“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
—John 8:32

Voice of America Begins Broadcasting in Germany, February 24, 1942

n 2022, “Voice of America provides trusted and objective news and information in 47 languages to a measured weekly audience of more than 311.8 million people around the world.” (VOA website). Eighty years ago, during the Second World War, the Voice of America began broadcasting this week to the German people on short-wave radio. The American government had already begun direct programming by short-wave within weeks of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, by broadcasting to the Philippines in English. The programs began with the playing of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the promise that America would always tell the listeners the truth about what was happening in the war, even if the information “is bad for us.”

Austrian-born VOA broadcaster Robert Bauer (1910-2003) escaped the Nazis three times and was on Hitler’s “Most Wanted” list for his anti-Nazi broadcasting and regular mockery of Hitler

The Office of War Information took over the Voice of America broadcasts in 1942, establishing stations in New York, Europe, North Africa, California and Hawaii. By war’s end, the Voice of America had thirty-nine transmitters sending music, news and “commentary” (propaganda) in forty different languages. Especially important were the broadcasts intended to counter Nazi propaganda and bring hope to the people behind enemy lines. In German-held territory, short-wave radios were illegal, and anyone caught listening to the VOA would be subject to torture or summary execution. The American broadcast into occupied Europe, along with the BBC from London, were the only sources of truth regarding the progress of the war for those who braved the possibility of being found with short-wave.

A radio transmitter aboard the USCG Courier, which provided a versatile method for transmitting VOA broadcasts into otherwise unreachable areas

With the end of the War, the government transferred jurisdiction over the Voice of America to the State Department, thus making the broadcasts a part of American Foreign Policy; in 1953, the United States Information Agency took over the VOA. With the onset of the Cold War with the former Soviet allies, VOA began broadcasts to Russia, Bulgaria, Poland etc., intended to counteract Soviet propaganda against the United States; the Russians responded with jamming the signals and making listening a crime. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was verified that the VOA broadcasts to communist countries had been successful and influential in keeping people informed about the outside world, as well as providing musical entertainment not available behind the iron curtain or in Arabic-speaking countries. Red China continues to jam VOA broadcasts today. North Korea does not jam the signals, but exacts stiff penalties when they catch listeners.

The VOA office in Washington, DC

VOA continues as part of an umbrella organization, The International Broadcasting Bureau, much of which falls under the authority of the State Department, once again making it a communication source for American Foreign Policy measures. Internet broadcasting has of course been added to the radio communications. The program schedules can be found online for the targeted countries.

The VOA continues to claim objective reporting, but controversies and political infighting characterized the Trump administration’s attempt to replace Obama-selected leaders of the VOA, and its subsequent reflection of Democratic Party policies and prejudices in its broadcasting. The Biden administration ousted all of President Trump’s appointees, to re-set the agenda of the “objective news reporting and commentary” so well-beloved by the Democratic oligarchs.

The VOA Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester, OH

Image Credits: 1 Robert Bauer (VOANews.com) 2 USCG Courier (Wikipedia.org) 3 VOA Office (Wikipedia.org) 4 VOA Museum (Wikipedia.org)

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters.” —Psalm 107:23

The Final Sinking of the CSS Hunley,
February 17, 1864

bumper sticker I observed in Charleston, South Carolina a number of years ago read: “There are only two kinds of ships: submarines and targets.” How appropriate to see that sign in Charleston, for it was there that the H.L. Hunley became the first submarine in world history to sink an enemy vessel in combat. The Hunley crew carried with them the esprit that came to characterize undersea warriors of all ocean-going nations thereafter. In the Second World War, American and German submarines totaled more than 4,000 ships sunk and more than twenty million tons of shipping. As in many cases of technological breakthroughs, several men pooled their ideas and resources, and through the exigencies of Providence, produced the working product. In this particular experiment, Horace Lawson Hunley stewarded the building of a new weapon to challenge Yankee naval supremacy through to its end.

An 1863 illustration of the CSS Hunley in Charleston Harbor, with H.L. Hunley depicted as the sentinel, and also showing Sullivan’s Island and a dispatch boat in the background

Hunley was a thirty-seven-year-old attorney and plantation owner, toiling as the assistant customs collector in the Custom House on Canal Street in New Orleans when Louisiana seceded from the Union. In the following months and years, the Union blockaders of the 3,500-mile coastline of the Confederacy increased daily in numbers and efficiency. The South’s largest city by far with well over 100,000 people (including 10,000 free blacks and 13,000 slaves), New Orleans sensed their vulnerability from the Union Gulf Squadrons about a hundred miles away and a few hours’ trip up the Mississippi River.

