Today in WWII History
World War II History for August 24
08.24.1942 – U.S. forces sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryujo in the Battle of the East Solomon Islands. During this battle the “coastwatchers,” volunteers that reported on Japanese ship and aircraft movement, were a key to American success.
*Edit: The carrier sunk is the Ryujo, not the Ryuho
Today in WWII History
World War II History for July 6
1942 - Diarist Anne Frank and her family took refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.
1942 - Japanese forces landed on Guadalcanal Island and began constructing an airfield. On February 1, 1943 the Japanese forces began to withdraw.
1944 - Hartford Circus Fire
The Hartford Circus Fire was one of the worst fire disasters in US history. While thousands of spectators were enjoying an afternoon performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a fire broke out on the southwest sidewall of the tent. The big top, waterproofed with a coating of paraffin and gasoline, quickly collapsed in flames, trapping hundreds beneath it. Circus Bandleader Merle Evans is said to be the person who first spotted the flames, and immediately directed the band to play Stars and Stripes Forever, the tune that traditionally signaled distress to all circus personnel.
1944 - Georges Mandel, French patriot, is executed
On this day in 1944, Georges Mandel, France’s minister of colonies and vehement opponent of the armistice with Germany, is executed in a wood outside Paris by collaborationist French.
Born into a prosperous Jewish family (his given name was Louis-Georges Rothschild, though no relation to the banking family) in 1885, Mandel’s political career began at age 21 as a member of the personal staff of French Premier Georges Clemenceau. He went on to serve in the National Assembly from 1919 to 1924, and then again from 1928 to 1940. Although a political conservative, he fell into conflict with fellow conservatives over their too-often pro-German sympathies, especially during the two world wars.
In 1940, he was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior by then French Premier Paul Reynaud, with whom he shared the conviction that no armistice should be made with the German invaders, and that the battle should continue, even if only from France’s colonies in Africa. After the resignation of Reynaud and the establishment of the Petain/Vichy government, Mandel sailed to Morocco, where he was arrested and sent back to France and imprisoned. He was then handed over to the Germans, and put in concentration camps in Oranienburg and Buchenwald. On July 4, 1944, he was shipped back to Paris, where the French security police, the Milice, took him out to a wood and shot him. As he was being handed over to his countrymen by the German SS, he said: “To die is nothing. What is sad is to die without seeing the liberation of the country and the restoration of the Republic.” [1]
[1] “Georges Mandel, French patriot, is executed,” History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6511 (accessed Jul 6, 2009).
Today in WWII History
Audio Clip: CBS World News Today on 28 March 1943.
World War II History - CBS World News Today - 28 March 1943 [24:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWorld War II History for March 27
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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/
Japanese Man Certified as Double A-Bomb Victim
Tuesday , March 24, 2009
AP – foxnews.com
TOKYO —
A 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, officials said Tuesday.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified “hibakusha,” or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well, city officials said.
Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.
“As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognized as a survivor of atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Nagasaki city official Toshiro Miyamoto said. “It’s such an unfortunate case, but it is possible that there are more people like him.”
Certification qualifies survivors for government compensation — including monthly allowances, free medical checkups and funeral costs — but Yamaguchi’s compensation will not increase, Miyamoto said.
Japan is the only country to have suffered atomic bomb attacks. About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.
Yamaguchi is one of about 260,000 people who survived the attacks. Bombing survivors have developed various illnesses from radiation exposure, including cancer and liver illnesses.
Details of Yamaguchi’s health problems were not released.
Thousands survivors continue to seek official recognition after the government rejected their eligibility for compensation. The government last year eased the requirements for being certified as a survivor, following criticism the rules were too strict and neglected many who had developed illnesses that doctors have linked to radiation.
Today in WWII History
World War II History for March 18
Audio Clip: Today we have a short clip from the BBC from D-Day (June 6, 1944)
World War II History - D-Day Has Come - BBC - 6 June 1944 [0:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download18 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).
Today in WWII History
World War II History for February 10
10 FEB 1936 - The German Gestapo was placed above the law.
10 FEB 1942 - The “Normandie,” the former French liner, capsized in New York Harbor. The day before the ship had caught fire while it was being fitted for the U.S. Navy.
10 FEB 1942 - Japanese sub bombards Midway
On this day, a Japanese submarine launches a brutal attack on Midway, a coral atoll used as a U.S. Navy base. It was the fourth bombing of the atoll by Japanese ships since December 7.
The capture of Midway was an important part of the broader Japanese strategy of trying to create a defensive line that would stretch from the western Aleutian Islands in the north to the Midway, Wake, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands in the south, then west to the Dutch West Indies. Occupying Midway would also mean depriving the United States of a submarine base and would provide the perfect launching pad for an all-out assault on Hawaii.
Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack and commander in chief of the Japanese combined fleet, knew that only the utter destruction of U.S. naval capacity would ensure Japanese free reign in the Pacific. Japanese bombing of the atoll by ship and submarine failed to break through the extraordinary defense put up by Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, who used every resource available to protect Midway and, by extension, Hawaii. Yamamoto persevered with an elaborate warship operation, called Mi, launched in June, but the Battle of Midway was a disaster for Japan, and was the turning point for ultimate American victory in the Pacific.[1]
Isoroku Yamamoto
“Japanese sub bombards Midway,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6708 (accessed Feb 10, 2009).
