Sunday, March 23, 1924. Noise.

 

"The Curse of Noise" Hearst's New York American.  March 23, 1924.

Speaking of noise, Mussolini led a fascist march and gave a campaign speech at the end of it, on this day in 1924.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, March 20, 1924. Barbarity Codified.

Monday, January 28, 1924. Plaintiff Shoeless Joe Jackson, Petition for release, Teapot fallout, Federals seek to retake Vera Cruz, Lenin boxed and warehoused, Far Right Figure gives extreme speech about election, the last King of Sine

Shoeless Joe Jackson's suit against the Chicago White Sox for back pay went to trial on this day in 1924.  The trial was held in Milwaukee.

A delegation headed by Illinois Sen. William B. McKinley and former servicemen present spooled petition to Otto Wiedfeldt, the German Ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C. to release Hooven Griffis.

Hooven Griffis?

Yes, he was part of a party of men that had sought to kidnap Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, notorious WWI slacker, from a hotel in Germany, take him to Paris and turn him over to authorities so he could be court-martialed for desertion.

The party was caught.

The headlines all speak for themselves.

Mussolini addressed 10,000 Blackshirts in the Palazzo Venezia predicting a complete election victory and stating that they were "ready to kill or die".

Vanity Fair, December 1923.

Hmmm. . . sort of a lot like what we're hearing now.

Mahecor Joof was crowned as the last King of Sine in Senegal, where he'd be allowed limited power until his death in 1969.

Monday, December 10, 1923. Mexican rebels and cheese empires advance.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which has not been ratified, was first introduced in Congress.

At the time, many suffragettes opposed it out of fear that it would eliminate statutory protection of female laborers, which it likely would have.

Rebels were advancing on Mexico City.

Coolidge was encouraging commercial aviation, and running for reelection.

The National Dairy Products Corporation was founded by a merger of Thomas H. McInerney's Hydrox Corporation and Edward E. Rieck's Rieck—McJunkin Dairy Company. In 1930, it would acquire Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company, and then rebrand itself in 1969 as Kraftco Corporation and then Kraft, Inc.

It is now Kraft Heinz as of this very year.

Kraft cheese is, in my opinion, hideous.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. that only it, in appropriate Federal questions, could review state supreme court decisions.

The Italian parliament was prorogued, i.e., dissolved, by King Victor Emmanuel III at the request of Benito Mussolini.

Turkey and Albania signed a treat of friendship.

When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

Yeoman's Fifth Law of History.  When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

When nations start a war, they have a "war aim."  But that aim rarely determines when a war ends.  Wars are over when the party that is attacked decides that the war is over.

The Germans, during World War Two, thought that the war in the West was over when they knocked France out of the war, but the British did not believe that, so it did not end. In the East, the Germans thought advancing to the Volga meant victory over the USSR.  The Soviets, however, had no such concept so the war went on.  Conversely, the Imperial Russians in World War One gave up long before they were really defeated.  They just gave up.  Wars end when the party that was attacked decides that they are over.

This is about to be played out in spades.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and followed with the invasion of France in 1940, the war was supposed to end. The British, however, didn't agree, and by 1945 Germany was finished as a fascist power.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 Japan figured on. . .well figured on something. They didn't figure that by 1945 the Allies would end the Japanese Empire for eternity and two cities would lay in nuclear ruins.

When the South attempted to depart from the Union in 1860 and laid siege to Ft. Sumter, it didn't figure on Sherman marching across the South in 1865.

And when Hamas invaded Israel earlier this week, it didn't figure on an Israeli invasion of Gaza that would end Gaza as a Palestinian entity.

But that is likely to happen, replete with all the human tragedy that will accompany it.

Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, and the thousands resorting to invasion on the theory it achieves something are the blistering ignoramuses of history.  Later this week, the news will feature wailing Palestinian women lamenting the deaths of their loved ones, many of whom intellectually sided with the entity which committed horrors on their neighbors and who have no better solution than to follow the sword.  Many outside their support, and some who had not given it, and indeed most fit into this category, will be innocent victims of the death their political leaders invited to rain down upon them.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Human beings seem incapable of learning this lesson. 

Some seem less capable of learning it than others.

Any ignoramus can start a war.  Wars end, when those who were hit first, decide to quit hitting back.  Almost as often as not, that last blow is struck by those hit first.

September 23, 1943. The Italian Social Republic, the Holocaust reaches further.

On this date in 1943, the puppet fascist Italian Social Republic was founded. Venice was its capital, wih most of its government offices in the resort town of Salò.

And so Mussolini would consign Italy to a species of civil war over a doomed cause.

The Holocaust expanded with Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt issuing an order for the deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied nations (Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Romania) and to negotiate for the same in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Turkey, none of which would comply.

