Friday, May 18, 1945. Paying the consequences.

" Five East Massachusetts boys set up an 81mm mortar. Front row, left to right: Pfc. Albert Bartolussi, 56 Dow St., Framingham; S/Sgt. Louis Zompa, 211 Elm Street, Lawrence; rear row, left to right: Armand Lesage Jr., 24 Mason Street, Lawrence; Cpl. Roger L. Leavitt, 113 Franklin Street, Lynn; and Pfc. Leopold Freda, 221 Cheslsea Street, East Boston. They are all fighting with the 306th Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. Okinawa. 18 May, 1945. 306th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. Photographer: Roberts, 1st Information and Historical Service"

The U.S. Army took Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the deportation of Fritz Julius Kuhn of the German American Bund to Germany.  His citizenship had been revoked in 1943.  His family had already been repatriated, during the war, to Germany.

The entire series of events would crush him.  He sought to return to t he US without success.  He was arrested and tired by the post war German government.  He died in 1951 a broken figure.

The Chinese Army reoccupies Foochow.

Karl Karl Dönitz issues a statement expressing horror at the Holocaust and distancing the German military from it.

Yeah. . . whatever.

William Joseph Simmons, founder of the second KKK, died at age 65.

Irish Prime Minister Eamon De Velera, announces a $12 million food and clothing aid program for Europe.

Last edition:

Thursday, May 17, 1945. The emerging post war world.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Battle of Manila, Burma, Catholic, Christianity, Communism, Croatia, Denmark, Dutch Army, French Army, Japan, Lebanon, Marshall Islands, Okinawa, Philippines, religion, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Monday, May 14, 1945. Lingering actions.

Louis J. Hauge Jr. performed the actions that resulted in his being awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Leader of a Machine-Gun Squad serving with Company C, First Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Okinawa Shima in the Ryūkyū Chain on 14 May 1945. Alert and aggressive during a determined assault against a strongly fortified Japanese Hill position, Corporal Hauge boldly took the initiative when his company's left flank was pinned down under a heavy machine-gun and mortar barrage with resultant severe casualties and, quickly locating the two machine guns which were delivering the uninterrupted stream of enfilade fire, ordered his squad to maintain a covering barrage as he rushed across an exposed area toward the furiously blazing enemy weapons. Although painfully wounded as he charged the first machine-gun, he launched a vigorous single-handed grenade attack, destroyed the entire hostile gun position and moved relentlessly forward toward the other emplacement despite his wounds and the increasingly heavy Japanese fire. Undaunted by the savage opposition, he again hurled his deadly grenades with unerring aim and succeeded in demolishing the second enemy gun before he fell under the slashing fury of Japanese sniper fire. By his ready grasp of the critical situation and his heroic one-man assault tactics, Corporal Hauge had eliminated two strategically placed enemy weapons, thereby releasing the besieged troops from an overwhelming volume of hostile fire and enabling his company to advance. His indomitable fighting spirit and decisive valor in the face of almost certain death reflect the highest credit upon Corporal Hauge and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country.

Marines reached the top of Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa and captured the airfield at Yonabaru.

The Battle of Poljana commenced outside of Poljana, Slovenia between the Yugoslav Army and a column of 30,000 retreating Axis soldiers, consisting of members of the Wehrmacht, the Croatian Armed Forces, the Montenegrin People's Army, the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Slovene Home Guard, and the 15th Waffen SS Cossack Cavalry Corps.

Army Group Kurland surrendered to the Red Army.

The provisional government of Austria nullified the 1938 Anschluss, abolished the Nazi Party and repealed all Nazi-era laws.

U-boat commander Wolfgang Lüth, age 31, German U-boat ace was shot and killed by a German sentry of the still functioning Mürwik Naval Academy when he failed to return a call sign.  He was given a state funeral.

The US Army announced the discovery of millions of dollars worth of stolen ar by the Nazis and 100 tons of gold bars and currency hidden in a salt mine located on the Losa Plateau in Austria. 

The concentration camp at Ebensee was liberated.

Marines reached the top of Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa and captured the airfield at Yonabaru.

Herbert J. Grant, president of the LDS church, died at age 88.  He was the lasts surviving member of the LDS Council of Fifty and the last one to have been a polygamist, although he enforced the LDS change in the position.  At the time of his death, only one of his three wives was living.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 13, 1945. "There is still a lot to do".

