#Wartime Memoirs

[chantireviews]

COMBAT MISSIONS by Burl D. Harmon - Wartime Memoirs, WWII Aviation, Military History

  Sometimes, a close and personal story can reveal the true weight of major historical events. Combat Missions, a memoir from WWII veteran Burl D. Harmon, achieves this by detailing how Europe’s vicious aerial battles shape a young boy’s entry to manhood.  On December 7, 1941, Harmon is summoned to his high school’s auditorium to hear President Roosevelt proclaim it as, “a day which will live in…

[joejoeba]

i just remembered how many gold ships there are in JoJo like it truly does not get more wild. Every one hits in some wild offshoot bullseye

[wallacepolsom]

Wallace Polsom, Life During Wartime: Memoir of a Survivor (2023), paper collage, 18.9 x 18.8 cm.

[rachel-sylvan-author]

"The Balkan Express: Fragments from the Other Side of War" by Slavenka Drakulić book recommendation by Rachel Sylvan

[invisibleicewands]

Bringing revolution to Port Talbot - by Michael Sheen

On a recent February morning, I woke up to find I was wrong. Not a particularly uncommon experience in itself, but unusual to discover that on this occasion I was being publicly accused of it by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. “Michael Sheen has said that ‘the people of Port Talbot have been let down’,” Kemi Badenoch wrote in the Daily Mail. “But he is wrong.”

It was a big day. I spent all of last year directing a three-part drama series for the BBC called The Way, which was to air that night. It begins in my hometown of Port Talbot, where a strike at the local steelworks becomes the spark that ignites a violent descent into national chaos. Clearly, Ms Badenoch had been given a sneak peek of the series before forming quite a strong opinion on it. But no: reading her article, Ms Badenoch admits that she hadn’t watched it at all. Why let a total lack of information prevent a full-throated denouncement, eh? Presumably, she also assumes that we managed to write, film and edit the entire series after Tata Steel announced the imminent loss of some 2,500 jobs at the steelworks mere weeks ago.

While the winds of change have only been blowing in one direction for many years, the events in our story were dreamed up some years ago and act as a fictional catalyst for all that follows. Surely even Tory ministers understand there is no VIP fast lane for making a TV series. This isn’t a PPE contract, after all…

Nothing to see here

After that episode aired, it occurred to me that such shenanigans in the right-wing press could have been about a couple of things. Since the ITV drama about the Post Office scandal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, caused public outrage, I imagine the government has a new fear of the impact a TV show can have. A pre-emptive strike against a series it perceives to be criticising its actions around the steel industry must have seemed a useful tactic. And, having seen Breathtaking – based on Rachel Clarke’s memoir of how the Covid crisis unfolded in the NHS, which aired on ITV the same night as The Way – I wonder if her piece was an attempt to distract attention away from more dangerous territory.

It gave Ms Badenoch a chance to trot out her line about how the people of Port Talbot should be grateful for all that the government is doing to save the steel industry, not moaning about the impact job losses will have on their community. But the people of Port Talbot have been let down, no matter what Ms Badenoch wants us to think. Not by any single entity, but by years of neglect. That she immediately assumed my comments referred to her and her government tells its own story. In the words of a much older drama than mine: the lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Then and Nye

“This crisis is a privateering racket with your friends lining their pockets!” No, not an accusation against Boris Johnson, but something I currently say to Winston Churchill every night. We opened a new play called Nye at the National Theatre this week. I play Aneurin (“Nye”) Bevan, who attacks the prime minister for turning a wartime crisis into a money-making scheme for him and his cronies. It’s one of many moments in the play that seem to speak to past and present at the same time.

The entanglement of “now” and “then” is heightened by the fact that I am wearing pyjamas. Nye is lying unconscious in his hospital bed at the end of his life, and we follow him through a dream of his past. He wanders from childhood memories of overcoming his stutter in Tredegar library to his meteoric rise through local politics, to becoming the youngest member of Clement Attlee’s pioneering postwar cabinet. And, of course, as minister for health, his tumultuous birthing of the NHS on 5 July 1948. It’s an extraordinary, surprising and moving experience telling this story on stage each night. That shared space between actors and audience, where all is felt but unseen, crackles with electricity.

