"Launching Liberty" by Doug Most (2025)

This is an outstanding book about the Liberty ships which were so important to winning the Second World War. This will become known as the definitive book on the subject. A cast of real life characters you'll never forget.

Henry Kaiser was a key player in taking the simple design plan proferred by the British government and turning it into reality.  Britain was losing more ships to the U-boats than she could build and turned to America to deliver 60 ships in 1941/42. Kaiser, known for such projects as 200 miles of highway in Cuba during the 1920's, and 3 major dams in the U.S. during the 1930's, delivered 200. By the 3rd year his partnership with Todd Shipyards and others on both our East and West Coasts, he was delivering 200 and finally a ship every 7 days. 

Working with President Roosevelt, Admiral Land and a host of others, they first had to build the shipyards to handle the job. He brought every project in under budget and ahead of schedule. He built cities to accommodate the workers, transforming the land in order to help win the war. 

Best anecdote in the book is when his mother asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He was 8 years old at the time and said he wanted a baby sister. It was already Thanksgiving and his mother told him there wasn't enough time between then and the holiday to do that. He told her that his dad always said, "You can do anything if you put enough men on the job...." And that is how he and others, too numerous to mention here, approached the task of building these ships which President Roosevelt called "the ugly ducklings." 

Two of these Liberty ships are still around and operational, including the S.S. John Brown, ported in Baltimore. My Dad went to Maritime High School aboard her when she was berthed in Manhattan just after the war. 

A fascinating story of resolve and determination, this book will keep you turning the pages, racing with the same rapidity as the men and women who built these ships.

"Eliot Ness" by Douglas Perry (2014)

Everyone is familiar with the story of the St. Valentine Day Massacre of 1929 in Chicago, as well as Eliot Ness; the iconic leader of the “Untouchables.” And even if you are too young to have watched the TV show “The Untouchables” with Robert Stack you are probably familiar with the movie of the same name, starring Kevin Costner and Sean Connery. But that story is just a small slice of who Eliot Ness was.

 Though he is chiefly remembered for bringing Al Capone to justice in Chicago, his story didn’t end there. He did a whole lot more in the 1930’s when Ohio was still in the grips of the bootleggers even after Prohibition had been repealed. In addition there was a huge illegal gambling syndicate run by the organized crime gangs, which bought violence and degradation to the city on a scale with the 1920’s in Chicago.

The author has done a superb job in bringing the story of the Eliot Ness;  as well as the story of Prohibition and the gangs who ran the bootlegging and the speakeasies; to life. But since we all know most of the Chicago story I will be concentrating more on the Cleveland part of the story. But first there are some misconceptions to clear up.

Eliot Ness’ time in Chicago was at the tail end of the roaring twenties; he actually took command of the Untouchables about a year after the St. Valentine Day Massacre in 1929. He was not a teetotaler by any means; and even delivered confiscated cases of booze to his old fraternity house. He was a good dancer and a constant flirt who enjoyed the attention of women. He was married twice. In short; he was an average sort of guy.

In Chicago he became the legend we know him as; he battled the biggest gangster and bought him down through a series of daring raids and economic cunning. But the troubles he would face in Cleveland were far more entrenched with the Police Department and the Mayor’s office both on the take. It’s hard to dislodge corruption when the very leaders you report to are part of the problem.

In Cleveland Ness honed his social skills; battling crime with psychology rather than battering rams. Working with Boy’s Town he was able to turn over several unused police barracks which were made into homes and schools for the boys. He also pressured the older gangs to saty away from the kids or risk the consequences.

Forming a squad of obscure police officers from the suburbs, and recruiting new police cadets, Ness formed a squad known not as the Untouchables; as was the case in Chicago; but rather the “Unknowable’s”; as they were virtually unknown to the criminals or their fellow officers who were on the take. This put them in a unique position for gathering information on the gangs operating the bootlegging and numbers rackets.

Most people think that illegal whiskey went out with Prohibition; but it didn’t. Not just a backwoods, mountain type of thing; the mob made millions off of moonshine whiskey in the decades after Repeal. Some moon shining still goes on today, but not to the extent that it did then.

This is a book which will fill you in on the real Eliot Ness and what he was really like. The author obviously spent considerable time unearthing just about every article written about Ness and culled the memoirs of the people who were involved with him on both sides of the law.  A new look into an old subject can be very enlightening. And so it goes with this book.

The Fall of the Rising Sun

Ask most people and they will cite September 2^nd as VJ Day, which stands for “Victory Over Japan” in the parlance of the Second World War. Earlier in the year the United States had celebrated the end of hostilities in Europe with VE Day. Technically VJ Day is a separate occasion entirely from Japan’s formal surrender in Tokyo Bay in September aboard the USS Missouri, or the Mighty Mo’ as her crew affectionately called her.

As chronicled in “My Hitch in Hell” by Lester I. Tenney the war actually ended about a day after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, some 35 miles from the coal mine where he was enslaved as a prisoner of war. Within days these men were roaming freely about in Japan, accepting the informal surrender of all the Japanese they encountered. The two governments had agreed to a cessation of all hostilities while the arrangements were being made for a formal “instrument”, or document of surrender, to be drawn up.That was the document signed aboard the Missouri on September 2, 1945 and shown below.

The Rising Sun flag was the equivalent of the Confederate Battle Flag in that it was not, nor ever was, the official flag of the nation it served. The Japanese flag is the same now as it was before, during and after the war. Only the Rising Sun flag, which denoted imperialism, was outlawed after the Japanese surrender. The only difference is that the South did not get to continue flying its nation’s “Stars and Bars” after the war simply because that nation had ceased to exist.

Japan went on to prosper under the direction of an American occupation, which lasted about 15 years. And, she has been a staunch ally ever since. Here in America, on the other hand, divisions still exist over the outcome of our own Civil War, now almost 150 years past.

The Rising Sun flag fell after the war with Japan was over; while here in the United States, the Confederate Battle Flag can still be seen on everything from cigarette lighters and tee-shirts, to bumper stickers and even tattoos, proving that; although the war here may have ended, unlike the war with Japan; our own battle still rages within.