Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 81

Eisenhower Appointed Army Chief of Staff

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York In 1915 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

During WWI, Eisenhower commanded a tank training center in Pennsylvania. Quickly rising through the ranks after the war, he was promoted to major in 1920. Following an assignment in the Panama Canal Zone, he attended the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas and graduated first in his class of 1926.

From 1935 to 1939, Eisenhower served on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff in the Philippines. In 1941, on assignment to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, he was appointed chief of staff for the Third Army. After demonstrating excellent leadership skills during the large-scale Louisiana maneuvers of 1941, he was promoted to brigadier general and transferred to the War Plans division in Washington, D.C.

In 1942, Eisenhower was promoted to major general and given command of the Allied Forces during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

In June 1944, Eisenhower commanded the Allied forces during the D-Day invasion of the coast of Normandy France. In December 1944 he was promoted to five-star general.

After Germany’s surrender in 1945, Eisenhower became the military governor of the U.S. Occupied Zone. Hailed as a major WWII hero, he returned to America and was appointed U.S. Army Chief of Staff in 1946.

 

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The Great Glinka

 

The Great Glinka  (Глинка) was a 1946 Soviet film directed by Lev Arnshtam. Awarded the Stalin Prize, the film depicts the life of Mikhail Glinka, a Russian composer of the 19th century.

Incorporating Russian folk songs into his compositions, Glinka, despite his friendships with Alexander Pushkin and recognition by Czar Nicholas the First, reportedly never forgot his humble origins — he was a “composer of the people.”

Soviet singing star Boris Chirkov played Glinka along with members of the Bolshoi Theatre in secondary roles. The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.

 

 

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Germany Divided

At the 1945 Potsdam conference, the four great Allied powers agreed to divide Germany into four administrative occupation zones.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

In 1946, with increased Cold War tension arising between the Allies, the agreement to govern Germany as a single unit through the Allied Control Council began to break down. The ultimate result in 1949 was the merger of zones controlled by the Western Allies into the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) and formation of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic) in the Russian zone.

Although the city of Berlin fell in the middle of the Russian zone of occupation, the Western Allies maintained their established occupation zones in West Berlin. When East Berlin was declared capital of the Communist German Democratic Republic, West Berlin became a de facto part of the Federal Republic of Germany.

 

Source: The Birth of the German Democratic Republic

 

Federal Republic of Germany

 

German Democratic Republic

 

 

 

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Alcatraz Siege

From 1934-1963, Alcatraz was a high-security federal prison in San Francisco Bay. With a reputation of being escape-proof, it held notorious, high-profile prisoners, particularly those with a history of previous escape attempts.

In May 1946, after a failed escape attempt, prisoners waged a 3-day siege at Alcatraz prison. Led by a bank robber, inmates took nine guards hostage. Two guards and three prisoners were killed. Eleven guards and one uninvolved convict were also injured. Two of the surviving convicts were later executed for their roles.

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Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong  (1893–1976)

 

 

In 1893, Mao Zedong was born into a prosperous peasant family in Hunan Province, After an elementary school education, Mao began working the fields at age 13. At age 17, he enrolled in a secondary school in Changsha, the capital of Hunan. At age 18 he joined Sun Yat-sen‘s Nationalist Kuomintang Party which overthrew the monarchy and formed the Republic of China in 1912.

In 1918 Mao graduated from the Hunan First Normal School and became a certified teacher. In 1918 he took a job as a library assistant at Beijing University. In 1921, still supporting the Kuomintang, he was one of the founding members of the Chinese Communist Party. However, when Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, his successor Chiang Kai-shek broke the Kuomintang alliance with Communist Party and pursued a traditional conservative path for China.

In 1927, many Communists in the Kuomintang were imprisoned or executed. Shortly, Mao led an abortive coup attempt and was forced to flee with his forces to Jiangxi Province where he established the Soviet Republic of China. With a small army of toughened guerillas, Mao proceeded to suppress dissidence with torture and execution. He soon gained control over ten regions in Jiangxi Province.

