The Symbiotic Travelers Ch.07

The symbiotic Travelers

The Wars of

the Worlds

BADSAM

It is June 29, 1914, Zlatex comes home from where he has been working as a writer for the Sacramento Bee newspaper since 1899. Yaphet is in the kitchen fixing some peach cobbler, one of his favorite desserts. He gives her a sad frown. They hug and kiss. After they break the lip lock, she wipes some flour residue off his shirt. His arms are still around her waist with his hands in the small of her back, holding her tightly.

She gives him a cheerful smile and says, "The hardware store that I sell my wicker baskets to have sold all the ones that I made. They want me to make ten more of them. The proprietor even gave me an advance payment so that I could purchase the young willow branches that I use to weave the baskets. I'm so excited about it."

"That's good; I'm happy for you, Yaphet. But I have some depressing news."

"What's that my love." She leans back putting her hands on his shoulders, giving him a puzzled look.

"Yesterday Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by a Serbian Nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. The assassinator was a Bosnian Serb student."

Zlatex pauses and takes a sheet of paper from his pocket. "I wrote down some of the more important particulars for us as it came over the wire to the newspaper. Later we can enter the information into SAM."

He begins to read aloud for his symbiotic partner, "They were riding in their open-topped automobile through the streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was formally annexed by the Austria-Hungary Empire in 1908. They were shot at close range while being driven through the city. There was an assassination team that was helped by the Black Hand, a secret Serbian Nationalist group of individuals."

"Oh! That's terrible," Yaphet quips.

"There's more. At 10:10 am, as Archduke Ferdinand's car with a folded back convertible cover approached, a bomb was thrown at the car the imperial couple were riding in. But the bomb bounced off the open sports car into the street. The bomb exploded under the next car in the motorcade. The procession continued. After the first assassination attempt had been unsuccessful, a few minutes later an assassin stepped up to the footboard of the car and shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie at point blank range with a pistol. The royal couple were dead by 11:30 a. m."

"You said that it was a group of men that did this," Yaphet asks.

"Yes, the Black Hand was responsible for the assassination. They are a Serbian separatist group of terrorists. The organization was committed to freeing Bosnia from Austrian occupation and incorporating it into Serbia."

"Terrorists are fools," Yaphet exclaims. "They believe that their actions are holy and righteous. They think that their deeds will accomplish victory and bring about peace. But their pursuits only bring about death and destruction. They cause more harm than good."

"It's worse than that," Zlatex adds. "Because many of Europe's national leaders believe the Serbian government was behind the murders, there's talk of war between several countries in Europe. Luckily, it won't involve the United States. At least, it looks that way so far."

"What are we going to do if there is war and America joins it? I mean the government may ask for volunteers and you could get caught up..."

"Yaphet! I'm surprised you would ask such a question," he interrupts his counterpart. I'm never going to go to war. If I got shot, then everyone would immediately find out that we are not human; we're alien beings. There is no telling what would become of us if that happened."

"That's not what I meant, Zlatex. I mean, if numerous European countries begin fighting and the United States joins them, then there's no place we can go. What should we do?"

"I don't know Yaphet," her syngeneic lover answers. "If the U. S. government calls for enlistments, maybe I'll be able to get some kind of deferment. Working at all the different newspapers that I have over all the years we've been living here, I've gotten quite good at producing documents that are actually forgeries."

"Yeah, those embossed birth certificates and marriage certificates that you made for us when we arrived here in Sacramento are excellent. A person would have to actually examine them with a magnifying glass to perceive that they are not genuine," Yaphet responds.

"Right! No one really looks hard at those. So, let's just wait and see what happens and then we'll make some kind of decision."

World War I, also known as the Great War and the "War to End All Wars," started on July 28, 1914, just one month after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. But the war had been brewing for several years prior to the assassination. The murder of this imperial husband and wife was just the match that lit the fuse.

It arose mainly from a confrontation between two alliances. On one side was the Triple Alliance, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. On the other side was the Triple Entente, which was made up of the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy and later the United States. All the Triple Entente members entered the war as Allied Powers against the Central Powers.

As the world entered the 20th century, there was an arms race which began among the European nations, mainly over the number of each country's warships, and the enlarged size of their armies. Warships increased in size, the number of guns on each vessel, their speed, the method of propulsion, and the improved quality of their armor. Governments also began to prepare more and more of their young men for combat.

By 1914, Germany had almost one hundred warships and two million soldiers and sailors ready for war. Great Britain also increased the size of its navy during this time period. Further, in Germany and in Russia, the military began to have a greater influence on governmental and public policy. It was this increase in militarism that eventually drove the nations to war. The assassination just ignited it.

When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, claiming it was responsible for the assassination of the Archduke, Russia got involved to defend Serbia, also because of its interest in the Balkan region as well as its desire to gain a military advantage over the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The Russian Tzar had the support of the President of France, although France was only peripherally involved. When Russia mobilized its army against Austria-Hungary, Germany declared war on Russia and France. Germany then invaded France by running its armies through Belgium.

The Ottoman navy had plans to provoke the Russian navy into attacking their two German warships. In order to do this, on October 19, 1914, they carried out naval maneuvers near the Russian navy. But the commander of the two German ships attacked the Russian coast. Although the Ottoman Empire denounced the assault, blaming it on the German commander of the vessels, on November 2, 1914, Russia still declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the French and the British also declared war on the Empire, which then declared war against France, Russia and the United Kingdom.

