On this day during W.W. 2

Witt

Sept 22nd 1944. It was a misty day, with no resupply.
The German pincer attack went in at 9am, breaking through to the road from both East and
West inbetween Uden and Grave. The 101 called in air support and 119 rocket firing Typhoons appeared. Horrocks turned around the 32nd Guard’s Brigade to stem the German advance too. Nothing could or did travel past Veghel today.
Further north, 43rd Division qnd the Irish Guards Group pushed on and by 9pm a small contingent had reached the Poles. Some 35 crossed the river to join 1st Airborne.
In the perimeter, 1st Airborne was kept alive by artillery support from 64 Medium Regiment 11 miles away and the Division’s Artillery commander, Loder-Symonds, sometimes as close as 100 yards from the Paras’ lines. All 3 Generals from the Division never stopped moving along the lines, encouraging their men. Fatigue, hunger and thirst were a problem and at day’s end, Urquhart informed Browning at 1st Airborne HQ he could not hold for more than 24 hours andthat he would try and break out towards the ferry tomorrow.
Bittrich of IISS was planning their annihilation ]with Harzer and Von Tettau.

Witt

Sept 23rd 1944. The weather was considerably better today, so Allied Fighter Bombers were able to disrupt renewed Gernan attacks on the corridor from Kfg Walther and the newly arrived 6th Para Regt. under Von Der Heyte. Neither made any headway and by noon the Irish Guards and the 506 linked up, reopening the Highway.
At 1pm the biggest drop since the first day saw all remaining troops arrive in Holland, including the 1st Battn Polish Brigade, which had turned back 2 days ago. 200 crossed the Rhine in the dark.
At Oosterbeck the 1st Para Division was subjected to heavy infantry attacks supported by SPGs, Nebelwerfers and tanks, some with flamethrowers. Movement in the perimeter was greatly effected. Loudspeakers were used to broadcast, turning the battle in to a psychological one. Morale was very low now. The last supply drop from the UK to the Division was at 4pm, by which time the perimeter was only 1000 yards in diameter. It is possible 10% reached the Division.
At 820pm HQ2nd Army gave permission to withdraw the Division.

Witt

Sept 24th 1944. Weather was too bad in England(surprise eh!), but 21 Dakotas escorted by 36 Spitfires took off from Brussels and dropped supplies to the 82nd. 1st Airborne received nothing.
At 9am the 6th Para again attacked the corridor aiming for the bridges at Veghel. At least one Jagdpanther assisted and knocked out 3 Shermans of the 44th Tank Regiment. It succeeded in cutting the Highway with its fire, halting the Northward supply convoys. Another 50 British vehicles were destroyed by a Battn of the 59th Infantry, who were able to evade all Allied units on its way to them. The 502 sent 2 companies to its defence.
At Oosterbeck a truce was arranged, whereby 700 wounded were transfered to the Germans leaving Urquhart with only 1800 able bodied men to protect the perimeter.
Today the 506th Heavy Pz Battn arrived (King Tigers), 2 companies sent to the 10th SS at Elst and 1 to East of the Oosterbeck perimeter.
It is. Ot known who gave the order, but 1st Airborne was ordered to withdraw. London was notified.

Witt

Sept 25th 1944. At 2am 350 men from the 43rd Infantry crossed the river th help the 1st Airborne. Kfg Von Tettau attacked and captured 140 of them, including the battalion commander of the 4th Dorsets. At 8am, Urquhart radioed HQ to say the Division had to be evacuated tonight. About this time the Tigers attacked from the East, driving deep and threatening to encircle the Division.
The Highway was reached and by nightfall the Germans cleared off it for good.
At 9pm the evacuation, code named Berlin, began. Two companies of Royal Canadian Engineers helped the Division across. In all 2587 men made it across the Rhine; the wounded were left. Throughout the evacuation the 43rd Division bombarded the German defences. For the most part the Germans allowed the British to withdraw.

Market Garden was over. It was estimated only 7% of supplies actually reached the 1st Airborne, which went in with 10300 men and came home with 3000. .
Of the Division, 1300 were killed, 3 of the 9 battalion commanders killed or captured and 2 of the 3 Brigadiers wounded. Five VCs were awarded for bravery ( four posthumously). The Division was wrecked,
It is hard to calculate German losses.
The gain was a 50 mile salient going nowhere.
Germany was far from finished.

