Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

October 2, 1941
Operation Typhoon is launched

On this day in 1941, the Germans begin their surge to Moscow, led by the 1st Army Group and Gen. Fedor von Bock. Russian peasants in the path of Hitler's army employ a "scorched-earth" policy.
Hitler's forces had invaded the Soviet Union in June, and early on it had become one relentless push inside Russian territory. The first setback came in August, when the Red Army's tanks drove the Germans back from the Yelnya salient. Hitler confided to General Bock at the time: "Had I known they had as many tanks as that, I'd have thought twice before invading." But there was no turning back for Hitler--he believed he was destined to succeed where others had failed, and capture Moscow.
Although some German generals had warned Hitler against launching Operation Typhoon as the harsh Russian winter was just beginning, remembering the fate that befell Napoleon--who got bogged down in horrendous conditions, losing serious numbers of men and horses--Bock urged him on. This encouragement, coupled with the fact that the Germany army had taken the city of Kiev in late September, caused Hitler to declare, "The enemy is broken and will never be in a position to rise again." So for 10 days, starting October 2, the 1st Army Group drove east, drawing closer to the Soviet capital each day. But the Russians also remembered Napoleon and began destroying everything as they fled their villages, fields, and farms. Harvested crops were burned, livestock were driven away, and buildings were blown up, leaving nothing of value behind to support exhausted troops. Hitler's army inherited nothing but ruins.

[Peter Clare]

HMS CURACOA (October 2, 1942)

British light cruiser of 4,290 tons was engaged mainly in convoy escort duties during World War 11. It was while escorting the Queen Mary that disaster struck. The Cunard White Star liner was carrying 15,000 American troops to England when the Curacoa's lookout reported what he thought was a submarine on the port bow. The Queen Mary turned sharply to starboard and the Curacoa, in pursuit of the suspected U-boat, crossed her bows with insufficient clearance causing the two ships to collide. Proceeding on a zigzag course at a speed of twenty eight and a half knots the Queen Mary knifed through the escort cruiser cutting her in two, the halves separated by about 100 yards. Fearful of U-boats in the area and aware of his responsibility to his passengers, the captain did not even slow the ship down until it entered the safer waters of the Firth of Clyde. The 'Queen' was badly damaged, her bow plates folded back at least forty feet into the ship. A total of 338 men aboard the Curacao died as a result of this tragedy (25 officers and 313 ratings) There were 26 survivors. The incident occurred some 20 miles off the coast of Donegal, Ireland.

[Owen]

Just Googling the Curacoa incident & at the inquiry they mainly blamed the destroyer for it.
Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - Cunard Liner Queen Mary runs down HMS Curacoa

An official enquiry into this disaster had to wait until after Victory Europe Day in 1945.
The Commissioners of the Admiralty sued Cunard White Star Line, alleging that Queen Mary was responsible for the accident.
One of the officers to survive, was Captain John Boutwood, who commanded Curacao, he emerged from an Admiralty inquiry acquitted without any reprimand. But, in court, the Judge held the Cruiser responsible, saying that: "Although the rules of the road at sea indicate that the overtaking vessel is to keep clear of the other, in this case, it did not apply."
He judged that the Cruiser could have avoided the collision, even up to seconds before the impact.
The Admiralty appealed this judgement, and this time, blame, was shared 1/3 to Queen Mary, 2/3 to Curacoa, once again the Admiralty were not happy, and the case went before the House of Lords, where the Appeal Court's decision was upheld.

Casualty list here.
Royal Navy casualties, killed and died, October 1942

[Peter Clare]

October 3, 1942
Germany conducts first successful V-2 rocket test

On this day in 1942, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's brainchild, the V-2 missile, is fired successfully from Peenemunde, as island off Germany's Baltic coast. It traveled 118 miles. It proved extraordinarily deadly in the war and was the precursor to the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) of the postwar era.
German scientists, led by von Braun, had been working on the development of these long-range missiles since the 1930s. Three trial launches had already failed; the fourth in the series, known as A-4, finally saw the V-2, a 12-ton rocket capable of carrying a one-ton warhead, successfully launched.
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. It 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 did not occur until September 6, 1944 when two missiles were fired at Paris. On September 8, two more were fired at England, which would be followed by more than 1,100 more during the next six months. More than 2,700 Brits died because of the rocket attacks.
After the war, both the United States and the Soviet Union captured samples of the rockets for reproduction--they also captured the scientists responsible for their creation.

[Peter Clare]

3 Oct 1944 - Bomber Command breaches dikes on Walcheren Island, Holland, flooding the surrounding defences and allowing amphibious forces to successfully attack the heavily defended island.


