First U.S. Armor Engagement of World War Two Display, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

 Last edition:

M3 Stuart Light Tanks. Outside Display. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1940s, Armor, Army, British Army, National Museum of Military Vehicles, North Africa, Tracked vehicles, United States Marine Corps, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

Thursday, August 26, 1909. A hostel idea.

The youth hostel movement was born when a group of hikers lead by Richard Schirrmann found shelter in a school in a thunderstorm.

Schirrmann was a teacher as well as an outdoorsman.  During World War One he served in the German Army, participating the 1915 Christmas truce, something that lingered in his area for quite some time after Christmas.  He founded the Youth Hostel Association in 1919 and founded the children's village "Staumühle" on a former military training ground near Paderborn, where my German ancestors hail from.  HE served as the President of the International Youth Hostelling Associating until the Nazis forced him to resign and put the control of the hostels under the Hitler Youth in 1936.  He rebuilt the association after the war.  He married late, in 1942, but had six children with his wife before dying in 1961 at age 87.

The SS Cartago telegraphed a report of a hurricane near the Yucatan, the first radio warning of a tropical storm.

Last edition:

Monday, August 23, 1909. Bill Bergen sets a record.

Labels: 1900s, 1909, 1940s, 1943, baseball, Sports

Friday, April 28, 1944. Day Two of Execise Tiger.

USS LST-289. Arrives in Dartmouth Harbor, England, after being torpedoed in the stern by German MTBs during an invasion rehearsal off Slapton Sands, England, on 28 April 1944.

We've already discussed Exercise Tiger and won't repeat what we set out there, but we will note that while focus on Tiger tends to be on the American loss of life it caused, it very well may have resulted in avoiding disaster at Operation Overlord.  

In that sense, Exercise Tiger might be remembered justifiably in much the same way that the August 19,1942 Anglo Canadian raid at Dieppe can be, a disaster whose lessons were so significant that the event is sort of a Pyrrhic defeat.  That is, the lessons learned as a result of the disasters encountered there were so significant they served to avoid them occurring on the beaches in Operation Overlord.

British family moving from the Slapton Sands area when it was being taken over as an exercise area.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox died.

Knox had been ill for a while, having suffered a series of recent heart attacks.  He was 70 years old at the time of his death.

A Bostonian, he's served with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, the "Rough Riders", during the Spanish American War.  After the war he had been a newspaper editor in Michigan, where he was also the state chairman of the Republican Party.  He supported Theodore Roosevelt for President in 1912 and had agitated for U.S. entry into the Great War, in which he went on to serve as an artilleryman.  He was a Vice Presidential candidate in the 1936 campaign, on the Landon Knox ticket.  Roosevelt appointed the Republican Secretary of the Navy in 1940.  After Pearl Harbor, Knox, while still Secretary of the Navy, was shunted aside to a significant degree in favor of Admiral Ernest J. King, that being somewhat of a tradition by that time.

1944  USS Crook County, LST-611, named after Crook counties Wyoming and Oregon, launched. She was a landing ship, tank.

USS Crook County at Inchon, 1950.

The ship was a LST that served in the Pacific during World War Two and then again during the Korean War.  She was decommissioned in 1956.

Related threads:

Wednesday, August 19, 2022. The Raid On Dieppe.

1940s, 1942, Canadian Army, Commandos, Dieppe France, Dieppe Raid, Espionage, Free French, Guadalcanal, Operation Jubilee, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Siege of Leningrad, World War Two

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 27, 1944. Exercise Tiger

1940s, 1944, Capitalism, Disaster, Exercise Tiger, German Kriegsmarine, Poland, Quebec, U.S. Navy, Ukraine, United Kingdom, World War Two, Wyoming, Wyoming Stock Growers Association

Monday, August 30, 1943. Hornets

CV-12, the second aircraft carrier of World War Two to be named the USS Hornet, was launched.

CV-12 being launched.

CV-8, the USS Hornet that had been in the Doolittle Raid, was sunk in October, 1942.

CV-12 was the eighth U.S. Navy ship to bear that name, the first being a merchant sloop acquired by the infant U.S. Navy in 1775 and captured by the Royal Navy during the Revolution.  A second USS Hornet, also a sloop, was acquired in the Mediterranean during the First Barbary War, but served for only a year.

