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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime”.)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile.

Even before the original plan for Fall Gelb had fallen into the hands of the enemy it was anticipated by the Allied Supreme Command. On November 17 the Allied Supreme War Council, meeting in Paris, had adopted “Plan D,” which, in the event of a German attack through Belgium, called for the French First and Ninth armies and the British Expeditionary Force to dash forward to the principal Belgian defense line on the Dyle and Meuse rivers from Antwerp through Louvain, Namur and Givet to Mezieres. A few days before, the French and British general staffs, in a series of secret meetings with the Belgian High Command, had received the latter’s assurance that it would strengthen the defenses on that line and make its main stand there. But the Belgians, still clinging to the illusions of neutrality which fortified their hope that they yet might be spared involvement in war, would not go further. The British chiefs of staff argued that there would not be time to deploy the Allied forces so far forward once the Germans had attacked, but they went along with Plan D at the urging of general Gamelin.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

I was born and raised in a tree-lined, upper middle class suburb west of Chicago. Tony Accardo lived in a modest mansion in the northern part of my village.

I was in his house one evening for about a half hour. I was a teen on a double date and we were picking up Tony's daughter for the foursome. Tony had a bowling lane in his basement and gold fixtures in his baths.

Sam Giancana lived a few blocks from our home in the southern part of town. During an assassin's break-in, Sam's brains were blown out one evening in the basement kitchen of his solid brick bungalow where he was making spaghetti sauce.

An old geezer friend of mine, now deceased, was caddy for Capone who liked to golf in the many plush golf courses in the suburbs due west or south of Cook County. The geezer was an older young man at the time so he also chauffered Capone around the 'burbs (never on "official business", he avowed)

He said Big Al was a "good boss and a generous tipper".

The gangsters, including Capone, mainly headquartered in Chicago proper, but many preferred to actually live and raise their families in the suburbs. They kept up their homes and were good neighbors, although mostly keeping to themselves. They never "fouled their own nests" and most neighbors never knew who they were.

I saw and met a goodly number of the Outfit over the years, mostly in restaurants, because of the political position I held. The majority all had one thing in common.....hand tailored suits with manicured nails, very foreign, poor English, very unattractive faces pockmarked in a lot of instances, short, stocky body builds......uneducated to the max (deehs, dohs, and dahs).....socially polite but distant in normal verbal interactions.....very short on "personality".......and when you looked into their faces the eyes were dark and dead like they had no souls......it was unsettling to look at them directly.

I met quite a number of interesting and famous people in the course of my political career who were quite the opposite of the hoodlums........ including Ronald Reagan several times, famous athletes, even Ann Landers.

But no more name-dropping, LOL.

And no, I never met Capone....I'm not THAT old.

Leni

I have been checking out some of the older threads from before I joined up and have resisted necromancing any of them, but there is a very interesting bit of trivia about today's issue.

Edward J. "Easy Eddie" O'Hare was the father of Butch O'Hare, the WWII Navy aviator and receipient of the Medal of Honor. O'Hare airport was renamed for him.

His father, Eddie, divorced Butch's mother and moved from St. Louis to Chicago, where he fell in with Al Capone's gang. He also became "engaged" to the sister of a mobbed-up Illinois official (they never married because Catholic Eddie couldn't get an annulment).

Eddie had a change of heart and became a secret informant for the IRS and put them on to the bookkeeper who broke the Capone case open. He also tipped the feds that Capone had rigged the jury, which led to the last-minute switch.

Eddie was murdered after Capone got out of jail. Everyone knew Capone's gang did it, but nobody was ever arrested. Eddie's "fiance" later married Frank Nitti, Capone's successor.