Monday, April 24, 1944. Violating Swiss Airspace.

L-R: Lt. Col. Earl Hormell, aide to Gen. Devers, and Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, Deputy Supreme Commander, Me. Theater, pose with Ghurka troops as the general visits the front that the Ghurka was fighting on. Orsogna Sector, Italy, April 24, 1944.  Lt. Gen. Devers is wearing a non-regulation set of pull on "engineer's boots".  Devers was an artilleryman who was an early advocated of mechanization and who had participated in the development of the Army's armored forces, including the design of the M4 Sherman and the M26 Pershing.  Upon his retirement in 1949 at age 62, he became a cattle farmer.

The Finisterre Range Campaign in New Guinea concluded in an Allied victory.  US forces reached Lake Sentani near Hollandia. Australian forces took Madang.

The RAF violated Swiss airspace in order to evade Munich's air warning system.  Earlier in the day, the U.S. Army Air Force had raided the heavily defended city, losing 55 aircraft, 14 of which crashed into Switzerland.

Italy started fielding a "Co Belligerent Air Force" in support of the Allies over the Adriatic.

The Special Boat Service raided Santorini in the Aegean.

A British blockade of mutinous Greek troops in Egypt ceased.

Double Indemnity was released in Brazil, a few months ahead of the American release.

Why Brazil?  I have no idea.

Funeral for German POW Richard Jasker, Camp Robinson Nebraska. 24 April, 1944.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 23, 1944. Hollandia taken, MacArthur lands, John C. Squire's posthumous MoH, Greek troubles, Pyrgoi Massacre, Tragic accident, Missing mobster.

1940s, 1944, Battle of Hollandia, Crime, Douglas MacArthur, Greek Civil War, Heroes, Italian Social Republic, Italy, Mafia, Music, New Guinea, Operation Persecution, Operation Reckless, World War Two

Thursday, July 23, 1923. No gas for anything.

The early stages of the Battle of Belgorod began on the Eastern Front when the Wehrmacht's XI Army Corps returned to their prior fortified positions on both sides of the city

Brazil, having banned the use of gasoline powered automobiles the prior year, now did the same for motorcycles in order to conserve fuel.

Sarah Sundin, on her blog, notes:

Today in World War II History—July 23, 1943: First US naval air squadron to operate in Britain arrives for antisubmarine duty—squadron VP-63 with PBY Catalinas, nicknamed the “Mad Cats."

She also notes that Rommel assumed command of Army Group E in Greece to defend that territory from an anticipated Allied invasion.

Monday, January 8, 1973. Kissinger gets yelled at.

Lê Đức Thọ confronted Henry Kissinger in anger about the Christmas bombings, yelling at Kissinger for more than an hour.  Somewhat ironically for a country that was heir to the Viet Minh effort against the French, particularly for a former prisoner of the French, he did so in French.

Lê Đức Thọ

The Brazilian government kidnapped six left wing opponents of the military regime and murdered them.  While it in no way excuses what occurred, at least one of those murdered was a left wing extremist with a long history in left wing movements in South America.

Mexican television networks Telesistema Mexicano and Televisión Independiente de México, merged to create a Televisa.

Friday, November 13, 1942. The Sullivan's

In North Africa, the British 8th Army captured Tobruk, a major British victory and a major Afrika Korps defeat.

Off of the Solomon's, the Japanese sank the U.S. Navy light cruiser Juneau, which took 687 men with it, including five brothers of the Irish Catholic Sullivan family of Iowa.

The Sullivans.

It's commonly asserted that after this the U.S. military would not allow siblings to serve together, but in fact many siblings were already serving together in combat in North Africa as members of Federalized National Guard units. Entire towns would end up loosing huge numbers of their male citizens in the combat actions to come. There was a policy change, which relieved a sole survivor from military service, but it did not come until 1943, and was partially due to the deaths of the Borgstrom brothers of Utah as well.  Indeed, the Navy already had a policy precluding siblings from serving on the same vessel, but they did not actively enforce it.

A sister of the Sullivan brothers remained in Navy service.  Indeed, their enlistment in the Navy, or in once case a reenlistment, was to avenge the death of her boyfriend, who died at Peal Harbor.

The Sullivan family was not informed of the death of their sons until 1943, at which time their father was informed of all of their deaths at one time.  The Navy would commission a ship in their honor during the war, and oddly enough, one of the sons of the one of the men lost would later serve as a post-war officer aboard it. That ship has been decommissioned, but a second The Sullivans was commissioned to take its place.  

