Posted on 03/21/2015 4:18:28 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Prime Minister to President Roosevelt 21 Mar 45
I am greatly looking forward to seeing Bernie, who is one of my oldest friends. I am telegraphing to him to say how glad I am that he is coming. I should like to know when he will come.
I had often wondered why he did not make more use of Baruch’s immense knowledge and experience both of American politics and war production.
Mr. Baruch came over as planned, and we had long and intimate talks, which led to a further agreeable interchange with the President. I had hopes that I might find a new tie of correspondence and communication with my all-important colleague and comrade. Alas, we were very near the end!
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
Section 5 Ward 22
Madigan General Hospital
Ft. Lewis, Wash.
Zinn Garrett (the captain quoted in the story about the stabbing of an American soldier) isn’t exactly a common name. I presume this is him.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=54178660
Maj Zinn Bedford Garrett
Birth: Oct. 12, 1908
Palo Pinto County
Texas, USA
Death: Dec. 25, 1984
Appleton
Outagamie County
Wisconsin, USA
* Headline not approved by Charles de Gaulle.
** Headline approved by General Patton.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/2/21.htm
March 21st, 1945 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: There are currently 745 Avro Lancasters ready for operations on Bomber Commands books and 296 in Operational Conversion Units. (22)
GERMANY: US 3rd Army clears the west banks of the Rhine north of Mannheim.
Patton’s US 3rd Army captures Mainz.
Hohenlychen: Guderian fails to get Heinrich Himmler to go with him to Berlin to persuade Hitler to seek an armistice.
DENMARK: Copenhagen: Allied airmen broke open another Gestapo prison today, but at a terrible cost. In the basement of the Shell building, Danish resistance fighters were being tortured. On the top floor another 32 prisoners were being held. RAF bombs had to destroy the remaining floors. They did. Around 100 Nazis died for the loss of six prisoners. Others escaped and the Gestapo’s planned arrests of the banned Danish Freedom Council were thwarted. But one of the six aircraft that crashed set fire to a school. Other pilots bombed this, believing it to be the target. A total of 112 Danish civilians were killed, including 86 children and 17 teachers. The aircraft were Mosquito VIs of No. 464 Squadron. (22)
More (in Dansk)
USAAF Operations:
EUROPE: Over 2,500 USAAF bombers hit targets in Germany and Austria from bases in England and Italy. The Eighth Air Force dispatches 890 B-17s and 610 B-24s to bomb ten jet fighter bases in northwestern Germany plus a tank factory at Plauen and a marshalling yard at Reichenbach. The Ninth Air Force dispatches 580-plus A-20s, A-26s and B-26s to bomb six communication centers and a marshalling yard east of the Rhine River in an interdiction campaign to obstruct enemy movement. The Fifteenth Air Force dispatches 660-plus B-17s and B-24s to bomb targets in Austria and Germany. The German targets is the Neuburg an der Donau Airfield: Austrian targets include marshalling yards at Villach, Klagenfurt, Graz, Bruck an der Mur, and Pragersko; three oil refineries; and a supply depot at Vienna.
ARCTIC OCEAN: Destroyer HMCS Sioux arrived Kola Inlet with Convoy JW-65.
BURMA: Lt. Claud Raymond (b.1923), Royal Engineers, led his patrol through Japanese defences under savage fire. He died next day, having insisted his wounds be treated last. (Victoria Cross)
CHINA: Japan launches a fresh offensive aimed at capturing the strategic US air bases at Laohokow and Ankong.
JAPAN: In the Kurile Islands, Task Force 92’s attempt to bombard Suribachi on Paramushiru Island is thwarted due to heavy sea ice. TF 92 consists of the light cruisers USS Concord (CL-10), USS Richmond (CL-9) and USS Trenton (CL-11) plus accompanying destroyers.
