The M8 was a light tank that was adopted to replace the M551 Sheridan, but which never went into production and was phased out before it was even introduced.
Last edition:
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Wednesday, March 12, 1975. Reporting the grim news.
ARVN II Corps Commander General Phạm Văn Phú, reported to his government that the PAVN were firmly in control of Buôn Ma Thuột, a disaster of epic proportions as half the ARVN now lay behind NVA lines to the north, save for the coast, which really depended upon the reaction of the United States and the willingness to deploy its Navy for evacuation, or its Naval air arm for combat advantage.
Gen. Phú began his military career as an interpreter for the French Army and moved on to officer status during the French Indochinese War. He was captured by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu and thereafter went into the ARVN. He was relieved of command in 1972 due to exhaustion, but recovered and returned to service. He committed suicide on April 30, 1975, the day of the fall of Saigon.
Fourteen foreign citizens including American missionaries (who frankly should have left the task of evangelization to the Catholic Church) were taken by the NVA. They were taken north and would be released in October, including a six year old.
Interesting, in 2025, Vietnam has a sufficient surplus of Priests such that it now sends Priests to the United States, thereby giving an example of a land betrayed seeking to save the souls of those who betrayed it. We can, probably, look forward to Ukrainian Catholic Priests in the future.
The last full draft lotter took place. Nobody was called to service. Lil' Donny Trump was free from any danger. Not just him, of course, but Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton, as well.
In a sign of more to come, an Air Vietnam DC-4 crashed 25 km southwest of Pleiku killing twenty six on board, including New Zealand Red Cross team leader Malcolm Riding.
The Dubai Islamic Bank was established in the United Arab Emirates, becoming the first private institution to operate under the principles of Islamic banking.
Last edition:
Monday, March 10, 1975. Buôn Ma Thuột city center taken.
Sunday, March 11, 1945. Essen destroyed.
The RAF destroyed Essen.
The Battle of Kiauneliškis between Lithuanian partisans and the Red Army.
The British 36 Division took Mongrmit, Burma.
"Men of the 32nd Division are standing outside the Information and Education Tent at the Headquarters of the 32nd Division. Taytay, Luzon, P.I. 11 March, 1945. 32nd Infantry Division."
Last edition:
Saturday, March 10, 1945. The execution of Gen. Émile Lemonnier.
Wednesday, March 11, 1925. Private manufacture of arms.
The League of Nations abandoned proposals to limit the private manufacture of arms in advance of a conferences on arms trafficking The thought was the United States would oppose such actions, which is interesting in that this is the first instance of such a proposal of which I'm aware.
Gun control itself had gained support, somewhat, after World War One. It did exist to some extent before, but after the war it really started to advance, in no small part due to social concerns, rather than criminal ones. It came into the UK for the first time, for example, as the British upper class feared that the lower class had been radicalized.
Last edition:
Monday, March 9, 1925. Try this in your happy home.
Monday, March 10, 2025
Monday, March 10, 1975. Buôn Ma Thuột city center taken.
The North Vietnamese Army attacked Buôn Ma Thuột, gaining the city center by nightfall, while the ARVN held out on the outskirts. NVA forces outnumbered ARVN forces 5.5 to 1, showing how massive a violation of the Paris Peace Accords the North Vietnamese offensive was.
It also shows, however, that even at this stage, which was turning disastrous, the ARVN was fighting.
Buôn Ma Thuột is dead center in the Central Highlands of what was the the Republic of Vietnam.
Ibrahim Nasir, the President of the Maldives, fired Premier Ahmed Zalti and imposed presidential rule.
Last edition:
Tuesday, March 4, 1975 (posted late). The last North Vietnamese Offensive.
Saturday, March 10, 1945. The execution of Gen. Émile Lemonnier.
Gen. Émile Lemonnier of the French Army was executed by the Japanese for, as a captive, refusing to sign an instrument of surrender to the Japanese in Indochina. He was 51 years of age.
The last few years of his life must have been one of unrelenting mental torment.
The cowardly weasel ordering his execution, Captain Kayakawa was himself executed after the war..
I know some will excuse the latter's actions based on culture, but he was a weasel.
It was day two of the firebombing of Tokyo.
It's extremely difficult not to be morally troubled by this action. There are military justifications of it, but by and large, it was a monstrous attack upon a civilian population right down to the infant level. It survives as a reminder that even in World War Two, in which the Allies held hte moral high ground, not all Allied actions were morally licit.
In our own day, in which we have a President who stands by as rockets rain down on a civilian population, and in which that same President sat a war out due to shin splints, it rains buckets of blood on our own heads.
The Australians landed at Wide Bay, Papua New Guinea.
Smiling Albert Field Marshal Kesselring arrivee from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.
The Germans withdrew from from the pocket west of the Rhine between Wesel and Xanten in the face of British and Canadian pressure.
The German offensive around Lake Balatron began to encounter heavy Rad Army resistance..
The U-275 struck a mine and was sunk off of East Sussex. The U-681 was sunk off of the Isles of Scilly by a U.S Navy B-24.
