On a Bad First Impression

First impressions are hard to get over for good or ill. Sometimes, when you meet a person, something about that person bothers you or makes you feel uncomfortable; that person somehow sets off alarm bells in your psyche. That’s what happened in September, 1918, at a dinner in London, England. World War 1 was winding down; the Allies, led by the United States, Britain, and France, were pushing Germany back on the Western Front after over four years of stalemate in the trenches. By November 11, 1918, the war would be over.

A young American government administrator in the Department of the Navy had come across the Atlantic to assist in the final preparations for the end of the war. He had taken a tour of the areas in England where staging bases were located. Then, donning a steel helmet, he was given a tour of the areas behind the constantly moving front lines near Verdun, in France. There, he saw the huge piles of ammunition, bombs, materiel, and food supplies–and also the piles and piles of coffins and dead bodies produced by the war. While he never came under fire, he got enough of an idea of the logistical nightmare that not only prosecuting the war was but also how difficult ending it would be.

He had been sent there on orders of the White House. President Woodrow Wilson needed someone to be his eyes and ears in Europe, someone he trusted. And the young administrator had put together quite the dossier of what it would take for the demobilization of the war effort and the re-establishment of peacetime order and daily life (later on, a man named Herbert Hoover would be in charge of one part of this post-war plan by organizing food relief for Europe after years of having almost no farm harvests because of the war).

Upon his return to London after his tour of the front, this American official had been staying at one of the city’s swankiest hotels, the Ritz. Among the meetings that had been scheduled for him there were appointments with the head of the British Navy and even had some time with King George V, a meeting at which he expressed President Wilson’s admiration for the king. One of the last meetings on the administrator’s agenda before returning to the United States was to meet with one of Britain’s chief war administrators, another navy appointee like himself. The meeting was to be conducted over a supper at the famous Grey’s Inn in London.

The dinner didn’t go well. To begin with the Englishman was late. When he finally arrived for the meeting and supper, it appeared that he had been drinking. The American was underwhelmed. In a diary entry, he later wrote that the Englishman was, in his words, “a stinker…[who] was lording over all of us.” The Englishman seemed to give the impression that the Americans, and this American in particular, were somehow beneath him. And that chagrined the American no end.

So, it’s important what first impressions can do to relationships. Funny, that. In this case the two men later became close friends. The American man later told the Englishman, “You know, I didn’t like you at all when we first met.” That surprised the Englishman because his first impression of the American wasn’t negative.

In fact, years later, Winston Churchill told Franklin Roosevelt that he didn’t remember the meeting at all.

On Concentration Camps

Some topics almost hurt to even think about. This is one of those topics. The abject, heartless, evil, and inhumane (and inhuman) treatment that occurred there is almost beyond our comprehension as a species. And that’s a major reason we need to be reminded of these supreme examples of human inhumanity.

Let’s start with some facts. The system that created the camps was overly racist. There was nothing hidden or deceptive about that. While some others were swept up in the net of the camps, they were created to imprison specific ethnicities and groups. That can’t be denied (although many in recent years have tried to do so). And, while many of the victims who perished in the camps were murdered outright, we tend to forget that there were oh so many others who died of disease and malnutrition.

You see, the camps were poorly built and the supply chains that were supposed to give them even the bare needs of food and even water were often disrupted due to other miliary and national priorities and then by the war itself. The men who ran the camps had little interest in insuring that the camp internees were seen to or provided for. Thus, basic sanitation was non-existent. People were crowded into spaces designed for several times fewer than the number who eventually were placed there. As supplies dwindled nationally as the war continued, the government’s position was that the military and then their “own” people should have the priority of receiving proper nutrition. These “other” people who were in the camps? Well, not much thought was given to them regarding any relief at all.

Thus, thousands died of having no food or water, and thousands more from typhus, dysentery, and other diseases that could have been easily preventable if proper rationing had been instituted nationwide and if simple, proper sanitation elements were employed. But that was the choice the government made, so please don’t argue that these deaths by starvation and disease were somehow “accidental” or even beyond the government’s ability to help.

Some of the first reports on the dire conditions in the camps that made it back to the shores of Britain were made by a woman named Emily Hobhouse. It seems that she had managed to get a tour of one of the camps because the administrator simply didn’t care who saw what was happening to those placed there. In fact, Hobhouse later reported, he seemed rather proud of the fact that these people were suffering and dying. She was understandably shocked and stunned by what she saw, by the attitude of the camp commandant, and by the guards who stood passively by as people fell dead at their feet.

Hobhouse made a report to members of Parliament during the war. But most members who heard about her story, while outraged to a degree over what she reported, said that there was little they could do. That was a continent away, they argued, and they had no ability to make changes. Besides, compared to the war itself, the conditions of those in the concentration camps were way, way down on the list of British government priorities. So, nothing was done.

Finally, the war ended. The camps were broken up. But the damage had been done. The incredibly high rate of deaths among those imprisoned stunned the outside world. The especially high morality rate among children shocked many the most. How could a civilized nation allow this to happen? Emily Hobhouse’s report was resurrected, and the Parliament debated what to do about those in charge of the camps, but nothing was done to punish or condemn the camp administrators.