As if there was any doubt, 80 years later, as of its true focus, as the fortune of the Nazi regime faded, it grasped for complete murderous annihilation of Europe's Jews.

Kaltenbrunner was an Austrian SS official during the war who was a major figure in the murder.  He was tried and executed in 1946.

On the same day, the Germans began the removal of Jewish residents of Vilnius.

The Red Army took  Poltava.

The Free French took Bonifacio, Corsica.

The British 10th Corps, part of the US 5th Army, began clearing the passes to Naples.

Wednesday, September 15, 1943. Bazooka.

The United States Army revealed the AT M-1 rocket launcher, the bazooka, to the press.

M1 bazooka.

Like the PIAT, the new anti-tank weapon was first used in North Africa, but would come into its own in Europe.

The Red Army captured Nizhyn.

Mussolini announced he was returning to power, which in the context of his situation, meant returning to figurehead power of an Italian puppet rump state.  On the same day, the Germans announced the death penalty for Italians caught with firearms.

German paratroopers advanced on the Vatican at St. Peter's Square.

British paratroopers occupied Cos in the Aegean.

Former internee James Tanaka working in the New York City studio of a movie cartoon producer.

Tuesday, September 14, 1943. Mussolini at the Wolf's Lair.

Mussolini was flown to the Wolf's Lair for a meeting with Hitler, who informed Il Duce that it was imperative that he form a new fascist government.  Mussolini, at this point, would likely have preferred to go into retirement in a neutral country.

Following up on a string of Luftwaffe successes in recent days, the HMS Warspite was badly damaged by another Fritz X.  It would be back in action before Operation Overlord.

Taking advantage of the Italian surrender, German collaborators Ibrahim Biçakçiu, Bedri Pejani and Xhafer Deva declared Albania independence from Italy.

The Germans began the Viannos massacres on Crete which would result in 500 civilians being murdered in two days.

Sunday, September 12, 1943. The Germans spring Mussolini

Italian Social Republic poster.

German commandos under the command of Otto Skorzeny rescued Benito Mussolini from Italian imprisonment at the Campo Imeriale Hotel in the Abruzzi Mountains.  A less than enthusiastic Mussolini was spirited away as a passenger on a Fieler Storch after the combined glider/paratrooper raid.

The raid allowed Mussolini to be installed in a puppet fascist state called the Italian Social Republic, which would not have a happy end for Il Duce.  While in photos of this event, he's all smiles, he was a shadow of his former bombastic self by this time.  His fascistic state embedded within a monarchy had been destroyed and was going to be defeated no matter what was done at this point.  Italian troops were now fighting the Germans, although not terribly effectively.  A partisan movement was developing. The sympathies of the Italian people had gone over to an Allied peace.

The raid itself, while regarded as quite a feat of arms, emphasized the sad state of the Axis war effort itself by this point.  Mussolini could be regarded as nothing other than a puppet with an Axis alliance that was basically down to one power and associates.  Some of those associates, such as Romania and Finland, had concluded the Axis cause was doomed and were looking for a way out of the war.

Patriarch Sergius was installed as the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first such formal installation since the Russian Revolution.

Sunday, September 9, 1923. Greece takes it on the chin.

 

Greece accepted the humiliating suggestions of the Allied Commissioners. What else could it do, having just lost a war to Turkey and having undergone a quasi violent change in government.

Of course, this was a step towards World War Two.

Monday, April 6, 1923. Mourning Harding.

 Harding's train had passed through Cheyenne the prior day.

Mussolini appeared on the cover of Time.

On G. K. Chesterton and his Anti Semitism.

The Catholic blogosphere has been having a war over G. K. Chesterton, the late English writer and polymath.  Some of it, were I not so tired and worn out, would be heartbreaking, as former fans of his, particularly converts, have discovered his anti-Semitic views and come around to condemning him. At the same time, hard right wing Catholics, whom are I supposing a separate interlocking circle that crosses over into the Trads and Rad Trads, but don't include all of those bodies by any means (I suspect most of them do not know who Chesterton is) may be over adopting him.

All this exists, moreover, in the bizarre context of our times in which the left doesn't see a biological or social construct that it doesn't want to attack, which makes in some ways Chesterton a perfect man for our times, as he warned of so much of this.  That's why, to our recent surprise, we saw, and it caused a lot of comment, Giorgia Meloni quote the English writer to the effect:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

She stated that in support of her hard right conservative views.

A lot of this debate over Chesterton, both from the right and the left, really misses the point, in my view.

Whenever dealing with a great man, we have to ask ourselves a series of questions.  Ironically, in some ways, we have to ask one that has been recently examined by the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom. "Was he a saint?"  But beyond that, do we require great mean with huge thoughts to be saints?  And do we always require them to be right in order to consider these ideas?

