World War II History for January 18

Podcast: 01.18.1940 – CBS Today In Europe

1942 - Russian forces under General Timoshenko launched a fresh offensive against the Germans on the central front. The southern front was marked by strong gains by the Red Army in the Ukraine.

1942 - Burma’s Premier U Saw was “detained” by the British for allegedly being in communication with the Japanese.

1942 - Germany, Italy, and Japan sign a military convention in Berlin, laying down “guidelines for common operations against the common enemies.”

1943 - U.S. commercial bakers stopped selling sliced bread. Only whole loaves were sold during the ban until the end of World War II.

1944 - Soviet forces began to arrive at Leningrad, effectively ending the three-year Siege of Leningrad, but fighting would continue for more than another week before German troops withdrew from the area. (from http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=125)

World War II History for August 31

08.31.39 The British fleet was mobilized.

08.31.39 In London, civilian evacuations began.

London Evacuations

08.31.43 The USS Harmon, first U.S. Navy ship to be named for an African American, commissioned. [1]

Poster – USS Harmon DE-678

USS Harmon DE-678

08.31.44 The British 8th Army broke through the German’s “Gothic Line.” The defensive line was drawn across northern Italy.

Gothic Line – Sept 1943

[1] http://hollywoodatwar.blogspot.com, http://twitter.com/WWIIToday

August 17, 1943, U.S. Gen George S. Patton & 7th Army arrive in Messina, Sicily, hrs before “Monte”

Today’s Related Reads: Assault on Sicily: Monty and Patton at War

Lieutenant Colonel Lyle Bernard, from Colorado, 30th Infantry Regiment, a prominent figure in the second daring amphibious landing behind enemy lines on Sicily’s north coast, discusses the operational situation with Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr. This Signal Corps photo was taken near Brolo, Sicily in August of 1943, during Operation Husky.

Patton is leaning over the back of his WC-57 Dodge 3/4 ton 4×4 Command Car.

World War II History for July 24

1941 - Vichy France grants Japan bases in its Indochina colonies.

Japan invaded China by moving through Southeast Asia, an area that France had long occupied. France had “agreed” to the occupation under Petain’s puppet government.

1943 - Operation Gomorrah is launched.

On this day in 1943, British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.”

Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid.

Britain lost only 12 aircraft in this raid (791 flew), thanks to a new radar-jamming device called “Window,” which consisted of strips of aluminum foil dropped by the bombers en route to their target. These Window strips confused German radar, which mistook the strips for dozens and dozens of aircraft, diverting them from the trajectory of the actual bombers.

An Avro Lancaster dropping Window (the crescent-shaped white cloud on the left of the picture) from within the accompanying bomber stream.

WWII Radar Station

To make matters worse for Germany, the U.S. Eighth Air Force began a more comprehensive bombing run of northern Germany, which included two raids on Hamburg during daylight hours.

British attacks on Hamburg continued until November of that year. Although the percentage of British bombers lost increased with each raid as the Germans became more adept at distinguishing between Window diversions and actual bombers, Operation Gomorrah proved devastating to Hamburg-not to mention German morale. When it was over, 17,000 bomber sorties dropped more than 9,000 tons of explosives, killing more than 30,000 people and destroying 280,000 buildings, including industrial and munitions plants. The effect on Hitler, too, was significant. He refused to visit the burned-out cities, as the ruins bespoke nothing but the end of the war for him. Diary entries of high German officials from this period describe a similar despair, as they sought to come to terms with defeat. [1]

[1] “Operation Gomorrah is launched,” History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6529 (accessed Jul 24, 2009).

World War II History for July 22

1942 - Deportations from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka begin

Deportations to Treblinka

On this day in 1942, the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto begins, as thousands are rounded up daily and transported to a newly constructed concentration/extermination camp at Treblinka, in Poland.

On July 17, Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS, arrived at Auschwitz, the concentration camp in eastern Poland, in time to watch the arrival of more than 2,000 Dutch Jews and the gassing of almost 500 of them, mostly the elderly, sick, and very young. The next day, Himmler promoted the camp commandant, Rudolph Hoess, to SS major and ordered that the Warsaw ghetto, (the Jewish quarter constructed by the Nazis upon the occupation of Poland, enclosed first by barbed wire and then by brick walls), be depopulated-a “total cleansing,” as he described it and the inhabitants transported to what was to become a second extermination camp constructed at the railway village of Treblinka, 62 miles northeast of Warsaw.

Within the first seven weeks of Himmler’s order, more than 250,000 Jews were taken to Treblinka by rail and gassed to death, marking the largest single act of destruction of any population group, Jewish or non-Jewish, civilian or military, in the war. Upon arrival at “T. II,” as this second camp at Treblinka was called, prisoners were separated by sex, stripped, and marched into what were described as “bathhouses,” but were in fact gas chambers. T.II’s first commandant was Dr. Irmfried Eberl, age 32, the man who had headed up the euthanasia program of 1940 and had much experience with the gassing of victims, especially children. He compelled several hundred Ukrainian and about 1,500 Jewish prisoners to assist him. They removed gold teeth from victims before hauling the bodies to mass graves. Eberl was relieved of his duties for “inefficiency.” It seems that he and his workers could not remove the corpses quickly enough, and panic was occurring within the railway cars of newly arrived prisoners.

By the end of the war, between 700,000 and 900,000 would die at either Treblinka I or II. Hoess was tried and sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal. He was hanged in 1947. [1]

1943 - American forces led by Gen. George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily.

[1] “Deportations from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka begin,” History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6527 (accessed Jul 22, 2009).

World War II History for June 17

17 June 1940 - British troops evacuated France in Operation Ariel (aka Operation Aerial).

17 June 1940 - The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

17 June 1940 - France asked Germany for terms of surrender in World War II.

17 June 1943 - Norwegian tanker Ferncastle sunk by German raider HKS Michel off Western Australia.

Fremantle, West Australia. Aerial port side view of the Norwegian tanker Ferncastle, which was sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser HSK Michel 1800 miles west north west of Perth on 1943-06-17. Note the 4 inch gun mounted aft.

Audio Clip: BBC Giles Fairplay reports on the Last Days of Singapore – 15 June 1942

World War II History for June 15

15 June 1940 - The French fortress of Verdun was captured by Germans.

15 June 1942- On the carrier IJN Zuikaku Captain Yokokawa was relieved by Captain Tameteru Notomo.

IJN Zuikaku 1941

IJN Zuikaku in the Battle of the Philippine Sea 1944

15 June 1943 - Paul Blobel, an SS colonel, was given the assignment of destroying the evidence of the systematic extermination of European Jews.

