Posted on 02/23/2010 5:28:17 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
I remember that one. I found an Italian procession doing the Goosestep for the January picture for the 1938 year in review thread.
More likely 2 D cells
I agree with you that the Romanian articles are very interesting. An interesting aside besides the equipment issues was the fact that when the eastern front was finally established the Germans found themselves having to put divisions between the Romanian divisions and the Hungarian divisions (They used the Italian divisions for this if memory serves). If they did not do this there was every likelihood that the Romanians and Hungarians would fight each other.
The Germans did use the Italians for that very reason. And the Italians were every bit as ineffective in the harsh combat conditions of the Eastern Front.
The Hungarians sent their 2nd Army, consisting of their III and VII army corps (in 1942 it held a 130km stretch of the Don River south of Voronezh). The Romanians sent their III and IV Armies which held the Don River immediately northwest of German VI Army and the southern flank south of Stalingrad where it petered out into the Kalmyck Steppe.
Did you ever wonder why the Hungarians didn’t send their 1st Army into the USSR, or why the Romanians didn’t send their 1st or 2nd Armies? Because those units stayed home glaring at each other across the Transylvanian border, re-drawn after Ribbentrop’s infamous “Vienna Award.” So not only were the Romanian and Hungarian forces not up to par to fighting the Red Army, those countries didn’t even send their best troops.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/23.htm
February 23rd, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: Leaflets and Reconnaissance - Prague - Pilsen. 77 Sqn. Two aircraft. No opposition.
In a victory parade celebrating the destruction of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee in the battle of the River Plate, 700 officers and men of the cruisers HMS Ajax and HMS Exeter march through cheering crowds to Guildhall in London. (Jack McKillop)
NORTH SEA: The German Leberecht Maas and Max Schulz are sunk in the North Sea. These ships had been attacked in error by German aircraft and whilst attempting to evade, had strayed into British mines that had been laid to foul the swept channel. (Alex Gordon)
Minesweeping trawler HMS Benvolio mined and sunk off Spurnhead. (Dave Shirlaw)
FINLAND: Helsinki: Finland repeats its request to Sweden and Norway to grant transit rights to foreign troops.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The Soviet government today sent its “final” peace terms to Finland, with Sweden acting as intermediary. The terms are even harsher than the demands whose refusal led to the war. The USSR wants the whole of the Kerelian isthmus including Viipuri, Finland’s second largest city; the naval base at Hango, which the Finns regard as the key to their country; and all the land round Lake Ladoga. The Russians will evacuate the territory they have seized around Petsamo in the far north if the Finns agree to a treaty guaranteeing the security of the Gulf of Finland against external threats. It is still not certain if the Finns will accept these demands, but there is one more card they can play: they can invite the Allies to intervene. But Sweden seemed to rule that out today by banning Allied troops from moving across its territory.
GIBRALTAR: U.S. freighter SS Lehigh is detained for several hours at Gibraltar by British authorities, but is allowed to proceed the same day. (Jack McKillop)
TURKEY: A state of emergency is declared following the alleged crossing of the Caucasian border by a Soviet detachment.
CANADA: Bangor-class minesweepers HMCS Cowichan, Malpeque, Ungava, Mahone, Chignecto, Outarde, Wasaga, Minas, Quinte, Chedabucto, Miramichi, Bellechasse, Clayoquot, Quatsino ordered. The RCN originally intended to build Bramble-class sloops (990 tons, 250 feet), a dual-purpose design capable of both escort and minesweeping duties. However, sloops were regarded in Canada as being too large for minesweeping and were quite expensive at £175,000 each. With the advent of the cheaper Flower-class corvette (950 tons, 205 feet, £90,000 each), the RCN decided to split the functional requirement and go with two classes of ships to satisfy the need for anti-submarine escorts and minesweepers. The Bangor-class (650 tons, 180 feet) was chosen as the minesweeper. Many of the escort features of the sloops were deleted from the Bangor-class, such as Asdic and depth charges. However, in 1940 this was reconsidered and they were added back into the design, which resulted in significant delays in delivery. As the war in the Atlantic progressed, the most urgent requirement was for escort vessels and the Bangors were pressed into this role. Their plumb bows and shortness made them even worse seakeepers than the Flower-class corvettes. They also had significantly lower endurance (3,450 at 12 knots versus 2,950 at 11.5 knots). But, their minesweeping duties meant they had been fitted from the outset with a gyrocompass that gave them the most accurate Asdic set in early Canadian escorts. Eventually, it was realized that the Bangors were too small to function effectively as minesweepers, which was due mainly to the new requirements for influence sweeping equipment for use against magnetic mines. The Algerine-class minesweepers, which also spent most of their careers in escort work, were designed to meet the requirement for a larger minesweeper. At 990 tons and 225 feet in length they approached the size of the original Bramble-class sloops. However, with only 4,500 miles of endurance at 11.5 knots they could not match the 6,000 miles at 12 knots of the Brambles. Meanwhile, sloops emerged as the pre-eminent escort vessel design of the interwar period, even outperforming fleet destroyers in anti-submarine efficiency, endurance, and seakeeping. Eventually, the Flower-class corvette design was modified to make it a better ocean escort. The Castle-class ended up with dimensions almost identical to a sloop - 1,060 tons, 250 feet, 6,200 miles endurance at 15 knots. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: The motion picture “Northwest Passage” is released. Directed by King Vidor, this story about Colonial America based on Kenneth Roberts’ book stars Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan and Ruth Hussey. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Destroyer HMS Gurkha on passage south of the Faeroes encounters and sinks U-53 in the mid-Orkneys, in position 60.32N, 06.14W, by depth charges, as she returns from operations in the Western Approaches. 42 dead (all hands lost). (Dave Shirlaw)
There certainly was bad blood between those two countries. We will get to see the “Vienna Award” this coming August. That agreement really created a strange salient for the Hungarians that would have been difficult to defend had other events not intervened.
