Tuesday, November 25, 1941. The sinking of the HMS Barham.

A tsunami was experienced in Portugal on this date in 1945, due to a submarine earthquake on the same day.

On this day in 1945 the United States rejected Japan's recent proposals and stated, flatly, that in order for normal trade relations to be restored between the countries, Japan had to withdraw from Indochina and China.

It was clear to the Administration that it was putting Japan in an untenable situation, but the view was that things had come to that.  Japan's only theoretical option was essentially to accept defeat in China, a position that it obviously could not agree to, or limp by with reduced resources.  On the flipside, the US, having taken a strong stand against it, could not resume supplying raw materials to Japan.

The British lost the battleship HMS Barham to a torpedo attack from the U-331.  800 of the ship's crew died in the attack off of Alexandria, Egypt.

Magazine of Barham exploding during her sinking.

The Germans took the small Russian city of Kashira outside of Moscow.   They also murdered almost 5,000 Jews near Kaunas, Lithuania.  Hitler, on this day, met with the Anti-Semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

The Germans were repulsed by the 7th Indian Brigade in a counter-attack at Sidi Omar, Libya, while Australian and New Zealand troops linked up at El Duda.

The Anti-Comintern Pact was renewed between Germany, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Manchukuo, Spain, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, Slovakia and Croatia.  Of those signatories, only Germany, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Manchukuo and Spain had belonged before. The original 1936 signatories included only Germany and Japan.  Of the new 1941 signatories, only Finland and Romania were not occupied by Germany or Japan.

The Anti Comintern Pact had originally been a Japanese pushed pact aimed at the Soviet Union, but Japan had distanced itself when the Germans entered the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact, which clearly cut against it.  That would later be addressed by the Tri-Partite Agreement, but it never regained its real strength, demonstrating the inherent inability of the various authoritarian governments to really agree to a common global strategic policy, as their internal policies were not really aligned.  In retrospect, Japan gained a lot from its alliance with Germany, but Germany next to nothing from its with Japan.  Indeed, as Germany's attack on the USSR gave the Japanese breathing room in regard to the USSR, Germany's actions allowed Japan to attack the US, which caused the US to become a full belligerent against Germany and Japan.

Manchukuo was a Japanese Manchurian puppet state which gave its occupation of that part of China some supposed diplomatic cover.  The Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China was a Japanese puppet government in China.  Both fielded armies, but they were under Japanese control.

The leader of the puppet Chinese government, Wang Jingwei, died in 1944.  His name is now a nickname for traitor in China.

Closer to Home:

On this day in 1941, my father would have gone to 7th grade, at age 12, in Scotsbluff, Nebraska. That would have been some sort of middle school.  A regular day, probably.  His oldest sister, at that time, would have been in high school there as a sophomore.  His other siblings were behind him in school.  His father went to his job managing the Cook Packing Plant in Scotsbuff and his mother would have stayed home.

Likewise, my mother would have gone to school at age 15 at the Convent school for English speaking Quebec Catholics in Montreal.  Most of her large family was also in school, save for her older brother Terry who was in the Canadian Army, stationed in England.  Her mother would have worked at his then job as a real estate agent in the city, and her mother would likewise have stayed home.  At the time, they were battling the economic hardships still lingering due to the Great Depression and were living a very hard life.

Wednesday June 18, 1941. The Middle East

 The Battle of Damascus began on this day in 1941.

Free French Circassian cavalry in Damascus.

The battle pitted Allied forces, lead by Indian troops on the ground, but including various Commonwealth countries and Free French forces against Vichy French and colonial Syrian troops.

The battle ran until June 21 and resulted in the surrender of the Vichy French administration to the Allies, thereby closing an Axis rear door in North Africa.

Germany and Turkey signed a treaty of friendship.

The treaty closed the door to the possibility, in German minds, of the Allies wooing Turkey, which was unlikely in the first place. Turkey, for its part, was on a dedicated path of neutrality.

The treaty would benefit both Germany and Turkey, with the Turks benefitting in some unexpected ways.  The Germans received a guaranteed supply of chromite from turkey through the treaty, putting the Turks basically in the same position as the Swedes in buying neutrality through raw materials, although in both instances the countries would have been a handful for the Germans to attack if they'd thought it necessary.  Indeed, in Turkey's situation the country was far more valuable to Nazi Germany as a neutral than as a combatant, as that closed the door to the British to the south who, as can be seen from the above, were defeating the Vichy French in Syria and who had already defeated an attempt at fascism in Iraq.  Unbeknownst to the Turks, the treat also shortened German lines, already pretty stretched, for Operation Barbarossa, which was just about to commence.

The Turks received cash, for chromite, but they also received a large guaranteed supply of arms which, in the dangerous world in which they were living, were something they very much needed.  Germany actually took advantage of this provision to supply the Turks with a large supply of unfinished Polish arms, which were of very high quality.  Polish small arms were partially based on German designs and the Germans themselves had put them to use in their own armed forces, but Poland had used "small ring" Mausers rather than the "large ring" ones used by the Germans which made finishing them off unattractive to the Germans.  This was not the case for the Turks.

The treaty did not preclude other nations, including belligerents, from trading with Turkey and the treaty would inspire a chromite buying effort on the part of the Allies.

The treaty's term was ten years, but the Turks would terminate the agreement in 1944, seeing which way the war was going, and they declared war on Germany on February 23, 1945.  Their declaration did not mean that they contributed troops in the final months of the war but can be seen as a means of attempting to protect themselves against a potential Soviet incursion into their territory.

Joe Louis knocked out Billy Conn in a heavyweight boxing match.

