Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

March 8, 1942
Dutch surrender on Java

On this day, Dutch forces surrender to the Japanese after two months of fighting.
Java is an island of modern-day Indonesia, and it lies southeast of Malaysia and Sumatra, south of Borneo, and west of Bali. The Dutch had been in Java since 1596, establishing the Dutch East India Company, a trading company with headquarters at Batavia (modern-day Jakarta), which the Dutch commandeered in 1619. The Dutch East India Company began to assert greater and greater control over the Muslim kingdoms of the East Indies, transforming them into vassal states, with peasants growing rice, sugar, pepper, and coffee for the Dutch government. The company was dissolved in 1799 because of debts and corruption, and the Dutch government took control of the East Indies directly.
The British supplanted the Dutch in Java for a brief period (1811-1816), but the Dutch returned to power, slowly granting native Javanese more local control, even giving them a majority on the People's Council. But on January 11, 1942, the Japanese declared war on the Royal Dutch government with its invasion of Borneo and the Island of Celebes, a date that also marked the beginning of the end of the Dutch presence in the East Indies. Sumatra was the next site of Japanese occupation, with paratroopers and troops landing from transports on February 14-16. Seven thousand British and Australian troops reinforced the Dutch fighters on Java, but the Allies pulled out of the fight in late February at the approach of two more large Japanese invasion forces that arrived on March 1.
The Dutch finally ended all resistance to the superior Japanese forces on March 8, surrendering on Java. Java's independence of colonial control became a final fact of history in 1950, when it became part of the newly independent Republic of Indonesia.

[Peter Clare]

Sunday 8 March 1942, Valletta (Malta)

The British Reuters News Agency reported:

German and Italian forces are continuing their non-stop raids on Malta. On Friday two Italian fighters and one bomber were shot down. Another fighter was so badly damaged that it can be counted as lost. During the night of Friday to Saturday, the people of the Maltese capital remained in the air raid shelters for eleven hours. Since the stepping up of the conflict on 21 December 1941, almost 300 people have been killed on Malta and 4,000 houses have been destroyed.


'The Air War 1939 - 1945' J. Piekalkiewicz.

[Peter Clare]

March 9, 1945
Firebombing of Tokyo

On this day, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.
Early on March 9, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Superfortress bomber-and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65 percent, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons. Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by American rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians. "You're going to deliver the biggest firecracker the Japanese have ever seen," said U.S. Gen. Curtis LeMay.
The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this "paper city" was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called "shadow factories," that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories.
The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained, and poorly equipped. At 5:34 p.m., Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. Three hundred and thirty-four bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting.
The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours. "In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal," recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost-considered acceptable losses.

[Peter Clare]

USS LEOPOLD (March 9, 1944)

Another Coast Guard manned destroyer sunk 637 kilometres miles south southwest of Iceland by an electric acoustic torpedo from the German submarine U-255. The Leopold was escorting the Atlantic convoy CU-16 to the United Kingdom at the time. A total of 171 men were lost through explosion on board or drowning after abandoning. The Leopold remained afloat until early the next morning and then sank. There were 28 survivors who were picked up by her sister ship the USS Joyce. On May 14, 1944, the U-255 surrendered on May 14, 1945 and was transferred to Loch Ryan, Scotland, for Operation DEADLIGHT. She was scuttled on December 13, 1945, about 200 nautical miles (362 kilometres) west southwest of Galway, County Galway, Éire.

[Gage]

March 9th 1942

Norway. Albacore aircraft from HMS Victorious make an unsucessful attack on the Tirpitz

England. The first large scale attack on Essen by Bomber Command using 'Gee'.

[Peter Clare]

Thursday 9 March 1944.

The British Reuters News Agency reported:

Yesterday the US Air Force led its heaviest daylight raid on Germany so far. Reliable sources say that some 3,000 aircraft took off to raid Berlin, including more that 1,000 long-range fighters. One of their main targets was the ball-bearing plant in Erkner on the eastern fringe of the city.
The Flying Fortress and Liberator bombers released more than 10,000 blast bombs and 350,000 incendiaries in this operation against the German capital.