CV-8 was named in honor of a sloop of war commissioned in 1805.  She's served in the War of 1812, but had been lost due to a material failure at sea in 1829, going down with all hands.

The foundering of CV-8's namesake.

The fourth was a schooner acquired in 1814 that mostly served the Navy by running messages.

The fifth ship to bear that name was a captured and renamed Confederate steam ship.  Its career with the US Navy was brief, and she then went on to a brief career with filibusters, being renamed Cuba.

The Red Army captured Sokolovskym Yelna, and Taganrog.

In his second act of heroism, Lt. Kenneth Walsh, would push his deeds over the top as a Marine Corp aviator and win the Medal of Honor.  His citation reads:

For extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty as a pilot in Marine Fighting Squadron 124 in aerial combat against enemy Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands area. Determined to thwart the enemy's attempt to bomb Allied ground forces and shipping at Vella Lavella on 15 August 1943, 1st Lt. Walsh repeatedly dived his plane into an enemy formation outnumbering his own division 6 to 1 and, although his plane was hit numerous times, shot down 2 Japanese dive bombers and 1 fighter. After developing engine trouble on 30 August during a vital escort mission, 1st Lt. Walsh landed his mechanically disabled plane at Munda, quickly replaced it with another, and proceeded to rejoin his flight over Kahili. Separated from his escort group when he encountered approximately 50 Japanese Zeros, he unhesitatingly attacked, striking with relentless fury in his lone battle against a powerful force. He destroyed 4 hostile fighters before cannon shellfire forced him to make a dead-stick landing off Vella Lavella where he was later picked up. His valiant leadership and his daring skill as a flier served as a source of confidence and inspiration to his fellow pilots and reflect the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service.

Lt. Walsh had joined the Marine Corps in 1933 and retired in 1962, flying again in action during the Korean War.  He died at age 81 in 1998. 

The Lackawanna Limited wreck occurred when a Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad passenger train, the New York-Buffalo Lackawanna Limited collided with a freight train. Twenty-seven people were killed in the collision, and about twice that number injured, many from steam that poured into the railroad cars.

Blog Mirror: Why Stalingrad still matters.

 

Why Stalingrad still matters

The last word has not been written on WWII's bloodiest battle

Sunday, July 25, 1943. The surreal end of Mussolini's Premiership.

Having been voted out of office the night prior, Mussolini left the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council that had voted to remove him, he went to award prizes at a farm festival and carried on business as usual.  The Fascist Grand Council reported its decision to King Victor Emmanuel III, who ordered Mussolini to report and asked him to resign.  Mussolini asked for more time and was arrested.

Marshal Pietro Badoglio was appointed Premier.

Badoglia had been Chief of Staff of the Italian army from 1925 to 1940, but had resigned following the disastrous performance of the Italian Army in Greece.

On the same day in the same country, Ubaldo Pugnaloni won the Giro d'Italia.

The Navy commissioned the USS Harmon, a destroyer named after Leonard Roy Harmon, a mess attendant who had been killed at Guadalcanal saving a fellow shipmate.  It was the first ship named after an African American in the U.S. Navy.

Harmon's citation reads:

The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Roy Harmon, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty in action against the enemy while serving on board the Heavy Cruiser U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO (CA-38), during action against enemy Japanese naval forces near Savo Island in the Solomon Islands on the night of on 12–13 November 1942. With persistent disregard of his own personal safety, Mess Attendant First Class Harmon rendered invaluable assistance in caring for the wounded and assisting them to a dressing station. In addition to displaying unusual loyalty in behalf of the injured Executive Officer, he deliberately exposed himself to hostile gunfire in order to protect a shipmate and, as a result of this courageous deed, was killed in action. His heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, maintained above and beyond the call of duty, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

 

Sunday, July 4, 1943. First Broadcast of the Armed Forces Radio Network.

American Armed Forces Radio Network began broadcasting from the United Kingdom. While the organization had been formed in 1942, this was its very first broadcast.

Subhas Chandra Bose became president of the Indian Independence League at its meeting in Singapore.

Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski, Prime Minister of Poland and former Polish army officer, and the then head of its government in exile, died in a plane crash at Gibraltar.  While the British ruled the crash an accident due to mechanical failure, suspicions remain that it may have been sabotage.

The Steer. 1942.

 Annual agricultural show at the state experimental farm at Presque Isle, Maine. Prizewinning "baby beef", raised by a daughter of a Farm Security Administration client.

