Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

15 May 1941 - The first British jet-powered aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, takes to the air at RAF Cranwell on its maiden flight. This was not the first jet-powered aircraft to fly, however; that honour fell to the German-built Heinkel He 178 in August 1939.

The first E.28/39 prototype W4041/G
Type	Experimental prototype
Manufacturer	Gloster Aircraft Company
Designed by	George Carter
Maiden flight	15 May 1941
Primary user	Royal Aircraft Establishment
Number built	2 prototypes

[Peter Clare]

May 16, 1943
As Brits launch Operation Chastise, Germans launch Operation Gypsy Baron

On this day in 1943, the British Royal Air Force sets into motion a plan to bomb key dams in order to flood the Ruhr region of Germany, while the German army pursues an anti-partisan sweep in Russia.
Operation Chastise, part of a larger strategy of "area bombing" begun a year earlier was led by Guy Gibson, one of the RAF's best bomber pilots. Leading 18 bombers at low altitude across the North Sea and Holland, Gibson lost six bombers and 56 of his crew (out of 133) who were shot down before reaching their destinations, the Mohne, Eder, and Sorpe dams. The surviving aircraft succeeded in destroying two of their three targets, causing the Ruhr river, a tributary of the Rhine, to flood the surrounding area, killing 1,268 people, including, unfortunately, 700 Russian slave laborers. Gibson would be awarded the Victoria Cross for his successful, though costly, raid.
Meanwhile, the German army went on the offensive against partisan resistance fighters who controlled large tracts of swampland, forest, and mountain ranges and were still battling the German invaders on the eastern front in Russia. Out of 6,000 partisans in the region, German bombing killed 1,584 and another 1,568 were taken prisoner. Bombs were not the only things that fell from the sky; the Germans dropped 840,000 leaflets calling for the surrender of the partisans.
On the evening of that same day, the Warsaw ghetto revolt was finally put down with the destruction of the Warsaw synagogue. The revolt began on April 18 when Jews, walled into a stifling area after the massive German assault on the city, began a heroic armed revolt against their German persecutors. After all was said and done, 14,000 Jews were killed in the revolt or sent to the death camp at Treblinka and another 42,000 were sent to labor camps in Lublin.

[Peter Clare]

16/17 May 1943 - The famous Dambusters Raid.




The Mohne and Eder Dams in the industrial heart of Germany were attacked and breached by mines dropped from specially modified Lancasters of No. 617 Sqn. The Sorpe dam was was also attacked by by two aircraft and damaged. A fourth dam, the Ennepe was reported as being attacked by a single aircraft (O-Orange), but with no damage. An estimated 1,294 people were killed by floodwaters and 8 of the 19 aircraft dispatched failed to return with the loss of 53 aircrew and 3 taken prisoner of war. Wg Cdr Guy Gibson, Officer Commanding No. 617 Sqn, is awarded the VC for his part in leading the attack.

[Peter Clare]

May 17, 1943
The Memphis Belle flies its 25th bombing mission

On this day in 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain, becomes the first B-17 crew to complete 25 missions over Europe.
The Memphis Belle performed its 25th and last mission, in a bombing raid against Lorient, a German submarine base. But before returning back home to the United States, film footage was shot of Belle's crew receiving combat medals. This was but one part of a longer documentary on a day in the life of an American bomber, which included dramatic footage of a bomber being shot out of the sky, with most of its crew parachuting out, one by one. Another film sequence showed a bomber returning to base with its tail fin missing. What looked like damage inflicted by the enemy was, in fact, the result of a collision with another American bomber.
The Memphis Belle documentary would not be released for another 11 months, as more footage was compiled to demonstrate the risks these pilots ran as they bombed "the enemy again and again and again-until he has had enough." The film's producer, Lieutenant Colonel William Wyler, was known for such non-military fare as The Letter, Wuthering Heights, and Jezebel.
A fictional film about the B-17, called Memphis Belle, was released in 1990, starring John Lithgow, Matthew Modine, and Eric Stoltz.

[Peter Clare]

May 18, 1943
Hitler gives the order for Operation Alaric

On this day in 1943, Adolf Hitler launches Operation Alaric, the German occupation of Italy in the event its Axis partner either surrendered or switched its allegiance.
This operation was considered so top secret that Hitler refused to issue a written order. Instead, he communicated verbally his desire that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel should assemble and ultimately command 11 divisions for the occupation of Italy to prevent an Allied foothold in the peninsula.
1944 Polish Corps takes Monte Cassino
On this day in 1944, the Polish Corps, part of a multinational Allied Eighth Army offensive in southern Italy, finally pushes into Monte Cassino as the battle to break German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's defensive Gustav Line nears its end.
The Allied push northward to Rome began in January with the landing of 50,000 seaborne troops at Anzio, 33 miles south of the Italian capital. Despite having met very little resistance, the Allies chose to consolidate their position rather than immediately battle north to Rome. Consequently, German forces under the command of Field Marshal Kesselring were able to create a defensive line that cut across the center of the peninsula. General Wladyslaw Anders, leader of the Polish troops who would raise their flag over the ruins of the famous Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, commenting on the cost of the battle, said, "Corpses of German and Polish soldiers, sometimes entangled in a deathly embrace, lay everywhere, and the air was full of the stench of rotting bodies."

