Operation Underworld

Operation Underworld was the United States government's code name for the cooperation of Italian and Jewish organized crime figures from 1942 to 1945 to counter Axis spies and saboteurs along the U.S. northeastern seaboard ports, avoid wartime labor union strikes, and limit theft by black-marketeers of vital war supplies and equipment.
In the first three months after the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. lost 120 merchant ships to German U-boats and surface raiders in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in February 1942 the ocean liner "SS Normandie" – a captured French ship that was being refitted as a troop ship in New York harbor – was allegedly sabotaged and sunk by arson in the Port of New York. The Mafia boss Albert Anastasia claimed responsibility for the sabotage. Although the United States government claimed the loss of the "Normandie" was an accident, many Americans were skeptical and thought the destruction was planned by the Nazis. Several Axis spies and saboteurs were arrested and hanged, but no evidence was ever produced linking Axis spies to the loss of the "Normandie". After the war, Axis records claimed no sabotage operation had existed and no evidence has ever been produced on the Allied side to indicate there had been underworld sabotage. The "Normandie" had a very efficient fire protection system but it was disconnected during the conversion. With sparks from a welding torch, Clement Derrick ignited a stack of life vests filled with flammable kapok, the fire quickly spread and eventually so much water was used to put the fire out that the ship became too heavy. The ship's designer Vladimir Yourkevitch arrived at the burning ship to offer his expertise and was barred by harbor police, his idea was to enter the vessel and open the sea-cocks which would flood the lower decks and make the ship stabilize, then water could be pumped into burning areas without the risk of capsize. The suggestion was rejected by the commander of the 3rd Naval District, Rear Admiral Adolphus Andrews.
Nevertheless, fears about possible sabotage or disruption of the waterfront led Commander Charles R. Haffenden of the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Third Naval District in New York to set up a special security unit. He sought the help of Joseph Lanza, who ran the Fulton Fish Market, to get intelligence about the New York waterfront, control the labor unions, and identify possible refueling and resupply operations for German submarines with the help of the fishing industry along the Atlantic Coast.
To cover Lanza’s activities, he approached Meyer Lansky and solicited his help in reaching Charles Luciano who was an important boss of the five New York Mafia crime families. Luciano agreed to cooperate with authorities in hopes of consideration for early release from prison.
In 1936, Luciano had been tried and convicted for compulsory prostitution and running a prostitution racket after years of investigation by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, but during World War II an agreement was struck with the Department of the Navy through his associate Meyer Lansky to provide naval intelligence. In 1946, for his alleged wartime cooperation, Luciano's sentence was commuted on the condition that he be deported to Italy. As a reward for his assistance, in 1945, Meyer Lansky was awarded a Medal of Freedom by President Harry S. Truman in a secret ceremony at the White House.
Luciano’s contacts even assisted in the Allies’ 1943 amphibious invasion of Sicily by providing maps of the island’s harbors, photographs of its coastline and names of trusted contacts inside the Sicilian Mafia, who also wished to see Mussolini toppled. Luciano directed Calogero Vizzini to assist the Allied Forces in the invasion of Italy. Vizzini is the central character in the history of direct Mafia support for the Allied Forces during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. Vizzini spent 6 days on an American tank during the Allied invasion of Italy, guiding Allied forces through the mountain pass and directing his Sicilian Mafia to eliminate Italian snipers in the mountains.
Luciano was in Dannemora at the time, serving a 30 to 50-year sentence for running a prostitution ring. For his cooperation he was moved to a more convenient and comfortable open prison in Great Meadows in May 1942. Luciano’s influence in stopping sabotage remains unclear, but authorities did note that strikes on the docks stopped after Luciano’s attorney Moses Polakoff contacted underworld figures with influence over the longshoremen and their unions. In 1946 Luciano's sentence was commuted – after serving 9½ years – and he was deported to his native Italy.


Three Southern Banks

Three Southern Banks () referred to the three most capitalized commercial banks in the south of Yangtze River in the Republic of China in the 1920s, in contrast to the Four Northern Banks (北四行) of Northern China. With their headquarters in Shanghai, the three banks cooperated to form the group.
The three banks were The National Commercial Bank (浙江興業銀行), the Chekiang Industrial Bank (浙江實業銀行) and the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (上海商業儲蓄銀行).


Zimbabwe Temporary Cabinet of 2009


Storm of Steel

Storm of Steel (in German: "In Stahlgewittern;" original English title: "In Storms of Steel") is the memoir of German officer Ernst Jünger's experiences on the Western Front during the First World War. It was originally printed privately in 1920, making it one of the first personal accounts to be published. The book is a graphic account of trench warfare. It was largely devoid of editorialization when first published, but was heavily revised several times.
Plot.
"Storm of Steel" begins with Jünger as a private entering the line with the 73rd Hanoverian Regiment in Champagne. His first taste of combat came at Les Éparges in April 1915 where he was first wounded.
After recuperating, he took an officer's course and achieved the rank of "Leutnant". He rejoined his regiment on the Arras sector. In 1916, with the Battle of the Somme underway, Jünger's regiment moved to Combles in August for the defence of the village of Guillemont. Here Jünger was wounded again, and absent shortly before the final British assault which captured the village — his platoon was annihilated. In 1917 Jünger saw action during the Battle of Arras in April, the Third Battle of Ypres in July and October, and the German counter-attack during the Battle of Cambrai in November. Jünger led a company of assault troops during the final German spring offensive, 21 March 1918 when he was wounded again. On 23 August he suffered his most severe wound when he was shot through the chest.
In total, Jünger was wounded 14 times during the war, including five bullet wounds and earned Golden Wound Badge. He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, House Order of Hohenzollern and was the youngest ever recipient of the "Pour le Mérite".
Publication history.
The first version of "Storm of Steel" was essentially Jünger's unedited diary; the original English title was "In Storms of Steel: from the diary of a Shock Troop Commander, Ernst Jünger, War Volunteer, and subsequently Lieutenant in the Rifle Regiment of Prince Albrecht of Prussia (73rd Hanoverian Regiment)". Since it was first published there have been up to seven revisions of "Storm of Steel", with the last being the 1978 version for Jünger's "Collected Works". The major revision came in 1934, for which the explicit descriptions of violence were muted. This edition carried the universal dedication "For the fallen".
The 1924 edition was translated into English by Basil Creighton as "The Storm of Steel" in 1929 and into French in 1930. A new English translation, based on the final 1961 version, was made by Michael Hofmann in 2003 which won the 2004 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. In his introduction to his own edition, Hofmann is highly critical of Creighton's translation.


Werner Scharf

Werner Scharf (19 September 1905 – 30 April 1945) was a German actor. He appeared in more than 45 films between 1929 and 1945.
Personal life.
Scharf served in the "Volkssturm" during the Second World War and was killed in action on 30 April 1945.


George Chann

George Chann (1913-1995) was a Chinese American painter.
He was born in Guangzhou, China on January 1, 1913. He lived with his father in Stockton, California for some of the time during his youth. He attended Sun Yat-sen University. In 1932 he emigrated to the United States.
In 1933 he began studying at the Otis Art Institute and after his graduating began teaching there in addition to exhibiting.
His work can be divided into two stages, prior to the 1950s his work was mostly portrait paintings and some still life paintings and landscape paintings. In the 1950s his art underwent a change becoming more abstract and increasingly incorporated Chinese artifacts in their production, for example by rubbing them with oracle bones.
His work experienced an increase in popularity after his death on May 26, 1995.


Bambata Cave

Bambata Cave is one of the Southern Africa prehistoric sites situated in Motobo National Park along with Inanke, Nswatugi, Pomengwe and Silozwane caves in Zimbabwe.
Location.
The Bambata cave is a huge archaeological cave located in the west part of the Motobo National Park and in the north side of the game park on the Kezi-Bulawayo road. The cave takes its name from the Bambata Mountain, a dome-shaped granite mountain which is located in the north-west of this region and is one of the highest hills in Western Matopos. Bambata cave is situated approximately 300 feet below the summit on the eastern side of the Bambata Hill. The cave is invisible from the surrounding valleys and the hill summit.
First excavations.
In 1918, George Arnold and Neville Jones started initial examinations in the cave with great difficulties. An area of 4 feet deep, 16 feet long, 6 feet wide was found at the back side of the cave and two smaller holes on the east and west sides. The surface of the cave covered with a grey ash-powder layer and the entrance was blocked by a thicket of thorns which made the inside darker. After clearing away the bushes, a more precise examination was done on the floor of the cave. Several Wilton type scrapers, 1-2 crescents in jasper and white quartz, pieces of pottery polished brown to black were found here. Wilton type scrapers and polished black and brown pottery samples were found in the top layer of the cave that required extreme caution.
Traces of hyrax, antelope, and several mammals have also been found during excavations. Animal paintings on the walls prove that Bambata residents were hunters.
After the digging was completed, the camp named "Paradise Camp" was established on 7 June 1929. The methodology of the excavation was conducted by Leslie Armstrong and Major T.A.
The artefacts were delivered from the excavation site to the camp, in the evenings they were washed and re-grouped. About 7 hours was scheduled for working in the cave per day. Armstrong was mainly dealing with following the paintings on the wall, marking the collected artefacts and sometimes their sorting during the excavations period:
"“After careful consideration, I have decided to term the industry represented by the artefacts derived from the thickest deposit in the cave, amounting to over 10 feet, "Bambata Culture.""
Cultural layers.
The artefacts found in the cave are categories into different cultures based on the layers discovered in Area 1 and Area 2 of Bambata cave. Area 1 has layers called Grey ash layer (surface to 6 inches), Upper cave-earth (from 6 inches to 10 feet 6 inches), 10-foot 6-inch level, Lower cave earth (13 feet 6 inches).
Area 1.
Grey ash layer.
Grey ash layer is characterized by the artefacts of Wilton Industry. As being close to the surface, few samples were found including microlithic scrapers, besides crescent and triangularly shaped tools, shell beads and bone equipment, small burins. Presence of pencils and small balls of hematite and red ochre shows that the inhabitants used them for painting.
Upper cave-earth.
Shell beads and microlithic, as well as Wilton tools were found in this layer. The artefacts became more elementary in character and technique as it is approached the end of this layer. The artefacts in different colours, moreover, other types of raw coloring materials, such as yellow ochre, pencils, pieces of red and brown hematites and ochres, were found. It's supposed that ochres were used to paint the body and walls.
10-feet 6-inch level.
The next layer is characterised by the Mousterian Industry. Tools made of igneous rock, milky quartz, chalcedony, as well as choppers, hand-axes were found in this layer.
Lower Cave-earth.
This layer is full of fragile granites and pieces of milky quartz. Most of them were supposedly used as scrapers or knives. Oval tools made of semi-transparent quartz and early forms of cleavers were found here. The cleaver revealed in Bambata cave has not been noticed in the Lower Paleolithic series of Europe.
Area 2.
Area 2 was detached from Area by a wall which had 12 inches thick at the surface and 24 inches at its base. Wilton level, Upper cave-earth, 12-feet level, 16-feet 6-inch level were noticed in this area.
Bambata Ware.
Bambata Ware was first revealed in the Bambata cave, but it was also found at Dombozanga Rock Shelter near the Beitbridge, Tshangula Cave in the Matopo Hills and Gondongwe Cave in Chibi district. The artefacts were found among the samples of Wilton industry and Later Stone Age tools. Bambata pottery is a part of Bambata ware. The remnants of this culture and decorative stones play an important role in studying the archaeology of Zimbabwe. Though Bambata pottery itself was first recorded by Arnold and Jones in 1918 and 1919, its origins and associations started to be investigated after Jones's (1940) and Schofield's (1941) researches. Bambata pottery is associated with the Later Stone Age and the Iron Age. Pottery materials dated back 2100 B.P and known for the thinness of the samples, stamp decoration, crenellated lips and unusualness of herringbone patterns.


