Looking to 1953

There's a really interesting, and scary, article on Salon right now which consists of an interview of Joe Walsh.

For those who don't recall him, Walsh was a Republican who ran against Trump.  He'd been a Tea Party Republican who was an early defector in opposition to Trump and, apparently, has remained there.  Indeed, he was associated with Trump allies before he bolted to sound a warning against Trump, which he's still trying to sound.

The reason I note this is that the article, while it definitely has its flaws, is insightful and, for anyone reading this blog, probably a little familiar.  A lot of what he's warning about has been addressed here.

Walsh's main point, and its a good one, is that Trump populists have an existential view of the world that's fundamentally such that it's become unapologetically anti-democratic. Therefore, those who have the view that once Trumpites learn what really occurred in regard to the November 2020 election, i.e., it wasn't stolen, or what really occurred on January 6, i.e. it was an insurrection, that they will change their mind and oppose Trump are simply wrong.  The reason for that is that their Weltanschauung is such that Trumpites view their opponents as existentially illegitimate.

That's a really scary point, but its correct in large measure.  And he's correct on how we got there. . . in part, and also, not in part.

Walsh takes the view that going back to the Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan, without every mentioning Reagan, the GOP adopted, or rather co-opted, this view, for its own purposes.  That's' partially correct.  And he's definitely correct when he notes that the Trumpites know that they were completely ignored in their concerns by generations of American politicians, left and right.  And like we've said, by voting for Trump in 2016 they were voting to throw in the match and burn the system down.  Like we also said at that time and since, if Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic candidate in 2016 (and frankly, maybe 2020)  he would be President now.  Sanders appealed to the exact same base.  

And as we've also noted, by choosing Uber Establishment Hilary Clinton, the Democrats blew it.

What we've noted, but what the article doesn't, is that the roots of this go back further than the 1976 election.  They go back at least to the 1960s when fundamental long established aspects of western culture came under surfaced attacks from the left.  Animosity in some part of the left to western culture had existed for almost all of the 20th Century, but they had not been able to emerge into mainstream political and cultural discourse until after World War Two.  Part of that attack came in other ways right after the war, and we've been dealing with another in our series on an attack on the culture that came from another quarter.  As we have noted before, the war did something that set things up in some fashion for what occurred in the 60s.  But it was the massive introduction of new wealth, combined with an expansion of the economy, combined with the Vietnam War that really exploded into a left wing eruption in the culture by the fateful year of 1968.  The article misses that.

The hard hat reaction to 1968 existed in that very year.  But the elite drift to the left, which had been going on since the 1950s, really accelerated at that time and the left, using the courts, started gaining ground in the 1970s to force cultural changes up on the country through litigation, not through the ballot box, where the ballot box would not suffice, or seem to suffice.  As also noted here before, such decisions really do not tend to really fix an issue in the public's mind immediately, and sometimes not at all.  Combined with that, in the 1970s, the American economy began to fundamentally change with nothing done to stop it. Both Democrats and Republicans winked at manufacturing jobs, particularly low tech manufacturing jobs, going overseas, confident in the view that what this would undoubtedly mean is the arrival of high paying replacement jobs that everyone wanted.

Walsh puts this in terms of "1953", more or less arguing that populist Republicans seek to return the country to its status, economically certainly, but culturally also, that it had in 1953.  His analysis is sophisticated in some sense, and not in others.  In one way he gets it correct that contrary to what the press asserts, outward racism isn't part of it, but at the same time the sense that the "perfect" world of 1953 was a white one.

More accurately, of course, the United States of 1953 had a white protestant culture.  The Catholic Ghetto was still very much a thing in 1953 and Catholics were attending university for the first time.  And the big advancements in civil rights for African Americans were very much part of the story of the 1950s, although that may be part of it too, as almost all Americans look back on that as a success.  1953 was during the era in which American industry dominated the world without question, although 53 is an odd choice as the Korean War, which was not actually a popular one, was ongoing.  Having said that, the Vietnam War was yet to occur.

1953 was the year in which Playboy magazine premiered and the assault on the traditional family really, therefore, began in earnest.  It was also, however, during an era in which most men, including men with no college degree, could support a family without anyone else in it making an outside income.  That era has very much passed.

Of course, the irony of an idealized pass is both that it never actually matches the reality of  the past or the current lives of those who advocate for it.  Many in the populist camp look back on this prior era strongly romantically, however, and Walsh is correct. The desire is to return the culture to something like that era.

A desire to return to past standard, or even some of them, is not in and of itself anti-democratic or illegitimate.  Globally, strongly conservative, and not just populist, movements often have varying elements of that as a goal. Certainly the American conservative movement, at least weakly, had that as a goal to some extent for some time.  The problem becomes when the mindset of some with such goals reduces them both to myth, and strongly endorses a conspiratorial view of their opponents.  Liberals, in taking to the courts, were not engaging in conspiracies, although there were always some extreme left wingers who acted somewhat hidden goals that they were advancing incrementally.  The problem that the left, and the larger society right and left, now has is that its overarchingly difficult for those outside of the populist right to grasp that many in that section of the electorate have convinced themselves that what was done was completely illegitimate and that those who took those positions are illegitimate as well.

With that view, the Trumpites, and they vary enormously in loyalty and world view, go from being somewhat predisposed to believe that the left would resort to stealing an election all the way to believing that views outside of their own are so fundamentally flawed as to be irrelevant.  The big problem is the question of to what degree do the latter makeup the GOP today.  Seemingly, in some quarters at least, they're driving the party.

Given that, as noted in the article, the hope that the sun will come out, people will look around, and return to their democratic senses, as seems to be the hope in the left and center, may well be a forlorn hope for at least the time being.  What's the way out of a danger for democracy if this is the point we've reached?

