Showing posts with label Philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philippines. Show all posts

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Tuesday, December 23, 1941. The Fall of Wake Island.

An American defeat, but an oddly inspiring one, occured today, as we earlier reported at Today In Wyoming's History: December 23

1941 American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese. 


The Battle of Wake Island would turn out to be a surprising American point of pride early in the war, in spite of the loss of the atoll.  It took on sort of an Alamo image during the war.

Wake had been a U.S. possession since 1899.  The presence of Polynesian Rats on the island proves that it had very early Micronesian contact, but it had no permanent population until 1935 when Pan American established a hotel station there for its Pacific flying boat route.  The Navy did not establish a permanent base there until 1941, so everything located on it in terms of military installations was new.

The Navy and Marine Corps put up a very determined fight on Wake, and at first the Japanese were unable to successfully land on it. It provided a rare example of shore batteries successfully engaging naval vessels.  Efforts by the Japanese to take the island commenced on December 8, but took until this day in order to be successful.  Efforts to relieve the island from Hawaii failed.

98 American prisoners, all civilians, were held on the island by the Japanese until 1943 when the Japanese murdered them.  Military prisoners were removed to POW camps.  By 1943 the island had been cut off and the Japanese garrison began to starve, actually driving one of the birds species located on the island into extinction.  3/4s of the Japanese garrison died due to starvation.  The island surrendered to a Marine Corps detachment that landed on September 4, 1945, having previously learned of Japan's surrender, and after reburying their murdered victims.  The truth of the murders soon came to light, and several Japanese officers committed suicide over the incident.

While a Japanese victory, it was an early example of what was wrong with Japanese strategic planning.  First of all, the Navy and Marine Corps put up a determined fight over the island, showing that American ground forces in particular were willing to hold ground until the bitter end, a lesson that probably wasn't really being learned at the time due to the next item we'll note.  Secondly, the Japanese took the island, but in the end, it proved to be easy to isolate and the Japanese garrison was essentially taken out of the war and made subject to starvation, something other garrisons on remote islands would also experience.

In really bad news at the time:

 Gen. Douglas MacArthur decides to withdraw to Bataan.

Japanese begin offensive against Rangoon, Burma. 

The 440-foot tanker Montebello was sunk off the California coast near Cambria by a Japanese submarine. The crew of 38 survived, and in 1996 it was found that the 4.1 million gallon cargo of crude oil appeared intact. 

British troops capture Benghazi, Libya.

A conference of industry and labor officials agrees that there would be no strikes or lockouts in war industries while World War II continued.

The first C47 Skytrain entered US military service.




Lots of the civilian variants, the DC3, were already in military service, but it wasn't until this date that the first example of the dedicated military version was delivered.  The civilian airliner had been introduced in 1935.

Over 10,000 C47s were built, or over 16,000 if the Li-2 Soviet produced version is considered, and amazingly they remain in service with the Columbian, El Salvadorian and South African air forces.  They were preeminently important as an Allied cargo plane during the Second World War, and they were used by every Allied power including the Soviet Union, which built 6,000 of them under license in addition to the ones that were supplied to the USSR via lend lease, making the Soviet Union the second-largest producer of the aircraft.

The role of the C47 in Allied airpower could hardly be understated.  It and the DC3 are one of the greatest aircraft ever produced.  Some DC3s remain in commercial use today (I've seen one in United Airlines colors as late as 2004) and they're actually being remanufactured as the Basler BT-67 for current use.

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Monday, December 22, 1941. Et in Arcadia ego

The Arcadia Conference, which President Roosevelt and Prime Ministers King and Churchill, and Chinese Ambassador Song attended, commenced.  Churchill, as usual, crossed the Atlantic by battleship.

The conference would reaffirm a Germany first policy in the war, the same having been already secretly decided upon prior to the US entering the war and the news of which had broken just shortly before Pearl Harbor.

Lieutenant Jack Dale of the U.S. Army Air Corps received a Distinguished Service Cross from General MacArthur December 22, 1941 for extraordinary heroism during attacks on Japanese bridgeheads at Vigan.

General Douglas MacArthur was conferring decorations upon American and Filipino airmen in Manila.  Shortly after this, Manila would have to be evacuated.

General Douglas MacArthur, left, congratulates Captain Villamor of the Philippine Air Force, after awarding him the Distinguished Service Cross, December 22, 1941. 

MacArthur has remained an enduringly controversial US military figure, with some individuals regarding him as heroic and others feeling that he was too problematic to fit that description.  No matter how looked at, his early leadership in the fight for the Philippines was oddly inadequate.


43,000 Japanese troops from the Imperial Japanese 48th Division landed at the Lingayen Gulf north of Manila. Their forces included 90 tanks.  American and Filipino resistance was light due to the defenders being made up of mostly poorly trained Filipino troops and being spread too thin.  Effectively, the fate of Manila was sealed.


On the same day, Japanese submarines surfaced and shelled the Navy airfield on Johnston Island and on Palmyra Atoll, both of which are straight south of the Hawaiian islands, albeit over 700 miles south.

US troops landed in Australia.  This was not a good sign, however, as it reflected the diversion of troops originally destined for the Philippines  

Curtiss SOC-1.

In the process the U.S. Navy lost a Curtiss SOC-1 Seagull which was flying an anti-submarine patrol from the arriving convoy.  It simply disappeared and was never found.  It was one of three dispatched for that purpose, with the other two returning safely.

The ice on Lake Lagoda was now 1 meter think, allowing Soviet KV tanks to cross it.

Axis forces began withdrawing from Benghazi by sea.  An Italian minefield off of Misrata ended up sinking an Italian and a German transport ship by accident in the process.

Italian forces defeated partisans at Sjenica in Montenegro.  Tito was upset about the partisan attack as he felt it was contrary to his orders.  The Italians had been aided by the participation of Serbian and Muslim militias on their side of the fight, and it commenced with a Communist partisan attack on their town in horrible snowy weather.

The US increased the conscription age up to age 44, although actual conscription of men above 40 would remain fairly rare throughout the war.  Men from 18 to 65 were not required to register.

The news magazines got into the spirit of the day, in a way.  Time came out on this date with a caricature of Admiral Yamamoto with a heavily yellow background.  Life, noting that people had been harassing all Asians, had a photo display of how to tell the Japanese from the Chinese, or so it claimed.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Sunday, December 21, 1941. The Long Short Days.

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  It'd be another long day for the United States and the British Commonwealth, however.



The Japanese landed troops at Lingayen Gulf and Lamon Bay in the Philippines.

