Monday, September 23, 2024

Saturday, September 23, 1944. The Fala Speech.

The Red Army entered Hungary.  In Estonia, they reached the Baltic.

The Canadians crossed the Escaut Canal in an attack designed to clear the Germans from the north bank of the Scheldt.  30th Corps, however, was halted and the Germans made a successful counterattack north of Eindhoven.

The RAF destroyed an aqueduct on the Dortmund-Ems Canal wiping out a route of transport for prefabricated U-boat parts.

President Roosevelt delivered a speech in front of Washington Teamsters in which he defended himself against false accusations by Republicans that he had a Navy destroyer restrive his dog Fala from the Aleutians.  In it, he stated:

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.

The crowd laughed at the joke.

The 81st Infantry Division took the unoccupied Ulithi Atoll to the north of Palau.  Work would immediately commence on building an airstrip.

Last edition:

Friday, September 22, 1944. Stiffening resistance in the Netherlands.

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