To hell with the government, you... New Dealer!
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Thursday, April 27, 1944. Exercise Tiger
Friday, April 26, 2024
Wednesday, April 26, 1944. Pyrrihic Kidnapping.
In a mission months in the making, members of the SOE and Cretan resistance kidnapped Heinrich Kreipe.
Originally directed at Gen. Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller as a reprisal for actions committed under his orders, Kreipe had succeeded him by the time the SOE team arrived. Kreipe's kidnapping would cause Müller to return and order mass reprisals, something that had not occurred under Kreipe.
In short, it was a pointless action and poorly thought out, with ultimately tragic results.
Kreipe would be reunited with his kidnappers in a 1972 Greek television program.
In New Guinea, American beachheads at Tanahmerah Bay and Humboldt Bay were linked up. Australian forces took Alexishafen.
The Yoshida Maru No. 1 was sunk by the USS Jack resulting in the loss of 2,669 men.
The U-488 was sunk off of Cape Verde by the U.S. Navy.
The I-180 was sunk off of Chirikof Island by the USS Gilmore.
The Royal Navy, in an effort to attack the Tirpitz which failed due to weather, found a coastal convoy instead and sunk three ships in it.
The POW camp in Hoopeston, Illinois, received its first prisoners.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, April 25, 1944. The Blood for Goods deal extended, Air disaster at Montreal, the death of George Herriman.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Tuesday, April 25, 1944. The Blood for Goods deal extended, Air disaster at Montreal, the death of George Herriman.
The Nazis offered Hungarian rescue worker Joel Brand an offer which has been termed the "Blood for Goods" deal. It was an offer to free 1,000,000 Hungarian Jews, releasing them to an Allied country, save for Palestine (oddly) for goods. The offer was extended through Adolf Eichmann to Brand, who was a pre-war Hungarian Zionist.
Brand carried the message to the Allies, making his way through Turkey to Egypt, where he was arrested by the British. The British did not take the offer seriously and believed it was a trick. The US was cautious about the offer but less hostile to it. British opposition to exploring it ended the matter, and the British press leaked it and termed it blackmail by the fall.
At this point in the war, members of the SS were not completely loyal to Hitler and there is some reason to believe that this was a camouflaged effort to open up communications with the Western Allies in order to advance a separate peace, a delusional prospect of that is what they were thinking.
Brand moved to Israel after the war and was haunted the rest of his life by the failure of the proposal. He died visiting Germany in 1964, at age 58.
A Royal Air Force variant of the B-24, a Liberator B Mark VI crashed into the Griffintown neighborhood of Montreal after taking off from Dorval Airport. The crew and ten civilians were killed.
My mother lived in the St. Lambert district of Montreal at the time. St. Lambert is directly across the river from Griffentown. I'd never heard of this incident, but then, there are many such thing that my parents never mentioned to me on matters like this, and I suppose that's to be expected. Casper suffered numerous air disasters during World War Two.
My mother, then 19 years of age, would have been working in the city at this time, so was likely on the Griffentown side of the river when the accident occured.
The first combat helicopter evacuation completed in the CBI:
21–25 April 1944
The Luftwaffe raided shipping at Portsmouth and Plymouth-Devonport in a nighttime raid. The same night, the HMS Black Prince and three Canadian destroyers engaged German warships in the English Channel, sinking the T-29 and damaging the T-24 and T-27.
The T-39 series of German ships were torpedo "boats", but due to their size they were more in the nature of corvettes.
Allied forces landed at Humboldt Bay, New Guinea.
The British government announced that it had a £2.76 billion deficit, £89 million smaller than anticipated.
The United Negro College Fund was established.
George Herriman, the creator of Krazy Kat, died at age 63.
Herriman was creole and born in New Orleans, although he speant much of his adult life in Los Angeles. The Creole are their own distinct ethnicity, with some noting that means by default that they are of "mixed race", something that a lot of non Louisianians don't realize as they confuse creole with Cajun, the two not being the same. Under the bizarre rules of American culture, Herriman would have been regarded as "black" in some regions of the United States, although legally, and equally bizarrely, he could at the time choose to self identify as white or black, neither of which really describes his ethnic heritage. He self identified as white, which makes sense, as to do otherwise would have hindered his career.
Herriman was a shy and gentlemanly man. A Catholic, he married his childhood sweetheart and had two children, as well as a lot of pets, of which he wsa very fond.
Last prior edition:Monday, April 24, 1944. Violating Swiss Airspace.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Thursday, April 20, 1944. Bombs for Hitler's birthday.
The Royal Air Force dropped 4,500 tons of bombs on a single raid, a new record. It was Hitler's 55th birthday.
