Apri 8-9 1941 The United States aquired full military defense rights in Greenland. The agreement affirmed Greenlands loyalty to Denmark and agreed on the need for protection against attack by a non-American power. German reconnaissance flights had been made over Greenland, causing concern that Berlin might be able to establish bases on the Island to be used in attacking North America. The Danish minister in Washington arranged the agreement, but his action was disavowed by the government in Copehagen. Rommel’s forces swept into Bardia. German 2nd Panzer Division tanks smashed into Salonoka, Greece. Nish in eastern Yugoslavia fell to the Germans, opening the southern back door to Belgrade. Djevdjeliya was taken, cutting the last land link between Yugoslavia and Greece. A Croatian government was proclaimed in Zagreb as German troops reached the outskirts of the city. The Croats were generally favorably disposed to the Germans a fact recognized by the Germans who spared all cities in Croatia from air attack. British bombers hit Berlin in an attack which brought the war home with devastating impact. The Wellingtons gutted the State Opera House and caused extensive damage along Unter den Linden. The first American “shot in anger” against Germany was fired by a U.S. destroyer south of Iceland. After picking up survivors from a Dutch freighter, the U.S.S. Niblack detected a submarine in the area assumed it was attacking, and dropped deapth charges on it. The German submarine, which was indeed there left the scene, apparently undamaged. Hungary and Italy joined in the attack on Yugoslavia. The Italian Second Army crossed the Julian Alps and proceeded to drive down the Adriatic coast. Hungary occupied Yugoslavia territory north of the Danube which it had lost after the last war. The German Second Army occupied Skoplje in Yugoslavia. All of southern Serbia was under controll of the German Twelfth Army. Allied defenders held off off the German XL Corps which was sweeping down fron Yugoslavia along the Aliakom River. In North Africa, the 9th Australian Division pulled back to Tobruk. The U.S. proclaimed that the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden were no longer areas of combat, thereby opening these waters to American ships. Military and conservative factions in Japan gained greater influence in a cabinet reshuffle. Musatsume Ogura, Admiral Teijiro Toyoda, and Lieutenant General Teichi Suzuki, all considered proexpansion, were added to the cabinet. In another move strenthening the “war Hawk” point of view, AdmiralOsami Nagano replaced Prince Hiroyasu Fushimi as chief of the Naval Staff.
Another post for the next year on this date.
1942 8-9 About 2,00 of the force 78,000 men defending Bataan escaped to Corregidor as defensive efforts collapsed. U.S. Air Ferry Command began flights over the Himalayas to China. Traffic over the hump played a key role in suppling China.
9th Bataan fell to the Japanese. General Edward P King, Jr signed the surrender document at 12:30 PM About 35,000 Americans and Filipino troops fell into Japanese hands. Almost immediatly, the prisoners began the forced “Bataan Deatg March” from Balanga to San Fernando. Japanese air and artillary unitswere moved in to concentrate on Corregidor. Japanese naval aircraft attacked the Ceylonese port of Trincomalee. The British had anticipated the attack and cleared the harbor, but the planes located the British carrier Hermes, a destroyer and a corvette, and two tankers in nearby waters and sank them. A strong attack by the Russians in the Crimea gained little ground. German defense positions were over run around Orel. General Mikhail G Yefremov,commander of the Russian Thirty-third Army, committed suicide near Vyazma rather than surrender to the Germans. Yefremov was one of the heros of the Red Army in the defense of Moscow. Vichy protested the establishment of an American consolate in Brazzaville in the French Congo.
Another post for the next year on this day.
1943 8th A predawn attack on the Fondouk line in Tunisia was launched by Allied forces. Heavy fighting resultd with the Axis troops offering a strong defense.
1944 8th Russia launched its final drive to oust the Germans from the Crimea. Red Army troops on the central front were aproaching the Czech border. Stalin was told the date of the Normandy invasion. Almost simultaneously, the Japanese told the Soviets they were willing to mediate a peace between Germany and Russia. The initiave was Tokyo’s, not Berlin’s, and the Russians rejected the offer. B-24’s knocked out two spans of the Sittang bridge, regarded as the most criticaltarget of the Rail system in Burma. Its partial destruction halted most Japanese rail shipments to Myitkyina for nearly 2 months.
