Remembering History by day WW2

[Bodston]

Thursday 30 January 1941

Derna Captured
Cairo; British Headquarters in Egypt announced:
The Italian occupation of Derna in Libya ended on Thursday morning.

[Bodston]

Saturday 30 January 1943

Joseph Stalin to Winston Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt
As to the Soviet Union, I assure you that the Soviet armed forces will do all in their power to continue the offensive against Germany and her allies on the Soviet-German front. We expect to finish our winter campaign, circumstances permitting, in the first half of February. Our troops are tired, they are in need of of rest and they will hardly be able to carry on the offensive beyond that period.

[Peter Clare]

30 January

1940.
The first U-boat sinking during WW2 for which an aircraft could claim any credit was on this day. In the western Approaches U 55 attacked a convoy and sank two ships but the sloop Fowey and the destroyer Whitshed counter attacked and the submarine would almost certainly have escaped had not the crew of a Sunderland of 228 Squadron found it. Because of this the warships were able to maintain the pursuit until U 55’s batteries were exhausted, at which point the U-boat was scuttled.

[Peter Clare]

January 31, 1945
The execution of Pvt. Slovik

On this day, Pvt. Eddie Slovik becomes the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion-and the only one who suffered such a fate during World War II.
Pvt. Eddie Slovik was a draftee. Originally classified 4-F because of a prison record (grand theft auto), he was reclassified 1-A when draft standards were lowered to meet growing personnel needs. In January 1944, he was trained to be a rifleman, which was not to his liking, as he hated guns.
In August of the same year, Slovik was shipped to France to fight with the 28th Infantry Division, which had already suffered massive casualties in France and Germany. Slovik was a replacement, a class of soldier not particular respected by officers. As he and a companion were on the way to the front lines, they became lost in the chaos of battle and stumbled upon a Canadian unit that took them in.
Slovik stayed on with the Canadians until October 5, when they turned him and his buddy over to the American military police. They were reunited with the 28th Division, which had been moved to Elsenborn, Belgium. No charges were brought, as replacements getting lost early on in their tours of duty were not unusual. But exactly one day after Slovik returned to his unit, he claimed he was "too scared and too nervous" to be a rifleman, and threatened to run away if forced into combat. His confession was ignored-and Slovik took off. One day later he returned and signed a confession of desertion, claiming he would run away again if forced to fight, and submitted it to an officer of the 28th. The officer advised Slovik to take the confession back, as the consequences were serious. Slovik refused and was confined to the stockade.
The 28th Division had many cases of soldiers wounding themselves or deserting in the hopes of a prison sentence that might protect them from the perils of combat. A legal officer of the 28th offered Slovik a deal: dive into combat immediately and avoid the court-martial. Slovik refused. He was tried on November 11 for desertion and was convicted in less than two hours. The nine-officer court-martial panel passed a unanimous sentence of execution, "to be shot to death with musketry."
Slovik's appeal failed. It was held that he "directly challenged the authority" of the United States and that "future discipline depends upon a resolute reply to this challenge." Slovik had to pay for his recalcitrant attitude, and the military made an example of him. One last appeal was made-to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander-but the timing was bad for mercy. The Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes forest was resulting in literally thousands of American casualties, not to mention the second largest surrender of an U.S. Army unit during the war. Eisenhower upheld the death sentence.
Slovik was shot and killed by a 12-man firing squad in eastern France. None of the rifleman even flinched, firmly believing Slovik had gotten what he deserved

[Peter Clare]

HMS BELMONT (January 31, 1942)
A British destroyer (Ex USS Satterlee) sunk by the German U-boat U-82 south-west of Nova Scotia whilst escorting Canadian troop convoy NA-2 en route to Britain. Eight officers, including her captain, Lt. Cdr. Harding and 130 ratings (all hands) went down with the ship. On February 6, 1942, the U-82 (Kptlt. Siegfried Rollman) encountered the convoy OS-18 en route to the UK from Sierra Leone and was sunk by the escorts Tamarisk and Rochester. There were no survivors from her 45 man crew.

