Friday, March 5, 1943. Wings.

The Battle of the Ruhr, an Allied air campaign, well let's make this clear, a Western Allied air campaign, against the industrial heart of Germany commenced with a large raid by the RAF on the Krupp munitions factory at Essen.

The campaign would go on into July.

The final German holdout surrendered at Stalingrad.  On the same day, the NKVD shot five German officers it found who were hiding in the city.

The British Gloster Meteor, a jet engined fighter, made its first flight.

The fighter became operational in July 1944 and was the only Allied jet to engage in combat operations during the war.  It was first deployed against V1 flying bombs, an early drone, which made sense given that the V1 was a jet engined aircraft, but late in the war it was deployed on the continent. The RAF largely prevented it from being flown over Germany out of fear that one would be captured and then analyzed by the Germans, or the Soviets.

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man was released by MGM

February 19, 1943. Donets Campaign launched

The Germans went on the offensives in a region of Ukraine which is in the news constantly now, seeking to regain territory recently lost around Kharkov. They were successful in their month-long effort.  Moreover, Soviet casualties were massively outsized compared to the Germans, which were comparatively light.

Members of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler stand by a Marder III tank destroyer at the time of this offensive.  The Marker series of tank destroyers used both German and Soviet guns and was built on a Czech 38(t) chassis. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Roth-173-01 / Roth, Franz / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5478279

Amos 'n' Andy appeared for the first time on NBC.  It remains popular with fans of old radio shows, although I've never grasped how that it continues to be, as it suffers, even in the radio format, from the white in blackface situation.  Having said that, by the fall of 1943 black supporting actors were included.

U.S. forces continued to retreat in Tunisia.

Monday, February 15, 1943. Princess Elizabeth appears on the cover of Life, We Can Do It appears at Westinghouse.

Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II, appeared on the cover of Life magazine.  The black and white photograph of the young Elizabeth is a shock to see today.

The Battle of Demyansk began, with the objective of encircling German troops in a salient and relieving the front near Moscow.  It'd more or less achieve the latter, but not the former.

Sarah Sundin's blog has a number of interesting items in it:

J. Howard Miller's little seen "We Can Do It" poster.  Note the "Post Feb. 15 to Feb 28" notation on the poster.

Today in World War II History—February 15, 1943: J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It” poster, now identified with Rosie the Riveter, is first posted at Westinghouse for a two-week in-house campaign.

The poster is one of the most recognizable in history now.  Ironically, it was little known to the World War Two generation itself, and only became widely known some forty years later.  In this sense, it's much like the "Keep Calm And Carry On" British poster, which was so rare in World War Two that it's debated if it was put up at all.

The poster, which is in fact not particularly skillfully executed, was limited to 1,800 runs and 17" x 22" in side.  In its original posting, it was put up only in Westinghouse factories, and in fact the female subject in the image wears a Westinghouse Electric floor employee badge. The workers who would have seen it were engaged in making helmet liners, and the poster was part of a gentle effort, in part, from dissuading strikes.  It was part of a 42 poster series by Miller.

Miller himself may be regarded as a somewhat obscure illustrator.  He was busy during World War Two and issued other posters that had an industrial theme.

Miller's female worker was based on a photograph of Geraldine Doyle, nee Hoff or Naomi Parker, it isn't really clear which, although some claim that it's definitely Parker.  It might have been both women, and more than just the two. The poster was painted from a photograph or photographs, and not a live model.

During the war itself, the Rockwell Saturday Evening Post illustration of a stout, defiant female riveter was the accepted depiction of Rosie the Riveter.  Rockwell, with his keen eye for detail, had painted "Rosie" on her lunch box.  

The name, Rosie the Riveter, was first used in a song by that name by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, recorded by The Four Vagabonds, which came out prior to Rockwell's May 1943, illustration.  The song, in turn, had been inspired by a newspaper column about 19-year-old Rosalind P. Walter who had gone to work as a riveter in Stratford Connecticut as part of the war effort. The model for the Rockwell painting was not an industrial worker, but a telephone operator, Mary Doyle Keefe, née, perhaps ironically, Doyle, who was Rockwell's neighbor.  She actually posed for a photograph for Rockwell's photographer, rather than for Rockwell live.

Keefe, who was not yet married, didn't like the painting as Rockwell had made her image so beefy, for which he apologized.  She attended Temple University, became a dental hygienist, married and passed away in 2015 at age 92.  Rosalind P. Walter went on in later life to become quite wealthy and was a noted philanthropist, particularly supporting public television.  She died in 2020 at age 95.

J. Howard Miller lived until 2004, but remained obscure, unlike his famous poster.

It should be noted that the depiction of the women and their story itself is interesting.  Vermonter Keefe was the daughter of a logger, but was obviously from a solid middle class Catholic family, something that would not have been surprising in any fashion at the time. As noted, she was not an industrial worker herself.  Geraldine Doyle worked only very briefly as an industrial worker in 1942, quitting as she feared injuring her hands as she was a cellist.  She later married a dentist later in 1943.  They met in a bookstore.  While her association with the painting is disputed, her World War Two factory photograph is remarkably similar to the poster.  Parker was employed in a factory prior to the war and continued to be during it.

The Miller image is used for a sign on the outside of the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in California, a Federal park dedicated to the World War Two home front.  World War Two, immediately following the Great Depression, had an enormous and permeant (and probably not good, really) impact on California, so the location is well placed.

Democracy returned to Uruguay.

Sunday, January 31, 1943. Paulus surrenders the German 6th Army at Stalingrad and the war enters its third phase in Europe.

One day after having been promoted to the rank of Field Marshal, and also having been ordered to go down fighting with his command, Friedrich von Paulus surrendered that command to the Red Army.  90,000 men of the original 250,000 of the German 6th Army remained alive, a surprisingly large number in context.  Only 5,000 would return to Germany, many having died due to the Soviet's inability to take care of such a large number of prisoners.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-F0316-0204-005 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5362815

Most were German, but not all, at the end.  One of the last Axis anti tank guns to stop firing in the battle was one manned by a Russian crew.

