Showing posts with label World War Two. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War Two. Show all posts
Thursday, April 16, 2026
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Friday, April 12, 1946. Chips.
Chips, who had started off his life as a family pet and who went on to be the most decorated American war dog of the Second World War, died. He served in the Algerian-Moroccan, Tunisian, Sicilian, Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns and won the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart prior to the military ruling that only human beings could receive such awards.
He was returned to his owners, where he later died, after the war.
Last edition:
Thursday, April 11, 1946. Nostra culpa.
Thursday, April 9, 2026
Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Thirteenth Edition. The MAGA Cannibal.
April 9, 2026
He's eating his own.
Make no mistake, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelley, Candace Owens and Alex Jones deserve no sympathy. But their Trump's little lap dogs. The fact that he's attacking his own is profound. Trump has very few friends, and he's going after them. There are fewer and fewer people in the bunker.
We might actually be on the very cusp of the 25th Amendment being applied.
Last edition:
Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Twelfth Edition. He's insane, we all know it, and he's in power. This will get much, much, worse.
Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Twelfth Edition. He's insane, we all know it, and he's in power. This will get much, much, worse.
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Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. One man worried his cabinet who planned around a possible mental collapse that didn't come, the other is having a mental collapse and his cabinet is doing nothing.
We later learned that in 1973 as Nixon came under increased pressure due to Watergate, his aids feared he would do something rash. Nixon was reacting badly under the stress. He was lashing out. He was drinking heavily.
Of course, in the end, he resigned.
Donald Trump, who like Hitler doesn't drink, is visibly collapsing before our eyes. He's obviously been in a state of mental decline for a decade now, and its increasing. He was heavily impaired when elected, making any rational person wonder why he was elected to the office, other than that people the weird insurrectionist feared that Joe Biden's dementia was too advanced to allow for him to hold office again, something that history should not forgive Biden for. Even that doesn't really explain it, as Harris was the alternative in the end, for people who play along with the two party system nightmare that actually doesn't have to exist.
A major difference between late stage Nixon and late stage Trump, other than that Nixon was not insane (a major difference) is that Nixon was surrounded by sane, if not always admirable, advisors. Trump is surrounded by sycophants.
That's a huge difference as we now know that Nixon's advisors consulted amongst themselves about his mental state. They were worried about it. None of them were as deeply loyal to Nixon at all costs as Trump's sycophantic advisors are to him.
Many, including me, have wondered how it is that Trump's cabinet hasn't acted to replace him. Heather Cox Richardson, in one of her video shorts, has provided the answer. The people surrounding Trump have nowhere else to go.
In Trump's first administration his cabinet included sane people. Trump didn't know how to take office and in fact his natural laziness kept him from really ever fully forming a government. That natural laziness came into effect when he was elected a second time. He was kept from acting like a king in his first term as his advisor wouldn't let him, and he didn't like that. In his second term he wanted people who would slavishly do what he wanted without question, and he got them almost exclusively.
Why these people are in this position is another matter. Some got there as they believe in Trump. Others were placed their by forces supporting Trump, knowing that he was too lazy to actually do the work to pick competent people. The Heritage Society, for example, saw Trump as a hollow vessel they could pour their radicalization through.
Trump's cabinet, therefore, is much like Hitler's. Where was Goebbels going to go? And Trump's true followers are much like members of the German SS, who fought to the bitter end. They didn't see a future, literally, in a post war Germany where they figured they'd be killed, if not by the Allies, then by the Germans. MAGA still shows up like the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne, the French SS unit that went down fighting in Berlin. They thought the alternative to that was a bullet in the back of the head. Real Trump loyalist show up as they fear that if Trump fails, or more likely when he does, they're era is over. And like the SS in Berlin, they fanatically hope that Der Fuehrer will pull off a miracle, which he won't, or that they'll be saved by some mysterious outside force at the last hour.
That won't happen either.
Many people have wondered how the Germans were so cowed by a leader who was sending them into a disaster. It can't be said that Americans are. Only 30% of Americans actually support Trump. Probably an equal if not larger number outright hate him at this point. If the election was held today the Republicans would loose both houses, and in November when the election is held, they will.
