US approves $64M sale of M4A1 carbine rifles to Ecuador

 US approves $64M sale of M4A1 carbine rifles to Ecuador

The question would be, however, with the US moving away from the 5.56 and the AR platform, why would any country want M4s now?

Monday, February 5, 1945. French SOE agents Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe, and Violette Szabo were executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp.

"British 61st Heavy Regt., 31 Btry., "A" Sub. 7.2 howitzer firing. Gabbiano area, Italy. 5 February, 1945. Photographer: Schmidt, 3131st Signal Service Co."

It was Monday, and news magazines were out.  Stalin was on the cover of Time.  German POWs were featured on Newsweek.  A smiling young woman in a swimsuit was on the cover of Life, which had an article on Florida.

Ecuador declared war on Japan.

The Red Army crossed the Oder at Brzeg.

The US 7th Army and linked up with French forces splitting the Colmar pocket.

SOE agents Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe, and Violette Szabo were executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp.  All three women were heroic.

Szabo.

High ranking SOE figure, Vera Atkins, dedicated her immediate post war efforts to detecting who was responsible for all three agents deaths.  A woman of great mystery herself, she was Romanian and Jewish, but easily passed for English.

Bloch, who was as French Jewish refugee.

Violette Szabo is particularly well remembered and was the topic of at least one movie.

Rolfe.

The SOE tends to be well remembered, but it had been penetrated causing some agents, such as Szabo, to be picked up nearly as soon as they were left on the ground.  Who the leak was, was never detected.

The U-41 was sunk by the HMS Antelope off of Lands End.

Hard fighting occured near Manila, where Lt. Robert M. Vale would perform the actions that would lead to a posthumous Medal of Honor being conveyed to him.

He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. Forced by the enemy's detonation of prepared demolitions to shift the course of his advance through the city, he led the 1st platoon toward a small bridge, where heavy fire from 3 enemy pillboxes halted the unit. With 2 men he crossed the bridge behind screening grenade smoke to attack the pillboxes. The first he knocked out himself while covered by his men's protecting fire; the other 2 were silenced by 1 of his companions and a bazooka team which he had called up. He suffered a painful wound in the right arm during the action. After his entire platoon had joined him, he pushed ahead through mortar fire and encircling flames. Blocked from the only escape route by an enemy machinegun placed at a street corner, he entered a nearby building with his men to explore possible means of reducing the emplacement. In 1 room he found civilians huddled together, in another, a small window placed high in the wall and reached by a ladder. Because of the relative positions of the window, ladder, and enemy emplacement, he decided that he, being left-handed, could better hurl a grenade than 1 of his men who had made an unsuccessful attempt. Grasping an armed grenade, he started up the ladder. His wounded right arm weakened, and, as he tried to steady himself, the grenade fell to the floor. In the 5 seconds before the grenade would explode, he dropped down, recovered the grenade and looked for a place to dispose of it safely. Finding no way to get rid of the grenade without exposing his own men or the civilians to injury or death, he turned to the wall, held it close to his body and bent over it as it exploded. 2d Lt. Viale died in a few minutes, but his heroic act saved the lives of others.

In the same battle, then TSgt Donald E. Rudolph would perform the actions that would lead to the same award.

Second Lt. Rudolph (then TSgt.) was acting as platoon leader at Munoz, Luzon, Philippine Islands. While administering first aid on the battlefield, he observed enemy fire issuing from a nearby culvert. Crawling to the culvert with rifle and grenades, he killed three of the enemy concealed there. He then worked his way across open terrain toward a line of enemy pillboxes which had immobilized his company. Nearing the first pillbox, he hurled a grenade through its embrasure and charged the position. With his bare hands he tore away the wood and tin covering, then dropped a grenade through the opening, killing the enemy gunners and destroying their machine gun. Ordering several riflemen to cover his further advance, 2d Lt. Rudolph seized a pick mattock and made his way to a second pillbox. Piercing its top with the mattock, he dropped a grenade through the hole, firing several rounds from his rifle into it, and smothered any surviving enemy by sealing the hole and the embrasure with earth. In quick succession he attacked and neutralized six more pillboxes. Later, when his platoon was attacked by an enemy tank, he advanced under covering fire, climbed to the top of the tank, and dropped a white phosphorus grenade through the turret, destroying the crew. Through his outstanding heroism, superb courage, and leadership, and complete disregard for his own safety, 2d Lt. Rudolph cleared a path for an advance which culminated in one of the most decisive victories of the Philippine campaign.

Rudolph survived the war and completed a career in the Army, retiring in 1963.

The RAF Balloon Command was disbanded.

The Japanese carrier-battleship Ise, was damaged by a mine off Indochina.

The USAAF hit Iwo Jima again.

The Greek Communist Party accepted the governments terms for amnesty.

The US-bred filly Big Racket set the world record for fastest average speed set by a racehorse at the Clasico Dia del Charro held at Mexicos Hipodromo de las Americas.

