December 8, 1941. Langdon Hall.
‘”We gathered outside of Langdon Hall at Auburn and they had a loudspeaker truck, and we stood there quietly and listened to President Roosevelt declare war,” Katharine Phillips, at the time a sophomore from Mobile, remembered for Ken Burns’ 2007 documentary The War. ”And, of course, our whole life changed.”
Auburn enrollment dropped from 3,640 in the fall of 1942 to 1,710 in 1943… and Auburn coeds had to ration shoes.
h/t/o/a Kenny Smith.
Photo via.
damn. just. damn.
The Unnecessary War.
Damn Nazis took over all of Europe. I fail to see how that was an unnecessary war. D-Day landing at Normandy was the return of large scale allied forces for the liberation of Europe. There were no uniformed soldiers fighting against Germany on the continent before that. They’d all escaped capture in a last ditch retreat at Dunkirk.
TigerEyes13
The Unnecessary War is what Winston Churchill wanted to call WW2.
Also is Italy on the Continent? The Ukraine? Romania? Belorus? Russia?
Because a hell of a lot of British, French, Polish, Soviet, Brazilian, and Soviet troops were fighting on the continent well before D-Day in 1944.
Wow. This was one of the more interesting things I saw today.
I’m sobered by the expressions on the faces of those students….they knew what was coming…..the end of innnocence for that generation.
Read the sentence as it is written.
“Large scale allied forces for the liberation of Europe” refers to Divisions, Corps, and Army level units complete with artillary, air support, and naval gunnery. Strategic level forces capable of taking and holding ground, invading and neutralizing territory and terminating the Germans’ capacity to make war.
Mark Clark’s landing in Itally got bogged down and never expanded into an invasion of Europe proper.