.webp)
Terrorists attacked a train traveling from Moscow to Riga in Latvia, killing Soviet couriers L. F. Pecherskiy, Theodor Nette and his partner, with the apparent goal of stealing a diplomatic pouch.
A crowd of 10,000 people gathered in Los Angeles to watch the funeral procession of actress Barbara La Marr.
La Marr was regarded as a great beauty and was famous for that, as well as a torrid life. Only 29 at the time of her death, she'd been married four times.
Last edition:
Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy made a radio broadcast announcing a separate peace with the Soviet Union. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust, a commando operation to seize Horthy and keep Hungary in the war. He was in fact seized later that day and resigned in favor of Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi when he learned that his son had been seized and his life was in danger.
The Red Army too Riga.
Partisans launched an operation to expel the Germans from Kosovo.
The Poles took Gambettola.
The Leipzig collided with the Prinz Eugen in the Baltic fog and was rendered a total loss.
The U-777 was sunk by the RAF.
Task Force 38.4 conducted air raids north of Manila.
Last edition:
A British-Greek force landed at Piraeus, Greece.
The British took Carpineta, Italy.
The Germans retreated from Rovaniemi.
The Red Army broke through German lines at Riga.
The Germans hit Antwerp with V1s and V2s for the first time.
The Black Watch of Canada attacks at Hoogerheide, Netherlands, with disastrous results.
Navy Task Force 38 hits Formosa again, with the Japanese attempting to counter attack by air.
Last edition:
A couple of big items are reported by Sarah Sundin:
These include the beginning of the 1944 Democratic Convention and the 5th Army taking Livorno, Italy.
President Roosevelt had no real opposition to his nomination. The big question was who would be his vice president.
The Battle of Verrières Ridge in Normandy south of Caen, with two Canadian divisions pitted against three SS divisions.
Saint-Lô was taken by U.S. troops.
The Red Army entered Latvia.
The Ōi was sunk by the USS Flasher.
Last edition:
Oklahoma was impeaching its anti Klan Governor.
Gustav Krupp signed an agreement with the French which established operating conditions for his mines in the Ruhr. He was released from prison fourteen days later.
Estonia and Latvia signed a mutual defense treaty.
Finnair was founded as "Aero Osakeyhtiö". It had one airplane at the time, a Junkers F.13 seaplane.
The George Washington Memorial cornerstone was laid.
Recently retired, at age 29, Irish mob gangster Bill Lovett was murdered in his sleep at an abandoned store in Brooklyn. Lovett was a well-educated man who loved animals, and a distinguished World War One veteran, but a dedicated alcoholic who could be very temperamental when drunk. He'd been in the Irish mob before and again after World War One, but had recently given up crime and drinking after marrying. He fell off the wagon on October 31 while downtown for a job interview, and went to sleep in the store with a compatriot. He was apparently murdered by other Irish mobsters.
The British troops landed on Terceira Island, one of the Azores, in a little noted operation.
The Azores belong to Portugal and the population of the Azores are Portuguese. The Allies had made plans to land there by force, much like they had in Iceland, but it proved unnecessary as the Portuguese agreed to lease air bases to the allies.
Portugal and the UK had been allies since the Napoleonic Wars, although Portugal had not entered the war. They remained on friendly terms in spite of Portugal having a long sitting authoritarian government which would make one presume, in accurately, that it would have been sympathetic to the Germans. In fact, at the start of the Second World War, Portugal announced that its 500-year-old plus treat with the UK remained in effect. The UK, wisely, simply chose not to invoke it. The British did begin, however, to occupy islands in the Azores starting in 1942 under lease from Portugal.
The Azores were known to Europeans prior to the 1370s. Settlement by Portugal commenced in the 1439.
Today in World War II History—October 8, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Oct. 8, 1943: In Italy, US occupies Caserta Palace, future Headquarters of the US Fifth Army.
Sarah Sundin.
The British 8th Army took Lairon and Guglionesi.
The last Jewish residents of the Liepaja Ghetto in Latvia were sent to the Kaiserwald concentration camp.
The Germans commenced withdrawing from Sicily.
