This Day in WWII 22 April 1940 - 1945

[Donster]

Ethyl Corporation Ad - April 1944

1940: Inter-Allied Supreme War Council meets in Paris; Poland and Norway represented.

1942: Fuhrer Directive 41 rolls off the mimeograph machines in Rastenberg and the Wehrmacht has its marching orders for 1942. Leningrad is to finally be captured, but that's a secondary objective. The big plan is in the South, which involves 2nd Army and 4th Panzer Army breaking through to Voronezh on the Don. 6th Army will break out South of Kharkov and combine with the 4th Panzer Army to surround the enemy. After that, the 4th Panzer Army and 6th Army will drive East under the command of Army Group B and surround Stalingrad from the North, while Army Group A's 17th Army and 1st Panzer Army will do so from the South. Once Stalingrad is taken, the 6th Army will hold the flank defense line while Army Group A drive South into the Caucasus to seize the oilfields and become the northern punch of a grand pincer movement (the southern half being Rommel) the seize Suez, the Nile Delta, the Middle-East and its oilfields.

*Ginger Rogers

1943: The British First and Eighth Army's, the U.S. 2nd Corps and Free French forces begin the final offensive to destroy the axis bridgehead in Tunisia.

1943: Japan announces captured Allied pilots will be given "one way tickets to hell."

Ginger Rogers

1944: Bomber Command uses a ‘J’ bomb (30lb liquid incendiary) for first time in a raid on Brunswick.

1944: The Russians say their talks with Finns are over.

Ginger Rogers

1944: Tito’s Partisans storm the Adriatic Island of Korcula, capturing 800 Germans.

1944: An increasingly depressed and dispirited Mussolini arrives at Klessheim Castle near Salzburg for one of his last meetings with Hitler. The Fuhrer warns that the Allied invasion can be expected within "6 to 8 weeks," at which time he would unleash "new technical weapons" that would turn London in a "heap of ruins." The Duce leaves unconvinced.

Ginger Rogers

1944: The allies land unopposed at Hollandia, on the northern coast of New Guinea.

1945: The U.S. First and Ninth Armies clear all German resistance in the Harz Mountains, 40 miles Southwest of Magdeburg. The U.S. Seventh Army captures a bridge across the Danube. The British Second Army is fighting in the outskirts of Bremen. The U.S. Third Army starts its drive down the Danube valley as the French First Army reaches Lake Constance on the Swiss/ German border. Hitler, ignoring the pleas of his entourage, decides to stay in his bunker at Berlin to await the inevitable end.

Ginger Rogers

1945: The 1st Belorussian Front penetrates into the northern and eastern suburbs of Berlin.

1945: The U.S. campaign in the central Philippines officially ends with the capture of Cebu Island.

Ginger Rogers

*Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911. Her mother, known as Lelee, went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he allowed the doctor to use forceps and the baby died. She was kidnapped by her father several times until her mother took him to court. Ginger's mother left her child in the care of her parents while she went in search of a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later to New York City. Mrs. McMath found herself with an income good enough to where she could send for Ginger. Lelee became a Marine in 1918 and was in the publicity department and Ginger went back to her grandparents in Missiouri. During this time her mother met John Rogers. After leaving the Marines they married in May, 1920 in Liberty, Missouri. He was transferred to Dallas and Ginger (who treated him as a father) went too. Ginger won a Charleston contest in 1925 (age 14) and a 4 week contract on the Interstate circuit. She also appeared in vaudeville acts which she did until she was 17 with her mother by her side to guide her. Now she had discovered true acting. She married in March, 1929, and after several months realized she had made a mistake. She acquired an agent and she did several short films. She went to New York where she appeared in the Broadway production of "Top Speed" which debuted Christmas Day, 1929. Her first film was in 1929 in "A Night in a Dormitory" (1930). It was a bit part, but it was a start. Later that year, Ginger appeared, briefly in two more films, "A Day of a Man of Affairs" (1929) and "Campus Sweethearts" (1930). For awhile she did both movies and theatre. The following year she began to get better parts in films such as "Office Blues" (1930) and "The Tip-Off" (1931). But the movie that enamored her to the public was "Gold Diggers of 1933" (1933). She did not have top billing but her beauty and voice was enough to have the public want more. She suggested using a monocle and this also set her apart. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous, "We're in the Money". In 1934, she starred with Dick Powell in "Twenty Million Sweethearts" (1934). It was a well received film about the popularity of radio. Ginger's real stardom occurred when she was teamed with Fred Astaire where they were one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. This is where she achieved real stardom. They were first paired in 1933's "Flying Down to Rio" (1933) and later in 1935's "Roberta" (1935) and "Top Hat" (1935). Ginger also appeared in some very good comedies such as "Bachelor Mother" (1939) and "5th Ave Girl" (1939) both in 1939. Also that year she appeared with Astaire in "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" (1939). The film made money but was not anywhere successful as they had hoped. After that studio executives at RKO wanted Ginger to strike out on her own. She made several dramatic pictures but it was 1940's "Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman" (1940) that allowed her to shine. Playing a young lady from the wrong side of the tracks, she played the lead role well, so well in fact, that she won an Academy Award for her portrayal. Ginger followed that project with the delightful comedy, "Tom Dick and Harry" (1941) the following year. It's a story where she has to choose which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but not near the caliber before World War II. After "Oh, Men! Oh, Women!" (1957) in 1957, Ginger didn't appear on the silver screen for seven years. By 1965, she had appeared for the last time in "Harlow" (1965/II). Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, "Ginger, My Story" which is a very good book. On April 25, 1995, Ginger died of of congestive heart failure in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.

[Joker]

Hubba! Allow me to repeat myself: hubba!

[Whizkid]

A real trouper! Ginger and Fred, what a pair!