Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 29
29 JAN 1942 - Iran signed the “Treaty of Alliance” with Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The agreement offered Iran protection and created a supply route from the West to Russia.
Archive for January, 2009
Precise Soviet WWII Death Toll Project
27
Jan
Medvedev orders precise Soviet WWII death toll
IRINA TITOVA – Published January 27, 2009 – The Olympian
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday ordered officials to determine the precise Soviet death toll in World War II as the nation marked the 65th anniversary of the battle that broke the Nazi siege of Leningrad.
Russia, which suffered hugely in the conflict it calls the Great Patriotic War, places substantial importance on commemorating its sacrifices. An estimated 27 million Soviet civilians and soldiers died in the war. Much of the western part of the country was ravaged during four years of epic battles.
“Data about our losses haven’t been revealed yet,” Medvedev said at a meeting with officials and veterans in the Konstantin Palace near St. Petersburg. “We must determine the historical truth.”
Medvedev said that a special panel involving officials from various government agencies will be created for the purpose.
He said that more than 2.4 million people are still officially considered missing in action. Of the 9.5 million buried in mass graves, 6 million are unidentified, he said. Remains are still being found across western Russia and other ex-Soviet republics.
The meeting marked the anniversary of the battle that broke the siege of Leningrad on Jan. 27, 1944. The siege killed an estimated 1.5 million people.
Roza Ivanova, a 78-year old survivor who was in Medvedev’s audience at a separate meeting with veterans later in the day, said she survived the siege thanks to animal skins her father brought from the tannery where he worked.
“We cooked a sort of stew out of those skins. The stew made of pork skin was especially good,” Ivanova, who was 10 years old when Nazi troops closed in on the city, told The Associated Press.
Desperate for heat but without fuel, her family stoked their small cast-iron wood stove with shards of furniture and books.
“I remember how we wanted to eat and live then!” she said. “God save anyone from such experience.”
Yulia Likhova, 72, who was 5 when the siege began, said she remembers a seaman sharing a loaf of bread with her and her four siblings. “It was such unbelievable happiness,” she said.
To avoid starvation, Likhova said, she and her family boiled leather belts and drank a kind of broth made by boiling earth they gathered near a defunct food-storage warehouse where sugar had melted during the fire that destroyed it.
She and her siblings survived, but her mother and grandparents starved to death.
Medvedev used the occasion to condemn what he described as efforts to rehabilitate Nazis in some neighboring nations. Russia has harshly criticized authorities in the ex-Soviet Baltic nations of Estonia and Latvia for allowing gatherings of local veterans of Nazi SS units.
“We must toughen our stance on the issue,” Medvedev said. “There is no room here for delicate diplomatic wording. Our stance must be more combative.”
He also urged the government to provide free apartments to some 50,000 war veterans before Russia marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the fighting in Europe next year.
World War II History for January 27
27
Jan
Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 27
27 JAN 1941 - Ambassador Grew advised Washington of reports circulating in Tokyo of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor being planned by the Japanese military in case of “trouble” with the US. Grew wrote that “the attack would involve the use of all the Japanese military facilities. My colleague (a member of the US embassy and the source of the reports) said that he was prompted to pass this on because it had come to him from many sources, although the plan seemed fantastic.” [3]
27 JAN 1941 - Matsuoka told a budget committee of the Japanese Diet that Japan must “dominate” the western Pacific if it were to achieve its goals” “My use of the word ‘dominate’ may seem extreme and while we have no such designs, still in a sense we do wish to dominate and there is no need to hide the fact. Has America any right to object if Japan does dominate the western Pacific? As Minister of Foreign Affairs, I hate to make such an assertation, but I wish to declare that if America does not understand Japan’s rightful claims and actions, then there is not the slightest hope of improvement of Japanese-American relations.” [4]
27 JAN 1942 - The British began their retreat to Singapore across the causeway from Johore Baharu.[5]
27 JAN 1942 - The US Submarine Seawolf arrived at Corregidor, delivering ammunition and evacuating all available pilots.[6]
27 JAN 1942 - Soviet forces captured the rail center of Lozovaya on the Donets front.[7]
27 JAN 1942 - Free France agreed to open French possessions in the Pacific as Allied military bases.[8]
27 JAN 1943 - During World War II, the first all American air raid against Germany took place when about 50 bombers attacked the Wilhelmshaven port.