By most measures, the Battle of Stalingrad was the largest battle in human history, although that title could be contested.  By the same token, by most measures, it was the largest battle in modern history, and of World War Two.  Often missed in the story of the epic contest, and German defeat, the Soviets had taken higher casualties than the Axis forces had, with an overall 1,129,619 compared to a potential Axis high of 868,374.  478,741 Soviet combatants were killed, more than the entire number of Germans in the 6th Army.  Axis casualties were rounded out, however, by 114,520 Italian losses, 158,854 Romanian losses, 143,000 Hungarian losses and 52,000 Soviet citizens supporting the Axis forces losses.  The battle was one whose character was defined by it being fought by two totalitarian combatants who had no regard for human life.  The Soviets had the ability to lose more men than the Axis did, and had no real option in regard to retreating further.

The battle had been taken on and fought stupidly by the Germans.  Taking the city was unnecessary and engaging in ongoing house to house fighting pointless. Defending the city, from the Soviet prospective, made a great deal more sense as it served to sap up German resources and arrest German progress.

With the fall of Stalingrad, the war entered a new and more bizarre, indeed sickening, phase.

The first phase of the war had seen the United Kingdom become Germany's principal enemy, and the German war aims had been to consolidate "German" lands in the Reich, subjugate and begin to destroy the Polish people, humble France, and to defeat the UK such that parts of the British Empire could be transferred to Germany.  The first two goals had been achieved, but the UK proved impossible to defeat and in fact was giving nearly as good as it was getting, if not more so, after the withdrawal from the Continent.  The British Empire could not defeat the Germans, but they clearly also could not be defeated by the Germans.

Faced with this, the Germans had toyed with Soviet assistance, and in fact the Soviet Union had been a German ally in this phase, which ran from 1938, with the Austrian Anschluß, to June 22, 1941.  During this phase of the war, the USSR had joined with Germany in the dismemberment of Poland and the murder of Polish elites.  It had also attacked the Baltic States and Finland, with only Finland proving impossible to defeat.  Like the Germans, the Soviets engaged in widespread murder wherever they went, with in this phase of the war the real difference being that the German atrocities, visited upon mass populations for the first time, unlike the Soviet ones which had been going on for two decades, were racial in nature to a much larger degree than the Soviet ones.

Nazi Germany, it is often noted, always had an expressed goal for Lebenstraum in the East, but often missed in that as well is that the Germans were able to put that aside, and on the shelf, as long as it appeared that there was a realistic chance of acquiring British possessions.  Ultimately, it is hard not to imagine the Germans and the Soviets going to war, but up until late 1940, it was not imminent.  After that, it became so as the Germans became increasingly desperate for raw materials for the war against the British Empire, the Soviet Union being the principal source of them.  The Soviets overplayed their hands in this after being invited by the Germans to join in the war against Britain by demanding more of British possessions than the Germans were willing to give.  Confident in their abilities in a land war, the Germans set their sites on the Soviet Union.

June 22, 1941, brought about the second phase of the war, the German Soviet phase.  The Germans expected to rapidly advance, and in fact did at first.  With this they brought murder on a wide scale to Ukraine, the rest of Poland, and Belorussia.  Their murderous intent towards the Jews rapidly evidenced itself wherever they went, and they began their planned colonization of Eastern lands almost immediately.  At the same time, their goals remained, in that phase, the defeat of the Soviet Union.

In the fall of 1942 the German advance stalled out, and the Germans became grossly overextended. Even with the support of Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian allies, they could no longer cover all of the front. The Red Army could.  Early in 1943 the German battlefield fortunes began to rapidly decline.  

With the fall of Stalingrad, a new phase of the war began.  The Germans did not concede defeat, either intellectually or militarily, but internally the central Nazi leadership seems to have grasped it.Thereafter, the goal of the war turned in an unexpressed way towards murder of the Jewish nation as its principal goal, and the mass murder of Jews accelerated and took first place in their war effort.

Franklin Roosevelt returned to the White House after attending the Casablanca Conference.   The conference had arrived upon a declaration, yet to be released, providing that the Germans and the Japanese would have to unconditionally surrender, a phrase borrowed from Ulysses S. Grant.

The wisdom of that declaration has been debated, principally in regard to Japan.  As a practical matter, there was no other way to approach the war against Germany at this time, and the declaration served to address Soviet fears that the Western Allies would arrive on a separate peace with Germany.  In reality, while it may not have been obvious to the Germans or the general public, the Western Allies regarded an Axis defeat at this point inevitable.   The real fear was that Stalin would arrange a separate peace with the Germans, which while it has been discounted by many historians, was in fact much more likely and not even unlikely.  Soviet military performance had been poor in 41 and most of 42, and the Soviet Union, as the then Bolshevik Russia, had in fact done just that in 1917.

Interestingly, its rarely noted that the US, and then everyone else, violated the unconditional surrender provision of the Casablanca agreements as to Japan.  The Japanese surrender, if not conditional, saw the Western Allies, for their own reasons, agree to keep the Japanese monarchy on the throne.  And it was also violated in regards to Italy, which negotiated its way out of the Axis and into the Allied powers, while dumping Mussolini, as a condition to the end of the Allied war against it.

The Allies prevailed in the Battle of Wau.

Wednesday, January 13, 1943. Germany enters Total War.

Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter, looking a lot like the Blue Max.

Adolf Hitler decreed that the "Führer decree on the full employment of men and women in the defense of the Reich", bringing total mobilization into effect, but rather late, given that the war had been going on since 1939, and that the struggle with Russia had been going on since 1941.  

The act was designed to bring adult German women into the industrial work force, thereby relieving men to fight in the Wehrmacht.  It would only allow, however, for an additional 500,000 men to be mobilized, which in the context of the war was telling as that frankly wasn't that many.  The act had been designed to apply to women from age 16 to 50, but Hitler insisted on upping the lower age limit to 17.  Soon thereafter, the upper age limit was depressed to 45.

Deutscher Frauenarbeitsdienst service flag.

As perhaps that short history reveals, the Nazis were very reluctant to fully mobilize their adult population to the extent it required mobilizing women.  The party had always had the view that women's roles were solely familial and domestic, and had discouraged female employment and involvement in civil life in every fashion.  While exceptions occurred, women were not supposed to be allowed to join the Nazi Party.  Indeed, Nazi fascination with the female reproductive role descended right down to the perverse level in some instances.

With the arrival of the war, therefore, the Germans effectively sidelined its female population until forced to mobilize them due to the inescapable manpower needs of the war.

This contrasts dramatically with the Allied powers. The UK, US and Canada had all encouraged women to work in factories and fields since the onset of the war, and had taken women into non combat military service early on. The Soviet Union went one step further, not only taking women into service, but also allowing small scale use of female combatants.  The UK had required women by this point to register for some sort of war support service.