Ironically, the answer may be in part the same way we got here.  In spite of the whining and crying about them, the current Supreme Court seems intent on dismantling "progress" by judicial decree, and leaving that, whatever that is, up to the state legislatures and Congress.  If distrusts of the parties and the government started with the courts, which it did to some extent, maybe this will start to restore it.  The problem still is, however, that it took us around fifty years to get to this point.  Getting back. . . well there may not be fifty years to do it.

And even if there is, are there enough on the right and left from whom democracy is the first principal, to get there?

Sunday, February 22, 1942. Harris takes command.

February 22, 1942: Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris takes command of RAF Bomber Command. President Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave Bataan for Australia.

So states the opener of Sarah Sundin's blog for the day.

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”  Harris.

 

An unrelenting advocate of the RAF's Area Bombing Directive, he remains an extremely controversial figure, perhaps the most controversial British figure of the Second World War.

Harris was born and raised in England, but moved to Rhodesia at age 18.  While just about to enter ranching in that country in 1914, he reluctantly joined the 1st Rhodesian Regiment.  He transferred to the RAF as a pilot in 1916.  He remained in the RAF after the war and never returned to Rhodesia even though he considered it to be his country, although for a time after his retirement from the RAF he managed a mining company in South Africa.

As also discussed by Sundin, Douglas MacArthur was ordered by Franklin Roosevelt to leave the Philippines.

The Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen arrived at Bergen, Norway.  Later that day, the left for Trondheim.

Wednesday, February 22, 1922. Remembering Washington.

It was Washington's birthday.

Or, more properly, it is Washington's birthday.  He was born on this date in 1732 to Johan and Mary (nee Ball) Washington.

Pro and anti factions of Sinn Fein signed a truce regarding cooperation with the Irish Free State and agreed to revisit the topic in three months.

WOR in New York began regular broadcasting with a mix of music and news.

British Food in America - The online magazine dedicated to the discussion & revival of British foodways.

British Food in America - The online magazine dedicated to the discussion & revival of British foodways.

Best Posts of the Week of February 13, 2022

Posted way late, we might add.

Friday, February 13, 1942. Deciding to build the AlCan.

Trudeau invokes the Emergency Act

Secrets of Playboy (Parts 1&2).* 3, 4, 5

Pandemic Part 10. A new paradigm?

In the spirit of scaring the crud out of somebody. . .

What will a war between Ukraine and Russia mean for everyone else?

Monday, February 21, 1972. Nixon lands in China.

 Richard Nixon landed in China on this day, or yesterday depending upon where you were, in 1972.  

In the US, on this day, 60,000,000 people tuned into their television sets to watch President Nixon deplane and shake the hand of Zhou Enlai.

It was the start of a rapid process in which the United States would recognize the Communist government in Peking, which of course was the government of the country, as that.  Up until that time, the Nationalist government in Taiwan was recognized as the government of China.

Rather obviously the status of Taiwan continues to linger. . . 

Saturday, February 21, 1942 Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn convicted.

Another interesting installment of Sarah Sundin's blog starts with this item:

February 21, 1942: House of Representatives begins hearings about removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.

I was completely unaware that hearings had occurred.

Interestingly enough, a spy in Hawaii who was detected and convicted for his efforts, was convicted on this day, which she also reports.  The spy, in the pay of the Japanese, wasn't a Japanese American or immigrant, but rather Dr. Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn, a physician, whose entire family was in the pay of Imperial Japan.

The arrangements had actually been made by the German Abwehr through Goebbels, who had used Kuehn's 17-year-old daughter as a paramour.  Indeed, her role as his mistress may have played a part in the selection of her father and mother, and ultimately her and her 11-year-old brother, for this task, as at the point they were chosen, he may have tired of her and this provided a convenient way to send her packing.  Her father, a veteran of the German Navy during World War One, had become a post-war physician whose practice failed, leading him to become an ardent and somewhat influential Nazi.

They set up a system of sending coded messages by flashlight from their attic, something that wasn't detected until the Pearl Harbor attack.  Various adult members of the family were then arrested, tried and convicted.  Kuehn was sentenced to death, but he cooperated with American intelligence at that point and provided valuable information to the US on spy networks in the country.  His sentence was commuted to 50 years, but following the war he was deported to Germany.  His detained and convicted family joined him there.

On the same day, U-boats were very active in the Caribbean, sinking several ships.  The German Navy also sent the Scheer and Prinz Eugen from Germany to Bergen Navy. The RAF is unable to interdict them.

The Saturday news magazines were out, it being that day. The Saturday Evening Post went to press with a color photograph of an anti-aircraft gun crewman sighting through the gun's sight.  Liberty featured a woman looking through a Valentine style heart, in what must have been its belated Valentine's Day issue.  It featured an article on Lourdes.  Colliers featured a cartoon of a woman in the Army (or maybe the Marines) and a Sailor, sitting on something, back to back, with a heart behind them, in their Valentine's Day issue, apparently.  The sailor is oversize and athletic, and the female soldier/marine, extraordinarily buxom with her slip very much showing.  This demonstrates a real trend that was going on in society at the time that we recently discussed, and probably ought to a bit more when we have the chance.

Tuesday, February 21, 1922. The crash of the Roma.

On this day in 1922 the Roma, in what should have served as a warning for the later craft the Hindenburg, crashed in a firey explosion after striking electrical lines.  Normally she was filled with helium, but on this day she was filled with hydrogen.

The crash resulted in the deaths of 34 people, with only nine surviving. As a result, the US would never fill an airship with hydrogen again.

Blog Mirror: Four Eyes: Eyeglasses and the WW II GI

An excellent look at eyeglasses in the U.S. military during World War Two.

Four Eyes:  Eyeglasses and the WW II GI

Friday, February 20, 1942. Action in the Pacific

Sarah Sundin's daily blog on the Second World War has an entire series of really interesting items in it for this day. Well worth reviewing,  which you can do here:

February 20, 1942: First US Eighth Air Force officers arrive in England. Japanese land on Portuguese East Timor and Dutch West Timor in the East Indies.

