Showing posts with label Red Cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red Cross. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Sunday, January 9, 1944. Advances on all fronts.

Red Cross helping men at 5th Army rest center prepare packages for sending home. 9 January, 1944.

The Red Army took Polonne and Kamianets-Podilskyi.

Polonne had been within Poland until the Russo Polish War, when it went to the Soviets in 1920.  It had a major Jewish population before World War Two.  Kamianets-Podilskyi had also been part of the post World War One Polish state until 1920.

The U-81 was sunk at Pola Italy by American aircraft.

The US 2nd Corps attacked Cervaro and Monte Trochio in Italy.


The US constructed a second airfield on Bougainville.

Pvt. R. Dennis, 182nd Infantry, Americal Division, Bougainville, January 9, 1944.

Allied forces took Maungdaw in Burma.

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame was born on this day in 1944.

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Sunday, October 19, 1943. Prisoner Exchange.

For the first time in the war, the United Kingdom and Germany engaged in a prisoner exchange.  4,340 Allied POWs, all sick or injured, were exchanged for 835 German POWs.  The Swedish Red Cross supervised the exchange, which took place in Sweden.  Seventeen Americans were included in the group.

On the same day, Allied aircraft sank the German-controlled cargo ship MS Sinfra in the Mediterranean.  Ironically, the 2,000 casualties were mostly Italian internees.

The Red Army broke out of the Kremenchug bridgehead.

Paul Robeson.

Paul Robeson made his Broadway debut, portraying Othello.  Robeson was a great singer, and a great, if tortured and misguided, intellect.  He obtained a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1923 while playing for hte NFL, which was integrated far earlier than baseball was.

Streptomycin was first isolated in a laboratory.

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Sunday, July 11, 1923. Allied Success, and Disaster, in Sicily. Massacres in Poland.

Patton, in a famous pose, on the ground in Gela, Sicily on this day in 1943.

The Allies captured the Sicilian port cities of Syracuse (Siracusa), Licata, Gela, Pachino, Avola, Noto, Pozzallo, Scoglitti, Ispica and Rosolini.

US Navy gunners opened up on US transport aircraft carrying paratroopers at Gela that evening, resulting in the deaths of over 300 of them in the worst friendly fire incident in the war to date.   The Luftwaffe had earlier attempted a nighttime raid on the ships much earlier in the day, making the gunners nervous.  The disaster commenced when a single ship's gunner opened up on passing C-47s and C-53s.

The USS Boise crossing the bow of the USS LSST-325 while firing on German armored forces near Gela,  July 11, 1943.

The Navy, however, also saved the day at Gela on this day by stopping an armored counterattack with ship to shore fire.  And Patton came ashore at the same city that day.  Both events are depicted in movies, with the first in The Big Red One, and the second in Patton.

Red Cross field director James P. Show would perform acts of heroism on this day which would result in the Silver Star.  His citation would read:

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Mr. James P. Shaw a United States Civilian, for gallantry in action while serving as Field Director, American Red Cross, attached to the *** Infantry, in action on 11 July 1943, near Licata, Sicily. On that date, an enemy dive bomber scored a direct hit on a landing craft which had almost reached its position for debarkation. Mr. Shaw, who was already ashore, immediately left his position of comparative security, waded back into the rough water and assisted many men to safety. He continued to assist until the last man had been brought to shore and the wounded cared for. All of these acts were performed at the risk of his life because of attacking enemy airplanes, the explosion of ammunition on the damaged craft, and the turbulent and treacherous water. The gallantry of Mr. Shaw on this occasion is a distinct credit to himself and the American Red Cross.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the military arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist OUN-B branch, attacked 99 Polish settlements in Wołyń Province of Poland.  Attacks were carried out in what became known as the Vohynian Bloody Sunday on Kisielin, Poryck, Chrynów, Zabłoćce, and Krymn.  Attacks coincided with local attendance at Mass.

The massacre campaign was part of a OUN-B effort, which is sometimes called the Volyn (Wołyń) Tragedy, to clear Poles from the territory east of the Bug River, and dated back to the difficulties that existed in drawing a border between Poland, Ukraine and Belarus following World War One.  The OUN itself was split into OUN-B and OUN-M.  The OUN itself dated back to 1929 when it formed and absorbed other Ukrainian independence movements.  It was a right wing organization which picked up elements of fascism early on, and the Nazism later.  OUN-M was named for one of the OUN's founders, Andriy Melnyk, who declared Ukraine independent after the German invasion of the country during World War Two. OUN-B, named for Stepan Bandera, was much more radical and indeed the two organizations fought each other.  OUN-B came to dominate.

