World War II – October 2019

(Axel Boer) #1

18 WORLD WAR II


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OUT OF THE


DOGHOUSE


THE LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE in Florida was
eager to share the good news on Facebook: they were the
proud new owners of a 10-week-old bloodhound that would
be trained to locate missing persons, find fugitives, and dig
up evidence.
Just one problem with the feel-good story: the police dog
was named after a Nazi.
“Rommel” shared a moniker with Germany’s General
Erwin Rommel, a tank commander whose exploits in North
Africa earned him the nickname “Desert Fox.”
Critics on social media quickly pounced. “Too bad he got
named for a Nazi hero,” wrote one commenter, according to
the Miami Herald. “I find that offensive to me and the dog. We
have plenty of American heroes this fine animal could be
named after.”
Within hours, a new Facebook post from the sheriff’s
office explained that the “four-legged public servant” had
originally been named after a childhood pet of its dog han-
dler, Master Deputy Mark Meintzschel. “In sensitivity to our
veterans,” it read, Meintzschel had renamed the dog “Scout.”

“The battlefront
disappeared, and with it
the illusion that there had
ever been a battlefront.
For this was no war of
occupation, but a war of
quick penetration and
obliteration.
—“Blitzkrieg, Lightning War,” Time
magazine, September 25, 1939.

WORD FOR WORD


DISPATCHES
The U.S. Postal Ser-
vice in June issued a
Forever stamp of the
USS Missouri, the bat-
tleship upon which
World War II ended.
On September 2,
1945, officials from
nine Allied nations,
headed by General
of the Army Douglas
MacArthur, gathered
on the deck of the
“Mighty Mo” to
witness Foreign
Minister Mamoru
Shigemitsu and
General Yoshijiro
Umezu, chief of the Imperial Japanese
Army General Staff, sign surrender
papers on behalf of Japan.
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