On this day during W.W. 2

14th March 1943: the Krakow Ghetto was finally “liquidated”.

There had been 68000 Jews living in Krakow before the war. The 15000 who were allowed to remain as slave labourers were, by 1941, crammed in a ghetto.
On the 13th and 14th March  1943 maybe 2000 were shot in the streets, 8000 sent to Plaszow Labour Camp, the rest to Auschwitz.

This day was reenacted in Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”.

24th March 1944:Major General Orde Wingate and eight others died in a plane crash(a Mitchell) in the jungle.
He had just been lauded by Churchill as “a man of genius and audacity”. He oft quoted the bible and was an eccentric man, whose battlefield successes in the use of irregular tactics were spectacular.
In the 30s his British led lJewish Commandos (Special Night Squads) safeguarded the Oil Fields and settlements in Palestine from Arab gangs.
In Sudan in 1940 he raised a rebellion which helped oust the Italians from Ethiopia, again using British officers and local troops. In 1942 he was sent to India to come up with a plan to thwart the Japanese in Burma. He trained a Brigade strength unit of Ghurkas and British troops for deep penetration raids. They became known as Chindits and were first used in the Spring of 1943. They caused havoc behind the Japanese lines, destroying anything which could disrupt their communication lines, sometimes even 200 miles away. Unfortunately, the price paid was the loss or exhaustion of most of his small units.
Some, including General Slim, thought it was a waste of resources, but on the whole it probably helped more than it hindered the Allies. It certainly boosted morale.
It was in 1944 that a larger forc e of 20000 was being prepared for further action, that Wingate lost his life. Operations continued, but without their leader, the Chindits unit was absorbed into other commands. Many think Burma’s reconquest was down to Wingate’s hard work. Merrill’s (US) Marauders were modelled on them.

@wittmann:

He trained a Brigade strength unit of Ghurkas and British troops for deep penetration raids. They became known as Chindits and were first used in the Spring of 1943. They caused havoc behind the Japanese lines, destroying anything which could disrupt their communication lines, sometimes even 200 miles away. Unfortunately, the price paid was the loss or exhaustion of most of his small units. Some, including General Slim, thought it was a waste of resources, but on the whole it probably helped more than it hindered the Allies. It certainly boosted morale.

The first Chindit operation also made the important point that ordinary British troops, given the proper training and support, could operate successfully deep in the jungle, which hitherto had been considered the private preserve of the Japanese.  This helped the British psychologically by shattering the perception that the Japanese had some undefined special abilities which made them unbeatable in the jungle.

I read that, but did not post it.
Thank you for adding it, Marc.

Fire in the Night - good biography of Wingate

The guy was out there

9th of april 1940

germany invades norway and denmark

The invasion of denmark would go down in history as one of the shortest wars in history, while the invasion of norway would be the axis victory that took the longest time to achieve.  Norway surrenderd after 2 months, (8-9 weeks) on the 10th of june. (french campaign lasted 1 month and 12 days)

The german invasion went good in most of the places, but they where stopped in oslo and kristiansand. They got around kristiansand by flying french flags, while they landed outside the oslo fjord and marched to oslo. The german invasian was lucky that there was a sudden fog the morning of the invasion, which is why they so easily managed to bypass the defensive fortresses guarding the norwegian fjords.

Thanks Kreuzfeld. I thought it was today, but have done some work this morning and have not opened any books as yet!

Are you by any chance a native of either country?

Edited as I misspelt your name; apologies.

Yes, I am a native of norway. My grandfather was in the norwegian merchant fleet, and was in london during the blitz, one of the nights the building he was in collapsed, but the blast threw him under an iron table saving his life. He was dug out the next morning.

Should also add;

The german attack on norway would probably benefit the allies more than the axis. The norwegian merchant fleet was the 4th biggest in the world, with about 7% of the worlds merchant tonnage, and 18% of all the worlds oiltankers. The average age of the norwegian merchant fleet was lower than the other allies, and more of the ships where disel ships.

Norway contributed with more than 1000 merchant ships and 30000 sailors to the allied wareffort.

Thank you for that addition: wonder why Norway had such a big fleet.
Glad your grandfather survived too.

Norway had such a big fleet because norway always had such a big fleet. Shipping have been a big part of norwegian economy since the viking age, except for a dryspell in the late middle ages. Shipping is still one of the biggest parts of the norwegian economy, It is still quite big http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_merchant_marine_capacity_by_country

in 1940 whaling and shipping where basicly the only thing norwegians did economically, so there where alot of ships in norway that the british got (85% of them), while not much on the mainland for the germans,

The most valuable thing about the norwegian mainland at this point was that Narvik was the closest port to kiruna, a swedish mine that had and still have a HUGE metal production, one of the biggest productions in europe.

Thank you again. I knew about Sweden, but you have taught me much.
Those modern figures threw up a few surprises.

20th April is Hitler’s birthday(born in 1889).
The last live footage of him was taken today in 1945, as he surfaced from the Bunker, looking gaunt and unwell, to decorate some Hitler Youths with the Iron Cross.
He would be dead in 10 days and the war all but over.

For any of you who have not seen it, I can strongly recommend:Der Untergang(Downfall), with Bruno Ganz playing Hitler.

Good movie

April 23rd 1941: the Greek King George II fled Athens for the island of Crete as the Germans were threatening his capital.(They had invaded on the 6th April to help the Italians.) In May he had to leave again as the German Para Division attacked Crete. His home for the rest of the war would be Britain.

In 42 the Germans bombed historic Exeter, Devon, in the start of retaliatory raids on historic cities in England after the Allied bombing of beautiful Lubeck, Northern Germany.  These raids were known as the Baedeker Blitz, after the Guide book used by the Luftwaffe to pinpoint which targets to choose. Incendiary bombing did much damage the centre of Exeter, which would be attacked 16 times between 40-42. Bath, Norwich and york were targeted later in April and May. The raids cost Germany more in losses than they did the English.

28th April 1944: Operation Tiger.
The Allies were doing an exercise, practising for the landings in France when disaster struck. It was at Slapton Sands in Devon(3 miles from where my wife’s grandmother lives) when a mix up caused a friendly fire incident: a British ship was bombarding the shore to simulate a real war landing situation.  To compound matters, a handful of German E-Boats got close to the shore and caused more casualties: four of the landing craft were torpedoed, two of which sank. A total of 946 Americans died and the incident was hushed up at the time.
There is a Sherman and a tiny memorial on the beach now.

29th April 1945: Hitler married his longtime girlfriend. Eva Braun, in the Fuhrerbunker where they were now living.
He also named Grossadmiral Donitz as his successor. (Goering had been his successor, but he had angered Hitler just days before, so he changed his mind.)

Donitz had been head of the Navy since January 43, when he replaced Raeder.
During WW1 he had been on board the light Cruiser, Breslau, fighting the Russians in the Black Sea. The Breslau was later given to the Ottoman Empire and he decided to transfer to Submarines.
He ended WW1 as a Submarine commander, captured by the English when his ship was sunk.