Holy Tuesday, April 4, 1944. Battle of Kohima commences, German counteroffensive, Photographing Auschwitz by accident, Bombing Bucharest, Italo-Yugoslav partisands, Charlie Chaplin not guilty.

The Battle of Kohima began around the town of Kohima in British India. The battle would prove to be the turning point in U-Go, and also prove to be long-running.

Japanese forces were depending on taking the town in order to resupply their provisions.  In their initial attacks they cut off all access to the town.

A German counterattack by the 4th Panzer Army retook Kovel, a city in pre-war Poland, which is now in Ukraine.   The attack blocked the Soviets from gaining a pass through the Carpathians.

The city had a large Jewish population before World War Two, and in fact had a large Ukrainian population that were members of the Communist Party. The Soviet invasion in 1939 had accordingly been largely welcomed.  The German invasion would, of course, prove tragic, with 18,000 Jewish residents of the city being murdered.  The city became a refuge for Poles escaping Ukrainian partisans late in the war.  After the war, the Polish population of the city was forcibly relocated to post-war Poland.

A de Havilland Mosquito from the SAAF 60 Photo-Recon Squadron, flying out of Foggia, Italy to photograph the IG Farben photographed Auschwitz as part of a filming overrun, the latter of which was a practice in photo recon missions.  It was the first instance of Auschwitz being photographed by the Allies from the air.

Six Valentine DD tanks sank in Exercise Smash I with the loss of their crews.

Forty-nine Axis aircraft were lost contesting an Allied raid, launched from forces in the Mediterranean, on Bucharest's marshalling yards.  Twelve to Twenty Allied aircraft were lost.  2,942 civilians were killed.

African Ameican soldiers Sgt. John C. Clark, Lorman, Miss., and S/Sgt. Ford M. Shaw, Tuscon, Arizona., members of the members of Co. E, 25th Combat Team, 93rd Div. (colored)  clean their rifles.  Bougainville, April 4, 1944.

Charles de Gaulle announced changes to the Committee of National Liberation in Algiers, including the appointment of two Communists.

In France, the resistance halts aircraft parts production at Bronzavaia.

The First Partisan battalion Pino Budicin in Yugoslavia, made up of Italian Communists was formed.

The Work Truck Blog: Caterpillar Crew.:  

Caterpillar Crew.

 

"When the "caterpillar" crew go out to clear road of snow, they live right on the spot. T/5 Floyd R. Worendorff, Vendrick, Idaho, relaxes in his house on wheels. Truck is fitted with bunks and stove, and supplies living quarters for six men. 4 April, 1944. Camilatella, Italy."

Note the stove in the truck.  I haven't experienced that.

Scary thing is, I've done the same thing, over 40 years later.

Charlie Chaplin was acquitted of violating the Mann Act.

The suit was somewhat ironic in that it stemmed from Joan Barry's pregnancy. While FBI files suggest that Barry aborted two children during her affair with Chaplin, which did occur, this child was not Chaplin's, as blood tests proved.  Chaplin, in a separate suit, would nonetheless be ordered to pay child support for the girl until age 21.

Moreover, Barry was 21 years old with her affair with 52-year-old Chaplin began.  Chaplin definitely fished in the shallower end of the pond, but Barry was of age, which at least one of his prior conquests, whom he married, was not.

Barry was sliding towards insanity, and after her affair with Chaplin ended, stocked him.  She'd end up being committed to a mental institution at age 33, by which time she had married and had two additional children.

Chaplin married Oona O'Neill in 1943, at which time the affair with Barry was over.  O'Neill, who would be his last spouse, was 18 years old at the time.

Related Threads:

November 29

Countdown on the Great War, November 10, 1918: A Socialist Provisional Government forms in Germany, the Naval War continues on, and Mildred Harris weds.

Wednesday, June 16, 1943. Noor Inayat Khan inserted in France.

Last prior edition.

Holy Monday, April 3, 1944. Attack on the Tirpitz, Racist law in Texas struck down, Budapest hit, The death of Evelyn Sharp, Charles Lindbergh buys a New Testament.

1940s, 1944, Aircraft, boats and ships, Bougainville, Court, Mohandas Gandi, Operation Tungsten, Personalities, Racism, Royal Navy, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Women Airforce Service Pilots

Saturday, December 4, 1943. End of the WPA.

No longer needed, the Works Progress Administration came to an end.

Coming in an era of desperation, when Americans turned to the government instead of reviling it, many great projects were built by the WPA during its eight-year run.

The number of projects built in Wyoming alone is stunning. Every community has some, some of which they're so used to, that they were government projects is hardly recalled.

What is amazing, however, is that it took until 1943 for the Government to conclude that unemployment was now low enough to do away with the program.

The British 8th Army commenced the Moro River Campaign in Italy.

Yugoslav partisans, just recognized as a legitimate fighting force by the Allies, formed a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in exile with Communist lawyer Ivan Ribar appointed as head of state to serve at the war's end.  An existing government in exile under King Peter already was functioning in the United Kingdom, but clear its days were coming to an end.

The Bolivian Congress ratified President Enrique Peñaranda's declaration of war against the Axis powers, which had occured six months earlier.

Seventy percent of wholesale and retail merchants in Bolivia were German operated, and this had resulted in fears that the declaration would create economic unrest.  It did not, but it did lead to his overthrow.  The Congress followed through nonetheless.  Given the stretch of colonial empires, this meant that at this point in time a mere nine independent nations were not committed to one of the two warring sides.

Truly a world war.

The Japanese escort carrier Chūyō was sunk in the Pacific by the submarine USS Sailfish.

The USS Lexington was hit by an airborne torpedo off of the Gilberts just after midnight, resulting in "Tokyo Rose" reporting her sunk. The ship was damaged, but far from sunk.  Repeated erroneous Japanese reports of her having been sunk lead to her being nicknamed "The Blue Ghost".  She had been leaving for Kwajalein where a major U.S. Navy strike occured on this day.