Tuesday, May 8, 1945. Victory In Europe.

A second surrender signing insisted upon by Stalin took place in Berlin with a slightly revised instrument of surrender.  The original would have sufficed, but Stalin insisted.  

This one was signed, for the Germans, by Field Marshal Keitel.

And the war in Europe came to an end.

Celebrations broke out all across Western Europe and North America, which in some instances had begun the day prior.  Winston Churchill announced new of the 11:00 p.m. singing at 3:00 p.m.  Truman at 9:00 a.m., warning that the war was only half won.   All times local.

Karl Dönitz announced the in a speech broadcast from Flensburg at 12:30 p.m., mentioning that the Nazi Party no longer had any role in government.

Hermann Göring surrendered near Radstadt, Austria. Eisenhower would be upset when he learned of the celebrity status his American captors had given him.

German submarines were ordered to surface and report to the Allies.

The Massacre in Trhová Kamenice occurred when German troops in Trhová Kamenice, Czechoslovakia shot supposed partisans.  In spite of the surrender, some German forces did not lay down their arms on the 8th.

The Sétif and Guelma massacre began when French police fired on local Algerian demonstrators at a protest in the Algerian market town of Sétif.  The beginning of decolonization had begun.

Gen. Ernst-Günther Baade, age 47, died of gangrene; Paul Giesler, age 49, German Nazi official committed suicide; Werner von Gilsa, age 56, German military officer committed suicide after being captured by the Russians; Wilhelm Rediess, age 44, German commander of SS troops in Norway  committed suicide; Bernhard Rust, age 61, German Nazi Minister of Science, Education and National Culture committed suicide; Josef Terboven, age 46, German Reichskommissar for Norway during the Nazi occupation committed suicide by detonating dynamite in a bunker.

The US 145th Infantry division took the the ridge near Guagua, southeast of Mount Pacawagan on Luzon and blocked a track along the Mariquina river. 

Last edition:

Monday, May 7, 1945. Germany unconditionally surrenders.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Allied Powers, Allies, Battle of Kuryłówka, boats and ships, Nazi Germany, NKVD, Okinawa, Polish Home Army, Spain, The Cold War, U.S. Navy, Victory in Europe Day, World War Two

Thursday, April 26, 1945. Petain arrested.

Philippe Pétain was arrested on the border between Switzerland and France as he entered France.

The 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army attacked Tempelhof Airport.

The Battle of Baguio ended in Allied victory and the Battle of Collecchio around the town of Fornovo di Taro, Italy began.

Italian partisans take Genoa and revolt in Milan.

British take Bremen, Germany.

RAF begins Operation Exodus, ferrying 75,000 British POWs home in Lancaster bombers in 469 flights through May 7.

Today In World War Two.

The Germans murdered 300 Polish POWs at Horka, Saxony.

Weird SS doctor Sigmund Rascher was executed at Dachau by the SS for fraud, amongst other things.

The war may have been winding down, but:

As demand for meat rises in liberated Europe, US rations all meats again except mutton and raises point values for most meats.

FWIW, when I was a kid I used to hear all the time "I was raised on mutton".  I've even heard it from people my own age.  It's pretty much baloney, but this may be a partial reason that people say that.

Also, I actually have had mutton, and I don't think it's bad at all.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 25, 1945. Elbe Day.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Aircraft, Army, Elbe River, German Luftwaffe, Hanna Reitsch, Red Army

Friday, March 30, 1945. Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie gassed at Ravensbruck. Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose killed in action.

Algerian born Élise Rivet, whose father was a French Naval officer and whose mother was Alsatian, also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie was gassed at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp after volunteering to take the place of a mother who was slated for that fate.  She had been arrested in 1944 for harboring refugees fleeing the Germans and for allowing her convent to be used to store weapons for the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance at the request of Albert Chambonnet.

She was 55 years of age.

Commander of the 3d Armored Division, Maj Gen. Maurice Rose was killed in action near Paderborn, Westphalia, where many of many ancestors immigrated from in the 19th Century.

Rose was cut off in a forested area near the city and his part attempted to escape in their Jeeps, which one Jeep managed to do.  Stopped by a tank, a Waffen SS tank commander emerged from the hatch with a submachinegun and Rose's hand went for his sidearm.  He was machinegunned and left.  The remainder of his party hid in the woods overnight, and recovered his body, which contained operational orders that had not been disturbed, that night.

