Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
Good WWII resources
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Does anyone know any good WWII resources for, say, a school project?
I’m especially looking for something about the buildup to WWII in Japan/the Pacific, but info on the buildup in the Atlantic would be awesome too!
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Wikipedia…
lol.
Or if you want it to be a little more interactive, play Hearts of Iron III.
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The Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia (set of 24 volumes) is the best series I have came across. If you are looking to start a libary of WWII it’s a must have. It’s very unbiased.
When I was 14 I was hired by my neighbor to clean out a cluttered garage. Inside this garage was this series. She gave the series to me. I made an agreement to have that be my payment for my work.
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For the pacific war there is no better resource than the “The Pacific War Encyclopedia” which you can find on Amazon used in paper back for about $10 bucks. It is a great resource and has a lot of details on every little aspect of the war, Great book.
Also “Empires on the Pacific” by Robert Smith Thompson is another solid book and a great read. It traces the orgins of the conflict in the pacific as far back as the Commodore Perry mission to Japan and works its way to the 20th century with a very brisk narrative. It can be considered “revisionist history” but it is well done either way, and it presents the war from Japanese, British, American, and Nationalist and Communist Chinese perspective, a well done book.
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This book…
Jim Dunnigan and Albert Nofi
Victory at Sea: World War II in the Pacific.
William Morrow, 1995.…contains highly readable information, ranging in length from bite-sized to full-chapter. And as a bonus, it includes one Easter egg-type joke: an entry for (and brief description of) Skull Island in the alphabetical compendium of Pacific War locations.
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Imperious Leader is a BAD source of WWII information.
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I can so imagine this:
Imperious Leader: Germany WON at Stalingrad, I tell you!
Everyone: …
Imperious Leader: What? They won…for the Allies. -
Imperious Leader - and I quote “NO Americans died in WWII - Because America is invincible.”
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