Weekend Wanderings, 9 July 2011
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10 July 2011, 11:30
Filed under: Battle of the Bulge, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Anne Frank, Battle of the Bulge, Field Artillery, Hemingway, Museum
Filed under: Battle of the Bulge, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Anne Frank, Battle of the Bulge, Field Artillery, Hemingway, Museum
As the weather gets hot, one can always sit in a cool air-conditioned room and revel in the vast expanse of knowledge that sits out there on the Internet, begging to be found. Here are a few tibdits I found this week that interested me.
- Barbara Whitaker blogged about her father-in-law’s servicein the 276th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, seeing action during the Bulge, crossing the Rhine and within Germany.
Barb's Father-in-Law's M7
- Beanandgone is a humorous blog by a young Australian woman who loves her coffee and her travels. She was recently in Berlin and notes some of the funny things as well as some of the horrifying ones.
- As a historian, I tend to visit a fair number of museums when I travel and it sounds like we all ought to visit the National World War II Museum. The even have an annual Family Overnight (yes, it was last night, so you missed it this year!) The capstone, however, appears to be the Victory Theatre’s “Beyond the Boundaries”.
- Courtesy of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, you can also move around inside The Secret Annex and experience The Diary of Anne Frank in a completely different way – virtually in 3D, with stories and videos. Hat tip to musingmk for these two.
- I finished reading Wukovitz’ book on Boyington today and thought a fair amount about Afroxander’s blog entry on Hemingway’s suicide. In reading Hemingway as a young man, I wanted to be him. To have grand adventures, to cheat death, to drink “manly” drinks and to truly “sieze the day”. With Boyington, his alcoholism was fueled by doubt and discomfort. With Hemingway, I wonder if it was all just from boredom. Perhaps he just kept searching for elusive happiness in bigger and bolder things until he finally despaired. I’ll be honest, if a bit brutal, but the Hemingway who zipped around France during WWII strikes me as a comical figure, trying to act the part of a war hero while others actually fought it. Kind of like John Wayne’s and Humphrey Bogart’s experience on USO Tours – the tough guys were the ones in the audience, not the ones on stage, but at least Wayne and Bogart realized that.
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We're not lost, Sergeant, We're in ... France 
Hey there, thanks for the link/mention!
I agree with your thoughts on Hemingway’s WWII romp to an extent. He probably came off as an older gent. trying to relive his youth which is something that can always slide into a tragi-comedy area.
I’m not familiar with Wukovitz? Who is (was) he?
Comment by afroxander 11 July 2011 @ 07:43Thanks for the note. Wukovitz wrote a book about “Pappy” Boyington that I blogged about recently.
Comment by David Navarre 11 July 2011 @ 09:49