Office of Strategic Services versus Special Operations Executive: Competition for the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-58
Author(s):  
Tommaso Piffer

This article explores the relationship between the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the Italian campaign during World War II. Drawing on recently declassified records, the article analyzes three issues that prevented satisfactory coordination between the two agencies and the impact those issues had on the effectiveness of the Allied military support given to the partisan movements: (1) the U.S. government's determination to maintain the independence of its agencies; (2) the inability of the Armed Forces Headquarters to impose its will on the reluctant subordinate levels of command; and (3) the relatively low priority given to the Italian resistance at the beginning of the campaign. The article contributes to recent studies on OSS and SOE liaisons and sheds additional light on an important turning point in the history of their relations.

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Rainger

In the years between 1940 and 1955, American oceanography experienced considerable change. Nowhere was that more true than at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. There Roger Revelle (1909-1991) played a major role in transforming a small, seaside laboratory into one of the leading oceanographic centers in the world. This paper explores the impact that World War II had on oceanography and his career. Through an analysis of his activities as a naval officer responsible for promoting oceanography in the navy and wartime civilian laboratories, this article examines his understanding of the relationship between military patronage and scientific research and the impact that this relationship had on disciplinary and institutional developments at Scripps.


Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson

This chapter traces the early history of state-sponsored informational filmmaking in Denmark, emphasising its organisation as a ‘cooperative’ of organisations and government agencies. After an account of the establishment and early development of the agency Dansk Kulturfilm in the 1930s, the chapter considers two of its earliest productions, both process films documenting the manufacture of bricks and meat products. The broader context of documentary in Denmark is fleshed out with an account of the production and reception of Poul Henningsen’s seminal film Danmark (1935), and the international context is accounted for with an overview of the development of state-supported filmmaking in the UK, Italy and Germany. Developments in the funding and output of Dansk Kulturfilm up to World War II are outlined, followed by an account of the impact of the German Occupation of Denmark on domestic informational film. The establishment of the Danish Government Film Committee or Ministeriernes Filmudvalg kick-started aprofessionalisation of state-sponsored filmmaking, and two wartime public information films are briefly analysed as examples of its early output. The chapter concludes with an account of the relations between the Danish Resistance and an emerging generation of documentarists.


2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard K. Fleischman ◽  
R. Penny Marquette

The impact of World War II on cost accountancy in the U.S. may be viewed as a double-edged sword. Its most positive effect was engendering greater cost awareness, particularly among companies that served as military contractors and, thus, had to make full representation to contracting agencies for reimbursement. On the negative side, the dislocations of war, especially shortages in the factors of production and capacity constraints, meant that such “scientific management” techniques as existed (standard costing, time-study, specific detailing of task routines) fell by the wayside. This paper utilizes the archive of the Sperry Corporation, a leading governmental contractor, to chart the firm's accounting during World War II. It is concluded that any techniques that had developed from Taylorite principles were suspended, while methods similar to contemporary performance management, such as subcontracting, emphasis on the design phase of products, and substantial expenditure on research and development, flourished.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Cottiero ◽  
Katherine Kucharski ◽  
Evgenia Olimpieva ◽  
Robert W. Orttung

How effective is Russian state television in framing the conflict in Ukraine that began with the Euromaidan protests and what is its impact on Russian Internet users? We carried out a content analysis of Dmitrii Kiselev's “News of the Week” show, which allowed us to identify the two key frames he used to explain the conflict – World War II-era fascism and anti-Americanism. Since Kiselev often reduces these frames to buzzwords, we were able to track the impact of these words on Internet users by examining search query histories on Yandex and Google and by developing quantitative data to complement our qualitative analysis. Our findings show that much of what state media produces is not effective, but that the “fascist” and anti-American frames have had lasting impacts on Russian Internet users. We argue that it does not make sense to speak of competition between a “television party” and an “Internet party” in Russia since state television has a strong impact in setting the agenda for the Internet and society as a whole. Ultimately, the relationship between television and the Internet in Russia is a continual loop, with each affecting the other.


