On this day during W.W. 2

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.

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.

April 25 1940 Rumania declared a political amnesty, setting the Nazi Iron Guard free to function again.

1941 The German Naval attache in Moscow cabled Berlin that rumors were rife on a German-Russian war. He quoted the British ambassador as stating that it would begin on june 22nd (which it did).        Roosevelt criticized Lindbergh for his New York speach, calling him defeatest and an appeaser.        Rommel’s forces in Egypt took the Halfaya Pass and pushed the British forces back to Mersa Matruth.        Hitler issued orders for an airborne invasion of Crete.

1942 U.S. troops landed in New Caledonia which was under Free French control.      The Chinese recaptured Taunggyi.

1944 The Japanese intensified offensive operations in Honan Province in China with heavy attacks directed toward Chenghsien (Chengchow)

1945 U.S. 69th Division and Russian 59th guards Division patrolls made contact on the Elbe near Torgau, the first linkup of groung forces from east and west . Eisenhower ordered Allied forces not to advance beyond the Elbe and Mulde rivers.        Berlin was completely encircled by the Russians.    R.A.F. planes bombed Berchtesgaden. The last strategic attacks in European theater were flown against Pilsen, Wangerooge, Kiel, and Munich.      The Naval base at La Spezia on the Ligurian coast was captured by the Allies.      The U.S. Seventh Army crossed on the Danude on a broad front.      Yugoslav troops in the Black Forest made a desparate bid to break out toward the Bavarian Alps.        The United Nations Conference on International Organization opened in San Francisco.      Japanese units routed the Chinese 58th Division at Wukang.

April 26 1940 Under increasing German pressure, Allied units in Northern Norway began retreating.

1941 german paratroopers seized Corinth in Greece. The bridge over the canal was blown up by the British rear guard, which inflicted heavy losses on the Germans.

1942 general Alexander decided to defend India rather than concentrate his waning strenth to hold Burma.        Declaring that German people understand “the nation is not there for them, but they for the nation,” Hitler asked the Reichstag to grant him “the positive assurance that I posses the legal authority to see to it that every individual performs his duty and that I may condem such cases which in my opinion do not fulfill their duties to be imprisoned  or be deprived of their office  . . . no matter who they be or what rights they may have aquired.” Hitler was given such personal absolute authority.

1943 Moscow broke off relations with the London bases Polish government  because of its request  for an invasion into the Katyn massacre and Moscow’s claim the poles were in contact with the Germans.

1944 Alexishaven on New Guinea was occupied by Australian forces. U.S. troops gained control of the airfield at Hollandia.

1945 Petain was arrested.      U.S. troops were firmly established across the Danube. Bremen was taken by the British Second Army . (except for a small area at Ems estuary, all of Northeast Holland was cleared of Germans.)        Russian units captured Stettin and Brno ( in Czechoslovakia).        Italian partisans seized control of Genoa and fighting broke out around Milan. Verona, Reggionell’Emilia, and Parma fell to Allied troops.      U.S. troops on Okinowa met furious Japanese resistance on the Maeda escarpment.

April 27 1940 Himmler issued orders for the construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz in occupied Poland. Unlike other such camps, this was to be the central “extermination” facility.

1941 Athens was occupied by the Germans. Motorcycle troops raised the German flag over the Acropolis at 8:35 a.m.        American, British and Dutch military representatives-meeting in Singapore-agreed agreed on common action in the Pacific if Japan entered the war.      Rashid Ali advised the British he would not permit any more troops to be brought into Iraq

1942 The American economy was placed on full war footing by Roosevelt.      The All-Indian National congress rejected a policy of nonviolence directed at both the British and Japanese as proposed by Gandhi.

1943 Premier Antonio Salazar restated that Portugal would not act to damage British intrerests.

1944 Heavy fighting developed near Imphal as the Japanese tried to break through before heavy rains rendered further action impossible.

1945 count Bernadotte informed Himmler the U.S. and Britian would not accept German armistice talks without the Russians.      Soviet troops controlled three fourths of Berlin.      U.S. 11th Armored Division units crossed into Czechoslavkia north of Bischofsreut.      French troops crossed the border into Italy. Genoa was occupied by the U.S. 5th Army.        Hitler sent what turned out to be his final message to Mussolini: “the stuggle for our survival is at its height. Employing great masses and materials, Bolshevism and the armies of Jewry allied themselves to join their malignant forces in Europe in order to precipitate chaos in our continent.”        DeGaulle refused to turn over control of Stuttgart to U.S. or U.K. troops.        A U.S.-Australian force of crusiers and destroyers began a four day bombardment operation against Tarakan Island, the oil producing facility off the northeast coast of Borneo.      U.S. troops occupied Baguio on Luzon. Columns of the 33rd and 37th divisions entered the hill city.        The Japanese port of Nagoya was closed to all shipping, the first major facility to cease operations because of the U.S. blockade.

April 28 1941 German units took Sollum in Egypt.      Lindbergh resigned his commission as a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve.

