The Joint Chiefs of Staff determined to invade the Gilbert Islands and Nauru, to be followed by the Marshalls.
The Battle of Bairoko was fought on New Georgia, in which the U.S. Army and Marine Raiders attacked Japanese defensive positions unsuccessfully.
A stateside soldier's letter this day:
Hitler ordered his commanders to withdraw and take defense positions at Kursk, following up on his July 13 order to end the offensive. Von Manstein and others urged Hitler to continue on, but he overruled them. At this point in the battle, the Germans had lost 252 tanks and sustained 64,000 casualties, whereas the Soviets had lost over 2,000 and had sustained 320,000 casualties, so Von Manstein's arguments were not without merit.
It would soon prove to be the case that the Red Army had not been as damaged as Von Manstein believed, but a person can ponder what carrying on in Operation Citadel would have meant, keeping in mind that there was no reversing German fortunes, only delaying them, at this point.
We've dealt with Von Manstein's post-war fate a bit here:
We didn't note in that entry that when he died, he was buried with full military honors.
The Krasnodara Trial, the first war crimes trial, concluded in the Soviet Union with all 20 Soviet citizens, collaborators with the Germans, convicted and 18 of them to receive the death penalty.
The Polish Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe (Striking Cadre Battalions, UBK), attacked East Prussian villages in the area of Johannisburg (Pisz) in retaliation for German atrocities in Bezirk Bialystok. Oddly, Pisz is now in Poland and Bezirk Bialystok in Belarus.
The U.S. offensive at Munda Point in New Georgia concluded with limited tactical success. This was in part because the US troops and their leadership were green, which was recognized by the U.S. and resulted in reorganization of the command structure. On the same day, the Japanese launched a counteroffensive, which would prove to be costly and unsuccessful.
Today in World War II History—May 26, 1943: Edsel Ford, President of Ford Motor Company, dies, age 49; his father, Henry Ford, resumes the presidency. Canada begins meat rationing.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
Ford, a major philanthropist, died of stomach cancer.
Edsel had taken the company into aviation, over the objections of his father, which was foresighted at the time. This allowed the company to engage in aviation manufacture during World War Two.
Like his father, his reputation in not wholly unblemished. There are some reasons to suspect that he sympathized with the Germans in World War Two early on.
Edwin Barclay, the President of Liberia, visited President Roosevelt and spent the night, at the Executive Mansion, the first black to do so. On the same day, Roosevelt ordered striking workers at rubber plants in Akron, Ohio to return to work.
Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.
This was the first full theater collapse of an Axis army during World War Two.
Regarding this event, Sarah Sundin notes:
Today in World War II History—May 12, 1943: 80 Years Ago—May 12, 1943: German and Italian troops surrender in Tunisia, ending the campaign in North Africa; Allies take 225,000 prisoners.
The Axis surrender was affected by Colonel General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim and General Giovanni Messe, commanders, of the German Army and the Italian Army in North Africa. Von Arnim refused to surrender the terms of the unconditional surrender, although his troops were surrounded and in fact were surrendered.
Messe had experience in armored warfare, and had served on the Russian Front prior to being posted to North Africa. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that Messe was an Italian Royalist and would go on to serve as Chief of Staff of the Italian Co-Belligerant Army after Italy switched sides in the war, making him a unique figure. He was popular with the Italian people and went on to serve in the Italian Senate.
The Trident conference between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt commenced in Washington, D.C. It would run for sixteen days.
Sundin, in her blog, also notes that the Indian Army evacuated Maungdaw.
The massive Battle of West Hubei commenced in China between the Nationalist Chinese Army and the Imperial Japanese Army. The Japanese offensive would fail, with each army loosing about 25,000 casualties.
The "Fido" acoustic homing torpedo came into action in the North Atlantic, being used by a Royal Air Force B-24 to damage the U-456.
The Navy, supported by the Royal Canadian Air Force, landed elements of 7th Infantry Division on Attu in order to retake the Japanese occupied island. The resulting battle was the only land battle on American territory during World War Two and the only battle between the US and Japan in the Arctic.
