Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

1941 : Soviets switch commanders in drive to halt Germans


On this day in 1941, chief of the Soviet general staff, Georgi K. Zhukov, assumes command of Red Army operations to stop the German advance into the heart of Russia.
Zhukov's military career began during World War I, when he served with the Imperial Russian Army. He then joined the Red Army in 1918, taking time off to study military science in both the Soviet Union and Germany. By the outbreak of World War II, Zhukov was commander of the Soviet forces stationed on the Manchurian border and led a counteroffensive that beat back the Japanese attack in 1939.
By the time of the German invasion of Russia, Zhukov had been promoted from chief of staff of the Soviet army during the "winter war" against Finland, to commander in chief of the western front. It was in this capacity that he now prepared to beat back the German invaders, first from Moscow, and then from central Russia altogether. He would eventually be promoted to general and become a key player in the planning or execution of virtually every major Soviet engagement until the end of the war. Ultimately, he would represent the USSR at Germany's formal surrender and take command of the Soviet occupation of Germany.
Stalin's wise choice in handing so much power and responsibility to this one man was regretted only after the war, when Zhukov's popularity threatened his own. Stalin "rewarded" the general with obscure positions that wasted his talent and kept him out of the spotlight. Zhukov was finally made minister of defense after Stalin's death in 1953 in Premier Nikita Krushchev's new government. But as the military attempted to remove itself from the iron grip of internal Communist Party politics, Zhukov, who supported autonomy for the army, began to butt heads with the premier, who wanted to keep the Red Army under the Central Committee's collective thumb.
Ironically, when the Presidium, the "conservative" (in this case, Stalinist) legislative body that opposed certain "democratic" reforms proposed by Krushchev, attempted to push the premier from power, it was Zhukov who flew Central Committee members to Moscow to tip the balance of power and keep Krushchev's position secure. As a reward, Zhukov was made a full member of the Presidium, the first professional soldier ever to hold such an office (it also served to have a man who proved himself loyal on a body that was otherwise hostile). But Zhukov's renewed attempt to free the army from party control resulted in his dismissal by Krushchev. Zhukov would once again be lost to public view--until Krushchev's fall from power in 1964. Zhukov would eventually win the Order of Lenin medal (1966) and publish his autobiography (1969).

[jacobtowne]

0407 hrs. The Japanese Destroyer ' Asagumo' Torpedoed by the US destroyer 'Denver'

Actually, Denver was a cruiser, CL58, the ship my uncle was on during the battle.

That's quite a list of sinkings. The Japanese must have lost most of their remaining navy at Leyte.

JT

[Peter Clare]

1945 : The United Nations is born


On this day in 1945, the United Nations Charter, which was adopted and signed on June 26, 1945, is now effective and ready to be enforced.
The United Nations was born of perceived necessity, as a means of better arbitrating international conflict and negotiating peace than was provided for by the old League of Nations. The growing Second World War became the real impetus for the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union to begin formulating the original U.N. Declaration, signed by 26 nations in January 1942, as a formal act of opposition to Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Axis Powers.
The principles of the U.N. Charter were first formulated at the San Francisco Conference, which convened on April 25, 1945. It was presided over by President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, and attended by representatives of 50 nations, including 9 continental European states, 21 North, Central, and South American republics, 7 Middle Eastern states, 5 British Commonwealth nations, 2 Soviet republics (in addition to the USSR itself), 2 East Asian nations, and 3 African states. The conference laid out a structure for a new international organization that was to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights,...to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."
Two other important objectives described in the Charter were respecting the principles of equal rights and self-determination of all peoples (originally directed at smaller nations now vulnerable to being swallowed up by the Communist behemoths emerging from the war) and international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems around the world.
Now that the war was over, negotiating and maintaining the peace was the practical responsibility of the new U.N. Security Council, made up of the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. Each would have veto power over the other. Winston Churchill called for the United Nations to employ its charter in the service of creating a new, united Europe-united in its opposition to communist expansion-East and West. Given the composition of the Security Council, this would prove easier said than done.

[spidge]

1945 U.N. charter comes into effect

1944 Rotterdam Passage fight frees 46 prisoners
1944 U.S. air raid on Jap battleships/cruisers in Sibuya Sea: Musashi sinks
1944 U.S. aircraft carrier Princeton sinks at Philippines
1944 U.S. capt David Mccampbell shoots down 9-11 Jap planes in Gulf of Leyte

1943 Anti-nazi Clandestine Radio Soldatsender Calais begins transmitting

1942 2nd day of battle at El Alamein: British infantry

1940 Hitler meets Marshal Petain
1940 Protestant churches protest against dismissal of Jew civil servants

1939 Nazi require wearing of star of David
1939 Nylon stockings go on sale for 1st time (Wilmington Delaware)

[spidge]

The Story of David McCampbell from on this day in the previous post.

