The WWII Attack America Chose to Forget

This is Lee Habib Mrs. L American stories we tell stories about everything here in the shelf in the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between including your story. Seven hour American stories.com. Some of our favorites in this next story also story of Frank Breyer in the tragedy of the British transport ship, Rona 1943 despite being the largest loss of US troops at sea due to enemy action in a single incident.

The full details of the attack were released until 1967 dear Prof. of political science at Grove city College Paul Kilgore to tell the rest of the story, any veteran of World War II can tell you stories but for Frank Breyer's story, one he could never forget was a terrible began the moment is ship called the Rona was sunk in that ship went down on November 26, 1943 Frank's life changed forever. And very few people beyond the man tossed into the sea ever knew what have the HMT Rona was an 8600 ton British troop ship carrying mostly in American route to the far east theater. It went down the day after Thanksgiving in the Mediterranean off the coast of North Africa, the victim of a German missile. It was not just any German missile. This was seems the first known successful head of a vessel by a German rocket boosted radio remote control glider bomb one of the first true missiles used in combat. It was in effect a guided missile and the Nazis had achieved first results were immediately destructive. According to the website that today serves as the official online gathering spot for the Rona survivors Association more lives were lost on the Rona than on the USS Arizona Pearl Harbor over 1000 boys to be exact lost their lives and their government kept the entire episode a secret out of fear of information being leaked about the power of the German guided missile.

The government fear the effect on the morale of the US military and the wider population was so devastating states, the Rona survivors Association that the US government placed the veil of secrecy upon the government. It said, still does not acknowledge this tragedy and, thus, most families of the casualties still do not know the fate of their loved one. It's very sad and only now, long after the few survivors were even fewer, the Rona survivors are attempting to hold reunions over 70 years after the secrecy was so tight that Frank Breyer's daughter Mary Joe spent painstaking years with her dad trying to type out details and piece together what occurred that was haunted frequently by this Mary Jo told me that it was not so much the sinking of the ship, but his personal inability to save many men those awful moments of fire remain secret in Frank's brain is the ship burst into a giant fireball, Frank Mann, the ropes of a lifeboat pack with injured soldiers. He was ordered to hold the ropes tight, lower the boat with the soldiers into the water below.

This was no simple task, especially in a chaotic panic situation.

Lifeboat filled with man is light that was proven quickly as the ropes broken Frank watch the men below him in his care fall to their death.

The image of those men slipping from his hands into the abyss, but the nightmares they become later. In the meantime Frank two was forced to abandon ship which submerged within nearly an hour for his own crowded lifeboat.

He and five other men sees the floating wooden as the darkness slowly enveloped them with night setting in Europe still more German missile. Frank led the group in reciting the Lord's prayer. They say there are no atheists in foxholes.

Well there were none on that wooden bench in the water that night either Frank and his group with her floating wooden bench took turns for them would float on the bench and two would hang on the ropes. They fear not only Germans but sharks and for good reason. Anyone familiar with the horror story that was the USS Indianapolis knows how the sharks slowly but steadily devour the boys floating in the water over course of several long days. The crew of six tried to get some sleep while floating in the cold water but couldn't they needed to stay focused on holding onto the floating device the bench to their great fortune. They were in the water only for about six hours, just as the sun started to rise. The spider rescue boat on the horizon. It was a mine swing. They were taken to a facility in Algeria to recover but for Frank there was little emotional comfort. All he could think about was the wounded soldiers that he couldn't save the worst of all Frank could not share what he was going through. They were ordered not to write or talk about the Rona with her family, or even among themselves the military censorship was so strict that they were threatened with court-martial if he ever disobeyed and so Frank kept it secret all the way to the grave, tormenting him yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, night after night throughout the rest of his life. Frank Breyer died on January 4, 2016 at age 92, seven decades after the sinking of the Rona he now at long last rest in peace let us a long last remember him and the entire crew of the Rona and thanks again to Paul Kenmore and that was his story and his contribution. Paul is a professor of political science at Grove city College and there are so many untold stories of World War II and so many of our nations battles we tell them you're in our American stories and if you have one yourself family members something from your family history care for goes as far back as a Civil War we have one great lady from Memphis would send some Civil War letters to us. We recorded one, it was just extraordinary and should kept it as a namesake as a keepsake for her family heritage in her family lineage.

