Thursday, April 6, 1944. German withdrawal from the Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket, Army Day.

The Germans pull off a major successful fighting withdrawal from Hube's Pocket (Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket).  200,000 German troops escaped Zhukov's forces, losing a lot of equipment, but also destorying a lot of Soviet equipment on the way.

An RAF Spitfire raid destroyed a substantial number of aircraft at Banja Luka field, Yugoslavia.

The French resistance shut down Timken ball bearing production at Paris.

The U-302 was sunk in the Atlantic by the Royal Navy.  The U-455 went down in the Ligurian Sea due to a mine.

US troops on Bougainville, April 6, 1944.

It was Army day pursuant to a proclamation earlier issued by President Roosevelt.

Proclamation 2610—Army Day, 1944

March 22, 1944

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Whereas America's valiant soldiers have been welded by the fire of battle into a mighty army of liberation; and

Whereas the men and women of the American Army, of different races and creeds but one in their love of freedom and their devotion to the goals for which the United Nations are striving, must face during the coming year a burning test of their courage, their resourcefulness, and their physical prowess; and

Whereas the Congress, by Senate Concurrent Resolution 5, 75th Congress, agreed to by the House of Representatives March 16, 1937, has recognized April 6 of each year as Army Day and has requested that the President issue a proclamation annually with respect to that day:

Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Thursday, April 6, 1944, as Army Day, and do invite the Governors of the various States to issue proclamations calling for the appropriate observance of that day.

And I urge the civilians of the Nation to reconsecrate themselves on that day to the task of producing in fullest measure and with the greatest possible speed the weapons and ammunition and the materials and supplies required to equip our Army and to sustain it unto final victory.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this 22nd day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-eighth.

Signature of Franklin D. Roosevelt

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT

By the President:

CORDELL HULL

Secretary of State.

Rose O'Neill, cartoonist and creator of the Kewpie character, died at age 69.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 5, 1944. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me! When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived!

1940s, 1944, 1944 Election, Anne Frank, Ernie Pyle, Hungary, Judaism, Marshall Islands, Romania, The Holocaust, The written word, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

Holy Tuesday, April 4, 1944. Battle of Kohima commences, German counteroffensive, Photographing Auschwitz by accident, Bombing Bucharest, Italo-Yugoslav partisands, Charlie Chaplin not guilty.

The Battle of Kohima began around the town of Kohima in British India. The battle would prove to be the turning point in U-Go, and also prove to be long-running.

Japanese forces were depending on taking the town in order to resupply their provisions.  In their initial attacks they cut off all access to the town.

A German counterattack by the 4th Panzer Army retook Kovel, a city in pre-war Poland, which is now in Ukraine.   The attack blocked the Soviets from gaining a pass through the Carpathians.

The city had a large Jewish population before World War Two, and in fact had a large Ukrainian population that were members of the Communist Party. The Soviet invasion in 1939 had accordingly been largely welcomed.  The German invasion would, of course, prove tragic, with 18,000 Jewish residents of the city being murdered.  The city became a refuge for Poles escaping Ukrainian partisans late in the war.  After the war, the Polish population of the city was forcibly relocated to post-war Poland.

A de Havilland Mosquito from the SAAF 60 Photo-Recon Squadron, flying out of Foggia, Italy to photograph the IG Farben photographed Auschwitz as part of a filming overrun, the latter of which was a practice in photo recon missions.  It was the first instance of Auschwitz being photographed by the Allies from the air.

Six Valentine DD tanks sank in Exercise Smash I with the loss of their crews.

Forty-nine Axis aircraft were lost contesting an Allied raid, launched from forces in the Mediterranean, on Bucharest's marshalling yards.  Twelve to Twenty Allied aircraft were lost.  2,942 civilians were killed.

African Ameican soldiers Sgt. John C. Clark, Lorman, Miss., and S/Sgt. Ford M. Shaw, Tuscon, Arizona., members of the members of Co. E, 25th Combat Team, 93rd Div. (colored)  clean their rifles.  Bougainville, April 4, 1944.

