Thanks again Herr Kaleun,
1941 May 22 Britian warned the Petain government of the consequences of collaborationism: "If the Vichy government , in pursuance of their declared policy of collaboration with the enemy, take action or permit action detrimental to our conduct of the war . . . we shall no longer feel bound to draw any distinction between occupied land and unoccupied territory in the execution of our military plans. Soviet Deputy Military Attache Khlopov in Berlin, advised Moscow that "The attack of the German Army is reportedly scheduled for june 15, but it is possible that it may begin in the first days of June. Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Military to make plans for the immidiate occupation of the Azores to forstall german seizure of the Portuguese islands. The British Navy suffered heavy losses in action around Crete. Two crusiers, Gloucester and Fiji were sunk, and the battleships Warspite and Valiant were damaged.
1945 Heavy rains began pounding Okinawa, hampering operations for almost two weeks. U.S. 24th Division forces reached Tambongan on Mindanao.
May 26, 1940 The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk was ordered. Expectations wer that no more than 30,000 men could be rescued.
May 24, 1941 In a famous battle in the North Atlantic, HMS Hood was sunk by shells from the German battleship Bismarck. The loss of this famous and beloved ship deeply shocked the British, and Churchill famously ordered to sink the Bismarck. Which brings us to another historical fact soon to follow, because on:
May 26-27, 1941, Bismarck was indeed sunk after a relentless pursuit by the Royal Navy.
May 26, 1942 was the beginning of the battle of Gazala, which would last for weeks. German and Italian forces under Erwin Rommel (the famous Afrika Korps) defeated the British Eight Army under Neil Ritchie. The victory was not decisive though, as the British managed a somewhat orderly retreat.
May 23, 1943 RAF bombers drop more than 2000 tons of bombs on the city of Dortmund
May 24, 1943 After heavy losses, German admiral Karl Dönitz called of the U-boat war in the North Atlantic. The U-boats would return later, but never again repeat their earlier successes.
May 25, 1943 At the end of the Trident conference in Washington, the USA and the UK have reached agreement on all major points regarding the further conduct of the war
May 25, 1944 The Portuguese ship Serpa Pinto, carrying nearly 8,000 Jewish refugees to Canada, was stopped by a German U-boat in the mid Atlantic. The U-boat captain ordered everyone into life boats and thretened to sink the ship, but after long negotiations he relented and allowed them to continue their voyage.
May 23, 1945 Heinrich Himmler, former chief of the SS and the Gestapo, took his own life using a cyanide capsule that he had managed to conceal. He had been arrested by the British the day before, and was to stand trial at Nuremberg.
Thanks again Herr Kaleun, the pool is set-up the garden is done, a trip to Niagara Falls (sorry Most Holy next time I’ll cross and we’ll game), and two games of Global this weekend has kept me away but I’ll be back tomorrow with a fresh post.
TANKS again H K
You’re welcome! I really like it that you’re doing this.
May 29 1940 Germany occupied Ypres, Ostend, and Lille. Rumania concluded a treaty with Germany, exchanging its oil for German arms.
1941 The Bismark was sunk on the 27th, sorry for not giving ya the story.
29th The U.S. agreed to train British pilots who would fly American planes exported under lend lease. british troops on Crete fell back to positions east of Suda Bay.
1942 SS comander for Czechoslovakia Reinhard Heydrich was severly wounded by partisans in an assasination attempt near Prauge. His car was hit by a gernade as Heydrich was being driven to his country residence at Penenske Brezany. The blast severed his spine. A Japanese midget submarine entered Diego-Suarez harbor in Madagascar and heavily damaged the British battleship Ramilles and sank a tanker with its torpedos. Rommel withdrew his forces into a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Gazala line, covering supply corridors through the mine fields back to their bases. The Royal Australian Air Force opened bombing operations against Tulagi in the Solomans. Molotov arrived in Washington to discuss U.S. arms aid to Russia and to review U.S.-British planning for a second European front in 1942.
1943 Chinese nationalists troops in the Ichang area halted the Japanese advance on Chungking. They promptly went on the offensive. The remaining Japanese on Attu staged a final counteroffensive, but it was quickly repelled.
1944 The U.S. First Armored and 34th divisions suffered heavy losses on the approaches to Rome. Goring admitted to Hitler that the Allies had achieved total air superiority on the Italian front: . . . “at the moment the situation in Italy is such that not a single Luftwaffe aircraft dares show itself.” Tanks fought each other for the first time in the southwest Pacific area on Biak. the Japanese used armor in an effort to dislodge the Americans east of Parai. More than 500 Japanese were killed before the attack was halted. The U.S. Navy escort carrier Block Island was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat off the Azores. It was the only American carrier sunk in the Atlantic during the war.
