Friday, July 28, 1911. War ending as other prepare for war.

Government troops defeated Haitian rebels at Les Cayes.

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition departed London aboard the SY Aurora.

Gen. Joseph Joffre was made the Chief of the General Staff of the Army of France, the first person to hold that position..

Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier announced a plan of cooperation between the Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealander navies.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 27, 1911. Ordered to ride.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Art, Coles Phillips, Equine Transportation, French Army, Health, Military, Old Age, Omar Bradley, Theodore Roosevelt, Women

Thursday, July 19, 1945. Bretton Woods ratified.

Able Seaman Chadwick trimming the beard of Engine Room Artificer Jones, aboard HMAS Hobart.

The United States Senate ratified the Bretton Woods Agreement.

Encircled Japanese units in Burma begin an all out effort to breakout.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 18, 1945. Explosions.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Belgium, Brazilian Army, China, Disaster, Halifax Nova Scotia, Harry S. Truman, Japan, Manhattan Project, Potsdam Conference, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, Wake Island, Winston Churchill, World War Two

Sunday, June 10, 1945. Action in the Far East.

Today in World War II History—June 10, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 10, 1945: Australian troops land at Brunei on Japanese-occupied Borneo, an important port, and capture Labuan airfield.

Sarah Sundin's blog.  It was, we'd note, a largescale operation.

The also landed at Labuan and Muara.

The Battle of Porten Plantation ended in a Japanese victory.

US and Philippine forces prevailed at Davao.

The USS William D. Porter was sunk off of Okinawa by kamikazes.

"A guncrew of the 383rd Inf. Regt. loads a shell into the new 57mm recoiless rifle to fire against Jap pillboxes and caves on Okinawa. 10 June, 1945. 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division."  This is the first photograph of a recoiless rifle being used in World War Two that I've seen.  It's sometimes debated if they saw action in the war at all, but clearly they did.

The Chinese Army took Wenchow..

Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki is granted dictatorial powers by the Imperial Diet.

Last edition: 

Saturday, June 9, 1945. Parade.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, George S. Patton, Italy, Japan, Luzon, Okinawa, Philippines, United States Marine Corps, Weapons, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Friday, June 8, 1945. Battle of Porton Plantation

The Battle of Porton Plantation began on Bougainville Island between Australian, New Zealand and Japanese troops.

The Ashigara was torpedoed and sunk in the Bangka Strait by the British submarine Trenchant.

The US 145th Infantry Regiment took Solano and advanced as far as Bagabag, towards the Cagayan valley in the Philippines.

The French poet Robert Desnos died at Theresienstadt of typhoid.

German World War Two official in Czechoslovakia Karl Hanke, age 41, was killed by Czech partisans while trying to escape captivity.

Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew denied reports that Russia would be given Korea among other states in exchange for its entry into the Pacific war.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 7, 1945. Returning monarchs.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Chinese Army, Chinese National Army, Joseph Stalin, Luzon, Okinawa, The Battle of West Hunan (湘西會戰), United Nations, Weapons, Winston Churchill, World War Two, Yalta Conference

Saturday, March 10, 1945. The execution of Gen. Émile Lemonnier.

Gen. Émile Lemonnier of the French Army was executed by the Japanese for, as a captive, refusing to sign an instrument of surrender to the Japanese in Indochina.  He was 51 years of age.

The last few years of his life must have been one of unrelenting mental torment.

The cowardly weasel ordering his execution, Captain Kayakawa was himself executed after the war..

I know some will excuse the latter's actions based on culture, but he was a weasel.

It was day two of the firebombing of Tokyo.

It's extremely difficult not to be morally troubled by this action.  There are military justifications of it, but by and large, it was a monstrous attack upon a civilian population right down to the infant level.  It survives as a reminder that even in World War Two, in which the Allies held hte moral high ground, not all Allied actions were morally licit.

In our own day, in which we have a President who stands by as rockets rain down on a civilian population, and in which that same President sat a war out due to shin splints, it rains buckets of blood on our own  heads.

The Australians landed at Wide Bay, Papua New Guinea.

Smiling Albert Field Marshal Kesselring arrivee from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.

The Germans withdrew from from the pocket west of the Rhine between Wesel and Xanten in the face of British and Canadian pressure.

The German offensive around Lake Balatron began to encounter heavy Rad Army resistance..

The U-275 struck a mine and was sunk off of East Sussex.  The U-681 was sunk off of the Isles of Scilly by a U.S Navy B-24.

