Boers at Magaliesberg captured 573 British troops.
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Showing posts with label British Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British Army. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2025
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Saturday, December 11, 1915. The last peacetime Christmas.
Field Marshall John French was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces in Great Britain.
An Allied column in the Sahara survived a Senussi attack which was repulsed by superior firepower and Australian mounted reinforcements.
The Bulgarian army captured Bogdanci.
It was a Saturday:
Leyendecker's cover was a Christmas theme. There would not be another peacetime Christmas in the US until 1918.
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Friday, December 10, 1915. 1,000,000 Fords and the high cost of living.
Monday, December 8, 2025
Wednesday, December 8, 1915. In Flanders Fields published.
In Flanders Fields was published anonymously in Punch.
Monday, May 3, 1915. In Flanders Fields.
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Army, whom a great aunt of mine served with, wrote In Flanders Fields.
The Bulgarians broke through Anglo French lines at Kosturino.
British troops burned an African village that had been supplying the Germans at the Siege of Mora.
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Tuesday, December 7, 1915. Wilson delivers a State of the Union Address.
Monday, November 17, 2025
Saturday, November 17, 1945. Charles De Gaulle says Non to the Communists.
Charles de Gaulle made a broadcast to the people of France announcing that he rejecting the position of president of FRance due to the "excessive demands regarding ministerial posts." He further announced that he would continue serving but would refuse to appoint any Communist to "any post related to foreign affairs."
Communist had done extremely well in the recent election and were a major component of the coalition government, taking more votes that any other party. The French Section of the Workers International, a French Socialist Party, had done very well also, coming in third. Coming in just behind the Communists, however, was the Catholic Popular Republican Movement. All three parties were in coalition that dates back to the election, with the coalition having De Gaulle's support at the time.
France was, quite frankly, on the very verge of becoming a Communist state, given the strong left wing turnout in the election. If it had, it would have been a disaster of epic proportions for the West. Most people looking at it objectively would have supposed that France would fall to the Communist.
This helps put in context, to a certain extent, the degree to which French military and political figures were proactive in trying to reestablish French colonialism, which was cast, with some credibility, as a war between Western ideals and Communism, although only imperfectly so. That France didn't go into a civil war is in no small part due to DeGaulle. DeGaulle would whether the leftist Third Republic, after which France would pull back from the brink. Still, having said that, why France fought it out in Indochina, and Algeria, makes a lot more sense if that history is grasped.
Josef Kramer, Irma Grese, Dr. Fritz Klein and eight others were sentenced to death by a British military court as Nazi war criminals for their roles in the concentration camps.
Kramer had come up in the concentration camp system, having been in the SS prior to World War Two.He was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen Belsen.
Grese was 22 years old making her the youngest person to die under British law in the 20th Century. She'd joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel in 1937 at age 13, causing a rift with her father who did not approve of the Nazi Party. She left home at age 14 and entered the SS at age 18, having already worked for Karl Gelbardt by that time. In the camps she gained responsibility and became incredibly sadistic as well as extremely perverted perverted sadistic bisexual who had affairs with imprisoned Jewish women, and who is rumored to have a had one with Josef Kramer, until he learned of that. She was a sadist, and clearly an extremely tortured soul mentally.
Regarding her, inmate Auschwitz Romanian Jewish gynecologist Gisella Perl stated:
She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. And yet, Irma Greze was the most depraved, cruel, imaginative sexual pervert I ever came across.
Perl relocated to Israel after the war with her daughter, whom she hid from the Naizs, and died there on December 16, 1988, at the age of 81
Kramer and Grese, August 8, 1945.
Frankly, a lot of Nazism was an absolute perversion.
News of Grese's death sentence hit the front pages in the United States. The Sheridan newspaper used one of her two common nicknames, the Beast of Belsen (the Hyena of Belsen was the other), its story on her.
The ongoing investigation on Pearl Harbor also made the front news, as did the French political scene.
A selection of Saturday cartoons from the paper:
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This would be subject to copyright, but we run it here under the fair use exception to note how common hunting themes were at the time.
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Friday, November 16, 1945. UNESCO founded. USS Laramie decommissioned.
Saturday, November 8, 2025
Thursday, November 8, 1945. British ultimatum in Indonesia.
British commander in Indonesia E. C. Mansergh ordered Indonesians to surrender their arms by 18:00 or face "all the naval, army and air forces under my command". Sukarno appealed to President Truman and Prime Minister Attlee to intervene.
Former Hungarian Prime Minister László Bárdossy was sentenced to death.
August von Mackensen, age 95, famous German Field Marshal, died, which seems somehow fitting, not only because of his advanced old age, but also because the Germanys he served had effectively died as well.
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Sunday, November 4, 1945. Independent Smallholders Party win the Hungarian parliamentary elections.
