Remembering History by day WW2

[jacobtowne]

November 28th




1942 : First Ford bomber is produced

On this day, the first production Ford bomber, the B-24 Liberator, rolled off the assembly line at Ford's massive Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Two years before, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had urged an isolationist America to prepare for its inevitable involvement in the war, declaring that U.S. industry must become "the great arsenal of democracy." Roosevelt established the Office of Production Management (OPM) to organize the war effort, and named a former automotive executive co-director of the OPM. Most Detroit automobile executives opposed the OAW during its first year, and were dubious of the advantages of devoting their entire production to war material. However, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and American citizens mobilized behind the U.S. declaration of war against the Axis powers. Since profit ruled Detroit, the government made Ford and America's other automakers an economic offer they could not refuse. For their participation in the war effort, automakers would be guaranteed profits regardless of production costs, and $11 billion would be allocated to the building of war plants--factories that would be sold to private industry at a substantial discount after the war. In February of 1942, the last Ford automobile rolled off the assembly line for the duration of the war, and soon afterward the Willow Run plant was completed in Michigan. Built specifically for Ford's war production, Willow Run was the largest factory in the world. Using the type of assembly line production that had made Ford an industrial giant, Ford hoped to produce 500 B-24 Liberator bombers a month. After a gradual start, that figure was reached in time for the Allied invasion of Western Europe, and by July of 1944, the Willow Plant was producing one B-24 every hour. By the end of the war, the 43,000 men and women who had worked at Ford's Willow Run plant had produced over 8,500 bombers, which unquestionably had a significant impact on the course of the war.

JT

[Peter Clare]

SHINANO (November 29, 1944)
Named after the Shinano province of Japan, this 71,890 ton super battleship, now converted to the world’s largest aircraft carrier, set sail on her maiden voyage on November 28, 1944, escorted by three destroyers. On her way to the safety of the Inland Sea to conduct her sea trials, she was spotted by the American submarine USS Archerfish commanded by Joseph F. Enright, USN. On board the Shinano were 2515 officers and men plus some 300 shipyard workers and 40 civilian employees. The Archerfish fired a volley of six torpedoes, four of which struck the carrier on the starboard side causing a torrent of sea water to flood in. Developing a list of over 20 degrees the mighty ship lay dead in the water. Her escort destroyers came alongside to take off the crew, shipyard workers and civilians, who had started to panic. Hundreds of others jumped into the sea, clinging to anything that would float. Too weak to haul themselves aboard the destroyers they fell back into the water and drowned. Her short life of 17 hours at sea ended at 10:55 hrs on the 29th November when the brand new carrier slid to the bottom 352 kilometers south of Nagoya, Japan, without having once fired her guns. From her complement of 2,515 a total of 1,435 souls perished. There were 1,080 survivors including 55 officers, 993 ratings and 32 civilians. Joseph F. Enright, commander of the Archerfish, was awarded the Navy Cross at Pearl Harbour in March, 1945. The commander of the Shinano, Captain Toshio Abe, went down with his ship. Archerfish ended her career in 1968 on the ocean floor off San Diego when she was used as a target for a new type of torpedo fired by the nuclear submarine USS Snook.

[Peter Clare]

