Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 69

The Great Brinks Robbery

The great Brinks robbery

In January 1950 eleven men pulled off the greatest robbery up to that time at the Brinks Armed Car depot in Boston Massachusetts.

Vanishing after stealing $2.7 million, the masked men left few clues (a chauffeur’s cap and adhesive tape and rope used to bind and gag Brinks employees).

The gang was not caught until six years later (just before the statute of limitations would have been in effect).

The post The Great Brinks Robbery appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

People’s Republic of China

Song of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA)

Forward! Forward! Forward!
Our army faces towards the sun,
Over the ground of our Motherland,
Carrying the hope of our nation,

We are an invincible power!
We are the sons of peasantry,
We are the arms of the people!

Always fearless, never yielding, heroically fight,
’till we exterminate all counter-revolutionaries
Mao Zedong’s flag is fluttering high!

Hark! The wind is roaring and the bugle is sounding;
Hark! How thunderously our revolutionary song is ringing!

Comrades, march forth in unity onto the frontiers
of liberation and the borders of our Nation!.

Forward! Forward!
Our army faces towards the Sun;
Towards the final victory;
And the freedom of all our land!

After almost 20 years of intermittent civil war, interrupted by cautious military cooperation against colonial Japan, the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed in October 1949.

By the end of January 1950, the last Nationalist Chinese Kuomintang troops surrendered in mainland China as the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan with two million people, including military forces and refugees.

The post People’s Republic of China appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

Review of The Year

This interesting review of the year 1949 seeps Cold War energy.

Cost of Living 1949

Average Cost of new house $7,450.00 
Average wages per year $2,950.00 
Cost of a gallon of Gas 17 cents 
Average Cost of a new car $1,420.00 
Minimum Hourly Wage Rate 70 cents per hour
Bacon per pound 50 cents 
Dobbs Hat $8.50 
Kitchen Table and Chairs $100.00 
Bacon Sliced 59 cents per pound 
Bananas 11 cents per pound 
Bleach 21 cents 1/2 gallon 
Cantaloupe 23 cents 
Coffee 85 cents for 2 pound bag 
Fresh Chickens 55 cents per pound 
Below are some Prices for UK guides in Pounds Sterling 
Average House Price 1,911 

How Much things cost this year 
Yearly Inflation Rate U.S.A. -0.95% 
UK 2.6% 

The post Review of The Year appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

SO LONESOME I COULD CRY

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill 
He sounds too blue to fly
That means he’s lost the will to live 
I’m so lonesome I could cry
Did you ever see a night so slow 
As time goes draggin’ by
The moon just went behind the cloudsTo hide its face and cry
The silence of a falling star 
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are 
I’m so lonesome I could cry

Written in 1949, this lullingly poignant song was a Hank Williams great.

The Alabaman Hank Williams (1923-1953), one of the most popular country music singer/songwriters in America, produced songs like Cold, Cold Heart, Your Cheatin’ Heart, Hey, Good Lookin’ and I‘ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.

As his song titles suggest, Williams experienced heartbreak and turmoil throughout his life. As he became successful, his addiction to alcohol and opiates deepened.

On his way to an Ohio concert in the back seat of his 1952 powder blue Cadillac he fell silent for several hours. Concerned, at 5:30 in the morning, his driver pulled over in Oak Hill, West Virginia and found Hank Williams dead.

The post SO LONESOME I COULD CRY appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

Indonesian Independence

Following the defeat of the Japanese in WWII, Indonesia proclaimed its independence in August 1945.


What followed was a harsh attempt by the Dutch Empire (with some initial assistance by WWII allies) to recolonize Indonesia.

From 1945-49, vastly overpowered by Dutch military technology, Indonesian independence fighters managed to resist Dutch occupation forces and achieve independence.

The post Indonesian Independence appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

Trials of U.S. Communists

1949 Smith Act Trials 

The Smith Act of 1940 was a U.S. law that prohibited advocating violent overthrow of the government. Citing the Act, American Communist Party leaders were tried in New York City from 1949 to 1958.

The defendants claimed they advocated only a peaceful transition to socialism, and that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and of association protected their membership in a political party.

