'Kill or Die' – Who and Why: D-Day at 75

Review by Bill Doughty

So many were teenagers. On both sides.

Most of the individual stories of that day will never be told, but historian Giles Milton tells the tales of hundreds of individuals involved in the liberation of Europe 75 years ago in his compelling depiction, "Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die: How the Allies Won on D-Day" by Giles Milton (Henry Holt, 2015).

Milton takes us underwater to disable mines, into German strongholds and pillboxes where fear reigns, and into the sky in parachutes as part of the airborne attack. We go aboard Navy ships and landing craft, in the surf, on the beach and above the skies in bombers and gliders.

"In the lead glider, the two pilots were preparing for a dangerous and most unpleasant manoeuvre. In order to avoid a slow descent that involved endless circling, they would tip the Horsa's nose into a sickening dive. Once done, there was no turning back. The glider would hurtle to earth at a speed in excess of 100 mph and only their skill would prevent it from smashing into the ground. The men clutched their bellies as they were pitched forward, with only their harnesses keeping them strapped to their seats. 'We plummeted earthwards at what felt to us like breakneck speed until we were within 1,000 feet of the ground.' There was a horrendous judder as Wallwork and Ainsworth fought hard to lift the nose back into a sweeping glide, instead of a dive. In the mottled moonlight, Wallwork could see the bridge, the village and the landing zone."

Milton is British, but his perspective is international, and he gives balanced coverage from all angles. 

Allies, he notes, included fighters from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and France. The German defenders at Normandy in the early morning of June 6, 1944, included unwilling conscripts and German boys in uniform, many as young as 14. Others were experienced fighters from the Russian front.

Luck and some strategic failures by the enemy played a key role in the Allies' success. The Nazis failed to deploy their Panzer divisions and the Luftwaffe in time.

On the Allies side, there were failures, as well, due to fog of war, weather, tactical miscalculations or planning mistakes or a combination of factors.

"Two Allied planes could be seen approaching from the north and as they passed over USS Corry's accompanying vessels, USS Fitch and USS Hobson, they laid a thick smokescreen by spraying a chemical mixture into the air. This made them invisible to the German gunners. Beeman was expecting them to do the same for his own vessel, but to his dismay the planes headed back out towards the Channel. USS Corry was left 'in plain view of the Germans.' When this news reached the men below decks, a terrible doom fell over the ship. The chief radio technician, Francis McKernon, turned to the radar man, Pete McHugh. 'Without smoke cover, we can't last much longer.' Just three days earlier, in a moment of black humour, McKernon had played devil's advocate by betting ten dollars that the Corry would get hit. Now, he regretted such flippancy, especially when he learned that the sea temperature was just 13 degrees centigrade. 'Man alive,' he said, 'someone's gonna have a cold swim.'The big German guns opened up a few minutes later."

Carefully sourced, noted and indexed, Martin's accounts are sometimes hard to read. He does not shy away from brutal, sometimes horrifying, accounts of the warfare. Yet there are moments of humor in the brief tales he tells, such as that of the amphibious tank operated by Corporal Patrick Hennessey and his comrades-in-arms.

"Hennessey was nineteen, but looked scarcely older than fifteen, a chirpy young boy with big dimples and an even bigger smile. Like every other tank crew, his team had forged a corps d'espirit over their long months of training. They were an eclectic bunch with equally eclectic surnames: there was Corporal Gammon, Corporal Bone, Lieutenant Garlicke and Corporal Sweetapple. They sounded more like a regiment heading to the kitchen than one heading to war. The men had lived together, worked together and knew they would quite possibly die together."

We see General Eisenhower's torment and Field Marshal Rommel's frustration as D-Day unfolded. And we read great descriptions that paint color into black-and-white history:

Col. von Oppeln-Bronikowski

• Commander Rupert Curtis, S9 captain, "had a bosun's legs and anchors for feet, yet even he was finding it hard to stay upright."
• "It was a pig of a night, with rain lashing down and a brisk sea gale that was strengthening with every hour that passed. 'The great Allied fleet assembling ten miles offshore from Utah (Beach) had pulled off the most spectacular conjuring trick in history. Force U's 865 vessels had got within striking distance of Rommel's Atlantic Wall seemingly without raising any suspicions.'"
• "The young Allied fighter pilots fought with cocksure audacity and on this particular day they showcased their brio with a mastery that bordered on arrogance..."
• "...A Mercedes Phaeton was traveling at high speed through the gloom. In the back seat sat Lieutenant General Wilhelm Falley, commander of the 91st Airlanding Division, crisply dressed in military uniform and with the Iron Cross dangling from his neck. Beside him sat Major Joachim Bartuzat, his supply officer, a sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed Nazi with more than a hint of menace in his thin upper lip."
• "Colonel von Oppeln-Bronikowski (a Panzer leader of Nazi Germany) was known by everyone for his 'well-chiselled features, black hair, keen eyes and, frankly, enjoying their war for the thrills he got.' He certainly looked the part, with impeccably oiled har and an engaging smile."

