A key to the map symbols is on my profile.
A key to the map symbols is on my profile.
Bump. And a thanks.
"Reich Air Unit Credited with 74 Polish Planes"
Berlin, Sept 15 -- "The first German air ace in the war in Poland and the first soldier to be mentioned in a German Army communique by name was announced today.
"He is Captain Wilhelm Gentzen, whose pursuit squadron is reported to have destroyed in the last few days no fewer than seventy-four Polish planes, twenty-eight in the air battles and the others on the ground."
No current records to be found on a "Captain Wilhelm Gentzen." There is a "Hannes Gentzen" mentioned, but only regarding the western "Phoney War" of 1940:
"During the phoney war a number of French aircraft were shot down by Bf 110's. ZG 1 Gruppenkommander Hannes Gentzen became the highest scoring fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe on 2 April, when he shot down a Curtiss Hawk P-36 over Argonne."
You don't suppose the Goebbels' propaganda ministry would be less than truthful with a NY Times reporter, now do you?? :-)
More on USS Mustin commissioned today:
USS Mustin (DD-413), 1939-1948
USS Mustin, a 1570-ton Sims class destroyer, was built at Newport News, Virginia. She was commissioned in September 1939 and spent more than two years in the Atlantic, taking part in Neutrality Patrol operations and the more bellicose activities that marked the months preceeding the German declaration of war on 8 December 1941. In early 1942 the urgent needs of the war with Japan caused Mustin to be sent to the Pacific. During the next several months, she escorted convoys from the U.S. to Hawaii, to the south Pacific and to Midway. In August, she accompanied USS Hornet as that aircraft carrier steamed southeastwards to participate in what was to be a long and hard fight to hold Guadalcanal. Mustin generally remained with Hornet until that ship was sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in late October. After that, the destroyer remained active in the Guadalcanal campaign, screening heavy ships, escorting supply vessels and bombarding the Japanese ashore.
After the enemy evacuated Guadalcanal in February 1943, Mustin spent a few more months in the region. She then went north to join in the Aleutians campaign, where she took part in the landings on Attu in May and Kiska in August. During late 1943 and early 1944, the destroyer participated in the campaigns to seize bases in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. She served with Task Force 58 during its Central Pacific raids in March and April 1944 and became part of the Seventh Fleet soon afterwards. While in the southwest Pacific, Mustin supported the advance across the top of New Guinea, the invasion of Morotai and the Leyte operation.
In January and February 1945, Mustin took part in the invasion of Luzon and other elements of the recapture of the Philippines. She served off Okinawa during April and May, during the hard battle to take that island in the face of desperate resistance ashore and suicide plane attacks at sea. After the fighting ended, Mustin helped with the occupation of Japan. She briefly visited the west coast in late 1945, then went to Hawaii to prepare for target duty in connection with the July 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. Contaminated by radiation after that experience, USS Mustin was formally decommissioned in August, without leaving the Marshall Islands. She was destroyed as a gunfire target in April 1948.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/dd413.htm
Nurse, 72, Is Ready Again
BOSTON, Sept. 15 Mme. Jane Clauzel, 72, a nurse with the French forces during the World War, prepared today to leave Boston, her home for sixteen years to report for duty with the French Red Cross in the new war. "I have only my life to give for my country," she said in an announcing that she would leave on the Dixie Clipper for Lisbon Oct.4.
She also said this which was reported in the Fair Haven Register dated September 21st
"I have no children to give - they were killed in the last war."
I also found this bulletin for the American Field Service Association from May of 1922.
