Monday, January 6, 1975. The Vietnam War resumes in earnest.

With fighting having resumed in 1974, and the North Vietnamese Army having taken Dong Xoai on December 26, the NVA took Phuoc Long city and the surrounding province. 

While a violation of the Paris Peace Accord, the US did nothing, which was not a surprise.

We probably need to expand on this a bit.

As the longtime readers of this blog know, we started tracking daily events of the past with the centennial of the Villista raid of Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916.  That fit right into the ostensible purpose of the blog.  We kept on keeping on with that, and now we're nearly a decade into centennial posts, given that we are now posting on daily events of 1925, when they see worth posting about.

Events fifty years in the past really got rolling here with 1968, an American Annus horribilius, and we've kept that up since then. There are, for example, eight posts to date that reference 1967, but sixty-six that reference 1968.

After 68, we dept tracking important events that were fifty years in the past, although they dropped way off, after 1968, up until 1973, when there were 110.  For 74, there were only seventy one.   There would have been more, if we'd more closely tracked the Vietnam War, which we should have done.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973.  The last US troops were gone by March 29, 1973.  The highly valued South Korean troops also left in March, 1973.  The last Australian troops were six embassy guards, who left, tellingly, on June 30, 1973 a telling withdrawal.  By January 4, 1974, the fighting had ramped back up to such an extent that South Vietnam declared them breached and the war ongoing, a declaration that fully reflected reality.  

March 1973 saw the end of a process that had begun in 1969, that of drawing down foreign troops in Vietnam.  It left the Army of the Republic of Vietnam without foreign troops in support of it in some fashion for the first time.*  North Vietnam and South Vietnam had come about due to the peace treaty that ended the French Indochinese War, but the election that was to have taken place in 1955 never occurred.  The ARVN theoretically dated to that year, but in reality it dated to 1949 when the French established the Vietnamese National Army for the State of Vietnam, which it created that same year and which had international recognition as part of the French Union at first, and then as an independent state starting in 1954.  In reality, therefore, the ARVN had never lacked foreign support dating all the way back to 1949.

Catholic North Vietnamese pulling alongside a French LST in 1954 when the country was partitioned.

US support for the State of Vietnam's successor state, the Republic of Vietnam, was somewhat halting at first, and looking back its amazing to realize that the US was ever in Vietnam.  The US had supplied reluctant support to the French in Indochina and carried that on with the State of Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam, but it was reluctant.  The Eisenhower Administration was only halfheartedly a backer of the Republic of Vietnam, not accepting that its status was vital to US interest and also not supporting latent colonial efforts of France and the United Kingdom everywhere.  Indeed, Eisenhower proved to be against the much currently discussed "forever wars" more than any President after the Second World War, not being too keen on the French effort in Algeria, and opposed to the French, British and Israeli intervention over the Suez Canal.

Moreover, Eisenhower clashed with the personality of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm. Diệm was an anti communist, but he was not really a democrat, being a person who, for lack of a better way to put it, was an early example of a National Conservative (J. D. Vance, R. R. Reno and Rod Dreher would have loved him).  He was a Catholic in a majority Buddhist country, albeit one were the influence of Buddhism was waning, and didn't really view Vietnam as a country that was subject to democratic rule, at least at the time.

Things changed with the Kennedy Administration, at least at first, which was much more willing to become involved spats around the world than the Eisenhower Administration was.  Kennedy caused the formation of a U.S. military unit, the Special Forced, specifically for this purpose.  With Kennedy, in spite of advice to the contrary from Eisenhower, the American involvement in Vietnam became more direct and deeper, with the US giving advice on major tactical oeprations for the first time.  The Army of the Republic of Vietnam, however, was not thrilled by the advice it was receiving, viewing its combat history as supporting the proposition that small unit actions in a low grade war, rather than material rich operations, were what best suited its operational environment.  It would ultimately be proven to be correct, but much too late.

Kenndy's administration saw Diệm assassinated in a manner which has been remembered much like Chile's Allende episode, which is to say inaccurately. The US was less involved than imagined, but aware enough that it could have taken steps to prevent it and the men on the ground basically knew it was likely to occur and vaguely indicated that the US wouldn't stanad in the way when the South Vietnamese military became discontent with Diệm and hinted that it could overthrow him. So it did, and Diệm was murdered in the resulting coup, something that hadn't been anticipated.

Diệm was killed on November 2, 1963 and Kennedy twenty days later.  Kennedy was horrified by Diệm's murder but his administration had been reckless in regard to Diệm, foreign policy, and Vietnam.  It seems that Kennedy was at the point where he was inclined to reduce US support for the nation, which was frankly unnatural as it was, but failed to convey this to Lyndon Johnson who felt honor bound to carry on what Kennedy had started.