But here's the dangerous thing. Between now and November the leadership of the US is in the bunker and Der Fuehrer is insane.
I've long held that Trump would be removed in 2026 by the 25th Amendment. I hadn't considered, however, the points Richardson raises. He still might be but as she notes if Trump goes down, they all go down with him. They're a bunch of cowardly sycophants and they do not appear to be willing to save their country any more than Goebbels was.
Still, even in Hitler's cabinet not everyone was unquestionably loyal towards the end. Himmler actually serious considered trying to cut a separate deal with the Allies and effectively remove Hitler via a coup. There was even one SS member in the July 20 plot. It remains possible, but only barely so, that the cabinet will vote to save itself.
We know that at least a few people in the cabinet likely are willing to do that. J. D. Vance is one. Marco Rubio another. Both of them hope to be President and neither benefits from going down with Trump. I've long thought they were playing out this string until they could act. But two men alone won't get it done. There's likely a few more, but only few. None of the ass kissers in cabinet meetings are amongst them.
Which brings us to this. Over the next few months things are going to be extremely bad. Trump's mental state is declining so rapidly it's difficult to gauge. He's going to pull out of the war he joined with Israel which will be a major defeat he can't disavow. The economy will not rapidly recover and he can't blame that on Biden. He's lost the Hispanic vote and he won't be able to get it back. The Arab American vote which dimly voted for him is lost as well. The people who are left in his cabinets who openly support him increasingly look like outright kooks. The financial flood to his family is not being ignored and is very likely to result in post Trump criminal prosecutions, maybe of Trump himself.
And yesterday, a judge made clear that his obscene bordello on the Potomac addiction to the White House will never happen.
He's a desperate, and demented, man.
Trump, from now to November, will try to steal the November election. He's already trying. And he'll do every odd thing imaginable or never imagined to try to deflect attention form his failure. There will be no limit to what he will try. Invasions of Cuba and Greenland are possible, with Cuba almost a certainty. Deals with Russia, or China, or whomever. Attempts to cancel the election, or seize the polls are probable. Ignoring the courts a near certainty.
The 25th Amendment should save us from this but might not. Impeachment of Trump should occur, but will not, unless there's a massive post November shift in Congress.
Instead, expect things to get worse and worse. And expect the few members of the administration who aren't willing to go down in the bunker to start resigning. Vance can't, Trump being removed or dying in office is his only hope of being President. Rubio can, and he will, likely before November.
April 6, 2026
Trump's mental status is collapsing.
That post, posted on Easter, read like something a drunk man would post, and frankly but for the fact that we believe Trump doesn't drink, this post would receive that speculation.
This post has renewed public demands for invocation of the 25th Amendment, and it should. Trump is insane. The reference to God in Arabic is insulting to Muslims, the vast majority of whom have nothing to do with Iran or its leadership.
We're committing war crimes under the leadership of a madman.
I'll note I'm not the only one whose concerned.
I'd originally posted that yesterday as a standalone, which I've taken down as I've posted it here. But what I'll note is that Klungman doesn't say what a lot of us are thinking. Trump is, in my view, edging up on using an atomic bomb.
In normal times, which these are not, there'd be sufficient people around him to probably put a halt to that. Now there aren't. The cabinet appears to be nearly complete flunkies. We'll know this is true if Trump remains in power this week. The military is being stripped of those who oppose rationality.
We not only live in dangerous times, we live in times in which the most powerful nation on earth is governed by a madman.
At this point anybody running in the fall with an "Endorsed by President Trump" (this means you, Delgenfelder) is absolutely unqualified for office.
By the way, the man whom Evangelicals and some others routinely praise as a great Christian spent the day riding around in Washington DC and visiting one of his golf courses. No attendance at church.
cont:
Today is a very special day. It's a day where we celebrate Jesus. It's a day where we celebrate religion. It's an honor to be the president. Our country is doing so well. We've broken every record in the stock market. We've broken every record in our military. And what about the rescue?
Donald Trump in an Easter speech. He's insane.
cont:
If I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil, because it's there for the taking…Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. If it were up to me, I'd take the oil. I'd keep the oil. I would make plenty of money.
Trump. What a morally bankrupt human being.
cont:
I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this I can got to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take long. I'm good at language. I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president.
