La Marseillaise Casablanca

Friday, December 4, 1942. The airwar starts for Italy.

Carlson's Patrol concluded successfully for the U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal.

American aircraft raided Italy for the first time, with B-24s of the 9th Air Force hitting Naples from bases in the Middle East.

The B-24s were of the 98th and 376th Bombardment Groups and were based in Egypt. They crossed the Mediterranean at 20,300 ft, came in undetected and raided Naples unnoticed. In the process, they were confused with a flight of German Ju 52 transports.  Their target was the harbor and they sank the Italian cruiser Muzio Attendolo.

Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King met with Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt, also on this day, ordered the Works Progress Administration dissolved, or as he put it, given an "honorable discharge".  It would take until June 30, 1943, to dissolve it, however.

The swashbuckler The Black Swan, featuring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara was released.  It'd be a huge hit.

Thursday, November 26, 1942. Casablanca premiers, Battle of Brisbane

When I first posted this (written yesterday, went up early this morning) I failed to appreciate that this was Thanksgiving Day for 1942.

Now, of course, most of the day is gone.

Usually when something like this comes up, I ponder on what that must have meant for my family at the time, so I've added that below.

The legendary film Casablanca, truly one of the best movies ever filmed, premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York in advance of its general release.

The movie is a fantastic film that holds up today.  Amazingly, the film as we know it barely came together, with casting changes and the like.  Paul Henreid proved aloof during the film, regarding the other actors as lessors, and the film was overall one that shouldn't have worked out as well as it truly did.

It's one of my favorite films.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 26: 1942  Lusk announces they will forgo outdoor Christmas lights in accordance with a request from the War Production Board.  Attribution.  Wyoming History Calendar.

Riots broke out in Brisbane, Australia, between US servicemen and Australian servicemen.

This was not a minor incident, and one Australian serviceman was killed.  While generally Americans and Australians got along well, the disproportionately high pay of American serviceman was a source of problems all over the world, as merchants would cater to them, and it gave them an advantage with local women.  American soldiers were also freer with physical affection towards Australian women which offended Australians even though, ironically, the culture was much more libertine in the same arena behind closed doors.  

Additionally, Americans were dismissive of Australian soldiers in general, even though at the time they were all volunteer and had served in the war since 1939.  Australians were disdainful in turn of Americans who had, right up until about this time, a record of defeat.

The whole thing came to a head, resulting in two days of riots, the news of which was later suppressed.

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered gasoline rationing expanded to include the entire United States, effective December 1.

Speaking of a situation that involved the use of fuel, German 6th Army Commander Paulus, trapped at Stalingrad with his troops, wrote to his superior, Von Manstein, as follows:

For the past thirty-six hours I had received no orders or information from a higher level. In a few hours I was liable to be confronted with the following situation:

(a) Either I must remain in position on my western and northern fronts and very soon see the army front rolled up from behind (in which case I should formally be complying with the orders issued to me), or else

(b) I must make the only possible decision and turn with all my might on the enemy who was about to stab the army from behind. In the latter event, clearly, the eastern and northem fronts can no longer be held and it an only be a matter of breaking through to the south-west.

In case of (b) I should admittedly be doing justice to the situation but should also - for the second time - be guilty of disobeying an order.

(3) In this difficult situation I sent the Fuhrer a signal asking for freedom to take such a final decision if it should become necessary. I wanted to have this authority in order to guard against issuing the only possible order in that situation too late.

...

The airlift of the last three days has brought only a fraction of the calculated minimum requirement (600 tons = 300 Ju daily). In the very next few days supplies can lead to a crisis of the utmost gravity.

I still believe, however, that the army can hold out for a time. On the other hand - even if anything like a corridor is cut through to me - it is still not possible to tell whether the daily increasing weakness of the army, combined with the lack of accommodation and wood for constructional and heating purposes, will allow the area around Stalingrad to be held for any length of time.

While Paulus was asking for freedom of action, in Von Manstein's view the 6th Army lacked sufficient fuel to accomplish even minor movements, making a breakout by the 6th Army impossible.

As noted, this was Thanksgiving Day for 1942.

That is, US Thanksgiving Day.

Unlike Americans seem to think, most countries have a Thanksgiving of some sort.  It's very common for Christian countries. The U.S. can't really claim to have had "the first Thanksgiving", although we do.

However, not all countries have Thanksgiving on the same day by any means, so this was the holiday date for the U.S. in 1942.

On this day I know my father's family would have gathered for a Thanksgiving Dinner and it would have been the traditional type, turkey, etc.  It likely would have been, however, just my father's immediate family, but which I mean his parents and siblings.  No aunts or uncles lived nearby, they were living in Scotsbluff, and the grandparents were in Denver and Iowa respectively.

My father and his siblings would have been on a holiday break from school of course.  It was the first Thanksgiving of the war, but none of them were old enough to really be directly impacted by it yet.

Sunday, August 9, 1942. The murder of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).

Popularly known by her birth name, Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, died on this day in Auschwitz along with her sister, Rosa.  Both were Carmelite nuns.

Stein as a doctoral student.

Born into an observant Jewish family in Poland, she was a convert to Catholicism, as was her sister, in her adult years, converting from agnosticism.  She was extremely highly educated, having pursued a doctoral degree, and converted following her reading of the works of St. Teresa of Ávila during summer holidays.  She was of course sent to Auschwitz due to her Jewish heritage.  She was fifty years old at the time.

Today saw the Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7.