The increased US participation in Vietnam at the time was due to the urging of Australia, which has largely conveniently forgotten that it was the single most important factor to the US becoming involved.  France resented US involvement and hadn't really wished for it to occur. But Australia was so desperate for it to occur that it seriously considered taking on the project for its own.

Australia, with its location on the globe, and its small population, had always depended on another Western power for its protecdtion.  It still does.  Prior to 1941, that foreign power had been the United Kingdom, and it had been a loyal, if grumpy, member of the British Empire.  It had sent troops to the Boer War and World War One, and of course to the effort in World War Two when it came.

For that reason, when the Japanese attacked in the Pacific on December 7 & 8, 1941, Australia was ill prepared to face the crisis.  It's troops were fighting in North Africa.  It asked for them back, and the British declined.  The British, for that matter, soon proved to be totally unable to face the new Japanese threat and began to lose ground everywhere in the Far East.  Soon the crown jewel of the British Empire, India, was itself in jeopardy, with Japanese troops advancing into Thailand from Vietnam, which it had taken over after the French defeat in 1940, although not right away, and then on into Brurma.

As the war closed out, Franklin Roosevelt took a dim view of France and the United Kingdom returning to their empires.  Roosevelt was an anti colonial.  The British and the French were well aware of this, but the British had a massive military force in the field.  The US forces in the war had not exceeded the number of British forces in action until late 1944, and in spite of losing a massive amount of ground to the Japanese in 1942, but 1943 it was back in action in a major way.  The French situation was distinctly different, however, as its army had been reconstituted during the war, and in North Africa and Europe, and frankly was badly stressed in its makeup between conservative French republicans, French communists, and French North Africans.  Roosevelt frankly hadn't planned on helping the French after the war at all.

On March 9, 1945 Japan launched a coup d'etat against what was left of French independence in Vietnam out of fear that French forces would rise up and displace the Japanese, as had happened in North Africa.  Roosevelt made it clear that the French were not to reacquire Vietnam, showing a fare amount of naiveity about who woudl come out in the region, and about the communists in general. He died, however on April 12, 1945.  

Like Kennedy, Roosevelt had very little contact with his Vice President and Truman came into office without really knowing that Roosevelt had wanted to do.  Unlike Johnson, however, Truman didn't really worry about that and made up his own mind on things.  He very rapidly came under the influence of the British and French and didn't take the anti colonial view that Roosevelt had.  So France, after a brief period of British occupation, in which Japanese troops were used for garrison duties, came back to Indochina.

Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of the Viet Minh, persuaded French backed Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate in his favour, on September 2, 1945.  Follong theis, Ho Chi Minh declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, with hit having to be taken for granted that "Democratic", in the communist context, was a fraud. Vientamese communistm would indeed prove to be just as bloody as communism anywhere else had been.  British, Free French, and impressed Japanese troops soon restored French control.  Ho Chi Minh agreed to negotiate, but the negotiations failed.

Fighting soon broke out.  In 1948 France recognized Indochinese independence with a new State of Vietnam created and Emperor Bảo Đại restored to power. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became associated states of the French Union and were granted more autonomy.  The communist war against the situation continued on, with the communist being unable to accept any rule other than their own.

The French Indochinese War was fought hte way that Donald Trump would have Ukraine fight, with a poverty of resources. The US did help France, but not to the degree the French would have liked and not to the degree that the French were ever more than fighting the Viet Minh on a more or less equal footing.  The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu was only part of a string of such slow losses that doomed their efforts in the region.

As noted, a new political reality that nobody woudl really adhere to emerged in 1954.  South Vietnam came about as a republic but not a really well functioning one.  North Vietnam became a communist dictatorship bent on taking over the south.  The war that had commenced during hte Japanese occupation of the country never really ceased.

It was a low grade war, for the most part, however.  Be that as it may, it was serious enough to worry Australia, which saw South Vietnam falling to the North and a new communist nation emerging to its north.  Australia, for its part, had its own problems after the war in spite of being a stalwart western ally.  Communism in Australia had been strong in the 1930s and emerged strong from World War Two.  Conservative forces in Australia came to rely heavily on the Catholic Church and the Irish Catholic population to hold off what was a very real slide on the continent into the far left.  Australian communists nearly took the nation into the Soviet bloc.

While that was occurring the Australian government sided with the United Kingdom in regional conflicts against Communist forces, the most notable being the Malaysian Emergency in which Australian troops served.  Very successfully waged on a military and political basis, it, along with the early post World War Two American efforts against the Huk Rebellion showed what could be done.