By this point in the war, of course, the Germans were resorting to slave labor for the same purpose.

Some interesting ones from Sarah Sundin for today's date:

Today in World War II History—January 13, 1943:Students at the University of Munich riot after a Nazi speaker blames the German army’s dire situation in Stalingrad on student malingerers.

 and

In “Sleepy Lagoon” case in Los Angeles, 17 Mexican-Americans are wrongly convicted of murder; convictions will be overturned in October 1944.

The wrongfully convicted upon being released.

I vaguely recall this story featuring in the movie Zoot Suit.

Tuesday, December 29, 1942 Retreats.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—December 29, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 29, 1942: German army begins retreat from the Caucasus region. Japanese begin withdrawal from Buna area of New Guinea.

 

Saturday, December 12, 1942. Winter Operations.

The Germans launched Operation Winter Storm, an offensive that aimed to break through to trapped forces at Stalingrad.

Red Army T-34s in Operation Little Saturn.

The Soviets launched Operation Little Saturn on south of the Don.

The Knights of Columbus Hostel fire occurred in St. John's Newfoundland.  The fact that many suspicious items are associated with the fire, that other fire attempts happened in the same locality within a proximate time frame, and that the Catholic hostel housed many military and shipping personnel at the time have caused it to be suspected that the fire arose due to a Nazi act of sabotage.  99 people died as a result of the fire.

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—December 12, 1942: M3 submachine gun enters service with US Army. UCLA football team beats USC for the first time, 14-7; a war bond drive at the game raises $2 million.

The M3 was a wartime design that made use of stamping technology. The goal was to produce a reliable submachine gun at a much lower cost than the competing machined examples that then existed, a goal which was largely achieved.

The U.S. used submachine guns in a much different way than depicted in films and different from the way it was used in many other armies.  Generally they never showed up in the TO&E's of infantry units of any kind, including airborne units.  They did end up in those units, but through unofficial routes.  Submachine guns really served as defensive weapons for armored vehicle crews, for the most part, in the U.S. Army.  The M3 occupied that role into the 1990s.

Solider armed with M3 guarding German prisoners during Operation Overlord.  The jeep is unusual in that it's had a back deck extension afixed to it.

The M3 was nicknamed the "Grease Gun" due to its resemblance to that tool by U.S. troops.

As it was a Saturday, the Saturday weekly magazines were out.

The Saturday Evening Post had an illustration of a hunting dog by tools of the trade and a photo of its owner, now in the service.

Colliers had an illustration by Polish artist Arthur Szyk in his unique style depicting the Japanese allegorically as a bat over Pearl Harbor.

Thursday, September 24, 1942. Hitler sacks Halder

Adolph Hitler, demonstrating increasing concern of the increasingly slow rate of advance on the Eastern Front, and thereby demonstrating a better understanding of the tactical situation than he is sometimes given credit for, sacked Franz Halder of the Chief of Staff of the OKH.

Long term, this proved to be a lucky break for Halder who had a role complicit with German atrocities in the East.  Losing his position in 1942, he became a favorite of Western militaries post-war and was involved in the creation of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth.  He lived until 1972.

He was replaced by Kurt Zeitzler.  Zeitzler was a professional staff officer who grew increasingly frustrated in his role and came to be estranged from Hitler.  He sought to resign in 1944 and ultimately was allowed to do so, to be followed by Hitler cashiering him from the German Army in January 1945.  Zeitzler was somewhat unusual in that he did not serve any time at all after the war unlike most very senior German generals.  He was called as a witness for the defense in the Nuremberg Trails.  He died in 1963.

The German Army broke through at Stalingrad, advancing to the Volga, and cutting the Red Army 62nd Army in two.

The Japanese landed on Maliana in the Gilberts.

The last entry on the excellent World War Two Day-By-Day Blog, linked in down in our disconnected blog's thread, was on this day, which provided:

Day 1120 September 24, 1942

In the North Atlantic 300-500 miles East of the tip of Greenland, U-432 sinks American SS Pennmar at 1.44 AM (1 man is crushed between a raft and the ship and another drowns, 59 survivors picked up later in the day by US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Bibb), U-617 sinks Belgian SS Roumanie at 1.58 PM (36 crew and six British gunners killed, chief engineer Suykerbuyk is found on a raft and taken prisoner by U-617) and U-619 sinks American SS John Winthrop with 5 torpedoes and the deck gun (all 39 crew and 13 gunners lost).

At Stalingrad, German 94th Infantry and 24th Panzer Divisions wipe out the Soviet defenders in the pocket in South of the city. Furious at the delay in taking Stalingrad and lack of success reaching oilfields in the Caucasus, Hitler dismisses General Halder as OKH Chief of Staff, replacing him with General Kurt Zeitzler.

In the Mediterranean, Greek submarine RHS Nereus sinks small Italian freighter Fiume 7 miles Southwest of Rhodes. At 11.35 PM 36 miles Southwest of Tiros, Lebanon, U-561 sinks Egyptian Sailing ship Sphinx with 22 rounds from the deck gun.

Off the coast of British Guyana, South America. American SS Antinous (torpedoed yesterday by U-515) is taken in tow by British rescue tug HMS Zwatre Zee (most powerful tug in the world at 4200 Horse Power) but is sunk at 6.25 PM by U-512. At 9.24 AM, U-175 sinks American SS West Chetac (22 crew and 9 gunners drown trying to abandon ship, 17 crew and 2 gunners on 3 rafts picked up on October 1 20 miles off Trinidad by US destroyer USS Roe and landed at Port of Spain).

At 1.30 PM, a Japanese fighter spots Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager beached at Betano Bay, East Timor. At 4 PM, Japanese bombers return and damage HMAS Voyager beyond recovery (no casualties) but the 400 Australian commandos (2/4th Independent Company) have already landed safely.

On Guadalcanal, Japanese General Kawaguchi has regrouped 4000 troops (following the failed assault on Edson’s Ridge 10 days ago) in the Matanikau Valley, 5 miles West of the US positions at Henderson Field. US Marine General Vandegrift sends out 2 battalions to ‘mop up’ what he believes are only 400 Japanese in Matanikau Valley (Colonel ‘Chesty’ Puller 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment will go inland over 1200-foot high Mont Austen while 1st Raider Battalion under Colonel Samuel Griffith takes the coastal route into the Valley).