Horace Lawson Hunley (1823-1863)

Charleston Harbor as it would have appeared in 1863

After taking a small blockade runner from New Orleans to Cuba and back, Hunley’s free-enterprise entrepreneurship led to a partnership with two other men who owned a machine shop and had a government contract to make bullets. However, McClintock and Watson shared a passion for profit and privateering. They agreed to design and build a submarine to prey on Yankee shipping. Hunley brought “vision, business acumen, and potential investors” to the project. McClintock brought “engineering experience and the sheer joy of tinkering.” They had to keep the machine a closely held secret. In late April of 1862, their prototype submarine, dubbed Pioneer, was scuttled by the three partners to avoid capture when Union Admiral David Farragut, along with an Army contingent, seized New Orleans. Hunley moved the submarine building operation to Mobile, Alabama, the only major Confederate port still open in the Gulf.

A full-scale replica of the Pioneer, the prototype submarine built by Hunley, McClintock and Watson before their design of the CSS Hunley

Overcoming inter-service rivalries, government opposition, and starting a manufacturing concern from scratch in a competitive and sometimes hostile environment, the partners—with the full approval of the new commander in the city, Dabney Maury, Virginia-born nephew of the famous “pathfinder of the seas,” Matthew F. Maury—secured a factory, equipment, and clever and competent new engineering team members. A second boat was therein constructed, but failed in its sea trials in Mobile Bay. The third submarine built by the consortium and eventually named the H. L. Hunley was forty feet long and four feet high at midship. It required seven crewmen sitting on a plank and pumping a zig-zag crank that turned a differential, screw propeller. The captain sat at one end steering and directing the boat’s rudder.

Dabney Herndon Maury (1822-1900)

A set of illustrations of the interior layout and operation of the Hunley

The crew conducted public trials in Mobile Bay in late July, 1863, proving the iron cigar-shaped “infernal machine” could move at four knots, dive, blow up a target anchored in the bay with a towed torpedo, resurface, and sail home. Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan (a conservative skeptic of the project), General Maury, and various other officers and observers were duly impressed with what now was considered an engineering marvel, unlike its predecessors, both Union and Confederate, none of which could be brought to completion or ever became a useful offensive weapon. Flag officer Buchanan wrote the squadron commander, John Randolph Tucker in Charleston, SC and the army commander there, Major General P.G.T. Beauregard, about the successful submarine trials, and subsequently received orders to ship it by rail to that city.

Franklin Buchanan (1800-1874)

John Randolph Tucker (1812-1883)

Charleston—the largest city still under Southern control, with 41,000 inhabitants—was under siege by a Union blockade mounting 231 pieces of artillery, many of the guns of heavy caliber, on both land and sea. To damage or break the blockade would breathe life and hope into a deteriorating military situation. The sea trials in Charleston Harbor took place at night, since a daytime attack would be spotted too soon. The original design engineer James McClintock captained the Hunley in its initial forays into the harbor. The Hunley failed to engage the enemy fleet after weeks of sailing, and returned empty-handed. General Beauregard gave orders for the army to seize the Hunley and man it with a Confederate naval crew; the operation of the free-enterprise submarine ended and the government took over.

Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard
(1818-1893)

On August 29, an accident at the dock caused the Hunley to plunge to the bottom of the bay, drowning five of the new volunteer navy crewmen, with three escaping through the two hatches. Horace Hunley persuaded Beauregard to allow him to bring a new crew from Mobile to Charleston; men who had helped build the submarine and were very familiar with its operation. Led by twenty-year-old army veteran George Dixon as the new captain, five men from Mobile joined him to crew the vessel. On October 15, with Dixon absent but with Hunley himself at the helm, the ship sank in forty-two feet of water during a practice maneuver, killing all eight men aboard.

Historian Bill Potter addresses a tour group at the full-scale replica of the Hunley displayed outside The Charleston Museum

Lieutenant Dixon begged General Beauregard to give the boat one more chance to attack the Union blockading vessels. Skeptical but determined to use any means at his disposal, the General reluctantly approved another attempt. After cleaning and refitting the boat with a spar torpedo instead of a towed one, and with volunteers from the CSS Indian Chief added to Dixon’s crew, training began in November and December to prepare them for battle.

