Remembering History by day WW2

[Bodston]

Saturday 20 January 1940

Tension in Belgium
Brussels; The Belgian Belga News Agency reported:
Calm has returned to the country after the alarming reports of the weekend; but the security measures taken in response are still in force. No doubt the Government has good reason to maintain them. However, the ban on soldiers' taking leave is due to be lifted shortly.

[Bodston]

Tuesday 20 January 1942

Breakthrough by Japanese Armoured Troops
Singapore; The British Reuters News Agency reported:
The Japanese offensive has now achieved further success. The Japanese, who hold air supremacy, have broken through along the west coast of Johore (Malaya opposite Singapore), and their advanced armoured units have reached positions 36 miles from Singapore.

[Peter Clare]

January 20, 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.

[Bodston]

Saturday 20 January 1945

German Offensive against Strasbourg
The American United Press News Agency reported from General Eisenhower's Headquarters:
In the area north of Strasbourg, Germans have used ferry boats and pontoon bridges to convey additional reinforcements, including a large number of Tiger tanks, across the Rhine. As a result, they have successfully linked up their Rhine bridgehead with their troops north of the Hagenau Forest so that the enemy now holds a continuous front approximately 42 miles long, running from Bitche to Sulz and on to Gambsheim on the upper Rhine. The breakthrough that led to the linkup of the two enemy forces occurred after the Germans extended their bridgehead northward to the area of Seltz (France) and recaptured the villages of Leutenheim and Kaussenheim to the southwest, only a few miles from the German troops at Hatten.

[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]

January 21, 1867
General Weygand is born

On this day, French Gen. Maxime Weygand is born in Belgium. He was one of the commanders who accepted the German surrender at the close of World War I only to advise the French government to surrender to the Germans early in World War II.
Although born in Belgium (his actual ancestry is uncertain), Weygand was educated in France and graduated from the Saint-Cyr training school for officers in 1888 with honors. He taught at a cavalry school where, in 1914, he won the respect of Gen. Ferdinand Foch, who made Weygand his chief of staff during the World War I.
Weygand held a variety of positions between the wars, including a post as adviser to the Polish army in 1920, and a stint as inspector general of the French army. He retired from active service in 1935, at age 68.
When the Germans invaded France in May 1940, Weygand was recalled into service to take command of the Allied troops in France-after the Germans were already overrunning much of the country. As the British Expeditionary Force was pushed to the Channel by the Germans and then finally pushed out of France, things looked increasingly desperate for the French.
Britain attempted to keep hope alive--Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered more British troops into France and British bombers continued to attack German lines of communication. But despite the British reinforcements and encouragement, Weygand ordered the French military governor of Paris to ensure that the French capital remained an open city-in other words, there was to be no armed resistance to the Germans. Orders to this effect meant that Weygand was pushing for an armistice, a capitulation--the enemy would be allowed to pass through unchallenged. Weygand addressed his cabinet with his assessment of the situation: "A cessation of hostilities is compulsory." France capitulated.
Weygand served in the new German-loyal Vichy government as minister of defense, delegate general to French Africa, and governor-general of Algeria. He was dismissed in December 1941 and sent to Cannes to retire on a pension. He tried to get back into the fray in 1942 by flying to Algiers when the Allies invaded North Africa, but he was caught by the Germans and transported to Austria, where he sat imprisoned in an Austrian castle. Upon the surrender of Germany, he was released by U.S. troops of liberation but then rearrested on orders of Gen. Charles de Gaulle and charged with enemy collaboration. Weygand was "rehabilitated" within three years and pardoned for his concession to the Germans. De Gaulle was forced to admit that by the time Weygand took command of the army in France, "It was too late, without any doubt, to win the battle of France."

[Peter Clare]

USS TICONDEROGA (January 21, 1945)
American aircraft carrier of 27,000 tons, hit by a Japanese suicide plane while patrolling the waters off Formosa. Although the ship was not sunk it suffered casualties of 144 men killed and around 200 injured. This tragedy was not revealed until six months after the event.

[Peter Clare]

HMS EXMOUTH (January 21, 1940)
Royal Navy destroyer of 1,475 tons (Capt. R. Benson) sunk by a torpedo from the U-22 (Kptlt. Karl Heinrich Jenisch) off Kinnaird Head on the Moray Firth, North of Scotland. The Exmouth had met the Cyprian Prince off Aberdeen, to escort her northwards to Scapa Flow in the Orkney's when at 04.48 hrs the vessel was hit by a torpedo on the starboard side at her forward magazine which exploded with a tremendous flash of fire and black smoke. The ship sank with all hands, 16 officers and 173 ratings. The Exmouth was the first Royal Navy destroyer to be sunk by a U-boat torpedo in WWII.
The freighter Cyprian Prince, fearful of another torpedo attack, continued on with its cargo of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and trucks for the defence of the naval base at Scapa Flow. Some time later eighteen bodies were washed ashore near Wick and were buried in a mass grave. (The U-22 was lost north of Jutland in March 23. She is believed to have struck a mine and sank with all hands,

[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.

[Owen]

Fighting in the Gargliano Bridgehead , Italy, January 1944.
From 2 Wilts War diary.
21/1/44
0300: D Coy move into position behind A Coy NW of TUFO. Their previous position is taken over by D Coy 2 CAMERONIANS. A day of shelling and patrols by both sides.
1800: A Coy patrols report enemy digging in on forward slopes of Pt 201 and a Regimental concentraion is put down on that area.
Coy warned to expect strong counter-attack and carrier Platoon sent up to reinforce them