Thursday, April 24, 1924. Protecting the Icons.

Russian Orthodox faithful prevented the police from confiscating icons from St. Andrew's Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

Communist authorities subsequently turned the church over to the Soviet-sponsored Renovationist Church that promoted a pro-Communist Orthodox body which originally been a post Russian Revolution reform movement with in the Russian Orthodox Church, but which was taken over by the Communist infiltration.  It received Communist backing at first, but was ultimately repressed, just as the Russian Orthodox Church was.  It never received the support of the Russian faithful, and it passed away after World War Two.  Almost all of its priests returned to the Orthodox Church after Stalin stopped the strict oppression of it during World War Two.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 23, 1924. Debutants drill team

1920s, 1924, Equine Transportation, Washington DC, Women

Sunday, February 27, 1944. The Khaibakh Massacre

Weather prevented over 700 Chechen villagers from Khaibakh from being convoyed in the Soviet mass deportation of Chechens, meaning they could not meet the absurdly short deadline set by Lavrentiy Beria so they were shot.  The order was given by Mikhail Gvishiani, an officer in the NKVD.

Beria, a loyal Stalin henchman, was a first class weirdo who was also a mass rapist, something his position allowed him to get away with.  He fell after Stalin's death, was tried, and executed for treason.

Gvishiani survived the fall of Stalin, but probably only because his son, Dzhermen Gvishiani, was married to the daughter of Communist Party Central Committee member Alexei Kosygin.

It was the start of National Negro Press Week.

The U.S. Office of Strategic Services commenced Operation Ginny I with the objective of blowing up Italian railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication.

The OSS team landed in the wrong location and had to abandon the mission.

Hitler ordered the Panzerfeldhaubitze 18M auf Geschützwagen III/IV (Sf) Hummel, Sd.Kfz. 165, "Hummel" renamed as he did not find the name Hummel, i.e. bumblebee to be an appropriate name.

You would think that Hitler would have had other things to worry about at this point.

The Grayback was sunk off of Okinawa by aircraft.

Friday, Saturday 28, 1944. Warning of a Red Storm brewing.

The British telegrammed Joseph Stalin that:  

"the creation in Warsaw of another government other than that now recognized, as well as disturbances in Poland, would confront Great Britain and the United States with a problem, which would preclude agreement among the great powers."

Churchill in particular was cognizant of the danger the Soviet Union posed to the world.  Roosevelt, much less so.

Omar Bradley took command of the First Army. 

First Army's patch, one of the least inspiring in the U.S. Army.

Personally, I'm not a huge Bradley fan (and even less of a Mark Clark fan).

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—January 28, 1944: Over Anzio, the US 99th Fighter Squadron (Tuskegee Airmen) in P-40s shoots down 3 German Fw 190 fighter planes—the previous day they shot down 10 Fw 190s.

It's often forgotten that the 99th started off with P40s, as they tend to be associated with P51s.  P40s were manufactured well into 1944, which is even more surprising. 

The U-271 and U-571 were sunk west of Ireland by Allied aircraft.  All hands (51 and 52 respectively) were lost.

U-271 under attack by U.S. Navy PB4Y (B-24) Liberator.  The entire 51-man crew died in the sinking.

The Red Army captured territory south of Leningrad while Field Marshal von Luchler ordered a German withdrawal to the Luga River.

The Red Army's units linked up in Ukraine near Zvenigorodka and encircled to German corps.  Manstsein reacts by assembling armored forced to relieve them.

Susan Howard, famous for Dallas, was born. The actress is unusual in that when her acting roles declined, she became a figure in conservative politics.

Friday, January 18, 1924. Corn husking bee, Transiting Mexican Federals, Convalescing Commie.

 

A corn husking bee, January 18, 1924.

The news recalled 1916.

Mexican troops looked to be about to get US transit.

Calvin Coolidge gave a press conference.  He addressed that topic, and others.  On the transit, he stated:

An inquiry also about the passage of Mexican troops across American territory. It is my information that New Mexico and I think Arizona have given consent of their Governments to the passage of Mexican troops, but that the Acting Governor of Texas thought that such passage through Texas territory might incur some danger. Of course, the opinion of the Governor there would be respected, and unless the local authorities, I mean by that the Government, state authorities, want to give their consent, our Government would notify the Government of Mexico that it seemed expedient to have troops pass through Mexico. Whether that would be refused, or changed at all, when the Governor gets home, I don’t know. It may be that the Acting Governor simply didn’t want to take the responsibility of making an affirmative decision, and is awaiting the return of the Governor.

Interesting how it was viewed as a state first matter.

One of the other topics addressed was the Teapot Dome Scandal.