Among those items is Navy pilot Edward O'Hare being credited with shooting down five Japanese aircraft within six minutes on this day in 1942, a feat which secured him the Congressional Medial of Honor. 

The aircraft that O'Hare struck were Japanese Betty bombers headed towards the USS Lexington which was off of Bougainville.  In reality, O'Hare shot down only three aircraft, rather than the six he thought he had, or the five he was credited with,although he so disrupted their attack that he prevented it from being a success.  One of the stricken Japanese bombers did attempt to fly into the Lexington, so four were in fact lost during the raid.

The heroic O'Hare was killed in combat in November, 1943.

Sundin also reports that the first advance party of the U.S. 8th Air Force arrived in the United Kingdom.

The 8th, of course, would go on to figure enormously in the US strategic bombing campaign over Germany.

Sundin also notes that the vast majority of Norwegian teachers, on this day, refused an order to become fascists, leading to some of them enduing up in concentration camps.

The Battle of Badung Strait ended in a Japanese victory, with the Japanese navy driving off a much larger combined Allied task force.   

The Japanese landed forces on Portuguese Timor and took the airfield.  Portugal wasn't in the war and was now enduring its second Timorese occupation, as the British and Australians had occupied it first to prevent it from being attacked by the Japanese.  The Portuguese protested the occupation without success.

Portuguese Timor was in the midst of an interesting transition at the time.  The Portuguese government had just turned education over to the Catholic Church, and as a result, the educational fortunes of the population were improving.  During the Japanese occupation of Timor the distinction between Portuguese and Dutch Timor were ignored, fairly obviously, but the Portuguese reasserted their possession in 1945 and would maintain it until 1975.  The region was then invaded, following the political turmoil in Portugal of that period, by Indonesia, but in 2002 it gained independence.  It's own independence movement can trace its origin to the improved educational lot of the population that started in 1941.

The Japanese also attacked Koepang in Dutch Timor on the same day, logically enough as it was all one island. The action was unusual in that it featured Japanese paratroopers who landed to take an airfield, but who were successfully repulsed by Australian troops.  Japan did have paratroopers but they received little use during the war, and were in fact mostly only used in the early stages of the war in the Pacific.

German U-boats started raiding ships off of the Lesser Antilles.  The Italian submarine Torelli participated with them.

The Hakim of Bahrain, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, died on this day in 1942.  Under his administration, which commenced in 1932, oil exploration in the country commenced.  Bahrain was a British protectorate at the time, something that had come about as the ruling family needed outside support due to their unstable position in the country.

Monday, February 20, 1922. General Diaz to be President of Mexico. . . if revolution to oust Obregón succeessful

Which it would not be.

This was a nephew of Mexico's former dictator, we should add.

As the headline demonstrates, there'd been questions on whether the Washington treaties had secret protocols.  They did not.

Gen. Diaz was apparently living in New Orleans at the time.

Billy Sunday visited the White House.

Sunday had been a professional baseball player who became a hugely influential evangelist, perhaps loosely comparable to Billy Graham in his era.

A group of students did as well.

What will a war between Ukraine and Russia mean for everyone else?

 A friend of mine, in reaction to the almost certain pending war between Ukraine and Russia, replied with a "I don't care".

Everyone ought to care.

Why?

Here's a few reasons.

A February/March war between the two countries, if we are to believe the threats about sanctions, will result in a nearly complete cutoff of exports from the Russian oligarchic petrostate.  While in the long term, that may lead to Putin's downfall, in the near term it means oil prices will race up to over $120/bbl.

How high will they do?  We can't tell, but seeing prices of $150/bbl for a while aren't impossible.

That will spur, maybe, enormous revived oil and gas production in the US, which is already seeing that occur now, but it will also push inflation into double digits.

If Russia pulls it off, which it will in the short term, it'll also convince Leninist China that it can do the same, making the near term likelihood of an invasion of Taiwan, which will involve the US directly if it occurs, that much more likely.

Because this is obvious, the military budget of the US, which had been thankfully and finally declining, will start to increase once again.  It'll have to.

It'll also mean that an isolated Russia will be more likely to take direct action against the former pieces of its empire outside of NATO. Why not?  It'll have nothing to lose.  Byelorussia may be doing Moscow's bidding right now, but within the next year. . . well, it'll just be a reincorporated par of Mother Russia.

In the meantime, a modern terrorist war will develop in Ukraine.  Ukraine has prior experience with these, and they've all been really nasty.

None of these are good things.

Thursday, February 19, 1942. Commencement of Japanese Internment.

Today is remembered as a black mark on American history, and is now officially commemorated as the Japanese Internment Day of Remembrance.  It was the day in which President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, resulting in internment.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 19: 1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable."  This would lead to internment camps, including Heart Mountain near Cody.

 Map showing interment camps and other aspects of the exclusion of ethnic Japanese from the Pacific Coast during World War Two.

The text of the order read:

Executive Order No. 9066

The President

Executive Order

Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas

Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104);

Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.

I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area here in above authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.

I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services.

This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The White House,

February 19, 1942.

While the choice of Heart Mountain in Park County was not one that Wyoming asked for, the event would prove to be a bit of a black mark on Wyoming's history as well.  Governor Lester Hunt, who did not come into office until 1943, would be vociferous in his statements regarding the internees and the legislature would take at least one act in regard to them, that being voting to deny them the right to vote in the state's elections.

On the same day, Darwin, Australia was bombed by the Japanese, inflicting heavy losses on facilities at the town. Twelve ships were sunk in the harbor, making the raid somewhat comparable to Pearl Harbor.

