Thursday, February 10, 1944. Victory at Saidor

Troops entering Quartermaster Replacement Training Center (QMRTC), Ft. F.E. Warren, Wyoming. July 6, 1943. Photo by US Army Signal Corps. Released for publication February 10, 1944.

The landing at Saidor concluded on January 2, Operation Michaelmas, resulted in an Allied victory on this date.  The Australians and the Americans had linked up, and the Huon Peninsula was mostly occupied.

Offloading of Piper Cub used in Operation Michaelmas.

The Minekaze was sunk off of Formosa by the USS Pogy. 

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—February 10, 1944: Japanese surround Indian 7th Division on the Arakan peninsula in Burma; Allies keep the 7th Division supplied through air drops.

The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.

The U-545 was scuttled after being crippled west of the Hebrides by a Vickers Wellington.  T he U-666 disappeared in the North Atlantic.

On the same day, American Airlines Flight 2 crashed into the Mississippi River. All twenty-four passengers and crew were killed.  The cause of the crash was never determined.

Air travel between Miami and Key West was initiated.

Bells of Balangiga to depart

Gen. Jacob Smith inspects the ruins of Balangiga a few weeks after the battle there.

The Bells of Balangiga, war trophies from the Spanish American War, are going back to the Philippines, according to a government press release.

The bells have long been a matter of contention between the United States and the Philippines.  The 9th Infantry, which took the bells, maintained that it was ambushed in the locality, where it was garrisoned, and the bells symbolized its defense of itself from a surprise treacherous attack.  The Philippines have asserted the battle represented an uprising of the indigenous population against occupation and that the conclusion of the battle featured the killing of villagers without justification.  Both versions of the event may be correct in that it was a surprise attack on a unit stationed in the town and, by that point in the war, 1901, it had begun to take on a gruesome character at times.

Whatever the case may be, the bells, from three Catholic Churches, have long been sought to be returned.  Two of the bells are at F. E. Warren Air Force Base, which which the 9th Infantry had later been stationed at when it was Ft. D. A. Russell, and a third has been kept in Alaska.  It would appear that they're now going to go back to the churches from which they came in the Philippines, almost certainly accompanied by at least some vocal protestations from Wyoming's representation in Congress, I suspect.  As the current Wyoming connection with the 9th Infantry, let alone the Philippine Insurrection, is pretty think, it's unlikely that the average Wyomingite, however, will care much.  Indeed, while it caused its own controversy, a former head of a veteran's position in the state came out for returning the bells the last time this controversy rolled around a few years ago.