Monday, August 26, 2024

Saturday, August 26, 1944. De Gaulle in the streets of Paris. Bulgaria calls it quits.


Charles de Gaulle marched in the streets of paris, German sniper fire notwithstanding.

T-Sgt. Kenneth Averill, 563 Marshall St., Hazel Park, Mich., of the 4th Signal Co., 4th Div., gets his welcome personally from a Parisian girl when his unit, with other French and American forces, enters the main section of the French capitol. 26 August, 1944.

Not every Parisian enjoyed the festivities.  Parisian women with recent German boyfriends were brutalized, although the number was undoubtedly far below the numbers that had fraternized during the German occupation.  They were made to bear the guilt of a nation who had resisted heroically, in part, but which had not been free of collaboration.

American and French armor rolls through the Rue De Rivoli, Paris, passing cheering crowds and a knocked-out Nazi tank which fell victim to the gunnery of the tank crews which aided in the liberation of the French capital. 26 August, 1944.

Indeed, France has never reconciled with its complicated history during the war. Thousands of Frenchmen heroically resisted the Germans, including groups as widely divergent as monarchist and communists, but it's also the case that "French" liberation armies included massive numbers of North Africans who saw joining the Free French as a means of bringing their regions into metropolitan France, which they were soon to learn was not the case.

Crowds of Parisians celebrating the entry of Allied troops into Paris scatter for cover as a sniper fires into them from a building on the Place De La Concorde. Although the Germans surrendered the city, small bands of snipers still remained. 26 August, 1944.

Meanwhile, while dwarfed by the Free French formation that had formed during the war, and the regular French units that were now part of the Allied armies, some French volunteers continued to fight on the Eastern front.

The Germans lose more of their supplies. Captured when American and French forces occupied the main parts of the French capital, this stock of German gasoline quickly disappeared as Parisians help themselves outside the former Paris Wehrmacht headquarters on Avenue Kleber, former French tanks taken into German service, now abandoned on location. 26 August, 1944.

The Allies won the Battle of Toulon.

And they were taking back channel islands this late as well.

British paratroopers backed by Belgian infantry and armor, cleared the arears around Caen still in German hands.

Six American airmen were lynched by the townspeople of Rüsselsheim am Main.  Some of the townspeople would find themselves defendants in a war crimes trial after the war.

While this incident resulted in trials, killings of airmen, both in Germany and Japan, were hardly limited to this.

Bugarai announced that it was pulling out of the war and disarming all German troops on its territory.

The Red Army reached the Danube.

The 8th Army crossed the Metauro in Italy.

Adam von Trott zu Solz, 35 years of age, a German lawyer, diplomat and central figure in the 20 July plot, was hung by the Nazis.

Banika "U", Headquarters for Morale Services on the Russell Islands. L-R: Lt. William H. Ireland, Orientation Officer, of Ohio; Pvt. Paul E. Swofford, Assistant in Moral Services, of Ill.; Cpl. Fred D. Scullcy, Assistant in Moral Services, of Indiana; native of the Island; and Lt. John W. M. Rothney, [illegible] officer, of Wisconsin. 26 August, 1944.

Last edition:

Friday, August 25, 1944. Paris, Versailles and Avignon liberated.

Thursday, August 26, 1909. A hostel idea.

The youth hostel movement was born when a group of hikers lead by Richard Schirrmann found shelter in a school in a thunderstorm.

Schirrmann was a teacher as well as an outdoorsman.  During World War One he served in the German Army, participating the 1915 Christmas truce, something that lingered in his area for quite some time after Christmas.  He founded the Youth Hostel Association in 1919 and founded the children's village "Staumühle" on a former military training ground near Paderborn, where my German ancestors hail from.  HE served as the President of the International Youth Hostelling Associating until the Nazis forced him to resign and put the control of the hostels under the Hitler Youth in 1936.  He rebuilt the association after the war.  He married late, in 1942, but had six children with his wife before dying in 1961 at age 87.

The SS Cartago telegraphed a report of a hurricane near the Yucatan, the first radio warning of a tropical storm.

Last edition:

Monday, August 23, 1909. Bill Bergen sets a record.

Labels: 

Wednesday, August 26, 1874. Lynching black suspects and violating the Second Amendment.

A mob of white men broke into the Gibson County, Tennessee Jail, in Treton and lynched sixteen black prisoners.

They had been accused of shooting two white men.

The following day the Mayor of Trenton ordered the firearms of all of Trenton's black residents confiscated, under pain of death, a clearly unconstitutional action.

Things like this, and the event of the day prior, help demonstrate the value of the Second Amendment.

The National Rifle Association, fwiw, was formed just three years prior, but at that time principally engaged in promoting marksmanship.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 25, 1874. The Coushatta Massacre.

