Monday, April 17, 1944. The Uman–Botoșani Offensive Concludes, First Shots of the Greek Civil War, The Martyrdom of Fr. Max Josef Metzger, A Mystery Flight, Up Front in U.S. newspapers.

Soviet soldiers in Ukraine examining a destroyed Panther tank. By Mil.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113828084

The Uman–Botoșani Offensive concluded in a wide-ranging Soviet victory.  The Soviets had advanced 190 miles in one month, cleared southwestern Ukraine and entered Romania and Moldova.   The offensive had been, moreover, carried out during spring mud season, the rasputitsa.  It was one of the most successful Soviet advances of the war.

The Take-Ichi sendan (竹一船団, "Bamboo No. One" convoy) left Shanghai with two infantry divisions to reinforce the Philippines and western New Guinea.  Its story was to be fateful and strategically important.

Following an attack on his unit by Greek Communists on Orthodox Easter Monday, Greek army officer and partisan, Col. Dimitrios Psarros (Δημήτριος Ψαρρός), founder of the partisan National and Social Liberation organization was executed in an early indication of how things were going to go as the Axis control of Greece loosened.  Greece would be in a civil war before the end of World War Two.

Fr. Max Josef Metzger, German Catholic Priest and founder of the German Catholic Peace Association, was executed by the Nazi German state.  He is regarded as a Catholic martyr.

The U-342 was sunk in the North Atlantic by a RCAF PBY.

Civilian airliner Deutsche Lufthansa D-AOCA, a Junkers Ju-52/3m was shot down on scheduled service E.17 from Vienna to Athens with stops in Belgrade, Sofia, and Thessaloniki. An Allied fighter sweep of Belgrade mistook it for a military aircraft.  Five of its seven occupants were killed.

A Royal Air Force Warwick passenger plane went down over the UK, creating a mystery.  As the recovery of its doomed passengers occured, large amounts of cash were found with them.

United Features Syndicate began to run Bill Mauldin's Up Front in U.S. newspapers.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 16, 1944. Black Sunday.

1940s, 1944, Aircraft, Artillery, Black Sunday, boats and ships, Chodaczków Massacre, Crimea, Romania, Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Forces, The Holocaust, U.S. Air Force, United Service Organization, Weather

Saturday, March 1, 1924. The Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.

The Nixon Nitration Works disaster occured in which an explosion of ammonium nitrate killed at least 18 people, destroyed several miles of New Jersey factories, and demolished Nixon, New Jersey.

While a very famous industrial disaster, the Nixon Nitration Works and Nixon New Jersey are remembered now principally for being mentioned in Band of Brothers as Cpt. Lewis Nixon III, a major character Ambrose's depiction of the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, mentions it.  Lewis Nixon was in fact a member of the family that owned the plant, and it was the case that Richard Winters, his close friend and for most of his service in Europe his superior, worked there for a time after the war.

The Nixon's were troubled in general, and Lewis Nixon III was no exception.  His marriage contracted just after the start of the war failed during it, as did a subsequent one.  A third marriage to Grace Umezawa, formerly a Japanese internee, was successful.  She helped him overcome the alcoholism depicted during the series.

The KDP, the Communist Part of Germany, was reinstated.  The KDP, together with the NADSP, the Nazi Party, would figure enormously in the destruction of German democracy as the extremes grew increasingly powerful in the remaining years of the Weimar Republic.

Alice's Day at Sea, the first of 57 Alice comedies produced by Walt Disney, appeared.  They were short films meant to be shown before the feature, something at one time common.

White rats paraded in San Pedro, California.

Hacks, i.e., cabs, were allowed back in Hyde Park for the first time since 1636.

Not a hack, but on this day, an Irish Traveler feeding his pony on this day in 1924.

Locally, a story didn't add up.

A 20-year-old marrying a 15-year-old?  

And she was in 6th Grade?

Tuesday, January 4, 1944. Crossing the Polish Frontier.

Pvt. George McLean of Jamaica, Long Island, foreground and in the rear L to R: Pvt. Larry Leonetti, N.Y.C., and Pfc. Dominic Recentio of Philadelphia manning a water cooled .50 Browning M2 on New Britain, January 4, 1944.

Today in World War II History—January 4, 1944: 80 Years Ago—Jan. 4, 1944: Church authorities at the Abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy give the Luftwaffe permission to remove artwork to Germany.

Sarah Sundin.

The move was taken to attempt to protect it from destruction.

Sundin also notes that the Italian Social Republic seized Jewish assets and restricted the Jewish ownership of property.

The Red Army took Bila Tserkva and further pushed the German Army Group South beyeond the pre war Polish border at Sarny.  It also took Kaluga, southwest of Moscow.

German radio announced a decree to mobilize school children for war purposes.

At that point, the German people really should have realized the war was irrevocably lost and have risen up against their government.

The Polish Home Army commenced Operation Tempest, a series of local uprising that would go on for a year.

Carrier born U.S. aircraft struck Kavieng on New Ireland, damaging the destroyer Fumitsuki.

Argentina recognized Bolivia's military government.

The Roosevelt's deeded their Hyde Park house to the U.S. Government.

Jean Tatlock, American psychiatrist, and a Communist who wrote for the Western Worker, was found dead of suicide.  He burned her correspondence prior to calling the authorities.

She is best remembered for having been a romantic interest of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Sunday, October 28, 1923. Ziegner clashes, Reza Khan rises

Saxon Premier Erich Zeigner rejected Weimar's demand that Communists be dismissed from his cabinet.

Reza Khan became prime minister of Iran.  The existing Shah, whom he would ultimately replace, went into voluntary exile and Khan would become the first of two Shah's of Iran.  An ally of the British, he was well on his rise to power at this time.

The Submarine USS O-5 struck a United Fruit Company steamship in the Panama Canal Zone and sank.