Buddy's War #48- In the Greater War

While the 10th Armored and 80th Medical Battalion were refitting and recuperating from mid-January until mid-February, there were other events happening. Here are some of them. (Link)

75 Years Ago
January 1945

    19: Hitler orders that any retreats of divisions or larger units must be approved by him.
    20: The Red Army advances into East Prussia. Germans renew the retreat.
        : Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for a fourth term as U.S. President; Harry Truman is sworn in as Vice President.
    25: The American navy bombards Iwo Jima in preparation for an invasion.
    30: The Malta Conference (1945) began with Winston Churchill meeting with the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the Island of Malta in the Mediterranean to plan the end of WWII in both Theaters, and to discuss the ramifications of the Soviets now controlling most of Eastern Europe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would join the Conference for one day on 2 February 1945; both would fly to Yalta on 3 February for the Yalta Conference with Stalin.
    31: The Red Army crosses the Oder River into Germany and are now less than 50 miles from Berlin.
        : A second invasion on Luzon by Americans lands on the west coast.

75 Years Ago
February 1945

    1: Ecuador declares war on Germany and Japan.
    2: Naval docks at Singapore are destroyed by B-29 attacks.
    3: The Battle of Manila (1945) begins: Forces of the U.S. and Philippines enter Manila. The Manila massacre takes place during the fighting.
      : Heavy bombing of Berlin.
    4: The Yalta Conference of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin begins; the main subject of their discussions is postwar spheres of influence.
      : Belgium is now cleared of all German forces.
    9: The Colmar Pocket, the last German foothold west of the Rhine, is eliminated by the French 1st Army.
    13/14: The bombing of Dresden takes place; it is firebombed by Allied air forces and large parts of the historic city are destroyed. [Note: the future novelist Kurt Vonnegut was an American POW in Dresden at the time. His novel, Slaughterhouse Five was based on his experiences there during the bombing.]
    14: The 1945 Bombing of Prague: American planes bomb the wrong city.

Calendar of Saints: Paul Jones (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Paul Jones
Bishop, Pacifist
September 4

He was forced to resign as Bishop of Utah in April 1918 because of his outspoken opposition to World War I. Although in 1929 he was chosen as temporary bishop of Southern Ohio while the next incumbent was being selected, he never again held a permanent diocese. In 1933, presiding bishop James DeWolf Perry restored Jones's seat, but not his vote, in the House of Bishops.

Jones spent the rest of his life advocating for black civil rights, social reform and economic justice. He served as a chaplain at Antioch College and was instrumental in founding the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Just prior to his death, he helped resettle Jews displaced by the Nazis and advocated a more understanding US relationship with Japan.

Calendar of Saints: Bishop Paul Jones (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.


Paul Jones
Bishop, Pacifist
September 4

Paul Jones was born in Pennsylvania in 1880. He attended Yale University and the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was ordained and served a mission church in Logan, Utah. In 1914 he was made Bishop of the Missionary District of Utah.

He was an outspoken pacifist, and when World War I began in 1914, he spoke against it. As the war progressed, and when the United States entered the war in 1917, many Americans were vehement in holding that pursuing the war was a moral duty, and opposition to the war was immoral. In the spring of 1918, yielding to pressure, Bishop Jones resigned as Bishop of Utah.

-Link