Last Winter

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• In US Third Army's XX Corps area, situation in Dillingen bridgehead improves with a vehicular ferry put into operation. An effective smoke screen permits delivery of tanks and tank destroyers to bridgehead. Combat efficiency of both 90th and 95th Divisions has been lowered sharply because of insufficient reinforcements and exhaustion.

 

• Hitler briefs his generals on the need for a victory in the Ardennes to “exhaust” the Allied armies. The generals are surprised to see that he looks sick and pallid, with his left arm shaking uncontrollably. Several note that he appears near-collapse.

 

• Norwegian corvette Tunsberg Castle is mined and sunk off Båtsfjord, Norway.

 

• Training submarine U-416 sinks after collision with minesweeper M-203 off the Polish coast. Five crewmen are rescued.

 

• A Soviet air raid on Liepāja, Latvia sinks German merchant vessels Minna Cords, Erica Schünemann, and Inca.

 

• Modern German destroyers Z-35 and Z-36 stray into a German minefield while laying more mines off the Estonian coast and are sunk. 570 crewmen are lost between the two vessels.

 

• Soviet sniper Roza Shanina, credited with 51 kills, is wounded by a German sniper in Poland. Despite being offered a post at sniper-school, she will choose to return to combat and get eight more Germans before being killed by artillery in East Prussia.

 

- A total of 2,484 Soviet female snipers see combat between 1941 and 1945, and their combined tally of kills is conservatively estimated to be at least 11,280.

 

Senior Sergeant Roza Shanina in 1944

 

Snipers of 3rd Byelorussian Front - Roza Shanina is 2nd from left"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "

• Coastal Command Mosquitos sink German freighter Ferndale and Norwegian tug Parat in the Krakhellesund.

 

• British Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander becomes Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater, replacing Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, who becomes head of British Joint Staff Mission in Washington, D.C., succeeding the late Field Marshal John Dill. US Lieutenant General Mark Clark assumes command of the Allied Armies in Italy, re-designated the 15th Army Group, and is replaced as head of US Fifth Army by Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.

 

• In Italy, despite bad weather having grounded air support for days, the Indian 43rd Brigade drives Germans from Faenza. The New Zealand 2nd Infantry Division reaches the Senio River and the Indian 10th Division takes Pergola.

 

Wacht am Rhein

 

• The US 106th Infantry Division, freshly arrived in Europe and without combat experience, had just taken over a large section of the line on the 11th December. They are covering a front 26 miles long.

 

- At 05:30, the Germans begin a 90-minute artillery barrage using 1,600 guns across an 80 mile front. The Americans’ initial impression is that this is an anticipated, localized counterattack resulting from the Allies’ recent attack in the Wahlerscheid sector to the north, where the 2nd Infantry Division had knocked a sizable dent in the Siegfried Line.

 

- The 5. and 6. Panzer Armies press vigorously toward the Meuse River on a broad front. German paratroopers dropped behind US lines succeed in disrupting communications and causing widespread confusion, but take very heavy casualties. German 7. Armee advances in the southern sector. 

 

- The thinly spread 106th Infantry Division gives ground almost immediately, while the 99th Infantry Division inflicts significant delays on the Germans, with a single recon platoon and four observers from the African-American 371st Field Artillery blocking the road and holding up the entire 1. SS Panzer Division for several hours before they are surrounded and captured. One American is killed and fourteen wounded. 29 Germans are killed and 63 wounded.  All 22 of the Americans will be decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, or Bronze Star.

 

-  US First Army commander Courtney Hodges releases the reserve 1st Infantry Division to V Corps and directs CCB of the 9th Armored Division to St Vith."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Elements of Second Ukrainian Front push to within five miles of Budapest.

 

• Elements of French II^ème Corps d’ Armée overrun Keintzheim.

 

• In the Ardennes, the German columns move forward rapidly in the south and center, but are greatly slowed near Elsenborn Ridge.

 

• Two batteries of the African-American 333rd Field Artillery Battalion are providing covering fire as the 106th Infantry Division retreats from the German assault. The batteries are overrun with less than half the men escaping and several of the others shot on the spot. A Belgian farmer shelters eleven survivors in his farmhouse at Wareth, half a mile from St Vith, but they are found by troops of the 1. SS Panzer Division. Their fingers are cut off and legs broken before they are shot and bayonetted.

 

• As Kampfgruppe Peiper approaches the crossroads two miles southeast of Malmédy, they surprise an American convoy of 26 vehicles from the 285th Field Artillery, 546th and 575th Ambulance Companies, and 68th Engineer Battalion which are pulling back to join the 7th Armored Division. The Germans knock out the first and last trucks, halting the column. Armed with only rifles and other small arms, the 113 Americans surrender to the armored force and are joined by 14 previously captured men.

 

- The Germans loot the prisoners of their valuables and begin destroying the trucks. Standartenführer (Lieutenant-Colonel) Joachim Peiper arrives and orders them to immediately stop, in order to salvage the precious fuel in the vehicles. As he departs, Peiper tells Sturmbannführer (Major) Werner Pötschke. “You know what to do with these prisoners.”

 

- At the War Crimes trials, the SS men will later claim that the prisoners tried to escape, but most of the 84 bodies will be found in a small area, with wounds to the head, more consistent with a deliberate massacre. The prisoners panic and flee as the gunfire starts, and the SS will methodically check the fallen, shooting any that show signs of life. Eventually, 43 survivors will be found, several having been aided or hidden by Belgian civilians. The first are encountered only two hours later by a patrol from the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion.

 

Marking of location of bodies before recovery in January, 1945.

 

- In the next few days further massacres of POWs and civilians will occur in Ligneuville, Stavelot, Cheneux, La Gleize, Stoumont, and Trois-Ponts.

 

- Peiper will attempt to blame all of the massacres on Major Pötschke, who will be killed in action in March, 1945. Peiper and 42 other defendents will be sentenced to death in 1946.

 

- The US Army commander in Germany will come under tremendous pressure from Church authorities in Germany and from American anti-communist congressmen to commute the sentences. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy will investigate the trials and claim that the “Jewish prosecutors” did not try the Nazis fairly.

 

- All of the convicted war criminals will be released, with Peiper being the last, in 1956. Peiper will maintain contact with his old comrades in the SS and assist the efforts of these organizations to rehabilitate the Waffen-SS’s reputation by hiding the more ruthless aspects of their past and exaggerating their military achievements, claiming that the SS were just like other soldiers.

 

- Peiper will work at Porsche in its technical division, but eventually be let go as union workers protest having a war criminal working for the company. He will then with the assistance of friends, become a Volkswagen salesman.

 

- In 1968 Italy will charge him with the Boves Massacre of 195 civilians in 1943. When it appears that West Germany will allow him to go to trial, he secretly moves to France under the name of Rainer Buschmann.

 

- In June, 1976, the French Communist paper “L'Humanité” will reveal his presence. In July his home will be attacked and his charred corpse later found. The perpetrators have never been identified but are believed to be former members of the French Résistance.

 

- Today, Peiper is idolized by holocaust deniers and people with feldgrau colored glasses, with history revision and sales of posters and action figures. . ."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Kampfgruppe Peiper is stymied from crossing the Amblève River at Stavelot when engineers of the 30th Infantry Division blow the bridge. In the area between Stavelot and Trois-Ponts, Peiper’s men massacre 130 Belgian civilians, including children, in reprisal for some of them sheltering or feeding retreating Americans.

 

Spoiler

War correspondent Jean Marin looks at bodies of civilians murdered at the Legaye house in Stavelot, Belgium

 

- Kampfgruppe Peiper advances west and is repelled from Trois-Ponts by elements of the 82nd Airborne Division and 51st Engineer Battalion. Peiper turns north towards La Gleize and Stoumont.

 

• General Eisenhower meets with his commanders at recently captured Verdun, saying, “The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table.” He asks General Patton how long it would take him to turn Third Army north to counterattack.

 

- To the disbelief of the other generals present, Patton replies that he can attack with two divisions within 48 hours. Patton had ordered his staff to conduct a turn northward in at least corps strength before departing for the meeting, so the movement is already underway.

 

• US Ninth and Seventh Armies, and French First Army are ordered to halt offensive operations. The US First and Ninth Armies are placed under Field Marshal Montgomery temporarily, displacing Lieutenant General Bradley.

 

• Having delayed the 12. SS Panzer Division and two divisions of Volksgrenadiers at Krinkett and Büllengen for several days, the US 99th Infantry Division withdraws to Elsenborn Ridge which is being fortified by US 1st Infantry Division and attached units.

 

• Bastogne is nearly enveloped by 2. Panzer, Panzer Lehr, and 26. Volksgrenadier Divisions. The US 101st Airborne is trucked in to provide much needed infantry support to CCR of the 9th Armored and CCB of the 10th Armored.

