Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Sunday, April 16, 1944. Black Sunday.

The RAF hit Romania for the first time. On the same day, the Soviet Air Forces hit Galatz. 

The Germans began to gather Hungarian Jews, some 800,000 in number, into ghettos.  Prior to this phase of the war, Hungarian Jews had been oppressed by their own nation, but not subject to deportation to the death camps.

The Red Army took Yalta.  The Germans attempted to push the Red Army back over the Dnestr.

A large air raid was staged on Hollandia, Indonesia.  The mission was successful with no losses, but the aircraft ran into a severe weather front on the return and 46 of the 170 aircraft in the raid went down.  The day acquired the name "Black Sunday" as a result.

The attacking force was made up of  B-24s, B-25s and A-20s, escorted by P-38s

862 Poles were killed by Ukrainian SS troops of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division. (1st Galician) in Chodaczków Wielki, part of pre war Poland which is now Velykyi Khodachkiv, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine.

The Parczew partisans helped take over that town in Poland on this day.

The U-550 was sunk off of Nantucket.  It was found in 2012:

Search team finds U-boat off Nantucket

African American artillerymen were in action on Bougainville.

155 Long Tom of B Btry, 49th Coastal Artillery, being loaded for firing.  Bougainville, April 16, 1944.  Section 1 of this unit, which had not been deployed overseas, would be disbanded the following month as the need for coast artillery faded.  Section 2, depicted, here, had obviously been converted to heavy field artillery.

1st section gun crew, Btry. A, 593rd F.A. Bn, load 105mm howitzer, preparatory to firing. Bougainville. 16 April, 1944.

USO events were going on in the UK.


In the US, General Robert E. Wood, former head of the America First Committee, stated that there was no connection between the pre-Pearl Harbor organization and the current party which was then led by the Reverend Gerald Smith, its presidential candidate that year.  Smith would receive 1,780, votes for the Oval Office, most of those from Texas and Michigan.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 15, 1944. Romania attacked from the air, Teenagers lose at Tarnopol, Politics in Minnesota, Hydro-Québec

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