Labels: 1940s, 1945, British Army, Burma, Chile, German Wehrmacht, Mussolini, Okinawa, the spoken word, Winston Churchill, World War Two

Mother

Today is Mothers Day, as surely everyone in the US is aware.

I'm going to comment on Mother's Day for a couple of odd reasons, even thought I didn't originally intend to.

The first is this comment by Robert Reich for the day:

Robert Reich@RBReich·14h

Your Mother’s Day weekend reminder that the so-called “party of family values” has historically blocked:

-Paid family & medical leave

-Universal childcare

-Universal pre-K

-Expanded Child Tax Credit

-Programs to support reproductive health

Doesn’t sound very pro-family to me.

First I'll note that I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Reich.  Reich is very far left, but his economic commentary, in my view, is generally pretty good.  And like him, I'm greatly distressed over what Donald Trump is doing to the country.

Secondly, I really hate the writing convention of saying "this is your reminder".  Did I ask for a reminder?  If I didn't, that's really annoying.  Reich also likes to state "I don't know who needs to know this" which suggest that nobody needs to know whatever he's going to tell us.  

He should quit using both of those writing conventions.

Anyhow, like a far lefty, he's bought into the seas of blood position of the Democratic Party. "Programs to support reproductive health" is Orwellian speech for infanticide.

Reich is Jewish, which always makes me wonder how he can support a thesis that holds that infants in the womb, earlier than a certain number of weeks, aren't people.  It's the exact same argument that resulted in the Holocaust.  It's the exact same argument that expanded into eugenics based homicide in Nazi Germany, and which has advanced murder in the guise of "assisted suicide" in various Western Nations.

I'll be frank that I've never been a huge fan of Mothers Day or Father's Day which remind me, in some ways of the Alcohol and Old Lace episode of the Andy Griffith Show in which two elderly sisters were distilling moonshine for "holidays", of which there were an insane number of manufactured ones.  But I really shouldn't be that way for Mother's Day.  There are real reasons to honor motherhood and what it entails.  But murdering infants isn't a good way to do it.

And there's no reason to pretend, no matter how much the left would like to, that the "my body, my choice" argument is a good one, or even a valid one.  A fetus in the womb has a body and its choice i not likely to be murdered.  And that body, genetically, is made up of the DNA of two people, not one.  You don't get ot be a mother through a unilateral act of self will. Motherhood in some instances wasn't planned, of course, but then much of life is not and a massive murderous do over isn't every justified.

The other reason I chose to post is that somebody I know had been at a Vigil Mass in which the attending celebrant mentioned mothers, but largely, apparently, in the context how mother's support their men, which was pretty much apparently it.  The celebrant was Indian (from India).  I'm only noting this as its so easy to forgot for Americans, and probably Europeans, how we are actually a minority of the globes' population, and the culture view of other people may be very much not the one we hold.

That oddly enough occured on the same day, yesterday, in which I listed to a Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World episode on 1 Esdras, which is in some (all?) Orthodox Bibles, but not the Catholic Bible, which is itself larger than most Protestant Biles.  In it, there's a debate between three Guards about what is the most powerful thing in the world.  One Guard presents this, which references the prior two arguments that came before his.:

Then the third, who had spoken of women and truth (and this was Zerubbabel), began to speak: “Gentlemen, is not the king great, and are not men many, and is not wine strong? Who is it, then, who rules them or has the mastery over them? Is it not women? Women gave birth to the king and to every people that rules over sea and land. From women they came, and women brought up the very men who plant the vineyards from which comes wine. Women make men’s clothes; they bring men glory; men cannot exist without women. If men gather gold and silver or any other beautiful thing and then see a woman lovely in appearance and beauty, they let all those things go and gape at her and with open mouths stare at her, and all prefer her to gold or silver or any other beautiful thing. A man leaves his own father, who brought him up, and his own region and clings to his wife. With his wife he ends his days, with no thought of his father or his mother or his region. Therefore you must realize that women rule over you!

“Do you not labor and toil and bring everything and give it to women? A man takes his sword and goes out to travel and rob and steal and to sail the sea and rivers; he faces lions, and he walks in darkness, and when he steals and robs and plunders, he brings it back to the woman he loves. A man loves his wife more than his father or his mother. Many men have lost their minds because of women and have become slaves because of them. Many have perished or stumbled or sinned because of women. And now do you not believe me?