US bombers Douglas Dauntless dive bombers from Henderson Field (Marine squadron VMSB 231 and Naval squadron VS 3) attack Japanese destroyers Umikaze and Kawakaze on a “Tokyo Express” run, bringing troops and supplies to Guadalcanal from Shortland Island at the Western end of the Solomon Islands. Umikaze is damaged by a near miss (8 killed) forcing the convoy to abort landings and causing Umikaze to be repaired Truk. USAAF B-17 bombers raid the Japanese naval base on Shortland damaging Japanese seaplane carrier Sanuki Maru.

British destroyer HMS Nizam sinks a Vichy French merchant ship Southwest of Madagascar.

220 miles West of the tip of India, Japanese submarine I-165 sinks US freighter Losmar (3 killed, 14 survivors rescued by British ship Louise Moller on October 5 and another 7 survivors reach the West coast of Ceylon on October 17).

That entry came a decade ago, and then the entries suddenly ceased.

Saturday, August 29, 1942. The appearance of the Tiger 1.

The Panzerkampfwagen VI, famously known as the Tiger, or in this instance the Tiger I tank, made its battlefield appearance outside of Leningrad.  The Soviets were making a determined effort to relieve the city.

Captured Tiger 1 in U.S. possession.

The Tiger was a feared German weapon, and justifiably so.  Classified as a heavy tank, with much more armor than previous German tanks, and armed with an 88 mm main gun, it can be regarded as one of the first tanks, along with the T34, that pointed the way towards the Main Battle Tank of the post-war period, although that concept was still years away.  Indeed, it might be better able to claim the position of having essentially occupied that role prior to any other tank.

1,347 were made during the war.  Mechanically complicated due to over engineering, it had a high breakdown rate.  It was so feared by the Western Allies that troops routinely reported German tanks to be Tigers, no matter what they actually were.

On the same day the Soviet Air Force bombed Berlin in a nighttime raid using 100 Petlyakov Pe-8, Ilyshin II-4 and Yermolayev Yer 2 bombers.  A small party of Pe-8s bombed Königsberg.

The first class of officers for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps graduated.

The Saturday Evening Post featured P38 Lightenings on its cover.

I failed to note the August 1, 1942, cover, which featured a cover illustration of a Marine in the newly adopted herringbone tweed cotton dungarees. The Marine in question is wearing the Marine's khaki summer shirt underneath his hbt jacket, and it was in fact a jacket.  It was rarely worn that way, however, typically being worn as simply a shirt.  He's also wearing the M1 helmet and carrying a M1903 Springfield, all of which was typical gear at this point in the war and all of which reflected the appearance of the average Marine going into Guadalcanal.

Worth noting, however, is that at this point the hbt uniform was so new the Marines only issued a single set to its men.  Marines landing at Guadalcanal had only one, that is, set of hbt dungarees.

The Red Cross announced that the Japanese had refused the free passage of ships carrying food and medicine to American POWs.

Sunday, August 23, 1942. The beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Today in World War II History—August 23, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Aug. 23, 1942: Battle of Stalingrad officially begins: German Army Group B reaches the Volga River near Stalingrad.

Stalingrad is claimed to be the largest battle in history.

In addition to what is noted above, the Luftwaffe bombed the city, resulting in 40,000 civilian deaths and the reduction of much of the city to rubble.  Troops of the German 16th Panzer Division almost reached the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, the USSR's largest tank producer.

Martha Hanson, age 45, was mauled by a bear at Yellowstone National Park near her tourist cabin. She would die from her injuries on the 27th.

Thursday, July 23, 1942. Changing Case Blue.

Hitler ordered Case Blue extended.  He was, at that time, pleased with German success at Rostov, which was taken on this day by the Germans, reinforced by a Slovak Division, but frustrated by the overall slow progress of the offensive.  The new directive, number 45, changed the objectives for most of the Axis forces in the offensive.

Lack of Soviet resistance at Rostov had convinced Hitler that Stalingrad would require little effort, so the 6th Army was tasked with taking the city alone.  The 4th Army was redirected south, which required it to travel through the 6th Army, a disastrous move and regarded as one of the great German errors of the war.

Sarah Sundin reports, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—July 23, 1942: On Kokoda Trail on New Guinea, Japanese take Awala and force Australians back toward Wairopi.

She also reports:

In Switzerland, Salvadoran consul-general Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos and Hungarian Jewish businessman George Mandel-Mantello, Castellanos’s secretary, begin forging thousands of false Salvadoran papers to send to Jews in Europe; 90% of certificate holders will survive the Holocaust

The Secretary of War, Cordell Hull, issued a statement on the war and human freedom.

Washington, D.C., July 23, 1942

The conflict now raging throughout the earth is not a war of nation against nation. It is not a local or regional war or even a series of such wars. On the side of our enemies, led and driven by the most ambitious, depraved, and cruel leaders in history, it is an attempt to conquer and enslave this country and every country. On our side, the side of the United Nations, it is, for each of us, a life-and-death struggle for the preservation of our freedom, our homes, our very existence. We are united in our determination to destroy the worldwide forces of ruthless conquest and brutal enslavement. Their defeat will restore freedom or the opportunity for freedom alike to all countries and all people.

I

From Berlin and Tokyo the assault on human freedom has spread in ever-widening circles. In some cases the victim nations were lulled into inaction by promises or by protestations of peaceful intention. In other cases they were so intimidated that no preparation for resistance was made. In all cases the invaders, before armed attack, set into motion every conceivable device of deceit, subversion, treachery, and corruption within the borders of the intended victim.

As country after country, in Europe and in Asia, was attacked in this way, it became clear that no nation anywhere was immune, that for none was safety to be found in mere desire for peace, in avoidance of provocation, in neutrality, or in distance from the centers of assault. Nation after nation learned-too late-that safety against such an attack lay only in more effective force; in superior will; in concerted action of all free nations directed toward resisting and defeating the common enemies; in applying the law of self-defense and self-preservation rather than in relying upon professions of neutrality, which, in the face of a world-wide movement to subjugate all nations and all peoples, are as absurd and as suicidal as are such professions on the part of a citizen of a peaceful community attacked by a band of confessed outlaws.

Today twenty-eight United Nations are fighting against the would-be conquerors and enslavers of the human race. We know what is at stake. By the barbarian invaders of today nothing is spared-neither life, nor morals, nor honor, nor virtue, nor pledges, nor the customs, the national institutions, even the religion of any people. Their aim is to sweep away every vestige of individual and national rights; to substitute, the world over, their unspeakable tyranny for the ways of life developed each for itself by the various nations; to make all mankind subservient to their will; to convert the two billions of the earth's inhabitants into abject victims and tools of their insatiable lust for power and dominion.