The current The Sullivans.

The tragic story was also made into a patriotic movie during the war itself, which was released in 1944.

The Sullivan story was the inspiration for the film Saving Private Ryan, although it's obviously in a much different setting.

It should be noted that at least over 100 men survived the sinking of the Juneau, and were spotted by an USAAC B-17, but radio silence precluded its rapid reporting.

On the same day the cruiser Atlanta and the destroyers Barton, Cushing, Laffey, Monssen and Preston went down while the Japanese suffered the loss of the cruiser Kinugasa and destroyers Akatsuki and Yūdachi.

Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama broke off diplomatic relations with Vichy France.

September 7, 1822. Dom Pedro I declares Brazil independent of Portugal.

Dom Pedro I declared the independence of Brazil on this day in 1822.

I don't know this story well, nor do I know the history of Portugal well, which this event is tightly tied into.  Pedro was a Portuguese-born member of a noble family close to the thrown in Portugal.  Born with the full name of Pedro de Alcântara Francisco António João Carlos Xavier de Paula Miguel Rafael Joaquim José Gonzaga Pascoal Cipriano Serafim, he not only became Emperor of Brazil, but bizarrely, due to revolution and family associations, was briefly later King of Portugal.

Something often missed in the United States is the fact that early independence movements in Latin America sometimes featured contests between propertied American located noblemen vs. their European opposites, and were not examples of common people rebelling against their colonial masters.  No matter how a person might tend to characterize the American Revolution, they were often not analogous to it and featured little input or concern for common people.  I'm not familiar, as noted, with the Brazilian episode, as noted, but it is interesting to note that this provides an example of a contest between societal monarchical elites.  The first revolutions in Mexico very much followed this pattern before they turned into true revolutions against the Spanish noble class.

Saturday, August 22, 1942. Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.

Brazil, having endured several days of German U-boat attacks, declared war on Germany and Italy.  The Germans has presumed, incorrectly, that Allied ships were taking refuge in South American territorial waters.

Brazil would contribute some ground forces to the war in Europe, but its major contribution would be in regard to providing its massive coastline in the war effort.

On this day, the German 16th Panzer Division crossed the Don, with the path to Stalingrad now open before it.

A renewed naval battle in the Savo Sound occurred between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy in the early morning hours, resulting in the ultimate loss of the USS Blue.

The Chinese captured Yuijiang.

In the Caribbean, an American B-18, a plane we hardly think of in the context of World War Two, sank the U-654.

B-18.

The USS Ingraham sank off of Nova Scotia after she was hit in fog by the oil tanker Chemung.

Wednesday July 5, 1922. Chapter 4 of the Great Gatsby.

In the novel The Great Gatsby, today is the date on which Nick recounts the guest list.

In Brazil, the first of the Tenente rebellions began, in which junior army officers rose up.  In this case, they demanded agrarian and distributist reforms.

Wednesday, March 11, 1942. They Were Expendable

 

Lieutenant, later Admiral, John Bulkeley, who commanded the PT boat unit that evacuated the MacArthurs.  He'd receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for service during the war and served in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Today in World War II History—March 11, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Mar. 11, 1942: In the Philippines, Gen. Douglas MacArthur evacuates Corregidor by PT boat with his family and staff for Mindanao. Col. Karl Bendetsen is appointed director of US Wartime Civil Control Administration to supervise removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. Britain bans sale of white bread, replaced by National Wheatmeal Loaf made of whole wheat and potato flour.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

This is indeed a day in which a famous event in World War Two occurred, that being the evacuation of Douglas MacArthur and his family from Corregidor.  It was done under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt.  While MacArthur was obeying a direct order, the event remained famously controversial among some.

Admiral Francis Rockwell and his family was also included, which for some reason is hardly ever noted.

The event was recorded in the well known book They Were Expendable, which was turned into a movie, both of which were produced during the war, the book in 1942 and the movie in 1945. The movie was released, however, just after the war, in December 1945.  It was directed by John Ford and featured John Wayne.

Brazilian President Getulio Vargas issued a decree that stated his powers to declare war or a state of emergency, which lead to the confiscation of the property of Axis countries in Brazil.

September 29, 1941. Babi Yar Masscre Commences.

A horror of epic proportions, in an event that features many epic horrors.

Today in World War II History—September 29, 1941

Over two days the SS would kill an unknown number of Ukrainians including over 30,000 Jewish Ukrainians.  Somewhere between 50,000 and 96,000 Ukrainians would be killed overall in the event.