FDR involved Spanish representatives with their hands out no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continued.

Good for FDR.

Today, King Donny would probably be giving warm smooches to Francoist delegates.

Last edition:

Friday, March 9, 1945. Firebombing Japan (Operation Meetinghouse). Japanese end French rule in Indochina (Operation Bright Moon)

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, French Indochina, Italian Social Republic, law, Mussolini, Operation Bright Moon, Operation Meetinghouse, The Great Tokyo Air Raid, Tokyo Japan, U.S. Air Force, War Crimes

Thursday, October 26, 1944. End of the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Damaged  Japanese cruiser Kumano bombed by planes of Task Force 38 on 26 October 1944,

The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended as a complete Japanese defeat, effectively ending the Imperial Japanese Navy as a cohesive force.  On this day the Japanese lost the cruisers Abukuma, Kinu and Noshiro, destroyers Hayashimo, Nowaki and Uranami and submarine I-26.

Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria's youngest child, died at age 87.

Gertrude Tompkins Silver and the P-51D she was flying disappeared in a delivery flight from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ.

She was 33 years old and had jointed the WASPs after a boyfriend died fighting in the RAF.  She was the only WASP pilot to be classified as missing during the Second World War.

Sarah Sundin notes in her blog:

German 20th Mountain Army begins scorched-earth retreat in Finnmark region of northern Norway; 43,000 will be evicted & evacuated, their homes destroyed.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 25, 1944. The biggest day of the biggest naval battle in history.

Labels: Australian Navy, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battle off Samar, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italy, Norway, Red Army, Romania, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Today in World War II History—October 26, 1939 & 1944

Today in World War II History—October 26, 1939 & 1944: 80 Years Ago—Oct. 26, 1944: The Battle of Leyte Gulf concludes with a decisive US victory, despite heavy Japanese kamikaze attacks.

Wednesday, October 25, 1944. The biggest day of the biggest naval battle in history.

The USS St. Lo, the first  U.S. ship to be sunk by a kamikaze during World War Two, moments after being hit.

The heaviest fighting in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese effort to draw the U.S. Navy off of support for the invasion of Leyte and to destroy it, occurred.  The Battle  off Samar occurred as part of it.

The first mass use of kamikazes occured as part of the Japanese effort.   The escort carrier USS St. Lo was sunk by kamikazes, the first of 47 ships to be lost to such attacks during the war.

The U.S. escort carrier USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71) prepares to launch Grumman FM-2 Wildcat fighters during the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944.  Japanese shells are splashing near the USS White Plains (CVE-66) in the background.  A rare example of an aircraft carrier launching aircraft while a surface vessel shells another one.

The Imperial Japanese Navy lost the aircraft carriers Chitose, Chiyoda and Zuikaku, battleships Fusō and Yamashiro, cruisers Chikuma, Chōkai and Suzuya and the destroyers Akizuki, Asagumo, Michishio, Wakaba and Yamagumo.

Lowering the flag on Zuikaku as she sinks.  She was the last of the aircraft carriers that participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor still afloat.  Half the crew would survive.

The Americans lost the escort carriers USS Gambier Bay and USS St. Lo and destroyers USS Hoel and USS Johnston. 

The Japanese battleship Yamato and a heavy cruiser at Samar.

The scale of the battle, and the intense fighting it involved, can hardly be imagined today.

The Red Army took the port town of Kirkenes, Norway.

Soviet forces completed clearing the Transylvania region of Romania.

8in howitzer being laid into place in France, October 25, 1944.

The Italian government of Ivanoe Bonomi was recognized.

Dog faces, October 25, 1944.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 24, 1944. Leyte Gulf, day two.

Labels: "Wacht am Rhein", 1940s, 1944, Adolf Hitler, Australian Navy, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battle of the Bulge, China Burma India Theater, Imperial Japanese Navy, Kamikaze, Philippines, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Tuesday, October 24, 1944. Leyte Gulf, day two.

It was a major day of naval maneuvering off of Leyte Gulf.

The USS Princeton was hit by kamikazes and so badly damaged that it had to be scuttled.  The Japanese destroyer Wakaba was sunk by aircraft from the USS Franklin.  The Musashi was sunk in the Sibuyan Sea by U.S. aircraft.  T he USS Shark was sunk by Japanese warships.  The USS Darter ran aground in the Palawan Strait and was scuttled.

The Japanese prison ship Arisan Maru was sunk in the South China Sea by an American submarine. Only nine of the 1,781 Allied and civilian prisoners of war survived the sinking.

