Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Recorded on this day in 1945:

 The Sheridan Press reported on wolves and war brides.

The story on the big wolf is ironic in a contemporary context.  Wolves were wiped out in Colorado, probably and in Wyoming, probably, until the major reintroduction effort of the 2000s began.  It's been a huge success in Wyoming, for which I'm glad, in spite of my initial skepticism.  An ongoing effort is occuring in Colorado, which is meeting a lot of opposition in the anti nature Freedom Caucus era.

The Rocky Mountain News, which I remember from the 70s, 80s and 90s, when it was the best, in my view, of the two Denver papers, was a bit sensationalist at the time, which I've only recently come to appreciate.  It was always a "tabloid", with that sort of paper format for some reason having a reputation of that type.  I've never heard of the story related by the headline here:

A little digging finds that this claim was flat out untrue.

The News also reported on, oddly enough, test tube babies, something that is way earlier than I'd have ever supposed.

The first "test tube" baby was born in 1978.  That person Louise Brown, is still with us.  The first example of IVF in a mammal did not occur until 1959.  Apparently the proponent of this suggestion was well ahead of her time in terms of scientific knowledge.

It's notable that the suggestion had a strong eugenics characteristic.  That drive is also now very much coming into fruition, with designer babies now becoming a thing.

On the underlying concern, the explosion in births and the drop in the average age for a woman to first give birth that commenced at this time shows the concern was misplaced.  As a Catholic, of course, I regard IVF as both unnatural and immoral.  The bizarrely pro natalist Trump administration is all in on it.

The News also reported on Japanese social insurance, something being brought in by the progressive and distributist MacArthur occupation.

The cartoons of the day.

A classic gift was suggested.

British troops swept the Sharon plain in reaction to a prior days terrorist attack.

Ezra Pound was indicted for a second time on 19 counts of treason.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 25, 1945. Taxing war profits.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Austria, Christian Democrats, Douglas MacArthur, Japan, Occupation of Japan, Taxes

Tuesday, April 28, 1945. U.S. Troops in Japan.

Flag of the Allied Occupation forces, Japan.

U.S. troops disembarked at Atsugi airfield and the occupation of Japan commenced.

The Red Army completed the occupation of Sakhalin.

Japanese forces surrendered in Burma.

Various Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring, and Ribbentrop, were indicted as war criminals.

Ho Chi Minh announced his provisional government for Vietnam with all the main posts held by communists.

Gee. . . what a surprise.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Health was founded.

The Southern Jiangsu Campaign ended in communist victory.

Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey held a three-hour meeting with Jackie Robinson on his signing up with the Dodgers.

Last edition:

Monday, August 27, 1945. The Allied Fleet enters Tokyo Bay.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1947, 1948, Burma, Chinese Civil War, Conscription, Harry S. Truman, Japan (Tokyo), New Britain, People's Liberation Army, Solomon Islands, Texas, The Cold War, Weather, World War Two

Saturday, May 12, 1945. Shortened futures.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission indicted Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Sauckel on eight counts.  The NKVD didn't wait for trials in all instances, and on this day executed SS commander and war criminal Richard Thomalla.

The US transferred captured Russian turned collaborator Gen. Vlasov over to Soviet custody.

The 7th Army captured the Japanese ambassador to Germany and his staff.

The 8th Army took the Del Monte Airfield on Mindanao.

Hard fighting occurred on Okinawa.

The U-858 became the first U-boat to surrender post war.  It would be escorted to Cap May, New Jersey which it entered flying the black flag of surrender.

Lend Lease shipments to the USSR were suspended.

The Security Committee at the United Nations Conference on International Organization agreed on an eleven-member security council, with non-permanent members chosen by the General Assembly.

Last edition:

Friday, May 11, 1945. The USS Bunker Hill.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aegean Sea, Australian Army, China, Imperial Japanese Army, Kamikaze, New Guinea, Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, The Battle of West Hunan (湘西會戰), U.S. Navy, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Tuesday, May 8, 1945. Victory In Europe.

