A Conspiracy of Silence? The Popular Press and the Strategic Bombing Campaign in Europe

The controversy surrounding the decision by Bomber Command to target German cities populated mainly with non-combatants rages even today. It has been said that these were decisions made in secret, so secret that not even the airmen who flew the missions knew what they were really striking. In his book Weapons and Hope, physicist Freeman Dyson states, “I was one of the very few people who knew what were the objectives of the campaign, how miserably we were failing to meet these objectives, and how expensive this was for us in money and lives,” and, “I felt deeply my responsibility, being in possession of all this information which was so carefully concealed.” His assertions formed the basis for material presented in the CBC production of The Valour and the Horror episode entitled “Death by Moonlight: Bomber Command,” which claimed: British High Command knew how few bomber crews would survive and deliberately hid the truth. That’s not all that was concealed. The crews and the public were told that the bombing targets were German factories and military installations. In fact in 1942 a secret plan was adopted. Germany would be crushed through the deliberate annihilation of its civilians. An examination of the popular press available in Canada during the height of the bombing campaign against German cities, July 1943–April 1944, strongly contradicts these assertions. Reports appeared in the daily newspapers and weekly newsmagazines which outlined both the physical destruction and the civilian losses of the designated cities. The press provided their own analysis of the significance of objectives, results achieved against both production plants and morale, and RAF/RCAF losses which were being incurred. Technological advances which improved Bomber Command’s ability to batter the enemy were explained to the lay reader. Newspapers graphically detailed the hardships suffered by the inhabitants of the stricken cities, and offered justification to the Canadian people explaining why war was being waged against non-combatants. The information on the bombing campaign was available to any who chose to read about it

Area Bombing by Day: Bomber Command and the Daylight Offensive, 1944–1945

This article will examine an important but neglected phase of the Allied strategic bomber offensive in the Second World War. Given the very rich literature on the bombing war it is surprising to discover that litle attention has been paid to the daylight attacks undertaken by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command in the fall and winter of 1944–1945. Nowhere in the existing literature is there a systematic analysis of this period of operations when the RAF and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) carried out 153 daylight raids between 27 August 1944 and 24 April 1945. Two primary issues will be addressed. The first concerns the accuracy achieved by Bomber Command in its daylight missions. The second is to determine if the reintroduction of daylight attacks resulted in Bomber Command carrying out a different and more selective targeting policy. Both of these issues are related to the more general question of the role played by Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris in shaping the policy of Bomber Command. Harris’s name is usually associated with doctrinaire commitment to area bombing in general and the destruction of German civilian housing in particular. The evidence presented in this essay will allow the reader to form a more complete picture of Harris’s repsonse to the changing circumstances of the war

Oregon's nutria problem

The nutria or coypu, Myocastor coypus, is a large semi-aquatic rodent that superficially resembles an overgrown muskrat or a stunted beaver. They were introduced into Oregon from about 1930 to the 1950's. At one time Oregon had more than 600 fur farmers raising these animals for fur; now there are none. Some animals escaped and many others were released into the wild when it became apparent that pelt values were nonexistent and production costs greatly exceeded profits. Being prolific and quite mobile, the nutria quickly spread through much of western Oregon. By the 1960's damage to agricultural crops was common to severe in western Oregon. Crops damaged included seed, grain, forage, hay and trees. Burrowing damage to stream banks, field borders, and farm ponds was reported in many areas. Growth and reproduction data for Oregon nutria are included. Methods for controlling feral nutria including the use of prolin, red squill, strychnine alkaloid, and zinc phosphide are reported. Fur trapping and adverse weather as factors in population reduction are discussed

Analogue Wormholes and Black Hole LASER Effect in Hydrodynamics

We numerically study water wave packets on a spatially varying counter-current in the presence of surface tension. Depending on the details of the velocity profile, we show that traversable and bi-directional analogue wormholes exist in fluid mechanics. The limitations on traversability of wormholes in general relativity are absent here because of the dispersion of water waves and the ability to form flow profiles that are not solutions of Einstein's equations. We observe that negative energy can be trapped between analogue horizons forming a LASER-like cavity. Six horizons are involved in the trapping cavity because of the existence of two dispersive scales, in contrast to previous treatments which considered two horizons and one dispersive scale.Comment: 11 page