Once more, with feeling

It seems that exploring the motives of politicians, the uses and abuses of political power, and the quest for justice that saw the creation of the NHS taps into deep wells of emotion. Like the pockets of gas that miners feared within the coal seam, their release brings risk and reward. At a recent show, we had three instances of people needing to be helped out of the theatre, the final one forcing us to pause the show moments from its end. Thankfully, it was nothing more serious than someone fainting. But emotions are running high.

I’m more than happy to invite Ms Badenoch to a performance. But I realise, of course, there’s no guarantee she would make it to the end.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Tadeusz Pankiewicz

Tadeusz Pankiewicz was a Polish pharmacist who helped the starving, suffering Jewish residents of the Krakow ghetto by providing them with medicine, food, and other lifesaving supplies.

Born in Sambor, Poland in 1908, Tadeusz studied at the prestigious Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 1933 he took over the family business: a small pharmacy called Under the Eagle. Germany invaded Poland in 1939, but Tadeusz’s quiet life and successful small business were mostly unaffected, until 1941, when the Nazis forced the city’s 15,000 Jews into a ghetto.

Tadeusz’s pharmacy happened to be within the ghetto’s borders. The Nazis shut down other businesses and essential services in the ghetto to make it impossible for Jews to get food and other necessities, but Tadeusz refused to close his store. He bribed the Gestapo, using his own savings, to keep Under the Eagle open. Tadeusz was inspired by his Catholic faith to stay and help people however he could.

Conditions in the ghetto were horrific. There was never enough food, and every day residents died of starvation or illness; others were shot in the street by Nazi soldiers. Medicine of any kind was almost impossible to obtain, except from Tadeusz, who provided health care and pharmaceuticals for free to residents of the ghetto. He also provided them with lifesaving products such as hair dye to disguise their identity and tranquilizers to keep children quiet during Gestapo raids.

Tadeusz’s pharmacy became the go-to place for Jews to meet, plan underground activities and acts of defiance, and get lifesaving care and equipment. Tadeusz and his pharmacy employees Irena Drozdzikowska, Helena Krywaniuk, and Aurelia Danek put their lives at significant risk to help the Jews of the Krakow ghetto. Besides medicine, supplies and a safe place to meet, the brave pharmacist and his staff shared their meager wartime food rations, and hid Jews on the property during deportations. They were able to smuggle some Jews out of the ghetto and take them to hiding places where they would be safe.

Tadeusz actually befriended German soldiers to get information from them! He got them drunk and cleverly manipulated them into telling him about planned actions against Jews so he could warn them. Another service Tadeusz to the Jews trapped in the ghetto was acting as intermediary between them and the Poles with whom they left their valuables.

Among the people who met in secret in the pharmacy were prominent figures such as writer Mordechai Gebirtig and artist Abraham Neumann, who were tragically shot by the Germans in the ghetto in the infamous Bloody Thursday of June 4, 1942. Julian Aleksandrowicz survived the war to become a doctor and medical professor who specialized in the treatment of leukemia. Dr Abraham Mirowski, another Jew saved by Tadeuszm later said that the kind pharmacist was “living among us, was continuously exposed to dangers, but it did not make him scared. He was full of sympathy for our tragedy and wanted to help us with all his heart. Each death of a man or a woman was a traumatic experience for him.”

After the war, Tadeusz stayed in Krakow and, in 1947, he published his memoirs of life under German occupation. He continued working as a pharmacist. In 1957, some of the Jews he’d saved brought him for a visit to Israel as their guest. Tadeusz was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem in 1983.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz died in Krakow in 1993. His pharmacy is now a museum about the history of the Jews of Krakow, with special focus on the ghetto years. Tadeusz and his brave staff are also a featured museum exhibit.

For helping Jews in the Krakow ghetto, we honor Tadeusz Pankiewicz as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[somerabbitholes]

I’ve been meaning to read more of Indian authors lately since I sometimes feel kinda ashamed to consume so much of foreign books but not of my own country, but the thing is … I just can’t get into most of them (that I’ve tried so far ). I’ve dnf’ed so many and I don’t even consider myself a picky reader. so it’d be helpful if you suggest some of your favourites that aren’t internationally popular ones.