“Is not the king great in his authority? Do not all lands fear to touch him? Yet I have seen him with Apame, the king’s concubine, the daughter of the illustrious Bartacus; she would sit at the king’s right hand and take the crown from the king’s head and put it on her own and slap the king with her left hand. At this the king would gaze at her with mouth agape. If she smiles at him, he laughs; if she loses her temper with him, he flatters her, so that she may be reconciled to him. Gentlemen, why are not women strong, since they do such things?”

It is profound, and note how it came in an ear in which women, in most of the world, would have been regarded as second class citizens.  I should note, however, that he went on to then discuss Truth, with that being the most powerful thing in the World.

While it likely shouldn't, that reminded me of Kipling's great poem, The Ballad of the King's Jest, which has this line:

Four things greater than all things are,—

Women and Horses and Power and War.

We spake of them all, but the last the most,

For I sought a word of a Russian post,

Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword

And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.

Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes

In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.

Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say?

“When the night is gathering all is gray.

“But we look that the gloom of the night shall die

“In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.

“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

“To warn a King of his enemies?

“We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

“But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

“That unsought counsel is cursed of God

“Attesteth the story of Wali Dad. 

It's interesting how Kipling put it, "Four things greater than all things are--Women and Horses and Power and War".

Well, have a Happy Mother's Day.   

Wednesday, May 9, 1945. The last Wehrmachtbericht, Stalin's congrats.

"Pvt. Wallace F. Burket, left, bazooka man with the 80th Infantry Division, U.S. Third Army, finds his brother, Sgt. Wm. C. Burket who was shot down over Africa two years and three months ago. Branau, Austria. 9 May, 1945. Company C, 318th Infantry Regiment, 80th Infantry Division. Photographer: Zinni."

The last Wehrmachtbericht was broadcast, which reported Germany's defeat.   The address read:

FROM THE GRAND ADMIRAL'S HEADQUARTERS, May 9-The High Command of the Armed Forces announces:

In East Prussia - German divisions even yesterday gallantly defended to the very last the Vistula mouth and the western part of the Frisches Nehrung. The Seventh Division distinguished itself particularly in this fighting. To their Commander in Chief, General of Tank Troops von Saucken, were awarded diamonds to the Oak Leaves with swords to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in recognition of the exemplary gallantry of his soldiers.

As an advanced bulwark, our armies in Courland [Latvia], under the well-proved command of Colonel General Guenther, tied down superior Soviet rifle and armored formations through many months and acquired eternal glory in six great battles. They refused any premature surrender. Only the wounded, and later numerous children, were transported in full order by aircraft that still left for the west. Staffs and officers remained with their troops.

At midnight all fighting and all movements were suspended on the German side, under the conditions that had been signed.

The defenders of Breslau, who resisted Soviet attacks for more than two months, succumbed to enemy superiority in the last hour after a heroic struggle.

On the Southeast and East Fronts, from Fiume to Brno [Bruenn] to the Elbe near Dresden, all the higher military authorities have received the order to cease fire.

A Czech rising is taking place in the whole of Bohemia and Moravia and may threaten the execution of the capitulation conditions as well as communications in that area.

The High Command of the Armed-Forces so far has not received any reports regarding the situation of the army groups Loehr, Rendulic and Schoerner.

Far from home, the defenders of the Atlantic bases, our forces in Norway and garrisons of the Aegean Islands have maintained the military honor of the German soldier in obedience and discipline.

Since midnight all weapons have been silent on all fronts on orders of the Grand Admiral, and the armed forces have ceased the fighting, which has now become hopeless, thus ending a heroic struggle that lasted almost six years. This struggle brought us great victories. But also heavy defeats. In the end the German Wehrmacht succumbed with honor to enormous superiority.

Loyal to his oath, the German soldier's performance in a supreme effort for his people can never be forgotten. Up to the last moment the homeland had supported him with all its strength in an effort entailing the heaviest sacrifices. The unique performance of the front and homeland will find a final appraisal in the later, just judgment of history.

The enemy, too, will not deny his tribute of respect to the performance and sacrifices of German soldiers on land, at sea and in the air. Every soldier, therefore, may lay aside his weapon proud and erect and set to work in these gravest hours of our history with courage and confidence to safeguard the undying life of our people.

In this grave hour the Wehrmacht remembers its comrades who have died in battle. The dead impose upon us an obligation of unconditional loyalty, obedience and discipline toward the Fatherland, which is bleeding from countless wounds.

(There followed three minutes of silence).

The German radio has transmitted the last High Command communiqué of this war. We close our news bulletin with an official announcement as follows:

"It is officially announced that effective May 9, 1945, blackout regulations are lifted. Effective also from today the ban on listening to foreign stations has been lifted."