The Luftwaffe sunk the USS Lansdale and the Liberty ship SS Paul Hamilton of Algiers. The attacking planes were Ju 88s which were used as torpedo bombers in this application.
Off of Anzio, the Germans deployed human torpedoes. No serious damages are incurred by any of the Allied ships which are stricken.
Elmer Gedeon, age 27, was killed piloting a B-26 over France. He had been, prior to entering the service, a professional baseball player and was one of only two major league ball players killed during World War Two, the other being Harry O'Neill who was killed as a Marine Corps officer on Iwo Jima.
The British conversation at Kohima was relieved.
The Luftwaffe attempted to raid Hull, but called off the mission.
George Grantham Baink "the father of foreign photographic news", died at age 78 in New York City, which he had heavily photographed.
Many of his photographs appear on this website.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, April 19, 1944. Operation Ichi-Go.
Friday, April 12, 2024
Wednesday, April 12, 1944. Soviet invasion of Romania fails, Withdrawal of Crimea commences, Victor Emmanuel makes retirement plans.
The First Battle of Târgu Frumos, the attempted Soviet invasion of Romania, which the Soviets and Russians don't really agree was attempted, ended in Axis victory.
On the same day, the Germans began withdrawing from Crimea, which was rapidly falling far behind Soviet lines. The Red Army occupied Tiraspol, northwest of Odessa.
The evacuation was by sea, and it was one of the most significant operations of the Romanian Navy during World War Two, with both the Romanian and German navies taking part. In spite of Soviet efforts, 7,000 German and Romanian troops from Crimea in phase one of the operation, and 113,000 would ultimately be taken out. This was impressive, but has to be balanced against the decision in error not to withdraw from Crimea earlier, which was due to Hilter's instance that it not occur. Axis personnel losses during the evacuation were in fact massive.
King Victor Emmanuel announced plans to step down from office and appoint Crown Prince Umberto of Piedmont "Lieutenant of the Realm" upon the Allies taking Rome, which they were having trouble doing.
The I-174 was sunk off of Truk by a B-24.
The National Religious Broadcasters Association was founded in Columbus, Ohio following the Federal Council of Churches proposing to ban paid religious programming and limit broadcast personalities to individuals approved by their denominations which would have effectively removed Evangelicals from the airwaves. The Association sought to preserve Evangelical access to the airwaves.
Religious broadcasting was different at the time. While there was some Catholic broadcasting, it was really quite limited and would remain so until the establishment of EWTN in 1981. Most broadcasting was accordingly Protestant.
Improvising.
1940s, 1944, 3/4 ton, 4x4, Dodge, Dodge WC, Dodge Weapons Carrier, U.S. Army, World War Two
The Summer Lake State Game Management Area was established by the State of Oregon.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, April 11, 1944. Plowing.
Friday, March 22, 2024
Wednesday, March 22, 1944. German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boats to disperse and work singly. Convoy attacks were halted in anticipation of new U-boat designs coming on. Effectively, this amounted to a concession of German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.
New Zealanders made an unsuccessful assault on Monte Cassino. After its failure, Allied defensive lines are consolidated.
The US OSS began Operation Ginny II, again intending to cut rail lines in Italy, and once again failing, this time as the landing party was beached in the wrong place and captured.
80% of the B-25s of the 340th Bombardment Group were destroyed by volcanic boulders from Vesuvius.
The Corpo Italiano di Liberazione (Italian Liberation Corps) was organized to collect the Royal Italain Army units that were now part of the Allied armies.
Döme Sztójay replaced Miklós Kállay as Prime Minister of Hungary, and the country promulgated anti-Jewish legislation and ordered all Jewish businesses to close. The roundups of Hungarian Jews were soon to begin and the country would reenter the war as a German ally.
Hedwig Jahnow died at age 65 of malnutrition at Theresienstadt. She was a German teacher and an Old Testament theologian who studied Rabbinic Dirge and remains significant in those studies.
The Red Army took Pervomaysk
Mortar crew of 164th Inf. Regt., Americal Div., on Bougainville Island. 22 March, 1944. All of these men were from Minnesota. All enlisted, this photograph is unusual in that one of the soldiers, PFC Russell Campbell, is wearing his service cap with the stiffner removed, something almost never seen in the case of U.S. soldiers in combat outside of airmen.
The only example of the Northrup XP-56, the first one having been destroyed in a crash, was photographed in anticipation of its first flight the following day.
Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet (s/n 42-38353) on the ground at Muroc Army Air Field, California, March 22, 1944.
The weird aircraft was not a success.
Sarah Sundin's excellent blog on daily events in World War Two, whose feed updates are no longer working, notes this item:
Two gallons per week.
