April 28, 2025 • 38 mins
🎙️
Scott and Jenn dive into their recent adventure at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, where they uncovered some seriously cool history and even found a brick honoring their service. But hold onto your hats, because they also spill the tea on the not-so-glamorous side of historian Stephen Ambrose. It turns out, this guy, who’s famous for bringing WWII stories to life, might have some shady plagiarism issues lurking in his past. They discuss how Ambrose's storytelling magic has shaped our view of history, yet raises eyebrows with claims of fabricating interviews, especially with Eisenhower.
Jenn on the Pop Culture Passport podcast
Join us for a blend of history, controversy, and a little family fun as we explore the museum and the complexities of historical storytelling!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And as I'm doing my research,this controversy of Stephen Ambrose
comes out. I was not evenaware of how bad it was.
The one that I first learnedof is Albert Blythe in the miniseries
Dies. That's how Ambrose wroteit in the book. But Albert Blythe
had a long career, went andfought in Korea.
Are you shocked? Are you like,oh my gosh, is this real? Because
(00:23):
that's kind of how we felt thefirst time we actually were reading
about it too. So, yeah, let'sget into that a little bit.
Welcome to Talk with History.I'm your host, Scott, here with my
(00:43):
wife and historian, Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give youinsights to our history Inspired
World Travels YouTube channelJourney and examine history through
deeper conversations with thecurious, the explorers and the history
lovers out there. Now, Jen,our listeners may not know this,
(01:04):
but we took a little breaklast week. Kind of just needed it.
Life got busy. So we actuallyhaven't podcasted in a while. We
got a little bit ahead. Wejust need some downtime due to some
travel and stuff like that. SoI've got a bunch of shout outs, like
some podcasts that you've beenguests on for us to mention. So I
want to first give a shout outto some new supporters at New tippers
(01:27):
over@talkwithhistory.com so ifyou go to talkwithhistory.com, you
scroll down to the bottom,there's a link where you can support
the show. You can buy somecoffee, a sandwich, whatever. And
Larry Myers, he dropped a tipfor us over there and you can put
a comment in there if youwant. You don't have to. You can
make it anonymous. But you, ifyou put your comment on there, then
it can, it'll show up on thewebsite. And so Larry Myers, he's,
(01:50):
we talk to him all the time.He comments on a lot of our stuff.
He said, keep doing what youtwo are doing. Nobody does it better.
So Larry is incrediblysupportive. So thank you, Larry,
for that. And Calvin G. Who'sactually been following us for a
while, I think he may havefound like my original family vlog
page, which I don't talkabout. I'd say it's still live. I
just don't put anything overthere. But he said love both of your
(02:10):
channels. So thank you somuch, guys, for the support. And
if you're listening and youwant to drop us kind of a tip or
buy us a cup of coffee orsomething like that, we really do
appreciate it. You can go totalkwithhistory.com support or you
can just go to the mainwebsite, talkwithistory.com and scroll
down to the bottom.
Thank you.
Now, those are our folks whokind of supporting the show. But
(02:34):
another thing that we've beenworking on is trying to get you on
other. As a guest on otherpodcasts. So you were recently a
guest on the Pop CultureCulture Passport podcast, which is
a whole lot of peas, but youguys were. It's really. I really
like the concept of herpodcast, which is basically traveling
to pop culture locations and,and, and exploring that and kind
(02:58):
of a little bit behind that.And you guys talked about Hamilton,
right?
Yeah. So we talked about allthe places you can go see in reality
around the Broadway showHamilton. And there's a lot out there
for you, especially the songsthey sing about and kind of references
different characters aremaking. There's a lot of places you
(03:18):
can go and visit. So we talkedall about that on her show.
Yep. And then another one thatI'm very excited about. I got you
on or you got yourself on. Wework together on it on the History
Unplugged podcast. Now thispodcast is like, is very big. The.
The only way I can reallycheck that is by how many reviews.
It has an app in an Applepodcast and it has like a couple
(03:39):
thousand views or reviews. Soit looks like it's been around for
quite some time. Scott rankis. He's PhD historian type. And
you guys. So you got on thereand it took us a couple months to
kind of time it and get it,get it, get you on. But you talked
about the Hatfields McCoys.
Yeah, I love talking about theHatfields McCoys. That, that all
(04:00):
American folklore family feudthat is just very much a part of
our American story about twofamilies in Kentucky, Virginia, West
Virginia area and how theyreally had this long going family
feud against each other. Itwas very interesting.
Yeah. Just. Just a piece ofAmericana history. It's referred
(04:23):
to everywhere. Mark Twainreferred to it, Star Trek refers
to it. All sorts of fun stuff.And, and not surprisingly, you sound
like a total pro.
Oh, thank you.
On the podcast. So I will linkthose in the show notes in the video
description if you guys wantto go check those out. We're really
excited for Jen to get onthose. Those other podcasts.
Yeah, it was super fun. Thank you.
(04:52):
I want to tell you a story.And this is a World War II story
relayed to me by a good friendof mine, Eric. Eric and I served
together in the Navy. Herecently reached out to me about
the death of the Father of afriend of his. His friend's father
was a World War II veteran.Now I've kept his name out of this
as I got the story third hand,but it's a hell of a story, so stick
(05:13):
around. So for fun, let's callour World War II veteran Tony. Tony
was born in Brooklyn in 1926,enlisted and joined Navy in January
of 1944. 18 years old, got hisfirst set of orders, based out of
Norfolk, Virginia on board theUSS Underhill where he was to serve
(05:34):
his initial enlistment. Nowapparently Tony was a bit of a rabble
rouser and liked to have agood time. But who can blame a sailor
for that? That's kind of what,what we're known for. While Tony
had been on the USS Underhillfor about five months when they were
getting ready to get underwayto deploy. Of course Tony and his
friends weren't out on thetown the night before one last time
(05:55):
before deploying. But he gotso carried away they actually missed
ship's movement the nextmorning. The Navy, that's a pretty
big deal. So Tony had justmissed his ship as it deployed to
the Pacific theater where theUnited States was in terrible back
and forth back battle campaignfor dominance with Japan. Now in
today's Navy, any sailors thatmiss ships movement like this will
(06:17):
most likely get flown out tomeet the ship. Sometimes they can
ride a helicopter out to it orcatch a transport flight out to a
future port, stop and meet theship there. But In September of 1944,
well, sailors would just gettransferred to the next ship. This
is what happened to Tony. TheUnderhill went on deployment to the
Pacific, as did Tony with hisnew ship. A few months later tragic
(06:40):
news came home to the States.The USS Underhill was sunk in the
Pacific Ocean July 24th, 1945by a Japanese suicide ceremonies
causing two explosions,severely damaged and eventually sank
the vessel. We don't know ifTony heard the news of his previous
ship while he was underway.But what we do know is that months
(07:02):
later, while Tony stood on thedeck of his brand new ship on 9-2-1945
watching Japan surrender tothe United States, he must have been
incredibly proud to be servingon board the USS Missouri. Yes, our
World War II veteran had beentransferred from the Underhill to
the USS Missouri, the samebattleship that took part in the
(07:23):
battle of Iwo Jima, the battleof Okinawa and eventually the existence
exact location where thesurrender of Japan took place. You
wouldn't have believed howstunned I was to hear this story
from my friend Eric. We wereon the middle of spring break, and
he just called me out of theblue. He sent me a picture of the
special certificate that hisfriend's father got for being present
(07:43):
at the surrender. And forthose watching the video, I'll put
it up on the screen. Thank youto Eric and his friend's father for
his service long before thoseof us who serve now. I just thought
that was an incredible story.
It is incredible.
Just. It's a small Navy. Okay,Jen. We were down in New Orleans.
(08:10):
We're catching up on ourtravels for the past couple months.
Yes.
So we went down to NewOrleans, did a bunch of New Orleans
history. We had to go to TheWorld War II. The National World
War II Museum.
Yes. We had to go there. Imean, it is. I went there for my
40th birthday because I did my40th birthday in New Orleans, and
(08:30):
my girlfriends knew that mybirthday in New Orleans had to revolve
about something history. Andit did the whole time. But one of
the things we did was visitthe World War II Museum, and that
was my first time ever goingthere. So this time, it was our first
time as a family going there.So we brought our entire family to
the World War II Museum in NewOrleans, and we had something else
(08:53):
kind of special to find there.
We did.
