What the writer omits is that the so-called ‘duly elected Republican government’ was supported—if not controlled—by the communist front, funded by the Soviet Union. Don’t take my word for it: Read George Orwell’s writings

In Defense of Drake the Sea Dog
Regarding Wade G. Dudley’s fine June-July 2009 article “Sir Francis Drake: Pirate To Admiral”: I applaud Dudley for capturing Francis Drake’s brilliance and his achievements along with his faults—not in a revisionist sense, where you go back and dig up things that you might not know about the person. It’s one thing to be factual about a person, but it’s another thing to imply or assume in order to denigrate their contributions. It’s very important to look at the whole, but we should be confident enough about our nation and what we stand for not to denigrate achievement. Kids need to see that success is possible. Children learning history have to say, “Gosh, maybe I can do that too!” People need to aspire to an ideal without being Pollyannaish about the life of the person.

Evan Dale Santos
Adelanto, Calif.

Bulletproof Ghost
[Re. “The Bulletproof Ghost,” by Jim Motavalli, April/May:] One use of the Rolls-Royce armored vehicle not included in the article was the rescue of the crew of HMS Tara. On Nov. 5, 1915, U-35 torpedoed Tara in the Mediterranean. The German submarine then took the mainly Welsh crew in tow and left them at Port Suliman in Libya with Senussi Arabs, who were allies of Turkey, which in turn was allied with Germany.

The prisoners were held in very bad conditions, and several of them died in captivity. The Second Duke of Westminster, when his armored cars were no longer of use on the Western Front, took his vehicles to Egypt and used them to rescue the Tara survivors by sweeping across the desert and killing several of the Senussi holding the crew captive, unfortunately killing several Senussi women and children in the process.

The rescued crew confirmed that most of the neglect they had suffered was due to lack of resources rather than brutality. They were rescued on March 17, 1916. The Rolls-Royce armored cars then went east to assist the attacks in Palestine.

Anthony James
Llandrindod Wells, Wales

Israeli Warning
In David Zabecki’s excellent article “Is the IDF Invincible?” (February/March), he either did not know or left out that 30 minutes prior to the bomb exploding (which was in a milk can) at the Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, a warning was phoned in to evacuate the hotel, which was British military headquarters. The British ignored the warning.

Jerald C. Newman
North Woodmere, N.Y.

David Zabecki responds: In an article of such broad scope as the one on the Israel Defense Forces, there were many interesting points that simply could not be fit in because of space restrictions. As Newman notes, it is a fairly well-established fact that the Irgun telephoned a warning to British headquarters some time before the blast occurred, and for whatever reason the warning was ignored. It is also an irrelevant fact that in no way transfers the blame for the deaths that resulted in that blast from the Irgun to the victims themselves. The commanders that ordered the bombing and the Irgun fighters that carried out the attack committed an act of murder to advance a political agenda, which is by definition a terrorist act.

Question of Loyalty
About the American ambulance driver who participated in the Spanish Civil War [“For Whom the Ambulance Rolls,” by James Neugass, February/March]: The opening line is what I find so insidiously misleading: “[Neugass] joined thousands of other young Americans who traveled to Spain to help that nation’s duly-elected Republican government confront a fascist rebellion.”

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