1942 Forces defending Mandalay were ordered moved to help defend Lashio which was under immediate threat.      Chiang Kai-shek told the U.S. government that a result of the Doolittle raid, Japanese troops attacked the coastal areas of China where the U.S. crews had landed. According to Chiang the Japanese "slaughtered every man, woman, and child . . . " in some of the villages which had assisted the American pilots.    In a national plebicite Canadians voted by a 129,000 plurality to free the government from its pledge not to send draftees overseas.

1943 Sweden protested the mining of its territorial waters by Germany.

1944 Japanese forces made broad gains in Honan Province. U.S. planes were concentrated in attacks on the Yellow River bridges to slow up the Japanese offensive.      U.S. and Chinese troops advanced up the Mogaung valley toward Myitkyina.      Petain announced that France was threatened by civil war.

1945 Benito Mussolini was shot and killed after being caught by Italian partisans as he was attempting to flee Italy. As the Allied forces pressed closer to the area, Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci headed first for Milan where fruitless discussions took place on a surrender, then for the Swiss border. When the partisans at Dongo found Mussolini he was wearing a German noncommissoned officers overcoat. Aquick execution-from a submachine gun-was followed the next day by the exhibition of their bodies, hung upside down, in the Piazza Loreto in Milan. Toward the end of his megalomaniacal life, Mussolini had said " I made a mistake and I shall pay for it, if my life can still serve as payment".  Hitler learned of Mussolini’s death in a Radio Stockholm broadcast.      U.S. troops advanced to Venice.      American units of the Seventh Army reached the Austian border near Fussen and occupied Augsburg.        The Red Army took 27,000 prisoners around Berlin

April 29 1941 The last of the British main forces were evacuated from Greece.        Two shiploads of British reinforcements arrived at Basra to aid in what was building up to a military confrontation with the new pro-Axis Iraqi government. Rashid Ali proposed British woman and children be evacuated out of Baghdad to the R.A.F. Base at Habbaniyah, 50 miles to the west for their protection.

1942 Hitler and Mussolini met at Berchtesgaden. one of the key issues was the rupture between Axis partners Hungary and Rumania who were close to fighting each other over continuing territorial disputes.      Lashio in Burma fell to the Japanese, closing the Burma road into China. The Japanese had covered 300 miles in only 18 days. That pace was maintained in a race with monsoon weather. Had the rains not been delayed the Japanese would have been bogged down in mud and water.        Japanese forces from Cebu were moved to Mindanao in an effort to secure the Island. Heavy air and artillary attacks were launched against Corregidor.

1943 Gweman submarine U-515 sank 5 ships in a 24 hr period along the West African coast off Freetown.      Goebbels, reflecting growing concern about an Allied strategy directed toward the Balkans, wrote in hid diary : if an invasion were to take place in the southeast, there would be cause to fear that large parts of the population would immediatly desert us. The Balkans are still the powder barrel of Europe. It is to be hoprd  that the English and the Americans are not aware of the chances beckoning them there.  (Churchill alone among the western Allied leaders, was aware of the vunerability of the Balkans and the area’s strategic and political potential, but he was constantly refused such operations.)

1944 U.S. Naval Task Force 59 ships and planes returned to Truk for raids against the key Japanese base. About 120 Japanese aircraft were destroyed, plus large amounts of arms and petroleum supplies.

1945 Hitler designated Donitz as his successor and was married to Eva Braun in his Berlin bunker. The Reich Chancellory came under Russian artillary fire.      An unconditional surrender was signed at Caserta by German Army Group Southwest commander in Italy, General Vietinghoff. The fighting was to end on May 2nd. Allied forces reached Genoa and Padua, which had been previously taken over by partisans. Milan was under partisan control.      U.S. 7th Army units reached Munich.      More than 250 R.A.F. aircraft dropped emergency food supplies in the Netherlands on prearranged areas. The German 25th Army was still holding out in large pockets of the Netherlands, and the plight of the civilians was becoming desperate. Churchill estamated 3 million were starving. He had written on the 10th “We belive that large numbers are dying daily, and the situation must deteriorate rapidly now that communications between Germany and Holland are virtually cut. I fear we may soon be in the presence of a great tragedy.” Reichskommissar for the Netherlands Seyss-Inquart had agreed to the food relief flights.      Heavy losses in the fighting for Maeda escarpment on Okinawa forced relief of the badly mauled U.S. 96th Division.

April 30 1940 German units advancing northward from Oslo linked up with the Germans fighting around Trondheim. The important rail center of Dombas was captured.      The first enclosed and guarded getto in Poland was established by the Germans in Lodz.

1941 German troops completed their occupation of Greece.      Rommel’s forces continued pouring into Egypt and advanced 6 miles beyond the frontier.      Nine thousand Iraqi troops with 28 pieces of artillary surrounded the R.A.F. base at Habbaniyah. The 230 British woman and children who had taken refuge at the base were declared to be hostages. There were 6,000 civilians at Habbaniyah, with a military force of 2,200. The Oil pipelines out of Iraq were blocked.

1942 British civilian air raid casualties for the month were 938 killed and 998 injured, a reflection of the intensification of Luftwaffe attacks on British cities.        All of central Burma fell to the Japanese as the defending forces fell back across the Irrawaddy River.