He was the highest ranking U.S. Army officer to be killed in direct action by enemy forces during World War Two.

Rose was Jewish by descent and grew up in a Jewish household in Denver.  His father was a businessman who later became a rabbi.  Rose himself could speak Yiddish and read Hebrew.  He joined the Colorado National Guard before he was legally old enough to do so, hoping for a military career early on, and hoping to serve in the Punitive Expedition, but was discharged six weeks later when his age was discovered.  He enlisted again during World War One at age 17 with his parents permission, and went to OCS, which says something about how different things were in regard to educational requirements at the time.  He was briefly out of the service in 1919, but returned to the Army as an officer in 1920.

Rose was married for about ten years, from 1920 to 1931, to Venice Hanson of Salt Lake City.  although the marriage ended in divorce.  Their son served as a career Marine Corps officer and also served in World War Two, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  He later married Virginia Barringer in 1934.

While born and raised Jewish, Maurice identified as an Episcopalian as an adult, which has lead to speculation on whether his conversion was real or political, it being difficult at the time to advance in American society, and the Army more particularly, while being outwardly Jewish.  Not that much is known, however, about his personal religious convictions.

He was 45 years of age.

"he rabbi of the Jewish Inf. Brigade visits the aid station and distributes newspapers. 30 March, 1945. Photographer: Levine, 196th Signal Photo Co."

The Battle of Lijevče Field began near Banja Luka between Croatian and Chetnik forces in what would soon be incorporated into communist Yugoslavia.

The Red Army took Danzig.  The Danzig Corridor, of course, had been one of the things the Germans claimed they required that lead to World War Two.

Anyone else make a connection to Greenland today.. . . ?

Eric Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey to 16 year old Patricia Molly Clapton and 25 year old Canadian soldier Edward Walter Fryer.  He was raised by his grandparents, whom he thought to be his parents until he was nine years old.  He thought, at that time, his mother was his older sister.  She'd marry another Canadian soldier later on and his grandparents would continue to raise him.

He was performing the blue professionally by age 17.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 29, 1945. The first Public Passover Sedar in Germany since 1938.

Labels: Battle of the Heiligenbell Pocket, Germany, Judaism, Passover, Red Army, religion

Tuesday, March 20, 1945. Hitler's last appearance in public.

Hitler visited Hitler Youth members mobilized for combat in Berlin.  The child whom he was famously photographed with, with Hitler pinching his cheek, would survive the Battle of Berlin and keep a framed copy of the scene in his house for the rest of his life.

This was Hitler's last public appearance.

The U.S. Seventh Army captured Saarbrücken.

German defensive specialist Gotthard Heinrici replaced Heinrich Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula.

The Germans began to massacre forced workers in the Arnsberg Forest Massacre.

The Australian Army carried out Operation Platypus, in which troops from Z Special Unit were inserted into the Balikpapan area of Borneo to gather information and organize resistance against the Japanese.

France signed an economic pact with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The Navy endured heavy kamikaze attacks off of Okinawa.

The USS Midway was launched.

This Day in History: Staff Sgt Ysmael Villegas charges six enemy foxholes

Last edition:

Monday, March 19, 1945. The Nero Decree.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer, British Army, Diplomacy, German Kriegsmarine, German Wehrmacht, Indian Army, Kamikaze, Populism, The Nero Decree, Turkey, U.S. Navy, USSR

Saturday, March 10, 1945. The execution of Gen. Émile Lemonnier.

Gen. Émile Lemonnier of the French Army was executed by the Japanese for, as a captive, refusing to sign an instrument of surrender to the Japanese in Indochina.  He was 51 years of age.

The last few years of his life must have been one of unrelenting mental torment.

The cowardly weasel ordering his execution, Captain Kayakawa was himself executed after the war..

I know some will excuse the latter's actions based on culture, but he was a weasel.

It was day two of the firebombing of Tokyo.

It's extremely difficult not to be morally troubled by this action.  There are military justifications of it, but by and large, it was a monstrous attack upon a civilian population right down to the infant level.  It survives as a reminder that even in World War Two, in which the Allies held hte moral high ground, not all Allied actions were morally licit.

In our own day, in which we have a President who stands by as rockets rain down on a civilian population, and in which that same President sat a war out due to shin splints, it rains buckets of blood on our own  heads.

