Category Archives: History

Imagine a Time for Peace

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The Christmas Truce of 1914: German and British soldiers stand together in No Man's Land on the Western Front

The Christmas Truce of 1914: German and British soldiers stand together in No Man’s Land on the Western Front

By Judy Berman

A narrow stretch of land was all that separated the soldiers. Sometimes, the trenches the British and the Germans fought in during World War I were only 200 yards apart. That space in between was known as “No Man’s Land.”

They were so close they could hear each other’s conversations. On Christmas Day 1914, many on both sides began to sing Christmas carols to each other.

Then, they did the unthinkable. They exchanged gifts of cigarettes and plum puddings. This Christmas Truce lasted just a few days.

One British soldier, Staff Sgt. Clement Barker, wrote to his brother on Dec. 28, 1914, from the trenches of Ypres (in Belgium), about the temporary cease-fire.

Barker’s letter, found 98 years after this event, is quoted Dec. 24, 2012, in the online Daily and Sunday Express: “So, in the morning (Christmas Day), a German looked over the trench – no shots – our man did the same, and then a few of our men went out and brought the dead in (69) and buried them, and the next thing happened a football kicked out of our trenches, and Germans and English played football (soccer).”

Many of the soldiers, curious about the unseen enemy, “were surprised to discover that they were more alike than” they thought.

This could be the setting of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” written in 1971.

Lennon asks us to imagine a time of peace when people put aside their differences, when there are no barriers between us, when we are not divided by our different faiths or politics. Instead of focusing on material possessions, Lennon said we should focus on humanity throughout the world.

Author John Blarney wrote that “Lennon contends that global harmony is within our reach, but only if we reject the mechanisms of social control that restrict human potential.”

This British infantry unit fights in a trench that is within 200 yards of German lines. (1914)

This British infantry unit fights in a trench that is within 200 yards of German lines. (1914)

For a few days in 1914, in several spots consumed by war, soldiers put aside their differences.

“The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of a war in Europe and was one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare. It was never repeated … but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of  weapons, the soldiers’ essential humanity endured,” according to history.com.

That scenario, played out nearly 60 years before “Imagine” was written, makes Lennon’s dream seem less distant. More real.

“Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”  

For now, I can only imagine.

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Video – The Christmas Truce - 

Music Video – John Lennon singing “Imagine.”  

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Judy Berman and earthrider, 2011-12. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to (Judy Berman) and (earthrider, earth-rider.com, or earthriderdotcom) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Main Photo: The Christmas Truce – 1914: German soldiers of the 134th Saxon Regiment photographed with men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in “No Man’s Land” on the Western Front. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Christmas_Truce_1914_IWM_HU_35801.jpg

Letter found from soldier in “No Man’s Land” Truce – 98 years later. http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/366837/98-years-on-letter-found-from-soldier-in-no-man-s-land-truce

Photo: Christmas Truce – British soldiers fighting in trenches: Illustrating the closeness of enemy lines, this British infantry unit fights from a trench that is within 200 yards of German lines. (Photo Credit: Bettmann/CORBIS) http://www.history.com/topics/christmas-truce-of-1914/photos#

Lincoln – a Country Divided. Again.

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President Lincoln and General George B. McClellan in the general’s tent at Antietam, Maryland. Oct. 3, 1862

By Judy Berman

“The man with fourteen days to live is himself witnessing death.”

This is the opening line of “Killing Lincoln,” by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. Within six weeks after Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office for his second term, shortly before the close of the Civil War, he was the first U.S. president to be assassinated in office.

Steven Spielberg’s movie, “Lincoln,” focuses on efforts to pass the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery. The book has a different focus. It reads like a thriller that counts down the remaining days of Lincoln’s presidency.

Some deride those who now want to secede from the United States, following the re-election of President Barack Obama. Such talk is no laughing matter. During Lincoln’s presidency, when our country was deeply divided, some – perhaps connected to the highest ranks in our government – attempted drastic and violent measures to alter the direction of our country.

Five days after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia, Lincoln was gunned down on April 14, 1865, by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died early the next morning.

Lincoln was not Booth’s only target. Booth and his conspirators also plotted to kill Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Lincoln’s general-in-chief of the Union army.