Thursday, May 10, 1923. The bizarre actions of Maurice Conradi.

Soviet delegate to the Conference of Lausanne was shot dead by former Russian White officer and émigré Maurice Conradi in the Cecil Hotel.  Two other members of the Soviet mission were wounded when they attempted to resist.  Conradi then handed his gun to a waiter and asked him to call the police, which they did.

Conradi.

Conradi was born to Swiss parents in 1896.  They were living in St. Petersburg at the time, where they ran a candy factory.  Most of Conradi's family were killed during the Russian Revolution, with several being executed by the Bolsheviks.  During this period he married his wife,  Vladislava Lvovna Svartsevich, and he immigrated to Switzerland following the defeat of Wrangel's army.

Conradi and his confederate Arkady Polunin were tried that following November and defended themselves on moral grounds, introducing evidence of Communist horrors. The prosecution fell into this, oddly enough, and introduced evidence of the happiness of Soviet citizens, something that would have had to have involved an element of delusion.  The jury found that all the elements of murder were present, but failed to convict him 5 to 4 anyhow, leading to a rupture in diplomatic relations between Switzerland and the Soviet Union.

In 1925 the Conradi's moved to Paris. They divorced in 1929.  Conradi then joined the French Foreign Legion, returning to Switzerland and remarrying in 1942.  He died in 1947.  Polunin went to Paris as well and died under mysterious circumstances in 1933.

Of the Soviet survivors, one, was executed in Stalin's purges in 1938.  The other was killed in 1942 while serving in the Red Army.

About as much as can be said of this entire episode is that it was downright bizarre.

Friday, April 2, 1943. Bulgaria says Не (no) in response to a German Bitte and the Little Big Inch

King Boris III of Bulgaria told German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that Bulgaria would not surrender its Jewish population to Germany.

Tsar Boris.

Tsar Boris, as he was also known, was on dangerous ground and he knew it.  He stuck to his position however and refused until his death later that year to yield on sending Jewish Bulgarians to the Germans.  Bulgaria ultimately conscripted Jewish men for labor on roads, but to some degree at least this seems to have been a pretext to help prevent their deportation.

Bulgaria, which did pass anti Semitic laws, had participated in the war as a German ally only to the extent of the war against Yugoslavia.  It wisely refused to declare war against the Western Allies or the Soviet Union, much to the irritation of Hitler.  Tsar Boris untimely death seems to have been due to the stress of dealing with the Germans, although it remains an open question if he was poisoned under orders of the Germans.

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—April 2, 1943: US War Production Board approves construction of the “Little Big Inch” pipeline to take refined oil from Texas to the northeast states.

We discussed the Big Inch earlier. 

Friday, March 30, 1942. The Laconia comes home, Mussolini ponders Italian emigration.

The SS Laconia completed its circumnavigation of the globe, becoming the ship to complete an around the world pleasure cruise.

It had departed in November 1930 and, before returning to New York, would be at sea for 130 days and call on 22 ports.

She'd be sunk on September 12, 1942, by a U-boat.

Mussolini addressed emigration from Italy in a famous speech, which stated:

The Sig. Director has compromised me, because he has announced my speech. Now almost all Italians know that I do not like speeches, but I accept with joy and resign myself this morning to this exception. He was also moved because he recalled with a warm voice of passion the history of the school—a superb history which all of Milan knows and admires. Also in this area, which could be defined as related to the problem of emigration—without prejudice to the question of whether migration is good or bad—is the "Carlo Tenca" School, and it has done very well, since when discussing the thesis you can argue endlessly regarding a conclusion.

For better or for worse, emigration is a physiological necessity of the Italian people. We are forty million squeezed into our narrow but adorable peninsula, with its too many mountains, and its soil which cannot feed everyone. There are around Italy countries that have a population smaller than ours and a territory double the size of ours. Hence it is obvious that the problem of Italian expansion in the world is a problem of life or death for the Italian race. I say expansion: expansion in every sense: moral, political, economic, demographic. I declare that the Government intends to protect Italian emigration: it cannot be indifferent to those who cross the mountains and travel beyond the Ocean, it cannot be indifferent because they are men, workers, and above all Italians. And wherever there is an Italian there is the tricolour, there is the Fatherland, there is the Government's defense of these Italians.