Archibald Bisset Smith

Archibald Bisset Smith VC (19 December 1878 – 10 March 1917) was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Smith is one of only two members of the UK Merchant Navy to have been awarded the VC for his First World War service.
World War I action and Victoria Cross.
Smith received this award for his action as Master of the New Zealand Shipping Company cargo ship . On 10 March 1917 in the Atlantic Ocean, "Otaki", armed with one 4.7-inch gun, sighted the German merchant raider , which was armed with four 150 mm, one 105 mm and two 22-pounder guns.
The raider ordered "Otaki" to stop but Captain Smith refused. A duel ensued, during which "Otaki" secured a number of hits and caused "Möwe" considerable damage, but "Otaki" sustained much damage and was on fire. Captain Smith therefore ordered his crew to abandon ship, but he himself stayed aboard and went down with his ship.
His citation reads:
As a Merchant officer, Smith could not receive the VC at that time. In 1919 he was posthumously commissioned as a temporary lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, which entitled him to receive the VC posthumously.
As a British Merchant seafarer with no known grave, Smith is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial. On 10 March 2017 a memorial stone was laid at Schoolhill, Aberdeen, to commemorate the centenary of his action.
His VC is preserved at the P&O Heritage Collection in London.
Personal life.
Smith was born at Cosie Brae in Cults on 19 December 1878, one of five children of William Smith, an accountant and wholesale merchant, and Annie Smith (née Nicol), both originally from Rhynie. William Smith was a descendant of Bold Peter Smith, a Jacobite killed at the Battle of Culloden.
Archibald was a student at Robert Gordon's College before joining the Merchant Navy in 1895. He gained his Master's ticket in 1903 while serving with the New Zealand Shipping Company, and served on the steamers "Waikato", "Rakaia", "Waimate" and "Turakina".
Shortly before World War I, Smith married Edith Clulee (née Powell), whom he had met while working in Port Chalmers, New Zealand. She had a son, Alfred, from a previous marriage. Alfred later took his stepfather's surname.
Legacy.
In November 1917 Smith was awarded a posthumous commendation. After the armistice of 11 November 1918 more details of the battle reached the UK authorities. "Möwe"s captain, Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien, described "Otaki"s resistance as "a duel as gallant as naval history can relate". In May 1919 Smith was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
King George V presented Smith's VC to Edith and Alfred at Buckingham Palace. After Edith's death in 1951, Alfred sold the VC and Archibald's other medals (the British War Medal, Victory Medal, and Mercantile Marine Medal) to the New Zealand Shipping Company for £ 125.
In 1937 his family presented the Otaki Shield to Robert Gordon's College, to be an annual award to the senior boy who is judged "pre‐eminent in character, in leadership and in athletics". The shield is accompanied by the prize of six weeks in New Zealand as Otaki Scholar, visiting various schools as a "roving ambassador" for the college.


Du Runsheng

Du Runsheng (; July 18, 1913 – October 9, 2015) was a Chinese military officer, revolutionary leader, politician, and economist. He has been hailed as "China's father of rural reform". From 1982 to 1986, he drew up the annual "Document No.1 of the Central Government" about rural reform, which promoted the development of rural areas. Du's students included Wang Qishan, Justin Yifu Lin, Zhou Qiren, Wen Tiejun, Wang Xiaoqiang, Chen Xiwen, Zhang Musheng, Du Ying and Weng Yongxi.
Du was a member of the 12th and 13th National People's Congress and a member of the Central Advisory Commission.
Biography.
Education and early career.
Du was born Du De () on July 18, 1913 in Yangyi Village of Taigu County, Shanxi province, during the dawn of Republic of China. He was accepted to Taiyuan National Normal College in 1929 and he entered Beijing Normal University in 1934. In 1935 he was detained by the Beiyang government for taking part in anti-government movement.
Military campaign in north China.
He joined the Communist Party of China in 1936. That same year, he served as chief captain of the Vanguard of National Liberation and head of its propaganda department. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he served in various administrative and political roles Taihang Mountain border. He participated in the Huai-Hai Campaign during the Chinese Civil War. He served successively as secretary-general of Central Plains Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, secretary-general of Central China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and party boss of CPC Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu Committee.
After the establishment of PRC.
After the founding of the Communist State, he became secretary-general of Central China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and its deputy director of the Land Reform Commission. He led the local land reform movement. In 1953, he was transferred to Beijing and he joined the newly created Central Rural Work Department of the Communist Party of China, working as secretary-general of the Head Deng Zihui. He vigorously developed the private economy, but got criticized for "taking the capitalist road". Mao Zedong evaluated him as "a timid and conservative man".
He also served as deputy director of the Rural Office of the State Council. From 1956 towards, he served successively as deputy director of the Office of Scientific Planning Commission of the State Council, secretary-general and deputy party group secretary of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Cultural Revolution.
In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, Du Runsheng was suspended and suffered political persecution. In 1970, he was sent to the May Seventh Cadre Schools to work in Qianjiang, Hubei.
Economic reforms.
In December 1978, after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, he was rehabilitated by Hu Yaobang.
He was deputy director of National Agricultural Commission of the People's Republic of China in 1979, and held that office until 1983, when he promoted to become director of Rural Policy Research Office of Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and director of Rural Development Research Center of the State Council, he remained in that positions until 1989, while these two agencies were canceled. In 1980, he drafted the "Several Problems about the Further Strengthening and Improving the System of Rural Production Responsibility" (), which made the household responsibility system () first gained legal status.
He served as honorary president of Chinese Association of Agricultural Science Societies, president of China Society of Cooperative Economics, director-general of Chinese Association of Agricultural Economics, and director-general of China Society of Territorial Economists in his old age.
Death.
On October 9, 2015, he died in Beijing Hospital, Beijing.
Personal life.
Du had a daughter, Du Xia ().


Edwin Dutton

Edwin Dutton (8 April 1890 – 24 May 1972) was an Anglo-German footballer and coach. Dutton played as a forward for Britannia Berlin 92, BFC Preussen, Newcastle United and Germany. During the First World War he was interned at Ruhleben, a civilian detention camp in Germany. During the 1920s he managed Stuttgarter Kickers and became the first professional trainer at Ipswich Town.
Birthplace.
Dutton's parents migrated from England to Germany where his father, Thomas Edwin Dutton, became a sporting pioneer, helping introduce football and cricket to Berlin and Wrocław. As a result, there is some confusion over where Edwin was actually born. Conflicting sources have claimed South Shields in Tyne and Wear or Mittelwalde in Germany. This town is now known as Międzylesie and is in modern Poland. Others have given his birthplace as Berlin
Playing career.
Dutton went to school in Berlin and played as right-winger for Britannia Berlin 92 and BFC Preussen. In 1909-10 he played for BFC Preussen against Holstein Kiel, in a quarter-final of the German championship. While playing for BFC Preussen, Dutton also played one game for Germany, a 3–3 draw with Hungary on 4 April 1909. The game was refereed by Hugo Meisl. Later on, Dutton was with Newcastle United for a while but then returned to Berlin, rejoining his first club, Britannia 92. He became eligible to play in league and cup matches as from January 1913 following longish discussions concerning his amateur status. In February that same year, he played for Berlin against Paris.
Prisoner in Germany.
When the First World War began, Dutton was resident at Blücherstraße 42 in Berlin and was working as a sports outfitter. He was arrested in Berlin on 6 November 1914, and sent to Ruhleben, a civilian detention camp in the Spandau district. While there he was interned in Barrack 1. The camp contained between 4,000 and 5,500 prisoners. Gradually a mini-society evolved and football became a popular activity. Dutton was one of several former professional footballers at Ruhleben. Others included former England internationals Fred Pentland, Samuel Wolstenholme and Steve Bloomer, John Cameron, a former Scotland international and John Brearley, a former Everton and Tottenham player.
The Ruhleben Football Association organised cup and league competitions and as many as 1,000 attended the bigger games. The teams adopted the names of established teams and in November 1914 Dutton played in a cup final as an outside left for a "Tottenham Hotspur" team that also featured Bloomer. Their opponents were an "Oldham Athletic" team. The Tottenham team won the game which was refereed by Wolstenholme. Dutton also occasionally played cricket at Ruhleben.