Fighting would cover two weeks with the Japanese putting up a stout defense. The Japanese Navy formed a task force to relieve the island but the Allies took it before it cold depart Tokyo Bay. Knowing that they would not be relieved, the Japanese forces went down on May 29 in a banzai charge. Of the entire Japanese garrison of over 2,800 men, only 28 survived.
The 7th Infantry Division was committed to the war in the Pacific for the balance of World War Two, and would have occupation duty in Japan and Korea after the war. It was stationed in Japan when the Korean War broke out. During the Korean War, the then under strength division took on an international character, incorporating very large numbers of South Korean troops, as well as Columbian and Ethiopian solders.
Secretary of the Navy publically stated that "Possession of Sicily by the Allies would obviously be a tremendous asset" leading to fears that he'd blow the success of Operation Mincemeat. Instead, it convinced the Germans that he was trying a "smoke screen".
May 5, 1943 is one of the most important dates, and possibly the least known, in the history of the nuclear age. It was the date when the first atomic bomb targeting decision was made — a full two years before the end of World War II in Europe.
Also from that site:
Like many I have concluded that the bombings were unjustified, though that is an opinion far from universally held. But some of my reasons may surprise you. I explained them in a talk I gave in Santa Fe in 2012, entitled From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima.
I'll be frank, I also view the bombings as morally unjustified acts. Indeed, of the worst sort. There's simply no escaping that the scale of a nuclear weapon, when used on a city, is going to have the primary effect of killing civilians. Indeed, no matter how dressed up, by the wars end, that was looked at unflinchingly and was largely the point.
Of course, by that war the Allies had acclimated themselves to firebombing in Japan with the intent to destroy civilian housing, and thereby deprive Japanese war workers of their dwellings. Once again, the use of force was over matched to the goal. Striking factories is one thing, burning people to death in their homes quite another.
Make no mistake about it, Germans, under the monstrous Nazi regime, had become monstrous themselves, and in a way that no individual German can really excuse. The Japanese, who retained a peasant culture to a very large degree going into the war, likewise did, with the average soldier routinely committing murders and the entire military being acclimated to atrocity. The Allies undoubtedly had the moral side of the war, and there's no two ways about it. Nonetheless, that doesn't excuse the crimes committed by the Allies themselves, which in the case of the Western Allies came principally from unprincipled bombing. Over European skies, the British were much more guilty of this than the Americans, having turned to inaccurate night bombing early in the war out of necessity, but then having readily adopted the liberal bombing views of "Bomber" Harris thereafter. In the Pacific, the United States, the major Western combatant, went to free bombing of civilian targets with firebombs by the end of the war, as noted. In some ways, the atomic bomb could almost be viewed as an extension of the late war firebombing, but in a new, much more devastating, and horrifying, way.
Sarah Sundin noted a true World War Two technological landmark, the first flight of the P51B.
Today in World War II History—May 5, 1943: 80 Years Ago—May 5, 1943: First flight of production-model North American P-51B Mustang (with a Packard-built Merlin engine), at Inglewood, CA.
The combination of the British engine with the P51 airframe, in what had been an Anglo-American project to start with, would revolutionize and completely alter the performance of the fighter. It would be the P51B that would really start long range bomber escorts all the way into Germany.
Sundin noticed several other events of this day on her blog, including that Admiral Sir Charles Little was naval as the Allied naval commander for the invasion of France from Britain, although he would not hold the post long.
She also noted that the Japanese launched an offensive south of the Yangtze toward Chongqing. The often forgotten front, to the West, in China, remained Japan's largest ground commitment and in many ways most important theater of operations in the war.
Twenty-seven ships of all types were lost in the war on this day.
A new law went into effect in California requiring marriage licenses to identify race. Interracial marriage was illegal in California, as it was in much of the United States.
The Battle of Longstop Hill commenced in Tunisia.
.png)
Wyomingite Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall was relieved of his command of II Corps and replaced by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton.
Patton, widely regarded as the premier American expert on armored warfare, was very quickly promoted to Lt. General. Fredendall was assigned stateside duty. His reputation never recovered after Kasserine Pass, and he did not return to Cheyenne in later years. He died in 1963 in California, having retired from the Army in 1946.
