Remembering History by day WW2

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Yaay I got the 1000th post in the thread!!! Great work as ever Peter.

[Owen]

Tony's (andulcia) Grandad Hogan died this day in 1944.
CWGC :: Casualty Details

| Never Forget Them.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Today in 1945 marks the official end of the "Battle of the Bulge"

[Peter Clare]

January 26, 1945
Audie Murphy wounded

On this day, the most decorated man of the war, American Lt. Audie Murphy, is wounded in France.
Born the son of Texas sharecroppers on June 20, 1924, Murphy served three years of active duty, beginning as a private, rising to the rank of staff sergeant, and finally winning a battlefield commission to 2nd lieutenant. He was wounded three times, fought in nine major campaigns across Europe, and was credited with killing 241 Germans. He won 37 medals and decorations, including the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star (with oak leaf cluster), the Legion of Merit, and the Croix de Guerre (with palm).
The battle that won Murphy the Medal of Honor, and which ended his active duty, occurred during the last stages of the Allied victory over the Germans in France. Murphy
acted as cover for infantrymen during a last desperate German tank attack. Climbing atop an abandoned U.S. tank destroyer, he took control of its .50-caliber machine gun and killed 50 Germans, stopping the advance but suffering a leg wound in the process.
Upon returning to the States, Murphy was invited to Hollywood by Jimmy Cagney, who saw the war hero's picture on the cover of Life magazine. By 1950, Murphy won an acting contract with Universal Pictures. In his most famous role, he played himself in the monumentally successful To Hell and Back.
Perhaps as interesting as his film career was his public admission that he suffered severe depression from post traumatic stress syndrome, also called battle fatigue, and became addicted to sleeping pills as a result. This had long been a taboo subject for veterans. Murphy died in a plane crash while on a business trip in 1971. He was 46.

[Peter Clare]

BUYO MARU (January 26, 1943)
Japanese troop transport, part of a small convoy intercepted by the American submarine USS Wahoo. A spread of three torpedoes were fired at the Buyo which brought the vessel to a halt and another, which hit amidships, eventually sunk the ship. On board the Buyo were many Indian prisoners of war and a number of Japanese garrison troops about to be landed on the nearby shore of western New Guinea. Casualties on board the Buyo were 195 Indian prisoners and 87 Japanese troops killed. Altogether there were 1,126 men on the transport. Next day, about 800 survivors were rescued by a Japanese ship, the Choko Maru.

[Peter Clare]

LST-422 (January 26, 1944)
Landing Ship Tank-422 was a Lend-Lease vessel operating with an all British crew under the command of Lieutenant Commander Broadhurst, Royal Navy. The ship had left Naples as part of a convoy of 13 other LSTs carrying troops and supplies to the Anzio beachhead. On board the 422 were American personnel of the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion. About twelve miles off shore the ships set anchor 'to wait in queue'. A storm blew up with Force-8 gale winds and waves 20ft high. The gale blew the 422 onto a German laid underwater mine the explosion of which blew a 50ft hole in her bottom and starboard side and caused the fuel oil supply to ignite. This in turn ignited the gasoline tanks of the vehicles on the tank deck. With the whole upper deck a sheet of flame the order was given to 'abandon ship'. Rushing to assist in the picking up of survivors, LCI-32 (Landing Craft-Infantry) hit a mine herself and sank with 30 members of her crew.

[Peter Clare]

26 January 1942.

To supply their advancing Army, the Japanese occupied the port of Endau on the east coast of Malaya on this day, the landings being supported by an aircraft-carrier, a heavy cruiser, five light cruisers and five destroyers. Costly daylight air attacks by the RAF failed to inflict more than insignificant damage and on the night of 26/27 January the Royal Navy could muster only two aged destroyers to attack the harbour, one, HMS Thanet, in the pre-dawn of the 27th was sunk by gunfire of the Japanese destroyers Amagiri, Hatsuyuki and Shirayuki. There were 57 survivors, the other, HMAS Vampire, escaped undamaged behind her own smokescreen.

[Bodston]

Friday 26 January 1945

Beromünster Radio (Switzerland)
One day the war histories will make clear - for it is not clear now - how the Russians were able in their first irresistible charge, to wrest one defensive position and one fortified city after another from the German Army in the East practically overnight; and they were able not only to meet with no effective resistance, but to capture virtually intact the Polish road and rail traffic network, the manufacturing plants of Lodz and, in fact, all the cities of western Poland including Krakow. The Russians have now left eastern Poland, which is poor in road and rail lines, and are entering (western Poland) where they have found ready and waiting for their use a dense and high-quality traffic and supply system which improves the closer they penetrate to the German border.

[Peter Clare]

January 27, 1943
Americans bomb Germans for first time

On this day, 8th Air Force bombers, dispatched from their bases in England, fly the first American bombing raid against the Germans, targeting the Wilhelmshaven port. Of 64 planes participating in the raid, 53 reached their target and managed to shoot down 22 German planes-and lost only three planes in return.
The 8th Air Force was activated in February 1942 as a heavy bomber force based in England. Its B-17 Flying Fortresses, capable of sustaining heavy damage while continuing to fly, and its B-24 Liberators, long-range bombers, became famous for precision bombing raids, the premier example being the raid on Wilhelmshaven. Commanded at the time by Brig. Gen. Newton Longfellow, the 8th Air Force was amazingly effective and accurate in bombing warehouses and factories in this first air attack against the Axis power.

[Peter Clare]

January 28, 1945
Burma Road is reopened

On this day, part of the 717-mile "Burma Road" from Lashio, Burma to Kunming in southwest China is reopened by the Allies, permitting supplies to flow back into China.
At the outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937, when Japan began its occupation of China's seacoast, China began building a supply route that would enable vital resources to evade the Japanese blockade and flow into China's interior from outside. It was completed in 1939, and allowed goods to reach China via a supply route that led from the sea to Rangoon, and then by train to Lashio. When, in April 1942, the Japanese occupied most of Burma, the road from Lashio to China was closed, and the supply line was cut off.
The Allies were not able to respond until 1944, when Allied forces in eastern India made their way into northern Burma and were able to begin construction of another supply road that linked Ledo, India, with the part of the original Burma Road still controlled by the Chinese. The Stillwell Road (named for Gen. Joseph Stillwell, American adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, China's leader) was finally opened on this day in 1945, once again allowing the free transport of supplies into China.