“Rather than just kill Lincoln and Grant, he now plans to do nothing less than undertake a top-down destruction of the government of the United States of America,” the authors write in “Killing Lincoln.”

Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward also are on the hit list.

“There are rumors that General Grant will be in town. If he attends the theater with Lincoln … Booth can kill the two most prominent architects of the South’s demise within seconds,” according to “Killing Lincoln.”

Booth also despises Vice President Johnson. He “views the Tennessee politician as a turncoat for siding with Lincoln.” Secretary of State William H. Seward also has angered Confederate sympathizers for his “oppressive policies toward the South.”

Lincoln had opposition from all sides – Radical Republicans and War Democrats – as he tried to reunite the country and bring an end to slavery. He wanted the reconciliation with the South to be one of compromise and understanding.

President Abraham Lincoln – 1862

Secessionists, who wanted to break away from the U.S. government, plotted Lincoln’s death. Booth killed Lincoln. But the other intended victims eluded death and the conspirators were eventually caught.

The book and the movie on Lincoln’s death serve as a reminder that we must be vigilant in order to protect our country. Tommy Lee Jones, who played Sen. Thaddeus Stevens, a radical Republican abolitionist, in “Lincoln,” said the movie “gives you an opportunity to think about the fact that politics is still dirty. And that great things are done by people, working hard.”

We’re a diverse nation and we’ve weathered difficult times before. When we work together, we can achieve great things.

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Official full movie trailer (2:21 min.) 

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Judy Berman and earthrider, 2011-12. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to (Judy Berman) and (earthrider, earth-rider.com, or earthriderdotcom) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Main Photo: President Abraham Lincoln and Gen. George B. McClellan in the general’s tent at Antietam, Maryland, October 3, 1862. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_and_McClellan_1862-10-03.jpg

Photo: President Abraham Lincoln – 1862 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_O-60_by_Brady,_1862.jpg

Lincoln’s final days http://www.history.com/topics/abraham-lincoln-assassination

The Transformation of Frankenstein

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Boris Karloff as the monster in James Whale’s movie, “Frankenstein.”

By Judy Berman

Rain seemed to be a constant companion, confining friends for days at a time in Switzerland. Lord Byron challenged them to write a ghost story.

Mary Shelley, wife of Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, accepted the challenge. She was the only one in the group who actually finished her tale, a macabre story about a gruesome fiend. When Shelley breathed life into Frankenstein’s monster, it’s doubtful that she could foresee that her creation would spawn so many spin-offs of the wretched form she first conceived when she was 18.

In her novel, first published in 1818, there is no hunchback assistant, no criminal brain, no electrical equipment, and no angry villagers with torches who chase the monster. Those were added by director James Whale in the 1931 classic movie Frankenstein, and those were the parts that were spoofed in director Mel Brooks’ comedy, Young Frankenstein, in 1974.

Where did Shelley’s repugnant creature spring from? She listened as her friends talked about the most recent bizarre medical experiments and their speculation on whether a corpse could be reanimated.

Frankenstein’s Castle, built in the 10th century, in Germany.

“My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me,” the author said. When she awoke, Shelley opened her eyes in terror.

“I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.”

Her “daemon” – monster – was hideous to look at, became uglier because of society’s rejection of him, traveled with great speed, and he never shut up. The monster would go on and on about what he had endured and explained his evil acts as retribution for being an outcast. With actor Boris Karloff’s monster, there is silence in Whale’s first movie. In Young Frankenstein, actor Peter Boyle’s monster learns the gift of gab and much more with hilarious results.

Dr. Frankenstein worked in isolation when he created the “daemon” in Shelley’s novel. By the time the monster hit the silver screen, however, the doctor had an assistant. But in Whale’s film, and in Brooks’, the assistants – both hunchbacks  – bring back an “abnormal brain.” The difference? In Brooks’ film, Igor, played by Marty Feldman, is unaware that he has a hump on his back. Or, that the hump switches from side to side.

Brooks’ monster also gets to show his gentler side. Gene Wilder (as Dr. Frankenstein) tries to reassure the villagers that his creation is a “cultured, sophisticated man about town.” Out comes the monster and Wilder, in tux and tails, as they do a song and dance routine to “Sitting on the Ritz.” All goes well until a fuse blows and scares the monster. Then, an angry mob puts him in chains.