9th Large units of the British Fourteenth Army were surrounded at Kohima as the Japanese blocked the final escape route. Air resupply was essential, but the onset of the monsoon rains made the task difficult.
1945 8th Russian troops began an all out assult on Konigsberg in east Prussia. Red Army units started driving toward Linz and Graz in Austria. The British Guarda Divisin broke for Bremen after overwhelming German defenders east of Lingen. U.S. 42nd Division forcesreached the outskirts of Schweinfurt.
9th British bombers sank the German crusiers Admiral Scheer and Hipper at Kiel. The Allied fifteenth Army Group opened its final offensive in Italy, smashing across the Senio River. In perhaps the broadest employment of an integrated international force in history, troops from Britian, the U.S., France, New Zealand, South Africa, Poland, India, Senegal, Brazil, Italy, Greece, Morocco, Algeria, plus the Jewish Brigade were involved in the final phase of the Italian campaign. The fortess at Konigsberg fell to the Third White Russian Front, virtually ending all German resistance in East Prussia. The fight for the city left 42,000 Germans dead. Another 92,000 were captured. A U.S. Liberty Ship loaded with aerial bombs exploded in Bari, Italy. The blast and resulting fire killed 360 people and injured 1,730. The Island of Jolo in the Sulu Sea was occupied by by U.S. forces British Pacific fleet planes attacked Japanese airfields on Formosa which were used to launch raids on U.S. ships off Okinowa.
April 10 1942 Iceland ended Denmark’s royal controll over the Island, and said it would act as an independent state. Norwegian and Danish funds in the U.S. were frozen by Washington. The U.S. also extended its maritime danger zone to include all waters surrounding the Scandinavian countries. Belgium went to a military alert but reaffirmed its neutrality. Brussels rejected an offer of “preventive aid” by Britian and France because it said acceptance would mean abandonment of Belgium’s policy of neutrality. The First battle of Narvik was fought off the Norwegian coast. German and British naval forces suffered equally in this initial full-scale duel, each loosing two destroyers. But 5 other German destroyers were disabled or severely damaged and would fall easy prey to the pusuing British force. Pilots of the British fleet Air Arm, flying Blackburn Skuas, sank the German crusier Konigsberg, which was docked in Bergen harbor. This was the first sinking of a major warship by aircraft in history. Konigsberg had been damaged by Norwegian shore batteries during the invasion and could not defend herself against the divebombing Skuas which scored two fatal bomb hits.
1943 Japanese units landed on Cebu and Billiton in the Philippines. 10th-11th An R.A.F. Halifax dropped an 8,000-pound bomb for the first time, in a raid on Essen.
1943 Sfax in Tunisia was occupied by the Brish Eighth Army
1944 The Black Sea Port of Odessa was recaptured by Soviet forces. It had been under German occupation since Oct. 1941. Kleist’s Army Group A fell back beyond the Dniester River into Rumania. German officers gave up their plans for another attack on Anzio. General Slim ordered his forces in the Imphal-Kohima battle to take the offensive.
1945 Thirty of 50 German Me-262’s jet fighters were shot down by U.S. bombers and their P-51 escorts in the Berlin area. The attacking force of 1,232 B-17’s and B-24’s were able to beat off the largest jet effort of the war. Only 10 of the bombers were lost. Hannover in Lower Saxony was taken by the U.S. 84th Division while the 5th Armored Division opened the final assult toward the Elbe River. Former Chancellor Papen was captured by U.S. troops in the Ruhr. British Royal Marines swept around the Senio River lines by assult boats, threatening the German rear defenses in Italy. Indian and British troops took Paywbwe, a key point on the Mandalay-Rangoon rail line in Burma. Churchill announced that total Commonwealth and Empire casualties thus far were 1,126,802 military and 34,161 merchant marine. In addition, Britishcivilian casualties were 144,542. Lieutenant GeneralSosaku Suzuki, commander of the Thirty-fifth Army, was lost at sea during the withdrawal of japanese forces from Cebu.