Among the ships mentioned are USS Texas, USS Harding, USS Satterlee, USS McCook, USS Shubrick, HMS Empire Javelin, HMS Ramillies, HMS Warspite, and Norwegian destroyer Svenner, among others.



Milton notes, "Success on D-Day was dependent on Omaha Beach being seized by the Americans." Also, the Allies had to seize and hold key bridges and take the high ground.  Among the factors in the liberators' favor were surprise, diversity, training, empowerment, ruthless daring of some "lone-wolf fighters," and improvisation.

1st Lt. Turner B. Turnbull

"As confusion spiraled into catastrophe, improvisation alone would save the day," Milton writes. "Individual bravery counted for everything that morning."

Among the numerous individuals spotlighted is Turner "Chief" Turnbull, "a hardened combat veteran" of "half-Choctaw, half-Scottish ancestry." "His distinguished great-grandparents had been forced to walk the infamous Trail of Tears when evicted from their ancestral lands." Milton describes him as stubborn, proud and independent.

"He had been orphaned at the age of fifteen, a blow that required resilience and courage for him to survive the harsh world of adolescence. He grew into adulthood with a rod-like backbone, enabling him to fight with distinction in Sicily, where he was shot in the abdomen and hospitalized for months. It could have been his ticket out of the army; instead, he volunteered for the D-Day invasion. And now he was being sent to its outer fringes, to the lonely hamlet of Neuville-au-Plain that lay one and a half miles to the north of Sainte-Mere-Église. His role, and that of the forty-three men with him, was to block any German advance."

What makes this book such a compelling read is the way the hundreds of characters come alive to tell the story of D-Day. We read about French civilians caught in bombardment, brave paratroopers landing in darkness, and scared soldiers fighting for their lives. But always in the background is the cold fact that for every person's story told there are thousands that will never be revealed.



"Not for the first time in war, and not for the last, many in the lower ranks were deprived of richly deserved medals. Only the dead got their name on a public memorial."

Milton concludes with what war reporter Ernie Pyle saw on Omaha Beach, a stark temporary monument in the "drifting sands of Normandy" to the heroism and tragedy of that day.

We are reminded of the sacrifice of young lives to turn the world away from Fascism and hate toward democracy and hope. "No definitive roster of the dead and wounded was ever compiled for 6 June itself, but subsequent research suggests that there were approximately 8,200 casualties on the right flank – Omaha, Utah and the Cotentin peninsula – and a further 3,000 British and Canadian casualties on the three other beaches," Milton writes.

In his afterward he makes clear that D-Day was just the precarious beginning of the end, requiring nearly a year of fighting until Germany's unconditional surrender, May 7, 1945.

U.S. President Barack Obama and WWII veterans render honors as U.S. Army color guard presents the colors at the Normandy American Cemetery during a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, June 6, 2014. (Defense.gov)

'The Empire and the Five Kings'

Review by Bill Doughty

Peshmerga soldiers receive their mission brief during a combined arms live-fire exercise near Erbil, Iraq, Oct. 11, 2016, as part of completion of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve to increase the security capacity of the Peshmerga forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Lisa Soy)

Who owns the future?

French philosopher, author and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy believes the United States may no longer be a world leader as it breaks agreements, treaties and alliances. His conclusion stems in part from his perception of a lack of adequate support to the Kurds especially in the Battle of Kirkuk. Lévy calls the insufficient support a "betrayal."

Lévy's passionate support of the Kurds, Peshmerga and Kurdistan comes from his belief in "the justice of the fight," "the greatness of the people," the debt they are owed" (for fighting ISIS), and Lévy's commitment to the "fight for an enlightened Islam."

Students of Eshek School in Kirkuk, Iraq. (Photo by SSgt Margaret Nelson)

Imagine a modern Islamic enlightenment and reformation – away from fundamentalist extremism that is at the root of Islamist terrorism. The Kurds, including their renowned women fighters, he says, just want the freedom of self-government.

