Showing posts with label Hermann Göring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hermann Göring. Show all posts

Monday, May 12, 2025

Saturday, May 12, 1945. Shortened futures.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission indicted Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Sauckel on eight counts.  The NKVD didn't wait for trials in all instances, and on this day executed SS commander and war criminal Richard Thomalla.

The US transferred captured Russian turned collaborator Gen. Vlasov over to Soviet custody.

The 7th Army captured the Japanese ambassador to Germany and his staff.

The 8th Army took the Del Monte Airfield on Mindanao.

Hard fighting occurred on Okinawa.

The U-858 became the first U-boat to surrender post war.  It would be escorted to Cap May, New Jersey which it entered flying the black flag of surrender.

Lend Lease shipments to the USSR were suspended.

The Security Committee at the United Nations Conference on International Organization agreed on an eleven-member security council, with non-permanent members chosen by the General Assembly.

Last edition:

Friday, May 11, 1945. The USS Bunker Hill.

    Thursday, May 8, 2025

    Tuesday, May 8, 1945. Victory In Europe.


    A second surrender signing insisted upon by Stalin took place in Berlin with a slightly revised instrument of surrender.  The original would have sufficed, but Stalin insisted.  

    This one was signed, for the Germans, by Field Marshal Keitel.


    And the war in Europe came to an end.

    Celebrations broke out all across Western Europe and North America, which in some instances had begun the day prior.  Winston Churchill announced new of the 11:00 p.m. singing at 3:00 p.m.  Truman at 9:00 a.m., warning that the war was only half won.   All times local.

    Karl Dönitz announced the in a speech broadcast from Flensburg at 12:30 p.m., mentioning that the Nazi Party no longer had any role in government.

    Hermann Göring surrendered near Radstadt, Austria. Eisenhower would be upset when he learned of the celebrity status his American captors had given him.

    German submarines were ordered to surface and report to the Allies.

    The Massacre in Trhová Kamenice occurred when German troops in Trhová Kamenice, Czechoslovakia shot supposed partisans.  In spite of the surrender, some German forces did not lay down their arms on the 8th.

    The Sétif and Guelma massacre began when French police fired on local Algerian demonstrators at a protest in the Algerian market town of Sétif.  The beginning of decolonization had begun.

    Gen. Ernst-Günther Baade, age 47, died of gangrene; Paul Giesler, age 49, German Nazi official committed suicide; Werner von Gilsa, age 56, German military officer committed suicide after being captured by the Russians; Wilhelm Rediess, age 44, German commander of SS troops in Norway  committed suicide; Bernhard Rust, age 61, German Nazi Minister of Science, Education and National Culture committed suicide; Josef Terboven, age 46, German Reichskommissar for Norway during the Nazi occupation committed suicide by detonating dynamite in a bunker.

    The US 145th Infantry division took the the ridge near Guagua, southeast of Mount Pacawagan on Luzon and blocked a track along the Mariquina river. 

    Last edition:

    Monday, May 7, 1945. Germany unconditionally surrenders.

    Wednesday, April 23, 2025

    Monday, April 23, 1945. Where's Hitler?

    German radio broadcast that Adolf Hitler was in the "main fighting line" in Berlin and would "remain there despite all rumors." 

    The Allies suspected he was in Bavaria organizing resistance there.

    Göring sent a telegram asking for permission to assume leadership of the Third Reich which Hitler regarded as treason, ordering his arrest.

    The Flossenburg concentration camp was liberated by the U.S. Army.

    The U-183 was sunk off of Borneo by the U.S. submarine Besugo.

    The Navy deployed Bat air to ship missiles against Japanese ships in Balipapan Harbor in Borneo, marking their first use.

    Those arrested in the Freeman Field Mutiny were released.

    "Lt. Richard K. Jones, OIC 3235th Sig. Ser. Det. of Hollywood, Calif., feeds Japanese children found in a tomb 50 yards from front line on Okinawa. 23 April, 1945."

    Last edition:

    Sunday, April 20, 2025

    Friday, April 20, 1945. Shelling Berlin. Departing Berlin. The Morotai Mutiny.

    At 11:00 the Red Army started shelling Berlin.

