Saturday, September 30, 1944. Counteroffensive at Nijmegen.

German troops at Calais surrendered to the Canadians.

British 17 pdr Anti Tank Gun with Bren Gun and Hotchkiss machine gun in foreground.  The Hotchkiss must have been captured

The Germans commenced a counter offensive at Nijmegen with the goal of retaking the salient created by Market Garden.

Adm Fort took command at Palau and announces that Peleliu, Angaur, Ngesebus and Kongauru have been completely occupied. Japanese resistance continued on.

The U-1062 was sunk by the carrier escort USS Fessenden off of Cape Verde.

Last edition:

Friday, September 29, 1944. Soviet amphibious operations and executions.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Arracourt, Belgium, British Army, Estonia, Heroes, Italian partisans, Italy, July 20 Plot, Red Army, World War Two

Tuesday, September 26, 1944. Coastal artillery exchange.

The British 8th Army crossed the Uso (Rubicon).

The British 2nd Army took Turnhout between Antwerp and Eindhoven.   They also took Oss.

The Germans shelled the British coastal city of Dover with long-range artillery implaced near Calais.  The British returned fire with long range coast artillery at Dover.  This would end the long range artillery duels across the channel.

The RAF bombed Calais and Cap Griz Nez.

The Red Army prevailed in its Tallinn Offensive.

Greek resistance groups recognized the authority of the Greek government in exile and to place themselves under the Allied Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean.

Sea rescue from dirigible, September 26, 1944.

Last edition:

Monday, September 25, 1944. Withdrawal at Arnhem.

Labels: "Wacht am Rhein", 1940s, 1945, Airborne, Battle of Arnhem, Bernard Law Montgomery, British Army, Estonia, Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Red Army, The roles of men and women, Volkssturm, Yugoslav Partisans

Monday, September 25, 1944. Withdrawal at Arnhem.

British airborne POWs at Arnhem.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S73820 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5369460

Operation Market Garden failed to achieve its final objective at Arnhem and the British 1st Airborne was ordered to evacuate at night across the Rhine.  Only 2,400 men of the 10,000 that dropped into fight at the city were recovered.  1,100 were killed in the battle.  6.400 were captured.  A few remained hidden in Arnhem with Dutch families.

The battle achieved legendary status with the British nearly immediately, and was memorialized in a 1946 movie featuring many original British combatants entitled Theirs Is The Glory.  In spite of the significant American role, the battle tended to be ignored by American historians until 1974's book A Bridge Too Far by popular historian Cornelius Ryan, which was turned into a major movie in 1977.  

Operation Market Garden has been a matter of enduring controversy in military history circles.  It was an unusually bold plan for Montgomery, but it also emphasized his own forces, with the addition of available American airborne, for what was essentially a very long strike for a roundabout path into Germany based on a narrow advance over a single road, and depending upon all of the bridges that were targeted being taken.  If things had worked perfectly, it's doubtful that it would have brought the war to a conclusion in 1944, as was hoped, as the Germans, after the fall of France, were effectively regrouping for the defense of Germany.

It tends to be portrayed as an overall failure, which in many ways it was.  It did, however, liberate much of the Netherlands, although it helped to create the tactical scenario which gave rise to the German offensive in Belgium in December.  At the same time, however, Wacht am Rhein, which had already been approved, arguably only achieve a wasting of German resources in the final month of the war.  Moreover, if the offensive was a defeat, as some claim, it bears comparison to the treatment of the Battle of Anzio, which was arguably on part with it as a failure but which is not regarded as a defeat, or the delayed taking of Caen.

The British 2nd Army took Helmond and Deurne east of Eindhoven.  The Canadian 3d Division attacked trapped German troops in Calais.

The British urged foreign workers and slave laborers in Germany to rebel.

The Red Army took Haapsalu, Estonia on the Baltic.

Hitler ordered the formation of the Volkssturm, the militia formed of civilian men.

Partisans occupied Banja Luka, Yugoslavia.

Harvard announced that for the first time it would admit women to medical school starting in the fall of 1945.

Claire Poe of Miami Beach appeared on the cover of a Life magazine special issue entitled "A Letter to GI's" because she was attractive in the girl next store sort of way.  She was only 18, which is interesting to Generation Jones members like myself, as she clearly looked much more mature than 18 year old girls did when I was 18.

