On this day in 1944. Countdown to D-Day. Pathfinders, the first men to drop and mark drop zones. Men from 22 Independent Parachute Company, British 6 Airborne Division.
Source: RG Poulussen
Remembering all that died and served on this day in history.
@SS-GEN said in On this day during W.W. 2:
Remembering all that died and served on this day in history.
Yes indeed. Towards the end of Cornelius Ryan’s classic D-day book The Longest Day, as Rommel walks into his office and closes the door just as the clock strikes midnight and June 6th becomes June 7th, there’s a sentence which quietly makes the point that the Third Reich had less than a year left to its existence.
@CWO-Marc
A little off topic but am watching “Battle of Britain” right now. Haven’t seen it in ages. Forgot what Awesome flying was in it.
@barnee I don’t think I own it. Been a while since I saw it . Don’t get time to watch my kind of films any more.
@Wittmann
Well, hopefully time shows up for you with what you want to watch :) On a side note, I watched “Battle of Britain” “The Longest Day” and started on “A Bridge Too Far”. Being Anglo Saxon (which I guess Germans are too :)), I didn’t want to watch us lose :) so , Bridge Too Far was too far for me. :)
Was also the most German I’ve heard in a while :)
Paratroopers of Easy Company, 506th PIR, “Band of Brothers”, in the square of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, D+1.
On this day in 1944. More of 7th Armoured Division arrive on Gold. Cromwell ‘T121766W’ from ‘A’ Squadron, 4th County of London Yeomanry leads the way. The ‘W’ indicates a welded tank with armour up to 100mm thick!
Imperial War Museum
No particular date on this one but here’s a cool pic of a camouflaged German Bf 109 on flight above the Libyan desert, Summer 1941.
June 8, 1940. Norway
Evacuation of Narvik. French and Polish troops, pursuing General Dietl’s forces towards Sweden, pull out overnight and return to Narvik leaving dummies to fool the Germans. Group II troopships embark the final 4600 Allied troops (British, French and Polish) and depart Narvik, escorted by aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, cruisers HMS Southampton and HMS Coventry and 11 destroyers. The convoy is spotted by German reconnaissance planes and bombed continuously until out of range but without damage. Germans quickly assess the withdrawal and retake Narvik.
Operation Juno. German cruiser Admiral Hipper sinks British tanker Oil Pioneer and escorting armed trawler HMS Juniper (20 lives lost, Hipper picks up 29 survivors). Later, Hipper sinks empty British troopship Orama (19 lives lost, 280 rescued by German destroyers) but spares hospital ship Atlantis. Atlantis obeys the rules of war and does not attempt to radio any signals; Hipper does not sink her.
Operation Juno meets Evacuation of Narvik. At 0300 hours, aircraft carrier HMS Glorious sails for Scapa Flow with destroyers HMS Ardent & HMS Acasta (these vessels are not needed to escort troop transports). Captain Guy D’Oyly Hughes does not post top look-outs or fly patrol aircraft and runs into German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, 170 miles off the Norwegian coast. At 1630 hours, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau open fire from 24km, one of the longest hits ever recorded. Glorious is hit with several 11 inch shells, preventing aircraft taking off. Ardent & Acasta lay smoke and close on the German battleships firing 120 mm guns and torpedoes but both are hit. Acasta hits Scharnhorst with 1 torpedo (50 dead). Ardent sinks at 1720 hours (151 lives lost, 2 survivors). Glorious sinks at 1910 hours (1162 sailors and 59 RAF personnel killed, 42 survivors). Acasta sinks at 1920 hours (161 dead, 2 survivors). Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, aboard his flagship Gneisenau orders his flag lowered to half mast to honour the crews of the British destroyers. Photo is Scharnhorst firing on HMS Glorious.
Source: worldwar2daybyday
A Panzer crew, belonging to 1./s.SS-Pz.Abt.101 “Leibstandarte-SS-Adolf-Hitler” are here seen camouflaging their Panzer VI ‘Tiger’ tank with tree branches in the vicinity of Villers-Bocage, Normandy, in June 1944.
Date unconfirmed but possibly taken on the 14th of June, on the Ancienne Route de Caen (the old Caen Road), where Michael Wittmann’s company spent the night of 12/13 June.
11 JUN 1944: My uncle, Bud Piper, a combat engineer in the U.S. Army, began his second day in France. Like yesterday and tomorrow, he would spend it on his hands and knees, removing mines from Omaha Beach. By the end of the month, 1/3 of his unit would be killed or wounded by mines, booby traps, snipers or German artillery.
On this day in 1944, German Tiger tank commander Wittmann stops the entire British 7th Armoured Division advance to Caen, “single-handedly”, at Villers-Bocage. Wittmann destroyed in less than fifteen minutes 13 tanks, 2 anti-tank guns and 14 transport vehicles.
Ha my hero ! 😬
Wrecks of German Tiger 1 & Panzer IV Tanks, Villers-Bocage, 13th June 1944
Bummer. Lol. Nice pics
13th June 1944: London;
The V1 Flying Bomb, ( Hitler’s Vergeltungswaffe 1, Vengeance Weapon 1) known by The Allies as Buzz Bombs or Doodlebugs was an early cruise missile & the only production aircraft to use pulsejet for power.
The Wehrmacht started launching the V1’s in mid 1944. A total of 9,521 were fired at London & the South East Coast, the first hitting London, next to a railway bridge, on Grove Road, Mile End, on 13th June 1944, killing 8 civilians. The last V1 hit the UK in October 1944, when the sites were overrun by the advancing Allies, after which they targeted Belgium, until 29th March 1945.
Several methods were incorporated to Destroy the V1’s, Anti-aircraft guns & Barrage Balloons being two of them. The Third was the Interceptor, (Fighter Aircraft). Early attempts to Intercept the V1’s often failed, but improved techniques soon emerged. One of these was the use of airflow over the Interceptors Wing to raise one wing of the V1, by sliding the wingtip to within 6 inches (15cm) of the lower surface of the V1’s wing, (as shown in photographs below)
When properly executed, this manoeuvre would tip the V1’s wing up, thereby overriding the gyro & sending the V1 into an out of control dive. At least 16 V1’s were destroyed this way, the first by Major R E Turner, of 356th Fighter Squadron on the 18th June 1944;
The total number of casualties inflicted by the V1’s was 22,892.
A British 4.5 inch gun & crew of 211 Battery, 64th Medium Regiment, R>A> in action near Tilly-sur-Seulles, 13th June 1944:
@captainwalker Villers Bocage is a sleepy old town. Had to go and sit there and drink a beer, thinking of that famous day and his exploits. The British column. and the 7th as a whole, were totally paralyzed by his actions that day. Well worth reading about it.
