Thursday, September 14, 1944. Dragoon concludes. More SOE agents executed. The toll of the 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane increases.

Troops of the 3rd Bn., 7th Inf. Regt., 3rd Div., move through a muddy street in Montjustin-et-Velotte, France. 14 September, 1944. 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.

Operation Dragoon concluded.

The Red Army commenced the Baltic Offensive.

The Red Army and Romanian Army fought the Hungarian Army at Păuliș.

British and Canadian troops took Coriano, Italy.

Captured Canadian Army officers assigned to the  John Kenneth Macalister, 30, Frank Pickersgill, 29, and Roméo Sabourin, 21, were executed at Buchenwald.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded the third highest water level of Woods Hole, MA to date at 1.488 meters, no doubt due to the ongoing 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.

The USCGC Bedlo and USCGC Jackson went down in the hurricane.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 13, 1944. The Execution of the SOE Agents.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane, Battle of Rimini, boats and ships, Collaborators, Dachau, Greece, Greek Partisans, Italy, SOE, Soviet Air Forces, Warsaw Uprising, Weather, World War Two

Friday, September 8, 1944. Belgian government returns.

The Belgian government returned to Belgium.

Bulgaria, at war for a day with the Soviet Union, accepted an armistice.  It then declared war in Germany.

Canadian troops captured Nieuport and Ostend.  The US Army captured Liege.

Men climbing ladders to allow crossing of Doubs River in Besancon. 8 September, 1944.

Company A, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.

Miss Helen Rehak, St. Louis, Mo., an American Red Cross Clubmobile girl, passes out cigarettes to members of an American reconnaissance unit who have halted their motorized vehicle near the Moselle River, France. 8 September, 1944.  80th Reconnaissance Troop, 80th Infantry Division.

Members of the 80th Reconnaissance Unit fall in line for doughnuts and and coffee furnished from an American Red Cross Clubmobile in the vicinity of the Moselle River, France. 8 September, 1944.

80th Reconnaissance Troop, 80th Infantry Division.

T/5 Harry C. Snader, of Lancaster, Cpl. William J. Gorey, of Philadelphia, Pvt. Clifford A. Brilhart, Scottdale, Pvt. Chester A. Sajeska, Nanticoke, Pvt. Jacob L. Riker, Conshohocken, and T/5 Oliver J. Laudenslager, Orefield, second row, left to right: T/S R.M. Miller of Pittsburgh, and S/Sgt. Johnny Davies, of Pittsburgh, Pvt. Anthony D. Ragne, of Johnstown, Pvt. William B. George, of Philadelphia, T/4 Lynn J. Blum, of Pittsburgh, and Pfc. Paul B. Miller, of Waynesboro. Brest, France. 8 September, 1944. 2nd Infantry Division.

A V-2, an ballistic missile, hit Chiswick, west London.  It was the first such missle to do so.

It had been launched from a German site at The Hauge.

The Battle of Dukla Pass began on the border between Poland and Slovakia. German resistance was much heavier than expected, which is something that would mark how combat on the Eastern Front would increasingly develop.  Hungarian forces fought with the Germans.

Last edition:

Thursday, September 7, 1944. Hungary declares war on Romania. The Chinese Army prevails at The Battle of Mount Song (松山戰役), The Shin'yō Maru incident.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Mount Song (松山戰役), boats and ships, Burma, Burma Road, Disaster, Hungary, Imperial Japanese Army, Nationalist Chinese Army, Prisoners of War, Romania, Vichy France, World War Two

Sunday, March 19, 1944. Germany invades Hungary.

US 75mm howitzer engaging in direct fire, Bougainville

The Germans, now in the position of having to invade their own allies in order to keep them in the war, did just that and invaded Hungary with eight divisions.  The invasion was a complete surprise, and came from all directions.  It was largely bloodless.

Hungary was Germany's largest ally, and the country had approached the Western Allies as early as the summer of 1943.  Hungary had refused, starting around that time, to provide troops for the Balkans and by this time in 1944 was openly seeking to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.  By March 1944 it had largely demobilized and was nearly out of the war.

The Germans kept the Hungarian Army in the field, having no other choice.  The SS began the deportation of 550,000 Hungarian Jews, with Hungarian collaboration.  Admiral Horthy continued his efforts to negotiate a separate peace with the Soviet Union but had to form a new government under Döme Sztójay which reentered the war in the East.

The U-1059 was sunk by US aircraft off of Cape Verde.

The Indian National Army hoisted its flag on Indian soil captured by the Japanese offensive in northeast Indian.

Picasso's Desire Caught by the Tail was preformed for the first time in occupied Paris, making the performance presented by Albert Camus particularly pathetic, in my opinion.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, March 18, 1944. Summoned to Germany.

Wednesday, January 27, 1943. Aluminium Overcast.

91 bombers, both B-17s and B-24s, of the 8th Air Force made the first U.S. airstrikes inside of Germany, including a 55 plane raid on the submarine pens at Wilhelmshaven.  All of the aircraft returned.

The Red Army successfully completed the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh offensive against the Hungarian 2nd Army and parts of the Italian 8th Army.  The Hungarian and Italian forces took over 70,000 casualties and lost over 50,000 men as POWs.

The Office of Price Administration announced that "edible meats" would be rationed beginning on April 1, due in part to the failure of voluntary reductions to be effective.  Taking this step meant that the U.S. Government was going further in this direction than it had at any point during World War One.

Wednesday, January 20, 1943. Senseless deaths.

Attila Peschauer, Hungarian Olympic fencer and gold medalist in 1928 and 1932, is commonly thought to have died in the Davidovka concentration camp in Ukraine where Hungarian Jews had been deported by Nazi Germany, an act which required cooperation of Hungary.