Could you get by on two gallons per week? Most days I drive a 1/4 ton Utility Truck, which is better known as a Jeep, and while it's small, it gets terrible mileage. I know that I use more than two gallons per week, but I would if I was driving my fuel efficient diesel truck as well. If I was limited to two gallons per week, I'd have to make major life changes.
Should I be pondering this as Congress, through the neglect of Ukraine, pushes us ever closer to a war with Russia, should she invade the Balkans?
During World War Two I know that my grandfather had a different class of ration ticket as his vehicle was used for business. His car was a "business coupe", which is about all I know about it.
I know it had a gasoline personnel heater, which probably provides a clue, but I still don't know who made it.
I had a 1954 Chevrolet at one time, and it got really good mileage. Interestingly, a 1973 Mercury Comet, with a really powerful V8 engine we had, also did. According to one site about older cars, the business couple should be something like this:
My '38 gets around 17-18 MPG @ 50 MPH. It drops to around 12-14 @ 60. She just doesn't like being pushed that hard.
My 54, and the 73, got much better mileage than that.
Whatever mileage the business coupé got, my father sort of brushed gasoline rationing off when I asked him about it, due to the other category of ticket. I don't know what that really meant, however.
Of course, for most long travel of any kind, people took the train. Something that we might want to consider as potentially being something that may very well return. High speed rail, for that matter, may be coming to Wyoming.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, March 21, 1944. Dear John.
Monday, February 26, 2024
Saturday, February 26, 1944. „Nie” dla linii Curzona
The Polish Government in Exile rejected the Curzon Line as Poland's eastern border.
While their resistance to the border being moved is admirable, and had to be expected, it was of course doomed.
The Soviets launched a nighttime 600 bomber raid on Helsinki. Finnish air defenses prove ineffectual, which was typical for any nighttime raid, and only three Soviet Air Force planes are lost.
The Red Army captured Porkhov.
The French Resistance attack the SOMUA armor plate works at Lyons, but their explosives fail to detonate.
The U-91 was sunk by the Royal Navy.
The United States Army Air Force discover the source of the Orinoco River in British Guiana in an overflight.
Today in World War II History—February 26, 1944: Japanese retreat from Sinzweya, Burma, ending “Battle of the Admin Box." US Navy nurses are given actual commissioned rank instead of relative rank.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Saturday, February 19, 1944. Landing on Eniwetok.
Marines land on Eniwetok in regimental strength. Fighting is heavy. Among the casualties is John A. Bushemi, noted combat photographer. He was 26 years of age.
Corporal Anthony P. DamatoFor conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with an assault company in action against enemy Japanese forces on Engebi Island, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, on the night of 19[-20 February 1944. Highly vulnerable to sudden attack by small, fanatical groups of Japanese still at large despite the efficient and determined efforts of our forces to clear the area, Cpl. Damato lay with two comrades in a large foxhole in his company's defense perimeter which had been dangerously thinned by the forced withdrawal of nearly half of the available men. When one of the enemy approached the foxhole undetected and threw in a hand grenade, Cpl. Damato desperately groped for it in the darkness. Realizing the imminent peril to all three and fully aware of the consequences of his act, he unhesitatingly flung himself on the grenade and, although instantly killed as his body absorbed the explosion, saved the lives of his two companions. Cpl. Damato's splendid initiative, fearless conduct, and valiant sacrifice reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his comrades.
Today in World War II History—February 19, 1944: The major Japanese air & naval base at Rabaul is officially neutralized by Allied forces as the last Japanese planes are moved to Truk.
The U-386 and U-264 were both sunk by the Royal Navy in the Atlantic.
Billboard modified its "Most Played Juke Box Records" chart to rank records rather than songs.
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Monday, February 14, 1944. Begging out of the Polish border question.
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Tuesday, February 8, 1944. Watery graves.
The Petrella, in German service, was sunk off Crete with 2,670 Italian POWs losing their life in the sinking.
The Japanese troop ship Lima Maru went down off of Gotō Islands when sunk by the USS Snook, with 2,765 lives lost.
The Brazzaville Conference concluded.
The Red Army captured the Ukrainian manganese production center of Nikopol.
The British held out at "the Factory" at Anzio under ongoing German efforts to displace them.
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Sunday, January 9, 1944. Advances on all fronts.
The Red Army took Polonne and Kamianets-Podilskyi.
Polonne had been within Poland until the Russo Polish War, when it went to the Soviets in 1920. It had a major Jewish population before World War Two. Kamianets-Podilskyi had also been part of the post World War One Polish state until 1920.
The U-81 was sunk at Pola Italy by American aircraft.
The US 2nd Corps attacked Cervaro and Monte Trochio in Italy.
The US constructed a second airfield on Bougainville.
Allied forces took Maungdaw in Burma.
Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame was born on this day in 1944.
Thursday, December 28, 2023
Tuesday, December 28, 1943. Battle of the Bay of Biscay.
Mickey Rooney visited the USS Intrepid.
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Sunday, December 26, 1943. Boxing Day. The Battles of Cape Gloucester and North Cape
Marines landed at Cape Gloucester on New Britain.
The USS Brownson was attacked by Japanese aircraft during the landings, and sunk.
The Moro River Campaign in Italy ended in a stalemate. The Germans were holding their own against, in this case the British 8th Army, but also against the U.S. 5th Army, which did take Monte Sammucro on this day.
The German battleship Scharnhorst was torpedoed and sunk by the HMS Duke of York. All but 36 of her 1,943-man crew perished. The action was termed the Battle of North Cape.
The NFL Championship Game was played, with this coming after Christmas for the first time in the NFL's history. The Bears beat the Redskins 41-21.
Wednesday, December 26, 1923. Acknowledging disaster.
The Dixmude was lost, there was no doubt, but the French were making that known.
Totally unrelated, France ran a budget surplus of 568 million francs, determined as of this date.
Dietrich Eckart, German writer and Nazi, and a major influence on Adolf Hitler, died of a heart attack at Berchtesgaden at age 55, too early to see the horror that Nazi ideas would bring upon the world and Germany.
Friday, December 22, 2023
Wednesday, December 22, 1943. Beatrix Potter, author and farmer.
Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books, died at age 77.
Potter was from a family that held extensive agricultural lands and was, in addition to being an author, a sheep farmer. She married in 1914 over the disapproval of her family, as her husband, a country solicitor, was regarded as being beneath her status. Never having had any children, she left most of her large landholdings to the National Trust. Her husband, who died in 1945, left the balance of them to the National Trust.
Good people.
Some not so good people, including one Adolf Hitler issued a Führerbefehl creating the Nationalsozialistische Führungsoffiziere who were charged with getting German soldiers to believe in final victory, even if they were clueless on how that would come about.
Hmmm. . . .
On the same day the German government ordered that males down to 16 years of age register for conscription.
Hmmm. . . .
The Red Army completed its victory in the Second Battle of Kiev.
The German light cruiser Niobe was sunk off of Siba Yugoslavia by British torpedo boats.
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Monday, December 20 1943. A chivalric act.
Luftwaffe Oberleutnant Franz Stigler, a combat veteran with 22 kills o his record, , escorted the heavily damaged Ameircan B-17 Ye Old Pub out of German airspace rather than shoot it down.
Stigler had shot down two B-17s prior to this incident, but in lining up to shoot down the heavily damaged plane he noticed that its tail gunner took no effort to shoot at him and in flying closer he could see through holes in the fuselage that the aircrew were attempting to save the lives of wounded crewmates. His commanding officer, Gustav Rödel, had earlier told his squadron that "If I hear of one of you shooting a man in a parachute, I'll shoot you myself!" and Stigler determined that this would have amounted to the same thing. He motioned to the pilot, Charles Brown, to fly towards Sweden, but Brown didn't comprehend and instead kept on to the United Kingdom, and Stigler in turn escorted it out of German airspace.
Stigler kept the act to himself, as he would have been court martialed for it. Brown did report the incident to his superiors, who kept it secret. Brown's superiors had threatened his men if they landed in a neutral country.
Brown and Stigler met after the war many years later and became friends. They both died in 2008. Stigler, who didn't tell anyone of the incident until Brown revealed it many years later, immigrated to Canada and entered the lumber industry in Vancouver. Brown retired from the Air Force in 1965.
The SS reported on requirements for invading Switzerland, which demonstrates how the tyrannical become delusional as their fortunes decline.
The Battle of Ortona commenced in Italy with the 1st Canadian Division attacking positions held by the German 1st Parachute Division. The battle would be hard fought, and compared to Stalingrad due to the urban conditions. Less certain is the importance of the town, which has been debated and even at the time commented upon by the Germans.
Bolivian President Enrique Peñaranda was overthrown in a military coup led by Major Gualberto Villarroel just over two weeks after the country had entered World War Two, although the coup had nothing to do with that. Villarroel himself fall by the sword in a 1946 revolution.
The U-850 was sunk by aircraft from the U.S. escort carrier Boque.
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Monday, December 13, 1943. The Kalavryta Massacre.
The German 117th Jäger Division destroyed Kalavryta, Greece and killed 460 adult men of the town. We noted this event a few days back. It was a reprisal for partisan activity.
1,462 U.S. bombers carpet bombed Bremen, Hamburg and Kiel. P-51Ds are used as escorts for the first time in the raid.
The U-172, U-391 and U-593 were sunk.