Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

VAUQUOIS (June 18, 1940)

French corvette, sunk while evacuating troops to England. Just prior to the fall of the French port of Brest the Vauquois put to sea carrying 115 soldiers, some coastal defence men and her crew. Soon after leaving harbour, when opposite the Vinotiere light at the entrance to the Chanel de Foire, the corvette hit a submerged aerial mine. The explosion cut the ship in half, the bow section sinking immediately and the stern section staying afloat for a few minutes more. The speed of the sinking left little time for survivors to be rescued and only 29 were saved. A total of 135 men lost their lives.

[Peter Clare]

18 Jun 1940 - The remnants of the RAF Hurricane squadrons in France evacuate their bases, having provided cover for the final Allied retreat from France; the last to leave are Nos. 1 and 73 Sqns, which had been the first to arrive in 1939. The fighting in France cost the RAF a total of 1,029 aircraft and over 1,500 personnel.

[Peter Clare]

June 19, 1944
United States scores major victory against Japanese in Battle of the Philippine Sea

On this day in 1944, in what would become known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot," U.S. carrier-based fighters decimate the Japanese Fleet with only a minimum of losses in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
The security of the Marianas Islands, in the western Pacific, were vital to Japan, which had air bases on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. U.S. troops were already battling the Japanese on Saipan, having landed there on the 15th. Any further intrusion would leave the Philippine Islands, and Japan itself, vulnerable to U.S. attack. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance, was on its way west from the Marshall Islands as backup for the invasion of Saipan and the rest of the Marianas. But Japanese Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo decided to challenge the American fleet, ordering 430 of his planes, launched from aircraft carriers, to attack. In what became the greatest carrier battle of the war, the United States, having already picked up the Japanese craft on radar, proceeded to shoot down more than 300 aircraft and sink two Japanese aircraft carriers, losing only 29 of their own planes in the process. It was a described in the aftermath as a "turkey shoot."
Admiral Ozawa, believing his missing planes had landed at their Guam air base, maintained his position in the Philippine Sea, allowing for a second attack of U.S. carrier-based fighter planes, this time commanded by Admiral Mitscher, to shoot down an additional 65 Japanese planes and sink another carrier. In total, the Japanese lost 480 aircraft, three-quarters of its total, not to mention most of its crews. American domination of the Marianas was now a foregone conclusion.
Not long after this battle at sea, U.S. Marine divisions penetrated farther into the island of Saipan. Two Japanese commanders on the island, Admiral Nagumo and General Saito, both committed suicide in an attempt to rally the remaining Japanese forces. It succeeded: Those forces also committed a virtual suicide as they attacked the Americans' lines, losing 26,000 men compared with 3,500 lost by the United States. Within another month, the islands of Tinian and Guam were also captured by the United States.
The Japanese government of Premier Hideki Tojo resigned in disgrace at this stunning defeat, in what many have described as the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

[Peter Clare]

SHOKAKU (June 19, 1944)

Japanese aircraft carrier (25,675 tons) sunk about 140 miles north of the island of Yap, during the two day Battle of the Philippine Sea. A spread of six torpedoes were fired from the submarine USS Cavalla (Lt. Cmdr. Kossler) three of which struck the Shokaku. Badly damaged, the carrier ground to a halt. One torpedo had hit the forward aviation fuel tanks near the main hanger and planes which had just landed and were being refueled, exploded into flames. Ammunition and exploding bombs added to the conflagration as did burning fuel spewing from shattered fuel pipes. With her bows subsiding into the sea and fires now out of control, the captain gave orders to abandon ship. Within minutes, total catastrophe struck the vessel. Volatile gas fumes had accumulated throughout the vessel and when an aerial bomb exploded on the hanger deck, a series of terrific explosions simply blew the ship apart. The mighty carrier, now a blazing inferno, rolled over and slid beneath the waves taking 887 navy officers and men plus 376 men of Air Group 601, a total of 1,263 men in all, to the seabed. There were 570 survivors, including the carrier's commander, Captain Matsubara Hiroshi. (The USS Cavalla is now on public display at Galveston, Texas).

[Peter Clare]

TAIHO (June 19, 1944)

The largest and newest carrier in the Japanese fleet, sunk west of Guam during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. It took only one torpedo hit from the USS Albacore to sink the 29,300 ton vessel, the flagship of Vice Admiral Jisburo Ozawa. Two fuel tanks were ruptured and fumes from the liberated crude oil and aviation spirit spread throughout the vessel. The ship sunk after a catastrophic explosion caused by the accumulated fumes igniting near an electric generator on the hanger deck. Of her complement of 1,751 a total of 1,650 crewmen were lost. The USS Albacore (Lt. Cmdr. H. Rimmer) was lost during her 11th patrol off the coast of Japan, on November 7, 1944, after hitting a mine while submerging. Her entire crew of 86 perished.

[Peter Clare]

June 20, 1943
Britain launches Operation Bellicose

On this day in 1943, British bombers perform the first "shuttle bombing" raid of the war, attacking sites in Germany and Italy.
Taking off from airbases in Britain, bombers made for the southwestern German city of Friedrichshafen, at one time the home to Zeppelin airship construction. It now was the site of steel construction works, which were heavily damaged in the British attack. The Brits then flew, not back to Britain, but to airbases in Algeria. Refueled, they then headed north for the Italian naval base in La Spezia, in Liguria. This "shuttle" strategy enabled the bombers to kill two enemies with one operation-Bellicose.
The damage done to the steel works in Germany was so extensive that the assembly line had to be completely abandoned. Unbeknownst to Britain, that assembly line included the manufacture of more than just steel, but also new V2 rockets, to be spun out at the rate of 300 a month. The Brits unwittingly spared themselves retaliation-at least from V2s.