In some ways, this is frankly why ancient philosophers get so much more of a pass than modern ones.  We don't even think much of their private lives, really.  We know that Socrates was married at least once, to Xanthippe, and might have had a second wife as well. We also know that Xanthippe might have been 40 years younger than Socrates, which would cause all sorts of Twitter twittering today, but we just don't think of it.  And he's a philosopher that we know a lot about.

Chesterton, on the other hand, we know boatloads about, as he's a relatively recent figure.  His cause for canonization, which failed, resulted in all sorts of commentary about him in various forms, including some people who claimed he couldn't be a saint as he was fat, so therefore he must be a glutton, and an "alcoholic", based on his exhibiting the typical English pub culture of the time.  Much more serious, however, are his anti-Semitic utterances.

So let's start there.

They exist.

Now, I'm not able to really go into detail on them, as unlike true Chestertonians, I've read very little of Chesterton.  Like a lot of people who fit broadly into his fan base, so to speak, I've read the various pithy quotes you are able to find, and up until a recent bizarre Twitter episode, I hadn't read any of the anti-Semitic ones.  I'd heard them referenced, and excused, but I'm not going to try to do that as they seem to go beyond what we might expect, although at the same time a person can't really deny that there is evidence that cuts the other way as well.  The year following his death, for example, you find American Jewish leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, making this comment:

Indeed, I was a warm admirer of Gilbert Chesterton. Apart from his delightful art and his genius in many directions, he was, as you know, a great religionist . . . I deeply respected him. When Hitlerism came, he was one of the first to speak out with all the directness and frankness of a great and unabashed spirit. Blessing to his memory!

That's hard to square with the claim that Chesterton was an unabashed anti Semite.  In contrast, some point out that Chesterton said something like there was some good in Hitlerism and some of that was in Hitler himself.  He both condemned Nazism while saying that part of the reason that it came about was because of a "Jewish problem", a fairly astounding claim from an educated man who should have known better, although that was a fairly widespread belief in Europe at the time, and it surprisingly still has much more retention in Europe today, in spite of everything, than it should.  In some ways, Chesterton on this topic gives us a really odd example of a person really forcibly trying to take the middle ground by advocating both sides of it, on a topic in which there really is no middle ground.

But here's the thing.

Having bad, even horrible, views, doesn't discredit your other views which are not so tainted, and they don't define the person unless the person adopts them to the extent that they do.

Hitler was a tremendous opponent of smoking.  He hated it.  He was right to hate it, but beyond anything else, he hated cultures that he regarded as non-Germanic, with the Jews, followed by the Slavs hated to the point of murder. That's why Hitler and his followers are defined by their murderous beliefs, and not by their opposition to tobacco or their construction of the autobahn.

In contrast, I suppose, Thomas Jefferson wrote profoundly on the rights of man.  At the same time, he was shacked up with his dead wife's half sister, who was an enslaved black woman. The relationship started, following his wife's death, when the slave was quite young, probably still in her teens. That's really icky.  The children of that illicit union, we'd note, were held in bondage as well, which is exceedingly weird.

That latter example gives us an example closer to what we find with Chesterton.  Jefferson was a brilliant man, and wrote in opposition to slavery, none of which kept him from having an illicit unmarried long-lasting and deeply strange relationship to his sister-in-law.  Should we discount his writings?

Probably not.

And here I guess is the uneasy measure.  People are full of vices, some of them exceedingly serious.  Some people let their hatreds and vices define them.  That is what they come to stand for, by their own actions.  Hitler's perverted view of German superiority defined his political party and what it stood for, and came to define what Germany of the 30s and 40s stood for.  Lenin and Stalin's malevolent view of  the "class struggle", which lead to mass murder, came to define them.  

Franklin Roosevelt's long-lasting extramarital affair did not come to define him, however. And while he's not now regarded as a good President, Warren G. Harding's two affairs have not come to define him.  Actor Pat Morita's alcoholism did not define him.  Jimi Hendrix's drug consumption, which helped kill him, didn't define him.  Caravaggio's murdering a man over a tennis match has not come to define him.  Django Reinhardt's alcohol consumption diminished his abilities over his lifetime, but that has not come to define him, nor has Richard Burton's alcoholism defined him.  Churchill was known to have made utterances sympathetic to Mussolini prior to World War Two, and even after World War Two Churchill made a surprising remark about the rise of Hitler, which he warned against, having made sense in the context of desperate Germany of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

It's problematic, of course, when we are faced with a character like Chesterton, who serous failing was in print and therefore not really possible to ignore and not legitimately subject to being excused.  Nor are that a self-destructive personal vice, like alcoholism.  It's much closer to Jefferson's bedroom hypocrisy.  It's different from that, of course, in that Chesterton's views were openly stated, whereas Jefferson's actions were kept hidden.  A person could debate which was worse, I suppose, in that context, but for a brilliant writer, that's all the more problematic.