I feel all the excitement of life that stirs this new powerful generation of the Italian race. You certainly have meditated a few times on what you might call a miracle in the history of mankind; it is not rhetoric, it is said that the Italian people are the immortal people who always find a spring for their hopes, for their passion, for their greatness. Some two thousand years ago Rome was the center of an empire that had no boundaries except in the extreme limits of the desert; the civilization that Rome had given, its great legal tradition, as solid as the monuments, to the world—Rome had built a huge miracle that still moves us even to our most intimate fibers.

Then the empire decayed and crumbled. But it is not true that all the centuries which followed the collapse of the Roman world were centuries of darkness and barbarism. However, after a few centuries the Italian spirit suffered from an eclipse, but during that period of rest it was powerfully reinforced by new achievements, and so here the Italian spirit blossomed again through the creation of the immortal Dante Alighieri.

We were great in 1300 when other people were ill or were not yet born to history. Here followed the superb centuries, the Renaissance; Italy was once again the bearer of civilization to all races, all peoples. Then followed another political eclipse of division and discord, but it was barely a century and the Italian people recover, regaining consciousness of their historical unity. Rome returned, still playing its fanfare of glory for all Italians, it recovered the use of weapons that are necessary when it comes to saving its freedom, its greatness and its future. Then followed small wars, one state, conspiracies, the revolution of a people, martyrs, tortures, jails, exile. And just a century after the last war we made our political unity. However, alongside this political unity and geographical unity, the Italian people lacked the moral consciousness of themselves and their own destinies, even though after a victorious war this formation of conscience was in place. Under our eyes Italy will gradually become indestructible in its unity.

My Government will abolish bell towers so that Italians may see the august image of the Fatherland. This is the work to which my Government intends all its passion and a sense of religious faith. I am confident, gentlemen, of the destinies of Italy! I am optimistic for a simple act of will, because the will is a great force in people's lives and the lives of peoples.

We must will, strongly will! We must want, strongly want! Only with this power of the will we can overcome any obstacle. We must be ready for all sacrifices.

Recollect, then, in a moment of meditation after this rapid advance into the past. We love our willingness to project proudly of our time into the future. This young Italian people—fierce, fearless, restless, but strong. I am most certain that Italy will march towards a future of freedom, prosperity and greatness. Recollect in this vision, we tend all our nerves and all our passion towards this future that awaits us and we cry with a religious fervor.

Viva l'Italia!

It's hard to know what to make of this speech, but the vague references to past empire offer a clue of future fascist actions.

Tuesday, March 22, 1943. Expanding Murder of European Jews by the Nazis, U.S. Army takes Maknassy, Tunisia, Italian port disaster.

Jewish women in Paris, 1942.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-N0619-506 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5367011

Germany began deportation of 4,000 Jews from occupied France.  They were sent to Sobibor, where only five of them would survive.

The initial deportation of 4,000 was shortly followed by an additional 1,000.

The Germans also began to deport Yugoslavian Jews from Skopje to Treblinka.

The Germans made the first executions of Gypsies at Auschwitz.

The Waffen SS attacked and destroyed Khatyn, Byelorussia in retaliation for the killing of four German officers, including Hans-Otto Woellke of the Order Police.  Woelke had been an Olympic shot putter.

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—March 22, 1943: Nazis extend work week in the occupied Netherlands to 54 hours. US II Corps under Lt. Gen. George Patton occupies Maknassy, Tunisia.

Sundin also has a very interesting photograph on her blog, of troops in Maknassy.  I wouldn't normally repost it, but the details are quite interesting.

The quality of the photograph isn't fantastic, but the details are really interesting as noted.  All of the soldiers except the one on the far right are wearing coveralls, suggesting they're armored vehicle crewmen.  They are armed, left to right, as follows:  M1903 Springfield, M1 Carbine, M1903 Springfield, M1903 Springfield, unclear, unclear.

British Colonel Edward Orlando Kellett DSO, parliamentarian, British Army officer, and big game hunter was killed in action during the fighting in Tunisia as a colonel of the Royal Armoured Corps. 

The U-524 and U-665 were sunk by Allied aircraft in the Atlantic.

The Allesandro Volta (Italy) exploded in port, devasting the harbor, after being hit by bombs from a B-24. The same raid took out the Franco M, the Labor, the Lentini, the Manzoni, the Maria Louisa, the Modena, the Mondovi,  hte Moni, the Renato, the Rosa and the Trentino.