Wake Island was heavily bombed.

The Kingdom of Thailand entered into a formal alliance with the Empire of Japan.

Off of Portugal the Battle of Convey HG-76 raged as German U-boats and Allied ships sought to amke progress and destroy each other.  Meanwhile, a British Swordfish torpedo bomber sank the German U-451 off of Morocco, from which only one crew member survived.

The Red Army and the German Army begin a week of close quarter fighting in Kaluga.

German and Romanian units commenced murdering Jews in the Bogdanovka concentration camp.  In two weeks they would kill 30,000 individuals.

Winston Churchill sent birthday wishes, late, to Stalin, whose actual birthday was December 18. The note states:
I send you sincere good wishes for your birthday and hope that future anniversaries will enable you to bring to Russia victory, peace and safety after so much storm.
As noted in Today In Wyoming's History: December 21:

1941  $5,077 collected in Sheridan Wyoming war relief drive. Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

The Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants in the NFL Championship.

Peetie Wheatstraw, whose real name was William Bunch, died when a car he was a passenger in was hit by a train. At the height of his popularity, the bluesman was 39 years old.

The Man Born To Be King, a BBC dramatization of the life of Jesus, premiered on the British Broadcasting Corporation Home Service.

The Home Service started airing in 1922, and was later replaced as Radio 4.

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Tuesday December 16, 1941 Fanatischem Widerstand

On this day in 1941 Hitler ordered troops on the Eastern Front to exhibit "fanatischem Widerstand", fanatical resistance, to Red Army advances.   The Germans were in full retreat outside of Moscow at the time having lost 50 miles in twelve days and having becoming completely demoralized due to the advances of the Red Army and the increasingly horrible weather.

Hitler had already relieved Guderian and Von Rundstedt for retreats with in recent days, and one senior officer in Operation Typhoon had committed suicide after his troops had retreated.  

Given the order, it's hard not to conclude that Hitler realized at this point that things may have turned in the war in a direction that couldn't be halted.

President Roosevelt issued an executive order on this day allowing appointments of government officials to the Alien Enemy Board.

December 16, 1941

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8980

AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER OF JANUARY 17, 1873, TO PERMIT PERSONS HOLDING STATE, TERRITORIAL, AND MUNICIPAL OFFICES TO BE APPOINTED AS MEMBERS OF ALIEN ENEMY HEARING BOARDS

December 16, 1941

By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 1753 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, and as President of the United States, the Executive Order of January 17, 1873, as amended, prohibiting, with certain exceptions, Federal officers and employees from holding State, Territorial, and municipal offices, is hereby further amended so as to permit any person holding a State, Territorial, or municipal office to accept appointment and serve as a member of an Alien Enemy Hearing Board.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

THE WHITE HOUSE,

December 16, 1941.

Exec. Order No. 8980, 6 FR 6471, 1941 WL 4079 (Pres.)

By most accounts (some have it as the 17th) Lt. Boyd Wagner achieved his firth areal victory over the Philippines, becoming the first U.S. ace of World War Two.

Wagner.

All of his victories at that time appear to have been over Nakajima Ki-27 "Nates", a good Japanese army fighter that had entered service in 1937 but which curiously retained fixed landing gear.  Wagner was flying a P40.  He'd score three more victories in the Pacific flying P39s before he was posted to the United States.  He disappeared in 1942 flying out of Florida, at which time he was a Lieutenant Colonel.

The Japanese invasion of Burma began.

The Japanese invasion of Borneo began.

The Japanese battleship Yamato was commissioned.

The Germans outrun the British at Bir Halegh el Eleba, retreating faster than the British can advance.

The Italian torpedo boat Orione rammed and sank the German U557, mistaking it for  aBritsih submarine resulting in the loss of all the U-boats crew.

The Czechoslovak government in exile declared war on everyone who was at war with the US, UK and USSR.

Look magazine had an exposé on Hollywood, and its "Money, Manners and Morals".  It featured a young woman in the snow with a sled.

It also had an article on Anti-Semitism in America.

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Sunday, December 14, 1941. Duration plus six months.


The US Armed Forces extended enlistments to the classic "duration plus six months".  See:

Today in World War II History—December 14, 1941

A Coast Guard vessel made a depth charge run near Pearl Harbor, reporting an attack on a Japanese submarine that almost certainly was not there. 

0940, 14 December, 1941. Dropped five charges on an excellent contact with range closing fast from dead ahead. This was the best contact made, solid and definite and all hands were convinced that results would be obtained, but no visible evidence of damage to submarine was found. A careful search of vicinity failed to re-establish contact

B17s were used to bomb Japanese landing sites in the Philippines.  Lt. Wheless, a B17 pilot, would win the Distinguished Flying Cross for completing his mission in a heavily shot up and heavily attacked B17 that day.  Wheless would survive the war and go on to retire from the Air Force in 1968.

B17s would be withdrawn from the Philippines the following day.

The Independent State of Croatia, an Axis puppet state, declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Bears beat the Green Bay Packers for the Western Division title.

Dr. Alfred Bitini Xuma, President of the African National Congress, issued an address to South Africa.  It stated:

