Gen. Eisenhower was relieved of command of the Third Army and put in head of a military history detail due to his remarks about denazification.
United States Marshal Fred A. Canfil sent a gift to his friend Harry S. Truman of a painted glass sign mounted on a walnut base with the phrase "The Buck Stops Here".
Admiral William Sample, age 47, was on a flight which disappeared near Wakayama, Japan.
Korea was removed from Japan's political and administrative control..
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In what would prove to be a last straw for Gen. Eisenhower, Gen. Patton expressed skepticism over denazification, comparing the Nazis to Republicans and Democrats.
Patton was growing increasingly frustrated now that peace had arrived. If Eisenhower could have read the comments in his journal, he would have been relieved by this time.
The Huaiyin–Huai'an Campaign ended in communist victory in China.
Former French pows went on a rampage in Saigon and killed members of the Viet Minh and innocent civilians, including children. French civilians joined in.
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Yugoslavia agreed to evacuate Trieste so that claims to who should administer it could be resolved.
Ultimately the city would go to Italy.
Japanese Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki told the Diet that Japan would "fight to the last."
The 37th Infantry Division captured Bagabag on Luzon. The 24th Infantry Division took Mandog on Mindanao
A victory parade was held in Los Angeles for George S. Patton and James Doolittle.
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Patton's Third Army captured Plzeň. To Patton's disgust his men were prevented from advancing any further due to the occupation agreement between the Americans and the Soviets.
The Siege of Breslau ended after three months with a Soviet victory.
The U-853 and U-881 were lost in the Atlantic Ocean.
The United States lifted the midnight curfew for all places of entertainment in effect since February 26, 1945.
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The Third Army broke through to Bastogne, relieving the siege of the city. The Royal Air Force hit the German transportation hub at St. Vith.
Churchill opened a conference between all parties in the Greek political crisis.
The Japanese Navy, in its last raid on the Philippines, hit Mindoro.
Today In Wyoming's History: December 26. Boxing Day: 1944 Kentucky beat Wyoming in football, 50 to 46, in Buffalo New York.
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Today in World War II History—November 24, 1939 & 1944: 80 Years Ago—Nov. 24, 1944: US B-29 Superfortress bombers bomb Tokyo for the first time. Japanese capture Nanning, completing a land corridor between occupied China and Indochina. In controversial decision, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower orders the 6th Army Group not to cross the Rhine but to drive north and assist Patton’s Third Army. In Terrace, BC, Canadian conscripts (many are French-Canadian) mutiny when they hear they might be sent overseas, the largest mutiny in Canadian history; put down by 11/29; news of the mutiny is censored. France establishes Commission de Récupération Artistique (CRA) to return looted artwork, with curator Rose Valland as secretary.
Wow.
The Terrace Mutiny, which is what the mutiny was called, reflected the internal discord in Canada over conscription, something that has largely been glossed over after the war. English Canadians were disproportionately represented amongst those who volunteered for service and volunteered to go overseas. French Canadians were disproportionally amongst those who did not. Those who volunteered termed those who did not "Zombies" and often harassed them. Ultimately, the needs of war could not sustain the system.
The 3d Army crossed the Saar.
Soviets completing their occupation of Saaremo in the Baltic.
The HMCS Sawinigan was sunk by the U-1228 in the Cabot Strait.
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The Red Army and Yugoslav partisans crossed into Albania.
The Battle of Metz began.
Only four B-24s out of thirty-five from the 445th BG survive the round trip from their base in the UK to their target at Kassel.
The Finnish army took Pudasjärvi in northern Finland from the Germans.
Sweden closed its ports to German shipping.
The Japanese troop transport and hospital ship Ural Maru was sunk in the South China Sea by the USS Flasher. 2,000 perished in the sinking.
The HMS Rockingham hit a mine in the North Sea and ultimately sank.
Controversial evangelist Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson died at age 53 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.
McPherson inspired a major plot, in a very fictionalized form, in the revived Perry Mason series.
The United States established diplomatic relations with East Germany.
Gen. Creighton Abrams, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, died at age 59 due to complications following a lung removal surgery. He was a heavy cigar smoker.
All three sons of the general and his wife became Army general officers and all three daughters married Army officers. Raised as a Methodist, he converted to Catholicism in Vietnam.
President Ford appointed George H. W. Bush to be the Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China.
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The Battle of the Falaise Pocket, the decisive battle in the campaign for Normandy, began.
The US 15th Corps of the 3d Army took Alencon and advanced to the edge of Argentan. Patton sought permission to advance and close the Falaise gap, but was halted by command for several hours who feared that there would be friendly fire casualties.
Gen James Edward Wharton, commander of the 28th Infantry Division, was killed in action by a German sniper while inspecting the front lines. He'd taken command of that division on that very day.
US bombers operating out of Italy bombed the Bordeaux-Merignac airfield and flew on to the UK.
Navy pilot Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr died when his PB4Y-1 Liberator, the Naval version of the B-24, converted for radio controlled drone operations, detonated. The plane was part of a project that converted the planes into flying bombs, largely unsuccessfully, but which still required pilots to get them airborne.
