Thursday, September 21, 1944. A sort of Estonian civil war.

Estonians, some in the Red Army, and some in German Estonian units, others in Waffen SS units fought each other at Porkuni.

The Red Army units prevailed.

This presents the complicated picture of the war in the Baltics.  The Soviets were widely disposed by most residents of the Baltic States, but there were, and always had been, Baltic communists who saw the Soviet Union as an ally.  Estonian resistance to Soviet occupation, on the other hand, had started with the pre World War Two Soviet invasion and continued on after World War Two in the form of the Estonian Forest Brothers.

The Germans had never desired any sort of independence for Estonia and had not supported it in any sense.  

Interestingly, during the war, Finland never came into play in this even though the Estonians are a Baltic Finnic people and in the 1920s there had been serious considerations given to an Estonian Finnish union, with such efforts being committedly opposed by the Soviets.   The East Karelian Uprising of 1921-22 fit into this, as that territory lay between the two nations to some degree and was occupied by Finnic people as well.

The Battle of Rimini ended in a Canadian, Greek and New Zealander victory.

The Satsuki was sunk by US aircraft in Manila Bay.

The Cardinals took the National League Pennant for the third time in a row, defeating the Boston Braves.

Pfc. Calvin Stempien, Monroe, Mich., levels covering fire from his foxhole while members of his engineer unit construct a bridge over the Meurthe river, under enemy fire. 21 September, 1944.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 20, 1944 Nijmegen liberated.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Arnhem, Battle of Peleliu, British Army, France, Italy, Nijmegen Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Paratroopers, Red Army

Wednesday, March 22, 1944. German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boats to disperse and work singly.  Convoy attacks were halted in anticipation of new U-boat designs coming on.  Effectively, this amounted to a concession of German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.

New Zealanders made an unsuccessful assault on Monte Cassino.  After its failure, Allied defensive lines are consolidated.

The US OSS began Operation Ginny II, again intending to cut rail lines in Italy, and once again failing, this time as the landing party was beached in the wrong place and captured.

80% of the B-25s of the 340th Bombardment Group were destroyed by volcanic boulders from Vesuvius.

The Corpo Italiano di Liberazione (Italian Liberation Corps) was organized to collect the Royal Italain Army units that were now part of the Allied armies.  

Döme Sztójay replaced Miklós Kállay as Prime Minister of Hungary, and the country promulgated anti-Jewish legislation and ordered all Jewish businesses to close. The roundups of Hungarian Jews were soon to begin and the country would reenter the war as a German ally.

Hedwig Jahnow died at age 65 of malnutrition at Theresienstadt.  She was a German teacher and an Old Testament theologian who studied Rabbinic Dirge and remains significant in those studies.

On the same day, and at the same location, important pre Nazi German legal advisor to banking and industry, Albert Katzenellenbogen, died.

The Red Army took Pervomaysk

Mortar crew of 164th Inf. Regt., Americal Div., on Bougainville Island. 22 March, 1944.  All of these men were from Minnesota. All enlisted, this photograph is unusual in that one of the soldiers, PFC Russell Campbell, is wearing his service cap with the stiffner removed, something almost never seen in the case of U.S. soldiers in combat outside of airmen.

The only example of the Northrup XP-56, the first one having been destroyed in a crash, was photographed in anticipation of its first flight the following day.

Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet (s/n 42-38353) on the ground at Muroc Army Air Field, California, March 22, 1944.

The weird aircraft was not a success.

Sarah Sundin's excellent blog on daily events in World War Two, whose feed updates are no longer working, notes this item:

In US, “A” gas rationing cards (basic passenger car ration) are cut from three gallons per week to two gallons. 

Two gallons per week.

Could you get by on two gallons per week?  Most days I drive a 1/4 ton Utility Truck, which is better known as a Jeep, and while it's small, it gets terrible mileage.  I know that I use more than two gallons per week, but I would if I was driving my fuel efficient diesel truck as well.  If I was limited to two gallons per week, I'd have to make major life changes.

Should I be pondering this as Congress, through the neglect of Ukraine, pushes us ever closer to a war with Russia, should she invade the Balkans?

During World War Two I know that my grandfather had a different class of ration ticket as his vehicle was used for business.  His car was a "business coupe", which is about all I know about it.