So send them to us will have them recorded by you and that was Paul Kenmore, and that is Frank Breyer's story, the story of the Rona and all those forgotten men and unknown men died, and perished on that tragic day there stories all here on our American story. If you love the story about this, especially America's rich past. Know that all of our stories about American history toward innovation culture and faith are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College placement. Students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. If you can't get the Hillsdale that will come to you with her free and terrific online courses go to Hillsdale.ED you learn more and continue with our American stories and up next bit of economic history and a bit of business history and his Pulitzer prize-winning biography.

The first type the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt author TJ Stiles tells a dramatic story of Cornelius Commodore Vanderbilt birth during the presidency of George Washington's death is one of the richest men in American history.

Commodore helped to launch the transportation revolution gold rush. Appreciate Manhattan and invented the modern corporation. This combative American icon to his genius and force of will. Did more than perhaps any other single individual to create the modern American economy. Here's TJ Stiles with the story of Cornelius Vanderbilt Venables is often been depicted as this purely a moral creature was willing to do anything basically and he's often been conflated and confused with the light of his arrivals.

For example, in the famous Erie war of 1868 the most famous of the Gilded Age, Wall Street battles, in which he fought with Daniel Drew and Jay Gould and Jim Fisk over the control of the Erie Railway.

There is a lot of corruption of government officials and I when I start writing the book.

I assume that Vanderbilt was bribing away with the best and it turns out I could not find any evidence or even any accusations at the time that Vanderbilt was bribing people and I thought that was kind of interesting because he was ruthless. He took extraordinary steps to defeat his enemies. And I think for much of his career at least until he got in the Railway years he saw his enterprises as much as military campaigns against his enemies as he did, machinery, and enterprise businesses which makes his life a lot of fun to read about, but raises questions about what they did have a code and surprisingly he he really did have a code of conduct. Now is upon us. Didn't always agree but heat really polished his reputation as a man of his word and I found letters from people he dealt with in which they would say let's have a written agreement. He said no you know that my word is as good as my bond and often when had disputes almost always suggested that they go to arbitration beachside pics an arbitrator and then those two arbitrators for the third and when they his opponents agreed almost always one which tells you something, he would push his opponents as hard as possible but once he made a deal he stuck to it. Another thing that's interesting about Vanderbilt and again they I'm saying this not trying to raise him up as a great hero looking at him on his own terms.

What the evidence shows is that he was not only honest but he also believed in his duty to his stockholders and as he became a corporate official.

He really believed that he had a duty, as he put it to run a corporation as if it was his own personal private property. So what he did was invest heavily in stock and in the 19th century, stock was expected to pay dividends they didn't look for growth and share value. They look for steady dividends. That's what investors look for them.

So he took no salary and the only remuneration conduct was dividends in the stock. A lot of corporate officials engaged inside dealing and enter Carnegie's mentors at the Pennsylvania Railroad are much more like the executives we have now corporations. They were not major shareholders. They were professional managers hired by these largely anonymous shareholders run the company, very smart men, Thomas a Scott Jaeger Thompson. They ran the Pennsylvania Railroad.

They ran very well, but they also pioneered shell corporations and dummy companies through which they funneled the company's business and they control those companies and skin monies came in and out of the Pennsylvania Vanderbilt never engaged in that sort of business.

He thought it was important.

So, surprisingly, for a man who was utterly ruthless and yet within the context of business. He had a strict code of ethics and he lived by. Another thing about him is that he was driven by pride and I think what drove him into railroads when he was seven years old well past life expect past when he expected to live.

He turned to railroads.

He didn't think I'm going to become the great railroad tycoon know he started off with the American Harlem Railroad which at the time was considered the most necrotic company in America.