I understand; I'm also very picky with the Indian authors I read, but here are some I've liked:

Battlefield by Vishram Bedekar (trans. Jerry Pinto): about two refugees fleeing wartime Europe (one Hindu, one Jewish), who meet on a ship and grow really close

Maharani by Ruskin Bond, or Room on the Roof, or The Blue Umbrella: I will turn myself inside out recommending Ruskin Bond, but these are my top three for you

Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto: about an East Indian family in Mumbai dealing with the mother's mental health; it's a really touching book

Our Moon Has Blood Clots by Rahul Pandita: a memoir of the Kashmiri Pandit genocide and its aftermath; it's a chilling memoir, but really good

English August by Upamanyu Chatterjee: about this elite bureaucrat who gets posted to the "hottest town in India" and how he deals with the locals; it has good satire going for it

Raag Darbari by Shrilal Shukl: another satire; follows a village and through it, explores democracy in early Independent India (or lack of it), the transition for the landed elite and generally most of the village to a democratic society. If you can read Hindi, I would recommend reading the original. If not, there's a translation by Gillian Wright.

[charmwasjess]

answering a Dooku 2, 5, 23 ask from the wonderful @vaguely-concerned from last week, but broke it up into two posts for space:

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I’ve written whole post about why I love Dooku and Makashi, but let me say Dooku’s fighting style overall. You have this scary bad guy who is built like an absolute tank (in his memoir, Christopher Lee has a… frankly, upsetting wartime story about “accidentally” throwing someone through a plate glass window) but then he has a PhD in lightsaber ballet!? Such a narrative choice! 

The lightning is fascinating too. We see Dooku throw more lightning than any Sith, and I like that canon gave him a backstory around it - his innate connection to the Serennian Tirra ‘taka, a lightning dragon, and how it seems to come naturally to him in moments of genuine, uncontrolled terror. I really like how the first few instances of him using it are in panic over losing his loved ones. (Oh my god, and the scene where he can't get it off his hands and is a clueless scared baby?!) Calling it up out of fear instead of rage fits him so well. Dooku is the dark side’s patron saint of fear: grasping desperately for enough power to save the people and ideals that are important to him, and destroying everything he loves in the process. 

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Bad Guy by Billie Eilish. Dude is so cringe. 

23. Favorite picture of this character?

From the Yoda comic. I tend to get a little feverish when his hair does that.

I love how they drew him in that comic. It's nice to actually see some official art that pays attention to the fact that young Christopher Lee was actually a handsome person and didn't just go around in Dracula makeup making that one expression. They let him have his pretty big, brown eyes and nice smile, and a cute little ass.

-

And the link to the character question list in case anyone else wants to send an ask or reblog for their own fun!

[laciere]

A narrative needs two things to be a gothic romance. First, "woman plus habitation." "Horror," film theorist Mary Ann Doane writes, "which should by rights be external to domesticity, infiltrates the home." The house is not essential for domestic abuse, but hell, it helps: a private space where private dramas are enacted behind, as the cliche goes, closed doors; but also windows sealed against the sound, drawn curtains, silent phones. A house is never apolitical. it is conceived, constructed, occupied, and policed by people with power, needs, and fears. Windex is political. So is the incense you burn to hide the smell of sex, or a fight. The second necessary element: "marrying a stranger." Strangers, feminist film theorist Diane Waldman points out, because during the 1940s--the heyday of gothic romance films like Rebecca and Dragonwyck and Suspicion--men were returning from war, no longer familiar to the people they'd left behind. "The rash of hasty pre-war marriages (and the subsequent all-time high divorce rate of 1946), the increase in early marriages in the 40s," Waldman writes, "and the process of wartime separation and reunion [gave the] motif of the Gothics a specific historical resonance." "The gothic heroine," film scholar Tania Modleski says, "tries to convince herself that her suspicions are unfounded, that, since she loves him, he must be trustworthy and that she will have failed as a woman if she does not implicitly believe in him." There is of course a major problem with the gothic: it is by nature heteronormative. A notable exception is Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, with its powerful queer undertones between the innocent protagonist and the sinister, titular vampire. ("You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish," Carmilla tells Laura. "How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me, and hating me through death and after.") We were not married; she was not a dark and brooding man. It was hardly a crumbling ancestral manor; just a single-family home, built at the beginning of the Great Depression. No moors, just a golf course. But it was a "woman plus habitation" and she was a stranger. That is probably the truest and most gothic part; not because of war or because we'd only met with chaperones before marriage; rahter because i didn't know her, not really, until I did. She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood--a flood of what i realized I did not know.(19) Afterward, I would mourn her as if she'd died, because something had: someone we had created together. (19). Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-literature, Type T11, Falling in love with a person never seen.