15 June 1944 - American forces began their successful invasion of Saipan during World War II. U.S. 2nd and 4th Marine land on Saipan against heavy resistance.

Audio Clip: Working up to D-Day we bring you a clip from the BBC with Resistance Messages – 05 Jun 1944

World War II History for June 1

1 JUN 1942 - News of death camp killings became public for first time. The report came from the Polish Socialist newspaper known as Liberty Brigade. The paper stated that tens of thousands of Jews had been gassed at the death camp Chelmno.

1 JUN 1943 - During World War II, Germans shot down a civilian flight from Lisbon to London.

On June 1, 1943 actor Leslie Howard, on a BOAC flight from England to Portugal, was killed when Nazi war planes shot his plane out of the sky over the Bay of Biscay killing all aboard. Enlisted by the British government, Howard, who will forever be known as Ashley Wilkes in the movie Gone With the Wind, had been evangelizing the Allied cause to Portuguese and Spanish audiences. Rumors persist that the Germans believed Winston Churchill on board and so attacked the pane. Evidence points to the contrary, and that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ordered the attack thinking Howard was a dangerous propagandist and a threat to the German Reich. Read about the monument being erected in Spain. View a clip from Gone with the Wind. [1]

Actor Leslie Howard

1 JUN 1944 - The French resistance was warned by a coded message from the British that the D-Day invasion was imminent.

[1] Farewell Ashley, Victory Theater: Hollywood And World War II http://hollywoodatwar.blogspot.com/2009/05/farewell-ashley.html

Audio Clips: Today we bring you a double-play!

Clip #1: is an NBC broadcast by Walter Winchell from 5/18/41
Clip #2: is a BBC broadcast marking the fall of Monte Cassino to the allies.

World War II History for May 18

18 May 1942 - New York ended night baseball games for the duration of World War II.

18 May 1943 - Hitler gives the order for Operation Alaric

On this day in 1943, Adolf Hitler launches Operation Alaric, the German occupation of Italy in the event its Axis partner either surrendered or switched its allegiance.

This operation was considered so top secret that Hitler refused to issue a written order. Instead, he communicated verbally his desire that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel should assemble and ultimately command 11 divisions for the occupation of Italy to prevent an Allied foothold in the peninsula.[1]

18 May 1944 - Monte Cassino, Europe’s oldest Monastic house, was finally captured by the Allies in Italy.

On this day in 1944, the Polish Corps, part of a multinational Allied Eighth Army offensive in southern Italy, finally pushes into Monte Cassino as the battle to break German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s defensive Gustav Line nears its end.

The Allied push northward to Rome began in January with the landing of 50,000 seaborne troops at Anzio, 33 miles south of the Italian capital. Despite having met very little resistance, the Allies chose to consolidate their position rather than immediately battle north to Rome. Consequently, German forces under the command of Field Marshal Kesselring were able to create a defensive line that cut across the center of the peninsula. General Wladyslaw Anders, leader of the Polish troops who would raise their flag over the ruins of the famous Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, commenting on the cost of the battle, said, “Corpses of German and Polish soldiers, sometimes entangled in a deathly embrace, lay everywhere, and the air was full of the stench of rotting bodies.”[1]

[1] “Hitler gives the order for Operation Alaric,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6457 (accessed May 18, 2009).

World War II History for May 14

14 May 1940 - The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany.

14 May 1941 - The Nazis declared the Red Sea a war zone.

14 May 1942 - The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

14 May 1942 - The British, while retreating from Burma, reached India.

14 May 1943 - United States and Britain plan Operation Pointblank

U.S. and Great Britain chiefs of staff, meeting in Washington, D.C., approve and plot out Operation Pointblank, a joint bombing offensive to be mounted from British airbases.

Operation Pointblank’s aim was grandiose and comprehensive: “The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people.” It was also intended to set up “final combined operations on the continent.” In other words, it was intended to set the stage for one fatal blow that would bring Germany to its knees.

The immediate targets of Operation Pointblank were to be submarine construction yards and bases, aircraft factories, ball bearing factories, rubber and tire factories, oil production and storage plants, and military transport-vehicle factories and stores. Ironically, the very day planning for Pointblank began in Washington, the Germans shot down 74 British four-engine bombers as the Brits struck a munitions factory near Pilsen. Joseph Goebbels, writing in his diary, recorded that the biggest setback about the British raid on the factory was that the drafting room was destroyed. [1]

[1] “United States and Britain plan Operation Pointblank,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6453 (accessed May 14, 2009).

Audio Clip: BBC – Surrender of German forces in North Africa 13 May 1943

World War II History for May 12

12 May 1940 - The Nazi conquest of France began with the German army crossing Muese River.

12 May 1942 - The Soviet Army launched its first major offensive of World War II and took Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine from the German army.

12 May 1943 - The Axis forces in North Africa surrendered during World War II.

Audio Clip: CBS World News Today on 28 March 1943.

World War II History for March 27

**Don’t miss our Contest for a brand new copy of World War II 365 Days!**

1933 - About 55,000 people staged a protest against Hitler in New York City.

1941 - Tokeo Yoshikawa arrived in Oahu, HI, and began spying for Japan on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

1942 - The British raided the Nazi submarine base at St. Nazaire, France.

1943 - North Pacific Battle of the Komandorski Islands. It was the last US Naval battle without air cover. Outcome: a wash. [1]

1944 - One-thousand Jews left Drancy, France, for the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1944 - Thousands of Jews were murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania.

[1] http://hollywoodatwar.blogspot.com/

World War II History for March 18

Audio Clip: Today we have a short clip from the BBC from D-Day (June 6, 1944)

18 Mar 1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini held a meeting at the Brenner Pass. The Italian dictator agreed to join in Germany’s war against France and Britain during the meeting.

18 Mar 1942 - The third military draft began in the U.S. because of World War II.

18 Mar 1942 - War Relocation Authority is established in United States

On this day, the War Relocation Authority is created to “Take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war.”

