Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Sunday, December 8, 2024
Friday, December 8, 1944
Friday, September 13, 2024
Wednesday, September 13, 1944. The Execution of the SOE Agents.
Greek, Canadian and New Zealand forces attacked the Germans at Rimini, Italy.
The Red Army took the Warsaw suburb of Praga. That evening, the Soviet air force began dropping supplies to the Home Army in Warsaw. The action was undertaken due to US and UK pressure.
The Greek People's Liberation Army and the collaborationist Security Battalions fought at Melgalas.
The Navy begana pre invasion bombardment of Peleliu and Angaur.
SOE agents Yolande Beekman, 32, Madeleine Damerment, 26, and Noor Inayat Khan, 30, were executed at Dachau.
The USS Warrington sunk in the 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
Last edition:
Monday, August 26, 2024
Saturday, August 26, 1944. De Gaulle in the streets of Paris. Bulgaria calls it quits.
Charles de Gaulle marched in the streets of paris, German sniper fire notwithstanding.
The Allies won the Battle of Toulon.
And they were taking back channel islands this late as well.
British paratroopers backed by Belgian infantry and armor, cleared the arears around Caen still in German hands.
Six American airmen were lynched by the townspeople of Rüsselsheim am Main. Some of the townspeople would find themselves defendants in a war crimes trial after the war.
While this incident resulted in trials, killings of airmen, both in Germany and Japan, were hardly limited to this.
Bugarai announced that it was pulling out of the war and disarming all German troops on its territory.
The Red Army reached the Danube.
The 8th Army crossed the Metauro in Italy.
Adam von Trott zu Solz, 35 years of age, a German lawyer, diplomat and central figure in the 20 July plot, was hung by the Nazis.
Last edition:
Friday, August 25, 1944. Paris, Versailles and Avignon liberated.
Monday, August 5, 2024
Friday, August 5, 1944. The Wola Massacre.
German SS, the Azerbaijani Legion and the Russian collaborationist Kaminski Brigade, commenced killing Poles in the Wola district of Warsaw. The massacre was ordered by Himmler.
Between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles would be murdered.
The weirdness of this is inescapable. The Russians in RONA were there partially in order to survive German captivity, and partial in an effort to free their homeland from Communist control. The Soviet Union had helped take away Poland's freedom by invading it along with Germany, and the Polish Home Army was attempting to free their homeland and was anti communist. The Azerbaijanis were fighting for the liberation of their homeland as well.
The 3d Army took Vannes.
The Cowra breakout occured in New South Wales in which 1,100 Japanese POWs broke out. They'd all be captured within ten days, although four Australians and 231 Japanese POWs would be killed.
The RAF destroyed the German U-boat pens at Brest.
The Soviet submarine Shch-215 sanke the Turkish motor schooner Mefküre resulting in the death of 300 Jewish refugees.
Last edition:
Thursday, August 4, 1944. The Frank's arrested.
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Sunday, May 14, 1944. Route to Rome.
Today in World War II History—May 14, 1944: 80 Years Ago—May 14, 1944: In Italy, US II Corps breaks German Gustav Line, opening the route to Rome.
Sarah Sundin's blog.
The Luftwaffe raided Bristol at night.
E-boats attacked Allied landing craft near the Isle of Wight.
Albanian SS rounded up 281 Kosovo Jews for deportation to concentration camps.
Vichy radio reported that French cardinals had appealed to the Roman Catholic clergy in Britain and the United States to use their influence to ensure that the French civilian population towns, works of art and churches would be spared from Allied bombing as much as possible,
The ironically named America Maru was sunk by the USS Nautilus. Most of the occupants of the ship were Japanese civilians being evacuated from Saipan, the overwhelming majority of whom were killed in the sinking.
George Lucas was born in Modesto, California.
Last prior edition:
Friday, May 12, 1944. Heroism in Italy. End of the war in the Caucasus.
Monday, November 6, 2023
Saturday, November 6, 1943. The Red Army retakes Kiev
Today in World War II History—November 6, 1943: Hitler names Field Marshal Albert Kesselring commander of all German forces in Italy. Submarine USS Pampanito is commissioned at Portsmouth Navy Yard, NH.
