Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

March 25, 1941
Yugoslavia joins the Axis

On this day, Yugoslavia, despite an early declaration of neutrality, signs the Tripartite Pact, forming an alliance with Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan.
A unified nation of Yugoslavia, an uneasy federation of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, was a response to the collapse of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires at the close of World War I, both of which had previously contained parts of what became Yugoslavia. A constitutional monarchy, Yugoslavia built friendships with France and Czechoslovakia during the years between the world wars. With the outbreak of World War II, and the Anschluss ("union") between Austria and Germany, pressure was placed on Yugoslavia to more closely ally itself Germany, despite Yugoslavia's declared neutrality. But fear of an invasion like that suffered by France pushed Yugoslavia into signing a "Friendship Treaty"--something short of a formal political alliance--on December 11, 1940.
With the war spreading to the Balkans after the invasion of Greece by Italy, it was important to Hitler that the Axis powers have an ally in the region that would act as a bulwark against Allied encroachment on Axis territory. Meeting on February 14, 1941, Adolf Hitler proved unable to persuade Yugoslav Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovic to formally join the Axis. The next day, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill contacted the Yugoslav regent, Prince Paul, in an effort to encourage him to remain firm in resisting further German blandishments. It was essential to the Allies that Yugoslavia cooperate with Anglo-Greek forces in fending off an Axis conquest of Greece.
But with King Boris of Bulgaria caving into Germany, Prince Paul felt the heat of the Nazis, and on March 20 he asked the Yugoslav Cabinet for their cooperation in allowing the Germans access to Greece through Yugoslavia. The Cabinet balked, and four ministers resigned in protest at the suggestion. This gesture failed to prevent Prime Minister Cvetkovic from finally signing the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on March 25, 1941.
Within two days, the Cvetkovic government was overthrown by a unified front of peasants, the church, unions, and the military-an angry response to the alliance with Germany. Prince Paul was thrown from his throne in favor of his son, King Peter, only 17 years old. The new government, led by Air Force Gen. Dusan Simovic, immediately renounced the Tripartite Pact. In less than two weeks, Germany invaded the nation and occupied it by force.

[Bodston]

Tuesday 25 March 1941

Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief
Your big front-page story today is Yugoslavia's decision to join the (Axis) tripartate coalition. Besides giving a factual report of the event, you should add commentaries and articles which treat this as yet another significant victory for the concept of a new European order, over the destructive forces of the Anglo-Saxon world.

[Bodston]

Sunday 25 March 1945

The Allies Force the Rhine
The American United Press News Agency reported from General Eisenhower's Headquarters:
This morning revealed at least 10 Allied divisions, including the British 6th and the American 17th Airborne Divisions, standing on the far bank of the Rhine. Armor-supported infantry had already linked up yesterday with troops of the 1st Airborne Army who had gotten a foothold on the hill chain overlooking the valley, a couple of miles from the banks of the Rhine. They knocked out the most important German artillery emplacements guarding the valley below and fought successfully to open a path for our troops to advance to Bocholt.

[Peter Clare]

March 26, 1941
Naval warfare gets new weapon

On this day, Italy attacks the British fleet at Suda Bay, Crete, using detachable warheads to sink a British cruiser. This was the first time manned torpedoes had been employed in naval warfare, adding a new weapon to the world's navies' arsenals.
The manned torpedo, also known as the "Chariot," was unique. Primarily used to attack enemy ships still in harbor, the Chariots needed "pilots" to "drive" them to their targets. Sitting astride the torpedo on a vehicle that would transport them both, the pilot would guide the missile as close to the target as possible, then ride the vehicle back, usually to a submarine. The Chariot was an enormous advantage; before its development, the closest weapon to the Chariot was the Japanese Kaiten--a human torpedo, or suicide bomb, which had obvious drawbacks.
The first successful use of the Chariot was by the Italian navy, although they referred to their version as Maiali, or "Pigs." On March 26, six Italian motorboats, commanded by Italian naval commander Lt. Luigi Faggioni, entered Suda Bay in Crete and planted their Maiali along a British convoy in harbor there. The cruiser York was so severely damaged by the blast that it had to be beached.
The manned torpedo proved to be the most effective weapon in the Italian naval arsenal, used successfully against the British again in December 1941 at Alexandria, Egypt. Italian torpedoes sank the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, as well as one tanker. They were also used against merchant ships at Gibraltar and elsewhere.
The British avenged themselves against the Italians, though, by sinking the new Italian cruiser Ulpio Traiano in the port of Palermo, Sicily, in early January 1943. An 8,500-ton ocean liner was also damaged in the same attack.
After the Italian surrender, Britain, and later Germany, continued to use the manned torpedo. In fact, Germany succeeded in sinking two British minesweepers off Normandy Beach in July 1944, using their Neger torpedoes.

[Peter Clare]

26 March 1941.

The cruiser HMS York Severely damaged at Suda Bay by Italian Explosive Motor Boats; both engine-rooms and boiler-rooms flooded, ship beached in 27 feet of water.

