World War II – October 2019

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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.