Friday, May 5, 1944. Counterattack at Imphal.

The British 14th Army counterattacked at Imphal. 

Mahatma Gandhi was released from two years imprisonment due to ill health.  He'd never be imprisoned again.

Italy's Torre Dam was breached by RAF Mustangs and Australian and South African P40s.

The St. John the Baptist Church in Dragatuš, Slovenia, was destroyed in a German air raid on the town.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, May 4, 1944. Smoke on the Water.

1940s, 1944, 1944 at the Movies, Battle of Hollandia, Country & Western Music, Exercise Fabius, Hollandia, Hungary, Movies, New Guinea, Operation Overlord, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, World War Two

Monday, January 17, 1944. The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.

U.S. forward observer operating in support of British forces at Monte Cassino, January 17, 1944.

The British 56th and 5th Divisions attack at Monte Cassino, forcing a crossing of the Garigliano.  The German 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions were redeployed from the Rome as reinforcements.

The Red Army took Slavuta.

The Soviet Union rejected negotiations with the Polish Government In Exile over the Polish border.

While it was not really occurring, the Polish Home Army ordered Polish partisans not to cooperate with the Germans in attacking Soviet partisans operating in Poland.  Given the extreme repression by the Germans in Poland, there was little reason to fear that would occur.

Pravda reported a falsehood that British and German representatives had met on the Iberian Peninsula to discuss a separate peace.  The British Foreign Officer immediately denied the rumor.

Slovene partisans attack the Germans at Paški Kozjak.

The U-305 was lost in the Atlantic.

Australia began rationing meat.

Sunday, September 19, 1943. Wars within the war.

The Markham, Ramu and Finisterre campaigns on New Guinea began with an Allied offensive in the Ramu Valley.

The Ramu Valley campaign would continue on through November, with the overall campaign carrying on until April 1944.

The Battle of Turjak Castle in Slovenia ended in a Slovene partisan victory against the Anti Communist Volunteer Militia, formerly allied to the Italian Army.  Part of the wars within the war feature of World War Two.

German forces and Cham Albanians began the Paramythia executions of Greeks in Paramythia.

Lebanese Maronite Christian leader Bechara El Khoury met with Lebanese Sunni Muslim senior politician Riad Al Solh and worked out the National Pact.  Under it, an arrangement was arrived upon in which a free Lebanon would have a Christian President and a Muslim Prime Minister.

The St. Louis Cardinals took the National League pennat with a 2 to 1 victory over the Chicago Cubs.

May 3, 1941. Meet John Doe

The famous Capra film, Meet John Doe, was released on this date in 1941, which I only know as its mentioned here:

Today in World War II History—May 3, 1941

The film is regarded as a classic, but its one that I haven't seen.

Australian troops at Tobruk launched a counterattack, but were repulsed by Italians, while at sea the Italians took a bruising from the British.

Italy annexed part of Slovenia and termed it the Province of Ljuljana.  The annexation caused an odd ethnic relocation of the Gottschee population, which was German speaking, to a different portion of Slovenia which Germany had annexed as Hitler didn't want ethnic Germans in territory annexed into Italy.

October 10, 1920. An Historic World Series Game, The Passing of Hudson Stuck, A Carinthian Plebiscite

October 10, 1920, saw one of the greatest World Series games of all times, featuring two rarely seen events, a grand slam and an unassisted triple play.

Bill Wambsganss finishing his unassisted triple play

The World Series only unassisted triple play, one of only fifteen times that's been done at all in major league baseball, was performed by Cleveland Indian Bill Wambsganss.  The last out in it was captured by a photographer, making it one of the rare early baseball great events that was recorded in that fashion.

Wamgsganss and his outs.

The same game also saw Indian Elmer Smith hit the first grand slam in a World Series.

Cleveland won the game 8 to 1.

Wamgsganss' story was somewhat tinged with sadness.  He played for a total of thirteen years in the major leagues and went on to be a manager, but in an interview in the 1960s he noted that the triple play was the only thing anyone ever recalled about him.  Also, Cleveland struck a medal in his honor, but it was sadly lost on a train he was on that following April.

Wambsganss lived until age 91 and died in 1985.

Oddly, his teammate Elmer Smith, the other player who had such a notable game, also lived until age 91, dying the year prior to his teammate in 1984.

Also on this day, early Alaskan figure Hudson Stuck passed away from pneumonia at Fort Yukon.  He was 57 years old.

 

Stuck was the co-leader of the first expedition to climb Denali.

Stuck was an Englishman born in London who immigrated to the United States in 1885 after graduating from London's King's College.  In the US he worked as a cowboy and a teacher in Texas before enrolling in the Episcopal University of the South.  Following graduation he was ordained as an Episcopal Priest and served at first in Texas, where he was active in trying to provide relief to the poor and in opposing child labor.  He also preached against lynching at a time when it was at a Southern high.

In 1904 he went to Alaska where he was an Episcopal Archdeacon, a position in that church equivalent to a senior ordained clergyman.  Stuck exemplified muscular Christianity and was well suited for Alaska.  He was an Episcopal missionary priest there.  In 1913 he co-led, with Harry Karstens, the first ascent of Denali. He authored an excellent book on the topic, which I have read.  Two of his four books on his time in Alaska remain in print.

While the Episcopal Church has no means or process for canonizations, Stuck has a day on the Episcopal Church's calendar and is celebrated as a saint.

In Carinthia a plebiscite, which was designed as a two part process, determined that the majority of individuals in that region wished to remain in Austria.

Poster urging Slovenian speaking Corinthians to vote for union with Yugoslavia.

The Austrian empire had been particularly polyglot and accordingly its post war borders involved some confusion.  The southern portion of the country bordered the Slovenian region of Yugoslavia and the country was required to determine which country its residents wished to remain in.  It was thought that a sizable number would vote for union with Yugoslavia, and therefore a second plebiscite to determine which portions would be transferred was planned.  Instead the region voted to remain in Austria, where it remains to this day.

Slovenian language poster in which a young man urges his mother to vote for Austria lest he be conscripted into the Yugoslavian army.

While Slovenians are and were a tiny minority in the region, they became subject to oppression from the Austrian government between World War One and World War Two as Austria became increasingly nationalistic.  Not surprisingly, after the Anschluß they suffered even more and many were forced off of their farms. An active armed resistance movement formed in the region which has the distinction of being the only such entity that existed inside the borders of the Third Reich.  It was assisted and maintained in part through close association with guerilla forces in Yugoslavia.

Senior leadership of the Slovenian National Liberation Army in 1944, which was active in Carinthia.

Tensions between the two populations remain somewhat problematic to this day.