Saturday, May 19, 1945. Landing in Syria and Lebanon.

The Australians took Tarakan Island.

More heavy fighting occurred on Okinawa.

The Czechoslovak Extraordinary People's Court distributed over twenty thousand sentences - seven percent of them being for life or the death sentence - to "traitors, collaborators and fascist elements."

Philipp Bouhler, age 45, Nazi official and philosopher committed suicide with a cyanide capsule while in a U.S. internment camp.

French troops landed in Syria and Lebanon to reassert control over the region.  The landings sparked protests from Arab nationalists.

Last edition:

Friday, May 18, 1945. Paying the consequences.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Chinese National Army, Clean Wehrmacht Myth, Eamon de Valera, German American Bund, German Flensburg Government, Ireland, Karl Dönitz, Ku Klux Klan, Okinawa, The Holocaust, World War Two

Monday, April 23, 1945. Where's Hitler?

German radio broadcast that Adolf Hitler was in the "main fighting line" in Berlin and would "remain there despite all rumors." 

The Allies suspected he was in Bavaria organizing resistance there.

Göring sent a telegram asking for permission to assume leadership of the Third Reich which Hitler regarded as treason, ordering his arrest.

The Flossenburg concentration camp was liberated by the U.S. Army.

The U-183 was sunk off of Borneo by the U.S. submarine Besugo.

The Navy deployed Bat air to ship missiles against Japanese ships in Balipapan Harbor in Borneo, marking their first use.

Those arrested in the Freeman Field Mutiny were released.

"Lt. Richard K. Jones, OIC 3235th Sig. Ser. Det. of Hollywood, Calif., feeds Japanese children found in a tomb 50 yards from front line on Okinawa. 23 April, 1945."

Last edition:

Sunday, April 22, 1945. The Bunker.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Army, Battle of Berlin, Heinrich Himmler, Heroes, Philippines, Philippines Campaign, Red Army, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, The Holocaust, World War Two

Thursday, April 5, 1945. Rebellion of the Georgian Legion.

The Soviet Union renounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 1941.

The Georgian Legion, a German foreign legion, rose up against the Germans on the Dutch island of Texel.  The battle would result in large-scale casualties incurred until the end of the war by both sides.

The uprising is regarded as heroic, but the late war uprising was naive.  It counted on an Allied landing which did not occur, and it presumed favorable post war treatment by the Allies.

Arrested officers.

African American members of the 477th Bombardment Group attempted to integrate an all-white officers' club at Freeman Field, Indiana, resulting in the predictable scuffles and arrests although the ultimate punishment was minor.

Gen. MacArthur was appointed control of all Army forces in the Pacific and Adm. Nimitz all naval forces.  The move was made in anticipation of the Invasion of Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso (小磯 國昭), frustrated in his attempts to be involved in military decisions, resigned.

The U-242 sank in St. George's Channel after hitting a mine.

Last edition

Wednesday, April 4, 1945. The Third Army liberates the Ohrdruf Subcamp.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Battle of Buchhof, Battle of Kassel, British Army, Buchenwald, Canadian Army, Conentration Camps, Okinawa, Red Army, The Holocaust, World War Two

Sunday, March 14, 1915. Planning on the future of Constantinople.

The Royal Navy forced the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle, ending the German East Asia Squadron.

The UK, France and the Russian Empire agreed to give Constantinople and the Bosporus to Russia in the event of victory.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 13, 1915. Worries over Japan.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, China, Gunboat Diplomacy, Japan, Open Door Policy, William Jennings Bryan

Monday, February 26, 1945. Syria declares war. US coal curfew.

Syria declared war on the Axis powers.

Fighting ended on Corregidor.

The British Indian 17th Division took Tahlaing and the Thabuktong airfield.

A midnight curfew on bars, nightclubs and all other places of entertainment went into effect in the US in order to save coal.

USAAF Gen. Millard Fillmore Harmon Jr. and Brig. Gen. James Roy Andersen disappeared in an aircraft over the Pacific.

"With the gun crew riding on top, a tank destroyer chassis tows a huge Seventh Army 8-inch rifle through a French town, on the way to the front. 26 February, 1945. Monnenheim, France.  575th Field Artillery Battalion, 35th Field Artillery Group."

"Crosses are erected over Protestant and Catholic graves, the Star of David over those of the Jewish faith, in this U.S. military cemetery somewhere in the European Theater of Operations. 26 February, 1945. Foy, Belgium. Photographer: T/5 Billy Newhouse."

