Sunday, July 14, 2024

Friday, July 14, 1944. Bastille Day.

Mortar crew in action near St. Lo, July 14, 1944.

President Roosevelt addressed the French people on it being Bastille Day:

July 14, 1944

Once again I salute, on Bastille Day, the heroic people of France.

July 14 this year is different, for we hope that it is the last fourteenth of July that France will suffer under German occupation. With full confidence, I look forward that the French people on July 14, 1945, will celebrate their great national fete on French soil, liberated alike from the invader and from the puppets of Vichy.

For the great battle of liberation is now engaged. It is a battle resolutely waged by the American, British, and Canadian forces, together with the valiant fighters of the home French, who have already contributed so greatly to the success of the operations. At the same time gallant French fighting forces are carrying on the victorious struggle in Italy, joined in traditional unity with their comrades of the American Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army.

Here, on this side o.[ the Atlantic, the fourteenth of July, 1944, offers an equally great spectacle of the indissoluble unity and the deep friendship of the American and French peoples.

Together, the French and American peoples stand today, united as they have always been when the cause of freedom was endangered.

Together, we shall win, and France shall be free!

U.S. Navy frogman began to recon Guam.

The Red Army captured Pinsk.  Vilnius was fully occupied, and Operation Ostra Brama by the Polish Home Army concluded.  Internment of the Polish partisans would start on July 15.

Sarah Sundin's blog has some interesting entries today, including that Japan started conscripting women and girls down to age 12 for war work.

Today in World War II History—July 14, 1944

The funeral of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. occured in France.

The funeral of General Ted Roosevelt, July 14, 1944


The commander of the 10th Armored Division, Maj. Gen. Paul Newgarded was killed when the airplane in which he was a passenger in the US went down in a violent storm.

The 10th was still training in the US at the time.

Druze actress and singer Amal al-Atrash (آمال الأطرش) known by her stage name Asmahan (أسمهان) died in a tragic car wreck when the car in which she was a passenger crashed into the Suez Canal.  Her professional life had been spent in Egypt.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 13, 1944. Stuck in the Bocage.

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