So they have a. If you want tosponsor, contribute, charitable contribution
to help support the museum,you can buy a brick. And they have
these bricks all out front,the museum areas, and they have people's
names. You can honor a WorldWar II veteran or you can honor a
(09:15):
group. And. And we bought thebrick honoring our service on a ship
named for a World War IIbattle. And so we were able to find
our brick. It's my maiden namewhen I was in the Navy, your name.
And then the ship we servedon, that. It is right behind us,
that is named after a WorldWar II battle, and that's the ship
(09:36):
we met on. So it was kind ofcool to find that with the kids.
Yeah, it was super neat. And,you know, we dragged the kids to
all sorts of museums, but thismuseum is far, far above and beyond
the vast majority of the kindsof museums that we go to. So it was
interesting because we werelike, okay, what do we do with this
(09:57):
video? What do we do with thisvideo? Is this a show and tell? We
kind of have two. There'sstory arcs, and then there's show
and tells. And so we wanted togo talk, go down there and show the
museum, but we wanted anotherstory to go with it. And so we Talked
a little bit about StephenAmbrose and the World War II. World
War II Museum. We'll talk,we'll kind of get into that here
in just a little bit. But howThe World War II Museum came to be
(10:19):
there was pretty neat.
So you have to realize this isa pretty big museum. It's a six acre
campus. They have sixpavilions. It has 250,000 artifacts,
and it tells 9,000 personalstories. When you think about all
the people who served in WorldWar II, I was looking that number
(10:40):
up so we could kind of talkabout it. It says civilization. 70
million served in the armedforces and during World War II, and
the Americans that served inthe armed forces during the war,
more than 400,000 were killedor died. And so when you think of
that, this is only telling9,000 stories. So it's a lot. There's
(11:01):
a lot to tell here. And that'swhy when we were thinking of what
are we going to show for this?Like, we can't show you everything
there. We can help tell someof the stories and we do that on
Talk With History. We've takenyou to Normandy, we've taken you
to the D Day NationalMemorial. So we've taken you to places.
Eisenhower's birthplace andwhere he's buried, like, so we've
(11:22):
told some of those stories.And this is the National Museum.
And what I want you tounderstand is like, it was founded
in 2000, but Congressdesignated this the National World
War II Museum in 2004. So thisis the National Museum. It's in New
Orleans because people arelike, why New Orleans of all places?
(11:43):
Why isn't it in D.C. that was.
One thing that I thought wasreally neat to. Neat to learn.
So it, it's kind of twofold,kind of on the one person Scott talked
about, who we're going to talkabout. Stephen Ambrose. Stephen Ambrose
did a lot for history. He dida lot for bringing history into the
limelight. He did a lot forbringing World War II into popular
culture. Think Band ofBrothers. And he wrote a book called
(12:05):
D Day, the D Day Invasion. Andhe was a professor at the University
of New Orleans.
And, and he got pretty famousafter he started writing some of
these books.
Yeah, I, I would say UndauntedCourage. We'll talk about that. The
Story of Andrew of Lewis andClark is probably his most famous
work. But because he is basedout of there and because he's writing
(12:28):
all of these things that isreally striking America's interest,
he's kind of focusing on thatarea as well. It's one of the reasons
the museum is brought there,but it's because he is sponsoring
a location where all of theHiggins boats were made. Now, the
Higgins boats are those smallboats that come out of the back of
(12:52):
a amphibious ship. Kind of.Look at the Tara behind me here.
It's what's used in World WarII. They make over 23,000 of these
boats. And you can probablyremember them from Saving Private
Ryan. They. They hold about 36men. They can go about 14 miles an
hour, 12 knots.
Basically, a big box with amotor on the back so that the troops
can be in there and land onthe beach.
(13:14):
Yeah, they basically. It's atroop transport. Get them off the
ship onto the beach. AndAndrew Higgins lived in New Orleans,
and he started his factory inNew Orleans. Now, he started as a
lumber man, but then startedto make these boats. And you have
to realize he makes theseboats for the topography of New Orleans,
(13:34):
which is swamp.
Really neat.
Yeah. So they don't. Theydon't have a draft. Right. Because
it's very shallow water therewith the swamps and the mer in the
marshes. And so that's whatthese Higgins boats are great for
because they can get you rightup on the shore. They don't have
a big draft. And so because hemanufactures these boats in New Orleans
(13:54):
as a factory in New Orleans,and these boats are so instrumental
during World War II, that.That is where the museum is.
You said they. They ended upmanufacturing like, a few thousand
of these, right?
Yeah, over 23,000.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, I know.
That's World War II. Wartimeproduction was just incredible.
(14:14):
I mean, I read somewhere thathe was kind of like, not doing well
successfully until the Navytested out these boats in the Marine
Corps and found his boat wasthe best at getting them out of the
ships onto the beach. And sowhen they. He got the contract, the
government contract, it just completely.
And it's pretty neat, too,because they give them the shout
(14:34):
out for that right there in.In the. In. In the beginning of the
museum, right in the entry orwhere you're buying your ticket and
all that stuff. And then. Thenyou. You get in there and it's. It's.
It's such a. I. I actuallywant to go back because I'd like
to go back and. And notnecessarily film, so I can kind of
experience a little bit more.But you're there and you're getting
your ticket and you get on atrain just like you'd be going off
(14:56):
to war. It was really neat.
So they do a very Good job.There's about 700,000 visitors to
this museum every year. It hasbecome a place people want to see
in New Orleans. We were ableto walk to it from our hotel. It's
not in the French Quarter, butit's kind of right outside of the
French Quarter, so it's veryeasy to get to. Very walkable. They
(15:20):
tell a great story like mostmuseums do. So when you check in,
when you buy your ticket,expect to be there two and a half,
three hours, easy. You'regoing to stand in line to get on
a train. Like what it wouldfeel like for a soldier leaving for
World War II.
It's really cool.
You're going to see the tickertape of the. Or the. The. The changing
(15:40):
of the train schedules as youstand in line and you get on the
train. Now when you get on thetrain, you're given an interactive
dog tag to a soldier whoselife you follow through the war.
And some of them are prettyfamous. Like, I think I was supposed
to have, like, it's like BobHope or somebody. Like, I don't remember
(16:01):
who it was, but it. I mean,they have some famous actors, because
there was actors that weresoldiers. Right. So some of them
are names that you may or maynot recognize. But then you actually
have some pretty famous folksthat. That you might have gotten.
And mine didn't end upworking. I couldn't figure it out,
but I wasn't worried about it anyways.
So there's females. I had anurse. Right. So. And so a female
nurse. So you get differentpeople. And what's neat about it
(16:23):
is you do the road to Tokyo,you do the road to Berlin, you do
the D Day invasion atNormandy. So your soldier could have
been Pacific, your soldiercould have been Germany, your soldier
could have been on D Day. Soyou follow them wherever they went
into theater. And if theydidn't go into theater, you still
(16:44):
follow a story, but you're notfollowing your specific soldier.
And they just. They just makethat very interactive. My kids loved
it because you could go tothese little stations and see what
your soldier is doing in the war.
Yeah, it was. It's great forkids, great for adults, great for
any history. Nut even just thecasual fan is going. Casual kind
(17:05):
of band of brothers, whateverfan. Even if you're just in New Orleans
and you want something to dofor half a day, full day if you want
to. Fantastic place to go.
Yeah. So just know it's goingto take time. There's a lot to see
here and. But they do afantastic story. When you walk into
the road to Tokyo, when youwalk into the road of Berlin, you're
(17:25):
going to see right away whoare your Axis leaders, who are you
fighting in Japan, who are theleaders here, Who. When you go into
Berlin, who are the leaders ofGermany, who are the leaders of Italy?
Like, who are you fighting?And there's huge pictures of them,
and it makes it very clearwhat the war was about and who were
you fighting and what are youfighting them for? It's very neat
(17:49):
and they tell really greatvisual stories. And the artifacts
that go with these are liketop of the line best artifacts. They
have an Enigma machine there.They have the Norton bomb site there.
So things that were beingdeveloped that helped us win the
war, they have the actual onesused so you can actually see them.
(18:10):
Flags, artifacts from theactual soldiers. It just was really,
really a great museum. If youtalking about being immersed in the
story and feeling like you'repart of it.
And it's. It's world. It'sworld class. It really is. Right.
So you get what you pay forthere. And we didn't realize till
actually today when we werelooking at this, that we missed a
(18:33):
big section of it. There's awhole aircraft section that we just.
We didn't see that day, but wewere running around New Orleans doing
a lot of stuff.
Yeah. So you have to go back.I mean, it's six acres. Yeah. Right.