Lévy imagines such a world in "The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World" (Henry Holt, 2019).

The future, he contends, no longer belongs to the U.S. or its five rivals, Lévy's "five kings": China, Russia, Arabia, Iran or Turkey. It belongs to Europe, which he claims as the "homeland of the idea" of universal liberty. The American Revolution took much from the French Revolution, Magna Carta and the best of Greek and Roman ideals, after all.

The ghost of G. F. W. Hegel haunts this book from beginning to end. Like Umberto Eco, Lévy uses history and philosophy and some maritime references to illustrate his ideas. He reincarnates Hegel's view of the new United States more than two hundred years ago, painting with nautical alliteration:

"I remember the pages that Hegel devoted to the newborn United States in his "Lessons on the Philosophy of History..."Its appearance was part of the great linear movement from east to west that Hegel called universal history.Because America lies at the far western end of that arc, it is there, Hegel insisted, that we can expect to witness the denouement of the inexorable plot in the course of which nations, through battles and conquests, contradictions faced and overcome, schisms, reconciliations, heroic acts, and negativities forsworn, are born, grow, and die.With just one reservation – albeit a sizable one.America is too big a country, almost empty, in fact – a country in which the land seemed like a sea and the people like sailors contending with waves of snd and rock.It is a country whose spatial immensity imposed its law on a people of shepherds who roamed with their flocks to the sound of a cantilena that bore less resemblance to a country ballad than a whaler's ditty."

With the United States (at least for now) ebbing away from internationalization, climate talks, trade agreements, NATO and other alliances, Levy says, Europe becomes the "homeland of the idea" of universal liberty and opportunity.

He makes his case for the West in his final chapter, "Where Does the Sea Go at Ebb Tide." Lévy writes, "I side with the West because there is an abyss between totalitarianism and democracy, an obvious fact of which we must never lose sight."

"A civilization, and thus an empire, exists only if it has the strength to produce poets, saints, visionaries, scholars, and characters larger than life." That is not possible, he claims, in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.

While thick with sometimes unnecessary and pompous references to mythology, literature, and his own intellect, this is still an insightful look at the rise of authoritarianism and resurgence of Fascism.

Lévy makes strong and controversial observations about totalitarian regimes, social media and history-based predictions of the future:

Bernard-Henri Lévy

• "Populists on both sides, even if they take great pains to put on a respectable face, lie in ambush. They are bitter, hateful, ready to pounce at the least sign of weakness, biding their time."
• "Trump and Zuckerburg, though they probably agree on nothing, are the two blades of a pair of scissors that is cutting the fabric of truth to ribbons."
• "...Books lie when they assert that history has a meaning and is moving inevitably in this or that direction, as all rivers flow to the sea."

He reminds us that Syria (like North Korea, in another decade) was a nation created artificially in the aftermath of war.

And he shows how Iran got its name to appease Nazi Germany.

"Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, was a friend of Germany and in time would support the Anschluss, the takeover of the Sudetenland, and the anti-British crusade." The alliance with the Nazis was based on the idea that the origins of the Aryan race and culture was supposedly in the middle of Persia near the Euphrates and the Himalayas.

Iranian officials meet with Adolf Hitler who recognized Iran as an Aryan nation.

In 1935 "Persia" became "Iran" or, in Farsi, "land of the Aryans." Lévy writes, "And that is how the circle closes and how the country, even today, calls itself "the Islamic Republic of Iran. The country's name was never denatzified."

The heart of Lévy's argument against the "Five Kings" is revealed in chapter 10, "The Specters' Ball." Too long to excerpt here, nevertheless Lévy presents a compelling case why freedom-allergic countries are too weak, creative and inept to attract alliances, establish superiority or control the future.

It's good to read about the Middle East and Europe as the U.S. military is ordered to deploy across the Atlantic under an "emergency" executive order and, in contrast, as we approach the 75th anniversary of D-Day and liberation of Europe from Fascism in 1944. This is also an important book in the shadow of a questionable Brexit and as elections commence in Europe and nations choose their future: authoritarian monarchy/dynasty or free republic/democracy.

Ur-Fascism: The Signs

Review by Bill Doughty

In Umberto Eco's "Five Moral Pieces" (RCS Libri / Harcourt, 1997) we get five short dense essays with a scholarly perspective on Clausewitz and war, media responsibility, emergence of the "Other," migration vs. immigration, and the signs of eternal fascism ("Ur-Fascism").

