On this day during WW2

Discussion in 'All Anniversaries' started by spidge, May 31, 2006.

  1. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

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  2. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    The Malmedy massacre was a war crime committed by members of Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of the 1st SS Panzer Division), a German combat unit led by Joachim Peiper, at Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy, Belgium, on December 17, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. According to numerous eyewitness accounts, 84 American prisoners of war were massacred by their German captors: the prisoners were assembled in a field and shot with machine guns.

    The term Malmedy massacre also applies generally to the series of massacres committed by the same unit on the same day and following days, which were the subject of the Malmedy massacre trial, part of the Dachau Trials of 1946. The trials were the focus of some controversy.


    Malmedy massacre - Wikipedia
     
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  3. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

  4. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Only just watched the depiction of the massacre on the BOTB film yesterday afternoon.

     
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  5. smdarby

    smdarby Well-Known Member

    A day late - Bombing of the Bezuidenhout 75 years ago yesterday. It's an incident I only found out about a couple of years ago after visiting some WWII sites in The Hague. On a raid intended to destroy V-2 rocket sites, the RAF mistakenly bombed a neighbourhood of the city, killing 511. Link to the wiki site and photos of a mass grave of victims (apologies for the quality, it was pouring down!).

    Bombing of the Bezuidenhout - Wikipedia

    DSCF4365.JPG DSCF4367.JPG
     
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  6. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Today is the 76th Anniversary of the Chindit Glider landings in Burma. The most openly aggressive phase of Operation Thursday.

     
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  7. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Inadvertent attack on Rauter night 6 to 7 March 1945 and its bloody aftermath

    Rauter.jpg

    Hanns Rauter, the SS and police chief in the Netherlands, was shot in his car by the Dutch resistance. It was an inadvertent attack, the resistance needed a car and decided to 'car-jack' one during the night on the main road between Arnhem and Apeldoorn. Unfortunately this happened to be the car of the police chief. Rauter was left for dead, but was only wounded, his driver and adjudant both were killed. The Germans as a reprisal executed 274 hostages (Todeskandidaten) on 7 and 8 March 1945. The biggest mass-execution of the war in Holland.

    Inadvertent attack on Rauter at Woeste Hoeve - TracesOfWar.com

    Woeste Hoeve 1.jpg
    Woeste Hoeve 3.jpg
    Monument at the Woeste Hoeve to commemorate the victims of the German reprisal; 117 hostages were killed at this spot. Spread over the country another 147 hostages (or as the Germans called them 'Todeskandidaten') were executed. The explicit text reads: "In the morning of 8 March 1945 they were murdered in this place by the German occupier in revenge"
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2023
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  8. smdarby

    smdarby Well-Known Member

    Good to remember this stolpi - I have visited the site a couple of times. It isn't mentioned in the article, but I seem to recall one of those executed was a German soldier who refused to take part in the killings. I don't believe he has ever been identified.
     
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  9. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Just watching footage on the Smithsonian Channel of the bombing.
    Just thought I'd mention it was 75 years ago tonight.
     
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  10. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Rauter

    The account of the attack on the German BMW is well covered by the ATB magazine,the resistance group being unaware of the importance of the German caught up in it.

    Rauter was a different man in the dock for war crimes,far from his usual pomp after a few years being held until his trial and late execution.

    Remembering the Dutch who were murdered as a reprisal.
     
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  11. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member


    I think that these people when they are apprehended for their crimes against humanity etc and stand in the dock,they are entirely different people from their days of power, although Goring maintained his pomp at Nuremberg.

    One of the best illustrations is Werner Best who was the Reich Commissioner for Denmark between 1942 and 1945.I have a friend of over 40 years who related to me when his father was a guard overlooking Best.His father was called up into the Danish Army immediately when the war ended and he was assigned to be involved in Best's custody.Best was very subdued and my friend's father said jokingly to his daughters much later that they could not scrub the kitchen floor as well as Best scrubbed floors. ..certainly Best was very compliant in custody.

    Hoping to see him my friends in Denmark this summer should the present crisis allow.
     