Australia looked at the post Indochinese War sitaution with gravec concern.  Indochina seemed to be to Australia what the Japanese expansion of 1942 had been, a stepping stone into Australia itself, where it already was dealing with an extreme left wing movement as it was.  World War Two had taught Australia that the United Kingdom was no longer a dependable world power, and duiring hte war it had switched its dependency upon the United States.  Accordingly, it agitated iwth the US to become involved, which the Eisenhower Adminisration did on a small scale, and the Kennedy Administration did on a larger one.

By the time of Kennedy's death in 1963 the US was chaning its mind.  The ARVN was reluctant in its acceptance of US advice, seening small scale actions with limited recources, like those it had fought with the French, as being what better suited its needs.  It was planning for a long police action, in essence, rather than a definitive victory in the field.  However, as France could no longer supply the ARVN's needs, which ironially had always depended on US aid in any event, it had little choice.

The US came, Diệm fell, and the war expanded.  

As the US tends to do, when the US entered the war, as odd as it was for the US, it did so with great enthusiasm, but a few years later was tired of it.  In the mean time, the US commitment to the war had become massive.  The level of US participation was in fact destroying the communist effort, proving, in a way, that American advisors had been right.  The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a communist last gasp that destroyed the South Vietnamese communist militia, the Viet Cong, and ruined the North Vietnamese Army.  Nonetheless, it was a massive propaganda victory for North Vietnam, to its huge surprise, and helped commit the US to a withdrawal from then unpopular war.

Chinese Type 59 tank taken by the ARVN.

At the same time, however, it was undeniable that the NVA had been wrecked.  The foolishly launched 1972 Easter Offensive was turned back by the ARVN, which leant credence to the thesis that the then ongoing American withdrawal from the country made sense.  Even now you can find those who maintain that the "Vietnamization" of the war made perfect strategic sense and was Nixon's plan.

In reality, the Nixon Administration had calculated that South Vietnam was doomed and basically forced the Republic of Vietnam into the peace that the Paris Peace Accords produced.  The plan was to give the US enough time to leave the country before what Nixon thought would be an ultimate South Vietnamese collapse to provide plausible deniability to the US for the South Vietnamese defeat.

The peace never really broke out, which resulted in the South Vietnamese negotiator to refuse to accept the Nobel Peace Prize that Kissinger accepted.  By 1974 a North Vietnamese offensive, although slow moving, was back on, showing the willingness of Communist regimes to kill their population readily.  Things were beginning, as today's entry shows, to pick up speed.

Wheel of Fortune, hosted by Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford, premiered.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 5, 1975. Ed Herschler inaugurated.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Angola, Australia, Colonialism, Democratic Party, Disaster, law, Politics, Portuguese Empire, Wyoming

*Some French support remained until 1956 by which time US support had already started.

Sunday, January 5, 1975. Ed Herschler inaugurated.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 5: 1975  Ed Herschler began his 12 years as Governor.

Theoretically, but only theoretically, this is illegal under the term limitation that applies to Governors in the Wyoming constitution.  However, the Wyoming Supreme Court already struck this down as it applies to other offices, and clearly a person could run for a third term.  Given the current politics in the state, some hope Governor Gordon might do so, although there's no evidence that he intends to attempt that.

Herschler was a well respected Governor and was a Democrat.  He'd been a Marine Raider during World War Two.

The Tasman Bridge disaster when a bulk ore carrier travelling up the Derwent River collided with several pylons of the Tasman Bridge.

Angolan independence groups UNITA, MPLA, and FNLA signed the Mombasa Agreement in Kenya pledging to work together to negotiate with Portugal. 

The agreement would last for only a few months.

After the Portuguese pulled out, the US allied with Socialist  UNITA and the Soviet Union with MPLA.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 4, 1975. 55 MPH

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Automobiles, Gerald Ford, Highways, Interstate Highways, law, Richard Nixon, Transportation

Monday, December 16, 1974. Safe Drinking Water.

The Republic of Mali invaded the Republic of Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) in a border conflict over water rights.

The United States Senate unanimously (93 to 0) ratified the Geneva Protocol, the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", almost 50 years after it had first been signed signed in Switzerland on June 17, 1925, and became effective on February 28, 1928.

Hmmm. . . . 

The Safe Drinking Water Act was signed into law.

Probably wouldn't happen today.

ANZUK, a military unit created in 1971 by agreement of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, was disbanded after slightly more than two years of having been in existence.

No surprise, given the Vietnam War and the "winds of change".

The Towering Inferno premiered.  I recall seeing it in the theaters with a friend on a Saturday afternoon, even though I was 11 years old.  It was awful.