The Australians landed at Wide Bay, Papua New Guinea.

Smiling Albert Field Marshal Kesselring arrivee from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.

The Germans withdrew from from the pocket west of the Rhine between Wesel and Xanten in the face of British and Canadian pressure.

The German offensive around Lake Balatron began to encounter heavy Rad Army resistance..

The U-275 struck a mine and was sunk off of East Sussex.  The U-681 was sunk off of the Isles of Scilly by a U.S Navy B-24.

FDR involved Spanish representatives with their hands out no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continued.

Good for FDR.

Today, King Donny would probably be giving warm smooches to Francoist delegates.

Last edition:

Friday, March 9, 1945. Firebombing Japan (Operation Meetinghouse). Japanese end French rule in Indochina (Operation Bright Moon)

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, French Indochina, Italian Social Republic, law, Mussolini, Operation Bright Moon, Operation Meetinghouse, The Great Tokyo Air Raid, Tokyo Japan, U.S. Air Force, War Crimes

Friday, March 9, 1945. Firebombing Japan (Operation Meetinghouse). Japanese end French rule in Indochina (Operation Bright Moon)

 

The US Army Air Force conducted a 48 hour fire bombing raid of Tokyo.  Sixteen square miles of the city's interior were destroyed and between 80,000 and 130,000 civilians killed.  One million were rendered homeless.

Similar raids on Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe also took place.

The U.S. 1st Army took Bonn and Godesburgh

The Japanese launched Operation Bright Moon, 明号作戦, the attack on the French military and government in Indochina.  

The Japanese had tolerated ongoing French administration of Indochina up until this point, but by this point, the French government had gone from Vichy to Free French, and Japan was becoming concerned that the Allies would land with French consent in region.  The French were expecting the attack but were unablet o successfully repel it, with some French forces having to retreat to Nationalist China where they were not well received.

French Indochinese soldiers retreating to Nationalist China.  I have to sonder how man of these Vietnamese troops survived this trek, and of those who did, did they go on and fight in the French Indochinese War on the French side?

Troops of the Italian Social Republic committed the Salussola Massacre as the war in Italy increasingly devolved into a civil war which would carry on, in some ways, until the 1970s.

Benito Mussolini sent a priest to Switzerland to propose to a Vatican envoy that Italy and Germany join with the Allies to attack and defeat the Soviet Union.  The proposal met with the predictable response.

Congress passed the McCarran–Ferguson Act, exempting the insurance business from most federal regulation.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 8, 1945. Operation Sunrise

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Army, Battle of Remagen, Operation Sunrise, U.S. Navy

Tuesday, March 6, 1945. Soviet murders in Poland and Eagle 7.

Today in World War II History—March 6, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—Mar. 6, 1945: US First Army takes Cologne (Köln), Germany; in retreat, Germans destroy the Hohenzollern Bridge.

Operation Spring Awakening was launched by the Germans.  It would be their last major offensive.  An Eastern Front offensive, oil reserves were the target.

King Michael of Romania installed Petru Groza as Prime Minister of Romania due to Soviet pressure.

The Soviets began to arrest or kill anyone associated with the Polish Government In Exile or the Polish Home Army.

The famous tank battle in Cologne between a German Panther and a M26 named Eagle 7 took place.  It's one of the best known American v. German tank battles of World War Two, and ironically took place in a large urban environment.

The battle was, unusually, completely filmed.

The crew of Eagle 7, after the battle.

"The crew of an M26 Pershing tank, nicknamed "Eagle 7," of the 3rd Armored Division pose for a photo after their famous victorious tank duel against a German Panther tank in Cologne, Germany, March 1945.  Commander - Sgt. Robert M. Earley of Fountain, Minn Gunner - Cpl. Clarence E. Smoyer of Lehighton, Pa Loader - Pvt. John S. Deriggi of Scranton, Pa Driver - T/5 William D. McVey of Jackson, Mich Assistant Driver - Pvt. Homer L. Davis of Morehead, Ky.

The Chinese 1st Army took Lashio, Burma.

"The crew of the Ninth U.S. Army Sherman tank who escaped injury though their vehicle was hit by four German 88 shells in action during the capture of Hottorf, near Erkelenz, Germany. L to R: Tec 5 John Helbo, driver, South Plainfield, N.J.; Tec 5 William B. Paff, cannoneer, Morrisville, Pa.; Sgt. Matteo Fortino, tank commander, Bronx, New York; Pfc. Leo V. Digangi, gunner, Jackson Heights, Long Island, N.Y.; and Pfc. Steve Raguseo, assistant driver. 6 March, 1945."