I know it had a gasoline personnel heater, which probably provides a clue, but I still don't know who made it.

I had a 1954 Chevrolet at one time, and it got really good mileage.  Interestingly, a 1973 Mercury Comet, with a really powerful V8 engine we had, also did.  According to one site about older cars, the business couple should be something like this:

My '38 gets around 17-18 MPG @ 50 MPH. It drops to around 12-14 @ 60. She just doesn't like being pushed that hard.

My 54, and the 73, got much better mileage than that.

Whatever mileage the business coupé got, my father sort of brushed gasoline rationing off when I asked him about it, due to the other category of ticket.  I don't know what that really meant, however.

Of course, for most long travel of any kind, people took the train.  Something that we might want to consider as potentially being something that may very well return.  High speed rail, for that matter, may be coming to Wyoming.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, March 21, 1944. Dear John.

1940s, 1944, Aircraft, Churches, Continuation War, Kamikaze, Miles City Montana, New Guinea, Operation Margarethe, Operation U-Go, The relationship between men and women, The written word, World War Two

Wednesday, March 15, 1944. The destruction of Monte Cassino.

Allied aircraft dropped 14,000 tons of bombs on Monte Cassino and fired 195,000 rounds of artillery.  British, Indian and New Zealand troops tried, and failed, to take the abbey.

The Red Army crossed the Bug.

US troops held off a Japanese assault on the American beachhead at Bougainville.

Additional cavalry landed on Manus Island in the Admiralities.

The Japanese crossed the Chindwwin River in Burma.

The U-653 was sunk in the North Atlantic by the Royal Navy.  The British submarine Stonehenge was lost in the Indian Ocean.

The State Anthem of the Soviet Union replaced The Internationale as the anthem of the USSR.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 14, 1944. Isolating Ireland

Saturday, February 12, 1944. Canaris fired.

Wilhelm Canaris was dismissed as head of the Abwehr.  Technically the Abwehr, the German military intelligence ministry, was abolished on the same day and its functions were taken over by the Ausland-SD, but this doesn't seem to have been really the case to some degree, and most sources show the Abwehr continuing on until the end of the Third Reich.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1979-013-43 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5419101

Canaris was opposed to the execution of Jews and registered complaints regarding it.  He also passed information on to the Allies and was involved in efforts to overthrow Hitler.  He was one of the most highly placed sources of intelligence for the Allies inside the Nazi regime.  An Abwehr deputy, Hans Oster, was also a figure in the German resistance.

His role would ultimately cost him his life, as he'd be arrested and executed later in 1944.  His wife, Erika, would relocate to Spain, where she would live until 1970.  Halina Szymańska, a Switzerland based Polish spy working for the British, whom Canaris used to pass on information, and who was also Canaris' paramour, and who was a widow of a Polish officer, would move to the UK after the war, marry an exiled Polish officer, and lived until 1989.

Canaris has always been a very difficult personality to grasp. Some regard him as being very heroic, as he was in fact carrying out resistance efforts from the very heart of Nazi Germany.  Others find him less so, wondering why he didn't go further given his central position.  He had briefly supported the Nazis, given their anticommunism, but had parted from them very early.  He had used his position to shield Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he seems to have been motivated in his opposition to the Nazis partially by faith. Regarding that, he was a Lutheran in keeping with a conversion from Catholicism that his grandfather had made, but he had referred to himself as a "Catholic Mystic" and was fascinated with Spanish castles.  Neither faith would condone carrying on an extramarital affair.  He believed himself to be of Greek descent, but in fact he was of Italian descent.

The German III Panzerkorps took Vinograd and Lysianka in its effort to relieve the Korsun pocket.

 F6F’s on the flight deck of USS Gambier Bay (CVE 73) en-route to the South Pacific, February 12, 1944.

Marines captured Gorissi on New Britain.  Allied forces landed on Rooke Island in the Bismark Archipelago as well.  In the Marshalls the US landed on the Arno Atoll.

The German ship Oria sank in a storm in the Mediterranean, taking over 4,000 Italian prisoners of war down with it.

The New Zealand Corps replaced the US 2nd Corps at Cassino.  

Defenses at Anzio were reconfigured given recent German successes, but no major fighting occured on this day.