The USS Housatonic, sunk by the CSS Hunley on February 17, 1864 in Charleston Harbor—history’ first successful sinking of an enemy ship in combat by a submarine

At 8:45pm on February 17, 1864, the USS Housatonic—a 207 foot long, 1,240 ton sloop of war of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, bristling with seven heavy cannon—was on station outside Charleston Harbor. She had captured two blockade runners and helped reduce the city of Charleston to a pile of rubble, over its year and a half tour of duty in Charleston Harbor. Confederate traitors had made their way to the Union fleet commanders with the information about the H L Hunley, and the possible threat of a “torpedo boat that could swim underwater” tended to keep the watchmen diligent in their duties in the night. The night watch spotted the Hunley a hundred yards out and sounded the alarm. Small arms fire failed to stop the iron fish as it rammed the torpedo near the powder magazine and blew a huge whole in the side. The Housatonic sank quickly, but 155 of the 160-man crew escaped death. A submarine had sunk the first surface vessel in combat in history. There would be many more to come in history.

The Hunley, suspended from a crane during recovery from Charleston Harbor in 2000

The Hunley disappeared beneath the ocean waves, not to be rediscovered until 1970 or 1995, depending on who you believe. It was raised from its watery grave in 2000, and the crew buried in Magnolia Cemetery in 2004. Landmark Events visits the Hunley Museum in North Charleston for a private tour and lecture on the submarine. We also visit the gravesites of the valiant crews whose history-making exploits have captured the imaginations of multiple thousands of people ever since.

The graves of the last crew of the Hunley, Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC—one of the stops on Landmark Events’ Charleston & Savannah Tour, April 19-23

• For the full story of the CSS Hunley, I recommend The H. L. Hunley, The Secret Hope of the Confederacy by Tom Chaffin.
• For the amazing story of the discovery and restoration of the submarine since the year 2000, read The Hunley: Submarines, Sacrifice, & Success in the Civil War, by Mark K. Ragan (contains multiple pictures and documents), as well as Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine, by Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf.

Image Credits: 1 Illustration of the Hunley (Wikipedia.org) 2 Horace Hunley (Wikipedia.org) 3 Charleston Harbor (Wikipedia.org) 4 Pioneer (Wikipedia.org) 5 Interior Sketches (Wikipedia.org) 6 Dabney Maury (Wikipedia.org) 7 Franklin Buchanan (Wikipedia.org) 8 John Randolph Tucker (Wikipedia.org) 9 P.G.T. Beauregard (Wikipedia.org) 10 USS Housatonic (Wikipedia.org) 11 Hunley Recovery (Wikipedia.org) 12 Graves (Wikipedia.org)

“Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” —Proverbs 26:12

The Births of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, February 12, 1809

n an unusual Providence, Abraham Lincoln, who redefined the political philosophy of the Founders to create a unitary state and set the Republic on a new national trajectory, was born on the same day and year as Charles Darwin. Darwin’s biological theories eventually popularized a materialist world view through his speculations about evolutionary biology, which appeared to have the sanction of scientific verification. The theory’s devotees attempted to overthrow the Biblical account of creation, man, sin, and redemption. The intellectual and historical forces set in motion by these two unrelated characters changed the world. At the end of 1859 Darwin published On the Origin of the Species and, almost a year later, Lincoln was elected President of the United States, soon to be disunited states.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

The two theories, one biological, the other political, both had their genesis many years before they became popular, under the skillful stewardship of their respective pedagogues. In the case of Darwin, the groundwork was laid by his own grandfather, among a few others. Erasmus Darwin expressed his biological evolutionary ideas in the context of his study of plants. A man of genius but not probity, Darwin forwarded the ideas of Charles Linaeus, an earlier scientist who announced that man was just another animal, and speculated about evolution of species. Erasmus’s grandson, Charles Darwin, after a five-year expedition to the Galápagos Islands as a “naturalist,” wrote the book that launched the ideas of “survival of the fittest” and that new species emerge from the natural struggle for survival. In order for those changes to take place required millions of years, thus the automatic rejection of the Genesis account as “scientifically viable.” Natural selection was his explanation of the internal natural mechanism for evolutionary change, thus no appeal to supernatural creation was necessary.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) grandfather of Charles

Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle surveying the coasts of South America

Very few natural scientists accepted Darwin’s thesis at first. In fact, a significant aspect of the controversies over evolution was the adaptation of the biological theory to social science, within a decade of Darwin’s publication. Darwin’s explanation of natural change “formed a virtual orthodoxy among anthropologists, sociologists, and to a lesser extent, philosophers.” Darwin’s theories had “removed the need for any appeals to religious factors, especially when human beings are seen as products of nature.” In the war of worldviews, Darwin would carry all before him before the end of the century. Although his theories have been debunked and destroyed since his day, they remain the orthodox touchstone for most “scientists,” and continue as the presuppositions in many academic disciplines, including history.