March 20, 1941. Forced Allies, Weak Allies, and Future Allies.

The Yugoslavian parliament, facing demands from Nazi Germany, voted to join the Tripartite Pact 16 to 3.  The result of the vote would soon prove not to work out they way it had been planned.

Yugoslavia was, on this day, a reluctant ally of the Germans at best.  And the Germans should have given some thought to what having reluctant allies meant.  Nazi Germany based its ideology on a radical concept of racism, and yet already, at this early stage of the war, it found itself entering into alliances with nations populated by peoples it otherwise claimed to despise.  And some of those people despised them right back.

Added to that, while they were enlisting Balkan states for the war, they were also enlisting states whose armies were not necessarily up to the same quality as theirs, and which had exhibited no strong desire to get into the war on any side.  Germany already had one ally that had entered the war voluntarily, Italy, which was proving to be a net drain on its efforts.

Indeed, on this day Indian troops advanced 100 miles and took Hargeisa in Somaliland, which exposed Italian Ethiopia.  

On the same day, U.S. Under Secretary of State Sumner Wells warned the Soviet Ambassador that the United States had picked up intelligence indicating that Germany intended to attack the Soviet Union.  This was by far not the only warning the Soviets would receive, but Stalin would not take action on any of them.

Artifact of the Month (British Kukri Knife)

April 13, 1919. Funerals after assassinations and massacres.

Emiliano Zapata's funeral was held, which was a bit odd as it was held on a Sunday.

Lots of funerals were about to be held in the British Indian punjab region following a British commanded massacre of protesters at Jallianwallah Bagh in that region.

The area of the massacre some months later.

The British action was a gross overreaction to the gathering of a protest.  Native troops of various ethnicities were ordered to fire on the collected protesters and continued to do so for about ten minutes.  The protesters were trapped in a public garden area as all exists had been sealed off.  Death estimates vary, but somewhere between 370 to 1,600 people were killed.

Not surprisingly, the details are somewhat sketchy.  The protest was at least initially peaceful and had gathered to protest the deportation of two Indian national leaders.  The crowd may have grown defiant.  At any rate, things went grossly wrong.

Abandoned French huts in use by French returnees at Equancourt, France.

The Jeep to receive competition from the Ghost of Jeeps Past?

Folks who stop in here from time to time know that I not only drive a Jeep, I'm on my third Jeep now and I use the Jeep I currently have, the best one I've ever had, as my daily driver.  I love it.

Which hasn't stopped me from lamenting the sad abandonment of the 1/4 ton 4x4 truck by the automobile industry such that what were once a proud assortment of semi dangerous off road utility vehicles is down, now, to just the Jeep.  Indeed, the SUV has gone from a collection of off road vehicles to a bunch of wimpy urban soccer transporters.  Bleh.  And Chrysler Fiat, having a really great product where it's the only one in the field, actually was pondering last year selling the product line to a Chinese fan, which might kill it with fickle Jeep owners.

Well, perhaps a slight turn of events has occurred as the Jeep is now getting competition from. . .itself.

Eh?

Yes, truly.

One of the oddities of the 4x4 around the world is that there are actually a fair collection of really rugged 4x4s made globally that never see the light of day in the US for a variety for reasons.  As, contrary to what people in the Western World think, the entire globe isn't made up of a bunch of Hollywood influenced narcissists in touch with their feelings as long as that doesn't take them much past the city park and transporting sissypooh hounds with vegan dog treats, there's a real market in a lot of places.  Toyota, fwiw, has a lot of that market sewed up globally with vehicles that it doesn't offer here, less it make the tight trouser crowed cry, but they aren't the only ones.

Indeed, one of the oddities of the 4x4 story around the world is that American military vehicles of the 40s, 50s, and 60s received a lot of local production and they still do.  We just don't think of them here.  Included in that production are Japanese and Indian versions of the Jeep.

Well, now Mahindra, an Indian company, has determined to open up a production line in the United States to sell the Mahindra Roxor.  The Roxor is a diesel engined M38A1. . the early CJ5 to most of you.

Being sold as "off road only", it will only get up to 45 mph. . . but then early Jeeps were slow and the diesel Jeeps used by various armies were not speedy.

I hope it does well.  It's taking on a titan. . even if a wounded one.

The British Surrender at Kut, April 29, 1916.

 Indian POW after the surrender at Kut.

Besieged British forces at Kut, Mesopotamia, surrendered to the Ottomans in a major British defeat in the Middle East.

Kut was a British strategic disaster, although in the history of the Great War its somewhat forgotten except by those who study the war in the Middle East.  An operation controlled by the Indian Army, rather than the British Army (a confusing distinction for those not too familiar, and even those who are, with the distinction made in the case of British administered India) the concept was to have moved up the Euphrates into Mesopotamia (Iraq) and basically cut the Ottoman's off from the balance of their Middle Eastern empire.  The operation was successful at first but outstretched its supply lines and had to fall back to Kut.  At Kut a force that was then about 11,000 men were put under siege by the Ottomans.  The commanding British officer recommended a withdrawal from Kut but was denied permission as there was conceived to be a value in tying down Ottoman forces.  When the same commander misreported ration reserves a rescue attempt was mounted, but it failed.  No attempt by the garrison itself to withdraw overland was made.

The British later attempted to parole the force in Kut, an age old military practice which is misinterpreted in regards to the effort as the offer of a bribe, and even T. E. Lawrence was involved in the effort, showing to what extent he'd rising in importance already.  The Ottomans rejected the offer and the surrender of the remaining 8,000 troops was made on this day.