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.

Saturday, August 8, 1942. Set Backs and Executions.

Six of the eight German saboteurs were executed on this day in 1942. The two who were not, were the two who cooperated with authorities.

It's notable how extremely rapid the sentencing to death was.  This all took place very quickly, far more quickly than would occur today.  Also of note is that the sentences have been, ever since, subject to some controversy.

It was the second day of action in the Solomons.

Photograph from Japanese ship during the Battle of Savo Island.

The Marines captured the unfinished Japanese airbase on Guadalcanal.  

On the same day, the Battle of Savo Island began off of the island between the U.S. Navy, Australian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy.  The Japanese task force had originally been formed to escort additional ground forces to Guadalcanal, but that had been called off when the Japanese realized the size of the US ground element.  Instead, it was decided to challenge the U.S. Navy off of the island.  The Japanese timed their action for night, having trained extensively for nighttime action prior to the war, something the Allies were not aware of.

The battle was a Japanese victory which impaired the Navy's ability to resupply the campaign on Guadalcanal. Four Allied heavy cruisers were lost as a result of the battle, before the Japanese withdrew so as to avoid exposure of their own forces to aircraft during the day.

On the same day, the Japanese sunk the troop/cargo ship, the USS George F. Elliot, off of Guadalcanal in an attack from a "Betty" bomber.

The Japanese action resulted in the Navy having to recalculate how to resupply the offensive at Guadalcanal, and in fact it resulted in reduced supplies.  The Navy's decisions on running supplies to the island in smaller vessels was sound, but it resulted in animosity with the Marines, who were unaware of what was occurring at sea and assumed that the Navy was being overcautious.

The Germans took Surovikino.

Gandhi made his "Quit India Speech", which stated:

Before you discuss the resolution, let me place before you one or two things I want you to understand two things very clearly and to consider them from the same point of view from which I am placing them before you. I ask you to consider it from my point of view, because if you approve of it, you will be enjoined to carry out all I say. It will be a great responsibility. There are people who ask me whether I am the same man that I was in 1920, or whether there has been any change in me or you. You are right in asking that question.

Let me, however, hasten to assure that I am the same Gandhi as I was in 1920. I have not changed in any fundamental respect. I attach the same importance to non-violence that I did then. If at all, my emphasis on it has grown stronger. There is no real contradiction between the present resolution and my previous writings and utterances.

Occasions like the present do not occur in everybody’s and rarely in anybody’s life. I want you to know and feel that there is nothing but purest Ahimsa in all that I am saying and doing today. The draft resolution of the Working Committee is based on Ahimsa, the contemplated struggle similarly has its roots in Ahimsa. If, therefore, there is any among you who has lost faith in Ahimsa or is wearied of it, let him not vote for this resolution. Let me explain my position clearly. God has vouchsafed to me a priceless gift in the weapon of Ahimsa. I and my Ahimsa are on our trail today. If in the present crisis, when the earth is being scorched by the flames of Himsa and crying for deliverance, I failed to make use of the God given talent, God will not forgive me and I shall be judged unworthy of the great gift. I must act now. I may not hesitate and merely look on, when Russia and China are threatened.

Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India’s independence. In a violent struggle, a successful general has been often known to effect a military coup and to set up a dictatorship. But under the Congress scheme of things, essentially non-violent as it is, there can be no room for dictatorship. A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country. The Congress is unconcerned as to who will rule, when freedom is attained. The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India, and it will be for them to decide to whom it placed in the entrusted. May be that the reins will be placed in the hands of the Parsis, for instance-as I would love to see happen-or they may be handed to some others whose names are not heard in the Congress today. It will not be for you then to object saying, “This community is microscopic. That party did not play its due part in the freedom’s struggle; why should it have all the power?” Ever since its inception the Congress has kept itself meticulously free of the communal taint. It has thought always in terms of the whole nation and has acted accordingly. . . I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and how far away we are still from the ideal, but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat. I have faith, therefore, that if, in spite of our shortcomings, the big thing does happen, it will be because God wanted to help us by crowning with success our silent, unremitting Sadhana for the last twenty-two years.

I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I read Carlyle’s French Revolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution. But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence.

Then, there is the question of your attitude towards the British. I have noticed that there is hatred towards the British among the people. The people say they are disgusted with their behaviour. The people make no distinction between British imperialism and the British people. To them, the two are one. This hatred would even make them welcome the Japanese. It is most dangerous. It means that they will exchange one slavery for another. We must get rid of this feeling. Our quarrel is not with the British people, we fight their imperialism. The proposal for the withdrawal of British power did not come out of anger. It came to enable India to play its due part at the present critical juncture. It is not a happy position for a big country like India to be merely helping with money and material obtained willy-nilly from her while the United Kingdom is conducting the war. We cannot evoke the true spirit of sacrifice and valor, so long as we are not free. I know the British Government will not be able to withhold freedom from us, when we have made enough self-sacrifice. We must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred. Speaking for myself, I can say that I have never felt any hatred. As a matter of fact, I feel myself to be a greater friend of the British now than ever before. One reason is that they are today in distress. My very friendship, therefore, demands that I should try to save them from their mistakes. As I view the situation, they are on the brink of an abyss. It, therefore, becomes my duty to warn them of their danger even though it may, for the time being, anger them to the point of cutting off the friendly hand that is stretched out to help them. People may laugh, nevertheless that is my claim. At a time when I may have to launch the biggest struggle of my life, I may not harbor hatred against anybody.

