Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Rescuing U.S. Government Data

As noted in a previous post about the Society for Military History, the scholarly community has been alarmed by the removal of U.S. government websites and datasets. There is a wider effort now to rescue and archive as much information from government websites as possible for the wider academic community.

The Data Rescue Project serves as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public U.S. federal data that are currently at risk. The project, a coalition of data organisations including IASSIST, RDAP and the Data Curation Network, among others, and individuals has focussed on collating, collecting, curating, and providing sustained public access and distribution of data. The Data Rescue Tracker, a collaborative tool to catalogue and coordinate across data rescue efforts. The tool can be used to see where data has been rescued, search for specific datasets, learn about ongoing data rescue initiatives, and submit downloaded data and where it has been archived for continuing findability and access.

Monday, April 14, 2025

Adm. Nimitz Disapproves

Letter to the Editor of the New York Times Re “Angelou’s ‘Caged Bird’ Is Out, but Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Stays; 381 Books Are Banned From Naval Academy
Adm. Nimitz
” (front page, April 12):

My grandfather was Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz. The United States Naval Academy’s library was named in his honor in 1973. My family was proud to attend the dedication.

He would be appalled by the removal of books by authors like Maya Angelou from its shelves — as am I and are his great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. He was a humble, honorable, intelligent and supportive leader who was honored and loved by everyone he came into contact with.

We are all ashamed to hear that books such as “Mein Kampf” have been left on the shelves while others were removed.

Thank you to The New York Times for featuring this story!

Sarah Nimitz Smith
Boston

Society for Military History's Effort to Perserve History in Face the Trump Assault

On April 8, Dr. Wayne E. Lee, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, President, Society for Military History Writes

The constitutional mission of the Society for Military History is “to stimulate and advance the study of military history, especially that of the United States, and to diffuse knowledge thereof by publications, displays, and otherwise.”  In response to recent wholesale deletions or removals of historical publications, websites, lesson plans, and even the removal of books and archives, the Society’s Council has voted to act to preserve deleted materials and report on other administrative actions at state or federal levels that interfere with the mission of our Society. 

We believe that historical work requires the preservation of and access to records and publications. And there is no denying in this moment that books, articles, whole journal issues, lesson plans, exhibits, art installations, archives, and possibly more, are being removed from public access through a combination of automated screening for key words and through employees being diverted from their usual work into screening publications and materials.  It is true that after public outrage some few websites have been restored, but this has been thus far spotty at best.  

The involvement of historians within the government in the process of removal means that many members of our Society have specific knowledge of what materials are being or have been removed.  We encourage you to contribute to the archive.

The Society will archive materials and publications removed from federal and state entities since January 2025 that are materially relevant to the conduct of military history, including all arenas of research, publication, dissemination, and teaching.  Persons with access to deleted materials are encouraged to send unaltered copies (or at least links to currently active web archived copies such as the Wayback Machine, etc.) to SocMilHist@proton.me. The SMH will both publicly list those materials and make copies available. 

Alternatively, files may be directly (and anonymously) uploaded simply by dragging your file into the upload space and clicking the Upload button on this page. You may enter your name, your email, and something about the file you are uploading, but you do not have to. Finally, answer the simple math problem to prove you are a human!

Members with knowledge of other actions, to include archive deletions, exhibit alterations, publication removal, or the removal of books from libraries (with relevance to military history) are encouraged to report them (anonymously if need be) to SMH leadership using this linked form. 

The SMH will try to verify all submitted information, and will indicate as such on the list. If materials are restored to public view or access we ask the members to let us know via the same form, and we will update the list accordingly, although we will continue to list the item as having been deleted at least for the time being.

All submissions should be solely related to the practice of military history. Submitters are asked to provide sources for their information. We will NOT accept or archive any materials not already in the public domain. 

Among other things, it is important to note that in many cases, items removed are publications of our members. They are lines on C.V.s. Their disappearance threatens our members’ efforts at promotion, advancement, placement, or tenure.This archive will help fill that gap. I believe it is also worth pointing out that two separate votes were held on this motion, one for the draft text, made by the previous board, and one for the post-conference slightly revised text.  

Asia Policy Point supports the Society's efforts to preserve copies of things now missing and their continued effort to follow and record any destruction of the historical record. We encourage our followers to submit to the Society military history records that have found to have been deleted or altered by the Trump Administration.

