Edward Lengel: Thinking Through World War II | BRI Scholar Talks

0:03 hi this is Tony Williams a senior fellow at the Bill of Rights Institute and we are continuing our scholar talks about our life liberty and the pursuit of happiness textbook for u.s. history students and we are very honored today to be joined by a very fine historian

0:24 named Ed Lionel Eadie was one of the chief editors of the Washington papers he has served as the chief historian of the White House Historical Association he was the revolutionary in residence at Colonial Williamsburg recently and rewrote their history and he is

0:47 currently the director of programs at the national World War two museum and he’s written just a number of excellent books on on the American Revolution American Founding as well as World War one and I have a few of those here we have never in finer company about World

1:07 War one and the men of the the Lost battalion yeah and we also have General George Washington and military life one of the definitive works on on Washington as military general so II D thank you very much for joining us and welcome

1:31 it’s great to be with you Tony I might a pleasure to be here thank you thank you well let’s dive right in you wrote a number of excellent components for our life liberty and the pursuit of happiness book and an among them were several pieces on world war ii and and that’ll be the topic of our discussion today you’re at one on Pearl Harbor that

1:56 attack also on the Battle of Iwo Jima and a couple of components on the atomic bomb one being the development of the atomic bomb with the Manhattan Project and then also Truman’s decision to to drop the atomic bomb and so some some really excellent pieces in your

2:16 as well so I thought we would maybe focus in today on the some events some really dramatic events related to the Pacific War so perhaps you can give us a little bit of introduction help help give the viewers a little bit of background maybe explain some of the

2:37 causes of Japanese expansionism in Asia and around the Pacific in the in the 1930s and early 1940s first well when we Americans think about the war in Asia and the warran Pacific we executive Pearl Harbor that’s where it all begins so we assume that that’s the most important event and the battles that

3:01 follow between the United States and Japan is what it’s all about and that’s really not true because the war in Asia began much earlier than that it really kicked off in the early 1930s the route of much of the trouble was in Japanese aggression Japanese aggression was

3:23 fueled by a couple of things one was militarism and the Japanese army and the Japanese Navy both were very expansionist minded they were both very aggressive they believed that Japan had a destiny to rule over much of Asia and

3:44 there was this this kind of determination for the the Japanese military to prove themselves and take you a younger Japanese officers were looking for an opportunity to show what they were worth they were very eager for war they felt that Japan had not played much of a significant role in world war

4:05 one that Japan had not been adequately recognized that’s a great power and that Japan kind of had a destiny forward to have a place in the Sun which was a phrase used with regard to Germany back in World War one I was really the Japanese say they felt that war was inevitable so much of this began in mainland Asia

4:28 and the Japanese occupation first of Korea and then of Manchuria and what is now northeastern China both bloodless for the most part invasions and then in 1937 the Japanese invade China proper mainland China with incredible savagery

4:51 incredible brutality things that that we have trouble even imagining or understanding and even that in many cases cast the war in the Soviet Union into the shadows we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians murdered in what was called

5:12 The Rape of Nanking in 1937 as well as other other attacks trust atrocities battles it was war on a grand scale however the second issue was natural resources and although the Japanese were expanding throughout mainland Asia they

5:33 were capturing large large parts of China as the Chinese military was very out of date and had trouble responding the Japanese understood that in order to expand across the school across the Pacific they were going to need natural resources and Japan itself the Japanese home islands are very poor in natural resources particularly things like like

5:56 oil like industrial metals and other things to get those the Japanese were going to need to get access to Southeast Asia to particularly what’s now Indonesia and they relied very heavily on oil imports from the United States so

6:20 it was a tricky situation the Japanese wanted to expand to find their natural resources they wanted to expand in China but the Americans and the administration of Franklin D Roosevelt increasingly under pressure to find a way to stop Japanese expansion in Asia and ultimately that was what would cause

6:41 the clash between the United States and Japan right very interesting yeah I mean that leads me to my next question so how does this expansion lead to the Pearl Harbor attack and war with the United States so in other words you’ve looked at some of what are the specific long term and maybe short-term causes of war with the United States well oil first of

7:03 all the the Japanese need for oil from the United States are absolute absolutely dependent upon and in order to fuel their their continued expansion and aggression in China but of course the Americans watch what the Japanese are doing in China with horror as does much of the much of the civilized world when the Japanese in 1933 are dubbed