The 5th Army took Florence.
Churchill met Tito in London.
Franklin Roosevelt gave an address from the Puget Sound Navy Yard.
The U-198 was sunk in the Indian Ocean.
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The Third Army's headquarters, George S. Patton in commanded, landed in Normandy.
It lacked troops for active operations, but those were coming. The decoy role Patton had played was over.
The US 7th Corps was experiencing mass casualties for very little ground while fighting towards Périers and La-Haye-du-Puits. The 90th Infantry Division took Saint-Jores.
Canadian troops took the rest of the airport at Carpiquet, concluding Operation Windsor.
The Allies sank the U-233, U-390 and the U-586. The USS Skate sank the Japanese destroyer Usugumo.
The wounded German beast must be pursued and finished off in its lair.
Stalin, May 1, 1944.
Today had been the original D-Day in planning for Operation Overlord.
The Germans executed 200 Greek Communists in Kaisariani in reprisal for the killing of Gen. Franz Krech by the Greek People's Liberation Army. Interestingly, the OSS and the SOE spread a rumor following the ambush that he'd been assassinated by the Gestapo for being an anti Hitler dissident. The falsification was an attempt to avoid reprisals on Greek civilians.
The Germans didn't buy it, and according executed the 200 Communist prisoners. Greek collaborationist forces killed a further 100 suspected members of the Greek resistance, and the Germans a further 25.
Task Group 58.1 attacked Ponape from the air and from the sea. Seven battleships were included in ship to shore bombardment.
The Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference was held in London.
The Soviets created the Medal for the Defense of Moscow and the Medal for the Defense of the Caucuses.
The U-277 was sunk in the Arctic by a Swordfish of the 842 Naval Air Squadron.
Patton had an uncomfortable meeting with Gen. Eisenhower and wrote about it in his dairy.
May 1, 1944
In spite of possible execution this morning I slept well and trust my destiny. God has never let me, or the country, down yet. Reported to Ike at 1100. He was most cordial and asked me to sit down, so I felt a little reassured. He said, “George, you have gotten yourself into a very serious fix.” I said, “Before you go any farther, I want to say that your job is more important than mine, so if in trying to save me you are hurting yourself, throw me out.” He said, “I have now got all that the army can give me—it is not a question of hurting me but of hurting yourself and depriving me of a fighting army commander.” He went on to say that General Marshall had wired him that my repeated mistakes have shaken the confidence of the country and the War Department. General Marshall even harked back to the Kent Lambert incident in November 1942—certainly a forgiving s.o.b.
Ike said he had recommended that, if I were to be relieved and sent home, I be not reduced to a Colonel, as the relief would be sufficient punishment, and that he felt that situations might well arise where it would be necessary to put me in command of an army.
I told Ike that I was perfectly willing to fall out on a permanent promotion so as not to hold others back. Ike said General Marshall had told him that my crime had destroyed all chance of my permanent promotion, as the opposition said even if I was the best tactician and strategist in the army, my demonstrated lack of judgment made me unfit to command. He said that he had wired General Marshall on Sunday washing his hands of me. (He did not use these words but that is what he meant). I told him that if I was reduced to a Colonel I demanded the right to command one of the assault regiments; that this was not a favor but a right. He said no, because he felt he would surely need me to command an army. I said, “I am not threatening, but I want to tell you that his attack is badly planned and on too narrow a front and may well result in an Anzio, especially if I am not there. He replied, "Don't I know it, but what can I do?” That is a hell of a remark for a supreme commander. The fact is that the plan which he has approved was drawn by a group of British in 1943. Monty changed it only by getting 5 instead of 3 divisions into the assault, but the front is too short. There should be three separate attacks on at least a 90 mile front. I have said this for nearly a year. Ike said he had written me a “savage” letter but wanted me to know that his hand is being forced from United States. He talked to the Prime Minister about me and Churchill told him that he could see nothing to it. That “Patton had simply told the truth.” Ike then went on to excuse General Marshall on the grounds that it was an election year etc. It is sad and shocking to think “fear of They”, and the writings of a group of unprincipled reporters, and weak kneed congressmen, but so it is. When I came out I don't think anyone could tell that I had just been killed. I have lost lots of competitions in the sporting way, but I never did better. I feel like death, but I am not out yet. If they will let me fight, I will; but if not, I will resign so as to be able to talk, and then I will tell the truth, and possibly do my country more good. All the way home, 5 hours, I recited poetry to myself.
“If you can make a heap of all your winnings
And risk them on one game of pitch and toss
And lose, and start at your beginning
And never breathe a word about your loss”
“I dared extreme occasion and never one betrayed.”
My final thought on the matter is that I am destined to achieve some great thing—what I don't know, but this last incident was so trivial in its nature, but so terrible in its effect, that it is not the result of an accident but the work of God. His Will be done.
General Leroy Lutes of the U.S. Service of Supply was here when I got back after supper and we gave him a briefing and entertained him. I hope to get some equipment as a result.
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