- Per Bergsland, Norwegian pilot of No. 332 Squadron RAF, the 44th escapee. He remained a pilot after the war, eventually becoming a commercial pilot and an airline executive.
- Jens Müller, Norwegian pilot of No. 331 Squadron RAF, the 43d escapee. He also remained a pilot and became an airline executive. His escape took him to Sweden with Bergsland.
- Bram van der Stok, Dutch pilot of No. 41 Squadron RAF, the 18th escapee. The most decorated pilot in Dutch history, he escaped through the Netherlands down the escape line through Spain and reentered combat before the end of the war.
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Friday, March 24, 1944. Pvt Theodore J. Miller, The Great Escape and the Ardeatine Massacre.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Friday, March 17, 1944. Forces of nature.
St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday, which means that actual Irish Americans couldn't eat the traditional American Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage, unless a dispensation had been granted by their local bishop. Dispensations were quite common in North America, however.
Mount Vesuvius, not taking a time out for war, erupted, killing 26 Italian civilians and displacing a further 12,000. 88 American aircraft were destroyed.
Fighting continued at Monte Cassino. Regarding that, Sarah Sundin, on her blog, Today in World War II History—March 17, 1944; notes that in the town of Cassino, which is often forgotten was parat of the battle, New Zealanders took its western part of town and train stations.
She also noted in her blog the death of Félix Éboué, Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa, died of a heart attack in Cairo, age 60. He was a native African, the first to rise to such status in the French Empire.
Actor Ray Milland moves through the chow line in the mess hall of the 8th Special Service Co., Espiritu Santo, as the company cooks get a helping hand from Rosita Moreno, left, Latin-American dancer, and Mary Elliot, MGM starlet. March 17, 1944.
The Red Army took Dubno.
The U-801 was sunk by American aircraft and warships in the Atlantic.
Famous photographer Pattie Boyd was born in Taunton, England. She would marry George Harrison and Eric Clapton.
Musician John Sebastian was born in Greenwich Village, New York.
Last Prior Edition:
Thursday, March 16, 1944. Lucky Legs II
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Tuesday, March 5, 1974. Portugal decides to stay.
Portuguese Prime Minister Marcello Caetano informed the Portuguese National Assembly that Portuguese Guinea, Angola and Mozambique would retain their colonial status in spite of ongoing guerilla wars. He stated that elections "would be inappropriate for the African mentality."
Ethiopian Emperor and absolute monarch Haile Selassie pledged democratic reforms in an unprecedented national address on radio and television.
Eva Mendes was born in Miami.
Last prior:
Monday, March 4, 1974. Suez.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Thursday, February 19, 1924. The Dawes Plan and Lee Marvin.
Actor Lee Marvin was born on this day in 1924.
Marvin was a descendant of early and significant early American immigrants, including the founder of Hartford, Connecticut. He was named after Robert E. Lee, as was his older brother Robert, the Confederate General being his first cousin, once removed. A poor student growing up, he suffered from dyslexia and ADHD. He tended to spend his school year spare time hunting. He attended Christian Socialist boarding school Manumit in New York in the late 30s, as well as Peekskill Military Academy, and Catholic St. Leo College Preparatory School, doing poorly at all of them. He joined the Marine Corps in August 1942, which was hugely significant in his later life. He was wounded during the wear, and turned to acting shortly after the war, almost by accident, when he was asked to fill in for an actor when he was working as a plumbers assistant. His first screen appearance was in 1951's You're In The Navy Now, which was also the first appearance for Charles Bronson and Jack Warden.
Marvin passed away in 1987 at age 63, his early death not being surprising due to a lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking.
Marvin was a great actor, appearing in a surprisingly wide range of screen roles. In military movies, and Westerns, his performances were natural and commanding, something that is a bit surprising when it's considered that he frequently reported to sets drunk or badly hung over.
He is buried at Arlington National Cemetary.
Eleftherios Venizelos resigned as Prime Minister of Greece because of bad health and was succeeded by Agriculture Minister Georgios Kafantaris. He had served for only four weeks.
The Dawes Plan for German reparations was presented to French Prime Minister Poincaré.
A legislative committee of Pueblo Indians met with Indian Commissioner Charles Burke and President Coolidge
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Wednesday, January 16, 1924. Blockade breaking.
Oh, oh, history was repeating itself.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Blog Mirror: January 14, 1954: Joe DiMaggio Marries Marilyn Monroe
An interesting and sympathetic, while honest, treatment of a story we first looked at here in the context of her marriage during the Second World War.
