On this day during W.W. 2

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.

Sorry for no post, I did something and could not get back to the internet for almost 3 hrs,I’ll make up for it tomorrow
I was getting ready to post to here, and made my calls for Sat’s global game and when I came back the screen was blank, no problem thats what it does after 5-10 min.'s, so I moved the mouse around and thats when I had the trouble.
Sorry again

May 3 1940 All British troops in central and southern Norway were evacuated, leaving only a small force in Narvik.        Greenland appealed to the U.S. for protection

1941 Germany and Italy split up split up Slovenia and each annexed its share of Yugoslav territory.      Revolutionary Iraqi forces occupied Rutba and other oil fields.      Hamburg was bombed by the R.A.F.        Heavy fighting broke out at Amba Alagi in Ethiopia as British forces closed the ring on Italian forces under the command ofItalian viceroy, Amadeus of Aosta

1942 Tulagi in the central Solomans was occupied by the Japanese, the first phase of what Tokyo had planned as an operation leading to the invasion or Austalia.      on the second the British crusier Edinburgh was sunk while returning with a convoy from Russia.

1943 Red Army trops halted a German counteroffensive in the Kuban area.        The U.S. 1st Armored Division occupied Mateur after it was abandoned by the Germans. Allied Units were now only 20 miles from Bizerte.

1944 Allied agreements were concluded with Spain which provided for a cutback in Spanish shipments of tungsten to Germany in exchange for Allied oil from the Americas

1945 2nd All fighting in Italy ended as the unconditional surrender of one million German troops there took effect, ending what the Allies called the “slow and bitter” campaign. Allied troops completed the occupation of Turin and Milan.      Berlin was completely under the control of Russian forces.    Irelands prime minister Eamon de Valera called at the German legislation in Dublin to express condolences for Hitlers death.      British Second Army units reached the Baltic, sealing off Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein.      R.A.F. Mosquitos attacked Kiel, the last Allied bombing raid of the European war.    Rangoon was found to have been abandoned by the Japanese.    The 20th and 17th Divisions occupied Prome and Pegu in Burma.      U.S. 1st Division Marines suffered heavy losses while making only negligible advances around the Asa River in Okinawa.
3rd German forces in Hambuerg surrendered. U.S. Seventh Army units reached the Brenner Pass after taking Innsbruk. The 2nd Armored Division was ordered to take Berchesgaden.      A civilian uprising began in Prague.      New Zealand troops advanced into Trieste and were confronted by Yugoslav partisans, and the two sides faced eachother in a potentially ugly showdown.      A brigade of the 26th Indian Division entered Rangoon. Allied paratroopers and amphibious forces converged on the city. The war in Burma was effectively ended with the recapture of Rangoon. The campaign to retake Burma cost 4,115 British and Indian dead, 13764 wounded, in addition to smaller numbers of U.S. and Chinese casualties. Japanese losses in the campaign were about 100,000.      Davao on Mindanao in the Philippines, which was literally in ruins, was cleared by U.S. forces.      Japanese forces on Okinawa began their only major offensiveof the Ryukyus campaign. An amphibious force tried to land behind U.S. lines on both coasts. As many as 800 Japanese were killed, and those who did land were soon killed or captured.

May is the month when France came into the war.

May 4 1940 The Netherlands cracked down on anti-government elements, arresting suspected saboeurs and Nazi fifth columnists.

1941 Hitler said the entire Balkans campaign had cost the Germans only 5,500 casualties.

1942 British forces landed on the north coast of Madagascar, encountering only light Vichy French opposition.        R.A.F. bombers attacked the Skoda munitions facility in Pilsen, Czechoslovaskia.      The American Flying Tigers abandoned Burma and reestablished their base at Kunming, China. Bhamo fell to the Japanese. British forces evacuated Akyab
4-8  the battle of the Coral sea. . .  I’ll fill that in later this weekend

1944 U.S. reinforcements landed on New Guniea. In tyhe Aitape area, 525 Japanese were killed in the previous weeks to the loss of 19 Americans.      Chinese troops captured Inkangahtawng on the approaches to  Kamaing in Burma.

1945 About one million German troops surrendered in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Northwest Germany. The terms were to become effective at 8 a.m. the next day. Salzburg surrendered as officers of the German 19th Army began negotiating an end to the fighting in Bavaria

May 5 1939 Warsaw again turned down Germanys bid for control over Danzig and overland routes through the Polish corridor.

1940 German troops began pressing north from Trondheim.      The 13th Demi-brigade of the French foreign Legion landed at Narvik.