Frankly, they shouldn't have let us in the movie at all.  I'm sure we walked down and watched it, but it features a totally stupid 1970s example of full frontal that serves no purpose other than to be a toss out to the Playboy ethos of the era, which no 11 year old, or 21 year old, or 61 year old, should have to put up with.

It also, fwiw, runs down the National Guard, in the 1970s post Vietnam War style.

And the plot is moronic.  One of the 1970s scare movies.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 17, 1974. Greek democracy restored.

Labels: 1960s, 1964, 1967, 1970s, 1974, Democracy, Greece

Friday, November 7, 1924. A balanced budget.

The Weimar Republic announced the first balanced German budget since the end of World War One.

The Soviet Union produced its first domestically manufactured motor vehicle, the AMO-15 truck.

The Alvarado Hot Springs was created when a natural gas exploratory well taped into a geothermal pool in Los Angeles County.  It was operated commercially as a hot springs facility until at least 1961, following which it seem to have disappeared from history.

2BE began operating commercially, broadcasting twice a week, in Sydney. Australia's first commercial radio station would close in 1929.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 6, 1924. The 100th Anniversary of Christopher Robin and Winey the Pooh.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Calvin Coolidge, Girl Scouts, Norman Rockwell, Teenagers, The written word, Women

Saturday, August 19, 1944. Uprising in Paris.

French resistance members began attacks on German troops in Paris.

FFL on August 19, 1944.

The uprising forced an Allied reassessment of the line of advance.  While French forces very much wanted to take Paris, and probably would have advanced on it no matter what they were told, Eisenhower did not want to as he did not regard the city as strategic and its large civilian population would instantly become a burden Allied supplies.

Unlike the Soviets, however, the Western Allies were not willing to simply let the Germans do what they will with an uprising in a city.

On the road to Paris, Ecouche, a French military policeman directs a British armored convoy at an intersection of the town.  August 19, 1944.

The Battle for Mont Ormel ridge as a final part of the Falaise operation, featuring Polish troops taking on the Germans at Hill 262.

3d Infantry Division soldier in southern France walks over a poster of Hitler.

American anti tank gun crew in southern France.

3d Infantry Division medic aiding wounded German.  The medic's 1943 boots are clearly in evidence and the 3d Infantry Division insignia is prominent on the shirts and helmets of these men.  The medic is carrying a short pickaxe on his belt.

French policeman and resistance fighter bringing in German captive in southern France.

Two French women on opposites sides of the war in sympathies square off in a fight in southern France.  A couple of items.  One of the French women is wearing shorts, which were very common hot weather apparel for French women in this period.  They were worn elsewhere as well, but they were common for the French.  Secondly, I don't know who is who, but as the women in the center seems to be getting the brunt of it, my guess she is the German sympathizer.  This would become a common scene.

Operation Bagration concluded in a Soviet victory.

American submarines sank troopship Teia Maru (formerly the French ocean liner Aramis), the landing craft depot ship Tamatsu Maru and fleet oiler Hayasui.

German submarines U-123 and U-466 were scuttled.

A referendum to grant the Australian government additional powers over a five year period failed.

Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, age 61, who had fallen under suspicion due to the July 20 plot ,and who had been relieved the day prior, killed himself.

Last edition:

Friday, August 18, 1944. German retreats.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Artillery, boats and ships, Falaise Pocket, French Navy, German Kriegsmarine, German Wehrmacht, Infantry, Red Cross, The Holocaust, U.S. Navy, Vichy France, Weapons, World War Two

Monday, May 19, 1924. Bonuses and Tick Fever.

Congress overrode President Coolidge's veto of the World War Adjusted Compensation Act.

I can't say that act was a big surprise.

An image was transmitted by telephone line for the first time.  Over two hours, 15 photographic images were transmitted by AT&T from Cleveland to New York City.

Korean nationalist tried, but failed, to assassinate Japanese Governor General of Korea Makoto Saito.  The attempt was a clumsy one, involving firing on Saito's boat from the Chinese side of the Yalu.

Dr. Roscoe R. Spencer, after giving himself some time prior his own vaccine for Rocky Mountain Tick Fever, injected himself with "a large does of mashed wood ticks" and did not die, proving that the vaccine worked.

Today it would inspire a bunch of countervailing extreme theories.

Turkey and the United Kingdom failed to reach an accord on the Mosul Question, i.e., who owned the region.

The Royal Australian Air Force completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the continent with a Fairey IIID.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, May 18, 1924. Kīlauea

1920s, 1924, 1924 Olympics, Geology, Hawaii, Olympics, rugby

Tuesday, March 4, 1924. Waltzing Matilda.

 

Aiden de Brune became the first person to walk all he way around Australia.  His return to Melbourne was the completion of a journey he began on September 21, 1921.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Costa Rica resulted in the death of 70 people.