An often missed oddity of this period is that while Germany had surrendered, it's government was still functioning. The Flensburg Government still had a military command, in spite of the surrender, and in some areas it had troops under arms.

Indeed, in spite of the surrender, German forces of German Army Group Ostmark (Lohr) continued to resist in Croatia and to the north.

Stalin congratulated the Red Army. This is regarded by the Russians as VE Day.

Comrades! Men and women compatriots!

The great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany, forced to her knees by the Red Army and the troops of our Allies, has acknowledged herself defeated and declared unconditional surrender.

On May 7 the preliminary protocol on surrender was signed in the city of Rheims. On May 8 representatives of the German High Command, in the presence of representatives of the Supreme Command of the Allied troops and the Supreme Command of the Soviet Troops, signed in Berlin the final act of surrender, the execution of which began at 24.00 hours on May 8.

Being aware of the wolfish habits of the German ringleaders, who regard treaties and agreements as empty scraps of paper, we have no reason to trust their words. However, this morning, in pursuance of the act of surrender, the German troops began to lay down their arms and surrender to our troops en masse. This is no longer an empty scrap of paper. This is actual surrender of Germany’s armed forces. True, one group of German troops in the area of Czechoslovakia is still evading surrender. But I trust that the Red Army will be able to bring it to its senses.

Now we can state with full justification that the historic day of the final defeat of Germany, the day of the great victory of our people over German imperialism has come.

The great sacrifices we made in the name of the freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable privations and sufferings experienced by our people in the course of the war, the intense work in the rear and at the front, placed on the altar of the Motherland, have not been in vain, and have been crowned by complete victory over the enemy. The age-long struggle of the Slav peoples for their existence and their independence has ended in victory over the German invaders and German tyranny.

Henceforth the great banner of the freedom of the peoples and peace among peoples will fly over Europe.

Three years ago Hitler declared for all to hear that his aims included the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the wresting from it of the Caucasus, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic lands and other areas. He declared bluntly: “We will destroy Russia so that she will never be able to rise again.” This was three years ago. However, Hitler’s crazy ideas were not fated to come true—the progress of the war scattered them to the winds. In actual fact the direct opposite of the Hitlerites’ ravings has taken place. Germany is utterly defeated. The German troops are surrendering. The Soviet Union is celebrating Victory, although it does not intend either to dismember or to destroy Germany.

Comrades! The Great Patriotic War has ended in our complete victory. The period of war in Europe is over. The period of peaceful development has begun.

I congratulate you upon victory, my dear men and women compatriots!

Glory to our heroic Red Army, which upheld the independence of our Motherland and won victory over the enemy!

Glory to our great people, the people victorious!

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle against the enemy and gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!

The Battle for Czech Radio in Prague ended in Czech victory.

General Alexander Löhr, Commander of German Army Group E near Topolšica, Slovenia, signed the capitulation of German occupation troops in that region.

British forces took the surrender of troops occupying Jersey and Guernsey.

The Stuffhof concentration camp was liberated.  It had been the first to be established outside of Germany's borders and was the last one liberated.

Vidkun Quisling and other members of  his regime in Norway surrendered to the Resistance (Milorg) and police at Møllergata 19 in Oslo.

The British began Operation Doomsday with the British 1st Airborne Division landing in Norway to act as a police and military force.

Walter Frank, 40, German Nazi historian, committed suicide.

The US 145th Infantry Regiment captured Mount Binicayan on Luzon.

Marines captured Height 60 on Okinawa.

The British 82nd West African Division occupied Sandoway, Burma.

Last edition:

Tuesday, May 8, 1945. Victory In Europe.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Algeria, Germany, Harry S. Truman, Hermann Göring, Joseph Stalin, Massacre in Trhová Kamenice, The Sétif and Guelma massacre, Victory in Europe Day, War Crimes, Winston Churchill, World War Two

Wednesday, May 2, 1945. Berlin taken.

The Red Army took Berlin.

Yevgeny Khaldei took the staged Raising a Flag over the Reichstag photograph, showing Soviet troops raising the flag of the Soviet Union atop the Reichstag.  The unretouched variant is shown above, i which one soldier is wearing two watches, which was later edited out of the photo as at least one of them was no doubt picked up somewhere.

The Nisei 552nd Field Artillery Bn liberated a Dachau death march.

The Germans surrendered in Italy and Southern Austria. Among those going into Allied captivity is Dr. Wernher von Braun.