It's commonly misunderstood by those in the West that all the victims of the Holocaust were gassed in camps, which is far from true, and in the few camps whose names are in common circulation in the West.  In reality, bullets and starvation were the most common means of death and most of the killing took place in the Poland, Ukraine and Belorussia in those areas where they were occupied by the Germans.

While, as noted, it's been commonly thought that Peschauer died in a concentration camp, and may even have been ordered into execution by a fellow Hungarian serving the Germans, some recent information is that he actually died in a Soviet POW camp.  The irony here would be that Hungary was a German ally during World War Two.  This might actually be more likely as while Hungary was repressive towards its Jewish citizens, it didn't deport those who actually held Hungarian citizenship, that being done to Jews who lived in areas that Hungary took in after it invaded the Soviet Union.

By this point in the war, it should be noted, countries like the Kingdom of Hungary should have been seriously reconsidering their role in the war as, at least to an astute advisor, there was no way for them to come out on the winning side.  Of course, they were also captive to their earlier decision to side with the Germans.

The Luftwaffe bombed the Sandhurst Road School in a daytime raid of the London suburb of Catford, killing 41 school children. By this point in the war, Luftwaffe raids over the UK were increasingly rare.  Six teachers were also killed.  Eleven of the German aircraft were downed by Typhoons.

The Red Army continued to advance, with the New York Daily Post noting that the Germans were now back on their 1941 line as a result.  The British took Homs and Tarhuna in Libya.  The Germans advanced in Tunisia.  Chile broke diplomatic relations off with Germany, Italy and Japan.

Tuesday, November 24, 1942. The end of Case Blue.

Case Blue, the 1942 German summer offensive on the Eastern Front, came to an end having not achieved its goals, which had been to capture the oil fields of Baku, Grozny and Maikop.

The thought was that without oil, the Soviets couldn't fight, and the Germans would be able to.  Indeed, taking Soviet oil production had been part of the original goal of Operation Barbarossa, with the thought being that the Germans needed it to wage war against the United Kingdom.

By User:Gdr - Own work information from Overy, Richard (2019) World War II Map by Map, DK, pp. 148−150 ISBN: 9780241358719., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=443854

It's strategic aims, often criticized, were sound and grasped the importance of petroleum on the ability to wage modern war.  Hitler had a major role in forming the campaign's development and direction and frankly, while the campaign is often criticized for redirecting German assets to southern Russia rather than the north, with the focus being Moscow, the plan demonstrated a good gasp on resources and modern warfare, and the protracted nature of the latter.  Had the campaign succeeded in its goals, which were problematic in more ways than one, it would have at least deprived the Soviet Union of significant war fighting assets.  It probably would not have succeeded in providing those to the Germans, however, as the Soviets would have destroyed oil production facilities prior to the Germans taking them.  Whether the Germans had the capacity to restore production is doubtful.

The plan was, moreover, overambitious and its initial success caused the Germans to take actions which reduced its potential effectiveness.  

In spite of its ultimate failure, the offensive was remarkably successful at first, which encouraged the Germans to overextend themselves.  By November the offensive had lost steam, without succeeding in its goals, and Operation Uranus soon demonstrated that the Germans were now grossly overextended. The Soviets, additionally, managed to increase the size of their army throughout the campaign and by its end had over 1,000,000 more men in the field than the Germans did. The Germans, for their part, lost 200,000 men during the campaign and the Romanian army was effectively ground down to semi ineffective.  By the campaign's end, moreover, the Germans were relying on Romanian, Hungarian and Italian troops to a dangerous extent.

The end of the campaign came with the Soviets launching a series of winter offensives.

Case Blue brought the Germans to their high water mark of World War Two.  Its failure was followed by losing ground in the East in the winter of 1942, which they were also doing in North Africa at the same time.  Indeed, due to its failure it should have been obvious to the Germans that wining the war was not impossible.

Rabbi Wise.

Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, held a press conference in which he revealed information leaked from Europe of German atrocities against the Jews.

Rabbi Wise had the information for three months, but has been asked not to reveal it by the U.S. Government as it could not be confirmed, which of course it could not.  At this point, however, he correctly felt that releasing the information was necessary.

Wise had been born in Hungary, but came to the US as an infant with his parents. His father and grandfather were also rabbis.

Peadar Kearney, writer of the Irish National Anthem A Soldiers Song, "Amhrán na bhFiann" died at age 58.

Monday, November 23, 1942. Operation Uranus concludes.

The Red Army completed encircling the German 6th Army, which was trapped in Stalingrad.

In a matter of mere days, the Red Army had blasted through Romanian lines north and south of the city and completely routed it. German efforts at counter-attacks failed.  250,000 German troops were besieged in the city.  It was a brilliantly planned and executed Red Army offensive, featuring massive use of artillery and rapid advancement of armor and horse cavalry.

Romanian stamp showing a Romanian and German servicemen serving in the "Holy War against Bolshevism."  The designer of the stamp probably didn't realize that the symbol that he put on the German's helmet would make him part of the Luftwaffe.

The offensive also showed that the Germans had committed a fatal error in trusting the front near Stalingrad to their allies. To the north of the city the front was defended by Romanian, Hungarian and Italian armies. To the south, Romanian. The Romanian Army had already shown itself to be worn out earlier in 1942.

The Governor General of French West Africa accepted the authority of Admiral Darlan.

Japanese general Tomitarō Horii, age 52, was swept out to sea after trying to canoe to his troops in the Battle of Buno-Gona.  This resulted in his death due to drowning.