The British troopship Khedive Ismail was sunk by the I-27 in the Indian Ocean, taking 1,297 troops down with it.  One of them was Kenneth Gandar-Dower, age 35, who was an English sportsman, explorer and author.  He was on board as a war correspondent.

Wendell Willlkie announced his candidate for President, back in an era when the Presidential election cycle didn't begin insanely early.  No Democratic candidate had yet been announced, although his name had been put forward for some primaries.

A lawyer by profession and the child of two lawyers, Willkie had been in the Democratic Party until 1939, and indeed Roosevelt had considered him, even after that, as a Vice Presidential candidate.  By 1944 his health was rapidly declining, something accelerated by heavy drinking and smoking, and he would, in fact, not be alive by the November election.

Margaret Woodrow Wilson, age 57, the daughter of Woodrow Wilson, died on this day of uremia.  She was living in India, where she had become a devotee of a Hindu sect.

Thursday, February 3, 1944. Formation of the New Zealand Corps, Victory at Kwajalien.

Today in World War II History—February 3, 1944: 80 Years Ago—Feb. 3, 1944: In Italy, New Zealand Corps is formed under Lt.-Gen. Sir Bernard Freyberg, over New Zealand 2nd Division and Indian 4th Division.

Freyberg was born in the United Kingdom but raised in New Zealand.  He was a championship swimmer when young, and was licensed as a dentist in New Zealand in 1911.  He left New Zealand in 1914 to join the Villista's, and served as a Captain in those forces.  He left the fighting in Mexico, however, in August of that year upon learning that World War One had broken out, taking time to win a swimming championship in Los Angeles, and having earned passage to the UK by boxing.  He served first in a ground unit of the Royal Navy, and then transferred to the British Army.  He remained in the British Army between the wars.

A controversial general outside of British circles, he's somewhat emblematic of the British Army of the period in that his nationality was pretty fluid, but always British.  He was appointed Governor General of New Zealand after World War Two, and passed away in 1963.

German POW's, Anzio.  February 3, 1944.  Note the mixed uniforms, and also that some of these men are wearing camouflage smocks.  German POWs at this stage of the war often look very bitter about having been captured.

The Germans sealed off the Anzio beachhead.

Eniwetok, February 3, 1944.

The U.S. prevailed at Kwajalein.  Task Group 58 raided Eniwetok.  US forces landed on Burton Island.

Soldier's of the 7th Infantry Division moving a light artillery piece on Kwajalein.  Note the mid to late war characteristic baggy clothing of the US Army, with cargo pockets appearing.

75mm Pack howitzer on Kwajalein.

Bangalore torpedo team, 7th Infantry Division, Kwajalein.  February 3, 1944.

The Red Army encircled the Germans at the Korsun Pocket, where Hitler, on the same day, ordered them not to retreat.  Manstein organized an armored force with the goal of relieving the pocket.

The movie The Fighting Sullivan's was released, memorializing the November 1942 death of the Sullivan brothers, which we've discussed previously.

Off of the Solomon's, the Japanese sank the U.S. Navy light cruiser Juneau, which took 687 men with it, including five brothers of the Irish Catholic Sullivan family of Iowa.

The Sullivans.

It's commonly asserted that after this the U.S. military would not allow siblings to serve together, but in fact many siblings were already serving together in combat in North Africa as members of Federalized National Guard units. Entire towns would end up loosing huge numbers of their male citizens in the combat actions to come. There was a policy change, which relieved a sole survivor from military service, but it did not come until 1943, and was partially due to the deaths of the Borgstrom brothers of Utah as well.  Indeed, the Navy already had a policy precluding siblings from serving on the same vessel, but they did not actively enforce it.

A sister of the Sullivan brothers remained in Navy service.  Indeed, their enlistment in the Navy, or in once case a reenlistment, was to avenge the death of her boyfriend, who died at Peal Harbor.

The Sullivan family was not informed of the death of their sons until 1943, at which time their father was informed of all of their deaths at one time.  The Navy would commission a ship in their honor during the war, and oddly enough, one of the sons of the one of the men lost would later serve as a post-war officer aboard it. That ship has been decommissioned, but a second The Sullivans was commissioned to take its place.  

The current The Sullivans.

