[Homer_J_Simpson]

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. Also visit our general discussion thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Advance on Moscow – Operations, 26 August-5 December 1941
The Mediterranean Basin
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – The Imperial Powers, 1 September 1939

[BroJoeK]

August 30 - 31, 1941

"More than 3,600 Jewish men, women, and children are taken from Vilna, Lithuania, to nearby Ponary, where they are shot as retribution for the partisan ambush of a German patrol."

"Under the watchful eye of French police, a Jewish man complies with the government order forbidding Jews to own radios.
Such measures, enacted throughout 1941, were designed to oppress and isolate Jews as a prelude to their arrests and deportations.
Meanwhile, the Vichy government pursued a policy of Aryanization involving the seizure of Jewish property and businesses."

"From June 1941 to June 1942, Otto Ohlendorf commanded Einsatzgruppe D.
This extermination squad operated in the Crimea-Caucasus region, where Ohlendorf ordered the slaughter of 90,000 people.

"Justifying his actions at his trial in 1947, he asserted his utter conviction in the "military necessity" of the killings.
'Jews,' he argued, 'posed a continuous danger for German occupation troops and might someday attack Germany.'
As for murdering children, he reasoned they 'were people who would grow up and, being the children of parents who had been killed, would constitute a danger no smaller than that of the parents.'

"To ease the 'immense psychological burden' of personal responsibility, he ordered his executioners to shoot simultaneously at victims.
During the trial, women sent flowers to the cell of the handsome defendant, who was sentenced to hang for his crimes."

[BroJoeK]

Headline: TWO YEARS OF STEADILY WIDINING WAR: A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY

"A second world war began when the armies of Great Germany marched..."

First time I've noted the phrase, "a second world war" -- probably used before, but I missed it.

Have yet to see phrases like, "The Second World War" or "World War Two" or "WWII".

[GeronL]

FDR is definitely wrong. I think peace will come by the end of 1941, don’t you?

/s/

[CougarGA7]

• "The offensive on Roslavl' by the Reserve Front's 43rd Army is developing successfully. However, the enemy is bringing forces up for an attack from the south. Consequently, it is necessary to speed up the preparations for the 50th Army's offensive and to begin it on 1 September or, in the last resort, on 2 September, in order to assist the 43rd Army's attack and prevent the enemy from concentrating forces against it. The 50th Army must continuously and energetically continue reconnaissance with reinforced battalions along the front." - Boris Shaposhnikov

• The LII Army Corps captures a bridgehead at Derievka just south of Kremenchug.

• With the left flank in shambles, Stavka allows Popov to reorganize his fortified regions south of Leningrad into Major-General I.G. Lazarov's 55th Army defending the western sector and Lieutenant-General F.S. Ivanov's 42nd Army defending the eastern sector.

[Larry381]

Another photo, I believe, of the same German aviator shown in the Times. The Soviets were notorious for recycling the few German pows that they had, at least up to 1941. It is now known that most of the Germans they captured that year were executed out of hand. Things were so bad that they had to promulgate a special order telling their soldiers not to kill prisoners because they were needed for intelligence purposes.

[iowamark]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Dunn
“”William R. Dunn (1916–1995) was the first American ace of World War II. Joining the Canadian Army at the outbreak of war in September 1939, he was an infantryman until he transferred to the Royal Air Force (RAF) in late 1940. After service in an RAF Eagle Squadron, he joined the United States Army Air Force in 1943.

William R. Dunn was born in Minneapolis on 16 November 1916. In 1934, at the age of 17, he joined the US Army although he was discharged in 1936. In 1939 he joined the Canadian Army and was assigned to the Seaforth Highlanders, a Scottish infantry regiment of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Canadian Division. Posted to the UK in April 1940, he became an AA gunner with this unit and on 16 August claimed -with other gunners- 2 Junkers Ju 87’s shot down of a force attacking Borden army camp.

Soon after, he was transferred to the Royal Air Force, starting training in December 1940. He was assigned in April 1941 to the American volunteer No. 71 ‘Eagle’ Squadron based at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich, flying the Hawker Hurricane.

He was the first pilot in the Eagle Squadron to shoot down an enemy aircraft, on 2 July 1941, and later became the first American ace of the war. After 3 claims, the Squadron converted to the Spitfire. Two claims on 27 August made Dunn the first American 5-kill ‘ace’, although he was wounded in the right leg during the same action. After recovery, he instructed at various units in the UK and the USA, and in late 1942 he served briefly with No 130 Squadron, RCAF.

After joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in 15 June 1943, he saw service with the 53rd Fighter Group (as Gunnery Officer), and then from October 1943 with the 406th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force. Participating in the Normandy invasion and in Patton’s sweep across France, he claimed 2 more kills up until October 1944. Unusually, he claimed a Messerschmitt Bf 110 shot down with a salvo of .5 inch RP rockets on 18 June 1944. By the end of the war he had claimed 8.5 kills, with another 4 unconfirmed, 3 probables and 4 damaged, with 12 more destroyed on the ground, flying 234 operational sorties.

Immediately after the war he fought in the Chinese Civil War on the side of the Nationalists. He later helped trained the Iranian Air Force and the Brazilian Air Force.

His final overseas duty was in Vietnam during 1967, with HQ, 7th US Air Force, flying 62 missions evaluating infra red location equipment. Lt. Col. Dunn, a veteran of 38 years of military service and 378 combat missions, retired from the U.S.A.F. in 1973.

In addition to his autobiography (Fighter Pilot: The First American Ace of World War II), he also wrote War Drum Echoes and other works on the Indian wars of North America.
“”