Some of it was the context of the times and culture, to be sure.  Anti-Semitism is deeply ingrained in European culture and remains pretty potent today.  But Chesterton actually stood principally against his culture, which makes this failing more difficult to accept.

So where to land?

Like Caravaggio's paintings, his works are too valuable to ignore.  The adoption of them by fringe elements of the far right today, including the far right in religious circles, does not change that, and indeed chances are high that Chesterton would levy his sharp tongue against many of them today.  It means, however, that he's a flawed hero, and in at least one serious way, which makes him a pretty typical hero at that.  There are, to my layman's eyes, reasons not to canonize him which are both theological and political, none of which is to say that he did not find salvation.  Indeed, we ought to be careful about our own souls, with many of the critics and readers of all kinds no doubt, like Jefferson, harboring secret or open vices.

So the troubling writings should not be excused or diminished.  Not everything the man said or did was right.  But by the same token, the writings of Jefferson's pen in aid of the infant United States are not rendered a nullity by his long-running bizarre home behavior.  The character of the works must be measured in the main, with those that fail being noted as failures, even evil failures, which does not mean that the rest cannot be considered.  It also does not mean that the man can be adopted in the main, safely, for those with modern radical causes.

The key may be the question whether the failings define the man, or are a horrific exception to his definition.  Hitler's failings defined him.  Jefferson's did not.  Chesterton's, serious though they were, do not seem to define him either, which is not to excuse them.

Sunday, July 29, 1923. Ptomaine poisoning?

President Harding's physician reported his condition had worsened and that the rest of the Voyage of Understanding was cancelled.  He was checked into a hospital in San Francisco.

The press was still reporting the incident as an instance of food poisoning.

Benito Mussolini received thousands of letters congratulating him on his 40th birthday.

A German Communist called Red Sunday failed to bring out much of a turnout.

Sunday, July 25, 1943. The surreal end of Mussolini's Premiership.

Having been voted out of office the night prior, Mussolini left the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council that had voted to remove him, he went to award prizes at a farm festival and carried on business as usual.  The Fascist Grand Council reported its decision to King Victor Emmanuel III, who ordered Mussolini to report and asked him to resign.  Mussolini asked for more time and was arrested.

Marshal Pietro Badoglio was appointed Premier.

Badoglia had been Chief of Staff of the Italian army from 1925 to 1940, but had resigned following the disastrous performance of the Italian Army in Greece.

On the same day in the same country, Ubaldo Pugnaloni won the Giro d'Italia.

The Navy commissioned the USS Harmon, a destroyer named after Leonard Roy Harmon, a mess attendant who had been killed at Guadalcanal saving a fellow shipmate.  It was the first ship named after an African American in the U.S. Navy.

Harmon's citation reads:

The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Roy Harmon, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty in action against the enemy while serving on board the Heavy Cruiser U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO (CA-38), during action against enemy Japanese naval forces near Savo Island in the Solomon Islands on the night of on 12–13 November 1942. With persistent disregard of his own personal safety, Mess Attendant First Class Harmon rendered invaluable assistance in caring for the wounded and assisting them to a dressing station. In addition to displaying unusual loyalty in behalf of the injured Executive Officer, he deliberately exposed himself to hostile gunfire in order to protect a shipmate and, as a result of this courageous deed, was killed in action. His heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, maintained above and beyond the call of duty, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

 

Saturday, July 24, 1943. The fall of Mussolini.

Lesser coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy.

The Italian Fascist Grand Council voted 19 to 7 to remove Mussolini from power and restore full authority to the crown.

Dino Grandi, who had been a hard line fascist, but who also had opposed anti-Semitism and who had been critical of the war, organized beforehand Mussolini's downfall.  The Grand Council's statement following the decision read:

Grandi's Order of the Day

The Grand Council of Fascism,

meeting in these hours of utmost trial, turns all its thoughts to the heroic fighters in every corps who, side by side with the people of Sicily in whom shines the unequivocal faith of the Italian people, renewing the noble traditions of strenuous valor and the indomitable spirit of sacrifice of our glorious Armed Forces, having examined the internal and international situation and the war's political and military leadership,

proclaims

the sacred duty for all Italians to defend at all costs the homeland's unity, independence, and freedom, the fruits of sacrifice and the efforts of four generations from the Risorgimento to the present, the life and future of the Italian people;

affirms

the necessity of moral and material unity of all Italians in this serious and decisive hour for the nation's destiny;

declares

that to this end the immediate restoration of all state functions is necessary, assigning to the Crown, to the Grand Council, to the government, to the Parliament, and to the corporate groups the duties and responsibility established by our statutory and constitutional laws;

invites

the government to beseech His Majesty the king, to whom turns the loyal and trusting heart of the whole nation, to assume effective command of the Armed Forces of land, sea, and air for the honor and salvation of the homeland, under article 5 of the Constitution, the supreme initiative that our institutions assign to him, and which have always been throughout our nation's history the glorious heritage of our august House of Savoy.