January 14, 1954: Joe DiMaggio Marries Marilyn Monroe
DiMaggio, who we would have to assume had a thing for blond starlets, as this notes, would cap his marital attempts at two. Monroe attempted three times. So did Dorothy Arnold, who we would have to characterize as a minor actress. She died in 1970, leaving behind her third spouse.
Arnold and DiMaggio's union resulted in the only child either of them had, the troubled Joseph Paul DiMaggio III. He lived a troubled life, there being a lesson in here, but interestingly remained close to Monroe after his father and the actress divorced. He was one of the last people she called. He died at age 57.
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Wednesday, January 2, 1974. 55 MPH.
The National Maximum Speed Law reduced the speed limit on the nation's highways to 55 mph.
While ultimately hated, the law had an immediate impact in reducing highway deaths, which of course was not its actual intent. Reducing the consumption of petroleum was.
The first Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks were mailed in a program designed to address those disabled but unable to qualify for Social Security. The law allowing for this to occur had come into effect the prior day.
The People's Republic of China announced that eight senior military figures were being reassigned in an apparent attempt to disrupt their ability to form a base of power.
Early country music pioneer and actor Tex Ritter died at age 68 of what was believed to be a heart attack. His son, John Ritter, would die in 2003 at age 54 of aortic dissection and its likely that this was actually the cause of his father's death.
Monday, December 11, 2023
Saturday, December 11, 1943. Dawn of the drones.
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of OKW, ordered that V1 rocket attacks commence on London on January 15, 1944, a remarkable order in that the V1 was not yet in production.
In Italy, the US 5th Army offensive was grinding down ineffectively.
Sylvester and Tweety appeared in a new release:
The meaning of some things has changed over time.
Frank Sinatra was classified as 4F in the draft ("Registrant not acceptable for military service") due to his perforated eardrum. Army records, however, reveal that Sinatra was actually rejected as "not acceptable material from a psychiatric viewpoint" due this emotional instability, but this was kept private in that more gentle era as to not cause him public distress.
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Friday, December 7, 1923. De la Huerta joins his revolution.
Adolfo de la Huerta, governor of Sonora and former President of Mexico, joined the Delahuertista rebellion against the government of President Álvaro Obregón which had been brought in his name and ostensibly on behalf of his leadership.
Comedic actor Ted Knight was born in Terryville Connecticut.
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Friday, November 2, 1923. A person of interest.
Actress Margaret Gibson was arrested on charges of running a blackmail and extortion ring. The charges would later be dropped, She would keep working in the film industry until 1929.
During her career she performed under the names Patricia Palmer, Patsy Palmer, Margie Gibson, Marguerite Gibson, Ella Margaret Lewis, Ella Margaret Arce, Pat Lewis and perhaps others. She started running into legal trouble in 1917, when she was arrested for vagrancy with allegations of opium dealing. She was acquitted, but her career did thereafter decline.
On this day in 1923 she was arrested on federal felony charges. As things developed, George W. Lasher told authorities he had paid Gibson $1155 to avoid prosecution for a reputed violation of the Mann Act. Charges were, however, later dropped.
She married in 1935 to oil executive Elbert Lewis. They lived overseas, and the marriage was successful. In 1940, at age 45, she returned to the United States without her husband for surgery. World War Two intervened, and they would not be reunited as her husband was killed when the Japanese bombed Socony-Vacuum's oil facility at Penang, Malaysia on March 15, 1942.
She returned to Hollywood in 1964, and at that time, converted to Catholicism. Only shortly thereafter, she became gravely ill, called for a priest, and confessed to neighbors the February 1, 1922, murder of Hollywood film director William Desmond Taylor. The murder of Taylor remains officially unsolved, and while there were a handful of suspects, Gibson was never one of them. In spite of her deathbed confession and her being distraught at the time, there are still those who doubt she committed the crime.
Monday, October 30, 2023
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Friday, October 29, 1943. Fatal joke.
German actor and comedian Robert Stampa (stage name Dorsay) age 39, was executed for "ongoing activity hostile to the Reich and serious undermining of the German defense effort".
Stampa had never been comfortable with the Nazis but had, like many Germans, tried to accommodate himself to them, even joining hte Nazi Party. He was expelled from the party in 1933 for failure to pay dues and didn't rejoin. He started losing film roles in 1939 due to his failure to cooperate with the party. He was drafted in 1943 and was a serviceman on lease at the time of his telling the fatal joke.
He had been overheard joking about the government and had described, in a private letter, the ongoing German war effort as "idiotic", which in fact, it was. More accurately, his letter stated, "When will this idiocy finally end?"
His execution demonstrated that by this point in the war, which had seen the increased repression of the Jews, repression was now turning in on the German people as well. To be executed for a joke was fairly phenomenal.