Eco, who died in 2016, was professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna – a deep thinker who used history, psychology, literature and philosophy to analyze the world and predict the future.

Haitians get shelter material from DOD and International Organization for Migration in 2010 after an earthquake. (DVIDS)

His conclusions can be uber-controversial, such as this one in his essay "Migration, Tolerance, and the Intolerable":

"...[M]igration is certainly different from immigration. We have only immigration when the immigrants (admitted according to political decisions) accept most of the customs of the country into which they have immigrated, while migration occurs when the migrants (whom no one can stop at the frontiers) radically transform the culture of the territory they have migrated to."

He examines both tolerance and intolerance using examples such as (actual) witch hunts, tattoos, American political correctness, Hitler and Mein Kampf, anti-Jacobin theories of Jewish conspiracy, and immigration/migration.

Eco says when intolerance becomes not only inculcated but "uncontrolled," thinking people face a "pure unthinking animality." Then it may be too late, and intellectuals themselves become targets. "It is too late when war is waged on doctrinal intolerance, for when intolerance is transformed into doctrine the war is already lost, and those who ought to fight it become the first victims."

"Therefore," Eco writes, "uncontrolled intolerance has to be beaten at the roots, through constant education that starts from earliest infancy, before it is written down in a book, and before it becomes a behavioral 'skin' that is too thick and too tough."

Mussolini's headquarters in 1934.

Studying and understanding fundamentalism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism can prevent the rise of Fascism, which Eco experienced personally as a boy in Italy during the rise and fall of Mussolini.

His essay on Ur-Fascism comes from a speech Eco gave at Columbia University, April 25, 1995, in commemoration of the liberation of Europe – made possible by the United States military.

"However, it should be borne in mind that the text was conceived for an audience of American students and the speech was given in the days when America was still shaken by outrage over the Oklahoma City bombing and by the discovery of the fact (by no means a secret) that extreme right-wing military organizations existed in America. The anti-Fascist theme, therefore, took on particular connotations in that context, and my historical observations were intended to stimulate reflection on current problems in various countries..."

Eco reveals the signs of Fascism, a movement defeated by the Allies in World War II but unfortunately making a comeback 24 years later. Madeleine Albright calls it the F-word. Today we see totalitarian leaders as well as deranged movements, including white nationalism, rising in Europe and the United States – flirting with Fascism.

Here are the signs:

1. "The first characteristic of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition." No open-mindedness, no advancement of learning, and reliance only on traditional thinking.

The spirit of 1776 and 1789 is rejected by Ur-Fascists.

2. "Rejection of the modern world" that rejects the spirit of 1789, 1776, The Enlightenment and the Age of Reason.

3. "Suspicion of intellectual life," where thoughtless "action for action's sake" is valued and elite thinking is not.

4. No dissent. "For Ur-Fascism, dissent is betrayal."

5. Fear of difference. "The first appeal of a Fascist or prematurely Fascist movement is a call against intruders." This would include a perceived invasion of migrants.

6. "Ur-Fascism springs from individual or social frustration, which explains why one of the characteristics typical of historic Fascist movements was the appeal to the frustrated middle classes."

7. Nationalism and xenophobia. "At the root of Ur-Fascist psychology lies the obsession with conspiracies..." both international and "from the inside," as in an imagined "deep state."

8. Humiliation. "The disciples must feel humiliated by the enemy's vaunted wealth and power" – showing both fear and disdain, victimization and superiority.

9. An "Armageddon complex" and "permanent war." "...There must be a last battle, after which the movement will rule the world."

10. "Scorn for the weak." Power taken and enforced by force is based on a "weakness of the masses." Under an authoritarian hierarchy "each subordinate leader looks down on his inferiors, and each of his inferiors looks down in turn on his own underlings. All this looking down reinforces the sense of a mass elite."

Orwell (top right) served in the British Home Guard during WWII.

11. A "cult of heroism" closely aligned to a "cult of death." "The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, it should be noted, he usually manages to make other die in his place."

12. Sex as a power issue. "This is the origin of machismo (which implies contempt for women and a non-conformist sexual habits...)" Think antifeminism and a woman's right to choose as well as LGBTQ persecution.

13. Populism over democracy. "Every time a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament (Congress) because it no longer represents 'the voice of the people,' there is a suspicion of Ur-Fascism."

14. "Ur-Fascism uses newspeak." Coined by George Orwell in "1984," newspeak describes the language used by dictatorships to create distrust and mistrust. "All the Nazi and Fascist scholastic texts were based on poor vocabulary and elementary syntax, the aim being to limit the instruments available to complex and critical reasoning." Newspeak can be uttered by a leader or by state media, even in the "innocent form of a popular talk show."