1941 Tokyo advised the Japanese ambassador in Washington “according to a fairly reliable sorce of information, it appears almost certain that the United States government is reading your code messages.” ( the information was correct, but subsequent investigations in Tokyo and Washington led the Japanese to conclude their purple diplomatic code was not comprimised. No effort was made to change it. The sorce of Tokyo’s concern, " the fairly reliable sorce of information," was probly the German ambassador in Washington who had been confronted by the Russian ambassador who had knowledge of an impending German attavk on the Soviet Union. These reports may have been given the Russians by U.S. under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who had access to the Magic intercepts of the Purple code, and was anxious to rupture Soviet-German relations. Some have suggested they may have originated with a German agent  working at the Soviety embassy.      Iraqi troops abandoned the heights around Habbaniyah.      Emperor Haile Selassie was returned to his Ethiopian throne. He made his triumphal return to Addis Ababa five years to the day after Italian troops had conqured his capital.

1942 Japanese forces landed on the only remaining U.S. outpost in the Philippines, the island of Corregidor. They established a beachhead at Cavalry Point, several miles east of where they were supposed to be put ashore.      Red Army units began assults directed at Kharkov and Kursk.        The U.S. backed up the British action on Madagascar and said American units would use the Island as an airbase if it were felt necessary to do so.      Karl Oberg arrived at Paris to assume the position of " supreme Head of SS and police". A vicious anti-semite, Oberg once dismissed a complaint on the abduction of Jewish orphans in unoccupied France by saying, “A Jew is not a human being”.      Marshal Petain called on the govoner general of Madagascar and all French units on the island to resist the British: I am at the side of the military commander in this tragic trial in which he is defending the honor of France."      Vichy France delivered a protest note to the U.S. on Madagascar, saying Roosevelt would have "to judge what part of the responcibility he has in the consequenceswhich may result from his aggression.      Imperial General Headquarters ordered the Japanese Navy to seize Midway Island and key points in the western Aleutians and to destroy all enemy forces that may oppose the invasion.

1943 Djebel Bou-Aoukaz in Tunisia was recaptured by the British in bitter and deadly fighting. The left flank was now secure for the attack on Tunis.      Krymsk fell to the Russians.

1944 Alexander ordered all Allied units in Italy to break through the Gustav line and take Rome.      Indian leader Gandhi was released from the British custody because of ill health. He had been imprisoned since August 1942.

1945 German representitives arrived at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), a school building in Reims, to discuss final surrender terms. British airborne troops landed in Copenhagen after street fighting broke out between Danish civilians and Germans. Prague resistance forces battled the Germans inside the city.      All fighting ended in Bavaria with the surrender of the German First and Nineteenth armies. The U.S. Fifth Army from Italy linked up with the U.S. Seventh Army from Germany at the Brenner Pass.      Former French Premiers Daladier, Blum,and Reynaud, Generals Gamelin and Weygand, Reverend Martin Neimoller, and former Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg were liberated in Austria by U.S. troops.      Hans Frank, governor general of German occupied Poland was taken prisoner by U.S. troops.      U.S. Third Army units occupied Linz in Austria.      Japanese Kamikazes sank 17 U.S. ships off Okinawa in a 24 hr period. A total of 131 Japanese planes were destroyed.      The 26th Indian Division entered Rangoon.      British ships bombarded the airfeilds on Sakishima Islands in the southern Ryukyus.

Ok, the battle of the Coral Sea.
Two games of global this weekend, Oztea’s 1941 version fun game lots of action seems to favor the Allies in the 3 games so far.

The first naval battle in which the participants never saw the enemy ( carrier aircraft were solely invovled in the attacks ). The Japanese suffered their first setback of the war. Even though the Japanese won the numerical victory, their losses were sufficiant to cancel the planned invasion of Australia through Port Moresby in New Guinea. U.S. Navy losses were the carrier Lexington, the destoyer Sims, and the oilerNeosho. The carrier Yorktown was damaged. U.S. Navy pilots from the carriers Lexington and Yorktown sank the light carrier Shoho, the first Japanese ship larger than a destroyer to be sunk in the war. The Japanese also lost the destoyer Kikuzuki and tree auxiliaries. A squadron leader, Lieutenant Commander Dixon, radioed the sinking of the Shoho with a message which became memorable: “Scratch one flattop. Dixson to carrier. Scratch one flattop!” Each side lost about 30 planes in the battle.

May 7 1940 The Netherlands completed its defense mobilization program.

1941 Stalin assumed the Premiership of the soviet union.      A boarding party from the Royal Navy destoyer Somali found an intact German Naval Enigma coding machine and cipher book when it captured the weather ship Munchin in the North Atlantic. The cryptografic equipment proved useful in breaking the German Naval codes through Ultra intercepts.      Churchill won a vote of confidence, 447-3, two labor members and a communist opposing him.

1942 6th Corregidor surrendered. About 16,000 Filipinos and Americans were captured by the Japanese. On this last day of fighting, 350 defenders were killed.The force had resisted fiercely, but the notion that Corregidor might hold out until large numbers of reinforcements could arrive was widespread. In a letter written just before the surrender, General Wainwright wrote; "As I wright this we are subjected to terrific air and artillery bombardment and it is unreasonable to expect that we can hold out for long. We have done our best, both here and on Bataan, and although beaten we are still unashamed. " Actually the dogged resistance did have an impact on the Pacific war. One Jpanese division (the 4th) was so badly mauled in fighting for control of the Isand that its remnants were returned home. That division had been earmarked for the fighting in New Guinea and the Solomans. Othe forces invoved  in cleanning up the Philippines, mighjt also have been freed for crucial battles ahead, including Guadalcannal.      Chinese troops in Burma recaptured Maymyo.      U.S. forces began arriving in Liberia.