 

• The US 7th Armored is stubbornly holding the area around St Vith, which is effectively keeping the 5. and 6. Panzer Armees separated. The 9. SS Panzer Division attacks CCA of the 7th at Poteau and is repulsed, while an attack by elements of LXVI Armeekorps on St Vith is repelled by CCB of the 7th. Generalfeldmarschall Model releases the heavy tanks of the Führerbegleitbrigade to 5. Panzer Armee in order to finally take St Vith. It will take the heavy armor two days to get through traffic jams of LXVI Armeekorps.

 

• The 422nd and 423rd Regiments of the 106th Infantry Division plus support units have been isolated in the Schnee Eifel region East of St Vith for several days now. Plans to supply them by air were cancelled due to the need for troop carrier aircraft to supply Bastogne instead. Today, 9,000 American troops surrender to the 18. Volksgrenadier Division in the worst land defeat suffered by the US Army in Europe. One of those captured is Kurt Vonnegut Jr who will later witness the firestorm of Dresden caused by heavy bombers, surviving in an underground meat-locker called “Slaughterhouse five”.

 

American prisoners from 106th ID marching east"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Thirty-seven B-24s of the 455th Bombardment Group fly from Italy to bomb the Škoda armaments works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia (currently building artillery and the Jagdpanzer 38(t) “Hetzers”). Six aircraft are lost and seven damaged. The most badly damaged is flown by future US Senator and 1972 Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern. With two engines out and hydraulics failed, McGovern manages to get to the partisan held island of Vis in the Adriatic and land on a small emergency fighter strip with no casualties. Other bombers that tried to land on the short strip had all crashed with no survivors. McGovern will receive the Distinguished Flying Cross and go on to complete 35 missions by the time the war ends.

 

• In Hungary, Malinovskiy attacks out of the Boerzseny Mountains south of Sahy, and Tolbukhin on either side of Velencze Lake. Head of OKH Heinz Guderian orders Heersgruppe Süd commander Johannes Freißner to attack Tolbukhin immediately but Freißner protests that he needs to wait for infantry support as without infantry the panzers won’t be effective. Guderian demands that he attack immediately as he has "a tank armada larger than any ever seen before on the Eastern Front".

 

- The German offensive is a debacle. With two panzer divisions plus more than a hundred Tigers and King Tigers in three heavy tank battalions, they attack west of Velencze Lake without infantry support. While the German tanks roar back and forth along the roads burning up their gasoline, Tolbukhin's infantry, avoiding the roads, press along through the woods and still unfrozen swamps, keeping out of reach. Many of the tank commanders do not even realize what is happening until, seeking to refuel, find that they have to fight their way to the gasoline dumps only, as often as not, to discover that the Soviets had been there before them.

 

- Guderian will relieve Freißner for the failure, replacing him with General der Infanterie Otto Wöhler.

 

King Tiger knocked out in the aftermath of the counterattack"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Soviet Pe-2s sink German police boat SW.31 and customs vessel Reporter in the Baltic.

 

• 8. Panzer Division counterattacks the Soviets near Esztergom but make little or no headway.

 

• Soviet forces succeed in encircling about three fourths of Budapest. Moscow confirms reports that the Third Ukrainian Front is on the offensive in vicinity of Székesfehérvár, southwest of Budapest. Both the German/Hungarian and the Soviet/Romanian forces are taking heavy casualties.

 

• Norwegian MTB-712 torpedoes and sinks German minesweeper M-489 in the Bømlafjorden.

 

• Senior Nazis including Adolf Eichmann flee Budapest for Germany.

 

• Sixteen German SS infiltrators caught in American uniforms are executed after being found guilty by military tribunal.

 

Three Nazis being prepared for firing squad 23 December, 1944.

 

• US V Corps repels two separate attacks on Elsenborn Ridge.

 

• With the battlefield still covered by low lying clouds, IX Troop Carrier Command is flying the newly arrived US 17th Airborne Division from England to Mourmand le Grand, southeast of Reims. Stockpiles of supplies are being accumulated at their UK airfields. Several doctors and medical supplies are successfully delivered to Bastogne by glider in an extremely hazardous mission. The 5. Fallschirmjäger Division, 26. Volksgrenadier Division, and a regiment of the 15. Panzergrenadier Division are backed by towed artillery and heavy flak units from 2. Panzer and Panzer Lehr Divisions, and are slowly contracting the Bastogne perimeter amid heavy shelling.

 

• Having bypassed Bastogne, XLVII Panzerkorps is repulsed at Marche by the US 84th Infantry Division. General der Panzertruppe Heinrich Diepold Georg Freiherr von Lüttwitz leaves a blocking force at Marche and orders 2. Panzer Division to instead advance towards Dinant and the Meuse. The German armor is making rapid progress, though on a narrow corridor. A jubilant General der Panzertruppe Hasso von Manteuffel releases the 9. Panzer Division from 5. Panzer Armee reserve to advance on Marche.

 

• With 1st SS Panzer Division unable to break through the US 30th Infantry Division positions at Stavelot, Kampfgrupper Peiper is forced to abandon its vehicles and trudge back on foot, skirting the American positions."

[357th_KW]

With the weather improving, aerial activity picked up significantly over the Ardennes on the 23rd.  In one of the most intense actions of the day, Thunderbolts of the 56th Fighter Group got involved in a massive battle between Bonn and Koblenz, claiming more then 30 victories.  Col. David Schilling was responsible for five of these. 

 

The medium bombers of the 9th Air Force swung into action this day as well, attacking bridges, and logistical targets throughout the battle area.  This would prove to be the most costly day of the war for the B-26s, as many of the B-26 formations would have little or no fighter escort and the Luftwaffe fighters in the area exacted a heavy toll.  35 Marauders were lost to the Luftwaffe that day along with 182 damaged!

[357th_KW]

In response to heavy enemy air activity over the Bulge, VIII Fighter Command had agreed to transfer two groups of P-51s to the continent to aid IX Fighter Command.  The following is from "Fighter Group:  The 352nd Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney in World War II":

 

Don Bryan remembered preparing for the group’s movement to the continent. They were ordered to an expeditionary airfield in Belgium, Y-29. “We had all of December 22 to get ready,” he recalled. “We were told that we had to wear our dress uniforms—pinks and greens—rather than our normal flying clothes. It was supposed to be a simple ferry flight to Y-29 from Bodney, and once we got in the area the Ninth Air Force radars were supposed to give us vectors into the airfield.” The pilots received no good explanation as to why they were required to fly in their dress uniforms. As it developed, they had little idea how long they would be gone and most of them packed whatever clothes and personal belongings they could fit into their aircraft. On December 23, the 487th and the 328th were ready for the flight.

 

Bryan recalled that Earl Abbott was leading half of the 328th—sixteen aircraft—that day: “Just after engine start we were told to shut down and stay in our aircraft. I saw some personnel climb onto the wing of Earl’s aircraft and give him something. Once they stepped down Earl ordered us to start up and told us we had a mission.” Shortly after takeoff, Abbott aborted and passed the lead to Bryan before returning to Bodney. “The big problem was that Earl had all the code words,” Bryan recounted, “and once we got over the continent the radar stations wouldn’t respond to our calls.”

 

Returning to Bodney was not an option for Bryan. “We cruised around for a while and then Hank White called and said ‘Yellow Lead [Bryan] you have two FW-190s closing on you—I’ll tell you when to break.’” That Bryan didn’t maneuver immediately indicated how much trust he had in his squadron mate. “I switched to internal tanks and got ready. When Hank called for the break, we did in-place 180-degree turns.”

 

Coming out of his turn, shed of his drop tanks, Bryan caught sight of the enemy aircraft. “Just before I opened fire the FW turned over on its back and jettisoned its canopy. The pilot hadn’t gotten out when I fired. My first burst hit him square in the belly.” Bryan fired more rounds at the enemy ship without observing any more hits. It didn’t matter. The enemy aircraft continued down, slammed into the ground and exploded. Bryan’s wingman, William Sanford shot down the second FW-190.

 

Bryan eventually took the formation into an airfield that turned out to be A-84 at Chièvres; it was in Belgium near the French border. After landing he parked next to a P-47 from the 361st Fighter Group, a Ninth Air Force unit. “It was the dirtiest aircraft I had ever seen,” he recalled. The Ninth Air Force units flew hard and often, usually from primitive airfields where maintenance was difficult. Consequently, aircraft cleanliness was not a priority.

 

Bryan noted two pilots standing next to the P-47 who were nearly as filthy as it was. “After I filled out my flight record, I put on my hat, climbed out of Little One III, walked up to them and said, ‘Hi, where am I?’ One of the pilots looked at me in my dress uniform, glanced over at Little One III gleaming in the sun, then looked back at me and said, ‘God damned Eighth Air Force,’ and walked away. I never had a chance to tell him that we normally didn’t wear dress uniforms on combat missions.”
 

 

 

December 24th brought more clear weather and another busy day of combat in the skies over the Ardennes.  8th Air Force bombers targeted Luftwaffe airfields and a number of large battles took place around the bombers. 

 

 

Lt. Otto Jenkins of the 357th Fighter Group would be the top scorer for the day with 4 Fw190's destroyed.