It was a bad day for Italian shipping.

The German tanker Eurosee sank in an air raid on Wilhelmshaven.

The British Harbour Defense Motor Launches HMML 1157 and HMML 1212 sank in an air raid in Portugal.

The Imperial Japanese Army (yes, army) auxiliary transport ship Meigan Maru was sunk off of Java by the USS Gudgeon.

Clark Gable appeared on the cover of Look magazine in his airman attire.

Thursday, December 31, 1942. New Year's Eve

Hitler's Order of the Day, in part, stated: "The year 1943 will perhaps be hard but certainly not harder than the one just behind us."

In fact, for the Germans, it would be harder than 1942, and in short order.

Franklin and Elanor Roosevelt hosted dinner and a midnight movie at the White House.

The Battle of the Barents Sea occurred between the Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy, with the Royal Navy escorting Convoy JW 51 B to the Kola Inlet.

All the merchant vessels made it safety to their destinations. The British lost the HMS Achates while the Kreigsmarine lost the Z16 Freiderich Ecoldt.

Emperor Hirohito gave permission for Japanese forces to withdraw from Guadalcanal.  The Japanese, accordingly, had officially suffered their first internally recognized defeat.

Wednesday, December 30, 1942. Sinatra breaks out, and Soviets starting to. And, Bobby Soxers.

Frank Sinatra appeared as a solo act for the first time, appearing before a screaming crowed of bobby soxers of 5,000 at the Paramount Theatre in New York City.

Sinatra on the radio with actress Alida Valli.*

Sinatra in some ways was the first example of a phenomenon that would attach to certain male performers of the mid 20th Century in which they were the subject of gigantic teenage female fascination.  We tend to think of personalities like Elvis in this category, but Sinatra had the same adulation prior to their experiencing it.

His appearance at this point in time raises certain interesting questions.

Sinatra was born into an Italian American family that endured rough circumstances, to some degree, but which also saw his father go from being a boxer to a fire captain, and which featured a dominant, highly driven mother.  The mother supported the son's endeavors.  Sinatra, who always performed under his own name, took an interest in music early and started singing professionally with bands at age 20.  He sang with Tommy Dorsey's band in the late 1930s, with his desire to break free from the band resulting in a legal battle and persistent rumors that Mafia boss Willie Moretti, who was Sinatra's Godfather, had held a gun to Dorsey's ear.  That rumor was incorporated by Mario Puzo in the novel, and later the movie, The Godfather to apply to a very much Sinatra like character.

Sinatra was a huge hit in the early 1940s, but being of conscript age, the logical question is why he wasn't drafted.  He was categorized by the Selective Service as 4-F, which provides the reason, due to a perforated ear drum, but Army files later indicated that he was regarded as psychologically unsuitable for military service due to emotional instability.  He did tour with the USA in the latter portion of the war.  A lack of wartime service did not hurt him, as it did not hurt John Wayne, which says something about the culture of the time.

He campaigned for Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.

Sinatra lived a long, and not uncontroversial, life, dying at age 82. As all that would really be too long to go into, will stop here, with the World War Two story told.

Bobby soxers should be noted.

Bobby soxers have come to be erroneously associated with the 1950s, but in fact were a 1940s phenomenon.  They were teenage girls and women in their very early 20s who were an early example of the emerging youth culture of the United States.  Indeed, they were in some ways its real pioneers.  They were called "bobby soxers" as, at the time, they wore short "bobbed" socks with saddle oxfords.

Saddle oxfords are a dress shoe now, but they've always had the reputation of being a semi casual dress shoe.  At some point they became heavily associated with students and young people.  They were introduced as a mass manufactured shoe in the early 1900s by the Spaulding Company, with the first example introduced in 1906. That's the same company, we'd note, famous for basketballs, etc., which says something, as at first, it was an athletic shoe, not a dress shoe.

Probably that origin as a sporting shoe caused its popularity.  It crossed over pretty quickly to dress wear, anticipating a later trend we have seen the past few decades of basketballs hoes in that use.  

The shoe came on the scene just as there was a real expansion of women in sports, so it was ideally timed  It became hugely popular with cheerleading teams.  By the 1930s it was approaching near universal adoption by schools as mandatory footwear for girls academic uniforms, although it remained popular with men.  They began to become school uniform shoes for boys in the period as well.

