Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

December 4, 1942
Polish Christians come to the aid of Polish Jews

On this day in Warsaw, a group of Polish Christians put their own lives at risk when they set up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews. The group was led by two women, Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz.
Since the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Jewish population had been either thrust into ghettos, transported to concentration and labor camps, or murdered. Jewish homes and shops were confiscated and synagogues were burned to the ground. Word about the Jews' fate finally leaked out in June of 1942, when a Warsaw underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade, made public the news that tens of thousands of Jews were being gassed at Chelmno, a death camp in Poland-almost seven months after the extermination of prisoners began.
Despite the growing public knowledge of the "Final Solution," the mass extermination of European Jewry and the growing network of extermination camps in Poland, little was done to stop it. Outside Poland, there were only angry speeches from politicians and promises of postwar reprisals. Within Poland, non-Jewish Poles were themselves often the objects of persecution and forced labor at the hands of their Nazi occupiers; being Slavs, they too were considered "inferior" to the Aryan Germans.
But this did not stop Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz, two Polish Christians who were determined to do what they could to protect their Jewish neighbors. The fates of Kossak and Filipowicz are unclear so it is uncertain whether their mission was successful, but the very fact that they established the Council is evidence that some brave souls were willing to risk everything to help persecuted Jews. Kossak and Filipowicz were not alone in their struggle to help; in fact, only two days after the Council was established, the SS, Hitler's "political" terror police force, rounded up 23 men, women, and children, and locked some in a cottage and some in a barn-then burned them alive. Their crime: suspicion of harboring Jews.
Despite the bravery of some Polish Christians, and Jewish resistance fighters within the Warsaw ghetto, who rebelled in 1943 (some of whom found refuge among their Christian neighbors as they attempted to elude the SS), the Nazi death machine proved overwhelming. Poland became the killing ground for not only Poland's Jewish citizens, but much of Europe's: Approximately 4.5 million Jews were killed in Poland's death and labor camps by war's end.

[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!)

[Peter Clare]

December 5, 1941
American carrier Lexington heads to Midway

On this day, the Lexington, one of the two largest aircraft carriers employed by the United States during World War II, makes its way across the Pacific in order to carry a squadron of dive bombers to defend Midway Island from an anticipated Japanese attack.
Negotiations between the United States and Japan had been ongoing for months. Japan wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions. The Americans wanted Japan out of China and Southeast Asia and Japan to repudiate the Tripartite "Axis" Pact with Germany and Italy before those sanctions could be lifted. Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a Japanese strike as retaliation-they just didn't know where. The Philippines, Wake Island, Midway Island-all were possibilities. American intelligence reports had sighted the Japanese fleet movement out from Formosa (Taiwan), apparently headed for Indochina.
The U.S. State Department demanded from Japanese envoys explanations for the fleet movement across the South China Sea. The envoys claimed ignorance. Army intelligence reassured the president that, despite fears, Japan was most likely headed for Thailand-not the United States.
The Lexington never made it to Midway Island; when it learned that the Japanese fleet had, in fact, attacked Pearl Harbor, it turned back-never encountering a Japanese warship en route or employing a single aircraft in its defense. By the time it reached Hawaii, it was December 13.

[Peter Clare]

SS CHAKDINA (December 5, 1941)
Armed boarding vessel commandeered by the British in Tobruk to evacuate their wounded. It sailed from the harbour with 380 wounded soldiers on board including 97 New Zealanders. Some officers and medical personnel were also accompanying the wounded. The ship was heading for Baggush, the H/Q of the 2nd N.Z. Division. At 9 o'clock in the morning a Luftwaffe plane dropped a torpedo which struck the ship in the after hold. It took only three minutes for the Chakdina to sink giving the wounded little chance to escape. Those who were not severely wounded managed to reach the escort destroyer HMS Farndale which picked up eighteen New Zealanders from the water. All the medical staff, except one, were saved. The Farndale reached Alexandria two days later and the survivors admitted to the No. 3 New Zealand General Hospital.

