Shadow and Subterfuge Series
The Historical Archives
In my research and travels for my books, I’ve encountered many little known pieces of history. As I write articles about them, I’ll present them here and in my Briefings Newsletter. You can sign up to receive it by email below.
Photographs are very powerful things. People look at them and imagine stories to explain them. One of the jobs of a historian is to seek out the truth behind them. In this article, I uncover the stories and truth behind the “Crying Boy of WWII.”
On my first trip to Germany in 2010, I encountered a strange street sign in Hamburg. I’d never seen a street sign named after a “gang,” so I had to investigate. My guide didn’t know the story, but I uncovered a fascinating tale of Helmuth and his two buddies, all Hitler Youth, who started publishing flyers with news they gleaned from listening to the BBC. Read about Helmuth Hübener’s Gang and check out the 2025 movie about the Gang — “Truth and Treason.”
Most Americans believe that the congressional vote to declare war on Japan in 1941 was unanimous. However, it was not. One member of Congress had the courage to say “No!” Both the story of the vote and the life of this dissenter are interesting stories. Jeannette Rankin, from Montana, chose to stand for her principles even if it would be political suicide. Check out: “One Against War.”
Nothing prepared me for watching “Jud Süss,” which I saw at a special exhibition in Berlin. For the first time, I could clearly glimpse what caused the Holocaust. Could the director of such a movie be guilty of “crimes against humanity”? I had to find out. Read about “Jud Süss,” the most widely banned movie in the world. And, if you search carefully enough you can watch it over the Web.
Every December someone repeats it: the boys of Hawaii were playing baseball on the morning of 7 December 1941, and the bombers came in over the outfield. I had heard it in classrooms, from relatives, and in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor. As a boy I played every sport going and was never once in a game at eight on a Sunday morning — so I went looking for the evidence. Read “The Boys of Summer on the Morning of Infamy” and see what I found.
Think you know the war? I have a set of twenty questions on the Second World War — the battles, the spies, the propaganda and the people — drawn from the same research that went into the novels. Some are easier than they look. A few have caught out readers who thought they knew the answer. Take the World War II Quiz and see how you do.
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