Once more, thank you for doing this. A minor correction: I’d think that the events you describe for April 10, 1942, actually happened on April 10, 1940.
Yes i am prone to make mistakes, tanks. I sometimes catch myself starting on one paragraph and then going to a different one and saying, that doesnt make any scense Chinese being led by Germans attacking Japanese in Tunisia or something. I’ve also had some long days, I’m looking forward to next weekend at F.M.G.
April 11 1940 not 1049 Kinh Haakon called on all Norwegians to resist the Germans. The Netherlands moved toward a war footing by approving measures to complete a defense network.
1942 red Army reinforcements landed in the Crimea near Eupatoria but encountered extremely heavy resistance. Sir Stafford Cripps announced that Indian leaders had rejected Britian’s offer of post war independence.
1943 Two wings of the Allied forces in Tunisia linked up near Kairouan. The Faid Pass was retaken, generallt restoring the positions which existed two months before.
1944 The German Seventeenth Army fell back to Sevastopal as the Red Army took Kerch in a new offensive to retake Crimea.
1945 Allied forces occupied Coburg. Survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp were liberated: 5,000 French, 3,500 Poles and Polish Jews, 2,200 Germans,2,00 Russians, 2,00 Czech’s 2,000 Ukrainians, 600 Yugoslavs, 400 Dutch, 500 Austrians, 200 Italians, 200 Spaniards, and 300 of other nationalities. The P.O>W. camp at Bad Sulza was overrun. American Seventh Army forces drove into Bavaria. U.S. Ninth Army units reached the Elbe near Magdeburg. More than 300,000 Germans were taken prisoner during the past two weeks of fighting, The U.S.92nd Division captured Carrara in Italy. Spain broke diplomatic relations with Japan. U.S. 38th Division forces counted 5,500 Japanese dead in the fighting to clear the area west of Clark Field in the Philippines. Reserve elements of the Americal Division landed on Bohol Island in the Philippines. Japanese suicide planes continued to strike U.S. naval ships off Okinowa, disabling the carrier Enterprise and damaging the battleship Missouri. The 5th Indian Division drove south from Pyawbwe, spearheading Slim’s drive to capture Rangoon, now only 300 miles away, before the arrival of the monsoon rains which were expected to begin in a month.
Keep up the great work, i read just about every day.
April 11-13 1940 The second battle of Narvik, ten British warships-led by the battleship Warspite, sank seven German destroyers.
1941 12th Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, fell to the Germans as armored columns of the XLVI Panzer Corps stormed in from three sides. Even before the tanks entered, a young German captain and nine enlisted men bluffed their way into the city, and virtually the entire defense garrison surrendered. Zagreb was occupied, and the Germans were greeted enthusiastically by the Croatian population. Allied forces formed a defensive line centering on mount olympus in Greece. Outnumbered Australian troops at Veivi, in the Monastir gap just south of the Yugoslav border, fought a bitter defensive battle with a panzer division but finally had to yield. R.A.F. bombers flew daylight missions against targets on ths continent. South Greenlands governor informed the American consul at Godthaab that he would not recognize the agreement concluded by the Danish minister in washington giving the U.S. military base rights in Greenland… He said ha would resist any such move until “faced with the fate accompli.” ( The U.S. presented him with the fate accompli when it sent a contingent of U.S. Marines and three coast guard cutters to Greenland,)
1942 12th Japanese units began occupying Migyaungye and exposed the entire British western front in Burma. Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Japan. The Japanese legation in Tehran was reported to have served as a propaganda center inn Iran.
1943 Germany announced its forces had uncovered a mass grave of thousands of Polish army officers killed by the Russians at Katyn, near Smolensk.
1945 franklin D. Roosevelt, president of the United States longer than anyone died of a massive stroke at the winter white house in Warm Springs, Georgia. Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president. U.S. 2nd and 5th Armored Division forces reached the Elbe at Wittenberge, Weben and Sandu. Units established a small bridgehead on the east side of the river. Canadian I Corps units began attacking Arnhem. A U.S. 5th Army offensive in Italy was delaied because of unfavorable weather. German positions along the Santerno River collapsed before the British Eighth Army. The U.S. destroyer Manner L. Ablee was sunk by a Japanese Baka, or piloted bomb. Off Okinawa. The Baka was a more lethal kamikaze. A total of 151 Japanese planes were downed. japanese nighttime counterattacks penitrated positions held by the 96th Division on Okinawa, but the American line held. Charges against U.S. positions during the day left 1,594 Japanese dead.
