Next Tuesday, 21 June 2022, I will be giving a fundraising lecture for the Folklore Society, founded in 1878, the oldest English-language folklore society in the world. Cornwall’s Knockers, Sea Monsters, and Pesky Piskies will be an overview of my research dealing with British folklore, producing my book, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (2018), which is too expensive, but will be released in paperback next month!

I'm finally reading Jonathan Sumption's epic on the Hundred Years War (well.. Volume 1 anyway) and I have complicated feelings about it. When it's good it's very good, but it's also 30 years old (a problem with a big multi volume history like this) and ideosyncratic in weird ways.

Whenever he comments on affairs beyond the HYW he can be quite spurious. Like at one point he suggests Philip IV was foolish to shut off trade with Flanders between 1302 and 1305 as if the province wasn't in open revolt. I don't think Sumption is ignorant of these issues, I think they just don't quite fit the narrative he wants. It's not an irredeemable flaw, but it would make me hesitant to recommend it as a broader history of the period rather than just a HYW book.

Also, in his introduction he says in the first instance he used letters/charters/etc and only chronicles as supporting evidence, and makes a dig about Froissart's reliability, and then the book is crammed with Froissart quotes. If you want to use Froissart then do but maybe don't shit on his reliability first? It's a bit messy.

For my current master's degree (digital humanities), I am doing research on the soldiers from a small French town during WW1. It is a mix of local and military history, genealogy, and also public history since I am aiming to present it to the people of the town. I am making a website to present everything. Some people gave me family documents such as photos and postcards.

There are 99 names on the monument to the dead, for a population of 2,300 in 1911. This number does not represent the total death toll for this town, nor were all the soldiers whose name is on the monument from that town. With the 1911 census, I made a list of 553 men who were of age to serve, though there were more than I haven't found yet, including two of my relatives. There are two aspects that I find very interesting with such a project:

The first is that it gives another perspective to the war. We know the statistics such as how many people we mobilized, how many were wounded and how many died. There are studies about the "average French soldier" (his age, regional and social background, how long he spent on the frontline, etc.). But, diving into their lives, from birth to death or post-war life is a very different approach. From this small town, it is possible to discuss many aspects of the war and give a general overview of the French war experience. This small group of men, and women, brings me to talk about infantry, artillery, aviation, navy, nurses, the first gas attack, the young and the old soldiers, the soldiers sent to the front while already sick, trials by court-martial, military police, priests and teachers, soldiers, NCOs, officers, mutinies, medicine, disciplinary units, and the list goes on and on.

The second aspect concerns empathy. This is a question many historians ask themselves, or at least should, whatever their field is. How close, and how emotional, one can get to a certain topic. This is especially true when studying the world wars because they are still very close to many of us. My grandmother lost 4 uncles during the two world wars, and although she has only met one of them, she can talk about how their deaths impacted her family and childhood! And, as try to get as close as possible to knowing about their lives, at least with what we can know from the available sources, it is sometimes difficult not to feel very involved, almost close to them. To the point that I will try to have the Army review their decision not to grant the "Mort pour la France" mention to a soldier who was at some point court-martialed for desertion. Reading his trial transcripts can hardly leave one indifferent to his suffering after losing an eye, getting sick, and deciding to stay a little longer on leave to work and provide for his wife bedridden with stomach cancer, only to go back to the front and die home of an illness in 1921. It is hard not to feel something when learning about this old lady in the 1950s who was "mocked" for being crazy, only to discover that she lost her mind when the postman brought her the letter saying a third son had died from illness in December 1919.

So, the historian within me is constantly thinking about these research aspects. Especially since I do that every day. I apologize for this long post, but I must admit I am very excited about my project. It's a complete shift from my previous field because my M.A. in History was about late 18th-century British parliamentary and French diplomatic history! And, as my current degree is a complete disappointment, this research helps me move forward.

Reading the todd Ingram books, they mention an engagement wherein the uss Iowa bombarded Japan proper. Fact or fiction?

I need help with some WW2 research. I am working on digitizing my grandfather's short memoir about his time as a Merchant Marine (1943-1944) and in the Marine Corps (1944-1946). I'm adding footnotes based on my research over the past few years. Planning to make it into an e-book to give my dad for Father's day.

My grandpa was involved in the invasion of Okinawa, first as a member of the 32nd Replacement Draft (April 1 - May 7) and then the 1st Marine Division, "I" Company, 3d Battalion 1st Marines (from May 7 onward). Eventually, on June 22, he had to be airlifted to a hospital on Guam for severe blood poisoning.

The thing I'm having trouble with is with the USMC muster rolls covering his time with the 1st Marine Division. This is the entry from May:

"521; Co I, 7; See footnote "A"; 8-31, sk ACo., 1stMedBn."

The one from June says "1-22, sk ACo., 1stMedBn" and then says he was evacuated via air on the 22nd.

Footnote "A" from the May entry just indicates that he transferred from the 32nd Replacement Draft. I'm just confused by the last bit, as my geandpa talks in his memoirs about specific facts, friends being killed, and events that I have been able to date based on his descriptions. The muster roll makes it seem as though he spent the whole of his time in a field hospital. Anybody know if I am reading this wrong or if I'm missing something?

I'd also love some help looking for a Special Action Report for the 3d battalion on Okinawa. Searching the national archives, I've only been able to find the one for the entirety of the 1st Marine Division, but I've seen the 3d battalion cited in several places.

Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap

Friday, June 10 - Thursday, June 16

###Top 10 Posts

###Top 10 Comments

If you would like this roundup sent to your reddit inbox every week send me a message with the subject 'askhistorians'. Or if you want a daily roundup, use the subject 'askhistorians daily'. Or send me a chat with either askhistorians or askhistorians daily.

####Please let me know if you have suggestions to make this roundup better for /r/askhistorians or if there are other subreddits that you think I should post in. I can search for posts based off keywords in the title, URL and flair. And I can also find the top comments overall or in specific threads.

Anyone know if any good books or sources on the Balkan Wars immediately before and after WWI? Particularly interested in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1921 but all welcome.

I sometimes ponder some things about military uniforms, and how they (it seems to me? am I wrong?) have changed to all-camo-all-the-time, even in situations where it makes no sense (e.g. when I see soldiers in the airport, or generals wearing camo in the office, which I feel like I first saw with Norman Schwarzkopf in Desert Storm, but that was a long time ago so maybe I'm making that up.) It's perhaps the extreme end of the change from snazzy bright colorful uniforms of the early modern era to drab utilitarian ones. Like, I feel like there is some fundamental culture shift there, but I don't know what it is. Like...paramilitaries, for example, in the 20th Century, would wear uniforms, and do parade moves, and look like a sort of factory machine; but now they're all in crazy camo, Hawaiian shirts, stupid-lookin night vision goggles etc and don't look like a machine but like a...an undifferentiated pile? Like they don't express organization or discipline anymore, and I feel like that's connected to a sort of lack of organization/coordination in a lot of spheres, politics, unions, clubs, the whole bowling-alone thing. Both kinds of paramilitary freak me out, as a pacifist leftist, but I think it's interesting, the difference. I just have no words/concepts to express what I mean or how to find out if anyone else has discussed this change.

I don't think it's a 20-year-rule thing because I'm pretty sure the change happened around the 90s at the latest. I feel stupid even talking about it because I don't know how to get my mind around it, but I feel like it's somehow important to understand something about the extreme right today.