The French took Hartmannswillerkopf giving them an observation post for Alsace.
The town of Miami Beach, Florida was established.
Last edition:
Showing posts with label French Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French Army. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Tuesday, March 23, 1915. Advances at Hartmannswillerkopf.
Great Northern Pacific Steamship Co.'s terminals, Flavel, Or.
French attacks on Hartmannswillerkopf got them within 150 metres of the summit.
Last edition:
Monday, March 22, 1915. The Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl
Monday, March 10, 2025
Saturday, March 10, 1945. The execution of Gen. Émile Lemonnier.
Gen. Émile Lemonnier of the French Army was executed by the Japanese for, as a captive, refusing to sign an instrument of surrender to the Japanese in Indochina. He was 51 years of age.
The last few years of his life must have been one of unrelenting mental torment.
The cowardly weasel ordering his execution, Captain Kayakawa was himself executed after the war..
I know some will excuse the latter's actions based on culture, but he was a weasel.
It was day two of the firebombing of Tokyo.
It's extremely difficult not to be morally troubled by this action. There are military justifications of it, but by and large, it was a monstrous attack upon a civilian population right down to the infant level. It survives as a reminder that even in World War Two, in which the Allies held hte moral high ground, not all Allied actions were morally licit.
In our own day, in which we have a President who stands by as rockets rain down on a civilian population, and in which that same President sat a war out due to shin splints, it rains buckets of blood on our own heads.
The Australians landed at Wide Bay, Papua New Guinea.
Smiling Albert Field Marshal Kesselring arrivee from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.
The Germans withdrew from from the pocket west of the Rhine between Wesel and Xanten in the face of British and Canadian pressure.
The German offensive around Lake Balatron began to encounter heavy Rad Army resistance..
The U-275 struck a mine and was sunk off of East Sussex. The U-681 was sunk off of the Isles of Scilly by a U.S Navy B-24.
FDR involved Spanish representatives with their hands out no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continued.
Good for FDR.
Today, King Donny would probably be giving warm smooches to Francoist delegates.
Last edition:
Friday, March 9, 1945. Firebombing Japan (Operation Meetinghouse). Japanese end French rule in Indochina (Operation Bright Moon)
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Monday, February 5, 1945. French SOE agents Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe, and Violette Szabo were executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp.
"British 61st Heavy Regt., 31 Btry., "A" Sub. 7.2 howitzer firing. Gabbiano area, Italy. 5 February, 1945. Photographer: Schmidt, 3131st Signal Service Co."
It was Monday, and news magazines were out. Stalin was on the cover of Time. German POWs were featured on Newsweek. A smiling young woman in a swimsuit was on the cover of Life, which had an article on Florida.
The Red Army crossed the Oder at Brzeg.
The US 7th Army and linked up with French forces splitting the Colmar pocket.
SOE agents Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe, and Violette Szabo were executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. All three women were heroic.
Szabo.
High ranking SOE figure, Vera Atkins, dedicated her immediate post war efforts to detecting who was responsible for all three agents deaths. A woman of great mystery herself, she was Romanian and Jewish, but easily passed for English.
Bloch, who was as French Jewish refugee.
Violette Szabo is particularly well remembered and was the topic of at least one movie.
Rolfe.
The SOE tends to be well remembered, but it had been penetrated causing some agents, such as Szabo, to be picked up nearly as soon as they were left on the ground. Who the leak was, was never detected.
The U-41 was sunk by the HMS Antelope off of Lands End.
Hard fighting occured near Manila, where Lt. Robert M. Vale would perform the actions that would lead to a posthumous Medal of Honor being conveyed to him.
He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. Forced by the enemy's detonation of prepared demolitions to shift the course of his advance through the city, he led the 1st platoon toward a small bridge, where heavy fire from 3 enemy pillboxes halted the unit. With 2 men he crossed the bridge behind screening grenade smoke to attack the pillboxes. The first he knocked out himself while covered by his men's protecting fire; the other 2 were silenced by 1 of his companions and a bazooka team which he had called up. He suffered a painful wound in the right arm during the action. After his entire platoon had joined him, he pushed ahead through mortar fire and encircling flames. Blocked from the only escape route by an enemy machinegun placed at a street corner, he entered a nearby building with his men to explore possible means of reducing the emplacement. In 1 room he found civilians huddled together, in another, a small window placed high in the wall and reached by a ladder. Because of the relative positions of the window, ladder, and enemy emplacement, he decided that he, being left-handed, could better hurl a grenade than 1 of his men who had made an unsuccessful attempt. Grasping an armed grenade, he started up the ladder. His wounded right arm weakened, and, as he tried to steady himself, the grenade fell to the floor. In the 5 seconds before the grenade would explode, he dropped down, recovered the grenade and looked for a place to dispose of it safely. Finding no way to get rid of the grenade without exposing his own men or the civilians to injury or death, he turned to the wall, held it close to his body and bent over it as it exploded. 2d Lt. Viale died in a few minutes, but his heroic act saved the lives of others.
