Showing posts with label Germany (Berlin). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany (Berlin). Show all posts

Friday, July 11, 2025

Wednesday, July 11, 1945. Redeploying.


"Joyous Second Division Marines, about to board ship for home after more than thirty months overseas, were not forgotten by the famed division mascot "Eight Ball", who was on hand to bid them a sorrowful goodbye. Saipan. 11 July, 1945. Photographer: Rohde. Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive."

The first meeting of the Inter-Allied Council for Berlin took place in which the USSR agreed to hand over civilian and military control of West Berlin to the UK and US.

The Japanese destroyer Sakura hit a mine and sank in Osaka Harbor.

The 8th Air Force began to redeploy from Europe to Okinawa, where they were to receive B-29s after initially having a training role.  The redeployment of its aircraft to the continental US also began on this day.

The US used napalm on resistant Japanese targets on Luzon.

Fadil Hoxha became President of the Assembly of Kosovo and Metohija.

Last edition:

Friday, July 10, 1945. Sentimental Journey.

    Friday, July 4, 2025

    Wednesday, July 4, 1945. MacArthur declares things wrapped up while additional mopping up occurs in the Philippines.

    "With the 6th Inf. Div. in the Cagayan Valley, Luzon, P.I., about 9 miles north of Bagabag along Highway 4. Scene showing a reinforcing patrol of A Co., 1st Bn. of the 63rd Regt. on road at the frontlines just prior to moving ahead. 4 July, 1945. Company A, 1st Battalion, 63rd Infantry Regiment, 6th Infantry Division. Photographer: Pfc. Murray Schneiweiss."

    General Douglas MacArthur announced that the Philippines had been completely liberated while the 24th Infantry Division organized an amphibious expeditionary force to liberate Sarangani Bay, south of Davao. 

    Hmmm. . . . 

    President Truman released a short statement for the Fourth of July.

    Statement by the President: The Fourth of July.

    July 04, 1945

    AGAIN THIS YEAR we celebrate July 4 as the anniversary of the day one hundred and sixty-nine years ago on which we declared our independence as a sovereign people.

    In this year of 1945, we have pride in the combined might of this nation which has contributed signally to the defeat of the enemy in Europe. We have confidence that, under Providence, we soon may crush the enemy in the Pacific. We have humility for the guidance that has been given us of God in serving His will as a leader of freedom for the world.

    This year, the men and women of our armed forces, and many civilians as well, are celebrating the anniversary of American Independence in other countries throughout the world. Citizens of these other lands will understand what we celebrate and why, for freedom is dear to the hearts of all men everywhere. In other lands, others will join us in honoring our declaration that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    Here at home, on this July 4, 1945, let us honor our Nation's creed of liberty, and the men and women of our armed forces who are carrying this creed with them throughout the world.

    Canadian troops in Aldershot rioted about the delay in returning them home to Canada.

    Rumors started circulating in Berlin that Hitler was alive and well.

    The British Occupation force arrived in the city.

    Last edition:  

    Tuesday, July 3, 1945. Don't use the Bomb.

    Thursday, July 3, 2025

    Tuesday, July 3, 1945. Don't use the Bomb.

    The first draft of a letter by Manhattan Project scientists urging that the Atomic Bomb not be used was circulated.  Hungarian physicist and biologist Leo Szilard was the scrivener.


    This version was not sent, as a new one was worked on in order to secure additional signatures.

    This is the second such example of such a letter, the other one from Robert Oppenheimer, that I've posted in recent days.  Clearly something was really going on inside the Manhattan Project itself at this time, and what that was, was a debate on whether to use the bomb or not.

    Frankly, the views expressed above comport with my own.  Using the bomb was 1) a huge mistake, and 2) deeply immoral in how it was targeted.

    It's interesting, however, that this debate broke out at this point.

    That the atom could be split and that it could be done in such away that the massive release of energy would result in a huge blast had been known, albeit theoretically, for some time.  The knowledge did not come about during the war itself, but before it.

    The war, however, created an enormous imperative to work the physical problems of constructing a bomb out, in large part out of the fear the Axis would get there first.

    The Western Allies, the Germans, and the Japanese all had atomic weaponry programs, although its typically forgotten that the Japanese were working on this as well. The German program was enormously feared.

    The German program was also enormously hampered by Nazi racism, as it had the impact of causing Jewish scientists, such as the Hungarian Leo Szilard to flee for their lives.  They weren't alone in this, however, as generally the highly educated class of men that were in the field of physics weren't really keen on fascism overall.  Germany had some top flight scientists, of course, but many of the best minds in science in Europe had left or put themselves out of serious research work if they remained. Some of those who remained in Europe and were subject to the Germans somewhat doddled in their efforts in order to retard the advancement of the efforts.

    Japan had a program, as noted, and it had some excellent physicists. Their problem here, however, was much like that of the Japanese war effort in chief.  Japan was so isolated that it had nobody else to draw from.

    In contrast, the US effort was nearly global in extent, as the US drew in all the great minds, in one way or another, who were not working for the Germans or Japanese, which was most of the great minds in the field.

    At any rate, moral qualms about using the bomb didn't really start to emerge until very late in the war, and not really until after Germany had surrendered.  Nearly everyone working on the Manhattan Project imagined it as producing a bomb to be used against Germany.  Japan wasn't really considered.

    And there's good reasons for that. For one thing, it was feared that Germany, not Japan, would produce a nuclear weapon and there was no doubt that Germany would use it if they did.  Given that, producing a bomb, and using it first, had a certain element of logic to it.  Destroy them, the logic was, before they can do that to us.