Anger toward and fear of Japanese Americans began in Hawaii shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; everyone of Japanese ancestry, old and young, prosperous and poor, was suspected of espionage. This suspicion quickly broke out on the mainland; as early as February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that German, Italian, and Japanese nationals-as well as Japanese Americans-be barred from certain areas deemed sensitive militarily. California, which had a significant number of Japanese and Japanese Americans, saw a particularly virulent form of anti-Japanese sentiment, with the state’s attorney general, Earl Warren (who would go on to be the chief justice of the United States), claiming that a lack of evidence of sabotage among the Japanese population proved nothing, as they were merely biding their time.

While roughly 2,000 people of German and Italian ancestry were interned during this period, Americans of Japanese ancestry suffered most egregiously. The War Relocation Authority, established on March 18, 1942, was aimed at them specifically: 120,000 men, women, and children were rounded up on the West Coast. Three categories of internees were created: Nisei (native U.S. citizens of Japanese immigrant parents), Issei (Japanese immigrants), and Kibei (native U.S. citizens educated largely in Japan). The internees were transported to one of 10 relocation centers in California, Utah, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming.

The quality of life in a relocation center was only marginally better than prison: Families were sardined into 20- by 25-foot rooms and forced to use communal bathrooms. No razors, scissors, or radios were allowed. Children attended War Relocation Authority schools.

One Japanese American, Gordon Hirabayashi, fought internment all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that the Army, responsible for effecting the relocations, had violated his rights as a U.S. citizen. The court ruled against him, citing the nation’s right to protect itself against sabotage and invasion as sufficient justification for curtailing his and other Japanese Americans’ constitutional rights.

In 1943, Japanese Americans who had not been interned were finally allowed to join the U.S. military and fight in the war. More than 17,000 Japanese Americans fought; the all-Nisei 442nd Regiment, which fought in the Italian campaign, became the single most decorated unit in U.S. history. The regiment won 4,667 medals, awards, and citations, including 1 Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 560 Silver Stars. Many of these soldiers, when writing home, were writing to relocation centers.

In 1990, reparations were made to surviving internees and their heirs in the form of a formal apology by the U.S. government and a check for $20,000. [1]

18 Mar 1943 - The Reich called off its offensive in Caucasus.

18 Mar 1943 - American forces took Gafsa in Tunisia.

18 Mar 1944 - The Russians reached the Rumanian border in the Balkans during World War II.

18 Mar 1945 - 1,250 U.S. bombers attacked Berlin.

[1] “War Relocation Authority is established in United States,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6746 (accessed Mar 18, 2009).

World War II History for February 20

20 Feb 1942 - Pilot O’Hare becomes first American WWII flying ace

On this day, Lt. Edward O’Hare takes off from the aircraft carrier Lexington in a raid against the Japanese position at Rabaul-and minutes later becomes America’s first flying ace.

In mid-February 1942, the Lexington sailed into the Coral Sea. Rabaul, a town at the very tip of New Britain, one of the islands that comprised the Bismarck Archipelago, had been invaded in January by the Japanese and transformed into a stronghold–in fact, one huge airbase. The Japanese were now in prime striking position for the Solomon Islands, next on the agenda for expanding their ever-growing Pacific empire. The Lexington’s mission was to destabilize the Japanese position on Rabaul with a bombing raid.

Aboard the Lexington was U.S. Navy fighter pilot Lt. Edward O’Hare, attached to Fighting Squadron 3 when the United States entered the war. As the Lexington left Bougainville, the largest of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (and still free from Japanese control), for Rabaul, ship radar picked up Japanese bombers headed straight for the carrier. O’Hare and his team went into action, piloting F4F Wildcats. In a mere four minutes, O’Hare shot down five Japanese G4M1 Betty bombers–bringing a swift end to the Japanese attack and earning O’Hare the designation “ace” (given to any pilot who had five or more downed enemy planes to his credit).

Although the Lexington blew back the Japanese bombers, the element of surprise was gone, and the attempt to raid Rabaul was aborted for the time being. O’Hare was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery–and excellent aim. [1]

20 Feb 1943 - German General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps broke through the Allied defensive line at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, North Africa. It was the site of the first major battle defeat of the war for the United States.

20 Feb 1944 - “Big Week” began as U.S. bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers during World War II.

[1] “Pilot O’Hare becomes first American WWII flying ace,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6718 (accessed Feb 20, 2009).

World War II History for February 11

11 Feb 1940 - The Red Army launches assault on Karelian front.

Intense fighting developed on the Karelian front as the Red Army launched what was to become the decisive assault on the Mannerheim line. About 140,000 Russians attached on a 12-mile front, a massive concentration of seven men each yard.[2]

[More] Soviet Karelia: Stalin’s Northern Colony, 1920-1939 (BASEES/Curzon Series on Russian & East European Studies)

11 Feb 1941 - Five merchant ships in a British convoy off the Azores were sunk by Luftwaffe bombers.[3]

11 Feb 1942 - The “Channel Dash”

On this day, the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, as well as the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, escape from the French port of Brest and make a mad dash up the English Channel to safety in German waters.

The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst had been anchored at Brest since March 1941. The Prinz Eugen had been tied to the French port since the Bismarck sortie in May 1941, when it and the battleship Bismarck made their own mad dash through the Atlantic and the Denmark Strait to elude Royal Navy gunfire. All three were subject to periodic bombing raids–and damage–by the British, as the Brits attempted to ensure that the German warships never left the French coast. But despite the careful watch of British subs and aircraft, German Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax launched Operation Cerberus to lead the ships out of the French port.

The Germans, who had controlled and occupied France since June 1940, drew British fire deliberately, and the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Prinz Eugen used the resulting skirmish as a defensive smoke screen. Six German destroyers and 21 torpedo boats accompanied the ships for protection as they moved north late on the night of February 11.

Prinz Eugen – German Heavy Cruiser

In the morning, German planes provided air cover as well; ace pilot Adolf Galland led 250 other fighters in an unusually well coordinated joint effort of the German navy and Luftwaffe. The British Royal Air Force also coordinated its attack with the Royal Navy Swordfish squadron, but a late start–the RAF did not realize until the afternoon of February 12 that the German squadron had pushed out to sea–and bad weather hindered their effort. All three German warships made it to a German port on February 13, although the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst had been damaged by British mines along the way.

