Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

The legendary aviation mystery of Flight 19 occurred when five Grumman TBFs disappeared in a training flight between Florida and Bermuda, together with a PBM Mariner that was sent to look for the missing aircraft.

The PBM is believed to have exploded.

No doubt because none of the aircraft have ever been found, the mystery remains an enduring and popular one, and it is part of the Bermuda Triangle set of myths.

The French government nationalized five banks.

Last edition:

Monday, December 3, 1945. A Walk In The Sun.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1945 at the movies, Advertising, Aircraft, Arab League, British League of Nations Mandates, Israel, Movies, Palestine, Retail, Royal Navy, World War Two

Monday, December 3, 1945. A Walk In The Sun.

A Walk In The Sun was released.  I'm personally not a great fan of the movie, but many regard it as one of the greatest World War Two, and indeed war, films ever.

3 December 1945

3 December 1945: The first landing and takeoff aboard an aircraft carrier by a jet-powered aircraft were made by Lieutenant-Commander Eric Melrose Brown, M.B.E., D.S.C., R.N.V.R., Chief Naval Test Pilot at RAE Farnborough, while flying a de Havilland DH.100 Sea Vampire Mk.10, LZ551/G. The ship was the Royal Navy Colossus-class light aircraft carrier, HMS Ocean (R68), under the command of Captain Casper John, R.N.

The Arab League voted to boycott all goods from Jewish Palestine.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided International Shoe Co. v. Washington holding that held that a party may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has "minimum contacts" with that state.

This ad appeared in Sheridan's newspaper:

Last edition:

Friday, November 30, 1945. Executing Germans for ordering the killing of civilian sailors and for directly killing downed airmen.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, German Kriegsmarine, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, Home Front, It was because of World War Two, Nuclear power, Nuremberg Trials, War Crimes, Weapons, World War Two

Friday, November 30, 1945. Executing Germans for ordering the killing of civilian sailors and for directly killing downed airmen.

German U-boat commander Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, age 29, German U-boat , was executed as a war criminal for ordering his crew to shoot the survivors of the Greek merchant ship Peleus in March 1944.

Seems like I've heard of that happening recently . . . 

Rudolf Hess declared he really didn't have amnesia and was prepared to stand trial.

German civilians were executed for killing downed airmen.

The news was full of the return of long absent servicemen.

"Atomic" was already being used as a synonym for powerful.

Even the cartoons dealt with the return of servicemen.

     

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 27, 1945. Slinky first sold.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, China, George C. Marshall, Norway, Personalities, The Cold War, toys, United Nations

Saturday, December 1, 1945. Executed for authorizing unauthorized executions.

 Ge. Anton Dostler, age 54, was executed for following a trial which convicted him of authorizing the execution of 15 U.S. soldiers on a commando type operation. They were in uniform, and clearly combatants entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention.

Odd, eh, that there was a time when the US cared about things like that?

Last edition:

Friday, November 30, 1945. Executing Germans for ordering the killing of civilian sailors and for directly killing downed airmen.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, German Kriegsmarine, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, Home Front, It was because of World War Two, Nuclear power, Nuremberg Trials, War Crimes, Weapons, World War Two

Thursday, November 29, 1900. Thanksgiving Disaster.

In what is known as the Thanksgiving Day Disaster, thirteen peopl ewere killed and over 80 seriously injured when the roof of the Pacific Glass Works collapsed in Palo Alto California during the Stanford v. California football game. The injured and killed were on the roof watching the game.

Mildred Elizabeth Gillars, known as "Axis Sally", was born in Portland, Maine.  An expatriate since 1933, she was in Germany when the U.S. entered the war but remained there as her fiance urged her to do so.  He was killed on the Eastern Front.  She became a radio propogandist and was convicted of a single count of treason, her sentence likely cut back as she was under the influence of a German American radio personality after the death of her fiance.  She converted to Catholicism while in prison and went to live at the Our Lady of Bethlehem Convent in Columbus, Ohio, and taught German, French, and music at St. Joseph Academy, Columbus. She returned to Ohio Wesleyan in 1973 to complete her university degree, which she had earlier abandoned in the 1920.  She never apologized for her actions, and died at age 87 in 1988.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 25, 1900. Cumann na nGaedheal.

Labels: 1900, 1900s, Ireland, Politics, United Kingdom

Tuesday, November 27, 1945. Slinky first sold.

The legendary toy The Slinky went on sale for the first time.  Gimbels in Philadelphia offered it.