Trump again.
There are a pile of these from today. Trump is bat shit crazy. Supporting him at this point is criminal, and not invoking the 25th Amendment is as well. He's completely, utterly, insane.
April 7, 2026
Today we have the news that the insane Donald Trump, in addition to declaring his intention to run for the Presidency of Venezuela (don't discount that with any of the numerous excuses his apologist give for his bat shit crazy statements, we should assume he means it), is defending his statement about keeping Iranian oil on the basis that he's "a businessman" and "to the victors, go the spoils".
Today we're promised a full slate of war crimes.
We offer here a bit of a note.
Often people with a psychotic criminal drive they cannot control hope for intervention. Trump is so out of control right now there's more than a little reason to believe that he's hoping for the same. He has no way out, he's lived a life of utter depravity. The 25th Amendment and hope supervision get him out of the mess he's created, and frankly away from a host of people he probably doesn't like.
Cont:
Even this threat is immoral.
If carried out, it's murder.
Only the immoral will support a thing like this. Donald Trump is a deranged monster.
April 9, 2026
Having learned that being a demented madman didn't impress Iran, he's back at it again with Greenland.
This man needs to be removed from office now. The 25th Amendment needs to be applied immediately.
Last edition:
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Eleventh Edition. He's insane, and we all know it. Somebody close to him is watching it.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Tuesday, March 25, 1946. Crisis in Iran averted. Navy veteran turns out to be 10th Mountain Division deserter.
A Second World War, over Iran, was averted.
The day's cartoons.
Last edition:
Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Wednesday, March 24, 1976. Passing of Field Marshal Montgomery.
Bernard Law Montgomery died at age 88.
Of Scots Irish descent, he was born in Kennington, England to a Church of Ireland cleric and grew up principally in Australia when his father was appointed Bishop of Tasmania. He was commissioned an Army officer in 1908. He became a British Field Marshall during World War Two and is justifiably famous. He was deputy commander of NATO until 1958, when he retired at age 70.
Isabel Peron was deposed.
Last edition:
Tuesday, March 16, 1976. Wilson resigns at the point where Trump should have.
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Friday, March 15, 1946. Soviets in Iran.
The phony baloney Soviet constitution as amended to increase the number of republics in the U.S.S.R. from 11 to 16, and to give the head of each republic a position in the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, meaning nothing whatsoever.
Prime Minister Clement Attlee declared in the House of Commons the government's intention to grant British India its independence, stating.
India herself must choose as to what will be her future situation and her position in the world", said Attlee, adding that "If ... she elects for independence—and in our view she has a right to do so—it will be for us to help make the transition as smooth and easy as possible.
The UK was, at this time, in the advance stages of divesting itself of its empire while causing its former Imperial subjects to believe that they were forcing it. To this day, Indian likes to give the UK a guilt trip, which perhaps its entitled to do, but its not like they forced the British out. The British sprinted out.
Truman exhibited confidence about the Soviets over Iran.
This is quite the contrast to Donny, who loves Putin almost as much as he loves himself.
And:
Seriously, Hemingway, why even bother?
Surplus was proving a problem:
Some interesting back country ski boots were offered. These were much like telemarking boots when I took that up in the 1980s, save for the bindings. And these were pretty much like what my mother, who learned to ski in the 30s and 40s, used her whole life.
Last edition:
Wednesday, March 13, 1946. Strikes end.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Movies In History: Der Tiger
I watched this 2025 German movie a couple of months ago and hadn't gotten around to posting a review of it. With the launching of a Donald Trump war against Iran, it feels a bit odd to do so now.
This review contains spoilers.
Der Tiger, released in the US as The Tank, is about, on the surface, an improbable mission given to the crew of a German Tiger tank that has just seemingly survived the detonation of a bridge to go deep into Soviet territory and rescue a behind the lines German commander who was apparently on some secret mission commanding a body of men likewise behind the lines. Their former CO, they learn that he did not die, as claimed, at Stalingrad. Because of the nature of the film, it's been compared, unfairly as in my view, with Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness, upon which its based, but the theme is completely different.
