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The English Channel, nearly a hundred miles wide between Portsmouth, England, and the Normandy beaches, was a formidible military barrier. Early in the previous century it had thwarted Napoleon. In 1940 it stopped the conquering Germans. Now, in the spring of 1944, the Allies needed thousands of ships and craft to transport their armies across the Channel and begin the liberation of France. To compound the difficulties of a long water passage, the always problematical weather could fatally disrupt landing operations, and the Germans had liberally planted sea mines in the central Channel and off likely invasion beaches.

A storm delayed the operation, originally scheduled for 5 June, after much of the invasion force had left embarkation points, forcing landing vessels back into port, where their crews and passengers endured the wait amid often crowded and uncomfortable circumstances. Presented with a better forecast for the sixth, General Eisenhower made a tentative decision late in the evening of 4 June to get shipping moving, and gave the final “O.K. We’ll go.” shortly after 4AM on the fifth.

By then, minesweepers were clearing shipping lanes through a fifteen mile wide southward path. Invasion shipping, nearly sixty separate convoys in the initial assault, with more behind, headed for the target area via a wide-topped “T&quot-shaped route, gathering off the Isle of Wight from various ports along England’s southern coast, then turning south to cross the Channel in the recently swept lanes. Many vessels towed barrage balloons, protection against German bombing attacks that didn’t come, since the enemy’s weak air reconnaissance kept him ignorant of what was happening.

The passage across was anything but smooth, especially for infantry and tank landing craft, many of whose passengers suffered hours of seasickness during the night of 5-6 June. As the convoys approached Normandy, their courses flared out somewhat, taking them to staging areas off the individual landing beaches. Most ships were in their places well before dawn. Further inshore, the busy minesweepers continued their work, opening safe (or at least relatively safe) channels and working areas for landing boats and gunfire support ships.

Overhead in the darkness, a steady procession of hundreds of transport planes and gliders moved over Normandy, dropping U.S. paratroopers inland of the westernmost (“Utah”) beach. British parachutists descended in the southeastern part of the assault zone. Behind the initial waves of ships and planes came more, in a flow that would continue for months to come, reinforcing the initial landings and providing logistics support for the armies as they consolidated their beachhead, broke out, and fought their way across northwestern Europe.

Imagine living in Philadelphia during the early days of the Civil War and reading the latest issue of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. A front-page story reveals a strange and alarming tale: Harbor police have captured a partially‑submerged, 33‑foot long, cigar‑shaped contraption moving slowly down the Delaware River.This “infernal machine,” as the paper described it, was the creation of French inventor, Brutus De Villeroi, self proclaimed “Natural Genius,” who built the submarine to salvage the 1798 wreck of the DeBraak, sunk off Lewes, DE. Taking immediate action to safeguard the safety of its citizen in time of war, the Philadelphia police impounded the submarine. Meanwhile, the local Navy Yard, answering the call from the Lincoln administration, was looking for a technological edge for fighting the Confederacy. The 1861 Philadelphia incident convinced them to invest in a submarine of De Villeroi’s design.

Jules Verne (1828-1905)

Hence begins the little-known story of the United States Submarine Propeller U.S.S. Alligator ‑‑ a technological wonder akin to other great maritime advances of the Civil War era, including the well‑known ironclad USS Monitor and the recently‑raised Confederate submarine CSS Hunley. The story of the Alligator is right out of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In fact, according to one translation of that novel, De Villeroi was Verne’s math teacher.

Built to counter the threat of Confederate ironclads, the 47-foot-long, green, oar-propelled sub was a vessel like no other. Among its most notable features was an airlock designed to allow a diver to exit the vessel while submerged and place an explosive charge on an enemy ship. The Alligator’s design also included an air purification system. Both are standard components of modern submarines.

Following its launch from a Philadelphia shipyard in 1862, the Alligator was tasked with destroying bridges crossing the Appomattox River and clearing obstructions in the James River in Virginia. But the Alligator would never get the chance to prove itself in battle. After arriving in the combat zone, the waters of the James and Appomattox proved too shallow to allow the sub to submerge. The Alligator was also less maneuverable than expected.

Fearing that it could be captured by the Confederacy, the Alligator was withdrawn and towed to the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., where it was refitted with a hand-cranked screw propeller. President Lincoln himself witnessed a demonstration of the “improved” vessel. After declaring that the Alligator was ready for action, Rear Adm. Samuel Dupont ordered the sub to Charleston, S.C., in March 1863. It would be a fateful journey.

While heading south along the North Carolina coast, the Alligator and its tow vessel, the USS Sumpter, encountered a storm so fierce that the Sumpter’s crew, facing the loss of their own ship, was forced to cut the unmanned submarine loose on April 2, 1863. The Union sub was never seen again.

The 1939 Worlds Fair was financed primarily by private enterprise. While the fair definitely depended on government action to be constructed, etc., not a penny of public money was used in its construction and operation.

The organizers of the fair created the Fair Corporation, a non-profit entity to raise money for the construction and operation of the fair. After a careful study, they estimated that the cost of the fair and all the related improvement projects would run approximately $150 million dollars. A large portion of this money was invested in general infrastructure in New York – roads, sewers, bridges, etc. and was spent by the city as an acceleration of projects already planned for city improvements. The cost of these improvements to the city of New York (and paid by the city of New York) exceeded $20 million dollars.

Various government entities around the workd invested over $30 million for various exhibit buildings and exhibits at the fair and the Fair Corporation invested approximately $42 million dollars on the fair. Additionally a bond issue raised $27,829,500 to help with other aspects of making the fair a reality.

As you can see, that was quite an expensive undertaking for a country in the depression.  As an interesting side note, it is believed that the activities surrounding the fair resulted in the circulation of approximately one billion dollars – revenues sorely needed by the businesses of New York City at this time. These acitivities include things like lodging for the guests, food and merchandise bought both at the fair and in New York City, transportation costs and all the other related revenue streams created by any large event.

However, from a financial point of view, this the worlds most famous fair, was a failure as when all the dust cleared, the Fair Corporation lost money and was forced to go into bankruptcy after it was all over.

The 1939 New York World’s Fair had a variety of admission options – both presale and ongoing. It is interesting to notice that they had packages much like modern day Disney does. Here are the various admission options that were available at the world’s fair.

Advance options: There were two advanced ticket options for the 1939 Worlds Fair.

The first one was a special Souvenir Book of tickets which contained 5 tranfserable general admission tickets and six concession admission tickets. The retail proce of the Souvenir Book was $5.40 and the advance price was $3.75.

The second option was a non-transferable twenty admission ticket option with the person’s photograph. This option had a value of $15 and was sold for $7.50.

General Options: While the fair was operating, there were several ticket options that one could utilize.

The first was a one time general admission ticket. It cost 75 cents for adults and 25 cents for children between the ages of three and fourteen. And for one day each week, children could get into the fair for 10 cents.

The second option was a season ticket. Season tickets had the owners photograph attached to them and cost an adult $15 and a child $5.00. College students and school teachers could purchase a season ticket for $7.50. Seasonal tickets allowed the ticket holder into the fair as many times as desired.
General admission tickets allowed entry at any one of the ten entry gates and allowed you to walk the grounds and explore the more than 100 general exhibit buildings which housed thousands of exhibits covering the entire spectrum of human achievement.

Slang has always been with us. There is civilian slang and military slang and they are often totally different words for the same things. Here is a collection of common slang terms used by soldiers in the civil war.

accoutrements- A soldier’s fighting equipments, made of leather.

a beat- A lazy soldier who dodges work.

bombproof- An underground shelter, used also to describe officers who never went to the front.

bones- Dice.