While Trotsky was convalescing on the Black Sea, getting a little respite from being an agent of murderous armed agency, Stalin denounced him in a blistering speech.

1924  Douglas bank closes in failure, part of a waive of bank failures.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society. 

Sunday, November 29, 1943. The Tehran Conference starts.

The Tehran Conference commenced in Iran between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

Tehran was chosen as Stalin was reluctant, for legitimate reasons, to leave the USSR.  Roosevelt had tried to have him travel to Cairo, but he had refused.

The USSR's Council of People's Commissars issued Resolution 1325 creating a Department of Russian Orthodox Christian Affairs.  It provided for a process to open new churches, and while that was progress, the process was a difficult one.

The Kolari Raid on Bougainville, which would end quickly in failure, was commenced by the Marines.

From Sarah Sundin's blog, today is the founding day for the Alamo Scouts. The independent unit of the 6th Army served in New Guinea.

Alamo Scouts in 1944.

Tuesday, August 31, 1943. Debut of the F6F.

Grumman F6Fs made their combat debut.

The fighter was a leap in Navy fighter technology, joining the Corsair as a new generation of flattop launched fighter aircraft.  The plane would be responsible for approximately 2/3s of the Japanese aircraft shot down by the U.S. Navy during World War Two.

The carrier born first use was in a day-long raid on Marcus Island.

Radar equipped F6F's would remain in service until 1954, completing their service as night fighters.

On the same day, the 14th Air Force bombed Gia Lam, Co Bi, Ichang Airfiled, Stonecutters Island and the Yoyang rail yards.  The 5th Air Force hit trages in Saint George Channel and the Dutch East Indes.

Stalin issues the following order to General Rokossovsky

Troops of the Central Front, breaking through strongly fortified enemy defense lines in the area of Sevsk by a decisive attack, on August 30 captured the town of Glukhov and Rylsk and entered the Northern Ukraine.

In the fighting for the liberation of the towns of Sevsk, Glukhov and Rylsk from the German invaders, the troops which distinguished themselves were Guards tankmen commanded by, Lieutenant-General of Tank Troops Korchagin, tankmen commanded by Major-General Ruchenko, troops commanded by Lieutenant-General Cherny-kovsky, Lieutenant-General Batov, and Lieutenant-General of Tank Troops Bogdanov, and airmen commanded by Lieutenant-General of Aviation Rudenko.

To mark the victory they have won, the divisions and artillery formations which exceptionally distinguished themselves in the fighting for Glukhov, Rylsk and Sevsk are to have the following titles conferred upon them. The name of "Glukhov" is to be conferred on the 70th Guards Red Banner Infantry Division, the 226th Infantry Division, the 23rd Tank Brigade and the 1st Guards Artillery Division.

The name of "Rylsk" is to be conferred on the 121st Infantry Division and the 112th Infantry Division.

The name of "Sevsk" is to be conferred on the 69th Red Banner Infantry Division, the 103rd Tank Brigade, the 43rd Motorized Brigade, the 255th Independent Tank Regiment, the 68th Heavy Artillery Brigade and the 100th Red Banner Heavy Artillery Brigade.

Henceforth these formations are to be named the 70th Guards Red Banner Glukhov Infantry Division, the 226th Glukhov Infantry Division, the 23rd Glukhov Tank Brigade, the 1st Glukhov Guards Artillery Division, the 121st Rylsk Infantry Division, the 112th Rylsk Infantry Division, the 69th Red Banner Sevsk Infantry Division, the 60th Sevsk Infantry Division, the 103rd Sevsk Tank Brigade, the 43rd Sevsk Motorized Brigade, the 255th Sevsk Independent Tank Regiment, the 68th Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade and the 100th Red Banner Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade.

In the name of our country, our capital Moscow will to-day, August 31, at 20.30 Moscow time, salute our glorious troops who liberated the towns of Glukhov, Rylsk and Sevsk, with twelve artillery salvoes from 124 guns.

For distinguished military services and skilful operations I express my thanks to all troops led by you who have taken part in the fighting for Sevsk, Glukhov and Rylsk, and above all to the 70th Guards Red Banner Glukhov Infantry Division commanded by General Butev, the 226th Glukhov Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Vitrenko, the 1st Guards Glukhov Artillery Division commanded by Major-General of Artillery Godin, the 23rd Glukhov Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Demidov, the 121st Rylsk Infantry Division commanded by Major-General Ladygln, the 112th Rylsk Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Gladkov, the 69th Red Banner Sevsk Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Kuzadkov, the 60th Sevsk Infantry Division commanded by. Colonel Babilensky,,. the 103rd Sevsk Tank Brigade commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Khalayev, the 103rd Sevsk Motorized Brigade commanded Major-General Barinov, the 655th Sevsk Independent Tank Regiment commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Mukin, the 68th Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Vassilev, the 100th Red Banner Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade commanded by Colonel Kuznetsov, the 6th. Guards Infantry Division., commanded by Major-General Ahoprienko, the 322nd Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Losenko, the 150th Independent Tank Brigade commanded by Lieutenant-General Griumov, the 178th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment commanded by Colonel Fedov, and air formations commanded by Major-General of Aviation Denisov, Major-General . of Aviation Antoshin, Major-General of Aviation Kravatsky, Colonel Komarov and Colonel Budilev.