On this day, 8th Air Force bombers, dispatched from their bases in England, fly the first American bombing raid against the Germans, targeting the Wilhelmshaven port. Of 64 planes participating in the raid, 53 reached their target and managed to shoot down 22 German planes-and lost only three planes in return.
The 8th Air Force was activated in February 1942 as a heavy bomber force based in England. Its B-17 Flying Fortresses, capable of sustaining heavy damage while continuing to fly, and its B-24 Liberators, long-range bombers, became famous for precision bombing raids, the premier example being the raid on Wilhelmshaven. Commanded at the time by Brig. Gen. Newton Longfellow, the 8th Air Force was amazingly effective and accurate in bombing warehouses and factories in this first air attack against the Axis power. [1]
27 JAN 1944 - The Soviet Union announced that the two year German siege of Leningrad had come to an end.
On this day, Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line, ending the almost 900-day German-enforced containment of the city, which cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.
The siege began officially on September 8, 1941. The people of Leningrad began building antitank fortifications and succeeded in creating a stable defense of the city, but as a result were cut off from all access to vital resources in the Soviet interior, Moscow specifically. In 1942, an estimated 650,000 Leningrad citizens perished from starvation, disease, exposure, and injuries suffered from continual German artillery bombardment.
Barges offered occasional relief in the summer and ice-borne sleds did the same in the winter. Slowly but surely a million of Leningrad’s young, sick, and elderly residents were evacuated, leaving about 2 million to ration available food and use all open ground to plant vegetables.
On January 12, Soviet defenses punctured the siege, ruptured the German encirclement, and allowed more supplies to come in along Lake Ladoga. The siege officially ended after 872 days (though it is often called the 900-day siege), after a Soviet counteroffensive pushed the Germans westward. [2]
27 JAN 1945 - Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
[1] “Americans bomb Germans for first time,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6692 (accessed Jan 27, 2009).
[2] “Siege of Leningrad is lifted,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6693 (accessed Jan 27, 2009).
[3-8] Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1981.
World War II History for January 26
26
Jan
Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 26
26 JAN 1934 - Germany and Poland signed a 10-year nonaggression pact: “… the moment has arrived for inaugurating a new era in Polish-German political relations by means of direct communications between the two countries.” It was proposed by Hitler, and Poland never consulted France, its chief ally. Germany was signaling that it had no quarrel with Poland, only with Communist Russia. Warsaw had concluded it could no longer rely on outside support in preserving Poland’s independence. The treaty stated that neither signatory would “proceed to use force in order to settle” disputes. The pact was also significant in that Poland became the first nation to enter into a harmonious relationship with the new Nazi regieme. Warsaw was anxious to avoid becoming involved in the quarrels of Poland’s neighbors, and the pact accurately reflected a Polish policy of trying to maintain friendly relations with all powers.[1]
26 JAN 1942 - The first American expeditionary force to go to Europe during World War II went ashore in Northern Ireland.
26 JAN 1945 - Soviet troops entered Auschwitz, Poland. The survivors, fewer than 3,000, of the Nazi network of concentration camps were freed.
[1] Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1981.
Technorati Tags: 1934, 1942, 1945, Poland, Germany, Treaty, Soviet, Auschwitz, Concentration Camp
Hitlers Stolen Bookmark Plea
25
Jan
Man Enters Plea In Attempted Sale Of Hitler’s Stolen Bookmark
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 – updated: 1:35 pm PST December 11, 2008 http://kirotv.com
SEATTLE, WA — A man accused of selling an 18-karat gold bookmark that reportedly belonged to Adolf Hitler pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday morning.
Christian Popescu, 37, a Romanian national in Kenmore, was arrested outside a Bellevue Starbucks after he set up a clandestine meeting to negotiate the sale of the stolen bookmark, Dankers said.
During his attempt to sell the bookmark, Popescu acknowledged that the bookmark was stolen in Spain and agreed to sell it for $100,000, Dankers said.
Eva Braun, Hitler’s longtime mistress, allegedly gave Hitler the gift in 1943.
ICE believes Braun gave Hitler the bookmark as consolation for his army’s defeat in the battle of Stalingrad, as it is inscribed in part with the following words from Braun: “My Adolf, don’t worry…(the defeat)… was only an inconvenience that will not break your certainty of victory.”
The bookmark was set to be auctioned in October 2002 by a Madrid, Spain, auction house when it was stolen by three eastern European thieves, Dankers said.