7:27 officially dubbed the aggressor nation in China the Japanese walk out of the League of Nations so they’re becoming increasingly isolated it is ultimately the American decision to begin to curtail in place an embargo on oil exports to the Japanese as well as

7:48 military supplies on the rest and make the Japanese feel that a showdown is inevitable that something has to be done and that while they recognize a long war with the United States’s is not going to work to their favor they’re hopeful in Japanese military and government it is a

8:09 military government in effect to believe that a quick strike on American naval assets will them so badly that it’ll take years for the Americans to recover by which time the Japanese will have a complete death grip on much of Asia very interesting yeah and and can

8:33 you give some sense of those obviously very dramatic events on on December 7th 1941 so what was it like on both sides to experience this this attack well one of the background ironies of it is of their Japanese diplomats in Washington DC at the time

8:54 theoretically negotiating with the United States over to try to find some resolution to this crisis the Japanese are not sincere about this they’ve known from the beginning what they’re going to do so it creates huge resentment of course in the Americans once they find

9:15 out what’s going on Admiral Yamamoto the Japanese Imperial Navy has conceived this idea of attacking American naval forces at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii which is the main American naval base in the Pacific simultaneously with large-scale attacks

9:37 air and land attacks on the American possessions and Pacific the Philippines the Japanese fleet works its way across the Pacific secretly maintaining radio silence and attempting to deceive the Americans that they were on their way

9:59 there are there are hints of what’s happening had the Americans been more vigilant they might well have been able to detect what was approached but finally in the morning of Sunday December 7th 1941 the Japanese fleet the aircraft carriers have assembled thing is two hundred and seventy five miles off of Oahu and launched their aircraft

10:23 and and the attack the Japanese planes begin to soar over Pearl Harbor comes as a complete shock for the American sailors many of them just assembled for their Sunday morning services or they’re just relaxing listening to baseball games or football

10:44 games that are going on back in the United States and suddenly the Japanese dive bombers torpedo oh bombers come swooping in they do a couple of things they wreck hundreds of American aircraft that are parked close together on on the airfield

11:04 there and they also take the eight American battleships under fire as well as other American naval vessels and sink or damaged all of them all of the major ships and there’s some 2,000 over 2,000 American servicemen are killed and what

11:26 would be the largest single-day loss on the United States soil up to September 11th 2001 so it’s a huge shock that one of the only silver lining in us a distant silver lining for the Americans is that their aircraft carriers are not in Pearl Harbor they are actually off at

11:48 sea just by coincidence on other duties and that’s a big disappointment for the Japanese because they had really hoped to catch the aircraft carriers there right yeah an incredible moment and someone lucky for the Americans so you so the war erupts the United States

12:08 declares war Japan and the United States are are at war and and can you very briefly just provide a basic overview of the events that will eventually go to sea oh gee max I’d really like to hone in on your great narrative on that so I’m just thinking here about maybe you know a quick overview of like products

12:30 now and Midway you know Philippines Leyte Gulf if you could do that absolutely I mean it just to try to put it in a nutshell the Japanese have already been expanding before Pearl Harbor as I said they expanded in China they’ve captured the former French colony of Indochina which is Vietnam

12:51 Laos and Cambodia that’s one of the reasons that Americans declared an oil embargo on December 7th 41 the Japanese attack they also attack British and American possessions in Dutch possessions throughout Asia they end up capturing Singapore and Malaya and what is now Indonesia they race

13:15 across Pacific to the practically to the shores of Australia it’s it’s an incredibly fast advance they capture Wake Island they capture the Philippines and are able in the spring of 42 to wipe out the American military there impose

13:35 upon them the Bataan Death March or the Japanese have a absolute brutal way of treating their prisoners and it seems like the Japanese really are unstoppable and they push toward finally in June of 1942 toward Midway Island American victory at Midway I won’t have time to

13:57 cover it here is one of the great military victories of all the time it’s one of the decisive turning points of the 20th century and for Japanese aircraft carriers are sunk and the Japanese advances finally stopped but trying to peel that back is a long

14:19 onerous process it begins with the first Marine Division being sent a wild canal and New Guinea later in 1942 that is a close-run contest a very difficult fight beginning to work their way across New Guinea to peel the Japanese back from

14:40 from South Southeast Asia and the Pacific and then it’s a matter of one battle after another from the south and from the east the forces commanded by General Douglas MacArthur to the south Admiral Chester Nimitz to the east working their way in gradually toward

