REPUBLICANS ADOPT OWN BUDGET PLAN; CUTS AT $5,625,000 (2/29/40)

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” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
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.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Evolution of Plan Yellow, October 1939-January 1940
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – The Imperial Powers, 1 September 1939

(Continued from Reply #5 on the February 24 thread)

Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend

(To be continued.)

I am afraid my constant time travel along exactly the same back-70-years track has worn a fissure in the space-time continuum, allowing an extra day to squeeze through. My fear is that the fissure will widen over time causing an accelerating stream of extra days until the rate achieves infinity and the universe collapses on itself. According to my calculations I have from two to four years to shove the extra day back where it belongs, close the fissure, and prevent this catastrophe. In the meantime I have acted to prevent further erosion of the continuum by spraying a whole can of WD-40 on the tires of my Corvair (You were expecting a DeLorean?). The main practical result as far as WWII +70 Years readers is concerned is that the sequence of days has been altered. That is, Sunday will now come on Wednesday instead of Thursday. Make a note of that so you know when to answer “Twenty Questions in the News.”

Republicans Adopt Own Budget Plan; Cuts at $5,625,000 – 2-3
Fair Helped Add a Billion To State’s Auto Mileage – 3
The International Situation – 3
Loan for Finland is Voted by House; Roll-Call Dodged – 4
Finns Thrown Back to Water Defenses in New Red Drive – 5-6
Film Inspectors’ Strike Closes 33 Havana Movies – 6
British Fliers Soar over Berlin Again – 7
Queen Elizabeth Anxious About Post-War Problems – 7
Palestine Curbs Jews’ Land Buying – 8-9
Eased Trade Control is Expected in Spain – 9
Canada Will Raise Aluminum Output – 10
Palestinian Force Arrives in France – 10
Netherlands Sees Flares Before Planes Come Over – 10
Goebbels Reiterates Neutrality Lecture – 11
Decrees Reorganize France’s Economy – 11
Navy Building Rushed Ahead of Program; Giant Battleships Are Now Considered – 13
Incidents in European Conflict - 14

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/feb40/f29feb40.htm

Allies back belligerent Finns
Thursday, February 29, 1940 www.onwar.com

The Winter War... The battle of Viipuri. Soviet forces launch an all-out effort to crush resistance in the Karelian Isthmus by encircling the city of Viipuri and reaching the Viipuri-Helsinki highway.

In Helsinki... The Finns decide that they must give in to the Soviet demands but their note to that effect is not sent immediately because of British and French reactions to the news. The French government has become deeply committed to a policy of supporting Finland and persuades the British to join in making rash promises that cannot possibly be kept.

In Japan... Britain returns 9 of the 21 Germans removed from the Asama Maru (on January 21st) after Tokyo agrees not to transport German military reservists attempting to return home.

In the West Indies... The destroyer HMS Despatch intercepts the German merchant ship Troja off Aruba. The ship is scuttled by her German crew.

In Uruguay... The wreck of the scuttled German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee is sold to a local company for scrap.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/29.htm

February 29th, 1940

UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweepers HMS Bridlington and Bridport launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

FRANCE: Faced with a serious drop in industrial production, continual class conflict and war apathy, Paul Reynaud, the finance minister, has ordered a price freeze and petrol and food rationing. The aim is to create some sort of national unity and to win the support of the working class for the war by halting inflation and ensuring fair shares for all. But the Communists remain anti-war and the non-Communist Left remains unenthusiastic - almost as unenthusiastic as the Right, which fears the Left more than Hitler.