April 13 1941 Japan and the Soviet Union signed a 5 year neutrality pact in Moscow. Stalin thoroughly feared Germany’s intentions and needed Russia and needed Russia’s flank protected, German controll of the Balkans and information that Berlin was already thinking of invading the Soviet Union dictated a peaceful resolution of relations with Japan. Tokyo, for its part, was increasingly determined to move south and wished to protect its northern flank. It was a marriage of convience. Stalins parting words to foreign Minister Matsuoka were interesting in understanding Stalin’s desperation. Stalin said he "was a convinced adherent of the Axis and a foe of England and the United States. Rommel’s forces encircled Tobruk and recaptured Bardia, placing the Afrika korps at the Egyptian border. Churchill assured Roosevelt the British would not abandon North Africa but said U.S. supplies could be crucial to the outcome. Malta was pounded by Axis bombers. R.A.F. bombers attacked Sofia, Bulgaria. Veroia and Katerini, points on the original British defense line in Greece, fell to the Germans.
1942 Moscow issued a stern warning to Tokyo to continue observing the Russian-Japanese neutrality pact. “It’s necessary that the Japanese military and fascist cliques whose heads have been turned by military successes realize that their prattle about an annexationist war in the north may cause damage . . .to Japan herself”. The oil fields of central Burma lay exposed to the Japaneseas a British defense line collasped
1943 British troops reached the Enfidaville Line in Tunisia, the final Axis defense position, but to breach the positions required additional beefing up of the Eighth Army.
1944 In one of the heaviest airstrikes of the war 3,000 Allied aircraft operating from bases in Britian and Italy struck at strategic targets in Germany, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Allied aircraft began a series of attacks on German coast artillery units in Normandy Soviet troops reoccupied Simferopol in the Criea and captyed 20,000 Germans.
1945 Russian troops of the Second and Third Ukrainian fronts completed the capture of Vienna. Taungdwingyi in Burma was taken by the 20th Indian Division. Chinese forces launched a general offensive in Honan and Hupei provinces. The Japanese opened a drive to take Chinchiang.
1939 Italy annexed Albania. Britian and France gave guarantees to Greece and Rumania, the same kind of unqualified support for territorial integrity against external threat it had pledged to Poland two weeks earlier. London and Paris also sought an identical automatic involvement commitment from Russia covering Poland and Rumania, but Moscow turned down the suggestion. The Russians said they would not be covered in such a manner if the Soviet Union were attacked by Germany or Japan. Moscow also felt the Baltic states and Finland would be unprotected.
1932 Chancellor Bruning banned Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), defying the increasinglt influential Nazi’s under Hitler
No post today, I’ve got a Global game to do, maybe even two.
I’ll make up for it tomorrow
I want to say tank you to all who view this post
April 15 1940 Japanese foreign Minister Arita said Tokyo wished to maintain the status Quo in the Dutch East Indies, noting that should " the hostilities in Europe be extended to the Netherlands and produce repercussions in the Dutch east Indies, it would interfere with the maintenance and furtherance of economic independence and coexistance and coprosperity." A combined British, French, and Polish force landed near Narvik. It was essentially a diversionary effort, with the hope of maintaining a toehold in Norway. ( within three days a total of rour Battalions were shore in northern Norway, but they were quickly rendered helpless by German aircraft which had established mastery of the skies.) Quisling was removed as Norway’s prime minister by the Germans who felt no need then for even an obsequious puppet.
1941 14th Tobruks defenders beat back a determined assult by the german Light 5th tank Division on the encircled city. Yugoslavia sued for peace, seeking to negotiate a surrender. German troops reached the Aliakmon River in Greece.
15th bulgaria broke diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. Its troops began marching into Macedonia.
