Remembering History by day WW2

[spidge]

Asking too much! Sorry Ron.

They would ask how much you lost and why you spelt it with two s's.

[Peter Clare]

Hi Ron,

I'm afraid it's a sign of the times.

[Peter Clare]

17/18 January 1943

170 Lancasters and 17 Halifaxes repeated the raid on Berlin. The weather was better than on the previous night but the Pathfinders were again unable to mark the centre of the city and again the bombing fell mainly in the southern areas. The Bomber Command report stated that the Daimler-Benz factory was hit, either during this night or during the raid of the previous night, but this is not confirmed by the German report; however, a BMW aero-engine factory at Spandau was hit by incendiaries and slightly damaged. There was no damage of note in any part of Berlin.
The routes taken by the bombers to and from Berlin were the same as those followed on the previous night and German night fighters were able to find the bomber stream. 19 Lancasters and 3 Halifaxes were lost, 11.8 per cent of the force. The experiments with this Lancaster/Halifax force, using target indicators against Berlin, now ceased until H₂S became available.
An observer of this raid was Richard Dimbleby, the BBC broadcaster, who flew in a 106 Squadron Lancaster piloted by Wing Commander Guy Gibson.

Berlin

[Peter Clare]

LADY HAWKINS (January 19, 1942)
Passenger/cargo ship (7,988 tons) of the Canadian National Steamship Company, the Lady Hawkins was sunk by the U-66 (Korvkpt. Richard Zapp) midway between Cape Hatteras and Bermuda. The ship was carrying 212 passengers and 109 crew when hit by two torpedoes. About 162 passengers died as did 88 of the ships crew. The steamship Coamo rescued 71 persons from a lifeboat and brought them to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The liner Coamo was later torpedoed on December 9, 1942 and sank with the loss of 133 passengers and crew. The U-66 was sunk on May 6, 1944 by the destroyer escort USS Buckley. There were 36 survivors but 24 of the crew died.

[Peter Clare]

1941 : British attack Italians in Africa


On this day, British forces in East Africa, acting on information obtained by breaking the Italians' coded messages, invade Italian-occupied Eritrea-a solid step towards victory in Africa.
British Intelligence had been privy to secret Italian communiques from Africa for the past five months; every instruction sent from one Italian military unit to another was analyzed by the Brits. The Italian viceroy in Ethiopia was unwittingly receiving and transmitting every Italian military secret-and weakness. Consequently, British forces were able to organize a strategy to advance on Italian-occupied territory, with Italian troop movements in mind.
On January 19, news of an Italian withdrawal from the town of Kassala, in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which the Italians had occupied since July 1940, reached British ears. The British garrison there had been slow to react initially to the Italian invasion of Sudan, preferring to wait to get a clearer picture of the Italian invasion strategy for East Africa. The British bided their time by beefing up their forces, especially tank forces, to something closer to parity with the Italians'. The Italian withdrawal from Kassala, a proactive defensive movement, provided the perfect opportunity for Gen. William Platt and the Indian divisions to launch an assault on Eritrea, which bordered Sudan and Ethiopia. It was not long before Italian-occupied Ethiopia and Somaliland fell.

[Peter Clare]

VAN IMHOFF (January 19, 1942)
Dutch merchant ship of 2,980 tons. Immediately after the German invasion of Holland, the Dutch East-Indies government arrested all Germans on their territory and imprisoned them in camps on Sumatra. With the threat of the Japanese invading Indonesia it was decided to move the prisoners to Ceylon. Accommodated on the ship Van Imhoff, the vessel set sail with the prisoners. Only one day out from Sumatra the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft. The damage done by the bombing was enough to sink the ship. The Dutch crew took to the lifeboats leaving the rafts for the internees but the ships captain (Capt. M.J. Hoeksema) was afraid to let the prisoners free without orders. The result being that many of the prisoners went down with the ship. Of the 477 German civilian prisoners and crew on board, 98 persons lost their lives.

