Ok, this isn’t a rant, just more of an exclimation of suprise on something so interesting. I mean if I knew this fact back in the day, lil Conan might have done his homework.
The fact that I’m getting to is that in World War II Americans were killed on the mainland by enemy actions. I saw this on the History Channel a few days ago when watching a program featuring one of my college’s history professors. Of course I couldn’t come here with just an excuse of “I saw it somewhere, so it MUST be true!”, so I found a link describing the action.
I understand that the only casualties occured when “six picnickers were killed in Oregon when a balloon bomb they dragged from the woods exploded.” but I still would have found it interesting that we weren’t completely safe with the two Oceans. (The nazi subs are another nice lil fact that they omitted)
I know that the 6 that died is not even worthy of comparison to the tens of millions who died in the war, but an interesting tidbit of information I found out.
In fairness to your teachers, World War II was pretty big, and history books have a lot to cover.
The baloon bombing of the Pacific northwest, the Nazi submarines off the East Coast – even the Japanese attack on the Aleutians were pretty tangential. But if you want a real shock, go back and read some of the threads on the use of the atomic bomb for a good handle on what typical Dopers do and don’t know.
Dear child, you have just had the first of many revelations which show that the people to whom you look for guidance are often no better, no smarter than yourself. As you go through the rest of high school, you will see many of your teachers fumbling through material which they do not know, struggling to keep in place the mask of All Knowing Authority.
Small children, and the dim ones among us, sometimes never realize it, but many teachers are little more educated than the fellow who pumps your gas-- perhaps less so, if he’s an avid reader. All some of them have is a piece of paper signifying they have managed to graduate from college and the aura of Teacher, which stops most from questioning even their most perposterous statements.
My son, this may be the first epiphany of many. A good deal of people should know what they’re talking about and appear to know what they’re talking about, but in reality, have no clue.
Be patient with them. They deeply resent being challenged, and as a high school student, you have very little power. At this point, all that speaking up will do is serve to make your teachers hostile to you. Keep these things and ponder them in your heart. Read on your own. Watch educational programs. Secretly question ever statement you hear.
Learn but do not flaunt your knowledge, especially to those who have power over you. Restraint is a great part of wisdom. You’ll have to do this for the rest of your life, but do not despair. You’ll find people who appreciate your mind, but they are like diamonds in the sand-- few and far between.
I wish you luck. You have a hard road before you. Life is not pleasant for the intelligent, but it does have its rewards.
The German and Japanese attempts to attack Americans in our homeland make for fascinating reading because they were so . . . well, pathetic. We were a lot safer, in those days, with the two oceans. But never completely safe. See Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, by Michael Dobbs, for the fascinating story of the futile Nazi attempt to subvert our economy. I don’t know of any good books on the Japanese balloon bombs, but if you’re into travelling to obscure historic sites, there’s a monument to the victims in Lake County, Oregon.
No use in blaming your teachers, though. If you learned absolutely everything that was the least bit interesting in school, what would be the point of living the rest of your life?
They were called “fugu” bombs and Japan thought they would bring the US to its knees, trembling in fear of bombs that would drop out of the sky without warning. Yeah, I know, not quite how it worked out. There were thousands and thousands of these sent towards the US. Most of them probably crashed somewhere in the rockies, and may or may not have exploded, so there is some concern that there might be a bunch of them out there just waiting to get found by some unlucky hikers.
One of the reasons they didn’t get much play in the history books is that their existance was actually classified by the US government, so in cases where they did hit something (I think one blew up a barn, in addition to the Oregon incident) it was hushed up and blamed on a military training exercise.
I first read about them in a book which I think was called “Lost secrets of WW II” (or something close to that) which has a lot of similar things you aren’t likely to find in your high school history books.
Any good teacher is delighted when a student does the research to find a mistake in their information. I know I get a real kick out of it when one of my students finds a mistake I’ve made and backs it up with a reliable cite. It shows I’m teaching them how to find knowledge on their own, and that it’s important to question and verify what you’re learning.
If you point it out politely and positively “Hey, Mr. Smith, I was curious about what you were saying, so I went and looked it up, and I found out…” then you’ll make your teacher’s day.
In high school, I caught my otherwise on-the-ball English teacher saying that in Macbeth, “Birnam Wood” was a person, and I felt so proud when I figured out what the phrase really meant and shared my discovery with her.
Unless, of course, your teacher is a jackass, and I admit, not knowing your teacher, that this is also a possibility.