Posted on 05/13/2015 4:20:28 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
The News of the Week in Review
“Our Victory Is but Half Won” (photo) – 10
Fifteen News Questions – 11
A New Phase Now Opens in the Pacific War (Baldwin) – 12-13
“Next!” (cartoon) – 13
“. . . But Pass the Ammunition!” (cartoon) – 13
British Key Pacific Plans to Capture of Rangoon (by Dana Adams Schmidt) – 13
Answers to Fifteen News Questions – 14
The New York Times Magazine
To Bulwark Uncle Sam’s Pocketbook (by Henry Morgenthau Jr., first-time contributor) – 15-17
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/13.htm
May 13th, 1945 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: In his broadcast tonight to mark the victory in Europe, Churchill looked back over the five momentous years of his premiership, which had seen the British people recover from the brink of defeat and carry the war into Germany alongside the Americans and the Soviet Union. “I wish I could tell you tonight that all our toil and troubles were over,” he said. “But we have to make sure that the simple and honourable purposes for which we entered the war are brushed aside ... There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites ... if totalitarian or police governments were to take their place.”
Submarine HMS Sanguine commissioned.
Frigate HMCS Monnow departed Greenock to join Convoy JW-67.
NETHERLANDS: This morning, five days after the formal capitulation, a German military court delivered death sentences on two German naval deserters, Bruno Dorfer and Rainer Beck. The trial occurred in an abandoned Ford assembly plant on the outskirts of Amsterdam, a site used by the Canadian army for the concentration of German naval personnel. Later that same day, a German firing squad, supplied with captured German rifles and a three-ton truck from the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and escorted by Canadian Captain Robert K. Swinton, executed the two German prisoners of war a short distance outside the enclosure. Dorfer and Beck were among the last victims of a military legal system distorted by the Nazi state. At the time no one, Canadian or German, questioned the justice of the event. (Russel Folsom, 253)
NORWAY: Oslo: The Royal Navy brings Crown Prince Olaf (Head of the Armed Forces) and some of the military back to Norway. (Alex Gordon)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Heavy fighting on Mindanao. Del Monte Airfield falls to the US 40th Division.
US troops open up the Balete Pass on Luzon.
JAPAN: Aircraft of Task Groups 58.1 and 58.2 attack airfields on Kyushu and Shikoku, in an attempt to stop the kamikaze attacks.
Twentieth Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortresses begin Phase III of Operation STARVATION, the mining of Japanese waters. During the night of 13/14 May, 12 B-29s drop mines in Shimonoseki Strait, Japan.
Of Okinawa, the destroyer USS Bache (DD-470) and destroyer escort USS Bright (DE-747) are damaged by kamikazes. On USS Bache, the wing of the kamikaze struck near number two stack, catapulting the plane down on the main deck amidships, with its bomb exploding about seven feet (2.13 m) above the main deck; 41 of the crew were killed and 32 injured. All steam and electrical power were lost. Fires were brought under control within 20 minutes and she was towed to Kerama Retto, Okinawa, for temporary repairs.
On USS Bright, a low-flying Japanese fighter was sighted at 1919 hours and gunners opened fire scoring hits on his engine and port wing. The port wing fell off but the plane continued approaching at full speed and crashed immediately astern of the fantail. A 500-pound (227 kg) bomb exploded at the moment of crashing, causing immediate loss of steering with the rudder jammed hard left. The after-steering room was completely demolished, both port and starboard depth charge racks were damaged and inoperative, smoke screen generators blown off, the main deck aft buckled and pierced, and three compartments opened to the sea. Two men were wounded and for the following hour it was impossible to keep the ship from circling. Bright was towed to Kerama Retto, Ryukyu Islands, for emergency repairs.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Giffard departed St John’s to escort Convoy HX-335.
U.S.A.:
Destroyer USS George K Mackenzie launched.
Submarines USS Sirago and Trumpetfish launched.
I read about the 7th War Loan drive and the ad that 85 million Americans hold war bonds. Two of those 85 million were my parents; mom worked at the local GM plant while dad was in Texas, slated for deployment to the PTO. The deal with the war bonds is they were told the bonds would make a very nice retirement nest egg. However, they would cease earning interest after 30 years, and that was before they retired. No problem, said the government; at maturity, roll them into new bonds and you won’t be taxed on the interest. My parents bought a bunch of war bonds; as single adults they didn’t have anything other financial demands. I remember seeing stacks of these bonds in their safe deposit box at the bank.
Well guess what happened in 1974-1975 when the bonds matured and mom and dad went to roll them over. The government changed the rules and all the interest was taxed. This just happened to be right at the time my dad was at his peak earning power, so the government really soaked up the highest percentage of gain.
My parents were so mad, they felt they’d been lied to. And I learned a lesson from that. Beware of sheltering your money based on promises of favorable future tax consequences. The government likes to tempt people into putting their money in a pile, and when the pile gets big enough the government can’t keep their hands off it.
I second that. It makes me very nervous that every now and then since the Obama regime took power they talk about ways to seize control of retirement accounts. All that lovely money sitting in IRA's, 401K's, etc.
That worked out pretty well for me. My dad matriculated at UCLA on the GI Bill; after her defense-plant job expired after the war, my mom had moved out from Michigan with a friend and gotten a job at the university's Bursar's Office, where they met, presumably where he was paying tuition and fees with his GI benefits. One thing led to another and then another, and here I still am!
Although I did my matriculating at USC. My dad and I always got together to watch the annual football game, Bruins vs. Trojans.
My dad: ME, Purdue University, 1950
My uncle Fred (dad’s older brother): Chem E, McNeese State University, 1947 (he enlisted after his sophomore year at Purdue in 1942).
Not sure about Uncle Bob, mom’s brother in law. After flying his 35 missions over the Reich, he got a college degree and went to work in international business for DuPont. He visited every continent except Antartica.
The GI Bill did OK for the henkster clan.
As an Indianan, you might appreciate this. When my dad was drafted when he turned 18 at the end of 1942, the Army sent him to Indiana University for education and officer training.
When war's end approached in late '44, they realized they were oversupplied with brass, ended that program, and sent him out as PFC/cannon fodder. He did get shelled, too--he was a forward artillery observer and his green second looey exposed them on a skyline, so an 88 sent greetings and salutations. My dad delighted in telling how that dumb looey crapped his pants under fire.
I went to college on a ROTC scholarship. And, I went to law school on the old G.I. Bill - one of the last to do so.
Soap companies are still claiming they get stains out without bleach and it still doesn’t work.
My dad landed in North Africa in Operation Torch and left Okinawa to come home after the war. He gambled for the next 5 years and eventually went back to selling Fords for his father.
He was the envy of all his WW2 friends because he never fired his weapon during the war.
I didn’t know we had so many IU connections around here.
BA Indiana University-Bloomington (Double Major Political Science/Germanic Languages) 1981
JD Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis 1984
I wish I’d also picked up a degree in History while in Bloomington. It would have been a piece of cake. And the Bloomington campus is beautiful, spring, summer, even winter, but especially so in the fall.
My dad graduated high school in 1945 and was still in training when the war ended.
I got a history degree from the U of Wyoming. I really wanted to get a Phd and teach but by that time all the new colleges built after the War had filled their tenure track positions. So, I turned to the law. U of Michigan.
My next door neighbor witnessed his brother getting killed while they were flying B-17’s. We re-enlisted after his tour and flew fighters until the war’s end.
He became a “German ace” by destroying 5 American planes. His squadron even handed out little homemade Iron Crosses for it.
Sad but true.
Canada Ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
