“The Poe of Esperia”
H.G. Peterson is the Director of Children’s
Pop-Up Literature at the United States Library
of Congress. He is an internationally recognized
authority on 19th Century whaling vessels.
World War Two: A Poem
Well ol’ Mister Winston Churchill insists
We’ll never surrender despite the Blitz
The British Empire should never fear
Just offer up blood, sweat, toil and tears
The Nazi’s have armies and much air power
But this will be Our Finest Hour
Herr Hitler on the other hand
That angry vegetarian
Had Panzer armies attack East and West
Because he thought Aryans were the best
The Germans picked quite a few fights
And France surrendered in three fortnights
Hiro Hito and the Japanese
Were conquering islands with the greatest ease
They took Manchuria and the Philippines
And Indo-China and all those pacific scenes
Ruled that whole Ocean with a mighty fleet
And an army that knew not defeat
Then in a day that lives in infamy
The Arizona was sunk by the Japanese
Pearl Harbor the US vowed to remember
For the Axis powers they’d dismember
MacArthur and Nimitz moved toward Japan
While upon Germany bombing runs were ran
But the Russians were in a hell of a state
With Nazi’s at the Moscow gate
So Stalin sent millions of guys into the attack
to drive the fascist invaders back
At Stalingrad, on the Volga’s banks
And on the steppes with guns and tanks
Then on D-Day Normandy was liberated
When the British and US troops invaded
Though the Bulge was quite a threat
The Germans had had their match met
The Russians poured in from the East
And the American advance refused to cease
In ‘45 it all fell down
When the Allies marched into Berlin town
The Axis situation became quite dire
With Hitler in a ditch on fire
The Germans surrendered, every man
But we still had to defeat Japan
The Japanese weren’t doing to so hot
For all their transports with torpedoes were shot
They had no oil with which to fight
Their navy had an awful plight
Lots of planes shot down and carriers sunk
Too many ships now underwater junk
Even kamikazes wouldn’t stop their foes
Nor banzai attacks and their deadly blows
Though the Japanese did really try
To make the American armies die
Continual attacks with the B-29s
Destroyed much behind enemy lines
The US liberated the Philippines lands
And landed on the Okinawan sands
Then we island hopped to Iwo Jima
And dropped The Bomb on Hiroshima
Thus after our nuclear adventure
The Japanese could only surrender
We had a party when we got the news
And so we called it World War II