Bulgaria entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers in an attempt to regain territories it lost earlier in its conflict with Serbia and Greece.

The British had naval and military agreements with France and came to the defense of the country when German troops marched across its borders. Great Britain declared war on Germany and then Turkey joined the Central Powers.

Of course, France was drawn into the conflict after Germany crossed its border line to attack it. Then Germany, after seeing that Russia had mobilized, declared war on Russia.

Although Japan was allied with the English, it went to war in order to obtain economic gains. The Japanese Empire seized upon the prospect to enlarge its influence in the East, particularly in China, while also gaining recognition as a significant power in any postwar geopolitics.

Italy, although it had treaties with both Austria-Hungary and Germany, entered the war on the side of the Allies in 1915.

On May 7, 1915, the British passenger liner, the RMS Lusitania, was torpedoed by the German U-boat, U-20. At that time, she was off the southern coast of Ireland, near the Old Head of Kinsale, transporting munitions from the United States to England. These ordnances ignited a second explosion inside the ship, causing her to sink in about eighteen minutes; nearly 1200 men, women and children died, including 128 Americans. The sinking turned public opinion in America against the Central Powers, particularly Germany. It also contributed to United States entering the Great War two years later.

There were several factors that contributed to America entering the War to End

All Wars, besides the sinking of the Lusitania.

First of all, was Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare and its policy of sinking any vessel in the Atlantic without warning. The United States had compelling financial interests with the Allies and their victory was necessary for American economic stability. The United States also had strong cultural ties with France and the United Kingdom, the latter, using propaganda helped biased American public opinion against Germany. Finally, on January 17, 1917, British intelligence intercepted a secret diplomatic communiqué, known the Zimmerman Telegram, that proposed an alliance between Mexico and Germany, if the U. S. entered the war against the Central Powers. In the message, Germany promised to help Mexico regain Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

But most importantly, there was the desire of the U. S. government to assert itself as a world superpower with the ability to promote worldwide democracy. After breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany, the United States was inevitably pushed toward war. President Woodrow Wilson, using his authority as commander in chief, in March 1917, ordered the arming of U. S. merchant ships, ostensibly so that they could defend themselves against more U-boat attacks.

Between March 16th and 18th German subs sank three more American merchant ships, causing the deaths of numerous U. S. merchant marines. The President, with the support of his Cabinet, the propaganda in many newspapers and a majority of public opinion, made the decision on March 20th for the United States to declare war on Germany.

Then on April 6, 1917, the United States Congress declared war on Germany and America entered the conflict more than two and a half years, 34 months, after the Great War began in Europe, in Wilson's words "to make the world safe for democracy."

One year later, just a few months before the Great War was declared over, on April 21, 1918, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, due to his noble status as a baron was shot down near Vaux-sur-Somme in France while flying in his Fokker Dr. I triplane, a red three wing aircraft. It was his distinctive red triplane that became iconic and helped cement his legendary status. He had 80 confirmed aerial victories, making him the top scoring ace fighter pilot of World War I. Two theories exist as to how he was eventually shot down. One says that it was by an Australian ground crew shooting at him as he flew by. The other by the Canadian pilot Captain Arthur Roy Brown in a dogfight, an aerial combat between the two opposing pilots.

By contrast, Eddie Rickenbacker, the top American World War I flying ace, was only officially credited with shooting down 22 enemy airplanes during his service.

After heavy losses on both sides in the trench warfare, the Allies were overwhelmingly victorious. The War to End All Wars ended on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919; it took effect on January 10, 1920. The Allied triumph over the Central Powers led to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and German Empires as well as the end of the Russian Empire.

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The origins of World War I were the imperialism of the empires, the mutual defense alliances among the nations involved, the increased militarism of these same nations and their desire to ascend to positions of international dominance. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, was the shot that started it all.

The War to End all Wars saw a drastic change in warfare. Armies no longer engaged in any type of hand-to-hand combat with swords and spears or just standing and shooting at each other from a distance with bows and arrows or flintlock muskets. Technology, chemical weapons and the birth of advanced weaponry had become the "tools of war." Millions of people had died and another twenty million were injured, some maimed for life. The face of war would never be the same.

During the Bolshevik Revolution, the Czar Nicholas II, his wife, Empress Alexandra and their five children, Olga age 22, Tatiana age 21, Maria age 19, Anastasia age 17 and only son Alex age 13, - each sibling just an innocent victim - were all unceremoniously executed by firing squad on July 17, 1918, a few months before the Great War ended.

Vladimir Lenin led the October Revolution which established a socialist state. His government consolidated power under the Communist Party. He was a Marxist but his changes to the ideology are called Leninism. He was the leader of the Soviet Union until his death in 1924.

Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Communist Party from 1924 until his death in 1953. He initiated the Great Purge, where he executed those who he perceived to be his enemies. Under his orders, over twenty million men, women and children were sent to Gulag labor camps in Siberia, resulting in millions of deaths.

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It is the evening of the 20th of January 1919. Yaphet and Zlatex moved back to New Orleans two years ago. After living in Sacramento for several years, they figured it was time to move on before anyone discovered that they do not age. They discussed between themselves where they wanted to move. Yaphet wanted to return to the Queen of the South; she loves the Crescent City and Mardi Gras.