So it's a lot. So we found ourbrick. That was one thing we did
there. Another thing that Ihad seen that wasn't there the last
time we were there that Ireally liked was they had a whole
section on missing World WarII art. And I always love that. I'm
(18:55):
always very interested in thisart that was stolen and did it make
it back and why was it stolenand what happened to it and how they
recover it and.
Yeah, that was pretty neat.
There are some famous piecesthat are still missing I wanted to
talk about. Just so you knewwhat the famous pieces.
Is that where did they talk alittle bit about, like the whole
Monument Men.
Yeah.
Thing. Yeah. So if youremember that movie Monument Men,
(19:17):
it's kind of a piece of this.
Yeah. So you have Raphael'sYoung Boy, Portrait of a Young Boy.
That's the most famous picturethat's missing. It was taken from
a museum in Poland and thenthey just lost track of it. They
don't think it's destroyed.They just don't know where it is.
And there's another Van Goghpainter walking through field or
(19:39):
something. And it'sdefinitely. You can tell it's Van
Gogh. And those are the twobiggest that are still missing. Now,
what's interesting about this,and I didn't tell Scott about this,
but when I went to the MICKConference, the Military Influencer
Conference, they still have awhole department to this. And I was
actually approached that theywould put me on active duty. They
(20:01):
don't care what my age isbecause I have a master's degree
in history. If I worked out ofWashington D.C. no way. And it's
underneath all of the museumsthere, still trying to recover and
find missing art from wartimein different war areas.
I'm surprised you didn't tellme that, Scott. Go get orders to
dc. I'm going to work in thisspecial art, stolen art unit.
(20:21):
Well, since they said agedoesn't matter, I thought I got some
time. So that was very cool.But another story that I thought
was very neat that they haveemphasized there, because you're
going to always have differentexhibits and they're going to tell
different stories, was thefour chaplains story. And I wasn't.
I was aware of it, but Ididn't know the specifics of the
(20:44):
story. And I was so moved byit. And I think we happened to be
there right around the timewhen it actually happened. So it
was very interesting. Butthese four chaplains were on the
SS Dorchester. Dorchester.There probably is a Massachusetts
way to say this. Dorsher.Dorsher. There's probably some way
it's Dorchester. And it sankon February 3, 1943. It was a transport
(21:10):
ship. It was a. It was acivilian liner, which they did a
lot. They took these civilianliners and converted them from military
service. I mean, you think theQueen Mary was converted for military
service to get troops over toEurope? And it was. It left on January
23, and then it was hit in theearly hours of January 3rd by a torpedo
from a German submarine. Andthey lost pretty much everybody on
(21:34):
the ship. And these fourchaplains, who are all different
religious backgrounds, tooktheir life jackets off, put them
on other people, then theyjoined arms and they sung hymns and
said prayers out as the shipwent down. And it was interesting
because these four men arelike a Methodist minister, a rabbi,
(21:56):
a Catholic priest, and aAmerican Reformed Church minister.
So you're getting thesedifferent religious backgrounds.
Cause Scott knows he used torecruit chaplains. And they all went
chaplain school together. Theyall met at the army chaplain school.
And so they all preparedtogether. So they knew each other.
(22:16):
But as they go down togetherand they all perished, said prayers
and hymns of their particularreligious background. And I thought
that was very neat andsomething to honor. So they have
a whole area to them and telltheir individual stories and the
story of this event. And so Ithought that was neat, too.
So.
So those are the two thingsthat I. That were different than
(22:37):
the last time I had beenthere. Besides the amazing exhibits
they do just telling thedifferent stories.
Yeah.
They have some greatrestaurants there. We actually happened
to eat.
Have some great restaurants.Even some artifacts that I thought
were really neat. Right. Theyhad the flight jacket of Tibbets.
Paul. Paul Tibbets. CaptainPaul Tibbets, who, you know, flew
the aircraft that dropped thefirst nuclear bomb.
(22:57):
Yeah.
Atomic bomb. So they had thatthere. And that's actually kind of
where you hung out for alittle while, talking about kind
of our controversial part ofthis video.
So, yeah, let's get into thata little bit. So, Stephen Ambrose,
(23:20):
it's hard because people lovethis man, so. And I kind of have
a love for this man. So as wewere planning to do this video, I
was like, we should center ona story. Let's center on a story
and tell a story. Becausethat's really what we do with Walk
with History, talk withhistory, is we center on one particular
story, especially in a museum,because there's so much to see. So
(23:41):
we try to tell. Show oneartifact and tell the story. And
as I'm doing my research, thiscontroversy of Stephen Ambrose comes
out. I was not even aware of how.
Bad it was, and I had no clue.When you brought this up to me, I
was actually pretty surprisedbecause his name is kind of held
(24:02):
in such high regard because ofthe Lewis and Clark book, because
of Band of Brothers. I mean,it's like, in this, like, rarefied
air, his name.
Yeah. And so a lot of thiscame out after he dies as well. So
what's interesting is he. Hespoke to it a little bit in his lifetime
because he was confrontedabout it in his lifetime, but he
(24:23):
brushes it off. Off. And it'snot until after he dies that more
of it comes out. So what isit? You're like, what is it? He's
accused of plagiarizing inpretty much every work he has written.
And. And you said, like, notlike, just like a line here, a line
there that he didn't credit,but like, large sections.
Yeah. So it's more than just acouple. Like, like Scott said, it's.
(24:47):
It's more than just a fewsentences. It's huge. Sections of
his book are found to be casesof plagiarism and it. And it goes
all the way back to hisdoctoral dissertation. And he plagiarizes
such big sections and nevergives any credit to where he got
(25:08):
those sources from. So it'snot just, I took sections and I didn't
cite them because some peopledon't cite in the work. They'll put
it in their sources used,which is still kind of murky when
it comes to being a historian.But he didn't even cite sources.
And he's taking huge chunks ofother people's work and putting it
(25:30):
in his work. Historians don'treally. We don't do that. So when
I talk about what makessomeone a historian. Yes. Do we talk
about other people's writings?Absolutely. Could I talk about Stephen
Ambrose's writing in somethingI write? Absolutely. What's the historiography
of D Day? Who's written aboutD Day? Stephen Ambrose wrote about
(25:51):
D Day. This is what he wrote,and this is the research he did.
And this is why it's notaccurate or it is accurate. I would
cite all of that becausethat's what a historian does. I'm
bringing you the history. IfI'm telling someone's personal story,
I'm. This is what they said onthis day. And. And this is the. Where
I got it from. Either. It'ssome. Some kind of document that
(26:12):
I have that shows their wholeinterview. So you're not just making
things up. You're usingsources, primary sources to back
any kind of thesis or argumentyou're trying to make. That's how
our historian does this. Now,Stephen Ambrose uses more of a storytelling
kind of historiography, whichis great. And historians do do that,
(26:37):
which is not citing everythingright away, but they always cite
their sources at the end andthey always say, you know, you can
always tell where they'reciting someone else's work because
they'll make it probablysmaller print and. And indented on
both sides.
Yep. And some of them are evenjust kind of were actually relatively
obvious. Right. So, like, Iknow the one that I first learned
(26:59):
of, this was before we wentdown to the World War II Museum,
was when we were doing ourBand of Brothers in Arlington. Right.
Albert Blythe in the. In theminiseries. Right. Albert Blythe,
you know, dies or whateverlike that. Because that's what happened.
That's how Ambrose wrote it inthe book. It looks. And apparently
he just kind of wrote him off.He. He never checked on what happened
(27:20):
to Albert Blythe or whatever.But Albert Blythe had a long career,
went and fought in Korea andall this stuff. So, like, there's.
That was one example that whenyou brought this up, I was like,
oh, that's kind ofinteresting, because a little bit
more people know of. Of thatone because Band of Brothers is so
popular that Albert Blythe'sfamily is like, he. He didn't die
right? Like, what. What's all this?
(27:41):
And there's more instances ofthat in Band of Brother. That's not
just the. The solid, thesingle case. There's over dramatization
of things that are happen.There are people who. They combine
their stories to be one storyor they've completely changed their
story, like in this case. Andthat's almost why, in a way, you
(28:02):
get what's his name, the Bandof Brothers, Dick. That's why. That's
why you get Dick Winters, whokind of writes beyond Band of Brothers
after to tell his personalaccount. Because even though he appreciates
what Stephen Ambrose did inbringing his story to light, it wasn't
actually accurate. So Winterswants to make sure he's telling you
the accurate story.
(28:23):
Yeah, and we say this all thetime on tv, in movies, in TV series,
that happens a lot becausewriters will combine characters,
you know, in the movie Glory,the. The main character is actually
kind of a amalgamation of twocharacters. So that happens a lot.