Dino Grandi

While Mussolini seemed to accept the results at the time, he very quickly started acting as if they were not legally binding.

Mussolini had been in power for seventeen years, being the first of the fascist dictators to assume power.  While Italy's defeat in the field brought his end about, his removal did not automatically take the Italians out of the war.

Grandi would flea to Spain after the complete fascist collapse in August, not returning to Italy until 1960.  He died in 1988 at the age of 92.

Operation Gomorrah, the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force bombing campaign on Hamburg, began. Window was deployed for the first time.

Monday, July 19, 1943. Hitler haranges Mussolini, Allies bomb Rome.

Benito Mussolini met with Adolf Hitler at Feltre.  The purpose of the meeting was an Italian withdrawal from the war, but Mussolini apparently never brought it up.  Instead, the discussion turned to forming a defensive line across the Italian peninsula upon the inevitable upcoming Allied invasion, a strategy which ignored Italy's long coasts and the fact that the Italian Army was beaten in the field in Sicily, and the Italian people rapidly switching their allegiances towards the Allies.  It did, however, take advantage of Italy having rough terrain and only being 75 miles wide, for the most part.

It further was never more than a plan for a defensive withdrawal, with a defensive war not being winnable.

U.S. troops advancing in Sicily, July 19, 1923.

The meeting featured a long harangue by Hitler on the many virtues of war which Mussolini, well aware the war was lost, mostly endured silently, a fact aided by his poor understanding of German.  Hitler, for his part, had already ordered his General Staff to make plans for the occupation of Italy in the event of an Italian surrender or armistice.  Mussolini, however, assured the Germans that the Italians would continue fighting on.

The Allies bombed Rome.  The raid went on for two hours.

Pope Pius XII left the Vatican for the first time since 1940 to observe the bombing damage.  He attempted to comfort the wounded, resulting in his white soutaine being bloodstained. A statue in his honor was later erected on the location.  

The Pope's actions became a symbol of opposition to the violence of war. The bombing itself, however, shocked Romans, even though it was directed at military targets (rail yards) of the era.  The bombing helped accelerate the already increasing Italian abandonment of Mussolini.

The War Department ordered that difficult German POWs and those with Nazi ideology be kept at Camp Alva in Alva, Oklahoma.

Konzentrationslager Warschau was opened in Warsaw.

Shirley Slade, a WASP pilot trainee, although the WASPs were at that time the WAFS, appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in a photo that would go on to have cult status.  After training, Slade ferried Bell P-39 Airacobras and Martin B-26 Marauders, the latter of which was a notoriously difficult aircraft nicknamed "The Widowmaker".  She moved to Chicago after the war and married Major William Berkeley, an Air Force veteran and later Eugene "Gene" Lafitte Teer.

She passed away in 2000 at age 79. 

The first New York Fashion Week was held, with the object of giving women an alternative to French fashions.

The Army's news flyer warned troops of potential German use of poison gas, something the Germans did not, in fact, resort to in World War Two.

Friday, July 16, 1943. Morire per Mussolini e Hitler, o vivere per l'Italia e per la civiltà.

Italy's Fascist Grand Council, concerned by the arrival of Allied troops on Italian soil, convened for the first time since 1939.  On the same day, Allied aircraft dropped leaflets over the Italian mainland that read "Morire per Mussolini e Hitler, o vivere per l'Italia e per la civiltà" (Die for Mussolini and Hitler, or live for Italy and for civilization).  

Radio broadcast a joint message to the Italian people from Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

Italy, as a fascist state, was coming undone.

The British Air Ministry approved the use of "Window", aluminum strips, as a radar countermeasure.

Effect of Window on radar signature.

The Germans ordered the deportation of 13,000 Jews living in Paris to the Drancy detention center, a way stop for them on the way to Auschwitz.

Yitzhak Wittenberg, a Jewish Lithuanian resistance leader, surrendered to the Gestapo in Vilnius in exchange for an agreement that the Vilnius ghetto would not be liquidated.  He did shortly there after in an undetermined fashion.

The ghetto was liquidated by the Germans in September 1943.

In an event which tends to be misreported, Père Marie-Benoît (Padre Maria Benedetto), a Capuchin Franciscan friar who successfully rescued 4,000 Jews during the war, met with Pope Pius XII in an effort to advance his plan to try to transfer approximately 30,000 French Jews to North Africa, in order to remove them from danger.  The Italian portion of the plan ultimately fell apart when the Germans occupied northern Italy following the collapse of Mussolini's government, but the Spanish portion, which did result in the rescue of 2,600 French Jews on the somewhat ironic pretext that they were Jews of Spanish ancestry, which is the cover that Franco's government operated under. 

