World War II
Operation Cornflakes
On February 5, 1945, near the end of WWII, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) began a widespread propaganda campaign in Germany with the unwitting help of the German postal service. As a first step, Allied bombers derailed a German mail train, scattering its cargo in the process. A second wave of bombers followed and…
Read More
Word With a Past: Care Packages
When World War II ended, Europe faced a serious food crisis. Millions of people had suffered from malnutrition during World War II.* Cities were destroyed. Agricultural areas were not only ravaged by troop movements, but tainted by the remains of the dead and dying. (In the Falaise Pocket, for instance, it was two years before…
Read More
Joan of Arc and the French Resistance
More than once in the last few years, I’ve stumbled across stories in old issues of the Chicago Tribune that caught my imagination even though they did not deal with my current project. In recent weeks, this headline from May 13, 1945, grabbed my attention: “FRANCE HONORS JOAN OF ARC AS ‘FIRST PARTISAN’. “ The…
Read More