Going into it, on the surface the premise is absurd. A tank would make a very poor means of rescuing anyone, let along a Tiger I was was very prone to mechanical breakdown. They're far from stealthy. And the Eastern Front, like the Western Front, was a dense combat environment. It wouldn't work.
And that's not actually what the film is about.
In reviews of this film, a lot of reviewers are simply baffled by it. The excellent Fighting On Film podcast was one. But, from a certain prospective, the film makes perfect sense.
That sense is a Catholic one.
I don't know if the director is Catholic, but if he isn't, he's heavily invested in Catholic views. The clues are there throughout the entire film, from beginning to end. The tank and its crewmen (with one exception) aren't on a mission to rescue their former commander, whom they do meet at a bunker, but rather they're on a trip, literally, to Hell.
During the trip we learn of the reason why.
Everything is there. Odd grim reminders. One wounded tank crewman is is taken out of the stricken tank to go into "the light". A Mass, in Latin, is on the radio, which the Nazi era German radio would never have broadcast. The entry into the bunker is guarded by metaphorical angels, although they superficially do not seem to be so. The fires of Hell are at the end.
All in all, frankly, this film, which is nearly 100% metaphorical, is very well done, but a person needs to be aware of the imagery and background, which I suspect a German audience, where the two significant Christian religions are Catholicism and Lutheranism, which is based on it, may be more than most American ones, in order to grasp it.
In material details, this movie is pretty good, although it seems odd to even discuss the topic in this film. The depictions of German and Soviet armor are excellent, and the uniform details well done. The tank crew, as mentioned, is of the SS, and they wear SS tank crew uniforms.
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Monday, December 31, 1945. The end of a historical episode and the dawn of a new one.*
Ad from the Sheridan newspaper, December 31, 1945.
December 31, 1945, marked the first peacetime New Years in much of the world, although not all of the world was at peace.
1945 marked the end of what we consider the oddly nostalgically recalled, but undeniably bloody, 1940s. It's the operation of Yeoman's Eleventh Law of History, which provides:
1945 was the end of World War Two, and the beginning of the post war era, and era which we still live in. It was the penultimate year of the 1940s, and to some degree, the penultimate year of the long 20th Century.1 It was the year that the Second World War ended with a massive technological nuclear flash, but it was also the year that featured the bloodiest fighting in a unified war that began as a series of wars in 1937 and 1939.
The end of the Second World War determined, or seemed to determine, questions that had arisen with the end of the Great War in 1918. World War One had caused the death of the old order in much of Europe, an order that saw aristocracies dominate in varying degrees in many of the European, and indeed international, states. The strain on the old order was obvious even before World War One, but it remained strong nonetheless. The Great War killed it.
The death of the old order did not answer the question of what would replace it. Every nation that fought in the war, however, would see immediate political evolution due to the war, with all of it reflecting forces that had been at work before the war. In functioning democratic countries with stable governments, that resulted in an expanded franchise. The UK extended the vote to entire classes that had not had it before the war, allowed Ireland to go independent, more or less, allowed its dominions to be actually independent, and extended the vote to women. The US extended the vote to women and soon made Native Americans citizens, with new states being admitted to the union prior to the Second World War. Canada and Australia obtained true political independence.
In countries that had strong aristocracies that opposed democracy, however, radical elements of the far left that had been underground to some degree leaped forward, the prime example being Imperial Russia, which became the Soviet Union. As forces of the far left advanced, finding a great deal of support in in the formerly disenfranchised working class, forces of the far right appealed to the same base and to conservative aristocratic classes, crushing democratic forces in between, as in Germany, where the Nazis gained power. In unstable democracies without long histories of democratic behavior, forces of the left and the right contested for total control, as in France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Mexico, with democracy faltering in many to some degree, sometimes totally.
World War Two was not, as some like to claim, a continuation of World War One, but rather a violent sorting out of the democratic, anti democratic, and populist forces it had unleashed. Starting in the late 1920s it seemed that the question the world was faced with was whether the future was democratic, fascist or communist. The Second World War determined, at least it seemed, that the world would not be fascist, but left the question of whether it would be communists or democratic undetermined.
