Archibald Wavell: Britain’s first wartime victor. Wikipedia.
By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
In a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, the U.S. on August 30, 1946, agrees to sell — for $20 million — surplus aircraft to the Republic of China government of Chiang Kai-shek, thus undermining delicate negotiations taking place between special U.S. envoy Gen. of the Army George C. Marshall and Communist Party leader Mao Tse-tung to bring the warring Communists and Nationalists to some sort of an accord.
On August 31, the last French troops depart Beirut, Lebanon, thus ensuring the complete independence of the country from France.
Rioting breaks out in Bombay between Hindus and Muslims on September 1 over the appointment of a Hindu-dominated executive council for India. By a margin of more than 2 to 1, Greek voters approve the retention of the monarchy and the return of King Georgios II from his exile in London. For the most part, communists abstain from the election.
The first all-Indian executive council — the Constituent Assembly, dominated by Hindus — is inaugurated in New Delhi on September 2. The Assembly’s mission is to execute the transition of India from a British Dominion to an independent nation. Sir Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy of India, presides on behalf of the United Kingdom, with Jawaharlal Nehru as vice president. As such, Nehru essentially becomes the first prime minister of India. Off Mandatory Palestine, British forces capture a Jewish refugee ship near Tel Aviv and bring it to Haifa. There are 1,200 Jews aboard.
President Harry Truman on September 3 signs a secret directive approving “Operation Paperclip,” a program to bring almost a thousand German scientists and their families to the U.S. under “temporary, limited military custody” to keep them from falling into the hands of the Soviets. Many of the scientists had formerly been Nazis.
On Broadway in New York City, the play A Flag is Born opens on September 4. Written by Ben Hecht, directed by Luther Adler, with music by Kurt Weill and starring Paul Muni, Celia Adler and a young Marlon Brando, the play is produced by the American League for a Free Palestine to raise money and political support for pro-Zionist causes. Advocating the creation of a homeland for Jewish people in Palestine, the production is a rousing success. In the U.S.S.R., Soviet newspapers and magazines publish the “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the film The Great Life.” In the document, many of the greatest directors and films of Soviet cinema are chastised, and some are banned. Singled out, in particular, is Sergei Eisenstein’s film Ivan the Terrible, with music by Sergei Prokofiev.
In Alabama, Sharpe Field, also known as Tuskegee Army Air Field, is inactivated on September 5 and turned over to the town of Tuskegee. The field is where most of the black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen were trained. In Germany, radio station RIAS (Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor) begins broadcasting over the air on AM in and around Berlin. Founded in February 1946 by the American occupation authorities to provide news and political information to the German public, the station could previously be heard only over telephone lines.
In Stuttgart, Germany, U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes gives an address on September 6, 1946, that marks a reversal of the American position on Germany. Byrnes’s comments signal a plan to build the conquered country into “a self-sustaining state” that could help resist the spread of communism. (The earlier Allied plan for a post-war Germany was to make it into an agrarian nation.)
The United Kingdom announces on September 7 that its 20,000 troops in the Netherlands East Indies will be withdrawn by 30 November. After a week of rioting in Bombay, Calcutta, and other Indian cities, 220 people are dead, 659 injured and 2,000 imprisoned. In the U.K., Capt. Teddy Donaldson of the RAF sets a new speed record, flying a Gloster Meteor fighter jet at over 615 miles per hour in level flight at 1,100 feet of altitude.
On September 8, in a referendum called by communists installed by the Soviet Army, 96% of Bulgaria’s electorate (by a vote of 3.8 million to 171,000) rejects continuing the monarchy. The Council of Regents for Bulgaria’s nine-year-old King Simeon II formally dissolves and the monarchy is abolished. Georgi Dimitrov becomes the first premier of communist Bulgaria. In Mandatory Palestine, actions by the Zionist paramilitary organization Irgun disrupt the Palestine Railway in 50 places. Irgun is protesting the Palestine Conference that will be held in London because it includes no Jews. In England, 1,500 homeless people seize the Duchess of Bedford House and nine other buildings in London. The government responds by arresting five communist leaders.
Nine-year-old King Simeon II of Bulgaria and his mother, Queen Giovanna, on September 9 leave their country to go into exile in Egypt. They go to Alexandria, where Giovanna’s father, former Italian king Victor Emmanuel III, is living in exile after his own abdication on 9 May 1946. Down Under, the government-owned domestic air carrier, Trans Australia Airlines, makes its debut, with a flight from Melbourne to Sydney.
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee opens the Palestine Conference in London on September 10. Present are 15 representatives from seven Arab states and the Arab League, but no Jews. In France, the conference at Fontainebleau between French and Indochinese representatives regarding the status of the region ends without agreement.
The U.S. Army on September 11 turns over more than $1.1 billion dollars’ worth of property to the Philippines, including vehicles, construction equipment, clothing, medicines and other materiel. After the island nation had been liberated from the Japanese, the items had been stockpiled there for the anticipated invasion of Japan. In the U.S., the first mobile, long-distance, car-to-car telephone conversation takes place between vehicles in Houston, Texas, and St. Louis, Missouri.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace — discontented by President Truman’s increasingly confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union — delivers a speech on September 12 in which he states that “ . . . we should recognize that we have no more business in the political affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the political affairs of Latin America, Western Europe and the United States.” The statement contradicts the stance expressed publicly six days earlier by Secretary of State Byrnes and embarrasses the president.
