Fourth Short Quiz -- Chapters 13 - 18 + Conclusion

[johnkarls]

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There follow some discussion questions provoked by Chapters 13 - 18 & the Conclusion.

It is respectfully suggested that you make a list of your own questions that are provoked –

since all of us are unique and your questions are worth discussing also!!!

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Chapter 13 – Mutiny

1. Is “Mutiny” the title of an NAACP World War II pamphlet?

2. Does it concern a 7/17/1944 blast equivalent to 5,000 tons of TNT at Port Chicago?

3. Was Port Chicago an ammunition depot 30 miles north of San Francisco where Black seamen had been working 24/7 loading Navy ships bound for the Pacific War against Imperial Japan?

4. Did people throughout the San Francisco Bay Area think there had been an earthquake and was one of the U.S. Navy supply ships lifted out of the water, spun around and shattered to pieces?

5. Of the 320 people who died, were 202 Black enlisted Naval personnel? Were only 51 of the 320 bodies ever recovered/

6. Was the blast an “accident” despite the bombs arriving on railroad boxcars being often so snugly wedged that the Black sailors had to struggle to loosen them?

7. Did this result in (p. 204) “Thurgood Marshall’s most challenging military case of the war”?

8. Despite the zillions of safety complaints by the Black sailors, had they been given no specific training re how to handle high explosives?

9. Did the Navy’s official investigation interview 125 witnesses, only 5 of whom were Black – and then attempt to “white wash” (pun intended) the “accident” by OK’ing the policy that output trumped safety?

10. And did the Navy order the Black sailors to return to work loading bombs or face Court Martial for treason?

11. Is “treason” Yours Truly’s supposition since the Admiral who threatened them, warned them that they faced capital punishment and capital punishment when Yours Truly was a U.S. Navy Officer 1967-1970 (Ensign > Lieutenant (j.g.) > Lieutenant) was, if memory serves, most commonly associated with treason (even though it could be imposed for a dozen or so other offenses)?

12. Did more than 200 Black sailors return to work loading bombs while 50 were court martialed?

13. Though not covered in the Navy’s Official Investigation, is there any excuse why the bombs and their ignition fuses could not have been packaged separately and finally combined in the Army Air Force hangars or on Navy Aircraft Carriers as the bombs were being loaded on the delivery aircraft???

14. While hoping you will read the rest of the Chapter to learn how Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP defended the Black sailors, please permit me to marvel over how the English language is so often “bastardized” by public ignorance –

(A) Is the current meaning of “decimate” per the Oxford Dictionary to “kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of”?

(B) Did “decimate” originate as a policy of the Ancient Roman Army?

(C) Was their policy that if a Roman Army unit refused to fight, it would be lined up and every 10th soldier would be summarily pulled out of line and beheaded?

(D) Was their policy to repeat this process until the unit either fought or ceased to exist?

(E) HOWEVER, are there no historical records of even a second “decimation” being necessary???

(F) AND EVEN many historical records that the threat of the first round of “decimation” (with the knowledge that subsequent rounds would result in annihilation) was sufficient to “whip the troops” into line though the first round of “decimation” was nonetheless imposed?

(G) Do you think the U.S. Admiral who threatened the Black U.S. sailors was at all influenced by the true (or, at least, historical) meaning of “decimate”???

(H) Though in all fairness, do commanding officers have a duty when ordering troops to undertake a “suicide mission” (which many thought the D-Day Invasion across the English Channel to be and even Eisenhower had his doubts whether it would succeed) to say almost anything???

(I) And isn’t “saying almost anything” more humane than beheading your troops until they obey???

*****
Chapter 14 – D-Day and The Miracle of Supply

1. Is this chapter a reprise of the constant theme of “Half American”?

2. Or is there a distinction to be made between an army “travelling on its stomach” with respect to its food/shelter/sexual proclivities/etc. – and its munitions?

[For a full discussion of what an army "travelling on its stomach" means, please see Chapter 7's Q&A-2 through Q&A-9 of the Third Short Quiz at viewtopic.php?f=833&t=2587&sid=e0406a1e ... c745233964.]

3. BTW, if you were led astray by Q-2, didn’t Eisenhower make sure that if the cross-channel invasion force succeeded, it had sufficient food/shelter/etc. so that it did NOT need to “travel on its stomach”?

4. BTW, did Eisenhower provide the “etc.” like the Imperial Japanese who forced many female Koreans to be “comfort women”???

*****
Chapter 15 – Victory in Europe

1. Is this chapter a mosaic such as one might expect in the armed forces of a country with a severe race problem??? That is, many instances of racial hatred, though some instances of racial tolerance/appreciation on both sides???

