Thursday, April 12, 1945. The death of Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt on April 11, 1945.

Franklin Roosevelt died on this day in 1945.

His death was a surprise to nobody close to him but came as a shock to the nation.  He'd been fading steadily for months.  His final moments came while sitting for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia.  His last words were "I have a terrific headache", reflecting that he died of a massive intracerebral hemorrhage.

He was 63 years of age.

Harry S. Truman was inaugurated President.  Immediately thereafter, Secretary of War Harry Stimson and James F. Byrnes informed him of the nature of the Manhattan Project.  He'd been kept in the dark about it previously, in spite of trying to learn of its nature while in Congress.  At noon he met reporters and said “last night the whole weight of the moon and stars fell on me. If you fellows ever pray, please pray for me.”

Much about Truman's approach to things would be different than Roosevelt's, and FRD's death and Truman's inauguration cannot be regarded as a seamless transition.  Roosevelt was politely hostile to European colonialism and did not desire to see European powers return to their former colonial domains where they had been pushed out of them. Truman was rapidly approached by France and the UK and became sympathetic to their positions.  Roosevelt was naive in some ways to the dangers of Communism and while Truman was not really enlightened to them at first, he'd become so after the war, while also being saddled with an administration that had seen significant left wing penetration.  Truman was, also, blunt.

Roosevelt is arguably the last great President of the United States.  The country has certainly had some good ones since then, but none who were great.

Hitler was ecstatic about Roosevelt's death, maintaining it was a sign that German fortunes in the war were turning.

The US 3rd Army took Erfurt. The French took Baden Baden.

The USS Lindsey, Mannert L. Abele and Zellars were severely damaged off of Okinawa by kamikazes.

The Srmian Front was broken by the Red Army.

The Battle of Authion ended in Allied victory.

The Battle of Buchhof and Stein am Kocher ended after one week.

The Royal Navy sank the U-486 and U-1024.

The Berlin Philharmonic gave one of its last Third Reich performances at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, with various members of the military and political elite in attendance.  Robert Heger conducted Brünnhilde's last aria (the Immolation Scene) and the finale from Richard Wagner's Götterdammerung, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and Anton Bruckner's Romantic Symphony.  Members of the Hitler Youth offered cyanide capsules to the audience as they left the building, many of those in attendance being military and political elites.

Saturday, December 30, 1944. Reporting on the bomb.

"Pvt. Roy McDaniels, Hartford City, Ind., keeps a look out for enemy activity from a 30th Division observation post in Stavelot, Belgium. 30 December, 1944. 1st Battalion, 117th Regiment, 30th Division."  Note that a block has been nailed in to support the tripod of the machinegun, and that McDaniels is carrying a combat knife.

The German 5th Panzer Army made an attempt to encircle Bastogne.  The U.S. 3d Army attacked towards Houffalize.

King George II of Greece proclaimed a regency and appointed Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens to the role.

General Leslie Groves reported that two atomic bombs would be ready for testing by the summer of 1945.

Part I of the Sergei Eisenstein's Russian epic film Ivan the Terrible premiered.  Part II would not be released until 1958, as it was banned.  Eisenstein died in 1948 and a planned Part III was accordingly never made.

Last edition:

Friday, December 29, 1944. Siege of Budapest.

Labels: boats and ships, British Army, Budapest Offensive, Canadian Navy, Commandos, German Kriegsmarine, Red Army, Romanian Army, Siege of Budapest, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Saturday, December 18, 1943. German terror expands.

T/5 Cletus H. Moert, Louisville, Ky., holds pigeon and while reading message taken from its leg. Pozzilli Sector, Italy. 18 December, 1943.

Heinrich Himmler revoked most exemptions for Jews married to Gentiles in Germany.  Jewish spouses, for the most part, ordered deported to Theresienstadt in January, with exceptions for couples that had very young children or who had lost a child in combat.

The SS murdered 118 men at Drakela, Greece, in a reprisal for partisan activities.

The US 5th Army captured Monte Lungo.  San Pietro is taken by the 36th Infantry Division.