1942 14th Marshal Petain became Vichy French chief of state, Laval became chief of government . Laval thus assumed actual direction of the Vichy adminestration, and the aging Petian remained to perform an essentially ceremonial function. British forces began destroying the Yenangyaung oil fields in Burma as the Japanese pressed their drive northward.
15th French resistance forces attacked German headquarters in Arras. U.S. bombers conducted a daylight attack on the occupied French port of Cherbourg.
1943 15th General Omar Bradley assumed command of the U.S.II Corps from Patton who was assigned to plan the invasion of Sicily.
1944 In a step to prevent any word leaking out on an Allied plan for the invasin of France, Britian sharply restricted diplomatic privileges. Communications were censored.no code traffic was permitted. Pouches had to be inspected. Only U.S. Russian and British Dominion offices were exempt. The first Jews fron Greece began being transported from Athens to Auschwitz concentration camp. Two enormous explosions in the dock area of Bombay, India, killed as many as 940 people. The Freighter Fort Stikene, carring 1,300 tons of TNT, caught fire. As water was poured on the ship to contain the blaze,the munitions exploded. Another larger explosion occured minuets later, obliterating the Fort Stikene and 19 other ships. damage was estimated at 80 million. Fourty thousand tons of food was lost in the explosions, leading to a smifamine conditions in India later.
1945 14th The U.S. First and Ninth Armies linked up in the Ruhr, splitting the pocket in two. Several high ranking German generals were captured. Batreuth was occupied. U.S. Fifth Army pushed off an offensive to clear the Po River valley from positions in the Apennies south and southwest of Bologna. The Japanese high command ordered the expeditionary force in China to pull four Divisions back to central and northern China, leading to a withdrawl from thr hunan-Kwangsi railroad which linked up the former Allied airbases recently captured by the Japanese. A fierce Japanese counteroffensive was turned back on Okinowa. 14-15 A group of Japanese Army officers attempted to seize control of the government in Tokyo . Fearing an imminent capitulation to thr Allies, The officers won some support from the Imperial Guards Division and occupied part of the palace. There they search futiley for the emperor’s surrender speach which had been recorded. General Takeshi Mori was killed when he refused to give the dissidents control of the Army. The uprising was quelled, and it’s leader Major Kenji Hatanaka, committed suicde
15th Arnhem was totally occupied by the 49th Canadian Division while the 5th Armored pushed off from there toward the Zuider Zee. The French First Army crossed the Rhine, occupied Kehl and continued clearing the Black Forest… U.S. forces overran the large I.G. farben chemical plant at Leverkusen. British troops freed 40’000 prisoners at Belsen concentration camp and found 10,000 unburied dead bodies. Marines of the 6th Division were subjected to intense artillary barrages delivered from Japanese hill positions on the Motobu Peninsula of Okinowa . Heavy casualties were suffered by the Marines in attempting to seize the heights.
April 16 1940 Iceland requested recognition and formal relations with the U.S. British forces occupied the Faeroe Islands, and they also landed at Andalsnes and Namsos, about 100 miles south and north of Trondheim, the rail center leading over the mountains of central Norway into Sweden.
1941 Roosevelt outlined four essential points as a foundation for relatations between nations. 1 territorial integrity, 2 noninterference in the affairs of other countries, 3 equal commercial opportunity, and 4 a status quo in the Pacific. The points were made as talks began in Washington between U.S. and Japanese officials. St. Pauls Cathedral in London was bombed and damaged in the blitz. Four British destroyers destroyed an entire Italian convoy ( totaling 14,000 tons ) en route to Libya with supplies for Axis forces in North Africa. Rommel deployed the full 15th Panzer Division for the first time in North Africa to launch another assult on Tobruk. German panzers from Macedonia reached the Pindus Mountain Passes and cut off the escape routes of the Greek troops in Albania. German Second Army units began attacking Allied positions at the Servia Pass, with with the plain of Thessaly lying open behind it.