Patrick J. Hurley, attorney and career civil servant, resigned as Ambassador of China having submitted a blistering letter of resignation the day prior.

Born in Oklahoma to Irish immigrant parents, he's started off in life as a cowboy and mule driver before becoming a lawyer. His work as a mule driver started when he was only 11 years old, and he attempted to join the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry at age 15.  He graduated with a law degree from National University School of Law in 1908 and went to work in Tulsa.  He received a second law degree from George Washington University in 1913, by which time he was already a successful businessman and rising in Republican politics.  He served in the Oklahoma National Guard during the Punitive Expedition and was a Judge Advocate during World War One, as well as serving as an artillery officer, for which he received a Silver Star.  He was the Assistant Secretary of War under Hoover.  He started of World War Two as a General before going on to be a diplomat.  He'd retire to New Mexico where he'd die in 1963.

Most assessments of his role in China are not favorable.

As the Sheridan paper makes plain, the US was busy beating itself up over Pearl Harbor, even as the early rumblings of the Cold War were beginning.

He was replaced in his role by George Marshall, a role that Marshall is generally not recalled for.

Norway adopted the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, Colorado, Hermann Göring, Israel, J.R. Williams, Jazz, Music, Nuremberg Trials, Pro Natalism, Science, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Wolves, Women, Yeoman's First Law of History

Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Recorded on this day in 1945:

 The Sheridan Press reported on wolves and war brides.

The story on the big wolf is ironic in a contemporary context.  Wolves were wiped out in Colorado, probably and in Wyoming, probably, until the major reintroduction effort of the 2000s began.  It's been a huge success in Wyoming, for which I'm glad, in spite of my initial skepticism.  An ongoing effort is occuring in Colorado, which is meeting a lot of opposition in the anti nature Freedom Caucus era.

The Rocky Mountain News, which I remember from the 70s, 80s and 90s, when it was the best, in my view, of the two Denver papers, was a bit sensationalist at the time, which I've only recently come to appreciate.  It was always a "tabloid", with that sort of paper format for some reason having a reputation of that type.  I've never heard of the story related by the headline here:

A little digging finds that this claim was flat out untrue.

The News also reported on, oddly enough, test tube babies, something that is way earlier than I'd have ever supposed.

The first "test tube" baby was born in 1978.  That person Louise Brown, is still with us.  The first example of IVF in a mammal did not occur until 1959.  Apparently the proponent of this suggestion was well ahead of her time in terms of scientific knowledge.

It's notable that the suggestion had a strong eugenics characteristic.  That drive is also now very much coming into fruition, with designer babies now becoming a thing.

On the underlying concern, the explosion in births and the drop in the average age for a woman to first give birth that commenced at this time shows the concern was misplaced.  As a Catholic, of course, I regard IVF as both unnatural and immoral.  The bizarrely pro natalist Trump administration is all in on it.

The News also reported on Japanese social insurance, something being brought in by the progressive and distributist MacArthur occupation.

The cartoons of the day.

A classic gift was suggested.

British troops swept the Sharon plain in reaction to a prior days terrorist attack.

Ezra Pound was indicted for a second time on 19 counts of treason.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 25, 1945. Taxing war profits.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Austria, Christian Democrats, Douglas MacArthur, Japan, Occupation of Japan, Taxes

Sunday, November 25, 1945. Taxing war profits.

MacArthur ordered the Japanese government to submit a plan to tax away all war profits.

The Austrian People's Party won the Austrian election.  The Christian Democratic party still exists.

Zionist terrorists attacked coast guard stations near Tel Aviv.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 22, 1945. Thanksgiving Day.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, entertainment, Home Front, It was because of World War Two, J.R. Williams, Japan, Joseph Stalin, Rationing, Strike Wave of 1945-1945, Thanksgiving, The written word

Thursday, November 22, 1945. Thanksgiving Day.

It was the first postwar Thanksgiving.

Proclamation 2673—Thanksgiving Day, 1945

November 12, 1945

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

In this year of our victory, absolute and final, over German fascism and Japanese militarism; in this time of peace so long awaited, which we are determined with all the United Nations to make permanent; on this day of our abundance, strength, and achievement; let us give thanks to Almighty Providence for these exceeding blessings.

We have won them with the courage and the blood of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen. We have won them by the sweat and ingenuity of our workers, farmers, engineers, and industrialists. We have won them with the devotion of our women and children. We have bought them with the treasure of our rich land. But above all we have won them because we cherish freedom beyond riches and even more than life itself.

