World War Two Amphibious Warfare Display: National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

World War Two Jeep coming off of LVT-4 amphibious tractor.

LVT-4 Amtrak.

DUKW amphibious truck.

Amphibious Jeep.

Last edition:

The Aerodrome: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21. National Museum of Military Vehicles Dubois Wyoming.

Labels: Dubois Wyoming, Fighter, Mig 21, Mikoyan, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Soviet Air Forces, Wyoming (Dubois)

Saturday, June 17, 1944. A stateside tragedy.

B-24J 42-100023 piloted by 2nd. Lt. Richard Zorn of Connecticut crashed on top of Casper Mountain, south of Casper, Wyoming, at about midnight, killing all on board.

The US 7th Corps advanced markedly on this day.  The British, however, were having trouble near Caen.

The 41 Commando, Royal Marines, took the German surrender at Douvres-la-Délivrande.

Royal Marines in Douvres-la-Délivrande.

Iceland declared independence from Denmark.  Large celebrations broke out in the country.

South Dakota suffered a horrific tornado outbreak, killing 13 people and injuring 550.

Last prior edition:

Friday, June 16, 1944. Executions.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Aircraft, Army, British Army, Chichijima, Crime, French Resistance Movements, Gestapo, Guam, Haha Jima, Italy, Iwo Jima, Operation Overlord, Saipan, World War Two, Yugoslav Partisans, Yugoslavia

Thursday, June 8, 1944. D+2

 

The No. 47 (Royal Marine) Commando of the 4th Special Service Brigade took Port-en-Bessin.  The victory connected Utah and Gold beaches.  Utah and Omaha beaches remain unliked, although the 5th Corps takes Isigny.

British troops entered Bayeux.

The Germans launched a violent counter-attack at Bréville.

The 4th Infantry Division attacked Montebourg and engaged in heavy fighting at Azeville.

Sherman being off loaded on Omaha Beach, June 8, 1944.

The destroyer USS Rich hit a mine and sank off of Normandy.

An RAF B-24 sank two German submarines within 20 minutes, one in the Bay of Biscay and another in the English Channel.

The RAF used a 12,000 lbs "Tallboy" bomb for the first time, the target being the Saumur rail tunnel was the sole operational north-south route on the Loire.  The successful raid was a nighttime one.

The Italian government returned to Rome.

The Japanese attempt to ship reinforcements to Biak but are intercepted.

The USS Hake sank the Kazagumo in the Davao Gulf.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, June 7, 1944. D+1.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Combat Engineers, Infantry, Myths, Operation Overlord, Weapons

Saturday, May 22, 1943. Comintern dissolves.

The Comintern was dissolved in Moscow.

The Soviet Union had already betrayed the propaganda associated with the entity by being an ally of Nazi Germany until attacked by Nazi Germany.  The move was interpreted as a feeler towards the Western Allies, in that the Comintern had been dedicated to supplanting any government that wasn't a communist one.

Sarah Sundin's blog reports:

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1943: USS Bogue’s TBF aircraft damage German U-boat U-569, which is scuttled by her crew, the first victory for an Allied escort carrier unassisted by surface ships.

She also noted that Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland flew the ME262 on this day and was impressed by it, as anyone would have had to have been.

Long Range Desert Group, No. 2 Commando and the No. 43 (Royal Marine) Commando raided the Yugoslavian island of Mljet.   The raid was a substitute for ones early planned, and was supported by the OSS which had agents on the island.

Helen Taft, former First Lady, died at age 81.

Friday, December 11, 1942. Large and small boats.

Today in World War II History—December 11, 1942: “Cockleshell Heroes” Raid: British commandos who had landed in France from a submarine on Dec. 7 and canoed up the Gironde River, damage six ships in Bordeaux.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The Italian navy sank two Allied cargo ships, and damaged three others, in a manned torpedo raid on Algiers.

All in all, the Italian raid was more successful than the Royal Marine one on the same day.

The Battle of El Agheila commenced, which saw the British launch an operation to outflank the retreating Afrika Korps, which was both invading and withdrawing into Tunisia.  

The town of El Agheila, Libya, had been the site of an Italian concentration camp earlier in the war which had confined 10,000 Bedouin in poor conditions.

Bedouins confined at El Agheila.

Monday, December 7, 1942. Operation Frankton, the USS New Jersey,

As of this day, the United States had been at war for a year.

The Marine Corps celebrated the day by bombarding Japanese position on Guadalcanal.  

The USS New Jersey was launched by the U.S. Navy:

The massive battleship was of the Iowa Class, and would serve off and on until 1991.

We've covered this time frame, 12/7/41 to 12/7/42, in a sort of day by day fashion, even though this isn't "World War Two Day By Day".  We've done it as an interesting historical exercise, much like we started tracking the period of a century ago when we commenced with our day by day on the Punitive Expedition. This blog isn't "A Century Ago", or whatever, either.

Anyhow, it has been instructive.

What we have seen is that on December 7, 1941, the world was truly in contest.  The Soviets were losing the war in the East.  Not just might be losing, they were outright losing.  The British, who really would have been entitled to regard the Easter Front as "the second front", were holding on however, and continued to fight where ever they could, sometimes in a surprising place like Greece, but perhaps most notably in North Africa. They were doing surprisingly well, even though the Germans had joined the fight to aid failing Italy there.