1945 French forces shelled Damascus and Hama in Syria, and the Syrians asked the British for help. Belgian Socialists called on King Leopold III to abdicate. The Monarch had always been held in low regard by the government in exile and by many Belgiuns for his independent policies Immediatly preceeding the war and his capitulation to the Germans in 1940 without referance to the French and the British who were aiding in Belgiuns defense.
May 30 1940 Mussolini informed Hitler that Italy would enter the war against France within 10 days.
1941 Iraq’s pro-Axis government collapsed. British troops reached Baghdad and Rashid Ali and dozens of his followers (dubbed Ali and the 40 thieves) fled to Iran.
1942 30-31 R.A.F. bombers launched a devastating nite raid on the German cathederal city of Cologne in the first thousand bomber raid of the war. A total of 1,046 aircraft (Wellingtons, Stirlings, Whitleys, Manchesters, Halifaxes, and Hamptons) plus 50 aircraft attacking German fighter bases took off from 52 fields in Britian. Of that number, 898 actually attacked Cologne, dropping 1,455 tons of bombs ( Two-thirds of them incendiaries). More than 12,000 fires were started, 1,700 of them major conflagrations. The crews returning home could see Cologne burning when they were 150 miles away. German records showed the following results: 486 people killed, 5,027 injured, 59,100 made homeless, 18,432 buildings of all kinds destroyed, 9,516 heavily damaged, 31,070 slightly damaged, 328 industrial plants destroyed or damaged (larger factories halted their production from 3-9 months), and half of the cities power supply eliminated. Fourty-two British planes were downed, 12 were damaged so badly they could not fly again, and 104 were damaged and returned to duty.
1943 U.S. forces secured Attu Island. Only a handful of the original 2,350 Japanese forces survived. The U.S. losses were 512. Vichy announced that the previously immobilized French naval squadron in Alexandria harbor had gone over to the Allies. According to the Laval government, the French ships had been subjected to incessant presure from the British, including the withholding of pay. Churchill and de Gaulle arrived in Algiers.
1945 Two battalions of U.S. Marines reached the southeast edge of Naha on Okinawa. Damascus was again bombed by the French. Tehran asked Britian, the U.S., and Russia to remove their troops from Iran.
MAY 31 1940 Roosevelt called on congress to expand military preparedness “as measured in both machines and men.” In addition to the 3 billion already requested until then, Roosevelt called for further authorizations of 1.3 billion.
1941 An armistice was signed in Baghdad with the British reestablishing controll over the Iraqi government. The cease-fire would take effect when assurances were received “that complete independence of the country and the honor of the Army will be gareanteed.” The last of the British forces on Crete were evacuated from Sfakion. British air raid casualties for April and May totaled 11,459 killed and 12,107 injured.
1942 Chiang Kai-shek pleaded with the U.S. to speed up military aid to China. Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney harbor in Australia, sinking a small boat. Mosquito aircraft flew their first operational missions-bombing runs and photo reconnaissance over Cologne. British civilian air raid casualties for the month were 399 killed and 425 injuried.
1943 Admiral Rene Godfroy, commander of the French naval units in Alexandria, formally announced that his ships would join the Allied military effort. General Guderian tried to talk Hitler out of a summer offensive on the Russian front. Hitler replied, "Your quite right. Everytime I think of this attack my stomach turns.’ (In the end, however, he approved Operation CITADEL, which turned into the disastrous Battle of Kursk.)
1944 Allied troops began boarding ships for the Normandy invasion. Powerful counteroffensive were launched by the Germans north of Iasi, in Russia. Intensive Allied bombing prior to the Normandy invasion resulted in a months toll of 900 locomotives and 16,000 freight cars destroyed in Nazi occupied western Europe. For the first time in nearly four years there were no British civilianair raid victims during a monthly reporting period.
1945 Organized resistance ended on Negros Island in the Philippines. Japanese forces pulled out of Shuri on Okinawa. A regiment of the 37th Division began moving northward from Sante Fe through the Cagayan valley on Luzon. More fighting broke out in Syria. London informed de Gaulle that orders had been issued for British troops to intervene. Chiang Kai-shek gave up his title as premier but remained president of China.
