Showing posts with label 1945. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1945. Show all posts

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Friday, December 31, 1943. New Years Eve

 

No ball was dropped in Times Square for the second year in a row.

With a strange mixture of abandon and restraint, San Francisco accorded 1943 a reasonable facsimile of the traditional year-end sendoff last night, and then settled back for a more or less sober inspection of A. D. 1944.
San Francisco Examiner.

Friday, given the nature of the celebrations of New Years, is a particularly good day for the end of the year to fall on.

Not everyone was celebrating:

Photo of a U.S air raid on a ball bearing plant near Paris, December 31, 1943.
Today in World War II History—December 31, 1943: The US Victory Book Campaign closes due to inefficiency of the program and to the publication of the Armed Services Editions books.

A remarkable entry by Sarah Sundin.

She also notes:

The Marines secured an airfield on Cape Gloucester; and

The commissioning of the USS Cassin Young, which is a museum ship today (photo on blog included).  Ms. Sundin, it should be noted, has an article on museum destroyers.  I'd like to visit one.  I've been on battleships and submarines, but not destroyers.

Hitler delivered a New Year's message to the Germans admitting that the Third Reich had suffered heavy reverses in and that the upcoming year would require more, and in fact would approach the crisis level.  He also noted that the Allies would land on the Atlantic Coast.

It's often noted, and apparently correctly, that the German people didn't really appreciate the dire circumstances they were in until January 1945.  While that seems to be true, it's hard to understand, given that they were certainly getting lots of bad news, in this case even from the very top.

It should be noted that the concluding year, 1943, was the one in which not only did German battlefield fortunes begin to massively decline, but that an accompanying massive expansion of the Holocaust began.

In preparation for those landings, Field Marshall Rommel was inspecting fortifications on the coast of Northern France.

Douglas MacArthur visited troops under his command, including this group of Native American soldiers.


From left: Staff Sergeant Virgil Brown (Pima), First Sergeant Virgil F. Howell (Pawnee), Staff Sergeant Alvin J. Vilcan (Chitimacha), General MacArthur, Sergeant Byron L. Tsingine (Diné [Navajo]), Sergeant Larry Dekin (Diné [Navajo]).

Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee broadcast a New Years Eve message to the British people promising that the "hour of reckoning" had come for Germany, but also warning that 1944 would involve heavy sacrifice.

The Red Army captured Zhytomyr.

Argentina's President, Gen. Pedro Ramirez, dissolved political parties and restored the requirement of Roman Catholic education in all Argentine public schools.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (John Denver) was born in Rosewell, New Mexico.

Sub Lt. G.C. Morris flying Spitfire P8537 of 761 Squadron attempting land on HMS Ravager without a tail wheel - New Year's Eve 1943.

Friday, December 22, 2023

Wednesday, December 22, 1943. Beatrix Potter, author and farmer.

Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books, died at age 77.


Potter was from a family that held extensive agricultural lands and was, in addition to being an author, a sheep farmer.  She married in 1914 over the disapproval of her family, as her husband, a country solicitor, was regarded as being beneath her status.  Never having had any children, she left most of her large landholdings to the National Trust.  Her husband, who died in 1945, left the balance of them to the National Trust.

Good people.

Some not so good people, including one Adolf Hitler issued a Führerbefehl creating the Nationalsozialistische Führungsoffiziere who were charged with getting German soldiers to believe in final victory, even if they were clueless on how that would come about.

Hmmm. . . .

On the same day the German government ordered that males down to 16 years of age register for conscription.

Hmmm. . . .

The Red Army completed its victory in the Second Battle of Kiev.

The German light cruiser Niobe was sunk off of Siba Yugoslavia by British torpedo boats.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

November 14, 1943. Torpedoing the President.

USS William D. Porter.

The USS William D. Porter accidentally fired a torpedo at the USS Iowa, which had President Franklin D. Roosevelt on board.

The Porter was supposed to be engaging in a target practice demonstration with an inert torpedo, but fired a live one.  A disaster was averted when the ship's radioman, detecting the sound of an armed torpedo, radioed the Iowa, which was able to avoid it.  The entire crew of the ship was placed under arrest at Bermuda and Torpedoman Lawton Dawson was sentenced to fourteen years hard labor.

President Roosevelt intervened and asked that Dawson not be punished.

The Porter was sunk on June 10, 1945 when a kamikaze attacked the ship, and missed, but ended up underneath it and exploded.  All hands were saved.

The Battle of Coconut Grove ended in an Allied victory.

The Italian Social Republic's Fascist party, which controlled northern Italy, as a German puppet state,  issued the Manifesto of Verona, providing:

Preamble

In announcing its own program of action, the Republican Fascist Party salutes you, Duce, the man who can save the Fatherland, realizing the Fascio of Italian energies for the second time.