Eco had two homes, one with 20,000 books and another with 30,000.

These ideas are informed by Eco's life experiences and through his collection of 50,000 books.

Interestingly, a scandal hit the authoritarian populists in Europe this week. Bloomberg reports on a video sting that caught far-right politicians Heinz-Christian Strache and Johann Gudenus drinking vodka and making deals with a woman they thought was the niece of Russian oil and gas billionaire Igor Makarov. They allegedly tried to bribe her to provide funding to their party and invest in a far-right newspaper. The resulting videos caused resignations and a delay in elections in Austria.

"Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps," Bloomberg reports. "In the videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s."

Nevertheless, far-right leaders, including Italy's Matteo Salvini, France's Marine Le Pen and Holland's Geert Wilders, vow to "change history" in Europe again in this century.

FDR and his secretaries on Nov. 4, 1938.

Eco, who not only studied but also lived history, evaluates the various strains of fascism that arose in Europe in the last century in "Ur-Fascism."

He uses the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt at two critical junctures: (September 23, 1944) – "The victory of the American people and their allies will be a victory against Fascism and the blind alley of despotism that it represents." And (November 4, 1938) – "I dare to say that if American democracy ceased to progress as a living force, seeking night and day by peaceful means to improve the condition of our citizens, the power of Fascism would grow in our country."

Can greater democracy, human rights and education provide a wall against Ur-Fascism and a solution to refugee migration?

Haitian women queue to receive plastic sheeting and water in Port-au-Prince. The intergovernmental organization International Organization for Migration passes out supplies Feb. 24, 2010, as United Nations forces from Sri Lanka provide security and prevent refugee migration. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development are in Haiti supporting Operation Unified Response, a multinational, joint-service operation to provide humanitarian assistance to Haitians affected by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the region, Jan. 12, 2010. (DVIDS courtesy photo)

'Damned' in Hawaii

The Massies (at right) and their alleged co-conspirators.

By Bill Doughty

Any Sailor or Navy family member who wishes to understand the Navy's relationship with the 50th state – even before it became a state – would benefit from reading about the Massie Case.

Sometime after midnight, Sunday, September 13, 1931, Thalia Massie left a "Navy Night" party at Ala Wai Inn on Kalakaua Avenue. She claimed that while walking alone she was assaulted by a group of men known as the Ala Moana Boys. Later she also said she was raped.

Thalia Massie was the wife of Lt. Thomas Massie, a submariner stationed at Pearl Harbor. Thalia was described as a troubled and troublesome woman known for excessive drinking and flirtatious behavior. She identified native Hawaiian Joseph Kahahawai as the alleged rapist. A trial of the Ala Moana Boys resulted in a hung jury due to insufficient evidence and Thalia's questionable account.

That's when the Lt. Massie, along with Thalia's mother Grace Fortescue and several Sailors from Pearl Harbor, took the law into their own hands. They abducted and  interrogated Kahahawai, who maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal. The group then shot Kahahawai and were caught trying to throw his body in the ocean.

Defending the accused murderers who plotted the death of Kahahawai was retired lawyer of renown, Clarence Darrow, known as "attorney for the damned."

Two books worth reading about the Massie case are "Honor Killing: How the infamous 'Massie Affair' Transformed Hawaii" by David E. Stannard (Viking, 2005) and the more recent "A Death in the Islands: The Unwritten Law and the Last Trial of Clarence Darrow" by Mike Farris (SkyHorse, 2016).

Stannard's book reads like a mystery novel. The author, a University of Hawaii professor, knows the local culture and presents the case intimately from all sides. Understandably but unfortunately, his presentation relies on conjecture and what Farris calls outright "fiction."

Farris is a commercial litigator and entertainment lawyer based in Dallas, Texas. He, like Stannard, tries to present the case as a novel, admitting he took "some liberties with dialogue in scenes..." Those "liberties" detract from an otherwise fascinating presentation of the case, thanks to Farris's extensive sources that include trial transcripts, law school collections, Hawaii State Archives, newspaper reports and a number of books, including the well-written biography "Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom" edited by Arthur Weinberg (The University of Chicago Press, 1957).

Rear Adm. Yates Stirling

Another Farris source is the autobiography of the Navy admiral who commanded the 14th Naval District (Hawaii), "Sea Duty: The Memoirs of a Fighting Admiral" by Rear Adm. Yates Stirling (Putnam, 1939).