2. Did that famous three-star general who commanded all American-Army tank forces, George Patton (featured in the 1970 Hollywood blockbuster movie “Patton” in which Patton was played by George C. Scott), welcome the 761st “Black Panthers” Tank Battalion in France with the following words (p. 233) –

“Men, you are the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good. I don’t care what color you are so long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons of bitches. Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you…. Don’t let them down, and damn you, don’t let me down.”

3. Did Patton’s “Black Panthers” and many other Black servicemen distinguish themselves in battle despite the racism they faced on all sides?

*****
Chapter 16 – Victory in the Pacific

1. Except re George Patton, are the previous chapter’s questions appropriate here?

2. An “afterthought” Q that applies to the previous chapter as well as here – why do you think Black servicemen fought so bravely and valiantly for a racist country?

3. Is it because they loved their family and friends, even if they might have felt no love for their racist country?

4. BTW, does Christ say (John 15:13) – “Greater love hath no man than this, to lay down his life for his friend”?

*****
Chapter 17 – Homecoming

1. Does the opening quotation of Medgar Evers say it all --

“I had been on Omaha Beach. All we [Black soldiers] wanted to be was ordinary citizens. We fought during the war for America, Mississippi included. Now, after the Germans and Japanese hadn’t killed us, it looked as though the white Mississippians would.”

2. Was Omaha Beach (please see the first sentence of Q-1 quotation) the World War II D-Day assault area most heavily defended by the Nazis where casualties were higher than any other beach?

3. Born in Decatur Mississippi, did Evers following WW-II earn his BA in 1952 from all-Black Alcorn A&M College where he competed on the debate, football and track teams, sang in the choir and was elected junior class president?

4. Did he become the NAACP’s first field secretary for Mississippi pursuant to which he initiated beau coup boycotts, voter-registration drives, efforts to integrate zillions of pubic facilities, etc., etc.?

5. Was Medgar Evers assassinated 6/12/1963 at age 37?

6. Was this a mere 12 months before the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who had been working on the 1964 “Freedom Summer” campaign of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to register African-Americans to vote?

7. And 6 years before the 1969 assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy?

*****
Chapter 18 – We Return Fighting

1. On 8/12/1946, did an inter-racial march of 15 thousand at the Lincoln Memorial demand President Truman call a special session of Congress to enact anti-lynching legislation?

2. Was Truman a racist? Had his grandparents on both sides owned slaves?

3. Was former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, an NAACP Board Member, about to begin a 5-year term leading the brand-new United Nations’ brand-new Commission on Human Rights?

4. Did Eleanor Roosevelt threaten to part company with the NAACP because many of its positions could provide propaganda for the Soviet Union -- thereby forcing the NAACP to confine itself to specific issues (vs. expansive proclamations) such as school de-segregation, voting rights and housing discrimination?

5. As a proud veteran of World War I, was Truman shocked at the treatment of Black World War II vets?

6. Was he caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place” as “Dixiecrats” broke away from the Democrat Party in 1948 and nominated for President U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina who won a million votes and four states?

7. In the middle of the campaign, did Truman try à la King Solomon to “cut the baby in two” by issuing on 7/26/1948 Executive Order 9981 de-segregating the U.S. military -- while ignoring all of the other entreaties of the NAACP?

8. Are the last 5 pages of Chapter 18 devoted to Medgar Evers (who was featured above in the Chapter 17 questions)?

9. In 1994, three decades after Medgar Evers’ assassin had gone free courtesy of a hung jury, was he convicted and sentenced to life in prison courtesy of the tireless efforts of his widow?

10. BTW, under English/American common law, is murder the only crime that has no statute of limitations?

11. As a military veteran, was Medgar Evers entitled to burial at Arlington Cemetery?

12. On “Juneteenth” 6/19/1963, one week after his assassination, was he buried at Arlington Cemetery following an emotional reception at the White House by JFK for his widow and two oldest children?

13. Was this a mere 5 months before JFK’s own assassination?

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Conclusion

1. Was Yours Truly’s wife of 33 years the co-author of the nation’s best-selling high-school world-history textbook (McGraw-Hill with National Geographic Illustrations) which went through 6 editions during the 33 years?

2. Was one of her favorite sayings that “history is merely a pack of lies on which everyone agrees”?

3. Is another famous saying that, after noting that history is primarily a compilation of information about wars, “it is written by the victors” -- implying that it is indeed probably a “pack of lies”?

4. Does the Conclusion of “Half American” chronicle how victorious White America immediately following World War II minimized and derogated the Black contributions to the war effort?

5. To what extent has that minimization/derogation been overcome?

6. Should “Half American” be compulsory reading in American History courses?