In it she wrote this
By very good luck a few days ago I came in contact with the "American Field Service Association." Some "Bulletins" were kindly sent to me. I read them with intense interest; some articles I read with deep emotion. Thank God! the heart of America is still beating in communion with the heart of France. In spite of painful misunderstandings, in spite of politics and politicians, in spite of mean (German) propaganda, the two great Republics will remain sisters in Peace as they have been sisters in War---the doughboy and le poilu, in spite of the "wide pond" (as the boys used to call the ocean), will still have one heart, one soul. Their ideal will remain the same. American blood has been shed on French soil, mostly in the Argonne, St. Mihiel, Chateau Thierry, Bois de Belleau, le Catelet---thousands of soldier boys are sleeping in France their last sleep. This is a great page of history written with the blood of our boys; we cannot let a cloud tarnish such glory; we cannot let a cloud tarnish friendship between France and America---it would be a crime, an insult to our dead, an insult to all those who have served and fought with such wonderful gallantry on French soil for liberty and civilization. Yes, misunderstandings have arisen. They were almost inevitable; you are young, we are old; you are full of life, we are exhausted by those terrible years of the most frightful of wars; we do not speak the same language---the politics of Europe, slow and complicated, cannot be easily understood by America, yet I have entire confidence in the feeling of our two countries equally dear to my heart; friendship will remain deep rooted between France and America. During the Washington Conference and since the Conference, France has been charged of militarism and imperialism in such a way that Mr. René Viviani and Admiral de Bon have taken the defense of their country, not by glittering generalities, but, the inescapable logic of facts are the weapons they have used. France has been invaded twice within the memory of living men and in so short a time French people cannot forget their burnt factories, their ruins, their sufferings, their invalids, their dead; France does not keep an army to attack; she keeps it only as a guarantee, and for the execution of treaties which for her are not scraps of paper.
Tous ceux qui ont vécu en France avant ou pendant la guerre, tous ceux qui ont connu l'âme du paysan Français, la véritable âme Française, savent combien il est injuste d'accuser la France de militarisme: le paysan Français n'a qu'un amour au coeur, l'amour de la terre. Et c'est pour cela que le "Poilu" a été un si merveilleux soldat et c'est pour cela qu'il a pu vivre pendant des mois et des années cette effroyable et décourageante vie des tranchées :---il était là immobile, silencieux, dans la boue, dans le froid, sous la pluie, sous la neige, sous les obus, l'oeil fixé comme un chien de garde, défendant son lopain de terre, son village, sa vieille maison héritage de ses ancêtres, la vie de ses petits, disant au boche; "Tu ne passeras pas." Vous tous qui l'avez connu le paysan Français, le poilu, dites à tous et bien haut, que son âme et son coeur ne sont pas militaires:---vous avez vu sa joie au lendemain de l'armistice, avec quel enthousiasme il a quitté la vieille capote bleu horizon, et de quel bleu était-elle?---et avec quelle pieuse émotion il est retourné à son village, ou, souvent, à ce qui avait été son village, et où, souvent aussi, il ne restait pas pierre sur pierre de sa maison. And the soil! I do not think any one who has not seen it, who has not felt it on the ground itself can have an idea of what it was; not a shelter, not a tree, no means of communication of any kind, not even a soil that could be cultivated, everything upheaved, pounded, ruined, and yet after the Armistice, men, women, children, rushed back to their village or to the place where the village had been, to the place where their fathers and grandfathers had lived for centuries. It was hard to start life again in those ruins, it was also dangerous: to live there it was necessary to cultivate and before cultivating it was necessary to remove projectiles, to uproot wires, to fill in shellholes, to level the ground; even after all that danger remained. A soldier, who had been my orderly during the war, had lost one eye as a result of a wound received at the beginning of the war while serving in the Infantry and he thought he was lucky to have lost only that one eye. After the Armistice he returned to his devastated village (Betheny) near Reims, he returned there with his wife and five young children. He found the place where his house had been, not the house, not even the stones. Betheny like Reims had been bombarded during four years. With very little money and no help, he succeeded, after a great deal of work, in leveling the place where the old family house had once been. He erected a small hut, had a few rabbits, a few hens, he began to plough around the hut, life and happiness were coming back, when one day, last spring, his plough hit a nonexploded shell, his right leg was torn to pieces, his left leg was very badly injured; he was taken to the hospital and his right leg was amputated. While he was in the hospital his wife had taken the plough, she knew the same thing could happen to her, but the crop had to be saved for the children. I went to see this little family last summer while I was in France. The courage, the spirit of those people is wonderful; when that man saw me arrive he held his arms towards me, he could not walk. I knew tears were rolling on my face; he laughed and said: "Madame Clauzel, il ne faut pas pleurer, j'aurais pu être tué et je m'en suis tiré en ne perdant qu'une jambe."