Determining the question was bloody on a scale that we can no longer even imagine, although in terms of human history it was not all that long ago. The expenditure of lives in the war by all contestants was enormous, with the fascist and the communists states freely willing to waste the lives of men, and the democratic ones emphasizing technology where they could. All the combatants, however, acclimated themselves to conduct that at least the democratic ones would not have tolerated prior to the war, with mass bombing of urban targets being the most notable. By 1945 the US, arguably the most moralistic of the combatants, was willing to engage in fire bombing and ultimately the atomic bomb to bring the war to a conclusion.
Truman as Time's Man of the Year, posted under fair use exception.
The significance of the atomic age, contrary to the way things are currently remembered, was appreciated immediately. Truman was Time magazine's Man of the Year, pictured in front of a fist grasping nuclear firebolts. Newspapers, even by late 1945, were pondering what atomic warfare would mean.
The war not only determined that fascism would not be the future of Europe, or Asia, but it it changed everything about everything, and much of that not for the good.
We've argued it here before, but the Second World War created the modern United States, and more than that, modern American culture, in both good, and bad, ways.
Tire rationing came to an end on this day in 1945.
The most oblivious, at first was the change to the economy, which was little understood. Pent up consumer demand dating back to the start of the Great Depression meant that the country did not slide back into the depression as nearly all Western economist had feared. Adding to this, however, was the fact that none of the European industrial powers, along with Japan, had not suffered some level of industrial destruction. The U.S.'s industrial base was not only left intact, it had expanded. Only Canada could claim to enjoy the same situation, although its economy was much smaller. American workers took advantage of the situation nearly immediately with a wave of strikes demanding higher wages, strikes that were in fact largely successful. The economic golden age that current Republican populists imagine to have existed in the past reached its most pronounced form in the 1950s which is still looked back upon fondly, if inaccurately, in the same way that singer Billy Joel imagined it to have been in his lamet Allentown
Well our fathers fought the Second World WarSpent their weekends on the Jersey ShoreMet our mothers in the USOAsked them to danceDanced with them slowAnd we're living here in Allentown
The obliteration of European industry created the illusion of some sort of American economic uniqueness that remains to this day and which the country is presently attempting to sort out by restoring it, which will not and cannot work. Part of that also involves an imagined domestic perfection that doesn't' reflect what was going on in reality either.
Prior to the Second World War the domestic culture of the United States was different in nearly every fashion. Even the horrors of World War One had not changes that. Most Americans lived closer to the poverty line than they do today, even if most Americans lived in families. Most Americans did not attend college or university, and most men didn't graduate from high school. There was a minimum of surplus wealth on the part of the average, although that had started to change by imd 1920s, only to be retarded by the Great Depression. Most people did not move far from home. Most men and women married people who grew up near them and were part of the same class and religion, although a surprisingly large lifelong bachelor class existed, particularly in certain occupations.
The war changed nearly all of that, and even during the war itself.
The first peacetime Federal draft in the nation's history took thousands of young men away from their homes starting in 1940 and 41, and of course became the major wartime draft that continued on until after the war, and with some hiatus, basically until 1973. The country would not have tolerated a peacetime draft prior to 1940, and barely did in 1940 and 1941. The country's views on the military, which prior to the war was sort of a type of disdain but acceptance of it as necessary, as long as it was small, completely changed during the war so that by the war's end the concept of a large peacetime military was fully accepted, and even admired, although that would be disrupted again due to the Vietnam War for a time.
Prior to the war, soldiering was, for enlisted men and junior officers, a bachelor occupation with servicemen largely looked down upon as lazy. The enlisted ranks often contained large numbers of immigrants, although that is still true. After the war, the view of servicemen, many of whom for decades were conscripts on relatively short enlistments changed radically.
The expectation of marriage changed as well, even at a time that wartime marriages came into periods of great stress. Prior to the war a fair number of blue collar workers and nearly all non owner agricultural workers were lifelong bachelors.
Cowboys Out Our Way from December 31, 1945. The two working hands are discussing "Sugar", their former ranch cook, who just married a rich widow, and Stiffy, the oldest cowhand on the ranch.
Lots of couples got divorced in fairly quick order as well.
