Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

26-30 Aug 1945 - Airborne medical teams and supplies are dropped to prisoners of war in Burma and Siam (now Thailand).

[Ron Goldstein]

Over this period my Squadron was stationed in Ulm in Germany running a transit camp for troops serving in Italy who were going home either on LIAP or PYTHON.
It was only in recent years that I was able to read from the Regimantal Diaries the following snippet of news about Winston Churchill and the guard that our Regiment provided for him whilst he holidayed on Lake Como.


Aug 26th - Major JLE Ogier MC appointed ADC to Winston Churchill, Colonel of the Regt, during his holiday at LAKE COMO. Lt ADD Rogers commanded a guard of honour at the villa.B Sqn Tanks moved to JUDENBERG to load onto transporters for the move to Italy

[Tom Canning]

Ron -
and as your Tanks were departing the scene from Judenberg for Trieste - the 16/5th lancers were next door at Knittelfeld....this was before we had rounded up all the Russian deserters prior to handing them over to Stalin at the infamous camp at Judenberg...

[Peter Clare]

August 27, 1941
Japanese prime minister requests a summit meeting with FDR

On this day in 1941, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister of Japan, announces that he would like to enter into direct negotiations with President Roosevelt in order to prevent the Japanese conflict with China from expanding into world war.
Konoye, a lawyer by training and well studied in Western philosophy, literature, and economics, entered the Japanese Parliament's upper house by virtue of his princely status and immediately pursued a program of reform. High on his agenda was a reform of the army general staff in order to prevent its direct interference in foreign policy decisions. He also sought an increase in parliamentary power. An antifascist, Konoye championed an end to the militarism of Japanese political structures, especially in light of the war in Manchuria, which began in 1931.
Appointed prime minister in 1933, Konoye's first cabinet fell apart after full-blown war broke out between Japan and China. In 1940, Konoye was asked to form a second cabinet. But as he sought to contain the war with China, relations with the United States deteriorated, to the point where Japan was virtually surrounded by a U.S. military presence and threats of sanctions. On August 27, 1941, Konoye requested a summit with President Roosevelt in order to diminish heightening tensions. Envoys were exchanged, but no direct meeting with the president took place.

In October, Konoye resigned because of increasing tension with his army minister, Tojo Hideki, who would succeed him as prime minister. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Konoye was put under military surveillance, his political career all but over until 1945, when the emperor considered sending him to Moscow to negotiate peace terms. That meeting never came off either.
The grand irony of Prince Konoye's career came at the war's conclusion, when he was served with an arrest warrant by the U.S. occupying force for suspicion of war crimes. Rather than submit to arrest, he committed suicide by drinking poison.

[Peter Clare]

HMS EGRET (August 27, 1943)

Attacked by a number of Dornier aircraft while on anti-submarine patrol in the Bay of Biscay, the sloop Egret exploded and sunk after being hit by a 293a guided bomb released from one of the bombers. This was believed to be the first warship sunk by a guided missile. The death toll on the Egret was 194 men killed.

[Peter Clare]

27 Aug 1941 - U-570, A German U-boat in the North Atlantic, surrenders to a Hudson of No. 269 Sqn, Coastal Command. The submarine was unable to dive after being attacked by the aircraft and towed back to the UK by a trawler.

The boat became the British submarine HMS Graph on 19 Sept, 1941. Taken out of service in February 1944. Stricken from records on 20 March, 1944 after running aground near Islay. Broken up in 1961.

[Peter Clare]

August 28, 1941
Mass slaughter in Ukraine

On this day in 1941, more than 23,000 Hungarian Jews are murdered by the Gestapo in occupied Ukraine.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union had advanced to the point of mass air raids on Moscow and the occupation of parts of Ukraine. On August 26, Hitler displayed the joys of conquest by inviting Benito Mussolini to Brest-Litovsk, where the Germans had destroyed the city's citadel. The grand irony is that Ukrainians had originally viewed the Germans as liberators from their Soviet oppressors and an ally in the struggle for independence. But as early as July, the Germans were arresting Ukrainians agitating and organizing for a provisional state government with an eye toward autonomy and throwing them into concentration camps. The Germans also began carving the nation up, dispensing parts to Poland (already occupied by Germany) and Romania.
But true horrors were reserved for Jews in the territory. Tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews had been expelled from that country and migrated to Ukraine. The German authorities tried sending them back, but Hungary would not take them. SS General Franz Jaeckeln vowed to deal with the influx of refugees by the "complete liquidation of those Jews by September 1." He worked even faster than promised. On August 28, he marched more than 23,000 Hungarian Jews to bomb craters at Kamenets Podolsk, ordered them to undress, and riddled them with machine-gun fire. Those who didn't die from the spray of bullets were buried alive under the weight of corpses that piled atop them.
All told, more than 600,000 Jews had been murdered in Ukraine by war's end.

