Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

25 May 1944.

A revolt breaks out at the extermination camp at Auschwitz.

As several hundred Hungarian Jews were being led to a gas chamber in Birkenau (a supplementary camp, part of the Auschwitz complex known as Auschwitz II), the prisoners ran into the woods, suspecting their fate. Searchlights flooded the surrounding area, enabling the SS, who controlled the camp, to shoot all those who fled. This was the second such revolt in three days.

[Peter Clare]

May 26, 1940
Britain's Operation Dynamo gets underway as President Roosevelt makes a radio appeal for the Red Cross

On this day in 1940, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt makes known the dire straits of Belgian and French civilians suffering the fallout of the British-German battle to reach the northern coast of France, and appeals for support for the Red Cross
"Tonight, over the once peaceful roads of Belgium and France, millions are now moving, running from their homes to escape bombs and shells and machine gunning, without shelter, and almost wholly without food," broadcast FDR.

On May 26, the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk in France. Ships arrived at Calais to remove the Force before German troops occupied the area, and it was hoped that 45,000 British soldiers could be shipped back to Britain within two days. The German air force, though, had other plans. Determined to prevent the evacuation, the Luftwaffe initiated a bombing campaign in Dunkirk and the surrounding area. British, Polish, and Canadian fighter pilots succeeded in fending off the German attack in the air, allowing finally for a delayed, but successful, evacuation nine days later. But the cost to civilians was great, as thousands of refugees fled for their lives to evade the fallout of the battle.

[Peter Clare]

26 May 1940 - Following the fall of Calais and Boulogne, Dunkirk remains the only port available for the evacuation of Allied troops from the Continent. No. 11 Group, under the command of Vice-Marshal Keith Park, assigns 16 squadrons to the protection of the port. During the evacuation (codenamed Operation Dynamo), a total of 32 participate, although they are rotated to provide rest periods and preserve aircraft for the inevitable defence of Britain.

[Peter Clare]

May 27, 1940
British evacuation of Dunkirk turns savage as Germans commit atrocity

On this day in 1940, units from Germany's SS Death's Head division battle British troops just 50 miles from the port at Dunkirk, in northern France, as Britain's Expeditionary Force continues to fight to evacuate France.
After holding off an SS company until their ammo was spent, 99 Royal Norfolk Regiment soldiers retreated to a farmhouse in the village of Paradis, just 50 miles from the Dunkirk port. Ships waited there to carry home the British Expeditionary Force, which had been fighting alongside the French in its defensive war against the German invaders. Agreeing to surrender, the trapped regiment started to file out of the farmhouse, waving a white flag tied to a bayonet. They were met by German machine-gun fire.
They tried again and the British regiment was ordered by an English-speaking German officer to an open field where they were searched and divested of everything from gas masks to cigarettes. They were then marched into a pit where machine guns had been placed in fixed positions. The German order came: "Fire!" Those Brits who survived the machine-gun fire were either stabbed to death with bayonets or shot dead with pistols.
Of the 99 members of the regiment, only two survived, both privates: Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan. They lay among the dead until dark, then, in the middle of a rainstorm, they crawled to a farmhouse, where their wounds were tended. With nowhere else to go, they surrendered again to the Germans, who made them POWs. Pooley's leg was so badly wounded he was repatriated to England in April 1943 in exchange for some wounded German soldiers. Upon his return to Britain, his story was not believed. Only when O'Callaghan returned home and verified the story was a formal investigation made. Finally, after the war, a British military tribunal in Hamburg found the German officer who gave the "Fire" order, Captain Fritz Knochlein, guilty of a war crime. He was hanged

[Peter Clare]

27 May 1940 - The Belgian Army, hopelessly outclassed by the Germans, finally capitulates at midnight.

[Peter Clare]

BISMARCK (May 27, 1941)

Hitler’s greatest warship commissioned in August, 1940. Fully loaded she weighed 52,600 tons. After her encounter with HMS Hood (20 years older than the Bismarck) she headed for St. Nazaire, the only port on the coast of France with a dry dock big enough to hold her. An order was given by Churchill to "Get the Bismarck". The hunt for the battleship dominated the world’s press, the chase lasting four days and covering 1,750 sea miles. Spotted by a Coastal Command Catalina flying boat, her position was reported to the Royal Navy ships. Finally, on May 27, the mighty battleship met her end after 277 days of war service. Severely damaged by salvos from the battleships HMS King George V, HMS Rodney, and by torpedoes from the cruiser HMS Dorsetshire, she was finally scuttled by her crew. Casualties amounted to 2,097 officers, men and cadets lost including Admiral Lutjens and Captain Lindemann. There were 115 survivors, picked up by the Dorsetshire and the destroyer Maori. In 1989, the wreck of the Bismarck was found. She lies intact and upright at 4,763 metres about 602 miles off the coast of Brittany.

Germany's greatest warship, the battleship Bismarck

[Peter Clare]

May 28, 1940
Belgium surrenders unconditionally

On this day in 1940, after 18 days of ceaseless German bombardment, the king of Belgium, having asked for an armistice, is given only unconditional surrender as an option. He takes it.
German forces had moved into Belgium on May 10, part of Hitler's initial western offensive. Despite some support by British forces, the Belgians were simply outnumbered and outgunned from the beginning. The first surrender of Belgium territory took place only one day after the invasion, when the defenders of Fort Eben-Emael surrendered.
Disregarding the odds, King Leopold III of Belgium had tried to rally his forces, evoking the Belgian victory during World War I. The Belgian forces fought on, courageously, but were continually overcome by the invaders.
By May 27, the king of Belgium, realizing that his army was depleted and that even retreat was no longer an option, sent an emissary through the German lines to request an armistice, a cease-fire. It was rejected. The Germans demanded unconditional surrender. Belgium's government in exile, stationed in Paris, repudiated the surrender, but to no avail. Belgium had no army left to fight. In the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill defended King Leopold's decision, despite the fact that it made the British troops' position, attempting to evacuate Dunkirk, in northern France, more precarious.
King Leopold refused to flee the country and was taken prisoner by the Nazis during their occupation, and confined to his palace. A Belgian underground army grew up during the occupation; its work including protecting the port of Antwerp, the most important provisioning point for Allied troops on the Continent, from destruction by the Germans.

[Peter Clare]

USS DREXLER (May 28, 1945)

While on a radar picket station 60 miles south-west of Okinawa, the destroyer, launched on September 3, 1944, was attacked by two Japanese suicide planes. One crashed into the 3,000 ton Drexler starting large petrol fires. Another three planes then attacked but were shot down. A few minutes later another Kamikaze crashed in flames into the Drexler's superstructure. In less than a minute the ship rolled over on her side and sank stern first. As there was little time for the crew to jump ship, she took 158 sailors to the bottom of the ocean, leaving 52 wounded men to be rescued.

[Peter Clare]

WAVERLEY (May 29, 1940)

A Clyde paddle steamer of 537 tons taken over at the outbreak of war for service as a minesweeper. During the Dunkirk evacuation she was bombed by German aircraft and sank rapidly. She was carrying around 600 troops just rescued from the beaches. There was little time for rescue and she went down with about 350 men.

[Peter Clare]

HMS CALCUTTA (May 29, 1941)

British anti-aircraft cruiser of 4,200 tons, launched July 1918, was taking part in the British and Greek withdrawal from the island of Crete, when bombed and sunk by two bombs from JU-88 enemy aircraft. Carrying a complement of 400, two officers and 114 ratings were lost.