14 December 1941 
Fellow Countrymen,
If you may ever need comfort, courage and inspiration for the difficult yet manly task I am going to urge you to assume, I advise you to pin on the walls of your hearts the wise words of our Prime Minister, the Right Hon­ourable Field-Marshal J.C. Smuts who said recently, "Do not mind being called agitators. Let them call you any names they like but get on with the job and see that matters that vitally require attention. Native Health, Native Food, the treatment of Native Children and all those cognate questions that are basic to the Welfare of South Africa are attended to."
In the founding of the African National Congress in 1912, African leaders of that day displayed a great vision and laid a broad and deep foundation upon which to build the superstructure for African freedom and liberty in the land of their forefathers. They proclaimed through the organization they set up and the efforts they made, that, only through unity and concerted action of all leaders from our various races and classes may we hope to achieve our freedom and obtain justice and a fair play in South Africa. They made sacrifices and suffered privations in the cause of African freedom. Some went to gaol and became unpopular with power and influence but remained loyal and true to the cause of their people. Thus they were the architects of our salvation. Thus they pointed the way for us. They showed that freedom is precious and a heavy price must be paid to obtain it.
With our State Native Policy and the racial attitude in general, to serve your people honestly and sincerely; to take an uncompromising stand on their behalf, is to become unpopular in certain high and influential quarters.
You and I are inheritors of these great traditions. We are debtors to their fine examples. We are called upon to copy their fine example of sacrifice. We are urged not only to build upon the foundation they laid but also to improve and modernise the plan of their structure. To do this it requires the best African brains, and I believe we have them at this Conference. It calls for the greatest effort and sacrifice from every man and woman of our race. It means for all of us wherever we are and whoever we are to do our duty. Congress claims us. Congress demands our best service for our people.
Since Congress was founded and made its initial spectacular success it has experienced periods of inactivity because you and I thought and believed that organizations led by non-Africans were more dignified than African organizations and thus we abandoned our organizations and surrendered our leadership to others. We, especially the intellectuals, so-called, have been more loyal to this new leadership. We are better trained than the founders of Congress but we do not seem willing to think and act for ourselves as did these old stalwarts.
To-day you and I, the better trained we are, seem more disposed to work under orders and direction of others against and away from African organizations. Someone said to me one day, with some degree of truth, "We uneducated Africans feel that the educated African is lost to us. He is afraid to identify himself with his own people. When crisis .arises, he is either silent or joins the forces against his own people. We do not know whether the education you get puts fear in you." I was dumbfounded; but was somewhat ashamed because you and I, outside our jobs for which we are paid, have not done the best we can to assist our people. Fellow Countrymen, this is a challenge. Shall we not pick up the gauntlet? South Africa, white and black, needs us. We must pull our full weight; we must make our real contribution to the building and the progress of South Africa to the full benefit, mutual helpfulness and happiness of all sections, white and black.
Let us stand for, and with, our people as long, as we are in the right.
Our position and place is what it is in South Africa and will remain what it is until you and I realise that no race can save another. Each people must rise through the efforts and leadership of its own members. Others can and must help. In spite of this I am very much encouraged to find that during the past year Congress has received the support and co-operation of all African groups and organizations. The representations that Congress made before Government Commissions have been supported and adopted by most responsible groups. We are, therefore, proud and happy at the evidence of this unity which means strength and hope for our people.
It will not be amiss here to remind you of the aims and objects of the Congress as enunciated by its founders.... Thus the African National Congress is the mouthpiece of the African people of the Union of South Africa. All its efforts are and must be concentrated upon raising the status of the African people from their semi-serfdom to citizenship. To work for this end and to achieve it, the leaders of Congress cannot hope to be popular with any of those who would exclude the African from citizenship rights.
We cannot go on blindly and hope to achieve our goal. We must have a plan; we must have a programme of action.
REPRESENTATION
In a democratic country all members of the State must be part of the policy moulding machinery. They must have a voice and a vote in the affairs of the State. However, in South Africa the African has no vote and, therefore, no voice in South African affairs. He has ingeniously been disfranchised and put in differentiated pseudo-franchise which disfranchise the most qualified people under any fair, just, and equitable system of franchise. Under the Representation of Natives` Act, the individual educated person is victimised. In rural areas only the chiefs under the influence of the Native Commissioners are voters. In urban areas, the Advisory Boards, some under the influence of the Superintendents are voters. The professional man, the teacher, the minister, the property owner outside locations, have no vote, and, therefore, cannot choose a representative either to the Native Representative Council, to the House of Assembly, or to the Senate except in the Cape Province.
In a country in which two-million Europeans are represented in Municipal Councils, Provincial Councils besides 150 members in the House of Assembly and 40 in the Senate, there are only three members in the House of Assembly and 4 Senators to represent six to eight million Africans. There are no members in the House of Assembly to represent Africans in the Free State, Transvaal and Natal. The Transvaal and the Free State on the one hand and Natal on the other are represented by one Senator respectively. In the Native Representative Council there are 12 members elected by Chiefs in Rural Areas and by Advisory Boards in Urban Areas, and 4 members nominated by the Government-with 5 Chief Native Commissioners and the Chairman representing the Government. The Council has only advisory functions and no legislative power. The Representation of Natives` Act not only gives inadequate representation but also excludes the best qualified Africans from being voters. It may justly be called the Mis-Representation of Natives` Act.
We must work for:-
·         Adequate representations and right of franchise for Africans.
·         Participation of Africans, as voters and citizens, in the building of a Union Policy acceptable to all sections including the African.
·         Representation of Africans in all Government chambers and Government departments.
LAND
The fundamental basis of all wealth and power is the ownership and acquisition of freehold title to land. From land, we derive our existence. We derive our wealth in minerals, food, and other essentials. On land we build our homes. Without land we cannot exist. To all men of whatever race or colour land, therefore, is essential for their wealth, prosperity, and health. Without land-rights any race will be doomed to poverty, destitution, ill-health and lack of all life`s essentials. In South Africa all our legislation aims at depriving the African of all right and title to land, in both rural and urban areas. He is made a perpetual and eternal tenant of the State and Municipalities so that he may forever be dependent for existence and wages upon Europeans who are, alone, entitled to get as much land as they can use and even more than what they can use but may hold it for future speculation while Africans are landless, homeless, destitute, and starving.
The over-crowding of the reserves is no accident. Generations of young men come of age in many of these areas but no land is available for their occupation so that tens of thousands of-them are squatting on their fathers` limited areas. As many as 2 to 4 families squat on such little plots in surveyed areas.
Much of this over-crowding of stock we hear so much about is a mis­representation of the position. Few people have as many as 5 head of cattle or more. The problem is over-population due to limited land space. The solution is not limitation of stock as it is often officially urged even though no one would object to the improvement of the quality of stock. The solution will be the opening up of more land for occupation by Africans through all forms of tenure possible for them, that is, freehold, lease-hold, and rental, as the case may be.
The provisions of the Natives` Land Act (1913) and the Natives` Land Trust Act Amendment (1936) do not tend to solve the land problem in the rural areas. They tend to aggravate and confuse the situation. The land is available to be held communally under restricted conditions and rent must be paid in perpetuity. The land, under the conditions of the Land and Trust Act is bought at highly inflated prices and thereby increases the rentals. These poor people must carry a heavy financial burden in rents.
Under this Act no land is available for sale to individuals or groups of Africans who wish to buy. Further, no facilities are available to them, such as the Land Bank to assist them to acquire or improve their land. The whole land policy has been of benefit to European farmers who have made unheard of profits for the sale of farms in their names without any real improvements having been effected by them.
In fact, the over-crowding of the reserves, the lack of facilities to encourage the acquisition of freehold title by Africans are not an accident or an insoluble problem. They are part of a studied land policy which aims at providing an uninterrupted flow of cheaply paid labour and an absence of independent self-sufficient African farmers who would be under no European control.