But for a historian to putthat in their works, and then all
(28:44):
of a sudden people start kindof digging stuff up and they're like,
oh, my gosh, he's done thisnumerous times across a good portion
of his works.
And what happens is kind ofwhat happened in our case when we
did Mary Weather Lewis's deathis, I read on daunted courage. And
when Meriwether Lewis commitssuicide at Grinder Stand, Stephen
(29:09):
Ambrose doesn't question it inhis book, he takes it as fact. Because
Thomas Jefferson and Clarkdon't question the suicide theory,
even though it's veryquestionable in actuality. And so
as a historian, which I do inour video, as I tell you both sides
(29:31):
and the facts from both sides,because there are conflicting primary
source facts about whatactually happened in Meriwether Lewis's
last hours. And because ofthat, as a historian, I can't say
undoubtedly that he died bysuicide. And so that's what a historian
does. But I. If you readStephen Ambrose and you believe him
(29:55):
because you have faith in himdoing his work as a historian, you
wouldn't question it becauseyou believe he's doing his due diligence.
Well, when it comes out thathe's not, it Makes you question all
of his works. And that'sreally what happens. Ambrose is commissioned
to do the biography of DwightD. Eisenhower, right. The supreme
(30:16):
commander of the Allied forcesduring World War II and goes on to
become President of the UnitedStates. Ambrose says that Eisenhower
contacts him and asks him towrite his biography. Well, there's
a letter at the EisenhowerPresidential Library from Ambrose
to Eisenhower asking if he canwrite his biography. And Eisenhower
(30:41):
says, oh, yes, I just read oneof your books. Let's meet. Ambrose
claims to have this intimaterelationship with Eisenhower. He
even is quoted to say, wetalked for hours and hours. We spent
hundreds of hours together.
In hundreds is a lot.
It's a lot. In Eisenhower'spersonal diaries and date books,
(31:05):
it shows they've met threetimes for less than five hours. Now
there is another researcherwho says there might have been more
discussion between the twobecause Eisenhower really wanted
to make sure he was painted ina. In a positive light, especially
as the Allied commander. Hewanted to make sure that his decision
(31:28):
making, especially around theatomic bomb, that those things were
really flushed out. And so hesays they may have talked more and
they may have met more. Hedoesn't think it was hundreds of
hours. And so what comes outlater is that he's found to have
fabricated interviews andevents in the biography of Eisenhower.
(31:52):
So much so that Eisenhowerreally doesn't talk with him after
these biographies come out. Soit's just. And this happens in 2010.
So these. In 2015, there was abook that came out about Eisenhower.
And it. And the person whowrote it said, while some Eisenhower
scholars questions Ambroseresearch, the enormity of his falsifications
(32:15):
was not revealed until afterhis death. Ambrose lied about his
relationship with Eisenhower.He fabricated and manufactured many
events that never took place.
And the tough part about that,right, and that's partly why we,
we talked about it like at theWorld War II Museum. And you did
(32:35):
a good job in the video of onepresenting the facts and kind of
talking about like, this iswhy it's good, this is why it's.
Here's, here's the bad, buthere, here's the good that, that
Ambrose did at the same time,right? So you do, you, you kind of
keep it pretty level whenyou're talking about it in the video
and saying, hey, what is this?What does this mean? And you brought
(32:56):
that up in the video.
Yeah, and I try to make itvery clear. I have so much conflict.
Like, we all respect KenBurns. We all respect what Ken Burns
has done for documentaryfilmmaking and history. He used undaunted
courage to do the documentaryof the Lewis and Clark expedition,
declared that Ambrose takesone of the great, but also one of
the most superficiallyconsidered stories in American history
(33:20):
and breathes fresh life intoit, like the Lewis and Clark story
we all knew, but no one knewit to that level and depth until
Ambrose's book comes out, andthat book is used to make the documentary.
So he's so conflicting becausewhat he's done for history and how
(33:40):
he's brought it to life andhow he's reinvigorated it. I mean,
Band of Brothers was huge. Andhe's one of the reasons why The World
War II Museum got built. He'sone of the reasons why it's in New
Orleans. He's kind of one ofthe reasons why World War II history
is so interesting to peopleand why people are interested in
it. Without Band of Brothers,there wouldn't have been Masters
(34:03):
of the Air. Like, I don'tknow. Without Band of Brothers, would
there have been Saving PrivateRyan? Like, it's just, he's invigorated
history. But then you havehistorian David Greenberg, who said
in 2015, Ambrose wanton actsof plagiarism and the posthumous
revelation that he fabricatedinterviews with Dwight Eisenhower
have rendered his workunusable. So I would say if you use
(34:28):
his work, if you cite his workas a historian, always go back to
what he is using as his sourceand go to that primary source. I
wouldn't even source Ambrose.I would go to whatever source Ambrose
used and use that as yoursource forever. You're writing.
Yeah. And that's what you saidin the video, Right? Because in the
video, we can't go into thedepth that we get to do here. But
(34:50):
you basically, you kind ofsummarize it. You do a really good
job. And we weave in, kind ofshowing different things at World
War II Museum. And obviouslythe video will be linked in the.
In the podcast show notes. Butyou say, like, what does this mean?
What does this mean aboutAmbrose and you and you. And you
say, and I think you said itsuccinctly, is like, he's a great
place to start. He's a greatplace to start. Right? And he. There's
something to be said aboutbeing able to tell a story like that
(35:13):
with history, all the factsthat you gather and stuff like that.
Now you do kind of have totake everything into account with
not citing things and making,you know, in for certain works, you
know, making things completelyup. But it's not a black and white.
It's not, he did do a lot ofgood there and he didn't cite, he
(35:36):
just didn't cite things.Right. So it's a good place to start.
And if you're, you know, Ithink it was Larry who was telling
us he's going back to schooland working on, on history stuff.
And you know, if you're astudent watching this, right, and
you've, you just read one ofAmbrose's books, that's what you
got to do is you got to goback and check the sources that are
cited. And if you can't find asource, source that's cited, that
(35:59):
might be one of the sectionsthat he just didn't cite or he plagiarized
or whatever part of it is. Youhave to be, you have to have that,
that kind of professionalskepticism. And, and that's what
historians do.
Yeah. And I think we do thatwell in the, in the Merryweather
Lewis video, we start toquestion Ambrose's work and we do
that because there areconflicting primary sources that
(36:20):
he doesn't add. And as ahistorian, you don't get to pick
and choose the sources thatyou're, if you're looking up an event,
you don't get to pick andchoose what part of the event you
want to put in there or whatpart of the story you want to put
in there. If it's a primarysource, you have to put in all of
it. And you can say this mayor may not seem plausible, but this
is what was said at the time.So that's what builds trust as a
(36:43):
historian. So like I said,Stephen Ambrose, great storyteller,
opens us up our eyes up to alot of great moments in American
history. Probably not thehistorian you want to cite on any
of your works if you'regetting any kind of degree further
on in history. But the museumis fantastic.
Yeah, the museum is fantastic.It was interesting and kind of fun
(37:07):
to explore the Ambrose topic.And, and really we, we need to go
back to the museum. I need tokind of set my camera down the next
time that I go and justexperience it. And I would encourage
you, if you're watching thisto, if you are in New Orleans and
if you're watching this, youshould go watch, you should go to
the museum and then you shouldtell all of your friends to go to
the museum because it's, it'sincredible. It, it's absolutely world
(37:29):
class. It's like a Disneylevel experience. And it was just
an absolute blast to, to godown there and find our brick and
take the kids and, and showthem all that stuff. So we got our
own little piece of historydown there, there. But thank you
so much for joining us today.And if you want. Again, if you want
to support the show, if youwant to support the podcast, you
can go to talk withhistory.com. support you. Buy us
a coffee, buy me a sandwich.You know, you can buy Jen a T shirt.
(37:51):
Another history.
Another history.
Another history shirt.
Yeah. And if you. Is this, ifthis is your first time hearing any
of this controversy aboutAmbrose, please let us know in the
comments. Are you shocked? Areyou like, oh, my gosh, is this real?
Because that's kind of how wefelt the first time we actually were
reading about it too. So letus know how you feel about that.
Does it change your opinion?Does it not? And just how, if this
(38:12):
is the first time you've evenheard this kind of controversy.
All right, we'll talk to younext time.
Thank you.