Like the attack at Pearl Harbor, the raid came in two stages and was a surprise attack, albeit on a nation already at war.  The Japanese aircraft were air and land based.  More bombs were used in the attack than had been used in the Pearl Harbor raid.  Australian defenses were relatively light and incapable of dealing with the attack. The resulting chaos resulted in a breakdown of civil authority, with looting taking place even by Australian troops in the town.  Many people would leave the city never to return, or only to return many years later.

The raid was the largest to occur against mainland Australia during the war and was an unqualified success.  The goal was to remove Darwin as a base for the Australians to counteract Japanese forces in Indonesia.

The Vichy government commenced a lengthy trial in Riom with the aims of showing that the preceding Third Republic had been responsible for France's defeat at the hand of the Germans in 1940.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, the city staged If Day, a simulated German invasion.  The event was a huge success which boosted local bonds sales, which was the goal, enormously.

Sunday, February 19, 1922. A revolution in Mexico?

Officially, by this date in 1922, the Mexican Revolution was over.

On the ground in northern Mexico, and at the border, things didn't quite appear that way.

Or at least to the press. 

The recent invasion of Mexico from the United States side, at Columbus, was only 30 men in strength.  The Obregón government, which had been consolidating power, strongly reacted, however.  And not just in this instance.

The United States Bureau of Prohibition successfully interdicted the British rum runner Annabelle with aircraft, the first successful use of its new fleet of eleven airplanes.

WJZ in New York made the first broadcast of a live radio entertainment program. Comedian Ed Wynn reprised his "Perfect Fool" character with difficulty, given as he lacked the reaction of a live audience.

Political cartoon by Clifford Berryman, published in the Washington Evening Star on 19 February 1922.

Jazz had come to Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, February 18, 1942. A bad day at sea.

It wasn't a good day for the Allies. 

February 18, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Feb. 18, 1942: Japanese land on Bali, cutting ferry link from Australia to Java.

The above item from Sarah Sundin's blog shows how menacing the Japanese advance was becoming to Australia, constituting, at least from an Allied and Australian prospective, a real threat to the Australian mainland.

On the same day, the Japanese began to murder Chinese in Singapore that they regarded as a threat in the Sook Ching operation.

Chiang Kai-shek met with Mahatma Gandi in Calcutta, in one of the odder  tête-à-tête's of the war.

The USS Truxton and the Pollux ran aground at Lawn Point, Newfoundland, in a storm, resulting in over 200 deaths.  On the same day, the Free French submarine Surcouf may sank off of Panama after colliding with the US freighter Thompson Lykes.

The Sucouf might be described as, frankly, weird.  It was a huge submarine that featured two 8 in deck guns.  It's entire crew of 130 went down with her.

Some submarine hit the Truxton, at any rate, although her crew thought it was a U boat and some still think that may be the case.  She may have actually been sunk due to friendly fire from a Catalina cruising the area, or another US aircraft doing the same.

The Japanese photo magazine Ashai Graph, which oddly published its name in English and Japanese, featured Japanese tanks in Singapore on its cover.

Blog Mirror: Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson Take Hypocrisy to New Heights, Literally

Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson Take Hypocrisy to New Heights, Literally

In the spirit of scaring the crud out of somebody. . .

 From the British Ministry of Defense.

When I saw it, I thought "oh no, the Russians have attacked".

Lex Anteinternet: The Pool Returns

Back in 2019 we ran this:Lex Anteinternet: The Pool Returns: 

The Pool Returns

The Tribune this morning has an article that the School Board has voted to put in a pool at NCHS.

The vote was not unanimous. Two members voted against the proposal based on budgetary concerns, and there certainly have been those, so their vote is neither surprising or without merit.  But the majority did vote to put a pool back in at the school.

I'm glad to see it, and thought that the reconstructed school was lacking without a pool.  It had one starting in 1923 and the absence of a pool was a real deficit.

Of course, now that I no longer have kids there, it isn't the pressing matter it once was to me. But I'm glad to see it back.

The old pool, just before it was no more.

And indeed it is.

The first swim meet in the new pool was held this past week, the Fish Bowl, the meet featuring NC and cross town rival KW.  KW, with is much bigger swim team, did better, but NC now with a 8 lane 25 meter pool capable of hosting meets, hopes to do better in the future.

A welcome return.

Blog Mirror: Historic Roads - Alaska Department of Transportation

The other day we discussed the commencement of the AlCan Highway.  But what about highways in Alaska?

This fascinating booklet by the Alaska DOT addresses the history of just that:

Historic Roads - Alaska Department of Transportation

Monday, February 16, 1942. The Bangka Massacre and the Japanese New Order of Coexistence and Co-prosperity on Ethical Principles.

Nurses of the 2/13th.

Japanese soldiers murdered 22 Australian nurses and 60 Australian and British men on Bangka Island in Indonesia.  Most of the nurses in their captivity on the island, including the murdered ones, were raped.

The nurses were part of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital who had ended up on the island when a ship carrying them, and civilian men, women and children was sunk by Japanese aircraft.   They surrendered to the Japanese, who held the island.  One nurse and two men survived the massacre, but one of the men died soon thereafter.  They all later surrendered due to the impossibility of surviving on the island.

As with some other atrocities committed by the Japanese against the Australians, the Australian government worked to suppress some of the grimmer information following the war.  That the nurses were raped was not revealed until 2019.  Japanese authorities on the island following the war claimed to have no knowledge of the killings.  Japanese atrocities of this type were common.

On the same day, Hideke Tojo appeared in front of the Japanese Diet and proclaimed that the war aim a "new order of coexistence and co-prosperity on ethical principles in Greater East Asia."

Trudeau invokes the Emergency Act

It's the first time the 1988 Canadian statute has been invoked at that.

This due to the ongoing trucker's protest, which has been angering many, encouraging some, and gathering some support from Americans who are like-minded, but who likely would otherwise get angry if Canadians voiced an opinion on US politics, which they sometimes do, and usually not charitably.