15:00 Japan and the Japanese home islands and there are there are incredibly difficult battles in the Battle of Tarawa and 1943 and Marines take really terrible casualties there the Japanese in multiple cases fight to the death rather than surrender and the character of the

15:24 fighting becomes absolutely ruthless and brutal different-different island chains one after another are captured the Battle of Saipan and with the Marines also take huge casualties to retake that the reconquest of the Philippines a destruction of the

15:44 Japanese Navy in Leyte Gulf and air air forces in 1944 Douglas MacArthur finally returns to the Philippines in a choreographed choreographed maneuver and then finally by early 1945 the Japanese have been gradually contained and forced

16:06 back into the immediate region of their home islands while strategic bombing is is pounding Japan into submission right and you have a submarine campaign and sort of the nooses is constricting there in this island-hopping campaign right as it’s traditionally called so you know that was a great overview thank you I

16:27 wish all those battles are just so interesting I wish we could you know go have time for each one so so let’s go to Eugene and so what was important about a Jima Wyatt why did Americans feel like that a stepping stone that is really important

16:47 well much of this has to do with one aircraft one of the most important aircraft also the 20th century the b-29 were Boeing 29 in Superfortress the bomber which was absolutely necessary to carry strategic bombing to the Japanese home islands the distances in the Pacific were huge in very different from

17:11 Europe in Europe the b-17 could carry the load in Japan they needed this new aircraft that b-29 to carry the load to bomb Japanese military installations and also Japanese cities and there was mute is really crucial to success in an ultimate victory to prepare the way for the invasion of Japan proper the problem

17:33 was by this point in early 1945 the b-29 have to take a pretty significant detour in order to get to Japan and the detour around the island chain that included Eva Jima and so American military planners the side that capturing Eva

17:54 Jima will be necessary to create another staging point for the strategic bombing of Japan but also a place where b-29s that are returning from the bombing of Japan if they’ve been heavily damaged which many of them were can have a place to make emergency landings that save their air crews so they knew that the

18:16 Ujima was very heavily defended volcanic island they knew it was a natural defensive terrain but that was viewed as being worth the price in order to to get that aircraft staging point yeah and and they’re in for a really tough bad like you you alluded to it with the defense’s

18:37 so can you give us some sense of the nature the fighting there and and how how the fighting takes place over the course you know of the island so you a dream as I mentioned as volcanic island it’s black sand is honeycombed with with

19:01 tunnels with caves it’s dominated by mouse Suribachi but Mount Suribachi you know itself is not really necessarily the most important military point in the island it’s it’s symbolic but it’s it’s doesn’t bring control of the island just by capturing Mount Suribachi so the Marines

19:21 who have been doing most of the heavy lifting so far on the Pacific are designated for this landing at Iwo Jima they come ashore on these black sand beaches with a very steep you know very very steep angle to try to work their

19:42 way up that off of the beaches and inland the Japanese defenders have dug in been digging in for months and they hit the Americans very hard they’ve got artillery they’ve got machine guns they’ve got mines and booby traps and

20:05 they forced the Marines to fight for every single foot of ground the American naval bombardment has not had much of an effect which is shocking but the Japanese are so well dug in that it’s almost impossible to get to them so we must pay dug in you don’t mean a five foot trench I mean they’re they’re

20:25 underground or in caves and so that’s what yeah they you they make use of the islands natural features to to give them shelter so it’s practically impossible to get to them Marines capture Mount Suribachi fairly early on and there’s that dramatic flag raising that photographed which actually

20:47 wasn’t the initial flag racing but was a second flag raising and of course we’ve heard of that movie letters from Iwo Jima that documents much of that which was a great movie but no the fighting is by no means over they see Marines across

21:07 the islands see the flag raising in Mount Suribachi and that does a lot for the morale but then they have to get down to the fighting to recapture to capture the rest of the island and it takes months for them to work their way across it had very heavy casualties to the point that American casualties

21:29 actually outnumber the Japanese casualties which is pretty unusual they have to kill little literally some every single one of some 20,000 Japanese on the island before they finally take possession and they do serve kar komak I’m wrong by going cave to cave and fortification to fortification just with

21:52 satchel charges and flamethrowers and machine guns and hand grenades I mean this is some pretty brutal fighting I had the honor a few months ago to me woody Williams who is Marine who fought on Iwo Jima he’s one of the two last surviving Medal of Honor recipients from World War two the United States he is an