Gandhi and his immediate fellows were arrested in less than twenty-four hours.

The Saturday Evening Post featured an illustration of a smiling woman and Naval officer in whites, with the pair being an obvious couple.  She's admiring a medal with a blue ribbon around his neck, but we can't tell what the decoration is.  Colliers featured a very serious looking Navy officer at a wooden ship's wheel.

Wednesday November 19, 1941. British Commonwealth in Action.

It was a day for British news, albeit news spread all over the globe, just like the British Empire and Commonwealth.

HMAS Sydney

Off the coast of Australia the Australian light cruiser engaged the German auxiliary cruiser Komoran in surface action, something that people tend to imagine didn't occur during World War Two, but which in reality occurred a fair amount.  Both ships were so heavily damages that they were both lost.  The action occurred in the Indian Ocean off of the western coast of Australia.

The loss is a bit odd, however, in that the Sydney was sunk in the engagement but the Komoran had to be scuttled.  This is explained by the Komoran running as a disguised merchant ship and having the jump on the Syndney as its identity was about to be discovered.

It was an Australian tragedy.  All hands were lost from the over 600 man crew.

In North Africa, the British took Sidi Rezegh, ten miles south of besieged Tobruk.  On the same day Sir John Dill retired from his position as Chief of the General Staff and was replaced by Sir Alan Brooke.

Sir John Dill.

Dill was a remnant of the Chamberlin administration and was not a favorite of Churchill's.  Churchill promoted him uphill to remove him as Chief of Staff, at which point he was assigned to the British diplomatic mission in the United States, which he proved to be very adept at.  Well liked and well respected in the United States, he died of aplastic anemia in Washington in 1944.

Brooke would remain as Chief of the Imperial Staff through the rest of the war and into 1946.

June 25, 1941. The Continuation War, Murder and Executive Order 8802

Finland declared war on the Soviet Union with the goal of reclaiming territories lost in the Winter War.  It's goals were limited in the war to the recovery of territory lost to the Soviets, which it advanced into, took strategic positions, and then stopped.  This date is noted here:

Today in World War II History—June 25, 1941

The action put the Finns in bed with the Germans, and it wasn't a spur of the moment decision.  The Finns knew that Barbarossa was coming, and had agreed to the prestaging of German troops on its soil.  It was a calculated move betting on a German victory in the war, or at least on Germany obtaining a sufficiently advantageous result such that Finland would regain the territories it had lost.

Dealing with the Continuation War has always been a bit of a problem for Western historians as it does cut slightly against the grain in regard to the story of World War Two. Finland, with one slight exception, is the big exception to the rule regarding the Axis. Finland protected its Jewish population, with the exception of 8 individuals, and refused to hand them over to the Germans.  It halted its advance and went on the defensive as soon as it regained the territory it had lost, which in context was probably a strategic failure as it could have gained ethnic Finnish ground in the far north which would have also choked off Murmansk to Allies, which would be a port of resupply to the Soviets during the war.

Finland gambled incorrectly, of course, and would pay the price, albeit not as much of a price as a person might have suspected it would receive from the Soviets.

Symbol of the German Army's 163d Infantry Division.

On the same day Sweden agreed to allow the Germans to transport the German 163rd Infantry Division across its territory from Norway into Finland. The request had been made several days prior and had provoked a crisis in the Swedish government in which the King intervened with the request that it be allowed. The motivations for allowing it are complicated but tied to aiding its neighbor.  It's an example of how the neutrals of the Second World War not only were neutral, but frankly made significant concessions to nearby belligerents none the less.

The 163d spent most of the war with the Finns, being transported back to Germany late in the war.  It was destroyed by the Red Army in Pomerania in March, 1945.

Anti Jewish pogroms broke out in Lithuania. Centered in Kovno, the murders were conducted by Lithuanian civilians, not the Germans, at first, as the Germans had not yet reached the city. Upon their reaching it the killing would continue under their direction.

In Serbia, the Utashi opened the Slana camp, an island concentration camp, and began transporting Jews, and later Serbian and Croatian communists, to the island to be murdered.  The killing would stop when the Italians would occupy the island.

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which read:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8802

Reaffirming Policy of Full Participation in the Defense Program by All Persons, Regardless of Race, Creed, Color, or National Origin, and Directing Certain Action in Furtherance of Said Policy

WHEREAS it is the policy of the United States to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders; and

WHEREAS there is evidence that available and needed workers have been barred from employment in industries engaged in defense production solely because of considerations of race, creed, color, or national origin, to the detriment of workers' morale and of national unity:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as a prerequisite to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organizations, in furtherance of said policy and of this order, to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

And it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. All departments and agencies of the Government of the United States concerned with vocational and training programs for defense production shall take special measures appropriate to assure that such programs are administered without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

2. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all defense contracts hereafter negotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

3. There is established in the Office of Production Management a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which shall consist of a chairman and four other members to be appointed by the President. The Chairman and members of the Committee shall serve as such without compensation but shall be entitled to actual and necessary transportation, subsistence and other expenses incidental to performance of their duties. The Committee shall receive and investigate complaints of discrimination in violation of the provisions of this order and shall take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid. The Committee shall also recommend to the several departments and agencies of the Government of the United States and to the President all measures which may be deemed by it necessary or proper to effectuate the provisions of this order.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt
June 25, 1941

Australia formed its Naval Auxiliary Patrol.