Popescu is charged with sale or receipt of stolen goods. The charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
World War II History for January 20
20
Jan
Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 20
20 JAN 1942 - Nazi officials held the Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their “final solution” that called for exterminating Europe’s Jews.
In July 1941, Herman Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”
Heydrich met with Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Central Office of Jewish Emigration, and 15 other officials from various Nazi ministries and organizations at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. The agenda was simple and focused: to devise a plan that would render a “final solution to the Jewish question” in Europe. Various gruesome proposals were discussed, including mass sterilization and deportation to the island of Madagascar. Heydrich proposed simply transporting Jews from every corner Europe to concentration camps in Poland and working them to death. Objections to this plan included the belief that this was simply too time-consuming. What about the strong ones who took longer to die? What about the millions of Jews who were already in Poland? Although the word “extermination” was never uttered during the meeting, the implication was clear: anyone who survived the egregious conditions of a work camp would be “treated accordingly.”
Months later, the “gas vans” in Chelmno, Poland, which were killing 1,000 people a day, proved to be the “solution” they were looking for–the most efficient means of killing large groups of people at one time.
The minutes of this conference were kept with meticulous care, which later provided key evidence during the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
20 JAN 1944 - The British RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
20 JAN 1945 - US XXI Corps and French first Army forces launched attacks in southern Alsace to clear the Colmar pocket and the west bank of the Rhine.
20 JAN 1945 – East Prussia was almost encircled by Red Army forces advancing from the south and east. Tilst (Sovetsk) fell.
20 JAN 1945 – Trapped German troops in Budapest attempted to break out of the city toward the Danube.
20 JAN 1945 – The first small US convoy reached Kunming, China, over the Burma Road and a hastily repaired branch route. It took 16 days to drive from Myitkyina in Burma.
20 JAN 1945 – Roosevelt was inaugurated for a fourth term as US president.
“The Wannsee Conference,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6684 (accessed Jan 20, 2009).
Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1981.
Roosevelt on the European War
16
Jan
Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat immediately after the outbreak of war in Europe
“The telephone in Franklin Roosevelt’s bedroom at the White House rang at 2:50 a. m. on the first day of September. In more ways than one it was a ghastly hour, but the operators knew they must ring. Ambassador Bill Bullitt was calling from Paris. He had just been called by Ambassador Tony Biddle in Warsaw. Mr. Bullitt told Mr. Roosevelt that World War II had begun. Adolf Hitler’s bombing planes were dropping death all over Poland.”[1]
On September 3, 1939 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation during his Fireside Chat #14. In the speech he maintains that the United States will do it’s best ability remain neutral during the conflict in Europe, but will still be supporting the Allies. He encourages each and every American keep an open mind about what is going on in the world.
Excerpts from the speech by FDR:[2]
My fellow Americans and my friends:
Tonight my single duty is to speak to the whole of America.
Until four-thirty this morning I had hoped against hope that some miracle would prevent a devastating war in Europe and bring to an end the invasion of Poland by Germany.
For four long years a succession of actual wars and constant crises have shaken the entire world and have threatened in each case to bring on the gigantic conflict which is today unhappily a fact.
It is right that I should recall to your minds the consistent and at time successful efforts of your Government in these crises to throw the full weight of the United States into the cause of peace. In spite of spreading wars I think that we have every right and every reason to maintain as a national policy the fundamental moralities, the teachings of religion (and) the continuation of efforts to restore peace — (for) because some day, though the time may be distant, we can be of even greater help to a crippled humanity.
It is right, too, to point out that the unfortunate events of these recent years have, without question, been based on the use of force (or) and the threat of force. And it seems to me clear, even at the outbreak of this great war, that the influence of America should be consistent in seeking for humanity a final peace which will eliminate, as far as it is possible to do so, the continued use of force between nations.
It is, of course, impossible to predict the future. I have my constant stream of information from American representatives and other sources throughout the world. You, the people of this country, are receiving news through your radios and your newspapers at every hour of the day.
[...]
We have certain ideas and certain ideals of national safety and we must act to preserve that safety today and to preserve the safety of our children in future years.
That safety is and will be bound up with the safety of the Western Hemisphere and of the seas adjacent thereto. We seek to keep war from our own firesides by keeping war from coming to the Americas. For that we have historic precedent that goes back to the days of the Administration of President George Washington. It is serious enough and tragic enough to every American family in every state in the Union to live in a world that is torn by wars on other Continents. And those wars today (they) affect every American home. It is our national duty to use every effort to keep (them) those wars out of the Americas.
