Today in World War II History—September 30, 1942: US begins rationing men’s rubber boots and work shoes. Canada begins draft for men 19 and older (men 21-24 are already subject to draft).
So notes Sarah Sundin on her blog.
Conscription was controversial in general in Canada. At this point in the war, conscripts could not be sent overseas unless they volunteered to do so, although a high percentage did volunteer.
Sundin also noted that high scoring German fighter pilot, Hans-Joachim Marseille, was killed bailing out of his Me109 on this day. His engine had caught on fire, and he hit the horizontal stabilizer upon bailing out. Most of Marseille's victories had been over North Africa.
Marseilles was a high scoring, but largely unstudied, German pilot. He was noted for being unorthodox in his flying and his personality.
Canada closed Hastings Park Assembly Center, a temporary staging center for the internment of Japanese Canadians, as it was no longer needed, internment now being in full swing.
Hitler delivered a speech in the Berlin Sportpalast in which he promised that the Jews would be exterminated, rather than the "Aryan peoples". Nobody was, of course, attempting to exterminate the Aryan peoples, to the extent that such a category even exists. The speech was long and mocking, and oddly made reference to specific figures, like Gen. MacArthur.
The Germans were, at this point, in trouble, and at the higher reaches of their government, they knew it. Hitler had been sacking generals on the Eastern Front, the Afrika Korps was back on the defensive, and the British were raiding by air nightly. New weapons were being put into Allied production, which Hitler derisively mentioned, but which indicates that the knowledge that the Germans were losing the technology and production war was starting to set in.
On the same day, Germany and Turkey signed a trade agreement.
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