Title page of Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Abraham Lincoln defined the triumph of the ideas that had shaped the thinking of Alexander Hamilton about the nature of the Union and the power of the Presidency, and fulfilled the goals of Henry Clay, the leader of the Whig Party in mid-19th-century America. The Founding Fathers had built into the Constitution the sovereignty of the states, strictly defining and circumscribing the powers of the Union government that they had voluntarily formed, and empowered the states to protect liberty, especially in the 10th Amendment. That formulation of the Federal government underwent a number of challenges throughout the 19th century, but always as a minority political movement. President Andrew Jackson galvanized political opposition against himself, and his opponents coalesced around Henry Clay of Kentucky and his “American System.” Seeking to aggrandize the revenues of the central government through high tariffs, he envisioned using the expanded powers and larger budgets to protect New England industries from foreign competition and bind the country together with federally funded “infrastructure” projects like roads, bridges, canals, and railroads. The opportunity to effect that plan fell to Clay’s disciple Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Henry Clay (1777-1852)

Lincoln’ inauguration in 1861 at the Capitol building, then still under construction

Upon Lincoln’s election, seven Deep South states seceded from the Union, a right assumed throughout the century prior, by a number of disaffected states, under the power vested in them by the 10th Amendment. In his first Inaugural address the new President “made it clear to the States that they were no more than institutional constituents of a true nation,” and stated that the Union was “perpetual.” In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln announced a “new birth of freedom,” which many historians view as a “Second American Revolution,” that “necessitated a radically new understanding of the Constitution as ‘organic’” and thus an evolving instrument of social change. The Founders’ understanding of the Constitution as a guarantor of liberty and protection from Federal tyranny now meant that the national state was the true protector from states who would deprive the people of equality. The sanctity of Union trumped the priority of the States’ definition of liberty. Lincoln believed the Union was something that preceded the Constitution and thus created the states and not the other way around. The power of the central government would only grow greater over the next hundred and fifty years, until it has metastasized into the enormity that the central government has become, to the marginalizing of the states and the disappearance of liberty. No doubt both Darwin and Lincoln could not have foreseen the end results of the intellectual and practical forces they set in motion, but they are the ones looked up to today as the fathers of their respective social and political innovations.

Uncle Sam, a common personification of the United States Federal Government

Longer quotes on Darwin from Revolutions in Worldview, by Andrew Hoffecker, ed. Quotes on Lincoln are from Chronicles Magazine, book review by Jack Trotter, of Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government, January 2022.

Image Credits: 1 Abraham Lincoln (Wikipedia.org) 2 Charles Darwin (Wikipedia.org) 3 Erasmus Darwin (Wikipedia.org) 4 HMS Beagle (Wikipedia.org) 5 Origin of the Species (Wikipedia.org) 6 Henry Clay (Wikipedia.org) 7 Lincoln Inauguration (Wikipedia.org) 8 Uncle Sam (Wikipedia.org)

“The commander went to Paul and asked, Tell me, are you a Roman citizen? Yes, I am, he answered. Then the commander said, I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship. But I was born a citizen, Paul replied.” —Acts 22:27-28

The End of the Punic Wars, February 5, 146 BC

he conquest of Europe and the Mediterranean world by Rome did not happen overnight. Defeating the tribes and enemies of the Italian peninsula may have come easily, but the challenge of Carthage took Roman imperial pretentions to a whole new level, and cost an ocean of blood. In a series of three major wars, Rome and Carthage squared off in a remarkable series of campaigns and battles that still rank among the most important military engagements in the history of man.

Change of territorial control by Rome and Carthage during the Punic Wars
Roman Controlled Territory	Carthaginian Controlled Territory

The city of Carthage and the Carthaginians who inhabited the city and region around it, although on the coast of modern Tunisia, probably originated in Canaan in the Levant (eastern Mediterranean). The Phoenicians (as they were called by the Greeks) became a trading empire, establishing major ports as independent city-states around the Mediterranean Sea—places such as Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and eventually, Carthage. Their language was Semitic, similar to Hebrew; the Philistines were likely a clan of Phoenicians, more settled than their merchant-cousins. The Western Phoenicians were called Punics in Latin, and their city became the largest and most powerful outside of Rome.