[PeterG]

On this day, 19 January:

1941
Hitler and Mussolini, accompanied by Ciano, met at Berchtesgarden to discuss the critical Italian situation. The Italians accept German operational leadership for the Mediterranean area, but ask that no German troops be sent to Albania. Hitler, in the presence of his military experts, informs the Duce about his decision to salvage Italy's military reputation in Greece and North Africa; he talks non-stop for about two hours but doesn't breathe a word about Barbarossa, his planned attack on the USSR.

1942
British forces in North Borneo surrender to the Japanese.
The Germans retake Feodosiya in the Crimea.

1943
Red Army troops of the South-Eastern Front (previously called the Stalingrad Front) recapture Proletarskaya, along the Stalingrad-Novorossiysk railway east of the river Manych, and advance towards Rostov.

In New Guinea the Australians mop up the coastal area west of the Soputa-Sanananda road, from which the Japanese are retreating.

In London, thirty-nine schoolchildren are killed when a bomb hits a school in Lewisham in a daylight 'Tip and Run' raid.

1944
The Russian 2nd Assault Army takes Ropsha, and the 42nd takes Krasnoye Selo. They join forces south-west of Leningrad cutting off all German forces from the Gulf of Finland.

In Italy, the British 5th and 56th Divisions widen their bridgeheads over the Garigliano river, taking Minturno and approaching Castelforte.

1945
Martin Bormann and Eva Braun arrive from Obersalzburg to join the Führer. Eva Braun was not to leave him again alive.

[Peter Clare]

1942 : The Wannsee Conference


On this day, Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the "Final Solution" of the "Jewish question."
In July 1941, Herman Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler's number-two man, to submit "as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."
Heydrich met with Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Central Office of Jewish Emigration, and 15 other officials from various Nazi ministries and organizations at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. The agenda was simple and focused: to devise a plan that would render a "final solution to the Jewish question" in Europe. Various gruesome proposals were discussed, including mass sterilization and deportation to the island of Madagascar. Heydrich proposed simply transporting Jews from every corner Europe to concentration camps in Poland and working them to death. Objections to this plan included the belief that this was simply too time-consuming. What about the strong ones who took longer to die? What about the millions of Jews who were already in Poland? Although the word "extermination" was never uttered during the meeting, the implication was clear: anyone who survived the egregious conditions of a work camp would be "treated accordingly."
Months later, the "gas vans" in Chelmno, Poland, which were killing 1,000 people a day, proved to be the "solution" they were looking for--the most efficient means of killing large groups of people at one time.
The minutes of this conference were kept with meticulous care, which later provided key evidence during the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

[Peter Clare]

IKOMA MARUAND, YASUKUNI MARU (January 20, 1944)
Two Japanese freighters transporting 611 men of an 'Independent Brigade' were heading for New Guinea when in the early evening of the 20th they were sighted by the USS Seahorse (Cdr. Slade Cutter) Three torpedoes were fired from the Seahorse, aimed at the nearest ship. One torpedo missed the target but carried on, hitting the second transport. From a spread of three torpedoes, the Seahorse had scored hits on two ships. The Yasukuni Maru sank with the loss of 68 men. The Ikoma was attacked again by four torpedoes, all of which missed. On a third attack the torpedo hit the number three hold which contained gasoline. The vessel erupted in a brilliant sheet of flame and within minutes went down stern first taking with her forty-three of her crew. Also killed or drowned were 418 of the Indian soldiers on board.

[Peter Clare]

M.V. CITTA' DI GENOVA (January 21, 1943)
Built in 1930 (5413 tons) the Italian motor vessel leaves Patras on the 20th bound for Bari with 200 Italian troops and 158 Greek war prisoners on board. On the 21st at 1315hrs, twenty five miles west of Saseno Island, she is hit by two torpedoes from a salvo of five fired from the British submarine, HMS Tigres. She sinks in a few minutes with the loss of 173 men.