Jinggang Mountains

The Jinggang Mountains () are a mountain range of the Luoxiao Mountains System (罗霄山), in the border region of Jiangxi and Hunan Provinces.
The range lies at the junction of four counties - Ninggang, Yongxing, Suichuan and Lingxian. The mountains cover some , with an average elevation of above sea level. The highest point is above sea level.
The range's massif consists of a number of thickly forested parallel ridges. On the heights there is not much farmland with most settlements at the base of the mountains. The main settlement is at Ciping, which is surrounded by five villages whose literal meanings are Big Well, Little Well, Middle Well, Lower Well, and Upper Well. Henceforth came the name of the mountain range—"井冈山" literally means "Well Ridge Mountains".
Jinggang Mountains have rich reserves of porcelain clay and rare earth ore, which are two major dominant minerals. Jinggang Mountains are also known as “the cradle of the Chinese revolution”.
Base of the Red Army.
The Jinggang Mountains is known as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army, predecessor of the People's Liberation Army) and the "cradle of the Chinese revolution". After the Kuomintang (KMT) turned against the Communist Party during the April 12 Incident, the Communists either went underground or fled to the countryside. Following the unsuccessful Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Mao Zedong led his 1,000 remaining men here, setting up his first peasant soviet.
Mao reorganised his forces at the mountain village of Sanwan, consolidating them into a single regiment - the "1st Regiment, 1st Division, of the First Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army". Mao then made an alliance with the local bandit chieftains Wang Zuo and Yuan Wencai, who had previously had little association with the Communists. For the first year he set up military headquarters at Maoping, a small market town encircled by low hills guarding the main western route into the mountains. In November, the army occupied Chaling, some to the west, though this was quickly overrun by KMT troops.
When pressure from KMT troops became too great, Mao abandoned Maoping and withdrew up the mountain to Wang Zuo's stronghold at Dajing (Big Well), from which they could control the mountain passes. That winter the Communists drilled with the local bandits and the next year incorporated them into their regular army. In February a battalion from the KMT's Jiangxi Army occupied Xincheng, a town north of Maoping. During the night of February 17, Mao surrounded them with three battalions of his own and routed them the next day.
Zhu De and his 1000 remaining troops, who had participated in the abortive Nanchang Uprising, joined Mao Zedong toward the end of April 1928. Together the two joined forces and proclaimed the formation of the Fourth Army. Other veterans who joined the new base included Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi. The partnership between Mao Zedong and Zhu De marked the heyday of the Jinggang Mountains base area, which rapidly expanded to include, at its peak in the summer of 1928, parts of seven counties with a population of more than 500,000. Together with Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo's forces, their soldiers numbered more than 8000. A popular story from that period recounts the hardworking Zhu De carrying grain for the troops up the mountain since agriculture was nigh impossible in the mountain range itself. It was also around this period that Mao Zedong formulated his theories of rural-based revolution and guerrilla warfare.
In July 1928, Zhu De's 28th and 29th regiments crossed into Hunan with plans to take the important communication hub of Hengyang. Mao Zedong's 31st and 32nd regiments were supposed to hold Maoping and Ninggang until Zhu returned. They were, however, unable to hold back the advance of the Kuomintang's Jiangxi units and lost Ninggang and two neighbouring counties. On August 30, the young officer He Tingying managed to hold the narrow pass of Huangyangjie with a single under-strength battalion against three regiments of the Hunanese Eight Army and one regiment of Jiangxi troops, thus saving Maoping from being overrun.
As the size of the Communist forces grew and pressure grew from the Kuomintang, the Fourth Army was forced to move out. From January 14, 1929, the organisation moved to Ruijin, further south in Jiangxi province, where the Jiangxi Soviet was eventually set up. At the same time, the Kuomintang were executing another encirclement campaign, involving 25,000 men from fourteen regiments. Peng Dehuai was left in command of an 800-man-strong force, formerly the Fifth Army. By February, his remaining troops broke up under heavy attack from Wu Shang's Hunan troops.
After the Jiangxi Soviet had established itself in southern Jiangxi, the Jinggang Mountains became the northwestern frontier of Communist operations. Peng Dehuai returned with a much stronger Fifth Army in early 1930, basing himself just north of the mountains. In late February 1930, the bandits Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo were assassinated by Communist guerillas, probably on orders from officials in the Jiangxi Soviet. Their men made Wang Yunlong, Wang Zuo's younger brother, their new leader. Most Communist forces left the area in 1934, when the Long March began. By the time they returned in 1949, Wang Yunlong had been succeeded by his son. He was charged with banditry and executed.
Tourism.
Along with Mao Zedong's hometown, Shaoshan, the Jinggang Mountains is one of the most important sites of the Communist Revolution. It was celebrated on posters, songs and operas. During the Cultural Revolution, it became a place of pilgrimage for young Red Guards, who took advantage of a nationwide "networking movement". They often made the journey on foot to relive the experiences of their revolutionary forebearers. At its peak, more than 30,000 Red Guards arrived a day, causing terrible problems of food, housing, sanitation. Peak numbers continued for more than two months until the government began to discourage the young people.
In 1981, an area of was designated a Natural Protection Area. The next year the mountains was listed as a National Priority Scenic Area. In recent years the Jinggang Mountains has become an attraction for domestic tourists interested in revolutionary history. The scenic area was classified as a AAAAA scenic area by the China National Tourism Administration. According to Xinhua, tens of thousands of domestic tourists visit the mountain every year. Sites promoted by the local authorities include the mint of the Red Army, the Revolution Museum, and the Martyrs Cemetery.
In May 2004 a domestic airport was opened to attract tourists.


Matt Simmons (Criminal Minds)

Matthew Simmons is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama "" and "Criminal Minds", portrayed by Daniel Henney.
Background and characterization.
Simmons is of mixed Caucasian and Korean parentage (like actor Daniel Henney) and it is implied that he was ostracized by his paternal grandparents, who were against his parents' union. His late mother was born in Korea before the Korean War. According to Simmons, she had spent much of her adulthood trying to assimilate and "forget" her past, although she did teach him Korean. He is a native of Carson City, Michigan and worked in Detroit for some time before joining the FBI. He was formerly a member of the FBI's International Response Team (IRT) and has some prior history with Agents Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) and Jennifer "JJ" Jareau (A.J. Cook) of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.
When introduced, Simmons and his wife Kristy (Kelly Frye) have four young children: sons Jake and David and twin daughters, Chloe and Lily. In the season 14 finale of "Criminal Minds", Kristy revealed to him that she was pregnant with their fifth child, and early in season 15, gives birth to their third daughter, Rose Mary. It was stated in Season 13 of "Criminal Minds" that the couple have been married for almost ten years. Like (Gary Sinise), Simmons' full and fulfilling family life was a deliberate choice. Daniel Henney said of his character, "His big struggle is, when can I get home to see my kids and how much is my wife working?".
A United States Army veteran, little is known about Simmons' military service. Simmons is known for his resourcefulness and "always [has] a guy" to turn to for help whenever the team hits a dead end. Like most of the IRT he knows several languages and is shown to be fluent in Arabic, Spanish and Korean. Highly resourceful and adaptable, he thinks quickly on his feet and is often tasked with coordinating search and rescue efforts or navigating unfamiliar terrain.
Simmons has an eclectic variety of interests, ranging from sports to vintage cars. In the episode "Harvested", in which the team investigates a case in Mumbai, India, his knowledge of cricket, India's unofficial national sport, proves useful in building a rapport with the local police officers.
Character arc.
In "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders".
In the episode "Love Interrupted", Simmons is forced to shoot serial killer Antonio Cayetan (Jonathan Medina) to prevent him from killing his own young daughter in a fit of desperate rage. Cayetan had suffered a breakdown after losing his wife. He then kidnapped newlywed couples, killing and cannibalizing the groom and taking the brides as his "wives", even impregnating them. Simmons later admits to Garrett that the case affected him more than he would like because the girl reminded him of his own daughters.
Simmons and Clara Seger (Alana De La Garza) made an appearance in the "Criminal Minds" season 12 episode "Spencer" to help out their colleagues at the BAU prove Dr. Spencer Reid's (Matthew Gray Gubler) innocence after he was imprisoned in Mexico after being found in possession of drugs. Simmons and the IRT had been in Costa Rica working a case when they received the call for help.
In the season 2 episode "Pretty Like Me", Simmons takes some time off to fulfill his late mother's dying wish to find her biological mother in her birth country of South Korea. She had been left at an orphanage around the time of the Korean War and moved to the United States at some point with Simmons' father. Because of the disruption and loss of records caused by the war, she was never able to fulfill her wish before her death. Simmons, however, was finally able to track down and meet his grandmother.
In "Criminal Minds".
Simmons was introduced to "Criminal Minds" in the backdoor pilot "Beyond Borders" in season 10, in which the IRT is called in to help the BAU with the death of a family overseas. In the season 12 episode "Spencer", he assists the BAU in freeing Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) from a Mexican prison and prove his innocence.
In season 13, he is brought in by Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia to help the team after they are ambushed in the field and Agent Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) is kidnapped by serial killer Peter Lewis (Bodhi Elfman). When asked what he is doing at the BAU headquarters, Simmons vaguely mentions that he is awaiting a new assignment as the IRT had been dissolved as a result of events in the "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders" episode "" – in which the IRT had been targeted by Assistant Director Linda Barnes (Kim Rhodes), who herself would have the BAU shut down temporarily – and is offered a position on the BAU team by Prentiss by the end of the episode. As he and Jareau are the only two members of the team who are married with children, they often exchange jokes about the mishaps of parenting. In the episode "Ex Parte", Kristy is caught up in a hostage situation at her workplace. The usually calm and collected Simmons nearly strangles the hostage taker to death in a fit of rage but stops when Kristy tells him "It's not you", prompting her husband to let go of the criminal and arrest him instead.
In the season 14 episode "Rule 34", it is revealed that Kristy had been going for therapy due to trauma from the hostage incident. Their son David (Declan Whaley) is suspended from school after physically lashing out at a friend over a comment regarding cop shows. He admits to his parents that his classmate losing her mother brought about fears for his own parents' safety, especially his father's, given the dangerous nature of his job.
Character development and casting.
Henney stated that he had accepted the role as it was a departure from Asian stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood and the American entertainment industry. In an interview with "August Man", he described his character as "a really interesting character for an Asian-American actor to play because it's never been done before."
In both shows, Simmons is one of two main characters on the show who is happily married with children, the other being his supervisor (Gary Sinise) on "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders" and Jennifer "JJ" Jareau on "Criminal Minds". Showrunner Erica Messer noted that both Matt Simmons and Jack Garrett share similarities and, in conceiving Simmons as a younger agent with both a successful career and family life, hoped "to show that this kind of lifestyle can work".