In the same battle, then TSgt Donald E. Rudolph would perform the actions that would lead to the same award.
Second Lt. Rudolph (then TSgt.) was acting as platoon leader at Munoz, Luzon, Philippine Islands. While administering first aid on the battlefield, he observed enemy fire issuing from a nearby culvert. Crawling to the culvert with rifle and grenades, he killed three of the enemy concealed there. He then worked his way across open terrain toward a line of enemy pillboxes which had immobilized his company. Nearing the first pillbox, he hurled a grenade through its embrasure and charged the position. With his bare hands he tore away the wood and tin covering, then dropped a grenade through the opening, killing the enemy gunners and destroying their machine gun. Ordering several riflemen to cover his further advance, 2d Lt. Rudolph seized a pick mattock and made his way to a second pillbox. Piercing its top with the mattock, he dropped a grenade through the hole, firing several rounds from his rifle into it, and smothered any surviving enemy by sealing the hole and the embrasure with earth. In quick succession he attacked and neutralized six more pillboxes. Later, when his platoon was attacked by an enemy tank, he advanced under covering fire, climbed to the top of the tank, and dropped a white phosphorus grenade through the turret, destroying the crew. Through his outstanding heroism, superb courage, and leadership, and complete disregard for his own safety, 2d Lt. Rudolph cleared a path for an advance which culminated in one of the most decisive victories of the Philippine campaign.
Rudolph survived the war and completed a career in the Army, retiring in 1963.
The RAF Balloon Command was disbanded.
The Japanese carrier-battleship Ise, was damaged by a mine off Indochina.
The USAAF hit Iwo Jima again.
The Greek Communist Party accepted the governments terms for amnesty.
The US-bred filly Big Racket set the world record for fastest average speed set by a racehorse at the Clasico Dia del Charro held at Mexicos Hipodromo de las Americas.
Last edition:
Monday, February 3, 2025
Saturday, February 3, 1945. When you see those photos of a Red Army sergeant raising the Soviet flag over Berlin, and the city looks wrecked, it wasn't actually the ground combat that caused that.
Berlin sustained the heaviest bombing raid upon it during World War Two when 1,500 USAAF bombers dropped over 2,000 tons of bombs on the city.f
Bombing would destroy large section of the city. By the time the Red Army took it, it was already in ruins.
One of the casualties of the raid was the despicable Nazi judge Karl Roland Freisler.
US and French units took Colmar.
"American infantrymen of the 2nd Infantry Division advance through fog into the town of Schoneseiffen, Germany, past an enemy antiaircraft gun abandoned when the Germans retreated. 3 February, 1945. 2nd Infantry Division. Photographer: T/4 L. B. Moran, 165th Signal Photo Co." These soldiers are wearing L. L. Bean Maine Hunting Shoes, which were oddly called "shoe packs" by many people of this era.
The Red Army took Landsberg and Bertenstein.
The Battle of Manila commenced with a flying column of the 1st Cavalry Division reaching the city. The US conducted an airborne drop in the Tagaytay Ridge region.
"Arriving in Rome, in their Special Service bus are the feminine members of the cast of "Pardon Me", a new USO musical show which will open soon at the U.S. Army Rest Center and the Barberini Theater in Rome. 3 February, 1945. Photographer: Kleinerman, 3131st Signal Service Co."
Last edition:
Friday, February 2, 1945. Malta concludes, FDR and Churchill depart for Yalta. German murders.
Friday, January 24, 2025
Roads to the Great War: Le Pèlerin, A French Catholic Magazine Covers the ...
Roads to the Great War: Le Pèlerin, A French Catholic Magazine Covers the ...: Contributed by Tony Langley Le Pèlerin was a French weekly journal founded 1873 by the Roman Catholic Assumptionist order of priests. ...
