On This Day In 1956 Soviet Tanks Stormed Into Hungary To Crush The Hungarian Revolution

History.com: Soviets put brutal end to Hungarian revolution

A spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days before in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on this day in 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country.

The problems in Hungary began in October 1956, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a more democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. In response, Communist Party officials appointed Imre Nagy, a former premier who had been dismissed from the party for his criticisms of Stalinist policies, as the new premier. Nagy tried to restore peace and asked the Soviets to withdraw their troops. The Soviets did so, but Nagy then tried to push the Hungarian revolt forward by abolishing one-party rule. He also announced that Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet bloc’s equivalent of NATO).

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WNU Editor: They never had a chance.

Missile Gaps And Other Broken Promises -- A Commentary

President meets with Secretary of Defense. President Kennedy, Secretary McNamara. White House, Cabinet Room, ca. 06/19/1962. Image from Flickr. ARC Identifier: 194244

From The New York Times:

On the morning of his 17th day as President, John F. Kennedy was still in bed at 8 a.m. and, as was his habit, reading The New York Times. One glance at the front page and he exploded, calling his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara and saying: “What the hell is this ….”

“This” was a headline: “Kennedy Defense Study Finds No Evidence of a ‘Missile Gap.’ ”

Not good. Kennedy’s most powerful campaign line had been: “We are facing a gap on which we are gambling with our survival …”

McNamara, a Republican who had been the president of Ford Motors, was considered the best of the new president’s Cabinet choices. He may have been the best and the brightest, but he was a political amateur. The evening before, McNamara had invited reporters covering the Defense Department into his office for drinks and a get-acquainted session. Unfortunately, the new guy did not know the rules of the game.

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My Comment: It appears that we are repeating history. This is an excellent opinion piece from The New York Times.

The Four Chaplains

Photo from Wikipedia

From Wikipedia:

The Four Chaplains were four United States Army chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester during World War II. They helped other soldiers board lifeboats and gave up their own life jackets when the supply ran out; 230 of the 904 men aboard the ship were rescued. Life jackets offered little protection from hypothermia which killed most men in the water. Water temperature was 34 °F (1 °C) and air temperature was 36 °F (2 °C). By the time additional rescue ships arrived "...hundreds of dead bodies were seen floating on the water, kept up by their life jackets."

The chaplains, who all held the rank of lieutenant, were the Methodist Reverend George L. Fox, the Jewish Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, the Roman Catholic Priest John P. Washington and the Reformed Church in America Reverend Clark V. Poling. They were sailing on the USAT Dorchester troop transport on February 3, 1943, when the vessel, travelling in convoy, was torpedoed by the German submarine U-223 in the North Atlantic. As the vessel sank, the four chaplains calmed the frightened soldiers and sailors, aided in the evacuation of the ship, and helped guide wounded men to safety. The chaplains also gave up their own life belts.

As I swam away from the ship, I looked back. The flares had lighted everything. The bow came up high and she slid under. The last thing I saw, the Four Chaplains were up there praying for the safety of the men. They had done everything they could. I did not see them again. They themselves did not have a chance without their life jackets.
—Grady Clark, survivor

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Hat Tip: Rantburg

This Day In History

Photo: This file photo provided by Paris' Holocaust Memorial shows a German soldier shooting an Ukrainian Jew during a mass execution in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, between 1941 and 1943. For decades, the Holocaust was epitomized by barbed wire fences, gas chambers and death camps, a tragedy amply documented in history textbooks and reflected in solemn memorial sites around the world. The extermination of over 2 million Eastern European Jews by guns in the middle of quiet villages and towns across Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, has been underresearched and the victims have largely been forgotten. Many of their remains still lie unidentified and unmarked. (AP Photo/USHMM/Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Priest Uncovering Beginnings Of Final Solution -- Yahoo News/AP

KIEV, Ukraine – The Holocaust has a landscape engraved in the mind's eye: barbed-wire fences, gas chambers, furnaces.

Less known is the "Holocaust by Bullets," in which over 2 million Jews were gunned down in towns and villages across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Their part in the Nazis' Final Solution has been under-researched, their bodies left unidentified in unmarked mass graves.

"Shoah," French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann's documentary, stands as the 20th century's epic visual record of the Holocaust. Now another Frenchman, a Catholic priest named Patrick Desbois, is filling in a different part of the picture.

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Chemical Warfare – Ancient Persian-Style

Persian siege tactics, depicted here at the Chehel Sotun Pavillion in Iran,
overpowered the Romans at Dura-Europos. Corbis

From The Independent:

The earliest example of chemical warfare has been unearthed at an archaeological site in the Syrian desert, where soldiers of an ancient Persian empire gassed a platoon of Roman troops in about 256AD by asphyxiating them with the smoke from burning bitumen and sulphur.

A makeshift grave of 20 Roman soldiers in full battle armour was discovered at the site of the ancient city of Dura-Europos in the 1930s but it is only now that scientists have been able to figure out exactly how they died.

It was known that they were killed while defending the city against a Persian siege by digging tunnels to counter those being dug by the Sasanian Persian army under the walls of the city. New evidence suggests the Roman troops were deliberately gassed, said Simon James, an archaeologist at Leicester University.

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My Comment: History is always repeating itself .... including the history of warfare.

This Day In History -- Raid At Cabanatuan January 30, 1945

Photo: Former Cabanatuan POWs in celebration, 30 January 1945 U.S. National Archives

From Wikipedia:

The Raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines on 30 January 1945 by US Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas resulted in the liberation of 512 [1] prisoners of war (POWs) from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan and was a celebrated historic achievement involving Allied special forces during World War II.

Edward Dmytryk's 1945 film Back to Bataan starring John Wayne opens by retelling the story of the raid on the Cabanatuan POW camp. The raid was recreated, with great attention to historical accuracy, in the 2005 John Dahl film The Great Raid.

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My Comment: The 2005 Film, The Great Raid, is one of my favorites.