The British lost 40 aircraft and six Navy Swordfish in the confrontation, while the Germans lost a torpedo boat and 17 aircraft. The “Channel Dash,” as it came to be called, was extremely embarrassing to the British, as it happened right under their noses. They would get revenge of a sort, though: British warships sunk the Scharnhorst in December 1944 as the German ship attempted to attack a Russian convoy. The Gneisenau was destroyed in a bombing raid while still in port undergoing repairs, and the Prinz Eugen survived the war, but was taken over by the U.S. Navy at war’s end.[1]

11 Feb 1943 - General Dwight David Eisenhower was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

11 Feb 1945 - During World War II, the Yalta Agreement was signed by U.S. President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

Yalta Conference

Yalta - Color

[1]“The “Channel Dash”,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6709 (accessed Feb 11, 2009).

[2-3] 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 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.

1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, Pearl Harbor, Ambassador, Japan, Singapore, Submarine, Seawolf, Soviet, Germany

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.

1936, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, Germany, bombers, Mussolini, Hitler, Russia, Stalingrad, Roosevelt, Japanese, Budapest

United Artists latest feature film, VALKYRIE, starring Tom Cruise, is a vivid drama based on a true story. This film gives an up close and personal view of the conspiracy to assassinate one of history’s most evil dictators, Adolf Hitler.

Known for his intense action films like Top Gun and the Mission Impossible trilogy, Tom Cruise brings his intensity to Valkyrie as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Wounded in North Africa in May 1943 during World War II, von Stauffenberg returns to Germany a crippled man with a changed view of the war and of the German Nazi leadership.

Approached by a group of conspirators against Hitler and his regime, von Stauffenberg is called upon to use his status as a war hero to get close to Hitler and facilitate the assassination. The short action sequences help to drive home the impact of the task they are undertaking. The plot becomes so complex it includes overthrowing the state police (SS) and hijacking the Berlin reserve army forces all at the same time the explosive goes off, presumably killing Hitler on 20 July 1944. The complexity of the plan is well played out in the film as are the interpersonal relationships. The conspirators in the German Resistance know their actions mean certain death if they are caught, but are resolved to make that sacrifice to stop the atrocities being committed.

The film itself is shot very up-close and personal with the actors. Most of the film is focused to within 3ft which helps to bring out the personal intensity, but also hinders the scenes surroundings. This detracts somewhat from allowing the audience to feel included in the film. The scenes were well played, but l would have liked to see a more developed background to the plot. The movie assumes the audience already knows a decent amount of the historical background, but it should have been included for future generations. I feel that omission is what detracts mainly from this film being of great historical value.

Overall I found this film to be a great portrayal of real events and for the most part historically accurate. The alliteration to Valkyrie in 3 different ways (the definition of Odin’s handmaidens who conducted the souls of the slain “Hitler” to Valhalla, Hitler’s Operation Valkyrie, and Richard Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries musical score), was woven nicely to help cement the title. From the start Valkyrie well shows the indoctrination the German military was subjected to, focused on winning their loyalty for one man, not for the German people as a whole. Alternately, it certainly helped to recover the sacrifices made by the German Resistance during World War II to fight against tyranny, which many people over look today. This film is an example of their voice saying “We are all not like him.”

View the trailer and featurette on our Valkyrie review page.

1943, 1944, Stauffenberg, Tom Cruise, Valkyrie, Movie, film, United Artists, Review, Media

Christmas Day
On the afternoon of Christmas Day the State Agent and all the State servants and our own servants presented us with the customary Christmas gifts or ‘dollis’.

The Scene was very like the feast in Chu Chin Chow. At least twelve magnificent trays were carried in filled with every form of fruit and flower, and nuts and fish, including one fierce looking 40lb fish.

Two live turkeys were also carried in. One of them immediately made a mess on the carpet, so we put them on to the marble floor, which successfully anchored them, as they were too frightened that they would skid if they moved. Meanwhile consternation reigned while sufficiently low-caste sweeper was sought who could remove the mess. Lady Linlithgow told me that when she first arrived out here at the Viceroy’s House she had a pet dog that made a mess in her boudoir. Although they had 270 servants it took so long to find a man of sufficiently low caste to be able to clean up the mess that she had done so herself before they found him.

Taken from:
Mountbatten, The Lord Louis. Personal Diary of Admiral The Lord Louis Mountbatten. Edited by Philip Ziegler. London: Collins, 1988.

1939 - The Soviet Union attacked Finland.

the Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation.

The overwhelming forces arrayed against Finland convinced most Western nations, as well as the Soviets themselves, that the invasion of Finland would be a cakewalk. The Soviet soldiers even wore summer uniforms, despite the onset of the Scandinavian winter; it was simply assumed that no outdoor activity, such as fighting, would be taking place. But the Helsinki raid had produced many casualties-and many photographs, including those of mothers holding dead babies, and preteen girls crippled by the bombing. Those photos were hung up everywhere to spur on Finn resistance. Although that resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers-on skis and bicycles!–fighting it out in the forests, and partisans throwing Molotov cocktails into the turrets of Soviet tanks, the refusal to submit made headlines around the world.

President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup, and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. By March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland soon lost the Karelian Isthmus, the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad, which the Soviets wanted to control.

USSR attacks Finland. (2008). The History Channel website. Retrieved 05:10, Nov 30, 2008, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6396.

1943 - At the Teheran Conference, an agreement was reached on Operation Overlord by U.S. President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. The operation was the Anglo-American invasion across the English Channel.

From left to right: Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill on the portico of the Russian Embassy during the Tehran Conference.

1939, 1943, Soviet Union, Russia, Finland, Helsinki, Teheran, Conference, Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill

World War II History for November 23

1940 - Romania becomes an Axis “power”

On this day in 1940, Romania signs the Tripartite Pact, officially allying itself with Germany, Italy, and Japan.

As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany’s, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania’s king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later because of a failing economy and installed Romania’s Orthodox Patriarch as prime minister. But the Patriarch’s death and peasant uprising provoked renewed agitation by the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization, which sought to impose order. In June 1940, the Soviet Union co-opted two Romanian provinces, and the king searched for an ally to help protect it and appease the far right within its own borders. So on July 5, 1940, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany-only to be invaded by its “ally” as part of Hitler’s strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union.

King Carol abdicated on September 6, 1940, leaving the country in the control of fascist Prime Minister Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. Signing the Tripartite Pact was now inevitable. Originally formulated in Berlin on September 27, the pact formally recognized an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, termed the “Axis.” As more European nations became subject to fascist domination and invasion, they too were drawn into the pact, albeit as unequal partners (Hungary was made an Axis “power” on November 20). Now it was Romania’s turn.