1942 : Coffee rationing begins


On this day in 1942, coffee joins the list of items rationed in the United States. Despite record coffee production in Latin American countries, the growing demand for the bean from both military and civilian sources, and the demands placed on shipping, which was needed for other purposes, required the limiting of its availability.
Scarcity or shortages were rarely the reason for rationing during the war. Rationing was generally employed for two reasons: (1) to guarantee a fair distribution of resources and foodstuffs to all citizens; and (2) to give priority to military use for certain raw materials, given the present emergency.
At first, limiting the use of certain products was voluntary. For example, President Roosevelt launched "scrap drives" to scare up throwaway rubber-old garden hoses, tires, bathing caps, etc.--in light of the Japanese capture of the Dutch East Indies, a source of rubber for the United States. Collections were then redeemed at gas stations for a penny a pound. Patriotism and the desire to aid the war effort were enough in the early days of the war.
But as U.S. shipping, including oil tankers, became increasingly vulnerable to German U-boat attacks, gas became the first resource to be rationed. Starting in May 1942, in 17 eastern states, car owners were restricted to three gallons of gas a week. By the end of the year, gas rationing extended to the rest of the country, requiring drivers to paste ration stamps onto the windshields of their cars. Butter was another item rationed, as supplies were reserved for military breakfasts. Along with coffee, the sugar and milk that went with it were also limited. All together, about one-third of all food commonly consumed by civilians was rationed at one time or another during the war. The black market, an underground source of rationed goods at prices higher than the ceilings set by the Office of Price Administration, was a supply source for those Americans with the disposable incomes needed to pay the inflated prices.
Some items came off the rationing list early; coffee was released as early as July 1943, but sugar was rationed until June 1947.

[Peter Clare]

1939 : USSR attacks Finland


On this day in 1939, the Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation.
The overwhelming forces arrayed against Finland convinced most Western nations, as well as the Soviets themselves, that the invasion of Finland would be a cakewalk. The Soviet soldiers even wore summer uniforms, despite the onset of the Scandinavian winter; it was simply assumed that no outdoor activity, such as fighting, would be taking place. But the Helsinki raid had produced many casualties-and many photographs, including those of mothers holding dead babies, and preteen girls crippled by the bombing. Those photos were hung up everywhere to spur on Finn resistance. Although that resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers-on skis and bicycles!--fighting it out in the forests, and partisans throwing Molotov cocktails into the turrets of Soviet tanks, the refusal to submit made headlines around the world.
President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup, and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. By March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland soon lost the Karelian Isthmus, the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad, which the Soviets wanted to control.

[Peter Clare]

TAKANAMI (November 30, 1942)
Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer which helped sink the USS Minneapolis was sunk by enemy gunfire about five miles south of Savo Island. Her captain, Cdr. Ogura Hasami and 211 members of his crew perished. There were 33 survivors who eventually reached Guadalcanal in a lifeboat

[Peter Clare]

HMS FORFAR (December 1, 1940)
Auxiliary cruiser of 16,402 tons, formerly the liner SS Montrose which was requisitioned as an Armed Merchant Cruiser in 1939 and renamed Forfar. Commanded by Capt. N. Hardy, the Forfar was on her way to escort an incoming convoy when torpedoed 623 kilometres west-northwest of Galway, Eire, by Kretschmer's U-99. Badly damaged after four torpedo hits over a period of one hour, the Forfar finally sank at 4.50am the following day, taking the lives of 36 officers and 136 ratings. There were eighteen survivors. The previous month the U-99 had sunk two other AMCs, the Laurentic and Patroclus. Lt. Cmdr. Otto Kretschmer, Germany's top U-boat ace with 44 ships to his credit, was captured after his U-99 was sunk while attacking convoy HX-112 in March, 1941. He survived the war and attained the rank of admiral in Germany's post war Navy.

[Peter Clare]

SS JOHN HARVEY (December 2, 1943)
US Liberty ship, unloading at Berth 29 in the port of BARI, on Italy's Adriatic coast, blew up in a cataclysmic explosion during a twenty minute bombing attack by over 100 German JU-88 planes. The harbour was jam-packed with Allied merchant ships as convoy after convoy brought in much needed supplies for the British, American and Canadian armies as they advanced up the Italian mainland. Part of the cargo in the John Harvey (Captain Knowles) was 100 tons of liquid mustard gas bombs, (brought in just in case the enemy resorted to chemical warfare) and guarded by a unit of the 701st Chemical Maintenance Company. The blast wave caused by the explosion destroyed or sunk seventeen ships in the harbour and killed or injured over 1,000 military and navy men, civilian workers and nearby residents of the town. As ship after ship exploded or caught fire, hundreds of men were struggling in the oil covered water in a desperate attempt to escape. On the British Fort Athabaska, forty-four men out of her crew of 56 were killed. With the Allied hospitals filling up with injured, the doctors were at a loss to know what caused the terrible burns on the victims. Of the 617 men who made it to hospital, 83 had died during the first month. If they had known at the time it was mustard gas, it is possible many more lives could have been saved with the proper treatment. Winston Churchill immediately clamped a tight security blanket over the whole affair and it was not until about five years later that the public learned the whole truth.
U.S.A.T. CHARLES HENDERSON
The US Army transport Charles Henderson was also a victim of a later Luftwaffe bombing at Bari. Anchored in the harbour on April 9, 1945, it was hit by bombs causing its 2,000 ton cargo of munitions to explode. A plume of smoke reaching to a height of twenty thousand feet was reported by eye witnesses. A total of 48 Americans and 318 Italians lost their lives. This disaster effectively closed the harbour until after the war ended