This was because of a "marry in haste" situation that had broken out during the war. Couples who figured that the male's chances of surviving the great blood letting were fairly slim and were willing to accordingly gamble, where as previously they would not have been. Moreover, many of the couples that married were of different backgrounds and different regions of the country, and not the literal "girl next door" so often portrayed. A really good portrayal of the this sort of situation was given in the brilliant 1946 film The Best Years of Their Lives, which gave a dramatic, but fairly accurate, examination of the domestic situation of the post war years. Of note, 1946 also gave the country It's a Wonderful Life, which really portrayed the prewar, not the wartime or postwar, domestic ideal.
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The amazing film The Best Years of Our Lives which captured the immediate impact of World War Two on Americans.
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It's a Wonderful Life, also released in 1946, but which really portrayed the nature of American life from the 1910s until the late 1930s, although it was set in 1946. It's gone on to be a sentimental Christmas classic.
One of the things The Best Years of Their Lives examined was divorce, which had been disdained, with good reason, prior to the war. Now it was becoming rapidly accepted, which was a major evolution in American domestic culture, and not a good one. And of course it wasn't just this. Divorce became common post war in a way that it never had been before, and the concept of divorce without fault was introduced. First introduced by a modern nation in 1917 in Russia, and codified by the Communist in 1926, it was introduced into the United States in California in 1969 where it was signed into law by the divorced (1949) and remarried (1952) Governor Ronald Reagan.
The Best Years of Their Lives also depicts fairly heavy drinking, and not in an accepting fashion, but in a relatively realistic one .That was also something that the war really brought in. Returning veterans were often very broken men, and alcohol abuse was an enduring feature of their lives, along with chronic cigarette smoking. This bled over into the culture in general and an increased acceptance of heavy alcohol use became common, and indeed is something often featured in post war films in a routine fashion. Men who had endured killing on a mass scale often never really adjusted back to a normal life, and resorted to the bottle in varying degrees.
At least by my observation, some of these men became downright mean. We hate to say that about "The Greatest Generation", but it's an enduring theme of the recollections of many of their children. Alcoholic fathers who were extremely demanding on their male children seems to have been routine. Again, by my observation, many of the same children, who went on to rebel during the 1960s, returned to their childhood roots and became mean demanding fathers to their own children, making World War Two the domestic abuse gift that keeps on giving.
While certainly most returning veterans did not become mean, or abusive, it has to be noted that the Second World War started the country off on a destruction of the natural relationship between men and women we're also still dealing with.
Not since the American Civil War had so many young men been taken away from their homes and never in the country's history had so many young men been kept in the company of young men overseas. War involves the ultimate vice, the killing of other human beings, and all other vices naturally come along with it, in varying degrees by personality, and by military culture.
All wars involve the abuse of women, the most spectacular example during the Second World War being the mass rapes, often accompanied by murder of the victims, by the Red Army late in the Second World War. There are some examples by Western armies as well, but they are much smaller in scale. Also notable, however, was the largescale outbreak of prostitution in Europe, some of which was conducted nearly publicly in places that would never have tolerated it before the war. Economic desperation caused much of it in some areas, which included underaged European women prostituting themselves in some instances and the military simply accepting it.2
Bill Mauldin in 1945. The diminutive Mauldin appeared a little younger than he actually was, being 24 years old at the time of this photograph. Indeed, Mauldin strongly resembled, oddly enough, Rockwell's Will Gillis depiction of an average GI. Mauldin's appearance contributed to a public view of the cartoonist that fit very much in with the public's image of "fresh faced American boys" in general, but he'd already lived a hard life by the time he entered the service. She son of New Mexican farmer/ranchers who were partially native American, Mauldin's early life had been somewhat chaotic and his teenage years were more so, being somewhat on his own by that time and living a somewhat odd life by the time he was in high school. While Mauldin is associated with the typical GI, his status as a member of the staff of two separate Army newspapers lead to an atypical existence including have a teenage Italian mistress when he was in Italy. In some ways Mauldin reflects the best and the worst of Army life in his cartoons and for that matter in actual service life.
Even where not completely sordid, plenty of misconduct occurred in all of the ranks. This is depicted in the recent series Master of the Air with at least one of the affairs depicted actually having occurred. In fictional form, it's portrayed in 1956's The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit.