The scale of such events makes the "we didn't know" excuse levied by so many Germans after the war simply lacking in credibility.  

German forces entered the Ukrainian Donets Basin on this day in 1941.

In Moscow Soviet minister Molotov, who also knew about plenty of state sponsored bloodshed, met with Canadian Lord Beaverbrook, who was serving as the British Minister of Supply, and Averell Harriman, from the ostensibly neutral United States, about lend lease to the Soviet Union.

Brazil gave the U.S. Navy operating rights from two Brazilian ports.

June 21, 1919. The Germans Scuttle Their Fleet in Scapa Flow.

The Bayern sinking.

On this day in 1919 German sailors, those loyal to their officers who had been retained while less loyal ones had been sent home, followed their officers orders and sent fifteen flag ships, thirty two destroyers and four cruisers to the bottom of Scapa Flow rather than turn them over to the Allies.

The action was both an acquiesce that the game was up for Germany in a definitive and irretrievable way and an act of defiance.  The German commander in charge of the interned fleet was under the impression that the Armistice would come to an end on this day and the Allies would seize the vessels.  He was aware that they could not escape, so scuttling them was an act of loyalty towards his government, if a Pyrrhic on that also acknowledged that the German cause was lost.

Some of the same vessels had been involved in mutinies against the German government in 1918 during which German sailors had demonstrated that they were done with the war and were teetering on the brink of communist rebellion.  Those same crews had not been reliable in internment, but the officers had sent disloyal sailors back to Germany as the crews of the ships were reduced while they were in Scapa flow.  So by this time, the remaining crewmen were loyal to their officers.

The sea cocks of the vessels were opened up around 10:00 but their sinking was not noticeable for another two hours.  At that time the German sailors abandoned their ships, although about fifteen were shot by the British in the process. They became prisoners of war.  Not all of the German ships in Scapa Flow were sunk, and the those that were not were taken into British possession.  The sunken ships themselves were left in place until 1923 when some were salvaged as part of a private operation.

The German navy never regained the status it had prior to this date.

Of course, it wouldn't have in any event.  While the ships went into internment with the hope that some would be released to a new German navy, there was little realistic hope of that.

The German scuttling made the headlines as far away as Wyoming that very day.  At the same time readers were reading that the country might be on the brink of war, but with Mexico.

The paper noted correctly that Germany needed to form a new cabinet, and in fact it already had.  At the same time, Eamon DeValera was in the country arguing for the recognition of his government in Ireland.

As the German fleet was sinking, in Vanada Virginia, this ship was being launched.

And the President of Brazil was visiting Washington D. C.

Coffee

Coffee rationing began in on this day in 1942.

Smiling soldier.  I think he's drinking coffee.  I may have had to volunteer for service (which I likely would have done anyway) just in order to get a cup of coffee.

I would not have liked that.  Coffee roasters were already restricted to 75% of their war time prior average.  This resulted not due to fewer beans being produced during the war.  Not hardly. Rather, it resulted from the fact that this import crop is shipped to the continental United States

I think that's something that we tend not to ponder much. Coffee is a huge American drink, just like tea is a huge British drink, but in neither case do these consuming nations produce the elemental crop locally.  Given that, it's really amazing that either drink has such a hold in the consuming nation.  Indeed, by and large, with some slight exception, its not even grown in the Norther Hemisphere.  Kona coffee, grown in Hawaii, is the only coffee actually grown in the United States, in so far as I'm aware.

Just consider it for a moment.  The bean that is roasted to produce the crop is grown thousands of miles from the continental United States, roasted (often) in the US, and then packaged for sale here.  It's pretty amazing that there's more than a couple of varieties of it, frankly, or that its even affordable.

The Coffee Bearer, by John Frederick Lewis, Orientalist painter.  The same figure was a figure in his painting The Armenian Lady, whose servant she is portrayed as being.

As an aside, the second biggest coffee bean producer in the world (the first is Brazil) is. . . . Vietnam.

One more reason that not having prevailed in the Vietnam War is unfortunate, to say the least.

Well, anyhow, it's not cheap, as any coffee drinker will tell you. But it's not terribly pricey either.

And somehow, it's gone from a few basic brands to a wide variety of specialty brands and brews of every imaginable type and variety.

Coffee varieties have of course always existed.  Interestingly, one of the contenders for oldest coffee brand sold in the United States is Lion Brand which is Kona coffee.  Lion was first sold in the United States, as green coffee beans, in 1864.  Pretty darned early.  Hawaii wasn't an American territory at the time.  Folgers has them beat, however, dating back to 1850.  Hills Brothers dates to 1878.  Maxwell House to 1892.