GERMANY: From the edict of the SS-Reichsfuhrer and Chief of the German Police [Heinrich Himmler] in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
Re:- Discovered enemy air leaflets and spreading devices.
Various confusions that have arisen in the treatment of discovered enemy air leaflets, balloons and other spreading and drop devices, have caused me to decree the following: The local police authority is to govern the search action. They are to approach the appropriate local [National Socialist] Party authorities for assistance in collecting leaflets. The police authority is to take the collected leaflets into custody and to notify the state police immediately. The latter will have the final disposition of the material brought into safekeeping, in this manner: For archival purposes, 30 copies of each leaflet will be sent here to Office IV (II A 1) - in a single batch. Once high-ranking Party departments, and other authorities who cite a well-founded and justifiable interest in the material, have received their desired number if copies, the rest are to be reliably disposed of by an appropriate method. The purpose of the search action is the seizure of all the disseminated leaflets, leaving if possible none is circulation.
Good housekeeping with what is available is the message from the Reich ministry of food and agriculture to the German consumer. The Nazis are keen to avoid the food shortages of the last war; since the introduction of rationing in August 1939 propaganda has focused on self-sufficiency, with farmers told to make the best use of land and livestock, and householders urged to plant vegetables rather than flowers. Rations (about 16 ounces of meat and ten ounces of fat a week per person) have led to black marketeering, for which stiff penalties were introduced last September.

FINLAND: The Finnish Government delays sending a note to the Soviets because of the reaction by the British and especially the French governments to their decision to accept the Soviet demands.

The French push the British to offer promises of aid that they can’t possibly keep.

Red Army reaches the third and last Finnish line of defence in Karelian Isthmus at Äyräpää. In northern Karelia Finnish troops finally destroy the so-called ‘General-motti’, so named because it’s rumoured that a general or two was among the Red Army troops encircled (there were, but they were rescued by plane shortly before the motti was destroyed). A large amount of equipment is captured. (Mikko Härmeinen)

Soviet parachutists make landings in small groups near Petsamo to cut lines of communications. (Gordon Rottmann)

JAPAN: Britain hands back to Japan nine of the 21 Germans taken off the ‘Asama Maru’ on 21 January after the Japanese government agrees not to transport German military reservists attempting to return home.

U.S.A.: The 1939 Academy Awards are presented at the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The host is Bob Hope. “Gone With The Wind” is awarded seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel) and Best Director (Victor Fleming). The Best Actor award goes to Robert Donat for “Goodbye Mr. Chips” and the Best Supporting Actor award goes to Thomas Mitchell for “Stagecoach.”

The motion picture “The House of the Seven Gables” is released in the U.S. Directed by Joe May and starring George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay and Vincent Price, this adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s murder novel set in 19th-century New England is nominated for one Academy Award. (Jack McKillop)

The First National Bank of Chicago tries to force a sale of the Chicago White Sox baseball team by the heirs of the late Louis Comiskey. A local judge denies the effort of the club’s principal lender, saying that Mrs. Grace Comiskey can keep the club for their 14-year-old son, Charles II, until he is 35. (Jack McKillop)

CARIBBEAN SEA: The light cruiser HMS Despatch intercepts the German merchant ship ‘Troja’ off Aruba; she is scuttled by her German crew.

URUGUAY: The wreck of the Admiral Graf Spee is sold to a local company for scrap.
Brooks Rowlett adds: What only becomes known later is that the local company is a front for the British Embassy, which uses these rights to get personnel aboard the wreck for intelligence
purposes, especially an evaluation of the German radar. An expert was later flown
in from Britain specifically to examine the radar.

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:
Losses. 17 ships of 75,000 tons.
2 U-boats.
MERCHANT SHIPPING WAR:
Losses. 46 ships of 152,000 tons.

At 2232, SS Maria Rosa was hit by one torpedo from U-20 and sank by the bow. (Dave Shirlaw)

You do good work, sir.

Thank you for all this, and every day too!

We can hope the extra day ruins things just enough that Obama never gets elected in the next century.

What’s the story about “unscrambling 2 big utilities”?

What’s the story about “unscrambling 2 big utilities”?

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you. And with the Cabrillo College copies it is difficult to make out even what shows on page 1. Maybe someone who subscribes to the Times online can run the story and fill us in.