As part of that idiotic effort, the U-282 was sunk by the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic.
The Red Army attacked the German 4th Army between Orsha and Vitebsk, but in doing so encountered forces commanded by Gen. Gotthard Heinrici, a master defensive tactician, and they failed to break through.
Heinrici was the eccentric son of a Lutheran minister. Indeed, a devout Lutheran as well, he was informed during the war that his best interest lay in discontinuing going to services, which he ignored. He refused to join the Nazi Party. His uniform was notably shabby, and he continued to wear a coat that he had acquired during World War One.
His wife was half Jewish.
Not a very personal man, he remains somewhat of a mystery. He ignored scorched early orders, but atrocities were committed, as with almost all Germany command, in his ares of operations. He died in 1971 and was buried with full military honors.
The British 13th Corps captured Cantalupo.
A couple of interesting things from Sarah Sundin:
Today in World War II History—October 29, 1943: Maj. Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force band records “St. Louis Blues March.” US War Production Board somewhat relaxes prohibition on use of aluminum.
Glenn Miller had a big impact on American military music, second only, in fact, to John Philip Sousa.
The St. Louis Blues was penned by legendary bluesman W. C. Handy. It's actually a very sad song, like many blues pieces, but with a very flowing nature which made it suitable for adaptation to other styles. Its lyrics are:
I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
Cause my baby, he's gone left this town
Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
If I'm feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
I'll pack my truck and make my give-a-way
St. Louis woman with her diamond ring
Pulls that man around by her, if it wasn't for her and her
That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere
I got the St. Louis blues, blues as I can be
That man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me
I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint 'n rye
I love my man till the day I die
The tune was first published in 1914, and then made famous by the Bessie Smith edition released in 1925. Handy was inspired to write the song after meeting a distraught woman on the street in St. Louis, who said to him, regarding her husband's absence; "Ma man's got a heart like a rock cast in de sea" which became a line in the song.
Handy outlived Miller, dying in 1958 at age 84, and was still an active musician during this time frame. He was so influential that he was sometimes called "the father of the blues", although nobody can really properly have that title, the blues having its roots in polyrhythmic African music.
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 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.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Thursday, September 13, 1943. Wunderwaffe
The HMHS Newfoundland, a hospital ship, was hit by a German glide bomb in the Mediterranean, while the HMS Uganda was hit by a guided German bomb.
The new German areal munition technology was taking quite a toll.
The Newfoundland had to be scuttled. The Uganda was heavily damaged, but returned to service in 1944 as a Canadian ship. She'd see service again during the Korean War as the HMCS Quebec.
The US began to distribute residents of the Tule Lake Relocation Center, which was being converted to a maximum security detention center for Nisei regarded as a significant threat.
Hitler told his aid Karl Wolff that he wanted Pope Pius XII deported to Germany. On the same day, German emissary to the Vatican Ernst von Weiszacker delivered Hitler's assurances to the Vatican that its sovereignty would be respected.
German counterattacks at Salerno came within one mile of the beaches before being stopped by naval gunfire. Units from the 82nd Airborne were parachuted in as reinforcements.
In Greece, the Italian Acqui Division resisted German efforts to disarm it.
American actor David Bacon was murdered in Santa Monica. Surviving a knifing long enough to attempt to drive off, he was found barely alive in his car, wearing only a swimsuit. He left a pregnant wife. Twenty-nine years old at the time, the mystery has never been solved.
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Tuesday, September 7, 1943. Verbrannte Erde
Heinrich Himmler issued his "scorched earth" order requiring that German forces completely denude areas in the East they were retreating from in every sense.
Scorched early orders are surprisingly common in warfare, and are designed to prevent an advancing army from using a conquered area's resources. More than most armies of World War Two, both the Germans and the Soviets depended on local resources. For some areas in the East this would be the second time they'd been subjected to this during the war, as the Soviets also practiced it, and for Ukraine, it was part of an ongoing series of disasters afflicting residents of the region.
Sarah Sundin notes for this day:
Today in World War II History—September 7, 1943: German 17th Army begins evacuating the Kuban bridgehead in southern Russia as the Soviets advance. Actor Orson Welles marries actress Rita Hayworth.
I honestly didn't know that Welles and Hayworth had ever been married.
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Monday, August 23, 1943. Kharkiv changes hands for the last time.
Today in World War II History—August 23, 1943: Soviets take Kharkiv, Ukraine, the fourth and final time it changes hands during World War II, and the Germans lose the Donets Basin industrial area.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
And that was a big deal in the war, we might note.