He died in 1990 at age 95.

The Battle of Mount Tambu began on New Guinea between the Imperial Japanese Army and American and Australian forces.

The Batman character appeared in film for the first time, this being in a fifteen-minute serial episode before major features.  In the original series, he was called "The Batman", with the first episode being "The Electrical Brain".

Wednesday, April 7, 1943. An uncomfortable meeting.

Hitler and Mussolini met at Schloss Klessheim.

Mussolini was sick and Hitler babbled on.  Il Duce suggested that perhaps the pair approach Uncle Joe about a separate peace, but Hitler would have none of it.

The Japanese conducted massive air raids in the Solomons on this day, although they were not a complete surprise due to American radio intercepts.  Marine Corps pilot James E. Swett would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.  His citation reads:

FIRST LIEUTENANT JAMES E. SWETT

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE for service as set forth in the following CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, as a division leader in Marine Fighting Squadron TWO TWENTY-ONE in action against enemy Japanese aerial forces in the Solomon Islands Area, April 7, 1943. In a daring flight to intercept a wave of 150 Japanese planes, First Lieutenant Swett unhesitatingly hurled his four-plane division into action against a formation of fifteen enemy bombers and during his dive personally exploded three hostile planes in mid-air with accurate and deadly fire. Although separated from his division while clearing the heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire, he boldly attacked six enemy bombers, engaged the first four in turn, and unaided, shot them down in flames. Exhausting his ammunition as he closed the fifth Japanese bomber, he relentlessly drove his attack against terrific opposition which partially disabled his engine, shattered the windscreen and slashed his face. In spite of this, he brought his battered plane down with skillful precision in the water off Tulagi without further injury. The superb airmanship and tenacious fighting spirit which enabled First Lieutenant Swett to destroy eight enemy bombers in a single flight were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Swett, far right.

Born in 1920, Swett was a prewar private pilot before joining the Navy, and then transferring following flight school to the Marine Corps.  Swett remained in the Marine Corps following World War Two but left for the reserves folloiwng the Marine Corps' decision not to deploy him to Korea during the Korean War as he was a Medal of Honor recipient.  He died in California in 2009 at age 88.

The British government published a report by John Maynard Keynes about the global postwar economy, proposing an international monetary fund.

Allied forces prevailed at Wadi Akarit

Bolivia declared war against the Axis powers.

There were still a fair number of foreign language newspapers in the U.S., even in languages which had been officially unpopular during the prior World War.  This one printed in German fraktur, which interestingly was now officially prohibited in Germany itself.

Today In Wyoming's History: April 7: 1943. On this day, the sale of coffee was banned in Cheyenne and Casper due to violations of wartime rationing restrictions.

Friday, March 30, 1942. The Laconia comes home, Mussolini ponders Italian emigration.

The SS Laconia completed its circumnavigation of the globe, becoming the ship to complete an around the world pleasure cruise.

It had departed in November 1930 and, before returning to New York, would be at sea for 130 days and call on 22 ports.

She'd be sunk on September 12, 1942, by a U-boat.

Mussolini addressed emigration from Italy in a famous speech, which stated:

The Sig. Director has compromised me, because he has announced my speech. Now almost all Italians know that I do not like speeches, but I accept with joy and resign myself this morning to this exception. He was also moved because he recalled with a warm voice of passion the history of the school—a superb history which all of Milan knows and admires. Also in this area, which could be defined as related to the problem of emigration—without prejudice to the question of whether migration is good or bad—is the "Carlo Tenca" School, and it has done very well, since when discussing the thesis you can argue endlessly regarding a conclusion.

For better or for worse, emigration is a physiological necessity of the Italian people. We are forty million squeezed into our narrow but adorable peninsula, with its too many mountains, and its soil which cannot feed everyone. There are around Italy countries that have a population smaller than ours and a territory double the size of ours. Hence it is obvious that the problem of Italian expansion in the world is a problem of life or death for the Italian race. I say expansion: expansion in every sense: moral, political, economic, demographic. I declare that the Government intends to protect Italian emigration: it cannot be indifferent to those who cross the mountains and travel beyond the Ocean, it cannot be indifferent because they are men, workers, and above all Italians. And wherever there is an Italian there is the tricolour, there is the Fatherland, there is the Government's defense of these Italians.

I feel all the excitement of life that stirs this new powerful generation of the Italian race. You certainly have meditated a few times on what you might call a miracle in the history of mankind; it is not rhetoric, it is said that the Italian people are the immortal people who always find a spring for their hopes, for their passion, for their greatness. Some two thousand years ago Rome was the center of an empire that had no boundaries except in the extreme limits of the desert; the civilization that Rome had given, its great legal tradition, as solid as the monuments, to the world—Rome had built a huge miracle that still moves us even to our most intimate fibers.