Stirling was an otherwise brilliant naval strategist in the mold of Mahan, but Farris calls him "arguably one of the villains in the whole affair." About Stirling, Farris writes:

"A noted racist, he viewed events through the prism of that racism. When first told of the alleged assault on Thalia, he said, 'our first inclination is to seize the brutes and string them up on trees.' He believed that the hung jury in the rape trial was a miscarriage of justice 'which could have been avoided if the Territorial Government had shown more inclination to sympathize with my insistence upon the necessity for a conviction,' and he justified the killing of Kahahawai by stating that "[t]he dark-skinned citizens have been taught how far the American white man will go to protect his women from brutal assaults by them.'"

From the evidence provided by Stannard and Farris. justice was far from colorblind in Hawaii nearly 90 years ago.

Darrow being treated to an outrigger canoe ride by Duke Kahanamoku and Waikiki Beach Boys.

Clarence Darrow's role as defense attorney was conflicted. Rather than taking the side of the underdog – the local men who were likely falsely accused – Darrow sided with the Massies and the Navy.

Darrow was treated like a celebrity in Hawaii. While in Waikiki he was the guest of Duke Kahanamoku and taken on an outrigger canoe ride in the surf by Duke and the Waikiki Beach Boys.

Why did Darrow come out of retirement at age 74 and travel to the middle of the Pacific to take a case where there was clear evidence against the defendants? Farris contends that Darrow accepted the job because he needed money after the crash of the stock market and his loss of savings.

According to John A. Farrell in "Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned," "Darrow ultimately agreed to go, he told himself, because he might bring healing to the troubled islands. And because he had always wanted to see Hawaii. But most of all he took the case because he needed money."

Farrell writes: "The navy and the Hawaiians had an uneasy relationship, dating back to America's seizure of the islands in the 1890s." The Massie Affair quickly became a national story with racist overtones:

"When five Hawaiians were arrested and charged with Thalia's rape, the news sent navy officials, members of Congress, and many of their constituents into an ugly fury. The islands were portrayed as a steamy hell where brown savages preyed upon the wives and daughters of American servicemen. Naval officials threatened to pull the fleet from Pearl Harbor, a move that would devastate the local economy. In Washington, Admiral William Pratt, the chief of naval operations, declared that indolent Hawaiian officials had sanctioned a plague of sexual assaults on white women..."

Darrow's decision to go to Hawaii "triggered a debate in the civil rights community," Farrell said. Darrow, after all, served on the board of the NAACP.

How the case played out is worth a read by anyone interested in the Navy's early history in Hawaii as well as in the evolution of criminal justice. We see the flaws in otherwise distinguished men like Stirling and Darrow, and we are reminded no one – even an icon – is perfect. We come face to face with racist attitudes in the 1930s and we confront the reaction to allegations of sexual assault. Finally, we see the need for a commitment to civil rights in the decades that followed. Perhaps most important, we see how far we've progressed toward tolerance and "aloha."

Darrow's own recounting of the case in his memoir "The Story of My Life" seems to shade some truth and contort reason, especially in light of the well-researched accounts by Stannard, Farris and Farrell. These books are recommended reads for any Sailor, Navy civilian and Navy family member living in Hawaii, as is Darrow's own "Story."

Clarence Darrow's Love of Life, Sea, Liberty

Clarence Darrow

Review by Bill Doughty––

Read Darrow's autobiography, "The Story of My Life" (Scribner, 1932), and you can see the great attorney's love for life, critical thinking, and the sea.

Darrow, famous for his courtroom oratory on behalf of (usually) the underdog or "the damned," was a complicated and compelling figure and a deep thinker.

Early in "Story" he contemplates the difference between youth and old age, using some nautical themes:

"The young man's reflections of unfolding life concern the future – the great, broad, tempestuous sea on whose hither shore he stands eagerly waiting to learn of other lands and climes. The reactions and recollections of the old concern the stormy journey drawing to a close; he no longer builds castles or plans conquests of the unknown; he recalls the tempests and tumults encountered on the way, and babbles of the passengers and crew that one by one dropped silently into the icy depths. No longer does the aging transient yearn for new adventures or unexplored highways. His greatest ambition is to find some snug harbor where he can doze and dream the fleeting days away. So, elderly men who speak or write turn to autobiography. This is all they have to tell, and they cannot sit idly in silence and wait for the night to come."