The same period saw a shortening of skirts. The combination of the shorter skirts, saddle shoes, and short socks lead to Bobby Soxers being the name for young women affecting the style.  The style endured until the 1950s, when it faded, but the shoes themselves retained widespread academic popularity until the decline of clothing standards started to set in during the late 1960s.

While it may seem odd now, the style was somewhat risqué.

President Roosevelt spent the morning visiting with Naval personnel, including Admirals King and Leahy, and the Secretary of the Navy.  He was in New York City at the time, and had a doctor's visit in the afternoon.

The Red Army was generally gaining ground everywhere to the south of Stalingrad.

Footnotes:

*Not really related to this entry but for this photograph, Alida Valli was an Italian actress coined by Mussolini as "the most beautiful woman in the world."  She truly was lovely.

Born to nobility, her real name and title was Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg.  She was born in a part of Italy that is now in Croatia, and which had once been part of Austria Hungary.  She was of mixed heritage, but considered herself Italian.

The photo must have been taken post 1943 as she was active in Italy at this time.  Married three times, her first husband was an Italian fighter pilot who was killed in action at Tobruk.

She was popular in Western films throughout her career, which again says something about the times.  Unlike hugely popular Italian actresses of a certain appearance, Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale, Valli had a more normal figure and rose to popularity in the "dirty" Italy period when Italy was regarded as, and truly was, fairly backwards.

Tuesday, December 29, 1942 Retreats.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—December 29, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 29, 1942: German army begins retreat from the Caucasus region. Japanese begin withdrawal from Buna area of New Guinea.

 

Monday, December 28, 1942. Funding the Manhattan Project.

President Roosevelt authorized a major expenditure on the Manhattan Project, effectively significantly funding the project for the first time.

Hitler issued Directive No. 47.  This directive concerned the war in the southeast, and more particularly the Balkans and Crete, now that Allied attacks on those locations were a possibility.

On the same day, the costly but effective Tatsinskaya Raid ended in the East.

According to Sarah Sundin:

Today in World War II History—December 28, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 28, 1942: French Somaliland switches allegiance from Vichy to Free French, the final French territory in Africa to do so.

She also reports that the Germans began to experiment with sterilization of female prisoners at Buchenwald. 

Sunday, December 27, 1942. Wars within wars.

Today in World War II History—December 27, 1942: Smolensk Committee

Sarah Sundin reports on the organization of this committee on this day, in 1942.  The Committee of Anti Stalin Soviet citizens would lead to the formation of the Russian Liberation Army, recruited from Soviet POWs. 

The RLA was only a portion of the body of Soviet citizenry that took up arms against the USSR, or which otherwise cooperated in the German war effort.  Motives for joining the German effort were mixed and varied, with some individuals being genuine anti-communists or non-Russian nationalist, and others just trying to avoid death and starvation at German hands.  While many of the other armed groups saw active service, the RLA wasn't deployed until the very end of the war, and at that time would not fully obey German orders.

RLA Flag.

Organization of formal units from Russian volunteers was slow in part due to the fact that liberating any Slavic lands was not part of the German war aim, and the Nazis generally despised the Slavic people.  For this reason, it tended to occur informally at the front first, where Cossacks in particular threw in with the Germans.

A Marine Corps attempt to take Mount Asten on Guadalcanal failed.

Tuesday, December 26, 1972. Harry S. Truman dies, Operation Lineback II resumes, the Soviet Union changes Chinese sounding names.

Harry S. Truman died at age 88.

His health had been in steady decline since 1964, when he sustained a fall.

The former President and his wife Bess held the first and second Medicare Cards, conveyed upon them by President Johnson in honor of their support for government health care, something he was far ahead of his time on, and depending upon your views, something that the country still has not caught up with.

220 American aircraft hit targets over North Vietnam over a fifteen-minute period.  A missile assembly facility together with airbases and radar installations were destroyed.

Truman was the last U.S. President who did not hold a university degree.  He had a fairly difficult early life, in no small part due to the economic conditions that prevailed in Missouri and his humble beginnings.  His service in World War One, which he entered through the Missouri National Guard and in which he became an officer, started his rise to later office.  Indeed, in no small way, the Missouri artilleryman of World War One would not have become President but for that experience.

This set the stage, combined with airstrikes over the next three days, for a return by North Vietnam to the Paris Peace Talks.