[Peter Clare]

December 6, 1941
Roosevelt to Japanese emperor: "Prevent further death and destruction"

On this day, President Roosevelt-convinced on the basis of intelligence reports that the Japanese fleet is headed for Thailand, not the United States-telegrams Emperor Hirohito with the request that "for the sake of humanity," the emperor intervene "to prevent further death and destruction in the world."
The Royal Australian Air Force had sighted Japanese escorts, cruisers, and destroyers on patrol near the Malayan coast, south of Cape Cambodia. An Aussie pilot managed to radio that it looked as if the Japanese warships were headed for Thailand-just before he was shot down by the Japanese. Back in England, Prime Minister Churchill called a meeting of his chiefs of staff to discuss the crisis. While reports were coming in describing Thailand as the Japanese destination, they began to question whether it could have been a diversion. British intelligence had intercepted the Japanese code "Raffles," a warning to the Japanese fleet to be on alert-but for what?
Britain was already preparing Operation Matador, the launching of their 11th Indian Division into Thailand to meet the presumed Japanese invasion force. But at the last minute, Air Marshall Brooke-Popham received word not to cross the Thai border for fear that it would provoke a Japanese attack if, in fact, the warship movement was merely a bluff.
Meanwhile, 600 miles northwest of Hawaii, Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese fleet, announced to his men: "The rise or fall of the empire depends upon this battle. Everyone will do his duty with utmost efforts." Thailand was, in fact, a bluff. Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii was confirmed for Yamamoto as the Japanese target, after the Japanese consul in Hawaii had reported to Tokyo that a significant portion of the U.S. Pacific fleet would be anchored in the harbor-sitting ducks. The following morning, Sunday, December 7, was a good day to begin a raid.
"The son of man has just sent his final message to the son of God," FDR joked to Eleanor after sending off his telegram to Hirohito, who in the Shinto tradition of Japan was deemed a god. As he enjoyed his stamp collection and chatted with Harry Hopkins, his personal adviser, news reached him of Japan's formal rejection of America's 10-point proposals for peace and an end to economic sanctions and the oil embargo placed on the Axis power. "This means war," the president declared. Hopkins recommended an American first strike. "No, we can't do that," Roosevelt countered. "We are a democracy and a peaceful people."

[Peter Clare]

CERAMIC (December 6, 1942)
White Star Line, later Shaw Savill, a liner of 18,481 Gross Tons. On November 23, she set sail as a troop transport from Liverpool to Australia. When 1,148 kilometres west-northwest of the Azores, the ship was torpedoed three times and sunk by U-boat U-515 (Oblt. Werner Henke). A total of 655 crewmen, troops and nurses lost their lives including 33 Australians. There was one survivor, Royal Engineer sapper, Eric Munday, who was taken on board the U-boat to spend the rest of the war in a German POW camp. The rest of the crew and passengers were left to perish in the stormy seas. Allied propaganda claimed that the Ceramic's survivors were machine-gunned in the water. This was a big lie. It was many months before the Admiralty found out what happened to the Ceramic as she sank before any distress signal could be sent out. It was a letter that Eric Munday was able to write from his POW camp Marlag-Milag-Nord, near Hamburg, that alerted the Admiralty to the circumstances surrounded the loss of the Ceramic. The U-515 was sunk on April 9, 1944 in mid Atlantic by aircraft from the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal and from depth charges from the escort destroyers USS Pope, Pillsbury, Chatelain and Flaherty. Sixteen of the crew were killed, there were 43 survivors taken prisoner. Fearing a war crimes trial, the captain, Werner Henke, committed suicide while in US captivity in Camp Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. (Some reports say that he was shot while trying to escape).

[ADM199]

Originally Posted by Peter Clare

SS CHAKDINA (December 5, 1941)
Armed boarding vessel commandeered by the British in Tobruk to evacuate their wounded. It sailed from the harbour with 380 wounded soldiers on board including 97 New Zealanders. Some officers and medical personnel were also accompanying the wounded. The ship was heading for Baggush, the H/Q of the 2nd N.Z. Division. At 9 o'clock in the morning a Luftwaffe plane dropped a torpedo which struck the ship in the after hold. It took only three minutes for the Chakdina to sink giving the wounded little chance to escape. Those who were not severely wounded managed to reach the escort destroyer HMS Farndale which picked up eighteen New Zealanders from the water. All the medical staff, except one, were saved. The Farndale reached Alexandria two days later and the survivors admitted to the No. 3 New Zealand General Hospital.

