Posted on 07/21/2015 5:14:04 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
#1 - “On the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe” - Johnny Mercer, with the Pied Pipers
#2 – “Sentimental Journey” – Les Brown, with Doris Day
#3 – “There! I’ve Said It Again” – Vaughn Monroe
#4 - “Bell Bottom Trousers” - Tony Pastor, with Ruth McCullough
#5 - “Chopin’s Polonaise” - Carmen Cavallaro
#6 - “Sentimental Journey” - Hal McIntyre
#7 - “Gotta Be This Or That” - Benny Goodman
#8 - “Bell Bottom Trousers” - Guy Lombardo, with Jimmy Brown
#8 – “Sentimental Journey” – Merry Macs
#9 – “If I Loved You” – Perry Como
#10 – “On the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe” – Bing Crosby
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/6/21.htm
July 21st, 1945 (SATURDAY)
GERMANY: Potsdam: Truman and Churchill agree to drop the atomic bomb on Japan if it fails to surrender unconditionally.
The Allies select Nürnberg as the venue for the trial of the main Nazi war criminals.
U.S.S.R.: Soviet submarine SC-411 commissioned.
Okinawa: The first of the new M26 Pershing tanks arrive. (Keith Allen)(150)
lend lease to Italy
One source says the lend lease records were destroyed but we do have Russia’s records as an example.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/lend.html
An interesting compilation. Since it comes from Soviet sources dated 1952, it’s not clear how accurate it is, but I would guess it is fairly so. This document has been cited in various historical sources.
One thing at the end of the list, though; it states that Russia was Japan’s “ally” during most of the war. That is simply not true. The two parties maintained a strictly correct neutrality toward each other, but never were they “allies.”
Yeah. If I remember right the Soviets even interned our air crews, didn’t they?
Yes, they did. On the other hand, it allowed us to transfer a number of merchant ships under the Soviet flag and ship Lend-Lease directly across the Pacific to Vladivostok. The Japanese did not molest those ships. A significant portion of that list went to the USSR that way.
Hitler was furious about it, but there was nothing he could do.
Russia/USSR had three scores to settle in WWII, and they succeeded in settling two of them. The three scores were, in chronological order, the Japanese beating the Czarist Navy in 1905, the British getting control of the middle east oil fields in WWI, and the Nazis reneging on their neutrality pact.
My guess, and it's only a guess, is that Stalin thought that after he signed the neutrality pact, Hitler would concentrate on the west until Britain was brought under Nazi hegemony, perhaps completely conquered. In the meantime, Stalin could take the oil fields for himself, and then catch the Japanese flat-footed in the Kuriles in 1941, perhaps even taking Hokkaido. He could then decide how to handle Hitler, whether to take him for an ally against the United States with Stalin taking Alaska while Hitler took over the Atlantic and gained allies in Latin America, or to fight Hitler head-on in Poland while convincing Japan to lay off Hawaii, and getting America into the European war.
All that went out the window when Britain didn't buckle under the Nazi attacks, Russia didn't get the oil fields, and then Hitler reneged and invaded in June 1941: that put avenging against Japan on the back burner, and so Stalin claimed neutrality with Japan during 99% of the war. This was because Stalin had bigger fish to fry: he had to do what Alexander I had done to Napoleon 130 years earlier, which was to make Hitler fight for every square inch of ground, stretch out the enemy supply lines to the breaking point, then let the winter conquer the enemy. Just as Alexander and Napoleon went from allies to moral enemies, so did Stalin and Hitler.
Stalin's mistake with Japan was that he actually kept his word given at Yalta, and waited three months from the end of the European war to invade. He could just as easily have broken his word--he was a Communist after all, integrity is not their strong suit--and invaded the Kuriles and Hokkaido in July, presenting Truman and Churchill a fait accompli at Potsdam. Why he didn't is one of those questions for which there will never be a good answer.
Tokyo Admiral says big blow coming
yep, to Japan
It is still astounding how occupied Korea was totally ignored during all this
Still surprises me to see the same songs sung by different people in the top 10
One of the Doolittle Raiders was critically low on fuel and landed in Russia, near Vladivostok. The crew were interned per protocol. But, eventually the Russians transferred them to Central Asia very near the border with Iran where they “escaped” from house arrest.
Well, nothing’s perfect. Not even “neutrality.”
I recall seeing a US Army map of Germany in the 1970’s that still showed the 1937 borders. I don’t believe the issue was finally settled until Germany and Poland signed a treaty after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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