Showing posts with label Quebec Conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quebec Conference. Show all posts

Friday, August 25, 2023

Wednesday, August 25, 1943. Victory on New Georgia.

The Red Army prevailed in the Migorod Direction Offensive.  On the same day, the Red Army took Zenkov and Akhtyrka, near Kharkiv.

Contrary to what I posted yesterday, some sources have today as the day Lord Mountbatten took command of the Southeast Asia theater, and the sources for today would be correct.

German "Fritz X" glide bomb, of the type most widely used and first used on this day in 1943.

Germany used glide bombs for the first time, with that deployment being made in the Bay of Biscay against Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy escort destroyers.  Some crewmen were killed on the HMS Bideford.

In the same bay, the Royal Navy sank the U-523.

The last Japanese resistance on New Georgia was eliminated.

The Quebec Conference having ended, President Roosevelt made an address in Ottoawa to the Canaidan parliament.

August 25, 1943

Your Excellency Mr. Prime Minister, Members of the Parliament, and all my good friends and neighbors of the Dominion of Canada:

It was exactly five years ago last Wednesday that I came to Canada to receive the high honor of a degree at Queen's University. On that occasion- one year before the invasion of Poland, three years before Pearl Harbor— I said:

"We in the Americas are no longer a far away continent, to which the eddies of controversies beyond the seas could bring no interest or no harm. Instead, we in the Americas have become a consideration to every propaganda office and to every general staff beyond the seas. The vast amount of our resources, the vigor of our commerce and the strength of our men have made us vital factors in world peace whether we choose it or not."

We did not choose this war—and that "we" includes each and every one of the United Nations.

War was violently forced upon us by criminal aggressors who measure their standards of morality by the extent of the death and the destruction that they can inflict upon their neighbors.

In this war, Canadians and Americans have fought shoulder to shoulder—as our men and our women and our children have worked together and played together in happier times of peace.

Today, in devout gratitude, we are celebrating a brilliant victory won by British and Canadian and American fighting men in Sicily.

Today, we rejoice also in another event for which we need not apologize. A year ago Japan occupied several of the Aleutian Islands on our side of the ocean, and made a great "to-do" about the invasion of the continent of North America. I regret to say that some Americans and some Canadians wished our Governments to withdraw from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean campaigns and divert all our vast supplies and strength to the removal of the Japs from a few rocky specks in the North Pacific.

Today, our wiser councils have maintained our efforts in the Atlantic area, and the Mediterranean, and the China Seas, and the Southwest Pacific with ever-growing contributions; and in the Northwest Pacific a relatively small campaign has been assisted by the Japs themselves in the elimination of that last Jap from Attu and Kiska. We have been told that the Japs never surrender; their headlong retreat satisfies us just as well.

Great councils are being held here on the free and honored soil of Canada- councils which look to the future conduct of this war and to the years of building a new progress for mankind.

To these councils Canadians and Americans alike again welcome that wise and good and gallant gentleman, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Mr. King, my old friend, may I through you thank the people of Canada for their hospitality to all of us. Your course and mine have run so closely and affectionately during these many long years that this meeting adds another link to that chain. I have always felt at home in Canada and you, I think, have always felt at home in the United States.

During the past few days in Quebec, the Combined Staffs have been sitting around a table—which is a good custom—talking things over, discussing ways and means, in the manner of friends, in the manner of partners, and may I even say in the manner of members of the same family.

We have talked constructively of our common purposes in this war-of our determination to achieve victory in the shortest possible time—of our essential cooperation with our great and brave fighting allies.

And we have arrived, harmoniously, at certain definite conclusions. Of course, I am not at liberty to disclose just what these conclusions are. But, in due time, we shall communicate the secret information of the Quebec Conference to Germany, Italy, and Japan. We shall communicate this information to our enemies in the only language their twisted minds seem capable of understanding.

Sometimes I wish that that great master of intuition, the Nazi leader, could have been present in spirit at the Quebec Conference- I am thoroughly glad that he wasn't there in person. If he and his generals had known our plans they would have realized that discretion is still the better part of valor and that surrender would pay them better now than later.

The evil characteristic that makes a Nazi a Nazi is his utter inability to understand and therefore to respect the qualities or the rights of his fellow men. His only method of dealing with his neighbor is first to delude him with lies, then to attack him treacherously, then beat him down and step on him, and then either kill him or enslave him. And the same thing is true of the fanatical militarists of Japan.

Because their own instincts and impulses are essentially inhuman, our enemies simply cannot comprehend how it is that decent, sensible individual human beings manage to get along together and live together as good neighbors.

That is why our enemies are doing their desperate best to misrepresent the purposes and the results of this Quebec Conference. They still seek to divide and conquer allies who refuse to be divided just as cheerfully as they refuse to be conquered.

We spend our energies and our resources and the very lives of our sons and daughters because a band of gangsters in the community of Nations declines to recognize the fundamentals of decent, human conduct.

We have been forced to call out what we in the United States would call the sheriff's posse to break up the gang in order that gangsterism may be eliminated in the community of Nations.

We are making sure- absolutely, irrevocably sure—that this 'time the lesson is driven home to them once and for all. Yes, we are going to be rid of outlaws this time.