[Peter Clare]

SS SPREEWALD (January 31, 1942)
At the outbreak of WWII, the German passenger-carrying freighter Spreewald of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, was interned at Port Arthur (now Dairen). In 1941, she was brought back to service and set sail from Port Arthur on October 21, 1942, loaded with rubber, wolfram and quinine. While en route to Germany she rendezvoused with the German supply ship Kulmerland and embarked around 200 British prisoners. These prisoners were merchant seamen, survivors of ships sunk by the raider Kormoran. On January 31, the Spreewald was on her final approach to Bordeaux in France when she was torpedoed by the German U-boat, U-333, whose captain, Korvetten-Kapitän Peter Cremer, believed it to be a British ship. The U-333 fired two torpedoes at the Spreewald which hit the vessel amidships causing it to burn furiously and slowly sink. Eight boats, including the U-333 were involved in the rescue operation in which only 24 crewmembers and 58 prisoners were rescued.
At La Pallice, Cremer faced a court martial but was exonerated because he had correctly identified the ship as the British Royal Mail steamer Brittany which was just what the Spreewald's master had disguised her to be.

[Bodston]

Friday 31 January 1941

German Formal Denial
Berlin; The German News Bureau reported:
Yesterday a report from London claimed that in September German forces attempted a landing invasion on the British coast. German authorities state that this report is a pure fabrication and that no German attempts were made to land in Britain last year. Moreover, the rumour of the alleged failure of landing becomes no more credible from being continually repeated by the enemy, or by neutral foreign nations that do not sympathise with the Pan-German Reich.

[Peter Clare]

February 1, 1943
Japanese begin evacuation of Guadalcanal

On this day, Japanese forces on Guadalcanal Island, defeated by Marines, start to withdraw after the Japanese emperor finally gives them permission.
On July 6, 1942, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal Island, part of the Solomon Islands chain, and began constructing an airfield. In response, the U.S. launched Operation Watchtower, in which American troops landed on five islands within the Solomon chain, including Guadalcanal. The landings on Florida, Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tananbogo met with much initial opposition from the Japanese defenders, despite the fact that the landings took the Japanese by surprise because bad weather had grounded their scouting aircraft. "I have never heard or read of this kind of fighting," wrote one American major general on the scene. "These people refuse to surrender."
The Americans who landed on Guadalcanal had an easier time of it, at least initially. More than 11,000 Marines landed, but 24 hours passed before the Japanese manning the garrison knew what had happened. The U.S. forces quickly met their main objective of taking the airfield, and the outnumbered Japanese troops temporarily retreated. Japanese reinforcements were landed, though, and fierce hand-to-hand jungle fighting ensued. The Americans were at a particular disadvantage because they were assaulted from both sea and air, but when the U.S. Navy supplied reinforcement troops, the Americans gained the advantage. By February 1943, the Japanese retreated on secret orders of their emperor. In fact, the Japanese retreat was so stealthy that the Americans did not even know it had taken place until they stumbled upon abandoned positions, empty boats, and discarded supplies.
In total, the Japanese lost more than 25,000 men compared with a loss of 1,600 by the Americans. Each side lost 24 warships.

[Peter Clare]

HMS WELSHMAN (February 1, 1943)
British minelaying cruiser of 2,650 tons attacked and sunk by the German submarine U-617 (Kptlt. Albrecht Brandi) about 35 miles north-east of Tobruk while returning from Malta to Alexandria, a trip she had made eight times supplying food, medicine and ammunition to support the long siege of he island during WW11. Of her crew of 148 only a few survived. The Welshman had made a significant contribution to the saving of Malta.

[Peter Clare]

USS De HAVEN (February 1, 1943)
While escorting three Landing Craft Transports (LCTs) during the American landings on the beach at Marovo on Guadalcanal, the De Haven was singled out and attacked by six Japanese planes. Shooting down three of the planes the remaining three dropped their bombs on the De Haven. Three bombs hit the ship which destroyed the bridge and killed her captain, Cmdr. Charles Tolman. A fourth bomb split her hull plates and the ship began to settle in the water and shortly after upended and sank about two miles from Savo Island, joining the company of about 50 other fighting ships that now rest in 'Iron Bottom Sound'. Survivors were rescued by the LCTs 63 and 181 but entombed within the steel hull of the De Haven were 10 of her officers and 157 enlisted men out of her crew of 299.