Coastal gun batteries at Walcheren dominated the approaches to the port of Antwerp, whose facilities could handle 40,000 tons per day of much needed supplies when ships could safely use the approaches. The intention was to flood the island, most of which was reclaimed land below sea level. The flooding would submerge some of the gun batteries and also hamper the German defence against eventual ground attack.

[Peter Clare]

October 4, 1943
Heinrich Himmler encourages his SS group leaders

On this day in 1943, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, addresses the squad leaders of his Nazi secret police, attempting to fill them with pride for the work they've accomplished-the murder of more than 1 million Jews in German-occupied Russia during a one-and-a-half-year period. "Most of you know what it means to see a hundred corpses lying together, five hundred, or a thousand," claimed Himmler. "To have stuck it out and at the same time...to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and shall never be written."
It was Himmler who oversaw the establishment of the Auschwitz concentration camp cluster, as well as the Warsaw ghetto massacre. The organizing of some prisoners for slave labor and the inflicting of gruesome medical experimentation on others can also be attributed to him. Consequently, it is little wonder that he could so blithely say, "Whether or not 10,000 Russian women collapse from exhaustion while digging a tank ditch interests me only in so far as the tank ditch is completed for Germany."

[Peter Clare]

4-5 Oct 1944 - Bomber Command conducts its final minelaying sortie in the River Danube. The highly successful campaign severely disrupted Rumanian oil exports to Germany.

[Peter Clare]

October 5, 1942
"Stalingrad must not be taken by the enemy."

On this day in 1942, Joseph Stalin, premier and dictator of the Soviet Union, fires off a telegram to the German and Soviet front at Stalingrad, exhorting his forces to victory. "That part of Stalingrad which has been captured must be liberated."
Stalingrad was a key to capturing the Soviet Union, in many ways as important as capturing Moscow itself. It stood between the old Russia and the new, a center of both rail and river communications, industry and old-world Russian trade. To preserve Stalingrad's integrity was to preserve Russian civilization past and present. As the Germans reached the Volga, thrust and counterthrust brought the battle to a standstill. Everyone from Russian factory workers to reinforcements of more than 160,000 Soviet soldiers poured into Stalingrad to beat back the German invader. Despite dwindling supplies, such as tanks and troop reserves, Hitler would not relent, convincing himself that the Russians could not hold out for long.
But Stalin appealed not only to Russian patriotism but also to Allied armaments. Requests to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for aid had not gone unheeded, as five British merchant ships arrived in northern Russia, loaded with supplies

[Peter Clare]

KONRON MARU (October 5, 1943)

Japanese transport sunk by the US submarine USS Wahoo while ferrying troops across the Tsushima Strait. On board the Konron Maru (Formally of the Shimonoseki-to-Fusan Ferry Line) were 616 troops and crew of which only 72 were rescued from the heavy seas. (Six days later (October 11) the Wahoo was sunk with all hands by Japanese naval aircraft in the La Perouse Strait)

[Peter Clare]

October 6, 1945
Pierre Laval attempts suicide

On this day in 1945, former French premier and Vichy collaborator Pierre Laval tries to kill himself on the day he is to be executed for treason. He fails.
Laval served as premier of France twice, the second time from June 1935 to January 1936, but fell from power primarily because of his appeasement of Italy after the invasion and occupation of Ethiopio by Mussolini and his fascist regime in 1935. Upon the German invasion of France in 1940, Laval, ever the opportunist, saw a chance to re-establish himself in office by supporting a puppet government headed by Henri Philippe Petain, who, when he acceded to the position of premier in June 1940, rewarded Laval by making him deputy head of state and foreign minister.
Laval was always more slavish in his devotion to his German masters than was Petain; for example, Laval began secret negotiations for a formal collaboration with Germany, convinced that the future lay in the hands of the Axis power. Petain finally fired him in December 1940. But the Germans questioned Petain's double loyalty and pressured him to reinstate Laval. Petain fell further from German favor, and when Hitler's forces occupied France in 1942, Laval, wanting to reassure Germany of his loyalty, began sending French workers to Germany and stripping French Jews of their rights. He also helped the Nazis capture and deport non-French Jews. He openly announced that he wished for a German victory. "An American victory would mean victory for the Jews and the communists."
As the end for Hitler grew near, Laval fled first to Germany, then to Spain, then to Austria, where he was arrested and sent back to France and was tried, along with Petain, on the charge of treason. Laval defended his actions, believing he had done nothing wrong. He was sentenced to be shot by firing squad on October 6, 1945, but swallowed cyanide before they could come for him. A physician saved his life--just in time for Laval to be executed a little less than two weeks later.