On the seas, however, the titanic Battle of the Atlantic raged, and the Mediterranean was very much in contest.

A year later, the United States and Australia had arrested Japanese progress in the Pacific.  The Japanese would have been entitled not to have necessarily regarded the tide as having been turned, but any rational observer would have had to conclude that their offensive in the Pacific had already ground to a halt, and they were now on the defensive.  They should have been worried.

The tide had been turned in North Africa and the handwriting was on the wall for the Afrika Korps, although the now German lead enterprise was attempting to react to Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of Vichy France's possession in the region which lead to the effective and rapid end of Vichy.  The French military had departed from its own official sovereign and joined the Allies.  And the battle for the Medettreanean was over, with the Allies prevailing in what was a Royal Navy victory.  The Italians were beginning to regard the war as lost.

The Red Army had finally arrested German progress in the East and had launched its first really successful counter-attack, surrounding Stalingrad in what was to become a German disaster.  In the East too, the Germans would have been entitled not to regard the contest as decided, but they no longer would have reason to regard a battlefield victory against the Allies as likely.

What my parents did on this day I don't know, of course.  Both would have been in school.  For my father, at least, talk of the war being "a year old" must have come up in some fashion.

The British commenced Operation Frankton, a kayak insertion raid on the French port of Bordeaux.  The raid by commandos of the Royal Marines gave rise to the nickname The Cockleshell Heroes for its participants, who over a course of several days several vessels in the harbor, damaging six of them.  The Germans predictably captured six of the men, and executed them.

British military kayaks.

Interestingly, it was Japanese vessels that had evaded blockades that the British were particularly attempting to target.

Today saw the first flight of the P-63 Kingcobra, the intended successor to the P-39.

The aircraft based on this frame were never popular with the U.S. Air Force and the while the aircraft was adopted by the US, it was not deployed in combat.  It should principally be regarded as a Soviet fighter, and it was very popular with the Soviet Air Force, which was actually not supposed to deploy it, by agreement with the US, against the Germans, but retain it in the Far East in case of a Japanese attack upon the Soviet Union.  Nearly indistinguishable from the P39, that agreement was not honored.

A P63 was recently involved in a tragic accident in Dallas, which we have noted here:

Tragedy. P63 hits B-17 at Dallas Airshow. (Graphic)

I'm sorry, it's hard to see how this could happen.

Actually, it apparently isn't all that hard to see how it could happen, as the P63 had poor visibility.

The Wreck of the Birkenhead

On this day in 1852 the HMS Birkenhead struck rocks off the coast of South Africa and sunk in stormy seas. The ship had 634 passengers, most of whom were soldiers in the British Army from various units. As some of those units were cavalry, it also had a cargo of horses.

One hundred soldiers drowned in the initial collision, but the remainder made it to the deck. The ship, as was common for military transports of the time, also had a small number of women and children. When it was realized the vessel was lost, the order was given to place the women and children (seven women, thirteen children) in the lifeboats. The horses were then set loose into the sea in hopes they'd swim the two miles to shore. The soldiers were ordered to stand fast as the ship sank out of fear that if they swam for life boats, which was first proposed than countermanded, they would swamp the life boats. They remained nearly silent the entire time.

The women and children survived. 113 soldiers also did, some swimming two miles over 12 hours, some clinging to wreckage, and some to the floating hull where they were picked up the next day. Many of those who went into the sea were killed by sharks. Six Royal Marines and 54 sailors also survived. Eight horses successfully swam to shore.

I note this for no particular reason other than that this tragedy occurred on this day so long ago. The soldiers were on their way to a colonial war against the Xhosa, a British effort which wouldn't draw any admiration today. Be that as it may, the sacrifice they did make in their final hours is one that a person might wonder if men today would make, and it was really heroic.

Soldier an' Sailor Too, by Kipling. 

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout;But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies -- soldier an' sailor too!Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you;Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps an' bein' mopped by the screw,So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too

The Allies Intervene In Embattled Russia

Finding an actual date, at least on the net, for the commencement of the Allied intervention in Russia is difficult.  Generally, you'll just get "July, 1918".

Well, whatever the actual date was, it was obviously close to this day in 1918, as the Soviets were complaining about Allied landings on Murman Coast, near Murmansk.  That was in fact one of the two three locations for the Allied intervention and it may well have been the first location.

The landings near Murmansk would be made up of a joint Anglo American force of which 5,000 men were American troops.  6,000 were English, 1000 Canadian and approximately another 1,000 or so were French.  The force was under the overall command of an English commander and it actively participated in combat in the region, which was generally contrary to the vague instructions that the Administration had issued to the American forces that were going into Russia.  The fact that they were engaged in combat was not due to insubordination so much as it was due to poor communication of the intended restrictions on American troops.

A little over 160 Americans would loose their lives in the intervention, far fewer than the British loss which amounted to over 500.  It's always been speculated that some Americans may have been left behind due to the hasty nature of the withdrawal in 1919.  Following that withdrawal, White resistance in Northern Russia, which was not doing well by that time in any event, collapsed.