In urban areas, under the Urban Areas Act, 1923, provisions are only made for accommodation of those Africans who are potential labourers for Europeans. These Africans must be accommodated in locations or hostels. Even though the idea of Native villages is provided for under the Act, it has not been encouraged in practice. No provision is made for the acquisition of freehold titles by Africans generally except in townships that were allowed before the Act came into force. Here, also, over-crowding exists because areas available to Africans and Non-Europeans in general are very limited and, therefore, become slums.
In all this land policy the worst and most dangerous clause is the restriction that provides that no Native may buy land from a non-Native except with the Governor-General`s approval to the transaction. The provision is universally acceptable in government and European quarters because the native generally speaking has no land to sell. This ensures that there is little chance for Africans securing more land and therefore, independence.
Congress must, therefore, work and negotiate for:-
·         Adequate land for Africans and for Africans to acquire freehold title to land in rural and urban areas.
·         The right of Africans to secure freehold titles to land individually or collectively or as syndicates inside or outside released areas.
·         Right of Africans to purchase land from any seller anywhere in rural and urban areas.
·         Land Bank facilities to assist African farmers to purchase land to improve it.
Every effort must be made, now, during the war, to get adequate land for Africans as over-crowding and starvation are undermining the health and physique of our people for generations to come. The present conditions of land occupation and available land for Africans unfit them physically, mentally and even morally for survival.
ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL WELFARE
The African is the worker of South Africa. However, because of his lack of political power and because of the existence of many statutory restrictions against him such as the Pass Laws, the Natives Service Contract Act, the Masters and Servants Act, the Natives` Labour Regulations, the African finds himself debarred from benefits of certain labour awards. For instance, the Pass Laws restrict his freedom of movement, limit his bargaining power, expose him to exploitation by a certain type of employer and exclude him from enjoying benefits to be derived from the Industrial Conciliation Act. The African is paid wages far below the cost of living.
He is debarred from skilled trades. He is a pawn between the white worker and the employer. He is forced to live below the bread line. Besides African wages are further depressed by the uneconomic system of recruiting and importation of African labour which exempts the mines from the operation of economic and industrial laws, supply and demand so far as Africans are concerned. He is allowed to trade on sufferance and under great restrictions. The African is a great producer and consumer of goods. He should, therefore, be allowed to trade freely according to his means and ability to help raise his economic status.
To achieve our ends in this direction, Congress must work for:
·         Removal of industrial and commercial restrictions against the African.
·         Living wage and better working conditions.
·         Right of all classes of African workers to organise into Trade Unions.
·         Recognition and Registration of African Trade Unions under African leadership by the Union Labour Department with all the rights, privileges and immunities appertaining to such organizations under the Industrial Conciliation Act.
·         Right of Africans to learn skilled trades and engage in them.
·         Trading rights for Africans anywhere.
·         Abolition of Pass Laws, Natives` Service Contract Act, The Masters` and Servants` Act, and other Special Disabilities.
·         Abolition of Recruiting and Importation of African labour from outside the Union.
All of us, whatever our status or calling, must join hands with all other classes in this fight for existence.
POLICE, CIVIC GUARDS AND THE AFRICAN
Recently the African has suffered severely at the hands of the police. During police raids not only assaults on Africans have taken place but, in the course of such raids, Africans have been actually shot dead. The situation in cities like Johannesburg has been aggravated by the appearance, as special constables, of the Civic Guards. They are more worry and a greater horror in the already harassed life of the African. Some of them do not seem to use much judgment in carrying out their duties. They seem to have no regard either to time, circumstances or persons.
Some of them search all and sundry. Any questions or reluctance on the part of the African often leads to man-handling of the victim. These high-handed methods of both the police and the "civic guards" do not tend to arouse a spirit of good race relations. One feels that there are many people under these circumstances who are given authority over the African without the necessary discipline and training for the task. The Pass Laws and Police Raids in general must be abolished in justice to the African and as a measure of relief to him.
Those who want to fight should go to the various battlefronts instead of attacking defenceless and unarmed Africans.
SOCIAL WELFARE
Africans in South Africa are the worst paid and consequently the poorest section of the community. Generally speaking they have no margin from their earnings to set aside for a rainy day; consequently, during old age, disablement and non-employment they find themselves with nothing with which to support themselves. As a group Africans are more in need of benefits from the Social Welfare Departments than any other section in South Africa. The Africans, therefore, should be eligible to receive all benefits from Social Welfare Departments.
It should be the task of the African National Congress to work for:-
·         Old age pensions for Africans.
·         Disability and Disablement pensions.
·         Extensions of provisions of the Children`s Act to meet social re­quirements of destitute African children-adequate maintenance grants.
HEALTH REQUIREMENTS
Africans in South Africa have the highest Infant Mortality rate, highest mortality and morbidity rates, than any section. The causes are not racial but economic. The people are poverty stricken with low wages, lack of adequate food, semi-starvation, bad housing and therefore, low resistance to disease and consequent ill-health and premature death. Adequate hospital accommodation is desirable but hospital accommodation required can be reduced if the people are paid good wages to relieve them from poverty in order to buy their health through sufficient food, good housing and other amenities.
We must work for:-
·         Adequate well-equipped and adequately staffed hospitals-General and Special.
·         Full extension of public health and preventative health measures to Africans.
·         The training of Africans in medicine, surgery and public health and cognate subjects, training of health visitors, health inspectors and nurses, and their eligibility for public employment on basis of ability and training and recognised professional rates and conditions.
EDUCATION OF THE AFRICAN
Man is not born with well-developed instincts like most animals. Unlike other animals he requires a long period of care and education. He must be taught.
Under the present conditions Native Education is not State-Controlled. It is only State-Aided. The missionaries establish the schools and provide the buildings. The Government through the Provincial Education Departments, pays the teachers` salaries. Native Education is at present financed from a block grant made up of £340,000 from the general revenue and the rest a sum voted from revenue accruing from Native Taxation under the Native Taxation and Development Act, 1925.
Only about one-third of the African children of school-going age are accom­modated in these schools which are always overcrowded and under-staffed.
The African teachers are the most overworked and paid the deplorable salary of £4.10.0dto £ 5.19.Od a month.
So far there has never been enough funds to meet the requirements of even the one-third of school population now accommodated in schools. As a consequence many of our children are growing wild without an opportunity of school education and discipline.
They get their education on the streets and back-alleys from where they graduate into reformatories and finally gaols and many people wonder why there is a high and increasing rate of African Juvenile Delinquency. The Government must be asked for adequate funds but it is difficult to expect the Government to distribute lavishly public funds over a system of education over which they have no control. How can we expect them to satisfy the numerous competing mission groups?
We thank the missionaries for pioneering in, and laying the foundation of African Education. However, time and circumstances have changed.
Congress, therefore, urges for:-
·         Free Public School system of education controlled by the Government through the various Provincial Education Departments.
·         Provision of School Buildings and equipment by the State.
·         Financing of Native Education on a per caput basis from the General Revenue based on the number of children of school-going age.
·         Higher salaries for the African Teacher with Civil Service Status and pension rights compatible with the requirements of their profession under modem conditions.
·         Unlimited opportunities for scholastic education and technical training for employment in Civil Service and skilled trades without colour or racial restrictions.
·         Formation of school boards with direct representations of Africans on such boards.
·         Appointment of qualified Africans into any post in African educational institutions.
ADMINISTRATION
Almost all Departments of State deal with African Affairs. In all these departments the candidates for the graded positions have to undergo some training and apprenticeship. Africans contribute directly and indirectly for the upkeep of these departments. We welcome the recent move by the Native Affairs Department for the appointment of Africans to certain senior posts. We urge the training of Africans and the employment of them generally in all Civil Service and Public Service other than Native Affairs. Africans must be employed in the administration of the country like others in increasing numbers and with adequate pay and pensions.
DISABILITIES UNDER THE NATIVE ADMINISTRATION ACT