The act gives the government extraordinary powers to address assemblies and the like.  It replaced the prior Canadian War Measures Act of 1914.

This protest, at least from an American prospective, has been hard to grasp, but it seems part of a general movement of a certain percentage of the population in the Wester world just having had enough of having their lives disrupted due to COVID 19. The fact that COVID 19 can in fact end lives, and that the protest is concentrated among those who have refused to be vaccinated, doesn't seem to matter to those who are protesting.  The entire matter has gotten tied up with general concepts of liberty and freedom, and at this part it's hard to sort out what's what with these matters.

In Canadian terms the protest, much like similar ones in the US, also have an undercurrent of populist and conservative disgust, or distress, about the general directions of their countries. This is harder to sort out, and in the US its highly populist rather than highly conservative.  How this sorts out in Canada is not clear.

At any rate, the protest, which came to be concentrated at border crossings, was beginning to have an impact on the economies of Canada and the United States, which is likely why this extraordinary action has been taken.

As of the last press here, which might be hopelessly obsolete, the Canadian government had cleared bridges into the US, but had not cleared the truckers out of Ottowa.

Sunday, February 15, 1942. The fall of Singapore

February 15, 1942: Fall of Singapore: British Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival surrenders to Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, 64,000 POWs taken.

As that entry goes on to explain, this was the largest British surrender, ever. 

Churchill addressed the British on the same day:

Nearly six months have passed since, at the end of August, I made a broadcast directly to my fellow countrymen. It is therefore worthwhile looking back over this half year of struggle for life-for that is what it has been and what it is-to see what has happened to our fortunes and to our prospects.

At that time in August, I had the pleasure of meeting the President of the United States and drawing up with him the declaration of British and American policy which has become known to the world as the Atlantic Charter. We also settled a number of other things about the war, some of which have had an important influence upon its course.

In those days, we met on the terms of a hard-pressed combatant seeking assistance from a great friend who was, however, only a benevolent neutral. In those days, the Germans seemed to be tearing the Russian armies to pieces and striding on with growing momentum to Leningrad, to Moscow, to Rostov and even farther into the heart of Russia.

It was thought a very daring assertion when the President declared that the Russian armies would hold out until the winter. You may say that the military men of all countries-friend, foe and neutral alike-were very doubtful whether this would come true.

As for us, our British resources were stretched to the utmost. We had already been for more than a whole year absolutely alone in the struggle with Hitler and Mussolini. We had to be ready to meet a German invasion of our own island. We had to defend Egypt, the Nile Valley and the Suez Canal. Above all, we had to bring in the food, raw materials and finished munitions across the Atlantic in the teeth of the German and Italian U-boats and aircraft, without which we could not live, without which we could not wage war. We have to do all this still.

It seemed our duty in those August days to do everything in our power to help the Russian people to meet the prodigious onslaught which had been launched against them.

It is little enough we have done for Russia, considering all she has done to beat Hitler and for the common cause. In these circumstances, we British had no means whatever of providing effectively against the new war with Japan. Such was the outlook when I talked with President Roosevelt in the middle of August on board the good ship Prince of Wales, now, alas, sunk beneath the waves.

It is true that our position in August, 1941, seemed vastly better than it had been a year earlier, in 1940, when France had just been beaten into the awful prostration in which she now lies-when we were almost entirely unarmed in our own island and when it looked as if Egypt and all the Middle East would be conquered by the Italians, who still held Abyssinia and had newly driven us out of British Somaliland.

Compared with those days of 1940, when all the world except ourselves thought we were down and out forever, the situation the President and I surveyed in August, 1941, was an enormous improvement. Still, when you looked at it bluntly and squarely, with the United States neutral and fiercely divided, with the Russian armies falling back with grievous losses, with the German military power triumphant and unscathed, with the Japanese menace assuming an uglier shape each day, it certainly seemed a very bleak and anxious scene.

How do matters stand now? Taking it all in all, are our chances of survival better or worse than in August, 1941? How is it with the British Empire, or Commonwealth of Nations-are we up or down? What has happened to the principles of freedom and decent civilization for which we are fighting? Are they making headway or are they in greater peril?

Let us take the rough with the smooth, let us put the good and bad side by side and let us try to see exactly where we are.

The first and greatest of events is that the United States is now unitedly and wholeheartedly in the war with us. The other day, I crossed the Atlantic again to see President Roosevelt. This time we met not only as friends, but as comrades standing side by side and shoulder to shoulder in a battle for dear life and dearer honor in the common cause and against the common foe.

When I survey and compute the power of the United States, and its vast resources, and feel that they are now in it with us, with the British Commonwealth of Nations, all together, however long it lasts, till death or victory, I cannot believe there is any other fact in the whole world which can compare with that. That is what I have dreamed of, aimed at, and worked for, and now it has come to pass.

But there is another fact, in some ways more immediately effective. The Russian armies have not been defeated. They have not been torn to pieces. The Russian peoples have not been conquered or destroyed. Leningrad and Moscow have not been taken. The Russian armies are in the field-they are not holding the line of the Urals or the line of the Volga-they are advancing victoriously, driving the foul invader from the native soil they have guarded so bravely and loved so well.

More than that, for the first time they have broken the Hitler legend. Instead of the easy victories and abundant booty which he and his hordes had gathered in the west, he has found in Russia, so far, only disaster, failure, the shame of unspeakable crimes, the slaughter or loss of vast numbers of German soldiers and the icy wind that blows across the Russian snow.

Here, then, are two tremendous fundamental facts which will in the end dominate the world situation and make victory possible in a form never possible before.

But there is another heavy and terrible side to the account, and this must be set in the balance against these inestimable gains.

Japan has plunged into the war and is ravishing the beautiful, fertile, prosperous and densely populated lands of the Far East. It would never have been in the power of Great Britain, while fighting Germany and Italy, two nations long-hardened and prepared for war, while fighting in the North Sea, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic-it would never have been in our power to defend the Pacific and the Far East single-handed against the onslaught of Japan.