Diocese of Manicaland

The Diocese of Manicaland is one of the five diocese in Zimbabwe within the Church of the Province of Central Africa: the current bishop is Erick Ruwona.


China Heroically Stands in the Universe

"China Heroically Stands in the Universe" was the national anthem of China from 1915 to 1921.
History.
It was issued by the Ritual Regulations Office () in June 1915 as the national anthem of the Republic of China and was adopted on 23 May 1915. Its lyrics were written by Yin Chang () and music by Wang Lu ().
After Yuan Shikai declared himself Emperor of China in December 1915, the lyrics of the anthem were slightly modified and turned into the national anthem of the Empire of China. The lyrics were abolished again in 1916 after his death and replaced by lyrics written by Zhang Zuolin. The song was no longer the official anthem after 31 March 1921, when Song to the Auspicious Cloud again became the national anthem.


Rolf Herricht

Rolf Oskar Ewald Günter Herricht (October 5, 1927 – August 23, 1981) was an East German comedian.
Biography.
Early life.
Herricht graduated from school in 1943 after passing a ", a form of an Abitur designated to free school pupils to be mobilized. In 1945, he was drafted to the Volkssturm and assigned as an anti-aircraft battery assistant.
After the war's end, he began working as property master and stage manager in a theater in his native Magdeburg, while studying acting in a local studio. After completion, he went to appear on the stages of theaters in Salzwedel, Stendal, Staßfurt, Güstrow and also in the Kleist Theater in Frankfurt am Oder.
Breakthrough.
Herricht first met fellow actor Hans-Joachim Preil in 1951, while they both worked in Bernburg. The two formed the 'Herricht and Preil' comedy duo, staging their first sketch, 'The Chess Match', in 1953. In the sketch, Preil vainly attempts to play chess with Herricht, who is completely oblivious to the rules of the game. In their act, Herricht played the 'funny man', while Preil served as the 'straight man'. The pair were active until Herricht's passing away.
In 1957, Herricht returned to the Magdeburg Theater, where he remained until 1961. He mainly played comical characters, like the scribe in "The Beaver Coat" and the drunkard from Auerbach's Cellar in "Faust I".
During his time in Magdeburg, he also worked in the radio. He and Preil first performed on television when one of their sketches was broadcast by Deutscher Fernsehfunk in 1959. The show was well received by the audience and the two began making regular appearances on TV. Herricht and Preil became the German Democratic Republic's most celebrated comedians.
Height of career.
Herricht made his film debut in DEFA's 1959 comedy "Before the Lightning Strikes", playing a minor part of a locomotive constructor. Herricht later appeared in some twenty cinema productions, while also playing in many television films. In 1964, he joined the regular cast of the Metropol Theater in Berlin. He also had a career as a singer.
Herricht appeared on screen in relatively minor roles until writer Maurycy Janowski and director Gottfried Kolditz decided to create a film the plot of which would be based on his comical skill, the 1964 "Geliebte weiße Maus". Herricht portrayed a traffic policeman who falls in love with a woman and only dares speak to her when she makes an accident on the road. The picture met with considerable success. Herricht starred in several other popular DEFA comedies during the 1960s and the 1970s: among others, he played the erratic National People's Army reserve soldier Ralf Horricht in the 1965 "Der Reserveheld" and the last-minute-travel-guide Hurtig in the 1967 "Meine Freundin Sybille". His 1965 "Hände hoch oder ich schieße", in which he again appeared as an eccentric policeman, was banned at the 11th plenary session of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and only released in 2009, 28 years after his death.
Herricht was twice awarded the Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic: on 17 May 1973 and on 13 May 1977.
He died of a heart attack at the age of 53, while performing the role of one of the gangsters in "Kiss Me, Kate" on the stage of the Metropol. He is buried in Berlin's I Französischer Friedhof.


