As a resource no longer available online I have saved the website zhukov.mitsi.com about Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov and the eastern front and made it available on the WWarII archives. Below you will find the table of contents:
Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov
Site Map
Archives
Russo-Japanese War
Barbarossa
General Winter
The Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Kursk
The Tide Turns
Assault at Seelow Heights
Battle for Berlin
Soviet Bombing Raids
Act of Surrender
Today in WWII History
World War II History for September 17
1939 - The Soviet Union invaded Poland. Germany had invaded Poland on September 1.
1944 - Operation “Market Garden” was launched by Allied paratroopers during World War II. The landing point was behind German lines in the Netherlands.
Explorers Search Bulgarian Waters for Soviet WW II Submarine
June 9, 2009, Tuesday | novinite.com
A Russia-Bulgaria submarine expedition begins in July, in Bulgarian Black Sea territorial waters, a search for a Soviet World War II Submarine. Photo by BGNES
Russian explorers are going to ask Russia’s government to assist them in their search for a Soviet submarine near the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.
The search will be conducted in July 2009 as part of the Russia-Bulgaria submarine expedition “In Honor of the Great Victory’s Ships” dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II.
[...]
The C-34, destroyed in 1942, is the fifth and last Soviet submarine to be found along Bulgaria’s shoreline.
The explorers already identified the L-24 submarine they discovered earlier near the Bulgarian cape Shabla, in the area of the northern Black Sea town of Balchik. The submarine was destroyed by a torpedo in 1942 and the entire crew of 57 was killed.
A special memorial plaque has been mounted on the L-24 declaring the submarine a “common grave”.
Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 27
27 JAN 1941 - Ambassador Grew advised Washington of reports circulating in Tokyo of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor being planned by the Japanese military in case of “trouble” with the US. Grew wrote that “the attack would involve the use of all the Japanese military facilities. My colleague (a member of the US embassy and the source of the reports) said that he was prompted to pass this on because it had come to him from many sources, although the plan seemed fantastic.” [3]
27 JAN 1941 - Matsuoka told a budget committee of the Japanese Diet that Japan must “dominate” the western Pacific if it were to achieve its goals” “My use of the word ‘dominate’ may seem extreme and while we have no such designs, still in a sense we do wish to dominate and there is no need to hide the fact. Has America any right to object if Japan does dominate the western Pacific? As Minister of Foreign Affairs, I hate to make such an assertation, but I wish to declare that if America does not understand Japan’s rightful claims and actions, then there is not the slightest hope of improvement of Japanese-American relations.” [4]
27 JAN 1942 - The British began their retreat to Singapore across the causeway from Johore Baharu.[5]
27 JAN 1942 - The US Submarine Seawolf arrived at Corregidor, delivering ammunition and evacuating all available pilots.[6]
27 JAN 1942 - Soviet forces captured the rail center of Lozovaya on the Donets front.[7]
27 JAN 1942 - Free France agreed to open French possessions in the Pacific as Allied military bases.[8]
27 JAN 1943 - During World War II, the first all American air raid against Germany took place when about 50 bombers attacked the Wilhelmshaven port.
On this day, 8th Air Force bombers, dispatched from their bases in England, fly the first American bombing raid against the Germans, targeting the Wilhelmshaven port. Of 64 planes participating in the raid, 53 reached their target and managed to shoot down 22 German planes-and lost only three planes in return.
The 8th Air Force was activated in February 1942 as a heavy bomber force based in England. Its B-17 Flying Fortresses, capable of sustaining heavy damage while continuing to fly, and its B-24 Liberators, long-range bombers, became famous for precision bombing raids, the premier example being the raid on Wilhelmshaven. Commanded at the time by Brig. Gen. Newton Longfellow, the 8th Air Force was amazingly effective and accurate in bombing warehouses and factories in this first air attack against the Axis power. [1]
27 JAN 1944 - The Soviet Union announced that the two year German siege of Leningrad had come to an end.
On this day, Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line, ending the almost 900-day German-enforced containment of the city, which cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.