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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.
Stilwell’s March from Burma
General Joseph Stilwell in Burma with Gen. Frank Merrill
One of the greatest feats achieved by an American soldier was General Joseph Stillwell’s 140-mile march from Burma, which began May 1 [1942] and terminated in Imphal, Assam, on May 20 [1942]. From the time the heroic band left Wunthe until they reached the Chinwin River, they were out of communication with the world. In the spring of 1942 the Allies took what the General called a “hell of a beating” in Burma, which they lost to the Japanese. Stillwell, who was chief of staff to Generalissimo Chaing Kai-shek, prophesied Burma could and would be retaken from the Japanese. (Veterans of Foreign Wars 1951, p. 25)
Works Cited
Veterans of Foreign Wars. Pictorial History of World War II. Veterans’ Historical Book Service, Inc., 1951.
Today in WW II History
World War II History for December 15
1944 - A single-engine plane carrying U.S. Army Major Glenn Miller disappeared in thick fog over the English Channel while en route to Paris. The true fate of the plane and its passengers has never been determined.
1944 - American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.
1945 - MacArthur orders end of Shinto as Japanese state religion
On this day, General Douglas MacArthur, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific, brings an end to Shintoism as Japan’s established religion. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine.
On September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, MacArthur signed the instrument of Japanese surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies. Before the economic and political reforms the Allies devised for Japan’s future could be enacted, however, the country had to be demilitarized. Step one in the plan to reform Japan entailed the demobilization of Japan’s armed forces, and the return of all troops from abroad. Japan had had a long history of its foreign policy being dominated by the military, as evidenced by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye’s failed attempts to reform his government and being virtually pushed out of power by career army officer Hideki Tojo.
Step two was the dismantling of Shintoism as the Japanese national religion. Allied powers believed that serious democratic reforms, and a constitutional form of government, could not be put into place as long as the Japanese people looked to an emperor as their ultimate authority. Hirohito was forced to renounce his divine status, and his powers were severely limited–he was reduced to little more than a figurehead. And not merely religion, but even compulsory courses on ethics–the power to influence the Japanese population’s traditional religious and moral duties–were wrenched from state control as part of a larger decentralization of all power.
“MacArthur orders end of Shinto as Japanese state religion,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6644 (accessed Dec 15, 2008).
Today in WW II History
World War II History for December 6
1941 - U.S. President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Japanese Emperor Hirohito that requested intervention “to prevent further death and destruction in the world.” Intelligence reports had convinced Roosevelt that the Japanese fleet was headed for Thailand.
President Roosevelt-convinced on the basis of intelligence reports that the Japanese fleet is headed for Thailand, not the United States-telegrams Emperor Hirohito with the request that “for the sake of humanity,” the emperor intervene “to prevent further death and destruction in the world.”
The Royal Australian Air Force had sighted Japanese escorts, cruisers, and destroyers on patrol near the Malayan coast, south of Cape Cambodia. An Aussie pilot managed to radio that it looked as if the Japanese warships were headed for Thailand-just before he was shot down by the Japanese. Back in England, Prime Minister Churchill called a meeting of his chiefs of staff to discuss the crisis. While reports were coming in describing Thailand as the Japanese destination, they began to question whether it could have been a diversion. British intelligence had intercepted the Japanese code “Raffles,” a warning to the Japanese fleet to be on alert-but for what?
Britain was already preparing Operation Matador, the launching of their 11th Indian Division into Thailand to meet the presumed Japanese invasion force. But at the last minute, Air Marshall Brooke-Popham received word not to cross the Thai border for fear that it would provoke a Japanese attack if, in fact, the warship movement was merely a bluff.
Meanwhile, 600 miles northwest of Hawaii, Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese fleet, announced to his men: “The rise or fall of the empire depends upon this battle. Everyone will do his duty with utmost efforts.” Thailand was, in fact, a bluff. Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii was confirmed for Yamamoto as the Japanese target, after the Japanese consul in Hawaii had reported to Tokyo that a significant portion of the U.S. Pacific fleet would be anchored in the harbor-sitting ducks. The following morning, Sunday, December 7, was a good day to begin a raid.
“The son of man has just sent his final message to the son of God,” FDR joked to Eleanor after sending off his telegram to Hirohito, who in the Shinto tradition of Japan was deemed a god. As he enjoyed his stamp collection and chatted with Harry Hopkins, his personal adviser, news reached him of Japan’s formal rejection of America’s 10-point proposals for peace and an end to economic sanctions and the oil embargo placed on the Axis power. “This means war,” the president declared. Hopkins recommended an American first strike. “No, we can’t do that,” Roosevelt countered. “We are a democracy and a peaceful people.”
“Roosevelt to Japanese emperor: “Prevent further death and destruction”,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6635 (accessed Dec 6, 2008).
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