We have only just been able to keep our heads above water at home. Only by a narrow margin have we brought in the food and the supplies; only by so little have we held our own in the Nile Valley and the Middle East.

The Mediterranean is closed and all our transports have to go round the Cape of Good Hope-each ship making only three voyages in the year. Not a ship, not an airplane, not a tank, not an anti-tank gun or an anti-aircraft gun has stood idle. Everything we have has been deployed either against the enemy or awaiting his attack.

We are struggling hard in the Libyan desert, where perhaps another serious battle will soon be fought. We have to provide for the safety and order of liberated Abyssinia, of conquered Eritrea, of Palestine, of liberated Syria and redeemed Iraq, and of our new ally, Persia.

A ceaseless stream of ships, men and materials has flowed from this country for a year and a half in order to build up and sustain our armies in the Middle East, which guard these vast regions on either side of the Nile Valley. We had to do our best to give substantial aid to Russia. We gave it to her in her darkest hour and we must not fail in our undertaking now.

How then in this posture, gripped and held and battered as we were, could we have provided for the safety of the Far East against such an avalanche of fire and steel as has been hurled upon us by Japan? Always, my friends, this thought overhung our minds.

There was, however, one hope and one hope only-namely, that if Japan entered the war with her allies, Germany and Italy, the United States would come in on our side-thus, far more than repairing the balance. For this reason, I have been most careful all these many months not to give any provocation to Japan and to put up with Japanese encroachments, dangerous though they were, so that, if possible, whatever happened, we should not find ourselves forced to face this new enemy alone.

I could not be sure that we should succeed in this policy, but it has come to pass. Japan has struck her felon blow, and a new, far greater, champion has drawn the sword of implacable vengeance against her and on our side.

I shall frankly say to you that I did not believe it was in the interests of Japan to burst into war both upon the British Empire and the United States. I thought it would be a very irrational act. Indeed, when you remember that they did not attack us after Dunkirk, when we were so much weaker, when our hopes of United States help were of the most slender character, and when we were all alone, I could hardly believe that they would commit what seemed to be a mad act.

Tonight, the Japanese are triumphant-they shout their exultation around the world. We suffer-we are taken aback-we are hard-pressed; but I am sure, even in this dark hour that criminal madness will be the verdict which history will pronounce upon the authors of Japanese aggression after the events of 1942 and 1943 have been inscribed upon its somber pages.

The immediate deterrent which the United States exercised upon Japan-apart, of course, from the measureless resources of the American union-is the dominant American battle fleet in the Pacific, which, with the naval forces we could spare, confronted Japanese aggression with the shield of superior seapower.

But, my friends, by an act of sudden violent surprise, long calculated, balanced and prepared, and delivered under the crafty cloak of negotiation, the shield of sea-power which protected the fair lands and islands of the Pacific Ocean was, for the time being, and only for the time being, dashed to the ground.

Into the gap thus opened rushed the invading armies of Japan. We were exposed to the assault of a warrior race of nearly eighty millions with a large outfit of modern weapons, whose war-lords had been planning and scheming for this day, and looking forward to it perhaps for twenty years-while all the time our good people on both sides of the Atlantic were prating about perpetual peace and cutting down each other's navies in order to set a good example.

The overthrow, for a while, of British and United States seapower in the Pacific was like the breaking of some mighty dam. The long-gathered pent-up waters rushed down the peaceful valley, carrying ruin and devastation forward on their foam and spreading their inundations far and wide.

No one must underrate any more the gravity and efficiency of the Japanese war machine-whether in the air or upon the sea, or man to man on land. They have already proved themselves to be formidable, deadly and, I am sorry to say, barbarous antagonists.

This proves a hundred times over that there never was the slightest chance, even though we had been much better prepared in many ways than we were, of our standing up to them alone while we had Nazi Germany at our throats and Fascist Italy at our belly.

This proves something else-and this should be a comfort and reassurance. We can now measure the wonderful strength of the Chinese people, who under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek have, single-handed, fought the insidious Japanese aggressor for four and a half years and left him baffled and dismayed. This they have done, although they were a people whose whole philosophy for many ages was opposed to war and warlike arts, and who in their agony were caught, ill-armed, ill-supplied with munitions and hopelessly outmatched in the air.

We must not underrate the power and malice of our latest foe, but neither must we undervalue the gigantic, overwhelming forces which now stand in the line with us in this world struggle for freedom, and which, once they have developed their full natural, inherent power, whatever has happened in the meanwhile, will be found fully capable of squaring all accounts and setting all things right for a good long time to come.

You know I have never prophesied to you or promised smooth and easy things; and now all I have to offer is hard adverse war for many months ahead. I must warn you, as I warned the House of Commons before they gave me their generous vote of confidence a fortnight ago, that many misfortunes, severe, torturing losses, remorseless and gnawing anxieties lie before us.

To our British folk these may seem even harder to bear when they are at a great distance than when the savage Hun was shattering our cities and we all felt in the midst of the battle ourselves. But the same qualities which brought us through the awful jeopardy of the summer of 1940 and its long autumn and winter bombardments from the air will bring us through this other new ordeal, though it may be more costly and will certainly be longer.

One fault, one crime, and one crime only, can rob the United Nations and the British people, upon whose constancy this Grand Alliance came into being, of the victory upon which their lives and honor depend: a weakening in our purpose, and therefore in our unity. That is the mortal crime. Whoever is guilty of that crime, or of bringing it about in others, of him let it be said that it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea.