The Soviets changed the name of nine cities in Siberia that had been seized by Imperial Russia from China in the 1860. The prior names, the Soviets thought, sounded too Chinese.

Saturday, December 26, 1942. Halting at Buerat, wartime Santa.

Rommel halted in his retreat at Buerat, Libya, following an order from Mussolini.

The Saturday Evening Post featured Santa Claus busing through newspapers with news of the war.  The New Yorker featured a comedic illustration of a sailor bringing hot cocoa to the officers of the deck.

Friday, December 25, 1942. A wartime Christmas.

Old Radio: December 25, 1942: 'Victory Parade's Christmas Par...:   December 25, 1942: All day long, Coca-Cola sponsored Victory Parade's Christmas Party of Spotlight Band s, transmitted on NBC Blue N...

A monograph sponsored by the National Park Service states the following about the Victory Parade radio program:

An Overview of The Spotlight Bands Series

In the fall of 1941, the Coca Cola Company signed a twenty-six week con¬tract with the Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS) to air over 125 of its stations, the best of the big bands six nights a week. Monday through Friday, for a quarter of an hour from 10:15 to 10:30 pm Eastern Standard Time, five different bands appeared from the stage of the new Mutual Theater in New York City. The building which held a capacity of 1,000 guests had been the former Maxine Elliott Theater on West 39th Street that the network had acquired and renovated with the most modern of broadcasting equipment for the new series. Sixty percent of the programs originated from these facilities with the remaining forty percent being split between Chicago and Hollywood.

The Kay Kyser Orchestra was the first band to broadcast from the theater on November 3rd and for the next four evenings the melodies of Guy Lombardo, Sammy Kaye, Tommy Dorsey and Eddy Duchin were heard across the nation. The Saturday segment known as the 'Silver Platter' portion aired at the same time but was thirty min¬utes in length, 10:15-10:45 PM. However, unlike the Monday through Friday bands, the one on Saturday was not selected by the network. Rather, this time spot was kept open for the leader rolling up the largest nation-wide record sales during the previous week, thereby creating a mystery band for the listening audience each Saturday evening. The first 'Silver Platter' winner was the Freddy Martin Orchestra which had been selected because they had amassed the greatest amount of single sales the previous month with their recording of Tchaikovsky's classic, Piano Concerto in B Flat, featuring pianist Jack Fina.

Within a relatively short time, the Spotlight Band broadcasts became the most popular big band draw on the radio dial. The result was that the network rescheduled the series into an earlier primetime slot for greater audience exposure. With the February 2, 1942, program featuring the Benny Goodman band, a change was made to 9:30-9:45 PM Eastern War Time weekdays and 9:30-10:00 PM for Saturdays.

As the series neared its twenty-six week completion, negotiations between the network and the sponsor to renew stalled. The last performance aired on May 2, 1942 and featured the Harry James Orchestra from Hollywood. (As a footnote, the James band won the most 'Silver Platters' in the first series totaling seven including the last six Saturdays in a row because of their hit recording, Don't Want To Walk Without You, featuring vocalist Helen Forrest). 

Throughout the summer, negotiations with the network and Coca Cola con¬tinued but to no avail. For various reasons, the soft drink firm decided not to re-sign with Mutual. The “music trades” reported that the sponsor wished to become more involved in the war cause and were determined to return the program to the airwaves in the fall with a “new look”. By mid-August, Coca Cola had agreed to terms for a sec¬ond series with the Blue Network, soon to become the American Broadcasting Company or (ABC).

The first move toward the “new look” for the series was a name change to “The Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands”. With America now in the War, Coca Cola insist¬ed that their presentation be geared as much to the entertainment of the fighting men on both the home and training fronts as to its civilian audience. The format of six different bands each week was retained, but the nightly broadcast time was extended to twenty five minutes, 9:30-9:55 PM EWT. The last five minutes of each half hour was devoted to local news. Another important new feature was that the listening audience became directly involved with the selection of the weekly bands. A combination of two polls rather than record sales now determined which band played and where. The first involved the civilian listeners who voted for the bands they wanted to hear each week and the second was the “Victory Poll” open only to service personnel and defense work¬ers who, with their votes, determined the different nightly locations. The most signifi¬cant difference from the original series was that the broadcasts now aired directly from the various military installations, hospitals, and war plants throughout the country. Not only did Coca Cola send the bands to these locations at their expense, but, each time, the bands were booked and paid to play a three hour engagement. Also, for the first time, the radio shows in this series were numbered by the network. The importance of this notation will become apparent shortly. (Ironically, the first band to start the second series on September 21, 1942, was the Harry James Orchestra performing from the Marine Base on Parris Island, North Carolina).