Thursday, April 10, 2025

National Former POW Recognition Day

Wednesday, April 9, was National Former POW Recognition Day in the United States and 
the Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan) in the Philippines. Both memorialize the 83rd anniversary of the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula to invading Imperial Japanese forces.

Every year, there is a formal ceremony on Mt Samat that features the Philippines' president, cabinet, and foreign dignitaries. President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.'s anniversary statementlike last year's, again made no mention of Japan and simply asked Filipinos to follow the example of their country's World War II heroes. 

As you can see from this video, no one, not the president of the Philippine, not the Secretary of the Department of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro, not the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., nor the deputy chief of mission of the US EmbassyY. Robert Ewing, identified in their remarks who the enemy was during the battle of Bataan. Japan as a perpetrator and invader was missing from all the statements with the exception of the one by the Japanese ambassador

Ambassador Endo Kazuya did not directly say who were the "courageous souls who made the ultimate sacrifice." Instead, he listed the various ways Japan has been helping the Philippines. He only observed that "By facing our history and sincerely reflecting on the deeds and sacrifices during those dark times, we lay the very foundation of our future-oriented partnership – one built upon mutual respect, understanding and trust."  The defenders of the Philippines have faded into their islands' invaders. 

In the U.S. the Philippine Embassy and the Washington Filipino Community held a program at the National WWII Memorial remembering Bataan.  On April 5, the Bataan Legacy Historical Society held a grand commemoration at the San Francisco National Cemetery for the 83rd Anniversary of the Bataan Death March and 80th Anniversary of the end of WWII. On April 4, the 14th Annual Chesapeake Bataan Death March Memorial Walk was held in Chesapeake, Virginia and attended by crew members of the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5)

Neither the House or Senate Veterans Affairs Committees issued statements on April 9. None of the committee members did either. Maybe next year we can organize a letter writing campaign to encourage them to acknowledge National Former POW Recognition Day. Frankly, there is the same silence on National POW/MIA Recognition Day in September. 

By a law, signed by President Ronald Reagan on April 1, 1988, presidents are obligated to issue a proclamation to commemorate National Former POW Recognition Day and the unique service of POWs. This year's proclamation was a bit different from others. It was issued late in the day--proclamations are usually issued the day before--and less focused on POWs. See HERE.

Talking about "Bataan," the Department of Defense removed at least 13 public webpages that mentioned Bataan. This was part of a purge of DOD websites that were believed to display some sort of diversity, inclusion, and equality content. A 59-word list was presented to help identify content for removal. The list included "history," "respect," and "dignity."

This database, put together by Associated Press, identifies 13 webpages removed that mentioned Bataan: 9 about the Bataan Death March Memorial at the Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, MS; 3 reporting honoring Bataan Death March victims at the Osan Air Base in South Korea; and one at the Misawa Air Base in Japan reporting on the Osan ceremony.

When I first looked at this database, when the controversy was reported in March, I only found three webpages that mentioned Bataan. They all originated at an air base in New Mexico. Unfortunately, I did not record this. These pages appear to have been reinstated. 

Help Save the Institute of Museum and Library Services

 

American Library Association 
statement on 
White House assault on the 

Institute of Museum and Library Services

March 15, 2025A

WASHINGTON – An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency for America’s libraries. The following statement was made by the American Library Association:

Americans have loved and relied on public, school and academic libraries for generations. By eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Trump administration’s executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted of American institutions and the staff and services they offer:

  • Early literacy development and grade-level reading programs
  • Summer reading programs for kids 
  • High-speed internet access
  • Employment assistance for job seekers 
  • Braille and talking books for people with visual impairments
  • Homework and research resources for students and faculty
  • Veterans’ telehealth spaces equipped with technology and staff support
  • STEM programs, simulation equipment and training for workforce development
  • Small business support for budding entrepreneurs

To dismiss some 75 committed workers and mission of an agency that advances opportunity and learning is to dismiss the aspirations and everyday needs of millions of Americans. And those who will feel that loss most keenly live in rural communities. 

As seedbeds of literacy and innovation, our nation’s 125,000 public, school, academic and special libraries deserve more, not less support. Libraries of all types translate 0.003% of the federal budget into programs and services used in more than 1.2 billion in-person patron visits every year, and many more virtual visits.

ALA implores President Trump to reconsider this short-sighted decision. We encourage U.S. Congressmembers, Senators and decision makers at every level of government to visit the libraries that serve their constituents and urge the White House to spare the modest federal funding for America’s libraries. And we call on all Americans who value reading, learning, and enrichment to reach out to their elected leaders and Show Up For Our Libraries at library and school meetings, town halls, and everywhere decisions are made about libraries.

