Monday, January 15, 1945. Hitler visits the Western Front for the last time and goes home to the bunker, Himmler orders the SS to cover its tracks.

Adolph Hitler met with Rundstedt and Walter Model at the Adlerhorst and ordered them to hold the Western Allies back as long as possible.

"Sgt. Clarence Pfeifer, Jordan, Montana, (with machine gun) and Pfc. Sherman Maness, Searcy, Ark., (driver) bring in two German prisoners captured near Longchamps, Belgium. 15 January, 1945. HQ Company, 63rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 11th Armored Division. Photographer: T/5 S. Slevin, 167th Signal Photo Co."

It was his last visit to the Western Front.  Most of the rest of the war he would spend in his bunker in Berlin.

"2nd Lt. Charles Pettit, of Bardstown, Kentucky, left, and Lt. Col. Benjamin J. Butler of Milton, Kentucky, read a copy of the Trimble County Democrat. 15 January, 1945. 168th Infantry Regiment, 34th Infantry Division."  The Colonel is is wearing a M1943 Field Jacket with a combat infantryman's bad and his overseas stripes (18 months) affixed, which is unusual.  Note also the sheepskin hat.

Heinrich Himmler, who by this point had a more realistic view of how the war was going to turn out, ordered the evacuation of Auschwitz and its sub-camps to the West.  All evidence of the existence of the camps was ordered to be destroyed, which would prove to be impossible.

Arthur Otto Beyer performed the actions that lead to his being awarded the Medal of Honor.

He displayed conspicuous gallantry in action. His platoon, in which he was a tank-destroyer gunner, was held up by antitank, machinegun, and rifle fire from enemy troops dug in along a ridge about 200 yards to the front. Noting a machinegun position in this defense line, he fired upon it with his 76-mm. gun killing 1 man and silencing the weapon. He dismounted from his vehicle and, under direct enemy observation, crossed open ground to capture the 2 remaining members of the crew. Another machinegun, about 250 yards to the left, continued to fire on him. Through withering fire, he advanced on the position. Throwing a grenade into the emplacement, he killed 1 crewmember and again captured the 2 survivors. He was subjected to concentrated small-arms fire but, with great bravery, he worked his way a quarter mile along the ridge, attacking hostile soldiers in their foxholes with his carbine and grenades. When he had completed his self-imposed mission against powerful German forces, he had destroyed 2 machinegun positions, killed 8 of the enemy and captured 18 prisoners, including 2 bazooka teams. Cpl. Beyer's intrepid action and unflinching determination to close with and destroy the enemy eliminated the German defense line and enabled his task force to gain its objective.

Beyer's parents were immigrants from Luxembourg.  After the war, he moved to rural Buffalo, North Dakota, and worked as a farm hand, eventually acquiring a farm.  He married Marian Hicks in 1962, and passed away in 1965 at age 55.

The 1st Ukrainian Front took Kielce, Poland.  the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Pilica and attacked toward Radom, Łódź and Posen.  The Germans commit their reserves.

The HMS Thane, an escort carrier was sunk by the U-484 off of the Firth of Clyde.

And, what the heck?

Advertisement from this day in 1945.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 14, 1945. Retreat in the Ardennes.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, actors and actresses, Battle of the Bulge, Burma, China Burma India Theater, Eastern Front, German Wehrmacht, Railroads, Siege of Budapest, U.S. Air Force, World War Two

Saturday, December 23, 1944. German command worries.

The US First Army withdrew from St. Vith.

US aircraft are able to hit ground targets over Belgium.  C-47s dropped supplies into Bastogne.

By this point, Model, Guderian and Von Rundstedt have all recommended a halt to the offensive.

"Capt. Chaplain Connolly says mass for members of 127th Inf. Regt., 32nd Div., outside of Lonoy, Leyte, P.I. Mass was held two days before Christmas because the regiment was moving across country to push on to the west coast and would be unable to attend on Christmas. 23 December, 1944. 127th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Infantry Division. Photographer: Pfc. Jack Traub.

Twenty five German POWs escaped from Papago Park Camp in Arizona with a plan to float a river all the way to Mexico, apparently not appreciating that by this point Mexico was an Allied power.  They would be on the run until January 28, which is impressive, but their plan failed.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 23: 1944  All horse racing in the US is banned in an effort to save labor.

Last edition:  

Friday, December 22, 1944. "Nuts!".

Labels: "Wacht am Rhein", 1940s, 1944, Army, Artillery, Bastogne, Battle of the Bulge, Communism, German Army, Hungary, law, Paratroopers, Siege of Bastogne, The written word, Vietnam

Sunday, July 2, 1944. Plots in motion and the SS Jean Nicolet

The I-8 sank the SS Jean Nicolet, a liberty ship, and then engaged in what can only be the torture and murder of its survivors.  The atrocities were interrupted by Allied aircraft, allowing some men to survive as the I 8 dived away.

