Showing posts with label New Guinea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Guinea. Show all posts

Saturday, May 24, 2025

Thursday, May 24, 1945. Japanese paratroopers on Okinawa.

The 10th Army crossed the Asato and entered Naha on Okinawa.  The Japanese landed paratroopers on Yontan airfield and destroyed a large number of aircraft.

Australian troops surrounded Wewak on New Guinea.

Tokyo was heavily hit in a US incendiary rai

Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim, age 52, the last commander of the Luftwaffe committed suicide.  Von Greim had been a pilot in World War One and was a recipient of the Blue Max.

De Gaulle awarded Montgomery the Grande Croix of the Legion d'Honneur

Courtney Hodges was given a parade in Georgia.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 23, 1945. The end of governments.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

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

The USS Bunker Hill was badly damaged by kamikaze attacks, something that had been an unrelenting feature of the Japanese defense of Okinawa as part of Operation Ten-Go.

The Battle of West Henan–North Hubei ended in tactical stalemate but a Japanese operational victory.

Soldiers of the US Army who had commenced combat with Operation Torch and who had gone on to serve in Europe were exempted from further combat deployment.  Fighting was still raging all over the Pacific, with troops meeting stiff resistance in New Guinea, the Philippines, and Okinawa as examples.

Soldiers at a familiarization course for newly arrived soldiers on Okinawa, May 11, 1945.


The Australians took Wewak, New Guinea.

The Red Army continued to encounter German units that had not yet surrendered.  In Yugoslavia German Group Ostmark refused to surrender and kept fighting Yugoslav forces.

German forces began to surrender in the Aegean.

Last edition:

Thursday, May 10, 1945. Guderian surrenders.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Tuesday, April 17, 1945. Flak Bait.

 

The B-26 Marauder Flak Bait, which completed 200 missions on this day.

Winston Churchill eulogized the late Franklin Roosevelt in Parliament.

I beg to move:

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to convey to His Majesty the deep sorrow with which this House has learned of the death of the President of the United States of America and to pray His Majesty that in communicating his own sentiments of grief to the United States Government, he will also be graciously pleased to express on the part of this House their sense of the loss which the British Commonwealth and Empire and the cause of the Allied Nations have sustained, and their profound sympathy with Mrs. Roosevelt and the late President's family and with the Government and people of the United States of America."

My friendship with the great man to whose work and fame we pay our tribute to-day began and ripened during this war. I had met him, but only for a few minutes, after the close of the last war and as soon as I went to the Admiralty in September, 1939, he telegraphed, inviting me to correspond with him direct on naval or other matters if at any time I felt inclined. Having obtained the permission of the Prime Minister, I did so. Knowing President Roosevelt's keen interest in sea warfare, I furnished him with a stream of information about our naval affairs and about the various actions, including especially the action of the Plate River, which lighted the first gloomy winter of the war.

When I became Prime Minister, and the war broke out in all its hideous fury, when our own life and survival hung in the balance, I was already in a position to telegraph to the President on terms of an association which had become most intimate and, to me, most agreeable. This continued through all the ups and downs of the world struggle until Thursday last, when I received my last messages from him. These messages showed no falling off in his accustomed clear vision and vigour upon perplexing and complicated matters. I may mention that this correspondence which, of course, was greatly increased after the United States entry into the war, comprises, to and fro between us, over 1,700 messages. Many of these were lengthy messages and the majority dealt with those more difficult points which come to be discussed upon the level of heads of Governments only after official solutions had not been reached at other stages. To this correspondence there must be added our nine meetings at Argentia, three in Washington, at Casablanca, at Teheran, two at Quebec and, last of all, at Yalta, comprising in all about 120 days of close personal contact, during a great part of which I stayed with him at the White House or at his home at Hyde Park or in his retreat in the Blue Mountains, which he called Shangri-La.