suprise attack

Sept 25 1938
Hitler declared that once the Sudeten crisis was settled, Germany would have no more territorial claims in Europe.
1939 Warsaw was subjected to murderous aerial bombardment as wave after wave of Luftwaffe planes attacked the now defenseless city.
1940 U.S. intelegence was able to decode for the first time a complete Japanese message transmitted in the purple supersecret diplomatic code used by Tokyo. Washingto announced a loan of 25 million to shore up the Chiang Kai-shek government in Chungking.
Allied forces were withdran from Dakar.
All political parties were dissolved in Norway, except Quisling’s pro-nazi National Union Party.
1941 In order to secure its Adriatic flank, Italy reoccupied the demilitarzed zone in Croatia.
Leningrad was attacked frontally.
German paratroopers were landed behind Russian lines in the Crimea.
Berlin acknowledged that “irregular” troops were engaging Axis forces in Serbia.
1942 Australian forces went on the offensive in New Guniea, pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda trail.
Btitian announced it had placed Madagascar under military jurisdiction " in order to ensure law and order and to provide for the administration pending the establishment of a friendly regime. Two East African brigades linked up in the central part of the island.
1943 Smolensk and Roslav were reoccupied by the Russians.
Mussolini declared the central portion of Italy as a neutral zone for civilians.
1944 Canadian units launched an assult on isolated Calis.
Survivors at Arnhem started to be evacuated.
British Eighth Army units crossed the Uso River in force.
The Volkssturm (people’s Militia) was formed in Germany. Men up to 65 were pressed into the last-ditch defense force

Witt

Did not know the Volksturm were organised this early. Thanks Surprise Attack.
I cannot find any major WW2 actions to describe for a while and am off on holiday in a week, so will not post here for a while. Have enjoyed filling in. Arnhem is a favourite subject of mine(more 1st Para’s situation).

suprise attack

Its great you guys filled in for me when the weather was nice and the days were long
1938 Sept.26 In an emotional Sportspalast speech Hitler refused to budge on his Godesberg demands and promised to invade Czechoslovakia by Oct 1st if they were not granted. Hitler screamed, “German patience has come to an end.”
1939 The German Eighth Army joined in the attack on Warsaw.
Free French Communist party was dissolved by presidential decree. It became illegal to propagandizs themes of the Third International. French Communists at this time were leaders of the anti-war movement, having quickly adapted to the new Moscow-Berlin alliance.
1940 Scrap iron and steel were barred from export to Japan by Roosevelt
Britian protested Finlands grant of transit rights to the Germans.
1941 Hitler ordered a halt in the offensive directed at Moscow. He had refused his generals permission to concentrate their drive against the Russian capital prefering to take the Ukraine with all its resorces. Hitler disparaged their thinking,saying," My generals know nothing about the economic aspects of war."
The German drive east of Kiev was halted by seasonal rainstorms, the Rasputitsa
U.S. merchant ships operating in “defense waters” were directed to report any sightings of Axis planes or ships and to attack them if possible.
1942 Stalin called for a British-U.S. second front in western Europe as soon as possible.
I should have posted on the 24th, but I didnt so here it is
Sept 24 1942 “Soviet women in combat”
Olga Yamschchikova of the Red Air Force shot down a Ju-88 twin engine bomber over Stalingrad on this day in 1942, she became the first women nite fighter pilot to score an aerial victory. Olga was a member af an all woman unit, the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 122nd Air Division which saw action from Stalingrad through the end of the war . The woman pilots flew 4,419 combat missions ans were credited with having downed 38 enemy aircraft.
I really wanted to post for Sept 17th 1941, ( second battle of Changsha)
1943 Japanese troops failed to drive the Australians out of the Finschhafen area.
The German force on Corfu surrendered.
U.S.naval forces began operating out of Natal, Brazil
1944 Allied withdrals continued from Arnhem with the operation a costly failure.
Estonia was completely occupied by the Russians

suprise attack

Sept 27 1934 Italy France and Britian the former Allies of WW1 jointly announced support for Austrian “independence and integrity” in a move calculated to curb Hitlers menacing actions.
1938 Czechoslavia again declares its willingness to negoiate or arbitrate the dispute.
The British Forein office and said France was obliged to aid Czechoslovakia if invaded byGermany and in that case Britian and Russia would stand by France. The statement added “it is still not to late to stop this great tragedy and for the peoples of all nations to insist on a settlement by free negotiation.
Chamberlain addressed the British people by radio and said “How horrible, fantastic, incredable it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.”
Roosevelt urged Hitler and Czek president Benes to resolve the Sudeten problem and called on France and Britian to avoid war.
The British navy was mobilized.
1939 Warsaw surrendered. More than 140,000 Polish troops laid down their arms. The seige had resulted in the deaths of 2,000 Polish solders and 10,000 civilians. An eighth of the city’s buildings were destroyed.
Hitler told his military commanders that he had decided " to attack in the west as soon as possible since the Franco-British Army is not yet prepared.” He set Nov. 12 as the tenative attack date.
1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan entered into a 10 year military and economic agreement. The Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin. It’s declared “prime purpose” was " to establish and maintain a new order of things calculated to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned." the Pact was the formalization of the Axis partnership, and the unmistakable targets of the strenthened alliance were the United States and the Soviet Union.
Fifty-five Luftwaffe planes were downed over Britian
More to post but its past my bed time and I dont get to play my on line war games……too late a start

