World War Two Amphibious Warfare Display: National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

World War Two Jeep coming off of LVT-4 amphibious tractor.

LVT-4 Amtrak.

DUKW amphibious truck.

Amphibious Jeep.

Last edition:

The Aerodrome: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21. National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

Labels: Dubois Wyoming, Fighter, Mig 21, Mikoyan, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Soviet Air Forces, Wyoming (Dubois)

Sunday, October 15, 1944. Horthy attempts to take Hungary out of the war.

n Aachen, Germany, Pfc. Ragnel Lundgren, Jamestown, New York, maintains continuous communications with his headquarters with a handie-talkie radio. 15 October, 1944. 1st Infantry Division.

Aided by the armored force, Yank infantry moves forward to engage the enemy in Aachen, Germany. 15 October, 1944. Company M, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division.

Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy made a radio broadcast announcing a separate peace with the Soviet Union.  The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust, a commando operation to seize Horthy and keep Hungary in the war.  He was in fact seized later that day and resigned in favor of Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi when he learned that his son had been seized and his life was in danger.

The Red Army too Riga.

Partisans launched an operation to expel the Germans from Kosovo.

The Poles took Gambettola.

The Leipzig collided with the Prinz Eugen in the Baltic fog and was rendered a total loss.

The U-777 was sunk by the RAF.

Task Force 38.4 conducted air raids north of Manila.

Pfc. Hoyle E. Lougherty, Knoxville, Tenn., looks at a warning sign posted by the Nazis for the German citizenry of Aachen, Germany. It means "Take care, the enemy may be listening". 15 October, 1944.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 14, 1944. Rommel kills himself.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Peleliu, Bill Mauldin, Erwin Rommel, Food, German Army, Greece, Italian Social Republic, Italy, July 20 Plot, Palau Island, Philippines, Taiwan, U.S. Navy

Sunday, October 1, 1944. Battle of Tornio starts.

Miss Betty Brittian, Pasadena, Calif., hands Cpl. Wm. B. Brooks, Clayton, Ga., inside the tank, a cup of coffee and doughnuts. 1 October, 1944. Company B, 609th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

The Battle of Tornio began with a Finnish attack on German positions in Lapland.

The U.S. Army took Monte Battaglia.  II and IV Corps launch an offensive towards Bologna.

The Germans commenced the Putten Raid in the Netherlands, removing 660 men in reprisals for a failed assassination attempt on a German official.

British commandos landed at Poros, Greece.  Greek troops landed at Mitilini, Lemnos, and Levita.

British General General Richard McCreery assumed command of the 8th Army, in Italy. General Oliver Leese, was assigned to command Allied Land Forces, Southeast Asia.

Gen. Rudolf Schmundt, age 48, died of wounds sustained in the July 20 plot.  He had been an adjutant to Hitler.

Sally Reed, Durham, Mass., a Red Cross worker somewhere in France, does a bit of KP on the large containers about her--and she doesn't believe in signs for they're all coffee urns. 1 October, 1944.

Last edition: 

Saturday, September 30, 1944. Counteroffensive at Nijmegen.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Peleliu, boats and ships, British Army, Canadian Army, Defence of the Nijmegen bridgehead, German Wehrmacht, Operation Market Garden, Palau, Pas-de-Calais France, World War Two

August 15, 1944. Operation Dragoon. The added invasion of France

A second, nearly forgotten invasion of France, this time in the south, commenced.

Operation Dragoon.

Ordinally planned on concert with Operation Overlord, a shortage of landing craft caused it to be postponed to August.  In just four weeks the Allies would clear southern France of the Germans.

Troops of the 15th Inf. Regt., 3rd Div., take cover in the sand as they await orders to advance inland. 15 August, 1944. 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.

SC 411764 - Infantrymen of B Company, 120th Infantry, 30th Division, cut through a field alongside a road to avoid crossing in the open and giving German snipers a target. 15 August, 1944.