We give thanks with the humility of free men, each knowing it was the might of no one arm but of all together by which we were saved. Liberty knows no race, creed, or class in our country or in the world. In unity we found our first weapon, for without it, both here and abroad, we were doomed. None have known this better than our very gallant dead, none better than their comrade, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Our thanksgiving has the humility of our deep mourning for them, our vast gratitude to them.

Triumph over the enemy has not dispelled every difficulty. Many vital and far-reaching decisions await us as we strive for a just and enduring peace. We will not fail if we preserve, in our own land and throughout the world, that same devotion to the essential freedoms and rights of mankind which sustained us throughout the war and brought us final victory.

Now, Therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of Congress approved December 26, 1941, do hereby proclaim Thursday November 22, 1945, as a day of national thanksgiving. May we on that day, in our homes and in our places of worship, individually and as groups, express our humble thanks to Almighty God for the abundance of our blessings and may we on that occasion rededicate ourselves to those high principles of citizenship for which so many splendid Americans have recently given all.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this 12th day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred forty-five and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventieth.

Signature of Harry S. Truman

HARRY S. TRUMAN

By the President:

JAMES F. BYRNES,

Secretary of State.

The Hollywood Canteen was open for the last time.

The Rocky Mountain News claimed that the Japanese tried to assassinate Stalin.

 

I've never heard that before, and I'm fairly sure it isn't true.

The paper also informed readers of the death of Gen. Alexander Patch, part of the great post war senior officer die off that followed the Second World War.

And it noted that Koreans were complaining that the Soviets were stripping the country of machinery.

The paper ran Out Our Way.

And there was an advertisement for a pen that you didn't have to fill for a year. . . an advertisement I don't, frankly, believe.

The Reynolds was revolutionary, however.  It was a reengineered Biro type ballpoint pen.

Meat rationing was to end. . .but not before Thanksgiving.

The only thing that remained rationed was sugar.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 21, 1945. UAE goes on strike.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Automobiles, Cartoons, Guatemala, Industry, Labor unrest, Strike Wave of 1945-1945, Thanksgiving, trends, Unions, United Nations

Wednesday, November 21, 1945. UAE goes on strike.

The United Auto Workers went out on strike against General Motors.  They were seeking a 30% increase in wages and a hold on product prices.

General Motors currently has 162,000 employees.  The actual number of UAE GM workers that went on strike was 320,000.

The Sheridan Press noted the season:

Other cartoons for this edition:

Guatemala ratified the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 20, 1945. Commencement of the Nuremberg Trials.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Blog Mirror, It was because of World War Two, Lester Hunt, Nazi Germany, Nazi Party, Nuremberg Trials, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, Tourism

Thursday, November 20, 1975. Death of Franco.

Franco with Eisenhower in 1959.

Francisco Franco died at age 82, ending his long dictatorship and bringing the country back to the path of democracy.

Franco, in spite of his long reign, remains one of the most enigmatic of 20th Century figures  Often cited to be a fascist, he was not, but he was certainly a fascist fellow traveler in the 1940s, and Spain's true Fascists, the Falangists, were consolidated under his rule and had no choice but to follow them, even though he very occasionally suppressed them.  He supported the Axis in much of World War Two while managing to avoid actually having Spain become a full blown combatant.  German submarines had refuge at Spanish ports for a time, and early in the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe used northern Spain for launching aircraft on Great Britain¹  Fascistic Spanish troops fought as a German foreign legion.²  Always savvy to political winds, he began to draw away from the Axis late war.  He might be best compared to Petain in his political alignment, but even that is imperfect.  

A monarchist at heart, he restored the Spanish monarchy late in his rule, but even at that he did not ever release power. Death brought that.

Franco's rule commenced with the Spanish Civil War, which he was not originally the right wing military head of.  The war itself was basically a military revolt against an incoming Communist regime.  Franco fought the war well, but it also maximized violence in some notable ways.  Approximately 420,000 Spaniards were killed by way of extrajudicial killings during the Civil War, and in state executions immediately following its end in 1939, a remarkable figure given that Republican combat deaths were about 110,000, and Nationalist about 90,000.  Killings tapered off thereafter and into the 50s.  His rule emphasized Spanish nationalism and traditionalism, enforcing by force of law.  

Economically, his policies were murky, and for some time the country adopted autarky, which was the economic theory favored by the Nazis, and which didn't work out for them either.  Economic disaster resulted in reform.

