On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 00:19:54 -0800, Joseph Connors
wrote:

Thats very interesting. I never heard of this before. What is the source
on this? Thanks!


My source for this was an AP or Reuters story I read earlier in 2005,
sometime late spring or early summer (or thereabouts). There were two
stories that were published at roughly the same time. One was discussing
the addition of a German U-boat to (I believe) the Smithsonian archives and
one of the crewmen from that boat visiting the archive; the second story
discussed the incident I cited and indicated that a memorial plaque had
been erected for those fallen German crewmen. One of the relatives of one
of the U-boat victims expressed appreciation that this brought closure to
not knowing what had become of her relative. The story further indicated
that most interest was placed on German communication operators from the
U-boats because it was thought that they might have knowledge that could be
used.

Now, contrary to what those who disagree with my views may think, I was
not jumping up and down with glee when I read that story saying, "See! FDR
was worse than what the left is accusing the present administration of
doing!" Rather, I was extremely disappointed and saddened. I didn't want
my country to *ever* have engaged in activities that would be the
equivalent of what the Stalinists and Nazis were doing at the time, nor
what the Red Chinese and North Vietnamese and others would do in the
future. This was extremely disheartening. The story alluded to a very
methodical, pre-meditated plan regarding this incident -- this was not a
story any American should have viewed with anything other than revulsion.

However, I have spent a significant amount of time today trying to find
that story or a retraction. I can find neither; therefore, I must assume
that the original story I read was later retracted and no such incident
occured. Obviously, I cannot prove a negative, but I am going to assume
that this was an erroneous story about a non-existant incident. I will
gladly say that I was wrong about this incident -- as I indicated above,
the story brought no joy to my heart.

There is sufficient other information regarding FDR (of the other
elements on my list that you did not include in your quote, only one is
subject to speculation, that being FDR's probable negative effect on the
length and depth of the depression -- the other items have all been widely
and thorougly documented) to make my point. I find it a tremendous relief
that I *can't* find the substantiating story to go with the German U-Boat
crewmen item and will happily retract that from my list comments.



Mark & Juanita wrote:

2) Under FDR's watch, German submariners were tortured *to death*. Just to
see if they had any interesting information.


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+