* We have read dozens, if not hundreds, of stories filed by Drew Middleton going back to September 1942. He has been part of the press corps around Gen. Eisenhower all along. Now, here is a photo of the two at the end of the Great Crusade. It looks more like a schmooze than an interview.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/5/11.htm
June 11th, 1945 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Paid off and returned to RN at Sheerness - frigates HMCS Monnow, Ribble, Nene, Loch Alvie.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: The Soviet authorities start the forcible expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Sudetenland to the west.
U.S.S.R.: Stalin writes to US President Truman “During the war the strategic materials and foodstuffs shipped to the U.S.S.R. under Lend-Lease played an important role and to a significant degree contributed to the successful outcome of the war against the common enemy, Hiterlite Germany”. (255)(Pat Holscher)
KURILE ISLANDS: Task Force 92 consisting of the light cruisers USS Richmond (CL-9) and USS Trenton (CL-11) and five destroyers begin bombarding Japanese installations on Matsuwa Island in the Kurile Islands at 0021 hours local. The seven ships fire 3,677 rounds of 5-inch (127 mm) and 6-inch (152.4 mm) rounds of ammunition. At 0232 hours local, the ships enter the Sea of Okhotsk and make an unsuccessful sweep of the area and then sail back to Matsuwa Islands and begin a second bombardment at 2347 hours local. After firing another 1,344 rounds, the bombardment ceases at 0002 hours, 12 June, and the task forces retires to the Aleutian Islands.
Eight Eleventh Air Force B-24s bomb Kurabu Zaki airfield on Parmushiru Island and Kataoka airfield on Shimushu Island in the Kurile Islands using radar.
JAPAN: During the night of 11/12 Jun, 26 XXI Air Force B-29s mine Shimonoseki Strait and Tsuruga Bay. This is Mission 201.
Kamikazes are again in action off Okinawa. One kamikaze crashes the large support landing craft LCS(L)(3)-122 near the conning tower. The commander, Lieutenant Richard M. McCool, Jr., is awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. His citation for this award reads, “When his own craft was attacked simultaneously by two of the enemy’s suicide squadron early in the evening of 11 June, he instantly hurled the full power of his gun batteries against the plunging aircraft, shooting down the first and damaging the second before it crashed his station in the conning tower and engulfed the immediate area in a mass of flames. Although suffering from shrapnel wounds and painful burns, he rallied his concussion-shocked crew and initiated vigorous firefighting measures and then proceeded to the rescue of several trapped in a blazing compartment, subsequently carrying one man to safety despite the excruciating pain of additional severe burns.
Unmindful of all personal danger, he continued his efforts without respite until aid arrived from other ships and he was evacuated. By his staunch leadership, capable direction, and indomitable determination throughout the crisis, Lt. McCool saved the lives of many who otherwise might have perished and contributed materially to the saving of his ship for further combat service.”
Another kamikaze crashes alongside the armed U.S. merchant freighter SS Walter Colton.
CANADA: Paid off in Canada - HMCS ML 079, HMCS Prince David and HMCS St Francis.
Middleton was willing, iirc, to get off his butt and out of HQ and travel at least near to the front lines—or was that Baldwin?