On this day during W.W. 2

January 13, 1945

Sgt. Clearance Pfeifer and Pfc. Sherman Maness of the 11th Armored Division bringing back two captured German prisoners, Longchamps, Belgium.

Notice the .45-cal. M3 SMG ‘Grease Gun’ and .30 cal. Browning MG mounted on the Jeep.

14th Jan. 1941

Italian submarine Cappellini and British auxiliary cruiser Eumaeus engaged in a gun fight for three hours 100 miles west of Freetown, British West Africa. Cappellini suffered three casualties and was badly damaged, but was able to sink Eumaeus, killing 27.
Source: ww2dbase
Photo: Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini

January 16, 1941. Malta

80 Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bombers attack Valletta Harbour, Malta, trying to finish off British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious which was badly damaged by Stukas while escorting the Excess convoy on January 10. HMS Illustrious, destroyer HMS Decoy (on the day when repairs from bomb damage in November 1940 are completed) and Australian cruiser HMAS Perth are hit or damaged by splinters from near misses, but none sink. British steamer Essex is also damaged. 10 Stukas are shot down.

I love the picture of the crashed Stuka because it’s pitched forward at an angle that makes it look exactly like an airborne Stuka that’s diving for an attack.

@CWO-Marc How funny: I thought it was really sad!

@Wittmann said in On this day during W.W. 2:

@CWO-Marc How funny: I thought it was really sad!

I guess the perspective depends on which side of a Stuka attack a person is on: delivery or receipt. :)

@CWO-Marc said in On this day during W.W. 2:

@Wittmann said in On this day during W.W. 2:

@CWO-Marc How funny: I thought it was really sad!

I guess the perspective depends on which side of a Stuka attack a person is on: delivery or receipt. :)

Heh Heh Yea cool pic.

Must’ve been destroyed on ground ? Certainly not an air crash. Kinda hard to tell, looks like burn marks by the engine ? Possible training accident ?

What do you guys think ?

Or I guess it coulda been shot down and when he tried to land, it ended that way ?

@barnee it could have been hit while trying to take off also…

January 18, 1944. Monte Cassino
In Italy the assault on the Cassino lines continues. The days following the 17th January saw some of the deadliest fighting of the campaign as first the French, then the British – a term which encompasses the Canadians, the Indians and the New Zealanders – and then the Americans, tried to break through.
Photo: British 5.5 inch medium artillery in action during the night barrage which opened the assault on the Garigliano River by the British 10th Corp
Source: WWII Today

On this day in 1942, Malaya, a 2-pounder anti-tank gun from Australian 2/4 Anti-Tank Regiment destroyed 9 Japanese tanks.
Source: RG Poulussen

@captain-walker said in On this day during W.W. 2:

On this day in 1942, Malaya, a 2-pounder anti-tank gun from Australian 2/4 Anti-Tank Regiment destroyed 9 Japanese tanks.

That same 2-pounder anti-tank gun would not do much against the tanks running around on the Eastern Front…

-Midnight_Reaper

@Midnight_Reaper That is a mad statistic. Thanks for the post.

@Midnight_Reaper yeah…no kidding. The armor plate on that anti tank gun is probably thicker than those Japanese tanks.

@captain-walker yea there hand grenades weren’t very good either : )

@barnee another pic of that engagement…

January 20, 1942. Eastern Front

180 miles west of Moscow, Soviet 11th Cavalry Corps pushes south from Rzhev towards Vyazma, attempting to isolate German 9th Army at Rzhev. 50 miles further west, Soviet 4th Shock Army finally reaches the German supply dumps at Toropets after several days without food. They attack and capture 6 tanks, 723 trucks, artillery with 450,000 shells, small arms with millions of rounds of ammunition, 1000 drums of fuel and much food.

Source: worldwar2daybyday

January 21, 1941. North Africa. Operation Compass

Assault on Tobruk, Libya, opens at 05:40hrs with an artillery barrage. Australian 6th Division sappers blast through the perimeter wire with Bangalore torpedoes and fill in antitank ditches, allowing 18 Matilda tanks and some captured Italian M11 and M13 medium tanks to move through. As at Bardia, Allied infantry and tanks pick off Italian machinegun posts, artillery batteries and dug-in tanks from within the defensive perimeter. They reach within 2 miles of the town of Tobruk and shell Italian cruiser San Giorgio from cliffs overlooking the harbour. 3 squadrons of RAF Blenheims bomb the defences continually. 8000 Italians are captured including the commander at Tobruk, General Petassi Manella, who refuses to surrender the garrison. Overnight, Italian bombers attack but only succeed in hitting a POW compound and killing 50-300 Italian prisoners.

Photo: The 37th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment has time for a spot of tea as it bombards Tobruk, 21 January 1941.

Source: worldwar2daybyday

@barnee

It looks like a nose over landing caused by landing on rough ground…if the wheels can’t overcome an obstacle because forward momentum is running out then the entire plane rotates (just as locking the front brakes on a bicycle causes an over the handlebars crash)

The fire damage looks as if it burned upwards from the engine in place to me but I’m not a pilot so I’m just speculating. Assuming that the photo is of one of the planes in that raid, obv. thousands of stukas met their end during the war.