The siege began officially on September 8, 1941. The people of Leningrad began building antitank fortifications and succeeded in creating a stable defense of the city, but as a result were cut off from all access to vital resources in the Soviet interior, Moscow specifically. In 1942, an estimated 650,000 Leningrad citizens perished from starvation, disease, exposure, and injuries suffered from continual German artillery bombardment.
Barges offered occasional relief in the summer and ice-borne sleds did the same in the winter. Slowly but surely a million of Leningrad’s young, sick, and elderly residents were evacuated, leaving about 2 million to ration available food and use all open ground to plant vegetables.
On January 12, Soviet defenses punctured the siege, ruptured the German encirclement, and allowed more supplies to come in along Lake Ladoga. The siege officially ended after 872 days (though it is often called the 900-day siege), after a Soviet counteroffensive pushed the Germans westward. [2]
27 JAN 1945 - Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
[1] “Americans bomb Germans for first time,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6692 (accessed Jan 27, 2009).
[2] “Siege of Leningrad is lifted,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6693 (accessed Jan 27, 2009).
[3-8] Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1981.
Today in WWII History
World War II History for January 26
26 JAN 1934 - Germany and Poland signed a 10-year nonaggression pact: “… the moment has arrived for inaugurating a new era in Polish-German political relations by means of direct communications between the two countries.” It was proposed by Hitler, and Poland never consulted France, its chief ally. Germany was signaling that it had no quarrel with Poland, only with Communist Russia. Warsaw had concluded it could no longer rely on outside support in preserving Poland’s independence. The treaty stated that neither signatory would “proceed to use force in order to settle” disputes. The pact was also significant in that Poland became the first nation to enter into a harmonious relationship with the new Nazi regieme. Warsaw was anxious to avoid becoming involved in the quarrels of Poland’s neighbors, and the pact accurately reflected a Polish policy of trying to maintain friendly relations with all powers.[1]
26 JAN 1942 - The first American expeditionary force to go to Europe during World War II went ashore in Northern Ireland.
26 JAN 1945 - Soviet troops entered Auschwitz, Poland. The survivors, fewer than 3,000, of the Nazi network of concentration camps were freed.
[1] Goralski, Robert. World War II Almanac 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1981.
Technorati Tags: 1934, 1942, 1945, Poland, Germany, Treaty, Soviet, Auschwitz, Concentration Camp
Today in WW II History
World War II History for August 22
1941 - Nazi troops reached the outskirts of Leningrad during World War II.
1944 -Romania captured by the Soviet Union
On this day in 1944, Soviet forces break through to Jassy, in northeastern Romania, convincing Romania’s king to sign an armistice with the Allies and concede control of his country to the USSR.
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, but was unable to suppress the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization. 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. Later that year, it would be invaded by its “ally” as part of Hitler’s strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union.
King Carol would abdicate in September 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 of its resources as part of the Nazi war effort.
As the war turned against Germany, and the Soviet Union began to run roughshod over Eastern Europe, Antonescu started looking west for allies to save it from Soviet occupation. At this stage, King Michael, son of the late King Carol, emerged from the shadows and had the pro-German Antonescu arrested, imploring Romanians, and loyal military men, to fight with, not against, the invading Soviets. The king would finally sign an armistice with the Allies and declare war against an already-dying Germany in 1944.
King Michael would, ironically, be forced to abdicate by the Soviets, who would maintain a puppet communist government in Romania until the end of the Cold War. The king had virtually destroyed his nation in order to save it.
Today in WW II History
World War II History for July 24
1941 - 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 - Britain launched Operation Gomorrah. The operation was consisted of repeated bombing raids against Hamburg’s industrial and munition plants.
1948 - Soviet occupation forces in Germany blockaded West Berlin. The U.S.-British airlift began the following day.
Today in WW II History
World War II History for July 13
1941 - Britain and the Soviet Union signed a mutual aid pact, that provided the means for Britain to send war material to the Soviet Union.