Last autumn when Russia was in her most dire peril, when vast numbers of her soldiers had been killed or taken prisoner, when one third of her whole munitions capacity lay, as it still lies, in Nazi German hands, when Kiev fell and the foreign ambassadors were ordered out of Moscow, the Russian people did not fall to bickering among themselves. They just stood together and worked and fought all the harder. They did not lose trust in their leaders. They did not try to break up their government. Hitler had hoped to find Quislings and fifth columnists in the wide regions he overran and among the unhappy masses who fell into his power. He searched for them but he found none.

The system upon which the Soviet government is founded is very different from ours or from that of the United States. However that may be, the fact remains that Russia received blows which her friends feared, and her foes believed, were mortal; and through preserving national unity and persevering undaunted, Russia has had the marvelous come-back for which we thank God now.

In the English-speaking world we rejoice in free institutions. We have free parliaments and a free press. This is the way of life we have been used to. This is the way of life we are fighting to defend.

But it is the duty of all who take part in those free institutions to make sure, as the House of Commons and the House of Lords have done, and will, I doubt not, do, that the national executive government in time of war have a solid foundation on which to stand and on which to act; that the misfortunes and mistakes of war are not exploited against them; that while they are kept up to the mark by helpful and judicious criticism or advice, they are not deprived of the persisting power to run through a period of bad times and many cruel vexations and to come out on the other side and get to the top of the hill.

Tonight I speak to you at home. I speak to you in Australia and New Zealand, for whose safety we will strain every nerve, to our loyal friends in India and Burma, to our gallant allies, the Dutch and Chinese, and to our kith and kin in the United States. I speak to you all under the shadow of a heavy and far-reaching military defeat.

It is a British and Imperial defeat. Singapore has fallen. All the Malay Peninsula has been overrun. Other dangers gather about us afar and none of the dangers which we have hitherto successfully withstood at home and in the East are in any way diminished.

This, therefore, is one of those moments when the British race and nation can show their quality and their genius. This is one of those moments when they can draw from the heart of misfortune the vital impulses of victory.

Here is the moment to display that calm and poise, combined with grim determination, which not so long ago brought us out of the very jaws of death. Here is another occasion to show, as so often in our long history, that we can meet reverses with dignity and with renewed accession of strength.

We must remember that we are no longer alone. We are in the midst of a great company. Three quarters of the human race are now moving with us. The whole future of mankind may depend upon our actions and upon our conduct. So far we have not failed.

We shall not fail now. Let us move forward steadfastly together into the storm and through the storm.

President Roosevelt issued an address to the Canadians.

I am speaking to my neighbors of Canada this evening-in regard to something that is a Canadian matter-only because of a personal relationship, which goes back fifty-eight long years, when my family began taking me every Summer to spend several months on a delightful Island off the coast of New Brunswick. I hope that my privilege of free and intimate discourse across our border will always continue. I trust that it will always be appreciated as sincerely as I appreciate it tonight.

It is not merely as good neighbors that we speak to each other in these eventful days, but as partners in a great enterprise which concerns us equally and in which we are equally pledged to the uttermost sacrifice and effort.

In an atmosphere of peace, four years ago, I offered you the assurance that the people of this country would not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil were ever threatened by an aggressor. Your Prime Minister responded with an intimation that Canada, whose vast territories flank our entire northern border, would man that border against any attack upon us. These mutual pledges are now being implemented. Instead of defending merely our shores and our territories we now are joined with the other free peoples of the world against an armed conspiracy to wipe out free institutions wherever they exist.

Freedom-our freedom and yours-is under attack on many fronts. You and we together are engaged to resist the attack on any front where our strength can best be brought to bear.

The part that Canada is playing in this fight for the liberty of man is worthy of your traditions and ours. We, your neighbors, have been profoundly impressed by reports that have come to us setting forth the magnitude and nature of your effort as well as the valiant spirit which supports it. If that effort is to be measured in dollars, then you already have paid out, in two years, more than twice as much as you spent in the whole four years of the last war.

Moreover, these reports show that one Canadian in every twenty-one of your entire population is now in the fighting forces and that one in every twenty-nine is a volunteer for service anywhere in the world. It should give us all new strength and new courage to learn that in the swift mobilization your Army has increased nearly ten-fold, your Navy fifteen-fold, your Air Force twenty-five-fold. We rejoice to know that the Air Training Plan which you commenced to organize two years ago is now the main source of reinforcements for Britain's air force and that its graduates are fighting on almost every front in the world. Other reports disclose in equally impressive terms an all-out effort which Canada is making in the common cause of liberty.

Yours are the achievements of a great nation. They require no praise from me-but they get that praise from me nevertheless. I understate the case when I say that we, in this country, contemplating what you have done, and the spirit in which you have done it, are proud to be your neighbors.

From the outset you have had our friendship and understanding, and our collaboration on an increasing scale. We have gone forward together with increasing understanding and mutual sympathy and good will.

More recent events have brought us into even closer alignment; and at Washington a few weeks ago, with the assistance of Britain's Prime Minister and your own, we arrived at understandings which mean that the United Nations will fight and work and endure together until our common purpose is accomplished and the sun shines down once more upon a world where the weak will be safe ; and the strong will be just.

There is peril ahead for us all, and sorrow for many. But our cause is right, our goal is worthy, our strength is great and growing. Let us then march forward together, facing danger, bearing sacrifice, competing only in the effort to share even more fully in the great task laid upon us all. Let us, remembering the price that some have paid for our survival, make our own contribution worthy to lie beside theirs upon the altar of man's faith.

Tuesday, February 14, 1922. MacArthur weds for the first time.

On this date in 1922 Gen. Douglas MacArthur married divorcee Louise Cromwell Brooks, a wealthy socialite.

MacArthur was stationed at West Point at the time but was soon thereafter transferred to the Philippines.  Indeed, the transfer sparked rumors that Pershing had ordered the transfer due to having a romantic interest in Brooks himself, but the better evidence is that the relationship with Pershing had ended well before that, although it had existed.  She also had a romantic interest, however, in a member of his staff.  Nonetheless, the best interest is that it was simply a transfer of duty station.