East St. Louis riots

The East St. Louis Massacre was a series of outbreaks of labor- and race-related violence by White Americans who murdered between 40 and 250 African-Americans in late May and early July 1917. Another 6,000 black people were left homeless and the burning and vandalism cost approximately $400,000 ($ in ) in property damage. The events took place in and near East St. Louis, Illinois, an industrial city on the east bank of the Mississippi River, directly opposite the city of St. Louis, Missouri. The July 1917 episode in particular was marked by white-led violence throughout the city. The multi-day massacre has been described as the "worst case of labor-related violence in 20th-century American history", and among the worst racial massacres in U.S. history.
In the aftermath, the East St. Louis Chamber of Commerce called for the resignation of the local police chief because officers were told not to shoot white citizens and were unable to suppress the violence and destruction. A number of black people left the city permanently; black enrollment in public schools in the area had dropped by 35% by the time schools opened in the fall.
At the end of July, some 10,000 black citizens marched in silent protest in New York City in condemnation of the massacre.
Background.
In 1917, the United States had an active economy boosted by World War I. Many would-be workers were drafted or enlisted into military service, creating a shortage of labor for industrial employers in major cities, which had long been destinations for European immigrants. Concurrently African Americans began the Great Migration from the rural Southern United States to seek better work and education in the North, as well as to escape from lynchings and the discriminations of the Jim Crow era. Labor agencies recruited some workers for specific jobs, especially as strikebreakers, but labor demand was sufficient that migrants moved on their own, having heard about the new employment opportunities created by the wartime economy. The neighboring communities of St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, both became destinations for southern migrants. Blacks were arriving in St. Louis at the rate of 2,000 per week during the spring of 1917.
Major industries in East St. Louis included Aluminum Ore Co., American Steel Foundry, Republic Iron & Steel, Obear Nester Glass and Elliot Frog & Switch (a frog was part of a railroad switch), with many facilities located just outside the city limits to escape paying taxes. Nearby National City had stockyards and meatpacking plants, attracting more workers. It was a rough industrial city where saloons outnumbered schools and churches. Non-whites were initially a small minority: in 1910, approximately 6,000 African Americans lived in East St. Louis, out of a total population of 58,000; by 1917, the black population had increased to 10,000, or one-sixth of the total population of 60,000.
The period was one of frequent labor violence in industrial cities across the United States: employers used force to try to suppress organized labor and strikes, while workers struggled to gain increased wages and improved working conditions. Many workers were immigrants from Europe. When industries became embroiled in labor strikes, the traditionally white unions often sought to strengthen their bargaining positions by hindering or excluding black workers. Conversely, industry owners hired blacks as replacements or strikebreakers, deepening existing segregation and inter-racial hostility. Ethnicities competed economically to survive. White workers often resented black newcomers due to competition for jobs and housing and fear they would be undercut by black workers who were willing to accept lower wages. In East St. Louis, local politicians, company foremen, and labor union officials fanned the resentment; the approval of the local police and National Guard were later considered important in helping to escalate the rioting. The Springfield race riot of 1908 in nearby Springfield, Illinois, was an expression of the simmering tensions in the region during the nadir of race relations.
While in New Orleans on a lecture tour, Jamaican black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who founded the UNIA in 1916, became aware that Louisiana planters and the city's Board of Trade were worried about losing their labor force, as he recounted in a speech the following year. He said that Mayor Mollman of East St. Louis was also visiting the city that week, and city leaders asked for his assistance to help discourage black migration to the North.
In the summer of 1916, 2,500 white employees of the meatpacking industry near East St. Louis went on strike for higher wages, and the companies imported black workers to replace them. Ultimately the workers won a wage increase but the companies retained nearly 800 blacks, firing as many whites after the strike, according to the former president of the Central Trades and Labor Union of East St. Louis. This result only exacerbated the growing racial tension.
In the spring of 1917, the mostly white workers of the Aluminum Ore Company in East St. Louis voted to strike. The company recruited hundreds of black workers to replace them. Tensions between the groups escalated. At a labor meeting held in City Hall on May 28 and made up mostly of white workers, rumors circulated of black men fraternizing with white women.
Violence.
Following the May 28 meeting, some 1,000–3,000 white men marched into downtown East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans on the street and in streetcars and burning some buildings. Illinois Governor Frank Orren Lowden called in the National Guard to suppress the violence. Although rumors circulated that blacks were planning retaliatory attacks, conditions eased somewhat for a few weeks.
Following the May disorder, the East St. Louis Central Labor Council requested an investigation by the State Council of Defense. Its report said that "southern negroes were misled by false advertisements and unscrupulous employment agents to come to East St. Louis in such numbers under false pretenses of secure jobs and decent living quarters". The tensions between black workers and white workers quickly formed again as no solutions to their economic challenges were agreed upon.
The massacre was precipitated by fatal errors. On July 1, a black Ford Model T occupied by white males drove through a black area of the city; passengers fired several shots into a group on the street. An hour later, a Ford containing four people, including a journalist and two police officers (Detective Sergeant Samuel Coppedge and Detective Frank Wadley), passed through the same area. Black residents, possibly assuming this car held the original attackers, opened fire on the car, killing one officer instantly and mortally wounding another.
The next day, thousands of white spectators gathered to view the detectives' bloodstained automobile. From there they rushed into the black sections of town, south and west of the city, and began rioting. The mob beat and shot blacks on the street indiscriminately, including women and children. After cutting the water hoses of the fire department, white rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot black residents as they escaped the flames. Claiming that "Southern negros deserve[d] a genuine lynching", some whites hanged several blacks.
The following day on July 3, 1917, a reporter from Post-Dispatch of St. Louis wrote: "For an hour and a half last evening I saw the massacre of helpless negroes at Broadway and Fourth Street, in downtown East St. Louis, where black skin was death warrant."
Police response.
According to the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch":
All the impartial witnesses agree that the police were either indifferent or encouraged the barbarities, and that the major part of the National Guard was indifferent or inactive. No organized effort was made to protect the Negroes or disperse the murdering groups. The lack of frenzy and of a large infuriated mob made the task easy. Ten determined officers could have prevented most of the outrages. One hundred men acting with authority and vigor might have prevented any outrage.
Hundreds of blacks fled across the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River to St. Louis to escape the violence, while 1,500 sought refuge in city buildings. St. Louis institutions worked to assist the refugees, including the St. Louis chapter of the Red Cross, the Provident Association, and the Jewish Education and Charitable Association, as well as related charities. The Red Cross Emergency Committee met daily with Acting Mayor Aloe, members of his administration, and representatives of the charities to discuss how to aid the refugees.
Governor Lowden ordered in the Illinois National Guard, who arrived on July 3. Numerous witnesses said that the Guard initially joined in the attacks on blacks rather than stopping the riot. More whites joined in. "The New York Times" reported that "ten or fifteen young girls about 18 years old, chased a negro woman at the Relay Depot at about 5 o'clock. The girls were brandishing clubs and calling upon the men to kill the woman."
Few photographs exist of the events, as rioters attacked photographers and destroyed their cameras, and city police harassed journalists. After the massacre, the "St. Louis Argus" said, "The entire country has been aroused to a sense of shame and pity by the magnitude of the national disgrace enacted by the blood-thirsty rioters in East St. Louis Monday, July 2."
Aftermath.
Death toll.
After the massacre, varying estimates of the death toll circulated. The police chief estimated that 100 African Americans had been killed. The renowned journalist Ida B. Wells reported in "The Chicago Defender" that 40–150 African-American people were killed during the July massacre. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) estimated deaths at 100–200. Some 6,000 African Americans were left homeless after their neighborhoods were burned. A Congressional Investigating Committee, which met in the fall of that year, concluded that no precise death toll could be determined, but reported that at least 8 whites and 39 African Americans died. While the local coroner had documented nine white deaths, the deaths of African-American victims were less clearly recorded. Activists who disputed the committee's conclusions about deaths argued that the true number of deaths would never be known because many black corpses were not recovered or did not pass through the hands of undertakers, who reported to the coroner.
Black community reaction.
The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation. Marcus Garvey, black nationalist leader of the UNIA from Jamaica, declared in a July 8 speech that the riot proved that the United States' claim to be a "dispenser of democracy" and its criticism of the Empire of Germany for human rights abuses in the Great War was hypocritical. Garvey called the massacre "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind" and a "wholesale massacre of our people," insisting that "This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one's voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy."
In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis Massacre. They carried signs that highlighted protests about the massacre. The march was organized by the NAACP (then based in New York), leader W. E. B. Du Bois, and groups in Harlem. Women and children were dressed in white; the men were dressed in black. The NAACP had arranged for journalists to photograph the destruction in East St. Louis left behind after the massacre: houses, stores, churches, and brick warehouses were all left in ruins. These photographs were published in the September 1917 issue of "The Crisis", the organization's magazine.
Business community reaction.
On July 6, representatives of the East St. Louis Chamber of Commerce met with the mayor to demand the resignation of the Police Chief and Night Police Chief, or radical reform. They were outraged about the rioting and accused the mayor of having allowed a "reign of lawlessness." In addition to the high death toll, the massacre had caused extensive property damage to city businesses and houses. The Southern Railway Company's warehouse was burned, with the loss of more than 100 car loads of merchandise, worth more than $525,000 to the company; some 44 freight cars, and 312 houses were also burned. A white-owned theatre, valued at more than $100,000, was also destroyed. Total property damage was estimated at $400,000 (nearly $8.5 million, in 2018 US Dollars).
Government reaction.
In a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall on July 12 in New York City, Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, tried to diminish the role in the massacre attributed to trade unions. He said that an investigation was needed in order to place blame. Theodore Roosevelt, former president of the United States, responded, "Mr. Gompers, why don't I accuse afterwards? I'll answer now, when murder is to be answered." Roosevelt also was reported to say, "I will go to the extreme to bring justice to the laboring man, but when there is murder I will put him down."
Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer (R-Mo.), a representative from a St. Louis urban district, asked for a federal investigation. President Woodrow Wilson wrote to him on July 28, saying that special agents of the Department of Justice could not find enough evidence to justify federal action in the matter. He said: "I am informed that the attorney general of the State of Illinois has gone to East St. Louis to add his efforts to those of the officials of the county and city in pressing prosecutions under the State laws. The representatives of the Department of Justice are so far as possible lending aid to the State authorities in their efforts to restore tranquility and guard against further outbreaks."
Hearings on the massacre before the Committee on Rules and the House of Representatives began on August 3, 1917. A federal investigation was eventually opened.
In October the state tried 25 blacks and 10 whites on charges related to the massacre, including homicide and incitement to riot. Lena Cook survived an attack to testify against two white men, who had killed her husband, Ed Cook, and son, 14-year-old Lurizza Beard; they were convicted of murder. Included among the defendants was Dr. LeRoy Bundy, a black dentist and prominent leader in the East St. Louis black community. He was formally charged with inciting a riot. The trial was held in the county court of St. Clair County, Illinois. Bundy, along with 34 other defendants, of whom 10 were white, was convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with the riot. Another source said that a total of nine whites and twelve blacks were convicted of serious crimes and sent to prison.