Last prior:  

Monday, March 3, 1924. End of the Caliphate.

Tuesday, February 29, 1944. The 1st Cavalry Division lands at Los Negros.

First wave of the 1st Cavalry, note all the Thompson Submachineguns.

The Admiralty Islands Campaign began with the dismounted US. 1st Cavalry Division landing on Los Negros Island. What had started as a small landing was converted on the spot by General MacArthur and Admiral Kinkaid to a full scale landing.

MacArthur and Kincaid on Los Negros, February 29, 1944, with Army cameraman T/Sgt Daniel Rocklin.

A-20s on their way to Vesuvius airport after bombing targets at Anzio.

Poor weather prevented an effective continued German effort at Anzio.

The USS Trout was sunk in the East China Sea by the Japanese destroyer Asashimo.

The Red Army prevailed in the Nikopol-Krivol Rog Offensive.

The Commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal Nikolai Vatutin, was ambushed by Ukrainian partisans and mortally wounded.

The Battle of Ist was fought between the Free French Navy and a Kriegsmarine element, resulting in a French victory in the Adriatic.

A rodeo was held in New South Wales.

Thursday, January 27, 1944. Siege of Leningrad declared over.

On this day, the Soviets announced the end of the Siege of Leningrad.

Tenuous ground communication with the city had happened prior, but now the relief was solid, and the two year, four months, and five day siege was broken.

The battle was one of the most horrific in human history.

The 34th Infantry Division captured Monte Maiola and Caira.

The Marines expanded the Cape Gloucester beachhead on New Britain.

US defensive position on Bougainville, January 27, 1944.

The governments of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States protested Japan's treatment of POW's setting the ground for war crime prosecution.

Anglican Peter Jasper Akinola was born in Nigeria.  He would rise to the position of Anglican Primate for Nigeria, and while he was a Low Church Anglican, he was staunch in his opposition to Anglican accommodations to homosexuality.  He is retired.

Monday, January 17, 1944. The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.

U.S. forward observer operating in support of British forces at Monte Cassino, January 17, 1944.

The British 56th and 5th Divisions attack at Monte Cassino, forcing a crossing of the Garigliano.  The German 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions were redeployed from the Rome as reinforcements.

The Red Army took Slavuta.

The Soviet Union rejected negotiations with the Polish Government In Exile over the Polish border.

While it was not really occurring, the Polish Home Army ordered Polish partisans not to cooperate with the Germans in attacking Soviet partisans operating in Poland.  Given the extreme repression by the Germans in Poland, there was little reason to fear that would occur.

Pravda reported a falsehood that British and German representatives had met on the Iberian Peninsula to discuss a separate peace.  The British Foreign Officer immediately denied the rumor.

Slovene partisans attack the Germans at Paški Kozjak.

The U-305 was lost in the Atlantic.

Australia began rationing meat.

Friday, November 23, 1923. Law and Radio.

President Coolidge was visited by members of Delta Theta Phi, a law fraternity.

On the same day, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union was established.

Germany banned the Communist and Nazi parties.  A third party, the Nationalist Party, was also banned.

Gustav Stresemann lost a vote of confidence in the Reichstag and resigned as the  Chancellor of Germany.

Australian radio station 2SB went on the air, giving Australia regular radio programming for the first time.  It is still on the air as Radio Sydny.

Saturday, October 20, 1973. The Saturday Night Massacre, Sydney Opera House, and Arab Oil Embargo.

Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed by the Administration, and attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and deputy attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned.  Cox was dismissed by Robert Bork, who later became an unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee, but who nonetheless was influential in the philosophy of the current Supreme Court.

The Sydney Opera House was inaugurated and opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Saudi Arabia and Algeria halted petroleum exports to the U.S., the embargo now becoming a full-blown disaster.

Friday, October 19, 1973. The Oil Embargo spreads.

Libya announced that it would completely halt oil exports to the United States.  The U.S. Federal Reserve regards this as the beginning of the full Arab Oil Embargo.

President Nixon rejected the Appeals Court decision that he turn over tapes to Federal investigators.  Instead, he proposed to have them transcribed, and then reviewed by Democratic Senator John C. Stennis.  Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox rejected the offer and resigned the following day.

Solutions for the Yom Kippur War were being discussed on an international level.

Elizabeth II, on a trip to Australian, signed the Royal Styles and Titles Act and assumed the title of "Queen of Australia".  She had previously been "Elizabeth the second, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom, Australia and her other realms and territories, queen, head of the Commonwealth.".

Monday, September 27, 1943. The commencement of the Quattro giornate di Napoli.

Naples revolved against German occupation in an event which is known as the Quattro giornate di Napoli.