Fredendall was twice appointed to West Point and twice dropped out. Senator F. E. Warren was willing to appoint him a third time, but the Academy was unwilling to accept him. He instead attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and thereafter entered the Army in 1907. His trouble at West Point was with math, which ironically was also very problematic for the home educated George S. Patton. His performance in World War One was excellent.
His home state has forgotten him.
The Battle of Medenine was fought in Tunisia. It was a spoiling attack by the Afrika Korps which resulted in a costly defeat. It was also Rommel's last command action in North Africa.
Things were going downhill for the Axis in North Africa quickly.
Freedom from Want appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. It proved to be the most popular of the four freedom's illustrations, and is regarded as one of Rockwell's best. The accompanying essay was by Phlipinno, immigrant Carlos Sampayan Bulosan.
I wonder to what extent we've forgotten this freedom?
Joseph Stalin, who put many into the want of starvation, promoted himself to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Contemporaneously, the Soviet Communist Party proclaimed him "the greatest strategist of all times and all peoples".
M'eh.
Unfortunately, his adopted home has not forgotten him and has drawn the wrong conclusions about his leadership. First siding with the Germans during World War Two, his miscalculation about what he could extract from them in order to join the war against the British Empire led to the Germans charging ahead with a war against the Soviet Union for which it was not prepared. It took two years for the USSR to form a sufficient armed mob in order to counter to begin to throw the Germans back, which relied on, in spite of wanting to ignore it, massive Western Allied support.
The Battle of Blackett Strait was fought between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Imperial Navy.
A small engagement, the Japanese lost 100% of their two destroyer force.
A year long, mostly Australian, but also containing Kiwi and Dutch troops, guerilla campaign against the Japanese on Timor ended in an Allied withdrawal.
While the Japanese prevailed in the action, the small Allied forces dedicated to it had tied up an entire Japanese division for an entire year, amounting to an Allied strategic victory. The ad hoc Allied unit was dubbed "Sparrow Force", reflecting its small size.
The Red Army outside of Leningrad attacked at Krasny Bor. All in all, the attack was not a Red Army success.
As an aside, the Spanish Blue Division was engaged by the Red Army in this battle and sustained a 70% casualty rate, partially resulting in its technical end, although it was replaced by the Blue Legion of Spanish volunteers which was subsequently disbanded in March 1944, as Franco read the tea leaves. Spanish prisoners captured in this action, which were not numerous, were not repatriated until 1954. Approximately 300 Spaniards were kept by the USSR until that time, in part because Span and the Soviet Union did not have diplomatic relations with each other.
The Blue Division was organized by Spain and contained a sizable contingent of soldiers who had received leave from the Spanish Army in order to join it, although it also contained many volunteers from the Spanish far right. For that reason, it was regarded as a Spanish formation by the Western Allies, who pressured Franco to withdraw it. Franco also received pressure from Spanish conservatives and the Catholic Church as well. The legion's connection would be less pronounced, and accordingly also more hardcore fascist, and it was eventually absorbed by the SS.
Hitler authorized the Blue Division Medal (Erinnerungsmedaille für die spanischen Freiwilligen im Kampf gegen den Bolschewismus) due to this action, which he personally had designed.
The Blue Division is interesting in quite a few ways, not the least of which is that figuring out Franco's motives in any one thing are always a bit difficult to do. Allowing the recruitment of a division amounted to aid to the Germans, in addition to that which was already being provided, without committing to the war as Italy had. It also meant that the most hardcore of the Spanish right was bleeding in the war, which a person has to suspect didn't hurt Franco's feelings, as he was never actually a Falangist himself.
The SS began recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen SS 13th Division. They did not respond to the call as enthusiastically as hoped, and while this unit remains popular amongst Wehrmacht fans, it isn't an example of a hugely successful SS foreign recruiting drive. Indeed, most such efforts by the SS were not terribly successful.
Classified as mountain infantry, the division did come to full strength and was used in anti-partisan warfare in Yugoslavia, where, like most such units, it gained a reputation for barbarity. About 10% of the division was made up of non-Muslim, principally Croatian, recruits, which Himmler had not desired to enlist. Officers of the unit were German or Yugoslavian Volkdeutsch.
Its area of operations were limited to Bosnia and its an example of how some of World War Two became, locally, a bigger war within a local war. Yugoslavia featured a particularly difficult to follow civil war throughout World War Two.