[Peter Clare]

USS LONGSHAW (May 18, 1945)

After a four day period of supplying fire-support to the invasion of forces attacking the island of Okinawa, the Longshaw ran aground on a coral reef off the island's south coast. The US tug, 'Jrikara' arrived to attempt to take the destroyer in tow but just then the Japanese gun-batteries on shore opened up and poured a stream of shells into the stricken ship. One shell hit the Longshaw's forward magazine completely blowing off the ships bow. The Langshaw, battered beyond recognition, had to be sunk by gunfire and torpedoes from US ships. The attack on the destroyer took the lives of 78 officers and crewmen. Rescue vessels picked up 11 officers and 225 ratings, seven of whom were to die later from their wounds.

[Peter Clare]

May 19, 1943
Churchill and FDR plot D-Day

On this day in 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt set a date for the cross-Channel landing that would become D-Day-May 1, 1944. That date will prove a bit premature, as bad weather becomes a factor.
Addressing a joint session of Congress, Churchill warned that the real danger at present was the "dragging-out of the war at enormous expense" because of the risk that the Allies would become "tired or bored or split"-and play into the hands of Germany and Japan. He pushed for an early and massive attack on the "underbelly of the Axis." And so, to "speed" things up, the British prime minister and President Roosevelt set a date for a cross-Channel invasion of Normandy, in northern France, for May 1, 1944, regardless of the problems presented by the invasion of Italy, which was underway. It would be carried out by 29 divisions, including a Free French division, if possible.

[Peter Clare]

May 1944 - During the last two weeks of the month, Allied strategic and tactical air forces carry out attacks on enemy batteries and radar sites along the English Channel coast. By the first week of June, the strikes had destroyed about 80% of German coastal radar capability.

[Peter Clare]

May 20, 1940
Germans break through to English Channel at Abbeville, France

On this day in 1940, the German army in northern France reaches the English Channel.
In reaching Abbeville, German armored columns, led by General Heinz Guderian (a tank expert), severed all communication between the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the north and the main French army in the south. He also cut off the Force from its supplies in the west. The Germans now faced the sea, England in sight. Winston Churchill was prepared for such a pass, having already made plans for the withdrawal of the BEF (the BEF was a home-based army force that went to northern France at the start of both World Wars in order to support the French armies) and having called on the British Admiralty to prepare "a large number of vessels" to cross over to France if necessary. With German tanks at the Channel, Churchill prepared for a possible invasion of England itself, approving a plan to put into place gun posts and barbed wire roadblocks to protect government offices in Whitehall as well as the prime minister's dwelling, 10 Downing Street.

[Peter Clare]

May 21, 1940
Nazis kill "unfit" people in East Prussia

On this day in 1940, a "special unit" carries out its mission-and murders more than 1,500 hospital patients in East Prussia.
Mentally ill patients from throughout East Prussia had been transferred to the district of Soldau, also in East Prussia. A special military unit, basically a hit squad, carried out its agenda and killed the patients over an 18-day period, one small part of the larger Nazi program to exterminate everyone deemed "unfit" by its ideology. After the murders, the unit reported back to headquarters in Berlin that the patients had been "successfully evacuated."
1942 Thousands of Jews die in Nazi gas chambers; IG Farber sets up factory
On this day in 1942, 4,300 Jews are deported from the Polish town of Chelm to the Nazi extermination camp at Sobibor, where all are gassed to death. On the same day, the German firm IG Farben sets up a factory just outside Auschwitz, in order to take advantage of Jewish slave laborers from the Auschwitz concentration camps.
Sobibor had five gas chambers, where about 250,000 Jews were killed between 1942 and 1943. A camp revolt occurred in October 1943; 300 Jewish slave laborers rose up and killed several members of the SS as well as Ukrainian guards. The rebels were killed as they battled their captors or tried to escape. The remaining prisoners were executed the very next day.
IG Farben, as well as exploiting Jewish slave labor for its oil and rubber production, also performed drug experiments on inmates. Tens of thousands of prisoners would ultimately die because of brutal work conditions and the savagery of the guards. Several of the firm's officials would be convicted of "plunder," "spoliation of property," "imposing slave labor," and "inhumane treatment" of civilians and POWs after the war. The company itself came under Allied control. The original goal was to dismantle its industries, which also included the manufacture of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, so as to prevent it from ever posing a threat "to Germany's neighbors or to world peace." But as time passed, the resolve weakened, and the Western powers broke the company up into three separate divisions: Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.