Sarah Sundin notes this on her blog, also noting that 100,000 Axis troops would be evacuated to the Italian peninsula, a significant failure in the Allied campaign in that they were not able, in spite of attempting, to trap them in Sicily. There were efforts to do so, as she also noted:
Today in World War II History—August 11, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Aug. 11, 1943: US Seventh Army makes amphibious landings at Brolo on Sicily’s north shore, but fails to cut off German retreat.
Hitler ordered the creation of an "Eastern Wall" to defend conquered territory in the Baltics.
The unlikely named former Catholic Bishop of Riga and later Bishop of Danzia, an opponent of the Nazis, died at age 66, in Rome, where he was living in exile.
Born in Minsk to a family of Irish heritage, which was also unlikely, he had resigned his position in Riga as a movement for a Latvian Bishop gained strength. He clashed with the Nazis in Danzig, which had ultimately led to his relocation to Poland, where he was granted Polish citizenship. When the Germans invaded Poland, he was on a journey to Estonia, and ultimately traveled to Italy. He was not able to regain admittance to German occupied Poland.
A P-38 Lightening crashed into a crowd of beach goers at Huntington Beach, California, after its pilot had bailed out. Three people lost their lives and forty nine were injured.
Sarah Sundin noted that event, and others, on her blog:
Today in World War II History—June 27, 1943: French Resistance attacks Ateliers des Fives locomotive works at Lille. P-38 Lightning fighter plane crashes on Huntington Beach in CA, killing 4 children.
As odd as it is to consider that it even occurred, the 1943 German football championship was won by Dresdner SC.
Bill Downs, CBS Moscow correspondent, reported that Red Army troops were surprised by hte quantity of lice that captured German soldiers bore.
Head of the SS Heinrich Himmler ordered that all remaining Jews in the Baltic States be transferred to slave labor camps.
Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:
Today in World War II History—June 21, 1943: US Marines land unopposed at Segi Point, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands. Detroit race riot begins between whites and Blacks.
The NFL approved the temporary Merger of the Eagles and the Steelers, something we reported on the other day. The declined the proposal to merge the Bears and the Cardinals.
Occupied Greece saw action as the SOE destroyed a railway bridge over the Asopos and the Greek Liberation Army conducted an ambush in the Battle of Sarantaporos.
The US Supreme Court rules in Stack v. Boyle that a foreign born citizen could not have that citizenship revoked for joining the Communist Party.
Harvard rejected a proposal to admit women to its medical school.
The Western Allies commenced "round the clock bombing" of the Third Reich.
A few things about this are worth noting.
It was essentially a massive upgrading of another theater, this one the skies over Germany, in which the Soviet Union, which lacked a heavy strategic bomber capacity, and which was not strategically placed to join in it, was absent. The Soviets were of course also absent from the Battle of the Atlantic.
While it can't be expected that they would be in either, the fact that the Western Allies carried on these significant efforts benefited the USSR as well as the Western Allies, something that Soviet and now Russian recollections of the war choose to forget.
Also controversial is the extent to which the raids were actually effective. German production went up during the war, so the question is whether strategic bombing depressed it from being higher, or simply disrupted it in other ways. The latter certainly occurred, but to what extent the former did is an open question.
The 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian), came into existence. The unit was made up of Latvian volunteers, and conscripts, who harbored the naive hope that serving the Germans would lead to post-war Latvian independence.
While naive, and inexcusably associated with the SS, this is an example of the "war within a war" nature of the Second World War. The Baltic States, along with Ukraine and Poland, would particularly be associated with various armed efforts against the Soviets, some of which were completely independent of association with the Germans, while some, outside of Poland, were. Many of the partisan type movements, which this obviously was not, carried on fighting for some time after the war.
Of note, Latvian resistance to the Soviet Union remained fairly strong up until 1949 and remained a factor the Soviets had to consider into the early 50s. The last violent acts by Latvian resistance forces occurred in the 1980s and the last Forest Brother, Jānis Pīnups, who had deserted from the Red Army during World War Two when wounded and left for dead, came in from hiding in 1995.
Regarding the Baltic States and the SS, during the war Estonia also contributed volunteers to "foreign legion" SS units, that being the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) The Latvians would contribute a second one, that being the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Latvian). Because the units contained conscripts, the US regarded them as not complicate in the criminal nature of the SS after the war.
The British Broadcasting Corporation delivered the first radio news report in the UK at 6:00 p.m. on this day. That would be 11:00 a.m. MST.
