Saturday, August 30, 1941. Far away places.

For various reasons, I missed putting up the Anglo Soviet invasion of Iran when it occurred.  It commenced on August 25, 1941.

Soviet cavalry meeting British tankette.

On this day, it concluded with a ceasefire. The country would be occupied by the British and the Soviets for the remainder of World War Two.

Russian T-26 tank in Iran.

The Iranian military did resist, but ineffectively. The country would be occupied by the British and the Soviets throughout the war, with the British withdrawing on time in March 1946 but the Soviets refusing to do so, citing security concerns.  A complaint to the United Nations from Iran on this became the first such complaint filed with that then newly founded body. The Soviets withdrew in May, 1946.

British troops inspecting a Soviet 26, Soviet soldier on deck of tank.

Ultimately Iran became an Allied power and declared war on Germany.  The US contributed to the forces in Iran during the occupation, which assuaged Iranian fears of being absorbed as a colony by the occupying powers.  The Soviets did sponsor Communist groups that did create problems for the Iranian government, so it cannot be claimed that the occupation was wholly benign.

The Soviets launched a major counterattack near Smolensk which was successful, as to its objectives, but which sustained high casualties. The Germans also sustained high casualties.

The British conducted the first of two small nighttime commando raids on the Pas-de-Calais.

Tuesday August 5, 1941. Trends in the East.

The siege at Smolensk ended with the Germans taking 300,000 Red Army prisoners.

On the same day, the Provisional Government of Lithuania, frustrated in its hopes to secure an independent government for the country, disbanded.

Monday, July 28, 1941. Listening to the radio.

WLS 1941

A radio advertisement, with an agricultural theme, from this day in 1941.  The Chicago, Illinois radio station wanted to boost the concept of farmers listening to radio while they worked.

Farmers certainly listened to the radio.

Georgia farm family listening to the radio, April 1941.  This photo certainly suggest that their house was a bit cramped.

I don't listen to the radio while I work, but that's probably because of the type of work I do, usually.

Well, having said that, when I'm on the road I do. . .well I don't, not much.  I used to.  I used to listen mostly to NPR on the radio when I traveled, assuming that I wasn't listening to cassette tapes, then later CDS.  Indeed, I listened to some giant sized "books on tape", on CDs.

Then I started listening to XM Radio quite a bit.  After a while, however, I switched to podcasts once I figured them out and had an iPhone. And that's the norm today.  

I've had some secretaries over the years who listened to the radio.  I've always found it irritating, frankly, when they did, if I could hear it. Usually they kept it down so it wasn't loud enough to bother me.  They didn't all listen to the same thing, however.  One listened to talk radio all day long, which constitutes my only exposure to the late Rush Limbaugh.  Another for a while listed to Christian music, and then fundamentalist Christian broadcasts, and then later switched to regular old music.  As she once made a point of "only listening to Christian music", and then went to country music, but remained in a fundamentalist congregation, I'm not sure what that radio evolution meant, if anything.

I've only known one lawyer who listed to the radio while he worked.  Frankly, I could never grasp how a person could do that.

This photo, and the story, also points out the rapid advance of technology in the 20th Century.  Given the nature of appearances in photos in the 1940s, my guess is that the parents depicted here are probably in their 30s, maybe their late 30s.  Looking at them today, we'd place them older than that, but I doubt it.

Assuming I'm right, the parents here would have spent their adult lives, but not their youth's with radio.  Based on the appearance of the cabin they lived in, my guess is that they didn't have a lot of money to splurge spend, but their radio isn't ancient.  Most of their married years, they likely had a radio.  In their youth, they wouldn't have.  In a decade or so, if we were to stop in, they probably didn't live in quite so rustic of quarters, and they might have been thinking of getting a television.

If they were listening to the news, they might have heard that on the same day, Finland broke off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom.

This points out the peculiar relationship of Finland to the war once again.  It makes sense that the UK and Finland would not have diplomatic relations during the war.  Finland was lucky, however, that the Western Allies held their actions from going any further.  Had the Western Allies declared war on Finland, which they did on Romania, Finland's post 1945 fate would have no doubt been much different.

Radio listeners might also have heard, on this day in 41, that the Germans continued to advance, and the Soviets continued to resist.  The Germans closed in on the encircled Red Army in Smolensk, but the Red Army, in spite of having given up 100,000 prisoners there the day prior, fought on.  The Wehrmacht also narroed the Leningrad pocket,  but they didn't, and wouldn't, take the city.