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Rolling stock being discharged in Normandy from SS Twickenham Ferry

American transportation in the Siegfried Line campaign of World War II played a crucial part in the military logistics of the campaign between September and December 1944. The Germans attempted to delay the Allied advance by denying access to ports and demolishing communications. Cherbourg was the only deep-water port in northwest Europe in Allied hands, and it had been badly damaged. Insufficient port capacity caused a backlog of ships awaiting discharge in European waters, precipitating a global shipping crisis. Additional capacity was obtained by opening Rouen, Le Havre and Antwerp. Port clearance then became a bottleneck. Motor transport was used until the railways could be brought back into service. Antwerp was subject to attack from German V-weapons, so it was considered unwise to unload ammunition there. The German Ardennes offensive in December threatened Antwerp and the depot areas around Liège, but by the year's end preparations were under way for the final assault on Germany. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

John McCaffary House

... that the John McCaffary House (pictured) was the site of the 1850 murder of Bridget McCaffary, for which John McCaffary became the first and only person to be executed by the state of Wisconsin?
... that 2022 documentary The Australian Wars explores "the great Australian silence" about massacres of Indigenous Australians?
... that Devolver Digital published A Fistful of Gun after its developer jokingly suggested a collaboration?
... that John Rauch, of the firm Venturi, Rauch & Scott Brown, was called "one of the unsung heroes of postwar American architecture" by the Architectural Record?
... that Informer released a portable computer terminal that also doubled as an IBM PC compatible?
... that in 2010 the Indonesian National Armed Forces brought a retired brigadier general before a military tribunal over a land dispute?
... that although the Liberty Theatre was built in 1904 to host the Rogers Brothers' musicals, the brothers made their last appearance there three years later?
... that Korey Foreman held a makeshift raffle to decide where to play college football?

In the news

Landslide in Ubatuba, Brazil

Floods and landslides (pictured) leave at least 48 people dead in the Brazilian state of São Paulo.
A bus crash in Gualaca, Panama, kills at least 39 people.
Cyclone Gabrielle causes widespread damage and flooding across New Zealand.
Nikos Christodoulides is elected President of Cyprus.
In American football, the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.
A megadrought and heatwave cause forest fires and a state of emergency in Chile.

On this day

February 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan (1960)

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

1739 – The identity of English highwayman Dick Turpin was uncovered by his former schoolmate, who recognised his handwriting, leading to Turpin's trial.
1847 – Mexican–American War: The United States Army used artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army at the Battle of Buena Vista near Saltillo.
1941 – Plutonium was first chemically identified by chemist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley.
1945 – American photographer Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (pictured) during the Battle of Iwo Jima, an image that was later reproduced on the Marine Corps War Memorial.
2017 – Syrian civil war: Allied troops led by the Turkish Armed Forces captured the city of al-Bab from the Islamic State.

Pope Paul II (b. 1417)
George Taylor (d. 1781)
James Herriot (d. 1995)

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Today's featured picture

Physalis peruviana, also known by various names including the cape gooseberry or the Peruvian groundcherry, is a species of plant in the nightshade family (Solanaceae) native to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Known to be cultivated in the Inca Empire, the plant has been grown in England since the late 18th century and the region around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa since at least the start of the 19th century. It is now cultivated or grows wild across the world in temperate and tropical regions. This photograph shows the P. peruviana fruit, which is a round, smooth berry 1.25 to 2 cm (1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in) wide. It is bright yellow to orange in color and sweet when ripe, with a characteristic, mildly tart grape-like flavor.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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