###

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent federal agency that supports libraries and museums in all 50 states and U.S. territories through grantmaking, research and policy development. IMLS administers both federal grants to states, which determine how funds are spent, and discretionary grants to individual library entities.

HOW TO HELP

LETTER TO CONGRESS EMAIL

Friday, August 23, 2024

Medal of Honor

Jilin Province
With the Medal of Honor so much in the news (see VFW National Commander's Statement), it seems appropriate to highlight one of the several POWs of Japan who received one: General Jonthan M. Wainwrightthe highest-ranking American officer taken prisoner during WWII. 

He had succeeded General Douglas MacArthur as commander of Allied troops in the Philippines when the latter was evacuated to Australia. Wainwright oversaw the drawn-out surrender of the Philippines to Imperial Fascist Japan from May 6 to June 9, 1942. He spent the rest of the war in brutal Japanese POW camps.

Seventy-nine years ago on August 19, 1945, two OSS commandos turned up in Wainwright's Northern Chinese POW camp to tell him the war had ended. He was physically liberated by the Russian Army five days later. And on the 27th he flew out of Mukden to the Philippines and then on to Japan to participate in the official surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.

Earlier in August, the OSS initiated Operation Cardinal to liberate the American and Allied senior officers Japan had captured at the beginning of the war. First held in a series of  POW Camp in Formosa, these generals and colonels were transferred to Manchuria in the fall of 1944. Circumstantial evidence suggested that POW officers were being concentrated in a few remote locations to be used as hostages, whereas the enlisted men who were POWs were to be executed as the war became more desperate. 

The OSS believed the senior POW officers were with other POWs at a camp in Mukden, Manchukuo, today's Shenyang. When the OSS team liberated Mukden they were stunned to learn that 34 of the most senior officers, including Wainwright, were held over 100 miles northeast of Mukden in Hsian. This sentence regarding Wainwright's location, a variation of which is found in most accounts of Wainwright's rescue, is inexact and generally incorrect.  

The coal town of Hsian is identified in various articles on Wainwright's rescue as Sian, Xi'an, or Hsian and located 100 KM and even 100 miles northeast of Mukden. After a lot of research, I can say the correct location is: Hsian (today's Liaoyuan), which is approximately 220.9 km (137.261 miles) northeast of Mukden (today's Shenyang). Liaoyuan is situated on the north bank of the upper Dongliao River. This camp was 100 miles southeast of Zheng Village (today's Shuangliao) that was the initial camp that all the senior POW officers and enlisted men from Formosa were sent to in November 1944. Both towns are in today's Jilin Province.

On December 1, 1944, 34 senior Allied Officers were separated from the rest of POWs from Formosa and moved to Hsian from Zheng Village. There they waited and starved until the OSS, after much mishap, appeared on August 19th. The story of the eventual liberation of the generals there and their return home is well told in this article: The OSS’ Operation Cardinal: Locating General Jonathan Wainwright: The OSS Cardinal Mission located General Jonathan Wainwright at a Japanese prison camp in Manchuria By John Mancini, Warfare History Network, November 2006. 

The award of the Medal of Honor had been proposed for Wainwright as early as 1942. MacArthur, however, vehemently opposed it, believing that Corregidor should have held out longer and that Wainwright had surrendered too soon. In 1945, Wainwright was again proposed for the Medal of Honor, and this time MacArthur did not object. It should be noted that MacArthur was never so generous to General Edward P. King who surrendered the peninsula of Bataan on April 9, 1942. 

The citation lauds Wainwright's heroism in command of the doomed defenders and reads in part: “…At the repeated risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in his position, he frequented the firing line of his troops where his presence provided the example and incentive that helped make the gallant efforts of these men possible. The final stand on beleaguered Corregidor, for which he was in an important measure personally responsible, commanded the admiration of the Nation’s allies. It reflected the high morale of American arms in the face of overwhelming odds. His courage and resolution were a vitally needed inspiration to the then sorely pressed freedom-loving peoples of the world.”

When freed by the OSS men, Wainwright worried that he was considered a coward, derelict in his duty, by the American people. When they informed him that he was actually a national hero, the emaciated general was incredulous. MacArthur was adamant about having him included in the signing of the surrender document. Wainwright was honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City on September 13, 1945, and promoted to the four-star rank of full general. On September 19, 1945, he received the Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman in the Rose Garden of the White House. 