The tragic story was also made into a patriotic movie during the war itself, which was released in 1944.

The Sullivan story was the inspiration for the film Saving Private Ryan, although it's obviously in a much different setting.

The Renunciation Act of 1944 made it possible for a US citizen to renounce their citizenship during time of war by applying to the US Attorney General.  The hope was that interned Japanese Americans would do so, so that they could be deported to Japan.

It's doubtful that many would have ever exercised that option, but it should be noted that by this time of the war, the news was dealing with American advances in the Pacific nearly daily.  Hard fighting was occurring, but the Japanese were losing and that was fairly obvious.  Internees had full access to the news and to the extent that this tempted anyone, that surely would have reduced that desire.

Australian lumberjacks, February 3, 1944.  New South Wales.

Wednesday, October 27, 1943. Navy Day.

Today in World War II History—October 27, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Oct. 27, 1943: New Zealanders land on and take Stirling, Soanotalu, and Mono in the Treasury Islands, their first opposed amphibious landing since Gallipoli in WWI. US movie premiere of Guadalcanal Diary. American musicians are allowed to record V-discs for the military, bypassing the recording strike. US celebrates Navy Day.

New Zealand mortarmen on Mono.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The British SAS raided Ancona and Pescara in Italy in Operation Candytuft and cut the rail lines between the two cities in Operation Saxifrage.  The 8th Army took Montefalcone.

The first stainless steel airplane, the RB-1 Conestoga, made its first flight.

Only twenty were made.

Argentine Col. Juan Perón agreed  to direct the nation's Department of Labor.

Sunday, August 15, 1943. Joint Operations.

U.S. and Canadian forces landed on Kiska and found it abandoned.

Canadian soldier looking down the sites of a Japanese light machine gun.

There were casualties.  Four American soldiers were killed by mines and 24 by friendly fire by troops operating in fog. The island was expected to be heavily defended and the Japanese withdrawal was a surprise.

Americans and New Zealanders landed on Vella Lavella in the Solomons.

U.S. troops on Vella Lavella.

The British took Taormina in Sicily. The U.S. conducted another amphibious landing on the northern Sicilian coast.

Karachev fail to the Red Army.

The Polish Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe raided Mittenheide.

Monday, March 29, 1943 Meat and fat rationing commences in the U.S.

On this day in 1943, rationing in the US of meats, fat and cheese commenced, with Americans limited to two pounds per week of meat.

Poultry was not affected by the order.

This must have been a matter of interest in my family, engaged in the meat packing industry as they then were.

Contrary to popular memory, not everything the US did during the war met with universal approval back home, and this was one such example.  Cheating and black marketing was pretty common, and there were very widespread efforts to avoid rationing.  Farmers and ranchers helped people to avoid the system by direct sales to consumers, something the government intervened to stop and only recently has seen a large-scale return.

While wholesale inclusion of a prior item in a new one is bad form, here's something we earlier ran which is a topic that needs repeating here:

Lex Anteinternet: So you're living in Wyoming (or the West in genera...So what about World War Two?

Some time ago I looked at this in the context of World War One, but what about World War Two?

Lex Anteinternet: So you're living in Wyoming (or the West in genera...: what would that have been like? Advertisement for the Remington Model 8 semi automatic rifle, introduced by Remington from the John Bro...

 Wisconsin deer camp, 1943, the year meat rationing began.

Indeed, a person's reasons to go hunting during World War Two, besides all the regular reasons (a connection with our primal, and truer, selves, being out in nature, doing something real) were perhaps stronger during the Second World War than they were in the First.  During WWII the government rationed meat.  During World War One it did not, although it sure put the social pressure on to conserve meat.

Indeed, the first appeals of any kind to conserve food in the United States came from the British in 1941, at which time the United States was not yet in the war. The British specifically appealed to Americans to conserve meat so that it could go to English fighting men.  In the spring of 1942 rationing of all sorts of things began to come in as the Federal government worried about shortages developing in various areas.  Meat and cheese was added to the ration list on March 29, 1943.  As Sarah Sundin reports on her blog:

On March 29, 1943, meats and cheeses were added to rationing. Rationed meats included beef, pork, veal, lamb, and tinned meats and fish. Poultry, eggs, fresh milk—and Spam—were not rationed. Cheese rationing started with hard cheeses, since they were more easily shipped overseas. However, on June 2, 1943, rationing was expanded to cream and cottage cheeses, and to canned evaporated and condensed milk.