Popular uprisings in advance of Allied troops would prove to be a help, and a hindrance, in the war from this point out.  They placed demands on Allied commanders to quickly relieve those areas that had revolved against German rule, while also proving to be a major problem to German occupiers.

The event did show that the fight had not gone out of the Italians. . . it just wasn't directed in aid of fascism any longer.

The British 8th Army entered Foggia, Italy.  This placed Allied aircraft within easy range of the Balkans, Southern Germany, and Poland.

The Australian Aboriginal and European Benedictine Catholic community of Kalumburu was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force, killing five and destroying its buildings.

Professor Sam Ruben, a co-discoverer of Carbon 14, received a lethal dose of phosgene while working on war related processes.  He'd die the following day.

Saturday, August 21, 1943: Bob Hope and Patton.

John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia, retained his position as the Australian Labor Party took 49 of 74 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 19 out of 36 in the Australian Senate.

Australian troops on New Guinea took  Komiatum, southwest of Salamaua.

Frankly Roosevelt and McKenzie King announced that U.S. and Canadian forces had retaken Kiska.

The recapture effectively put the continental United States and the Canadian provinces out of reach of Imperial Japanese forces.

Hal Block, Bob Hope, Barney Dean, Frances Langford and Tony Romano met General George S. Patton at a USO show in Sicily at which Patton asked Hope to tell his radio audience “that I love my men", perhaps hoping to counter the bad publicity that the slapping incident had caused.

You didn't see that in Patton.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—August 21, 1943: First “UT” convoy sails from New York, heavily escorted convoys carrying troops to England in build-up for Operation Overlord (D-day).

Friday, June 18, 1943. Marine Corps Life Lessons, Allied Action in the Med, Churchill shuffles the deck, Australia safe from invasion.

"How to disable an armed opponent is demonstrated by two girl Marines in training at Camp Lejeune, New River, North Carolina. The Marines with their backs to the camera are watching another display of feminine skill in the art of self-defense, June 18, 1943." 

Sarah Sundon notes, in her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 18, 1943: Allies intensify bombing of Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples . Australian Prime Minister John Curtin declares that the risk of Japanese invasion is over.

The all black 99th Pursuit Squadron, part of the those groups nicknamed the Tuskegee Airmen, flew in action against the Luftwaffe for the first time when six of their P-40s encountered 12 FW 190s over Pantelleria.  The 99th was outmatched in terms of what they were flying but suffered no losses.

Churchill removed Field Marshall Sir Archibald Wavell and Gen. Claude Auchinleck from command by promoting them uphill to Viceroy of India and Commander-in-Chief, India.

One of Wavell's first tasks in India was attempting to relieve the Bengal Famine of 1943. Auchinleck would go on to reorganize the Indian Army.

Monday, June 7, 1943. Australia rations butter.

 

Today in World War II History—June 7, 1943: Off Guadalcanal, US Thirteenth Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps, and Royal New Zealand Air Force fighter aircraft shoot down 24 Japanese A6M Zeros.

So notes Sarah Sundin, who also notes that Australia began butter rationing.   You can learn more about that here:

1943 Butter rationing introduced

Sunday, May 2, 1943. The Coal Crisis.

British wartime conservation poster.  I wish I could do something patriotic just by going to bed early.

Franklin Roosevelt addressed the coal strike in a Fireside Chat, stating:

My fellow Americans:

I am speaking tonight to the American people, and in particular to those of our citizens who are coal miners.

Tonight this country faces a serious crisis. We are engaged in a war on the successful outcome of which will depend the whole future of our country.

This war has reached a new critical phase. After the years that we have spent in preparation, we have moved into active and continuing battle with our enemies. We are pouring into the worldwide conflict everything that we have -- our young men, and the vast resources of our nation.

I have just returned from a two weeks' tour of inspection on which I saw our men being trained and our war materials made. My trip took me through twenty states. I saw thousands of workers on the production line, making airplanes, and guns and ammunition.

Everywhere I found great eagerness to get on with the war. Men and women are working long hours at difficult jobs and living under difficult conditions without complaint.

Along thousands of miles of track I saw countless acres of newly ploughed fields. The farmers of this country are planting the crops that are needed to feed our armed forces, our civilian population and our Allies. Those crops will be harvested.

On my trip, I saw hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Young men who were green recruits last autumn have matured into self-assured and hardened fighting men. They are in splendid physical condition. They are mastering the superior weapons that we are pouring out of our factories.

The American people have accomplished a miracle.

However, all of our massed effort is none too great to meet the demands of this war. We shall need everything that we have and everything that our Allies have to defeat the Nazis and the Fascists in the coming battles on the Continent of Europe, and the Japanese on the Continent of Asia and in the Islands of the Pacific.