Friday, August 26, 1774. The Suffolk County Convention of the Committees of Correspondence

Community leaders in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which included Boston, gathered in the Suffolk County Convention of the Committees of Correspondence to discuss the situation facing the colonies and the Intolerable Acts.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 25, 1774. North Carolina's First Provincial Congress.


Sunday, August 25, 2024

National Park Service Day.

 


Commorating the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, whereby the NPS relieved the United States Army, which was pretty busy with other things, of the duty of patrolling the parks (the Park Service campaign hat recalls the Army's M1911 campaign hat.


The Park Service and the parks themselves are one of the great things about the United States.  If you have nothing on the plate today, and have a park nearby, go check it out if you can, unless of course you live in Utah, in which case you can sit in side your hovel and imagine a future in your state in which all the lands have been sold to big money.

Related thread:

Today In Wyoming's History: August 25, 1916. National Park Service formed.

Friday, August 25, 1944. Paris, Versailles and Avignon liberated.

The Battle of Paris ended at 2:30 p.m. when German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrendered the French capital against orders.

Dietrich von Choltitz with Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque and Jacques Soustelle in the M3 Scout Car.

De Gaulle arrived in the city at 4:00 p.m. to cheering crowds.

Versailles was liberated by French troops.

124 residents of  Maillé, Indre-et-Loire were murdered by the Germans in reprisal for actions by the French Resistance.


The Red Ball Express truck convoy system of emergency supply provision began and would run for 83 days.

US and French forces liberated Avignon without opposition.

The British 8th Army commenced Operation Olive in Italy.

Belgian No. 4 Troop of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando raided Île d'Yeu, which turned out to be unoccupied.

Romania declared war on Germany.

The Germans scuttled the U-18, U-24 and U-178.  The U-667 hit a mine in the Bay of Biscay and sank.  The Z24 was sunk by Allied aircraft.  The U-1000 hit a mine off of Pilau and was damaged beyond repair.

The US prevailed in the Battle of Aitape.

The Japanese destroyer Yūnagi was sunk northeast of Cape Bojeador, Luzon by the USS Picuda.


"Coast Guardsman Kent C. Pompella, boatswain’s mate second class, displays the picturesque facial fashions of the fighting South Sea invader. On his face he sports a 10 months growth of briers and in his ears a pair of shark tooth earrings."  Pompella passed away in January 2000 at the age of 79, a resident of Cloverdale, California.  The last 20 years of his life he ran a hotel in that city, behind which he planted a large garden.  He was a commercial fisherman prior to that.  Earrings in men, it might be noted, were extremely unusual at the time.

Last edition:

Monday, August 25, 1924. Ratifying the Dawes Plan and questionable movies.


Released on this day in 1924.  It was banned in some cities, as was the novel which it was based upon.

Chancellor Wilhelm Marx informed the Reichstag that he would ratify the London agreement whether the Reichstag approved it or not and even if it meant a downfall of the government and new elections.

The Cheyenne paper pointed out that summer was drawing to a close.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 23, 1924. Princess Petrolia. Refinery expansion in Glenrock.

Tuesday, August 25, 1874. The Coushatta Massacre.

The terroristic White League attacked and killed African American farmer Thomas Floyd in the first of a series of attacks on Republican Party members and freedmen in Louisiana.  Ultimately several deaths occured, but nobody was brought to trial in spite of the arrest of 25 people.

The attacks were part of an overall effort to drive Republicans out of the state.

While it would anger some people for it to be noted, the Republican Party at the time was the liberal party in favor of expansive democracy, whereas the Democratic Party was the opposite.  Just as Louisiana's Democrats of the time regarded the Republicans as unspeakable enemies, the opposite is true today.  Likewise, as the Democratic Party was the party of the white South in 1874, the Republican Party is the same now. 

Last edition:

Thursday, August 25, 1774. North Carolina's First Provincial Congress.

North Carolina's First Provincial Congress met in New Bern.

Last edition:

Monday, August 22, 1774. Proceedings of Freeholders in the Town of Halifax, (North Carolina) 22d August, 1774.

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Best Posts of the Week of August 18, 2024.

It was, quite frankly, a very bad week for Wyoming.

Early in the week, the primary election was held.

An Appeal To Heaven. The 2024 Wyoming Primary


A cat was stolen in Queens.


Boonie hats were given a no go at Nellis.






Utah chose to ignore the organic act admitting it into the Union.


There was bad news for GMRS repeater linking, although at least some networks are ignoring it.



Enormous fires broke out.



The electorate titled towards heavily towards populism and its denialism.



Last edition:

Painted Bricks: Cheyenne, Chief Yellow Calf.

Painted Bricks: Cheyenne, Chief Yellow Calf.:  

Blog Mirror: Utah goes for the ultimate public land grab

 

Utah goes for the ultimate public land grab

Thursday, August 24, 1944. Paris Reached.

US tank crossing the Seine, August 24, 1944.

The French 4th Armored Division entered Paris in the evening.

Germany closed theaters, cancelled holidays and cancelled military leave.