Remembering David McCampbell - Ace of Aces

David McCampbell was an intercol legiate diving champion on the swim team at the U.S. Naval Academy from which he graduated in 1933. He was destined to distinguish himself in another form of diving (and twisting and turning) - this time in his fighter plane - 11 years later when, as a Navy pilot, he achieved an unprecedented record in aerial combat.
But he had non-flying duty first. He served aboard the cruiser USS Portland and then as Aircraft Gunnery Observer with Scouting Squadron 11. He began flight training in 1937, earned his wings a year later and joined VF-4 aboard USS Ranger. In 1940 he was reassigned to the air group aboard USS Wasp as landing signal fficer (LSO) until the carrier was sunk in September 1942 by a Japanese submarine while on patrol south of Guadalcanal.
The need for experienced men to command fighter squadrons was severe so in August 1943, McCampbell became CO of VF-15 at the age of 33. In early 1944 he moved aboard USS Essex. At the age of 34 he was given command of the entire air group.


Flying Hellcats, David McCampbell shot down his first Japanese aircraft on June 11th, 1944 during air strikes against enemy positions on Saipan. In the first Battle of the Philippine Sea eight days later, McCampbell led his fighters against a force of 80 Japanese aircraft bearing down on the U.S. fleet. McCampbell personally destroyed seven hostile planes during this single engagement in which the larger enemy attack force was virtually annihilated. This was the famous "Marianas Turkey Shoot."
By June 1944, McCampbell had shot down 19 Japanese planes. A month later, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, McCampbell, assisted by only one other fighter, intercepted and daringly attacked a formation of 60 hostile enemy aircraft approaching American forces. Together they accounted for 15 downed enemy aircraft with McCampbell personally shooting down nine, an achievement unequaled in the annals of combat aviation. He disrupted the enemy group, forcing the remainder to quit the attack before a single enemy plane could reach the U.S. Fleet.
After seven months of duty in the Pacific, McCampbell downed 34 aircraft in the air, the greatest number ever shot down by an American pilot during a single tour of combat duty. he became the Navy's top fighter ace.
For his achievements McCampbell received many awards including the Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, Silver Star, Legion of Merit and the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Medal of Honor was presented to him at the White House by President Roosevelt in 1945.
David McCampbell's post war career included assignments as Chief of Staff to commander Fleet Air and as commander of carrier air groups. He served a tour of duty in Buenos Aires, Argentina as the Senior Naval Aviation Advisor to the Argentine Navy from 1948 to 1951. He was XO of USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, headed the Naval Air Technical Training Center at Jacksonville, Florida and was a Flight Test Coordinator at NATC Patxuent River in Maryland. He commanded the USS Severn and USS Bon Homme Richard. Subsequently, in 1960, he was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Two years later he became the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations to the Commander in Chief of the continental Air Defense Command. He remained there until his retirement in 1964. CAPT McCampbell died in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1996.
The West Palm Beach Airport Terminal was named in his honor in 1988. ANA's West Palm Beach Squadron is titled "McCambell's Aces." Some efforts have been extended toward having the Navy's TOPGUN School named in his honor.
One of the intriguing stories in his very storied career featured McCampbell out of the cockpit. Charles F. Stark, former Navy corpsman and member of the McCampbell's Aces, visited the CAPT when he was in a nursing home. Stark had been reading "A Hell of a War" by CAPT Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., USNR (Ret.), the famous actor, who served aboard Wasp at the same time as McCampbell. In one chapter Fairbanks describes the carrier ferrying RAF Spitfires from Scotland to the besieged island of Malta in the Mediterranean.
"One of the Spitfires had trouble after takeoff and signaled he had to land back on Wasp" said Stark. "Spitfires don't have tail hooks. So the LSO had to guide a 19 year old British aviator in for a landing without the hook. It took several passes at the deck, one of which forced the LSO into the safety net. Finally, the Spitfire managed to touch down and come to a halt, stopping within inches of going over the side."
In McCampbell's biography Stark knew McCampbell had been the LSO on Wasp at the time. So, in the nursing home, he asked McCampbell, if he was the LSO who got the Spitfire aboard.
"Yep, that's me," answered McCampbell smartly.
Stark continued his visits to the WWII ace. After he died Stark made a last call at the funeral home Stark took away a vivid picture of this legendary Naval Aviator, the Medal of Honor around his neck.
Editor's note: Wings of Gold thanks Jim Gregory and Charles Stark for their assistance on this story.