The Germans would have been much better off without Italy as an ally. Barbarossa was delayed because the Germans had to pull Mussolini's chestnuts out of the fire in the Balkans, that delay proved costly.
Italy was Germany’s France, but there were a lot of other mistakes that caused the failure of the eastern front that fall directly into the German’s lap.
Our London correspondent was on hand to get the story. He will no doubt cable over some excerpts for tomorrow's regular edition.
My colleagues of the Board of the Admiralty and of the War Cabinet are very grateful to you for inviting us here today to share the hospitality which the City of London has extended to the brave sea captains and hardy tars who won the Battle of the River Plate. The brunt of the war has fallen upon the sailormen and upon their comrades of the Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force. And we have lost nearly 3,000 lives in the hard, unrelenting struggle which goes on night and day and is going on now without a moment's respite. The brilliant sea fight, which Admiral Harwood conceived and which you executed takes its place in our naval annals and I may add that in a dark, cold winter it warms the cockles of the British heart.
To the glorious action off the Plate there has recently been added an epilogue. The rescue last week by the Cossack and her flotilla under the nose of the enemy and amid the tangles of one-sided neutrality, the rescue of British captives taken from the sunken German raider (your friend - the one you sank), their rescue at the very moment when these unhappy men were about to be delivered over to indefinite German bondage proves that the long arm of British sea power can be stretched out not only for foes but also for faithful friends. And to Nelson's immortal signal of 135 years ago, "England expects that every man will do his duty," there may now be added last week's not less proud reply: "The Navy is here!"
Lol. He may have recorded it on wax. I can’t wait till our correspondents take a crack at the audio I have for March 1st.
Looks like it’s had essentially the same meaning for hundreds of years.
They did rename the story for the movie version the next year.
# Bahama Passage (1941), starring Sterling Hayden and Madeleine Carroll, was filmed on Grand Turk and Salt Cay. It was based on the book Dildo Cay by Nelson Hayes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_and_Caicos_Islands#References
A girl, Carol whom the audience is quickly informed “has been around,” and her father arrive to take over the business management of an island in the Bahamas...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033372/plotsummary
Perhaps the professor will include the review in next year’s syllabus.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 176 February 23, 1940
Soviets fear the imminent arrival of foreign aid or troops in Finland. They scale back the Summa offensive towards Viipuri and offer peace terms to Finland. USSR demands the entire Karelian Isthmus (including Viipuri, Finland’s second largest city) and the areas surrounding Lake Ladoga, as well as the islands in the Gulf of Finland and a 30-year lease on the Hanko Peninsula (at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland); they will evacuate Petsamo region in the North of Finland in return. The Soviet offer will expire on march 1.
Increasing the pressure on the Finns, Sweden announces it will not intervene in the conflict or even allow Allied troops to pass through Swedish territory. Strangely, this does not lead to a change in Allied planning to support Finland by just that route.
U-53 is sunk by depth charges from British destroyer HMS Gurkha in the North Sea, 25 miles South of the Faroe Islands (all 42 hands lost).
I'll keep an eye out for it, but it probably won't show up until 1942. According to TCM its New York Premier was in February '42 and as far as the Times is concerned, if it hasn't opened in Gotham it doesn't exist.
The Romanians were useless as German Allies during the War.
This particular thread is MARRED by that book.
Dang evil porn
It is useful to see the media agenda in this area even at that date.
According to my Webster's, the word has been around since about 1593, of unknown origin and has had only one meaning. That "unknown origin" mystery might be resolved if we compare the word "dilate."
The book itself is readily available -- ahem, used -- for anyone so curious:
If there is a double meaning here I suspect it would simply be that, in an incomparably more innocent age, not everyone would immediately recognize what the word implied.
Then again, perhaps the simplest explanation is best: this is, after all, the New York Times.
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