I now come to a question that affects our people vitally especially in rural areas. It affects Chiefs and people alike. I refer to the operation of the Native Administration Act. Under this Act the Governor General who in this case, is the Native Affairs, has absolute dictatorial powers over our people. He may remove tribes, appoint and depose chiefs at will if it is thought of course by some Native Commissioner that such action is in the interest of good government whatever that may mean. He may deport a member or members of the tribe. Such member or members of the tribe may not be tried before a Court of Law. It is suggested that such powers are derived from African law and custom and the Governor-General exercises them as "Supreme Chief of the Africans in the Orange Free State, Transvaal and Natal."
In his high office as the Viceroy we bow to the Governor-General; but on the basis of African law and custom he cannot be recognized as Supreme Chief of the African. There can be no Supreme Chief in Native law and custom who acts without the advice of other chiefs; who does not express the wish and will of the people. The most controlled person in African society is the chief. He is controlled by his family, his councillors, headmen and sub-chiefs and finally by the people. The people express their will first and the Chief speaks it out for them. He is their mouthpiece.
This distortion of Native Law and Custom was copied by Europeans from the rule of Great Chaka. He was a dictator and a despot. He was not deposed because there is no deposition in African custom. He went the way such un­controlled Chiefs go in African society. He had his head cut off.
There is no deportation of members of the tribe. If a man is unruly, the Chief "eats him up", that is, fines him until he runs across the border by night. This deportation clause does not even recognise the rule of law in English law, namely, that an accused person cannot suffer penalty without trial. The Native Administration Act is tyranny invoked in the name of customary law. We must fight for the revision of this abuse and misrepresentation of African customs.
NOMINATIONS UNDER REPRESENTATION OF NATIVES` ACT
I take up now a question that interests all of us but which is, nevertheless, not essential. I refer to the nomination of candidates under the Representation of Natives` Act. Sometime ago the Provinces received a letter from the Secretary-General asking for nominations under this Act. I have since, however, studied the question and its implications in relation to our organisation and have come to the conclusion that for the present, Congress must not sponsor any candidates either nationally or provincially. Any nominations, therefore, made in any Pro­vince will be made by qualified voters in that Province and not by the Provincial Congresses. This, however, does not preclude any voters, as such, exercising their choice; but such nominee or nominees are not endorsed by Congress either nationally or provincially. To Congress we must be loyal and true. For Congress, we must forget any personal or sectional interests or gain. We must put the cause and the interests of the people before any expediency.
My ruling is in the interests of the Congress and all genuine supporters and well-wishers of this organization will abide by it. To be true leaders, we must put the interests and welfare of our people above our own.
THE AFRICAN AND MILITARY SERVICE
The last point I would like to discuss with you is the problem of military service and the African in the Union of South Africa.
We are thrilled at the exploits of African forces from other parts of Africa. West Africans and the King`s African Rifles from Central Africa have distinguished themselves in the campaign against Fascist Italy. We are proud of their record in the fight to destroy the Italian African Empire. We learn that 90,000 of them took part in this campaign that is now history. West Africans are flying in Great Britain. Some have been commissioned in the Royal Air Force. South Africa and South Africans, black and white are safer to-day because these black African soldiers with their white comrades at-arms have barred the way.
Our own people have volunteered to serve King and country anywhere and in anyway; but our Government has restricted their service to manual labour. Their pay has been deplorably low. In fact, that one shilling and sixpence a day for unmarried African soldiers is just six-pence more than the allowance which, I understand, was given to internees, enemies of the State, whose dependents were receiving £2.10.0 to £ 5.0.0 allowance in addition, and that, for working against the Government. Our African soldiers in the Union unlike Coloureds and Indians cannot rise higher than the position of Sergeant and it seems that there have been attempts to differentiate and humiliate them further in certain directions. They are not receiving the extra shilling a day allowed for doing extra work such as clerical work, training transport drivers, and so on. There is also the problem of the disabled soldier and the discharged soldier. All these matters tend to discourage the enthusiasm of our people to join and put African leaders in a most embarrassing position.
While it is our desire to see our people armed and fighting like other soldiers, Lord Gort`s memoirs, recently published, seem to indicate that if the training of Africans for active service was begun now it may not be until 1943 before they are fit to take their part safely and efficiently in a campaign under modern war conditions.
It would be a sign of irresponsibility on my part to discuss publicly all the causes of reluctance of the African to join. I feel, therefore, without disclosing some of the more delicate questions, that Congress must take steps for representations to be made to the Right Honourable the Prime Minister, Minister of Defence-Field Marshal J. C. Smuts and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Native Affairs-Colonel Deneys Reitz, on these questions of ARMY SERVICE, REPRESENTATION, LAND, EDUCATION, WAGES AND RECOGNITION AND REGISTRATION OF TRADE UNIONS, THE NA­TIVE ADMINISTRATION ACT AND THE PASS LAWS.
Our actions of loyalty do not mean contentment and happiness on our part. We are very much dissatisfied with the lot and status of our people. We want these improved immediately. But we realise that if our present State is taken over by a foreign nation, there will be new problems. Our condition may or may not be worse. We would rather fight for, and correct, the evils of our present State and incorporate in her legislation and administration all that is best for the advancement and happiness of our common humanity.
A question may arise in the minds of some of us whether these problems of LAND, REPRESENTATION, EDUCATION, WAGES AND PASS LAWS ETC. should not wait until after the war. I reply NO! Emphatically NO! These are urgent matters clammering for immediate solution. They are essential, now for the health, well-being, and happiness of the African people as for other sections. South Africa is fighting for freedom, for democracy, for Christianity, and for human decency, and these must be enjoyed by all who will, irrespective of race, creed or colour. At home, Africans have given from their meagre earnings, from their dire poverty, more than their proportionate share towards the various war funds. As in the past when king and country were at war, the Africans` loyalty now is not and never has been excelled by any section in South Africa, white or black, notwithstanding their hope-destroying disabilities under our State policy and practice. Africans are no fairweather loyalists or democrats.
They have not anywhere committed acts of sabotage against the State. They have volunteered to serve anywhere and in anyway, so that, to-day, European boys and African boys, from South Africa, are falling together on the same battleground. In Sidi Rezek, Lybia, enemy bullets made no distinction on basis of colour or duties being performed. White men and black men suffered the same death, sustained the same wounds and others were taken prisoners. African men, even as stretcher bearers, died attempt­ing to save lives of wounded European compatriots at the battle line. These Africans, whatever service they are assigned to do, are doing a man`s job. They are protecting white and black women in South Africa, and all those men who either are unfit for service, those who are exempted from service, or those who expect freedom to be a gift from somewhere not worth fighting for or dying for.
African boys are dying in defence of freedom, democracy, Christianity and human decency in South Africa. They are making this supreme sacrifice so that we, their Kith and Kin, may enjoy these privileges as well. They hope that we, at the home front, will defend their inherent rights and see that full justice is done to their wives and dependents so that they will not have died in vain. South Africa must play the game with the Africans now. If she gives them their legitimate right of citizenship thus more to fight for, she will get the Africans` quota for service without recruiting.
As long as these grave disabilities and glaring inconsistencies exist and are not adjusted or settled, they will continue to kill, disable, and handicap more Africans and bring more unhappiness to as many more African families than the deaths and disablement that this war will bring to South Africa. This is the battle of the home front. It must be fought and won now before the war is over as a basis for real peace.
In the past South Africa has legislated and governed for the benefits of the Europeans, the privileged group and upper cast of South Africa. Because she claims to be fighting for the ideals we have just mentioned, and also in memory of, and as a monument to, the lives of black boys who are falling and will fall in various battle fronts in her defence. South Africa must begin now to legislate for the welfare and benefit of all South Africans irrespective of race, creed or colour but must be based on human worth. Thus and thus only may South Africa win peace.
This is Congress Policy. This is the African`s charter in South Africa. This is the New Order for which he is dying up North, for which he must live and work. It can only be achieved through hard work on our part, through serious thinking, careful planning, great personal sacrifices and self-denial on the part of all people, particularly Africans who would like to see the African given an opportunity to develop and use without let or hindrance, his God-given gifts and talents.
In conclusion, in the words quoted recently by our Prime Minister, Field Marshall J. C. Smuts, "I challenge you and all men of vision and goodwill of whatever race or colour to abandon the policies of the past for faith, for hope, for trust in each other. Take each others` hand and move forward to the destiny which is yours."
Thus South Africa may well adopt our Congress motto- "RIGHT NOT MIGHT. FREEDOM NOT SERFDOM."