The USAAF bombs Berlin heavily.

Last edition:

Sunday, February 25, 1945. Smoke in the village.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aircraft, Army, Canada, Germany, Radio, U.S. Air Force, World War Two

Monday, December 18, 1944. Typhoon Cobra.

Typhoon Cobra struck the Pacific Fleet doing severe damage to the ships of Task Force 28.  The destroyers Hull, Monaghan and Spence all foundered in the storm.  Other ships were damaged.

USS Langley during the storm.

Douglas MacArthur was promoted to five star rank.

The Third Army ceased operations in Lorraine to redeploy to Belgium.

British troops in Greece opened an offensive against the ELAS.

1944  The Governor of Oklahoma predicted that Mississippi and Wyoming had the brightest oil related futures in the nation.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944  U.S. Supreme Court upholds the wartime internment of U.S. Citizens of Japanese extraction, which would of course include those interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Last edition:

Sunday, December 17, 1944. SS murders in Belgium.

Labels: "Wacht am Rhein", 1940s, 1944, Battle of the Bulge, Belgium, Internment of Japanese, Malmedy Massacre, Prisoners of War, Royal Air Force, War Crimes, Wereth Massacre, World War Two

Monday, October 9, 1944. The Fourth Moscow Conference Commences.

The Fourth Moscow Conference began, with Churchill, Stalin (of course), and W. Averell Harriman in attendance.  The Allies, knowing that victory was coming, discussed post war Europe.

Polish delegates attended some of the meetings.

As odd as it may seem, to many in Germany, the coming defeat was not yet a mental reality.  There's a lesson in there about believing what you want to believe, in spite of the evidence.

The St. Louis Cardinals took the 1944 World Series in the sixth game.

Infantrymen take break in fighting to enjoy coffee and doughnuts offered by Red Cross girls of Clubmobile "General Lee" somewhere in Luxembourg. 9 October, 1944.

The Canadian 3d Division landed at Breskens on the south bank of the Scheldt.

A U.S. task force bombarded Marcus Island.

 French Naval Minister Jacquinot, accompanied by ranking French naval officers, inspects a tank destroyer unit of the 2nd Free French Armored Division, manned by French marines, somewhere in France. 9 October, 1944.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 8, 1944 Passing of Fr. Nicolò Cortese and Wendell Willkie

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Aegean Sea, Battle of Crucifix Hill, boats and ships, Estonia, Finland, German Wehrmacht, Germany, Greece, Heroes, Lapland War, Nijmegen Netherlands, U.S. Navy, Wendell Wilkie, World War Two

Wednesday, August 9, 1944. Finns battle Soviets to a draw, Horror at the Łódź Ghetto, Yes to MacArthur and the Philippines, Third Army at Le Mans, Smokey the Bear and Sam Elliot arrive on the scene.

Soviet IS2 moving through forest near Vyborg past wounded Red Army troops.

The outnumbered Finns fought the Red Army to a draw in the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, which concluded on this day.

The Battle of Studzianki began in Poland as a German counter offensive.

The Germans began the liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto, which would result in 60,000 Jews and some Roma being deported to Auschwitz.

MacArthur received a letter from Roosevelt endorsing MacArthur's plan to make the Philippines the next priority for the Allies in the Pacific.

Sgt. Robert Becker and Sgt. Joe Flores, members of an armored unit, and both from New York City, bring in their first German prisoner in the battle around Brest, France, August 9, 1944.

The 3d Army liberated Le Mans.

The French Provisional Government ordered the Republic restored and Vichy laws nullified.

120th FA in New Guinea, August 9, 1944.

The very first Smokey the Bear poster appeared.

Actor Sam Elliot was born in Sacramento, California.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 8, 1944. Hengyang falls, Wittmann killed, Falaise noticed.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Hengyang, British Army, Canadian Army, Falaise Pocket, Imperial Japanese Army, Nationalist Chinese Army, Operation Ichi-Go, Operation Totalize, Second Sino-Japanese War, World War Two

Saturday, May 6, 1944. Shelling Sevastapol.

Reconnaissance photograph, Normandy.

The Red Army began its attack on Sevastapol with a massive artillery strike, the Red Army norm.

The Biltmore Conference opened in New York City. It was a convention of Zionist meeting in the context of the Second World War at a point at which the mass murder of Jews was fairly openly known, and was certainly known amongst Jews.  The topic was the British Palestinian Mandate.