The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit from 1956, but which starts off in World War Two and the moral failings in combat of the central character, including the violation of his marital vows.
This was bound to have some impact on the wider culture, and we've argued that it lead to the wider acceptance of the objectification of women. Indeed, thousands of men became acclimated to the centerfolds in Yank during the war, making the introduction of Playboy in 1953 not all that much of the big leap as its claimed to be.
Playboy often gets credit for firing the open shots of the disastrous Sexual Revolution, but it can be argued that Yank did. At any rate, by the wars end, millions of men had served in places were morality of all types was at a low ebb, and had ogled the girls in Yank, and perhaps painted topless or nude figures on government aircraft. That this would have some effect, particularly later when bogus sex studies were released as scientific texts, isn't too surprising. The major erosion of the natural order between men and women that came into full fruition after the late 1960s had some roots that went at least as far back as the 1910s, but World War Two gave it a major boost.
The war also gave a major boost to automobiles.
Prior to the war, and during it, the US relied on rail transportation. But new types of automobiles, notably 4x4s, were introduced during the war, and cars overall simply improved. By 1950 it was clear that road building and automobiles had become a major American obsession, spawned in part by the heavy road use, in spite of automobiles, that occurred during the war. 4x4s, which were strictly an industrial vehicle, were introduced into civilian use shortly after the war, with pickup truck variants ending the need for ranches to have cowboys in the high country during the winter, and allowing any part of the country to be accessed to some degree by sportsmen or agriculturalist year around.
1947 Sheridan newspaper advertisement for what was probably a surplus Dodge WC.
Reliance on equine transportation, in contrast, started to decline markedly.
December 31, 1945 brought the news that Hirohito had renounced claims to divinity, with the nature of the Japanese monarchical claim on that point never understood by Westerners in the first place. He did not ever claim to have been a god, and it was soon learned that the majority of the Japanese had never believed in the imperial family's claim to a unique divine status in the first place.
The war ended, seemingly for good, Japanese militarism. It also seems to have ended German militarism as well, something assisted by the fact that the Soviets ended up with Prussia, it's source.
The war, of course, also advanced the frontiers of Soviet domination beyond its 1940 status, something the Soviets had been working on since 1917. This would prove to be temporary, as would the Soviet Union itself, but that could not be foreseen in 1945. A world that had worried about whether fascism, communism, or democracy would prevail, now worried over whether communism or democracy would be the ultimate victors.
In China, where on this day an unsuccessful treaty between the Nationalist and the Communists would be signed, a contest more resembling the pre World War Two one was going on, revived from its 1927 start and temporary hiatus during the Second World War.
1945 was a fateful year. For Americans it started with American troops fighting the Germans in Bulge in Operation Wachts am Rhein and in Alsatia in Operation Nordwind. For the Soviets, January 1945 would be the bloodiest month of the war, as it would be for the Germans. For the Japanese, it marked pitched resistance to Allied advances everywhere, and a desperate effort to advance in China. It all came to an end in August, 1945, and by December 31, 1945, the world was trying to sort out where it was going. Much of it could be anticipated, but much could not be.
Some additional items:
Today in World War II History—December 31, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 31, 1945: US National War Labor Board is disbanded. US ends tire rationing. British Home Guard is officially disbanded.
The prewar world was gone forever. Sorting that out is still going on.
Related threads:
Footnotes:
*I had typed out a very long and detailed look at the 1940s, and 1945, for the December 31, 1945 entry, before some computer glitch entirely wiped it out. It's completely gone.
I may try to reconstruct it a bit, but the fact that I started working on it some time ago is a deterrent to that. And even if I do, a reconstructed post is never as good as the original.
1. Like decades, centuries don't really track the calendar precisely either. The 20th Century arguably began around 1898 or so, and continued on, perhaps, to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
2. An interesting sympathetic depiction of a woman engaging in prostitution due to economic desperation in found in the 1946 Italian film Paisa'.
Last edition:
Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1948, Adolf Hitler, Army, Cartoons, Eva Braun, It was because of World War Two, J.R. Williams, Korea, Occupation of Korea, Operation Blacklist Forty, U.S. Coast Guard
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