Sunday, April 21, 2024

History’s Shadow on Japanese Prime Minister’s U.S. Visit

Robinette 2nd from left
This week’s Japan-Philippines-U.S. trilateral summit comes alongside the 82nd anniversary of the Bataan Death March. 

By Patrick Regan and Mindy Kotler Smith

Patrick Regan is a member of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society (ADBC-MS) and the grandson of U.S. Army Air Corps Tech. Sgt. Donald C. Regan, who survived the Bataan Death March and 41 months as a POW of the Japanese, including two years at Hirohata Camp 12-B working for Nippon Steel.

Mindy Kotler Smith is also a member of the ADBC-MS and great niece of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineer Fletcher Wood, who survived the siege of Corregidor but died in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines. She is the editor of this blog.

The Diplomat, April 09, 2024

Few weeks are as historic in the shared history of Japan, the Philippines, and the United States as this one. The focus this week will be on these countries’ three leaders — Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. — and their summit in Washington. But the anniversaries of Imperial Japan’s worst war crimes this week cast a shadow over their meetings.

More than 80 years later, those acts remain largely forgotten even though they underlie one of the key topics Kishida is expected to raise at his summit with Biden: Nippon Steel’s attempt to acquire U.S. Steel.

By acknowledging Japan and Nippon Steel’s role in the mistreatment of prisoners of war (POWs) during World War II, Kishida has an opportunity to not only do the right thing but also connect in a meaningful way with Biden and Marcos, both of whom have direct family ties to those atrocities.

The Bataan Death March

Eighty-two years ago, on April 9, 1942, the fighting on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula came to an end. For four months, American and Filipino troops had done what no one in the Pacific could do — halt Imperial Japan’s sweep across Asia. Through persistence and ingenuity, without air or naval support, they mounted an unexpectedly stiff resistance against the invaders.

Resupply and reinforcements were not coming, though, and the troops on Bataan were starving and out of ammunition. Faced with a certain massacre, the U.S. commanding general, Edward P. King, disobeyed orders and surrendered his men. But what followed was worse than combat.

On the first day of the surrender, Japanese troops looted the personal possessions of their prisoners, murdered those found with Japanese money, bayonetted to death the sick, and raped the one American nurse they could find.

The next day, April 10, the men were organized in groups of 100 and force-marched up the peninsula in the sweltering tropical heat. They were denied water, food, and medicine. Japanese officers beheaded men at will. The guards killed laggards and those they believed disrespectful. Japanese military vehicles crushed men into the road beneath them, while their occupants laughed. The prisoners’ agonizing 65-mile trek lasted anywhere from four days to two weeks.

What became known as the infamous Bataan Death March was only part of a 100-mile journey to an improvised POW camp. The next segment was 28 miles by rail where the men were packed, standing, in metal boxcars. Many died from heat exhaustion, dysentery, suffocation, or malaria. Survivors then stumbled the next several miles to the unfinished barracks of Camp O’Donnell. The camp contained only two water spigots for the more 55,000 men. In the first month, thousands died of disease and despair.

Among those surviving the march and the first months of imprisonment was a distant cousin of Biden, John Robinette, a Port Clinton, Ohio, soldier with Company C of the 192nd Provisional Tank Battalion. Months before, he had participated in America’s first winning tank battle of WWII. Robinette died of beriberi that November.

Also surviving the march was Marcos’ father and namesake, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who was an officer with the Philippine Army. Starting in June 1942, the Japanese, to reduce deaths and to reward collaboration, began to release Filipino prisoners of war. Ferdinand was released in August.

Thus, when Kishida sits down with his American and Filipino counterparts for a trilateral summit on April 11, he will face two leaders with direct ties to the Bataan Death March. It will not be his first time in that setting.

In October 2013, then-Foreign Minister Kishida met with two Bataan Death March survivors and one widow. They were part of a visiting delegation of American former prisoners of war of Japan seeking understanding and reconciliation from their former captors. Kishida expressed deep remorse for their suffering.

Despite this intimate history, it is reported that the Japanese prime minister will not express his country’s remorse over World War II in his speech at the U.S. Congress on April 11. Foreign Ministry officials claim Japan’s position on the war “has been settled to some extent” and Kishida “will not touch on it in the speech.”