Wednesday, January 24, 1945. Himmler given a field command.
German POW, January 23, 1945. His cap badge indicates he was in the Luftwaffe.
Hitler appointed Heinrich Himmler as commander of the newly created Army Group Vistula. This was rightfully resented by the German military.
The Battle of Poznań began for Polish city.
The French 1st Army took crossing over the River Ill in Alsace. The British 2nd Army entered Heinsberg.
"Lt. Col. V. L. Johnson, G-3 Officer, 25th Division, and Maj. Gen. C. L. Mullins, Jr., CG, 25th Division, share a foxhole in San Manuel, Luzon, P.I., with a GI of the 161st Infantry Regiment. 24 January, 1945."
The US took Calapan on Mindoro and Cabanatuan on Luzon.
The US 14th Air Force abandoned Suichuan airfield in China due to Japanese advances. Operation Ichi-Go, the Japanese ground offensive in China, was going spectacularly well at the same time the United States was destroying the Japanese in the Pacific and getting ever closer to Japan itself, giving this a surreal quality. Additing to it, British operations in Burma were going very well.
The Shigure was sunk by the USS Blackfin in the Gulf of Siam.
Today In Wyoming's History: January 24:1945 The Legislature rejects a junior college plan.
One thing that's nice about doing these posts is that you learn how prior legislatures were short sighted. This is just such an example, most likely.
They would approve a community college plan within a couple of years.
This year the legislature is going to pass a bill, probably, allowing people who homeschool to not report to their school district. By and large, those homeschooling around here do it so their children don't learn something, rather than insure that they learn.
Last edition:
Tuesday, January 23, 1945. St. Vith taken by the Allies.
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Burma, German Army, German Resistance Movements, Indian Army, Personalities, Philippines, World War Two
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Friday, January 19, 1945. Martin Bormann and Hitler's mistress Eva Braun arrived at the Führerbunker.
The 1st Ukrainian Front captured Łódź and Kraków.
The 2nd Belorussian Front took Mława and Włocławek.
The 1st Baltic Front captured Tilsit.
Polish Home Army commander Leopold Okulicki ordered his troops to disband.
The 4th SS Panzer Corps reached the Danube River at Dunapentele cutting the 3d Ukrainian Front off forces from its supplies.
Martin Bormann and Hitler's mistress Eva Braun arrived at the Führerbunker.
The HMS Porpoise was sunk off of Malaya by Japanese aircraft.
French Gustave Marie Maurice Mesny was murdered by the Germans in retaliation for the death of German General Fritz von Brodowski while in French custody. The French resistance, which had been holding von Brodowski claimed that he'd been shot while tempting to escape.
"The crew of a three-inch gun covers a front line road on which G-2 has reported 20 German tanks to be advancing. 94th Division sector, junction of France, Germany and Luxembourg. 19 January, 1945."
Last edition:
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Thursday, November 23, 1944. Thanksgiving Day.
They will be relieved later and will have Thanksgiving dinner in the evening with their unit. The soldiers are left to right: Sgt. Albert E. Burns, 1308 E. Gilbert Street, Muncie, Ind., Pfc. John K. Smith, Munderstar Route, Brookville PA., and Pvt. Robert H. Seymour, Newark, N.Y. Near Faulquemont, France. 23 November, 1944.80th Infantry Division."
French forces liberated Strasbourg.
US troops liberated the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France. 20,000 people had died there while it was open.
The Canadian cabinet made 16,000 Canadian conscripts, previously not liable for overseas deployment, available for the same.
Soviet troops took Cop, Czechoslovakia and Tokay, Hungary.
The Royal Navy disbanded the British Eastern Fleet. Escort carriers and older ships were formed into the British East Indies Fleet with modern ships detached for service in the British Pacific Fleet.
"A newly captured crossroad carries east and west bound traffic as Lt. Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army smashes towards the Rhine. 23 November, 1944. Photographer: Sawyer."
Last edition:
Tuesday, November 21, 1944. Vive La France.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Tuesday, November 21, 1944. Vive La France.
Jeep of the French 1st Army, November 21, 1944.
The French 1st Army took Belfort.
German POWs, November 21, 1944.
The battlecruiser Kongō and destroyer Urwakaze were sunk in the South China Sea by the USS Sealion.
Albanian partisans occupied Tirana and Durazzo.
Last edition:
Monday, November 20, 1944. The sinking of the Mississinewa.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)