Charles de Gaulle announced changes to the Committee of National Liberation in Algiers, including the appointment of two Communists.

In France, the resistance halts aircraft parts production at Bronzavaia.

The First Partisan battalion Pino Budicin in Yugoslavia, made up of Italian Communists was formed.

The Work Truck Blog: Caterpillar Crew.:  

Caterpillar Crew.

 

"When the "caterpillar" crew go out to clear road of snow, they live right on the spot. T/5 Floyd R. Worendorff, Vendrick, Idaho, relaxes in his house on wheels. Truck is fitted with bunks and stove, and supplies living quarters for six men. 4 April, 1944. Camilatella, Italy."

Note the stove in the truck.  I haven't experienced that.

Scary thing is, I've done the same thing, over 40 years later.

Charlie Chaplin was acquitted of violating the Mann Act.

The suit was somewhat ironic in that it stemmed from Joan Barry's pregnancy. While FBI files suggest that Barry aborted two children during her affair with Chaplin, which did occur, this child was not Chaplin's, as blood tests proved.  Chaplin, in a separate suit, would nonetheless be ordered to pay child support for the girl until age 21.

Moreover, Barry was 21 years old with her affair with 52-year-old Chaplin began.  Chaplin definitely fished in the shallower end of the pond, but Barry was of age, which at least one of his prior conquests, whom he married, was not.

Barry was sliding towards insanity, and after her affair with Chaplin ended, stocked him.  She'd end up being committed to a mental institution at age 33, by which time she had married and had two additional children.

Chaplin married Oona O'Neill in 1943, at which time the affair with Barry was over.  O'Neill, who would be his last spouse, was 18 years old at the time.

Related Threads:

November 29

Countdown on the Great War, November 10, 1918: A Socialist Provisional Government forms in Germany, the Naval War continues on, and Mildred Harris weds.

Wednesday, June 16, 1943. Noor Inayat Khan inserted in France.

Last prior edition.

Holy Monday, April 3, 1944. Attack on the Tirpitz, Racist law in Texas struck down, Budapest hit, The death of Evelyn Sharp, Charles Lindbergh buys a New Testament.

1940s, 1944, Aircraft, boats and ships, Bougainville, Court, Mohandas Gandi, Operation Tungsten, Personalities, Racism, Royal Navy, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Women Airforce Service Pilots

Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hailstorm

Mosquitoes over Amiens prison. Mosquitos and Typhoons featured in the raid.

Royal Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft breached the walls of the Amiens prison, allowing 258 prisoners to escape.

French Resistance members were staged outside to spirit escapees to freedom, or at least away from the Germans.  2/3s of them were recaptured.  However, half of those due to be executed did escape, although many escapees were shot by guards as they felt.  Resistance escapees exposed over sixty Gestapo agents and informers, which was a blow to the Germans.  Prisoners re arrested by the French were simply let go.

The mission was requested by somebody, but the details of it remain a secret to this day.

Heavy fighting occured at Anzio on the Anzio Campoeone Road.  German armored reserves  consisting of the 26th Panzer Division and 29th Panzer Grenadier Division were committed to the attack but Allied artillery prevents significant gains. 

The HMS Penelope was sunk off of Naples by the U-410.

At Cassino attacks by Indian and New Zealand forces fail to advance.

The Battle of Karavia Bay, a nighttime action, ended up blocking the Japanese port.

The Red Army captured Staraya.

Lots of Japanese Imperial Navy ships were headed to the bottom in Truk Lagoon.

Truck was a Japanese disaster.

The Germans lost the U-406 and U-7, the latter in an accident.

Marines landed on Engebi Island, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands.

President Roosevelt vetoed the Bankhead Bill ending food subsidies.

Friday, January 7, 1944. Lou Henry Hoover passes away.