In your arduous liberation it sees the providential auspices of what will be the liberation of all Italy. In your thought, and in your more than twenty years of historical work in Italy and in the world, it today finds the certainty and the very current of inspiration for the social ascent of the Italian people, now that the monarchy can finally be swept away from Italian life, together with all those dark, reactionary, compromising forces and their allies.

Under your guidance, through sacrifice and combat, it will bring back honour to Italy, its independence and its greatness.

In its first national assembly, the Republican Fascist Party:

Lifts its thoughts to those who have sacrificed their lives for Fascism on the battlefronts, in the piazzas of the cities and villages, in the limestone pits of Istria and Dalmatia, and who should be added to the ranks of the martyrs of our Revolution, and to the phalanx of all those men who have died for Italy.

It regards continuation of the war alongside Germany and Japan until final victory, and the speedy reconstruction of our Armed Forces which will serve alongside the valorous soldiers of the Fuhrer, as goals that tower above everything else in importance and urgency.

It takes note of the decrees instituting the Extraordinary Tribunals, whereby Party members will carry out their unbending determination to administer exemplary justice; and, inspired by Mussolini's stimulus and accomplishments, it enunciates the following programmatic directives for Party actions:

As concerns internal constitutional issues, we propose:

1. That a Constituent Assembly, whose sovereign power is popularly derived, be convened in order to declare the abolition of the monarchy, solemnly condemn the last treasonous and fugitive king, proclaim the Italian Social Republic, and appoint its Head.

2. That this Constituent Assembly be made up of representatives from all syndical associations and administrative districts and also include representatives from the occupied provinces in the form of delegations of evacuees and refugees residing in liberated territories.

This Constituent Assembly must also include representatives of servicemen, war prisoners (represented by those sent back due to disabilities), Italians abroad, the judiciary, universities, and any other body or institution whose participation contributes to designating this Constituent Assembly as a synthesis of the nation's values.

3. That this republican Constituent grant to citizens, be they soldiers, workers, or taxpayers, the right to audit and criticize the public administration's actions, so long as this right is exercised in a responsible manner.

Every fifth year citizens will be called upon to nominate the Head of the Republic.

No citizen will be held beyond seven days without a warrant from the judicial authorities irrespective of whether he was arrested in the act or detained for preventive reasons. A judicial warrant will also be required to carry out searches of homes, except in cases of flagrant delicto.

The judicial branch of government will operate with complete independence while carrying out its functions.

4. That an intermediate solution be adopted in the electoral domain given Italy's prior negative experiences with elections and its partially negative experiences with too rigidly hierarchical methods of appointment. A mixed system seems the most advisable—one, for example, that would combine popular election of deputies with appointments of ministers made by the Head of the Republic and government. Within the Party, it would probably be best for elections to be held on the Fascio level, with approvals for appointments to the National Directorate being made by the Duce.

5. That the organization responsible for politically educating the people be one. The Party, an order of fighters and believers, must become an organism of absolute political purity, worthy of being the guardian of a revolutionary idea.

Party membership will not be required for any job or position.

6. That the Republic's religion be the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion. Respect is assured for other cults so long as they do not oppose the law.

7. That those belonging to the Jewish race be considered foreigners. During this war they belong to an enemy nation.

As concerns foreign policy issues, we propose:

8. That the main goal of the Republic's foreign policy be the unity, independence, and territorial integrity of the Fatherland. The territory in question comprises the maritime and alpine borders marked in nature, as well as the borders consecrated by sacrifice of blood and by history. Both boundaries are now threatened by the invading enemy and by their promises to the governments that have sought refuge in London. A second essential goal will be to achieve recognition of the fact that a population of 45 million, living in an area insufficient to sustain it, has certain indispensable needs for vital space.

This foreign policy will also strive for the creation of a "European community" made up of all those nations that accept the following fundamental principles:

a) elimination from our continent the century-long British intrigues;

b) abolition of the internal capitalist system and combat against world plutocracies;

c) valourisation of Africa's natural resources for the benefit of Europeans as well as natives, with full respect for those peoples, particularly Muslim ones, who have already shaped themselves into civilized nations, such as Egypt.

As concerns social issues, we propose:

9. That the foundation and the main goal of the Italian Social Republic be work—manual, technical, intellectual—in all its manifestations;

10. That the State guarantee private property, which is the fruit of individual labour and savings as well as an extension of the human personality. Private property, however, must not be permitted to have a disintegrative effect on the physical and moral personality of other individuals by way of the exploitation of their labour.

11. That in the domain of the national economy, the State's sphere of action encompass everything that extends beyond the individual interests or within the domain of collective interests, whether due to scale or function.

Public services and, in most cases, armament industries, must be managed by the State through parastatal agencies.

