The Japanese captured Fuzhou, the last seaport China had controlled.
The Battle of Memel commenced.
German reduced civilian food rations.
An ME 262 was shot down for the first time in combat. The RCAF scored the victory.
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From "Uncle Mike":
Today in World War II History—May 4, 1944: In Exercise Fabius, a full-scale rehearsal for D-day, Allied troops who will land on Sword, Juno, Gold, and Omaha Beaches make landings on English beaches.
Adolf Hitler, Ernst Pöhner, Hermann Kriebel and Friedrich Webe were sentenced to five years for his attempted overthrow of the German government. Erich Ludendorff was acquitted.
Hitler was released from incarceration in December, giving the world a sometimes unheeded lesson about the failure to treat coups seriously.
Northern Rhodesia, which is now Zambia, became a British protectorate, its status as a private colony administered by the British South Africa Company having ended.
The Royal Canadian Air Force received royal assent from King George V, having previously been the Canadian Air Force.
Calvin Coolidge gave a press conference, as he very frequently did. Replacing Daughter was a major topic in it.
The National Guard was still in the process of re-forming, literary, following Wilson's haphazard discharging of the conscripted Guard, which came about due to an odd process itself, following World War One. We've dealt with that elsewhere. The Wyoming National Guard (it was all the Army National Guard at the time) was being reformed as cavalry, rather than infantry, as it had been before the war, and had, by that time, taken on its new unit designation of the 115th Cavalry Regiment.
As part of that process, the Guard now had a newspaper.
The paper is interesting as it demonstrated the early organization of the 115th, with the Headquarters Troop being located in Laramie.
This from Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub, the Radio News was correctly predicting medicine, and television, and maybe the Internet, of the future.
Frank Capone, age 28, was shot by Chicago police in a gun battle. He was the older brother of Al Capone.
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The Germans took "The Factory" from the British 1st Division at Anzio.
The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.
I was leading squadron in leader position of red flight, providing escort and target support for bombers with targets at Oschersleben and Halberstadt. 2nd Lt. Wau Kau Kong was my wingman. Enroute to target area, Northeim and Wernigerode, at 1350 hours I attacked a ME-410 which was pressing attack on a straggling B-17 at 16,000 feet. I fired a long burst from 300 yds, observing parts flying off the tail assembly and smoke pouring out of the right engine. All my guns stopped except one and I broke off attack to let my wingman finish off E/A. I circled and saw Lt. Kong fire at E/A from close range. The right engine of E/A burst into flames. As Lt. Kong broke off over the E/A the rear gunner must have hit him as his plane exploded and disintegrated in the air.
From Sarah Sundin's blog:
Today in World War II History—February 11, 1944: First mission of the US 357th Fighter Group in P-51 Mustangs from England—this group would produce the most aces (42) in the US Eighth Air Force.
The U-424 was sunk off the Faroe's by a Wellington piloted by the RCAF.
Father Claude H. Heithaus, S. J. delivered a homily in what must have been a week day Mass at Saint Louis University denouncing racism. It ended up getting him forcibly transferred out of state, but the school started admitting African Americans six months later, the first historically white Southern university to do so.
A photographer visited the USS Saratoga.
John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia, retained his position as the Australian Labor Party took 49 of 74 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 19 out of 36 in the Australian Senate.
Australian troops on New Guinea took Komiatum, southwest of Salamaua.
Frankly Roosevelt and McKenzie King announced that U.S. and Canadian forces had retaken Kiska.
The recapture effectively put the continental United States and the Canadian provinces out of reach of Imperial Japanese forces.
Hal Block, Bob Hope, Barney Dean, Frances Langford and Tony Romano met General George S. Patton at a USO show in Sicily at which Patton asked Hope to tell his radio audience “that I love my men", perhaps hoping to counter the bad publicity that the slapping incident had caused.
You didn't see that in Patton.
From Sarah Sundin's blog:
Today in World War II History—August 21, 1943: First “UT” convoy sails from New York, heavily escorted convoys carrying troops to England in build-up for Operation Overlord (D-day).
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The Italian Fascist Grand Council voted 19 to 7 to remove Mussolini from power and restore full authority to the crown.