“Dream House as American Gothic”, In The Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado (2019, Gray Wolf Press)

[mrs-liebgott]

Ya'll bitches who watched Masters of The Air?? Our boys Cleven and Crosby went WILD in academics.

Buck:

"After the Second World War, Cleven stayed in the US Air Force serving in Korea, Vietnam and with a spell at the Pentagon. He retired in 1964 with the rank of Colonel. While in the service Cleven had earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a doctorate in physics and following retirement initially worked in IT for Hughes Aircraft. Later he took over the management of Webber College in Florida which at the time had only fifty students and a poor reputation. He was able to turn it around and it later became a university specializing in business studies. " - Gale Winston Cleven | American Air Museum IM SORRY A FUCKING DOCTORATE IN PHYSICS???? COLONEL. DR. GALE WINSTON "BUCK" CLEVEN???? Croz:

"On returning to the US, Crosby resumed his studies, completing his M.A. in 1947 and his PhD in 1953. He taught English composition, writing several books on the subject. He also carried out work for the US Air Force Academy and the Pakistan Air Force Academy. In 1993, Harper Collins published his memoir of his wartime experiences, titled A Wing and a Prayer." - Harry Herbert Crosby | American Air Museum

"Returning to school, Crosby graduated from the University of Iowa in 1947 with his master's degree, and then earned his PhD from Stanford University in 1953, where Wallace Stegner supervised his dissertation. Harry taught English composition and American literature at the University of Iowa, and was the Writing Supervisor of the Rhetoric Program (1950–1958).[2]

In 1958, Crosby moved with his wife and four children to Newton, Massachusetts, for a faculty position at the College of Basic Studies (CBS) at Boston University. He retired from Boston University in 1984, after chairing the Department of Rhetoric at CBS and authoring or co-authoring with CBS colleagues six textbooks on college writing:[2]

College Writing – The Rhetorical Imperative; Harper & Row, 1968 Just Rhetoric, Crosby/Esty; Harper & Row 1972 The Shape of Thought: An Analytical Anthology, Bond/Crosby; Harper & Row, 1978 Building College Spelling Skills, Crosby/Emery; Little Brown; 1981 Better Spelling in 30 Minutes a Day, Crosby/Emery; Harper Collins 1994 Skill Builders – A Spelling Workout, Crosby/Emery; Harper Collins, 1997

During his early retirement, Crosby served as Director of the Writing Center at Harvard University." - Harry Herbert Crosby - Wikipedia CROZ GRADUATED FROM FUCKING STANFORD, A PHD TOO!!! in conclusion, these boys are academic weapons P.S. Croz's Autobiography in case any of ya'll were interested: Amazon.com: A Wing and a Prayer: The "Bloody 100th" Bomb Group of the US Eighth Air Force in Action Over Europe in World War II: 9781504067331: Crosby, Harry H.: Books and a list of libraries it's in across the world: A wing and a prayer : the "Bloody 100th" Bomb Group of the U.S. Eighth Air Force in action over Europe in World War II | WorldCat.org

Mostly USA but as of (5/29/24 or 29/5/24) there are

457 in USA 8 in Canada 1 In Ireland (Dublin) 35 in UK

if you chose yes^ feel free to dm me/send an ask with facts or stories you find and i'll try my best to post them!! (you can send pictures with too!! my discord is badger_iii)

[scotianostra]

On July 1st 1884 Allan Pinkerton, the Scottish-born detective, died.

Not all Scots that I post about should be looked upon as good people, we do have to acknowledge this in our history, scratch beneath the subject in most cases and you will find fault, this is certainly true of Pinkerton.

Born in Glasgow, on the 25th of August 1819 his father was a sergeant of the Glasgow municipal police and died in 1828 of injuries received from a prisoner in his custody.

In 1842 Allan emigrated to Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Dundee, Kane County, Illinois, where he established a cooperage business. Here he ran down a gang of counterfeiters, and he was appointed a Deputy Sheriff of Kane County in 1846 and immediately afterwards of Cook County, with headquarters in Chicago.