The ship also carried the German General Von Ravenstein who survived. His escorting Officer Lt.Col.Bernays wasn't so lucky.
Many Italians Prisoners were also lost.

[Peter Clare]

December 7, 1941
"A date which will live in infamy"

On this day, in an early-morning sneak attack, Japanese warplanes bomb the U.S. naval base at Oahu Island's Pearl Harbor-and the United States enters World War II.
President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull knew a Japanese attack was imminent. Having received intelligence reports of intercepted coded messages from Tokyo to the Japanese ambassador in the United States, the president anticipated Japanese reprisals for his government's refusal to reverse economic sanctions and embargoes against Japan. The Roosevelt administration had remained firm in its demand that the Japanese first withdraw from China and French Indochina, which it had invaded in 1937 and July 1941, respectively, and renounce its alliance with fascist Germany and Italy.
But Japan refused, demanding that the United States first end the embargo on oil shipments vital for Tokyo's war machine. Although negotiations between the two nations continued up to the very last minute, Roosevelt was aware of a secret November 25 deadline, established by Tokyo, that confirmed military action on the part of the Japanese should they not received satisfaction from the negotiations. While forewarned, Washington could not pinpoint the time or place of an attack.
Despite initially objecting to war with America, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto believed that if Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was determined to go to war, it was Japan who had to make a preemptive strike. Yamamoto studied the devastating November 1940 British attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto, and planned and led the sneak attack against the United States. Approximately 360 Japanese warplanes were launched from six aircraft carriers, reinforced by battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. The first dive-bomber was spotted over Pearl Harbor at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time. It was followed by 200 aircraft, which decimated the American ships anchored there, most of which were only lightly manned because it was Sunday morning. Among the 18 U.S. ships destroyed, sunk, or capsized were the Arizona, Virginia, California, Nevada, and West Virginia. More than 180 planes were destroyed on the ground and another 150 were damaged (leaving but 43 operational). American casualties totaled more than 3,400, with more than 2,400 killed (1,000 on the Arizona alone). The Japanese lost fewer than 100 men.
In the short term, the Japanese goal of crippling U.S. naval strength in the Pacific, and thereby giving Tokyo free reign to gobble up more of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific in its dream of imperial expansion, was successful. But the war had only just begun.

[Peter Clare]

USS OKLAHOMA and USS ARIZONA (December 7, 1941)
US battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor during the sneak attack by Japanese naval planes. This cowardly attack triggered the American involvement in World War II. Death toll from both ships amounted to 1,592 men, 1177 from the Arizona and 415 from the Oklahoma. Two other battleships, the West Virginia (105 dead) and the Tennessee were damaged and 196 Navy and 65 Army Air Force planes destroyed. All told, a total of 2,409 servicemen and 68 civilians were killed and 1,178 were wounded. Only 29 Japanese aircraft were shot down. That same afternoon the United States Chief of Naval Operations issued the following order "Execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against Japan". During the Pearl Harbor attack, fifteen navy men earned the nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Ten were awarded posthumously. (In all, 433 Medals of Honor have been awarded, 219 posthumously)

[Peter Clare]

December 8, 1941
The United States declares war on Japan

On this day, as America's Pacific fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt requests, and receives, a declaration of war against Japan.
Leaning heavily on the arm of his son James, a Marine captain, FDR walked haltingly into the House of Representatives at noon to request a declaration of war from the House and address the nation via radio. "Yesterday," the president proclaimed, "December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy-the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory."
Roosevelt's 10-minute speech, ending with an oath-"So help us God"-was greeted in the House by thunderous applause and stamping of feet. Within one hour, the president had his declaration of war, with only one dissenting vote, from a pacifist in the House. FDR signed the declaration at 4:10 p.m., wearing a black armband to symbolize mourning for those lost at Pearl Harbor.
On both coasts, civilian defense groups were mobilized. In New York, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia ordered the rounding up of Japanese nationals, who were transported to Ellis Island and held in custody indefinitely. In California, antiaircraft batteries were set up on Long Beach and the Hollywood Hills. Reports on supposed spy activity on the part of Japanese Americans began pouring into Washington, even as Japanese Americans paid for space in newspapers to declare unreservedly their loyalty to the United States. The groundwork was being laid for the tragic internment of Japanese Americans, thought a necessary caution at the time but regretted years later as a hysterical and bigoted response.