Witt

October 14th 1944.
I forgot; forgive me!
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel commited suicide.
He was born in Wurtemburg on 15th November 1891. Had a glittering career as an Infantry commander in WW1, winning the Pour Le Merite(which he proudly wore) fighting the Italians. He shot to prominence in WW2, after being close to Hitler, leading the 7th Panzer Division in France. In February of 1941 he was sent to North Africa to command a small German contingent fighting alongside Italy. He would become every school boy’s dream commander, running a well supplied British Army ragged for 16 months before capturing the key port of Tobruk, in Libya. He was promoted Field Marshal for this. In November he met his match in Montgomery and despite a few Allied reverses was always retreating. He was not in Africa when the Axis surrendered.
In 1944 he was in France as commander of Army Group B(the important North).
He was wounded and invalided back to Germany. While he was there he was approached by anti-Hitler plotters and because of this link he took his life rather than stand trial.

aequitas-et-veritas

@wittmann:

October 14th 1944.
I forgot; forgive me!
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel commited suicide.
He was born in Wurtemburg on 15th November 1891. Had a glittering career as an Infantry commander in WW1, winning the Pour Le Merite(which he proudly wore) fighting the Italians. He shot to prominence in WW2, after being close to Hitler, leading the 7th Panzer Division in France. In February of 1941 he was sent to North Africa to command a small German contingent fighting alongside Italy. He would become every school boy’s dream commander, running a well supplied British Army ragged for 16 months before capturing the key port of Tobruk, in Libya. He was promoted Field Marshal for this. In November he met his match in Montgomery and despite a few Allied reverses was always retreating. He was not in Africa when the Axis surrendered.
In 1944 he was in France as commander of Army Group B(the important North).
He was wounded and invalided back to Germany. While he was there he was approached by anti-Hitler plotters and because of this link he took his life rather than stand trial.

Witt

Thank you Aequitas. I am no good with Pcs and pictures are beyond me!
Had been waiting to do Oct 14th and Rommel as I thought he was probably a favourite general of many of us: always mine as a child.
Got back from Florence on Sunday and forgot. Actually wrote that drunk last night off the top of my head!

aequitas-et-veritas

as you can see I also attached one pic with the emblem of the 7th PD on a Mark IV (edit: Sorry Mark III) on it, They used the Ghost or Phantom as their own marking. Feared from the French soldiers as they kept continuely saying about the 7th ,that they most of the time emerged from were they would have at least expected them.

suprise attack

Oct 17 1937 Japanese troops aided by Chinese and Mongol mercenaries, captured Paotow,terminus of the Peking-Suiyan railway.
1939 German planes bombed the British Naval Base at Scapa flow. The training ship “Iron Duke” was damaged.
1941 The U.S. destroyer “Kearney” was torpedoed and damaged southwest of Iceland while on convoy escort duty. Eleven were killed, the first American military casualties of the war.
Thje American Navy ordered all American merchant ships in Asian waters to put into friendly ports.
General Hideki Tojo was named Prime Minister of Japan.
1942 Stiff fighting developed at Eora Creek along the Kokoda trail. Japanese reinforcements were sent in to stop the Austrailian advance.
Ships for the Northw African invasion forces began being assembled at the Firth of Clyde.
1943 The German Raider “Michel” was sunk by an American submarine off the coast of Japan. It was the last of the 10 armed merchantmen which the German navy employed during the war. Beginning in Febuary 1940, when the first one put to sea, they were a scourge to Allied merchant vessals. Each equipped with six to eight powerful guns and torpedo tubes. Some even had one or two of their own reconnaissance aircraft. Raiders only attacked ships operating alone. With one exception of one Raider captain Helmuth von Ruckteshell, who was later tried as a war criminal, the offices commanding these ships always operated within the rules of warfare and international law. In all, the Raiders accounted for a total of 133 ships totaling 830,000 tons.
Russian forces crossed the Dnieper south of Gomel.
1944 U.S. Rangers began landing on the Islands off Leyte Gulf in the Philippines