The USS Gunard attacked the Take Ichi convoy, sinking three freighters.

The U-473 was sunk southeast of Ireland by the Royal Navy.

The first flight of the Mitsubishi A7M, the intended replacement for the famous A6M "Zero", occured.  Only seven of the carrier planes would be built before the end of the war.

The U66 was rammed and sunk by the USS Buckley off of Cape Verde.

Pensive won the Kentucky Derby.

MGM released the Million Dollar Cat episode of Tom and Jerry.

Last prior edition:

Friday, May 5, 1944. Counterattack at Imphal.

1940s, 1944, Battle of Imphal, British Army, German Luftwaffe, India, Indian Army, Mohandas Gandi, Operation U-Go, Slovenia, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Saturday, April 29, 1944. More friendly fire, Raid on Truk, More German strikes in the Channel.

Just a few days after U.S. ships shelled US Army troops at Slapton Sands in Operation Tiger in a friendly fire incident, the PT-346 was sunk, killing nine sailors and wounding nine, by Marine Corps Corsairs.

Lieutenant James Burk ordered medic John Frkovich to take his Burk's life jacket so he could survive and treat the wounded. Wilbur Larsen, USNR, received the Navy Marine Corps medal for saving wounded non-swimmer Forrest May's life.

Japanese torpedo bomber making a run on the Yorktown in a counter to the attack on Truk.

An American air raid on Truk destroyed most of the island's Japanese aircraft.

On New Guinea, the captured Japanese airfields at Hollandia and Aitape become operational for Allied aircraft.

The HMCS Athabaskan was sunk in the English Channel by the T24, once again showing active Kriegsmarine activity in the Channel.  The T24 picked up 83 men as prisoners, 44 were rescued by the Allies, and 123 went down with the ship.

The I-183 was sunk off the Bungo Strait by the USS Pogy.

The U-421 was sunk at Toulon in an American air raid.

Stars and Stripes, April 29, 1944.

While I can't post it due to an active copyright, The Saturday Evening Post came out with a classic illustration called "Arm Chair General" by Norman Rockwell.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 28, 1944. Day Two of Execise Tiger.

1930s, 1936 Election, 1940s, 1942, 1944, 1950, 1950s, boats and ships, Capitalism, Dieppe Raid, Disaster, Exercise Tiger, Franklin Roosevelt, German Kriegsmarine, Korean War, Personalities, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Tuesday, April 11, 1944. Plowing.

An RAF Mosquito raid destroys the Central Population Registry building in The Hague, destroying the records of the Gestapo.

The Red Army captures Dzhankoy and Kerch, Crimea.

The USS Redfin sank the Akigumo.

The U-108 was destroyed in its pen at Stettin in a U.S. Army Air Force air raid.

 USS Altamaha (CVE-18). Crash of TBM April 11, 1944.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 10, 1944. Odessa taken by the Red Army.

Battle of Anzio, boats and ships, British Army, Burma, China Burma India Theater, India, Indian Army, Odessa Ukraine, Operation U-Go, Royal Air Force, The Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, World War Two

Sunday, February 27, 1944. The Khaibakh Massacre

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

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

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

It was the start of National Negro Press Week.

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

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

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

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

The Grayback was sunk off of Okinawa by aircraft.

Monday, August 16, 1943. The Bialystok Uprising

The Bialystok Ghetto uprising commenced when the SS surrounded the ghetto in that city to deport its residents. The Jewish underground of the Polish city revolted and fought back, resulting in a battle that lasted five days.

Bialystok smoldering.

There's a common myth, for some reason, that European Jews did not resist the Holocaust, often attributed to a lack of their being armed.  In fact, they did resist, sometimes causing the Germans significant casualties.

Taking a page from the American book, British forces made a small amphibious landing on Sicily's east coast, but it failed to cut off retreating Axis forces.  On the same day, US elements reached Messina.

The Red Army took Zhidra.

The Air Transport Command commenced ferrying Elanor Roosevelt on a tour of the Pacific Theatre.  The plane involved was a C-87, a cargo variant of the B-24.

Featured earlier, this Canadian soldier examined a Japanese machine gun on Kiska:

Saturday May 8, 1943. The plan to defeat Japan.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the Strategic Plan for the Defeat of Japan.

Count Fleet won the Preakness.

The great Western The Ox-Bow Incident premiered.  Featuring Harry Morgan and Henry Fonda, the film was partially what inspired Fonda to join the Navy.

The book by Walter Van Tilburg Clark is excellent as well.