Women Side by Side

Women Side by Side (), also translated as Three Women and Female Fighters, is a 1949 Chinese film directed by Chen Liting, made near the end of the Republican era. It is Chen's most famous directorial work. Denounced as a "poisonous weed" during the Cultural Revolution, the film is now considered a Chinese classic.
The film is adapted from a play of the same title written by the noted leftist playwright Tian Han, who also wrote the 1932 film "Three Modern Women". Tian Han and Chen Liting co-wrote the screenplay. The film tells the story of three women in wartime Shanghai under Japanese occupation: an uneducated factory worker, an intellectual resistance activist, and a bourgeois new woman. In many ways it can be seen as a sequel to Cai Chusheng's 1935 film "New Women". Produced by the left-wing Kunlun Film Company, the film has a strong anti-Kuomintang government undertone.
Plot.
The film is set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1944. Jinmei (Shangguan Yunzhu), a textile worker, is raped by two drunken Japanese soldiers on her way home from work. Xinqun (Huang Zongying) and her boyfriend Mengnan (Zhou Feng), who are members of underground resistance, come to her aid and bring her to the home of their friend Ruoying (Sha Li). Ruoying's husband Yuliang (Zhao Dan) had left Shanghai when war broke out in 1937 to join the anti-Japanese resistance, leaving behind his wife and baby daughter Beibei. After years passed without hearing from her husband, Ruoying has married the prosperous banker Zhongyuan (Lan Ma), assuming Yuliang has died. Zhongyuan claims to be politically "unaffiliated". He works with the Japanese but does not inform on his wife's activist friends.
Jinmei's husband Yousheng (Zhang Yi) explodes in anger when hearing about her rape. She begs him to kill her. Moreover, Jinmei loses her factory job when her boss finds out about the rape. She becomes a virtual outcast. Neighbourhood hooligans taunt Jinmei and her husband, who gets in a fight with them and loses his eyesight when they pour chemicals on his face. To support the family, Jinmei turns to loan sharks and is forced into prostitution.
Yuliang abruptly returns to Shanghai. Ruoying meets him at Xinqun and Mengnan's apartment. She explains that to survive in war time she has had no choice but live with the banker, although she still loves Yuliang. Yuliang retorts that her suffering is nothing compared to that of the war refugees in the front. Japanese operatives burst into the room and arrest the couple, mistaking them for Xinqun and Mengnan. Mengnan flees Shanghai but Xinqun stays behind. Yuliang and Ruoying are tortured in the Japanese prison.
Xinqun finds Zhongyuan and asks him to prove his patriotism and use his Japanese connection to secure the release of Yuliang and Ruoying. He agrees, even though the release of Yuliang would ruin his own marriage. He speaks to his Japanese friends, who ask him to help them run a new propagandist publishing house. Zhongyuan agrees, thus becoming for the first time an overt collaborator with the Japanese, ironically to prove to Xinqun that he is a patriot.
The Japanese release Yuliang and Ruoying after Zhongyuan's effort. In a twist, on the opening day of the publishing house, Yuliang throws a bomb into its window, injuring Zhongyuan. Yuliang is forced to flee Shanghai to evade the ensuing manhunt. Beibei, the young daughter, chooses to leave Ruoying and go with her father.
Ruoying, devastated by the departure of Beibei and Zhongyuan's collaboration with the Japanese, further discovers that Zhongyuan has had a mistress who also sleeps with the Japanese. She decides to end her life and leaves a suicide note for Xinqun. She walks to the Huangpu River, where she unexpectedly finds Jinmei, who has attempted suicide but has been pulled from the river by passers-by. Her husband had found out about her prostitution, and kicked her out of the house. Ruoying abandons her suicide plan. Xinqun finds Ruoying and Jinmei and brings them to her girls' school, where she tells her students about the story of the two women. In the last scene, Jinmei's husband arrives at the school and "forgives" her for the rape and prostitution. (In the original stage play, it is Yuliang who returns and reunites with Ruoying).
Characters and cast.
Jinmei (金妹), the textile worker, is played by Shangguan Yunzhu, a highly talented actress. Unlike the one-dimensional proletarian heroines common in left-wing films, she is weak and passive. Like many real women during the war, she is brutally raped by Japanese soldiers. The raping of Chinese women is a symbol of the national humiliation during the Japanese occupation. According to Tian Han, Jinmei's role is inspired by true events.
Ruoying (若英), the second woman, is played by the actress Sha Li. She is a stylish and well-educated urban woman. When her first husband leaves Shanghai to join the anti-Japanese resistance, she is left behind with a baby in occupied Shanghai. Severe wartime shortages cause her to live with a banker she does not love. She faces an emotional crisis when her husband, presumed dead, unexpectedly returns.
Xinqun (新群, meaning "new masses"), played by Huang Zongying, is a schoolteacher active in underground resistance. Tian Han revealed years later that she was modeled on the real life of the underground communist activist Mao Liying. She is a former classmate of Ruoying. In contrast to the other two women, she is emotionally and materially secure. She is compassionate and nonjudgmental toward Jinmei and Ruoying, unlike the rest of society.
Yousheng (友生), Jinmei's husband and also a factory worker, is played by Zhang Yi. He bursts into anger after learning about his wife's rape, and further humiliates her after she is already brutalized by the Japanese. His main concern is his own sense of shame instead of his wife's wellbeing. Although a Marxist himself, Tian Han's portrayal of the main working class man in the film is remarkably negative.
Zhang Yuliang (章玉良), Ruoying's first husband, is played by the famous actor Zhao Dan. Although a patriotic resistance fighter, he is portrayed as cold and heartless. The character reflects Tian Han's concern about oppressive Confucian patriarchal norms.
Wang Zhongyuan (王仲原), the most controversial character, is played "masterfully" by Lan Ma. Although a despised collaborator, he never informs on Xinqun and her patriotic friends, even though he does not like her. When he learns about the return of Yuliang, the resistance fighter who is his romantic rival, he does not betray him to the Japanese. He even uses his Japanese connection to secure the release of Yuliang and Ruoying. In the film the collaborator is given a human face and depicted as a complex character.
Influence.
The film was shot in 1948 and released in January 1949 in Shanghai, on the eve of the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. Produced by the left-wing Kunlun Film Company, it has a strong anti-government undertone. However, as the civil war was nearly over when the film came about, it likely did not have as great a political impact as the original theatre play that was performed earlier during the war.
After the Communist victory, the kind of multifaceted and humanistic treatment of Japanese-occupied China exhibited in the film became politically unacceptable. During the Cultural Revolution, both Tian Han and Chen Liting were imprisoned. Tian Han, in particular, was a major target of persecution and died in prison. "Women Side by Side" was called "the work of a renegade" and "a huge poisonous weed".
The film is now recognized as a Chinese classic and considered Chen Liting's best directorial work. In preparation for the 2013 Shanghai International Film Festival, the festival organizers spent a year restoring the film, along with another classic, Zheng Junli's "Crows and Sparrows". It was shown on June 19 in the historic Grand Cinema, with a special ceremony attended by actress Qin Yi, who made her film debut in Chen Liting's 1947 film "Far Away Love".


Wang Bingnan

Wang Bingnan (1908–1988) was a diplomat and foreign affairs official of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China.
Before 1949, Wang was one of Zhou Enlai's trusted aides and after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 he became Director General of the General Office of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In January and February 1955 he was Assistant Foreign Minister, and in March of that year became Chinese Ambassador to Poland, a position in which he served until April 1964. While in Poland, he was the Chief Representative of China in the nine-year-long Sino-US Ambassadorial Talks. He was Secretary General of the Chinese Delegation during the Geneva Conference of 1954. In 1966, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Wang was attacked and imprisoned by the Red Guards. Although he was rehabilitated in 1975, he suffered a heart attack. He died in 1988.
Early life and revolutionary activities.
Wang graduated from the Luoyang Military Academy in 1929 then left for a year of study in Japan. After two years he left for four years of study at University of Berlin, where he studied in sociology. While there, he was Secretary of the Chinese Language Branch of the Communist Party of Germany, Director of East Department of the Great International League against Imperialism, Chairman of the League against Imperialism of Chinese in Europe, and eventually President of the European Overseas Chinese Anti-Imperialist League. He was especially active in rallying Overseas Chinese in Europe to support resistance to Japan's encroachment in China. In Germany, he met and married Anneliese Martens (Anna Wang 王安娜; 1909 - 1990) a German activist and fellow student at the University of Berlin. They were married in London.
Wang returned to Shanghai with his wife in 1936. They became leading figures in Chinese Communist Party relations with foreign countries and foreigners in China. In 1936, since he was a Shaanxi native, the Party dispatched Wang there to build relations with General Yang Hucheng, who controlled the area around Xi'an, where Mao's wing of the Party had set up a headquarters. Wang encouraged General Yang to join the active resistance to Japan rather than press the fight against the Communists. In late 1936, in the Xi'an Incident, General Yang and Zhang Xueliang held Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek against his will to force him into active resistance against Japan. Zhou Enlai, apparently at the behest of Joseph Stalin, negotiated Jiang's release and came to rely on Wang's contacts with all sides and his skills in these negotiations.
In 1939, in response to Mao's directive to place even greater weight on foreign propaganda, the Party formed a Foreign Affairs Small Group, whose members included Wang Bingnan, Chen Jiakang, Qiao Guanhua,and Gong Peng, a group that stayed together and formed the nucleus of the Foreign Ministry a decade later. The Party leadership expected them to follow world developments and to cultivate good relations with foreign journalists, diplomats, and soldiers. During the war with Japan, the group served with Zhou in Chongqing, and when wartime cooperation with the Nationalist government turned to Civil War after 1945, Wang was deputy under Ye Jianying in the Foreign Affairs Group of the Central Committee. Wang and Anna visited India briefly in 1945, but returned to work with the Marshall Mission from the end of 1945 to 1947, where he met American diplomats.
After 1949.
Wang was in the group of Zhou Enlai's protegees from the 1930s who filled most of the positions when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was formed in 1949. Wang was Director General of the General Office, the largest office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1949 to 1955. During the 1954 Geneva Conference he was Secretary General of the Chinese Delegation, where he conducted negotiations with U. Alexis Johnson and other senior United States diplomats. He then served briefly as Assistant Foreign Minister in January and February 1955 before becoming Chinese Ambassador to Poland from March 1955 to April 1964. Here he played a pivotal role in the Indo-Sino War of 1962 ensuring no aggression through the Taiwan Strait.
As ambassador to Poland, Wang was the highest level diplomat of the People's Republic to have direct contacts with American diplomats. During the First Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1955 Wang conducted ambassadorial level talks in Warsaw with United States Ambassador Jacob D. Beam. Mao recalled Wang to Beijing for a detailed briefing in a private talk, and Wang left for Warsaw with detailed instructions to find out if Washington would be willing to force Nationalist armies from the islands if offered concessions in return. When Wang revealed to Beam this willingness to concede before extracting concessions in return, Mao attacked him: "even a pig knows to turn around after he hits a wall, and Wang Bingnan does not know how to turn around after he hits a wall." Mao only agreed to keep Wang in Warsaw when Premier Zhou assumed blame.
Cultural Revolution and Wang's death.
In 1967, as the Cultural Revolution gained momentum, Wang was suspended from his job at the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Red Guard factions confined him in the basement of an old hotel. He was shown the scarred and mutilated body of Zhang Yuyun, his second wife, and was told that she had killed herself. In 1969 he was released to go to a cadre school, and allowed to return to the capital only in 1972. He did not have a job or official residence there, however, and lived with his family in cramped conditions. Deng Xiaoping gave him a position in the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in 1975, but when Deng himself was again purged the following year, Wang had a heart attack. He died in 1988.
Family life.
His eldest son was Wang Dongming (王東明) and his second son, Wang Boming (王波明), was editor of Caijing (财经).