In Chicago he organized a force of detectives to capture thieves who were stealing railway property, and this organization developed in 1852 into Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, of which he took sole charge in 1853. He was especially successful in capturing thieves who stole large amounts from express companies. In 1866 his agency captured the principals in the theft of $700,000 from Adams Express Company safes on a train of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railway, and recovered all but $12,000 of the stolen money.

In February 1861 Pinkerton found evidence of a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln upon his arrival in Baltimore on his way to Washington; as a result, Lincoln passed through Baltimore at an early hour in the morning without stopping. In April 1861 Pinkerton, on the suggestion of General George B. McClellan, organized a system of obtaining military information in the Southern states. From this system he developed the US Secret Service, of which he was in charge throughout the war, under the assumed name of Major E. J. Allen.

Pinkerton was not without controversy, one of his detectives, James McParlan, in 1873-76 lived among the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania and secured evidence which led to the breaking up of what was considered a criminal organization. His detectives were also used to escort strike breakers during the era.

In 1869 Pinkerton suffered a partial stroke of paralysis, and thereafter the management of the detective agency devolved chiefly upon his sons, William Allan and Robert. He died in Chicago on the 1st of July 1884. He published The Molly Maguires and the Detectives , The Spy of the Rebellion, in which he gave his version of President-elect Lincoln’s journey to Washington; and a memoir, Thirty Years a Detective. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency continues to trade in the US to this day.

Pics are of Pinkerton, on horseback then with, President Abraham Lincoln, and Major General John Alexander McClernand. Pinkerton was the head of Union Intelligence Services at the time. He also, allegedly, foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. His wartime work was critical in Pinkerton’s development, which he later used to pioneer his agency. Other pics include the firms logo old and new.

[contentloadingandstuff]

Reading time 📖

It's not often I share my hobbies outside of writing but, since it's fairly quiet as I work on multiple fics simultaneously, I might as well.

As you see, I've bought myself two works - the controversial "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov in English and "Maus" by Art Spiegelman, which is the more controversial text. I'll explain why shortly.

Let's start with "Lolita" since it's easier to talk about. I bought this book after listening to the video analysis by the creator Horses (link to the video here) to develop my own opinion about it. The book is both a memoir and statement for the judge written by the protagonist, convicted of abducting and assaulting a twelve year old girl - the titular "lolita". It has been misinterpreted as praise or glorification of pedophilic tendencies, but it is - just as "Crime And Punishment" by Fiodor Dostojewski but without the retribution - an analysis of a criminal's mind.

I'm looking forward to the lecture of Humbert Humbert's attempt to justify his behaviour to the world, the opposite of what I feel towards "Maus".

My payment of the 80 zł ( around 20$, 19€ or 16£) I spent on this collection of comics was a reluctant one. The premise is harmless enough (for lack of a better term). This set of comics describes the life and experiences of the author's father during the Holocaust, with a twist - here, the characters are portrayed as animals based on their ethnicity. The Jews are mice, and the Germans - cats. Simple idea of predator and prey, of the murder and the victim. But there are also other nationalities. Americans are noble dogs, the Swedes are reindeer, the Gypsies are moths, the British are fish (though I'm not sure why) and their southern neighbours are - as comedic tradition dictates - frogs.

What about the Poles then? They are swine.

What's more, the book's antipolonism shows time and time again. Poles are portrayed as antisemitic, cooperative towards the German occupants, impulsive, violent and cruel. There is little positive mention of them, and Spiegelman himself admitted that his father had little good to say about his countrymen and did nothing to give the nation justice. The incidents of wartime and post-war antisemitism are not portrayed as single crimes punishable by law, but as ordinary and acceptable occurrences.

Normally I enjoy delving into the annals of the second world war's horrific history, but unlike the other books I've read so far, this one seems to be written with a political intent, debatable as it is. Maus seems to share the same contemptible niche in Polish culture as Neighbours and Golden Harvest, alongside all of the other detestable excuses of historical journalism by Jan T. Gross. What these works share is their - subliminal or not - distrust and borderline disgust towards Poles as a nation. I am planning to review both books when I'm done with them here on the blog (regardless of whether there is any interest in it), so I will save my "ammunition", as they say, for then. I will however mention that the nation is, in terms of Righteous Amongst The Nations awards, the leader with exactly 7177 awards granted, the Netherlands second in with 5910. This is telling just by itself, doesn't it? Regardless, every experience is valuable, even if the author's intentions are questionable.