A far right organization in general, and in the case of OUN-B radically so, the organization picked up much of the extreme far right attitudes of the day, including being racist, deeply nationalist, and anti-clerical (indeed Melnyk's personal conservatism and Catholicism made Melnyk at odds with the views of his own organization).  OUN-B principally attacked Poles during the war and was allied to the Germans until the Germans began to collapse, at which time it eschewed its fascist ideology and took on a pro-democracy one.  The UPA would fight against the Soviets and Poles after the conclusion of the Second World War.

The genocidal effort against the Poles was bizarre in a way in that not only was it horrifically violent, but it ultimately served the interests of the Soviet Union in creating an ethnic line of demarcation which was west of the Bug.  While the majority of victims were Poles, some Ukrainian civilians who opposed the actions or who were not of the same brand of nationalist as the UPA.  Several hundred Jews, Russians, Czech and Georgians who were part of Polish families or who sheltered Poles were murdered.  Total Polish victim numbers are hard to determine, but they were ultimately between 50,000 to 100,000, mostly killed during July and August 1943.

Melnyk would escape to the West after the war and died in Luxembourg at age 73, in 1964.  Bandera was assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959.  He was 50 years old.

Monday, August 29, 2022

Saturday, August 29, 1942. The appearance of the Tiger 1.

The Panzerkampfwagen VI, famously known as the Tiger, or in this instance the Tiger I tank, made its battlefield appearance outside of Leningrad.  The Soviets were making a determined effort to relieve the city.

Captured Tiger 1 in U.S. possession.

The Tiger was a feared German weapon, and justifiably so.  Classified as a heavy tank, with much more armor than previous German tanks, and armed with an 88 mm main gun, it can be regarded as one of the first tanks, along with the T34, that pointed the way towards the Main Battle Tank of the post-war period, although that concept was still years away.  Indeed, it might be better able to claim the position of having essentially occupied that role prior to any other tank.

1,347 were made during the war.  Mechanically complicated due to over engineering, it had a high breakdown rate.  It was so feared by the Western Allies that troops routinely reported German tanks to be Tigers, no matter what they actually were.

On the same day the Soviet Air Force bombed Berlin in a nighttime raid using 100 Petlyakov Pe-8, Ilyshin II-4 and Yermolayev Yer 2 bombers.  A small party of Pe-8s bombed Königsberg.

The first class of officers for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps graduated.

The Saturday Evening Post featured P38 Lightenings on its cover.

I failed to note the August 1, 1942, cover, which featured a cover illustration of a Marine in the newly adopted herringbone tweed cotton dungarees. The Marine in question is wearing the Marine's khaki summer shirt underneath his hbt jacket, and it was in fact a jacket.  It was rarely worn that way, however, typically being worn as simply a shirt.  He's also wearing the M1 helmet and carrying a M1903 Springfield, all of which was typical gear at this point in the war and all of which reflected the appearance of the average Marine going into Guadalcanal.

Worth noting, however, is that at this point the hbt uniform was so new the Marines only issued a single set to its men.  Marines landing at Guadalcanal had only one, that is, set of hbt dungarees.

The Red Cross announced that the Japanese had refused the free passage of ships carrying food and medicine to American POWs.

Sunday, April 18, 2021

April 18, 1921. Service.

On this Monday, April 18, 1921, Edith Barnett, who had died serving as an American nurse in far off Siberia, was remembered with a tombstone marked in English and Russian.  She had died of Typhus while serving as a Red Cross nurse there.

Some Gave All: April 18, 1921. "Grave of Edith Barnett of New Yo...:  

April 18, 1921. "Grave of Edith Barnett of New York City. An American Red Cross nurse who died in Siberia, Aug. 15, 1919. Monument placed at Tomsk, Siberia on April 18, 1921. Photograph taken on April 19, 1921"



Ontario voted, in a plebiscite, to ban the sale and importation of alcohol by a 60% margin.  An attempt at repealing the ordinance the following year by the same means failed.

How would you have voted?  I'm not a teetotaler, but I'm sure I would have voted for the measure.

Jacksonville Florida was photographed from the St. John's Bridge.

View of the Jacksonville Florida St John's Bridge, April 18, 1921.

President Harding seems to have had a busy day greeting groups.
Harding with Community House Kids.  I'm not sure who they were, but it appears to probably be a church based group.
Harding and Women's Commission for World Disarmament.  The group obviously did not succeed in its goals.

Gen. Herbert Lord of the Quartermaster Corps received an award consisting of draft horseshoes.

I don't know the actual occasion, but it may have been recognizing his service which was principally in administering its budget.  He'd go on to occupy the position of head of the OMB, although under a different title at the time, in the Harding Administration.


Thursday, April 1, 2021

April 1, 1921. Firsts and strikes.

On this day in 1921, SAKO, the legendary Finnish firearms manufacturer, was founded.  On that date, more technically, it obtained independence from the Civil Guard which had founded it as a repair shop in 1919.

Owned in later years by the Finnish Red Cross, Nokia and Valmet, today the company is owned by Barretta, a family owned Italian concern famous for its firearms.  The company is highly respected for its hunting rifles.