    It was Hitler's 56th birthday.  He left his bunker to to decorate a group of Hitler Youth combatants.  He refused an effort to evacuate to Obersalzberg.  Goering and Himmler left the bunker for good. 

    SS officer Herbert Lange, age 35, commandant of Chełmno extermination camp was killed in action in the city.

    The 7th Army captured Nuremberg.  Karl Holz, age 49, German Nazi Gauleiter was found dead in a barricaded police bunker. Willy Liebel, age 47, lord mayor of Nuremberg was also found there, a suicide.

    Italian paratroopers boarding C-47 for Operation Herring.  It must have been comforting to board an aircraft that has a giant flak scar near the door they're entering.

    U.S.aircraft dropped Italian paratroopers over northern Italy in Operation Herring.

    While the Italian Army is often dissed in World War Two, it's airborne troops were good.

    Mussolini gave his final interview noting that the end had been reached for him.

    Members of the  Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai in the Dutch East Indies tendered their resignations to protest their belief that they were being assigned to missions of no military importance.  A later investigation confirmed their views.

    The war had never been as widely supported in Australia as it was in the US, something the Australians shared with Canadians.  And they had a real point here I've often wondered about.  Islands in the South Pacific and targets in the Indian Ocean that had been significant early on really were not by this time, even though fighting continued on them.  The wisdom of continuing the ongoing operations actively can be questioned.

    The US 3rd Amphibious Corps completed the capture of the Motobu Peninsula and the whole of the main northern part of Okinawa.

    Last edition:

    Thursday, April 19, 1945. Broadcasting from Belsen.

    Saturday, May 11, 2024

    Thursday, May 11, 1944. Operation Diadem.

    Japanese foxholes located under bank of draw in the 129th Infantry, 37th Division sector on Bougainville, Solomon Islands. The jungle growth has been cleared by the fierce artillery fire.  May 11, 1944.

    Allied forces broke through German defenses in the Liri Valley in Operation Diadem with the first attacks being by the British 4th Infantry Division and the 8th Indian Infantry Division, with fire support from the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade.  All the Allies fighting in Italy would participate in the offensive.

    Allied air forces raided the French coast, with Calais particularly hard hit.


    Oberst Walter Oesau (123 victories) was shot down and killed over the Eifel Mountains.  

    Oesau had been goaded into flying by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring on that day even though he'd been sick in bed with the flu, Göring calling his command to see if he was flying.  Göring had been turning his ire on unit commanders who were not regularly flying, and upon learning that Oesau was in bed he basically accused him of cowardice.  He did skillfully fight three P-38s but was killed by cannon fire from one of the aircraft attempting to make an emergency landing.\

    Oesau had fought in the Spanish Civil War, but there's little known about him overall.  He was not a flamboyant figure and included no special markings on his aircraft.

    The RAF Lancaster "S for Sugar" completed its 100th mission.

    Today in World War II History—May 11, 1944 In Italy, Germans release Jews of Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, and Swiss citizenship under pressure from these neutral governments.

    Movie premiere of The White Cliffs of Dover, starring Irene Dunne.

    Social Security Administration ruling reflecting a marriage on this date, and a complicated set of relationships.

    SSR 60-9. STATUS OF CHILD IN THE WOMB

    A child conceived during its mother's marriage to her first husband, but born after her re-marriage to her second husband is the stepchild of the second husband from the date of such marriage.

    M was divorced from F on March 25, 1944. She married P on May 11, 1944. A child, C, was born to M on July 13, 1944. P died on May 20, 1945. An application for child's benefits on P's social security account was filed September 23, 1959, on behalf of C.

    Section 216(e) of the Social Security Act defines the term "child" as including a stepchild of a deceased individual who has been a stepchild "for not less than one year immediately preceding the day on which such individual died."

    In view of the general principle that when justice or convenience requires, the child in the womb is dealt with as a human being even though physiologically it is part of the mother, the marriage of P and M created a steprelationship between P and M's child, C, even though C was unborn at that time. Since the marriage of P and M occurred more than one year prior to P's death, and C had been conceived and was in existence at the time of the marriage, it is held that C was P's stepchild for one year prior to his death as required by section 216(e) for becoming entitled to benefits on his earnings record.

    Last prior edition:

    Wednesday, May 10, 1944. New Medals.