Monday, May 21, 1945. British government falls apart, French mandates want out, Himmler arrested.

The Polish Home Army attacked the NKVD Camp in Rembertów and freed political prisoners held there.

The Labour Party withdrew from the government forcing the UK into elections.

Today in World War II History—May 21, 1940 & 1945: Heinrich Himmler is arrested by the British in Bremervörde, Germany, disguised as a businessman.

Demanding full independence, Syria and Lebanon break off negotiations with France.

The 31st Division captured the Japanese supply base at Malaybalay on Mindanao.

Humphrey Bogart married Lauren Bacall.

Note how plainly the couple is dressed, compared to what is so often the case today.

It was his fourth marriage.  They had met just that year when she was 19 and he was 44.  They'd remain married until his death at age 57.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 20, 1945. Contracting in China.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Berlin Germany, China, Imperial Japanese Army, Japan, Okinawa, Personalities, Philippines, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

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.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aegean Sea, Australian Army, China, Imperial Japanese Army, Kamikaze, New Guinea, Okinawa, Operation Ten-Go, The Battle of West Hunan (湘西會戰), U.S. Navy, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Monday, May 7, 1945. Germany unconditionally surrenders.

German General Alfred Jodl and admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg signed unconditional surrender documents at 2:41 a.m. at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims.  All Allied Powers are represented. Fighting was scheduled to end at 23:00 the following day.  Military operations on the Western Front came to an immediate end.

Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Leading Minister in the rump Flensburg Government, made a broadcast announcing the German surrender at 2:27 a.m.. 

The U-2336 sank two merchant ships in the Firth of Forth.

This Day in History: Last German U-boat in American waters

Riotous celebrations broke out in numerous places, including in Halifax, Nova Scotia, were they turned truly riotous.

American journalist Edward Kennedy broke an Allied embargo on news of the signing in the afternoon.

The NKVD and Polish anti Communist forces fought in the Battle of Kuryłówka with the Poles winning the battle, but fortunes would reverse the following day.

Spain severed relations with Nazi Germany. . . a bit late.

The British government in India published the report of an official commission of enquiry into the Bengal famine of 1943 finding that it could have been adverted through government action.

"These Army nurses, among the first to arrive on Okinawa, May 3, wash out of steel helmets.

They are, left to right, Lt. Margaret J. Whitton, Chicago Ill., who has seen 14 months service in Italy and Africa; Lt. Ruth Anderson, Rockford, Ill., Lt. Marjorie Dulain, Iron Mountain, Mich., and Lt. Eleanor Kennedy, Judington, Mich. 7 May, 1945.Photographer not credited.Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive."

Hard fighting continued on Okinawa.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 6, 1945. Stopping advances.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, boats and ships, Czechoslovakia, entertainment, George S. Patton, Siege of Breslau

Sunday, February 27, 1944. The Khaibakh Massacre

Weather prevented over 700 Chechen villagers from Khaibakh from being convoyed in the Soviet mass deportation of Chechens, meaning they could not meet the absurdly short deadline set by Lavrentiy Beria so they were shot.  The order was given by Mikhail Gvishiani, an officer in the NKVD.

Beria, a loyal Stalin henchman, was a first class weirdo who was also a mass rapist, something his position allowed him to get away with.  He fell after Stalin's death, was tried, and executed for treason.

Gvishiani survived the fall of Stalin, but probably only because his son, Dzhermen Gvishiani, was married to the daughter of Communist Party Central Committee member Alexei Kosygin.

It was the start of National Negro Press Week.

The U.S. Office of Strategic Services commenced Operation Ginny I with the objective of blowing up Italian railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication.

The OSS team landed in the wrong location and had to abandon the mission.

Hitler ordered the Panzerfeldhaubitze 18M auf Geschützwagen III/IV (Sf) Hummel, Sd.Kfz. 165, "Hummel" renamed as he did not find the name Hummel, i.e. bumblebee to be an appropriate name.

You would think that Hitler would have had other things to worry about at this point.

The Grayback was sunk off of Okinawa by aircraft.

Tuesday, October 28, 1941. Lend Lease gets an office, How Green Was My Valley gets a film.

P-39L-1BE 44-4673 on its way to the Soviet Union. The P39 was a favorite of the Soviet Air Force, but never really well liked by the U.S.

The Office of Lend Lease Administration was established on this day in 1941 to oversee that effort, something I only am aware of due to the link below:

Today in World War II History—October 28, 1941

Lend Lease was a massive effort, suffice it to say, and was one of the primary ways in which the US helped bring about the Allied victory.

In the US, the classic film How Green Was My Valley, about Welsh miners, was released. The John Ford epic is highly regarded, as is the semi biographical book it is taken from, but I've not read the book nor seen the film myself.

The Germans reached Tula south of Moscow, but were stopped there. They would not take the city.

The troops that reached the border of the city were under Guderian's command.  While I can't find it offhand, I think that Tula is the city which Guderian made the really odd comment about "Tula, long drive, blond girl".

I have no idea what that means.

Lavrentiy Beria, Soviet Georgian, rapist, murderer and head of the Soviet NKVD had twenty former Soviet military officers and politicians executed in Kuybyshev.

In his capacity as an official murderer (rape was his hobby, being the bloody head of the NKVD his occupation) he was responsible for the deaths of thousands, but would go on to be executed following the death of his murderous patron, fellow Georgian Stalin, by natural. . . maybe, causes.

Australia opened its first diplomatic mission to China, opening it in Chunking due to wartime conditions in the country.

December 20, 1920. Red Russia turns Redder.

Felix Dzerzkhinsky in Switzerland, 1918, with his wife and son.  The son was born in 1911 in prison where Sophia Dzerzkhinsky was a political prisoner.

On this day the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service was created as a special section of the Cheka.  Felix Dzerzhinkshy was at its head.

Dzerzhinkshy was a Pole of noble birth who was radicalized at some point in his early years and went on to a blood stained role in the early Soviet Union.  He died of a heart attack at age 59 in 1926.