Boyle escapes. Dr. Frankenstein (Wilder) feels responsibility for his creation and wants to save him. He decides to have a transference operation. Before it is complete, the mob breaks in. The monster, now able to speak eloquently, tells them why he has behaved badly. The mob is properly chastised and apologizes.

There are unintended consequences for your character when you hit Hollywood. In a way, all three versions – Shelley’s novel, Whale’s film, and Brooks’ spoof – send us the same message: science has a social responsibility. It’s just that Hollywood’s versions played out better for Dr. Frankenstein, Elizabeth – and in Brooks’ movie – his creation.

Let’s just hope that society gets the intended message of the cosmic theme of man’s limits and the dangerous risks that arise when man tries to emulate God.

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Judy Berman and earthrider, 2011-12. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to (Judy Berman) and (earthrider, earth-rider.com, or earthriderdotcom) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Photo: Frankenstein – Promotional photo of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster from “The Bride of Frankenstein,” 1935. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frankenstein%27s_monster_(Boris_Karloff).jpg

Photo: Frankenstein’s Castle – The castle, built in the 10th century, is in the town of Darmstadt, half an hour away from Frankfurt in Hesse region of Germany. Photo: by Yamy, Sept. 23, 2011 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Castelul_Frankenstein.jpg/640px-Castelul_Frankenstein.jpg

Video – movie trailer “Young Franenstein” directed by Mel Brooks  

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

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Navajo Code Talkers

Navajo Code Talkers, Saipan, June 1944

By Judy Berman

Decoding secret messages is a plot device in some mystery novels. In real life, it can mean the difference between life and death.

In Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic novel, “Dracula,” law clerk Jonathan Harker writes in shorthand to his fiancée back in England. He suspects he is a prisoner in Count Dracula’s Transylvania castle.

Dracula, cannot decipher the shorthand, which is a system of symbols used to take notes rapidly by hand. He intercepts them before leaving for England. Harker remains at the castle, at the mercy of Dracula’s “brides,” until Harker escapes.

The 2004 children’s art mystery, “Chasing Vermeer,” by Blue Balliett, used a pentomino code. Two sixth-graders, Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee, work to break the code so that they can recover a stolen Vermeer, “A Lady Writing.” A code is hidden in illustrations throughout the book.

A pentomino is one of the 12 plane figures that can be formed by joining five squares together side-to-side. The 12 different pentominoes are named after the letters of the Latin alphabet they resemble.

It was a code of a different sort that was used to save lives during World War II. It consisted of 211 words. Members of an ancient nation, whose language few understood, transmitted secret tactical messages and instructions. The people who spoke this language were called “The Navajo Code Talkers.”

“Code talking, however, was pioneered by Choctaw Indians serving in the U.S. Army during World War I,” according to Wikipedia. They served alongside the British during the second battle of the Somme in 1918.

During World War II, Philip Johnson proposed using the Navajo as code talkers to the U.S. Marines. He was not a Navajo, but grew up on a Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary, and he spoke their language fluently.

“Johnson’s report stressed the complexity of the Navajo language and the fact that it remained mostly ‘unwritten’ because an alphabet or other symbols of purely native origin did not exist,” according to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Plus, the languages of Native American tribes varied so greatly that one tribe could not understand another.

The first 29 Navajo U.S. Marine Corps code-talker recruits being sworn in at Fort Wingate, N.M.

It’s estimated that about 400 Native American Marines acted as code talkers for the U.S. Marine Corps.

Code Talkers Monument in Ocala, Florida Memorial Park

Some of the Navajo translations were verbatim. Others “were Navajo terms that had been imbued with new, distinctly military means in order to compensate for the lack of military terminology in the Navajo vocabulary. For example, ‘fighter plane’ was called ‘da-ha-tih-hi,’ which means ‘humming bird’ in Navajo, and ‘dive bomber’ was called ‘gini,’ which means ‘chicken hawk,’ “ according to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Some who served alongside these “walking secret code talkers” credited them in the Marines’ success in taking Iwo Jima. But the program went unrecognized until it was declassified in 1968. President Ronald Reagan gave the code talkers a Certification of Recognition in 1982. In 2001, the first 29 code talkers received the Congressional Gold Medal. Other Navajo, who later qualified to be code talkers in WW II, were given the Congressional Silver Medal.