 

From Chris Shores' "2nd Tactical Air Force Vol 2" :

 

It was proving a costly period for the Jagdwaffe however, for on the 17th and 18th, despite the weather, 76 fighter pilots had been killed and 36 wounded, whilst on the 23rd, 98 more casualties had been recorded, two thirds of them killed.  Now, on the 24th losses had risen to over 100, 85 of them dead, while losses of aircraft had been even higher.

[357th_KW]

80 years ago today, December 25th 1944 brought more intense air combat.  It also brought tragedy for one of the leading aces of the USAAF.

 

 

The following is again from "Fighter Group:  The 352nd Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney in World War II" by Jay Stout:

 

Preddy had already led his pilots airborne out of Y-29. The ten-aircraft formation climbed at full throttle through the clouds in two-ship elements. Leveling at 15,000 feet, Preddy took the pilots on a patrol that offered no action for nearly three hours. During that time the pilots grew inured to the uncharacteristic static that filled their earphones. The radios had been poorly tuned since arriving at Y-29. Notwithstanding the interference, the flight still maintained contact with their radar controller. James Cartee was Preddy’s wingman that morning. “I was flying Ditto White Two,” he recorded in his encounter report. “Near the end of our patrol, Ditto White Leader [Preddy] was vectored to a point slightly S/W of Coblenz where bandits were reported.”

 

Preddy led the patrol to a fight where P-51s and Me-109s were already engaged. He called over the radio, “Looks like they started without us; let’s join ’em.” Ray Mitchell, Preddy’s number four, remembered the scrap. “Preddy had just finished his transmission when the radio was filled with screaming about the beginning of a fight and I saw an Me-109 coming down from my left not far from behind [James] Lambright. I attempted to call Preddy but the radio was jammed with chatter. My only choice,” Mitchell continued, “was to break from the flight and get in behind the Me-109 before it got in range of Lambright. I let up slightly until I was sure of the Me-109’s position and then went full throttle to get in behind it and set it on fire. The canopy came partway off and the plane went down out of control.”

 

Mitchell looked over his shoulder. “I discovered an Me-109 on my tail and made such a hard left turn that it became a high-speed stall and I went into a spin. I stayed in the spin for a while to make sure that I was no longer a target, and then pulled out.” Mitchell’s recovery was a wrenching one. It registered nine Gs—well above the P-51’s operating limit.

 

While Mitchell covered the flight’s rear, Preddy threw himself into the melee and was soon turning hard with an Me-109. “After several turns,” Cartee recalled,” Major Preddy was gaining on the 109 when another 109 cut in front of him. He gave the latter 109 a burst. I observed many hits, the canopy came off and the pilot bailed out. Major Preddy immediately swung back to the first 109 and after about another turn got on him. He got numerous hits and this pilot also bailed out.”

 

Fritz Koal was part of the fighting. “When we reached the target area we saw bunches of Mustangs attacking the Staffeln below us.” Koal called for an attack, started down, and looked over his shoulder to make certain that his pilots were following him. “My very high speed brought me down there faster than I would have expected. I was in a perfect position and opened fire on a Mustang.”

 

Koal noted several hits on the American aircraft but had no time to press his attack. “At that moment my ship was hit hard by enemy fire and I could not see what happened to the Mustang I was chasing.” With his aircraft out of control, Koal jettisoned the canopy and struggled against negative g’s before he was able to leap clear. It is quite likely that Koal’s Me-109 was the first aircraft that Preddy knocked down that morning. The fighting was over almost immediately. Cartee described the remainder of the mission. “Getting a new vector, we continued toward Liège, where bandits were reported on the deck. We were a three-ship flight now, a white nosed P-51 having joined up.” The third P-51, an ad hoc wingman, was flown by James Bouchier of the 479th Fighter Group. The 479th flew a bomber escort mission from England that morning and was caught up in a melee during which it scored fifteen aerial victories while losing three pilots of its own. Somewhere along the way, Bouchier was spit out of the fight and attached himself to Preddy and Cartee.

 

The three of them were southeast of Liège at 1,500 feet when they spotted an FW-190D flying low over the ground below them. “Major Preddy went down after him,” recalled Cartee. “The 190 headed East at tree-top level. As we went over a woods, I was hit by ground fire. Major Preddy apparantly [sic] noticed the intense ground fire and light flak and broke off the attack with a chandelle to the left. About half way through the maneuver, at about 700 ft his canopy came off and he nosed down, still in his turn. I saw no chute and watched his ship hit. Flak and tracers were still very thick.”

 

George Preddy, history’s top-scoring P-51 ace, was dead. And tragically, he had been shot down by his own countrymen. Determining with certainty who killed him is impossible. The American army was thick in the region and it was well protected by antiaircraft units. Eyewitnesses spotted Preddy chasing the FW-190 and remembered that the antiaircraft fire was so thick that the tracers arcing through the sky looked like a “whole field of golf balls.” Preddy, at only a couple of hundred feet, was seen to clear his aircraft as it fell inverted. His parachute never opened.

 

Ironically, a pair of Me-109s roared low overhead the scene a couple of minutes later. Not a gun was fired.

 

Aside from Preddy, Bouchier was also shot down; he bailed out and survived. Cartee’s aircraft was also hit. In fact, a burning tracer round punched into his cockpit and fell down around his feet where he tried to stamp it out. Once he landed back at Y-29, Cartee was surprised to see the group commander, Colonel James Mayden, waiting at the parking mat. “Mayden had probably gotten word that there was a mishap. His first question was ‘Where is George?’ The whole outfit was upset at the loss of Preddy.”11 Art Snyder recalled watching the rest of the patrol taxi back to the parking area. “Then I recall this one pilot—I can still see the picture in my mind—went by with his thumb down. I knew what he meant—that the major had had it!”

 

It was only after he landed that Ray Mitchell learned that Preddy had been killed. The news was heartrending. As he made his way back to his tent he was invited by a comrade to share a Christmas dinner. In his melancholy, the fact that it was the Christmas holiday had completely escaped Mitchell. “It had been that kind of a day,” he recalled.

 

That Preddy had been shot down by American forces wasn’t made public immediately. Stars and Stripes carried a story on his death and simply noted that he had been killed by antiaircraft fire: “In the ensuing chase, ack-ack spat from a wooded area, tearing Preddy’s plane apart and sending it down in flames.”

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Third Ukrainian Front virtually closes the ring around Budapest; capturing the fortified city of Esztergom.

 

Katyushas on the Budapest front

 

• Elements of the fascist Italian 4ª Divisione alpina «Monterosa» and a detachment of Marines from 3ª Divisione fanteria di marina «San Marco» under Generale di Brigata Mario Carloni launch a surprise attack (Offensiva di Natale) on the lines of the US IV Corps in Tuscany, by the juncture of the 85th and 92nd Infantry Divisions. Despite being outnumbered and having no tanks or air support, the Italians take Sommocolonia, Scarpello, Fornaci, Molazzano, and Calomini from the surprised Americans. The Italians inflict approximately 500 casualties and capture 300 prisoners.

 

Italian panzerschreck team. Three German battalions move up behind the Italians to hold the areas taken while the Italians are to continue the advance.

 

• A German V-2 hits the Prince of Wales pub in North London, killing 68 people.

 

• U-486 fires three homing torpedoes at the 1st Escort Group off Cherbourg, hitting two frigates. HMS Capel sinks with the loss of 72 crewmen while HMS Affleck is able to reach port but declared a total loss.

 

• CCR of the Third Army’s 4th Armored Division punches through the German siege to enter the Bastogne perimeter.

 

• Today is the biggest airlift day of the Bastogne siege with 289 aircraft flying the Bastogne run.

 

• In order to cover US Third Army’s move north, US Seventh Army has extended northwards and taken defensive positions, but is spread dangerously thin. In response to reports on how the German heavy tanks have blown through American units, tanks and other armored vehicles are having sand bag racks mounted for extra protection in less-mobile defensive operations.

 

101st Airborne troopers watching C-47s over Bastogne 26 December, 1944

 

14th Armored Division M4A3 76 with sandbag racks"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• U-995 torpedoes and sinks Soviet minesweeping trawler T-883 with all hands off Cape Svyatoj Nos, on the Kola peninsula.

 

• Soviet submarine K-56 torpedoes and sinks the Swedish 1,000 ton Venersborg off Bornholm.

 

• The Soviets offer surrender terms to the forces in Budapest and the emissary is shot by the Germans despite being under a white flag. This is likely to prevent the Hungarians from hearing the offer. The Soviets will respond today with a massive artillery barrage and tomorrow an assault by infantry of Second Ukrainian Front.

 

• Coastal Command Mosquitos bomb and sink German submarine depot ship Nordvard off Moss, Norway.

 

• The situation in the Ardennes is relatively static.

 

• British MTB-782 is mined and sunk in the Scheldt.

 

• U-322 attacks convoy TBC-21 in the English Channel south of Weymouth, hitting the American Liberty ships Arthur Sewall and Black Hawk. The ships are brought in but are total losses. Canadian frigate Calgary counterattacks and sinks U-322 with all hands.