Admiral Dönitz's formed the Flensburg Government.

Eamon de Valera paid a visit to Dr Eduard Hempel, the German minister in Ireland, to offer his condolences on the death of Hitler.  Nobody has ever been able to grasp this.

Erich Bärenfänger, 30, German Generalmajor, Martin Bormann, 44, German Nazi official; Wilhelm Burgdorf, 50, German general; Walther Hewel, 41, German diplomat; Hans Krebs, 47, German general; and Franz Schädle, 38, German commander of Hitler's personal bodyguard, killed themselves.

Peter Högl, 47, German SS-Obersturmbannführer, Ewald Lindloff, 36, Waffen-SS officerMartin Strahammer, 54, German Generalmajor; and Joachim von Siegroth, 48, German Generalmajor were killed in action.

The British landed on Rangoon.

Last edition:

Tuesday, May 1, 1945. German radio reports Hitler dead.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Battle of Tarakan, Borneo, Germany, Joseph Goebbels, Karl Dönitz, Operation Oboe, Radio, Rape and the Red Army, The Battle of Halbe, World War Two

Sunday, April 29, 1945. Dachau.

U.S. troops liberated Dachau.  In outrage over what they discovered, some SS Guards were executed along with the camp commandant.

Hitler married Eva Braun, his long time mistress.

Braun had been in a relationship with Hitler for a long time.  She was a photographer by picked up trade and relatively young when she met Hitler.  She had already attempted suicide twice in her relationship with the dictator by this point in time.

Braun's family survived the war.  Her mother Franziska, died aged 91 in January 1976.  Her father, Fritz, died in 1964. Her sister Gretl, left a widow by the execution of Fegelein, gave birth to a daughte on May 5 1945 and later married Kurt Beringhoff, a businessman.  She died in 1987.  Braun's elder sister was not part of the Hitler inner cricle and Ilse died in 1979.

Hitler's German Shepard Blondi was given cyanide capsules as a test of their lethality and died.

Germans signed the terms of surrender in Italy and Austria which provided that the fighting would end on May 2.  This effected the surrender of 1,000,000 Axis troops.

The Battle of Collecchio ended in Allied victory.

SS Obergruppenführer Matthias Kleinheisterkamp committed suicide after being captured by Soviet troops.

Italian fascist Achille Starace was killed by Italian partisans.

The Allies began dropping food to the people of the Netherlands:

29 April 1945

Last edition:

Saturday, April 28, 1945. The fate of the fascists.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Battle of Berlin, Berlin Germany, boats and ships, Clara Petacci, Eva Braun, German SS, Italian partisans, Italy, Mussolini, Philippines, Red Army, World War Two

Friday, April 27, 1945. Mussolini captured by Partisans, Second Austrian Republic comes into being.

Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were captured by partisans while attempting to cross into Switzerland.

The Red Army took Potsdam, Prenzlau, Angemunde and Tempelhof airfield.

US troops liberated Kaufering concentration camp.

The Western Allies rejected Himmler's peace offer for the Germans to lay down their arms in the west and sent a reminder that the German surrender was to be unconditional.

One of the interesting things here is that its not entirely clearly that the Western Allies understood the offer the way it was made.  Theoretically, it might have been possible to accept the offer as a largescale troop surrender which, while it would have ended fighting in the west, it would not have ended the war against Germany.

The U.S. Fifth Army reached Genoa, Italy, which was mostly already liberated by Italian partisans.

SS architect Hans Schleif committed suicide at age 43.  Schleif had been involved in removing cultural material from Poland, but he oddly never really seemed to be fully on board with the worst elements of Nazism.  His death was probably needless, but he probably would have served time after the war.

Former Austrian chancellor Karl Renner set up a provisional government composed of Social Democrats, Christian Socialists, and Communists and proclaimed the reestablishment of Austria as a democratic republic.  This became the Second Austrian Republic, which remains today.

US and Philippine forces commenced the Battle of Davao.  US forces took Baguio.

U.S. troops firing a pack howitzer in the Philippines, April 27, 1945.

Thursday, April 26, 1945. Petain arrested.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Battle of Berlin, Berlin Germany, Dachau, German SS, Italian partisans, Italy, Operation Exodus, Philippe Pétain, Prisoners of War, Rationing, Red Army, Vichy France, War Crimes, World War Two

Tuesday, April 24, 1945. Berlin surrounded.

The Red Army surrounded Berlin.

The Battle of Halbe in the Spree Forest.