1942 In one of the most unusual awards in the war, the British govrnment presented Malta the whole Island the George Cross. The medal, like the Victoria Cross, was only given for the most gallant of deeds. ( Later in the war , King George VI himself was to visit Malta, whose survival was an important element in sustaining the Mediterrianean war.) More than 4,000 Japanese troops were put ashore on Panay in the Philipinnes, with an immidiate withdrawal by the 7,000 man American and Filipino defense force into the mountains to operate as guerrillas.
1943 The Polish government in London announced it was requesting the International Red Cross to investigate the Katyn massacre. By order of the Vichy government childern in the shore areas of Cherbourg, Dieppe, St-Malo and Le Harve were evacuated inland.
1944 Yalta in the Crimea was recaptured by the Russians.
1945 Hitler ordered that “he who gives the order to retreat is to be shot on the spot.” Since the first of the month Allied forces on the western front captured 755’573 German troops. In the Greatest maritine loss in history, about 6,500 Germans were drowned while being evacuated from Danzig. Their ship, the overloaded 5,230 ton merchant man Goya, was torpedoed in the Baltic near Cape Rixhoft and quicly sank. ( A total of 18,000 Germans were lost when the refugee ships in the Baltic were subject to constant Allied air and naval attack. Sixteen such vessals were sunk between January and May.) General Carl A. Spaatz, commander of U.S. Straegic Air Forces in Europe, announced that all strategic operations had ceased and air units would henceforth merely engage in mopping up action against Germany. A huge Russian force began its drive for Berlin along the Oder and Niesse rivers, attacking the German Ninth and Fourth Panzer armies. Russian and R.A.F. fighter planes joined together from the east and west for the first time while attacking a train near Dresden. German units began pulling back along a broad front in Italy. The German battleship Lutzow was sunk by R.A.F. bombers during a daylight attack on Swinemunde. Indian troops seized Shwemyo in Burma. Ie Shima, off Okinowa, was invaded by the U.S. 77th Division. Japanese troops began pulling out of Cebu City.
1937 Japan decided to establish an autonomous north China ( embrscing the provinces of Hopei, Shansi, Shantung, Chahar, and Suiyuan ) which would be closly aligned with Manchukuo in pro-Japanese, anti-Soviet policies.
Sorry everybody I had some things to take care of and its too late now, I’ll make it up to ya and thank-you for all the views, I know its not in vane.
S.A.
April 17 & 18 1940 The U.S, said any change in the status of the Dutch East Indies " would be prejudicial to the cause of stability, peace, and security."
18th German forces pressed their advances in Norway, breaking out of the Oslo area and advancing toward Hamar to the North.
17th 1941 Geman forces took the Sevia pass. A large R.A.F. bombing force struck Berlin. Royal Navy units bombarded the old Italian fortress of Capuzzo in Libya. A German raider sank the Egyptian steamship Zamza in the south Atlantic. About 150 Americans were umong the rescued…
18th Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief, U.S. Atlanyic Fleet, ordered U.S. ships and planes to attack any Axis ship within 25 miles of the western Hemisphere on the asumption it was hostile. British troops in Greece began withdrawing to Thermopyale.
1942 18th Japan was bombed by American warplanes. Sixteen B-25 bombers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle took off from the carrier Hornet to carry the war to Japan for the first time. The first attacking aircraft was launched at 8:18 a.m. about 10 hours ahead of schedule because the naval convoy had been spotted by a Japanese vessal. The range to Yokyo was thus increased to 800 statue miles instead of the planned 650, which was considered the maximum to achieve success. Some of the planes reached Tokyo during a practice air alert, and most Japanese were first confused, then startled when actual bombs started falling. Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya were also struck. Only one plane was hit by Anti-aircraft fire, suffering only minor damage. Eight of the aircraft bombed their primary targets. Five others had to select secondary objectives. Only one failed to drop its bombs on Japan. Favored by an uncommon tailwind, the planes continued westward ,most of them to China and safely. One landed near Vladivostok, and the crew was interned by the Russians. Two crews came down in japanese occupied China ( three men were executed by the Japanese ,five were made prisoners, and four of them were freed at the end of the war). Little damage was inflicted on the Japanese cities, but the doolittle raid gave Japanese military leaders pause and was a factor in their decision to consolidate their vast holdings rather than to expand them further. For the Allies, the attack was an antidote for the painfull doses of defeat. MacArthur formally assumed his position as supreme commander,southwest Pacific area. Australian Vice Admiral Herbert F. Leary as Allied Naval Force Commander, and U.S. General Grorge H. Bret as commander of Allied Airforces. The road to the key transportation center of Lashio in Burma was threatened when the Chinese 55th Division collapsed under heavy Japanese pressure. Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb was relieved of his command of German forces in the northern sector of Russia. Leeb was frustrated by Hitlers direction of the war, and Hitler was equally frustrated by the marshals inability to occupy Leningrad.
