Presentations

I liked both presentations on Monday, both were well-rehearsed and provided new information to us all. For the Kasserine pass duo, I never knew that Rommel had another general, Arnim serving on the continent, kinda watching his back end. It was interesting that they both realized that the American-led invasion was a grave threat to their presence on the continent, since it would be able to server their supply lines if they did not attend to business. And attend to business it seems they did. The first fight against Axis troops that Americans faced was quite a rude awakening. Yet they were able to come back and push the Germans back, due to what I can imagine was yet another shortage of supplies in the Afrika Korps. I actually know someone who went through that campaign, and then hit Omaha beach with Big Red One in '44. He had some fascinating stories.

The medical presentation was absolutely fascinating. That area I never have gotten a chance to research, and you provided a good background on 1940's medicine as well as the military aspect of infectious diseases. As several people have mentioned, the toll malaria alone took on the troops was staggering. We never think about the pacific was in terms of fighting more illness than enemies, but apparently that's how it went. I myself thought that being such excellent jungle fighters, the Japanese would have suffered less from disease, but with their supply system being hammered as it was, I guess they too had their time. On another note, I never really knew what the relationship between sulfa and penicillin were. Thank you for touching on that as well.