Like France, Spain attempted to retain its empire post World War Two, but Franco was forced to yield to the times.  When France yielded to Moroccan independence, Spain largely did as well, but retained some holdings.  Spain fought a war with Morocco to hold on to the Spanish Sahara, but in 1975 it ultimately ceded to Moroccan wishes.  Spain,under Franco, provided bases to the OAS in its effort to retain French control of Algeria.

Unlike most of the far right dictators of the European 20th Century, Franco always retained a bit of a following in certain sectors of the US, and still does.  In some circles he was viewed as the only alternative to Spanish communism, and in fact, in terms of the Spanish Civil War, that might actually be right.  That wouldn't excuse the nature of his rule, however.³

Others, more alarmingly, are currently attracted to his politics.  A Wyoming Hageman intern, for example, resigned his position when he was found to be a follower of Francoist websites, although he later successfully reemerged as a Turning Point USA figure at the University of Wyoming, brining the late Charlie Kirk to the campus..  Some figures on the Illiberal Democracy, National Conservative, side of the GOP are very close to being Francoist in their views.  Indeed, absent the economic aspects of it, Francoism is nearly the model of how certain Illiberal Democrats imagine Western nations should be run.

This is one of those things I can actually remember from 1975 and place the date on.  For some reason, on this date, I was traveling with my father in our 1973 Mercury Comet.  I think we were going to Cheyenne.  The radio news broke in continually with updates on Franco's physical decline.⁴

A report by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had tried twice to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and once to tried to poison Congo Premier Patrice Lumumba.  It also confirmed that the CIA had supplied aid to insurgentes who later assassinated South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem and Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.

However, it also confirmed that "No foreign leaders were killed as a result of assassination plots initiated by officials of the United States", which is good I guess, but it wasn't for want of trying in the case of Castro.  Diem and Lumumba were in fact both assassinated, but not by the US, in spite of the ongoing belief that the US actively participated in Diem's assassination.

Dr. Heinrich Schuetz was sentenced to ten years in prison after being convicted of war crimes in Munich, West Germany. In 1942 as an SS colonel he had injected bacteria into eleven Catholic priests at Dachau.

Footnotes:

1.  Churchill has his diplomats quietly approach the Spanish government and informed them that the UK was aware of where the Luftwaffe plains taking off in northern Spain were coming from, and that the UK would bomb the airbases if it didn't stop.  It stopped.

2.  The unit started off as an outright Spanish contribution to the German effort in the USSR, but after the Allies complained, troops in the Spanish Army were ordered to return home to Spain or resign. Those who resigned remained behind as a unit in the German SS.

3.  My mother, who was well aware of the Spanish Communist sacrilegious desecration of Catholic churches, took the position that Franco was Spain's only choice against Communism.  My father took the much more nuanced view that whichever side won, the Spanish were going to lose.

In the US, the Republicans were generally seen, in the Great Depression, as liberal democrats, which they largely were not.  As the war progressed, the Republicans became more communistic as Spanish Communists, with support from Moscow, presumed victory and began to purge the rival forces on the left.  American leftists famously contributed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of volunteers to the Republican cause, some of whom were American Communists.  In the pre Cold War era, the full nature of Communism was not really very well understood in the US.

In Europe, in contrast, the war drew volunteers to both sides. Both Irish and English mercenaries volunteered, for example, to serve under Franco.

4.  The fact that it was a Thursday means my father took a very rare off day from work.  What I think we were doing is going to Warren Air Force Base so we could pick up uniforms for the Civil Air Patrol.  When we were there I recall a supply sergeant gave my father a USAF "Dumbo Collar" OG-107 Field Jacket.  My father unsarcastically loved it and wore it as a winter outdoors coat for the rest of his life.

I was 13 years old.

The next time I would be on Warren AFB would be when I was 17.  I had applied for admission to the Air Force Academy and was required to go there for a physical.  My father likely drove me down as I probably wouldn't have driven to Cheyenne as a 17 year old.  I can recall when I checked in the Air Force medic noted my name and told me he had the same first name, albeit in Spanish.

As I was also an applicant to the U.S. Military Academy (and the Naval Academy) I took an Army physical at the local Army National Guard armory.

I obviously didn't get in, which I'm glad about, I think.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 18, 1975. The return of Eldridge Cleaver.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, 1980s, 1987, 2010s, 2018, Black Panther Party, Domestic Terrorism, Personalities