1944 - Soviet General Konev establishes a new western border for the USSR
In 1944, General Ivan Konev, one of the Soviet Union’s most outstanding officers, pursues an offensive against 40,000 German soldiers to capture the East Galician city of Lvov. When the battle was over, 30,000 Germans were dead, and the USSR had a new western border.
Joseph Stalin had declared that he wanted the western border of the Soviet Union to be pushed back across the River Bug, territory that was part of prewar Poland, but was now occupied German territory. General Konev, who had led the first offensive against the Germans when they invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 (and who had created the “Konev ambush,” a strategy by which troops retreat from the center of a battle area, only to allow troops from the flanks to close into the breach, used to defeat German General Heinz Guderian’s tank offensive against Moscow), led the Red Army’s new attack westward. He encircled 40,000 German soldiers in the town of Brody. After seven days, 30,000 German soldiers were dead, and Lvov was Soviet-occupied territory and would remain a part of the new postwar Soviet map.
General Konev would go on to cross Poland into Germany and, meeting up with U.S. and other Soviet forces, enter Berlin to see the final downfall of the Axis power.
Today in WW II History
World War II History for July 12
1943 - Russians halt German advance in a decisive battle at Kursk
On this day in 1943, one of the greatest clashes of armor in military history takes place as the German offensive against the Russian fortification at Kursk, a Russian railway and industrial center, is stopped in a devastating battle, marking the turning point in the Eastern front in the Russians’ favor.
The Germans had been driven from Kursk, a key communications center between north and south, back in February. By March, the Russians had created a salient, a defensive fortification, just west of Kursk in order to prevent another attempt by the Germans to advance farther south in Russia. In June, the German invaders launched an air attack against Kursk; on the ground, Operation Cottbus was launched, ostensibly dedicated to destroying Russian partisan activity, but in reality resulting in the wholesale slaughter of Russian civilians, among whom Soviet partisan fighters had been hiding. The Russians responded with air raids against German troop formations.
By July, Hitler realized that the breaking of the Russian resistance at Kursk was essential to pursuing his aims in Soviet Russia and the defense of Greater Germany, that is, German-occupied territory outside prewar German borders. “This day, you are to take part in an offensive of such importance that the whole future of the war may depend on its outcome,” Hitler announced to his soldiers on July 4. But on July 5, the Russians pulled the rug out from under Hitler’s offensive by launching their own artillery bombardment. The Germans counterattacked, and the largest tank battle in history began: Between the two assailants, 6,000 tanks were deployed. On July 12, 900 Russian tanks clashed with 900 German (including their superior Tiger tanks) at Prokhorovka–the Battle of Kursk’s most serious engagement. When it was all over, 300 German tanks, and even more Russian ones, were strewn over the battlefield. “The earth was black and scorched with tanks like burning torches,” reported one Russian officer. But the Russians had stopped the German advance dead in its tracks. The advantage had passed to the East. The Germans’ stay in Soviet territory was coming to an end.
Today in WW II History
World War II History for July 8
1941 - German General Franz Halder recorded in his diary Adolf Hitler’s plans for Moscow and Leningrad
“To dispose fully of their population, which otherwise we shall have to feed during the winter.”
On June 22, the Germans had launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, with over 3 million men. Enormous successes were enjoyed, thanks in large part to a disorganized and unsuspecting Russian army. By July 8, more than 280,000 Soviet prisoners had been taken and almost 2,600 tanks destroyed. The Axis power was already a couple of hundred miles inside Soviet territory. Stalin was in a panic, even executing generals who had failed to stave off the invaders.
Franz Halder, as chief of staff, had been keeping a diary of the day-to-day decision-making process. As Hitler became emboldened by his successes in Russia, Halder recorded that the “Fuhrer is firmly determined to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground.” Halder also records Hitler’s underestimation of the Russian army’s numbers and the bitter infighting between factions within the military about strategy. Halder, among others, wanted to make straight for the capital, Moscow; Hitler wanted to meet up with Field Marshal Wilhelm Leeb’s army group, which was making its way toward Leningrad. The advantage Hitler had against the Soviets would not last. Winter was approaching and so was the advantage such conditions would give the Russians.
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