If you aren’t faint of heart or afflicted with battle fatigue, see this film as soon as possible, if you have not done so already. Not only is this an invaluable resource for getting a good idea of how the Fascists suppressed Libyans, but (with the arguable exception of the length) this is also a rare example of a film that does everything right: the story, dialogue, acting, music, pacing, cinematography, and other technical aspects are all more than satisfactory. There is not one aspect of this film that feels inadequate, unless you count the viewership.
Click here for events that happened today (August 20).
1940: Hermann Göring sent peace proposals to Britain via Netherlandish and Turkish foreign ministries! Nevertheless, the British ignored them. Aside from that, the Eighth Route Army launched the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a successful campaign to disrupt Axis war infrastructure and logistics in occupied northern China. (Coincidentally, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line ‘Never was so much owed by so many to so few’.)
1942: István Horthy de Nagybánya, Axis Deputy Regent, died in a flight accident.
1943: The Axis submarine U‐197 was sunk in the Indian Ocean by a PBY Catalina of № 265 Squadron RAF; on the same day, the Axis submarine U‐670 sank in the Bay of Danzig after a collision with the target ship Bulkoburg. Meanwhile, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Thailand signed a peace treaty, in which four provinces of Axis‐occupied British Malaya (Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Trengganu) were to be made part of Thailand. Thai administration would begin on October 18. Finally, Soviet Major General P. V. Bogdanov, who had collaborated with the enemy after being captured by the Wehrmacht, was recaptured and turned over to the Soviet counterintelligence service, SMERSH. Moscow would execute Bogdanov, along with five other former Red Army generals, on April 19, 1950.
1944: One hundred sixty‐eight captured Allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being ‘terror fliers’, arrived at Buchenwald concentration camp. Meanwhile, the Battle of Romania began with a major Soviet Union offensive.
1985: Wilhelm Meendsen‐Bohlken, Axis fleet commander, expired.