Life revealed that she'd just entered college with hopes of becoming a math teacher, and was corresponding to a Sergeant in Puerto Rico and an Ensign at Fort Lauderdale.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 24, 1944. Market Garden reaches the Rhine.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1940s, 1944, Battle of Arnhem, Battle of Nijmegen, Battle of Peleliu, boats and ships, Fascism, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Operation Overlord, Philippines, World War Two

Saturday, September 23, 1944. The Fala Speech.

The Red Army entered Hungary.  In Estonia, they reached the Baltic.

The Canadians crossed the Escaut Canal in an attack designed to clear the Germans from the north bank of the Scheldt.  30th Corps, however, was halted and the Germans made a successful counterattack north of Eindhoven.

The RAF destroyed an aqueduct on the Dortmund-Ems Canal wiping out a route of transport for prefabricated U-boat parts.

President Roosevelt delivered a speech in front of Washington Teamsters in which he defended himself against false accusations by Republicans that he had a Navy destroyer restrive his dog Fala from the Aleutians.  In it, he stated:

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.

The crowd laughed at the joke.

The 81st Infantry Division took the unoccupied Ulithi Atoll to the north of Palau.  Work would immediately commence on building an airstrip.

Last edition:

Friday, September 22, 1944. Stiffening resistance in the Netherlands.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Peleliu, British Army, Canadian Army, Estonia, Italy, Operation Market Garden, Operation Undergo, Paratroopers, Pas-de-Calais France, Polish Army, World War Two

Friday, September 22, 1944. Stiffening resistance in the Netherlands.

Polish paratroopers attempted to reach the Rhine and meet up with British airborne trapped on the opposed bank Arnhem.  Elst was taken by 30th Corps.

3rd Bn., 157th Inf. Regt. walking across footbridge over canal lock. Igney, France. 22 September, 1944. Note that the machine gun crewmen are carrying M1911 pistols as personal arms.  This unit of the 45th Infantry Division was equipped at this point with M1943 combat boots, but still wearing older pattern field jackets.

45th Infantry Division tank crossing the Moselle.

The 3d Canadian Division took Boulogne and Operation Undergo commenced to take Calais.

The Red Army took Tallinn, Estonia.

The U.S. Army took Giogo Pass in Italy.

A regiment of the Army's 81st Infantry Division was committed in Peleliu to reinforce depleted elements of the 1st Marine Division.

Last edition:

Thursday, September 21, 1944. A sort of Estonian civil war.

Labels: 1920s, 1921, 1922, 1940s, 1944, baseball, Battle of Rimini, boats and ships, Canadian Army, East Karelian Uprising, Estonia, Finland, Greek Army, New Zealand Army, Red Army, Waffen SS, World War Two

Wednesday, September 20, 1944 Nijmegen liberated.

Pvt. Nicholas Pappas of Canton, Ohio, peers through a hedge as his company advances towards a pillbox along the Siegfried Line. 20 September, 1944. Company E, 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment.

Nijmegen was liberated by 82nd Airborne Division and British Guards Armoured Division.

At Arnhem the British 1st Airborne was pushed back from the bridge by the Germans.

The US 3d Army captured Chatel and Luneville.

The Battle of San Marino ended in a British victory.

The Red Army captured the island of Suur-Tytärsaari in the Gulf of Finland.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 19, 1944. The Moscow Armistice Signed.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle for Brest, Battle of Hürtgen Forest, Battle of Peleliu, Continuation War, Eastern Front, Finland, Italy, Operation Market Garden, Palau, Personalities, Red Cross, Winter War, World War Two

Tuesday, September 19, 1944. The Moscow Armistice Signed.

Fighting was ongoing in Italy.

The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland and the USSR.

Land ceded to the Soviet Union by the Moscow Armistice.  By Jniemenmaa - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=317801

The land ceded by Finland was similar in extent to that which had been ceded to end the Winter War four years earlier.