It is the basic principle for the establishment of world peace that the nations of the world have each its proper place, and enjoy prosperity in common through mutual aid and assistance.The United States of America and the British Empire have in seeking their own prosperity oppressed other nations and peoples. Especially in East Asia, they indulged in insatiable aggression and exploitation, and sought to satisfy their inordinate ambition of enslaving the entire region, and finally they came to menace seriously the stability of East Asia. Herein lies the cause of the recent war. The countries of Greater East Asia, with a view to contributing to the cause of world peace, undertake to cooperate toward prosecuting the War of Greater East Asia to a successful conclusion, liberating their region from the yoke of British-American domination, and ensuring their self-existence and self-defense, and in constructing a Greater East Asia in accordance with the following principles:The countries of Greater East Asia through mutual cooperation will ensure the stability of their region and construct an order of common prosperity and well-being based upon justice.The countries of Greater East Asia will ensure the fraternity of nations in their region, by respecting one another's sovereignty and independence and practicing mutual assistance and amity.The countries of Greater East Asia by respecting one another's traditions and developing the creative faculties of each race, will enhance the culture and civilization of Greater East Asia.The countries of Greater East Asia will endeavor to accelerate their economic development through close cooperation upon a basis of reciprocity and to promote thereby the general prosperity of their region.The countries of Greater East Asia will cultivate friendly relations with all the countries of the world, and work for the abolition of racial discrimination, the promotion of cultural intercourse and the opening of resources throughout the world, and contribute thereby to the progress of mankind.
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Wednesday, October 21, 1943. Indian declaration.
The Provisional Government of Azad Hind ("Free India") was declared with Subhas Chandra as president. Its territory, such as it was, were those portions of Indian occupied by Japan.
It immediately declared it was entering the war on the Japanese side, an example of really not grasping the direction things were headed in, and in fact already well advanced towards.
On the same day, Japan began drafting high school and university students.
The Germans began liquidating the Minsk Ghetto as they were retreating from Belarus.
The RAF made a highly destructive raid on Kassel.
Algerian Jews, 140,000 in number were restored French citizenship, which had been restricted, along with the same for Algerian Arabs, on March 17, 1942 by Gen. Henri Giraud. Arabs had to apply for restoration of their French citizenship.
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Thursday, October 14, 1943. Black Thursday.
Seventy seven B-17s were shot down, along with four P-47s. 121 aircraft were ottherwise damaged. 590 Allied airmen were killed.
The target of the raid was ball bearing plants. The RAF refused to cooperate on the basis that ball bearings were a worthless object of a raid, something that post-war analysis proved correct.
An uprising commenced at Sobibor resulting in eleven SS and Ukrainian guards being killed. SS-Untersturmführer Johann Niemann, thirty years of age and the commandant of Sobibor was the first one killed when he went to see a tailor, one of the prisoners, for a fitting. The prisoner killed him with an axe, and his pistol was taken.
Three Hundred inmates escaped, although many were killed in nearby minefields or recaptured and immediately killed. Fifty did survive and escape. Those prisoners who had opted not to escape were also killed and the camp closed.
José P. Laurel, formerly a Philippines Supreme Court Justice, took the oath of office as President of the puppet Second Philippine Republic. The Republic's then signed an alliance with Japan.
He also appealed to the Vatican at this time for recognition, which was refused on the stated basis that the Vatican did not wish to recognize any new states during the war. Nonplussed, he sought the Filipinization of the Church in the Philippines.
We've already dealt with him in a previous post, and as noted there, he had a post-war political career in the country, demonstrating that the common view that East Asian collaborators were universally despised by their own people is not true.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Sunday, September 19, 1943. Wars within the war.
The Markham, Ramu and Finisterre campaigns on New Guinea began with an Allied offensive in the Ramu Valley.
Friday, March 3, 2023
Wednesday, March 3, 1943. Accidents.
173 people were crushed to death in London's Bethnal Green tube, where they were sheltering from an air raid.
The rush to the shelter was started when people fled into the tube due to a salvo of British anti-aircraft rockets being launched from Victoria Park.
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Monday, March 1, 1943. Canning and rationing & The Rosenstraße Protest.
The SS murdered 6,700 residents of Koriukivka, Ukraine, in the largest reprisal raid of World War Two.
The Belarusian Central Council, a putative collaborationist Belorussian government, which later morphed into a post-war Belorussian refugee organization, was formed.
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Sunday, February 28, 1943. Norwegians at Vermok.
Norwegian ski
born Norwegian commandos raided the Norsk Hydro plant at Vermok, Norway,
destroying the heavy water inventory that had been produced there by the Germans.
28,000 Norwegians carried on beyond Norway during the war, joining Norwegian forces that had made it out of Norway when it was invaded in 1940. 15,000 Norwegians joined the German forces, principally in the SS, which mostly fought on the Eastern Front, although Germany attempted to recruit Norwegians for the German Navy as well. About 40,000 Norwegians participated in the Milorg, the Norwegian resistance.
The Vermok event was memorialized in the 1965 British war movie, Heroes of Telemark. It was also featured in a 1948 Norwegian movie, Operation Swallow.
This was the third attempted raid on the plan, this one being more successful than the prior two. Another air attack would take place in November 1943 and a heavy water transporting boat would be attacked in 1944.
The USAAF and RAF made a 1,000 plane raid on Saint-Nazaire submarine base.
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Monday, February 8, 1943. Bose leaves, Rutledge ascends.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 8: 1943 1943 A B-25 landed on a highway near Douglas due to low fuel. Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.