1943 New antisubmarine strategies were formally adopted by the Royal Navy, centering on a carrier based aircraft cover and long range patrol planes. They were immediatly employed in the Bay of Biscay, where in the following month 38 U-Boats were sunk. The key to the program was catching the submarines while they were leaving or returning from their bases on the French coast. Ultra messages were invaluablr in giving British ships and planes specific times and locations for intercepting the submarines.

1944 For the first time Stalin himself publicly acknowledged that the Soviet Union was receiving American and British aid.      U.S. and R.A.F. bombers dropped 80,000 tons of explosives in western Europe during the month.      British civilian air raid casualties for April were 146 killed and 226 injured.

1945 Hitler committed suicide. Dressed in anew Nazi uniform and modestly bemetaled , Hitler took a cyanide capsule while seated on a couch in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. So ended the thousand year Reich. His new wife Eva Braun, also took poisen. Their bodies were doused in gasoline and burned. Only the Russians saw the remains, and it is still not known what became of the final evidence of Hitlers death. Goebbels and his wife killed themselves and their six children at the same time. Most of the world rejoiced at the news of Hitlers death, but it was by no means a universal feeling. In neutral Portugal, for example, the government ordered two days of national mourning and flags were flown at half-staff.      Marshal Graziani was executed by Italian partisans.        U.S. First Army units hooked up with Russian troops at Eilenburg. Munich was occupied. More than 110,000 Allied P.O.W. were liberated. U.S. and French troops met on the French-Italian border. Turin was occupied by the U.S. Fifth Army. Dachau concentration camp was liberated and 32,000 prisoners were released.      Yugoslav Partisans entered Trieste.      Units of the 17th Indian Division advanced to Pegu in Burma.      Japanese assults on U.S. ships off Okinawa intensified. During the month 20 were sunk and 157 damaged, 90 by Kamikazes. U.S. Naval forces during this period destroyed 1,100 Japanese planes      U.S. forces advanced to within four miles of Davao on Mindanao.      There were no civilian air raid casualties in Britian this month. A total of 60,585 were killed and86,175 seriously wounded since September 1939.

Actually Hitler escaped on a sub, and that was one of his doubles that they found . . .he caught Eva cheating on him, killed them both and decided he better do away with any witnesses. . . the Goebbels

May 1st 1940 Mussolini told the U.S. ambassador in Rome, William Phillips, that Germany could not be defeated militarily. He said “Fifteen countries can now be called upon for every kind of supplies . . . the blockade of the Allies was therefore ineffective.”      Roosevelt appealed to Italy to refrain from entering the war.      The Norwegian force at Lillehammer surrendered.      Japanese forces resumed offensive operations with broad attacks in western Hupei Province aimed at extending control over the Yangtze river and addeing to the pressure on Chungking, the seat of Chiang Kai-shek’s government.

1941 Himmler outlined educational policies for the eastern territories seized by Germany: "There must not be a more advanced education for the non-German populationof the east than four years of primary school. This primary education has the follwing objective only: doing simple arithmetic to 500; writing one’s name, learning that it was God’s command that the Germans must be obeyed, and obedient. I dont consider reading skills necessary. Except for this school, no other kind of school must be allowed in the east.
German bombers hit Liverpool in the first raid of a week long attack.      German attacks on Tobruk were again repulsed.

1942 Mandalay fell to the Japanese as British forces found their left flank totally exposed.

1943 During the month a total of 41 German U-Boats-a third of the submarines on station-failed to return to their bases. Twenty-eight of the submarines were lost in the mid-Atlantic convoy areas. It was known as “BlackMay” in the german Navy. As a result of the losses, Donitz ordered all U-Boats to pull out of the North Atlantic and position themselves southwest of the Azores. The battle of the North Atlantic was effectively and decisively ended in favor of the Allies.
German troops in Tunisia began withdrawing from positionsopposite the U.S.II Corps.

1944 Allied aircraft began to mine the sea approaches to Bangkok and Rangoon. A total of 560 of the delayed-action type weapons were laid. Together with aerial raids on the ports, shipping was sharply restrictd. Thr Japanese were forced to keep virtually all merchants out of the Bay of Bengal and rely on smaller coastal ships and less accessible ports for resupply.      A Yugoslav partisan military mission arrived in London for talks on forthcoming joint actions and the distribution of supplies.      U.S. battleships and carrier aircraft bombed Ponape Island in the Carolines.

1945 The “Flensburg government” of Germany under Admiral Donitz was announced.      U.S. Third Army forces advanced into Czechoslovakia on a 100 mile wide front southeast of Ascha.      Field Marshal Rundstedt was captured by U.S. 141st regiment troops at Bad Tolz, south of Munich.      Eight tons of emergency food supplies were dropped to the civilian population in the Netherlands by U.S. aircraft.(The special flights continued through the 8th, with German cooperation.)      British paratroopers landed south of Rangoon.      A brigade of the 9th Australian Division landed on Tarakan, which  had been in Japanese hands since January 1942.      British Eighth Army troops advancing on Trieste made contact with Yugoslav partisans at Monfalcone.