We have seen their work in the countries they have invaded-murder of defenseless men, women, and children; rape, torture, and pillage; mass terrorization; the black system of hostages; the starvation and deprivations that beggar description; the most thorough-going bondage the world has ever seen.

This is the so-called "New Order" of Hitler and the Japanese war lords-an order as old as slavery-new only in the calculated thoroughness of its cruelty; in the depth of the degradation to which it subjects its victims; in the degree to which it has revived the worst practices of the darkest ages in history.

From time immemorial attempts at conquest and enslavement have checked and harried the great onward march of men and women toward greater freedom and higher levels of civilized existence. The methods employed have been the same as those which we witness today. Ruthless, ambitious men would succeed in corrupting, coercing, or deceiving into blind obedience enough servile followers to attack or terrify peaceful and law-abiding peoples, too often unprepared to resist. In a few instances whole civilizations collapsed under the impact, and darkness descended on large portions of the world. More often, the attacks were-at great cost-defeated, and mankind resumed its onward march. Yet throughout the ages two lessons have remained unlearned.

The first is that man's innate striving for freedom cannot be extinguished. Since the world began too many men have fought, suffered, and died for freedom-and not in vain-for doubt to remain on that score. And yet, over and over again would-be conquerors and enslavers of mankind have sought to translate their mad dreams of barbarous domination into reality.

The second lesson is that liberty is truly won only when it is guarded by the same watchfulness, the same courage, the same willingness to fight for it which first secured it. Repeatedly throughout history, free men-having won the fight, having acquired precious rights and privileges which freedom brings-have dropped their guard, relaxed their vigilance, taken their freedom for granted. They have busied themselves with many things and have not noticed the beginnings of new tyrannies, the rise of new threats to liberty. They have become so abhorrent of force and cruelty that they have believed the bully and the gangster could be reformed by reason and justice or be defeated by passive resistance. And so they have been surprised and unprepared when the attacks have come again.

It is perhaps too much to expect that tyrants will ever learn that man's longing for liberty cannot be destroyed. Dreams of conquest have their roots in diseased mentality. And that malady may well be ineradicable.

But it is not too much to expect that free men may learn-and never forget-that lack of vigilance is the greatest danger to liberty; that enjoyment of liberty is the fruit of willingness to fight, suffer, and die for it; that the right to freedom cannot be divorced from the duty of defending it.

This latest assault on human freedom is, in a profound sense, a searching test for nations and for individuals. There is no surer way for men and for nations to show themselves unworthy of liberty than, by supine submission and refusal to fight, to render more difficult the task of those who are fighting for the preservation of human freedom-unless it be to align themselves, freely and voluntarily, with the destroyers of liberty. There is no surer way for men and for nations to show themselves worthy of liberty than to fight for its preservation, in any way that is open to them, against those who would destroy it for all.

In the plans of the new tyrants of the East and of the West, there is no freedom or hope for anyone. If there be some people who believe that they can expect from Hitler or the Japanese war lords greater measure of freedom or of opportunity for freedom than they now possess, they need only look at the firing squads in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, at the concentration camps in Germany and Austria. They need only see the degradation of the forced laborers torn from every occupied country. They can learn the fraudulent quality of that brand of "freedom" from the Chinese in Nanking, from the Filipinos in Manila, from the inhabitants of the East Indies.

There is no chance for liberty for any people anywhere save through the victory of the free peoples. Never did a plainer duty to fight against its foes devolve upon all peoples who prize liberty and all who aspire to it. Never was there such an opportunity for every people, as have the people of the Philippines, to demonstrate its fitness both for the rights and the responsibilities of freedom-and, through proof given of its fitness, to create an overwhelming sentiment in every country of the world in support of its striving for liberty.

II

We, Americans, are fighting today because we have been attacked. We are fighting, as I have said, to preserve our very existence. We and the other free peoples are forced into a desperate fight because we did not learn the lessons of which I have spoken. We are forced to fight because we ignored the simple but fundamental fact that the price of peace and of the preservation of right and freedom among nations is the acceptance of international responsibilities.

After the last war too many nations, including our own, tolerated, or participated in, attempts to advance their own interests at the expense of any system of collective security and of opportunity for all. Too many of us were blind to the evils which, thus loosed, created growing cancers within and among nations-political suspicions and hatreds; the race of armaments, first stealthy and then the subject of flagrant boasts; economic nationalism and its train of economic depression and misery; and finally the emergence from their dark places of the looters and thugs who found their opportunity in disorder and disaster. The shadow of a new war fell across the world. War began in 1931 when Japan invaded China.

From the time when the first signs of menace to the peace of the world appeared on the horizon, the Government of the United States strove increasingly to promote peace on the solid foundation of law, justice, non-intervention, non-aggression, and international collaboration. With growing insistence we advocated the principles of a broad and constructive world order in political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual relations among nations-principles which must constitute the foundation of any satisfactory future world order. We practiced these principles in our good-neighbor policy, which was applicable to every part of the earth and which we sought to apply not alone in the Western Hemisphere, but in the Pacific area, in Europe, and everywhere else as well.

When hostilities broke out and wars were declared, our Government made every honorable and feasible effort to prevent spread of the conflicts and to safeguard this country against being drawn into war. But danger increased all around us. Peaceful unoffending countries, one after another, were brought under the heel of the invader, both in Europe and in Asia. Hitler and the Japanese war lords, by their acts and their official declarations have made it plain that the purpose of the Japanese is to conquer and dominate virtually one-half of the world with one-half of its population, while Hitler's purpose is, first to conquer continental Europe, and then to seize the British Isles, and through control of the British fleet to dominate the seven seas.

Events have demonstrated beyond question that each of the Axis powers was bent on unlimited conquest. As time went on it became manifest that the United States and the whole Western Hemisphere were ultimate targets. Conclusive proof was given by the international desperadoes themselves through the publication on September 27, 1940 of the Tripartite Pact. By that treaty of alliance Germany, Japan and Italy in effect agreed that, if any country not then at war with one of them placed obstacles in the way of the program of conquest of any of them, the three would unite in political, military, and economic action against that country. This provision was aimed directly at the United States. One of the highest official spokesmen of the Axis powers openly proclaimed that the objective of the three partners was a new world order to be achieved by force.