Emergency Shipbuilding Program

The Emergency Shipbuilding Program (late 1940 – September 1945) was a United States government effort to quickly build simple cargo ships to carry troops and materiel to allies and foreign theatres during World War II. Run by the U.S. Maritime Commission, the program built almost 6,000 ships.
Origins.
By the fall of 1940, the British Merchant Navy (equivalent to the United States Merchant Marine) was being sunk in the Battle of the Atlantic by Germany's U-boats faster than the United Kingdom could replace them. Led by Sir Arthur Salter, a group of men called the British Merchant Shipping Mission came to North America from the UK to enlist U.S. and Canadian shipbuilders to construct merchant ships. As all existing U.S. shipyards capable of constructing ocean-going merchant ships were already occupied by either building ships for the U.S. Navy or for the U.S. Maritime Commission's Long Range Shipbuilding Program, which had begun three years previously to fulfill the goals set forth in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, the mission negotiated with a consortium of companies made up of the existing U.S. ship repairer Todd Shipyards, which had its headquarters in New York City in league with the shipbuilder Bath Iron Works located in Bath, Maine.
The new yard, called the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corporation, was to be an entirely new facility located on a piece of mostly vacant land located adjacent to Cummings Point in South Portland, Maine, for the purpose of building 30 cargo ships. The mission, likewise, negotiated with a different consortium made up of Todd along with a group of heavy construction companies in the Western U.S. for the building of a new shipyard in the San Francisco Bay area for construction of 30 ships identical to those to be built in Maine.
That yard was to be called the Todd-California Shipbuilding Corp. It was slated to be built on the tide flats of Richmond on the east side of the bay. The construction companies that made up the second half of that corporation had no experience building ships, but did have an extensive resume with the construction of highways, bridges, and major public-works projects such as the Hoover Dam, the Bonneville Dam, and the massive Grand Coulee Dam. Known as the Six Companies, the members included two companies that were to become driving powers in wartime merchant shipbuilding during the ensuing years, and the men behind those companies were Henry J. Kaiser, who headed the Kaiser Companies, and John A. McCone, who led the Bechtel/McCone Company.
Contracts for both yards and the ships were signed on December 20, 1940. All the ships to be built were collectively called the "Ocean" class and to be of an existing British design for five-hatch cargo ships of about 10,000 tons' load displacement and 11 knots' service speed using obsolete, but readily available, triple-expansion, reciprocating steam engine and coal-fired Scotch-type fire tube boilers. The first of these vessels, the was launched at the Todd-California yard on October 15, 1941.
The early years.
With the defense of both the U.S. and its overseas possessions, along with a very strong national interest in assisting Britain in its struggle to keep its supply lines open to both North America and its overseas colonies, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced what was to become known as the Emergency Shipbuilding Program on January 3, 1941, for the construction of 200 ships very much similar to those being built for the British. He designated that the program be implemented and administered by the Maritime Commission, which since 1937 had been the federal government department tasked with merchant marine development, and which had worked very closely with the British Mission in placing its 60-ship order. Immediately, the Commission authorized that the two yards building for the British build ships for the U.S. upon completion of their current contracts.
The Maritime Commission also funded the yards to add building ways and realizing that more than two yards would be needed for the program they were expecting to enter into contracts to build new shipyards on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts of the U.S. In this first wave of expansion, seven additional yards were added to those in Maine and California, and like those yards were to be for the sole purpose of building only the emergency type of ships. While all the yards were to be built by private contractors and operated by commercial shipbuilding companies, the new yards were financed by the Maritime Commission with funds authorized by Congress, thus were owned by the federal government. One of the new yards planned for construction was to be in Baltimore, Maryland, and would be run by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. That facility became known as the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard for the Fairfield section of Baltimore, where it was located. Bethlehem Shipbuilding was one of the nation's largest shipbuilding companies, having construction yards on the East Coast in Quincy, Massachusetts, on Staten Island, New York, and at Sparrows Point, also in Baltimore.
On the West Coast, it had yards in San Pedro and San Francisco. Another was to be in Wilmington, North Carolina, and managed by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia, which had one of the largest commercial yards in the U.S., and by 1941 was exclusively building large combatant ships for the Navy. That yard was to be called the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company.
Additionally, yards were authorized to be built on the Gulf Coast at Mobile, Alabama, which was to be operated by the Mobile-based Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company, in New Orleans on the Industrial Canal to be known as the Delta Shipbuilding Company and operated by the American Shipbuilding Company of Toledo, Ohio, one at Houston, Texas on the Houston Ship Channel to be operated by Todd Shipyards and called the Todd-Houston Shipbuilding Corp. On the West Coast, one yard was contracted to be built in Los Angeles at Terminal Island and managed by the Bechtel/McCone Company. That yard would be called the California Shipbuilding Corporation or CalShip for short. The Kaiser Corporation itself received a contract to build a new yard on the Columbia River at Portland, Oregon, which would be known as the Oregon Shipbuilding Corp.
The emergency ships.
The ships for which all the yards were contracted to build were first designated by the Maritime Commission as EC2-S-C1, but because they were designed for capacity and rapid construction as opposed to speed and gracefulness, lacked the streamlined appearance of the more modern ship designs of the Maritime Commission, such as the standard freighters type C2 ships or type C3 ships, the President had declared them to be "dreadful-looking objects" and from that the term "ugly duckling" became the unofficial name for the emergency vessels. The vessels collectively were being officially referred to as the "Liberty Fleet" ships as of April 1941, and not long after, the term "Liberty Ship" became the standard name applied to all vessels of the class.
Like their British counterparts, the "Ocean" class, the Liberty ships were of a five-hatch design around 10000 tons loaded displacement powered by the same size of triple-expansion, reciprocating steam engines, but using more modern oil-fired, water-tube boilers. Overall, they were somewhat antiquated for the era and some quiet objection arose on the part of some of the members of the Maritime Commission to devoting so many valuable resources to their construction. Some believed that fewer but faster ships would be able to move as much cargo, since with their added speed, they could make more voyages in any given year, but faster and more complex ships required more time to build, and more importantly, required steam turbines to gain the additional speed.
In 1941, the manufacturers of steam turbines in the U.S., companies such as General Electric, Westinghouse, and Allis-Chalmers, did not have adequate production capacity to build all the turbines demanded by the Navy or for the Maritime Commission's standard dry cargo ships or tankers it was intending to still build. In the end, it was decided that what the looming war was going to require were ships that could be built quickly using prefabrication by workers relatively unskilled in shipbuilding and in greatest numbers with the available resources. With that, the Liberty ship was adopted as the only emergency type to be built, thus was shared by all of the new emergency shipyards. While all the new yards were able to get their first keels laid in a very short time, the first of the Liberty ships to be launched was the , which rolled down the ways at the Bethlehem-Fairfield yard on September 27, 1941.
The program grows as war nears.
As 1941 progressed, the construction of the emergency yards accelerated rapidly and keels were laid upon the new building ways. Well before the first wave of expansion was underway or the original 60 British ships were delivered, shortly after the Lend-Lease Bill was passed by Congress in March, a second wave of 306 additional ships was ordered, including 112 of the emergency type; the remainder was standard-type vessels and tankers. This additional number of ships required additional building ways, so the Maritime Commission authorized new ways to be added to the yards in both the Long Range and Emergency Programs and also contracted for a second yard to be built for the Kaiser-managed yards in Richmond, California. After this time, the original Kaiser yard became known as Richmond #1 and the new yard as Richmond #2.
After the May 27 Declaration of Unlimited National Emergency by the President, the Emergency Program was further expanded in a third wave. To accommodate the addition of more ships to be built, additional ways were added to the yards in the program and the schedule of construction accelerated to build more ships per shipway per year. In total, this increase raised the planned output of all merchant shipbuilders to about 500 ships (5 million total deadweight tons) for 1942 and 700 ships (7 million tons) in 1943.
Further expansion after the U.S. entry into World War II.
The December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent entry of the U.S. into the war caused all previously established production schedules to be further revised dramatically upward. With the need to assist Britain in replacing its lost tonnage and to provide adequate ships to the Army to transport troops and supplies to foreign theaters, in January 1942, President Roosevelt asked that 8 million tons of shipping be built in 1942 and 10 million in 1943. This fourth wave of expansion involved further shortening the time for building the ships and the further addition of building ways at the existing yards, as well as adding new yards to the emergency program. In early 1942, yards for building Liberty ships were contracted to be built in Vancouver, Washington, to be managed by the Kaiser Corporation, and a yard in Savannah, Georgia, which was to be operated by a new company named Savannah Shipyards, although they had no previous experience with building ships. New yards also contracted to be built at this time, but not for the emergency-type ships, were a third yard in Richmond, also to be managed by the Kaiser Corporation, and a yard in Alameda, California, to be managed by Bethlehem. This wave brought the total number of building ways available to the commission to 221.
Incredibly, the 18 million tons of cargo ships (roughly equal to 1800 10,000 ton Liberty ships) were determined by early February 1942 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to not be adequate for anticipated needs, thus the President directed the Maritime Commission to increase the orders to the equivalent of 24 million tons. With no certainty that this astonishing quantity of ships could be built before the end of 1943, the commission increased their contracts with the existing yards for more building ways and to contract for more shipyards to build Liberty ships, as well as to build other types of vessels such as tankers, troop transports, and military-type vessels. For the construction of Liberty-type ships, a new yard was ordered to be built at Providence, Rhode Island, to be managed by the Rheem Corporation, a new yard in Brunswick, Georgia, which would be managed by the J.A. Jones Construction Company, another in Jacksonville, Florida, which would be operated by the Merrill-Stevens Boatbuilding Company of Miami, a yard in Panama City, Florida, which would also be managed by J.A. Jones, and a yard at Sausalito, California, to be managed by the Bechtel/McCone Group. For non-Liberty ship construction, the commission ordered another yard in Richmond to be managed as the others there, by Kaiser, to be known as Richmond #4 and a yard at Swan Island on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon for the construction of tankers.
Impacts of the program on war production and society.
Material shortages.
While this rapid expansion was taking place, all other defense industries were also in a maximum production mode to accommodate the orders being placed by the government for all other manner of military equipment, which included the massive wartime naval expansion program begun in 1940 with the passage of the Two Ocean Navy Act. So much growth in demand happening simultaneously in industries sharing common materials inevitably led to shortages in steel, propulsion machinery, and most other ship equipment. In many cases, the shortages affected the emergency program more than it did the Navy's, since its programs were deemed of higher priority in the eyes of the many wartime boards set up for deciding on where scarce resources would be allocated. All along the way, the Navy made claim to as much of the raw materials, steel, machinery, manufacturing plant allocations, and labor that it could get.
