Remembering History by day WW2

[Bodston]

Friday 7 January 1944

Beromünster Radio (Switzerland)
Never before in history have the relations within the individual warring coalitions been as difficult and strained as they are now in this war, and never has the so-called "interior front" played such a major role in military developments. When Russian troops, headed in the direction of Rovno, crossed the pre-war Polish border into what traditionally has always been Polish territory, the long latent tension between the Soviet government and the Polish exile government in London became acute. the Polish government in London has issued a lengthy statement of its position on the question of Polish-Soviet relations. But meanwhile the "Union of Polish patriots" resident in Moscow has also published (in its official organ Wolna Polska) a program for the future design of Poland which is in the starkest contrast to the aims of the Polish government in England. On the practical (that is, the military) plane, the question is how the Polish people and especially the active Polish resistance movement will react to the Russians marching into their country, and whether they will be willing to fight alongside them against the Germans.

[Peter Clare]

January 8, 1940
Mussolini questions Hitler's plans

On this day, a message from Benito Mussolini is forwarded to Adolf Hitler. In the missive, the Duce cautions the Fuhrer against waging war against Britain. Mussolini asked if it was truly necessary "to risk all-including the regime-and to sacrifice the flower of German generations."
Mussolini's message was more than a little disingenuous. At the time, Mussolini had his own reasons for not wanting Germany to spread the war across the European continent: Italy was not prepared to join the effort, and Germany would get all the glory and likely eclipse the dictator of Italy. Germany had already taken the Sudetenland and Poland; if Hitler took France and then cowed Britain into neutrality--or worse, defeated it in battle--Germany would rule Europe. Mussolini had assumed the reigns of power in Italy long before Hitler took over Germany, and in so doing Mussolini boasted of refashioning a new Roman Empire out of an Italy that was still economically backward and militarily weak. He did not want to be outshined by the upstart Hitler.
And so the Duce hoped to stall Germany's war engine until he could figure out his next move. The Italian ambassador in Berlin delivered Mussolini's message to Hitler in person. Mussolini believed that the "big democracies...must of necessity fall and be harvested by us, who represent the new forces of Europe." They carried "within themselves the seeds of their decadence." In short, they would destroy themselves, so back off.
Hitler ignored him and moved forward with plans to conquer Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Mussolini, rather than tie Italy's fortune to Germany's--which would necessarily mean sharing the spotlight and the spoils of any victory--began to turn an eye toward the east. Mussolini invaded Yugoslavia and, in a famously disastrous strategic move, Greece.

[Bodston]

Wednesday 8 January 1941

The Somali Camel Corps is Dissolved
Nairobi (Kenya)
The British Reuters News Agency announced:
On January 7 a radical change occurred in the military history of Kenya. The Somali Camel Corps (forces of British East Africa which were fighting on the British side as part of Middle East Command) was dissolved and reorganised, now equipped with tanks from South Africa. The tanks are intended especially for operations in the desert.

[Bodston]

Thursday 8 January 1942

Rommel retreats in Libya
London
The American United Press News Agency reported:
The men in London have listened with interest to the report that German and Italian forces under General Rommel have left Agedabia and started marching southwest, overcoming resistance form a violent sandstorm. The important point, it is emphasised in London, is that Rommel has succeeded in escaping the attempt by British troops to encircle his forces.

Winston Churchill to the British Foreign Secretary
8 January 1942:
We have never recognised the 1941 frontiers of Russia except de facto. They were acquired by acts of aggression in shameful collusion with Hitler. The transfer of the peoples of the Baltic States to Soviet Russia against their will would be contrary to all the principles for which we are fighting this war and would dishonour our cause.

[Peter Clare]

January 9, 1945
United States invades Luzon in Philippines

On this day, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the American 6th Army land on the Lingayen Gulf of Luzon, another step in the capture of the Philippine Islands from the Japanese.
The Japanese controlled the Philippines from May 1942, when the defeat of American forces led to General MacArthur's departure and Gen. Jonathan Wainwright's capture. But in October 1944, more than 100,000 American soldiers landed on Leyte Island to launch one of one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific war-and herald the beginning of the end for Japan.
Newsreels captured the event as MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte on October 20, returning to the Philippines as he had famously promised he would after the original defeat of American forces there. What the newsreels didn't capture were the 67 days it took to subdue the island, with the loss of more than 55,000 Japanese soldiers during the two months of battle and approximately 25,000 more soldiers killed in smaller-scale engagements necessary to fully clear the area of enemy troops. The U.S. forces lost about 3,500.
The sea battle of Leyte Gulf was the same story. The loss of ships and sailors was horrendous for both sides. That battle also saw the introduction of the Japanese kamikaze suicide bombers. More than 5,000 kamikaze pilots died in this gulf battle, taking down 34 ships. But the Japanese were not able to prevent the loss of their biggest and best warships, which meant the virtual end of the Japanese Imperial Fleet.
These American victories on land and sea at Leyte opened the door for the landing of more than 60,000 American troops on Luzon on January 9. Once again, cameras recorded MacArthur walking ashore, this time to greet cheering Filipinos. Although the American troops met little opposition when they landed, they lost the light cruiser Columbia and the battleship Mississippi, to kamikazes, resulting in the deaths of 49 American crewmen.
The initial ease of the American fighters' first week on land was explained when they discovered the intricate defensive network of caves and tunnels that the Japanese created on Luzon. The intention of the caves and tunnels was to draw the Americans inland, while allowing the Japanese to avoid the initial devastating bombardment of an invasion force. Once Americans reached them, the Japanese fought vigorously, convinced they were directing American strength away from the Japanese homeland. Despite their best efforts, the Japanese lost the battle for Luzon and eventually, the battle for control over all of the Philippines.