[Peter Clare]

SS ELLA (August 28, 1941)

The German steamer Ella was the first ship sunk in the greatest sea-mine disaster of World War II. Under threat of imminent German occupation, the Soviet Union decided to evacuate its 24,000 troops from the Estonian capital, Tallin. To move the troops to Leningrad, four ship convoys were formed and after the troops were boarded, the convoys set sail. Out at sea the convoys formed a line fifteen miles long. At 18.00 hrs the ships were off the Juminda Peninsula and in the gathering darkness sailed straight into a German laid minefield. The Gulf of Finland at this time was probably the most heavily mined area in the world with approximately 60,000 mines laid by Germany, Finland and the Soviets. The SS Ella was the first to go down after which Luftwaffe air attacks and artillery fire from Finnish coastal batteries added to the confusion.
Of the 195 ships that left Tallin 53 were destroyed by mines and air attacks. Of the 29 large troop carrying merchant ships in the convoy, 25 were sunk. Loss of life in this disaster were some 6,000 souls.

[Peter Clare]

August 29, 1942
Red Cross announces Japan refuses passage of supplies for U.S. POWs

On this day in 1942, the international humanitarian agency, the Red Cross, reveals that Japan has refused free passage of ships carrying food, medicine, and other necessities for American POWs held by Japan.
In January 1941, the U.S. government requested that the American Red Cross begin a blood-donor program to provide ready and ample supplies of blood plasma and serum albumin for transfusions for wounded soldiers. More than 13 million donations (each about a pint) were collected.
Among other grassroots efforts organized by local Red Cross chapters were bandage-making "assembly lines," working out of local churches, synagogues, and town halls. Abroad, volunteers worked in military hospitals, reading and writing letters for the wounded. Tens of millions of food packages were prepared and funneled to Allied POWs through Geneva, which served as a clearinghouse. But getting such packages to prisoners in Japan proved particularly difficult. Japan refused to allow even "neutral" ships to enter Japanese waters, even those on humanitarian errands. Despite protests by the Red Cross, Japan allowed just one-tenth of what POWs elsewhere received to reach prisoners in their territories.
As the war came to a close, the Red Cross followed on the heels of liberating military forces to supply relief and aid to those suffering from the ravages of battle. Approximately 20,000 professional Red Cross workers served during the war, along with countless other volunteers

[Peter Clare]

August 30, 1945
MacArthur arrives in Japan

On this day in 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur lands in Japan to oversee the formal surrender ceremony and to organize the postwar Japanese government.
The career of Douglas MacArthur is composed of one striking achievement after another. When he graduated from West Point, MacArthur's performance, in terms of awards and average, had only been exceeded in the institution's history by one other person-Robert E. Lee. His performance in World War I, during combat in France, won him more decorations for valor and resulted in his becoming the youngest general in the Army at the time. He retired from the Army in 1934, only to be appointed head of the Philippine Army by its president (the Philippines had U.S. commonwealth status at the time).
When World War II broke out, MacArthur was called back to active service-as commanding general of the U.S. Army in the Far East. Because of MacArthur's time in the Far East, and the awesome respect he commanded in the Philippines, his judgment had become somewhat distorted and his vision of U.S. military strategy as a whole myopic. He was convinced that he could defeat Japan if it invaded the Philippines. In the long term, he was correct. But in the short term, the United States suffered disastrous defeats at Bataan and Corregidor. By the time U.S. forces were compelled to surrender, he had already shipped out, on orders from President Roosevelt. As he left, he uttered his immortal line, "I shall return."
Refusing to admit defeat, MacArthur took supreme command in the Southwest Pacific, capturing New Guinea from the Japanese with an innovative "leap frog" strategy. MacArthur, true to his word, returned to the Philippines in October 1944, and once again employed an unusual strategy of surprise and constant movement that still has historians puzzled as to its true efficacy to this day. He even led the initial invasion by wading ashore from a landing craft-captured for the world on newsreel footage. With the help of the U.S. Navy, which succeeded in destroying the Japanese fleet, leaving the Japanese garrisons on the islands without reinforcements, the Army defeated adamantine Japanese resistance. On March 3, 1945, MacArthur handed control of the Philippine capital back to its president.
On August 30, 1945, MacArthur landed at Atsugi Airport in Japan and proceeded to drive himself to Yokohama. Along the way, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers lined the roads, their bayonets fixed on him. One last act of defiance-but all for naught. MacArthur would be the man who would reform Japanese society, putting it on the road to economic success