The two extraterrestrials reminisce about going to their first Mardi Gras in Mobile in 1703, the capital of Louisiana at that time. Then reading newspaper articles about the Mardi Gras parades in La Nouvelle Orléans after that. Although the first documented Mardi Gras parade in the Big Easy wasn't held until 1837, while they were living in Texas. Yaphet reminds her consort that Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville set up camp along the Mississippi River near present day New Orleans. He named the spot "Pointe du Mardi Gras" because it was the eve of the festive season in France.

James is working as a writer for the New Orleans Item newspaper; it is his second year on the job. He has just come home from work. They have rented a house near the corner of South Claiborne, where it crosses South Carrolton. Julia is "keeping house" and reading about the 18th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which was made into law on January 16, 1919, ushering in Prohibition.

"Want a glass of wine?" she asks her alien counterpart after he enters the living room and falls exhausted onto the sofa.

"No thanks, my love. All I want is a hug and a kiss. Come here."

After they break their embrace, she asks, "Are you sure you don't want to break the law and drink some wine? We could add another crime to our resumé." She smiles mischievously.

"Yaphet, I've told you before, it's not against the law for us to live here."

"Yes, it is my darling. We're illegal aliens because we were not born here in America, and we are not registered as such with the government. Therefore, we are illegal aliens." She continues to give him an impish look.

Zlatex smiles and answers his syngeneic equivalent, "But we are not that kind of alien, Yaphet. We are not from Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Mexico, Venezuela or some other foreign nation. We are from the planet Herth which is 4.24 light years away from here." He returns her playful smile with a patronizing smirk of his own.

The syngeneic being then wraps his arms around his extraterrestrial consort and kisses her hotly on her mouth; their tongues entwine. He reaches down, groping her buttocks and pulls her into himself. She shoves her hand into his trousers and wraps her fingers around his manhood. Within minutes they are both completely naked. When they break the lip lock, she begs him to spank her ass until her flesh is red and stinging and her face is streaked with her tears. After beating her with his belt, they make passionate love.

The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, after the House Judiciary chairman who managed the legislation, launched the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Influence for the bill came mainly from the Temperance Movement, a social crusade that promoted complete abstinence or at least temperance in the consumption of intoxicating liquors. Its adherents emphasized the negative effects of alcohol on a person's health, their mental state, their personality and their family's wellbeing. They also advocated for the education of the effects of alcoholic drinks, especially for teenagers, and demanded the passage of laws against the distilling of whiskey, beer and wine.

The Anti-Saloon League, the Women's Christian Temperance and the Prohibition Party were the main supporters for the law, which banned the production, transportation, importation and sale of all alcoholic liquors.

Many of the organized efforts that supported prohibition involved religious coalitions that linked alcohol consumption to immorality, dishonesty and the criminal element. It saw the rise of bootlegging, speakeasies and the illegitimate importation of alcoholic drinks through Canada. Around the nation many illegal distilling operations burgeoned, some openly in plain view of law enforcement officers.

Prohibition also saw the rise of organized crime bosses; men such as Al "Scarface" Capone, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, George "Bugs" Moran, Meyer Lansky, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Frank Costello, George "Baby Face" Nelson, John Herbert Dillinger and Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow and many others. They all used prohibition to enhance and broaden their criminal careers and lawlessness.

Finally, after fourteen years, Americans increasingly began to understand that prohibition was not only unenforceable it was also aiding the crime element. On February 20, 1933, Congress proposed the 21st Amendment. It was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition.

But in the midst of this crime wave was the Great Depression. It was a worldwide economic recession that lasted from 1929 to 1939. It saw bank and business failures around the world with high rates of unemployment and poverty all coupled with reductions in production, trade and the Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929, which marked the beginning of the Depression. The United States, Great Britain and Germany were the countries that were mostly affected with unemployment.

It was eventually the mobilization of industry for World War II that helped bring the world out of the Depression. World War II, also called the Second World War, lasted from September 1, 1939, with the Third Reich's invasion of Poland, and ended on September 2, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered. Like World War I, it was an international conflict between two major coalitions, the Axis and the Allied Powers. Again, nearly all the world's great sovereignties participated in the hostilities. Again, those involved invested all their energies as well as their available economic, industrial and scientific abilities in the interest of total war against their enemies. The distinction between civilian and military resources frequently became imprecise and often obscured.

The primary origins of the war include the political takeover of Germany by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; the Italian aggression against Ethiopia; and the Japanese military hostility against China and its expansion in the South China Sea, which included the Philippians, Indonesia, Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand & Vietnam.

It is the evening of January 31, 1933, it is just fifteen years since the end of World War I in 1918. Zlatex and Yaphet are sitting in their living room and listening to the radio. The news is about Adolf Hitler ascending to political power as the new Chancellor of Germany. He has enacted the government's Enabling Act, which gives him vast de facto dictatorial powers. He used the Act to order the construction of Dachau for those his government labels communists and for those who he perceives to be his political opponents. It is the first Nazi concentration camp.

The two symbiotic extraterrestrials have moved to Washington, D. C. James is working as a writer with the Washington Post. Julia is a nurse's assistant at George Washington University Hospital. Both are registered as parttime law students at Georgetown University. James "made" each of them a diploma, showing that they graduated from Louisiana State University, with degrees in Liberal Arts.