And at this time let me make the simple plea that partisanship and selfishness be adjourned; and that national unity be the thought that underlies all others.
This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or close his conscience.
I have said not once but many times that I have seen war and that I hate war. I say that again and again.
I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it will. And I give you assurance(s) and reassurance that every effort of your Government will be directed toward that end.
As long as it remains within my power to prevent, there will be no blackout of peace in the United States.
Resources:
Full FDR Fireside Chat 14 Transcript
World War II History Image Archives >> United States Government gallery
[1] Time, “Preface to War.” September 11, 1939.http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,711734,00.html (accessed January 15, 2009).
[2] Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Fireside Chat 14: On the European War.” September 3, 1939. http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3315 (accessed January 15, 2009).
Image – We Can Do It
15
Jan
Poster Image – We Can Do It.
This is a classic and very popular poster showing the strength of the women work force on the homefront during World War II.
See more Women at War Posters in the new World War II History Image Gallery >> Women at War Posters album.
Photo – Me 262 Serviced
09
Jan
Photo – Me 262 being serviced with camo netting.
See more German WWII photos in the new World War II History Image Gallery >> German Set 1 Collection album.
World War II History for January 8
08
Jan
Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 8
8 JAN 1936 - Japan said it would withdraw from the London Naval Conference unless it won the right to parity in the number of men-of-war it could have in relation to the other powers.
8 JAN 1940 - The Finns scored a major victory on the Karelian front, wiping out the entire Russian 44th Division.
8 JAN 1940 - Rationing began in Britain.
8 JAN 1940 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent a message to Adolf Hitler that cautioned against waging war against Britain.
Mussolini asked if it was truly necessary “to risk all-including the regime-and to sacrifice the flower of German generations.”
Mussolini’s message was more than a little disingenuous. At the time, Mussolini had his own reasons for not wanting Germany to spread the war across the European continent: Italy was not prepared to join the effort, and Germany would get all the glory and likely eclipse the dictator of Italy. Germany had already taken the Sudetenland and Poland; if Hitler took France and then cowed Britain into neutrality–or worse, defeated it in battle–Germany would rule Europe. Mussolini had assumed the reigns of power in Italy long before Hitler took over Germany, and in so doing Mussolini boasted of refashioning a new Roman Empire out of an Italy that was still economically backward and militarily weak. He did not want to be outshined by the upstart Hitler.
And so the Duce hoped to stall Germany’s war engine until he could figure out his next move. The Italian ambassador in Berlin delivered Mussolini’s message to Hitler in person. Mussolini believed that the “big democracies…must of necessity fall and be harvested by us, who represent the new forces of Europe.” They carried “within themselves the seeds of their decadence.” In short, they would destroy themselves, so back off.
Hitler ignored him and moved forward with plans to conquer Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Mussolini, rather than tie Italy’s fortune to Germany’s–which would necessarily mean sharing the spotlight and the spoils of any victory–began to turn an eye toward the east. Mussolini invaded Yugoslavia and, in a famously disastrous strategic move, Greece.
8 JAN 1941 - Roosevelt’s budget message to Congress requested a defense appropriation of $10,811,000,000 for fiscal 1942.
8 JAN 1942 - Jesselton (Kota Kinabalu) in British North Borneo (Sabah) was taken by the Japanese.
8 JAN 1942 - Kuala Lumpur’s outer defense lines were penetrated by the Japanese in Malaya.
8 JAN 1942 - The seige of Sevastopol was lifted by Red Army forces.
8 JAN 1943 - General Konstantin K. Rokossovsky sent a surrender ultimatum to Paulus at Stalingrad.
8 JAN 1944 - Count Ciano and other Italian Fascist leaders were placed on trial in Verona.
8 JAN 1944 - German troops began falling back to positions to block Allied advances to Rome through the Liri valley.
8 JAN 1944 - The Russians captured Kirovograd.
8 JAN 1944 - US Navy ships bombarded the Shortland Islands in the Solomons.
8 JAN 1945 - Hitler agreed to the withdrawl of German forces to Houffalize, which was already under Allied attack.
8 JAN 1945 - Heavy fighting broke out in central Budapest.
8 JAN 1945 - Frankfurt Germany was attacked by 1,000 US bombers.
“Mussolini questions Hitler’s plans,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6670 (accessed Jan 8, 2009).
Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1981.
