Palau District Police greet the UN Visiting Mission to the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1973)
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.
The United Nations is busy on December 13, 1946, creating trust territories in Africa. Created are British Cameroons and French Cameroun, as well as French Togoland and British Togoland. A trust territory in Ruanda-Urundi is granted to Belgium. The idea is that the administrating power would prepare the territory for independence. Tabriz, the capital of Iran’s Azerbaijan province, is occupied by Iranian government troops.
On December 14, the General Assembly of the United Nations votes to accept the offer by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to purchase land along the East River in Manhattan so the UN can establish its permanent headquarters there. In addition, the UN adopts a disarmament resolution that prohibits the atomic bomb.
The United Nations on December 15 approves the constitution of the International Refugee Organization (replaced in 1951 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). From Vietnam, President Hồ Chi Minh sends a cable to French Prime Minister-elect Léon Blum asking for negotiations to prevent fighting between their two nations. Delivery of the cable is delayed for more than 10 days.
Socialist and anti-colonialist André Léon Blum takes office as prime minister of France on December 16, replacing Georges Bidault. The Kingdom of Siam is admitted to the United Nations. (From September 1945 to May 1948, Thailand was officially named Siam.)
A U.S. V-2 rocket, captured from the Germans, reaches an altitude of almost 116 miles at the White Sands Proving Ground, in New Mexico, on December 17.
The International Monetary Fund, based in Washington, D.C., on December 18 establishes its first par values and exchange rates for the currencies of 32 of its member nations. Canadian and U.S. dollars are set at a ratio of 1 to 1, while the British pound sterling is set at US$4.03.
War breaks out in Indochina on December 19 as 30,000 troops under Hồ Chi Minh launch widespread attacks against French positions in Hanoi and throughout north and central Vietnam. The Viet Minh destroy the central power station in Hanoi.
The British government on December 20 offers Burma independence on the same terms as those given to India. Martial law is declared by the French administration in Hanoi. Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely with mortars, artillery and machine guns in sections of the city.
It’s a Wonderful Life, produced and directed by Frank Capra, premieres in New York City on December 21. The Christmas fantasy-drama stars James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore. Although nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the movie initially receives mixed critical reviews and is unsuccessful at the box office. Only years later, after the film enters the public domain (due to a failure to renew the copyright) — which allows it to be broadcast without permits and licensing fees — does it become a Christmas classic. The American Film Institute classifies the motion picture as one of the 100 best American films ever made.
On December 22, the last of the 35,000 German soldiers that had been interned in Canada leave for Germany.
In southeast Asia, French authorities on December 23 extend martial law throughout northern Indochina, including Cambodia and Laos.
The upper house of the newly elected French National Assembly convenes in the Luxembourg Palace on December 24, thus formally inaugurating France’s Fourth Republic. In Athens, Greek Communist leader Markos Vafeiadis declares a revolutionary government; it is not recognized by anyone. In Germany, U.S. Army Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, military governor of the American Occupation Zone, grants amnesty to approximately 800,000 “minor Nazis,” specifically those whose chargeable status in a military tribunal would not be higher than that of “follower,” and who are either in a low-income group or at least 50% disabled.
The National Assembly of China, meeting in Nanking, on December 25 passes a new constitution pledging universal suffrage. The document is to take effect in exactly one year. The Chinese Communists call it “illegal.” In British Mandatory Palestine, Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, is murdered in Haifa for selling land to Jews.
Under the aegis of mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, located in the desert roughly four miles from downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, and outside the city limits, opens on December 26. Built at a cost of $6 million, the 105-room property ushers in the start of an era — it is the first luxury resort on what is to become known as “The Strip” (Las Vegas Boulevard). In Paris, French Prime Minister Léon Blum finally receives the cable sent on December 15 by Vietnam’s Hồ Chi Minh requesting negotiations to avert fighting between the two countries. Unfortunately, it is too late — in Vietnam, warfare has already begun between the French and the Vietnamese that will last for the next seven and one-half years.