 

• Canadian Flight Lieutenant Richard Audet shoots down two Bf-109s and three Fw-190s in a single mission in the Rhine area. He is the only Spitfire pilot ever to score five victories in one sortie.

 

• Minesweeper HMS Ready spots a German midget submarine wallowing near Dover. A crew coming alongside notices the pilot is dead and the minesweeper tows it in, though it sinks in the harbor mouth. Biber No. 90 is raised and examined, and is now in the Imperial War Museum. The pilot had been overcome by carbon monoxide in the notoriously flawed craft. He was Leutnant zur See Joachim Langsdorff, son of the captain of the Graf Spee who had committed suicide five years earlier.

 

Biber No 90"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• As the Soviets close the ring on Budapest, they are able to bring the main avenues and park next to Buda Castle under artillery fire. Until today, the Axis have been able to use these as landing zones for light aircraft and gliders carrying supplies.

 

Axis aircraft that crashed while trying to fly in supplies to Budapest"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• 1,119 USAAF bombers and 362 fighters are dispatched to attack airfields, rail targets and bridges in Germany; they claim three Luftwaffe aircraft while ten bombers and two fighters are lost. Most of the bombing is inaccurate due to weather.

 

B-17s taking off from RAF Podington in snowy conditions 10 Jan 45

 

B-24s that returned damaged to RAF Seething on 10 Jan 45

 

• Uckermark “Youth Protection Camp” near Fürstenberg, Germany, has been a work camp for “difficult” or “non-conformist” girls up to age 21. With camps in the East being evacuated it is now being used to house women of any age and all that are age 52 or older or unable to work are being murdered.

 

• In the last significant action of the Lapland War, the German 7. Gebirgs Division is forced to withdraw from Lätäseno, Finland. Except for some border areas held for tactical reasons, all of Finland is now German free. A formal peace will not be signed until 1954.

 

• III Panzerkorps and IV SS Panzerkorps are bogging down in their relief attempts in Hungary."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• U-370 fires homing torpedoes at a surface force of two Finnish minelayers escorted by Soviet sub chasers, which is returning from laying the Vantaa 3 minefield south of Russarö. One strikes and sinks Finnish minelayer Louhi with ten killed. 31 are rescued.

Minelayer Louhi.

 

- This is the last U-boat success in the Baltic, and over the following weeks two Type VIIC U-boats will be lost with all hands in the Vantaa 3 minefield.

 

• The U-Boat pens at Bergen, Norway are attacked by a force of one Mosquito pathfinder and 32 Lancasters with "Tallboy" bombs. There is serious damage to the pens after three bombs penetrate sections of the 3.5-meter thick concrete roofs. Two submarines suffer minor damage, a cargo ship is severely damaged and a minesweeper sunk. Four Lancasters are lost.

 

• British heavy cruiser Norfolk, light cruiser Bellona, and three destroyers attack a German convoy of Egersund, Norway. Two merchant ships and a minesweeper are sunk. U-427 spots the force and fires five torpedoes at HMS Norfolk but misses.

 

• Battle for Budapest continues with the Red Army deepening penetration into the city.

 

• Soviet forces open the Vistula-Oder Offensive Operation. With strong artillery support, the 1st Ukrainian Front leads off, attacking from the Sandomierz bridgehead over the Vistula in southern Poland. The initial barrage is followed by probing attacks and a further heavy bombardment. By the time the main armored exploitation force of the Third Guards and Fourth Tank Armies move forward four hours later, the 4. Panzer Armee has lost up to ⅔ of its artillery and ¼ of its troops.

 

- 1st Belarussian Front launches its offensive against 9. Armee in the Warsaw area four hours later.

 

Soviet 280mm howitzer moving to the Vistula Jan 45
 

 

Soviet armor during the Vistula offensive"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Sergei Prokofiev conducts the premiere of his Symphony No 5 in the Moscow Conservatory with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. As he takes the stage, a massive boom of artillery is heard. It was unexpected and he pauses until learning that it was a salute to mark the Red Army’s crossing of the border into Germany.

 

 

• Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg approaches troops of Seventh Guards Army and requests to meet with Marshal Rodion Malinovsky in regards to the 7,000 Jews in Pest who are under his care. He will be arrested for espionage on the orders of Stalin’s deputy, Nikolai Bulganin. The Soviets will falsely report that he was murdered by the Gestapo or the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, but he will die in Lubyanka Prison in 1947.

 

• Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front’s Fifty-ninth Army is approaching Kraków, while Fourth Tank Army defeats the XXIV Panzerkorps in a large scale tank battle near Chmielnik.

 

• Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front advances toward Pillkallen, East Prussia (now Dobrovolsk, Russia). This front includes the First Polish Army with the goal of Warsaw.

 

• Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Belorussian Front launches the East Prussian Offensive against the German 4. Armee and 3. Panzer Armee, with the objective of Königsberg. Despite a heavy bombardment, progress is slow.

 

Soviet mortar during the East Prussian Offensive

 

German 88mm in East Prussia

 

Soviet troops entering Frauenburg (now Frombork Poland) in late January or early February 1945"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• In Slovakia, Soviet Twenty-seventh Army captures Lučenec, but is unable to advance further.

 

• Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front crosses the Nida River and moves toward Radomsko and the Warta River in central Poland.

 

• With snowfall negating Soviet air superiority, 3. Panzer Armee retakes Kattenau in East Prussia from elements of 3rd Belorussian Front.

 

• A Soviet A-20 Boston of the 51st Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment torpedoes and sinks German 3,900 ton Mimi Horn off Brüsterort in the Baltic.

 

• Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front launches its winter offensive from the Narew bridgehead toward Elbing, Germany (now Elbląg, Poland).

 

• The 1st Belorussian Front attacks north and south of Warsaw, crushing LVI Panzerkorps and VIII Panzerkorps, tearing open the front. Hitler releases Panzerkorps Großdeutschland from the OKH reserve to Heersgruppe A.

 

1st Belorussian Front armor north of Warsaw - note discarded panzerfausts"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• US Seventh Army’s 14th Armored Division is fighting for Rittershoffen and Hatten, while VI Corps is conducting a limited counterattack on the Bitche salient. The French are advancing northwards breaking through defensive positions north of Strasbourg, but the Americans will be forced to withdraw to the south bank of the Moder River.

 

 

• British 7th Armoured Division liberates Bakenhoven, Holland.

 

• U-650 is sunk with all hands off the coast of Cornwall around this date. Originally listed by the Admiralty as lost to a mine, examination of the wreck in 2009 will show that she was destroyed by hedgehog from an unidentified Allied vessel.

 

• U-1055 torpedoes and sinks the unescorted British 8,200 ton motor tanker Maja in the Irish Sea.

 

• U-1172 torpedoes escort carrier HMS Thane off the Clyde lightship. Forty minutes later, she torpedoes the Norwegian 7,400 ton tanker Spinanger. Both ships are brought in but declared total losses.

 

• Coastal Command aircraft sink German patrol ship V-5304 with rockets off Lervick, Norway.

 

Coastal Command Beaufighters attacking shipping off Norway

 

• A German report this date indicates that the total number of prisoners in concentration camps is 714,211, with about 40,000 guards at the camps.

 

• In Poland, the 2nd Belorussian Front and Fourth Air Army have inflicted heavy losses on German 2. Armee on the Narew River, while the Polish First Army and Soviet Forty-seventh Army are enveloping Warsaw.

 

• At Kielce, the Soviet Third Guards and Thirteenth Armies destroy the surrounded German XLII Armeekorps, while Eighth Guards Army advances towards Redom and First Guards Army to Łódź."

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• A Japanese 15kg anti-personnel bomb explodes in the riverbed of the Santa Clara River between Oxnard and Saticoy, California. There are no casualties. The bomb came from a paper balloon of Operation Fu-Go which grounds about 15 miles farther inland near Moorpark, California.

 

• TF 38 attacks Japanese shipping and aircraft off Formosa and the China coast, sinking destroyers Tsuga and Hatakaze, fast transport T-14, fleet tanker Mirii Maru, army cargo ship Enoshima Maru, and damaging several other vessels.

 

SB2C-3 Helldivers over USS Hornet in the South China Sea 15 Jan 45

 

• Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Kyo Maru No. 1 is sunk by off Penang, Malaya by a mine laid by submarine HMS Porpoise six days earlier.

 

• On Luzon, the US 43rd Infantry Division counterattacks up the road to Rosario with heavy artillery, air, and naval gunfire support.

 

• American and New Zealand aircraft from the Solomons conduct a raid on Rabaul airfields, wharves, and a floatplane anchorage. Seven aircraft are lost on the return due to weather.

 

RNZAF Corsairs on Piva Airfield Bougainville 1945"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The British Eastern Fleet (separate from the new British Pacific Fleet) lands the 71st Indian Brigade on Ramree Island, Burma (about 70 miles SSE of Akyab). Battleship Queen Elizabeth and light cruiser Phoebe provide gunfire support while Liberators and Thunderbolts provide air support along with aircraft from escort carriers Ameer and Shah. Motor launch ML-981 is mined and sunk. The Indians capture Kyaukpyu by the end of the day. 