They are both very interested in what happens in Europe and have even discussed between themselves the possibility of including it in their travels when they have to move before someone detects that they are alien beings.

Just yesterday, on January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, also known as the Nazi Party, as chancellor of Germany.

Hitler's rise to absolute power was completed in August 1934 when, following the death of President von Hindenburg, he merged the chancellery with the presidency and became the Führer, the sole leader of Germany.

In June of 1940, Hitler triumphed in what he claimed was the "most famous victory in all of history." That was when France fell to the German Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of the Nazi Régime from 1935 to 1945, consisting of its army, its navy and the Luftwaffe or air force.

However, between May 27th and June 4th, British military and civilian craft were able to evacuate over 330,000 French and British troops that had been trapped at Dunkirk when Germany invaded France. The Dunkirk Evacuation from the northern coast of France was a much more spectacular event in that a large percent of the British Expeditionary Force - the contingent of French and British armed forces who had been sent to aid France after Britain and France declared war on Hitler's Third Reich - was saved.

German plans to invade the British Isles involved the extensive use of the Luftwaffe in the infamous Battle of Britain. From July 10, 1940, to October 31, 1940, the skies were filled with English Spitfire and Hurricane fighters defending against German bombers, in Hitler's attempt to invade England. Their main objective was to gain air superiority over the British Royal Air Force. It was the first major military campaign ever fought entirely by opposing air forces. But the British were triumphant, and Hitler cancelled his intended invasion. Of the British victory, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said of the RAF pilots who defended the Great Britain, "Never was so much owned by so many to so few."

Next, between September 7, 1940, and May 11, 1941, the RAF carried out nighttime bombing attacks on Berlin. Hitler then resorted to the Blitzkrieg, meaning lightning war or lightning attack. This was an intense bombing campaign undertaken by the Nazi air force against the United Kingdom during World War II. During that time, the Luftwaffe dropped hundreds of bombs on London and other strategic cities across Great Britain. But Hitler's offensive was a complete failure. The bombing did not demoralize the British into surrendering nor did it do much damage to the war economy. The many months of bombing never impeded British war production.

After the fall of France to the Nazi Wehrmacht in 1940, the French colonial territories in Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand & Vietnam) came under the control of the French Vichy government, a puppet administration of the Nazi Régime. Japan sought control of these regions in order to secure resources like rubber and oil. It invaded Indochina in September 1940, and within a year had control over all of Indonesia

This led to tensions between Japan and the United States. In response, the United States imposed economic sanctions against Japan, including an embargo on oil and steel shipments to the Japanese. These constraints hampered Japan's desire to become self-sufficient in resources and severely threatened Japanese war efforts. It also ultimately contributed to Japan's decision to attack Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Before December 7, 1941, the United States was only peripherally involved in the Second World War. Before then, the U. S. just supplied Great Britain with munitions and other supplies that it needed to maintain its war against Hitler, and by enacting an embargo against Japan, an ally of Germany.

Further, the military high command in Washington, D. C. in early 1941 (and possibly even earlier than that) knew that the war in the Pacific Ocean would be a "carrier war," i. e., the nation with the most and best aircraft carriers would be the winners in the Pacific Theatre. While English airbases could assume that task for the European conflict. Everyone knew that aircraft carriers, destroyers, transport carriers, submarines and PT boats (patrol boats) would be decisive; battleships would only be used for backup support.

By the beginning of World War II battleships had become nearly obsolete. Even as far back as 1922, when the USS Lexington was under construction, the Washington Naval Conference ordered her to be redesigned as an aircraft carrier, not as a battlecruiser, which was her original design. They did this because they knew that battleships were becoming outdated.

On June 27, 1941, British cryptologists finally broke the German Enigma code. The Enigma was a type of encrypting device used by the German armed forces to securely send secret information. After this, Allied codebreakers were able to read many of the messages Germany high command sent to its Wehrmacht.

Japanese and Italian armed forces also had their own encryptions. The Japanese JN-25 code in use before December 1941 was about ten percent broken before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. JN-25 is the name given by American codebreakers to the main, and most reliable, communication stratagem used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. By December about twenty percent of the cipher had been solved.

In the summer of 1941, the United States intelligence had received "reports" of intense Japanese interest in the depth of the water of Pearl Harbor and the strengths and weaknesses of the naval and army troops stationed in Hawaii. By November, the U. S. officials in Washington, D. C. and at Pearl Harbor had enough information to know that something was out of the ordinary with the Japanese fleet.

Admiral Chuichi Nagumo left Japan on November 26, 1941, with instructions that if negotiations between Japan and the United States successfully favored Japanese interest, he was to return his aircraft carrier strike force to Japan. But if diplomatic efforts failed, then he would receive the message to, "Climb Mount Niitaka," and attack Pearl Harbor.

One of the main U. S. strengths of the Pacific Fleet was absent from Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, the aircraft carriers. By "coincidence" all three of the U. S. Pacific carriers (USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise and USS Lexington) were out on missions when the Japanese attacked the base. The Saratoga was at San Diago for refitting. The Lexington was transporting aircraft to Midway, ostensibly to help protect the island from attack. The Enterprise was returning from Wake Island on a top-secret mission to ferry troop reinforcements to the island's Marines, again for protection from attack. The Enterprise task force reached Wake Island without detection on December 4, offloaded its Marines, and began its return journey, arriving at Pearl Harbor around midday on December 7th.