In Melbourne, Australia, on December 27, 1946, the U.S. team of Jack Kramer and Ted Schroeder win the first Davis Cup Tennis Championship, beating Australians John Bromwich and Adrian Quist in straight sets.
From China, Gen. of the Army George C. Marshall, U.S. Special Envoy to China, notifies President Truman on December 28 that his mission to broker a coalition government between the Nationalists and the Communists has failed and that the Chinese Civil War is escalating. In Hollywood, California, singer, pianist and composer Carrie Jacobs-Bond dies at the age of 84. She is the first female songwriter to have sold a million copies of a song — “I Love You Truly,” which she penned in 1901.
Ornithologist Edmund Jaeger, on an expedition in the Chuckwalla Mountains, in southeastern California, on December 29, discovers that the common poorwill (also known as the nightjar or nighthawk) is the only bird species that hibernates for the winter.
The day after one of its members is flogged in a British prison in Palestine on suspicion of bank robbery, the Zionist organization Irgun on December 30 kidnaps a British Army major and three non-commissioned officers from the Metropole Hotel in Netanya, in north-central Palestine. The soldiers are flogged in retaliation, then released. The perpetrators are ultimately caught and punished.
On December 31, 1946, President Harry S Truman issues a proclamation that, effective 12 noon, the U.S. has officially ceased hostilities with Germany, Japan, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, thereby formally ending U.S. participation in World War II. Truman notes, however, that although hostilities have come to an end, “a state of war still exists.” (Per U.S. law, once war is declared against a country by a joint resolution of Congress, the state of war continues until a treaty of peace is executed with the government of that nation. Thus, the state of war existing between the U.S. and Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania is only officially terminated by treaty on September 15, 1947; with Japan, by treaty on April 28, 1952. The state of war with Germany is terminated on October 19, 1951, by a Joint Resolution of Congress on that date and by Presidential Proclamation 2950, on October 24, 1951. With Germany being partitioned between the Soviets and the “Big Three” of the U.S., the U.K., and France, no peace treaty is ever signed with “the government of Germany.”)
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The Axis and Allied nations combined spent more than $1 trillion on the war, as measured in 1945 dollars [$14.5 trillion in 2021 dollars]. Beyond the economic devastation caused by the global conflict, the cost in human lives was horrific.
It is estimated that between 75 million and 85 million people — military and civilian — died in World War II. [This includes estimates of some 22,000,000 Soviets, 17,000,000 Chinese, 7,100,000 Germans, 5,600,000 Jews of all nationalities, 3,500,000 in the Dutch East Indies, 2,800,000 Japanese, 2,800,000 non-Jewish Poles, 1,600,000 in French Indochina, 1,300,000 Yugoslavs, 650,000 Greeks, 600,000 French, 560,000 Filipinos, 511,000 from the British Commonwealth nations, 510,000 Italians, 465,000 Hungarians, 450,000 Romanians, 450,000 from the United Kingdom, 420,000 Koreans, 419,000 Americans, 340,000 Czechs, 210,000 Dutch, 210,000 Romani (Gypsies), 97,000 Finns and untold thousands from other nations.] Poland lost about 16% of its population.
On a per-capita basis, New Zealand lost the highest percentage of servicemen among the western Allies — 12,000 of 140,000 New Zealanders (8.57%) who served overseas were killed in the war. That’s one death for every 150 New Zealand residents. Around the world, tens of millions were uprooted from their homes. Hundreds of millions were wounded physically and psychologically. In some places, ruins from the war still exist and remain in place.
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This column is the last of the series.
In the opening section (“To the Reader”) of his 2011 work The Final Storm: A Novel of the War in the Pacific, author Jeffrey Shaara wrote: “Every day we lose countless numbers of those who participated in [World War II]. In every case, when I have spoken with veterans, they remind me that once they are gone, their memories will go with them.
Unless, as one GI said, someone tells the damn tale.”
As had Mr. Shaara, I also have tried to tell “the damn tale.” I hope I have succeeded.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you to all who served.
May there never be a conflict on this scale again.
God bless us all.