Again, I know this is far more serious than my usual content, consisting of silly x reader fics, but I find them interesting enough to mention. I hope you don't mind!

[strictlyfavorites]

AUDIE MURPHY

Section 46, Grave 366-11

He wanted to join the Marines, but he was too short. The paratroopers wouldn't have him, either. Reluctantly, he settled on the infantry, and ultimately became one of the most decorated heroes of World War II. He was Audie Murphy, the baby-faced Texas farmboy who became an American legend. Murphy grew up on a sharecropper's farm in Hunt County, Texas. After his father deserted the family, he helped raise his 11 brothers and sisters, dropping out of school in the fifth grade to earn money picking cotton. He was 16 years old when his mother died, and he watched as his siblings were doled out to an orphanage or to relatives. Seeking an escape from this difficult life, Murphy enlisted in the Army in 1942 — falsifying his birth certificate so that he appeared to be 18, one year older than he actually was. 

Following basic training, Murphy was assigned to the 15th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa. First entering combat in July 1943, during the invasion of Sicily, he proved himself to be a proficient marksman and a highly skilled soldier. He consistently demonstrated how well he understood the techniques of small-unit action. Murphy landed at Salerno, Italy to fight in the Voltuno River campaign, and then at Anzio to be part of the Allied force that fought its way to Rome. Throughout these campaigns, Murphy's skills earned him advancements in rank, because many of his superior officers were being transferred, wounded or killed. After the capture of Rome in June 1944, Murphy earned his first decoration for gallantry.

Shortly thereafter, his unit was withdrawn from Italy to train for Operation Anvil-Dragoon, the invasion of southern France that began on August 15, 1944. During seven weeks of fighting in that successful campaign, Murphy's division suffered 4,500 casualties, and he became one of the most decorated men in his company. But his biggest test was yet to come.

On January 26, 1945, near the village of Holtzwihr in eastern France, Lt. Murphy's forward positions came under fierce attack by the Germans. Against the onslaught of six Panzer tanks and 250 infantrymen, Murphy ordered his men to fall back to better their defenses. Alone, he mounted an abandoned, burning tank destroyer and, with a single machine gun, contested the enemy's advance. Wounded in the leg during the heavy fire, Murphy remained there for nearly an hour, repelling the attack of German soldiers on three sides and single-handedly killing 50 of them. His courageous performance stalled the German advance and allowed him to lead his men in the counterattack which ultimately drove the enemy from Holtzwihr. For this, Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest award for gallantry in action.

By the end of World War II, Murphy had become one of the nation's most-decorated soldiers, earning an unparalleled 28 medals (including three from France and one from Belgium). Murphy had been wounded three times during the war. In May 1945, when victory was declared in Europe, he had still not reached his 21st birthday.

Audie Murphy returned to a hero's welcome in the United States. His photograph appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and actor James Cagney persuaded him to embark on an acting career. Still shy and unassuming, Murphy arrived in Hollywood with only his good looks and — by his own account — "no talent." Nevertheless, he went on to make more than 40 films. His first part was just a small one in the 1948 film "Beyond Glory." The following year, he published his wartime memoir, "To Hell and Back," which received positive reviews. In 1955, he portrayed himself in the movie version of the book. Many film critics, however, believe that his best performance was "The Red Badge of Courage," director John Huston's 1951 Civil War epic based on the novel by Stephen Crane. 

Murphy retired from acting after 21 years, and subsequently bred race horses and pursued various business ventures. But he struggled financially, due to gambling and unsuccessful investments, and he declared bankruptcy in 1968. Murphy suffered from what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, experiencing headaches, depression and nightmares; he once said that he could sleep only with a loaded pistol under his pillow. In 1971, at the age of 46, Murphy died in the crash of a private plane near Roanoke, Virginia.

Audie Murphy is buried in Section 46, just across from the Memorial Amphitheater. A special flagstone walkway has been constructed to accommodate the large number of people who stop to pay their respects to this hero. 

Medal of Honor citation:

"2d Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, 1 of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machinegun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from 3 sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective."