Lou Henry Hoover, wife of Herbert Hoover, died at age 69 of a heart attack while here and her husband were visiting New York.  Herbert returned to their hotel room to find her dead.

Like her husband, she was a geologist, being the first woman to receive a geology degree from Stanford.  Indeed, they had met while university students.

Herbert Hoover would live another 20 years as a widower.

The Red Army took Klesov in Poland. The area is now in Ukraine. The region had been predominately Jewish before the war.  Survivors of the Holocaust from nearby Rovno were deported to Poland after the Soviet Union redrew the borders after World War Two.

The 5th Army took San Vittore del Lazio, Monte Chiaia and Monte Porchia on the Bernhardt Line.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—January 7, 1944: 80 Years Ago—Jan. 7, 1944: In Second Arakan Campaign in Burma, RAF & US Tenth Air Force begin air supply to isolated West African troops.

The French Resistance sabotaged the electrical supply to the Arsenal National at Tulle in the first instance of such an attack. Many more were to follow.

"Interested natives look on as armorers place 50 cal. machine guns in the nose of a North American B-25G, Mullinnix Airfield, Tarawa, Gilbert Islands. 7 January 1944. (NARA)"

A British Mosquito is shot down with its Oboe navigational aid intact, allowing the Germans to develop countermeasures.

The United States Army Air Force announced the production of the Bell P-59 Airacomet.  The first US jet fighter aircraft, it would prove to be a disappointment and provided no real advantage over existing piston engined aircraft.

January 7, 1944.

Friday, November 5, 1943. Task Force 38 at Rabaul, Marines at Bougainville, Red Army in Ukraine, US and British Armies in Italy, Somebody's air force over the Vatican, A Martyr

Task Force 38's aircraft attacked the Imperial Japanese Navy squadron detected the day prior, resulting in the Japanese sustaining damage to 4 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 2 destroyers. Ten American planes were lost.

Ground based B-24s hit Rabaul and the squadron later that day.

The 3d Marine Division defeated a counterattack on Bougainville by the Japanese Army's 23d Regiment.

The French Resistance set off bombs in the Peugeot factor at Sochaux.  The target was regarded as France's third most important one by the British Ministry of Economic Warfare due to its production of machinery used for tank turret production.

The Red Army began to encircle Kiev.

Offensive operations by the U.S. 5th Army on the Reinhard Line in Italy fail.  The British 8th Army captured Vasto, Palmoli and Terrebruna.

Also on the Italian peninsula, four areal bombs hit Vatican City.  IT was never clear whose air force was responsible, but a RAF crew had released bombs after developing engine trouble while not quite knowing where it was.

A gendarme on duty reported:

I distinctly heard the continuous noise of an aircraft flying at low altitude. I could not see it, prevented by the darkness. From the noise of the engine it seemed to me that the aircraft was coming from the northeast. It flew over the Vatican Railway Station and then went a little further away and immediately turned back. I almost immediately heard a hiss and a prolonged burst that gave me the impression of the almost simultaneous explosion of several bombs. The first of them fell on the escarpment near the boundary wall of the Vatican City State on the side of St. Peter's Station; the second one fell on the terrace of the Mosaic Studio; a third one behind the Governorate Palace and a fourth one in the Vatican Gardens in a location that I could not identify at the moment.

Sarah Sundin notes:

80 Years Ago—Nov. 5, 1943: Capt. Clark Gable leaves England, having flown 5 missions with the US Eighth Air Force, with footage for his documentary, Combat America.

The U.S. 56th Fighter Group, flying P-47s, became the first Eighth Air Force fighter group credited with 100 enemy aircraft destroyed.

German Catholic Priest Benhard Lichtenberg, 67 years of age, died while being transported in a cattle car to Dachau.  4, 000 mourners attended his funeral in Berlin.

An outspoken anti-Nazi, he was beatified in 1996.

Congress passed the Connally Resolution, which stated:

Senate Resolution 192-Seventy-Eighth Congress, November 5, 1943

Resolved, That the war against all our enemies be waged until complete victory is achieved.