[jacobtowne]

Here's a photo of Comdr. McCampbell, right, aboard Essex with the VF-15 scoreboard, 8/8/44. Comdr. McCampbell wears the Navy pattern shoulder holster with cartridge loops added to the straps, for his Victory Model Smith & Wesson. (National Archives)

This revolver was widely issued to Marine and Navy airmen in the Pacific.

JT

[spidge]

October 25, 1944 - The first suicide air (Kamikaze) attacks occur against U.S. warships in Leyte Gulf. By the end of the war, Japan will have sent an estimated 2,257 aircraft. "The only weapon I feared in the war," Adm. Halsey will say later.

[spidge]

October 25th

1945 Japanese surrender Taiwan to Gen Chiang Kai-shek

1944 Battle at Cape Engano: 4 Japanese ships sink
1944 Battle at Samar-island
1944 Battle in Straits of Surigao: Japanese fleet destroyed
1944 Gas output stopped in Amsterdam

1943 Burma railroad completed and opens

1942 3rd day of battle at El Alamein: British offensive
1942 Battle of Henderson Field Guadalcanal begins
1942 Fieldmarshal Rommel back in North-Africa

1941 16,000 Jews massacred in Odessa, Ukraine
1941 Germany attacks Moscow
1941 Winston Churchill routes "Forces South" to SE Asia

1940 U.S. Army Gen Benjamin Davis becomes 1st black general

[Peter Clare]

1944 : First kamikaze attack of the war begins


On this day in 1944, during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the Japanese deploy kamikaze ("divine wind") suicide bombers against American warships for the first time. It will prove costly--to both sides.
This decision to employ suicide bombers against the American fleet at Leyte, an island of the Philippines, was based on the failure of conventional naval and aerial engagements to stop the American offensive. Declared Japanese naval Capt. Motoharu Okamura: "I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes.... There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country."
The first kamikaze force was in fact composed of 24 volunteer pilots from Japan's 201st Navy Air Group. The targets were U.S. escort carriers; one, the St. Lo, was struck by a A6M Zero fighter and sunk in less than an hour, killing 100 Americans. More than 5,000 kamikaze pilots died in the gulf battle-taking down 34 ships.
For their kamikaze raids, the Japanese employed both conventional aircraft and specially designed planes, called Ohka ("cherry blossom") by the Japanese, but Baka ("fool") by the Americans, who saw them as acts of desperation. The Baka was a rocket-powered plane that was carried toward its target attached to the belly of a bomber.
All told, more than 1,321 Japanese aircraft crash-dived their planes into Allied warships during the war, desperate efforts to reverse the growing Allied advantage in the Pacific. While approximately 3,000 Americans and Brits died because of these attacks, the damage done did not prevent the Allied capture of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

[Peter Clare]

1942 : The United States loses the Hornet


On this day in 1942, the last U.S. carrier manufactured before America's entry into World War II, the Hornet, is damaged so extensively by Japanese war planes in the Battle of Santa Cruz that it must be abandoned.
The battle for Guadalcanal was the first American offensive against the Japanese, an attempt to prevent the Axis power from taking yet another island in the Solomon chain and gaining more ground in its race for Australia. On this day, in the vicinity of the Santa Cruz Islands, two American naval task forces had to stop a superior Japanese fleet, which was on its way to Guadalcanal with reinforcements. As was the case in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the engagement at Santa Cruz was fought exclusively by aircraft taking off from carriers of the respective forces; the ships themselves were not in range to fire at one another.
Japanese aerial fire damaged the USS Enterprise, the battleship South Dakota, and finally the Hornet. In fact, the explosions wrought by the Japanese bombs that rained down on the Hornet were so great that two of the Japanese bombers were themselves crippled by the blasts, and the pilots chose to dive-bomb their planes into the deck of the American carrier, which was finally abandoned and left to burn. The Hornet, which weighed 20,000 tons, had seen battle during the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo (its commander at the time, Marc Mitscher, was promoted to admiral and would be a significant player in the victory over Japan) and the battle of Midway.
While the United States losses at Santa Cruz were heavy, the cost in aircraft to the Japanese was so extensive--more than 100, including 25 of the 27 bombers that attacked the Hornet--that they were unable finally to reinforce their troops at Guadalcanal, paving the way for an American victory.
Footnote: The Hornet lost at Santa Cruz was the CV-8; another Hornet, the CV-12, launched August 30, 1943, led a virtually charmed life, spending 52 days under Japanese attack in many battles in the Pacific, with nary a scratch to show for it. That is, until June 1945, when it was finally damaged--by a typhoon.