Three officials of the Kharkov Gestapo were tried before a Soviet military Court, found guilty and sentenced to death.  All three, Hans Rietz, Wilhelm Langfeld, and Reinhard Retzlaff would be executed the following day.

The U.S. Army formed a Counter Intelligence Corps unit for the Manhattan Project.

The Japanese destroyer Numakaze was sunk by the US submarine Grayback.

Famous British rocker Keith Richards was born in Kent.

Cpl. Albert Allen of Chicago, Ill., and Cpl. Byron Davis of Lansing, Mich., (15th Weather Squadron), sit down to a meal of "J" rations, December 18, 1943 on New Britain.  Cpl. Davis appears to be wearing jump boots.

Monday, December 6, 1943. Niels Bohr relocates.

Today in World War II History—December 6, 1943: Danish Nobel Laureate physicist Niels Bohr, having escaped from Denmark by boat, arrives in New York; Bohr will meet with Manhattan Project scientists.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The Red Army cut the rail line to Smela.

The British captured Monte Camino.

It was being reported that the King of Yugoslavia had protested the creation of a new government in exile for his country, which he can hardly be blamed for.

Thursday, August 19, 1943. The United States and the UK promise not to nuke each other.

The Quebec Agreement, concerning nuclear weapons, was agreed upon between the US and the UK.

August 19, 1943

The Citadel, Quebec.

Articles of Agreement Governing Collaboration Between The Authorities of the U.S.A. and the U.K. in the Matter of Tube Alloys

Whereas it is vital to our common safety in the present War to bring the Tube Alloys project to fruition at the earliest moments; and 

Whereas this maybe more speedily achieved if all available British and American brains and resources are pooled; and 

Whereas owing to war conditions it would be an improvident use of war resources to duplicate plants on a large scale on both sides of the Atlantic and therefore a far greater expense has fallen upon the United States;

It is agreed between us

First, that we will never use this agency against each other.

Secondly, that we will not use it against third parties without each other's consent.

Thirdly, that we will not either of us communicate any information about Tube Alloys to third parties except by mutual consent.

Fourthly, that in view of the heavy burden of production falling upon the United States as the result of a wise division of war effort, the British Government recognize that any post-war advantages of an industrial or commercial character shall be dealt with as between the United States and Great Britain on terms to be specified by the President of the United States to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Prime Minister expressly disclaims any interest in these industrial and commercial aspects beyond what may be considered by the President of the United States to be fair and just and in harmony with the economic welfare of the world.

And Fifthly, that the following arrangements shall be made to ensure full and effective collaboration between the two countries in bringing the project to fruition:

(a) There shall be set up in Washington a Combined Policy Committee composed of:

The Secretary of War. (United States)

Dr. Vannevar Bush.  (United States)

Dr. James B. Conant.  (United States)

Field-Marshal Sir John Dill, G.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.  (United Kingdom)

Colonel the Right Hon. J. J. Llewellin, C.B.E., M.C., M.P.  (United Kingdom)

The Honourable C. D. Howe.  (Canada)

The functions of this Committee, subject to the control of the respective Governments, will be:

(1) To agree from time to time upon the programme of work to be carried out in the two countries.

(2) To keep all sections of the project under constant review.

(3) To allocate materials, apparatus and plant, in limited supply, in accordance with the requirements of the programme agreed by the Committee.

(4) To settle any questions which may arise on the interpretation or application of this Agreement.

(b) There shall be complete interchange of information and ideas on all sections of the project between members of the Policy Committee and their immediate technical advisers.

(c) In the field of scientific research and development there shall be full and effective interchange of information and ideas between those in the two countries engaged in the same sections of the field.

(d) In the field of design, construction and operation of large-scale plants, interchange of information and ideas shall be regulated by such ad hoc arrangements as may, in each section of the field, appear to be necessary or desirable if the project is to be brought to fruition at the earliest moment. Such ad hoc arrangements shall be subject to the approval of the Policy Committee.

Aug. 19th 1943

Approved

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill

Tube alloys were atomic weapons.

The Italians began to negotiate with the Allies in Lisbon, bargaining for a surrender.