While Romania would recapture the territory lost to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded Russia, it would also have to endure the Germans’ raping its resources as part of the Nazi war effort. Besides taking control of Romania’s oil wells and installations, Hitler would help himself to Romania’s food crops, causing a food shortage for native Romanians.

1943 - During World War II, U.S. forces seized control of Tarawa and Makin from the Japanese during the Central Pacific offensive in the Gilbert Islands.

1945 - The U.S. wartime rationing of most foods ended.

1940, 1943, 1945, Romania, Tripartite, Rationing, Tarawa, Makin, Gilbert Islands

World War II History for November 20

1943 - During World War II, U.S. Marines began their landing on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands.

1945 - 24 Nazi leaders went before a international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

The Nuremberg Trials, which took place in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949, were a series of trials prosecuting Nazi officials for their participation in WWII and the Holocaust. The first and most famous of these trials, the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, involved 24 of the most important leaders of Nazi Germany, 12 of whom were sentenced to death for crimes against humanity and other offenses.

Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II.

The Nuremberg Trials were conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain. It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the proceedings, which lasted 10 months and consisted of 216 court sessions.

On October 1, 1946, 12 architects of Nazi policy were sentenced to death. Seven others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life, and three were acquitted. Of the original 24 defendants, one, Robert Ley, committed suicide while in prison, and another, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, was deemed mentally and physically incompetent to stand trial. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, leader of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe; Alfred Jodl, head of the German armed forces staff; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior.

On October 16, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged. Goering, who at sentencing was called the “leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews,” committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia (but is now believed to have died in May 1945). Trials of lesser German and Axis war criminals continued in Germany into the 1950s and resulted in the conviction of 5,025 other defendants and the execution of 806.

1943, 1945, Nuremberg, Nazi, Tribunal, Germany, Holocaust, Tawara, Makin, Gilbert, Marines

World War II History for October 19

1943 - The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers began in Russia during World War II. Delegates from the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, the U.S., and China met to discuss war aims and cooperation between the nations.

1943 - Chinese and Suluks revolt against Japanese in North Borneo

In 1943, local Chinese and native Suluks rise up against the Japanese occupation of North Borneo. The revolt, staged in the capital, Jesselton, resulted in the deaths of 40 Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese had begun scooping up islands in the Dutch East Indies in late 1941. Kuching, on the northern coast of Borneo, was taken in December; January of ’42 saw the fall of Brunei Bay and Jesselton, also in North Borneo. The British and Dutch forces on the islands were dealt swift and severe blows. Attempts by the Allies to hold on to other islands in the region–Malaya, Sumatra, and Java–began shortly thereafter, with British General Archibald Wavell commanding a unified force of British, Dutch, and Australian soldiers. It was a disastrous failure.

The treatment of Allied and civilian prisoners in the Japanese-controlled islands was horrendous, with hundreds dying of disease and starvation. The rebellion of Chinese settlers and native Suluks in the Borneo capital of Jesselton, although delivering a blow to the Japanese to the tune of 40 dead occupying soldiers, was dealt with quickly and brutally. The Japanese destroyed dozens of Suluk villages, rounded up and tortured thousands of civilians, and executed almost 200 without trial. In one extreme example of cruelty, several dozen Suluk women and children had their hands tied behind them and were hanged from their wrists from a pillar of a mosque. They were then shot down by machine-gun fire.

North Borneo would not be liberated until 1945, mostly the work of Australian forces. The next year, it would be made a colony of Britain. That region of Borneo controlled by the Dutch was given sovereignty in 1949 after a rebellion by Indonesian forces.

1951 - U.S. President Truman singed an act officially ending the state of war with Germany.

World War II History for October 13

1943 - During World War II, Italy signed an armistice with the Allies and declared war on Germany.

1944 - American troops entered Aachen, Germany, during World War II.

1944 - During World War II, British and Greek advance units landed at Piraeus.

1943, 1944, Aachen, Germany, Piraeus, Italy, Armistice, Allies

World War II History for October 8

1941 - Germany captured Mariupol.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union begins a new stage with Hitler’s forces capturing Mariupol. The Axis power reached the Sea of Azov.

Despite the fact that Germany and Russia had signed a “pact” in 1939, each guaranteeing the other a specific region of influence without interference from the other, suspicion remained high. Despite warnings from his advisers that Germany could not fight the war on two fronts (as Germany’s experience in World War I proved), Hitler became convinced that England was holding out against repeated German air assaults, refusing to surrender, because it had struck a secret deal with Russia. Fearing he would be “strangled” from the East and the West, he created, in December 1940, “Directive No. 21: Case Barbarossa”–the plan to invade and occupy the very nation he had actually asked to join the Axis only a month before. On June 22, 1941, after having postponed the invasion of Russia when Italy’s attack on Greece forced Hitler to bail out his struggling ally in order to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, three German army groups struck Russia hard by surprise. The Russian army was larger than German intelligence had anticipated, but they were demobilized. Stalin had shrugged off warnings from his own advisers, even Winston Churchill himself, that a German attack was imminent. By the end of the first day of the invasion, the German air force had destroyed more than 1,000 Soviet aircraft. And despite the toughness of the Russian troops, and the number of tanks and other armaments at their disposal, the Red Army was disorganized, enabling the Germans to penetrate up to 300 miles into Russian territory within the next few days.

Hitler’s battle for Stalingrad and Moscow still lay ahead, but the capture of Mariupol, at the sea’s edge, signaled the beginning of the end of Russia-as least as far as Hitler’s propaganda machine was concerned. “Soviet Russia has been vanquished!” Otto Dietrich, Hitler’s press chief, announced to foreign journalists the very next day.

1943 - Civil war erupts in Greece when the country’s pro- and anti-Communist factions face off.

1941, 1943, Germany, Soviet Union, Mariupol, Greece

World War II History for October 7

1940 - German troops entered Romania. Hitler’s plan was to have a single easter front against the Soviet Union. Romania had allied itself with Nazi Germany on July 5, 1940.

As early as 1937, Romania had come under the control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany’s, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania’s king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later because of a failing economy and installed Romania’s Orthodox Patriarch as prime minister. But the Patriarch’s death and a peasant uprising provoked renewed agitation by the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization, which sought to impose order. In June 1940, the Soviet Union co-opted two Romanian provinces, and the king searched for an ally to help protect it and appease the far right within its own borders. So on July 5, 1940, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany-only to be invaded by its “ally” as part of Hitler’s strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union.