The news was full of interesting stuff, including the details of a train robbery a speech by Bonar Law, and a meeting with Winston Churchill.
On the same day, in the U.S., pro-Republican pickets protested regarding the self-imposed death by starvation of Lord Mayor MacSwiney of Cork. Defining that as murder may have been a bit much.
Jānis Čakste was approved by the Saeima, to become the first President of Latvia. He'd already acted as head of the Latvian state since 1918. He was a lawyer by profession.
On the same day, Kyösti Kallio became Prime Minister of Finland. He was a member of the Finnish Agrarian League, which today is its Centre Party. The party retains an agrarian position.
A delegation of various states' National Guards met with Pershing.
They all appeared in mufti.
The lovely actress Veronica Lake was born.
Constance Frances Marie Ockelman, her real name, was famous in the late 30s and 40s for her "peek a boo" hair style.
The United States established diplomatic relations with all three Baltic States and appointed Evan E. Young as the ambassador to all three countries.
Today was Memorial Day for 1922, the date at that time coming on May 30 and not being tied to a Sunday.
The event drew many notables, including the surviving son of the late President, Robert Todd Lincoln.
Speeches were delivered by a collection of dignatories, including former President Taft and current President Harding.
One of the big events was the Indianapolis 500, then as now.
.jpg)
Mass murder of over 2,731 Jews at Liepāja Lativa was commenced by Einsatzgruppen, assisted by Lativan militia. It would run for two days.
The event was filmed by Kriegsmarine Sergeant Reinhard Wiener with his privately owned 8mm film camera.
Twenty-three communist party members were also murdered.
Amateur photography was a huge deal with Germans, and had been since cameras had become portable. But movie film was another deal. Sgt Wiener's film is accordingly unique. There is film of German authorities murdering Jews, but his was extensive and showed their full humiliation and abuse before being murdered.
The location itself was being used by the German Navy and many German Army soldiers were there. The mood was festive by the Germans.
Things like this make it plain that by the early stages of Operation Barbarossa Germans knew what was going on and, while the recent meeting of German high officials emphasized their desire to complete the destruction of European Judaism, the program of mass extermination was fully in swing. It was, moreover, already quite efficient. And the attitude taken by the Germans was the plain acceptance of it. Authorities made no effort to stop it from being filmed here, and in other locations. As film had to be processed commercially at home, it also meant that this was being done and was not being restrained.
So, in an event like this, regular German soldiers and sailors witnessed it, some filmed it, and some took their stories back home with them. Others effectively published it by having what they recorded in film processed.
Things like this also make it plain that in much of Eastern Europe at least some percentage of the local population was willing to participate in Germany atrocities aimed at the Jews.
The Red Army retook Klin.
The following, from Today In World War Two History:
The American Federal of Labor adopted a policy of abstaining strikes in war industries for the duration of the war.
Universities started to go to three year courses of study for Bachelor degrees by full year courses of study. This must have kicked in during the Spring, as the Christmas break was commencing.
The Soviet government returned to Moscow. Stalin had never left.
The British Army encamped at Bir Halegh el Elba.
The British allowed 600 Japanese nationals to leave Singapore on a ship chartered by the Japanese government.
The Japanese attempted to land a reconnaissance party across the Lye Mun Channel at Hong Kong but were completely repulsed. Japanese artillery strikes commenced.
Showing that yesterday's Coast Guard depth charge run wasn't as absurd as it might have sounded, a Japanese submarine shelled Kahului, Maui. Another shelled Johnston Island, striking fuel at a seaplane base there.
The decision was made to hold this year's Rose Bowl at Durham, North Carolina.
All four American radio networks broadcast We Hold These Truths.
The radio program was in celebration of the anniversary of the Bill of Rights and had been planned prior to December 7. An inquiry to the government on whether it should go forward brougth a reply that Franklin Roosevelt thought the program more important than ever.
Admiral Kimmel's illustration appeared on the cover of Time. He'd already been relieved of his command in the Pacific. Newsweek had a cover photo of a battleship noting that the "U.S. fleet's guns blaze", which wasn't true at the time.
A "Junior Miss" appeared on the cover of Life, which had obviously been laid out prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
A test air raid drill was held in New York City.