Then the empire decayed and crumbled. But it is not true that all the centuries which followed the collapse of the Roman world were centuries of darkness and barbarism. However, after a few centuries the Italian spirit suffered from an eclipse, but during that period of rest it was powerfully reinforced by new achievements, and so here the Italian spirit blossomed again through the creation of the immortal Dante Alighieri.

We were great in 1300 when other people were ill or were not yet born to history. Here followed the superb centuries, the Renaissance; Italy was once again the bearer of civilization to all races, all peoples. Then followed another political eclipse of division and discord, but it was barely a century and the Italian people recover, regaining consciousness of their historical unity. Rome returned, still playing its fanfare of glory for all Italians, it recovered the use of weapons that are necessary when it comes to saving its freedom, its greatness and its future. Then followed small wars, one state, conspiracies, the revolution of a people, martyrs, tortures, jails, exile. And just a century after the last war we made our political unity. However, alongside this political unity and geographical unity, the Italian people lacked the moral consciousness of themselves and their own destinies, even though after a victorious war this formation of conscience was in place. Under our eyes Italy will gradually become indestructible in its unity.

My Government will abolish bell towers so that Italians may see the august image of the Fatherland. This is the work to which my Government intends all its passion and a sense of religious faith. I am confident, gentlemen, of the destinies of Italy! I am optimistic for a simple act of will, because the will is a great force in people's lives and the lives of peoples.

We must will, strongly will! We must want, strongly want! Only with this power of the will we can overcome any obstacle. We must be ready for all sacrifices.

Recollect, then, in a moment of meditation after this rapid advance into the past. We love our willingness to project proudly of our time into the future. This young Italian people—fierce, fearless, restless, but strong. I am most certain that Italy will march towards a future of freedom, prosperity and greatness. Recollect in this vision, we tend all our nerves and all our passion towards this future that awaits us and we cry with a religious fervor.

Viva l'Italia!

It's hard to know what to make of this speech, but the vague references to past empire offer a clue of future fascist actions.

Friday, February 5, 1943. Depriving the vote. Introduction of the M1943 Combat Boot.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 5: 1943 1943  The Legislature passes a bill denying American citizens interned at Heart Mountain Relocation Camp the right to vote.

Not exactly a proud, or even legal, moment for the state.

Sarah Sundin notes something grim on her blog:

Today in World War II History—February 5, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Feb. 5, 1943: Nazis begin liquidating Bialystok ghetto; 1,000 Jews are killed and 10,000 are sent to Treblinka extermination camp.

Events such as these accelerated and climbed in scale following the German defeat at Stalingrad.  The focus of the war began to turn less on Eastern European colonization and more on murder.

Mel Brooks, oddly enough, made Bialystok a name that's at least recognizable to fans of his comedy, as one of the two principal characters in The Producers bears that as his last name.  I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it's interesting.

The Polish city remains a significant one in Poland today.  Prior to World War Two, Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe.  Germany's was actually relatively small.  3.3 million Jews lived in Poland, not all of whom claimed a Jewish identity, although many did.  By the war's end, approximately 380,000 Polish Jews remained.  Many would subsequently emigrate out of the country.  Polish Jews would undergo a renewed wave of repression following World War Two, following the same in the Soviet Union, during which Jewish Poles were accused of being in league with the United States and Israel against Communism, and the state officially worked to eliminate the unique distinction of Jews as particular victims of German atrocities.

Mussolini fired his Foreign Minister, his son-in-law Count Galeazzo Ciano, along with most of his cabinet.  Il Duce took over the position of Foreign Minister, along with being Interior Minister, War Minister, and Air Minister.

Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews.

Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews was appointed commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, relieving Gen. Dwight Eisenhower of that post in a little noted change of command.  Eisenhower was, at that time, engaged in the combat command in North Africa.

Andrews was the grandson of a Confederate cavalryman and was a cavalryman himself, having been commissioned in that branch in 1906.  His career benefited from him having married well.  He switched to Army aviation during World War One, although he returned briefly to the cavalry after the war.

Lt. Col Georges Doriot, a later pioneer in venture capitalism, an immigrant from France, and a wartime volunteer, convinced Gen. George Marshall to adopt what would become the M1943 combat boot, which would replace the Army Service Shoe and leggings, for the most part, by the end of the war.  The M1943 would also officially replace the Army paratrooper boot as well.  In reality, the Service Shoe and the jump boot were never fully replaced by the M1943, and paratroopers resisted adopting the M1943.