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the fight for the freedom and independence of our Motherland! Death to the German invaders!

Troops of the western front recently broke through the strongly fortified enemy defence line and, developing their offensive in the Smolensk direction, yesterday, August 30th, captured the' town of Yelnya, a strategically important large junction of roads and the most important centre of resistance of the enemy defences in the Smolensk direction.

In the fighting for the town of Yelnya the following distinguished themselves: Guards tankmen commanded by Major-General Burdeinov, troops commanded by Lieutenant-General Gordov, by Major-General Krylov, by Lieutenant-General Trubnikov, airmen commanded by Marshal of Aviation Golovanov and Lieutenant-General of Aviation Gromov.

To mark the victory won .by our troops at the town of Yelna, the name of Yelna will be conferred on the 29th Guards Red Banner Infantry Division, the 25th Tank Brigade, the 26th Tank Brigade, the 23rd Guards Independent Tank Brigade and the 119th Independent Tank Regiment, which distinguished themselves in the fighting for the town of Yelna. They will henceforth be named the 29th Guards Red Banner Yelna Infantry Division, the 76th Yelna Infantry Division, the 25th Yelna Tank Brigade, the 26th Yelna Tank Brigade, the 23rd Guards Yelna Independent Tank Brigade.

In the name of our country, our capital Moscow, to-day, August 31, at 19.00 hours Moscow time, will salute with twelve artillery salvoes from 124 guns our glorious troops who have won victory at the town of Yelna.

For distinguished military service and skilful manoeuvring I express my thanks to all the troops you command who participated in ‘ the operations in the Smolensk direction, and above all for the skilful operations by the 29th Guards Red Banner Yelna Infantry Division commanded by Lieutenant-General Stuch-enko, to the 26th Yelna Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Babayan, the 25th Yelna Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Shevchenko, the 26th Yelna Brigade commanded by Colonel Nester-ov, the 23rd Guards Yelna Independent Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Kalinin, the 119th Yelna Independent Tank Regiment commanded by' Lieutenant-Colonel Losik and the 63rd Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Lapkin.

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the fight for the freedom and honour of our Motherland! Death to the German invaders!

It's interesting how Stalin would urge "eternal glory" for a state which didn't recognize eternity in any meaningful sense. 

On his day, the Red Army took  Glukhov and Rylsk.

The Civil Air Patrol's coast patrol ceases, given as the U-boot threat has been so reduced in recent months.

Thursday, May 20, 1943. New Fleet started, old court ended.

Admiral King, head of the 10th Fleet.

Today in World War II History—May 20, 1943: US Tenth Fleet is established to control shore-based antisubmarine operations in the Atlantic. US War Ration Book Three is distributed by mail.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The United States Court for China, a US Federal and Civil court based in Shanghai, ceased operations. The extraterritorial court had been in existence since 1906 but was no longer needed, if it ever really was, following the January 11 abandonment of extraterritorial rights in the country.

Roosevelt, via courier, proposed to meet with Stalin, keeping his proposal secret from Churchill.

March 16, 1943. Stalin asks for the Western Allies to open a "second" front, disregarding that the war in the East was the Second Front, and the Western Allies were fighting on three fronts.

Former ally of Adolph Hitler, and a man whose overreach in dealing with his Nazi Allies had resulted in his country entering the war, Joseph Stalin, wrote Franklin Roosevelt.

The letter from the Marxist mass murderer read:

MOST SECRET AND PERSONAL MESSAGE

FROM PREMIER J. V. STALIN TO PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT

Now that I have Mr Churchill's reply to my message of February 16, I consider it my duty to answer yours of February 22, which likewise was a reply to mine of February 16.

I learned from Mr Churchill's message that Anglo-American operations in North Africa, far from being accelerated, are being postponed till the end of April; indeed, even this date is given in rather vague terms. In other words, at the height of the fighting against the Hitler troops—in February and March— the Anglo-American offensive in North Africa, far from having been stepped up, has been called off altogether, and the time fixed for it has been set back. Meanwhile Germany has succeeded in moving from the West 36 divisions, including six armoured, to be used against the Soviet troops. The difficulties that this has created for the Soviet Army and the extent to which it has eased the German position on the Soviet-German front will be readily appreciated.