A paratrooper thanks the French fighters who saved his life. Pvt. Winifred D. Eason, of Atlanta, Ga., Company B, 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, landed 34 hours before H-Hour, D-Day, Aug. 15, 1944, for the invasion of southern France. On the left is the man who saved him, Monsieur Marc Rainaut, leader of the French forces of the Interior of St. Tropez. In the center is Mademoiselle Nicole Celebenovitch, who secured a .45 (seen in her belt) and led the paratroopers to a group of hidden Germans. Rainaut received the Silver Star for his work on D-Day.

It is at this point, frankly, that the Germans should have rationally concluded they had lost the war.

The Battle of Port Cros took place in which the U.S. Navy and the Kriegsmarine engaged in a rare surface engagement in connection with Operation Dragoon in which Axis ships operating out of Port Cros engaged the U.S. Navy.  Later in the day, a mixed regiment of United States Army and Canadian Army infantry, the 1st Special Service Force, dropped onto Port Cros and captured the five forts there after a day-long battle with their German garrisons.

Audie Murphy received the Distinguished Service Cross for action taken on 15 August 1944.

"U.S. Army nurses, newly arrived, line the rail of their vessel as it pulls into port of Greenock, Scotland, in European Theater of Operations. They wait to disembark as the gangplank is lowered to the dock.", 08/15/1944"

The U-741 was sunk off of Le Havre by the USS Somers.

Last edition:

Monday, August 14, 1944. Closing Gaps

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Canadian Army, Falaise Pocket, France, Ft. Lawton Washington, German Army, Italian Army, Operation Bagration, Operation Overlord, Partisans, Polish Army, Red Army, World War Two

Friday, June 2, 1944. Eisenhower moves, Operation Frantic commences, Romania and the Soviet Union talk.

American medics from the First Special Services Force giving aid to a group of French soldiers... some of whom were killed and others wounded when three shells landed in Colleferro. Picture taken one minute after the shells landed. 2 June, 1944.

Hitler ordered Kesslering to abandon Rome, which Kesselring was already doing.

Some of the prisoners who were flushed out of the buildings on the eastern side of town.  The Alied troops are from the First Special Services Force, which explains their baggy M1943 paratrooper field trousers.  Artena and Colleferro area, Italy. 2 June, 1944.

3rd Division troops move into Valmontone, Italy, a strong point of German resistance for several days. 2 June, 1944.

Diplomats from the USSR and Romania met in secret in Stockholm to negotiate a Romanian surrender.

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—June 2, 1944 Countdown to D-day: Gen. Dwight Eisenhower moves his headquarters to a trailer at Southwick House in Hampshire.

The French Committee of National Liberation proclaimed itself to be the Provisional Government of France in a declaration from Algeria.

Operation Frantic, which saw U.S. aircraft fly from the United Kingdom and Italy on bombing missions, and then land in Ukraine, and then bomb again on their way back, commenced.

This would be done only seven times.  By and large, the effort was not a success as the Soviets were hostile to it, U.S. personnel assigned to Soviet bases were wary of the Soviets (for good reason and because of their backgrounds as having come from refugee families), and the Soviets proved to be incapable of defending the airfields, which they had warned they might be.

B-17 landing in Ukraine, June 2, 1944.

An ammunition train derailed in Soham Cambridgeshire and exploded, killing two people.

Lost on this day in 1944 with all of its crew.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, June 1, 1944. Chanson d'automne.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, boats and ships, British Army, French Resistance Movements, Italy, Lighter than air aircraft, Operation Hasty, Operation Overlord, Paratroopers, Rangers, Rome, U.S. Navy, Weapons, World War Two

Wednesday, April 26, 1944. Pyrrihic Kidnapping.

Example of wartime propaganda aimed at the Japanese.

In a mission months in the making, members of the SOE and Cretan resistance kidnapped Heinrich Kreipe.

Originally directed at Gen. Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller as a reprisal for actions committed under his orders, Kreipe had succeeded him by the time the SOE team arrived.  Kreipe's kidnapping would cause Müller to return and order mass reprisals, something that had not occurred under Kreipe.

In short, it was a pointless action and poorly thought out, with ultimately tragic results.

