This Day in WWII 2 September 1939 - 1945

[Donster]

Mary Howard*

1939: National Service Act passed in Britain.

1939: Hitler indicates to the Britain and France that he would withdraw from Poland provided that he was allowed to retain Danzig and the Polish Corridor. This was dismissed and a joint ultimatum was given to Germany to withdraw her troops from Poland within twelve hours or find herself at war with Britain and France.

1939: Sweden issues a declaration of neutrality. German Ministers at Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway, give a declaration that Germany would respect the integrity of Sweden and Norway.

1939: Failure of a last-minute effort by Mussolini to find a peaceful solution of the German-Polish conflict.

1939: The Luftwaffe raids Warsaw. German troops capture the Jablunka pass in the Tatra mountains. Fighting continued for the strategic island of Westerplatte at the mouth of the Vistula River. A massive attack was launched by 60 Stuka divebombers of the II and III Stukageschwader Immelmann directed at crushing the island garrison. The air assault was not directly followed up by a German attack from the ground and the Poles were able to reorganize their defenses. German aircraft bomb railway station at Kolo, killing 111 refugees.

1939: The Germans start construction of Stutthof concentration camp in which 65,000 Polish Christians will ultimately perish.

1940: Air attacks continue on London.

Mary Howard

1941: RAF daylight raids on Occupied Europe miss only 19 days in August and September.

1941: General Sir Claude Auchinleck issues his first directive in respect to the forthcoming British Offensive, 'Operation Crusader', by ordering General Sir Alan Cunningham to produce a plan for the relief of Tobruk and the re-conquest of Cyrenaica.

1943: A special order of the day from Stalin announces the Russian victories on Voronezh, Bryansk, Donets and Sea of Azov fronts.

1944: The launching of V1's from France ceases.

1944: The allies cross into Belgium.

1944: The Germans begin to evacuate the Aegean Islands.

(READ NY TIMES ARTICLE)

1945: The formal Japanese surrender takes place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

*The daughter of Will Rogers, actress Mary Rogers was so anxious to succeed on her own without her dad`s help or influence that she billed herself as Mary Howard, and for several years managed to hide her lineage from prospective employees. In films from 1933, she never quite achieved stardom, but she managed to work steadily in features and short subjects. Her screen roles ranged from the heroine in the wacky Olsen and Johnson starrer All Over Town (1937) to Ann Rutledge in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). She also appeared in such Broadway productions as On to Fortune and Crime Marches On.

During WWII she toured service camps, helped organize the USO in Los Angeles and toured hospitals and camps Stateside for servicemen returning from war. In 1945, she moved to New York and married Alfred de Liagre Jr., a prominent producer who died in 1987.

She died on June 6, 2009 in Manhattan, aged 94 or 96; she was survived by a son, a daughter and a grandson.