The Australian Army prevailed in a three-month series of actions on New Guinea known as the e Battle of Bobdubi

The U.S. Office of War Information released the film "Black Marketing".

Saturday, July 3, 1943. Oak Ridge sees its first residents.

The first residents of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a government constructed town dedicated to the Manhattan Project, arrived.

U.S. howitzer being fired during battle.

The Battle of Wickham Anchorage on Vangunu concluded in an American victory.

The island today retains a small population of subsistence farmers.

Monday, December 28, 1942. Funding the Manhattan Project.

President Roosevelt authorized a major expenditure on the Manhattan Project, effectively significantly funding the project for the first time.

Hitler issued Directive No. 47.  This directive concerned the war in the southeast, and more particularly the Balkans and Crete, now that Allied attacks on those locations were a possibility.

On the same day, the costly but effective Tatsinskaya Raid ended in the East.

According to Sarah Sundin:

Today in World War II History—December 28, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 28, 1942: French Somaliland switches allegiance from Vichy to Free French, the final French territory in Africa to do so.

She also reports that the Germans began to experiment with sterilization of female prisoners at Buchenwald. 

Wednesday, December 2, 1942. The birth of the nuclear age.

So, even though we reported this yesterday, and used the National Archives as the source: 

Scientists working on the Manhattan Project achieved the world’s first man-made, controlled nuclear chain reaction on 12/1/1942. Afterwards, they drank a silent toast to recognize the historic moment. The Chianti bottle’s basket bears their signatures.

National Archives, with a link to the photo of the Chianti bottle, which in its original form, as here is called a fiasco.

That it was Chianti, an iconic Italian table wine, is curious.

Every other source claims this happened today. 

The December 2 date is clearly the correct one, and for that reason, every December 2 is World Nuclear Energy Day.

Thursday, November 6, 1947. Meet The Press Premiers.

Meet The Press, the longest running television program in the United States, premiered in that format.  It had previously premiered on radio as American Mercury Presents:  Meet the Press on October 5, 1945.

While I very much favor This Week over Meet the Press, it occurs to me that somewhat ironically, as I listed to the audio podcast variant, I listed to it closer to the radio version.

The first guess for the then 30-minute Thursday night program was James Farley, the Postmaster General and DNC Committee chairman.  The initial moderator was Martha Roundtree, reprising her role from the radio variant, and the only woman moderator of the show to date.  Roundtree hosted the program until 1953.

She died in 1999 in Washington D.C., nearly blind since the 1980s, due to the harsh effects of primitive television lighting.

As noted, I do listen to it, but I'm not a fan of the current moderator, Chuck Todd.  Indeed, I was hoping for a second female moderator in the form of Kasi Hunt.

On the same day, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told a Moscow audience that the means of making an atomic weapons were no longer secret.  American intelligence took that to mean that the Soviet Union knew how to build a bomb, but didn't necessarily have one.  The Soviets, who had penetrated the American government fairly successfully, suspected that the US was working on such a weapon by 1942 and started their own project accordingly.  Nonetheless, they had not developed a bomb by this point themselves, but were only two years away from doing so.

Canada invited Newfoundland to join the Canadian Dominion.

Friday, December 20, 1946. Release of It's A Wonderful Life.

 

It's a Wonderful Life premiered on this day in 1946.

This is jumping the line in our 100 years ago and 80 years ago threads, and this won't become a regular, but this year, this anniversary might be worth mentioning.

The release, FWIW, was in New York. The general release would come on January 7.  The film didn't really acquire its current classic status until a failure to renew the copyright in 1974 led to it being frequently run on television.  Irrespective of that, it is a classic, although one that I tend to find makes me a bit sad.

On the same day a 1944 Soviet secret cable that had been intercepted by the US was revealed to have contained the list of scientists working on the Manhattan Project.  As the Venona Files would reveal, Soviet penetration of the US government was extensive.

British Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that the British government was prepared to grant Burma its independence.

Sugar Ray Robinson won his first professional boxing title.

 Additional labels for the post immediately above.