Search results for ""Author Robert K. Sutton""

Now a green, open space enjoyed by residents, Fort Hunt, Virginia – about 15 miles south of Washington, DC. – was the site of one of the highest-level, clandestine operations during World War II. Shortly after entering World War II, the U.S. military realised that it had to work on exploiting any advantages it might gain on the Axis Powers. One part of these endeavours was to establish a secret facility not too close, but also not too far from the Pentagon, which would interrogate and eavesdrop on the highest-level Nazi prisoners and also translate and analyse captured German war documents. The complex established at Fort Hunt was known by the code name: PO Box 1142.The American servicemen who interrogated German prisoners or translated captured German documents were young, bright, hardworking, and absolutely dedicated to their work. Many of them were Jews, who had escaped Nazi Germany as children – some had come to America with their parents, others had escaped alone, but their experiences and those they had been forced to leave behind meant they all had personal motivation to do whatever they could to defeat Nazi Germany. They were perfect for the difficult and complex job at hand. They never used corporal punishment in interrogations of German soldiers but developed and deployed dozens of tricks to gain information.The Allies won the war against Hitler for a host of reasons, discussed in hundreds of volumes. This is the first book to describe the intelligence operations at PO Box 1142 and their part in that success. It will never be known how many American lives were spared, or whether the war ended sooner with the programs at Fort Hunt, but they doubtless did make a difference. Moreover these programs gave the young Jewish men stationed there the chance to combat the evil that had befallen their families.

Read more less

Now a green open space enjoyed by residents, Fort Hunt, Virginia, about 15 miles south of Washington, DC. was the site of one of the highest-level, clandestine operations during World War II.Shortly after the United States entered World War II, the US military realised that it had to work on exploiting any advantages it might gain on the Axis Powers. One part of these endeavors was to establish a secret facility not too close, but also not too far from the Pentagon which would interrogate and eavesdrop on the highest-level Nazi prisoners and also translate and analyze captured German war documents.That complex was established at Fort Hunt, known by the code name: PO Box 1142. The American servicemen who interrogated German prisoners or translated captured German documents were young, bright, hard-working, and absolutely dedicated to their work. Many of them were Jews, who had escaped Nazi Germany as children - some had come to America with their parents, others had escaped alone, but their experiences and those they had been forced to leave behind meant they all had personal motivation to do whatever they could to defeat Nazi Germany. They were perfect for the difficult and complex job at hand. They never used corporal punishment in interrogations of German soldiers but developed and deployed dozens of tricks to gain information.The Allies won the war against Hitler for a host of reasons, discussed in hundreds of volumes. This is the first book to describe the intelligence operations at PO Box 1142 and their part in that success. It will never be known how many American lives were spared, or whether the war ended sooner with the programs at Fort Hunt, but they doubtless did make a difference. Moreover these programs gave the young Jewish men stationed there the chance to combat the evil that had befallen them and their families.

Read more less

A town at the center of the United States becomes the site of an ongoing struggle for freedom and equality.In May, 1854, Massachusetts was in an uproar. A judge, bound by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, had just ordered a young African American man who had escaped from slavery in Virginia and settled in Boston to be returned to bondage in the South. An estimated fifty thousand citizens rioted in protest. Observing the scene was Amos Adams Lawrence, a wealthy Bostonian, who “waked up a stark mad Abolitionist.” As quickly as Lawrence waked up, he combined his fortune and his energy with others to create the New England Emigrant Aid Company to encourage abolitionists to emigrate to Kansas to ensure that it would be a free state.The town that came to bear Lawrence’s name became the battleground for the soul of America, with abolitionists battling pro-slavery Missourians who were determined to make Kansas a slave state. The onset of the Civil War only escalated the violence, leading to the infamous raid of William Clarke Quantrill when he led a band of vicious Confederates (including Frank James, whose brother Jesse would soon join them) into town and killed two hundred men and boys.Stark Mad Abolitionists shows how John Brown, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, Sam Houston, and Abraham Lincoln all figure into the story of Lawrence and “Bleeding Kansas.” The story of Amos Lawrence’s eponymous town is part of a bigger story of people who were willing to risk their lives and their fortunes in the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality.

Read more less