The First Canadian Army captured Bernay and crossed the Risle River at Nassandres.

The 51st SS-Brigade murdered 68 civilians of all ages in Buchères, France.

The 7th Army took Cannes.

The German Army Group South Ukraine line collapses with the switch in sides of Romania.

The USS Harder was sunk in Dasol Bay by the Japanese.

The U-354 and U-445 were sunk by the Royal Navy.

The Royal Navy unsuccessfully tried again for the Tirpitz.

IBM's Harvard Mark I electro-mechanical computer was formally presented to Harvard University.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 23, 1944. The Act of 23 August.

Tuesday, August 24, 1824. Shipping Up To Boston with Lafayette.

 A large procession escorted Lafayette into Boston.


While there, he laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Memorial.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 14, 1824. Return of Lafayette.

Friday, August 23, 2024

The Agrarian's Lament: Where men rush and yearn.

The Agrarian's Lament: Where men rush and yearn.:

Where men rush and yearn.

Men rush towards complexity; but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings, but they dream of being shepherds.

G.K. Chesterton, The Moral of Stevenson

New arrival at the Camporee.

 

Around Wyoming, Thursday, August 22

Friday Farming: Ecological benefits of strategically applied livestock grazing in sagebrush communities

 

Ecological benefits of strategically applied livestock grazing in sagebrush communities

Wednesday, August 23, 1944. The Act of 23 August.

King Michael of Romania lead a coup that overthrew fascistic dictator Ion Antonescu in order that Romania could extract itself from its losing alliance with Germany.


It would become known as the Act of 23 August.

During the event, the King first met with Antonescu and asked him to sign an armistice with the Soviet Union.  When he refused, the King declared there was nothing that could be done, officers came in, and arrested Antonescu.

The King offered the Germans free passage out of the country, which they refused.  Within 24 hours the country would be successfully at war with Nazi Germany and an Allied power.

In spite of its success, the country would not be able to avoid the Soviet co-opting of the government, and Michael was deposed in 1947 when he was out of the country for the marriage of his cousin, Elizabeth of the United Kingdom.  He was allowed to return to Romania late in life, after Communism fell.

Antonescu was tried and executed in 1946. Constantin Sănătescu, who became Prime Minister up Antonescu being removed, died of cancer in 1947.

Italian partisans took Barceno, near Switzerland.

French partisans controlled most of Paris.

Allies were advancing everywhere in Europe.

American infantrymen move past a burning German motorized vehicle, in pursuit of the former operators of the vehicle. 23 August, 1944.

Eight German ships were sunk in the Battle of Audiene Bay The U-180 was sunk by some undetermined means in the Bay of Biscay.

The Japanese destroyer Asakaze was sunk by the USS Haddo in Paluan Bay.

Japanese resistance on Numfoor ends.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 22, 1944. End of the German Navy in the Baltic, Strikes on the Tirpitz, Advances in France.

Saturday, August 23, 1924. Princess Petrolia. Refinery expansion in Glenrock.

 


The Wyoming obsession with petroleum was much in evidence in the Saturday paper, with a beauty pageant title named after the stuff.

Glenrock's refinery was being expanded.

It no longer exists.


And the Italian air crew, which did survive ditching in the Atlantic, was reported as still missing.

Last edition:

Friday, August 22, 1924. Marxist harassing Marx.

Blog Mirror: Pork Facts in 1924 Cookbook

 

Pork Facts in 1924 Cookbook

Thursday, August 22, 2024

"Communism" in American politics.

Just recently the Trumpist have taken up calling Kamala Harris a "Communist".

What horse shit.

Calling right wing politicians "fascists" is an old slander, dating back at least to the 1960s.  It's overuse has now lead to the problem that when some of the right are genuinely approaching being fascistic, the slur has lost part of its meaning, compounded by the fact that a lot of the people who use it, even seriously, don't really know what it means.

The US of course fought a fascist power during the Second World War, Italy, and bombed a second arguably fascist power, Romania.  Germany, quite frankly, probably doesn't really qualify as fascist during the war, but something else.  Vichy France and Francoist Spain had fascist elements, but probably can't really qualify as fascist. That doesn't make any of those powers nifty, but rather it demonstrates the problem of the sloppy use of words.

Since Barack Obama, those on the right have been busy doing it.  Obama wasn't a "Marxist", as some on the right like to claim, and Harris isn't a Communist. But now some followers on the Trumpist right seriously believe that Harris is really a Communist.

That is in part because they have no idea what Communism is.

I hear this all the time. The government will propose regulating something, for example, and people will decry that as "Communist".  It isn't.  It is't Socialism either.  Simply favoring government action or espousing "progressive" views isn't either of those things.

And regarding Socialism, there's big elements of Socialism that many people on the right are perfectly fine with.  Like state funded highways?  Well, you are dirty Socialist, maybe a Communist even.