Letter from Marthe Biron Peloquin to Charlotte Michaud

A handwritten letter from Marthe Biron Peloquin of the Franco-American Feminine Federation to Charlotte Michaud.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/michaud-1938-1964/1000/thumbnail.jp

Instructional time allocation in the elementary schools of Massachusetts

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Regulation and impact of the phytoplankton assemblage composition in the Southern Ocean

Southern Ocean waters have been identified as critical regions because of their potential to impact global climate as they play an integral role in oceanic overturning and circulation. They are also an area of deep and intermediate water formation and can potentially modulate atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. This project focuses on two regions that are seasonally limited by biologically available iron, the open HNLC Southern Ocean and the Ross Sea. The objective of this project was to determine how iron impacts the regulation of photosystem II and how the presence of particular phytoplankton species affects the ability of satellites to estimate biomass from remote sensing of ocean color. Two pulse amplitude modulated fluorometers were used to examine the photochemical efficiency of whole phytoplankton assemblages and single cells in both iron enrichment experiments and during a natural phytoplankton bloom in the Ross Sea from 2001--04. There were no significant differences in the photochemical recoveries of diatoms during the Southern Ocean Iron Experiment, with exception of Asteromphalus sp. (a centric diatom). The kinetics of increase from iron stress suggested that they occurred independently of cell surface area. A relationship between diatom abundance and SeaWiFS overestimation of chlorophyll a in the eastern Ross Sea was found in 2001--2, but this trend was not observed in other years when diatoms dominated. Under most circumstances (phytoplankton composition and size distribution), it appears that with a linear post-calibration correction we could utilize SeaWiFS for phytoplankton biomass estimates in the Ross Sea. However, we could not explain the degree that SeaWiFS over- or underestimated the in situ chlorophyll a with taxonomic composition or phytoplankton size distribution. There was distinct interannual variability in the Ross Sea over the course of our three year study. In February 2003 there was a clear secondary bloom dominated by diatoms, a feature previously unreported in the central Ross Sea. Intrusions of modified circumpolar deep water regulated the timing and magnitude of the second diatom bloom in 2003--2004 by infusing surface waters with additional iron. We could not conclusively explain the spatial variability in the phytoplankton assemblage with the fluorescence-based light utilization parameters or the mixed layer depth

Career examination through a LEAP framework: liberal arts graduates' perceptions of employment skills in the workforce

The purpose of this mixed methods sequential exploratory study was to develop an understanding of the ways in which graduates of liberal arts programs recognize, make meaning of, and apply the competencies developed as an undergraduate within the workplace. In the first quantitative phase of the study, the research questions addressed the association among liberal arts graduates’ perceived importance, academic preparation, and assessment of value attributed by employers of eight critical skills in the workplace and any differences based on participants’ academic domain. The data were collected via a self-developed web-based survey (N=328) sent to graduates of six institutions representing four different Carnegie classifications. The overall response rate was 9.4%. A chi-square analysis in conjunction with the Holm-Bonferroni procedure yielded a statistically significant relationship in five of nine academic domain relationships. A post-hoc contingency table analysis further revealed statistically significant results between academic domain and perception value categories. In the second qualitative phase, eight case studies, consisting of graduates of liberal arts programs from four Carnegie classifications and four academic domains, delved deeper into the results from the first phase. Four themes emerged during the within- and cross-case analysis related to participants’ perceptions of the use of critical skills in the workplace: (1) Personal accountability to the job, (2) workplace dynamics among coworkers, clients, and supervisors, (3) self-awareness of what is important in the workplace, and (4) employer support of the liberal arts in the workplace. The final phase of the study integrated the quantitative results and qualitative findings to determine broad-scale outcomes of the study. Based on the overall analysis, the study provides policy implications and recommendations related to practical skill development within liberal arts programs