Up to a 1,000 survivors of this unit, and another one, went on to fight against the Israelis in Arab armies in the 1948-49 Arab Israeli War.
Vesta Stoudt, an ordinance factor worker, wrote to President Roosevelt about her idea for what would become duct tape.
Mohandas Gandi started a hunger strike while imprisoned in response to the British government's request that he condemn the violence of the Quit India Movement.
Howard W. Gilmore, age 40, commander of the USS Growler, ordered the submarine to submerge even though he was too wounded to escape down the hatch, thereby allowing the boat to escape, and causing his drowning.
The Japanese successfully completed Operation Ke, the withdrawal of 10,000 Japanese troops from Guadalcanal. Deception was a key part of the operation, causing the U.S. to believe that the Japanese were reinforcing the island.
Hitler gave a rousing speech to German officials and high ranking Nazis at his headquarters, successfully reassuring them that Germany would win World War Two. During the speech, according to notes taken at the time, he stated "„Entweder wir werden Herr über Europa, oder wir erleben eine komplette Liquidierung und Vernichtung“, or "Either we will be the master of Europe, or we will experience a complete liquidation and extermination,", which likely seemed impossible to the audience, who were also seeking reassurance. He also promised total war against the remaining Jewish population within his control.
The Defense Department discovered that a North Vietnamese provided list of 555 POWs included Marine PFC Ronald L. Ridgeway of Houston, who had been listed as Killed In Action. He would be promoted to Sergeant and medically discharged in November 1973.
His girlfriend, Lawanda Taylor, had not married since his disappearance in 1968, and they would subsequently marry. He would go to work in the Veterans Administration.
On the same day, the first 125 of 37,000 South Korean troops in Vietnam left the country. The South Korean Army retained a large presence in South Vietnam right up into 1973 and had to be pressured by the US to leave, although the US also considered leaving South Korean troops in the country into 1974 given the slow progress of the ARVN in the regions the Korean troops were located. By 1973, South Korean troops constituted the vast majority of foreign combat troops in South Vietnam
Senator John C. Stennis was shot and wounded in front of his Washington, D. C. home in a robbery attempt.
The rock band Wicked Lester rebranded itself and performed for the first time as KISS.
The Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro broadcast on German radio that all men from 16 to 65 years of age and all women from 17 to 45 years of age were to be conscripted for labor.
Adolf Hitler had been Chancellor for nine years and 364 days. 1
The Battle of Rennell Island saw the Japanese commit significant air assets against the U.S. Navy in an effort to protect the Japanese withdrawal from Guadalcanal. The heavy cruiser USS Chicago was sunk in the action.
_underway_off_New_York_City_on_31_May_1934_(NH_715).jpg)
The Battle of Wau also began on New Guinea where the Japanese outflanked the Allies to land at Lae and advance on the Australian base at Wau.
A Chinook wind caused an increase in temperature in Spearfish, South Dakota, in which the temperature went from -4F to 45F in two minutes. It ultimately went up to 54F over two hours, then dropped back below 0 in 30 minutes, all of this in a single morning.
Papua was liberated from the Japanese, becoming the first territory they had captured from which they'd been completely expelled.
Japan's losses on the island were 13,000 in number, compared to 2,000 for Australia and 600 for the United States.
On the same day, the British 8th Army took Tripoli.
According to many sources, today, not yesterday, was the date on which the Germans lost their last airfield at Stalingrad.
French police and German forces began the Marseilles Roundup, the gathering and deportation of the city's Jewish population. The action would result in the deportation of 1,642 people, the displacement of 20,000 and the arrest of 6,000. The Old Port district was destroyed.
Margaret Bourke-White flew in a U.S. bombing mission over Tunis in the B-17 Little Bill. The photographer and reporter was the first woman to do so.
Bourke-White was already a famous photographer by that time, having photographed extensively during the Great Depression and having photographed the Soviet Union prior to World War Two. She died at age 67 in 1971 of Parkinson's Disease.
Franklin Roosevelt dined with Moroccan Sultan Mohammed V, during which he expressed sympathy for post-war Moroccan independence.