Mr Churchill has also informed me that the Anglo-American operation against Sicily is planned for June. For all its importance that operation can by no means replace a second front in France. But I fully welcome, of course, your intention to expedite the carrying out of the operation.

At the same time I consider it my duty to state that the early opening of a second front in France is the most important thing. You will recall that you and Mr Churchill thought it possible to open a second front as early as 1942 or this spring at the latest. The grounds for doing so were weighty enough. Hence it should be obvious why I stressed in my message of February 16 the need for striking in the West not later than this spring or early summer.

The Soviet troops have fought strenuously all winter and are continuing to do so, while Hitler is taking important measures to rehabilitate and reinforce his Army for the spring and summer operations against the U.S.S.R.; it is therefore particularly essential for us that the blow from the West be no longer delayed, that it be delivered this spring or in early summer.

I appreciate the considerable difficulties caused by a shortage of transport facilities, of which you advised me in your message. Nevertheless, I think I must give a most emphatic warning, in the interest of our common cause, of the grave danger with which further delay in opening a second front in France is fraught. That is why the vagueness of both your reply and Mr Churchill's as to the opening of a second front in France causes me concern, which I cannot help expressing.

March 16, 1943

The letter was either shortsighted or full of hypocritical crap, although perhaps he was blind to its hypocrisy.

In fact, the Western Allies had opened a third front with Operation Torch, or rather continued it as the British were fighting in North Africa prior to Stalin's blundering getting the Soviet Union into the war on the Allied side.  This would count the Battle of the Atlantic, a titanic naval battle which apparently Stalin didn't regard as a front, as a front, but which in fact very much was.

This would of course discount the entire Pacific campaign, which was for the Western Allies already a "second" front, but which was keeping the Japanese off of the Soviet's back, or at least arguably so.

The Soviet peoples were suffering enormously, to be sure, a condition they had been in since Stalin's bloody bedfellows had subjected them to the purification of the "worker's state", assuming we do not backdate that to 1914 when Imperial Russia entered World War One, but mass bloodletting in the USSR was a thing long before World War Two. That it got much worse during World War Two cannot be discounted, to be sure, although part of the Soviet suffering was due to Stalin killing competent Soviet officers prior to the Second World War and terrorizing his own population.

What can you say? Keeping up the fable that Stalin needed a "second front", rather than acknowledging he had one, and then some, was in everyone's best interest.

On one of those fronts, on the Atlantic, the largest wolfpack attack of the war occurred as 22 Allied merchant ships were sunk.

"Second" front indeed.

This TBF had a close call on the Atlantic while landing on the USS Charger, an escort carrier.

Anthony Eden visited the Roosevelt's.

Saturday, March 6, 1943. Fredendall out, Patton in. Rommel's swan song in North Africa. Freedom from Want. Stalin promotes himself while his Party praises him with B.S.

Wyomingite Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall was relieved of his command of II Corps and replaced by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton.

Patton as a Lieutenant General

Patton, widely regarded as the premier American expert on armored warfare, was very quickly promoted to Lt. General.  Fredendall was assigned stateside duty.  His reputation never recovered after Kasserine Pass, and he did not return to Cheyenne in later years.  He died in 1963 in California, having retired from the Army in 1946.

Fredendall was twice appointed to West Point and twice dropped out.  Senator F. E. Warren was willing to appoint him a third time, but the Academy was unwilling to accept him.  He instead attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and thereafter entered the Army in 1907.  His trouble at West Point was with math, which ironically was also very problematic for the home educated George S. Patton.  His performance in World War One was excellent.

His home state has forgotten him.

The Battle of Medenine was fought in Tunisia.  It was a spoiling attack by the Afrika Korps which resulted in a costly defeat.  It was also Rommel's last command action in North Africa.

Things were going downhill for the Axis in North Africa quickly.

Freedom from Want appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.  It proved to be the most popular of the four freedom's illustrations, and is regarded as one of Rockwell's best.  The accompanying essay was by Phlipinno, immigrant Carlos Sampayan Bulosan.

I wonder to what extent we've forgotten this freedom?

Joseph Stalin, who put many into the want of starvation, promoted himself to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.  Contemporaneously, the Soviet Communist Party proclaimed him "the greatest strategist of all times and all peoples".

M'eh.

Unfortunately, his adopted home has not forgotten him and has drawn the wrong conclusions about his leadership.  First siding with the Germans during World War Two, his miscalculation about what he could extract from them in order to join the war against the British Empire led to the Germans charging ahead with a war against the Soviet Union for which it was not prepared.  It took two years for the USSR to form a sufficient armed mob in order to counter to begin to throw the Germans back, which relied on, in spite of wanting to ignore it, massive Western Allied support.