22:15 amazing and wonderful man and he took out several Japanese emplacements and bunkers with central charges with flamethrowers in particular and he said he doesn’t even remember how he did it there was those individual acts of heroism that I think remained shining examples for us today right and there so

22:35 thank you I preparing that and I think there’s some sense in the different books I’ve read that it’s really only those aggressive tactics that really in the end save lives even as difficult as it was because that the best worked you know that the artillery and the bombing and kind of a slow use of firepower just

22:57 did not cut it it took the individual acts to to really defeat young there was nothing else that they could do and I think almost anybody else except for the United States Marines would have would have been almost impossible for them to get it done but they did it interesting so after all this horrible fighting and

23:19 really brutal fighting fighting for every yard and and lots of dud son on both sides what lessons does the United States learn from especially kind of the Japanese will to fight ano Jima and and what lessons is it going to use from

23:39 miyajima and then soon after that at Okinawa in in they’re thinking about strategy well you a Jima and and I think even more okinawa which kicked off in April Todd the Americans the price that they were going to have to pay if they were going to invade the Japanese home islands on on Okinawa the Japanese

24:02 military also fights to the death that you also have thousands of Japanese civilians who commit suicide rather than accept occupation though they have had drilled into their brains for so long that too for the Emperor and to die for Japan is a far nobler thing than to accept surrender and they’ve been told that the

24:25 Americans are barbarians that they’ll murder their children that they’ll do terrible things and this has entirely been drilled into their mind so they’re also aware that the same lessons have been taught to Japanese civilians in the home islands it’s something that we we often forget the Japanese told their civilians that you are combatants in

24:46 this war you are not on the other side of a barrier you should never expect safety it is your job whether you’re a nine-year-old kid or you’re a 95 year old farmer or whoever you are if the Americans come ashore it’s your job to kill them and to fight to the absolute death every single Japanese man woman

25:08 and child you know the arrogance realize this they realize two things one is that an invasion of the Japanese home islands could cause up to a million American and British and other allied casualties but the other flip side of that is it could absolutely destroy Japan itself I mean

25:30 the Japanese people could be wiped out in an invasion of the home islands so the the issue there is what are you going to do is is there an alternative is there any other way to end this war without an absolute apocalypse which is what was staring us in the face

25:51 frankly and and in fact and we didn’t even mention the you know there kamikaze attacks at sea and the Banzai charges on the islands he’s sort of suicidal charges really taught certain lessons to them and and correct me if I’m wrong but they were jacking Japan was actually

26:13 mobilizing the civilian population that were a guerrilla war and persistence and and fight and and they were also pulling in divisions from from China to to fight for the homeland the Japanese were fully determined fight to the death for their home islands there there was not even a

26:34 consideration at this point in the spring and summer 45 that they might seek negotiation and thank you for mentioning the Kamikaze so you know the the kamikaze attacks in 1945 and especially at Okinawa began to take a fearsome toll these are Japanese suicide

26:54 pilots who fly their aircraft into American ships took a fearsome so toll in American sailors lives devastating so this so this you know the American policymakers you know this is this is what they’re looking at when you know they’re looking at your GM on Okinawa on the kamikaze attacks and that fierce

27:16 fighting to the last man and civilian suicides all of this was kind of evidence building up their mind of what the invasion of Japan would look like that’s right it’s a terrifying thought the war has been going on already for for four years for the Americans for six years for the Europeans and for the people of

27:39 Asia it’s been going on since the early 1930s and it almost looks like there could be no end inside it right and I guess it’s interesting to note the the war in the in Europe does end in early May and so the United States itself is starting to mobilize more men for the Pacific and ship them to different part

28:01 of the world well meanwhile in the middle of all this the United States is secretly developing an atomic bomb right with the Manhattan Project and and you wrote you know a great component on that as well a great narrative and so can you tell us again in a nutshell a little bit

28:22 about its development and its significance the origins of the Manhattan projects are in the 1930s and in 1938 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin a German scientist named Otto on really discovers nuclear fission and

28:42 is able to divide uranium and it’s pretty clear from this point that once these initial discoveries are made and discoveries are within months away of learning how to create an atomic chain reaction that some type of atomic

29:03 weapons are feasible that they’re inside the question is who’s going to get them and initially the fear is not so much fear about Japan or the Soviet Union but Nazi Germany this Hans discovery took place in Germany after all in Berlin ruled by Adolf Hitler and the Germans

29:24 themselves are once they learn about it they’re determined that they are going to acquire nuclear weapons in the United States and and Great Britain and France of course this creates panic near panic in particular some emigres scientists in the United States led led by Leo Szilard

