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Posts Tagged ‘Tojo’

World War II History for November 12

12 Nov

Today in WW II History

World War II History for November 12

1942 - During World War II, naval battle of Guadalcanal began between Japanese and American forces. The Americans won a major victory.

1944 - During World War II, the German battleship “Tirpitz” was sunk off the coast of Norway.

32 British Lancaster bombers attack and sink the mighty German battleship Tirpitz.

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 USSR. 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 made against it in January 1942, but they failed to damage it. Another raid was made in March; dozens of RAF bombers sought out the Tirpitz, which was now 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. But in September 1943, 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 doing 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.

But it wasn’t until November 1944 that the Tirpitz was undone permanently. As the battleship lay at anchor in Norway’s Tromso Fjord, 32 British Lancaster bombers, taking off from Scotland, attacked. Each bomber dropped a 12,000-pound Tallboy bomb and two hit their target, causing the Tirpitz to capsize, and killing almost 1,000 crewmen.

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

1948 - The war crimes tribunal sentenced Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other World War II Japanese leaders to death.

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Posted in Atlantic Theater, Country - Japan, Europe Theater, Media, Pacific Theater, Today

 

World War II History for November 3

03 Nov

Today in WW II History

World War II History for November 3

1941 - Japanese Ambassador John Grew warned that the Japanese may be planning a sudden attack on the U.S.

1941 - The order is given: Bomb Pearl Harbor

On this day in 1941, the Combine Japanese Fleet receive Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days time, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Mayala, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.

Relations between the United States and Japan had been deteriorating quickly since Japan’s occupation of Indochina in 1940 and the implicit menacing of the Philippines (an American protectorate), with the occupation of the Cam Ranh naval base only eight miles from Manila. American retaliation included the seizing of all Japanese assets in the States and the closing of the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. In September 1941, Roosevelt issued a statement, drafted by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that threatened war between the United States and Japan should the Japanese encroach any further on territory in Southeast Asia or the South Pacific.

The Japanese military had long dominated Japanese foreign affairs; although official negotiations between the U.S. secretary of state and his Japanese counterpart to ease tensions were ongoing, Hideki Tojo, the minister of war who would soon be prime minister, had no intention of withdrawing from captured territories. He also construed the American “threat” of war as an ultimatum and prepared to deliver the first blow in a Japanese-American confrontation: the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

And so Tokyo delivered the order to all pertinent Fleet commanders, that not only the United States-and its protectorate the Philippines–but British and Dutch colonies in the Pacific were to be attacked. War was going to be declared on the West.

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Posted in Asian Theater, Country - Japan, Facts, Pacific Theater, Today

 

World War II History for July 18

18 Jul

Today in WW II History

World War II History for July 18

1942 - The German Me-262, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, made its first flight.

1943 - The United States lost a blimp, the K-74, for the first and last time during World War II.

1944 - U.S. troops captured Saint-Lo, France, ending the battle of the hedgerows.

1944 - Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister due to setbacks suffered by his country in World War II.

 
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Posted in Country - Japan, Country - USA, Europe Theater, Today

 

World War II History for June 19

19 Jun

Today in WW II History

World War II History for June 18

1944 - United States scores major victory against Japanese in Battle of the Philippine Sea

On this day in 1944, in what would become known as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot,” U.S. carrier-based fighters decimate the Japanese Fleet with only a minimum of losses in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

The security of the Marianas Islands, in the western Pacific, were vital to Japan, which had air bases on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. U.S. troops were already battling the Japanese on Saipan, having landed there on the 15th. Any further intrusion would leave the Philippine Islands, and Japan itself, vulnerable to U.S. attack. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance, was on its way west from the Marshall Islands as backup for the invasion of Saipan and the rest of the Marianas. But Japanese Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo decided to challenge the American fleet, ordering 430 of his planes, launched from aircraft carriers, to attack. In what became the greatest carrier battle of the war, the United States, having already picked up the Japanese craft on radar, proceeded to shoot down more than 300 aircraft and sink two Japanese aircraft carriers, losing only 29 of their own planes in the process. It was a described in the aftermath as a “turkey shoot.”

Admiral Ozawa, believing his missing planes had landed at their Guam air base, maintained his position in the Philippine Sea, allowing for a second attack of U.S. carrier-based fighter planes, this time commanded by Admiral Mitscher, to shoot down an additional 65 Japanese planes and sink another carrier. In total, the Japanese lost 480 aircraft, three-quarters of its total, not to mention most of its crews. American domination of the Marianas was now a foregone conclusion.

Not long after this battle at sea, U.S. Marine divisions penetrated farther into the island of Saipan. Two Japanese commanders on the island, Admiral Nagumo and General Saito, both committed suicide in an attempt to rally the remaining Japanese forces. It succeeded: Those forces also committed a virtual suicide as they attacked the Americans’ lines, losing 26,000 men compared with 3,500 lost by the United States. Within another month, the islands of Tinian and Guam were also captured by the United States.

The Japanese government of Premier Hideki Tojo resigned in disgrace at this stunning defeat, in what many have described as the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

United States scores major victory against Japanese in Battle of the Philippine Sea. (2008). The History Channel website. Retrieved 01:42, Jun 20, 2008, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6491.

 
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Posted in Air, Sea, Today

 
 
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