The aircraft carriers USS Yorktown, USS Hornet, USS Wasp and USS Ranger were in Norfolk, Virginia or on maneuvers on that fateful day. The Yorktown sailed into the Pacific in late December 1941 after completing patrols in the Atlantic. The Hornet sailed for the West Coast in March 1942 via the Panama Canal. The Wasp was transferred to the Pacific in June 1942 to replace losses incurred in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. Finally, the Ranger was used extensively for operations in the Atlantic and spent most of WWII there. She sailed for Hawaii on July 28, 1944, reaching Pearl Harbor on August 3rd.

The destruction of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese was enormous. All eight battleships berthed at the harbor on that day were either sunk or heavily damaged, while another three destroyers and three cruisers were also damaged. The U. S. servicemember deaths numbered over 2,300.

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The "enemies" of Japan on December 7, 1941, were China, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. The Japanese decision to join the Axis powers provoked the English, who were already involved in the broader European conflict of World War II. Japan disagreed with the British, particular over territories in Asia. As part of its imperial ambitions, the Japanese sought to expand into areas controlled by England. Prior to full scale war between the two nations, there were smaller naval and air "skirmishes" in the Pacific, as Japan extended its influence in Southeast Asia, which was vital to British colonial interests.

Meanwhile, the U. S. was continuing to supply Great Britain with the supplies it needed to continue its military commitments. Thus, the Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was not totally unprovoked. The United States "incited" it.

Japanese military high command knew that it would only be a matter of time before the United States entered the war and that it would join the Allies. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, knowing that the Pacific campaign would be an aircraft carrier war, planned the raid on Pearl Harbor, where the carriers would normally have been docked. He saw the "surprise" attack against the strategic port as a pre-emptive strike to protect Japanese interests.

The United States military high command knew there would be a Japanese offensive against America or in the least they should have been able to figure it out. The increasingly deteriorating relationship between the United States and Japan was no secret. Tensions between the two nations were at an all-time high, and the U. S. military was concerned that Japan would launch an attack on American territory somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, Wake Island, Midway Island or Pearl Harbor. This coupled with the fact that the Japanese were interested in the depth and defenses of Pearl Harbor manifests their intent. It was not therefore a totally surprise attack.

The United States government and military officials knew that if they did not join the fight to stop Hitler, then once he conquered England, it would be extremely hard to halt his ability to dominate the North American continent. But they also knew that the U. S. couldn't just declare war on Germany; the American citizenry would not allow it. But if any U. S. fortification or territory was "attacked first," this would give Congress the excuse it needed to declare war.

Therefore, it is not a great stretch of the imagination to believe that the U. S. allowed the Japanese to proceed with their plan to bomb Pearl Harbor, without notifying the commanders of the Pacific Island to be on the alert.

The two symbiotic beings come to the conclusion that such an idea, while fantastic, is plausible. It is a well-known fact that governments commit atrocities in order to entice and incite their citizens to war against perceived enemies. Then to believe that U. S. government in Washington, D. C. and military personnel in 1941 were above these kinds of actions is naïve and totally ludicrous.

The North African campaign of the Second World War took place between June 10, 1940, to May 13, 1943; the United States entered the conflict on May 11, 1942. The Allied offensive in North Africa in 1942 was the first large scale use of American military against the German Wehrmacht.

By the beginning of March 1943, the Allies had reached the Tunisian border. General Rommel, who had been given the nickname "Desert Fox" by the Allies, found himself caught between the British and American troops. He was outmanned, outflanked and outgunned.

Rommel was recalled to Berlin before the final collapse of German forces in North Africa. The Führer wanted him to fortify the French beaches along the English Channel against an Allied invasion that he knew would ultimately come.

After defeating Germany in the North African in May 1943, the United States and Great Britain, the leading Allied powers, decided to move against Italy, in the words of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, "the soft underbelly of Europe."

Northern Africa would serve as a launch base for future Allied operations into Sicily and Italy. They planned to use British Malta, sixty miles south of Sicily, as a steppingstone in their conquest of the island and then move up the Italian peninsula; Malta having just been freed from occupation by the Axis forces.

The Allies began their Italian campaign with the invasion of Sicily on July 9, 1943. They met very little resistance and casualties were relatively light. It ended on August 17, 1943, when Allied armies entered the port of Messina and took control of the island. The German and Italian armies having managed to evacuate the day before.

In order to distract the Axis forces from Sicily and make the invasion of the island easier, the Allies engaged in several deceptive operations, the most famous of which was Operation Mincemeat. The British purpose of the strategy was to deceive the Germans into believing that the Allies would invade Greece and Sardinia off the coast of Italy.

British intelligence had obtained the body of an itinerant Welshman, Glyndwr Michael who died from eating rat poison. They clothed him in the uniform of a fictitious officer of the Royal Marines, acting Major William Martin. Next, they put personal correspondence between him and two British generals in an attaché case cuffed to his wrist, suggesting that an invasion of Greece and the Mediterranean island of Sardinia was imminent.