29:46 and by Enrico Fermi go get Albert Einstein and did him to work with them to write a letter to President Franklin D Roosevelt saying look this is going to happen the question is can we afford to allow Nazi Germany to acquire atomic

30:06 weapons FDR responds positively he says this calls for action there’s something we need to do something about it but for the next two years in the United States or a member of the country isn’t at war yet it just descends into bureaucratic ineptitude nothing is happening and in theory they’re supposed to be developing

30:28 a project to acquire nuclear weapons but but it’s not really working the shift of the action the the scene of the action shifts the Great Britain in Great Britain being in the war being under pressure scientists in Great Britain are the ones who over the next few years carry out the essential work to discover

30:49 that atomic weapons are feasible this goes on into 1942 they’re finally able to convince the Americans to to get moving now that the United States is in the war the Manhattan Project is created the term Manhattan comes from a US Army

31:10 Corps of Engineers engineering district that in Manhattan that was the original kind of oversight agency and so the project was named after that it went on to become a code word what you see over the next few years is a marriage of American scientific power and industrial

31:33 might with British know-how British and American scientists collaborate and work in the United States is carried on at a number of different sites from Oak Ridge and Tennessee to Hanford Washington and Washington State in Canada as well several other sites the University of

31:53 Chicago is where the first chain reaction is created by Enrico Fermi in 42 but then especially at Los Alamos in New Mexico under Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues carry out the the major work the Germans have become detoured at

32:13 the same time so as it turns out by 1942 1943 the Germans because of a number of mistakes that they made in their scientific research are no longer real competitors so the Americans don’t know that the Manhattan Project really kicks off there’s a development of two

32:34 different weapons one based on uranium-235 and another based on a new element of plutonium and so a little boy and fat man to different bomb designs are developed and they are finally through a series of tests work of a team

32:58 called the 509 composite group Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets who are the Flyers you’re gonna be flying these the b-29 adapted for this use through several different several different points of convergence that bombs are ready for development by the summer of 1945 and of course the the

33:20 Trinity test and the Trinity explosion takes place on July 16th 1945 it’s the first atomic explosion in the history of the world it’s a terrifying thing but by this point Germany is out of the war the war in Europe is over but the atomic

33:42 bombs offer an option to end the war in Asia quickly and this and President Harry Truman learns about this when he was over in Potsdam in it in a summit you know right yeah well here Harry Truman was aware of it once he became president after FDR dies on April 12th

34:04 of 1945 so Harry Truman is is made aware of the Manhattan Project he then learns about the Trinity test you’re right when you that when he’s at Potsdam and learns that now this weapon is fully tested and in our hands he thinks he’s going to surprise Joseph Stalin premier the

34:24 Soviet Union by telling him we have this new super weapon as it turns out Stalin already knew because he’s had a he has spies in the manhattan project including Klaus Fuchs who’s in Los Alamos so he’s not really too surprised but now the the question moving forward is it’s July of

34:45 1945 what are we going to do are we going to use this weapon yeah and that leads me to my next question is can you can you give us some sense of this very momentous decision about using those bombs in a war against Japan you know how how was this decision made where there where there may be

35:07 alternatives are there variables that could have been taken into account or maybe some people argued or was there was there any debate can you give us some sense of that drama in the dirt instigate and and Harry Truman creates a couple of committees one to determine whether these bombs should be

35:27 used into its where they should be used the the British by prior agreement have to approve the use of the atomic weapons as well so they’ve they’ve you know come to that determination that yes they can be used so now the question is should they be used what are the other options

35:48 and they’re just really aren’t any good options one of them would be to starve Japan into submission because the Japanese merchant fleet is destroyed it’s been entirely destroyed by submarines the problem with that is of course that could take months it could take years there’s no way of knowing

36:11 whether would actually work the the allotment of resources would be incredible and the Japanese seemed they could be willing to starve their own people to death you could have Lin’s if people died of starvation another factor that’s this coming in is this is a case of be careful what you wish for is when

36:32 Roosevelt was president he had really been pressing Stalin to invade Japanese Holdings in Asia and only the Soviets agreed in August to launch their assault into Manchuria Korea and the rest perhaps all the way through China there would be no way of stopping them so you have the prospect of Soviet domination

36:54 of the mainland but the main thing is the the casualties that we’re facing in the military the only serious kind of objection the only serious other option that’s offered is ironically by the United States military in the United States Air Force many of them argue just let us carry on with strategic bombing