  12. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Interesting post Owen, seeing how far aviation technology had been developed from the start of the war with the introduction of the B 29 which possessed the longest bomber reach in the Second World War

    Once the US Air Forces in the Pacific received its B 29s,Japanese industry and infrastructure was under continual bombardment .Air force resources were built up so that the B29s could mount daylight operations. For example,Tinian island had four large runways laid out in parallel in order to maximise the island's capacity to accommodate multi Bombardment Groups.From then on the Japanese were fighting a losing battle to stem bombing raids against homeland targets.

    Steve Birdsall's Saga of the Superfortress illustrates how the B29 entered service and the USAAF built up its bases in China and the Pacific to strike the Japanese home islands.;; a good publication to read about the air war in the Pacific.
     
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  13. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    On this day 77 years ago, the official order was given for the columns of the first Wingate expedition to turn around and head for home. Some columns had already made the decision to return to India before this date and No. 7 Column exited Burma via the Chinese borders.

    Loncloth Numbers. WO361:436. copy.JPG
     
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  14. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Megchelen - the first Dutch village north of the Rhine was liberated by the 43rd Wessex Division 75 years ago on 28 March 1945.

    See: RHINE CROSSING 1945: The Rees bridgehead (30 Corps in operation 'Turnscrew')

    Mechgelen oorlogsmonument.jpg
    The Sherman Firefly of 'A' Squadron 13/18th Hussars which was knocked out next to a farm house along the Julianaweg to the north of Megchelen in the afternoon of the 28th. The tank probably was the first tank knocked out on Dutch soil after the Rhine Crossing in 1945; all four crew members lost their lives (Photo courtesy Maarten K).
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2020
  15. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    On April 1st, 1945 Operation Plunder virtually came to a close. On that day 2nd Cdn Corps Canadian started its sweep up into NE Holland 'Operation Haymaker'.

    It also was the day that 1st Canadian Army assumed command of the 1st and 2nd Cdn Corps. For the first time in the European Campaign all Canadian ground forces were united under a Canadian command.

    NE Holland.jpg
    Courtesy Bevrijding van Oost- en Noord-Nederland - TracesOfWar.nl
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2022
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  16. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

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  17. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Stick Appelscha.jpg

    It's 75 years ago that Operation Amherst started.

    Around midnight on the night of 7 to 8 April 700 French SAS soldiers of the 3rd and 4th SAS Regt dropped ahead of the ground formations of 2nd Canadian Corps in NE Holland.

    The mission of the French SAS paras was to facilitate the advance of 2nd Cdn Corps by causing a maximum amount of confusion in the enemy rear areas.

    See: Operation Amherst: French SAS in Holland, April 1945

    NE Holland.jpg
    Map Courtesy Bevrijding van Oost- en Noord-Nederland - TracesOfWar.nl
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2020
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  18. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    That was a savage campaign without doubt. ATB, some years ago covered the experience of young marine who with others were new recruits and Okinawa was their first experience of the battlefield.
     
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  19. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

  20. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Lt_-Dave-Heap-kijkt-naar-het-bord-van-de-stad-Groningen-aan-de-Paterswoldseweg_1.jpg

    2nd Cdn Corps battle for the city of Groningen (North Holland) started 75 years ago.

    See: Tour of Northeast Holland


    ... following OP Canonshot (11 April 1945) the 1st Cdn Corps' British 49 Division on the night 12/13 April moved across the IJssel to capture Arnhem (codename Op Anger).

    See: Liberation of Arnhem - Wikipedia and Arnhem 1945 (liberation) 2013 Then & Now

    Westervoort IJssel.jpg
    Soldiers of the 49 Division have arrived on the western bank of the river IJssel just upstream from the destroyed railway- and roadbridge near Westervoort and now move out towards Arnhem; the picture was taken on 13 April 1945. Note the large number of discarded life jackets.

    IJsselbrug W'voort.jpg
    Same spot today

    spoorbrug-en-verkeersbrug-over-de-ijssel-tussen-arnhem-en-westervoort.jpg
    Aerial of the crossing site at Westervoort looking to the southeast to Westervoort. In the foreground the remnants of the blown traffic-railway bridge over the IJssel. The latter a branch off of the Lower Rhine which is visible in the background. Visible above the bridge is the Veerweg, the road leading up to the ferry-site (courtesy: Informatie).
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2022

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