Surviving as a Prisoner of Japan

April 11 is remembered in the Philippines as the anniversary of the Pantingan River Massacre. Lost and starving Filipino and American officers of the 91st Philippine Army Division missed the April 9 surrender deadline. The commander of Japan’s 65th Brigade, to whom they eventually surrendered, reprimanded the 400 men for being late. He then ordered his officers to behead the defenseless prisoners and directed his enlisted men to bayonet to death those missed by the swords. The slaughter reportedly took two hours.

Surviving imprisonment and hard labor in the Philippines was just the beginning for those who surrendered on Bataan. Starting in August 1942, the Japanese began shipping American and European prisoners from the Philippines to Japan to be used as slave laborers by national corporations. The prisoners were told if they did not work, they would not eat.

One of those corporations was Nippon Steel.

Nippon Steel

In his visit this week, Kishida will present Nippon Steel as the face of Japan. His message will be that the company, like Japan, should be viewed as a trusted ally that will enhance security cooperation by improving the U.S. industrial base. Nowhere will he mention the company’s unfinished business from the war.

Nippon Steel, like all major Japanese wartime corporations, requisitioned prisoner-of-war labor and maintained prisoner labor camps. The firm was so vital to Japanese war production that one of its steel mills was to be a target of an atomic bomb. At its mines, mills, and railyards, Nippon Steel used 6,000 Allied prisoners of war. At least 2,000 were American, most of whom were survivors of the conquest of the Philippines that began with the fall of Bataan.

At Nippon Steel facilities, the POWs were starved, abused, and denied adequate medical care. Company employees willfully beat the POWs working alongside them. Barracks were unheated, infested with vermin, and overcrowded. Ten percent of the prisoners died.

Nippon Steel still refuses to acknowledge that Americans suffered in forced service to the company during World War II. That history is nowhere to be found on Nippon Steel’s website, which devotes more than 1,000 words to a timeline of the company’s heritage. The timeline, which goes back to 1908, ignores the 1940s entirely.

Nippon Steel’s exploitation of POW labor during the war is also ignored at two of its functioning steel mills that were designated in 2015 as UNESCO World Industrial Heritage sites. Despite a UNESCO reprimand, the Japanese government refuses to provide “the full history” of these sites by explaining how POWs helped maintain wartime production.

Nippon Steel has invested in a slew of Washington, D.C., lobbyists to make the case for the company’s purchase of U.S. Steel. The prime minister is supposed to build on their imagery of Nippon Steel as a responsible, technologically sophisticated corporation sensitive to American interests. Ignored is that the company has long failed at its most basic expression of respect for American workers. It has never acknowledged or apologized for its mistreatment of American “laborers.”

The Opportunity

Kishida declared last year at the U.N. that he wanted to emphasize “human dignity” in international cooperation. Here is his chance. He can suggest that Nippon Steel do something more meaningful with its efforts to gain political support for the deal than to emphasize that it is good business.

There is precedent for such a move. In 2015, Mitsubishi Materials Corporation became the first and only Japanese company to apologize and present an atonement payment for using American slave labor during the war. The admission was hailed at the time as an important step in moving Japanese industry out of the shadow of its wartime atrocities, although no other Japanese companies have done the same.

Nippon Steel now has a rare opportunity to make a statement similar to Mitsubishi’s. In the face of recent government leaders reframing the Japanese purely as victims during World War II and to rewrite history downplaying the plight of those who suffered under Japan’s rampage across the Pacific, this would be a timely trust-building corporate and national move.

In addition to acknowledgement and an apology, Nippon Steel, along with the Japanese government, would ideally devote resources annually to educational efforts both in Japan and the U.S. to make the history of American POWs in Japan more widely known. There should be more than a few plaques at steel plants. Virtual visits to former POW camps, digitization of records, exchange programs for families, and a national memorial would be appropriate. Both Japan and Nippon Steel have to show they are serious.

These efforts are especially important now, nearly 80 years since the end of the war, as the living memory of wartime events slips away.

It’s too late now for the thousands of Americans who slaved away for Nippon Steel to get the apology and recognition they deserve. That includes the father of the famed Smothers Brothers, the grandfather of California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Olympian Louis Zamperini, whose remarkable story of survival was depicted in the book and movie “Unbroken.”

But it’s not too late for Nippon Steel, with Kishida’s encouragement, to face its past directly so it can move on to its future, potentially with U.S. Steel, with some measure of honor and trust.