This has been a Walk WithHistory production. Talk With History
is created and hosted by me,Scott Bennie. Episode researched
by Jennifer Bennie. Check outthe show notes for links and references
mentioned in this episode.Talk with History is supported by
our fans at the History Roadtrip dot com. Our eternal thanks
(38:35):
go out to those providingfunding to help keep us going. Thank
you to Doug McLiverty, LarryMyers, Patrick Bennie, Gail Cooper
and Christy Kohtz. Make sureyou hit following that podcast player
and we'll talk to you next time.
And as I'm doing my research,this controversy of Stephen Ambrose
comes out. I was not evenaware of how bad it was.
The one that I first learnedof is Albert Blythe in the miniseries
Dies. That's how Ambrose wroteit in the book. But Albert Blythe
had a long career, went andfought in Korea.
Are you shocked? Are you like,oh my gosh, is this real? Because
(00:23):
that's kind of how we felt thefirst time we actually were reading
about it too. So, yeah, let'sget into that a little bit.
Welcome to Talk with History.I'm your host, Scott, here with my
(00:43):
wife and historian, Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give youinsights to our history Inspired
World Travels YouTube channelJourney and examine history through
deeper conversations with thecurious, the explorers and the history
lovers out there. Now, Jen,our listeners may not know this,
(01:04):
but we took a little breaklast week. Kind of just needed it.
Life got busy. So we actuallyhaven't podcasted in a while. We
got a little bit ahead. Wejust need some downtime due to some
travel and stuff like that. SoI've got a bunch of shout outs, like
some podcasts that you've beenguests on for us to mention. So I
want to first give a shout outto some new supporters at New tippers
(01:27):
over@talkwithhistory.com so ifyou go to talkwithhistory.com, you
scroll down to the bottom,there's a link where you can support
the show. You can buy somecoffee, a sandwich, whatever. And
Larry Myers, he dropped a tipfor us over there and you can put
a comment in there if youwant. You don't have to. You can
make it anonymous. But you, ifyou put your comment on there, then
it can, it'll show up on thewebsite. And so Larry Myers, he's,
(01:50):
we talk to him all the time.He comments on a lot of our stuff.
He said, keep doing what youtwo are doing. Nobody does it better.
So Larry is incrediblysupportive. So thank you, Larry,
for that. And Calvin G. Who'sactually been following us for a
while, I think he may havefound like my original family vlog
page, which I don't talkabout. I'd say it's still live. I
just don't put anything overthere. But he said love both of your
(02:10):
channels. So thank you somuch, guys, for the support. And
if you're listening and youwant to drop us kind of a tip or
buy us a cup of coffee orsomething like that, we really do
appreciate it. You can go totalkwithhistory.com support or you
can just go to the mainwebsite, talkwithistory.com and scroll
down to the bottom.
Thank you.
Now, those are our folks whokind of supporting the show. But
(02:34):
another thing that we've beenworking on is trying to get you on
other. As a guest on otherpodcasts. So you were recently a
guest on the Pop CultureCulture Passport podcast, which is
a whole lot of peas, but youguys were. It's really. I really
like the concept of herpodcast, which is basically traveling
to pop culture locations and,and, and exploring that and kind
(02:58):
of a little bit behind that.And you guys talked about Hamilton,
right?
Yeah. So we talked about allthe places you can go see in reality
around the Broadway showHamilton. And there's a lot out there
for you, especially the songsthey sing about and kind of references
different characters aremaking. There's a lot of places you
(03:18):
can go and visit. So we talkedall about that on her show.
Yep. And then another one thatI'm very excited about. I got you
on or you got yourself on. Wework together on it on the History
Unplugged podcast. Now thispodcast is like, is very big. The.
The only way I can reallycheck that is by how many reviews.
It has an app in an Applepodcast and it has like a couple
(03:39):
thousand views or reviews. Soit looks like it's been around for
quite some time. Scott rankis. He's PhD historian type. And
you guys. So you got on thereand it took us a couple months to
kind of time it and get it,get it, get you on. But you talked
about the Hatfields McCoys.
Yeah, I love talking about theHatfields McCoys. That, that all
(04:00):
American folklore family feudthat is just very much a part of
our American story about twofamilies in Kentucky, Virginia, West
Virginia area and how theyreally had this long going family
feud against each other. Itwas very interesting.
Yeah. Just. Just a piece ofAmericana history. It's referred
(04:23):
to everywhere. Mark Twainreferred to it, Star Trek refers
to it. All sorts of fun stuff.And, and not surprisingly, you sound
like a total pro.
Oh, thank you.
On the podcast. So I will linkthose in the show notes in the video
description if you guys wantto go check those out. We're really
excited for Jen to get onthose. Those other podcasts.
Yeah, it was super fun. Thank you.
(04:52):
I want to tell you a story.And this is a World War II story
relayed to me by a good friendof mine, Eric. Eric and I served
together in the Navy. Herecently reached out to me about
the death of the Father of afriend of his. His friend's father
was a World War II veteran.Now I've kept his name out of this
as I got the story third hand,but it's a hell of a story, so stick
(05:13):
around. So for fun, let's callour World War II veteran Tony. Tony
was born in Brooklyn in 1926,enlisted and joined Navy in January
of 1944. 18 years old, got hisfirst set of orders, based out of
Norfolk, Virginia on board theUSS Underhill where he was to serve
(05:34):
his initial enlistment. Nowapparently Tony was a bit of a rabble
rouser and liked to have agood time. But who can blame a sailor
for that? That's kind of what,what we're known for. While Tony
had been on the USS Underhillfor about five months when they were
getting ready to get underwayto deploy. Of course Tony and his
friends weren't out on thetown the night before one last time
(05:55):
before deploying. But he gotso carried away they actually missed
ship's movement the nextmorning. The Navy, that's a pretty
big deal. So Tony had justmissed his ship as it deployed to
the Pacific theater where theUnited States was in terrible back
and forth back battle campaignfor dominance with Japan. Now in
today's Navy, any sailors thatmiss ships movement like this will
(06:17):
most likely get flown out tomeet the ship. Sometimes they can
ride a helicopter out to it orcatch a transport flight out to a
future port, stop and meet theship there. But In September of 1944,
well, sailors would just gettransferred to the next ship. This
is what happened to Tony. TheUnderhill went on deployment to the
Pacific, as did Tony with hisnew ship. A few months later tragic
(06:40):
news came home to the States.The USS Underhill was sunk in the
Pacific Ocean July 24th, 1945by a Japanese suicide ceremonies
causing two explosions,severely damaged and eventually sank
the vessel. We don't know ifTony heard the news of his previous
ship while he was underway.But what we do know is that months
(07:02):
later, while Tony stood on thedeck of his brand new ship on 9-2-1945
watching Japan surrender tothe United States, he must have been
incredibly proud to be servingon board the USS Missouri. Yes, our
World War II veteran had beentransferred from the Underhill to
the USS Missouri, the samebattleship that took part in the
(07:23):
battle of Iwo Jima, the battleof Okinawa and eventually the existence
exact location where thesurrender of Japan took place. You
wouldn't have believed howstunned I was to hear this story
from my friend Eric. We wereon the middle of spring break, and
he just called me out of theblue. He sent me a picture of the
special certificate that hisfriend's father got for being present
(07:43):
at the surrender. And forthose watching the video, I'll put
it up on the screen. Thank youto Eric and his friend's father for
his service long before thoseof us who serve now. I just thought
that was an incredible story.
It is incredible.
Just. It's a small Navy. Okay,Jen. We were down in New Orleans.
(08:10):
We're catching up on ourtravels for the past couple months.
Yes.
So we went down to NewOrleans, did a bunch of New Orleans
history. We had to go to TheWorld War II. The National World
War II Museum.
Yes. We had to go there. Imean, it is. I went there for my
40th birthday because I did my40th birthday in New Orleans, and
(08:30):
my girlfriends knew that mybirthday in New Orleans had to revolve
about something history. Andit did the whole time. But one of
the things we did was visitthe World War II Museum, and that
was my first time ever goingthere. So this time, it was our first
time as a family going there.So we brought our entire family to
the World War II Museum in NewOrleans, and we had something else
(08:53):
kind of special to find there.
We did.
So they have a. If you want tosponsor, contribute, charitable contribution
to help support the museum,you can buy a brick. And they have
these bricks all out front,the museum areas, and they have people's
names. You can honor a WorldWar II veteran or you can honor a
(09:15):
group. And. And we bought thebrick honoring our service on a ship
named for a World War IIbattle. And so we were able to find
our brick. It's my maiden namewhen I was in the Navy, your name.
And then the ship we servedon, that. It is right behind us,
that is named after a WorldWar II battle, and that's the ship
(09:36):
we met on. So it was kind ofcool to find that with the kids.