Day 92 of the Winter War, February 29, 1940j

In Ladoga Karelia, the eastern Lemetti 'motti', also known as the 'general motti', is captured by 4 o'clock in the morning, giving IV Army Corps its greatest ever haul of captured enemy materiel: 71 tanks, 268 lorries and several lorryloads of guns and shells.
Photo: SA-KUVA

Massive Soviet offensive continues

Reserve Corporal Korsola, a fighter pilot in the Finnish Air Force, is killed during the course of the morning.
The massive Soviet offensive continues across Viipurinlahti bay to Häränpäänniemi and Vilajoki.
Withdrawal from the intermediary and delaying positions in the Suur-Pero sector disintegrates into panic when enemy tanks get in among the Finnish troops.
The defending force manages to defeat the enemy detachments which have come ashore, but later in the evening Tuppura and Teikari islands are lost to the enemy.
The Finnish Government decides by 17 votes to 3 in favour of opening formal peace talks with the Soviet Union.
In Ladoga Karelia, the eastern Lemetti 'motti', also known as the 'general motti', is captured by 4 o'clock in the morning, giving IV Army Corps its greatest ever haul of captured enemy materiel: 71 tanks, 268 lorries and several lorryloads of guns and shells.
Brigade Commander Kondratiev, the general after whom the 'motti' was named, is killed along with his staff officers in a desperate attempt to break out. The enemy loses around 3,000 men altogether.
Reserve Second Lieutenant Nyrki Tapiovaara is killed leading a reconnaissance patrol on the Kollaa front. The 28-year-old Tapiovaara, a film director in civilian life, leaves behind an uncompleted film based on F.E. Sillanpää's novel Miehen tie (A Man's Way).
In northern Finland, a fierce artillery bombardment heralds the launch of the third attempt by Soviet troops to come to the aid of the surrounded 54th Division at Kilpelänkangas in Kuhmo.
In just the couple of hours before noon the enemy pounds the Finnish positions with around 3,000 shells.
The Finnish 7th Division, fighting in Taipale, has lost around 100 men a day. More than half these losses have come in February.
15 Finnish and 36 Russian fighters engage in a dogfight in the skies above Ruokolahti on the southeast edge of Lake Saimaa.
The battle lasts a little under half an hour. Several of the Finnish aircraft are damaged, and seven shot down. Lieutenants Huhanantti, Halme and Kristensen, the latter a Danish volunteer, are killed, and three other pilots are wounded.
There is heavy enemy bombing on the home front, in Turku, Haapamäki, Savonlinna and Kouvola. 132 bombers are counted in the skies above Kouvola.
Finland sends a note to the League of Nations over the Soviet Union's military action against Finland's civilian population.

LOL, that’s very funny! Thanks for posting these. I read them every day!

You are welcome. And thanks for reading them. I believe it is important for the health of the nation for us citizens to be well informed on current events.

http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-182-february-29-1940.html

Day 182 February 29, 1940

Finns mount a fighting retreat as Red Army continues its offensive up Karelian Isthmus towards Viipuri. In addition, Soviets attempt to outflank Viipuri by crossing frozen Gulf of Finland. They come ashore 15 miles West of Viipuri but cannot reinforce the beachhead and are repelled by the Finns. However, Soviets capture Teikari Island.

Finns overrun East Lemetti Motti at 4 AM (3100 Soviet dead) capturing 5 field guns, 1 antitank gun, 71 tanks, 12 armored cars, 6 antiaircraft machineguns, 206 trucks & 70 machineguns.

Battle of the Atlantic. U-20 sinks Italian steamer SS Maria Rosa with 1 torpedo in the English Channel (12 dead, 17 survivors).

German steamers Heidelberg & Troja leave Aruba, Dutch Caribbean, after dark trying to evade Allied naval vessels. Troja is intercepted 10 miles out by British cruiser HMS Despatch. Following standing orders to prevent capture of merchant ships, Troja’s crew sets fires & abandons ship. Troja sinks next day.
http://willemsubmerged.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!