The couple divorced in 1929. She'd go on to marry twice more, and divorce twice more, passing away in 1965 at age 74.

MacArthur gave the marriage a single line in his memoirs, and of course later married his second wife Jean, who is much better remembered.

Monday, February 14, 1972. Made In China.

On this day in 1972, President Richard Nixon removed restrictions on American exports to the People's Republic of China. The ban had been in place for over twenty years.

This meant, of course, that things would soon work the other way around as well. . . the People's Republic of China could export to the United States.

Nixon was getting ready to visit the PRC shortly.

Dr. Suess' The Lorax aired for the first time on CBS.

Saturday, February 14, 1942. The Area Bombing Directive

On this day in 1942 the British Air Ministry issued the Area Bombing Directive instructing the RAF to target the German industrial workforce through the bombing of German cities.  The thought was that this would impact German production and morale.

RAF Lancaster over Hanover.

Controversial ever since, irrespective of what a person views of the overall aspect of right and wrong in the combatants, targeting civilians in this fashion is hard not to view as immoral and a war crime.  The US would resort to the same tactic against Japan later in the war.

Whatever the order's impact on production came to be, it did not cause a collapse in German morale.

The Japanese landed on Sumatra.

Friday, February 13, 1942. Deciding to build the AlCan.

As we noted in our companion blog for this day, Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1942, it was a day of some momentous and long-lasting events.   

African American engineers working on the Alcan.  Note the very high boots.

1942  US and Canada agree to construct the Alcan Highway.  This is, of course, not directly a Wyoming event, but it is significant in that it represents the ongoing expansion of road transportation.  A highway of this type would not have even been conceivable just 20 year prior.  It also is a feature of the arrival of really practical 4x4 vehicles, all Army vehicles at that time, which were capable of off-road and road use for the first time. Such vehicles would become available to the public at the conclusion of World War Two, and would provide widespread, easy winter access to much of Wyoming for the very first time.

1942  All Japanese nationals employed by the Union Pacific Railroad were dismissed.

The AlCan is still with us, of course.  It was once one of my goals to drive it, and while that desire has waned over the years, I'd still like to.

The impetus for building the road was the fear that the Japanese would attack Alaska, which was accessible only by sea and air from the lower 48 states and which had no long roads connecting it in any fashion to the lower Canadian provinces.  If attacked, it was featured, it was not possible to supply the state.

Linking up the road as it was built in both directions.

Construction commenced on March 9, 1942 and was completed on October 28, 1942, an amazingly short amount of time, but then it was hardly a highway in the modern sense.  Being completed in the fall, as it was, use of the highway didn't start until 1943.

Alaska was incredibly remote at the time.  With a population of only 73,000, half its residents at the time were natives, many who had very little contact with European culture.  Prior European penetration into Alaska had come from Russians interested in furs, Canadians interested in furs, and then Americans interested in furs and gold.  Logging had commenced, and during the Great Depression an intentional effort had been made to resettle some displaced farmers to those regions of Alaska temperate enough to engage in crop agriculture.  Fishing was also an industry.  Oil was not, having not yet been discovered there.  It was not a conventional tourist destination.

In context, fears that the Japanese would land in Alaska were accordingly not as farfetched as they would seem to today, and likewise fears that they would land in Australia were not either.  Indeed, the Japanese did land within air striking distance of parts of Australia, and they did land in the Aleutians, albeit only as a diversion.

Fear of the Japanese had obviously also extended to the point where employers felt free to fire Japanese nationals in the country.

On the same day, the Germans completed the Channel Dash successfully, although both of their battleships had been damaged by mines.

The Battle of Palembang began on Sumatra and the Battle of Pasire Panjang began in the struggle for Singapore.

Monday, February 13, 1922. The last stand of the Russian Whites, Viktorin Molchanov, Vasily Blyukher, Gloria Swanson and Harrison Ford.

The Battle of Volochayevka in the Russian far east came to an end with the withdrawal of Russian White Forces.  While it was a Red victory, the withdrawal was a White tactical success, but more or less a Pyrrhic one, save for the men that it saved from being taken by the Reds.  Following this, the Whites would come apart and remaining White forces and the Japanese occupation force in the area would be withdrawn.  It was, effectively, the last battle of the Russian Civil War.

The drama was played out in the odd context of the final days of the Whites in Russia.  In November 1921 the Whites, organized as the Far Eastern White Army, launched an offensive against the Soviet peudo state, the Far Eastern Republic. They were supported in this endeavor by the Japanese.    They had experienced initial success, but suffered setbacks in December and thereafter lost ground.  On October 25, 1922, their remnants and that of the Japanese forces were withdrawn.

The victorious Vasily Blyukher, servant of Red butchery, who would go on to be beaten to death by Red butchers.

The White commander, Viktorin Molchanov, relocated first to China, and then to the United States, dying in San Francisco at age 88 in 1975.  The Red commander, who was technically in the army of the Far Eastern Republic, Vasily Blyukher went on to become an advisor to the Chinese in from 1924 to 1927.  He was beaten to death in Stalin's purges in 1938, the same reward that a vast number of effective Red Army commanders received from their leader in the same time period.

To make this a bit odder, this region today is in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a remnant of the Soviet Union.  Created to be an "independent" region for Russia's Jewish population by the USSR, at its peak 25% of its population was Jewish.  Today, only .2% of the population is.

The movie Smilin' Through was released.  It featured Norma Talmadge and Harrison Ford in a melodrama.

No, not that Harrison Ford, this Harrison Ford:

Ford was a silent movie actor, making his last picture, and his only "talkie" in 1932.  He toured with the USO during World War Two.  He was hit as a pedestrian by a car in 1951, and would spend the rest of his life an invalid, dying in 1957 at age 73.

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