[aurumacadicus]

It's that time of month again, friends! And for June, we're doing something special: Queer-themed books, both a fiction and non-fiction selection! We'll be reading both over the course of five weeks. Tumblr will vote, and the book club will then vote among the top three in Discord. If you'd like to join the book club, send me a message and I'll send you a link to the discord! Keep an eye out for the other poll, and check out the books' summaries under the cut!

(Note: Moby Dyke's full title was too long for the poll option. The full title is Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton.)

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

A groundbreaking global history of gender nonconformity

Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit nearly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.

Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of tans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the “Fun Home.” It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.

In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.

Dinner on Monster Island: Essays by Tania de Rozario

In this unusual, engaging, and intimate collection of personal essays, Lambda Literary Award finalist Tania De Rozario recalls growing up as a queer, brown, fat girl in Singapore, blending memoir with elements of history, pop culture, and horror films, and current events to explore the nature of monsters and what it means to be different.

Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to “banish the evil” from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters weren’t just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhere—including in your own family and community—and look just like you. Dinner on Monster Island is Tania’s memoir of her life and childhood in Singapore—where she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic. As she pulls back the veil on life on the small island, she reveals that sometimes kind, sometimes monstrous side of all of us. Intertwined with her experiences is an analysis of the role of women in horror. Tania looks at films and popular culture such as Carrie, The Witch, and The Ring to illuminate the ways in which women are often portrayed as monsters, and how in real life, monsters are not what we think.

Moving and lyrical, written with earnest candor, and leavened with moments of humor and optimism, Dinner on Monster Island is a deeply personal examination of one woman's experience grappling with her identity and a fantastic analysis of monsters, monstrous women, and the worlds in which they live.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton

A former Rookie contributor and creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes investigates the disappearance of America’s lesbian bars by visiting the last few in existence.

Lesbian bars have always been treasured safe spaces for their customers, providing not only a good time but a shelter from societal alienation and outright persecution. In 1987, there were 206 of them in America. Today, only a couple dozen remain. How and why did this happen? What has been lost—or possibly gained—by such a decline? What transpires when marginalized communities become more accepted and mainstream?

In Moby Dyke, Krista attempts to answer these questions firsthand, venturing on an epic cross-country pilgrimage to the last few remaining dyke bars. Her pilgrimage includes taking in her first drag show since the onset of the pandemic at The Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana; competing in dildo races at Houston’s Pearl Bar; and, despite her deep-seated hatred of karaoke, joining a group serenade at Nashville’s Lipstick Lounge and enjoying the dreaded pastime for the first time in her life.

While Burton sets out on the excursion to assess the current state of lesbian bars, she also winds up examining her own personal journey, from coming out to her Mormon parents to recently marrying her husband, a trans man whose presence on the trip underscores the important conversation about who precisely is welcome in certain queer spaces—and how they and their occupants continue to evolve.

Moby Dyke is an insightful and hilarious travelogue that celebrates the kind of community that can only be found in windowless rooms soundtracked by Britney Spears-heavy playlists and illuminated by overhead holiday lights no matter the time of year.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. And the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

A queer, mixed race writer in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature, including:

-the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs,

-the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams,

-the bizarre, predatory Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena),

-the common goldfish that flourishes in the wild,

-and more.

Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth. Exploring themes of adaption, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, How Far the Light Reaches is a shimmering, otherworldly debut that attunes us to new visions of our world and its miracles.

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin

As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what’s being lost in this intimate, stylish, and indispensable celebration of queer history.

Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it?

In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Fransisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out—and a chance to encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity—a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.

[pureblood-and-mudblood]

Dramione is the het ship between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter fandom.

Canon

As Draco was raised with violent disgust for Muggle-borns, he treated Hermione with disdain. Hermione's friends and herself shared a strong enmity to Draco from virtually the moment they met, and her beating Draco in school marks, for which his father berated him. From time to time, Draco would call Hermione a mud-blood which usually set off the temper of her friends and once the Gryffindor Quidditch Team. Most of the time, Hermione would ignore Draco but occasionally snapped back at him and in their third year, she even punched him.

some parts of the saga, Draco even seems obsessed with Hermione. Even though he considers Muggle-borns to be inferior, he hasn't ever picked on one other than Hermione. In the second book, when the basilisk is released, he wishes for Hermione to be its next victim. In GoF, when the death eaters appear in the Quidditch World Cup, Draco appears near Harry's tent and advises them to get Hermione out of there if they don't want anything to happen to her. He even makes a comment about her knickers. In another scene in the same book, he overhears Ron talking about Hermione's dancing partner and he makes a surprised comment about that "know-it-all" having found a date. When Hermione walks into the ballroom, Draco just stares at her and, quoting from the book, "even he didn’t seem to be able to find an insult to throw at her".