June 4 1940 The Dunkirk evacuation was completed. British aircraft losses during the operation totaled 180. Nine British and six French ships were sunk or severly damaged. When the last boat had left, the British had left behind 11,000 machine guns, 1,200 artillary peices, 1,50 antiaircraft and antitank rifles, and 75,000 vehicles. Churchill, in Britians bleakest hour told the house of commons; “We shal not flag or fail. We shalfight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing ground, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”
1941 A pro-Allied government was restored in Iraq. The former kaiser, Wilhelm II, died at Doorn in Nazi-occupied Holland, where he had lived in exile since Germany’s loss in World War I. (The kaiser always despised Hitler as an uncouth politician, but he finally congratulated Hitler in a telegram after the fall of France. One of the kaiser’s sons, known as “Auwi”, was an Ss general during world war II, as a dedicated Nazi.
1942 Hitler visited Field Marshal Mannerheim in Finland. Heydrich died of wounds inflicted by the Czech partisan assassination team near Prague. A counterattack was launched by the British in Libya.
4-6 the battle of midway……you’ll read about it tomorrow or the next day.
1943 3rd Japan seized all shipping on the upper Yangtze in Hupei Province. Waters off Halifax, Nova Scotia, were minned by a German submarine. The field was discovered immediately, but only after the 2,000 ton Panamanian cargo dhip Halma was sunk.
1944 The U.S. Fifth Army entered Rome.While the Germans fought some rear-guard actions, the city was spared the devastation of combat. By nightfall, Allied units were converginging on Rome from all sectyors. Germans withdrawing northward from Rome were hit steadily by Allied aircraft. Rome’s population greeted the Allies enthusiastically after a lengthy period in which the Germans defended southern Italy with incredible determination to delay the inevitable capture of the first Axis capital to fall. Hitler ordered the Italian capital evacuated, according to Radio Berlin, to avoid putting the city " under the peril of destruction." With eth exception of the rail yards bombed by the Allies, Rome escapted the war reletively unscathed. Because of bad weather, Eisenhower ordered a 24 hour postponement of D-Day until June 6th An American antisubmarine force captured a German submarine (U-505) 150 miles off the coast of Rio de Oro (Spanish Sahara), Africa. It was the first enemy ship captured by a U.S. naval boarding party since 1814. The submarine surfaced when attacked, but the crew abadoned it when it started to sink. American seamenboarded and salvaged it, and the submarine was towed to the U.S.
1945 U.S. Marines landed on the Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa. About half the Naha airfield was cleared.
June 6 1940 French Premier Reynaud assumed control of foregin affairs, dropping Daladier as foreign minister. General Charles de Gaulle was appointed under secretary of war.
1941 Washington authorized the acquision of all idle foreign merchant ships in U.S. waters "for urgent needs of commerce and national defense. Luftwaffe units in Syria were withdrawn. Hitler advised the Japanese ambassador, in Berchtesgaden, that Germany might go to war with Russia. He did not refer to an invasion, but said troop reinforcements were being sent east. “Under such circumstances”, he confided war might be unavoidable between us.
1942 The decisive battle of Midway was fought, marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific. Admiral Chester Nimitz knew a month before that the Japanese were planning to invade Midway and to launch a diversionary assult on the Aleutians. Intercepts of secret Japanese radio messages gave the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet as much knowlage of Japanese intentions as was known by the Japanese planners themselves. Nimitz was ready, and the Japanese were administered a resounding defeat which altered the coarse of the Pacific war. Four Japanese carriers, -Kaga, Soryu, Akagi, and Hiryu were lost, in addition to a heavy crusier the Mikuma. The U.S. carrier Yorktown and a destroyer, the Hammann, were sunk. American air losses were 147 planes, compared to to the Japanese total of 332. Henceforth, Japan was no longer affected by the victory disase, which had marked the first six months of the war, and the Allies shortly went over to the offensive. German troops opened a massive assult and bombardmet ofSevestopol.
1943 The attacks on Pantelleria were concentrated on shore defensives and gun emplacements.
1944 The greatest amphibious operation in military history was launched as Allied forces under the command of Eisenhower began landing on the Northern coast of France between Cherbourg and Le Harve. H hour for the Americans was 6:30 a.m. , later for the British units because of the tide. Within 24 hours, 176,000 troops were put ashore from 4,000 ships. They were protected by 9,500 aircraft and 600 warships. U.S. First Army forces quickly secured Utah Beach. The British Second Army overcame most resistance rapidly and drove toward Caen, Only at Omaha Beach were the forces almost totally stymied, but the U.S. V Corps established a firm beachhead by evening. U.S. 1st Armored Division units advanced 25 miles north of Rome. U.S. planners set Oct 1 1945 as the date for invading Japan.
1945 The Naha airfield on the Oroku Peninsula was cleared by the U.S. Marines 6th Division
Invasion of Saipan started today…if you’ve ever been, it’s an interesting place…Golfing around WWII relics (beautiful views too) and have to love the fact that “massagie” girls will risk their lives crossing a busy roadway just to ask you if you would love a massage…A lot of nice out of the way beach cabans, but the PIC hotel is awesome (what can be better than lounging in the lazy river and getting drink after drink (you don’t even have to leave the river!)