It was at railroad that was considered barely worth the. The iron in the rails and he said you know what I can take this railroad and I can make it profitable and he said, repeatedly, was a point of pride for me to take the company with the stock was worth $10 a share and to raise it up and make it into a healthy, profitable company and that pride drove him is why he was such a competitor personally with his inner racing horses in and was a card player fierce competitor and everything he did, and that personal pride was really something that drove him all the way through, and that of course also made him such a ferocious competitor with his enemies to it during much of his life. He was considered notably on benevolent and I don't completely dismiss that idea certainly was no enter Carnegie he didn't engage in some of that the truly great philanthropy that later taken status no doubt about that. On the other hand there's there's two things I remember about Vanderbilt. One is that he hated people who were boastful and talk about themselves and their a lot of reports that are impossible to verify the claim that he engaged in a lot of charity but he just refused to put his name out there and he would certainly I do know that, for example, young relatives, nephews and grandsons of their letters to presidents and an outright saying I normally don't do this. I really hope that you can help them out in I would like you to find a position for the sky in a heat heat engaged in helping people out much more than than the public record would indicate. I think of the other thing is that he was a man who was deeply patriotic and a lot of the D benevolence that he did take part in. But he, for example, during the Civil War donated his largest steamship worth almost $1 million in the Navy and personally outfitted.

It then re-outfitted for the for the union.

He took part in helping to prepare major expeditions without any pay engaged in these activities because he was deeply patriotic. He named his three sons after his heroes, George Washington, William Henry Harrison and Dick Noyes Vanderbilt.

Like I said he was a proud man, but then after the Civil War. He really took on the idea of helping to reconcile North and South and so he put up his name as one of the bondsman for Jefferson Davis to get him out of prison. He specifically wanted to help a found university in the South deliberately to counterbalance his gift of the Union Navy and those two gifts largely balance each of the action get slightly more money to found university so it's true he will not go down in history as is one of the great charitable givers, but the record I think needs to be balanced and also specifically to be seen as is his personal vision of trying to reconcile the two sides of the country rather than being an ongoing found libraries that let's try to bring the divided country together again and again. He had a real knack. One of the secrets of his success was an unerring sense for where the main channel of commerce was in the country late in life, Chicago, New York, during this period, 1830s and 40s between New York and Boston and he ran his steamboats on Long Island sound and ran in connection with the railroads which there was enough capital to build a railroad all the way to New York so they ran short lines down to see Port Townsend Long Island sound when the interesting things is that Vanderbilt always had a large cash reserve when these panic set. He always managed to see trouble coming soon enough so that he was in overexpose in terms of being overly leveraged. Another thing is that by constantly engaging in fair wars with his opponents.

He kept prices on his steamboats very low and that I think had a surprising effect in the 19th century before the Civil War. Paper money was issued by private banks and the banks would collect a reserve of gold and silver which was in a gold or silver coin was worth its weight in that precious metal melted down south and same amount and they would issue loans by issuing paper money well. Most paper banknotes were only issued for larger denominations a dollar larger, usually five dollars or larger venerable stairs are usually a dollar less often. So he had gold and silver coin which we never lost its now he is so ironically on a lot of his pallets.

The low fares actually ended up giving him a large cash reserve and you're listening to TJ Stiles tell the story of Cornelius Vanderbilt and my goodness to live the years he lived to get into the railroad industry at that weight and age I had no idea that he was that old when he started and well what turned out to be one of the most important investments of his entire life when he would come to dominate. When we come back more of the story of Cornelius Vanderbilt here on our American stores. What I told you I found a hairdryer that we healthier looking. The more you like Conair is revolutionizing the drying experience of its new map hairdryer advanced plasma technology traditional drives and it only negative ions to control friends advanced plasma technology rapture here in both positive and negative ions to rebalance the natural charge of hair. The result him (brilliant sign and your hair by searching on Amazon.com and we continue with our American stories and with author TJ's dial, author of the book. The first tycoon the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Let's pick up where we last left off venerable incredibly effective at doing things like getting cheaper fuel. He designed his steamships himself is the great maritime architects of the paddlewheel era and the steamboats he started to put on lie on sound written up in technical journals as masterpieces of naval engineering is first rate Long Island sound, steamboat is half concealed of its rival steamboats and fuel was by far the largest expense.

So these sorts of things. His ability to cut costs or phenomenal and one thing I touch on the book and I will go into great detail his attacks on especially early corporations and on companies that had monopolies, legal or otherwise played right into a big political conflict. The 19th century, in which in it an economy in which the rent. Large businesses become is relatively flat laissez-faire was a radical philosophy and corporations were seen as grants and special favors to men who are already rich, giving them limited liability and other special privileges. It's a Vanderbilt's business enterprises remaking 30s and 40s were actually raised him up as a kind of Jacksonian populist hero. Here's this guy is as an individual going after these rich corporations that have special privileges granted by the government and he made public pronouncement saying you know, I'm the antimonopoly guide.