At various points in the books he acknowledges Hermione's intelligence. For example, when he finds out about the DA and the charm Hermione made with the coins, he takes notes and uses it to communicate with the Death Eaters he wants to get into Hogwarts. In the 6th book he stops messing with her (coinciding with the imprisonment of his father, who incidentally in the 2nd book tells Draco off for Hermione getting better grades than him.

In spite of his dislike toward Hermione, Draco was reluctant to confirm her identity when he was asked to do so by his parents and aunt Bellatrix, avoiding even looking at her. As an adult sobered by his wartime experiences, Draco was civil, if not friendly, towards Hermione and her friends.

Fanon

Dramione is among the most popular ships for both characters.

Fanon

Dramione is among the most popular ships for both characters.

On AO3, it is the most written ship for Hermione, followed by Hermione/Ron, and the second for Draco, bested only by Draco/Harry. It is also the third most written ship in the Harry Potter fandom.

It is one of the most controversial ships in the Harry Potter fandom, due to Draco bullying Hermione and calling her racial slurs. However, many fans believe that Draco is reformed and became a better person, and others like the Good Girl/Bad Boy dynamic. Some also reference the fact that Emma Watson had a crush on Tom Felton to prove the legitimacy of the ship.

A Very Potter Musical

Throughout his first two years of Hogwarts, Draco has a particularly serious crush on Hermione. He wanted a rocketship and Hermione. It's not until after Hermione turns him down after her first year when Draco has returned to the past, that he realizes that he should move on considering "what a b***** Hermione is". Draco later meets Luna Lovegood in the Forbidden Forest while waiting to catch up to his time.

Trivia

Rowling was not in favour of this pairing.[1]

Tom Felton, who portrayed Draco in the films, references Draco/Hermione in two chapter titles from his memoir Beyond the Wand — "The Potter Auditions or When Draco Met Hermione" and "Dramione or The Chicken and the Duck."[2]

[mercurygray]

Currently Reading - April 2024

Currently Reading:

Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. On my list for a long time.

Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II, by Geoffrey Perret. I'm really liking the birds' eye (ha!) view of the Air Forces in general - he's touched on plane development, strategy, and the reason why different groups focused on different things. Good ground stuff.

Norway to America : a history of the migration, by Ingrid Semmingsen, translated by Einar Haugen. For Fred.

Luck of The Draw, by Frank Murphy. Currently reading in the sense that I got it from the library with intent to read and it's on my nightstand.

Currently Watching:

Shōgun (FX) - I need to re-read this book.

Manhunt (Apple TV) - started for Tobias Menzies, stayed for unhinged Anthony Boyle and the storytelling, which is so tight you could get a dime through its wingtips.

Franklin (Apple TV) - Listen, Apple TV's got a lot of primo period drama right now and Rev War is only like, one fandom obsession ago.

Just Finished: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins-Reid. This was fun. It was just fun.

When I Think Back: World War Two Letters of Fitje Pitts, by Tilghman Pitts - This was so so good. Fitje is a super entertaining writer. Big fact I got from this one is that bomber bases were full of animals. Everyone had a pet.

Battlestars & Doughnuts: World War II Clubmobile Experiences of Mary Metcalfe Rexford, by Oscar Whitelaw Rexford - This is a memoir written by her husband? It's small, but still has a lot to say.

Bomber Pilot: A Memoir of World War II, by Philip Ardery - Ardery flew with the 389th and was the command pilot during the first of the Ploesti raids. This was a lucky find at the book rescue and for $2 I'm glad it's in my library.

Beartown, by Fredrik Backman. This was really depressing. It's good, but I will not be watching the show or seeking out the following book.

In Reserve:

Debs at War, by Anne De Courcy

Joy Street: A Wartime Romance in Letters 1940-1942, by Miriam Barford

Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines: The Unknown Heroines of World War Two, by Sally Van Wagenen Keil