FDR involved Spanish representatives with their hands out no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continued.
Good for FDR.
Today, King Donny would probably be giving warm smooches to Francoist delegates.
Last edition:
Friday, March 9, 1945. Firebombing Japan (Operation Meetinghouse). Japanese end French rule in Indochina (Operation Bright Moon)
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Tuesday, March 4, 1975 (posted late). The last North Vietnamese Offensive.
North Vietnam launched attacks on South Vietnamese positions in the Mang Yang Pass in the Central Highlands. This was the start of the offensive that would take the North Vietnamese into Saigon a month later.
The offensive was termed Campaign 275.
Last edition:
Monday, March 3, 1975. First women Mounties.
Friday, March 9, 1945. Firebombing Japan (Operation Meetinghouse). Japanese end French rule in Indochina (Operation Bright Moon)
The US Army Air Force conducted a 48 hour fire bombing raid of Tokyo. Sixteen square miles of the city's interior were destroyed and between 80,000 and 130,000 civilians killed. One million were rendered homeless.
Similar raids on Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe also took place.
The U.S. 1st Army took Bonn and Godesburgh
The Japanese launched Operation Bright Moon, 明号作戦, the attack on the French military and government in Indochina.
The Japanese had tolerated ongoing French administration of Indochina up until this point, but by this point, the French government had gone from Vichy to Free French, and Japan was becoming concerned that the Allies would land with French consent in region. The French were expecting the attack but were unablet o successfully repel it, with some French forces having to retreat to Nationalist China where they were not well received.
French Indochinese soldiers retreating to Nationalist China. I have to sonder how man of these Vietnamese troops survived this trek, and of those who did, did they go on and fight in the French Indochinese War on the French side?
Troops of the Italian Social Republic committed the Salussola Massacre as the war in Italy increasingly devolved into a civil war which would carry on, in some ways, until the 1970s.
Benito Mussolini sent a priest to Switzerland to propose to a Vatican envoy that Italy and Germany join with the Allies to attack and defeat the Soviet Union. The proposal met with the predictable response.
Congress passed the McCarran–Ferguson Act, exempting the insurance business from most federal regulation.
Last edition:
Thursday, March 8, 1945. Operation Sunrise
Monday, March 9, 1925. Try this in your happy home.
Hitler was banned from speaking to crowds in Bavaria.
Last edition:
Sunday, March 8, 1925. Fédération Nationale Catholique
Saturday, March 8, 2025
The Best Posts of the Week of March 2, 2025. The week where I suffered through Influenza A.
It was a week in which, after Mass on Sunday, I took the dog out with me austensibly to go fishing and we ended up on the Sweetwater. We walked a fair amount and I noticed, on such a nice day that I shed my coat, that I was walking fatigued. "Out of shape?", I wondered, or just rapidly onsetting old age.
I was having a pretty hard time.
Turned out it was Influenza A. The next morning I was in horrific shape. I went to work, but by noon was a wreck.
I knew it already, but one of the negative things about being a lawyer, at least in some cases, your health matters only to you, and you keep on going anyhow. I had to crawl down to work every day, didn't eat at night, and had the fevers of delirium all night long. Nobody really care that much as they have things they want to you to do. "Help me!". So you go and do it, knowing you are killing yourself.
"You don't look good". "You look worn out". Things I was hearing during the week.
Oh well, the weekends here . . and I worked.
The glory of the law.
The law, they say, is a jealous mistress. As one still practicing older lawyer told me, "the law's a bitch". Both are true.
The same week an event in 1925 recalled a proposal in 2025 that didn't go anywhere, thank goodness.
Tuesday, March 3, 1925. Monumental.
Last week's entry here was pretty grim, but in a really strange way, we seem to have turned a corner in the story of the False Trump Presidency. Now a significant portion of the population, I'd guess well over 50%, regards him for what he is, a buffoonish demented toddler. You have to worry about him, as he's literally a toddler with his finger on the nuclear key, and this pat week in spite of all his weird ramblings about "beautiful" young men getting killed in the Russo Ukrainian War, he showed himself willing to get more killed. Like toddlers, he is only concerned about himself.
But now everyone, save for the most ignorant, deluded, or convinced, is simply marking time for him to die or be replaced.
We resumed looking at the collection of the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois.
We were reminded of a time when the Republican Party had dignity.
We lived through a time in which it doesn't.
We recalled one of the large events prior to the Revolution, one which would end up notable for the dedication Americans of the period showed to the law in spite of passions.
We recalled the birth a jazz great who left us too soon.
The most famous Ameircan v. German tank dual of the Second World War took place, in a dense urban environment.
Random snippets. Nero's Court.
The Ludendorff Bridge was taken in one of the great moments of World War Two.
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List.
Donny imposed tariffs and then backed off, with Mexico rolling its eyes and Canada saying "fuck you and the horse you rode in on".
Last edition:
The week of February 23, 2025. The week the US became Brazil.
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