So in 1943 Americans found themselves subject to rationing on meat.  As noted, poultry was exempt, so a Sunday chicken dinner was presumably not in danger, but almost every other kind of common meat was rationed.  So, a good reason to go out in the field.

But World War Two was distinctly different in all sorts of ways from World War One, so hunting by that time was also different in many ways, and it was frankly impacted by the war in different ways.

For one thing, by 1941 automobiles had become a staple of American life.  It's amazing to think of the degree to which this is true, as it happened so rapidly.  By the late 1930s almost every American family had a car.  Added to that, pickup trucks had come in between the wars in the early versions of what we have today, and they were obviously a vehicle that was highly suited to hunting, although early cars, because of the way they were configured and because they were often more utilitarian than current ones, were well suited as a rule.  What was absent were 4x4s, which we've discussed earlier.

This meant that it was much, much easier for hunters to go hunting in a fashion that was less of an expedition.  It became possible to pack up a car or pickup truck and travel early in the morning to a hunting location and be back that night, in other words.

Or at least it had been until World War Two. With the war came not only food rationing, but gasoline rationing as well.  And not only gasoline rationing, but rationing that pertained to things related to automobiles as well

Indeed, the first thing to be rationed by the United States Government during World War Two was tires.  Tires were rationed on December 11, 1941.  This was due to anticipated shortages in rubber, which was a product that had been certainly in use during World War One, but not to the extent it was during World War Two.  And tire rationing mattered.

People today are used to modern radial tires which are infinitely better, and longer lasting, than old bias ply tires were.  People who drove before the 1980s and even on into the 80s were used to constantly having flat tires.  I hear occasionally people lament the passing of bias ply tires for trucks, but I do not.  Modern tires are much better and longer lasting.  Back when we used bias ply tires it seemed like we were constantly buying tires and constantly  having flat tires.  Those tires would have been pretty similar to the tires of World War Two.  Except by all accounts tires for civilians declined remarkably in quality during the war due to material shortages.

Gasoline rationing followed, and it was so strict that all forms of automobile racing, which had carried on unabated during World War One, were banned during World War Two.  Sight seeing was also banned.  So, rather obviously, the use of automobiles was fairly curtailed during the Second World War.

So, where as cars and trucks had brought mobility to all sorts of folks between the wars in a brand new way, rationing cut back on it, including for hunters, during the war.

Which doesn't mean that you couldn't go out, but it did mean that you had to save your gasoline ration if you were going far and generally plan wisely.

Ammunition was also hard to come by during the war.

It wasn't due to rationing, but something else that was simply a common fact of life during World War Two.  Industry turned to fulfilling contracts for the war effort and stopped making things for civilians consumption.

Indeed, I've hit on this a bit before in a different fashion, that being how technology advanced considerably between the wars but that the Great Depression followed by the Second World War kept that technology, more specifically domestic technology, from getting to a lot of homes. Automobiles, in spite of the Depression, where the exception really.  While I haven't dealt with it specifically, the material demands of the Second World War were so vast that industries simply could not make things for the service and the civilian market. 

Some whole classes of products, such as automobiles, simply stopped being available for civilians.  Ammunition was like that.  With the services consuming vast quantities of small arms ammunition, ammunition for civilians became very hard to come by.  People who might expect to get by with a box of shotgun shells for a day's hunt and to often make due with half of that.  Brass cases were substituted for steel before that was common in the U.S., which was a problem for reloaders. 

So, in short, the need and desire was likely there, but getting components were more difficult. And being able to get out was as well, which impacted a person to a greater or lesser extent depending where they were.

And, as previously noted, game populations are considerably higher today than they were then.

New Zealanders entered the Tunisian city of Gabès.

Hitler rejected the recommendations of the German Army to place V-2 rockets on mobile launchers and opted instead for them to have permanent launching installations at Peenemünde.

Life issued a special issue on the USSR.

Nevada joined those states, such as Wyoming, which would no longer recognize Common Law Marriage.

Chapter 122 - Marriage

NRS 122.010 - What constitutes marriage; no common-law marriages after March 29, 1943.