The Battle of Blackett Strait was fought between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Imperial Navy.

A small engagement, the Japanese lost 100% of their two destroyer force.

Monday, March 5, 1923. Reds.

The Soviet Union, which claimed to respect the rights of nations, delivered a protest note to Finland over Finland's negotiations with the League of Nations over Karelia, which should have been Finland's.

Soviet barbarity would later assure that it ended up in the USSR, and then later in Russia.  A general Soviet policy of Russification, which settled lands with Russians, means that Karelians, a Finnic people, are now minorities in Russian Karelia.

On the same day, Lenin wrote Stalin on a personal matter.

Dear Comrade Stalin:

You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language. Although she had told you that she was prepared to forget this, the fact nevertheless became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well. I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to withdraw what you have said and to make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off.

Respectfully yours,       

Lenin 

Lenin's wife was one Nadezhda Krupskaya, who was also a Bolshevik and very active in party affairs.  She's long out live her husband, dying in 1939, just before the start of World War Two.   

She managed to survive Stalin's purges, even intervening to attempt to save some condemned Reds.  No doubt her status as the wife of the original Red dictator insulated her from such attacks.

It's widely asserted that Nadezhda wasn't Lenin's only love interest, and that French Communist Inessa Armand was his mistress.  This is hard to prove, however, even though it is flatly asserted as being the case in many histories referencing Lenin.  They had met in France while Lenin was living there, and she came to Russia following the Revolution.  Becoming overworked in Revolutionary Russia, Lenin urged her to go to the Caucasus for a holiday, which was suffering from an epidemic and which still had armed opposition to Communism. Supposedly, Lenin was unaware of this.  She contracted cholera there and was buried in a mass grave at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, being the first woman to be accorded this dubious honor.

Igor Sikorsky, who felt Soviet barbarity, incorporated the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation in the U.S.

The state of Washington got around to adopting an official flag.

It's incredibly boring.

It's original appearance:

Still boring.

Casper read of railroads to be built, $1.00 gasoline, and the dangers of ardent wooing.

Tuesday, January 26, 1943. Soviet advances and murders, German retreats and murders, News of Casablanca breaks.

Joseph Stalin publically announced that the Red Army's winter offensive had destroyed 102 German divisions and captured 200,000 POWs.

On the same day the Germans rounded up 1,200 Jews in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands and deported them to concentration camps. As German fortunes faded, it's already murderous treatment of the Jews hardened into a campaign of absolute extermination.

Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, age 55, died of starvation in a Soviet labor camp, his crime being that of so many other Russians of simply falling out of favor with Stalin, but dressed as espionage.

He was a late Stalin victim, having only been arrested in August 1940.

News broke on the just held Casablanca Conference.

Monday, January 4, 1943. Stalin, Man of the Year.

Stalin appeared on the cover of Time Magazine as the 1942 Man of the Year.

Japanese Prime Minister, Gen. Hideki Tojo, ordered Japanese forces to withdraw from Guadalcanal.

A unit of the Jewish Fighting Organization launched an unsuccessful attack aimed at the Czestochowa Ghetto.  On the following day the Nazis, as a reprisal, killed 250 children and elderly, and shipped the remaining ghetto residents to concentration camps.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was born in Rockville Centre, New York.

Friday, December 28, 1922. Reds and Reichsmarks.

The Council of People's Commissars re-elected most of the members of the ruling "All-Russian Executive Committee" (hmmmm. . . . "All Russian") but did put in four new members. Three of them were:

Joseph Stalin.  We know about him.  He was appointed Minister of Nationalities.

Lev Kamenev.  He was appointed Third Vice President, which says something about the absurd nature of Soviet government in that they had up to at least three VP's.  One's enough.

His fate?  Shot in the 1930s, of course.

Grigory Sokolnikov.  He was appointed Minister of Finance.

His fate?  Assassinated in prison in 1939.

Well, they served a monstrosity that used murder.  Can we be surprised that they were murdered?

It might be worth noting that some of these figures, maybe all of them, were "rehabilitated", which didn't do them any good, but then they were pretty complicit with bringing anonymous death upon millions.

James Joyce's novel Ulysses was banned in the UK.  I've never read it, but then its a book whose memory is mostly preserved by English professors with few actually reading it, much like a lot of what Hemingway wrote is.  If tempted to read it, pick up Flannery O'Connor instead.

Germany's floating debt passed 1,000,000,000,000 ℛℳ.

Friday, December 15, 1922. Lenin's health declines.