This call designs the People's line you know is headline said no monopoly. You know power to the people is the equivalent and in his early career he was erratically was a populist now he is anti-is laissez-faire philosophy stayed the same as he became the great railroad tycoon is the master of these giant corporations and the political landscape rotated hundred 80� facing the same things he said making 30s when he got in the 1870s and meanwhile the first government regulation advocates are out there in the populace of the center favoring government intervention. So it's very interesting we look at today's political landscape and I think a lot of liberals don't understand how people earning $30,000 a year. The family five can be pro-free market and antigovernment regulation.

When you look at the currents of American history. A lot of these currents are very deep to go back very far in these things come up in Venable's life again and again he actually was notoriously nonreligious and that he was raised in the Moravian church. Some Vanderbilt ancestors switch from Dutch reformed Moravian and he was capable of universal charity and and he would occasionally express things in religious terms, but I don't know if he ever went to a church except for a wedding or funeral, and this is a period in American history when spiritualism was huge and it was a mainstream belief after member at the Civil War killed the better part of the million Americans every family had lost loved ones and spiritualism having stances contacting the dead had gotten it start before the Civil War, but a decade after the Civil War became acute phenom and Vanderbilt outlived so many contemporaries, friends, family, rivals. He started going to stances during the Civil War and I don't believe that he made any business decisions based on stances in one of I think a telling story of a witness testified to being an assassin within in which he asked to speak to the ghost of Jim Fisk, one of his rival. So the medium of contacts. I do believe in spiritualism.

I don't think actually contacted Jim Fisk, Jim Fisk of the village of Fiscus here and so Venable asked him a question about a stock and stock market. Jim Fisk, of course, does know anything, so Jim Fisk gives nonsense answer so Venable doesn't say, oh, that's interesting. He says we talking about you crazy to argue with the ghost and then Venable says he will will see who's right you are me and then he says this is a joke of Fiscus. If so, how do you like it.

On the other side so well you'll find out soon enough you near the end of your line and they have this this hilarious exchange Venable arguing and joking with the ghost of Jim Fisk but it shows that I don't see many decisions based on this I think you find them comforting.

I don't think that it was his God, but late in life, his wife, his second wife was very religious. She was a Methodist and he did give money to found Venable University, which was specifically religious University and he did give money to buy church for the church of the strangers, which was a church for Southerners in New York City, but interestingly, when he made those gifts, he didn't ask the Bishop who was the first had a Venable University or the minister who ran the church that he and down. He didn't ask him about the religious beliefs he can care less about theology as he said to one of them after he'd been preaching to Vanderbilt for a while in the hot summer heat waving a fan.

He said Dr. everything you said to me weighs about as much with me is that fan you're waving right now but he did care about people and he want to make sure that those men are honest and capable so he questioned them extensively, but about what they were like his men that he knew from life business, then from his wife's diary cigarettes diary when is on his deathbed had a horrible several months of his body beginning to fail. Suffering terrible internal infections.

He finally asked. Toward the end of his very end of his life. You know, he asked her to take part in a prayer with him and said he wanted to give his life to Jesus and she said will is is it because you love Jesus we are afraid of going to hell as well you to be honest, both as a man of few words but he was honest up to the very end and how did he see himself as an interesting incident in 1867 when he and a battle between his railroads and before he took control of the near central he famously the depth of winter, when boats couldn't get through the frozen harborage and to Manhattan he to settle the dispute near central railroad. He cut off access of all trains from the lesson to New York City essentially personally living a blockade on the nation's largest city. This created a bit of a fear. It won him his battle with the near central credit if urine and in your state legislature started to talk about laws they could pass the controllers in the way he responded when he gave testimony is very interesting. He didn't say that you know the laws, no good, etc. can talk about the public interest. He said if you can pass a law that will compel men to pursue their interests more intelligently than the interests themselves will compel them, then it's all well and good but I don't think you can do that. In other words, you deeply believe that basically in the invisible hand without ever having read Adam Smith sure he did. He believed that the world is run by everybody pursuing their private interests to the best of their ability. Now, yet a business Cody to do it honestly, fiercely, but honestly, but he really believed me. Things function when everybody pursues their own interests. So that's how he saw his legacy didn't see himself as you know he didn't think about the public interest.