[Bodston]

Wednesday 26 March 1941

Winston Churchill to General Wavell
We are naturally concerned at rapid German advances to Agheila. It is their habit to push on whenever they are not resisted. I presume you are only waiting for the tortoise to stick his head out far enough before chopping it off. It seems extremely important to give them an early taste of our quality. What is the state and location of 7th Armoured Division? Pray give me your appreciation.

Daily Keynote from the Reich Press Chief
26 March 1941:
Take care how you report world reaction to Yugoslavia joining the Tripartate Pact. Emphasize the opinions of the British and Americans who, on the one hand, do not hide their disapointment and, on the other hand, are still disirous of stirring up trouble in Yugoslavia.

[Peter Clare]

USS HALLIGAN (March 26, 1945)

Under orders to proceed to the island of Okinawa to bombard the enemy shore prior to the American landings scheduled for April 1, the Halligan sank after striking a mine which exploded beneath her forward magazine and completely disintegrated the forward section of the ship. The explosion took the lives of 162 men including her captain, Lt. Cmdr. E. Grace. Only two of her twenty-one officers survived. The abandoned wreck drifted for twelve miles before piling up on a reef near the Okinawan shore.

[Peter Clare]

HMS JAGUAR (March 26, 1942)

Launched November 22, 1938. While escorting the tanker Slavol, bringing supplies to the 5th Destroyer Flotilla at Tobruk, the Jaguar was torpedoed by the U-652 north of Sidi Barini. Three officers and 190 ratings were lost. Eight officers and forty-five other ranks were rescued by the anti-submarine whaler 'Klo'. The tanker Salvol was also sunk soon after.

[Peter Clare]

March 27, 1945
Germans launch last of their V-2s

On this day, in a last-ditch effort to deploy their remaining V-2 missiles against the Allies, the Germans launch their long-range rockets from their only remaining launch site, in the Netherlands. Almost 200 civilians in England and Belgium were added to the V-2 casualty toll.
German scientists had been working on the development of a long-range missile since the 1930s. In October 3, 1942, victory was achieved with the successful trial launch of the V-2, a 12-ton rocket capable of carrying a one-ton warhead. The missile, fired from Peenemunde, an island off Germany's Baltic coast, traveled 118 miles in that first test.
The brainchild of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, the V-2 was unique in several ways. First, it was virtually impossible to intercept. Upon launching, the missile rises six miles vertically; it then proceeds on an arced course, cutting off its own fuel according to the range desired. The missile then tips over and falls on its target at a speed of almost 4,000 mph. It hits with such force that the missile burrows itself into the ground several feet before exploding. The V-2 had the potential of flying a distance of 200 miles, and the launch pads were portable, making them impossible to detect before firing.
The first launches as part of an offensive occurred on September 6, 1944, when two missiles were fired at Paris. On September 8, two more were fired at England, which would be followed by over 1,100 more during the next six months. On March 27, 1945, taking advantage of their one remaining V-2 launch site, near The Hague, the Germans fired their V-2s for the last time. At 7 a.m., London awoke to a blast-one of the bombs had landed on a block of flats at Valance Road, killing 134 people. Twenty-seven Belgian civilians were killed in Antwerp when another of the rockets landed there. And that afternoon, one more V-2 landed in Kent, England, causing the very last British civilian casualty of the war.
By the end of the war, more than 2,700 Brits had died because of the rocket attacks, as well as another 4,483 deaths in Belgium. After the war, both the United States and the Soviet Union captured samples of the rockets for reproduction. Having proved so extraordinarily deadly during the war, the V-2 became the precursor of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) of the postwar era.

[Peter Clare]

HMS DASHER (March 27, 1943)

US-built merchant ship, the Rio de Janeiro, was later converted to an escort aircraft carrier in 1941 and loaned to the Royal Navy under the Lend-Lease Agreement. Renamed HMS Dasher (7,866 Tons) she saw service in the Mediterranean and on convoy duties to Murmansk. In 1943 she was being used as a Fleet Air Arm Training ship. It was in this capacity that the ship blew up in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, between Ardrossan and the Isle of Arran, while heading for the port of Greenock. At about 4.45pm, on this hazy Saturday afternoon, while her Swordfish planes of No. 891 Squadron were practicing take offs and landings on her deck, one of her pilots misjudged a landing and crashed into a store of aviation fuel drums and explosives. The subsequent fire and violent explosion sent the Dasher to the bottom in less than five minutes, her bow rising almost vertical before plunging stern-first to the bottom. Oil from the sinking ship caught fire and spread over the water in which the survivors were swimming. A total of 358 officers and men drowned but 149 sailors survived and were picked up from the sea by dozens of small rescue vessels which sped out from Ardrossan to give what help they could. The Dasher lies upright in 170 metres (310 fathoms) of water, her flight deck some 30 metres above the seabed. As the 50th anniversary of her sinking approached, the Royal Naval Association undertook to erect a memorial at Ardrossan so that those that perished shall not be forgotten. (On June 28, 2000, a Memorial Plaque was fixed to the flight deck of the Dasher the site of which is now a war grave)(For more on RAN ships see OCEAN WAVES. Royal Naval History - Royal Navy)

The British aircraft carrier HMS Dasher