So in case it isn’t obvious by now, my most recent bout of post-blogging covered the period of the Baedeker Blitz, a series of Luftwaffe raids against English cities (unlike in the Blitz proper, there were no targets in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) between 23 April and 3 May 1942. The individual blitzes were: […]
Some good news from Burma, or at least less bad than usual. The Yorkshire Post reports that, although still retreating, Allied forces ‘have successfully evaded the enemy attempt to cut them off in the Mandalay area’ (1). The British have been divided from the Chinese, however, with the former retreating up the Chindwin and the
The front page of the Daily Mirror today is almost wholly given over to a story which the other papers are far less interested in. The recently-installed Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr William Temple (that’s him on the left, though what is being done to him I have no idea; and that’s his forehead on the
Ian Kershaw. The End: Germany 1944-45. London: Penguin Books, 2012. Decided to wait for the paperback edition when this first came out, a safe enough bet where Kershaw is concerned. Among other things, should be useful for placing Dresden in the wider context of what else was happening in Germany in these months. Marilyn Lake
The Observer reports that Japan now claims to have captured Mandalay, ‘second city and former capital of Burma (5). This seems not to have been confirmed by official British sources yet; however It was stated in authoritative circles in London yesterday that with Lashio already in enemy hands, it would not be worth while suffering
All the newspapers today carry news of the meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in Salzburg; only the Daily Express leads with it. Its angle is that there is ‘STRONG evidence’ that the two dictators agreed that Italy would sent ‘a large part’ of its army to Russia, while Germany would send ‘thousands’ of its soldiers
This news has been coming for the last few days: Lashio has fallen to the Japanese. As the Daily Express reports, the town was ‘pounded by artillery and dive-bombers before the final assault’ (1): Then large numbers of tanks and armoured cars rumbled forward into the inferno as a battering ram for the enemy. General
Most newspapers in my sample today lead with the further grim news from Burma (the Japanese army has now reached the suburbs of Lashio) but The Times chooses to go with the latest Bomber Command raids on Kiel and, for the second night running, Trondheim, both the locations of key German warships (4): The heavier
The situation in Burma is getting worse, as the Daily Mirror (above, 1) and most other papers note in their lead stories. The whole length of the vital Lashio-Mandalay railway is in grave danger as five Japanese divisions, totalling 100,000 men, supported by panzers and bombers, are storming the southern edge of the Upper Burma
The Yorkshire Post, (above, 1), again leads with Rostock, which has been bombed by the RAF for the fourth consecutive night. The city ‘is a heap of smouldering ruins, crushed by nearly 800 tons of British bombs. Its population is fleeing in panic. Its war production has ceased’: PHOTOGRAPHS taken after the third night’s raid