Mentioned yesterday, today saw the US cruisers Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes, and the Australian cruiser Canberra, go down in the Battle of Savo Island.  The American destroyer Jarvis was sunk off of Guadalcanal.  Admiral Turner withdraws the Naval task force, with most of the heavy equipment and food for the ground expedition still on board his ships.

The Japanese retook the Kokoda airfield from the Australians.

The Germans took Krasnodar and the oil producing center of Maykop. The Soviets had destroyed the oil facilities before they evacuated.

British police arrested Gandhi and fifty fell members of the Indian National Congress.

The movie Bambi, taken from Felix Salten's book, which was translated from the German by Whitaker Chambers, was released in London.

I've never seen it, nor do I care to.

Tuesday, August 4, 1942. Bracero's

In a move with enormous long term consequences, the Bracero Program was initiated on this day in 1942 with the U.S. execution of the Mexican Farm Labor Act.

Bracero's, a term meaning manual laborers.

The act, designed to relieve wartime labor shortages, particularly in the agricultural sector, allowed controlled, and actually relatively small, numbers of Mexican agricultural workers into the country.  It was designed to make up for wartime shortages, and it accordingly exempted the laborers from conscription, which aliens in the U.S. were otherwise subject to.  It also provided for a basic minimum living wage and housing conditions.

Long term, it helped acclimate the American agricultural section to the concept of migrant labor, which was already there to some extent.  Following the war, the numbers of Americans employed in the type of labor that bracero's occupied decreased greatly and even during the war the program was expanded to include railroad workers, something Hispanic Americans were already employed in to a significant degree.  

It would not be true that the correlation of the shift of the American seasonal agricultural sector to Mexican migrant labor was 100% due to the Bracero program by any means, but it was a factor in it.  Other factors included Americans becoming used to higher wages in other types of jobs due to the Second World War and moving for higher wages, something that also had a permanent impact on the agricultural sector.

The German 4th Panzer Army crossed the Aksay River in the drive on Stalingrad.  Soviet general Yermenko flew to the city in a C-47, where he was met by Commissar Nikita Khrushchev.

The British accused Mahatma Gandi and the Indian National Congress Party of working towards appeasement of the Japanese following a raid on the party's headquarters and seizure of papers there.

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—August 4, 1942: First P-38 aerial combat and victory in the Pacific. Movie premiere of musical Holiday Inn[SS1] , starring Bing Crosby & Fred Astaire.

Holiday Inn is a well known film, but I've never seen it.

She also reports that the first trainload of Belgian Jews arrived at Auschwitz as the European tragedy expanded.

Friday, July 10, 1942. The Akutan Zero.

In the Aleutians, a PBY pilot spotted a nearly intact Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero on Akutan Island.  The aircraft would be recovered and rebuilt, with lessons learned from that instrumental in learning how to take on the advanced Japanese fighter.

The discovery was due to the crew of the PBY having becoming lost and having to reorient themselves before flying back to their base at Dutch Harbor.  The route took them over the downed aircraft.

The island had been evacuated, with its mostly native population having been removed the month prior. They would not return until 1944, although many chose to go back to the island.

The discovery was a major loss to the Japanese.

The A-26 Invader flew for the first time.

The first flight.

The twin-engined attack aircraft would remain in service until the late 1960s.

British forces launched an offensive on Italian forces outside of El Alamein, gaining ground.  By "British" we mean Commonwealth, as in this case the advancing troops were South African and Australian.  The battle at El Alamein was from a British prospective an international affair.

Two more ships of the harried convoy PQ 17 are sunk, this time by U boats.

Bombardier, the Canadian manufacture of snow machines (and jet aircraft), was founded.  The company, named for its founder, came about due to a tragedy when Jospeh-Armand Bombardier's two-year-old son was not able to reach the hospital due to snow blocked roads, and died of appendicitis.  This inspired Bombardier, who had made snow machines as a hobby before, to start making heavy snow machines commercially.

The Orson Wells directed tragedy, The Magnificent Ambersons, was released.

Wednesday, February 11, 1942. The Channel Dash.

On this day in 1942 the Germans commenced the "Channel Dash" in an effort to run two battleships from the port of Brest to their home ports in Germany.  The battleships were the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by the cruiser Prinz Eugen.  They'd been enduring bombing by the RAF in Brest.

The German effort commenced under the cover of night on February 11 and with radio jamming which precluded British agents from radioing about the ship's departure.  It was covered by the Luftwaffe, so the ensuing battle was an air and sea battle.

Both sides sustained damage and casualties in the effort, but the German objective was successful.  Given that the Germans did in fact run the channel, albeit partially at night, it was a bit of an embarrassment to the British.

According to Sarah Sundin's blog, there were riots in Montreal over conscription plans on this date.

I'm not aware of the 1942 riots, although I am of 1944 riots. At any rate, conscription had been in place since 1940, but at that time conscripted troops could not be required to serve overseas unless they so volunteered, resulting in an enduring Canadian controversy.  Troops who would not volunteer were termed "zombies" by those who resented it.  Resistance to conscription was particularly strong in Quebec, where Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis had called a snap election in 1939 to oppose the war only to lose his seat to Adelard Godbout, who had the support of the Federal government in the election.

French Canadian resistance to conscription has been an ongoing matter of controversy in Canada.  Simply put, the Québécois were largely disinterested in the war, although 20% of those who volunteered to fight overseas were in fact Québécois.  This makes for a complicated legacy in obvious ways.

US forces arrived to help defend the Dutch islands of Curacoa, Bonaire and Aruba with permission of the Dutch government in exile.

Also, according to Sundin, the US took over Dupont's supply of nylon, a critical war material used for a variety of things, including parachutes.

The documentary Our Russian Front was released on this date in 1942.