Finally a realization that these plans and purposes created a state of imminent and acute danger to all remaining peaceful countries, especially to those of the Western Hemisphere, forced us to face the all-important question as to when and where the peaceful nations, including ours, should begin to resist the movements of military aggression in order to make such resistance most effective.

It was in these circumstances that our Government felt the compelling importance of adopting the policy of aid to Great Britain and to other nations which resisted aggression, as set forth in the Lease-Lend Act, submitted to Congress in January 1941. It is scarcely necessary to say that all subsequent utterances and acts of the leaders of Germany, Japan, and Italy have fully confirmed the wisdom and timeliness of the policy of this Government in thus proceeding to defend the country before it should be too late.

In December 1941, acting in concert, moving in harmony with their world-wide objective, all three launched their assault against us, the spearhead of which was at Pearl Harbor, reasoning that to achieve victory they must conquer us, and to conquer us they must strike before we were prepared to resist successfully.

When they made this concerted attack against us, the war lords of Japan and Germany must have believed that at the root of our sincere and strong desire for peace lay a lack of will and of capacity to rise in unity of purpose and to pour all our strength and energy into the battle. They have since begun to learn better at Wake and at Midway; at Bataan and at Corregidor; in the Straits of Macassar and in the Coral Sea; from the sky over Tokyo itself; again at Midway; on and over every ocean of the world traversed by our air fleets and our naval and merchant vessels; on every battlefield of the world increasingly supplied with our war materials. They will have final and conclusive answer from our expanding armies, navies, and air forces, operating side by side with our valiant allies and backed by our nation-wide industrial power and the courage, the determination, and the ingenuity of our people. That answer is being forged in the fighting spirit which now pervades the people of this country, in the will to victory of all the United Nations.

In this vast struggle, we, Americans, stand united with those who, like ourselves, are fighting for the preservation of their freedom; with those who are fighting to regain the freedom of which they have been brutally deprived; with those who are fighting for the opportunity to achieve freedom.

We have always believed-and we believe today-that all peoples, without distinction of race, color, or religion, who are prepared and willing to accept the responsibilities of liberty, are entitled to its enjoyment. We have always sought-and we seek today-to encourage and aid all who aspire to freedom to establish their right to it by preparing themselves to assume its obligations. We have striven to meet squarely our own responsibility in this respect-in Cuba, in the Philippines, and wherever else it has devolved upon us. It has been our purpose in the past-and will remain our purpose in the future-to use the full measure of our influence to support attainment of freedom by all peoples who, by their acts, show themselves worthy of it and ready for it.

We, who have received from the preceding generations the priceless fruits of the centuries-old struggle for liberty, freely accept today the sacrifices which may be needed to pass on to our children an even greater heritage.

Our enemies confront us with armed might in every part of the globe. We cannot win this war by standing at our borders and limiting ourselves to beating off attacks. Air, submarine, and other forms of assault can be effectively defeated only if those attacked seek out and destroy the sources of attack. We shall send all the aid that we can to our gallant allies. And we shall seek out our enemies and attack them at any and every point of the globe at which the destruction of the Axis forces can be accomplished most effectively, most speedily, and most certainly.

We know the magnitude of the task before us. We know that its accomplishment will exact unlimited effort and unfaltering courage. However long the road we shall press on to the final victory.

Temporary reverses must not and will not be the occasion for weakness and discouragement. On the contrary, they are the signal for all true soldiers and patriots to strike back all the harder, with that superb resolution which never yields to force or threat of force.

Fighting as we are in self-defense, in self-preservation, we must make certain the defeat and destruction of the world-invading forces of Hitler and the Japanese war lords. To do this our people and the peoples of every one of the twenty-eight United Nations must make up their minds to sacrifice time and substance and life itself to an extent unprecedented in past history.

International desperadoes like individual bandits will not abandon outlawry voluntarily. They will only be stopped by force.

III

With victory achieved our first concern must be for those whose sufferings have been almost beyond human endurance. When the armies of our enemies are beaten, the people of many countries will be starving and without means of producing food; homeless and without means of building shelter; their fields scorched; their cattle slaughtered; their tools gone; their factories and mines destroyed; their roads and transport wrecked. Unknown millions will be far from their homes-prisoners of war, inmates of concentration camps, forced laborers in alien lands, refugees from battle, from cruelty, from starvation. Disease and danger of disease will lurk everywhere. In some countries confusion and chaos will follow the cessation of hostilities. Victory must be followed by swift and effective action to meet these pressing human needs.

At the same time all countries-those which will need relief and those more fortunate-will be faced with the immediate problems of transition from war to peace. War production must be transformed into production for the peacetime needs of man-kind. In some countries the physical ravages of war must be repaired. In others, agriculture must be re-established. In all countries returning soldiers must find places in the work of peace. There will be enormous deficiencies of many kinds of goods. All countries, including ours, will need an immense volume of production. There will, therefore, exist vast opportunities for useful employment. The termination of the war effort will release, for use in peaceful pursuits, stirring enthusiasms, the aspirations and energies of youth, technical experience, and-in many industries-ample plants and abundance of tools. The compelling demands of war are revealing how great a supply of goods can be produced for national defense. The needs of peace should be no less compelling, though some of the means of meeting them must be different. Toward meeting these needs each and every nation should intensively direct its efforts to the creation of an abundance for peacetime life. This can only be achieved by a combination of the efforts of individuals, the efforts of groups, and the efforts of nations. Governments can and must help to focus the energies by encouraging, coordinating, and aiding the efforts of individuals and groups.

During this period of transition the United Nations must continue to act in the spirit of cooperation which now underlies their war effort-to supplement and make more effective the action of countries individually in re-establishing public order, in providing swift relief, in meeting the manifold problems of readjustment.

Beyond these there will lie before all countries the great constructive task of building human freedom and Christian morality on firmer and broader foundations than ever before. This task, too, will of necessity call for both national and international action.

Within each nation liberty under law is an essential requirement of progress. The spirit of liberty, when deeply imbedded in the minds and hearts of the people, is the most powerful remedy for racial animosities, religious intolerance, ignorance, and all the other evils which prevent men from uniting in a brotherhood of truly civilized existence. It inspires men to acquisition of knowledge and understanding. It is the only real foundation of political and social stability.

