Tag: World War II

ExNotes Review: Operation Mincemeat

Susie and I were channel surfing on Netflix the other night and a trailer for Operation Mincemeat appeared.  It looked like it might be interesting so we hit the play icon.  Wow, this movie is great.  The story is about the British military intelligence deception operation to convince the Nazis the 1943 Allied invasion of Europe would begin in Greece and not Sicily.  Everyone knew Sicily was the logical choice, including the Germans, but the Brits managed to pull off a miracle and the Germans diverted the bulk of their forces to Greece.  I won’t tell you much more about how MI5 did this (beyond what the trailer below shows) because I don’t want to spoil the movie for you.

Operation Mincemeat is a dark, foreboding movie, as it should be.   Literally tens of thousands of lives and indeed, the future of humanity, hung in the balance.

One of the interesting characters in this true Operation Mincemeat story is a mid-level British Intel officer named Ian Fleming.

Johnny Flynn playing Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat.  Here Fleming is intrigued by a Q Branch watch with a bezel that becomes a buzz saw. You have to pay attention or this and other scenes that inspired 007 will zip right by.

Yes, that Ian Fleming…the one who went on to create and write the James Bond stories.  He and several other MI5 officers were working on spy novels while the real Operation Mincemeat was unfolding.  At one point, the man in charge (played to perfection by Colin Firth) exclaimed, “My God, is there anyone here who isn’t writing a spy novel?”  There were other James Bond references, including the senior MI5 person everyone referred to as “M,” Q Branch, and more.

Trust me on this:  If you are a James Bond fan, you will love Operation Mincemeat.

Nah, that’s too restrictive.   Anyone who enjoys a good movie will enjoy Operation Mincemeat.  It’s on Netflix and it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.  I enjoyed it so much I watched it again from start to finish the next day.  It was that good.  You can thank me later.

More reviews?  You bet!

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Manzanar National Historic Site

This is a blog I posted a few years ago for CSC Motorcycles.  It was a one-day road trip headed north on the Three Flags Highway. That’s US Highway 395 in the photo below, which runs from the border with Mexico all the way up to Canada. My destination was the Manzanar National Historic Site, and I went there to do a story for Motorcycle Classics magazine.

Highway 395 is magnificent, but I wanted to scoot up there quickly and do a bit of exploring in and around Manzanar, which is 210 miles north for me.

Any road trip through this region wouldn’t be complete without a peek at the Cottonwood charcoal kilns (and a peek from within the kilns).

The Cottonwood charcoal kilns are about 10 miles south of Manzanar and about a mile to the east of Highway 395. It’s soft sand getting there.  It was no problem on my KLR 650.

When World War II broke out, Franklin Roosevelt had Americans of Japanese descent from the three western states on the Pacific interred in what were basically concentration camps. It was a national disgrace, it’s hard to believe such things occurred in this country, and if I had to choose a single word to describe my visit, it would be “disturbing.”

The camp was just to the right of the guard tower you see above. Even though it was 104 degrees down on the Mojave floor when I shot this photo, you can still see snow in the eastern Sierras.

There were 10,000 Japanese-American prisoners kept at Manzanar. This is the inside of one of their barracks.

One of the Japanese-American internees was a kid named Bob Uragami. When I worked for Aerojet (in another life a few decades ago), Bob worked with me in the cluster bomb business. He was a test engineer.

There was a list inside the museum at Manzanar, and I found Bob’s name…he was rounded up with the rest of his family when he was a boy.

Here’s a view looking out the door of one of the barracks toward the Sierras.

This is the Manzanar cemetery. It’s about a mile away from the barracks on a dirt road, but the road inside the prison grounds is hard pack.  It’s not a problem on a motorcycle.

And the exit…the camp was guarded by US Army MPs.

I had my Nikon with me, and I made a bunch of stops to take photos as I rode through the desert on the home. Check out this unusual house, guarded by a rusty T-rex.

You see a lot of unusual things out in the Mojave, not the least of which was a collection of iron art.

One final shot, folks…a selfie.

The ride to Manzanar and the National Historic Site was a good one.  You’ll want to check the weather before you leave.  Highway 395 has temperatures well over 100 degrees during the summer, and it can be a very, very cold ride during the winter.

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Book Review: Letters from Uncle Dave

Professor Phil Rosenkrantz

Letters from Uncle Dave is quite a read.  It’s the story of Staff Sergeant David Rosenkrantz, the middle child of Russian Jewish immigrants who joined the US Army and became a paratrooper.  SSG Rosenkrantz fought in Sicily, Italy and Holland during World War II.  He was killed in battle and listed as missing in action for 73 years.  I originally heard this story from Phil Rosenkrantz, SSG Rosenkrantz’s nephew and a fellow retired professor in the College of Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona.

Good buddy Phil is many things.  One of the adjectives that can be accurately assigned to him is diligent.  Another is persistent.  Professor Rosenkrantz spent the last 20 years searching for Uncle Dave, and it was a search that ended successfully. Phil identified where his uncle was buried in Europe.  SSG Rosenkrantz’s remains were returned to the United States, and last year he was reinterred in Riverside National Cemetery with full military honors.  You may have seen it reported; the story made national news.

Letters from Uncle Dave contains 49 letters SSG Dave Rosenkrantz wrote home, 106 images, documents and maps, and much more.  I was one of the beta reviewers for Phil, and I’m happy to report that Letters from Uncle Dave is now available on Amazon.   You should pick up a copy.  It’s a great read.

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Patton Museum Reopens!

We recently blogged about the General Patton Memorial Museum at Chiriaco Summit, California, and in that blog, we mentioned the museum was closed due to the Covid 19 pandemic.  Well, that’s changed…I had a nice conversation a couple of days ago with Margit Chiriaco Rusche (Co-Founder and President of the Museum) and she told me the Patton Museum is now open.  I’m going to plan a ride out there as soon as the heat breaks (watch the ExNotes blog for more details), and if you’d like to go, let us know.

Margit asked me to mention the Patton Museum’s USO Room and theatre, the lecture series, and the library.  These are important parts of the Museum and we’re happy to do so.

The Patton Museum’s theatre and USO room.

The Patton Museum has hosted two years of lecture series and Margit tells me they were well attended.  Prior presenters have included the Superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park and a key speaker from the Metropolitan Water Department (refer to our earlier blog for the story about the Patton Museum’s Big Map, donated by the MWD), as well as several others.   The lecture series was suspended during the pandemic, but it will resume in 2021.  My good buddy Phil may be one of the speakers next year on his research and his new book, Letters from Uncle Dave.  We’ll have an upcoming blog on Phil’s new book in the near future, too, so as always, keep an eye on the ExNotes blog.

Another shot inside the USO Room.

The USO Room presents the story of the United Service Organizations, a group focused on keeping military morale high.  This exhibit features exhibits on Al Jolson and Bob Hope, two major forces in the USO’s entertainment world.  The USO Room has the original juke box used at Camp Young’s entertainment center (Camp Young was the headquarters camp for the Desert Training Center, and it was located at Chiriaco Summit).

One of many exhibits at the Patton Museum.

The Patton Museum library contains a large book collection, along with notebooks chronicling the lives and activities of World War II veterans (the Museum currently has over a hundred of these, and more are being added).  It includes tactical maps used by Patton during World War II, and a collection of rare books.  The library is also a source of genealogy information.

If you would like to learn more about the General Patton Memorial Museum, Chiriaco Summit, and the Chiriaco family, in addition to our earlier blog on the Patton Museum you might want to pick up a copy of Chiriaco Summit, a book that tells the story well. You should buy a copy.  It’s a great read.

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