Cutting a Christmas tree, December 15, 1922.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known to history as Vladimir Lenin, suffered his second stroke during his period of declining health.

Just the day prior, the Soviet government instructed teachers in the regime to teach Santa Claus as a myth.  In the Christmas atmosphere sense, of course, he is, but why Lenin's regime had to go one extra mile to be fun suckers isn't clear.  Apparently murder wasn't enough for them.

Lenin was in a short slide towards death at the time, none of which arrested the progress of destruction in the USSR. Ultimately, his early death would allow the James Dean Effect to apply to him, and he'd escape being recall for being one of the most destructive persons of the 20th Century, which he was. Stalin, a much greater monster who wouldn't have come up but for Lenin, sucked a lot of air out of that room.

Virginia Lamar Robinson, Mrs. Gery Morgan, Eliz. Bryson, 12/15/22

Saturday, November 7, 1942. Giraud escapes France.

The British submarine Seraph smuggled French general Henri Giraud out of France.

Giraud was an opponent of the Vichy regime and had escaped German captivity, for Switzerland, back in April.  Vichy tried to lure him back, but he demurred.

While all in anticipation of Torch, the submarine took Giraud to Gibraltar, where he remained until November 9.  Relationships between the Free French officers were always highly complicated and tense, in part because their legitimacy was really legally questionable, which their organization, supported by the Allies, reflected. The Allies always tried to split the difference between outright firebrand rebels, like DeGaulle, and those who still held some ties to Vichy as the legal government.  Those in a position in between, like Giraud, were in an odd spot.

Stalin issued his Order of the Day proclaiming, on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, that Germany had "yet to feel the weight" of the Red Army, a promise which turned out to be true.

The Australians flanked the Japanese on the Kokoda Track.

Johnny Rivers, blues influenced rock musician, was born in New York City.

Saturday, September 16, 1922. Strife.

British troops landed with heavy artillery in Turkey in order to prevent the Turks from taking control of the Dardanelles following the Greek defeat.  Meanwhile, Anastasios Charalambis became Prime Minister of Greece in the midst of a military revolt, replacing Nikolaos Tirantafyllakos, who had stepped down.  His service would last but a single day before King Constantine called upon him to abdicate and Sotirios Krokidas was appointed by the military as the new premier.

Things were not going well in Greece.

The League of Nations approved the Trans Jordan Memorandum setting the boundaries of the Kingdom of Jordan and Palestine.  Those boundaries formed the later frame for the boundaries of the state of Israel.

Lev Kamenev was named to a position which was the functional titular equivalent of Prime Minister of the Soviet Union.  Kamenev assumed the position as Lenin was becoming increasingly ill.

He was, of course, executed during Stalin's regime, during which the swimming pool of blood rose higher.

Henry Ford enacted a lock out of his plants, idling 100,100 workers, rather than pay what he regarded as profiteers in the coal and steel industries.

Work was progressing on the James Scott Water Fountain in Detroit.

And the USGS was out on the Colorado River again.

Thursday, August 13, 1942. Pedastal hit, Montgomery takes command, Japan enacts laws against what they had committed, Stalin writes a memo, Bambi opens in the United States.

The Pedestal convoy was hit again by German and Italian torpedo boats.  They sank four freighters and damaged the HMS Manchester.

Torpedo hitting the Ohio.

The oil tanker Ohio, manned for the trip by a British crew, was attacked by aircraft and finally immobilized and then abandoned, but with fuel tanks intact.  She did not sink.

It's of note here that much of what we're told about World War Two naval action really isn't applicable to the war in the Mediterranean, and as we saw from the Battle of Savo Island earlier, it isn't to the early war in the Pacific either.  It's often claimed that torpedo boats were worthless in World War Two, but as late as 1942 they certainly were not.  Indeed, this is just once of several instances in the first half of the war of torpedo boats performing successfully just as they were meant to, making surface raids at high speed against larger war ship and coming out on top.  Additionally, air cover clearly wasn't adequate or wasn't cutting it for convoy escort in the Mediterranean.  This convoy had an aircraft carrier with it, but it was itself one of the first vessels to be sunk.

On this day, the Italian Navy, still a major force in the Mediterranean, had to recall, however, a major task force that was attempting to intercept Pedestal due to a lack of German air cover, and British submarine action.

The excellent, but unfortunately discontinued, blog World War II Day-By-Day also notes this naval action on this day:

Caribbean. U-600 and U-658 attack as 2 USA-South America convoys pass the strait between Cuba and Haiti. At 5.07 AM, U-658 sinks Dutch SS Medea in convoy WAT 13 (5 killed, 23 rescued by convoy escorts). At 9.48 AM, U-600 sinks Latvian SS Everelza (23 killed, 14 rescued by convoy escorts) and American passenger/cargo ship SS Delmundo (8 killed including 3 passengers, 50 survivors including 5 passengers picked up by British destroyer HMS Churchill) in convoy TAW 12.