And, to this day, we don’t know for sure how many Dutch and African men, women, and children died in the British concentration camps of the Second Boer War from 1899-1902.

On Lord Haw-Haw

During World War 2, the British public was eager to hear about their loved ones overseas. The British Empire’s great size meant that British soldiers and sailors were literally fighting all over the world, and, often, news about these fighters was slim at best. And that’s why the British public often turned to their radios, their “wireless” sets, to hear what they could about the condition of loved ones overseas. And, the person they turned to more and more as the war went on was known as Lord Haw-Haw.

You must remember that from 1940 until the early part of 1942, the British military and the British people were the only ones standing between the aggression of Nazi Germany and the United States. Until the US entered the war officially in December 1941, it was up to Britain to be the sole remaining democracy in Europe as Hitler had taken all of Europe that he wanted to take (and even began invading the Soviet Union in 1941). Britain’s back was against the wall. The Blitz, the systematic bombing of British cities by the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe), was hurting public morale. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and King George VI stood as stalwart reminders that the will of the people needed to remain strong as news of loss after loss came home to London and Manchester and Leicester and the other cities and towns and villages of the United Kingdom.

And people were hungry to know if their loved ones were alive. And that’s where Lord Haw-Haw’s broadcasts came in. You see, Lord Haw-Haw would go on the radio and tell people how British troops were doing. He’d detail where the various groups and armies were fighting. He’d read lists of casualties–killed, wounded, missing–and, for the families who were desperate to hear from their loved ones, they were ever so happy to finally get word as to where their soldiers and sailors were fighting and how they were doing.

Well, you might be thinking that this type of information would be dangerous to the secret strategies of the British high command as they were planning the war. These reports by Lord Haw-Haw were basically relaying information that the enemy could and might use. You’d be right. The government was furious that these broadcasts were being made, even if the families of the troops got comfort from them. But the government powers were powerless to stop them, interestingly.

The real name of Lord Haw-Haw was actually William Joyce, a man who had been born in the United States. Joyce and his family left the US when he was young and went to Ireland. There, he fought in the Irish War of Independence while still in his teens. Afterward, he was educated in England, receiving a university degree there. Then, for a time, Joyce worked as a teacher. He married a British woman named Margaret, and he received his residency.

When he was making his war-time broadcasts, Joyce tried to affect a nasally, upper-class British accent, and that’s where the nickname Lord Haw-Haw came from. One critic of his broadcasts said she imagined him having a monocle and a turned up nose and would be “snooty” if you met him in person. Actually, Joyce was blonde and thin and had a large scar on his cheek. He was good at different English accents having a good ear for imitation and having lived in the US, Ireland, and the UK.

And the British people tuned in. In droves. At the peak, it was estimated that over 18,000,000 British listeners heard Joyce’s voice weekly. And the reason the British government couldn’t stop Lord Haw-Haw as he told the whereabouts of British troops and read off his lists of casualties was that he was not broadcasting in the UK at all.

No, Lord Haw-Haw was a product of Joseph Goebbels’s Nazi propaganda machine because Joyce defected to Germany in 1939. And for his defection, for the damage he did to the British war effort, and because of the negative impact he had on British morale, William Joyce was hanged for treason by the British government in 1946.

On a Speech Therapist

A few years ago, the film The King’s Speech brought the story of George VI and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue, to the public’s attention. Logue found success helping the stuttering father of Queen Elizabeth with his life-long speech impediment. While Logue had no degrees or certifications and was thus dismissed by the profession as a quack, Dr. Felix Semon, on the other hand, was infinitely qualified as a speech therapist.

Semon lived and worked a generation before Logue, first in Germany and then in the United Kingdom. Technically, Dr. Semon was a laryngologist. That means he specialized in the breathing and formation of sound from what is commonly called the voice box. He practiced surgery as well as therapy to assist patients with such issues as paralysis of the throat and post-surgical voice recovery. His contributions to the field was recognized by King Edward VII (George VI’s grandfather) with royal honors.

One young man came to Dr. Semon in 1897 with a lisp. All his “s” sounds came out as “sh” sounds. Some other therapist had told the young man that he had a ligament attached to his tongue that forced his impediment. He came into Dr. Semon’s office to consult on the possibility of a surgery to correct the issue. After a short inspection of the youngster’s throat, Semon was astounded. There was no ligament, he told the young man. To put him under surgery could do permanent damage and possibly take away his voice all together. It was a good thing, Semon said, that the young man came his way before any rash decision was made.

This diagnosis and prognosis by the doctor came as such a relief. The mis-pronouncing of the “s” sound, while certainly noticeable, could be overcome, Semon said. Surgery wasn’t needed at all. The young man was greatly relieved. He came from a monied family, and speaking would be important in his chosen career. No, Semon told him, all he needed to do was to practice. He suggested saying, “The Spanish ships I cannot see for they are not in sight.” It was a practice the young man would recite for his whole life.

For his years of service to the nation and to his profession, Semon received a knighthood near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, and King Edward awarded him the title of Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1902. He retired in 1911 and enjoyed ten years of leisure before dying in his German homeland. Upon his death, he was recognized as one of the greatest therapists and surgeons in his field.

And the young man with the slight lisp? He also had great success in his chosen field.

You know him as Winston Churchill.