He thought the public interest. He said I serve the public to the best of my ability. Why because it's in my interest to do so is it is so he saw himself as a man who if you serve the public, fine, but it's because I'm pursuing my own private interests and you're listening to author TJ Stiles who's written a terrific biography of Pulitzer prize-winning biography. The first tycoon the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and there's so much they are to unpack the idea that he designed his own steamships when he was really doing in the end it was extracting value out of that and through that design by making it more affordable ride on his steamships as opposed to his competitors in my goodness, what we heard there at the end of what storytelling talking to negotiating with an arguing with a former arrival at a sales I'd love to see the scene in that movie is that to be really funny and though notoriously on religious in the end well.

Towards the end of his life hedged his bets and this happens also often families across the country. When we come back the remarkable life of Cornelius Vanderbilt is told by TJ Stiles. Storytelling continues here on our American stories and we continue with our American stories. The story of Cornelius Vanderbilt is told by author TJ Stiles, let's continue with this final part of this remarkable American story. Now, with his family. You know he had a total of 13 children, 11 of whom lived through adulthood and he had a vast fortune when he died 1877 it was estimated, and it's hard to know for sure at $100 million as I don't give equivalent mining figures in the books that I think that's an honest way to do it but I do look at the controller of the currencies report and how much money was in circulation and if you look at the amount of money in circulation. She'd been able to sell all his assets that estimated hundred million dollars to American buyers computers taken, including cash and demand deposits.

One out of every $20 in circulation. Now Bill Gates and Forbes calculated is fortunate 58 billion I think could have done the same thing and you take the Federal Reserve's M2 figure Gemma Billington would've taken one out of every hundred $38 so that different gender disparity in wealth is pretty obvious and that probably understates the disparity for variations and plus you got the power that control of railroads gave Vanderbilt in there's no industry that overshadows the entire economy debated railroads that time so was a vast fortune and the money he left to his widow into his various daughters were large amounts half $1 million. He left to his wife and into some of his daughters. Not all and that was enough for you to be very wealthy, extremely wealthy.

In the 19th century evenly century, but he left 95% of his estate to his oldest son, and why. Well first of all you got is all sentence capable he brought William H. Vanderbilt and his his operational manager and he did a very good job but because he deliberately wanted to perpetuate his name.

The name that he had given to his steamboats.

Do steamships the name that he had given to his son. His second son, who unfortunately was a gambling addict and epileptic, and so he left all this money to one son deliberately trying to found a dynasty and bitterly divided his family the vegetables is more complicated as a family man and again the message that he was this brutal tyrant who just abused his wife and his children hated him and that's not true. He was a hard man. He was very judgmental.

Reminds me of friend of mine said that his father once told him when when he was young and are never to let you beat me at anything you can if we ever play a game you have to be near zero. You respect father like that but when you're growing up is not on fun either. In this way, it was preventable. Sometimes some famous incidents in which he was hard and his family I think are overblown, but that doesn't make them nice.

For example, his his first wife making 46 he put her in an insane asylum for a while now. When you look at that the testimony about that.

It turns out that she was having serious problems and a son-in-law who generally had unfavorable feelings. By the time he spoke about this about his about Vanderbilt thought. Actually it was justified.

She needed medical help and asylum is the way to do so.

It was a tough thing to do, but it wasn't in a brutal tyrant. It was her like what we do. She's just not herself. She's acting where he again was hard on his second son, Neil, the one who is gambling addict, but then again Neil would've tried any funds patient's someone is always in trouble with the law skipping out on on his bills involved in bad debts addicted to gambling boastful all the things his father wasn't in Iser Museum is the antihero in the book because this troubled son brings out all the emotional complexity and Vanderbilt. The stern judge the overbearing father sometimes is harsh on his son and had him arrested and sent to an insane asylum. Also it at a time and they did not have ligature diction again hard thing to do, but understandable in the context, and sometimes you know encouraging and and loving these is a more sympathetic character than I think we realized and that's not to take away any of the complications and ambivalence personally or historically. But you know again that's that's the American experience.