Last edition:

Monday, March 5, 1945. Conscripting the mid teens.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, children, Christianity, German Wehrmacht, Germany, religion, Teenagers

Saturday, March 3, 1945. Manila taken.

"Riflemen of "K" Co., 87th Mtn. Inf., 10th Mtn. Div., firing at German positions 200 yards away during the attack up the Porretta-Moderna Highway. 3 March, 1945. Company K, 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division."

The Battle of Manilla ended in a U.S. victory.

Hitler visited General Theodor Busse’s 9th Army Headquarters, close to the river Oder.  It was Hitler's last visit to the front.

Red Army tank commander Aleksandra Grigoryevna Samusenko was killed.  There are two variants of her death, both involving her being run over by a tracked vehicle.  She may have been accidentally run over by a Red Army tank.

She was a real exception to the rule about women in combat generally.  Unfortunately, not a great deal is known about her. She appears as the "daughter of the regiment" of a tank unit as early as 1934, when she was 12 years gold, and it appears that by that time her mother was dead.  Her ethnic origin is debated, with Belorussian, Ukrainian and Tartar all claimed (fwiw, she looks pretty Ukrainian).  Effectively, she was in the Red Army from about 12 years of age on.

Finland retroactively declared war on Germany, dating the start of the war to September 15, 1944.

The Luftwaffe commenced Operation Gisela, a nighttime intruder operation aimed at RAF night operations.  The aircraft lost by the Luftwaffe in the operation was nearly the same as that lost by the RAF, 22 to 24.

The Polish post Home Army and Polish civilians killed up to 500 Ukrainians in hte Pawlokoma Massacre in retaliation for  Ukrainian Insurgent Army attacks on civilians, although there is evidence that the NKVD, and not the UIA, had carried out the attacks the Poles were seeking revenge for.

Last edition:

Friday, March 2, 1945. Advances.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Artillery, boats and ships, German Kriegsmarine, Iwo Jima, United States Marine Corps, Western Front, World War Two

Wednesday, February 14, 1945. A great President and a great king, meet.

President Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud on the USS Quincy.

Memorandum of Conversation Between the King of Saudi Arabia (Abdul Aziz Al Saud) and President Roosevelt, February 14, 1945, Aboard the U.S.S. “Quincy” 

February 14, 1945

I

The President asked His Majesty for his advice regarding the problem of Jewish refugees driven from their homes in Europe.6 His Majesty replied that in his opinion the Jews should return to live in the lands from which they were driven. The Jews whose homes were completely destroyed and who have no chance of livelihood in their homelands should be given living space in the Axis countries which oppressed them. The President remarked that Poland might be considered a case in point. The Germans appear to have killed three million Polish Jews, by which count there should be space in Poland for the resettlement of many homeless Jews.

His “Majesty then expounded the case of the Arabs and their legitimate rights in their lands and stated that the Arabs and the Jews could never cooperate, neither in Palestine,7 nor in any other country. His Majesty called attention to the increasing threat to the existence of the Arabs and the crisis which has resulted from continued Jewish immigration and the purchase of land by the Jews. His Majesty further stated that the Arabs would choose to die rather than yield their lands to the Jews.

His Majesty stated that the hope of the Arabs is based upon the word of honor of the Allies and upon the well-known love of justice of the United States, and upon the expectation that the United States will support them.

The President replied that he wished to assure His Majesty that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people. He reminded His Majesty [Page 3]that it is impossible to prevent speeches and resolutions in Congress or in the press which may be made on any subject. His reassurance concerned his own future policy as Chief Executive of the United States Government.

His Majesty thanked the President for his statement and mentioned the proposal to send an Arab mission to America and England to expound the case of the Arabs and Palestine. The President stated that he thought this was a very good idea because he thought many people in America and England are misinformed. His Majesty said that such a mission to inform the people was useful, but more important to him was what the President had just told him concerning his own policy toward the Arab people.