 

Indian troops on Ramree Island.

 

- The 4th Indian Brigade will be landed tomorrow.

 

• The Indian 25th Infantry Division secures the remainder of the Myebon peninsula, ESE of Akyab.

 

• HMS Shalimar fires seven torpedoes at a Japanese submarine in the Malacca Strait but none hit. The target was most likely either Ro-113 or Ro-115, both of which are transiting from Penang to Singapore.

 

• A B-24 raid from China sinks IJN salvage ship Haruta Maru at Hong Kong.

 

• TF 38 conducts airstrikes on Formosa and Okinawa, sinking tankers Yamazawa Maru, Munakata Maru, and Shincho Maru, and freighter/transports Teifu Maru and Yurin Maru. Fleet carrier Ticonderoga, light carrier Langley, and destroyer Maddox are damaged by kamikaze aircraft.

 

- USS Hancock is damaged when two 500 lb bombs aboard a TBM Avenger detonate as it lands. The explosion and fire kills 62 crewmen and wounds 91 and blows a 10x16 foot hole in the flight deck.

 

USS Ticonderoga with induced list to pour spilled aviation gas over the side 21 Jan 45

 

Flight deck of USS Hancock 21 Jan 1945"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• President Roosevelt embarks in heavy cruiser USS Quincy at Newport News, Virginia, bound for the Argonaut Conferences at Malta and Yalta.

 

• German jet bombers attempt to slow the American retreat from Gries, Weitbruch, and Kaltenhouse by bombing those road junctions, but the Seventh Army formations have already withdrawn past that line to consolidate along the Moder. The Germans will attempt to encircle American positions at Haguenau.

 

Arado Ar-234B or one of the prototypes in flight with two Junkers Jumo engines. The C version has four BMW engines.

 

• French units of 1^re Armée cross the Fecht River at Guemar and the Ill River near Illwald, taking Ostheim and attacking Illhaeusern, which will take several days to clear.

 

• US 7th Armored Division retakes St Vith, Belgium.

 

• Royal Army medic Henry Harden, attached No.45 (Royal Marine) Commando at Brachterbeek in the Netherlands, spints 100 yards under fire over open ground to attend three wounded men. He carries one back to safety and, despite being hit, insists on returning for the others. The second man is hit and killed while being carried, and when Harden is then hit in the head and killed while hoisting the third. He will be be posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

 

• U-1172 torpedoes and sinks the Norwegian 1,600 ton Vigsnes which had dispersed from convoy MH-1 earlier in the day in the Irish Sea.

 

• U-242 lands an agent in Finland.

 

• The Romanian Armata a 4-a Română and Soviet Fortieth Army launch an offensive against the German 8. Armee along the Slovak-Hungarian border.

 

• In East Prussia and Poland, Soviet forces capture Wehlau, Treuburg, Insterburg, Ortelsburg, Brodnica, Lipno, Bromberg and Kalisz. In Treuburg, Soviets find what is effectively a movie set where the Germans, on the order of that Joseph Goebbels, had “documented” atrocities by “Bolshevik Asiatic Hordes”.

 

• German light cruiser Emden departs Königsberg with the remains of Generalfeldmarschall and Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg aboard.

 

• Dönitz begins Operation Hannibal, the sea evacuation of military personnel and civilians from Courland, East Prussia, and northern Poland. Over the next 15 weeks, more than five hundred vessels of all types, including fishing boats will carry 800,000 refugees and 350,000 soldiers to Germany and occupied Denmark.

 

Evacuees from Courland – German boat people"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Dock landing ship USS Shadwell is torpedoed at night by a Japanese aircraft off Luzon, and has to return to the US for repairs.

 

• American aircraft wreck up to two-dozen Shin’yō type suicide motorboats tied up at Corregidor.

 

• British Pacific Fleet (sometimes referred to as Sixth Fleet since a lack of numbers confuses the USN) conducts Operation Meridian against the oil refinery at Pladjoe, Sumatra. TF 63 carriers Indomitable, Illustrious, Indefatigable and Victorious launch Forty-three Avengers with bombs and twelve Fireflies with rockets escorted by fifty Hellcat, Corsair and Seafire fighters. Japanese opposition is heavy with fighters, barrage balloons, and anti-aircraft, resulting in thirty-two British aircraft lost or damaged beyond repair. Despite this, the refinery is badly damaged, reducing its output by 75% for the remainder of the war.

 

Avenger over HMS Indomitable Jan 45

 

Pladjoe Sumatra 24 Jan 45

 

• Not realizing that Women's Auxiliary Air Force Leading Aircraftwoman Margaret Horton is still sitting on the tailplane of his Spitfire to hold it down while he taxis on a windy day at RAF Hibaldstowe in Lincolnshire, Flight Lieutenant Neil Cox takes off with her clinging to the tail. Ordered to land immediately without knowing why, he returns to base safely, with Horton uninjured.

 

• A Luftwaffe night bombing of Antwerp damages American freighter Alcoa Banner. She is a constructive total loss.

 

• In Alsace, US 45th Division is forced out of Saegmuhl while 103rd Infantry Division repels a German assault at Bischoltz and Mulhouse.

 

• The Bereznyak-Isayev BI-7 rocket powered interceptor has its maiden flight.

 

 

- Development will not be pursued as the USSR will focus on jet engines. The designers will transition to work on unmanned rockets and cruise missiles.

 

• Fourth Guards Army stops the IV SS Panzerkorps and III Panzerkorps relief attempt of Budapest twenty miles short of the city.

 

• Soviet Sixtieth Army captures Gleiwitz while First Guards Tank Army isolates the 60,000 German troops in Posen (Poznań, Poland).

 

• German submarine U-763 is sunk at Köningsberg by a Soviet air raid on the harbor.

 

• Soviet Fifth Guards Tank Army captures Mühlhausen in Ostpreußen and Elbing (modern Młynary and Elbląg, Poland, respectively), cutting off all or parts of the German 2., 3. Panzer, and 4. Armees in East Prussia."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Charles Maurras, the Royalist and Catholic Nationalist leader of Action Française, is found guilty by the High Court of Lyon of collaboration with the enemy and sentenced to life in prison.

 

- Maurras had been one of the leading anti-semites pushing the persecution of Capitaine Alfred Dreyfus during the “Dreyfus Affair” at the turn of the century. On hearing today’s verdict, he exclaims “This is the revenge of Dreyfus!”

 

• Despite being wounded, US Army 2nd Lieutenant Audie Murphy single-handedly repels tank and infantry attacks on his unit's position near Holtzwihr, Alsace. The action earns Murphy the Medal of Honor. He will end the war as America’s most decorated soldier with 33 medals and will become a film star, though plagued with PTSD induced nightmares and addiction to Placidyl [and alcohol].[Murphy called in artillery after his company retreated, then stood on the deck of a burning Sherman to fire its .50cal MG at advancing Germans. He had previously been awarded honors for other actions. Two apocryphal stories I have heard about him: all Medal of Honor holders are to be saluted by all US military personal. Most don't ask for it, nor did Murphy, but it is said that when he met General Clark after the war he demanded Clark salute him because he blamed Clark for many unneeded casualties in Italy. Another story involves him on a movie western--an actor claimed he was a faster draw than Murphy even after a demonstration. Murphy told the actor to strap on a gun, face him, and he would show he was faster!]

 

Murphy playing himself in the 1955 film “To Hell and Back”.

 

- The 5.5” Murphy was initially turned down by the Army, Marines, and Navy for being underweight. He will be killed in a plane crash in 1971 and his grave at Arlington National Cemetery is the second most visited (after that of President Kennedy).

 

• French 1^e Division d'infanterie Marocaine is clearing the Illhaeusern-Jebsheim road while 5^e Division Blindée launches an attack toward Brisach.

 

• Soviet Third Shock Army takes Bydgoszcz, Poland.

 

• Soviet Second Shock Army takes Marienburg, Prussia.

 

Soviet sappers in East Prussia January 1945

 

German armor in East Prussia January 1945."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts Brahms’ Second Symphony in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic, during which it is recorded. At the conclusion he will flee to Switzerland as the Gestapo is reportedly intending to arrest him within hours for his connections with anti-fascist resistance including ties with July 20 plotters.

 

- He had been on the short list of indispensable artists essential to German culture who could not be touched despite being liberals (the other two are Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner) but had been removed from the list in December.

 

• Eisenhower returns the command of the US Ninth Army, temporarily given to Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, to Bradley’s 12th.

 

• Newly arrived and green US XXI Corps is out of position due to the German incursion from Operation Nordwind. It is temporarily attached to French 1^re Armée and directed to assist in reduction of the Colmar Pocket along with I^er Corps d’Armée.  II^e Corps d’Armée is directed to turn north from Colmar and assist US Seventh Army in pushing the Germans back from the area taken during Nordwind.

 

• Civilians in Berlin are ordered to begin digging anti-tank trenches.