Author(s):  
Yolonda Youngs

This study traces the development and evolution of Snake River use and management through an in-depth exploration of historic commercial scenic river guiding and concessions on the upper Snake River in Grand Teton National Park (GRTE) from 1950 to the present day. The research is based on a combination of methods including archival research, oral history analysis, historical landscape analysis, and fieldwork. I suggest that a distinct cultural community of river runners and outdoor recreationalists developed in Grand Teton National Park after World War II. In GRTE, a combination of physical, cultural, and technical forces shaped this community’s evolution including the specific geomorphology and dynamic channel patterns of the upper Snake River, the individuals and groups that worked on this river, and changes in boat and gear technology over time. The following paper presents the early results from the first year of this project in 2016 including the work of a graduate student and myself. This study offers connections between the upper Snake River and Grand Teton National Park to broader national trends in the evolution of outdoor recreation and concessions in national parks, the impact of World War II on technological developments for boating, and the cultural history of adventure outdoor recreation and tourism in the United States.   Featured photo by Elton Menefee on Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/AHgCFeg-gXg


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 592-598

Thus, by the end of 1948, belief in the value of oxygen therapy was universal. The newborn infant was thought to be more resistant to higher pressures of oxygen than the adult, and oxygen was accepted as being generally beneficial to the premature infant. Pediatricians concerned with mortality, neurological deficits such as cerebral diplegia and mental retardation, or with cyanotic attacks and apnea had a firm rationale for their strong emphasis on prompt and vigorous oxygen therapy as a major advance in the care of premature infants. Better incubators and piped-in oxygen in the new premature centers permitted better care after World War II. The relationship between RLF and oxygen therapy was neither known nor suspected.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-499
Author(s):  
Destin Jenkins

This essay revisits Making the Second Ghetto to consider what Arnold Hirsch argued about the relationship between race, money, and the ghetto. It explores how Hirsch’s analysis of this relationship was at once consistent with those penned by other urban historians and distinct from those interested in the political economy of the ghetto. Although moneymaking was hardly the main focus, Hirsch’s engagement with “Vampire” rental agencies and panic peddlers laid the groundwork for an analysis that treats the post–World War II metropolis as a crucial node in the history of racial capitalism. Finally, this essay offers a way to connect local forms of violence to the kinds of constraints imposed by financiers far removed from the city itself.


Author(s):  
Robert S. Neyland

This article describes shipwrecks from the World Wars. For marine archaeology, there are numerous archaeological sites to dive on, research, and analyze. World War II in Europe resulted in staggering losses of shipping and lives. There were changes in naval warfare that resulted from the technological development of weapons capable of sinking ships. This article highlights archaeological research on world war shipwrecks, which focuses on identifying the locations of wrecks and the causes of sinking. The U.S. Navy's wrecks are distributed in every major body of water and represent many questions formulated in World War archaeology. Furthermore, this article highlights the fact that the shipwrecks of the World Wars pose environmental concerns. Shipwreck finds from the World Wars will undoubtedly continue until all the larger ships and notable aircraft have been found, for such is the fascination with discovery and the history of the lost ships and aircraft of those conflicts.


2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-138
Author(s):  
David A. Hounshell

First experimented with in the 1920s and 1930s in the production of automobile engines, transfer machines became dominant in U.S. engine plants in the 1940s and 1950s, as automakers invested heavily in this equipment to meet pent-up demand following the war. Transfer machines thus became identified with “Detroit automation”. But with the advent of a “horsepower race”, firms found that transfer machines could not accommodate even minor changes in design. Late in the 1950s the industry developed and applied “building-block automation” to transfer machines to attain greater flexibility. Examining these developments contributes to our understanding of both specific industries and the general history of mass production and its alternatives.


MCU Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-56
Author(s):  
Daniel de Wit

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s intelligence and special operations organization in World War II, is best known for its efforts to collect intelligence on the Axis powers and to arm and train resistance groups behind enemy lines. However, the OSS also served as America’s primary psychological warfare agency. This article will show how organizational relationships imposed by theater commanders, who often had little understanding of psychological warfare or special operations, could serve to enable or hinder the sort of coordinated subversive campaign that OSS founder General William J. Donovan envisioned. This history offers important lessons for contemporary campaign planners in an environment where psychological warfare is playing an ever-larger role in the conduct of military operations.


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