Kreipe would be reunited with his kidnappers in a 1972 Greek television program.

In New Guinea, American beachheads at Tanahmerah Bay and Humboldt Bay were linked up.  Australian forces took Alexishafen.

The Yoshida Maru No. 1 was sunk by the USS Jack resulting in the loss of 2,669 men.

The U-488 was sunk off of Cape Verde by the U.S. Navy.

The I-180 was sunk off of Chirikof Island by the USS Gilmore.

The Royal Navy, in an effort to attack the Tirpitz which failed due to weather, found a coastal convoy instead and sunk three ships  in it.

The POW camp in Hoopeston, Illinois, received its first prisoners.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 25, 1944. The Blood for Goods deal extended, Air disaster at Montreal, the death of George Herriman.

1940s, 1944, 1944 at the Movies, Brazil, Commandos, Munich Germany, New Guinea, Personalities, Prisoners of War, Royal Air Force, Special Boat Service, Switzerland, United States Air Force, World War Two

Monday, April 24, 1944. Violating Swiss Airspace.

L-R: Lt. Col. Earl Hormell, aide to Gen. Devers, and Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, Deputy Supreme Commander, Me. Theater, pose with Ghurka troops as the general visits the front that the Ghurka was fighting on. Orsogna Sector, Italy, April 24, 1944.  Lt. Gen. Devers is wearing a non-regulation set of pull on "engineer's boots".  Devers was an artilleryman who was an early advocated of mechanization and who had participated in the development of the Army's armored forces, including the design of the M4 Sherman and the M26 Pershing.  Upon his retirement in 1949 at age 62, he became a cattle farmer.

The Finisterre Range Campaign in New Guinea concluded in an Allied victory.  US forces reached Lake Sentani near Hollandia. Australian forces took Madang.

The RAF violated Swiss airspace in order to evade Munich's air warning system.  Earlier in the day, the U.S. Army Air Force had raided the heavily defended city, losing 55 aircraft, 14 of which crashed into Switzerland.

Italy started fielding a "Co Belligerent Air Force" in support of the Allies over the Adriatic.

The Special Boat Service raided Santorini in the Aegean.

A British blockade of mutinous Greek troops in Egypt ceased.

Double Indemnity was released in Brazil, a few months ahead of the American release.

Why Brazil?  I have no idea.

Funeral for German POW Richard Jasker, Camp Robinson Nebraska. 24 April, 1944.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 23, 1944. Hollandia taken, MacArthur lands, John C. Squire's posthumous MoH, Greek troubles, Pyrgoi Massacre, Tragic accident, Missing mobster.

1940s, 1944, Battle of Hollandia, Crime, Douglas MacArthur, Greek Civil War, Heroes, Italian Social Republic, Italy, Mafia, Music, New Guinea, Operation Persecution, Operation Reckless, World War Two

Wednesday, October 27, 1943. Navy Day.

Today in World War II History—October 27, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Oct. 27, 1943: New Zealanders land on and take Stirling, Soanotalu, and Mono in the Treasury Islands, their first opposed amphibious landing since Gallipoli in WWI. US movie premiere of Guadalcanal Diary. American musicians are allowed to record V-discs for the military, bypassing the recording strike. US celebrates Navy Day.

New Zealand mortarmen on Mono.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The British SAS raided Ancona and Pescara in Italy in Operation Candytuft and cut the rail lines between the two cities in Operation Saxifrage.  The 8th Army took Montefalcone.

The first stainless steel airplane, the RB-1 Conestoga, made its first flight.

Only twenty were made.

Argentine Col. Juan Perón agreed  to direct the nation's Department of Labor.

Sunday, October 3, 1943. De Gaulle ascends.

Gen. Charles de Gaulle became the sole leader of the Committee for National Liberation, following the resignation of Henri Giraud.

Today in World War II History—October 3, 1943: Japanese finish evacuating Kolombangara, their last air base in the Solomons, after the island had been bypassed and isolated by the Allies.

Sarah Sundin.