For the most part, this imbalance occurred because the Maritime Commission lacked the influence that the military branches possessed, and that influence ultimately swayed entities such as the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board to decide in favor of the Navy's demands. This disproportionate allocation regimen often left the Maritime Commission without the resources needed to accomplish the goals established for it by President Roosevelt, and only through direct appeal to FDR by Admiral Land did enough of the critical resources make it to the emergency program. These shortages were their most severe during all of 1941 and through much of 1942, but additional steel rolling and plate mills, as well as expanded propulsion machinery manufacturing capability, reduced many of those shortages in the course of 1943, but they were never fully eliminated until the end of the war. Materials such as oil, gasoline, rubber, and grease were rationed for the fighting units, so the Pennsylvania Shipyard had to improvise, but bananas were very cheap, South American markets having been hampered by the war . Combat needs were top priority so alternative substances had to be found for materials such as the grease used to lubricate the ramp down which a boat slid into the water when launching. The boatbuilders found that ships could be launched handily by covering the ramp in a layer of ripe unpeeled bananas. It worked very well until a supervisor decided to cut costs by buying even cheaper green bananas. Of course, they were also very gummy and did not "mush" like ripe ones. The only time this was used, the boat went about one-third down the ramp and stuck. Nearly two days were needed to dig out the keel and lever the boat to the water, where it floated quite well. Thereafter, the shipyard did not use any but well-ripened bananas.
Manpower shortages.
Another effect of the breakneck growth in production in the early years of the war was a labor shortage in the towns and cities where the emergency shipyards were being built. Since a "de facto" drought in shipbuilding work had occurred in the U.S. for nearly two decades, the number of experienced shipbuilders was quite small at the war's start. Additionally, many of those towns and cities where new yards were to be built had not been major shipbuilding centers before 1941, and these yards felt the shortage the most. To overcome this shortage, an aggressive recruiting program was undertaken by both the commission and the companies operating the shipyards. Since many of the emergency yards were being managed by established shipbuilding or repair companies, they could send some of their more skilled men to get "the new facilities on their feet and running".
However, a labor force with abilities to accomplish heavy industrial and mechanical work was most needed. To find this labor, recruiting was directed towards areas of the nation's hinterland, which had only a few years before found itself in the depths of the Great Depression in the not mistaken belief that men used to keeping farm machinery operating could built ships, as well. Getting these former farmers to decide to take up shipbuilding was not too difficult an undertaking because the wages offered to these previously poor men were much higher had ever been offered to such working-class Americans before. This opportunity to earn a good wage showed the way to a possible future, where life might provide better security than in the poverty years of the 1930s, and that was all that was needed to get people on the move. Not uncommonly, entire families made the pilgrimage from places such as the Dust Bowl regions of Texas and Oklahoma to the shipbuilding centers on the West Coast or the Gulf of Mexico. With such a rapid influx of new workers to these communities, however, acute shortages in housing, schools and other needed services arose. Along with building new shipyards and ships, a need existed to build all the necessities for many workers to live in most of the largest shipbuilding centers such as Richmond, and Portland. Workers with just about any skilled trade had steady employment in those communities throughout the course of the war. Some skilled workers such as engineers were "frozen" in their jobs and were not allowed to leave their work, even to enlist.
Women and minorities enter the shipbuilding workforce.
Before the war, shipbuilding had been exclusively a male occupation, but the need to reach out to new sources of labor for the emergency yards created opportunities for women to gain employment in the many trades that are needed to construct a ship. While not as much riveting as welding was used in the building of the emergency ships, the popular symbolic figure of Rosie the Riveter partly sprang from the wartime shipyard, where a new cadre of female shipfitters suddenly developed. Additionally, in the deep South, where African Americans had been excluded from the higher-paying industrial and manufacturing employment, such a shortage of labor existed for the yards on the Gulf that reluctant employers had to accept that black labor was required to meet production goals. In the end, the record productivity for Black labor in the Gulf shipyards was no lower than for any other group employed.
Training.
Since many of the workers hired for the new yards had no shipbuilding experience prior to being hired, schools were set up in the individual shipyards and in the local school systems of the host cities. One of the factors that led to the great success of the Emergency Program was to change the shipbuilding arts from one where a man had to progress through a many-years-long apprenticeship up to become a journeyman and then many years later, a master in their chosen trade. The use of welding allowed ships to be built in modular sections eliminating the time-consuming and highly skilled shipfitting of individual hull pieces to be riveted in place on the building ways. Prefabrication allowed a much more streamlined approach to the building of a ship more akin to modern manufacturing assembly processes where a worker would be tasked with doing one small task in the many thousands of tasks required to assemble a ship. With volume production, that worker could be employed doing that same task repetitively, which would ultimately lead to high productivity due to a worker becoming a master of his assigned task very quickly. Old-timers would scoff at the way the Liberty ships were built by "farmers", as they would say, but the results were far beyond what anyone might have imagined in 1940 when the program began.
Movement of workers.
As successful as the Maritime Commission and the shipbuilding companies were in their recruiting efforts, the scale of the national wartime economy was so great that a degree of a labor shortage always existed in the yards, although the shortfall in manpower became more severely felt in the later years of the war. Many of the men employed in the yards in the first years of the program were of age for the draft, and as the war progressed, more of these men left the yards to serve in the military. Other war industries also competed for labor, and many of the cities and towns that hosted shipyards also had other labor-intensive wartime industries, such as aircraft plants. In many cases, the wages were close to what could be earned at a shipyard for work that was not as physically taxing, so a slow but steady movement of labor from one defense industry to another was made, and often shipbuilding lost more labor than it gained.
The program reaches full production.
By the second half of 1942, the yards contracted in the first waves of expansion were fully built and those yards had completed three or more ships per building way. The time for building the ships fell dramatically, as experience was gained by the workers in their jobs and by the management in each yard in the most effective means of construction. One factor that played a major part in getting the productivity so high was the use of welding and prefabrication, in which large sections of each ship's hull or superstructure was built off the building ways and then moved into position only when the assemblers were ready. This method became so efficient that for a single Liberty ship to be fully assembled, launched, outfitted, and delivered went from a program average of almost 240 days at the beginning of 1942 to only 56 days at the end of the year. At the most productive yards on the West Coast, Oregon Ship and Richmond #2, the time a single vessel spent on the ways before launching was only a little more than two weeks. Two particular ships were built in record-breaking times. First in September 1942 ,the Liberty ship SS "Joseph N. Teal" was built Oregon Shipbuilding in 10 days. Two months later in November at Richmond yard #2, the was launching in only 4 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes from the time her keel was laid. While not ever met or repeated during the remainder of World War II, these "stunt" ships came only a little more than one year after the first ships ordered as part of the Emergency Program were launched themselves.
Coming into play during this time was a "de facto" combining of the Long Range Shipbuilding Program with the Emergency Program, and oversight of the yards became decentralized into four separate regional directors. The programs added together at the peak of output in mid-1943 ultimately employed 650,000 workers in all the Maritime Commission-contracted yards and unknown tens of thousands more manufacturing the components need to assemble the ships. Hurdles which needed to be overcome to reach the levels of production achieved. The Maritime Commission struggled throughout 1942 and the first half of 1943 to get enough steel allocated to it from the War Production Board. With plate mills around the country running beyond their normal capacity, the demand for plate by all war industries, but especially the Navy's shipbuilding, was still more than could be made. New or expanded plate production facilities did not come online until the second half of 1943, when the shortage to steel plate abated. Additionally, constant shortages existed for many of the parts shared between Navy and merchant vessels, such as pumps and valves. Still with all the hurdles faced, the Maritime Commission and the yards contracted to it were able to deliver 8 million tons of shipping to the war effort by the end of 1942 and more than 12 million tons in 1943.
Changes to ship design and types during 1943.
By the time that Liberty ship construction was reaching its maximum output rate in early 1943, the situation became clear to military planners and the Maritime Commission slowing the rate of the building Liberty class vessels and begin building a class with a higher operating speed was preferable. The decision was made to build a class no larger than the Liberty class, but with steam turbine propulsion, with the shortage of turbines having been relieved by the expansion of turbine manufacturing capacity during 1941 and 1942. Beginning in March 1943, with enough turbines, the Victory ship or VC2 type cargo vessels were contracted for at all of the West Coast yards, which had been previously building Liberty ships, as well as at the Bethlehem-Fairfield yard. The first of the new class, the was completed and delivered at Oregon Shipbuilding in February 1944. All the other yards building Liberty ships continued to do so, although many of those yards began building specialized military-type vessels for the Navy, such as landing ships, troops transports, frigates, and escort aircraft carriers. Originally, military types were not expected to be a part of the Maritime Commission's wartime building programs, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff required a high number of specialized vessels be built for upcoming military operations. Whenan inability for Navy contracted yards to meet that demand was determined, the Maritime Commission was asked if it could switch some of its production to meet the Navy's needs. Some types were designed with only military purpose, but which could be built along the standards of merchant vessels. This was especially true of the auxiliary naval vessels that supported the combat ships and landing ships such as LSTs, which had been one of the types in especially short supply in 1943.
Similarly, having a sufficient number of oil tankers was determined early in the program to be as important, if not more so, than dry cargo ships for the war effort. In the fourth wave of expansion in 1942, the commission increased the program's orders for the construction of T2- and T3-type tankers. Ultimately, five yards were committed to tanker construction: Sun Shipbuilding in Chester, Pennsylvania, and Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point, which had both been principally building tankers since the beginning of the program. Alabama Shipbuilding yard in Mobile and the MarinShip yard at Sausalito switched from building Liberty ships to tanker construction and the previously mentioned new yard at Swan Island in Portland, Oregon, managed by the Kaiser Group, was built to construct tankers exclusively.
Program summary.
Shipyards in the program.
By the end of World War II, the list of shipyards building for the Maritime Commission comprised these yards (those in "italics" did not exist prior to the Emergency Program's start in 1940):
Ships built by type.
(1) includes 60 British type