On this day during W.W. 2

June 9, 1944. Western Front

The Allied forces land a considerable number of men and material. On the British side, the Germans position three divisions North-West of Caen: the 21st Panzer Division, 12nd S.S. Panzer Division and the Panzer-Lehr. These divisions are fighting British 2nd Army who are supported on the ground by anti-tank guns and in the sky by devastating allied aircraft, which worries the German generals.

The counter-attacks of the Luftwaffe in Normandy are thin and failing: on June 9, BF 109 German fighters are announced near the village of Lion-sur-Mer. Immediately, American P-51 Mustang fighters push them back.

The American troops of the 7th Corps continue to attack the village of Montebourg in Cotentin, savagely defended by the Germans - the losses are big. Other units capture the locality of Azeville and silence the German battery which opened fire on Utah Beach. The 1st American Infantry Division, which landed on June 6 at Omaha, launches an offensive West of Bayeux: the villages of Tour-en-Bessin, Etreham and Blay are liberated. The 29th American Infantry Division advances towards Carentan and captures the town of Isigny-sur-Mer after a long day of fighting. South-west of Isigny, the Headquarters of the 2nd American Infantry Division settles in the village of Formigny. Its forces progress to the South in direction of the localities of Trévières and Rubercy which are reached in the evening.

Source: World War II Daily: DDay to VEDay

Photo colourised by Marina Amaral

June 13, 1944 Western Front

On the left of the Allied line, the British 2nd Army continues to attack. The 30th Corps regroups its forces.
A mixed force of tanks, infantry and artillery, based on the 22nd Armoured Brigade of the 7th Armoured Division, tries to take advantage of a gap in the German defences west of the city of Caen by advancing through the gap in a flanking manoeuvre towards Villers-Bocage.
The advance of the 22nd Armoured Brigade stopped when SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) Michael Wittmann ambushed the British with his Tiger I tank, destroying up to fourteen tanks and fifteen personnel carriers, along with two anti-tank guns, within the space of fifteen minutes.
The rest of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion attacked the town and were repulsed, losing several Tigers and Panzer IV.

To the left, the US 1st Army makes progress towards St Lo and across the Cotentin. Pont l’Abbe is capture in the peninsula. A German counterattack, spearheaded by 17th SS Panzer Division and the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, toward Carentan is held after reinforcements of the 2nd Armoured Division reached the battle.
In the picture: Shermans from the 2nd Armoured Division at the battle of Bloody Gulch.

@captainwalker are those British Shermans ? It looks like a longer barrel than what the USA used.

@barnee that front one looks like a firefly…

@captainwalker Hmm…I’m not familiar with firefly. I’ll have to look it up. I just remember something about the Brits putting a longer barrel on some.

@barnee There weren’t enough of them available, but theoretically, there were enough for most Troops (Platoon) of 4 Tanks to have one. There were 4 Troops per Squadron (Company) and 3 Squadrons per Regiment (Battalion). Would have meant a full strength British or Canadian Regiment had 59 Shermans, 12 of which were meant to be Fireflies.
The Germans tended to look out for the Fireflies amd target them first . They were feared.

June 26,1944 Normandy

Troops of 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, 15th (Scottish) Division, fire from their positions in a sunken lane during Operation ‘Epsom’, 26 June 1944.

Nice. Looks as if they have their firepower distributed correctly. :)

American 105mm Howitzer shelling German forces near Carentan, France. July 11, 1944.

August 13, 1940. German long-range coastal artillery fire their first shells from France over the English Channel towards Dover. The British responded with their own guns. This gunnery duel became known as “Hellfire Corner”, and ended in September 1944 with the liberation of France & Belgium.

After 4 days of rain, August 25th, 1944 was a perfect summer’s day in Rouen, northern France.
Although there were many places where German soldiers could cross the Seine river and escape the incoming Allied armies, only a few heavy ferries and one damaged rail bridge big enough to allow heavy armour to cross were still operational in the northern sector.
Many were those who converged on the Quai Jean de Bethencourt at Rouen cramming the long quayside with vehicles of all sizes and shapes. It is estimated that at least 4,000 vehicles were massed at a time in the Rouen area.
With the sun came the Allied air force. 24 Mitchells and 10 Bostons medium bombers of RAF’s No 137 and 139 Wings arrived over Rouen at 7 p.m and bombed the left bank. The bombs landed amid the queued vehicles destroying more than 500 with a few bombs falling on the right bank killing some of those who had already crossed the river.
Four hours earlier an SS man sitting on bollard 230 smokes his pipe while he waits his turn to cross. An almost peaceful scenario were it not for the machines of war parked in the background. They comprise a PzKpfw VI ‘Tiger’, a PzKpfw V ‘Panther’ and a PzKpfw IV of unknown units.
If they managed to get across or burned in the incoming inferno it is unknown.

August 25 is also the day on which Paris was liberated. The film “Is Paris Burning?”, which depicts the liberation of Paris, includes the most badly dubbed sequence I’ve ever seen in a movie, the one in which Kirk Douglas as Lieutenant General George S. Patton is having a conversation with someone.

September 13, 1943. Italy
German troops near Salerno, launch a counter offensive against the recent Allied landings, striking at the region near Battipaglia, pushing US units back toward the beach, and re-capturing Altavilla 14 kilometres northeast of Paestum by nightfall. Allied leadership began to prepare, but did not execute, evacuation plans.

September 18, 1942. Eastern Front
Fighting continues at Stalingrad with house-to-house and even room-to-room combat. Soviet General Vasily Chuikov orders his troops to remain in permanent contact with the Germans (“hugging tactics”) to reduce the effectiveness of German artillery and aerial bombardment. However, the German assault has been held by Soviet 62nd Army mainly due to their reinforcement by 13th Guards Rifle Division 3 days ago. The cost to 13th Rifles is severe and only 320 of the 10,000 men sent into Stalingrad will survive the battle. North of the city, 3 Soviet Armies (including 1st Guards Army) attack XIV Panzer Corps (part of General Paulus’s 6th Army) but they are decimated on the open steppe by the Luftwaffe.

Ya Ya Attack !!! Lol
Thanks my Captain !

On this day in 1943, the now famous captured German Tiger tank “131” arrived in the UK at the Department of Tank Design, Surrey. The tank was completely dismantled for technical evaluation.

@captainwalker and I have seen it in action at Bovington Tank Museum. Was great to see and hear it move.

25 November 1941
While steaming to cover an attack on Italian convoys, the Queen Elizabeth-class 15in gun Battleship - HMS Barham was hit by three torpedoes from the German submarine U-331, captained by Kapitänleutnant Freiherr Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen. As she rolled over to port, her after magazines exploded and the ship quickly sank with the loss of over two-thirds of her crew.
(841 men lost their lives when this battleship was sunk according to the HMS Barham Association website).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdrISbwy_zI

@captainwalker very nice . Thanks Steve.

Pearl Harbor Attack - Sunday 7, December 1941
Panoramic view of Pearl Harbor, during the Japanese raid, with anti-aircraft shell bursts overhead. The photograph looks southwesterly from the hills behind the harbor. Large column of smoke in lower right center is from the burning USS Arizona (BB-39). Smoke somewhat further to the left is from the destroyers Shaw (DD-373), Cassin (DD-372) and Downes (DD-375), in dry-docks at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard.
Observers quote, “This must be the second wave, because of all the flak that’s up. Apparently one of the reasons that there wasn’t a third wave was that American antiaircraft fire had greatly improved in effectiveness on the second wave, and that’s when most of the 29 Japanese aircraft were shot down.”
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-32792
Color by Facundo Filipe