The doctor was the president of the ANC at the time and was the first black physician in South Africa.

Sunday, December 12, 2021

Friday, December 12, 1941. The spreading of disaster.

The Struma when she was new in 1867.

With the United States now in the war, Hitler announced in a meeting in the Reich Chancellery that a full scale effort to exterminate European Jews would commence.  This was noted in our item on Today In Wyoming's History: December 12:

Adolf Hitler announces extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery.

The meeting was held behind closed doors and no official records of it exist, but at least two of the participants noted what was to occur.  Goebbels noted the following in his diary entry for the day:
Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen, reinen Tisch zu machen. Er hat den Juden prophezeit, daß, wenn sie noch einmal einen Weltkrieg herbeiführen würden, sie dabei ihre Vernichtung erleben würden. Das ist keine Phrase gewesen. Der Weltkrieg ist da, die Vernichtung des Judentums muß die notwendige Folge sein.   

Regarding the Jewish Question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that, if they yet again brought about a world war, they would experience their own annihilation. That was not just a phrase. The world war is here, and the annihilation of the Jews must be the necessary consequence.

Hitler was referring to an earlier speech of his in which he'd stated that if the Jews caused a second World War, they'd be annihilated.  Of course, the Jews hadn't caused either WWI or WWII.  The first and the second statements show the warped way in which Hitler imagined Jews to be in control of things around the globe, as a bizarre view still held by some today.

This conference is often noted as one of the stepping stones to the German "Final Solution".  The Germans were, of course, already killing Jews en massse in the East so what exactly this meant in real terms is a bit difficult to discern.  All throughout 1941 murder repression had been a constant feature of German policy towards Jews withing their territorial control, and murder certainly had been since the invasion of the Soviet Union.  Things were getting worse for the Jews by the day prior to December 7.

Indeed, on this day:

Germans begin house-by-house search for Jews in Paris.  

Also, on this day the Struma, a cargo ship, left Romania with over 700 Jewish passengers fleeing Europe.  Turkish authorities would not allow it to allow the passengers of the disabled vessel to disembark at Istanbul as it feared they'd be given certificates to travel to Palestine by the British.  The British for their part did not, and urged the Turks to return the vessel to Romania.  Ultimately, Turkey towed the vessel into the Black Sea, where it was sunk by a Russian submarine.

Jews in Germany were forbidden on this day to use telephones.

The wide-ranging Japanese offensive in the Pacific kept on expanding.

1941 British decide to abandon northern Malaya. 

Japanese abandon their first attempt to capture Wake. 

Japanese complete the occupation of southern Thailand. 

Japanese invade Burma. 

Japanese troops land at Legaspi, southeastern Luzon and advance from Vigan and Aparri. 



Filipino pilots engaged Japanese pilots over Batangas Field. They were successful in the air action, in spite of flying obsolete P26 fighters, sustaining one loss.

Naval Air Transport Service is established  


The Navy, going into the war, was extremely short of transport aircraft.  After the war the NATS woudl be ultimately folded into the Military Airlift Command.

U.S. Navy takes control of the ocean liner Normandie while it is docked at New York City.   

UK declares war on Bulgaria.

 Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States. India declares war on Japan.  

Haiti, El Salvador and Panama declared war in Germany and Italy.

1941   The Wyoming Township, Michigan, Police Department founded.

Director Frank Capra joined the U.S. Army.

In other news from the entertainment industry, the move The Wolf Man was released.

Gatherings were happening at college campuses across the US. like this one in Wisconsin.


These members of the Salvation Army were photographed in Australia.
Australian Salvation Army officers, December 12, 1941.

Diana Barrymore sat for a series of portraits in the studios of the famed black and white portrait photographer Arnold Genthe, who was approaching his final months.  



She was the daughter of actor John Barrymore and died of undetermined causes in 1960 at age 38.  Her short life was troubled and her career produced a limited number of appearances.

Friday, December 10, 2021

Wednesday December 10, 1941. Japan steams on.

Japanese aerial photograph of the HMS Price of Wales and HMS Repulse under attack.

On this Wednesday, December 10, 1941, the Japanese advance continued as previously recorded in our entry in Today In Wyoming's History: December 10.

1941 Guam surrenders to a Japanese landing force after a two-day battle. 

Japanese depiction of their landing on Guam.

Japanese aircraft sink HMSs Prince of Wales and Repulse, South China Sea. 

The event was significant in that it stripped Singapore of a naval defense, and it was not equipped to be defended solely by ground forces. Additionally, it was a terrible psychological defeat for the Royal Navy.

The two ships were the first major naval vessels to be sunk entirely from the air while actively defending themselves.

Japanese naval aircraft bomb Cavite Navy Yard, Manila Bay. 

Japanese troops begin landings in northern Luzon. 

A B17C sent on a scouting mission detected a Japanese landing force north of Aparri in the Philippines and made a bombing run on the ships.  It failed to sink anything, but did inflict some damage.

On its return to its base at Luzon it was attacked by Japanese fighters.  After ordering the crew to bail out, Cpt. Colin Kelly was killed attempting to pilot the plane back to base.  He became the first American B17 pilot to die in World War Two.

Wartime illustration of Cpt. Kelly.


USS Enterprise aircraft sink sub I-70..

Prewar photograph of the I70.

Slightly before midnight, Japanese vessels were spotted off of Wake Island.

Iowa's Postville Herald reported that while the nation was at war, the citizens were calm.

In Washington D. C. it was discovered that vandals had cut down some Japanese Cherry Trees in an act of retributive vandalism.  The trees had been a gift from Japan to the United States in 1912.

U.S. TO GIVE TRANSIT TO MEXICAN TROOPS; Forces Will Cross Arizona to Guard Lower California Against Japanese Raids

So read a headline in the New York Times.

It was significant in that Mexico's position in the war was still undetermined.

The Red Army encircled the German 45th, 95th and 134th Infantry Divisions at Livny, although they ultimately broke out.




Thursday, November 11, 2021

Tuesday, November 11, 1941. Armistice Day on the Eve of War.


Franklin Roosevelt delivered an Armistace Day address at Arlington National Cemetery.  It reads:

Among the great days of national remembrance, none is more deeply moving to Americans of our generation than the Eleventh of November, the Anniversary of the Armistice of 1918, the day sacred to the memory of those who gave their lives in the war which that day ended.

Our observance of this Anniversary has a particular significance in the year 1941.

For we are able today as we were not always able in the past to measure our indebtedness to those who died.

A few years ago, even a few months, we questioned, some of us, the sacrifice they had made. Standing near to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Sergeant York of Tennessee, on a recent day spoke to such questioners. "There are those in this country today," said Sergeant York, "who ask me and other veterans of World War Number One, 'What did it get you?'"

Today we know the answer-all of us. All who search their hearts in honesty and candor know it.

We know that these men died to save their country from a terrible danger of that day. We know, because we face that danger once again on this day.

"What did it get you?"

People who asked that question of Sergeant York and his comrades forgot the one essential fact which every man who looks can see today.

They forgot that the danger which threatened this country in 1917 was real-and that the sacrifice of those who died averted that danger.

Because the danger was overcome they were unable to remember that the danger had been present.

Because our armies were victorious they demanded why our armies had fought.

Because our freedom was secure they took the security of our freedom for granted and asked why those who died to save it should have died at all.

"What did it get you?"

"What was there in it for you?"

If our armies of 1917 and 1918 had lost there would not have been a man or woman in America who would have wondered why the war was fought. The reasons would have faced us everywhere. We would have known why liberty is worth defending as those alone whose liberty is lost can know it. We would have known why tyranny is worth defeating as only those whom tyrants rule can know.

But because the war had been won we forgot, some of us, that the war might have been lost.

Whatever we knew or thought we knew a few years or months ago, we know now that the danger of brutality and tyranny and slavery to freedom-loving peoples can be real and terrible.

We know why these men fought to keep our freedom-and why the wars that save a people's liberties are wars worth fighting and worth winning-and at any price.

"What did it get you?"

The men of France, prisoners in their cities, victims of searches and of seizures without law, hostages for the safety of their masters' lives, robbed of their harvests, murdered in their prisons-the men of France would know the answer to that question. They know now what a former victory of freedom against tyranny was worth.

The Czechs too know the answer. The Poles. The Danes. The Dutch. The Serbs. The Belgians. The Norwegians. The Greeks.

We know it now.

We know that it was, in literal truth, to make the world safe for democracy that we took up arms in 1917. It was, in simple truth and in literal fact, to make the world habitable for decent and self-respecting men that those whom we now remember gave their lives. They died to prevent then the very thing that now, a quarter century later, has happened from one end of Europe to the other.

Now that it has happened we know in full the reason why they died.

We know also what obligation and duty their sacrifice imposes upon us. They did not die to make the world safe for decency and self-respect for five years or ten or maybe twenty. They died to make it safe. And if, by some fault of ours who lived beyond the war, its safety has again been threatened then the obligation and the duty are ours. It is in our charge now, as it was America's charge after the Civil War, to see to it "that these dead shall not have died in vain." Sergeant York spoke thus of the cynics and doubters: "The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them."

The people of America agree with that. They believe that liberty is worth fighting for. And if they are obliged to fight they will fight eternally to hold it.

This duty we owe, not to ourselves alone, but to the many dead who died to gain our freedom for us-to make the world a place where freedom can live and grow into the ages.

This would, of course, be the last peacetime Armistice Day/Veterans Day address delivered by a President until November, 1946.