1943 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese combined Fleet, was killed when his plane was shot down just before landing at Kihili airfield at the southern tip of Bougainville. P-38s from Guadalcanal had been sent up to “get Yamamoto” after the U.S. had intercepted coded radio messages informing the appropriate Japanese military authorities of his arrival. It was surprising the Japanese did not consider the possibility that the code was compromised, for this was another instance of clear intelligence data being used by the Allied forces. No effort was made to change the code. The loss of the respected naval officer was a shock to the Japanese people and is said to have demoralized everyone. For Americans, Yamamoto was the Japanese who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. What was not known then is that Yamamoto opposed the war, feeling it could not be won. In what was to become known as the “Palm Sunday Massacre,” 51 Luftwaffe transports and 16 escorting fighters were shot down in about 10 minutes while attempting to ferry supplies from Europe to the hard pressed Army Group Africa. Seventy U.S. and British fighters( directed to the proper intercept point from Ultra intercepts) had little trouble pouncing on the slow, trimotor Junker 52 aircraft. Seven of the Allied planes were lost. Moscow accused the Germans of the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn : "The hand of the Gestapo can easly be traced in this hideous frameup. Australian Prime Minister John Curtin was critical of the Allied “Europe First” policy, which denied supplies to Aulstalia which was rapidly exhausting its resorces . . . the Australian government accepts the global strategy . . . but it does not accepta flow of war material, notably aircraft, that does not measure up to the requirements of a holding war. Germany and Turkey signed a trade agreement, with the Germans to recieve cotton, tobacco, and dried fruits in exchange for heavy industrial machinery,locomotives, trucks, and chemicals. The agreement is noteworthy in that Germany was more interested in consumer products than in potential war material, even in the fourth year of the war.
1944 17th Japan launched what was to be its last major offensive in China. A Division struck over the Yellow River in Honan Province in the first move of the campaign to seize Allied air bases and decimate Chinese ground forces.
18th Russian Marines recaptured Balaklava in the Crimea. Marshal Badoglio resigned as head of the Italian government, but the King requested he remain with a reconstituted cabinet.
1945 17th The U.S. promised the Soviet Union an additional 5,700,000 tons of supplies. Red Army forces began establishing a bridgehead across the Oder and Neisse Rivers in their drive for Berlin. The American Seventh Army began closing in on Nurnberg,symbolic center of the Nazi State. U.S. 30th Division units captured most of Magdeburg. German resistance was ferocios in the fighting around Nurnberg. The U.S. VI Corps raced to the Swiss border to block the German escape route from the Black Forest. French troops split the German Nineteenth Army in two by taking Freudenstadt. The U.S. X Corps landed on Mindanao in the Philippines and met little resistance. The force was concentrated at Malabang on Moro Gulf. It was the last major amphibious operation necessary to regain the Philipinnes. Japanese troops suffered heavy casualties as U.S.Marines finished taking the Motobu Peninsula on Okinowa.
18th All resistance in the Ruhr pocket ended with the surrender of 325,000 German troops under the command of Field Marshal Model. Except for the Russian surrender around Kiev in September 1941, this was the single largest capitulation of the war. The Canadian 5th Armored Division reached the Zuider Zee, completing the last offensive action of the Canadian First Army in the war. All road outlets out of Nurnberg were blocked
No posts for a few days as for I’m off to the F.M.G. convention for a weekend of A&A.
Feel free to add to the history, if you so desire.
Give us your first hand account of the F.M.G convention.