Yeah, it was super neat. And,you know, we dragged the kids to
all sorts of museums, but thismuseum is far, far above and beyond
the vast majority of the kindsof museums that we go to. So it was
interesting because we werelike, okay, what do we do with this
(09:57):
video? What do we do with thisvideo? Is this a show and tell? We
kind of have two. There'sstory arcs, and then there's show
and tells. And so we wanted togo talk, go down there and show the
museum, but we wanted anotherstory to go with it. And so we Talked
a little bit about StephenAmbrose and the World War II. World
War II Museum. We'll talk,we'll kind of get into that here
in just a little bit. But howThe World War II Museum came to be
(10:19):
there was pretty neat.
So you have to realize this isa pretty big museum. It's a six acre
campus. They have sixpavilions. It has 250,000 artifacts,
and it tells 9,000 personalstories. When you think about all
the people who served in WorldWar II, I was looking that number
(10:40):
up so we could kind of talkabout it. It says civilization. 70
million served in the armedforces and during World War II, and
the Americans that served inthe armed forces during the war,
more than 400,000 were killedor died. And so when you think of
that, this is only telling9,000 stories. So it's a lot. There's
(11:01):
a lot to tell here. And that'swhy when we were thinking of what
are we going to show for this?Like, we can't show you everything
there. We can help tell someof the stories and we do that on
Talk With History. We've takenyou to Normandy, we've taken you
to the D Day NationalMemorial. So we've taken you to places.
Eisenhower's birthplace andwhere he's buried, like, so we've
(11:22):
told some of those stories.And this is the National Museum.
And what I want you tounderstand is like, it was founded
in 2000, but Congressdesignated this the National World
War II Museum in 2004. So thisis the National Museum. It's in New
Orleans because people arelike, why New Orleans of all places?
(11:43):
Why isn't it in D.C. that was.
One thing that I thought wasreally neat to. Neat to learn.
So it, it's kind of twofold,kind of on the one person Scott talked
about, who we're going to talkabout. Stephen Ambrose. Stephen Ambrose
did a lot for history. He dida lot for bringing history into the
limelight. He did a lot forbringing World War II into popular
culture. Think Band ofBrothers. And he wrote a book called
(12:05):
D Day, the D Day Invasion. Andhe was a professor at the University
of New Orleans.
And, and he got pretty famousafter he started writing some of
these books.
Yeah, I, I would say UndauntedCourage. We'll talk about that. The
Story of Andrew of Lewis andClark is probably his most famous
work. But because he is basedout of there and because he's writing
(12:28):
all of these things that isreally striking America's interest,
he's kind of focusing on thatarea as well. It's one of the reasons
the museum is brought there,but it's because he is sponsoring
a location where all of theHiggins boats were made. Now, the
Higgins boats are those smallboats that come out of the back of
(12:52):
a amphibious ship. Kind of.Look at the Tara behind me here.
It's what's used in World WarII. They make over 23,000 of these
boats. And you can probablyremember them from Saving Private
Ryan. They. They hold about 36men. They can go about 14 miles an
hour, 12 knots.
Basically, a big box with amotor on the back so that the troops
can be in there and land onthe beach.
(13:14):
Yeah, they basically. It's atroop transport. Get them off the
ship onto the beach. AndAndrew Higgins lived in New Orleans,
and he started his factory inNew Orleans. Now, he started as a
lumber man, but then startedto make these boats. And you have
to realize he makes theseboats for the topography of New Orleans,
(13:34):
which is swamp.
Really neat.
Yeah. So they don't. Theydon't have a draft. Right. Because
it's very shallow water therewith the swamps and the mer in the
marshes. And so that's whatthese Higgins boats are great for
because they can get you rightup on the shore. They don't have
a big draft. And so because hemanufactures these boats in New Orleans
(13:54):
as a factory in New Orleans,and these boats are so instrumental
during World War II, that.That is where the museum is.
You said they. They ended upmanufacturing like, a few thousand
of these, right?
Yeah, over 23,000.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, I know.
That's World War II. Wartimeproduction was just incredible.
(14:14):
I mean, I read somewhere thathe was kind of like, not doing well
successfully until the Navytested out these boats in the Marine
Corps and found his boat wasthe best at getting them out of the
ships onto the beach. And sowhen they. He got the contract, the
government contract, it just completely.
And it's pretty neat, too,because they give them the shout
(14:34):
out for that right there in.In the. In. In the beginning of the
museum, right in the entry orwhere you're buying your ticket and
all that stuff. And then. Thenyou. You get in there and it's. It's.
It's such a. I. I actuallywant to go back because I'd like
to go back and. And notnecessarily film, so I can kind of
experience a little bit more.But you're there and you're getting
your ticket and you get on atrain just like you'd be going off
(14:56):
to war. It was really neat.
So they do a very Good job.There's about 700,000 visitors to
this museum every year. It hasbecome a place people want to see
in New Orleans. We were ableto walk to it from our hotel. It's
not in the French Quarter, butit's kind of right outside of the
French Quarter, so it's veryeasy to get to. Very walkable. They
(15:20):
tell a great story like mostmuseums do. So when you check in,
when you buy your ticket,expect to be there two and a half,
three hours, easy. You'regoing to stand in line to get on
a train. Like what it wouldfeel like for a soldier leaving for
World War II.
It's really cool.
You're going to see the tickertape of the. Or the. The. The changing
(15:40):
of the train schedules as youstand in line and you get on the
train. Now when you get on thetrain, you're given an interactive
dog tag to a soldier whoselife you follow through the war.
And some of them are prettyfamous. Like, I think I was supposed
to have, like, it's like BobHope or somebody. Like, I don't remember
(16:01):
who it was, but it. I mean,they have some famous actors, because
there was actors that weresoldiers. Right. So some of them
are names that you may or maynot recognize. But then you actually
have some pretty famous folksthat. That you might have gotten.
And mine didn't end upworking. I couldn't figure it out,
but I wasn't worried about it anyways.
So there's females. I had anurse. Right. So. And so a female
nurse. So you get differentpeople. And what's neat about it
(16:23):
is you do the road to Tokyo,you do the road to Berlin, you do
the D Day invasion atNormandy. So your soldier could have
been Pacific, your soldiercould have been Germany, your soldier
could have been on D Day. Soyou follow them wherever they went
into theater. And if theydidn't go into theater, you still
(16:44):
follow a story, but you're notfollowing your specific soldier.
And they just. They just makethat very interactive. My kids loved
it because you could go tothese little stations and see what
your soldier is doing in the war.
Yeah, it was. It's great forkids, great for adults, great for
any history. Nut even just thecasual fan is going. Casual kind
(17:05):
of band of brothers, whateverfan. Even if you're just in New Orleans
and you want something to dofor half a day, full day if you want
to. Fantastic place to go.
Yeah. So just know it's goingto take time. There's a lot to see
here and. But they do afantastic story. When you walk into
the road to Tokyo, when youwalk into the road of Berlin, you're
(17:25):
going to see right away whoare your Axis leaders, who are you
fighting in Japan, who are theleaders here, Who. When you go into
Berlin, who are the leaders ofGermany, who are the leaders of Italy?
Like, who are you fighting?And there's huge pictures of them,
and it makes it very clearwhat the war was about and who were
you fighting and what are youfighting them for? It's very neat
(17:49):
and they tell really greatvisual stories. And the artifacts
that go with these are liketop of the line best artifacts. They
have an Enigma machine there.They have the Norton bomb site there.
So things that were beingdeveloped that helped us win the
war, they have the actual onesused so you can actually see them.
(18:10):
Flags, artifacts from theactual soldiers. It just was really,
really a great museum. If youtalking about being immersed in the
story and feeling like you'repart of it.
And it's. It's world. It'sworld class. It really is. Right.
So you get what you pay forthere. And we didn't realize till
actually today when we werelooking at this, that we missed a
(18:33):
big section of it. There's awhole aircraft section that we just.
We didn't see that day, but wewere running around New Orleans doing
a lot of stuff.
Yeah. So you have to go back.I mean, it's six acres. Yeah. Right.
So it's a lot. So we found ourbrick. That was one thing we did
there. Another thing that Ihad seen that wasn't there the last
time we were there that Ireally liked was they had a whole
section on missing World WarII art. And I always love that. I'm
(18:55):
always very interested in thisart that was stolen and did it make
it back and why was it stolenand what happened to it and how they
recover it and.
Yeah, that was pretty neat.
There are some famous piecesthat are still missing I wanted to
talk about. Just so you knewwhat the famous pieces.