Dino Grandi, who had been a hard line fascist, but who also had opposed anti-Semitism and who had been critical of the war, organized beforehand Mussolini's downfall. The Grand Council's statement following the decision read:
Grandi's Order of the Day
The Grand Council of Fascism,
meeting in these hours of utmost trial, turns all its thoughts to the heroic fighters in every corps who, side by side with the people of Sicily in whom shines the unequivocal faith of the Italian people, renewing the noble traditions of strenuous valor and the indomitable spirit of sacrifice of our glorious Armed Forces, having examined the internal and international situation and the war's political and military leadership,
proclaims
the sacred duty for all Italians to defend at all costs the homeland's unity, independence, and freedom, the fruits of sacrifice and the efforts of four generations from the Risorgimento to the present, the life and future of the Italian people;
affirms
the necessity of moral and material unity of all Italians in this serious and decisive hour for the nation's destiny;
declares
that to this end the immediate restoration of all state functions is necessary, assigning to the Crown, to the Grand Council, to the government, to the Parliament, and to the corporate groups the duties and responsibility established by our statutory and constitutional laws;
invites
the government to beseech His Majesty the king, to whom turns the loyal and trusting heart of the whole nation, to assume effective command of the Armed Forces of land, sea, and air for the honor and salvation of the homeland, under article 5 of the Constitution, the supreme initiative that our institutions assign to him, and which have always been throughout our nation's history the glorious heritage of our august House of Savoy.
Dino Grandi
While Mussolini seemed to accept the results at the time, he very quickly started acting as if they were not legally binding.
Mussolini had been in power for seventeen years, being the first of the fascist dictators to assume power. While Italy's defeat in the field brought his end about, his removal did not automatically take the Italians out of the war.
Grandi would flea to Spain after the complete fascist collapse in August, not returning to Italy until 1960. He died in 1988 at the age of 92.
Operation Gomorrah, the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force bombing campaign on Hamburg, began. Window was deployed for the first time.
The Germans completed the eradication of the Jewish population of Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk) in Ukraine.
The "Battle of Bamber Bridge" occurred in the UK when white Military Police intervened in a pub which had stretched out drinking hours for black US troops and then attempted to cite one for improper uniform. Shots were ultimately fired and one of the soldiers was killed.
The Smith-Connoally Act was passed, which allowed the government to seize industries threated by strikes. It went into law over President Roosevelt's veto.
The men were undergoing training. A memorial service will be held for them today in Summerville.
Classified as a medium bomber, the Ventura is one of the numerous Allied warbirds that are now basically forgotten, in spite of having received widespread use. It was an adaptation of a civilian airliner.
Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:
Today in World War II History—June 25, 1943: 80 Years Ago—June 25, 1943: Bob Hope begins his first major USO tour; he will spend 11 weeks touring England, North Africa, and Sicily.
The Navy, supported by the Royal Canadian Air Force, landed elements of 7th Infantry Division on Attu in order to retake the Japanese occupied island. The resulting battle was the only land battle on American territory during World War Two and the only battle between the US and Japan in the Arctic.
Fighting would cover two weeks with the Japanese putting up a stout defense. The Japanese Navy formed a task force to relieve the island but the Allies took it before it cold depart Tokyo Bay. Knowing that they would not be relieved, the Japanese forces went down on May 29 in a banzai charge. Of the entire Japanese garrison of over 2,800 men, only 28 survived.
The 7th Infantry Division was committed to the war in the Pacific for the balance of World War Two, and would have occupation duty in Japan and Korea after the war. It was stationed in Japan when the Korean War broke out. During the Korean War, the then under strength division took on an international character, incorporating very large numbers of South Korean troops, as well as Columbian and Ethiopian solders.
Secretary of the Navy publically stated that "Possession of Sicily by the Allies would obviously be a tremendous asset" leading to fears that he'd blow the success of Operation Mincemeat. Instead, it convinced the Germans that he was trying a "smoke screen".
The final phase of the destruction and reoccupation of the Warsaw Ghetto commenced under SS Polizeifuhrer Jürgen Stroop.
Stroop was an unrepentant Nazi and was sentenced to death in a post-war war crimes trial in 1947, and then handed over to Poland, which also convicted him. He was executed in Poland in 1952.
