RUSSIANS INFLICT HEAVY CASUALTIES AS GERMANS ATTACK IN TWO SECTORS (7/28/41)

So a “Russo-Polish Pact is deemed imminent”. I give it maybe two, three years, tops...

Read the article, don’t know who Chungking is?

I believe that is the city in which the nationalist Chinese have set up their capital while the Japanese control Peiping.

DeGaulle was active almost immediately after the fall of France and the “Free French” leader. He was sentenced to death in absentia by the Vichy if I remember correctly and stripped of his rank by them as well.

After that here were ongoing efforts to establish Free-French bastions. Dakar was one that made headlines last September but the whole event didn’t work out so well for them in that case. The French possessions in central Africa have fallen from Vichy control though.

Interestingly enough, there is a nice article on deGaulle in the LIFE magazine I posted today.

Despite the high morale of the German troops as they went into Russia, none of them could look upon this new campaign with total optimism, and, 'On day one during our first break one of the company's soldiers shot himself with his own rifle. He put the rifle between his knees, placed the muzzle in his mouth and squeezed off. For him, the war with all its pressures was at an end.' This was an isolated event early on in the campaign, and another soldier was quite jubilant, writing home:

'Yesterday I knocked off a Russian tank, as I had done two days ago! If I get in another attack, I'll receive my first battle stripes. War isn't half as bad as it sounds and one thing is plain as day: the Russians are fleeing everywhere and we follow them. All of us believe in early victory!'

However, in time the troops began to encounter stronger, more organised resistance and, after an enemy attack: 'Half dead with exhaustion, we squatted down in our trenches, semi-intoxicated with feverish nerves. Slowly, very slowly we quietened down. Hunger and thirst afflicted us again.' The situation was just as bad during the advance: 'Every single [enemy] wounded man had to be fought to a standstill. One Soviet sergeant, unarmed and with a severely injured shoulder, struck out with a trench spade until he was shot. It was madness, total madness. They fought like wild animals - and died as such.'

The troops began to take on the look of the eternal experienced combat soldier:

The faces of the youngsters exude the same image as First World War veterans. Long beards and the filth of these days make many of them look older than is the case in reality. Despite the pleasure at sudden Russian withdrawals, one notices this change in the faces of the soldiers. Even after washing again and shaving the chin - something difficult to describe - is from now on different! The first days at Yartsevo have certainly left an impression.

Another soldier wrote:

Today is Sunday, but we didn't notice. We are on the move again some 50km north-eastwards. At the moment we are part of the Army reserve - and high time - we have already lost 50 in the company. It shouldn't be allowed to continue much longer otherwise the burden will be really heavy. We normally have four men on the [anti-tank] gun, but for two days at a particularly dangerous point, we only had two. The others are wounded.

Another Landser wrote: 'Any fool knows you have to have losses, you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs, but we were going to fight on to victory. Besides, if any of us did stop a bullet, it would be a hero's death. So hurrah, over the top, come on, charge, hurrah!' One has to wonder if this was actually irony rather than a statement of general belief. Psychological pressure builds up as the soldier approaches the front. The first visible indication is often the men's reaction to the sight of the enemy's dead. Many young soldiers had never seen a corpse before. Werner Adamezyk, with a 150mm artillery battery near Minsk, became morbidly fascinated at his guns' handiwork: 'The repulsive scene caused me to shake; nevertheless, I found the guts to walk around,' he said. 'What I saw then was even more cruel.'

War quickly stripped away the veneer of propaganda. Foxholes around him were filled with dead Soviet soldiers. 'I shuddered and turned around to walk back to the truck,' admitting, 'the reality of death was just too much to take.' He was troubled. What he had witnessed contradicted earlier briefings that suggested the Russian soldier was 'poorly trained and not very much inclined to heroism'. Indeed, 'It became clear to me that they must have been willing to fight to the very end. If this was not heroism, what was it? Did the communist commissars force them to fight to the death? It did not look like it. I did not see any dead commissars.' The sight of one's own dead is, initially, a severe shock, but:

In time you even get used to that. You just don't really take it in at all when there are more and more who are dead but they are all in German uniform. So in the end you come to reckon yourself on a level with all those others, Russians or Germans alike, lying dead in their various uniforms; you yourself then turn into just one of the creatures who never really did live, you are just another lump of earth.

The real horror of war is, perhaps, the normality and constancy of death:

Then one day, you're right up against it. You are chatting with one of your mates when suddenly he folds up. Just settles in a heap, and is stone dead. That is the real horror. You see the others stepping over him, just as anybody steps over a big stone he doesn't want to catch his heel on, and you see your mate's death no differently from any of the others that are dead - those whom you've already learned to think of as never really having lived, as being just lumps of earth. That's when you get the horrors and after that it is always a nightmare; it never, never stops, the real fear of being wiped out, the fear of merciless nothingness, the fear of thinking any moment you may be one of those who never were living creatures.

The 8th Company of Schutzenregiment 11 was badly mauled in a Russian ambush and lost 80 men. 'The wounded Kameraden were worked over by the Russians with gun barrels until they were dead.' The writer, a man named Proller, depersonalised the enemy with anti-Russian comments. Like many German soldiers, he was surprised to encounter Russian women in uniform. Inside a Russian pocket they came upon 'women, completely nude and roasted,' who 'were lying on and beside a destroyed Soviet tank. Awful.' He indignantly concluded, 'it's not people we're fighting against here, but simply animals.' Other correspondence also bears the stamp of the German propaganda machine: 'Hardly ever do you see the face of a person who seems rational and intelligent. They all look emaciated and the wild, half crazy look in their eyes makes them appear like imbeciles. And these scoundrels, led by Jews and criminals, wanted to imprint their stamp on Europe, indeed on the world. Thank God that our Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, is preventing this from happening.' Realistic views were noted, however, and one man wrote:

'We are deep in Russia in the so-called "paradise" which calls upon [German] soldiers to desert. Terrible misery reigns here. People have been unimaginably oppressed for two centuries. We would rather all die than accept the torment and misery these folk have had to put up with.'

German Infantryman-Eastern Front-1941-1943 by David Westwood

How long before they had that in a stick form?

The time period I am referring to was in the early/mid/late '50s. I'm going to guess and say that stick form for ARRID deodorant came around in the late 50's to early 60s. Thats seems about right.
Of course there was the "new invention" that was anti-perspirant rather than deodorant that was invented. Thats where the use of some type of "aluminum" started. It clogged the sweat pores rather than just masking or changing the aroma of sweat. It didn't let the sweat happen. Not good. Deodorant - good
Anti-perspirant - not good

A stripper in the middle of her act?

It is a burlesque show. I think the add on the second to last page should be for toilet paper, not whiskey.

Never liked antiperspirant. You really do get hotter when you wear it for obvious reasons.

It doesn’t seem like even the full embargo has slowed the Japanese aggressive stance.

Maybe if we increase the pressure they will get the idea. Cut off their aviation gas. See how they like that!

I thought we already did. I think there isn’t anything left for us to send them. I’m getting the feeling that these expansionist powers are not going to be deterred by diplomatic or economic pressure.