I conceived an admiration for him as a statesman, a man of affairs, and a war leader. I felt the utmost confidence in his upright, inspiring character and outlook and a personal regard-affection I must say-for him beyond my power to express to-day. His love of his own country, his respect for its constitution, his power of gauging the tides and currents of its mobile public opinion, were always evident, but, added to these, were the beatings of that generous heart which was always stirred to anger and to action by spectacles of aggression and oppression by the strong against the weak. It is, indeed, a loss, a bitter loss to humanity that those heart-beats are stilled for ever. President Roosevelt's physical affliction lay heavily upon him. It was a marvel that he bore up against it through all the many years of tumult-and storm. Not one man in ten millions, stricken and crippled as he was, would have attempted to plunge into a life of physical and mental exertion and of hard, ceaseless political controversy. Not one in ten millions would have tried, not one in a generation would have succeeded, not only in entering this sphere, not only in acting vehemently in it, but in becoming indisputable master of the scene. In this extraordinary effort of the spirit over the flesh, the will-power over physical infirmity, he was inspired and sustained by that noble woman his devoted wife, whose high ideals marched with his own, and to whom the deep and respectful sympathy of the House of Commons flows out to-day in all fullness. There is no doubt that the President foresaw the great dangers closing in upon the pre-war world with far more prescience than most well-informed people on either side of the Atlantic, and that he urged forward with all his power such precautionary military preparations as peace-time opinion in the United States could be brought to accept. There never was a moment's doubt, as the quarrel opened, upon which side his sympathies lay.

The fall of France, and what seemed to most people outside this Island, the impending destruction of Great Britain, were to him an agony, although he never lost faith in us. They were an agony to him not only on account of Europe, but because of the serious perils to which the United States herself would have been exposed had we been overwhelmed or the survivors cast down under the German yoke. The bearing of the British nation at that time of stress, when we were all alone, filled him and vast numbers of his countrymen with the warmest sentiments towards our people. He and they felt the blitz of the stern winter of 1940~1, when Hitler set himself to rub out the cities of our country, as much as any of us did, and perhaps more indeed, for imagination is often more torturing than reality. There is no doubt that the bearing of the British and, above all, of the Londoners kindled fires in American bosoms far harder to quench than the conflagrations from which we were suffering. There was also at that time, in spite of General Wavell's victories-all the more, indeed, because of the reinforcements which were sent from this country to him-the apprehension widespread in the United States that we should be invaded by Germany after the fullest preparation in the spring of 1941. It was in February that the President sent to England the late Mr. Wendell Willkie, who, although a political rival and an opposing candidate, felt, as he did on many important points. Mr. Willkie brought a letter from Mr. Roosevelt, which the President had written in his own hand, and this letter contained the famous lines of Longfellow:

". . . Sail on, O ship of State!

Sail on O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!"

At about that same time he devised the extraordinary measure of assistance called Lend-Lease, which will stand forth as the most unselfish and unsordid financial act of any country in all history. The effect of this was greatly to increase British fighting power and for all the purposes of the war effort to make us, as it were, a much more numerous community. In that autumn I met the President for the first time during the war at Argentia in Newfoundland and together we drew up the Declaration which has since been called the Atlantic Charter and which will, I trust, long remain a guide for both our peoples and for other peoples of the world.

All this time, in deep and dark and deadly secrecy, the Japanese were preparing their act of treachery and greed. When next we met in Washington Japan, Germany and Italy had declared war upon the United States and both our countries were in arms, shoulder to shoulder. Since then we have advanced over the land and over the sea through many difficulties and disappointments, but always with a broadening measure of success. I need not dwell upon the series of great operations which have taken place in the Western Hemisphere, to say nothing of that other immense war proceeding at the other side of the world. Nor need I speak of the plans which we made with our great Ally, Russia, at Teheran, for these have now been carried out for all the world to see.