This tremendous forward movement of the United States and the United Nations cannot be stopped by our enemies.

And equally, it must not be hampered by any one individual or by the leaders of any one group here back home.

I want to make it clear that every American coal miner who has stopped mining coal -- no matter how sincere his motives, no matter how legitimate he may believe his grievances to be -- every idle miner directly and individually is obstructing our war effort. We have not yet won this war. We will win this war only as we produce and deliver our total American effort on the high seas and on the battlefronts. And that requires unrelenting, uninterrupted effort here on the home front.

A stopping of the coal supply, even for a short time, would involve a gamble with the lives of American soldiers and sailors and the future security of our whole people. It would involve an unwarranted, unnecessary and terribly dangerous gamble with our chances for victory.

Therefore, I say to all miners -- and to all Americans everywhere, at home and abroad -- the production of coal will not be stopped.

Tonight, I am speaking to the essential patriotism of the miners, and to the patriotism of their wives and children. And I am going to state the true facts of this case as simply and as plainly as I know how.

After the attack at Pearl Harbor, the three great labor organizations -- the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the Railroad Brotherhoods -- gave the positive assurance that there would be no strikes as long as the war lasted. And the President of the United Mine workers of America was a party to that assurance.

That pledge was applauded throughout the country. It was a forcible means of telling the world that we Americans -- 135,000,000 of us -- are united in our determination to fight this total war with our total will and our total power.

At the request of employers and of organized labor - including the United Mine Workers -- the War Labor Board was set up for settling any disputes which could not be adjusted through collective bargaining. The War Labor Board is a tribunal on which workers, employers and the general public are equally represented.

In the present coal crisis, conciliation and mediation were tried unsuccessfully.

In accordance with the law, the case was then certified to the War Labor Board, the agency created for this express purpose with the approval of organized labor. The members of the Board followed the usual practice, which has proved successful in other disputes. Acting promptly, they undertook to get all the facts of this (the) case from both the miners and the operators.

The national officers of the United Mine Workers, however, declined to have anything to do with the fact-finding of the War Labor Board. The only excuse that they offer is that the War Labor Board is prejudiced.

The War Labor Board has been and is ready to give this (the) case a fair and impartial hearing. And I have given my assurance that if any adjustment of wages is made by the Board, it will be made retroactive to April first. But the national officers Of the United Mine Workers refused to participate in the hearing, when asked to do so last Monday.

On Wednesday of this past week, while the Board was proceeding with the case, stoppages began to occur in some mines. On Thursday morning I telegraphed to the officers of the United Mine Workers asking that the miners continue mining coal on Saturday morning. However, a general strike throughout the industry became effective on Friday night.

The responsibility for the crisis that we now face rests squarely on these national officers of the United Mine Workers, and not on the Government of the United States. But the consequences of this arbitrary action threaten all of us everywhere.

At ten o'clock, yesterday morning -- Saturday -- the Government took over the mines. I called upon the miners to return to work for their Government. The Government needs their services just as surely as it needs the services of our soldiers, and sailors, and marines -- and the services of the millions who are turning out the munitions of war.

You miners have sons in the Army and Navy and Marine Corps. You have sons who at this very minute -- this split second -- may be fighting in New Guinea, or in the Aleutian Islands, or Guadalcanal, or Tunisia, or China, or protecting troop ships and supplies against submarines on the high seas. We have already received telegrams from some of our fighting men overseas, and I only wish they could tell you what they think of the stoppage of work in the coal mines.

Some of your own sons have come back from the fighting fronts, wounded. A number of them, for example, are now here in an Army hospital in Washington. Several of them have been decorated by their Government.

I could tell you of one from Pennsylvania. He was a coal miner before his induction, and his father is a coal miner. He was seriously wounded by Nazi machine gun bullets while he was on a bombing mission over Europe in a Flying Fortress.

Another boy, from Kentucky, the son of a coal miner, was wounded when our troops first landed in North Africa six months ago.

There is (still) another, from Illinois. He was a coal miner -- his father and two brothers are coal miners. He was seriously wounded in Tunisia while attempting to rescue two comrades whose jeep had been blown up by a Nazi mine.

These men do not consider themselves heroes. They would probably be embarrassed if I mentioned their names over the air. They were wounded in the line of duty. They know how essential it is to the tens of thousands -- hundreds of thousands --and ultimately millions of other young Americans to get the best of arms and equipment into the hands of our fighting forces -- and get them there quickly.

The fathers and mothers of our fighting men, their brothers and sisters and friends -- and that includes all of us -- are also in the line of duty -- the production line. Any failure in production may well result in costly defeat on the field of battle.