Is that where did they talk alittle bit about, like the whole
Monument Men.
Yeah.
Thing. Yeah. So if youremember that movie Monument Men,
(19:17):
it's kind of a piece of this.
Yeah. So you have Raphael'sYoung Boy, Portrait of a Young Boy.
That's the most famous picturethat's missing. It was taken from
a museum in Poland and thenthey just lost track of it. They
don't think it's destroyed.They just don't know where it is.
And there's another Van Goghpainter walking through field or
(19:39):
something. And it'sdefinitely. You can tell it's Van
Gogh. And those are the twobiggest that are still missing. Now,
what's interesting about this,and I didn't tell Scott about this,
but when I went to the MICKConference, the Military Influencer
Conference, they still have awhole department to this. And I was
actually approached that theywould put me on active duty. They
(20:01):
don't care what my age isbecause I have a master's degree
in history. If I worked out ofWashington D.C. no way. And it's
underneath all of the museumsthere, still trying to recover and
find missing art from wartimein different war areas.
I'm surprised you didn't tellme that, Scott. Go get orders to
dc. I'm going to work in thisspecial art, stolen art unit.
(20:21):
Well, since they said agedoesn't matter, I thought I got some
time. So that was very cool.But another story that I thought
was very neat that they haveemphasized there, because you're
going to always have differentexhibits and they're going to tell
different stories, was thefour chaplains story. And I wasn't.
I was aware of it, but Ididn't know the specifics of the
(20:44):
story. And I was so moved byit. And I think we happened to be
there right around the timewhen it actually happened. So it
was very interesting. Butthese four chaplains were on the
SS Dorchester. Dorchester.There probably is a Massachusetts
way to say this. Dorsher.Dorsher. There's probably some way
it's Dorchester. And it sankon February 3, 1943. It was a transport
(21:10):
ship. It was a. It was acivilian liner, which they did a
lot. They took these civilianliners and converted them from military
service. I mean, you think theQueen Mary was converted for military
service to get troops over toEurope? And it was. It left on January
23, and then it was hit in theearly hours of January 3rd by a torpedo
from a German submarine. Andthey lost pretty much everybody on
(21:34):
the ship. And these fourchaplains, who are all different
religious backgrounds, tooktheir life jackets off, put them
on other people, then theyjoined arms and they sung hymns and
said prayers out as the shipwent down. And it was interesting
because these four men arelike a Methodist minister, a rabbi,
(21:56):
a Catholic priest, and aAmerican Reformed Church minister.
So you're getting thesedifferent religious backgrounds.
Cause Scott knows he used torecruit chaplains. And they all went
chaplain school together. Theyall met at the army chaplain school.
And so they all preparedtogether. So they knew each other.
(22:16):
But as they go down togetherand they all perished, said prayers
and hymns of their particularreligious background. And I thought
that was very neat andsomething to honor. So they have
a whole area to them and telltheir individual stories and the
story of this event. And so Ithought that was neat, too.
So.
So those are the two thingsthat I. That were different than
(22:37):
the last time I had beenthere. Besides the amazing exhibits
they do just telling thedifferent stories.
Yeah.
They have some greatrestaurants there. We actually happened
to eat.
Have some great restaurants.Even some artifacts that I thought
were really neat. Right. Theyhad the flight jacket of Tibbets.
Paul. Paul Tibbets. CaptainPaul Tibbets, who, you know, flew
the aircraft that dropped thefirst nuclear bomb.
(22:57):
Yeah.
Atomic bomb. So they had thatthere. And that's actually kind of
where you hung out for alittle while, talking about kind
of our controversial part ofthis video.
So, yeah, let's get into thata little bit. So, Stephen Ambrose,
(23:20):
it's hard because people lovethis man, so. And I kind of have
a love for this man. So as wewere planning to do this video, I
was like, we should center ona story. Let's center on a story
and tell a story. Becausethat's really what we do with Walk
with History, talk withhistory, is we center on one particular
story, especially in a museum,because there's so much to see. So
(23:41):
we try to tell. Show oneartifact and tell the story. And
as I'm doing my research, thiscontroversy of Stephen Ambrose comes
out. I was not even aware of how.
Bad it was, and I had no clue.When you brought this up to me, I
was actually pretty surprisedbecause his name is kind of held
(24:02):
in such high regard because ofthe Lewis and Clark book, because
of Band of Brothers. I mean,it's like, in this, like, rarefied
air, his name.
Yeah. And so a lot of thiscame out after he dies as well. So
what's interesting is he. Hespoke to it a little bit in his lifetime
because he was confrontedabout it in his lifetime, but he
(24:23):
brushes it off. Off. And it'snot until after he dies that more
of it comes out. So what isit? You're like, what is it? He's
accused of plagiarizing inpretty much every work he has written.
And. And you said, like, notlike, just like a line here, a line
there that he didn't credit,but like, large sections.
Yeah. So it's more than just acouple. Like, like Scott said, it's.
(24:47):
It's more than just a fewsentences. It's huge. Sections of
his book are found to be casesof plagiarism and it. And it goes
all the way back to hisdoctoral dissertation. And he plagiarizes
such big sections and nevergives any credit to where he got
(25:08):
those sources from. So it'snot just, I took sections and I didn't
cite them because some peopledon't cite in the work. They'll put
it in their sources used,which is still kind of murky when
it comes to being a historian.But he didn't even cite sources.
And he's taking huge chunks ofother people's work and putting it
(25:30):
in his work. Historians don'treally. We don't do that. So when
I talk about what makessomeone a historian. Yes. Do we talk
about other people's writings?Absolutely. Could I talk about Stephen
Ambrose's writing in somethingI write? Absolutely. What's the historiography
of D Day? Who's written aboutD Day? Stephen Ambrose wrote about
(25:51):
D Day. This is what he wrote,and this is the research he did.
And this is why it's notaccurate or it is accurate. I would
cite all of that becausethat's what a historian does. I'm
bringing you the history. IfI'm telling someone's personal story,
I'm. This is what they said onthis day. And. And this is the. Where
I got it from. Either. It'ssome. Some kind of document that
(26:12):
I have that shows their wholeinterview. So you're not just making
things up. You're usingsources, primary sources to back
any kind of thesis or argumentyou're trying to make. That's how
our historian does this. Now,Stephen Ambrose uses more of a storytelling
kind of historiography, whichis great. And historians do do that,
(26:37):
which is not citing everythingright away, but they always cite
their sources at the end andthey always say, you know, you can
always tell where they'reciting someone else's work because
they'll make it probablysmaller print and. And indented on
both sides.
Yep. And some of them are evenjust kind of were actually relatively
obvious. Right. So, like, Iknow the one that I first learned
(26:59):
of, this was before we wentdown to the World War II Museum,
was when we were doing ourBand of Brothers in Arlington. Right.
Albert Blythe in the. In theminiseries. Right. Albert Blythe,
you know, dies or whateverlike that. Because that's what happened.
That's how Ambrose wrote it inthe book. It looks. And apparently
he just kind of wrote him off.He. He never checked on what happened
(27:20):
to Albert Blythe or whatever.But Albert Blythe had a long career,
went and fought in Korea andall this stuff. So, like, there's.
That was one example that whenyou brought this up, I was like,
oh, that's kind ofinteresting, because a little bit
more people know of. Of thatone because Band of Brothers is so
popular that Albert Blythe'sfamily is like, he. He didn't die
right? Like, what. What's all this?
(27:41):
And there's more instances ofthat in Band of Brother. That's not
just the. The solid, thesingle case. There's over dramatization
of things that are happen.There are people who. They combine
their stories to be one storyor they've completely changed their
story, like in this case. Andthat's almost why, in a way, you
(28:02):
get what's his name, the Bandof Brothers, Dick. That's why. That's
why you get Dick Winters, whokind of writes beyond Band of Brothers
after to tell his personalaccount. Because even though he appreciates
what Stephen Ambrose did inbringing his story to light, it wasn't
actually accurate. So Winterswants to make sure he's telling you
the accurate story.
(28:23):
Yeah, and we say this all thetime on tv, in movies, in TV series,
that happens a lot becausewriters will combine characters,
you know, in the movie Glory,the. The main character is actually
kind of a amalgamation of twocharacters. So that happens a lot.
But for a historian to putthat in their works, and then all
(28:44):
of a sudden people start kindof digging stuff up and they're like,
oh, my gosh, he's done thisnumerous times across a good portion
of his works.