The village of Lingiades (Λιγκιάδες) was arbitrarily chosen for reprisals by the Germans over the killing of a German officer by the Greek Resistance. As able-bodied men were harvesting walnuts at the time, most of the 92 victims were women, children, and the elderly.

British commandos landed at Termoli in Operation Devon, which would take the Italian harbor.

Central Italy experienced an earthquake.

Germans landed on Cos in the Aegean.

Sunday, September 26, 1943. Melting the vessels.

The SS gave the Roman Jewish community 36 hours to make payments to the German occupiers.  Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli appealed to the Vatican regarding the monetary shortfalls, and which the Vatican did. As the payments were to be i gold, it is thought that religious vessels were melted to make the payment.

Isreal Zolli.

Rabbi Zolli would survive the war, but with a dramatic turn of events.  On Yom Kippur in 1944 he experienced a vision of Jesus while celebrating a religious service and felt himself to have experienced the words "You are here for the last time".  On February 13, 1945, he, his second wife (his first had died) and his daughters were received into Catholicism. He died on March 2, 1956 after having received Communion.  He was ill at the time, but had told a nun at the hospital at which he was located the date and hour of his death before it arrived.

The Free French occupied Ghisonaccia on Corsica.

The multinational (not including Americans) Z Special Unit raided Japanese shipping at Singapore.  The Japanese, in New Guinea, launched an unsuccessful counterattack on the Australians at Finschafen.

Sunday, September 12, 1943. The Germans spring Mussolini

Italian Social Republic poster.

German commandos under the command of Otto Skorzeny rescued Benito Mussolini from Italian imprisonment at the Campo Imeriale Hotel in the Abruzzi Mountains.  A less than enthusiastic Mussolini was spirited away as a passenger on a Fieler Storch after the combined glider/paratrooper raid.

The raid allowed Mussolini to be installed in a puppet fascist state called the Italian Social Republic, which would not have a happy end for Il Duce.  While in photos of this event, he's all smiles, he was a shadow of his former bombastic self by this time.  His fascistic state embedded within a monarchy had been destroyed and was going to be defeated no matter what was done at this point.  Italian troops were now fighting the Germans, although not terribly effectively.  A partisan movement was developing. The sympathies of the Italian people had gone over to an Allied peace.

The raid itself, while regarded as quite a feat of arms, emphasized the sad state of the Axis war effort itself by this point.  Mussolini could be regarded as nothing other than a puppet with an Axis alliance that was basically down to one power and associates.  Some of those associates, such as Romania and Finland, had concluded the Axis cause was doomed and were looking for a way out of the war.

Patriarch Sergius was installed as the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first such formal installation since the Russian Revolution.

Saturday, May 22, 1943. Comintern dissolves.

The Comintern was dissolved in Moscow.

The Soviet Union had already betrayed the propaganda associated with the entity by being an ally of Nazi Germany until attacked by Nazi Germany.  The move was interpreted as a feeler towards the Western Allies, in that the Comintern had been dedicated to supplanting any government that wasn't a communist one.

Sarah Sundin's blog reports:

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1943: USS Bogue’s TBF aircraft damage German U-boat U-569, which is scuttled by her crew, the first victory for an Allied escort carrier unassisted by surface ships.

She also noted that Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland flew the ME262 on this day and was impressed by it, as anyone would have had to have been.

Long Range Desert Group, No. 2 Commando and the No. 43 (Royal Marine) Commando raided the Yugoslavian island of Mljet.   The raid was a substitute for ones early planned, and was supported by the OSS which had agents on the island.

Helen Taft, former First Lady, died at age 81.

Saturday, May 15, 1943. Changes in Tunisian leadership, Flaming bats.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:'

Today in World War II History—May 15, 1943: 80 Years Ago—May 15, 1943: US Army ends experiment in using “bat bombs” as bats burn down newly constructed, unoccupied Carlsbad Army Air Base, NM.

Oops.

She also noted that the Germans launched an offensive in Yugoslavia against Communist partisans, and ABC was founded to enable the newly formed company to purchase the NBC Blue Network.