Map of the Phoenician region

An illustration depicting Phoenician merchants and traders

The Romans and Carthaginians fought three wars, known as the Punic Wars, from 264 BC to 146 BC. The men of Carthage had settled Sicily and Sardinia, from whose ports their merchant ships sailed and their naval dominance kept down any competition in the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans, who possessed a strong army but a weak navy, attacked the Carthaginians of Sicily in the waters around those islands, seeking to expand their own hegemony in the region. The First Punic War lasted twenty-three years, a bloody affair in which only two pitched battles were fought between the Roman Army and the Carthaginians. For a hundred years Rome had been adding the Italian peninsula to her control, and now it was time to drive the North Africans from Sicily. The sea battles were fought between five-oared wooden ships with infantry and marines for boarding the enemy. The land battles were fought between Roman infantry carrying spears, thrusting or throwing, and a short stabbing sword. The Carthaginians used mostly mercenaries and allies, as well as “war-elephants” to intimidate and trample their foes. Over more than two decades the two sides fought on land and sea, with the Romans victorious in the end, acquiring Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. Both sides suffered enormous casualties and bankrupted both countries.

Depicted above is a Roman soldier killing Archimedes who was renown for his invention of war machines to counteract the traditional siege warfare methods of the Romans.

The second Punic War, which lasted seventeen years, featured Hannibal Barca fighting in Spain and then taking a large army with elephants over the Alps into Italy, where in a succession of battles, including the annihilation of a 120,000-man Roman army at Cannae, saw the Carthaginians wreaking revenge on the arrogant Romans. A new Roman general by the name of Scipio took command, defeated the invaders in Spain and invaded Africa, forcing the recall of Hannibal from Italy. At the Battle of Zama, in 202 BC, Scipio defeated Hannibal, forcing the Carthaginians to sue for peace. The war reparations were very steep, crippling Carthage’s ability to ever wage war again, forcing them to become a second-rate power under Roman rule.

Hannibal Crossing the Alps

Engraving of the Battle of Zama

The third and final Punic War lasted only three years, 149-146 BC, concluding on February 5. Historian Polybius, left us the most information about the third Punic War in his Histories. Although Carthage was no threat to Rome, a faction in the government hated their old enemy and desired their elimination from history. The famous orator Cicero used to end each oration with “Carthago delenda est”—Carthage must be destroyed. The city had paid off its debt and was recovering some of its former profitable commercial enterprises in the Mediterranean. Rome prepared a punitive expedition on trumped-up charges, which Carthaginian ambassadors unsuccessfully sought to answer and to negotiate continued peace. Under General Hasdrubal, Carthage raised an army to defend itself from the coming invasion.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 B

A video reconstruction of the ancient city of Carthage can be viewed here.

The Romans laid siege to the city outside its massive walls and were repulsed numerous times. The Carthaginians attacked the Roman camps, destroyed some of the siege engines and set fire-ships among their fleets. The Romans outlasted the Carthaginians, an outcome predictable from the beginning. Finally breaching the walls, the Romans entered the city and went door to door, killing every person in the city. Upon surrender, the 70,000 survivors were enslaved. An estimated 450,000 Carthaginians were killed in the war, most of them civilians, who were massacred. All the Punic cities and territories were annexed by Rome, but they were permitted to retain their culture, religion, and language, which lasted to the 7th century AD.

Archaeological ruins of the city of Carthage in modern-day Tunisia

In the 4th/5th Century AD, a Berber convert to Christianity became the Bishop of Hippo, a Punic-speaking, Roman-dominated city, formerly of the pagan Carthaginian Empire, a man called “Augustine of Hippo.”

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD)

Image Credits: 1 Animated Punic Wars Map (Wikipedia.org) 2 Phoenician Map (Wikipedia.org) 3 Phoenicians (Wikipedia.org) 4 Death of Archimedes (Wikipedia.org) 5 Hannibal Crossing the Alps (Wikipedia.org) 6 The Battle of Zama (Wikipedia.org) 7 Cicero (Wikipedia.org) 8 Carthage Model Video (Wikipedia.org) 9 Carthage Ruins (Wikipedia.org) 10 Augustine of Hippo (Wikipedia.org)