Zinn - The Bomb

[] Episode 1911 of The Simpsons , That 90s Show, features a younger Marge Simpson with a copy of Zinns A Peoples History of the United States . Episode three, season four of The Sopranos titled Christopher centers around Columbus Day and features a reference to Zinn and A Peoples History of the United States .

[] These lines are excerpted from Teacher, Friend, and CompaeroHoward Zinn, reflections on Howard I wrote in the days following his death in January 2010 and published by Znet . Link: www.zcommunications.org/teacher-friend-and-companero-howard-zinn-by-greg-ruggiero.

[] Mr. Obamas Nuclear Policy, op-ed, April 6, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/opinion/07wed1.html?hpw.

[] In Rotterdam, 980 were killed in the German raid of May 14, 1940. In Coventry, 380 were killed. See David Irving, The Destruction of Dresden , Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1964, Chapter 1.

[] T. C. Cartwright: A Date with the Lonesome LadyA Hiroshima POW Returns.

[] David Irving, The Destruction of Dresden , Part II, esp. Ch. II, Thunderclap, which shows the part Churchill played in pushing the massive raids on cities in Eastern Germany; and Part V, Ch. II, where Churchill later seems to be trying to put the blame on the Bomber Command.

[] Also, in a remark I must confine to a footnote as a gesture to the equality of all victims: there was something to distinguish Royan from both Hiroshima and Dresden; its population was, at least officially, friend, not foe.

[] This is repeated as late as 1965 in Dr. J.R. Colles book, Royan, son pass, ses environs (La Rochelle, 1965), who summarizes, the incident in his chapter, La Rsistance et La Libration.

[] The periodical in which the article appeared is no longer available, but the article, along with many others to which I will refer, was collected in a remarkable little book, produced by a printer in Royan, a former member of the Resistance (Botton, Pre et fils) in 1965, titled: RoyanVille Martyre . The translations are mine. A bitter introductory note by Ulysse Botton speaks of la tuerie (the slaughter) of January 5, 1945. There is a picture of the rebuilt Royan, modern buildings instead of ancient chteaux. Our visitors, French and foreign vacationers, should thus learn, if they do not know it, that this new town and this modern architecture proceed from a murder, to this day neither admitted nor penalized

[] Botton collection. This is of course, a widely held view: cest la guerrea resigned, unhappy surrender to inevitability. We find it again and again in Le Pays dOuest , a postwar periodical, now defunct, which published an article, Le Sige et Attaque de Royan, saying: Whatever the reason, the bombardment of Royan on January 5, 1945, must be considered among the regrettable errors that unfortunately it is hard to avoid in the course of the extremely complicated operations of modern war.

[] This is Meyers recollection of the conversation, in his chapter Royan, ville dtruite par erreur. Meyer tends to glorify his own activities in this book, but his account fits the other evidence.

[] Three other pieces of evidence support Meyers claim of German readiness to surrender:

A. A dispatch in Samedi-Soir in May 1948 (reproduced in part in the Botton collection) tells a strange story that goes even further than Meyer. It reports, on the basis of a document it claims to have found in the Ministry of the Armed Forces, that a British agent with the code name of Aristide, who had parachuted into France to join the Resistance, reported later to his government in London that the Germans in the Royan area had offered to surrender if they would be given the honors of war, but that the French General Bertin said a surrender to the British would create a diplomatic incident. This was, allegedly, September 8, 1944.

B. An open letter to General de Larminat by Dr. Pierre Veyssire, a former leader of the Royan Resistance (reproduced in the Botton collection), says: Now we are sure that in August and September, 1944, the German high commandthe commander of the fortress of Royanmade proposals of surrender that, if they had come about, would have prevented the worst; we know that on two occasions, he had made contact with Colonel Cominetti, called Charly, commander of the Mdoc groups; we know also that these attempts at negotiations were purely and simply repulsed by the French headquarters at Bordeaux, in order, no doubt, to add to the grandeur of military prestige.

C. The article of Paul Mtadier (reprinted in a pamphlet, available in the library of Royan) in La Lettre Mdicale , February 1948, gives Sir Samuel Hoare, former British Ambassador to France, as a source of the fact that the French military command had opposed the surrender of the German general to the British.

[] This story appears also in Robert Arons Histoire de la Libration de la France , June 1944May 1945 (Librarie Arthme Fayard, 1959). Aron adds the point that the American general spent some time on this visit with an FFI (French Forces of the Interior) journalist who called the inhabitants of Royan collaborators.

[] Colle, Royan, son pass, ses environs. He reports that the Germans, under Admiral Michahelles, had 5,500 men, 150 cannon, and four anti-aircraft batteries. They were well entrenched in concrete bunkers and surrounded by fields of land mines.

[] Les Prparatifs de lAttaque in the Botton collection. The same writer claims (on the basis of a historical work by J. Mortin, Au Carrefour de lHistoire ) that the formula for napalm was found in the eighteenth century by a Grenoblois goldsmith, who demonstrated it to the minister of war, after which Louis XV was so horrified he ordered the documents burned, saying that such a terrifying force must remain unknown for the good of man.