That the United States cooperate with its comrades-in-arms in securing a just and honorable peace.

That the United States, acting through its constitutional processes, join with free and sovereign nations in the establishment and maintenance of international authority with power to prevent aggression and to preserve the peace of the world.

That the Senate recognizes the necessity of there being established at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security

That, pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, any treaty made to effect the purposes of this resolution, on behalf of the Government of the United States with any other nation or any association of nations, shall be made only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.

The German submarine U-848 was depth charged and sunk by an American aircraft off Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean. 

Guadalcanal Diary was released.

Saturday, July 31, 1943. The Battle of Tioina starts and the Battle of the Ruhr ends.

The U.S. II Corps, under George S. Patton, commenced offensive operations in what would become the Battle of Tioina on Sicily.

Tioina in 1943.

The Battle of the Ruhr, the extensive air campaign over the Ruhr, came to an end.  The last raid was on Remscheid. The bulk of the campaign had been at night, and by the RAF, and it did cause substantial industrial damage to Nazi Germany.

The USS Sheridan was launched.

Today In Wyoming's History: July 31: 1943  The USS Sheridan, APA-51, an attack transport, commissioned.

General Henri Giraud was appointed as commander of French Resistance forces at the first meeting of the National Committee of Liberation.  De Gaulle was named President of the Committee.

Thursday, July 8, 1943. The execution of Jean Moulin, Looming Operation Husky, Stalled Operation Citadel, Bombing Wake, Smog in Los Angeles.

Jean Moulin.

Jean Moulin, the first President of the National Council of the Resistance, but for less than two months, was executed by the Germans.  He had been arrested due to a betrayal that's never been solved. He was one of the individuals who was tortured under Klaus Barbie.

General Eisenhower arrived in Malta in anticipation of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

By this point, it was obvious that an imminent invasion of Sicily was coming. The Allies were bombing it heavily.  Nonetheless, German attention was focused on the East, at Kursk, which had entered its fourth day of fighting.  In the north, Ponyri station switched hands back and forth.  The 9th Army attacked the second Soviet line, which featured defense in depth, a Soviet tactic, and failed to breach it.  The 9th Army was in turn suffering critical losses.  Model was forced to commit the last of his armored reserves.

In the south, the Germans broke through the second defense line in the Oboyansk direction, but then withdrew after a strong counterattack.

B-24s operating from Midway bombed Wake Island in the first land based strike on Wake.

The escort carrier USS Casablanca was commissioned.

Smog became a problem for LA.

Sunday, June 27, 1922. Bishop O'Rourke of the East passes away, Disaster at Huntington Beach, Lousy German troops.

The unlikely named former Catholic Bishop of Riga and later Bishop of Danzia, an opponent of the Nazis, died at age 66, in Rome, where he was living in exile.

Born in Minsk to a family of Irish heritage, which was also unlikely, he had resigned his position in Riga as a movement for a Latvian Bishop gained strength.  He clashed with the Nazis in Danzig, which had ultimately led to his relocation to Poland, where he was granted Polish citizenship.  When the Germans invaded Poland, he was on a journey to Estonia, and ultimately traveled to Italy.  He was not able to regain admittance to German occupied Poland.

A P-38 Lightening crashed into a crowd of beach goers at Huntington Beach, California, after its pilot had bailed out. Three people lost their lives and forty nine were injured.

Sarah Sundin noted that event, and others, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 27, 1943: French Resistance attacks Ateliers des Fives locomotive works at Lille. P-38 Lightning fighter plane crashes on Huntington Beach in CA, killing 4 children.

As odd as it is to consider that it even occurred, the 1943  German football championship was won by Dresdner SC.

Bill Downs, CBS Moscow correspondent, reported that Red Army troops were surprised by hte quantity of lice that captured German soldiers bore.