1. Marriage, so far as its validity in law is concerned, is a civil contract, to which the consent of the parties capable in law of contracting is essential. Consent alone will not constitute marriage; it must be followed by solemnization as authorized and provided by this chapter.

2. The provisions of subsection 1 requiring solemnization shall not invalidate any marriage contract in effect prior to March 29, 1943, to which the consent only of the parties capable in law of contracting the contract was essential.

John Major, British Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997, was born, as was English comedian Eric Idle.

Sunday, March 21, 1943. A second assassination attempt.

Hard on the heels of a plot to kill Adolph Hitler by blowing his airplane out of the sky with explosives contained in a bottle of alcohol, Generalmajor Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff attempted to kill him by detonating a time fused bomb on his person while escorting Hitler through an exhibition of Soviet war materials as the Zeughaus in Berlin.  A detailed coup d'état was to follow the assassination.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-130-51 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5482858

It was expected that the tour would take thirty minutes, and Gersdorff set the fuse ten minutes prior to Hitler's arrival.  Hitler rushed through the exhibit in two minutes, and Gersdorff defused the bomb in a restroom.

Gersdorff was, amazingly, never mentioned by the July 20 conspirators, even though he had participated in the plot.  He therefore survived the war.  His role becoming known post-war, he was denied admission to the Bundesherr and therefore devoted the remainder of his life to charitable causes, dying in 1980 at age 74.  He was a paraplegic the last twelve years of his life due to a riding accident.

Sarah Sundin reports, in her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 21, 1943: Cornelia Fort becomes first WAFS member (precursor of the WASPs) to be killed, in a midair collision while ferrying a BT-13 in Texas.

She also notes that on this day the Rangers took Gafsa and New Zealanders bypassed the  bypass the Mareth Line 

Wednesday, February 10, 1943. Duct Tape and German foreign legions

A year long, mostly Australian, but also containing Kiwi and Dutch troops, guerilla campaign against the Japanese on Timor ended in an Allied withdrawal.

While the Japanese prevailed in the action, the small Allied forces dedicated to it had tied up an entire Japanese division for an entire year, amounting to an Allied strategic victory.  The ad hoc Allied unit was dubbed "Sparrow Force", reflecting its small size.

The Red Army outside of Leningrad attacked at Krasny Bor. All in all, the attack was not a Red Army success.  

As an aside, the Spanish Blue Division was engaged by the Red Army in this battle and sustained a 70% casualty rate, partially resulting in its technical end, although it was replaced by the Blue Legion of Spanish volunteers which was subsequently disbanded in March 1944, as Franco read the tea leaves.  Spanish prisoners captured in this action, which were not numerous, were not repatriated until 1954. Approximately 300 Spaniards were kept by the USSR until that time, in part because Span and the Soviet Union did not have diplomatic relations with each other.

The Blue Division was organized by Spain and contained a sizable contingent of soldiers who had received leave from the Spanish Army in order to join it, although it also contained many volunteers from the Spanish far right.  For that reason, it was regarded as a Spanish formation by the Western Allies, who pressured Franco to withdraw it.  Franco also received pressure from Spanish conservatives and the Catholic Church as well.  The legion's connection would be less pronounced, and accordingly also more hardcore fascist, and it was eventually absorbed by the SS.

Hitler authorized the Blue Division Medal (Erinnerungsmedaille für die spanischen Freiwilligen im Kampf gegen den Bolschewismus) due to this action, which he personally had designed.

The Blue Division is interesting in quite a few ways, not the least of which is that figuring out Franco's motives in any one thing are always a bit difficult to do.  Allowing the recruitment of a division amounted to aid to the Germans, in addition to that which was already being provided, without committing to the war as Italy had.  It also meant that the most  hardcore of the Spanish right was bleeding in the war, which a person has to suspect didn't hurt Franco's feelings, as he was never actually a Falangist himself.

The SS began recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen SS 13th Division.  They did not respond to the call as enthusiastically as hoped, and while this unit remains popular amongst Wehrmacht fans, it isn't an example of a hugely successful SS foreign recruiting drive.  Indeed, most such efforts by the SS were not terribly successful.