There can be no one among us -- no one faction powerful enough to interrupt the forward march of our people to victory.

You miners have ample reason to know that there are certain basic rights for which this country stands, and that those rights are worth fighting for and worth dying for. That is why you have sent your sons and brothers from every mining town in the nation to join in the great struggle overseas. That is why you have contributed so generously, so willingly, to the purchase of war bonds and to the many funds for the relief of war victims in foreign lands. That is why, since this war was started in 1939, you have increased the annual production of coal by almost two hundred million tons a year.

The toughness of your sons in our armed forces is not surprising. They come of fine, rugged stock. Men who work in the mines are not unaccustomed to hardship. It has been the objective of this Government to reduce that hardship, to obtain for miners and for all who do the nation's work a better standard of living.

I know only too well that the cost of living is troubling the miners' families, and troubling the families of millions of other workers throughout the country as well.

A year ago it became evident to all of us that something had to be done about living costs. Your Government determined not to let the cost of living continue to go up as it did in the first World War.

Your Government has been determined to maintain stability of both prices and wages -- so that a dollar would buy, so far as possible, the same amount of the necessities of life. And by necessities I mean just that -- not the luxuries, not the (and) fancy goods that we have learned to do without in wartime.

So far, we have not been able to keep the prices of some necessities as low as we should have liked to keep them. That is true not only in coal towns but in many other places.

Wherever we find that prices of essentials have risen too high, they will be brought down. Wherever we find that price ceilings are being violated, the violators will be punished.

Rents have been fixed in most parts of the country. In many cities they have been cut to below where they were before we entered the war. Clothing prices have generally remained stable.

These two items make up more than a third of the total budget of the worker's family.

As for food, which today accounts for about another (a) third of the family expenditure on the average, I want to repeat again: your Government will continue to take all necessary measures to eliminate unjustified and avoidable price increases. And we are today (now) taking measures to " roll back" the prices of meats.

The war is going to go on. Coal will be mined no matter what any individual thinks about it. The operation of our factories, our power plants, our railroads will not be stopped. Our munitions must move to our troops.

And so, under these circumstances, it is inconceivable that any patriotic miner can choose any course other than going back to work and mining coal.

The nation cannot afford violence of any kind at the coal mines or in coal towns. I have placed authority for the resumption of coal mining in the hands of a civilian, the Secretary of the Interior. If it becomes necessary to protect any miner who seeks patriotically to go back and work, then that miner must have and his family must have -- and will have -- complete and adequate protection. If it becomes necessary to have troops at the mine mouths or in coal towns for the protection of working miners and their families, those troops will be doing police duty for the sake of the nation as a whole, and particularly for the sake of the fighting men in the Army, the Navy and the Marines -- your sons and mine -- who are fighting our common enemies all over the world.

I understand the devotion of the coal miners to their union. I know of the sacrifices they have made to build it up. I believe now, as I have all my life, in the right of workers to join unions and to protect their unions. I want to make it absolutely clear that this Government is not going to do anything now to weaken those rights in the coalfields.

Every improvement in the conditions of the coal miners of this country has had my hearty support, and I do not mean to desert them now. But I also do not mean to desert my obligations and responsibilities as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy.

The first necessity is the resumption of coal mining. The terms of the old contract will be followed by the Secretary of the Interior. If an adjustment in wages results from a decision of the War Labor Board, or from any new agreement between the operators and miners, which is approved by the War Labor Board, that adjustment will be made retroactive to April first.

In the message that I delivered to the Congress four months ago, I expressed my conviction that the spirit of this nation is good.

Since then, I have seen our troops in the Caribbean area, in bases on the coasts of our ally, Brazil, and in North Africa. Recently I have again seen great numbers of our fellow countrymen -- soldiers and civilians -- from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Mexican border and to the Rocky Mountains.

Tonight, in the fact of a crisis of serious proportions in the coal industry, I say again that the spirit or this nation is good. I know that the American people will not tolerate any threat offered to their Government by anyone. I believe the coal miners will not continue the strike against their (the) Government. I believe that the coal miners (themselves) as Americans will not fail to heed the clear call to duty. Like all other good Americans, they will march shoulder to shoulder with their armed forces to victory.

Tomorrow the Stars and Stripes will fly over the coal mines, and I hope that every miner will be at work under that flag.

The Japanese conducted a major air raid on Darwin, Australia.  It was the 54th Japanese air raid on Australia and provided ineffective in real terms, but greatly disturbed the Australian public.  The attacking force consisted of 25 bombers and 27 fighter escorts.  The Royal Australian Air Force engaged the attackers after the raid, and lost fourteen Spitfires.  The Japanese lost six to ten aircraft.