How the U.S. Army imagined its troops to look in an official painting illustrating the Army in Europe, late war.  The tankers in this painting are probably wearing the overalls that were issued to tankers, but for coats they are wearing the Winter Combat Jacket.  It wasn't a tanker only item, but it became heavily associated with them.  Originally they were part of the overall winter uniform and were popular with soldiers.  You can find photographic evidence of officers having some altered by tailors to include epaulets for rank insignia, which they otherwise lacked.  The Thompson submachine gun is correct for an armored crewman.  The walking Colonel is an officer of the 5th Infantry Division and is shown wearing the M1943 Field Jacket, and he is wearing the M1943 Combat Boots.  These solders are wearing the M1943 cotton trousers, which were issued, but often solders in the winter continued to wear their wool service pattern trousers, and indeed did so even in warmer months.   Both walking soldiers are shown wearing helmet covers, which were rarely worn in Europe as it caused confusion with German snipers, who also did.  Helmet netting was much more common.

The reason for the adoption was that Service Shoes were not lasting long, with a reported thirteen days of durability, although that is likely explained by materials rather than the design itself, which had an extremely long run and which survives as a very tough civilian pattern to this day.  The M1943 was in fact based on the Service Shoe, but incorporating cuff buckles which had been used on prior civilian hunting and outdoors boots.  It was also made of rough out leather, as "Pershing Boots" had been during World War One, which was known to be highly durable, but which was resistant to polishing.

One solder comforting another during the Korean War.  All of these men wear the M1943 Combat Boot. They're also wearing Field Pants, modeled on the trousers worn by U.S. paratroopers in World War Two and which have continued to be the pattern to the present day.

The M1943 was seen as a huge improvement by soldiers when they came out, save for paratroopers, but it was replaced in 1948, theoretically, by a boot based on the theoretically replaced jump boot.  In reality, however, M1943s would be in use well into the late 1950s.  They also saw use in other armies, which adopted the pattern, and which used them for many years.

U.S. troosp in Italy during World War Two.  The sniper in the center of the photo is wearing a helmet cover, rare for U.S. troops during the war, and he's wearing M1942 Jump Boots, which were hugely popular with U.S. servicemen during the war, and for decades thereafter.  Made on the Munson Last, they were very comfortable boots.  His rifle is a M1903A5.  To the right, as we view the photo, an infantryman is equipped also with the bolt action M1903, as are two of the men behind him.  The number of M1903s in this photo is not uncommon, but there are too many to be explained by their being scout snipers or grenadiers, both of which used the M1903 throughout the war.

The M1943 boots came in as part of the M1943 Combat Uniform, which featured not only new boots, but a new field jacket, the M1943, which formed the distinctive appearance of the American soldier for decades thereafter.  The Field Jacket was a huge improvement over prior patterns, and it did successfully replace the various competing variants, although examples of the earlier patterns did endure throughout the war.  Through various updates and modifications, the basic M1943 style of uniform remained in general service up until the adoption of the Battle Dress Uniform in the early 1980s, which was itself ironically patterned on the earlier M1941 Paratroopers Uniform which had inspired Vietnam era jungle fatigues.  The successor of the M1943 Field Jacket would remain in use until the very recently, and is still an acceptable private purchase item.

U.S. Army officers during the Korean War wearing the pattern of uniform closely based on the M1943 uniform.  The officer on the right wears the M1951 Field Jacket, which was of a greener color than the M1943.  Both men are wearing russet M1948 Combat Boots, a pattern that had been introduced after the war and which was based on the M1942 Paratrooper Boot, but which was in fact slightly different, even though by this time the M1942 had been reintroduced.  The boots should be black, but many were russet as that had been the color they were first adopted in and soldiers were expected to die them black, something that wasn't easy to do.  Both men are wearing "patrol caps", which also came in with the M1943 uniform as the M1943 Field Cap.  The Army has retained the Patrol Cap to this day, after briefly toying with replacing it.

It might be noted that the M1943 uniform was only an Army uniform during World War Two.  The Marine Corps adopted the field jacket after the war, but only the field jacket.

Friday, December 18, 1942. Ciano dispatched to Hitler.

Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and a prominent figure in the Italian government, was dispatched to the Wolf's Lair with a message from Mussolini urging Hitler to make a separate peace with the Soviet Union.

Ciano only rose to power via his marriage to Edda Mussolini, but starting in 1939 he began to pull away from the dictator over the war, which he opposed.  He was sidelined by being appointed Ambassador to the Holy See in 1943.  He voted with the Fascist Grand Council to remove Mussolini in July 1943, but was removed from his office by the government, after which he fled to Germany.  The Germans in turn handed him over to Mussolini's rebel fascist Italian Social Republic, which would have him executed.

Ciano's diaries are an important source of inside information regarding the Italian fascist government as well as the Axis alliance. 

The British prevailed at El Agheila.