A second surrender signing insisted upon by Stalin took place in Berlin with a slightly revised instrument of surrender.  The original would have sufficed, but Stalin insisted.  

This one was signed, for the Germans, by Field Marshal Keitel.

And the war in Europe came to an end.

Celebrations broke out all across Western Europe and North America, which in some instances had begun the day prior.  Winston Churchill announced new of the 11:00 p.m. singing at 3:00 p.m.  Truman at 9:00 a.m., warning that the war was only half won.   All times local.

Karl Dönitz announced the in a speech broadcast from Flensburg at 12:30 p.m., mentioning that the Nazi Party no longer had any role in government.

Hermann Göring surrendered near Radstadt, Austria. Eisenhower would be upset when he learned of the celebrity status his American captors had given him.

German submarines were ordered to surface and report to the Allies.

The Massacre in Trhová Kamenice occurred when German troops in Trhová Kamenice, Czechoslovakia shot supposed partisans.  In spite of the surrender, some German forces did not lay down their arms on the 8th.

The Sétif and Guelma massacre began when French police fired on local Algerian demonstrators at a protest in the Algerian market town of Sétif.  The beginning of decolonization had begun.

Gen. Ernst-Günther Baade, age 47, died of gangrene; Paul Giesler, age 49, German Nazi official committed suicide; Werner von Gilsa, age 56, German military officer committed suicide after being captured by the Russians; Wilhelm Rediess, age 44, German commander of SS troops in Norway  committed suicide; Bernhard Rust, age 61, German Nazi Minister of Science, Education and National Culture committed suicide; Josef Terboven, age 46, German Reichskommissar for Norway during the Nazi occupation committed suicide by detonating dynamite in a bunker.

The US 145th Infantry division took the the ridge near Guagua, southeast of Mount Pacawagan on Luzon and blocked a track along the Mariquina river. 

Last edition:

Monday, May 7, 1945. Germany unconditionally surrenders.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Allied Powers, Allies, Battle of Kuryłówka, boats and ships, Nazi Germany, NKVD, Okinawa, Polish Home Army, Spain, The Cold War, U.S. Navy, Victory in Europe Day, World War Two

Monday, April 23, 1945. Where's Hitler?

German radio broadcast that Adolf Hitler was in the "main fighting line" in Berlin and would "remain there despite all rumors." 

The Allies suspected he was in Bavaria organizing resistance there.

Göring sent a telegram asking for permission to assume leadership of the Third Reich which Hitler regarded as treason, ordering his arrest.

The Flossenburg concentration camp was liberated by the U.S. Army.

The U-183 was sunk off of Borneo by the U.S. submarine Besugo.

The Navy deployed Bat air to ship missiles against Japanese ships in Balipapan Harbor in Borneo, marking their first use.

Those arrested in the Freeman Field Mutiny were released.

"Lt. Richard K. Jones, OIC 3235th Sig. Ser. Det. of Hollywood, Calif., feeds Japanese children found in a tomb 50 yards from front line on Okinawa. 23 April, 1945."

Last edition:

Sunday, April 22, 1945. The Bunker.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Army, Battle of Berlin, Heinrich Himmler, Heroes, Philippines, Philippines Campaign, Red Army, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, The Holocaust, World War Two

Friday, April 20, 1945. Shelling Berlin. Departing Berlin. The Morotai Mutiny.

At 11:00 the Red Army started shelling Berlin.

It was Hitler's 56th birthday.  He left his bunker to to decorate a group of Hitler Youth combatants.  He refused an effort to evacuate to Obersalzberg.  Goering and Himmler left the bunker for good. 

SS officer Herbert Lange, age 35, commandant of Chełmno extermination camp was killed in action in the city.

The 7th Army captured Nuremberg.  Karl Holz, age 49, German Nazi Gauleiter was found dead in a barricaded police bunker. Willy Liebel, age 47, lord mayor of Nuremberg was also found there, a suicide.