Appeals from these trials reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled:

Dennis v. United States (1951) – In a 6-to-2 decision, the Court upheld the convictions of the Communist Party leaders and found that the Smith Act did not “inherently” violate the First Amendment.

Yates v. United States (1957) –In a 6-to-1 decision, the Court reversed the convictions and remanded the cases to a District Court for retrial. 

The post Trials of U.S. Communists appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

South Pacific on Broadway

In 1949 the book Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener was adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein into the Broadway musical South Pacific.

In 1958 it was produced as the movie South Pacific starring Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor.

The post South Pacific on Broadway appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

Yangtze Incident

In April 1949, the HMS Amethyst was en route on the Yangtze River from Shanghai to Nanking China to replace another ship guarding the British Embassy during the Civil War between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese.

Early in he morning, the Amethyst received a burst of small arms fire and a salvo of shells from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) gun battery on the bank of the river. The PLA claimed the artillery shells, most of which fell short of the ship, were intended for Nationalist forces on the opposite bank. The Amethyst unfurled Union Jacks and increased speed. There was no further firing from this battery.

Further up river, the ship came under sustained fire from a second PLA battery. By the time the shelling stopped, 22 men had been killed and 31 wounded and the ship had received multiple hits.

Over the next few days, repeated attempts to rescue the Amethyst by British warships were repelled by heavy shore battery fire.

The Amethyst was held captive for almost three months. Ultimately, for release of the ship, the PLA demanded that Britain, the United States, and France withdraw their armed forces from all parts of China. Negotiations broke down.

In July, the Amethyst slipped away in the night and successfully escaped 100 miles downriver on a route lined with hostile guns on both banks of the river.

The post Yangtze Incident appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

James Forrestal Dies

James Vincent Forrestal (February 1892 – May 1949) was a strong supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers.

In 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Forrestal for the newly established position of Undersecretary of the Navy.

For ~ four years as undersecretary, Forrestal proved highly effective at mobilizing domestic industrial production for the war effort.

Naval History and Heritage Command

During WWII Forrestal toured battle sites in the Pacific and Europe. Four days after the invasion of Iwo Jima he was onshore watching the Marines raise the flag on Mount Suribachi.

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman appointed Forrestal the first United States Secretary of Defense.

In 1949, frustrated with Forrestal’s opposition to the partition of Palestine and to his military economization policies, as well as concern about his mental condition, Truman asked Forrestal to resign.

Diagnosed with severe depression of the type “seen in operational fatigue during the war,” Forrestal entered psychiatric treatment at the National Naval Medical Center (now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center) in Bethesda Maryland.

in the early morning of May 22, 1949 his body, clad only in pajama bottoms, was found on a third-floor roof below his sixteenth-floor hospital room.

Forrestal allegedly left a written statement (touted in the press as a suicide note) that was part of a poem from Sophocles’ tragedy Ajax.

Fair Salamis, the billows’ roar,
Wander around thee yet,
And sailors gaze upon thy shore
Firm in the Ocean set.
Thy son is in a foreign clime
Where Ida feeds her countless flocks,
Far from thy dear, remembered rocks,
Worn by the waste of time–
Comfortless, nameless, hopeless save
In the dark prospect of the yawning grave….
Woe to the mother in her close of day,
Woe to her desolate heart and temples gray,
When she shall hear
Her loved one’s story whispered in her ear!
“Woe, woe!’ will be the cry–
No quiet murmur like the tremulous wail
Of the lone bird, the querulous nightingale–

The post James Forrestal Dies appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.

First North Korean Movie

In 1949, with Soviet financial and technical assistance, Kang Hong-sik directed My Home Village, the first film made in the new Democratic People’s People’s Republic of Korea.

Gwan Pil, a poor farmer is deprived of his land by an evil Japanese colonial landlord and put in a Japanese prison where he meets an agent of Korean People’s Revolutionary Army. The two men then break out of prison and join the guerrillas. The guerrillas blow up a Japanese train as Kim Il Sung’s army liberates the farmer’s home village. There, Gwan Pil leads the fight to create a new society. 

Throughout the film, there is no mention of the American role in the defeat of Japan or the Soviet invasion during the liberation of Korea in 1945. The implication is that the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, under the leadership of Kim Il Sung, was the major liberating force.

The post First North Korean Movie appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.