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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” 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.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Soviet Summer and Fall Offensives: Operations, 17 July-1 December 1943
Allied Advance to Volturno River, Reorganization, and Attack on Gustav Line (17 January-11 May 1944)
India-Burma, 1942: Allied Lines of Communication, 1942-1943
South Pacific Operations: Advance to Bougainville, 27 October-15 December 1943
New Guinea and Alamo Force Operations: Clearing the Huon Peninsula and Securing the Straits, 19 September 1943-26 April 1944
Cartwheel, the Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls, and Concurrent Air and Naval Operations, 30 June 1943-26 April 1944
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941: Original Allied Strategic Concept, May 1943; Situation in Pacific, 1 November 1943

Warning: disturbing photo follows.

November 24, 1943:

November 23: "150 Jewish partisans escape Occupied Kovno, Lithuania, and head eastward into the Rudninkai Forest.

"Emaciated Gypsy boys selected for cruel surgery to remove their penises and testicles are catalogued by the Auschwitz camera.
Hitler was keenly interested in sterilization of "undesirables" as a way to control unwanted population growth.
A side benefit from Hitler's perspective was that sterilized subjects could be useful as laborers for the Reich.
Nazi camp physicians undertook the surgeries and other procedures with vigor.
Besides being profoundly unethical, medical experimentation of this sort was often clumsy and not even remotely grounded in legitimate science.
Instead, Auschwitz's Dr. Josef Mengele and other camp surgeons were motivated by an amoral "what if?" mentality; that is, by a deadly curiosity about what would happen to a human being if a particular procedure were performed.
To such doctors, human suffering was irrelevant."

Two stories today about officers slapping people around -- first Patton slapped that soldier, then a Major hit and threatened a photographer.
Is something going around?
Maybe it's something in the water?

This at a time when NCOs still earned their stripes by being the toughest men in their squads.