Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

ATROCITY AT ILJA (March 17, 1942)

At Ilja, a small town in western Russia, a number of Jews were sent to work on a small farm near the town. They escaped into the forests and joined up with a group of partisans who had set up their headquarters there. Next day, the two Jewish leaders of Ilja, who had refused to name the escapees, also fled to the woods to join the partisans. The reprisal was horrific. All the old and sick Jews of the town were shot in the streets or in their homes and around 900 more were rounded up and locked inside a building which was then put to the torch. All 900 were burned to death.

[Peter Clare]

March 18, 1942
War Relocation Authority is established in United States

On this day, the War Relocation Authority is created to "Take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war."
Anger toward and fear of Japanese Americans began in Hawaii shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; everyone of Japanese ancestry, old and young, prosperous and poor, was suspected of espionage. This suspicion quickly broke out on the mainland; as early as February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that German, Italian, and Japanese nationals-as well as Japanese Americans-be barred from certain areas deemed sensitive militarily. California, which had a significant number of Japanese and Japanese Americans, saw a particularly virulent form of anti-Japanese sentiment, with the state's attorney general, Earl Warren (who would go on to be the chief justice of the United States), claiming that a lack of evidence of sabotage among the Japanese population proved nothing, as they were merely biding their time.
While roughly 2,000 people of German and Italian ancestry were interned during this period, Americans of Japanese ancestry suffered most egregiously. The War Relocation Authority, established on March 18, 1942, was aimed at them specifically: 120,000 men, women, and children were rounded up on the West Coast. Three categories of internees were created: Nisei (native U.S. citizens of Japanese immigrant parents), Issei (Japanese immigrants), and Kibei (native U.S. citizens educated largely in Japan). The internees were transported to one of 10 relocation centers in California, Utah, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming.
The quality of life in a relocation center was only marginally better than prison: Families were sardined into 20- by 25-foot rooms and forced to use communal bathrooms. No razors, scissors, or radios were allowed. Children attended War Relocation Authority schools.
One Japanese American, Gordon Hirabayashi, fought internment all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that the Army, responsible for effecting the relocations, had violated his rights as a U.S. citizen. The court ruled against him, citing the nation's right to protect itself against sabotage and invasion as sufficient justification for curtailing his and other Japanese Americans' constitutional rights.
In 1943, Japanese Americans who had not been interned were finally allowed to join the U.S. military and fight in the war. More than 17,000 Japanese Americans fought; the all-Nisei 442nd Regiment, which fought in the Italian campaign, became the single most decorated unit in U.S. history. The regiment won 4,667 medals, awards, and citations, including 1 Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 560 Silver Stars. Many of these soldiers, when writing home, were writing to relocation centers.
In 1990, reparations were made to surviving internees and their heirs in the form of a formal apology by the U.S. government and a check for $20,000.

[Peter Clare]

THE 'AKIKAZE' EXECUTIONS (March 18, 1943)

The Mitsubishi built destroyer Akikaze (Lt. Cdr. Sabe Tsurukichi) was ordered to sail to Wewak in New Guinea to remove some German residents who were suspected of using radio transmitters to report ship movements to the Americans. Forty civilians were rounded up, most of them German clergymen, plus a few nuns with two children. About thirty more civilians were picked up when the ship stopped at Manus Island before proceeding to Rabaul. En-route, Captain Tsurukichi received a radio message from the 8th Fleet Headquarters to dispose of all neutrals on board. On the aft deck a wooden scaffold was erected and a sheet hung across the deck to shield the executions from the rest of the prisoners. One by one the victims were led from their cabins, interrogated and blindfolded and taken to the rear of the ship. There, they were hung on the scaffold by the wrists from a rope and pulley and as their feet cleared the deck they were shot by a four man rifle party. Their bodies were then thrown overboard. The two children were taken from the arms of the nuns and thrown into the water. The men were killed first then the women, the whole procedure lasting three hours. At around 10 o'clock in the evening the Akikaze berthed at Rabaul.

[Bodston]

18 March 1945

Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief
Foreign reports of the utterly ruthless conduct of the American occupation troops in the Rhineland - especially their starvation policy toward German civilians - merit continual emphasis (in our news reports).

[Peter Clare]