And what happens is kind ofwhat happened in our case when we
did Mary Weather Lewis's deathis, I read on daunted courage. And
when Meriwether Lewis commitssuicide at Grinder Stand, Stephen
(29:09):
Ambrose doesn't question it inhis book, he takes it as fact. Because
Thomas Jefferson and Clarkdon't question the suicide theory,
even though it's veryquestionable in actuality. And so
as a historian, which I do inour video, as I tell you both sides
(29:31):
and the facts from both sides,because there are conflicting primary
source facts about whatactually happened in Meriwether Lewis's
last hours. And because ofthat, as a historian, I can't say
undoubtedly that he died bysuicide. And so that's what a historian
does. But I. If you readStephen Ambrose and you believe him
(29:55):
because you have faith in himdoing his work as a historian, you
wouldn't question it becauseyou believe he's doing his due diligence.
Well, when it comes out thathe's not, it Makes you question all
of his works. And that'sreally what happens. Ambrose is commissioned
to do the biography of DwightD. Eisenhower, right. The supreme
(30:16):
commander of the Allied forcesduring World War II and goes on to
become President of the UnitedStates. Ambrose says that Eisenhower
contacts him and asks him towrite his biography. Well, there's
a letter at the EisenhowerPresidential Library from Ambrose
to Eisenhower asking if he canwrite his biography. And Eisenhower
(30:41):
says, oh, yes, I just read oneof your books. Let's meet. Ambrose
claims to have this intimaterelationship with Eisenhower. He
even is quoted to say, wetalked for hours and hours. We spent
hundreds of hours together.
In hundreds is a lot.
It's a lot. In Eisenhower'spersonal diaries and date books,
(31:05):
it shows they've met threetimes for less than five hours. Now
there is another researcherwho says there might have been more
discussion between the twobecause Eisenhower really wanted
to make sure he was painted ina. In a positive light, especially
as the Allied commander. Hewanted to make sure that his decision
(31:28):
making, especially around theatomic bomb, that those things were
really flushed out. And so hesays they may have talked more and
they may have met more. Hedoesn't think it was hundreds of
hours. And so what comes outlater is that he's found to have
fabricated interviews andevents in the biography of Eisenhower.
(31:52):
So much so that Eisenhowerreally doesn't talk with him after
these biographies come out. Soit's just. And this happens in 2010.
So these. In 2015, there was abook that came out about Eisenhower.
And it. And the person whowrote it said, while some Eisenhower
scholars questions Ambroseresearch, the enormity of his falsifications
(32:15):
was not revealed until afterhis death. Ambrose lied about his
relationship with Eisenhower.He fabricated and manufactured many
events that never took place.
And the tough part about that,right, and that's partly why we,
we talked about it like at theWorld War II Museum. And you did
(32:35):
a good job in the video of onepresenting the facts and kind of
talking about like, this iswhy it's good, this is why it's.
Here's, here's the bad, buthere, here's the good that, that
Ambrose did at the same time,right? So you do, you, you kind of
keep it pretty level whenyou're talking about it in the video
and saying, hey, what is this?What does this mean? And you brought
(32:56):
that up in the video.
Yeah, and I try to make itvery clear. I have so much conflict.
Like, we all respect KenBurns. We all respect what Ken Burns
has done for documentaryfilmmaking and history. He used undaunted
courage to do the documentaryof the Lewis and Clark expedition,
declared that Ambrose takesone of the great, but also one of
the most superficiallyconsidered stories in American history
(33:20):
and breathes fresh life intoit, like the Lewis and Clark story
we all knew, but no one knewit to that level and depth until
Ambrose's book comes out, andthat book is used to make the documentary.
So he's so conflicting becausewhat he's done for history and how
(33:40):
he's brought it to life andhow he's reinvigorated it. I mean,
Band of Brothers was huge. Andhe's one of the reasons why The World
War II Museum got built. He'sone of the reasons why it's in New
Orleans. He's kind of one ofthe reasons why World War II history
is so interesting to peopleand why people are interested in
it. Without Band of Brothers,there wouldn't have been Masters
(34:03):
of the Air. Like, I don'tknow. Without Band of Brothers, would
there have been Saving PrivateRyan? Like, it's just, he's invigorated
history. But then you havehistorian David Greenberg, who said
in 2015, Ambrose wanton actsof plagiarism and the posthumous
revelation that he fabricatedinterviews with Dwight Eisenhower
have rendered his workunusable. So I would say if you use
(34:28):
his work, if you cite his workas a historian, always go back to
what he is using as his sourceand go to that primary source. I
wouldn't even source Ambrose.I would go to whatever source Ambrose
used and use that as yoursource forever. You're writing.
Yeah. And that's what you saidin the video, Right? Because in the
video, we can't go into thedepth that we get to do here. But
(34:50):
you basically, you kind ofsummarize it. You do a really good
job. And we weave in, kind ofshowing different things at World
War II Museum. And obviouslythe video will be linked in the.
In the podcast show notes. Butyou say, like, what does this mean?
What does this mean aboutAmbrose and you and you. And you
say, and I think you said itsuccinctly, is like, he's a great
place to start. He's a greatplace to start. Right? And he. There's
something to be said aboutbeing able to tell a story like that
(35:13):
with history, all the factsthat you gather and stuff like that.
Now you do kind of have totake everything into account with
not citing things and making,you know, in for certain works, you
know, making things completelyup. But it's not a black and white.
It's not, he did do a lot ofgood there and he didn't cite, he
(35:36):
just didn't cite things.Right. So it's a good place to start.
And if you're, you know, Ithink it was Larry who was telling
us he's going back to schooland working on, on history stuff.
And you know, if you're astudent watching this, right, and
you've, you just read one ofAmbrose's books, that's what you
got to do is you got to goback and check the sources that are
cited. And if you can't find asource, source that's cited, that
(35:59):
might be one of the sectionsthat he just didn't cite or he plagiarized
or whatever part of it is. Youhave to be, you have to have that,
that kind of professionalskepticism. And, and that's what
historians do.
Yeah. And I think we do thatwell in the, in the Merryweather
Lewis video, we start toquestion Ambrose's work and we do
that because there areconflicting primary sources that
(36:20):
he doesn't add. And as ahistorian, you don't get to pick
and choose the sources thatyou're, if you're looking up an event,
you don't get to pick andchoose what part of the event you
want to put in there or whatpart of the story you want to put
in there. If it's a primarysource, you have to put in all of
it. And you can say this mayor may not seem plausible, but this
is what was said at the time.So that's what builds trust as a
(36:43):
historian. So like I said,Stephen Ambrose, great storyteller,
opens us up our eyes up to alot of great moments in American
history. Probably not thehistorian you want to cite on any
of your works if you'regetting any kind of degree further
on in history. But the museumis fantastic.
Yeah, the museum is fantastic.It was interesting and kind of fun
(37:07):
to explore the Ambrose topic.And, and really we, we need to go
back to the museum. I need tokind of set my camera down the next
time that I go and justexperience it. And I would encourage
you, if you're watching thisto, if you are in New Orleans and
if you're watching this, youshould go watch, you should go to
the museum and then you shouldtell all of your friends to go to
the museum because it's, it'sincredible. It, it's absolutely world
(37:29):
class. It's like a Disneylevel experience. And it was just
an absolute blast to, to godown there and find our brick and
take the kids and, and showthem all that stuff. So we got our
own little piece of historydown there, there. But thank you
so much for joining us today.And if you want. Again, if you want
to support the show, if youwant to support the podcast, you
can go to talk withhistory.com. support you. Buy us
a coffee, buy me a sandwich.You know, you can buy Jen a T shirt.
(37:51):
Another history.
Another history.
Another history shirt.
Yeah. And if you. Is this, ifthis is your first time hearing any
of this controversy aboutAmbrose, please let us know in the
comments. Are you shocked? Areyou like, oh, my gosh, is this real?
Because that's kind of how wefelt the first time we actually were
reading about it too. So letus know how you feel about that.
Does it change your opinion?Does it not? And just how, if this
(38:12):
is the first time you've evenheard this kind of controversy.
All right, we'll talk to younext time.
Thank you.
This has been a Walk WithHistory production. Talk With History
is created and hosted by me,Scott Bennie. Episode researched
by Jennifer Bennie. Check outthe show notes for links and references
mentioned in this episode.Talk with History is supported by
our fans at the History Roadtrip dot com. Our eternal thanks
(38:35):
go out to those providingfunding to help keep us going. Thank
you to Doug McLiverty, LarryMyers, Patrick Bennie, Gail Cooper
and Christy Kohtz. Make sureyou hit following that podcast player
and we'll talk to you next time.
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