The Germans began the final evacuation of Dachau.

Railyards in Nurnberg, Germany. 24 April, 1945.  Photographer: T/4 Sidney Blau, 163rd Signal Photo Co.

The U-546 sank the USS Frederick Davis and then was sunk itself.  The loss caused Admiral Dönitz to disband the wolfpack it was part of.

The RAF raided Berchtesgaden, it's last significant action in Europe in World War Two.

Ernst-Robert Grawitz, age 45, German physician and SS officer killed himself and his entire family with grenades.

Major League Baseball cancelled the 1945 All Star game due to travel restrictions.

"Pfc. Robert A. Vincent, L.I., N.Y., offers K rations to Okinawan children, found in Gusukuma during the drive to Machinato airstrip. 24 April, 1945."

Last edition:

Monday, April 23, 1945. Where's Hitler?

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Berlin Germany, boats and ships, Ethnicities, Freeman Field Mutiny, Hermann Göring, Nazi Germany, Okinawa, Pacific, Racism, The Holocaust, Weapons, World War Two

Monday, April 23, 1945. Where's Hitler?

German radio broadcast that Adolf Hitler was in the "main fighting line" in Berlin and would "remain there despite all rumors." 

The Allies suspected he was in Bavaria organizing resistance there.

Göring sent a telegram asking for permission to assume leadership of the Third Reich which Hitler regarded as treason, ordering his arrest.

The Flossenburg concentration camp was liberated by the U.S. Army.

The U-183 was sunk off of Borneo by the U.S. submarine Besugo.

The Navy deployed Bat air to ship missiles against Japanese ships in Balipapan Harbor in Borneo, marking their first use.

Those arrested in the Freeman Field Mutiny were released.

"Lt. Richard K. Jones, OIC 3235th Sig. Ser. Det. of Hollywood, Calif., feeds Japanese children found in a tomb 50 yards from front line on Okinawa. 23 April, 1945."

Last edition:

Sunday, April 22, 1945. The Bunker.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Army, Battle of Berlin, Heinrich Himmler, Heroes, Philippines, Philippines Campaign, Red Army, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, The Holocaust, World War Two

Sunday, April 22, 1945. The Bunker.

Adolph Hitler held conference in the Führerbunker to discuss the military situation. He learned there that the Steiner attack ordered the prior day had not occured, and became enraged.

He announced his intention to remain in Berlin nad kill himself, and conceded that the war was lost.  Those wishing to leave the bunker were given permission to do so.

This scene if famously depicted in the movie Downfall.

Himmler met in secret with Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden and asked him to act as an intermediary to offer the surrender of all German forces in the west.  The message would be delivered two days later.

The 7th Army crossed the Danube.

The Red Army liberated the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

The U.S. Navy sank the U-518.

The British Fourteenth Army captured Taungoo and Oktwin, Burma.

Private First Class Thomas performed the actions that resulted in his winning the Medal of Honor in the Philippines..

He was a member of the leading squad of Company B, which was attacking along a narrow, wooded ridge. The enemy strongly entrenched in camouflaged emplacements on the hill beyond directed heavy fire and hurled explosive charges on the attacking riflemen. Pfc. Thomas, an automatic rifleman, was struck by 1 of these charges, which blew off both his legs below the knees. He refused medical aid and evacuation, and continued to fire at the enemy until his weapon was put out of action by an enemy bullet. Still refusing aid, he threw his last 2 grenades. He destroyed 3 of the enemy after suffering the wounds from which he died later that day. The effective fire of Pfc. Thomas prevented the repulse of his platoon and assured the capture of the hostile position. His magnificent courage and heroic devotion to duty provided a lasting inspiration for his comrades.

The US 31st Infantry Division landed at Moro Gulf.  US forces took Jolo.

German mathematician Wilhelm Cauer, 44, was executed by the Red Army, with the soldiers killing him apparently not aware that he was on a list of people to be found by the Soviets for their talents.

"As an ambulance jeep evacuates three wounded U.S. soldiers to a rear area field hospital, one is given blood plasma en route by a corpsman of 102nd Med. Bn. on Okinawa. 22 April, 1945."

Last edition:

Saturday, April 21, 1945. Steiner refuses to attack, Hitler decides on suicide, Model kills himself, May dies heroically in action.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Battle of Bautzen, Battle of Berlin, Battle of the Ruhr, German Wehrmacht, Heinrich Himmler, Heroes, Italy, Okinawa, Personalities, Polish Army, Waffen SS, World War Two