King Carol abdicated on September 6, 1940, leaving the country in the control of fascist Prime Minister Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. While Romania would recapture the territory lost to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded Russia, it would also have to endure the Germans’ raping its resources as part of the Nazi war effort. Nevertheless, with German troops now occupying his nation, Antonescu would go on to sign the Tripartite (Axis) Pact in November, tying Romania to the military machinations of not only Germany, but Italy and Japan as well.

1943 - Japanese Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of 96 American POWs on Wake Island. The claim was the that POWs were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces.

In late December 1941, the Japanese reinforced existing forces on Wake Island, part of a coral atoll west of Hawaii, in massive numbers after being unable to wrest the island from a small number of Americans troops earlier in the month. The Japanese strength was now overwhelming, and most of those Americans left alive after the battle were taken by the Japanese off the island to POW camps elsewhere. Ninety-six remained behind to be used as forced labor. The Allied response was periodic bombing of the island–but no more land invasions, as part of a larger Allied strategy to leave certain Japanese-occupied islands in the South Pacific to basically starve in isolation.

The execution of those remaining American POWs, who were blindfolded and shot in cold blood, remains one of the more brutal episodes of the war in the Pacific.

1944 - A group of Sonderkommandos, captive Jews whose lives are pro­longed while they assist the Nazis with gas chamber and crematorium operations, attacks SS guards at Auschwitz.

Though the revolt is quickly and violently quelled, they do kill several SS men and destroy their barracks, as well as Crematorium IV.

1940, 1943, 1944, Wake, Auschwitz, Romania

World War II History for October 4

1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met in the Alps at Brenner Pass. Hitler was seeking help from Italy to fight the British.

1943 - Heinrich Himmler encourages his SS group leaders

On this day in 1943, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, addresses the squad leaders of his Nazi secret police, attempting to fill them with pride for the work they’ve accomplished-the murder of more than 1 million Jews in German-occupied Russia during a one-and-a-half-year period. “Most of you know what it means to see a hundred corpses lying together, five hundred, or a thousand,” claimed Himmler. “To have stuck it out and at the same time…to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and shall never be written.”

It was Himmler who oversaw the establishment of the Auschwitz concentration camp cluster, as well as the Warsaw ghetto massacre. The organizing of some prisoners for slave labor and the inflicting of gruesome medical experimentation on others can also be attributed to him. Consequently, it is little wonder that he could so blithely say, “Whether or not 10,000 Russian women collapse from exhaustion while digging a tank ditch interests me only in so far as the tank ditch is completed for Germany.”

1944 - Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower distributed to his combat units a report by the U.S. Surgeon General that revealed the hazards of prolonged exposure to combat (“shell shock”).

“[T]he danger of being killed or maimed imposes a strain so great that it causes men to break down. One look at the shrunken, apathetic faces of psychiatric patients…sobbing, trembling, referring shudderingly to ‘them shells’ and to buddies mutilated or dead, is enough to convince most observers of this fact.”

On the basis of this evaluation, as well as firsthand experience, American commanders judged that the average soldier could last about 200 days in combat before suffering serious psychiatric damage. British commanders used a rotation method, pulling soldiers out of combat every 12 days for a four-day rest period. This enabled British soldiers to put in 400 days of combat before being deleteriously affected. The Surgeon General’s report went on to lament the fact that a “wound or injury is regarded, not as a misfortune, but a blessing.” The war was clearly taking a toll on more than just men’s bodies.

1940, 1943, 1944, Shell Shock, Eisenhower, Himmler, SS, Hitler, Mussolini, Alps

World War II History for October 1

1938 - German forces enter Czechoslovakia and seized control of the Sudetenland. The Munich Pact had been signed two days before.

1943 - Naples was captured by the Allied forces during World War II.

1944 - Experiments begin on homosexuals at Buchenwald

On this day in 1944, the first of two sets of medical experiments involving castration are performed on homosexuals at the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany.

Buchenwald was one of the first concentration camps established by the Nazi regime. Constructed in 1937, it was a complement to camps north (Sachsenhausen) and south (Dachau), and was built to hold slave laborers, who worked in local munitions factories 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts. Although not technically a death camp, in that it had no gas chambers, nevertheless hundreds of prisoners died monthly, from malnutrition, beatings, disease, and executions.

The camp boasted a sophisticated-sounding facility on its grounds called the Division for Typhus and Virus Research of the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS. In truth, it was a chamber of horrors where medical experiments of the cruelest kind were carried out on prisoners against their will. Victims were often intentionally infused with various infections to test out vaccines. Euthanasia was also performed regularly on Jews, Gypsies, and mentally ill prisoners.

Among the cruelest of Buchenwald’s overseers was the infamous Ilsa Koch, wife of SS commandant Karl Koch and known as the “Witch of Buchenwald.” Among her fetishistic tendencies was her penchant for lampshades, gloves, and other items made from the tattooed skin of dead inmates. She also had a reputation for forcing prisoners to participate in orgies. She was ultimately sentenced to life in prison for her sadism, but she hanged herself after 16 years behind bars.

Buchenwald was liberated by the Allies on April 11, 1945, one day before the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. It was later used by the Soviet Union as a concentration camp for the enemies of East Germany.

1946 - The International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg sentenced 12 Nazi officials to death, 7 others were sentenced to prison terms and 3 were acquitted. The trial began on November 21, 1945.

1938, 1943, 1944, 1946, Czechoslovakia, Naples, Experiments, Nuremberg

World War II History for September 29

1939 - Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide control of occupied Poland. The Germans took the west side of the Bug River and the Soviets took the everything to the east.

1943 - Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was published in the U.S.

Technorati Tags: Polan, Germany, USSR, Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1939, 1943

World War II History for September 22

1941 - A Ukrainian militia squad does the Nazis’ dirty work, murdering 28,000 Soviet Jews near the town of Vinnitsa.

1943 - British submarine troops sabotage the Tirpitz, Nazi Germany’s preeminent battleship, as it sits in port at Norway’s Altenfjord.

Recognizing that a two-front war is straining the Reich’s resources, Joseph Goebbels suggests that Adolf Hitler agree to a separate peace with the Soviet Union, but Hitler declines.