In 1934, surrounded by Chiang’s million-man army, Mao retreated with ~100,000 Communists and their dependents on a 8,000 mile trek across northern China that became known as the long march. Inspired by Mao’s heroic escape and his inspiring Communist oration, many young Chinese volunteers joined him in Shaanxi Province.

In 1937, the Japanese invaded China, initiating the Second Sino-Japanese War. Chiang Kai-shek abandoned the capital city Nanking and soon lost control of China’s coastal regions and most major cities. Mao agreed to a truce with the Kuomintang and joined the fight against the invading Japanese. Maintaining a shaky truce, the Communists and Kuomintang battled the Japanese together until Japan’s defeat in 1945.

After WWII, Allied efforts to form a coalition between the Communists and the Kuomintang were to no avail and civil war erupted. In 1949 Chiang Kai-shek’s forces re-established the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan and Mao established the People’s Republic of China on the mainland.

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U.S. Weapons WWII

 

Wikimedia Commons

 

Some U.S. mass-produced weapons of WWII like the M-4 Sherman tank, the P-40 and P – 39 fighter planes and early model torpedoes, aside from the vast numbers, achieved dubious performance records. Ultimately, however, America produced vast amounts of weapons and superior equipment that outmatched and  overwhelmed the Axis powers. In addition to U.S. military deployment, Britain and Russia also received American weapons through the Lend-Lease Act.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a military weapons expert – Any additions or corrections to this post are greatly appreciated.

 

The following list is abstracted from a post by Michael Peck in the National Interest magazine:

The 5 Deadliest U.S. Weapons of War from World War II

 

M-1 Garand Rifle – 1938

 

The M1 Garand represented a radical change from the bolt-action rifles used by all combatants in the 1930s. A semi-automatic rifle that fired eight shots with each trigger compression, the M1 fired 40-50 rounds/minute. The Garand was vastly superior to slower, bolt-action rifles including the  five-shot German Mauser K98 and Japan’s five-shot Arisaka Type 99 rifle.

 

Proximity Fuze – 1944

 

At the beginning of WWII, anti-aircraft guns, lacking radar or fire control computers, often fired thousands of rounds before striking their targets.

A proximity fuze automatically detonates an explosive shell at a predetermined distance from its target (airplane, missile, ship and ground forces).

An effective  response to devastating Kamikaze attacks at the Battle of Okinawa proved to be a radar device placed in the nose of each anti-aircraft shell set to explode when the target was detected close enough to be hit by a cloud of fragments sprayed across a wide area. Variable time fuzes, detonated as airbursts above ground, also proved effective against German infantry in the Battle of the Bulge.

 

Essex-class aircraft carrier – 1943

 

Essex class aircraft carriers were extremely effective in the WWII Pacific Theater. With excellent range, capacity for ~100 aircraft, advanced radar equipment, new VHF radios and an integrated combat information center, the Essex class carriers were far superior to any vessel previously deployed.

Essex carriers proved extremely effective against the Imperial Japanese Navy in battles such as the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. Essex class ships, including the USS Essex, Ticonderoga and Hancock continued to launch combat missions in the  Korean and Vietnam Wars.

 

 

Gato-class submarine – 1941

 

Heavily-armed, U.S. Gato Class submarines were designed for long-range cruising. In contrast to the German U-Boat, which used diesel transmission on the surface and electric transmission when submerged, Gato Class submarines used diesel engines to charge electric batteries and power an electric motor. This allowed diesel engines to run at a high speed without breakdown and diesel and electric motors to run at different speeds, so one or more of the diesel engines to be shut off for maintenance while the others kept running.

U.S. Gato class submarines were largely responsible for the destruction of the Japanese merchant marine and a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy in WWII.  Although there is considerable debate regarding how well the Gato submarine performed in comparison with the German U-Boat, the discussion is academic since Japanese anti-submarine warfare (ASW) techniques were poorly developed. In contrast, U-Boats faced increasingly sophisticated, escalating Allied ASW defenses that killed more than 60% of U-boat crews.