[Peter Clare]

JOSIF STALIN (December 3, 1941)
Russian troopship of 7,500 tons, severely damaged after hitting four mines during the evacuation of Soviet troops from the Hangö garrison in the Gulf of Finland. It is not known the exact number of soldiers lost but it is believed that around 4,000 troops were on board at the time. Rescue ships picked up 1,800 men from the sea but left about 2,000 still clinging to the floating wreck. Another vessel with a similar name, Josif Stalin, was sunk when crossing the Volga while evacuating civilians from the besieged city of Stalingrad. When midstream the ship was shelled by German guns and sank drowning over 1,000 people. A week before, a smaller steamer, the Borodino, met a similar fate and several hundred wounded soldiers and civilians were lost.

[Peter Clare]

3/4 December 1943

527 aircraft - 307 Lancasters, 220 Halifaxes - to Leipzig. Despite the loss of two pressmen on the previous night, the well-known American broadcaster, Ed Murrow, flew on the raid with a 619 Squadron Lancaster crew. He returned safely. The bomber force took another direct route towards Berlin before turning off to bomb Leipzig. German fighters were in the bomber stream and scoring successes before the turn was made but most of them were then directed to Berlin when the Mosquito diversion opened there. There were few fighters over Leipzig and only 3 bombers are believed to have been lost in the target area, 2 of them being shot down by flak. A relatively successful raid, from the point of view of bomber casualties, was spoiled when many aircraft flew by mistake into the Frankfurt defended area on the long southern withdrawal route and more than half of the bombers shot down on this night were lost there. 24 aircraft - 15 Halifaxes, 9 Lancasters - were lost, 4.6 per cent of the force. The Pathfinders found and marked this distant inland target accurately and the bombing was very effective; this was the most successful raid on Leipzig during the war. A large area of housing and many industrial premises were severely damaged. One place which was hit by a large number of bombs was the former World Fair exhibition site, whose spacious buildings had been converted to become war factories, the largest buildings being taken over by the Junkers aircraft company.
9 Mosquitos in feint attack on Berlin, 3 RCM sorties, 12 Halifaxes minelaying in the Frisians. No losses

[Peter Clare]

CHUYO (December 4, 1943)
The Imperial Japanese Navy escort carrier of 17,803-tons, torpedoed and sunk by the USS Sailfish making her tenth patrol under the command of Lt. Cdr. 'Bob' Ward. In mountainous seas and driving rain the Chuyo (Captain Okura) sank in about six minutes after being hit on the port side by two torpedoes. Around 1,250 officers, men and passengers died in the Chuyo, 160 Japanese survivors being rescued by the escort destroyer Urakaze. Among the casualties of the Chuyo were twenty American prisoners of war, half of the survivors from the USS Sculpin sunk earlier off Truk Island. Only one of them survived, machinist's mate George Rocek, who was hauled on board the Urakaze being mistaken for a Chuyo crew member. (Before the war the Sailfish was the USS Squalus which sank with the loss of a number of her crew. The submarine was salvaged and relaunched as the USS Sailfish. When the Squalus sank, the first on the scene of the tragedy was the USS Sculpin!)