Questions like addiction and mental illness are things that we know most families deal with at some point and so William H. Vanderbilt was given credit for doubling the family fortune a few years.

I think that actually if Vanderbilt himself had done nothing but kind of let his state compound and he lived as long as a sign. It probably would've been similar. As he put it in your central railroad could run itself after certain point, but the interesting thing about image Vanderbilt is that it was surprisingly undiplomatic as a businessman in a J.P. Morgan thought a large block of stock near central railroad and attempt to control the destructive competition among railroads, any complaint continually about how he's always quibbling engages in disputes that would embarrass a bowery lawyer and need a skidrow lawyer and he was a quarrelsome figure this kind of testing and I've read a lot of other letters complaining about how the sun was testing but he was a nice father.

So Vanderbilt the tough father was a diplomatic businessman, William, his son was a terrible business diplomat, but in a kind of a nice father and William really as soon as his father died and once he settled this big fight over the will and and secured his control.

The estate he sold the controlling block of shares to J.P. Morgan syndicate and began to build these lavish mansions, as did his children that his father never would've tolerated as the old man's dead robot go the huge mansions and the Gilded Age access begins at you know once that the dates are tightfisted old man is gone. Then they start building the famous Vanderbilt mansions, and by now the vegetable fortune has been dissipated because it was founded on the first grade industry in America, the railroads, the first industry to mature and fade also in the near central railroad, you know, was taken over by what are now publicly owned systems. Though the infrastructure Venable built is still vital to the city of New York. His statue is still out in front of the modern version of Grand Central terminal. He built and they still use infrastructure.

The deconstructed Nina back in the 19th century and still very much a vital part of New York today.

You know I remember when I turned in the first few chapters to my my editor. They just sent back than I like. This is not you can do way better than this is crushed, and I realize that I'm just writing about his business.

I was writing about how it fit into the world in which he insisted and did the turning point in his early life. For example, he took on his only employer he ever had in his life and man was really his mentor cementing Thomas Givens and he's the man who hired Venable to work in us for steamboat chemist Ingo Capt. and brought him into this great legal as well as business battle against a monopoly illegal monopoly. The nearest data given to the Livingston family for steamboat's near waters led to Givens the Ogden, the first commerce clause cases the Supreme Court decided, and legal and back to the state Supreme Court said states cannot direct boundaries of trade. We have a free market. Basically United States. Only Congress can control interstate trade and it really is one of the keys to America's economic growth and Vanderbilt. By the way was was keenly interested in this went himself to hear the arguments hired Webster Daniel Webster himself knows a young man with very little education and is a certain look into this, I realize it's not enough about law is not just about business. It is about the end of an 18th-century culture of deference in which you had old landed aristocratic families, especially New York, which they had mercantilist ideas they expected to be granted special privileges and they said would take custody of the American economy and the way in which they had custody of politics and of other areas of life in New York State at the time.

For example, had not only property requirements. They had two separate levels of property requirements.

You had to have a high level to vote for governor in a lower level to vote for the state assembly was this hierarchical society and I realize this era Venable's life is not just about him getting ahead eating the right gone is not just about this legal battle. It was about the end of this older hierarchical society and the birth of an individualistic competitive society much more like the one we know today and a great job as always by Greg Engler on the piece, and a special thanks to author TJ Stiles in his book a Pulitzer Prize winner is the first tycoon the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and so often these men, these titans are caricatured we go to school and their contributions to society are downplayed their villainy well up played and in the end the real story well so different we heard straight from a great writer who spent a lot of time thinking about and researching this remarkable American life 13 children, 11 went to adulthood. But he left almost all the estate to one and all because he wanted to see the name and the family business continue. By the way, the idea that he grew up during the Washington presidency and was born during the George Washington presidency saw the Civil War and got into the railroad business in his 70s, thinking about the future and the railroads with the Internet of their day. That's how transformative railroads were in there was Vanderbilt Vanderbilt in the 70s, when most people his age were dead remarkable story about a remarkable human being, life of Cornelius Vanderbilt on our American stores