March 19, 1945
General Fromm executed for plot against Hitler

On this day, the commander of the German Home Army, Gen. Friedrich Fromm, is shot by a firing squad for his part in the July plot to assassinate the Fuhrer. The fact that Fromm's participation was half-hearted did not save him.
By 1945, many high-ranking German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and they believed that assassination was the only way to stop him. According to the plan, coup d'etat would follow the assassination, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. All did not go according to plan, however. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg was given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Hitler's holiday retreat, Berchtesgaden (but was later moved to Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg). Stauffenberg was chief of staff to Gen. Friedrich Fromm. Fromm, chief of the Home Army (composed of reservists who remained behind the front lines to preserve order at home), was inclined to the conspirators' plot, but agreed to cooperate actively in the coup only if the assassination was successful.
On the night of July 20, Stauffenberg planted an explosive-filled briefcase under a table in the conference room at Rastenburg. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern Front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing. At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm-but was very much alive.
Meanwhile, Stauffenberg had made his way to Berlin to meet with his co-conspirators to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. Once in the capital, General Fromm, who had been informed by phone that Hitler was wounded but still alive, ordered Stauffenberg and his men arrested, but Fromm was located and locked in an office by Nazi police. Stauffenberg and Gen. Friedrich Olbricht began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. Then the news came through from Herman Goering that Hitler was alive. Fromm, released from confinement by officers still loyal to Hitler, and anxious to have his own association with the conspirators covered up quickly, ordered the conspirators, including two Stauffenberg aides, shot for high treason that same day. (Gen. Ludwig Beck, one of the conspiracy leaders and an older man, was allowed the "dignity" of committing suicide.)
Fromm's last-ditch effort to distance himself from the plot failed. Within the next few days, on order of Heinrich Himmler, who was now the new head of the Home Army, Fromm was arrested. In February 1945, he was tried before the People's Court and denigrated for his cowardice in refusing to stand up to the plotters. But because he went so far as to execute Stauffenberg and his partners on the night of July 20, he was spared the worst punishment afforded convicted conspirators-strangulation on a meat hook. He was shot by a firing squad on March 19.

[Peter Clare]

TAKACHIHI MARU (March 19, 1943)

Japanese passenger liner of 10,000 tons built in 1932 at Nagasaki. It serviced the Keeling (Formosa) to Kobe (Japan) route. Sunk 30 kilometres off the coast of Formosa, now Tiawan, by an unknown American submarine. A spread of three torpedoes struck the ship along the hull of the liner causing it to sink in just under ten minutes, just enough time for only three lifeboats to be launched. Her passengers on this fateful day were mostly civilians, both Japanese and Tiawanese, returning from Japan where they worked or studied. At this time Formosa was a Japanese colony. It was estimated that close to 1,200 passengers and crew went down to the sea bed with the Takachihi Maru, the news of its sinking being suppressed by the Japanese and even by the Chinese who took over the island in 1945. Today, few people in Tiawan are familiar with this tragedy, Taiwan's biggest ever sea disaster.

[Peter Clare]

CONVOY HX- 229 and CONVOY SC-122 (March 16-19, 1943)

Two convoys, sailing on parallel courses from Halifax to Britain, were attacked by three U-boat groups consisting of 38 submarines. The attack occurred along the east coast of Newfoundland as the fast Convoy HX-229 overtook the slower moving Convoy SC-122. The two convoys, each about five miles wide, consisted of 88 ships and 15 escorts. Over the four days the convoys suffered the loss of 21 ships and one escort from the 90 torpedoes fired at it. Total casualties from the two convoys amounted to 372 dead. In spite of the 298 depth charges dropped by the escorts only one U-boat was sunk.

[Peter Clare]

USS FRANKLIN (CV-13) (March 19, 1945)

American aircraft carrier attacked by Japanese planes off Samar Island. Two direct hits by 550lb bombs caused fires and internal explosions but failed to sink the ship. A total of 725 men were killed and 265 injured. The Franklin had a crew of 3,450 officers and men. After the war, 393 bravery decorations were awarded to the crew, including one Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to naval chaplain Lt. Commander Joseph O'Callahan for heroism, the first naval chaplain to be so honoured. The Franklin (commanded by Captain Gehres) was the most severely damaged US ship to survive but managed to make her way back to Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands and finally to the US for repairs, a voyage of nearly 12,000 miles.

[Bodston]

Tuesday 19 March 1940

Confiscation of Bronze Bells
Berlin; The German News Bureau reported:
In a German law decree issued by Hermann Göring, deputy for the Four-Year Plan (which gave him wide powers to direct the German economy), we read: "To create the necessary metal reserves for waging a long-term war, all bells made of bronze are to be reported and handed in. For the time being, copper building materials need only be reported, and the date on which they are to be handed in will be announced later. The Reich will bear the cost of dismantling and picking up the bells."

[Slipdigit]

Originally Posted by Peter Clare

USS FRANKLIN (CV-13) (March 19, 1945)

American aircraft carrier attacked by Japanese planes off Samar Island. Two direct hits by 550lb bombs caused fires and internal explosions but failed to sink the ship. A total of 725 men were killed and 265 injured. The Franklin had a crew of 3,450 officers and men. After the war, 393 bravery decorations were awarded to the crew, including one Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to naval chaplain Lt. Commander Joseph O'Callahan for heroism, the first naval chaplain to be so honoured. The Franklin (commanded by Captain Gehres) was the most severely damaged US ship to survive but managed to make her way back to Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands and finally to the US for repairs, a voyage of nearly 12,000 miles.

Another Medal of Honor was earned that as well, by Lieutenant j.g. Donald Arthur Gary, for his bravery in saving 300 trapped sailors.

You've probably seen Lt Com O'Callahan in this picture and a video of him administering Last Rites to a striken sailor shown here.