Monday, February 17, 2025

Saturday, February 17, 1945. Rum and Coca Cola. Cold Comfort. Scientist leave Peenemünde. Iwo Jima.

The Andrew Sisters song Rum and Coca Cola hit the No. 1 position on the Billboard charts.  It was a song I recall as my Quebecois mother liked it.

This song was in the nature of cute at the time, but frankly it's about as accidentally imperialist as possible.

When I was 19 years old, which was the drinking age at the time, this was the first mixed drink I ever ordered in a bar, for the reason it was the only one I'd ever heard of.  I was out on the town with a group of my high school friends.  

In my view, it's awful.  I can't stand rum. Frankly, I wish I was like one of my close friends and never developed a taste for alcohol at all.  I do like beer.

The SAS launched Operation Cold Comfort in Italy.

German scientists evacuated the Peenemünde Army Research Center.

One of my (Canadian) cousins lives on Peenemünde today.  He's a scientist. Much of the Western world outside of the United States is still keen on science, including our recent allies, and or enemies.  Now that J.D. Vance has indicated that we intend to crawl in a hole and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist, science stands a chance again. 

Scopes monkey trials anyone? American being second rate hick nation anyone?

Speaking of Canadians, who entered World War Two in 1939 when the US was still pretending that it could live on a seperate planet, Canadian troops reached the Rhine along a ten mile front.

They were all volunteers.

If I seem bitter, well yes I'm bitter that a Baby Boomer who is morally reprehensible and a South African whose sorry ass should be kicked back to Johannesburg are wrecking the nation, well yes I am.

And, if he's so nifty, why isn't that South African (who, I'll note, emigrated to Canada and incidnetally didn't have to serve in the, mostly black, South African Army as a result) making piles of cash, and producing piles of children, there?

" Infantrymen are working with engineers in road repair near Bullingen, Belgium, to keep supplies moving to the front. Rubble from houses supplies ballast fill. 17 February, 1945. Company C, 395th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division."

US troops, who were not all volunteers, launched attacks from Luxembourg and near Saarbrucken.

"Mines and snipers in Hanweiler, Germany, forces this battalion anti-tank unit to seek another route as they move up to support their regiment which jumped off on a pre-dawn attack. They have just made the initial crossing from Sarrguemines, France, into Hanweiler, and over the Saar River. 17 February, 1945. 3rd Battalion, 253rd Infantry Regiment, 63rd Infantry Division."  Men who fought for values now betrayed by Donald Trump, Elon Musk and J.D. Vance.  If you doubt it, look a the values of post war voters.  It's okay, we'll express those values again, but it'll be blood due to our ignorance, again.

Dutch resistance fighter Gabrielle Widner died in Königsberg/Neumark concentration camp from starvation.  Unusually, she was a Seventh Day Adventist.

The Italian battleship Conte di Cavour and the unfinished Impero were sunk in Trieste harbor by the RAF.

The British landed at Ru-Ya sought of Myebon, Burma.

The U.S. Navy's Task Force 58 hit Tokyo and Yokohama.  That the Japanese home island are fatally exposed is now evident.

Pre invasion bombardments continued at Iwo Jima.  Counter battery fire damaged several US ships, including the USS Tennessee.

Last edition:

Friday, February 16, 1945. Corregidor.

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