 

 

Atomic Bomb – 1945

 

The costly Manhattan Project illustrated American capability to coordinate scientific and industrial resources into the development of the most devastating weapon ever produced. Deployed at a time when Japan’s cities had already been devastated by firebombing, its strategic effect was less than its psychological impact, ultimately bringing about the surrender of Imperial Japan.

 

 

 

 

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Annie Get Your Gun

Annie Get Your Gun, a 1946 Broadway show with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a book by the brother-sister team of Dorothy and Herbert Fields, was a fictionalized account of the life of Annie Oakley, a 19th and early 20th-century sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. The show starred Ethel Merman as Annie.

 

Ethel Merman

 

     Annie Oakley in  Cowgirl Magazine

 

The 1946 Broadway production was a major hit in New York (1,147 performances) and London. Over the years there were revivals of the show and Film and TV versions.

Annie Get Your Gun (1950)

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Q Ship vs U-Boat

U-Boat ace Reinhard Hardegen (white hat) tells of U-123 ENCOUNTER WITH A Q SHIP in March 1942

Q-ships were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks that gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink them. After the U-123 sank the U.S. Q ship USS ATTIK, these stealthy ships were no longer effectively deployed in WWII.  Without the element of surprise, the Q ship had become an anachronism.

 

Excerpt from my upcoming book – The Osprey & the Sea Wolf ~ The Battle of the Atlantic 1942

Almost abeam, with the freighter’s course unchanged, Rainer initiated the attack. “Forward torpedo room. Target angle 090. Enemy speed seven knots. Range 2000 meters. Depth three meters. Fire one. Los!” Rainer focused his binoculars on the target as Vogel timed the torpedo run. At 165 seconds a flash of orange light erupted from the foredeck of the freighter. Five seconds later—voompff! The deep, muffled sound of an explosion swept across the water and the freighter began to list.

“Place two torpedoes on standby, ready to fire,” Rainer ordered. “Ahead one third.”

At 800 meters, Rainer was able to read markings on the freighter’s stern that were illuminated by flames. “The Melinda out of Galveston Texas,” he said to Vogel.

“I see no unusual superstructures or windows, Kaleun,” Vogel said.

“Gut. Aber vorsicht! Let’s approach with caution.”

Funkmaat Stein reported intercepting an SSS signal sent from the burning ship: Melinda under torpedo attack. Burning forward. Require assistance.

700 meters from the burning ship, Rainer and Vogel watched from the bridge as a lifeboat was lowered into the water from the stricken freighter and a dozen crewmen clambered aboard. “They’re abandoning ship,” Rainer said. “We’ll wait until they’re clear, then move in for a broadside shot. Come right to 020. All ahead one third. Ready deck gun for attack.”

As Wolf’s gun crew assembled on the foredeck, Rainer prepared for a broadside Fangschuss. At 650 meters, squinting into the darkness, he felt a vague tingling sensation in his shoulders. Why haven’t they launched another lifeboat?

Bam! Clang! Heavy steel bulkheads along the side of the listing freighter flew open and slammed against the sides of the ship. Kawuum! A four-inch deck gun within the dark hold of the freighter fired a shell that landed 100 meters short of the U-023. Rat-a-tat-tat. Orange-tipped tracer bullets erupted from two Browning machine guns like yellow jackets swarming from a disrupted nest. Although the deck gun fusillade continued to fall short, the machine guns raked the deck and bridge of the U-023. One of Wolf’s gun crew, mortally wounded, fell into the sea.