At 7.50 AM in the Gulf of Mexico 25 miles off the coast of Louisiana, U-171 stops US tanker SS R.M. Parker Jr. with 2 torpedoes and finishes her off with the deck gun (all 37 crew and 7 gunners rescued 8 hours later by US Coast Guard auxiliary craft USS Pioneer).

South Atlantic. At 7.40 AM 400 miles Southwest of Freetown, Sierra Leone, U-752 sinks American SS Cripple Creek carrying 7500 tons of war supplies from USA to British 8th Army in Egypt (1 killed, 38 crew and 13 gunners in 3 lifeboats rescued after 4 days by British armed trawler HMS St. Winstan). 1400 miles West of Freetown, Italian submarine Reginaldo Giuliani sinks American SS California with the deck gun and torpedoes (1 killed, 35 survivors)

Bernard Law Montgomery took over the British 8th Army in the wake of the death of Gen. Gott.

Montgomery in August 1942.  He had a love of irregular uniform items, and ins this case is wearing an Australian slouch hat, although that item was popular with British officers.

Montgomery, one of the most controversial senior commanders of the Second World War, had been considered for the post prior to Gott being appointed, but had lost out to Gott. With Gott's death, he was the natural choice. He was of Scots ancestry and from what might be regarded as a sort of Scottish variant of the Anglo-Irish community. While born in England, his father was a Church of Ireland minister who would ultimately be sent to Tasmania, where Montgomery grew up.  While his father Henry had inherited the family estate in Ulster, there was not sufficient money to support the family until his father took the position in Tasmania.

His father was a dutiful clergyman and spent much of his time on the road in the rural areas of what remained a British colony at the time.  While he was gone, his mother, only in her twenties, constantly beat and then ignored the children.  This treatment made Bernard something of a bully in his youth and caused lasting animosity between him and his mother, whose funeral he did not attend in 1949.

The family returned to England in 1897.  Bernard joined the Army in 1908.  By all accounts he had a difficult personality, but in spite of American claims to the contrary, he was a brilliant tactician with a great appreciation of how to use troops who were inadequately equipped with thin resources.

The Germans took Elista on the Eastern Front.

The Australians retreated at Deniki on New Guinea, and the Japanese landed troops at Buna.

The Japanese, acting with rich hypocrisy, passed the Enemy Airman's Act.  It stated:

Article I: This law shall apply to all enemy airmen who raid the Japanese homeland, Manchukuo, and the Japanese zones of military operations, and who come within the areas under the jurisdiction of the China Expeditionary Force.

Article II: Any individual who commits any or all of the following shall be subject to military punishment:

Section 1. The bombing, strafing, and otherwise attacking of civilians with the objective of cowing, intimidating, killing or maiming them.

Section 2. The bombing, strafing or otherwise attacking of private properties, whatsoever, with the objectives of destroying or damaging same.

Section 3. The bombing, strafing or otherwise attacking of objectives, other than those of military nature, except in those cases where such an act is unavoidable.

Section 4. In addition to those acts covered in the preceding three sections, all other acts violating the provisions of International Law governing warfare.

Article III: Military punishment shall be the death penalty [or] life imprisonment, or a term of imprisonment for not less than ten years.

The hypocrisy was that Japan had used air assets extensively against Chinese civilian populations by this point in the war.  Using air assets against civilians is in fact a crime, but in this case, the Japanese were familiar with that crime by having done it.  Not only this, the murder, rape and enslavement of civilian populations was a common practice by Japanese ground forces.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that 1) the British had arrested the German advances in North Africa but were nowhere near reversing them; 2) the Japanese were still advancing in the South Pacific and the recent U.S. offensive in the Solomons was now imperiled by a lack of progress on Guadalcanal and the Japanese Navy driving the U.S. Navy from that island's coast; 3) British efforts to contest for the Mediterranean were hardly an unqualified success; and 4) tens of ships were going down in the Atlantic every day, Joseph Stalin wrote a memo protesting the Allied decision not to land in France in 1942.

What Stalin seemingly was missing is that while he was losing the war inside of Russia at that moment, all the evidence was that the Allies were still losing it in the Pacific and barely hanging on in North Africa.  A landing in France was simply impossible.

Bambi opened in the United States.

Aerial view (altitude 3,000 ft.) looking northwest at the start of construction of Dry Dock No. 4. East terminus of Palou Avenue, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA.

Wednesday, August 12, 1942 The Second Moscow Conference commences.