37:16 I mean they’ve already burned out Tokyo they’ve already burned out many other serious cities with conventional bombs fire bombs they say can keep doing this and the Japanese are gonna have to surrender anyway and we shouldn’t we shouldn’t drop the bombs General Dwight David Eisenhower who has finished his campaign in Europe is

37:39 appalled I mean he thinks that the bombs should not be used he thinks the United States should not be the first to use a weapon like this because it would it would end up taking away the moral high ground that he felt that they enjoyed but ultimately Truman and the scientists the scientists at Los Alamos as well as his other political

38:00 and military advisers agree that the bombs need to be used and they need to be used without prior explicit warning and they need to be used quickly to bring this to an end the decision is made to hit a Japanese cities where

38:21 there are four military facilities and cities that have not been destroyed yet Hiroshima is chosen as the first target the second target initially is going to be the city of Osaka which is a port city but as it turns out that’s not the

38:41 one that gets hit first bomb is dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 1945 the Japanese do not respond immediately to this so the decision is made to drop the second bomb first they attempt to hit Osaka but cloud cover prevents that so they go to Nagasaki instead which is

39:04 bombed on August 9th and it takes that second bomb the Japanese capitulate and we at the end of the World War two yeah and they’ve made their could essentially have been a third bomb if if it had reached that point but at that point the

39:25 Americans are able to churn out one bomb every few weeks and there is another bomb that’s on the way warming in Hiroshima we still don’t know how many people were killed but her ocean I think is something like 140 thousand people are dead by the end of the year from both

39:47 immediate and after effects Nagasaki is somewhat less because of the nature of the terrain the Japanese military is still ready to continue the fight many fanatical Japanese officers say we’re all going to die anyway so let’s keep fighting it’s the intervention of the Emperor Hirohito who has remained

40:09 silent up to this point that ultimately forces the Japanese decision to surrender okay and you don’t villain to respond to this but you know obviously the soldier important and and you can maybe just in terms of some concluding thoughts and reflection I mean obviously this will then you know you mentioned the Soviet Union and the atomic bomb we

40:30 get you know we get all the suffering or over – but we immediately spear launch into this Cold War and an our nuclear arms race and so for it so you know the world is very much changed by all this so if you can maybe offer some reflections on the the war itself and maybe some of the courage and sacrifice

40:52 it took to to defeat Imperial Japan but then also maybe some of its lasting effects it’s important to remember the the mood in 1945 and the United States was not one of euphoria when I think we

41:12 look back on it now and we say oh we won the war right so everybody’s celebrating in the streets right everybody’s happy no that is not the mood at all the mood is one fear weather mood is one of depression know the losses we’ve lost hundreds of thousands killed in action

41:33 we have a world in ruins in Europe and in Asia the yes were the most powerful country in the world but the world is in ashes so what’s what’s the future look like we have a rising

41:54 devastated but still very powerful and very angry and very hateful a regime in the Soviet Union and we’re facing the possibility of conflict with them and a conflict in a world that’s now going to be armed with nuclear weapons is within a few years the Soviets get those

42:14 weapons too so when the perspective of the time it did not look like World War two that necessarily solved anything and certainly the lesson of World War one was not a good lesson we thought it had been the war to end all wars and it was so for years decades after World War two

42:34 we we faced the possibility of renewed conflict we now know how the Cold War ended we’re now facing a world with new challenges young people are going to have to deal with them in generations going forward so the the example of world war two is is one I think that we

43:00 can find in looking at individuals in individual stories in what national unity can accomplish what togetherness can accomplish what recognition of the first principles the founding principles upon which the United States was based embracing those and recognizing how

43:22 those could fuel a war effort that was greater than anything this country had ever seen and ultimately bringing the country to victory yes it didn’t solve all the world’s problems but it put us in a place where we could ultimately we could rebuild ultimately we could find

43:43 hope and I think those are those are lessons that are really relevant today as as a nation attempts to miu move forward into a new era well on that wonderful new ed L’Engle thank you so much for joining us today a very enlightening conversation I’m sure

44:03 our teachers and students will get a lot out of it and we’ll get a tremendous amount out of your components that you wrote for us so again thanks for your contributions my pleasure thank you Stan and everyone can go to our website at www.911.gov happiness and read Edie

44:24 Rangel spine contributions as well as the hundreds of other narratives and stories that are part of that dramatic new textbook thank you very much you