Arbuckle Coffee, for some reason, was a huge item in the West in the late 1800s, showing how brands come and go.  I've never seen Arbuckles sold today, although it apparently still exists.  The owners of the company, John and Charles Arbuckle, owned a ranch near Cheyenne, although I don't know if that explains the connection with the West, or if perhaps that connection worked the other way around.

Now there's a zillion brands of coffee, many of which I don't recognize, and many which have pretensions towards coffee greatness.  This seems to have come about due to the rise of coffee houses, lead in a major way by Starbucks.  There's a Starbucks on every street corner now, it seems.  I'll be frank that I don't like their coffee much at all.  Too strong, and I like strong coffee.  Anyhow, the many specialty brews that Starbucks makes has spawned many various specialty coffees, or at least different coffees, to the extent to which a person can hardly keep track of it.  Over the weekend I was in City Brew, one of the local coffee houses, as well as Albertsons, where a Starbucks is located, and they both had "Christmas Blends".  How can there be a Christmas blend of coffee?

Chock full o' Nuts, a brand that, as the can indicates, has been around since 1932.  That was the date the company founder changed his nut shops into lunch counters, figuring that they were a better bet during the Great Depression.  I used to drink Chock full o' Nuts when I was in college but stopped as it seemed to have way too much caffeine.

Not that I'm complaining.  I frankly like the vast variety in coffee. And while I'm not inclined to buy something like Starbucks Free Range Easter Island Coffee Licked Gently By Baby Yaks, I will buy peculiar roasts just because the sound interesting. And I tend towards those dark roasts even if I sometimes wish I'd gotten something milder.

And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere.  Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store.  I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here.  Quasi local, as it were.  A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders.  One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff.  City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana.  I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.

And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town.  Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was.  No special roasts or blends.  Just a up of joe.

And I prefer to buy from the locals as well.  Subsidarity in action, I suppose.  Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.

In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands.  Most of those are still around,  but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands.  I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee.  Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.

Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of.  But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.

Industrial strength coffee grinder.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Related threads:

Coffee

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health

Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago: Keep Coffee Warm with a Thermos

National Coffee Day.

The Joy of Field Rations: Roasting Coffee in the Field

The Laramie Boomerang for April 9, 1917: US Guns are Trained on the Mexican Troops

Monday, March 23, 1914. Doubts about Roosevelt's fate on the River of Doubt.

We just posted an item for 1909 on Theodore Roosevelt leaving the US for his legendary 1909, 1910 safari.  Famously, after losing his effort to regain the Presidency in the three-way race in 1912, he embarked on the exploration of what was then known as the River of Doubt, or more officially the Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition

That trip was plagued by horrific events, one of which was detailed in this edition of the Cheyenne based Wyoming Tribune.

It's often noted that Roosevelt never recovered from this trip, but that can be somewhat debated.  It's true he was never himself thereafter, but Roosevelt had been a vigorous proponent of "the Strenuous Life" and had lived it.  While this is fully admirable, and today would be cited to some degree as a life extending practice, Roosevelt had experienced ill health with asthma in his youth (as have I), and had been shot during the 1912 campaign.  Four years of semi enforced idleness as Vice President and President had taken their toll as well, and by the time he left office in 1909 he was, in my view, beginning to significantly age even though he was not yet 60.

Having said that, he made a really dedicated effort to join the Army as head of an expeditionary unit during World War One, so he had plenty of vigor left, even after these ordeals.

It's also noteworthy how, just before World War One, there was plenty of exploration of the remote regions of the globe still going on.  The era immediately before the war seems to have been the last great push in the age of exploration.

Last prior edition:

March 21, 1914. Yo acuso

Related threads:

Tuesday, March 23, 1909. Bound for Africa.

1900s, 1909, hunting, Movies, New York, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft

Friday, February 27, 1914. The River of Doubt.

Mexican strongman Victoriano Huerta promised an investigation into the death of Clemente Vergara while, at the same time, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan announced that the Texas Rangers would not be allowed to cross into Mexico to arrest the suspect Mexican soldiers.

Theodore Roosevelt's and Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon's expedition team reached Caceres, Brazil, to begin exploration of the Rio da Dúvida, an event from which Roosevelt's health would never recover by the time it was done.

The Vanderbilt Cup race was held.

Locally, the news was asbestos, but not the way it hits the news currently.