suprise attack

Oct 23 1937 Japanese planes raided several cities in eastern China.
1940 Hitler meet Franco at the French resort town of Hendaye on the Spanish border. Germany wanted a joint attack on Gibraltar, but Hitler was unwilling to grant Franco’s wishes for large areas of French North and West Africa in exchange for Spain’s participation in thwe war. Without these territorial concessions, Franco declined to go ahead with the Gibraltar plan and began hedging on his promise to go to war.
1942 The desert war reached a turnaround point with the begining of the second battle of El Alamein. More than a thousand British guns pounded the Axis batteries for 20 minutes before XXX Corps began its drive on the northern end of the battle line.
Genoa and Turin were bombed by the R.A.F.
Japanese forces attempted to cross the Mataniko River on Guadalcanal. After an intense artillary barrage (the heaviest in the fighting) the Japanes scored some initial success but lost an estamated 600 men. The Marines suffered 25 dead.
Radio Berlin announced theat Britian would not be a member of the post war “European Charter” because "she had estranged herself from Europe more and more under Churchills regime
Admiral Darlan arrived in Rabat, Morocco, and called for unity and defense of the Vitchy-controlled area.
U.S. forces sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, for the invasion of North Africa.
Mrs. Elenor Roosevelt arrived in London as guest of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
1943 The provisional government of India of Subhas Chandra Bose declared war on Britian and the U.S.
1944 MacArthur restored the Philippines civil government under president Sergio Osmena at ceremonies at Tacloban, the temporary capital. U.S. forces pressed forward in several pronged attacks to consolidate their gains on Leyte.

The oldest surviving member of the R.A.F. from W.W.II died today at 99, he was shot in the ancle while being shot down in 1940,

Gargantua

@aequitas:

as you can see I also attached one pic with the emblem of the 7th PD on a Mark IV (edit: Sorry Mark III) on it, They used the Ghost or Phantom as their own marking. Feared from the French soldiers as they kept continuely saying about the 7th ,that they most of the time emerged from were they would have at least expected them.

My understanding is that it was the Germans who called it the ghost division, because Rommel would deliberatly avoid radio contact with HQ, in order to exploit gains in the field and stay at the front.

The division on the HQ’s map would move so fast, and be in so many places, that HQ could not determine it’s location hence calling it -The Ghost Division-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5V6sxZ8-eg&bpctr=1351053622

Tribute ;)

Witt

Thanks Surprise Attack. I had no idea Franco and Hitler talked about Gibraltar.
Cannot see what problem Hitler had with conceding parts of West Africa and I think we all know from playing how important to the Allies Gib was.
Dare I say, Hitler made a mistake!
Those Guadalcanal casualties are a sign of things to come too.
All in all an important day.

Witt

Just noticed you said North and West Africa.
Still, I would have made the deal.

aequitas-et-veritas

OK ,to do it the correct way:

The 7th Panzerdivision was called by the French the â€žGespensterdivisionâ€œ (La division fantome). Wich means The Ghost Division, but the emblem was worn by the 11th PD because : The nameing was given by the French during the West campagne and used for/of the 11.SB (SchÃ¼tzen Brigade) von Angern; and came along or together with the 7th PD wich was also lead by Kleist. Later on when the 11th PD was built, it designed the Emblem, the Ghost picture and used it as their additional Emblem.

I hope this will explain it, wiki doesnÂ´t! ( I got it from a German Forum)

Witt

Today, October 31st, in 1941 the US Destroyer Reuben James was sunk off Iceland while escorting a British convoy. The U-Boat that sank her was U552, commanded by Erich Topp. Reuben James was a post WW1 ship of the Clemson Class. Over 100 sailors died when she sank. The US was still neutral, so the incident caused controversy at the time.
Erich Topp survived the war and lived to the age of 91. He was the third most successful U-Boat commander, sinking nearly 200000 tons of shipping. The U552 survived to be scuttled by her crew.

Witt

Today on the 8th of November 1942, three Task Forces landed in North Africa. The Western TF came directly from the US. It composed 2Armoured and 3 and 9 Inf Divisions under the command of General George Patton. The Central TF had come from the UK and composed the 1US Armour and part of the 82 Airborne under Lloyd Fredendall . The Eastern TF also came from the UK and composed the 78UK Inf and US 34Inf Divisions under Kenneth Anderson.
Patton’s TF landed at Casablanca on the Atlantic coast and the other two entered the Med at Gobraltar and landed at Oran and Algiers. All three TF were protected by a strong Air contingent and did not meet any German Subs.
No one knew how the Vichy French would react, but fortunately seeing the number of Allied troops was enough to persuade Admiral Darlan, Petain’s Commander in Chief, that surrender was the best alternative.
The Americans had joined the war against the European Axis and were soon to discover what the German War Machine was capable of. even in defeat.

On this day during W.W. 2

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