Remembering History by day WW2

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Was he targeted on purpose by the Nazis?

June 1, 1943 - A civilian flight from Lisbon to london was shot down by the Germans during World War II, killing all those aboard, including actor Leslie Howard (b.1893). Howard was killed over the Bay of Biscay, when the British Overseas plane he was on was shot down by Luftwaffe fighters. His last on-screen role was that of Spitfire designer R. J. Mitchell in the 1942 film “The First of the Few” (released in the US as a trimmed version entitled Spitfire in 1948). Leslie Howard, perhaps best remembered to modern filmgoers as Ashley Wilkes in “Gone With The Wind” (1939), was a World War I veteran who was advised to take up acting as therapy after he was mustered out for shell shock. He found success throughout the 1930s, but with the outbreak of World War II, devoted himself to the war effort--directing films, writing and broadcasting on the radio.

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June 1, 1944 - The British Broadcasting Corp. broadcasted a line of poetry by the 19th century French poet Paul Verlaine. It was a coded message intended to warn the French resistance that the D-Day invasion was imminent, “The long sobs of the violins of autumn.”

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June 1,1944 - Generals. Montgomery, Patton, Bradley, Dempsey and Crerar met in Portsmouth

[Peter Clare]

1940 : Germans bomb Paris


On this day in 1940, the German air force bombs Paris, killing 254 people, most of them civilians.
Determined to wreck France's economy and military, reduce its population, and in short, cripple its morale as well as its ability to rally support for other occupied nations, the Germans bombed the French capital without regard to the fact that most of the victims were civilians, including schoolchildren. The bombing succeeded in provoking just the right amount of terror; France's minister of the interior could only keep government officials from fleeing Paris by threatening them with severe penalties.
Despite the fact that the British Expeditionary Force was on the verge of completing its evacuation at Dunkirk, and that France was on the verge of collapse to the German invaders, the British War Cabinet was informed that Norway's king, Haakon, had expressed complete confidence that the Allies would win in the end. The king, having made his prediction, then fled Norway for England, his own country now under German occupation.

[Peter Clare]

1941 - Germans conquer Crete. The last British contingent is evacuated from Sphakia, Crete

I'm a couple of days out with this should be 31 May

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On my way down to the Isle of Wight to join the gathering, ready to join in the Piccadilly Circus.

[Peter Clare]

1942 : The Battle of Midway begins


On this day in 1942, Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, launches a raid on Midway Island with almost the entirety of the Japanese navy.
As part of a strategy to widen its sphere of influence and conquest, the Japanese set their sights on an island group in the central Pacific, Midway, as well as the Aleutians, off the coast of Alaska. They were also hoping to draw the badly wounded U.S. navy into a battle, determined to finish it off.
The American naval forces were depleted: The damaged carrier Yorktown had to be repaired in a mere three days, to be used along with the Enterprise and Hornet, all that was left in the way of aircraft carriers after the bombing at Pearl Harbor.
On the morning of June 4, Admiral Nagumo launched his first strike with 108 aircraft, and did significant damage to U.S. installations at Midway. The Americans struck back time and again at Japanese ships, but accomplished little real damage, losing 65 of their own aircraft in their initial attempts. But Nagumo underestimated the tenacity of both Admiral Chester Nimitz and Admiral Raymond Spruance, commanders of the American forces. He also miscalculated tactically by ordering a second wave of bombers to finish off what he thought was only a remnant of American resistance (the U.S. forces had been able to conceal their position because of reconnaissance that anticipated the Midway strike) before his first wave had sufficient opportunity to rearm.
A fifth major engagement by 55 U.S. dive-bombers took full advantage of Nagumo's confused strategy, and sunk three of the four Japanese carriers, all cluttered with aircraft and fuel trying to launch another attack against what they now realized-too late--was a much larger American naval force than expected. A fourth Japanese carrier, the Hiryu was crippled, but not before its aircraft finished off the noble American Yorktown.
The attack on Midway was an unmitigated disaster for the Japanese, resulting in the loss of 322 aircraft and 3,500 men. They were forced to withdraw from the area before attempting even a landing on the island they sought to conquer.

[Peter Clare]

1944 : Allies prepare for D-Day


On this day in 1944, more than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries placed at the Normandy assault area, while 3,000 Allied ships cross the English Channel in preparation for the invasion of Normandy-D-Day.
The day of the invasion of occupied France had been postponed repeatedly since May, mostly because of bad weather and the enormous tactical obstacles involved. Finally, despite less than ideal weather conditions-or perhaps because of them-General Eisenhower decided on June 5 to set the next day as D-Day, the launch of the largest amphibious operation in history. Ike knew that the Germans would be expecting postponements beyond the sixth, precisely because weather conditions were still poor.
Among those Germans confident that an Allied invasion could not be pulled off on the sixth was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was still debating tactics with Field Marshal Karl Rundstedt. Runstedt was convinced that the Allies would come in at the narrowest point of the Channel, between Calais and Dieppe; Rommel, following Hitler's intuition, believed it would be Normandy. Rommel's greatest fear was that German air inferiority would prevent an adequate defense on the ground; it was his plan to meet the Allies on the coast-before the Allies had a chance to come ashore. Rommel began constructing underwater obstacles and minefields, and set off for Germany to demand from Hitler personally more panzer divisions in the area.
Bad weather and an order to conserve fuel grounded much of the German air force on June 5; consequently, its reconnaissance flights were spotty. That night, more than 1,000 British bombers unleashed a massive assault on German gun batteries on the coast. At the same time, an Allied armada headed for the Normandy beaches in Operation Neptune, an attempt to capture the port at Cherbourg. But that was not all. In order to deceive the Germans, phony operations were run; dummy parachutists and radar-jamming devices were dropped into strategically key areas so as to make German radar screens believe there was an Allied convoy already on the move. One dummy parachute drop succeeded in drawing an entire German infantry regiment away from its position just six miles from the actual Normandy landing beaches. All this effort was to scatter the German defenses and make way for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy.

[Owen]

TR 1848

ENTRY OF ALLIED TROOPS INTO ROME, 5 JUNE 1944

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June 5, 1945 - Allies divide up Germany and Berlin and take over the government.