In the wake of Pearl Harbor, more than ten thousand Americans living abroad became trapped in Japanese-controlled territories, and with rumors of ill treatment and torture, the U.S. State Department was desperate to bring home its citizens. Despite the intense acrimony between the warring governments, a tireless State Department official, James Keeley, helped hatch an extraordinary plan through diplomatic back channels: each country would send a ship filled with civilians through war-torn waters to a neutral port city where their passengers could be safely exchanged.

Today’s guest is Evelyn Iritani, author of “Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue, Betrayal, and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea During World War II.” While the U.S. and Japanese governments both assumed their enemy non-combatants--including many in relocation camps and jail cells--would welcome their new "tickets to freedom," the reality proved more complicated. For those who had sunk deep roots in their adopted homelands, the exchanges offered an agonizing choice. And for some patriotic Americans of Japanese descent, there was no choice at all: as the State Department found itself in need of more bodies to trade, they were "repatriated" against their will to a country at war that had never been their home. Some of the stories of repatriates we discuss a Japanese Peruvian barber brought to the U.S. as a negotiating pawn; three American teachers accused of spying in the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and a young Japanese American boy fascinated with The Green Hornet and boy scouts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emanuel Leutze's iconic painting Washington Crossing the Delaware shows the general standing heroically at the bow of his boat, staring toward an unseen enemy across the icy river. But who were those enemies waiting on the other side? They were Hessian soldiers from a small German state called Hesse-Kassel, forced conscripts sent to fight in a war they didn't understand, against democratic principles they were simultaneously being taught to admire back home. These men weren't the drunken barbarians of American mythology, but rather disciplined soldiers—many influenced by Voltaire and Enlightenment ideals—who fought in major battles from Long Island to Fort Washington before their fateful encounter at Trenton.

Today's guest is Dr. Steven Bier, author of Facing Washington's Crossing: The Hessians and the Battle of Trenton. Through newly translated German documents, Bier follows three Hessian soldiers through the chaos of December 26, 1776: 17-year-old Private Johannes Reuber, Lieutenant Jakob Piel who desperately tried to wake Colonel Rall as musket fire erupted, and Lieutenant Andreas Wiederhold, whose outpost was the first to spot Washington's approaching army through the snowstorm. Their accounts reveal a human story of confusion, courage, and surprising mercy—including George Washington personally reassuring shivering Hessian officers after their capture that they would be treated with kindness.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For nearly two thousand years, swords reigned as humanity's weapon of choice—the first tools designed exclusively to kill other humans rather than hunt animals. When archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a rusty blade forgotten in a suitcase for thirty years, he unknowingly held one of history's most sophisticated weapons: a seventh-century Northumbrian sword so complex and finely crafted that only a king could have commanded its creation. The Bamburgh Sword tells the story of Anglo-Saxon England from 450 to 1066 AD, when feuding warlords wielded these pattern-welded blades with razor-sharp steel edges and bendy iron cores—weapons so precious they were covered with jeweled handles and ornate scabbards.

Today's guest is Edoardo Albert, author of The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages. We discuss how Bronze Age smiths in Minoan Crete around 1700 BC created the first definitive swords, how the introduction of iron around 1300 BC democratized warfare by putting blades in everyone's hands, and why the Bamburgh Sword represents the pinnacle of Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship. We also explore what was lost when firearms replaced swords—as the Turkish folk hero Köroğlu reportedly lamented: "The rifle was invented, and bravery was ruined."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.