On the same day, a notable first flight occured:

The Aerodrome: April 1, 1921. Adrienne Bolland flies over the An...

April 1, 1921. Adrienne Bolland flies over the Andes.

Adrienne Bolland, a pilot employed by René Caudron to demonstrate his airplanes in South America, flew a Caudron G.3 from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile, across the Andes Mountain Range.

From this Day In Aviation

Also on this day, striking coal miners were locked out of their mines in the United Kingdom.

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

February 25, 1920. The Mineral Leasing Act becomes law


The Casper Daily Tribune was exactly correct, the measure built the way for the oil industry in Wyoming.

Prior to the Oil Leasing Act oil prospects were located, where the Federal government owned the resource, though the Mining Law of 1872.  The act changed the location system to the benefit of both production companies and the Federal government by allowing the resource to be leased through the much simpler leasing system.  Ultimately, this benefited the state through allowing this simpler system to be utilized and by allowing non appropriated lands to remain solidly in the Federal domain, as the Mining Law of 1872 allowed lands to be patented and become private through location.


This is, of course, still the system that's used today.

Elsewhere, the American mission to Russia was coming home, including the Red Cross mission, from which a party of nurses arrived in San Francisco.

Ten of the Red Cross women workers with the A.R.C. Commission to Siberia waving their greetings to their homeland as the transport "Sherman" docked in San Francisco Harbor February 25, 1920.



Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Christmas, 1919.

And so Christmas, one year out from the end of the Armistice, arrived.


Much of the news had returned to the routine, although one big new event for much of the country, Prohibition, was making the holiday season a bit different this year, which most newspapers were celebrating.

Otherwise, in the US, the season had returned much to normal, and was very recognizable to us today.


Which included the day for foreign residents living in the U.S.

Christmas morning, Ecuadorian legation, 1919.

The Red Cross remained at work in the distressed regions of the world, including in Siberia, where an effort was made to being Christmas joy to Russian orphans.  You have to wonder how the future for these children played out and if they recalled this Christmas in 1919.










Thursday, November 28, 2019

November 28, 1919. The Union Pacific Gives Up, Mexico erupts, Ships launched and Heroines


The Union Pacific declared that it was giving up the search for Bill Carlisle on this post Thanksgiving Day (prior to it being Black Friday) and it was blaming Wyomingites for that.  It held that they were too sympathetic to the train robber and lambasted the state's residents for that in no uncertain terms.

Meanwhile, US trouble with Mexico continued on but Mexico itself was sliding towards yet another eruption of revolutionary violence.


Miss Margaret Ferrand at the launching of the Amcross

The Red Cross was honored for its role in the recent war by having a 9,000 ton merchant vessel named in its honor.  "Amcross" was the American Red Cross cable code during the war.






In Washington D. C. "Trixie" was honored for her role in stopping a crime.  Her barks had alerted her tailor shop owner of an attempted break in.

""Trixie" heroine of an attempted burglary upon the tailor shop of J.E. Chatard, Washington, D.C. "Trixie" warned her master of the presence of the would-be house-breakers and then assisted him in routing them." 

Margaret Simonds was also honored in the papers for having received a visit from the Prince of Wales while he was in the U.S.  The papers informed readers that she was well known on both sides of the Atlantic.






Monday, September 23, 2019

September 23, 1919. Trips and foreign lands.

President Wilson, travelling on the Union Pacific was planning stops for Wyoming towns along the way, and the press was reporting on them a day ahead of his scheduled arrival.


Wilson, as we've noted here already, was making a hectic tour across the United States in support of the Versailles Treaty.  On this day, he delivered speeches in Ogden and Salt Lake City Utah, before traveling on to Wyoming. The Laramie Boomerang noted it, with that "1:50" time being 1:50 a.m., very early in the morning.  In other words, after leaving Utah, he was traveling through Wyoming in the evening and nighttime hours.


One of the Cheyenne papers noted that children wouldn't be allowed at the event.

We haven't checked in on the world scene here for awhile, and we'd note that while President Wilson was touring in support of a treaty that he was confident would end wars, wars were raging, including a war in Turkey. The Red Cross was still active there.

"On the road - Sept. 23, 1919 - near Kurds' camp after being fired upon--Col. beeuwkes attending the sick".  LoC title.

And while the President was away, Congress remained in session.

Arizona Senator  Henry F. Ashurst.  I don't know much about Ashurst but I've linked this both for the reason that the photo was taken on this day in 1919, and for the dress he is affecting.  It's common to depict Western Senators dressed in a Western fashion, and Ashurst here has affected a fairly typical and even modern style of cowboy hat to go with his Edwardian suit.  Note the extremely high waistline however, and the stiff collar.

While Woodrow Wilson was traveling, Walt Wallet was cleaning up due to the recent Gasoline Alley gang camping trip.