But at Yalta I noticed that the President was ailing. His captivating smile, his gay and charming manner, had not deserted him but his face had a transparency, an air of purification, and often there was a faraway look in his eyes. When I took my leave of him in Alexandria harbour I must confess that I had an indefinable sense of fear that his health and his strength were on the ebb. But nothing altered his inflexible sense of duty. To the end he faced his innumerable tasks unflinching. One of the tasks of the President is to sign maybe a hundred or two hundred State papers with his own hand every day, commissions and so forth. All this he continued to carry out with the utmost strictness. When death came suddenly upon him "he had finished his mail." That portion of his day's work was done. As the saying goes, he died in harness and we may well say in battle harness, like his soldiers, sailors and airmen, who side by side with ours, are carrying on their task to the end all over the world. What an enviable death was his. He had brought his country through the worst of its perils and the heaviest of its toils. Victory had cast its sure and steady beam upon him. He had broadened and stabilised in the days of peace the foundations of American life and union.

In war he had raised the strength, might and glory of the great Republic to a height never attained by any nation in history. With her left hand she was leading the advance of the conquering Allied Armies into the heart of Germany and with her right, on the other side of the globe, she was irresistibly and swiftly breaking up the power of Japan. And all the time ships, munitions, supplies, and food of every kind were aiding on a gigantic scale her Allies, great and small, in the course of the long struggle.

But all this was no more than worldly power and grandeur, had it not been that the causes of human freedom and of social justice to which so much of his life had been given, added a lustre to all this power and pomp and warlike might, a lustre which will long be discernible among men. He has left behind him a band of resolute and able men handling the numerous interrelated parts of the vast American war machine. He has left a successor who comes forward with firm step and sure conviction to carry on the task to its appointed end. For us. it remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world to the old.

Question put, and agreed to, nemine contradicente.

Resolved:

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to convey to His Majesty the deep sorrow with which this House has learned of the death of the President of the United States of America and to pray His Majesty that in communicating his own sentiments of grief to the United States Government, he will also be graciously pleased to express on the part of this House their sense of the loss which the British Commonwealth and Empire and the cause of the Allied Nations have sustained, and their profound sympathy with Mrs. Roosevelt and the late President's family and with the Government and people of the United States of America."

German troops flooded the Wieringermeerpolder to aid in their retreat.  However, on the same day, German units in the Ruhr began mass surrenders.

US troops landed in the Moro Gulf at Cotabatu.

The Battle of the Hongorai River began in New Guinea.

Historian Tran Trong Kim was appointed the Prime Minister of the Empire of Vietnam, the short lived Japanese supported Vietnamese monarchy.

One armed baseball Peter Gray made his major league debut.

Berlin: Sprint To The Finish Line – Dawn Of The Truman Era – April 17, 1945

Last edition:

Monday, April 16, 1945. The final battle in the West.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Friday, November 10, 1944. The Explosion of the Mount Hood.

The USS Mount Hood, an ammunition ship, exploded at Seeadler Harbor at Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, killing all on board and damaging 22 other ships.

Imperial Japanese forces took U.S. airfields in China as part of Operation Ichi-Go.  The Japanese were gaining ground in China.

The Germans rounded up over 50,000 Dutch me in Rotterdam as slave labor, and effectively as hostages.

"Sgt. Sam S. McNealy, Morgantown, N.C., stands watch by his machine gun during the first snowfall of the year in this sector of the western front. 1st Army, Monschau, Germany. 10 November, 1944."

Last edition:

Thursday, November 9, 1944. Sorge meets his end.

Friday, October 4, 2024

Wednesday, October 4, 1944. Scorched Earth.

"Scene in a kitchen of a typical Russian family. These people are among the many who have been recently liberated by rapid Allied advances at the newly established Displaced Persons Center at Briey, France.  4 October, 1944."   There's obviously more to this story than what the caption provides.

Operation Nordlicht began in Finland by the German Army.  It was a planned withdrawal using scorched earth tactics, with the final line to be in  Lyngen Municipality in Troms county, Norway.

"This photo shows a GI relaying fire data for artillery back from forward observation post near Havert, Germany. 4 October, 1944. 29th Infantry Division."

The Battle of Morotai more or less ended, with the ending being an Allied victory.  Some fighting would continue to the end of the war.

Moscow asked for permission for the Red Army to enter Bulgaria.

The Serbian collaborationist government was dissolved.

Today in World War II History—October 4, 1944:British paratroopers land at Patras, Greece, and on Crete and Aegean islands.