Land ceded by Finland in Winter War.  By Jniemenmaa - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=317799

Will discuss the history of Finnish wars with the USSR in a separate thread, which is much more complicated than generally recalled, but suffice it to say, Karelia had been a major bone of contention between the two countries, and fought over several times in the 20th Century until the Continuation War seemingly ended the dispute.

Grand Duchy of Finland, 1900.

The Battle of Păuliș ended in Romanian-Soviet victory.

The Soviets took Valga, Estonia.  A mass flight from the advancing Soviets by the Estonian population was underway, with a huge percentage of the population on their feet and in boats to attempt to escape.

British 30 Corps reached the US 82nd Airborne at Grave.

Cpl. Jaap W. Bothe, San Antonio, Texas, formerly of Rotterdam, Holland, gives some advice to a Dutch farmer who is giving Yanks a lift to the front lines near Son. 19 September, 1944. 101st Airborne Division.

The Battle for Brest ended in Allied victory.

Pvt. Garnett N. Early, of Harrisonburg, Va., receives an early morning cup of coffee from Red Cross worker Mary Jane Cook, of Jackson Heights, N.Y. Nancy, France. 19 September, 1944. 35th Infantry Division.

The Battle of Hürtgen Forest began between German and U.S. forces in the Hürtgen Forest began.  The battle would continue until mid December.  The Battle over a 54 square mile of industrial forest on the Belgian German frontier would continue until December 16 and became the longest battle on German ground during World War II and is the second longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought after The Battle of Bataan.

US tanker Lafayette G. Pool lost his third Sherman tank in combat in a night engagement when it was ambushed by a German Panther at Münsterbusch, southeast of Aachen, Germany.  Pool lost his leg in the engagement, ending a pre war amature boxing career. 

In 81 days of combat tanks commanded by Pool had destroyed 12 German tanks, 258 total armored vehicles and self propelled busn and killed German soldiers.

Pool reentered the Army in 1949 and retired in 1960.  He thereafter became a Protestant minister.  He passed away in 1991.

The SS declared a state of emergency in Denmark over the ongoing strike.

Heavy fighting occurred on Peleliu and Angaur.

The U-407 and U-867 were sunk by the Allies and the U-565 damaged beyond repair.

Brazilian nurses embarking for Europe at Hampton Roads, September, 1944.

Last edition:

Monday, September 18, 1944. Eindoven taken.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Airborne, Battle of Arracourt, Battle of Peleliu, boats and ships, Disaster, Heroes, Operation Market Garden, Prisoners of War, Royal Navy, United States Marine Corps, Warsaw Uprising, World War Two

Monday, September 18, 1944. Eindoven taken.

Distraught German medic at scene of German surrender, Orléans, September 18, 1944.

The 101st Airborne Division liberated Eindoven.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert George Cole, who would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions during Operation Overlord, was killed by a German sniper during Market Garden.  He was 29 years old.

Another American combatant would be killed in an action that resulted in his posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor.

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pride in presenting the Medal of Honor (Posthumously) to Private First Class Charles Howard Roan (MCSN: 504236), United States Marine Corps Reserve, for the conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the Second Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Peleliu, Palau Islands, 18 September 1944. Shortly after his leader ordered a withdrawal upon discovering that the squad was partly cut off from their company as a result of the rapid advance along an exposed ridge during an aggressive attack on the strongly entrenched enemy, Private First Class Roan and his companions were suddenly engaged in a furious exchange of hand grenades by Japanese forces emplaced in a cave on higher ground and to the rear of the squad. Seeking protection with four other Marines in a depression in the rocky, broken terrain, Private First Class Roan was wounded by an enemy grenade which fell close to their position and, immediately realizing the eminent peril to his comrades when another grenade landed in the midst of the group, unhesitatingly flung himself upon it, covering it with his body and absorbing the full impact of the explosion. By his prompt action and selfless conduct in the face of almost certain death, he saved the lives of four men. His great personal valor reflects the highest credit upon himself and the U. S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his comrades.

The Battle of Arracourt commenced in France.

The US dropped supplies from B-17s to resistance fighters in Warsaw, the only such mission permitted by the Soviets.  The aircraft flew on to Soviet held territory.

It's often been speculated, not without reason, that Stalin allowed the uprising to bleed itself out as it was resulting in the deaths of a present combatant, the Germans, and a feared future one, the Poles.