Saturday, January 30, 1943. Paulus promoted and then ordered to die, Dönitz just promoted, Berlin bombed, Milice formed, Japanese withdraw.

Paulus was promoted to the rank of Field Marshall and ordered to fight to the death.

Karl Dönitz was promoted Commander of the German Navy.

De Havilland  Mosquito. The multirole aircraft was the fastest combat aircraft in the world at the time of its introduction in 1941.

The RAF bombed Berlin in a rare daylight raid timed to disrupt commemorative speeches marking the tenth anniversary of Hitler becoming Chancellor, hitting Berlin with Mosquitos at 11:00 and 4:00. 

The Vichy French formed the Milice Française, a right wing militia that served as a fascist paramilitary police.  Over 25,000 Frenchmen would join the organization.

In contrast, around 500,000 French participated in the Resistance in one form or another, and this of course does not count those who served in the Free French forces, which started off at 100,000 or so men and became around 300,000.

The Cross of Lorraine, which was DeGaulle's chosen symbol for the French Resistance.

The formation of the Milice, along with the German actions of this day, demonstrated an Axis doubling down on things even as their defeat in Europe was becoming increasingly obvious.

The Japanese forced a U.S. withdrawal in the Battle of Rennell Island, thereby protecting their evacuation of Guadalcanal.

Thursday October 23, 1941. Dumbo released

On this day in 1941 the Walt Disney animated film Dumbo was released.  I've never seen it.

Free French leader Charles De Gaulle asked the French Resistance to halt assassinating Nazi figures in order to end German reprisals.

Both of these are noted here:

Today in World War II History—October 23, 1941

The German government banned the emigration of Jews from territory held by Germany, now that its mass murder campaign was in full swing.

The Germans killed all the males age 16 to 69 in Mesouvouno Greece.

Congress voted to add $5.96B to the Lend Lease bill,

Wednesday October 22, 1941. Odessa, Châteaubriant and Nantes.

On this day in 1941 the mass murder of the Jewish population in and surrounding Odessa commenced, with over 20,000 people being killed in two days.  The atrocity commenced in supposed retaliation for the detonation of a mine in the NKVD headquarters.  The mine had been placed in the location prior to the Soviet withdrawal.  German and Romanians participated in the atrocity.

In France, Germans executed 27 residents of Châteaubriant and 21 in Nantes in retaliation for the Resistance assassination of German officer Karl Hotz some days prior.

June 13, 1941. The Lutzow damaged, the Resistance receives supplies from the air, Vichy arrests Jewish residents

The Royal Air Force commenced dropping supplies to the French Resistance.

Today in World War II History—June 13, 1941

The Australians defeated the French in the Battle of Jezzine in Lebanon.  

On the same day, the French announced the commencement of a campaign to arrest 12,000 Jews for "plotting to hinder Franco-German cooperation".

In spite of a Luftwaffe escort, the RAF torpedoes and damages the German battleship Lutzow, which then returns to port.

The Lutzow torpedoed by Coastal Command

The Lutzow would return to service and end up being sort of emblematic of the German surface navy.  In 1943 she was involved in a failed effort to intercept a convoy off of Norway which so enraged Hitler that he ordered the surface navy broken up for scrap. That event lead Admiral Raeder to resign his position.  Raeder therefore missed the last two years of the war, but was convicted of war crimes in any event, serving prison time until 1955.

His successor, Karl Doenitz, convinced Hitler not to scrap the navy, and the Lutzow went on to serve for the remainder of the war, subsequently being damaged by the RAF in an air raid, and then her fate remained undetermined for years.  It turned out that the ship had been sunk as a target by the Soviets in 1947.

The name of the ship itself is interesting in that the ship had originally been named the Deutschland, after the nation whose service she was in, but Hitler had required the name to be changed.  The German navy had a cruiser by the name of Lutzow which was slightly newer than the Deutschland.  Indeed, the ship was incomplete when the Soviets asked to buy her in 1940 and she was, bizarrely, sold to the USSR.