April 20 was Hitler’s birthday.
April 20, 1940: the British cancel their intended landings at Trondheim, Norway, but fail to inform the French and Norwegian troops in the area, unnecessarily causing danger to those allies.
April 20, 1941: the Greek general Tsolakoglou surrendered his army to the Germans. This angered the Italians, who had invaded Greece much earlier, but had been utterly unsuccesful. After Mussolini pressed his case, the ceremony ws repeated with the Italians present.
Much of Greece continued to resist, however. German dive bombers attacked the harbor of Piraeus the same day.
April 20, 1943: The USAAF bombed Japanese-occupied Nauru, and also Boram Airfield in Papua New Guinea.
April 20, 1944: the American liberty ship “Paul Hamilton” and the British freighter “Royal Star” in convoy UGS 38 were sunk by German Ju 88 bombers. The “Paul Hamilton” was a troop transporter, but rather foolishly also carried a load of ammunition, which exploded and killed all aboard, 580 in total.
There was another big naval explosion on the same day in the harbor of German-occupied Bergen, Norway, as the confiscated Dutch ship “Voorbode” blew up, causing massive destruction and killing 160 people. Sabotage was suspected, but it was probably an accident.
April 20, 1945: Hitler turned 56, and made his last public appearance to decorate several members of the Hitler Jugend. There’s some well-known footage that’s often associated with this event, but actually dates from about a month earlier.
The US 2nd and 69th infantry divisions completed the conquest of the German city of Leipzig. The city was later turned over to the Soviets following the division of Germany per the Yalta agreements.
A great time was had by all. If any and all of you can save some cash and make it to # 3 that would be great! Its good to put a name with a face and get to meet them and know them, and your not playing the same old gang every week. New people different style, it will make your game better.
I’ll post tomorrow.
Tanks Herr Kaleun, you did an outstanding job!!!
April 24 1940 Germany assumed administrative controll over occupied Norway after King Haakon refused to negotiate with the invasion force. Hitler decred the action " in order to safeguard public order and public life in those parts of Norwegian territory which are under the protection of German troops". British and French forces failed in a drive to advance toward Trondheim.
1941 British forces began evacuating all their positions in Greece and proceeded to the southern beaches for transport. ( The weather turned out to be a savior for the British. Even though the Luftwaffe completely dominated the air, the British were able to avoid the expected interdiction and evacuated 40,000 men out of the original force of 62,500. They were transported to Crete and Egypt. The moon remained largly obscured by heavy cloud cover through the 29th , when the evacuation was completed. Two destroyers and four transports were sunk during the evacuation operation. For the entire abortive Greek campaign, the R.A.F. lost 207 aircraft and the British Expeditionary Ground Forces lost or abandoned more than 8,000 vehicles of all types.) Bulgaria declared war on Greece and Yugoslavia. Bulgarian troops began occupying territory in western Thrace, which was already under German controll. Australian reinforcements reached Singapore to aid in land and sea defense preparations. U.S. Naval units began patrolling the Atlantic eastward to 26 degrees east longitude and southward to 20 degrees north latitude.
1942 Jews were banned from using all forms of public transportation in Germany. Japanese forces captured the Burmese town of Taunggyi from the Chinese troops defending it
1943 U.S. Army invasion forces for the reoccupation of Attu set sail from San Francisco for Cold Harbor Alaska
1944 The Strategy Section of the U.S. War Department’s Operations Division determined that “the collaspe of Japan can be assured only by the invasion of Japan proper.” Australian troops occupied Madang in New Guinea. P-40s of the Royal Australian Air Force began using the Tadji airstrip.
1945 23rd-24th SS Chief Himmler offered to surrender to Britian and to the U.S. but not the Soviet Union. The offer was made through Count Bernadotte.
24th Hitler ordered Goring arrested. Elements of the First White Russian and First Ukranianian fronts linked up inside Berlin. Potsdam was occupied. Ulm fell to the U.S. First Armored Division columns. U.S. Seventh Army units crossed the Danube at Dillingen. U.S. and British forces in Italy began pouring across the Po River, with the German Gothic line almost totally eliminated.