Finally, they had a submarine transport "Major William Martin" near the shore of neutral Spain. A local fisherman found the body onshore and notified the authorities; the briefcase of documents eventually ended up in the hands of government officials. Believing the papers to be genuine, the Spanish government shared them with Nazi intelligence before returning them to the British. The Germans believed the ruse and subsequently shifted reinforcements from Sicily to Greece. The result was that Allied forces received fewer casualties when they invaded Sicily.

On July 25, 1943, Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator, was voted vote out of office by his own Grand Council. He was arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuel, and sent to prison on the island of Ponza, in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Naples. The Allied invasion of Italy began on September 3, 1943.

On April 28, 1945, Il Duce was shot while attempting to escape to Switzerland.

Although a formidable German defense prevented the Allies from having a quick conquest, on June 4, 1944, Rome was finally liberated. Two days before the invasion of Normandy.

The Doolittle Raid was a bombing mission on April 18, 1942, by the United States on Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The assault was named after Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, who planned the attack and led it. The offensive action was the first American air operation to strike the mainland of Japan. Although the bombing mission caused relatively minor damage, it demonstrated that the Japanese Islands were vulnerable to U. S. air attacks. More importantly, it provided an important boost to American morale and served is as a retaliation for the December attack on Pearl Harbor.

Sixteen B-25 Mitchell medium bombers were launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, commanded by Captain Marc A. Mitscher. The bombers flew without fighter escorts. Each bomber had a crew of five men. After dropping their bombs on military and industrial targets, the crews continued westward to land in China. All but one of the 16 B-25s were destroyed in crashes; one of the planes landed at Vladivostok, the capital of the far Eastern district of the Soviet Union. Most of the crewmembers reached safety, one man was killed while bailing out, two drowned in the sea and eight were captured by the Japanese, three of them were executed.

The Battle of Coral Sea, from May 4 to May 8, 1942, was a key naval engagement in the Pacific Theatre between the United States Navy the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was the first naval action in history whereby the opposing fleets neither sighted each other nor fired directly upon one another. It was also the first military encounter between hostile aircraft carriers. The entire conflict was carried out by airplanes that were launched from the carriers.

The Japanese wanted to establish airfields at Port Moresby in southeastern Papua New Guinea. But American intelligence learned of their plan and notified all available sea and air powers. Most of the Japanese invasion force took an indirect route to Port Moresby on May 4th, initiating a conflict with the carriers USS Lexington and the USS Yorktown.

On the evening of May 6th, the USS Lexington rendezvoused with the USS Yorktown in the Coral Sea. Together they hoped to stop the invasion of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea by the Japanese. The American and Japanese carrier fleets came within 130 kilometers of each other. Although the U. S. sank the light aircraft carrier Shōhō on May 7th, they did not come upon the main Japanese task force accompanying the carriers Shōkaku and Zuikkaku until the following day.

Leading the attack against the Shōhō was Lieutenant John J. Powers. He dove his dive bomber toward the deck of the Shōhō and released his bomb, causing a tremendous explosion onboard the carrier. Another pilot in his air group, Lieutenant Commander Robert Dixon, called over his radio, "Scratch one flattop; Dixon to carrier, scratch one flattop." The Shōhō sank a few minutes later. The ship was the first Japanese fleet aircraft carrier lost during the war.

On May 8th, both fleets finally located and launched airstrikes against their enemy carriers. Aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown badly damaged the Shōkaku. The Japanese sank the destroyer USS Sims and damaged the fleet oiler USS Neosho. Japanese aircraft also critically damaged the "Lady Lex" and severely crippled the "Fighting Lady;" the Japanese thought they had sunk her too.

Two torpedoes from Japanese airplanes hit the port side of the Lexington. This was soon followed by bombs that were dropped by two other aircraft. Her damage was significant; she was listing and could not be saved. Captain Fredrick "Ted" Sherman ordered everyone to abandon ship. From the destroyer USS Phelps, he gave orders to sink her; he did not want her to fall into Japanese hands.

The battle marked the first time since the start of the war that a major Japanese advance had been turned back. But more important, the damage to the carrier Shōkaku and the aircraft losses of Zuikaku prevented both ships from participating in the Battle of Midway the following month.

Admiral Frank J. Fletcher was able to bring his aircraft carrier, Yorktown, into Pearl Harbor for repairs. Amazingly, she was refurbished and "seaworthy" with more supplies and aircraft within 72 hours. She would ultimately play a vital role in the discovery and eventual destruction of the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway.

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Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, was the Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Pacific Fleet and operations in the Battle of Midway. Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance commanded the USS Enterprise, while the USS Hornet was now commanded by Captain Charles P. Mason, comprising Task Force 16. Working together these U. S. naval forces defeated the attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Admiral William Frederick "Bull" Halsey Jr. of Enterprise had come down with a case of Psoriasis, which covered a great deal of his body and caused him agonizing itching. Nimitz ordered him to enter the hospital in Hawaii where he was successfully treated.

While he was in the hospital, Nimitz met with Halsey, who recommended his cruiser division commander, Rear Admiral Spruance, to take command for the upcoming Midway engagement. Admiral Nimitz contemplated the switch. He knew that that would mean by passing Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher of Task Force 17, Fletcher being the senior officer between the two men. After reading Fletcher's report of the Battle of Coral Sea and interviewing him, Nimitz made him the commander for the defense of Midway. Although he had no experience as a commander of an aircraft carrier group, based upon Halsey's recommendation, Nimitz made Spruance, commander of Task Force 16.