The 1st Cavalry Division landed on Samar.

Martial law was lifted in Hawaii.

The Soviets prevailed in the Riga Offensive.

The British entered Lamia, Greece.

The China Burma India Theatre was divided into the India-Burma Theater and the China Theater.

Hitler announces his intent to launch an offensive in the Ardennes.

Blood plasma refrigeration unit above was mounted on wheeled machine gun mount by enlisted men serving in France with the 1st Army since D-Day. S/Sgt. Homer N. Shrimplin, of Jelloway, Ohio, and Pvt. Frank Bozoyak, of Bordentown, N.J., are hitching the unit to their truck. 24 October, 1944.

Japanese-American infantrymen attend church services outside their billet in France. 24 October, 1944. 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Last edition:

Monday, October 23, 1944. The Largest Naval Battle In History.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Australian Navy, Battle of Leyte Gulf, boats and ships, France, German Kriegsmarine, Imperial Japanese Navy, U.S. Navy, Volkssturm, World War Two

Today in World War II History—October 23, 1939 & 1944

Today in World War II History—October 23, 1939 & 1944: 80 Years Ago—Oct. 23, 1944: Battle of Leyte Gulf begins as Japanese fleet lures the US Third Fleet away from the landing beaches at Leyte in the Philippines.

Last edition:

Today in World War II History—October 22, 1939 & 1944

Labels: 1930s, 1939, 1940s, 1944, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Imperial Japanese Navy, Philippines, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Monday, October 23, 1944. The Largest Naval Battle In History.

The largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, began in the Leyte Gulf with the submarines Darter and DAce sinking the Japanese cruisers Atago and Maya.

The U-985 was irreparably damaged by a mine off of Lista, Norway.

The Provisional Government of the French Republic was recognized by the Allies.

German radio reported great success in raising Volkssturm volunteers.

Japanese-American GIs bring in wounded Jerries in Bruyeres, France. Here, one gets a free ride, probably his last of the war, via the back of one of his comrades. 23 October, 1944.  442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 22, 1944. Smokey Smith.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Leyte, Battle of Memel, Belgium, Canadian Army, Catholic, Christianity, Clothing, Finland, Heroes, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italy, Norway, Philippines, Red Army, religion

Wednesday, September 27, 1944. The Battle of Metz commences.

S/Sgt. Claude W. Small, of Summit Street, Boothwyn, Pennsylvania reads a letter from home.  27 September, 1944.

The Red Army and Yugoslav partisans crossed into Albania.

The Battle of Metz began.

Only four B-24s out of thirty-five from the 445th BG survive the round trip from their base in the UK to their target at Kassel.

The Finnish army took Pudasjärvi in northern Finland from the Germans.

Sweden closed its ports to German shipping.

The Japanese troop transport and hospital ship Ural Maru was sunk in the South China Sea by the USS Flasher.  2,000 perished in the sinking.

The HMS Rockingham hit a mine in the North Sea and ultimately sank.

Australian sailors, September 27, 1944.

Controversial evangelist Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson died at age 53 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

McPherson inspired a major plot, in a very fictionalized form, in the revived Perry Mason series.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 26, 1944. Coastal artillery exchange.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Artillery, Eindhoven, German Army, Greece, Greek Partisans, Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Pas-de-Calais France, Red Army, Royal Air Force, Tallinn, World War Two

Friday, May 14, 1943. The sinking of the AHS Centaur.

The AHS Centaur hospital ship was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-177 killing 268 of the 363 personnel on board. There were no patients. They were all Australian and British medical personnel and the crew.

The sinking of the marked Australian hospital ship sparked British and Australian outrage and an official protest.  Japan denied the sinking, but after the war, in the 1970s, blame was generally fixed in the I-777.  The I-777 was sunk in 1944, but it's commander, Hajime Nakagawa, survived the war, having been transferred to other duties prior to that time.  He never publicly spoke on the event.

On the same day, the Japanese lost the Ro-102 to American action, potentially PT boat action.  The German's lost three submarines at Kiel due to an American air raid, although all three would later be restored to action.  The U-640, sunk by a PBY off of Greenland, would not, however.

The United States Public Roads Administration reported that only a few states were observing the 35 mph wartime highway "Victory Speed Limit" imposed by the Federal Government.

35mph is slow, but not quite as slow as it would now be regarded.  Most cars were lower geared than they presently are, and pickup trucks were very much so.  Many state highways were narrow single lane highways at the time.