    Working into that, it should be noted, was the decay in the resistance to the destructiveness of war that had started to set in during World War One.  The US had gone to war, in part, over a moral reaction to the Germans sinking civilian ships.  By World War Two there was no moral aversion to that at all and unrestricted submarine warfare was just considered part of war.

    The Germans had also introduced terror bombing of cities during the Great War, engaging in it with Zeppelins.  Long range artillery had shelled Paris in the same fashion.  Between the wars it was largely assumed that cities would be targeted simply because they were cities, which turned out to be correct.  The Germans had already engaged in this during the Spanish Civil War and would turn to during the Blitz, which the British would very rapidly reply with.  By 1945 the US was firebombing Japanese cities with the logic it drove workers out of their homes, and crippled Japanese industry, which was correct, but deeply immoral.

    By July 1945 there were really no more industrial targets left to bomb in Japan, although the bombing was ongoing.  The only point of dropping an atomic bomb was to destroy cities, and the people within them.

    That was obvious to the atomic scientists, but that had been obvious about using the bomb on Germany as well. Targeting would have largely been the same, and for the same purpose.  Allied strategic bombing of Germany has actually halted before the German surrender, as there was no longer any point to it, although the concept the Allies had in mind would really have been to use the bomb earlier than the Spring of 1945.  Indeed, had the bomb been available in very early 1945, there's real reason to doubt that the Allies would have used it on Germany, as Allied troops were on the ground and they were advancing.

    Still, with all that in mind, there was a certain sense all along that Germany uniquely deserved to be subject to atomic bombs.  Japan in this context was almost an after thought.

    Everyone working on the bomb in the US was European culturally.  To those of European culture the Germans were uniquely horrific, and to this day Nazi Germany is regarded as uniquely horrific.  Many of those working on the Manhattan Project, moreover, were direct victims of the Nazis, with quite a few being both European and Jewish refugees.  Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, by late 1944 people were well aware of what was going on in Nazi Germany and that the Germans were systematically murdering Jews.

    The Japanese also were incredibly inhumane and horrific in their treatment of the populations they'd overrun, as well as of Allied prisoners of war. But the nature and extent of their barbarity really wasn't very well known.  Indeed, much of it would not be until after the Second World War, at which time the information was suppressed for post war political reasons.  At any rate, in July 1945, the scientists working on the Manhattan Project did not know of Japanese systematic horrors in China.  Very few people did.

    And the Japanese were scene, basically, as victims of their own culture, which was somewhat true.  Japan had not been colonized by Europeans at all, making them the only nation in Asia to have that status.  Therefore, European culture, and standards, had really not penetrated very much.  Japan had adopted Western technology, but Western concepts of morality in war had not come in with it very much. To the extent that it did, it seemed to evaporate with the introduction of increasing authoritarianism in Japan after World War One.

    But that wasn't really known to the scientific community.

    It was, however, to the military community, which had been fighting the Japanese on the ground.

    We'll discuss that in the context of the bomb in a later thread.  

    The point here is that by this time, many in the non military community, and some within it, who were aware that the Allies were about to produce an atomic bomb were now against using it.

    And, indeed, it should never have been used.

    Moscow radio announced that the body of Joseph Goebbels had been discovered in the courtyard of the Chancellery in Berlin.

    Also in Berlin, the first U.S. troops arrived for occupation duty.

    James F. Byrnes became United States Secretary of State.

    The first civilian passenger car made in the United States in three years rolled off the assembly line of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit.  The car was a 1946 Super DeLuxe Tudor sedan and was destined for Harry Truman.

    Last edition:

    Monday, July 2, 1945. Advances on Balikpapen.


    Wednesday, June 25, 2025

    Monday, June 24, 1945. Brandenburg Ballerina.

    Junior Sergeant Lydia Spivak (Лидия Спивак), Red Army Traffic Regulator, June 1945.  She became locally famous in this role and was tagged the Brandenburg Ballerina or The Mistress of Brandenburg Gate.  She would have been 19 or 20 years old at the time and had been in the Red Army since she was 17.  She was a Ukrainian, and served in a transportation unit.  Like most Red Army soldiers, not that much is known about her in the West and indeed she's often confused with another female Soviet soldier who served in the same role.  Having said that, this role did make her into a type of celebrity and she did resurface from time to time, including once in the 1950s when she toured the area in which this video was shot.*  She passed away at age 59.  This is a truncated interview, and there is more to it.  It was impromptu, which is impressive.

    US forces took Tuguegarao and Gattaran on Luzon.

    Australian forces completed the occupation of the Miro oilfield on Borneo.

    The Simla Conference to discuss the future Indian government of India began in Simla, India.

    Seán T. O'Kelly became 2nd President of Ireland and Einar Gerhardsen became Prime Minister of Norway.

    Footnotes:

    *Ms. Spivak by that time was aging rapidly. By the 50s she'd gained a lot of weight and by the time of her sad early death she had aged rapidly  by western standards and looked much older than her 59 years.  She was undeniably cute and lively in 1945, and in later photographs the liveliness seems undiminished in spite of her aging.  She achieved her original goal of becoming a teacher, and in fact became a university professor and married another professor

    Spivak is often confused with Maria Limanskaya (Мария Лиманскаяwho) served in the same role in Berlin.  She was a Russian and lived to age 100, dying last year, although oddly enough in some ways had a harder post war life, marrying than divorcing her first husband, and raising two children for a time on her own.



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