[Peter Clare]

HIYO (June 20, 1944)

Japanese aircraft carrier also sunk during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Hit by bombs and aerial torpedoes from Avenger aircraft from the carrier USS Belleau Wood, part of the US Task Force 38, she was set on fire after a tremendous blast from leaking aviation fuel. Dead in the water, the burning Hiyo then slipped stern first under the waves, taking the lives of 250 officers and men. The rest of her crew, about one thousand, survived to be rescued by Japanese destroyers. The Philippine Sea battle was a disaster for the Japanese naval air arm, only 35 out of Admiral Ozawa's 473 planes were left in a condition fit to fly. Soon, the loss of the Marianas, Tinian, Saipan and the island of Guam forced the resignation of the Japanese prime minister, General Tojo.

[Peter Clare]

June 21, 1942
Allies surrender at Tobruk, Libya

On this day in 1942, General Erwin Rommel turns his assault on the British-Allied garrison at Tobruk, Libya, into victory, as his panzer division occupies the North African port.
Britain had established control of Tobruk after routing the Italians in 1940. But the Germans attempted to win it back by reinforcing Italian troops with the Afrika Korps of Erwin Rommel, who continually charged the British Eighth Army in battles around Tobruk, finally forcing the Brits to retreat into Egypt. All that was left to take back the port was the garrison now manned by the South African Division, which also included the Eleventh Indian Brigade. With the use of artillery, dive-bombers, and his panzer forces, Rommel pushed past the Allies. Unable to resist any longer, South African General Henrik Klopper ordered his officers to surrender early on the morning of the 21st. Rommel took more than 30,000 prisoners, 2,000 vehicles, 2,000 tons of fuel, and 5,000 tons of rations. Adolf Hitler awarded Rommel the field marshal's baton as reward for his victory. "I am going on to Suez," was Rommel's promise.

[Peter Clare]

21 June 1945: US troops take Okinawa
The Japanese island of Okinawa has finally fallen to the Americans after a long and bloody battle.


The island, situated 340 miles (550km) south of the Japanese mainland, will now provide the Americans with an invaluable air and naval base from which to launch a sustained and forceful attack on the mainland.
It is estimated more than 90,000 Japanese troops were killed in the 82-day conflict.
America also suffered heavy losses - at this stage 6,990 servicemen have been reported killed or missing and 25,598 wounded.

Mopping up
In a statement issued today US Fleet Admiral Chester W Nimitz said: "After 82 days of fighting the battle of Okinawa has been won.
"Organised resistance ceased on June 21. Enemy garrisons in two small pockets are being mopped up."

The Japanese fought a desperate battle until the bitter end with many hiding out in caves on the southern-most tip of the island.
As the US forces closed in many threw themselves off 150ft (45.7m)cliffs or waded into the sea to drown rather than be taken prisoner.
More than 4,000 Japanese have so far been captured.

The conflict began on 1 April, when America's newly-formed 10th Army, led by Lieutenant-General Simon Bolivar Buckner, landed on Okinawa's western coast.
By 21 April most of the island had been taken by US troops but a stalemate developed in the south around Okinawa's capital city, Naha. The Japanese were able to secure a strong defensive position in the rugged, cave-riddled terrain and it took several weeks to finally win the battle.

[Peter Clare]

June 22, 1941
Germany launches Operation Barbarossa--the invasion of Russia

On this day in 1941, over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes to war on a second front.
Despite the fact that Germany and Russia had signed a "pact" in 1939, each guaranteeing the other a specific region of influence without interference from the other, suspicion remained high. When the Soviet Union invaded Rumania in 1940, Hitler saw a threat to his Balkan oil supply. He immediately responded by moving two armored and 10 infantry divisions into Poland, posing a counterthreat to Russia. But what began as a defensive move turned into a plan for a German first-strike. Despite warnings from his advisers that Germany could not fight the war on two fronts (as Germany's experience in World War I proved), Hitler became convinced that England was holding out against German assaults, refusing to surrender, because it had struck a secret deal with Russia. Fearing he would be "strangled" from the East and the West, he created, in December 1940, "Directive No. 21: Case Barbarossa"--the plan to invade and occupy the very nation he had actually asked to join the Axis only a!
month before!
On June 22, 1941, having postponed the invasion of Russia after Italy's attack on Greece forced Hitler to bail out his struggling ally in order to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, three German army groups struck Russia hard by surprise. The Russian army was larger than German intelligence had anticipated, but they were demobilized. Stalin had shrugged off warnings from his own advisers, even Winston Churchill himself, that a German attack was imminent. (Although Hitler had telegraphed his territorial designs on Russia as early as 1925--in his autobiography, Mein Kampf.) By the end of the first day of the invasion, the German air force had destroyed more than 1,000 Soviet aircraft. And despite the toughness of the Russian troops, and the number of tanks and other armaments at their disposal, the Red Army was disorganized, enabling the Germans to penetrate up to 300 miles into Russian territory within the next few days.

Exactly 129 years and one day before Operation Barbarossa, another "dictator" foreign to the country he controlled, invaded Russia--making it all the way to the capital. But despite this early success, Napoleon would be escorted back to France--by Russian troops.