“Hard to starboard! All ahead full!” Rainer shouted. As the cannon fire inched closer and machine gun bullets ricocheted off the deck, the U-023 gradually pulled out of target range. ”Tauchen!” Rainer ordered. Vogel sounded the dive alarm. Ahooga ahooga! …

U-123 Kriegstagebuch (log book) for 8th War Patrol: “Wir waren erst mistraurisch…” =  “We were at first merely suspicious…”

http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTB/KTBNotesFormat-SampleKTB.htm

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Joseph Stalin

Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, born in December 1878 in Georgia, assumed the name Stalin (man of steel) in his 30s. Growing up the poor, only child of a shoemaker and laundress, he attended a Georgian Orthodox seminary as a young man. Inspired by the works of Karl Marx, he became a political organizer for the Bolshevik Party. Arrested multiple times, he was imprisoned and exiled to Siberia.

In 1903 Stalin married the seamstress Ekaterina “Kato” Svanidze and had a son Yakov. Ekaterina died of typhus in 1907. Yakov died as a POW in WWII Germany. Stalin married his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1919, and had two children: Vasily, who was imprisoned after his father’s death in 1953 and Svetlana, who defected in the 1960s. Their mother Nadezhda committed suicide in 1932. Stalin reportedly also fathered several children out of wedlock.

When the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, Stalin gained control of the party. Assuming dictatorial powers, he instituted a farm collectivization program, suppressed opposition and purged his party of potential rivals. Many of his perceived enemies were executed or sent to forced labor camps.

In 1929, Stalin launched a disastrous series of five-year plans to industrialize the agrarian Russian economy. As the government seized control of farms, peasant farmers who refused to cooperate were shot or exiled. The forced collectivization also led to widespread famine across the Soviet Union that killed millions.

Stalin expanded the powers of the secret police, encouraged citizens to spy on one another and had millions of people killed or sent to the Gulag system of forced labor camps. From 1937-38, he instituted the Great Terror, a series of arrests, executions and exiles designed to remove people from the Communist Party, the military and Soviet society that he considered a threat.

 

Controlling the Soviet media, Stalin promoted a cult of personality for himself. Cities were renamed in his honor, history books augmented his role in the revolution, and artwork, literature and music extolled his name.

 

In 1939, Stalin signed a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany. He then proceeded to annex parts of Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and launch an invasion of Finland. However, in June 1941 Hitler broke the pact and invaded the USSR with Operation Barbarossa.  As German troops advanced toward Moscow, Stalin ordered a scorched earth  policy to destroy anything that might benefit the enemy. In 1942, the tide on the Eastern Front turned with the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Red Army eventually drove the invading Germans from Russia.

In 1945, Stalin’s health deteriorated and heart problems forced a two-month vacation. He grew increasingly concerned about possible attempts to oust him from power. Senior political and military figures were monitored by secret police and many (including Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and NKVD head Lavrentiy Beria) were eventually demoted from positions of power.

After WWII, many Russians viewed Stalin as a hero and savior of the nation. Post-war Soviet society became somewhat more tolerant: The Russian Orthodox Church was allowed to retain churches opened during the war. Academia and the arts were allowed greater freedom. Nevertheless, distrust still pervaded Stalin’s psyche. Returning Soviet POWs were interrogated for possible treason and about half were imprisoned in labor camps. In the Baltic states, where opposition to Soviet rule long lay dormant, arrests, deportations, executions and removal of clerical influence was instituted.

After prolonged drought and a bad harvest, the USSR experienced a major famine from 1946 to 1947 that was further exacerbated by government food procurement policies. An estimated 1-1.5 million died from malnutrition or disease. Despite the famine, Stalin remained focused on major infrastructure projects that (utilizing prison labor) built hydroelectric plants, canals and railway lines.

Joseph Stalin died of a massive stroke in 1953.

 

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Hitler’s Normal Voice

Adolf Hitler speaking with Carl Gustaf Mannerheim on a private train in Finland in 1942.

 

So accustomed to the usual ranting nature of Adolf Hitler’s speeches, we find it difficult to imagine his normal conversational tone. This is purported to be the only known recording of Hitler’s usual speaking voice.  Source: The Only Known Recording of Hitler’s Normal Speaking Voice, As He talks to Finnish General Mannerheim

 

Here is the voice we are are accustomed to hearing:

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