Roosevelt was always solidly anti-colonial, a fact that became an increasing problem for the British as the war went on and which would impact the immediate post war world.
Prime Minister Winston Church and President Franklin Roosevelt met in Casablanca for the opening of a multiday conference at the Anfa Hotel.
Today in World War II History—December 29, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 29, 1942: German army begins retreat from the Caucasus region. Japanese begin withdrawal from Buna area of New Guinea.
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.
.svg.png)
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.
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ended as an American victory. On this day, the USS Washington, a battleship, sank the Japanese battleship Kriishima.
_off_New_York_City,_August_1942.jpg)
Church bells were rung in the United Kingdom in celebration of the victory at El Alamein. They had been silenced since 1940.
Women entered USAAF flight training for the first time. The training was at the Houston Municipal Airpor and the unit was designated as the 319th Army Air Force Flying Training Detachment.
The comic book Archie appeared.
The Japanese battleship Hiei went down in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
The Hiei was detected by the USS Helena at 01:24 on November 13, but she was not able to effectively engage because her main guns were loaded with anti-aircraft munitions in anticpation of shelling Henderson Field. She was accordingly damaged by fire from the USS San Francisco. She became damaged herself and was attacked by B-17s and later by dive bombers and torpedo bombers, sinking in the early morning hours of this day.
The Italian Scilin was sunk by the Royal Navy submarine Sahib, taking 800 Allied prisoners of war down with her. The British did not reveal the cause of this loss until 1966.
Rommel returned to Africa.
During his absence, things had not gone well for the Axis. There's no reason to believe that they would have gone any better had he been there.
Rommel arguably has an outsized reputation. Perhaps because the British tended to admire him, for some reason, as an adversary, and as they measured their success in the desert in terms of defeating his command, he's obtained the reputation of being a "clean" German commander. There actually is some evidence to support this, but it's mixed and not as clear-cut as sometimes claimed.
_under_attack_by_dive_bombers_during_the_Battle_of_Santa_Cruz_Islands_on_26_October_1942_(80-G-20989).jpg)
The Battle of Santa Cruz Islands began with the Japanese, operating under the assumption that they had taken Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, moved ships from the Shortland Island towards Guadalcanal in order to support the Japanese ground forces on the islands. Aircraft from Henderson Field ended up attacking the Japanese convoy throughout the 25th, sinking a light cruiser. This alerted the Japanese that Henderson Field remained in American hands, but they pushed forward in hopes of engaging the American Navy in a decisive naval battle.
The Second Battle of El Alamein began.
The British offensive was really the first under Bernard Law Montgomery, and pitted slightly larger Allied forces against the Afrika Korps. Of note, the British had considerably more armor than the Germans. It would result in an Allied victory, of which Churchill stated; It may almost be said, "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat".
On that theme, arguably today was the high water mark for the Axis, or perhaps yesterday. The Germans and their European Allies had advanced as far as they were going to in the Soviet Union, having taken the Stalingrad tractor factory several days prior. They had expelled the British from Europe and defeated all of their enemies there, although guerilla campaigns were going on against them. In North Africa, they had advanced up to El Alamein, but they had not taken it.
The Germans knew they were in trouble at this point. While it was not obvious to casual observers, their offensive in the Soviet Union had stalled without defeating the USSR and without even bringing to an end the fighting before the onset of winter. Their advances in the country had been massive, but insufficient, and they knew it. Additionally, massive Axis efforts on the land, air and sea had failed to drive the British out of North Afrika and, on this day, the British would recommence advancing.
Starting on this day, the Germans would be losing ground every day.
The Battle for Henderson Field commenced as well, with a large-scale Japanese assault designed to take the airfield.
In the Pacific War, the Japanese were already in the position of not really advancing any longer, although the war in New Guinea made that unclear. Resources were still thin in a theater that was limited to Australian and American forces, with the Japanese war being much more recent than the European one. Having said that, the Japanese run in the Pacific was over.
Elanor Roosevelt arrived in the UK and met with the King and Queen.
The latter event emphasizes, again without the public really realizing it, that the Western Allies already knew that they would win the war at this point, and the Soviets may have realized it by this point as well. Lots of the war was yet to be fought, but the final results were dimly in view.