The Jun'yō Maru was sunk off Sumatra by the British submarine Tradewind resulting in the deaths of 5,620 people, most of whom were Allied POWs or Japanese slave labor.  The event is one of the worst naval disasters of all time, taking into account the lives lost were largely innocent.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 17, 1944. Operation Market Garden commences.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Animals, Battle of Arnhem, Battle of Nijmegen, Cats, Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Operation Paravane, Palau, Paratroopers, San Marino, Tallinn, World War Two, Wyoming (LaGrange)

Sunday, September 17, 1944. Operation Market Garden commences.

According to the Wyoming State History calendar, a cat saved a LaGrange girl from a coiled rattlesnake.

Cat's reaction time is so incredibly quick they can out react snakes pretty readily, whereas humans cannot.

This is not actually a unique event.  In 2017, for instance, a girl in Florida was saved from a rattlesnake by her grandmother's cat.

Pieced together in a remarkably quick time, the gigantic Montgomery planned airborne invasion of the Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, commenced on this day in 1944.  Planned as a series of airborne drops to secure major bridges followed by anground advance, it put the ground forces on a single, often elevated, road.  A field problem in the Dutch military prior to the war had posed the same strategic problem with this solution being the failing solution.

Airborne forces from the US, UK, Canada, and Poland would participate in the offensive.  Ground troops from the US and UK provided the ground spearhead. The operation was a British one in terms of command.

Dutch railway workers went on strike, heading a call made by Gen. Eisenhower.

The Canadian Army launched Operation Wellhit to take Boulogne, France.

The Battle of San Marino began in the tiny independant Italian enclave, which had declared itself to be neutral.  German forces entered it for refuge anyway, and the battle was on.

The Soviets launched the Tallinn Offensive.

A bomb dropped by the RAF disabled the Tirpitz.

The UK relaxed blackout restrictions in London.

The Battle of Angaur began on Palau.

The carrier Un'yō was torpedoed and sunk in the South China Sea by the American submarine Barb.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 16, 1944. "Wacht am Rhein" approved.

Labels: "Wacht am Rhein", Adolf Hitler, Battle of the Bulge, Belgium, Bulgaria, Clothing, Denmark, German Weimar Republic, Operation Market Garden, Red Army, Second Quebec Conference, World War Two

Saturday, September 16, 1944. "Wacht am Rhein" approved.

Adolf Hitler approved the Ardennes Offensive "Wacht am Rhein", known in the west as the Battle of the Bulge.

Market Garden, the semi failed or wholly failed, hastily put together Allied invasion of The Netherlands hadn't even commenced yet and therefore makes for a remarkable contrast.  The Germans were planning a mid winter offensive and it was still summer, showing planning foresight, but also an appreciate at some level of the inevitability of further retreats into the winter.

"Members of an American airborne unit (82nd Airborne Division) flock to an American Red Cross Clubmobile for coffee and donuts on the eve of their takeoff for the airborne invasion of Holland. 16 September, 1944. Cottesmore Airdrome, England."  These troops are equipped with the then new M1943 Field Jacket and M1943 paratrooper field pants.  This uniform was new and replaced the ones that had been used just a few months prior in Operation Overlord.  The M1943 field jacket wa already becoming a universal issue item, although oddly the trousers were not.

The Red Army took Sofia, Bulgaria.  They then turned west to attempt to block the Germans from retreating from Greece.

The fronts were drawing close.

A general strike broke out in Denmark over deportations by the Germans.

The Royal Navy raided Sigli in Northern Sumatra.

The Second Quebec Conference ended.  The course of combat across the globe was ratified, wit there being an additional agreement for a campaign in Burma, and the British joining American forces in the Pacific in its final campaigns against the British, something the US would effectively recant on as the war drew to a close.

Gustav Bauer, German Chancellor in 1919 and 1920, and very briefly a prisoner of the early Third Reich, died.

Last edition:

Friday, September 15, 1944. Landing at Peleliu.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Australian Army, Battle of Morotai, Battle of Peleliu, Finland, German Kriegsmarine, Germany, Italy, Lapland War, Operation Stalemate II, United States Marine Corps, World War Two