The first operational use of the Yokosuka MXY7 rocket-powered suicide plane occurs today.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Task Force 58 has now withdrawn to an area between the Ryukyu and Bonin Islands. The Japanese mount numerous small attacks and carrier based Navy and Marine F6F and F4U fighter pilots shoot down 54 Japanese aircraft between 0336 and 1500 hours. Marine F4U pilots shoot down a Yokosuka P1Y, Navy Bomber Ginga (Milky Way) (Allied Code Name “Frances”) and a Nakajima J1N, Navy Type 2 Reconnaissance Plane (Allied Code Name “Irving”) between 1030 and 1045 hours and two Mitsubishi J2M, Navy Interceptor Fighter Raiden (Thunderbolt) (Allied Code Name “Jack”) at 1420 hours.
USS Independence (CVL-22) with Light Carrier Air Group Forty Six (CVLG-46) joins TF 58. Also joining is Task Group 50.8, the At Sea Logistics Support Group, which includes:
Task Unit 50.8.13, the Covering Unit, with USS Shamrock Bay (CVE-84) and Composite Squadron Ninety Four (VC-94),
Task Unit 50.8.14, the Covering Unit, with USS Makassar Strait (CVE-91) and VC-97, and Task Unit 50.8.4, the Carrier Transport Unit, with USS Admiralty Islands (CVE-99), USS Attu (CVE-102), USS Bougainville (CVE-100) and USS Windham Bay (CVE-92).
U.S.A.: A Fourth Air Force Bell P-63 Kingcobra from Walla Walla AAFld, Washington, intercepts a Japanese balloon near Redmond, Oregon and shoots it down near Reno, Nevada.
Bureau of Aeronautics initiates rocket-powered surface-to-air guided missile development by awarding contract to Fairchild.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-968 sank HMS Lapwing and SS Thomas Donaldson in Convoy JW-65.
U-995 torpedoed SS Horace Bushnell in Convoy JW-65. Total loss.
U-326 had to return to Bergen (Norway) due to severe technical difficulties.
Nice headline on page 4:
“Nazis collapse like French”
That ad on page 7, promoting the puff piece on the Stalinist Politburo, is creepy.
And right beside my boyhood favorite, Commodore Hornblower. ;-)
We have all the Hornblower books. He’s cuter and more likeable in the tv show, I have to say.
Just above that on page 6, that’s quite a nightgown!
And a few years later Snow's "Red Star Over China" makes Mao-Tse-Tung a hero.
I see ... he loves all Communist murderers.
Finally, this is the day that all my German neighbors in Hohhenecken (a small village and castle outside of Kaiserslautern) told me about in 1995. Kaiserslautern was doing a celebration then of the 50th anniversary of their liberation. I kept all the newspapers, but they’re in German. All my older neighbors were children or young teens then, as all the older males were drafted, captured or killed. Most never returned. Ever. Several neighbors still had pictures of their fathers (who had died on the Eastern Front) on the mantel.
On this day, or what would have been yesterday, there was one armored car of the Gestapo driving around and killing anyone they could find as traitors, especially any young man or older boy not in uniform or anyone with a white flag on their house or window. The quick arrival of the American Army put a quick end to that! My good friend and neighbor Ruprecht, who was 13 at the time, was hiding in the attic while his mother was in the doorway insisting there was no boys in the house. The gestapo man walked up to her to go into the house and check, but the sounds of machine gun fire in the distance caused them to quickly mount up and leave. Within a few minutes, several American armored cars and jeeps pulled into the town, and that was the end of WWII for Hohenecken. Ruprecht thanks us for saving his life even to this day!
Our US Army was spectacular then, smashing through and taking so much land and prisoners so quickly, but most of the German army was beaten by the Soviets on the Eastern front. No offense to our US forces, which I was a part of for 22 years, but the Russians killed a lot of Germans so we didn’t have to. Of course, considering the alternatives, for the Russians, it was life or death.
Ouch! Man, that's gotta hurt their Teutonic pride right there!
You know, my 93 year old mother passed away last month...
In 1945, she looked about like that, was a nurse in Philadelphia, met my Dad again after the war, he was no fool, they soon married and... voila, here I am! ;-)
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