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Agrarianism, Communism, Culture, Hungary, hunting, It was because of World War Two, Urbanization
Friday, September 19, 2025
Wednesday, September 19, 1945. Kim Il Sung returns to Korea.
Kim Il Sung arrived at Port Wonsan and began to organize the Communist Party of Korea.
Kim was born into a Presbyterian family. He fled to Manchuria in 1920 after being involved in anti Japanese activities. He was in his mid teens at the time and then attended military schools. It was while he was in China that he became interested in Communism. He was a figure in the Chinese Communist Army during the pre World War Two Chinese Civil War and then again during World War Two, crossing into the Soviet Union in 1940. He then joined the Red Army. The Soviets chose Kim in order to have a Communist figure to introduce into Korea even though he was poorly educated and by 1940 his Korean was very poor. His early life is not very well known.
Navy aircraft over Inchon, September 1945.
British and French troops complete the suppression of the Việt Minh in Saigon.
New Zealand ratified the UN Charter.
William Joyce was sentenced to death.
The British announced that Indian would shortly be granted home rule.
Shirley temple married Sgt. John Agar, a fellow actor. She was 17 years old. Agar was 25.
The marriage wouldn't last.
Agar had a real drinking problem, although he amazingly lived to age 81. Apparently he's associated with B science fiction movies, but I always associate him with John Ford westerns. He also appeared in The Sands of Iwo Jima. He met Shirley Temple in 1943 when he escorted her to a Hollywood party. She would only have been 15 years old at the time.
His second marriage lasted 49 years.
He had a remarkably long film career, although many of his roles were very minor. In World War Two he served first in the Navy, joining in 1941 and then in the Army Air Force as a physical instructor. He was discharged from the Navy due to an ear infection.
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Shirley Temple in 1943.
Temple is a film legend, of course, but had trouble transitioning from being a child actress to adult film roles, even though the ones she appeared in showed her to be a very talented adult actress. This would lead to an early retirement from film, something that was hastened by a negative reaction to being propositioned by MGM figure Arthur Freed and Louis B. Mayer on the same day, when she was only 12, leading to her returning to Fox from MGM without much success. She later became the US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the Reagan Administration.
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Tuesday, September 18, 1945. The first desegregation student protest.
Friday, August 29, 2025
Wednesday, August 29, 1945. The USS Missouri arrives at Tokyo Bay.
Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek met for talks to avert civil war, which was already going on, between the Communists and the Nationalists in China. The Xinghua Campaign began on the same day.
Japanese troops in Southeast Asia, numbering around 740,000 surrendered to the British.
The Royal Navy arrived to reestablish British control of Hong Kong.
The USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay.
US military investigations on the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor were released. They contained criticism of former Secretary of State Hull, General Marshall and Admiral Stark Truman objected to the findings on Marshall and Hull.
The musical State Fair was released.
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Tuesday, April 28, 1945. U.S. Troops in Japan.
Monday, August 4, 2025
Saturday, August 4, 1945. Tibbets briefs his crew.
Paul Tibbets briefed his crew on the upcoming bombing mission to Hiroshima, telling the crew that the bombs would be immensely powerful and "something new in the history of warfare". No specifics were provided.
Tibbets had entered the Army in 1937 in order to become a pilot after dropping out of medical school. He died in 2007 at age 92.
The U.S. Army Air Force continued to drop leaflets over Japan warning of the destruction of cities.
British troops in Lower Sittang cleared the Japanese from the Pegu-Martaban railay at Abya.
Japanese troops executed seven captured American airmen in Singapore.
The Soviet Union gifted the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow with a bugged plaque.
On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe by Johnny Mercer was number one on the music charts.
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Friday, August 3, 1945. The end for Japan in Burma.
Labels: 1940s, 1942, 1945, Burma, China Burma India Theater, Czechoslovakia, Ethnicities, French Navy, World War Two
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Tuesday, July 29, 1945. The sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The 509th Composite Group receives orders for Operation Silverplate. The last Medal of Honor of World War Two.
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The USS Indianapolis was sunk by the submarine I-58. Secrecy due to its role in delivering the atomic bomb to Tinian would keep its sinking secrete for several days, leading to the greatest mass shark attack in history.
The 509th Composite Group of the United States Air Force received the order that would lead to the dropping of the first atomic bomb.
Melvin Mayfield performed the actions that resulted in his winning the Medal of Honor.