[Peter Clare]

M/S LAMORICIERS (January 9, 1942)
The French passenger ship Lamoriciers was crossing the Mediterranean from Algiers to France when she sank near the Balearic Isles. The cause of the sinking has never been determined but probably after hitting an uncharted mine during a heavy storm. The ship sank almost immediately. A total of 222 passengers and crew were lost. One of those lost was Jerzy Rozycki, one of the three Polish cryptologists who worked on cracking the German Enigma code in 1932. Rozycki and his team had travelled from France to Algiers in late 1941 to work on the Enigma codes and was returning on the Lamoriciers when disaster struck. Two other members of the code breaking team, Jan Gralinski and Piotr Smalenski also perished.

[Bodston]

Thursday 9 January 1941

Beromünster Radio (Switzerland)
As we look at the various theatres of war this past week, we see that the British army's offensive in Libya, led by General Wavell (C-in-C, Middle East Command) has continued to develop. The fall of the fortress at Bardia on the coast of Cyrenaica has reactivated the British advance toward Tobruk against the bulk of Graziani's army. The British claim that since Wavell's offensive began one month ago, more than 90,000 Italian troops have been eliminated from the battle, the majority of whom have been captured by the victorious British. The British have likewise taken large quantities of military equipment and supplies of all kinds in Bardia. The greatest boon to the British is that they are now able to use the port of Bardia to bring in supplies, whereas in the past they had to deliver supplies labouriously by the desert roads.
The situation in the Albanian theatre is static. However the Greeks are only a day's march from the Albanian port of Valona, which it is their present strategic objective to occupy. At Tepelena (Yugoslavia), Klisura (Bulgaria) and near Lake Ochrida (Yugoslav - Albanian border), the Greeks have evidently not yet progressed to positions that would enable them to carry out a strategic expansion of the tactical postions they have won so far. This fact does not in the lest diminish the extra-ordinary achievement of the Greek army and its commanders.

[Bodston]

Friday 9 January 1942

Beromünster Radio (Switzerland)
On the Eastern Front, the Russian Offensive is continuing. News of events in the northernmost sector of the front, where the Finns are fighting the Russians, is sparse on both sides. No details are avaliable on the scope of these operations. In the Leningrad sector, where the Russians are confronting von Leeb's German army, they have captured Tikhvin and then initiated a movement to link up their forces coming from Tikhvin with the Soviet garrison at Leningrad; they are also trying to reach the Lake Ilmen area south of there along the Volkhov river. But far more significant than these battles in the north, which evidently are of a purely local nature, is the fighting along the central sector west of Moscow.
Turning now to the North African Front: Within a 37-day period, British Imperial troops have occupied Cyrenaica, while along the Libyan-Egyptian border, German and Italian garrisons have continued to hold off the British at the Halfaya Pass, Sollum and Bardia. After occupying Cyrenaica, the advancing British troops have been halted at Agedabia on the Gulf of Sirte by the forces of General Rommel, who has occupied favourable positions there; and a lull in the fighting has ensued in which both adversaries, after the extraordinarily rapid movements that brought thm to Agedabia, have begun to feel the effects of the supply problem that is so acute in the desert. Further, the army reports on both sides are in agreement that exceptionally bad weather conditions - heavy rains and sandstorms - have been impairing their operations.
In the Pacific, American and Filipino forces under General MacArthur have been continuing their fight against superior Japanese forces on the main Philippine island of Luzon after being forced to evacuate the capital, Manila... The second important war theatre in the Far East is the Malay Peninsula where, since the start of the war on December 7, superior Japanese forces have landed troops on the east coast and launched an offensive from Thailand in the north against the British Imperial troops. The Japanese advance has not yet been halted anywhere, and the forward Japanese lines are at the moment around 200 miles north of Singapore. The British commander has declared Singapore under a state of siege.

[Bodston]

Saturday 9 January 1943

The German Wehrmacht High Command announced:
Hard fighting is continuing between the Caucasus and the Don, at Stalingrad and in the Don river area. The bitterly attacking Soviets have been repulsed everywhere. German troops immediately went on the counteroffensive at many points, inflicting very heavy casulaties and destroying large quantities of equipment. We wiped out an encircled force, destroying 18 tanks. Fighter and close-combat fighter planes intervened successfully in the defensive fighting and blew up enemy cavalry and motorised columns and assemblies.

[Peter Clare]

January 10, 1941
Lend-Lease introduced into Congress

On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program is brought before the U.S. Congress for consideration.
Roosevelt devised the Lend-Lease program as a means of aiding Great Britain in its war effort against the Germans. The program gave the chief executive the power to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of" any military resources he deemed in the ultimate interest of the defense of the United States. The idea was that if Britain were better able to defend itself, the security of the U.S. would be enhanced. The program also served to bolster British morale, as they would no longer feel alone in their struggle against Hitler.
Congress authorized the program on March 11. By November, after much heated debate, Congress extended the terms of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, even though Stalin's USSR had already been the recipient of American military weapons and had been promised $1 billion in financial aid.
By the end of the war, more than $50 billion in funds, weapons, aircraft, and ships were distributed to 44 countries through the program. After the war, the Lend-Lease program morphed into the Marshall Plan, which allocated funds for the revitalization of "friendly" democratic nations.