Operation Dragoon concluded.
The Red Army commenced the Baltic Offensive.
British and Canadian troops took Coriano, Italy.
Captured Canadian Army officers assigned to the John Kenneth Macalister, 30, Frank Pickersgill, 29, and Roméo Sabourin, 21, were executed at Buchenwald.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded the third highest water level of Woods Hole, MA to date at 1.488 meters, no doubt due to the ongoing 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
The USCGC Bedlo and USCGC Jackson went down in the hurricane.
Last edition:
The French 4th Armored Division entered Paris in the evening.
Germany closed theaters, cancelled holidays and cancelled military leave.
The First Canadian Army captured Bernay and crossed the Risle River at Nassandres.
The 51st SS-Brigade murdered 68 civilians of all ages in Buchères, France.
The 7th Army took Cannes.
The German Army Group South Ukraine line collapses with the switch in sides of Romania.
The USS Harder was sunk in Dasol Bay by the Japanese.
The U-354 and U-445 were sunk by the Royal Navy.
The Royal Navy unsuccessfully tried again for the Tirpitz.
IBM's Harvard Mark I electro-mechanical computer was formally presented to Harvard University.
Last edition:
Case Blue, the 1942 German summer offensive on the Eastern Front, came to an end having not achieved its goals, which had been to capture the oil fields of Baku, Grozny and Maikop.
The thought was that without oil, the Soviets couldn't fight, and the Germans would be able to. Indeed, taking Soviet oil production had been part of the original goal of Operation Barbarossa, with the thought being that the Germans needed it to wage war against the United Kingdom.
It's strategic aims, often criticized, were sound and grasped the importance of petroleum on the ability to wage modern war. Hitler had a major role in forming the campaign's development and direction and frankly, while the campaign is often criticized for redirecting German assets to southern Russia rather than the north, with the focus being Moscow, the plan demonstrated a good gasp on resources and modern warfare, and the protracted nature of the latter. Had the campaign succeeded in its goals, which were problematic in more ways than one, it would have at least deprived the Soviet Union of significant war fighting assets. It probably would not have succeeded in providing those to the Germans, however, as the Soviets would have destroyed oil production facilities prior to the Germans taking them. Whether the Germans had the capacity to restore production is doubtful.
The plan was, moreover, overambitious and its initial success caused the Germans to take actions which reduced its potential effectiveness.
In spite of its ultimate failure, the offensive was remarkably successful at first, which encouraged the Germans to overextend themselves. By November the offensive had lost steam, without succeeding in its goals, and Operation Uranus soon demonstrated that the Germans were now grossly overextended. The Soviets, additionally, managed to increase the size of their army throughout the campaign and by its end had over 1,000,000 more men in the field than the Germans did. The Germans, for their part, lost 200,000 men during the campaign and the Romanian army was effectively ground down to semi ineffective. By the campaign's end, moreover, the Germans were relying on Romanian, Hungarian and Italian troops to a dangerous extent.
The end of the campaign came with the Soviets launching a series of winter offensives.
Case Blue brought the Germans to their high water mark of World War Two. Its failure was followed by losing ground in the East in the winter of 1942, which they were also doing in North Africa at the same time. Indeed, due to its failure it should have been obvious to the Germans that wining the war was not impossible.
Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, held a press conference in which he revealed information leaked from Europe of German atrocities against the Jews.
Rabbi Wise had the information for three months, but has been asked not to reveal it by the U.S. Government as it could not be confirmed, which of course it could not. At this point, however, he correctly felt that releasing the information was necessary.
Wise had been born in Hungary, but came to the US as an infant with his parents. His father and grandfather were also rabbis.
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Peadar Kearney, writer of the Irish National Anthem A Soldiers Song, "Amhrán na bhFiann" died at age 58.
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.
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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.
Today In Wyoming's History: November 20: 1942 NHL abolishes regular season overtime until World War II is over.
On this day in 1942 the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula ended with an Axis victory as active campaigning very much resumed on the southern Eastern Front.
The effort had been going on for four months. Germany and Romania took 38,000 losses in the battle, the Soviets took 570,000.
Sarah Sundin reports the following for this Tuesday in May of 1942:
Today in World War II History—May 19, 1942: Lt. Col. James Doolittle receives the Medal of Honor, revealing who led the US air raid on Tokyo. New York City discontinues night baseball games.
The Italian submarine Cappellini sank the Swedish ship MV Tisnaren which was clearly marked as a Swedish vessel. It was carrying Scotch whiskey from Manchester England to South America.