Darrow the philosopher sounds like another reasoned thinker, Richard Dawkins, in finding a humble perspective as he introduces his autobiography:

"Doubtless a certain vanity has its part in moving me to write about myself. I am quite sure that this is true, even though I am aware that neither I nor any one else has the slightest importance in time and space. I know that the earth where I have spent my life is only a speck of mud floating in the endless sky. I am quite sure that there are millions of other worlds in the universe whose size and importance are most likely greater than the tiny graveyard on which I ride. I know that at this time there are nearly two billion other human entities madly holding fast to this ball of dirt to which I cling. I know that since I began this page hundreds of these have loosened their grip and sunk to eternal sleep. I know that for half a million years men and women have lived and died and been mingled with the elements that combine to make our earth, and are known no more. I know that only the smallest fraction of my fellow castaways have even so much as heard my name, and that those who have will soon be a part of trees and plants and animal and clay. Still, here am I sitting down, with the mists already gathering about my head, to write about the people, desires, disappointments and despairs that have moved me in my brief stay on what we are pleased to call this earth."

1917 recruiting poster, courtesy NHHC

In a later chapter, Darrow writes this about our collective journey through life: "We are like a body of shipwrecked sailors clutching to a raft and desperately engaged in holding on ... The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers."

Darrow's self-deprecation and sharp wit are revealed periodically. About his first name, Clarence, which he considered his "cross" to bear, he reveals: "The one satisfaction I have had in connection with this cross was that the boys never could think up any nickname half so inane as the real one my parents adorned me with."

He discusses books, reading and education; fundamentalism and science; free will and justice; inequality in society; civil rights and the Ku Klux Klan; prohibition; cause and effect; capital punishment; religion; and war, especially the First World War. WWI was thought then to be the war to end all wars.

In analyzing the "Great War" and its causes, Darrow understands Germany's desire for expansion and access to the Atlantic as well as England's desire for superiority in controlling the seas. "England wished to own the seas, because to control the seas meant to control the lands."

Darrow believed in building toward and sustaining peace, but his pacifism turned quickly to support for U.S. involvement after Germany invaded Belgium. "I discovered that pacifism is probably a good doctrine in time of peace," he wrote, "but of no value in war time."

Darrow and his nemesis William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial

His personal lifetime war was against intolerance, greed, injustice and hate. He shows sharp wit in describing one of his chief adversaries, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was the attorney who prosecuted John T. Scopes in the "evolution case" in Dayton, Tennessee but who was trumped by Darrow. Here's Darrow's no-holds-barred description of Bryan, who he said "represented the spirit of intolerance":

"He had greatly changed in recent years. The one-time sense of humor that softened his nature had been driven out by disappointments and vain ambitions. In his last days he had the appearance of one who felt the injustice of many defeats and welcomed the chance to get even with an alien world. He did not grow old gracefully. Instead of disarming the enemy with a smile and a joke as once was his wont, he now snarled and scolded when any one stood in the way of his dreams ... The merry twinkle had vanished from his eyes, his head was entirely bald save for two tufts of bristles back of the ears, his thin lips set in a long straight line across his face, his huge jaw pushed forward, stern and cruel and forbidding, immobile and unyielding as an iron vise. His speculations had ripened into unchangeable convictions. He did not think. He knew. His eyes plainly revealed mental disintegration. He had always been inordinately conceited and self-confident, but he had not been cruel or malignant. But his whole makeup had evidently changed, and now he was a wild animal at bay. I told my associates that I could see the rapid decay that had come upon him. He had reached a stage of hallucination that would impel him to commit any cruelty that he believed would help his cause. History is replete with men of this type, and they have added sorrow and desolation to the world."

Daguerrotype of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Darrow shows his own patriotism and strong faith in America as well as his love for liberty and the Constitution in references throughout this book, including this one:

"Emerson long ago said that a good citizen should not be too obedient of the law. Men came before laws, and will be here after laws are in limbo. Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects. Nothing so soon destroys freedom as cowardly and servile acquiescence. Men will never have any more liberty than they demand and are ready to fight and preserve."

He condemned prohibition, comparing the Eighteenth Amendment to the alien and sedition laws that were passed under President John Adams but opposed by "the giant figure and vigorous intellect of Thomas Jefferson." When Jefferson became president he demanded Congress repeal the alien and sedition laws, which Congress, as the co-equal branch of government, did. "The statesman knows that laws should be like clothes, made to fit the citizens that make up the State," Darrow said.

Multilateral operations in the Mediterranean Sea ,March 26, 2019. (MC2 Krystina Coffey).