 

• 1st Ukrainian Front completes capture of major industrial cities along the border of Upper Silesia and Poland, taking Beuthen in Silesia and Katowice in Poland.

 

• In the Carpathians, 4th Ukrainian Front drives to Poprad, Czechoslovakia.

 

• 3rd Belorussian Front closes the ring about Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad, Russia). The fortifications built prior to the First World War include fifteen forts interconnected by tunnels with integrated accommodations for the troops, designed to withstand the bombardment of super-heavy artillery such as railway guns. The defenders consist of 134,000 men, 4,000 artillery pieces and mortars, plus 108 tanks and assault guns in the fortress city.

 

- Königsberg will be under siege for more than two months before it is assaulted and taken.

 

German soldiers in Königsberg with an MG 151 dismounted from an aircraft"

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Private Edward Slovik becomes the only American serviceman to be executed for desertion in WW-II. A replacement for the 28th Infantry Division, he came apart under repeated shelling and remained in his foxhole when his unit moved on. He later turned himself in and confessed in a written statement that he can’t take it and would run away again if forced to the front. Offered a chance to destroy the note and start with a clean slate in another unit, Slovik demands a courts-martial, convinced that he will only serve jail time.

 

- Although over 21,000 Americans are given varying sentences for desertion during the war, including 49 death sentences, Slovik’s is the only death sentence to be actually carried out. Desertion is becoming an increasing problem in American forces, especially following the German offensive in the Ardennes. General Eisenhower confirms the death sentence as an example to others.

 

• French 5^e Division Blindée, supported by elements of US 3rd Infantry Division, takes Horbourg, on the outskirts of Colmar.

 

• In Moscow, the first Congress of the Russian Orthodox Church since the Revolution opens, with prayers for Stalin and victory.

 

• Soviet forces take Friedland and Heilsberg.

 

• Elements of Fifth Shock Army take Kienitz. The railroad station master asks Colonel Khariton Episenko if he will allow the regular passenger train to Berlin to depart on time. Episenko replies, “I am sorry, station master, but that will be impossible. The passenger service to Berlin will undergo a short interruption – let’s say until the end of the war.”

 

• Soviet forces liberate the Küstrin POW camp. Senior Lieutenant Anna Yegorova is among those liberated. In 1941 and '42 she flew night bombing and harassment missions in Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes for the "Night Witches", and in 1943 transitioned to Ilyushink Il-2s with the 805th Attack Aviation Regiment. She was shot down in August 1944 while supporting a bridgehead over the Vistula, badly injured, and captured. She will be interrogated by the NKVD as a potential traitor for eleven days and then released, but discharged from the VVS.

 

• Leading elements of Second Guards Tank Army cross the Oder River into Germany and are now less than 50 miles from Berlin.

 

• Marshal Zhukov reluctantly calls a halt to the Vistula Offensive. This causes disappointment in Moscow, where it was hoped that the German capital would be captured this month. There are, however, good reasons for Zhukov's decision:

 

- He has suffered heavy casualties in his storming advance across Poland, and is outrunning his supply lines.

 

- He has had to divert strong forces to deal with the fortress city of Poznań, which is on the direct rail route from Warsaw to Berlin and Zhukov’s supply units have to go around it.

 

- His advance has had the effect of driving a “Bulge” into the German lines, and continuing to advance risks the Germans attacking the base of the salient and cutting off his forces.

 

- "General Mud" has come to the aid of the Germans with a thaw turning the battlefield into a quagmire and melting ice on the Oder. Zhukov therefore needs time to reorganize, resupply and prepare for a further advance.

Soviet soldiers congratulate each other on reaching the German border"

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The Kawasaki Ki-100 has its maiden flight. It is an emergency measure adapting a Ki-61-II-KAI fighter to carry a Mitsubishi 14 cylinder radial engine instead of the Kawasaki liquid cooled engine derived from the Daimler Benz 601, and results in one of the best interceptors used by the Army during the war, with nearly 400 built.

 

Kawasaki Ki-100 at RAF Museum Cosford.

 

- Production is expedited as a bomber raid in January wrecked the factory that builds Ki-61 engines. Although Ki-100 high-altitude performance against B-29 bombers is limited by the lack of an efficient supercharger, it performs better than most other IJAAF fighters.

 

• USAAF B-24s, directed to the scene by USS Boarfish complete the destruction of grounded Japanese cargo ship Taietsu Maru, which had been damaged by the submarine the day before and beached..

 

• USAAF P-51s of the 3rd Air Commando from Burma sink Japanese landing ship T-115 north of Luzon and damage escorting submarine chaser Ch-28.

 

• USAAF B-29s bomb Japanese shipping and harbor facilities at Singapore, damaging oiler Shiretoko.

 

• Bombing of Iwo Jima starts in preparation for the landings later in the month.

 

B-24Js drop 55-gallon drums filled with gasoline on Iwo Jima to burn off the plant growth 01 Feb 45"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Former Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess, under guard at a mental hospital in Wales, attempts to commit suicide with a bread knife.

 

• The Yalta Conference begins in Crimea between Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt is visibly ill, but takes the lead in negotiations, sometimes relegating Churchill to the role of spectator. France and China have been excluded on Roosevelt’s and Stalin’s insistence respectively. Much of the conference covers the post-war fate of Germany and the creation of the new United Nations, as well as Soviet entry into the war against Japan.

 

 

• In terms of post-war Germany, each leader has a different plan:

 

• Stalin wants Germany to remain divided under indefinite occupation, with Poland receiving a significant portion of eastern Germany and Prussia to compensate for Soviet annexation of areas of eastern Poland.

• Churchill wants Germany broken into three large countries under temporary occupation, a North Germany, West Germany, and South Germany, with the latter including Austria and Hungary.

• Roosevelt wants temporary occupation and for the nation of Germany to be dissolved, broken into independent countries of Hannover, Prussia, Hessen, Saxony, Bavaria, and Austria.

• In Italy, US 92nd Infantry Division begins a limited attack to improve positions in the Serchio Valley.

 

• Belgium is declared German-free.

 

• The RAF deploys Gloster Meteor F.3 jet fighters to the continent for the first time, to operate with the 2nd Tactical Air Force.

 

• French 10^e Division d’Infanterie clears 2^e Corps d’Armée flank along the Fecht River. 2^e Division Blindée drives south to assist 1^er Corps d’Armée assault across the Thur River in move to link with US XXI Corps. 4^e Division Marocaine de montagne overruns Guebwiller and reaches the edge of Rouffach.

 

- French ace Edmond Marin la Meslée while supporting these assaults with a ground attack mission is killed when his P-47 takes a direct hit from 3.7cm flak and explodes. He downed sixteen confirmed German aircraft in 1939-40 while flying the Hawk-75.

 

• US Seventh Army completes first phase of pushing the Germans back from the Nordwind “Bulge”. 36th Infantry Division pauses to regroup while CCB of 14th Armored Division takes Oberhoffen.

 

P-47D of Groupe de Chasse II-5 Lafayette in 1944

 

American of 14th Armored Division with prisoners"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Gellért Hill in Budapest falls. Soviet artillery is now able to dominate the entire city.

 

- After dark, SS Obergruppenführer Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch and Hungarian Vezérezredes (Colonel-General) Iván Hindy launch a breakout attempt from Budapest with some 28,000 troops. Unfortunately, the Soviets are waiting for them in prepared positions and the breakout is targeted by Soviet artillery, heavy mortar, and rocket batteries. Thousands of civilians are fleeing with the would-be escapees, and casualties are heavy with nearly all being killed or captured. Roughly 700 German and 80 Hungarian troops escape, while both Pfeffer-Wildenbruch and Hindy are captured.

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today (again)] "• Whilst bombarding Japanese escape routes along the Taungmauw River in Burma, British destroyer Pathfinder is attacked by IJA aircraft that score near misses. In the shallow water, the concussion inflicts serious damage to the hull structure and enginerooms. She will be towed to Chittagong but evaluated as not being worth repair.

 

• HMS Tradewind torpedoes and sinks Japanese freighter Nanshin Maru in the Strait of Malacca.

 

• Japanese submarine Ro-50 attacks an American reinforcement convoy northeast of Palau, sinking LST-577 with the loss of 100 soldiers and 66 crew. Destroyer USS Isherwood counterattacks and damages the submarine, forcing her to RTB. While heading for Japan Ro-50 will be attacked by an IJN aircraft but not damaged.

 

• Japanese submarines Ro-112 and Ro-113 are transiting to Batulinao in the Philippines to recover downed Japanese pilots and return them to Formosa. Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne (FRUMEL) has decrypted the information and ULTRA places USS Batfish on the projected track. Today, she picks one of them up on radar off northern Luzon and moves ahead of it. Batfish fires four torpedoes from 880 yards and sinks Ro-112 with all hands.

 

• B-29s and PB4Ys begin extensive searches for Japanese guard boats in the path of Task Force 58 as it approaches Japan for raids on the Tokyo area.