Classified as mountain infantry, the division did come to full strength and was used in anti-partisan warfare in Yugoslavia, where, like most such units, it gained a reputation for barbarity.  About 10% of the division was made up of non-Muslim, principally Croatian, recruits, which Himmler had not desired to enlist.  Officers of the unit were German or Yugoslavian Volkdeutsch.  

Its area of operations were limited to Bosnia and its an example of how some of World War Two became, locally, a bigger war within a local war.  Yugoslavia featured a particularly difficult to follow civil war throughout World War Two.

Up to a 1,000 survivors of this unit, and another one, went on to fight against the Israelis in Arab armies in the 1948-49 Arab Israeli War.

Vesta Stoudt, an ordinance factor worker, wrote to President Roosevelt about her idea for what would become duct tape.

Mohandas Gandi started a hunger strike while imprisoned in response to the British government's request that he condemn the violence of the Quit India Movement. 

Sunday, July 26, 1942. Gene Autry joins the Army.

Today in World War II History—July 26, 1942: In a live radio broadcast, Gene Autry, cowboy singer/actor, is inducted into the US Army Air Force as a technical sergeant.

Via Sarah Sundin's blog.

I had no idea that Gene Autry had served in the military during World War Two.

I'm not an Autry fan, and indeed when I first read this in the early morning hours, I confused Autry with Roy Rogers.  Roy Rogers didn't serve in World War Two.  He was a few years younger than Autry, who did.

The other blog which had this correct, I'd note, noted this regarding Rogers:

Rogers and Wayne "are forever tainted with the stigma of opting out[,] unlike so many of their contemporaries from the Hollywood community who put country first before family [and] career," Bruce Hickey wrote. Seventy years later, people still have heated opinions about it. Wayne's lack of service has been written about more extensively than Rogers', but both are perennial topics of speculation, justification, and scorn.

I posted on the entry twice, once in error, and then to correct my error.

I suspect that Autry wasn't inducted as a Technical Sergeant so much as becoming one.  He was a private pilot and really wanted to be an Army Air Force pilot, and eventually did so in 1944, then holding the rank of Flight Officer.  He flew a C-109, a cargo variant of the B-24, which was not an easy plane to fly, and moreover, was one of those who flew "over the hump" in the CBI.

By the way, Autry did join the Army on a Sunday.  As readers of this blog may have noted, a lot of official government business of all types was conducted on Sunday during World War Two.  I don't know what the official policy was, but the government was clearly working at least partially seven days a week.

At El Alamein the British launched the counteroffensive Operation Manhood, with the combined British, South African and New Zealand forces taking most of their initial objectives.

The Japanese defending forces at Oivi on the Kokoda track, with the Papuan and Australian forces conducing a delaying action.

The German 6th Army broke through the Red Army's 62nd and 64th armies, reaching the Don just south of Stalingrad.

The Royal Air Force conducted a nighttime raid on Hamburg which resulted in the destruction of 823 homes, and which rendered 14,000 of its residents homeless.

Wednesday, July 15, 1942. Watery graves.

SS Pennsylvania Sun after being torpedoed by U-571 on this date in 1942.  It did not sink but was taken under tow at first and the proceeded under its own power to a U.S. port.  The U576 would go down off Cape Hatteras after being attacked by aircraft and a merchant ship.

The Soviets abandoned Boguchar and Millerovo as Case Blue advanced.

The Akutan Zero was recovered.

New Zealanders take the western edge of Ruweisat Ridge outside of El Alamein but British armor does not arrive as planned, and they are forced back in a pitched battle.  The Indians take the east end of the ridge.

The German armed merchant ship Michel attacks the British passenger/cargo ship SS Gloucester Castle sinking it off of the coast of Angola.  The attack was without warning and devastating, and it led to its captain, Helmuth von Ruckteschell being sentenced after the war to a ten-year sentence for war crimes based on the attack having been without warning on an unarmed ship.  Having said that, the ship did pick up survivors who were later interned by the Japanese.

The U582 sunk the SS Empire Attendant off of the Canary Islands, and the U201 sunk the SS British Yeoman.  Both ships had been part of the dispersed OS-33

Von Ruckteschell did not serve the full ten years as he died of a heart condition, while imprisoned, in 1948 at age 58.