Every one of the United Nations believes that only a real and lasting peace can justify the sacrifices we are making, and our unanimity gives us confidence in seeking that goal.

It is no secret that at Quebec there was much talk of the postwar world. That discussion was doubtless duplicated simultaneously in dozens of Nations and hundreds of cities and among millions of people.

There is a longing in the air. It is not a longing to go back to what they call "the good old days." I have distinct reservations as to how good "the good old days" were. I would rather believe that we can achieve new and better days.

Absolute victory in this war will give greater opportunities to the world, because the winning of the war in itself is certainly proving to all of us up here that concerted action can accomplish things. Surely we can make strides toward a greater freedom from want than the world has yet enjoyed. Surely by unanimous action in driving out the outlaws and keeping them under heel forever, we can attain a freedom from fear of violence.

I am everlastingly angry only at those who assert vociferously that the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter are nonsense because they are unattainable. If those people had lived a century and a half ago they would have sneered and said that the Declaration of Independence was utter piffle. If they had lived nearly a thousand years ago they would have laughed uproariously at the ideals of Magna Charta. And if they had lived several thousand years ago they would have derided Moses when he came from the Mountain with the Ten Commandments.

We concede that these great teachings are not perfectly lived up to today, but I would rather be a builder than a wrecker, hoping always that the structure of life is growing— not dying.

May the destroyers who still persist in our midst decrease. They, like some of our enemies, have a long road to travel before they accept the ethics of humanity.

Some day, in the distant future perhaps—but some day, it is certain—all of them will remember with the Master, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

Monsieur le Premier: Ma visite a la ville historique de Quebec rappelle vivement a mon esprit que le Canada est une nation fondee sur l'union de deux grandes races. L'harmonie de leur association dans l'egalite peut servir d'exemple a l'humanite toute entiere—un exemple partout dans le monde.


Thursday, August 24, 2023

Tuesday, August 24, 1943. Crossing the Dneiper

Heinrich Himmler was named Reichsminister of the Interior, replacing Wilhelm Frick.  Himmler was in the ascendant as Germany turned increasingly towards the most radical elements of its Nazi ideology.

The Quebec Conference closed.

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—August 24, 1943: Danish resistance group Holger Danske blows up Forum Hall in Copenhagen. Southeast Asia Command is authorized under Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten

She also notes that German foreign service agent Fritz Kolbe met with US OSS agent Allen Dulles in Switzerland for the first time, where he'd start to supply Dulles with diplomatic cables.

He survived the war and found that after it, he had a very hard time making a living as the Germans despised him for his actions.  This was a common German reaction post-war in that those who had acted on conscience in various ways against the Nazi regime were not admired in post-war West Germany.

He died in 1971 at age 70 in Switzerland from gall bladder cancer.

A new Southeast Asia Command was authorized with Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten as is Supreme Allied Commander.

By some accounts, the Battle of the Dnieper opened on this day in 1943 with a new Soviet offensive to regain the east bank of that river.


Monday, August 21, 2023

Saturday, August 21, 1943: Bob Hope and Patton.


John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia, retained his position as the Australian Labor Party took 49 of 74 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 19 out of 36 in the Australian Senate.

Australian troops on New Guinea took  Komiatum, southwest of Salamaua.

Frankly Roosevelt and McKenzie King announced that U.S. and Canadian forces had retaken Kiska.

The recapture effectively put the continental United States and the Canadian provinces out of reach of Imperial Japanese forces.

Hal Block, Bob Hope, Barney Dean, Frances Langford and Tony Romano met General George S. Patton at a USO show in Sicily at which Patton asked Hope to tell his radio audience “that I love my men", perhaps hoping to counter the bad publicity that the slapping incident had caused.

You didn't see that in Patton.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—August 21, 1943: First “UT” convoy sails from New York, heavily escorted convoys carrying troops to England in build-up for Operation Overlord (D-day).

Saturday, August 19, 2023

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

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

August 19, 1943

The Citadel, Quebec.

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

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

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

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

It is agreed between us

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Secretary of War. (United States)

Dr. Vannevar Bush.  (United States)

Dr. James B. Conant.  (United States)

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

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

The Honourable C. D. Howe.  (Canada)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aug. 19th 1943

Approved

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill

Tube alloys were atomic weapons.

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

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


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

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Tuesday, August 17, 1943. Messina falls. Quebec Conference starts. Schweinfurt and Wewak bombed.

The U.S. 7th Army and the British 8th Army met in Messina.  Sicily was conquered.

Italian civilian returning home after German departure from Messina.

On the same day, Allied artillery began to bombard mainland Italy.

The Quebec Conference opened in Quebec City between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and William Lyon Mackenzie King.


King's role was only ceremonial.  Stalin had been invited but could not attend.  Military topics were the purpose of the meeting.

A target date for May 1 1944 was picked for the invasion of France, and September 3, 1943, for an invasion of Italy.


The U.S. Army Air Force carried out its first raid on German war production, bombing Schweinfurt.   The 376 plan raid lost 60 of its members.

B-17s over Schweinfurtt.

On the same day, the USAAF 5th Air Force began a five-day bombing campaign on Wewak on New Guinea.

The nocturnal engagement of the Battle off Horaniu saw the Japanese lose four auxiliary ships but evacuate 9,000 troops from Kolombangara in the Solomons.