The Japanese offensive was under the overall command of Admiral Yamamoto, who conceived the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, and Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo and Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondō.

On May 30, 1942, the USS Yorktown sailed out of Pear Harbor to join in the Battle of Midway. Coordinated arial attacks from the Yorktown, the Enterprise and the Hornet inflicted devastating damage to the Japanese fleet. They were able to sink the Japanese carriers Akagi, Kaga and Soryu, and the heavy cruiser Mikuma, while seriously damaging the carrier Hiryu, which was so severely impaired and burning that it was later scuttled by the Japanese. All four of the carriers participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The U. S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer USS Hammann, but the Enterprise and Hornet survived the engagement undamaged.

On June 4th, Japanese airplanes from the aircraft carrier Hiryu crippled Yorktown after attacking her twice. She lost all power and developed a 23 degree list to port. Salvage efforts on her were encouraging, and she was taken in tow by the USS Vireo. On June 6, a Japanese submarine sighted them and fired several torpedoes at them, two of which struck the Yorktown, and another one hit the Hamman, which had been providing auxiliary power to the carrier. The captain ordered the remaining crew to abandon ship. Yorktown sank on June 7, 1942.

In the Battle of Midway, Admiral Nimitz maintained a critical advantage: U. S. cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's secret code. Since early on in the war, the U. S. had been decoding Japanese messages. One which they deciphered said that there would be a military engagement against objective "AF." At first, the codebreakers did not know what AF meant. But they developed an ingenious plan. They suspected that AF was Midway Island. In order to confirm it, they had Midway broadcast in an uncoded message that their water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the codebreakers picked up a Japanese secret communiqué that said AF was short on fresh water.

Admiral Nimitiz and the high command knew that AF was Midway.

Not only were they able to determine where the attack was going to take place, they also learned the date of the raid, June 4 or June 5. Thus, providing Admiral Nimitz with an excellent idea of what to expect in the upcoming battle. As a result, the U. S. Task Forces entered the battle with a good picture of when, where and what strength the Japanese offenses would have.

June 4, 1942, after a fierce three day battle, U. S. pilots were able to sink three Japanese aircraft carriers and leave one so badly crippled that the Japanese were forced to sink it themselves. The Battle of Midway effectively turned the tide of battle in the Pacific. It was only a matter of time before the Japanese would be defeated.

June 6, 1944, was the disembarkation date for the Allied invasion of France.

In January 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Operation Overlord, the code name for the upcoming invasion. In the months and weeks before that "disembarkation day," the Allies carried out a massive deception. Its objective was to make the German defenders believe that the main invasion target was Calais, France, the shortest distance between Great Britain and the European mainland and a logical landing place, not Normandy, which is more than 100 kilometers from Southampton, England.

In addition, the Allies led the Nazi Régime to believe that the Netherlands and even Norway and several other locations were also potential invasion goals. Several different tactics were used to carry out the deceit; spies acting as double agents with sham papers and reports, numerous fraudulent radio transmissions and a phantom army along with fake equipment, commanded by General George S. Patton. This was a bogus army base across the English Channel from Calais, made to appear as the actual invasion force.

The Normandy beaches of the June 6th invasion were code named Gold, Juno and Sword for the British and Canadian forces, and Utah and Omaha for the American forces. The Canadians and British overcame light opposition to capture their beaches. The Americans landed ashore at Utah Beach also with light opposition. But U. S. troops met heavy resistance at Omaha Beach.

The D-Day invasion of Normandy was the largest naval, air and land operation in history, comprising of more than 5,000 Allied ships and landing craft. Nearly 175,000 Allied troops disembarked on the beaches or were parachuted in or transported in gliders over the English Channel that day. Of those, 73,000 were from the United States and 83,000 from Britain and Canada, including about 4,000 glider infantrymen that landed at the beginning of the invasion. French forces and several other countries were also involved in the assault. Before these Allied forces landed, about 13,000 American paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, were dropped behind enemy lines.

The invasion of Normandy began with a large-scale parachute drop that occurred during the night in the early hours of June 6, 1944. The two airborne divisions were to block approaches toward the amphibious landings at Utah beach, to capture exits off the beaches and to establish viaduct crossings over the Douve River. The objective of those who were in the pre-dawn glider mission was to Capture Cherbourg and establish an allied port for the later supplying of provisions to the Allied forces in the days and months after the landing.

After D-Day, the Island of Jersey and the other Channel Islands off the southern coast of Normandy were cut off from resupply by Nazi Germany, who had occupied the islands since May 30, 1940. Although the Wehrmacht had heavily fortified the Channel Islands as part of the Atlantic defensive wall that they maintained, they held no strategic military value to the Allies. The islands became a logistical burden for the Nazi to resupply their troops stationed there. This forced them to waste valuable resources sustaining the isolated outpost.

Further, after D-Day, the Allies put up a blockade around the islands, allowing nothing to enter or leave. However, in December 1944, the Red Cross was eventually allowed to send humanitarian aid to the islands. Once the Third Reich was defeated, the occupational forces surrendered peacefully on May 8, 1945.