Last edition:

Sunday, February 4, 1945. The Yalta Conference begins.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Battle of Manila, British Army, Burma, Indian Army, Iwo Jima, Joseph Stalin, Philippines, Roosevelt, U.S. Air Force, Winston Churchill, World War Two, Yalta Conference

Worth listening to in its entirety.

I am tired of hearing from people who cannot point out Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala on a map telling us how to mitigate the millions seeking refuge.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Wednesday, January 16, 1924. Blockade breaking.

Oh, oh, history was repeating itself.

Raúl Pateras Pescara kept his model 2F helicopter aloft in the air for 8 minutes and 13.8 seconds at Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris. That was a helicopter record.

Gonzalo Córdova was elected President of Ecuador with over 93% of the vote.

María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García, better known as Katy Jurado, famous for High Noon, was born in Guadalajara.  I don't care for High Noon much, but I do like her performance in it.

Jurado was married twice, once to Víctor Velázquez and then to Ernest Borgnine, and had a number of affairs with notables ranging from Marlon Brando to Louis L'amour.  She died in 2002 at age 78.

Friday, December 14, 1923. Obregón takes the field.

Obregón, who had risen to prominence as a general, now took the field in defense of his administration.

A 5.3 magnitude earthquake killed over 300 people in Columbia and Ecuador.

Congressional pages took advantage of a Washingon D.C. snowfall.

Saturday July 5, 1941. The Ecuadorian-Peruvian War commences.

Border disputes between Ecuador and Peru erupted into full scale war.  Who started full scale combat is disputed, but the war generally went Peru's way during the month long fighting.

Ecuador was very outmatched in the fighting and has always maintained that it was invaded by Peru, which Peru has always denied.  At any rate, Peru's military was much more advanced than Ecuador's and this showed in the short war.

In 1942 Ecuador declared war on Japan, but not Germany, in order to improve its international position and in order to receive American military material support, which it did receive.  Peru declared war on the Axis powers in 1945.

The countries would fight two more border wars in the 20th Century.

This war was the first South American war to feature paratroopers, which Peru used in the war.

The Battle of Damour commenced in Lebanon. Damour was the French seat of government in Lebanon and is located to the south of Beirut.  The battle was fought principally by Australians on the British side.

On the same day, Auchinleck assumed his duties as the British Commander in Chief in the Middle East.

Auchinleck would be initially successful but would prove to be one of several British commanders in the Middle East who was unable to bring about a British victory.  He achieved early success against the Africa Korps after being assigned as CoC in the Middle East, but then suffered setbacks that Churchill felt merited a replacement.

Auchinleck had a major role in preparing the British Empire in that he modernized the Indian Army between the wars.  During that time, he met and married American Jessie Stewart who was regarded as a great beauty. She was 16 years his junior.

Jessie would in turn have an odd role in the British command during the war in that she commenced an affair with Auchinleck's friend, RAF commander Sir Richard Peirse.  The affair caused Peirce to be regarded as neglecting his duties and caused him to be recalled to the UK, with Mrs. Auchinleck going with him.  Peirse would be accordingly retired during the war, his career ending in a type of disgrace during the war itself.  Auchinleck never recovered from the divorce and carried Jesse's photograph in his wallet for the rest of his life,   That he genuinely adored Jesse is clear, and that the divorce also changed him is clear, but there remains a scholarly debate on whether Auchinleck himself my have had homosexual inclinations.  His biographer maintains that these rumors are false, but another writer asserts the opposite, citing "moral aversion" for Montgomery's inability to get along with him.

And as detailed here, German U-boats began patrolling in the Arctic.

Today in World War II History—July 5, 1941

Christmas, 1919.

And so Christmas, one year out from the end of the Armistice, arrived.

Much of the news had returned to the routine, although one big new event for much of the country, Prohibition, was making the holiday season a bit different this year, which most newspapers were celebrating.

Otherwise, in the US, the season had returned much to normal, and was very recognizable to us today.

Which included the day for foreign residents living in the U.S.

Christmas morning, Ecuadorian legation, 1919.

The Red Cross remained at work in the distressed regions of the world, including in Siberia, where an effort was made to being Christmas joy to Russian orphans.  You have to wonder how the future for these children played out and if they recalled this Christmas in 1919.

Synchronicity

Just about  three or four days ago my son and I were joking about Julian Assange.

More specifically, we were finding it amusing that he was probably a really annoying house guest for the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK.

Turns out he really was. Basically, he was a spoiled child and a titanic a*****e.

A couple of additional observations.

He was wanted in Sweden for a charge of rape, but the accusations against him in the US would only subject him to five years in the pen, assuming he got the full sentence.  The charge in Sweden has expired due to some oddball interview deadline that Swedish law has, but after spending seven years in the Equadorian Embassy, which is not large, he's exposed to five in the US.

You have to wonder about the wisdom of his decision there.

Secondly, Pamela Anderson. . . you know, the girl from Bay Watch (which I've never seen) and the early years of Home Improvement, is Assange's girl friend.

Anderson is a pathetic case in her own right.  She went to being cute, with minimal talents, to being plastic and in my view creepy. Assange is also creepy.

Well one more item of weirdness to be featured in the papers, in the Age of Weirdness.