On December 25th, Coca Cola sponsored a special presentation entitled, “Uncle Sam's Christmas Tree of Spotlight Bands”. This big band bonanza went on the air at noon EWT with the Sammy Kaye Orchestra from Fort Monmouth at Red Bank, New Jersey, and with few interruptions moved west and closed at midnight featuring the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra at the San Pedro Naval Base, San Pedro, California. A total of forty-three different bands, including Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, participated in fifteen minute segments from all over the country. The music marathon was the largest of its kind ever attempted on a coast to coast radio network.

As the twenty-six week contract with the Blue Network ended in March, 1943, the Coca Cola Company appeared pleased and signed on again for the next two years. At this time Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) became involved with their own version of the band series. AFRS began, on March 22, to record the network programs direct from radio and telephone line feeds onto acetate lacquers in their studio facili¬ties. Later the programs were remixed and edited down to a fifteen minute format elim¬inating any mention of the sponsor. A new musical introduction and announcements by an AFRS broadcaster were then added. These new versions were pressed onto 16-inch transcription discs and distributed via AFRS to radio stations within their network around the world. (As a further footnote, many of these discs have survived till today and have proved a valuable asset in logging the specific whereabouts of the hundreds of bands at the time as well as the contents of their performances).

The first band that AFRS recorded for their purposes was the Hal McIntyre Orchestra. This program was #157 in the network series and assigned #1 with AFRS. This meant that originally there was a numerical difference of 156 between the two list¬ings. However, in October a discrepancy occurred when there appeared to be no pro¬gram #177 in the AFRS series. Many theories have surfaced in an attempt to explain this error. However, to date, no explanation has held water. Therefore, from this point onward a numerical difference of 155 existed between the series. For the next two years the Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands program numbering continued through #858 on the network and #703 on AFRS until Saturday June 16, 1945 with the Eddie Oliver Orchestra. At this time Coca Cola ended its six nights a week broadcasts and long term relationship with ABC.

However, two nights later, on June 18th, the Spotlight Band programs were back on the air when Coca Cola again teamed with Mutual (MBS), their original network partner, from the fall of 1941. With this move came a cutback in airtime for the bands. Instead of six nights a week, they now only performed three nights: Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the same time. The first band to broadcast in the new week¬ly format and initiate the third Spotlight Band series was the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra followed on Wednesday by Vincent Lopez. The Friday spot was pre-empted. For the next nine months until the end of March 1946, the band series continued unchanged from various venues and military installations around the country. On March 29th, with the networks 979th program (AFRS #826), the Ray Herbeck Orchestra brought to a close the third Spotlight series.

The band show now embarked on its fourth and final association with Coca Cola. This involved three set bands, one for each of the same three nights of the week. On Monday April 1st, there was Guy Lombardo; Wednesday, April 3rd, Xavier Cugat; and Friday, April 5th, the Harry James Orchestra. Although the network at this time discon¬tinued numbering the programs, AFRS continued with theirs. Much success and radio exposure for the dozens of different big bands had transpired since the original series began in the fall of 1941, but the marketing value of these musical organizations was no longer what it had been. Coca Cola decided it no longer wanted to be in the band business and let its contract with Mutual expire on December 27, 1946. With the Harry James appearance of November 22, the great era of the Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands came to a close.

Wayne Knight, Music Historian

The British 8th Army captured Sirte.

Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, the French resistance royalist who had assassinated Admiral Darlan, was executed.  He was rehabilitated in 1945 on the basis that Darlan's assassination had been "in the interest of liberation of France" although you apparently have to be French to grasp how.

German soldiers at Stalingrad receive their last issuance of horsemeat. The Germans had by this point slaughtered all of their horses.

Christmas dinners were held for those far away from home, including this one at the Andrew Feruseth Club on Christmas Day.

American families, like that of my father, went through their second wartime Christmas, but in some ways this one was significantly different.  Various types of rationing had set in, and the war was now over a year old with no end in sight, at least no end that most people could reasonably foresee.

Canadian ones, like my mothers, were going through their fourth wartime Christmas.