The U-92, U-228 and U-437 were rendered inoperable by an RAF raid on Bergen.

Famous Democratic politician Al Smith died at age 70, five months after the death of his wife.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 3, 1944. Breaking the Siegfried Line.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Friday, September 1, 1944. Lone Tree Hill

The First Canadian Army captured Dieppe.

The Red Army took Călărași, Romania and reached the Bulgarian frontier.  The Soviet Union asked for  permission for the Red Army to enter Bulgarian territory.   The Bulgarian prime minister, Ivan Bagrianov, resigned and. Constantine Muraviev took his place.

The Battle of Lone Tree Hill, in Dutch New Guinea, ended in American victory.

The battle had been fought since May 17.

Lone Tree Hill.  Not One Tree Hill.  The latter was the name of a horrifically bad television series that featured, for some weird reason, basketball as the center of the universe.

The U-247 was sunk in the English  Channel by the Canadian Navy.

Native Melanesian of New Caledonia, wearing the uniform of a French sailor, stands guard before French Navy Hq. in Noumea, largest town in New Caledonia.

Arsenic and Old Lace premiered.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 31, 1944. Montgomery promoted. The Red Army in Bucharest. The Mad Gasser in Mattoon, Illinois.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Friday, August 25, 1944. Paris, Versailles and Avignon liberated.

The Battle of Paris ended at 2:30 p.m. when German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrendered the French capital against orders.

Dietrich von Choltitz with Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque and Jacques Soustelle in the M3 Scout Car.

De Gaulle arrived in the city at 4:00 p.m. to cheering crowds.

Versailles was liberated by French troops.

124 residents of  Maillé, Indre-et-Loire were murdered by the Germans in reprisal for actions by the French Resistance.


The Red Ball Express truck convoy system of emergency supply provision began and would run for 83 days.

US and French forces liberated Avignon without opposition.

The British 8th Army commenced Operation Olive in Italy.

Belgian No. 4 Troop of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando raided Île d'Yeu, which turned out to be unoccupied.

Romania declared war on Germany.

The Germans scuttled the U-18, U-24 and U-178.  The U-667 hit a mine in the Bay of Biscay and sank.  The Z24 was sunk by Allied aircraft.  The U-1000 hit a mine off of Pilau and was damaged beyond repair.

The US prevailed in the Battle of Aitape.

The Japanese destroyer Yūnagi was sunk northeast of Cape Bojeador, Luzon by the USS Picuda.


"Coast Guardsman Kent C. Pompella, boatswain’s mate second class, displays the picturesque facial fashions of the fighting South Sea invader. On his face he sports a 10 months growth of briers and in his ears a pair of shark tooth earrings."  Pompella passed away in January 2000 at the age of 79, a resident of Cloverdale, California.  The last 20 years of his life he ran a hotel in that city, behind which he planted a large garden.  He was a commercial fisherman prior to that.  Earrings in men, it might be noted, were extremely unusual at the time.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Sunday, July 30, 1944. Landing at Sansapor.

US forces landed near Sansapor, Dutch New Guinea.


It's easy to forget how late in the war, in relative terms, the fighting in New Guinea was actively occurring.  Roosevelt, Nimitz and MacArthur had just met in Hawaii on whether to invade the Philippines or Formosa, and yet here's a landing in Dutch New Guinea.  The actions closed the back door to Japanese air power.

Tinian town was taken on Tinian. Actor Lee Powell, who had joined the Marine Corps, died on the island on that day, but from drinking an improvised alcoholic beverage that contained Methanol during a celebration of the battle's end.


He had played the Lone Ranger.

The Soviet Narva Offensive ended.

The US 1st Army seized Granville and entered Avranches.


Pvt. Sam Fever, of 324 E. 96th St., Brooklyn, N.Y., a member of an engineer unit, somewhere in France, plants a sign at a roadside indicating that the roadway has been cleared of mines as American troops roll forward in a great new offensive.