The scale of this operation may be judged from the fact that a total of 600,000 men took part in the attack and the defence on both sides. Approximately 13,000 airmen flew over Berlin, and some 50,000 men were involved in getting the aircraft ready for take-off on British airfields. The German Luftwaffe deployed approximately 15,000 men, and half a million men and women worked the flak batteries all round Berlin.

'The Air War 1939 - 1945' J. Piekalkiewicz.

[Peter Clare]

9 March 1944.

The British Reuters News Agency Reported:

The tactics of the US aerial forces have proved extremely successful in that, despite facing much less favorable geographical conditions, they have achieved what the Germans vainly tried to achieve in the 1940 Battle of Britain: increasingly deep penetration by large compact bomber formations into a strongly-defended enemy zone.
The success of the US bombers is due mainly to the use of large formations of escort fighter planes which take turns protecting the bombers. This system will be crucially important to the further course of the air war.

'The Air War 1939 - 1945' - J. Piekalkiewicz.

[Peter Clare]

Originally Posted by Gage

March 9th 1942

Norway. Albacore aircraft from HMS Victorious make an unsucessful attack on the Tirpitz

'Gee'.

Tirpitz was attacked by 12 Albacore from HMS Victorious at 0925 / 9th off the Lofoten Islands. Tirpitz was steaming and manouvering desperately at 30 knots in a 35 mph headwind, and the Albacore were unable to attack from ahead. Instead the flight commander ordered attacks by individual flights, which were avoided. No hits were achieved. One torpedo passed 10 meters behind the stern of Tirpitz. 2 Albacore were lost.
A dispute broke out on the bridge of Tirpitz. Admiral Ciliax ordered the helmsman to turn to port, Kapitan Topp shouted “Hard a-starboard. I am in command of this ship, Sir, and not you. Helmsman, obey my orders, hard a-starboard”. The helmsman turned to starboard to avoid a torpedo. One torpedo missed Tirpitz’s stern by 10 meters. Immediately after the action, Cilax awarded Topp with the Iron Cross on the bridge of his ship.

[Peter Clare]

March 10, 1940
Sumner Welles makes a "peace proposal"

On this day, U.S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, after a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, visits London to discuss a peacemaking proposal with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to prevent a widening of the European war.
Sumner Welles, a diplomat and expert on Latin America, spent his early professional life promoting the United States' "Good Neighbor" foreign policy as attache to the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, chief of Latin American affairs of the State Department, and commissioner to the Dominican Republic. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him assistant secretary of state, sending him to Cuba, where Welles successfully mediated opposing groups attempting to overthrow the government of Gerardo Machado. He was promoted to undersecretary of state in 1937, serving as a delegate to several Pan-American conferences.
But in 1940, the stakes were raised for Welles. War had broken out in Europe with the German invasion of Poland, and Welles was sent on a fact-finding tour of Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, in the hopes of keeping the war contained, at the very least, and ideally brought to an end. After a trip to Rome to chat with Benito Mussolini, Welles met with Hitler on March 1-3. Hitler feared that Welles would try to drive a wedge between himself and Axis partner Italy by convincing Mussolini to keep out of the conflict completely. As a result, the Fuhrer bombarded Welles with a propagandistic interpretation of recent events, putting the blame for the European conflict on England and France. Welles informed Hitler that he and Mussolini had engaged in a "long, constructive, and helpful" conversation, and that the Duce believed "there was still a possibility of bringing about a firm and lasting peace." Hitler agreed that there would be peace-after a German victory in Europe.
Welles left Berlin and arrived in London on March 10. He briefed British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on Hitler's intransigence, arguing that the only hope for a lasting peace was the progressive disarmament of the belligerents, primarily Germany. Chamberlain's foreign ministers were less than impressed with the suggestion, believing that even a "disarmed" Germany could still invade a smaller, weaker nation. In short, Welles' trip accomplished nothing.

[Bodston]

Monday 10 March 1941

The Italian-Greek War
Athens; The Greek War Ministry announced:
We have continued our offensive operations and won new enemy positions. The enemy has launched violent counterattacks that have been repulsed with heavy losses.