The submarine USS Grunion sank Japanese submarine chasers Ch-25 and Ch-27, and damaged the Ch-26, in an attack on their anchorage at Kiska.

In an odd event, two B-17s and six P-38s went down in Greenland when they ran into bad weather and had their communications jammed by U-boats. All of the crewmen survived and were rescued.

Saturday, November 29, 1941. A November Saturday

Navy defeated Army in the 1941 Army Navy Game, which was played in Philadelphia.  98,497 people attended the game.

The program featured a photo of the bow of the USS Arizona noting that no battleship had every been sunk from the air, which at that point was no longer true, given the sinking of the Bismarck.  Of course, those claiming that could take comfort from that operation featuring surface ships which did participate in damaging the Bismarck.

On the same day, Glen Miller's Chattanooga Choo Choo reached the number 1 position on the Billboard charts.

The Saturday Evening Post featured an illustration of Rockwell's average man soldier Willie Gillis, in home in bed while on leave.

The Germans completed Operation Uzice putting an end to the Republic of Uzice in Yugoslavia.

A German victory over Chetnik and Yugoslavian partisan forces was as foregone conclusion, but the fact that they had to commit forces to occupied territory to accomplish it was significant.  They were also suffering setbacks in Crimea.

The Italians overran the New Zealand 21st Battalion at Point 175 in North Africa.

Friday, November 28, 1941. The USS Enterprise departs Pearl Harbor.

A task force centered on the USS Enterprise left Pearl Harbor in order to deliver twelve Marine Corps F4F aircraft to Wake Island.  But for this, the Enterprise would have been at Pearl Harbor on December 7.

The Enterprise would complete that mission on December 4, and then it turned around to return to Pearl Harbor.  It would have arrived there on December 6 but for bad weather.

The Enterprise's departure was known to the Japanese, due to reporting from a consulate based intelligence officer they had there.  At this time, this meant, due to reassignments and repairs, only one carrier remained in Pearl Harbor.

The Army concluded the Carolina Maneuvers.

A brand new, at that time, Jeep and a 37mm anti tank gun in the Carolina Maneuvers.

The maneuvers were massive in scale, involving 350,000 men.

The direction things were moving in was obvious, inside at least the Government.

German general Johann von Ravenstein was captured by New Zealanders in North Africa, making him the first German general officer to become a prisoner of war during World War Two.

The Soviets retook Rostov on Don.

The O-21 at Gibraltar.

The Dutch submarine O-21 sank the German U-95.

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

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

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

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

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

Magazine of Barham exploding during her sinking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Closer to Home:

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

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

April 25, 1941 Echoes of wars past.

On this day in 1941, the Afrika Corps took Halfaya Pass between Egypt and Libya and entered Egypt from the west.  Given the dire situation, the British withdrew its Hurricanes from Tobruk, although they were down to two there at the time.  This left only Westland Lysanders stationed there for artillery spotting purposes.

Westland Lysanders over Madagascar in 1942.

The move conceded control of the skies to the Luftwaffe over Tobruk.

On the same day, Arab recruits to the British forces paraded in Jerusalem.

 

In spite of manpower shortages, and in spite of the fact that Arab volunteers were forthcoming, the British made very little use of them.  It made some, but not much.  All in all, there seems to have been an element of lingering mistrust of Arab volunteers and forces in spite of the significant cooperation between the Hashemites, now ruling Transjordan (and recently overthrown, albeit temporarily, in Iraq), during World War One.  This was partially amplified by Arab unrest between the wars.

On this day, the British forces were defeated at Thermopylae.  

Be that as it may, however, the British defense there did amount none the less to a strategic victory given as the delaying action gave the British forces now withdrawing from Greece much needed time.  The British forces made a 100 miles strategic withdrawal in twelve hours, a remarkable feat, and were greeted with flowers by crowds in Athens.

Many of the troops in Greece were New Zealand, so here again we'll not a bit of an irony in that on this day the British in the Middle East were observing ANZAC Day.

Australian troops at Anzac Monument in front of cemetery, April 25, 1941.

Regarding German intervention in Greece a complete success, Hitler ordered, on this day, the invasion of Crete.

In a press conference, President Roosevelt compared Charles Lindbergh's position on the war to that of the Copperheads to the Civil War.