Liberty is more than a matter of political rights, indispensable as those rights are. In our own country we have learned from bitter experience that to be truly free, men must have, as well, economic freedom and economic security-the assurance for all alike of an opportunity to work as free men in the company of free men; to obtain through work the material and spiritual means of life; to advance through the exercise of ability, initiative, and enterprise; to make provision against the hazards of human existence. We know that this is true of mankind everywhere. We know that in all countries there has been-and there will be increasingly in the future-demand for a forward movement of social justice. Each of us must be resolved that, once the war is won, this demand shall be met as speedily and as fully as possible.

All these advances-in political freedom, in economic betterment, in social justice, in spiritual values-can be achieved by each nation primarily through its own work and effort, mainly through its own wise policies and actions. They can be made only where there is acceptance and cultivation of the concepts and the spirit of human rights and human freedom. It is impossible for any nation or group of nations to prescribe the methods or provide the means by which any other nation can accomplish or maintain its own political and economic independence, be strong, prosper, and attain high spiritual goals. It is possible, however, for all nations to give and to receive help.

That which nations can and must do toward helping one another is to take, by cooperative action, steps for the elimination of impediments and obstructions which prevent the full use by each-for the welfare of its people-of the energy and resources which are at its command. And the nations can and must, again by cooperative action under common agreement, create such facilities as will enable each to increase the effectiveness of its own national efforts.

Such cooperative action is already under way. Twenty-eight United Nations have proclaimed their adherence to a program of principles and purposes by which mankind may advance toward higher standards of national and international conduct. That program is embodied in the Declaration made on August 14, 1941, by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, now known as the Atlantic Charter.

The pledge of the Atlantic Charter is of a system which will give every nation, large or small, a greater assurance of stable peace, greater opportunity for the realization of its aspirations to freedom, and greater facilities for material advancement. But that pledge implies an obligation for each nation to demonstrate its capacity for stable and progressive government, to fulfill scrupulously its established duties to other nations, to settle its international differences and disputes by none but peaceful methods, and to make its full contribution to the maintenance of enduring peace.

IV

For decades all nations have lived in the shadow of threatened coercion or war. This has imposed heavy burdens of armament, which in the cases of many nations has absorbed so large a part of their production effort as to leave the remainder of their resources inadequate for maintaining, let alone improving, the economic, social, and cultural standards of their people. Closely related to this has been a burden less obvious but of immense weight-the inevitable limitation that fear of war imposes on productive activity. Many men, groups of men, and even nations have dared not plan, create, or increase the means of production, fearing lest war come and their efforts thus be rendered in vain.

No nation can make satisfactory progress while its citizens are in the grip of constant fear of external attack or interference. It is plain that some international agency must be created which can-by force, if necessary-keep the peace among nations in the future. There must be international cooperative action to set up the mechanisms which can thus insure peace. This must include eventual adjustment of national armaments in such a manner that the rule of law cannot be successfully challenged and that the burden of armaments may be reduced to a minimum.

In the creation of such mechanisms there would be a practical and purposeful application of sovereign powers through measures of international cooperation for purposes of safeguarding the peace. Participation by all nations in such measures would be for each its contribution toward its own future security and safety from outside attack.

Settlement of disputes by peaceful means, and indeed all processes of international cooperation, presuppose respect for law and obligations. It is plain that one of the institutions which must be established and be given vitality is an international court of justice. It is equally clear that, in the process of re-establishing international order, the United Nations must exercise surveillance over aggressor nations until such time as the latter demonstrate their willingness and ability to live at peace with other nations. How long such surveillance will need to continue must depend upon the rapidity with which the peoples of Germany, Japan, Italy, and their satellites give convincing proof that they have repudiated and abandoned the monstrous philosophy of superior race and conquest by force and have embraced loyally the basic principles of peaceful processes. During the formative period of the world organization, interruption by these aggressors must be rendered impossible.

One of the greatest of all obstacles which in the past have impeded human progress and afforded breeding grounds for dictators has been extreme nationalism. All will agree that nationalism and its spirit are essential to the healthy and normal political and economic life of a people, but when policies of nationalism-political, economic, social, and moral-are carried to such extremes as to exclude and prevent necessary policies of international cooperation, they become dangerous and deadly. Nationalism, run riot between the last war and this war, defeated all attempts to carry out indispensable measures of international economic and political action, encouraged and facilitated the rise of dictators, and drove the world straight toward the present war.

During this period narrow and short-sighted nationalism found its most virulent expression in the economic field. It prevented goods and services from flowing in volume at all adequate from nation to nation and thus severely hampered the work of production, distribution and consumption, and greatly retarded efforts for social betterment.

No nation can make satisfactory progress when it is deprived, by its own action or by the action of others, of the immeasurable benefits of international exchange of goods and services. The Atlantic Charter declares the right of all nations to "access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity." This is essential if the legitimate and growing demand for the greatest practicable measure of stable employment is to be met, accompanied by rising standards of living. If the actual and potential losses resulting from limitations on economic activity are to be eliminated, a system must be provided by which this can be assured.

In order to accomplish this, and to establish among the nations a circle of mutual benefit, excessive trade barriers of the many different kinds must be reduced, and practices which impose injuries on others and divert trade from its natural economic course must be avoided. Equally plain is the need for making national currencies once more freely exchangeable for each other at stable rates of exchange; for a system of financial relations so devised that materials can be produced and ways may be found of moving them where there are markets created by human need; for machinery through which capital may-for the development of the world's resources and for the stabilization of economic activity-move on equitable terms from financially stronger to financially weaker countries. There may be need for some special trade arrangement and for international agreements to handle difficult surplus problems and to meet situations in special areas.

These are only some of the things that nations can attempt to do as continuous discussion and experience instruct the judgment. There are bound to be many others. But the new policies should always be guided by cautious and sound judgment lest we make new mistakes in place of old ones and create new conflicts.

Building for the future in the economic sphere thus means that each nation must give substance and reality to programs of social and economic progress by augmenting production and using the greater output for the increase of general welfare; but not permitting it to be diverted or checked by special interests, private or public. It also means that each nation must play its full part in a system of world relations designed to facilitate the production and movement of goods in response to human needs.

With peace among nations reasonably assured, with political stability established, with economic shackles removed, a vast fund of resources will be released in each nation to meet the needs of progress, to make possible for all of its citizens an advancement toward higher living standards, to invigorate the constructive forces of initiative and enterprise. The nations of the world will then be able to go forward in the manner of their own choosing in all avenues of human betterment more completely than they ever have been able to do in the past. They will do so through their own efforts and with complete self-respect. Continuous self-development of nations and individuals in a framework of effective cooperation with others is the sound and logical road to the higher standards of life which we all crave and seek.