He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while fighting in the Cordillera Mountains of Luzon, Philippine Islands. When 2 Filipino companies were pinned down under a torrent of enemy fire that converged on them from a circular ridge commanding their position, Cpl. Mayfield, in a gallant single-handed effort to aid them, rushed from shell hole to shell hole until he reached 4 enemy caves atop the barren fire-swept hill. With grenades and his carbine, he assaulted each of the caves while enemy fire pounded about him. However, before he annihilated the last hostile redoubt, a machinegun bullet destroyed his weapon and slashed his left hand. Disregarding his wound, he secured more grenades and dauntlessly charged again into the face of pointblank fire to help destroy a hostile observation post. By his gallant determination and heroic leadership, Cpl. Mayfield inspired the men to eliminate all remaining pockets of resistance in the area and to press the advance against the enemy.
You'll note that this occurred on Luzon, which the US had declared to be secured.
He survived the war and died in 1990 at age 71.
His action was the last action of the war to result in a Medal of Honor.
Henry Ford issued a statement declaring:
the nation and the world are on the threshold of a prosperity and standard of living that never before were considered possible.
I'm not a fan of Ford's, but he was correct, perhaps beyond his wildest imagination.
The British 8th Army, the Desert Rats, was disbanded.
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Saturday, July 28, 1945. Taking no notice.
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Monday, July 16, 1945. Trinity.
The first detonation of an atomic weapon.
The name is nearly blasphemous. The device itself was called the "Gadget".
Nuclear power, sadly, arrived in the form of a weapon. It had not, however, yet been used that way.
British soldiers were taking advantage of the relaxation of the fraternization rules by chatting with German women. We often hear of the calorie deprivation of the Second World War, but, while not seeking to be vulgar, the young woman on the far right clearly hadn't been too calorie deprived in the late stages of the war.
Related threads:
Saturday, July 14, 1945. Verboten und Nicht Verboten
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Dwight Eisenhower, Evolutionary Biology, Germany, Hitler Youth, It was because of World War Two, Italy, Japan, League of German Girls, Nazi Germany, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, Women, World War Two
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Sunday, July 15, 1945. Lifting the blackout.
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Australian Army, Belgium, Japan, London England, Monarchy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, United Kingdom, World War Two
Friday, July 4, 2025
Wednesday, July 4, 1945. MacArthur declares things wrapped up while additional mopping up occurs in the Philippines.
"With the 6th Inf. Div. in the Cagayan Valley, Luzon, P.I., about 9 miles north of Bagabag along Highway 4. Scene showing a reinforcing patrol of A Co., 1st Bn. of the 63rd Regt. on road at the frontlines just prior to moving ahead. 4 July, 1945. Company A, 1st Battalion, 63rd Infantry Regiment, 6th Infantry Division. Photographer: Pfc. Murray Schneiweiss."
General Douglas MacArthur announced that the Philippines had been completely liberated while the 24th Infantry Division organized an amphibious expeditionary force to liberate Sarangani Bay, south of Davao.
Hmmm. . . .
President Truman released a short statement for the Fourth of July.
Statement by the President: The Fourth of July.
July 04, 1945
AGAIN THIS YEAR we celebrate July 4 as the anniversary of the day one hundred and sixty-nine years ago on which we declared our independence as a sovereign people.
In this year of 1945, we have pride in the combined might of this nation which has contributed signally to the defeat of the enemy in Europe. We have confidence that, under Providence, we soon may crush the enemy in the Pacific. We have humility for the guidance that has been given us of God in serving His will as a leader of freedom for the world.
This year, the men and women of our armed forces, and many civilians as well, are celebrating the anniversary of American Independence in other countries throughout the world. Citizens of these other lands will understand what we celebrate and why, for freedom is dear to the hearts of all men everywhere. In other lands, others will join us in honoring our declaration that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Here at home, on this July 4, 1945, let us honor our Nation's creed of liberty, and the men and women of our armed forces who are carrying this creed with them throughout the world.
Canadian troops in Aldershot rioted about the delay in returning them home to Canada.
Rumors started circulating in Berlin that Hitler was alive and well.
The British Occupation force arrived in the city.
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Tuesday, July 3, 1945. Don't use the Bomb.
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Monday, June 18, 1945. The death of Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.
Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. was killed by Japanese artillery on Okinawa. He was 58 years old, making him one of the older U.S. Generals of the Second World War.
The artillery projectile was of the flat shooting rifle type, and the projectile had actually ricocheted off of a coral reef, and then hit Buckner.
Prior to World War Two, Buckner had principally been involved in the education and training of troops. He had seen overseas duty, however, in the Philippines in 1908.
His father, the senior Simon Bolivar Buckner, had been an American Army officer during the Mexican War, and a Confederate general during the Civil war.
Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki informed the Japanese Supreme Council of Emperor Hirohito's intention to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible.
The USS Bonefish was sunk in Toyama Bay.
The Chinese Army took Wenchow.
The Soviets put sixteen officers of the Polish Home Army on trial for fighting the Soviets.
William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, was put on trial for treason.
The British Army began demobilizing.
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