The Second Moscow Conference opened on this day in 1942.  Averrell Harriman attended for the United States.  Churchill was there in person for the United Kingdom and, of course, Joseph Stalin was there, where he would have been anyway, for the USSR.

At least from an external view, the war was really not going well at this time for the Allies.  The Soviets were being pushed back inside their own borders every day, and it would have been rational to conclude that the latest big city to be entered, Stalingrad, would fall within days.  British Commonwealth forces had been pushed back to El Alamein, where they had however arrested the German advance.  The Japanese were advancing in New Guinea, and while the US had landed Marines on Guadalcanal, the Japanese Navy had driven the U.S. Navy from its coast.

Stalin's trip to the USSR would be regarded an ordeal by modern travelers.  He met with Stalin at 7:00 p.m. that night, having just arrived from Tehran, and informed Stalin immediately that there would not be a second front in 1942, although he then went on to inform Stalin about developing plans for Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa, which by any rational measure was a boosting of an existing second front.

Churchill promised landings in France in 1943.

On this day the Germans took Slavyansk and, in Operation Pedestal, the British ships Cairo and Foresight were sunk and the tanker Ohio badly damaged. The Ohio had to be taken under tow.  The convoy was constantly under attack from the air and sea by German and Italian forces.  

The Germans, however, transferred forces from Case Blue to the siege at Leningrad, which weakened the offensive which was already running into trouble.  Erich von Manstein was dispatched with those forces to Leningrad.

Actor Phillips Holmes died in a midair collision while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  Actor and future aircrewman Clark Gable joined the U.S. Army as a private.  He was 41 years old.

Tuesday, July 28, 1942. Not one step back.

Postage stamp commemorating the phrase coined in Order 227.

Stalin issued his "not one step back" order in the face of advancing Axis forces near Stalingrad.  The order, which was actually quite lengthy and detailed, read in part:

Moscow, Nr. 227, July 28, 1942

The enemy throws new forces to the front without regard to heavy losses and penetrates deep into the Soviet Union, seizing new regions, destroying our cities and villages, and violating, plundering and killing the Soviet population. Combat goes on in region Voronezh, near Don, in the south, and at the gates of the Northern Caucasus. The German invaders penetrate toward Stalingrad, to Volga and want at any cost to trap Kuban and the Northern Caucasus, with their oil and grain. The enemy already has captured Voroshilovgrad, Starobelsk, Rossosh, Kupyansk, Valuyki, Novocherkassk, Rostov on Don, half Voronezh. Part of the troops of the Southern front, following the panic-mongers, have left Rostov and Novocherkassk without severe resistance and without orders from Moscow, covering their banners with shame.

The population of our country, who love and respect the Red Army, start to be discouraged in her and lose faith in the Red Army, and many curse the Red Army for leaving our people under the yoke of the German oppressors, and itself running east.

Some stupid people at the front calm themselves with talk that we can retreat further to the east, as we have a lot of territory, a lot of ground, a lot of population and that there will always be much bread for us. They want to justify the infamous behaviour at the front. But such talk is a falsehood, helpful only to our enemies.

Each commander, Red Army soldier and political commissar should understand that our means are not limitless. The territory of the Soviet state is not a desert, but people - workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR which the enemy has captured and aims to capture is bread and other products for the army, metal and fuel for industry, factories, plants supplying the army with arms and ammunition, railways. After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic republics, Donetzk, and other areas we have much less territory, much fewer people, bread, metal, plants and factories. We have lost more than 70 million people, more than 800 million pounds of bread annually and more than 10 million tons of metal annually. Now we do not have predominance over the Germans in human reserves, in reserves of bread. To retreat further - means to waste ourselves and to waste at the same time our Motherland.

Therefore it is necessary to eliminate talk that we have the capability endlessly to retreat, that we have a lot of territory, that our country is great and rich, that there is a large population, and that bread always will be abundant. Such talk is false and parasitic, it weakens us and benefits the enemy, if we do not stop retreating we will be without bread, without fuel, without metal, without raw material, without factories and plants, without railways.

This leads to the conclusion, it is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan.

The order went on to require unit commanders to form penal battalions and blocking detachments to block, detain, and shoot the non-compliant.

Jewish youth organizations formed the first Jewish combat organizations in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Yugoslav Partisans and Croatian forces started to fight each other at the Bosnian town of Kupres, giving an example of the odd wars within the war feature of the World War Two in the East.

Arthur "Bomber" Harris made a radio broadcast to the Germans, warning them they were about to face around the clock bombing and the only solution to preventing this was to overthrow the Nazis and make peace.

Spike Jones and his City Slickers released their song Der Fuehrer's Face.

Disney would use the song as the basis for a cartoon the following year.