The I-8 had been involved in a prior atrocity.  It would be sunk near the end of the war.

Not too surprisingly, Gerd von Rundstedt was relieved of command and replaced by Günther von Kluge as Oberbefehlshaber West . The day prior, von Rundstedt had expressed the situation in the war as hopeless.   Additionally, on this day, he sought permission from Hitler to withdraw from the present German lines.

It wasn't the first time he'd been relieved, and he would be brought back.

The replacement would be a bit ironic in that von Kluge participated in the July 20 plot.

Concerning that, the prior day, July 1, Claus von Stauffenberg was appointed Chief of Staff to General Fromm at the Reserve Army headquarters.  The appointment meant that he would be in close proximity to Hitler frequently.

The British 8th Army captured Foiano, Italy.

U.S. and Australian troops landed on Numfoor Island, New Guinea.

The U-543 was sunk off of Tenerife by aircraft.

An interesting issue of Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—July 2, 1944

Fighting continued on Saipan, with the Japanese withdrawing to their last defensive line.

US ace and former member of the RCAF Ralph K. Hofer was killed in action over Budapest.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 1, 1944. Bretton Woods.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Bretton Woods, Caen France, Eastern Front, Espionage, Estonian Forest Brothers, Gerd von Runstedt, Italy, J. C. Leyendecker, Lithuanian Partisans, Operation Overlord, Waffen SS, World War Two

Saturday, July 1, 1944. Bretton Woods.

Morgenthau opening conference.

Delegates from forty-four nations met at the secluded Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to participate in the Bretton Woods Conference. The conference met to establish the post-war economic order and was one of the most significant events of the 20th Century.

Henry Morgenthau was the chief U.S. delegate to the conference, and was rapidly elected its presiding officer.  Harry Dexter White, who was a Soviet spy, was the chief US delegate in fact and a major factor in the resulting plans.

The II SS Panzer Corps attacked British positions around Caen but was repulsed.  Gerd von Rundstedt phoned Berlin to report the failure to which Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel purportedly asked, "What shall we do?", to which Rundstedt replied, "Make peace, you fools! What else can you do?"

The U.S. 133d Infantry Regiment captured Cicina, Italy.

The Red Army took Borisov.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Public Health Service Act and the Renunciation Act of 1944.  The latter allowed people physically present in the U.S. to renounce citizenship when the country was at war.  It required an application to the Attorney General of the United States in order to do so.

The act sought to have Japanese Americans do that very thing, sot hey could later be deported to Japan.  A total of 5,589 American citizens availed themselves of the act, 5,461 coming from the Tule Lake Segregation Center.  Many came to regret their decision, and some of the renunciations were reversed.

Internees at Tule Lake.

Formation of the anti-Soviet Lithuanian Partisans occured.

Partisans in 1947.

They'd fight on after World War Two.

Anti Soviet Estonian Forest Brothers re formed on the same day.

Last edition:

Friday, June 30, 1944. Epsom halted.

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Thursday, May 18, 1944. Monte Cassino ends.

And in more ways than one.

The Germans had withdrawn, leaving only 30 men too wounded to be moved. The Poles were the first Allied troops in the monastery.

It would be rebuilt.

Stalin ordered the Crimean Tartars deported from their homeland. The action was carried out on the excuse that some Tartars had collaborated with the Germans, which was actually true of every Soviet ethnicity, including, in large numbers, the Russians.  Repression of the Tartars would carry on for decades after the war, and the disaster has never been sufficiently redressed.

The Admiralty Islands Campaign and the Battle of Wakde ended in Allied victories.

Gerd von Runstedt as Commander in Chief of German forces in the west.

Von Runstedt was an old soldier by this point, having been born in 1875 and having entered the Prussian Army in 1892.  Like MacArthur in the U.S. Army, he'd retired before the war, having left service in 1938, although he was five years older than MacArthur, who was old for a U.S. Army commander.  An erasable character, he was not personally fond of Hitler, knew of plots to kill him which he kept to himself, but would not participate in them as he felt the concept disloyal.

After the war he was imprisoned for four years and upon his release found himself separated from his wife due to the division of Germany. She was in the American Zone of occupation, but he could not secure permission to visit her, as the US was upset by the British decision to release him.  He died in 1953 at age 77.

It can be argued that his decision not to support the July 20 plotters was instrumental in the coup's failure.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, May 17, 1944. Landing at Wakde.

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