The U-751 sank the US SS Isabela in the Caribbean. The U-103 sank the SS Orgontz off of Mexicao. The U-506 sank the SS Heredia off of Guatemala.
The HMS Thrasher sank the Italian merchant ship Penelope.
The RAF ineffectively raided Mannheim Germany in a night raid while the Luftwaffe attacked Hull.
On this date in 1941, T-34s began to appear in action in numbers for the first time.
In other technological, if you will, news, Northrup received a contract for one full-scale mockup, and one actual flying experimental example, of its flying wing design.
The revolutionary design would not fly until after the war and would not see adoption until modern stealth technology arrived, at which time Northrup's design would reappear, evolved, as the Northrup B-2 Spirit.
At Tula, the Germans attempted a pitched massive assault but Soviet forces, some of which were militia, turned them back in spite of suffering heavy losses. The Soviets used anti tank guns and anti-aircraft guns in the effort.
The Germans and Romanians commenced the Siege of Sevastopol. It would take the Axis forces until July to take the city.
Charles Lindbergh spoke to an anti-war rally crowd of 20,000 in Madison Square Garden. His speech was very harsh on Franklin Roosevelt, whom he accused of attempting to draw the United States into war and of using dictatorial measures.
USO Camp Shows commenced on this day in 1941, as discussed in the link below:
A u-boat damaged the USS Salinas, a U.S. Navy fleet oiler, but the vessel managed to escape without sinking.
Romanians and Germans took Odessa after a two-month siege of the Black Sea port.
It had been principally a Romanian operation and indeed was the largest such operation by a German ally on the Easter Front. The overall performance of Romanian troops resulted in a call to cease offensive operations by Romanian troops against the Soviets, although that was ignored by the country's military dictator.
Deportations of European Jews to the East started for many of them on this day in 1941, with the wholesale relocation of European Jews having started the day prior. The order included German Jews as well as those living in other western European countries that were controlled by Nazi Germany.
Franklin Roosevelt addressed the nation's draft enrollees.
On this day more than sixteen million young Americans are reviving the three-hundred-year-old American custom of the muster. They are obeying that first duty of free citizenship by which, from the earliest colonial times, every able-bodied citizen was subject to the call for service in the national defense.
It is a day of deep and purposeful meaning in the lives of all of us. For on this day we Americans proclaim the vitality of our history, the singleness of our will and the unity of our nation.
We prepare to keep the peace in this New World which free men have built for free men to live in. The United States, a nation of one hundred and thirty million people, has today only about five hundred thousand-half a million-officers and men in Army and National Guard. Other nations, smaller in population, have four and five and six million trained men in their armies. Our present program will train eight hundred thousand additional men this coming year and somewhat less than one million men each year thereafter. It is a program obviously of defensive preparation and of defensive preparation only.
Calmly, without fear and without hysteria, but with clear determination, we are building guns and planes and tanks and ships-and all the other tools which modern defense requires. We are mobilizing our citizenship, for we are calling on men and women and property and money to join in making our defense effective. Today's registration for training and service is the keystone in the arch of our national defense.
In the days when our forefathers laid the foundation of our democracy, every American family had to have its gun and know how to use it. Today we live under threats, threats of aggression from abroad, which call again for the same readiness, the same vigilance. Ours must once again be the spirit of those who were prepared to defend as they built, to defend as they worked, to defend as they worshipped.
The duty of this day has been imposed upon us from without. Those who have dared to threaten the whole world with war-those who have created the name and deed of total war-have imposed upon us and upon all free peoples the necessity of preparation for total defense.
But this day not only imposes a duty; it provides also an opportunity-an opportunity for united action in the cause of liberty-an opportunity for the continuing creation on this continent of a country where the people alone shall be master, where the people shall be truly free.
To the sixteen million young men who register today, I say that democracy is your cause-the cause of youth.
Democracy is the one form of society which guarantees to every new generation of men the right to imagine and to attempt to bring to pass a better world. Under the despotisms the imagination of a better world and its achievement are alike forbidden.
Your act today affirms not only your loyalty to your country, but your will to build your future for yourselves.
We of today, with God's help, can bequeath to Americans of tomorrow a nation in which the ways of liberty and justice will survive and be secure. Such a nation must be devoted to the cause of peace. And it is for that cause that America arms itself.
It is to that cause-the cause of peace-that we Americans today devote our national will and our national spirit and our national strength.