In chapters "A Year in Europe" and "Learning to Loaf," Darrow waxes about his travels in Great Britain, France and Switzerland. He name-drops meeting W. Somerset Maugham and H. G. Wells among other notables of the time. And he offers this nautical reflection about one of the Seven Seas of the Middle Ages:

"As a rule, I am not given to sentiment over inanimate things or historical events. But, somehow, I could never think of the Mediterranean Sea, much less look at it, without being profoundly moved by its remarkable story. The earliest, and even the latest civilization was closely hugged her shores. The first knowledge we have of man's origin and development clings to its blue waters. The first ships of which we have record sailed those beautiful waters. One after another, nations and civilizations have risen and vanished around the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt, Asia Minor, Arabia, Syria, Greece, and the Roman world; Spain, Italy, France, all have been washed by this sea. The Pharaohs, Caesar, Pompey, Hannibal, Anthony and Cleopatra, too, made the Mediterranean immortal in history, song and story. Even now it lies in the heart of the civilization of the world. Most of the history of the Western world has been written there, and no other body of water anywhere near its size has the same importance in the world."

Darrow's worldview is understandably Western-oriented. No doubt, he would have benefited from travel and more exposure to Asia. Nevertheless, he experienced and appreciated his Hawaii when he visited in the early 1930s. Then and now, Hawaii is a melting pot of East and West.

A view of Diamond Head Crater from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, "Punchbowl" in August 2017. (Master Sgt. Kendra M Owenby)

Darrow closes his book with this passage, reminiscent of Mark Twain's love for the Hawaiian Islands, again with a maritime perspective:

Oahu (NASA)

"[F]rom the morning when I opened my eyes to see Diamond Head towering from the soft South Seas, standing guard, with its huge light at its pinnacle, over this picturesque place, to the afternoon when I slowly floated away, watching Diamond Head fade from my sight, lost in the mist, I loved Honolulu and the island that it adorns. I realize that many things enter into one’s likes and dislikes of people and places, and I am aware that everything somehow seemed to conspire to impress me with the beauty and charm of this land; somehow, I have never seen such a gem as Oahu, rising from the mighty ocean that rolls over the coral reefs, to wash the shores of that fairyland. Her gentle mountains, her tropical forestry, her warm, hospitable people, and the perfume of flowers in varieties unlike anything I have found anywhere else will be among my most lasting and pleasing memories. How kind and friendly people were! I dare not attempt to speak of them individually, for it is not easy to say that one impressed me more than another; but some portraits are indelibly etched upon my brain, and some pictures will reappear and delight me to the last of my days. I would like very much to go back, to see and enjoy it all once more, as it is. And I should like to find it still more enchanting in that Nature specially fitted this magic spot to help work out the old problem of race with its loves, its hatreds, its hopes and fears. It seems fit that the Hawaiian Islands, basking in the great sea between the oldest and newest civilizations of the world, might one day lead the union of the diverse races of man. I would like to believe that this favored land might prove to be the place where the only claim to aristocracy would be the devotion to justice and truth and a real fellowship on earth. Perhaps I am only dreaming about Honolulu. But whether asleep or awake, I trust I may see it all again ... away from the stress and strain of court and contention to rest and talk, and even listen, about the endless problems that have ever been too deep and complicated for the minds of men. From there, I would like to gaze again upon those wonderful waters that have come almost a third of the distance around the earth to greet and charm me. I would like once more to watch the rows upon rows of waves as they dash into foam and iridescent colors over the coral reefs that protect the shore... I hope I shall see Honolulu again, its palms, its Pali and Diamond Head, its flowers and friends – and if I weary of too much beauty and joy, I may steal, once more, to the shelter of that veranda beside the sea for a still longer siesta in the shade of the cocoanut (sic) trees, close my eyes to all else, rest my mind from thinking, let the lull of the salt breeze soothe my senses, and mayhap sweetly dream that I am softly sailing out over the languorous Pacific, midst showers of 'liquid sunshine' – surrounded by daylight and moonlight rainbows – never to come back again."

Writing at 75, Darrow also expressed a longing to revisit Europe and see the Mediterranean once more, traveling across the Atlantic by ship, and seeing that voyage again as a metaphor to life's journey. How we plan and conduct our lives requires flexibility and resilience: "The mariner who steers his ship across the sea does not fasten the rudder so that he will straight ahead; the best he can do is to change his course according in time and tide and wave and wind, keeping in view only the general direction and the journey's end."