Italian paratroopers boarding C-47 for Operation Herring.  It must have been comforting to board an aircraft that has a giant flak scar near the door they're entering.

U.S.aircraft dropped Italian paratroopers over northern Italy in Operation Herring.

While the Italian Army is often dissed in World War Two, it's airborne troops were good.

Mussolini gave his final interview noting that the end had been reached for him.

Members of the  Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai in the Dutch East Indies tendered their resignations to protest their belief that they were being assigned to missions of no military importance.  A later investigation confirmed their views.

The war had never been as widely supported in Australia as it was in the US, something the Australians shared with Canadians.  And they had a real point here I've often wondered about.  Islands in the South Pacific and targets in the Indian Ocean that had been significant early on really were not by this time, even though fighting continued on them.  The wisdom of continuing the ongoing operations actively can be questioned.

The US 3rd Amphibious Corps completed the capture of the Motobu Peninsula and the whole of the main northern part of Okinawa.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 19, 1945. Broadcasting from Belsen.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Austria, Belsen Concentration Camp, Croatia, Foot Races, Nazi Party, Poland, Polish Army in the USSR, Radio, Red Army, Sports, The Press, Weapons, World War Two, Yugoslav Partisans, Yugoslavia

Thursday, May 11, 1944. Operation Diadem.

Japanese foxholes located under bank of draw in the 129th Infantry, 37th Division sector on Bougainville, Solomon Islands. The jungle growth has been cleared by the fierce artillery fire.  May 11, 1944.

Allied forces broke through German defenses in the Liri Valley in Operation Diadem with the first attacks being by the British 4th Infantry Division and the 8th Indian Infantry Division, with fire support from the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade.  All the Allies fighting in Italy would participate in the offensive.

Allied air forces raided the French coast, with Calais particularly hard hit.

Oberst Walter Oesau (123 victories) was shot down and killed over the Eifel Mountains.  

Oesau had been goaded into flying by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring on that day even though he'd been sick in bed with the flu, Göring calling his command to see if he was flying.  Göring had been turning his ire on unit commanders who were not regularly flying, and upon learning that Oesau was in bed he basically accused him of cowardice.  He did skillfully fight three P-38s but was killed by cannon fire from one of the aircraft attempting to make an emergency landing.\

Oesau had fought in the Spanish Civil War, but there's little known about him overall.  He was not a flamboyant figure and included no special markings on his aircraft.

The RAF Lancaster "S for Sugar" completed its 100th mission.

Today in World War II History—May 11, 1944 In Italy, Germans release Jews of Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, and Swiss citizenship under pressure from these neutral governments.

Movie premiere of The White Cliffs of Dover, starring Irene Dunne.

Social Security Administration ruling reflecting a marriage on this date, and a complicated set of relationships.

SSR 60-9. STATUS OF CHILD IN THE WOMB

A child conceived during its mother's marriage to her first husband, but born after her re-marriage to her second husband is the stepchild of the second husband from the date of such marriage.

M was divorced from F on March 25, 1944. She married P on May 11, 1944. A child, C, was born to M on July 13, 1944. P died on May 20, 1945. An application for child's benefits on P's social security account was filed September 23, 1959, on behalf of C.

Section 216(e) of the Social Security Act defines the term "child" as including a stepchild of a deceased individual who has been a stepchild "for not less than one year immediately preceding the day on which such individual died."

In view of the general principle that when justice or convenience requires, the child in the womb is dealt with as a human being even though physiologically it is part of the mother, the marriage of P and M created a steprelationship between P and M's child, C, even though C was unborn at that time. Since the marriage of P and M occurred more than one year prior to P's death, and C had been conceived and was in existence at the time of the marriage, it is held that C was P's stepchild for one year prior to his death as required by section 216(e) for becoming entitled to benefits on his earnings record.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, May 10, 1944. New Medals.

1940s, 1944, boats and ships, Burma, Imperial Japanese Navy, Merchant Marine, Nationalist Chinese Army, Personalities, Red Army, U.S. Navy, World War Two