The Free French deposed Sidi Muhammad VII al-Munsif (Moncef Bey) from Tunis, and would ultimately, that following July, send him packing to Madagascar.  The Bey had collaborated with the Germans, who had in turn made him the King of Tunisia.  To his credit, however, he'd protected the Jewish population of the country as well as the Muslim population.  In context, his actions may have made some sense, from a Tunisian prospective.

When he went into exile, his 25 wives went with him, so at least he wasn't lonely.

His cousin, Muhammad VIII al-Amin (Lamine Bey), became the new Bey.

Moncef Bey retained fairly strong support from Tunisian nationalist, who in turn had an uneasy relationship with the same.  This began to change upon Moncef Bey's death in exile in 1948.  Lamine Bey became king in 1956 with the departure of the French, but he was deposed in 1957.  He died at age 81 in 1962.

He was married to a commoner, with whom he had ten children.

The SS Irish Oak, an Irish flagged vessel with Irish tricolors and Eire painted on the side of it was torpedoed by the U-607.  The crew was able to abandon the vessel and the U-607 waited to fire a final shot until they had departed it.

Operation Checkmate came to an end.

Wednesday, April 28, 1943. Lost ships.

The Chichibu Maru (秩父丸) renamed Kamakura Maru was sunk by the submarine USS Gudgeon resulting in 2,035 of the 2,500 passengers, soldiers and civilians, loosing their lives.

No. 14 (Arctic) Commando began a raid on Haugesund Norway's shipping.  The seven man team would sink one ship before being captured. They all ultimately perished, six being executed under the Commando Order and a seventh dying of typhus while a prisoner.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—April 28, 1943: Atlantic convoy ONS-5 begins battle with U-boats: by May 6, six U-boats and thirteen Allied ships will be sunk; a turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Tuesday, April 27, 1943. Hill 609.

The Battle of Hill 609 commenced, in which the U.S. II Corps took on and defeated the Afrika Korps in the first clear-cut US victory against the European Axis of World War Two. The II Corps in Tunisia by that time was commanded by Omar Bradley.

Bradley entered the military only due to the education opportunity West Point afforded, having originally intending to go to the University of Missouri to study law.  Born into poverty, with his father dying when he was 15, he was employed as a boilermaker prior to entering West Point. Taking the admittance examination was suggested by a Sunday School teacher.  An excellent athlete, he was offered positions in professional baseball while in West Point.

Heinrich Himmler directed concentration camps to cease murdering inmates capable of working in order to use them for labor.  The mentally ill incapable of working were moved to priority execution status.

Chindits, 3d Indian Infantry Division, unit patch.

Sarah Sundin notes on her blog:

Today in World War II History—April 27, 1943: Radar-jamming devices become operational in eastern England. British & Indian Chindits cross the Chindwin River in return to India from raids in Burma.

The Chindits were a special long range penetration unit made up of British, Gurkha and Burmese soldiers.  They were officially the 3d Indian Infantry Division.  They were named after lions, using a corruption of the Burmese name for lions, Chinthe (Burmese: ခြင်္သေ့).  Lions are a popular symbol in Burma.  Asiatic Lions do still exist, although we do not tend to think of lions in Africa, but in fact they once had a much wider range.

A tornado hit Akron, Ohio. 

Monday, April 9, 1973. Operation Spring of Youth.

Israel launched Operation Spring of Youth on Palestinian Liberation Organization targets in Beirut and Sidon, Lebanon.  Over 50 PLO operatives were killed to the loss of two Israeli commandos.

Shipboard Israeli commandos during the operation. By ניר מאור מוזיאון ההעפלה וחיל הים - ניר מאור מוזיאון ההעפלה וחיל הים, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43634278

The operation was part of the ongoing retaliation for the attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

The United Nations Organization for African Unity conference on Southern Africa opened in Oslo, Norway, which is not anywhere near Southern Africa.  Norway was hosting the event.

As part of the Nixon effort to combat inflation, grocery stores were required to post signs at their meat counters listing the limit for prices per pound for meat.