Cpl. David Halbert of Cleveland, Ohio, looks over a bunch of signs left by retreating Germans on the highway to Coutances, France. These signs tell what German units were here. 30 July, 1944.

Sections of German protestantism, which was not united, issued a declaration as it became clear that members of the German "Confessing Church" had participated in the July 20 plot.

Declaration of Loyalty by the German Protestant Church

Attempt on the Führer’s Life

With indignation and disgust, the German people turn away from the deed of July 20, which, in an hour requiring the utmost in unity, undertook to overthrow the Reich in turmoil of incalculable proportions by means of murder and treachery. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank the Almighty for the salvation of the leader and ask Him to continue to keep him under His protection. This request comes with a pledge of renewed loyalty and the resolution to submit ourselves even more earnestly than before to the relentless demands of this time, to which the Fuehrer is restlessly devoting himself entirely.

After the attempt on the life of the Führer, the German Protestant Church Chancellery and the Spiritual Council of the German Protestant Church expressed their gratitude to God for his gracious protection in telegrams of loyalty to the Führer. At the same time, the Spiritual Council of Confidence noted that on the Sunday after the assassination attempt, prayers for the Führer were said in Protestant services all over the Reich.

Source: Das Evangelische Deutschland. Kirchliche Rundschau für das Gesamtgebiet der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche, Nr. 30-31/1944, p. 74.

The Confessing Church was a protestant movement that had resisted efforts to unify, and Nazify, German Lutheranism.  It's efforts were fairly successful in that goal.

The U-250 was sunk in the Gulf of Finland by the Soviet Navy.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 29, 1944. Guam, Tinian, Aitape and Normandy.

Monday, July 29, 2024

Saturday, July 29, 1944. Guam, Tinian, Aitape and Normandy.

Today in World War II History—July 29, 1944 On Guam, US Marines clear Orote Peninsula and take Orote Airfield.

Japanese resistance was increasing on Tinian, with the US now in control of half of the island.

The last Japanese resistance was eliminated on Biak, while U.S. forces pulled back at Afua near Aitape due to effective Japanese attacks.

The U.S. 1st Army advanced everywhere in Operation Cobra.

Last edition:

Friday, July 28, 1944. The U.S. Army advances in Normandy.

Friday, July 26, 2024

Wednesday, July 26, 1944. Cobra advances.

U.S. infantrymen advancing beyond St. Lo, July 26, 1944.

The 1st Army took Marigny and St. Gilles, and crossed the Lessay-Perieres Road.

A really remarkable photograph of US troops near Saint Giles ,with editing marks, July 26, 1944.  The armored vehicle appears to be a M3 Lee/Grant, which according to all sources had been fully replaced by the Sherman by this time.  It might be a M31 tank retriever, however, which was based on the same vehicle and retained the 75mm gun and the turret.  From this angle, the crane would not be visible.  The edits clearly intended to cut out evidence of the 75mm gun, which would make the vehicle appear to be a Sherman.

After six months of combat, the Red Army took Narva, ending the Battle for Narva Bridgehead.

The Battle of Ilomantsi began between the Finns and the Red Army.

The 1st Ukrainian Front took Deblin.

President Roosevelt began a two day conference at Pearl Harbor on strategy in the Pacific.  At the conference MacArthur urged an advance on the Philippines while Nimitz argued for making Taiwan the first priority and bypassing the Philippines.  Roosevelt listened, but did not decide.

Fighting raged on around Aitape.

Japanese forces on Guam launched a banzai charge against Marines fighting for control of the island

The USS Robalo hit a mine sinking the sub off of Palawan Island.  There were four survivors who disappeared forever into Japanese captivity.

The I-29 was sunk by the USS Sawfish in a submarine on submarine action.

The U-214 was sunk by the HMS Cooke in the English Channel.  The U-2323 hit a mine off Kiel and sank.

A pilot with family in Merriam, Kansas, decided to buzz the family home with disastrous results.

The Merriam Bomber Crash of 1944

Oklahoma State Highway 89 was officially designated.


Last edition

Tuesday, July 25, 1944. Operation Cobra commences. Operation Spring does as well.