Abstract
It stormed the night we left the pier. The sea was especially rough. Everybody was exhausted and still angry about having had to stand in the rain for three hours, waiting for the train. We tried to relax in the common areas and vent some steam. Cards always help do that. I was virtually broke, though. I only had 25 cents in my pocket. A man named Daniels, who later became the commanding officer of my squadron, joined me, putting in 25 cents of his own. Together, we made that half-dollar earn us 135 dollars!
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Notes
Lee “Buddy” Archer probably became the country’s first black ace in World War II, having flown with the 332nd and 302nd fighter squadrons. He is officially recorded as having 4 victories, but he probably had many more that remain “unconfirmed.” He was a supremely confident pilot, but never too comfortable in the air, since he believed arrogance inspired sloppiness. See Gail Buckley, American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm (New York: Random House, 2001), 293. Lt. Hall did receive the Distinguished Flying Cross for being the first black to shoot down a German aircraft. According to some sources, however, Hall only shot down a total of three planes.
See United States Airforce Fiftieth Anniversary of World War II Commemoration Committee, “Tuskegee Airman Fact Sheet” (Washington, D.C.: HQDA, SACC, Pentagon, 1995).
In 1940, after the German invasion of France, the Franco-German armistice divided the country into two zones. Some Frenchmen believed that if they supported Hitler, they would be able to eliminate the communists and socialists who had assumed power in the government. These Frenchmen, many of whom were part of Vichy France, were responsible for shipping thousands of Jews to death camps, for being political collaborators with the Nazis, and for sending countless numbers of their fellow citizens to jail. One of the seminal works on the subject remains Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France Old Guard and New Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972).
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© 2004 Ben Vinson III
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Vinson, B. (2004). Atlantic Sound. In: Flight. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981448_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981448_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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