It was estimated that in the invasion that ten thousand Allied troops would die. However, losses were exceptionally low, only about 3,400 were killed or reported as missing in action.

The Battle of Midway effectively turned the tide of battle in the Pacific Theatre, and the successful invasion of the beaches of Normandy by the Allied forces did the same for the European conflict. It would only be a matter of time before Hitler would be defeated.

Yaphet and Zlatex have moved from Washington to Chicago. Zlatex has been a writer for the Chicago Tribune since 1939. Yaphet is working in a defense plant sewing military uniform shirts and jackets; she has been working there since 1941.

Yaphet has wanted to live there since before the war, but they didn't want to get involved in the "gangster wars." However, now that those men are all dead or in prison, they decided to move there. She especially enjoys visiting the museums and the zoos that are located in the city.

As they walk through Hyde Park, Yaphet asks Zlatex, "Why do you think the Führer believed that the Normandy invasion was only a diversionary attack, and that the real offensive was going to be at Calais?"

Hitler was convinced that Calais, a port city and the shortest distance between France and England, was the best location for the Allies to attempt an amphibious landing. Whereas Normandy was not a port city and a greater distance from France. In support of his beliefs, he had several fortified gun batteries built along the coast of Calais, while Normandy beaches weren't garrisoned nearly as formidable.

He consistently believed that any other assault would be a trap intended to divert defensive forces to the wrong place. He also thought that Allied troops were far inferior to German units and were unable to mount any strong offensive beach maneuver.

Another fatal mistake of his was his certainty that the Allies would not be able to offload the large numbers of soldiers, vehicles and munitions needed without a port. But thanks to brilliant engineering, the Allies arrived with prefabricated sections of floating docks that were sunk near the shores to provide giant temporary harbors.

The night before the invasion the Führer went to bed believing that the poor weather conditions in the area would favor the defense. When informed that the Allies were landing at Normandy, he at first refused to believe it. Again, insisting that it was a diversionary attack. Only later in the afternoon, through the persistence of his commanders, did he finally send Rommel's panzer tanks to the defense. But by then it was too late. The Allied troops had already established a beachhead at Normandy.

After Normandy, the German Wehrmacht only put up one major fight, the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive. It was the last strategic campaign of the Nazi Régime. It took place from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, in the Ardennes Forest. The double goal of the offensive was supposed to prevent the Allies from using the port of Antwerp and to split the Allied forces. The leaders of the Third Reich believed this would force them to negotiate a peace treaty that would favor the Axis powers.

A German armored unit had Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe's forces surrounded in the city of Bastogne. The American troops were low on ammunition, outnumbered, and cold from the freezing temperatures, with minimal rations. On December 22, 1944, at about 11:30 in the morning, a group of four German soldiers, two enlisted men and two officers, waving two white flags, approached the American lines. They said they wanted to give a message to the American commander in Bastogne. They had a typewritten note in English and German which asked, "for the honorable surrender of the encircled town." The note was not signed. It contained a typed signature, "The German Commander."

Acting chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Ned Moore, delivered the message to General McAuliffe, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division. General McAuliffe responded with just one word: "Nuts."

The German siege was eventually broken on December 26, after General George S. Patton's Third Army arrived in Bastogne. A month later, on January 25, 1945, the Battle of the Bulge was over, and the Allies were on their way to Berlin. Hitler's attempt to conquer Europe was on the verge of total military collapse.

The American and British forces knew that the capture of Berlin would be a crushing blow to the Nazi Wehrmacht and would bring about the end of the European conflict. But they did not participate in the Battle of Berlin mainly because they had not advanced far enough into Germany at the time, being more than 300 kilometers away from the city. Also, they saw no advantage in risking the lives of their forces in any attempt at besieging the city, especially when Soviet forces were within striking distance east of Berlin.

Consequently, in late March 1945, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, after consulting his staff, decided to halt the American and British forces advancing into central and northern Germany on a line west of the Elbe River.

Then late in the afternoon of April 12th, General Eisenhower was notified of President Roosevelt's death earlier that day; Harry S. Truman was the new President.

Battle of Berlin lasted from April 16 to May 2, 1945. The battle was fought between the Soviet forces and the German army, and it marked the final collapse of Nazi Régime and the end of the hostilities in Europe. The Russian army launched a massive assault on the city, but the Germans were resolute in defending the capital. The battle was fought in the streets and between the buildings of Berlin, with both sides fighting fiercely. It was one of the most intense and bloodiest conflicts of the war, thousands of civilians and soldiers died.

In the end, the Germans admitted defeat on May 7, 1945. At 02:41, General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht, signed an unconditional surrender of all German forces. The war in Europe was over.

Adolf Hitler, dictator and chancellor of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, had already committed suicide on April 30th. The Führer shot himself in his temple after learning that the Battle of Berlin was lost. His consort, Eva Braun also committed suicide by cyanide poisoning. Their bodies were then both doused with gasoline and burned. Their deaths were announced on the radio the next day.

The fall of Berlin was a defining moment in the history of the Second World War. It not only signaled the end of the Third Reich, but it also led to the division of Germany into two separate states, with West Germany becoming a democratic country aligned with the United States, Great Britain and France on one side and East Germany falling under Soviet control on the other side. However, after German reunification, the city of Berlin became the capital of Germany once again.

To be continued...