We should also note that the Red Army took massive casualties in the Battle of Kursk and its independent subparts, and in the counteroffensive following it. While putting it oddly, an achievement of the Red Army by this point of the war was being able to sustain huge manpower and material losses and not disintegrate. On the other hand, while the Red Army has numerous fans, it was fighting in a style that simply tolerated losses at a level that anything other than a totalitarian state could not endure, something the Germans also would do, but with the Soviets taking much larger casualties.
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky, a Polish born senior Soviet commander, had his illustration appear on the cover of Time. The painting, which we cannot put up here as it is copyright protected, featured the Soviet general looking forward with piercing blue eyes and the words "USSR" behind him. He was painted seemingly thinner than he was in real life. Rokossovsky had been arrested during the Purge but had amazing survived, and then was dragged back out of confinement when it ended and the Red Army was in need of experienced commanders, which he was, after the disaster of the Winter War. He never blamed Stalin for his confinement, but rather the NKVD, taking a politic, if toady, approach to both the horror and his ongoing servitude to the monstrosity of the USSR.
Orphaned as a child, he'd joined the Imperial Russian Army during World War One, then went over to the Reds during the Revolution. After the war, in 1949, he became the Polish Minister of Defense under Stalin's orders, showing the extent to which Communist Poland was a puppet. He was not popular with the Poles, which he knew, commenting; "In Russia, they say I'm a Pole, in Poland they call me Russian".
Rokossovsky and his wife Julia had a daughter named Ariadna. He cheated on his wife with Army doctor military doctor Galina Talanova during the war, with whom he had a second child named Nadezhda. He was fond of hunting.
He died in 1968 of prostate cancer in Moscow at age 71.
Life magazine, in contrast, had a black and white portrait of a young couple dancing the Lindy Hop.
Uruguay transferred German sailors of the battleship Graf Spee and auxiliary ship Tacoma to an internment camp at Sarandi Del Li after they violated the conditions of their internment in Montevideo boarding houses.
The Pasadena Post reported on the cast of Poppa is All touring military bases, which included Casper born and Lander raised former Miss Wyoming Helen Mowery.
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Friday, July 20, 1973. The death of Bruce Lee.
Actor and martial artist Bruce Lee Bruce Lee ( 李小龍) born Lee Jun-fan, (李振藩) 32 years of age, died from an allergic reaction to the meprobamate, the active ingredient in the painkiller Equagesic.
Friday, July 7, 2023
Female agrarian resisters and. . . time traveling Saoirse-Monica Jackson?
Friday, June 16, 2023
Wednesday, June 16, 1943. Noor Inayat Khan inserted in France.
Subhas Chandra Bose met with Hideki Tojo, who promised to help India secure independence from the United Kingdom.
On the same day, Noor Inayat Khan, born in Moscow to an Indian father and American mother., was deposited by light aircraft in France as an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She'd serve as a radio operator under the code name Madeline.
The SOE, which was heavily penetrated by German intelligence, would ultimately capture her and execute her in September 1944.
Her father was a Sufi mystic, which heavily influenced her outlook. Raised in London and Paris, she was a poet before the war.
The Japanese raided Guadalcanal by air.
Today in World War II History—June 16, 1943: Japanese suffer their biggest aerial defeat over the Solomon Islands, losing 96 of 120 aircraft to antiaircraft fire and to Allied fighter pilots .
Charlie Chaplin married Oona O'Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. The father disowned the daughter as a result. It was Chaplin's fourth and final marriage.
She was barely 18 years old at the time of the marriage, Chaplin having a track record for young women.
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Sunday, June 6, 1943. Radio broadcasts, Triple Crown, Actor in the Navy, Rohatyn Ghetto.
The French Committee of National Liberation made a radio broadcast pledging to abolish the "arbitrary powers" imposed by the Vichy regime and restore French liberties and republican government.
Count Fleet won the Belmont, and hence the Triple Crown.
Paul Newman, having enlisted days before his 18th birthday, was called up for service in the Navy.
Newman wanted to be a pilot, but was taken out of flight school when it was discovered he was color blind. He went on to be a torpedo bomber crewman.
Sarah Sundin noted Newman's enlistment, but also noted the A36:
Today in World War II History—June 6, 1943: North American A-36 Apache flies first combat mission in a US Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria. Future actor Paul Newman enlists in the US Navy, age 18.
We don't think much of the A-36, the dive bomber version of the P-51. The odd aircraft only came into existence in the first place as the 1942 appropriations for new fighter aircraft had run out and converting the assembly line to dive bombers kept the P-51 line open. Only 500 were built, with most used by the U.S. Army Air Force, but some used by the RAF.
The Germans liquidated the Rohatyn Ghetto in what is now Ukraine.