these three women had come to the island just before the occupation. two of them just a month before the occupation. and they were working; two at a hospital, one on a farm. so nobody really knew they were

there except, of course, they were listed in the lists of alien workers. and two of them had come when they said if you had jewish, when the germans said if you have a jewish background, you must come and signed up. two of them came and signed up. so did two other women, but then they claimed to have converted to church of england, and they were never -- but all three women were sent to france and then from france to auschwitz, and they all died. >> be the second question is for craig. craig, could you talk about macarthur in december '41 and what he was doing? >> yes. he was the commander of the army garrison at, on the philippines. macarthur, it's -- i don't know anybody who doesn't have a strong opinion about douglas macarthur. and i remember growing up as a

child is that my parents -- my grandparents utterly adoered him -- adored him, but i know there were people who didn't feel that way about douglas macarthur. he is an interesting figure of history because his installation was attacked on december 8, 1941. he had 12 hours' notice after the attack at pearl harbor. and yet did nothing. at clark field there were american airplanes lined up wing tip to wing tip even though he had advance notice. i don't know the reason why he wasn't court-martialed or driven out the way kimmel and short were. husband kimmel was the new admiral of the navy fleet in the hawaiian islands who was out of the navy by january of 1942. and lived his life understandably pretty bitter because he took the blame. the politicians in washington created the, the roosevelt

administration quickly created a commission and asked the congress not to investigate what happened at pearl harbor, how it happened and who was to blame, basically. the roosevelt administration had complete control of this blue ribbon commission. and roosevelt simply asked the house and senate not to initiate their own investigations, and they complied. and, you know, it is that in politics when something goes bad, somebody's got to be blamed. and it fell to walter short who was head of the army at the hawaiian islands who was also out by january of 1942 and husband kimmel. even though the navy has done a number of studies and reports afterwards that completely exonerate -- i have one of them here -- completely exonerate these two men. and as a matter of fact, our own government handcuffed them because we had not yet intercepted the japanese military code, but we had intercepted the diplomatic code. and yet the material we were getting that was coming into the

u.s. embassy in washington was going to the white house and the war department, but it wasn't going to kimmel, and it wasn't going to short or my of our other over-- any of our other overseas commanders. but macarthur still has the advantage because he's been told, you know, every means possible; short wave radio, telegrams, the wire services, the radio. all these other installations had been hit, and yet he does nothing. macarthur was a political legacy. his father had won the congressional medal of honor for service in the civil war. he was a career military officer, he was a good friend of franklin roosevelt's. he was very good friends with henry and clare boothe luce and, as a matter of fact, the week before clare boothe luce had done pretty much a fawning profile of macarthur that was on the cover of "life" magazine the week before december 7, 1941. so he had enormous political support. he was a very popular man. i suspect that factored a lot

into it, into why macarthur wasn't forced out in the way kimmel and short were forced out. now, in macarthur's defense is that he did go to australia and did end up mounting a brilliant counteroffensive up the australian coastland to drive all the way to japan and then had to stop because, you know, we dropped the bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki. so anyway -- >> i have a question for cheryl, and it actually comes back to the advanced notice. i'm interested in the evacuation process. how much notice did the island have, and what led to who evacuated and who didn't? was that a government-down process or individual decisions? how fast, how early did they know occupation was coming? >>n;+[foxú well, they could seet

coming as the germans are sweeping across france. of course, by the time they get to dunkirk and, you know, we have the miracle of the little boats and, you know, the whole dunkirk thing, they felt that they were going to to be occupied. evacuations were still going on at the moment that the germans occupied the island. the first thing they did was come in and strafe the harbor, and some of the boats that were till evacuate withing people -- still advantaging waiting people, some of them pulled away during this major air raid in which 30 some people were killed. some of the boats took off so quickly that people were onboard just to say good-bye to a friend and were carried off. others, some had boarded and some of the family were still on the dock, and the boat left. it was very much an individual decision and a very, very difficult one.

some of the diarists stayed, reverend ord stayed because he felt it was his christian duty to stay with his congregation. for the young men, it was very difficult. you had young men who were 17, 18 years old, not really old enough to fight at that point, but then later they were old enough, and many of them wished they had evacuated, but they tended to stay to take care of their parents or to work on -- many of these are farmers, and they needed them. so that's part of, there's quite a substantial part in the book where i talk about that decision and how they made it. some wanted elderly parents to go with them when couldn't. so they would stay to be with them. so, yes, very much an individual decision. some, of course, like dr. montague who was jewish was very much urged to, i mean, they knew for someone as prominent as he was, he was urged to

evacuate. but most of the time it was just, came down to the individual. >> i have a question, craig. how unanimous was the media december 8th? >> oh, it was -- [laughter] actually, that's a great question. because the media, nobody really questioned anything. there were little columnists here and there that might question some of the mandates that were coming out of washington, but there was one interesting mandate that did come out from, that was endorsed by the radio broadcasters association, and it was a directive that came from the government and the navy and the fcc to all radio properties in america which specifically said what they could not do. you could not broadcast rumors, ship movement, troop movement, rumor, innuendo. you couldn't use the war for commercial purposes. you couldn't say, and here's the war news brought to you by

campbells soup. [laughter] and the memo was very specific which said that we will -- the government will take your radio property and shut it down or take control for the duration of the emergency if you do not follow these strictures. so there was very little, almost no criticism whatsoever of the u.s. government. you know, it's hard to believe -- now, i guess that the same feeling was going on after september 11th which is that the not knowing and the abject fear. but, you know, come pound that with a lack -- compound that with a lack of information. there were rumors of bombings in new york, washington, boston, los angeles, san francisco. they did blackout, you know, the newspapers were printing rumors, you know, of, you know, all this stuff. and finally roosevelt goes on