Encore un souvenir, le dernier que je vais évoquer: last winter, while in America, I received a letter from the clergyman of Aspach-le-Bas, Haut Rhin, telling me the dreadful conditions of his village entirely destroyed; 480 had come back to the place, they were living under ground, in holes, no warm clothing, and it was in winter. This place had been forgotten by French and American countries, the needs were great, the sufferings dreadful. This letter was appealing. I sent it to one of my American friends, Dr. T. C. Merrill, from Washington, D. C., who was working at that time in Paris with the American Red Cross; an inquest was made, what the letter said was true. Aspach-le-Bas had received no help, had been entirely forgotten. I presume no one had thought that human beings could live in such a place. A few days after the inquest was made, four wagons loaded with the most needed and useful things were sent to Aspach-le-Bas by the American Red Cross; it was heaven falling on earth. Last summer I visited also that place, it is located in a lovely part of the Montagnes des Vosges. The ruins are more impressive when surrounded by such wonderful scenery. I arrived there one Sunday of August, it was a lovely summer day,---it was really "Sunny France" (and we all know France is not always Sunny France) : well that Sunday afternoon was gorgeous and as we were motoring from ruins to ruins, I was wondering how the sun had courage enough to shine on so much desolation---may be it was out of charity; the sun was trying to give heat and cheer. As my car approached Aspach-le-Bas the driver had to stop, the whole population was in the road waiting for me---500 people, the clergyman and the mayor with the American flag and the French flag, behind them 120 children and the whole population. As soon as my car stopped they all shouted: "Long live America!" They were giving me thus their gratitude to take back to America. There also, little by little, on the ruins some huts were erected and there also life and happiness were trying to come back when just before last Christmas a fire destroyed some of the best huts, the most important ones---the church, the school, the town hall---and as the people had very little money, the huts were not insured. But there also courage remains in spite of the hard work and the sufferings. This is part of a long letter I received last week from the clergyman of Aspach-le-Bas. He is an old man and he is in charge of seven other villages besides Aspach.
" . . . . Mes pauvres enfants, en effet, m'ont fait bien pitié quand j'ai appris que par les derniers grands froids ils gémissaient de douleur dans leurs baraques durant des nuits entières. je n'ai moi-même pas à me vanter d'avoir été insensible au froid, j'y ai gagné une indisposition dont je n'arrive pas à me débarrasser. J'espère toutefois que le Printemps venu, les bobos d'hiver fondront comme la neige au soleil!"
The France you have known, the France you have loved, the France you dream about, is still and will always remain the same old France; the "Paradise for men;" whenever you go back "over there," old French hearts will greet you with the same old welcome, and some one will sing for you: "La Madelon pour vous n'est pas severe . . . ...
JANE CLAUZEL, Army Head Nurse.
Sounds like quite the woman.
Jimmy Carter suspects racism is what is driving this.
photo caption: "General Walter von Brauchitsch, at left of group in center, conferring with his aids amid the ruins near Pultusk"
"Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch"
"Like many other German generals, Brauchitsch disliked or opposed much of the Nazi system, but also welcomed the Nazi policy of rearmament and was dazzled by Hitler's personality.
"He became largely reliant on Hitler as political patron and even for financial help. In February 1938, in the middle of the Munich Crisis, Brauchitsch left his wife Elizabeth after 28 years. He wanted to marry Charlotte Rueffer (later married Schmidt), the beautiful young daughter of a Silesian judge, and ardent admirer of the Nazis (Ulrich von Hassell, later part of the conspiracy against Hitler described her as "a 200 percent rabid Nazi"). Hitler set aside his usual anti-divorce sentiments and encouraged Brauchitsch to divorce and remarry. Hitler even lent him 80,000 Reichsmarks, which he needed since the family wealth was all his wife's.
"In the same month, Brauchitsch was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army, replacing General Werner von Fritsch, who had been dismissed on false charges of homosexuality."
"...Brauchitsch was made a field marshal in 1940 and was key in Hitler's "blitzkrieg" war against the West, making modifications to the original plan to overrun France.
"After France was conquered, Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain, was planned. Had it succeeded, Hitler intended to place Brauchitsch in charge of the new conquest.[3] However, the Luftwaffe could not gain the requisite air superiority, and the plan was abandoned.
"Brauchitsch agreed with harsh measures against the Polish population claiming they were inevitable for securing the German Lebensraum and ordered to his army and commanders that criticism of Nazism racist policy should cease as Nazi policy was needed for "forthcoming battle of destiny of the German people" [4]
"When Germany turned east and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Army's failure to take Moscow earned Hitler's enmity. Things went further downhill for Brauchitsch as he endured a serious heart attack, and Hitler relieved him on 10 December...."