12. That in every factory (whether industrial, private, government-controlled, or state-owned) representatives of technicians and workers must collaborate closely—to the point of having direct knowledge of the factory's management—in setting fair wages and in equitably distributing profits between reserve funds, stockholder dividends, and worker profit shares.

In some factories this measure will be implemented by expanding the powers of the existing factory commissions. In others, the current management will be substituted by a managing council made up of technicians, workers, and a state representative. In others still, a parasyndical cooperative will be set up.

13. That in the domain of agricultural production, landowner's private initiative shall be curbed whenever and wherever initiative itself is lacking.

Expropriations of uncultivated lands may lead to their being parceled out among farm workers (who thereby become farmer-landowners). Similarly, badly managed businesses may be transformed into parasyndical or parastatal cooperatives, depending upon the needs of the agricultural economy.

Since current laws already provide for these sorts of measures, the Party and various syndical organizations are now hard at work on their implementation.

14. That farmers, craftsmen, professionals, and artists be fully entitled to pursue their vocations individually, for their families or other nucleus. However, they are subject to legal obligations to deliver to the masses those quantities of produce that are set forth by the law and to regulation of fees for services.

15. That home ownership be treated not just as an extension of property rights but also as a right. The Party's platform proposes the creation of a national agency for popular housing that will absorb the existing institute and greatly enhance its effectiveness. Its aim will be to make home ownership available to families of all categories of workers via the construction of new homes or the gradual repurchase of existing ones. To this end, the general principle that rent payments ought to go towards purchase of a home, once capital has been paid off in full, must be adopted.

The first duty of this agency will be to address the war's detrimental effects on housing by expropriating and distributing empty buildings and by erecting temporary structures.

16. That workers automatically become members of the syndicate regulating the category to which they belong, but that this membership must not preclude transfer to another syndicate if all requirements are met. All the trade syndicates are gathered together under the umbrella of a single confederation comprising all workers, technicians, and professionals (but excluding landlords, who are neither managers nor technicians). This umbrella organization will be named the General Confederation of Labour, Technology, and Arts.

Like other workers, employees of state-controlled industries or public services are integrated into syndicates as a function of their category.

The imposing complex of social welfare institutions created by the Fascist regime over the past twenty years remains intact. Consecrated by the 1927 Charter of Labour, its spirit will inform all future developments.

17. That the Party considers a salary adjustment for all workers an urgent necessity. This can be effected by adopting a nationwide minimum wage (with prompt regional adjustments). The need is particularly great among lower-echelon and middle-echelon workers, both in the public and private sectors. Part of the salary should be paid in foodstuffs (at official prices) so that this measure not prove ineffective or harmful for all parties concerned. This can be accomplished by means of cooperatives and factory stores, by expanding the "Provvida's" responsibilities, and by expropriating stores that have broken the law and placing them under state or cooperative management. This is the best way to contribute to the stabilization of prices and the lira's value as well as to the market's recovery. As concerns the black market, speculators must be placed under the authority of special courts and made subject to the death penalty, just like traitors and defeatists.

18. That with this preamble to the Constituent Assembly, the Party offers proof that it is not only reaching out toward the people but also is one with the people.

On the other hand, the Italian people must realize that it only has one way to defend its past, present, and future achievements: to reject the enslaving invasion of the Anglo-American plutocracies whose sole aim, confirmed by a thousand precise signs, is to make the lives of Italians more cramped and miserable.

There is only one way for us to accomplish all our social goals: to fight, to work, to triumph.

Bulgaria was bombed by the Allies for the first time when B-25s hit the railyards at Sofia.

Bulgaria was in a strange position during the war.  It was an Axis Power, but it had not declared war on the Soviet Union, perhaps judging the likelihood of a Soviet victory in the war more accurately than other German allies.  Its hesitancy did not save it from being invaded by the Red Army in September 1944 at which time it switched sides and declared war on Germany.  Following a leftist coup that resulted due to the Soviet invasion, it was a Communist country from 1946 until about 1990, at which time it became a parliamentary democracy.  The country has been undergoing a demographic collapse since the 1980s.

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.

The German surface raider Michel was torpedoed and sunk off of Japan by the USS Tarpon.  On the same day the German's lost the U-540, U-631 and U-841 in the Atlantic.

The Burma Railway, constructed with Asian slave labor and Allied POWs, was completed.

Tamils working on the bridge.

The railway may be best remembered today due to the fairly inaccurate movie, The Bridge On the River Kwai, which is nonetheless a great movie.

POW illustration of the construction of Bridge 227 across the Kwai.

A second concrete bridge replaced the original wooden bridge shortly after its construction. It was destroyed by the RAF in February 1945.  Shortly after the war, most of the original railway was dismantled and only the original 81 miles remains in use.

The Third Moscow Conference begins.