 

• A planned bombardment of the Kuriles by three American light cruisers and seven destroyers is cancelled due to rough weather.

 

• The Consolidated-Vultee XP-81 has its maiden flight. It is an attempt to provide a very long range escort fighter for B-29 raids, using a turboprop engine for cruising and engaging a GE turbojet for extra speed during aerial combat. As no American companies have yet made a successful turboprop, the prototype uses a Packard-Merlin.  Thirteen pre-production aircraft will be ordered with a GE turboprop, but the capture of islands closer to Japan will allow P-51s to be used as escorts and the project will be cancelled.

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Destroyer USS Dortch sinks Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser Ayukawa Maru northwest of Iwo Jima and is damaged by gunfire in the encounter.

 

• Off Iwo Jima, Light minelayer USS Gamble is damaged by kamikaze and high speed transport USS Blessman is damaged by level bomber. Battleship Washington and destroyer Hailey are damaged in a collision.

 

• TF 58 continues airstrikes on Japan and the northern Bonins. Auxiliary gunboat gunboat No.2 Hiyoshi Maru is sunk off Chichi Jima. One Grumman TBM-3 from USS Bennington is badly damaged in a collision with another Avenger during an attack on Chichi Jima and Ensign Robert King struggles to remain airborne.

 

- Fearing the plane will crash, King orders his crew to bail out over Chichi Jima. AOM3c Grady York and ARM3c James Dye are both captured by the Japanese. King manages to get back to TF 58 and make a successful water landing.

 

- Both York and Dye will executed within days on the orders of Japanese Naval Colonel Shizuo Yoshii. Dye’s fiancée had given him a white scarf, which he always wore when flying; it becomes a souvenir of a Japanese lieutenant. The airmen are butchered and portions served to high ranking officers as part of the spirit warrior indoctrination. In 1947, Colonel Yoshii will be tried as a war criminal on Guam, found guilty, hanged, and buried in an unmarked grave.

 

Ensign King's TBM-3 damaged Chichi Jima"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today]"• Soviet Fifty-second Army and Third Guards Tank Army secure the flanks of Fourth Tank Army near Breslau, ending the counter-offensive mounted by German Panzerkorps "Großdeutschland" and XXIV Panzerkorps.

 

• German 4. Armee and 3. Panzer Armee launch a counter attack in East Prussia spearheaded by captured T-34 tanks. They open a corridor from Pillau to besieged Königsberg, allowing thousands of civilians to be evacuated.

 

{I don't know if the below variant of the T-34r was part of this attack, but I'd never seen it before}

 

Ilyushin Il-2s of 766 ShAP over Königsburg

 

StuG-IV of 277 Sturmgeschütz-Bataillon knocked out by infantry of 381st Rifle Division in East Prussia February 1945

 

Flakpanzer T-34r"

[cardboard_killer]

[80  years ago today] "• Off Iwo Jima, Japanese bombers damage USS Saratoga, light carrier Langley, cargo ship USS Keokuk, and two LSTs. Japanese gunfire damages another LST while collisions damage destroyers Williamson and Bradford, heavy cruiser Pensacola, oiler Suamico, and cargo ship USS Yancey.

 

• The Japanese Army and Navy launch a combined night-time tokko attack, dispatching 4 and 21 suicide aircraft, respectively. Carrier Saratoga is hit (again) and escort carrier Lunga Point are hit and damaged, while escort carrier Bismarck Sea is hit by two aircraft and sunk with the loss of 318 crew. 

 

Fires aboard USS Saratoga

 

USS Saratoga flight deck

 

USS Bismarck Sea exploding - she is the last American carrier to be sunk during the war

 

• The Hawker Sea Fury has its maiden flight. A similar design to the preceding Tempest fighter, the Sea Fury is a considerably lighter aircraft fitted with the powerful Bristol Centaurus engine, and armed with four wing-mounted Hispano V cannons. While originally developed as a pure aerial fighter aircraft, the definitive Sea Fury FB.11 will be a superb fighter-bomber.

 

 

 

 

"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago yesterday] "• In Italy, US 10th Mountain Division is still short of the crest of Monte Torraccia but Brazilian 1st Division seizes Monte della Casselina and Bella Vista.

 

Much of the success of the Força Expedicionária Brasileira is attributed to skillful use of the divisional artillery.

 

• Delayed by the Germans blowing the Ruhr dams, three corps of US First and Ninth Armies attack across the Roer, moving forward rapidly against light to moderate resistance.

 

• Free French escort destroyer La Combattante is mined off Outer Dowsing Shoal, breaking in two and sinking with the loss of 68 crewmen. The minefield had been laid three weeks earlier by the German 2. Schnellbootflottille. The Germans will announce that the Hunt-III Type was torpedoed and sunk by a Seehund midget submarine but that attack was against a British cable-layer the following day.

 

• 23 German Ju-88 bombers attack convoy RA-64, sinking American liberty ship Henry Bacon.

 

• Soviet submarine ShCh-309 torpedoes and sinks German 6,300 ton Göttingen south-west of Libau (modern Liepāja).

 

SS Göttingen sinking

 

• Turkey declares war on Germany and Japan.

 

• In the South Atlantic, U-510 torpedoes Canadian 7,100 ton Point Pleasant Park about 500 miles northwest of Capetown, then finishes her by deck gun.

 

• 20,000 German troops in Posen (modern Poznań) surrender to Vasili Chuikov’s Eighth Guards Army. 10,700 Soviet and Polish troops were killed in the battle, compared to around 6,000 Germans. Capture of the vital rail center will allow Marshal Zhukov to more rapidly build up his forces to attack Berlin.

 

Soviet anti-tank gunners in Posen."

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Canadian II Corps launches Operation Blockbuster to take Calcar and Udem and exploit between them to Xanten.

 

- II Corps is Canadian First Army’s heavy striking force, consisting of Canadian 4th and British 11th Armoured Divisions, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, Canadian 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions, and British 43rd (Wessex) Division.

 

• Elements of US Ninth Army XVI Corps seize the bridge at Hilfarth, cross the Roer, and gain a bridgehead almost a mile deep. XIII Corps takes Golkrath and Erkelenz against moderate resistance.

 

• Soviet III Guards Tank Corps and III Guards Cavalry Corps take over as the main offensive force in the eastern Pommern region of Germany. The relieved formations are at less than 40% strength due to high casualties.

 

• Near Prekuln, Latvia, heavy Soviet attacks are held off by German, Latvian, and Estonian troops. By this time the 200,000 Axis troops in the Courland Pocket are two hundred miles behind the Soviet lines.

 

Troops of the 19 SS grenadieru divīzija in the Courland Pocket"

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• US Ninth Army achieves a breakthrough near Erkelenz, Germany, advancing in several columns up to thirty miles in two days. Numerous towns and villages are captured in Germany or liberated in Holland.

 

People of Jüchen Germany listen to proclamation of the regulations for occupation from officers of the US 2nd Armored Division 28 February, 1945"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The Bachem Ba-349 Natter rocket fighter makes its first manned launch. The 55-second flight ends in tragedy when the aircraft crashes, killing Luftwaffe test pilot Lothar Sieber. The Germans are unable to determine the cause of the failure.

 

The Natter launches vertically and after firing its nose rockets at bombers, the pilot is supposed to parachute out while the craft separates into two sections, each with its own salvage parachute. The Luftwaffe orders 50 and the SS orders 150 but none will be delivered by the time the Germans surrender.

 

• Finland officially declares war on Germany and Japan.

 

• Two horse companies of the Polish 1st “Warzsawa” Cavalry Brigade charge and overrun German infantry and anti-tank gun positions of the 163. Infanterie Division at Schoenfeld. This is the last Polish mounted charge.

 

• The Germans launch Operation Gemse with the LVI Panzerkorps and XXXIX Panzerkorps making a two pronged attack to recapture Lauban, meet at Naumburg and encircle most of the Third Guards Tank Army in Upper Silesia. The Soviets are initially surprised and fall back with the Germans retaking Ober-Bilau. German heavy armor and tank destroyers wreck eighty-one T-34s and assault guns over a two-day period.

 

Germans examine T-34 knocked out during Operation Gemse.

 

• Coastal Command aircraft sink German minesweeper M-2 in the Fedefjorden, Norway.

 

• The RAF conducts a mining offensive over the next fifteen nights, laying mines off the Norwegian and Danish coasts, Heligoland Bight, the Jade, at the mouths of the Weser and Elbe, and along the Baltic coast. Mosquitos drop mines directly into the Kiel canal. Seven aircraft are lost while two large liners, one U-boat, one training ship, and one icebreaker will be sunk.

 

• US First Army area continues attack toward Cologne and the Rhine from the Erft.

 

• US Ninth Army captures cities of München-Gladback and Rheydt in Germany.

 

• French 1^re Armée completes mopping up the Colmar Pocket and begins an offensive through the Siegfried Line fortifications in the Bienwald Forest near Lauterbourg.

 

• The French Detachment d’Armee des Alpes is established under US 6th Army Group with responsibility for the Alpine sector along the Franco-Italian border.