II

His Majesty stated that the problem of Syria and the Lebanon8 was of deep concern to him and he asked the President what would be the attitude of the United States Government in the event that France should continue to press intolerable demands upon Syria and the Lebanon. The President replied that the French Government had given him in writing their guarantee of the independence of Syria and the Lebanon and that he could at any time write to the French Government to insist that they honor their word. In the event that the French should thwart the independence of Syria and the Lebanon, the United States Government would give to Syria and the Lebanon all possible support short of the use of force.

III

The President spoke of his great interest in farming, stating that he himself was a farmer. He emphasized the need for developing water resources, to increase the land under cultivation as well as to turn the wheels which do the country’s work. He expressed special interest in irrigation, tree planting and water power which he hoped would be developed after the war in many countries, including the Arab lands. Stating that he liked Arabs, he reminded His Majesty that to increase land under cultivation would decrease the desert and provide living for a larger population of Arabs. His Majesty thanked the President for promoting agriculture so vigorously, but said that he himself could not engage with any enthusiasm in the development of his country’s agriculture and public works if this prosperity would be inherited by the Jews.

The raid on Dresden concluded with a nighttime raid by the RAF.

The USAAF bombed Prague.  The raid killed 701 people, destroyed houses and historical sites, in a country that was a victim of Nazi oppression. This was attributed to a navigational error.

The Red Army liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

The U-989 was sunk by the Royal Navy.

Last edition:

Tuesday, February 13, 1945. Dresden.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Allied Air Campaigns, Battle of Manila, Manila Philippines, Nazi Germany, Philippines, Royal Air Force, Siege of Budapest, The bombing of Dresden, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, War Crimes, Weapons

Tuesday, February 13, 1945. Dresden.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1994-041-07 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5483604

The bombing of Dresden commenced.  It would end on the 15th.

Dresden was an ardently Nazi city that was rail transport and communication center, and contained 110 factories and 50,000 workers.  The raid was to have commenced as a daylight raid by the USAAF 8th Air Force but bad weather precluded it, so the RAF commenced operations first instead with a nighttime raid.  Polish pilots servign in British supplied units had their sidearms removed due to outrage over the Yalta Agreement.  Two raids were conducted that night.  The USAAF hit the following day.  A firestorm erupted during the raids leading to mass destruction,

Up to 25,000 civilians, a fraction of the casualties claimed by the German propogandists, lost their lives due to the raid.  

The bombing became infamous, in part because of the grossly exaggerated casualty figure, but also because of the horrible nature of the destruction.  In reality, the city was more of a military target than legend would have it, and if the destruction was horrific, which it was, it raises the question of the overall morality of the Allied bombing efforts, particularly as they evolved during the war.

The Germans surrendered Budapest to the Red Army.

The British 2nd Army completed clearing the Reichswald Forest.

The US Navy began operations in Manila Bay.  

Corregidor was bombarded.

The 11th Airborne Division took Caviete.

Last edition:

Monday, February 12, 1945. Peru enters the war.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Alabama, Greece, Greek Resistance Movements, Heinrich Himmler, Japan, Missippii, Peru, Philippines, War Crimes, Weather

Monday, February 12, 1945. Peru enters the war.

The Treaty of Varkiza was signed in which Greek resistance agreed to disarm and relinquish control of all the territory it occupied in exchange for legal recognition, free elections, and the removal of Nazi collaborators from the armed forces and police, which seems reasonable enough.

Greek politics had been a mess for years, and would continue to be for many more years.

The Japanese executed Antonio Villa-Real, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in the Philippines.

Peru declared war on Germany and Japan.

A tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama killed 45 people.

Himmler appeared on the cover of Time magazine, in an illustration depicting him as a death's head.

Last edition:

Sunday, February 11, 1945. Yalta winds up.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Allied Powers, boats and ships, Canadian Army, German Kriegsmarine, Operation Veritable, U.S. Navy, United Nations, Yalta Conference

Saturday, February 10, 1945. German defenses.

 The Battle of Hürtgen Forest ended in German defensive victory.

The Germans opened the Schwammenauel Dam to slow Allied advances

The Japanese executed Anacleto Díaz, an  Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in the Philippines.  He was 66 years old.

"Infantrymen carrying rations on their shoulders to the front lines. Notice GI pulling on a horse cart loaded with rations. Luzon, P.I. 10 February, 1945.

Last edition:

Friday, February 9, 1945. Black Friday. Heroes and victims in the Philippines.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Bougainville, British Army, German Kriegsmarine, Heroes, Norway, Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, World War Two