1944 - Patton’s Third Army is halted as supply lines are stretched to the breaking point.

1945 - General George S. Patton told reporters that he did not see the need for “this denazification thing.” He compared the controversy over Nazism to a “Democrat and Republican election fight.”

Once again, “Old Blood and Guts” had put his foot in his mouth.

Descended from a long line of military men, Patton graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1909 and served in the Tank Corps during World War I. As a result of this experience, Patton became a dedicated proponent of tank warfare. During World War II, as commander of the U.S. 7th Army, he captured Palermo, Sicily, in 1943 by just such means. Patton’s audacity made itself evident in 1944, when, as commander of the 3rd Army, he overran much of northern France in an unorthodox–and ruthless–strategy.

Along the way, Patton’s mouth proved as dangerous to his career as the Germans. When he berated and slapped a hospitalized soldier diagnosed with shell shock, but whom Patton accused of “malingering,” the press turned on him, and pressure was applied to cut him down to size. He might have found himself enjoying early retirement had not Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall intervened on his behalf. After several months of inactivity, he was put back to work.

And work he did–at the Battle of the Bulge, during which Patton once again succeeded in employing a complex and quick-witted strategy, turning the German thrust in Bastogne into an Allied counterthrust, driving the Germans east across the Rhine. In March 1945, Patton’s army swept through southern Germany into Czechoslovakia–which he was stopped by the Allies from capturing, out of respect for the Soviets’ postwar political plans for Eastern Europe.

Patton had many gifts, but diplomacy was not one of them. After the war, while stationed in Germany, he criticized the process of denazification, or the removal of former Nazi party members from positions of political, administrative, and governmental power, probably out of naivete more than anything else. Nevertheless, his impolitic press statements questioning the policy resulted in Eisenhower’s removing him as U.S. commander in Bavaria. He was transferred to the 15th Army Group, but in December 1945 he suffered a broken neck in a car accident and died less than two weeks later at the age of 60.

Tirpitz, Patton, General, Third Army, Politics, Norway, Ukraine, Eisenhower, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1945

World War II History for September 20

1943 - Operation Source began when British submarines attempted to sink the German battleship Tirpitz as it sat in Norwegian waters. The six submarines involved did enough damage to cripple the battleship for 6 months.

The Tirpitz was the second largest battleship in the German fleet (after the Bismarck) and a threat to Allied vessel movement through Arctic waters.

In January 1942, Hitler ordered the Germany navy to base the Tirpitz in Norway in order to attack Soviet convoys transporting supplies from Iceland to the U.S.S.R. The Tirpitz also prevented British naval forces from making their way to the Pacific. Winston Churchill summed up the situation this way: “The destruction or even crippling of this ship is the greatest event at the present time…. The whole strategy of the war turns at this period on this ship….”

Attacks had already been made against the Tirpitz. RAF raids were against it in January 1942 failed to hit it. Another raid was made in March; dozens of RAF bombers sought out the Tirpitz, which had been reinforced with cruisers, pocket battleships, and destroyers. All of the British bombers, once again, missed their target.

Sporadic attacks continued to be made against the German battleship, including an attempt in October 1942 to literally drive a two-man craft up to the ship and plant explosives on the Tirpitz‘s hull. This too failed because of brutal water conditions and an alert German defense. In 1943, the battleship Scharnhorst joined the Tirpitz, creating a threat to Allied shipping that caused all convoys to the Soviet Union to be temporarily halted. Finally, in September, six midget British subs set out to take the Tirpitz down for good. The midgets had to be towed to Norway by conventional subs. Only three of the six midgets made it to their target. This time, they were successful in attaching explosives to the Tirpitz‘s keel-and did enough damage to put it out of action for six months. Two British commanders and four crewmen were taken captive by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as POWs.

Ironically, the mighty Tirpitz fired its guns only once in aggression during the entire war-against a British coaling station on the island of Spitsbergen.

1946 - The first Cannes Film Festival premiered. The original premier was delayed in 1939 due to World War II.

Tirpitz, battleship, Operation Source, Cannes, Film, 1946, 1943

World War II History for September 12

1938 - In a speech, Adolf Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.

1942 - The Laconia is sunk

On this day in 1942, a German U-boat sinks a British troop ship, the Laconia, killing more than 1,400 men. The commander of the German sub, Capt. Werner Hartenstein, realizing that Italians POWs were among the passengers, strove to aid in their rescue.

The Laconia, a former Cunard White Star ship put to use to transport troops, including prisoners of war, was in the South Atlantic bound for England when it encountered U-156, a German sub. The sub attacked, sinking the troop ship and imperiling the lives of more than 2,200 passengers. But as Hartenstein, the sub commander, was to learn from survivors he began taking onboard, among those passengers were 1,500 Italians POWs. Realizing that he had just endangered the lives of so many of his fellow Axis members, he put out a call to an Italian submarine and two other German U-boats in the area to help rescue the survivors.

In the meantime, one French and two British warships sped to the scene to aid in the rescue. The German subs immediately informed the Allied ships that they had surfaced for humanitarian reasons. The Allies assumed it was a trap. Suddenly, an American B-24 bomber, the Liberator, flying from its South Atlantic base on Ascension Island, saw the German sub and bombed it-despite the fact that Hartenstein had draped a Red Cross flag prominently on the hull of the surfaced sub. The U-156, damaged by the air attack, immediately submerged. Admiral Karl Donitz, supreme commander of the German U-boat forces, had been monitoring the rescue efforts. He ordered that “all attempts to rescue the crews of sunken ships…cease forthwith.” Consequently, more than 1,400 of the Laconia’s passengers, which included Polish guards and British crewmen, drowned.

1943 - During World War II, Benito Mussolini was taken by German paratroopers from the Italian government that was holding him.

1944 - U.S. Army troops entered Germany, near Trier, for the first time during World War II.

1939, 1942, 1943, 1944, Mussolini, Hitler, Germany, Laconia

World War II History for September 9,

1941 - Iran surrenders to the Allies

Agreeing, among other things, Iran deports Axis spies posing as diplomatic and tourist staff. Iran will order the “diplomats” and others out on the 13th.

1942 - Japan dropped incendiaries over Oregon in an attempt to set fire to the forests in Oregon and Washington. The forest did not ignite.

A Japanese floatplane dropped incendiary bombs on an Oregon state forest-the first and only air attack on the U.S. mainland in the war.