No nation will find this easy. Neither victory nor any form of post-war settlement will of itself create a millennium. Rather we shall be offered an opportunity to eliminate vast obstacles and wastes, to make available additional means of advancing national and international standards, to create new facilities whereby the natural resources of the earth and the products of human hands and brains can be more effectively utilized for the promotion of human welfare.

To make full use of this opportunity, we must be resolved not alone to proclaim the blessings and benefits which we all alike desire for humanity but to find the mechanisms by which they may be most fully and most speedily attained and be most effectively safeguarded.

The manifold tasks that lie ahead will not be accomplished overnight. There will be need for plans, developed with careful consideration and carried forward boldly and vigorously. The vision, the resolution, and the skill with which the conditions of peace will be established and developed after the war will be as much a measure of man's capacity for freedom and progress as the fervor and determination which men show in winning the victory.

Without impediment to the fullest prosecution of the war-indeed for its most effective prosecution-the United Nations should from time to time, as they did in adopting the Atlantic Charter, formulate and proclaim their common views regarding fundamental policies which will chart for mankind a wise course based on enduring spiritual values. In support of such policies an informed public opinion must be developed. This is a task of intensive study, hard thinking, broad vision, and leadership-not for governments alone, but for parents, and teachers, and clergymen, and all those, within each nation, who provide spiritual, moral, and intellectual guidance. Never did so great and so compelling a duty in this respect devolve upon those who are in positions of responsibility, public and private.

V

For the immediate present the all-important issue is that of winning the war-winning it as soon as possible and winning it decisively. Into that we must put our utmost effort-now and every day until victory is won.

A bitter armed attack on human freedom has aroused mankind to new heights of courage, determination, and moral strength. It has evoked a spirit of work, sacrifice, and cooperative effort. With that strength and with that spirit we shall win.

Tuesday, June 30, 1942. Spreading Nazi Oppression.

The Third Reich closed all remaining Jewish schools inside of Germany.

This odd fact, that the schools were still open to some degree, points out the oddity that German Jews, while subject to all of the repression that Jews in German occupied territories were, were still safer than those in the occupied territories.  Indeed, the mortality rate during the Third Reich, while still ghastly and large, was significantly lower than it was for the occupied territories.  This has been explained by there being at least a remnant of laws applying to Jews in Germany, whereas those elsewhere were completely subject to Nazi lawlessness.

The U158, having destroyed 12 ships during a successful patrol, was sunk by a U.S. Navy PBM Mariner off of Bermuda, demonstrating how submarines were vulnerable to aircraft.

German forces moved forward again in Case Blue.  At Sevastopol, Stalin ordered senior figures evacuated by submarine.

The Afrika Korps arrived in front of El Alamein.

British troops at El Alamein.

Wedding fashions, by which we mean female wedding fashions, was the topic of the Life magazine that came out on this day.

Thursday, June 18, 1942. Advancing Wehrmacht.

 

Winston Churchill, following his transatlantic flight, arrived in Washington, D. C.

The Wehrmacht took Fortress Maxim Gorky in Sevastopol.

The Afrika Korps took Kambut, Libya.

It was another day of heavy Allied shipping losses to German submarines.

At least from a news of the day prospective, things weren't looking great for the Allies in regard to the war against the Germans.

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Tuesday, May 19, 1942. Kerch falls, Doolittle decorated, a day for submarines.

On this day in 1942 the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula ended with an Axis victory as active campaigning very much resumed on the southern Eastern Front.

Red Army soldiers going into what would prove to be a grim captivity after surrendering at Kerch.  CC BY-SA 3.0 de File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F016237-0022A, Krim, russische Soldaten bei Gefangennahme.jpg Created: May 1942date QS:P571,+1942-05-00T00:00:00Z/10

The effort had been going on for four months.  Germany and Romania took 38,000 losses in the battle, the Soviets took 570,000.

Sarah Sundin reports the following for this Tuesday in May of 1942:

Today in World War II History—May 19, 1942: Lt. Col. James Doolittle receives the Medal of Honor, revealing who led the US air raid on Tokyo. New York City discontinues night baseball games.

The Italian submarine Cappellini sank the Swedish ship MV Tisnaren which was clearly marked as a Swedish vessel.  It was carrying Scotch whiskey from Manchester England to South America.

The U-751 sank the US SS Isabela in the Caribbean.  The U-103 sank the SS Orgontz off of Mexicao.  The U-506 sank the SS Heredia off of Guatemala.

The HMS Thrasher sank the Italian merchant ship Penelope.

The RAF ineffectively raided Mannheim Germany in a night raid while the Luftwaffe attacked Hull.

Sunday, March 17, 1942. Happy Birthday, Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal in 1971.

The great bluesman,  Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, was born on this day in 1942.

Fredericks studied to be a farmer, and seriously considered taking up that vocation, before his innate musical talent and love of the blues determined his course in life.  Playing in multiple blues styles, his music is actually a bit difficult to define, stretching from electric delta old-fashioned primitive blues. 

He's still actively playing today.

Sarah Sundin reports an aviation milestone:

Today in World War II History—May 17, 1942: Igor Sikorsky and Les Morris fly XR-4, the US Army’s first helicopter, 700 miles from Stratford, CT, to Wright Field, OH.

She also reports that on this day in 1942 the Germans stopped a Soviet advance on Kharkiv.

There are a number of things that are interesting and significant about these series of events (none of which have to do with the Ukrainian Army just pushing the Russian Army out of the same city over the past few days).

This represented the first effort of the Red Army to really mount a major offensive against the Germans, and whether intentional or not, they slightly got the jump on the Germans timing wise.  It would be to no avail, however.

The Germans would nearly simultaneously launch their own offensive, which had the practical impact of being a counteroffensive in this area.  The German efforts would be successful.  At the same time, the Germans had managed to take all of Crimea save for a single port city.

That the Germans, in the spring of 1942, were still capable of launching offensive operations in the East is, frankly, amazing. Their failure to take all of their objectives in the USSR in the spring and summer of 1941, and their being pushed back in the north during the winter, should have resulted in such a massive depletion of their resources that 1942 should have spelled their end.  Instead, they were launching new spring offensives.