(Friday) Jan 13 1942

 

I hope your Friday 13th is going well. 

Here it rained, and I didn’t have an umbrella.  Or cute white bathers for that matter, and with our humidity I could have done with both!

I am not really superstitious, and love black cats. I had one when I was little. Ladders however I am not so lucky with.  How cute is this 1940s Japanese Black cat and kittens?! Surely seven black cats makes for good luck!

             

Daniel Judson Callaghan (July 26, 1890 – November 13, 1942)         Norman Scott (August 10, 1889 – November 13, 1942)

On a sadder note, in `1942 Friday 13 fell in November.  The Battle of Friday the 13th (The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal), was the decisive naval battle between Japan and the United States during the month long battle for Guadalcanal and the Solomon islands, and was the only battle where two US Naval Admirals (Admiral Daniel Callaghan and Admiral Norman Scott) were killed in action at the same time during surface engagements.

Also on this day in 1942 ( a Tuesday) German test pilot Helmut Schenck became the first person known to use an ejection seat to successfully exit his aircraft in an emergency situation.

Schenck, testing a Heinkel He-280 jet fighter, was in tow behind a conventionally powered aircraft when his plane iced up, making it impossible to start his engines. He jettisoned his canopy and activated the seat. Powered by compressed gas, the seat catapulted him clear of the aircraft (think Get Smart).

German U-boat off the east coast of Florida, 1942-1943

German U-boats begin harassing shipping on US east coast- they aimed their torpedoes at tankers and freighters along the eastern coast of the United States to disrupt delivery of supplies as well as to lower morale; sinking ships burned within sight of American civilians.  The Germans sank 24 ships in Florida waters during the war, eight of them off Palm Beach County between February and May of 1942.

In the US, nothing stood still.  The soya bean car (a.k.a. "Hemp car") was a plastic car made by the Ford Motor Company.  Henry Ford patented this method of constructing plastic auto bodies  on this day in 1942 (patent 2,269,452).

In London on this day, the St. James Declaration was made, in which the representatives of the governments-in-exile (Belgium, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Norway, Greece, Luxembourg, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Free French) declared that the punishment of war crimes by the Germans was among their  principal aims of the signatories at the end of the war, although it did not specifically mention the crimes against the Jews.

Have a great Friday 13th,

Deb xxx

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