Wednesday, September 19, 1945. Kim Il Sung returns to Korea.

Kim Il Sung arrived at Port Wonsan and began to organize the Communist Party of Korea.

Kim was born into a Presbyterian family.  He fled to Manchuria in 1920 after being involved in anti Japanese activities.  He was in  his mid teens at the time and then attended military schools.  It was while he was in China that he became interested in Communism.  He was a figure in the Chinese Communist Army during the pre World War Two Chinese Civil War and then again during World War Two, crossing into the Soviet Union in 1940.  He then joined the Red Army. The Soviets chose Kim in order to have a Communist figure to introduce into Korea even though he was poorly educated and by 1940 his Korean was very poor.  His early life is not very well known.

Navy aircraft over Inchon, September 1945.

The US banned reporting on the atomic bombs in Japan.

British and French troops complete the suppression of the Việt Minh in Saigon.

New Zealand ratified the UN Charter.

William Joyce was sentenced to death.

The British announced that Indian would shortly be granted home rule.

Shirley temple married Sgt. John Agar, a fellow actor.  She was 17 years old. Agar was 25.

The marriage wouldn't last.

Agar had a real drinking problem, although he amazingly lived to age 81.  Apparently he's associated with B science fiction movies, but I always associate him with John Ford westerns.  He also appeared in The Sands of Iwo Jima.  He met Shirley Temple in 1943 when he escorted her to a Hollywood party.  She would only have been 15 years old at the time.

His second marriage lasted 49 years.

He had a remarkably long film career, although many of his roles were very minor.  In World War Two he served first in the Navy, joining in 1941 and then in the Army Air Force as a physical instructor.  He was discharged from the Navy due to an ear infection.

Shirley Temple in 1943.

Temple is a film legend, of course, but had trouble transitioning from being a child actress to adult film roles, even though the ones she appeared in showed her to be a very talented adult actress.  This would lead to an early retirement from film, something that was hastened by a negative reaction to being propositioned by MGM figure Arthur Freed and Louis B. Mayer on the same day, when she was only 12, leading to her returning to Fox from MGM without much success.  She later became the US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the Reagan Administration.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 18, 1945. The first desegregation student protest.

Labels: 1910s, 1940s, 1945, 1945 at the movies, actors and actresses, Chinese Civil War, Education, Henry L. Stimson, Indiana, Movies, Nationalist Chinese Army, People's Liberation Army, Racism, Roosevelt, Rust Belt, Taft