It would begin to work on the post-war world.

Chicago began running its subway for the first time.

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Sunday, September 26, 1943. Melting the vessels.

The SS gave the Roman Jewish community 36 hours to make payments to the German occupiers.  Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli appealed to the Vatican regarding the monetary shortfalls, and which the Vatican did. As the payments were to be i gold, it is thought that religious vessels were melted to make the payment.

Isreal Zolli.

Rabbi Zolli would survive the war, but with a dramatic turn of events.  On Yom Kippur in 1944 he experienced a vision of Jesus while celebrating a religious service and felt himself to have experienced the words "You are here for the last time".  On February 13, 1945, he, his second wife (his first had died) and his daughters were received into Catholicism. He died on March 2, 1956 after having received Communion.  He was ill at the time, but had told a nun at the hospital at which he was located the date and hour of his death before it arrived.

The Free French occupied Ghisonaccia on Corsica.

The multinational (not including Americans) Z Special Unit raided Japanese shipping at Singapore.  The Japanese, in New Guinea, launched an unsuccessful counterattack on the Australians at Finschafen.

Monday, August 21, 2023

Towns and Nature: Dubuque, IA: IC Depots, Freight House and Roundhouse

Towns and Nature: Dubuque, IA: IC Depots, Freight House and Roundhouse: 1888 and 1945 Depots: ( HABS ;  Satellite , south of Jones Street. The land is now used by Arby's andUS-61.) 1873 Freight House: ( HABS ...

Posted due to being part of the old family stomping grounds. 

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Sunday, July 22, 1923. Harding leaves Alaska, Big Train strikes out 3,000.

 President Harding departed Sitka, Alaska, bound to a Canadian port on his Voyage of Understanding.

President and Mrs. Harding with small group of men and women, Sitka, Alaska, July 22, 1923

Herbert Hoover was part of the Harding party.  In Sitka, he stated: 

We came to Alaska in the hope that by a better understanding of the problems of Alaska we might give better service from the Government to the people of Alaska; that by personal contact we would come to know you and we would come to know your vision of Alaska, your future and your ideals,” Herbert Hoover, Sitka Alaska, July 22, 1923. 

The tanker SS Swiftstar exploded and sank after being hit by lightening.  Only one of its 32 man crew survived.


Walter "Big Train" Johnson of the Washington Senators became the first Major League pitcher to record 3,000 career strikeouts.  He'd ultimately record 3,508, a record that held until 1978.

Johnson was a great picture, and he may have had the fastest fast ball in baseball history.  He died of a brain tumor in 1946 at age 59.

Bob Dole, long time Kansas Senator, war hero, and Presidential contender, was born in Russell, Kansas.

Future senator Daniel Inouye (left) with Dole, next to Inouye, playing cards at the Percy Jones Army Hospital in the mid-1940s.

Dole was badly wounded while serving in the 10th Mountain Division during World War Two.

Friday, April 28, 2023

Saturday, April 28, 1923. Measuring


The Saturday magazines were out.






The SS Deutschland was launched. The passenger ship of the Hamburg American line would go into Kreigsmarine service in 1940 as an accommodation ship.  In 1945 she was converted to a hospital ship but insufficient paint existed in order to paint her entirely white.  She was sunk in May 1945.

Wembley Stadium hosted its first event.

McGreen & Harris, 4/28/23

Williams ran a wordless classic.


Monday, April 10, 2023

Saturday, April 10, 1943. Sfax taken.

The Tunisian port of Sfax was captured by the British 8th Army.  It would later be the staging point for the invasion of Sicily.

It was also used as a POW camp, holding German Prisoners of War through the rest of, and after, the war.

Foreshadowing that later event, perhaps, the Italian cruiser Trieste was sunk by B-24s in the port of La Maddealena, Sardinia.

Tom Harmon, well known collegic football star, a halfback, now a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force, disappeared when a bomber he was flying cracked up in a storm over Surinam. The only survivor of the plant, he'd emerge several days later with the assistance of natives, who escorted him out of the jungle.

Harmon as a football player for the University of Michigan.

Harmon had been drafted by the Chicago Bears but had declined to take up professional football, which was not as lucrative or as followed as it now is. Instead, he intended to pursue a career in acting and radio, although he ended up joining the American Football League in 1941 for a $1,500 per game salary, a large sum at the time.  

Harmon had resisted being drafted, something we don't think of as occurring much during World War Two, but which was in fact much more common than might be supposed.  He received a 1-B classification in May 1941 as he was a student and then given a 60-day extension on the basis that he was the sole support for his parents.  He asked for a permanent extension thereafter, but was denied and classified as 1-A, which he appealed.  Losing the appeal, he was ordered to report by November 1941, and he thereafter enlisted as an Air Corps cadet.

Following the bomber disaster, he became a P-38 pilot and flew in combat missions over China, being shot down in 1943.  He was returned to the US following evading the Japanese, having been shot down behind enemy lines, and was released from the service in January 1945.  In 1944, he married actress Elyse Knox.  Actor Mark Harmon was one of their three children.

He played for the Los Angeles Rams for a while after the war, and then returned to sports broadcasting.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—April 10, 1943: US Department of Agriculture establishes Women’s Land Army: during WWII, 1.5 million women from non-farming backgrounds will serve on farms.

Friday, December 30, 2022

Remembered by Irrelevance.

 


WyoFile's Kerry Drake wrote an editorial worth reading, entitled:

History will judge Cheney, Hageman by their Trump choices

Wyoming’s U.S. Rep. elect hasn’t been sworn in yet, but it’s already clear that she hitched her wagon to the wrong jackass.

It's a great article, with many good observations, but Drake is reading his audience, the Wyoming voter, incorrectly.

And that's a tragedy.

Drake is correct about this:

Hageman, by contrast, has now irrevocably tied her political identity to backing Trump’s lies about the “rigged” election. Even if she wanted to abandon him, Hageman cannot simply walk away. You don’t just shuck off those handcuffs when you get tired of wearing them.

No, Hageman has made the political calculation to double down on her support, even as many incumbent Republican lawmakers distance themselves from Trump after the GOP’s disastrous midterm election results. Our freshman congresswoman doesn’t have much choice.

And this:

She hitched her wagon to what she thought was the most powerful horse in the field. Now the world is quickly realizing her rotund orange steed was a jackass all along. And Cheney is leading it to the glue factory.

But will "Wyoming's" voters wake up, and will it make a difference to Hageman?

Not a chance.

Nor will it matter to her supporters.

Hageman will go on to be reliably right of the right for the rest of her political career.  In her early 60s, she'll be there for at least 16 years, and have little influence on anything.  

In the meantime, something occurred to me.

I have a friend who is a fanatic Hageman supporter.  I have another who was a real Chuck Gray supporter.

What do they have in common?

Not from here, and not from any of the neighboring states.

They've imported their politics from the Midwest. . . and there's a lot of that going around.  Indeed, we have a Secretary of State that hails from far away and his district has elected a replacement for him, in the legislature, that hails from Chicago.

Wyoming has always been a very odd state in this way.  It has a highly transient population and a core of locals. But the locals themselves are divided between various regions.  And generally, for some reason, people have tended to politically look to outsiders in the state, although our current era is a real exception.  The Governor is actually a Wyomingite, as is Hageman (from the farm belt).  Lummis is as well.

Indeed, Lummis may be the best political barometer of what that local core may be thinking. She dissed Trump when most did, made up to him in spades when things were clearly going the other way, and has dumped him like a hot rock now that he's sinking fast.

Drake is right, Hageman can't do that.

But Drake is wrong to think most Wyoming voters will. The real Hageman supporters, who include an interesting group who brought their political views from somewhere else, would rather ride the Trump jackass into oblivion than admit they've been grifted.

It's sort of self satisfying, really.

But it doesn't help address anything, however.

History will judge Hageman and Cheney by their choices, and Wyoming in general. Hageman and Wyoming are going to look pretty much the same way America Firsters did by 1945.  But there were still a few America Firsters, even those who backed fascists, around in 1945.  History judged them by forgetting them, and they did in fact become pretty irrelevant politically.

As we are about to.



Friday, December 9, 2022

Wednesday, December 9, 1942. Australians take Gona, Patch takes over on Guadalcanal.

"Packages for prisoners of war and internees. Americans taken prisoners of war or interned by Germany and Italy regularly receive standard American Red Cross food packages, shown here stacked like bricks in the International Red Cross warehouse at Geneva, Switzerland. U.S. prisoners of war receive one package a week as soon as the Red Cross is notified of their capture and location. Internees receive one package every two weeks. As of December 9, 1942, Germany and Italy had reported 243 American prisoners of war and 1512 interned civilians. Each package weighs eleven pounds and contains evaporated milk, biscuits, cheese, cocoa, sardines, pork, beef, chocolate bars, sugar, coffee, powered orange concentrate, prunes, cigarettes and smoking tobacco."  Library of Congress.

Australian forces captured Gona.

Sarah Sundin notes this milestone:

Today in World War II History—December 9, 1942: US Marines under Lt. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift turn over operations on Guadalcanal to US Army under Maj. Gen. Alexander Patch.

Guadalcanal in the popular imagination is a Marine Corps battle, but the Army fought there too and, as noted, overall command of the battle was put in charge of an Army general in this later stage.  Indeed, Patch had just arrived with the Americal Division to relieve the 1st Marine Division, which was severely depleted by malaria this point.  The Americal Division itself would be severely depleted within a month and relieved by the 25th Infantry Division.

Patch.

Patch fits into that category of senior U.S. commanders who served well in the war, but who physically showed the strain.  He'd been ill prior to Guadalcanal, and serving there depleted his health further.  He was 52 years old at the time, but he'd die at 55 of pneumonia, a diseases he'd just recovered from, somewhat, prior to deploying to Guadalcanal.  His death came in November, 1945.


"Answering call for volunteer nurses aides. Part of the class of senior volunteer nurses aides of Freedmen's Hospital, Washington, D.C. They received their caps and pins on December 9, 1942, in the first class to graduate from this hospital. First row, left to right: Mr. Gertrude Stone, assistant captain, Mrs. Lynwood Cundiff, Miss Doris Stevenson, Mrs. Arthur Randall, Mrs. Martin Beleno, Mrs. Robert Ming; Second row: Mrs. George M. Johnson, captain, Miss Susie Freeman, Miss Florence Grant and Mrs. Louis Lucas."  Library of Congress.

Dick Butkus, legendary American football player, was born.


Fr. Aloysius Liguda drowned with nine other prisoners at Dachau.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Thursday, November 30, 1922. Thanksgiving Day turkeys and speeches, Ominous rallies in Germany, Living by the sword in Ireland, Strange Imperial Chinese weddings.

Well, at least I didn't miss this one.

This day was Thanksgiving Day in 1922.


Unlike the entry for 1942, I can't give any personal recollections for my parents, or speculations on what they did, as they weren't born yet.

President Harding had earlier made a proclamation in advance of and in recognition of the day.

THANKSGIVING - 1922 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - A PROCLAMATION 

In the beginnings of our country the custom was established by the devout fathers of observing annually a day of Thanksgiving for the bounties and protection which Divine Providence had extended throughout the year. It has come to be perhaps the most characteristic of our national observances, and as the season approaches for its annual recurrence, it is fitting formally to direct attention to this ancient institution of our people and to call upon them again to unite in its appropriate celebration. 

The year which now approaches its end has been marked, in the experience of our nation, by a complexity of trials and of triumphs, of difficulties and of achievements, which we must regard as our inevitable portion in such an epoch as that through which all mankind is moving. As we survey the experience of the passing twelve-month we shall find that our estate presents very much to justify a nationwide and most sincere testimony of gratitude for the bounty which has been bestowed upon us. Though we have lived in the shadow of the hard consequences of great conflict, our country has been at peace and has been able to contribute toward the maintenance and perpetuation of peace in the world. We have seen the race of mankind make gratifying progress on the way to permanent peace, toward order and restored confidence in its high destiny. For the Divine guidance which has enabled us, in growing fraternity with other peoples, to attain so much of progress; for the bounteous yield which has come to us from the resources of our soil and our industry, we owe our tribute of gratitude, and with it our acknowledgment of the duty and obligation to our own people and to the unfortunate, the suffering, the distracted of other lands. Let us in all humility acknowledge how great is our debt to the Providence which has generously dealt with us, and give devout assurance of unselfish purpose to play a helpful and ennobling part in human advancement. It is much to be desired that in rendering homage for the blessings which have come to us, we should earnestly testify our continued and increasing aim to make our own great fortune a means of helping and serving, as best we can, the cause of all humanity. Now, therefore, I, Warren G. Harding, President of the United States of America, do designate Thursday, the thirtieth day of November, as a day of Thanksgiving, supplication and devotion. I recommend that the people gather at their family altars and in their houses of worship to render thanks to God for the bounties they have enjoyed and to petition that these may be continued in the year before us. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington this second day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-seventh.

Liam Lynch, the Chief of Staff for the Irish Republican Army, issued orders to the IRA authorizing the assassination of Irish Free State officials in retaliation for the execution of those caught with handguns contrary to an Irish emergency law earlier in the week. The order further provided: 

All members of the Provisional 'Parliament' who were present and voted for the Murder Bill will be shot at sight. Houses of members... who are known to support Murder Bill will be destroyed. Free State army officers who approve of Murder Bill will be shot at sight; also all ex-British army officers and men who joined the Free State army since 6 December 1921.

Lynch was shot by Free State troops himself on December 6, 1923.

On the same day, oddly enough, the British announced the withdrawal of its remaining troops from Ireland, starting on December 12 and to be completed by January 5.  The UK also closed its post offices in China, something that had been operating for fifty years.

A riot over rationing in Mexico resulted in the deaths of seventeen people in clashes with police in Mexico City.

Aisin-Gioro Puyi (溥儀) age 17, the former Emperor of China, and future Emperor of collaborationist Manchucko, married Gobulo Wanrong (郭布羅·婉容), age 16, in an elaborate ceremony in the Forbidden City.

Wanrong.

In spite of the termination of the monarchy, some of its traditions were still strong, and Puyi had been ordered to marry by the Dowager Empress.  Wanrong was chosen from a collection of photographs he was given and was in fact his second choice after being informed that his first choice was suitable only to be a concubine.  A marriage to the first choice, Erdet Wenxiu 額爾德特·文繡, was performed later that night in an example of hopeless oddity.

Wenxiu.

The Chinese royal family was quite frankly extraordinarily weird in many ways by this time, and its maintenance after its fall preserved its oddities.  The marriages may not have been consummated, but if they were they were certainly not happy in numerous ways.  Puyi himself noted that they were strained as the two women were effectively slaves, rather than real spouses.  There is some fairly serious speculation that Puyi was homosexual, in spite of having at least one other concubine.

Wanrong smoking a cigarette in the 1930s.

Wanrong lived a miserable life in spite of being the claimant to the title of Empress.  As Empress of Manchuko she entered into affairs and became pregnant by a court chauffeur.  The baby was murdered after birth.  She would have divorced Puyi, but the Japanese precluded it. She was taken prisoner towards the end of the Second World War by the Red Chinese. She died in their captivity at age 39 in June, 1945.

Not too surprisingly, Wenxiu was also unhappy in her role as a second class wife and had a troubled relationship with Wanrong and Piyu.  She divorced him in 1931 and latter married Major Liu Zhendong in 1947. He later became a car dealership and then the two of them lived in poverty following the Red Chinese victory in the Chinese Civil War. She died in 1953.

Yuling.

As if this isn't odd enough, and in spite of the questions this raises, Puyi would take two more consorts over time, Tatara Yuling 他他拉·玉齡 and Li Yuqin.  Puyi grew to be very fond of Yuling, who died undergoing medical treatment in 1942 at age 22. There are some suspicions regarding her death as her physician was Japanese and she was known to harbor negative thoughts about the Japanese.  Puyi kept a picture of her with him until his death.  Yuling was half Korean.

Yuquin married Puyi in 1943 and was with Empress Wanrong when she attempted to flee at teh endo fthe Second World War.  She was released from capitivy in 1946 and became a textile factory employee and a library employee.  She sought a divorce from Puyi in 1955 but oddly was ordered to reconcile with him by the Red Chinese government.  They none the less divorced in 1958 and she latter married technician Huang Yugeng (黃毓庚). She died in 2001 in Changchun.

Puyi lived until 1967, dying in Red China. The Soviets saved his life by refusing to extradite him to the Republic of China, which viewed him as a traitor.

50,000 gathered to hear Hitler speak in Munich.

Sunday, November 6, 2022

Thursday, November 6, 1947. Meet The Press Premiers.

Meet The Press, the longest running television program in the United States, premiered in that format.  It had previously premiered on radio as American Mercury Presents:  Meet the Press on October 5, 1945.

While I very much favor This Week over Meet the Press, it occurs to me that somewhat ironically, as I listed to the audio podcast variant, I listed to it closer to the radio version.


The first guess for the then 30-minute Thursday night program was James Farley, the Postmaster General and DNC Committee chairman.  The initial moderator was Martha Roundtree, reprising her role from the radio variant, and the only woman moderator of the show to date.  Roundtree hosted the program until 1953.

She died in 1999 in Washington D.C., nearly blind since the 1980s, due to the harsh effects of primitive television lighting.

As noted, I do listen to it, but I'm not a fan of the current moderator, Chuck Todd.  Indeed, I was hoping for a second female moderator in the form of Kasi Hunt.

On the same day, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told a Moscow audience that the means of making an atomic weapons were no longer secret.  American intelligence took that to mean that the Soviet Union knew how to build a bomb, but didn't necessarily have one.  The Soviets, who had penetrated the American government fairly successfully, suspected that the US was working on such a weapon by 1942 and started their own project accordingly.  Nonetheless, they had not developed a bomb by this point themselves, but were only two years away from doing so.

Canada invited Newfoundland to join the Canadian Dominion.

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Friday, July 17, 1942. End of the Archangle Route, Soviet female snipers, Combat at El Alamein, Case Blue resupplied from the air.

Churchill informed Stalin that in light of the PQ 17 disaster, convoys to Archangel would be suspended. Stalin already believed that the British were exaggerating about their losses.

It's worth noting, in my view, that Stalin's grasp, in my view, of the difficulties faced by the Western Allies tended to be clouded.  The Soviet Union was no more of a naval power than Imperial Russia had been, indeed considerably less so, and Stalin's ability to grasp the problems faced by the United States Navy and Royal Navy was not necessarily great.

Red Army sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko and Roza Shanina appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.

Pavlichenko.

Pavlichenko, as her last name would indicate, was Ukrainian.  She was sent on a tour of the United States and Canada in 1942, where she was very blunt in her comments and found the questions asked of her by the press to sometimes be stupid.  Her husband died during the war, and she suffered from his loss and PTSD until her early death at age 58 in 1974.

Shanina

Shanina was a Russian from northwestern Russia.  Unlike Pavlichenko, she was highly photogenic and there are a great number of photos of her as a result, in which she is usally broadly smiling.

A bright, highly intelligent woman, she was killed in action in January 1945.

Shanina's death notice to her mother.

Australian and British forces at El Alamein attempted to take Miteirya Ridge, succeeded at first against Italian troops, but were later pushed back by combined German and Italian forces.

The Luftwaffe airlifts 200 tons of fuel to advancing German forces in Russia.  Hitler moved his headquarters to Werewolf, where he plans to personally oversee Case Blue.

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Monday, July 13, 1942. Von Bock relieved.

Today in World War II History—July 13, 1942: Nazis massacre 5000 Jews in Rovno, Ukraine. Italian frogmen swim 5 km to Gibraltar and plant limpet mines, sinking three Allied ships.

And Feodor von Bock, as Sundin also reports on her blog, was relieved of command of Army Group B, although that became effective on July 15. 

Von Bock was not a Nazi, and indeed personally disliked the Nazis, but he was also passive in regard to their atrocities within his command.  That command included several officers who later were participants in the July 20 plot, which he was invited to participate in, but he declined to do so.

He was killed at the extreme end of the war when a vehicle he was in, along with his wife and stepdaughter, was strafed.

The German 21st Panzer division was repulsed by Australian and South African forces in an attack featuring heavy losses at Tel el Eisa and the El Alamein "box".

The USS Seadragon, still off of Cam Ranh Bay, sank the transport Shinyo Maru.

The RAF bombed Duisburg during thunderstorms, but missed the industrial areas.

Friday, June 24, 2022

Wednesday June 24, 1942. Eisenhower takes command.

Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to assume command of the European Theater of Operations United States of America, replacing James E. Chaney.


In fact, Eisenhower had only recently returned to the United States on a fact finding mission, along with Hap Arnold, on the United Kingdom in which he expressed a lack of confidence in Chaney.  He was assigned to replace Chaney and sent right back to the UK.


Eisenhower's star was on the rise at the time, and would be throughout the rest of his life, taking him to the White House.  He was the last U.S. Army general officer to become President.  Notably, an Army career was mostly an educational choice for him, rather than the expression of a military vocation.

Chaney would fade into obscurity.  Having been promoted to Major General in 1940, he was an observer of the Battle of Britain and would return to become commanding general of the First Air Force, and then become a training officer in the United States.  Late in the war he was in command of Army forces for the mostly Navy action at Iwo Jima, and he had a senior role in the Western Base Command at the end of the war.  He retired in 1947.  He, as well as his wife, died in 1967.

The Afrika Korps entered Egypt.

Friday, March 11, 2022

Wednesday, March 11, 1942. They Were Expendable

 

Lieutenant, later Admiral, John Bulkeley, who commanded the PT boat unit that evacuated the MacArthurs.  He'd receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for service during the war and served in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Today in World War II History—March 11, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Mar. 11, 1942: In the Philippines, Gen. Douglas MacArthur evacuates Corregidor by PT boat with his family and staff for Mindanao. Col. Karl Bendetsen is appointed director of US Wartime Civil Control Administration to supervise removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. Britain bans sale of white bread, replaced by National Wheatmeal Loaf made of whole wheat and potato flour.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.

This is indeed a day in which a famous event in World War Two occurred, that being the evacuation of Douglas MacArthur and his family from Corregidor.  It was done under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt.  While MacArthur was obeying a direct order, the event remained famously controversial among some.

Admiral Francis Rockwell and his family was also included, which for some reason is hardly ever noted.

The event was recorded in the well known book They Were Expendable, which was turned into a movie, both of which were produced during the war, the book in 1942 and the movie in 1945. The movie was released, however, just after the war, in December 1945.  It was directed by John Ford and featured John Wayne.

Brazilian President Getulio Vargas issued a decree that stated his powers to declare war or a state of emergency, which lead to the confiscation of the property of Axis countries in Brazil.

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Wednesday December 28, 1921. The Raid.

A couple of items from our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History for December 28

1921  A large prohibition  raid occurred in Rock Springs.

Rock Springs had a large Eastern European and Southern European immigrant and first generation population that had never favored prohibition.  As a result, the town predictably became a bootlegging center in Wyoming, leading to a huge evening raid on this day in 1921.

1921  USS Laramie commissioned.

She was a fleet oiler, survived being torpedoed in the Atlantic in 1942, and was decommissioned in 1945.


The Rand Rebellion, a gold miners strike, commenced in South Africa.