The Japanese had attempted to decipher the code after they captured a Navajo sergeant, Joe Kieyoomia, in the Philippines in 1942 during the Bataan Death March. But Kieyoomia had not been trained in the code talk. Efforts to “persuade” him failed.

The spoken code was never cracked.

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Judy Berman and earthrider, 2011-12. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to (Judy Berman) and (earthrider, earth-rider.com, or earthriderdotcom) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Main Photo: Navajo Code Talkers, Saipan, June 1944 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Navajo_Code_Talkers.jpg

Photo: First 29 U.S. Marine Corps code-talker recruits being sworn in at Fort Wingate, N.M. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:(First_29_Navajo_U.S._Marine_Corps_code-talker_recruits_being_sworn_in_at_Fort_Wingate,_NM.)_-_NARA_-_295175.tif&page=1

Photo: Code Talkers – Navajo – Monument, Ocala, Fla. – Memorial Park http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Code_Talkers.jpg/640px-Code_Talkers.jpg

Video: Code Talkers – This is a music video about the Navajo Code Talkers involvement at the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.  (about 4 min. 33 sec.)

Video: A small band of warriors created an unbreakable code from the ancient language of the Navajo people and change the course of modern history. (The Official Website of the Navajo Code Talkers) http://www.navajocodetalkers.org

Video: True Whispers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers | PBS (56 min. 11 sec.) http://www.iptv.org/video/detail.cfm/12908/twsn_20101208_true_whispers_story_navajo

Titanic: Final Destination

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By Judy Berman

Do you want A Night to Remember? A night on an ill-fated cruise ship?

I’d bail on this “voyage of a lifetime.” But others apparently are eager to board the 100th anniversary 12-night Titanic Memorial Cruise. The cruise on the MS Balmoral will follow the same route as the RMS Titanic.

First of all, this heartbreaking news bulletin: Neither Jack Dawson nor Rose DeWitt Bukater will be on board to greet you. Both characters in director James Cameron’s 1997 movie, “Titanic,” were fictional. There is, however, an effort to resuscitate Jack for a sequel. More on that later in this story.

While the Balmoral is already full, chances are there might still be some seats left on the eight-night Titanic Anniversary Cruise aboard the Azamara Journey. That’s set to sail from New York on April 10, exactly 100 years to the day the Titanic departed Southampton,England.

For a mere $14,850 a person, you can book a Club World Owners Suite. Some space still remains in the less pricey Interior Stateroom, for $4,900 a person.

Why the interest? The “Titanic” movie renewed fascination with the ship’s maiden voyage. Walter Lord, author of “A Night to Remember,” also portrayed the wrenching, human toll taken. He wrote that there were only 20 lifeboats for the 2,207 passengers aboard. Of those, 1,517 passengers and crew sank along with the ship after it hit an iceberg.

No word on how many lifeboats will be available for this trip. One flaw aboard the original cruise that I’m certain will be remedied this time around will be communications. Wikipedia states that, in 1912, the wireless radio operators were “paid primarily to relay messages to and from the passengers. They were not focused on relaying ‘non-essential’ ice messages to the bridge.”  (Read: also known as “iceberg ahead.”)

The cruise has booked Titanic historians and lecturers, offers a chance to experience the same dining pleasures offered in 1912 on the Titanic, and a chance to wear period costumes.

There will be a time for reflection to honor the victims on the Atlantic Ocean. “On April 14 at ll:40 p.m., Balmoral is scheduled to arrive at the spot where Titanic struck an iceberg, and a memorial service will be held at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, to coincide with the time the massive ship went down,” according to http://failuremag.com.

The Azamara Journey also will have a memorial service.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather watch the movie and avoid a freezing trip aboard a ship.

As for a movie sequel, there’s a fake trailer of “Titanic 2: Jack’s Back” or “Titanic 2: The Surface.” Clips from various movies featuring Leonardo DiCaprio are used to update the original. With the help of modern science, Jack comes back from his watery grave only to discover that much has changed since the ship he was on went down in 1912.

To read more Titanic facts and to see the fake movie trailer, click on:

http://www.titanic-facts.com/titanic-movie.html