233 Belgian Jews bound for Auschwitz escaped when a raid by three members of the Belgian resistance attacked the train. 118 were able to ultimately escape.
Fourteen members of the White Rose resistance group are found guilty of crimes against the German state and executed.
The General Directorate of Counterintelligence ("SMERSH" СМЕРШ) of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR came into existence, but secretly, and maybe actually earlier. It was a counterintelligence directorate. Like most Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, it was sinister and scary by its nature, and average citizens of the USSR had reason to fear it, a fact that was compounded by circumstances inside contested and occupied regions of the Soviet Union which caused average Soviet citizens to collaborate with the Germans in large and small ways.
The British government removed the restriction on ringing church bells that had been put in effect when the UK was under threat of invasion. The move marked the passing of that phase of the war.
One of the most famous, and controversial, Allied operations of the Second World War occurred on this day when a largely Canadian force was committed to a British operation that's been termed a "raid", but which was on such a huge scale, that that term is debatable. Operation Jubilee, or the Raid on Dieppe. It was the bloodiest day of the war for the Canadian Army.
The Canadian Second Infantry Division, together with British Commando units featuring a small group of American Rangers, and French commandos, supported with Canadian armor, landed at 04:50 on this morning at the French resort town, with Allied forces landing on six beaches. By the end of the day, 68% of the Canadian force was lost, either being killed, wounded or captured.
The raid was somewhat ill-conceived in that it was on such a large-scale, and designed to test very large scale raids and to also send a signal to the Soviets that the Allies did actually intend to invade France at some point. It made use of Canadian troops, as the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division had been assigned to protective duties in the United Kingdom and was available. The raid had been scheduled to occur somewhat earlier, and some equipment issued to the Canadians had been recovered, with the same type of equipment then hastily reissued, but with new examples that had to be rapidly reworked for functioning by Canadian troops.
Lord Louis Mountbatten, whom history has not treated well, played a planning role in the operation. Bernard Law Montgomery got the blame later for some of the operations failures, but he had already been assigned to the 8th Army and cannot really be blamed.
The Germans were already wary of the possibility of British raids, and became aware that the British were interested in Dieppe by French double agents. At the time, British intelligence was having trouble of this type.
Some of the raid went well. No. 4 Commando, for example, to which the American Rangers were attached, landed and conducted their operations very well and withdrew as planned prior to 0800. The Canadian landings, however, were generally a disaster, and ultimately they experienced heavy losses. Trouble was experienced landing the supporting tanks, and the Luftwaffe turned out in force, with a major air battle between the Luftwaffe and the RAF/RCAF being the result. The withdrawal commenced at 0940 and was complete by 1400, but was conducted under heavy fire. The Germans captured the operation plan for the battle, which, when analyzed, was regarded by the Germans as basically inept.
The battle is regarded as a major disaster, but dissenting voices, which I basically am here, have taken the position that it was an expensive day in school for the Allies. The British in particular gleaned major lessons about conducting landings that they would employ in Operation Overlord two years later, including the significance of landing tanks. As a result, the British were particularly well-equipped with special tanks for the landings at Normandy. The Allies also realized a need for temporary harbors, which would become a major focus for Overlord.
The Germans learned lessons as well, but were overall pleased with how well their forces had done in the defense, and not without reason. One of the major factors in the German success, however, had been the presence of the Luftwaffe, which, in spite of being obvious, would be ignored by the Germans by 1944 as raids over Germany by strategic bombers took up their air assets.
As minor side notes, the 50 American Rangers were assigned to Lord Lovat's No. 4 Commando, one of the most eccentric units of the war. This was to give them combat experience, but it was a fortunate assignment, as this part of the raid went well. Additionally, Sarah Sundin notes that RAF Mustang I's were in the battle and gained their first areal victory on this day.
German treatment of Canadian prisoners would leading to lasting animosity between some Canadian soldiers in regard to the German army, leading some units to be very reluctant to take German prisoners in later actions.
The Japanese landed another 900 men on Guadalcanal.
The Red Army launched the Sinyavino Offensive in an effort to relieve Leningrad.
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