 

Armée de l’Air Thunderbolt

 

Soldats du Bataillon du Mont Blanc 1945"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Operation Gemse: Colonel-General Pavel Rybalko’s Third Guards Tank Army counterattacks the Germans in Upper Silesia, temporarily encircling the 1. Führer Panzergrenadier Regiment at Kesselsdorf. It soon becomes apparent to the Germans that the recapture of Naumburg is impossible; the operation is reduced in scale to the capture of Lauban only.

 

- The following day the two panzer corps converge on Lauban with air support from 8. Fliegerkorps, and the Soviets withdraw rather than be encircled. Despite the limited nature of the victory, the recapture of Lauban is presented as a great success by German propaganda, with Joseph Goebbels visiting the town on 9 March to give a speech on the battle.

 

Goebbels awarding groomed 16-year old Hitler Youth member Willi Hübner the Iron Cross for the battle of Lauban.

 

- Ivan Konev plans to regroup and then launch the Upper Silesian Offensive mid-month.

 

• The German 21,000 ton liner Hansa is sunk by an RAF mine off Giedser, Denmark.

 

• Having secured the Forbach-Saarbücken road American and French troops attack to encircle Saarbücken.

 

• American and Canadian units make contact at Berendonk, near Geldern, signaling the end of Operation Veritable. The Allies have taken 15,600 and the Germans 44,200 casualties with most of the latter taken prisoner.

 

• The Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250 has its first flight. It is a motorjet powered fighter, with a Klimov V-12 piston engine forward and a VRDK rudimentary jet engine aft where air exhaust is forced into a stainless steel combustion chamber, sprayed with fuel from seven nozzles, and ignited to exhaust out the variable rear nozzle.

 

- The design is successful but the jet portion is limited to 10 minutes operating time per sortie. It will not be put into production, though lessons learned will be applied to the MiG-9 turbojet."

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Elderly Dutch submarine K-XI, which has been used only for ASW training since 1942, makes a war patrol from India to Fremantle via Sumatra and Java. On arrival she will be decommissioned and her crew portioned out to more modern Dutch boats.

 

Sistership K-XII in the late 1920s.

 

• HMS Clyde sinks Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser Kiku Maru with gunfire off the west coast of Sumatra.

 

• While operating together, HMS Terrapin and HMS Trenchant surprise the Japanese submarine chaser Ch-8 and sink her with gunfire in the Strait of Malacca. One wounded survivor is picked up and the remainder refuse.

 

• When his unit is pinned down by Japanese fire on the advance to Mandalay, Bhanbhagta Gurung of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles single-handedly clears five Japanese foxholes and bunkers with grenades and his kukri. He will be awarded the Victoria Cross.

 

 

• RAAF Venturas attack a Japanese convoy off Soembawa Island, sinking small cargo vessels No.3 Kiri Maru and No.4 Matsu Maru.

 

• In the Philippines, the Japanese set up a flak trap when American aircraft repeatedly make the same approach to their targets over several days. Three B-25s of the 42nd Bomb Group are damaged and have to ditch off Zamboanga. Several crewmen are killed and one who is wounded is bombardier Lieutenant Russell Johnson, who has completed 44 missions and will 19 years from now play “The Professor”.

 

{Alan Hale Jr is currently serving in the Coast Guard, Jim Backus in radio, and Bob Denver is 10 years old}

 

• Task Force 58 returns to base at Ulithi Atoll. During its two-week cruise to the Tokyo area and Okinawa its pilots have claimed 393 Japanese aircraft shot down and 250 destroyed on the ground, in exchange for the loss of 84 planes, 60 pilots, and 21 aircrewmen in combat and 59 planes, 8 pilots, and 6 aircrewmen in non-combat incidents.

 

• 159 American B-29 bombers attack the urban areas of Tokyo. One is unable to return to Saipan and becomes the first of 2,400 heavy bombers to make an emergency landing on Iwo Jima.

 

First B-29 to land on Iwo Jima"

 

 

[Heliopause]

As a side note to Dutch submarine K XI:

Only a few weeks ago it was in the news that they located K XI.  Decommisioned in April 1945 she was sunk in 1946 in the Rottnest Ships Graveyard.

https://wrecksploration.au/projects/kxi/

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Major General George Vasey, newly recovered from malaria and a respiratory infection contracted in New Guinea, is flying to take command of the Australian 6th Infantry Division near Wewak when the RAAF Hudson encounters a storm and crashes, killing all aboard. Vasey had served in France in the First World War and in the current war had commanded 19th Brigade in Greece and North Africa, then the 6th and later the 7th Infantry Divisions in the Kokoda Trail and New Guinea campaigns. General Sir Thomas Blamey described Vasey as his ideal fighting commander.

 

• All Japanese pockets of resistance at Meiktila, Burma are eliminated. Indian 17th Infantry Division begins digging in since the IJA 18th Division and remainder of 49th Division are hurrying to reinforce the now eliminated garrison.

 

• The Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi has its maiden flight. Designed as a special attack (suicide) aircraft, it is made cheaply of few strategic materials and able to accept nearly any engine in the Japanese inventory in order to use up the stocks of obsolete engines. Performance is poor and handling is tricky, with many accidents during training. Detachable rocket boosters will be made to assist aircraft with particularly weak engines from the 1920s to get airborne. Ultimately, 104 aircraft are built for the Japanese Army with detachable undercarriages since they weren’t intended to return, though none of them see combat as they are reserved for defense of the home islands."

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• General Curtis LeMay has experimented with incendiary raids on a small scale. Tonight he makes a gamble that many officers predict will end in high losses. Instead of normal daylight high-altitude precision bombing, he sends 334 B-29s on a low-level night-time raid on Tokyo using incendiary bombs and napalm. To prevent friendly fire losses and allow the bombers to carry a heavier load, he orders the guns of the B-29s to be unloaded.

 

 

- 14 aircraft are lost and 42 damaged, but they create a firestorm that is visible 150 miles away. 267,171 buildings are destroyed, 83,793 people are killed, and 40,918 wounded.

 

- This B-29 ditching is purportedly following this raid:

 

 

- A jubilant LeMay will conduct similar raids on Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki but the effects will not be repeated due to more dispersed nature of construction in those cities. Only two or three thousand are killed in each raid.

 

• The Indian 19th Infantry Division breaks into Mandalay, where heavy fighting ensues.

 

• The Japanese and Vichy French authorities in Indo-China have coexisted uneasily since Japanese troops first entered the colony in 1941. Amid fears that the Free French Provisional government will take direct action against Japan in Indochina, the Japanese act to destroy the colonial administration.

 

- In Saigon, senior French officers have been invited to a banquet by the Japanese. They are arrested instead. Résident-général Camille Auphelle and Général Émile René Lemonnier are beheaded after refusing to sign a surrender.

 

- French garrisons are ordered to disarm immediately. With three-quarters of the troops being Tirailleurs indochinois with questionable loyalty to France, many of them do though fighting breaks out in Saigon, Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue, Lạng Sơn, and Nha Trang. One notable exception is a force of 5,700 troops of the 2^e Brigade de Tonkin and 5^ème Légion étrangère under Général de Division Marcel Alessandri. It will fight its way northward for seven hundred miles to Nationalist China. The survivors will be interned under harsh conditions by Chiang Kai-shek, who has no wish to restore French colonial authority in Indochina.

 

- The Marine Nationale scuttles colonial sloop Amiral Charner, two sub chasers, five gunboats, four patrol vessels, and two minesweepers, plus several merchant and stores ships.

 

- The French colonial administration is dismantled and Japan proclaims the restoration of the Empire of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos and the Kingdom of Cambodia. Emperor Bảo Đại of Vietnam and King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia collaborate with the Japanese, but King Sisavang Vong of Laos refuses, being effectively ignored by the Japanese who rule the territories anyway.

 

- French and Việt Minh guerilla groups will conduct sporadic operations against the Japanese for the rest of the war. In the meantime, the Corps Expéditionnaire Français en Extrême-Orient is being formed in France for the invasion of Japan. It will end up going to Indochina instead.

 

American OSS training Việt Minh summer 1945

 

• German resistance west of the Rhine ends as US Third Army reaches the river.

 

• The German 27,000 ton liner Robert Ley is hit by an RAF raid on Hamburg, and burns out completely.

 

• Soviet aircraft sink German hospital ship Meteor II which is evacuating troops in violation of hospital ship status, at Pillau.

 

• Soviet Second Shock Army captures Marienburg (now Malbork, Poland).

 

• LXVIII Armeekorps of 2. Panzer Armee made the main thrust south of Lake Balaton against the Soviet Fifty-seventh Army. Today, Bulgarian III Corps arrives to stiffen the Soviet line while further south, the Yugoslav Third Army and Bulgarian IV Corps go on the offensive against German Heersgruppe E along the Dráva River.

Bulgarian Pz-IV around the Yugoslav-Hungarian border in 1945 - they have replaced he national insignia with a red star to minimize friendly fire chances"

 

Edited March 9 by cardboard_killer