Today in World War II History—June 23, 1942: RAF captures first German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter plane, which lands by mistake in Wales. President Roosevelt signs bill deferring married men from the draft.
The FW 190 was a great aircraft, the best German fighter of the war, if you discount the ME262 jet fighter, which I think you can.
The married men draft deferment removed 18,000,000 men from the draft pool and was designed to intentionally use up the pool of eligible single men first. The exemption would not last, although it did last for a while. In April 1943 married men were once again eligible, but could be exempted if their conscription imposed an "extreme hardship" on their wives or children.
This exemption would be reinstated at some point during the Vietnam War, leading to some rushed marriages in order to avoid conscription. I'm not really sure what I think about it, frankly. It was probably more defensible during the Second World War during which men remained the sole "bread winners" for many families and couples. Indeed, while women did of course work during the war, the scale at which women overall worked is exaggerated in the popular recollection of the war.
Hitler authorized the Afrika Korps to pursue the 8th Army towards Egypt.
No comments:
Post a Comment