1943 Tunis and Bizerte were occupied by Alied forces. The main body of Axis forces under Arnim retreated into the Cape Bon peninsula, about 41,000 Germanswere captured at Bizerte alone.

1944Russian forces launched their decisive attack on Sevastopol.

1945 The German High Command surrendered unconditionally. General Jodl signed the instrument of surrender at SHAEF headquarters. The fighting was to end at 11:01 p.m. on May 9th. Associated Press correspondent Edward Kennedy scooped the world by flashing the story, but he was ordered expelled from the European theater for premature release of the news.      Seyss-Inquart was arrested in Hamburg.      Breslau in Silesia fell to the Red Army.      The Vlasov army was rejected by the Czechs. Vlasov fled Praque to reach U.S. lines

May 8th 1940 Marshal Timoshenko was named Soviet defense commissar.      Also yesterday Roosevelt ordered the U.S. fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely.

1941 The first of the German raiders (converted merchantmen) were sunk. Pinguin was caught in the Indian Ocean by the British crusier Cornwall whose 8 inch shells exploded 130 mines being carried by the raider.

1942 German forces in the Crimea launched preparations for their summer offensive. Initial action was directed against Kerch. The ultimate objectives were the oil feilds of the Caucasus.      Japans hope to exploit the capture of the Dutch East Indies oil feilds recieved a jolt when a U.S. submarine sank a trasnsport carrying 900 Japanese supervisors and skilled workers en-route to the production areas. Loss of the men serious affected Japans fuel supplies for a time.      Myitkyina in the north of Burma fell.      The Japanese launched new attacks on Mindanao. Captive General Wainwright called on the remaining defenders to surrender.      The British Foreign Office announced that British commanders in Madagascar had assured French authorities there that the Island would remain French and revert to French sovereignty after the war. These assurances were given “in return for their cooperation and in order to avoid bloodshed”.

1943 The Hungarian parliament was disolved.

1944 Eisenhower designated D-Day, the cross Channel invasion, as June 5. It had originally been set for an unspecified day in May.

1945 The war inEurope was declared ended. Churchill and Truman proclaimed V-E day. All resistance ended in Latvia. The German Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies surrendered along the Leningrag front .      Goring surrendered near Fischhorn in Austria.      Prince Olaf and British representitives accepted the surrender of German troops in Norway.      Rain brought a respite to the fierce fighting on Okinawa.

YES, THE 1939 CHARTS ARE PRINTED !!! Now just the map

May9 1940 Mussolini made his final decision to bring Italy into the war. It was a personal choise, made without consultation or comment from his staff or advisors.

1941 In a move to conciliate Germany, the Soviet Union withdrew its recognition of Belgium, Norway, and Yugoslavia.      Representitives of Thailand and French-Indo China concluded a peace treaty in Tokyo.      The Royal Navy’s Bulldog and Broadway captured the submarine U-110 in the North Atlantic, the first German underwater craft to fall into Allied hands. Although the U-boat sank the next day, crewmen from the British destoyer and sloop were able to remove the Enigma machine, cipher books, and the rotor settings then in use. It was even more valuable a find than the equipment recovered from Munchen two days earlier. The combonation of thr two captured cryptographic prizes were crucially important in breaking the German U-boat codes and ultimately in winning the battle of the North Atlantic.

1942 Russia launched a major offensive from the Donets bridgehead in an effort to push the Germans back to Kharkov.      The U.S. issued an ultimatum to Admiral Georges Robert, high commissioner in the French West Indies, to yeald military and communications controll to American authorities because the French possessions might become bases for aggression on the part of the Axis. Vichy rejected the demands and protested “this interference by the American government in French internal politics”.

1943 German forces facing threU.S. II Corps in Tunisia surrenderd. Six Generals were among the prisoners.

1944 Soviet forces recaptured Sevastopal after a 24 day seige.      Allied air units commenced a series of intensive raids on Luftwaffe bases in France to neutralize the German air threats on D-day.      Japanese troops captured Lushan in China, completely cutting the Peking-Hankow rail line.

1945 All fighting was officially ended in Europe. The Surrender was radified by a ceremony in Berlin, with Zhukov and Keitel signing the document.      Russian forces under Marshal Konev occupied Prague, the last of the European capitals to be liberated.      Quinsling surrendered to Norwgian police in Oslo. (He was executed by a firing squad Oct. 24th)        The German garrision surrendered  the Channel Islands, the only British home territory occupied by the Germansduring the war. Forty miles from Cherbourg and 80 miles south of the English coast, the nine Islands had been under German control since June 30th 1940