Am annoyed I missed Wittmann’s greatest day:June 13th 1944.
The day he almost singlehandedly stopped Britain’s 7th Armour division’s thrust. A move by the Division which was on Panzer Lehr’s flank and could have encircled it. An exploit for which he received the Swords to his Knight’s Cross.
Tomorrow is the 22nd June everyone!
Are we all waiting in our tanks behind the front line?
I will take a MkIIIH. Commander of course.
June 28th, 1942; start of Fall Blau, case blue.
Due to Romania falling short on what it could supply as petrol to the Wehrmacht and the richness of the Caucasus in general, not only in oil, lead to a 2 proned plan to secure the banks of the Volga and occupy the entire Caucasus, possibly leading to linking up with Rommel’s units in the middle east. This would alleviate the german need for oil and create a good base for a continuation of the war and maybe arrive to an agreement with Stalin. (doubtful).
The plan was solid but relied heavily on weaker Axis forces. The initial drive to the Volga went very succesfull and the army command decided to assist the crossing of the Don into the Caucasus by sending 4th Panzer away from its march to Stalingrad and thus slowing it down, which was not expected. Later, 4th panzer was send northwards again to assist the assualt on Stalingrad. Had this change not been initiated, Stalingrad could have been taken off the march and the whole front settled on the west bank of the Volga with Stalingrad as a key point. Winter 1942/43 would have probably stopped all possibilities of crossing the mountains into Baku, but the Soviets would have had a hard time reinforcing this region and the Axis could have established a solid front, extending to Astrachan and the mountains of the Caucasus in the south. More mountain troops could have been brought up and assist in forcing a break through in the many passes, although difficult.
I am sure this strategy would have worked for 1943 and would have kept the initiative with the Axis. No battle of Stalingrad, no loss of the 6th army and no retreat from the Volga.
How the other fronts would have managed remains unclear, but it is obvious no great attack would have been initaited without first reinforcing the weak point of the Soviet front. German bombers could have started bombing Soviet industry in the east using airbases from Stalingrad.
Anyone want to commend on this?
Stalin expected the German push to be in the centre, on Moscow. The south was weaker,so it is possible the fantastic blitzkrieg gains looked better than they should have. I know what you are saying about Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army and it’s seasaw movements. Ultimately, i believe though, once Kleist and his strong 1st Panzer were deep in the Caucasus they were doomed to a Russian counter from the unused reserves from the static centre. Germany’s reliance on its weaker allies,especially in anti-tank guns, was to prove their downfall. The Russian’s best policy was to attack them wherever they were.
If Hoth had not been diverted south he may have found Stalingrad empty, but it might have still been a German tomb, just for a different army. I also wonder if Kleist had got out of the very deep Caucasus.
I agree that 1943 and a delayed/non existent Zitadelle could only have helped Germany’s chances in the long run. (Doubtful with an inflexible Hitler at the helm though.)
Tanks a bunch for filling, now that the days are somewhat shorter and soon I’ll drain the pool I’ll start back up again.
Aug 13 &14 1937 Heavy fighting broke out in Shanghai.
14th Chinese airforce planes, futilely attempting to bomb the Japanese battleship Isuma which was tied up in the business of Shangai, mistakenly hit a department store and other crowded buildings killing nearly 1,200 people and wounding 1,400
I am sorry I missed Guadalcanal. The landings were on the 7th. Thought someone would have posted and did not want to step on any toes! (I am not a Pacific war fan and do not have that knowledge anyway.)
Nice you are back.
any and all info is great and if I’m too busy, feel free to add your input or more facts I wont be offended if all of ya all add to this post.
Tanks again
You let me down Wittman…
I found my missing “m” Garg!
I would post more here, but do not have the time to go too much in to detail.
I am in to anniversaries, not just WW2 ones. Any battles(especially victories over the French, or English fought ones).
Know very little about War of Independence.
August 19th 1942. Operation Jubilee. 5000 Allied soldiers, including 50 US Rangers and two units of Commandos landed at Dieppe, France. 3500 would be casualties (only 600 German ones) and it would be a disaster for Canada, the worst since the days of the Somme. The Infantry were drawn from 2nd CanadianDivision: 4th and 6th Brigades and the 14th Tank Battalion, the Calgary Tanks.
It was meant to be a raid to ascertain German preparedness for a Second Front, much demanded by Stalin. It turned out to be another reverse for the hard pressed Allies and the recriminations lasted long afterwards.