Launching from the Japanese sub I-25, Nobuo Fujita piloted his light aircraft over the state of Oregon and firebombed Mount Emily, alighting a state forest–and ensuring his place in the history books as the only man to ever bomb the continental United States. The president immediately called for a news blackout for the sake of morale. No long-term damage was done, and Fujita eventually went home to train navy pilots for the rest of the war.

1943 - During World War II Allied forces landed at Taranto and Salerno.

Operation Avalanche, the Allied land invasion of Salerno, and Operation Slapstick, the British airborne invasion of Taranto, both in southern Italy, are launched.

The U.S. 5th Army under Lt. Gen. Mark Clark landed along the Salerno coastline while British Commando units and their American counterparts, the U.S. Rangers, landed on the peninsula itself. Salerno had been chosen as the first site for invasion of the peninsula because it was the northern-most point to which the Allies could fly planes from its bases in Sicily, which they had already invaded and occupied. Rockets launched from landing craft provided cover, and the beach landings went relatively smoothly. It wasn’t until two days later that the Germans, with some Italian troops coerced into service, mounted a heavy counterattack on the beachhead. But Clark called in the 82nd Airborne for support, and by the 15th, Salerno was in Allied hands.

Meanwhile, the British 1st Airborne Division, having successfully landed at Taranto, captured the airfield at Foggia.

World War II History for August 15

1940 - Air battles and daylight raids over Britain began.

1943 - Because of his special talent to use food scraps in both unusual and appetizing recipes, the U.S. War Department awarded Sgt. Edward Dzuba the Legion of Merit.

1944 - The Allied forces of World War II landed in southern France.

1945 - The Allies proclaimed V-J Day a day after Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally. Emperor Hirohito of Japan announces the news of his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II over a radio broadcast to the Japanese people.

Although Tokyo had already communicated to the Allies its acceptance of the surrender terms of the Potsdam Conference several days earlier, and a Japanese news service announcement had been made to that effect, the Japanese people were still waiting to hear an authoritative voice speak the unspeakable: that Japan had been defeated.

On the afternoon of August 14, a Japanese radio broadcaster told the public that Emperor Hirohito would soon make an Imperial Proclamation announcing the defeat. The following day at noon, Hirohito went on the radio himself, blaming Japan’s surrender on the enemies’ use of “a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which is incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.” The emperor was not only a political leader in Japan; he was also revered as a near-god, and many Japanese did not fully accept the news of defeat until they heard him speak those unthinkable words.

That voice was the emperor’s. In Japan’s Shinto religious tradition, the emperor was also divine; his voice was the voice of a god. And on August 15, that voice-heard over the radio airwaves for the very first time–confessed that Japan’s enemy “has begun to employ a most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.” This was the reason given for Japan’s surrender. Hirohito’s oral memoirs, published and translated after the war, evidence the emperor’s fear at the time that “the Japanese race will be destroyed if the war continues.”

As sadness and shame engulfed Japan, joy spread around the Western world. In the United States, news of Hirohito’s announcement reached airwaves on August 14 (due to the time difference), and that day was declared Victory in Japan–or V-J–Day. That afternoon, President Harry S. Truman addressed a crowd that had gathered outside the White House, saying “This is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor. This is the day when Fascism finally dies, as we always knew it would.” That day, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped one of the most famous photos ever published, a shot of a sailor in full uniform kissing a nurse in the middle of New York City’s Times Square. The photo, published by Life magazine, became a symbol of the general atmosphere of jubilation in the United States following the end of World War II.

A sticking point in the Japanese surrender terms had been Hirohito’s status as emperor. Tokyo wanted the emperor’s status protected; the Allies wanted no preconditions. There was a compromise. The emperor retained his title; Gen. Douglas MacArthur believed his at least ceremonial presence would be a stabilizing influence in postwar Japan. But Hirohito was forced to disclaim his divine status. Japan lost more than a war-it lost a god.

Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day) celebrates the surrender of Japan, the last Axis power to yield during WWII, and the subsequent end of the war. Though Japan’s surrender was announced on Aug 15, the terms were not signed until Sept 2. One of the most famous images depicting the joy of V-J Day was shot in Times Square, NY, when Alfred Eisenstaedt, photographing for Life magazine, captured the moment a sailor embraced a nurse and kissed her.

View the video history article at History.com Hirohito announces unconditional surrender

World War II History for August 11

1942 - During World War II, Pierre Laval publicly announced, “the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war.”

1943 - Germans begin to evacuate Sicily

On this day in 1943, German forces begin a six-day evacuation of the Italian island of Sicily, having been beaten back by the Allies, who invaded the island in July.

The Germans had maintained a presence in Sicily since the earliest days of the war. But with the arrival of Gen. George S. Patton and his 7th Army and Gen. Bernard Montgomery and his 8th Army,
the Germans could no longer hold their position. The race began for the Strait of Messina, the 2-mile wide body of water that separated Sicily from the Italian mainland.

The Germans needed to get out of Sicily and onto the Italian peninsula. While Patton had already reached his goal, Palermo, the Sicilian capital, on July 22 (to a hero’s welcome, as the Sicilian people were more than happy to see an end to fascist rule), Montgomery, determined to head off the Germans at Messina, didn’t make his goal in time. The German 29th Panzer-grenadier Division and the 14th Panzer Corps were brought over from Africa for the sole purpose of slowing the Allies’ progress and allowing the bulk of the German forces to get off the island. The delaying tactic succeeded. Despite the heavy bombing of railways leading to Messina, the Germans made it to the strait on August 11.

Over six days and seven nights, the Germans led 39,569 soldiers, 47 tanks, 94 heavy guns, 9,605 vehicles, and more than 2,000 tons of ammunition onto the Italian mainland. (Not to mention the 60,000 Italian soldiers who were also evacuated, in order to elude capture by the Allies.) Although the United States and Britain had succeeded in conquering Sicily, the Germans were now reinforced and heavily supplied, making the race for Rome more problematic.

and in…

1945 - The Allies informed Japan that they would determine Emperor Hirohito’s future status after Japan’s surrender.

World War II History for July 19

1942 - German U-boats were withdrawn from positions off the U.S. Atlantic coast due to effective American anti-submarine countermeasures.

1943 - During World War II, more than 150 B-17 and 112 B-24 bombers attacked Rome for the first time.