Under Secretary of State Sumner Wells delivered one as well, in Washington D. C. In it, he stated:

Twenty-three years ago today, Woodrow Wilson addressed the Congress of the United States in order to inform the representatives of the American people of the terms of the Armistice which signalized the victorious conclusion of the first World War.

That day marked, as he then said, the attainment of a great objective: the opportunity for the setting up of "such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the whole world for disinterested justice, embodied in settlements which are based upon something much better and much more lasting than the selfish competitive interests of powerful states".

Less than five years later, shrouded in the cerements of apparent defeat, his shattered body was placed in the grave beside which we now are gathered.
He was laid to rest amid the apathy of the many and amid the sneers of those of his opponents who had, through appeal to ignorance, to passion, and to prejudice, temporarily persuaded the people of our country to reject Wilson's plea that the influence, the resources; and the power of the United States be exercised for their own security and for their own advantage, through our participation in an association of the free and self-governed peoples of the world.

And yet, when we reflect upon the course of the years that have since intervened, how rarely in human history has the vision of a statesman been so tragically and so swiftly vindicated.

Only a score of years have since elapsed, and today the United States finds itself in far greater peril than it did in 1917. The waves of world-conquest are breaking high both in the East and in the West. They are threatening, more nearly each day `that passes, to engulf our own shores.

Beyond the Atlantic a sinister and pitiless conqueror has reduced more than half of Europe to abject serfdom. It is his boast that his system shall prevail even unto the ends of the earth.

In the Far East the same forces of conquest under a different guise are menacing the safety of all nations that border upon the Pacific.

Were these forces to prevail, what place in such a world would there be for the freedoms which we cherish and which we are passionately determined to maintain?

Because of these perils we are arming ourselves to an extent to which we have never armed ourselves before. We are pouring out billions upon billions of dollars in expenditures, not only in order that we may successfully defend ourselves and our sister nations of the Western Hemisphere but also, for the same ends, in order to make available the weapons of defense to Great Britain, to Russia, to China, and to all the other nations that have until now so bravely fought back the hordes of the invaders. And in so doing we are necessarily diverting the greater part of our tremendous productive capacity into channels of destruction, not those of construction, and we are piling up a debt?burden which will inevitably affect the manner of life and diminish the opportunity for progressive advancement of our children' and of our children's children.

But far graver than that-for the tides are running fast-our people realize that at any moment war may be forced upon us, and if it is, the lives of all of us will have to be dedicated to preserving the freedom of the United States and to safeguarding the independence of the American people, which are more dear to us than life itself.

The heart-searching question which every American citizen must ask himself on this day of commemoration is whether the world in which we have to live would have come to this desperate pass had the United States been willing in those years which followed 1919 to play its full part in striving to bring about a new world-order based on justice and on "a steadfast concert for peace".

Would the burdens and the dangers which the American people might have had to envisage through that "partnership of democratic nations" which Woodrow Wilson then urged upon them, have represented even an infinitesimal portion of the burdens and the dangers with which they are now confronted?

Solely from the standpoint of the interest of the American people themselves, who saw straight and who thought straight 20 years ago? Was it Woodrow Wilson when he pled with his fellow Americans to insure the safety and the welfare of their country by utilizing the influence and the strength of their great Nation in joining with the other peace-loving powers of the earth in preventing the outgrowth of those conditions which have made possible this new world upheaval? Or was it that group of self-styled, "practical, hardheaded Americans", who jeered at his idealism, who loudly proclaimed that our very system of government would be destroyed if we raised our voice in the determination of world-affairs, and who refused to admit that our security could be even remotely jeopardized if the whole of the rest of the earth was plunged into the chaos of world anarchy?

A cycle in human events is about to come to its end.

The American people after full debate, in accordance with their democratic institutions, have determined upon their policy. They are pledged to defend their freedom and their ancient rights against every form of aggression, and to spare no effort and no sacrifice in bringing to pass the final defeat of Hitlerism and all that which that evil term implies.

We have no doubt of the ultimate victory of the forces of liberty and of human decency. But we cannot know, we cannot yet foresee, how long and how hard the road may be which leads to that new day when another armistice will be signed.

And what will come to pass thereafter?

Three months ago the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed and made public a new charter on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world".

The principles and the objectives set forth in that joint declaration gave new hope and new courage to millions of people throughout the earth. They saw again more clearly the why and the wherefore of this ghastly struggle. They saw once more the gleam of hope on the horizon-hope for liberty; freedom, from fear and want; the satisfaction of their craving for security.

These aspirations of human beings everywhere cannot again be defrauded. Those high objectives set forth in the Charter of the Atlantic must be realized. They must be realized, quite apart from every other consideration, because of the fact that the individual interest of every man and woman in the United States will be advanced consonantly with the measure in which the world where they live is governed by right and by justice, and the measure in which peace prevails

The American people thus have entered the Valley of Decision.

Shall we as the most powerful Nation of the earth once more stand aloof from all effective and practical forms of international concert, wherein our participation could in all human probability insure the maintenance of a peaceful world in which we can safely live?

Can we afford again to refrain from lifting a finger until gigantic forces of destruction threaten all of modern civilization, and the raucous voice of a criminal paranoiac, speaking as the spokesman for these forces from the cellar of a Munich beer hall, proclaims as his set purpose the destruction of our own security, and the annihilation of religious liberty, of political liberty, and of economic liberty throughout the earth?

The decision rests solely with the people of the United States-the power is theirs to determine the kind of world of the future in which they would live. Is it conceivable that, in enlightened self-interest, they could once more spurn that opportunity?

When the time for?the making of that great decision is at hand, I believe that they will turn again for light and for inspiration to the ideals of that great seer; statesman, patriot, and lover of his fellow men-Woodrow Wilson-whose memory we here today revere.

Then, again, they will remember that great cause he once held up before their eyes-"A universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

Australia dedicated its war memorial on this day.

In the Philippines, a general election won a second term for Manuel L. Quezon, the incumbent President. This was the first time a Filipino President had been reelected because it was the first time its constitution allowed for it.

Quezon was a lawyer and former insurrectionist, from the US point of view, who had come around to supporting the US created government, as most prominent Filipino figures had.  He would occupy the position of President until his death on August 1, 1944.

Vichy France suffered the loss of the commander of its ground forces, Charles Hutzinger, in an air accident. The aircraft in which he was a passenger was on an inspection tour of Vichy military facilities in North Africa when it attempted to land in bad weather with poor visibility in an aircraft whose radio equipment was obsolete.

Hutzinger, who had been one of the officials to sign Vichy France's anti-Semitic laws of 1940, was perhaps a natural for his position, as he was of German descent.