Today’s Tedious Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The sheer tedium of World War II led soldiers to use dead people’s bones for entertainment. Soldiers whittled away at bones to pass the time, carving them into trinkets or engraving them with their names. Charles Lindbergh heard that the Fighter Control personnel on the island of Noemfoor in New Guinea ‘often bring back the thigh bones from the Japs they kill and make pen holders and paper knives and such things out of them’. One Australian soldier carved his Japanese skull into a tobacco jar. Skulls, long bones and ribs were the most popular bones for carving into objects. Skulls were often inscribed with the words ‘This is a good Jap’, and signed by members of the unit. It was not unusual to use a skull as a candleholder; some men inserted candles into the vault of the cranium, others stuck them on the crown of the skull.
May 22, 1944, Life magazine Picture of the Week, “Arizona war worker writes her Navy boyfriend a thank-you-note for the Jap skull he sent her”
Vintage Crook Du Jour!
1886 Professional Criminals of America by Inspector Thomas Byrnes is a collection of information, mug shots, and bios of America’s most infamous petty criminals from that time. I find the descriptions of the criminals most amusing and thought I’d share the occasional bio. Here’s today’s crook – criminal #2!
DAVID BLISS, alias DOCTOR BLISS.
SNEAK.
DESCRIPTION.
Thirty-nine years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. Doctor. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 8 1/2 inches. Weight, 135 pounds. Light colored hair, turning gray. Gray eyes, long face, light complexion. Has a hold on the right side of his forehead.
RECORD.
The “Doctor” has a fine education, and is a graduate of a Cincinnati Medical College. He is a southerner by birth, and at one time held a prominent government position. He was caught stealing, however, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Through the influence of his friends he was pardoned, but again drifted back to evil ways. He is pretty well known in most of the eastern cities, and is considered a very clever sneak thief.
He was arrested in New York City on the arrival of the steamer Providence, of the Fall River Line, from Boston, on December 21, 1880, in company of one Matthew Lane, another thief. They had in their possession a trunk containing $2,500 worth of silverware, etc., the proceeds of several house burglaries in Boston, Mass. They were both taken to Boston by requisition on December 31, 1880, and sentenced to two years each in the House of Correction there.
Bliss was arrested again in New York City on April 7, 1883, for the larceny of a package containing $35,000 in bonds and stocks from a safe in an office at No. 757 Broadway, New York City. After securing the package of bonds he started down stairs and on his way dropped into another office, the door of which was standing open, and helped himself to $100 in money that was lying on one of the desks. All of the bonds and stocks were recovered after which the “Doctor” pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two years in Sing Sing prison on April 12, 1883. His time expired on January 11, 1885.
Bliss’s picture is an excellent one.
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
December 9th. Cloudy and cold. Suffered severely, as the small fires could not afford us, bloodless creatures, much warmth, and we were nearly blinded with smoke. At night our names were called, each of us drew a loaf of wheat bread, and before it was dark all of us (one thousand in all) were on board a long train of rickety, broken cars. Pain in all my joints, cold and shaking, blind almost as a bat in the daylight, after being pulled into a car I laid down to wonder if death were not then really creeping over me.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost