Showing posts with label Philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philippines. Show all posts

Monday, March 11, 2024

Monday, March 11, 1974. The Obstinate

Imperial Japanese Army Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda formally in the Philippines.  He had been recently informed by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, that the war was over.


Originally part of a party of four such soldiers, one who abandoned the group in 1949 to surrender, they carried out guerilla raids which ultimately reduced Onoda to the sole survivor.  Their ongoing obstinacy was frankly irrational as well as deadly.

He found post-war Japan disappointing and became a cattle rancher in Brazil.

Contrary to popular belief, he was not the last Japanese soldier still holding out.  At least one more, Teruo Nakamura, who was Taiwanese, was in Indonesia.  He was actually a private and of native Taiwanese background, with a poor command of Japanese and Chinese.  He'd be captured in December 1974.  Another, Fumio Nakahara, may have been holding out in the Philippines as late as 1980, although that has never been determined.

A ceasefire between Iraq and the Kurdish Democratic Party was subject to an ultimatum, which provided that Kurdistan could be autonomous.  The offer would expire without acceptance, and a renewed war resumed.

The United Kingdom tended its Oil Embargo related state of emergency.

Last prior:

Friday, March 8, 1974. Exit Brady Bunch

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Thursday, February 7, 1974: Blog Mirror: "Blazing Saddles" Premieres


February 7, 1974: "Blazing Saddles" Premieres

I love that movie.

Mel Brook's great comedic spoof Western movies remains one of the all-time greats. It could not be made today.

Grenada became independent.

Prime Minister Edward Heath called for a dissolution of Parliament and new elections due to the governments' inability to resolve a coal miner's strike.

Coal mining had once been a major industry in the UK but was on its decline by the 1970s. The labor victory would be short lived as the Thatcher government of the 80s began to close coal mines down in a direction that indicated the industry was clearly done for, something she could do because of the nationalization of mines.  The trend had been going on since World War Two in any event.

Eight coal fired power plants remain in operation in the UK, all of which are slated to be closed this year. Six underground mines remain in operation, and two open pit mines. Mining communities have not been able to adjust to the change, something which should concern Wyoming.

The Nixon Administration entered into an agreement to revise the 1903 Panama Canal Treaty.

Moro rebels killed 25 civilians on a raid on Pikit, Mindanao.

The Laju Incident in Singapore ended as the combined terrorist attackers from the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine released hostages in exchange for safe passage to the Middle East.

Supposedly the small Japanese Red Army disbanded in 2001, but Japanese authorities maintain a successor organization was founded, and Japanese police have continued to maintain that known members of the group should be arrested.  The PFLP still exists.  Both groups were/are Communist in nature.

Related threads:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Sunday, Saturday, December 19, 1943. The Hopeville Martyrs.

Corsair damaged over Bougainville, December 19, 1943.

On Panay Island, in the Philippines, ten American Baptist missionaries, along with a handful of other Americans, were captured by the Japanese Army after having been in hiding for two years.

They offered to be executed in exchange for the release of Filipino's captured with them and were in fact killed by the Japanese, adults by beheading and children by bayoneting.

American forces captured the Japanese airstrip at Arawe, New Guinea.

Liberty Ship SS James Withycombe which went aground off Fort Randolph, Canal Zone, December 19, 1943.


Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Monday, November 15, 1943. The Combat Infantry Badge.


One of the awards most respected by soldiers to be issued by the U.S. Army, the Combat Infantry Badge, was authorized.

Limited to infantrymen alone who have seen actual ground combat, the creation of the award acknowledged the particular horrors experienced by infantrymen in combat.  The World War Two awards were upgraded, which they likely should not have been as it cheapened the original awards, to Bronze Stars in the 1980s, reflecting the particular horrors of World War Two in which soldiers were not rotated home but served until severely injured, killed, or the end of the war.

It followed the authorization of the Expert Infantry Badge, which had been authorized on November 11, 1943.


Both awards remain enormously respected in the U.S. Army.

"Nomadic" Gypsies in the Soviet Union were reclassified by Germany to be in the same racial category as Jews and therefore subject to the death camps, whereas "sedentary" Romani were classified as citizens of the country they were in.

The order would ultimately extend beyond the occupied regions of the USSR and was another example of how, as Nazi Germany's fate became sealed, it became more homicidal.

Offensive actions by the U.S. Fifth Army were halted by Gen. Alexander.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 15: 1943 1943  Harmonica player Larry Adler played at the University of Wyoming.  Adler was a well known harmonica player.

Manuel L. Quezon was inaugurated as President of the Philippines, in exile. It was his third term.  In the Philippines a collaborationist government, not as disdained by the post-war Philippines as might be supposed, was in control, with the sanction of the Japanese.

The Cross Mountain, Colorado post office was closed, putting an end to the Moffat County town.

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Thursday, October 14, 1943. Black Thursday.

The Eight Air Force raided Schweinfurt for the second time in a heavily opposed raid.

Seventy seven B-17s were shot down, along with four P-47s.  121 aircraft were ottherwise damaged.  590 Allied airmen were killed.


The target of the raid was ball bearing plants. The RAF refused to cooperate on the basis that ball bearings were a worthless object of a raid, something that post-war analysis proved correct.

An uprising commenced at Sobibor resulting in eleven SS and Ukrainian guards being killed.  SS-Untersturmführer Johann Niemann, thirty years of age and the commandant of Sobibor was the first one killed when he went to see a tailor, one of the prisoners, for a fitting.  The prisoner killed him with an axe, and his pistol was taken.

Three Hundred inmates escaped, although many were killed in nearby minefields or recaptured and immediately killed.  Fifty did survive and escape.  Those prisoners who had opted not to escape were also killed and the camp closed.

José P. Laurel, formerly a Philippines Supreme Court Justice, took the oath of office as President of the puppet Second Philippine Republic.  The Republic's then signed an alliance with Japan.

He also appealed to the Vatican at this time for recognition, which was refused on the stated basis that the Vatican did not wish to recognize any new states during the war.  Nonplussed, he sought the Filipinization of the Church in the Philippines.

We've already dealt with him in a previous post, and as noted there, he had a post-war political career in the country, demonstrating that the common view that East Asian collaborators were universally despised by their own people is not true.

Friday, August 4, 2023

Ruger AC-556. The rifle we wish we all had!


I've written a little about the AC-556, but it's hard to find information on Ruger's early competitor to the M16.

The AC-556 is a selective fire variant of the Ruger Mini 14.  Occasionally you'll see one in the US at a gunshow, one that was sold early on to a police force when police forces didn't want to look like the 82nd Airborne Division. The Mini 14 was regarded as looking less military, or perhaps less hostile, so some police forces favored it.  As I've noted here once before, the Wind River Reservation game warden carried, at one time, a Mini 30, the 7.62x39 variant of the Mini 14.

The selective fire variant is, of course, different in that its an assault rifle and was originally conceived of as a competitor to the M16.  

That it did receive military and paramilitary use if known, but murky.  The Marine Corps, which didn't like the M16, considered adopting them early on but Ruger couldn't supply the anticipated needs for the Corps so they went on to partially redesign it, leading to the later variants of the M16. The Corps, of course, no longer uses the M16/M4 at all, although the rifle it does use is closely related to it, omitting its gas system.

Some AC-556s were used by Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland, which of course is policing use.  French police still use a selective fire variant of the Mini 14, produced in France, some paramilitary units in the Philippines used them.  The British Bermuda Regiment seems to have used them, although some claim they actually used the Mini 14.

Now it turns out that the United Arab Emirates army used them.

This is typical for the AC-556.  You don't tend to find any large military using them, but they were used.  But details are nearly impossible to come by.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.

Today in World War II History—April 4, 1943: Mrs. Thomas Sullivan christens destroyer USS The Sullivans in honor of her five sons killed in the sinking of light cruiser USS Juneau in November 1942.
So reports Sarah Sundin, who also notes that the US II Corps took Hill 369 near El Guettar and that POWs escaped from the Japanese penal colony on Davoa point.  Their escape would break the news of the Bataan Death March, particularly through POW William Dyess.

William Dyess.

Dyess was returned to flying status but would suffer a mechanically stricken aircraft over California, while taking off, that following December and chose to ride the plane down as it was over a populated area.  He died in the crash.

On the tragic aircraft loss theme, I guess, a B-25 went down over Lake Murray, South Carolina on this day, but the entire crew survived.  The nearly intact B-25 was raised in 2005 in excellent condition.


1Lt. W.J. Hatton, pilot; 2Lt. R.F. Toner, copilot; 2Lt. D.P. Hays, navigator; 2Lt. J.S. Woravka, bombardier; TSgt. H.J. Ripslinger, engineer; TSgt. R.E. LaMotte, radio operator; SSgt. G.E. Shelly, gunner; SSgt. V.L. Moore, gunner; and SSgt. S.E. Adams, gunner.  Crew of the Lady Be Good.



Not so fortunate was the crew of Lady Be Good, a B-24.  It disappeared on its return from a bombing raid on Italy, having taken off from an airbase in Libya, which is interesting to consider as North Africa was still subject to fighting on the ground.


The plane grossly overshot its base and was found in 1958 by a British Petroleum crew some 400 plus miles inland.  The bodies were recovered, save for one, two years later after a search.  The crew clearly bailed out once they realized, far too late, they were deeply lost and that the plane would go down. They appear to have survived the parachute descent but died in the desert. The one remaining crewman was likely found by a British patrol over the borderline with Libya in 1953, but was unaware of whom the crewman was, as the plane had been thought to have crashed over the Mediterranean.


A minor incident, it's recalled simply because of the mystery of what occurred to the crew.  Worth recalling as part of that, and contrary to how this is often portrayed in film, many American aircrews were extremely green early on in the war, as in fact this crew was.  This contributed to an extremely high accident rate.



German radio announced that Former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Léon Blum, and former French Army commander in chief, General Maurice Gamelin, had turned over to the Germans by French authorities.  They would spend the rest of the war in Buchewald.

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Tuesday, December 8, 1942. Kalibapi formed, Bizerte taken.

The collaborationist Kalibapi party was formed in the Philippines, where it was organized to be the sole, Japanese friendly, political party.  While it did serve in that role, its nationalistic policies led it to refuse to declare war on the US and UK, causing the Japanese to form a second collaborationist party in 1944.

The Germans took Bizerte.

Bizerte is the northernmost city in Africa.  France, valuing its deep water port, retained the city after Tunisia secured independence, leading to a brief undeclared war between the countries in 1961.  In October 1963, the French turned the city over to Tunisia, following a great deal of international pressure to do so.

The Mexican Claims Act of 1942 settled American claims, some dating back sixty years, against Mexico for property losses.

Friday, May 6, 2022

Wednesday, May 6, 1942. The fall of Corregador

On this date in 1942, US and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese at Corregador.


The loss of the island fortress was inevitable, and in many ways the amazing thing was how long the final stages of the conquest of the Philippines took.

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Sunday, April 12, 1942. The Royce Raid

On this day in 1942 Gen. Ralph Royce, who had been recalled to service while working in commercial aviation in the Philippines, commenced three days of raid with B-25s and B-17s from an airfield in Mindanao which remained in U.S. control.  Most of the sorties were flown by B-25s, with those sorties having been taken without authority from the Dutch in Australia.

B-17 on Del Monte field on Mindanao.

The raids were quite successful and Royce was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  The force returned to Australia after three days, evacuating what personnel it could as it departed.

Jawaharal Nehru pledged that India would not surrender to the Axis.

The Hungarian 2nd Army departed Hungary for the Eastern Front.

Saturday, April 9, 2022

Thursday, April 9, 1942. Bataan surrenders and the Death March begins.

Today in World War II History—April 9, 1942: US surrenders to Japanese at Bataan: 35,000 Filipino troops and 35,000 US troops, the largest surrender in US history.

Sarah Sundin’s entry on her blog, with more than this event being covered on it, notes the grim fact.

I was inevitable, or course.  That Bataan would fall, disaster though it was, could not bee prevented.  The Philippines could not be supplied or relieved.  The troops could not bee withdrawn.  Nothing could be done.  It could be argued that the US should have ordered the bastion to surrender earlier, although their ongoing resistance did tie up a significant number of Japanese forces and even caused the Japanese to send troops to the islands from China, the Japanese army’s primary focus.

The Japanese, in spite of having worked for weeks to complete their conquest in of the Philippines were not prepared to handle such a large number of prisoners.  This, combined with the institutional cruelty of the Japanese armed forces gave rise to an event commenting on this day, the Bataan Death March

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Friday, April 3, 1942. The end for Bataan.

The behind schedule Philippine offensive of the Japanese, the only one running behind schedule, makes use of reinforcements, including troops brought in from China, Japans strategic imperative, by launching a renewed offensive against Bataan.  It works, as after  massive bombardment, the Japanese break through the 41st Philippine Division.



Tuesday, March 29, 2022

March 29, 1942. The Hukbalahap Rebellion begins.

On this day in 1942 the Hukbalahap Rebellion, a Communist peasant rebellion, commenced in the Philippines.  The Huks, as they were called, conducted a guerilla war against the Japanese which lasted through the war and turned into a rebellion against the Philippine government which lasted until 1954.

The movement was supported by the US during the war, and opposed by it after the war.

It was interestingly put down after the war not only by military means, but by political reforms that co-opted the most pressing grievances of the Huks, leaving them essentially without a political base.

Stafford Cripps.

Stafford Cripps met with Mahatma Gandhi and presented British plans for a semi-independent India after World War Two.

Cripps was a left wing lawyer and a member of the Labour Party.  He'd been ambassador to the Soviet Union before it was attacked, during which time Cripps had warned Stalin that a German attack was inevitable.  Churchill had appointed him to the position due to Cripp's Marxist sympathies.  He became a member of the war cabinet during the war and his mission to India presented a plan of his own devising which met with support from nobody on either side of the issue.  After the war he was a figure in the Labour government and was one of those who approved of the sending of jet engines to the Soviet Union, something Stalin had dismissed as impossible due to being "foolish", which resulted in the design going into the early Mig 15s.

The Japanese won at Toungoo.

In a bizarre event, German internees managed to convince their native Indonesian guards to rise up in a rebellion against the Dutch on the island of Nias, and declared it to be an independent state.  This followed Japanese landings on other Indonesian islands. The Japanese would land on Nias in April and they removed all of the Europeans, save for a physician, from the island.

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, February 22, 2022

Sunday, February 22, 1942. Harris takes command.

February 22, 1942: Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris takes command of RAF Bomber Command. President Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave Bataan for Australia.

So states the opener of Sarah Sundin's blog for the day.

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”  Harris.
 

An unrelenting advocate of the RAF's Area Bombing Directive, he remains an extremely controversial figure, perhaps the most controversial British figure of the Second World War.

Harris was born and raised in England, but moved to Rhodesia at age 18.  While just about to enter ranching in that country in 1914, he reluctantly joined the 1st Rhodesian Regiment.  He transferred to the RAF as a pilot in 1916.  He remained in the RAF after the war and never returned to Rhodesia even though he considered it to be his country, although for a time after his retirement from the RAF he managed a mining company in South Africa.

As also discussed by Sundin, Douglas MacArthur was ordered by Franklin Roosevelt to leave the Philippines.

The Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen arrived at Bergen, Norway.  Later that day, the left for Trondheim.

Friday, January 28, 2022

Wednesday, January 28, 1942. Comings and Goings.

"One of our Filipino boys, injured in the fighting on Bataan, January 28, 1942, being brought back to a first aid station by his comrades. Longoskawayan Point, West Coast."

On this day in 1942, the Germans and Italians retook Benghazi.

The Ninth Pan American Conference adjourned. Twenty-one nations agreed to sever relationship with the Axis powers as a result of it, although quite a few already had.  Brazil and Paraguay did that day.

From Sarah Sundin's Today In World War Two History blog, we learn the following:
January 28, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Jan. 28, 1942: US Navy PBO Hudson pilot claims to sink a U-boat off Newfoundland and radios “Sighted sub, sank same,” but no U-boat was sunk, an honest error. US Eighth Air Force is activated in Savannah, GA, under Brig. Gen. Asa Duncan; originally intended for North Africa but will serve in Britain. US Naval Magazine at Port Chicago, CA, is established as a subcommand of Naval Ammunition Depot at Mare Island.

And from our  Today In Wyoming's History blog, we learn this:

Today In Wyoming's History: January 281942   The USS Wyoming put in at Norfolk and began a series of gunnery training drills in Chesapeake Bay. Attribution:  On This Day.
Oakland Army Base, January 28, 1942.

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Tuesday, December 30, 1941. A day of Axis setbacks.

 


The British offensive, Operation Crusader, drew to a successful conclusion on this day in 1941.  It had commenced on November 18.  It had driven the Axis forces in North Africa back from Tobruk and a substantial distance in retreat in Libya.

Winston Churchill, having recently addressed Congress, now addressed the Canadian Parliament in a speech famously recalled as the "Chicken Speech".  In it, he stated:

It is with feelings of pride and encouragement that I find myself here in the House of Commons of Canada, invited to address the Parliament of the senior Dominion of the Crown. I am very glad to see again my old friend Mr. Mackenzie King, for fifteen years out of twenty your Prime Minister, and I thank him for the too complimentary terms in which he has referred to myself. I bring you the assurance of good will and affection from every one in the Motherland. We are most grateful for all you have done in the common cause, and we know that you are resolved to do whatever more is possible as the need arises and as opportunity serves. Canada occupies a unique position in the British Empire because of its unbreakable ties with Britain and its ever-growing friendship and intimate association with the United States. Canada is a potent magnet, drawing together those in the new world and in the old whose fortunes are now united in a deadly struggle for life and honour against the common foe. The contribution of Canada to the Imperial war effort in troops, in ships, in aircraft, in food, and in finance has been magnificent. 
The Canadian Army now stationed in England has chafed not to find itself in contact with the enemy. But I am here to tell you that it has stood and still stands in the key position to strike at the invader should he land upon our shores. In a few months, when the invasion season returns, the Canadian Army may be engaged in one of the most frightful battles the world has ever seen, but on the other hand their presence may help to deter the enemy from attempting to fight such a battle on British soil. Although the long routine of training and preparation is undoubtedly trying to men who left prosperous farms and businesses, or other responsible civil work, inspired by an eager and ardent desire to fight the enemy, although this is trying to high-mettled temperaments, the value of the service rendered is unquestionable, and I am sure that the peculiar kind of self-sacrifice involved will be cheerfully or at least patiently endured. 
The Canadian Government have imposed no limitation on the use of the Canadian Army, whether on the Continent of Europe or elsewhere, and I think it is extremely unlikely that this war will end without the Canadian Army coming to close quarters with the Germans, as their fathers did at Ypres, on the Somme, or on the Vimy Ridge. Already at Hong Kong, that beautiful colony which the industry and mercantile enterprise of Britain has raised from a desert isle and made the greatest port of shipping in the whole world — Hong Kong, that Colony wrested from us for a time until we reach the peace table, by the overwhelming power of the Home Forces of Japan, to which it lay in proximity — at Hong Kong Canadian soldiers of the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, under a brave officer whose loss we mourn, have played a valuable part in gaining precious days, and have crowned with military honour the reputation of their native land. 
Another major contribution made by Canada to the Imperial war effort is the wonderful and gigantic Empire training scheme for pilots for the Royal and Imperial Air Forces. This has now been as you know well in full career for nearly two years in conditions free from all interference by the enemy. The daring youth of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, with many thousands from the homeland, are perfecting their training under the best conditions, and we are being assisted on a large scale by the United States, many of whose training facilities have been placed at our disposal. This scheme will provide us in 1942 and 1943 with the highest class of trained pilots, observers, and air gunners in the numbers necessary to man the enormous flow of aircraft which the factories of Britain, of the Empire and of the United States are and will be producing. 
I could also speak on the naval production of corvettes and above all of merchant ships which is proceeding on a scale almost equal to the building of the United Kingdom, all of which Canada has set on foot. I could speak of many other activities, of tanks, of the special forms of modern high-velocity cannon and of the great supplies of raw materials and many other elements essential to our war effort on which your labours are ceaselessly and tirelessly engaged. But I must not let my address to you become a catalogue, so I turn to less technical fields of thought. 
We did not make this war, we did not seek it. We did all we could to avoid it. We did too much to avoid it. We went so far at times in trying to avoid it as to be almost destroyed by it when it broke upon us. But that dangerous corner has been turned, and with every month and every year that passes we shall confront the evil-doers with weapons as plentiful, as sharp, and as destructive as those with which they have sought to establish their hateful domination. 
I should like to point out to you that we have not at any time asked for any mitigation in the fury or malice of the enemy. The peoples of the British Empire may love peace. They do not seek the lands or wealth of any country, but they are a tough and hardy lot. We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy. 
Look at the Londoners, the Cockneys; look at what they have stood up to. Grim and gay with their cry "We can take it," and their war-time mood of "What is good enough for anybody is good enough for us." We have not asked that the rules of the game should be modified. We shall never descend to the German and Japanese level, but if anybody likes to play rough we can play rough too. Hitler and his Nazi gang have sown the wind; let them reap the whirlwind. Neither the length of the struggle nor any form of severity which it may assume shall make us weary or shall make us quit.
I have been all this week with the President of the United States, that great man whom destiny has marked for this climax of human fortune. We have been concerting the united pacts and resolves of more than thirty States and nations to fight on in unity together and in fidelity one to another, without any thought except the total and final extirpation of the Hitler tyranny, the Japanese frenzy, and the Mussolini flop.
There shall be no halting, or half measures, there shall be no compromise, or parley. These gangs of bandits have sought to darken the light of the world; have sought to stand between the common people of all the lands and their march forward into their inheritance. They shall themselves be cast into the pit of death and shame, and only when the earth has been cleansed and purged of their crimes and their villainy shall we turn from the task which they have forced upon us, a task which we were reluctant to undertake, but which we shall now most faithfully and punctiliously discharge. According to my sense of proportion, this is no time to speak of the hopes of the future, or the broader world which lies beyond our struggles and our victory. We have to win that world for our children. We have to win it by our sacrifices. We have not won it yet. The crisis is upon us. The power of the enemy is immense. If we were in any way to underrate the strength, the resources or the ruthless savagery of that enemy, we should jeopardize, not only our lives, for they will be offered freely, but the cause of human freedom and progress to which we have vowed ourselves and all we have. We cannot for a moment afford to relax. On the contrary we must drive ourselves forward with unrelenting zeal. In this strange, terrible world war there is a place for everyone, man and woman, old and young, hale and halt; service in a thousand forms is open. There is no room now for the dilettante, the weakling, for the shirker, or the sluggard. The mine, the factory, the dockyard, the salt sea waves, the fields to till, the home, the hospital, the chair of the scientist, the pulpit of the preacher — from the highest to the humblest tasks, all are of equal honour; all have their part to play. The enemies ranged against us, coalesced and combined against us, have asked for total war. Let us make sure they get it.
That grand old minstrel, Harry Lauder — Sir Harry Lauder, I should say, and no honour was better deserved — had a song in the last War which began, "If we all look back on the history of the past, we can just tell where we are." Let us then look back. We plunged into this war all unprepared because we had pledged our word to stand by the side of Poland, which Hitler had feloniously invaded, and in spite of a gallant resistance had soon struck down. There followed those astonishing seven months which were called on this side of the Atlantic the "phoney" war. Suddenly the explosion of pent-up German strength and preparation burst upon Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium. All these absolutely blameless neutrals, to most of whom Germany up to the last moment was giving every kind of guarantee and assurance, were overrun and trampled down. The hideous massacre of Rotterdam, where 30,000 people perished, showed the ferocious barbarism in which the German Air Force revels when, as in Warsaw and later Belgrade, it is able to bomb practically undefended cities.
On top of all this came the great French catastrophe. The French Army collapsed, and the French nation was dashed into utter and, as it has so far proved, irretrievable confusion. The French Government had at their own suggestion solemnly bound themselves with us not to make a separate peace. It was their duty and it was also their interest to go to North Africa, where they would have been at the head of the French Empire. In Africa, with our aid, they would have had overwhelming sea power. They would have had the recognition of the United States, and the use of all the gold they had lodged beyond the seas. If they had done this Italy might have been driven out of the war before the end of 1940, and France would have held her place as a nation in the counsels of the Allies and at the conference table of the victors. But their generals misled them. When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." Some chicken; some neck.
What a contrast has been the behaviour of the valiant, stout-hearted Dutch, who still stand forth as a strong living partner in the struggle! Their venerated Queen and their Government are in England, their Princess and her children have found asylum and protection here in your midst. But the Dutch nation are defending their Empire with dogged courage and tenacity by land and sea and in the air. Their submarines are inflicting a heavy daily toll upon the Japanese robbers who have come across the seas to steal the wealth of the East Indies, and to ravage and exploit its fertility and its civilization. The British Empire and the United States are going to the aid of the Dutch. We are going to fight out this new war against Japan together. We have suffered together and we shall conquer together.
But the men of Bordeaux, the men of Vichy, they would do nothing like this. They lay prostrate at the foot of the conqueror. They fawned upon him. What have they got out of it? The fragment of France which was left to them is just as powerless, just as hungry as, and even more miserable, because more divided, than the occupied regions themselves. Hitler plays from day to day a cat-and-mouse game with these tormented men. One day he will charge them a little less for holding their countrymen down.
Another day he will let out a few thousand broken prisoners of war from the one-and-a-half or one-and-three-quarter millions he has collected. Or again he will shoot a hundred French hostages to give them a taste of the lash. On these blows and favours the Vichy Government have been content to live from day to day. But even this will not go on indefinitely. At any moment it may suit Hitler's plans to brush them away. Their only guarantee is Hitler's good faith, which, as everyone knows, biteth like the adder and stingeth like the asp.
But some Frenchmen there were who would not bow their knees and who under General de Gaulle have continued the fight on the side of the Allies. They have been condemned to death by the men of Vichy, but their names will be held and are being held in increasing respect by nine Frenchmen out of every ten throughout the once happy, smiling land of France. But now strong forces are at hand. The tide has turned against the Hun. Britain, which the men of Bordeaux thought and then hoped would soon be finished, Britain with her Empire around her carried the weight of the war alone for a whole long year through the darkest part of the valley. She is growing stronger every day. You can see it here in Canada. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of our affairs is aware that very soon we shall be superior in every form of equipment to those who have taken us at the disadvantage of being but half armed.
The Russian armies, under their warrior leader, Josef Stalin, are waging furious war with increasing success along the thousand-mile front of their invaded country. General Auchinleck, at the head of a British, South African, New Zealand and Indian army, is striking down and mopping up the German and Italian forces which had attempted the invasion of Egypt. Not only are they being mopped up in the desert, but great numbers of them have been drowned on the way there by British submarines and the R.A.F. in which Australian squadrons played their part.
As I speak this afternoon an important battle is being fought around Jedabia. We must not attempt to prophesy its result, but I have good confidence. All this fighting in Libya proves that when our men have equal weapons in their hands and proper support from the air they are more than a match for the Nazi hordes. In Libya, as in Russia, events of great importance and of most hopeful import have taken place. But greatest of all, the mighty Republic of the United States has entered the conflict, and entered it in a manner which shows that for her there can be no withdrawal except by death or victory. 
Et partout dans la France occupée et inoccupée (car leur sort est égal), ces honnêtes gens, ce grand peuple, la nation française, se redresse. L'espoir se rallume dans les coeurs d'une race guerrière, même désarmée, berceau de la liberté révolutionnaire et terrible aux vainqueurs esclaves. Et partout, on voit le point du jour, et la lumière grandit, rougeâtre, mais claire. Nous ne perdrons jamais la confiance que la France jouera le rôle des hommes libres et qu'elle reprendra par des voies dures sa place dans la grande compagnie des nations libératrices et victorieuses. Ici, au Canada, où la langue française est honorée et parlée, nous nous tenons prêts et armés pour aider et pour saluer cette résurrection nationale. 
Now that the whole of the North American continent is becoming one gigantic arsenal, and armed camp; now that the immense reserve power of Russia is gradually becoming apparent; now that long-suffering, unconquerable China sees help approaching; now that the outraged and subjugated nations can see daylight ahead, it is permissible to take a broad forward view of the war.
We may observe three main periods or phases of the struggle that lies before us. First there is the period of consolidation, of combination, and of final preparation. In this period, which will certainly be marked by much heavy fighting, we shall still be gathering our strength, resisting the assaults of the enemy, and acquiring the necessary overwhelming air superiority and shipping tonnage to give our armies the power to traverse, in whatever numbers may be necessary, the seas and oceans which, except in the case of Russia, separate us from our foes. It is only when the vast shipbuilding programme on which the United States has already made so much progress, and which you are powerfully aiding, comes into full flood, that we shall be able to bring the whole force of our manhood and of our modern scientific equipment to bear upon the enemy. How long this period will take depends upon the vehemence of the effort put into production in all our war industries and shipyards.
The second phase which will then open may be called the phase of liberation. During this phase we must look to the recovery of the territories which have been lost or which may yet be lost, and also we must look to the revolt of the conquered peoples from the moment that the rescuing and liberating armies and air forces appear in strength within their bounds. For this purpose it is imperative that no nation or region overrun, that no Government or State which has been conquered, should relax its moral and physical efforts and preparation for the day of deliverance. The invaders, be they German or Japanese, must everywhere be regarded as infected persons to be shunned and isolated as far as possible. Where active resistance is impossible, passive resistance must be maintained. The invaders and tyrants must be made to feel that their fleeting triumphs will have a terrible reckoning, and that they are hunted men and that their cause is doomed. Particular punishment will be reserved for the quislings and traitors who make themselves the tools of the enemy. They will be handed over to the judgment of their fellow-countrymen.
There is a third phase which must also be contemplated, namely, the assault upon the citadels and the home-lands of the guilty Powers both in Europe and in Asia. Thus I endeavour in a few words to cast some forward light upon the dark, inscrutable mysteries of the future. But in thus forecasting the course along which we should seek to advance, we must never forget that the power of the enemy and the action of the enemy may at every stage affect our fortunes. Moreover, you will notice that I have not attempted to assign any time-limits to the various phases. These time-limits depend upon our exertions, upon our achievements, and on the hazardous and uncertain course of the war.
Nevertheless I feel it is right at this moment to make it clear that, while an ever-increasing bombing offensive against Germany will remain one of the principal methods by which we hope to bring the war to an end, it is by no means the only method which our growing strength now enables us to take into account. Evidently the most strenuous exertions must be made by all. As to the form which those exertions take, that is for each partner in the grand alliance to judge for himself in consultation with others and in harmony with the general scheme. Let us then address ourselves to our task, not in any way underrating its tremendous difficulties and perils, but in good heart and sober confidence, resolved that, whatever the cost, whatever the suffering, we shall stand by one another, true and faithful comrades, and do our duty, God helping us, to the end.

That part of the speech, set out above in French, was delivered in French.

The Red Army made amphibious landings in eastern Crimea.

The Soviets were demonstrating operational capabilities that the Germans lacked, which was creating real problems for the Wehrmacht.  Amphibious operations were one such capability.

The Battle of Kampar commenced in Malaysia, pitting Japanese troops against British and Indian troops.

Japanese tanks in the Battle of Kampar.

The battle would be a Japanese defeat.  The British and Indian forces ultimately withdrew, but their goal had been to slow the Japanese advance, which they did.

Manuel Quezon was inaugurated to his second term of President of the Philippines.  On that occasion, Gen. MacArthur delivered this address:
Never before in all history has there been a more solemn and significant inauguration. An act, symbolical of democratic processes, is placed against the background of a sudden, merciless war. 
The thunder of death and destruction, dropped from the skies, can be heard in the distance. Our ears almost catch the roar of battle as our soldiers close on the firing line. The horizon is blackened by the smoke of destructive fire. The air reverberates to the dull roar of exploding bombs, 
Such is the bed of birth of this new government, of this new nation. For four hundred years the Philippines has struggled upward toward self government. Just at the end of its tuitionary period, just on the threshold of independence, came the great hour of decision. There was no hesitation, no vacillation, no moment of doubt. The whole country followed its great leader in choosing the side of freedom against the side of slavery. We have just inaugurated him, we have just thereby confirmed his momentous decision. Hand in hand with the United States and the other free nations of the world, this basic and fundamental issue will be fought through to victory. Come what may ultimate triumph will be its reward. 
Through this its gasping agony of travail, through what Winston Churchill calls “blood and sweat and tears,” from the grim shadow of the Valley of Death, Oh Merciful God, preserve this noble race. 
Never before in all history has there been a more solemn and significant inauguration. An act, symbolical of democratic processes, is placed against the background of a sudden, merciless war. 
The thunder of death and destruction, dropped from the skies, can be heard in the distance. Our ears almost catch the roar of battle as our soldiers close on the firing line. The horizon is blackened by the smoke of destructive fire. The air reverberates to the dull roar of exploding bombs. 
Such is the bed of birth of this new government, of this new nation. For four hundred years the Philippines has struggled upward toward self government. Just at the end of its tuitionary period, just on the threshold of independence, came the great hour of decision. There was no hesitation, no vacillation, no moment of doubt. The whole country followed its great leader in choosing the side of freedom against the side of slavery. We have just inaugurated him, we have just thereby confirmed his momentous decision. Hand in hand with the United States and the other free nations of the world, this basic and fundamental issue will be fought through to victory. Come what may ultimate triumph will be its reward. 
Through this its gasping agony of travail, through what Winston Churchill calls “blood and sweat and tears,” from the grim shadow of the Valley of Death, Oh Merciful God, preserve this noble race.
Ernest King assumed command of the US fleet.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Monday, December 29, 1941. The growing restrictions on Japanese Americans and a Japanese American Tragedy.

As we earlier noted in Today In Wyoming's History: December 29: .

1941  All German, Italian and Japanese aliens in California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington and are ordered to surrender contraband. (WWII List).

"Contraband", in this context, was defined to include short-wave radios, cameras, binoculars, and weapons, or in other words items that the authorities  feared could be used for espionage, or defend a person engaged in espionage.

The US and Canada were moving rapidly towards internment of their ethnic Japanese residents who lived on the coast.

1941  Sunge Yoshimoto, age nineteen, killed in the Lincoln-Star Coal Company tipple south of Kemmerer.  He was a Japanese American war worker.

He lived in the household of his father, Charlie, who had been born in Japan.  Mr. Yoshimoto was widowed, but he still had six children at home in Rock Springs, ranging from 23 years old to eleven.  A daughter-in-law, Hatsuko, of his also lived in the household at the time.  Sunge had been born in Rock Springs as had all of his siblings.  His sister-in-law had been born in Idaho.

On the same day, the Japanese bombed Corregidor for the first time.

Douglas MacArthur was on the cover of the Time magazine released on this day.  An aerial gunner was on the cover of Life.

The Red Army took back Kerch in Crimea.  Elsewhere in the East the Germans were completely on the defensive.

Eddie Rickenbacker announced that the 1942 Indianapolis 500 would be canceled for the duration of the war.  He was then the President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.



Monday, December 27, 2021

Saturday, December 27, 1941. Vågsøy, Norway raided by Commandos. Australia turns towards the US.

Following up on yesterdays' diversionary raid on the Lofoten islands, British and Norwegian commandos raided the Vågsøy, Norway in Operation Archery.  The raid was the first combined arms raid conducted by the British.

British commandos in action on Operation Archery.

Fish oil was the material objective, but a broader goal was to cause the Germans to shift more manpower to Norway, where they'd accordingly reduce pressure on the Eastern Front. To that extent it was a success, as the Germans in fact moved 30,000 men into the Scandinavian country due to Hitler's fear that the British were preparing to invade Norway.  Ultimately the Germans would come to station 15 Divisions in Norway, where the 300,000 men were in fact fairly useless.

Operation Anklet, the diversionary raid, ended as the Germans were reacting with aircraft which that mission now lacked.

The first SOE operatives are dropped by the British into Denmark, but as the item below details, one was killed when his parachute didn't open:

Today in World War II History—December 27, 1941

Australian Prime Minister released this statement for publication.

That reddish veil which o'er the face
Of night-hag East is drawn ...
Flames new disaster for the race?
Or can it be the dawn? 
So wrote Bernard O'Dowd. I see 1942 as a year in which we shall know the answer. I would, however, that we provide the answer. We can and we will. Therefore I see 1942 as a year of immense change in Australian life. 
The Australian government's policy has been grounded on two facts. One is that the war with Japan is not a phase of the struggle with the Axis powers, but is a new war. The second is that Australia must go on a war footing. Those two facts involve two lines of action - one in the direction of external policy as to our dealings with Britain, the United States, Russia, the Netherlands East Indies and China in the higher direction of the war in the Pacific. 
The second is the reshaping, in fact the revolutionising, of the Australian way of life until a war footing is attained quickly, efficiently and withoutquestion. ... 
Now with equal realism, we take the view that, while the determination of military policy is the Soviet's business, we should be able to look forward with reason to aid from Russia against Japan. We look for a solid and impregnable barrier of the Democracies against the three Axis Powers, and we refuse to accept the dictum that the Pacific struggle must be treated as a subordinate segment of the general conflict. By that it is not meant that any one of the other theatres of war is of less importance than the Pacific, but that Australia asks for a concerted plan evoking the greatest strength at the Democracies' disposal, determined upon hurling Japan back. The Australian Government, therefore, regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the democracies' fighting plan. Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom. 
We know the problems that the United Kingdom faces. We know the constant threat of invasion. We know the dangers of dispersal of strength, but we know too, that Australia can go and Britain can still hold on. ...  
Summed up, Australian external policy will be shaped toward obtaining Russian aid, and working out, with the United States, as the major factor, a plan of Pacific strategy, along with British, Chinese and Dutch forces. Australian internal policy has undergone striking changes in the past few weeks. These, and those that will inevitably come before 1942 is far advanced, have been prompted by several reasons. In the first place, the Commonwealth Government found it exceedingly difficult to bring Australian people to a realisation of what, after two years of war, our position had become. Even the entry of Japan, bringing a direct threat in our own waters, was met with a subconscious view that the Americans would deal with the short-sighted, underfed and fanatical Japanese. 
The announcement that no further appeals would be made to the Australian people, and the decisions that followed, were motivated by psychological factors. They had an arresting effect. They awakened the somewhat lackadaisical Australian mind the attitude that was imperative if we were to save ourselves, to enter an all-in effort in the only possible manner.
That experiment in psychology was eminently successful, and we commence 1942 with a better realisation, by a greater number of Australians, of what the war means than in the whole preceding two years.
The decisions were prompted by other reasons, all related to the necessity of getting onto a war footing, and the results so far achieved have been most heartening, especially in respect of production and conservation of stocks. I make it clear that the experiment undertaken was never intended as one to awaken Australian patriotism or sense of duty. Those qualities have been ever-present; but the response to leadership and direction had never been requested of the people, and desirable talents and untapped resources had lain dormant. Our task for 1942 is stern ... The position Australia faces internally far exceeds in potential and sweeping dangers anything that confronted us in 1914-1918.
The year 1942 will impose supreme tests. These range from resistance to invasion to deprivation of more and more amenities ...
Australians must realise that to place the nation on a war footing every citizen must place himself, his private and business affairs, his entire mode of living, on a war footing. The civilian way of life cannot be any less rigorous, can contribute no less than that which the fighting men have to follow. I demand that Australians everywhere realise that Australia is now inside the firing lines.
Australian governmental policy will be directed strictly on those lines. We have to regard our country and its 7,000,000 people as though we were a nation and a people with the enemy hammering at our frontier. Australians must be perpetually on guard; on guard against the possibility, at any hour without warning, of raid or invasion; on guard against spending money, or doing anything that cannot be justified; on guard against hampering by disputation or idle, irresponsible chatter, the decisions of the Government taken for the welfare of all.
All Australia is the stake in this war. All Australia must stand together to hold that stake. We face a powerful, ably led and unbelievably courageous foe. We must watch the enemy accordingly. We shall watch him accordingly.

The speech acknowledged that Australia was looking to the United States for support, rather than the United Kingdom, a major shift in its traditional allegiance to its mother country.

On the same day, the Japanese bombed the open city of Manila.  On the same day, US and Filipino forces withdrew to defensive line "D", the third of five pre-war designed lines of defense.


The US, as also detailed in the link above, commenced the rationing of rubber.  You can read more about that here:

“Make It Do—Tire Rationing in World War II”).