If the prospects of a Japanese victory after the loss of Saipan were hopeless, as many leaders realized, they had declined to zero by December 1944, … - Samuel Eliot Morison

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If the prospects of a Japanese victory after the loss of Saipan were hopeless, as many leaders realized, they had declined to zero by December 1944, when the Great Battle for Leyte Gulf had been lost, Leyte itself overrun, and the Japanese merchant navy reduced to a mere skeleton. But Japan, by virtue of her traditions, her victorious past, her no-surrender psychology, and other factors in the national make-up, was unable as yet to make a conciliatory move. Some of her leading militarists still entertained the vain hope that the Western Allies would lose heart over the great expenditure of life necessary to carry the war into the home islands of Japan, and be the first to cry, "Let us have peace!"

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About Samuel Eliot Morison

Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942), a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1959). In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of United States naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962. Morison wrote the popular Oxford History of the American People (1965), and co-authored the classic textbook The Growth of the American Republic (1930) with Henry Steele Commager.

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Native Name: Samuel Morison
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Additional quotes by Samuel Eliot Morison

The veterans of World War II who, for the most part, have completed their studies in college or graduate school should not regard the years of their war service as wasted. Rather should they realize that the war gave them a rich experience of life, which is the best equipment for an historian. They have “been around”; they have seen mankind at his best and his worst; they have shared the joy and passion of a mighty effort; and they can read man’s doings in the past with far greater understanding than if they had spent these years in sheltered academic groves.

It was a very costly war to both sides. The Germans reckon that they lost 32,000 submariners from 781 U-boats. They and the Italian submarines sank 2828 Allied and neutral merchant ships of 14,687,231 tons, together with 158 British Commonwealth and 29 American warships, several warships of other nations, and a very large number of aircraft. The loss of life at sea that the U-boats and Luftwaffe inflicted on the Allies has only been computed for the British merchant marine, which alone lost 29,994 men to enemy action. Hardly less than 40,000 men, and several hundred women and children, went down into the depths as a result of enemy submarine and aircraft attacks. The Atlantic, which since the dawn of history has been taking the lives of brave and adventurous men, must have received more human bodies into its ocean graveyard during the years 1939-1945 than in all other naval wars since the fleets of Blake and Van Tromp grappled in the Narrow Seas. Sailormen all, and passengers too, we salute you!

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The reason why the 1840 campaign became the jolliest and most idiotic presidential contest in our history is that the Whigs beat the Democrats by their own methods. They adopted no platform, nominated a military hero, ignored real issues, and appealed to the emotions rather than the brains of the voters. Expectations of profit and patronage were employed to "get out the vote," and the people were given a big show. Democratic politicians, even Jackson himself, now complained of Whig demagoguery.

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